ANZ Bank to use Equator Principles when looking to finance Gunn's contentious pulp mill in Tasmania

The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group will be using the Equator Principles to assess any financial involvement with Malcolm Turnbull's 'love child', the Bell Bay pulp mill in northern Tasmania.

Would-be pulp mill owner Gunn's has been a customer of the ANZ since 1995. Not nearly as long as some of the bank's Mum and Dad account holders or other corporate clients.

I'm sure that a good many investors, bank customers and potential customers will be watching this process with interest.

Any attempt to use these principles simply as a PR airbrush is likely to have the opposite result.

ANZ Current Issues page:

 http://www.anz.com/aus/About-ANZ/Corporate-Responsibility/Current-Issues.asp

 

"For a number of years, banks working in the project finance sector had been seeking ways to develop a common and coherent set of environmental and social policies and guidelines that could be applied globally and across all industry sectors. In October 2002, a small number of banks convened in London, together with the World Bank Group's International Finance Corporation (IFC), to discuss these issues. The Banks present decided jointly to try and develop a banking industry framework for addressing environmental and social risks in project financing. This led to the drafting of the first set of Equator Principles by these banks which were then launched in Washington, DC on June 4 2003. These Principles were ultimately adopted by over forty financial institutions during a three year implementation period. A subsequent updating process took place in 2006 leading to a newly revised set of Equator Principles that were released in July 2006."

The Equator Principles:

http://www.equator-principles.com/principles.shtml

Housing affordability on the NSW North Coast

It's good to see Lismore City Council adopting an innovative resolution to spend up to $2.5 million to guarantee the purchase of 50 homes for first home-buyers.
However, this move might help the few lucky families eventually involved but it does little to solve the home affordability issue which has crept out of the large metropolitan areas and is now making home ownership a distant dream for many in low-income areas on the NSW North Coast.
Lismore City Council has also recently approved a homeless shelter in the district.
With private rental costs steadily rising it is time for the Rudd Government to reassess the state of public housing across the nation and move, in partnership with the States, to rebuild these housing stocks to a level which reflects actual need on the ground.
Quixotic gestures make us feel good, but serious and widespread effort is required if Kevin Rudd is to live up to his election campaign rhetoric.
Of course it's early days yet and in rural and regional Australia many hope that 2008 will see a commitment to address public housing shortfalls.

The Northern Rivers Echo last Thursday:
http://www.echonews.com/index.php?page=View%20Article&article=19337&issue=306

Few noticed Andrew Bartlett's leaving as Senate forms a new face

In all the blather surrounding the Kyoto conference in Bali there has been little time to notice that the Australian Democrats federal leader and Queensland senator, Andrew Bartlett also lost his seat at the 24 November election and will no longer sit after 30 June 2008.
One of the saddest outcomes of this election has been the demise of the Democrats.
They will be sorely missed on Senate committees.
November 24 delivered us the same old two-horse race in the upper house, with minor parties and independents holding the balance of power.
A list of senators announced as elected so far (final AEC list should be out later today):
Nick Sherry (ALP)
Richard Colbeck (Lib)
Bob Brown (Greens)
Carol Brown (ALP)
David Bushby (Lib)
Catryna Bilyk (ALP)
Don Farrell (ALP)
Cory Bernardi (Lib)
Nick Xenophon (IND)
Penny Wong (ALP)
Simon Birmingham (Lib)
Sarah Hanson-Young (Greens)
Ian Douglas MacDonald (Lib)
John Joseph Hogg (ALP)
Sue Boyce (Lib)
Claire Moore (ALP)
Ron Boswell (Nationals)
Mark Furner (ALP)
Kate Lundy (ALP)
Gary Humphries (Lib)

Howard acolytes scramble for a new place in the sun

"The next group of potential losers comes from those interest groups and lobbyists identified with the Howard government. Every lobbyist in the country is reflecting now on their contacts with the new Government and rethinking their strategies. But those most urgently reflecting are those who campaigned against Labor. Some are even attempting to rewrite the history of their role.

The potential losers include some in the business community. They got preferential treatment from the Howard government in various ways, including the industrial relations reforms, and are now nervous about their future. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry was recognised as the business lobby group closest to the former government. Not surprisingly its chief executive, Peter Hendy, has been under internal pressure since the election to justify his position.

The National Farmers' Federation has also been retreating from its pre-election advocacy. Some of its campaign advertising, though not all, was pro-government and anti-Labor. This was a calculated risk. Since the election, the federation has tried to deny that this was the case."
The Canberra Times last Thursday:
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/news/opinion/opinion/losers-scramble-for-a-place-in-rudds-new-queue/1104275.html

Of course all these lobbyists and special interest groups will retain access to the Federal Government. However it would be nice to see these rabid little neo-cons fall to the back of the queue for a while at least. A smidgen of poetic justice wouldn't go astray right now.

Sore loser or clumsy archivist?

This is what came on the screen when I tried to click on to www.chrisgulaptis.com.au to see if unsuccessful Nationals candidate for Page Chris Gulaptis had released a concession speech after 24 November.

Reverse lookup command gone wrong? Or perhaps second thoughts about leaving those campaign bon mots out there for all to see?

Surely not a deliberate attempt to bar North Coast residents from the website.

You are not authorized to view this page

The Web server you are attempting to reach has a list of IP addresses that are not allowed to access the Web site, and the IP address of your browsing computer is on this list.

---

Please try the following:

• Contact the Web site administrator if you believe you should be able to view this directory or page.

HTTP Error 403.6 - Forbidden: IP address of the client has been rejected.
Internet Information Services (IIS)

---

Big Brother 2007

In the Northern Territory certain Australian citizens can have personal control of money from their own old age pensions taken away, because of how they are thought to be behaving or because of how they just might behave in the future.

Queensland is about to do the same thing to some other citizens.

Other types of welfare payment are also subject to this snatch and grab.

Just how long do you think it will be until every Australian pensioner has to behave as Big Brother orders or lose control of their money? 

I'm betting less than three years, if the Rudd Government continues to be led through the nose by a public service so politicised during the Howard years that it is still actively running a right-wing agenda in advice given to government.

 

Struth, it's so crook that one portfolio within the Deputy-Prime Minister's brief, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, employs some public servants openly lamenting Howard and Hockey's demise. While loudly criticising everything about the new minister from her IQ to her speaking voice, laying bets on when she shall lose this portfolio and vowing to make sure that everything will be steadily moving forward according to their own agenda.

Word in your ear, boys - when you go home for the hols don't discuss the matter in public if you want to keep your little revolt quiet. Oops! Think you've already opened your mouth.

Wasn't it nice to see Bali delegates finally lose patience with America

Well I'm sure that wasn't something the United States was expecting.

Its delegate to the Kyoto conference in Bali loudly booed from the meeting floor, and then tiny Papua New Guinea rising to tell US representatives that if America was not prepared to lead on climate change solutions it should get out of the way.

Of course by then the US had all but wrecked the efforts of over 190 nations to create meaningful greenhouse gas emissions targets for the world to work towards over the next few years.

Maybe by 2009 Kyoto countries will have found the spine to kick the US right out the conference door if it remains as intransigent.

One can almost hear that famous American sphere of influence beginning to shrink, and the more effects of global warming begin to bite, the quicker that influence will disappear.

 

Where, oh where, has Caro gone?

Journalist Caroline Overington is becoming harder to find than Wally. I haven't seen a recent article by Overington in The Australian online since, well since just before the 24 November federal election.

Is she on holidays, leave of absence, resigned, been 'let go', busy suing bloggers or what?

If anyone sees Caro drop me a comment - would love to know where she finally roosts at full moon.

How 'fat' is fat and why is it a disease?

"The next time someone, even a health minister, tries to make you feel guilty about carrying a few extra kilos, just say no."

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon gets a slap on the wrist. And not without a measure of reason.

The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday:
 http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/dont-fall-for-the-big-fat-lie-when-proof-of-the-padding-is-thin/2007/12/14/1197568262871.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1