Jerome Laxale spoke out about Australia's emissions reductions target. What does that mean?

Jerome Laxale, Labor MP for Bennelong, told the ABC on Tuesday 10 June that the government needs to do better on our emission reduction targets.

But what does that actually mean?

Well, this hasn’t just come out of nowhere. The context of this is that the government is about to put forward some of the most significant legislation regarding the environment, emissions, and biodiversity. 

There are two crucial components to this legislation. 

The first is establishing an independent body to actually enforce environmental laws. This is called the EPA, or Environment Protection Australia. But a strong regulatory body is only any good if it has strong laws to enforce. That’s where the second part of this legislation comes in, reforming the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, or EPBC. 

The proposed reforms largely seek to address the issues identified in a 2020 review, which found the system had “failed to achieve its objectives” and needed “a complete overhaul”.

Now, If this seems like old news, it’s because it is. 

Part of these reforms were almost passed last year, when Tanya Plibersek was environmental minister, but were stopped when WA Premier Roger Cook lobbied to have the bill killed, citing the damage it would do to the WA economy. He actually specifically named Plibersek and Laxale, calling them a bunch of latte sippers. 

Since then, Plibersek has had her ministership passed on to Murray Watt: you know, the same Murray Watt who just approved this massive gas project a couple weeks ago. 

For now, the reforms to environmental law are still planned to go through. However, it’s more of a question of how strong they are, and how much they will favour the companies applying for projects against the environment. 

So this is essentially Laxale, as a backbencher, piping up to say he — among other members of Labor left — hasn’t forgotten about this, and intends to fight for the legislation to be as strong on emissions as possible.