Pic: Get the Greens … any Greens: Stefan Postles’ (AAP) priceless shot of slathering Tasmanian MPs Eric Hutchinson, Brett Whiteley and Andrew Nikolic …
Here are some of the problems identified by Coalition MPs to explain why the government is trying to limit the ability of environment groups to mount legal challenges to the government’s application of Australia’s environment laws.
Brett Whiteley (Liberal, Tasmania) The mung bean soup problem.
“This country needs to grow up. We need to move to a balanced position. We need jobs. Australian families need incomes. They need jobs to be able to feed their families, stop living off the benefits provided by government and have a fulfilling life as a part of a working community. We need to have balance. We cannot simply, as the Greens and those opposite that are of the left would like, have us hanging from trees and drinking mung bean soup. We have to find the balance … Some might be happy for many in our community who depend on these sorts of jobs to eventually just hang from trees like something out of prehistory and eat nothing but mung bean soup. But, at the end of the day, we cannot continue to live on the teat of the Australian government welfare program. We need jobs.”
Eric Hutchinson (Liberal, Tasmania) The ‘environment groups making up problems to scare people into giving them money’ problem.
“Reference was made to the Great Barrier Reef. This has been a disaster for Greenpeace Australia. Minister Hunt did some outstanding work in getting the World Heritage Committee to take the Great Barrier Reef off the ‘watch list’. This has been an absolute disaster for Greenpeace’s fundraising activities, because they can no longer go out there and scare people. They can no longer use those images of polar bears dying due to a harvested forest in Tasmania or images of a piece of the Barrier Reef that has coral bleaching. They can no longer use those things, because it has been taken off the ‘watch list’ due to the good work of Minister Hunt and this government. That is a tragedy for Greenpeace, because it makes it more difficult for them to scare people and do their fundraising. It was the same with the Tasmanian forests. Never did the truth get put in the way of the emotive campaign that they used to generate funds. It is not about the forests; it is about the organisation’s concern.”
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Andrew Nikolic (Liberal, Tasmania) The ‘disgusting treasonous sabotage’ problem.
“It was never the intent of the EPBC Act to be used to disrupt and delay much-needed infrastructure developments across our great country. And, as we know, the intent of this legal activism is not to help but to hinder … These are groups, by the way, that often receive considerable taxpayer-funded charitable status and taxpayer funding. Think about that for a moment – taxpayer funds being used to make Australia a much riskier place to invest. It just beggars belief. Groups involved include Greenpeace, the New South Wales and Queensland Environmental Defenders Offices, Lock the Gate, Beyond Zero Emissions, GetUp and a range of other organisations, including the Australia Institute … It is little wonder that, in the correspondence that I have received on this issue, many people use words like ‘disgusting’, ‘sabotage,’ ‘treason’ and ‘un-Australian’ to describe what it is going on.”
• Pete Godfrey in Comments: … What a disgrace … these three have shown themselves to be inarticulate party hacks to the core.
