South Australia, Australia’s most secretive state
Daniel Wills: Welcome to South Australia, the nation’s most secretive state
IT crept up with such stealth that few people noticed it was even happening, but South Australia can now make fair claim to being the most secretive state in the country.
The Advertiser revealed two stories this week that should deeply concern lovers of open debate and informed democracy, and leave them demanding big changes.
After a period of welcome sunlight as court suppression orders sank to relative lows, they’ve spiked in the past two years and are running at their highest rate in a decade.
On top of that, a Monash University study admonished our Freedom of Information laws as the worst in the country and found the system was “designed to block, delay and obfuscate”.
But this viscous culture of secrecy isn’t isolated to those two important areas.
It seeped so far into the foundations of our Independent Commission Against Corruption that even the man running it has complained to lawmakers that the public is shielded from important information………
SA also trails other states in the protections offered to whistleblowers and any journalists they contact in an honest bid to get important stories of public interest into the light of day. This has a chilling affect on political debate, and makes it more likely that bad practices will survive.There are a few decent theories that help explain why SA stands out so darkly in the crowd………
When the ICAC legislation was drawn up the balance fell on the side of minimising the risk that people of standing would have their reputations unfairly smeared, rather than a bias towards ensuring the public had maximum access to information about what they were up to………. http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/daniel-wills/news-story/10735e85a9e26eeea142501aa6985f25
Australia’s environmental laws are too weak – as shown by the Adani coalmine case
The groups are calling for a new generation of environmental laws that protect critical habitats for threatened species, that halt projects until information about the scale of the impacts is known, and that explicitly deal with impacts on the climate.
They have also called for laws that allow environmental approvals to be challenged in court on their merits. Currently, they can only be challenged by claiming the minister didn’t follow the correct legal processes.
Adani’s Carmichael coalmine proves environment laws ‘too weak’ – report
No consequences for the company if its mine causes greater environmental damage to threatened habitats than expected, says study, Guardian, Michael Slezak, 12 Sept 16, Australia’s environmental laws are too weak, a new report argues, citing the Carmichael coalmine as an example. Even what the environment minister has described as the “strictest” environmental conditions on the development allow the destruction of endangered species habitats, the degradation of ecologically and culturally significant water bodies, as well as the production of fossil fuels for burning, it says.
When the federal environment minister gave the most recent approval for Adani’s huge coalmine in 2014, he said it was done on the basis of “36 of the strictest conditions in Australian history”.
Taking those conditions as the “high-water mark” for environmental protections offered by current laws, a report by the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Environmental Defenders Office of Australia examined whether they protected the environment in the way they were intended to. Continue reading
Community Power Agency urges Victorian govt to establish “clean energy community hubs”
Everybody needs good neighbours … to produce renewable energy, Benjamin Preiss The Age, 12 Sept 16 Linda Parlane got more than energy from the sun when she installed solar panels on her roof. She harnessed the power of her community. Ms Parlane bought her solar panels back in 2009 through a bulk-buy community scheme in Coburg………
She is now a board member of the Moreland Community Solar co-operative and wants to see more local projects, including ventures established through community investment. But she fears community energy projects have come unstuck in recent years after running into legal and administrative hurdles.
Moreland Community Solar is among a collection of environment, energy and lobby groups calling on the state government to ensure small to medium-scale community projects play a bigger role in reducing carbon emissions.
A submission to the government prepared by the Community Power Agency is urging it to establish “clean energy community hubs” that can provide advice to local groups and help them strike up relationships with renewable energy developers. It also recommends financial support for community-produced energy.
The state government has called for submissions as part of its plan to have 40 per cent renewable energy by 2025. NSW has a 20 per cent target by 2020-21. The government will use a “competitive auction process” in which renewable energy developers can bid for contracts to run their projects. The Community Power Agency wants community energy projects to account for up to 10 per cent of the overall renewable energy target.
Community energy projects take many different forms. Several years ago residents in Daylesford and Hepburn set up a community co-operative to establish a two-turbine wind farm that now produces enough energy to power more than 2000 homes.
In Bendigo a crowdfunding campaign was launched to buy solar panels for a local library.
Community Power Agency director Nicky Ison said many Victorians wanted to produce renewable energy at a local level. “Community groups have great ideas,” she said. “Once they’ve turned those ideas into something financially viable there are so many people who want to invest in these projects.”Ms Ison said community energy projects also resulted in stronger relationships within communities. “It’s bringing neighbours together.”
The groups supporting the submission include progressive lobby group Getup, Solar Citizens, Yarra Community Solar, Moreland Community Solar co-operative and the Central Victoria Greenhouse Alliance. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/everybody-needs-good-neighbours–to-produce-renewable-energy-20160911-grdp6z.html
Nick Xenophon Team will block cuts to Australian Renewable Energy Agency: What About Labor?
Nick Xenophon Team’s decision to block ARENA cuts puts pressure on Labor http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-10/labor-under-pressure-amid-renewable-energy-funding-cuts/7832656 AM By political reporter Naomi Woodley The fate of future funding for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) now rests firmly with the Federal Opposition, after the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) confirmed it would block the Government’s proposed budget cut.
Key points:
- $1.3bn cut is contained in Government’s omnibus savings bill
- Passing of bill to devastate renewable energy industry, Nick Xenophon says
- Labor caucus expected to consider funding cut on Tuesday
The $1.3 billion cut is contained in the Government’s omnibus savings bill, which is currently before Parliament.
Senator Xenophon said if the bill was passed it would devastate the renewable energy industry in Australia.
The real risk of the Government’s slashing of the renewable energy fund, ARENA, is that we will see a brain drain of our best and brightest leaving this country,” he said.
The Government wants to cut ARENA’s funding as part of plans to set up a Clean Energy Innovation Fund that would hand out loans instead of direct grants.
Senator Xenophon said while his team would not support the funding cut, there was scope to change the way ARENA worked.
“There ought to be a change in the funding mechanism to ensure that if a renewable energy technology has commercial success then the grant ought to be repaid, and there ought to be the ability for ARENA to take an equity in that project so it can reap the benefit of that,” he said.
He will ask Labor to support such an amendment when the bill reaches the Senate.
‘Acid is now on Labor’
The NXT’s decision to block the funding cut puts more pressure on Labor to decide how it will vote. Continue reading
Banks ready to back big solar projects: renewable energy jobs on the rise
Banks looking even closer at backing big solar projects: Clean Energy Council, Brisbane Times, Tony Moore , 8 Sept 16, Australian banks will invest more heavily in solar energy projects within the next 12 months, Clean Energy Council chief executive Kane Thornton said after Thursday’s announcement that 12 new solar farms Australia-wide had been backed by $100 million from the federal government.
The federal government’s Australian Renewable Energy Agency on Thursday announced 12 large-scale solar projects – six in Queensland – had received federal support.
ARENA chief executive Ivor Frischknecht said improved efficiencies had meant solar energy producers were getting much more bang for their funding buck than they were even two years ago. “In 2014, the grant funding needed for large-scale solar projects was $1.60 a watt,” Mr Frischknecht said.”In 2015, this dropped to 43 cents at the EOI stage of ARENA’s $100 million large-scale solar funding round; and to an average of 28 cents in June 2016 when full applications were submitted,” he said.
“The average requirement of the projects we are taking forward today is an incredible 19 cents a watt.”
Mr Thornton said solar projects would soon begin to rely less on federal government for funding to begin operations. “We really at the threshold of saying that once we see another round of these of these projects we are going to see the costs decline to the point when they are built on their own, without the government support,” he said. “I think it is months, if not maybe a year or so, before we can expect them to go ahead without further funding.”
Mr Thornton said banks were now closely examining the viability of investing more heavily in solar and renewable energy projects in Australia.
The first major investment in solar energy by Australian banks came in 2013 when NAB and ANZ invested in a 20 megawatt solar plant in Canberra. More investment in solar plants followed, while banks have questioned some large new coal projects……….
Mr Thornton said scale of new solar farm plants was lowering production costs to the point where it was “cost comparative’ with coal and gas.
Mr Thornton said it was now time to begin training workforces that worked in traditional energy supply companies to work in renewable energy. http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/banks-looking-even-closer-at-backing-big-solar-projects-clean-energy-council-20160908-grc5ol.html
Stockholm Environment Institute very critical of Australia’s high rate of carbon emissions
Australia’s carbon budget to be exhausted in six years, Stockholm group says http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/australias-carbon-budget-to-be-exhausted-in-six-years-stockholm-group-says-20160908-grbql4.html Peter Hannam
Australia will burn through its “fair share” of carbon within six years if the more-ambitious end of the global warming goals agreed to at the Paris climate summit is to be achieved, a respected European think-tank says.
Restricting warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial times implies a global carbon budget of less than 250 billion tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent from 2015, the Stockholm Environment Institute said in a new study. The planet has warmed about 1 degree in the past century alone.
Taking Australia’s share of this budget to be 1 per cent – arguably a generous measure as the nation makes up just 0.3 per cent of the world’s population – the country will emit that 2.5 billion-tonne portion within six years at present polluting rates.
“[Australia’s] transformation to a post-carbon era must be rapid and comprehensive, and include diversification away from fossil extraction for energy and export,” Sivan Kartha, the author of the report, said.
Among the world’s largest polluters on a per-capita basis, Australia had “a high level of responsibility for the greenhouse gases that have caused the climate problem”. Its wealth and technical capabilities, though, also gave Australia “a level of capacity to help solve it”, the report says.
Geoffrey Cousins, president of the Australian Conservation Foundation, said the Turnbull government “had made new commitments in Paris, talked them up when they came back but not a single policy has changed since then”.
“There is no great urgency, things will just roll nicely on, and we continue to approve new coal mines,” Mr Cousins said, adding the Stockholm report revealed how little time was left to take serious steps to cut emissions.
Two developments on Thursday offered conflicting signals of government action on climate.
As revealed by Fairfax Media, $92 million in grant funding by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency had sparked almost as much as $1 billion in private funding that will triple the size of large-scale solar in the country.
The government also announced $30.05 million to fund a new ARC Centre for Excellence for Climate Extremes. The seven-year funding will mean the existing centre, based at the University of NSW, can morph into a group study on why rising temperatures are triggering a disproportionate increase in extremes such as heatwaves.
According to the Stockholm report, a large fraction of the world’s proved fossil fuel reserves will have to stay in the ground for any “plausible budget” to keep global warming the “well-below 2 degrees” goal agreed in Paris.
That means the market for Australia’s fossil fuel exports will need to “rapidly reduce and ultimately disappear”.
“Action taken to increase Australia’s capacity for fossil fuel production – such as increasing export capacity or commissioning new coal mines – is difficult to reconcile with the goals of the Paris Agreement,” the report says.
Australia is the world’s second-biggest coal exporter and also the second-largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.
Michael Anderson on the question of a Treaty with Aboriginal people
Our people today are signing Indigenous Land Use Agreements, ILUAs, without truly understanding what they are surrendering to the oppressor colonial state and no-one fully informs them of the consequences. Will a treaty be the same?
Justice Willis [in R v Bonjon, Supreme Court of New South Wales 1841] adds: “I repeat that I am not aware of any express enactment or treaty subjecting the Aborigines of this colony to the English colonial law, and I have shown that the Aborigines cannot be considered as Foreigners in a Kingdom which is their own”.
Justice Willis then reasoned that: “Aboriginal people remained ‘unconquered and free, entitled to be regarded as ‘self-governing communities’. Their rights ‘as distinct people’ could not be considered to have been ‘tacitly surrendered’. As they were ‘by no means devoid of legal capacity’ and had ‘laws and usages of their own’, ‘treaties should be made with them’. The colonists were ‘uninvited intruders’, the Aborigines ‘the native sovereigns of the soil’ “
We are under occupation by a foreign power, which keeps us in our place by superior force Ghillar, Michael Anderson https://linksunten.indymedia.org/en/node/190003 by: Ghillar, Michael Anderson (Account: Nuclear Worrier)09. September 2016. Bathurst, Put clearly, Australia does not have its own sovereignty. Under its British constitution all governments in Australia are caretakers in occupation and govern for the non-Aboriginal people who call themselves Australians. In point of fact federal, state and territory governments govern in right of the crown of Britain. Former prime ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott appear demented when opposing treaties.
By Ghillar, Michael Anderson, Convenor of the Sovereign Union, last surviving member of the founding four of the Aboriginal Embassyand Head of state of the Euahlayi People’s Republic
Former prime ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott confirmed yesterday (8/9/16) that they vigorously oppose any ideas of a treaty between the Commonwealth of Australia and First Nations peoples in Australia: ‘John Howard has described talk of a treaty as “appalling” ….”I’m appalled at talk about treaty, that will be so divisive and will fail,” Mr Howard said and Tony Abbott says he has never supported the idea. …”A treaty is something that two nations make with each other, and obviously Aboriginal people are the first Australians, but in the end we’re all Australians together, so I don’t support a treaty.” [ http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-08/conservatives-lock-in-against-treaty-with-indigenous-australians/7825298 ] Continue reading
Traditional Owners fight on: appeal Carmichael mine Federal Court decision
http://wanganjagalingou.com.au/traditional-owners-fight-on-appeal-carmichael-mine-federal-court-decision/ 8 September 2016
“An appeal to the full bench of the Federal Court of Australia was filed today by -senior Traditional Owner and spokesperson for the Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J) family council, Mr Adrian Burragubba, challenging a decision of Justice Reeves in relation to the Queensland government’s issuing of mining leases for Adani’s Carmichael coal mine, handed down on 19th August 2016.
“Mr Burragubba said: “We said ‘no means no’ and so we will continue to resist this damaging coal mine that will tear the heart out of our Country. The stakes are huge.In the spirit of our ancestors, we will continue to fight for justice until the project falls over.
““The decision of the Native Title Tribunal in April 2015 to allow the issuing of the mining leases by the Queensland government took away our right to free, prior and informed consent.
It effectively allowed the government to override the decision that we made nearly two years ago to reject Adani’s ‘deal’,” Mr Burragubba said. … “
Australian Conservation Foundation ordered to pay costs for Adani case
September 8, 2016. ENVIRONMENTALISTS have been hit with a massive bill after a Federal Court ruling in just one of many cases against the Adani coal project, while a second group has launched yet another attempt to derail the project….. (subscribers only)
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/crime-and-justice/australian-conservation-foundation-ordered-to-pay-costs-for-adani-case/news-story/20a030d675a2edb873a9888fd1e152ea
Hawker in the middle of the earthquake hazard zone south Australia
Greg Wurn to Nuclear Fuel Cycle Watch South Australia Earthquake Hazard Zones of South Australia. Hawker in the middle of the earthquake hazard zone, well the proposed nuclear fuel waste dump is just a little to the west of Hawker at a place called Wallerberdina, a station near Barndioota, this property just happens to be under a long term lease to ex SA liberal senator Grant Chapman, he also while in politics served on several Senate Select Committees to do with uranium mining and milling, and another on the Lucas Heights Reactor.I will never know if he acquired that property with some sort of insider knowledge, but I do know the land is not geologicaly stable, and it also appears to drain into lake Torrens, which seams to drain south towards Port August and the Spencer Gulf.
David Noonan bad siting for national waste dump and shows that proposed Inter waste dump will be sited somewhere west of Port Augusta… https://www.facebook.com/groups/1021186047913052/
Australian uranium companies notorious for exploitation of African communities
Paladin Energy’scontaminating uranium operations, controversy over Anvil and state repression in Congo, MRC’s exit from its Xolobeni titanium project on South Africa’s Wild Coast following the murder of anti-mining advocateBazooka Rhadebe earlier this year.
The list goes ever on and the details – some of which are documented in a powerful report by the International Consortium of Independent Journalists – are deeply disturbing.
The absence of a robust regulatory regime in many African countries can see situations where Australian companies are engaged in activities that would not be acceptable practise at home
Africa Down Under: Tales Of Australian Woe On The ‘Dark Continent’, New Matilda, By Dave Sweeney on September 7, 2016 A mining conference underway in Perth states its aim is to help boost the fortunes of one of the poorest regions on earth. But boost the fortunes for whom, asks Dave Sweeney from ACF.Stories of corruption, dirty dealing and corner cutting are not uncommon in the world of mining and resource extraction, especially in the developing or majority world. It is a tough trade where the high-visibility clothing is often in stark contrast to the lack of transparency surrounding payments and practises.
But as a major industry gathering takes place this week in Perth it is time for a genuine look at whether Australian resource companies are supporting the growth of fledgling democracies or literally undermining them.
No doubt the tall tales will flow along with the cocktails at the Africa Down Under mining conference, an annual event that sees Australian politicians join their African counterparts alongside a melange of miners, merchants and media. Continue reading
South Australian govt makes a change- to purchase 75 per cent of its long-term electricity needs
SA Government to purchase 75 per cent of its long-term electricity needs, ABC News, 7 Sept 16 By Nick Harmsen and staff The South Australian Government says it will launch a tender to buy 75 per cent of its long-term electricity needs in an effort to increase competition.
SA has been hit hard by spiralling electricity costs over recent years and the Government wants to introduce a new competitor to the market.
Premier Jay Weatherill said current rules allowed private electricity companies to drive “prices higher by withholding supply”. “A small number of energy suppliers in South Australia have too much power,” he said. “If we increase competition, we will put the power back into the hands of consumers.”
South Australia’s electricity provider, the Electricity Trust of South Australia, was privatised in 1999.It changed its name to SA Power Networks in 2012……..
Carbon emissions scheme on the cards The SA Government also wants to “explore” an Emissions Intensity Scheme (EIS) that would trade credits between energy companies at a national level…….
“[This] means no coal-fired power generation and the only way you’re going to do that is through an emissions trading scheme or an emissions intensity scheme,” he said.
Independent senator for SA Nick Xenophon said an EIS was a “breakthrough” that would increase power reliability, reduce costs and bring about good environmental outcomes. He said that under an EIS, “dirty generators” that emit above a baseline emission rate would have to pay for the pollution while those below it would be credited.
Senator Xenophon said he proposed it at a federal level with the then opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull in 2009. “It seems that after seven long years of skyrocketing power prices that the ‘mongrel scheme’ that I proposed with Malcolm Turnbull has now become the ‘top dog’,” he said.
Yesterday, Port Augusta residents lobbied Mr Weatherill to commit to purchase the power from a proposed solar thermal project in the state’s north.
Mr Weatherill said the tender would not specify which power plant technology should be used…….http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-08/sa-government-to-purchase-75pc-of-electricity-needs/7825852
Sharp falls predicted for Australia’s thermal coal exports
Australia’s thermal coal exports face 20 years of sharp falls, The Australian, September 8, 2016, BARRY FITZGERALD
Australia’s thermal coal exports are facing a sharp reduction over the next 20 years as the world steps up its attack on carbon emissions.
Leading industry consultancy Wood Mackenzie estimates Australia’s exports of the power generating fuel could slump from 210 million tonnes this year to 135 million tonnes by 2035
Key markets in Asia, Europe, and the Americas are all expected to record sharp falls in demand as the switch to meeting energy demand through energy efficiencies, nuclear power and a growth in renewables/battery storage alternatives steps up.
the next 20 years as the world steps up its attack on carbon emissions…….http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/australias-thermal-coal-exports-face-20-years-of-sharp-falls/news-story/e059ac40237ef59ccc2889a61d68284b
Australia’s nuclear lobby wants waste dump as a prelude to setting up ‘new nuclear’ in South Asia
The global nuclear lobby is keenly interested in the South Australian government’s plan to import nuclear waste, because it would solve the waste problem for nuclear companies wanting to sell reactors and particularly, new types of nuclear reactors, to Asian countries.
despite the NFCRC’s distinct lack of enthusiasm for new nuclear technology, three of the only five pro nuclear submissions were focussed, not on waste importing, but on new nuclear reactors.
Ben Heard‘s whole argument is directed at new reactors:
Our research indicates that South Australia could make a significant contribution in this technology development beginning at a modest reinvestment of revenues from used fuel.
Many nations in this region already exploit nuclear technology however this use is constrained by lack of a back-end solution…… The availability of a multinational solution for the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle could change these investment decisions profoundly.
Heard backs up his argument by playing the climate card of nuclear being “low carbon” and so on.
Dayne Eckermann writes:
‘The main motivation for myself and others to embrace and openly support this technology is its immense power output from a relative small facility.’
And the South Australia Chamber of Mines and Energy’s (SACOME‘s) view:
Australia’s well-equipped political, legal and educational structures mean that a reactor program could – with the support of experienced international partners – be started swiftly
SACOME strongly believes that the advances in small modular reactors and advanced reactor designs will provide the necessary facilities…..
I understand that, for the Parliamentary Committee, all submissions were actually published. This is in contrast to the NFCRC process, in which submissions from interested parties such as foreign nuclear companies were kept confidential……..
Like Oscar Archer, at the beginning of the NFCRC saga, the Australian nuclear lobby is primarily keen for “new nuclear”, with the waste import as a necessary prelude……
French anti-nuclear activists force Australian delegation to leave National Radioactive Waste Management Agency (ANDRA)
Australian Delegation to France Blockaded By Anti-Nuclear Activists http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2016/09/05/australian-delegation-to-france-blockaded-by-anti-nuclear-activists/#more-51943 from Earth First! Newswire On the morning of September 1st an Australian delegation on a parliamentary inquiry into the management of nuclear waste, was blockaded in North-East France by anti-nuclear activists.
The delegation was visiting the National Radioactive Waste Management Agency (ANDRA) facilities in the municipality of Bure, where an anti-nuclear movement under the banner of Bure Zone Libre (Bure Liberated Zone, BZL) has been burgeoning in recent years.
A group of about twenty masked activists dressed in white overalls and armed with water guns, drums and a sound system blocked the Australian delegation from entering the ANDRA laboratory, forcing the delegation to turn around and leave.
“We’re here in solidarity with indigenous resistance to the planned nuclear facility in Australia,” said one activist with a red clown nose. “Nuclear industry endangers life itself, and we will resist it everywhere.”
The BZL movement recently got national headlines in France for toppling a three kilometer long wall which ANDRA has erected around the forest near Bure. The wall was intended to stop the group from reoccupying the forest which ANDRA aims to uproot for the construction of a controversial nuclear waste facility.
“Wherever they’ll build walls, we’ll turn them into wall jam,” the activist laughed, explaining the French wordplay confiture de mur, as mur means both blackberry and wall.
About twenty gendarmes (French military police) patrolled Bure after the action had already ended. The area has been increasingly militarized recently, with activists facing trumped legal charges.
The BZL activists sent the Australian delegates a letter explaining their actions, presented below.
Letter to Australian delegation: Continue reading
1 This month.
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
19 May – Webinar- Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-05-19 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-05-19 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
20 May – Webinar – The dangerous world of AUKUS, US, military occupation and suppression of dissent
National Webinar, 20th May, 2026, 6.30pm AEST. Confronting laws restricting/suppressing protest speech and action
Speakers: Former Sen. Rex Patrick, Lawyer Nick Hanna ,Arthur Rorris ,Jorgen Doyle, Sen David Shoebbridge,
Facilitator Kelley Tranter.
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 