Key events
Adam Morton
Watt confirmed he intended to put a “broader reform package” to parliament thanthe shelved plan to legislate to create EPA and to legislate for a second body, Environment Information Australia.
He said the package would include an EPA, but he had an open mind about its role, powers and scope. He thought it should also include national environment standards – as recommended in a review led by the former Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Graeme Samuel – but Watt said he had not made a final decision.
The federal EPA is an important means to an end around environmental protection, but I think we also need to look at: how is the system overall going to work? And what would be the environmental standards that are expected? I think we’ve actually got a better chance of passing laws if they deal with a broader range of issues.
On whether the revamp should introduce “climate considerations” into the environment laws – as suggested by Labor MP Jerome Laxale after Watt gave the North West Shelf gas processing plant in WA conditional approval to run until 2070 – the minister said he was “not ruling anything in or out”, but the government had placed emissions reduction requirements on heavy industry through the safeguard mechanism.
The safeguard mechanism is a Coalition-era policy that Labor revamped. It requires about 200 big polluting facilities to reduce emissions intensity by 4.9% a year, either through onsite cuts or by paying for contentious carbon offsets.
The EPBC reform train is leaving the station, says Murray Watt
Adam Morton
Leaders from about 25 mostly environment and business organisations will meet with the environment minister, Murray Watt, in Canberra today to give their views on how to fix the national environment laws.
It is the first meeting of stakeholder groups on the issue since the previous minister, Tanya Plibersek, last year delayed a commitment to rewrite the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act until after the 3 May election.
A promise to create a national Environment Protection Agency was also later shelved after Anthony Albanese scuttled a potential deal with the Greens following pressure from WA.
Watt told Guardian Australia the meeting would include environment organisations, business groups, the mining industry, urban developers, renewable energy companies and first nations bodies. He said there was “very broad agreement that we desperately need change to these laws – they’re broken”.
The purpose in bringing them all together is so that people can hear each other’s perspectives, rather than being each other in their own corners, you know, fighting.
The way I’ve described it to a couple of people is: the EPBC reform train is leaving the station. We broadly know where we want to get to, but we haven’t yet defined the exact destination, and there’s an opportunity for all of these groups to be involved in shaping that final destination.
I want as many interest groups on that reform train working together as possible, rather than people choosing to stand on the platform, throwing rocks and shouting.
Iran’s ambassador appeals to government to condemn Israeli attacks
Daisy Dumas
Iran’s ambassador to Australia has called on the prime minister to condemn Israel for its attack on his country, claiming that its nuclear program is a “peaceful measure”.
Speaking with the ABC’s 7.30, Ahmad Sadeghi asked Australia, as a “friendly nation” with which Iran is in “good relation”, to recognise that the Middle Eastern nation has a right to self defence after Israel’s attack.
Speaking about the Albanese government, he said: “They have to condemn [Israel] … I ask them.”
He said Iran’s nuclear program was a “peaceful measure” and, when pushed on whether Iran was developing a nuclear weapon, he referred to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“Of course not. You know it has been prohibited by our supreme leader,” the ambassador told the host, David Speers.
Sadeghi did not give a straight answer when asked whether Israel had a right to exist and said that should the US become directly involved in the Israel-Iran war, some 80,000 US personnel stationed in the Gulf region would “not be as comfortable as much as now”.
“The other the Islamic nations around the north, in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in [the] southern part of the Persian Gulf. All, if Iran would be attacked by the US, they would not be silent,” he said, before urging Donald Trump to be “more careful”.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it will be Nick Visser for the bulk of proceedings.
Iran’s ambassador has called on Anthony Albanese to condemn Israel’s attack on the Islamic Republic. The request adds to the prime minister’s in-tray as he heads home from an unsuccessful attempt to engage Donald Trump on tariffs, and considers his second term agenda with parliament’s first sitting just a month away.
One of the big pieces of unfinished business from Labor’s first term was the creation of an environmental protection agency. To address the issue, the environment minister, Murray Watt, is meeting leaders from about 25 mostly environment and business organisations in Canberra today to hear their views on how to fix the national environment laws. More details coming up.
