Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek insists environment talks ongoing despite Coalition claims of ‘silence’

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek insists she is still in talks over the Government’s planned environmental watchdog despite the Opposition warning there has been “stunning silence” on the legislation.

The Senate did not deal with bills to establish Environment Protection Australia last week despite it being listed on the program, albeit near the bottom.

Shadow environment minister Jonno Duniam said the Coalition had put up proposals for amendments but they were still “light years away” from reaching an acceptable compromise.

“We have provided our asks to the environment minister’s office but have been met recently with radio silence, a stunning turnaround from their enthusiasm in the Parliamentary sitting weeks before the Nature Positive Summit,” he said.

“The ball is currently in their court to make progress on these bills, but environmental reform clearly isn’t a priority for this Government. I would not be surprised if they let their legislation lapse before the Prime Minister calls the election.”

Asked on Monday whether she still wanted to get the bill passed before the end of the year, Ms Plibersek said she was still in talks with both the Coalition and the Greens to find support in the upper house.

“We’ll continue to talk to people across the Senate,” she said.

“What I would say is that both the business community at large and environmental organisations support the legislative agenda that we’ve got going forward, and it would be great if, instead of blocking this, we had some support from the Greens and the Coalition.”

The EPA was originally envisaged to be both an approvals and enforcement body for environmental laws but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told The Nightly last month he was willing to make it compliance-only to win over the Coalition.

The Greens have demanded a climate trigger or “climate considerations” be added to environmental approval laws in exchange for their support.

The Coalition wants faster approval times and the removal of a water trigger that has been in the environmental laws for more than a decade.

Mr Albanese is reluctant to do a deal with the Greens on the legislation, and business groups have been urging the Coalition to back the compromise on offer.

Ms Plibersek said a climate trigger was not needed because of the safeguards mechanism already strengthened in concert with the Greens and independent MPs.

“It makes no sense to have carbon emissions covered by the safeguard mechanism and then separately covered in a different way by new environmental laws. That’s just common sense,” she said.