Wednesday 26 February 2020
Global insurance industry has begun to retreat from regions badly affected by climate change
Almost as soon as federal, state and local governments around the world began to consider what climate change might mean to them, it became obvious the insurance industry had been do the same for some time and had considered its options - at one point expressing a view that residential premises within the coastal fringes might become uninsurable and the land on which these homes were built would be rendered worthless by climate change.
Now QBE is turning that prediction into a reality.......
The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 February 2020:
Global insurance giant QBE has warned climate change poses a material threat to its business and the entire economy as its chief executive Pat Regan said premiums were at risk of becoming too high in areas exposed to repeated, extreme weather.
QBE has been forced to cut operations in countries where the climate risk is too high and Mr Regan said severe weather means customers in certain [areas] may be priced out of certain types of insurance in Australia and around the world.
"We got out of places like the Philippines, Thailand, Chile, Puerto Rico [where] it was just too much climate change weather impact risk there that the risks just weren't worth it," Mr Regan said.
Mr Regan said there had always been parts of the world that were difficult to insure, but as floods and fires become have dominated headlines this summer, this risk was increasing across "swathes of Australia" and could potentially price out customers from home and business property insurance.
Mr Regan said climate change was a "big topic" in the sector, requiring the insurance giant to "up its game on a number of fronts". QBE boosted its reinsurance program for catastrophic events to $2 billion in a process that would be reassessed each year, Mr Regan said.
"What that means is you could have a one-in-200-year storm and we'd be protected," Mr Regan said.
"Whatever your more broad thoughts on climate change are, the evidence is clearly there that the frequency and severity of weather events is increasing over time.
"The evidence is there for all to see that the amount of weather events globally, not just in Australia, is consistently rising and most of the worst years on record have happened in the last 10 years." [my yellow highlighting]
ABC News, 3 January 2020:
....the number of “uninsurable” addresses in Australia is projected to double by the turn of the century to nearly 720,000 — or one in 20 — if nothing is done to address escalating risk from extreme weather and climate change. Thousands more will see their insurance premiums double or even triple within decades, the data reveals.....
In Newcastle-Maitland, NSW, the number of uninsurable addresses will rise five-fold by 2100, to nearly one in seven.....
On the Gold Coast, increased risk from flooding and inundation will push the number of uninsurable addresses to 64,000 by 2100 — or one in six.
In Palm Beach, Broadbeach Waters and Bundall, more than half of addresses are projected to become “uninsurable” by 2100.
Financial Review, 27 October 2019:
Extreme weather has been making strata property in north Queensland very difficult to insure....
Strata insurance is the insurance that covers entire apartment complexes, as opposed to individual houses. As one insurer told The Australian Financial Review, large complexes pose much higher risks than single houses.....
Assessing the risk to these properties is difficult, and a number of insurers have simply stopped trying. Suncorp, one of the big three ASX-listed general insurers, falls into this category. It no longer underwrites complexes with more than 10 units, or an insured value of more than $5 million. QBE, Zurich and the major reinsurers have also pulled out.
Australian Parliamentary Library, Records of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry, "Inquiry into climate change and environmental impacts on coastal communities", October 2009:
Climate change is projected to have a major impact on the frequency of extreme weather events, with the coastal zone being particularly vulnerable in this regard because of the combined effects of sea level rise and storm surge/flooding events.
In its submission to the inquiry, the peak body for the insurance industry, the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA), noted that:
more than 425,000 Australian addresses are below 4 metres above mean sea level and within 3km of the current shoreline. Within the Greater Sydney region (Newcastle to Wollongong), 46,000 addresses are identified as being within 1km of the shoreline and with elevations less than 3m.
The ICA further observed that the majority of these vulnerable addresses are located near ocean-connected coastal waters—that is, alongside lakes, river banks and estuaries—and that properties in coastal settlements which are also on inland floodplains ‘can be liable to both river and ocean inundation, often concurrently’.
Climate change could have adverse impacts on insurance affordability and availability, compounding the problem of under-insurance:
Around 23 per cent of Australian households (1.8 million) are currently without building or contents insurance. As insurance premiums rise, more households may opt out of insuring, putting an added burden on governments and communities when disasters occur.
Labels:
climate change,
insurance,
property,
risk
Tuesday 25 February 2020
And the madness grows in the United States of America in 2020
This is not a hoax. It is a document generated by a Tennessee General Assembly statutory oversight committee.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NOTE
Forty-one year old James "Micah" Van Huss is a self-declared pious Christian, ex-military Republican
member of the Tennessee House of Representatives representing over 14,000 people in House District 6 in Washington County since January 8, 2013.
Labels:
legislation,
Republican Party,
US politics
Calling out an intentionally cruel Morrison Coalition Government
Zoë Wundenberg (left) is a highly qualified careers consultant and un/employment advocate who is also a journalist.
This is an article she wrote for the Bega District News.
Far too many newspapers in rural & regional Australia are not tackling this subject in any depth, even though their communities will be affected by the relentless rollout of the Indue Cashless Debit Card aka the 'Humiliation Card'.
So well done Zoë and Bega District News Editor, Ben Symth.
Bega District News, 10
February 2020:
I
am finding myself rubbing my eyes, as if to clear away the disbelief,
every time I see the news. I have to be honest - I'm struggling to
come to terms with what we are seeing emerge from government
leadership and I just cannot rationalise the social welfare policies
that have been rolled out since the last election, in particular.
My
naivete refuses to let me believe wholeheartedly that anyone elected
to represent the people could deliberately intend to be cruel.
I
want to believe that those in positions of power are just not
understanding the reality of the situation, or can't empathise with
something they've never experienced themselves. Or, perhaps, have
been swayed by data that can so easily be stacked to say whatever the
author want it to say.
I
don't want to be a cynic. But I'm becoming one. As a nation, we
continue to be labouring under the belief that people who don't have
a job have something wrong with them - that if you don't have any
money, it's because you can't manage it; that if you receive welfare
payments, you are going to waste income support on drugs, alcohol and
gambling.
The
2016 National Drug Strategy Household Survey states that people
experiencing unemployment are "3.1 times as likely to have used
meth/amphetamines". This oft-quoted line from the report is
regularly trotted out to justify the quarantining of income support
payments on the basis of preventing social harm. However, what this
figure actually refers to is the difference between 1.5 per cent of
employed people and 4.6 per cent of people experiencing unemployment.
It is not an encompassing statement about drug use across the board
and does not equate to people experiencing unemployment being three
times more likely to take drugs in general.
Would
it surprise you to know that 74.3 per cent of people experiencing
unemployment don't use drugs, or that more employed people are
"lifetime risky drinkers" or "single occasion risky
drinkers (monthly)", according to this same survey? Perhaps it
would floor you to realise that one in five Newstart recipients
actually have a job? They just don't have enough hours to completely
lose their Newstart payment.
In
light of this, I can understand why Senator Anne Ruston recently said
that the scope of the cashless welfare card needs to have a "broader
application than perhaps the social harm reduction that the original
policy was designed on", because that initial purpose is such a
flimsy basis that it simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
I
looked into how a person would go about applying for an exemption
from the card and the list of criteria was astounding.
According
to the exit application and support documentation, to successfully
exit the program "you must show reasonable management of your
affairs, including financial affairs."
To
do this, they will assess your Indue account information including
transactions made and transfer history AND cashless debit card
hotline information (presumably the recordings of calls "for
training purposes"), applications for urgent Centrelink
payments, suspensions, protection orders made against you, and even
health information including episodes of medical care relating to
drug and alcohol issues, to name a few. This breach of personal
privacy dumbfounds me. That you are put on the program regardless of
whether you actually have a history of drug, alcohol or financial
issues, and then are forced to prove yourself capable when the very
program stunts your agency and restricts your capacity to pay the
bills they require you to in order to exempt you is preposterous.
As
a citizen, the current investigations into a national rollout with
the big four banks involved to further curb our freedoms are
frightening. The rollout itself is terrifying enough, but it makes
you wonder what's next? What's the bigger picture, here?
I
have no answers, just a growing sense of dread. I think Thomas More
must be in office, because it is quite clear that this government is
first making thieves and then punishing them. But Utopia, this is
not.
There are currently an est. 15,000 people receiving a working age welfare payment, other than an Age Pension and Veterans’ Pension, who have been mandatorily placed on the neverending cashless debit card 'trial' program, with a further est. 23,000 people living in the Northern Territory to be forced onto the program in 2020.
What most people don't realise is that to date Indue Ltd only has 96 mixed merchants on its approved list and a whopping 729 businesses on its blocked list - including Australia Post, Deaf Services Queensland, Crisco Hampers, Casino Council, Westlawn Finance in Casino, and eBay to name a few.
Nor do they realise that Indue Ltd has placed conditions on card use that are not disclosed upfront on those federal government websites which include information about the cashless debit card.
The biggest brazen lie currently being told by the Morrison Government is that the Indue Cashless Debit Card operates "just like a regular bank card" - it does not.
The most important difference is that an eftpos bank card is normally attached to a bank account which pays interest on the balance held in the account on the last day of each calendar month - Indue does not pay interest on the balance held on a cashless debit card.
The second brazen lie is that a person who has been forced onto the Indue Cashless Debit Card can exit the trial program if they can prove they are good financial managers - it is nigh on impossible to exit as only 2 per cent of all applications are approved after input from the Australian Dept. of Government Services, various state or territory government departments and the local 'trial' community panel.
QCOSS Cashless Debit Card Trial Follow-up Hinkler Survey Results, October 2019, excerpts:
Crime and violence
“Lived in the same house for 5 years, before the card my street would be
pushing it to have 5 break-ins a year. Last month’s there were 5 break-ins in a
4 day period!!”
“I've lived it the same street for over 9 years and there has never been a break
in until just recently there were two thefts”
Financial hardship
“Currently seeing a financial counsellor as I am spending more then what I
usually would due to blocked merchants”
“Everything to do with my finances has become more difficult. Indue doesn't
pay bills on time which leads to defaults and extra fees. Because money is
split it makes it harder to budget. I no longer get high interest on my savings
as I can't save due to the 80% going to Indue”
Financial hardship - rent payments
“We aren't able to have our rent or bills processed by Indue. I personally could
not pay my rent off the card for nearly 3 months. I had to sell whatever I had to
make up the cash for rent.”
“I myself experience this myself the stress of trying to sort money out and
paying my rent is so hard as my real estate doesn’t accept this card therefore
all my money in my normal account goes entirely on just rent, nothing left”
Stigmatisation of social security recipients
“When I use my Indue card I have people often make snarky comments about
it. I have anxiety and hate using it. I try and cover the logo every time I have to
use the card.”
“I feel embarrassed to pull my card out and pay at places so I will often avoid
shopping on busy days as the added stress makes my anxiety
unmanageable.” “I personally have been called a junkie and a dole bludger at
the supermarket”
Access to second hand goods
“My loan company does not accept the Indue card forcing me to use my 20%
on loan repayments therefore I am forced to buy brand new goods for my
children instead of second hand on marketplace.”
“Cash only. Can't buy it. My sister can't buy a second hand washing machine.
Because it's cash only.”
“I have missed out on second-hand furniture from FB buy, swap, sell sites, I
can no longer purchase FAR CHEAPER products for things like crafting,
clothes for kids, bras etc off eBay as it is banned.”
People’s wellbeing
“I suffer from anxiety, depression, severe stress disorder and PTSD. I was in a
DV relationship for 5 years where my money was controlled by my abuser. I
left him over a year ago and now I am back in a DV relationship with Indue.
My health has deteriorated. I suffer from chronic migraines, they have
increasingly gotten more frequent and worse because I stress about money if
Indue will pay my bills on time. I also sleep very little of a night due to stress.
Overall my health and well-being has gone downhill.”
“I had to go on medication again because it just feels like I’m in an abusive
relationship again and they're just going to cut it off to change the rules again
whenever they want.”
Harassment for cash
“Frequently see persons around the region requesting donations of food,
clothing, blankets and money. Never saw this previously before this card was
introduced.”
“I've been harassed and abused for having physical cash in my wallet ever
since the trial started.”
“I've had a lot more people ask me for change than before the card was
introduced.”
Level of cash in the community
“Observing 2nd hand market there has been a definite decline and drop in
social numbers at markets etc”
“Seen first-hand businesses close and markets fail due to lack of stall holders
and attendees”
“No benefits, my pay goes to bills food and to my children. I never have money left over to use on
alcohol and i am not a drug user or have ever gambled. I am a student nurse doing the best I can for my
2 babies”
“In fact since being reduced to only 20% of my pay in cash I've been able to provide less for my family
than usual. Not to mention rent payment issues constantly.”
“Its destroyed my self-esteem an made it so i never leave the house. I only go to coles and home. To
ashamed to use it for public transportation to visit my son so he miss out as well."
“I have had the card not work in Woolworths when trying to purchase groceries (in their defence, they
were having major EFTPOS issues at the time, but the Indue card wouldn't work when other cards did),
I have missed out on opportunities to purchase second-hand goods due to not having access to cash -
i.e. a $15 line trimmer, and have overhead people talking about the card after seeing me use it or having
it not work as being the one 'given to the alchos' although I do not gamble, take drugs or drink alcohol.”
“I'm currently having details with rent and have had major difficulties with paying a road side mechanic
as well as every option I was allowed to choose in this question.”
“A lot of discrimination being on CDC. Unable to purchase second hand goods as well as unable to go
to the markets on weekends. Constant fear of the CDC declining when purchasing food.”
“Card declined despite available funds, inability to pay my bills as required without having to send off
invoices each time, Rent problems, Exclusion from venues related to kids, Inappropriate service from
DSS.”
“I was shopping for groceries as Aldi and I could only afford to pay part of my payment on my card as I
only had a small amount left and I just enough cash to pay the rest, as Aldi requires to process cash
first, I did but then when I went to pay with my card it declined and said it couldn't be used, so then I had
to stand there embarrassed with my groceries already half paid for but unable to pay the rest.”
“I have agoraphobia and now am forced to leave my house because my online shopping is declined
which is very distressing.”
“I would love to share my story more in depth. I moved to Hervey Bay 2 yrs ago for support and a house
to live in following my husband’s suicide. I have family here and they allowed me to live in their
investment property while I waited for support payments from Centrelink. (It took 4 months by the way).
The reason I am on this trigger payment is beyond my control and I have repeatedly discussed this with
dept of social services. I have since bought a house, have an excellent credit rating and am a damn
good mother to my sons. My youngest has turned 5 and I am now able to begin looking to return to work
next year. Even my teenage son has a job and works at MacDonald’s. We shouldn’t be lumped into this
long term welfare dependency category just because we moved here 2 years ago. I wish we didn't,
because I wish my husband never took his own life, and I wish I never had to receive a goddamn single
parent pension.”
“My cousin was refused an apartment due to being on the card for he cannot pay his rent from it
according to the landlord.”
“We get degraded and called dole bludgers.. I am a mother of two and i have a spinal injury from
working as a jillaroo for 7yrs! i don't want to be made to feel like a second class citizens in my own
country!”
“I get discriminated by people every time I use the card. People have negative things to say or roll their
eyes at me and treat me as if I am a huge inconvenience to them. I am a carer I do not deserve to be on
this card.”
“Stranded no way to pay Car loan not paid Rent won’t process School fees”
“Online purchases blocked, lack of solution or feedback to enquiries, lack of information and inadequate
response, Family cash needs, transfer fees”
“My son was placed on the card at seventeen, he was too young to purchase alcohol, too young to
gamble and doesn't do drugs. The card didn't help him gain employment. He has found himself feeling
less than at times, and without access to certain products due to the restrictions on the use of the card.
After ten months of searching, he finally landed a job, and he can hardly wait until he can send the card
back to Indue.”
“This card has made my depression and anxiety much worse than it was I can't even stand to leave my
house because of it”
“I’ve been demoralized in line at the shops been discriminated trying to buy second hand stuff. Have lost
any self-esteem i had and am now isolated in my house. I never leave except to go to Coles”
“Card chip stopped working. Was left without card for 2 weeks because I wasn't told I could get a
temporary card until new card arrived... Was left to survive the fortnight with the 20% cash from account”
“My rent was not able to be paid without warning, as my housing limit was set to $0. Every 6 months i
have to fill out 2 forms and get my landlord to sign them just so i can continue paying rent. They didn't
send me a text, email or letter to warn me it was going to happen.”
Monday 24 February 2020
Australian Prime Minister 'Scotty From Marketing' Morrison has called a voter anti-Semitic one time too many
During a media door stop at Mt. Barker in South Australia on 24 December 2019 Australian Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison asserted that certain action/s taken by a voter* resident in the federal electorate of Kooyong were anti-Semitic.
This was not the first time - he made a similar assertion about another voter at another doorstop on 17 July 2019.
Having modelled himself on U.S. President Donald J. Trump, Scotty From Marketing had taken to telling brazen political lies and freely throwing insults around without suffering uncomfortable consequences.
Official website of the Prime Minister of Australia, statement made on 24 December 2019 snapshot taken 6:12pm 16 February 2020 |
However, Australia is not quite America just yet and, this time a letter arrived at Morrison's electoral office.
Australian Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison being sued for defamation by clarencegirl on Scribd
https://www.scribd.com/document/447228487/Australian-Prime-Minister-Liberal-MP-for-Cook-Scott-Morrison-being-sued-for-defamationIf Morrison doesn't resolve this matter to the satisfaction of Michael Staindl then sometime after tomorrow legal proceeding will in all likelihood commence.
Note
* Michael Staindl filed a petition in the High Court sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns in July 2019 challenging Australian Treasurer & Liberal MP for Kooyong Josh Frydenberg's eligibility to sit in the federal parliament. The hearing was set down for Tuesday 18 and Wednesday 19 February 2020. The Court is still considering evidence submitted and has not yet handed down a judgment.
Labels:
defamation,
Scott Morrison
‘Grant from Auditing’ dropped ‘Scotty from Marketing’ right in it and the net result is a strong stench of corruption emanating from the Morrison government
New
Matilda,
14 February 2020:
Summer
rains finally fell on large parts of New South Wales this week. They
didn’t fall everywhere, and much of inland Australia is still in
drought, but enough rain fell where it was needed to allow weary fire
authorities to announce that the New South Wales bushfires were
finally contained.
For
different reasons, Scott Morrison has also had a difficult summer, so
the Prime Minister would no doubt have been pleased the bushfire
emergency he so badly mishandled is now receding. With Parliament
back and the serious matter of COVID-19 Coronavirus to attend to,
Morrison could be forgiven for thinking that February would be the
month where the government could regain the political initiative.
But
that’s not happening, because the government finds itself mired in
a series of corruption scandals.
The
key issue, as it has been for weeks now, is the sports rorts affair.
As we now know, roughly $100 million in sports grants were
distributed in a completely corrupt manner by former Sports Minister
Bridget McKenzie before the 2019 federal election.
The
scandal blew up after the National Audit Office released a
devastating report into the orgy of pork barrelling.
The
government’s initial response to the Audit was to try and downplay
it: a variation of the classic “nothing to see here, folks” line.
Morrison himself argued many times that no rules had been broken and
that all the projects funded in McKenzie’s dodgy process were
eligible.
That
approach proved unsustainable, as the media turned its attention to
the grants program and uncovered multiple instances of highly dubious
decision-making. Huge grants to fancy rowing clubs in Mosman, grants
for female change rooms to clubs with no female players, grants to a
shooting club that McKenzie herself was a member of, grants that
sporting clubs boasted about before even receiving them – the more
journalists dug, the worse things seemed.
The
Audit report was always going to be difficult to wriggle away from.
The report set down, in black and white, a devastating series of
findings about the sports grants program.
An
established funding program was subverted by a “parallel process”
of political decision making inside McKenzie’s office, quite
transparently driven by political interest. Questions were raised
about the program’s probity by senior bureaucrats, only to be
batted away by McKenzie and her staff. A colour-coded spreadsheet was
even drawn up, one that had nothing to do with the merits of the
funding applications, and everything to do with the Coalition’s
re-election strategy.
As
former senior New South Wales judge Stephen Charles QC argued, this
was not just ministerial misconduct; it was corruption.
So,
after weeks of defending her, Morrison bowed to the inevitable and
sacked McKenzie. After a hastily convened investigation by Morrison’s
hand-picked Secretary of the Department of Prime Minster and Cabinet,
Phil Gaetjens, McKenzie was sent on her way.
On
the day he sacked McKenzie, Morrison announced that Gaetjens’
report found that McKenzie had erred, but that the program itself was
sound. Exactly how Gaetjens managed to come to that conclusion is
something that has puzzled journalists and onlookers. If the program
was sound, why was McKenzie sacked for rorting it? And if McKenzie
rorted it, how could the program be sound?
Just
to make matters more opaque, Gaetjens’ report was never released,
with Morrison claiming that it was a cabinet document. He therefore
kept it secret. It’s marvellous stuff, this open government
business…..
In
scathing testimony, Auditor-General Grant Hehir and senior auditor
Brian Boyd demolished the government’s position with a few
well-chosen lines.
Were
all the grants eligible, Senator Eric Abetz asked Boyd? No, answered
Boyd.
In
fact, as many as 43 per cent were not eligible. Boyd went on to
explain why. Some applications were late. Some projects had started
their work before they signed the funding agreement. Some had
actually finished the work.
As
Boyd told the Committee, “If you’ve completed your work, or in
some cases — as in this one — you’ve even started your work
before a funding agreement is signed, you’re not eligible to
receive funding.” Oops.
It
got worse. We also found out that the Prime Minister’s office was
intimately involved with McKenzie’s office in drawing up the dodgy
list of grant recipients. Auditor-General Hehir told Senators there
were “direct” communications between Morrison’s office and
McKenzie’s, including at least 28 versions of the now-notorious
colour-coded spreadsheet that laid out the various sports grants by
marginal seat.
The
Auditor-General described a process where key advisors from Morrison
and McKenzie’s offices haggled over which projects to fund, using
the spreadsheet as the basis for their decisions.
To
say this looks bad for the Prime Minister is an understatement. He
has been caught out in a particularly ham-fisted cover up, one that
looks all the more ill-judged now the facts have come to light. Given
the level and detail of communication between his office and Bridget
McKenzie’s, it’s hard to see how he can plausibly argue he wasn’t
privy to the rorts…..
Read
the full article here.
Sunday 23 February 2020
February 2020 - a month of fish kills and fish rescues in New South Wales
In the 2008 fish kill, North Creek was habitable and provided safe haven for many fish.— Keith Williams (@Captainturtle) February 17, 2020
Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen this time. pic.twitter.com/RkNAAKxDp7
The Northern Star, 18 February 20120, pp 1-2:
Dr Matt Landos, a local veterinarian who specialises in aquatic species, recently warned of a potential fish kill.
He previously said the long, dry spell had led to a build-up of monosulfidic black ooze in agricultural drains within the catchment. The drains were built long ago to empty wetlands to open land to farming.
On Sunday, he took his son to North Creek to find his prediction had come true. “Nineteen years on from the first major kill, and the science on drainage and wetland restoration sits largely gathering dust, waiting for action to fix our landscape,” he said.
“The solution is to pay our farmers to restore drained wetlands.” A spokesperson for the NSW Department of Primary Industries said DPI Fisheries had investigated fish death events at Rocky Mouth Creek and North Creek.
“Mullet, bream and whiting are the main species impacted, the spokesperson said.“The suspected cause of the current events is due to critically low dissolved oxygen levels.”
Earlier in the month on 7 February at Fine Flower Creek in the Clarence River catchment there was a report of approximately 150 to 200 dead fish including Mullet and Perch. Likely cause being low dissolved oxygen within an isolated pool receiving minimal inflows.
Further down the coast on 11 February at Clybucca Creek in the Macleay River estuary there was a report of thousands of dead fish including Garfish, Mullet, Blackfish, Silver Biddy, Flathead, Bream and Whiting. Recent rainfall events have caused flooding of the backswamp system resulting in deoxygenated and low pH water, killing fish upstream and downstream of the gates.
That same day at Killick Creek, Kempsey, there was also a report of thousands of dead fish including Yellowfin Bream, Mullet, Longtail Eels and Flathead. Stressed fish were observed gasping at the water surface indicating low dissolved oxygen levels present. Cause was episodic rainfall events that caused short and sharp flow. This can cause a rapid reduction in dissolved oxygen levels due to large volumes of organic material entering the river system.
On 5 February Cockle Creek at Teralba, Lake Macquarie there was a report of hundreds of dead Mullet. Likely cause being low dissolved oxygen within an isolated pool receiving minimal inflows.
16 February at North Creek, Prospect and Chickiba Lakes at Ballina saw a report of thousands of dead fish including Bream, Leather Jacket and Trumpeter. Cause unknown.
By 18 &19 February the Richmond River had suffered two fish kill events. The first at Woodburn Bridge when hundreds of mullet died due to the reduction in dissolved oxygen (DO) levels caused by significant rainfall/flooding event on floodplain, followed by hot weather, leading to discharge of large volumes of critically low DO water entering the waterway via creeks and drains.The second at the East Wardell Boat Ramp with a report of hundreds of dead fishing including Bream, Flathead, Garfish, Whiting, Mullet, Herring ranging from 10cm to 40cm. The cause was a reduction in dissolved oxygen (DO) levels caused by significant rainfall/flooding event on floodplain, followed by hot weather, leading to discharge of large volumes of critically low DO water entering the waterway via creeks and drains.
Also on 19 February at Alumny Creek, South Arm and Shark Creek in the Clarence Valley there were reports of thousands of dead fish including mullet and eels, due to the reduction in dissolved oxygen (DO) levels caused by significant rainfall/flooding event on floodplain, followed by hot weather, leading to discharge of large volumes of critically low DO water entering the waterway via creeks and drains.
A total of 24 fish kill events occurred in NSW coastal catchments in February 2020, while there were 6 fish kill events in the Murray-Darling Basin involving the death of many hundreds of dead wild fish.
See: NSW Dept. Primary Industries (DPI), Fish Kills in NSW for full details.
In order to save as many fish as possible from the record-breaking drought, bushfires and post-fire water pollution after rainfall, rescues have taken place in the Gwydir, Border Rivers, Macquarie, Lachlan, and Upper Murray catchments in the Murray-Darling Basin, and in the Clarence and Richmond River catchments on the coast.
Threatened fish species were captured and relocated to areas where these fish would have a greater chance of surviving or sent to government hatcheries and Taronga Western Plains Zoo where they will form the backbone of captive breeding programs.
DPI Fisheries states it has rescued more than 5,000 native fish from all corners of the state, since operations began in September 2019 with the rescue of Murray Cod, Golden Perch and other native fish species in the drying Menindee Lakes.
Those fish rescued to date include: approximately 1,630 Olive Perchlet, 740 Southern Pygmy Perch, 292 Oxleyan Pygmy Perch, 107 Southern Purple Spotted Gudgeon, 98 Eastern Freshwater Cod, 79 Silver Perch and 34 Eel-tailed Catfish and, sadly only 9 Macquarie Perch.
Community members are encouraged to report sightings of threatened fish to help identify where actions may be required to prevent fish deaths and, to report any fish deaths or observations through the Fishers Watch phoneline on 1800 043 536.
For more information or to report a threatened species, download the FishSmart app, phone the Fishers Watch phone line on 1800 043 536, or visit www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fishing.
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