Mining bosses and government move to deregister environment groups
Peak mining bodies are campaigning to remove the tax-deductible status of government-registered eco-charities and environmental organisations.
The Abbott government, predictably, is bending to their will. The Coalition has launched a parliamentary inquiry to decide whether 600 groups – ranging from conservationists like Save the Bilby through to activist organisations like the Lock the Gate Alliance – listed on the environment minister’s register should have their tax-deductible status revoked for focusing on political advocacy over “practical environmental work”.
Reducing the revenue of environmental organisations would make them less effective. But removing their political agency would render them absolutely toothless. Cam Walker from prominent environmental NGO Friends of the Earth spelt out the threat on the ABC’s 7.30 program:
“If the federal government is successful at getting through its attempts to cut off groups from the register, it will basically mean the political death of our organisation.”
The inquiry follows a string of high profile protest-oriented challenges to major resource industry projects, such as last year’s victorious Bentley blockade, which stopped Metgasco’s widely criticised planned expansion of CSG mining in northern NSW. In its submission to the inquiry, the NSW Minerals Council specifically named the Lock the Gate Alliance – a primary organiser of anti-CSG protests – as its “key” target.
The biggest headline grabber of recent times has been the ongoing fight between Aboriginal and environmental activists and coal giant Adani over its plans to build the massive $20 billion Carmichael coal mine in central Queensland. Scientists say the mine would pose a grave threat to the Great Barrier Reef.
It is no surprise that this case has been raised in the inquiry. Coalition MPs are concerned that donations made to the Wangan and Jagalingou Families Representative Council are being used for political purposes – i.e. to conduct a protest campaign that seems to have struck some major blows to the credibility of Adani’s claim.
National Party Senator Matt Canavan is crying foul over an alleged $1 million donation made to the Wangan and Jagalingou, which he contends was used for political, rather than environmental ends.
This is a pittance compared to the politicking war chests of Australia’s mining magnates.
The tenacity with which the government is pursuing activist groups, many of which, despite only modest size and funding, have been able to challenge major corporate interests, confirms where our side’s real strength lies: in our ability to mobilise.
