Peter Dutton has told an anxious mining industry the Albanese government will never do a deal with the Greens to establish an environment protection agency because it would “destroy” Labor in the key state of Western Australia at the next federal election.

After Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek told the Minerals Week summit she was entertaining a Greens demand to insert a climate trigger into environmental law, in return for their support for a bill to establish the EPA, the miners stepped up their pleas to Mr Dutton to cut out the Greens and pass the bill in its current form.