Only two of the seven local government councils in the NSW Northern Rivers regions have made a genuine effort to divest themselves of fossil fuel industry investments

 

ECHO, 28 February 2024:

Byron Shire Council investments in fossil fuel projects as of Jan 2024 PIC Byron Shire Council

Byron Shire Council investments in projects linked to fossil fuel production decreased significantly after the NSW Treasury Corporation (TCorp) relaxed rules last year.

Investment reports included in last week’s agenda for the council’s ordinary monthly meeting showed the council had 56% of its investment funds lodged with fossil fuel aligned projects by the end of January 2024.

The figure was a decrease compared to 71% at the end of December 2023 and 85% at the end of the 2022-2023 financial year.

Staff credited the removal of a state covenant requiring local governments to invest TCorp loans mostly in institutions with A+ credit ratings or stronger.

Institutions offering investments in the ‘ethical’ area still mainly had lower credit ratings of BBB, or weren’t rated at all, staff said, citing credit unions as an example.

Staff noted the council’s diversified approach to investment was aimed at achieving short, medium, and long-term results.

Investment was regulated by TCorp, which until late last year effectively forced NSW local governments to bank at least a quarter of their low interest TCorp loans in A rated institutions or higher.

The council wasn’t allowed at the time to invest any more than 40% of the loans in A- rated institutions, 30% in BBB+ rated institutions and 5% in institutions rated BBB- and below.

Credit ratings allowed ranged from BBB- and below, or not rated, to AAA, with councils also encouraged to invest in TCorp itself.

End of financial year 2022-2023 figures from the council showed of nearly $65 million invested at the time, 85% was helping support fossil fuel aligned projects via various bonds, term deposits and other accounts..... [my yellow highlighting]

Read the full article here.

At the end of the 2022-23 financial year Richmond Valley Council had a cash held in banks & investment portfolio of $90.668 million. Of which $48.087 million or 53 per cent of the total was invested with financial institutions which do not invest in or finance the fossil fuel industry.

As of 30 June 2023 Clarence Valley Council investment portfolio stood at $156.357 million. 

Of which only $12 million is invested with financial institutions which do not invest in or finance the fossil fuel industry. Representing a paltry 7.67 per cent of council's investments. 

At the ordinary monthly meeting of 25 July 2023 all nine councillors voted to simply note Clarence Valley Council's investment position. Which appears to indicate that this local government is not overly interested in living up to rhetoric expressed in the past.

On 30 June 2023 Ballina Shire Council's investment portfolio stood at $104.300 million, of which only $8 million or 7.67 per cent was invested with financial institutions which do not invest in or finance the fossil fuel industry. As councillors there also voted to note the report without comment, there is no indication that council will be increasing its green investments anytime soon.

Tweed Shire Council valued its investment portfolio at $431.958 as at 30 June 2023. None of the investments listed were identified as being invested with financial institutions which do not invest in or finance the fossil fuel industry.

Lismore City Council listed the face value of its investment portfolio as $133.719 million. Council also had approximately $1.9 million held in various bank accounts which were deemed as transactional accounts and are not included in the investment portfolio. Council takes care to note that it holds no funds in fossil free investments or 0 per cent.

Finally, Kyogle Council published its 2022-23 financial statement in December 2023 and did not identify investments as a single line item, so nothing was to be gleaned as to what if any money it had invested with financial institutions which do not invest in or finance the fossil fuel industry.

The people of the Northern Rivers, wider New South Wales and the rest of Australia have been warned that the hands of the climate crisis clock are at 30 seconds to midnight, but it's business as usual

 

Australian climate scientist Dr. Joëlle Gergis, ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society and a lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report, has recently written: 

“The climate disasters unfolding in the northern hemisphere are a sign of what’s in store here, as governments fail to act on the unfolding emergency…..

...the possibility that the Earth might have already breached some kind of global “tipping point”. The term refers to what happens when a system crosses into a different state and stays there for a very long time, sometimes even permanently. We know that once critical thresholds in the Earth system are passed, even small changes can lead to a cascade of significantly larger transformations in other major components of the system. Key indicators of regional tipping points include dieback of major ecological communities….” [my yellow highlighting]

Such observations give pause for thought.

However, the elected Mayor of the third tier governing body for the Clarence Valley Local Government Area (LGA), Cr. Ian Tiley, is apparently comfortable with the idea of personally failing to act when it comes to any proposed phasing out of logging native forests in public hands within this LGA.

At least that is the impression he gives during a photo opportunity with representatives of the state government-dominated NSW logging industry.

Presumably Mayor Tiley is willing to ignore the fact that in 2021 & again in 2022 Australian university researchers warned that logging is not just increasing the risk of severe fires, but also the risk to human lives and safety.

Logging increases the probability of canopy damage by five to 20 per cent and leads to long-term elevated risk of higher severity fires, including canopy fires. Canopy fires are considered the most extreme form of fire behaviour and can be virtually impossible to control. 

It has also been known for the last two decades that intact tree canopies can buffer against rising and increasingly record air/land temperatures due to the thermal insulation of forest canopies which protects biodiversity, allowing native flora and fauna to survive climate change-induced heat extremes better than those living on open land.

Even the NSW Dept. of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources in Land Condition in the Clarence River Catchment: Report 1 - when addressing forestry as a land use - admitted back in 2014 that:

Management of forested areas for bushfire control purposes can threaten adjacent areas, cause habitat loss and encourage erosion. Public debate on this issue has been centred around the in-situ environmental impacts of the process but smoke drift over nearby population centres and the post burning effects on water quality after erosion events also impacts water supply for urban and industrial purposes. [my yellow highlighting]

Commercial logging activity occurs within the Clarence River catchment area and logged state forests do catch fire - as evidenced by Ellis State Forest near Dundurrabin south of Grafton during the 2019-20 bushfire season.

Like many other communities in the Northern Rivers region during the 2019-20 bushfire season, communities in the Clarence Valley can attest to the physical difficulties of living for days and sometimes weeks under smoke palls loaded with gases and particulate matter (including PM2.5) with a potential to affect the health.

According to the Dept. of Health's Bushfire smoke and health: Summary of the current evidence, 6 August 2020:

The Global Burden of Disease Study has shown that outdoor PM2.5 is the most important environmental risk factor in Australia, responsible for 1.6 percent of the total burden of disease in 2017. 

Evidence shows that the likelihood of an individual experiencing health effects as a result of exposure to PM2.5 depends on a number of factors. These include: the concentration of PM2.5 in air, the duration of exposure; the person’s age and whether a person has existing medical conditions (particularly cardiorespiratory disease or asthma).

It is also acknowledged that while this document focusses on the evidence relating to the physical effects that may occur as a result of bushfires smoke, bushfires have much broader mental health and societal impacts.

Clarence Valley Independent, 30 August 2023:

*click on image to enlarge*

“The Mayor also expressed his personal view, describing the timber industry as vital to the Clarence Valley.” 

I wonder if  Mr. Tiley will still be of that opinion over the next high-risk seven to seventeen years......

Doesn't matter which major party forms government in New South Wales, they all have cost-shifting onto local government down to a fine art

 

There are 128 local councils in New South Wales and this month the new Minns Labor Government decided to demonstrate that it too knows how to cost shift onto the third tier of government just like the preceding Baird-Berejiklian-Perrottet coalition state government.

Minns and Cabinet decided to test the waters with the Emergency Services Levy on 28 April 2023.

From local councils, Revenue NSW collects payments that account for 11.7% of the costs of fire and emergency services in NSW. From insurers of property in the state it collects the remainder of the levy which is paid as part of insurance premiums. Payment is in four instalments over the relevant financial year.

In 2022-23 the Revenue NSW collection target for the Emergency Services Levy was $1.17 billion, with local councils paying est. $143 million of that total. It would appear that the 2023-24 target is significantly higher, with the total annual local government contribution expected to rise to est. $219 million - a 53.1% increase.

According to Clarence Valley Council's financial statements: in the 2019 financial year the Emergency Services Levy cost to council was $952,000; in 2020 it rose to $995,000; in 2021 it rose again to $1,131,000; and in 2022 this cost fell to $752,000.

As late as September 2022 IPART had been telling local government that: The NSW Government has undertaken to fully fund the increase in councils’ 2023-24 emergency services levy (ESL) contributions, so the rate peg does not include increases in the cost of the ESL.

Local Government NSW, News,1 May 2023:

Emergency Service Levy increase will be catastrophic for councils

The newly elected NSW Government has kicked off its first term in the worst possible way by sending NSW council budgets into meltdown, forcing them to shed jobs, close services and scrap infrastructure plans.

Councils’ peak body, Local Government NSW (LGNSW), said the decision to apply sky-high increases in the Emergency Services Levy (ESL) would be catastrophic for many councils, and could see some become insolvent.

LGNSW said that for some councils the unexpected cost hit would all but wipe out any IPART-approved rate rise, shredding budgets already under massive pressure from the combined impact of the pandemic, extreme weather events, high inflation and wage increases.

The ESL is a cost imposed on councils and the insurance industry to fund the emergency services budget in NSW. The majority is paid as part of insurance premiums, with a further 11.7 per cent picked up by councils and 14.6% by the State Government itself.

“The ESL is an absolutely blatant cost shift by the State Government,” LGNSW President Cr Darriea Turley AM said.

“To make things worse, the ESL has seen stratospheric increases year-on-year to make up for the Government’s unfunded workers' compensation liability for emergency services workers struck down by a range of cancers.

“Now it appears councils are being asked to fund massive rises in emergency services budgets, including a 73% increase in the budget allocation to the State Emergency Services (SES).

“The levy increase for the State’s 128 councils in 2023/24 alone sits just under $77 million.

“To put that in perspective, Hay Shire Council will immediately lose 88.6 per cent of its approved rate rise to the ESL, while Bourke Shire Council will lose 94%, Yass Valley Council will lose 96%, and Tenterfield will lose 119%.

“Hornsby council will lose about 75% of its approved rate rise.

“This is an alarming development coming late in the council budgeting cycle and well after the IPART’s rates determination for 2023-24.

“The effect will leave some councils with insufficient funds to cover cost increases in other areas. These costs will need to be met by cuts to staff and services.”

Cr Turley said the local government sector’s fight was not with emergency services workers, but with a duplicitous and financially unsustainable funding system.

“I’m seeking urgent talks with Treasurer Daniel Mookhey where I will ask him to work with councils to develop a fairer funding system,” she said.

“This shock increase comes at a time when council budgets are still struggling with flood and bushfire disaster recovery.

“When you factor in the inflation and soaring costs we are all facing across the full gamut of our operations, the immediate future looks particularly bleak.

“We are urgently calling on the Government to:

• restore the subsidy for 2023

• unshackle this payment from council rates

• develop a fairer, more transparent and financially sustainable method of funding the critically important emergency services that benefit us all.”

Clarence Valley Council, Our Performance, 2023/2024 Operational Plan, excerpt, May 2023:

The Draft Budget does include a 5.4 per cent rate peg which assist to cover cost escalations beyond Council's control such as costs related to materials and constructions, which are up 37 per cent, fuel and utilities, and the Local Government State Award salary and wage negotiations. The recent NSW Government decision to not subsidise the increase in the Emergency Services Levy adds a further strain on Council's resources.

The Echo, article excerpt, 5 May 2023:

At yesterday’s Tweed Shire Council (TSC) meeting it was revealed that the TSC had received the equivalent of a $540,000 levy, a significant increase on what was expected, drawing a quick response from councillors at the ‘bizarre’ and ‘unbelievable’ levy that is putting council in an ‘untenable position’ according to Tweed Mayor Chris Cherry.

The Emergency Services Levy is a contribution paid by all councils that funds all the emergency services across that shire. The issue is that the state government has not only significantly increased the levy, they have removed the subsidy that councils were previously receiving.

‘The $540,000 represents the equivalent of a 0.85 per cent rate increase,’ explained Tweed Council’s general manager, Troy Green.

‘That represents one-third of the special rate variation (SRV) that we’ve asked for.’

The Council can not use the SRV to pay for the levy as, if approved, it would have to be spent on the areas identified in the request for the SRV.

‘Council unfortunately has received this notification outside our rating cycle. So we have not been able to factor this in,’ said Cr Cherry.

The Council had budgeted for a four per cent increase in the emergency services levy, however, the increase by the state government for the next financial year is 24.28 per cent.

Tweed Shire Council and Pottsville residents have managed to keep more residential housing and/or a seniors living estate off local flood prone land

In the first half of 2019 during the last days of Northern Rivers innocence or ignorance of what large scale climate change impacts meant, local governments wrote paragraphs like this in their planning documents based on flood data in some cases already ten years out of date.

‘“low island” means an area that is above the FPL and surrounded on its entire perimeter during and 100 year ARI event, but is inundated by the PMF. When flood levels exceed the FPL, in events up to the PMF, low islands become totally inundated, posing significant risk to isolated residents without flood free access to high land or shelter. Local examples include filled residential estates in Banora Point, West Kingscliff, and Pottsville, and raised dwellings in Chinderah, South Murwillumbah and Rural Villages.…..

A3.2.3 Urban Areas

Levees at Murwillumbah and Tweed Heads South provide structural protection against flood inundation to varying degrees. In other areas, planning controls are used to contain future flood damage. In 2009, a levee was retrofitted along Cudgera Creek to protect the Seabreeze Estate at Pottsville. In the event of a flood exceeding the levee height, the protected areas will flood quickly with little warning time and very rapid rises in water levels.

Council's design flood is based on the 100 year ARI event; that is a flood with a 1 in 100 (or 1%) chance of occurring in any one year.’  [Tweed Development Control Plan SECTION A3 - Development of Flood Liable Land VERSION 1.5 (DRAFT)]

Behind mentions of levee banks and need for early evacuation in flood prone areas in such documents, found in the planning files across seven regional local governments, there still lurked the thought that new housing estates and residential complexes could go ahead because floods could simply be managed by levees, land fill and residential floor heights.

Although at state level there remains environment & planning legislation which hasn’t caught up with life as it is experienced in a changing climate, there are signs that at local government level the new realities associated with the many river systems and coastal floodplains in north east NSW are slowly beginning to sink in.

Even if it apparently hasn't even begun to sink in with Newland Developers and Altitude Lifestyle, given plans for Lot 1747, DP 1215252 Seabreeze Boulevard Pottsville anticipated 6.3 ha of landfill to a height of 3.1m AHD. 

A large-scale landfill height within a range Yamba residents living approx. 155km to the south of Pottsville can attest is very likely to cause flood and storm waters to find new destructive paths though long established residential streets.

Vacant land bounded on all four sides by Seabreeze Boulevard, Tom Merchant Drive, Cudgera Creek and Sawtell Circuit, Pottsville NSW.

Echo, 13 April 2023:

The 6.3ha of vacant land at 1 Seabreeze Boulevard, Pottsville which is earmarked in the Tweed Development Control Plan 2008 (DCP 2008) as a potential school site has once again been saved from being developed as housing.

The developers Newland Developers Pty Ltd have had two previous development applications refused for DAs for residential developments at the site in 2017 and 2020. The Land and Environments Court (L&EC) once again dismissed the deemed refusal on 31 March, this time for a seniors housing development.

The developers had taken the Tweed Shire Council (TSC) to the L&EC on appeal for their proposed 93 lots for seniors housing as part of a community title subdivision making this the third time TSC had to defend the site for a future school.

Flooding a key issue

A second matter heard by the LEC, to carry out water and sewer supply works on the property, was approved by the Court, subject to certain conditions.

In its ruling on the current Concept DA, the primary finding of the L&EC was that the Concept DA failed to adequately address provisions for emergency response in situations such as flooding.

Mayor of Tweed Shire Chris Cherry said this was a good outcome for the Pottsville community who have long lobbied for a high school in the coastal village.

‘We welcome the judgement in the LEC on this issue,’ Cr Cherry said…..

‘Ensuring flood safety for our Seniors living communities is paramount and the decision found that this Concept DA did not provide the certainty needed for safe occupation of the site by our most vulnerable of residents.

‘This is the third time Council has had to go to the LEC to defend this piece of land, promised for education purposes when the Seabreeze Estate was formed in 2000. Each time Council has won these cases.

‘Council appealed to the NSW Government to rezone the land to infrastructure zoning so these repeated attempts could be avoided and the promise to the community could be honoured but the State Government did not support it.

‘With the recent change in State Government, and the promised support of a Pottsville High School by the new government, it is fantastic that this determination has come in now and kept this land available.’

Will the incoming Minns Labor Government fix the unholy mess that the outgoing Perrottet Coalition Government made of NSW planning & environmental laws in NSW?

 

The former Baird, Berejiklian and Perrottet coalition governments deliberately put a wrecking ball through NSW planning and environmental law for almost nine years.

The burning question is; 'Will the new Labor state premier, his cabinet and, specifically those he chooses as his ministers for planning and environment, walk back the legislative and regulatory power grab which leaves much of regional New South Wales vulnerable to exploitation?'

This opinion piece by Lindy Smith, President of the Tweed District Residents and Ratepayers Association (TDRRA) in the Echo, 21 March 2023, reflects similar concerns expressed by residents & ratepayers across the seven local government areas of the Northern Rivers region:

 The NSW Planning Rezoning Pathways Program was released the day before caretaker period started for the NSW government on 3 March.

This will service the agendas of developers and land bankers which is very much alive in the Tweed Shire, particularly the Cudgen Plateau, State Significant Farmlands (SSF). Under the guise of the need for housing (which we all agree is needed) there continues to be a failure to acknowledge the herd of elephants in the room – that any new house can be built and purchased for Short Term Holiday Letting (STHL) under the Governments changes to the NSW Environmental Planning & Assessment (EP&A) Act.

Does not increase housing supply

This means that there is no guaranteed actual quantitative increase in the housing supply. While the government’s focus has been driving population growth it has seriously failed in its upkeep of social and affordable housing. In fact they have been selling off such sites.

The questions that the NSW government fails to address are:

What quantity of social housing is to be part of the Program?

What is affordable housing, and where are the plans and mechanisms to provide them? How they will be protected as affordable housing into perpetuity, rather than reentering the private market after ten years?

Undermining local councils

The Planning Rezoning Pathways Program enables the overriding of much statutory investment and work that has been undertaken by local councils and communities. Many local councils and community groups have spent significant time and energy developing locally appropriate planning tools and long-term strategic planning utilising local knowledge which is key to the sustainability and liveability of their communities.

The NSW coalition government swept into power 2011 on the back of the then-controversial Part3A assessment system, promising to give planning powers back to local communities. What we have instead been dealt with is the repeated undermining of the NSW EP&A Act and the NSW state taking over so much more of local communities planning controls.

No public consultation

Further, under the former Premier and former Deputy Premier of NSW development of RegionalEconomic Development Strategies was undertaken with zero public consultation, nor any transparency. These documents only recently came to light in the public arena.

Just two days before the caretaker period the NSW Government then released its program to rezone our Crown lands for development with zero public consultation, nor any process to turn over our Crown land to development.

The mismanagement of our Crown land is well documented with the damming evidence to the Crown lands inquiry and the damming findings of the Auditor-General Report into the Sale and Lease of Crown Lands….

A brief look at complaints received by the NSW Ombudsman

 

In its last published annual report (2021-22) the NSW Ombudsman’s office received a total of 5,746 complaints concerning government departments/agencies including further education facilities, local health districts and icare.

Service NSW had the highest number of complaints (959), followed DCJ Housing (956), Land and Housing Corporation (374), Roads and Maritime (364) and Ministry of Health (100).

In addition the Ombudsman also received 2,405 actionable complaints about local government councils, including 2 complaints about county councils. 

With Clarence Valley Council being first in the Top 10 councils with the most finalised actionable complaints per 100,00 head of population (89) even though it tied for last place on that same chart for the actual number of finalised actionable complaints (46). Central Coast Council was the dubious Top 10 winner on the basis of actual number of finalised actionable complaints received which reached 158.

Actionable complaints about these 10 councils - Central Coast Council, Canterbury-Bankstown Council, Northern Beaches Council, Georges River Council, Sutherland Shire Council, Mid-Coast Council, Blacktown City Council, Lake Macquarie City Council, Clarence Valley Council, Inner West Council - represent 29% of all the local government actionable complaints the Ombudsman finalised in 2021-22.

The most frequently raised issues in actionable 

complaints about councils were: 

• standards of customer service; 
• complaint-handling processes; 
• council enforcement action; 
• charges and fees; and 
• merits/reasoning of council decisions when they are exercising their discretion in accordance with policy or in a statutory setting.

What that paragraph appears to be indicating that complaints about development applications and in Chamber decisions concerning development still feature prominently in the annual complaints profile as they have for at least the last two decades.

The Clarence Valley Independent was told by a Local Government NSW spokesperson that despite serving the same population, the state’s 128 councils recorded fewer than half the number of complaints made about the state government.

Cynicism burns strong in the Northern River as the March 2023 state election date draws nearer

 

Echo, 13 January 2023:

With the NSW election looming on March 25, there will no doubt soon be a government bonanza of promises to impress, you, the good-looking and articulate voter, into thinking that this or that party will govern with your interests at heart.

Politicians want to be taken seriously now? How cute!

State governments use your taxes to pay for health, education, police and roads, among many other services.

Other things they use your taxes for include throwing huge wads of cash at electorates they think they can win (called pork barrelling), or generously repaying their campaign donors.

That aside, another crucial role state governments have is with planning.

As we saw recently with the NSW planning minister’s intervention on [Byron Shire] Council’s holiday letting policy – local governments are merely a corporate arm of the state government, and will be reined in if they do not reflect the government’s views.

The views of the current NSW Liberal-Nationals government appears to deny local decision-making, renege on that promise, and undermine any chance to address the housing crisis.

And also, presumably, repay their campaign donor mates in the holiday letting industry.

The current government aren’t doing that well across the state, and with any luck there will be a much-needed change of direction after election day.

Or will NSW Labor act in the same way?

Moving on, a planning policy that is currently on the table from the NSW Department of Planning and Environment (DPE) is reforming the State Environmental Planning Policy (Housing) 2021, (or Housing SEPP).

The current Housing SEPP, as the peak body for local government, Local Government NSW (LGNSW), says, contains ‘blanket provisions that override local controls [and] undermine this framework for local strategic planning, by disrupting outcomes endorsed through councils’ local strategic planning processes’.

It’s widely known that affordable housing SEPPs don’t work as intended. Or as a cynic may say, they are working perfectly for the one per cent. Just not those who need affordable housing.

For example, LGNSW support affordable housing, developed under the Housing SEPP, to be in perpetuity, ‘not 15 years, as current provisions allow’.

Also, unlike the current government, LGNSW supports ‘locally-developed responses to short-term rental accommodation (STRA)’.

To have your say on the housing reforms, which are on exhibition until January 13, visit www.planning.nsw.gov.au/Policy-and-Legislation/Housing/Housing-SEPP.

Hans Lovejoy, editor

Perrottet and Toole faced with an approaching tidal wave of condemnation, retreated from their latest attempt to drive NSW koalas into species extinction

 

This was going to be the scheduled North Coast Voices post title today: "Dodgy duo Dom Perrottet and Paul Toole are hoping that NSW residents, ratepayers and voters will forget this act of political bastardry once the state parliament goes into recess until February 2023. How wrong they will be in many a coastal council area".

But then, with an eye to his political legacy, retiring NSW Christian Democrat MLC Fred Nile spoke out.....

The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 December 2022: 

The NSW government has been forced into a humiliating backdown in the latest koala wars after Christian Democrat MP Fred Nile refused to back its native forestry bill, guaranteeing it would have failed on the floor of parliament. Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders confirmed late on Monday that the Nationals would pull the hugely divisive bill in a bid to avoid an embarrassing loss for the Coalition in the final sitting week of parliament before the March election. The death knell for the bill came when Nile ruled out support for changes to native forestry laws, which would have made it easier for landholders to remove trees.....

Without Nile’s support, the bill could not have passed the upper house and it was also likely to fail in the lower house because Nationals MP Geoff Provest told Nationals leader Paul Toole on Monday that he would not support the bill. Liberal MP Felicity Wilson also ruled out supporting the bill. Millionaire businessman and environmental crusader Geoff Cousins, who waged the high-profile campaign to stop the Gunns pulp mill in Tasmania during the 2007 federal election campaign, also delivered a blistering warning to the NSW government, saying he would “do everything I can to run a major campaign against the Perrottet government in the next election” in response to the bill. “I would liken the sort of campaign I would run to the Gunns pulp mill campaign,” Cousins, a former adviser to John Howard, said. “If they want to go up against that, that’s fine. But it would include a major advertising campaign and I would do everything I could to bring down a government that would put forward legislation like this.” .....

In addition to dissenting members of the NSW Parliament, it was obvious that individuals and communities all along the est. 1,973km long NSW mainland coastal zone and, as far inland as the Great Dividing Range, were prepared to resist the Perrottet Coalition Government's attempt to lock in destructive legislation ahead of the March 2023 state election. In what looked suspiciously like an erstatz insurance policy for their timber industry mates - just in case the Coalition lost the forthcoming state ballot.

Somewhat predictably, in this approach the Perrottet Government was aping the failed former Morrison Government and, thereby doing itself no favours.

BACKGROUND

Newly minted NSW National Party Leader & Deputy Premier Paul Toole 
and newly minted NSW Liberal Party Leader & Premier Dominic Perrottet. IMAGE: ABC News, 14 October 2021

 

Following in the footsteps of a disgraced Liberal premier and a disgraced Nationals deputy premier (both of whom resigned
office and left the NSW Parliament) it seems no lessons were learnt......

The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 November 2022, p.1:

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet faces a damaging internal battle in the final week of parliament as Liberals threaten to cross the floor over the revival of the so-called koala wars which almost tore apart the Coalition two years ago.

As NSW parliament sits for the last time before the March election, the bitter issue of protecting koala habitat could split the Coalition, with Liberals who face challenges from teal candidates fearing it would ignite a backlash against the government.

The Nationals have introduced a bill to make it easier for landholders to clear private native forestry without duplicate approval processes between state and local governments. However, critics have warned it could water down environmental regulation and destroy koala habitat.

Climate 200 founder Simon Holmes a Court described revisiting the koala wars as a "gift" for the teal movement in NSW, which would seize on the NSW government's position in northern Sydney seats.

Holmes a Court said Perrottet had made three significant environmental missteps in recent weeks, which included committing to raising the Warragamba Dam wall and appointing former Sydney Hydro boss Paul Broad as a special adviser.

Broad, who was appointed by Perrottet while Energy Minister Matt Kean was overseas, has been a critic of NSW's energy road map, which provides long-term contracts for renewable generation and grid services. Broad has called the plan, devised by Kean, "fundamentally flawed". He also backed the former federal government in its push for a large new gas-fired power plant in the Hunter Valley.

"Until recently, it's been hard for the teals to find strong differentiation in states with almost-good-enough environmental credentials like Victoria and NSW," Holmes a Court said.

"Dominic Perrottet has handed the movement a gift through deciding to flood a UNESCO site with many significant Aboriginal sites, reopening the koala wars and putting Angus Taylor's gas man in the Premier's office."

Asked yesterday about Broad's appointment, Perrottet said he was "highly regarded, and his experience in water, engineering and infrastructure is second to none in this country".

Perrottet said Broad's remit included raising the Warragamba wall and ensuring the $3.5 billion Narrabri gas project was online as soon as possible.

The Coalition battled internal warfare over koala planning laws in 2020, when former deputy premier John Barilaro threatened to take his Nationals MPs to the crossbench if proposed new rules to protect an increased number of tree species home to koalas were adopted.

Then premier Gladys Berejiklian stared him down and Barilaro withdrew the threat.

The bill to change planning laws for private native forests will be debated his week and is likely to be particularly problematic for Liberal MP James Griffin, who is environment minister and holds the seat of Manly, which has a very active independents' group.

Several senior government sources said other at-risk Liberals, including North Shore MP Felicity Wilson and Port Macquarie MP Leslie Williams, are considering crossing the floor or abstaining. Nationals MP for Tweed Geoff Provest could abstain.

Wilson, Williams and Provest were contacted for comment.

In an indication of how damaging Wilson thinks the bill could be, she gave a private members' statement to parliament last week when she wanted her "support for a plan to transition the native forestry industry towards sustainable plantations" placed on the record……

Opposition environment spokeswoman Penny Sharpe said Labor would oppose the bill…...

Local Government NSW president Darriea Turley said the bill had been rushed into parliament without any consultation with local government.

"This bill undermines the crucial role councils play in the regulation of private forestry operations," Turley said. "It will have devastating impacts on native habitats, particularly for koalas and many threatened species."