Sunday 19 August 2018
The first unintended consequence of Malcolm Turnbull's perverse $487M grant to the small Great Barrier Reef Foundation surfaces
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
15 August 2018:
The Turnbull
government's claim its $444 million grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation
would spur private donations has been disputed by a leading coral scientist who
says funding for his own venture has dried up in the wake of the cash splash.
Charlie Veron, a marine
biologist dubbed "the godfather of coral" for discovering more than
one-fifth the world's coral species, said US donors to his Corals of the World website
dropped plans to donate $60,000 once they saw "the Australian government
was going to pour a fortune" into reef projects.
"My source of
funding has completely stopped," Dr Veron said.
Dr Veron said his
website, a decade in the making, would be crucial for any future recovery work
on the reef, such as the $100 million reef restoration and adaptation program
that will now be under the foundation's stewardship.
Dr Veron said he met
last week the foundation head, Anna Marsden, who said she "didn't have any
money that could go" to his project despite it needing $200,000, or
one-quarter of 1 per cent of the government's largesse, to survive.
"The whole thing is
just a mystery to me," he said. "It's a drop in the bucket if ever
there was one."....
A
foundation spokeswoman said Dr Veron had been one of "a number of
organisations [that] have expressed an interest" in seeking funds.
"At a recent
meeting, we advised Dr Veron that a process was being established to consider
proposals under the Reef Trust Partnership," she said. "We will
consider proposals for funding once the governance and advisory framework is
established and a process for applications has been approved."
Fairfax Media approached
Josh Frydenberg, the environment and energy minister, for comment.
"Perverse outcomes
are going to be part of a process that wasn't thought through," Tony
Burke, Labor's environment spokesman, said. "The due diligence [into the
Foundation before the grant was made] was a joke."
Mr Burke said it was
possible that less private funding would available for reef projects than
before as a result of "decision making with almost no formal
process".
The foundation
spokeswoman said that the non-profit will continue to make the raising of
private funds "a focus and responsibility, so we can amplify the impact of
the government’s investment".....
Once more a Coalition federal government is promising savings on household electricity bills
“Throughout the 1980s, '90s, and most of the 2000s, electricity prices tracked fairly closely to general consumer price trends. In the past decade, however, electricity has shot off the charts. Since 2008 power prices have risen 117 per cent, more than four times the average price increase across sectors.” [ABC News, 18 July 2018]
All three major NSW political parties - Liberal, Nationals and Labor - along with their federal counterparts drank the Kool-Aid when it came to the alleged desirability of privatising state assets in the electricity and gas sectors of energy supply.
Here is a brief outline of the how and why......
DECEMBER 2010
"The completion of this first tranche
of the energy reform process meets the government's objectives – we have exited
electricity retailing, we have created a competitive market structure approved
by the ACCC and we have received a strong financial return for the taxpayers of
NSW,” he [NSW
Treasurer] said…..
Earlier, the shadow
treasurer, Mike Baird, said: "Whatever they finally announce, it is clear
from the ongoing speculation that the receipts will be at the lower end of the
$5 billion to $7 billion range, which is about half what these assets are worth
– and that is before you take off the $2.3 billion in inducements for the new
coalmine needed to get the deal away.
'The end result is
billions of dollars lost forever."
A UBS analyst, David
Leitch, said: "NSW households are in for higher electricity tariffs and
more people at their front door, trying to get them to change electricity
supplier."
NOVEMBER 2013
"When this bill is
passed, this Government estimates that power prices will go down by 9 per cent,
gas prices will go down by 7 per cent, and that means that the average power
bill will be $200 a year lower and the average gas bill will be $70 a year
lower," Mr Abbott said on October 15.
JUNE 2014
As of 12 May 2017, two
government assets have been privatised in 2017. The most recent privatisation
is the 99-year lease of a 50.4% share of Endeavour Energy. On 11 May 2017, the
NSW [Berejiklian
Coalition] Government announced that a consortium led by Macquarie Group's
infrastructure arm had been successful in securing the tender for a price of
$7.6 billion. Along with Ausgrid and Transgrid, the lease of Endeavour Energy
represents the final of the three “poles and wires” sales – a key policy of the
Liberal/National government in the 2015 State election. Announcing the sale,
NSW Treasury stated:
The
NSW Government will retain a 49.6 per cent interest in Endeavour Energy and
will have ongoing influence over operations as lessor, licensor and as safety
and reliability regulator.
June 2017
Electricity is now
management heavy with a blow out in the number of managers relative to other
workers. In addition electricity now employs an army of sales and marketing and
other workers who do not actually make electricity. In addition the reforms
seemed to encourage profit gauging on the part of companies in the industry who
are able to inflate the asset base used in calculating the permitted return on
assets. More than half the asset base appears to be ‘goodwill’ and retained
earnings. There is a weird circular process in which high rates of return are
capitalised in ‘goodwill’ and other fictitious or notional items while high
profits guarantee high retained earnings which also feed into the asset base.
In that way the unproductive capital base is allowed to increase and we are
charged for capital that has no real function in producing electricity….
A host of factors have
been blamed for the increase in electricity prices relative to other prices but
we would point out that the main departure from the rest of the price index
happened post privatisation and corporatisation.
JULY 2017
Origin, EnergyAustralia
and AGL have all announced price increases for electricity and gas starting
from July 1….
In NSW, residential
EnergyAustralia customers will see electricity prices increase by up to 19.6
per cent. Origin Energy customers will get a 16.1 per cent rise.
DECEMBER 2017
The key supply chain
cost components examined in the report include wholesale electricity purchase
costs, regulated network costs and environmental policy costs.
Annual electricity
prices for the representative consumer on a market offer in New South Wales:
*
increased by 10.2 per cent from 2016-17 to 2017-18 due to higher wholesale
electricity costs, driven by the retirement of Northern and Hazelwood
generators and increasing gas prices
*
are expected to decrease by an annual average of 6.6 per cent in 2018-19 and
2019-20. The expected decreases are largely attributable to decreases in
wholesale electricity costs driven by expected new generation (approximately
4,100 MW across the NEM) and the return to service of the Swanbank E generator
(385 MW in Queensland). In addition, in NSW, regulated network costs are
uncertain in the two years to June 2020 due to the AER being required to remake
revenue determinations for the NSW distribution network providers for the
2014-19 regulatory control period.
JANUARY 2018
The most significant
price rises were electricity, up 12.4 per cent, fuel up 10.4 per cent, domestic
holiday travel up 6.3 per cent and fruit up 9.3 per cent.
Across New South Wales, we found theaverage annual electricity bill to be just over $1,667. However, we found that
bill-payers aged in their 40s reported the highest average bills in NSW at
$1,911.76. Those aged 70 or over reported the lowest average bills at
$1,466.40.
JULY 2018
This was comprised of
$120 due to the [national
energy] guarantee and $280 due to new investment in renewable energy that was
already planned, mainly because of the Renewable Energy Target, which will run
to 2030….
The ESB [Energy Security Board**]
proposal increases the annual average saving to $550 on 2018 prices, of which
$150 is due to the guarantee and $400 due to renewable energy.
AUGUST 2018
After reading the National Energy Guarantee Consultation Paper as well as the 1 August 2018 Final Detailed Design and listening to statements made by the Turnbull Government, I personally find it hard to believe this change in federal government policy will significantly limit the rate of increases to household energy costs over time when this is based on an assumption that the market will respond by lowering prices across the Australian wholesale and retail sectors of energy supply.
Talk of money 'saved' by households is illusory as It will certainly see no reduction in the actual amounts listed on 2019-20 household electricity and gas bills once this guarantee comes into effect.
Network
charges represent on average about half of the electricity supply chain costs,
with generation and retail costs (combined into the ‘competitive market’
category) accounting for 42%, and environment policies adding the remaining 8%,
based on the latest AEMC Electricity Price Trend report.
The
make up of the total average retail cost is shown in Chart 6 which reveals the
single largest component of the price of electricity is distribution costs,
which represented about 40% of the average cost of electricity. Over the AEMC
forecast period to 2018/19, these costs are still expected to represent by far
the largest component of the electricity cost stack, albeit fractionally lower
in a couple of years’ time.
The
next largest component is the wholesale price of electricity, which in 2015/16
represented about 28%. Under the AEMC Base Case scenario – which includes the
retirement of the brown coal fired Hazelwood Power station in Victoria – this
cost component had been anticipated to rise steadily over the forecast period
to represent about 30% of the cost of electricity by 2018/19.
As
shown in Chart 7 below, these three jurisdictions experienced higher than
anticipated wholesale electricity costs in the order of between 30% and 80%
when compared to original forecasts for FY2016/17. When considered on a
weighted average basis, using the same methodology applied by the AEMC to estimate
the values for the National Summary, wholesale electricity costs have therefore
been about 17% to 20% higher than anticipated.
This
increase in wholesale electricity costs pushed the bundled cost of electricity
to rise by about 5% higher than anticipated by the AEMC, and shifted the
relative importance of wholesale prices in the cost stack from about 28% to
31%.
**
Energy.gov.au, A
Better Energy Future for Australia
Formed
out of the Independent Review into the Future Security of the National
Electricity Market (the Finkel Review), the Energy Security Board comprises an
independent chair and deputy chair along with the expert heads of the Australian
Energy Market Commission (AEMC), the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) and the
Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).
The current Board membership is Chair Dr Kerry Schott AO,
Deputy Chair Clare Savage, Australian
Energy Market Commission Chair John Pierce, Australian Energy Market Operator
Chief Executive Audrey Zibelman, and the Chair of the Australian Energy
Regulator Paula Conboy.
Monday 13 August 2018
North Coast Voices will resume posting after Sunday 19 August 2018
North Coast Voices apologises to its readers.
Due to ill health there will be no daily postings on this blog
until after Sunday 19 August 2018.
Labels:
NCV admin
Sunday 12 August 2018
Anthropomorphic Global Warming in Australia 2018
Australians have been told repeatedly that global warming leading to climate change is real.
The continent is becomng dryer, record air and ground temperatures are no longer novel, heavy rain events are predicted to become more destructive, mass flora and fauna extinctions are expected and the coastline is beginning to erode faster than at the historical rate.
It's not just happenng in Australia, other continents are also experience climate change and, the one factor most have in common is generations of ever increasing greenhouse gas emissions produced by both households and industries in metropolitan, regional and rural areas.
Everyone bears some responsibility for where the world finds itself......
In the first
quarter of 2018 Australia’s total greenhouse gas emissions will be over MT 7.3 CO2-e higher than the national Paris ERT commitment made on our behalf by the Australian Government.
Over one
quarter of Australia’s CO2-e budget for 2013 to 2050 has already been
spent in the last 4.75 years.
AUSTRALIA’S ANNUAL
EMISSIONS, CALENDAR YEAR TO SEPTEMBER 2017*
* This graph includes both published Government NGGI data and Ndevr Environmental projections for Q4/FY2017 and Q1/FY2018
BY SECTOR 2005-2017
~~~~~~~~~~~
World-wide, land
used for non-animal and animal-based agriculture in 2017 was estimated to
produce 24% of all global greenhouse gas emissions.
In Australia agriculture
was responsible for est. 85.03 CO2-eMt or about 16% of Australia’s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2013:
66.3%
from enteric fermentation in ruminant livestock (eructation and flatulence)
15.5%
from agricultural soils
10.8%
from prescribed burning of savannas
3.9%
from manure management
2.4%
from liming and urea application
and
the remainder from rice cultivation and field burning of agricultural residues.
Total
greenhouse gas emissions from world-wide food systems in 2012 contributed between
19% to 29% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. By
2030 the combined greenhouse gas emissions from global food production is
expected to double.
~~~~~~~~~~~
National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting, Australia’s highest 10 greenhouse gas emitters 2016–17
Labels:
business,
climate change,
energy,
environment,
extinction,
farming,
industry,
mining
Saturday 11 August 2018
Quotes of the Week
“You can’t tell me
what to do, you’re not my dog!” [Anon]
“Take your hundred
dollar hat on your 1 dollar head and get back to rorting the system for you own
greed you lying, dribbling fraction of a man.” [Self-confessed reformed journalist Ronnie
Salt tweeting about the Nationals MP for New England NSW, 6 August
2018]
Labels:
Barnaby Joyce,
companion animals
Tweet of the Week
we interrupt our slide towards a racist surveillance dystopia to bring you this surprisingly honest government ad: https://t.co/TKG1mYyFzn— Scott Ludlam (@Scottludlam) August 2, 2018
Labels:
racism
Friday 10 August 2018
The fight against Japanese whaling in the Antarctic continues....
Minke Whale Breaching at http://wildwhales.org/speciesid/whales/minke-whale/ |
Australia states its position……
Joint media release
Minister for Foreign
Affairs, The Hon Julie Bishop MP
Minister for the
Environment and Energy, The Hon Josh Frydenberg MP
2 August 2018
Australia is very
concerned by Japan’s latest proposal to lift the global moratorium on
commercial whaling at the next International Whaling Commission meeting in
September 2018.
Australia remains
steadfastly opposed to all forms of commercial and so-called ‘scientific’
whaling and continues to be a leader in seeking to strengthen the International
Whaling Commission to protect whales.
We strongly support the
30-year global moratorium on commercial whaling and will vehemently oppose any
attempts to undermine the processes that support it, including through changed
voting regimes or the establishment of catch-limits for commercial whaling.
Australia and Japan
enjoy a deep and strong bilateral relationship, but we disagree on the issue of
whales. At the Commission meeting in September, Australia will be calling on
like-minded nations to reject Japan’s proposal.
Australia has worked
tirelessly to see an end to commercial whaling. We have co-sponsored
resolutions to improve the operation and scrutiny of the Commission and its
scientific committee; we have supported the establishment of new sanctuaries
where whales can thrive in their own environment; we initiated the Commission’s
twelve-nation Southern Ocean Research Partnership supporting non-lethal whale
research; and we successfully took Japan to the International Court of Justice.
The Australian
Government will continue to advocate strongly and consistently for the
cessation of commercial whaling and so-called ‘scientific’ whaling. The science
is clear, you do not need to kill whales in order to study them.
How one Japanese
newspaper reported the issues……
The
Japan Times,
4 August 2018:
SINGAPORE – Japan
and Australia agreed Friday to make efforts to prevent their whaling dispute
from hurting bilateral relations, a government official said.
During talks in
Singapore, Foreign Minister Taro Kono briefed his Australian counterpart Julie
Bishop about Japan’s proposal to restructure the International Whaling
Commission to make it easier to resume commercial whaling.
But Australia is
strongly opposed to all forms of whaling, raising concern that ties between
Tokyo and Canberra could be strained by a practice that Japan says is a
cultural tradition.
Last month, Japan
proposed resuming whaling of some species of relatively abundant whales. The
government halted commercial whaling in 1982, in line with the global
moratorium adopted by the IWC, but has hunted the mammals since 1987 for what
it calls “scientific research purposes.”
In September 2014, the IWC
adopted a resolution saying Japan should abide by the International Court of
Justice’s ruling earlier this year that its “scientific whaling” program was
illegal and should be halted.
Bishop and environment
minister Josh Frydenberg released a joint statement on Thursday condemning the
proposal to lift the global moratorium on commercial whaling.
BACKGROUND
BACKGROUND
News.com.au, 30 May 2018, Japan
whaling kills 122 pregnant whales for ‘research’
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