Wangan Jagalingou Traditional Owners: "we've seen the end of the world and we've decided not to accept it"

Resisting Adani

https://youtu.be/xIN8b1MAwvs

And the shadowy foreign corporations they are fighting……

ABC News, 14 March 2017:

Up to $3 billion from Adani's planned Carmichael coal mine will be shifted to a subsidiary owned in the Cayman Islands if the controversial project goes ahead, an analysis of company filings shows.

An "overarching royalty deed" gives a shell company rights to receive a $2-a-tonne payment, rising yearly by the inflation rate, beyond the first 400,000 tonnes mined in each production year for two decades.

The company with this entitlement is ultimately owned by Atulya Resources Limited, a secretive entity registered in the Cayman Islands, and controlled by the Adani family.

"In plain English, the upshot for the Adani family is [that] if the mine goes ahead, they receive a $2-a-tonne payment, so up to $3 billion, via a Cayman Islands company, a company owned in a tax haven," says Adam Walters, principal researcher and Energy Resource Insights.

With a production capacity of 60 million tonnes or more a year, that amounts to about $120 million per annum in payments, increasing each year in line with the CPI, potentially flowing offshore.

"I would describe it as a structure that means that the Adani family enriches themselves if the mine goes ahead but that other shareholders are impoverished," associate professor Thomas Clarke, director of the Centre for Corporate Governance at UTS told the ABC.

"The worry is that this may be just the beginning.

"That the Adani family have the ability to shift cash and assets around at will and in the future they may well do so at the cost of shareholders and the Queensland economy."

He said the billions flowing to the Adani private company would come at the expense of minority shareholders in the company listed on the Bombay stock exchange which ultimately owns the Carmichael mine.

How Adani acquired the right to this multi-billion-dollar revenue stream is a tale in itself.

In 2010, Adani Mining Pty Ltd bought the coal tenement that is set to become the Carmichael mine from the now defunct Linc Energy.

Part of the sale involved Adani Mining giving Linc Energy an "overriding royalty deed" which entitled it to receive $2-a-tonne for all coal mined beyond the first 400,000 tonnes in any production year.

Linc Energy informed investors at the time could be worth "over $120 million per annum" and up to $3 billion over the course of the royalty right.

But in August 2014, in dire financial straits, Linc Energy agreed to sell the royalty deed back to Adani at a fire sale price: just $150 million.

The obvious course would have been to extinguish the royalty deed, because it represented a multi-billion-dollar liability for the mine which is ultimately owned by Adani Enterprises Ltd, the Bombay-stock exchange listed company.

Instead, the royalty deed "was assigned by Linc Energy Limited to Carmichael Rail Network Pty Ltd as trustee for Carmichael Rail Network Trust," notes in financial reports of Adani Mining Pty Ltd say.

Carmichael Rail Network is one of a group of companies behind the proposed North Galilee Basin rail line, which Adani is currently seeking a subsidised loan of up to $1 billion from the Federal Government's Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility to build.

"What this means is that one of the companies currently seeking up to $1 billion in public subsidy is going to profit to the tune of up to $3 billion if the mine goes ahead," Mr Walters said…..

Climate change, farming, food & families in Australia

“The price, quality and seasonality of Australia’s food is increasingly being affected by climate change with Australia’s future food security under threat….

Australia’s food supply chain is highly exposed to disruption from increasing extreme weather events driven by climate change, with farmers already struggling to cope with more frequent and intense droughts and changing weather patterns.” [Climate Council, October 2015]

It used to be said of Australian families that generally they were only one generation away from the farm and it used to be noted that in the suburbs spreading out from major metropolitan areas in the 1950s and 60s these families lived in relatively small houses on quarter acre lots.

Families then were still close enough to the means of food production to understand the importance of both climate and weather and often supplemented the family diet with chooks in the backyard, along with a couple of fruit trees and a vegie patch. In outer metropolitan and regional areas there was often a rain water tank attached to the house long after town water became available.

Go look in your back yard now. What do you see?

Then have a think about this…….

Climate Council, Feeding a Hungry Nation: Climate change, food and farming in Australia, October 2015 report:

Australia is one of only a handful of countries that produces more food than it consumes and most Australians have access to an abundant and safe food supply. But Australia is also considered one of the most vulnerable developed countries in the world to impacts of the changing climate. Rising temperatures, increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, and declining water availability in some of our most important agricultural regions pose significant risks for the nature, distribution, quality, and affordability of our food supply. At the same time, the Australian and global population continues to grow, competition for arable land continues to intensify, and our natural resource base continues to degrade, placing ever-increasing demands on food production systems.

Up to 70% of Australia’s wine-growing regions with a Mediterranean climate (including iconic areas like the Barossa Valley and Margaret River) will be less suitable for grape growing by 2050. Higher temperatures will continue to cause earlier ripening and reduced grape quality, as well as encourage expansion to new areas, including some regions of Tasmania.

Many foods produced by plants growing at elevated CO2 have reduced protein and mineral concentrations, reducing their nutritional value…..

Australia is projected to be one of the most adversely affected regions from future changes in climate in terms of reductions in agricultural production and exports.

Climate impacts on agricultural production in other countries will affect our competitiveness, especially if warmer and wetter conditions elsewhere boost production of key products such as beef and lamb.

This report noted:

Ø    Harsher climate conditions will increase use of more heat-tolerant breeds in beef production, some of which have lower meat quality and reproductive rates.

Ø    Heat stress reduces milk yield by 10-25% and up to 40% in extreme heatwave conditions.

Ø    The yields of many important crop species such as wheat, rice and maize are reduced at temperatures more than 30°C.

Ø   Climate change is increasing the variability of crop yields.

Ø    Food prices during the 2005- 2007 drought increased at twice the rate of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) with fresh fruit and vegetables the worst hit, increasing 43% and 33% respectively.

Ø   Cyclone Larry destroyed 90% of the North Queensland banana crop in 2006, affecting supply for nine months and increasing prices by 500%.

Ø   The 2009 heatwave in Victoria decimated fruit crops, with significant production losses of berry and other fruit crops.

Ø   There is typically less than 30 days supply of non-perishable food and less than five days supply of perishable food in the supply chain at any one time. Households generally hold only about a 3-5 day supply of food. Such low reserves are vulnerable to natural disasters and disruption to transport from extreme weather.

Ø    During the 2011 Queensland floods, several towns such as Rockhampton were cut off for up to two weeks, preventing food resupply. Brisbane came within a day of running out of bread.

Perhaps it’s time to pick up the phone and call your local state and federal members of parliament to ask them what they and their political party are actually doing - by way of implemented policies and/or legislation - to protect your family’s food and water security now that climate change is a fact of life.

* The Climate Council is an independent non-profit organisation funded by donations by the public. 

Are there plans afoot to sell off part or all of the Snowy Mountains Scheme?

Snowy Hydro Ltd states on its website that:

The Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority was corporatised on 28 June 2002 under the Snowy Hydro Corporatisation Act 1997 to establish Snowy Hydro Limited. The Snowy Hydro Limited Constitution (Constitution) prescribes the responsibilities of the Board and Snowy Hydro’s reporting obligations, subject to the Corporations Act (Cth) 2001. Snowy Hydro’s shareholders are the New South Wales (58 per cent), Victorian (29 per cent) and Commonwealth (13 per cent) governments, with each shareholder having equal voting rights…….

Since corporatisation in 2002, Snowy Hydro has grown beyond the Snowy Scheme and now operates a growing and profitable retail energy, wholesale energy risk management and power generation business. We combine the power of the mighty Snowy Scheme with gas and diesel fired peaking generators to deliver a flexible and reliable mix of energy to our customers every day. We have 15 power stations, generate 4500 Gigawatt hours (GWh) on average per annum and have 5480 Megawatts (MW) of generating capacity across New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. We’ve become the fourth largest retailer in the NEM by investing in growing our customer base, modernising our generation infrastructure, building and acquiring more generating capacity where we need it and developing our workforce of more than 1700 employees.

Snowy Hydro controls the headwaters of the Snowy, the Murray and the Murrumbidgee rivers and its water licence allows it to collect, divert, store, and release water by and from the works of the Snowy Scheme for the 75 year term of the licence. This licence is due to expire sometime between June 2076 and June 2077.

On 19 December 2016 the Dept. of Energy and Industry called for expressions of interest in conducting a valuation of the corporation for the three owners – with the contract to commence 1 February 2017.

The tender document states in part:

The contractor is required to provide each shareholder with a “fit for purpose” certified report, detailing the valuation of Snowy Hydro Limited's (SHL's) equity at fair value as at 30 June 2017 and 30 June 2018. The report will detail the scope, methodology, procedure and outcomes as well as all relevant assumptions, definitions and limiting conditions appropriate to the procurement. The contractor will supply the three shareholders with the preliminary and final versions of the valuation report in both written and electronic format. The report is to include explanations of movements in the valuations from year to year and take into account the interest holdings of the Commonwealth, NSW and Victorian Governments. The contractor will undertake the valuation as at 30 June 2017 and 30 June 2018 as a Limited Scope Valuation Engagement….. 

On 15 March 2017 Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced Securing Australia’s Energy Future with Snowy Mountains 2.0 – a plan to boost Snowy Hydro’s power generation by 50 per cent.

This announcement mentioned $2 billion in federal government funding but in effect only commits to a feasibility study of pumped hydro expansion.

Remembering the 2006 push led by the Howard Government to sell off the Snowy Mountain Scheme as well as 2016 media reports of a possible sale, the valuation of Snowy Hydro Ltd raises questions about Turnbull’s out-of-left-field announcement.

Was it a prime ministerial thought bubble thrown in to quieten the heated debate over energy security which is currently taking place or was it a calculated ‘sweetener’ thrown in to make future sale of the corporation to institutional and foreign investors more attractive?

National Farmers' Federation calls for market-based mechanism to secure clean and affordable energy, such as an emissions intensity scheme

I’ve grown old waiting for Liberal and Nationals members of parliament to turn and squarely face the reality of global warming and climate change.

I suspect that I will be long dead before they actually do.

Once more the call went out to government………

The Guardian, 7 March 2017:

The National Farmers’ Federation has called for a market-based mechanism to secure clean and affordable energy, such as an emissions intensity scheme, joining a long list of organisations urging an end to Australia’s policy impasse.

In a submission to the Finkel review, the NFF calls for the government to reconsider its opposition to an EIS and institute a market-based mechanism by 2020 because it would be the cheapest path to low-emissions power generation.

The NFF joins many organisations calling for consideration of a market mechanism including network company Energy Networks Australia, retailer Energy Australia, electricity provider AGL, the Climate Change Authority, the Business Council of Australia and the CSIRO.

The chief scientist, Alan Finkel, has also given implicit support for an emissions intensity scheme, saying it would integrate best “with the electricity market’s pricing and risk management framework” and “had the lowest economic costs and the lowest impact on electricity prices”.

In December the energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, ruled out pursuing an EIS, pre-empting the findings of the Finkel report by taking one of the most widely supported policies to meet Paris climate targets off the table.

On Tuesday the NFF president, Fiona Simson, told ABC’s AM the current system was “broken”, citing blackouts in South Australia and poor energy reliability and affordability in the agricultural sector.

Simson said some farmers faced power bills of double or triple the rates in previous years, labelling price spikes “indefensible”.

“In agriculture it’s absolutely devastating – we have businesses that rely on secure, reliable and affordable electricity to conduct cool stores that store fruit, for example, that run their milking machines for their cows, that run irrigation pumps for their fruit and their vegetables.”

Simson said that an evidence-based policy would result in “the market sorting it out” and called for a technology neutral approach.

An emissions intensity scheme is part of Labor’s climate change policy and has been backed by the South Australian government, which the Coalition has used to revive a scare campaign about power prices despite findings that policy stability can reduce prices…..

Finkel is expected present his final report to the Council of Australian Governments by mid year.

Trump's 'Muslim Ban' Mk2 also falls at first judicial hurdle

Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Minnesota and Maryland joined with the State of Washington in seeking to restrain U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order of 6 March 2017 which revised his earlier order of  February 2017.

Along with Hawaii in separate litigation that makes seven states opposing what is colloquially known as Trump’s Muslim Ban.

AP News, 16 March 2017:

HONOLULU (AP) — Hours before it was to take effect, President Donald Trump's revised travel ban was put on hold Wednesday by a federal judge in Hawaii who questioned whether the administration was motivated by national security concerns.

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson also said Hawaii would suffer financially if the executive order blocked the flow of students and tourists to the state, and he concluded that Hawaii was likely to succeed on a claim that the ban violates First Amendment protections against religious discrimination.

"The illogic of the government's contentions is palpable," Watson wrote. "The notion that one can demonstrate animus toward any group of people only by targeting all of them at once is fundamentally flawed."…..

The judge issued his 43-page ruling less than two hours after hearing Hawaii's request for a temporary restraining order to stop the ban from being put into practice.

The ruling came as opponents renewed their legal challenges across the country, asking judges in three states to block the executive order that targets people from six predominantly Muslim countries. Federal courts in Maryland, Washington state and Hawaii heard arguments Wednesday about whether it should be allowed to take effect early Thursday as scheduled.

In all, more than half a dozen states are trying to stop the ban.

Watson made it clear that his decision applied nationwide, ruling that the ban could not be enforced at any U.S. borders or ports of entry or in the issuance of visas…..

Court transcript of the temporary restraining order granted can be found here.

Seattle Times, 15 March 2017:

A Seattle federal judge who ruled against President Donald Trump’s first immigrant travel ban has taken another challenge to the president’s revised order under advisement, this one filed by the families of immigrants that have been separated because of the policy.

U.S. District Judge James Robart remained skeptical of the government’s continued claims that the president can bar people from immigrating because of their nationality. Attorneys for the families argued that statutes governing the issuance of immigrant visas specifically prohibit such discrimination.

Robart heard nearly 90 minutes of arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit challenging the travel order filed by several legal immigrants who are separated from their families and who fear the new order will prolong that separation. Their family members all are in various stages of attempting to obtain visas to enter the U.S.

The latest travel ban was set to go into effect at midnight Wednesday. However, a federal judge in Hawaii on Wednesday put the revised travel ban on hold.

Matt Adams, the legal director for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, which is spearheading the immigrant-family lawsuit, said the Hawaii order is a godsend for his clients, who will benefit from any delay in the order’s implementation.

Still, he said they will pursue a restraining order of their own.

Robart did not say when he would rule on the suit filed by several immigrants.

Daily Mail 14 March 2017:

Immigrant advocacy groups and the ACLU are suing in Maryland. They will ask a judge there early Wednesday to issue an injunction, saying it's illegal to reduce the number of refugees in the middle of a fiscal year. The lawsuit is broader, but the ACLU expects a ruling on that part of the case even if other aspects of the ban are blocked elsewhere.

The Baltimore Sun, 16 March 2017:

The Washington Post reported that U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang issued a ruling early Thursday, using Trump's own comments against him in deciding the ban was likely unconstitutional.

The Maryland ruling marks another win for challengers of the president's executive order, which had been slated to take effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday.

Trump expressed his displeasure in a typically dishonest prepared political speech he read from two transparent autocues.

https://youtu.be/08xYkGADatE

Full speech video at https://youtu.be/z9ghcGzkpZo.

The revised text of the travel ban:

PROTECTING THE NATION FROM FOREIGN TERRORIST ENTRY INTO THE UNITED STATES 2017 by clarencegirl on Scribd

https://www.scribd.com/document/342025899/PROTECTING-THE-NATION-FROM-FOREIGN-TERRORIST-ENTRY-INTO-THE-UNITED-STATES-2017

Quote of the Month

"The general manager was an employee until late this afternoon. I believe his decision is in the best interest for the council and the Clarence Valley. It would not be appropriate for me to make further comments on his resignation."  [Clarence Valley local government councillor Karen Toms quoted in The Daily Examiner, 10 March 2017]

It can't be long now - first meme of the killing season?