A Liberal National party
plan to spend $4m on a Great Barrier Reef marketing campaign if it
takes power in Queensland has drawn fire as an attempt at “greenwashing”
in a void of climate policy.
The LNP leader, Tim Nicholls, said the advertising was to “overcome the misleading green activist scare campaigns which have talked down our greatest natural wonder”.
One of Queensland’s biggest tourism drawcards, the reef has suffered coral loss from an unprecedented two consecutive years of mass bleaching events since it avoided an “in danger” listing by Unesco in 2015.
While the reef has shown signs of recovery amid predictions it will be spared a third mass bleaching this summer, researchers have found water quality improvements – the main bipartisan element of Australia’s Reef 2050 conservation plan – offer no protection against underwater heatwaves.
Labor – which has limited new ports and banned the dumping of dredge spoil in world heritage waters since taking office in 2015 – has called for the federal government to act on carbon emissions to tackle climate change, the reef’s greatest threat.
In the meantime, the Palaszczuk government has vowed if re-elected to push through deforestation controls which a hung state parliament previously rejected –after Labor put them forward as another key plank of the hastily reworked reef conservation plan that swayed Unesco.
The LNP opposes the clearing reforms – a cheap way of cutting emissions but politically fraught in the bush – and One Nation, which could deliver Nicholls minority government, has promised to push for even existing controls to be scrapped.
The state environment minister, Steven Miles, said it was “frankly outrageous the LNP’s only reef policy is a greenwash campaign with $4m of taxpayer dollars”.
“We are only just now turning around the damage done by Newman and Nicholls last time the LNP were in office,” Miles, who has defended green groups holding government to account, told the Guardian.
“They’ve fought us tooth and nail, but the World Heritage Committee specifically recognised the progress made by Labor in contrast to the previous government.”
Miles said the LNP proposal was a rehash of a similar $2m campaign when Newman government research found there was “an issue of trust” with public perception on the government’s relationship with the reef.
The research found two in five residents did not trust that the government was doing all it could to protect the reef, while one in three did not trust what the government said on the reef.
“They tried this last time when Tim Nicholls was Campbell Newman’s right-hand man,” Miles said.
“They invested millions of taxpayers’ dollars only to find out nothing they could say would convince Queenslanders the LNP cared about the reef.”
The Palaszczuk government has attempted to balance its environmental protection record with support for the Adani Carmichael mine in the hopes it will help provide solutions for a job-drought economy.
Environmental activist groups maintain the government can’t have it both ways.
The reef remains crucial to Queensland’s economy, particularly in north Queensland, which welcomes 2.4m visitors each year, for an industry worth $3.1bn to the state economy, directly employing 24,000 people in the region.
But warmer than average sea temperatures, coming after a particularly intense cyclone season, has meant only 7% of the reef, the world’s largest living structure, has escaped coral bleaching.
That, combined with coal-supportive governments, has led to international pleas to save the reef, amid fears tourists believe the reef is no longer worth the trip.
GetUp, one of the most vocal groups campaigning to “save the reef”, which includes pushing for support for climate change policies, said it was not a “scare campaign” to reveal what was occurring.
“It is absolutely not a scare campaign at all, we need to see action on climate change in order to preserve the tens of thousands of tourism jobs, Queensland GetUp campaigner Ellen Roberts said.
“The responsible approach to the reef is to begin talking about climate change and the LNP is missing in action on that.
“They don’t have a climate change policy and that is where they need to start, not a publicly funded spin campaign.”
The Greens South Brisbane candidate, Amy MacMahon, said giving “$4m of public money to an ad agency” was a “meaningless stunt [that] shows how out of touch the LNP are”.
“If they want to protect the reef and create jobs they’d invest in publicly owned renewable energy and stop Adani,” she said.
Daniel Gschwind, the chief executive of the Queensland Tourism Industry council, said the body welcomed promotion of “this iconic asset but we also urge all parties to commit the necessary funds to maintain and build the resilience of the reef for the long term”.
A report commissioned by the QTIC with Queensland Farmers Federation and WWF last year estimated the annual investment needed to maintain the reef by managing water quality and other adverse impacts was $574m.
Gschwind said this was “well above the current $200m commitment from state and federal governments” but ultimatley “a small price to pay with reef tourism generating $6 bn annually for Queensland while supporting 64,000 jobs”.
The LNP leader, Tim Nicholls, said the advertising was to “overcome the misleading green activist scare campaigns which have talked down our greatest natural wonder”.
One of Queensland’s biggest tourism drawcards, the reef has suffered coral loss from an unprecedented two consecutive years of mass bleaching events since it avoided an “in danger” listing by Unesco in 2015.
While the reef has shown signs of recovery amid predictions it will be spared a third mass bleaching this summer, researchers have found water quality improvements – the main bipartisan element of Australia’s Reef 2050 conservation plan – offer no protection against underwater heatwaves.
Labor – which has limited new ports and banned the dumping of dredge spoil in world heritage waters since taking office in 2015 – has called for the federal government to act on carbon emissions to tackle climate change, the reef’s greatest threat.
In the meantime, the Palaszczuk government has vowed if re-elected to push through deforestation controls which a hung state parliament previously rejected –after Labor put them forward as another key plank of the hastily reworked reef conservation plan that swayed Unesco.
The LNP opposes the clearing reforms – a cheap way of cutting emissions but politically fraught in the bush – and One Nation, which could deliver Nicholls minority government, has promised to push for even existing controls to be scrapped.
The state environment minister, Steven Miles, said it was “frankly outrageous the LNP’s only reef policy is a greenwash campaign with $4m of taxpayer dollars”.
“We are only just now turning around the damage done by Newman and Nicholls last time the LNP were in office,” Miles, who has defended green groups holding government to account, told the Guardian.
“They’ve fought us tooth and nail, but the World Heritage Committee specifically recognised the progress made by Labor in contrast to the previous government.”
Miles said the LNP proposal was a rehash of a similar $2m campaign when Newman government research found there was “an issue of trust” with public perception on the government’s relationship with the reef.
The research found two in five residents did not trust that the government was doing all it could to protect the reef, while one in three did not trust what the government said on the reef.
“They tried this last time when Tim Nicholls was Campbell Newman’s right-hand man,” Miles said.
“They invested millions of taxpayers’ dollars only to find out nothing they could say would convince Queenslanders the LNP cared about the reef.”
The Palaszczuk government has attempted to balance its environmental protection record with support for the Adani Carmichael mine in the hopes it will help provide solutions for a job-drought economy.
Environmental activist groups maintain the government can’t have it both ways.
The reef remains crucial to Queensland’s economy, particularly in north Queensland, which welcomes 2.4m visitors each year, for an industry worth $3.1bn to the state economy, directly employing 24,000 people in the region.
But warmer than average sea temperatures, coming after a particularly intense cyclone season, has meant only 7% of the reef, the world’s largest living structure, has escaped coral bleaching.
That, combined with coal-supportive governments, has led to international pleas to save the reef, amid fears tourists believe the reef is no longer worth the trip.
GetUp, one of the most vocal groups campaigning to “save the reef”, which includes pushing for support for climate change policies, said it was not a “scare campaign” to reveal what was occurring.
“It is absolutely not a scare campaign at all, we need to see action on climate change in order to preserve the tens of thousands of tourism jobs, Queensland GetUp campaigner Ellen Roberts said.
“The responsible approach to the reef is to begin talking about climate change and the LNP is missing in action on that.
“They don’t have a climate change policy and that is where they need to start, not a publicly funded spin campaign.”
The Greens South Brisbane candidate, Amy MacMahon, said giving “$4m of public money to an ad agency” was a “meaningless stunt [that] shows how out of touch the LNP are”.
“If they want to protect the reef and create jobs they’d invest in publicly owned renewable energy and stop Adani,” she said.
Daniel Gschwind, the chief executive of the Queensland Tourism Industry council, said the body welcomed promotion of “this iconic asset but we also urge all parties to commit the necessary funds to maintain and build the resilience of the reef for the long term”.
A report commissioned by the QTIC with Queensland Farmers Federation and WWF last year estimated the annual investment needed to maintain the reef by managing water quality and other adverse impacts was $574m.
Gschwind said this was “well above the current $200m commitment from state and federal governments” but ultimatley “a small price to pay with reef tourism generating $6 bn annually for Queensland while supporting 64,000 jobs”.
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