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December 24, 2003
I have lifted this from the Crikey.com.au mailout. It is by Greg Barnes, who picks up on an earlier article in The Australian by Jamie Walker. Walker's article was about how Drew Hutton's Queensland Greens were closely tied to the Beattie ALP Government.
'Closely tied' means a question mark hovers over the relationship between the Australian Greens and the ALP.
Greg Barns argues that Drew Hutton's Queensland Greens are the new face of Beattie Labor, as they prepared to help the Beattie Government back into power despite its appalling environmental record. On this interpretation the Greens in Queensland are little more than the fifth faction of the ALP, as Drew Hutton has already offered the ALP the Greens preferences in next year's State and Federal poll. The Greens have a record of this: they directed their preferences to the ALP in 27 out of 31 seats they contested in the 2001 Queensland State Election (including 10 marginal seats) and 110 of the 150 seats they contested (including all 37 marginal seats) at the last Federal Election.
Barnes says that the Beattie Government does not deserve the support of the environment movement as it has failed to keep most of its promises on the environment, including promises made by Federal Leader Kim Beazley at the 2001 election. He says that the Beattie Government has:
..."* dithered on land clearing, resulting in five years of panic clearing by landholders ahead of its long delayed legislation;
* failed to match the $15 million offered by the Federal Government ...for protecting the Great Barrier Reef;
* cut funding to the Environmental Protection Agency this year by $10 million (or 4%);
* opposed the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and continued to build coal fired power stations despite their greenhouse impact;
* failed to stop inappropriate coastal developments such as Trinity Inlet in Cairns and Eastpoint in Mackay;
* insisted on building the environmentally destructive Paradise Dam on the Burnett River and failed to increase environmental flows into the Murray-Darling."
I concur with Barnes judgement that this is hardly an environmental record worthy of rewarding with Green preferences, and that in these circumstances a vote for the Greens is, at the end of the day, simply a vote for Beattie Labor!
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You obviously believe everything you read. Having seen some of the trash that comes out of Crikey, and how vastly it differs from the truth that I've seen first hand, I can only say that your opinion is worthless.