in this, the year of women in local government.

Greens MP and mining spokesperson Lee Rhiannon has congratulated the Liverpool Plains farming community for their win in the Supreme Court and said the victory has statewide significance.

The NSW Supreme Court yesterday found that BHP Billiton’s licence to explore for coal on the properties of two Liverpool Plains farmers were invalid because the company had not consulted all landholders.

“This is a most welcome decision that brings some balance to the mining approval process that is so weighted in favour of mining companies,” Ms Rhiannon said.

“When the NSW parliament resumes next week I will question the Mineral Resources Minister Ian Macdonald on what action his department will now take to ensure breaches of the NSW Mining Act no longer occur. (more…)

Conservation groups today appealed the Premier to intervene in the battle over the future of the last koala colony in the South East Forests in a remote area near Bega.

“Our people inspected the remote area on Monday and found that contrary to statements from the Minister for the Environment, State Forest bulldozers were already at work on the road network that will be needed to allow access for the Eden woodchip mill’s huge log trucks,” said spokespersons for the groups.

“State Forests is deliberately pushing the community closer to direct confrontation in the forests even while protracted negotiations on the fate of the koalas are under way with the Department of the Environment.” (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…)

Mr Ian Cohen, a Greens MP, who strongly opposed the now defunct Mogo Charcoal Factory proposal, and who is a long-term opponent of the woodchipping industry, has been ordered to pay $15,000 in defamation damages as well as massive legal costs, after a developer won a High Court challenge late last year.

The politician who said too much will be in Moruya on Saturday March 13 at the Waterfront Hotel for a fund-raiser for his legal costs. The night is aptly called ‘Bite Your Tongue’.  Fabulous local artists Matt Southon, Jeff Aschmann and Lisa & Tony have donated their time but the big news is that on his way to a tour of Japan, world renowned didgeridoo player Charlie McMahon is taking a detour to play on the night. Charlie is well known for his work in the seminal Australian band Gondwanaland but lesser known is that he featured, with the London Symphony Orchestra, on Mad Max - Beyond the Thunderdome. (more…)

(letter to Braidwood Times, published March 3, 2010)

With deliberations on the new Palerang LEP working draft just begun, it is clear that environmental issues will not receive the support that some may have expected. At last Thursday’s meeting, Clause 26D, Ecologically Sustainable Development (local), was the first to go. It stated: Before granting consent for development, the consent authority must have regard to the principles of ecologically sustainable development as they relate to the proposed development. Not long after that, the fifth objective of the section RU1 Primary Production was debated - to ensure that the development and management of the land has proper regard for the environmental constraints of the land and has a neutral or beneficial impact on environmental assets including waterways, riparian land, wetlands and other surface and groundwater resources, soil fertility, remnant native vegetation, and existing and potential fauna movement corridors. With Cr Turley safely out of the room after it was suggested in no uncertain terms that she had an unexempted pecuniary interest, this clause was successfully deleted also, with the casting vote of the mayor. (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…)

Commenting on the clause in the M2 motorway contract that could result in compensation being paid to operator, Transurban, Greens MP and transport spokesperson Lee Rhiannon said the northwest rail line is an essential piece of infrastructure that should be fast tracked not held up because of a poor decision by the Coalition when they were in government.

“The former Coalition government in the early 1990s should never have agreed to the clause in the M2 contract that allows the motorway operators to claim compensation if their profits are impacted by a nearby public transport project,” Ms Rhiannon said.

“If the NSW government has to pay compensation because of a poor motorway decision by a previous Coalition government that should not be used as a reason to prevent construction of the northwest rail project. (more…)

The Greens have criticised the State Government for withdrawing funding from Community Cultural Development NSW, the peak body for community
arts and cultural development in NSW.

“The effect of this de-funding will be that arts funding in NSW will now be focused on the flagships of Australian arts funding such as Opera Australia, Sydney Theatre Company, Sydney Symphony Orchestra and their like. While these are wonderful and important institutions, they interact with only a very small segment of our community,” said Sylvia Hale, Greens MLC and spokesperson for the Arts.

“With the withdrawal of this funding the NSW Government is reneging on its 2006/07 agreement with Federal arts funding body, The Australia Council, to support community based arts programs in NSW. The loss of funding from Arts NSW means the automatic loss of funding from The Australia Council. (more…)

Figures released today of jobs allegedly created as a result of approvals under Part 3A of the Planning Act may have been significantly inflated by double counting, according to Greens spokesperson for Planning, Sylvia Hale, MLC.

“The table for the period 8 September 2008 – 31 January 2009 (sic — presumably meant to be to 31 January 2010) states that a total of 36,589 construction jobs have been created, and 41,712 operational jobs, totalling 78,301 in all,” says Ms Hale.

“Of these 78,301 jobs, 13,013 construction jobs and 10,671 operational jobs resulted from approval of concept plans, that is, a total of 23,640 jobs.

“But concept plans in themselves do not result in any jobs for anyone other than those who draw the plans up. Before one brick can be laid or one operational job activated, concepts plans, which provide only a broad overview of a project, are translated into project applications, which, if approved, may then lead to the creation of construction and operational jobs. (more…)