Is Chris Hartcher trying to flannel the Clarence Valley?

From A Clarence Valley Protest on 29 June 2011:

Energy and Resources Minister Hartcher is a little economical with the truth
On the 29 June 2011 in an article titled Toxic metal hunt at proposed site State Energy and Resources Minister Chris Hartcher's position on any future mining proposal in the Wild Cattle Creek area of the Nymboida sub-catchment of the larger Clarence River catchment was elucidated:

“An exploration licence allows a company to undertake exploration, environmental assessments and feasibility studies only.”
Before any mine was opened strict guidelines had to be adhered to.
"Any future mining proposal would be required to obtain development consent through the relevant consent authority...As part of this process, proponents are required to prepare and submit a comprehensive environmental assessment that assesses all potential impacts of the proposal, including potential impacts on aquifers and water resources as well as cumulative impacts.”
Planning approval rests with the State Government until its plan to scrap Part 3A of the Planning Act is legislated.
Then it would be up to individual councils to sign off on any approval for the proposed mine.
“Local communities and councils are fully involved in the process, with planning approvals going out for public consultation,” Mr Hartcher said.

Unfortunately this is not the entire range of possibilities for progressing any future mining development application within the Nymboida or Clarence River catchment areas.

O'Farrell Government policy documents concerning the repeal of Part 3A of the NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 reveal that certain mining proposals will still fall into a category which can attract a State Significant Development (SSD) classification which allows the Minister to ‘call in’ a development application and possibly hand it back to the Planning Assessment Commission or over to the Department of Planning and Infrastructure for determination.

Should any mining proposal in the aforementioned catchment areas be ‘called in’ in this way then:

Under the proposed delegation, the PAC will determine larger and more controversial projects, while senior officers of the Department of Planning and Infrastructure will determine projects which have attracted fewer than 25 submissions by members of the public objecting to the proposal and where the local council has not objected.
[NSW Planning & infrastructure (June 2011) Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Part 3A Repeal) Bill 2011: an overview]

This is a flow chart indicating the more likely route that any development application by China Shandong Jinshunda Group Co Ltd, Sunstar Capital Pty Ltd and Anchor Resources Ltd will take with regard to anitimony mining at Wild Cattle Creek.


Given the background of the mining corporation and Minister Hartcher's previously expressed sentiments on regional mining, I sincerely doubt that local communities will be more than a token consideration in any development determination.

Background:

Is Chinese Government policy encouraging mining in the Clarence River catchment in order to conserve its own national resources?

Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Part 3A Repeal) Bill 2011

The major project assessments system

Policy statement: State significant development – procedures
Policy statement: Proposed State significant development and infrastructure classes
Policy statement: Ministerial ‘call in’ for State significant development
Fact sheet

Farewell, Bananaby & Uncle Steve

Steve Fielding is not the full bottle - Erica Abetz

The guy is a psycho chook - Bananaby

Farewell Bananaby and Uncle Steve,
Finally time for you to leave
Though you're both very small
You could scare us all.....

NOTE: A little bit of wishful thinking was going on here as
Senator Barnaby Joyce was re-elected at the last federal election
and is now
Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Water,
as well as Leader of The Nationals in the Senate

Saying it with pictures for the benefit of Tony Abbott

Tony Abbott told the 55th Federal Council of the Liberal Party of Australia on 26 June 2011; As I said in my maiden speech and have been repeating ever since, middle income families with children are Australia’s new poor.

Leaving aside both the fact that Tony Abbott entered Parliament seventeen years ago and the suspicion that he is using this tired old argument to advocate tax cuts for comfortably off families like his own - it is immediately obvious that this statement by Abbott is not true.

So for the benefit of this shabby economic illiterate politician I will say it with pictures.

The mean weekly equivalised disposable household income has been rising for the entire time Tony Abbott has been the Member for Warringah and, the number reporting financial hardship had fallen to below twenty per cent of total households by 2009:


Individuals and families with low household incomes remain the poor - period.
Individuals and families on middle incomes fare better and, have been doing so consistently for at least the last twelve years.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2010; The headline indicator shows that the middle income group had a slightly greater gain in real income between 1997-98 and 2007-08 than the low income group (46% compared with 41%) and middle income households have maintained around a seven percentage point lead on low income households when it come to a percentage share of total income received by persons between 1994-95 and 2007-08.

Those most likely to experience financial difficulties are not middle income individuals and families:
By 2009-10 there were 2.9 million families with children living at home. In 2011 The Australian Institute of Family Studies stated; Of all four groups, families comprising couples with dependent children were in the second best financial position, with an average disposable income of $810 per week, and with 19% of people reporting the experience of at least one of the seven financial hardships.

The Report for National Families Week 2011 included the observation that in 2010 couples with children were more likely to have one of the parents in paid employment than lone women with children:

Voluntarily filtering the Australian Internet - another reason to despise Stephen Conroy

Browsers which have attempted to access blocked sites will be directed to an Interpol page explaining why the site has been blocked [IIA 27 June 2011]

The Australian Internet Industry Association (IIA) on 25 June 2011:

The voluntary industry code of practice for ISPs in Australia would entail blocking child pornography sites which would otherwise be available to Australians. It would rely on a blacklist compiled and supplied by Interpol, in cooperation with the Australian Federal Police ('AFP').

Consistent with industry commitments made almost 12 months ago to develop a voluntary industry program to block child abuse materials, the IIA announced the final elements of the scheme were moving into place in preparation for a launch of the code in July.

IIA member ISPs in Australia have confirmed their intentions to support a code based approach.

"We anticipate that we will have ISPs representing between 80-90% of the Australian user base complying with the scheme this year," said IIA's chief executive Peter Coroneos.

Apparently this national filter will be based on the Interpol child abuse site blacklist, which as part of its inclusion criteria states that; The whole domain is deemed illegal if any part of it is found to contain sexual abuse material with children. One image of a child that fits the above criteria will be enough to classify the whole domain as illegal until the illegal material is removed.

As Interpol insists that there are no accidental domain name/web page errors in its black list and only it and the Australian Federal Police are envisaged as official arbitrators (ACMA seemingly having been reduced to a mere receiver of Australian complaints), one can almost see the problem rolling down the line for web hosts such as Blogger.com or Facebook and countless public forums.

Especially when the naturally malicious discover how easy it will be to bring a halt to online political debate, by taking a quick tutorial on YouTube, hacking a website and hiding a simple illegal image (or an image containing illegal content in an internal winrar file) on one of its pages and then making an anonymous complaint to the Australian Federal Police.

Many bloggers already find themselves spammed or linked to adult porn sites whenever they offend certain flying monkeys. At the very least I predict a large number of 'please explains' being swapped between bloggers and their ISPs as this so-called voluntary Internet filtering rolls out.