The environment and the conservatives

Despite these isolated efforts, conservatives in Queensland have simply tried to airbrush out policy differences in respect to the environment and hope that no one will notice.

This approach badly underestimates the level of concern and support in the Queensland community for progressive and innovative policies to address climate change, coastal development and the protection of rivers and waterways.

A future amalgamated conservative party cannot ignore the centrality of these issues in consciousness of all Queenslanders. It is not just the voters of Brisbane who are concerned about sustainability and the need for change. A new generation of farmers fully understand the economic and environmental problems associated with land degradation, the loss of native vegetation and the poor health of our rivers.

Big business is now grasping both the magnitude of the problems associated with climate change and the opportunities presented by entering into the emerging “carbon economy”, particularly since the Rudd Government’s decision to ratify Kyoto and set to work on the establishment of a National Emissions Trading Scheme as per the Garnaut Review.

Finally, conservatives in Queensland need to understand that the ALP does not have a mortgage on environmental issues and that it has promoted a range of unpopular and environmentally disastrous schemes such as the Traveston Dam, the continued loss of urban open space and uncontrolled coastal development.

The Bligh Government is vulnerable and these issues are of great concern in precisely those electorates that a future Conservative Government needs to win to form Government.

For these reasons the very first task for Lawrence Springborg after a successful amalgamation, not a small task, should be a root and branch reform of the previous policies of the conservative parties. They must drop the ill-considered opposition to important and popular initiatives such as land clearing controls and the protection of rivers and develop a proactive set of policies that don’t just match but actually surpass the polices of the Bligh Government in respect to issues such as climate change.

It is in the interests of all Queenslanders and our special environment for this to happen before the next election.