Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities

Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities
Incumbent Tony Burke since 14 September 2010
Style	The Honourable
Appointer	Governor-General on the recommendation of the Prime Minister of Australia
Inaugural holder	Peter Howson
Formation	1971

The current Australian Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities is Tony Burke, who took over from Peter Garrett (whose portfolio was titled Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts). The Minister and department change took effect in the Second Gillard Ministry on 14 September 2010.^[1][2] When the Rudd Labor Government came to power in December 2007, Water Resources and the responsibility for addressing Climate Change were assigned to a new Ministry.

Portfolio responsibilities

The minister administers their portfolio through the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities and its component bodies:

• Antarctic Animal Ethics Committee
• Antarctic Ethics Committee (Human Experimentation)
• Antarctic Research Assessment Committees (ARACs)
• Antarctic Science Advisory Committee
• Australia-Netherlands Committee on Old Dutch Shipwrecks
• Australian Antarctic Names and Medals Committee
• Australian Heritage Council
• Bureau of Meteorology
• Environment Protection and Heritage Council
• Great Barrier Reef Consultative Committee
• Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
• Great Barrier Reef Ministerial Council
• Great Barrier Reef Structural Adjustment Package Technical Advisory Committee
• Hazardous Waste Technical Group
• Murray-Darling Basin Authority
• National Environment Protection Council
• National Environmental Education Council
• New South Wales World Heritage Properties Ministerial Council
• Office of the Renewable Energy Regulator
• Science Program Management Committee
• State of the Environment Committee 2006
• Stockholm Intergovernmental Forum
• Sydney Harbour Federation Trust
• Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area Ministerial Council
• Threatened Species Scientific Committee
• Wet Tropics Ministerial Council

List of Environment Ministers

Minister for Sustainable Population

The Minister for Sustainable Population was a ministerial portfolio administered through the Department of the Treasury responsible for "planning properly for the infrastructure needs, for the housing needs, for the transport needs, for the regional needs" of the Australian population of the future.^[3] Originally entitled the Minister for Population by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, his successor, Julia Gillard, renamed the portfolio to the Minister for Sustainable Population to reflect her policy changes on the matter of population growth and the need for a sustainable future for Australia, saying the change sends a clear message about the new direction the Government is taking.^[4] After the 2010 Federal Election the portfolio was subsumed by the Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities portfolio.^[5]

References

External links

• Ministers' website