Albanese intervenes to stop Labor deal with the Greens, overrides Tanya Plibersek
Labor’s environmental wing accuses Anthony Albanese of faltering on a key plank of his platform, after the PM killed a deal being finalised by Tanya Plibersek.
Labor’s environmental wing is in open rebellion over Anthony Albanese’s green agenda, after the Prime Minister caved into Western Australia’s demands and killed a nature positive deal with the Greens being finalised by Tanya Plibersek.
Several sources familiar with negotiations between Ms Plibersek and the Greens on establishing an environmental watchdog told The Australian a deal had been all but sealed on Tuesday but Mr Albanese later stepped in and called the minor party to say the agreement was off following appeals from WA Premier Roger Cook.
Ms Plibersek, who was undermined by Mr Albanese when he ruled out a climate trigger being included in negotiations, found out the deal had been scuppered on Tuesday afternoon.
The Australian has also been told WA Minister for Mines and Petroleum David Michael informed a Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA Christmas event on Tuesday night that Mr Albanese had contacted Mr Cook about a potential deal with the Greens on the proposed nature positive laws.
Mr Michael told the Christmas event, attended by about 200 industry figures, that WA had received an assurance there would be no deal. His comments were greeted with applause.
Felicity Wade, Labor Environment Action Network national co-convener, on Wednesday said it was a “hard day for true believers” as she lashed the processed followed by Mr Albanese. “Vested interests won,” Ms Wade said.
“The EPA was an election commitment. It has been in the national platform since 2018 and is backed by 500 local ALP branches. It is core to our claim of caring about the natural environment.
“The minister had stared down the Greens. The deal on the table avoided all the contentious stuff, it was sensible regulatory reform. All of it was existing government policy. This was a chance to show strength and conviction. We know these are things the electorate are looking for from us.
“And we faltered.”
Mr Cook confirmed he had “received assurances from the highest levels of government” that the EPA bill wouldn’t go ahead in its current form this week, making it highly unlikely there’ll be an environmental watchdog – which the government wants to start on July 1 – before the election.
“There were difficulties with its current form. It was going to disadvantage WA industry, it was going to be a risk to WA jobs,” Mr Cook said.
The Prime Minister’s office declined to comment.
Mr Albanese’s personal intervention came as he stared down Greens demands to pass the government’s Help to Buy bill through the parliament on Wednesday, with Coalition deals clinched or likely on the social media ban on under 16s, electoral reforms and a migration super bill.
His Future Made in Australia bills remain in doubt but a deal with the Greens is possible.
The minor party has backed the Build to Rent legislation but the government still needs to get three more crossbenchers over the line to push it through the parliament.
Clearing the way for Labor’s migration agenda to pass the Senate in the final sitting week of the year, Home Affairs and Immigration Minister Tony Burke struck a deal with the Coalition on Wednesday to secure the passage of a trio of bills.
The legislation will grant the government extraordinary powers to deport non-citizens, impose travel bans on countries that do not accept their citizens back when they are removed against their will, monitor foreign criminals and ban prohibited items such as phones in immigration detention centres.
On the EPA, the Greens accused the Prime Minister of again being bullied by the mining and logging lobby while the Coalition insisted Mr Albanese would try and get a “super-charged” environmental watchdog up under a Labor-Greens alliance in the event of a hung parliament. “The Greens put a deal on the table and the government has walked away,” Greens environment spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said. “Gina Rinehart and the logging lobby seem to have more influence than the rest of the country.
“The Greens want to get laws that would actually provide some protection for nature but Labor couldn’t even entertain protecting forests and critical habitat in an extinction crisis.”
The Prime Minister had faced warnings from the nation’s biggest employers that an EPA supported by the Greens would cause “significant economic harm”.
He is also trying to hold on to Labor’s seats in the resources-rich state of WA after the party’s primary vote surged there at the last election.
The Greens had dropped their demand for a climate trigger and instead were pushing Labor to remove the Regional Forest Agreement and Continuous Use exemptions in environmental laws, as they call for the end of native forest logging.
The Australian was told there wasn’t much in the deal for the Greens, which didn’t include a ban on native forest logging.
The parties had agreed that the minister would be given the power to create new environmental standards, though under existing laws these would be used as guidance for companies that wanted assistance on where to build a project.
The standards would have legal effect only under an overhaul of the country’s environmental laws, which is the next stage of the government’s nature positive plan and is highly unlikely to occur before the election.
CME WA chief executive Rebecca Tomkinson declared “sensible minds have prevailed” in there being no Labor-Greens deal on an EPA.
“The CME has always said the nature positive laws have to deliver benefits for the environment and for industry. The current package doesn’t achieve that,” she said.
The Coalition’s most senior WA MP, Michaelia Cash, said her constituents shouldn’t take solace in the fact Labor “has been unable, so far this week, to do a deal with the Greens”.
“Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is desperately trying to fool West Australians that he supports our mining sector when his wheeling and dealing with the Greens over nature positive laws proves he hates our state’s most important industry,” she said.
The Prime Minister has ruled out any deals with the Greens if there is a hung parliament.
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