In 2012 John Howard still has his lips firmly fastened on the $$$ teat

“Former PM John Howard's flights, car use, office and telecommunications bills cost taxpayers $151,833 in the first six months of this year.”

Glenugie woman chains herself to work truck at CSG exploration drilling site in Clarence Valley

Deb Whitley of Glenugie 4 December 2012

CSG Free Northern Rivers Media Release 4th December 2012:

Brave Glenugie woman puts body on the line at Metgasco coal seam gas site

On the eve of Planning Minister Brad Hazzard’s visit to the Northern Rivers region, a brave and committed local woman has attached herself to a work truck at Metgasco’s coal seam gas site near Grafton. More than one hundred residents are on site with more flocking to the site all the time.

Deb Whitley of Glenugie says she has been forced to take this action because her land and home are under threat from coal seam gas mining.

“My home has always been the one constant in my life. It is my safety, my sanctuary - this industry threatens all of this,” said Deb.

The Grafton community, like the rest of the Northern Rivers region, is overwhelmingly opposed to coal seam gas and the threat it poses to community health, the environment and existing jobs.

“With my land I have choices to create an income and sustainable life for my future and now this is uncertain for me,” Deb said.

“The coal seam gas industry threatens our health and without good health we have nothing. I’ve always considered myself lucky but now I don’t know.”

“Minister Hazzard says he is coming to our region to answer our questions, well I have a question for him: Why is his government forcing rural communities like ours to take actions such as this to defend our communities from an unsustainable and unsafe industry?” said Lynette Eggins, of Clarence Valley Alliance Against CSG.

“The Minister needs to realise that this issue is not going to go away - our communities are strong and growing stronger, we will stand up to this government and their industry buddies for as long as it takes to stop their destructive plans for our region.”

 

UPDATE:

Deb's chains being cut

The Daily Examiner



Are the Tara coal seam gas fields any indication of the effect Metgasco's mining plans will have on NSW North Coast property values?

.

 2011 Google Earth image
Click on image to enlarge
 

This is an image of one section of the coal seam gas well cluster and other associated infrastructure between Tara and Chincilla townships in Queensland.

 

Metgasco Limited appears to have similar plans on the NSW North Coast, with an estimated 1,000 gas wells proposed for the Lismore-Casino area alone.

 

Recently Clarence Valley residents concerned over Metgasgo’s test drilling in the Clarence Valley have expressed fears that land values may decrease if gas production wells are eventually established in the local government area.

 

As usual Metgasco director, shareholder and CEO, Peter Henderson, is quick to deny any negative relationship between coal seam gas mining and land values.

 

Using the Western Downs local government area in Queensland as an example, it is clear that overall property values have only increased by a moderate 3 per cent between 2011-12.

 

In towns around which the gas fields are centred, the residential sector saw an increase of between 10-30% from October 2010 to October 2011. While commercial and industrial property valuations in these towns have apparently responded with a range of valuations going from no increase, through to moderate increase and, in the case of Chinchilla’s fringe commercial market a large increase in that same period falling away to a moderate increase in 2012.

 

However, the Queensland Valuer-General states in his 2012 Property Market Movement Report that; Sales of rural land purchased by resource companies for the purposes of mining or other extractive industry are not used to determine statutory land values of rural land and rural land values showed a small reduction in Miles and Tara with the balance of the local government area remaining unchanged.

 

According to anti-CSG activist Peter Ralph, in practical terms this translated for one Wieambilla rural residential property owner into a fall in his land valuation from $115,000 last year to $77,000 this year. This same landowner had seven drill rigs and a gas compressor station within seven kilometres of his house in 2011 and a pipeline 300 metres from the front door.

 

As the majority of established gas wells are sited on rural land, one can assume that production wells on or near a rural property may have a detrimental impact on the value of that property.

For an area such as the Clarence Valley, where the majority of land is classified rural and much of this used for forestry, agriculture, grazing and ‘tree change’ retirement, such a valuation trend does not bode well.

Ballina local government area is in a similar position, with an estimated 20 per cent of its population living in rural zones predominately given over to agricultural activities.

Background:

A short helicopter tour of the Tara region gas fields.

 

The political dirty tricks brigade are at it again?

The Northern Rivers Echo lets the cat out of the bag on 29^th November 2012:

“A glossy, four-page missive appeared, unsolicited, in my letterbox last week, with a picture of Page MP Janelle Saffin on the front.

In five decks of huge capital letters it screamed:

"Janelle, why are you voting to hurt our community?"

Now I've had a fair bit to do with Ms Saffin over the years and she's always struck me as hard-working and community-minded.

And I assumed 'our community' was referring to the Northern Rivers.

So imagine my surprise when I turned to the last page and found written in tiny print that 'our community' was, in fact, referring to the Australian Hotels Association, the lobby group for pubs. The propaganda had been authorised by P. Nicolaou, the former fund-raising chief for the NSW Liberal Party, who thought, along with Premier Barry O'Farrell, that there was no conflict of interest in working for both organisations at the same time.

And what they were claiming would 'hurt our community' were the Federal Government's proposed gambling laws.”

The laughter continues....

 

On the subject of Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott accusing the Australian Prime Minister of committing a crime, one journalist was in a rollicking mood:

 

'Bruiser' Abbott is waltzed out of the fight on a TKO

 

Abbott tried to get on his toes, but shuffled. He tried to dance, but was out of shape. He'd skipped training, leaving to his second, Julie Bishop, all the weight work.

Once he was in the ring, he couldn't bring himself to utter the word ''crime'', nor produce reliable evidence that it had occurred. He jabbed with an ''unethical'' here and an ''untrustworthy'' there and his haymakers were wild swings about being ''party to the creation of a slush fund''. Glory be, he was reduced to accusing Gillard of ''conduct unbecoming''. Close to throwing in the towel.

Metgasco corporate line up for your edification

 

There has been some talk recently about the ethics or otherwise of local firms undertaking contract work for Metgasco Limited (Registered address Level 9, 77 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW ) when so many people on the NSW North Coast are resolutely opposed to coal seam gas exploration and mining in the region.

One media outlet has even bandied about the rather emotive term "innocent workers".

 

One could argue that these local business decisions cannot be isolated from any potential or realised negative effects of mining on agricultural land, water security, communities and existing regional economies.

 

However, what is not in dispute is the fact that directors and senior management of Metgasco are responsible for that company’s actions.

 

These are the names of Metgasco Limited’s current directors, company secretaries and senior management as of 23 November 2012:

 

NICHOLAS MOUBRAY HEATH Director and Non Executive Chairman, shareholder

8 Edzell Avenue, TOORAK VIC 3142

 

LEONARD FRANCIS GILL Director, shareholder

30 Seaview Crescent, BLACK ROCK VIC 3193

 

PETER JOHN HENDERSON Director, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer, shareholder

22A Kingslangley Road, GREENWICH NSW 2065

 

STEVEN JOSEPH KOROKNAY Director, shareholder

Unit 20, 17-19 Newhaven Place, ST IVES NSW 2075

 

NICHOLAS JOHN VICTOR GEDDES Secretary

36 Elizabeth Parade, LANE COVE NSW 2066

 

SEAN HOOPER Secretary and Chief Financial Officer

11 Peats Ridge Road S, CALGA NSW 2250

 

PETER STANMORE  General Manager, Exploration

 

RICHARD SHIELDS    External Relations Manager

 

ROBERT PETERSEN   Business Development Manager

 

DR SIMON HANN  Production & Drilling Manager

 

AIDAN STEWART  Operations Manager

 

If you want to focus on the real opportunists, then these are the men.

 

Saffin answers a media critic as community disquiet over coal seam gas mining continues

Click on image to enlarge

 

The Daily Examiner opinion piece is wrong on so many levels because the journalist seemingly did not check source documents to see if his initial impressions/recall was correct.

 

Firstly, no-one has signed away the rights to mine the Clarence Valley for gas just yet.

All the petroleum mining applications/titles currently held on valley land are for exploration/prospecting.

Thus far, no-one has been granted a full coal seam gas mining and production licence and, although the O’Farrell Coalition Government is giving every indication that it will grant such licences as a matter of course, the door has not completely closed on case by case refusal of permission to proceed or even a reversal of CSG mining policy.

 

Secondly, the Southern Cross University preliminary fugitive emissions research was careful not to draw the firm conclusions stated by the journalist. Though based on what is known about established CSG production around the world, it is highly likely that a significant number of drilling sites would have marked levels of fugitive emissions.

 

As for the strange assertion that Ms. Saffin would be forced to toe the party line and vote in favour of the CSG industry if she was a state politician. This game of what if? flies in the face of the NSW Labor Opposition’s current policy position which is taking a more cautious approach to the issue.

 

Opposition Leader John Robertson is calling on the Government to suspend all current Coal Seam Gas exploration licenses to protect the State's precious water resources.
"Coal Seam Gas has the potential to damage our drinking water and compromise food security," said Mr Robertson.
"The Government must immediately suspend all Coal Seam Gas exploration licenses before irreparable damage is caused to ground water and aquifers.
"The NSW Opposition is also calling on the Government to cease issuing Coal Seam Gas extraction licenses and refuse any applications to expand existing operations.
"Until a water-tight regulatory framework is in place based on independent scientific research and conclusive evidence, we should not be allowing Coal Seam Gas mining to proceed unabated. [10 November 2011]

 

"Barry O'Farrell needs to heed the warning from scientists, experts and local communities and suspend all Coal Seam Gas exploration licences in NSW from today.
"The impacts of Coal Seam Gas mining on the environment are still not fully understood and the Government needs to hit the pause button on this industry before it's too late." [9 February 2012]

 

Despite the loose language used in The Daily Examiner opinion piece it is good to see a young journalist recognise the risk and take an anti-CSG mining stance, but one has to have some sympathy for Ms. Saffin’s response published in the same newspaper on 29 November 2012:
 

MP's response to DEX editorial
In Tuesday's editorial, reporter Lachlan Thompson attacked my credibility in speaking out over coal seam gas mining.
In response, I would like to provide members of the public with how I see it.
As a Federal Government backbencher it is not in my power to stop CSG mining with the stroke of a pen, particularly as mining approvals are state-based.
But that is not to say that I can't do anything.
All governments support mining and as elected leaders and community leaders it is incumbent upon us to lead where we can, to have the industry get it right.
Since early last year farmers and a broad cross-section of local residents have been coming to me to raise their concerns about CSG exploration and mining.
People come to me because they want me to speak out, to do what I can.
 I have always worked to protect our environment and our economy at the regional level.
I started my own research into this issue to see where the power lay to act on this.
I pushed the Federal Minister for the Environment, Tony Burke, to explore the nature and extent of his power vis-a -vis the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and the Federal Water Act.
But as I pointed out in my first statement on CSG in June 2011, mining and exploration, including the regulation of chemicals used in fracking, is primarily regulated by the states. This is not trying to blame but to inform about where responsibility lies. I kept talking to Minister Burke and Federal Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig about a co-ordinated approach with the states, and talked to independent MP Tony Windsor about bioregional water assessments.
In fact it was an adviser in the Prime Minister's office who was working on it, who said after reading my second statement, that he saw there was a way.
At the end of last year, Minister Burke announced the Independent Expert Scientific Committee to do bioregional assessments and oversee research along with a new National Partnership Agreement with the states that they take into account the Committee's advice over CSG and large coal mining projects.
I do not just speak out without taking action and following through.
I have been trying to build a case for having the mining for CSG requests considered carefully, taking into account water and the cumulative impacts.
I have done this by providing factual information, and by challenging the notion that if we don't have CSG mining we will be bankrupt and run out of gas.
This week in Parliament I spoke again on CSG and spelt out the National Water Commission's latest position on this and once again highlighted the Commission's point that: "the consequences of not managing the water risk and uncertainties associated with the economic benefits of CSG are substantial."
I do my research.
Lachlan claims to have the utmost respect for me.
I do believe him and thank him and a way of demonstrating this respect would be to do his research. My statements are on the public record and available on my website janellesaffin.com.au.
Janelle Saffin
Federal Member for Page