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Three Greens senators to cross floor amid internal brawl over contentious koala park plan (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 5 days ago by arbilp3@aussie.zone to c/australianpolitics@aussie.zone

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A controversial plan to allow big industry to use a new koala national park in New South Wales to offset its climate pollution is expected to go ahead after the Greens reached a deal with Labor, and decided not to vote with the Coalition to block it.

But three Greens – Tasmanians Nick McKim, Vanessa Bleyer and Western Australia’s Jordon Steele-John – declared they would cross the floor to oppose the deal on Thursday afternoon.

The minor party and environment advocates have been divided over whether to support a regulation proposed by the NSW government, and introduced by the Albanese government, that lets states earn carbon credits for protecting native forests that had been earmarked for logging.

The Nationals want to kill the regulation, known as a carbon credit method, on the grounds it would hurt the forestry industry. They have introduced a disallowance motion in the Senate.

The Greens have the casting votes. For weeks, they have been split over which way to go. They want the park – a promised 476,000 hectare reserve, including 176,000 ha of newly protected areas - but have been divided over whether it should be allowed to happen this way.

Greens leader Larissa Waters said her party had improved what is known as the improved native forestry management method, but would oppose other upcoming carbon credit legislation that would produce a larger number of credits.

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[–] arbilp3@aussie.zone 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I believe this was a difficult decision for the Greens.

If you think that we should not base forest protection on offsets, you can still let the govt know it. The Australian Institute has a petition out which basically says that

the best way to protect forests is to implement a native forest logging ban. And the best way to tackle climate pollution is to make polluters cut their emissions – not buy cheap dodgy offsets to cook the books.

https://nb.australiainstitute.org.au/forests

[–] geematic@aussie.zone 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Preserve Koala habitat that may be annually burnt out by the effects of global heating, driven in part by the extra carbon burned because of the deal for not chopping it down. Its a shit deal either way. I don't envy anyone making this decision between such poor (and artificially contrived ) outcomes.

[–] arbilp3@aussie.zone 2 points 4 days ago

I take your point about the global heating, etc, but the existing koala habitat (and of many other species) that becomes the KNP will have better chance of survival as a national park than if it's left to its own devices with loggers in its midst. As a national park there will be rangers who will practice cool burning and other practices to protect the forest. We cannot give up.

[–] Ilandar@lemmy.today 5 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Those who wanted the regulation killed included Tasmanian and Western Australian state Greens MPs, the Bob Brown Foundation, the Wilderness Society and the Australia Institute. They say the method fails a basic test: the NSW Labor proposed a koala park near Coffs Harbour a decade before announcing it was dependent on carbon credit revenue, and the offsets created would therefore not represent real additional emissions reductions.

They argue forests should be protected for their intrinsic values, and backing the plan would put capitalism before the environment and set a dangerous precedent for other state governments to not protect the environment unless they received carbon credits.

On the other side are most NSW Greens’ state MPs, a list of NSW and larger conservation groups including WWF, Greenpeace and the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation, some Indigenous organisations and several senior ecologists.

They argue there is no guarantee the park would go ahead as promised if the method was disallowed, and that the benefits of protecting 176,000 hectares of additional forests that are home to more than 100 threatened species and that have been devastated by decades of logging are the most important consideration.

Sounds to me like the correct decision has been reached. Aside from feeling good about themselves, what do the three opposing this actually hope to achieve in reality? Risking a proposed national park in this day and age because you want to protest against carbon credit greenwashing seems moronic.

[–] DrunkenDuckling@lemmus.org 1 points 4 days ago

Risking "a" proposed park is a drop in the bucket in the face of how easily this system can be abused. There are no provisions from making logging claims without any intention of actually logging and thereby claiming "fake" carbon credits.

The damage this does, including severe risks of potential wildfires destroying said park, dramatically outweighs the benefit of one singular park.

[–] budget_biochemist@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I understand why they opposed it, but I think the reasonable thing to do would be to support the park while calling out and vocally opposing the greenwashing part. As the supporters indicate, the benefits of actually having the national park outweigh that issue.

The opponents* keep talking about "setting a precedent" on the carbon credits, but parliament isn't a courtroom and they don't have to abide by precedents at all - arguably they are the part of government that should be most concerned with legislating outdated precedents away when society moves on.

Once again, Greens demonstrating the adage "perfect is the enemy of good".

Edit: clarified words

[–] arbilp3@aussie.zone 4 points 5 days ago

If you're interested, Bob Brown was on TV tonight commenting on what happened in Parliament and he covered a lot of ground in a short time, including 'perfect is the enemy of good'. He's become quite the diplomat. He still has the presence.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/programs/730