Kerry Smith

China Shenhua Energy reported an 18% decline in coal sales in 2015. Shenhua’s internal coal production was down 8.4% — with a further 10% drop in sales from third-party providers. Its coal imports fell to almost nothing, reflecting an overall trend in which China’s total coal imports were down 30%. Shenhua still says it is committed to the $1 billion Watermark coal project in the Liverpool Plains of New South Wales, but the project now appears to lack financial backers.

On December 15, the Queensland Land Court recommended the giant Adani-Carmichael open-cut coalmine be given the go-ahead in central Queensland subject to several conditions including the protection of the endangered Black Throated Finch. The hearing was prompted by a number of objections to the mine, including from the conservation group Land Services of Coast and Country.

North-western Tasmania is home to one of the world's last remnants of primeval temperate rainforest, part of an ecosystem that once spread across the supercontinent of Gondwana. Thousand-year-old trees tower above ancient ferns, their roots growing in peat accumulated over millennia. This is why the region has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Eucalyptus forests in the rest of Australia need fire to regenerate. But these plants evolved before the cycle of conflagration and renewal began. If they burn they die.

Tasmania is in the grip of an energy crisis as drought reduces output from its hydro-electric dams and the undersea power cable — which had been providing up to 40% of its power needs from Victoria — is shut down. Basslink is planning a major operation to repair its undersea power cable, which was shut down after a fault was discovered about 100 kilometres off the Tasmanian coast.

Ergon workers in Bundaberg walked off the job in response to the company's plans to axe front line jobs in the region and across the state. This follows a similar walkout in Atherton on January 15 over the same issue. Electricians and linesmen from the Bundaberg depot walked off the job on January 20 in response to the company's decision to outsource more work at the expense of permanent frontline positions.

Two forest activists protesting against the clearfelling of native forest in north-western Tasmania have become the first people charged under the state's controversial anti-protest laws. John Henshaw and Jessica Hoyt were part of a group of nine protesters who walked on to a Forestry Tasmania coup at Lapoinya, 37 kilometers from Burnie on January 18. About 70 other protesters have gathered at the entrance to the coup for the past week to oppose the logging.

In May last year Nazanin, a 23-year-old Iranian asylum seeker, was raped on Nauru. It took three months and a medical emergency for the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to send her to Australia for treatment. At the time, the department said Nazanin's mother and brother would also be brought to Australia to provide critical family support.

Anti-racist protesters once again easily out-numbered the racist and Islamophobic Reclaim Australia at rallies around Australia on November 22. MELBOURNE The biggest rally was in the outer suburb of Melton, about 35 kilometres west of Melbourne, where anti-Islam groups have been campaigning against the construction of an Islamic school and mosque.

Australia's offshore oil and gas authority, National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) has rejected BP's application to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight on the grounds that its “environment plan does not yet meet the criteria for acceptance under the environment regulations”. NOPSEMA had earlier said BP needs a comprehensive risk assessment and a comprehensive oil pollution emergency plan.

More than 50 teachers at Yeronga State High School in Brisbane, including principal Terry Heath, held an afternoon strike on November 17 as part of their campaign to free 21-year-old Mojgan Shamsalipoor from immigration detention.

Health services are under serious attack in WA, with the Health Department asking hospitals to finalise “budget management strategies” by the end of January. Amid claims of massive cuts to funding, hospitals in Perth are bracing for staff cuts. The Health Services Union (HSU) expects about 500 jobs to be shed at Royal Perth Hospital and similar numbers at Fiona Stanley Hospital. The union says its previous predictions of about 1000 job cuts “across the board” now appeared “conservative” and job uncertainty is causing widespread stress.

Yet another refugee has been found dead while in the care of the Immigration Department thanks to Australia's harsh and punitive refugee policy. Thirty-year-old Iranian Kurd, Fazel Chegeni, who first arrived in Australia in 2011, died after escaping from the detention centre, although how he came to be found dead remains unclear.