(300 words for the March edition of the Snowy River Echo)

It appears from media reports that most of the 100 dams proposed to be built by the Coalition at a cost of $30 billion are planned for northern Australia, however I understand that the Welcome Reef Dam on the Shoalhaven River has also been mentioned. That proposal has caused uncertainty for farmers since early last century, due to the large tracts of valuable farmland that would be inundated. Much of that land is now owned by the Sydney Catchment Authority.

The 100 dams proposal does not take into account the health of rivers and their ecosystems, or the negative economic and environmental effects caused by previous projects, like salinity in the Murray and the trashing of the once mighty Snowy. Rather, it appears to be based on the premise that Australia can only thrive and prosper if there is ongoing growth. It is time we focused on quality of life with a view to an economic system that will take us into the future, sustainably.

The Australian Greens Water and Inland Aquatic Environments policy states that “we have a responsibility to restore, maintain and protect Australia’s rivers and freshwater environments as part of our natural heritage and future prosperity” and later, that “the Australian Greens want legislation and regulations that protect our catchments, rivers, wetlands, estuaries and groundwater systems, including a permanent prohibition on new large-scale dams on Australian rivers.” (more…)

While watching the item on Julia Gillard’s visit to China on last night’s Lateline, I couldn’t help but feel buoyed by the following matter-of-fact response to Ali Moore’s question:

ALI MOORE: Well, I know in (Julia Gillard’s) speech tonight that she did raise the issue of the proposed carbon tax. Is that carbon tax, the idea or the plan to put a price on carbon, an issue for the Chinese?

STEPHEN MCDONELL: Well the interesting thing with global warming in China is that there’s no debate here, no public debate as to whether or not global warming is happening or that it’s man-made, because the Government just accepts the scientific evidence that both of these things are true. So, you know, you’re not gonna get people here questioning Julia Gillard about this. And the big companies here, the state-owned companies have essentially been told to get on with doing something about this. And so you’ve got the big oil companies here, they’re throwing billions of dollars at renewable energy, huge wind farms, solar energy and this sort of thing, so it’s not seen as such a conflict here in that way.

And I really think that any sort of - people questioning whether or not coal prices might go up, for example, imports, as a result of this is just a little bit at the margins. Essentially, as I said, this is - it’s recognised by the Government that these measures must be taken, and so, I s’pose in that sense, Julia Gillard is amongst friends here.

Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party, are you listening? And Big Business in Australia, and all the other detractors of the carbon tax, not to mention the climate change denialists - are you? (more…)

Jeremy Buckingham has been elected to the Upper House, after the button was pushed at 11am to distribute preferences, defeating Pauline Hanson for the last spot. The Greens now have five seats in the Upper House and one in the Lower House, following the election of Jamie Parker in the electorate of Balmain.

As well as being a weaver of national and international renown, Solvig Baas Becking was a highly valued founding member of the Braidwood Greens local group. She died on March 23 at the age of 82. Today in Braidwood her friends and colleagues will gather to remember her.

Thanks Solvig for your wonderful contributions and support.

After the hottest and wettest year in recorded history, the seas off northern Australia are also currently warmer than ever before. This heat has led to increased evaporation and so, rainfall.

Sceptics and defenders of the coal industry may dispute this scientific data, but they don’t. Instead, they are arguing that there should be no debate - not, at least, until some undefined time in the future when the cataclysm has passed and its injuries are behind us. 

A week after the “inland tsunami” struck the Toowoomba region, with the flood crest having passed in Brisbane, and Rockhampton beginning to recover, Australia’s newspapers are now carrying letters expressing frustration at the absence of debate on the causes of the floods across the nation and, indeed, in Brazil, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Like the drought, heatwaves and bushfires these floods are predictable calamities and worse is in store as the planet is heated by human actions.

We may collectively choose to do nothing about the rapidly increasing of burning of coal, here and overseas, from coal being mined in Australia by wealthy corporations largely owned overseas. However, that choice should not be made without informed debate. If there is a later time better for this crucial debate to begin, let the critics name it.

Bob Brown
Australian Greens Leader 

(published Queanbeyan Age, 26 November 2010)

Greens candidate for Monaro Paul Cockram expressed his disappointment at the NSW Coalition’s decision to scrap ethics classes.

“We’re really going backwards here. If this is an indication of social policy under a fundamentalist O’Farrell government, we’re heading for big trouble,” he said.

“I remember many years ago one of my children booked himself back into scripture because the alternative on offer was so mind-numbingly boring.”

“If scripture classes can’t incorporate ethics into their teaching, it makes you wonder what values they do espouse,” said Paul Cockram.

“In this country we’re proud of our religious tolerance. It’s time this tolerance was reciprocated.”

(published Queanbeyan Age 26 November 2010)

Greens candidate for Monaro Paul Cockram expressed his disappointment at the NSW Coalition’s decision to scrap ethics classes.

“We’re really going backwards here. If this is an indication of social policy under a fundamentalist O’Farrell government, we’re heading for big trouble,” he said.

“I remember many years ago one of my children booked himself back into scripture because the alternative on offer was so mind-numbingly boring.”

“If scripture classes can’t incorporate ethics into their teaching, it makes you wonder what values they do espouse,” said Paul Cockram.

“In this country we’re proud of our religious tolerance. It’s time this tolerance was reciprocated.”

Big Island Mining Pty Ltd has lodged a major project application and environmental assessment (EA) under part 3A of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 for the extraction of up to 354 000t of ore per year from an underground gold mine, together with construction and operation of associated infrastructure, including a temporary waste rock emplacement, run-of-mine pad, processing plant, tailings storage facility, site access road and ancillary infrastructure. The EA was publicly notified from 29 September to 1 November 2010. This report presents a submission on the project. Council has been given an extension to 5 November 2010 to lodge the submission.

Palerang Council considered its submission on the mine at its November ordinary meeting held in the National Theatre, Braidwood on Thursday November 4.

Councillors Moore, Turley and Cockram declared that it may be perceived that they had a conflict of interest as they were part of a group (Braidwood Greens) that had lodged a submission, but as they had not written the submission, nor were they office-bearers, they were comfortable about being able to take part in deliberations.

No councillor with share-holdings declared a conflict of interest.  (more…)

(300 words for the Queanbeyan Age, August 20 edition)

We need to start doing politics differently, by focusing on issues, not personalities, taking the adversarial approach out of campaigning and decision-making, and talking about the vision we have for local communities and for Australia.

Many important issues have been forgotten or not adequately dealt with by the other major parties. Climate change needs our immediate attention. We don’t need a scheme that will only deliver a 5% cut to emissions and result in huge subsidies to big polluters. We do need a carbon tax on those big polluters, with the funds redirected to help low-income earners with increased power bills and installation of renewable energy systems. We could create thousands of jobs in renewable energy (wind, wave, solar and geothermal) and move to 100% renewables by 2050. (more…)

The ALP has done an excellent job in duping the wider community into believing that The Greens have prevented this country from moving forward to address climate change. Meanwhile neither the ALP nor the Coalition has been able to to end its love affair with coal and Federal and State governments are continuing to approve more coal-fired power stations and more coal mines.

By the time the Government wanted The Greens’ vote on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), the scheme had been watered down by big business and the Opposition to such an extent that it would not have reduced carbon emissions in Australia.

In outlining the process leading up to the failure of the Bill to pass through the Senate, Tony Kevin in his book Crunch time explains “it emerged the next day that companies risked losing $12 billion worth of free carbon permits they had negotiated with the government if the legislation were not passed in 2009, before Copenhagen.”(1) These carbon credits were all to be funded by the tax-payer.

The Greens wanted to negotiate with the ALP on the scheme, but the ALP refused. The 5% carbon pollution reduction targets were weak and the scheme was corrupted by lavish compensation payments and subsidies to big emitters. The Greens maintained, and still do, that we need a scheme that makes polluters pay, not households. A carbon tax has been part of our policy from the beginning and this tax is now being recognised by an increasing number of economists and others to have the potential to be far more effective than an ETS. (more…)