Interview with Peter Stefanovic, Sky News

PETER STEFANOVIC, HOST: The government expects its environmental reform bill to pass the lower house today easily and then move to a Senate inquiry before heading off to the Senate for a vote in the final sitting week of the year. Joining us live from Canberra is the Environment Minister, Murray Watt. Minister, it's good to see you this morning. So will this be done by Christmas?

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: That's certainly the plan, Pete. Good to be with you this morning. And it is a really important day that we make another step forward in passing these reforms that have been waiting for five years to be done. It's good that today we will see the House of Representatives pass the Environment Protection Reform Bill. What's disappointing though is that we are likely to see the Coalition vote with the Greens against laws that will deliver very real benefits for business. One of the aspects of these reforms that's most important is that they will really reform the processes for assessing and approving major projects. Business is crying out for reforms to these laws, but the Coalition and the Greens are voting against it. So I think some people have got some pretty hard thinking to do over the next couple of weeks before we return for the final sitting week of the year. I hope, and I'll be certainly encouraging both the Coalition and the Greens to really focus, put a lot of their internal division aside, which seems to be distracting them, and think about the national interest here, the benefits for business and the benefits for the environment that will come from these laws.

PETER STEFANOVIC: When big miners urge Labor and the Coalition to strike a quick deal, are you encouraged by that?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, I think it is a positive sign, Pete, that we're seeing increasingly a lot of the stakeholders, including today the Minerals Council of Australia, support the passage of these laws quickly. I've seen that they're calling on the Coalition to help pass these laws this year. Of course, the MCA, along with a bunch of other stakeholders, would still like to see some changes made to the laws, and we'll consider that. But there's a very clear signal to the Coalition from some of their key stakeholders that it's time to get on with getting this done.

PETER STEFANOVIC: So, I mean, it's the dance. The negotiation would mean that you'd have to give up something to get some support from either party. So which concessions would you be happy to provide or give?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, look, we haven't settled on that at this point, Pete. And to be honest, I'm still working through with both the Coalition and the Greens exactly what it is that they want. As I say, I think the Coalition's internal troubles have made it a bit hard for them to work out exactly what they want to do with these reforms, but we'll keep encouraging them to do that. So, it's a little bit too early to say exactly what changes we would be prepared to make. But what I will say is that I've always said that no one's going to get 100 per cent of what they want here, and that applies to me just as much as it does to business or environment groups. But what we need to make sure of is that the final law that's passed delivers real gains for both the environment and for business. It can't be one or the other.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Is splitting the bill still a non-starter for you?

MURRAY WATT: It is. And to be honest, I think it's a non-starter for the Coalition as well. They sort of dropped that idea day one after everyone panned it. We saw the Business Council of Australia, representing big business in Australia, say that that was a bad idea. So the Coalition haven't raised that again I think since the day they came out with that announcement. It's a definite non-starter. We need to make sure we have a balanced set of reforms. That's the way to get them through this parliament.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Is it your preference to do business with the Coalition or the Greens?

MURRAY WATT: I don't have a strong preference, Pete, and we've said all along that we're open to passing the laws with the support of either of them, or potentially even both of them, if we can reach a compromise that everyone can live with. As I say, what we've tried to do with this bill is make sure that there are real benefits both for business and the environment, and I'm confident that we can get there.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Okay, just before you shuffle off to get a glass of water, Murray, I'll just ask you about the economy. And we've had a strong debate today already from the Coalition, also economists as well. Is it your view that the energy and childcare rebates have papered over the cracks, and so now as a whole, we're paying the price for that higher inflation returning? I know this is probably a question for Jim Chalmers, but have you got a thought on that?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, look, I mean, I think it's well understood that the uptick we saw in inflation this week was primarily due to state governments withdrawing their energy rebates. So inevitably, that was going to lead to a small rise in inflation. But the government is certainly conducting its affairs in a way to keep inflation as low as possible. And it's worth remembering that since we came into office inflation is significantly lower, unemployment remains low, debt is a lot lower, real wages are rising. So the fundamentals of the Australian economy are substantially better than they were when we came to office. But we know there's more work to do.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Yeah, and on that, you must be worried about this trend now with inflation back out of- the genie back out of the bottle.

MURRAY WATT: I think we should be always careful not to be too influenced by individual monthly results, Pete. These things do change. Sometimes there's lower inflation, sometimes there's higher. But the fundamental point is that inflation is significantly lower than it was when we came to office. That's been a lot of hard work to get us there, and we want to keep those economic fundamentals as strong as possible.            

PETER STEFANOVIC: We'll leave it there, Murray Watt. Thanks for your time.