Wednesday 2 March 2016

Think you're paying too much for your domestic gas supply in Australia? You're right!


Who is too blame for the situation set out below?

It is not just the rapacious gas industry we should be  pointing a finger at – it’s also the pro-mining Abbott & Turnbull federal governments and successive state governments which have failed to rein in these environmental and social vandals.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 February 2016:

After all the heartache, trenchant opposition from local communities and a towering $1.8 billion in write-downs, AGL has jettisoned its coal seam gas program. Santos will likely to follow suit and walk away from its controversial Pilliga project.

It makes no sense after all. Like Gloucester, Pilliga gas is high-cost to produce and environmentally high-risk to extract.

Unsurprisingly, the exit of AGL has lent fresh oxygen to the spurious "gas shortage" argument run by the gas lobby. Memo to APPEA, the public relations machine of the oil and gas industry: NSW has always "imported" its gas from interstate. That is why they have things called pipes.

It was scaremongering from this very same lobby, and from AGL, spruiking their "gas supply cliff" thesis two years ago, which helped producers to whisk through 17 per cent retail price rises at the cusp of the biggest crash in global oil and gas prices in decades.

Ironically, AGL's Gloucester project would have provided only a little over 1 per cent of NSW supply anyway. It was all for nothing.

Nonetheless, and notwithstanding the present global gas glut, APPEA chief Malcolm Roberts has been hinting at price rises.

That NSW, he said, could soon be "100 per cent reliant" on other states was "a risky proposition in a tightening energy market".

In fact, the withdrawal of AGL reflects a far more profound issue; that is, the gross destruction of our national wealth which has arisen thanks to the failure of successive governments to stand up to special interest groups such as the gas lobby. We have been nationally hoodwinked, conned, played for fools.

The $1.8 billion which AGL just fracked away, may seem a large figure yet it is nothing compared with the real cost of Australia's myopic energy policy, if you could call it an energy policy at all (it blithely ignores the revolution of renewable energy).

The Gas Cartel has managed to convince the Australian public that when global gas prices are high we should pay global prices and when global prices are low we should pay 60 per cent more than the global price.

Yes you read that correctly. Australian industry is currently paying 60 per cent more than the global price for gas when Australia is the world's second largest exporter of gas and will soon be the largest…..

Australia produces gas as cheaply as anyone in the world from our globally competitive offshore gas fields. Where we are uncompetitive is in the high-cost east coast onshore CSG fields. To try to make the globally uncompetitive CSG industry profitable the gas cartel is keeping domestic prices artificially high by controlling supply.

It is, says analyst Bruce Robertson, "classic cartel behaviour" and "the relevant authorities stand by and allow this illegal activity to continue without lifting a finger".

"Our industry is moving offshore to secure cheaper sources of energy and our domestic consumers are being milked.  If you consume gas in Australia you are paying too much."

Effectively, the Australian domestic gas consumer is subsidising the unprofitable coal seam gas industry….. [my red bolding]

The Member for Fairfax voices our worst fear.........


In the House of Representatives last week Queensland MP Clive Palmer voiced the fear of many – that Malcolm Bligh Turnbull will win this Coalition Government a second term, then swiftly be deposed and replaced as prime minister for the following three years by former prime minister John Anthony “Tony” Abbott:

Mr PALMER (Fairfax) (14:21): My question is to the Prime Minister. As Australia's third-oldest Prime Minister, if you are still Prime Minister after the election, will you serve a full term in parliament or will you retire to your unit in New York and do a switcheroo with the member for Warringah, sustaining yourself with innovation and growth opportunities your investments have provided for the people of the Cayman Islands? It has never been a more exciting time to be a Cayman Islander! Are you a seat warmer? [Hansard, 25 February 2016]

Tuesday 1 March 2016

Clarence Valley Council administration spat the dummy and is now hiding behind closed doors


It is often said, only partly in jest, that the form of local government Clarence Valley Council General Manager Scott Greensill favours has no elected representatives and a population of silent, almost invisible ratepayers and residents.

Since Greensill became the head of local government administration in the valley in 2011, a number of council policies have been created which in whole or part limit the ability of local people to seek explanations from council or to follow through on complaints they have lodged.

One of the most recent was Clarence Valley Council Unreasonable complainant conduct (21 July 2015):

Unreasonable complainant conduct (UCC) is any behaviour by a current or former complainant which, because of its nature or frequency raises substantial health, safety, resource or equity issues for our organisation, our staff, other service users and complainants or the complainant himself/herself. UCC can be divided into five categories of conduct:
* Unreasonable persistence
* Unreasonable demands
* Unreasonable lack of cooperation
* Unreasonable arguments
* Unreasonable behaviours
…..

Unreasonable persistence is continued, incessant and unrelenting conduct by a complainant that has a disproportionate and unreasonable impact on our organisation, staff, services, time and/or resources. Some examples of unreasonably persistent behaviour include:

* An unwillingness or inability to accept reasonable and logical explanations including final decisions that have been comprehensively considered and dealt with.
* Persistently demanding a review simply because it is available and without arguing or presenting a case for one. 
* Pursuing and exhausting all available review options when it is not warranted and refusing to accept further action cannot or will not be taken on their complaints.
* Reframing a complaint in an effort to get it taken up again.
* Bombarding our staff/organisation with phone calls, visits, letters, and emails (including cc'd correspondence) after repeatedly being asked not to do so.
* Contacting different people within our organisation and/or externally to get a different outcome or more sympathetic response to their complaint - internal and external forum shopping.

The latest to fall foul of this notion of an ‘ideal’ local government appears to be a Facebook group called The Clarence Forum, which has been effectively banned by Council administration since late 2015.

Based on current forum membership (1,193) and the written communication figure found in the article below, alleged communication between council and the forum equates to est. 1.7 instances per forum member over a two-year period.

One wonders if The Clarence Forum will call Council’s bluff and use crowd funding to raise that money the general manager is now demanding to answer letters/emails from Mr.Hagger or the group.

The story so far......

Clarence Valley Independent, online edition, February 2016:

Clarence Valley Council’s (CVC) general manager, Scott Greensill, has written to Facebook-based group, The Clarence Forum, saying its convenor, John Hagger, is taking up too much of council staff’s time answering his enquiries.

The end result appears to be that any further information requests from the forum and Mr Hagger would most likely have to be made on a formal Government Information (Public Access) (GIPA) form accompanied by a $30 fee.

Mr Hagger received a subsequent letter from the council’s organisation performance and governance unit executive manager, Kristian Enevoldson, regarding correspondence from works and civil director Troy Anderson.

Not satisfied with a response about the council’s current fleet review, Mr Hagger subsequently asked: “Please explain how answering questions asked would be against the Public Interest Test as mandated under the GIPA Act and how is there an overriding public interest against public disclosure?”

Mr Enevoldson replied: “The GIPA Act is specific to formal GIPA applications and not to informal applications, or general emails or other correspondence to Council.

“As explained in Council’s Access to Council Documents policy, if an informal application for the record is made under the GIPA Act then Council has the discretion whether or not to provide access.

“Should you then decide to lodge a formal GIPA application this would then be assessed against the GIPA criteria, including the public interest test.”

Mr Enevoldson was referring to Section 8 (3) of the GIPA Act, Informal release of government information, which states among its six clauses that: “An agency cannot be required to disclose government information pursuant to an informal request and cannot be required to consider an informal request for government information.”

The Clarence Forum, which states it is a “group dedicated to providing a platform for ideas dedicated to enriching our Valley”, had, at the time of writing, 1157 members.

Apart from Mr Hagger, there are four other moderators/administrators for The Clarence Forum.

Mr Greensill says the council’s record system has revealed that “written communications between Council and yourself [Mr Hagger and the forum] has exceeded 700” and that he is aware of “numerous telephone calls [that] are not included in these figures”.

He also states that Mr Hagger has subsequently “published the responses [on the forum] with the officer being publically named; furthermore, the response provided then has often been the subject of unfair and misinformed criticism and often taken out of context and/or misrepresented”.

“I consider that your action of publishing the responses in such a manner is contra to the good faith that has been extended to you,” Mr Greensill wrote.

Mr Hagger said that the forum is a democratic meeting place for people to discuss and air their views, based on whatever information (or not) he receives as a result of his enquiries.

“Other people are entitled to draw whatever conclusion they want based on the evidence,” he said.


“I’ve got no control over other people’s thinking.

“It’s the evidence the council themselves present.

“It’s up to council to present their case; I can’t do that for them.”

Discussions on the forum, however, are not limited to Mr Hagger’s posts – any member can post information or subjects they view as important, informative or interesting.

Mr Hagger said that his practice of posting enquiries and responses verbatim allows people to make their own judgements.

“There are some advantages with social media that just aren’t there with other media,” he said.

“It supplies a venue where the information [posted] is as raw and accurate as possible.

“The problem we often have is council’s refusal to supply more detailed documentation – that’s what we are aiming for, which is something that is missing in traditional media for various reasons; one of which is constraints of size.

“We don’t have that, we can put a 400-page document up and people can choose to read it if they have time.”

On the ‘excessive’ number of enquiries made, Mr Hagger disputes the total of 700; however, he assumes that this number includes interagency emails and other miscellaneous short enquiries.

Mr Hagger posted a record of the enquiries, he says he has made to CVC, on the forum on January 29 (along with a copy of Mr Greensill’s letter), which amounted to 63 enquiries since February 2014; however, the bulk of enquiries began in April 2015.

Mr Hagger said the council has not responded “to mail sent after the 16th of December 2015”.

Information regarding the GIPA Act can be viewed and/or downloaded from the Information and Privacy Commission NSW’s website: www.ipc.nsw.gov.au.


Will the Turnbull Government finally move against Abbott's boy?


It has been over-long in coming and, probably wouldn’t be contemplated now by the political mates' club if this wasn’t a federal election year, but it finally looks as though another Tony Abbott appointee is about to leave the stage.

The Australian, 26 February 2016:

Fair Work Commission vice-president Michael Lawler could face unprecedented action to ­remove him from office within weeks after taking almost a year of sick leave on full pay of $435,000 a year.

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash said yesterday that she had received an independent report on February 15 into a complaint against Mr Lawler.

The report, written by barrister and former Federal Court judge Peter Heerey followed a four-month investigation.

The report deadline was ­extended by two months after Mr Lawler notified Mr Heerey in December that he needed more time to respond as he was ill.

Mr Lawler is on leave again from Fair Work.

Senator Cash said she had sent Mr Heerey’s report to Mr Lawler, with a deadline of next Friday for him to make any ­response to the final report.

The report includes recommendations on whether Mr Lawler should be removed from his position by a vote of both houses of parliament.
“I am carefully considering the report and its potential implications,” Senator Cash said.

“Before I provide further ­details to the parliament, I ­believe that, in the interests of procedural fairness, it is appropriate that I first afford vice-president Lawler an opportunity to consider the report and ­respond.”

The Heerey inquiry followed months of revelations by The Australian of Mr Lawler’s extensive sick leave and the overlap of his sick leave with his work on a legal case against his partner Kathy Jackson, the former ­national secretary of the Health Services Union.

Ms Jackson was found last year by the Federal Court to have rorted more than $1.4 million from members’ funds and ordered to repay this sum, along with another $1m in interest and court costs.

During the case against Ms Jackson, Mr Lawler on one ­occasion absented himself from work on sick leave to appear as her advocate in court. During the latter stages of the case, he moved to transfer Ms Jackson’s property into his own name before HSU attempts to freeze her assets.

The Australian Bar Association waded into the controversy last July, urging that the matter be resolved by parliament. This followed the then prime minister Tony Abbott’s claim that Mr Lawler’s large amount of sick leave was a matter for Fair Work president Iain Ross. Mr Lawler was originally appointed to the commission by Mr Abbott……

UPDATE

The Australian, 4 March 2016:

Besieged Fair Work vice-president Michael Lawler has resigned from his $435,000-a-year position in an unprecedented finale to more than a year of controversy over his extended paid sick leave.

One of Australia’s most senior members of the quasi-judicial ­industrial tribunal, with all the status and perks of a Federal Court judge, Mr Lawler has taken almost a year of sick leave while regularly assisting his partner, disgraced unionist Kathy Jackson, to fight allegations of theft.

Under the statute, Mr Lawler, 55, is not entitled to a pension ­because he has resigned before reaching the age of 60. Therefore the matter of any pension will fall under the remit of Finance Minister Mathias Cormann.

Should Mr Lawler be able to press the government into paying his statutory pension, he would be resigning with a windfall of 60 per cent of a Federal Court judge’s ­salary, close to $250,000 a year ­indexed for life.

Mr Lawler’s resignation comes at the end of a tumultuous week that has included him providing surety for a former soldier on charges of threatening a woman, and the death of another man at the home Mr Lawler shares with Ms Jackson, who last year was found to have rorted $1.4 million in union funds and still faces a criminal investigation…..