Are Berejiklian & Co attempting to pull an environmental sleight of hand on NSW communities who value their green and biodiverse landscapes?

On  23 November 2016 the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 (repealing the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995, the Nature Conservation Trust Act 2001 and the animal and plant provisions of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974) became law.

On the same day the NSW Local Land Services Amendment Act 2016 (repealing the Native Vegetation Act 2003 and amending the Local Land Services Act 2013 in relation to native vegetation land management in rural areas) also became law.

Currently the NSW Berejiklian Coalition Government has these documents on exhibition:

Regulations and other key products to support the Government's new Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 and Local Land Services Amendment Act 2016, are on exhibition for six weeks from 10 May until 21 June.

• Draft Biodiversity Conservation Regulation 2017 (PDF), and its supporting regulatory impact statement (PDF)
• Draft Local Land Services Amendment Regulation 2017 (PDF)
• Draft Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Biodiversity Conservation) Regulation 2017 (PDF)
• Explanation of Intended Effect for the State Environmental Planning Policy (Vegetation) 2017 (PDF)
• Land Management (Native Vegetation) Code (PDF)
• Biodiversity Assessment Method (BAM) (PDF) and BAM tool (Link)
• Accreditation Scheme for the Application of the Biodiversity Assessment Method (PDF)
• Draft Sensitive Biodiversity Values Land Map (Link)
• Serious and irreversible impacts guidance (PDF)
• Offsets payment calculator (Excel) and User Manual (PDF)

Facts sheets and guides that provide detailed information on key topic areas are also available to assist you in making a submission.

Loud warning bells should be ringing in all ears – not least because the draft regulation document State Environmental Planning Policy (Vegetation) 2017 is nowhere to be found.

Instead there is a slick 22-page Explanation of Intended Effect booklet (highlighted in red) which is not worth the paper it is printed on at this point in time.

Why the Berejiklian Government assumes that it is best practice to place major policy change on exhibition with a crucial SEPP not yet drafted is unexplained.

Nor is there any indication as to why this as yet unformed vegetation SEPP is to be signed into government regulation in eleven weeks' time without voters having the opportunity to assess and comment on its precise provisions and wording. 

One has to suspect that the reason for such sleight of hand is that State Environmental Planning Policy (Vegetation) 2017 will contain a workaround for property developers to clear environmentally valuable native vegetation using the new permit system long before land comes before a council for consideration as the subject of a development application.

As the Explanation of Intended Effect now stands it appears that local government will have less control over clearing of native vegetation than it had in the past.

The Better Planning Network (BPN), a state-wide not for profit grassroots volunteer-based organisation, has also highlighted the following issues:

The detailed map of land classified as 'Environmentally Sensitive' is not publicly available.

- The map of Category 1 and Category 2 rural land (ie- land that can be cleared under self-assessable codes or otherwise) is not publicly available.

- The mapping of core koala habitat across NSW has not been completed (we are aware of only 5 NSW Councils that have identified core koala habitat under SEPP 44 Koala Habitat Protection.)

- The details of the Biodiversity Offsets Calculator are not publicly available.

​

It is impossible for the public to provide accurate feedback on the draft Regulations, Codes and SEPP without access to the above elements.  It is also irresponsible and risky for the Government to operationalise its legislation and regulations before these elements have been finalised. ​

On this basis, we urge you to contact the NSW Premier and the responsible Ministers (Upton, Roberts and Blair) to ask them to: 

​

- ​Extend the public exhibition of all Regulations and Codes under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2017, as well as the Vegetation SEPP, until the components listed above are made publicly available.

​- ​Ensure that operation of the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2017 does not commence until all relevant mapping, included that listed above, has been completed and reviewed for accuracy by key stakeholders.

An analysis of the draft Regulations, Codes and SEPP has been provided though the Stand Up For Nature Submission Guide. We are preparing our own draft submission which we will circulate to you as soon as possible. However, accurate comment on the full package is not possible until all of the components listed above are made publicly available.

The Environmental Defenders Office NSW (EDO) uploaded this video which walks through the documents on exhibition:

https://youtu.be/Y0JnYgQx040

EDO 1 June 2017 seminar slides can be found here. Included in these slides is some advice on what to cover in submissions.

According to the EDO "There are some serious weaknesses" in these draft documents which are intended to become operational on 25 August 2017.

These include:

* Repeal of Native Vegetation Act and environmental standards that go with it, replaced with Codes

* Heavy reliance on flexible and indirect biodiversity offsets – weaker standards in the BAM and for biocertification

* Conservation gains aren't guaranteed in law, but dependent on funding decisions

* There is significant discretion for decision-makers

* Significant risk of policy failure

Locally one can add to this list the fact that Clarence Valley Council has stated:

A review of the draft Sensitive Biodiversity Values Land Map released by OEH reveals that it is missing areas of the Clarence Valley LGA which are known to contain habitat for threatened and critically endangered species or significant biodiversity value (for example core koala habitat identified in the Ashby-Woombah-Iluka koala plan of management, as well as significant areas of littoral rainforest and coastal wetlands).

[Clarence Valley Council, Environment, Planning & Community Committee Business Paper - 13 June 2017]

Concerned residents can have their say until 21 June 2017 by:

Making an online submission here

Or writing to the Land Management and Biodiversity Conservation Reforms Office,

PO Box A290, Sydney South NSW 1232

NOTE

At least one local government, Clarence Valley Council, has requested an extension of time to make a submission on these reforms and to date this formal request has been met with deafening silence.

Turnbull Government dragging its heels on legislation to protect vulnerable workers?

The Age, 6 April 2017:

The peak body for the $150 billion franchise sector has launched an intense behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to convince MPs to water down Turnbull government legislation designed to prevent future worker exploitation scandals.

Spearheaded by former Liberal minister Bruce Billson, the Franchise Council of Australia is targeting the government, opposition and crossbenchers as it seeks to pressure Employment Minister Michaelia Cash into changing course on the bill.

It has also directed its members - which include 7-Eleven, Pizza Hut, Caltex and other companies accused of underpaying their workers - to bombard MPs with calls and letters about the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Bill.

The campaign comes as petrol giant United Petroleum became the latest company to be embroiled in an exploitation scandal, with the workplace regulator blasting it for rampant underpayment of workers across its franchise network. United Petroleum is not listed as a FCA member.

Mr Billson personally pressed the franchisor case with visits, calls and texts to MPs during the most recent parliamentary sitting fortnight in Canberra.

And in emails that have begun arriving in MP's inboxes in recent days, franchisors argue it is "unreasonable" to single out the franchising sector.

"The real issue here is that the risk of worker underpayment exists across the economy," the missives read.

The government's bill was introduced into Parliament last month but subsequently disappeared from the agenda, fuelling speculation from the Opposition that the council's campaign was succeeding.

However Senator Cash said the government remained "firmly committed to this policy"…..

The Franchise Council originally sought to kill off the bill entirely, warning it would lead to unavoidable unintended consequences.

It is now arguing for extensive amendments and is particularly concerned about the world-first "joint liability" provisions, claiming they will negatively impact investment, growth and employment.

It also wants courts and regulators to be explicitly forced to take a businesses size and resources into account, and further clarity about what "reasonable steps" actually means….

Franchises employ close to 500,000 people across 73,000 outlets across Australia and contribute up to 10 per cent of Australia's GDP.

The Age, 7 April 2017:

Shocking cases of wage fraud in the big brands of 7-Eleven, Domino's, Caltex and United Petroleum, ricochet across the country, prompting all sides of politics to promise new legislation to rein in systemic wage fraud.

Or so we thought.

In the weeks before the election the Turnbull government promised to change the law to make franchisors jointly responsible with their franchisees for workplace abuses if they have significant control or influence on the franchisee……

But the sector decided to have none of that.

Enter Bruce Billson, the former small business minister who became chairman of the franchise lobby group just before the last election. His role as chairman of the Franchise Council of Australia has been to tell anyone who will listen that the proposed laws are too draconian.

It was a smart move by the FCA. In one newspaper article Billson described the new laws as "a media-inspired regulatory misadventure to introduce unprecedented laws that fit up the franchisor for the Fair Work Act breaches of their franchisees where they have had no actual involvement".

The article worked itself up into a fervour, arguing that the laws represent an "existential threat" to the successful franchise model of enterprise.

The reality is convenience store giant 7-Eleven became embroiled in a systemic wage fraud scandal in August 2015. It shocked the nation. The business model was flawed and head office agreed to repay exploited workers. More franchisors should follow its lead.

The Protecting Vulnerable Workers Bill was designed to do just that. It was introduced on March 1, with the legislation listed on March 20.

But it quietly disappeared from the program last week with two other Fair Work Bills listed in its place, without explanation.

When it will be re-listed is anyone's guess but it is unlikely to be the next sitting as it will be dominated by the federal budget.

According to the Australian Parliament website the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Bill 2017: "amends the Fair Work Act 2009 to: increase maximum civil penalties for certain serious contraventions of the Act; hold franchisors and holding companies responsible for certain contraventions of the Act by their franchisees or subsidiaries where they knew or ought reasonably to have known of the contraventions and failed to take reasonable steps to prevent them; clarify the prohibition on employers unreasonably requiring their employees to make payments in relation to the performance of work; provide the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) with evidence-gathering powers similar to those available to corporate regulators such as the Australian Securities and Investment Commission and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission; and prohibit the hindering or obstructing of the FWO and or an inspector in the performance or his or her functions or powers, or the giving of false or misleading information or documents.”

On 23 March 2017 this bill was referred to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee.

Submissions were invited but none are listed on the Inquiry’s webpage to date. Public hearings are being held in Canberra on Wednesday 12 April and in Sydney on Thursday 13 April 2017.

Those giving evidence before the Senate  inquiry are:

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI)

Council of Small Business Australia (COSBOA)

Franchise Council of Australia

National Retailers Association

The Australian Industry Group (AIG)

McDonalds Australia

Department of Employment

Fair Work Ombudsman

Fair Work Commission

West Justice (Western Community Legal Centre)

Prof. Andrew Stewart

Gerard de Valence

Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU)

Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association (SDA)

One other to be announced

           

The Committee is due to report to Parliament on 9 May 2017.

Liberal Democratic Party Senator for NSW David Leyonhjelm appears intent on publicly making a fool of himself

This is what Sydney Morning Herald journalist Mark Kenny had to say about Liberal Democratic Party Senator for NSW David Leyonhjelm on 8 August 2016:

David Leyonhjelm is a boorish, supercilious know-all with the empathy of a besser block. And that new Hansonite conspiracy theorist from Queensland? He's an absurdist fringe-dweller and fellow hate-speech apologist. It's a case of wacky and wackier.

Neither of these self-promoting misanthropes would have the first idea about entrenched discrimination. Yet both are experts.

You may disagree with this harsh critique and probably think it unbecoming of a serious media outlet. But offensive to them, it is not. And that's the point.

You see, this gormless duo has declared, with all their angry-white-male certitude, that a verbal abuser cannot cause offence or humiliation. It is all in the mind of the recipient.

In their peerless assessment of the lived experience of all minorities, they have decreed that the fault of hate-speech does not lie with the utterer of a given slur or insult, no matter how cruel, baseless, or humiliating. Rather, the "offence" lies with the recipient - the subject who simply "decides" to be affronted.

Infantile reasoning, but there it is……..

Leyonhjelm, who has been sitting in the Australia senate since July 2014, has reported taken the matter of being described as having angry-white-male certitude to the Human Rights Commission allegedly lodging a complaint under section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 – the very section of the act he is keen to see abolished.

This is an excerpt from Section 18C of this act:

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION ACT 1975 - SECT 18C

Offensive behaviour because of race, colour or national or ethnic origin

             (1)  It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:

                     (a)  the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and

                     (b)  the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.

Note:          Subsection (1) makes certain acts unlawful. Section 46P of the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 allows people to make complaints to the Australian Human Rights Commission about unlawful acts. However, an unlawful act is not necessarily a criminal offence. Section 26 says that this Act does not make it an offence to do an act that is unlawful because of this Part, unless Part IV expressly says that the act is an offence…..

The senator’s behaviour is suspect because he would be well aware that airing his supposedly offended feelings will probably go nowhere because of Section 18D of that same act:

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION ACT 1975 - SECT 18D

Exemptions

                   Section 18C does not render unlawful anything said or done reasonably and in good faith:

                     (a)  in the performance, exhibition or distribution of an artistic work; or

                     (b)  in the course of any statement, publication, discussion or debate made or held for any genuine academic, artistic or scientific purpose or any other genuine purpose in the public interest; or

                     (c)  in making or publishing:

                              (i)  a fair and accurate report of any event or matter of public interest; or

                             (ii)  a fair comment on any event or matter of public interest if the comment is an expression of a genuine belief held by the person making the comment.

New Matilda was less than impressed by both Leyonhjelm and Roberts on 16 August 2016:

Liberal Democrats Senator David Leyonhjelm, during an August 2016 

appearance on ABC's Insider's program.

News broke yesterday that Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm has lodged a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission, alleging he was racially vilified by Fairfax journalist Mark Kenny, who called him an ‘angry white man’. Chris Graham explains why Leyonhjelm will lose, why the current debate around 18c is a ridiculous furphy, and why free speech has never really been under threat……

One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts tried to claim on ABC Insiders recently that 18c was introduced by “Julia Gillard to nobble Andrew Bolt”.

One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts, 

appearing on ABC’s Insiders program in August 2016.

In fact, 18c was introduced by Keating government Attorney General Michael Lavarch in 1995. That’s three years before Julia Gillard was even elected to parliament, 15 years before she became Prime Minister, and 16 years before Bolt was successfully sued under the 18c provisions. It also happens to be about three or four years before Bolt started writing his rants for the Herald Sun (in the late 1990s).

George Brandis made headlines in 2014 while railing against 18c when he remarked in parliament that ‘everyone has the right to be a bigot’. Which is strictly true, but under Australian law, our Attorney General seemed not to understand that there are so sanctions for being ‘said bigot’.

Since Bolt lost, all the usual suspects have railed against 18c. They need to let it go. Really. So does the media. There is literally nothing to see here. Free speech is not under attack.

You cannot have a rational discussion about 18c without acknowledging the existence of 18d. But that is what conservative whingers keep doing, and the media keep letting them get away with it. It has to stop.

Of all those whingers, David Leyonhjelm is perhaps one of the least interesting, but that brings us neatly back to his boy’s own adventure in the Australian Human Rights Commission, and the other major reason why Leyonhjelm will lose his case.

Ego.

Shortly after news broke of his complaint, Leyonhjelm took to the airwaves to boast that he wasn’t really insulted, offended, humiliated and/or intimidated. He was just trying it on to expose how bad section 18c really was.

The work of the AHRC is extremely important. It has labored under funding cuts by the Coalition, and yet despite this, has still delivered crucial work, such as its inquiry into abuse in immigration detention.

And yet, despite the pressure on the Commission, an elected parliamentary representative appears to have tried to spark a government inquiry purely for sh*ts and giggles…..

For over 200 years in Australia we've been destroying the land that feeds us and we refuse to stop

"There's No Task Too Big · 24 Hour Service · Reliable Land Clearing · 25 Years Experience

Services: Crane Work, Land Clearing, Stump Grinding, Tree Surgeons, Tree Chippers, Tree Cutting,….."

[Online advertisement for an Australian business, 13 August 2016]

We have sand hills in Australia which were caused by overgrazing sheep and desert boundaries are slowly encroaching in semi-arid zones.

Two million hectares of land and 20,000 farms are affected by dryland salinity because of over clearing for cropping.

In 2000, some 1,600 km of rail, 19,900 km of roads, and 68 towns were at risk of damage due to salinity [Australian Bureau of Statistics, Measures of Australia's Progress, 2010].

Inappropriate land and water management resulted in exposure or drainage of acid sulfate soils on coastal floodplains and wetlands resulting in periodic outbreaks of fish disease and/or large fish kills.

Sections of the World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef are being smothered by topsoil washing into the ocean from agricultural land.

These are just a few of the mistakes we have made in the last 220 years, yet knowing of the problems caused we still do this with very little thought of inevitable consequences………

WWF Australia, media release, 12 August 2016:

An analysis by WWF-Australia reveals that an estimated 40.7 million trees were destroyed in Queensland in 2014-15.

"That's more than one tree bulldozed every second," said WWF-Australia conservation scientist Dr Martin Taylor.

Crucially, 16.1 million of the destroyed trees were in Great Barrier Reef catchments increasing the amount of sludge flowing out to reef waters and harming coral and sea grass.

"Tree clearing is out of control. If we want to save the Reef and stop the decline of koalas we cannot continue to destroy trees at such an alarming rate," he said.

Dr Taylor said the official Queensland Government figures for clearing in 2014-15 contained a disturbing statistic: 71% of the clearing was mature forests that had never been cleared or bushland and forests over 28 years old.

Methodology for the estimate of the number of trees destroyed

Dr Martin Taylor examined the SLATS map and removed any area that was not forest or woodland before the 2014-15 clearing.

Dr Taylor also removed any area of trees destroyed by natural processes such as cyclones (which is categorised by SLATS)

Then Dr Taylor applied the peer-reviewed eco-regional tree density model of Crowther et al and calculated the number of trees cleared.

What 296,000 hectares looks like

On 3 May 2016 the NSW Government released a draft Biodiversity Conservation Bill and draft Local Land Services (Amendment) Bill.  These bills will repeal and replace the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995, the Nature Conservation Trust Act, parts of the National Parks & Wildlife Act; parts of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979, and the Native Vegetation Act.

NSW Shadow Environment Minister Penny Sharpe, 4 August 2016:

A report on vegetation clearing quietly released by the Baird Government has highlighted a disturbing trend of increasing illegal land clearing in NSW.

The data provides a report card on the status, regulation, protection and extent of native vegetation in NSW, and clearly shows the rate of land clearing is increasing even as Mike Baird readies his destructive reforms to weaken land clearing laws.

The report shows clearing skyrocketed from 40,500 ha in 2011/12 to 105,900 ha in 2012/13 (the most recent data available).

Illegal clearing that is defined as "unexplained" agricultural woody clearing is has increased, jumping by 52% in the last two years alone:

Year	"Unexplained" agricultural woody clearing (hectares)
2010/11	3,695
2011/12	4,269
2012/13	5,615

In 2012/13 there was 9,100 ha of clearing on private land, and a massive 60% of that clearing is unexplained.

Clearing is also increasing across the board, including clearing on farms, infrastructure, mining, forestry, and the impact of fire on vegetation.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 June 2016:

The state's farmers have lopped paddock trees at an accelerating rate in the past 18 months even before a new land-clearing law eases controls further, government data shows.

The new figures, which reveal the rate of clearing of paddock trees has more than doubled since November 2014, come as the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists wrote to all MPs to call for a reversal of "retrograde changes" planned in the new Biodiversity Conservation act.

NSW farmers used a new self-assessment code to remove 21,716 paddock trees – or more than 50 a day – over the past year and a half.

The rate, at an average of about 50 per day, was 140 per cent more than the average over the previous seven years, data from the Office of Environment and Heritage showed. Paddock trees, judged to be single or small patches of trees, make up 40 per cent of remaining woodland cover, OEH says.

Satellite monitoring by OEH would probably have detected even more clearing but the public has been left in the dark because the O'Farrell-Baird governments had failed to release a native vegetation report since 2013, Mehreen Faruqi, the Greens environment spokeswoman, said.

The Greens had also sought information on the number of applications OEH received and what if any compliance of the self-assessment codes they conducted, Dr Faruqi said.

"If almost 22,000 trees can be removed under the existing law, then it will be a disaster when new laws that further facilitate land clearing are brought in," she said, adding the latest tree-felling numbers were "the tip of the iceberg".

A spokeswoman for Niall Blair, Minister for Primary Industries, did not address the scale of tree clearing on farms, but said "the proposed Biodiversity Conservation package aims to reverse the decline of biodiversity in NSW because the current system isn't working".

‎"The NSW Government is currently seeking feedback on the draft reforms and stakeholders including environmental groups and farmers are encouraged to put forward a submission before June 28," she said.

Labor's environment spokeswoman, Penny Sharpe, said the figures "ring alarm bells on how far the current biodiversity laws have already been watered down".

"If these laws proceed in their current form, there will be a return to land clearing on a scale unseen for decades in NSW with catastrophic impacts on native animals, soil, water and greenhouse gas emissions," Ms Sharpe said.

Director and Member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists Peter Crosier writing in The Guardian, 6 July 2016:

Laws to stop the broadscale clearing of large areas of native trees and plants in New South Wales have reduced land and water degradation, helped Australia meets its commitments to cut greenhouse emissions and slowed the rate of species extinction. The Baird government now plans to wind back all of these benefits.

At the 2015 election, the Baird government promised that a review of these laws would "enhance the state's biodiversity for the benefit of current and future generations." It was on this basis that the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists supported this review, because we saw an opportunity to modernise the current legislation leading to enhanced biodiversity outcomes, increased financial support for farmers to restore degraded land, while also promoting economic development across NSW.

However, the Wentworth Group has serious concerns about many of the changes announced recently. We believe that these changes, if not addressed, will breach the government's election promise.

Over-clearing of the landscape has resulted in NSW having some of the most degraded land in Australia, with only 10% of native vegetation across the state remaining in close to natural condition. The Native Vegetation Act was introduced in 2003 to address this problem.

This act has been remarkably successful in reducing the level of land clearing from as much as 100,000 hectares per year in the 1980s (the equivalent of half of Sydney's urban area) to less than 12,000 hectares per year now.

This legislation was supported by the NSW Farmers Association as well as environment groups such as WWF, because it brought an end to broadscale land clearing in a way that also promoted sustainable farming. As an example, since the Native Vegetation Act was introduced, approval has been given to manage over 7m hectares of native vegetation on farms across NSW (over 40 times the size of Sydney's urban area), including the eradication of weeds and management of invasive native scrub. This system was designed by farmers and scientists working together. It shows just how effective laws can be in securing the long-term protection of NSW's natural assets while also improving the viability of farming enterprises.

While some of the government's announced changes to these current laws are most welcome, we believe that other elements will substantially weaken existing protections. These retrograde changes risk overwhelming the positive changes, returning NSW to an era of unsustainable land clearing, resulting in more degraded land, more damage to river systems, increased carbon emissions, and the loss of habitat critical to the survival of threatened species.

This would not only be a clear breach of the government's election promise, it will also damage the reputations of those farmers who want to be good stewards, the vast majority of whom are unaffected by the current laws.

One of the positive elements of the announced reforms is a $240m five-year private land conservation fund. This money should be used to help farmers manage native vegetation of high conservation value that should not be cleared, and to offset the cumulative smaller losses that result from route agricultural practices, such as clearing along fence lines. It should not be used to subsidise the broadscale clearing that will result from weakening of the land clearing controls. That is simply a taxpayer subsidy to farmers to degrade land.

The increased greenhouse emissions that will result from these changes means that taxpayers will be hit twice, because it will make our national commitments to reduce Australia's emissions more difficult, resulting in higher costs to taxpayers and other sectors of the economy.

The vast majority of farmers in NSW are, or want to be, good stewards of the land – where healthy landscapes go hand-in-hand with a productive economy. A remarkable 93% of Australian farmers say they practice landcare on their farms.

There are many ways we can support our farmers to manage their land sustainably, by providing them with financial incentives to restore native vegetation on degraded land. This will improve the value of their farms, help reduce Australia's greenhouse emissions, slow the rate of species extinction, enhance rural productivity and create more prosperous rural communities.

We ask the Baird government to amend the draft legislation so that it truly does achieve their objectives of cutting red tape, facilitating ecologically sustainable development, and in doing so honour the promise to enhance the state's biodiversity for the benefit of current and future generations.

Written on behalf of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists

A look at those the Liberal-Nationals Coalition labels "eco-terrorists"

https://youtu.be/lD9ArZTg8RQ

NSW Minister for Industry, Resources and Energy Anthony Roberts,  media release, 7 March 2016:

NEW LAWS PROTECT WORKERS AND COMMUNITIES FROM ILLEGAL PROTESTS The NSW Government today announced legislation will be introduced to the NSW Parliament to increase enforcement powers with respect to illegal protests. The Inclosed Lands, Crimes and Law Enforcement Amendment (Interference) Bill 2016 delivers on the NSW Government’s commitment to ensure that the right to peaceful protest is balanced with the need to ensure public safety, the safety of workers, the protection of communities and lawful business activity. Minister for Industry, Resources and Energy, Anthony Roberts, said the reforms enable Police to take a more proactive approach to managing and prosecuting illegal activity. “The NSW Government makes clear its support for the right to legal protests conducted in accordance with the Summary Offences Act 1988,” Mr Roberts said. “However unlawful activities put the safety of protesters and workers at risk and are costly for businesses and the public. “Communities also suffer, with the deployment of Police resources reducing the capacity to respond to critical incidents.” Key reforms include:

* Creating the offence of ‘aggravated unlawful entry on inclosed lands’, with a maximum penalty of $5,500 under the Inclosed Lands Protection Act 1901, including amendments relating to illegal protests which occur on mine sites;

* Extending the meaning of ‘mine’ to include petroleum workplaces, in connection with the existing indictable offence of intentionally or recklessly interfering with a mine under the Crimes Act 1900;

* Additional search and seizure powers for Police to deal with people who intend to ‘lock-on’ to equipment or structures for the purpose of interfering with a business or undertaking, and that is likely to be used in a way that poses a serious risk to the safety of any person, under the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002; and

* Removing limitations to allow Police to give directions in public places to prevent obstructions of persons or traffic for a demonstration, protest, procession or organised assembly under the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002. For more information visit: www.resourcesandenergy.nsw.gov.au.

The departmental website was not so coy as Minister Roberts:

What are the maximum penalties?

The maximum penalty for the aggravated offence will be $5,500. It will apply in relation to land on which a business or undertaking is being conducted and where the offenders, while on the lands, interfere with, or attempt or intend to interfere with, the conduct of the business or undertaking or do anything that gives rise to a serious risk to the safety of the person or any other person on those lands.

The Bill amends the Crimes Act 1900 to extend the meaning of ‘mine’ in connection with the existing indictable offence of intentionally or recklessly interfering with a mine. This carries a maximum penalty of imprisonment of seven years. [my red bolding]

This bill was passed by both houses of the NSW Parliament on 15 March 2016.

NSW Northern Rivers communities are watching these draconian measures with interest and, I suspect, a firm resolve to stand their ground in any future disputes over inappropriate or environmentally devastating mining or other development proposals. 

The so-called Prime Minister for Indigenous Australia needs to organize himself - there are only twenty sitting days left before the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Act expires

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott needs to focus on essentials when Parliament resumes on 9 February 2015.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Recognition Act 2013 ceases to have effect on 27 March 2015.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Act of Recognition Review Panel pointed this out when it delivered its final report to the Abbott Government in September 2014, so there is no excuse for extension of this act not being in the first order of business at the commencement of this parliamentary year.