Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Environment) Share this | Hansard source

This Liberal-National government has neglected the environment at every turn. It has denied and ignored the threat of climate change at every turn. Unbelievably, this week's budget goes further. It doubles down on that incompetence and neglect. One thing that's become super clear through the events of the last couple of years is just how much our well-being is inextricably connected to the health of our environment.

Whether it's the rise of zoonotic diseases like COVID-19 or the frequency and scale of unthinkable natural disasters, Australia has experienced what happens when the balance gets out of whack. The harm to human health is enormous, and there is devastating year-on-year impact to infrastructure and economic activity, yet this budget cuts funding to Australia's clean energy agencies by 35 per cent. From the government that refuses to lift its pathetic emissions target even one inch, we now see the funding for our clean energy agencies cut by more than a third, and there's no commitment to fixing a failed environmental protection framework that has Australia's threatened biodiversity on a trajectory of decline. More and more species are on the brink and the government does nothing.

The Australian people should not put up with this rubbish. The Australian people should hold on to the fact that, if you vote for incompetence, incompetence will continue. We simply cannot afford in this country another three years of environmental and climate change failure, which is all you will ever get from those opposite.

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