Media release – Australian Conservation Foundation, 27 November 2024
Conservationists to parliamentarians: don’t let vested interests tell you what to do
In response to the news that business and mining lobby groups are trying to blow up the passage of legislation to create a national environment protection agency, the Australian Conservation Foundation’s CEO Kelly O’Shanassy said:
“It would be completely unacceptable if vested interests were able to snap their fingers and get politicians to do their bidding.
“Without an independent environment protection agency – and with little progress towards the full reform of Australia’s unfit-for-purpose nature law – more and more unique Australian animals and plants will go extinct. It’s that simple.
“An independent EPA is desperately needed to take the influence of vested interests out of decision making.
“The scare campaign run by the resources industry and peak business groups shows how opposed these sectors are to genuinely independent administration of national nature laws.
“Business and mining groups should not oppose National Environmental Standards – which would set the rules that define which species and ecosystems need to be protected – because they would give business the certainty it always says it needs.
“Since Australia’s nature law took effect 25 years ago, more than seven million hectares of threatened species habitat – an area as big as the entire state of Tasmania – has been destroyed.
“Nature is crying out for thorough reform of Australia’s national nature protection laws.
“We urge our elected representatives to heed nature’s cry.”
Ben Marshall
November 27, 2024 at 14:19
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) appears to get it badly wrong with this media release – incredibly badly.
There is no “if” about corporate power controlling our politicians in the two major parties, and in our government generally, so don’t pretend it’s a potential threat when it’s already real and happening, and it’s a daily fact of life.
Secondly, an independent Environment Protection Authority (EPA) isn’t going to help anyone but the corporate entities bent on extracting, exploiting and controlling Australian resources and workforces. A weak EPA, stacked with appointees acceptable to government and the corporate sector, will do nothing but provide cover for indifferent and lazy politicians and corporate business-as-usual.
Finally, the one thing the ACF could, and should, be demanding is the enacting of the Samuels’ Report reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) which is the one hope communities and organisations defending wilderness were promised by Labor, only to be denied by Plibersek and her Federal Labor Party when they assumed office. A truly strong EPBC would go some way to leveling the playing field between powerless Australian citizens and powerful corporate investors, and their proxies in politics. Without an amended EPBC, a weak and pointless EPA will leave communities, and endangered and threatened species and wild habitat, abandoned.
It’s astonishing that the ACF just doesn’t seem to get this.