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Koala habitat within Lawrence, NSW |
Essential Energy is a NSW state-owned corporation supplying
‘poles and wire’ infrastructure to communities on the North Coast.
One of those
communities is the small village of Lawrence
on the Lower Clarence River.
An attractive feature of living in this village is that it is one of the ever
diminishing small regional/rural urban areas which still have resident koalas.
Koalas like
this one sitting in a tree line marked by Essential Energy for felling.
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Photograph of Lawrence koala supplied |
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Koala mid-canopy & circled in black
Photograph supplied |
Apparently
those surveying the short new route for a section of poles and wires in Lawrence neglected to look
up into the trees – what else can explain the fact that known koala trees have
been marked for destruction?
So who is it
that employs such incredibly blind staff?
Well
Essential Energy has a Board
of Directors (very comfortably remunerated from $60,600 up to $764,200 pa) and all apparently living far from this particular group of
koalas.
These board
members are:
Patricia McKenzie – Chair, Non-Executive Director
Robyn Clubb – Non-Executive Director
Jennifer Douglas – Non-Executive Director
John Fletcher – Non-Executive Director
Peter Garling – Non-Executive Director
Patrick Strange – Non-Executive Director
Diane Elert – Non-Executive Director
John Cleland – CEO and Executive Director.
The
shareholders are represented by the NSW
Treasurer and Minister for Finance,
Services and Property. Current Treasurer is MP for Epping Dominic Perrottet.
With the
exception of the Treasurer all these people belong to what might be called the
professional directors class and, between them are associated with a number of other businesses and a research facility:
APA Group, Health
Direct Australia,
Australian Wool Exchange Ltd,
Craig Moyston Group Ltd, Elders Ltd, NSW Primary Industries Ministerial Advisory Council, Rice Marketing Board of NSW,
Hansen Technologies Limited, Opticomm Pty Ltd, Peter MacCullum Cancer Foundation,
Charter Hall Funds Management Limited, Charter Hall Limited, Energy Group Limited, Downer EDI Limited, Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Limited, Tellus
Holdings Limited,
Auckland International Airport Limited. Chorus
Limited, Mercury Energy, NZX Limited.
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Annotated image; photograph supplied |
A fair number of people in Lawrence have told Essential Energy that they want these koala trees to be left standing and the corporation states it has taken its plan under review.
So if Essential Energy does decide these
koala trees are to be cut down in the next few months, don’t blame the men with
chainsaws, blame these eight professional directors and the successive NSW Coalition governments who appointed them - from the O'Farrell Government in 2013 through to the Berejiklian Government in 2018.
Because state government is clearly appointing directors who cannot even ensure that Essential Energy’s
environmental
policy (for which they are responsible) is comprehensive and actually mentions vulnerable and threatened
flora and fauna.
It is a policy which (aside from a brief mention of greenhouse gas emission reduction) fails to give clear direction to staff, given there is only a single broadly worded line in its 12 point health, safety & environmental policy to cover all manner of environmental issues ie., "Comply with relevant
legislation, regulations, standards, codes, licences and commitments"
These directors appear so divorced from real life that they apparently never thought that their regional/rural staff need to be trained to look up into tree canopies before they
decide to mark a tree line for destruction.
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