Murray Watt rejects call to split environmental bill
As my colleague Dan Jervis-Bardy has brought us this morning, the Coalition is calling on the government to split the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act – to approvals on one side and protections on the other.
The laws are expected to be introduced to parliament this week.
But Murray Watt has vehemently rejected the proposition, saying it would weaken protections and remove certainty for industry.
We won’t be splitting the bill. The review by Graeme Samuel into these 90s-era laws made clear you cannot have faster approvals without stronger environmental standards …
It would mean more habitat destruction, more species threatened, no independent regulator and slower approval times.
It’s the maddest idea we’ve seen in the five years of these environmental reforms and we won’t be following it.
Key events
Butler announces cost cuts for contraceptives
Perhaps somewhat under the radar while the very vocal environment debate takes place, there are some changes happening in the health space this week.
Mark Butler has announced a contraceptive vaginal ring and other long acting contraceptives like IUDs will be added to the pharmaceutical benefits scheme (making them way cheaper) from 1 November. Earlier this year the government also announced the listing of some contraceptive pills and menopausal hormone therapies.
1 November will also see new bulk billing incentives kick in for GPs – which Butler told RN Breakfast a little earlier, should make three quarters of general practices “financially better off”.
Already we have had hundreds and hundreds of practices tell us that this week they’re charging a gap fee, next week they’ll move to fully bulk billing, and those numbers are changing every single day. So, we expect a really significant change in bulk billing practice from this week to next week. It will build over time.
The government has committed to 90% of GP visits being bulkbilled over the next decade.
Watt says Ley ‘trying to shore up her leadership’ amid net zero scuffle
Josh Butler
The environment minister, Murray Watt, claims Sussan Ley’s reluctance to support the EPBC laws is about her “desperately trying to shore up her leadership” as the Coalition once again ties itself in knots over net zero and climate policy.
Speaking to reporters in Parliament House this morning, he says he’s open to making a deal with either the Greens or the Coalition, flatly rejecting Ley’s request to split up the environment bill into various chunks to be voted on separately.
Watt says the government has shared “about 70%” of the complex environmental law changes with the Coalition and Greens, and that nearly all of it would be shown to them ahead of it being introduced into parliament. Ley, as we brought you earlier, wrote to Watt asking for some of the more contentious changes to be put into a separate bill – Watt called that idea “mad” and “silly”.
It’s because she’s desperately trying to shore up her leadership ahead of some very difficult net zero conversations with her party room. This week, Sussan Ley is in danger of putting her own leadership ahead of the environment and ahead of business.
We can’t split the bill. We need to do both, and we need to get on with it.
Watt said the bill would be introduced this week and says he still hopes to have it passed by year’s end – with just three sitting weeks left, including this one. Watt says the debate has been going for five years and the changes are overdue, when asked about the timeline.
We have been consulting to death on these reforms, and both business and environment groups are crying out for reform to finally be delivered.
Asked what would be his optimal pathway through parliament, whether he was hoping for the support of the Coalition or the Greens, the minister said he was open.
I can’t make that any clearer. I’ve met the same number of times with the Coalition and the Greens. I’ve spoken as recently as yesterday with representatives from those parties. What we’re about is passing a bill that is good for the environment and good for business, and it’s up to the Coalition and the Greens to decide, are they prepared to do that, or are they going to go into their corners and fight for a bill that only delivers to the environment or only delivers to business?
Shadow environment minister tight-lipped on whether Coalition will keep net zero targets
Staying with Angie Bell, there’s a big question mark over whether the Liberal party and the National party will keep a commitment to the net zero by 2050 target.
Today Nationals senator (and net-zero sceptic) Matt Canavan will present his review of the 2050 target to his party room.
Bell remains tight-lipped on whether the targets will remain in place – or be ditched altogether.
The National party is undertaking their own review process, as is the Liberal party, and we’ll continue to work through those processes because what Sussan Ley has said is she wants to see affordable and reliable energy for Australians. But we also need to play our role in emissions reduction. And so that is why the Coalition is reviewing our energy policy.
Energy is a huge sticking point for the Coalition – and was one of the reasons why the Nationals and Liberals temporarily split after the election with the Nats wanting stronger guarantees to commit to nuclear power for Australia.
Bell says there will be more party meetings this week – including a “long one” on Friday with the backbench – to discuss where they’ll land on energy policy. The shadow energy minister, Dan Tehan, has been leading a small committee to put a position to his party.
To split or not to split?
No I’m not talking about the Coalition … but the bill we’ve been covering all morning, the EPBC Act.
The government has flat out rejected the Coalition’s call to split the environment reforms to streamline approvals, and legislate environmental protections separately.
The shadow environment minister, Angie Bell, says she expected the rejection, because for Labor, “it’s their way or the highway”, she tells RN Breakfast.
Bell says the Coalition has only seen 50-70% of the draft legislation, and from what they’ve seen so far there’s not much they seem to really like. Bell says:
I think some of the things around regional planning certainly have merit, but we’ll work through all of the detail when it lands because we really only have some of the bill, and the minister has said he will introduce it this week into the parliament… But at this point in time, this bill is not workable.
Bell says Graeme Samuel’s review was a “very large undertaking” and says the government has cherrypicked some of his recommendations.
The minister has put in some of Graeme Samuel’s recommendations and others that he hasn’t. For example, the premise of Graeme Samuel review was that there be a commission for the environment, and instead, what’s happened is the minister has put out there an EPA, an environmental protection agency, which was a promise by the prime minister at the election before the last one. And so there are some things that are straight out of the Samuel review playbook, and there are elements in there of uncertainty … And also, very, very high penalties that were higher than Tanya Plibersek’s natural positive laws.
Watt says environment laws will remove duplicate approval process between state and federal governments
The environment minister, Murray Watt, will no doubt have a tough job over the next few weeks to get his EPBC Act 2.0 over the line (never forget Tanya Plibersek’s first attempt last parliament).
Over on ABC News Breakfast, he explains the independent powers the bill will create to enforce the environment laws, and why the bill will remove the duplicate approval process between state and federal governments.
What we want to do is work with the state so that at least the assessments can be done by a state government on behalf of both the state and federal government, potentially saving months or years in an approval process.
Watt is asked about rules around projects that have an “unacceptable environmental impact” which could be accepted or rejected quickly.
The minister gives us a few rather extreme examples of what an unacceptable impact looks like – but there’s not much clarity on where exactly the threshold would be.
If a property developer wanted to build a development in the middle of an internationally listed wetland, that’s almost certainly going to get a no at the end of a process, and we might as well put everyone out of their misery early and give them a quick no …
If a mining company wanted to go and mine under Uluru, and perish the thought they would ever want to do that, but clearly that kind of thing is going to be unacceptable because of the environmental damage that it would cause. So they’re the kind of things that we’re seeking to try to stop and stop early in the process.
Vaginal contraceptive ring to be listed on PBS
Adeshola Ore
A contraceptive vaginal ring will be listed on Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for the first time this Saturday.
The Albanese government announced the new listing on Sunday night. It will come into effect on 1 November, alongside cheaper long-active contraceptives like IUDs and birth control implants.
NuvaRing, which is used on a monthly cycle, is an alternative to daily oral contraceptives.
Before the listing women could pay more than $270 a year for the ring which would be reduced to $31.60 per script (for three months of contraception) under the PBS, the government said. Concession card holders would pay $7.70 per script. From 1 January the maximum women will pay per script is $25.
Daile Kelleher, chief executive of Sexual and Reproductive Health Australia, said contraception was “essential healthcare, not a luxury item”:
Everyone deserves the right to access affordable contraceptive options and to choose the method that best fits their life, without barriers such as cost.
The women’s minister, Katy Gallagher, said the changes would give women “genuine choice” for their reproductive health and ensure their decisions were not limited by cost.
Joyce won’t attend Nationals party room meetings this week
Josh Butler
Barnaby Joyce says he will sit with the Nationals in the parliament this week but won’t attend party room meetings, and didn’t shut down the idea that he could stay with his party if they dumped their net zero target.
Joyce’s latest headlines, the prospect that he would join One Nation, haven’t come to fruition yet, he says – he told us in a Parliament House doorstop just now that he hasn’t joined another political party yet, and says he’ll sit with the Nats in question time today. Joyce ruled out sitting as an independent, and says “I’m still in the National party”, and noting voters had voted him in as a National, so he’d sit as a National for the time being.
But it’s not plain sailing and happy families. Joyce repeated his previous statements that “there’s been a breakdown in the relationship, it was quite evident to all of you during the [election] campaign”.
Asked whether leader David Littleproud was trying to keep him in the team, Joyce said he’d spoken to Littleproud in a “brief and very courteous conversation that went for about three minutes”.
Joyce confirmed again that he’d quit as MP for New England at the next election, but when we asked if he’d continue his political career after that (perhaps in a different chamber of parliament, or for a different party), he said “I’ll make my mind up”.
Asked if the Nationals scrapping net zero could be enough to keep him in the tent, Joyce responded: “I’ll see what they come up with.”
Pressed further, Joyce said they were “hypotheticals” about what could happen in future.
Rowland: no text and data mining exemption
There’s a few big issues kicking around this morning, and one is the confirmation from the government that tech giants will not get a text and data mining exemption to train their AI models.
Artists and creatives – and media organisations – have been hounding the government for some security around their works, to ensure they’re not scraped for free by generative AI.
There was particularly anxiety around a recommendation by the productivity commission that tech giants get free access to creative works.
The attorney general, Michelle Rowland, says the government has been “clear” that there would be no watering down of the Copyright Act.
There is a body of work to do around what the copyright environment looks like in the AI world, but we are making it very clear that we will not be entertaining a text and data mining exception.
ABC host Sabra Lane asks Rowland how authors who don’t want their books taken “full stop” can stop tech companies from using their creative works. Rowland says there’s some uncertainty around whether the current laws fully address that.
Currently, under the Copyright Act, there are avenues to be able to do that, but there is a lot of conjecture around whether or not the law is clear enough on that front … We will go forward as a government with an ambitious set of reforms, again, with the outcome of making sure that our copyright laws are fit for not only the digital environment as they have been to date, but also in the world of AI.
Murray Watt rejects call to split environmental bill
As my colleague Dan Jervis-Bardy has brought us this morning, the Coalition is calling on the government to split the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act – to approvals on one side and protections on the other.
The laws are expected to be introduced to parliament this week.
But Murray Watt has vehemently rejected the proposition, saying it would weaken protections and remove certainty for industry.
We won’t be splitting the bill. The review by Graeme Samuel into these 90s-era laws made clear you cannot have faster approvals without stronger environmental standards …
It would mean more habitat destruction, more species threatened, no independent regulator and slower approval times.
It’s the maddest idea we’ve seen in the five years of these environmental reforms and we won’t be following it.
Albanese and Trump touch down for Asean
The prime minister will be absent this week as arrives in Malaysia for the Asean summit, before flying to South Korea for Apec where Donald Trump and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, will meet.
The two leaders will likely discuss the US president’s trade war. They might also talk about security issues such as Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory.
“One in four Australian jobs rely on trade and we will be focused on continuing to grow our key economic and trade relationships during Asean and Apec,” Albanese said on Sunday.
Good morning
Krishani Dhanji
Good morning, Krishani Dhanji here with you for what will be another action-packed sitting fortnight.
There will be plenty of parliamentary drama this week as the government faces a showdown with the Greens and Coalition on its environmental protection bill – the EPBC Act.
The Coalition is calling for it to be split and says it’s anti-business, while the Greens say the opposite. Murray Watt called the suggestion of a split the “maddest idea” he’s seen in the five years since the reforms to the act were first recommended.
Meanwhile, the government will also reject a proposal to allow copyright exemptions for AI models. And the prime minister is overseas this week in Malaysia and South Korea for the Asean and Apec summits.
I’ve got myself a coffee, I hope you’ve got some caffeine too – stay with us!
