Since taking office in September, perhaps the defining characteristic of the Abbott Government has been its persistent attack on nature. Indeed, much of its election platform - scrapping action on climate change and a mining tax on companies making record profits from carving up much of WA and Queensland - focused on policies that were directly or indirectly damaging to Australia’s world famous natural environment.
Once in power, Abbott’s senior ministers set about an assault on the natural world that has even taken sympathisers by surprise. If it wasn’t an obsessive effort to kill action on global warming, it was trying to rescind a World Heritage listing for Tasmania’s forests, dumping millions of tonnes of sludge on the Great Barrier Reef, or handing over environmental approval powers for developments to State Premiers like Campbell Newman.
But this past week has seen a signal shift in the Abbott government’s war on nature. Nature, and the people who care about it, fought back.
... every single piece of legislation Australia has in the fight to cut pollution and shift to clean energy was on death row.
Only ten days ago, the magnificent World Heritage forests of Tasmania were under threat, with the Prime Minister trying to strip their international legal protection so the loggers he dubbed “ultimate conservationists” could “husband” them with chainsaws and bulldozers. Traditional Owners from Muckaty, in the Northern Territory, were sitting in the Federal Court, trying to make the case that the Government should not be dumping the nation’s radioactive waste on their country. And every single piece of legislation Australia has in the fight to cut pollution and shift to clean energy was on death row.
Today, things look markedly different. UNESCO found that the World Heritage protections in Tassie would stay, saving not only the ancient forests but thousands of jobs in tourism (and even logging) at the same time. Facing a torrid time in court, the Government backed away from its Muckaty campaign, leaving a community of delighted, if exhausted, locals celebrating the newfound sense that they wouldn’t be Australia’s dumping ground and calling on the federal government to look for a new approach to an old problem.
Traditional owners of the Muckaty Aboriginal Land Trust protest on the national highway in Tennant Creek in 2012. (AFP/Getty Images)
And of course, in the coup de grace, Clive Palmer stood alongside the world’s most famous global warming activist, former US Vice President Al Gore, and announced that he would not support the axing of three major pieces of legislation. The $10 billion renewables bank called the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the ‘Reserve Bank on Climate Change’ known as the Climate Change Authority, and the 20 per cent Renewable Energy Target, which was - in perhaps Canberra’s worst-kept secret - squarely in the government’s sights after it appointed a climate denier to conduct a needless review into it.
... in the coup de grace, Clive Palmer stood alongside the world’s most famous global warming activist, former US Vice President Al Gore, and announced that he would not support the axing of three major pieces of legislation.
Even the prospect of an Emissions Trading Scheme - that most controversial of policies – could see life again in Australia. Palmer has disappointingly committed to kill the existing “carbon tax”, despite it already having cut pollution from electricity by 10 per cent, but Palmer has said he will reintroduce an emissions trading scheme bill to replace it.
The government’s war on nature is being lost in various theatres, too. In the courts, where the Muckaty trial was going so poorly for them they simply abandoned their quest in the early stages of what many expected to be an 18-month slog.
They are losing in the court of public opinion, too.
They are losing in the court of public opinion, too. When nine out of ten Australians told a recent Lonergan poll that they wanted Tassie’s World Heritage forests untouched, it was a clarion call to a government that seems all too eager to chop down or dig up much of our natural heritage that they quite simply lacked the social licence to do so.
And they are losing in the court of international opinion. This Government is constantly called to task by foreign agencies. A member of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee described their argument for rescinding Tassie World Heritage as “feeble”, and after his visit, Mr Gore labelled the Prime Minister “a straight-out climate denier”.
Clive Palmer and Al Gore at Parliament House in Canberra. (AAP)
When even a coal mining magnate is ... offering support for clean energy programs ... it’s clear the worm has well and truly turned.
The point of all this is that if you care about nature, things are a lot better today than they were seven days ago. A clear message has been sent. There is a huge, growing, and increasingly vocal constituency for nature out there. It is millions strong, and it is angry.
Abbott, of course, won’t stop trying. Just yesterday, the Prime Minister was out there saying that the Renewable Energy Target was going to make us “the unaffordable energy capital of the world” despite the fact that the government’s own modelling shows that it will lower prices.
Likewise, nature’s newfound constituency needs to be wary of the Government simply looking for a new poor, remote community in which to dump its nuclear spoilage, and be ever vigilant that other beloved sites remain free from further development.
There are members of both the Nationals and Liberals who are true stewards of nature ...
The sad truth is that this government should know better. There are members of both the Nationals and Liberals who are true stewards of nature, but seem to be drowned out by those who would simply rip it up, chop it down, dig it up and ship it off.
Maybe, just maybe, this new group of Australians who have found their voice in defence of the country that we only get one of might convince this government that there can be a better way.
Jonathon La Nauze is Australia Conservation Foundation’s Healthy Ecosystems program manager.
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