Promises, realities: an ongoing assessment

Environment Victoria has set up an online assessment system for the three main contenders in the State election. The system, called Promise Watch, can be found here. It offers detailed comment on what the parties have done, and said, about the environment. EV explains the approach as follows:

‘Promise Watch aims to provide factual, spin free, up-to-date information for Victorians about environmental issues and climate change. But it won’t just keep voters informed in the lead-up to the election. By publishing the commitments of the political parties on important issues like coal, renewable energy, sustainable homes and protecting our fragile rivers, we’ll keep doing our job of increasing transparency and holding our elected leaders to account…

‘There are 3 categories:

‘1. Cleaning up our power supply and reducing carbon pollution;
‘2. Making our homes and communities efficient, affordable and sustainable; and
‘3. Protecting and restoring our natural environment.

‘Each week leading up to the election on 29 November, Environment Victoria will update Promise Watch to include any new statements, policies or promises made by the political parties. Because all three major political parties set policy centrally, our Promise Watch focuses on the statements made by key spokespeople, rather than candidates.

‘Before early voting begins on November 17, we’ll release a separate scorecard based on our policy analysis of the commitments each party makes and their track record in the Parliament.’