Australian Conservation Foundation launches fresh legal action against Murray Watt
Donna Lu
The Australian Conservation Foundation has launched a new legal challenge against the federal environment minister, Murray Watt, over his approval of Woodside’s North West Shelf extension, one of the world’s biggest liquified natural gas projects.
It is the second case the advocacy group has brought against the minister this month, after they commenced federal court proceedings on 13 October in a bid to overturn the approval, which extends the life of the NWS gas processing plant from 2030 to 2070.
In the new challenge, the ACF will argue Watt was not permitted to exclude the climate impacts of the project when deciding whether and how to assess it under Australia’s national environment law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
The ACF’s legal counsel Adam Beeson said:
We wouldn’t have to take this route if Australia had strong nature laws to begin with, which made the government’s responsibility to deal with climate pollution crystal clear.
But because our current nature laws are shockingly broken and favour polluting industries over the nature they claim to protect, litigation is necessary to argue that the minister was required to deal with climate pollution.
This case brings home why it’s so important Labor gets on with the task this week of making our national environment law actually work for nature.
The government plans to introduce its proposed changes to the EPBC Act to parliament in the coming days.
Key events
Joe Hinchliffe
Queensland’s education minister has said the 140 high school students across the state who spent their final weeks in high school preparing for an exam on the wrong Caesar will not be asked for which they have not prepared.
But John-Paul Langbroek could not say what their final exam, worth 25% of their course mark and due to be sat this afternoon, would look like.
“The exam that they are doing …. is something we’ll be resolving into the future,” Langbroek said in response to a question from the press.
But I can’t see how anyone would be expected to do an exam having had two days preparation.
The minister said that the 75% of the course mark for which the students had already been tested would be “scaled up” to make sure they were not disadvantaged and that it was his “presumption” that if someone had perfect marks to date: “I’d suspect they’d get as close to 100”.
Langbroek said he wanted impacted students to know “it was not the end of the world”, but that he was “very unhappy” about the stress they had been put through.
For all of us as parents, or students who have been through situations like this, it would be extremely traumatic and I want to reassure those students and their parents and their teachers affected that we will be making every investigation into how this happened.
The schools affected are both state and private and range from Cairns down to Brisbane:
Brisbane State High School, Flagstone Community College, Meridan State College, Redcliffe State High School, Yeronga State High School, St Teresa’s Catholic College, West Moreton Anglican College, James Nash State High School, and Kuranda District State College.
Inflation jumps to 3.2% in year to September
Patrick Commins
Inflation has jumped to 3.2% in the year to September, from 2.1% in June, as waning government subsidies feed through to higher household power bills.
Any lingering chance of a rate cut next Tuesday was squashed after the new Australian Bureau of Statistics figures also confirmed a troubling rise in underlying inflation.
The Reserve Bank’s preferred trimmed mean measure – which removes the impact of large, temporary price moves – climbed by 1% in the three months to September and far ahead of the RBA’s predicted rate of 0.6%.
That left inflation on this trimmed mean measure at 3% in the year, against 2.7% in June.
Read more here:
Greens call for end of shark nets
The Greens have called upon the environment and water minister, Murray Watt, to remove an exemption in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act that allows state-controlled shark cull programs after the death of a humpback whale calf that became entangled in a shark net near Wollongong yesterday.
The whale was entangled in the Coledale Beach shark net, which was installed under the New South Wales government’s Shark Meshing Bather Protection Program.
The Greens’ spokesperson for healthy oceans, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, questioned what further proof governments needed that “shark nets do not work”.
It’s time to end the world’s longest marine cull and stop this barbaric government-sanctioned animal cruelty.
The Greens again call on federal environment minister Watt to reject the Queensland government’s plans to expand its shark cull program, and to remove the EPBC exemption to all state-controlled shark cull programs that threaten federally protected marine wildlife.
Sam Strutt
Queensland history exams blunder grows
Queensland’s education minister, John-Paul Langbroek, says the department has now determined that students at nine schools across the state have been taught the wrong topic for their end of year history exams.
Langbroek has ordered an urgent investigation after students were meant to study Julius Caesar, but were instead taught about his nephew Augustus. He says they will be given special consideration during marking, according to the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority.
During a news conference this morning, the minister said the 140 affected students from schools from the far north to the south-east of the state would not be required to sit today’s exam.
He said the students impacted have already completed 75% of their assessments for this subject and their overall grade will now be scaled to make sure no one is disadvantaged by this unacceptable error.
“I have directed the director general of the Department of Education to urgently investigate how the QCAA communicates with schools to implement syllabus changes,” Langbroek said.
He said the department did not know at this stage what had caused the error.
Greens welcome audit of housing Australia future fund, saying it has failed to deliver
The Greens have also welcomed an audit of the governments $10bn housing Australia future fund (HAFF), saying it’s failed to deliver on its promise of more social and affordable housing.
The fund is supposed to build 40,000 social and affordable homes by mid 2029.
The Greens senator Barbara Pocock says the HAFF is “too complex and too slow”.
Australians deserve to know why Treasury designed such a convoluted scheme that even developers say they can’t make money off. Hundreds of millions have been allocated but it appears very little of it has been spent on building homes. That’s unacceptable in the middle of a housing crisis.
This is a billion-dollar fund with little to show for it. The HAFF is a slow, clumsy and cost-ineffective way to fund housing and it’s opening the door for private developers to profit while people can’t find a home.
Australian Conservation Foundation launches fresh legal action against Murray Watt
Donna Lu
The Australian Conservation Foundation has launched a new legal challenge against the federal environment minister, Murray Watt, over his approval of Woodside’s North West Shelf extension, one of the world’s biggest liquified natural gas projects.
It is the second case the advocacy group has brought against the minister this month, after they commenced federal court proceedings on 13 October in a bid to overturn the approval, which extends the life of the NWS gas processing plant from 2030 to 2070.
In the new challenge, the ACF will argue Watt was not permitted to exclude the climate impacts of the project when deciding whether and how to assess it under Australia’s national environment law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
The ACF’s legal counsel Adam Beeson said:
We wouldn’t have to take this route if Australia had strong nature laws to begin with, which made the government’s responsibility to deal with climate pollution crystal clear.
But because our current nature laws are shockingly broken and favour polluting industries over the nature they claim to protect, litigation is necessary to argue that the minister was required to deal with climate pollution.
This case brings home why it’s so important Labor gets on with the task this week of making our national environment law actually work for nature.
The government plans to introduce its proposed changes to the EPBC Act to parliament in the coming days.
Josh Butler
Jewish groups not offended by Albanese’s Joy Division T-shirt
Sussan Ley again finds herself taking an unconventional policy position and not exactly being swamped with support by her own team, with Liberal and National politicians not quite rushing to back up her criticisms of Anthony Albanese’s Joy Division T-shirt.
The opposition leader on Tuesday accused him of a “profound failure of judgment”. She claimed the seminal British punk band was named after “a wing of a Nazi concentration camp where Jewish women were forced into sexual slavery”.
Naturally, numerous Coalition politicians have been asked about the issue today, and there’s been mixed opinions.
Liberal senator Jane Hume, who last week branded Ley’s criticisms of Kevin Rudd as “churlish”, was equivocal on Sky News. She said: “I don’t like to tell people what it is that they should and shouldn’t wear” but added that Albanese should apologise “if people are offended”.
Guardian Australia spoke to several major Jewish community organisations; none chose to back Ley in or complain about Albanese’s sartorial choices. A senior source from one of the most-respected Jewish groups, which has had no problem criticising the Labor government on occasion, was bemused by Ley’s claims.
To recap all the other Coalition commentary this morning, Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie told Sunrise:
There’s a lot to legitimately criticise the prime minister about; trillion-dollar debt, skyrocketing house prices, and job losses in our heavy industrial sector. Wearing a T-shirt isn’t one of them. I’m part of the troubled and forgotten X generation that came of age listening and dancing to Joy Division and New Order.”
Liberal senator Andrew Bragg told the ABC that the prime minister should “take great care in whatever he wears. Now, some Jewish Australians have been offended by the wearing of this T-shirt, and I think it’s something that the prime minister should consider very carefully.”
While Nationals senator Matt Canavan told Nine’s Today: “I don’t really care what T-shirt he wears, I do care how he’s doing for the country, and I don’t think a lot of joy is being felt by Australians right now.”
Labor votes against Pocock’s climate duty of care bill and Liberal senator crosses the floor
Labor have been put into a slightly uncomfortable position in the Senate, on David Pocock’s bill that would insert a duty of care to young people and future children into the Climate Change Act.
The legislation would force decision-makers to consider the risk of future harm to children when considering the approval of facilities that would increase greenhouse gas emissions.
Liberal senator Andrew McLachlan, who has recently started speaking up strongly for climate action and net zero, is supporting the bill, calling it a “noble ambition”, and taking a swipe at his party.
I support the bill and commend senator Pocock for bringing it to the chamber for consideration … It’s very conservative, it’s actually more conservative than a liberal progressive position to care for the environment.
The Coalition initially sided with the crossbench and Greens to force a vote on the bill (initially it was just slated for debate). Labor has been outvoted a few times now in the Senate, where it doesn’t hold a majority.
But on the actual vote, Labor and the Coalition voted against the duty, while McLachlan crossed the floor to vote with the crossbench.
NT land councils ‘dismayed’ at lack of consultation on environment law reforms
Graham Readfearn
The four land councils that represent traditional owners in the Northern Territory say they are “dismayed” they have not been consulted on proposed reforms to Australia’s environment laws.
The Northern, Central, Tiwi and Anindilyakwa land councils are demanding the environment minister, Murray Watt, include them in discussions on the reforms, which are expected to be tabled in parliament tomorrow.
The Anindilyakwa council represents people in the Groote archipelago in the Gulf of Carpentaria.
The four organisations want to see all projects with significant impacts on ground and surface water included in environment assessments, and for projects with major greenhouse gas emissions to be assessed for climate risk – a step Watt has said won’t be included in reforms.
Dr Josie Douglas, of the Central Land Council, said the debate on the reforms had been run “as a closed shop between large environment groups and industry”. She said:
The very survival of our people on country is at stake. We are living the impacts of climate change and water insecurity now, and the forecasts for the north are devastating.
The Northern Land Council chair, Matthew Ryan, said:
Aboriginal people have legal rights and interest in 98% of the land in the NT. We must be part of the conversation.
‘No connectivity means no net zero,’ says Nationals MP
Net zero is certainly front of mind for those in the Coalition, evidenced by one Nationals MP’s slip-up in the chamber, while seconding a motion to suspend standing orders.
The opposition is trying to suspend standing orders on the Optus triple-zero outage, noting the Coalition and Greens in the Senate last night established an inquiry into the telco outage, and calling on Anika Wells to appear before the committee and “fully cooperate with the inquiry”.
Nationals MP Anne Webster got up to support the suspension, warning about the impact shutdowns have on regional communities, particularly after the telcos shut down the 3G network “under this government’s watch”.
Then she said this.
No connectivity means no net zero – sorry! No triple zero, full stop.
From the Coalition backbench, someone shouted, “It’s on the mind!”
As both the Liberals and Nationals edge closer to a policy position on net zero, it’s on the mind indeed!
Benita Kolovos
Vicarious liability legislation to be introduced in Victoria
Victoria’s premier, Jacinta Allan, has also confirmed the government will introduce legislation to parliament this year to address the fallout of a recent high court decision that affected child sexual abuse survivors ability to seek justice.
The Bird v DP decision last year ruled that institutions such as churches cannot be held vicariously liable for child abuse committed by individuals who were not employees, narrowing the scope for victim-survivors to seek compensation from institutions.
She told reporters the bill will apply retrospectively. Allan says:
It is very important not just to address this issue that the high court has identified, but to ensure that that period of time that elapses between parliaments addressing the issue and decisions and judgments that may have been made that victim-survivors are supported, which is why it will be retrospective.
She acknowledged the “deep distress” and “retraumatising effect” the decision had on all victim-survivors.
