Author: Neville

Carr rules out becoming Labor leader

AAPMarch 18, 2013, 10:16 am

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Foreign Minister Bob Carr says he would not stand if nominated to replace Julia Gillard as prime minister.

Asked about a Fairfax/Nielsen poll which showed he was the most popular Labor leader after Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, Senator Carr said he was not interested in becoming prime minister.

He quoted United States civil war general William Sherman to make his point.

“If nominated I would not stand, if elected I would not serve,” he told ABC radio on Monday.

Senator Carr, who is in the US to meet Secretary of State John Kerry, refused to engage in leadership talk during the interview.
“I’m not going to engage in the sort of speculative flurry that you’re obviously interested in about domestic policies. I would be happy if we got onto the international agenda as soon as possible,” he said.

Wealthy group’s email war on ICAC

Date March 18, 2013 95 reading now

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Kate McClymont

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Friendship with Ian Macdonald kept hidden: Greg Jones. Photo: Ben Rushton

One of a group of wealthy businessmen has widely circulated emails accusing the Independent Commission Against Corruption of making ”unsubstantiated and outrageous allegations” against the group.

The email by Greg Jones, a close friend of former mining minister Ian Macdonald, comes on top of legal action by Mr Jones’ business partner, mining tycoon Travers Duncan, to try to stop ICAC handing its findings to Parliament.

Corrupt findings by Commissioner David Ipp could prevent Cascade Coal receiving approval to develop a potential billion-dollar mine at Mount Penny, near Mudgee.

The commission has heard Cascade was the private company set up by Brian Flannery, Mr Duncan, former Baker & McKenzie partners John McGuigan and John Atkinson, banker Richard Poole and former RAMS Home Loans founder John ”Kingy” Kinghorn.

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The seventh member of the consortium was Mr Jones, who kept his shareholding hidden because his friendship with then resources minister Ian Macdonald, who was presiding over the tender, might have been politically explosive.

”Dear friends and business associates,” wrote Mr Jones in an email dated March 16, saying that since ICAC had finished, ”Cascade Coal is now free to respond to the defamatory, incorrect, unsubstantiated and outrageous allegations made (under privilege) by the ICAC prosecutor, most of which has been reported as fact on the ABC and in the Fairfax press.”

Mr Jones attached to his email a five-page Cascade Coal letter sent to every NSW MP on Friday. The letter claimed that none of the Cascade investors was involved in ”corrupt activity of any kind” and it was

in ”the best interests of the state” to allow Cascade to develop the mine.

Geoffrey Watson, SC, counsel assisting the commission, said on Sunday: ”I am not concerned what Greg Jones says about me. The evidence, including his evidence, speaks for itself.”

The Cascade letter, which has been sent to all MPs and Mr Jones’ associates, was signed by Mr Kinghorn and Mr McGuigan. It omits any damaging evidence about them which has been presented to the commission.

Their letter states ”The uncontested evidence is that the Obeids deliberately misled and deceived Cascade Coal with respect to their underlying interests.”

But in his evidence Mr McGuigan admitted knowing he was dealing with the family of Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid when he negotiated with his son Moses and his adviser for the Obeids to have a 25 per cent stake in Cascade, before it won the Mount Penny tender.

The inquiry heard the Obeids and their associates bought land in the Bylong Valley before Mr Macdonald announced the area would be open to coal exploration. Access to the properties was then used to extract a deal with Cascade. The Obeids were later paid $30 million, with the promise of $30 million more, to exit Cascade before its $500 million sale to public mining company White Energy. Five Cascade investors, including Mr McGuigan, Mr Duncan and Mr Kinghorn, were also on the board of White Energy.

The Cascade investors, including Mr Jones, each stood to make $60 million if the sale went ahead. The deal collapsed when White Energy’s independent directors started asking whether the Obeids were involved. The inquiry has heard Mr McGuigan, Mr Duncan and others might have breached their director’s duty by failing to reveal their knowledge of the Obeids’ involvement to White Energy or the stock exchange.

Cascade’s recent letter did not mention that because the Obeids did not receive their second $30 million, they still own about 9 per cent of Cascade.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/wealthy-groups-email-war-on-icac-20130317-2g8zg.html#ixzz2NqD1xevg

Kevin Rudd twice as popular as Gillard Julia to lead Labor to polls

SIMON BENSON
The Daily Telegraph
March 18, 201312:00AM

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Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. Source: AFP

KEVIN Rudd has surged ahead of Julia Gillard as preferred Labor leader, with twice as many voters now convinced he should lead the party to the election.

Labor’s primary vote has plunged to previous record lows, with the government on track to lose up to 20 seats or more.

According to a Nielsen poll to be published today, Labor’s primary vote has dropped back to 31 per cent. On a two-party preferred basis, the Coalition now leads Labor 56 to 44 per cent – which, if reflected at the September 14 election, would deliver Tony Abbott victory.

Mr Abbott has leapt ahead of Ms Gillard as preferred Prime Minister, by 49 to 43 per cent.

Asking voters who they preferred to lead Labor, about double named Mr Rudd, who has improved his margin over Ms Gillard by five points.

The poll is likely to increase leadership tensions this week, as Labor MPs return to Canberra for the last sitting week before the May budget.

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Diggers take shots over super scheme»

AUSTRALIAN ex-servicemen and women have warned the PM they can deliver western Sydney to Tony Abbott if she refuses to make changes.
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Several MPs cited Communications Minister Stephen Conroy’s decision to push ahead this week with his potentially doomed media regulations as a potential trigger for a leadership spill.

A senior Labor campaign official has also revealed that Labor’s prospects in NSW have worsened, claiming internal research suggested it would be lucky to hold on to 10 seats.

“It’s entirely possible that we could lose 15 seats in NSW, it’s that bad,” a source said. Senior NSW Labor MPs said Mr Rudd’s supporters were on a “watching brief” this week, claiming that no plan had been hatched to challenge Ms Gillard. “But anything could happen,” one senior Rudd supporter said.

A senior supporter of Ms Gillard conceded they would not be surprised if tensions spilt over: “The natives are very restless.”

Submarine Methane Raises the Stakes
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Posted on Mar 16, 2013

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By Paul Brown, Climate News Network

This piece first appeared at Climate News Network.

LONDON—Japan has successfully captured natural gas from deep under the ocean by tapping into methane hydrates, using a new technology that could revolutionize the world’s energy supply. It is the first country to succeed in exploiting the gas.

The gas supplies locked into methane hydrates, also known as methane clathrates and “fire ice”, are potentially the largest single source of fossil fuels on the planet and for Japan, a country desperate for its own energy supplies, this could be an economic lifeline.

On the other hand, many would regard almost unlimited supplies of a new fossil fuel as bad news in a world where there is already climate change caused by man’s existing excess carbon emissions.

The announcement of the successful extraction of methane from underneath the sea floor off the Japanese coast came from the country’s Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry (METI). The tests by the state-owned Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) are continuing. It hopes to exploit the technology commercially in a new phase of drilling between 2016 and 2018.

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According to the US Oil & Gas Journal, the test well is in 1,000 metres of water off the Atsumi and Shima peninsulas. The hydrate is a further 270 metres below the sea bed in the Nankai trough.

This is well within economic reach for a pipeline from potential industrial and domestic users in central Japan. The hydrate is basically frozen methane and water, which forms in large lumps under the right temperature and pressure conditions.

The quantity of energy locked away in these formations is enormous. If you melt a one cubic meter block of methane hydrate, about 160 cubic meters of gaseous methane will be released. Potentially, the deposits in the sea around Japan could make a resource-hungry country self-sufficient in energy.

Plenty more where this came from

So far the problem with exploiting the hydrates has been that they become unstable if the pressure or temperature changes. However, it is by reducing the pressure on the deposits in controlled conditions that Japanese technicians have been able to capture the released methane.

According to a Japanese study there are 1.1 trillion cubic metres of methane hydrate around its coasts, equivalent to more than a decade of current Japanese gas consumption. This quantity is dwarfed by the amount in other parts of the world, particularly the Arctic.

The US, Canada and China have all been trying to work out ways of exploiting the potential of hydrates but it is Japan that appears to have come up with a solution.

Environmental groups fear the global warming potential of hydrates. Scientists are already studying the effect of warming oceans and permafrost melting on the large deposits of hydrates on the sea-bed and in the tundra.

Some fear that large releases will worsen the effects of climate change, while other believe the vast majority of deposits will remain stable.

The prospect of drilling into them and possibly releasing methane – a potent greenhouse gas – in an attempt to exploit them for fuel will spark an international debate.

Turnbull reaffirms broadband pledge

DateMarch 17, 2013 – 1:15PM
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Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull says all Australians will have access to faster broadband sooner and cheaper under the coalition.

Mr Turnbull on Sunday warned the federal government’s National Broadband Network (NBN) was being rolled out so slowly it could take 20 years and $100 billion to deliver.

The government had promised to connect 12.25 million homes to the NBN by 2020, he said, but by the end of last year had only hooked up 70,000 premises.

And under the NBN, around seven per cent of Australian homes would be left without fibre connections anyway and would have to live with slower wireless and satellite options.

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As for the details of the coalition’s policy, Mr Turnbull said the final document would present no major surprises.

He said he’d outlined the policy in “eye-glazingly technical detail”, so no one in the telecommunications sector should be left wondering what to expect under a coalition government.

“It will be released sooner rather than later, and there will be plenty of time – many months – before the election for people to consider it and debate it,” he said.

“We will complete the NBN, we will ensure all Australians have very fast broadband and we will do it sooner, cheaper and hence more affordably than the Labor government can.”

© 2013 AAP

Coal train pollution not too bad: Albanese

AAPUpdated March 16, 2013, 4:05 pm

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Federal transport minister Anthony Albanese says dust pollution from coal trains isn’t significantly higher than from passenger trains after opponents of a new coal terminal staged a protest rally in Newcastle.

Hundreds of people from more than 100 community groups people attended Saturday’s Stop T4 parade and rally against the fourth coal terminal proposed by Port Waratah Coal Services.

Coal Terminal Action Group (CTAG) spokeswoman Annika Dean said recent coal dust monitoring in suburbs close to coal trains and stockpiles had found significantly higher levels than national standards.

“NSW Planning Minister Brad Hazzard has so far failed to take responsibility for the unacceptable risks posed by T4 to community and environmental health,” she said in a statement.

“It’s time for the minister to hear our community, and to reject T4.”

Associate Professor Nick Higginbotham, a member of CTAG’s Dust and Health committee, said pollution from T4 would be a significant threat to public health.

“Most affected will be the 32,000 people living alongside the coal corridor from Newcastle Port to Rutherford, the 23,000 children attending Hunter schools within 500m of the coal rail and the 23,000 residents living within two kilometres of T4,” he said

Australian Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon said the federal government was “up to its neck” in funding coal rail lines, giving a “leg-up that coal companies do not deserve”.

“Federal Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese is funding an empire of coal rail lines but closing his ears to the concerns of local residents.”

But a spokesman for Mr Albanese said the level of particulate matter emitted by coal trains was “not statistically significantly different to passenger trains”.

“It is true the federal government has conducted one of the biggest ever upgrades of regional rail,” he said.

But environmental standards were a matter for the NSW government.
“When it comes to the emission of coal dust the Australian Rail Track Corporation will comply with the environmental standards set by the NSW government.”