Miners rejoice as Albanese shelves environment watchdog

Australia’s biggest miners are cheering on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for scrapping Tanya Plibersek’s deal with the Greens to create a national environment watchdog, insisting the reform be abandoned rather than returned to the agenda in February.

It is unclear if the plan for the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) is now dead, but the issue is set to remain live over summer, with Labor’s left furious the election pledge has been shelved.

The national peak mining lobby, the Minerals Council of Australia, welcomed the shelving of the bill, which it said was unacceptable.

Plibersek, the federal environment minister, had secured the Greens’ support for a bill to establish the first national EPA, which would enforce nature regulations and hand out fines for breaches.

But Albanese intervened at the last minute on Tuesday night, informing the Greens the bill would not be brought to parliament this year.

Albanese was scrambling on Thursday morning to calm Labor MPs dismayed by his decision to override Plibersek, assuring them the bill would return in the new year.

However, the national peak mining lobby, the Minerals Council of Australia, welcomed the shelving of the bill.

“Creating yet another layer of bureaucracy in Canberra would have undermined business confidence, making it harder to invest with certainty and increasing sovereign risk,” council chief executive Tania Constable said.

The Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia’s chief executive, Rebecca Tomkinson, said “sensible minds have prevailed”, declaring her organisation would back reforms only if they were “better for the environment and better for business”.

“This legislation does not reach that threshold. It is bad for WA, bad for industry and will further harm a resources sector that is already confronting rapidly rising costs and falling commodity prices,” she said.

Earlier this week, WA Premier Roger Cook said he had raised concerns with the federal government about the impact an EPA would have on his state’s resources sector.

Speaking on ABC’s 7.30 on Thursday night, Albanese confirmed he had told Cook the bill would not appear this year, but said he could bring it back in February.

“I informed him [Cook] that we didn’t have the numbers to get the bill through,” Albanese said.

Labor pledged to create an EPA during the 2022 election campaign but needs the Greens’ support in the Senate to pass the bill given the Coalition’s opposition.

Plibersek said on Thursday that Cook had not called her about the bill but added that she hoped the Senate would vote it into law next year.

It is not clear if parliament will return next year before an election is called.

The Labor Environment Action Network (LEAN) reacted furiously to Albanese’s intervention.

“The Labor membership has worked hard to deliver the EPA over nearly a decade … We feel pretty done over,” LEAN national co-convener Felicity Wade said on Thursday.

The Queensland Resources Council said an EPA would “further complicate what is already a complex [project] approval process” while the peak gas lobby, Australian Energy Producers, said “it would be a mistake for the government to rush through changes as significant as these in another secret deal with the Greens”.

The deal with the Greens to create the EPA hinged on the government committing to implement national environment standards that could rule out development in certain sensitive habitats such as forests.

Greens environment spokesperson Sarah Hanson-Young said the minor party would push to keep the environment and climate on the national agenda.

“Environment is the unfinished business of this parliament and we can’t allow it to be bulldozed off the program by the loggers and the miners,” she said.

The Australian Forest Products Association lobbied against the EPA and the national standards.

“Without this industry, many regional communities that rely on it in places like Tasmania and the NSW north coast would be on the brink of economic and social collapse,” AFPA chief executive Diana Hallam said.

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