Labor must protect environment while rewriting laws ‘written to facilitate development’, Larissa Waters says | Larissa Waters

The chief of the Greens, Larissa Waters, warns that the rewriting of environmental laws by plowing will not be credible if the government uses its scheduled 18 -month calendar to continue to approve new coal and gas projects or to allow continuous destruction of habitat.

The labor proposal to create a federal environmental protection agency collapsed in the last months of the last parliament. An agreement with the Greens was negotiated by the Minister of the Environment at the time, Tanya Plibersek, but Anthony Albanian postponed changes in the agenda, fearing an electoral reaction in Australia-Western.

The newly appointed minister Murray Watt said that the plowing victory on May 3 gives the government a “very clear mandate” to adopt the so-called positive laws of nature, which, according to him, should be finalized and adopted by Parliament within 18 months.

This progress will require the support of the Greens, who have the sole balance of powers in the Senate.

But Waters said that work had to do a “good job” to rethink the rules of the Howard era and ensure that they were not pushed in the political agenda before the next elections.

“They have always been written to facilitate development and not to protect the environment. I say that in all honesty,” said Waters. “What they are now very clear is to take up the challenges we face.

“They have no reference to the climate in them. Now, it’s simply ridiculous, to have environmental laws that do not require an explicit consideration of the climate. ”

Waters called for the workforce to stop the approvals of new mines, describing the post-electoral extension of the enormous development of northwest Wooddidsid at 2070 as “a dirty and massive gas bomb”.

“They need drastic rewriting. With the 18 -month delay that the minister has now said, I withdraw two messages.

“Because I’m optimistic … maybe they can now take the time to do a good job.

“But the other message I take is that it is not a priority for them. And I also worry that in this 18 -month delay, that so much destruction will continue.

The Queensland senator, who replaced the former Greens leader Adam Bandt, made these comments in an interview for the Podcast of the Australian politics of Guardian Australia, published on Friday.

The National Federation of Farmers (NFF) has put pressure on the Greens on the worktop of making certain tax concessions for retirement pension less generous for account holders with sales greater than $ 3 million.

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, says that the government is being executed with delayed changes and should negotiate with the spokesperson for the Greens Treasury, Nick McKim.

The Director General of the NFF, Troy Williams, recently wrote to Waters warning that the proposal risks serious involuntary consequences for family farming companies, which are often based on retirement pension for intergenerational succession planning.

“We beg you to use the upcoming negotiations in the Senate to put pressure for judicious changes to this tax in order to mitigate the unforeseen consequences for family farms,” ​​Williams said in a letter provided to Guardian Australia.

“This could include existing rights agreements, excluding agricultural land of assessments, tax gains on achievement and of course indexing.”

The Greens have promised constructive negotiations and expressed worrying retirement savings accounts as vehicles for the accumulation of wealth.

Waters told Guardian Australia that the party would carefully consider the Labor final proposal.

“We will support the tax changes that make the tax system more equitable and I will have these discussions with Mr. Chalmers as the weeks go,” she said.

“I think we will keep these private discussions.”