Moments after Labor’s second budget was released, Professor Euan Ritchie took to Twitter to declare Australia was growing ‘meaner’ and ‘crueler’ – here’s why.
For a Government that has promised to take action on climate change and environmental protection after a “decade of neglect” by the Coalition, Labor’s second budget has left experts and advocates bitterly disappointed.
But when Treasurer Jim Chalmers handed down the Government’s plan for a “stronger economy and a fairer society”, Deakin University Professor of wildlife ecology and conservation Euan Ritchie was “devastated” to hear there was no such policy talk.
He later told news.com.au his disappointment was shared by many in the sector, because the 2023-24 budget “continues to neglect and perpetuate the myth that we can’t properly invest in conservation or protecting the environment and wildlife”.
“We are in a biodiversity and climate crisis, which is an existential threat to life as we know it. We simply can’t meet Labor’s targets for no new extinctions.”
Professor Euan Ritchie
Read the full article at news.com.au.
Applied ecology and conservation research group 