Policy is Labor’s latest attempt to win environment-conscious voters ahead of the 2019 federal election

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Labor will spend $200m to restore urban rivers and waterways, the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, has promised.

The policy is the latest attempt to win environment-conscious voters ahead of the 2019 federal election, after both major parties promised $220m for Kakadu national park and Labor pledged to create a commonwealth environmental protection agency at its national conference in December.

In a statement announcing the policy on Monday Shorten said “for too long, our rivers, creeks and wetlands have been treated like industrial waste drains, ending up polluted, dirty and littered with shopping trolleys”.

“That’s why Labor will engage state and local governments, local councils, community groups and local environmental organisations to bring urban waterways and habitat corridors back to health.”

Under the $200m plan local environmental action groups will be able to apply for small grants for projects such as building wetlands to filter stormwater, revegetation, turning cement waterfronts into natural river banks, and creek education programs.

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The funding will also be available for employment of Indigenous rangers. That program employs 840 full-time equivalent rangers for land and sea management, and received a $250m extension until 2021 in the last federal budget.

Earlier in January Scott Morrison cited “environmental legislation [that] is important to native species” as one of his Coalition government’s two major legislative priorities before the election, expected on 11 or 18 May.

The statement baffled environmental groups, which questioned the explanation given by Morrison’s office that the prime minister had been referring to an obscure bill to ban cosmetic testing on animals.

The deaths of up to 1m fish in the Lower Darling have focused voters’ attention on the environment, prompting the government to offer a $5m recovery package and review while Labor has called for scientists to study the problem.

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Shorten said Labor has a “proud history” of protecting the environment, citing its policies on climate change, large-scale land clearing, and cleaning up Australian rivers.

Shorten said that urban environments are “often still home to many species of wildlife, fish and birds” so “reinvigorating these spaces will create new habitat for animals that have been struggling to find a home”.

“These rivers are the principal waterways to our oceans – that’s why this project is so important to intercept stormwater waste and catch it before it makes it to the ocean.”