The Environment Portfolio - Budget 2014

And, it's time for some more data...this time, I'm focusing on the environment portfolio as a whole. For Budget 2014, it's split up like this:

As you can see, the Department of the Environment takes up the bulk of the funding. We'll have to examine this portfolio in three separte sections:

- Department of Environment
- The Clean Energy Regulator
- Everything else

This post will cover the Department of Environment.



The Department of the Environment (DoE) is split up about 50 different sections - you can hover over the slices above to get a feel for which sections form the biggest chunks. Nearly everything has been reduced - here's the same data but shown as %'age change from the previous year:

It seems the big winner is the "Services for Other Entities and Trust Monies Special Account" - that large curve at the top. Despite the big increase to this section, overall there's still a net reduction over the forecasted years, for the Department of Environment, including the axing of all of these agencies:



All in all, it's a collection of not-very-good news for environmental issues. The "Grants to Voluntary Environment, Sustainability and Heritage Organisations" program has been axed, which will have a serious impact on conservation groups across Australia. Victoria McKenzie-McHarg from the Australian Conservation Foundation put it succinctly:

"When faced with a so-called budget emergency, it is remarkable to see $1.3 million cut from environment groups while handing out $13 billion over the next few years to subsidise big polluting industries."

Next up, Clean Energy Regulator!