Labor vowed to ban ‘trans-shipping’ in reef waters after UN’s scientific body raised concerns about proposal in 2014, Guardian, Joshua Robertson, 23 Sept 17, The Queensland Labor government has flagged breaking a 2015 election promise by allowing the loading of coal ships at sea in the Great Barrier Reef marine park.
Labor vowed to ban so-called “trans-shipping” in reef waters after the United Nations’ peak scientific body raised concerns about a proposal off Hay Point near Mackay in 2014.
The prime minister says with electricity demand flat and even falling in Australia, he doesn’t see there being a commercial demand for expensive nuclear power. Roje Adaimy, 21 Sept 17, Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t see there being the commercial demand for nuclear power in Australia to warrant pushing its development.
The prime minister says that while the country has among the biggest uranium reserves in the world, building nuclear power stations takes a very long time.
China has a number of plants under construction but there is no “cookie cutter” design to help efficiently roll out the technology.
There also needed to be bipartisanship, which right now “is not even remotely there”, he told a ‘politics in the pub’ event on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
“The projects take so long to build that they would be very likely to span the lifetime of several governments,” Mr Turnbull said on Thursday night. “They’re all bespoke, so it takes a very long time to construct them and very expensive.”
On top of that, demand for electricity in Australia was flat or declining. “I don’t see there being the commercial demand for nuclear power,” he said. “That’s putting my businessman’s hat on rather than my politicians’ hat on.”
It comes just a few weeks after the Minerals Council released a paper setting out the case for nuclear power.
Nuclear power has relatively strong support among coalition MPs, but it remains a political hot potato and has been repeatedly ruled out by governments because of its cost.
Coalition MPs giggle, cackle, smirk and laugh in Parliament over climate change,Independent Australia , Simon BlackMany of our current crop of conservative politicians laugh like naughty children whenever climate change is brought up. This can’t be how the world ends
NERO NEVER FIDDLED while Rome burned.
It is a popular myth, but it’s simply not true — there were no fiddles back in Roman times.
Nero is, however, reported to have sung a song about the sacking of Troy while watching as 70 per cent of Rome was swallowed by flames in a single blistering gulp.
Some of our current crop of politicians have gone one better — they now laugh like small children whenever climate change is brought up.
Whish-Wilson told the floor and later posted on social media, that it was “the angriest I have ever been in the Senate” as he watched members of the house openly mock climate scientists.
Liberal Senator James McGrath stood to read what appeared to be his party’s talking points in a deadpan monotone stopping a number of times to smirk and chuckle.
Leader of the Australian Conservatives Party, Cory Bernardi, rose to make a point of order, informing the house that it was, in fact, he who had been raucously laughing.
Presumably, he was concerned the people who voted him in would be upset if he wasn’t earning his base pay of $199,040 a year by chuckling his way through Senate motions.
Nice work if you can get it.
It’s part of a trend in Australian politics for conservatives to openly mock, laugh and ridicule climate change, even as the Great Barrier Reef bleaches and dies, even as we notch up record hot year after record hot year, even as natural disasters such as Hurricanes Harvey and Irma increase in frequency and intensity worldwide.
When asked about climate change in June this year by a Liberal colleague, Australian Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg had a good laugh.
How Malcolm Turnbull has trashed the Liberal Party record and betrayed our oceans, SMH, Tim Winton , 17 Sept 17 “……
Australians have always loved the ocean, but now, more importantly, we understand how vital the sea’s health is to the future of our island home…….
In 2012, after an exhaustive scientific process and wide community consultation, Tony Burke declared a system of marine national parks, one of the biggest and best in the world, the most significant conservation gain in Australian history.
That took courage. Because it put science before politics, prudence ahead of expediency. And it was popular. But as soon as he came to power in 2013 Tony Abbott announced an immediate moratorium on these parks and instigated a review. The purpose was purely political. To delay implementation, corrode consensus and deny the science. A move straight out of the culture warrior’s playbook.
After decades of forward-thinking leaders, the nation had fallen into the hands of a man whose loyalties were only to the past. It was a low moment. But Abbott’s reign was as brief as it was fruitless. It was a relief to see him replaced in 2015 by a man who’d actually done things, who believed in the future. Malcolm Turnbull did not scorn science. He seemed to understand the value and fragility of our natural estate. So there was new hope the marine parks review would now be expedited and redirected towards real conservation outcomes. With coral reefs bleaching and miners pressing for even more coal ports and seabed to drill, the need for protection had only grown more urgent.
Well, that moment of promise is long gone. Turnbull’s period in office has basically been a hostage drama. The bargain he made with powerbrokers rendered him captive to the party’s most illiberal wing, and if his performance on climate, energy and marriage equality aren’t evidence enough, last month’s announcement that marine parks would be slashed beyond all recognition puts it beyond dispute.
……The draft management plans recently released for consultation by Josh Frydenberg don’t just signify the gutting of the national system, they represent the largest removal of protection for Australian wildlife in our history. What the government is proposing is a nihilistic act of vandalism. Forty million hectares of sanctuary will be ripped from the estate. That’s like revoking every second national park on land. Under its new plan, 38 out of 44 marine parks will be open to trawling, gillnetting and longlining, 33 will be open to mining, and 42 exposed to the construction of pipelines. In total defiance of the scientific advice upon which the original system was designed, 16 marine parks will now have no sanctuary zones at all.
Coalition’s pro-coal policy likely a vote loser; optional voting in plebiscite helps Yes, The Conversation, Recently the Coalition and its media supporters have condemned the SA and Victorian Labor governments for allowing coal-fired power plants to close. The Coalition is trying to extend the life of the Liddell power plant in NSW, and is considering building a new coal-fired power plant. This is an attempt to portray Labor as the party of intermittent, unreliable and costly power.
The Coalition has been in office for four years. In July 2014, they repealed the carbon price that Labor had introduced. Many people would now ask why energy prices have kept increasing in the three years since this repeal. In a mid-August Essential poll, 59% thought they were paying a lot more for electricity and gas than two or three years ago.
In February, 45% in an Essential poll said that recent blackouts were mainly due to failures of the energy market, 19% blamed privatisation and just 16% blamed renewables.
In mid-August an Essential poll gave the Coalition a net -34 rating on providing affordable and reliable energy, their worst score from a list of 12 issues. In last week’s Essential, 49% blamed private power companies most for rising energy prices, 22% blamed the Turnbull government, 9% environmentalists and 5% renewable energy companies.
People who blame private power companies are more likely to trust Labor than the Coalition to get tough, given the Coalition’s pro-business reputation……. [lots of figures given here]
As a result of the Coalition’s pro-coal policy, some Abbott supporters could return, possibly boosting the Coalition’s primary vote at the expense of One Nation and Others. However, respondent allocated preferences are currently more friendly to the Coalition than the previous election method, and this could change. The Coalition risks losing more centrist voters to Labor.
In some parts of the country, such as NSW’s Hunter Valley, coal is important to the local economy, and the Coalition is likely to benefit. In most of the country, being pro-coal is likely to hinder the Coalition.
SA has been the state most subject to attacks from the pro-coal lobby. It has a Labor government that is over 15 years old, and this would be expected to be a drag on Federal Labor in that state. We would expect the SA swing to Labor to be the lowest of any state.
Instead, the Poll Bludger’s BludgerTrack currently gives Labor their second largest swing in SA. Labor leads in SA by 58.4-41.6, a 6.1 point swing to Labor since the 2016 election. The SA sample sizes used in BludgerTrack are small, so this result is much more error-prone than the national BludgerTrack figure (53.7-46.3 to Labor, a 4.1 point swing), but this is still a large swing to Labor in a state that should have the lowest swing.
“The Liberal National Party (‘LNP’) Welfare Card programme is really a LNP rort for the benefit of the Liberal and National Parties and their members, donors and supporters.
“Indue Pty Ltd, the corporation awarded the contract to manage the Welfare Card programme
and to operate its underlying systems, is a corporation owned by Liberal and National Party members
and that donates to various Liberal and National Party branches around Australia.
“The former chairman of Indue is none other than former LNP MP Larry Anthony who is the son of former Liberal Country Party Deputy Prime Minister Doug Anthony.
“Anthony now holds his shares in Indue in his corporate family trust managed by Illalangi Pty Ltd.
“Other companies now owned by Larry Anthony, or by the corporate trustee of his family trust, Illalangi Pty Ltd, work under ‘sub’ contracts for Indue itself and make their profits from dealings with Indue
in the course of Indue performing its contracts with the LNP Government.
“These corporations are SAS Consulting Group Pty Ltd
– a political lobbying group that counts Indue as a client
– and Unidap Solutions Pty Ltd – a digital IT services corporation that provides Indue,
as well as the current LNP Government directly, with various IT services.
“Larry Anthony is also current president of the National Party of Australia, that is, the ‘N’ in ‘LNP’. … “
As the federal government considers a clean energy target, one of its MPs is looking to nuclear power as a long-term solution. Nuclear technology sits hand in hand with concerns about North Korea but one federal MP believes there’s also room for it in the energy debate.
Assistant minister Jane Prentice on Thursday again flagged support for nuclear power as a long-term solution.
“It is clean and I think there are opportunities,” she told reporters in Canberra.
“I think the new nuclear technology is much safer than the old one and I think it should be on the discussion paper if we’re serious about long-term clean energy.”
The government is weighing up a clean energy target, the only recommendation it is yet to address from Chief Scientist Alan Finkel’s review of the national electricity market.
“Of course, our problem at the moment is short-term power and making it affordable, making it sustainable and reliable,” Ms Prentice said.
“I always believe that you need a longer term strategy as well.”
By Giles Parkinson on 12 September 2017 As the federal Coalition continues to push the case for an ageing, unreliable, and slow moving coal generator to maintain energy security in the 2020s, the Australian Energy Market Operator has underlined its advice to the government last week: it wasn’t a push for more baseload.
“We need flexible capacity that can be switched on and off, and we need to transition to a new generation of Australia’s principal energy market institutions, and the newly-formed Energy Security Board.
“Our advice was fairly pragmatic,” Zibelman said. “We are concerned that on a 45°C day if we lose a generator (which AEMO has said is quite likely) we want reserves in the system to be able to respond.
“In our report we identified the fact that with amount of variability (from solar and wind energy and electricity usage) is changing rapidly, we need resources that can change rapidly.
“That may be different to traditional baseload resources, which do not move a lot. It doesn’t mean baseload is bad, it’s just that we need a different portfolio. (Baseload) may not be able respond in the time period we need it to respond.”
Sound like Liddell? Not really. The plant owner AGL Energy has made it clear that Liddell is old, increasingly unreliable, expensive to maintain, prone to unexpected outages and can’t be relied upon at times of peak demand, particularly as temperatures rise.
Zibelman’s comments, like the two AEMO reports it released last week, contrast starkly with the Coalition government’s contention that AEMO had insisted that rapid action was needed, and that that rapid action must mean that Liddell’s life span must be extended.
Zibelman made it absolutely clear that her preference was for fast, flexible technologies, both in supply and demand, and bother in front and behind the meter. Importantly, it had to be technology that the market operator could rely upon.
“The system is changing,” Zibelman said. “That’s not a bad thing. What we need to do is to start saying we have to think about next the generation of technologies, the next generation of markets and how to take advantage of it.”
Earlier, she noted: “The power system works best when we can operate it in accordance with the law of physics. (That means) we need to make sure we have sufficient tools to respond in a real time system.”
She noted that a focus was needed on system services such as inertia, voltage and frequency, which came as “ancillary services” to thermal generators, but now had to be sought elsewhere. This was not a reason not to evolve, just a reason to focus on how to set a market to encourage these technologies and capacities.
“Our advice was pretty straight forward,” she said: “As system has a higher level of (renewable) penetration, issues like frequency, violate and inertia needs to be addressed – not because it a bad thing, but because it was bundled previously with the big generators ….
“It’s not just having enough of these resources, it’s about having enough of these resources at the time and the place you need them. At all times AEMO needs the ability to turn something on and something off to maintain system balance,” Zibelman said.
She spoke of demand management, one of her favourite topics and preferred mechanisms in the US, but said it had been communicated badly and misunderstood – particularly the idea that the market operator would turn off the lights or the air-conditioning.
“What we are talking bout is being able to use rotating mass, use battery storage, electric vehicles, and create a more integrated system.”
She said it was clear that the Australian market was heading towards 30-40 per cent “distributed generation”, which means mostly solar and storage behind the meter. These technologies can and needed to be harnessed to ensure that they contribute to grid security.
Asked specifically about Liddell, Zibelman said choosing that as a preference would require an analysis to determine its level of dispatchability and its flexibility, and its ability to deal with reliability concerns.
“What do we want to do is to make sure we are riding the technology innovation curve in the right way…. it all has to fit. We’re thinking about what do we need, what do we have, and then what are the right mechanisms to get the best outcomes that are economically sound.”
She said it was clear that the Australian market was heading towards 30-40 per cent “distributed generation”, which means mostly solar and storage behind the meter. These technologies can and needed to be harnessed to ensure that they contribute to grid security.
Asked specifically about Liddell, Zibelman said choosing that as a preference would require an analysis to determine its level of dispatchability and its flexibility, and its ability to deal with reliability concerns.
“What do we want to do is to make sure we are riding the technology innovation curve in the right way…. it all has to fit. We’re thinking about what do we need, what do we have, and then what are the right mechanisms to get the best outcomes that are economically sound.”
Nationals demand “coal target” as energy politics spirals into loony fog, REneweconomy By Giles Parkinson on 11 September 2017 It barely seems believable, but the politics of energy has just gotten worse. A week that began with a bizarre push to extend the life of a decrepit, 50-year-old power plant in the hope of keeping the lights on, finished with the Nationals demanding that no further subsidies be given to renewable energy.
Instead, they said, they should be given to last century’s technology: coal. At their annual conference on the weekend, the National voted, in effect, for a coal energy target. It wants the federal government to give out loans to support the coal industry.
Former resources minister, and Joyce’s ex chief of staff Matt Canavan, joined in, describing renewables as a “short term sugar hit” for jobs….
One sane voice at The Australian is Alan Kohler, who points out that despite the bluster of the Nationals and the conservatives within the Liberal Party, everybody knows coal-fired power stations must close if Australia is to meet the 2 degree commitment that everybody agreed to in 2015.
“The task of leadership is to prepare for that, not yearn for coal,” he writes.
“The Australian Energy Market Operator has made it clear the closures can be handled through demand management and some NEM redesign, with even more renewables and batteries, which is what’s happening anyway because that’s what businesses and investors want to invest in.
“There won’t be any new coal power stations, and the lives of existing ones won’t be extended unless the government, bizarrely and unnecessarily, pays for it.
That is clearly something that the Federal Government should be involved in as it involves Australia’s international status and obligations. But that is the one area that the Federal Government is not touching.
Despite Finkel, despite our COP 21 obligations, the Federal Government does nothing. No electricity policy, no vehicle emission standards, no policy in other areas of the economy responsible for half of Australia’s emissions.
Gross misuse of AEMO report for political purposes
Perhaps the very worst thing, of the many to choose from, about the Liddell negotiation is the gross misuse of the AEMO report. This is only possible because the media is too busy, to put it kindly, to do its homework.
The definition of a “problem” is when forecast “Unserved Energy (blackouts)” exceeds the desired reliability standard. That is not the whole story, but if you want one metric, it’s that.
Unfortunately, AEMO didn’t draw its graph relating to NSW all that clearly. We have attempted to do better, [graph on original] using the .xls data that AEMO provides. AEMO does not forecast a problem and if more renewables are built, the standard will be easily met.
Liddell move emboldens the pro coal, pro socialization, anti private enterprise groups – i.e. the National party and right of the Liberals
Turnbull’s naked interference, partly symbolic, has emboldened the anti-climate change cheer lobby. Examples include:
Over the weekend we saw The National Party has passed a motion that is essentially anti a Clean Energy Target.
In NSW energy minister Don Harwin’s public statements about the need for more renewables, see this article and the NSW Government’s “aspirational” zero carbon policy by 2050 have been shown up in their true light by Premier Gladys Berijiklian’s statement that NSW is “not ruling out a new coal fired power station”
“Asked if the state government will pay to keep Liddell open beyond 2022, Mr Berejiklian said: “We’ve not come to any conclusions regarding that. Obviously we are interested in the federal government’s announcements.”
Ms Berejiklian lashed South Australia for going rogue and piling into renewables, despite their inability to cope with peak demands.
A third option, which many believe is the only viable alternative, is for NSW to build its own new coal-fired power station.
“I’m not going to rule it out,” the Premier said yesterday.” Source: Daily Telegraph, Sep 10
Interference in the market using Federal money instead of policy development
Despite the virtually universal endorsement of the “Finkel Report”, despite the electricity industry, including the large coal generators, and also the growing band of renewable investors and consumers, in coalition with many but not all energy consumers the Federal Govt has been unable to progress industry policy in a way that provides an investment confidence.
It has been unable to form policy consistent with our international obligations.
So what is the alternative? It’s to be populist and interfere in the market – similar to say Venezuala’s recent policy developments – or as if Turnbull had Russian Presidential powers.
It’s not as if Turnbull has a great record on micro managing public investment, you can find plenty of critics of the NBN for instance. Let’s look at some of the “Captain’s picks” that are just announced on the floor of parliament as “done deals”
Snowy 2.0: $8-$10 billion
The Federal Govt’s only historic investment in electricity was its 13% investment in Snowy Hydro. Now in order to subsidize a minimum $2 bn, and likely more, investment in pumped hydro, the Federal Govt is proposing to spend $5bn-$6bn buying the NSW Govt and Vic Govt out of Snowy.
The Federal Govt has no experience in electricity generation. Snowy is also the 4th largest retailer by customer numbers and the Federal Govt has no experience in electricity retailing.
The pumped hydro project has not gone through any competitive process for funding in the way that say CSP or nearly anything has to.
Our studies of pumped hydro show that it needs about $90 MWh differential between peak and offpeak to be profitable. How can anyone really know whether that will be on offer when this plant is built?
No private sector operator would do it now. This purchase and the subsequent investment should be open to far more public scrutiny. At least $2 bn of transmission will be needed to support the investment.
However, as large as that investment is, and as risky as it is, a case can be made that in a world of high renewables where there was lots of zero marginal cost PV in the middle of the day a pumped hydro investment could be of use.
We are not in that world today and there is no plan to get to that world in the future. Pumped hydro, like batteries, consume about 25% more electricity than they produce. If that electricity is being produced by coal there is little more that can be said.
Snowy is a gamble with taxpayer funds, Liddell is a gift of taxpayer funds to one private sector operator
Snowy 2.0 is an $8 billion plus gamble with Federal money, but subsidizing Liddell using Federal money to enrich one private sector operator as an effective massive bonus to entice them to buy and take over a coal fired station is basically disgraceful. We list some of the issues below.
All we can say though is it leaves a bad smell. If Turnbull thinks these investments are such a good idea, raise some private capital and do it yourself. Or at least get the States to do it. It is just not a Federal issue to be running State power stations and interfering in the market.
Meddling in business because you can’t do politics
The proposed Federal subsidy to one private sector operator to keep a coal fired generator open in NSW is open to criticism on many grounds. The list includes.
It’s totally incompatible with Australia’s international COP 21 commitment to reduce emissions by 28% by 2030. How can keeping a coal station power station going from 2022-2027 or 2032 do anything other than harm that goal.
It potentially hands say West Australian GST proceeds to one private sector operator to build a bigger position in the Australian electricity market. Kerry Packer RIP, once famously said on selling Channel 9, that you only get one Alan Bond. Trevor St Baker must be thinking you only get one Malcolm Turnbull. Turnbull and St Baker do share one thing in common. They both live in houses with lots of PV and batteries. And yet exploit everyone else to sell them coal fired electricity.
It potentially changes the sale of Loy Yang B. According to press reports one of about 2 bidders left for LYB was Delta’s owner, Sunset Power. Press reports state Sunset was having some difficulty getting bank finance. This could play out as Sunset finding it easier to get bank finance if its backed by the Federal Government Turnbull/Fydenberg investment bank, or it could lead Sunset to say, we won’t bother with LYB and the private sector we’ll just take the Government money and run Liddell.
Maybe the Federal Govt could buy LYB as well? If you are going to nationalize the electricity industry why stop with just Snowy and Liddell, surely you need a position in Victoria? After all there are endless free taxpayer dollars to be used.
It will make new generation investment in NSW less likely. If the Government is prepared to do all the work and increase private sector risk why invest. High prices at present, and the expected closure of Liddell are creating a strong investment incentive in NSW.
Ditto, it makes the job of getting the 1 GW capacity reserve built
There is no identified need to keep Liddell open. AEMO does not forecast an energy supply issue in NSW.
In any case forecasting the post 2022 electricity market is just a guess. We all know that.
It totally hands all the cards to AGL. AGL has been a good steward of the Macgen and LYA coal assets. Its worked hard on their costs and reliability, it’s come to the party on bailing out Portland smelter and it is doing a bit, albeit not a big bit, to get some new renewables built. Its also potentially helping with gas by getting Cribb Point on the agenda.
AGL will not want to sell Liddell to a competitor. Never mind the potential increase in competition, it will also complicated the coal position. AGL’s coal supply is set up on the assumption Liddell will close. Its and everyone else’s coal prices will be higher if Liddell stays open. How much higher, hard to say, but we think there are escalators in some of the Macgen contracts which would drive conservation of coal all else being equal.
The three-day grassroots federal conference in Canberra comes as some members want to separate the LNP branding in Queensland for elections, because they believe the Nationals’ brand is better than the Liberals’.
In a sign that strengthening the classification of the controversial Adler shotgun in December last year still grates on some members, a motion will be moved that “this federal conference acknowledge the National Firearms Agreement and states that no changes should be made to it without compelling evidence”.
The Federal Government is in the middle of the first national firearm amnesty since the Port Arthur massacre about 20 years ago. The Nationals’ Queensland contingent, under the LNP banner, will move a motion to promote and support the coal industry and resist environmental groups “which are determined to disrupt and impede”.
Members will also be asked to vote on urging the Government to freeze renewable energy subsidies at current level for 12 months, and then phase in a subsidy reduction program that will remove all renewable energy subsidies over five years.
They will also be asked to call on the Government to urgently adopt a comprehensive energy supply policy that includes pursuing further initiatives, including nuclear.
Members also want the Government to transition the shut down Hazelwood coal-fired power plant into a new efficient coal power station.
The Minerals Council is also urging development of nuclear energy, and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said it was a debate worth having.
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce will address the conference today, just weeks before the High Court determines whether he and two other Nationals, Fiona Nash and Matt Canavan, were legally elected to Parliament.
Queensland Opposition Leader Tim Nicholls will attend the leaders’ lunch.
Julie Bishop helps promote African uranium with Australian zombie miner, Independent AustraliaDave SweeneyBetter known for her support for asbestos, why is Julie Bishop fronting an African mining conference beside uranium miner John Borshoff, who ran Paladin Energy into insolvency and called Fukushima a “sideshow”?
NO DOUBT, tall tales and cocktails will both flow at this week’s Africa Down Under mining conference in Perth, an annual event that sees Australian politicians join their African counterparts alongside a melange of miners, merchants and media.
But it is unlikely that too many of these will be the stories of corruption, dirty dealing and corner cutting that are so common in the world of resource extraction, especially in the developing or majority world.
‘Australian companies, particularly mining companies, can have a severe impact on human rights throughout the world, including the right to food, water, health and a clean environment. Despite this, successive governments lack a clear framework of human rights obligations for Australian corporations operating overseas. This is particularly problematic in countries with lax or limited regulations.’
The operations and impacts of one embattled Australian miner highlights the point. For years, Paladin Energy was a bullish uranium promoter, now in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster it has joined the zombie companies — the walking corporate dead.
For a few short years, Paladin, headed by the John Borshoff, a man reminiscent of Les Patterson with a drill-rig, operated the Kayelekera Uranium Mine in Malawi.
Borshoff was clear in his rationale stating that the
“Australians and the Canadians have become over-sophisticated in their environmental and social concerns over uranium mining — the future is in Africa.”
The contested mine was a focus of sustained criticism from community and civil society groups before being placed into extended ‘care and maintenance’ following the collapse in global demand and the freefall in the uranium commodity price that followed Fukushima.
Borshoff termed the Australian uranium fuelled Fukushima meltdown a “sideshow”. Not true, although Paladin were always clowns. But never funny ones.
The company is now in administration and a complicated planned bailout involving a Chinese takeover of a shrinking Namibian uranium project has failed. So now, as the creditors circle, who cleans up after the party? What priority will be given to addressing the disrupted and damaged country and communities around Kayelekera?
All good questions to ask John Borshoff, who is presenting Africa Down Under in a session with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. But don’t hold your breath. This year he will wear a different hard hat. Paladin is the past and the future now is Deep Yellow — a junior miner with ambitions in Namibia. The caravan moves on with scarcely a glance behind.
Paladin’s ambition and appetite always exceeded its capacity and competence and now the gap between its inflated promises and its profound under-performance is absolute.
As the senior Mirarr Traditional Owner Yvonne Margarula reflected about her experience with the uranium sector in Kakadu:
”The promises never last, the problems always do.”………
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.
Paladin’s boom to bust case study is a further clear example of the lack of independent scrutiny of the uranium sector that also reflects poorly on the activities of Australian miners operating in nations with limited governance and regulatory capacity.
The mining sector always makes a difference, but it is not always a positive one. Especially given that many of the Australian company’s active in the African mining sector are juniors with limited capacity, scant accountability and little or no operational experience or proven compliance history.
In 2015, Tracey Davies, a lawyer with the South African-based Centre for Environmental Rights told Fairfax Media of the widespread and
“… very strong perception that when Australian mining companies come here they take every advantage of regulatory and compliance monitoring weaknesses, and of the huge disparity in power between themselves and affected communities, and aim to get away with things they wouldn’t even think of trying in Australia.”
There are too many examples of Australian mining activities in Africa ending in corruption, environmental damage or community disruption for us to simply accept pro-industry rhetoric. There is a clear need for increased transparency, responsibility and support for affected communities. And a clear need for independent proof, not industry promises.
Africa Down Under cannot be allowed to be an uncritical platform for Plunder Down Under.
Antinuclear 