NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into Electricity Transactions begins today

Special Commission of Inquiry Electricity Transactions

The Honourable Brian Tamberlin QC has been appointed as Special Commissioner to inquire into and report on all matters relating to the electricity transactions (occurring both
before and after entering into those transactions), including:

1. Compliance with applicable laws, policies and practices;
2. The circumstances surrounding the resignation and appointment of directors of Eraring Energy and Delta Electricity in December 2010;
3. The value for money achieved for the State compared to the retention value of the assets to the State; and
4. The costs and benefits to the State of the electricity transactions, including potential risks and liabilities and the extent to which the transactions can deliver the stated objectives for entering into them; and
5. Any other related matters.

Further, the Commissioner is to inquire into and report on options for future action that could be undertaken to further the public interest in a competitive NSW electricity sector, including options to:

6. Address any issues identified in relation to the electricity transactions; and
7. Promote competitive electricity prices and ensure reliability of supply.

"Electricity transactions" refers to:

A. The sale of the State-owned electricity retailers (EnergyAustralia, Integral Energy and Country Energy) by the NSW Government in 2010/11;
B. The sale of the electricity trading rights of the State-owned generators (Eraring Energy and Delta West) by the NSW Government in 2010/11;
C. The Cobbora coal mine development;
D. The sale of the development sites suitable for power generation by the NSW Government, including at Marulan and Mt Piper in 2010/11; and
E. The proposed sale of the electricity trading rights of State-owned generators (Macquarie Generation and Delta Coastal) that was not completed by the NSW Government.

The Commissioner is due to provide an initial report on or before 31 August 2011 and a final report on or before 31 October 2011.

In order to ensure that all relevant information is obtained, the Commissioner has been given the special powers under sections 22, 23 and 24 of the Special Commissions of Inquiry Act 1983 (NSW).

An initial public sitting of the Inquiry will take place at 10.00 am on 23 May 2011 in Court 8A, Level 8, John Maddison Tower, 86-90 Goulburn Street, Sydney.

On that occasion, the process to be followed by the Commission will be outlined, including the means by which the Commission will inform itself in relation to the terms of reference.

Submissions to the Inquiry should be in writing and lodged with the Inquiry by 4 pm 17 June 2011.

Submissions must comply with the Directions for Written Submissions which can be obtained by contacting Brad James, Executive Officer of the Inquiry at email address msciet@agd.nsw.gov.au

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Individuals or organisations who believe they are substantially and directly interested in any subject matter of the Inquiry are invited to contact Clare Miller, Solicitor to the Inquiry, in writing at the address below in order to inform the Inquiry of their interest, and the extent of assistance which they can provide to the Inquiry.

Any person who has information and material which is relevant to the Inquiry is invited to provide it directly to Brad James, Executive Officer, at the address specified below.

Any person wishing to contact the Inquiry may do so at the address below.
Special Commission of Inquiry
Electricity Transactions
PO Box A1150 SYDNEY SOUTH 1235
Phone: 9377 5502
E-mail: sciet@agd.nsw.gov.au

Perhaps Clarence MP should change his sources

The gauntlet has been thrown down in the direction of Steve Cansdell, the Member for Clarence.

Last week Cansdell was reported to have said, "As I'm told, the magistrate said these guys dodged a bullet."
(The Daily Examiner, 17/5/11)

Cansdell made that remark when he said he wasn't surprised that charges against juveniles who were alleged to have participated in the Yamba "riot" were dropped after the adults charged were found not guilty.

Solicitor Mark Spagnolo, who advised barristers representing two acquitted adults and three acquitted juveniles charged over their part in the incident, said Mr Cansdell’s comments were ill-informed and relied on hearsay. (The Daily Examiner, 23/5/11)

Mr Spagnolo said comments made by Mr Cansdell in the story about the youths’ riot charges dropped (The Daily Examiner, May 17), that he was told the magistrate said the accused dodged a bullet, were completely false.

“The statement made by Mr Cansdell was not said by the magistrate at any time,” he said

“Mr Cansdell should check the facts before making inflammatory comments as they do not assist the community.”

NCV has been very reliably informed that a reading of the trial's transcript will show it was the police prosecutor who said something about "escaping a bullet" and it was made in relation to one (singular) of the defendants, not the group collectively.

Sources: The Daily Examiner, 17/5/11 and 23/5/11

Abbott tries to calculate a carbon price on goods produced by a church-owned health food company

Here’s Tones in crusading mode last week as he began his latest media blitz against a national price on carbon pollution:
“This carbon tax is going to be so toxic because it's going to make the price of manufacturing everything here in Australia much, much higher,” Abbott told the Herald Sun at the NSW Sanitarium Health Foods factory, which makes the popular Weet-Bix breakfast cereal.”
Oooh, aah, we won’t be able to afford our hot weeties on a cold winter morning if the dastardly Gillard gets her way!
Hold on – isn’t there a small problem with this scenario? Not only is the manufacture of health foods, spreads, snacks and breakfast cereals not listed among the highest polluting industries in Oz, but the Australian Health & Nutrition Association Ltd (trading as Sanitarium) is owned by the very conservative Seventh Day Adventist Church, a charitable institution operating on Christian based principles.
Which is really a polite code signifying that its profits are protected in large measure (eg. Income Tax exemption, GST concession, FBT rebate) and under the new rules proposed by the Federal Government loss of tax exemption status will not apply to its existing commercial activities for some years to come.
So if anyone could absorb the probably low flow-on costs from a so-called carbon tax introduced in 2012-13 it would surely be this church-run business.
In fact the only price rises Sanitarium itself is foreshadowing are due to rising global commodity prices (including cereal grain prices) which affect its supply of raw materials. Something I'm sure they quietly told Tones. Along with the fact that the industry peak body to which it belongs told the Gillard Government in early 2011 that it agreed with a carbon pricing mechanism:
"AFGC is of the view that it is not a question of whether Australia should become more energy efficient and reduce emissions, but by how much, by what means and at what cost to the economy.
The most critical response to climate change is a globally consistent approach, including a common price signal for all greenhouse gas emissions. In this global context, Australia should develop a strategic national approach to emissions reduction and carbon pricing policy measures".

Every child is the responsibility of everybody says former magistrate

FORMER children’s court magistrate Barbara Holborow has implored communities to play a greater role in the lives of young people.

Ms Holborow was critical of a decision to make all new magistrates take a turn on the children’s court bench, where they were once hand picked for the job. ‘‘When you get on the children’s court bench you need to be able to speak to children, to relate to children, to understand children and for them to be able to relate to you,’’ she said. ‘‘That’s not happening now [and] it’s a tragedy.’
Ms Holborow said it was always her desire to hear what children had to say. She recalled the case of a young boy whose grandmother lived at Cronulla.
‘‘I had a little four-year-old boy come before me. His solicitor said he wished to speak to me ... [so] we went into my chambers,’’ she said, recalling the moment he sought protection from his mother’s boyfriend.
‘‘He said ‘I want to stop him from making my nose bleed’. I promised him, ‘If he makes your nose bleed again he will go to jail’. [Then] he said, ‘I want you to stop him from making mum’s nose bleed’.
‘‘That is when I got really angry.
‘‘Where was this mother when her son’s nose was bleeding? Where was he when her nose was bleeding; letting him witness that violence?’’
With the mother pregnant to her boyfriend and reluctant to leave, Ms Holborow was back in the courtroom when the child’s grandmother said she would take custody of him so he could still see his mum every day but would be safe.
‘‘I did not see [him] again which probably means everything worked out,’’ she said.

BARBARA'S VIEWS:
On ageing
‘‘A few years ago I fell and broke [my] left femur in 10 places. When I came out of rehab I was on a walking stick. People think you are deaf. Then I got a walker. Now they think I have lost all my marbles.’’
On children today
‘‘Children have become monosyllabic and I blame computers. I ring my grandchildren ... and they answer [questions] with one word. It’s like pulling teeth. I want to throw every computer away. I really think we need to keep conversing with children.’’
On keeping children in school until they are 17
‘‘There are kids that should be leaving school at 14 and 15 and put in a trade because they are not academic. They will never be academic, even though their mothers and fathers and our PM want them to be. Give them something that they feel good about themselves rather than force an education on them.’’
On curfews
‘‘I would like to see 12, 13, 14, 15-years-olds with a curfew. And if they are out I would like to see them taken to the police station and mum and dad phoned to collect them. Parents have to take responsibility for their own children. Be parents for goodness sakes and stop trying to be their best friend. Kids will have a lot of best friends. Be their mother or their father and be their strength.’’

Read the full story here

Source: St George & Sutherland Shire Leader

So the Gillard Government's response to keeping the Murray-Darling Basin river systems alive is going to be a purely political one after all?

In The Age on 21 May 2011 it was reported in Key scientists cast doubt on Murray water return that:

LEADING scientists have walked away from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority because of serious concerns over changes being made to the volume of water to be returned to the river.
The Wentworth Group of scientists were advising the authority but have called on it to hold an independent review of the science that determined the volume of water to be returned to the river system after hearing that the proposed amount is now 2800 gigalitres.
The original draft plan found that 3856 gigalitres would be a minimum volume of water that would need to be acquired from the 11,500 gigalitres of irrigators' entitlements to maintain the river……
The group did not attend a two-day science forum on the project on the basis that it did not believe the science being discussed was independent. It was there that the executives revealed the authority was going to draft a plan that recommended returning just 2800 gigalitres.

One has to suspect this wide divergence, from those rather conservative science-based recommendations found in the original Guide to the proposed Basin Plan (produced by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority), has a political basis and one doesn’t have far to look for the former state politician and lobbyist a beleaguered Gillard Government placed in a position to recommend this short-sighted, piecemeal ‘fix’ once Tony Abbott et al had stirred up a high level of rural hysteria against the government of the day.

A fix, I might add, which will continue to leave NSW east coast rivers exposed to the possibility that continuing problems with Basin water security will see one or more of these coastal rivers dammed and diverted to meet the unrealistic expectations of Basin communities, agriculture and industry.

Excerpt from transcript of evidence given before the House Standing Committee on Regional Australia’s Inquiry into the impact of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in Regional Australia on 25 March 2011 by Mr. Craig Knowles, Chair, Murray-Darling Basin Authority:

Mr Knowles—Thanks, Tony, and thank you to the members of the committee. I apologise right at the outset for not being able to be with you, but as I suspect you know I am on a fairly extensive move around the basin over the last few weeks and for the next couple of weeks. I am more than happy to catch up again in the future, if that is what you would like to do. I think I should put on the record right at the outset my position as I have explained to people as I go around the basin in relation to the guide and all of the problems that arose out of it.
Whatever failures individuals might think it had, my principal concern was that it showed very little respect to people and their efforts, both historically and indeed their desire to be involved in matters that are obviously very dear to them when it comes to water management. That is why I have said, frankly, that I do not have a high degree of ownership of it and I would like to think that, symbolically, my appointment offers the hope of a fresh start and an opportunity to reengage with communities and incorporate their wisdom and their desires, as best as they possibly can be, into the work that I will do with the authority over the next little while.
I talk about also the need to better acknowledge history of effort in things that relate to water savings, whether they are various state programs or some of the Commonwealth programs historically. The work that has been done by many of us over many years seemed to be absent from the guide and from the dialogue with communities. I think probably your committee, Tony, is hearing the same things that I hear as I get around the basin and that quite clearly is, ‘Not only do we want to be heard but we want some of the things we’ve done historically taken into account, because we believe that we have made a contribution to this concept of a healthy working basin. We believe if we are farmers that we respect and understand the need for good environmental health of our landscapes and our riverscapes and to be put in a position where we have to defend that knowledge and that history is what rankles a lot.’
Equally, I liken the basin guide to a bit of a blunt instrument. It certainly created the impression, whether it was intended or not, that whatever number you picked it was a big cut all happening on one day and that clearly is not the case. First of all, whatever the number is, the thing I am trying to pursue at the moment is how much have we already done and what is left to do and how much time do we have to do it, because it certainly will not all happen on one day and it certainly will not happen with things like water cuts or buybacks alone. There will be any number of Commonwealth and state programs in infrastructure and the activities of the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder and the state water holders and all those sorts of things which will make up a more complete set of initiatives over time to achieve the desired concept of a healthy working basin.
With that in mind, I have been talking to stakeholders about how we go about engaging them again, hoping to re-establish relationships where they have been fractured, and that includes also the Commonwealth and state agencies. I am talking about SEWPaC in particular, but of course the state agencies who play a vital role in all of this. In the end, in terms of implementation, they have had well in excess of 100-odd years of doing this and have enormous resources and skills that need to be incorporated.
But the most fundamental thing I talk to people about and I hear back in my journeys around the basin—and, I suspect, nothing different to what your committee has heard, Tony—is the need for much higher levels of localism in the implementation and, indeed, the engagement of the processes to make this work in a far more fine-grained sense in the recognition that what might work in one place almost certainly will not work in another because catchments are different, hydrologies and geologies are different and we have to respect all of that and have structures in place that both encourage localism as best we can and make sure that that fits into the overarching strategic directions.
There are many models for localism. At this stage I have refrained from putting my own views about what localism might look like, but I have certainly been throwing the imagery out there, encouraging individual groups and states and territories to consider what localism might look like to them. I do not think it will be a one-size-fits-all approach, but certainly if I could encourage your committee to consider anything. It is again how you go about devolving as best as is possible opportunity, responsibility, capability and resources, of course with all the necessary accountabilities, to ensure that we go about not having this as my plan or the authority’s plan or the Commonwealth’s plan or the states’ plan, but that people have a far greater degree of ownership in it; so the better alignment of all those Commonwealth and state programs imbued with anything I might do, the concept of a healthy working basin, and creating an opportunity for people to actually genuinely be involved.
You would have all seen, I am sure, as I have after many years away from water policy, the quite excellent efforts of local communities in managing both water for consumption and production and for environmental management. Very frequently local communities are filled with people with diametrically opposed interests but, because they all know each other, they tend to turn up at each other’s cricket matches on Saturdays and things like that, they can sort it out far better than the sort of totemic arguments that take place with the peak groups and lobby groups, as important as they are. But in the end this is about making sure things happen in local settings, recognising local constraints and local needs, and I would obviously seek to impress upon the committee the strong view that I have that this is an important feature of anything we might do going forward. I will stop there because I am conscious that there will be many questions. Thank you for the opportunity.
CHAIR—Thanks, Craig. We are hearing similar messages and obviously if we had our ears open we would all be hearing similar messages. The localism issues, the local solutions, as we have moved through a number of the subcatchments, when you do engage with people they do come up with various scenarios.
Mr Knowles—Yes. Tony, it sort of reinforces that concept that there just cannot be a one-size-fits- all approach here. It has to be valley by valley, catchment by catchment and even subcatchment by subcatchment. It does not have to be lowest common denominator stuff. In fact, a lot of the organisations and groups, catchment management authorities and so on are heavily imbued with very competent people who are more than capable of incorporating good, quality information into sensible and appropriate tailor-made approaches to managing their system, both in terms of environmental imperatives and environmental health, as well as strong productive capacity.
Mr Knowles—Do you mind if I call you Sharman?
Dr STONE—Please do.
Mr Knowles—Sharman, I have been asked this. I have a number of components to my response, so I will try and be as brief as I can. First of all, importantly, I am comfortable that I have enough room and scope within the act for me to proceed in the way I wish to and I think my public position about not being able to separate or provide precedence to one of the triple bottom line objectives is well recorded. I just cannot conceivably understand how you could not have the balance of environmental, social and economic objectives, and that is the way I wish to work.
I say that for a couple of reasons. One is that the legal advice that has been tabled is highly consistent with anything else I have seen. I think I can assert reasonably that I have done a considerable amount if not a large amount of my own environmental legislating over the years, in forestry, catchment management, native vegetation and water, and I have had all of those various—Ramsar and JAMBA and CAMBA—agreements to wrestle with, and there is no difference with this Water Act.
Importantly, my point that I do make to people is that in many ways it is really not my problem. The parliament, and your work, and indeed the Senate inquiry that Senator Joyce has got up and running, is the place for this conversation, particularly the specific references of the Senate inquiry. Parliaments make the laws. Parliaments change the laws. If there is a view that it needs to be amended, I think the inquiry should work that out, but in the meantime I think somebody has got to get on with the job.
The reason I say that is that I too hear—as you have heard in the evidence you have received from some of those interest groups—the commentary about the act, but it does tend to be limited to the peak lobby groups, the professional lobbyists and indeed—with no disrespect; I was one once myself—the politicians out there on the ground. I rarely hear it raised with me unless those peak groups are with me on the road, and they have been over the last few weeks. Importantly, most people just say to me, ‘Would you please get on with this.’ They are less interested in the lawyers’ picnic that surrounds these arguments, they are more interested in somebody getting on with it, and I think the prospects of success are getting on with it and working on those objectives that I have outlined in as balanced a fashion as I possibly can.

Onya, Bob!

Murdoch
Granny Herald on 20th May 2011 reported Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown letting fly:
"Of News Limited and its coverage, Brown said yesterday what many government people say privately - but won't say with a recording device under their mouths lest they offend a powerful someone in New York or Sydney.

Brown

"It's not balanced. It is opinionated. It's not news. It's not what you would read in other countries around the world," was the pitiless Brown verdict. "I think the Murdoch media is doing a great disservice to this nation."
Needless to say, Granny isn't in the Murdoch stable.

Then on the other side of the world Al Gore via The Guardian joined in with:
"News Corporation is an international conglomerate with an ideological agenda. It seeks political power in every nation they operate. They wield that power to shut down voices that disagree with the agenda of Rupert Murdoch,"
Again, not a Murdoch publication doing the reporting.

Sometimes the young make my heart sing - Part Two

http://youtu.be/LiYZxOlCN10