in this, the year of women in local government.

Greens MLC Mark Parnell has called on all political parties and candidates standing at the 2010 state election to publicly reveal before Election Day who is paying for their campaigns.

The SA Greens have published online a list of all donors (over $1,500) to the party over the last 12 months, and will update this list right up until the day before the state election.

“South Australian voters have a right to know who is paying the bills for each party’s election campaign,” said Greens MLC Mark Parnell.

“Yet under the current rules we don’t find out who has given what money to federally registered parties until February next year - and in the case of state registered parties and independents we never find out. (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…)

Greens MLC Mark Parnell has called for the standard release of all public submissions online when the Government asks for public input into decision making.

The call comes as the public submissions to Seeking a Balance, the review into mining in the Arkaroola ranges, remain unpublished despite the consultation period closing last month.

“It’s pretty simple really - all submissions to any Government public consultation process should automatically be published online,” said Greens MLC Mark Parnell.

“At the moment, the public spends hours and hours giving their feedback where it effectively ends up in a great big black hole.  They never get a response to the issues they’ve raised, or any sense of whether what they have said has had any impact,” he said. (more…)

The Greens have criticised the narrow scope of the ICAC investigation into the circumstances surrounding the allegations contained in the McGurk tape.

“The inquiry has been a narrow exercise that examines a recorded conversation between a dead lender of last resort and a property developer,” said Sylvia Hale MLC, Greens Spokesperson for Planning.

“What it has failed to examine is the corrupting potential of political donations and access to senior government figures by developers and their lobbyists. (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…)

Greens spokesperson for Planning, Sylvia Hale MLC, today expressed her disappointment at the ICAC’s refusal to investigate the murky dealings
surrounding the sale of the Unions NSW Pittwater retreat at Currawong.

“In September 2005 the Minister for Lands, Tony Kelly, made an unconditional offer of $12.5 million to Unions NSW to buy the Currawong site and add it to the adjoining Ku-ring-gai National Park,” said Ms Hale.

“The then Minister for Planning, Frank Sartor, and Minister Kelly, were reported to favour the purchase but it was strongly opposed by Michael Costa, the Treasurer at the time. In November 2005 the government’s offer was withdrawn. (more…)

The Labor Government’s announcement overnight that it would in effect sell significant Sydney Harbour properties by leasing them for 99 years to private owners will frustrate any ability to strategically plan for Sydney Cove, The Rocks and Darling Harbour, says The Greens NSW.

“Auctioning off publicly owned assets on 99 year leases conditions the public to forget that the land and buildings around our harbour were ever owned by the people of NSW,” said Sylvia Hale MLC, Greens spokesperson for Planning and Lands.

“It also frustrates any attempt to use these places in the public interest in years to come. (more…)