As for the large expansion in protected areas of the Great Barrier Reef, I think there is little doubt this is the greatest environmental achievement of the Howard years. I don't know who it is that is arguing "there has been no environmental benefit", but I doubt very much they could produce scientifically verified evidence to demonstrate this.

It is possible that some fishing effort has been transferred to parts of South-East Asia – although I’d like to see solid evidence of that too – but even if that was true, why should that be a reason to have let the Barrier Reef Marine Park continue to be damaged so severely, as it undoubtedly was.

WWF were pleading for more protection for the Reef and the Marine Park, against fishing and onshore impacts. It is a great tribute to them, and others who supported them such as the Queensland Tourism Industry, (which produces far more in jobs and dollars from the Reef than commercial fishing ever would), that they were able to convince the Coalition government to do this.

The fact that the compensation for commercial fishers blew out so much from the original amount is as much to do with the political clout of the fishers and the huge fuss they kicked up as it was to do with under-estimation of the economic value of the industry.

There are some other environmental positives from the Howard-era, most notably the funding program for the National Reserve System. If the Natural Heritage Trust had been run on a more scientific basis, and had not been so infected by day to day politics, ideology and pork-barrelling, it too could have produced enormous gains. As it is, its record is rather patchy. Undoubtedly it has done some good, but as with many other policy areas from the Howard era, there is just as much missed opportunity as lasting legacy.

Jennifer,

Thank you indeed, I enjoyed reading your most interesting and informative paper. It is important to acknowledge the support provided by the Howard Government to environmental maters.

We all live on this planet and therefore, we all should have an interest in our surroundings. Just as nineteenth century public health measures was based on sound science, so to should be our approach to environmental problems. Clearly the environment in which we live (standard of living) depends entirely on good economic management, plentiful supply of energy and a full use of the earth’s resources. I regard it is axiomatic that life to day for most people, even in the most poorest parts of the world, is better then it was one hundred years ago,

Kyoto and global warming (GW) are the issues of the day. Signing Kyoto was a symbolic act and nobody is one jolt better off for the signing. It can now be stated in view of a recent report to US Senate or the recent open letter to Ban Ki-moon that there is no consensus on GW. I believe that as time goes by there will be greater and greater divergence from climate predictions based on current computer models and actual (real) climate events.

I share with the previous Government an enthusiasm for nuclear energy. I do not base this on phoney GW theory. I am impressed with the health and safety record of nuclear power generation especial when compared to alternatives such as coal or hydro. [Refer to the Switkowski report].

I am not against wind or solar power generation, but I do regard them as being both expensive and intermittent sources for power generation

Thank you Jennifer for another sensible article.It has drawn some comments from the silly do-gooders once again.
As a farmer who killed my own animals for meat and whose wife and children raised some of their orphan lambs and calves on bottles,I can see no difference between killing them to eat and the Japanese and Norwegians killing whales to eat.
Some people say it is alright to kill sheep and cattle because they and unintelligent whereas whales are intelligent.How do they know?have they ever raised a whale on a bottle?
Other people say whales are wild creatures and therefore should not be killed whereas sheep and cattle have been raised to be killed,I wonder what they say about fish?

Yeah, well the world's fast running out of wild fish stocks. However, I agree with the comment about the relative sentience of domestic livestock and aquatic mammals. We have a few sheep and cattle and they are certainly individually intelligent, but I still eat meat. In their own way they are as beautiful as whales, dugongs and dolphins.

So long as animals aren't ecologically endangered and can be slaughtered humanely, I have no intrinsic problem with eating them.

That said, how does Marohasy's cynical attempt to elevate Howard retrospectively to the status of an environmentalist sit with other recent observations by those of her political persuasion that Hitler was also an environmentalist?

I think that Howard was an environmentalist in much the same way that Mohammed was a Christian.

The argument against killing whales is surely more to do with the cruel manner in which its done, and of course the fact that many species are endangered. We generally take care to kill our domestic meat animals quickly and painlessly, whereas whales are killed in a manner that is often anything but. Further, even from a utility argument, whale meat is NOT an essential part of anybody's diet (aside from some native Inuit and Sami tribes), whereas they clearly are a source of beauty of inspiration whose presence enriches human existence.
Of course the fact that many species of whale are known to be highly advanced cerebral and nervous systems that would indicate they are capable of levels of pain, fear and suffering similar to humans comes into the equation also. Fish, for instance, lack such "advanced" systems, and while some species may be capable of a sensation of pain (this is still a debateable point), there appears little evidence that they suffer particularly from most methods of catching.

Having said all that, it's clear that many environmentalists don't always have a lot of cold, hard logic to back up their positions. But I wonder should cold, hard logic always be necessary when talking about the preservation of beauty and avoidance of cruelty?
All animals engage in destructive behaviour of course, but none manage it to anything like the extent that humans do, and I don't see much wrong with trying our best to limit the extent of our destructive tendencies.

CJ Morgan,
You have hit the nail on the head mate, there were ways Howard resembled Hitler but environmentalist was not one of them.