Last week, the Albanese government introduced legislation to create a new statutory body called Environment Information Australia. The bill is due for debate in parliament today. The government clearly expects the bill will pass, because the new body has already been allocated A$54 million over four years in the May budget.
Why do we need it? Australia’s natural world is in steep decline – based on what we know. But there’s much we don’t know.
Making data based decisions for our future, and the future of our families, as opposed to those that are expedient or political advantageous, seems eminently sensible.
That said, particularly in Australia, the chance of political/public confidence that we can make real, necessarily, and data based future oriented nation decisions is likely low, given historic political undermining efforts related to vested interests are incredibly high.