As Plibersek moves out, Mr ‘Fix It' takes on plagued environment job
The government promised in 2022 to create a national environment watchdog and committed to pursuing broad reforms to nature protection laws, but failed to deliver either.
Plibersek began in the portfolio with a promise to end native species extinctions. She ended it on the outer with the environment lobby, which has been disappointed at the lack of new nature protections, and after a deal with the Greens to pass the Environment Protection Act in the Senate was scuppered by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese following vigorous lobbying against the bill from the mining industry and the Premier of Western Australia Roger Cook.
Albanese also weighed in on Plibersek's portfolio for a second time, in December, when he assured Tasmania's salmon farming industry its future was secure. This assurance appeared to preempt an ongoing review of commercial operations in Macquarie Harbour, on the state's west coast, due to its impact on the endangered Maugean skate.
Plibersek has been moved to the social services ministry, an appointment she welcomes with a social media statement saying she was 'delighted to be the minister for social services in the new Labor government', as it was an area she had long been interested in. She takes on responsibility for the department that oversees welfare spending – the single largest expenditure in the federal budget – as well as issues close to her heart, such as domestic violence prevention and gender equality.
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Watt, who earned a reputation as a fixer in the emergency services, agriculture and then industrial affairs portfolios in the first term of the Albanese government, said he was thrilled to be appointed Minister for the Environment.
'Our natural environment and water supply is the foundation of life on Earth and only a Labor government can advance its long-term conservation,' he said.
The former workplace and industrial relations minister is a key powerbroker from Queensland, riding high in the party for delivering a swathe of seats in the state.
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ABC News
10 minutes ago
- ABC News
Zero positives for Sussan Ley in the Coalition's net zero battle
There's no other way of looking at it: Sussan Ley faces a diabolical situation with the debate over whether the Coalition should abandon the 2050 net zero emissions target. The issue is a microcosm of her wider problems. The Nationals, the minor party in the Coalition, are determined to run their own race on most things. The Liberals have become akin to two parties, split between those eyeing urban seats and younger voters, and right-wingers reflecting the party's conservative grassroots. Nobody misses the contrast. The Albanese government is beset by a host of actual issues around the transition to a clean energy economy. The renewables rollout is not going as fast as desired and is meeting with resistance in some communities. Energy costs are high. But such problems are not putting any pressure on Labor's unity. At the same time, the opposition is fractured over an argument about a target that's a quarter of a century away, when who knows what the technological or political landscape will look like. For the opposition, the internal debate about net zero is about symbols and signals, rather than substance. The net zero debate exploded within the opposition this week with Barnaby Joyce's private member's bill to scrap Australia's commitment to it. The timing, in parliament's first week, was extraordinarily inconvenient for Ley. But if not now, it would have erupted later. On present indications, the Nationals appear likely to ditch the net zero commitment. David Littleproud, anxious to avoid the issue becoming a threat to his leadership, is reading the party room and positioning himself to be in the anticipated majority. Asked on Thursday whether he supported net zero, Littleproud told the ABC: "Well, I have real concerns about it, to be candid. What net zero has become is about trying to achieve the impossible, rather than doing what's sensible." But, he insisted, "we're not climate deniers". It is less clear how the debate will pan out in the Liberal Party, once the group under Shadow Energy Minister Dan Tehan produces its report on energy and emissions-reduction policy. Liberal sources say the issue is now being driven by the party's grassroots, rather than the parliamentary party. Branches are throwing up motions to get rid of the 2050 target. The Western Australian Liberal state council will debate a motion this weekend to drop the net zero commitment. The Queensland LNP organisation will consider its position next month. A few weeks ago, the South Australian Liberal state council rejected net zero. With a policy review underway, Ley and the parliamentary Liberals have left a vacuum on the issue. Some Liberals warn that parliamentarians risk being run over by the party outside parliament. Others point out that on policy, the parliamentarians are independent of the organisation, which often comes up with right-wing motions. How should Ley best handle the situation? By filling the vacuum with a position sooner rather than later. That means accelerating the Tehan report. Beyond that, ideally, she should be taking leadership on the issue herself. But is she in a strong enough position to do that? One idea being floated would be for the Liberals to retain the net zero target but extend the time frame. This wouldn't stop the criticism about the shift. Whether the Coalition could stay as one if its two parties had different positions on net zero may be an open question, but it certainly would be messy. On the other side of politics, the government is rapidly approaching a decision on another key target — the one Australia will put up internationally for cutting emissions by 2035. Inevitably, this will be contentious. This target must be submitted by September (it was conveniently delayed beyond the election). Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen has yet to receive advice on the target from the Climate Change Authority (advice that will be published). The target is expected to be between 65 per cent and 75 per cent. The challenge will be to strike a target with sufficient ambition that doesn't alienate business and the regions. Next week, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Simon Stiell, will be in Canberra for talks. His comments will be carefully watched. Last year, he told the Sydney Morning Herald, "the world needs countries like Australia to take climate action and ambition to the next level, and it's firmly in the interests of every Australian that they do so". Climate and energy issues will have a place at next month's economic reform roundtable. Bowen is organising two preliminary roundtables — on electricity, with energy user stakeholders, and on climate adaptation. He told The Conversation's podcast that adaptation will "be an increasing focus of this government and future governments because, tragically, the world has left it too late to avoid the impacts of climate change". The government is waiting, somewhat impatiently, for the decision on whether Australia will be given the nod to host next year's UN climate conference. The COP meeting, which would be in Adelaide in November 2026, is an enormous event to put on, so the decision is becoming urgent. Bowen says Australia already has the numbers over Turkey, the other contender. But "one of the things about the process to decide COPs, I've learnt, is it's quite opaque and there's no particular timeline and no particular rules to the ballot. "It's meant to work on a consensus, sort of an old world, sort of gentlemanly sort of approach to say whoever loses will withdraw. That's not the way it's panning out. I've had multiple meetings with my Turkish counterpart to try to find a 'win-win' solution. We haven't been able to find that yet." Stiell's trip includes Turkey as well as Australia. Bowen will be hoping he may provide some clarity, when they meet, about how the "opaque" process of assigning the COP meeting is going. Bowen will be emphasising how important the proposed co-hosting COP with the Pacific is to the region, with climate change already an existential issue for many Pacific countries. Michelle Grattan is a professorial fellow at the University of Canberra and chief political correspondent at The Conversation, where this article first appeared.
Sydney Morning Herald
40 minutes ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Economic summit in danger of becoming a bureaucratic gabfest
The Albanese government's upcoming economic reform roundtable should seize the opportunity to reset Australia's future agenda. Instead, it looks in danger of turning into a bureaucrats' jamboree with the usual suspects pontificating on a system they are by and large responsible for creating. We know that tax will be the big ticket item at the August 19-21 summit and the heavily curated roundtable invitees certainly know their taxes, budgets and politics. And economic resilience, productivity and budgets are on the agenda. But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's refusal to consider changing the GST is already tying one of the government's hands behind its back and the exclusion of those major players in taxation and deregulation, states and territories, is a further handicap. As the Herald 's senior economic correspondent Shane Wright has pointed out, it is not tax that will lift living standards and Australia's ability to pay for goods and services – it will be technology. The telephone, the internal combustion engine and the lightbulb were three of the most transformative pieces of technology. Now 150 or so years later AI is poised to change lives. Yet, there are no scientists or creative minds invited to the roundtable. Rather, Wright says participants are policy wonks reared in a culture that believes problems deserve a 'policy' solution when the real and most far-reaching solutions come from people who think differently. Adding some variety to the mix, the Productivity Commission is expected to release a series of reports on productivity that will provide data and ideas to the summit outside tax issues. And business has established an umbrella organisation to put forward recommendations, including on investment, innovation, reducing red tape, planning and approval processes, tax, education and employment. While incoming Coalition governments stay well clear of such talkfest, this is the fourth stab Labor has had at post election summits. The first, Bob Hawke's April 1983 economic summit, discussed economic strategy, the approach to unemployment and inflation, and a prices and incomes accord and was deemed an extraordinary success. Twenty-five years later, prime minister Kevin Rudd's talkfest, when 1000 of Australia's better thinkers gathered to ponder the future, is generally considered to have amounted to little and is mainly remembered for Rudd's awkward love-in with actors Cate Blanchett and Hugh Jackman. That said, good ideas came out of both the Hawke and Rudd summits, but more went missing in action at the hands of compliance. The challenge facing next month's roundtable is to ensure that the reforms are not lost in bureaucracy. After a tepid first term record on policy innovation, including a 2022 jobs and skills summit that stampeded business with its union-friendly re-regulation of the workplace system, we would have thought the Albanese government could afford to have been more adventurous with its roundtable summit. Labor is unlikely to enjoy such a massive mandate again. In such circumstances, timidity is not an option and the Albanese government cannot hide behind bureaucracy but should use the summit to promulgate wide-ranging and much needed reforms.
West Australian
2 hours ago
- West Australian
Risk of higher US tariffs looms despite beef deal
Australia's move to lift restrictions on US beef is unlikely to shift the dial on tariff negotiations, as the nation's products face the possibility of even steeper duties. The Albanese government will allow access to US beef that has been raised in Canada or Mexico but processed in America, following a safety review. Australia is subject to a baseline 10 per cent tariff applied by the Trump administration and has been keeping an eye on the trade negotiations of other countries. AMP chief economist Shane Oliver said Donald Trump's flagged higher tariffs might include the nation's exports. "The risk for Australia is that we may be lucky to hang on to 10 per cent, which could actually turn out to be higher," he told AAP. "This (beef decision) might help us hang on to 10 per cent or avoid a worse outcome, but I don't think there's any guarantees of that." American beef was banned from Australia almost two decades ago following an outbreak of mad cow disease. Mr Trump has pressured the government to ease restrictions as Labor argues for an exemption from the tariffs as part of the US president's deepening trade war. Former ambassador to the US Arthur Sinodinos said while biosecurity investigations can take a while to finalise, it was a "sensible outcome". "The challenge here is it doesn't look like we're putting together a package deal," he said. "It'd be better if there was a package approach to this if we're seeking to gather an overall trade outcome with the US." Australian Farm Institute executive director Katie McRobert said the cattle industry has been "extremely nervous" about biosecurity traceability from different parts of the north and South America regions. "We wouldn't expect a significant impact on Australian producers from the potential to import American beef ... because we already produce far more beef in Australia than we can possibly eat," she said. Trade Minister Don Farrell said he didn't have any meetings scheduled with American counterparts after last meeting US trade representative Jamieson Greer on the sidelines of an OECD ministerial meeting in Paris in June. Senator Farrell said Mr Greer didn't raise beef concerns at that meeting. "We believe that America should lift those tariffs on Australia, there's no justification whatsoever for the United States to apply tariffs to Australia," he told reporters in Canberra on Thursday. "We have a free trade agreement, that agreement makes it very clear that it's a tariff free arrangement." Senator Farrell also denied the move was to create a bargaining chip. The Philippines and Japan recently struck agreements with the US to lower their tariff rates, but both are still above the 10 per cent baseline.
