Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek admits Labor is considering a Greens’ demand for a climate trigger under its new environmental laws

The Environment Minister has admitted Labor was considering a Greens’ demand for a climate trigger under its new environmental laws in a reversal of an original pledge that will further inflame the mining sector.

Tanya Plibersek, Minister for the Environment and Water. Picture: NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has admitted Labor was considering a Greens’ demand for a climate trigger under its new environmental laws in a reversal of an original pledge that will further inflame the mining sector which has accused the Albanese government of waging war against it.

Ms Plibersek, addressing an audience of mining executives Wednesday morning in Canberra, suggested that the government was negotiating with crossbenchers to have its Nature Positive Bill passed and that climate consideration was back on the table.

It would mark a reversal of concessions to the Coalition to remove a climate trigger from a new Environment Protection Agency in exchange for the Opposition’s support in the Senate.

Ms Plibersek was asked on Wednesday morning by the Minerals Council of Australian CEO Tania Constable whether the government could rule out climate consideration in its bill.

Ms Plibersek responded by saying that climate considerations were now part of the discussions.

“I’ve got to be clear, we are in intense negotiations right across the parliament,” Ms Plibersek said.

“I’m not going to pretend to you that there is, you know, there’s no discussion of climate considerations as part of that negotiation. I’m not going to pretend that.”

Labor had agreed to remove climate considerations and assessments for new projects from the EPA component of the three tranches of bills under Nature Positive with the Coalition moving closer to supporting through a series of amendments which restricted a newly established EPA to a compliance and governance capacity.

The Greens, which had originally demanded a climate trigger, which would put assessments back in the frame, watered down this requirement to a “climate consideration”.

Ms Plibersek has admitted that this was now being discussed.

The mining sector has railed against such a move claiming it would apply new onerous green tape on new projects.

Ms Constable has accused Labor of bringing conflict to the sector over its industrial relations laws and over-regulation.

Opposition environment spokesman Jonno Duniam accused Ms Plibersek of a betrayal of good faith negotiations on the bill between the government and opposition.

“To now learn that the Government has, this whole time, been in secret talks with the Greens to insert a job-destroying and economy-killing climate trigger does make us question whether the Government are at all interested in protecting jobs and getting the balance between the environment and the economy right.,” Mr Duniam said

“The Coalition have been locked in negotiations with the Government to amend their unworkable Nature Positive bills to make them the least worst possible for businesses and the community. This was displayed in the Prime Minister’s announcement last week that a Federal EPA would be a compliance-only body, caving to Coalition demands to gut the assessment component of this unelected bureaucracy that the Environment Minister originally proposed.”

“It looks like all that Tanya Plibersek is interested in is passing a Bill no matter its form, no matter how many jobs it wipes out, no matter the impact on Australia’s standing among the international business community or the amount of time it takes to get an environmental approval under this Government.”