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.

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…)

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…)

The Tasmanian Greens today are appalled by the latest Lennon government deal for its corporate mates, which puts a price of $15million on democracy through its imposition of a financial penalty on the taxpayers of Tasmania if a future government wants to implement the will of the community to protect further high conservation value forests or allocate forest for carbon sequestration rather than for Gunns’ unpopular pulp mill. (more…)

“In the wake of the developer donations scandal surrounding the Government, this is most definitely not the time to be lowering standards of accountability and transparency,” said Upper House Greens MP Ian Cohen.

Questions were put to Ian Macdonald in Parliament about whether or not he would take action, if it emerged that a member of his expert committee advising him on GM issues had failed to declare a direct or indirect pecuniary interest.

“Minister Macdonald twice dodged my questions yesterday and today on conflict of interest at a time when debate rages in the community about exactly who will benefit from the legalisation of GM food crops in NSW. (more…)

The latest victim of poor governance in NSW is the state’s clean, green agricultural reputation. It is now legal to grow commercial quantities of genetically modified canola in NSW.

“The biotech companies will be the only winners from today as the GM horse bolts out of Parliament House,” said Upper House Greens MP Ian Cohen.

“The Canadian experience demonstrates that Bayer and Monsanto will rake in over 90% of the profits from the introduction of GM canola by selling their herbicides and from collecting maximum royalties and crop technology licence fees. (more…)

Greens MP Lee Rhiannon is calling on Planning Minister Frank Sartor to rescind his decision to rezone Tralee land to residential and give donations made to the NSW ALP by the developer, Village Building Company, to charity.

“Mr Sartor is dodging a broadening donations scandal by arguing he rezoned land for the Tralee development because of housing shortages,” Ms Rhiannon said.

“Minister Sartor’s own expert panel found in 2006 that there are ‘alternative areas for residential development’ not so adversely affected by significant aircraft noise. (more…)

Greens MP Lee Rhiannon has called on Planning Minister Frank Sartor to stand aside while an independent investigation is carried out into his involvement in soliciting developers to attend his own fundraiser that raised more than $500,000.

“Premier Morris Iemma needs to take action. For a planning minister to hold a function for developers opens the government up to perceptions of bribes and corruption,” Ms Rhiannon said.

“Mr Sartor should stand aside from his portfolio responsibilities while an independent investigation is carried out. (more…)