Tanya Plibersek struck a deal in writing with both the Greens and independent senator David Pocock on supporting her Nature Positive legislation before Anthony Albanese vetoed it hours later in a private meeting with Adam Bandt and Sarah Hanson-Young.

Guardian Australia understands that Plibersek notified Albanese on Tuesday of what had been agreed before writing to her negotiating partners setting out the detail.

But later on Tuesday, Albanese spoke to the Western Australian premier, Roger Cook, and assured him the deal – news of which had reached an alarmed WA resources sector – would not proceed.

Albanese then called Bandt and Hanson-Young to a meeting that evening – without Plibersek’s knowledge – and told them the deal was off.

As environment groups and some in the Labor party express bitter disappointment that the bill to introduce a national environment protection authority and an information-gathering agency has been pushed into next year, more details have emerged of exactly what had been agreed.

The deal involved a further concession from the Greens – to drop their demand for an agreement to end native forest logging in return for including a framework for new national environmental standards that would be applicable to regional forest agreements. National standards were the centrepiece of reforms recommended by a 2020 statutory review of Australia’s environment laws and are due to be part of the delayed third tranche of the Nature Positive legislation. The agreement would have laid the groundwork for those standards, with the application to forests not effective until that tranche passed.

Guardian Australia understands there were also commitments to do more to stop illegal deforestation, protect native habitat, involve Indigenous Australians in threatened species assessment and require the new information body that the bill would have created to report regularly on deforestation and land clearing.

Guardian Australia also understands Albanese did not want to give the Greens a victory and considered the bill a low pre-election priority weighed against political concerns in Western Australia.

Albanese said on Thursday that he was “the negotiator” and there was not “a majority” for the legislation.

“We negotiated in good faith across the parliament for bills where we could secure a clear majority consistent with our values and our position,” Albanese told ABC 7.30.

“Now you can always get everything through if you just cave and give everything the other parties want. That’s not what our approach [was].”

He said the government was prepared to listen to arguments “but where it wasn’t consistent with our view of the purpose of legislation, then we wouldn’t just agree to any amendments”.

He said he spoke to Cook about his upcoming visit to WA and declined to confirm they also spoke about the bill.

On Thursday, Plibersek blamed the Senate overall, saying it “could have voted for it at any time”.

“This bill will come back in February, so I very much hope that we’ll get support for it then,” she told 2GB radio. She sidestepped suggestions the prime minister had overruled her.

“It’s like asking a parent whether they, you know, they think their kids should get a lead in the Christmas play,” she said. “Of course, you always think your own bill is the most important and your own kids are the greatest stars, but, you know, we’re part of a team, and I’d like to see this bill passed.”

Pocock said Plibersek had been “really keen to get this through the parliament”.

“Unfortunately, it just wasn’t possible,” he told ABC TV. “One of the disappointing things this term has been the lack of progress on nature.”

Hanson-Young pointedly paid tribute to Plibersek as “an environment minister who was willing to talk and try and negotiate”.

“But sadly, until now, we have not been able to land an agreement, because it seems the miners and the loggers in this place have more influence than the environment minister, and that’s a real shame,” she told journalists on Thursday. “But we will continue to keep talking, and we will continue to keep pushing, because at the end of the day, nature and our forests desperately need protection.”

She declined to say exactly what had happened.

“We were told that the negotiation over the environment bill was over because there are some problems that the government couldn’t overcome,” she said. “We now know what those problems are, because the mining industry and Roger Cook are crowing about it.”

Cook confirmed to journalists in Perth on Wednesday that he had spoken to people at “the highest levels” of the federal government to protest the proposed deal. His mining minister, David Michael, had told a gathering on Tuesday night that Albanese had spoken to Cook and told him it was off.

Ellen Maybery, a senior specialist lawyer with Environmental Justice Australia, condemned the about-face.

“The Albanese government went to the last election promising to make our nature laws work better for environmental protection. They have broken their promise.”

Felicity Wade, the national co-convenor of Labor Environment Action Network (LEAN), said environmental standards would “allow the establishment of decision making rules that provide the certainty business says it needs”.

“This was a chance to show strength and conviction,” Wade said. “We know these are things the electorate are looking for from us. And we faltered.”

She said the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which Plibersek’s bill would have amended, would have helped repair “a completely broken system”.

“But the barbarians flexed their muscles and that was that.”



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