The Australian Greens

Peace and Non Violence, Grassroots Democracy,
Social and Economic Justice, Ecological Sustainability

Milne refers Green Loans debacle to Auditor General

The Greens have today written to the Auditor General asking for an immediate and comprehensive investigation into the gross mismanagement of the Green Loans Scheme by Minister Peter Garrett and the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts.

"The Green Loans Scheme is an excellent idea that has turned into an utter debacle through gross mismanagement by Peter Garrett's department," Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Senator Christine Milne said.

"We Greens have been parliament's strongest advocates for household energy efficiency upgrades and the Green Loans Scheme is based on a Greens' 2007 election initiative.

"Energy efficiency upgrades save householders money, reduce emissions and create thousands of green jobs and small businesses.

"Whether because of incompetence, lack of interest or deliberate design, the Green Loans Scheme has now joined the rooftop solar program, the insulation roll-out and the Renewable Energy Target as strong programs gone badly wrong.

Greens call for end to Aussie spy planes aiding Japanese whaling

The Australian Greens today introduced a private Senators Bill to ban any form of Australian assistance to Japanese whaling, such as the use of spy planes.

"My Bill creates a new offence making it unlawful to provide services, support or resources to an organisation engaged in whaling so the Australian government and local companies can no longer assist Japan's brutal whaling regime," said Australian Greens whaling spokesperson Senator Rachel Siewert.

"Many Australians were appalled when it was revealed that Australian air services were used by a company with connections to the whalers to assist in this summer's slaughter.

Greens welcome landmark iiNet ruling backing ISPs

The Australian Greens welcome today's Federal Court decision in favour of Internet Service Providers in the landmark iiNet case.

The case brought by the Australian film and television industry had the potential to make Australian ISPs responsible for monitoring all web traffic on their servers.

"Clearly this would have placed an intolerable onus on ISPs to take over surveillance of every packet passing over their network and assess it according to the demands of overseas media corporations," said Greens spokesperson for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy Senator Scott Ludlam.

"The Federal Court has made an important determination which will have far reaching impacts at home and overseas," Senator Ludlam said.

Government must fix environment funding program: Greens

The Australian Greens have called on the Federal Government to urgently reform its Caring for Our Country program because it is having a negative impact on the community's ability to carry out land repair activities.

Senator Rachel Siewert speaking on the tabling of a report of committee inquiry into Natural Resource Management programs, initiated by the Greens, said the inquiry showed that the Government's program needs changing urgently.

The committee inquiry highlighted many problems with Caring for Our Country which need to be fixed if we're to maintain and improve the level of activity and energy in the community for landcare and land management," Senator Siewert said.

Greens propose Garnaut's interim solution to break CPRS deadlock

The Australian Greens are proposing to introduce a $20 per tonne fixed carbon price for two years, as an interim solution to break the political deadlock on the failed CPRS.

Senators Bob Brown and Christine Milne have today written to the Prime Minister, Opposition Leader and all relevant Senators proposing this deadlock-breaking interim solution.

The Greens are proposing that Professor Garnaut's suggestion of a two year carbon price fixed at $20 a tonne be implemented. This interim measure in the transition to a functional and effective emissions trading scheme would provide a $5 billion dividend for households and further revenue to invest in renewable energy, energy efficiency and other emissions reducing options.