Showing posts with label #MorrisonGovernmentFAIL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #MorrisonGovernmentFAIL. Show all posts
Wednesday 7 August 2019
Under Prime Minister Scott Morrison's own peculiar mix of politics & social engineering the 'haves' are relentlessly screwing the 'have nots' into the ground
ABC News, 2 August 2019:
Whistleblowers are warning a $351 million Government program aimed at getting parents back to work is exploiting vulnerable single mothers, and even the homeless.
Key points:
ParentsNext is a $351 million scheme to get parents on welfare to meet work and study goals, then return to the workforce
Employment service providers receive $600 for every client who is on ParentsNext
Whistleblowers say service providers have kept parents in the scheme who should be exempt.
At the centre of the controversy is ParentsNext, a program some people must take part in to receive parenting payments from Centrelink.
It is also the first Australia-wide program to allow private employment service providers to decide who must participate.
Background Briefing has interviewed current and former employees in Australia's lucrative employment services sector who claim some caseworkers are pressured to sign up and retain people who face significant personal crises, even though departmental guidelines stipulate they should be exempted.
Homeless but signed up anyway Mel, 33, is one of more than 3,000 homeless Australians who've been signed up to the compulsory employment training program ParentsNext despite having no fixed address to take a shower or prepare a warm meal for her kids.
A mother of four, Mel's spent more than two years on Tasmania's public housing waiting list.
She was furious when she received a letter demanding she undergo an eligibility assessment for ParentsNext or else her parenting payments would be cut off.
"It's degrading, it's making us feel like we're lazy, like we're not doing nothing for our kids," said Mel, whose last name is being withheld for privacy reasons. Guidelines from the Department of Jobs specify Centrelink could have exempted her from participating on the grounds of her homelessness.
Mel was instead referred to a local not-for-profit community provider, Workskills, which were paid a government fee just for her turning up. Under ParentsNext, employment service providers are paid $600 for each new recipient they take on.
Mel was exempted at her first meeting with Workskills, but will be re-examined for eligibility in 12 months. She says she can't understand why the Department did not exempt her at the outset.
Despite being exempted from ParentsNext, last week Mel's parenting payment was cut off after she forgot to tick a box declaring her zero income to Centrelink.
ABC, Background Briefing, "Welfare to Worse", 2 August 2019 podcast here.
Sunday 4 August 2019
'We told you so!' echoes around social media as Australian police found to have exceeded lawful authority in accessing citizens' metadata
Recalling the many social media voices which expressed concern when legislation was before the Australian Parliament, none of this comes as any surprise......
The Guardian, 23 July 2019:
In addition to one instance of the Australian federal police accessing a journalist’s data without a warrant reported in 2017, the ombudsman discovered two instances where the WA police applied for – and obtained – a journalist information warrant from a person not authorised to provide it.
“This occurred due to a lack of awareness by WA police regarding to whom an application for a journalist information warrant could be made,” the report said. “In response to this issue, WA police took steps to quarantine all information obtained under the invalid warrants.”
The Guardian, 24 July 2019:
The home affairs minister Peter Dutton has claimed “there are consequences” for unlawful metadata searches but conceded he doesn’t know if any action has been taken after revelations of widespread breaches by law enforcement agencies.
On Wednesday the ACT’s chief police officer, Ray Johnson, brushed off the fact his officers accessed metadata at least 116 times without proper authorisation in 2015, labelling it an “administrative oversight”.
The revelations were contained in a commonwealth ombudsman’s report which also found Western Australian police twice obtained invalid warrants targeting journalists’ data and the department of immigration received data outside the authority’s parameters in 42 cases.
Labor’s home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally said the report shows metadata powers “have been abused to allow illegal searches and to target journalists”.
ZDnet, 25 July 2019:
The Commonwealth Ombudsman report [PDF] into how 20 agencies across federal and state levels government agencies across Australia handle stored communications and metadata over the period of the 2016-17 financial year has been released, with Home Affairs being the only agency that was handed recommendations.
Home Affairs was called upon to ensure it could "accurately account for the number of telecommunications data authorisations it issues in any given period" to comply with its record keeping obligations, and have a central system to store or monitor telecommunications data once it had been handed to investigators.
The recommendations were a result of the former Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) having 8 record keeping issues identified, as well as a statistical issue, and 42 instances of telecommunications data being accessed outside the parameters of authority. The Ombudsman explained that 41 of those instances were due to an automatic input from DIBP's database which has since been resolved.
Also falling under the Home Affairs banner following its transferral into the Peter Dutton-helmed superministry is the Australian Federal Police, which disclosed that between October 13 to 26, 2015, all authorisations by ACT Police were not authorised, due to the AFP Commissioner failing to authorise any ACT officers for that period.
The Guardian, 26 July 2019:
ACT Policing has admitted it unlawfully accessed citizens’ metadata a total of 3,365 times, not 116 as previously disclosed in an explosive commonwealth ombudsman’s report on Monday.
The new disclosures include a total of 240 cases that resulted in information valuable to criminal investigations and two that “may have been used in a prosecution”.
In a statement on Friday, ACT Policing revealed the 116 unlawful metadata requests detailed in the report tabled in parliament on Monday are the tip of the iceberg, with a further 3,249 requests made from 11 March to 13 October 2015 under an invalid authorisation.
The revelation comes as Western Australia’s top cop has said there have been no consequences for police who unlawfully accessed a journalist’s metadata,
contradicting Peter Dutton’s suggestion they might be penalised.
Police made illegal metadata searches and obtained invalid warrants targeting journalists Read more In the statement ACT Policing revealed it is still seeking legal advice about how to deal with two cases where invalidly obtained metadata was used in “a missing persons case and a criminal matter where the data in question may have been used in a prosecution”.
“It is not appropriate to identify particular cases,” it said.
Saturday 3 August 2019
Tweet of the Week
Here's part of @larissawaters' incredible speech about raising Newstart. Drop everything and watch this. #auspol pic.twitter.com/ZdK9WodIsS— sam langford (@_slangers) July 22, 2019
This week, 40 billion tons of ice will melt in Greenland as the European heat wave moves north -- enough to measurably raise global sea levels.— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) July 29, 2019
This single heat wave will create a permanent change in our oceans that will linger for millennia.
We are in a climate emergency. https://t.co/ypkH6093aU
Labels:
#MorrisonGovernmentFAIL,
Centrelink,
Newstart,
unemployment
Thursday 1 August 2019
Every journalist,political commentator, blogger & tweeter who has ever been critical of government - be afraid, be very afraid
The Mercury, 29 July 2019:
Last week the rise of authoritarian government was confirmed with the Morrison Government, aided by the as usual spineless Labor Party, passing legislation which would allow the Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to block any Australian from returning to this country for up to two years on the grounds they are associated with terrorism, even in the most tangential way. And as Crikey, a news site, revealed last week, the Morrison Government revealed its complete contempt for the rule of law and independent scrutiny of the power Mr Dutton now has vested in him.
While the Counter-Terrorism (Temporary Exclusion Orders) Act, to give the law its formal name, is designed to stop Australians who have fought in Syria, Iraq or elsewhere for organisations deemed to be terrorist, from returning to this country, one section in the Act appears so broadly drafted it could be used to prevent whistleblowers, journalists and others who reveal the secrets of the US, Australia and other allies in the so-called war on terror from re-entering Australia.
Section 10 of the Act gives Mr Dutton the power to prevent a person, aged 14 or over, from coming back to Australia for up to two years at a time on a number of grounds.
One of those grounds is that “the person has been assessed by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to be directly or indirectly a risk to security … for reasons related to politically motivated violence.” This provision is extraordinarily broad. How might ASIO think that a person is “directly or indirectly a risk to security” because of some link to terrorism, which is what politically motivated violence means.
Does it include a whistleblower who reveals US and Australian misconduct in the context of the ongoing military operations in Afghanistan or Iraq?
Or what about a journalist and publisher who lets the world see cables, emails and other forms of communication to and from Australian security and defence agencies and which relate to terrorist activity?
The answer is yes, it could apply in both cases. When whistleblowers, media organisations and journalists have published material such as in the case of WikiLeaks, the Iraq War Logs, or the trove of materials that former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden smuggled out in 2013 such exercises have been labelled as irresponsible and assisting terrorism…...
If ASIO answers yes, and of course its reasons for the assessment cannot be challenged because they are secret, then the loose wording of section 10 suggests that Mr Dutton would be prepared to issue an order preventing those individuals from entering Australia for up to two years.
To give a minister such enormous power to interfere with the right to freedom of speech and free movement is indicative of a mindset that cares nothing for the rule of law or democracy.
Even the parliamentary committee which looks at security legislation, and which is chaired by a Liberal MP Andrew Hastie and includes Tasmanian Liberal senator Eric Abetz, was ignored by the Morrison Government in this case.
The committee in question, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, is a highly regarded bipartisan committee that routinely looks at security legislation and whose recommendations are adopted by government because of its expertise.
Bernard Keane writing in Crikey last Thursday revealed that the committee had recommended that an independent person be given the role of considering banning returning citizens.
But Mr Dutton justified ignoring the committee’s recommendation in what can only be described as an exercise in gross manipulation of the facts…..
The Morrison Government would only accept the bipartisan committee’s recommendation if “it was in the national interest” to do so.
In other words, Mr Dutton and the Morrison Government generally do not believe in a fundamental premise of the rule of law. It is anathema to democracy for ministers to have unbridled power when it comes to dealing with people’s lives.
Another bad week for Australian democracy. [my yellow highlighting]
Wednesday 31 July 2019
Best explanation of the digital disaster that the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government has inflicted on Australian industry, businesses and consumers of digital products/services, by requiring mandated government access to all encryption keys
"Barr is calling for crypto that "achieve(s) a 99 percent assurance against cyber threats to consumers". We don't know how to build that... As the graphs above show, we only know how to build either 100% or 0%" [@ErrataRob, 26 July 2019]
"How hard is it to break this [end-to-end] encryption, for data encrypted to an up-to-date standard? It has been estimated to take 6,400,000,000,000 years using a 2009-era desktop computer. Supercomputers like China’s Sunway TaihuLight are up to three million times faster than that, and can perform 93 quadrillion calculations per second, so cracking a message might be possible in only 2 million years." [Australian Parliamentary Library, 3 October 2018]
This Twitter thread contains the best explanation of the digital disaster that the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government has inflicted on Australian industry, businesses and consumers of digital products/services, by requiring government access to all encryption keys - mandated through the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) 2018 which became law on 9 December 2018.
The thread explains why there is no safe 'backdoor' to bypass up-to-date encryption on the basis of perceived national security or law enforcement needs.
So in today's tweet storm, let's discuss Barr's call for crypto backdoors, where he claims citizens don't need as strong crypto as the military: "After all, we are not talking about protecting the Nation’s nuclear launch codes". This is a fallacy, which I'll show with math.— Robᵇᵉᵗᵒ Graham (@ErrataRob) July 25, 2019
Show this thread
Labels:
#MorrisonGovernmentFAIL,
cybersecurity,
encryption,
Internet
Thursday 25 July 2019
Australian Politics in 2019: the betrayal
Echo
NetDaily,
15
July 2019:
Thus
Spake Mungo: The betrayal
Scott
Morrison really likes quiet Australians – as quiet as possible. So
it was really no surprise that his response to his minister, Ken
Wyatt’s modest and tentative proposal to consider reviving an
Indigenous Voice through the Uluru Statement from the Heart was
simple and direct: bloody well shut up and do what you are told.
We
will decide who speaks for Indigenous Australia and the circumstances
in which they speak, and by we, I mean me, and Eric Abetz and Peter
Dutton and the Institute of Public Affairs and Andrew Bolt – not
Indigenous Australians. They can do what they are told.
So
the glimmer of hope last week was extinguished as soon as it began.
Wyatt knew it probably would be – when he delicately referred to
‘reticence’ within his party room, he was prepared for a
backlash, but maybe not one as cynical, hypocritical and downright
vicious as the one that transpired.
In
nanoseconds the same old lies were trotted out, most outrageously the
one about the Voice being a third chamber of parliament. If the
deliberately ignorant ever thought that was the case, they have
certainly been informed by now that it never was and never is – the
proposal is for a Voice, an advisory body with no power to legislate
or veto whatever the parliament decides.
This
must have been clear even to Dutton. But this did not stop him
repeating the fabrication on national television. What he actually
means, of course, is that the truth is irrelevant – what matters is
that it can be turned into a massive scare campaign to deceive the
gullible in much the same way the coalition devised the invention of
Labor’s death taxes, which worked on May 18.
And
if that involves rejecting, traducing and misrepresenting the long
and tortuous process that led to Uluru, well they can just suck it
up. Everyone knows there are no votes in Aborigines.
So
Wyatt meekly surrendered to the inevitable and will now go back to
what he called pragmatism, negotiation, compromise – we must have
consensus before we even think about going to a referendum, otherwise
there is a risk of it failing.
And
indeed there is, but only because of the intransigence of the
reactionary rump that now holds sway over his government. The deep
strain of latent racism that prevails throughout the joint party room
and its acolytes is not confined to the fringes of the National Party
– it has infected Liberals as well, some of whom call themselves
the protectors of mainstream Australia.
They
are worried about what they regard as causing divisions – offering
rights and privileges to one group to disadvantage the rest. This is
precisely what they demand for the religious zealots, but no matter.
As they well know, there are no votes in Aborigines. And there is a
sneaking suspicion that their predicament, while deplorable, is
somehow their own fault – if they could just forget the past and
get on with it, the incarcerations, the mortality rates, the
unemployment, the homeless, the poverty and despair would simply
disappear.
So
we have the always predictable Craig Kelly say he did not want to
spend money on a referendum – he would rather spend it on closing
the gap (actually he would rather spend it on a coal fired power
station, but let that pass). Barnaby Joyce says the solution is to
break up the senate to bring in more rural members. Amanda Stoker,
apparently attempting to remake herself into a transgender Peter
Dutton, is against anything even vaguely progressive on principle.
And
she is not the only one – come in Morgan Begg, of IPA, which by no
coincidence is secretly funded by a large chunk of the mining
industry, a traditional enemy of Indigenous rights. Begg sprang into
the pages of The Australian (where else?) to claim that a Voice would
violate all principles of racial equality. And he went back to the
hugely successful 1967 referendum to boost his thesis: by agreeing to
count Aborigines in the national census, Australians voted to remove
race from the constitution.
But
that was only part of that they voted for. They also voted to give
the Commonwealth Parliament the right – even the duty – to
legislate specifically for Aborigines, a considerably more
substantial outcome. This was the power John Howard used in 2006 to
bring in his military intervention of allegations of child abuse.
There is no record of Begg inveighing against such blatant racism
division, illiberalism.
And
his hypocrisy is echoed by many conservatives, including Morrison,
who is determined to avoid embedding any suggestion of a Voice in the
constitution – the key, the non-negotiable plank in the Uluru
Statement. Morrison says that if there is to be a Voice – and mind
you, he is not saying there will be – an advisory body established
by parliament will be quite sufficient.
But
this misses the point: not only would such a body be vulnerable to
political interference, in the same way Howard abolished the former
Australian and Torres Strait Islander Commission in 2004, but the
whole idea is that the Voice should be endorsed by the Australian
people, not just by the politicians of the time.
This
after all, was the argument of the conservatives over same sex
marriage – the change was so important it had to go to a
plebiscite. But obviously reconciliation with Indigenous Australians
can be regarded as relatively trivial – there are no votes in
Aborigines.
In
the end, Morrison and Wyatt will probably be able to cobble together
some anodyne words, some impotent tokenism he can take to a
referendum
In
the end, Morrison and Wyatt will probably be able to cobble together
some anodyne words, some impotent tokenism he can take to a
referendum which may or may not pass, and who cares anyway. But it
will be a travesty of Uluru, a betrayal of the painstaking months of
good faith the delegates invested in the hope that this time, at
last, someone would listen.
Wyatt
has been lauded as the first of his race to join cabinet as the first
Minister for Indigenous Australia – Morgan Begg and Andrew Bolt
would no doubt call this divisive in itself. But the task was too
much for him or probably anyone else. Ken Wyatt could have been a
hero – not only an Indigenous hero, but a hero for all Australians
of goodwill, the majority who are willing to support the long march
to real reconciliation. Instead, he has become just another casualty,
yet another victim of the casual racism and cruelty of the right wing
rump……
Monday 22 July 2019
Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority makes its position clear to Australian governments
SBS News, 20 July 2019:
The agency that manages the Great Barrier Reef broke ranks with the Federal Government to call for the "strongest and fastest possible action" against climate change to save the world heritage marine wonder.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, a government body, said in a study released this week that an urgent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, both nationally and globally, was needed to protect the future of the reef.
Rising sea temperatures linked to climate change have killed off large areas of coral in the 2,300km reef, a UN-listed World Heritage site, that suffered back-to-back coral bleaching in 2016 and 2017.
Australia's emissions of greenhouse gases have risen for the past four years under the recently re-elected government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, which backs the country's huge coal industry.
Australia's emissions of greenhouse gases have risen for the past four years under the recently re-elected government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, which backs the country's huge coal industry.
It has refused to enshrine emission reduction targets agreed to under the Paris climate accords in its formal energy policy and experts question whether it can meet its commitment to cut greenhouse gas output by at least 26 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.
Great Barrrier Reef Marine Authority (GBRMA):
Climate change is the greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef. Only the strongest and fastest possible actions to decrease global greenhouse gas emissions will reduce the risks and limit the impacts of climate change on the Reef. Further impacts can be minimised by limiting global temperature increase to the maximum extent possible and fast-tracking actions to build Reef resilience.
The position statement explains what is causing the climate to change, why it’s the greatest threat to the Reef, and that caring for the Reef requires actions at all levels.
Caring for the Reef is a shared responsibility. We recognise the critical importance of strong and effective implementation of all government programs, policies and tools supporting action on climate change. We encourage others to take action to reduce the risks and limit the impacts of climate change on the Reef and coral reefs globally. Actions everyone can take can be found on our website and the Department of the Environment and Energy’s website.
Building the resilience of the Reef is central to ensuring it can withstand threats. Our approach to managing the Marine Park is adaptive and future-focused and we are committed to strengthening partnerships to build the capacity of Marine Park managers, industries and communities to adapt their activities to a changing climate....
Friday 19 July 2019
Exodus of senior NDIS officials over the last fifteen months
When
well-paid
senior management
– some
in the top percentile of Australia’s income earners –
begins to abandon ship it’s time to consider if the
Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison
Government
has finally sunk the National
Disability Insurance Scheme.
The
Australian,
5 July 2019:
...The
NDIA has confirmed deputy chief executive Michael Francis has
resigned and will leave in September to take a role “closer to
home”.
A
spokeswoman also confirmed chief risk officer Anthony Vella has
recently departed, along with Antonia Albanese, who was head of
markets, provider and market relations.
Ms
Albanese and Mr Vella both directly reported to the chief executive.
The
Australian has also been told the general manager of critical
services issue response, Stephanie Gunn, has quit.
Mr
Shorten told The Australian Mr Robert was “either oblivious or
delusional” for telling parliament the scheme was being run well.
“It
is alarming that this group of senior executives lack such confidence
in the way the NDIA is being run that they are choosing to leave,”
he said. “This scheme is so important for the vulnerable but is
being chaotically
implemented.
“Yet
the minister in parliament has told the nation it’s all going
swimmingly. He must be either oblivious or delusional.”
The
NDIA spokeswoman said: “The NDIA is grateful to our departing
senior executives, who have made significant contributions to the
NDIS.
“The
NDIA has a strong and experienced leadership team, focused
on continuing to guide the agency to deliver improved outcomes for
NDIS participants. Interim arrangements with - experienced personnel
have been put in place.”
The
confirmation of executive departures came after Mr Shorten tweeted he
was “hearing” that four senior staff resigned
in the past seven days.
Former
chief executive Robert De Luca suddenly
resigned
in May and is yet to be replaced. Former communications head Vicki
Rundle is acting chief executive.
Mr
Robert — a key numbers man for the Prime Minister in last August’s
leadership contest — yesterday used question time to declare the
NDIS was available to “all Australians on the continent”….. [my
yellow highlighting]
Sunday 9 June 2019
Morrison Government's newly appointed “Special Envoy” for the Great Barrier Reef is in favour of large scale land clearing on the reef's doorstep
This is the
newly appointed “Special Envoy” for the Great Barrier Reef, Liberal MP for Leichhardt
Warren Entsch…..
The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 June 2019:
Coalition MP Warren
Entsch has backed a plan to bulldoze 2000 hectares of pristine forest near the
Great Barrier Reef despite being appointed to a role championing the natural
marine wonder.
Prime Minister Scott
Morrison appointed the veteran Liberal MP, who represents the seat of
Leichhardt in north Queensland, as special envoy to the Great Barrier Reef in
last month’s ministerial reshuffle.
Mr Entsch once owned
Olive Vale station, a large Cape York farm north-west of Cairns, and has been a
vocal proponent of land clearing on farming properties in north Queensland.
Land clearing can create sediment and nutrient run-off and is the main driver
of serious water quality problems on the Great Barrier Reef.
Liberal MP Warren Entsch
is a strong advocate of land clearing, despite the possible effects on the
Great Barrier Reef's water quality.
In particular, Mr Entsch
lobbied his government on behalf of a highly contentious proposal to
clear 2000 hectares of forest at Kingvale
Station on Cape York Peninsula.
The land drains into two
rivers that run into the Great Barrier Reef 200 kilometres downstream.
Government-commissioned experts have warned that soil erosion from the work is
likely to damage the reef.
Mr Entsch told
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that despite his new
responsibilities, the Kingvale land-clearing proposal had his “total support”.
“It has absolutely
nothing to do with my role [as reef envoy],” he said…..
New Environment Minister
Sussan Ley will decide on the Kingvale plan, which is being assessed under
Commonwealth laws.
This is what Mr.
Entsch is determined to ignore……
The relationship between the position of Kingvale Station in a river catchment which discharges water into the Great Barrier Reef at a point where the reef is under stress from multiple coral bleaching events.
The relationship between the position of Kingvale Station in a river catchment which discharges water into the Great Barrier Reef at a point where the reef is under stress from multiple coral bleaching events.
Normanby Catchment in Far North Queensland |
Kingvale Station approximate position maked in red |
Map found at Great Barrier Reef Foundation |
Warren Entsch cannot be ignorant of this relationship, as Kingvale Station is in the federal electorate he has held for the last twenty-three years.
A suspicious person might wonder if Mr. Entsch was one of the government MPs who allegedly 'lobbied' departmental staff on the matter of Kingvale Station land clearing consent in the past,
Such a mind might also ponder the proposition that he was made Special Envoy for the Great Barrier Reef in order to assist in subverting attempts to stop landclearing so close to this World Heritage listed marine area.
BACKGROUND
A suspicious person might wonder if Mr. Entsch was one of the government MPs who allegedly 'lobbied' departmental staff on the matter of Kingvale Station land clearing consent in the past,
Such a mind might also ponder the proposition that he was made Special Envoy for the Great Barrier Reef in order to assist in subverting attempts to stop landclearing so close to this World Heritage listed marine area.
BACKGROUND
ABC
News, 22 May
2018:
The Queensland
Government has launched legal action against the owner of a Cape York cattle
station at the centre of a land-clearing controversy for allegedly breaching an
obligation to care for Indigenous heritage.
The owner of Kingvale
Station on the Cape York Peninsula legally cleared 500 hectares of land before
the Federal Government intervened in 2016, over internal concerns about the
effect on sediment run-off into the Great Barrier Reef.
The traditional owners of
the land, the Olkola people, claim the owner of Kingvale Station went ahead
with the clearing without their knowledge and may have destroyed a burial site.
The ABC can reveal the
Queensland Department of Environment and Science is taking court action as a
result of an investigation which started as early as 2016, when the Olkola
people complained to the Government that they believed Kingvale Station may be
in breach of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act.
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
27 November 2018:
The Morrison government
has conceded it botched scrutiny of a plan to bulldoze 2000 hectares of
pristine Queensland forest near the Great Barrier Reef and has been forced back
to the drawing board following a legal challenge by conservationists.
The development comes as
confidential documents show government MPs lobbied environmental officials to
wave through the proposal, which would raze land almost three times the size of
the combined central business districts of Sydney and Melbourne.
As
Fairfax Media reported in May, the Department of the Environment and Energy
in a draft report recommended that the government allow the mass vegetation
clearing at Kingvale Station on Cape York Peninsula.
The finding, which
prompted public outrage, came despite the department conceding the native
forest was likely to contain endangered species, and despite expert warnings
that runoff caused by the clearing may damage the Great Barrier Reef.
In a case demonstrating
the critical role community organisations play in holding elected officials to
account, the Federal Court has upheld a challenge by the Environment
Council of Central Queensland (ECOCeQ) – represented by EDO NSW – to a proposal
to clear 2,100 ha of native vegetation on Kingvale Station on the Cape
York Peninsula in the Great Barrier Reef catchment.
Early in 2018, the
Federal Minister for the Environment decided that the proposed clearing could
undergo the least rigorous form of environmental assessment available under
Commonwealth environmental law. The Minister was required, among other
things, to be satisfied that the degree of public concern about the action is,
or is expected to be, ‘moderately low’.
The Minister has now
conceded that decision was not made lawfully.
ENVISAT satellite image
of the Great Barrier Reef alongside the York Peninsula.
“The Act deliberately
applies a strict test that must be satisfied before the Minister can opt for
the least rigorous assessment,” David Morris, CEO of EDO NSW, stated.
The Government’s own
experts found that the proposed clearing would have a significant impact on the
Great Barrier Reef and a number of threatened species.
The Minister must now go
back to the drawing board to decide afresh how the environmental impacts of the
proposal will be assessed. Steps that have been completed since the Minister
made the original assessment decision are now void, including the Secretary’s
draft recommendation report that was published online for comment in April
2018.
What follows next will
depend on the assessment methodology selected by the Minister. Whichever
approach is selected, there will be further opportunity for the public to
comment on the proposed clearing.
Christine Carlisle,
President of ECOCeQ, said ‘We hope the Minister rejects the tree clearing
proposal outright, since it will destroy habitat for threatened species, the
bulldozing of the forest will contribute to climate change, and there can be no
guarantee that sediment run-off from this huge area will not make its way into
Princess Charlotte Bay and then on to the Reef.’
‘We trust that the
Minister for the Environment will act in the best interest of the environment,
and not rubber stamp this dangerous proposal. The Minister received 6,000
public comments when this clearing was first proposed, and I hope the public
responds again to ensure this proposal is not approved at any level,’ she said.
This case illustrates
yet again the value of the extended standing provisions in the Environment
Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Without community groups like
ECoCeQ, and lawyers to represent them, this unlawful decision would have
proceeded without scrutiny and key safeguards for our environment ignored.
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