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The government’s environment protection reforms are driving a rift between the Coalition and its business allies. They threaten to test the Liberals and Nationals’ fraught relationship. It’s exactly what Labor planned. But it’s also delaying overdue changes urgently needed to reverse Australia’s woeful environmental record. Environment Minister Murray Watt will introduce his bill to reform the Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act, intended to both speed the grindingly slow project assessment process and enhance protections for nature, to parliament this week. Details of the reform were dribbled out to stakeholders last week, and Watt increased the pressure on Opposition Leader Sussan Ley with the drip feed of provisions in the bill revealing a “national interest” test to enable the government to approve strategic projects, such as mines, that breach environmental protections.
