Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Three prominent ecological scientists assessed this week's budget in an article in the Conversation this morning. Sarah Bekessy, Brendan Wintle and Rachel Morgain were blunt. They noted that the government 'has made bold environmental promises over the last year', including 'ending new extinctions, fixing national nature laws and protecting 30 per cent of our land and waters'. But they said that the budget 'falls well short of what is needed' and that 'Australia's threatened species and ecosystems will not survive more funding neglect.' They say:

… budget spending does not represent the substantial increase to existing funding needed to halt biodiversity declines or recover threatened species.

They noted:

… Australia must spend $2 billion a year to save its 1,900 most-imperilled species. And an additional $2 billion a year for 30 years could also restore 13 million hectares of Australia's degraded land.

So where is the commitment to finalising and implementing recovery plans for Leadbeater's possums, greater gliders and swift parrots—species being decimated by native forest logging? Ensuring their future is our future.

I want to finish by quoting the lyrics of a wonderful Melbourne band, Sunfruits. Their words from their album One Degree, which was launched last weekend, should echo to all of us here. From 'Made To Love':

Fire in my throat, I'm choking on my breath,

Trying to find a way out of this godforsaken mess.

Would you search for me in rubble and in smoke?

Hope we wake one day and this is all a joke.

From 'End of the World':

Won't you stay with me and watch the end of the world?

We can cry happily together.

Won't you sit with me and hold my hand real tight?

We can close our eyes and everything will be just fine.

Oh, it feels like this is it,

The very first year of the apocalypse.

Oh, I will see you at the end of the world

Dippin' your toes into the inferno.

I think we all need to listen up to young people and the fear that they are expressing in the environmental catastrophes that we're facing. (Time expired)