Environmental groups have rallied in Melbourne to defend their tax-deductible status and call on the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, to repair relations with the conservation movement.
A parliamentary inquiry into the tax status of environment groups is hearing evidence in Melbourne. The inquiry was called by the federal environment minister, Greg Hunt, amid claims that green groups were misusing tax-deductible funds for inappropriate activism.
Several hundred environment groups are listed on an official register of bodies that hold tax-deductible status, including Greenpeace, the Australian Conservation Foundation and Friends of the Earth.
At a rally outside Victoria’s parliament on Monday, environmental activists called on Turnbull to end what they see as an ideological attack instigated by Tony Abbott, who was deposed as prime minister by Turnbull last week.
“I wonder if the wind is starting to shift in this inquiry,” said Cam Walker, of Friends of the Earth, who gave evidence to the inquiry on Monday morning. “Eric Abetz, who is the grandfather of the anti-green movement, has had a change of circumstances and Malcolm [Turnbull] doesn’t have the same ideological zeal and hatred of the environment movement that Tony Abbott had.
“I’m not suggesting that everything is rosy, but there’s a sense that this was an ideological war that has no value for anyone who is a moderate Liberal.”
Abetz was dropped as employment minister and as leader in the Senate in Turnbull’s reshuffle on Sunday.
Walker said losing tax-deductible status would be “devastating” for Friends of the Earth because it derives 90% of its income from tax-deductible donations.
The chief executive of Environment Victoria, Mark Wakeham, said: “Prime minister Turnbull now has the opportunity to reset the Coalition’s environment policies and relationships with the sector by dropping the deeply unpopular attacks on environment and community groups and working collaboratively with the broad community to shape a healthier environment and economy.”
The Victorian government has lent its weight to the environment groups’ cause, accusing the federal government of attempting to “silence” dissent.
“This is all about a strategy by the commonwealth government to keep you quiet,” Victoria’s environment minister, Lisa Neville, told the rally. “We don’t want to see that voice shut down; we will walk with you and we will be loud about it in opposing those changes.”
Along with the inquiry into green groups’ tax status, the Abbott government also moved to restrict the right to challenge developments such as mining. This followed legal action that stymied Adani’s huge Carmichael mine in Queensland, a challenge the Coalition decried as “lawfare” and “vigilantism”.
Several Coalition figures have spoken out against environmental groups. Last year MP Andrew Nikolic called for them to be stripped of their charitable rights and set apart from “real charities”, such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. Fellow Coalition MP George Christensen, who sits on the environment committee that is holding the tax status inquiry, has said certain green groups are “terrorists” and guilty of treason.
The mining industry is also concerned at the status held by environmental groups.
“Evidence suggests that some registered environmental organisations could be using tax-deductible donations to fund activities that have only a tangential relation (if any) to natural conservation,” the Minerals Council of Australia wrote in its submission.
“Their purpose is not to undertake practical action to improve the environment, or education or research that advances this aim. Rather these organisations appear to be pursuing an ideological agenda.”
