SPEECH TO PARLIAMENT ON TABLING OF MONSTER CLIMATE PETITION

Mark Butler MP.

Shadow Minister for Environment, 
Climate Change and Water

Date:  03 March 2015

It is a great pleasure to rise in this debate. In my contribution I want to talk a little bit about climate change policy in 2015, given I have portfolio responsibility for the opposition. But, before I get to some general remarks about climate change policy this year, I seek leave to table the remaining pages of a petition which has been considered by the Standing Committee on Petitions and found to be in accordance with the relevant standing orders.

Leave granted.

The petition read as follows—

     To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives

This petition of Australia's daughters and sons, parents, grandparents, godparents, aunts and uncles, draws to the attention of the House the damage to the earth's climate and its oceans from humanity's continuing and increasing carbon emissions and the consequent severe risks to the future health, safety and well-being of our children and our children's children and future generations.

We remind the House that it is the fundamental duty of parliament, including this House, to protect Australia's people, land and seas.

We therefore ask the House to respect the science and build a safe climate future for our children and grandchildren and generations to come by enacting immediate and deep reductions to Australia's carbon emissions. We also ask the House to commit to and actively promote and support global strategies for immediate and deep reductions to global emissions at every designated international forum.

from 23,920 citizens

Petition received.

This is about 21,000 signatures of a total of 72,000 to 73,000 signatures, known as the Monster Climate Petition, which has been coordinated by 12 very significant Australian women. The lead petitioner is Dr Fiona Stanley, a very well-known Australian figure—Australian of the Year a little more than a decade ago and a great public figure in the area of public health and an advocate of the links between health policy and climate change policy.

This petition was inspired by a much earlier petition conducted by women in 1891 who, in Victoria, collected almost 30,000 signatures in five weeks requesting the vote for women. In accordance with that historical inspiration, this petition was done in old-school fashion. It was done on paper by pen. It is not one of those new online petitions that are very easy for people to log on and ramp the numbers up quickly. This was hard work for those petitioners, and they have done an extraordinary job. They delivered the first batch—the final batch being tabled by me today—just before Christmas, in December last year, out the front of Parliament House. The other two-thirds of the petition were tabled by the member for Indi and also the member for Melbourne.

The lead petitioners decided to extend the petition until August 2015 in light of the importance of 2015 in climate change policy and climate change politics and, I think to their mind, also to be able to continue to raise consciousness across the Australian community about the importance of this year in this policy area. This year, 2015, will be a very big year in climate change policy and climate change politics. Whatever your view about this area of policy—a very highly contested area of policy—we know there will be a great deal of activity domestically here in Australia and internationally leading into the Paris conference in December 2015.

We are only several weeks into this year, but the year has already started with a bang. Shortly after New Year's Day, our third largest export partner, South Korea, started an emissions trading scheme very similar in design to the emissions trading scheme that the Labor Party argued for in parliament through the course of last year—the same emissions trading scheme we took to the election in 2013. Already, only several weeks into the emissions trading scheme in South Korea, the permits that big polluters are required to purchase in order to continue to emit carbon dioxide are trading at about the same price that Treasury advised us the Labor Party's emissions trading scheme would trade at. Again, this about the same price that similar permits are being traded in the European Union ETS and about the same price of some of the more mature emissions trading schemes in China, which now has eight schemes. For example, Shenzhen is being traded on their market as well. Again, it shows a very significant momentum around the world for market based mechanisms that blend the idea of a formal legal cap on carbon pollution that then lets business work out the cheapest and most effective way to operate it.

Also this year, contrary to the commentary that comes through in the broadsheets particularly like The Australian newspaper—the world if anything is getting cooler according to Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister's senior business adviser, Maurice Newman—we were advised by that well-known hotbed of left-wing conspiracies, NASA, that 2014 was actually the hottest year in the 135 years in which records have been kept of surface temperatures around the world. And 14 of the 15 hottest years have all been in the last 15 years. Indeed, we have not yet got the global temperature records for February 2015 but it is likely that February 2015 will be the 360th month in a row in which the global average surface temperatures were higher than the 20th-century average thereby putting a lie to the suggestion that everything is okay and that if there was some warming over the course of the 20th century it is all reversed. We know that is not the case at all.

President Obama in his State of the Union Address only a couple of weeks ago reinforced and demonstrated his commitment to make sure that the United States, as the largest economy in the world and one of the two largest polluters of carbon dioxide in the world, will continue to do all that he can as president of that country to achieve an ambitious agreement in Paris in December 2015. He said in his State of the Union Address:

There is no challenge that poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.

We see a very significant building of momentum towards the conference in December in Paris.

The year 2014 was a study in contrast. We saw that sort of momentum building around the world with a very significant agreement between the two largest polluters, the two largest economies in the world, the United States and China. The presidents of both countries indicated commitments that they intended to table many months before the Paris conference of December. The United States has committed to a reduction in carbon pollution in the order of 24 to 26 per cent on 2005 levels by 2025, which the Climate Institute indicated is about the equivalent to a 30 per cent commitment here in Australia. And China committed to peak and then reduce its carbon pollution levels by 2030 at the latest. That comes on the back of other significant commitments made by some of our oldest trading partners, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and many others as well.

The picture in Australia could not have been more different. In this country we have a Prime Minister dedicated to slamming Australia into reverse in this area of policy. Over the course of last year, the cap on carbon pollution that would then let business work out the cheapest and most effective way to operate—the discipline on our carbon pollution levels—was removed from the statute books by this Prime Minister. This Prime Minister also removed our legal target to reduce carbon pollution levels in the relatively short term by 2020 and in the longer term by 2050. There are now no legal commitments to undertake any reduction in carbon pollution levels because of the decisions taken by this Prime Minister.

Perhaps most notably in most shamefully there was an outrageous attack and ambush on the renewable energy sector. In spite the fact that this Prime Minister went to the last two elections promising to keep the existing Renewable Energy Target, which in the large-scale sector was 41,000 gigawatt hours electricity by 2020. In spite of a clear promise to keep that in place, he then launched a shameful ambush on the sector with devastating consequences at the beginning of 2014.

What we have seen is that going from opposition in 2013 when Australia was one of the foremost attractive countries on the face of the earth to invest in renewable energy, up with the powerhouse economies of China, the United States and Germany, we have plummeted to 10th.

Over the course of 2014 renewable energy investment around the world expanded by 16 per cent; in a country like China it expanded by 32 per cent. But in Australia, in the large-scale sector, it plummeted by 88 per cent.

Now, 2015 will be a very interesting year domestically for climate change policy. This Prime Minister—if he lasts over the course of this year—has commissioned, after a deal he did with Clive Palmer and the Palmer United Party, a report from the Climate Change Authority. The report, to be delivered in June, is about what sort of position Australia should take about post-2020 reductions in carbon pollution levels. It will be a very interesting response indeed from this Prime Minister once that report has been delivered. Expert after expert has indicated that the government's policy of so-called 'direct action' is utterly incapable of achieving meaningful reductions in carbon pollution, and if there were to be any significant reductions in carbon pollution they would come at the cost of billions and billions and billions of taxpayers' dollars. I want to congratulate the petitioners of the Monster Climate Petition and to applaud their work.

Senator Penny Wong, TOPICS: BUDGET, GEORGE BRANDIS, GP TAX

SENATOR THE HON PENNY WONG

LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION IN THE SENATE

SHADOW MINISTER FOR TRADE AND INVESTMENT

LABOR SENATOR FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA

TRANSCRIPT

3 March 2015

DOORSTOP – CANBERRA

TOPICS: BUDGET, GEORGE BRANDIS, GP TAX

E&OE - PROOF ONLY

WONG: Can I first discuss what happened in the Senate yesterday. Yesterday this Senate passed judgement on George Brandis. Yesterday this Senate deplored his actions in seeking to get the President of the Human Rights Commission to resign. And yesterday the Senate rejected not only his attacks on the President but also his failure as the nation’s first law officer to defend the independent statutory office of the Human Rights Commission. The Senate found that George Brandis, the nation’s Attorney-General, was unfit to hold office. Well it is now time for Tony Abbott to act. The Senate has passed judgement and I would say to you so have the Australian people. The outpouring of support for Professor Triggs and the criticism of the behaviour of this Attorney-General demands that the Prime Minister should act.
I also want to have a discussion about the GP Tax. There is a lot of discussion in the papers, a lot of conjecture about what is going to happen to the GP Tax, Tony Abbott sending up smoke signals. If the Prime Minister moves away from the GP Tax today everyone in Australia will know what made him. Not the voters, not the doctors, not because he believes in Medicare, but his own job. This is all about saving his own skin, that’s why the Prime Minister is looking at the GP Tax, not because he likes Medicare and not because he has listened to the Australian people. You can’t trust the Liberals when it comes to Medicare.   
JOURNALIST: What do you make of this new replacement floated in the papers this morning, this new replacement for the GP co-payment and this approach of paying GPs a lump sum per patient, is that any better?
WONG: I’ve lost count of how many versions of this GP Tax the Government has floated, has suggested, has announced. But everything comes back to this one proposition. You can’t trust this Liberal Government or any Liberal Government when it comes to Medicare because they simply don’t support it. Any change this Prime Minister makes is all about saving his own skin, not because he has listened to the Australian people.
JOURNALIST: The Parliamentary Budget Office has put out a report saying $112 billion of Budget savings have been held up over the next 10 years by the Senate. Is it time for the Senate to get out of the way?
WONG: I also heard the Finance Minister today on radio reminding everybody how many savings this Senate has passed. Thank you for asking me a question about the Budget because I thought that the contribution from the Business Council of Australia today on the Budget was very important. We welcome the Business Council’s involvement in this debate, we welcome the Business Council’s assertion that there is no Budget crisis and that everyone should get away from the blame game. I think Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey and others should perhaps listen to the Business Council of Australia. I do note that the Business Council also described the leadership turmoil within the Government as “paralysing.” So Australia’s business community is recognising what we all know, that this Government is entirely paralysed and focussed on its internals. That’s why the GP Tax is on the table, that’s why we are seeing what is happening in the party room today, not good government, paralyzed government focussed on themselves.
JOURNALIST: Is it time for Labor to reconsider some of those savings though that could be delivering $112 billion to the economy over ten years?
WONG: If you are asking us to turn away from our fundamental values, we will not. We will not, for example, contemplate a GP Tax. We will not contemplate some of the harsh changes which are in this Budget, the cuts to pensions and so forth. But I will say this, yesterday Bill Shorten and Chris Bowen and Andrew Leigh did put out one of our propositions around multinational tax. You will see Labor putting ideas on the table for discussion, for consideration, because we do agree with the Business Council that what we need is a sensible debate that looks at the medium term position of Australia’s Budget. Instead what we have had from this Government is the political blame game over-riding good government. Thanks.

Smartphones are addictive and should carry health warning, say academics

Extract from The Guardian

University of Derby finds smartphone users in study spent average 3.6 hours a day on devices, often causing severe distraction from relationships and ‘real life’

Using smartphones makes people narcissistic, a university study has found. Photograph: WestEnd61/Rex

Haroon Siddique

Thursday 5 March 2015 04.40 AEDT Last modified on Thursday 5 March 2015 04.49 AEDT

Smartphones are psychologically addictive, encourage narcissistic tendencies and should come with a health warning, researchers have said.
A study by the University of Derby and published in the International Journal of Cyber Behaviour, Psychology and Learning found that 13% of participants in the study were addicted, with the average user spending 3.6 hours per day on their device.
The majority of participants said their smartphone use caused distraction from many aspects of their lives, including employment, hobbies and studies.

Co-author Dr Zaheer Hussain, from the University of Derby’s psychology department, said he was not suggesting the harmful effects were on a par with cigarettes or alcohol but that nevertheless the devices should carry a health warning.
“People need to know the potential addictive properties of new technologies,” he said. “It [the warning] could be before they purchase them or before they download an app. If you’re downloading a game such as Candy Crush or Flappy Bird there could be a warning saying that you could end up playing this for hours and you have other responsibilities [that could be neglected].”
The study examined the responses of a self-selected sample of 256 smartphone users who were asked about how they used their device as well as questions intended to establish their personality traits.
Social networking sites were the most popularly used apps (87%), followed by instant messaging apps (52%) and then news apps (51%).
Narcissism and neuroticism were linked to addiction and the authors suggest that smartphones can actually create the former in users. They point to the fact that 35% of people said they used their devices in areas or situations when they were banned (eg while driving), with many offering the justification that they knew better than the authorities who created the rules.
“Narcissism is a negative personality trait and if a person is spending a lot of time on Facebook or Twitter they’re more likely to display these types of traits,” said Hussain.
While 47% of people spoke positively of improved social relations, almost a quarter admitted their smartphones create communication issues in “real life”. These included less conversation and a breakdown in communication because of spending too much time on their device in the company of family and friends. Severe distraction from interpersonal relationships leading to a negative impact in familial communications was specified by 60 participants.
Hussain said that he is not anti-smartphones – he has one himself, which he uses mainly in the morning while having breakfast and in the evenings – but that addiction to them is negative.
The study says: “If adverse effects of smartphones are well advertised, users might realise that despite using the device for improving communications, it can easily lead to narcissistic actions which can potentially breakdown familial relationships.”
Hussain said he intends to carry out more research on the subject in future, with a more diverse sample of people. 

Doorstop: Canberra – Labor calls for national crisis summit on family violence; Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukamaran

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP
CANBERRA
WEDNESDAY, 4 MARCH 2015

SUBJECT/S: Labor calls for national crisis summit on family violence; Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukamaran; Tony Abbott’s plan for $100,000 degrees; Tony Abbott’s university tax; GP Tax chaos; National security.

BILL SHORTEN, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Today the Labor Party is saying for too long, the issue of family violence hasn’t been at the centre of national political debate. One in three women over the age of 15 will face physical violence. 17 in every 100 Australian women will face violence from a current or previous partner. Yet only 20 per cent all those women who face family violence from a partner, will actually report it to the police. It is a national disgrace.

Now there is a lot of momentum building in terms of making family violence a national issue. The work in Queensland, the report released in the last few days ‘Not Now, Not Ever’; the Royal Commission being pioneered by Premier Daniel Andrews, there is good work being done at all levels of government.

But the very fact that in recent days we see the distressing reports of women being killed by angry men shows that we need to do more. Canberra and the national Parliament should be where the national issues of politics are debated and leadership is given. To that end, after consulting widely with respected campaigners, with survivors, with police, with the experts and with the researchers, I have written to Prime Minister Tony Abbott and asked him to convene a National Crisis Summit.

If the Prime Minister feels that what’s currently underway is adequate, what I promise the Australian people is that within 100 days of being elected that we will convene this National Crisis Summit.

What we need to hear in the same room is prime ministers and opposition leaders, premiers, police, authorities and child protection experts, Family Court judges, women’s refuges, legal services, most importantly the voices of survivors in the same room at the same time. There is momentum building, what we now need to do is get on with the job.

In the meantime, Labor will indicate as a down payment, showing our commitment to do our bit, that we would seek to implement almost another $50 million to go to the front line of legal services. No woman should go through the legal system without support, no woman who has already experienced family violence should be re-traumatised by the postcode lottery which depends if the magistrate or the judge is attuned to the issues or is not, affecting what happens. The risk of confrontation with the angry ex-partner on the court steps, the isolating and impoverishing experience of having to change jobs, of having to move house away from family and friends, making sure that the children are safe.

We also believe that it is appropriate to put $15 million into national ‘Safe at Home’ programs. It is not right that when family violence occurs, the perpetrator stays in the house, and the victim has to move. We also believe there should be $8 million for perpetrator mapping, that’s making sure that people don’t fall between the cracks or the silos of different agencies and organisations. We’ll be speaking about family violence today at the National Press Club, this is an opportunity for the Government and the Opposition to reach out on behalf of survivors, on behalf of hundreds of thousands of women and their children and say we can do better.

One other thing I should just briefly say before I go to questions. We hear reports in the last few hours, that it is a matter of hours before the Bali two might be taken from their current prison to their next destination. We should not give up, Labor deplores the death penalty, we don’t believe it achieves justice, we know that the Indonesian people are generous and we appeal to that generosity. We do not believe that anything is solved by executing these two young men who by all accounts have more than rehabilitated themselves. We don’t ask that these men be forgiven or freed, but we do ask that they don’t be executed. There is no doubt that there is a contest under way between the rule of power and the rule of law and we mustn’t give up our faith in the rule of law. Any questions?

JOURNALIST: Do you believe that the Government has done enough to try and save these men?

SHORTEN: On days like today there can be no daylight between the Government and the Opposition and there is none. I do believe that DFAT, our ambassadors, all the behind the scenes pressure that can be placed and lobbying is, has been done and is being done and indeed the people of Indonesia should be aware that Australia is united in seeking clemency for these two men.

JOURNALIST: Should Tony Abbott or Julie Bishop have travelled to Indonesia to make pleas in person?

SHORTEN: I am not going to second guess today when there may be a matter of hours before these two men are transported to their next prison, some sort of petty argument between the Government and the Opposition. Again I say, I believe the Government and the people working in it, a lot of people who don’t see the front of the cameras, are working incredibly hard and my thoughts are with them and with the families and the lawyers of these two young men and most importantly these two young men. But they should know that Australia wants to see them saved, everyone.

JOURNALIST: Mr Shorten what would this National Crisis Summit achieve and how will it be different from the COAG process? Why can’t this just be done through that process including the AFP, police commissioners as you mentioned?

SHORTEN: Well COAG is a good step forward, I’m not in the business of throwing rocks at people doing good steps, but it is clear to me, it is clear to survivors, it’s clear to people who work, that if we’re to have the leaders in the same room, we need the survivors in the same room, we need the legal services in the same room, we need to hear the uncomfortable truths.

Family violence is a disempowering event, it takes away from a woman’s control over her own life. It challenges in many cases her very identity as a parent, her ability to protect their children. It is important that as we reach out for solutions we don’t exclude survivors and the very people who’ve been through the process from decision making about their future. It is important that we do this on an annual basis, that we make sure that we have performance and measures that we are actually keeping the word that we, that the promises we made.

JOURNALIST: With the $50 million that you’ve just announced, will some of that money go into welfare, I know you’ve mentioned now and in the past about women if they are victims of family violence who find it difficult to go to work, they have to change jobs, will there be special provisions in there for these women?

SHORTEN: The first step is that we make sure that a woman confronting the legal system is not on her own. I know many individual stories – you go up the steps of a court. If a magistrate is trained in family violence, it is a better process but it is possible we need more judicial training. You get courts who aren’t familiar with the issues. You can imagine, and you don’t have to imagine because it happens, that you’re in a corridor of a court built 30 or 40 years ago, you are trying to mind your kids from running around the place, you’ve got the stress and trauma of dealing with strangers, you’ve had to tell your story to police and other people, it is highly embarrassing and humiliating, you confront the person who has been your abuser.

This is not straight forward. The survivors make it clear, they have to change jobs if the abuser knows where they work. When you move from your own community and relocate in cities, you leave all that informal network of support for you and your children. It makes people poor. You have to leave your own house. So that is why we need support in the first instance in the legal system. Now that doesn’t mean that’s all legal support…

JOURNALIST: Like welfare assistance?

SHORTEN: That’s right, but that court process really is a postcode lottery. Sometimes you get the professional support which you are getting at, but other times and even as we speak today, there will be women making impossible decisions- ‘Do I stay or do I go?’, ‘can I afford to go?’, ‘what will happen to my job?’, ‘what will happen to my kids and their schools?’, ‘if I move to a different town, who’s going to help?’.

JOURNALIST: In regards to university reform, there are reports the Government is considering penalising universities who increase their fees above a certain level, what do you make of that kind of safe guard?

SHORTEN: Well there they go again. The Abbott Government, the Liberal Government, they are repeat offenders. The very fact they are proposing an $11,000 penalties for universities who set $100,000 degrees confirms they think that there will be $100,000 degrees. You wouldn’t need a penalty system of $11,000 if you didn’t think universities were going to charge $100,000. This Government is making policy on the run. It doesn’t matter if it has stated 53 times that it wants a GP Tax, then it drops it for a couple of days to save Tony Abbott’s job.

On higher education, they have had plenty of make-overs – this Government’s Budget was made up at the time of the last Budget, it was a bunch of broken promises – in higher education they are seeking to introduce $100,000 degrees, they want to deregulate and increase the price of going to university so fewer students go to uni. They should go back to the start and sit down with everyone to work through something better for higher education rather than their current rotten broken promises.

JOURNALIST: On the Medicare co-payment, we’ve heard from Brian Owler saying he wants to see an alternative in the next six months and that we can’t wait until the next election for this. In that light, when are we going to see Labor’s policy on healthcare?

SHORTEN: We work with the AMA. I found it incredible yesterday to have a Prime Minister of Australia say that he is going to sit down and talk to people. Well what has he been doing for the last 18 months? Every day it is like ‘show and tell’ time in Parliament, where the Prime Minister reluctantly discovers something new to tell the Australia about. So when he says ‘Oh well, it’s gone. Forget about that’. He has wasted 18 months of the nation’s time that we will never get back. So I am very sceptical that these people learn anything and indeed, to that end, I have a quote here from the current Health Minister, Sussan Ley, so you’re going to the question of health policy into the future. Sussan Ley said yesterday, she stood behind the policy intent of the GP Tax: “The policy intent was and remains a good one.” She went even further and said that: “there are a lot of people who attend the doctor, who pay nothing and can afford to pay a bit more and that’s where we have to land in this discussion.” These people just don’t get it.

They want to have a GP Tax – what has changed is their tactics not there mind.

Tony Abbott and his team just want to make sure they get breathing space in their job and that is the only thing they are about saving, not Medicare.

In terms of our own policies, we will work them through with doctors, with nurses, with clinicians, with patients and with consumers. This Government cannot help themselves. No one believes that if they had the numbers, or they weren’t confront by a tough Labor, they would rush through a GP Tax tomorrow.

JOURNALIST: Just on metadata, I know there are strong reservations within some sections of the Labor party about passing this legislation. I know you are waiting to see the amendments but are you likely to pass this? Or are you going to make further amendments or are you wanting to see the money for the Ombudsman in the Budget for example (inaudible)?

SHORTEN: Metadata is a very important issue. It is the third tranche of legislation on national security that the Government has put forward. Towards the end year, Malcolm Turnbull tabled what we thought was rushed and pretty patchy legislation. We had to have an argument behind the scenes, an arm-wrestle with the Government to say ‘just slow down. This is pretty important stuff, people’s private information. Let’s get it right, the balance with National Security’. We argued successfully with the Government that we needed to have a Parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security to review it. That’s the job that Parliament should do – Check the legislation and look for the unintended consequences. Over a period of months, and hundreds of submissions, the Government has exceeded to a range of requests that we have put for to make the legislation better. We are yet to see the Legislation and I know the Government is working on it to be fair, the amendments that is.

We would also like to see what the Government’s view is on all of the recommendations. There are a couple of issues which do require more work and I think any fair minded person would recognise it. One, and not the least of which would be interest to you is press freedom. We want to make sure that the press are able to do their jobs and they’re able to maintain the confidentiality of their sources, this is an important issue and I don’t think the matter is resolved and there is not agreement quite where that lands. I think the question is –

JOURNALIST: But that’s outside the committee process isn’t it?

SHORTEN: No, no that’ll go to, there’s a debate about whether or not that should be a recommendation and there’s a debate about how that’s affected so that’s an issue. Also we’re keen to make sure that Senator John Faulkner lately of this place proposed having some greater power for the Parliamentary Committee like happens in other jurisdictions around the world on national security for oversight. We think that’s very important. There’s also been some issues raised about where the data is stored in the cloud. Is it stored onshore, it is stored offshore? None of these issues are issue which are too hard to work out, but they’re not issues which can be sorted out by, you know, a statement or a press release in a matter of minutes. But I would submit our record. We’ve stood up on all the matters that I think are important to Australian’s and we’ve managed to work with the Government and navigate them to a better place and we’ll keep doing that work. Last question.

JOURNALIST: Are you still concerned that sending more troops into Iraq is a case of mission creep, considering you’ve had a number of former and current members of the Defence Force back the move?

SHORTEN: Labor supports this move. We set our principles for our intervention in Iraq: Does the Iraqi Government want us there? Is the Iraqi Government doing the other things about making Iraq a more democratic society working? We want to make sure that our troops aren’t asked to do all the frontline fighting, but rather just in a training capacity, and that’s what where doing. So this latest training provision seems to falls within the guidelines that Labor’s set.

And I would also just say I think our training forces over there now, I had the privilege to see them in Baghdad, are professional, they’re skilled, it’s a high risk environment and I say to them you’re doing a great job, and I also say to their families back in Australia in this Parliament we’re very conscious that while the people you love are serving Australia, we’re very conscious of your needs and wellbeing in Australia. Thank you everyone.


ENDS

Under the sun: Australia's largest solar farm set to sprout in a Queensland field

Extract from The Guardian

A sea of glass panels may soon be sprawling across a paddock in Queensland’s Darling Downs cranking out two gigawatts of energy – 100 times more than the largest solar farm in Australia today – and a former top flight barrister is the unusual shining light behind its development.

A 20MW solar farm constructed on land in California’s central valley – the Bulli Creek solar farm would be 100 times as large as this installation. Photograph: Proehl Studios/Corbis

Joshua Robertson

Monday 2 March 2015 10.14 AEDT Last modified on Monday 2 March 2015 12.24 AEDT

As a barrister acting in some Australia’s biggest defamation cases, Angus Gemmell encountered power in various forms: political, military, celebrity.
He killed off rumours bedevilling rising political stars in Canberra. He acted for defence intelligence chief Frank Lewincamp against the Bulletin over stories on Indonesia and the East Timor crisis, in a case where generals Peter Cosgrove and Angus Houston gave evidence. He won the largest damages ever awarded by a judge, $385,000, for rugby league player Mark McGaw over false Today Tonight stories of domestic violence.

A map of the proposed Bulli Creek solar farm.

But after seven years as a barrister, Gemmell decided to leave the intellectual challenges of “other people’s problems” behind, hang up his wig and gown, and devote himself to power in a purer form.
Gemmell set up Solar Choice – a solar project broker and consumer comparison service – while still in his legal chambers and he is now the proponent of what stands to become the largest solar farm in the country, perhaps the world.

Angus Gemmell Photograph: Supplied

A sea of glass panels, to be located at Bulli Creek on Queensland’s Darling Downs, could be capable of cranking out two gigawatts of power within eight years. That is equivalent to one fifth of the current total renewable energy target for the entire country in a single power station. It is also more power than any coal fired station in Queensland can currently muster.
“Excellent sunlight hours” are just one reason why Bulli Creek is ideal for a large-scale solar farm, Gemmell says.
It is also grazing land – meaning no prime cropping land need be sacrificed – and is flat, treeless and has no neighbours.
Crucially, Bulli Creek is close to a major transmission node in the national electricity grid, a 330 kilovolt substation, perfectly located to send power around the country.
“There’s a surprisingly small number of sites (in Australia) that have everything all aligning at once,” Gemmell says.
Factors seem to be likewise aligning in solar power’s favour more broadly, although a few things still need to fall into place for the likes of Gemmell.
Investment banks are leaning away from coal fired stations towards large scale renewables, he says, while the electric car market is driving rapid innovations in battery storage that are an automatic fillip to the solar energy industry.
Those advances are essential in helping the solar industry “nullify the argument principally raised against renewables as being intermittent, and deliver smooth power throughout the day and night,” Gemmell says.
Battery storage is what Bulli Creek will also need to reach full capacity and most effectively integrate with the nearby substation.

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The FRV Royalla solar farm near Canberra is currently Australia’s largest at 20MW. This farm is expected to generate an average 37,000 MWh of renewable energy each year and will meet the needs of 4,500 Canberra households. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

A report this week by a German think tank Agora Energiewende predicted solar would be the cheapest form of energy in a decade.

Gemmell, citing deals for 260MW projects in Dubai and power purchase agreements at US 5.84c a kilowatt hour, agrees. “It’s now foreseeable that solar will in the next decade be able to outcompete a very old, fully depreciated coal-fired generator that chugs along at 3 or 4 cents a kWh.”
“Obviously once a project’s been constructed, the cost of fuel is free, it’s sunlight, and Australia is wonderfully geared to some visionary projects to harness those benefits of cheaper, bountiful, reliable sources of power,” Gemmell says.
“We’ve got abundant space, modern infrastructure across the longest continuous grid on the planet, from Cape York to Tassie, and amongst all that space is plenty of sunshine.”
Big energy players like AGL, who are still buying coal-fired power stations, are nevertheless also moving into solar farms and other renewables, which Gemmell says will inevitably quicken.
“I think eventually they’ll realise you can’t hold back the forces of economics forever and, even though we’re perhaps more so than any other country on the planet heavily wedded to coal, the economics of large scale solar is on the right side of history,” he says.
“It’s not a matter of if these projects will be built but when.”
In large-scale solar’s infancy, however, market signals from government matter, even more so in their absence.

A computer generated image of the proposed solar farm.

Investors have reviewed the Bulli Creek project but Gemmell says the commitment to bring in “the big funds” still awaits clarity from the Abbott government on the status of Australia’s renewable energy target (RET), which has been under review for a year.
The RET is also a key driver of what kind of power purchase agreement Bulli Creek can secure from a big Queensland electricity retailer like Energex or Origin.
“Hopefully we won’t be the first country in the world to diminish our renewable energy target. Most countries are increasing theirs,” Gemmell says.
“We would prefer as an industry no deal rather than a bad deal.
“But if there’s a reasonable compromise at least we know where the goalposts are to kick the ball. At the moment we’ve got the ball ready on the mark to kick it, we’ve just been waiting for some time now to know where the goal posts are going to be.”
In the meantime, Solar Choice will spend the next six to nine months working with the wholesale network owner Powerlink on the right way to connect the solar farm to the grid.
After that, the contract with the energy retailer is the final milestone before construction, due to begin next year.
The solar farm gained formal planning approval from Toowoomba regional council last month in what Gemmell said was “a wonderful tangible milestone for the project”.
Asked if the urgency of responding to climate change meant that, as one commentator has suggested, someone has to get rich, Gemmell responds: “No one’s suggesting that we need to take a communist approach to this.”
“It’s a free market and those who are able to be the first to innovate and embrace the change and to move with it should do well and they shouldn’t be punished for doing so,” he says.
“Obviously there’s a great amount of opportunity out there but it does take a fair bit of boldness as well to be able to participate in this paradigm shift.”

Government gives $1 million to help cyclone-hit communities

Premier and Minister for the Arts

The Honourable Annastacia Palaszczuk

Media Release

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says $1 million state government contribution will be shared among four charities delivering post-cyclone support and services.

“This contribution of $1 million is the quickest, most direct, and most effective way the government can support people in cyclone-ravaged communities as they rebuild their lives,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“The funds will be split equally among the Australian Red Cross Society, The Salvation Army, St Vincent de Paul Society of Queensland, and UnitingCare Community.

“I urge Queenslanders to also support cyclone-hit communities by also donating funds to these charities who are right now in the field helping people in the reconstruction and recovery phase of the cyclone response.”

Ms Palaszczuk said anyone wanting to donate to help their fellow Queenslanders should ring the following numbers or visit the following websites:

·         Australian Red Cross Society —1800 811 700 www.redcross.org.au (external site) ( http://www.redcross.org.au/ )

·         The Salvation Army — 13 SALVOS (13 72 58) salvos.org.au/cyclonemarcia (external site) ( http://salvos.org.au/cyclonemarcia )

·         St Vincent de Paul Society of Queensland — 13 1812 vinnies.org.au/cycloneappeal (external site) ( http://vinnies.org.au/cycloneappeal )

·         UnitingCare Community — 3250 1900 www.uccommunity.org.au (external site) ( http://www.uccommunity.org.au/ )

“Giving cash to these respected charities that are very experienced in responding to community needs in the wake of a disaster is the best thing Queenslanders can do, and I am asking them to dig deep,” she said.

“The four major charities have staff and volunteers who are trained to respond to the needs of communities hit by natural disasters and can provide food, equipment, shelter, and other support.

“The Salvos are operating welfare centres and have also launched the ‘Fill a Fridge’ appeal to buy food for affected households.

“Red Cross staff are helping those affected cope with the psychological trauma they have experienced and Red Cross-trained teams of staff and volunteers are providing support to those who most need it, especially the vulnerable groups in our community.

“Vinnies has support centres in Rockhampton, Emu Park, Yeppoon, and Biloela and are helping people in severe financial hardship while UnitingCare is providing psychological first aid on the ground in disaster affected areas and currently has 40 counsellors in affected areas.”

“Anyone who has seen the scale of damage in the communities hit by Cyclone Marcia knows how much work there is to do not just to repair physical damage but to help people put their lives back together.

“Donors can be assured that these organisations will be on the ground doing all they can to help their fellow Queenslanders,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

Letters to Editor May 4 1895

*THE WORKER*

BRISBANE, MAY 4, 1895.

Mail Bag.

WANTED – (to prepare way for Socialism in out Time):

One Adult One Vote.

Land Tax.

Income Tax.

State Bank.

Shops and Factories Act.

Eight hours day where practicable.

Referendum and Initiative.

Taxation of every person according to ability to pay.

The State to find work for unemployed.

The State to fix a minimum wage.

Free railways. Free administration of Justice.

The WORKER does not hold itself responsible for the opinions of its correspondents.

____________

ANDREW GEO. HOEY – Received yours of the 3^rd or 4^th April, but could make neither head nor tail of it. What have we done to merit your displeasure?

Bill S – Hardly of sufficient interest to our readers considering that most of them never saw the paper referred to.

E.Y. I. - Held over.

CLARE – Next week.

J. H. LUNDAGER, Mount Morgan – Timothy battle will be about Cunnamulla for the next five or six weeks. Write to him, care Post Office, Cunnamulla.

TRUTHFUL DICK – Thank you.

H. B. - The censor thinks there is much in you, and requests that if you can write more of the same quality you will send it along.

____________

ED. WORKER – I beg to say that the shearers of Charlotte Plains have taken up the case of one Joe Short, a shearer, who met with an accident from a horse and is now in a critical state, having a wife and two children depending on him. Kindly let this be known through your columns, as the amount subscribed here will be forwarded to your office. - J. S. Charlotte Plains shed.

ED. WORKER – I left Warwick on Friday, 12^th April humping bluey, and made two days to Stanthorpe. I met between 30 and 40 travellers, all foot-men, and as I spoke to them I found out they were sent by train from Sydney, getting a free pass and a little rations to Tenterfield. The poor fellows were actually lost, some without swag or even billy, and some barefoot. - ALPHA.

ED. WORKER – In your issue of the 13^th April you wish to hear of the wages earned by contract cane-cutters. As I was in Mackay last year I am able to give you some facts. There were men cane-cutting at Albana who made for five week's work 33s. after paying for their tucker. Another party at Tekowrey averaged about 9s. per week clear; and the best that I heard of was 27s. per week. This wage was made at Homebush – JOHN PARSONS, Muttaburra.

ED. WORKER – Premier Nelson asked the Longreach deputation: “Where were their wives?” The average bushman has no wife, and no hopes of ever having one, living being too uncertain out here when a man has to battle three parts of the year looking for good fish holes to keep body and soul together, or beating up into the trade winds when a few early sheds start. He finds a wife too embarrassing to have on the track, leading a water bag along. No! the average bushman is too frightened to marry. He knows what it means-more misery, more knuckling down to the Fat Man. When Nelson can show us how to earn enough to eat and drink and clothes to wear; when he scours our country clean of leprosy and quadrooms and octoroon’s, then let him ring his marriage bells and ask about our wives. We'll be there all right – JAMES O. HAMILTON, Surat.

ED. WORKER – In your issue of April 13^th in “Smoke-ho” column you dispensed a very obnoxious pill – obnoxious, bear in mind, to a large section of your readers: “Liberty of thinking and expressing our thoughts is always fatal to priestly power and to those pious frauds on which it is commonly founded. - HUME, celebrated English historian and philosophical writer.” Can you not quote a better authority than one who was the inveterate and malignant enemy of the Catholic religion, actuated by the inflammatory spirit of the so-called reformation period. Prior to the reformation, those grand monuments of this enlightened age-workhouses, with degraded inmates or paupers – did not exist in England under priestly power, the poor being provided for in hospitable freedom. In Ireland, through ages of dark persecution the (Soggarth Aroon) priest, in the dark glens and lonely valleys, has helped to inspire the people with freedom's hope and liberty's golden dream. Priests are opposed to the expression of thoughts-the material that drives men and women to suicide and brothels. - BEN NOONAN, Childers, Isis Scrub.

ED. WORKER – I read in last Saturday's Courier that at the Brisbane Literary Circle on “Problems of Poverty” the Rev. Osborne Lilley referred to his experience in the East End of London as tending “to convince him that the poor are much happier than is generally supposed. The world, he contended, was a very good world.” Anyone that knows the reverend gentleman would draw the inference from his pompous bearing, &c., that he would never lower his dignity and so bemean himself by visiting the East End of London. But be that as it may, his statement is contradictory to the one the Rev. A. C. Hoggins made in the Trades Hall the other night about the poor of London, viz, that their poverty was of such a horrible nature that if he described it to us we would not believe him. It appears to me that one of these rev. gentlemen is telling a falsehood about the wretchedness and misery of the slums of London, and I am willing to bet my bottom dollar it is not the last-named gentleman. Mr. Lilley contends that “ the world is a very good world.” No doubt it is for him. But what about the poor wage slaves and sweated ones in foul dens. - TASMAN.

ED. WORKER – A reward very justly deserved by the champion sweater of this district has fallen on his own shoulders. It is well known fact that working at a boiling downs is not by far the cleanest or easiest job offering now-a-day. This man was employed as a butcher when the boiling downs commenced operations. He was an importation to our midst, and was not by any means the most competent butcher there. Still, some underhand proceedings were resorted to, and the manager left. Blank brought influence to bear and got the position of manger at a less salary than his predecessor. It is said this man attended a meeting of the directors some couple of months ago and said that times were not so good as before; there was plenty of labour offering, and he could get men to work for 6s. 6d. per day, a reduction of 6d. per day on the rate then paid. The directors replied he was manager informed the men soon after, and as no other work was available they were obliged to accept the reduction. At a subsequent meeting Blank was present, and one of the directors said that as he (Blank) got the men to accept a power remuneration than that formerly paid they came to the conclusion the manger could like wise stand a reduction. They would, in future, allow him a wage of £4 per week when the works were occupied, and half the amount when hung up. Blank, previous to his acting the kanaka-driver, was in receipt of £4 10s. per week, whether the works were occupied or otherwise; consequently, when the works are going, he gets 10s. per week less, and when not in operation 50s. per week less than when he was the instrument through whom the working men were deprived of a portion of the daily wage hitherto paid them. SAMSON.