The Rudd Government is about to ditch a key election promise as Martin Ferguson moves to foist a nuclear waste dump onto the Northern Territory.

The Labor Party promised Northern Territory electors it would repeal Howard’s nuclear waste dump legislation in the heat of their election campaign,” said Senator Rachel Siewert today.

“Now Mr Ferguson is telling the Territorians that they have to have it anyway.

“Martin Ferguson is claiming the dump will only be used to store Australian nuclear waste – but how can we now trust the ALP to break one promise yet keep another?” asked Senator Siewert.

“This decision is opening the flood-gates to this toxic industry.

“Australians have a right to feel betrayed by this kind of sneaky double-dealing,” concluded Senator Siewert.

The Rudd Government is swiftly squandering any credibility it had on climate change, Australian Greens climate change spokesperson, Senator Christine Milne, said today.

Senator Milne said, “How extraordinary that, on World Environment Day, with a global focus on climate change, our Environment Minister ducks, weaves and dances as if he were still on stage, while his colleague, the Minister for Coal, spruiks turning his favourite resource into a horrendously polluting transport fuel.

“At heart, the problem is that the Rudd Government is no more willing to challenge itself and ask the right questions than the Howard Government was. If this Government has not even got the courage to introduce strict mandatory labelling and minimum performance standards for all appliances, what hope is there for any rigour in the emissions trading scheme? (more…)

NSW Greens MPs are supporting a call for a parliamentary inquiry into Frank Sartor’s new planning Bill, describing the Bill as having potentially devastating consequences for the state’s environment and heritage and being an open invitation for corruption of the planning system.

“This Bill will affect billions of dollars of developments. It will affect the rights and the amenity of every citizen in this state,”
said Greens MP and planning spokesperson Sylvia Hale.

The government today refused a Greens motion to release the submissions that had been received about the planning changes.

Ms Hale referred to a report of the cross-party Legislative Review Committee that raised significant concerns with the planning Bill including that it would trespass on individual rights to have views heard and represented, procedural fairness, access to justice and may erode the rule of law and individual property rights. (more…)

Gene Ethics fully supports WA Premier Alan Carpenter’s call today for labels on all Genetic Manipulated (GM) foods and for all GM food approvals to stop while these unsafe foods are fully safety tested.

“We back Premier Carpenter’s call for labels on all GM foods and for Food Standards Australia NZ (FSANZ) to stop all approvals of GM foods until conclusive safety tests are done to prove they are safe to eat,” says Gene Ethics Director Bob Phelps.

“We join the Premier in calling on all Australian governments - through the Health Ministerial Council - to swiftly meet the public’s rights to safe food and to know a food is GM.

“All governments must back the WA call for basic changes to the present GM food standard. (more…)

(joint media statement from the the WA Premier and the Minister for Agriculture and Food)

Premier Alan Carpenter has called for better labelling of foods that contain Genetically Modified ingredients and an immediate halt to the approval of all GM foods in Australia until more is known about the safety of eating them.

Mr Carpenter said Australia’s national food regulator, Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), should not approve any more foods for human consumption until it introduced independent scientific trials to determine the safety of GM foods.

“I find it unbelievable and unacceptable that the national food regulator relies principally on the say-so of the GM companies when assessing GM foods as safe to eat,” he said. (more…)

Tuesday’s state budget will leave public school classrooms $86.5 million short of the money needed to bring them up to an acceptable standard while wealthy private schools will continue to be heavily subsidised, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.

Commenting on the pre-budget announcement in today’s Sunday Telegraph (p.2, “Schools falling apart at seams”), Dr Kaye said: “The Iemma government failed to increase public school maintenance funding in real terms to address the $86.5 million backlog.

“The supposed $11 million boost will only hold total spending at standstill after accounting for rising costs. (more…)

Plantation limitation on Class 1-3 land not nearly enough to save farming communities

The Tasmanian Greens today criticised the decision to limit industrial plantation establishment on class one, two and three agricultural land as not nearly enough to save rural Tasmanian communities threatened by Managed Investment Scheme-backed industrial plantation development.

Greens Shadow Primary Industry spokesperson Kim Booth MP said the plantation limit on classes one to three land, which cover 4% of the state’s farming land, goes a very short way to addressing the threat rural communities are facing from the conversion of local food-growing land into industrial plantations. (more…)

ACCIONA Energy (formerly known as EHN Oceania Pty Ltd) today announced that it will not proceed with its initial proposal for a wind farm along the Molonglo Range located 15kms south east of Queanbeyan and 25kms from Canberra. The decision follows ACCIONA Energy’s detailed evaluation of the proposed site over a period of years.

The wind farm, first proposed in 2004, was for up to 60 wind turbines with the capacity to generate green electricity to supply about 45,000 homes and avoid the production of over 245,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year. Extensive technical studies, environmental assessments and consultation with the community were carried out during 2004 and 2005. (more…)

Greens MLC Colleen Hartland is happy to wait another two weeks for the second reading of her Physician Assisted Dying bill.

“The longer we wait, the more support we get”, said Colleen Hartland.

“Support has grown to an overwhelming 80% of Australians calling for the right to obtain assistance to die, should they need it. The bill has been available for over a month.  I’m ready, and Victorians are ready.  Let’s get on with it.

“The bill provides compassion and support for people who are suffering intolerably, and who want to die.  But it also provides safeguards, and regulates a process that is currently going on in the dark,” said Colleen Hartland, MLC for Western Metropolitan Region. (more…)

The former head of ABARE, Dr Brian Fisher, famously said that, if prices are high enough, roosters will lay eggs.

Australian Greens climate change spokesperson, Senator Christine Milne, today said that ABARE now has egg all over its face after another woefully inaccurate oil price forecast, leaving the Australian community scrambling to deal with a fuel price crisis.

Senator Milne said, “At some point, ABARE must be held to account for its failure to model any scenario under which peak oil is a reality. Where other economic forecasters model a range of scenarios based on a range of assumptions, ABARE has consistently modelled with the same flawed assumptions, even though the evidence has shown them to be wrong time and again. (more…)