12 August 2024
Topics: Federal EPA, nature positive laws, Tasmanian Community Fund’s outrageous donation to the Voice Referendum’s Yes campaign
E&OE
Andrew Bolt:
The Albanese Government’s green agendas are really hurting our economy, you know, getting rid of coal fired power stations, going wind and solar instead, driving up your power bills, etc. But here’s a warning, it’s also got plans to go in even harder. It’s now coming to a crunch with the Opposition. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, she’s pushing an international agenda called Nature Positive: even tougher laws on Aboriginal cultural protection, even tougher global warming policies and new investments, even tougher restrictions on fracking for the gas we bad, badly need, and even more restrictions in nuclear power. You know, all the green tape and Aboriginal heritage rules we already have, just not enough, she reckons.
Tanya Plibersek:
Australia’s environmental decline is a direct product of Australia’s poor environmental laws.
Andrew Bolt:
Now Plibersek still hasn’t decided exactly which of these new laws should be the ones she wants to get through the parliament, maybe she’s too scared to tell you ahead of the election, but she does want a big new green police force already that will use these laws when they come in to boss people. It’s what she calls the Environment Protection Australia. But for that to get through Parliament she will need the backing of either the Opposition or the Greens. Joining me is the Opposition’s environment spokesman, Senator Jonathon Duniam. Senator Duniam, thank you so much for joining us. The new Federal Environment Protection Australia, this new body that Tanya Plibersek wants to set up. What’s your problem with it?
Senator Duniam:
Well Andrew, this government promised that by the end of last year, 2023, we’d have laws in Parliament to replace the outdated Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act, the national environmental approval laws. They have broken that promise and instead what they’ve delivered is a new bureaucracy, this EPA that you’ve referred to, to administer the broken laws. The worst part about this is that this entity will be totally unaccountable. It’ll be making decisions about projects that we need to keep our economy growing, to protect and create jobs with no call in to the Minister whatsoever. Already under these laws, you’ve got mines that take up to 16 years to get approved. How much worse is it going to be under this EPA? Frankly, I think there are a lot of thorns on this and it’s not going to help a cost of living crisis. It won’t bring down the cost of power. It’s got red flags all over it and this government needs to reassess its priorities.
Andrew Bolt:
Yeah but Tanya Plibersek reckons, well look, you know there are going to be some things that are tougher, but you’ll get a yes or a no much quicker under her laws. Do you actually believe it? And the whole nature positive plan that she’s got quietly brewing away in the back kitchen somewhere, do we need it?
Senator Duniam:
Well, how could it be any quicker to get a yes or no with this new, unelected, totally unaccountable bureaucracy administering the same laws that are taking forever to make a decision on anything? I just don’t know how that works, that’s because it doesn’t. And frankly speaking, the approach that they’re taking with nature positive is the wrong one. As you say, all of the consultation, the drafting up of laws has been done totally hidden from view and there’s a reason they don’t want to have the final tranche of laws in before the election before this Parliament rises and voters go to the polls, it’s that’s because they don’t want anyone to see what they’re actually cooking up. You’ve got big green groups in cahoots with the government trying to find ways to make it harder to do business here. If they were genuinely interested in bringing down the cost of living, protecting jobs, attracting investment and to use their phrase, a future made in Australia by attracting manufacturing here, we’d see the laws and we’d see how much better they would be for the community and for the economy but we haven’t, and I am very alarmed by where this government’s going. If they have nothing to hide, why hide it?
Andrew Bolt:
Well, I’m a little alarmed simply by the title of a nature positive planet, like human’s positive plan for a start. One of the things that Tanya Plibersek has been saying early on is that her goal is for 30% of the land to be protected, 30% of our oceans to be protected, that’d mean even more parks are one would assume on land and in the ocean than we have already. Are you in favour of that target?
Senator Duniam:
These targets that are thought up not based on science, not subject to any scientific rigour, are not the kind of targets we should be signing up to. I’ve done a lot of reading on this 30-by-30 target and approach, I’ve done a lot of reading on the whole nature positive concept. Now, I have yet to meet a person who wants to go about trashing the environment, be they foresters, farmers, miners, land developers, no one wants to actually trash our planet for the next generation, but we have to achieve balance. They argue that if you don’t sign up to these targets then you want to destroy the planet and that is wrong. That is not correct at all. Frankly, arbitrary targets don’t achieve any success, don’t resolve problems. And so to that end, I think we need to revisit on some of these things we sign up to and, you know, what else are we going to lock up? Our national parks aren’t well managed. They are havens for pest animals and weeds, so why have more of them? There is a flaw in her thinking when it comes to this sort of stuff and we have to revisit it all.
Andrew Bolt:
Well, there’s something suspicious again right in the title: 30% land, 30% ocean. What’s the magic figure 30 there? You can imagine the next selection to be 35 and the one after that 40 and then one after that, 50. Jonathon Duniam, I also want to ask you about the Tasmanian Community Fund, right, this is set up to help Tasmanians, you know, women’s shelters and, you know, useful things like that. They get money from taxpayers, they’ve used more than half a million, this is this is $557,000 of their money, provided by taxpayers, they actually gave it to the Yes campaign for the Voice last year. Labor’s Yes campaign. Now how does that work out? I saw the Auditor General last week have a swing at that saying, wait a minute, how does this fit into your, you know, your charter, etc. What do you make of that?
Senator Duniam:
I’ll tell you what, as soon as I saw the Tasmanian Community Fund that get many requests from worthy organisations, be they people who want to construct a shelter for women fleeing domestic violence or an all-abilities playground or a community transport service for a remote community to get people who need healthcare to hospital, a lot of these sorts of groups missing out on funding, yet the Board decided to give away more than 10% of their annual appropriation, so they get over $5,500,000 a year from the taxpayer from the Tasmanian government to give to these projects. They unilaterally decided to give this money to the Yes campaign. I called it out at the time and I said this is terrible. I referred it to the Auditor General and I was immensely pleased that they were called out by the independent Auditor General, he’s not a political hack, he’s gone and done every bit of due diligence in his audit and found them wanting. What’s worse though, Andrew, they were warned about their processes back in 2020 and asked to improve record keeping and risk management. They didn’t do it. They’ve gone and handed out this money for a purely political purpose. They’ve been slammed by the Auditor General. Instead of apologising and saying it’ll never happen again, this Board have said that everyone else has got it wrong, including the Auditor General. And so I think the Tasmanian Government needs to step in now, sack the board members, rewrite the Act and ensure this limited resource of taxpayers money is going to where it needs to: the Tasmanian community, not national political and divisive campaigns.
Andrew Bolt:
Senator Duniam, thank you so much for your time.
Senator Duniam:
Thanks Andrew.