Tag: policy capture

Part Four: “When ‘Historic Reform’ Means Managed Decline”

The final instalment: Did Labor’s environmental reform stop the degradation, or just slow it down enough to look serious while keeping the machinery of destruction functional? We measure the bill against Samuel’s recommendations, synthesise what every independent expert told us, and reveal the four-step pattern of how to manage environmental decline while calling it protection. This is policy capture in a democracy, not through corruption or conspiracy, but through the mundane mechanics of political calculation where industry interests outweigh both scientific advice and majority voter preference.

How Australia’s “Landmark” Environmental Reform Got Captured

Five years after the Samuel Review exposed catastrophic failures in Australia’s environmental laws, Labor has delivered reforms that every major independent environmental organisation says fall dangerously short. Part One examines what Samuel actually recommended versus what we got, featuring damning assessments from the Environmental Defenders Office, Climate Council, ACF, Greenpeace, and WWF-Australia. When every credible environmental voice in Australia identifies the same fundamental flaws, that’s not ideology. That’s evidence.

Photorealistic digital artwork depicting Australia’s environmental degradation with Tasmania silhouette overlay, corporate mining CEOs behind parliament wrapped in greenwash banners, a protester behind barbed wire labeled “Anti-Protest Laws,” and a looming super-sized SUV casting shadow over a smoky cityscape.

Australia’s Environmental Policy Crisis: A Closer Look

Labor’s Eco Renaissance: Destroying the Joint, Sensitively As federal parliament resumes its familiar variety show of “Consensus or Catastrophe”, the Labor government unveils another environmental revolution; provided it doesn’t trouble its donors in hi-vis or hard hats. Gina Rinehart’s chequebook, Woodside’s lobbyists, and the captains … Continue reading Australia’s Environmental Policy Crisis: A Closer Look