Testimony to the NSW upper house inquiry into the sale of NSW’s electricity assets has alleged that only a fraction of the $5.3 billion price tag will reach the public purse. Billions will be eaten up by “associated costs”.
These costs include about $1.5 billion in government funds to buy a new coal mine north-east of Lithgow to ensure a cheap coal supply for the new private owners. A further $1 billion in coal price subsidies is guaranteed to the private energy companies over the life of the mine.
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If a city drowns beneath a once-in-a-hundred-years flood, that's weather. Such things have happened in the past.
But when hundred-year floods start happening every few decades, that's no longer just weather. The dice have become loaded for different outcomes. Climate — that is, the average of weather — is changing.
So let's get down to the question everyone's asking. Were this summer's floods the result of climate change?
The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has delayed its decision on the controversial new coalmine proposed for Margaret River in Western Australia.
The EPA decision was expected early January. Yet it has chosen to give the mining company LD Operations more time to provide more information. The EPA chairperson is now expected to make a decision at the end of February.
Paola Harvey, Socialist Alliance candidate for Keira, has called on the NSW government to reverse its January 14 approval for a second gas-fired power station at Tallawarra.
She said the government should make plans to phase out coal and gas-fired power and invest in a large-scale size solar-thermal power station.
Harvey said the decision to build the gas-fired station was “suicidal in the context of global warming”.
Three years after Aboriginal elder Mr Ward was cooked to death in the back of a prison van travelling from Laverton to Kalgoorlie, charges have been laid against the four parties found responsible by coroner Alistair Hope.
The parties prosecuted are the Western Australian Department of Corrective Services, the private prison van contractor G4S (formerly GSL) and the two drivers of the prison van.
State government workplace safety agency WorkSafe laid the charges under the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
The article below is based on a speech by Socialist Alliance upper house candidate in the March NSW state elections Patrick Harrison. He spoke at the 'Carols at the Colliery', an action held on December 21 in Russell Vale (near Wollongong) to protest a proposed coalmine expansion.
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The Socialist Alliance opposes all new coal development and infrastructure. It's what the science demands we do, and the alternatives to coal are ready to go.
The expansion of the Gujarat NRE No.1 colliery is a threat to local residents' health and safety.
Climate activists gathered outside the Melbourne head office of mining giant BHP on January 21 to show solidarity with victims of the recent floods in eastern Australia.
Evidence has emerged linking severe flooding in Australia with human-induced climate change.
Shaun Murray, an activist from the Switch off Hazelwood group, said: "The recent catastrophic floods are the result of human-induced climate change.
“As coal is the biggest contributor worldwide to emissions, the coal industry should pay the cost of clean-up and reconstruction for these disasters.”
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said that over the next six months, Wikileaks will be releasing more files related to Israel. “There are 3,700 files related to Israel and the source of 2,700 files is Israel,” he told Al-Jazeera on December 22. “The Guardian, El Pais and Le Monde have published only two percent of the files related to Israel due to the sensitive relations between Germany, France and Israel.”
Aboriginal leaders in Sydney and around Australia, together with the Indigenous Social Justice Association (ISJA) and other community organisations, have called for a memorial to be built in the Block in Redfern, for all Aboriginal people who have died in custody.
To this end, a march will be held on February 14, seven years to the day that a young Aboriginal boy, TJ Hickey, was allegedly rammed by a police vehicle during a pursuit and killed.
Socialist Party member Anthony Main on January 11 became the second socialist elected to the City of Yarra council.
The Labor mayor for Yarra, Jane Garrett, resigned after she was elected to state parliament in November. This left a vacancy on the council, which Main has filled.
He was elected after a count back of votes tallied at the last council election.
Main told Green Left Weekly that of the nine councillors, three are Greens, two are Labor, two are right-wing independents and, now, two are socialists.
Twenty-six children in Gaza were shot by Israeli troops near the border during 2010, a Save the Children report found.
Hundreds of protesters rallied in support of the whistleblowing website Wikileaks and its editor in chief, Julian Assange, in Sydney on January 15. Other rallies also took place in major cities around the world.
The rally, which began at Sydney’s Town Hall, was addressed by several key speakers. The protesters later took to the streets for a loud and lively march, which went past the US consulate and ended at Hyde Park.
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