A National Environment Test: How do Australian politicians score?

The Australian Conservation Foundation has set a test for Australia's political leaders. We want to look at what needs to be done and how our political leaders rate. It's not only a test of whether their policies will turn around the damage to our fragile land. It's also a test of how well they are listening to Australians who are speaking up for a cleaner, smarter and greener future.

On this last score, ACF judges that both major parties might be slowly waking up to how deep the environmental concern is within mainstream Australian opinion. At the same time we believe their actions remain well short of what is required.

This slow awakening is showing up in research commissioned by the Australian Conservation Foundation and in other polling too. Judging by the recent statements of both parties, we think its starting to show up in their research as well.

Australia needs a bold package of sustainability reforms to not only protect and repair this battered ancient land, but also generate jobs and a healthy economy.

We reckon there are five key tests for a sustainable Australia. And we need to pass them all if we are to protect our natural heritage and develop an Australian economy and a society free from environmental damage for the generations that follow.

The five tests are:

1. Show national leadership

This would involve a commitment to sustainability reforms which matches the commitment to competition reforms seen during the last decade. Prime amongst relevant measures would be a Sustainability Council backed by the Council of Australian Government, with funding and powers akin to those of the National Competition Council. Moreover, showing national leadership means being held accountable to real and substantial environmental outcomes.

2. Cut greenhouse pollution

This means not only ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, but also implementation of a package of measures including higher renewable energy targets, revenue-neutral emissions trading and a bold attack on our grossly inefficient use of energy.

3. Repair our land and rivers

Examples include repairing rivers like the Murray to restore the amount of water flowing down it, and turning around the loss of our bushland by ending land clearing. Only then will we stop the curse of salinity which is poisoning our environment, farms and towns.

4. Protect great natural areas

The Great Barrier Reef, Cape York and the great old growth forests of Tasmania are examples of national treasures which future generations won't be able to enjoy unless strong protections are put in place now.

5. Support sustainable living

This means giving greater support for Australians who want to take action to help the environment by, for example, going solar or adding rainwater tanks. Nor can there be sustainable living if Australia is still caught in the toxic nuclear cycle - building new nuclear reactors and creating very long lived radioactive waste.

These five tests make up our National Agenda for a Sustainable Australia.

Why are these five tests so critical? Because the way in which we look after our air, water, plants and animals has never been so downright bad. Consider the following evidence.

Per capita we are the highest greenhouse polluters in the world.

The CSIRO tells us that climate chaos from greenhouse pollution will hurt Australia as much as anywhere else on the planet, with even more intense droughts, floods and storms, and more days of high bushfire risk.

Our rivers are in dire health. Without more water, up to half the native fish species in the Murray, the greatest river system in Australia, are at risk and just about all the mighty river redgums downstream of Mildura will be lost.

Per capita we use more water than on any continent despite inhabiting the driest continent after Antarctica - a hard place to get a drink.

One third of the planet's recent mammals extinctions are Australian animals we'll never see again, making our record in this area the worst in the world.

This national environmental crisis is a social and economic crisis too. Greenhouse pollution and the climate chaos it causes will worsen asthma, increase mosquito-borne diseases, lead to higher insurance premiums and put further stress on our farmers. Ours is a dirty, nineteenth-century economy, wasting energy and water and producing huge amounts of greenhouse pollution.

Salinity from our outdated land and water usage practices is poisoning drinking water, knocking out farms and ruining buildings, roads and pipe networks. $1.2 billion of agricultural production is lost annually due to land degradation. The Prime Minister's own advisers estimate the annual repair bill at $2 billion to $6 billion - a cost all Australians have to bear.

We could be denying our kids, and their kids, natural assets like the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu that bring billions of tourism dollars.

And yet a crisis like this is an opportunity to find solutions and benefit from innovative action.

For instance, there's a significant proportion of Australian businesses that see opportunities in the international market under the regulations of the Kyoto Protocol. Like us, they can't see the sense in the government's goal of achieving the Kyoto target but excluding Australia from that market by refusing to ratify the protocol. Renewable energy is one of the fastest growing job generators around and the global clean and energy efficiency market is estimated to be worth billions of dollars over the next few years.

In water, moving from wastefulness to sustainable use won't only save our rivers, it can drive the development of new and globally marketable, water efficiency technologies.

This picture is grim - but here's a key question. Are our national political leaders starting to realise that the Australian people want them to stop stuffing up the country? That it is impossible to continue to marginalise a majority? There are some early signs of a new recognition.

This year the government has come out with good proposals - although they are not firm decisions yet - on land clearing and the Great Barrier Reef. The Opposition has built on its solid policies on those two issues and its commitment to ratify the Kyoto Protocol by adding a pledge to save the Murray Darling river system.

The major parties are starting to talk the talk because ordinary Australians in the suburbs and towns are no longer just saying we need to stop damaging the environment. Critically, they are now saying we need to undo the damage already done, adding their own voices to the firm positions already held on these issues by some of the minor political parties.

People are increasingly talking about the economic cost of not protecting the environment. They see good environmental policies as common sense and they understand the issues as never before.

Prime Minister John Howard has said that one of his third term priorities was to make people believe the Coalition is sensitive to the environment. This year, he was reported as declaring the environment to be a "mainstream issue", nominating salinity, water rights and tree clearing as three areas needing attention in terms of both policy and money. So why has the Howard government started tentatively to consider some tough environment decisions? And why has Leader of the Opposition Simon Crean elevated environment to one of his top three issues?

Here's an insight. Newspoll has for the last two years found the environment in the top three or four when they asked people what issues were very important for how they would vote in a federal election. In February of this year the environment rates at 62 per cent, just behind leadership at 64 per cent , and with health at 77 per cent and education 79 per cent. This month, Morgan polling also has environment rating fourth, with the recorded level of public concern almost doubling since October 2001.

Independent research commissioned by the Australian Conservation Foundation is also picking up this trend. We asked whether people thought the major parties were concerned enough about the environment. Forty-six per cent of respondents said the ALP was not concerned enough about the environment. The Liberals were slightly behind, with 54 per cent of respondents saying they were not concerned enough.

Importantly, people no longer accept that we can or should trade off the environment for economic development. When asked which is more important, the health of our environment for future generations or the health of our economy for future generations, the environment won almost 3 to 1 - 64 per cent for the environment, 19 per cent for the economy, and 17 per cent undecided.

This seachange in thinking clears the way for resolute action. However, we urgently need a powerful driver for sustainability in Australia.

Australians enthusiastically embrace opportunities to change their lifestyles to protect the environment when they can. We are the best recyclers on the planet but in other areas Australians are being frustrated. National and state building codes force them to live in energy and water inefficient homes; funding to help Australians put solar panels on their roofs has been slashed; and urban design and taxation arrangements encourage private transport over public transport.

We need to end these frustrations with modern, adventurous policies for green cities. A 'National Agenda for a Sustainable Australia' is essential because our environmental record is a shocker! We can't move the country forward when the environment is going backwards. And we need this agenda to prepare our economy for the 21st Century.

If the major parties sat this environmental test today, the ALP would be ahead, with the Coalition starting to take some important steps. Still, the results of both would show they have a long way to go. Australians from all walks of life - farmers and conservationists, Greens and Democrats and Independents, from the Cape to the Bight - will be judging them closely as they tackle this task, as they aim to pass the environmental test.

The health of our country and the quality of life of future generations depends on nothing less.