The environment minister wants to pass a major re-write of federal nature laws this year, encouraging miners to lobby the Coalition to work with Labor to help rush it through parliament in the final three sitting weeks.

Murray Watt relayed the message in private talks with mining industry leaders in Perth this week after giving a speech promising faster project approvals under a planned overhaul of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act).

On Friday, Watt will brief state and territory environment ministers on the reforms, which aim to finally act on recommendations from Graeme Samuel’s review of the EPBC Act after Anthony Albanese controversially shelved the previous iteration before the May election.

Watt has publicly pledged to introduce the bill

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