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  • Labor and Liberal block Senate inquiry into toxic plantations

    25 February 2010

    Labor & Liberal block Senate inquiry into toxic
    plantations

    The blocking of a Senate inquiry into potential toxic
    leaching from eucalypt plantations into Tasmania’s George River by both
    Labor and Liberal today was an abrogation of responsibility, according
    to the Greens.

    Greens Senators Bob Brown and Christine Milne moved for
    the inquiry following reports that plantations of Eucalyptus nitens were
    contaminating water supplies near St. Helens in North East Tasmania,
    with impacts on human and animal populations.

    “This is an abrogation of responsibility by the Labor
    and Liberal parties,” said Senator Brown.

    “Why should a community have had to fight so hard to
    have an investigation of toxicity in their water supply?” said Senator
    Christine Milne.

    “There is a far too close relationship between the
    Tasmanian government, Forestry Tasmania and the private forest industry.

    “The EPA conducted an Inquiry in 2005 and found toxicity
    but did not take the matter further.

    “Their failure to act then and their lack of
    independence gives me no confidence that they will conduct a full and
    proper investigation now.

    “What the community wants is an independent inquiry, not
    one under the auspices of people who have failed the community in the
    past and who have demonstrated a complete lack of concern about the
    impacts of forestry, chemical use in the forest industry and the
    breeding programs by forestry.

    “By blocking this inquiry both the Labor and Liberal
    party have let down Tasmanians concerned about public health, wildlife
    and the reputation of Tasmania as a clean green source of products.”

    Media contact: Erin Farley 0438 376 082
    www.greensmps.org.au <http://www.greensmps.org.au/>

    _______________________________________________
    GreensMPs Media mailing list

  • Rail Delay costs $2 billion

     

    Mr Campbell has also overseen two major policies marred by errors in the past month and was yesterday forced to back down on claims to Parliament that members of the Sydney media had hacked into the transport blueprint website.

    A breakdown of costs, released by the Transport Minister yesterday, shows the revived north-west rail link would cost $4.89 billion if construction began immediately.

    But the State Government is not planning to start work until 2017, meaning it will cost $6.75 billion because of inflation.

    The State Government axed the project in 2008 and revived it on Sunday in its new $50 billion Sydney transport blueprint, after the Opposition promised to deliver the line.

    Over the 14 years before construction is due to be completed on the rail link, Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell says drivers will be slugged up to $19 a day to use the M2, Lane Cove Tunnel and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

    That comes on top of a new car tax, which will slug drivers between $5 to $30 a year extra to register vehicles weighing more than 975 kilograms from July.

    Mr O’Farrell says the Coalition will start building the north-west rail line in its first term if it wins next year’s state election.

    “Labor’s transport plan doesn’t deliver the transport options that Sydney needs in a timely fashion,” he said.

    The greatest cost associated with north-west rail link is tunnelling, which will chew up about half of the money allocated for the project.

     

    Pressure on Campbell rises

     

    Mr O’Farrell is also calling on Mr Campbell to stand down after the CBD Metro plan was scrapped on Sunday.

    At least $271 million has already been lost on the Metro, with another $60 million expected in compensation to companies working on the project.

    On Tuesday night, the Transport Minister also admitted that subjecting eco-friendly hybrid cars to the new weight tax was a mistake.

    And earlier this month, he had to explain why 1 million maps for the MyZone ticketing scheme had to be pulped when mistakes were discovered.

    The transport blueprint also promises a new rail line to Leppington in Sydney’s south-west, a major expansion of light rail around the city and more buses and ferries.

    Sydney’s inner west will get a light rail extension to Dulwich Hill and another line will run from Haymarket to Circular Quay.

    A tunnel will also be built from Redfern to Wynyard to speed up rail traffic from the west.

    The plan promises 1,000 new buses, six new ferries and $3 billion worth of new trains within 10 years.

    Tags: government-and-politics, states-and-territories, australia, nsw, sydney-2000

    First posted 1 hour 9 minutes ago

  • Senate rejects Medicare changes

     

    Labor argues the two measures are crucial to make private health more sustainable.

    But the coalition says the government is waging an ideological war against private health funds and breaking an election promise in the process.

    The proposed changes to the Medicare levy surcharge would have penalised wealthier Australians who didn’t take out private cover.

    Singles earning more than $90,000 a year and couples on more than $180,000 would be levied 1.25 per cent of their taxable income, up from one per cent.

    Singles earning over $120,000 and couples on more than $240,000 would be slugged with a 1.5 per cent surcharge.

    Health Minister Nicola Roxon on Wednesday slammed the Senate for voting against “the first of the private health insurance rebate measures”.

    “The opposition have blown a $2 billion hole in the budget and have no health policies of any substance to put forward to the public,” she told parliament.

    Earlier, when asked if she’d like to fight a early poll on the issue, Ms Roxon told ABC Radio “it’s something that we are determined to pursue”.

    “I am absolutely happy to stand up anywhere anytime to defend the view that taxi drivers and secretaries and nurses should not be paying for the private health insurance of bankers and politicians and millionaires,” the health minister said.

    “I think that is a very clear and easy argument to make.”

    That argument might be easily prosecuted – but in fact it’s not just the ultra-rich that will be affected.

    Labor actually wants to means test and reduce the rebate for individuals earning more than $75,000 a year and couples earning more than $150,000 a year.

    Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the opposition’s determination to block the government’s measures “goes to the heart of our ability to provide finance for our hospital system for the future”.

    “The leader of the opposition is standing by the principle that the least-salaried Australians should subsidise the private health insurance costs of someone on $200,000 and $300,000 a year,” Mr Rudd told parliament.

    Labor already has a double-dissolution trigger on emissions trading.

  • UN warns India and China over growing problems of e-waste


    E-waste dumping

    The UNEP says e-waste cannot be left ‘to the vagaries of the informal sector’. It says large-scale collection and recycling facilities need to be established in China, India, Brazil and Africa where levels of e-waste are rising.

    The Ecologist reported recently on the dumping of Western electronic waste in Ghanaian slums and the damage to the local population and environment caused by some of the toxic components.

    The UNEP report says countries like Senegal and Uganda can expect e-waste flows from PCs alone to increase 4 to 8-fold by 2020.

    China and India

    At present the problem is most acute in India and China, which together produce more than 1.5 million tonnes of e-waste from TVs and 600,000 tonnes from refrigerators every year.

    In China, the report predicts that by 2020 levels of e-waste from old computers will have increased by 200 to 400 per cent from 2007 levels, and by 500 per cent in India.

    By that same year in China, e-waste from discarded mobile phones will be about seven times higher than 2007 levels and, in India, 18 times higher.

    But the UNEP says recycling can also recover valuable natural resources.

    ‘In addition to curbing health problems, boosting developing country e-waste recycling rates can have the potential to generate decent employment and recover a wide range of valuable metals including silver, gold, palladium, copper and indium,’ said UN Under-Secretary-General Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP.

    ‘By acting now and planning forward, many countries can turn an e-challenge into an e-opportunity,’ he added.

    Useful links
    Full UNEP report on e-waste

  • Hydrogen taxi cabs to serve London by 2012 Olympics

     

    The widespread introduction of hydrogen cars has long been a goal of some green campaigners, because eventually they allow transport fuel to be generated from renewable energy. Wind and solar plants could be used to drive the process of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen – and the hydrogen piped to filling stations. Iceland has already begun constructing a hydrogen grid using plentiful geothermal energy. But in the short term, hydrogen vehicles in the UK are likely to be powered by fuel derived from oil.

    Henri Winand, of Intelligent Energy, which makes the fuel cells used in the taxis, said they were an ideal way to begin building the infrastructure required for a hydrogen-based transport system – seen as one of the big stumbling blocks for the wider introduction of hydrogen vehicles. “With fleets you can deploy a little infrastructure, which you can build up with the more fleets you have, rather than going straight to consumers who might be wondering where the next filling station is.”

    London’s deputy mayor, Kit Malthouse, announced last year that by 2012 there would be six hydrogen filling stations in the capital. He said he wanted around 20-50 taxis in operation by then as part of the Black Cabs Go Green programme, as well as 150 hydrogen-powered buses.

    “The intent is to take the taxis and retrofit a powertrain that has zero tailpipe emissions,” said Winand. “But also it has to deliver some very important things: a reasonable range, very quick refuelling time and no modifying the passenger or driver space.”

    After modification, he said no one would be able to tell the difference between a hydrogen cab and a regular one apart from the lack of diesel fumes. The first few hydrogen taxis, which were funded in part by the government’s Technology Strategy Board, have already been built at the Lotus headquarters in Norfolk.

    Intelligent Energy, leading the consortium for the new hydrogen taxi, has designed and built the fuel cell, which uses hydrogen to make electricity. Lotus is responsible for integrating the fuel cell into the body of the taxi – in their design, pressurised hydrogen is stored in a tank where the internal combustion engine of a standard cab would be. The fuel cell produces electricity and feeds it to a battery pack under the floor of the taxi’s passenger area. The batteries then drive motors in the wheels.

    “To do that with a purely battery-electric vehicle, you would have to take up most of the space at the back with batteries, where the passengers are, or certainly you would constrict that space substantially,” said Winand. “And you’d probably have to stop halfway through the day to plug in somewhere.”

    Mainstream manufacturers are also getting interested in hydrogen. Daimler, Hyundai, Honda and Toyota have all announced plans in recent months to have fuel-cell vehicles available for the consumer market by 2015.

    “There is a global drive to reduce CO2 emission levels and this is something we are dedicated to, for both Lotus cars and our engineering clients,” said Simon Wood of Lotus Engineering. “The fuel cell hybrid taxi is a fantastic achievement for all the companies involved. The level of quality and professionalism that has been demonstrated is extremely high and the taxi is already running through a series of tests

  • Christine Milne: Greens will move in senate to ban triazines

     

    “The APVMA took 11 years to review the use of atrazines and came up with recommendations that are simply insufficient.

    “Communities suffering increasing health impacts cannot wait for wheels to turn so slowly in the APVMA.

    “Simazine was found in tap water in Orford last year, and yet the APVMA is only beginning its review into this toxic chemical in the coming months.

    “The Tasmanian government’s own research has confirmed that these chemicals remain in the environment twice as long in cooler climates, making them more persistent in Tasmania.

    “We already have a ban on the triazines in the Macquarie River catchment in Tasmania. The ban should now be extended to all water catchments in the state as a matter of urgency.

    “Many pesticides have been linked to animal and human reproductive and nervous system problems.

    “It is hard to believe that the Tasmanian government is still conducting its review of aerial spraying, a process in train since 2005.

    “As Leader of the Tasmanian Greens in the early 1990s, I called for a ban on the use of triazines in Tasmania, following the contamination of Olivers Creek at Lorinna.

    “The attempt to the ban the triazines for the past 20 years has been beset by endless reviews and mirror tactics – ‘just looking into it’ – as a go slow mechanism which successive Tasmanian governments have made into an art form.

    “It is time that the federal government took a much keener interest in the contamination of Tasmania’s river systems and the impacts on human and animal health, with responsibility for this ranging across the environment, water, health and agriculture portfolios.”

     

     

    Wendy McLeod

    Office of Senator Christine Milne

    Australian Greens Senator

    GPO Box 896

    HOBART   TAS   7001

    Ph :  03 6224 8899 (Hobart) 02 6277 3063 (Canberra)

    Fax: 03 6224 7599

    www.christinemilne.org.au