The terms of Malcolm Turnbull’s $444 million Barrier Reef grant were set by Scott Morrison, who as treasurer insisted the money not go to a Commonwealth agency.
As the change of leadership steers the Australian government even further from action on climate change, the Coalition’s efforts to appease the powerful domestic fossil fuel industry could jeopardise trade deals with the European Union.
As Barnaby Joyce, newly minted special envoy for drought, made a grab for Murray–Darling water, the royal commission into the basin faced yet another setback.
As questions swirl around the Great Barrier Reef Foundation grant, another non-profit group pledging citizens’ support for the reef is revealed to have links to business and tourism bodies.
Throughout all the thrills and spills of federal politics this week, the Coalition’s wilful torching of planned action on climate change escaped scrutiny.
The government’s surprise $444 million grant to a private foundation is allegedly being used to fudge its commitment to UNESCO on Barrier Reef protection.
Protesters against a Victorian highway project requiring the clearing of thousands of trees, including some sacred to the local Djab Wurrung people, say the issue exposes the government’s hypocrisy in treaty negotiations.
A Commonwealth challenge to South Australia’s Murray–Darling royal commission has become a state rights battleground with implications for the Constitution.
The largest government grant for the protection of the Great Barrier Reef has been awarded, without tender, to a tiny foundation with no details on why.
Dhaka is on the frontline of climate change disaster, as refugees from Bangladesh’s flooding south are migrating to the capital in abject poverty. Experts fear that failure to persuade regional towns to rapidly expand could lead to anarchy.
