Interview with James Glenday, ABC News Breakfast

JAMES GLENDAY, HOST: Well Parliament is nearly done for the year and for all the back and forth over net zero coming from Canberra in recent weeks, federal politicians on both sides of politics do broadly agree on one thing and that is that our environment laws need a major overhaul. But over the best part of the past five years, efforts to change things have repeatedly hit a snag. The Environment Minister, Murray Watt, is determined that this week will be the week that a breakthrough is made, and he joins us now. Murray, welcome back to the program.

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

JAMES GLENDAY: I have a bit of a feeling of deja vu. I feel like we've been here a number of times where a breakthrough has been sort of there in the offing and it hasn't happened. Why is this week going to be different?

MURRAY WATT: James, there's no doubt in my mind that the Parliament will be passing these much-needed reforms to our national environment laws, and it'll happen this week. The only question now is whether it will happen with the support of the Coalition or the Greens. So this week, both the Coalition and the Greens have got a really important choice to make about whether they want to be part of reforming these laws in a way that strengthens our environmental protections while also speeding up the approval processes for things like housing and renewables or whether they want to sit on the sidelines and see the other one run past them. This is going to happen this week. As you say, it's been five years since Graeme Samuel tabled his recommendations. We haven't been able to make as much progress since then as we would have liked to. And there's a real opportunity this week for the parliament to come together and work positively to make the serious change that's desperately needed.

JAMES GLENDAY: Yeah that report must be pretty dog-eared by now. It’s been taken out of the box again and again. You've been speaking with the Coalition and the Greens in recent days. You know, everyone's saying, ‘look, talks are mostly constructive’, but the parties on either side of you are not giving too much away as we speak. Who do you think you're closer to doing a deal with?

MURRAY WATT: It's a little hard to say at the moment, James, but there's no doubt that we've been able to get closer with both the Coalition and the Greens. I met with their representatives again over the weekend and we've continued talking. That will continue today as well. You know, it won't surprise you to hear that the kind of requests that are coming from the Coalition and the Greens are quite different. The Coalition want more changes made to support business. The Greens want more changes made to support the environment. You will remember what I've always said through this process is that we need to have a balanced package that delivers wins for both the environment and for business. It's not one or the other. We need to get both. We believe that the package that we introduced and have now passed through the House of Representatives does provide that balanced package. So, in the end, I suspect that we'll end up going with whichever of those two parties is more prepared to come closer to the package that we've already passed through the House of Reps.

JAMES GLENDAY: Alright, we've spoken about this a number of times. A lot more to come through the week, no doubt. I just wanted to take you to another issue, and that is the Bureau of Meteorology website. It was revealed over the weekend that it spent $96.5 million, not $4 million. I mean, that is a massive, massive cost blowout. Do you understand what happened here?

MURRAY WATT: Look, I'm not happy about this, James. And you will recall that when the issues first surfaced with the changes to the BoM website recently, I called in the acting CEO of the BoM for an explanation and I made clear that it wasn't meeting the public's expectations. And we've now learned that the cost increase has been higher than what was originally known. We have had a new CEO of the BoM start only a fortnight ago. I met with him on his very first day to outline my concerns and my request for him to get on top of this. I've met with him again, so twice in his first two weeks. I was actually really heartened by the interview he provided with one of the media outlets on the weekend where he acknowledged that there does need to be more transparency from the BoM. So I'm looking forward to a bit of a change in the culture and the approach of the BoM. And I want to make very clear that it's an institution and has staff that I very much support. They perform a really important role for the Australian public. We need a high-quality BoM delivering high-quality information and that can manage its budgets properly. So I'm expecting the new CEO to be able to take charge of that.

JAMES GLENDAY: I mean, anyone in the Northern Territory will know just how important the Bureau is. Of course, they've just gone through this cyclone. I think most people wouldn't question that we need to spend money on this sort of thing, but is close to $100 million good value for money here at all? Have you seen anything that goes towards justifying the enormous cost of this new website?

MURRAY WATT: Well, I think one thing I would say, James, is that the initial figure that the BoM provided in the range of $4 million was for one aspect of the website development. It's a matter for them why they chose to provide that figure rather than a broader figure. But there's no doubt that there have been increases in the cost of this website as it's been developed. And one of the things that I've asked the new CEO of the BoM to get on top of is what happened here. And if there's anything- if there are lessons around future procurements that are needed, then we need to know what they are. So, as I say, I don't think anyone could be in any doubt about my view of this, having had that meeting as soon as the issue's broken, and I've got a lot of confidence in the new CEO of the BoM to get on top of this and drive some change.

JAMES GLENDAY: Just before I let you go, Murray, I know this might be an issue in your household at the moment as well. The social media ban is only a couple of weeks away. How should Australians be preparing their kids, because this is going to come into effect just before the long summer holidays. I reckon there are a couple of parents out there watching thinking, I don't know how this is going to go for my teenager.

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, it is a bit of an issue in my household, James, with a 15-year-old there who doesn't mind a little bit of social media. And we've had some discussions about it as a family ourselves. Look, the best advice I can provide to Australian families is to hop onto the eSafety website, esafety.gov.au, which is providing lots of good advice there for how parents should approach this. I think starting to have discussions with your kids is a really good place to start and explaining to them why, you know, as much as it might be annoying for them to lose their access rights to social media, it might be in their long-term interest because of the harm that we know social media can do to young children. So it is going to be a bit of an adjustment. But, as I say, I'd encourage parents to get onto that website and look at that very good advice that's being provided.

JAMES GLENDAY: Alright. Murray Watt, thank you very much for your time this morning on what's going to be a very, very big day and week in Canberra.

MURRAY WATT: Looking forward to it, James.