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!