A National Environment Test: How do Australian politicians score?

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.