Northern Territory govt sets levy on miners to clean up old mines, such as Rum Jungle
Miners to pay for mess, NT News, ALISON BEVEGE | May 8th, 2013 A MINING levy will raise funds to fix polluted legacy mine sites, the NT Government has announced.
The fee will be 1 per cent of the upfront environmental bond that all miners must pay, as set by the Department of Mines’ Security Assessment Board.
The Government has said the bond would be 100 per cent of clean-up costs but there is no way for the public to tell as the amount is secret. The new levy comes into effect in October. Mines Minister Willem Westra van Holthe said the impost would raise $6.5 million in its first year………. “We’re simply asking mining companies to chip in to a program that will be used to remediate legacy environmental problems caused by the industry.”
The move comes after the NT News exposed environmental disasters that festered for decades at defunct mines including Rum Jungle, Redbank and Mt Todd.
Camping is banned at the recreational lake near abandoned uranium mine Rum Jungle, 100km south of Darwin, as radiation levels are too high for long-term use…… Environment Centre NT co-ordinator Stuart Blanch said he supported the levy, but it would not be enough to clean up the polluted mine sites which could cost up to a billion dollars….. http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2013/05/08/320647_ntnews.html
Busting the anecdotal “evidence” of the Waubra anti wind energy campaign
Anti-wind groups and others hostile to renewable technology wish to deem anecdotal evidence inscrutable – consequently, they must accept all claims of health effects, no matter how improbable. If those professing this fallacy were bound by a scientific framework, this attitude would be indefensible.
Wind farm sickness: anecdotes versus evidence KETAN JOSHI ABC 7 MAY 2013 Anedotes are concerning, but should not be immune to scrutiny. A family’s experience of illness they attribute to a local wind farm is concerning, but is no substitute for medical research and hard evidence. “……
“I know this lady and her husband, as I’ve said, I’ve known them the majority of my life, and, this woman looks twenty years older than her husband now……This woman is absolutely tormented by the things, and she’s got two of them, near her. There’s only two turbines.”
– Australia DLP Senator John Madigan, Booroowa District Landscape Guardians Meeting, May 2012
Fear spreads better with a dash of human tears. As you visualise a weeping mother, her voice wavering as she speaks, the impact is instantaneous and potent. Millions of years of natural selection breathe life into the visceral salience of human suffering. Our ancestors, dwelling on the savannah, knew that the cost of ignoring a potential threat could be very, very high………..
Anti-wind lobby groups (such as the Waubra Foundation, headed by ex-GP Sarah Laurie) travel to communities facing wind farm developments, and present direct testimony from individuals attributing a range of symptoms to the presence of wind turbines. Anecdotal evidence is their key instrument in spreading fear of wind energy.
This is stated explicitly by Peter Quinn, a South Australian barrister who regularly represents anti-wind lobby groups:
“That experience is in itself, evidence. If you dragged in thirty people from Waubra, twenty from Waterloo and put them in a court room, to talk about the loss and the suffering, it will support a claim to obtain an injunction against any wind farm being proposed”
The implication is quite clear – anecdotal reports and emotional recitations are powerful tools in the fight against wind farm developments. Consequently, a large number of claimed health impacts, attributed to wind turbines, exist in the public domain.
Chapman began compiling these symptoms in early 2012. His list grew rapidly – it currently numbers 216, and features a bewildering array of symptoms, involving adults, children, cattle, sheep, chicken, dogs, peacocks, cats, pigs, earthworms, crabs, goats, crickets and horses (pdf).
These symptoms are collectively referred to as “Wind Turbine Syndrome” (WTS), originally coined by Nina Pierpont (a paediatrician married to an anti-wind activist). It has become the fundamental claim of groups working to stifle the development of renewables in Australia.
The ‘disease’ is not recognised by any medical authority in the world. It is purportedly caused by infrasonic (less than 20 Hz) noise from wind turbines. The South Australian Environmental Protection Agency recently measured levels of infrasound near wind farms(pdf), and compared them to rural and urban environments. Wind farms had some of the lowest recorded levels in their study. Some of the highest levels of infrasound were recorded inside the EPA’s office in Adelaide.
Importantly, research conducted by Professor Simon Chapman of Sydney University seems to show that complaints of ill-health seem to cluster around wind farms that have been subject to the presence of anti-wind lobbyists. Continue reading
Billion-dollar global private equity fund investing in wind power in Australia
Global fund backs cheap Australian wind as local firms head abroad http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/global-fund-backs-cheap-australian-wind-as-local-firms-head-abroad-99984 By Sophie Vorrath on 8 May 2013 At a time when Australian wind energy companies are turning their focus to overseas marketsin the search for growth opportunities, a billion-dollar global private equity fund has announced an investment of $75 million in wind power in Australia.
Denham Capital Management, a $7.3 billion US-based fund focused on mining and energy, announced on Tuesday that it had invested $75 million in a 1GW portfolio of Australian wind power projects currently under development. Part of the deal, which remains subject to procedural closing conditions, will see Denham join existing project sponsors Enersis Australia, National Power and Kato Capital to create a separate entity called OneWind Australia.
Denham’s arrival on the scene is hoped to accelerate the development of these projects, with an initial focus on the late-stage development and financing of several of them, including Glen Innes, a 100MW wind farm in NSW; Lincoln Gap, a 250MW project in South Australia; and Cattle Hill, a 240MW development in Tasmania. Continue reading
Is the Canberra Press Gallery scared of “Independent Australia” ?
Way way down this page, an article about how the Canberra Press Gallery is a closed shop
I found this article particularly interesting, because of the reasons given by David Speers Press Gallery Committee, for shutting out Independent Australia. In brief – because IA’s journalist Callum Davidson is “not established”, and because IA is “opinion-based rather than a news site”
This raised several questions in my mind. Davidson is a freelance journalist, has an Advanced Diploma in Journalism, (and lives near Parliament House). Well, in this climate of journalists being retrenched all over the place – pretty hard to get “established” . Do we, the public, have to wait until all the old Established journalists die off, or something?
Which brings me to an even more important question. Despite IA having broken some really big stories, Speers considers that it is not a news site. It’s an opinion-based site.
As if all the Murdoch media, and even the Fairfax are NOT opinion -based. This pretense of impartiality is one of the big weaknesses of the weak Australian mainstream media.
My guess is that they are scared of Independent Australia, crikey.com, New Matilda, Inymedia, Green Left and even little websites like this one. This one is called Antinuclear – no pretense of impartiality here. And if the mainstream media had any guts, its business sites would be headed “Pro Corporations” – and particularly “Pro-Nuclear” – Christina Macpherson
May 6: antidote to uranium lobby’s lies about benefits to Aborigines
AUSTRALIA’S URANIUM EXPORT REVENUE IN PERSPECTIVE YELLOWCAKE FEVER Exposing the Uranium Industry’s Economic Myths , Australian Conservation Foundation“……..The Australian Uranium Association supports a profits-based, rather than production-linked, royalty system in the NT although such a system fails to provide a certain, secure and assured revenue platform for Indigenous communities. During the first 5 -10 years of a uranium mining operation, there is a high likelihood that little or no income would be generated under a profit-based royalty scheme, even though there would be direct environmental and social impacts from any such operations.. ” http://www.acfonline.org.au/sites/default/files/resources/ACF_Yellowcake_Fever.pdf
Australia’s Opposition Party and the sound-bite media
UKIP’s dangerous precedent for Australian conservatives, REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson on 6 May 2013″………modern media has trained their readers to consumer news and politics in uncomplicated sound-bites, and now want their policy platforms to be delivered in the same way. It’s worked marvellously for Tony Abbott. The Australian Opposition leader popularity is based around three-word homilies such as “Stop the boats” and “axe the tax”. Never mind the detail – these policies bear little scrutiny and are impossible or impractical to implement: In sound-bite politics, no-one cares.
It shouldn’t be forgotten that Abbott was delivered to the top job in the Coalition – and a likely prime ministership – by a highly conservative rump of the Coalition that ended bipartisan support on climate change policies. It was led by senior politicians, such as Nick Minchin, who didn’t and don’t accept climate change science. Many still remain in the party.
Even more dangerously, bipartisan support is now fracturing around renewables, despite the fact that theAustralian Energy Market Operator has found that 100 per cent renewables is emminently achievable, and not so costly, and that other studies such as Bloomberg New Energy Finance suggests that wind, and soon solar, are cheaper to build than new coal and gas fired generation – all of which needs to be replaced in the coming decades.
Despite this, all the state-based coalition governments remain married to the policy altar that deems that renewables are costly and useless, and don’t reduce emissions, and they want the renewable energy target killed or neutered.
Many of its new recruits – such Nahan, the Nationals’ Angry Anderson, the Liberals Angus Taylor and Zed Seselja, and the Canberra based would fit comfortably within the UKIP platform. As would many of the incumbents – Joyce, Corey Bernardi, Eric Abetz, Andrew Robb, Simon Birmingham, Michaelia Cash, Alby Shultz, Bill Heffernan, Ian Macdonald, and a host of others.
John Howard had just as many arch-conservatives in his own party, but he had the strength of leadership to keep the factions under control. The importance of this should not be underestimated. Even Labor’s right factions would have fought hard against progressive climate change and energy policies if they hadn’t been effectively neutered by the coalition with the Greens and the country independents.
The question is whether Abbott has the authority to keep these Tea Party and UKIP style politics under control, or even if he wants to. He owes a debt to those who thrust him into power in the first place, and has never convincingly laid his “climate change is crap” remark to rest. He may just gladly go along with those that want to extend those policies to curb renewables. Has anyone heard a Coalition politician say they shouldn’t? http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/ukips-dangerous-precedent-for-australian-conservatives-13428
University of New South Wales makes solar cell efficiency breakthrough
Solar Cell Efficiency Breakthrough At UNSW http://www.energymatters.com.au/index.php?main_page=news_article&article_id=3721 6 May 13 Those clever folks at the University of New South Wales have done it again – this time with a solar breakthrough that wasn’t expected for another decade. Continue reading
Centre for Policy Development recommends to Australia – go for rooftop solar
The CPD report reaches five major conclusions about the benefits of rooftop solar:
- It lowers wholesale electricity prices for all consumers – as long as retailers pass these savings on. It estimates these savings at $300 to $670 million a year in wholesale electricity costs, based on prices in 2009 – 2010.1
- It gives consumers real choice about their electricity supply and control over their bills, noting that competition between electricity retailers is meant to lower costs, but ends up adding to bills.
- It can reduce summer peak demand, which may lead to more productive use of existing network infrastructure that consumers have already paid so much for. And in some places, it may also defer or avoid network investment.
- It creates a base of consumers actively engaged in managing their energy demand. This will be critical to avoid expensive network investment if climate change increases peak demand from air conditioning
- It helps insure Australia against future electricity price shocks from gas price volatility and drought. Prices for gas-fired electricity are now linked to volatile international oil prices. Drought can reduce electricity supply from water- cooled coal-fired power plants, raising wholesale electricity prices. It says prices could spike by up to A$250 per year, similar to the amount network charges have added to the average annual household bill since 2007.
Rooftop solar – natural hedge against dirty energy system REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson on 30 April 2013 A new report from the Centre for Policy Development recommends that Australia fully embraces solar energy as a hedge against volatile gas prices, and future electricity price shocks that could be caused by drought. Continue reading
Energy efficiency and renewable energy the solutions to Australia’s rising gas prices
there is a solution to all this – a combination of energy efficiency and renewable energy.
The significant rise in gas prices is starting to impact householders who rely on it for heating and cooking, as well as manufacturers and other major energy users who are already struggling due to the high Aussie dollar. It’s also making the power sector think seriously about the affordability of using gas to generate electricity.
The average gas bill in NSW is set to go up by just under 9 per cent next year. And it is likely to keep moving higher, according to the report released by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART). Couple that with a prediction that gas prices could triple on Australia’s east coast within the next 10 years, as gas companies sell increasing volumes overseas, and you’ve got an expensive scenario for Australian businesses and households already battling with their energy bills. Continue reading
The Canberra Mainstream Media Press Gallery – a Closed Shop
How the Canberra Press Gallery shut out Independent Australia, Independent Australia, 29 April, 2013 The Canberra Press Gallery Committee has knocked back Independent Australia and its nominee from gaining representation. Callum Davidson explains what happened. by Callum Davidson A few months back, myself and David Donovan, managing editor ofIndependent Australia, agreed it was high time that the vocal and growing online community of Australian political blogs deserved a voice in the Press Gallery of Parliament House.As it turns out this is a difficult task to accomplish.”…..I hold an Advanced Diploma in Journalism and have been working freelance for a while now; but infinitely more importantly, I live a stone’s throw from Parliament House in Canberra……The press gallery is a bizarre and fascinating beast. Most of the Australian public still digest their political discourse from those guardians of information tethered to the cramped dorms on Capital Hill. All major mainstream news outlets, both television and print, have long had reporters stationed directly within our political elite. From Fairfax to News Limited to ABC, journalists mix with Federal politicians and their staffers, conversing with media opposition and rapaciously competing when necessary. But with the aspirational digital age and the declining fortunes of traditional media, would they let an outsider in?
[ David Speers Press Gallery Committee says ] “The Committee has decided to decline your request.
Generally new entrants to the Press Gallery will only be approved if they are established journalists working as such.
Your website appears to be opinion-based rather than a news site……”.
All news outlets are opinion based to some degree (some significantly more so than others) where does one draw the line? CertainlyIndependent Australia has developed a huge following not through opinion pieces, but through its original investigative reporting – that is, “new” news – such as the Jacksonvilleand Ashbygate investigations and the outstanding environmental exposés of Sandi Keane amongst many others.
The real question is, did Speers’ committee really take a close look at Independent Australia without any preconceived notions, or did they simply see it as just another “blog” and dismiss it out of hand? Is this another example of old media snobbery?……
Malcolm Turnbull recently made a rather hip appearance at the Woodford Folk Festival lamenting the current state of political media coverage.
He said:
“Broadcasters, or politicians or writers…who think that they are respecting ‘struggle street’, the battlers, … by dumbing things down into one-line soundbites are not respecting them — they are treating them with contempt.”
He urged bloggers et al to scrutinise politics and policy in the manner he believed necessary for a functional democracy. The question here is whether or not this is possible without complete ‘access’.
There are a number of brilliant online publications (with Independent Australia being right up there of course!) that do a fantastic job of sifting through the endless political data to provide material for palatable consumption to inform the public.
But, is this enough?
(For more information about how Canberra Press Gallery accreditation is awarded, please read this February 2013 Crikey article.) http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/business/media-2/how-the-canberra-press-gallery-shut-out-ia/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=IA+Newsletter%3A+Our+Samizdat+Years&utm_source=YMLP&utm_term=Read+the+story+on+IA
How the Australian media situation resembles that of Soviet Russia
The article below, from Independent Australia, talks about Samizdat. This was new to me. So anyway, I guess that the analogy is that we, in Australia, are now “informed” by the blanketing propaganda of the Murdoch media. So, we have to rely on alternative media, like Independent Australia, New Matilda, Crikey, and various blogs to learn the truth.
Samizdat n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat Samizdat (Russian: самизда́т; IPA: [səmɨzˈdat]) was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader. This grassroots practice to evade officially imposed censorship was fraught with danger as harsh punishments were meted out to people caught possessing or copying censored materials.
Vladimir Bukovsky defined it as follows:
I myself create it,
edit it,
censor it,
publish it,
distribute it, and …
get imprisoned for it.[1]……History
Self-published and self-distributed literature has a long history, but samizdat is a unique phenomenon in the post-Stalin USSR and other countries with similar systems of tyranny. Under the grip of censorship of the police state, these societies used underground literature for self-analysis and self-expression.[9]…..
Australia: cult Murdoch is ruling us, and telling us what we should think
Our samizdat years, (includes 2 good videos) Independent Australia 4 May, 2013 Never before have we had a press so controlled, says Bob Ellis, with all the anti-Abbott or anti-Coalition news being deliberately minimised. “…… the Newspoll fraud continues, with Katter preferences going not to Labor but the Liberals, meaning an actual preferred vote for Labor of 49 is being disguised as 45.5, and landline surveys on holiday weekends are not adjusted, and shown as crises for Labor on days when they are winning or competitive. This is as serious as the Malaysian stuffing of ballot boxes will be tomorrow, but in Australia it has become routine.
Cult Murdoch is ruling us, and telling us what we should think. It is what Soekarno liked to call a ‘guided democracy’, where the Dear Leader conceals the bad news and gives himself 98 percent in the orderly elections.
Murdoch, a crook, derided by the House of Commons as ‘unfit to run an international organisation’, owns eighty percent of our newspapers and vigilantly decides what is in them, including Newspoll. And, as in America, where his pollster Rasmussen always showed Romney inexplicably doing well, he shows Abbott ahead still though he has lost policy round after policy round in the past two months and been repeatedly accused of criminality…..http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/our-samizdat-years/
I have been aware for a year now that Labor was competitive and the good policies ‘overshadowed’ by the Rudd challenge would eventually achieve the light of day and win for them, but now I am not so sure. It may well be that the Karl Rove-style implacability-of-attack of the broadcasters and pundits may have achieved its end, and so smirched Labor that it will lose, I fear, by one seat.
But it may not be so……http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/our-samizdat-years/
May 3rd: antidote to uranium lobby’s lies about EMPLOYMENT
AUSTRALIA’S URANIUM EXPORT REVENUE IN PERSPECTIVE YELLOWCAKE FEVER Exposing the Uranium Industry’s Economic Myths , Australian Conservation Foundation “…..IBISWorld’s market report (March 2013) states there are just 650 jobs across Australia in uranium mining. In May 2006, the federal Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources estimated “over 700 jobs” in uranium mining and in October 2007 the Department’sHuman Rights lawyer seeks justice for Australia’s Maralinga nuclear veterans
Australia: Last chance of justice for nuclear veterans http://www.mondaq.com/australia/x/236534/Personal+Injury/Last+chance+of+justice+for+nuclear+veterans 03 May 2013 by Joshua Dale An appeal to the Australian Human Rights Commission by Australian military veterans arising from Britain’s nuclear bomb tests in the Outback is gaining momentum.
Lodged by Stacks human rights lawyer Joshua Dale representing several hundred nuclear veterans, the appeal asks the commission to find the government of the 1950s and 60s breached their human rights by ordering them to be exposed to deadly radioactive fallout. Continue reading
Politicians against renewable energy are losing in USA, but perhaps not in Australia?
In Australia, a similar battle is about to be waged. The difference here is that renewable energy targets are a federal policy mechanism, but the four mainland conservative state governments (Queensland, NSW, Victoria and Western Australia) are lined up firmly against them, and the new energy minister in WA, Mike Nahan, has upped the ante – possibly in anticipation of the Coalition winning the federal poll in September.
Are renewables doomed to failure in Australia?, REneweconomy By Giles Parkinson 3 May 2013 Across the United States right now, a pitched battle is being fought over the future of renewable energy targets in the 29 states that have them. Already, 16 of these states are considering legislation – templated by a fossil fuel-sponsored lobby group, the American Legislative Exchange Council – to repeal or dilute the ambition of renewable standards.
So far, the campaign – boosted by Tea Party radicals in the Republican movement – has not been successful. In the past week, North Carolina rejected the idea after leading utilities such as Duke Energy, and big data centre operators such as Apple and Google expressed their support for wind and solar projects.
In Colorado, the ALEC bill met a similar fate, with the state deciding instead to lift its clean energy standard for rural electric cooperatives to 25 per cent by 2020 — a 15 percentage point jump from the current 10 per cent.
Still, the fate of other state-based RPS schemes remains in the balance. ALEC task force director Todd Wynn recently told Bloomberg that 2013 will be the most active year yet in efforts to repeal renewable energy standards. “Natural gas is a clean fuel, and regulators and policy makers are seeing how it’s much more affordable than renewable energy.” Continue reading
1 This month.
20 September –National Day of Action in Melbourne on the International Day of Peace
Help Aunty Sue Protect Her Land and Sacred Sites From Destructive Rocket Testing.
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Australians deserve the truth
about
AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 