liberalpolicyev06

Liberal Party - Victoria

Policy Assessment - from Environment Victoria

Friday, July 28 2006

State Liberals Need 21st Century Water Policy

The State Liberals need to come clean and tell Victorians which rivers will be dammed to death, says the states leading environment group, Environment Victoria.

Liberal Party water spokesperson Denis Napthine said this week (Weekly Times 26/7/06) that "we see potential opportunities (for new dams) but they would have to be judged on merit".

In 2000, the World Commission on Dams released the largest comprehensive assessment of big dams. The Commission concluded that big dams around the world had exacted an "unacceptable and often unnecessary price" in social and environmental terms.

"Big dams were last century’s big idea on water. Victoria needs 21st century water policies to meet 21st century water challenges," said EV’s Healthy Rivers Campaign Director, Dr Paul Sinclair. "Those challenges are returning water to rivers to make them healthy, creating a conservation economy that rewards wise water use, and tackling the threats climate change poses to our water supplies.

"Big dams destroy river environments, don’t create any new water and would cost huge amounts of money to build.

"We need to build a water conservation economy where householders, irrigators and industry are strongly encouraged and rewarded for using less water," said Dr Sinclair.

The Liberal Party also failed to address the needs of rivers in their recent water policies for Geelong and Ballarat. Healthy rivers help secure healthy water supplies. In the Melbourne region, 89% of drinking water is supplied by rivers.

"A water policy that ignores rivers health is like building a car without an engine. It’s not of great value to the future," said Dr Sinclair.

"Sick rivers mean we will lose invaluable pleasures – like fishing and swimming with our friends and family. Healthy rivers protect community assets whose value is beyond calculation,"

Climate

Liberal Party ignores the 800 pound gorilla

By ignoring climate change, the Liberal Party is like the shopkeeper ignoring the 800 pound gorilla in their store, says the state’s leading environment group, Environment Victoria

This week, members of the Liberal Party have made alarming statement on dams and now call for a moratorium on wind farms.

"The Liberal Party’s plans for tackling climate change, river health and other environmental issues are well overdue," said Environment Victoria Executive Director Marcus Godinho.

"There’s no silver bullet for climate change. Wind farms alone will not solve the issue, but they are certainly part of Victoria’s future clean energy mix.

"Climate change is the most pressing environmental issue of our time, and yet the Liberal Party is abandoning technology that’s right here, right now.

"Victoria produces more greenhouse pollution per person than almost any country in the world.

"We need to start reducing our greenhouse pollution levels now. A moratorium on wind farms stalls action on climate change and worsens its impact.

"Ignoring climate change condemns people in rural Victoria to a future of worse droughts and more frequent and intense bush fires, floods and storms. People living in country Victoria will be most affected.

"The amount of water available in some areas of the state is set to drop by about 50 per cent in the worst case scenario because of climate change.

"We need to tackle this head-on by massively reducing our greenhouse emissions now, not in five for 10 years time.

"Government and industry predict wind farms will create more than 2,200 jobs in rural and regional Victoria with more than $2 billion to be invested.

"It’s good to see the Liberal Party highlighting better delivery of natural disaster relief, because by ignoring climate change they’ll have more extreme weather events to contend with," Mr Godinho said.