Environment Minister Murray Watt wants the Parliament to amend our environmental laws, but leave a key component for him and his Department to sort out later. Former Senator Rex Patrick reports on EPBC reform.

“Trust me, I’m from the Government”.

It appears the Environment Minister, Senator Murray Watt, wants to push Federal Labor’s environmental reforms through the Parliament with a core element, the National Environmental standards, hidden from sight.

 

Watt happens. A Labor deal with Coalition or Greens on environment?
by Rex Patrick

 

The Senate should properly reject that approach.

The Samuel Review

On 29 October 2019, then Minister for the Environment and now opposition leader, Sussan Ley, commissioned an Independent Review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act by Professor Graeme Samuel.

A year later, after receiving 30,142 submissions from people and organisations and directly consulting with more than 100 stakeholders, Samuel handed down his comprehensive report. 

His key message was: 

“Australia’s natural environment and iconic places are in an overall state of decline and are under increasing threat. The environment is not sufficiently resilient to withstand current, emerging or future threats, including climate change. The environmental trajectory is currently unsustainable.

“To shy away from the fundamental reforms recommended by this Review is to accept the continued decline of our iconic places and the extinction of our most threatened plants, animals and ecosystems. This is unacceptable. A firm commitment to change from all stakeholders is needed to enable future generations to enjoy and benefit from Australia’s unique environment and heritage.”

A centrepiece of the report was recommended National Environmental Standards. The standards were to be the ruler against which government national environmental decision-making and oversight were to be measured.

Finding the “sweet spot”

After the report was handed down, Sussan Ley, acquiescing to the Coalition joint party room, weakened the standards – finding a purported “sweet spot” between environmental protection and economic development.

I was one of the balance-of-power senators who stood in the way of the reforms changing on account of the standards not passing muster.

Murray Watt watched it all play out from the Opposition benches in the Senate. 

Watt knows he has to find a Labor “sweet spot”. Standards that are too low, where Coalition support could be found, will leave Labor’s left support base disgruntled. High standards will make the party’s left happy, and will win the support of the Greens.

But, if the past project approvals records of Labor are anything to go by, Watt won’t go anywhere near what’s required to tickle the fancy of the Greens environmental lead Senator Hanson-Young.

And therein lies the reason for not laying the National Environment Standards face up on the table. It’s too much of a hot political hot potato.

For him, it’s best that the Standards are a legislative instrument, declared and tabled at some later date.

Backroom changes

Watt is a minister and a lawyer. One might hope he’s read the Constitution.

He doesn’t even need to have read it from cover to cover. The very first section makes it clear that “The legislative power of the Commonwealth shall be vested in a Federal Parliament.” That is, elected members and senators shall make laws in full sight of the people to whom they owe a duty and to whom they are directly responsible.

It’s not for faceless bureaucrats in the executive branch, unknown to the people, to make laws behind the scenes. Their doing so represents a substantial violation of the principle of separation of powers as set out in the Constitution.

The National Environmental Standards should be a schedule to the Act, debated and passed in the House and the Senate Chamber. But that’s all too hard. Politics apparently doesn’t have to be too constitutional.

The other issue with the legislative instrument approach is that a future government can change the National Environmental Standards with relative ease. While new standards might be disallowable, disallowances are rare, not attracting the same sort of political attention as a Bill passing through the Parliament.

Political predictions

Politics can be hard to predict, but here goes.

The Greens’ original founding base was environmental. While the party’s platform has grown beyond that issue over the past 30 years, the Senate team will be aware of its roots.

The Greens are likely to play hardball. Any acquiescence to the Labor Party that is inconsistent with their net-zero aims and environmental plans will be seen as a betrayal of their policy principle. Walking away from a position that doesn’t accord with their support base’s expectations can be good politics – letting the Government do a deal with a big business flavour can be used to pull disgruntled Labor voters into the Greens camp at the next election.

The Coalition’s support base will expect it to use its leverage in this situation to come to a compromise position with Labor. Again, Labor’s track record on coal and gas approvals since coming to Government suggests that a right-of-centre solution will be an OK outcome.

Watt has his job cut out for him. He’ll be talking to both sides, holding his cards close to his chest and playing one off against the other.

The minister will also be talking to the States and Territories – especially Premier Roger Cook’s Labor Government in energy and mineral-rich Western Australia, which is certain the channel the interests of the corporate giants that dominate that state’s colonial resource extraction economy. 

A Labor/Coalition deal or a Labor/Greens deal?

The toing and froing will be interesting to watch.

But I’m betting on a Labor/Coalition deal over a Labor/Greens deal.

It’ll likely be backed by both the WA Labor Government and the Queensland LNP Governments, with private promises to the Coalition on National Environmental Standards to follow at a later date to soften any disenchantment.

In 1992, the same year that the Greens formed a Federal party, Bill Clinton’s strategy adviser, James Carville, coined the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid”. It seems a 29-year-old, not yet elected, Anthony Albanese took note.

It’s a balancing act. The political tussle begins this week. If the government can’t strike a deal with either the Coalition or the Greens, the bill is likely to go to committee, effectively kicking the can down the road.

https://michaelwest.com.au/epbc-tussle-a-labor-deal-with-liberals-or-greens-on-environment/

 

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