Sunday, May 20, 2012
Posted by Jim on December 25, 2010
Wide Bay Greens wishes all our readers a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for 2011
Mary River at Tiaro, Photo Jim McDonald
May the New Year see the Mary River system, its communities, and its wildlife protected from coal mining and coal seam gas extraction forever.
Jim McDonald
Posted by Jim on
The effects of irreversible environmental damage are just one of the factors in the battle against the excesses of the coalmining industry. Top quality farming land faces devastation by coalmining or CSG extraction and that of course has been the focus of the campaigns against coalmining and its expansion.
To my mind, it is not only the environmental vandalism that is evident in the Hunter Valley, for example, but it is also the absence of Federal and State food security policies that is the most shocking context of this impetus to expand mining and extraction into productive land in the Hunter Valley [agricultural productivity is already decimated], the Liverpool Plains and the Darling Downs. I am outraged that any Australian Government allows foreign companies owned by foreign governments [Shinghua 67% by PRC] or any mining company to buy up agricultural land for mining and CSG extraction.
I am equally outraged that they allow the sale of top quality agricultural land land to foreign companies owned by foreign governments whose mission statements refer to the food security of the foreign country [Hassad Foods & Qatar]. Australia is allowing foreign governments to purchase Australian land for their food security? In the absence of a food security policy – let alone a strategy – for Australia! That is a betrayal of Australia and future generations of Australians.
The campaign against coal needs to shift gears and address the failure of food security planning as a matter of urgency while the Labor Party and the Coalition are failing the nation and its grandchildren. Indeed I would argue that the campaign against coalmining and coal seam gas should also adopt the discourse of betrayal of our national interest. Even though there has been much made of the nonsensical proposition of allowing mining of top agricultural land, it might be seen as been a matter of self-interest on the part of farmers by an un-engaged city audience.
The failure of planners to take account of the impact of alienating productive land is a long-standing problem on the verges of urban expansion with the disappearance of large market garden areas around our cities and towns. It doesn’t only happen in the capitals: it happens in regional cities such as Toowoomba.
The food security policy vacuum is locked into the other two major issues of our time and for the next generation [ie to 2030] and the next [to 2050]: population and climate change. The population grows as we see the prospect of productive land diminished by Greed, Coal and CSG. The best agricultural land must be preserved to feed our rapidly growing population, especially in the face of shifting climate characteristics and extended and more severe weather events. But governments are sitting on their thumbs.
Take the Queensland Government, for example. It now owns the agricultural land in the upper Mary River Valley while coalminers plan open cut pits along the river’s major tributaries and the river itself. What does the Bligh Government do about planning food security for South-East Queensland and in particular, what does it do about the land it ill-advisedly purchased for the Traveston Dam? It has run a food cropping land “inquiry” that does not specifically address food security nor specifically address the best use of the land it now owns and it can’t re-sell to the farmers it pushed off the land. Is there a panel of agricultural scientists, environmental experts, and the local community nutting out a model plan for food security in the Mary Valley and planning for climate change? Forget it!
Jim McDonald, Greens Wide Bay Spokesperson, 20/12/10
Posted by Jim on
Jim McDonald was recently interviewed on Noosa Community Radio about the coalmining exploration in the Wide Bay and north Sunshine Coast and the possibility of further exploration in Sunshine Coast.
Listen to the interview here 
Jim McDonald, Greens Spokesperson, Wide Bay Federal Electorate, 18/12/10
Posted by Jim on
The 2010-2011 Queensland State Budget projects $2.8 billion in royalties from coalmining [Queensland budget paper 2, 2010] for the current financial year. But coal infrastructure costs borne by the taxpayer are huge. The development of the Bowen Abbott Point Coal Terminal alone will cost the Queensland taxpayer $1.8-1.9 billion [Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Minerals and energy, "Major development projects – April 2010 listing"].
Overall, the Queensland Government has committed over the next three financial years $5.7 billion in coal infrastructure development in terminals and rail – this does not include costs presumably covered by the new owners of sold off State assets [Sourcewatch: ABARE April 2010 major projects list]. In addition the State is committed in 2010-2011 to spend $400 million on power station upgrades.
The cost of coal to the State over three years based on an assumption of an average of $3 billion in coal royalties and taxpayer-funded expenditure on coal: a LOSS of around half a billion dollars. These estimates do not include the State’s contribution to Coal Seam Gas or coal exploration!
The nett loss to the state Treasury does not include social costs, road maintenance costs, road closure costs, the cost of fractured communities, loss of agricultural productivity, the cost to the health system, the cost of high water usage, the irreversable damage to aquifers and water quality, irreversable landscape damage, the damage to heritage, the effect of coal transportation on the amenity of passenger rail, the lost opportunities to invest in renewable energy resources, the catch-up costs that will be incurred in a post-carbon economy, etc, etc, etc. And now, ongoing revenue earners – the rail system and the ports – have been sold off for a one-off profit. Would YOU run a business like that? Especially when you have accountability to the taxpayers?
Coal is has a toxic effect on the state economy.
Jim McDonald, Greens Spokesperson, Wide Bay Federal Electorate, 20/12/10
Posted by Jim on December 14, 2010
The Greens spokesperson for the Wide Bay Federal Electorate, Dr Jim McDonald, has called on the Gympie Regional Council to stand up to mining interests in the Mary River Valley.
He said there is a serious threat of coal seam gas [CSG] extraction in the Mary River Valley and drilling exploration had commenced in Wolvi.
“People should not be complacent about their region,” he said. “The Fraser Coast Council this week announced its support for CSG exploration in Hervey Bay. It is not impossible that some Gympie councillors won’t likewise be seduced by the coal industry’s spin.
“Tiaro Coal has already commenced CSG exploration at Munna Creek and the company recently started exploration drilling in the Wolvi district. Coalmining and CSG extraction irreversibly destroys the aquifers, uses huge amounts of water, and creates problems with storage of contaminated water.
“One of the issues that people don’t think about is what happens to the water allocations when mining companies buy out farming land. If the coal companies get their way they will control the Mary River and its tributaries. Coalmining and CSG extraction in the Mary Valley will utilise millions of megalitres of water a year if mining is allowed to go ahead.
“Mining along the Mary River and its tributaries within the Gympie Regional Council boundaries and further downstream will turn the region into the Hunter Valley. That is a far greater threat to the Mary River Valley and its communities than the Traveston Dam ever was.”
Dr McDonald, who has just returned from touring the Hunter Valley and the Darling Downs speaking to residents, shopkeepers and farmers, said the region’s Councils and people were too complacent about the mounting threats to the Mary Valley from coal and CSG interests. “Already farmers and communities in the Wandoan district face huge open-cut mines and some farms already have CSG wells dug on their properties.
“It will happen here and when it does, that will be the end of the Mary Valley forever and all the excellent work done to protect the viability of the Mary River and its communities will have been for nothing.
“You have to ask what the State member for Gympie, David Gibson, and the Federal Member, Warren Truss, are doing. They turned up at Traveston Dam protests, but their silence on coal and gas mining speaks volumes about their true environmental credentials.
“There’s a lot of rot spoken about coalmining bringing jobs and prosperity. In fact, it reduces agricultural productivity, alienates good cropping and grazing land forever, destroys property values and communities, and does little to stimulate retail businesses. Coalmining is a toxic threat environmentally, socially and economically.
“Gympie businesses might be seduced by the prospects of mining coming to the region but coalmining and CSG will wreck the Mary Valley for the sake of a relatively few jobs, the bulk of which will go to skilled and experienced workers and contractors from outside the the region. This happens at Muswellbrook in the Hunter Valley. Retail outlets are struggling. Over the weekend the miners not on shift have left town. Muswellbrook is only 220 km from Sydney, about the same distance Gympie is from Brisbane. Coalmining offers little true benefit to Gympie’s economy.”
Jim McDonald, Greens Spokesperson, Wide Bay Federal Electorate, media release
Posted by admin on December 10, 2010
Australian Bureau of Statistics employment figures for Queensland which were released yesterday and show that more jobs were lost in Queensland than created are no surprise, according to the Queensland Greens.
‘Each time the Premier or Treasurer announce some new mining or gas drilling development in regional Queensland, it increases uncertainty for existing agricultural and tourism sectors,’ Queensland Greens spokesperson, Libby Connors pointed out.
‘Why would anyone invest in agriculture or related agrifood businesses when the Premier publicly states that she intends to protect only ‘the best of the best’ of Queensland’s cropping lands?
‘We’re in the midst of a good rainfall season but these major sectors of the Queensland economy are being hemmed in by new coal mines and gas wells in the state’s richest agricultural lands.
‘The outlook is not much better for tourism. The Australian dollar is one factor but so is the expansion of coal ports north and south of Queensland’s finest coastal resorts in the Whitsundays and proposals for coal mines and coal seam gas near Wide Bay.
‘No tourists want to view the beautiful Queensland coast through coal heaps, coal dust and gas infrastructure.’
‘Reckless expansion by one sector of the economy is endangering and narrowing the state’s economic base but both major parties have no vision about how to develop a diverse economy in a post-carbon world.’
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