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Category: Sustainable Settlement and Agriculture

The Generator is founded on the simple premise that we should leave the world in better condition than we found it. The news items in this category outline the attempts people have made to do this. They are mainly concerned with our food supply and settlement patterns. The impact that the human race has on the planet.

  • MPs desert the sinking ship that is labour

    MPs desert the sinking ship that is NSW Labor

     
    Kristina Keneally

    Can’t control the party chaos … Premier Kristina Keneally / Pic: Tomasz Machnik Source: The Daily Telegraph

    NSW minister resigns

     

    KRISTINA Keneally lost two ministers in the space of just six hours yesterday as her Government descended into full-blown crisis.

    Major Events Minister Ian Macdonald resigned from the frontbench after he misled parliament and the Premier regarding an overseas trip, part of which was a delayed honeymoon. The minister had taken leave, but the taxpayer footed some of the bill.

    And Juvenile Justice Minister Graham West stepped down yesterday after he failed to get funding for his portfolio – a slap in the face to the Premier as she marked six months in the job.

    Mr Macdonald had told the Premier and the Upper House that he had privately paid for a $2800 airfare to Dubai and Italy but the Opposition came forward with revelations the fare was taxpayer-funded.

    Mr Macdonald last night said he was quitting because he had become a “liability” for the Government amid a continuing campaign against him.

    Today’s poll

     

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    Simon Benson’s blog

    The minister revealed the trip was his delayed honeymoon, but he had worked for several days in Italy while on leave.

    Ms Keneally said last night he had resigned because he had admitted to spending taxpayers funds on his trip to Dubai “without authorisation”.

    She said she was awaiting a report from the director-general of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, due next Wednesday, before she would reveal any details of the unauthor- ised spending.

    She also said she was “angry” at Mr Macdonald.

    Government sources said the inquiry was also looking at accommodation and dinners around the trip – and whether they may have been incorrectly claimed. The question was being asked as to whether dinners were “official” or involved “friends” the source said.

    A spokesman for Ms Keneally said the Premier’s office had received information on Wednesday “in relation to the minister’s trip that made allegations about a third party – not the minister”.

    “It was referred to ICAC that day by the office of the Premier,” the spokesman said.

    Mr Macdonald claimed last night that he had been hounded out of the job, including by sources within the Labor Party who had leaked details about him to the Opposition.

    He said he had made a mistake by declaring his $2800 airfare was paid for privately.

    He said he genuinely believed he had paid for it and also said he had worked for several days in Italy when he was on leave.

    “I just felt for the Government that it’s better that I get out of the way,” he said.

    He said Ms Keneally had never encouraged him to stand down and it was his own decision. “I think there’s no doubt some people have been aiding and abetting the Opposition and keeping up a consistent and incessant attack on me,” he said.

    Earlier yesterday, Mr West broke down during his speech in Parliament as he expressed frustration at being unable to achieve reforms he wanted.

    His resignation came six weeks after he lost a battle in the Cabinet budget committee to get an extra $400 million for his small juvenile justice portfolio for early intervention programs for youth. Sources said Mr West had been monstered at Cabinet budget committee meetings by Treasurer Eric Roozendaal and this had driven him out.

    He said he felt he could do more outside the world of “partisan politics” and would vacate his seat of Campbelltown at the March state election.

    He almost broke down again as he mentioned time he’d had away from his three children.

    “I want to stay involved in politics but not in the parliamentary system,” he said later.

    The resignations are badly timed for the Premier – less than a week before the budget.

    The Cabinet vacancies will be shared among current ministers. Paul McLeay will take on the forestry and mineral resources portfolio.

    Mr Roozendaal takes state and regional development and Kevin Greene major events, Barbara Perry juvenile justice and John Robertson is Minister for the Central Coast.

      

     

  • BP shares top risers as engineers assess latest oil spill operation

     

    News that BP engineers have successfully manoeuvred a cap into position comes as the oil giant’s embattled chief executive Tony Hayward prepares to update investors on the potential financial impact of the disaster this afternoon. He is expected to ignore calls from Washington to put the firm’s payments to shareholders on hold while the full cost of the oil spill is calculated and pledge to retain the company’s dividends payments, worth more than $10bn (£6.8bn).

    Senators Charles Schumer and Ron Wyden sent a letter to Hayward earlier this week demanding that payments to investors be halted during the clean-up. The White House has already sent a preliminary bill for $69m to BP and “other responsible parties” but that is likely to be a very small fraction of the final cost.

     

    Temporary fix

     

    Overnight the US coastguard gave an update on moves to stem the flow of oil into the sea. “The placement of the containment cap is another positive development in BP’s most recent attempt to contain the leak, however, it will be some time before we can confirm that this method will work and to what extent it will mitigate the release of oil into the environment,” said Admiral Thad Allen. “Even if successful, this is only a temporary and partial fix and we must continue our aggressive response operations at the source, on the surface and along the Gulf’s precious coastline.”

    The placement of the cap follows work on Thursday which saw BP’s robot submarines cut away the well pipe after two days of trying. BP hopes to be able to use the cap to siphon off some of the escaping oil and pump it into collection ships on the surface 1.6km above the shattered well. Oil experts have warned, though, that the cap will not be able to capture all the oil gushing from the shattered well.

    Hayward said that the next 12 to 24 hours will determine whether the capping operation will succeed.

    “It’s an important milestone,” he said at a briefing in Houston overnight. “This is simply the beginning.”

    Speaking to US TV networks today, chief operating officer Doug Suttles said he hoped that the cap could capture at least 90% of the oil.

    But BP does not expect to completely halt the escape of 19,000 barrels of oil a day until August, when it hopes to have completed two relief wells.

    Shares in BP rose as much as 4% today to 450p, making it the biggest riser on the FTSE 100.

    Obama telephoned Australia’s prime minister Kevin Rudd and Indonesia’s president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to express his “deep regret” over the cancellation of his trip, during which he would have addressed a joint sitting of the Australian parliament. Obama first planned to visit the region in March, but had to cancel to help push his healthcare bill through Congress.

  • Dam plan ditched afer endangered frog found

     

    If Mr Garrett revoked his decision to designate the dam as a “controlled action”, Hunter Water would no longer have to abide by the federal laws and the minister could not refuse approval.

    However the memo, which the Keneally government had attempted to keep secret by claiming legal privilege, warns that Hunter Water could backfire, as any request to reconsider the controlled action would allow anti-dam activists to lodge their own submissions.

    The devastating impact of the dam on the endangered stuttering barred frog, which was discovered after the environmental assessment was conducted, could then come into play.

    In November, Mr Garrett formally rejected the Queensland government’s proposal to build a dam at the Traveston Crossing because of “serious and irreversible effects” on threatened species.

    If Hunter Water did not challenge the controlled action, the frog would not come into consideration.

    The Greens MP John Kaye said it was unsurprising that Hunter Water had decided not to challenge Mr Garrett.

    “Hunter Water is not prepared to let Mr Garrett even question the risk that the dam would wipe out a local population of this frog and drive this species even closer to extinction,” Dr Kaye said.

    The document was tabled in NSW Parliament yesterday after the former NSW chief justice, Sir Laurence Street, determined the public interest outweighed legal professional privilege.

  • Another minister quits NSW Government

    Another minister quits NSW Government

    Updated 18 minutes ago

    A second New South Wales Government minister has resigned today.

    The ABC understands Major Events Minister Ian Macdonald has quit.

    Mr Macdonald has been under pressure over a recent trip to Dubai.

    The Government has lost a parliamentary secretary and three ministers in the past month.

    Earlier today juvenile justice minister Graham West resigned, saying he was frustrated with political process and the daily commute from Campbelltown.

    The Government says it will not announce a replacement for Mr West until after the state budget on Tuesday.

    At the start of May, Karyn Paluzzano stepped down as an MP after a public hearing by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).

    David Campbell resigned as transport minister on May 21 after he was filmed leaving a gay sex club. He remains the Member for Keira.

    Tags: government-and-politics, states-and-territories, australia, nsw

  • Five big hurdles to clear before election

     

    This policy framework was to be bolstered by Rudd’s personal popularity, Labor’s polling ascendancy over the Coalition and Rudd’s dominance over Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister.

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    As it turns out, the government is going into the winter break facing five important policy and political challenges that threaten marginal Labor seats in Western Australia, Queensland, NSW and perhaps even in Tasmania – and none of those challenges are anything like what Labor envisioned.

    Even as the political failure on climate change became apparent and the backdown on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme unfolded, Labor was still maintaining that after May 11 – budget day – people would be talking only about health as a political issue.

    The threats to Labor’s re-election at this stage, and that have yet to be dealt with, are: community concerns about illegal boat arrivals and population pressures; the dangers in the botched $2.45 billion home roofing insulation scheme; waste in the $16.2bn schools building program; the impact of the proposed resource super-profits tax on the economy; and Rudd himself.

    These challenges must be dealt with against a backdrop of rising inflation and cost of living pressures, with the distinct possibility of at least one more interest rate rise before the election.

    The truly remarkable thing about Labor’s situation is not that things have changed dramatically – the global financial crisis and the Asian financial crisis demonstrate that the world order can alter overnight – what is remarkable is that all of these wounds are self-inflicted.

    The government and the Prime Minister have put themselves in a dire position through their own actions and inactions. Mixed messages have blurred where Labor stands and have often put both sides of an argument offside. Failed implementation has exposed a government under-prepared, panicky and inept. Management failures point to a refusal to listen or accept criticism, and rushed reactions suggest a preoccupation with immediate politics and public opinion.

    Two days before he was elected, Rudd promised to “turn back the boats” as an answer to asylum-seekers and as an appeal to those who voted for John Howard because of tough border protection.

    After the election the government talked up relatively minor relaxation of the treatment of asylum-seekers to appeal to the humanitarians and civil libertarians who became disaffected with the tough talk.

    This public overreaction to compensate for little real change served only to attract the attention of people-smugglers and encourage illegal boat arrivals.

    This then led to the unprecedented suspension of refugee applications from Sri Lankans and Afghans and the family exiles to remote desert camps, as the government once again emphasised a “tough on border protection” policy.

    Yet, after Abbott re-entered the bidding war and said he’d re-introduce the Pacific Solution of offshore processing and would “turn back the boats”, Rudd said he wouldn’t follow the Liberal leader in a “race to the bottom” by promising to “turn back the boats”.

    The Prime Minister’s linking of higher population, immigration and asylum-seekers has fused what should be separate elements into one issue.

    The ongoing disaster of the roof insulation scheme is felt nationally and carries with it the potent threat of an insulation-related fire during the election campaign. This program was rushed through despite safety warnings and advice that the federal government was not equipped to manage the scheme.

    It is a $2.45bn disaster that has directly affected one million Australians and outraged millions more. There is nothing the government can do about rectifying this problem and it remains hostage to housefires through to polling day.

    Julia Gillard’s $16.2bnschool building program also was rushed and clearly has involved over-priced tendering, price rip-offs and wasted millions but, for various reasons, the intensity of the adverse reaction to the Building Education Revolution has been greatest in NSW and Queensland.

    There is a general impression of a waste of taxpayers’ funds and a lack of value for money, but the BER debacle is least damaging to the government in Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania. The taskforce set up to inquire into the program may assuage some criticism, but even the government concedes there is an embedded perception of waste that won’t offset good feelings about new buildings at local schools in some areas.

    As the first real job losses attributed to the resource super-profits tax occur in Queensland, the government remains on the back foot trying to convince voters the mining companies don’t pay a fair share of tax, and that the implementation of the tax hasn’t been without grievous fault.

    Unfortunately for Rudd and his leadership, all of these problems are sheeted home to him and his management style, with justification, and he has become one of Labor’s biggest challenges going into the election when once he was Labor’s greatest asset.

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  • Resignation of MP Graham West

    Media Release

    >From Sylvia Hale, Greens MP and spokesperson for Juvenile Justice

    4 June 2010   – For immediate use
               
    Minister’s resignation symptomatic of Government’s ethical failure

     
    The Greens have described the sudden resignation of Juvenile Justice
    Minister Graham West as a symptom of the ethical vacuum that exists in
    the Government’s ranks, now manifested in its refusal to address the
    causes of juvenile crime.

    “When the Government in May this year rejected out of hand the key
    recommendations of the independent review of NSW’s Juvenile Justice
    system by Noetic Solutions – that money be diverted from building yet
    more detention centres and directed toward addressing the underlying
    causes of crime – it demonstrated its contempt for its own Minister for
    Juvenile Justice,” said Sylvia Hale, Greens MP and spokesperson for
    Juvenile Justice.

    “In his first speech to Parliament, Mr West said, ‘If we are not
    asking …question(s), and not putting forward our solutions, then as
    parliamentarians we are not doing our job.’

    “It seems that Mr West asked the questions and brought forward both
    evidence and solutions, only to see his Labor Party colleagues treat
    them with disdain. Perhaps, as a man of principle, he had little choice
    but to resign. If so, The Greens applaud him.

    “There is significant research, not only from the Noetic Solutions
    report, but from around Australia and the world, that amply demonstrates
    the failure of ‘tough on crime’ policies so popular with both the
    Government and Opposition.

     “The Noetic report makes it clear that the Government will need to
    spend at least $350 million over the next two years if it is to provide
    the additional places required by its ‘lock-em-up’ approach.

    “The Greens welcomed the Report’s recommendation that money be
    diverted to keeping young people out of detention, not building yet more
    detention centres.

     “While life in politics can be hard and the claims on your time
    great, no doubt Mr West felt abandoned in his efforts to institute
    genuine change.

    “Why would any person of good will, particularly one who is
    unsupported in his efforts to move to a more ethical and fair justice
    system, want to stay in a cabinet or a government where the broader
    public interest has long been pushed aside in the ruthless pursuit of
    power for power’s sake?

    “The Labor Party was once a party that stood up for the poor; indeed
    the working poor were the people who formed the Labor Party nearly 120
    years ago.
    The ALP has failed that constituency for many years, and never more
    grievously than now when it fails the youth of NSW, our next
    generation.

    “I can only sympathise with those like Mr West who can no longer
    stomach its policies,” said Ms Hale.

     Contact: Colin Hesse on 02 9230 3030 or 0401 719 124
    —
    Another message from the Greens Media mailing list.