TRANSCRIPT – ABC Radio National Breakfast with Sally Sara

Angie Bell MP

Shadow Minister for the Environment

Shadow Minister for Youth

Federal Member for Moncrieff

TRANSCRIPT

ABC Radio National Breakfast with Sally Sara

30 October 2025

Subjects: Labor’s environmental reform that risks jobs, industry and productivity.

E&OE…………………………………………………………………………………………………

SALLY SARA:

Angie Bell is the Shadow Minister for the Environment and joins me now in the studio. Angie Bell, welcome back to Radio National Breakfast.

ANGIE BELL:

Great to be in the hot seat after Murray.

SALLY SARA:

There you are, yes. You’ve seen what the government is proposing. You’ve made it clear that you’re unhappy with of this Bill. Do you think you can negotiate to the point where it’s acceptable in your view or are you completely ruling it out?

ANGIE BELL:

Very good question, Sally. We’ve entered into good faith negotiations with the government, as the Minister just outlined. We have met a number of times. That’s true. In terms of a way forward, at the moment these bills are unworkable, as I have outlined several times. I think what Australians should be thinking about is if Labor were to do a deal with the Greens, what the consequences would be for productivity, for jobs and for investment in our country. And so, of course, we will continue in those good faith negotiations with the government. But at the moment, the way the Bills are, they are unworkable.

SALLY SARA:

So does that put the onus also back on the coalition? If having a deal done with the Greens is the worst possible outcome, do you need to compromise here to make sure that you’re the one who’s in the negotiating seat?

ANGIE BELL:

Well, certainly it’s not our job to make a bad bill better, but there are some areas that we have concerns on and we’ll continue to put those areas forward as a problem. For example, the wide-ranging powers of the EPA. It’ll be a statutory appointment that will not report directly to the Minister. Who won’t be able to sack that individual. It’ll have to be the Governor-General that does that. And so that is a problem in terms of what that outcome might look like in terms of broad sweeping powers, definitely. We’ve got problems around unacceptable impacts. The Minister was just talking about that. We’d like to see that come out of the legislation and into the national standard, which is what was in the Graeme Samuel Review. The Minister has cherry-picked out of the Graeme Samuel Review different areas in this legislation. The EPA was not in the Graeme Samuel review. Graeme said he wanted to see a commissioner, not a statutory appointment that is not able to be sacked by the Minister.

SALLY SARA:

You’re unhappy with the proposed Environment Protection Agency. What are your specific concerns there?

ANGIE BELL:

Well, it is the broad sweeping powers that I was just talking about and assessments and approvals will be done by the EPA. Certainly, the EPA will do the auditing. So, we want to make sure that that’s what the EPA is about, auditing those states and territories to make sure that through the bilateral agreements that are in the bill or that will come after the bill is introduced, if the Minister can get them in place. There’s a lot of uncertainty there as well, Sally. There are lots of different concerns that we have around this Bill. I understand. I’ve seen it. It’s 1,500 pages. It’ll take a 40-hour working week to read through it, cover to cover.

The Minister’s had it for six months and been working on it. We’ve had it for just a few hours. And so, we’ll be working through the rest of the detail. We’ve got some primary concerns around reporting as well in terms of emission reporting, which is currently under the safeguard mechanism. We feel it should stay there under the safeguard mechanism because if it were to be in the EPBC Act, it would be open to legal challenges, and we don’t want that to be a problem or a handbrake on investment in our country. And the Government is all about productivity right now, but this Bill could put that at risk, and Australians should be rightly scared, and I’ll say that, scared, if the Government goes towards the Greens for a deal on this.

SALLY SARA:

You’re listening to Radio National Breakfast. My guest is the Shadow Minister for the Environment, Angie Bell. Is there enough time to get this done before the end of the parliamentary year?

ANGIE BELL:

Well, I don’t really understand what the rush is. You know, originally the Minister said he would pass this Bill in 12 to 18 months, and now it’s been expedited after the Treasurer’s roundtables.

SALLY SARA:

It’s been five years since the Samuel review to the day.

ANGIE BELL:

Well, they failed in the last parliament, Sally, to get this passed. And so, it’s on them in the last parliament, which was three years. And now we’ve had another…

SALLY SARA:

The Coalition also couldn’t get this done.

ANGIE BELL:

Well, they blocked it in the Senate. So Sussan Ley did bring two Bills forward when she was the Minister and the Labor Party and the Greens blocked it in the Senate. And so it is on the Minister to work through all of these concerns that we have to find a way forward. And that includes, I’ll just say, Sally, that includes the inquiry, which we have to understand also that all the stakeholders around the country haven’t been meeting with Murray Watt. It’s only been a select few.

The stakeholders around the country, including the conservation outlets, need to have a voice on this because they also have concerns. How important is it to get it right? It’s so important for the future of our nation. Our environment is going backwards. We need to stop that. But we also need to make sure that this Bill is balanced. As the Minister outlined, as Graeme Samuel outlined, but we don’t think it’s balanced at this point in time.

SALLY SARA:

Are you open to compromise?

ANGIE BELL:

Look, we’re open to continuing to talk with the Minister on how these bills can be improved to make sure that there is a balance struck and that industry, jobs and investment don’t get a raw deal out of this.

SALLY SARA:

Angie Bell, thank you for joining me this morning. I appreciate it.

ANGIE BELL:

Thanks, Sally.

ENDS.