Media Releases | 23rd Nov, 2006

Bracks victory welcomed but time for action

Thursday, 23 November 2006

Leading environment groups today released their assessment of the main political parties’ policy commitments on the environment in the lead up to the November 25 poll.

The score card measures the parties on three key tests – Tackle Climate Change, Protect Forests and Biodiversity and Secure Water and Healthy Rivers.

“The score card shows the major parties are well behind the Greens and People Power on environment policy. Overall, the Greens had the best suite of environmental commitments, followed by People Power, then the ALP, then the Liberals,” said Cam Walker, Campaign Director, Friends of the Earth.

“The ALP is ahead of the Liberals on climate policy but Labor’s failure to develop mid term 2020 targets for greenhouse pollution reductions means it did not receive full marks. Clearly both major parties are struggling to develop a policy response to adequately address the climate change challenge,” said Greenpeace climate campaigner Mark Wakeham.

“On old growth forests, the Liberals and the ALP have made similar modest commitments to protect old growth forests and completely ignored the problems caused by logging in water catchments,” said Gavin McFadzean, Campaign Manager of The Wilderness Society.

“The ALP scores well for its commitments to protect the Cobboboonee and Redgum forests,” said Charlie Sherwin Director of the Victorian National Parks Association.

“The ALP gets full points for its water saving targets, while the Liberals scored poorly with no targets to reduce water use and for placing most of its policy emphasis on environmentally destructive dams and desalination,” said Marcus Godinho, Executive Director from Environment Victoria.

“For parties keen to show they are serious about securing water supplies both Labor and Liberal parties have failed to address the issue of logging in water catchments, which can reduce water yield by up to 20,000 million litres per year,” Matt Ruchel said.

The National Party and Family First scored poorly across all categories. A detailed assessment can be viewed here.