Interview with Craig Reucassel, ABC Sydney Breakfast

CRAIG REUCASSEL, HOST: Well, Murray Watt is still relatively new as our new Environment Minister. He’s been tasked with passing the new Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. This week, he begun consulting stakeholders with a view to passing the bill later this year. But has he already made the important decisions on this front? The Minister joins us now. Morning, Minister.

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: G’day, Craig. Good to be with you.

CRAIG REUCASSEL: Yeah, before we get to the EPBC, Trump and Albo meeting – are you happy with the result?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, a very positive meeting, Craig. Obviously, both leaders signing the agreement to lift the supply chains between Australia and the US when it comes to critical minerals. Positive comments from President Trump when it comes to AUKUS, so I think all round a very successful meeting.

CRAIG REUCASSEL: Yeah, okay. Look, there was one awkward moment in it, which was dealt with humour at the time, but maybe there’s a bit more of a sensitive thing behind this. This is about the ambassador, Rudd, and the fact that he’s sent rude text messages. Trump was told about this. This was his response.

[Excerpt plays]

CRAIG REUCASSEL: I mean, it was dealt with with humour, but Joe Hockey used to play golf with the President. And we've got an ambassador now that the President doesn't even know, and when it is brought to his attention who he is, it's about insults in the past. Is that a good position to be in?

MURRAY WATT: I think you can hear from that audio, Craig, that everyone was having a bit of a laugh about it. And really, none of these agreements that we signed would have been reached without the involvement of Mr Rudd as the ambassador. They take months of work, so he and his team have played an instrumental role here, capped off, of course, by the Prime Minister. I think what you do is measure people by their results, and these results have been pretty good for Kevin Rudd and Anthony Albanese.

CRAIG REUCASSEL:  All right. Have you checked your old tweets, by the way?

MURRAY WATT: My tweets? No, I haven't.

CRAIG REUCASSEL: [Laughs] Might want to go back and check. Now, in terms of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, you're about to engage in stakeholder consultation, but haven't you already made a lot of the big decisions? For instance, as the Environment Minister, you will retain decision-making powers to approve major projects covering mines and renewable energy and that kind of thing. So why are you going to retain that if you're only undertaking this consultation now?

MURRAY WATT: Well, we actually haven't settled that point yet, Craig. I know it has been reported that we have, but that is one of the matters that we're still consulting stakeholders on. But look, we are very clear on the direction of these reforms in a number of different ways. You might remember, these all emanate from a report that Graeme Samuel, the former ACCC chair, presented to the then environment minister Sussan Ley five years ago. There's been consultation since then. Ever since coming into this role a few months ago, I've personally undertaken about 80 meetings, forums, roundtables with stakeholders, everyone from environment groups through to the mining industry, property developers, everyone who's got an interest in these laws. And that means that we are pretty certain about where we think we should go on things like how we can strengthen the environmental protections available for nature under Australia's main national environmental law, how we can speed up the approvals for houses and renewables and things like that. So there is quite a lot that we have reached a decision on, and now we're consulting people on parts of the draft bill, but there are still a few items that we are still consulting on in settling our decision.

CRAIG REUCASSEL: Graeme Samuel suggested there should be an independent body that would kind of look over these issues, such as having an independent EPA. Is it not much more open to political abuse if it's just the minister in charge?

MURRAY WATT: I certainly support an EPA, a national EPA, which we currently don't have. And I support an EPA having a high degree of independence with its powers. What we're still resolving in discussions with stakeholders is exactly what those powers should be and what level of independence they should have across those different powers. But I do think it is important that an EPA does have a higher degree of independence with its powers. When it comes to decision-making around projects, as I say, we're still resolving that point and there are different views on that. It won't be too much longer before we'll have a bit more to say about that.

CRAIG REUCASSEL: You have confirmed that the new EPBC won't have a climate trigger. So this is off the table, obviously, for your stakeholder consultation?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, that point has been decided by the government in terms of what we'll be putting forward to the parliament. Basically, one of the reasons for that is that we are trying to deliver these reforms very closely to what Graeme Samuel recommended in his report. He explicitly rejected the idea of a climate trigger being inserted into this piece of legislation, mainly because we do have, through our climate policies and legislation, a range of measures to reduce the emissions of projects and across the economy. The main one, of course, is our Safeguard Mechanism, which requires the major emitting projects in Australia, things like coal mines, smelters, other heavy industry, they are already required under our laws to reduce their emissions by 5 per cent a year and be net zero by 2050.

CRAIG REUCASSEL: Isn't the real reason you don't have a climate trigger is that you're negotiating with the Coalition to get this bill through, having failed to do so with the Greens? Isn't that really why there's no climate trigger? You're not getting that passed.

MURRAY WATT: No, no. I've actually made very clear that we are open to passing these laws with either the Coalition or the Greens. And in an ideal world, we'd be able to get support from both of those sides of politics to deliver stronger laws. So I've met three times with the Greens, I've met three times with the Coalition. They've been very productive conversations on both sides of things, and I'd really hope that we don't get to another situation like we saw before the election, where the Coalition and the Greens joined up to block these reforms going through. It's time to reform them, and hopefully we can do that with the support of either or both the Coalition and the Greens.

CRAIG REUCASSEL: You say this is about protecting the environment, but also about getting things built quicker. There's sometimes a competition between those two things. What's your guiding principle here? Is it productivity, or is it environmental protection?

MURRAY WATT: Well, I think it’s both. I don't think we need to be locked into a sort of a binary choice between development or the environment. Most of the decisions that I've made, or all of the decisions I've made, since coming into this job have been about ensuring that we do deliver the housing, the energy, the economic gains that we need while also protecting the environment and applying strong conditions. So I've said all along since taking on this role that I see these reforms as a package deal. It's not about only delivering economic gains. It's not only about delivering environmental gains. You actually can put in place a system that delivers stronger environmental protections and quicker approvals for housing and renewable energy. That was the framing of Graeme Samuel's report. He put forward a way that we could achieve those outcomes, and that's exactly what we'll be seeking to do with the legislation.

CRAIG REUCASSEL: We'll be watching with interest how you pull off that double achievement. Now, you better go check your texts now, just in case you want to become ambassador in the future, okay?

MURRAY WATT: [Laughs] Very happy in my current role, Craig.

CRAIG REUCASSEL: Thanks for speaking to us. Murray Watt, is the federal Environment Minister.

MURRAY WATT: Thanks a lot.