The start of the Liberals’ stadium austerity era is bad news for Tasmania’s environment and climate. Protection for the environment and climate measures are stripped, laying bare the government’s warped priorities as they scrimp for their stadium.
The State of the Environment report, released more than a year ago, presented a dire picture. Yet this budget has no funding for the remedies desperately needed.
The Liberals continue the major party tradition of subsidising Forestry Tasmania’s destruction of critical carbon stores, biodiverse native forests.
There’s no extra funding for the EPA to regulate the salmon industry, despite last summer’s marine catastrophe. Have they learnt nothing?
Despite the looming extinction crisis, the Liberals have slashed funding to threatened species and biosecurity. Even the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot program has been given the chop.
While additional investment was included in May’s scrapped budget for parks and reserves, that’s now been stripped to the bare minimum for necessary safety upgrades. The $40 million prioritised for a wrong-place, wrong-time walk in the Tyndalls, however, is still on the books.
With summer weeks away, Tasmanians would expect the Liberals to ramp up their response to climate extremes. But there’s barely a cent to fund community resilience and volunteer support.
The Liberals’ priorities are not only all wrong, they also fail to acknowledge the true condition of Tasmania’s environment. The stadium austerity era is here. Big corporations and businesses won’t feel the pain, but the Liberals’ budget cuts will strike the community and nature equally hard.
