The Coalition has offered to help Labor rush through new nature laws if it agrees to gut environment protection, challenging Labor to side with business interests over green groups to implement the long-awaited changes.

Environmental lawyers are urging the government against further weakening already flawed laws at the “behest of industry”.

The new offer from the opposition leader, Sussan Ley, gives Anthony Albanese a clear path to pass the laws to re-write the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act when parliament returns next week for the final sitting of the year.

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But it would require ceding to the Coalition’s demands to water-down protection for nature and stripping back the powers of Labor’s proposed environment protection agency (EPA), risking a major backlash from environmentalist and potentially members of Labor’s backbench.

After Guardian Australia revealed senior Liberals were optimistic about a deal, Ley confirmed the opposition would agree to overhaul the EPBC Act if Labor accepted its amendments while rejecting the Greens’ demands, which include new protection for native forests and measures to consider the climate impact of projects.

The opposition wants changes to address seven points of concern, including the powers of the EPA, the requirement for large projects to disclose projected emissions upfront and threat of “excessive” financial penalties for breaches of nature laws and “stop-work” orders that could halt projects.

The Coalition is also concerned about two provisions designed to protect nature: a new definition of “unacceptable impact” on the environment and a “net gain” test that is supposed to force developers to make up for damage and deliver an overall benefit for the environment.

“The Coalition is seeking sensible amendments,” Ley said in a statement.

“If they are adopted, then we will be supportive of legislation next week. However, if the government rejects sensible suggestions and chooses to put jobs at risk, then we will vote against them, with an open mind to revisit negotiations next year.”

The environment minister, Murray Watt, remains open to striking a deal with either the Coalition or the Greens to get the laws through the Senate before parliament wraps up for 2025 next Thursday.

On Thursday, Watt was adamant that the legislation would pass next week despite not yet having the support of either party.

The Greens leader, Larissa Waters, said if Labor stitched up a deal with the Coalition then it wasn’t serious about protecting nature.

“I think if the Labor government wants to do a deal with the climate denying, anti-science dinosaurs in the Liberal party that tells you everything that you need to know about what the government’s motivations are. It’s not the environment. It’s lining the pockets of big corporates,” she told ABC’s Afternoon Briefing.

The warning came as the Environmental Defenders Office told a senate committee examining the government’s legislation that the bills, as drafted, risked making the failings of the current laws “worse”.

EDO’s deputy director of policy and law reform, Rachel Walmsley, told the committee the parliament had three options: fail to pass the legislation and keep the failed EPBC Act in place for many more years, pass the bills as proposed or even weakened at the “behest” of industry or strengthen the bills and “actually deliver outcomes for nature”.

“It has to be option three,” she said.