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Silent spring, summer, autumn and winter: the government's Senate majority is being used to muffle sections of civil society.

Article Excerpt
The 1 July shift in the balance of power in the Senate marked the 'full strength' stage of the long-awaited offensive by the Coalition against many progressive values and achievements. Certainly the environment movement is facing changes: increased struggles on many fronts and direct threats to the survival of some groups. While the mainstream media was full of the great efforts of the Federal Environment Minister at the International Whaling Commission meeting in South Korea in June, this 'activist' approach to the environment stops with whales. In most other areas of environmental concern, from uranium mining to global warming, the Federal government has a hostile approach to the green movement and an aggressively pro-business angle to issues. Sadly, in its approach to business it has aligned itself with old-style resource sectors like the coal industry instead of with emerging renewable energy business.

There can be little doubt that the green movement is seen as being a problem by the Federal government. In his first media statement as Federal Environment Minister, Ian Campbell declared that he would not be held 'captive' to the agenda of the 'myopic' green movement. Relations seemed to go downhill from there: he is yet to call a meeting of the National Environment Consultative Forum (NECF), which is composed of the major green groups, and has now slashed funding to environment and heritage groups throughout Australia. This can only be taken as an attempt to silence them.

In April 2005, Senator Campbell announced that Grants to Voluntary Environment and Heritage Organisations (GVEHO) for the 2004-05 financial year were to be capped at...

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