So there is a bit happening ahead of the parliament sitting in just over 15 minutes time.

The crossbench and the Greens held a press conference with the Australia Institute’s Tasmanian director Eloise Carr and other environmental groups to urge the parliament not to support the undemocractic and potentially environmentally damaging changes to the environmental laws which the Albanese government has proposed.

There are rumours floating around that the legislation will not be introduced today as is scheduled on the notice paper – but that is always a moving feast.

The PMO is very, very keen to try and quell rumours that Anthony Albanese has come in over the top of environment minister Tanya Plibersek with this. Albanese had a very curse response when that was put to him on ABC radio this morning and said it wasn’t true – but that’s a hard case to make when it was Albanese which pledged to create new legislation for the foreign-owned salmon industry, to ensure that salmon farming could continue in the environmentally fragile Macquarie Harbour – the only place in the world the Maguean Skate lives.

Plibersek is down on the notice paper to introduce the bill, but requests for comments are being directed to PMO.

The amendments show this is not just impact Macquarie Harbour (which would be bad enough) – it would apply to ANY project, in any area. So legislation is being created to allow environmentally destructive projects to bypass environmental protection legislation AND stop third party civil society groups (like the Australia Institute) from using its research and expert opinion to aid communities challenging these projects.

Anywhere.