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A cheery new report! Voters to blame for political corruption A report that examined the loss of ‘woody vegetation’ across NSW in 2019 was released by Department of Planning, Industry & Environment last week. The 15-page summary looked at clearing that was owing to agriculture, forestry and infrastructure activities. It puts into sharp focus the Liberal-National government’s promises to protect the state’s biodiversity credentials after it overhauled environmental laws in 2016. In short, the Liberal-National government axed the Native Vegetation Act 2003, Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995, Nature Conservation Trust Act 2001 and sections of the National Parks & Wildlife Act 1974. The Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 was then introduced. By March 2020, The Guardian reported ‘NSW land-clearing approvals increased 13-fold since laws relaxed in 2016’. Anyway the new report, entitled Woody Vegetation Change, Statewide Landcover and Tree Study, says that, ‘The calculated annual loss of woody vegetation for 2019 was 54,500 hectares, or 0.08 per cent of the area of NSW’. That’s nearly one per cent of land in NSW cleared every year. How sustainable is that? Eighty six per cent of all clearing was accounted for by agricultural practices, say the authors, and ‘Clearing activities related to infrastructure accounted for the remaining 14 per cent of vegetation loss, which was comparable to the previous year’s figures’. If we back up a few more years, the picture wasn’t much better. In August 2018, The Guardian reported a combined native vegetation report for 2014–2016 was released by the OEH, after an eight-month battle by Guardian Australia, using freedom of information laws to secure its release. It showed ‘a sharp spike in native vegetation cleared legally in NSW during 2015–16, with 7,390 hectares cleared, double the 10-year average and eight times the area cleared in 2013–14’. Nature Conservation Council chief executive Chris Gambian said the new report demonstrates that 150 hectares of habitat is lost each day in NSW – ‘Almost twice the average annual rate recorded before the coalition overhauled nature laws in 2016’. ‘Using widely accepted data on wildlife population densities, clearing on that scale would have killed up to 9 million animals – mammals, birds and reptiles – in just 12 months. ‘The coalition promised its new laws would enhance protections for bushland and wildlife. ‘These figures, and the rising number of threatened species, shows the laws completely fail to deliver on that promise. ‘More than 1,020 plants and animals are now threatened with extinction in NSW, about 20 more than when the scheme was introduced. ‘The 74 per cent of clearing is designated as “unexplained” in this report shows the government has lost control of deforestation in NSW’. So presumably NSW Labor, under newly minted leader Chris Minns, can do better? Hans Lovejoy, editor News tips are welcome: editor@echo.net.au
F
ool me once, shame on you; fool me twice… There was a moment during Simon Birmingham’s interview on the ABC’s Insiders on Sunday which really laid bare the impressive gall of the federal government. The senator from SA is almost unique in the Morrison government’s frontbench in that he hasn’t presided over at least one astonishing personal or political scandal, giving the welcome impression that he’s a high performer in a government otherwise consumed by defamation cases, allegations of sexual abuse, misuse of public money, or whatever category Robodebt falls under. So when this paragon of basic competence was asked how he might justify the recently revealed pork-barrelling exercise that was the coalition’s pre-election promises of commuter carparks, he dismissed the question with ‘The Australian people had their chance and voted the government back in, and we’re determined to get on and deliver those election promises that we made in relation to local infrastructure’. Ah, sorry: so it’s all the public’s fault. Sorry for disturbing you, senator! Now, it might seem a stretch to suggest that the voting public approve mightily of a $660 million pork-barrelling exercise, much less consider it quality government at work. And rightly so, because the claim is not remotely true. The voters of Australia barely got the government over the line in 2019, and at that point couldn’t possibly be aware that the infrastructure spending being promised in their electorates was, for the most part, never going to happen. In fact, of the 47 commuter carparks promised in 2019, two have been completed and eight were cancelled. Another 11 of the carparks haven’t even had preliminary assessments as to whether they comply with
The Byron Shire Echo Volume 36 #04 July 7, 2021 Established 1986 • 24,250 copies every week The Echo acknowledges the people of the Bundjalung nation as the traditional custodians of this land and extends respect to elders past, present and future. Disclaimer: The Echo is committed to providing a voice for our whole community. The views of advertisers, letter writers, and opinion writers are not necessarily those of the owners or staff of this publication.
www.echo.net.au Phone: 02 6684 1777 Editorial/news: editor@echo.net.au Advertising: adcopy@echo.net.au Office: Village Way, Stuart Street, Mullumbimby NSW 2482 General Manager Simon Haslam Editor (of leisure) Hans Lovejoy Deputy Editor Aslan Shand Photographer Jeff Dawson Advertising Manager Angela Harris Production Manager Ziggi Browning
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Andrew P Street eligibility, over two years down the track, because no proposal for their construction has even been submitted. (Mind you, it’s also worth remembering that it was while taking responsibility for a still-nonexistent commuter carpark in Campbelltown that Angus Taylor memorably forgot to change his Facebook profile to that of a pretend constituent before praising him with ‘Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus’. ) So Birmingham was sidestepping the truth with his comment. What is true, however, is that if the people of Australia return the Morrison government then it won’t be because they don’t know what they’re going to do, but because they do. Look at the legacy of Scott Morrison’s government right now, and what it’s achieved over during its tenure. This is a government that ignored its own departmental advice in order to keep Robodebt alive, despite it being clear that there were significant problems with the way debts were being calculated and the inevitability of a massive settlement that cost the public a further $1.2 billion. This is a government that is now six months into an internal inquiry to find out what it knew about the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins – a process which really shouldn’t take more than an afternoon, given everything that is already on record – and has been spending that time backgrounding against her and her partner to compliant journalists instead. This is a government who angrily denied the pre-election suggestion of Medicare cuts as Labor lies, and then quietly instituted cuts to Medicare.
– Finley Peter Dunne 1867–1936
And of course, there’s the ongoing debacle that is the mishandling of the response to COVID-19. Not only is Australia holding its breath that the Greater Sydney outbreak will be contained, with the lockdown still open-ended at the time of writing, owing to the utter inadequacy of the federal government’s vaccine rollout (memorably defended by the PM with ‘it’s not a race’), but the inadequate quarantine response has led to the knee-jerk slashing of new arrivals without consultation with airlines who are now weighing up whether it’s economically worth flying passenger aircraft into Australia at all. And meanwhile thousands of people, including hundreds of unaccompanied children, still desperately want to return home 16 months into our border closures. Re-electing the Morrison government means pork barrelling marginals with imaginary carparks is not merely fine, but the epitome of good government. It means saying that dodging responsibility on public health and climate action is not merely expected but encouraged. And it means that bullying women and committing sexual assault should be brushed under the carpet with no repercussions for anyone other than the victim. So Birmingham might have been wrong about the last election, but he’d be right about the next one. Q Andrew P Street is a bestselling
author, columnist and all-round word-ordering person. For more info vosot www.patreon. com/andrewpstreet.
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