Environment
Leadership vacuum complicating waste crisis response
Mon 15 March 2021Now since 2018, we’ve had a Prime Minister who loves marketing, he loves packaging, there’s been a push to use waste and recycling as a conveyor belt of shiny ‘announceables’ that give the appearance of environmental action, which in turn gives some Liberal members something they can cling on to in the otherwise scorched earth landscape of the coalition’s environmental performance.
Read more...Government painfully slow to deliver on Pacific Ocean clean-up
Tue 9 March 2021The Coalition’s much-vaunted 2019 election commitment to help tackle plastic pollution in the Pacific has gone nowhere.
Read more...Morrison’s late & light-touch plastic plan is see-through flimsy
Thu 4 March 2021The Morrison Government’s much-vaunted National Plastics Plan has arrived late, super light-on for substance and padded-out with recycled announcements.
Read more...Minister Ley is on notice
Thu 4 March 2021The Morrison Government must ensure the construction of a go-kart track at Wahluu, Mt Panorama, in NSW does not go ahead until there is a proper determination on any impacts for potentially significant First Nations’ heritage.
Read more...Morrison’s plastic inaction feels like ‘last straw’ for environment
Mon 1 March 2021While the Morrison government arranges photo opps to cheer on McDonalds’ renunciation of the plastic straw, there is nothing to celebrate in the fact that plastic recycling has fallen from 12 per cent to 9 per cent on its watch.
Read more...Feral Cats report shows Morrison Government failures
Wed 17 February 2021Scientists in this space talk about not just actual extinction but the extinction of experience. Unfortunately, many Australians will go for a walk in the bush and see virtually no animals and think, ‘Well, this is Australia. It is a harsh landscape. There are just not that many animals around or perhaps they are hiding.’ That isn’t true. Our country used to be full of animals. They used to be everywhere until we destroyed it. We have an opportunity to stop that destruction, but the government needs to get the report, pay attention to it and respond with the kinds of measures that it calls for.
Read more...Bushfire and environmental protection failure
Mon 15 February 2021It’s bewildering that in these circumstances, the government has no interest in acting to address Australia’s failed environmental protection framework. Instead it seeks to maintain the status quo –a weak and ineffective set of national standards, with no monitoring and compliance agency to enforce them.
Read more...Bi-partisan cat inquiry reveals government failure to protect threatened species
Fri 5 February 2021On the current trajectory, the future for many of our native species, particularly mammals and birds, is bleak. Yet in response to the patent lack of target achievement under the current 5-year Threatened Species Strategy, the Morrison Government has recently announced a new 10-year strategy without additional resources or funding. This is an unacceptable case of kicking the can down the road, and Australia’s native wildlife will pay the price for this neglect.
Read more...Federal government drops plan for recycled content purchasing targets
Wed 27 January 2021Labor has accused the Morrison government of missing a major chance to boost take-up of recycled content in government contracting by opting not to set new rules for procurement.
Read more...Morrison Government fails to ensure Commonwealth purchasing supports recycling
Wed 27 January 2021The only waste policy change this Government has delivered is the straightforward framework that formalises the ban other countries have imposed on Australia’s waste exports. Yet in the absence of both the infrastructure for increased recycling and the end market for recycled material Australia’s growing waste will inevitably need to be stockpiled or landfilled.
Read more...