Australia is about to lose vital environmental protections – unless you act now.
Please make a tax-deductible donation today to fight this unprecedented threat to our environment and community rights.
Big business and the mining industry are on the attack
Right now, hard won environmental protections are under unprecedented attack.
Under pressure from big business and the mining industry, federal and state governments have recently announced an aggressive plan to wind back critical environmental protection laws that protect our land, water and wildlife.
This plan, if it goes ahead, will remove essential federal protection for threatened species and accelerate mining and coal seam gas development in our forests, woodlands and rural landscapes.
We cannot stand by and let this happen.
Please donate now to stop this assult on our environmental laws.
In the guise of ‘cutting green tape' government and industry propose to hand important federal approval powers to the states, and fast track approvals for large developments, including coal mines and coal seam gas fields.
Setting environmental protection back 30 years
Handing federal powers to the states will put iconic natural places and threatened wildlife at risk. It will set environment protection in this country back 30 years.
Since the days of the Franklin Dam campaign, the federal government has played an essential role in protecting Australia’s wild places and native wildlife.
From the wild rivers of Tasmania to the tropical rainforests of the Daintree, it has been federal government intervention that has saved our country’s most iconic natural areas from destructive development proposals backed by state governments.
Recently, Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke made headlines with a high profile war of words with the Queensland government, following the state’s decision to approve a massive coal mine proposal that threatens the Great Barrier Reef.
Minister Burke slammed the Queensland government’s environmental assessment process, and has used his powers under federal environmental law to ‘stop the clock’ on the proposed mine.
The Minister’s intervention underscores the critical importance of strong national laws to protect our environment.
Today, more than ever, we need strong national laws to protect our environment.
Alarmingly, industry lobbyists have not been limiting their efforts to the federal arena.
The rapid and unrestrained expansion of the mining and gas industry poses a very real threat to our water resources, native wildlife and productive farmland. Yet state governments have consistently failed to introduce strong measures to restrain these destructive industries.
The fate of our iconic Pilliga forest hangs in the balance, with Santos proposing to build an enormous coal seam gas field stretching across 85,000 hectares of publicly owned forest. With the NSW Government backing Santos’ proposal, the future of the Pilliga’s unique native wildlife depends on Tony Burke, the federal environment minister.
Right now, Minister Burke has the power to stop environmentally destructive developments like the Pilliga gas field. But his government wants to give that all away.
Please donate now to protect our environment
In New South Wales, developers and mining interests are taking advantage of a review of our environmental assessment laws to attack important environmental protections and undermine community rights to participate in planning and development decisions.
They've argued for public consultation requirements to be removed from state planning legislation.
So if you and I let industry have its way, essential environmental protections will be swept away, and local communities will be left voiceless in the face of developments that threaten their way of life.
We must fight back
We’ve come too far on environmental protection to give up now. Click here to make a donation to fight back against this attack on community rights and the environment.
Your gift will help to build a national campaign to stop the federal government from walking away from its environmental responsibilities.
To complement our work at the national level, we are leading efforts to make our state’s environmental laws stronger, not weaker. By making a donation today:
- You will enable NCC to work with members and supporters to demonstrate public support for effective environmental and planning laws.
- You will help NCC provide training, information resources and support for members and supporters to help them send a strong signal to the state government.
- You will help NCC act as the voice for the environment in public debates about the future of our environmental laws.
With your support, we will lobby key decision makers, provide informed media commentary, mobilise supporters and help our members take action in their local area. We’re preparing useful campaign resources for our members, and we’ve recently finished a new law reform report.
We have articulated a positive vision of a modern planning system that protects the environment and engages the community, but unless we stand up now, and push back hard, our environmental laws will be weakened, and so many of our treasured places will be lost.
Our country deserves stronger environmental laws, not weaker ones. Please donate today to support our campaign for environmental laws that work.
The great conservationist Gerald Durrell observed that, “The world is as delicate and as complicated as a spider’s web. If you touch one thread, you send shudders running through the other threads. We are not just touching the web. We are tearing great holes in it.”
Please donate now to fight this unprecedented threat to our environment and our community right to have a say.
