Environment and water minister Murray Watt’s transactional behavior was on full display in the last parliamentary sitting week.

That Watts is prepared to “do a deal” with the climate-denying Coalition, or the Greens, to change the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), shows how inadequate Labor’s changes are.

And why the rush, when a Senate committee into the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025 and six related bills is only due to report next March?

Submissions from the coal lobby and the Environment Centre Northern Territory (ECNT) provide some answers.

Overall, Coal Australia (CA) agrees with Watt’s measures, with some additional tweaks. It argues in its submission (76) that the world is entering a phase where a “record consumption of coal” will underpin economics, jobs and the industrial base “like never before”.

It means “Australia is uniquely positioned”, CA said, given coal is the country’s second-largest export earner and Australia is the fifth largest exporter of coal in the world.

It agrees with quicker approvals for coal exports, but wants less scrutiny. Among other things, it wants “ambiguous definitions” of “unacceptable risks” and “accountability” in the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) removed. It supports giving the minister in charge more power to “direct” the new EPA — the opposite of an independent statutory body.

It blithely skirts around the elephant in the room — that dangerous climate change is being driven by........

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