By Rich Bowden:

The Australian Greens have said Treasurer Wayne Swan’s third budget shows the Rudd Government has turned its back on key environmental reforms, including a tax on carbon.

Greens leader Senator Bob Brown said today the cuts of millions of dollars for key environmental programs, coupled with its recent backflip on the introduction of a carbon emissions trading scheme, showed the Rudd Government wasn’t serious about environmental concerns.

Senator Brown said in a statement that the Government had:

- Cut $81.3 million from heritage and conservation programs
- Failed to replace the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme with the
Greens proposed carbon tax

Sen Brown described the budget as a wasted opportunity.

“After turning his back on the carbon tax option, Prime Minister Rudd has failed to use this last budget before the election to take effective action on climate change,” he said. “If the Federal Government adopted the Greens carbon tax on the 1000 biggest polluters, Australia would have a price on carbon which would deliver $10 billion per year for climate change action.”

While welcoming increased funding for renewable energy, Senator Brown said the Government had failed to tackle carbon pollution.

“The budget announcement of $652 million for renewable energy is welcome but it is a piecemeal approach to the problem when what we need is a price on greenhouse pollution.”

Leading environmental organisation the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) also welcomed the increased renewable energy funding in the budget but, like the Greens, said that the Government had failed to deliver a tax on pollution.

“The $652 million Renewable Energy Future Fund is welcome and will support investment in the clean energy economy, but doesn’t deliver at anywhere near the scale that a price on pollution would,” said ACF executive director Don Henry.

“This budget has not changed the fact that Australia’s big miners and big polluters are not paying for their pollution – which is destroying our climate – and they are not paying a fair price for fuel. “The budget still gives away billions of taxpayers’ dollars to promote pollution.”

“The Government has failed to act on the recommendation of the Henry Review to restructure Fringe Benefits Tax concessions for company cars so they no longer encourage excessive driving,” said Henry.

However speaking on the Seven Network Prime Minister Kevin Rudd denied his Government had ignored the environment saying the $650 million allocated over four years to a new renewable energy fund was a “big investment.”

Tags: 2010 budget, Bob Brown, budget, budget environment, carbon tax, climate change, greenhouse gas, Greens, pollution