http://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/indigenous-treaty-now-not-just-constitutional-recognition/~ Paul Gregoire 9 April 2017:
Treaty now
“A treaty is a formal settlement or agreement made between independent states. Treaties establish binding obligations and formal relations between two parties.
“Mr Terry Mason explained that treaties between the government and each of the land’s Indigenous nations would deal with matters of self-determination, land rights and custodianship.
And he believes they would guard against “discriminating legislation,” such as the Turnbull government’s recent attempts to amend native title laws.
““Aboriginal peoples must be able to take control of their own lives and resources in a progressive manner at both political and economic levels,” Mason added. … “
Households being lured into misleading electricity and gas deals: energy watchdog, The Age, 15 Apr 17 Adam Morton The head of Victoria’s energy watchdog has warned that households are being lured into deals with the promise of large discounts unaware that companies can ratchet up prices at any time.
Ron Ben-David, the chairman of the Essential Services Commission, says discounts of up to 40 per cent offered by electricity and gas retailers are rarely locked in, and called for a dramatic rethink to make power bills fairer for consumers…….
With Victoria holding a bipartisan review of the retail electricity and gas markets headed by former Labor deputy premier John Thwaites and ex-Liberal cabinet minister Terry Mulder, Dr Ben-David is urging reforms to force more effective competition between companies.
Should those steps fail, he says Parliament should consider the “nuclear option” – starting to re-regulate electricity pricing – just eight years after the state became the first in the country to fully de-regulate.
Power bills have increased dramatically in recent years, with retail margins playing a significant part in the rise in Victoria in particular. Several submissions to the review suggest retailers are making large profits and vulnerable households are paying the highest prices.
Last month, think tank the Grattan Institute found up to 43 per cent of household power bills goes into the pockets of electricity retailers as profits.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull ordered an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission inquiry, and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews appointed himself chair of a new cabinet taskforce on energy and promised to keep the state’s electricity supply “as affordable, resilient and secure” as possible……..
The energy review is due to report to the government by May 31. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/households-being-lured-into-misleading-electricity-and-gas-deals-energy-watchdog-20170415-gvlgyw.html
The global giants of nuclear power are in disarray. As Westinghouse Electric, Toshiba, 
AREVA struggle in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, a new breed of sophisticated nuclear campaigners, led by US billionaire Bill Gates, are spruiking “Small Modular Reactors”. Veteran anti-nuclear campaigner Noel Wauchope investigates the pro-nuclear push, the smart social media offensives and the latest government lobbying. http://www.michaelwest.com.au/ , 15 Apr 17
We don’t hear much about this, yet. It’s an international nuclear industry plan to develop new nuclear reactors, reactors which are still only in the design phase.
The Treaties Committee of the Australian Parliament is holding an inquiry into the Framework Agreement for International Collaboration on Research and Development of Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems. Australia already signed up for this in June 2016, without any public discussion. Now the plan is to extend Australia’s involvement and the Committee has called for submissions by April 28, 2017.
Most people would think the idea of expanding the nuclear industry in Australia was dead and gone, following last year’s debacle of the South Australian government’s attempts to get a nuclear waste import business set up in Australia. The latest plan however is different……..
In the current climate of financial crisis for AREVA, Westinghouse, Toshiba and so on, “new nuclear” companies such as Terrestrial Energy, Transatomic and NuScale now pitch their products as a radically different alternative to conventional nuclear reactors.
This new nuclear propaganda is certainly out there, but it is not yet prevalent in Australia. The nuclear lobby’s first step is to get government commitments in principle, getting Australia in step with USA and the other nations in the campaign. While the government is certainly well aware of the rejuvenated pro-nuclear campaign, the soft-sell to the Australian public is barely underway. It will come……..
The most important target however is the public, and particularly youth via social media……..
It is quite a small number of individuals who produce both the wordy, technical presentations for government, industry and mainstream media and the bright and snappy messages for the young and for non-technical environmentalists…….
In Australia, this nuclear PR is typified by the work of Ben Heard, who sends sophisticated submissions to government, tweets constantly, and who champions the environment via the nuclear front group Bright New World…….
Now targeting youth via new media the spin has taken on humanitarian and nature-loving elements. Although a collective of billionaires and big corporations are behind it, it promotes an alternative to big corporations. It is about saving the planet. It is about endless cheap and pollution-free energy for all, recycling nuclear wastes, combating climate change, promoting the beneficial uses of ionising radiation, freeing people from irrational fears and from anti-science.
The SMR lobby has been successful already in gaining the attention of government and media for technologies which do not yet even commercially exist. In today’s world of “alternative facts” this success is not surprising. It remains to be seen if “new nuclear” can win the public approval that it needs. http://www.michaelwest.com.au/reactivated-new-nuclear-push-ramps-up/
Paul Waldon, Fight To Stop Nuclear Waste Dump In Flinders Ranges SA, 15 Apr 17
The Adani coal mine would be a poor use of our taxes, SMH, 15 Apr 17, The Adani coal mine in the Galilee Basin of Central Queensland looks like the Trump presidency did around this time last year: a bad idea with foreseeable bad consequences that may yet prove unstoppable.
The project will create “tens of thousands of jobs” and generate “an enormous amount” in taxes and in royalties, revenues for federal and state government”, the Prime Minister enthused. Meanwhile Barnaby Joyce has been banging the drum about how the coal will light up hundreds of thousands of poor households. In other words, lending our taxes to the billionaire proprietor would do India’s poor people a favour.
For now, new native title legislation that would remove one obstacle is blocked in the Senate, but the government is determined to fix that…….
It would be a very bad look indeed if the project goes ahead with the help of funds from the Australian public. It not only goes against this government’s belief in the wisdom of the free market, but would be yet another piece of embarrassing climate change denialism that sets us apart from more forward-thinking nations – including China and India – that are walking away from coal in favour of renewables.
The pivotal question for now is whether the project meets the eligibility criteria for a loan. The fact that the loan would only be available if the project couldn’t proceed otherwise (or would be seriously delayed) creates the bizarre situation that taxpayers are left footing the bill when commercial lenders baulk.
But it’s not up to politicians to decide whether Adani Mining gets the loan, although resources minister Matt Canavan, a strong supporter of the Carmichael mine, has the ultimate sign-off on disbursement of the loan funds. It’s up to the board of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund to make a fully independent assessment on commercial grounds. Taxpayers are entitled to expect the board to be scrupulously diligent in its decision.
To date more than a dozen banks and other funding sources have declared they won’t back the project or have pulled out of existing funding arrangements. The project’s opponents say it’s no longer financially viable, if it ever was. It augurs badly that India’s coal and power minister Piyush Goyal has repeatedly stated a goal to stop importing coal, even specifying a time frame of between two and three years, so Adani coal imports would be up against the tide.
Add to that ongoing Indian government investigations into Adani group companies, including for alleged profiteering on coal imported from Indonesia and for international tax arrangements, it’s clear the NAIF board has a lot to consider…….http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/the-adani-coal-mine-would-be-a-poor-use-of-our-taxes-20170413-gvkac0.html
Leading the transformation, though, is the city of Port Augusta in South Australia……Nothing highlights the clean energy transformation more dramatically than what is happening in that city.
Tide turns as solar, storage costs trump ideologues and incumbents, REneweconomy, By Giles Parkinson on 13 April 2017
But there is no doubt that the transition is happening. Over the last few months, small but significant gains have been made as key politicians, regulators, market operators and many incumbents realise just how quickly the cost of new competition technologies are falling, and how quick the transition to a smarter, cleaner, more reliable and cheaper grid might be.
Awareness about the plunging costs of wind energy, solar energy and battery storage, along with the enabling software that could lead to a complete redesign of the way we generator, share, transport and use energy, is growing each day.
Politicians – both to the left and the right – are starting to embrace this change. The public is supportive, while the fossil fuel incumbents are slowly and surely losing their social licence, both due to the pollution levels of their plant and their manipulation of prices. Even the regulatory barriers that currently protect their business models are starting to unwind.
This is not to say that victory is at hand, or that this transformation will suddenly be complete within a few years. It won’t. But change is starting to happen quickly, old plant is being replace by new, rules are being changed, industry leaders are starting to talk of a new energy vision. Consumers are picking up new technology with increasing speed.
And here are a bunch of key developments in Australia over the last few months that indicate that the plunging cost of key technologies costs will trump the resistance of conservative ideologues and fossil fuel incumbents: Continue reading
South Australian energy users club together for energy purchasing, AFR, by Angela Macdonald-Smith Simon Evans, 13 Apr 17, Cement maker Adelaide Brighton, steelmaker Arrium and 22 other major energy users in South Australia have won draft clearance from the competition regulator to jointly purchase electricity in a significant move that looks set to change the balance of power in the state’s fragile energy market. Continue reading
Australian Climate Denial Think Tank Picks Cat Author and Moonman Ken Ring as Climate Expert, Desmog blog, By Graham Readfearn, April 9, 2017 Do you love cats and want to know what makes them tick? Do you think climate change is a hoax being pushed as part of a eugenics plot? Do you like rubber band magic?
Australian “think tank,” the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), has launched a fundraising drive for its 2017 edition of the book Climate Change: The Facts.
The IPA is Australia’s biggest pusher of climate science denial and has assembled a conga-line of deniers and contrarians to write chapters for the upcoming publication. Continue reading
Professor Emeritus of science at Griffith University says govt energy policy risks ‘catastrophe’
A “CATASTROPHIC collapse of life” is drawing closer and parts of Australia could become unlivable by the end of the century if we don’t change course
That’s the warning from the highly decorated Professor Emeritus of the School of Science at Griffith University, and former president of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Professor Ian Lowe.
As public debate rages over the potential opening of the Adani coal mine in Carmichael, Queensland, Prof Lowe believes the government’s dedication to fossil fuels is taking the country in a troubling direction.
Speaking to news.com.au he worried that the government’s intention to not only open up the controversial Carmichael coal mine but also open up the Galilee basin will “effectively guarantee the frying of the planet”.
“If we continue to expand fossil fuels — which is what things like opening up the Galilee Basin means — by 2050 the average global temperature will be at least two degrees more,” he said.
Under such a scenario, he expects parts of inland Australia to see average temperature rises that would make them virtually unlivable by the second half of the century.
“It’s difficult to imagine how life will continue in places like Alice Springs and Bourke under that sort of regime.”
In the coming decades, he believes countries including Australia who are not doing enough to combat global warming will receive backlash from the international community.
“I think there’ll be increasing international pressure for Australia to get into line,” he said……. .http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/conservation/griffith-universitys-head-of-science-says-govt-energy-policy-risks-catastrophe/news-story/f7cf7b285a7e9e5fdba0457d28591997
Solar panel installations ‘skyrocket’ in Australia, ABC News, By consumer affairs reporter Amy Bainbridge , 14 Apr 17 There has been a big surge in the number of households installing solar panels, with March installations reaching their highest level in almost five years.
Key points:
Warwick Johnston from energy consultancy firm Sunwiz crunched the numbers and said 91 megawatts of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems were installed during the month.
“March has been a very impressive month for 2017,” he said.
“We already saw a surge starting to build up in 2016, and we were wondering if that was going to continue into 2017 and it really has just continued to skyrocket.”
Queensland led the way, installing 25 megawatts of capacity, which is enough to power about 5,500 homes and businesses.
Installations were also up in South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria.
Mr Johnston said the recent blackouts in South Australia were a factor in the rising demand.
“People are certainly aware of the benefits of solar power and storage to offset or protect against grid blackouts, and that has been a driving factor in the uptake of solar,” he said.
“We’re seeing the uptake occur in states which weren’t affected by those blackouts as well, so it really is people being aware that solar panels are a great way to beat rising electricity bills.”
Installation figures in Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the ACT were flat……http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-14/solar-panel-installations-skyrocket-in-australia/8443550
ABC Radio Sydney By Amanda Hoh 14 Apr 17 A start-up accelerator program, dedicated to supporting entrepreneurs designing renewable energy products and technologies, has kickstarted in Sydney.
EnergyLab, based in Chippendale, has granted four companies $50,000 each to spend 12 to 24 months bringing their clean-tech products to market.
Most start-up incubators give entrepreneurs 90 days to develop their products, according to co-founder Piers Grove.
The companies include:
The first cohort of start-ups moved into the EnergyLab hub this week at the University of Technology Sydney, where they will receive dedicated mentors, office space and partnership opportunities as they bring their ideas to fruition……..http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-13/renewable-energy-startup-accelerator-launches-in-sydney/8442594
Under the radar: Parliamentary Committee preparing for Australia to sign up to more participation in developing new nuclear reactors
Inquiry Homepage: Submissions close 28 th April 2017 Inquiry Homepage: http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Treaties/NuclearEnergy
What the Gov’t said in 2016 in relation to joining GIF: Christopher Pyne, said: “Australia’s invitation to join this important global project marks an exciting opportunity to be at the forefront of global innovation in the nuclear industry.” He added, “Inclusion in the GIF further strengthens Australia’s position as a nation that has the research muscle to deliver innovations on the global stage. It reinforces the governments 1 $billion National Innovation and Science Agenda, encouraging our best and brightest researchers to collaborate with international experts.”
Julie Bishop said in relation to joining GIF
Pine Gap ‘on standby’ as tensions rise between the US and North Korea, debra.killalea@news.com.auIF Kim Jong-un is planning a missile attack, one strategic military and intelligence facility should know all about it. And it’s in the centre of our country.IF Kim Jong-un is planning to launch a missile at Australia or US interests there’s one strategic intelligence facility that should know all about it.
And it’s right in the centre of our own country.
The secretive Pine Gap spy base has a vast array of signals intelligence capabilities and you can bet it will be monitoring Kim Jong-un’s every word.
Run by both Australia and the United States, the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap is located about 20km from Alice Springs.
The remote site is considered strategically vital by both the US and Australian governments and it is used to collect a wide range of signals intelligence as well as providing information on early warning of ballistic missile launches. The flat landscape away from any city ensures the secretive site has a lack of interference.
It also contributes to and collects data used for US drones in the Middle East and Pakistan and it has access to satellites that could spy on most continents, bar the Americas and Antarctica
And while personnel based there are always searching for intelligence, they are now understood to be on standby following escalating tensions between North Korea and the US, according to the NT News.
According to the report, the US has notified Australia that it’s prepared to shoot down any missiles launched as North Korea escalates its threats. Continue reading
Mrs Woolford said she and other members of the No Radioactive Waste on Agricultural Land in Kimba or SA group had tried to organise a community forum with all sides represented but said the government did not want to participate.
“A debate with everyone represented would be a fair way for the government to allow people in the community to make up their minds, not just a continuous sell of the alleged benefits.
“People should have the right for their government to provide all sides not just one to suit its purpose,” Mrs Woolford said. .
Neighbours in Kimba are still opposed to nominated nuclear waste facility sites, Eyre Tribune, 10 Apr 2017, DISTRUST in the federal government and the process of nominations in the search for a national low to intermediate radioactive waste site are just some of the reasons Austin Eatts is against the facility being placed at Kimba.
Mr Eatts is a direct neighbour to one of the newly nominated sites in the Kimba district and said the national nuclear waste facility was not something rural or regional people should be responsible for.
He said Eyre Peninsula had a long memory for the impact of politicians’ “dishonesty” during and after nuclear bombs were tested at Maralinga, to the north west of Eyre Peninsula “There is a long history of dishonesty about politicians, they told us then and after that Maralinga was safe. “This is the same message they are giving us now, things will be safe, why should we believe them?“My feelings about Eyre Peninsula and the state having anything nuclear has not changed since then,” Mr Eatts said.
He said he did not want the responsibility of making a decision that would impact generations for hundreds of years not only for Kimba or Eyre Peninsula residents but statewide.
“Once we accept this site here, we have opened the door to further nuclear activity.”
Mr Eatts said the vote to be undertaken by the South Australian Electoral Commission would settle the issue for him however he was concerned if the vote was against further progression it would not be the end of the matter.
“Will it be the end of it for those who want it? “They have already brought it back once after we settled it as a community we didn’t want it,” he said. “Two million dollars (offered to the community by the government) is a lot of money to you and I but for a community it is not much and no amount of money will fix the division in the community.” Continue reading
Loaning $900m for Adani’s central Queensland coal railway too risky, environmental lawyers say The World Today By Katherine Gregory Environmental lawyers have warned directors of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) to not fund Adani’s proposed coal railway in central Queensland because it is in breach of their duties.
Key points:
Indian coal miner Adani has been seeking a $900-million loan to build the railway line from its proposed mine site in the Galilee Basin to the Abbot Point coal port.
Not-for-profit legal group Environmental Justice Australia (EJA) said the Federal Government’s NAIF directors need to consider the financial risks associated with climate change and he warned the investment was not commercially viable.
Environmental lawyer David Barnden said EJA sent a letter to NAIF’s directors on Tuesday outlining the duty. “The risks to the Adani rail project in the Galilee basin are too great,” Mr Barnden said.
“And there is a massive risk of it being a stranded asset and we think that if NAIF officials are to comply with their duties, then they cannot fund it.”
Mr Barnden said the directors were bound by statutory duties, according to the public governance and performance accountability act, which all Commonwealth public officials need to comply with.He said if they do decide to use taxpayer funds for Adani’s project, then “it would be a breach of law and a breach of a legal standard”.
Mr Barnden also said the Australian taxpayer would also be exposed to financial risk if NAIF decided to fund the project. “If there is no market for this coal, there’ll be no payment to the rail project and project couldn’t replay any loan to it,” Mr Barnden said.
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) commissioned the environmental lawyers’ advice on the issue.
The ACF has been using all avenues, including legal options, to stop Adani’s coal mine, fearing it will contribute to climate change and also further damage the Great Barrier Reef……say http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-12/adani-queensland-coal-mine-railway-$900m-loan-too-risky/8439582
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