State News - September 2007

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30/09/07 Government avoids risk of embarrassment Jason Dowling, The Age

27/09/07 Bush protests lash Brumby on water plan David Rood, The Age Murray Basin Sept 07

27/09/07 No to red gums report The Age; Murray Basin Sept 07

23/09/07 Poison a dog's dinner Jason Dowling , The Age North East Highlands; Gippsland;

Government avoids risk of embarrassment

Jason Dowling, The Age
September 30, 2007

HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars will be spent protecting the State Government's reputation over its handling of the new multibillion-dollar desalination plant.

The Government has tendered for help with the "provision of risk management services" related to the $3.1 billion project and has nominated risks to its reputation as an area of top priority.

Tender documents show the scope of risks to be managed include "Government and Department (of Sustainability and Environment) strategic and reputation-related risks".

Opposition water spokeswoman Louise Asher said the Government should be focused on water security for Melbourne, not political security.

"The Government's worrying about spin rather than securing Melbourne's water supply," she said. Ms Asher said it was understandable the Government was concerned about the building of the desalination plant through a public private partnership.

"Every PPP it has handled has resulted in disaster for the Government; for example, Southern Cross Station resulted in compensation and a project that was significantly late."

The tender documents show Victorians should know soon whether the controversial desalination plant, to be built near Wonthaggi, will require an environmental effects statement.

A Department of Sustainability and Environment project team examining the issue will refer its findings to the Minister for Planning by the end of October.

The Government will not say what will happen to the desalination plant if rain fills Melbourne's dams.

The documents also show the State Government faces a maze of statutory approvals before the plant can be built, including planning, environmental and Aboriginal heritage issues.

The DSE desalination project team has recruited six private consulting firms to offer advice on issues including "environmental investigations", "marine and terrestrial data collection", "waste management", "flora and fauna specialist investigations" and "archaeological specialist investigations".

Allan Bawden, chief executive of Bass Coast Shire Council, where the plant is to be built, said he was not concerned the Government's reputation was being protected.

"It appears that it is a fairly generic risk management brief that any major project of this nature would require," he said.

Mr Bawden said last week the council and local community "certainly want to see an EES take place straightaway".

Bush protests lash Brumby on water plan Protesters in Kerang, in the state's north-west, make clear thei

Protesters in Kerang, in the state's north-west, make clear their views on Premier John Brumby's plan to pipe water from the Goulburn Valley to Melbourne.
Photo: Pat Scala

David Rood, The Age
September 27, 2007

ANGRY protesters have ambushed a water announcement by Premier John Brumby, confronting him in a day of protest against the Government's controversial plans to pipe water across the Great Dividing Range to Melbourne.

As he toured the state's north-west with his cabinet yesterday, the Premier faced three separate protests.

With police looking on, about 50 noisy protesters hijacked the Premier's news conference outside Kerang, shouting him down with chants of "lies, lies, lies".

While viewing upgraded irrigation works at Koondrook, the Premier was quickly surrounded by the group of protesters, who were also angry at proposals for new national parks and reduced logging in Red Gum forests. They hurled abuse at him, chanting "plug the pipe", as he struggled to talk over the noise.

The north-south pipeline will pipe 75 gigalitres from the Goulburn Valley to Melbourne from water saved by improvements to water infrastructure.

Earlier, about 400 protesters gathered outside Mr Brumby's cabinet meeting at the Kerang Town Hall carrying placards reading "Brumby stop horsing with our jobs", "Hands off our water and Red Gum parks" and "I'm not anti-Brumby, I'm pro-intellectual".

Addressing the rally, Victorian Nationals leader Peter Ryan said Melbourne should look after its own water needs and remain on the current stage 3A water restrictions for the next three years. "We are talking about life and death," he said. "Melbourne is talking about watering it's lawns." Farmer Ken Pattison, of the group Plug the Pipe, warned Mr Brumby that unless he listened to regional Victoria he would be a "one-term Premier".

But Mr Brumby said the investment in repairing water infrastructure would create 225 gigalitres of water savings to be shared equally between irrigators, the environment and Melbourne water users.

At a later demonstration in Swan Hill, Federal Nationals MP John Forest accused the Premier of being spineless for not addressing the crowd.

No to red gums report

September 27, 2007, The Age

PREMIER John Brumby has rejected a plan to flood the Murray's dying river red gums with billions of litres of water.

With up to 75 per cent of the river gums in distress, a draft report by the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council recommended the creation of four new National Parks, reduced logging, and flooding of the forests.

The recommendations have been met with bitter opposition from graziers and the timber industry, who say the proposals could cost up to 80 jobs.

Mr Brumby told protesters demonstrating against the red gum plan that the water proposal would not be supported. "I have made it very clear that proposals in relation to water, if they found their way into the final report, I can tell you would be emphatically rejected by the Government," he said.

The council will report in February.

DAVID ROOD

Poison a dog's dinner

Date: September 23 - 2007

Jason Dowling , The Age

AUTHORITIES trying to poison Victoria's wild dogs have found themselves fattening the pests on juicy horsemeat rather than killing them.

Baits used to try to destroy the feral dogs did not contain enough poison, the Department of Sustainability and Environment has admitted.

Instead of ending up dead, Victoria's wild dogs were being well-fed.

The aerial baiting was tested in north-east Victoria late last year and in Gippsland earlier this year.

After it discovered the baits did not have enough poison, the department launched an investigation.

It found a new poison application system used for the baits had the effect of diluting the active toxic ingredients.

Brendan Roughead, of the Department of Primary Industry, said an incorrect concentration of the poison 1080 had been used in preparing the bait.

"The error apparently occurred due to an incorrect dilution factor being applied when using the commercially prepared solution," Mr Roughead said.

"In effect, the poison was too diluted and the amount of 1080 in the baits was substantially lowered.

"In addition to being less toxic than required, the baits would not have remained effective for very long."

Department of Sustainability and Environment executive director Ian Miles said affected elements of the Gippsland aerial baiting trial would be repeated in November.

Despite not killing the dogs, the poison bait trial had had some unforeseen benefits.

Mr Miles said satellite collars on a number of wild dogs provided detailed information on where the animals spent time, how frequently they moved, how far they travelled and the extent of their territory.

Fight for future helps heal wounds of the past

Wayne Atkinson and Allegra Currin under a redgum in the Barmah Forest.
Photo: Craig Sillitoe

Miki Perkins, The Age
September 23, 2007

UNDER the gnarled branches of an ancient red gum, two people stand on land that one of their ancestors stole from the other's.

Allegra Curr is the great, great, great granddaughter of Edward Curr, the first squatter in the Barmah Forest, in northern Victoria.

Wayne Atkinson's indigenous forebears lived on the banks of the Murray River for aeons, until Curr arrived with his sheep. They have united in support of a plan to turn the area into national park — a bid to halt the death of the remaining river red-gum forests.

In a draft report released in July, the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council recommended that the State Government create four new national parks and provide billions of litres of water to the parched forest. The red gums' health, said council chairman Duncan Malcolm, was far worse than expected.

And, for the first time in Victoria, the report recommended two of these four new national parks be co-managed by the local Aboriginal community.

The final public hearing into the plan is being held in Melbourne on Tuesday, and public submissions to the plan close at the end of the month.

Allegra Curr, 21, and her family, who live in Melbourne but maintain connections in the area, say the plan is a chance to fix the mistakes of the past: "Even though Edward Curr wasn't a genocidal maniac like a lot of them, he was a person who came up here to steal the land, expand colonial frontiers and make a profit. To see the area made into a national park and co-managed by indigenous people would be a good thing for the whole community, in terms of land care and environmental values."

In his memoir, Recollections of Squatting in Victoria, published in 1865, Curr notes a "spreading tree" at Baala Creek (now Broken Creek) and writes: "It happened that there were no Blacks there at that moment, but some camp fires smouldering … and the bags and nets which hung from its branches showed they were not far away."

Wayne Atkinson stands in the shade of this same tree as white cockatoos tumble through the air, their screeches echoing off the river bank.

Born on the river bank at Mooroopna and now a lecturer in indigenous history and politics at Melbourne University, he says it would be "overwhelming" if the Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Whurrong's relationship to the land were formalised.

"Our traditional land care practices have been tested over the millennia and should be given full recognition," he says.

But the draft plan has divided farming and timber communities along the river, with the report stating benefits would accrue mostly to people outside the area.

Northern Victoria Nationals MP Damian Drum says the proposal would "lock up" the forest and end entire industries. "We now have a Victorian Government that is prepared to inflict generational welfare dependency on small towns in regional Victoria, just to satisfy their Green masters," he says.