Uncorrect Hansard Wednesday 16th October

Hon PETER COLLIER:

As I said, as a government, we remain committed to the onshore processing of gas in the Kimberley region and to the delivery of benefits to the Kimberley traditional owners. We will continue to work to attract a foundation proponent for the precinct. The government will acquire the land near James Price Point to secure a project-ready precinct. This will provide greater security for the state, the traditional owners and for any future proponent in reaching a final investment decision. Upon taking the land, the state government will provide benefits of $31 million to the Goolarabooloo–Jabirr Jabirr and it will honour all its commitments under the agreements and will deliver all benefits payable under those agreements.

To conclude, as I said, yes, I understand the Premier and the government have acknowledged that things could have been done better in this process. We do not recoil from that. The simple fact of the matter is that the intent of the project to do onshore processing was sound and would have ensured we had security of supply of natural gas for Western Australians and Australians with the associated financial benefits that would also have flowed to the traditional owners and the Aboriginal people in the region and throughout the north west of the state. As I said, when I met with the GJJ on a couple of occasions, I was very conscious of the divide that existed through the KLC, in particular. There was diversity of opinion but the majority of TOs were very supportive of the project, mindful of the significant financial, social and economic benefits it would provide to their people. I have spoken to several of them since and they are very disappointed that that project did not proceed in its intended form.

As I said, the state government remains committed to onshore processing. We do not think it is necessary to have an inquiry into this project. There has been full disclosure and transparency and for that reason the government will not support the motion.
 

Woodside renews Barnett stoush | The Australian

Woodside renews Barnett stoush | The Australian

Mr Barnett is furious with Woodside for abandoning its original development option of building a $40 billion-plus onshore plant at James Price Point in the Kimberley, arguing that the move to FLNG will cost local jobs.Source: The Australian

TENSIONS between Woodside Petroleum and West Australian Premier Colin Barnett have spilled into the open after the Perth company claimed the state government controlled a relatively minor 5 per cent of the massive Browse gasfields off the Kimberley coast.

Woodside's comments yesterday were designed to send a clear message to Mr Barnett that it does not need his support as part of its plans to develop the multi-billion-dollar Browse project using radical floating LNG technology.

The Premier is furious with Woodside for abandoning its original development option of building a $40 billion-plus onshore plant at James Price Point in the Kimberley, arguing that the move to FLNG will cost local jobs.

In an interview with The Australian last month, Mr Barnett warned Woodside that it may be unable to secure sales contracts for its Browse gas because he would refuse to allow his state's share of the massive resource to be developed using FLNG.

The Premier insisted the state had leverage over Woodside and its Browse partners because WA owned 30 per cent of the project's biggest field, Torosa, giving it ownership of about 15 per cent of the overall 15.9 trillion cubic feet of gas. The rest of the gas is in commonwealth waters.

- See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/woodside-renews-barnett-stoush/story-e6frg9df-1226741275809#sthash.Kq76g8Os.dpuf

Couldn’t Be Fairer (1984) clip 2 on ASO - Australia's audio and visual heritage online

Couldn’t Be Fairer (1984) clip 2 on ASO - Australia's audio and visual heritage online

From what I witnessed the other night in a Broome Community Meeting, I do not believe much has changed since this clip in 1984.

Agency cleared EPA error - The West Australian

Agency cleared EPA error - The West Australian

he disastrous decision to let conflicted Environmental Protection Authority board members deliberate on the Kimberley gas hub was endorsed by the public sector's standards commissioner Mal Wauchope, it has emerged.

The Opposition now wants an audit into whether advice to other agencies on conflict management was similarly flawed, heaping further pressure on Mr Wauchope, whose statutory role is under review by a parliamentary committee.

EPA chairman Paul Vogel was criticised in August after Chief Justice Wayne Martin ruled his decision to allow board members to deliberate, but not vote, was outside the law.

Days later, Woodside walked away from a land-based processing plant in favour of floating LNG technology.

The embarrassing gaffe meant two board members with conflicts of interests were allowed to discuss the project until just four months before the EPA's July 2012 decision to approve the onshore gas processing hub.

But Justice Martin's judgment reveals Dr Vogel was not the only person who incorrectly decided some disclosures of pecuniary interests did not prevent members from deliberating.

A document Dr Vogel prepared on his conflict management plan was annotated: "Advice on the above strategy was sought from the Public Sector Commissioner. His office believed it to be reasonable given the circumstances."

Growth of gas tests plagues locals | The Australian

Growth of gas tests plagues locals | The Australian

Tammy Harston, left,  Chris Cooper, Judy Briggs and Andrea Gray at  Lesueur National Park,  220km north of Perth. Picture: Marie Nirme. Source: TheAustralian

IN spring wildflower country, Andrea Gray, Chris Cooper and Judy Briggs wonder what will happen to the exquisite landscape around them.

Standing in Mount Lesueur National Park, 220km north of Perth, knee-deep in some of the most botanically rich bush in Australia, the community worker, deep sea diver and pizza bar owner from Jurien Bay say they love where they live.

But they worry about a sharp escalation in seismic surveys for shale gas on a dozen farms in the district and within a few hundred metres of the park boundary. They suspect that the Midwest is headed down the same path as rural Queensland, where an outbreak of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has split communities.

Last week, the Environmental Protection Authority confirmed it was assessing a proposal by AWE to undertake drilling and fracking on farmland just outside the park. And a dozen farm families further inland have been asked to sign agreements to let gas explorers access their paddocks.

Cooper, Briggs and Gray of the Jurien Bay Action Group have several concerns.

"Dieback disease is a huge problem," says Cooper. "If trucks and drill rigs spread the fungus into Mount Lesueur, it would be devastating."

- See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/growth-of-gas-tests-plagues-locals/story-e6frg6nf-1226738608750#sthash.74irJHB0.dpuf

A little re-gasing to satisfy the State - The West Australian

A little re-gasing to satisfy the State - The West Australian

The Woodside Browse consortium is expected to consider building a re-gasification terminal on the North West coast as a way of satisfying the requirements of WA's domestic gas policy.

That way, it could use a smaller, purpose-built LNG tanker to deliver gas volumes into the State's market, most likely through Broome or Karratha.

Neither Woodside Petroleum, the consortium's operator, nor the State Government, which controls part of the Browse fields, would comment on the re-gasification idea.

But a source close to the Browse consortium said re-gasification, along with a North West Shelf venture gas swap, were the two most likely options if it had to adhere to the WA domestic gas reservation policy, which demands that 15 per cent of gas is kept for the local market.

The reservation policy is hated by the oil and gas industry but strongly supported by big gas users such as manufacturers and utilities, which are perennially worried an LNG-only export policy would leave domestic customers stranded without affordable gas supplies.

Having decided to develop its massive Browse Basin gas resource through floating LNG, the Woodside consortium is expected to dismiss the idea of a costly pipeline to supply the State's domestic market.

"There are loads of little re-gas terminals in Europe, Broome has got a little re-gas terminal," the source said.

"Small re-gas is easy. So I would have to think we would have to look at the cost of bringing in a small tanker. You wouldn't want to run a super LNG tanker back and forth but you could look at the smaller tanker option."

Broome's electricity is provided by gas-fired power. The gas is supplied by trucks carting liquefied gas from Energy Development Corp's LNG plant near Karratha to Broome's re-gas plant.

The Woodside consortium's plans to service the domestic gas market are likely to come into focus when the Parliament's Economics and Industry Standing Committee resumes its hearings, as early as next week, into the economic impact of FLNG.

Heartbroken | Where the Heart Is

Heartbroken | Where the Heart 

About three weeks ago I, my son and my Dad drove to the end of our road and walked into the forest there. We walked along a new track, made for trucks and heavy machinery. We met neighbours along the way, and strangers. We were stopped by some men in white utes who told us we were trespassing. We asked them for their proof of who they were and what right they had to stop us. They couldn’t provide this. They took photos of us and we walked on, up a steep red-dirt track, past tall red cedars, one of them with its buttress torn off. Up to the top of the ridge where we found devastation. Bent and broken palms, trampled, bare ground, and many, many logs in piles beside two huge machines, one of them with a claw-like appendage on the front of it, that had a chainsaw attached to the side. Not dissimilar to Dr.Seuss’s super axe-hacker.

This was a ‘selective harvest’ conducted by Forestry Corporation (what used to be State Forests) on private land.

What followed was three weeks of hell. Our peaceful home and community was transformed into something like a warzone. Emergency meetings were held, Facebook info pages made, protesting began at the entry gate and on the property. People struggled to get their heads around what was happening, how and why. Huge machinery traveled up and down our road with a noisy roar. People were tense, upset, confused, angry … sometimes taking it out on each other – there was shouting and crying. Police vehicles were in abundance. And those ubiquitous white utes, with men in fluorescent green shirts in stark contrast to the uniform of the ‘black wallabies’ with their dreadlocks and camo gear.

Meanwhile, a small group of people (myself included) were trying to establish communication with the landholders, to convey our community’s distress and confusion, our desire for consultation, for better process. We managed to get a meeting with two of the owners and they agreed to allow experts of our choosing to go on and do threatened species surveys – something that the Code of Practice for private native logging does not require. This was a small but significant win, but it was hampered by the determination of the owners/Forestry to continue with the work over the weekend while these surveys were conducted. The community and other protestors were frustrated by this limited success, and we were even seen as traitors by some, for making this ‘deal’.

The conflict intensified. I felt torn and head-fucked and heartbroken in my efforts to contribute to a peaceful resolution of the situation. I began to see that the landholders, whether it was intentional or not, had in some ways contributed to a ‘divide and conquer’ scenario which seemed to have us all too busy fighting amongst ourselves, while the trees kept falling. People got exhausted, totally stressed out. Every spare waking instant was being given to this thing. Families were fraying (it was school holidays), work and income compromised.

Jinker-load, after jinker-load roared past out home. A tight system of intense felling, followed by a convoy of trucks and intense police presence to move the logs out en-masse, was put in place. The days when this happened were the worst. Twelve huge trucks accompanied by riot squad, paddywagons, police dirt-bikes and many Forestry utes would descend upon our community and it felt and looked exactly like an invasion.

Welcome to the New Age AGAINST CSG - YouTube

Welcome to the New Age AGAINST CSG - YouTube

Radioactive Water From Fracking Found in Pennsylvania Creek According to Duke Study – EcoWatch: Cutting Edge Environmental News Service

Radioactive Water From Fracking Found in Pennsylvania Creek According to Duke Study – EcoWatch: Cutting Edge Environmental News Service

A Duke University studypublished Wednesday in the journal Environmental Science and Technology,found dangerously high levels of radiation in a creek near a drilling wastewater treatment facility in Pennsylvania.  

The study, Impacts of Shale Gas Wastewater Disposal on Water Quality in Western Pennsylvania, was conducted over a period of two years from the summer of 2010 to the fall of 2012 and analyzed water samples discharged downstream of the Josephine Brine Treatment Facility into Blacklick Creek in the Allegheny River watershed, according to StateImpact, a project of National Public Radio. Sediment found in the creek contained levels of radium that were 200 times greater than normal levels, along with high levels of salts like chloride and bromide in the surface water.

These elements are naturally occurring and released during the fracking process. Radioactive brine, known as “flowback,” is typically shipped to centers like the Josephine Brine Treatment Facility or injected into wells.

LAST HOURS for Humanity? – EcoWatch: Cutting Edge Environmental News Service

LAST HOURS for Humanity? – EcoWatch: Cutting Edge Environmental News Service

“Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, has already started to percolate into the open seas and atmosphere from methane hydrate deposits beneath melting arctic ice, from the warming northern-hemisphere tundra and from worldwide continental-shelf undersea methane clathrate pools.”

“If we do not begin to significantly curtail the use of carbon-based fossil fuels, this freed methane threatens to radically accelerate the speed of global warming, potentially producing a disaster beyond the ability of the human species to adapt.”

The film documents how our planet has experienced five major extinctions in geologic history and how our prolific production of greenhouse gases has the ability to trigger a sixth mass extinction.

“By the end of the Permian mass extinction, 95 percent of all life on the planet was dead. And why is this important today? Because today a sixth extinction is underway, one that will test the survival of not just human civilization, but possibly of the human species itself. And it bears a horrifying resemblance to several previous global warming-driven events like the Permian mass extinction.”

Earth is sending us an urgent and unmistakable message, one that we ignore at our own peril. Failure to drastically slash carbon emissions now could mean the end of humanity.

Climate Council, which replaced the axed Climate Commission, reaches $1 million funding target - Yahoo!7

Climate Council, which replaced the axed Climate Commission, reaches $1 million funding target - Yahoo!7
"Australians are concerned about climate change, they want to see something done, so getting that independent scientific information is really important," she said.

Professor Flannery said donations started rolling in from September 24.

"We had our first donation from James in New South Wales for $15 at midnight," he said at the time.

"We've been raising $1,000 an hour... through the night."

By Tuesday afternoon 7,200 people had donated $218,000.

Professor Flannery says the council's purpose is to provide independent information on the science of climate change.

"We have simply one goal and one objective and we always have, which is to take the science, the economics of climate change and what's happening internationally in terms of action and present it in a clear and understandable and authoritative way to the Australian public," he said.

The Hard Numbers on Fracking: Radiation, Toxic Wastewater and Air Pollution

The Hard Numbers on Fracking: Radiation, Toxic Wastewater and Air Pollution

Where Do You Put Billions of Gallons of Toxic Wastewater?

Fracking wastewater and solid wastes such as drill cuttings (leftover broken bits of rock), can be radioactive and laced with toxic chemicals.

Researchers are just beginning to understand the impacts of fracking air pollution on human health.

Lib-Nat govt begins secret environment reform | Eco News

Lib-Nat govt begins secret environment reform | Eco News

"Media reports say a major reform by the conservative Liberal-National government of Australia’s environmental approval process has begun in secret.

Reports carried by Fairfax Media newspapers indicate the coalition government is refusing to release a draft agreement of how regulatory power will be devolved to the states and territories.

Greg-Hunt-Liberal-MP-climate-changeThe Fairfax Media reports say the Environment Minister Greg Hunt is refusing to release a draft memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed with Queensland last week to streamline so-called ”green tape”."

The Age newspaper reports Mr Hunt’s spokesperson said this was the first step in the government’s development of its ”one-stop shop” for environmental approvals and the government says the document is likely to become a template for other states.

Save the Arctic - Free our Activists | Greenpeace Australia Pacific

Save the Arctic - Free our Activists | Greenpeace Australia Pacific

Activists held at gunpoint in the Russian Arctic. Help set them free.

On 20 September the Russian Coast Guard illegally boarded the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise while in international waters and arrested 30 activists on board at gunpoint.  The activists were protesting Arctic oil drilling on the Gazprom platform, Prirazlomnaya, in the Pechora Sea off the Russian coast.

Alex Harris, a staff member from our Sydney office, and Colin Russell, an Australian radio operator, bravely locked themselves in the ship’s radio room to keep communications open before they were rounded up with the rest of the crew.

Right now, all around the world, hundreds of supporters are flooding the streets outside the Russian embassies in their countries, to demand the release of the people who put their bodies on the line to protect the Arctic from oil destruction.

We are demanding the urgent release of all activists, the immediate withdrawal of the Coast Guard from our ship, and an end to offshore oil drilling in the Arctic for good.

Together let’s show we are stronger than those who want to destroy the Arctic, and will not be intimidated into silence.

UPDATE: 27/9/2013

Following a preliminary court hearing in the Russian port town of Murmansk, most of our activists have been remanded in custody for two months, facing investigation for possible piracy. We are demanding the immediate release of all activists, our Arctic Sunrise ship, and an end to offshore drilling in the Arctic for good.

Over 500,000 people around the world have sent emails to Russian embassies around the world. Please send your message today then share this with everyone.

Climate change? Try catastrophic climate breakdown | Environment | The Guardian

Climate change? Try catastrophic climate breakdown | Environment | The Guardian

There are no radical departures in this report from the previous assessment, published in 2007; just more evidence demonstrating the extent of global temperature rises, the melting of ice sheets and sea ice, the retreat of the glaciers, the rising and acidification of the oceans and the changes in weather patterns. The message is familiar and shattering: "It's as bad as we thought it was."

What the report describes, in its dry, meticulous language, is the collapse of the benign climate in which humans evolved and have prospered, and the loss of the conditions upon which many other lifeforms depend. Climate change and global warming are inadequate terms for what it reveals. The story it tells is of climate breakdown.

This is a catastrophe we are capable of foreseeing but incapable of imagining. It's a catastrophe we are singularly ill-equipped to prevent.

Shocking photos and an update from the Colorado fracking flood zone

Shocking photos and an update from the Colorado fracking flood zone

Advance Australia - Lock the Gate! on Vimeo

Advance Australia - Lock the Gate! on Vimeo

The first trailer of two forthcoming films from the Lock the Gate Alliance (Australia), 'Undermining Australia: Coal vs Communities' and 'Fractured Country: an Unconventional Invasion', to be released nationally as part of our Week of Action.

These documentaries feature the personal stories of Australians whose lives have been changed forever by coal and gas mining. The films are directed by two Northern Rivers film makers.

Minister Bill Marmion offers to drink fracking fluid | Perth Now

Minister Bill Marmion offers to drink fracking fluid | Perth Nocapes blasted by 130km/h gales

MINES Minister Bill Marmion has offered to drink fracking fluid to prove it poses no threat to the state's underground aquifers.

 at a conference in Fremantle this week, Mr Marmion said WA's vast resources of undeveloped shale and tight gas offered significant economic benefits to Australia, but there were challenges reassuring people that fracking  the process to release it  was safe.
 
Opponents of fracking argue it is a major threat to groundwater.

"I met the NSW Minister for Resources and Petroleum this week and he suggested the challenge we might have to take up ... is to do what he has done and also (ConocoPhillips boss) Todd Creeger  pick up a glass, have a drink of it and tell everybody, 'I have just drunk some fracking fluid'," Mr Marmion said.

While a State Government committee investigates the science behind shale and tight gas safety, Mr Marmion accused the conservation movement and the Greens, who are opposed to fracking, of using the issue to "drum up" membership numbers.

Help stop the Kimberley from becoming a polluted gasfield | Clean Water, Healthy Land

Help stop the Kimberley from becoming a polluted gasfield | Clean Water, Healthy Land

The WA State Government has introduced legislation into the WA Parliament to open up the vast and spectacular Kimberley region to toxic gas fracking at a scale never seen before in Australia!

The proposed laws would promote the development of thousands of gas fracking wells across the unique Kimberley region.

Without consultation or environmental assessment, these laws would commit the state of Western Australia to supporting an industry that will have a devastating impact on the cultural and environmental values of one of the most precious places on Earth.
In his rush to see this legislation passed as soon as possible, Premier Barnett has even attempted to suspend usual Parliamentary process in an attempt to rush the bill through!

Use the form opposite to send an urgent message asking your local Member of Parliament to vote this appalling legislation down
http://cleanwaterhealthyland.org.au/node/75104

Help stop the Kimberley from becoming a polluted gasfield | Clean Water, Healthy Land

Help stop the Kimberley from becoming a polluted gasfield | Clean Water, Healthy Land

The WA State Government has introduced legislation into the WA Parliament to open up the vast and spectacular Kimberley region to toxic gas fracking at a scale never seen before in Australia!

The proposed laws would promote the development of thousands of gas fracking wells across the unique Kimberley region.

Without consultation or environmental assessment, these laws would commit the state of Western Australia to supporting an industry that will have a devastating impact on the cultural and environmental values of one of the most precious places on Earth.
In his rush to see this legislation passed as soon as possible, Premier Barnett has even attempted to suspend usual Parliamentary process in an attempt to rush the bill through!

Use the form opposite to send an urgent message asking your local Member of Parliament to vote this appalling legislation down
http://cleanwaterhealthyland.org.au/node/75104