At a time when Australian businesses and families are Covid-broke, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has casually dropped a billion dollars to keep the United Nations away from the Great Barrier Reef.
It’s only the start of Morrison’s spending spree, with funding for the reef set to jump to $3 billion in the latest set of election promises designed to make inner-city Liberals swoon (or snorkel).
This figure comes on top of several billion from Queensland and ex-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s random $444 million dollar donation that caused a scandal during the dying days of his leadership in 2018.
How much money has Australia spent on the reef? Who knows, but at this point, it’s fair to expect gold-plated fish and diamond-encrusted coral.
When a Prime Minister gets into difficulty, they siphon money into the Great Barrier Reef because it is seen as the safest political cause in town.
Everyone loves the reef. The greenies. The woke. Labor (who were promising their own cash frenzy until they were out-spent by Morrison). Die-hard Liberal voters. Even China – who keeps buying up our paradise islands before pouring concrete all over them.
Someone else loves the reef too – Unesco. Well, more accurately, they love the idea of ripping control of the reef away from Australia or using it as a pawn in an international game of climate blackmail.
The Australian government suspects that China was instrumental – not only in causing the so-called ‘environmental disaster of climate change’ that led to the potential ‘danger’ listing – but also as the Chair of the World Heritage Committee in chaperoning the ridiculous recommendation.
Why is a country with over 43 percent of its rivers so badly polluted that they’re not fit for human contact (let alone consumption) calling the shots on Australia’s pristine marine park? Politics.
If Morrison had a few vertebrae handy in his spine he would have told the climate cult to clean up the marauding communist before pointing the finger at Australia.
After all, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef in the world and it has been doing just fine under the guardianship of Australia without the ‘help’ from foreign entities.
It made the Unesco World Heritage list in 1981 along with its extensive surrounding marine park containing over a thousand islands and atolls.
This official classification imposed restrictions and responsibilities on Australia in regards to preserving the Great Barrier Reef, with the state of Queensland being the primary entity responsible.
Considering most of these amounted to ‘don’t destroy it,’ Australia has been happy to use the acknowledgment as a major tourist bonus.
The problem with unelected, international bureaucracies is that they have nothing better to do than sit around plotting ways to micromanage things that don’t belong to them.
In this case, they have added a classification to their World Heritage list called ‘in danger’ that is bandied around as a threat to misbehaving nations.
Unesco and its nest of scientists, researchers, and diplomats launched a climate war against Australia in 2021, demanding that the Great Barrier Reef have its classification changed to ‘in danger’.
The recommendation had nothing to do with Australia’s exemplary record of custodianship, but rather it admits to being the first case of ‘climate heating’ endangering the status of a world heritage site.
‘The facts are the facts and the science is the science. The committee supported the science but did not support the ‘in danger’ listing,’ said Dr. Fanny Douvere, head of Unesco’s marine program. It was an outcome followed by vague threats from other members to keep up the pressure next year.
These threats result in taxpayer cash being waved in front of climate grifters until they go quiet again.
Part of the prime minister’s campaign to rescue the reef from Unesco’s ‘climate change’ fearmongering included – of course – flying over a dozen global ambassadors from Canberra to Cairns for a snorkeling trip while Australia’s Environment Minister was flown over to Europe on a RAAF jet to tour Budapest, Paris, Oman, the Maldives, Madrid, and Sarajevo.
Is this strange behavior for a group of people that keep saying that air travel is literally destroying the world’s reefs? Of course not. Climate change only happens when peasants fly cattle class.
The billion-dollar spend is hardly surprising news given Morrison’s announcement has come ahead of the February 2022 deadline for Australia’s reef progress report.
Instead of telling Unesco to go and jump in the ocean, Scott Morrison drafted an expansion to the already expensive Reef 2050 plan.
‘We are backing the health of the reef and the economic future of tourism operators, hospitality providers and Queensland communities that are at the heart of the reef economy. This is already the best-managed reef in the world and today we take our commitment to a new level. Funding will support scientists, farmers and traditional owners, backing in [the] very latest marine science while building-resilience and reducing threats from pollution in our oceans and predators such as the crown of thorns starfish.’
The Prime Minister left out the bit about this whole project being cobbled together under duress.
Albanese isn’t keen to see Australia put on the list either.
‘That’s what we’re determined to do: make sure that it’s never ever put on that list. The way to do that is take the big action that we will take by joining the world in climate policy, once again, not being a pariah sitting in the naughty corner with Saudi Arabia and Brazil and a couple of other countries.’
If the United Nations wants to help Australia out, they could always punish China, Japan, and other European nations that cruise around Australia, fishing, and whaling its rich waters after emptying their own. They might even kindly ask North Korea to keep their poorly aimed missiles away from the reef.
The only person disappointed by the decision to rescue Australia’s Great Barrier Reef from the clutches of the UN is the New South Wales Treasurer Matt Kean, who tweeted sadly in July last year, ‘Political lobbying does not change the science #greatbarrierreef.’
Poor thing. Maybe it’s because he wasn’t included in the Prime Minister’s ‘snorkel diplomacy’?
It’s an indictment on the UN that it’s not enough for Australians to be the best environmental custodians in the world – we have to pay bribes to the international green mafia every year.
Why don’t they turn their attention on China and ask Xi Jinping why he’s terraformed over a dozen paradise islands in the South China Sea into weapons bases…? What about the spread of toxic rare earth mines carving open national parks in the third world?
How long are Australian politicians going to let the UN direct domestic policy and when is there going to be an investigation into the use of ‘climate change’ to appropriate billions of public money every year?
Environmental extortion is not a sustainable future.
Read more at Spectator AU
