4 August 2024

Animal bridges part of $50 million ACT Greens pledge to 'restore bush capital'

| Oliver Jacques
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Marianne Albury-Colless being interviewed by WIN News.

Marianne Albury-Colless of volunteer group Friends of the Ainslie Volcanic Grasslands wants a fence to keep rabbits out of Mt Ainslie. Photo: Supplied.

The ACT Greens have pledged to spend $50 million to restore Canberra’s bush capital status if they lead government after the October election. This money will be spent on regenerating habitat, restoring landscapes and waterways and building animal bridges/overpasses that enable wildlife to safely move between habitats across the city.

“If we are going to build houses within our footprint, we need to provide support to our essential environmental infrastructure… so it remains liveable and green,” ACT Greens Deputy Leader Rebecca Vassarotti told media at a press conference at Mt Ainslie.

“We are looking at ambitious but practical projects, like large landscape restoration programs in places like the Naas valley, we could look at reintroducing species we haven’t had for a while, like emus.

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“We are also looking at things like land [animal] bridges that will connect some of our nature reserve areas. A challenge with the reserve areas we have is they are in isolated pockets, so it’s difficult for wildlife to move across our city. We’ll [also] be looking at how we respond to invasive species and mass plantings.”

Animal bridges, or wildlife crossings, allow animals to safely cross human-made barriers such as roads.

Wildlife crossing

A wildlife crossing in Israel. Photo: Wikipedia.

Marianne Albury-Colless of volunteer group Friends of the Ainslie Volcanic Grasslands suggested ways she’d like to see the money spent.

“If I look at this particular area [Mt Ainslie], we would like more effort in terms of eradicating rabbits,” she said.

“If I had my way I would like to put a big fence around here to keep out the rabbits… a lot of these areas need more protection from feral animals and invasive species.”

Greens leader Shane Rattenbury said this investment wouldn’t stop his party from addressing the shortage of housing in Canberra.

“We know there’s a housing crisis, but we reject the dichotomy that’s its housing versus environment… we can do both, we need to ensure we’re doing both for the future of the environment.”

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While details on exact projects have not been finalised, Ms Vassarotti said the Bush Capital Restoration Fund would be spent over the next four years of government.

“As the bush capital of Australia, we have a responsibility to lead the nation in fighting climate change and protecting our natural environment,” she said.

“But at the moment, Canberra is home to a devastating list of 72 threatened species which will only get bigger without significant investment.

“For years, governments have barely injected enough money to stave off environmental collapse, but nowhere near enough to regenerate and restore habitat and waterways to allow ecosystems to thrive.

“While existing restoration projects are a step in the right direction, they often don’t get enough funding to be done in conjunction with the other restoration work that is needed across Canberra to comprehensively restore our environment.”

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Julie Lindner2:42 pm 05 Aug 24

What a joke under the stewardship of the Green’s the flora and fauna has been decimated the Nature Reserves have been neglected for years. Invasive weeds have been left to seed and spread. This has a detrimental effect on both flora and fauna. The Mulligans Flat experiment to fence out invasive species but not allow native species trapped within fence to disperse means they have to shoot them regularly. This is not conservation and caring for wildlife. They have just shot 300 defenseless Wallabies and 61 kangaroos (contained within the fence over the 20-year period with no predators and no escape) for eating too much grass. How cruel is that!

Dear oh dear Jack, we all missed you and your insightful commentary. Did your Local Council press release from ALP head office arrive for you to do your rebuttals? How
does large scale habitat regeneration sit with the current policies relating to native grasslands and their clearing for housing to look after 500000 plus future Canberrans? Molonglo Valley is progressing nicely. Wildlife corridors and animal bridges are a great idea, so too restricting rabbit populations in native vegetation areas however the only real areas that have a chance of surviving are currently beyond the reach of developers in southern Canberra in Namadgi National Park because it is difficult to build suburbs there. Repairing an environment is far more costly and problematic that the Greens think.

In the Rat’s World there are money trees everywhere to ensure that “We know there’s a housing crisis, but we reject the dichotomy that’s its housing versus environment… we can do both, we need to ensure we’re doing both for the future of the environment.”
I will just ride my unicorn down to the Faerie Glade in Braddon to get some elf gold to pay for the ongoing and increasing rates that the ALP and Greens heap on us with each passing promise.

You are so boring and predictable Earthdog and just so infantile in your language!

Ha! The Greens eagerly ripped up the trees on Northbourne Ave for their vanity project. Absolute hypocrites with a double twist and pike

Incidental Tourist11:17 am 05 Aug 24

They seem to recall being “greens” just before election. I have not seen ACT Greens with a sod of soil planting even a single tree between elections. Neither they paid attention to the overgrown grass around town last summer. However we see ACT Greens advocating high density apartments turning Bush Capital to glass and concrete jungle. Also they are always in the front line of “innovation” of new and increased taxes impacting the cost of living. $50M environmental investment is rather pathetic in the scale of $1460 million for 1.7 kilometres of steel and concrete tramline from civic to Commonwealth park which was promised to cost “merely” $577 million. Getting Greens back to the assembly is like getting black hole in our budget.

Astounding. Will Mr Rattenbury and his clown car posse be personally guiding critters onto these bridges/overpasses as part of their misguided zeal for putting animals before people? Add this to the seemingly endless list of spending promises made by the Greens in recent months, and it’s clear Canberra can’t afford them for another term.

What about the budget Greens, how are you going to address the growing debt and annual deficits?

The Pegasus Economics review of the ACT budget projects interest payments will be $832 million in 2027-28. The people have to pay that annual bill via an array of taxes, and we get no services in return for that expense.

The Labor-Greens parliamentary agreements of 2008, 2012, and 2016 included the statement – “The parties confirm their commitment to fiscal responsibility and the maintenance of a balanced budget through the economic cycle.” Why did Greens renege on this promise, why did Greens let the people down?

https://the-riotact.com/tax-reform-doubts-rates-rises-not-enough-to-cover-stamp-duty-losses-says-budget-review/788886

The ACT greens are absolutely useless and negligent when it comes to land and wildlife management. Their solution to everything is to lock people out and ignore everything, which allows places to turn into noxious weed and feral pest breeding sanctuaries. Don’t give these clowns the power to do any more damage than they already have.

GrumpyGrandpa9:37 am 05 Aug 24

Ken, there is good news and bad news:
1. The good news is that The Greens will not get elected into government in their own right.
2. The bad news is that, as history has shown, the ALP will be prepared to enter into an alliance with The Greens to form a government that can’t be scrutinised, as opposed to being prepared to run as a minority government.
As part of that Alliance, The Greens will demand the adoption of some of their ideology.

People should Vote for whoever they choose, but, be aware that the party of their choosing, distributes preferences, which may not be your preferences.

I intent to number every box to ensure that the Greens candidate don’t receive any preferences, as a result of my vote.

@GrumpyGrandpa
I’d be interested to know from where you got the notion that “… the party of their choosing, distributes preferences”. This is a complete fallacy.

Preferences are allocated according to the ballot paper of the elector. If the elector does not number every box ( the requirement being a minimum of 5), then once their “preferences” have been exhausted that ballot paper ceases to be counted.

So, while numbering every box ensures that your ballot will remain active until the count is finalised, it’s disingenuous of you to promulgate the fallacy that your vote could unintentionally preference a Green candidate.

Hey Grumps, I have to disagree with your second point that the Greens alliance with Labor can’t be scrutinised. There is an agreement in place between the two parties which has been negotiated following the last election and is available for viewing on the government website. The agreement and the party’s actions since that time reveals the laziness of the Greens and falls short of what they claim to represent in advocating for the people they pretend to stand for.

It has only been over recent months that the party has got off their lazy backsides and out in the community, lecturing us in the lead up to the October election. Jo Clay has been active in seeking to penalise property investors who she looks down on and deems underserved, calling for a rental freeze forcing them out of the market. This from a party whose members supported their federal colleagues, using all of their delaying tactics over months, to oppose Labor’s $10 billion housing investment plan to build thousands of new social and affordable properties.

The party’s bastions of human rights and the most extreme, Vanessa Vassaroti, Jo Clay and colleague Emma Davidson (Human Rights Minister and the most disappointing and underperforming Minister in the government), have been just recently travelling around the country, whipping up hostility at protest events, inflicting their extreme Green ideologies onto others.

The party’s hypocrisy is legendary. It was just recently that the ACT Greens were demanding that the government divest from companies linked to Israel, despite Jo Clay and Emma Davidson owning such shares themselves. There was also ongoing allegations of misconduct within the party which they chose to ignore.

Yeah, Jack, we know the greens are hopeless hypocrites, but that doesn’t stop your boss Andy from allying with them to form government, then get held over a barrel by Rattenbury to implement stupidity.

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