E&OE….
Topics: Threatened Species Summit, National Threatened Species Strategy, Shenhua Watermark mine approval, Labor’s plan to bring back a carbon tax.
GREG HUNT:
So I’m delighted to announce that we are setting a goal of halt and reverse the decline in our threatened species. This is about protecting the bilby, the bettong, the bandicoot, some of our magnificent bird species such as the helmeted honeyeater, the regent honeyeater, the orange-bellies parrot. We are drawing a line in the sand today which says on our watch, in our time, no more species extinction. It’s tough and it’s a challenge.
We can do much and we can do better and what we’ve set out today is a National Threatened Species Strategy which is about bringing together everybody – the Commonwealth, the States, the Territories, local government, but in particular the community. Citizen scientists, citizen conservationists, NGO’s working together. We have a national goal of protecting our threatened species.
It’s backed with all up what has been $110 million of funding, is now $116.5 million in funding. So we are adding an additional $6.5 million of threatened species projects today including new enclosures in the Northern Territory, in other States we are focussing in particular on recovery plans for the orange-bellies parrot, we are focussing on activity that will help the bettong, the bandicoot.
So these are all the things we are doing, but we can do a lot as a government, but we can do most if it’s a combination of the Commonwealth, States and the community together. Citizen scientists, citizen conservationists, that’s how we protect Australia’s threatened species going forwards. Gregory?
GREGORY ANDREWS:
Thank you Minister. Minister Hunt appointed me a year ago as Australia’s first Threatened Species Commissioner and when he did that he gave me a headline KPI of helping the declining Australia’s threatened species and this strategy today that is being launched kick-starts that process. It’s based on scientific evidence, it’s based on science, actions and partnerships. We all have a role to play and the Strategy today will set that in place.
GREG HUNT:
Great. Any questions?
JOURNALIST:
(Inaudible)
GREG HUNT:
Well, we’ve contributed $116 million, what I’d like to see is additional funding from others. The whole idea here is putting out a prospectus. We’ve already funded 20 projects, we’re announcing another 20 that we’re supporting today, but then there are other projects that we want to encourage the community, the private philanthropists, because I think the New Zealand model is a tremendous example for Australia of where some of their wealthiest people have said we want to own and sponsor particular projects and we want to encourage, with this prospectus, private philanthropic, NGO, community and State and Territory additional support.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Hunt, this morning you told Alan Jones you’ll block the Shenhua coal mine if you’ve got concerns about water. Can you explain how that would work?
GREG HUNT:
Well the approval, as it was published, is actually a conditional approval. It can’t proceed unless the three plans which are proposed and which are required under law are submitted and approved and what I have said today is that I will take those plans and in particular the water management plan and submit that to the Independent Expert Scientific Committee and give them an additional, final right of approval on that front. And what’s absolutely fundamental here is this has always been a conditional approval.
That might’ve been omitted from some of the commentary but we require a water management plan, we require a recovery plan, we require additional plans which ensure there is an absolute, complete assessment and treatment of all of the elements raised by the Independent Expert Scientific Committee. Those were the things that were there in the original conditions, they remain there now. I’m pleased that there’s a recognition that that is actually the case.
JOURNALIST:
Minister, can you give a rock solid guarantee that after the next election some very large emitters won’t be paying a price on carbon?
GREG HUNT:
Well if we’re elected there will be no carbon tax and there will be no carbon price. If Labor’s elected there will be a carbon tax and not just every emitter, but every household will be paying a carbon tax and an electricity tax.
JOURNALIST:
So you’re ruling, you’re giving a guarantee that very large emitters won’t have to pay for any of their emissions after the election. Is that the case? Is that a guarantee?
GREG HUNT:
Under us, there will be no carbon tax and I can guarantee that. Under Labor, there will be a carbon tax and I can guarantee that.
JOURNALIST:
What about a price of some kind, a price of some type?
GREG HUNT:
Well I’m not into Labor’s word games. Whether we talk about a carbon tax, a carbon price, an emissions trading scheme, we’ve ruled those out, Labor’s ruled those in and what we’ve seen today is very interesting. Yesterday, there was a vicious leak from within the shadow cabinet designed to either kill the tax or kill Bill, they’ll work that out themselves. And what that showed is they didn’t just have a plan for a carbon tax, they had a secret plan for a carbon tax.
They were going to take the general notion that they call it an ETS to an election, but they wouldn’t tell people how much it would hurt, but they can see that it would hurt. And today, we see after Bill Shorten’s denial, another report, sourced from within the shadow cabinet, in Fairfax saying ‘we will not walk back from this plan’. And so the plan exists, it’s going to be implemented, it’s going to hit Australian families and they will not walk back from it and there is a mass division and the shadow cabinet is now in a massive open rupture.
JOURNALIST:
What about a price on emissions from some electricity generators? Can you absolutely rule out the Coalition, after the next election, might make some electricity generators pay for some of their emissions? Given that that’s a proposal you’re already considering (inaudible)?
GREG HUNT:
Well we are not having a carbon tax, a carbon price, any forms of charges. Our budget…
JOURNALIST:
No charges on any sector?
GREG HUNT:
Let me be clear – our plan has never changed. We have been consistent now for almost six years, we’ve had an utterly consistent plan. We’ve just had the world’s arguably most successful emissions reduction fund auction ever – 47 million tonnes. That plan, that project, that approach will be our approach indefinitely. Labor’s approach indefinitely will be a carbon tax…
JOURNALIST:
(Inaudible) taxpayer’s funds, Mr Hunt, for Bronwyn Bishop to use a chopper to travel to a fundraising event?
GREG HUNT:
Look, I don’t have the details and on that basis it wouldn’t be sensible of me to comment.
GREGORY ANDREWS:
If I can comment on the question of funding the Strategy, the answer to that is the Commissioner model works. Since Minister Hunt appointed me, the Commonwealth Government’s mobilised some $80 million for threatened species and $30 million for the National Environmental Science Programme, Australia’s first ever Threatened Species Recovery Hub to fund practical science-based action and today Minister Hunt’s announcing $6.6 million to kick-start the Strategy.
JOURNALIST:
(Inaudible)
GREG HUNT:
Well actually we have a series of components. Firstly there’s the 20 Million Trees, secondly we have the Green Army. The Green Army, by the way, has 270 out of 330 commenced projects that have a threatened species component. Habitat restoration is a fundamental element of so many of the Green Army projects.
Thirdly we have specific announcements today in relation to habitat restoration and we’re doing that both on the mainland and on islands and so those are all critical and in any assessment, of course, there is frequently a requirement of additional habitat restoration under the Federal Environment Act.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Hunt, (inaudible) today in the Toolangi – a fresh area of the Toolangi State Forest which is environment of the Leadbeater’s Possum. What do you make of that given it’s one of the species you have listed?
GREG HUNT:
Well I think the Victorian Government should very urgently explain what they’re doing, why they’re doing it and what guarantees they’re putting in place. Ok thank you very much.
(ENDS)