SYDNEY, May 20 2020 – A plan by the Morrison Government and the fossil fuel industry-stacked Covid-19 Coordination Commission to destroy environmental protections and give tax cuts to gas producers will provoke more extreme weather events like bushfires and see more native wildlife sacrificed.This afternoon Industry Minister Karen Andrews told the National Press Club in Canberra that the Morrison Government planned to use the Coronavirus pandemic to reward some of the nation’s biggest polluters with tax breaks and reduced oversight of climate-destroying projects.
“Just a day after the Coalition signalled its intention to gift more taxpayer money to coal barons for the carbon capture and storage pipe dream, it’s concerning that they also want to rip up the rulebook so fossil gas companies can poison our water and continue to exacerbate the climate crisis without scrutiny,” Greenpeace Australia Pacific Head of Research and Investigations, Dr Nikola Casule said.
“With much of the country still recovering from the coal-fired bushfire crisis, the Morrison Government is prioritising winding back already weak environmental protections and giving even more generous tax breaks to cashed-up miners while government revenue nosedives.
“This crisis has exposed the Morrison Government and its disaster opportunism. Rather than protecting the Australian people and our irreplaceable natural environment, the government is seeking to prop up and extend the life of polluting industries like coal and gas.”
“Australia has a pivotal opportunity to put renewable energy at the centre of economic recovery plans and support diverse, future-facing industries which will reduce our emissions, grow jobs and support climate action, as recommended by everyone from the International Energy Agency to the Big Four banks – all that stands in the way is the Government’s hand-picked fossil-heavy Covid Commission.”
Notes
Watch Greenpeace’s documentary film on how the coal industry, Coalition and sections of the media helped fuel the 2019/20 bushfire crisis, Dirty Power: Burnt Country, and download the report here
Online media pack available here
Contacts
Greenpeace Australia Pacific Communications Campaigner, Martin Zavan
0424 295 422