State News - October 2007
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30/10/07 Native trees key to cooling climate, Dani Cooper,ABC, Science Online
23/10/07 Logging protesters blame broken political promise THE AGE East Gippsland and Goolengook
22/10/07 Firebreaks pretty useless: green groups, AAP
09/10/07 A reputation shredded Malcolm Maiden, The Age our highlighting
09/10/07 Pratt: the confessions of a multi-billionaire Leonie Wood, The Age Page One our highlighting
Forests National 08/10/07 State 08/10/07 Pre-1788 Aborigines 'lived in houses' AAP Queensland; Tasmania; Victoria; South West
05/10/07 Red gums are not just a green issue Matt Ruchel, The Age Business Day, Opinion
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."
Logging protesters blame broken political promise
October 23, 2007, THE AGE
A GROUP of protesters plan to use as a defence to a
criminal charge a campaign promise not to log an
old-growth forest that they claim was broken by former
premier Steve Bracks.
A Melbourne court yesterday gave the three defendants
until tomorrow to provide evidence that Mr Bracks
reneged on the "promise" made during the 2006 State
election campaign.
Defence lawyer Vanessa Bleyer told the Melbourne
Magistrates Court her clients did not deny that they
obstructed authorities in the East Errinundra Forest
on November 27, 2006.
Ms Bleyer said they were present because Mr Bracks had
promised two days earlier that he would not allow the
area to be logged.
But she said that after the election, "logging
proceeded in the area he promised to protect", an area
her clients claim was also a habitat for the
endangered sooty owl.
Prosecutor Nicola Collingwood said she had no
knowledge of Mr Bracks' alleged promise and that she
understood only "some defendants heard an owl
overnight".
Ms Bleyer told judicial registrar Graeme Horsburgh
that if the clients produced evidence in court of Mr
Bracks' promise by 10am tomorrow, they would defend a
charge that they had no "reasonable excuse" to hinder
or obstruct an authorised officer.
Two other defendants, Rebecca Spies, 23, and Mark
Tyler, 21, both formerly of NSW, pleaded guilty to
unauthorised activity in a public safety zone and to
refusing to leave the East Errinundra Forest Block
when directed.
In her summary, Ms Collingwood said the pair entered
the block with others on January 20, 2006, to stop
logging, but refused to leave when directed to do so
by a forest ranger.
Ms Collingwood said authorities were forced to divert
resources, including VicForest and police officers, to
deal with the protesters.
Spies and Tyler, postgraduate students now studying in
Melbourne, were devout environmentalists, Ms Bleyer
said.
Mr Horsburgh told the pair that commitment to the
environment was to be admired, but breaking the law
would not be tolerated.
Both were placed on 12-month non-conviction
undertakings to be of good behaviour, with Tyler
ordered to pay $55 costs.
Firebreaks pretty useless: green groups
Malcolm Maiden, The Age
October 9, 2007
ON ANY version of the events, Visy and its leaders have betrayed their customers' trust and broken one of the business world's most important laws.
Their official admission of cartel behaviour when it comes this week will in that sense be similar to the one Steve Vizard made in 2003 about illicit share trading on the back of information gleaned at Telstra board meetings.
The lasting impact may come not so much from specific breaches of the law, or the corporate and individual fines for multiple breaches that will run between $30 million and $40 million. It will come from the fact that Visy and its leaders are owning up to a fundamental breach of trust.
In Vizard's case, it was the trust fellow directors placed in him to act in Telstra's interests, and leave confidential information he picked up in the board room IN the board room.
In Visy's case, it was the trust of customers that the prices they paid for Visy product were always the result of genuine competition between Visy and its only national competitor, Amcor.
Visy and Amcor have more than 90 per cent of the corrugated cardboard carton market. Customers angry about the breach of trust have little alternative but to continue doing business with them. Some will sue over alleged over-charging, however, and the first, for $120 million, was lodged by Cadbury Schweppes last year.
Visy says in a letter to customers that Visy, the company's chief executive Debney and a former Visy senior executive, Rod Carroll, had agreed to accept responsibility "for many of the matters put against them", and that Pratt had accepted responsibility for comments he made to Amcor's sacked chief executive, Russell Jones, at a lunch at the All Nations Hotel in Richmond.
According to documents, Mr Jones sought Pratt's confirmation at the lunch that the two companies still had a price-fixing arrangement, after other Amcor executives decided that Visy was competing on terms that undercut the cartel template. The discussion was not explicit, but Mr Jones believed Pratt understood its import when he told Mr Jones he supported Debney's actions as the Visy chief executive.
The scenario of Amcor attempting to shore up a price-fixing deal in the face of Visy's sniping features in comments by Visy and Richard Pratt published yesterday that have put Visy's excuses into the public domain before price fixing has officially been acknowledged by the group and its leaders.
"Visy's culture has been to grow volume, cut prices and keep reinvesting in the business. If anybody had an incentive to fix prices it was Amcor, not Visy. If there was an instigator, it was Amcor, not Visy," Pratt claimed in an interview recorded weeks ago, but just published in The Australian.
"Our actions were motivated by a desire to take advantage of our competitors," Visy added in a letter to customers yesterday, adding that its executives "erred when they had discussions with Amcor and sought to out-manoeuvre them as part of Visy's pursuit of market-share gains".
Yesterday's letter cites Visy's rising market share as evidence against the existence of an effective cartel arrangement to fix prices and market share. That raises questions about the durability of Amcor's whistleblower immunity from prosecution, because immunity depends among other things on Amcor not having initiated the arrangement. The agreed statement of facts due this week may shed light on that.
But the statement of facts will also see Pratt, Debney and Visy itself acknowledge that laws proscribing cartel behaviour were broken, and that is worth pondering in light of the claims Pratt and Visy are now making.
One possible interpretation of Visy's pre-emptive, defensive account of events is that the company and its top executives consciously deceived Amcor by pretending to negotiate and run a price-fixing cartel even though Visy was winning the market-share battle and did not need it — and then actually engaged in cartel behaviour with Amcor, apparently to give the scheme verisimilitude in Amcor's eyes.
If that is correct, Visy is guilty of stupidity as well as breaches of the law that were against the interests of its customers. And the laws that were broken are not inconsequential: cartels are a cancer in the capitalist system, which stands or falls on the concept of fair competition.
The chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Graeme Samuel, described them as a "form of theft and little different from classes of corporate crime that already attract criminal sentences" in a speech in 2005 anticipating the introduction of criminal penalties that are still waiting to be passed.
Criminal sanctions would not affect this case, which predates them. But the affair is a reminder of why criminal sanctions for cartel behaviour are needed.
Financial penalties are little more than an additional cost of doing business.
Reputational damage is a more enduring cost, something Visy recognised in its letter, by expressing regret for what had happened, and outlining steps it was taking to prevent a repeat, including educating executives about competition law compliance.But criminal sanctions would change the whole cost-benefit equation, from one that measures financial gains against limited financial penalties if caught, to one that measures possible gain against possible jail time.
Billionaire Richard Pratt: facing millions of dollars in fines over collusion with rival Amcor.
Photo: John Donegan
Leonie Wood, The Age Page One - our highlighting
October 9, 2007
AFTER years of denial, Melbourne billionaire Richard Pratt has admitted that he and his company, Visy Board, illegally colluded with rival Amcor to rig the market for cardboard boxes.
In a public statement of apology to staff and customers of the Visy empire, Mr Pratt conceded that executives of his company "erred" by holding secret talks with Amcor.
Mr Pratt also accepted responsibility for comments he made to Amcor chief executive Russell Jones in 2001 "when he invited me to lunch".
They had lunch at a Richmond hotel in May 2001, at which they agreed not to compete on some contracts for the supply of boxes.
Mr Pratt's statement of contrition came after it emerged he had signed a deal with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission late on Friday admitting to the illegal arrangements.
The ACCC launched a civil action against Visy in December 2005 after Amcor publicly owned up to the collusion.
The regulator is expected to seek penalties in the Federal Court of at least $30 million against Visy, plus a total of several million dollars against Mr Pratt and other Visy executives.
Visy could also be sued for millions by key customers for its boxes, such as Coca-Cola Amatil.
Mr Pratt, 73, Australia's third richest man with a fortune estimated at $5.4 billion, is the most prominent business figure to be caught up in a corporate scandal since Steve Vizard admitted to illicit share trading in 2003.
But like Mr Vizard, Mr Pratt and Visy are not facing criminal sanctions because competition laws prohibiting price fixing and other cartel behaviour attract only civil penalties. Nor can the ACCC in this case ask the court to ban Mr Pratt from holding directorships; such sanctions were only introduced on January 1 for illegal conduct after that date.
But Mr Pratt, a prominent philanthropist and president of the Carlton Football Club, has already expressed concern about the damage to his reputation, telling The Weekend Australian there was "a certain amount of character assassination for me personally because I am a tall poppy in the community".
His admissions come seven years after he was awarded the nation's highest honour, the Companion of the Order of Australia, in 1998.
Mr Pratt is overseas and not due to return until next week.
In his public apology yesterday, Mr Pratt suggested the company's executives had not understood the workings of anti-competitive laws when they agreed not to poach some of Amcor's customers.
He claimed that after examining all the witness statements the ACCC put to the court in preparation for a six-month trial "we have a better understanding of what occurred", and that Visy executives "erred" by holding talks with Amcor as they "sought to out-manoeuvre them" in securing a bigger share of the market for cardboard boxes.
"The company deeply regrets what happened and its poor appreciation of the complexities and applications of the various provisions (of the Trade Practices Act)," Mr Pratt said. "We apologise to all those concerned by these events."
Mr Pratt also revealed that Visy's chief executive, Harry Debney, and former general manager, Rod Carroll, had settled with the ACCC.
Mr Pratt's statement claimed that Visy's actions were intended to take advantage of Amcor, but "by contrast, nothing is more important than the relationships with our customers".
He claimed that Visy's actions did not damage its customers because box prices fell and Visy increased its market share.
But in a move clearly designed to ward off multimillion-dollar damages claims by food and beverage companies, he said the company would investigate any customer concerns.
Mr Pratt's settlement concedes that Visy colluded with Amcor between 2000 and 2004.
It comes three years after Amcor's lawyers stumbled across six CDs of conversations that had been recorded by Jim Hodgson, one of its former executives who had quit to set up his own consultancy.
Some industry participants suspect that the two companies colluded for many years in the cardboard industry, but until now there has been no direct evidence.
The ACCC's case against Visy focused on what Amcor and Visy executives said during dozens of clandestine meetings in various car parks at Templestowe and North Balwyn, in motels and suburban hotels as well as at Crown casino.
The executives sometimes used mobile phones with pre-paid SIM cards in a bid to avoid possible detection as they negotiated deals to stay away from each other's customers and lift prices in tandem.
Amcor handed the CDs to the ACCC and agreed to co-operate in return for immunity from prosecution.
It sacked Mr Jones and senior executive Peter Sutton in December 2004, and terminated Mr Brown's consultancy arrangement to the company.
Amcor is now being sued by Cadbury Schweppes for damages and is the subject of a class action.
Shallow promises on the Murray.
Photo: Craig Sillitoe
Matt Ruchel, The Age Business Day, Opinion
October 5, 2007
PREMIER John Brumby's declaration last week that the Government would not consider recommendations for environmental water from one of its key independent environmental advisory groups is policy tunnel vision. It has caused widespread angst among environment groups because of its disdain for good process.
The draft recommendations from the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council (VEAC) for improved protection and management of red gum forests and wetlands on public land in northern Victoria make long-term environmental and economic sense.
The VEAC report clearly shows that the red gum wetlands along the Murray are severely stressed and require improved land and water management. These wetland forests are home to about 400 threatened or near-threatened Australian plants and animals. Their health is also important to indigenous Australians, who have had an association with these lands and waters for tens of thousands of years.
While some vested interests have attacked the messenger, it is worth noting that VEAC and its predecessors — the Environment Conservation Council and Land Conservation Council — have served Victoria well for more than 30 years, delivering largely balanced outcomes backed by transparent, scientifically based processes that have engaged the community.
Environment groups have certainly not got everything they wanted from these draft recommendations, especially the poor protection proposed by VEAC for the ecologically important Gunbower forest north of Echuca.
If we look across the border to NSW, over the same period processes for nature conservation and land classification have been largely ad hoc declarations of change, with little community input. The VEAC process is a robust and fair planning process to guide future public land use, and should be supported.
The alternative, to leave these important decisions to the whim of politics, would be unlikely to deliver robust decisions either for resource users or the environment.
Even without VEAC, changes to timber production along the river are already in the wind, with Department of Sustainability and Environment figures showing logging levels of 40 to 60 per cent over present sustainable limits in red gum regions, largely because of reduced tree growth from a lack of water.
Logging allocations will need to be radically reduced, even without new national parks, and will likely be reduced further if the forests do not receive additional water.
The regional economies of towns such as Shepparton, Echuca and Swan Hill are increasingly looking at the tourist dollar to support the community.
Estimates for the year ending December 2005 showed that overnight and day visitors to the Murray region spent $868 million, the second-highest regional total in Victoria behind the Great Ocean Road region.
The VEAC report follows a series of reports by state and federal agencies that the wetland forests along the Murray are in serious ecological decline and without improved management will undermine the ecological, aesthetic and recreational value of the forest. After all, who wants to go camping in a dead forest or fish in rivers strangled by salt and blue-green algae?
Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd agree that water from our great rivers has been overallocated and overused and the great wetlands of the Murray-Darling need more water if they are to survive. In fact, on the very same day the Premier made his comments, Rudd issued a media release in South Australia stating that the party would, if elected, reduce demand on the Murray by 1500 billion litres to ensure environmental flows.
The VEAC study mirrors the calls of previous studies for returning water to the environment, and the order of magnitude, 4000 billion litres every five years (or an average of 800 billion litres a year), is nothing new, and may in fact underestimate the amount of water required to ensure healthy river ecosystems.
This water would be recovered over time and used to top up natural high flows or floods every few years so that the wetlands and forests could get a drink, rather than suffer some sort of perpetual artificial drought.
Our unique red gum forests not only need to be protected from logging and grazing, but they need to receive enough water to maintain some semblance of health.
Healthy, properly managed forests will mean a healthy river, which in turn will not only support many threatened plants and animals but encourage visitors to stay and spend, providing not just a healthy environment but a robust regional economy.
■Public submissions on the VEAC proposals close on Monday at 5pm. Visit www.veac.gov.au.
Matt Ruchel is executive director of the Victorian National Parks Association.