What could possibly go wrong when the Abbott Government is creating Fortress Australia to protect us all from a veritable host of 'terrors'?

When the Abbott Government’s wider surveillance powers were passed by the Senate, the Australian public was being assured by both major parties that the sweeping ‘anti-terrorism’ legislation had built-in safeguards which would protect us all from over reach by intelligence agencies and police.

The good citizens of Tacoma in Pierce County, Washington, United States probably thought they were protected too. After all, didn’t the police need to get a warrant from a Superior Court judge?

The News Tribune article of 15 November 2014 shows just how easily a mockery can be made of surveillance laws:

Pierce County judges didn’t know until recently that they’d been authorizing Tacoma police to use a device capable of tracking someone’s cellphone.

Now they do, and they’ve demanded that police change the way they get permission to use their so-called cell site simulator.

From 2009 to earlier this year, the county’s Superior Court judges unwittingly signed more than 170 orders that Tacoma police and other local law enforcement agencies say authorized them to use a device that allows investigators to track a suspect’s cellphone but also sweeps cellphone data from innocent people nearby.

In August, the assistant chief of the Tacoma Police Department told The News Tribune that investigators never deployed the device — a cell site simulator, commonly known as a Stingray — without court authorization.

The newspaper since learned police never mentioned they intended to use the device when detectives swore out affidavits seeking so-called “pen register, trap and trace” orders allowing them to gather information about a suspect’s cellphone use and location…..

Neither the pen register orders nor the affidavits filed by law enforcement mentioned that police had a Stingray or intended to use it.

Instead, detectives used language commonly associated with requesting an order that would force a cellphone company to turn over records for a particular phone, and, where possible, the real-time location of the phone…..

The News Tribune 17 November 2014:

The Tacoma Police Department, which owns the Stingray, did not want to reveal it to the public. The FBI, which provided it, was leaning on the city to keep the technology secret. As a result, the judiciary that monitors investigations for constitutional abuses wasn’t aware of the kind of surveillance it was authorizing. However noble the motives, this was subterfuge….

But a Stingray — which employs technology known as cell site simulation — is so much more intrusive than conventional surveillance that it demands extra scrutiny. It pulls in cellphone transmissions from all callers in a given area and identifies the unique signatures of each phone…..

This could get spooky in a hurry. The Pierce County Superior Court now has another safeguard in place: Police must sign affidavits that they will not store data on people who are not targets of the investigation…..

Think this example of over reach is too far removed from Australia to matter? Think again…..

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on what is already occurring in Australia on 7 July 2014:

Australian federal and state police are ordering phone providers to hand over personal information about thousands of mobile phone users, whether they are targets of an investigation or not.

Fairfax Media has confirmed Australian law-enforcement agencies are using a technique known as a "tower dump", which gives police data about the identity, activity and location of any phone that connects to targeted cell towers over a set span of time, generally an hour or two.

A typical dump covers multiple towers, and mobile providers, and can net information about thousands of mobile phones.

The dumps are usually used in circumstances when police have few leads and can be a useful, powerful tool in tracking down criminals. But privacy advocates say that while they may be helpful to police, they also target thousands of innocent people and don’t have any judicial oversight.

In addition to no warrant being required to request a tower dump containing the mobile phone data of thousands of people to track down one or more criminals involved in a crime, privacy advocates also question what is being done to the data collected once an investigation is complete….

Some things you may not have known about 'electronic' voting options in NSW state elections

According to the NSW Electoral Commission iVote is technology assisted voting and has been used in a New South Wales general election and five by-elections since 2011 for certain classes of electors - those with impaired vision or a physical disability requiring assistance, the profoundly illiterate, persons living more than 20 kms from the nearest polling station and those out of the state on polling day.

Voting is done on the Internet using a standard web browser or by call centre operators taking phone votes. Originally the second voting method was by phone using a standard handset and DTMF tones, but this was changed after the 2011 general election.

The largest group of iVote users were electors voting outside NSW on election day (over 43,000).

Of those electors who registered to iVote, 4,239 or 8.30% did not eventually use this system to cast their vote and 1,438 or 2.90% did not vote at all.

Over one thousand electors (1,335) registered to iVote during the 19 November 2011 by-election for the state seat of Clarence on the NSW North Coast and, most of these were first time uses of this voting system.

It has been proposed that the iVote system be used again for the March 2015 general election and during the September 2016 local government elections.

However, there are some issues with the iVote system that are not generally advertised by the NSW Government.

Below are excerpts from the Federal Government Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matter’s Second interim report on the inquiry into the conduct of the 2013 federal election: An assessment of electronic voting options, with my red bolding:

For example, the lost vote rate in the 2013 West Australian Senate race (1370 out of 1,348,797, slightly over 0.1%) was about the same as the demonstrated vote misrecording rate in Australia’s largest Internet voting trial, the NSW iVote project (43 misrecorded electronic votes out of 46,864, slightly under 0.1%) (PWC, 2011). The WA Senate incident received much more attention because it impacted an election outcome, not because the system was inherently much less reliable. Even more importantly, the paper-based Senate process retained paper evidence of the 99.9% of votes that weren’t lost; the iVote system produced no meaningful evidence of the correctness of any of the votes.

the ‘weak point’ in a paper-based voting system, resulting in a lost box of ballot papers, may lead to an unverifiable close result (such as in WA): but one ‘weak point’ in a wide-ranging electronic voting system has the potential to expose an entire election’s vote data to manipulation, corruption or attack, undermining the parliamentary system supported by the electoral process.

The NSW iVote system (outlined in Chapter 3) used in the 2011 state election had an average cost per vote cast of $74 compared to an average cost of all votes cast of $8.

While the iVote system is relatively secure, due to the fact that it utilises telephone systems for blind or low vision voting transactions and encrypted internet data architecture, the vote data on the voter’s computer or in the NSWEC’s servers is still open to potential manipulation.

In response to criticisms of the system’s security, the NSWEC has commissioned a third-party provider to strengthen the security of the system software prior to the 2015 state election, along with other hardware and data transmission improvements.

Vision Australia made a submission to the Joint Committee concerning telephone assisted voting during the 2013 federal election which included these observations:

It was anonymous, but not truly secret. People felt uncomfortable about verbalising their voting intentions to another person, and expressed the view that no-one else in the community would regard it as acceptable to be required to do this. Some clients in residential facilities and other places with limited privacy also expressed concern that their conversation with the call centre staff would be overheard and their voting intentions revealed…..

Clients who had voted using the iVote system in the NSW 2011 election were especially aware of the lack of independence involved in using the call centre option.

Some clients noted that they had no way of verifying that their voting intentions had been notated accurately and lodged correctly. While they did not necessarily mistrust the call centre operator, they were nevertheless aware that any human-mediated process introduces the possibility of errors, and such errors are more likely to occur when the process becomes complex, such as when a voter is voting “below the line”.

OVERCOMING INDIGENOUS DISADVANTAGE 2014 report released 19 November 2014

M e d i a R e l e a s e

Wednesday 19 November 2014

Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision

OVERCOMING INDIGENOUS DISADVANTAGE 2014

The 2014 Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage (OID) report released today shows some positive trends in the wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, with improvements in health, education

and economic outcomes. However, results in areas such as justice and mental health continue to cause concern.

The report shows that, nationally, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians:

• economic outcomes have improved over the longer term, with higher incomes, lower reliance on income support, increased home ownership, and higher rates of full time and professional employment.

However, improvements have slowed in recent years

• several health outcomes have improved, including increased life expectancy and lower child mortality.

However, rates of disability and chronic disease remain high, mental health outcomes have not improved, and hospitalisation rates for self-harm have increased

• post-secondary education outcomes have improved, but there has been virtually no change in literacy and numeracy results at school, which are particularly poor in remote areas

• justice outcomes continue to decline, with adult imprisonment rates worsening and no change in high rates of juvenile detention and family and community violence.

“It has been almost three years since the last OID report. For this report we made a concerted effort to increase the involvement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Their input contributed to significant developments, including broadening the focus from overcoming disadvantage to improving wellbeing, and the inclusion of new indicators, such as Indigenous language revitalisation and maintenance, valuing Indigenous cultures (including experiences of racism and discrimination) and participation in decision making” said Peter Harris, chairman of the Productivity Commission and of the Steering Committee.

The OID report is the most comprehensive report on Indigenous wellbeing produced in Australia. It contains accessible data for an extensive range of wellbeing measures as well as case studies of programs that have led to improved outcomes. “This report should be compulsory reading for anyone interested in outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians or working in service delivery or program design,” said Commissioner Patricia Scott, who convenes the expert working group that advises on the report.

The report is a product of the Review of Government Service Provision. It is overseen by a Steering Committee comprising senior officials from the Australian, State and Territory governments, and supported by a secretariat from the Productivity Commission. This report is the sixth in the series, which traces its origins to the final report of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation in 2000.

The full report can be found here.

On the same day the Productivity Commission report was released the Abbott Government walked away from another one of its 2013 election promises, according to The Australian, 20 November 2014:

THE national peak body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services NATSILS is angry at the Abbott government for “back flipping” on a pledge to consider introducing justice targets as part of the Closing the Gap policy agenda, a move which NATSILS along with many other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders and organisations have long called for.

It comes after this week’s Productivity Commission Overcoming indigenous Disadvantage report revealed a shocking increase of nearly 60 per cent in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander incarceration rates over the last decade.

NATSILS Chairperson, Shane Duffy, said that confirmation from the Minister for indigenous Affairs, Nigel Scullion, during question time in the Senate on Wednesday that the government would not be progressing with introducing a justice target, despite publicly supporting such in the lead up to the 2013 election, was a troubling development…..

Mr Duffy said that the development of Closing the Gap justice targets was not just about throwing more money at the issue, as the Minister had described it, but was rather about getting the policy settings right to affect real change and to make sure resources in the justice space are used most effectively.

“The high cost of incarceration combined with the fact that prisons actually offer little in terms of effective rehabilitation, means that addressing incarceration rates should be an economic priority for the Government and its budget bottom line,” Mr Duffy said.

“It is costing Australian taxpayers more than $795 million per annum just to maintain the current level of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander over-imprisonment, so to reiterate the sentiments of the Minister in recent days, we shouldn’t just keep throwing money down the drain.”

Brian Robins standing as an independant candidate for the Clarence electorate in March 2015 says he offers real choice

Photograph of Brian Robins from The Daily Examiner, 2 August 2014

Brian Robins media release, 18 November 2014:

LOCAL COMMUNITIES FIRST.

Former Clarence NSW State Emergency Service Executive Officer, Bryan Robins will stand as an Independent candidate for the Clarence Electorate in the 2015 State Election.
He said it was his disillusionment with the policies practised by the major parties that persuaded him to make his stand. "I feel disillusioned with this Government for its failure to deliver benefits to the Clarence electorate" he said.
"I'm also disgusted with the behaviour of a disturbing number of elected Members from both the Labor Party and the Liberal-National Coalition". ICAC has revealed disgraceful behaviour and standards that indicate that both sides are as guilty as each other"
"People have had enough of poor party representation and their arrogance."

Mr. Robins said a strength of standing as an Independent was he could take his instructions straight from the people in this Electorate. " I don't have to ring head office in Sydney to be told how I'm supposed to feel about every issue. The locals will advise me and their views will be represented"
He said he had impeccible credentials as an Independent. "I've never been a member of a political party, I don't own any shares and Iv'e never been aligned to any faction or political interest group"

Mr' Robins moved to the Clarence Valley in 1982 to commence duties as the Executive Officer for what is now the Clarence-Nambucca Region of the SES, a position he served for over 20 years. Over those years I was privileged to develop close working relationships with communities across the Electorate.
"I had a senior Emergency Management role and I witnessed the electorate experience major floods, severe storms, bush fires and drought, man-made disasters....even a tornado in Tucabia"

Iv'e seen the area at it's best and also when under severe threat, and I have always admired the strength and resillience of the Community and its fierce determination to protect what we all recognise as one of the wonderful places to call home."

Mr. Robins has already announced his opposition to CSG mining in the Clarence Electorate. "Rightly so, the local communities simply don't want it"
He also encouraged the anti CSG Lobby to continue it's fight. I'm hopeful I can help them and join with them to continue to voice the message loud and clear" 
"It is already a huge issue"

"I look forward to meet with as many groups and individuals as possible in the coming months. I invite them to contact me"
For the time being, please phone 6642 8473 or email bryanandkerry@outlook.com.

Japan to continue its annual commercial whale hunt in the Southern Ocean

Once Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was safely out of Australia, after attending the November 2014 G20 summit, Japan announced it will continue its annual whale kill in the Southern Ocean.

Reuters 18 November 2014:

Japan on Tuesday unveiled plans to resume whale hunting in the Southern Ocean despite an international court ruling that previous hunts were illegal, but said it would slash the quota for the so-called scientific whaling program….

The new plan, which a Fisheries Agency official said was drawn up in line with suggestions contained in the court ruling, calls for hunting 333 minke whales, down from some 900 in Japan's previous whaling plans, in the 2015-2016 season.

The plan, which Japan has submitted to the International Whaling Commission, also limits the hunt to minkes. In past years, the hunts had included quotas for humpback and fin whales as well.

"We hope to earnestly explain this new plan in order to win understanding from other nations in the world," Koya Nishikawa, the fisheries minister, told reporters.

Japan canceled its Antarctic hunt this year in response to the ICJ ruling, and carried out a scaled-down version of its less known Northern Pacific hunt this summer.

The Sea Shepherd organisation has stated its intention to prevent the 2015-16 whale hunt by hindering the whaling fleet once it enters Antarctic waters.

Australian Government Dept. of the Environment, Australian Antarctic Division:

Minke whales are one of the smallest species of baleen whales and grow to nearly 9 metres long and about 10 tonnes in weight.

There are two 'forms' of minke whales, sub species or possibly even separate species. They are distinguished by size and colour pattern differences…

Minkes are the only baleen whale species which is still common in Antarctic waters and apparently the most ice adapted of the Antarctic baleen whales. They have been seen hundreds of kilometres into heavy pack ice in the middle of winter, and some of them obviously spend the winter there.

In summer, their favoured habitat seems to be open pack ice, that is, pack ice where there is quite a lot of open water among ice floes.

In very heavy ice, minkes breathe by sticking their pointed heads vertically out through narrow cracks in the ice. How they can find their way from one open crack to another before they run out of breath is a mystery.

Minkes are regarded as very inquisitive animals. They will often swim repeatedly around a small vessel, and go out of their way to approach a moving ship, before veering away at high speed….

They are now the target of the whaling industry, which in its present form, kills minkes for 'scientific research', but is attempting to recommence commercial whaling. The meat from this research is sold in commercial markets….

Like other baleen whales, many minke whales migrate to somewhere in tropical waters to breed in winter….

...they feed almost exclusively on Antarctic krill while in Antarctic waters.... usually feed in groups, but may form huge groups of many hundreds if there is enough food present.

Antarctic minke whales commence breeding at between 6-8 years of age, nurse their young for five months after a 10-11 month gestation and, have a normal life expectancy of over 20 years possibly up to around 50 years.

Minke whale and calf

www.rainbowcoast.com.au/areas/rainbowcoast/whales.htm

History is coming for us all

First Dog on the Moon cartoon via The Guardian 21 November 2014:

Click on image to enlarge

Best Tweet of the Week

Sandi Keane ‏@Jarrapin  

Tony Abbott: The Loaded Dog of Australian politics

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/tony-abbott-the-loaded-dog-of-australian-politics … @IndependentAus

Quote of the Week

These overall findings only tell part of the story, and the following pages present a brief snapshot of the results for the 60 nations covered on the GGEI as they play out on the four main dimensions: Leadership & Climate Change, Efficiency Sectors, Markets & Investment and Environment & Natural Capital….

PERCEPTION RANK 11 Australia…PERFORMANCE RANK 37 Australia

[DUAL CITIZEN LLC, The Global Green Economy Index – 2014]

In which Labor's Walt Secord and The Greens' Jeremy Buckingham nail NSW Nationals' hypocrisy in relation to coal seam and other unconventional gas exploration and mining in the state

The NSW Legislative Council Hansard recorded a seconding reading debate on the Petroleum (Onshore) Amendment (NSW Gas Plan) Bill 2014 which began at 12.50am and ended just before 2am on 19 November 2014.

Here are excerpts from that debate:

The Hon. WALT SECORD  [1.24 a.m.]: As the shadow Minister for the North Coast I speak on the Petroleum (Onshore) Amendment (NSW Gas Plan) Bill 2014. My observations on the bill will centre on North Coast issues. On Thursday 13 November at 10.05 a.m., without warning, the Liberal-Nationals Government introduced this bill in the Legislative Assembly. For a start, the title of the bill is a complete and absolute deception. The bill does not abolish current coal seam gas [CSG] and unconventional gas production licences currently in operation and it does not protect the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. Furthermore, the Liberal-Nationals Government has put on the table the possibility of reopening the special area of the Sydney water catchment for CSG operations. 

If the purpose of the bill's title is to convey the Government's intention at law, then the bill should have been called the "Unlock the gate and roll out the red carpet for Metgasco on the North Coast after March 2015 bill". That is because that is the intention of this bill. It will allow CSG and unconventional gas exploration to return on steroids on the North Coast after the March 2015 State election. The bill provides no guarantee to the communities of New South Wales, particularly those on the Northern Rivers, that have made their views abundantly clear. But that is no surprise. The Liberal-Nationals Government has already flagged that it will back big corporations over the people of New South Wales every time.

That is why Labor will be moving a number of amendments to the bill to bring it into line with Labor's policy, announced by Opposition leader John Robertson on 29 October. Our amendments will ban coal seam gas from the special areas of Sydney water catchment and from the Northern Rivers, encompassing the local government areas of Ballina shire, Byron shire, Kyogle shire, Lismore city, Tweed shire, Richmond Valley and Clarence Valley……

If the Liberals and The Nationals were interested in responding to community concerns they would have proceeded with a second reading speech by the Minister and then adjourned the bill, allowing the Opposition and crossbenchers to consider it. But their motivation is simple. If the North Coast community had time to consider the bill they would find it lacking in any detail and teeth, and they would see that it was an attempt to dupe them. But what is even more shameful is that not a single member of The Nationals spoke on the bill. I say that again: not a single Nationals member of Parliament spoke on the bill. That is a big betrayal of their electorates—not a word from the member for Tweed, not a word from the member for Ballina, not a word from the member for Lismore, and not a word from the member for Clarence. And out of left field, on 14 November the member for Tamworth popped up in his local media and said he wants to protect the Liverpool Plains. After months of absolute silence, he enters the fray. It was like a scene out of Muriel's Wedding: "Deidre Chambers, what are you doing here? What a coincidence!" It is no wonder that the local community have dubbed The Nationals "Team Metgasco"……        

Mr JEREMY BUCKINGHAM [1.03 a.m.]: I contribute to debate on the Petroleum (Onshore) Amendment (NSW Gas Plan) Bill 2014. What a long and winding road it has been to get to this wafer-thin bill. After nearly five years of policy development, promises, posturing and touting their wares across the countryside the Government came up with a Petroleum (Onshore) Amendment (NSW Gas Plan) Bill that is nothing of the sort. There is no gas plan in this bill; there is no response to the Chief Scientist in this bill. This bill is a thin veneer of the Government's plan to sneak coal seam gas through the next election and launch it onto the countryside. This is more spin, more carpet-bagging, from a government that the people of New South Wales do not trust. 

The Hon. Duncan Gay: Take your koala suit off.

Mr JEREMY BUCKINGHAM: It did not take long to get a rise out of you. The Strategic Regional Land Use plan failed, the Aquifer Interference Policy failed, and the people of New South Wales do not believe a single word those opposite say on this issue. Not even the Government's backbenchers, parliamentary Secretaries or Ministers believe a single word Minister Gay says.

The Hon. Matthew Mason-Cox: Point of order: The member should direct his comments through the Chair and should stop pointing at people across the table. He should take a moment to take a deep breath, relax and be calm.

DEPUTY-PRESIDENT (The Hon. Natasha Maclaren-Jones): Order! The Minister was referring to relevancy. There is no point of order.

Mr JEREMY BUCKINGHAM: We are debating the Petroleum (Onshore) Amendment (NSW Gas Plan) Bill. Where did this bill start? It started with the Hon. Chris Hartcher introducing an onshore petroleum bill back in May 2013. Do members remember him introducing that bill and saying ad nauseam, "These are the toughest rules in Australia"? He went on to say, "These are the toughest rules in the world". What a joke that is! We heard announcement after announcement after announcement and that bill, which passed the Legislative Assembly on 28 May 2013, then disappeared; it was pulled off the Notice Paper on 10 September this year. It died an inglorious death; slowly and quietly culled—euthanased—because it was an absolutely pathetic bill that did nothing to placate the people of New South Wales who have concerns about coal seam gas.

The Hon. Steve Whan said this bill is not very broad. I have seen needles with more breadth and depth than this bill. Talk about pinpoint legislation—it is pathetic. The Government is expunging a handful of titles—and it very nearly could not bring itself to do that—when the people of New South Wales wanted substantive action in this area. They wanted, as the Government promised, areas ruled out of coal seam gas activity. We got some very sensible recommendations from the Chief Scientist that should be applied to extractive industries across the State.

The Hon. Duncan Gay: We're going to do the whole lot.

Mr JEREMY BUCKINGHAM: No you're not. There were dozens of pages in the Chief Scientist's report—I read them—and the Bret Walker report, but did their recommendations turn up in the gas plan? No they did not. Some key things are missing from the gas plan. One of the most important things missing is the recommendations of Bret Walker, SC: The rights of farmers, the rights of communities, to be empowered in arbitration and land access. It says in the Government's response to the review in the most Yes Minister type language I have ever seen:

On 15 April 2014, the NSW Government commissioned Mr Bret Walker SC to undertake an independent review of the land access arbitration processes relating to exploration under the Mining Act 1992 and the Petroleum (Onshore) Act 1991.

The Walker Report … made 31 recommendations to improve the arbitration land access framework. The NSW government has endorsed all the recommendations in the Walker Report relating to the current arbitration framework and committed to a process of implementation commencing immediately where possible."

The Government is committed to a process of implementation commencing immediately, where possible. What an absolute joke! This Government is a farce. No-one trusts this Government and no-one believes this Government. The gas plan is an absolute joke. It is just a blueprint to turn a beautiful State into a toxic gas field. No-one believes this Government.

Do Government members know who does not believe this Government, in particular? The Minister for Mental Health, and the Assistant Minister for Health and member for Wollondilly, Jai Rowell, Gareth Ward, Lee Evans, Mark Speakman, Mark Coure, Stuart Ayres, Chris Patterson, Brian Doyle, Russell Matheson, Rosa Sage, Barry O'Farrell, Don Page, Kevin Anderson, Thomas George, Chris Gulaptis and whoever the Coalition has running as a candidate in Ballina. They all rushed out within 24 to 48 hours of the announcement to state on the public record, "We're banning it. We're banning it." They knew what the community's interpretation of the NSW Gas Plan was. 

It is a carpetbagging exercise by snake oil salesmen who have come into New South Wales communities to sell them a story that New South Wales is running out of gas and this State must have coal seam gas. How many Holdens does New South Wales produce and how many mangoes? Are we completely self-sufficient concerning mangoes? Do we have to have a mangoes industry? We are a federation, a commonwealth, and this issue should be dealt with at the Council of Australian Governments [COAG], not through some carpetbagging exercise by the New South Wales Government. In the context of the most outrageous, erroneous and egregious untruths, I will refer to the Minister's second reading speech, which states:

For example, we appointed a New South Wales Land and Water Commissioner to provide independent advice to the community about exploration activities.

When referring to the framework for community engagement, the Minister stated:

We have also established the Gloucester Dialogue, chaired by the Land and Water Commissioner. The Gloucester Dialogue brings together community, industry and local and State governments to explore issues surrounding the exploration and extraction of coal seam gas in the Gloucester Basin.

This is this the first time in New South Wales this type of dialogue has occurred. Through the dialogue there is regular contact between senior departmental officers and Gloucester Shire Council. Any topic is up for discussion. A community liaison officer from my department operates out of the council chambers two to three days a week. The tenth dialogue meeting was held last Thursday. I commend the Gloucester Shire Council, particularly the mayor, Councillor John Rosenbaum …

Through the dialogue the community has access to all materials relevant to licensing decisions and approvals about AGL's Gloucester gas project.

That is unadulterated rubbish from the Minister because in that very week the man who had the idea for the Gloucester Dialogue, Aled Hoggett—a former councillor of the Gloucester Shire Council—resigned from the Gloucester Dialogue. He did that in the very week when the Minister was spruiking it as the way forward for engagement and the way to sell the Government's gas plan. Aled Hoggett stated in his letter of resignation, "The dialogue was initiated at my suggestion in February this year."…..

Mr JEREMY BUCKINGHAM: Thank you, Madam Deputy-President. "The dialogue was initiated at my suggestion in February this year", Mr Aled Hoggett stated in his letter of resignation from the Gloucester Dialogue to which the Minister referred in his second reading speech. "I hope that Mr Roberts' current assertions would become reality, that we could find a new path to coexistence between coal and gas projects in local communities. Instead I resigned my position on the dialogue early this month. In my opinion, the dialogue has failed and has become an overbearing monologue directed at our tiny and underresourced council. It is being managed to satisfy the requirements for consultation while delivering no such thing. More fundamentally, the dialogue cannot address three major problems in the New South Wales planning system that undermine coexistence between rural communities and the coal and gas industries. The first problem is that the New South Wales planning system disempowers local communities."

Mr Hoggett went on. He resigned from the committee that was his idea and that the Government enshrined in the heart of the Government's NSW Gas Plan because it is a farce—like the rest of the Government's plan. The gas plan is based on a false assumption around economics and on a belief that the Government can say just anything to the community and get away with it. I will read onto the record what Mr Jai Rowell declared in the Wollondilly Advertiser to his community in relation to the announcement of the gas plan: "'It ain't happening, it's over, we won', Wollondilly MP Jai Rowell declared last week", after the gas plan was released. Yet the gas plan refers to the very fact that the AGL gas development in Camden will remain an integral part, in the Government's opinion, of gas delivery in New South Wales. That completely contradicts what Mr Jai Rowell said—"It ain't happening, it's over, we won"; there will be no coal seam gas in Wollondilly. The community is not stupid.

The Hon. Matthew Mason-Cox: It is in Camden. It is not in Wollondilly, mate.

Mr JEREMY BUCKINGHAM: I acknowledge the interjection. The expansion plans of AGL are clearly into the Camden electorate. The member for Camden knows it. The community knows it and they are not being sold a pup on that one. Another very important element of the recommendations made by the Chief Scientist and Engineer that did not make it into the Government's NSW Gas Plan. It should serve as a warning to all people in New South Wales that the Chief Scientist and Engineer concluded her report with these words:

There are no guarantees
· All industries have risks and, like any other, it is inevitable that the CSG industry will have some unintended consequences, including as the result of accidents, human error, and natural disasters. Industry, Government and the community need to work together to plan adequately to mitigate such risks, and be prepared to respond to problems if they occur.

They are wise words by any measure in regard to risk management. How did the Chief Scientist and Engineer suggest that those risks be managed? By Recommendation 9, which states:

Recommendation 9
That Government consider a robust and comprehensive policy of appropriate insurance and environmental risk coverage of the CSG industry to ensure financial protection short and long term. Government should examine the potential adoption of a three-layered policy of security deposits, enhanced insurance coverage, and an environmental rehabilitation fund.
That is a very sensible recommendation. It is something that I would recommend in relation to any extractive industry, in all industries and most undertakings…..

Mr JEREMY BUCKINGHAM: Clearly, there is enormous concern in the community. Does the recommendation to which I have referred turn up in the gas plan bill? No. What we have from this Government is a suggestion that all this will be done after the election—just like after the 2011 State election the Government had strategic regional land use plans that covered the State and protected areas, such as water catchments—"no ifs, no buts, a guarantee". Where did that go? It went the way of the premiership of the Hon. Barry O'Farrell. Those promises were not kept and people will hold this Government to account on its word. People do not believe for one instant that this promise from the Government will be kept. That is clear from the words of Mr Kevin Anderson who, straightaway after the announcement of the gas plan, rushed out to say that he wants the Liverpool Plains to be protected. Other members on the North Coast have said that they want those areas protected. I join them in saying that those areas should be protected. This coal seam gas industry is unnecessary. As the Chief Scientist said, it has major issues in terms of risk.

The Government may argue that it did not have time to do this. Why has it not implemented the recommendations of the Bret Walker review? I would like to hear from the Minister in his reply why the recommendations have not been implemented. There is a massive configuration in the community about land access and arbitration. The Government commissioned one of the best legal minds in the nation to deal with the issue, and he made fantastic recommendations about how to deal with it. The recommendations are widely supported by the environment movement, people in social justice, the legal fraternity and all sides of politics. Yet the Government has not moved. That shows that the Government is not serious and cannot be trusted on the recommendations of the Chief Scientist; otherwise some of the low-hanging fruit in the recommendations would have turned up in this wafer-thin petroleum bill. All the bill does is set out to cancel or expunge—

Mr Scot MacDonald: Finally we can talk about the bill.

Mr JEREMY BUCKINGHAM: I will cover the whole bill in my remaining two minutes. The Government will expunge a number of petroleum title applications, which simply could have been rejected. Will the Government cancel the petroleum exploration licences [PELS] that are up for renewal? As promised, will it protect areas such as water catchments? No, it will not. With this bill, the Government thinks it can erect a thin veil and hide behind it and sneak through to the next election. However, the electors of Lismore, Ballina, Tamworth and Barwon do not want to be guinea pigs in the Government's toxic coal seam gas experiment. They understand that we are a country rich in natural resources. Former Federal Labor and Coalition governments have signed up to a massive export of LNG without proper socio-economic analysis. 

There is a parliamentary inquiry into gas supply and demand. I look forward to that inquiry. We have seen some of the submissions to the lower House inquiry from companies such as Jemena, which say there is no gas supply crisis, there is lots of gas in Bass Strait from conventional sources and all it needs to do is build a pipeline. There are other suggestions for pipelines, et cetera. The Greens are not opposed to fossil fuels…..

In which NSW Nationals MP for Clarence Chris Gulaptis sets up his justification for voting against the interests of his electorate and for the interests of the gas industry

 Chris Gulaptis from Google Images files

The Coffs Coast Advocate 13 November 2014:

CSG not wanted in Clarence but ban doubtful

RETIRING Ballina MP Don Page may be a lone voice in the NSW Government in his push to keep his electorate completely free of CSG mining.

At the end to his political tenure and largely freed from the party-room shackles on speaking freely, he used his valedictory speech on Tuesday to call for the entire Ballina electorate to be declared a CSG no-go zone.

Clarence MP Chris Gulaptis said he understood the comments and his electorate shared many of Mr Page's concerns.

However, he suggested the financial needs of the state may trump those of his voters.

"I certainly agree that, given the community reaction to CSG over the last few years, that the industry is at odds with the community and therefore the character of the Northern Rivers," he said.

"It's very similar in the Clarence electorate.

"There are concerns about turning an agricultural area into an industrialised area - concerns shared by a lot of people, myself included.

"In saying that, we have a responsibility to everybody in NSW to deal with it in a logical way, not just to play politics as we see with these born-again activists.

"What Labor say they are going to do and what they actually did when they were in government are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

"They're as far away as Mars is from Venus."

The NSW Legislative Council Hansard does not record Chris Gulaptis as speaking to the somewhat misleading titled Petroleum (Onshore) Amendment (NSW Gas Plan) Bill 2014 on 13 November 2014, the day this very limited bill was both introduced and passed by the Lower House.