The (now) notorius PUP Inquiry in the Queensland Senate.

The Palmer United Party in Queensland has been useful in this arena, guess that makes Clive a good guy in this one instance.  He must divest from Coal to ever be truly on the money with trying to amend the mess in Queensland.

According to the Australian financial news publication the Financial Review, a former coal-mining tycoon was alleged to have been granted approval to amend his environmental authority for maintenance dredging near the Great Barrier Reef.   This was subsequently approved to him one (1) week after it was said he donated a whopping $150,000 to the Queensland arm of the Liberal National Party.

In another statement it was divulged that this very same mining tycoon denied any link to special treatment because of that whopping donation.  So who is he actually trying to kid.  Does he think that the public actually believe these lies from the top.

People can see for themselves and have experienced first hand the slimy tactics of the Newman government and therefore would not be fooled by this.

I think the majority of Queensland people who vote in any of the state elections would see this in a completely different light altogether.  These blatant corrupt self serving individuals are in it for the money, not for making friends.  Do you think they care who or what they destroy to get their drug. (money)

The heart breaking stories I have read over the past few years leave no other summation for me or for others.  There are many who would like to see this senate inquiry move and morph into an ICAC type body that New South Wales has in place.

Images @ Eminpee Fotography

Coral faces off to Coal

Image:Queensland Government Logo.svg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: A variety of corals form an outcrop on Flynn Reef, part of the Great Barrier Reef near Cairns, Queensland, Australia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 Australia's Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Queensland is in crisis and in need of protection from politicians.

The corrupt Queensland government have given the green light to five mega coal ports along the coast. 

A 10-year port strategy, which will involve the seabed being dredged to create shipping lanes, and the dumping of waste in the reef's waters, is part of a plan to treble Australian coal exports by 2030, with much of the raw material coming from Queensland's massive coal fields.  EDX

Unesco are already at a loss to understand the federal government's decision to allow three million tons of dredge spoil to be dumped onto the reef whilst the construction of the coal  terminals at Abbot Point, near Bowen.

UNESCO -  United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

The Ocean needs help!

Images @ Eminpee Fotography

Greg Hunt, Hunting down Queensland - 125 projects approved in the first 100 days of office.

125 projects have been given the green light as the Abbott government demolishes objections from the Greens and moves to reverse a predicted fall in mining investment that could drag down the economy for two years.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt has taken decisions on 125 projects in the Coalition's first three months in office, including approving 29 major projects, which the government estimates are worth $400bn. The decisions - the latest of which was Clive Palmer's giant Waratah Coal/China First coalmine and railway line to the Abbot Point coal port - could spark a new wave of development.

Mr Hunt also has approved the $1.4bn Abbot Point coal terminal expansion, which paves the way for the creation of the world's biggest coal export port.

But the approvals - particularly coalmine approvals in the Galilee Basin and the expansion of the Abbot Point coal port - have sparked allegations of "development at any cost" from the Greens and environment groups.

Queensland Greens senator Larissa Waters has described the approval as a "terrible Christmas present for the planet" and has raised concerns about its impact on underground water aquifers as well as its impact on combating climate change.

The Abbot Point expansion has been attacked as "criminal" by environmental groups that are calling for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to use its powers to protect the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef.

Mr Hunt said the government was sticking to high environmental standards.

He also has fast-tracked another 46 projects to avoid delays, after inheriting 371 unassessed projects from the previous Labor government, with 22 dating back to 2008. "We have made real steps in unblocking the pipeline while also putting in place some of the strictest environmental conditions in Australian history," Mr Hunt told The Australian.

"It's possible to have high environmental standards and genuine decision-making. The previous government was unable to say yes and unable to say no."

Mr Hunt also has determined that a further 30 projects require no further assessment and 16 require no further assessment as long as certain requirements are met. Another 50 projects have been "assessed and progressed" under the water trigger.

Any short-term boost to mining investment would provide a much-needed buffer to the economy and give more time to the non-mining sectors on the east coast to fill the growth gap.

The decision was delayed by Labor in August until after the federal election and has proved controversial with environmentalists because the expansion will require dredging, with mud to be dumped in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

Releasing the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook earlier this month, Joe Hockey said it was crucial the government "do everything we can to facilitate new mining investments such as the Roy Hill iron ore project in the Pilbara and gas projects across the country".

The Treasurer said this was to compensate for the fact that mining investment could detract up to 2 per cent from economic growth between 2014 and 2016.

On winning office, Tony Abbott declared Australia was "open for business". The Coalition had campaigned on reducing approval times for major projects and speeding up assessments under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act by eliminating duplication between state and federal governments.

The approvals come as the Abbott government has turned its sights on encouraging BHP Billiton to take up its shelved Olympic Dam expansion as it seeks to find alternative economic opportunities for South Australia in the wake of Holden's decision to stop making cars in Australia from 2017.

Federal ministers have held talks with BHP about ways to assist in the expansion of the South Australian uranium and copper project, including research and development aid, approval processes and political stability in decision-making.

Coalition ministers have been assuring the mining giant there is a political will to provide help on "one-stop" environmental approval procedures, the potential use of clean-technology development funds for research and development and certainty on the carbon and mining taxes.

At his first Council of Australian Governments meeting this month, the Prime Minister secured agreements with all states and territories to give them responsibility for environmental approvals.

NSW and Queensland had already signed "assessment bilaterals" at the previous COAG meeting, while Labor-led Tasmania, South Australia and the ACT signed memorandums of understanding with the commonwealth, along with Coalition-led Western Australia, Victoria and the Northern Territory

The Business Council of Australia has been pushing for a single environmental approvals process as a way to reduce costs to business and avoid delays.

Mr Hunt said all the decisions were "legacies" from the previous government. "Each had been given preliminary approval but then stalled," he said.

"In the final months of the previous government, decision-making ground to a halt as they were more focused on themselves than on the country."

The 29 projects approved include Arrow Energy's Surat coal-seam gas projects west of Brisbane and Arrow's Curtis Island liquefied natural gas facility and associated pipeline north of Gladstone worth $15bn.

Also on the list is GVK Hancock's Kevin's Corner coalmine in the Galilee Basin in Queensland, the 7500-dwelling Huntlee residential development in North Rothbury, NSW, and the Nambucca Heads to Waterfall Way Pacific Highway upgrade in NSW.

Mr Hunt has also approved Esso's Scarborough floating LNG facility for Western Australia.
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Gasland Part 2 2013 Dead Fish and a Court date.

This is a follow on to Gasland (Part One)

This is part two of one of the most horrendous films I have ever watched that was not a horror film, but a documentary concerning  Csg (Coal Seam Gas) and the Hydraulic Fracturing of the planet for unconventional gas and mining for oil.  British Petroleum is a monster that needs to be destroyed now!USA promotes the use of SHALE GAS.   It is controversial.  They say the water doesn't light up, they want you to think we are the lunatics in this equation.  If not for Josh Fox from Pennsylvania.   Thousands of gas wells in the Delaware basin woke him up and in turn started waking the entire world up.   The back yard is the backyard no matter how you see this.  My back yard is the rest of the planet.

One of AJ Lucas's 77 drilling rigs at Glenugie PEL 426

The Gulf of Mexico with oil everywhere will be devastated for decades to come and this will cause our oceans to go into a stress attack because the Gulf is a big issue.  The Earthquake at Fukishima and the Great Barrier Reef dredging is all combining to cause us the biggest hell we will face in this lifetime and the lifetime of your children.

Images @ Eminpee Fotography

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THE GREAT BARRIER REEF - BURKES WILL!

Abbott Point has to be stopped:

 Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein

The maddness of this is so evident but the people cannot stop them. How do we stop them. Where is Prince Charles?  He loved the reef so much and is a greenie.  Get Prince on the job!

Seagrass offsets labelled a ‘sick joke’

By John Mikkelsen

Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke  has come under attack from environmental groups including the Gladstone Conservation Council  over his recent proposal for miners to provide environmental offsets for seagrass beds.
Mr Burke announced the proposal at the Coast to Coast conference in Brisbane last week, when he suggested mining companies could offset damage they do to seagrass, the main diet of dugong and turtles.
He said miners could offset the damage to seagrass, similar to how environmental offsets are managed on land.

But environmentalists were quick to point out inadequacies in how offsets for the loss of seagrass in Gladstone Harbour  had been handled, with one labeling it “a sick joke”.
Gladstone Conservation Council Inc expressed alarm at  “some serious inconsistencies” in the Minister’s address.
Spokesman Jan Arens said it was not clear how offsets arrangements could provide a no-net-loss outcome to the environment.
“No amount of money spent on monitoring or research compensates for physical seagrass lost.
“There are no successful case histories on land or at sea where offsets have provided a real net benefit to the environment,” he said.
“The Minister draws our attention to the important role of seagrass beds in carbon sequestration and expresses concern about the global loss of seagrass, but fails to acknowledge his contribution when he approved the Western Basin Dredging project”.

Mr Arens said 443 hectares of “the most contiguous seagrass” was lost from within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA). This seagrass was also within a declared Dugong Protection Area.
The Balaclava Island offset consisted of  marine flood plains and mangroves within the GBRWHA.
“It has no equivalency to the seagrass beds lost, and is already protected by world heritage listing”.
Mr Arens said the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) had “very specifically criticized the offsets” because they did not compensate for losses resulting from the developments .The UN’s  World Heritage Committee also did not support the offsets  applied to the harbour and  Curtis Island developments.
Meanwhile, a Rescue the Reef Coalition has  been established online at the Great Barrier Reef Blog (http://www.greatbarrierreef.org.au/great-barrier-reef-blog/) which contains several articles criticizing the offsets proposal and the Gladstone developments.
Environmental medicine specialist  Dr Andrew Jeremijenko who has been a long term critic of how environmental controls are applied in Gladstone Harbour, told the Telegraph yesterday that Mr Burke’s plan to use it as the model for seagrass offets was “a sick joke” as monitoring had shown how poorly Gladstone Ports Corporation  had stayed within the limits, and how poorly the limits were enforced.

“We don’t want to see another dugong mortality hotspot, arsenic-poisoned turtles and sick fish with lesions replicated in other areas of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area,” Dr Jeremijenko said. 

He said Mr Burke and a succession of state environment ministers had given  the Ports Corporation approval to affect  a total 1,493 hectares of seagrass and 5,000 hectares of seabed in the harbour.

“Tony Burke had promised the chairman of GBRMPA Mr Russell Reichelt that he would ensure water quality and protect the marine life when Mr Reichelt  had expressed extreme concerns to the Federal Government about the associated dredging operation.

“The water quality monitoring has just shown how inept his department, the State Goverment and the GPC are at staying within the water quality limits,” Dr Jeremijenko  said.

He claimed the turbidity levels at several harbour monitors last week had exceeded State levels for five days and federal limits for almost seven days. The GPC had  applied for an exemption from stopping dredging, and had continued to dredge over the limits, he said.
“If Mr Burke wanted to protect the seagrass, he would start by enforcing the water quality limits that he promised in this World Heritage Area, to Mr Reichelt, to UNESCO and to Australians.
“He is almost ensuring the Great Barrier Reef will be placed on the World Heritage in Danger list, by selling parts of the World Heritage area to a bunch of miners,” Dr Jeremijenko said..
Re Blogged from THE GREAT BARRIER REEF
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