Almost singlehandedly the policies and actions of the NSW O'Farrell-Baird-Berejiklian-Perrottet coalition governments have brought the Koala to the brink of extinction

https://youtu.be/w8LiyaMs0xU

This century started with celebrations across the state. 

Twenty-two years in and there is little to celebrate in New South Wales.

The state is at the sharp end of climate change impacts, the sharp end of a pandemic and, the sharp end of the Koala extinction crisis.

In 2019-20 alone over 17 million hectares were burnt or impacted and more than 61,000 koalas killed, injured or impacted by fire in the east coast mega bushfire season.

More than than 5.3 million hectares were burnt or impacted in NSW, including 2.7 million hectares of national parks.

In NSW more koala have also been lost to widespread flooding and the stress of habitat loss as the NSW Government continues to allow an unsustainable level of land clearing.

A total of 646,418 hectares have been approved for land clearing in the state between 9 March 2018 and 1 April 2022. The rate at which native vegetation was being cleared was over 61,00 hectares a year.

In 2020-21 the state-owned forestry corporation logged an est. 13,500 hectares of native forest and, as in the past, repeatedly logged in protected areas or known koala habitat.

Currently it is estimated that Australia-wide there may be as few as 43,000 koala left of the est. 7-10 million koala population calculated to exist in 1788. Almost certainly less than 80,000 koala.

In NSW there is some suggestion that the current number of koala left in the wild could be as low as <11,000 individuals in increasingly isolated colonies. Since the 2019-20 devastation of national parks, many of these koalas are now found on private land.

It should be noted that the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison federal coalition governments' support of the continued logging of New South Wales native forests between September 2013 to May 2022 had exacerbated the rate of land clearing/loss of native tree cover and the environmental impacts which flow from the removal of so many mature trees.

Lismore City LGA residents locked out of top-level decision making when it comes to post-flood reconstruction and development

On 19 April 2022 NSW Premier & Liberal MP for Epping Dominic Perrottet and Deputy Premier, Minister for Regional NSW, Minister for Police & Nationals MP for Bathurst Paul Toole announced the formation of the Northern Rivers Reconstruction Corporation (NRRC), a development corporation which is to manage the rebuilding of Northern NSW communities by coordinating planning, rebuilding and construction work across multiple government agencies, following the 2022 floods across Lismore and Northern Rivers region of NSW.

The NRRC works with the Northern Rivers Administrative Group in the Ballina, Byron, Clarence Valley, Lismore, Richmond Valley, Tweed and Kyogle local government areas.

It states of itself that it; operates as a ‘front door to government’ for all reconstruction and development activities in the Northern Rivers. It sets and implements reconstruction priorities in the region, and works with government agencies and departments to deliver those priorities quickly.

The NRRC became effective on 1 July 2022 and sits within the Department of Regional NSW and reports to the Deputy Premier.

David Witherdin (left) leads the development corporation as Chief Executive Officer. Mr Witherdin is Deputy Secretary, Commercial and Corporate Services, Dept. of Regional NSW.

The NRRC will have the power to compulsorily acquire or subdivide land, speed up and fast-track the building of new premises and accelerate delivery of planning proposals through the Department of Planning and Environment. The insurance, construction and infrastructure sectors will be important contributors, alongside local government, industry, businesses and residents.

The NRRC is to be assisted by an as yet somewhat shadowy advisory group consisting of local representatives, such as local members of parliament and mayors, as well as leaders in the community. It met with NRRC CEO David Witherdin for the first time on 5 August 2022.

On that same day Deputy Premier Paul Toole announced the names of the eight NRRC board members: 

Gary Barnes, Secretary, Department Regional NSW; 

Michael Cassel, Secretary, Department of Planning and Environment;

Peter Duncan, NSW Government appointed Commissioner, NSW Independent Planning Commission, former chief executive of Roads and Maritime Services;

Andrew Hall, Executive Director & CEO, Insurance Council of Australia;

Darren Kershaw, North Coast Aboriginal Development Alliance, Tweed Heads;

Jane Laverty, Business NSW - regional  representative, Ballina;

Ballina Shire Council Mayor Sharon Cadwallader, Northern Rivers Joint Organisation; and

Michael Rayner, former general manager Tweed Shire Council, Tweed community member.

TOP ROW: Michael Rayner, Andrew Hall, Gary Barnes, Jane Laverty. BOTTOM ROW: Peter Duncan, Sharon Cadwallader, Darren Kershaw &
Michael Cassel. IMAGE: indyNR.com

What is striking about this NRRC board is the complete absence of Lismore City local government or community members on the only body with full authority to make decisions concerning post-flood reconstruction and development. The design of the NRRC and its remit is as close to Sydney-centric and autocratic as a tone deaf state government can make it.

It should also be noted that the Insurance Council of Australia has a history of political donations to both major parties, with the majority of donations going to the Liberal Party in 2018 and 2021.

When the NRRC was created the original plan was for Resilience NSW to continue to be responsible for providing immediate relief resupplying impacted communities, restoring essential services, cleaning up properties and providing temporary accommodation in the short to medium terms. However, the future of Resilience NSW is now in doubt as speculation mounts that NSW Police is preparing to create a new executive role to handle emergency and disaster situations following the rumored negative findings of yet to be released independent flood inquiry and parliamentary flood inquiry reports. 

It appears that within government circles fevered brains have also left the door open to imagining an expansion of the NRRC sometime in the future to cover other towns, cities or regions as required.

A question springs to mind. In creating this particular version of a reconstruction and development corporation have Perrottet and Toole designed a carthorse or a camel?     

Some people just don't retire gracefully from politics or public office

 

A retired politician, well-known by his ministerial policies and actions to communities in the Northern Rivers region, also took very early 'retirement' from his new positions as Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner Americas on 30 June 2022.

This does not signal that troubles are over for former NSW Deputy Premier, Minister for Regional New South Wales, Industry and Trade, Nationals MP for Monaro, sometime invited 'guest' of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption & now formerly appointed NSW Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner (New York posting), John Domenic Barilaro.

 

BACKGROUND

The Monthly, 29 June 2022: 

...It’s not looking good for former NSW deputy premier and trade minister John Barilaro, following a parliamentary hearing into how he was offered a $500,000-a-year US trade commissioner job that he created while in government. But nor is it looking good for Premier Dominic Perrottet, or the trade minister, Stuart Ayres, or for anyone involved in this whole sordid saga. (Admittedly, it never looked good to begin with, with incriminating details being uncovered by the day.) Giving testimony today, Investment NSW chief executive Amy Brown, who was responsible for the process, confirmed that she had “verbally offered” the role to preferred candidate Jenny West in August last year – contradicting Perrottet, who has previously said no suitable candidate was found. But the offer was rescinded in October, Brown said, after she was instructed by Barilaro’s office to “unwind” it, because of a “government decision” to instead make such roles ministerial appointments. This came, it turns out, not long after his office had sought her advice on “the various mechanisms” by which such jobs could be appointed, including whether it could be a ministerial appointment, in a request that was clear came from the deputy PM himself. What on earth made Barilaro think he could get away with nobody noticing this paper trail?

There had been something fishy about Barilaro’s lucrative appointment from the moment it was announced – and not just because this is the politician who happily adopted the moniker John “Pork Barrel-aro”. (Perhaps it might now be “jobs for the Barilaros”.) It quickly became known that Barilaro got the job after it had already been offered to West, with that offer rescinded just days before the former Nats leader announced his resignation from parliament. Then there was the fact that Brown had told the external recruitment firm that the appointment would be henceforth handled as an “internal matter” the day before Barilaro announced his resignation, despite Perrottet and Ayres saying this week that the process was handled by the recruiting firm. Today’s inquiry also revealed that Brown got a “heads up” from new trade minister Ayres that Barilaro was going to apply (she didn’t get a “heads up” on any other candidate), and that she later informed Ayers that his former cabinet colleague had been shortlisted.....

It’s also not hard to see why Barilaro though t he might get away with this. As the AFR’s Tom Burton writes, “Along with pork-barrelling, ‘jobs for the boys’ has been one of the ugly stalwarts of modern public-sector life”, with public boards often filled with “friends” of the government of the day. And some jobs are simply described as “political appointments” (the previous federal government made more than 30 such appointments on its way out the door). This kind of corruption has become painfully normalised. But in this case, Barilaro has steamrolled someone else – an “excellent candidate”, according to Brown – who is now being painted as some kind of jilted lover, with Brown implying that the frustrated candidate refused to reapply. (It’s not clear whether West knew something we didn’t back in October last year, but honestly, can you blame her?) It was shameless of Barilaro to pull this one, thinking he could simply take a role that has already been assigned. But it was equally foolish of Perrottet to allow it to happen. People are paying attention, it seems, and there’s no doubt that ICAC is watching too. 

Media attention also continues with regard to other issues:

Icac queries grant made by John Barilaro to company linked to Angus Taylor’s family

Perrottet Government's terse goodbye to NSW Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner to Americas, John Barilaro

IMAGE: AAP at 2GB radio

The Perrottet Government's once removed, brief final goodbye to its former National Party colleague for over 10 years, John Dominic Barilaro (left) and, its foolish attempt to warn off mainstream media journalists from contacting him with regard to the political scandal currently surrounding his alleged actions in the months immediately prior to and after his retirement from politics.

Medianet Press Release, 30 June 2022:

Response regarding John Barilaro - Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner Americas role

Department of Enterprise Investment and Trade

Statement from Secretary, Department of Enterprise, Investment and Trade, and CEO, Investment NSW, Amy Brown

This evening Mr John Barilaro notified me that he is withdrawing from the role of Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner Americas, effective immediately.

I request that his privacy be respected at this time.

Investment NSW is assisting the Department of Premier and Cabinet and NSW Legislative Council Inquiry in reviews of the Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner Americas recruitment process, and as such it is not appropriate to make any further comment.

"Since Premier Dominic Perrottet was appointed NSW treasurer in January 2017, he has presided over an unprecedented, $106 billion surge in taxpayer debt" and "has been systematically misleading" NSW voters about how he created this multi-billion dollar debt mountain

What the Premier is telling the people of New South Wales

We have transformed our state - and we will keep transforming it.

We are going to build our way forward.#SMHInfrastructure

— Dom Perrottet (@Dom_Perrottet) May 31, 2022

Another perspective on the "transformation of our state" 

From the pen of Financial Review contributing editor, Christopher Joye, @cjoye, Portfolio Manager & Chief Investment Officer at Coolabah Capital…...

Live Wire, 25 June 2022:

In the AFR I write that after 12 years of Liberal leadership, encompassing four premiers and four treasurers, NSW is sadly degenerating into one of the worst run states in Australia.

Since Premier Dominic Perrottet was appointed NSW treasurer in January 2017, he has presided over an unprecedented, $106 billion surge in taxpayer debt. That means Perrottet and his fierce internal rival, Treasurer Matt Kean, will have saddled NSW residents with $13,000 of extra debt per person. One day, that debt has to be repaid.

If the annual interest rates on this debt converge to current levels around 4.2 per cent, NSW taxpayers will be paying almost $7 billion a year in interest alone. Put differently, NSW residents will be spending the equivalent of seven new hospitals each year in interest.

It is ironic that supposedly imprudent Labor leaders are running rings around NSW, with resource-rich states like Western Australia and Queensland reporting budget surpluses, which has allowed them to slash debt issuance as the economy rebounds post pandemic. Even Victoria is starting to look more fiscally conservative. In the coming financial year, NSW will issue twice as much debt as Queensland, one-third more than Victoria, and about six times more than Western Australia. It is also more than quadrupling South Australia’s debt supply.

In a desperate attempt to cling to power, Treasurer Matt Kean has blown a $7.1 billion improvement in NSW's budget with $8.8 billion in new spending next financial year alone. This means that NSW will issue almost $10 billion more debt in the 2023 financial year than it did in 2022 when the budget was smashed by COVID-19. Perrottet and Kean are literally stealing from future generations to bribe the current one to allow them to remain in power.

While some of this debt was unavoidable due to the pandemic, Perrottet’s government increasingly resembles a degenerate gambler, addicted to spending money they don't have.

As a lender to the state, my worry is that that this tale of mismanagement gets worse. It turns out that Perrottet’s government has been systematically misleading taxpayers. The 39 year old Premier promotes himself as the great "asset recycler". Perrottet claims he is selling taxpayer-owned infrastructure to invest this money in new infrastructure….

But this was untrue. Instead of funding new infrastructure, Perrottet took $7 billion of the $9.3 billion in WestConnex proceeds and put it in a speculative investment vehicle called the NSW Generations Fund (NGF). Technically, the money was actually allocated to a subsidiary fund inside the NGF called the Debt Retirement Fund.

Since 2018, not a single cent of the $7 billion has been used to pay for infrastructure. It has instead been gambled on stocks and illiquid junk bonds, amongst other risky assets. Amazingly, this has involved lending money to Russia ($75 million), Saudi Arabia ($45 million), China ($225 million), UAE ($15 million), Cayman Islands ($30 million) and Angola ($15 million).

Perrottet might have actually helped build President Vladimir Putin’s new palace rather than NSW roads, schools or hospitals. (After we expressly warned this was nuts last year, NSW has had to write-off $30 million of the money it lent to Russia.)…. [my yellow highlighting]

Yet in 2022, NSW taxpayer’s $7 billion still sits in the NGF. It is still invested in listed equities, private equity, and junk bonds. And it has lost money in 2022 (as it did in 2020) as markets have tumbled. In fact, since its 2018 inception, the NGF has now formally failed to meet its own performance benchmark of a return in excess of inflation plus 4.5 per cent.

The question is who benefits from this scheme? Who has a vested interest in it? Unsurprisingly, it is the folks punting the money. That is, TCorp. The NGF represents about 15 per cent of TCorp’s assets. Former Perpetual CEO David Deverall, who runs TCorp, has been desperate to turn it into a global asset manager, and aggressively grow its capital.

While TCorp blames NSW Treasury for the now-discarded plan for NSW to issue tens of billions in extra debt to enable TCorp to speculate on markets, the truth is that TCorp are the ones who directly benefit. Across TCorp’s 180 staff, the average compensation cost in 2021 was a staggering $323,000 per person. That is almost double the average pay of the RBA’s 1,300 plus employees.

The NGF is currently worth $15 billion, partly because it has been bolstered by the asinine decision to divert billions of NSW taxpayer royalties and income to it, and due to a debt-funded transfer of more than $2 billion to the NGF in 2020, despite the NSW budget being in record deficit.

This revenue had to be replaced with extra NSW debt, which explicitly contradicts the legislated objectives of the Debt Retirement Fund. These focus on three goals: maintaining NSW’s AAA rating, which Perrottet lost in 2020; reducing the cost of NSW borrowing, which has soared; and repaying NSW debt.

After widespread criticism last year, NSW suddenly stopped diverting taxpayer revenue to the NGF and then belatedly committed to using $11 billion from the sale of the second-half of WestConnex in 2021 to repay taxpayer debt.

Yet Perrottet and Treasurer Kean still refuse to invest the original $7 billion from the sale of the first half of WestConnex in 2018 into the infrastructure they promised. They also refuse to use this money, and the NGF’s remaining (partially debt-funded) $8 billion, to meet the Debt Retirement Fund’s legislated mission of repaying taxpayer debt.

We can quantify the cost of this madness: Perrottet and Kean would rather NSW taxpayers spend $630 million a year in extra interest on the $15 billion in new debt they will issue next year (but could have avoided) just to allow their TCorp pals to gamble this money on markets…..

Our interest in this matter is that as a fund manager, we lend money to all Australian states, including NSW. And we expect them to behave ethically from an ESG (specifically the “g” or governance) perspective. The huge ESG conflict of interest at the heart of the NGF—whereby NSW taxpayers have to pay $630 million a year in extra interest to allow TCorp to continue to punt their money—is unacceptable to all stakeholders.

Kean says he cares about ESG concerns. Time will tell if this is actually true.

Read the full article here.

NSW Liberal Premier Dominic Perrottet & Nationals Deputy Premier Paul Toole continue the Coalition's obsession with that fossil fuel without any form of social licence, Coal Seam Gas

 

Northern Daily Leader, 21 May 2022:

Gas companies will be permitted to explore for the mineral on 90,000 hectares of farmland surrounding the village of Bellata, after the state government resurrected the last "zombie" PEL in the North West on Friday.

Opponents of gas expansion accused the government of trying to bury a decision to bring back PEL 427 from the dead, in the hours before the federal election.

It is the last of 12 decades-old petroleum exploration licences (PELs), covering 55,000 square kilometres of farmland, which had long expired but, like zombies, could be reanimated at any time. All but three other PELS have been destroyed for good in recent weeks…..

The Bellata PEL has been shrunk down to just 90,000 hectares, covering an area near Moree. It includes land in the Northern Tablelands electorate of Adam Marshall and the Barwon electorate of Roy Butler, both of whom oppose gas development in their electorates.

A spokesperson for the Department of Regional NSW said that the PEL "has been renewed in line with the NSW Government's Future of Gas Statement, which was released last year, reducing the total area covered by the PELs in NSW by 77 per-cent."

"The PEL remained in place while it was under assessment by the Department. The renewed area is significantly smaller than it was previously," he said.

"All PELs that were under assessment have now been resolved, with parts of them reduced, others renewed, and several refused."

Lock the Gate Alliance National Coordinator Georgina Woods said the timing of the renewal showed disdain for farmers and a desperate attempt to avoid scrutiny.

"It's shocking to see the Perrottet Government continuing to permit coal seam gas exploration on some of the state's best farmland," she said.

"In less than a month, the Perrottet Government has put more than one million hectares of NSW land and the groundwater beneath it at the mercy of the polluting coal seam gas industry.

"Coal seam gas is incompatible with a thriving agriculture industry and resilient rural communities.

"The Perrottet Government has given gas companies the green light to pockmark farmland with gas wells and further fuel dangerous climate change, which is in turn making it harder for farmers to grow food and fibre.

"As recent community meetings have shown, locals will not passively accept the renewal of these licences. The Perrottet Government now has one hell of a fight on its hands."

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers member for Barwon Roy Butler said the government risked serious backlash from its strongest supporters, who had what he said was "white hot" anger about the issue.

"The strange thing for me is that you've got groups like NSW Farmers and CWA who strongly oppose this, they strongly oppose Narrabri, they oppose these zombie PELs. Those groups are bread and butter for the Nats," he said.

"Yet they just stick their middle finger up at them essentially and say we'll we're going to go do it anyway. You sort of sit there and think what the hell's going on? Why would you do that to your base?"

He said almost no landholder near Narrabri was in favour of a plan to turn the region into a coal-seam-gas development zone, and the industry continued to pose major risks to groundwater……

In April the government resurrected PELs near Narrabri, Boggabri, Quirindi and Gunnedah.

It approved the Santos-owned Narrabri Gas Project in 2020.

Bellarta NSW 

IMAGE: Domain.com.au

According to Visit NSW website:

Bellata lies 48 kilometres North of Narrabri and 54 kilometres South of Moree on the Newell Highway in North West New South Wales. A rich agricultural region, it is also known for its minerals such as petrified and opalised wood and agate.

The Bellata area is responsible for the production of some of the best Australian Prime Hard wheat in Australia and has large grain storage complex and silos. The countryside has beautiful rich soils and undulating land.

Bellata has a primary school, a nine hole golf course with sand greens and free camping is also available at the Bellata Golf Club, 24 hour BP Roadhouse and the Bellata Memorial Hall.

CASH SPLASH: a lesson in how to retain your parliamentary majority between elections

 

Leslie Williams
Liberal MP & former Nationals MP for Port Macquarie
since 26 March 2011
IMAGE: Manning River Times, 4 Feb 2015

The Saturday Paper, 26 February 2022:

Less than a month after New South Wales Port Macquarie MP Leslie Williams sensationally quit the National Party to join the Liberals, the defector was in direct conversations with then treasurer Dominic Perrottet’s office about a controversial $5 million grant to a private nursing home in her electorate.

The building project – for a new community centre, as part of a wider redevelopment of the St Agnes’ Care and Lifestyle facility in the coastal town that gives the state seat its name – was not part of any NSW government program. It was not on the radar of any official, or recommended by bureaucrats. Senior Treasury officials warned the state government’s powerful expenditure review committee (ERC) that the funding made no sense and should not be supported.

Instead, exactly one week after Leslie Williams forwarded details of the aged-care company’s development application to Perrottet’s ministerial staff, the $5 million grant was approved by the ERC, which was led by Perrottet and then premier Gladys Berejiklian.

The money was not new funding. It had to be found from elsewhere in the Health budget. As the coronavirus pandemic raged, the $5 million was taken from the Department of Health’s general spending budget and handed to St Agnes’ Care and Lifestyle for capital works on land owned by the Roman Catholic Church Diocese of Lismore. At the time, the-aged care operator had $34.7 million “cash on hand” and had received $3.1 million in federal JobKeeper funds.

The funding proposal that went to the ERC was blunt in its assessment of the project. Under the heading “risks, sensitivities and any other issues”, Treasury officials wrote that the grant was “not supported”.

The document prepared for the review committee said: “The proposal provides financial support for the establishment of a private residential aged-care facility. Given funding and regulation of aged care is a matter for the Commonwealth government, and the benefits accrue to the private residents and operator of the facility, the need for government support is unclear.”

As it happens, the decision had already been made. Hours before the ERC meeting actually took place, public servants were given the job of writing a press release for the announcement.

A week later, on October 27, 2020, Berejiklian was in Port Macquarie posing for a ceremonial sod-turning at the development site next to newly minted Liberal MP Leslie Williams. The official press release, now absent from the NSW government directory but still hosted by Williams on her MP website, includes quotes from the then premier and her treasurer.

“Port Macquarie has one of the highest prevalence rates of dementia in NSW and this state-of-the-art facility will offer transformational care for the elderly,” Berejiklian said.

And from Perrottet: “We expect this unique project, which is a NSW first, to create hundreds of jobs in the health, building and construction industries on the mid-North Coast.

What is clear from the time line of events is that the government, with negotiations handled out of the then treasurer’s office, moved quickly to rush through the $5 million in funding. This raised eyebrows internally.

“The aged-care sector is poised to grow substantially in NSW, contributing to jobs growth and the economy but as Covid events have shown us, quality of care is paramount.”

The ERC brief from Treasury did not put a figure on the jobs created, noting only that it was “TBD” or “to be disclosed”.

Williams, naturally, was thrilled. At the time, she said: “The NSW government’s investment will help build the community centre in the village, which houses all the social amenities that make this facility unique.”

St Agnes’ Care and Lifestyle chief executive Adam Spencer remarked that “both Ms Williams and the premier have been very supportive of this project”…..

NSW National Party - determined as ever to ignore the rights of traditional owners and vulnerable biodiverse landscapes - are investigating dam & diversion options in northern coastal river catchments

Rous County Council - which has bulk water supply responsibilities across the Ballina, Byron, Lismore City and Richmond Valley local government areas - in a 5 to 3 vote put aside the 253ha Dunoon Dam proposal for the next four to five years to enable comprehensive talks to occur with Widjabul Wia-bal traditional owners before going back into the plan.

Instead, it is exploring groundwater and recycling options with the aim of securing water supplies by 2024-2030.

However, there are objections to this course of action within the county council and in the broader community, along with disturbing echoes of colonial racism.

Section of the Channon Gorge, the proposed site of the Dunoon Dam wall
IMAGE: David Lowe

The proposed Dunoon Dam would be the second dam in the Rocky Creek sub-catchment, which if it becomes the preferred option would leave only approx. 4 kms as the crow flies between these two bodies of stored water.

North Coast Voices readers will probably not be surprised to find that NSW Nationals MLA for Clarence, former property developer & mining consultant Chris Gulaptis, the Nationals  MLC for Bathurst small business owner & recent undeclared candidate for Leader of the Nationals Sam Farraway and, Nationals candidate for the Lismore electorate in the last state election Austin Curtain, all support inundating a river valley to build this dam and including this proposal in the long-term regional water strategy.

The Echo, Letters, 3 November 2021:

If councillors in favour of the Dunoon Dam (DuD) are elected in December we will see several things happen.

Water resilience will collapse. The ‘10,000 signatures’, on which the pro-dam candidates base their political stance, demanded that all options be taken off the table, except for a second dam on a small creek: being completely dependent on increasingly erratic rainfall flowing through that small creek would intensify our climate risk.

Water shortages would be incurred soon because demand exceeds supply in three years, but the dam could not possibly be built until at least 2030.

Local jobs, which would have been boosted by diverse water options and long-term conservation measures (eg large-scale refitting), would be axed in favour of a short-term boost to a huge non-local company to build a dam.

Water rates would escalate rapidly to pay for a large one-off project. Government contributions are unlikely, leaving current ratepayers to foot the bill. The poorest people would be paying the most because water is non-discretionary, like food.

The Widjabul Wia-Bal people would be told, yet again, that their opinion does not matter. The burial sites, which have been compared by the Native Title Services Corp to the Juukan Cave in WA, would be lost. The living heritage of our own citizens would be discarded.

The Endangered Ecological Community of Lowland Rainforest, part of the remaining one per cent of the Big Scrub, would be severely reduced. In The Channon Gorge, the rare warm temperate rainforest on sandstone would be almost completely destroyed.

Opposition to the DuD, including direct action, would escalate, causing increased social division and unrest. When a large dubious project lacks social licence, the outcomes for local politicians pushing the project are never good.

There are plenty of alternatives to the DuD but the pro-dam candidates are going for the least efficient, most expensive, slowest, and most reckless option for water in the future.

We can have more water more cheaply and more quickly without needing a dam or groundwater; just by water efficiencies alone. But the pro-dam ideologues are not interested.

We have a problem here with local would-be politicians who want to capitalise on anxiety about water in order to score political points. They are not genuinely interested in water security. This is easily proved by their refusal to discuss anything other than one unrealistic and unsafe option.

There is a terrific opportunity here to pull together to solve our water problems. It may be lost owing to the political ambitions of a few cynical dog-whistlers.

Nan Nicholson, The Channon

ABC News, 4 October 2021:

Australia's national science agency is to investigate how to best manage the NSW far north coast's long-term water supply and river health.

The state's Water Minister, Melinda Pavey, has announced that scientists from the CSIRO will provide independent advice reviewing options proposed in last year's draft Far North Coast Regional Water Strategy.

"It developed from a lot of conversations around the strategy and a view from some community members that we haven't dealt enough with issues in relation to flood mitigation and water quality on north coast rivers, as well as long-term future supply for an area with a strong population and a lot of rainfall," Ms Pavey said.

The review will look at water security and flood risk management, particularly for the flood-prone city of Lismore.

"This will be really important foundational work that could be relevant to other parts of NSW," she said

Keith Williams, chair of regional water supplier Rous County Council, has welcomed the study and believes it will dovetail with council's existing priorities outlined in the Northern Rivers Watershed Initiative.

"About what we can do to decrease downstream flooding and a lot of that involves trying to re-establish wetlands, replanting river banks that exclude stock, and generally slowing water down within the landscape," he said.

"To have the CSIRO helping with that work would be fantastic. I don't see any threat to Rous from further scientific studies; we would welcome it."

Study will include Dunoon Dam option

Ms Pavey confirmed that a new dam at Dunoon would be included in the study.

A majority of Rous County councillors voted earlier this year to shelve the dam option from its future water strategy.

Robert Mustow, who was one of three councillors who advocated for the dam option to remain in the mix, welcomed the CSIRO input….

"This study will now reveal everything and it will be scientific-based and that's how it should have been to start with."

The CSIRO work is expected to be completed within a year.

What Minister Pavey is careful not to mention is that this 'review' is likely to be used to bolster the NSW Perrottet Government's preference to increase the size of the Shannon Creek Dam in the Clarence River catchment area [Draft North Coast Regional Water Strategy, "Long List of Options", March 2021] in order to allow the Coffs Harbour City LGA to increase its water draw from the Nymboida River and this large side dam (these being Coffs Harbour's only source of urban water) AND at the same time allow yet another local government area outside the catchment area to draw water via the Shannon Creek Dam. Thereby placing an unsustainable water draw of the Nymboida sub-catchment for a combined est. resident population of 142,519 persons [ID Community Demographic Resources, 2020].

BACKGROUND

EchoNetDaily, 14 December 2020:

Widjabul Wia-bal traditional owners of the area between Dunoon and the Channon have told Rous County Council not to follow Rio Tinto with the destructive Dunoon Dam.

They have told the General Manager of Rous County Council, Phil Rudd, that they will not accept the building of the proposed dam, which would inundate ancient burial sites and extensive evidence of occupation in the past and in recent times.

John Roberts, a Senior Elder of the Widjabul Wia-bal said, ‘I was one of the stakeholders consulted in 2011 about the impact of the Dunoon Dam on cultural heritage.

‘In the 2011 Cultural Heritage Impact Assessment prepared for Rous, we stakeholders said with one voice that no level of disturbance was acceptable to us. We still say that. Nothing has changed. There is no need for another study. Our opinion has not changed.

‘Our cultural heritage is a direct connection to our ancestors. We have been here for thousands of years. These sites provide us with a link to our traditions, our land and our living heritage. They allow us to educate our young ones in their history.’....

Echo, 22 July 2021:

Proposed Dunoon Dam, now scrapped. Rous County Council.

Dunoon Dam divides councils

The council itself is almost evenly divided: the traditionally more conservative Richmond Valley Council representatives further south want to consider a dam (and also want to connect Casino up to the Rous County Council water supply) while Byron’s representatives in the north are publicly opposed to the dam and Lismore’s progressives have cited concerns over cultural heritage.

Ballina is less cohesively represented in the Rous County Council, with each of the shire’s two representatives taking opposing sides on the dam idea....

The Daily Telegraph, 4 August 2021, p.11:

Lismore Mayor Vanessa Ekins said lobbying the NSW and federal governments to force the Dunoon Dam back into Rous’s Water Future Strategy was a political manoeuvre by conservative councillors and MPs ahead of upcoming elections.

“I think there is a bit of local lobbying going on, people are gearing up for an election and trying to position themselves with a little project,” Ms Ekins (pictured) said.

“(The dam) doesn’t relate to the science, technical expertise and decades of thought and work that has gone into coming out with the Future Water Strategy…..

SMEC Australia Pty Ltd, Dunoon Dam Terrestrial Ecology Impact Assessment*, November 2011:

One endangered ecological community (EEC), Lowland Rainforest which is listed under the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 (TSC Act), was recorded during field investigations. In addition, nine flora and 17 fauna species (including one frog, one mammal, one fruit-bat, six microbats and eight birds) listed as threatened in NSW under the TSC Act were also recorded. Of these species, eight flora and one fauna species are also listed nationally under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). An additional seven fauna species listed as migratory or marine under the EPBC Act as well as two Rare or Threatened Australian Plants (RoTAP) and three regionally significant plant species were also recorded.

Note:

* SMEC, a member of the Surbana Jurong Group, is a global engineering, management and development consultancy. SMEC field studies were undertaken in April 2010 - October 2010 and targeted threatened species within the study area.