The Australian Greens Party will push the Australian Labor Party (ALP) to back key parts of a new Australian Greens environment strategy, including a $2 billion nature fund, in exchange for crucial support of Labor’s climate change policy in the upper house Senate.
Flagging the party’s readiness to negotiate over energy policy if Labor wins the federal election on May 18, the Australian Greens environment spokesperson, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, has said the party was not afraid to use its numbers in the Senate to extract stronger commitments on the environment from Labor leader Bill Shorten.
The Labor leader has announced a baseline and credit scheme for polluters emitting more than 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year using the existing safeguard mechanism, but the party has also promised to provide concessions to trade-exposed heavy industries such as steel, aluminium and liquefied natural gas (LNG).
The Guardian Australia and ABC News report the Australian Greens, whose support may be critical for Labor to pass its climate policy through the Senate even if it wins a majority in the House of Representatives, say the scheme does not go far enough.
The Australian Greens want Labor to scrap plans to allow polluters to buy carbon credits from overseas, while also forcing them to pay for their damage to the environment.
The party is also pushing for a ban on all new coalmines, and wants existing approvals for the controversial Indian conglomerate Adani’s Queensland coalmine project reviewed.
“We’re going to push for the environment to have proper protection to restore our natural world and to make sure those gorgeous creatures, whether they are the whales in the Great Australian Bight or koalas in New South Wales or sea lions currently being assessed as endangered, that those animals are given some priority in terms of protection,” Senator Hanson-Young said.
The Australian Greens climate change spokesman, Adam Bandt, who sits in the lower house, has already expressed frustration with the shadow climate change spokesman, Mark Butler, who declared before the election was called the Australian parliament must end the current stalemate and back Labor’s climate policy in the event of a Labor victory, otherwise politicians will betray the next generation.
Mr Bandt said Labor was in no position to issue ultimatums.
Senator Hanson-Young, who is fighting to keep her South Australian Senate position at next month’s election, unveilled the Australian Greens’ environment policy today along with leader Senator Richard Di Natale .
The centrepiece of the policy is the new nature fund, which would invest $2bn a year to protect Australian flora and fauna from invasive species, create new safe havens for threatened mammals and fund the development of recovery plans for at-risk species.
The fund will also pay for 10,000 qualified “environment managers”, and boost the number of Indigenous rangers.
“In any negotiation with Labor over climate and the environment, we are going to be putting front and centre our extinction crisis and the need to protect and restore our environment,” Senator Hanson-Young told Guardian Australia.
Senator Hanson-Young said there was an expectation from voters that Labor’s environment policy was better than the Liberal Party’s, but Labor needed to come under more pressure to flesh out its plans.
At Labor’s national conference last year, Mr Shorten committed to introducing a new environment act and creating a new federal environmental protection authority after coming under pressure from the party’s Labor Environment Action Network, but is yet to provide details.
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WE’RE BUILDING A PLATFORM WITH A CLEAR FOCUS ON THE ENVIRONMENT, CULTURAL AND SOCIAL GOOD. CONTRIBUTE AND TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE AN IMPACT.
