Melissa Price – Australia’s Minister For Coal – but don’t we need a Minister for the Environment?
Environment Minister Price under pressure to front the public, https://www.smh.com.au/federal-election-2019/environment-minister-price-under-pressure-to-front-public-after-campaign-20190520-p51pak.html ,By Nicole Hasham, May 20, 2019 Australia has failed to deliver a major report to the United Nations on its progress in halting the extinction crisis as pressure mounts on Environment Minister Melissa Price to front the public over highly controversial election-eve decisions.Ms Price’s absence from the federal election campaign became a national curiosity. She refused scores of media interview requests, ignored challenges from her political rivals for public debates and did not appear at government announcements relating to her portfolio.
This prompted suggestions she was avoiding scrutiny of controversial approvals she granted just before the election, such as groundwater plans for the divisive Adani coal project and a contentious uranium mine in her home state of Western Australia.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has indicated Ms Price will be re-appointed to the portfolio in his next cabinet.
The Department of the Environment and Energy, which Ms Price oversees, was due last December to present Australia’s sixth national report to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.
The report would outline the government’s progress on conservation measures and in meeting the objectives of the convention, to which Australia is a party. However, it has not been delivered.
Australia has one of the world’s worst extinction records. The global crisis was highlighted in a shocking United Nations report this month that warned 1 million species on Earth were headed for extinction within decades.
The Morrison government has also failed to deliver an official plan to protect the nation’s animals and plants. A draft version of the plan, Australia‘s Strategy for Nature 2018-2030, was panned last year as a “global embarrassment” for its brevity and lack of specific targets.
Ms Price’s office did not respond to this publication’s questions or interview request.
Mr Morrison was grilled over the United Nations extinction report and appeared to stumble in his response, referring to government measures that do not exist.
Two days out from the election, Ms Price and Resources Minister Matt Canavan announced an independent audit of energy giant Equinor’s plans to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight, in response to deep concerns in South Australian coastal electorates.
Should Ms Price continue in the environment portfolio, she faces a number of persistent questions, including how Australia will meet its Paris climate targets if the government’s plans to use carryover carbon credits from the Kyoto period are deemed outside the rules.
The separate national biodiversity strategy was being revised and required agreement from state and federal environment ministers, it said.
Greens environment spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said Mr Morrison “must dump Melissa Price from the ministry … The climate and our environment can’t afford another term with Melissa Price as environment minister”.
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1.This month.
The Road to War brings a sharp focus to why it is not in Australia’s best interest to be dragged into a war with China which will almost inevitably go nuclear very quickly. The filmmaker has interviewed some of Australia’s senior foreign policy analysts who have vast experience behind them in analysing what really is going on here as the United States rattles its sabres with China. And sets us up to be its proxy, like the poor Ukranians have been fed into the Meatgrinder. So America can remain the Top Dog. The Road to War reveals how the United States through its spy base at Pine Gap and by stationing six nuclear capable B52 bombers in the Top End (without permission from the traditional owners) is making Australia a prime nuclear target if the current war of words suddenly melts down into full scale war.
The Road to War shows the implicit connection between Carbon emissions (the US military uses a whopping 70% of America’s annual petroleum to move its armies and vast War Machine around the globe to its 800+ military bases..but under a loophole wangled at Kyoto, the US military does not have to report its C02 annual emissions). The Road to War starts screening at selected cities and regional centres in March. See the trailer end for details.
Antinuclear 
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