Category: Australia

Tanya Plibersek proposes blocking Clive Palmer’s Queensland coal mine on environmental grounds

Post author By mangakiko
Post date August 4, 2022
No Comments on Tanya Plibersek proposes blocking Clive Palmer’s Queensland coal mine on environmental grounds

For the first time in Australian history, a federal environment minister has set the wheels in motion to reject a coal mine.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has proposed the rejection of Clive Palmer’s Central Queensland Coal Project on the grounds it is likely to damage the Great Barrier Reef.

The decision remains a “proposal” because a final decision can only be made after 10 days of further consultation, including public comment. But given the wide range of reasons cited by the minister, it is unlikely to be approved.

The planned mining site is just 10 kilometers from the Great Barrier Reef near Rockhampton, and was likely to have contributed to ocean pollution, according to the minister.

“Based on the information available to me at this stage, I believe that the project would be likely to have unacceptable impacts to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, and the values of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and National Heritage Place,” Ms Plibersek said.

A map shows the location of a mine and the location of the Great Barrier Reef. — Clive Palmer’s proposed coal mine site is just 10 kilometers from the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.(abcnews)

The decision was also based on potential impacts to local water resources.

Although it is the first time a federal environment minister has proposed to reject an application to develop a coal mine, the Queensland government recommended the rejection last year.

The move was announced the same day the government passed its climate bill through the lower house, with the support of the cross bench including the Greens.

The Greens have been pushing the government to reject all coal and gas projects while the government has said it will approve those that stack up environmentally.

“That’s now one down and 113 to go. There’s 114 of these projects in the pipeline,” Greens leader Adam Bandt said.

The Greens have also been pushing for a “climate trigger” that would require the potential impacts of coal and gas projects on climate change to be considered by the environment minister. As it stands, the potential climate change impact of this mine was not considered in the approval process.

Conservationists, activists glad minister ‘listened to warnings’

The preliminary decision was applauded by conservationists and climate activists.

“This is the right proposed decision for the Great Barrier Reef from the environment minister,” Cherry Muddle from the Australian Marine Conservation Society said.

“We are glad she has listened to warnings from government-appointed and independent scientists, as well as the Queensland government who said the mine was ‘not suitable’ to proceed in April 2021.

“In the wake of the fourth mass bleaching event on the reef since 2016, it is vital new coal and gas projects like this one are refused. It shows the government are serious about saving the reef and tackling the issues that threaten it.”

A photo from above the Great Barrier Reef shades of blue ocean — Queensland’s environment department deemed Clive Palmer’s project “not suitable” to proceed last year.(Facebook: Great Barrier Reef Legacy/File photo)

The proposed project included two open-cut pits north of Rockhampton over an area of more than 2,660 hectares.

The detailed reasons for the proposed decision have not yet been released, but included impacts on a world heritage area, and on-water resources. The project’s potential impacts on threatened species was not listed as a reason for rejection.

The public has 10 days to comment on the proposed decision.

Mr Palmer’s company Central Queensland Coal was not available for comment.

The Queensland government concluded in 2021 the mine would generate royalties for the state of between $703 million and $766 million in total.

Tags climate change, clive palmer, coal mine, damage, great barrier reef, mine, Ocean, reef, rejects, Tanya Pliersek, work

Australia

Queensland child commission, advocates call for use of spit hoods on minors to be banned

Post author By mangakiko
Post date August 4, 2022
No Comments on Queensland child commission, advocates call for use of spit hoods on minors to be banned

The use of spit hoods on young people is “completely unacceptable and should be outlawed,” Queensland’s Family and Child Commission (QFCC) says.

Principal Commissioner Luke Twyford says there are a range of alternatives to the fabric hoods, which are put over a detainee’s head to prevent spitting or biting.

Mr Twyford’s remarks on ABC Radio Brisbane follow revelations Queensland police have used spit hoods on 20 young people in Queensland watch houses since 2015.

Yesterday a budget estimates hearing was told that the hoods were in use up until about seven months ago and there had been eight instances of use in the state since 2019.

Greens MP Michael Berkman asked Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll how many times spit hoods had been used.

A man speaks to the media during a press conference. — Michael Berkman asked about the use of spit hoods in Queensland.(AAP: Glenn Hunt)

Ms Carroll acknowledged that Queensland was one of the few jurisdictions where the hoods were still in use.

“We are looking at very closely working with the Children’s Commissioner to stop that use in the future,” she said.

“We are working closely with the Children’s Commissioner to look at other options.”

When asked what steps the government was taking to ban the use of spit hoods and restraint chairs, Police Minister Mark Ryan said the government needed to get the policy mix right in order to work with the operational requirements of the Queensland police.

“Certainly it would be the government’s view that we would work alongside the Police Service to ensure that they had appropriate use of force options which did not include spit hoods,” he said.

A woman in a police uniform sitting at a police station. — Katarina Carroll says are working to put an end to the use of spit hoods. (ABC News: Lucas Hill)

Ms Carroll confirmed spit hoods could be used inside watch houses in Queensland.

‘Dangerous and archaic’

Mr Twyford said all of Australia’s children commissioners had already written an open letter calling for the practice to be banned.

“We are working with the Queensland Police Commissioner there to ensure that they are not used,” he said.

“When a young person is in a heightened state, putting a bag over their head isn’t a sensible solution.”

Change the Record co-chair Cheryl Axleby said the idea that it was acceptable to put a bag over the head of a distressed child or adult was “cruel” and “archaic”.

A woman stands in front of a yellow Indigenous artwork. — Cheryl Axelby says First Nations people are at higher risk of being subjected to spit hoods. (Supplied)

She said the organization had called on the Queensland government and every other state and territory government to follow the lead of South Australia, where spit hoods have been outlawed.

“First Nations peoples are affected by discrimination at every point of the criminal justice system,” Ms Axleby said.

“This means Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are at a greater risk of being subjected to the use of cruel and inhumane treatment like the use of spit hoods when in police or prison custody.

“In an era where we have world-class [personal protective equipment] there is absolutely no need for these dangerous and archaic devices.”

ABC’s Four Corners showed footage of a child detainee bound to a restraint chair with their face covered by a spit hood in the Northern Territory’s Don Dale detention center in 2016.

Tags are spit hoods legal, dylan voller, give him, Local News, queensland police, spit hoods, watch house, what is a spit hood, youth detention

Australia

WA infrastructure advisory body floats per-kilometre charge to ease traffic pressure

Post author By mangakiko
Post date August 4, 2022
No Comments on WA infrastructure advisory body floats per-kilometre charge to ease traffic pressure

Infrastructure WA, the body charged with advising the Premier’s Department on the state’s medium and long-term infrastructure needs, has proposed overhauling road funding by eventually replacing the fuel excise with a road-user charge that also creates incentives to reduce congestion.

The wide-ranging 20-year plan, Foundations for a Stronger Tomorrow, was tabled in State Parliament on Wednesday.

One of the 93 recommendations involves planning for the eventual transition from internal combustion to electric vehicles and how road infrastructure will be funded with the decrease of the fuel excise.

Nicole Lockwood, chair of Infrastructure WA, told Nadia Mitsopoulos on ABC Radio Perth that while the switch to electric vehicles would be “fantastic for the environment and climate change,” it also posed challenges.

“It does mean that the revenue source that comes from our fuel at the moment, that goes towards paying for our roads, will diminish over time,” she said.

“SW [the recommendation] is trying to find a mechanism where the government still has the ability to fund that infrastructure in a way that doesn’t disincentivize people from moving towards electric vehicles.”

EV tax coming in 2027

While the state government has already announced it will introduce a 2.5 cent per kilometer charge for EV’s from mid-2027, Infrastructure WA’s recommendation 58 goes further, proposing that WA work with other states to develop a nationally consistent road user charge that could influence driver behaviour. .

“The scheme has the potential to include vehicle mass, distance, location and time-of-day pricing elements,” the recommendation says.

Such a scheme could potentially charge different rates for road usage in peak hours, or differential rates for different roads.

A mix of cars and trucks fill four lanes of peak hour traffic on the freeway. — Ms Lockwood says the report recommends looking at ways to influence congestion and road use.(ABC News: Andrew O’Connor)

“What we’ve said is, let’s design a mechanism that has flexibility, so that in time if we wanted to use those levers we could,” Ms Lockwood said.

“We saw it very starkly during COVID, when people were not using the roads during the day, at certain times suddenly we had huge amounts of capacity.

“In the future, when we can’t continue to build more lanes, we will need other mechanisms to be able to manage demand on the system.”

The proposal met with a mixed response from ABC Radio Perth listeners:

Mike: “Again lower socio-economic people who cannot afford to live close to work will pay the most, the system working to keep the gap between the haves and the have nots.”

Greg: “The state government is not incentivizing enough the use of electric vehicles. The proposed road tax is a major disincentive. The benefit to the environment is the major issue and there won’t be the gains there should be. We pay for our roads Mainly via our local government rates so EV drivers will be paying double if we get this bad policy.”

Cynthia: “Surely a toll on cars with only one occupant would make sense? Or a fast lane for cars with two occupants.”

An artist's impression of people walking on Hay Street Mall with light rail lines in the background and a train in the background. — While Max Light Rail was shelved in 2016, Infrastructure WA recommended future planning around light rail and rapid bus networks.(Supplied: PTA)

Planning for light rail mooted

The report also recommends the state government look again at the role of light rail and rapid bus transit in Perth’s public transport mix.

A previous plan to link Perth suburbs through the Max Light Rail network was shelved by the Barnett government in 2016, and the McGowan government has been focused on delivering its expansion of the heavy rail network, Metronet.

Ms Lockwood said a plan to link people across suburbs and between stations was still needed.

“We very much back the government’s commitments to Metronet and the heavy rail system, but what we see in the future is a need to look at the next tier of connection for the city,” she said.

“That mid-tier public transport system that links buses and other parts of the network into the Metronet network is really important.

“Part of that is about making sure that the [already identified transport] corridors are protected.

“We really have to think about the spaces we’ve got and how we use them… then the state government needs to then pull a plan together to map that out for the whole of the metro area,” she said.

The infrastructure report also recommended a new desalination plant at Alkimos, a whole-of-government emissions reduction target and a package to reform hospital emergency departments.

The WA Government has six months to respond to the report and is obliged by legislation to respond to each recommendation as well as provide an implementation plan for the ideas that it accepts.

Tags 720 perth, ABC Radio PERTH, cars, charges, congestion, exercise, funding, infrastructure, light rail, planning, roads, tax, transportation

Australia

‘Magnificent’ jellyfish found off coast of Papua New Guinea sparks interest among researchers | marine life

Post author By mangakiko
Post date August 4, 2022
No Comments on ‘Magnificent’ jellyfish found off coast of Papua New Guinea sparks interest among researchers | marine life

A diver has captured footage of an unusual-looking jellyfish off the coast of Papua New Guinea, sparking interest among researchers.

The video was captured by Dorian Borcherds, who owns Scuba Ventures in Kavieng, in the New Ireland province of PNG.

Borcherds, who has been diving in the area for more than two decades, said he saw about three or four of the jellyfish and was struck by their intricate detail and the way they seemed to move decisively through the water.

“They don’t have brains, so I don’t know how they do that,” he said.

Looking for answers, he sent the footage to his wife in South Africa, who uploaded it to the Jellyfish app, a project Dr Lisa-ann Gershwin, a jellyfish expert at Australian Marine Stinger Advisory Services, co-founded.

In her words, the app’s purpose is to “answer the age-old question: what is that blob and should I pee on [its sting]?”

“As soon as I saw this one, honestly, I could barely contain my excitement,” she said. “I almost fell out of my chair.”

Gershwin initially thought the footage was the second sighting of a mysterious jellyfish – Chirodectes maculatus – found decades ago on the Great Barrier Reef, but she now believes the “magnificent” creature is a new species.

While Gershwin is confident in her findings, her paper on the species classification is yet to undergo peer review.

Prof Kylie Pitt, a marine ecologist who specializes in jellyfish from Griffith University, said it could be a new species, but doesn’t think it would be possible to know for sure based only on a video.

She said she had certainly never seen it before, but said a researcher would “need to hold the animal in your hand” to be sure of its species.

“It would be great if we got the specimen and could describe its morphology, coupled with genetic testing,” she said.

Prof Jamie Seymour, a toxicologist from James Cook University who specializes in Australia’s venomous animals, says he prefers Gershwin’s earlier theory, believing the jellyfish is a Chirodectes maculatus.

Gershwin had helped reclassify Chirodectes maculatus – a jellyfish that has been sighted only once off the coast of far north Queensland, after a cyclone in 1997.

She said it had remained a mystery where the invertebrate had come from ever since. At first glance, she thought the new video could provide the answer. She listed the help of Peter Davie, a now retired – but still active – curator from the Queensland museum, where the original jellyfish specimen was kept.

The pair pored over the footage from PNG frame by frame, and noticed the jellyfish had different markings, it was much larger – about the size of a soccer ball compared with something that could fit in your hand – and various other technical differences.

To their delight, they decided this was probably a new species of jellyfish, probably belonging to the same genus as the one seen in 1997.

Australia

‘Magnificent’ jellyfish found off coast of Papua New Guinea sparks interest among researchers | marine life

Post author By mangakiko
Post date August 4, 2022
No Comments on ‘Magnificent’ jellyfish found off coast of Papua New Guinea sparks interest among researchers | marine life