‘Nature Positive’ no more, as Murray Watt warns 2030 climate targets won’t be met without green tape reform

Murray Watt says Labor will not hit its 2030 climate targets unless there is a major overhaul of green tape, as he seeks a deal on environment reforms with the Coalition and the states.

Environment Minister Murray Watt. Picture: NewsWire / Monique Harmer

Labor will not hit its 2030 climate targets without an overhaul of green tape, Environment ­Minister Murray Watt has warned, as he seeks the backing of the ­Coalition, business, state ­governments and conservationists to reform environmental laws.

Senator Watt revealed he would dump the “nature positive” label of environmental reforms championed by former minister Tanya Plibersek, declaring that the phrase “jarred with a lot of people”.

The government was yet to land on a new name for its environmental reform agenda, with legislation to be introduced to parliament by the end of the year.

Pushing back on calls for a climate trigger, the Queensland Left faction heavyweight said coal mine approvals under his watch would be treated the same as any other project.

“It’s up to coalmining companies, for them to judge whether there’s a market for their product and whether they want to seek approvals,” Senator Watt said.

He said the government was ­still examining a model of ­environmental reforms that put approvals in the hands of an independent agency, despite business, the Coalition and West Australian Premier Roger Cook demanding the retention of ministerial discretion.

Senator Watt said the government was also considering a model that would give minister power to make approval decisions, with an Environmental Protection Agency to give advice to government or to be excluded from approval decisions and to be limited to enforcing compliance.

Another option was for the states to be put in charge of approvals while adhering to national standards, making the EPA’s function about compliance.

Senior Labor MPs have told The Australian it was likely ministerial discretion would be retained to win the backing of business and the mining states of Queensland and Western Australia, but Senator Watt said this decision had not been made.

“It is an area where there’s still disagreement amongst the stakeholders,” Senator Watt said.

“The environmental groups would prefer to see an EPA make every project decision. Industry would prefer, in their ideal world, to have a minister make every single decision. There are options in the middle as well.

“We want to remove duplication between the feds and the states; what we’re still consulting on is how to achieve that.

“There are some options that involve states having approval powers. There are other options which involve the states just doing the assessment.”

With Labor expected to set a 2035 emissions-reduction target of 65 per cent or more next month, Senator Watt warned Australia would fall short of existing international climate commitments unless legislation was passed to reform the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

The cornerstone of Labor’s pledge to lower carbon emissions by 43 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030 is an 82 per cent renewables target, which experts say is not on track amid delays in approvals of major renewables projects.

“I definitely think for us to hit our emissions and renewables targets, we need change to our environmental laws,” Senator Watt said. “It’s not about allowing ­renewable projects to just trash the environment or completely ignore community consultation. It’s really about simplifying and speeding up the processes that we go through to determine whether a project should go ahead or not.

“Whatever 2035 target the government sets does require faster delivery of renewable energy, and improving and reforming these laws is a key way of speeding up the deployment of renewable energy. So it is linked to achieving those targets.”

He also said reforms to the EPBC Act would be needed if the government was any chance of hitting the target to build 1.2 million homes by 2029.

Senator Watt said duplication of state and federal approvals made the system “utterly broken” and vowed to introduce legislation into parliament by the end of the year to reform the EPBC Act broadly in line with recommendations from a report authored by Graeme Samuel in 2020.

With splits between business and green groups stalling environmental law reform in Labor’s first term, Senator Watt said there needed to be compromise from key stakeholders to build broad support for the EPBC overhaul.

“Whether you’re an environmentalist or a business leader, these laws are failing you,” Senator Watt said. “My sense is that the different stakeholder groups are willing to give ground on their main issues, as long as they get something in return.

“Everyone’s going to need to give ground, no one’s going to get everything that they want.

“My experience is that the green groups are willing to support faster assessment and approvals processes, provided we have strong, clear environmental standards, which we don’t currently have. Equally, the industry groups are prepared to support strong environmental standards if they get quicker approvals and assessments processes. So that’s why I talk about this as being a package deal.”

Senator Watt said it was possible to improve environmental outcomes and approve major projects faster.

“If you have really clear standards that say what kind of development will be allowed and won’t be allowed, then that allows decision makers to make faster decisions than the current situation, where it’s all quite vague,” Senator Watt said. “It’s actually about process improvement and getting through things more quickly. So I don’t think that you do have to sacrifice the environment to get those quicker approvals.”