Coal dust released from Adani’s Queensland coal port after Cyclone Debbie appears to have caused “massive contamination” of sensitive wetlands, an academic expert says.

A vast swathe of the Caley Valley wetlands has been blackened by coal-laden water released from nearby Abbot Point port after Debbie’s torrential rains inundated its coal storage facilities last month.

Satellite imagery of the coal spill last week prompted an investigation by the Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage Protection (EHP), which said the port operator appeared to have acted in line with a temporary licence to release the excess water.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/apr/10/abbot-point-coal-port-s...

If the images have not been doctored, then the Abbott point development should be scrapped and the Adani Carmichael mine should be scrapped and coal mining should be phased out as soon as now. It's possible.

 

Climatologists and scientists studying the increasingly dire coral bleaching event in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have given up finding ways to express the urgency surrounding the mass die-off, and are now simply throwing up their hands in despair, as those in a position to take action to mitigate the extinction do nothing.

Referring to the health of the Great Barrier Reef as a "disaster," and stating that its condition is at the "terminal stage," oceanographers and climatologists studying the results of a new aerial survey have called on ordinary people to join the fight, as lawmakers, financiers and business leaders do nothing while the UNESCO World Heritage site with the greatest biodiversity on Earth is destroyed.

Continued coral bleaching along the almost 134,000-square-mile northeastern Australian reef, the result of rising water temperatures brought about by atmospheric and oceanic warming as a result of global climate change, now appears to be at the point where the coral will not be able to regrow, say scientists.

Aerial surveys completed last week by scientists from the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies identified the bleaching of over 800 individual sections along the northern two-thirds of Earth's largest living structure, one of only a handful of lifeforms that are visible from space.

Many of those studying the effects state flatly that they are in despair, as leaders, especially those in Australia, who have the power to limit climate change continue to argue among themselves, according to The Guardian.

Expressing himself unambiguously, Australian water quality expert Jon Brodie stated that the reef is now in its "terminal stage," according to The Guardian.

"We've given up," Brodie said, speaking of rescue efforts made by the government. "It's been my life managing water quality, we've failed. Even though we've spent a lot of money, we've had no success."

"The federal government is doing nothing really, and the current programs, the water quality management, is having very limited success. It's unsuccessful," he added.

Jon Day, who served as director of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority for 16 years, remarked that the government was doing little to nothing to regulate water runoff, overfishing, agricultural pollution and dredge-spoil dumping in support of industrial logistics in coastal waters.

"Every moment we waste, and every dollar we waste," said Day, "isn't helping the issue. We've been denying it for so long, and now we're starting to accept it. But we're spending insufficient amounts addressing the problem."

Those still seeking to save the reef are facing considerable hurdles, notably in the form of glacial litigation, cultural ennui, and outright denial on the part of government officials in Canberra and Brisbane.

 

read more:

https://sputniknews.com/environment/201704111052507466-scientists-give-u...

The Adani Carmichael coalmine needs $1bn of government funds for a rail line because it is “a tipping point issue” to get the mine going, Barnaby Joyce has said.

The Nationals leader has given a full-throated defence of subsidising the mine, telling Radio National that Australians should support it because they are “citizens of the world” and warning those that oppose fossil fuels “if you live with the butterflies, you will die with the butterflies”.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/apr/11/adani-carmichael-...

“You have to be really careful because if you start coming up with great ideas about how you are going to reduce the price of houses, then all the mums and dads out there … say, ‘Hey are you coming up with a plan to reduce the value of my house?’ and they are not really keen on that idea.”

He said any changes would ultimately affect the whole market and the government was working to decentralise government agencies to get jobs to areas where housing was more affordable.

“You are bringing down the price of houses everywhere,” Joyce said. “I don’t think you can do that.

“I think you can do whatever you can to help but there is a big opportunity. If you want to buy a house that you can pay off in your lifetime, please consider regional cities such as Tamworth.”

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/apr/11/barnaby-joyce-say...

 

by Dr Gideon Polya

Countercurrent  http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/04/14/pollutants-adani-coal-mine-will-eventually-kill-about-0-5-million-indians/

Under a climate criminal Coalition Government Australia is lurching towards an environmental and human catastrophe represented by the huge, Government-approved Adani Carmichael coal mine in the Galilee Basin of Queensland. Pollutants from burning Australian coal exported from the proposed Adani coal mine are  estimated to kill 13,000 people annually and 500,000 people over the lifetime of the coal mine. Most of the coal will go to India and thus most of the victims will be Indians.

Science-informed, humane, environmentalist opponents of the Adani coalmine have advanced many cogent arguments against this development, including the following dozen propositions:

(1) Massive use of scarce water resources (Adani has been promised up to 9.5 billion litres of water every year,  a huge threat to water quality and availability for agriculture [1]. The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has protested the planned massive land clearing and massive diversion of  2 rivers by an Australia company  to provide water for Galilee Basin mining operations [2]).

(2) Major environmental  damage (through stripping the land and damage by climate change, huge water use, endangering  species and impacts  on an already devastated  Great Barrier Reef [3]).

(3) Specific threats to the adjacent iconic Great Barrier Reef through coal dust, other pollutants, spillage, hugely increased shipping, impacts of coastal loading facilities  and, of course, climate change [3].

(4)  Threats to up to 60,000 jobs and a $6 billion annual  tourism income associated with tourism linked to the Great Barrier Reef (Free The Reef says: “Tourism on the Reef is an annual $6 billion industry and supports over 60,000 jobs. With mining, around 83% of the profits go overseas” [4]).

(5) Threats to  Indigenous  Australian Native Title rights (the Wangan and Jagalingou Indigenous Traditional Owners  strongly object to the Adani coal mine threat to their land and their culture [5] ).

(6) Threats to endangered species (the Adani Carmichael coalmine site is home to the largest known population of the endangered southern Black-throated finch (Poephila cincta cincta) [3],  other species are threatened by connected river diversions  [2] and the huge species diversity of the Great Barrier Reef is threatened [5] ).

(7) Diversion of scarce financial resources from vital areas such as vital health, education and infrastructure through a proposed concessional $1 billion loan to Adani (in 2017  Australia has a gross debt of about $552 billion and the annual increase in the Federal Budget Deficit  is about $40 billion  [6]);

(8) Concerns that promised jobs will disappear with an adumbrated largely robot-based  mining and transport operation (Rod  Campbell of The Australia Institute : “ The 10,000 job estimate comes from a modelling exercise that Adani itself disowned in court. They knew it wouldn’t stack up in court, so they brought in another economist to do a different kind of modelling, and his estimate was a little under 1,500. Adani have stated their intention to automate the entire project “from pit to port.” That’s their words. They’re intending to use remote-controlled or robot-controlled trucks, trains and loaders. Their stated intention is to reduce the amount of employment involved in this project”[7]).

(9) Adani’s bad compliance record in India and elsewhere and concerns that very little of the profit will remain in Australia and that much will be diverted to the Cayman Islands [8-10]..

(10) Diminution of Australia’s international reputation through construction of the world’s biggest coal mine when scientific experts say “keep it in the ground” (the proposed Adani coal mine will be the biggest coal mine in the world at a time when Australia has used up its “fair share of the world’s Terminal Carbon Pollution Budget that must not be exceeded  if the world is to have  a 75% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature rise [11, 12]).

(11) The possibility of international blow-back by sanctions and green tariffs in response to this latest Australian environmental vandalism [13].

(12) Massive addition to Australia’s already disproportionately huge contribution to global greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution  and to Humanity- and Biosphere-threatening global warming (Australia with 0.3% of the world’s population has a Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution equivalent to 4.4% of the World’s total. – the Adani coal mine will lift this outrageously disproportionate percentage to 4.5% [11, 12]).

However a key consideration that is religiously ignored in look-the-other-way Australia is that, according to the World Health Organization (WHO),  air pollution kills 7 million people worldwide each year and that pollutants from the burning of coal contribute to this appalling carnage [14].

As amplified below, it is estimated that pollutants from the burning of exported Adani coal will have a long-term deadly impact, killing about 13,000 people each year and about 0.5 million people from the life-time operation of the  Adani mine. For detailed statistics,  calculations and documentation see  “Stop air pollution deaths” [14] and the scroll down this alphabetically-ordered website to “Air pollution deaths by country and region” and thence to areas of interest  such as “Australia”, “India” and “London”.

Assuming that Outdoor air pollution deaths are about half of the total of 7 million air pollution deaths annually,  and notionally assuming that burning of coal is responsible for 50% of these Outdoor air pollution deaths, then we can estimate that coal burning pollutants are responsible for about 7 million/4 = 1.75 million air pollution deaths each year.

According to the World Coal Association, global production of coal was 7, 823 million tonnes  in 2013 of which 336 million tonnes  were Australian coal exports [15]. We can modestly assume that pollutants from the burning of this coal  for energy or metallurgy were associated with about 1.75.million Outdoor pollution-related deaths annually.

From this information we can crudely estimate that  the burning of  Australia’s  annual coal exports of 336 million tonnes would be ultimately associated with 336 million tonnes Australia coal  x 1.75 million deaths / 7,823 million tonnes annual global coal production =  75,000 deaths annually.

A key caveat to this argument is that coal burning pollutants do not kill immediately – as with the effects of pollutants from cigarette smoking, the deadly outcomes may occur decades later. However carbon fuel burning  has been remorselessly increasing globally as reflected in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels that have been steadily  increasing at an ever-increasing rate  as measured by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at Mauna Loa in Hawaii since 1960.  The atmospheric CO2 is now a record 406 parts per million (ppm) and increasing at a record 3 ppm CO2 per year [16]. Accordingly, the present 7 million air pollution deaths annually may under-estimate the eventual future annual death toll due to present air pollution.

The Adani Carmichael coal mine is expected to export 60 million tonnes of  coal each year and 2,300 million tonnes of coal over the lifetime of the mine [17]. Accordingly, given the  estimate of 75,000 deaths annually from  Australia’s 336 million tonnes of coal exports annually we can crudely estimate that burning Adani’s 60 million tonnes of annual exports will be associated with 60 million tonnes annual  Adani coal exports x 75,000 deaths annually / 336 million tonnes total annual Australian coal exports = 13,392 or roughly 13,000 air pollution deaths each year.

We can similarly  crudely  estimate that burning  the 2,300 million tonnes of lifetime Adani  coal exports will be associated with 2,300 million tonnes of total Adani coal exports x 75,000 annual deaths/ 336 million tonnes of annual Australian coal exports = 513,392 or about 500,000 air pollution deaths. as a result of the lifetime operations of the Adani coal mine.

Australians, and especially the most-justifiably much-maligned Australian politicians, have a horror of numbers that put Australia in a bad light. Thus Australian media ignore the estimate from the prestigious and expert  US Just Foreign Policy organization that 1.5 million Iraqis died violently as a result of the illegal US, UK and Australian invasion of Iraq in 2003 [18]. Yet on the occasion of the US withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 the ABC (Australia’s equivalent of the UK BBC) asserted that “tens of thousands” of Iraqis had died [19]. However Iraqi deaths in 2003-2011 from violence (1.5 million) and from war-imposed deprivation (1.2 million) total 2.7 million  [20, 21]. In stark contrast,  when it comes to sports betting odds, a miniscule increase in a home mortgage interest rate from 5.60% to 5.65% , or national hero Don Bradman’s Test cricket batting average of 99.94, the average  Australian suddenly becomes a mathematical and statistical whiz obsessed with numerical precision.

Climate economist Dr Chris Hope of 90-Nobel-Laureate Cambridge University has estimated a damage-related Carbon Price in US dollars of $200 per tonne CO2-equivalent [22]. Using estimates from Professor James Hansen  (a leading climate scientist from 85-Nobel-Laureate Columbia University) of national contributions to Historical  Carbon Debt,  and assuming a damage-related Carbon Price of  $200 per tonne CO2-e,  the world has a damage-related Carbon Debt of $370 trillion that is increasing at $13 trillion per year,  and Australia has a Carbon Debt of $7.5 trillion that is increasing at $400 billion per year and at $40,000 per head per year for under-30 year old Australians [23]. Unlike conventional debt – that can be variously expunged by default, bankruptcy, printing money or the debtor running away to a secret new life – Carbon Debt via a damage-related Carbon Price is inescapable e.g.  if future  generations do not build sea walls, coastal cities will be submerged by increasing sea levels from global warming.

At a present-day price of about $100 per tonne of coal, the 60 million tonnes of annual Adani  Australian coal exports and  2,300 million tonnes of lifetime Adani Australian  coal exports will be worth $6 billion and $230 billion, respectively. However the damage–related Carbon Price at $200 per tonne coal will be twice those amounts, or $12 billion and $460 billion, respectively, to be paid by future generations – gross intergenerational inequity and intergenerational injustice to which the young (when properly informed) must surely respond with Climate Revolution (peacefully, of course).

However there is an even greater Carbon Debt from the Adani coal mine relating to the pollution-related deaths. Assuming that “all men are created equal” and a US risk-avoidance-based Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) of $7 million per person [24], then the cost of the estimated 13,000 deaths annually and 500,000 deaths from the life-time operation of the Adani coal mine will  be $91 billion and $3,500 billion, respectively.

Australia with 0.3% of the world’s population has a Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution equivalent to 4.4% of the World’s total [11, 12] . However,  the Adani coal mine will lift this outrageously disproportionate percentage to 4.5% .

Coal kills and most of the victims of Australia’s huge coal exports are Asians. Since most of the Adani coal is destined for India one supposes that most  of the eventual 500,000 dead from mine-lifetime Adani coal exports from Australia will be Indians. The Elephant-in-the-Room-ignoring 80%  of Australians who give their 2-party-preferred vote for the pro-coal, pro-gas, pro-fossil fuels,  pro-highways, pro-Adani Lib-Labs (the governing Liberal Party-National Party Coalition and the opposition Labor Party) should ask themselves after the fashion of present African-Americans protesting African-American deaths at the hands of police: do Indian lives matter? Do Asian lives matter?

However for all their present earnest political correctness, Australians are actual politically correct racist (PC racist) and don’t give a damn about Asian deaths as demonstrated by their bipartisan enthusiasm  for the Adani project that will kill 13, 000 Asians annually,  their world-leading coal exports that kill 75,000 Asians annually,  and their world-leading  gas exports that together with their coal exports and huge Domestic GHG pollution make Australia a world leader in annual per capita GHG pollution [11, 12] and  second only to Saudi Arabia for climate change inaction [25].

This profound and continuing  Australian contempt  for non-Europeans (albeit carefully hidden these days by political correctness) dates from the initial invasion in 1788 and the subsequent Aboriginal Genocide and Aboriginal Ethnocide in which 2 million Indigenous Australians have died untimely deaths from deprivation, disease or violence (0.1 million from violence) [26]. Of 350-750 Indigenous languages and dialects in 1788 only 150 remain today, of which all but 20 are threatened by racist government policy [26]. White Australians largely excluded non-Europeans, especially Indians and Chinese,  from Australia in the 19th century by regulations and deportations. Australia’s first Prime Minister Edmund Barton put the racist White Australian position succinctly  in supporting the 1901 Immigration Act (the Commonwealth Immigration Restriction Bill, 1901) commonly known as the White Australia Policy: “The doctrine of the equality of man was never intended to apply to the equality of an Englishman and the Chinaman” [27].  Indigenous Australians were only finally “counted” as Australian citizens after a Referendum in 1967 . The White Australia policy was eventually removed in 1974 by the Whitlam Labor Government that was itself removed in a US CIA-backed coup in 1975.

The White Australia policy lives on in regulations discriminating against non-Europeans seeking visas to visit Australia (regulations that are studiously ignored by PC racist Australian Mainstream media), in Australian  participation in genocidal US wars,  and in the homicidal greed of Australia’s disproportionate GHG pollution, fossil fuel exploitation,  deadly coal exports and  climate change inaction.

Of course the ultimate in racism is invading and devastating  other countries.    Australians have invaded s UK lackeys or US lackeys Australians have invaded 85 countries as compared to the British 193, France 82, the US 72 (52 after WW2), Germany 39, Japan 30, Russia 25, Canada 25,  Apartheid Israel 12 and China 2  [28-33] .History ignored yields history repeated [27] and look-the-other-way Australia is consequently now into its Third Syrian War and its Eighth Iraq War of the last 100 years. 30 of these Australian-complicit invasions have been genocidal but are , of course, utterly ignored by the “official” “The Cambridge History of Australia” [34]. By withholding food from its huge wartime grain stores, Australia was complicit in the 1942-1945 Bengali Holocaust (WW2 Indian Holocaust, WW2 Bengal Famine)  in which the British deliberately  starved 6-7 million Indians  to death for strategic reasons [27, 35-37].. Australia produced 24 million tons of wheat during WW2 but most was stored in huge temporary granaries and as little as 0.3 million tons went to India in the worst famine period of 1943 – 1944, noting that India needed to import 1-2 million tons of grain annually before WW2,  but Indian grain imports during WW2 totalled (in tons) 30,000 (1942), 303,000 (1943), 639,000 (1944), and 871,000 (1945) [27].

After December 1941 Australia switched from being a UK lackey to being a US lackey and has been involved in all post-1950 US Asian wars, atrocities associated with 40 million Asian deaths from violence or war-imposed deprivation [29]. As a US lackey Australia has been an enthusiastic partner in the US War on Terror (in reality a genocidal  US War on Muslims)  that has, so far, been associated with 32 million Muslim deaths from violence, 5 million, or imposed deprivation, 27 million, in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s  9-11 false flag atrocity [38, 39]. However all of this is dwarfed by Australia’s disproportionate involvement in the worsening Climate Emergency and Climate Genocide that is set to kill 10 billion people this century in the absence of requisite climate change action [40].

This brief history of genocidal Australian racism indicates that the adumbrated  mass murder of about 500,000 Indians via the life-time operation of the Adani Carmichael  coal mine is merely par for the course for remorselessly greedy, genocidally racist and neoliberal Australia.

However ordinary Australians are not safe from the homicidal, neoliberal greed of their ostensibly democratically-elected masters in Plutocracy, Kleptocracy, Lobbyocracy, Corporatocracy and Dollarocracy  Australia in which Big Monev purchases people, politicians, parties, policies, public perception of  reality, votes and hence more power and private  profit for the overwhelmingly dominant One Percenters. Pollutants from the burning of coal and other carbon fuels are also estimated to kill nearly 10,000 Australians each year as determined from comparison with fellow Anglosphere countries Canada and New Zealand, the breakdown being 2,200 from vehicle exhaust, 4,600 from, coal burning for electricity and 2,800 from other carbon burning [14].

By way of comparison with these estimates for Australia, UK air pollution experts from the Environmental Research Group at Kings College, after taking the impact of nitrogen oxides into account, recently estimated 9,400 annual deaths from air pollution in London [41, 42].

To put these 10,000 annual Australian air pollution deaths into a wider context, some 85,000 Australians die preventably each year, the breakdown (involving some overlaps) including  (1) 26,000 annual Australian deaths from adverse hospital events, (2) 17,000 obesity-related Australian deaths,  (3) 15,500 smoking-related Australian deaths, (4) 10,000 carbon burning pollution-derived Australian deaths, (5) 4,000 avoidable Indigenous Australian avoidable deaths, (6) 5,600 Australians die alcohol-related deaths, (7) 2,100 Australian suicides, (8) 1,400 Australian road deaths, (9) 630 Australian opiate drug-related deaths with 570 linked to US restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry, and (10) 300 Australian homicides (80 being of women killed domestically) [43].

By way of stark comparison, since 1788 there have been zero Australian deaths ever in Australia by jihadi organizations and only 2 Australian deaths ever in Australia at the hands of lone wolf jihadis. Yet US-confected terror hysteria means that US lackev Australia spends circa $10 billion each year on terrorism-related domestic security and terrorism-exciting wars [44].

The blame for the extraordinary Australian  myopia over pollution related deaths lies in (1) an entrenched  look-the-other-way culture (perhaps from Australia’s  convict past and guilt over the Aboriginal Genocide), (2) a culture of resolutely ignoring embarrassing and unpleasant realities, and (3) entrenched Mainstream media fake news through lying by omission – massive deception of decent Australians by the  neoliberal, mendacious, oligopoly and  largely US-owned  Australian media [45, 46].

Of course, the veritable Herd of Elephants in the Room ignored by look-the-other-way Australians is the worsening Climate Emergency and Climate Genocide [40].   The ideal target of the 2015 Paris Climate Conference of no more than a 1.5 C temperature  rise will be exceeded in 4-10 years. The plus 2C temperature rise  (that all nations  except for anti-science, idiot-ruled Trump America regard as catastrophic)  is now unavoidable leaving  Humanity with the limited goal of doing everything it can to make the future “less bad” for future generations [47, 48] – and that means cessation of net greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution, cessation of fossil  fuel exploitation and a return of atmospheric CO2 to the pre-Industrial Revolution level of circa 300 ppm CO2 ASAP [49-51].

Presently, about 7 million people die each year from air pollution [14] and about  0.4 million people die from climate change [52], noting  that the latter figure  may be a considerable  under-estimate because 17 million people die avoidably each year from deprivation in tropical or sub-tropical Developing World countries (minus China) that are already disproportionately  impacted by man-made climate change [29]. Presently 20 million people arte facing famine and mass starvation in war- and drought-impacted northern Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen [53].  Top climate change scientists  have estimated that as few as 0.5 billion people will survive this century if climate change is not requisitely addressed , this translating to a Climate Genocide in which these estimates translate to a climate genocide involving deaths of 10 billion people this century, this including roughly twice the present population of particular mainly non-European groups, specifically 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion Muslims in a terminal Muslim Holocaust, 2 billion Indians, 1.3 billion non-Arab Africans, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis [40]. Indeed the Indian Government has constructed a huge Wall    to keep out an expected future flood of tens of millions of Bangladeshi climate refugees [54].

In summary, the horrible “coal kills” realities   that Australians must face up to are that (1) there is a neoliberal, homicidal, Australian-killing and  climate criminal Lib-Lab (Coalition and Labor) consensus on long-term domestic fossil fuel use and  unlimited fossil fuel exports, (2) 7 million people die globally from air pollution each year, (3) 75,000  people die annually from pollutants from the burning of Australian coal exports, and (4) a further 13,000 people will die annually from the burning of Adani Australian coal exports with 500,000 people, mostly Indians, dying thus from the lifetime operation of the Adani Carmichael coal mine. Science-informed Australians who utterly abhor the prospective mass murder of about 500,000 Indians by the Adani coal mine will utterly reject the climate criminal, Asian-killing and Australian-killing Lib-Labs (Coalition and Labor), vote 1 Green and put the COALition last. A desperate World may be forced to act against  the worst climate criminal nations [11, 12] by Boycotts, Divestrnent and Sanctions (BDS), legal actions under International Law,  and by application of Green Tariffs.

 

Malcolm Turnbull's trip to India has netted taxpayers a $1 billion gift to mining giant Adani and zero free trade deals, but there are some neat holiday snaps with India's PM Narendra Modi. Mungo MacCallumreports.

IT HAS to be said that Malcolm Turnbull’s "Passage to India" was a bit of a letdown.

For starters, he played an almost inaudible second fiddle to the country’s wildly popular Prime Minister Narendra Modi; even during his favourite photo opportunity on a public (well, somewhat) train journey our leader was all but ignored by the rapturous crowds.

But perhaps more importantly for his Australian audience – both the punters and the party room – he produced almost nothing in the way of "announceables".

In fact, almost the only substantial result he could promise was a negative one: the much-vaunted free trade deal with the giant democracy may, in the end, be undeliverable. The problems of securing anything like a win for our local farmers, in particular, are not yet even on the horizon.

#India #trade deal may not be possible: #Australia PM, @TurnbullMalcolmhttps://t.co/4hYXaLUh8Q

— EconomicTimes (@EconomicTimes) April 13, 2017

This, of course, would come as no surprise to anyone who is even remotely interested in India, arguably the most complex and unpredictable nation on earth — and, for many Australians, the least comprehensible.

And among them is Turnbull’s predecessor, Tony Abbott, who celebrated the handshake agreement in extravagant style in 2014, promising to fast track the pact as the next big step in the free trade schedule that had already included South Korea, Japan and China, and was now on track to deliver the big one – theTrans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

That one fell apart but the fiasco could be (and promptly was) blamed on the intransigence of the incoming American President. However, explaining the fizzling out of the negotiations in New Delhi may be a bit more awkward, mainly because Abbott, if no one else, regards it as part of his legacy and therefore worth defending to the death. Yet another episode of the ongoing feud within the Liberal Party looms.

read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/mungo-maccall...

 

Read from top... Meanwhile Bill Shorten. like Malcolm, is bending over to show his arsehole...:

 

Right Rev. Professor Stephen Pickard is Executive Director of the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, Charles Sturt University. Thea Ormerod is President of theAustralian Religious Response to Climate Change.

Huge marches are happening this last weekend in April in Washington, D.C., and numerous cities across the United States, protesting the Trump administration's climate policies, with significant participation by faith communities.

The normally conservative Parliament of World Religions and the U.S. National Council of Churches are denouncing the administration's recent decisions regarding "the biggest challenge facing our planet."

Here in Australia, faith communities have a less brash Prime Minister than the present U.S. incumbent but we are grappling with similarly destructive policies.

Federal government support for the Adani "mega coal mine" is the target of an open letter released today, signed by prominent leaders from Australia's faith communities - including Uniting Church, Buddhists, Quakers and Catholic.

They describe the prospect of an almost $1bn loan of public money for mine infrastructure as morally wrong, writing:

"Given the climate emergency that the world now faces, it is morally irresponsible for Australia to allow the building of any new coal mines, coal-fired power stations or other fossil fuel infrastructure. It is furthermore incorrect to promote 'clean coal'; no coal is clean."

The letter resonates with recent pro-science marches, which highlighted the gap between policy makers and scientific evidence. The world's spiritual traditions place a high value on truthfulness, and the truth about climate change is no exception.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2017/04/28/4660734.htm

 

The federal agency considering a $900m loan to Adani has cited “substantial cyberbullying” of its directors to justify refusing a freedom of information request for basic details of its board meetings.

The Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (Naif) also raised concerns about “attempts to trace board members through unofficial channels” and protests outside its Cairns office to argue the time and place of meetings should be kept secret.

The Australian government solicitor last week relayed these and other concerns to the Office of the Information Commissioner, which is considering an appeal by Greenpeace after the Naif rejected its information request in January.

 

It follows recent controversy around Naif board member Karla Way-McPhail, after it was reported she has an interest in mining services businesses that could benefit from Adani’s success prompted extensive questioning in Senate estimates by Labor and the Greens.

Way-McPhail – whose political support of the Liberal National party and personal ties with Matthew Canavan, the federal minister overseeing Naif, were also raised in estimates – appears to be the only director who has received widespread media and public attention.

An inquiry into the Naif was approved by the Senate on the day Jason Clare, Labor’s shadow minister for resources and northern Australia, told parliament there had been a “cover-up” around governance questions surrounding Way-McPhail.

Siobhan Stoddart, a lawyer with the Australian government solicitor, wrote to the OIC, saying one of the agency’s distinguishing factors was “ongoing media attention concerning whether Naif is considering granting a loan to Adani”.

“It is an established fact that anti-Adani protests have disrupted businesses and organisations in the past, and it is reasonable to expect they could also disrupt Naif board meetings if the dates and locations of the meetings were disclosed,” she said.

The decision to withhold that information “was also made in the context of actual physical protests which have occurred at the Naif office, as well as complaints of substantial cyberbullying against particular board members and attempts to trace board members through unofficial channels”.

Greenpeace’s climate and energy campaigner, Nikola Casule, said the environmental group rejected “any suggestion that increased transparency would lead to bullying of the Naif board”.

“Other government agencies manage to be accountable and open without such concerns. What makes Naif different?”

Casule said the agency’s “repeated refusal to reveal any information about their functioning is dismaying”.

When combined with the fact the Senate inquiry would examine the makeup of the Naif board, “it makes it look like they have something to hide”, Casule said.

“Excuses have ranged from the usual commercial-in-confidence to documents being changed after the request was submitted to fears of cyberbullying, and potential public opposition to Naif’s plans,” he said.

“What it amounts to is a refusal to have any form of accountability to the Australian public despite controlling $5bn of their money.”

read more:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jun/28/agency-ruling-on-...

 

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Religious leaders from several faiths have occupied the electorate office of Josh Frydenberg today, demanding the federal environment minister withdraw his support for Adani’s Carmichael mine, and vowing to stay there until he does so.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/25/religious-leaders-oc...

 

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Adani has chosen to fight a $12,900 fine by the Queensland government for the unauthorised release of coal-laden stormwater into the sea at its Abbot Point port during a cyclone in March.

The Indian energy giant has given notice to the state environment department that it intends to contest the modest penalty infringement notice in court, the Guardian can reveal.

Environmental groups have lambasted the fine, which was issued on 20 July for a technical breach of a floodwater release permit, as a slap on the wrist.

An Adani company that operates the port dumped water containing more than eight times the permitted amount of sediment during Cyclone Debbie on 27 March. Adani reported the breach to the government 10 days later.

The company could still face a separate multimillion-dollar fine if found guilty of causing environmental harm from a release of polluted water into the neighbouring Caley Valley wetlands.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/aug/24/adani-to-fight-12900-fi...

Accepting the fine would mean accepting "liability" which would have shown that Adani had a social conscience. It has none. All the Adani mines should be thrown out of Australia...

 

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Menace of corruption in India

Foreign direct investment (FDI) data reveals that during the period between April 2000 to March 2011, 41.8% came to India from Mauritius. But this country, with a small economy, cannot possibly constitute the topmost source nation for FDI funds in India.

Investments in India are routed through Mauritius for tax-avoidance as well as for hiding the identities of the real investors through a process known as "round tripping".

Even the Indian Government is unaware, whether the source of this money is from criminal proceeds or just tax avoidance.

Bribes are offered at every level in India, from the ministers holding key portfolios to the peons standing at the door of government offices. The whole administrative set-up benefits from this system, therefore one hardly ever witnesses any whistleblowers to this widely prevalent corruption in the Indian establishment.

Modi, on assuming the office of Indian Prime Minister on 28 May 2014, set up a special investigation team (SIT) to investigate corruption cases.

On his first day as PM, Modi constituted a team to look into black money. Did they overlook industrialist friends?https://t.co/zpqv4DnTmJ

— Tamil Nadu Congress (@INCTamilNadu) August 25, 2017

Adani's Misdeeds

The biggest case involving black money (unexplained/untaxed funds) before the establishment of the SIT was that of the Adani Group.

Adani group allegedly took out over Rs (Indian rupees) 5,000 crores (1 crore = 10,000,000, therefore about AUD$1 billion) to tax havens through inflated bills for the import of power equipment from South Korea and China.

As per a senior official of SIT, if the Adani case reaches its logical conclusion the business group will be required to pay a fine of approximately Rs15,000 crores (AUD$3 billion)

He further says it’s a "watertight" case. The trail of documents shows how the Adani group diverted Rs 5,468 crores (AUD$1.1 billion) to Mauritius via Dubai after Modi became Indian Prime-Minister.

read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/understanding...

 

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Veteran conservationist Bob Brown has criticised the “destructive wealth and arrogance” of Indian mining group Adani at a Sydney protest against the Galilee Basin mine.

The Adani chairman, Gautam Adani, announced this week that the company would break ground on it’s $16.5bn coal mine in Queensland in October.

Brown has joined calls for the federal government to rule out helping fund the “devastating mega project” through a loan from the Northern Australian Infrastructure Fund.

He says Adani, in a “heightened arrogance”, has been signalling that the $1bn loan was already secured despite no confirmation from the Turnbull government.

“A message back to Mr Adani – you’re welcome to this country,” Brown told a summit in Sydney on Saturday.

“But you’re not welcome to bring your destructive wealth and arrogance to ride over the majority opinion of Australian people who don’t want you to have that loan and won’t let you get away with that mine.”

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/02/destructive-wealth-a...

 

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The operators of Melbourne’s Federation Square have censored the content of an anti-Adani slideshow presented there, demanding that all images of newspaper headlines and politicians, as well as “explicitly negative” environmental messages be removed.

On Saturday, a coalition of environmental groups held a screening of the documentaryGuarding the Galilee at Federation Square, attended by about 300 people. The film is about the fight to stop Adani’s Carmichael coalmine, which would be the biggest coalmine ever built in Australia and one of the biggest in the world.

In the week before the event, Federation Square demanded to see the slideshow that would be presented before the screening and then demanded much of it be removed.

In email correspondence a Federation Square representative told the event organisers they “cannot permit any slides with protest messaging, slogans or memes together with slides that show pictures of politicians, newspaper headlines or any explicitly political messaging”.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/20/anti-adani-protest-cens...

 

Adani is also yet to register an Indigenous land use agreement with the mine site’s traditional owners amid continuing legal challenges from within the group.

An Adani spokesman did not return calls on Friday.

IEEFA analyst Tim Buckley predicts that for the first phase of production, Adani will have to spend $2bn for a mine digging out up to 25m tonnes of coal a year, and $3.3bn for the rail project.

Adani has spent $3.5bn in Australia so far, all of it funded through debt, including more than $2bn on the port and $680m to buy the mine site land from Linc Energy and Clive Palmer.

Janakaraj said in the statement that the pre-construction work, funded by an injection of up to $400m from Adani Enterprises in India, included teams doing “cultural heritage inspections and recordings” at the mine and rail sites.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/13/adani-says-it-will-brea...

 

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Key federal crossbenchers will today grill senior government bureaucrats about possible secret approaches to foreign agencies for financial support for Adani's controversial Carmichael coal mine.

Key points:

• Senator Xenophon wants to know what representations the Government made to foreign agencies
• Australian embassies overseas were searched for documents
• An FOI request on the issue has "captured several hundred pages of documents"

 

The questions have been sparked by a Freedom of Information request to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) for documents relating to requests for foreign government financing for the controversial multi-billion-dollar mine and rail project.

In response, DFAT asked for more time to respond as the request had "captured several hundred pages of documents".

Senator Nick Xenophon said he would be demanding clarification from DFAT officials at Senate Estimates today about what representations the Federal Government has made to foreign agencies.

"It is not the role of the Australian Government or its diplomatic missions to be involved as finance brokers for a very controversial project like this," he said.

"There needs to be an open and transparent process."

Greens leader Richard Di Natale said the Federal Government must tell the public if any representations have been made to international finance agencies about funding Adani's projects.

"DFAT, the Foreign Minister, the Trade Minister, should immediately come clean with what sort of secret deals are going on between some of these finance companies, international companies, and the Australian Government," he said.

The FOI request was lodged in August by The Australia Institute, which asked for all "correspondence and cables" relating to requests for foreign government financing of Adani's projects.

Specifically, it asked DFAT for any documents that "include or refer to any formal representations made by any Australian Government minister or official requesting or recommending consideration of financial contributions towards or involvement in these projects" from foreign government agencies in 2017.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-26/bureaucrats-to-be-grilled-over-ada...

 

Traditional owners opposed to the Adani Carmichael coalmine have filed an injunction with the federal court to prevent the native title tribunal from signing off on an Indigenous land use agreement before the outcome of a court challenge.

The injunction was filed following a meeting of the W&J traditional owners council in Brisbane on Saturday, where the 120 attendees voted against the Ilua for the fourth time since it was proposed in 2012.

It will attempt to prevent the native title tribunal from approving the Ilua on the basis of an agreement from some traditional owners before a federal court decision to determine who has authority to act over the land is handed down in March.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/dec/03/adani-coalmine-tradi...

 

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Public safety concerns, not politics, were behind the axing of the screening of a documentary on the Stop Adani protest movement, a north Queensland council says.

Townsville City Council's talks with police about "emerging community tensions" in the debate around the Carmichael mine project prompted its move to halt the screening at one of its public venues a week out, according to its chief executive Adele Young.

It follows the arrest of a man in Townsville on Monday night for allegedly assaulting anti-Adani protesters, reported threats to activist Ben Pennings, and a controversy that engulfed federal MP George Christensen on Sunday over his apparent online taunt to environmentalists while posing with a gun.

However, the North Queensland Conservation Council (NQCC) insists the council did not mention safety concerns when it first revealed its decision to scrap the booking agreement last Thursday.

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-21/council-denies-politics-behind-axi...

 

 

THIS IS CENSORSHIP OF THE HIGHEST ORDER.

 

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Investigation into claims Adani bores put 'sensitive one-million-year-old springs' at risk

The Queensland environment department launches an investigation into a series of groundwater bores drilled by Adani, which conservationists say were sunk without approval, contrary to the miner's claim it had permission for the works.

 

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In terms of the careful language used by scientists and bureaucrats, the assessment was damning.

Adani's key water management plan for its coal mine in Queensland was so flawed its outcomes were unreliable, scientists from the CSIRO warned federal Environment Minister Melissa Price's department.

They were scathing about the modelling that underpinned the entire plan, which, they said, was replete with errors and false assumptions.

"The modelling used is not suitable to ensure the outcomes sought by the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Protection Act are met," the CSIRO and Geoscience Australia stated bluntly in a joint report.

Adani's approach was "not sufficiently robust to monitor and minimise impacts to protected environments".

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-11/adani-damning-assessment-turned-i...

 

 

 

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The conservationist and former federal Greens leader Bob Brown delivered a broadside at “disgraceful” coverage in News Corp newspapers as his Stop Adani convoy arrived in Queensland to fervour among activists and stoushes in the local press.

About 5,000 people joined Brown at a rally in the Brisbane central business district on Wednesday afternoon, protesting against the proposed Carmichael coalmine.

But Brown, whose Stop Adani convoy resembles its own mini election campaign, has attracted the ire of News Corp’s Brisbane masthead, the Courier-Mail.

The Courier-Mail’s front page on Monday reported on offensive comments criticising coal workers, made by someone using a false name, on a social media page for the convoy. It followed a story last week about businesses in mining communities refusing to serve activists.

Brown said the comments on social media “had no place in civil debate” but that they were now being used to tar activists and create hostility.

“Sure you can argue one way or the other, and I respect those who think Adani should go ahead,” Brown said. “I ask for respect in the other direction. Some of the headlines in the Murdoch media are simply disgraceful. They’re a disgrace to journalism and they’re a disgrace to the fourth estate’s responsibility for fair and balanced journalism in this biggest debate facing humanity.

“We come in peace, we come abiding by the laws.

“I absolutely reject [the offensive comments] and as I said to the Courier-Mail last night, I’m sure you take down those comments made on your website, and you separate yourselves from them.

“What [the Courier-Mail] has done today is to use those despicable comments and try to tar everyone else with them. That’s the lowest form of journalism.

“Those comments have no place in civil debate, and they have no place being used to stir up, no doubt, malevolence down the line. And I hold the Murdoch media is responsible for that, if it happens.”

Brown, who rose to prominence because of his opposition to the Franklin Dam project in the 1980s, was asked why the Carmichael mine, and not other proposals, have become the focus of environmental and climate activism.

“I got asked that very often about the Franklin Dam. Why this dam and why not other dams?” Brown said. “This has become a litmus test for coalmining around the world. Bloomberg indeed describes it as the most contentious coalmine in the world.”

Geoff Cousins, the outgoing president of the Australian Conservation Foundation, who is travelling with the convoy, said he had met with Adani Australia’s chief executive of mining, Lucas Dow, recently.

He said Dow had made a well-worn argument in support of the Adani mine; that end-users of coal would source their supply from elsewhere if it wasn’t mined in Australia.

“This country used to lead in these matters,” Cousens [sic] said. “That’s what we have to do now.”

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/apr/22/bob-brown-accuses...

 

 

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Gus says: STOP ADANI NOW.