Labor insists its environmental reforms, aimed at speeding up project approvals while balancing nature protections, will get over the line with the minister flagging further concessions to strike a deal.
As the federal parliament returns for the final sitting week of the year, the Albanese government is yet to secure the numbers it needs in the Senate to pass the bill.
“Under no illusions, we are going to pass these laws this week, and it’s going to happen with either the coalition or the Greens,” Murray Watt told reporters in Canberra on Monday.
“They have an important choice to make about whether they want to be part of this process and work with us cooperatively, or whether they want to sit on the sidelines complaining and see us do a deal with the opposite party.”
In a bid to win over the Greens, Labor has promised tougher rules on native forest logging which would still go ahead under the new legislation, in addition to scrapping a provision to allow coal and gas projects to bypass the main approval process.
The coalition has been offered changes to limit “stop work” orders, and wants a requirement for a project to report its carbon emissions to be dumped.
Senator Watt said based off negotiations at the weekend, he was “very confident” in landing an agreement.
“We are prepared to make some further concessions in order to pass these laws, because it’s not in anyone’s interests for us to hang on to the current laws that we’ve got at the moment, which are completely broken,” he said.
Opposition environment spokeswoman Angie Bell said the coalition was “not in a rush to fail” and was seeking to work constructively with the government.
“The ball is in the minister’s court,” she told ABC radio.
“I would need to see the amendments in terms of those substantive issues, and there’s a list of seven, but there are more than that that I presented to the minister.”
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