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Setback for Conservation in WA

Funding for voluntary conservation groups in Western Australia has been slashed by the Federal Government.

The Federal Minister for Environment and Heritage, Senator Ian Campbell, released a list of grants to voluntary environment and heritage organisations, with the largest in Western Australia being $6,000 for the Moore River Catchment Council. Most of the funding is very small grants to local groups which are working on a single issue. Many of these groups already have access to funding through the Natural Heritage Trust.

The Conservation Council of Western Australia, the State’s peak conservation organisation received nothing, as did most of the other large national groups such as the Wilderness Society and the Australian Conservation Foundation.

These groups provide a vast array of free services to the public and to Government and industry.  For the past 20 years the Federal Government has provided a modest level of financial support through the GVEHO program to enable them to run an office and employ full time staff to coordinate the volunteers who prepare submissions, provide information and organize information and training events.

The President of the Conservation Council of WA, Dr Sue Graham-Taylor said, “We are deeply disappointed that the Federal Government has withdrawn all financial support for the Conservation Council after more than 20 years of cooperative work on environmental issues.  The Council is in the forefront of campaigns to conserve and repair Australia’s environment and it provides support for more than seventy affiliated groups running local campaigns for the environment.”

“The GVEHO program was specifically set up to support the administration of groups engaged in environmental advocacy, but the Minister decided suddenly to change the rules and direct most of the funding into landcare, which is already supported by several other schemes.”

“Without Federal support we will have to curtail some of our services to the public and Government, but our work will go on.  This setback will simply remind us of the need to fund our activities entirely from our own resources and not rely on Government for support. We realise that Governments don’t like being told about their mistakes, but that is part of our role.  As a result we are being punished,” she said.

Dr Graham-Taylor said that it was particularly disappointing that the Federal Government had reneged on an earlier commitment to provide funding for 2004 -5 at previous levels.  The late notice that these funds had been withdrawn has left the Conservation Council with a budget deficit for 2004/5.

“This is a sad day for conservation in WA when the Federal Government decides so late in the financial year to withdraw the funds after we have supplied the services we promised,” she said. “We have been given no feedback from Canberra about this sudden change of course and we have no idea why Senator Campbell has decided to punish us and the other major conservation groups.”

As Glenn Milne said in The Australian (18/04/05) in an op-ed piece about this very subject: “…But the real political sting in the tail of the announcement was that the larger, national environmental lobby organisations will now lose money – and, therefore, effectiveness.  And these groups are almost universally critical of the Government's policies on issues such as global warming and the Kyoto Protocol.

So in one fell swoop the Government buys itself more support at a community level and muzzles its political opponents at a national level”.  Milne went on to point out that there is more to come as the government looks at the possibility of removing the tax-exempt status of non-profit organisations who engage in political lobbying.  He said “Since the election Mason (Liberal Senator Brett) has been frying other fish. It began in March 2004 during the adjournment debate in the Senate when Mason rose to address the house on the apparently benign subject of charitable institutions.  The speech was anything but.  Mason had in his sights the tax deductibility of charity organisations, a status that is granted with one caveat: such organisations must not engage in political advocacy.”

Milne said that Senator Campbell had written to conservation groups reminding them their tax deductible status is dependent on their efforts being devoted to "the conservation of the natural environment and not for any other purpose, such as political activity".  As Milne points out this is not restricted to environmental groups – it includes the full gamut of social welfare organisations who not only provide services to those less well off in our community but who advocate on their behalf as well.

The Rottnest Society has not been affected by the government’s new policy as we receive no government funding – we rely totally on our own resources and so remain free to serve our members’ interests without any qualification.  However as many of us are aware organizations such as the Conservation Council (which has a much larger brief than this Society) depend heavily on volunteers not just for ‘hands-on’ activities such as tree planting but also for their advocacy work for various aspects of the natural environment and the creatures and plants which depend on it.  They often need a core staff of paid personnel to do the enormous amount of research and submission writing that is required to mount campaigns against companies and governments determined on certain outcomes without proper protection of the natural environment.  How will they fund this work in the future – and if they can’t then who will speak up in their place?

To donate to the Conservation Council of WA so that they can continue to be an advocate for environmental protection in WA please visit http://www.conservationwa.asn.au/support.htm .