• Labor slashes funding to key natural resource management programs in this week’s State Budget

• Queensland’s environment to suffer with funding to NRM groups cut by a third over four years

• Lynham exposed as hypocrite when it comes to protecting Queensland’s precious environment

Funding allocations for two key programs within the Department of Natural Resources and Mines have been slashed in the Palaszczuk Labor Government’s third budget.

Shadow Natural Resources and Mines Minister Andrew Cripps said investment in the programs for natural resource management (NRM) and resources exploration had been dramatically cut, exposing Anthony Lynham as a hypocrite.

“This is a bitterly disappointing result for two programs that are the backbone of Queensland’s natural resource management and resources exploration effort,” Mr Cripps said.

“In Labor’s own words the NRM program, ‘implements on-ground activities that protect, improve and restore waterways and rangelands by addressing weeds and pests. They also improve soil, vegetation and water quality at a river catchment or other landscape level’ – and yet they’ve seen fit to slash their funding.*

“Labor’s cuts are all the more extraordinary given the hollow rhetoric we hear from the Palaszczuk Government about how concerned it is about protecting Queensland’s environment.

“In the 2013-14 State Budget, the former LNP Government invested a record $80 million over five years into the Queensland Natural Resource Management Program.

“Labor has cut that funding to just $42.3 million over four years.

“This means natural resource management funding has been effectively slashed by one-third, threatening the long-term future of Queensland’s well-respected NRM groups – an appalling outcome.”

Mr Cripps said the other short-sighted cut to the Natural Resources and Mines portfolio was the lack of funding allocated to the Strategic Resources Exploration Program – a program designed to provide vital geological data to encourage new discoveries of gas and minerals in North West Queensland.

“Labor has announced $20 million over four years, after trading on the former LNP Government’s 2013-14 Future Resources Program investment for two years, without any additional funding,” he said.