Northern Territory election: environment groups issue policy report card

The Wilderness Society Inc
Environment Centre of the Northern Territory
Australian Marine Conservation Society
Australian Conservation Foundation

Media Release
8th August 2008

A coalition of environment groups this morning issued a report card assessing the policies of the political parties on the eve of the NT election. The report card was published in this morning’s NT News.

The report card assessed environmental policies against a range of issues including landclearing, the protection of Darwin Harbour, the protection of rivers, nuclear and uranium issues, and climate change.

The report card put the Greens in front of the major parties and rated the ALP slightly ahead of the Country Liberals.

  Download '2008 NT Election Report Card' (PDF 672 KB)

Charles Roche from the Environment Centre NT said “we hope this joint scorecard will assist people to ‘vote for the environment’ and we invite the public to keep the pressure on whoever is elected to keep their environmental promises. It is clear that Territorians place a high value on their rivers and they are demanding strong action. Unfortunately there is little to distinguish the parties’ policies with no clear direction for protecting rivers in the next 4 years.”

Adele Pedder from the Australian Conservation Foundation said “this election provides the opportunity for Territorians to send a clear message to Canberra that we don’t want a nuclear waste dump imposed on the Territory.”

Prue Barnard from the Australian Marine Conservation Society said “Northern Territory’s precious marine environment is under increasing pressure. No party’s policy adequately protects our marine environment. This is particularly so in respect to the Darwin Harbour where some parties plan to rapidly industrialise the harbour at the expense of the harbour’s health.”

Lyndon Schneiders from The Wilderness Society said “The Territory needs strong Landclearing laws. Although both major parties made undertakings to restrict landclearing, we have rated the ALP ahead due to strong commitments to maintain the Daly River region moratorium and to ensure that any further land clearing on the Tiwi Islands will only proceed after a full and public Environmental Impact Assessment process.”

The groups complimented the Country Liberals leader Terry Mills for adopting a far more moderate and sensible environmental platform than had been the case in the past.