The Morrison Government has given permission for oil and gas exploration in NSW coastal waters by a company set up as a tax minimisation ploy

Those Liberal-Nationals MPs and senators preparing to return to Canberra late next month appear determined to annoy NSW voters - especially those who live in coastal communities.

Having wrecked the Murray-Darling freshwater river system that runs through four states, they have now turned their eyes towards the coastal commercial and recreational fishing grounds of New South Wales.

This is how it is playing out........

Asset Energy Pty Ltd holds an 85 per cent interest in Petroleum Exploration Permit PEP11, an offshore petroleum exploration lease covering 4,649 square kilometres in Commonwealth waters off the coast of New South Wales.

Asset Energy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Melbourne-based (formerly Perth-based) mining company MEC Resources Ltd’s investee company Advent Energy Ltd.

Bounty Oil and Gas NL is the junior joint venture partner in PEP11 holding a 15 per cent interest, 

Newcastle Herald, 9 January 2019

In March 2018 the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environment Management Authority (“NOPSEMA”) gave approval for a survey which acquired high resolution 2D seismic data over the Baleen prospect, approximately 30km southeast of Newcastle, which evaluated (amongst other things) shallow geohazard indications including shallow gas accumulations that can affect future potential gas drilling operations.

NOPSEMA falls within the portfolio of Australian Minister for Resources and Northern Australia & Nationals Senator for Queensland, Matt Canavan.

That particular survey has been completed and on New Year's Eve 2018 MEC Resources informed the Australian Stock Exchange that it now intends to do 3D seismic mapping in the vicinity of the potential test drill site at the earliest opportunity.

Underwater seismic testing involves continuous seismic airgun blasts approximately every 2-3 seconds for 24 hours continuously, for days or weeks at a time. That is, such testing creates compressed air streams or focused sonic waves - in simple language, loud booms - towards the ocean floor in order to gauge the depth, location and structure of the oil or gas resources. The sounds of which can travel many thousands of square kilometres and which are known to have a negative effect on marine ecosystems.

Previous to this, on 15 May 2018 the NSW Parliament had called on the federal government to suspend Asset Energy’s permit to conduct seismic testing off the coast of Newcastle, with the NSW Minister for Resources and Energy & Liberal Party Member of the Legislative Council Don Harwin expressing a lack of confidence in Australia’s current offshore mining regulations.

The Morrison Coalition Government in Canberra appears to be ignoring NSW Government  and community concerns. Being more concerned itself with offering tax free investment opportunities to the market.¹

It is worth noting that any significant Advent Energy/Asset Energy drilling rig (left) mishap has the potential for an uncontrolled release of untreated oil into coastal waters.

It is reportedly intended that one or more exploration drilling rigs should be in place sometime in 2020.

MEC Resources (formerly MEC Strategic Ltd) is a registered corporation which only been in existence for the last thirteen years and for the last three years there has been a bitter rift between the board and certain shareholders involving repeated calls for removal of the entire board, with the last call for a spill occurring in November 2018. The company was also involved in a dispute with a former managing director, as well litigation involving a $295,000 loan.

One of the shareholder bones of contention appears to be the cost of exploration in PEP11. On 31 October 2018 MEC Resources informed the stock exchange that a cost reduction plan remains in place to ensure all costs are reduced wherever possible.

Questions raised about the rigour of offshore mining regulations covering PEP11 and an oil & gas exploration company determined to cut costs. What could possibly go wrong? 

Concerned readers can sign Stop Seismic Testing Newcastle's change.org petition to Minister Canavan and NOPSEMA here.

Footnotes

1. www.mecresources.com.au, Tax Advanatges, retrieved 10 January 2018:

MEC is a registered Pooled Development Fund (PDF). PDF shareholders pay no capital gains tax on the sale of their PDF shares. Investors who receive dividends will also be exempt from income tax on dividends.

This can be particularly attractive to both traders and investors, since any profits derived from trades or investments are tax-free or low tax. The Pooled Development Fund Programme was established by the Federal Government to develop the market for patient venture capital for growing small and medium enterprises and to provide a concessional tax regime to encourage such investments. Any capital losses on the sale of PDF’s are not deductable.

To encourage investors, the government offers tax benefits to both the PDF and its shareholders as follows:

capital gains made by PDF shareholders are not taxable,

shareholders can elect to treat dividends paid by a PDF as tax free,......

PDF’s tend to invest in a portfolio of growing companies, thereby potentially reducing investors’ risk through diversification. Investee companies have the potential to become listed companies in their own right, which has the possibility of providing investors with attractive returns.

This is not a complete list of the taxation issues surrounding Pooled Development Funds. For further information please contact AusIndustry.

See  Pooled Development FundsAct 1992 as amended up to September 2018.

Adani caught red handed breaking the rules - again

In 2017 the foreign multinational, the Adani Group, was found to have released heavily polluted water into coastal wetlands and the ocean around the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area - then lied about it.

Last Sunday it was reported to again be ignoring mining and environmental regulations and very predictably appears to be lying about its actions.

ABC News, 30 December 2018:

Mining firm Adani has unwittingly provided "persuasive" evidence for a Queensland Government investigation into allegedly illegal works on its Carmichael mine site, environmental lawyers say.

The evidence includes specifications of groundwater bores registered by Adani on a government website, which Queensland's Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) said could only be used for prohibited dewatering operations, and not for monitoring as Adani has claimed.

Adani has also confirmed it cleared 5.8 hectares of land when correcting an "administrative error" in its reporting to government, an action the EDO branded unlawful.

A spokeswoman for Adani insisted the company had acted in accordance with its environmental approvals, had not been dewatering for mining operations, and had "cooperated with both relevant State and Commonwealth departments regarding these allegations".

The Department of Environment and Science (DES) began an investigation in September to examine allegations Adani had drilled illegal groundwater bores.

Satellite and drone evidence of drilling was presented to DES by the EDO on behalf of its client, environmental group Coast and Country.

Coast and Country spokesman Derec Davies said the evidence had resulted in an official investigation by the Queensland Government.

"Adani have been caught red handed breaking the law, and then lying about it within official documents," he said.

Dewatering bores are used by miners to prepare for open cut and underground operations.

Conservationists have repeatedly warned that Adani's dewatering plans could threaten the nationally important Doongmabulla Springs.

An Adani spokeswoman said the company had drilled the bores "to take geological samples and monitor underground water levels", which she said was permitted as a stage one activity under its licence.

However, an expert has told the ABC the registrations for five of the bores that appear on a Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy website bear the hallmarks of dewatering bores, not monitoring bores.

They show the bores are constructed with steel rather than plastic casing, were considerably thicker than Adani's registered groundwater monitoring bores and ran deeper at 135 to 273 metres.

The bore reports did not include the baseline underground water level or the elevation of each bore, information considered critical for monitoring.

The five registered bores are also ascribed the abbreviation "DWB", commonly used for dewatering bores, instead of "GMB", commonly used for groundwater monitoring bores.

Read the full article here.

Murray-Darling Basin Plan: a $13 billion fraud on the environment

Some home truth about the current Murray-Darling Basin Plan to remember as we enter into the morass of competeing claims in NSW State and Australian Federal election campaigns in the first half of this year....

IN THE MATTER OF THE MURRAY-DARLING BASIN ROYAL COMMISSION, Adelaide South Australia, 23 October 2018:

MR R. BEASLEY SC, Senior Counsel Assisting:

….Commissioner, the Water Act and the Basin Plan have been hailed as ground-breaking reform. They are. What this Commission has learnt, however, from the evidence it has gathered, and from the witnesses that have informed us, is that it’s one thing to enact transformative legislation like the Water Act and the Basin Plan, it’s quite another thing to faithfully implement it. Sadly, the implementation of the Basin Plan at crucial times has been characterised by a lack of attention to the requirements of the Water Act and a near total lack of transparency in an important sense.

Those matters have had, and continue to have, a negative impact on the environment and probably the economies of all the Basin Plan states but the state that will suffer the most is the state at the end of the system, South Australia. The Water Act was a giant national compromise. At its heart was a recognition that all of the Basin states – Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia – were taking too much water from the system and had been for a long time. That, as a matter of statutory fact in the Water Act, and as a matter of reality, has led to serious degradation of the environment of the Basin. The Millennium Drought of 2000s underscored the fact that, if nothing was done, over-allocation of the water entitlements in the Basin would inevitably and quickly lead to irreversible damage to the Basin environment.

The Water Act was a response to that. It was the statutory means by which the process of restoration and protection of environmental assets would begin. I say the Water Act was a compromise because the Act contemplates that water will be taken from our rivers and used consumptively for irrigation, the growing of crops and permanent plants. Of course, also for human water needs. But it sets a limit. That limit is that no more water can be taken beyond the point where key areas of the environment and its ecosystems might be damaged. In an environment that’s already degraded, that means the Water Act requires the environment to have both enough water to restore degraded wetlands and the like and also, of course, to maintain them.

That’s not just the right thing to do. It’s what Australia’s international obligations require. That task, setting a limit on the extraction of water, is to be based on the best available science. Not guided by the best science, not informed by the best science but based on the best available science. It also has to be achieved by taking into account the well-known principles of ecologically sustainable development. What the Commission has learnt from the evidence presented to it is that the implementation of the Basin Plan, at crucial stages, has not been based on the best available science. Further, ecologically sustainable development has either been ignored or, in some cases, in relation to supply measures, actually inverted.

 I want to read to you a peer review of the Guide to the Basin Plan from some international scientists in 2010 because it demonstrates that they were well aware, even back then, of what was actually going on in the early stages of drafting the Basin Plan. This is a peer review report by Professor Gene Likens of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Mr Per Bertilsson of the Stockholm International Water Institute, Professor Asit Biswas from the Third World Centre for Water Management and Professor John Briscoe, Gordon McKay Professor from Harvard University. What they said was this, in reviewing the Basin Plan, at page 34 of what became exhibit RCE38:

It is a fundamental tenet of good governance that scientists produce facts and the government decides on values and makes choices. We are concerned that scientists in the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, who are working to develop the facts, may feel they are expected to trim those so that the sustainable diversion limit will be one that is politically acceptable. We strongly believe that this is not only inconsistent with the basic tenets of good governance but that it is not consistent with the letter of the Water Act. We equally strongly believe that government needs to make the necessary trade-offs and value judgments and need to be explicit about these, assume responsibility and make the rationale behind these judgments transparent to the public.

If all the MDBA had been done in the past eight years since that review was written is “trim the facts”, that would be bad enough. But it’s worse than that. The implementation of the Basin Plan has been marred by maladministration. By that I mean mismanagement by those in charge of the task in the Basin Authority, its executives and its board, and the consequent mismanagement of huge amounts of public funds. The responsibility for that maladministration and mismanagement falls on both past and current executives of the MDBA and its board. Again, while the whole of the Basin environment has and will continue to suffer as a result of this, the state whose environment will suffer the most is South Australia.

The principal task of those implementing the Plan is to set the Basin-wide sustainable diversion limit. How much water can be taken from the rivers before the environment suffers? You’ve heard evidence that has been unchallenged that this task was infected by deception, secrecy and is the political fix. The modelling it has been said to have been based on is still not available seven years later. The recent adjustment of the sustainable diversion limit by raising it by 605 gigalitres, on the evidence you’ve heard, is best described as a fraud on the environment. That’s a phrase I used in opening. It was justified then. It’s re-enforced by the evidence you’ve heard subsequently. The so-called 450 gigalitres of upwater, the water that the then South Australian Government fought for, for this State’s environment, is highly unlikely to ever eventuate. The constraints to the system are just one major problem in the delivery of that water.

Like all aspects of the implementation of the Basin Plan, efficiency measures or infrastructure projects that form the basis of how the 450 gigalitres of water is to be attained, and which are funded by public money, lack any reasonable form of transparency and, as the Productivity Commission recently, and witnesses to this Commission, have noted, are hugely more expensive and less reliable than purchasing water entitlements. I will discuss this in detail but I will give you one quote from an expert who can talk with real authority about the extra 450 gigalitres proposed for South Australia under the Basin Plan. That’s the former Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, David Papps. In his evidence to you said:

 I would bet my house that South Australia is not getting that water.

Mr Papps’ prediction seems safe when one considers the proposed amendments to the Basin Plan by the governments of NSW and Victoria concerning the 450 gigalitres that I will come to shortly. Everything that I have just said to you is based on the views of eminent scientists and other people who have given evidence and lodged submissions. However, neither the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture and Water, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, or any Commonwealth government agency has provided any answer to anything I have just said or to the evidence before the Commission that I will refer to shortly. They have no answer. The submissions provided to you very recently by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, and the DAWR, Department of Agriculture and Water Resources, demonstrate, as did their unwillingness to give evidence, culminating in proceedings to the High Court, that they do not have any answer.

The MDBA, you will recall, were even too busy to meet you. The States also have no answer, as demonstrated in their somewhat thin submissions to you, with the exception of the South Australian Government. When I say the MDBA has no answer to the expert evidence given in this Commission, I should emphasise also that it clearly has no answer to the maladministration and unlawfulness of its implementation of the Basin Plan. It is nevertheless a great pity that relevant persons from the Basin Authority, and other Commonwealth agencies, were not required to give answers to you under oath concerning the scientific evidence the Commission gathered.

The opportunity may have been there had the High Court decided those proceedings in your favour. I’m not going to speculate on what the High Court would have done but, regrettably, the South Australian Government chose not to extend your Commission in order to provide you with the opportunity that may have been available to you to question those relevant people. You made it clear to the South Australian Government that was your strong preference. You advised them that the Commission had potential witnesses that wanted to give important evidence, evidence relevant to the South Australian environment, but only if they were compelled by summons. In other words, they were too scared to talk about the implementation of the Basin Plan without the force of a summons. Why the Commission was not extended to explore these crucial matters is something upon which you can draw inferences as you see fit. I will only say that it’s a great opportunity lost……

Castillo Copper Limited operations suspended on exploration leases in the Clarence Valley NSW

Clarence Environment Centre brings welcome news as 2018 ends.

Castillo Copper Limited operations at Cangai, in the Mann River Catchment, Clarence Valley NSW have been suspended on the grouns that there is: a lack of sediment and erosion controls; poor management of drill cuttings/waste materials; clearing and excavation works undertaken outside of approved limits; the drilling of five bore holes without approval; and a failure to progressively rehabilitate in approved time frames.

Castillo Copper Limited Ope... by on Scribd

https://www.scribd.com/document/396200281/Castillo-Copper-Limited-Operations-Suspended-at-Cangai-NSW-21-December-2018

State of Play December 2018: Adani Group and the proposed Carmichael Mine in Queensland

Financial Review, 20 December 2018:

Ten of the world's top insurance companies, including Australian groups Suncorp and QBE and global insurer AXA, say they won't insure Indian energy group Adani's controversial $2 billion Carmichael coal mine in Queensland, an activist group says.

Market Forces, an anti-fossil fuel activist group backed by Friends of the Earth, also said AXA had indicated it would not renew its current insurance covering the Carmichael rail line when it comes up in March 2020.

Market Forces executive director Julien Vincent said the Paris-based global insurer had said in response to inquiries that: "Regarding the Carmichael mine, we confirm that: 'We do not currently cover the Carmichael mine's assets, neither directly nor through packages, and we do not intend to do so in the future; We currently have a multi-year policy to partly cover the railway asset which will lapse in 2020 and which we shall not renew.'"

AXA also said Adani's Carmichael project "is a banned investment both for our equity and fixed income holdings"…..

Market Forces asked global insurers about their attitude to the Carmichael project, after a successful campaign to dissuade Australian and global banks from backing the mine resulted in it being shrunk to a fraction of its original $16.5 billion size and self-financed by Adani.

Other companies that explicitly refused to insure the mine or previously pledged not to provide cover for new coal projects include the world's biggest insurers and reinsurers, Allianz, AXA, Swiss Re and Munich Re; the first major US insurer to take action on coal, FM Global; and major European insurers Generali, Zurich and SCOR.

Other major insurers have not ruled out insuring the project, including many American insurers, so Adani will still likely be able to secure insurance. These include Hannover Re, Berkshire Hathaway and AIG......

ABC News, 18 December 2018:

The CSIRO has found serious flaws in Adani's key water management plan to protect an ancient springs complex near its proposed Carmichael coal mine, threatening to further delay the controversial project.

The ABC can reveal Australia's peak scientific body has raised concerns about Adani's Groundwater Dependent Ecosystem Management Plan (GDEMP), which is designed to minimise impacts on ecosystems including the nationally important Doongmabulla Springs.

The Federal Department of Environment and Energy asked the CSIRO and Geoscience Australia for an independent scientific review of Adani's GDEMP.

The ABC understands one of the CSIROS's key concerns is the level of groundwater draw-down that could be caused at the springs by the mine's operations.

Conservationists and some scientists warn the springs could permanently dry up under Adani's plan to drain billions of litres of groundwater a year for its proposed mine.

The source of the ancient springs remains in doubt…..

Other concerns include the possible groundwater impacts from Adani's water bores at the mine site.

The CSIRO also found that some of the data used by Adani in its plan was not verified.

The CSIRO has told the federal environment department that Adani needs to do more work on its GDEMP and to verify its data.

The ABC understands Queensland's Department of Environment and Science (DES) wrote to Adani last week saying it will not look at the company's GDEMP again until the concerns raised by the CSIRO are resolved.

In August the ABC revealed the mining giant's most recent draft plan to protect the Doongmabulla Spring failed to address regulator demands to protect the oasis.

"The GDEMP needs to identify the source aquifer of the Doongmabulla Spring Complex and mitigation measures to protect the springs," the DES told the ABC in statement.

"Preliminary advice from CSIRO requires Adani to update the plan.

"Two environmental plans still need to be approved before significant disturbance can commence at the Carmichael Coal Mine.

"These plans are the Groundwater Dependent Ecosystem Management Plan and a Black Throated Finch Management Plan.

"The Queensland Government has been clear that the [mine] project must stack up on its own merits, both financially and environmentally."

Last month Adani announced construction would begin on the Carmichael mine, with company chief executive Lucas Dow saying the project would be "100 per cent financed" from within the Adani conglomerate.

But the mine would be significantly scaled back, with production expected to peak at 28 million tonnes compared to the projected 60 million tonnes under the original plan.

NSW Liberal & Nationals politicians won't be satisfied until they have turned this state into a wasteland

Echo Net Daily, 3 December 2018:

The North East Forest Alliance has called the process used by the Commonwealth and State Governments to adopt new Regional Forest Agreements as a superficial sham simply intended to lock-up public native forests for private sawmillers at significant environment cost.

North East Forest Alliance spokesperson Dailan Pugh says there has been no attempt to assess or review environmental, industry or social data, instead they are relying on incomplete and out of date assessments undertaken 20 years ago.

’The Governments chose to ignore the recommendation of their own reviewer for a contemporary review that included an assessment of the effects of climate change,’ he said.

‘By rejecting the recommendation of their own review and proceeding on incomplete and out of date assessments the National Party have once again proven that their intent is to lock up public resources for private companies irrespective of the environmental costs and community interests.

Mr Pugh says NEFA are disgusted that the Governments have not publicly released their new RFAs, so it is not possible to know what changes they have made. ‘They are keeping us in the dark,’ he said. ‘The only document they have released is their resource commitments which show they are increasing the cut of high quality logs in north-east NSW by at least 10,000 cubic metres to 230,000m3 per annum, at the same time they are fraudulently claiming a shortfall of 8,600m3 per annum to justify opening up protected old growth and rainforest for logging.’

‘Due to their increased logging intensity they are intending to more than double the cut of small and low-quality logs from 320,000 tonnes per annum to 660,000 tonnes per annum.

‘The increased logging intensity and significant reductions in protections for most threatened species and streams is an environmental crime.

Mr Pugh says that out of more than 5,400 public submissions on the proposed new NSW RFAs, only 23 supported the RFAs. ‘There is no social license to continue the degradation of our public native forests.

‘Plantations already provide 87% of our sawntimber needs, it is time to complete the transition to plantations and establish more plantations on cleared land, while we actively rehabilitate our public native forests to help them recover from past abuses and restore the full suite of benefits they can provide to the community.

BACKGROUND

North Eastern, Southern & Eden Regional Forest Agreements
Image:NSW EPA

NSW EPA Regional Forest Agreements

NSW EPA Review of the regional forest agreements

Here are links to NSW members of the state parliament:

 List of Members, Legislative Assembly

List of Members, Legislative Council​

If any readers wish to contact members of the Berejiklian Government in order stand up for native forests these links provide addresses, telephone numbers and, in the case of the Legislative Assembly, the names of electorates these politicians represent.

Update on attempt by water raiders from the Murray-Darling Basin to get NSW Government agreement to dam and divert water from the Clarence River system

The NSW Legislative Council Industry and Transport Committee Inquiry report would not go so far as to recommend damming and diverting water from the Clarence River catchment and, the Berejiklian Government would only go as far as "noting' the fallback position held by the water raiders from the Murray-Darling Basin.

NSW LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL,  Portfolio Committee No. 5 – Industry and Transport Augmentation of water supply for rural and regional New South Wales, 14 May 2018:

Recommendation 40

That the NSW Government consider establishing a stormwater and/or flood harvesting pilot program for flood mitigation in the Northern Rivers.

6.89 The committee heard evidence from some inquiry participants that there may be potential benefits of diverting the Clarence River to the west. These inquiry participants were of the view that there is merit to any strategy that seeks to mitigate floods and flood damage in the Clarence Valley and provide additional water for agriculture in the Barwon region. The committee acknowledges that stakeholders were divided on the issue of water diversion. However, some inquiry participants held strong views against diverting waters from the Clarence River to the west.

 6.90 We also acknowledge the work of local councils in undertaking repair work for public assets and infrastructure and the strain that such labour has on council resources, finances and staff. The committee acknowledges that stakeholders called for the National Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements to undergo a review in order to compensate for council resources and staff, the committee supports this idea and recommends the NSW Government pursue this through the Council of Australian Governments.

Government Response - Water Augmentation, 14 November 2018:

Expect this issue to be revisted by the Coalition Government if it wins the March 2019 NSW state election.

Eastern Australia is now a global deforestation hotspot and koala numbers are plummeting

Image: Wilderness Society

Echo NetDaily, 16 November 2018:

Koala numbers have plummeted by 33 per cent over the last twenty years and experts are now warning that they are likely to be driven to extinction. In NSW the decline of koalas and other native wildlife is being driven by inadequate state laws regulating both private land clearing and logging.

The National Parks Association of NSW (NPA) is calling on the NSW government to ‘abandon its draconian logging plans and chart an exit out of native forest logging, and for the federal government to rethink its commitment to signing new Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs),’ said Ms Alix Goodwin, NPA CEO.

They’ve based their call on the recent study by three University of Canberra academics for Forest & Wood Products Australia (FWPA) reported recently in the Sydney Morning Herald that showed a strong majority of people oppose native forest logging. 

‘The study found that urban and rural votes broadly share the same strong disapproval of logging – putting the lie to claims that only urban dwellers care about the environment – and that logging is unpopular even where the remnants of the industry persist,’ said Ms Goodwin. 

‘The results are in line with polling conducted in the NSW electorates of Lismore and Ballina in December 2017 that showed 90 per cent support for protecting forests for wildlife, water, carbon stores and recreation.

‘This is the latest piece of evidence that clearly demonstrates how far the NSW government’s plans to intensify logging, abandon species protections and open protected forests up for logging are removed from public expectation,’ she said……

‘Koala numbers are plummeting in NSW. It is estimated they fell from 31,400 to 21,000 in the two decades from 1990–2010, and their numbers are continuing to decline in most parts of the state.

‘Deforestation rates have escalated in NSW and eastern Australia is now a global deforestation hotspot. We need new laws to turn this around.

‘We want people to understand that koalas face extinction unless we stop destroying their homes, which means ending deforestation and the bulldozing of habitat.’

NSW Nature Conservation Council CEO Kate Smolski said: ‘In one district in the northwest of the state, more than 5,000 hectares of koala habitat were bulldozed in just 12 months.

‘Trees in that region were bulldozed at a rate of about 14 football fields a day, and that’s just one part of our state.

‘We know what the solution is. We need strong new laws to end deforestation and start restoring degraded habitat so wildlife like koalas can thrive.

‘That’s why we are advocating for law reform to protect high-conservation-value forest and bushland, and to set up a biodiversity and carbon fund to pay landholders to restore degraded areas.....

North Coast Environment Council Global Position Statement Says NO to Wood-fired Power Stations

North Coast Environment Council: Global Statement Against Wood FiredPower Stations, 24 October 2018 by clarencegirl on Scribd

https://www.scribd.com/document/391698905/North-Coast-Environment-Council-Global-Statement-Against-Wood-FiredPower-Stations-24-October-2018

This private member's bill signals an ongoing threat to forests on the NSW North Coast and elsewhere in the state

This is Austin William Evans, NSW Nationals MP for Murray since 14 October 2018 when he won the seat on the back of a by-election after fellow Nationals Adrian Piccoli resigned.

On 18 October 2018 Evans introduced a private member’s bill in the NSW Legislative Assembly titled, National Parks and Wildlife Legislation Amendment (Riverina) Bill 2018 or An Act with respect to certain lands in the Riverina region reserved under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 or dedicated under the Forestry Act 2012; and for other purposes.

As yet no text of this bill is publicly available.

However, there are no prizes for having guessed that this bill seeks to revert  the Murray Valley National Park to a state forest to allow timber harvesters back in.

According to state parliamentary records the Bill lapses in accordance with Standing Orders on 19/4/2019.

Austin Evans has told the media he hopes to have a second recording of the bill before the end of the year and expects Berejiklian Government MPs to support it.

The 41,601ha Murray Valley National Park was declared in July 2010 and is part of the largest continuous red gum forest in the world, this region hosts a unique ecosystem with over 60 threatened native animal species and 40 threatened plant species. It is also an important place for Aboriginal people.

Make no mistake Evans’ bill represents the unsustainable native timber industry’s desire to make inroads into the wider national park system.

In fact it made sure it never really left the Murray Valley National Park, having received milling timber via so-called ''ecological thinning'' of sections of the park since 2012.

Given the number of national parks and reserves in the Northern Rivers region it is time to put pen to paper and remind Premier Gladys Berejiklian that growing the total area covered by the national park system, as well as reining in broad scale land clearance and/or extensive logging in rural and regional areas, is one of the easiest ways to mitigate against rising state greenhouse gas emissions.

The Berejiklian Government has already walked back from the transfer of 23,000 hectares of low productivity state forests to the national park estate and presented a whittled down version of the National Park Estate (Reservations) Bill 2018 which passed both Houses on 17 October 2018.

Although under this passed bill an est. 2,200ha of state forest will become part of the national park estate in January 2019 and and further est. 1,791 of state forest will be rededicated as state conservation areas, the total amount of protected viable koala habitat is limited.

In an effort to redress this, amendments were proposed which include the creation of the Great Koala National Park.

As of 18 October 2018 both NSW Greens and NSW Labor support the Great Koala National Park proposal and, if there is a change of government at the 23 March 2019 state election, we should see a genuine start to placing protection on enough viable habitat to begin to reverse the koala's decline towards local extinctions.

Scientists, traditional owners & community call on NSW Premier Berejiklian to withdraw the Water NSW Amendment (Warragamba Dam) Bill 2018 from the NSW Parliament, and that plans to raise Warragamba Dam be taken off the table immediately

Water NSW Amendment Bill 2018 - Proposed Inundation of the Blue Mountains National Park by clarencegirl on Scribd