November 2023
How Labor out-loved the Coalition in its embrace of big oil and gas
“You know what you’ve been doing,” said Foreign Minister and Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Penny Wong, wagging her finger at the Opposition senators across the Chamber.
Massive Gap Between Rhetoric and Actions on Emissions
Farmers know you can’t fatten a pig on market day and scientists know you can’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 while expanding coal, oil and gas production.
September 2023
Don’t mention the coal: Australian Government tries to walk both sides of climate policy. Again
While Australia’s Foreign Minister attends the UN Secretary General’s Climate Ambition Summit in New York, the nation’s Environment Minister will be in court fighting for new coal mines.
Eating the three-eyed fish: where is Australia on nuclear wastewater in the Pacific?
The Australian government’s muted response to Japan’s release of Fukushima wastewater into the Pacific raises serious questions about its commitment to the region and Australia’s history of standing against nuclear testing.
August 2023
C’mon Albo! Stop Native Forest Logging
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese can stop the logging of Australia’s native forests, just as PM Malcolm Fraser stopped whaling in 1978.
Native Forest Logging in Tasmania: The Facts
Tasmania’s native forests are globally recognised for their unique species and conservation value, as well as being some of the most carbon dense forests on the planet.
Multinational miners rue the day Palaszczuk and Dick delivered for Queenslanders
Queensland’s revised coal royalty system has delivered billions to the state, and NSW could be following suit. But as always, the mining industry is keen to let hysteria get in the way of a good policy.
Labor’s climate credibility is melting under the heat of scrutiny
Neoliberals are always worried about government ‘picking winners’, but strangely never seem to have a problem when governments back obvious losers, like perennial failure carbon capture and storage (CCS).
July 2023
Australia’s Climate of Discontent
Australia gives more aid to foreign fossil fuel companies than it does to our neighbours in the Pacific.
You must be coking! Are new coalmines OK if they help make steel?
Some critics argue we should lay off metallurgical coalmines because they’re used for steel, not energy. But that ignores the big picture.
June 2023
Native Forest Logging in Tasmania
Tasmania’s native forests are globally recognised for their unique species and their conservation value. They are also some of the most carbon dense forests on the planet.
May 2023
Carbon capture and storage is a dangerous rort
There’s nothing politics loves more than a good rort or scandal, like the recent revelations of PwC’s misconduct, which is finally throwing a spotlight on the vast tentacles of the big four consulting firms into the business of government. But it’s concerning that one of the biggest and longest-running rorts in climate change policy—carbon capture
Green Wall Street Will Crash
The mania around markets and investment in nature has continued at the UN biodiversity conference (#COP15) with Australia promoting the outsourcing of conservation to the private sector and its proposed ‘nature repair market’. This builds on the government’s previous promotion of ‘Green Wall Street’ – a vision that describes the world investing in Australia’s ecosystems.
April 2023
Tide of Public Opinion Backs the Science
Tasmania’s coastal waters are in trouble and Tasmanians know it. Recently published research in the journal Nature, the world’s leading science journal, found that more than 500 common species of marine life have declined around Australia in the past decade. These declines are most marked in the rocky kelp-dominated reefs around Tasmania. We know that
January 2023
The Safeguard Mechanism and the junk carbon credits undermining emission reductions
One of Labor’s key policies to reduce emissions is the Safeguard Mechanism. But how does it work, and how effective is it at actually reducing emissions?
December 2022
Why a biodiversity market doesn’t work
The spot price for squirrel glider credits in New South Wales last month was $425. That was down a touch from $450 in August, when koala credits were going for $600 – they’d more than tripled since June.
November 2022
A sea of evidence to absorb
Momentum is building to fundamentally improve the way we care for and use our coastal waters, ahead of the Australia Institute’s Tasmanian Ocean Summit today.
Marine Roundtable: Towards a sustainable management framework for Tasmania
The first review of Tasmania’s main marine law, the Living Marine Resource Management Act 1995, is currently underway.
July 2022
A specific Tasmanian-focused state of the environment report is overdue
Following the national state of the environment assessment release, Tasmanians deserve to know when a report on our state will occur, writes Eloise Carr.
June 2022
Time for a statewide marine plan
Tasmania’s coastal waters are globally significant, and our island way of life is deeply embedded in our psyche. But our coastal waters are under threat from a range of pressures, including fishing, aquaculture, climate change and pollution. Our east coast waters are warming four times faster than the global average. We have depleted fish stocks,
‘We’re on life support out here’: The forgotten Australians
When I was on the ABC’s Q&A panel in April I said, “whoever gets in at the next election, we need to see some investment [in regional Australia] because we’re on life support out here.” For too long, rural and regional Australia has been forgotten – out of sight and out of mind for both
January 2022
Funding for the Reef: A one billion dollar drop in the ocean
Headlines about public funding in an election year are generally accompanied by hi-vis vests, the promise of more jobs and occasionally a bit of Top Gun theme music thrown in for good measure. So it was unusual to see a beachside photo-op with Scott Morrison to announce a “record” $1 billion investment (over nine years)
This is what it looks like when the government gives up
The return of Summernats to Canberra reminds us the Prime Minister promised Australia would be going into 2022 ‘looking through the front windscreen, not the rear vision mirror’. In reality, National Cabinet seems to be doing the policy equivalent of a burnout (or a doughnut as I called them growing up), spinning its wheels furiously
October 2021
Scott Morrison’s ‘net zero by 2050’ emissions reduction plan will be filled with tricks and rorts
Sometime this month Scott Morrison will announce a net zero by 2050 emissions-reduction target for Australia. This announcement will be made with the expectation of praise. However, much like the world was indifferent when Australia signalled it would no longer be using Kyoto credits to meet its Paris targets, so too will this announcement be
September 2021
Richard Denniss: Australia’s carbon credits are a joke. Taxpayer money is being wasted on ‘hot air’
If a tree doesn’t fall in a forest, was the climate really saved? Sadly, such esoteric questions have become the main game in the topsy-turvy world of Australian climate policy, where rising emissions from the oil and gas industry are ‘offset’ by not chopping down trees. The polite term for the creation of dodgy carbon
July 2021
Coming soon: The carbon taxes that cannot be repealed
Carbon taxes are coming to Australia whether we like it or not. They are coming despite the triumphant ‘axing of the tax’ in 2014. They are coming despite the updated but equally loud ‘technology not taxes’ sloganeering from the Morrison government in 2021. They are coming despite our government’s refusal to commit to a net-zero
June 2021
Choosing between more jobs and a cleaner environment
The more a company invests in safely handling waste the more jobs it will create, the less damage it will do to the natural environment and the less harm it will do to the tourism, agriculture and fisheries industries that are built on the image and the reality of Tasmania’s clean environment. While it is
The fight for a healthier Murray-Darling must continue
I’m a fifth-generation farmer. My family have run properties alongside the Darling/Baaka River for almost a century. We have watched as the once mighty river system that runs through the heart of our nation has suffered due to government mismanagement and over-extraction upstream. I’ve always said the red dirt of home runs through my veins,
Richard Denniss explains why he’s returning his alumni award for National Leadership the University of Newcastle in the wake of Mark Vaile’s appointment as chancellor
You can’t be a leader if you follow people down the wrong path, which is why, with a heavy heart, I am returning the alumni award for National Leadership the University of Newcastle bestowed on me in 2017. I cannot understand how the council of a university whose motto is “I look ahead” could appoint
Open Letter: G7 Leaders should end not just coal, but also oil and gas finance in 2021
Originally published by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Reuters News. On June 11-13, World Leaders will gather at the G7 summit. There, they plan to adopt an agenda to “build back better from coronavirus and create a greener, more prosperous future”. We, the undersigned economists, believe that this means decisively shifting finance
General Enquiries
Emily Bird Office Manager
mail@australiainstitute.org.au
Media Enquiries
Glenn Connley Senior Media Advisor
glenn.connley@australiainstitute.org.au