[Greens-Media] MEDIA RELEASE Environment loses out in budget

[Vandeleur, Monique (Sen L. Waters)]

MEDIA RELEASE
Senator Larissa Waters
Senator for Queensland

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

ENVIRONMENT LOSES OUT IN BUDGET WITH MINING COMPANIES THE BIG WINNERS

The budget shows Australians can't trust Labor to look after the environment.

"The big mining companies that are destroying the Great Barrier Reef and jeopardising our water supplies with fracking are the big winners from Labor's budget, with fossil fuel subsidies kept in place and the mining tax left virtually worthless," Senator Larissa Waters, Australian Greens environment spokesperson, said.

"Labor's response to the environmental havoc mining companies are inflicting across Australia is to sack more than 100 staff from the federal environment department, many from the teams that assess mining proposals, so there will be less scrutiny of the industry's impacts.

"The budget is devoid of a proactive national solution to address the biodiversity crisis we currently face.

"Our iconic wildlife is too precious to lose but Labor is cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from the Biodiversity Fund and that means less grants for grass-roots conservation groups to deliver on-the-ground outcomes.

"That hard work by community groups at a local scale makes all the difference to our environment nationally and chipping away at support for those projects will have a devastating collective effect," Senator Waters said.

The budget confirms the successful Reef Rescue program, which improves the water quality of agricultural runoff to the Great Barrier Reef, will be continued.

"The government says it wants to expand the Reef Rescue program to include wetland and river management but we haven't seen an increase in funding to actually achieve those outcomes.

"This means the same amount of Reef Rescue funding will have to stretch further, risking the effectiveness of the program.

"What's more, Labor continues to ignore the biggest threat to the Great Barrier Reef - the overindustrialisation of this World Heritage Area for big mining companies, which the UN is warning Labor against.

"Only the Greens are standing up to the big mining companies and caring for the environment," Senator Waters said.