New South Wales - State News - September 2007
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Protest pressure leads to forest protection ABC News On-line New South Wales, Sept 07
Logging activists keen for resolution ABC News On-line New South Wales, Sept 07
Algae covering most of Warragamba Dam AAP New South Wales, Sept 07 Related
Murray Valley has six weeks' water: govt AAP New South Wales, Sept 07
MINIS
TER FORCED TO REVEAL GIVE AWAY WOODCHIP PRICES Media Release Chip Stop New South Wales, Sept 07Privatisation: Water Business By: Alex Mitchell, New Matilda New South Wales, Sept 07
The oxymoron has landed - Media Release - John Kaye MP; New South Wales, Sept 07
NSW to build carbon-capture plant AAP New South Wales, Sept 07
Mill deal struck ABC On-line New South Wales, Sept 07
Protest pressure leads to forest protection
Posted Fri Sep 28, 2007 6:25pm AEST ABC News On-line
Map: Deniliquin 2710
The New South Wales Government has agreed to stop logging activities in sections of some Riverina state forests after a five-day protest.
Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald says Forests New South Wales will refrain from logging 11 forest compartments nominated by the National Parks Association (NPA).
The NPA says those areas are home to a number of endangered species and it recently took court action and won approval to carry out more scientific surveys.
Mr Macdonald says today's deal will end the court action and redgum harvesting will be halted in those areas for two years, but it may resume.
"Well it's not permanently locked up. It will be subject to an environmental impact statement," he said.
The agreement also comes after a week long protest by environmental activists in the Moira State Forest near Deniliquin where logging has been halted since Monday.
An environmental impact assessment will be carried out in those areas and Naomi Hodgeson from the Redgum Forest Action group says it is overdue.
"We're also very pleased the New South Wales Government has admitted that in actual fact, logging operations in the region have been illegal in the last 10 years," she said.
"Finally, they are going to apply planning law and undertake an environmental impact statement."
Posted Thu Sep 27, 2007 2:40pm AEST ABC News On-line
Environmental activists in the Moira State Forest in southern New South Wales say they are keen to reach a resolution after halting logging for a fourth day.
The National Parks Association recently won court approval to do scientific surveys in some Murray red gum forests.
But around 10 activists set up a protest camp in the Moira State Forest near Deniliquin on Monday, putting a halt to current harvesting.
Activist Naomi Hodgson says the NSW Government is failing both the loggers and the environment.
"We really hope that the Government does the right thing," she said. "There are alternative places where logging could be occurring right now."
Forestry Minister Ian Macdonald says the Government is looking to balance the environment and hundreds of jobs in the local timber industry.
He is due to make a further announcement later today.
September 27, 2007 - 2:39PM AAP
The layer of blue-green algae on the surface of Warragamba Dam - Sydney's main water supply - now covers 75 per cent of the surface area and is likely to remain all summer, NSW Water Minister Phil Koperberg says.
The algal bloom now stretches 58 kilometres from the dam wall along Lake Burragorang - more than twice the area it occupied at the beginning of the month.
"It is a bloom which, due to the warm weather, is likely to persist," Mr Koperberg told reporters.
"It is very unlikely, unless there is some unforeseen meteorological event, that this bloom will either dissipate or disappear during the summer. It's more likely than not going to be around at Christmas."
Mr Koperberg said it was possible Sydney's drinking water could be mildly affected, but any effects would be limited with water being safely drawn from 48 metres below the algae.
"There could be a discernible odour or taste with the water in the coming months," he said.
"It is not a health risk whatsoever, even though part of the rigorous testing that Sydney Water and Health undertake has detected some microsystems - which are a group of molecules which contain some toxicity.
"Those levels are well below the Australian standards for drinking water safety.
"The main issue with this bloom is its visibility."
05/09/07 EL NINO THREAT OF TOXIC ALGAL BLOOMS CSIRO MEDIA RELEASE 97/177 Queensland; South Australia; Victoria; New South Wales; Murray Basin
September 27, 2007 - 3:50PM AAP
Communities in the Murray Valley have only six weeks supply of water left after record droughts, the NSW government says.
NSW Climate Change, Environment and Water Minister Phil Koperberg, who visited the region earlier this week, said alternative sources of water for the region were now under consideration.
Mr Koperberg said he had met with local irrigators and other members of the community to discuss the crisis.
"We're now facing an unprecedented crisis in regard to water availability across the Murray Darling basin," Mr Koperberg said.
"Large parts of NSW including the Murray Valley are still in the grip of the worst drought in recorded history.
"There's no doubt these communities are doing it tough and that without significant rainfall, the losses will take many years to recover from."
Mr Koperberg said the government was now considering a range of options to assist local communities including borrowing water from the Murrumbidgee Valley or Snowy Mountains scheme or suspending fixed water charges that irrigators face for infrastructure upkeep.
"We'll consult closely with the affected communities and work out the most appropriate way forward because we need to develop a plan to get us through the upcoming warmer months," Mr Koperberg said.
MINISTER FORCED TO REVEAL GIVE AWAY WOODCHIP PRICES
Media Release Chip Stop , 23 September 2007
"State Primary Industries Minister Ian McDonald has been forced, kicking and screaming to disclose woodchip royalty figures, and now we know why," according to Chipstop convener, Harriett Swift.
Ms Swift says that the Minister has only released the woodchip royalty figures because he was forced to do so after a conservationist victory in court.
"Forests NSW has bitterly resisted making this information public under a Freedom of Information request, but finally had no choice after south east forest campaigner, Gerry Watt took them to court and won," she says.
The prices ($16 per tonne for Eden and $6.90 South Coast ) are less than they were ten years ago. They compare to plantation equivalent prices of between $36 and $47 a tonne for pulp wood.
"Is it any wonder that the Eden chipmill is making high profits and exporting record levels of woodchips?" Ms Swift says.
"And is it any wonder that Forests NSW spends $3.5 million a year more on running its woodchipping operations than it receives as royalties?"
"This court victory and the Minister’s release of the figures puts an end to the State Government’s practice of hiding behind ‘commercial in confidence’ ".
"When you have a monopoly buyer and a monopoly seller it is hard to understand what purpose this serves other than protecting the Government from embarrassment," she says.
"The Government is cheating the public and the environment by allowing these low prices."
Contact: 02 64923267 0414908997
23 September 2007
Between 2,500 and 3,000 trees from SE NSW and East Gippsland are cut down every working day to supply the Eden chipmill
Privatisation: Water Business
By: Alex Mitchell, New Matilda
Thursday 20 September 2007
As soon as the March 2007 State election was in the bag, NSW Premier Morris Iemma broke his pre-election promise not to increase State charges and set in motion the bureaucratic machinery to achieve a dramatic hike in water prices. (While the public’s attention was diverted by the headline-grabbing APEC summit he also let slip that the Government was seeking big increases in bus and ferry fares — another breach of specific election promises).
On 13 June, Iemma wrote to the so-called Independent Pricing and Regulatory Authority (IPART) asking for a new set of prices covering Sydney Water’s water, sewerage, stormwater and recycled water services. Sydney Water is Australia’s largest publicly-owned statutory water corporation.
The IPART review, Iemma said, should consider ‘all aspects of Sydney Water’s revenue and expenditure’ to include issues such as changed climatic conditions and the construction of the controversial desalination plant under at Kurnell on the northern tip of Sydney’s Sutherland Shire. He admitted that the last review, undertaken in 2005, had set water charges from October 1, 2005, until June 30, 2009, but circumstances now demanded further increases. If you strip away the political gobbledygook, he was saying that after 12 years in power in NSW the Labor Government, having been cornered, was being forced to raise revenue, principally from domestic users, to play catch-up in securing the water supply for Australia’s largest metropolis.
Cartoon
Thanks to Fiona Katauskas
For the record, IPART’s name is something of a misnomer. It is a publicly-funded instrument whose membership is handpicked by the Government. Only in the Wonderland of Party politics could such an organisation be described as genuinely ‘independent.’ Perhaps a more accurate title would be the ‘State Price Fixing Office’ but that wouldn’t have passed the sanitisation test set by the ALP’s principal PR advisers, Hawker Britton.
IPART was the brainchild of former Premier Bob Carr who wanted to take his Government out of the firing line of scorching headlines every time gas, electricity and water charges and fares went up. With his penchant for double-speak, Carr boasted that he wanted an ‘independent arbiter’ to fix the prices charged by public utilities.
On June 1, less than two weeks before Iemma wrote to IPART asking for water price hikes, Sydney Water announced a new chairman — Dr Tom Parry. By a happy set of circumstances, Parry is the former Chairman of IPART; indeed, he was the organisation’s founding Chair, handpicked by Carr himself.
Parry left IPART in 2004 to join Macquarie Bank as a senior adviser. One year later, in mid-2005, Carr quit the premiership and he, too, went off to join Macquarie Bank on a highly lucrative contract (with expenses).
So the situation is as follows: Iemma writes to IPART, formerly chaired by Tom Parry, urging extra water charges be granted to Sydney Water which is chaired by Tom Parry of Macquarie Bank. (This is the same bank where the boss, Allan Moss, collects an obscene salary of $33 million a year. Incidentally, his wife is Irene Moss, the former ICAC commissioner and NSW Ombudsman during the record 10-year term of the Carr Government.)
Another Sydney Water director is John Brown, a former KPMG partner who headed the firm’s busy NSW Government Practice during Labor’s long rule; while the token trade unionist upholding the interests of working men and women is Alison Peters, who holds the almost embarrassing title of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Unions NSW.
One of the longest serving Board members is John Priest, former Chief Financial Officer and Director of Corporate Development for Coca Cola Amatil Ltd. The giant beverage group is one of the State’s biggest private water purchasers with literally dozens of contracts to purchase spring water for its three major bottled water brands: Mount Franklin, Pump and Neverfail.
Last Sunday,17 September , Iemma called a press conference to announce that tough water restrictions in the Sydney basin would remain permanent — irrespective of the water levels at the city’s main supply, the Warragamba Dam. His stern message was that even if dam capacity rose to 99 percent, householders will continue to face restrictions on using hoses in their backyards and driveways. This forms part of a carefully designed program: first turn water into a socially precious commodity and then give it a matching market price.
At the heart of this strategy is the Government’s determination to bury the old-fashioned notion that water is a basic service provided by government to all citizens at a negligible charge.
What’s the point of changing the public perception of water?
Iemma would argue that by placing a proper market price on water and continuing to enforce tough regulations over its domestic use, the Government is making the citizenry water-conscious and that this is a socially responsible policy to save water. Then again, it is regarded by many in Government as a prelude to the privatisation of Sydney Water.
With a work force of more than 3000 and assets worth some $20 billion, Sydney Water provides drinking water, recycled water, wastewater services and some stormwater services to more than four million people in Sydney, Illawarra and the Blue Mountains. With its large property assets across greater Sydney, it is a cash box that is ripe for asset-stripping and profit-making.
According to Sydney Water’s mission statement, its three objectives are to protect public health, protect the environment and be a successful business. The last of these tasks is in the hands of Managing Director Dr Kerry Schott who previously served NSW Labor as Deputy Secretary at the Treasury. She was recruited to the Treasury from the private sector where, as a merchant banker, she held top-shelf jobs as Managing Director of Deutsche Bank and Executive Vice President at Bankers Trust Australia.
This is an executive for whom the aims of government and business are a seamless area of mutual benefit with rewards for both sides. According to well-placed Sydney Water sources, the former merchant banker is Treasury’s representative on the Board of the statutory State-owned corporation, and this feeds their concerns about the organisation’s future as a public asset.
The climate for privatisation is being set by Iemma himself. In the six months since the election, he has already marked electricity distribution and Sydney Harbour ferries for potential sell-off. (The union leaders who tipped millions of dollars into his election campaign should surely be held to account for their blind stupidity!)
One of those circling Labor’s water strategy is Macquarie Bank, Australia’s biggest investor in infrastructure. In October last year, the so-called millionaires’ factory acquired Thames Water for $20 billion and immediately became one of the world’s pre-eminent players in the increasingly profitable water industry. After managing the vast Thames Water operation, which supplies water to eight million people in the Greater London area and runs sewerage services to 13 million customers, Macquarie will be in the box seat to snap up Sydney’s State-owned water corporation and start making handsome profits for its shareholders — that is, investors who can buy shares for up to $80 each.
Or perhaps you believe that Dr Parry, Dr Schott, John Priest, John Brown, Alison Peters and the other Sydney Water Directors will stage an heroic battle and save the city’s water supply from falling into the hands of the private profiteers?
Or even that the Labor Cabinet and backbenchers will rise up to stop the march to privatisation by the State Government's ruling duo — Iemma and Treasurer Michael Costa?
At the very least, Labor is shamefully establishing all the micro-economic settings for an incoming Coalition Government in March 2011 to press the button for full-scale privatisation.
About the Author
Alex Mitchell is the former State Political Editor of The Sun-Herald, Sydney.
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The oxymoron has landed
Media Release: 26 September 2007
From: John Kaye <John.Kaye@parliament.nsw.gov.au>
Plans to develop a pilot carbon capture 'clean coal' facility at Munmorah Power Station on the NSW Central Coast are nothing but an exercise in propaganda, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.
Dr Kaye said: "NSW Energy Minister Ian Macdonald announced a pilot plant this afternoon that might eventually lead to a larger pilot plant, which at best would capture a tiny 1.5% of the CO2 emissions from the power station.
"Even if the first mini-pilot and then the subsequent pilot were successful, Munmorah would still be emitting 98.5% of its current CO2 output.
"This is an extraordinarily long way from the genuine reductions in this state's greenhouse gas emissions needed to avoid runaway climate damage.
"The Minister's announcement has nothing to do with genuinely reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
"It has much more to do with helping the coal industry to perpetuate the 'clean coal' myth that carbon capture and storage is a promising response to climate change.
"After Ian Macdonald's cabinet colleague, Environment and Climate Change Minister Phil Koperberg, attacked the notion of 'clean coal', describing it as 'almost an oxymoron' on Monday, the Iemma government is struggling to retain credibility on emissions.
"Minister Macdonald's announcement is a ham-fisted attempt to regain the momentum that is doomed to failure.
"Toy pilot plants like this are dwarfed by the massive emissions from the electricity industry.
"In 2005, electricity generation in NSW was responsible for 57.8 million tonnes of CO2, most of which came from the burning of coal.
"There is no way that carbon capture can address this quantity of gas in any realistic timescale and Minister Macdonald is smart enough to know it.
"The Iemma government should stop wasting time on propaganda for the coal industry and invest in real technologies like energy efficiency and renewable energy," Dr Kaye said.
For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455
----------------------------------
John Kaye
Greens member of the NSW Parliament
phone: (02) 9230 2668
fax: (02) 9230 2586
mobile: 0407 195 455
email: john.kaye@parliament.nsw.gov.au
web: www.johnkaye.org.au
mail: Parliament House, Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000
NSW to build carbon-capture plant
September 27, 2007 - 6:11AM, AAP
In an Australian first, a $5 million carbon-capture plant will be built on the NSW Central Coast, the state's government has announced.
The plant will trap carbon dioxide gas emissions from the Munmorah Power Station, near the Tuggerah Lakes, in a pilot program for a much larger $150 million project.
NSW Minister for Mineral Resources Ian Macdonald said the project would be built by Delta Electricity and the CSIRO, and would be completed by mid-2008.
"The Iemma Government is committed to clean coal technology and this pilot is the first time we will physically be able to see this technology in action in Australia," Mr Macdonald said.
"This project will play a crucial role in pioneering the way to a much larger $150 million demonstration project, which would capture more than 50,000 tonnes of CO2 each year," he said.
The larger-scale post combustion capture and storage project should be operational by 2013, he said.
AAP
Posted Wed Sep 12, 2007 12:32pm AEST ABC On-line
The ACT government has reached agreement on a $700,000 funding package for the Hume timber mill.
Negotiations with Integrated Forest Products have been going on for several weeks.
The government has agreed to give IFP $462,000 cash and waive up to $213,000 in fees, including payroll tax fees, land rent, rates and taxes.
Chief minister Jon Stanhope said the package was valuable because it secured the jobs of 100 people at IFP's Hume mill.
Mr Stanhope says he is not happy taxpayers are footing the bill, but says it is necessary.
"This is about saving 110 jobs and seeking to protect workers and families," he said.
He said he made it clear to the mill's receivers, PricewaterhouseCoopers that employee entitlements must take highest priority, and it was this that led the the Territory to strike the financial deal.
Receiver Stephen Longley says the funding will ensure the mill remains operational until a buyer is found.
"One of the key things has been making sure the employees entitlements are maximised and that is being done by ensuring we get a sale of the business as a going concern," Mr Longley said.
The Commonwealth is also providing $4 million in assistance over the next four months.
The mill went into receivership in July, with workers stood down until settlement was reached.
Tags:
timber, act