<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2024/sep/17/the-environment-was-meant-to-be-back-on-the-priority-list-under-labor-instead-weve-seen-a-familiar-story>
"It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Back in the heady new government days of
July 2022, Tanya Plibersek told the National Press Club that change was coming
for environmental protection in Australia after a decade of disaster and
neglect.
Releasing the five-yearly state of the environment report, which the previous
Coalition government had received months earlier but put in a drawer until it
was turfed from office, the new environment minister said it told a “story of
crisis and decline in Australia’s environment”.
Plibersek stepped through some of the key messages. Australia is one of the
world’s deforestation hotspots, clearing 7.7m hectares of threatened species
habitat – an area larger than Tasmania – this century. More than 90% of this
had been cleared in small parcels without any reference to national environment
laws.
The overall trend of environmental health was poor and deteriorating, with
abrupt changes in ecological systems over the previous five years. Australia
has lost more than 100 species to extinction and more mammal species to
extinction than any other continent.
The report noted the World Economic Forum’s conclusion that environmental
degradation was a threat to humanity that could “bring about societal collapses
with long-lasting and severe consequences”.
Plibersek declared Australians had voted for the environment in 2022, she had
heard the message and there wasn’t another minute to waste. She would aim to
develop new nature legislation, including “clear national environmental
standards with explicit targets around what we value as a country, and what the
laws need to protect”, in 2023.
“I won’t be putting my head in the sand,” she said. “Under Labor the
environment is back on the priority list.”
Given the entrenched failures she inherited, including a gutted environment
department and continual underfunding of nature protection, it was an ambitious
promise. But Plibersek was a senior minister and a proven communicator with a
significant public profile. Maybe this time would be different.
More than two years on, that hasn’t proven the case. There have been moments of
modest progress but the Albanese government has not lived up to the minister’s
early rhetoric."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
