On the third anniversary of the election of the Coalition Government, Environment Victoria has today released its final audit of the state Coalition’s progress in meeting its election promises. The annual audit ‘Envirowatch’ assesses the state Coalition Government’s performance in delivering on its key environmental election promises. It also includes actions the government has taken that were not flagged before the election.
Environment Victoria’s CEO Kelly O’Shanassy said today:
“Overall it’s been a terrible three years for Victoria’s environment under the state Coalition. The current government lacks a positive agenda for environment protection and climate change, and in some critical areas, is taking Victoria backwards.
“As we head into an election year, the Coalition’s track record in government has been backwards steps and broken promises on the environment.
“13 key Coalition election promises such as improving the energy efficiency of Victoria’s housing stock to 5 stars and delivering on Victoria’s greenhouse pollution reduction target of 20 per cent by 2020 have been broken in government. Meanwhile we’ve had a series of backwards steps including commercialising National Parks for private interests such as grazing or development, reducing government support for solar and wind power and scrapping greenhouse pollution standards for new power stations.”
Ms O’Shanassy said that while the Coalition has shown it is capable of making good environmental decisions with a strong urban water efficiency agenda and the recently announced moratorium on fracking, overall the government’s legacy would be taking Victoria’s environment protection backwards by decades.
“Unfortunately positive environmental action by the state Coalition has been the exception rather than the rule. With actions such as abandoning action on climate change and commercialising national parks, the government is putting the jobs, health and wealth of all Victorians as risk.
“For the Coalition to have any credibility on the environment at the 2014 election, it would require a massive turnaround in approach, beginning with dropping plans for a coal allocation in the Latrobe Valley and scrapping Ted Baillieu’s anti-wind farm laws.”
The audit, entitled ‘Envirowatch 2013: Three years in’, found that of the 58 environmental policy commitments made ahead of the election:
It also assessed 31 significant environmental actions that were not part of the Coalition’s election platform, and found that:
“This audit shows a government out of touch with the Victorian community. Independent polling undertaken for Environment Victoria shows that the clear majority of Victorians expect that the state government to protect their environment, not destroy it.”
For further information or comment
Kelly O’Shanassy, Environment Victoria CEO, 0421 054 402