Watt sets timeline for nature protection reforms, but may say no to climate trigger

Long-delayed reforms to nature protections could be knocked over within 18 months under a timeline mapped out by the federal environment minister.

Murray Watt flagged broad support for new national environmental standards, a key ask of the now five-year-old Samuel review, which declared the legislation ineffective and outdated.

Environmentalists, industry, Indigenous groups and other stakeholders gathered in Canberra to restart discussions after the Labor government failed to pass reforms in its first term. 

The previous minister, Tanya Plibersek, came close to a deal with the cross bench in late 2024 for a federal environmental protection agency but pressure from West Australian mining interests was thought to have influenced Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s intervention to scuttle it.

Federal nature protections are designed to kick in when renewable energy, mines and development threaten vulnerable species and other “matters of national environmental significance”.

Senator Watt said everyone agreed the current laws were broken.

“They’re not adequately protecting the environment,” he told reporters after the meeting.

“They’re not delivering for business in terms of certainty and timeliness of approval.”

He did not expressly rule out a climate trigger in the reworked rules, but pointed to the safeguard mechanism and other existing legislation driving down domestic industry emissions.

“The other point is that the scope three emissions – so emissions that are generated when fossil fuels developed in Australia are burned and used overseas – are managed under the Paris Agreement that almost every country has signed up to,” he said.

Climate Council chief executive officer Amanda McKenzie, who attended the roundtable, welcomed the “renewed energy” behind the reforms and reiterated her call for climate to be included. 

“In terms of the approvals of large fossil fuel projects, climate should be included in the act so those projects can be prevented,” she told AAP.

Ms McKenzie said the minister appeared to have grasped the importance of a more efficient, streamlined environmental approval system for the clean energy transition.

In May, conservation groups and the clean energy industry joined forces to urge the government to hurry the reforms, with “faster yeses and faster nos” a key ask for renewables developers.

Senator Watt expressed his desire to deliver new environmental protections in the first half of the parliamentary term and his willingness to work with either the Greens or the opposition to pass them.

The plan is to develop a full package of reforms in one go, rather than break it into pieces as happened in 2024 when time ran short before the election.

Source: AAP