Senator Bob Brown

The Prime Minister's decision to strip further powers from Peter Garrett seriously weakens the Environment Minister's ability
to push for good environmental outcomes, said Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown.

"We welcome the transfer of energy efficiency to the Department of Climate Change," said Senator Brown.

"The Prime Minister should have gone further, and created a unified Ministry and Department of Energy and Climate Change,
as the Greens called for in our censure motion this week.

"Leaving non-renewable energy in Martin Ferguson's hands is a complete contradiction.

"But we have real concerns that this stripping of powers from Peter Garrett leaves the Minister in an extremely weak political
position, and it will be the environment that suffers as a result.

"In the UN Year of Biodiversity, this leaves the environment portfolio an also-ran," Senator Brown said.