Concerned residents - not anti-CSG activists

CSG Free Northern Rivers

MEDIA RELEASE: 22 JANUARY 2013

Claims made by Richard Shields from Metgasco on ABC Radio (Country Hour) today have been rejected by CSG Free Northern Rivers. Mr Shields claimed that CSG is safe and that Metgasco wanted to speak with local communities but were prevented from doing so because meetings were “hijacked by anti-CSG activists”.

“Metgasco has a very poor history of communicating with local communities and Glenugie is a case in point,” said CSG Free Northern Rivers spokesperson, Boudicca Cerese.

“Close neighbours to the Glenugie site have personally informed me that they have never been advised by the company of their drilling plans and there has been no attempt by Metgasco to provide any public information sessions to residents in the general Glenugie area.”

“The fact that Metgasco has found time to meet with the Grafton Chamber of Commerce yet has failed to inform local residents clearly shows where their priorities are.”

“I have visited the locals who are blockading at Glenugie and have listened to their concerns. These are genuine people whose views are being systematically ignored and trivialized by the state government and Metgasco,” said Ms. Cerese.

“It is local community members, not some anonymous and nebulous ‘activists’ who are at the centre of the blockade against Metgasco at Glenugie.”

“If Mr Shields does not understand this simple fact – that it is local communities who are standing up against their plans to turn the area into a gasfield – then it is he who is ‘not prepared to listen’.”

“This is also the case at Doubtful Creek, between Casino and Kyogle, where Metgasco plan to drill another core hole in the near future,” MS Cerese said.

“Locals at Kyogle tried for more than a year without any success to get Metgasco to hold a public meeting to address community concerns about coal seam gas- they even offered to book a venue for the company.”

“Small private meetings between Metgasco and a few invited guests chosen by the company certainly does not constitute community consultation.”

“Until the CSG companies and the state government genuinely start listening to community views and concerns about CSG then the blockades and other actions are likely to continue as each community takes a stand to defend local community, environmental and social values.”

“As for Mr Shields’ claims that the work Metgasco are doing at Glenugie is safe, this ignores the fact that these drilling activities are part of a cycle of work focused directly on producing CSG for market which will involve hundreds if not thousands of wells.”

“You can’t say that just because one step in the process is less dangerous or risky than the entire process, that the overall coal seam gas operations are therefore ‘safe’.”

“The community is not stupid and are not deceived by Metgasco’s repetitive cycle of spin and misinformation,” she said.

 

Tony Abbott's election campaign funding in 2012-13

 

 

On 5 November 2010 The Sydney Morning Herald revealed:

 

THE political fund-raising arm of the federal Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, has been found to have breached electoral laws, while one of his principal donors has also failed to make required disclosures, according to documents lodged with the NSW Election Funding Authority.

After a five-month investigation, the authority found that the Warringah Club, which raises money for Mr Abbott's campaigns in his seat of Warringah, had broken the law by not disclosing the sources of its donations.

''The club failed to lodge a declaration [as required] and the matter is to be further investigated to determine whether to pursue prosecution,'' the authority's funding and disclosures director, Brian DeCelis, wrote to the NSW Greens, which raised an official complaint about the Warringah Club in May.

But Mr DeCelis also found that the club and the NSW Liberal Party, which lodged false declarations relating to the club, ''did not understand their disclosure obligations'' and therefore would not be prosecuted for knowingly making a false statement.

 

One can safely assume that Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott, The Warringah Club and the NSW Liberal Party now understand their legal obligations.

 

So why is it that this club, whose primary aim is to raise money for Abbott’s ceaseless election campaigning, was in breach of the reporting deadlines again the following year – with the 2010-11 financial year annual return apparently outstanding until 2 February 2012 – a remarkable feat given that it would take all of ten minutes to complete this form as all donors are usually hidden within generic cash transfers by the Liberal Party into club coffers.

 

As the deadline for associated entity annual returns is listed as 20 October each year and returns are not publicly displayed until 1 February the following year, I suspect that The Warringah Club will keep its 2011-12 financial outlays and donations received behind a convenient curtain until well after this year’s federal election.

 

Although Tony Abbott’s second fundraising vehicle, the Warringah 1000 Forum, did manage to lodge its 2010-11 annual return on time, does list donors and along with its amendment to that return dated 17 April 2012, possibly gives a better flavour of which individuals/companies are favouring his chances.

 

 

·  Penalties relating to the Commonwealth disclosure scheme

UPDATE:

The 2011-12 annual financial disclosure returns from political parties, associated entities, donors and third parties who incur political expenditure became available online on 1 February 2013.

The Warringah Club has changed its name to The Sydney Small Business Club and has recorded no 2011-12 individual donations above the declarable threshold of $11,900.

While all mention of the Warringah 1000 Forum had simply disappeared from the AEC website on 1 February 2013.

Perhaps there was more to the reported funding discrepancies than first thought.

Looking for excuses and apportioning blame in the CSG war

 

This is Lindsay Partridge on the ABC’s PM program on 21 January 2013:

 

MARTIN CUDDIHY: The company's managing director is Lindsay Partridge.

He says Brickworks gas costs have recently doubled, and the company is struggling to secure long-term gas contracts because local producers prefer to export to Asia.

LINDSAY PARTRIDGE: The prices they're receiving is the price which countries, mainly in Asia, that have very limited local gas, are prepared to pay for the gas. So effectively, what we're seeing in Australia is the prices within Australia move to the price that those Asian countries are prepared to pay which at the moment is about $12 a gigajoule which is what we're paying in Perth and Brisbane, but may well go as far as $15 a gigajoule going forward.

 

On ABC NEWS online the same day he went further:

 

Brickworks' managing director, Lindsay Partridge, says Australian gas producers are getting top dollar from Asia, so they would rather export gas than supply the domestic market.

Mr Partridge says the process to approve new Coal Seam Gas operations is too slow and the Federal Government needs to intervene…..

He says protests against coal seam gas appear to have slowed the development of more wells, and limited new gas supply.

"The anti-coal seam gas lobby has stopped or delayed the timely production of gas, as well as a very complicated process where many of these wells have to go through both state and federal approval process," Mr Partridge said.

"So we have the Government saying, 'oh we don't want to get involved in the gas market', but they already are. They're part of the process which is stopping the timely supply of gas coming on line."

 

However, by 22 January The Daily Examiner had dropped any reference by Mr. Partridge to every reason he gave for the gas price rise except the one involving protestors:

 

Lindsay Partridge, managing director of manufacturing company Brickworks, made headlines on the weekend when he suggested the "anti-coal seam gas" movement was responsible for slowing development at a time when the state was tipped for a severe gas shortage.

He told the ABC that protestors had stopped or delayed "the timely production of gas" and the only solution was for the State and Federal Government's to "accelerate" new gas fields and uncomplicated the approval process.

Leaving it to a spokesperson from CSGFree Northern Rivers to mention price increases flowing from the export drive.

Are certain politicians falsifying their Twitter mentions?

 

Hat tip to @1petermartin for pointing  to this blog post The Desperation of a Liberal MP? on Storify.

 

It seems Federal Liberal Party MP and Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage, Greg Hunt, may be using automated retweets via the UK masquerading as the efforts of genuine tweeters.

 

Now that seems very similar to the political astroturfing under taken by U.S. right wingers and, a tactic thought to be much admired and emulated by fellow Liberal Corey Bernardi and his Conservative Leadership Foundation.

When contacted by The Sydney Morning Herald Mr. Hunt's office denied all knowledge of the spambots.

However, the article revealed other suspect Twitter accounts:

Tiphereth Gloria, social media expert with VML Australia, said the bot evidence presented in the Storify post appeared to be accurate and she believes it pointed to a Liberal Party campaign. The fake accounts appeared to be part of a “propaganda war” effort to “increase share of voice of anti-Labor sentiment”.

Separately, other spam bot accounts are more blatant. One suspected anti-Labor bot Twitter profile with over 88,000 tweets is @LaborDirt, which pumps out a constant stream of anti-Labor content. Anti-Gillard account @GI-Gillard has reportedly been retweeted by the same bots that retweeted Mr Hunt's tweet.

Sophisticated spammers use scripts to create hundreds or thousands of fake Twitter accounts that at first glance appear to be legitimate but are designed to promote a product or political view.

“Spammers and bots always have randomly generated user names. It's the first sign something is dodgy,” Ms Gloria said.

“Then looking at the profiles - the length of time they've been on twitter and the lack of other meaningful tweets and interactions is the clincher.”

 

One hopes that The Geek bends his forensic gaze towards other tweeting MPs, because it’s doubtful that Mr.Hunt's account was the only one with under the radar spambots attached.