Office initially named agricultural chemical red tape bill, then said Morrison was actually referring to ban on cosmetic testing

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Scott Morrison has elevated an obscure bill to ban cosmetic testing on animals to one of the top two legislative priorities for the Coalition in 2019, according to his office.

Speaking to ABC News Breakfast on Monday, the prime minister cited “environmental legislation … [that] is important for native species” as among the government’s priorities for the new year, second only to national security.

There is no major environmental legislation before parliament and the prime minister’s office was unable to immediately identify what he was referring to.

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Morrison’s comments also caught conservation groups offguard.

Five hours later, a spokesman for Morrison told Guardian Australia the prime minister was “referring to the agricultural and veterinary chemicals legislation amendment”.

The bill – introduced by the agriculture minister, David Littleproud, in October – makes minor changes to the regulatory scheme for agricultural and veterinary chemicals to provide simpler processes for chemicals of low concern.

The federal policy director of the Wilderness Society, Tim Beshara, told Guardian Australia the bill had “stuff-all to do with native species”, a sentiment echoed bythe Australian Conservation Foundation nature campaigner, Jess Abrahams.

An hour after this story was published, the prime minister’s office clarified the first statement was in error and claimed Morrison had in fact been referring to the Industrial Chemicals Bill 2017.

That bill establishes a new regulatory scheme including banning animal testing for new chemical ingredients of cosmetics from 1 July 2018. It passed the lower house and was introduced to the Senate in October 2017 but appears not to have been debated since then.

Beshara said the industrial chemicals bill “has even less to do with protecting native species than the first one”.

“I can’t work out what … they are on about: Does the prime minister have a plan to better protect Australian native species or not?”

Abrahams said: “As far as we are aware, the main government policy relating to native species is the plan for a one-stop shop for environmental approvals, which would have the effect of weakening environmental protection.”

“The government also has a targeted review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act for farmers, which could also weaken protection of the environment.”

Labor and the Coalition have been focusing on environmental issues, both announcing packages worth more than $200m to revitalise the world heritage-listed Kakadu national park. On Monday Littleproud promised a $5m recovery package and review of the Murray-Darling River crisis.

In May the former environment minister Josh Frydenberg wrote an opinion piece trumpeting the appointment of a threatened species commissioner.

He said 99.7% of about 2,000 of the threatened species and ecological communities listed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act had a recovery plan or conservation advice in place.

In September a Senate inquiry investigating fauna extinctions heard that a large proportion of staff working in threatened species management rated the government’s performance as “poor or very poor”.

The Community and Public Sector Union said 91.3% of those who responded to a survey said the government was doing poorly or very poorly in fulfilling domestic and international obligations to conserve threatened fauna and 87% believed the adequacy of Australia’s national environment laws – the EPBC act – was poor or very poor.

Australia has 1,800 threatened species but has not listed critical habitat in 10 years Read more

Beshara accused the government of failing its statutory responsibility to fund and implement endangered species recovery plans. He called on the government to put “some serious funding towards saving some endangered critters and plants”.

“I am more than happy to brief the prime minister on what the government needs to do for native species if he would like.

“He might be surprised to know that the Darling River crisis is only one of many ecological crises happening in Australia right now on his watch. It’s a real mess out there.”