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Public will get time to scrutinise NBN policy: Turnbull

Date March 15, 2013 – 10:07AM 15 reading now

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Tim Lester

Online Political Editor

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Turnbull defies policy silence

Malcolm Turnbull promises to release the Coalition’s alternative NBN plan “months” before the election, bucking the opposition trend of staying mum on pre-election policy detail.
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Malcolm Turnbull has promised to release the Coalition’s plans for a national broadband network ”months” before the September 14 election to allow for scrutiny of the policy and its costings.

The undertaking from the communications spokesman goes further than the usual opposition response to questions on when key election policies will be made public this year – which is to simply say ”in good time”.

”You can never criticise me for not providing a lot of detail,” Mr Turnbull said in an interview with Fairfax Media’s Breaking Politics.

”Australians will have more than adequate time to consider our policy and debate it.”

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When asked whether this meant it would be released ”months” before the poll, he replied, ”definitely”.

Broadband and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has previously accused Mr Turnbull of having ”half-baked broadband thought bubbles” rather than a plan.

Renewed debate over the NBN comes as the Gillard government wrestles with the challenge of passing its planned changes to media laws by its deadline of next week.

Senator Conroy said on Friday that it was too early to say whether the bills would pass, despite concerns by key cross-bench MPs.

In an interview on ABC’s Radio National program, Senator Conroy said he was not surprised by the barrage of ”hysterical” attacks from media companies.

”The public interest test, for instance, which has been heavily attacked and criticised, akin to Stalinist Russia, akin to Fiji today, these are concepts that the United States have had for 80 years and the UK has had for many many years. These are not new concepts,” he said.
To view an extended version of the interview with Malcolm Turnbull, click here

In a Senate estimates hearing recently, NBN Co confirmed that they expected their broadband rollout to have passed 286,000 homes by June this year.

”The cost of this NBN, in reality, will shock people. If this NBN were to proceed with its construction on the basis of the government’s plan, it would be likely in my view, and it’s not an uninformed view, to take over 20 years to complete, and a hundred billion dollars,” Mr Turnbull said.

”This is the most reckless exercise in commonwealth investment . . . in our history. To embark on a project like this with no budget, no cost benefit analysis. They have never said there is a limit to what you can spend.”

Mr Turnbull also said he doubted anything in the Coalition plan would surprise people.

”We will speed up the roll out. We will deliver the completion of the NBN sooner and at less cost to the Commonwealth and therefore of course, it will be more affordable to users,” he said.

with Daniel Hurst

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Wind turbine sickness ‘all in the mind’: study

Date March 15, 2013 – 12:52PM 231 reading now

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Lenore Taylor

Chief Political Correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald

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A new study has found that 63 per cent of Australia’s 49 wind farms have never been the subject of any health complaint from nearby residents. Photo: Nicolas Walker

”Wind turbine sickness” is far more prevalent in communities where anti-wind farm lobbyists have been active and appears to be a psychological phenomenon caused by the suggestion that turbines make people sick, a study has found.

The study found that 63 per cent of Australia’s 49 wind farms had never been the subject of any health complaint from nearby residents.

It found 68 per cent of the 120 complaints that have been made came from residents living near wind farms heavily targeted by the anti-wind farm lobby, and that ”the advent of anti-wind farm groups beginning to foment concerns about health (from around 2009) was also strongly correlated with actual complaints being made”.

Study author, Simon Chapman, professor of public health at Sydney University, said the results suggested that ”wind turbine sickness” was a ”communicated disease” – a sickness spread by the claim that something was likely to make a person sick. This was caused by the ”nocebo effect” – the opposite of the placebo effect – where the belief something would cause an illness created the perception of illness.

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He found a much greater correlation between negative attitudes to wind turbines and reports of sickness than any ”objective measures of actual exposure”.

And he cited studies suggesting that the spread of communicated diseases was much faster when the ”illness” had a name – such as Wind Turbine Syndrome, Vibro Acoustic Disease and Visceral Vibratory Vestibular Disturbance.

Professor Chapman also cites a recent New Zealand study in which some healthy volunteers were exposed to actual ”infrasound” – the sub-audible noise from wind farms claimed to cause health problems – and others to complete silence, which they had been told was ”infrasound”. In both cases the volunteers who had been told about the potential harmful effects of infrasound were more likely to report symptoms.

There have been several parliamentary inquiries into concerns about the health impacts of wind farms and the National Health and Medical Research Council is conducting a second study into the available medical evidence for the health complaints.

Parliament recently rejected a private members bill by independent Senators Nick Xenophon and John Madigan, which would have removed government subsidies from wind farms operating above certain noise levels.

But the Coalition has said that if it is elected in September it will hold another ”expert” inquiry into wind farm noise.

The most recent Senate inquiry into the issue found no causal link between the noise from wind farms and symptoms reported by those who lived near them, but accepted that people were reporting that they felt unwell.

After a ”rapid review” in 2010 NHMRC said there was ”insufficient published scientific evidence” to link wind turbines with adverse health effects.

But some residents have continued to report suffering from sleep deprivation, stress and serious long-term health problems.

Poll: Should there be another parliamentary inquiry into the health effects of wind turbine noise on nearby residents?

Yes
15%
No
81%
Not sure
4%

Total votes: 3830.

Poll closes in 3 days.

Disclaimer:

These polls are not scientific and reflect the opinion only of visitors who have chosen to participate.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/wind-turbine-sickness-all-in-the-mind-study-20130315-2g4zd.html#ixzz2NaEYFenq

Shell barred from returning to drill for oil in Arctic without overhaul

Review finds company had failed to plan for short drilling season and its equipment did not stand up to harsh conditions
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Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent

guardian.co.uk, Friday 15 March 2013 00.13 GMT

Shell have been criticised after their Arctic oil drilling rig Kulluk ran aground off a small Alaskan island on New Year’s Eve. Photograph: Sara Francis/AP

Shell “screwed up” drilling for oil in Arctic waters and will not be allowed back without a comprehensive overhaul of its plans, the Obama administration said on Thursday.

A government review found the oil company was not prepared for the extreme conditions in the Arctic, which resulted in a series of blunders and accidents culminating in the New Year’s Eve grounding of its drill rig.

Shell announced a “pause” in Arctic drilling last month. But Ken Salazar, the interior secretary, told a reporters’ conference call that the company will not be allowed to return without producing a much more detailed plan, one tailored specifically to the harsh Arctic conditions.

“Shell will not be able to move forward into the Arctic to do any kind of exploration unless they have this integrated management plan put in place,” said Salazar, in one of his last acts before standing down as interior secretary. “It’s that plain and simple.”

The findings of the review could mean further costs and delays for Shell, which has spent years and $4.5bn securing permits to drill in Arctic waters.

But it did not satisfy some environmental groups which said the review demonstrated the government should never have allowed drilling in the first place.

Salazar and other officials said Shell had not been prepared to drill last year, when a season of blunders and accidents was capped with the New Year’s Eve grounding of one of its drilling rigs.

“Shell screwed up in 2012 and we are not going to let them screw up after their pause is removed,” Salazar said.

The review said Shell had failed to plan for the short drilling season in the Arctic, and the extreme weather conditions. Its equipment, in particular, did not stand up to the harsh environment.

The review did not focus on the government’s failings to anticipate last summer’s near-disasters in the Arctic, and administration officials admitted in the call: “The government has a lot to learn.”

Instead the review reserved its harshest criticism for Shell’s management of its contractors. The review said the company failed to make sure its contractors were up to operating in Arctic conditions. The makers of Shell’s oil spill containment device – which failed on an early test in relatively calm waters off Seattle – only had experience in the Gulf of Mexico.

In a further attempt for a more stringent oversight regime, the review also recommended that any future Arctic plans put forward by Shell be subjected to third-party audit.

The review won cautious praise from some environmental groups as a “first step” towards improving safety in Arctic drilling.

“We are pleased the interior department has conducted this public review, it’s an important first step towards preventing future drilling accidents in the Arctic Ocean,” said Marilyn Heiman, director of the US Arctic programme for Pew Charitable Trusts.

However, Greenpeace said Shell had got off too lightly. “The government should be embarrassed for granting Shell the permits it did this year,” the campaign group said. “This report merely gives big oil a slap on the wrist.”

Conservation group Oceana said that the review had dodged a key question of the administration’s failure to anticipate that Shell would not be prepared to drill in the Arctic.

“The department of the interior must accept responsibility for the failures that resulted in approvals and permits being granted to a company that was obviously not ready,” Oceana said in a statement.

“The government should suspend activities on leases in the Arctic Ocean until and unless companies prove they can operate safely and without harm to the environment and without harm to opportunities for the subsistence way of life.”

Salazar ordered the review of Arctic offshore drilling after a Shell drilling vessel ran aground off the coast of Alaska on New Year’s Eve.

After ordering the review, Salazar told reporters he had doubts about whether drilling could ever be done safely in a region as harsh and remote as the Arctic Sea.

On Thursday, however, Salazar and other officials told reporters that the Obama administration remained committed to drilling for oil in the Arctic.

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Beattie: 457 visa debate ‘destructive’ for Australia

By chief political correspondent Emma Griffiths, ABCUpdated March 15, 2013, 2:49 pm

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Former Queensland Labor premier Peter Beattie has warned Prime Minister Julia Gillard to be “very cautious” about sparking a “destructive” debate on foreign workers.

Yesterday Ms Gillard intensified her calls for a crackdown on 457 visas, telling temporary overseas worker numbers were up 20 per cent compared with the same time last year, whereas employment growth for the period was only 1 per cent.

But Mr Beattie has warned Ms Gillard not to get drawn into a “destructive” national debate on the issue.

“I think we need to be very careful about the rhetoric,” he told ABC News 24.

“That debate can be a destructive one for Australia.

“We have to remember we’re a global economy. We do need 457 visas [in some areas], frankly because we can’t get the job done without them.”

The Government’s anti-457 push has also been slammed by the business sector, with the Australian Industry Group accusing the PM of opening the way for “xenophobic views” to infiltrate public debate.

“What we’ve seen through this debate is that a platform has been allowed to be built for people with quite xenophobic views, views that are hostile to migrants quite generally,” Ai Group chief executive officer Innes Willox told ABC News Online.

“They’ve been allowed to crawl out of the woodwork again as a result of this debate.”

Mr Willox says it amounts to “demonising” visa holders and their employers.

He says there is no evidence to back up the Government’s assertion that some businesses are rorting the system, saying that foreign workers are filling a genuine skills gap in some sectors.

Demographer and Government adviser Peter McDonald says the Prime Minister’s statement about overseas workers and the employment rate does not bear scrutiny.

He says that is because the retirement of baby boomers means Australia starts each year 140,000 workers short.

“If the labour force grows by 1 per cent as the Prime Minister says, that’s about 120,000 [people],” he said.

“So we take the 120,000 growth, 140,000 we have to make up, [making a] combined 260,000 new workers that we have to get into the labour force, and 457s make up about 40,000 of that.

“I think the way the Prime Minister expressed it about growth rates, not using numbers, was really statistically misleading.”

This morning Immigration Minister Brendan O’Connor said Mr McDonald’s comments were wrong and irrelevant.

“The Government is perfectly correct in saying the total 457 issues has vastly outstripped total employment growth, but the total figures really aren’t the point of our reforms,” he said.
“The Government doesn’t think all 457s are rorts, the Government thinks there are problems with particular firms and particular occupations.”

In his inner sanctum, where the state was run

Date March 15, 2013 44 reading now

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Kate McClymont

Senior Reporter

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Met with Eddie Obeid: Ricky Stuart, John Symond and Kristina Keneally.

Room 1122 in the Parliament House of NSW may look unremarkable, but it was from this room that Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid effectively ran the state.

Three years of diary entries – from 2007 to 2009 – reflect an astonishing parade of politicians, developers, departmental chiefs, union bosses, business figures and colourful Sydney characters who were shown into the inner sanctum of room 1122.

The diaries were tendered at the conclusion of the recent Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry into allegations that Mr Obeid and his family received $30 million from an allegedly corrupt government coal tender.

Inner sanctum: NSW Parliament House. Photo: James Alcock

According to the diaries, mortgage king ”Aussie” John Symond was keen to talk to Mr Obeid, a humble backbencher, about his jetty. Prominent developer Harry Triguboff wanted to chew the fat with Mr Obeid over the lack of buses servicing a Meriton development in Waterloo. On another occasion he wanted to talk about the penthouse in his development in Liverpool Street.

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Also mentioned are furniture mogul Nick Scali and Jose de la Vega, who won government tenders to develop the Finger Wharf and Walsh Bay Wharf. Both men are Mr Obeid’s former business partners in developing the Stables ski lodge at Perisher.

Federal minister Tony Burke, who skiied at Perisher courtesy of Mr Obeid, is also mentioned, as is colourful former Labor powerbroker Graham Richardson.

Wielded great social and political capital: Eddie Obeid. Photo: Dallas Kilponen

Mark Arbib continued meeting Mr Obeid after he moved from his position as NSW state secretary of the party to become a senator in 2008.

Labor party chieftain Karl Bitar, who now works at Crown Casino with Mr Arbib, features regularly in Mr Obeid’s diaries, often travelling to the Obeid headquarters in Birkenhead Point for meetings.

The present general secretary of the state Labor Party branch, Sam Dastyari, is also mentioned frequently in the diaries, as is his predecessor, Matt Thistlethwaite, now a senator.

According to the diaries, Latteria was popular for Mr Obeid’s breakfast meetings, while during the day Sydney Hospital’s cafe or the nearby Wentworth Hotel were favoured destinations.

Another popular eatery was Tuscany restaurant in Leichhardt, made famous by Mr Obeid’s frequent dining companion, Ian Macdonald.

A 2011 ICAC inquiry heard that it was at Tuscany that Mr Macdonald was provided with a prostitute, Tiffanie, in return for business introductions to millionaire developer Ron Medich, who has since been charged with murder.

Tuscany’s owner, Frank Moio, who was described at the ICAC inquiry as a ”colourful character”, also features prominently in Mr Obeid’s diaries.

Of the many politicians beating a path to Mr Obeid’s door, the most frequent – according to the diary entries – were Ian Macdonald, Michael Costa, Joe Tripodi, Eric Roozendaal, John Della Bosca, John Robertson, Barbara Perry, Noreen Hay, Tony Kelly, Virginia Judge, Kristina Keneally, Matt Brown and Michael Daley. Also mentioned often in the diaries are Fred Nile and Richard Torbay.

Mr Torbay is a former member of the Labor Party, who has been chosen by the National Party to contest the federal seat of New England, at present held by Tony Windsor.

There are also a number of departmental heads who met Mr Obeid regularly. One of the most frequently mentioned throughout Mr Obeid’s diaries is Warwick Watkins.

In 2011 ICAC recommended the Director of Public Prosecutions consider laying criminal charges against Mr Watkins, the former head of the Land and Property Management Authority, after he and former planning minister Tony Kelly were found to have acted corruptly over a backdated letter.

Other bureaucrats regularly meeting with Mr Obeid were Maritime boss Steve Dunn and Mark Duffy, the then deputy director of the Department of Trade and Investment.

Union bosses Jim Metcher, Mal Tulloch, Bill Ludwig, Andrew Ferguson and Bernie Riordan also feature in the Obeid diaries.

Mr Obeid’s passion for rugby league and in particular Souths, where he was once a director, shines through with games listed in the diaries along with meetings with Souths owner Peter Holmes a Court, former Souths boss George Piggins, and first grade coaches Des Hasler and Ricky Stuart.

The diaries also show constant lunches, dinner and meetings with members of the Lebanese community, including developers Joe and George Khattar, construction and excavating tycoon George Ghossayn, Tony Mouawad and John Choueifate, of Channel Seven’s Today Tonight.

Constant companions of Mr Obeid’s, according to the diaries, are Wally Wehbe and Eddy Chahine, who were the Obeid family’s business partners in a residential development in Blackwall Point, at Abbotsford.

But one of the big mysteries in the diaries is the identity of ”Sam”. Mr Obeid had regular meetings with ”Sam” at the Intercontinental, in room 1122, at the Sydney Hospital cafe and at Birkenhead Point.

The diaries make reference by name to party boss Sam Dastyari, Sam H (understood to be Sam Haddad of the Department of Planning and Infrastructure) as well as to Mr Obeid’s son-in-law Sam Achie, who is the financial controller of the Obeid corporation.

Correction: The original version of this story said Richard Torbay was a former Labor MP.

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Bureaucrats ‘withheld’ mine data

Andrew Clennell
The Daily Telegraph
March 15, 201312:00AM

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MORE than 700 pages of documents that would have blown the Eddie Obeid mine scandal open four years ago were not released by the state’s most senior public servants to the parliament when they received an order to do so.

ICAC Commissioner David Ipp yesterday released all documents ICAC has seized which were not provided to the upper house during a call for papers on the Mt Penny mine in 2009. The commissioner wrote to the Legislative Council saying that if the parliament requested, the corruption watchdog would take action on the issue.

The upper house privileges committee will now investigate whether some of the state’s most senior public servants, including current head of the department of primary industries Richard Sheldrake, were implicated in a massive cover-up.

If they suspect that was the case, they will refer the case to ICAC.

Included in the missing documents were crucial emails that would have shown Obeid family associate, Andrew Kaidbay, was involved in the bid for the coal mine over the Obeid farm.

There were also documents showing that Ian Macdonald reopened expressions of interests for the Mt Penny mine, which was built over Eddie Obeid’s farm, a decision which led Cascade Coal, a company the Obeids and Mr Macdonald’s close friend Greg Jones became involved in, to win the exploration licence for the mine.

The documents would also have shown bureaucrats questioning former minister Ian Macdonald on why he was seeking to open up reserves at Mt Penny, where the Obeid farm was.

One official, Graham Hawkes, says in one of the hidden emails: “Can we get more information … the department hasn’t done sufficient exploration drilling in the Mt Penny area.”

Another, from senior departmental official Alan Coutts, says: “We also need a bit more info on what is the area we are looking at – What do you mean by Mt Penny – it is not an area we recognise by that name as a potential allocation area.”

The documents were tabled in the upper house on November 26, 2009, after Ian Macdonald had been sacked by Nathan Rees as a minister. The call for papers came after The Australian Financial Review revealed in October 2009 that Mr Obeid stood to make a windfall after he bought a farm where an exploration licence was going.