Zero detail, zero funding for environment and heritage from NSW Labor
Unsurprisingly, the NSW Labor Leader failed to deliver any detail of environment policies in his speech to the Labor Party Conference, and didn’t even mention his heritage agenda at all.
This comes after the NSW Labor Leader failed to mention the words “environment” or “heritage” in his budget reply speech in June.
In an extremely brief nod to the environment portfolio in just two paragraphs of a 15-page speech today, the NSW Labor Leader claimed: “We will save, protect and restore our precious native species, lands and water.”
He failed to follow this claim up with any detail whatsoever.
“Today, we saw the continuation of a theme from NSW Labor. No detail, no funding and nowhere to be seen on the environment or heritage,” Mr Griffin said.
“What a total disappointment for anyone passionate about the environment, or interested in a battle of policy ideas - because there are none from NSW Labor.
“I was shocked when the NSW Labor Leader failed to mention environment or heritage, or commit any funding to either of these critical portfolios in his NSW budget reply speech.
“And I’d like to say I was shocked today too, when he failed to provide any detail whatsoever on environment, and then didn’t even mention the heritage portfolio. But this is just more of the same old NSW Labor party – no details, no funding, and no new ideas.
“NSW Labor pretends to care about the environment and heritage in NSW, but do you know how many times I’ve been asked about environment or heritage in question time by the opposition? Zero - since December 2021.
“They should ask me about how much land we’ve added to the national parks estate since 2019 - the answer is more than 600,000 hectares.
“They should ask me about how many feral-free rewilding areas we’re establishing in NSW to protect locally extinct and threatened species.
“The answer is seven, covering more than 65,000 hectares of national parks that will be free from feral predators, and provide a significant conservation benefit for more than 50 species.
“And through our rewilding sites, it’s incredible to see that in just three years, we’re on track to remove at least 10 animals from the NSW extinct list – the first time this will have happened anywhere in the world.
“They should ask me about how NSW is leading the country in developing policies and frameworks to value our biodiversity and natural capital.
“But they won’t, because they don’t want to hear all the great environment and heritage initiatives that the NSW Government is continuing to deliver.”
Since January this year, the NSW Government:
- has invested more than $2 billion through the NSW Budget in programs focusing on environment and heritage protection and conservation
- has delivered more than $190 million through the NSW Koala Strategy, which is the biggest investment in any single species by any government in Australia
- has developed a nation-leading draft Natural Capital Statement of Intent, which will soon be finalised
- has created a $206.2 million Sustainable Farming Program, to encourage farmers to use sustainable land management practices while improving biodiversity and lowering emissions
- is delivering a $106.7 million Biodiversity Credits Supply Fund, which will ultimately pay landholders for generating biodiversity offset credits, while conserving biodiversity
- banned single-use plastic bags, with even more problematic single-use items to be banned from 1 November
- rolled out the $5 million NSW Blue Plaques program to celebrate the people and stories that shaped our State
- committed $18.5 million to expand Beachwatch to ensure community expectations for monitoring the quality of water at swimming spots state-wide are met
- invested $42.9 million for the Me-Mel (Goat Island) Remediation, paving the way for the transfer of the island to the First Nations communities.
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