The Coalitiion just doesn’t get it at all!

Abbott and Newmans’ winding back of environmental regulations and declaration that we are open for business is just so wrong-headed.

What we really need is a declaration from governments that we as a nation are going to head directly towards a sustainable society, with a high quality of environmental integrity.

Labor has always been a little bit closer to this than the Libs and Nats. There is an enormous amount of support for this out there in the general community. Labor had every chance and every reason to solidly adopt this position after their recent trouncing. But alas, they completely missed the opportunity and are now just a pathetic shadow of the opposition, slinking along behind them, basically adopting the same broad policies and overall philosophy.

It breaks my heart to see that all the vegetation management effort that went into protecting endangered ecosystems, riparian buffers, rare species and the like throughout Queensland that I was involved with and conducted hundreds of property inspections over more than a decade in relation to, get just so quickly unwound by Newman.

Simple really.
No healthy Environment.
No healthy us.

The most abused and misused word in the English language these days is ‘unique’. The word means one, and one only; there is nothing else anywhere like it.

There is nothing unique about the Australian environment: I’ve seen parts of the world that could be mistaken for Australia, and vice –versa in Australia.

The over-regulation, over-governance and red tape hampering anyone who wants to develop anything to improve our economy (which is certainly in a mess) for the good of all is not unique to Australia, either.

We need less regulation, more economic growth, and fewer people bellyaching about the environment, which is adequately protected and just one issue in the overall scheme of our lives.

In thoroughly agree with 'NeverTrustPoliticians" that Australia's environment is already very well protected and that the rhetoric of articles such is this emanating from the environmental movement is largely based on scare-mongering and ideologically-based opposition to Coalition politics, and the hated PM Abbott in particular.

The article is focussed on the Federal EPBC Act but there is also an array of legislation at state-level that could also be construed as over-the-top in 'protecting' the environment at the expense of already well-managed and sensible natural resource use.

Just one example from Victoria is the prevention of private landowners from harvesting their own forests for timber products due to Regional Vegetation Management Plans instituted at Local Govt level by a state environmental bureaucracy that has to a large degree been captured by environmental ideologues.

I am also somewhat bemused by the article author's bio which claims credit for transitioning native forest timber industries to plantations and agroforestry! Where are the plantations and agroforestry plantings that have replaced the red gum industries of NSW and Victoria, or the many other local hardwood timber industries that have been either substantially down-sized or disappeared to satisfy spurious environmental demands?

I emphatically disagree with you NTP, on a whole bunch of levels.

What’s your point about the word ‘unique’?

Are you implying that environmental values have to be unique to be worth protecting?

We had a half-decent regulatory regime under Labor in Queensland, but only after it had been virtual open slather for decades before that and it had become obvious that what was left needed protecting, not only for ecological reasons but for productivity reasons pertaining to soil loss, weed spread, fire management, etc.

This regime stayed in place for many years largely because landholders could see the merit of it.

We absolutely need a strong environmental regulatory regime nationwide. We do NOT have too much red or green tape!! Just the opposite!

We absolutely do NOT need the open-slather economic-growth-at-all-costs regime that you seem to be espousing. Economic growth is not the bottom line. Quality of life and environment should be the bottom line.

Of course we need proper environmental regulation, but we don't need two layers of government regulating the same things.

When the greenies did a deal with the Beattie government to call removing regrowth on previously improved pasture "clearing" & require clearing permits just to undertake farm maintenance, they lost me.

When this maintenance was included in clearing figures, & claimed to be clearing virgin bush by those greenies, & the Beattie/Bligh government, we all knew there was no morality in either camp.

Anyone who trusts a greenie, & particularly the Australian Conservation Foundation, WWF or Greenpeace is as the add goes, "a bloody idiot", & will be screwed.

Lindsay you people made your bed with your constant lying & efforts to screw every one else. Now many enjoy anything that stops you & your kind.

"So with no business case, the question remains of who stands to win by winding back our environment protections?"

The Environment!

So long as protecting the environment remains the business of government (both state and federal), people no longer realise that it should be their own business, for their own good.

At best, some say "no worries, I needn't care or do anything because the government already takes care of the environment", but others go further and say: "Environment is a government thing - so to hell with the environment!".

It would be much more effective if environmental issues would be left to the people. If developers knew that treating the environment badly means that ordinary people wouldn't want to do business with them or with any other companies that deal with them, supporting their environmental destruction, if they knew that black-lists are part of the culture.

People are not born idiots - it is governments that try to turn them into such.

One thing that government can and should do for the environment, is to sell the underground minerals to the farmers who own the land above, rather than to unscrupulous mining companies. Besides the environmental issues, farmers (and other land-owners) should never suffer the invasion of greedy and polluting corporations into their private land without their consent. Unsurveyed under-land should be sold to farmers for the estimated average value of the minerals in their region, while under-lands that were already surveyed are to be priced according to the survey-results. Farmers should be able to obtain their under-land before anyone else, with about 30% discount if they do so within the first year. If they want to allow mining companies to survey/mine their land, it is then up to the farmers and according to their own terms. As a side-effect, Australia's debt would turn into surplus overnight.