Today Scott Morrison is set to announce $1 billion over the next nine years for Great Barrier Reef conservation — or, as Michael Pascoe puts it, “$111m a year, a sixth of #carpork”.
The reef, as we know, faces an existential threat from climate change — a threat the Morrison government is helping to accelerate with its (lack of a) climate policy.
The $1 billion (again, over nine years) won’t actually go towards reducing emissions targets to the point that they’re compatible with a living reef. Instead, Morrison said: “Funding will support scientists, farmers and traditional owners, backing in the very latest marine science while building resilience and reducing threats from pollution in our oceans, and predators such as the crown-of-thorns starfish.” (Morrison’s speech writers: “Be specific with your predators; reporters love colour”).
The announcement comes shortly before UNESCO inspectors head to Cairns to decide whether the Great Barrier Reef will be officially declared “in danger”, something the Morrison government lobbied heavily against last year. This thread from Greenpeace’s David Ritter gives a good explanation of what went down:
It’s hard not to read this as a blatant grab for Queensland votes. Indeed, a quick Twitter keyword search for “reef” reveals plenty of punters accusing the government of trying to shore up its climate credentials (what credentials?!):
But the government isn’t shy about playing dumb. Asked on RN Breakfast this morning whether the funding package is about shoring up Queensland votes, Environment Minister Sussan Ley said: “The reef doesn’t know the election is coming.”
No, it doesn’t, but for the rest of us, you couldn’t be making it any clearer.
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After years of studied neglect – when the GBR was as much on it’s own as the electorate – while the Coalition has been more obsessed with turning tricks for their fossil fuel johns?
Now – with an election looming and this an angry cold-sore – Scotty FM wants to buy a $billion worth of time – to prevaricate, obfuscate, fabricate and dissimulate what his gas-led fossil-fueled government is really doing to the environment, in the continued interests of fossil fuel donors.
Trying to give the impression of working both sides of the street.
Just as any conman does, he remains true tp his nature.
This is not the first time UNESCO has tried to list the reef and not the first time the libs have opposed it. The first time about 6 years ago Greg Hunt, the minister at the time, successfully bullied them into leaving it as is. Result, 6 more years of damage. This money, if it is ever spent, wont go to the right places to do any good. The good it needs to do is stopping nutrient rich run off from farms and fixing climate change. I wont talk about climate change but a few words about runoff. The runoff is very nutrient rich partly because fertiliser companies have kindly assissted farmers for decades by offering free soil testing to assess their fertiliser needs. Fertiliser companies are obviously not disinterested parties in this and these tests have routinely come back showing farmers need to invest heavily in more and more fertiliser all the time. Much of this fertiliser has been destoying the reef for decades and will continue to destroy the reef for decades to come.
Well, this should get us a 227% better brochure than the one we got from the GBR Foundation.
Sussan Ley, on TV news just now, talking about “scalable options for heat resistant coral”. Couldn’t make it up.
Like similar announcements on a variety of subjects, at first glance it looks great.However, the devil is in the detail as always.One Billion For The Reef looks good but this is being spread oner ten years and like a lot of projects and promises from this government, some never get off the ground or just wither on the vine.The chutz par of this mob is unbelievable.
Warren Entsch will probably need all the help he can get to save his seat of Leichardt, as the only seat that heavily relies upon reef tourism.
Wokka has a huge personal following, demonstrated by the 2007 and 2010 results when he retired and returned. He’ll hang on by a thread unless labor can pin him with the $1billion BS.
It will be interesting to see how much his pals in the Great Barrier Reef Foundation score out of this largesse. Plenty, I’ll bet.