OUR ENVIRONMENT LAWS - TOO PRECIOUS TO LOSE
In the two weeks since Christine Milne and I launched our national campaign, Too Precious To Lose, hundreds of you have joined us by nominating the place or the species that you consider unique and precious and are working to protect.
The message is clear: Australians love our environment and want to see it protected. Sign our petition today to take the next step.
Our national environmental laws are failing us. Every year we lose more precious habitat, forests, grasslands and marine wilderness. The number of threatened species has nearly tripled in the last twenty years. At a time when our environment is under threat like never before thanks to the short-sighted greed of the resources boom, we really need to be strengthening these laws to better protect places and creatures that are too precious to lose.
But, instead of that, the mining lobby has convinced the ALP and the Coalition to trash our environmental laws, and handball almost all of the federal Environment Minister’s approval powers to state governments. If states were in charge, they would have dammed the Franklin and put oil rigs in the Great Barrier Reef. Right now, Tasmania is planning tin mining for the Tarkine, Victoria is about to log their state emblem - the Leadbeater’s Possum - to extinction, and NSW will open National Parks to shooting.
These state governments cannot be trusted with national environmental powers. Join our call to Minister Burke today: don't abandon your powers to the states.
In 1999, Julia Gillard thought Australia’s environment was much too important to leave to the states, which had a proven track record of “environmental vandalism”. In April this year, she thought only some parts of the environment were too important to leave to the states, like World Heritage and nuclear activities.
Now the ALP Government thinks almost none of the environment is too important to leave to the states. In Question Time yesterday, the government confirmed that they are planning to hand over all their powers except regulation of uranium mining to the States. Today, the environment department released the paperwork which will allow for all these vital environmental protections to be left solely in the hands of Premiers like Campbell Newman and Barry O’Farrell.
That means the Federal Government won’t even have the power to intervene to protect World Heritage sites like the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu.
Our environment is under attack like never before. We need your help.
Tell the ALP and the Coalition that Australia's environment is too important to leave to state governments. Join our call today: don't abandon it to the states.
With your help, we can protect what we love about Australia, now and into the future.
Yours sincerely,
Larissa Waters
P.S. We don't have much time - the Premiers are planning to meet with the federal government in the first week of December to negotiate the handover of all these powers. Sign our petition to stop the handover today.
