Policies/Environment

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Environment

Climate change and Energy

Decades of scientific research shows a clear consensus that human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels, is changing the earth’s climate. The science also shows that this change is pushing the earth’s climate into a state that will make life on earth more difficult and costly.

Human activity has increased the atmospheric concentration of heat-trapping gases to levels not seen for many hundreds of thousands of years, and the rise is accelerating.

Fossil fuels do not merely generate greenhouse gases: particulate air pollution from burning fossil fuels kills millions of people each year and generates massive volumes of toxic waste. Replacement of fossil fuels with cleaner technology thus offers us an opportunity to improve human well-being and the environment.

Australia is well positioned for this transition. We have robust wind and solar resources, have very high known uranium and thorium reserves, and have few land use conflicts so far and vast coastlines which provide good site locations for various clean energy technologies.

Australian households have already shown a desire to adopt clean energy technology with the adoption of rooftop solar being one of the highest in the world. Electric vehicle uptake too is increasing as new infrastructure becomes available and the technology matures. Governments should be supporting this uptake wherever it is economic to do so.

The current energy market has shown itself to be a failure and there is desperate need for reform. This failure was clear during 2022 when the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) had to suspend the entire National Electricity Market (NEM) to avoid major blackouts across 5 States. A reform process must be undertaken to ensure supply and root out rent seeking and profiteering within Australia’s energy system.

Pirate Party regards a fixed carbon price as important. Predictable pricing provides the certainty which long-term investment requires, and would create a mechanism for energy efficiency and innovation all across the economy. Environmental externalities represent a form of privatised profits and socialised losses, which a properly run economy should reject. Pirate Party Australia endorses existing climate policies in the absence of a more efficient alternative. However, a holistic price on carbon and measures to support technology and competition represent the best model for long-term improvement in our energy systems.

Pirate Party Australia advocates the following reforms:

• Enact measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030, and to zero net emissions by 2050.
• Remove legislative prohibitions on the use of nuclear energy, nuclear fuel fabrication and reprocessing, and uranium mining, while retaining prohibitions on weapons-grade processing and abiding by nuclear non-proliferation agreements.
• Re-purpose the 'Climate Solutions Fund' to support 'blue sky' research into alternative climate solutions, such as carbon drawdown technology, small modular reactors, nuclear fusion, and food additives to reduce farm emissions.
• Increase the Clean Energy Finance Corporation investment to $50B annually and expand it to support loans for community power start-up costs and grid connections, and nuclear energy.
• Remove the GST on energy and substitute a carbon price based on the successful 2014-15 model.
• Apply a price on exported carbon to purchase carbon offsets through the UN clean development mechanism.
• Remove waste levy exemptions currently applying to coal power.
• Adopt current EU standards for vehicle fuel efficiency and energy efficiency in consumer goods and buildings.
• Remove taxes on electric vehicles.
• Work to adopt a universal plug for electric vehicles.

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Land management and ecology

A healthy and vibrant ecosystem is crucial for our quality of life, and ultimately for our future on this planet. Sadly, Australia has among the worst extinction rates of any continent despite our low human population. This partly reflects well-known problems with invasive species, habitat loss, pollution, and climate change. Less well understood are the policy failures that have made these issues much harder to address.

Environmental work can take significant time and planning. Rewilding of degraded ecosystems is complex, requiring long-term active management to prevent new waves of invasive species from attacking vulnerable and plant and animal populations. Species restoration is similarly complex, often requiring vulnerable species to be protected in sanctuaries, or on islands and fenced-off peninsulas until their numbers can recover, with recovered populations serving as a base for gradual re-introductions across the wider ecosystem. The short term funding cycle and regular cancellation of environmental programs make it difficult to achieve long-term progress in such complex and long-term work.

Pirate Party Australia believes a longer-term approach is needed. Rather than drip-feed funding year by year, environmental grants need to be scaled up to the challenge and provided over longer time-frames to enable proper planning and co-ordination. Pirate Party Australia would establish an ecology fund based the best scientific estimates of resourcing needs. The fund would be overseen by experts, and would have a mandate to provide long-term grants for scientific research and community-driven environmental work. Endowments should be set aside to support a permanent regional workforce to engage in large-scale rewilding and habitat restoration around Australia. Pirate Party Australia would also ensure that successful initiatives such as the Indigenous Rangers program are expanded and funded permanently, ending a cycle of insecurity and ensuring the cultural knowledge of our first people is properly valued and preserved.

For less than the the price of a new submarine fleet, Australia could ensure that our priceless ecology is restored to health and preserved for future generations. We simply need the political will to make it happen.

Pirate Party Australia advocates the following reforms:

Implement a biodiversity strategy and long-term funding model.

• Appoint an expert panel to estimate resource needs for an integrated set of environmental programs encompassing habitat restoration and large-scale 're-wilding', preservation of endangered species, scientific research including 'blue sky' initiatives, specific needs for areas such as the Great Barrier Reef, and other initiatives driven by communities and conservation groups.
  • New responsibilities would also include strategic regional planning and reporting on national environmental performance. The commission would also develop enforceable national, regional, threat abatement and species level conservation plans.
• Replace year-to-year grants with a 20 year funding model, with options to top-up in the future.
• Establish an endowment to expand and permanently fund the Indigenous Rangers Program.

Strengthen existing environmental protections.

• Expand the environmental oversight of the federal government to cover mining approvals, water resources, protected areas, land clearing, climate change and air pollution.
• Establish an Environmental Protection Authority with independent statutory status to areas overseeing environmental approvals, inquiries, monitoring, compliance and enforcement.
• Increase biosecurity funding by $20 million each year to prevent more invasive species from entering the country.
• Grant farmers an explicit right to refuse exploitation of coal and coal seam gas deposits on land they own.
• Expand and improve national parks.
  • Increase national park thresholds to cover 15% of land in Australia, with a representative sample of at least 80% of regional ecosystems protected in each bio-region.
  • Review national park legislation and remove restrictions on volunteerism and community engagement in improving parks.
  • Amend Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to insert specific requirements for accountability and monitoring of Recovery Plans.

Disaster Relief Fund

Create a disaster relief fund to support those affected by climate change, particularly farmers, and to enable a timely response to any nationally declared disaster by the Prime Minister.

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Animal welfare

The Pirate Party is opposed to animal abuse and believes our laws should be informed by scientific research, which demonstrates the capacity of animals to feel emotion and pain. Better public understanding and greater transparency have been crucial to improvements in animal welfare to date, and we believe in the further application of these principles. Accordingly, we support efforts to create an independent statutory authority to conduct research and improve animal welfare outcomes. Such a body will have a significant role to play in addressing deep issues in areas such as live cattle exports, puppy farming, and greyhound racing.

There also need to be serious efforts to address the vast and systemic animal abuse in Australia's factory farms. Pirate Party Australia will do all it can to ensure that food production in Australia is conducted with less cruelty in future. A stronger ability to investigate animal abuse—combined with a general lifting in legislative standards—offer the best chance for a holistic improvement in animal welfare in factory farms and other areas.

Pirate Party Australia advocates the following reforms:

Foster improvements in animal welfare

• Support existing proposals to form an Independent Office of Animal Welfare (IOAW).
  • The IOAW authority will be dedicated to animal welfare issues, with enforcement powers and a mandate to adopt a scientific approach.
  • The authority will have statutory independence to prevent political and commercial interference.
• Improve legislation applying to animal product industries.
  • Ban the use of sow stalls.
  • Codify a legal requirement for all abattoirs to stun animals prior to slaughter.
  • Provide whistleblower protection for persons who expose animal abuse at factory farms and other facilities.
  • Ensure transparent and clear labeling of all animal based products, with "free range" label permitted only when:
    • Independent audits of sanitary and welfare conditions are allowed.
    • For birds, indoor stocking density is at a maximum level of 28 kg of live birds per sq metre (35 kg for turkeys), with unrestricted access to an outdoor range with maximum of 1500 birds per hectare, no use of growth promoters, no mutilations (beak trimming, toe trimming, de-snooding).
    • For pigs and cattle, unrestricted access to soil and pasture and no use of farrowing crates, sow stalls, feedlots, tail docking, teeth clipping and nose ringing.
• Ban cosmetics testing on animals
• Ban 'puppy farming' and unregulated high-volume dog breeding.

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