Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Kevin Rudd to ‘Save’ Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

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An extensive plan to save Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has been announced by Prime Minister John Howard’s main rival in the forthcoming elections.

He announced the A$200m (£90m, US$185.5m) plan while on a glass-bottomed boat tour of the reef in Queensland in the north-east of the country.

Mr Rudd said the bulk of the fund, A$146m (£65.4m), will go towards a water quality grants scheme to encourage landowners to adapt more environmentally-friendly agricultural practices.

Read the rest of ‘Rudd unveils Barrier Reef plan’ on the BBC News Website.

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Comments

  1. So collectively the farmers will be paid $146 million to do what they should have done in the first place? Or is it an admission that the Queensland Labor government was lazy at specifying allowable run-offs from farmland onto the reef?

  2. Good ole Kevvie!

    First he’s going to restore our national credibility by signing a treaty whose obligations we’ve already met but he won’t sign a future treaty that doesn’t create obligations for reductions on all major emissions though his environmental spokesman says we will before he said we won’t.

    The other good news from tonight’s 7.30 Report is that making these massive changes in our energy production won’t cost any jobs.

    Whew!

    I got my Kevin 07 tee shirt today – now I just need it auotographed.

  3. Political expediency at its best – get the voice-pop and leverage to the max. End result – nothing but a waste of public money.

    I just wonder if there ever again will be somebody who will say that drought in Australia is a fact of life and will have a vision to build dams, pipelines and yes even de-sal, solar and wind infrastrucure to ameliorate.

  5. Regarding the specific issue of GBR water quality (which is the focus of this particular piece of pork-barreling), you can read about the magnitude of the scam in a paper by Bob Carter entitled “GREAT NEWS FOR THE GREAT BARRIER REEF: TULLY RIVER WATER QUALITY”, at:

    Even the Productivity Commission has been forced to conclude that no there is no evidence demonstrating a decline of GBR water quality over recent years (or since European settlement, for that matter).

    Rudd’s environmental policies – being rooted in political expediency, and promulgated by a shadow minister known for zealotry rather than logic – are entirely innocent of any realistic grasp of the science involved.

    Cathy