Greens say Labor must ‘stop pollution, logging’ if it wants support for new green cop

Labor will have to ‘do something about stopping pollution and stopping logging’ if it wants to gain the backing of the Greens to establish a new green cop.

Greens environment spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Labor will have to “do something about stopping pollution and stopping logging” if it wants to win over the Greens to establish a new green cop under its signature environmental reforms, but the minor party isn’t insisting it must be through a climate trigger.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek is eyeing a deal with the Coalition or the Greens to set up the independent body – called Environment Protection Australia – to administer Australia’s national environment laws.

The Australian revealed on Monday the Coalition was preparing to reject the EPA bill, amid growing expectation the Albanese government would delay its overhaul of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act until its second term.

While Greens environment spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young declared the party wanted a climate trigger and to stop native forest logging, she did not say including a trigger or climate considerations in the EPA’s remit was non-negotiable. Instead, she left wriggle room and said the ­government must take action to stop pollution.

“If the government wants to get environment laws through this parliament before the election, they’re going to have to do something about stopping pollution and stopping logging,” Senator Hanson-Young said.

“The EPA and the environment laws that are currently before the parliament have no friends. They’ve got no friends from the business lobby and they’ve got no real friends from the environment sector. Everyone knows that this legislation is not good enough.

“Tanya Plibersek and the Labor government have an opportunity to work with the Greens to fix nature laws, to make sure we can protect our precious places, that we can stop pollution and that we can stop the destruction of our native forests.”

The Australian understands Senator Hanson-Young’s reference to “stopping pollution” is shorthand for a climate trigger, but if the government put forward another way of achieving the same outcome and called it something else, the party would be open to the proposal. Business Council of Australia chief executive Bran Black called for bipartisanship to ensure the EPA was effective over the long term, warning that a climate trigger or climate considerations brought a lot of uncertainty into an approvals system that was “already entirely uncertain, very slow, entirely cumbersome”.

“(The EPA bill) still doesn’t achieve what we believe it should achieve and that is the right type of balance between social, environmental and economic factors,” Mr Black said. “What we’re worried about is that if you’ve got a body called Environment Protection Australia, it’s going to put too much stock on one particular element of those three elements. A key thing that we’ve been advocating for is making sure the minister’s got the power to direct the CEO of the EPA.”

Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Tania Constable cautioned that the Greens “do not, and never will, support policies that foster investment, jobs, or economic stability”. “A climate trigger will not benefit the climate; instead, it will slow down the energy transition (and) stifle economic growth,” she said.

Australian Conservation Foundation national biodiversity policy officer Brendan Sydes urged the government to work with all parliamentarians who were prepared to be constructive in creating an independent and transparent EPA.