Coal Seam Gas: "I dread the day the licence holder comes here to explore"

The Land 27 June 2014:

In April, NSW Resources Minister Anthony Roberts announced senior counsel Bret Walker would conduct a review into the controversial laws.

Mr Roberts said perceptions of lack of transparency, consistency and “perceived conflicts of interest” within the process had prompted the review.

Retired Family Court judge Ian Coleman SC, has returned to the Bar to work as a barrister representing landholders in negotiations with mining and gas exploration companies.

“In large measure I was motivated by what I saw happening,” Mr Coleman said.

“The arbitration process is slanted in favour of the mining companies.”

First on his list of “realistically achievable” reforms would be to make legal qualifications compulsory for government-appointed arbitrators who preside over a formal process to determine an explorer’s access conditions.

Arbitrators are selected from a panel appointed by the resources minister.

Not all have formal legal qualifications and Mr Coleman said it showed.

Some arbitrators were retired senior counsels “who are superb”, Mr Coleman said. But others “don’t understand the complexity of the matters”.

The decision-making process in arbitration can involve complicated legal arguments with significant consequences.

“There are some judges who hear cases that are no more complex,” Mr Coleman said.

Arbitrators’ rulings are “like a contract”, he said.

The only recourse for an unhappy landowner is to appeal to the Land and Environment Court, with the prospect of exorbitant legal costs.

Mr Coleman also wants to see a guaranteed right to legal representation during arbitration hearings.

Currently, a landowner can have their lawyer present if the explorer consents.

This can create an imbalance, as companies often have representation with legal expertise, sometimes a lawyer on a sabbatical, to represent them in hearings.

Lastly, Mr Coleman said landowners’ costs should be covered by the explorer.

Currently, the explorer only covers the cost of the arbitration process.

The cost of legal counsel, expert advice from agronomists, and so on, is borne by the landowner.

Mary Lou Potts runs a private practice and has advised about 50 clients in land access negotiations.

Her experience has formed her bleak view of land access laws.

“The current system, in my view, is truly a travesty of justice,” Ms Potts said.

An explorer could seek access before it had all the appropriate approvals, leaving the landowner with the choice of paying for legal advice or relying on their wits to negotiate access for exploration that might never occur, she said.

“A landholder potentially could spend $100,000 during arbitration, which could run for several years and in the end it might turn out that the miner doesn’t get approval or it doesn’t even undertake the exploration,” she said.

Risks and costs were pushed onto the landholder, Ms Potts said.

One clear point of law is explorers must not have an impact on significant improvements on a property, such as dams, valuable work or infrastructure, such as buildings, banks and so on.

However, Ms Potts said it was common for an explorer to contest what constitutes a significant improvement, citing a current battle over a six-strand electrified boundary fence as an example.

Even those who know the system are intimidated by it.

Mr Coleman owns a small farm near Rylstone, which is covered by a coal seam gas exploration licence.

“I dread the day the licence holder comes here to explore,” he said.

“I have been a barrister for 40 years, and it terrifies me.”

A tale of three political images.......

An artist created this poster in 1977:

Michael Callaghan was raised in Wollongong, graduated from National Art School, Sydney in 1974.

He became involved in printmaking through Earthworks Poster Collective, during his time as a tutor of Post Object Art at Tin Sheds at University of Sydney. Compelled by a spirit of collectivism, Earthworks produced some of the most iconic images of political activism in the 1970s, including ‘Give Frazer the Razor’.

In 1979 he set up Redback Graphix during a residency at Griffith University in Brisbane, creating an ‘alternative design agency’, turning collective political activism into an enterprise that enabled artists to earn a living while using their skills and political edge.

The first artwork Callaghan made at Redback is possibly the most recognisable poster image in contemporary Australia – If the Unemployed Are Dole Bludgers, What the Fuck are the Idle Rich?

Using the same signature bold florescent graphics and punchy humour, the Redback workshop created campaigns throughout the 80s and 90s that tackled issues ranging from unemployment, trade union issues, AIDS awareness to indigenous health and for clients that included Amnesty International and CAAMA and the ACTU.

His work is held in numerous public and private collections in Australia and overseas including the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of NSW, Queensland Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Wollongong Collection, Mitchell Library Collection, and the Powerhouse Museum. [Damien Minton Gallery]

In 1981 a student newspaper printed this:

[Australian National University, Woroni, 22 April 1981]

Chanting "Give Fraser the razor, not women's refuges", about 50 women and children from Canberra and Sydney, representing NSW women's refuges, assembled to protest against possible cuts to child-care grants to the refuges.

[The Canberra Times, 15 May 1981, p.3]

Tertiary students from the ACT, NSW and Victoria demonstrated outside Parliament House yesterday over proposed Government cuts in education funding.

The students, estimated by some of the demonstration organisers to number between 1,500 and 2,000, assembled at the ANU and marched, with a police escort, to Parliament House carrying banners and placards and shouting "Free education for all", "Not just the rich, educate the poor", and "Give Fraser the razor". .

[The Canberra Times, 14 May 1981, p.9]

In 2014 a socialist newspaper created this front page:

The Socialist Alternative has withdrawn its newspapers featuring a violent image depicting Tony Abbott getting his throat cut following a public backlash.

The image was accompanied by the headline “One cut we'd like to see” and was on the front page of its paper Red Flag.

The organisation posted the image last night on its Facebook page, prompting more than 200 comments, most of them negative.

[News Corp, news.com.au]

All three images depicted the political sentiment of sections of society at the time. 

The first during the 1977 federal election year.

The second after a 1981 Fraser Government review of federal funding. 

The third when the Abbott Government ideologically engineered a 2014-15 federal budget which began to dismantle the safety-net welfare system, public and higher education, Medicare and public broadcasting.

The reader can judge for themselves the merits of these images.

Retreat Australia Fair

Yet another nail Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott intends to drive into the coffin of a just, fair and equitable Australian society…………

The Guardian 27 June 2014:

Next Tuesday marks a concerning milestone for free legal assistance in Australia. From that day, community legal centres will be unable to use their federal funding to progress law reform or advocate on policy to prevent or deal more effectively with legal problems affecting thousands of people.

The widening gap between the most disadvantaged who may qualify for legal aid and those who can afford a private lawyer is getting wider. Those who rely on community legal centres typically have low incomes and face a host of common but often serious legal problems, flowing from relationship breakdown, tenancy disputes, credit and debt, consumer issues, family violence, fines and mistreatment in the workplace.

The new restriction initiated by George Brandis, the attorney-general, seeks to create a stark division between helping in these individual cases and working to change laws, practices and policies to prevent legal problems in the first place – including, where needed, through speaking out in public about what needs to change.

Brandis claims that with limited resources available to deliver access to justice – resources that were cut further still in the recent federal budget – funding for legal assistance through community legal centres should be confined to “frontline” services. Essentially, he means we should deal only with the people walking through the doors of approximately 200 community legal centres around Australia.

The move is at odds with the Productivity Commission, in its recent draft report on access to justice arrangements. The commission recognised the efficiency and value of law reform and policy advocacy, and its central role in the work of community legal centres.

If the restriction can’t be justified on efficiency grounds, it’s tempting to see it as a move to limit the engagement of community legal centres in public debates and discussions because – in a small proportion of cases – they question government policies. While the right to question is an important one, it is secondary to achieving essential change. There are also many cases where law reform and policy advocacy are welcomed by government.

Here's an example. Few would agree that women facing family violence, who are “silent electors”, should be exposed to their assailants through federal electoral rolls that disclose their electoral division. In some cases this may narrow their location to a small country town that could be easily identified by perpetrators.

Community lawyers are working to have this changed, to be consistent with state and local government electoral rolls, on which such details are not exposed. Their work has been welcomed by a senate inquiry……

Community lawyers are also working to protect vulnerable people from being targeted by unscrupulous door-to-door salespeople, debt collectors and payday lenders. Community legal centres work with government on these issues, but where necessary they rightly speak out on where the system is failing and how laws need to change or regulators need to improve their responses.

Community legal centres have a vital role to raise public awareness of the value of law reform and policy advocacy, the sheer demand for legal help, and the chronic underfunding of the community legal sector – a failure of investment that is contributing directly to more than 500,000 people missing out on legal help every year…..

Over 9 months since he was sworn-in as Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott and the Coalition Government he leads are increasingly unpopular with voters

The Australian 1 July 2014:

Support for the Abbott government is now 10 points below its election-winning vote nearly 300 days ago, with the Coalition not making any headway since the budget in selling its tough fiscal message.

The latest Newspoll, conducted exclusively for The Australian, shows voters have shifted to the Greens, Labor and independents.

For the fifth consecutive Newspoll, Labor is ahead of the Coalition in two-party terms and would comfortably win if an election were held today.

Based on preference flows from the last election, Labor has a 10-point lead in two-party terms to be ahead 55 to 45 per cent, the same result as in the first poll after the May budget. It marks a 7.5 percentage point swing since the election and the Coalition’s equal worst result in four years.

Voter dissatisfaction with Tony Abbott has reached the highest level since he became Prime Minister, 62 per cent, and is his worst personal result since November 2012….

Today’s Newspoll shows the Coalition’s primary vote fell two points in the past fortnight to 35 per cent, its lowest level since 2009 when Mr Turnbull was leader. It was 45.6 per cent at the September 7 election.

Labor gained one point in the past two weeks to 37 per cent and is almost four points higher than its disastrous election defeat.