A letter to Federal Environmental Minister Tony Burke

Dear Minister Burke.

Please stop trying to make a flawed system work, no problem can be solved with the same level of thinking that creating it. I've lived on the ocean my whole life, I've seen what mining and overfishing can do to marine environments. I realise that it may be foreign to you; the ocean might be a nice view from your luxury house or an open road for a boating trip; but please, please try and get to know the ocean on a deeper level. Learn to understand it, then you can identify with it, love it, and protect it, as you do every other love in your life.

Man does not learn much from the lessons of history, and that, is the most important of all the lessons of history.

  Realise the lesson to be learnt from our past errors, species extinct, ecosystems destroyed, livelihoods stolen by big business; waterways polluted; where was the forethought to the impacts of our errors? The human race will survive without money, without oil, without giant fishing trawlers. Mr Burke please tell me what will provide for us when we've destroyed the provider?Destruction has no future just a regrettable past.

  Step into the liquid you so wish to profit off, breath the air gifted to you by the billions of tons of algae you wish to destroy; then, Mr burke if you would be so kind, please look a child in the eye and tell them that even their life and future has a price tag, and could be traded for a drum of oil or a few tons of fish. Is that what it's come to?  Will you forsake that childs willingness to believe in you to act in the best interests of future generations? Can you compare, without an iota of guilt, the livelihood of our children with a good quarterly statement? For the sake of time I hope not; for if so the price tag of your progress down a slippery slope will render you the monster in that child's closet. Shift the paradigm, bring the needs of the future not the economy to the table; lose your mindfulness of your wallet and come to your senses; become the kid whose future you hold, then it will all become clear to you; that when the environment is gone, we will be gone with it.

-A wide eyed kid.