Statement - Labor's tree canopy policy is a sapling not an oak

Statement – Labor’s tree canopy policy is a sapling not an oak

James Newbury, Shadow Minister for Environment and Climate Change

23 October 2023.

New Minister for the Environment, Steve Dimopoulos, has confirmed that Labor has failed to deliver on its promise to plant 500,000 new trees in Melbourne’s west and intends to slow down the rate of future planting.

Current estimates show that after announcing the policy two and a half years ago, Labor is still almost 200,000 trees short of its own target.

Labor has also failed broader Melbourne and regional Victoria by having no policy to improve tree canopy beyond Melbourne’s west.

This is despite northern and inner Melbourne, sitting at 12 percent, currently falling short of the metropolitan Melbourne average tree canopy coverage of around 15 per cent.

Shadow Minister for the Environment, James Newbury, said: “Tree canopy cover is important for our community and environment as it reduces urban temperatures, supports biodiversity and ecosystems, provides shade and cooling, and promotes physical activity.

“At the last election, the Coalition committed to a metropolitan Melbourne tree canopy strategy that would have seen the planting of 2 million trees over the next four years. Under Labor, we have seen three hundred thousand trees planted in three years with no expected completion date for the full promised amount.

“Victorians deserve a proper whole of state strategy on tree canopy, not a Labor Government which cannot even be trusted to meet their own modest targets”.

James Newbury, Shadow Minister for Environment and Climate Change