Greens MP Ian Cohen is calling for a halt to clearing of 360 hectares of critically endangered bushlandon a former ADI site in the Cumberland Plain.  The imminent clearing by bulldozers of this bushland - adjacent to sensitive wetlands - flies in the face of the NSW Government’s own advice on the Cumberland Plain.The environmental approval that allows Delfin Lend Lease to clear the area and build homes for 6500 people was granted under now superseded Federal conservation laws. The site should be reconsidered using current Federal law and NSW State guidelines.

“This clearing should be halted immediately. Both Federal scientists and NSW Department of Environment Water and Climate Change (DECCW)
scientists have listed this area, the Cumberland Plain Woodland in the Sydney Basin Bioregion, as a Critically Endangered Ecological Community
and yet it is about to be bulldozed,” says Greens MP Ian Cohen.

“Environment Minister Sartor must talk to his Federal counterpart, Mr Garrett, and act to save the Cumberland Plain from desecration. (more…)

NSW Greens MP and transport spokesperson Lee Rhiannon says Federal Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese will only succeed in transforming Sydney into a more liveable city if he directs Infrastructure Australia to shift its funding preference from road construction to public transport and rail freight infrastructure.

“The key to liveable cities is public transport. Anthony Albanese must allocate funding from Infrastructure Australia to large scale public transport projects, reversing the current preoccupation with roads,” Ms Rhiannon said.

“It’s time for a funding switch from the current situation where the Federal government is allocating $28 billion to road projects over six years, while rail gets a mere $7.9 billion. (more…)

The NSW government’s approval for two new giant fossil fuel power stations is based on the big lie that they are needed to keep the lights on. They will drive up the state’s greenhouse gas emissions and destroy jobs in the renewable energy industry, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.

Commenting on Planning Minister Tony Kelly’s approval of the concept plans for 2,000 MW power plants at Mt Piper near Lithgow and Bayswater in the Upper Hunter, Dr Kaye said: “NSW does not need more baseload electricity generation to keep the lights on. (more…)

(printed in March 2 edition of the Canberra Times)

Since your January 26 story “Koalas face big logging threat”, nothing much has changed except that, despite numerous representations to Ministers and further attempts to highlight the issue in the media and elsewhere, logging may begin as soon as Monday March 1. The support given by current and past governments to the ongoing, taxpayer-subsidised woodchipping of native forests and these governments’ blatant disregard for the protection of forests for biodiversity, water quality, habitat, climate change mitigation and tourist attraction reasons is hard to comprehend. How does continued logging of native forests in this way, without even value-adding in Australia, contribute to the nation’s financial or environmental well-being? (more…)

Australia Day. What does it mean?

For the First Australians, it represents the take-over of their land with the arrival of the first governor and the subsequent events which led to dispossession, disease, genocide and prejudice, not to mention mismanagement and destruction of the land and water systems that had provided for them for so long.

It re-emphasises the failure to acknowledge that Indigenous people were here for tens of thousands of years before the British flag was planted on the soil of what was conveniently called “Terra Nullius” - land belonging to no-one.

This in turn is further emphasised by the flying, draping, parading and wearing of the Australian flag, featuring the colonisers’ Union Jack in the left hand corner. And if that wasn’t enough, the notion of Terra Nullius is rammed home even more by the singing of the National Anthem with its first lines - “Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and free.”

What’s to celebrate? (more…)

(letter to the editor, published in the CT January 28)

Let’s be honest. Every day more light is shed on why there is no hope for humanity and all those species whose survival depends on our making the right decisions, and your report “Koalas face big logging threat” (January 26) is yet another example. We ought to be doing everything we can to protect biodiversity by retaining habitat, in this case for the last known koala colony on the far south coast. Forest protection has many benefits. As well as providing habitat, forests help to soak up the massive amounts of CO2 we are pumping out, improve catchment and regulate the water table. But no, we prefer to turn our forests into woodchips to meet the demands of insatiable overseas markets, not just in Japan but also China, whose demand for woodchips currently and frighteningly outweighs the huge amounts we already are producing. As with climate change, it is easier to pretend the problem does not exist, or at least, that humans have nothing to do with it, because recognising that our voracious consumption is jeopardising our very existence would mean that we had to do something about it. Australians all let us rejoice? I don’t think so.

Catherine Moore, Charleys Forest

(letter to the editor, Sydney Morning Herald, not published)

Let’s be honest. Every day more light is shed on why there is no hope for humanity and all those species whose survival depends on our making the right decisions. SMH, January 25 – p. 2: “Snowy in dire state ‘on life support’ “ demonstrates that our inaction is ensuring that the Snowy River is “dying through neglect”. Page 5: “Logging plan poses threat to precious koala colony” warns that the last known koala habitat on the far south coast of NSW is at risk of annihilation because we prefer to turn our forests into woodchips to meet the demands of insatiable overseas markets than do everything we can to protect biodiversity (and maximise our contribution to soaking up the CO2 we are putting out). Page 2: “Storm brews over glacier blunder” highlights yet again the desperate attempts of climate change sceptics who will do anything to try to prove that climate change science is flawed. All this is on a backdrop of the underlying problem – our inability to come to grips with our voracious consumption, because if we did, we would have to do something about it. Australians all let us rejoice? I don’t think so.

Catherine Moore

The Keneally government’s failure to guarantee cash payments under the Solar Bonus Scheme is a blow to households and a get-rich-quick racket for electricity retailers, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.

Commenting on a story in today’s Sydney Morning Herald (‘Retailers ‘must pay’ for solar power feed’, page 5), Dr Kaye said: “NSW households were told they would get a generous feed-in tariff to help them make the transition to clean energy generation. What was delivered was a public relations sham for a struggling state government

“Energy Minister John Robertson left open a giant loophole in the Solar Bonus Scheme allowing retailers to withhold cash payments as so-called ‘credits’.

“Without the cash in hand, many households will find it hard to pay off their investment in solar panels and will shy away from the scheme. (more…)

NSW taxpayers are facing a $380 million a year financial loss to fund windfall profits for the state’s aluminium industry under the Rudd government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, thanks to fixed price electricity supply contracts put in place by the Wran government, according to Greens MP John Kaye.

The Keneally government’s electricity privatisation plans are in trouble. The state’s generators will have to foot the carbon costs for the smelters,
taking away almost one quarter of Macquarie Generation’s annual revenues.

Commenting on a story in today’s Sydney Morning Herald (’Carbon plan may break us: generator’, Business page 3, http://tinyurl.com/smh100116), Dr
Kaye said: “The NSW government has been less than open about the impacts of these contracts on their electricity privatisation plans.

“Former Ministers Michael Costa and Joe Tripodi avoided the issue, hoping no one would notice. Now that the cat is out of the bag, Treasurer Roozendaal must tell the people of NSW who will pay for Wran’s legacy and how. (more…)

With today’s official launching of the International Year of Biodiversity by the United Nations in Berlin, the Keneally Government should be outlining how it’s addressing declining biodiversity in NSW.

“The recent 2009 State of the Environment Report, a report card on the state’s environmental performance over the last three years, shows that the NSW Government is failing to stop biodiversity decline. Three of the four critical performance indictors for native fauna and flora show poor environmental health and systems under significant stress,” says Greens MP Ian Cohen.

“Of the 25% of the terrestrial native animals monitored in NSW for sustainability, 64% of fauna and 65% of birds species have a moderate or greater risk of extinction. This is only a sampling; if we assessed all species it is fair to assume that the potential extinction rate would be much higher. ” (more…)