Interview with James Glenday, ABC News Breakfast

JAMES GLENDAY, HOST: All right, it is now time to talk federal politics, and let's bring in the federal Environment Minister Murray Watt. Minister, welcome back to the program. MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: G'day James, good to be with you.

JAMES GLENDAY: If we can start in your portfolio, there's been a first confirmed detection of H5 bird flu in a sea lion. What does this mean for that sea lion colony on Kangaroo Island, which, of course, is very, very important to the ecosystem? MURRAY WATT: Yeah, this is another worrying development, James.

You will have seen for some time now the Agriculture Minister Julie Collins and I have been warning that we are likely to see more of these cases, and not just affecting bird populations but mammal populations as well. At this stage, the information we have is that there haven't been any other transmissions within that seal colony, certainly no evidence of mass mortalities.

And there doesn't seem to be any evidence at this point of sea lions transmitting this virus to each other. But, of course, we're going to keep monitoring this. But as I say, this is something that we have been expecting to happen, unfortunately.

And that's why for a number of years, we've been investing in building the resilience of the populations of sea lions, seals, birds. We've been, for example, injecting baby sea lions and seals with vaccines around hookworm to try make sure that more of them survive the early stages, and we have a larger population to begin with. So we'll keep certainly working with state governments about this, but it is a worrying development.

JAMES GLENDAY: Just on a different topic, several years ago your Government promised to curb plastic waste with some new rules on packaging. Why have you dumped or at the very minimum delayed this idea? MURRAY WATT: Yeah, what we're doing, James, is progressing this in a different way.

Of course, in our first term we made significant advancements on the recycling front, including by funding hundreds of millions of dollars of recycling facilities. What we've got to decide now is where do we go next with this policy? And later this week, I'll be meeting with state and territory environment ministers to talk about how we can harmonise the regulation that we have around plastic and packaging around the country.

At the moment, we have some states that ban certain products, other states don’t. Some states require certain design standards to be met for packaging standards, some states don't. What we want to do is make sure that we can harmonise those kind of regulations with a view to reducing the amount of waste that we have going into landfill and even worse litter going forward.

JAMES GLENDAY: Can I just ask, in your words, why you're progressing this in a different way? Why not just do what you had initially promised to do, which was to put in new rules on packaging to make things easier to recycle? MURRAY WATT: Yeah, one of the things this Government is conscious of, James, with any policy development, is what its impact is going to be on Australians' cost of living.

And we remain concerned that some of the models that have been put forward may impact on cost of living at a time that people are really hurting- JAMES GLENDAY: -the recycling sector was saying this was like 20 cents a week, though, or something like that. Was it going to be more than that? MURRAY WATT: There are different figures that have been put around, James, but even the recycling sector acknowledges that there is likely to be some modest increase to cost of living – to groceries, for example, of Australians.

That's something that we need to take seriously. So what we are looking at doing though is making sure that we can keep progressing reform in this space, but doing it in a way that is sensitive to the cost of living concerns of Australians. JAMES GLENDAY: One Nation has emailed out a press release saying it's going to slash migration levels by 776,000 if it wins the next election.

It's going to target graduate visas, bridging visas. There's a lot we don't know, but what's your initial reaction? MURRAY WATT: Well, what is very clear from this policy, James, is that it would kill the Australian economy, and it would kill regional economies in particular.

In fact, in the time that I've been sitting in this studio waiting for this interview, I understand the National Farmers' Federation president has bagged this policy and said that it would decimate the agriculture sector. These are the industries and these are the communities that One Nation claims to represent and to support. But their own policies would actually deliver a hammer blow to regional economies right across Australia.

I mean, I don't know when the last time Barnaby Joyce or Pauline Hanson walked into a doctor's clinic, to a hospital, to an aged care facility, to a construction site, to a country pub to see the number of migrants who are working in these populations. As a government, we recognise that we do need to bring down the number of migrants coming into Australia. We've been doing that since we came to office and we intend to do more, but we need to do it in a way that manages the economic impact and doesn't wipe out country pubs, aged care facilities, hospitals all around Australia.

JAMES GLENDAY: One Nation makes a lot of headlines, but of course it's only got a couple of elected representatives. The prospect of it forming government, even at its elevated polling, you'd have to say, is relatively low. On the other hand, of course, you've got a huge majority.

When are we going to see your long-delayed migration plans? This was meant to be announced in a big speech some time ago now. MURRAY WATT: Well, I do have to take issue with you on one point, James, and that is that there is a very real possibility that One Nation could govern with the Liberal and National parties after the next election.

They clearly can't win in their own right, but there is a very realistic possibility of a minority government with One Nation, the Liberals and Nationals, and that's why we need to take these policies seriously. On our policy, one of the reasons that we have taken the time to release it is because we do need to get it right. We do need to reduce the number of migrants coming into Australia, but we need to do it in a way that's not going to decimate all of those industries and drive Australia into recession.

That's the risk- JAMES GLENDAY: -what's the hold up with this? Is there an argument in Cabinet over this? MURRAY WATT: I wouldn't put it that way, James.

But, of course, there are different factors that we need to consider when putting a migration policy together. One Nation haven't considered those factors. One Nation haven't considered what impact it's going to have on regional agriculture, on the regional tourism industry, on country pubs, hospitals.

We are considering those things while also doing the hard work of bringing those migration numbers down. JAMES GLENDAY: Environment Minister Murray Watt, we always appreciate your time. Thanks for joining us.

MURRAY WATT: Thanks, James. We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.