Former competition tsar Graeme Samuel has urged conservation groups to “take a chill pill”, and for the miners and their media backers to stop talking “rubbish”, as he backed a decision by Tanya Plibersek to delay a promised overhaul of federal environmental law.

Professor Samuel, whose 2020 review into the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act is the blueprint for the overhaul, said he had envisaged the legislation would be ready by May 2024, but “if we stretch that out by a few months, so what, we get the right result from proper consultation”.