As long as all the industry/business lobby groups are removed as well.

The amount of money is very small compared with the funds available for advertising and lobbying that business groups have.

This opinion piece indicates that business groups do not like the information that the NGOs are providing.

Reducing dependency on coal is not a bad aim in the long term. How do you know what all taxpayers want. There was no referendum?

However as far as this article's content I would agree that governments allocate too much money on grants funding but not only in the environmental sector. Some monies are put to direct use where there are visible gains eg. tree planting, river bank protection and water saving measures.

No lobby group should be funded by government including business councils and the like. Taxpayers might also have something to say about bail outs of loggers, banks and other businesses. The money spent on environmental groups mentioned in the article pale by comparison to business grants and bail outs.

it is pleasing to learn that state and federal governments provide funding for green groups that have as their goal the improvement of the lives of all - and the world - by reduction in greenhouse gases, nurturing nature in positive ways, treating the earth and the land as they ought to be treated - namely with care and ecological soundness. i had thought that governments were so intent on maintaining devotion to the notion of 'economic (ir)rationalism' (some new name now, but still the same philosophy) that funding of the enlightened sort would be no longer a priority or even honoured in any way. thank you for a most enlightening article which has provided me with great pleasure - both as regards the knowledge that governments are broader in their fairness vis-a-vis funding than i had thought, and that green groups are receiving some financial support.

on the jobs in the latrobe valley - no one wants anyone to lose her/his job and we must therefore aim for alternative means of energy which will provide good, sound, environmentally friendly jobs. funding green groups means that alternative forms of energy, and hence more jobs (jobs in the nature described), will be promoted to sustainability.

What a load of garbage;

Out of curiosity Asher Judah, should the government also ignore lobby groups, like, say the Libertarian lobby group that YOU are working for, the "Institute of Public Affairs"?

Strangely this whole article actually just attacks people who oppose large-scale development that impacts 'on the environment, a community, or existing industries'
Now could you please point out where people's standard of living is compromised by an organization that demands people's standards of living (in both residential AND business) to be upheld?
(using your own reference).

Of course you don't, because you people never make (or even have) arguments, you make smears about people who get in your way and hope they stick. After all, I'm quite certain that a residential-rights group is a lot closer to "what the people want" than a libertarian mob acting on behalf of some construction developers who don't want to accommodate resident's wishes into their projects. So the only option left is to make stuff up.

Not so sure about this one Asher. I know it sounds crazy but governments do from time to time fund organisations which have agendas which are opposed to the prevailing social and economic paradigm.

It's good to have informed researched opinions. I think you simply disagree with what some of these lobby groups have to say.

This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The New Right think tanks are full of intrigue caused by a desire for personal advancement, and therefore the opinions that emanate from such organisations can only be called ideology. Yet you have not called for a ban on funding from big business interests have you.

I think we all agree this blog gets an "F". Poorly thought through, and poorly excuted. I'm sure all the boys at the IPA thought it was great though.

You realy have to try harder to up yourself in other peoples shoes.

Green groups have been receiving direct subsidies and handouts as well as tax deductibility status for donations for decades. Ever since Senator Richardson as ‘environmental’ minister developed the ALP green preference strategy, by overturning the Helsham inquiry into Tasmanian forests, closing down the North Queensland timber industry and stopping the 1989 pulp mill, millions have been gifted to ENGO’s.

The rules seem pretty clear that the government funds and tax deductible donations are meant to save the environment but all sorts of instances have been raised from producing ‘how to Vote cards, to media advertisements during elections.

Yet it is not just the Institute of Public Affairs that raises concern at how the money is spent, the Fairfax Media environmental reporter Rosslyn Beeby reported how most the $70 million spent by just four of our biggest environmental groups went on lobbying, fundraising and ‘expenses’ see http://straightfurrow.farmonline.co.nz/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/general/green-groups-spending-hots-up-to-70m/1709996.aspx

The Canberra Times demonstrates that $42 million in funds given by donors or the government were spent on activities not directly linked to on ground conservation field work. In Tasmania this manifests itself into a campaign by the Wilderness society against the Government’s tax payer funded Regional Forest Agreement that reserves 97% of high quality wilderness and about half its forests including a million hectares of ‘pristine old growth’ never to cut down. Rather than funding the protection and promotion of this wilderness, the Society continues to attack the State’s native forest industry.
It s method of operation was recently exposed by another ENGO in an open letter to Bill Kelty about the Wilderness Society’s current campaign to end all native forest harvesting in exchange for a plantation based pulp mill:
“By no stretch of the imagination can it be accepted that the TWS/ET advertising campaign, said to be $600,000 through a front group Our Common Ground, promoting the agenda of the plantation industry, has the support of the public.” Open Letter to Mr Bill Kelty from Tap into A Better Tasmania February 27th 2011.

There must be an end to this political largesse to the Greens and their cheerleading ENGO’s.

Commentators appear to have missed the point of the article. Taxpayers are unknowingly funding advocacy groups that are opposed to activities supported by and employing many of those same taxpayers.

If business wants to fund environment groups or the IPA or whoever, that is their business and their money. If environment or advocacy groups wish to raise money by public or private donation for their activities they are entitled to do so. They should not be entitled to taxpayer funds to undertake political advocacy.

The article raises the valid point of taxpayer funds being used to fund political and advocacy activity by unrepresentative minority groups that otherwise do not enjoy broad-based taxpayer (or voter) support.

Max

I think you have got to the crux of the issue. As NGOs are increasingly involved in the delivery of government-funded services it is becoming more important to ring fence their advocacy from their service delivery.

I believe it’s ok for the government to fund green groups, trades unions, business associations, churches or charities to deliver goods and services such as training, job placement, community housing or environmental services. But it’s inappropriate for taxpayer funds to subsidise lobbying, whether by left or right, greens or industry lobbyists.

Who cares where the funding is coming from? I don't. Is the standard of knowledge emerging from these NGO's superior? Does the IPA believe that its arguments are being refuted too often?

Tet

I care where the funding is coming from. I don’t pay taxes to support people pushing ideological hobby horses, whether the advocacy is by green groups or think tanks like the IPA.

In my observation the “standard of knowledge” emerging from advocacy and interest groups varies enormously. In technical and practical terms they often have much to contribute. In policy terms, too, our pluralistic model means that public discourse is enriched by competing arguments between opposed ideologies and interests. But they are often strongly vested interests, and the media and government need to judge their arguments on that basis. We should not use taxpayer funds to support some groups over others.

The risk is that government uses funding as form of political advertising by stealth – for example if conservative governments are more inclined to give funds to business groups while labor funds trades unions.

On the note of these "green groups" (read all NGOs) receiving funds is because they organize and perform tasks that the government paying them wants done. If the government wants to have people perform bush regeneration, clean up litter or promote environment in schools or environmental conservation or whatever, they simply fund some environmental NGO to do it for them (as it is a lot cheaper than paying somebody to do it, and you know what kind of volunteers the NGO will put up for the job).

This is of course ignoring all the taxpayers who DO support what any one or all NGOs they are currently funding are presently doing. But they don't count.

King Hazza

I think the problem lies not with groups who actually do practical works, but those who work solely by lobbying and campaigning for ideologically-based political change, such as The Wilderness Society - when was the last time they planted a tree?

Indeed, forestry provides some of the best examples of how ENGO lobbying is actually worsening environmental outcomes because it takes no account of the unintended consequences of pursuing narrow ideological outcomes such 'no native forest logging'.

It seems not to matter to ENGOs that this is a minor activity that off-sets the need to import hardwood from developing countries with weak regulatory controls where logging is highly damaging to the environment, or that timber production actually underpins the capability to manage the infinitely greater environmental threat posed by unnaturally severe bushfire.

The fact that activists' campaigns for such outcomes are being partly funded by the unknowing taxpayer is quite perverse given the additional taxpayer expense that these campaigns often generate when activists provoke conflict by, for example, blockading logging coupes or vandalising equipment.

Knowledge is conjectural by nature, if government funding of NGO's is required to achieve an optimal outcome by facilitating an equitable compromise between mutually conflicting interests, then the money is worth spending.

New Right think tanks, due to big business ties have more funds at there disposal than NGO's do, and therefore do not require government funds.

This is why the IPA should never have written this article because it makes them look too rich

The ALP does not fund unions, it is the other way around.

I normally disagree with MPOYNTER on almost everything evironmental however I do think it is wrong for any taxpayers no matter their views to fund (purely) lobby based groups whose sole aim is to influence governments.

The same argument should apply to bailing out businesses except in the most exceptional of circumstances. Taxpayers are not a bottomless pit and there is a duty of care to ensure the more essential services remain the highest priority.

MWPOYNTER, that would be an issue with the respective government funding them (as there is a good chance that government supports that policy- or is paying lip service).

Banning public funds going to any ideological group that does not perform *practical* roles (planting trees)- quite a fair call I might add, gets trickier;
If a government is expected to try to promote the environment to schools, the cheapest easiest option is to ask some environmentalist group to do it for them.
If a government wants a study or survey, it will ask some indepenent think tank to make one for them (the usual ones are business-libertarian, unions, religious or environmental).

There are simply a lot of avenues for an NGO to get government money for performing some kind of task, and a government would need to be both forbidden to fund any NGO for free, and also for studies and promotional volunteer work- and fund it directly themselves, which would get more expensive as finding the right people is more costly- while NGOs do it and screen them for free (as an internal expense anyway).

And of course, an environmental NGO could recieve funding to plant some trees, and still be an ideological group otherwise.

In short our choice is to continue to allow governments to utilize promotional NGOs, or fund the work directly or to a commercial company (both which are more expensive)- or cut all these services on principle of preventing NGOs from recieving it.
But outside NGOs there are plenty of consultants, companies and sometimes church groups that get paid by government either freely- or very often for facilitating services to the government).

Just what has the taxpayer received for the grants handed out to environmental lobby groups?

Tasmania is the front line of environmental activism, with the greens opposed to renewable hydro power (the infamous Franklin Dam case) and a 25 year campaign to lock up the Wilderness and the state’s high conservation value old growth forests.

Many would have thought that when the Federal Government implemented a reserve system in 1997 that protected almost 100% of Tasmania’s high quality wilderness, its national estate values and almost half its forests, the green groups it funds would have supported the 20 year agreement that gives certainty for environment protection and industry development.

But no, the ENGOs are still campaigning to lock up even more forest and to destroy the jobs of thousands of Tasmanians that depend on the Federal government sticking to its Regional forest agreement. Let’s look at the activities of one group that is funded by the Taxpayer.

According to Government documents Environment Tasmania Incorporated received $55,000 per annum for three years commencing in 2008/09 see http://www.environment.gov.au/about/programs/gveho/pubs/gveho-2008-09.pdf

Environment Tasmania, whose secretary is a failed Greens senate candidate, is currently a signatory to a statement of principles to lead to a forest agreement to replace the Federal Government’s RFA. This statement includes a further moratorium on the sustainable harvesting of almost 600,000 ha of forest that ET has demanded be given National park status. This is despite the Federal Government stating in RFA that its Heritage Commission“ has confirmed that, based on the Joint Study, there is no evidence to identify additional large areas with National Estate Values in the Forest Estate”.

Environment Tasmania was created by the Wilderness society and other ENGO, and since 2006 has conducted high profile media campaigns against the Federal Government’s forest policy. Its member groups such as ‘Still wild Still threatened ‘continue to protest and harass forest workers. There protest camps and their taxpayer funded volunteers show little respect for the environment see http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/01/13/49521_tasmania-news.html

Its time these groups repaid taxpayer funds that could be better spent on health, education or even the environment!

Pelican
You’re right that the ALP is funded by unions, but unions are also often funded by government to deliver particular services – OSH training, for example. My comment was based on the observations that Labor governments are more inclined to fund services from unions than conservative ones, while business groups are more likely to be contracted to deliver services by conservative governments. This is not purely ideological and partisan however - Labor governments also contract services from business groups, and conservative ones from unions.

King Hazza
Many organisations are both service providers and advocates, and in practice it’s hard to ring fence the two functions and fund only one. However, by specifying clearly the outcomes government is paying for, on a fee-for-service basis, government can use NGOs to deliver services without appearing to endorse or promote their ideological agendas.

I believe it’s in the interests of both NGOs and government that NGOs’ advocacy is seen to be independent of government, including financial independence.

That is absolutely correct Rhian; personally I am happy with the arrangement of governments paying NGOs to act on their own behalf (it's cheaper and more efficient);
(and must admit, as an SOS voter, a counter-lobby against contentious construction projects is something I am more than happy to be funding).

But the fact remains that it is up for us/our government to decide whether:
1- we allow the excess that if we rely on NGOs to act on our behalf, we also accept that they may also use the money we give them to promote their own agendas
2- we cut the services the NGOs endorse to rule out the specific groups we (majority) don't want (which gets difficult for bush regeneration and reforestation).
3- we maintain these services but hire contractors- which is vastly more expensive because they aren't volunteers- or get the government to pay for screening and interviewing of its own volunteers- which is just as expensive.

In my view it is entirely appropriate for governments to fund organisations whose main role is to evaluate and when they deem it appropriate, to criticise the policies of those governments. Otherwise the public debate is dominated by the few media organisations and business and other organisations with the money to buy advertisements. From time to time, too, the TV channels and some of the papers refuse to publish advertisements by organisations whose arguments they cannot answer.

As for being over-taxed, who are you kidding Asher Judah? Australians are grossly undertaxed.

Ozbib
There are hundreds of organisations who see their role as to to evaluate and when they deem it appropriate, to criticise the policies of governments. Some of these are fringe and flaky and I would strongly object to my taxes being used to finance their propaganda. Others I happen to agree with, but will support with my own voluntary donations, not via government.

Would you confine such funding to green groups, or extend it to minority religious cults, the gun lobby, the Council For The National Interest, Australians Against Further Immigration, the Refugee Action Coalition, the Australian Republican Movement, Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the Anti-Vegetarian Society of Meat Eaters, the Australian Family Association, the Gay News Network ..