“Bulldozer:” Albanese slammed after bowing to mining lobby and refusing climate trigger

Attempts to better protect Australia’s environment could fall by the wayside after the prime minister refused to support a proposal to assess and block projects that could aggravate climate change.

Under Australia’s current environmental laws, any projects that could have a significant impact on one of nine matters of national environmental significance – like mining and gas endeavours – will be forced to undergo a rigorous impact assessment and approval scheme. 

The matters include world heritage sites, nationally important wetlands and threatened species, but climate is not one.

The Greens and independent senators David Pocock and Lidia Thorpe are calling on the Commonwealth to implement a “climate trigger” in its environment law overhaul, or at least consider the consequences of climate change in its environmental assessments and decisions.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has previously said she was working with the Senate and that compromise was likely.

But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese claimed other measures addressed these crossbench concerns.

“I don’t support adding a trigger to that legislation,” he told reporters.

Mr Albanese said the government’s safeguard mechanism already tackles these issues as it requires Australia’s biggest polluters to reduce their emissions in line with the nation’s targets of 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and net-zero by 2050.

Senator Pocock decried the prime minister’s comments and noted that Mr Albanese introduced a climate change trigger bill in 2005 as opposition environment spokesman. 

“It’s really disappointing,” he told reporters in Canberra.

“In 2024, these should really be common sense amendments.”

Mining companies have expressed their concerns the reforms could cost billions in investment and thousands of jobs, especially in WA.

Mr Albanese says his government has put forward a “sensible” proposal that had previously received support from the mining sector, and claimed the Greens and coalition had united to vote against good legislation.

But Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young accused the prime minister of forcing his government’s laws through parliament and said she was up for negotiation.

“You can’t bulldoze your way through Senate,” she said.

“The single biggest threat to nature in this country is climate.

“If you’re serious about protecting the environment, you’ve got to actually do something different than rolling over to the big mining industry.”

Ms Plibersek on Monday confirmed she was still speaking to people across parliament.

“From the beginning, I have said that delivering improvements to national environment laws would require a bit of common sense, co-operation and compromise,” she said in a statement.