Image from The Guardian
By Situation Theatre 14/5/2019
Other refugees, abused women, and Australian wildlife panicking as PM vows to save them too.
The Prime Minister has congratulated his government for “saving the Great Barrier Reef”.
At Sunday’s Liberal launch Morrison said “We have saved the Great Barrier Reef – well done to Greg Hunt particularly on his work when he was environment minister – taking it off the endangered list”.
Fair enough too, except that the reef narrowly avoided being put on the endangered list in the first place due to immense government pressure on behalf of the mining interests that would be threatened by such a listing. Oh, and except for the 50% of shallow water corals which died in bleaching events in 2016 and 2017, and the 89% decline in production of baby coral.
All this as the Liberals approve Adani, rapidly increase emissions, grant a tiny reef organisation $444m without tender or application, and appoint a political staffer as CEO of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
The PM spent the rest of his launch speech crediting his government with also saving the twelve refugees who died while on Manus and Nauru between 2014 and 2018, the 79 Australian women killed in 2018 alone, and the multiple animal and plant species dying at one of the highest rates in the entire world.
Image from The Guardian