Where’s the accountability of our environmental champion?
Jan 20, 2024 5:47:33 GMT 8
Struth likes this
Post by NFA on Jan 20, 2024 5:47:33 GMT 8
Vikki Campion: Where’s the accountability of our so-called environmental champion?
---
When you receive taxpayers’ money, you are accountable to the taxpayer, so why do the radical activists in the Environmental Defenders Office get to skip that step?
If a judge painted any other government-funded organisation as citing evidence “so lacking in integrity that no weight can be placed” on it, like the EDO was this week in the Tiwi Islands Barossa gas pipeline decision, there would be an immediate audit.
Even if you believe the taxpayer should fork out $10m a year to pay solicitors for their private passion while you struggle with your mortgage, you are entitled to ask, “Am I getting value for money for this quasi-department I support?’’
If it’s KPI is to be a pain in the neck, then it’s doing brilliantly.
But how would we know?
The Albanese government scrapped an $18m grant to the Leadership Foundation, personally endorsed by the respected Governor-General David Hurley, because there was no value for money and no competitive tender.
I can’t wait to see the EDO’s competitive tender.
As I write, the EDO seems to have no minister demanding answers, and no Senate Estimates to turn up to.
The EDO claims on its website that “last financial year, 75 per cent of our income came from charitable donations”.
What it doesn’t tell you is that this financial year, about 50 per cent of its income is on the taxpayer.
The extra $10m a year from the Albanese government has nearly doubled its annual revenue, which was $13.3m in the financial year to June 2023 and $11.7m in the financial year to June 2022.
Its financial statements show it was getting about $1m a year from the state Labor governments.
What it found worthy of pro bono legal representation were such things as fighting the bail conditions of the guy who glued himself to a road and the flotilla of kayaks that shut down NSW’s biggest exporting port and the guy who decided it was his right to intrude on a woman’s property.
In the year to 2023 it received $100,000 from Northern Territory taxpayers and $1.096m in a line item called “other state and territory government grants”, including more than $156,000 from ACT taxpayers, more than $401,000 from Queensland’s Environment and Justice Departments, as well as Western Australia’s Justice Department and NSW’s Legal Aid.
If the federal and state governments don’t have a mechanism to force the EDO to explain themselves, then what guarantee do we have that this $10m a year is spent prudently?
There are strict rules on funding political causes, where money can come from and where it can’t.
While there is no space for international funding of political activities such as the Voice referendum or election campaigns, this inconvenience does not extend to the EDO.
They give legal representation for radical green political activities, yet their financial statement shows $3.7m last year from overseas grants.
For an organisation so intent on demanding transparency from others, their financial statements don’t state who these overseas donors are and how much they give.
There is a strong correlation between who the EDO won’t help, and who the Albanese government doesn’t want helped.
The EDO will not defend the guy who lives off the grid with rooftop solar and a battery and is fighting the wind farm for environmental reasons. He can’t even get a phone call back.
The EDO says that from 2023-24, the $10m from the federal government will support free legal advice to “everyday people at the frontline of environmental harms”, but fighting a renewables project based on irreversible damage to native animals, birds and native bush does not fit the EDO’s remit of “environment”.
They must believe there is a public good in wedgetail eagles getting minced mid-flight by wind turbines.
No one is interested in calling back about the Dutch plan to construct 660 turbines the size of Centrepoint Tower adjacent to Oxley Wild Rivers World Heritage National Park.
If it were a coal mine, EDO would lead the crusade.
A Central West woman who called about industrial solar on agricultural land and a contaminated dump proposed opposite a canola factory received some advice but no representation.
She should have pulled up in a kayak.
They won’t spend any time helping the biodiversity expert who has counted nesting raptors near the proposed wind farms in northern NSW, and refused to help fight thousands of kilometres of transmission lines from being diverted from existing infrastructure along highways to our forest and farm plateaus, based on nothing but developer expressions of interest.
However, they did find the time to compile a 13-page submission to the ACT government congratulating it on a healthy environment bill, on top of a litany of submissions, including one to the federal Treasury calling for executive remuneration to be linked to climate metrics, and to force companies to write annual reports disclosing “greenhouse gas emissions and transition plans”.
They found the time to write a tome to NSW Planning calling for a new Climate Change Act wherein “any guiding principles contained … should reflect the need to facilitate a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy” and “Any such principles should be a mandatory consideration for decision-makers when making decisions on development consents.”
They aren’t defending; they are attacking.
And they have a long and proven history of this.
Even in 2005, environmental scientists at Taralga who provided “clearly stated, evidence-based environmental reasons as to why we were requesting their help” received a written, firm refusal from the EDO.
The question is, who defends us against those the Environmental Defenders Office supports?
---
When you receive taxpayers’ money, you are accountable to the taxpayer, so why do the radical activists in the Environmental Defenders Office get to skip that step?
If a judge painted any other government-funded organisation as citing evidence “so lacking in integrity that no weight can be placed” on it, like the EDO was this week in the Tiwi Islands Barossa gas pipeline decision, there would be an immediate audit.
Even if you believe the taxpayer should fork out $10m a year to pay solicitors for their private passion while you struggle with your mortgage, you are entitled to ask, “Am I getting value for money for this quasi-department I support?’’
If it’s KPI is to be a pain in the neck, then it’s doing brilliantly.
But how would we know?
The Albanese government scrapped an $18m grant to the Leadership Foundation, personally endorsed by the respected Governor-General David Hurley, because there was no value for money and no competitive tender.
I can’t wait to see the EDO’s competitive tender.
As I write, the EDO seems to have no minister demanding answers, and no Senate Estimates to turn up to.
The EDO claims on its website that “last financial year, 75 per cent of our income came from charitable donations”.
What it doesn’t tell you is that this financial year, about 50 per cent of its income is on the taxpayer.
The extra $10m a year from the Albanese government has nearly doubled its annual revenue, which was $13.3m in the financial year to June 2023 and $11.7m in the financial year to June 2022.
Its financial statements show it was getting about $1m a year from the state Labor governments.
What it found worthy of pro bono legal representation were such things as fighting the bail conditions of the guy who glued himself to a road and the flotilla of kayaks that shut down NSW’s biggest exporting port and the guy who decided it was his right to intrude on a woman’s property.
In the year to 2023 it received $100,000 from Northern Territory taxpayers and $1.096m in a line item called “other state and territory government grants”, including more than $156,000 from ACT taxpayers, more than $401,000 from Queensland’s Environment and Justice Departments, as well as Western Australia’s Justice Department and NSW’s Legal Aid.
If the federal and state governments don’t have a mechanism to force the EDO to explain themselves, then what guarantee do we have that this $10m a year is spent prudently?
There are strict rules on funding political causes, where money can come from and where it can’t.
While there is no space for international funding of political activities such as the Voice referendum or election campaigns, this inconvenience does not extend to the EDO.
They give legal representation for radical green political activities, yet their financial statement shows $3.7m last year from overseas grants.
For an organisation so intent on demanding transparency from others, their financial statements don’t state who these overseas donors are and how much they give.
There is a strong correlation between who the EDO won’t help, and who the Albanese government doesn’t want helped.
The EDO will not defend the guy who lives off the grid with rooftop solar and a battery and is fighting the wind farm for environmental reasons. He can’t even get a phone call back.
The EDO says that from 2023-24, the $10m from the federal government will support free legal advice to “everyday people at the frontline of environmental harms”, but fighting a renewables project based on irreversible damage to native animals, birds and native bush does not fit the EDO’s remit of “environment”.
They must believe there is a public good in wedgetail eagles getting minced mid-flight by wind turbines.
No one is interested in calling back about the Dutch plan to construct 660 turbines the size of Centrepoint Tower adjacent to Oxley Wild Rivers World Heritage National Park.
If it were a coal mine, EDO would lead the crusade.
A Central West woman who called about industrial solar on agricultural land and a contaminated dump proposed opposite a canola factory received some advice but no representation.
She should have pulled up in a kayak.
They won’t spend any time helping the biodiversity expert who has counted nesting raptors near the proposed wind farms in northern NSW, and refused to help fight thousands of kilometres of transmission lines from being diverted from existing infrastructure along highways to our forest and farm plateaus, based on nothing but developer expressions of interest.
However, they did find the time to compile a 13-page submission to the ACT government congratulating it on a healthy environment bill, on top of a litany of submissions, including one to the federal Treasury calling for executive remuneration to be linked to climate metrics, and to force companies to write annual reports disclosing “greenhouse gas emissions and transition plans”.
They found the time to write a tome to NSW Planning calling for a new Climate Change Act wherein “any guiding principles contained … should reflect the need to facilitate a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy” and “Any such principles should be a mandatory consideration for decision-makers when making decisions on development consents.”
They aren’t defending; they are attacking.
And they have a long and proven history of this.
Even in 2005, environmental scientists at Taralga who provided “clearly stated, evidence-based environmental reasons as to why we were requesting their help” received a written, firm refusal from the EDO.
The question is, who defends us against those the Environmental Defenders Office supports?
