Australia news live: energy ministers meet for summit; Tanya Plibersek to outline new environment protection agency

Tanya Plibersek to respond to national environment review

Lisa Cox

The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, will give the first insight into how the Albanese government plans to rewrite the national environment laws this morning as she makes a major announcement in Brisbane.

Plibersek will respond to a review of national environment laws by the former consumer watchdog Graeme Samuel that was handed to the Morrison government two years ago. The Coalition never formally responded.

The response will include what the government plans to do on introducing uniform national environmental standards to guide conservation protection and the assessment of major development proposals – a key recommendation of the Samuel review.

The minister is also expected to reveal the government’s preferred structure for a new national environment protection agency – an EPA – and to outline a proposal for regional approaches to environmental planning, which would guide where development can and cannot occur.

The Australian Conservation Foundation’s chief executive, Kelly O’Shanassy, said the country needed strong national standards and an EPA that was independent, had decision-making powers, and was properly funded.

The national campaigns director at the Wilderness Society, Amelia Young, said community appetite for major environmental reform had never been higher.

The natural world needs a lot more attention than governments have been giving it and the time to rectify this is now.

Infrastructure will be one of the themes of the day with the federal minister for infrastructure, transport, regional development and local government, Catherine King, due to unveil the revamped Infrastructure Australia (IA) body later today.

The minister will also attend the Boomtown property and infrastructure summit in Sydney today with the New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet. The summit is seeking to promote the development of western Sydney.

Amy Remeikis reports:

The creation of the body by the Rudd government in 2008 forms part of the prime minister, Anthony Albanese’s legacy.

Albanese has long had a love of nation-building infrastructure projects, and Infrastructure Australia was designed while he was in the portfolio, as a way of identifying and fast-tracking projects which would add value, help future-proof communities, or provide missing links within existing infrastructure frameworks.

At the time, Albanese described it as “replacing neglect, buck-passing, and pork-barrelling with long-term planning where governments predict and anticipate infrastructure needs and demands, not merely react to them”.

But the body set up to help identify and see through nation-building projects became increasingly sidelined, an independent review ordered by the new Albanese government found, and was seen as “reactive” rather than proactive.

That has led to projects languishing, or the states moving forward without all the pieces.

One of the first acts of the Albanese government was to review Infrastructure Australia. King had signalled an overhaul would be a priority of a Labor government ahead of the election, after former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce appointed the retiring mayor of Tamworth to chair the body.

The review having been returned, King will unveil the revamped IA at an event later on Thursday.

The government plans on overhauling the body, giving it a clear and legislated mandate, which will define its responsibilities and role, as well as shift from an advisory body governed by committee, to a new governance model.

Welcome

Martin Farrer

Good morning and welcome to our live blog. Natasha May will be along soon to take you through the day but before then here are a couple of stories making news overnight.

The Australian Medical Association has blasted “weak political leadership” for what it sees as the premature relaxation of anti-Covid measures, saying that the health system is “not prepared” to deal with long-term issues stemming from the pandemic. The peak doctors’ body is so concerned about the lingering impact of long Covid on the population and the health system that it thinks governments should reconsider mask mandates to address the problem. One expert thinks long Covid could affect as many as 1 million Australians by next year.

Australia’s energy ministers are expected to sign off on a scheme to accelerate the take-up of giant batteries to support the decarbonisation of the grid when they gather in Brisbane today, but are unlikely to make a decision on any Albanese government proposal to impose price caps on coal and gas. There were reports last night that the government was pushing the states to cap the price of coal at $125 a tonne, less than half the current market rate, but Guardian Australia understands no decision is expected before Friday’s national meeting between the prime minister, premiers and chief ministers.

Also today the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, is due to make a major announcement on new national environmental standards, which will include Australia’s own environment protection agency. It is in response to a review of national laws that was handed to the Morrison government two years ago.

Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, will use a speech in Washington today to urge China to embrace US plans to prevent growing tensions from spiralling into war, while rejecting claims that Australia’s plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines is driving a regional arms race. She will urge China to take up a US offer to put in place “guardrails” to prevent growing tensions from spiralling into war and suggest both sides learn from diplomacy spurred by the Cuban missile crisis.