Doorstop, Parliament House

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Good to see you all this morning. Well, this is the week. This is the week that the Federal Parliament is going to finally pass important and much-needed reforms to our national environment laws. It's now over five years since Professor Graeme Samuel tabled his blueprint for reform of these laws. It is now over five years since Professor Graeme Samuel told us that our national environmental laws are fundamentally broken, that they are failing the environment, failing business and failing the general community. So, it is high time that this week this Parliament comes together to pass reforms to these laws that will deliver real gains for the environment, real gains for business, and real gains for the Australian community.

The Government is very clear about our position on these laws. We've introduced a set of reforms that have now passed the House of Representatives, so the choice is now sitting with the Coalition and the Greens to decide whether they want to work cooperatively with the Government to pass these reforms or whether they want to sit on the sidelines throwing rocks while their political opponents come and work with us instead.

Be 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, whichever of those parties is prepared to come to us soonest with a package of amendments that is acceptable to us, that is who we will be passing these bills with. So, 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. But we're ready to do a deal. We're ready to get these reforms passed and the Australian community certainly is as well. Happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST: Senator, is there a plan B here? The Liberals and the Greens neither seem particularly keen to pass these laws before Christmas. Neither of them see the rush. If the laws don't go through this week, what's the backup plan?

MURRAY WATT: I'm very confident that we will pass these laws this week. I understand that when the Coalition and the Greens go into the public domain, they will say certain things about not needing to rush, about wanting this to happen next year. But in the meetings that I have with them, including over the weekend, it is clear to me that they are prepared to adjust their positions in order to work with us. But the question is how far will they move?

Now, frankly, you will have seen over the weekend we have made some concessions to both sides. We've indicated some of the areas that we are prepared to compromise with the Coalition, and we've indicated some areas we're prepared to compromise with the Greens. But the reality is that the sort of amendments that both the Coalition and the Greens are seeking at the moment aren’t acceptable to us, and they need to moderate their position. But I'm confident that we'll get there. I mean, I know at one level this seems like a very short amount of time, but in parliamentary terms, a week is a long time in politics. So I'm very confident that by the end of this week we'll have these reforms passed and that we’ll have new Australian environmental laws that really deliver for the environment and for business.

JOURNALIST: Why are you so confident? You know, do you have some kind of magic trick up your sleeve? And by magic trick, I mean, you know, some incredible concessions either way?

MURRAY WATT: Well, 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. I mean, the current laws that Australia has regarding the environment are seeing our environment go backwards with more species being added to the threatened species list every year. They're holding up important projects like housing and renewables, and other things as well. It's not in anyone's interest to stick with the current laws any longer than we need to. So, every day we delay in passing these reforms is another day that the environment goes backwards and that we hold up important things like housing and renewables. So, I'm confident because I think at the end of the day, both the Coalition and the Greens recognise that, they'll carry on with some of their political rhetoric, I get that. But at the at the end of the day, it's time to put that kind of rhetoric aside and focus on the Australian people and deliver the kind of environmental laws that we need.

JOURNALIST: Is there any way you'll water down the EPA to do a deal with Sussan Ley?

MURRAY WATT: What we have said over the weekend is that we're prepared to look at the sort of stop work orders that the EPA would be provided, and to make clear the length of time that those orders would apply, and the kind of evidence that would be required for them. We've also indicated that we're prepared to look at the penalties that the EPA can issue, not so much the dollar figures, but the kind of whether the maximum fines could apply to relatively minor breaches. So, there's some things there concerning the EPA that we are prepared to look at. But we are absolutely committed to delivering a strong independent EPA. It's in our party platform. We've gone to two elections committing to do so and we're not going to walk away from that.

JOURNALIST: Some industry figures have said that it's not actually the laws themselves that are the problem, it's how they're interpreted, it's the regulations around them. Are you happy with how your department is currently administering the laws? Does that need to change as well, do you think?

MURRAY WATT: I certainly recognise that passing these laws doesn't end this project. The implementation of these laws will be really important as well, and my department has started work on thinking through how they will implement these reforms as quickly as possible. And I recognise that every department in government, every minister in government can always do things a bit better than they are at the moment. You may have seen at the time of the economic roundtable, we committed to create a new housing strike force within the department to really prioritise the consideration of housing applications and that has already resulted, since the economic roundtable, in about 8000 homes being approved for development. That probably wouldn't have happened if we hadn't set up that strike force. So, there's always things that we can do to improve our processes internally. I also think to be honest, that there are proponents who can probably do a better job of providing us with the kind of information we need at an earlier stage as well, so these are the kind of things that we're thinking about in the implementation stage, but obviously the priority right now is to get these laws through this Parliament.

JOURNALIST: On the Bureau website, surely you or your predecessor had to sign off on this budget of $96 million. Did you know about that cost before the weekend?

MURRAY WATT: Well, I certainly don't recall having signed off on that myself and I'm not aware of my predecessor having done so either. I mean, the BOM is an independent agency responsible for its own budget. What I have said, and you would be familiar that around a month ago, when problems really came to light about the new website, I expressed my displeasure with that and met with the then acting CEO and outlined that I didn't think the new website was meeting public expectations. Now I'm as disappointed as anyone that the cost has reached this level. I would point out that the contracts for the design of the website actually were signed under the former Coalition government. So, this process goes back quite some time. It's not something that's only happened under this government. But also, you will have seen that we've now got a new CEO of the BOM who started in the job two weeks ago. I met with him on his very first day, I've met with him again since, so twice in his first fortnight to reinforce that I don’t believe that the way this website process has been managed by the BOM is acceptable, and I've asked him to get on top of that and have a good look at what went wrong.

JOURNALIST: Inflation figures are coming out this week. The energy prices have been a huge driver of inflation and keeping it high. How much pressure are you expecting these figures to put on your government to keep energy rebates, to try and keep a lid on prices?

MURRAY WATT: We’ve always said that the energy rebates aren't permanent. You know, it's not sustainable from a budgetary perspective to have them there forever, but they have been important cost of living relief for Australians. But more broadly, we're going to keep working as hard as we can to put downward pressure on those energy prices. And to bring it back to these reforms, this is another really important outcome that will come from these reforms. One of the issues we've got at the moment is the length of time that it's taking through the current processes to approve wind farms, solar farms, batteries, other renewable projects. And we know that the more we can have those projects up and running, the more that's going to help with energy costs. So again, another really important reason for the Coalition and Greens to pass these reforms. I really do have to go sorry, I’ve got another interview.

JOURNALIST: And gas reserve policy, how far off are we from a gas reserve policy?

MURRAY WATT: I've been a bit focused on EPBC. You might have to ask one of the other ministers about that. Thank you.