This morning in Sydney the environment minister Tanya Plibersek opened the inaugural Global Nature Positive Summit.

While the event – co-hosted by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water - will no doubt attract many attendees and drive many fruitful conversations and initiatives, the minister's presence at the event drew scorn from environmentalists as she struggles to get her own nature positive reforms over the parliamentary line.

Delivering a wide-ranging, opening address the minister needed to tread a careful line with her speech in order to dodge the sizeable the elephant in the room.

"This summit aims to accelerate collective action to drive investment in nature and strengthen activities to protect and repair our environment…All of us agree; if you love something deeply – you want to protect it. And that's why we must work together to halt and reverse the impacts we're having on nature. We can't continue our current trajectory," she said.

So far, so safe.

Perhaps making the audience sit up in anticipation, a few minutes later she said: "Today I'd like to talk about what we – in government – have been doing to tackle these systemic issues to turn things around for nature," continuing with "That's why I've introduced laws into Parliament to define what nature positive means for Australia."

Here we go…surely? But alas – at this stage in the ten minute speech – Plibersek still managed to evade Dumbo's plodding feet.

"This will be the first time any government has defined nature positive in legislation. The legislation also sets up Environment Information Australia. 

"Environment Information Australia will be independent, and it will be their job to report on Australia's progress on becoming nature positive.

"They'll provide trusted, public data and reporting about the state of our environment," she said.

Even Plibersek would have to concede - in all the column inches devoted to the difficulties the Albanese government has faced in getting together enough parliamentary support with the Coalition, the Teals or the Greens - not much has been given over to debating the efficacy of the proposed EIA.

Give the audience what they want, minister.

Thankfully, it looked like they wouldn't have to wait too long. Plibersek clearly knows how to work a crowd.

Finally, she said it.

"Critically, we are significantly increasing protections for nature too. We're fixing our environmental laws and setting up a national Environment Protection Agency with stronger powers and penalties."

Here we go. Here's the meat of the speech.

What's going to be her next killer line, drafted to slay the nay-sayers, silence the critics and create a forceful majority in Canberra?

"We know what we need to do to protect and repair nature," she said, before moving swiftly on to how the government's Strategy for Nature will deal with the threat of feral cats.

No mention of the political machinations, arguments and deal-brokering which have filled the environmental pages of the nation's broadsheets for the last few weeks.

No mention of bill's miraculous, last minute removal from the senate's order of business.

And importantly, no mention of when or how the minister and her PM hope to get the draft legislation through the upper house.

She'd even set up the crowd with an interview published this weekend in which she talked on just that issue. 

But today, in person, Dumbo was still very much in the conference room.

So, what did her detractors make of the speech?

Yesterday the federal opposition said it was "embarrassing" that Plibersek was making the speech with no progress on the legislation.

"It is a talkfest about everything the Albanese Government are not delivering on," said opposition environment spokesman Jonno Duniam.

"At least $5 million of taxpayers' money has been spent on this conference with at least 24 bureaucrats working for over two years full time on it," Senator Duniam said.

"While the Coalition welcomes private sector involvement in this space, we have serious doubts that this conference will do anything to improve environmental outcomes in Australia or elsewhere."

The Greens were similarly uncomplimentary, labelling the summit as a "flop."

Greens environment spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said: "The Government has caved to polluters and loggers instead of protecting the environment as they promised.

"In just the past few weeks, the Minister has approved 3 new coal mine extensions in the Hunter Valley and more native forest destruction at Manyana in NSW. This is Labor's legacy of environmental degradation and broken promises.

"The Greens have been participating in good faith negotiations, but the Prime Minister seems intent on bulldozing his own laws to satisfy the loggers, polluters and Gina Rinehart. The Government has become environmentally dysfunctional - saying one thing in WA and another thing in Sydney."

"There is still a pathway through the Senate for stronger laws, but the PM needs to stop blocking and start negotiating."

At present it is not known when the nature positive bills will return to the senate.