A cousin by marriage of the current Australian Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources David Littleproud, John Norman, finds his agricultural business practices under scrutiny.....
Showing posts with label environmental vandalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environmental vandalism. Show all posts
Friday 13 April 2018
Alleged irrigator water theft heading for the courts?
A cousin by marriage of the current Australian Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources David Littleproud, John Norman, finds his agricultural business practices under scrutiny.....
The
Guardian, 9
April 2018:
Fraud charges are
expected to be laid against one of Queensland’s biggest cotton irrigators, John
Norman, within a matter of weeks.
If the trial of the
owner-operator of Norman Farming, and former cotton
farmer of the year goes ahead, it is likely to draw attention to the
links between the irrigator’s family and that of the federal minister for
agriculture and water resources, David Littleproud.
If the charges are laid,
they will also throw the spotlight on the Queensland government’s failure
in administering a key plank of the $13bn Murray-Darling basin plan, how it
withheld critical information about the alleged crimes, and how it raises
queries as to whether it lied about its own investigation.
For the past 18 months,
an expanding team of undercover detectives, cybercrime experts and forensic
accountants have been investigating Norman’s business on the Queensland/New
South Wales border, an irrigated cotton aggregate stretching 45km north from
the McIntyre river.
The investigation has
focused on whether Norman Farming misused upwards of $25m in
Murray-Darling basin infrastructure funds that were supposed to make the
irrigator more efficient and deliver water back to the ailing river system
downstream.
The plan for the basin
is funded by the commonwealth and administered by state governments. But
allegations that the $150m Healthy Headwaters Water Use Efficiency
projects in Queensland, part of the MDB plan, lacked any genuinely independent
checks on projects, means it may have been left open to corruption.
“It’s been a
loosey-goosey slush fund helping irrigators get richer,” according to Chris
Lamey, a dry-land farmer who’s seeking compensation from Norman, his neighbour.
“It’s achieved the opposite of what was intended. There’s a lot of water not
getting into NSW now and it’s backed up in dams next door to me.”
Queensland’s covert
police investigation into Norman Farming went
public in October 2017, when dozens of major crime squad detectives holding
multiple subpoenas fanned out from Goondiwindi in early-morning high-speed
convoys, heading across the floodplain to the irrigator’s properties and
several of its contractors in and around the border river town…..
Monday 9 April 2018
Land degradation will be main cause of species loss & driver of the migration of millions of people by 2050
IPBES:
Science and Policy for People and nature, media
release, 26 March 2018:
Worsening Worldwide Land
Degradation Now ‘Critical’, Undermining Well-Being of 3.2 Billion People
Main cause of species loss & driver of the migration of millions of people by 2050 In landmark 3-year assessment report, 100+ experts outline costs, dangers & options
Worsening land degradation caused by
human activities is undermining the well-being of two fifths of humanity,
driving species extinctions and intensifying climate change. It is also a major
contributor to mass human migration and increased conflict, according to the
world’s first comprehensive evidence-based assessment of land degradation and
restoration.
The dangers of land degradation, which
cost the equivalent of about 10% of the world’s annual gross product in 2010
through the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, are detailed for
policymakers, together with a catalogue of corrective options, in the
three-year assessment report by more than 100 leading experts from 45
countries, launched today.
Produced by the Intergovernmental
Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the
report was approved at the 6th session of the IPBES Plenary in Medellín,
Colombia. IPBES has 129 State Members.
Providing the best-available evidence
for policymakers to make better-informed decisions, the report draws on more
than 3,000 scientific, Government, indigenous and local knowledge sources.
Extensively peer-reviewed, it was improved by more than 7,300 comments,
received from over 200 external reviewers.
Serious Danger to Human
Well-being
Rapid expansion and unsustainable
management of croplands and grazing lands is the most extensive global direct
driver of land degradation, causing significant loss of biodiversity and
ecosystem services – food security, water purification, the provision of energy
and other contributions of nature essential to people. This has reached
‘critical’ levels in many parts of the world, the report says.
“With negative impacts on the
well-being of at least 3.2 billion people, the degradation of the Earth’s land
surface through human activities is pushing the planet towards a sixth mass
species extinction,” said Prof. Robert Scholes (South Africa), co-chair of the
assessment with Dr. Luca Montanarella (Italy). “Avoiding, reducing and
reversing this problem, and restoring degraded land, is an urgent priority to
protect the biodiversity and ecosystem services vital to all life on Earth and
to ensure human well-being.”
“Wetlands have been particularly hard
hit,” said Dr. Montanarella. “We have seen losses of 87% in wetland areas since
the start of the modern era – with 54% lost since 1900.”
According to the authors, land
degradation manifests in many ways: land abandonment, declining populations of
wild species, loss of soil and soil health, rangelands and fresh water, as well
as deforestation.
Underlying drivers of land
degradation, says the report, are the high-consumption lifestyles in the most
developed economies, combined with rising consumption in developing and
emerging economies. High and rising per capita consumption, amplified by
continued population growth in many parts of the world, can drive unsustainable
levels of agricultural expansion, natural resource and mineral extraction, and
urbanization – typically leading to greater levels of land degradation.
By 2014, more than 1.5 billion
hectares of natural ecosystems had been converted to croplands. Less than 25%
of the Earth’s land surface has escaped substantial impacts of human activity –
and by 2050, the IPBES experts estimate this will have fallen to less than 10%.
Crop and grazing lands now cover more
than one third of the Earth´s land surface, with recent clearance of native
habitats, including forests, grasslands and wetlands, being concentrated in
some of the most species-rich ecosystems on the planet.
The report says increasing demand for
food and biofuels will likely lead to continued increase in nutrient and
chemical inputs and a shift towards industrialized livestock production
systems, with pesticide and fertilizer use expected to double by 2050.
Avoidance of further agricultural
expansion into native habitats can be achieved through yield increases on the
existing farmlands, shifts towards less land degrading diets, such as those
with more plant-based foods and less animal protein from unsustainable sources,
and reductions in food loss and waste.
Strong Links to Climate
Change
“Through this report, the global
community of experts has delivered a frank and urgent warning, with clear
options to address dire environmental damage,” said Sir Robert Watson, Chair of
IPBES.
“Land degradation, biodiversity loss
and climate change are three different faces of the same central challenge: the
increasingly dangerous impact of our choices on the health of our natural
environment. We cannot afford to tackle any one of these three threats in
isolation – they each deserve the highest policy priority and must be addressed
together.”
The IPBES report finds that land
degradation is a major contributor to climate change, with deforestation alone
contributing about 10% of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. Another
major driver of the changing climate has been the release of carbon previously
stored in the soil, with land degradation between 2000 and 2009 responsible for
annual global emissions of up to 4.4 billion tonnes of CO2.
Given the importance of soil’s carbon
absorption and storage functions, the avoidance, reduction and reversal of land
degradation could provide more than a third of the most cost-effective
greenhouse gas mitigation activities needed by 2030 to keep global warming
under the 2°C threshold targeted in the Paris Agreement on climate change,
increase food and water security, and contribute to the avoidance of conflict
and migration.
Projections to 2050
“In just over three decades from now,
an estimated 4 billion people will live in drylands,” said Prof. Scholes. “By
then it is likely that land degradation, together with the closely related
problems of climate change, will have forced 50-700 million people to migrate.
Decreasing land productivity also makes societies more vulnerable to social
instability – particularly in dryland areas, where years with extremely low
rainfall have been associated with an increase of up to 45% in violent
conflict.”
Dr. Montanarella added: “By 2050, the
combination of land degradation and climate change is predicted to reduce
global crop yields by an average of 10%, and by up to 50% in some regions. In
the future, most degradation will occur in Central and South America,
sub-Saharan Africa and Asia – the areas with the most land still remaining that
is suitable for agriculture.”
The report also underlines the
challenges that land degradation poses, and the importance of restoration, for
key international development objectives, including the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. “The greatest
value of the assessment is the evidence that it provides to decision makers in
Government, business, academia and even at the level of local communities,”
said Dr. Anne Larigauderie, Executive Secretary of IPBES. “With better
information, backed by the consensus of the world’s leading experts, we can all
make better choices for more effective action.”
Options for Land
Restoration
The report notes that successful
examples of land restoration are found in every ecosystem, and that many
well-tested practices and techniques, both traditional and modern, can avoid or
reverse degradation.
In croplands, for instance, some of
these include reducing soil loss and improving soil health, the use of salt
tolerant crops, conservation agriculture and integrated crop, livestock and
forestry systems.
In rangelands with traditional
grazing, maintenance of appropriate fire regimes, and the reinstatement or
development of local livestock management practices and institutions have
proven effective.
Successful responses in wetlands have
included control over pollution sources, managing the wetlands as part of the
landscape, and reflooding wetlands damaged by draining.
In urban areas, urban spatial
planning, replanting with native species, the development of ‘green
infrastructure’ such as parks and riverways, remediation of contaminated and
sealed soils (e.g. under asphalt), wastewater treatment and river channel restoration
are identified as key options for action.
Opportunities to accelerate action
identified in the report include:
Improving monitoring, verification
systems and baseline data;
Coordinating policy between different
ministries to simultaneously encourage more sustainable production and
consumption practices of land-based commodities;
Eliminating ‘perverse incentives’ that
promote land degradation and promoting positive incentives that reward
sustainable land management; and
Integrating the agricultural,
forestry, energy, water, infrastructure and service agendas.
Making the point that existing
multilateral environmental agreements provide a good platform for action to
avoid, reduce and reverse land degradation and promote restoration, the authors
observe, however, that greater commitment and more effective cooperation is
needed at the national and local levels to achieve the goals of zero net land
degradation, no loss of biodiversity and improved human well-being.
Knowledge Gaps
Among the areas identified by the
report as opportunities for further research are:
The consequences of land degradation
on freshwater and coastal ecosystems, physical and mental health and spiritual
well-being, and infectious disease prevalence and transmission;
The potential for land degradation to
exacerbate climate change, and land restoration to help both mitigation and
adaptation;
The linkages between land degradation
and restoration and social, economic and political processes in far-off places;
and
Interactions among land degradation,
poverty, climate change, and the risk of conflict and of involuntary migration.
Environmental and
Economic Sense
The report found that higher
employment and other benefits of land restoration often exceed by far the costs
involved. On average, the benefits of restoration are 10 times higher
than the costs (estimated across nine different biomes), and, for regions like
Asia and Africa, the cost of inaction in the face of land degradation is at
least three times higher than the cost of action.
“Fully deploying the toolbox of proven
ways to stop and reverse land degradation is not only vital to ensure food
security, reduce climate change and protect biodiversity,” said Dr.
Montanarella, “It’s also economically prudent and increasingly urgent.”
Echoing this message, Sir Robert
Watson, said: “Of the many valuable messages in the report, this ranks among
the most important: implementing the right actions to combat land degradation
can transform the lives of millions of people across the planet, but this will
become more difficult and more costly the longer we take to act.”
Unedited
advance Summary for Policymakers of the regional assessment of biodiversity and
ecosystem services for Asia and the Pacific
EN
PDF
EN
Word
Unedited
advance Summary for Policymakers of the thematic assessment of land degradation
and restoration
EN
PDF
EN
Word
Saturday 7 April 2018
Tweet of the Week
Absolutely stunning high-definition video of Antarctic Minke Whales taken with a new camera system that can record continuous underwater footage for weeks at a time! These are the same whales Japanese whalers hunt under their New Scientific Research Program in the Antarctic Ocean pic.twitter.com/oXUS7Zxwmp— Quad Finn (@Quad_Finn) March 31, 2018
Thursday 5 April 2018
When is the National Party going to stop attempting to turn the NSW North Coast into a barren rubbish dump?
Almost every crackpot idea - from turning coastal rivers inland, building pulp mills, establishing wall to wall gasfields, clearing forest remaining on private land through to monetising national parks and turning over biodiverse crown land to property developers - has initially been supported by some or many members of the NSW National Party.
So I would bet
my last dollar that NSW Nationals MP for Clarence, Chris Gulaptis, thinks sending the North Coast nuclear is a great idea.
Both he and fellow National, the Minister for Regional NSW and NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro, would be easy prey for persistent foreign and domestic lobbyists from the nuclear energy industry.
The story so far......
Both he and fellow National, the Minister for Regional NSW and NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro, would be easy prey for persistent foreign and domestic lobbyists from the nuclear energy industry.
The story so far......
THE debate on a nuclear
power industry in NSW has once again reared its head.
NSW Labor Opposition has
called on the Premier to intervene and put an end to the investigation by her
Deputy, National Party Leader John Barilaro, into the potential establishment
of a nuclear power industry in NSW.
In his speech to the
Small Modular Reactor Summit in Atalanta this week Mr Barilaro said: "We
need to have the discussion (about nuclear energy) and we need to have it
now."
He added the discussion
will take place over a "5-10 year period", before any nuclear energy
options could even be introduced in Australia.
A spokesperson for Mr
Barilaro said he met with some companies in the US including NuScale and
U-Battery, who are developing Gen IV reactors which will possibly be available
mid 2020's, as well as the US Department of Energy to get an insight in
relation to the Governments approach to new nuclear technology.
They said "the
meetings were an opportunity to learn and gain knowledge about the
sector".
The Nuclear for Climate Australia website identifies 18
possible sites for nuclear power plants in NSW - including a 250km stretch of
coast from Port Macquarie to north of Grafton.
The plan envisages the
18 reactors being constructed in NSW by 2040.
Last year NSW Labor
leader Luke Foley accepted Mr Barilaro's invitation to debate nuclear power and
suggested Lismore host the forum.
In a letter addressed to
the Premier dated June 1 2017, Mr Foley described nuclear power as "both
risky and irresponsible" and said: "I accept your call for a debate
and propose that we hold a public debate in Lismore to discuss the issues at
stake.
"Lismore would be
an appropriate location for such a debate as it is one of the most
environmentally conscious communities in NSW."
But when asked if Mr
Barilaro was considering the offer his spokesperson said Mr Foley was
"playing politics with the issue and is completely ignorant to the issues
and clueless about the technology".
"Mr Barilaro has
always welcomed and encouraged discussion on the opportunity for NSW to
consider the prospects, the technological advancements and associated benefits
of nuclear energy.
"But any discussion
should be done experts in the field...Mr Foley thinks of nuclear reactors as
those seen in a Simpsons episode.
"New Gen IV
technology is promising reactors that no longer are water cooled, nor need to
be located anywhere near the coast," they said.
More recently, Shadow
Minister for Industry, Resources and Energy, Adam Searle MLC and Shadow
Minister for Primary Industries, Mick Veitch MLC, made a two day visit to the
North Coast to meet with primary producers and explore potential solutions to
the energy crisis.
Mr Searle said nuclear
reactors would tarnish NSW's clean and green image, and threaten the reputation
and emerging markets of many north coast primary industries.
"Mr Barilaro's
nuclear thought bubbles were a distraction from real long term energy solutions
that provide the cheapest and most sustainable forms of electricity for the
community and business - which is renewable energy," he said.
"The Premier has
let this debate run for too long and now needs to rule out herself any proposal
to build nuclear power plants here in NSW."
He also called for the
Deputy Premier to "come up to the North Coast and explain why the National
Party believes nuclear reactors are the best option".
Mr Veitch said:
"North Coast primary producers pride themselves on the quality of their
goods and their clean and green reputation."…. [my yellow highlighting]
From Port
Macquarie to north of Grafton in the coastal zone?
According to Nuclear For Climate Australia when siting a nuclear reactor:
Some of the issues that will influence the selection of a region of interest would be:
According to Nuclear For Climate Australia when siting a nuclear reactor:
Some of the issues that will influence the selection of a region of interest would be:
*
being near to the coast or inland bodies of water for cooling,
*
having reasonable access to the grid,
*
having low local population densities.
*
presenting the potential to replace exiting coal or gas burning generators
*
containing good regional geology for foundations.
*
reasonable access to road, rail or ports for transport.
Let me see…..
Much of the NSW coastal land close to water sources between Port Macquarie and north of Grafton is between 1m and 17m above sea level. Further inland in the 100km coastal zone elevations are higher but the terrain is often unsuitable or has no road-rail infrastructure nearby.
Much of the NSW coastal land close to water sources between Port Macquarie and north of Grafton is between 1m and 17m above sea level. Further inland in the 100km coastal zone elevations are higher but the terrain is often unsuitable or has no road-rail infrastructure nearby.
Then there’s the
Hastings River, Nambucca River, Bellinger River, Kalang River, Macleay River, Orara
River, Nymboida River, Mann River, Clarence River, Wilsons River, Richmond River
to name but a few in that area which regularly flood.
There are also at least four significant flood plains within the coastal range indicated by Nuclear For Climate Australia - one of which contains Grafton and northern lands beyond and another which is the largest coastal flood plain in NSW covering est.1,000 sq kms.
There are also at least four significant flood plains within the coastal range indicated by Nuclear For Climate Australia - one of which contains Grafton and northern lands beyond and another which is the largest coastal flood plain in NSW covering est.1,000 sq kms.
Mapping by Australian Bureau of Meteorology
Where on
earth do these NSW National Party ideologues think they can site a nuclear reactor on the mid-North Coast, or in
the aptly named Many Rivers (Northern Rivers) region, where this will not happen?
ABC News
ABC News
ABC News
Images range in no particular order from the Hastings River in the Port Macquarie district up to the Clarence River system and the Richmond & Wilsons Rivers in the Lismore and Ballina regions, NSW.
Tuesday 20 March 2018
Is This The Clarence River Estuary Future If Berejiklian Government Has Its Way? "As the cruise season continues, smoke particles emitted from cruise ship funnels have left people living and working near the port increasingly alarmed"
Well the NSW Minister for Roads Maritime and Freight & Nationals MP for Oxley Melinda Pavey ended the fourth quarter of 2017 in much the same manner as she progressed through the three preceding quarters - she meet with representatives of international cruise lines.
I still didn't see any listed meeting with Yaegl native title representatives or with Clarence Valley Council in her published ministerial diary.
She certainly hasn't met with the communities of Yamba and Iluka which will be most affected by the 24/7 noise and fumes emanating from those cruise ships she is so eager to see make Port of Yamba-Clarence River a regular destination.
This is what happened in Hobart when it opened its doors to such cruise ships........
The
Mercury, 15
March 2018:
HOBART residents are
continuing to suffer the effects of air pollution from visiting cruise ships,
says Acting Lord Mayor Ron Christie.
As the cruise season
continues, smoke particles emitted from cruise ship funnels have
left people living and working near the port increasingly alarmed, Ald Christie
said.
“This is a real public
health concern,’’ he said.
“I have been taking
calls recently, elderly residents… traders… they say they can smell it. One
gentleman, says he gets asthma.” Ald Christie said with 59 ships scheduled to
visit Hobart by the end of this season, and with greater numbers expected next
season, the smoke issue needed to be brought to a head.
The council in September
called on the Federal Government to force cruise ships to burn
cleaner fuel while in Hobart, which was already a requirement for Sydney
Harbour.
Some cruise ships can
burn a cheaper low-grade fuel called bunker fuel, which emits sulphur dioxide,
while in port.
A ban on fuel containing
high levels of sulphur is due to begin in 2020. The State Government’s
Environment Protection Authority has been monitoring air quality from an
installation at CSIRO since last June.
An EPA statement said an
interim report on the cruise ship season’s results would be
published by the end of July.
“Monitoring at Hobart
Port over this cruise ship season has seen ambient levels of
sulphur dioxide well within national and international air quality standards.”
the statement said.
A State Government
spokesman said imposing fuel regulations on cruise ships before
the 2020 ban could cause cruise ships to bypass Tasmania, …..
Alderman Christie said
his previous strong support for the promotion of cruise ship visits,
was now tempered by pollution concerns…..
Sunday 11 March 2018
Sometimes it’s hard not to despair when faced with evidence of the wilful, destructive ignorance of Liberal and Nationals politicians
Attempts by the federal
government to stop potentially unlawful clearing in Queensland were reversed
after political intervention, with a highly unusual apology letter sent to
every landholder suspected of planning unlawful clearing at the direct request
of the minister, documents obtained by the Guardian under FOI laws reveal.
In December 2015 and
January 2016, the federal department of environment took the exceptional
step of asking 51 landholders with approval from the Queensland government to
clear their land, to explain why the clearing wasn’t unlawful under federal
environmental law.
But within two months,
the department issued the unusual apology letter to every recipient of the
initial letter, Guardian Australia can reveal.
In the letter Shane
Gaddes, then assistant secretary for the environment standards division, said
the department “deeply” regretted any distress caused, backflipped on demands
for information, and indicated the letter wasn’t part of any compliance action,
but rather an attempt to help the landholders avoid legal action by activists.
Internal correspondence
obtained by Guardian Australia shows the apology letter was motivated by
lobbying from National and Liberal MPs from Queensland electorates, as well as
the pro-land clearing lobby group Property Rights Australia.
More land is cleared of
trees in Queensland than the rest of the country combined – with the latest
figures showing 395,000 hectares were cleared in a single year – amounting to
about a football stadium of clearing every three minutes.
Clearing skyrocketed in
Queensland after the former Liberal National party government under the premier
Campbell Newman broke an election promise and scrapped clearing controls, introducing
several ways for farmers to more easily clear trees.
But regardless of state
approvals, if a development is likely to impact a “matter of national
environmental significance”, then it must also be approved by the federal
government under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
Matters of national
environmental significance include important populations of threatened species,
the Great Barrier Reef and some migratory species.
In the initial letter
the federal department of environment said it had examined the proposal and
concluded that it “may be necessary” for the 51 landholders to seek formal
approval under federal laws. The distribution of the letter sparked outrage
among landholders.
The Queensland Nationals
senator Barry O’Sullivan said
at the time that “activist public servants” were “looking for ways to
circumvent the intentions” of Queensland and federal governments…..
The then minister for
the environment, Greg Hunt, publicly defended the action, saying: “The
department must implement the law.”
But correspondence
obtained by Guardian Australia under FoI laws reveals the cause of Hunt’s
change of heart, leading to the apology letter.
In a letter to the
then-chairman of the pro-land clearing group Property Rights Australia, Hunt
said: “In response to concerns raised by you, Senator O’Sullivan, Senator
Canavan and the Hon Warren Entsch MP, the department of environment has written
to affected landholders clarifying their obligations and the intent of the
first letter.”......
https://www.scribd.com/document/372386311/Department-of-Environment-letter-to-HVA-Permit-Holders-2Letter from Greg Hunt to Dale Stiller by The Guardian on Scribd https://www.scribd.com/document/372762129/Letter-from-Greg-Hunt-to-Dale-Stiller
Labels:
environmental vandalism,
flora and fauna,
forests,
Queensland LNP,
trees
Thursday 8 March 2018
Murray-Darling Basin: water mismanagement just keeps rolling on
Image sourced from Twitter
Having miserably failed to enforce even the most basic of safeguards against widespread water theft in the Murray Darling Basin - such as not allowing unmetered water extraction - the Murray Darling Basin Authority and then water resources minister and now humble Nationals backbencher Barnaby Joyce have left us having to rely on leaks to the media to find out the true state of play in the national water wars.
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
4 March 2018:
The ailing state of the
Darling River has been traced to man-made water extraction, according to a
leaked report by the agency charged with overseeing its health.
The "hydrologic
investigation", dated last November and obtained by Fairfax Media,
analysed more than 2000 low-flow events from 1990-2017 on the
Barwon-Darling River between Mungindi near the NSW-Queensland border down to
Wilcannia in far-western NSW .
The draft report – a
version of which is understood to have been sent to the Turnbull government for
comment – comes days after WaterNSW issued a
red alert for blue-green algae on the Lower Darling River at Pooncarie
and Burtundy.
Bourke
is among towns also on stage-two water restrictions as the Darling
dries up in places
The paper by
Murray-Darling Basin Authority's (MDBA) own scientists found flow behaviour had
changed since 2000, particularly in mid-sections of the river such as between
the towns of Walgett and Brewarrina.
On that section, low or
no-flow periods were "difficult to reconcile with impacts purely caused by
climate", the scientists said.
Indeed, dry periods on
the river downstream from Bourke were "significantly longer than
pre-2000", with the dry spells during the millennium drought continuing
afterwards.
Water resource
development – also described as "anthropogenic impact" – must also
play "a critical role" in the low flows between Walgett and
Brewarrina, the report said.
The revelations
come after
the Senate last month voted to disallow changes to the $13 billion
Murray-Darling Basin Plan that would have cut annual environmental water savings
by 70 billion litres…..
A spokeswoman for the
authority said the report was "undergoing quality assurance processes
prior to publication", with a formal release on its website likely in
coming days.
The MDBA commissioned
the internal team to "address some of the specific concerns raised"
by its own compliance reviews and those of the Berejiklian government, she
said.
Terry Korn, president
of the Australian Floodplain Association, said the report confirmed
what his group's members had known since the O'Farrell government changed the
river's water-sharing plan in 2012 to allow irrigators to pump even during
low-flow periods.
Poor policy had been
compounded by "totally inadequate monitoring and compliance systems",
Mr Korn said.
"Some irrigators
have capitalised on this poor management by the NSW government to such an
extent that their removal of critical low flows has denied downstream
landholders and communities their basic riparian rights to fresh clean
water," he said. "This is totally unacceptable."….
Fairfax Media also
sought comment from federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud.
Once publicly outed for sitting on the review report the Murray Darling Basin Authority finally decided to publish it this week.
https://www.scribd.com/document/372999806/Murray-Darling-Basn-Compliance-Review-Final-Report-November-2017Once publicly outed for sitting on the review report the Murray Darling Basin Authority finally decided to publish it this week.
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
20 February 2018:
The NSW government
intervened to urge the purchase of water rights from a large irrigator on the
Darling River that delivered a one-off $37 million profit to its owner while
leaving downstream users struggling with stagnant flows.
Gavin Hanlon, the senior
NSW water official who
resigned last September amid multiple inquiries into allegations of
water theft and poor compliance by some large irrigators, wrote to his federal
counterparts in the Agriculture and Water Resources Department, then
headed by Barnaby Joyce, in late December 2016 urging the buyback of water from
Tandou property to proceed.
The Tandou water
purchase proposal "should be progressed...given the high cost of the
alternative water supply solution" for the property south-east of Broken
Hill, Mr Hanlon wrote, according to a document sent on December 23, 2016 and
obtained by Fairfax Media.
Early in 2017, the
Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences estimated
the property's annual water entitlements of 21.9 billion litres to be
$24,786,750 "based on recent trade values", according to another
document listed as "Commercial in Confidence".
Despite this valuation,
the federal government by 16 March, 2017 would pay Tandou's owner Webster Ltd
more than $78 million. At its announcement on 21 June last year, Webster said
in a statement it "expects to record a net profit on disposal in the order
of $36-37 million".
The transfer of the
water rights are apparently the subject of inquiries by the NSW Independent
Commission Against Corruption, with several people saying they have discussed
their knowledge of the deal with the agency. An ICAC spokeswoman declined to
comment.
Webster Ltd
styles itself as a leading
Australian agribusiness company with a rich, diverse history spanning over 180
years.
Liberal Party donor Christopher
Darcy “Chris” Corrigan is Executive Chairman and a significant shareholder in this company
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