By Greens Senator Larissa Waters
With the United Nations Rio+20 conference, 20 years since the Rio Declaration on Sustainable Development, we must now look back on our record of environmental protection. Sadly, our record leaves much to be desired.
The Greens commissioned an independent report that found Australia is failing all of the environmental commitments it signed up to 20 years ago. It found that Australia is living far beyond its ecological means, despite having the world's sixth largest GDP per capita and being one of the countries most able to afford environmental protection. Our national environmental laws favour development over environmental protection, making it easier and quicker to get a coal mine approved than a threatened species listed.
And this situation is about to get worse. In April, the Council of Australian Governments decided to reduce the federal role in protecting the environment. From March next year, the States will bear sole responsibility for most environmental decision-making. All the big environmental wins of recent history – like the Franklin River, or Traveston Dam - have been when the federal government stepped in to protect an area from development the state government had approved, but soon the federal government will not even have a role in protecting nationally important environmental assets like the Great Barrier Reef.
This isn't about reducing red tape, it's about making sure nothing stands in the way of the mining industry and the billions of dollars in profit that will mostly flow off-shore or line the pockets of Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart. When UNESCO found in early June that the Reef is on track for World Heritage in Danger listing within eight months unless the Australian Government reverses its program of dredging, dumping and shipping for a boom in coal and gas exports, Campbell Newman responded by saying "we are in the coal business" and approved another mega coal mine that will be the largest in the southern hemisphere.
With all of Australia's environmental health indicators trending in the wrong direction, it's time to own up that our national environmental laws are not working – and rather than watering them down as the Government plans, we need a new set of laws that work. We have launched a set of principles for new laws – laws that would actually protect our natural heritage, see our biodiversity flourish and save our ancient landscapes for generations to come. Minister Burke's reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, expected in the Spring sittings, should be judged against these principles.
(Senator Waters is representing the Australian Greens at the Rio+20 conference - marking 20 years since the Rio Declaration on Sustainable Development – in Rio, Brazil, 16-23 June.)
