Showing posts sorted by date for query water theft. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query water theft. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Sunday, 26 January 2025

The Burning Question in 2025 is: will Australian society & the national economy survive Peter Dutton 2.0 aka #TrumpNotSoLite's fierce ambition to lead an ultraconservative, 'aniti-woke' federal government for the next 4 years?


Leader of the Opposition and Liberal MP for Dickson Peter Craig Dutton is on the record as admiring Donald John Trump and even seems to be looking forward to working with him should the Liberal-Nationals Coalition win government at the forthcoming federal general election - indeed he claims that a number of his close colleagues are well connected with members of the Trump Administration.


This is Peter Dutton opining to the mainstream media since 20 January 2025.



The Nightly, 24 January 2025:


Opposition leader Peter Dutton has argued that young men are ‘fed up’ with feeling ostracised and are sick of being treated like ogres.


He believes push-back on “woke” practices, such as being overlooked for jobs under affirmative action policies, was gaining momentum, and the decline of “wokeism” would be accelerated after the election of Donald Trump as US president.....


Speaking on Mark Bouris’ Straight Talk podcast, Mr Dutton said in the US and elsewhere young males felt “disenfranchised and ostracised”.


They’re saying, ‘Well, hang on, I have nothing but respect for women, and I would never treat my female friends differently than my male friends’,” he said.


But I’m being told that I’m some sort of ogre, or I have some belief structure which is true to that, which I know is, is, you know, what I hold in my heart.


I think there’s just a point where people are fed up and they are pushing back and saying, ‘well, why am I being overlooked at work for a job, you know, three jobs running when I’ve got, you know, a partner at home, and she’s decided to stay at home with three young kids, and I want a promotion at work so that I can help pay the bills at home’ and so I think all of that has morphed.”


The Saturday Paper, 25 January 2025:


They’re excited by Trump’: Dutton’s inclusion strategy


Amid the “revolution” of Donald Trump’s return to the White House is one cause that has caught the Coalition’s eye: the dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts....


One Liberal MP expects this tone will have some influence on the Coalition in Australia’s election campaign. “They’re excited by Trump. They will try and use mechanisms from his playbook here. And they do it already, right?”


Dutton has championed what he describes as “anti-woke” issues since his first term as a backbencher. I think there is going to be a new revolution that comes with the Trump administration in relation to a lot of the woke issues that might be fashionable in universities and at the ABC,” Dutton told a sympathetic Sharri Markson on Sky News this week.


They just aren’t cutting it around kitchen tables at the moment, where people can’t pay their bills under the Albanese cost-of-living crisis.”


In her Sky News interview, Markson was one of the few journalists to raise with Dutton the executive order signed by Trump recognising only “two sexes, male and female”.


In her Sky News interview, Markson was one of the few journalists to raise with Dutton the executive order signed by Trump recognising only “two sexes, male and female”.


He responded that people are “sick of being ostracised and vilified”, but he did not engage on the question of gender. Rather, the opposition leader shifted to Indigenous recognition.


On Thursday, Coalition deputy leader David Littleproud was less guarded, telling Sky News the issue of gender needed to be reconsidered in Australia. “It doesn’t need to get emotional…” he said. “It comes back to respecting that biological basis that we can’t get away from when we’re born.”....


Nationwide News, 22 January 2025:


Had enough’: Peter Dutton predicts anti-woke revolution for Australia


Peter Dutton has declared he would be the better PM to deal with US President Donald Trump amid a worldwide political revolution as voters decide they have had enough of the “woke” agenda.


But despite hinting he could ride the wave of the Trump victory all the way to the Lodge, Mr Dutton declined to expressly dump the Coalition’s current commitment to the Paris agreement on climate change.....


Mr Dutton has recently declared he will not display two flags at official press conferences if elected.


We’re not going to have reconciliation when we have people living under three different flags,’’ Mr Dutton said.


We have one national flag, and that’s incredibly important.”....


The Guardian, 25 January 2025:


Peter Dutton has announced a long-awaited shadow ministerial shake-up before this year’s federal election, appointing former immigration minister David Coleman to the foreign affairs role....Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, took on the new government efficiency platform, which echoed the new US Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), led by Elon Musk.


Given that it appears that Dutton is more than flirting with the idea of emulating Donald Trump's election campaign and some of his divisive policies perhaps it would be sensible to take a closer look at the 47th US President aka Trump 2.0 in the year of 2025.


Donald J. Trump has been the 47th US President for seven days now and during this period he has signed at least fifty-seven Executive Orders, with forty-six signed on the day of his inauguration.


20 January 2025 immediately after the inauguration ceremony on first day of the presidential term


On that first day Donald Trump signed at least 45 Presidential Actions/Executive Orders.


One of note was Granting Pardons And Commutation Of Sentences For Certain Offenses Relating To The Events At Or Near The United States Capitol On January 6, 2021 which saw an est. 1,500 persons, previously with a conviction against their names for violence and/or conspiracy in relation to the violent insurrection in Washington DC during 6 January 2021, pardoned. With those still serving prison sentences released and those still before the courts having their cases immediately dismissed.


There was also Executive Order "ProtectingThe Meaning And Value Of American Citizenship" which sought to remove the right to citizenship going forward for those children born to non-citizen parents whether those parents were in the United States lawfully or unlawfully.


Also amongst these orders were presidential actions withdrawing from the World Health Organisation, dismantling environmental protections, opening untouched areas up to mining exploration, rolling back climate change mitigation measures & regulations and denying the rights of women to reproductive choice and reasserting the position that all living persons remain the biological gender assigned to then at birth with this position to be adopted by all federal agencies and employees.


In addition Trump issued Executive Order "Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions". These rescissions cover Orders and Actions during the entire Biden presidency from noon 20.01.21 to noon 20.01.25.


Included in this rollback is:


> Executive Order 13989 of January 20, 2021 (Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel), thereby making it legal for members of both Houses in the 119th US Congress to accept gifts & inducements (eg. 'golden parachutes') from lobbyists and interested third parties.


> Executive Order 14009 of January 28, 2021 (Strengthening Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act)

> Executive Order 14070 of April 5, 2022 (Continuing To Strengthen Americans’ Access to Affordable, Quality Health Coverage) and

> Executive Order 14087 of October 14, 2022 (Lowering Prescription Drug Costs for Americans) which means that a) medical insurance became inaccessible to potentially millions of American citizens and b) prescription drugs just became very expensive again and in practice inaccessible to the poor, vulnerable and to many with chronic life-threatening conditions.


Public Citizen, Inc., American Federation Of Government Employees and State Democracy Defenders Fund filed CivilCase 1:25-cv-00164 bringing an action seeking declaratory, injunctive, and mandamus relief against Defendants Donald J. Trump, in his official capacity as president of the United States, and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), an agency of the United States, to ensure that the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) complies with the requirements established by the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), 5 U.S.C.§§ 1001 et seq


The Trump State Department implements a landmark "One Flag Policy" barring U.S. outposts at home and abroad from flying any other flag but the Stars and Stripes, effectively blocks U.S. embassies and outposts from flying Pride and Black Lives Matter flags.


21 January 2025 the second day and first full day of the current presidential term


The Episcopalian 14th Bishop of Washington speaking directly to the president from the pulpit of St. John’s, Lafayette Square during the official thanksgiving church service, said the following:


Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put there trust in you. And, as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God.

In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.

There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and Independent families, some who fear for their lives.

And the people, the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes, and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, madaras, and temples. I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands, to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger for we were all once strangers in this land.


Truth Social post





Excerpt from Trump's first US press conference during the question and answer segment when he was asked about the wildfire federal disaster relief funding called into question by the intent of the 20 January presidential memorandum Putting People over Fish: Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Provide Water to Southern California.



The State of New Jersey, Commonwealth of

Massachusetts, State of California, State of ColoradoState of Connecticut, State of Delaware, District of Columbia, State of Hawai‘I, State of Maine, State of Maryland, Attorney General Dana Nessel for the People of Michigan, State of Minnesota, State of Nevada, State of New Mexico, State of New York, State of North Carolina, State Of Rhode Island, State of Vermont, State of Wisconsin and City and County of San Francisco, filed Case No. 1:25-cv-10139 bringing an action to protect their states, localities, and residents from the President’s flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage.


The States of Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon filed Case 2:25-cv-00127-JCC bringing an action to protect the States—including their public agencies, public programs, public fiscs, and state residents—against the illegal actions of the President and federal government that purport to unilaterally strip United States citizens of their citizenship. Seeking an emergency temporary restraining order.


Note: This brings the total of state entities opposing the contents of one executive order issued by President Trump in court to twenty-five.


22 January 2025 the third day of the presidential term


In response to the Executive Order of 20 January 2025 "Granting Pardons And Commutation Of Sentences For Certain Offenses Relating To The Events At Or Near The United States Capitol On January 6, 2021", three US District Court judges asserted the independence of the Court. The first in Criminal Action No. 21-00073 (BAH) by not going beyond what established law required. In her reasons stating; No “national injustice” occurred here, just as no outcome-determinative election fraud occurred in the 2020 presidential election. No “process of national reconciliation” can begin when poor losers, whose preferred candidate loses an election, are glorified for disrupting a constitutionally mandated proceeding in Congress and doing so with impunity. That merely raises the dangerous specter of future lawless conduct by other poor losers and undermines the rule of law. Yet, this presidential pronouncement of a “national injustice” is the sole justification provided in the government’s motion to dismiss the pending indictment." and denying the request that this dismissal be “with prejudice.”

While the second in Criminal Action No. 22-413 (CKK) ended her reasons with All of what I have described has been recorded for posterity, ensuring that what transpired on January 6, 2021 can be judged accurately in the future.

and the third in Criminal Action No. 24-CR-135 (TSC) the Order transcript opening with; The Government’s Motion to Dismiss the Indictment pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 48(a), ECF No. 29, is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.

The Government’s only stated reason for pursuing dismissal with prejudice is that the President, in addition to pardoning the Defendant, has ordered the Attorney General to do so.

See Gov’t’s Mot. at 1, ECF No. 29 (citing Unnumbered Proclamation, __ Fed. Reg. __ (Jan. 20, 2025).1

The Court does not discern—and neither party has identified—any defect in either the legal merits of, or the factual basis for, the Government’s case. Indeed, while a pardon exercises the Executive’s “exclusive authority and absolute discretion to decide whether to prosecute a case,” United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 693 (1974), it “does not necessarily render ‘innocent’ a defendant of any alleged violation of the law,” United States v. Flynn, 507 F. Supp. 3d 116, 136 (D.D.C. 2020).

More broadly, no pardon can change the tragic truth of what happened on January 6, 2021. On that day, “a mob professing support for then-President Trump violently attacked the United States Capitol” to stop the electoral college certification. Trump v. Thompson, 20 F.4th

10, 15 (D.C. Cir. 2021). The dismissal of this case cannot undo the “rampage [that] left multiple people dead, injured more than 140 people, and inflicted millions of dollars in damage.” Id


23 January 2025 the fourth day of the presidential term


Trump addressing the World Economic Forum

at Davos via a live feed.



Excerpt from official transcript of Donald Trump's Davos speech taken from the Question and Answer segment with Trump speaking:


And the big problem is we need double the energy we currently have in the United States — can you imagine? — for AI to really be as big as we want to have it. Because it’s a very competitive — it will be very competitive with China and others.


So, I’m going to give emergency declarations so that they can start building them almost immediately.


And I’m — I’m — I think it was largely my idea, because nobody thought this was possible. It wasn’t that they were not smart, because they’re the smartest, but I told them that what I want you to do is build your electric generating plant right next to your plant as a separate building, connected. And they said, “Wow, you’re kidding.” And I said, “No, no. I’m not kidding.” You don’t have to hook into the grid, which is old and, you know, could be taken out. If it’s taken out, they wouldn’t have any way to get any electricity.


So, we are going to allow them to go on a very rapid bas- — basis to build their plant — build the electric generating plant. They can fuel it with anything they want, and they may have coal as a backup. Good, clean coal.


You know, if there were a problem with a — with a pipe coming in — as an example, you’re going with gas — oil or gas — and a pipe gets blown up or, for some reason, doesn’t work, there are some companies in the U.S. that have coal sitting right by the plant so that if there’s an emergency, they can go to that short-term basis and use our very clean coal.


So, that’s something else that a lot of people didn’t even know about. But nothing can destroy coal — not the weather, not a bomb — nothing. It might make it a little smaller, might make it a little different shape. But coal is very strong as a backup. It’s a great backup to have that facility, and it wouldn’t cost much more — more money.


And we have more coal than anybody. We also have more oil and gas than anybody.


So, we’re going to make it so that the plants will have their own electric generating facilities attached right to their plant. They don’t have to worry about a utility. They don’t have to worry about anything. And we’re going to get very rapid approvals.


24 January 2025 the fifth day of the presidential term


By 24 January Donald Trump has signed around 60 Memos, Briefing Statements and Presidential Actions/Executive Orders. Each and everyone coming together to form a concerted attack on the US Constitution, existing law and the administration of federal government.

In addition by the fifth day Trump had publicly withdrawn federal protective services from his former national security adviser John Bolton, former top health official Dr. Anthony Fauci, his former top diplomat Mike Pompeo and former Iran envoy Brian Hook. All of whom have been out of favour with him and perceived to be 'critics'.


On a flying visit to North Carolina Donald Trump announced the reorganisation and possible closure of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), continuing to assert the misinformation he spread as presidential candidate during Hurricane Helene - including that some FEMA employees refused to help people who displayed Trump signs on their properties.

Trump stated a general preference that in future the states take care of disasters. Let the state take care of the tornadoes and the hurricanes and all of the other things that happen. And I think you’re going to find it a lot less expensive. You’ll do it for less than half, and you’re going to get a lot quicker response.

So, that seems to be the recommendation, but we’ll be making that recommendation over the next couple of weeks.

Any additional federal aid to California in relation to the Los Angeles wildfires will come not through FEMA but through the White House and have specific conditions attached before it can be accessed by this Democrat governed state. With Trump stating two prerequisites: I want to see two things in Los Angeles: Voter ID, so that the people have a chance to vote, and I want to see the water be released and come down into Los Angeles and throughout the state. Those are the two things. After that, I will be the greatest president that California have ever — has ever seen.


Oregon Capital Chronicle, 24 January 2024:


As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement intensifies its efforts to apprehend and deport undocumented immigrants throughout the country, concern is rising among Indigenous communities residing in urban areas about reports of Indigenous people being detained in the Valley.


Since President Donald Trump issued his executive order for an increase in ICE raids, Navajo tribal leaders have received alarming reports that their tribal members are being detained, heightening uncertainties over the implications these actions have for their communities and the safety of their people.


We now know that Navajo people and enrolled members of other tribes are being detained in Phoenix and other cities by ICE,” Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley said during a committee meeting on Thursday. “The reports that we have received indicate that we need to coordinate an operation or some type of response to help our enrolled tribal members here on the Navajo Nation.”....


In State of Washington et al v Donald Trump et al filed as CASE NO. C25-0127-IC a US District Court Judge granted a 14 Day Temporary Restraining Order, stating in part; Plaintiff States face irreparable injury as a result of the signing and implementation of the Executive Order. and

There is a strong likelihood that Plaintiffs will succeed on the merits of their claims that the Executive Order violates the Fourteenth Amendment and Immigration and Nationality Act.


The Laken Riley Act having passed both Houses this week awaits Trump's signature to become federal law.

This Act requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to detain certain non-U.S. nationals (aliens under federal law) who have been arrested for burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting. The bill also authorizes states to sue the federal government for decisions or alleged failures related to immigration enforcement.

Under this bill, DHS must detain an individual who (1) is unlawfully present in the United States or did not possess the necessary documents when applying for admission; and (2) has been charged with, arrested for, convicted of, or admits to having committed acts that constitute the essential elements of burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting.



To be continued......


Wednesday, 18 August 2021

WATER IS LIFE: policy failures at Australian federal and state level just keep rolling on

 

The Guardian, 3 August 2021:













The Barwon-Darling is the main tributary for the Darling and was the focus of allegations in 2017 of water theft and users taking more than their allocations. Photograph: Mark Evans/Getty Images



New South Wales has been found to have exceeded its water allocations for 2019-20 in the Barwon-Darling catchment, one of the main cotton-growing areas of the state, raising new questions about the effectiveness of the state’s water enforcement rules.



The Barwon-Darling is the main tributary for the Darling and was the focus of the 2017 Four Corners report which raised allegations of water theft, pumps being tampered with and water users taking more than their allocations.



It led to a number of reports, prosecutions and an overhaul by NSW of its compliance regime.



But in the first year of compliance reporting, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority found NSW had exceeded what are known as the sustainable diversion limits (SDLs) in three areas – the Barwon-Darling watercourse, the Upper Macquarie alluvium and the Lower Murrumbidgee deep groundwater catchments.



The state claimed there was a “reasonable excuse” for exceeding the limits, and that it was adhering to its draft water resource plans for all three.



The MDBA accepted that as a reasonable and valid explanation for two of the areas, but not for the Barwon Darling.



The MDBA found that NSW did not operate in a manner fully consistent with the submitted water resource plan in the 2019–20 water year for the Barwon–Darling,” the report said.



All other states were found to be compliant.



The NSW independent MP Justin Field said this was another black mark against the NSW Nationals on water management.



Communities will be furious that water management has been non-compliant over a period which included the end of the worst drought on record and the first flush event. To have extractions exceeding limits over such a critical period raises serious questions about who benefited from the failures to properly implement water sharing rules.



These findings make it all the more important that downstream targets to protect the environment and communities are included as part of any floodplain harvesting licensing regulations in the Northern Basin, including in the Barwon-Darling.”



Read the full article here.



On 5 August 2021 the Australian Government's Office of the Inspector-General of Water Compliance (IGWC) became operational. Responsibility for enforcing compliance with the Basin Plan now resides with the IGWC.


Image:IGWC

The IGWC is described as an independent regulator and its Interim Inspector-General of Water Compliance is former NSW Police officer & former NSW Nationals Member for Dubbo from 2011-2019, Troy Grant (left).


As NSW Police Minister Mr. Grant did not always obey the road rules and in his two year and one month stint as NSW Deputy Premier he failed to impress. Between April 2011 and  2019 Grant was a minister nine times over - with three tenues lasting less than six months.



In 2019 he did not re-contest his seat at the state election and in 2020 he resigned from the National Party of Australia.



His appointment as Interim Inspector-General was not universally approved when announced in 2020:


 They’re not even pretending anymore,” Nature Conservation Council Chief Executive Chris Gambian said.

Troy Grant was in charge when some of the worst policy decisions that favour big irrigators at the expense of communities, farmers and nature downstream.

Fresh from stinging criticism from ICAC about water management in NSW, the federal government has appointed the fox to be in charge of the hen house.


Wednesday, 14 July 2021

Pathetically low fines for non-compliance with rules enforced by the Natural Resources Access Regulator (NRAR) leaves Murray-Darling Basin irrigators in NSW laughing all the way to the bank with those dollars earned from what is essentially water theft

 

https://www.mdba.gov.au/importance-murray-darling-basin/where-basin

The State of New South Wales is currently not in drought. However, its rivers often have highly variable water flows so it was not surprising to find the morning of Tuesday 13 July 2021 revealing that WaterNSW State Overview real time data record showed that 14 of the state's rivers were flowing at less than 20%. While 15 of the state's principal dams registered volume levels at between 31.4% and 95.9% of capacity, with another 3 registering over 100% of recommended capacity.


Some of those rivers and dams fall within Murray Darling Basin boundaries.


Apparently - even in time of relative water plenty - healthy rivers, environmental water flows and intergenerational equity are not part of the business plan for many of the irrigators growing cotton, almonds, rice, fruit, vegetables, grape vines and other food & pasture crops - how else does one explain this?


The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 July 2021:


Nearly half of the biggest irrigators in NSW have made no effort to install meters that comply with new water laws more than six months after they became mandatory, an audit has found.


The NSW Natural Resources Access Regulator found that 45 per cent of large pumps that draw from rivers and creeks were not using compliant meters to measure how much water was taken, contrary to new laws designed to prevent water theft.


Only 23 per cent were fully compliant with a further third on their way to compliance based on evidence provided by way of invoices, product orders and emails confirming validation appointments.


NRAR’s chief regulatory officer Grant Barnes said there had been “a positive shift” in compliance rates since its desktop audit in April, which found two-thirds of irrigators were non-compliant, but there was still more work to be done with those water users who had neither installed the meters nor made an effort to do so.


For us, this is about ensuring those water users who have done the right thing and have complied with the regulations get a fair go, and so these results will be disappointing to those people,” Mr Barnes said. “[Compliance] is also important to those who recognise the importance of a social licence for irrigators.”


Individuals who have shown no effort to comply face fines of up to $750 and irrigation companies face $1500 fines.


The pumps in question here are gigantic, half-meter diameter straws that have the capacity to suck the lifeblood out of our rivers.”

Independent MP Justin Field


The meters were a central recommendation from the 2017 Murray Darling Basin Compliance Review, which found irrigator compliance in NSW and Queensland was “bedevilled by patchy metering, the challenges of measuring unmetered take and the lack of real-time, accurate water accounts”…...


Read the full article here.


Sunday, 15 November 2020

NSW Forests War: State of Play November 2020


NSW Greens and a NSW Independent in the state parliament upper house placing the concerns of many ordinary people in regional New South Wales on the record.


Legislative Council Notice Paper No. 67—Thursday 12 November 2020, excerpt:


163. Remapping of old-growth and high-conservation-value public forests: resumption of the adjourned debate (8 August 2019) of the question on the motion of Mr Field:


(1) That this House notes that:


(a) the Government is planning to allow logging in thousands of hectares of old-growth and high-conservation-value public forests on the North Coast that have been off limits for decades,


(b) these forests are rare and important ecosystems which provide irreplaceable habitat for many threatened species, such as koalas, gliders, quolls, frogs and owls,


(c) they have been protected as part of the nationally agreed reserve system for decades and have been granted state significant heritage protection for their historical significance, including to Aboriginal people, aesthetic significance, research potential, rarity and valuable habitat,


(d) this process is being driven by a desire to access more timber, based on a Forestry Corporation calculation that new rules under the Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals (CIFOA) to protect koala habitat and threatened ecological communities could result in a small timber supply shortfall of up to 8,600 cubic metres per year,


(e) despite advice from the Natural Resources Commission (NRC) that this wood supply shortfall “represent[s] the worst case scenario and may never be realised”, the Premier requested the NRC consider remapping old growth forests and rainforests to meet this shortfall,


(f) a pilot study of 13 areas of state forest found that remapping could open up 78 per cent of protected old growth forest to logging, despite all sites having vitally important habitat,


(g) the Government has committed over $2 million to this remapping process, despite this cost far outweighing the $1.5 million value of buying back the contracts for the maximum claimed timber shortfall,


(h) the funding is being provided by the Government despite the NRC recommending that any remapping and rezoning should be paid for by Forestry Corporation as the beneficiary, and


(i) remapping on private land has already opened up over 29,000 hectares of previously protected old growth forests to logging in recent years.


(2) That this House agrees that remapping old growth forests:


(a) breaks the Government’s commitment to no erosion of environmental values under the new CIFOA,


(b) is based on timber supply impacts that are not verified and probably do not exist, and


(c) is a subsidy to logging which exceeds the value of the extra wood supply.


(3) That this House call on the Government to:


(a) end the remapping and rezoning of old-growth and rainforest on public and private land,


(b) ensure no areas of forest currently protected will be opened up to logging, and


(c) conserve native forests to protect biodiversity, store carbon and provide new tourism and recreational opportunities—Mrs Maclaren-Jones. (15 minutes)


Debate: 1 hour and 45 minutes remaining.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


749. Ms Faehrmann to move—


(1) That this House notes that:


(a) the National Party has threatened to blow up the government in the midst of bushfire recovery, the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis over the new Koala State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) that aims to strengthen protections for koala habitat,


(b) the new Koala SEPP will have little impact on the majority of farmers across the state as it is only triggered at the point of development consent, and


(c) since the 2011 state election the NSW National Party has had ministerial responsibility for water, agriculture and regional New South Wales which has resulted in:


(i) a dramatic increase in the clearing of native vegetation and threatened species habitat with the winding back of native vegetation laws,


(ii) increased logging of koala habitat after the 2019-2020 bushfire season which saw 24 per cent of koala habitat on public land severely impacted and up to 81 per cent of koala habitat burnt in some parts of the state,


(iii) the gross mismanagement of the Murray Darling Basin including selling out downstream communities on the Lower Darling by over-allocating water to their corporate irrigator donors turning a blind eye to ongoing water theft in the Northern Basin including and pushing the Barwon-Darling River system into hydrological drought three years early,


(iv) incompetent management of regional town water supplies that saw multiple regional centres coming close to day zero, in some cases having to rely on bottled water, over the summer of 2019-2020.


(2) That this House acknowledges that the NSW National Party cannot be trusted to manage our land, water and environment and calls on the Government to strip them of their portfolio responsibilities and end their coalition agreement.


(Notice given 15 September 2020—expires Notice Paper No. 73)


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


BACKGROUND


The O’Farrell Coalition Government corporatized state-owned Forests NSW on 1 January 2013 and renamed the organisation Forestry Corporation of NSW. The company is headquartered at West Pennant Hills in metropolitan Sydney, New South Wales.


It is one of the largest forestry companies in Australia today and produces around 14 per cent of the timber harvested in Australia.


This corporation manages est. 2 million hectares of state forests, along with around 200,000 hectares of softwood plantations and 35,000 hectares of eucalypt plantations.


Est. 30,00 hectares of state forest are harvested for timber each year by more than 100 contractors who undertake harvesting and haulage and other aspects of its operations on behalf of the Forestry Corporation.


The combined take from state forests and plantations is around 50 million tonnes of timber annually.


Nominally all individuals and groups in the state are considered potential stakeholders in the Forestry Corporation of NSW. Except that all regional residents get for being stakeholders is an ongoing loss of both wildlife habitat and forest trees in the districts in which the Corporation operates.


The Corporation’s native timber harvesting is focussed on north east NSW and it is looking to forestry plans on private land and logging in currently protected forest areas to supply it with native timber into the future.


In October 2020 the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) commenced five prosecutions against Forestry Corporation of NSW in the Land and Environment Court for allegedly felling trees in protected areas in northern NSW, including trees in core koala habitat in Wild Cattle Creek State Forest.


This is not the first time the Forestry Corporation has been caught allegedly breaching the terms of its licence and I suspect it will not be the last.


Commercial logging is not the only issue of concern. So is land clearing generally.


According to the NSW Valuer-General’s Office, on 1 July 2019 there were 2,603,793 individual property lots in New South Wales.


Of these 238,842 are private properties zoned rural and classified as either non-urban, primary production, rural landscape or rural small holdings.


The NSW North Coast contains 56,095 or 23.4% of all these private rural property lots, the North-West contains 14,143 lots, Northern Tablelands 11,864, Murray 10,353, Hunter 15,950, Hunter Coast 6,357, Central West 20,688, Central Tablelands 18,972, Riverina 17,924, South Coast 18,974, South East Regional 20,164, Sydney Central 3, Sydney Coast South 11, and Sydney Coast North 1,208. 


Currently owners of those private rural properties which are situated near bushland in 10/50 Entitlement Clearing Areas have an almost unfettered right to clear trees within 10 metres of their house and farm sheds, as well as underlying vegetation under trees for a further 50 metres, as a bushfire protection measure.


However, in addition to this proven effective bushfire measure, now the Berejiklian Government is also progressing another amendment introduced to the Legislative Assembly on 10 November 2020 - this time an amendment to the Rural Fires Act 1979 titled Bushfires Legislation Amendment Bill 2020.


This amendment if passed will allow the owners of all 238,842 of these private rural properties in New South Wales to clear trees and vegetation within 25 metres of a property’s boundary with adjoining land and, lays down processes so that these landowners can ensure their immediate neighbours do the same - thus making the land clearance in effect 50 metres wide.


A specific measure that does not appear to be included in recommendations found in the Final Report of the NSW Bushfire Inquiry dated 31 July 2020.


A potential 50 metre open space on all four sides of up to 56,095 private rural properties on the NSW North Coast from the Mid-Coast to the Queensland border represents a significant tree cover and habitat loss.


Of course after 232 years of land clearing this degree of native vegetation clearing is no longer required on a great many properties because barely a tree stand survives in some districts.


This is an aerial view of a section of the Moree Plains showing its typical landscape in 2020:




According to the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, by mid 2018 bulldozing of bushland nearly tripled around Moree and Collarenebri after safeguards which existed in Native Vegetation Act 2003 were repealed by the NSW Baird Coalition Government, with 5,246 ha of Koala habitat destroyed at a rate of 14 ha per day in 2017-18.


Moree has a history of opposition to any checks on the ability to clear land. In 2014 this sadly led to the killing of an Office of Environment and Heritage compliance officer and the later conviction of a prominent landowner for murder with a sentence of 35 years imprisonment.


The Guardian, 27 March 2020:


Land-clearing approvals in New South Wales have increased nearly 13-fold since the Coalition government relaxed laws in 2016, according to a secret report to the state cabinet by its Natural Resources Commission.


The report, marked “Cabinet in Confidence”, was commissioned by the government in January 2019 under an agreement between the Liberals and Nationals to review land clearing if applications exceeded 20,000ha a year. The commission handed it to the government in July, but released it only after the Independent MP Justin Field threatened legal action…..


The commission found more than 37,000ha were approved to be cleared last financial year, almost 13 times greater than the annual average rate across the decade to 2016-17. Approvals jumped more than 70% after the rules covering land clearing changed at the start of 2019, rising from 25,247ha in the final quarter of 2018 to 43,553ha in the first three months of the new year. 


The commission found the extent of the land clearing and what is described as “thinning for pasture expansion” was putting the state’s biodiversity at risk. The government had promised to protect between two and four times as much land as it cleared, but had failed to do that in the majority of the state. 


It also highlighted the lack of an effective monitoring and compliance regime to ensure laws were enforced. In a six-month stretch between August 2017 and January 2018 there was 7,100ha of unexplained land clearing. It was 60% of the clearing in that time.... 


The Nature Conservation Council of NSW said the report showed the National party was incompetent. Its chief executive, Chris Gambian, said it was a damning assessment of how the government had handled what was supposed to be a signature reform. 


“This report is alarming because land clearing is a key threat pushing most of the state’s threatened species towards extinction,” he said. 


“Koalas and other vulnerable species are being smashed from every direction, by bushfires, drought, logging and land clearing. Land clearing is one of the few threats we can tackle directly, but the National party is preventing this government from doing what is needed.” 


Gambian called on the government to release regulatory maps that were still not available two years after promised.....