National News - October 2007
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30/10/07 Native trees key to cooling climate, Dani Cooper,ABC, Science Online Links
19/10/07 Forest idealists blinkered in their thinking on wood needs Catherine Murphy , Chief Executive NAFI, Business Age Links
17/10/07 Coalition, Labor fail green test ABC News Online
11/10/07 Gunns' double-barrelled dilemma The company's plan to pulp native trees clashes with its investment in plantations, writes Judith Ajani.
The Age Business Day, Opinion our highlighting
11/10/07 Giant WA gas project gets green light Rebecca Le May, AAP Western Australia our highlighting
10/10/07 How can voters decide on Rudd's unknown vision?John Roskam, The Age Opinion our highlighting
10/10/07 Rudd puts principles aside in the pursuit of power Michelle Grattan, The Age
08/10/07 Gunns director backs hopeful Andrew Darby, The Age our highlighting
08/10/07 Pre-1788 Aborigines 'lived in houses' AAP Queensland; Tasmania; Victoria; South West
06/10/07 Labor: the party without a shadow THE AGE
04/10/07 Gunns shares surge after mill's approval AAP The Age our highlighting
04/10/07 Malcolm Turnbull approves Gunns pulp mill... sort of - By Glenn Cordingley AAP
04/10/07 New forests 'could capture gases'By Matthew Warren and Jill Rowbotham, The Australian
Water National 03/10/07 Magazine defends climate change article AAP The Age Queensland; Northern Territory; our highlighting
02/10/07 Turnbull in trouble on mill pledge Andrew Darby, Hobart, The Age Tasmania; Oct 07
Water National 02/10/07 02/10/07 Green future for plastics Philip Hopkins AAP
Water National 02/10/07 02/10/07 Nation faces a barren future Rachel Kleinman, The Age
ABC, Science Online
Tuesday, 30 October 2007
Extensive clearing of native trees is making Australian droughts hotter and is an under-recognised factor in climate change, research shows.
The study by researchers from the University of Queensland and Queensland's Department of Natural Resources and Water shows that land clearing made the 2002-3 drought in eastern Australia 2°C hotter.
The research, published online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, also found average summer rainfall has decreased by between 4-12% in eastern Australia and by 4-8% in southwest Western Australia because of land clearing.
These are historically the regions in Australia that have been most extensively cleared of native vegetation.
Dr Clive McAlpine, of the university's Centre for Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Science, says about 13% of the Australian continent has been cleared of native vegetation since European settlement in 1788. (I would have thought it was more like 50%)
However, in many agricultural areas in eastern Australia and southwest Western Australia more than 90% of native vegetation has been cleared.
"This study is showing Australian climate is sensitive to land clearing," he says. "And our findings highlight that it is too simplistic to attribute climate change purely to greenhouse gases.
"Protection and restoration of Australia's native vegetation needs to be a critical consideration in mitigating climate change."
What's the impact?
Dr McAlpine says the research used the same modelling system as the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to determine the impact of land clearing.
It simulated climate scenarios for the country using data on pre-European settlement vegetation coverage and 1990 vegetation coverage for Australia.
This showed more than 150 years of land clearing had added significantly to the warming and drying of eastern Australia.
He says native vegetation plays an important role in moderating climate because it is deep rooted, which leads to more moisture evaporating into the atmosphere over a longer period.
This is then recycled into the environment as rainfall.
Native vegetation also reflects less short-wave solar radiation into the atmosphere than crops, which keeps the surface temperature cooler and helps in cloud formation.
Looking to the future
McAlpine says the findings should help in the development of policies to deal with the effects of climate change.
"The first thing is we need to protect what vegetation remains," he says.
"We also need to carefully consider in regions such as Queensland where there is a lot of regrowth how we protect that so we are not leaving the landscape vulnerable.
"And we need initiatives in southern Australia to restore native vegetation."
29/10/06 Global warming: Twenty inescapable facts about the inconvenient truth Sunday Telegraph UK, Walter Jehne UK
Forest idealists blinkered in their thinking on wood needs
Catherine Murphy , Chief Executive NAFI, Business Age
Friday, October 19, 2007
JUDITH Ajani (BusinessDay 11/10/07), like the Greens, wants to convince people that there is no need for timber production from Australia's native forests. She claims that tree plantations should provide all our domestic timber needs.
Australia's $2 billion trade deficit in forest and wood products proves otherwise. Election-time lock-ups of native forest into reserves by state governments have led to this deficit for more than a decade despite significant investment in plantation establishment.
Australia now has more than 1.8 million hectares of plantations, but most recent investments have been into short-rotation crops for pulpwood production through managed investment schemes (MIS), where investors can use business tax arrangements for their investment in tree crops. After a two-year process of review, the Federal Government has moved to give certainty to these arrangements to encourage city investment in the bush.
The establishment of long-rotation plantations (for high-value sawn timber) through the MIS framework received a boost in the last federal budget, as the Government allowed investments in tree plantations to be traded after a holding period of four years. But even if there is an increase in long-rotation plantings, the trees will not be available for harvest for decades.
In any case, it is fair to say there will always be a place for native forest products as plantation timber does not have the same durability and appearance.
But Ms Ajani's opposition to timber production within native forests implies Australia increasing its reliance on timber imports from countries without the strict environmental frameworks that exist here.
Research has shown that up to 10 per cent, or $400 million, of Australia's imports could be coming from illegally logged overseas forests in our region.
This number is a direct result of more than 11 million hectares of production forests being placed in national parks over the past decade or so (which Ms Ajani has supported).
Increased bushfires and imports of timber are two truly perverse environmental outcomes considering the "Green" motives behind the creation of these national parks.
Literally millions of hectares of these forests have been devastated by bushfires, due to poor management of the parks.
The 2002-03 fires that devastated the ACT, NSW and Victoria burnt more than 3 million hectares of forest, mostly in national parks, and resulted in the equivalent to 25 per cent of Australia's annual carbon dioxide emissions being released.
The fires in Victoria last season caused a further 1 million hectares to be burnt, specifically in national parks. The forest industry is often a victim of the fires stemming from national parks, with adjacent well-managed state forests and tree plantations singed by wildfires.
A recent report by the CSIRO found that bushfire frequency and intensity could be expected to skyrocket as climate change sets in. With the huge area of national parks created recently, state governments can be listed No. 2 on the list of contributors to increased bushfire threats.
On the political point, Ms Ajani's comments that forest policy has been "shoved under the carpet by our political parties" should not go unanswered. Like the Greens, Ms Ajani fails to recognise the world-class system governing the long-term management of Australia's native forests as demonstrated through the Regional Forest Agreement processes.
After years of scientific rigor, the RFAs aimed to put to rest the forest debate in Australia by marking where industry can manage and what is put in reserves.
At a federal level, forest policy has been a major election theme on at least two occasions. Both political parties recognise that native forest management has been more than adequately dealt with through the democratic process and government forest policy.
Their focus has rightly shifted to the promotion of value-adding facilities, like the proposed Tasmanian pulp mill, so jobs can be created for Australians.
The pulp mill is a watershed for investment in value-adding facilities in the forest industry and will provide confidence for future investment in the sector. It has been designed so that the operation can eventually move to a totally plantation resource. The scale of plantations needed to feed the mill will come from a mixture of state-owned eucalyptus plantations, privately owned and MIS-funded forests.
However, Ms Ajani continually voices her opposition to managed investment schemes, which have proven to be the most effective way of attracting city investor funds to a long-term investment in regional Australia.
Again, without city money for rural investment, is Ms Ajani suggesting Australia satisfy its demand for forest products with imports?
Australia will always need a sustainable native forest industry, complemented by an expanding plantation sector.
The Australian public must recognise that to take responsibility for protecting the environment, we must take responsibility for our demand of forest products by supporting a sustainable native forest industry in our own country.
If we don't, we risk encouraging illegal logging and unsustainable use of tropical forests in less developed countries.
Catherine Murphy is chief executive of the National Association of Forest Industries.
11/10/07 Gunns' double-barrelled dilemma The company's plan to pulp native trees clashes with its investment in plantations, writes Judith Ajani.
The Age Business Day, Opinion our highlighting
National News 29/03/07 Howard ignores own backyard in global forests plan; Media release Tasmanian Wilderness Society Tasmania; March 07
18/12/06 Locking up precious forest areas is playing with fire, Catherine Murphy, CEO NAFI; SMH
NAFI should be investigated for its tax deductibility: Greens - From Greens Media - April 2, 2006
NAFI from their
WebsiteNAFI - from the Wilderness Society
Website 31/01/99 Anti-environmentalism - background by Bob Burton from 1997
ABC News Online 17/10/07
Don Henry, from the Australian Conservation Foundation, says the major parties are not doing enough for the environment. (File photo) (The 7:30 Report)
The two major political parties have both been dealt scores of below 50 out of 100 on their environment policies, in an assessment carried out by the Australian Conservation Foundation.
The group has released a scoreboard for all parties on their policies on climate change, water, forests and sustainable cities.
The Coalition received 21 out of 100, Labor scored 49, the Democrats and the Greens were above 90 and Family First received 31 out of 100.
The Conservation Foundation's Don Henry says both major parties are failing so far.
"So we'd say pull up the socks these are crucial issues for our future," he said.
"It's disappointing at this stage both major parties are in a relatively weak position on environment although there is some difference.
"The Australian people want to see good climate and environment policies during the election campaign."
Forestry Tasmania flogs its native logs at a cut-price $12 to $13 a tonne.
Photo: Paul Rovere
October 11, 2007
The company's plan to pulp native trees clashes with its investment in plantations, writes Judith Ajani. Forest economist ANU - our additions and highlighting in red
The Age Business Day, Opinion
GUNNS' pulp mill is exposing tensions in both major parties. A decade of opportunistic me-too-ism has left big political problems for Australia's forest industry. The big parties, thinking voters have nowhere else to go, have shoved forest policy under the carpet, leaving a cabal of industry lobbyists to shape decisions. Gunns is not alone in benefiting from this situation, but the pulp mill is at last bringing the contradictions in its business to the surface.
Gunns' pulp mill is moving against the Australian wood products industry's surge into plantation processing. While 80 per cent of Australia's wood products industry — the makers of sawn timber, wood panels and the wood used to make paper — is now plantation-based and therefore enjoys the commercial advantages of processing an agricultural crop, Gunns prefers to use native forests as its major feedstock.
Its 20-year wood supply contract with the Tasmanian Government is too good to refuse. Forestry Tasmania sells native forest chip logs for a low $12 to $13 a tonne, and its contractual arrangement for the pulp mill allows chip-log prices to move in line with the price Gunns receives for its globally traded pulp.
For more than 20 years, real (inflation-adjusted) prices for globally traded pulp have trended down by an average 2.4 per cent a year. At best, China might flatten this historical downward trend in real pulp prices for part of Gunns' wood supply contract. China retains a staggering capacity to import huge volumes of wood and processed wood products without triggering real price increases.
Federal Government published projections indicate that Gunns could feed its mill, from start-up date, with Tasmanian hardwood plantations. Most are private-sector investments, including through Gunns' managed investment schemes.
But supplying the pulp mill with plantation hardwood will triple the mill's wood costs. Gunns' commercial interest lies in retaining access to as much cheap native forest wood as is possible, for as long as possible.
Its aim is not just to enhance the commercial viability of its pulp mill, but to continue its chip export business — its most prized profit source.
What then happens to the hardwood chip logs coming on stream from Gunns' prospectus-based plantations? Gunns must juggle two interests: its desire, as a chip exporter and possible pulp producer, for cheap wood versus its desire to profit from its plantation prospectus operations. These profits come principally from the high subscription payments from investors, who, in turn, enjoy the tax-minimisation benefits. But investors also expect Gunns to deliver the wood prices assumed in the prospectus.
Statistics clarify the situation and the dilemma. Gunns' prospectus investors last year paid $6820 a hectare. It costs about $2000 to plant and manage a hectare of trees over its 13 or so years of growing, and the land remains in Gunns' ownership.
Despite the chasm between the subscription payment and the actual cost of doing the job, Gunns promotes an investor return of 7 to 10 per cent post-tax, using what some foresters and financial analysts argue are overly optimistic assumed wood yields and chip-log prices. (The claims apply to virtually all hardwood plantation prospectus products, not just Gunns'.)
While Gunns investors enjoy the tax benefits, they also expect a chip-log price of $36 a tonne — three times higher than its State Government native forest competition. Quality advantages in agricultural tree cropping regimes do not neutralise this gap.
Gunns is the sole buyer of hardwood chips in Tasmania. It will decide the plantation and native forest mix for its chip export business and planned pulp mill, and when it buys plantation wood and at what price.
Gunns will juggle its competing interests as a wood buyer and a plantation prospectus company to maximise profits. Pulp mill or no pulp mill, Gunns is Tasmania's forest industry. It has outgrown the state and is expanding to the mainland and into the softwood sector through its recently acquired 60 per cent of Auspine.
We can expect further high-quality acquisitions in the softwood sector — the main game in the global wood-products industry — if Gunns chooses not to proceed with its high-risk $1.7 billion pulp mill following the chief scientist's report to Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
While Gunns shareholders rub their hands together, many more people are angrily witnessing the breakdown in governance in Tasmania and the long-term disengagement of both federal Liberal and Labor.
Gunns' pulp mill saga has a potential upside. The overwhelming intensity of the politics may shake one or both major parties out of their forest policy complacency.
This would not be before time for the many rural voters fuming about the plantation prospectus-driven rural land buy-up, which is driven by tax benefits now totalling more than $2 billion, not wood market realities.
The furore surrounding Gunns' pulp mill is just the wake-up call both parties need.
Judith Ajani is an economist at the Australian National University and author of The Forest Wars, published by Melbourne University Publishing.
Our note-
She was formerly known as Judy Clarke; and did a marvellous Australia wide forests economics report as early as 1995- copies available from Teachers for Forests
- we have advertised Judys talks as early as 2002
Rebecca Le May, AAP our highlighting
October 11, 2007
CHEVRON and its joint-venture partners in the Gorgon gas project, ExxonMobil and Shell, have welcomed the Federal Government's decision to grant environmental approval for the mammoth development.
The project will involve recovering gas from the Gorgon field, which is Australia's largest known gas resource and is near the North-West Shelf gas fields off the West Australian coast.
The development also involves building a gas refining and liquid natural gas plant on Barrow Island, where Chevron has operated for more than 40 years.
The project, which could cost $15-20 billion, was given state go-ahead by WA Environment Minister David Templeman last month.
He imposed 36 environmental conditions, which Chevron Australia general manager for the greater Gorgon area Colin Beckett called the most stringent imposed on a major project in the world.
Mr Beckett said the decision by federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull was welcome after four years of rigorous state and federal environmental assessment.
"Strict environmental protection measures will be required to protect Commonwealth environment matters, including listed threatened and migratory species, and rare vegetation on Barrow Island," Mr Turnbull said.
Under the environmental protection measures stipulated by Mr Templeman, the Gorgon joint venturers will spend $60 million to conserve the flatback turtle and other endangered species.
They must submit annual audit compliance and environmental performance reports. Last month, Mr Beckett said the project included the largest geosequestration scheme contemplated or in production in the world.
Mr Turnbull said the Government had committed $60 million from the Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund to support the capture and storage of carbon dioxide from the gas refining process.
"This commitment, coupled with today's decision, demonstrates that we can successfully achieve sustainable development through balancing environmental and economic considerations," he said.
Mr Turnbull said the Gorgon project would inject some $20 billion into the national economy.
About 6000 jobs are expected to be generated over the life of the project.
It has an estimated resource base of more than 40 trillion cubic feet of gas and a nominal development life of about 60 years.
AAP
John Roskam, The Age Opinion our highlighting
October 10, 2007,
Labor is identical to the Liberals on many important issues.
IF EVER there was an opportunity for the ALP to differentiate itself from the Coalition, it came last week. The announcement that the intake of African refugees to Australia would be limited gave Kevin Rudd the chance to take a strong stand contrary to the Government and in favour of a non-discriminatory immigration policy. Instead he squibbed it.
Likewise on the Tasmanian pulp mill. Peter Garrett must be wondering why he joined the Labor Party if his only task is to agree with Malcolm Turnbull.
For years the ALP has complained about the Coalition's non-government schools funding policy. Mark Latham even promised a "hit list" of rich private schools. Yet on Monday Labor announced that if elected it would maintain the current funding formula until 2012.
Yesterday Rudd said that no government he led would ever intervene diplomatically to
save the life of a terrorist facing capital punishment. In doing so, Rudd repudiated his own foreign affairs spokesman and followed exactly the established position of the Howard Government.
On the single biggest domestic issue of the past six months — federal intervention in indigenous communities in the Northern Territory — the ALP's stance has been indistinguishable from that of the Coalition.
Other than on WorkChoices, it's difficult to find many substantive matters on which
Rudd diverges from the Prime Minister. If it were not for WorkChoices, Labor would be hard-pressed to present itself as any sort of alternative.
Every recent federal election has supposedly been the most important since 1975. At the moment it would be difficult to make this claim about the 2007 election. According to this week's Age/Nielsen poll, many Australians don't care who will be running the country after December. Forty-three per cent of voters think that it is irrelevant to the performance of the economy which party is in power.
The last time polls have so consistently indicated a victory for the opposition over the incumbent government was more than a decade ago when John Howard defeated Paul Keating. The difference between 1996 and 2007 is stark.
Eleven years ago, John Howard portrayed himself as everything that Paul Keating was not. The two leaders were at pains to point out how different they were. The style and substance of each was almost the exact opposite of the other. Howard famously talked of combating the all-pervading air of "political correctness" and abandoning the "black-armband view" of history. He stressed that his policies would be "practical", and so he had little time for the symbolism of reconciliation or the republic. Even though he was always going to continue the economic reform agenda of the Hawke and Keating years, Howard never allowed the public to forget the "recession we had to have".
At this election, Rudd has portrayed himself as being as similar to Howard as possible. Rudd would take being labelled "conservative" as a compliment. Labor has pledged to follow the Coalition's budget strategy to ensure continued low unemployment and low inflation.
Meanwhile, on social policy the ALP has followed the Government's lead on everything from the federal takeover of public hospitals to performance pay for teachers. On foreign policy, although Labor has pledged to withdraw Australian troops from Iraq, it says it remains strongly committed to the US alliance and fighting the war on terror.
There's no better proof of Rudd's willingness to be "practical" than his view
that fixing federalism is more important than removing the Queen as head of state.
Does all of this mean that the PM has finally won the "culture wars"? Is the testament to his success as prime minister going to be the fact that even if he loses the election his legacy will be continued under Rudd?
If only that were true. But the short answer to these questions is no.
To a large extent Labor is merely pursuing a "small target" strategy. To avoid losing votes, Rudd is either agreeing with the Government or simply saying nothing. This might be intensely frustrating to the party's supporters, but it is a strategy that often works. Those supporters have started muttering publicly about their hopes that a Rudd government in office will be very different from a Rudd opposition.
The question for the future is not about Howard. People know what the Prime Minister stands for. More relevant is the issue of what Rudd and the Labor Party stand for. If at this federal election the ALP is merely the mirror image of the Coalition, it is unclear why the electorate seems so intent on changing government..
The Age/Nielsen poll indicated that nearly half the electorate believe Kevin Rudd has a better vision for Australia than does Howard. Given the similarities between the parties, it's difficult to discern what part of Rudd's vision voters find preferable.
John Roskam is executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs. He was a senior adviser to the Kennett and Howard governments
Michelle Grattan, The Age
October 10, 2007
KEVIN Rudd looks expedient and hypocritical in chastising his foreign affairs spokesman, Robert McClelland, over his death penalty comments.
The Labor leader's action yesterday was politically savvy but leaves a sour moral taste. He sounds like he's willing to park his principles in pursuing power, perhaps intending to pick them up again when safely ensconced in the Lodge.
McClelland made two points: the Government is inconsistent when it pleads for Australians facing the death penalty but the PM supports executing foreign terrorists such as the Bali bombers. And a Labor Government would initiate a regional coalition against the death penalty.
What was McClelland's sin? Timing. Bad politics days before the Bali bombing anniversary. On substance, McClelland was doing no more than spelling out Labor policy. The ALP platform says: "Labor in government will strongly and clearly state its opposition to the death penalty, whenever and wherever it arises and will use its position internationally and in the region to advocate for the universal abolition of the death penalty."
For Rudd to blame staff — McClelland's and his own — for letting the speech through is reprehensible. A frontbencher is responsible for his words. And staff can hardly be blamed for promulgating a well-established position outlined, for example, in a September 19 press release from McClelland and shadow attorney-general Joe Ludwig. It said a Rudd government would be "committed to take the lead in encouraging a regional coalition against the death penalty."
The extensive use of the death penalty in Asia is appalling and mostly not to do with terrorism. An August 2006 Lowy Institute paper noted at least 1770 people had reportedly been executed in China the previous year; in 1999-2003 Singapore had by far the highest execution rate in the world. This should be a matter for Australian concern.
Yesterday Rudd appeared to be backpeddling on Labor policy itself. Prosecuting Labor's global opposition to the death penalty was "best done … through the United Nations". Ambitions for regional leadership had been reduced to seeking "to engage regional states and other states in support of that proposition".
For a man who has said he believes — rightly — that the death penalty is a "medieval practice", it is a cop out.
Andrew Darby,, The Age our highlighting
October 9, 2007
GUNNS director and former Tasmanian premier Robin Gray has emerged as a key backer of the new Liberal candidate in the federal seat of Lyons, chosen after the incumbent quit over the company's pulp mill.
Geoff Page, 39, said Mr Gray had rung to congratulate him even before his candidacy was signed off. He rejected a suggestion that the ties represented a conflict of interest. "Robin is a family friend, and a friend of mine, and he's supported my political career," Mr Page said.
The former Lyons Liberal candidate, Ben Quin, resigned on Saturday, saying many Tasmanians had concerns about the process used to approve the $1.7 billion pulp mill, which gained Federal Government backing last Thursday. He announced yesterday he would stand as an independent.
"There's a lack of transparency about the way things happen in Tasmania, and people have encouraged me to stand on the basis of transparency and integrity," Mr Quin said.
Mr Gray has described Mr Quin as being out of touch with electors, embracing the pulp mill issue because it was fashionable.
Labor's Dick Adams holds Lyons on a margin of 3.7 per cent. He survived the tide of anti-ALP feeling that swept through Tasmania over the Latham forests package at the last election.
Mr Page, general manager of a livestock transport company, has strong Liberal Party links. In July, Prime Minister John Howard opened new buildings for his company at Hagley in the state's north. Yesterday he again met Mr Howard, who was touring northern Tasmania.
He said he was proud of the decision by Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull to approve the Tamar Valley pulp mill and accused Mr Quin of using the Liberal Party "franchise" to increase his profile in the electorate.
Australia's chief scientist, Dr Jim Peacock, yesterday threw doubt on how firm the approval for the pulp mill project was, because of the outstanding issues.
He said work done for Gunns on effluent flows had been inadequate, and some conditions had to be met before any construction. Other parts of the environmental impact management plan could be carried out during construction — provided Gunns was willing to take the risk of later having to modify its plans or cease construction.
Any major concern "could negate the go-ahead", he said.
October 8, 2007 - 3:29PM, AAP
A new book has disputed the claim that Aborigines did not build houses or live in villages before the white settlement of Australia.
University of Queensland researcher, Associate Professor Paul Memmott, worked with indigenous communities in the state's north-west in the 1970s.
After completing honours studies in architecture, Dr Memmott pursued a doctorate in anthropology so he could study Aborigines' connection with their homes and the bush.
A new book - Gunyah, Goondie + Wurley - is the result of his research, based on oral histories, explorers' diaries, paintings, photographic collections and century-old newspapers.
Dr Memmott said Australia's early explorers had mistakenly given the impression that Aborigines were purely nomadic and lived only in makeshift huts or lean-tos.
This was because the explorers often made their observations in favourable weather, when Aborigines were on the move.
But he said there was evidence that some Aborigines built more permanent shelters than first thought.
"Research shows a repertoire of different shelters were built in different styles in particular regions depending on the climate - a good example being the durable dome structures found throughout the country," Dr Memmott said.
"In the rainforest area up around Cairns (in north Queensland) where there was heavy rain for much of the year, people built domes out of (native) lawyer cane with palm leaf thatching.
"If we go to the west coast of Tasmania we get reports of domes there, with triple layers of cladding and insulation.
"And then in western Victoria there's a classical case of circular stone walls of up to a metre or so high and then dome roofs over the top with sometimes earth or sod cladding."
Christian missionaries who came to Aboriginal communities also often drew on the materials used by the local people to make their own homes.
Dr Memmott has received a federal research grant of $770,000 to look at the ecological and physical makeup of spinifex grass and its potential use in buildings for Aboriginal people.
He said he hoped further research in the area would not only clear up the historical record, but help inform designers working on current housing problems.
"There's lessons about Aboriginal housing to be learned, and there are more potential innovative ideas that could be generated from such understandings," Dr Memmott said.
October 6, 2007, THE AGE
Kevin Rudd's acquiescence over the pulp mill takes the ALP into the danger zone of non-engagement. There's a limit to small-target politics.
IN RICHARD Strauss' moralistic fairytale opera Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman without a Shadow), the shadow is the symbol of fertility that must be acquired by the Empress in order for her to bear children to save the Emperor from being turned into stone. In Kevin Rudd's contemporary political adaptation, The Party without a Shadow, the continuing difficulties in conceiving alternative idealism and policies to those of the Government are turning the Federal Opposition to stone. The only difference is that this emperor doesn't seem to mind: in fact, statue-impersonation is all part of his tactics.
All year, in the build-up to the election, Mr Rudd has been determined to avoid awkward confrontations in the face of Government policy. He supported Prime Minister John Howard's Murray-Darling plan, as well as the Government's intervention in Northern Territory Aboriginal affairs. Softly, softly; safely, safely. All the while, the shadow of effective opposition has been shrinking. This week it effectively vanished altogether.
On Thursday, no sooner had the Government announced its support of the controversial pulp-mill development in Tasmania's Tamar Valley than Labor's environment spokesman, Peter Garrett, added his party's support, saying a Rudd government would not overturn the decision. Only three years ago, Mr Garrett's maiden speech to Parliament was passionately unambiguous:
"I believe we need to substantively extend the idea of sustainability so that it encompasses not only environmental but social, cultural and economic dimensions. In corporate terms, our social capital must be protected," he said. How quickly the brightly burning Midnight Oil can be reduced to the sputterings of a yes-man. In having to respect his party's line of passive acquiescence while muzzling his deeply held and widely known personal beliefs, Mr Garrett must be the
most conflicted politician in Australia. It would be wise, if Labor wins government,
for Mr Rudd to assign Mr Garrett a ministerial position less in keeping with his own
interests and more out of range of potentially damaging public and political criticism.
This latest example of Labor's non-involvement represents a particularly delicate manoeuvre designed to win the key Tasmanian seats of Bass and Braddon by avoiding any sense of a return to the disastrous forest policy of former Opposition leader Mark Latham, which lost the two seats to the Liberals in 2004. This is, of course, part of Labor's overall strategy to win government without diversion and with minimal movement: hence the stony faces. The problem is that Mr Rudd and Co must hold their poses until the election is called, when they can at last present their long-awaited policies and be seen to be doing something different. Meanwhile, they remain immobilised and shadowless.
In July this newspaper, remarking that any electorally inconvenient differences have been blurred by Labor's preference for policy over principle, said, "Kevin Rudd's party fails the basic obligation of an alternative government, which is to spell out how electing it would make a difference." On the surface, this is not doing the party any significant harm. As The Age reports today, an analysis of its polls from April to September show a 9.8 per cent average swing to Labor that could spell electoral disaster for the Coalition. The deeper worry is to do with the proper workings of democracy, which have been on hold for most of the year. The danger is that Labor has not only lost its shadow but its essential substance. The hallmarks of true government are clarity of vision and genuine, vigorously expressed points of view in counterpoint to the government of the day. This fundamental tenet of the parliamentary system has been rendered almost immaterial, and our political system is the poorer for it. Labor has crossed into the danger zone of non-engagement.
October 4, 2007 - 4:50PM, The Age our highlighting
Shares in Gunns surged nearly 17 per cent today, after the forestry products firm's $1.7 billion Tasmanian pulp mill proposal was approved by Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Mr Turnbull allowed the pulp mill in Tasmania's Tamar Valley to proceed after a report from the government chief scientist, Jim Peacock, said that with strict conditions, the mill was unlikely to impact the environment.
The minister imposed 48 conditions, which he said were the toughest imposed on a pulp mill anywhere in the world.
Gunns shares had been placed in a trading halt before Mr Turnbull's announcement, but gained quickly once they recommenced trade.
The shares closed 15 cents, or 16.89 per cent, higher at $3.53, on a volume of about 10.6 million.
The rise in Gunns' share price demonstrated a consensus amongst investors that the pulp mill would be built, said Norman Graham, managing director of agricultural equities specialist Lonsec Ltd.
But Mr Graham said with a federal election looming, the pulp mill project would undoubtedly be a political football and there was still some risk that the project could be derailed.
He said the pulp mill would be of great economic benefit to Gunns.
''The market can now look at Gunns and say this is going to be a multi-faceted, organically-derived business from the field through to the end-product, and Gunns will have a much more robust business model,'' he said.
Mr Graham said it had been Gunns' ambition to gain some protection from the vagaries of just cutting down trees.
''It bodes very well, looking out a decade, for Gunns,'' he said.
Gunns said it was moving ahead with commercial aspects of the project, and they would be completed soon and presented for a final sign-off by the board.
Gunns executive chairman John Gay said including construction and flow-on investment, the mill would create 3,500 jobs and add nearly $6.7 billion or 2.5 per cent to the Tasmanian economy.
Mr Gay said there was no other mill in the world that operated under the level of regulation now established for the proposed mill.
''The mill as proposed simply represents the best technology available and will result in the best environmental outcome achievable,'' he said.
''We will do this in a sustainable way, preserving our forests for future generations and without adverse impact on the local atmosphere and marine environment surrounding the mill.''
Mr Gay said Gunns was concerned about the time taken for the ruling, but the decision was ''thoroughly-considered''.
''Despite the misinformation, dishonesty and, indeed, threats from the project's opponents, Mr Turnbull has upheld due process and approved the project,'' Mr Gay said.
The Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (TCCI) said the pulp mill project should be allowed to start without delay.
''Quite simply this was a development that the Tasmanian economy was crying out for and it is one that could not afford to be lost,'' TCCI chief executive Damon Thomas said.
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) said approval of the mill was a tragedy for the state's forests and the Bass Strait marine environment.
''The conditions do not stop Tasmania's old-growth forests being logged to feed the mill, with the accompanying destruction of biodiversity and the release of around 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gas polluting carbon dioxide each year,'' ACF forests campaigner Lindsay Hesketh said.
''The conditions do not stop toxic effluent being dumped into Bass Strait.''
AAP
By Glenn Cordingley
October 04, 2007 05:41pm
Article from: AAP
See the full list of conditions now imposed TAMAR Valley locals have vowed to maintain the fight against a $2bn pulp mill in northern Tasmania after federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull today gave the project the go-ahead.
And Liberal backbencher Michael Ferguson, whose electorate is split over the controversial project, admitted the decision would affect his chance of hanging on to his marginal seat of Bass at the looming federal election.
But Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon hailed the commonwealth approval as a win for science and pledged to heal the rifts in the community caused by the Gunns proposal.
Mr Lennon hit out at Mr Turnbull, accusing him of looking for any excuse to knock back the mill to save his own political skin.
"There is no doubt in my mind that Mr Turnbull was looking for a way to stop this project from going ahead, believing that it had become very problematic for him in his own (Sydney-based) seat of Wentworth," Mr Lennon said.
He praised chief scientist Jim Peacock for ignoring political pressure and standing up for science by recommending the mill's approval.
"Today I want to thank Jim Peacock very much for resisting what must have been enormous political pressure upon him to make a decision different to that which he has done today."
Mr Turnbull ended weeks of mounting political pressure by approving the mill, subject to 24 additional conditions which takes the total to 48.
The project had already been passed by State Parliament and only needed Mr Turnbull's approval to go ahead.
Tasmanians Against the Pulp mill (TAP) spokesman Bob McMahon said the decision was not a surprise but added the campaign against the mill would continue.
TAP plans to stage a protest rally on Sunday to maintain political pressure in the lead-up to the federal election.
"What we intend to do is flex our muscle and show the people what they may be in for in the unlikely (unlikely) event the mill goes ahead," Mr McMahon said.
"There is still actually no protection for people as far as odour and particulate emissions goes, no protection for people on the road, no protection for our water, no protection for our farmland which is going under plantations to feed a prospective pulp mill."
The Wilderness Society also refused to rule out further legal action to challenge the decision.
Its appeal against the mill's federal environmental assessment will be heard in Hobart next week.
Mr Ferguson, who won Bass from Labor in 2004 by fewer than 3300 votes on the back of former ALP leader Mark Latham's unpopular forests policy, said Mr Turnbull's decision was never going to please everyone.
"It is one of those situations where it is not going to be a win-win," he said to ABC Radio before the decision was announced.
"I don't want to be a commentator on my electoral prospects but, facing facts, this issue is of such dimension that a political scientist would say that it could cost me my career."
After the announcement, Mr Ferguson urged the community to work on healing the divisions.
"While I think this is a good decision for Tasmania, we as a community are faced with the problem of mending the tremendous rifts that have developed," he said.
Labor candidate for Bass, Jodie Campbell, said the ALP would respect Mr Turnbull's decision.
The Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and timber industry groups today welcomed the news.
New forests 'could capture gases'
October 04, 2007
UP to two-thirds of Australia's greenhouse emissions could be captured and stored in a nation-building campaign to plant millions of native trees and shrubs over the next 50 years, according to the chief scientist.
Jim Peacock yesterday revealed his vision for a new national campaign promoting planting from school yards to vast tracks of savannah across northern Australia to help cut greenhouse emissions.
Speaking at the Greenhouse 07 conference in Sydney, Dr Peacock said there was the capacity to store up to 20 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases in specially planted forests and ground cover across grazing land, although around 5 per cent of this was a more realistic initial target.
"The Snowy Mountains was a nation-building moment for Australia and everyone in our country knew it was important for Australia. I'm hoping the potential to biosequester carbon dioxide will also fire up national imagination," he said.
"If we look at the rainfall zones in Australia which have potential new forest and savannah areas (above a rainfall of 300mm a year), that area could absorb 20 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide over the next 50 years, or 400 million tonnes a year.
"If we could have access to just 5 per cent of it, then we would be capable of storing an additional 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, which is almost 10 per cent of current electricity emissions."
Dr Peacock said financial incentives could create market opportunities for remote communities. He said clean coal, gas and nuclear power were still the only technologies capable of delivering low-emission supplies of electricity, with renewable technologies requiring more development to make them cost-competitive.
Energy from biomass and biofuels was only likely to play a local role in energy supply because of the scarcity of highly productive land in Australia needed to produce energy crops.
"It's unlikely we will substantially reduce the amount of that productive land from food production to energy production," he said.
Andrew Darby, Hobart, The Age
October 2, 2007
ENVIRONMENT Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been accused of breaching a pledge to allow public comment on the vital chief scientist's report before he decides on Tasmania's pulp mill.
Instead, Mr Turnbull is said to have allowed the developer, Gunns Ltd, to see the report first.
The report is a key to federal environmental approval of the $1.7 billion project. It is believed to insist that Gunns must answer more questions about the mill's marine effluent, and agree to more stringent conditions.
Senator Bob Brown, of the Greens, said it was outrageous if Mr Turnbull had discussed the report with Gunns, and not with people in the Tamar Valley, where the mill would go.
Anti-mill campaigner Geoffrey Cousins said Mr Turnbull had said in August that the report would be released before a decision, but now only Gunns had the report. "This is getting back to the kind of thing the Tasmanian Government would do," he said.
The Tasmanian Government has already been attacked for allowing Gunns to comment before the licence was made public, or even shown to state MPs.
Mr Turnbull has said the process would be completely transparent and accountable.
The report would be published, "and Gunns and everybody else will have an opportunity to comment on it, and then I would hope to be in a position to make a decision", he told ABC radio on August 30. But speaking from Washington last week Mr Turnbull said "relevant stakeholders" were being consulted in the hope of a decision soon, at which time the report would be released.
He told reporters yesterday that there had been discussions between the Environment Department and Gunns.
The Wilderness Society's campaigner Paul Oosting said it was important that the public and expert stakeholders be given the opportunity to examine the report.
Mr Turnbull appeared to have placed the interests of Gunns over the interest of the Australian community, he said.
According to a spokesman for Premier Paul Lennon, the Tasmanian Government, another key stakeholder, had not been consulted by the Federal Government either.
A threat to take the mill elsewhere has been raised — and discounted — as things heat up before a decision on the project expected this week.
The company has been talking to the federal Environment Department over advice from the chief scientist, Jim Peacock, on conditions for dumping effluent into Bass Strait.
Gunns executive chairman John Gay did not respond when asked to comment yesterday, but the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania said that shifting the project to another country was a real prospect.
But one industry source said Gunns' cost advantage over international rivals lay in the relatively cheap delivery of wood at the mill gate in Tasmania. This would be lost if the mill went overseas or interstate.