Welcome to Kate’s Enviro Blog — a collection of articles, thoughts and journeys connected to the Australian environment and the battle to protect it.
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Whitsunday Islands, QLD
Larapinta Trek, NT
Risking it all – BP and the Great Australian Bight
This week a Senate inquiry was announced to investigate BP’s proposal to search for oil in the Great Australian Bight off South Australia. The oil giant wants to drill four deep-water exploration wells in the ocean floor about 300 kilometres south west of Ceduna, believing… Read more
The Tarkine & Cradle Mountain National Park, TAS
Mining the Tarkine – Tasmania’s resources bust
Situated in Tasmania’s north west, the Tarkine is a globally significant wilderness area containing extensive tracts of Gondwanan temperate rainforest. Although not designated as a National Park, or part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, the area contains a wildly diverse landscape with rich… Read more
Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park, SA
Cape York in Crisis
Once again Cape York is in crisis. Tens of thousands of hectares of native bushland are being cleared on Cape York on a scale not seen since the Bjelke-Petersen years. The aim is to open up the region to high-value agriculture in a bid to… Read more
Draining the Lifeblood – Fracking the Great Artesian Basin
The NSW Baird government is pushing ahead with plans to expand the state’s coal seam gas industry, after getting the green light from NSW chief scientist Mary O’Kane last week. O’Kane delivered her final report to the Baird government about the state of the CSG… Read more
Sickness Country: Selling Nuclear to the Neighbours
Earlier this month, Tony Abbott travelled to India to seal the deal on a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement which will allow the sale of uranium to the subcontinent. Australia had previously banned the sale of uranium to India, due to its status as a non-signatory… Read more
Uncertain future for Adani at Abbot Point as fight for the reef continues
It’s been an eventful month for Australia’s greatest natural wonder. It was widely reported this week that Abbot Point proponents Adani Group, GVK Hancock and North Queensland Bulk Ports would seek to reverse their plan to dump 5 million tonnes of dredge spoil into the… Read more
Wild Rivers no more: Newman decision threatens the Cape
This week, the Queensland Government finalised their repeal of the Wild Rivers Act. Introduced in 2005 by the Labor government, the Act aimed to protect Queensland’s 13 pristine rivers from the threat of bauxite mining, CSG drilling, major irrigation plans and damming. The Queensland Government had… Read more
The Madness of Greg Hunt and the Carmichael Mine
Just in case anyone was left doubting the Abbott government’s disdain for environmental protection, our Environment Minister Greg Hunt has laid that to rest, approving the development of one of the largest coal mines in the world. The Carmichael mine will be developed by Indian… Read more
Why Jonathan Moylan’s Whitehaven Hoax Was Great
Anti-coal activist Jonathan Moylan left court today still in the dark about his fate, after his sentencing for breaching Section 1041E of the Corporations Act was adjourned. The 26 year old trilingual translator from Newcastle first hit headlines in January 2013, after distributing a fake… Read more
Bans, Gags, Funding Cuts: Desperate Measures from a Desperate Government
A week can hardly go by lately without a new attack on environmental justice in Australia. The latest threat comes from Andrew Nikolic, Federal Member for the Tasmanian seat of Bass. The Liberal MP has moved to strip charity status from environmental groups, who he perceives as… Read more
Pokie-Tourism: Campbell Newman’s Dream for our Tropical North
The name Aquis probably doesn’t mean much to you if you live outside Far North Queensland. If you do, it’s a name that’s been on everyone’s lips for the last year and has dominated local media. Aquis Great Barrier Reef Resort is a mega casino proposed… Read more
Abbott’s International Tour de Farce
Last week, Tony Abbott embarked on his international tour of embarrassment. Not content to cause shame on the national stage, he is hell-bent on humiliating Australia in lands far and wide, following his lampooning on popular US TV show Last Week Tonight. Of all the… Read more
The Government’s War on the Environment
On Tuesday, the Abbott government delivered their much anticipated budget, putting an end to the age of ‘reckless spending’ and ‘entitlement’ and saving Australia from its path to economic destruction. There were some winners. The mining industry was generally happy with budget, finally rid of… Read more
Clive Palmer’s Abbot Point Bid A Titanic Disaster
Last week, Australia’s favourite mining magnate / politician / conspiracy theorist Clive Palmer made a bid for a stake in the controversial Abbot Point development. The $3 billion expansion of the T2 coal export Terminal was abandoned by BHP Billiton in November and now Clive,… Read more
David vs Goliath – Maules Creek vs Big Coal
Last Saturday, four members of a group of 13 medical professionals and students were arrested after joining an anti-mining protest at Maules Creek. Spending more than four hours chained together at the site, the so-called Medics Against Coal felt compelled to act. In March, 92… Read more
The Biggest Threat to the Great Barrier Reef is … Ice Cream?
The Queensland Environment Minister Andrew Powell yesterday urged Australians to boycott the much loved American ice cream company, Ben & Jerry’s. What is this lunacy, you ask? What possibly could these old, smiling purveyors of frozen goodness have done to become the focus of such… Read more
The Mining Tax – Saviour or Destroyer?
With July 1st bringing a new senate, there has been a lot of talk about the Mining Tax. The Mining Tax, or Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT), has been a thorn in the side of the Liberal government since its introduction in 2012 and its… Read more
Toxic Waste From Clive Palmer’s Nickel Refinery Threatens Reef Again
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on the Australian government. Once again, toxic waste from Clive Palmer’s nickel refinery near Townsville is threatening to spill into the Great Barrier Reef and local waterways. This comes only weeks after newly released documents revealed… Read more
Environment Minister Hunt Resigns Australia to “Decades and Decades” of Coal Power
According to Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt, coal will power Australia for “decades and decades” to come. Instead of increasing our Renewable Energy Target from a pitiful 5% by 2020 in a bid to reduce emissions, Hunt believes that scientific advances in carbon capture and… Read more
Government To Continue Use of Banned Pesticides
The Federal Government wants to amend a section of the Agricultural and Veterinarian Chemicals Act which would eliminate unsafe chemicals from our food and agricultural products. The mandatory scheme for the re-approval and re-registration of pesticides was introduced by the former Labour Government and was due… Read more
Environment Department Gutted; “Alternative Funding Models” in Uluru & Kakadu Suggested
The upcoming budget will slash $100 million from the Department of the Environment over the next three years. An internal government review has indicated that 670 jobs will be shed, equating to a quarter of the Department’s workforce, with 250 voluntary redundancies expected by Christmas… Read more
Exploiting the Cape York Wilderness – A Delicate Balance
The wilderness of the Cape York Peninsula is one of Australia’s most precious. One of the last wild places on earth it is a biodiversity hotspot, home to undisturbed tropical forests, wetlands and over 300 species of endemic flora and fauna. The Cape is also… Read more
Environmental Injustice in Australia – Nuclear Waste
Muckaty Station is a small township in the remote Northern Territory, 110km north of Tennant Creek and roughly 800km south of Darwin. Also known as Marlwanpa, the land is held under Native Title having formally been returned in 2001 to the traditional owners – the… Read more
Wind Farm Syndrome a Load of Hot Air
In what will be absolutely no surprise to the rational minded human, research by the National Health and Medical Research Council has debunked the myth of the ludicrous “Wind Farm Syndrome”. Anti-wind farm campaigners allege that wind farms cause a series of ailments, ranging from… Read more
The Murky Waters of Dredging
Australians are becoming increasingly concerned with the impacts of large dredging projects on their delicate marine environments. After the social, economic and environmental disaster at Gladstone after large scale port dredging, local communities are concerned about the impacts on recreational & commercial fishing, tourism and… Read more
Second Legal Challenge to Abbot Point; Lights Out for The Reef?
Today, the Mackay Conservation Group filed documents in Brisbane’s Federal Court challenging the government’s controversial decision to dredge and dump at Abbot Point. This is the second legal action against the government over the approval. As with North Queensland Conservation Council, they will be represented… Read more
The Last of the Last – the Demise of Our Australian Icons
The world is experiencing extinction rates not seen since the dinosaurs were killed off, marking the end of the Cretaceous period some 66 million years ago. Australia has not been immune to this alarming trend. We have experienced a dramatic loss of species over the… Read more
Clive Palmer – Renewable Energy’s Saviour?
Renewable energy is not something that springs to mind when I think of Clive Palmer. Loudmouth Imbecile? Yes. Bizarrely entertaining lunatic? Yes. Environmentally insensitive coal-mining magnate? Yes. But Palmer United Party’s controversial leader has spoken out in support of renewable energy and against government plans… Read more
The Dirty Business of Coal Seam Gas
CSG company Santos has been found guilty of contaminating a Pilliga forest aquifer with chemical waste leaked from a holding pond, a by-product of one of their test wells. The aquifer was found to contain radioactive uranium products at 20 times safe drinking levels. The… Read more
Too Many National Parks?
The blows just keep on coming. Tony Abbott, speaking last week at a ForestWorks industry dinner in Canberra, hailed loggers as the “ultimate conservationists” and promised to end the lock-up of timber in national parks. Abbott told the audience that Australia has “quite enough” national… Read more
Bouddi National Park, NSW
The Truth Revealed – Great Barrier Reef Authority Advised Against Plans to Dredge at Abbot Point
This week came a huge blow to Environment Minister Greg Hunt and the controversial Abbot Point coal port development he approved late last year. New documents obtained by Greenpeace emerged this week, revealing the extent of the Marine Park Authority’s opposition to both the dredging… Read more
Stop Coca Cola Trashing Australia
Greenpeace and Clean Up Australia have launched their #TRASHYSELFIE campaign to raise awareness of plastic bottle waste in Australia. 15,000 plastic bottles are discarded every minute in Australia and less than a third are recycled, meaning they end up on our beaches, in our rivers,… Read more
The World Is Watching
In a recent article in the UK’s Independent, journalist Kathy Marks poses the question, “Is Tony Abbott’s Australian administration the most hostile to his nation’s environment in history?” Marks criticises Abbott’s absolute disregard for the science of climate change and even science itself, by not even… Read more
Is Drought the New Normal?
Tony Abbott has arrived in the drought affected regions of Western New South Wales and Queensland to discuss a potential government aid package with struggling regional farmers. By all accounts, these regions have faced a devastating drought over the last two years, with some areas… Read more
Environmental Unaccountability
Today we learned that our reef destroying, shark culling, forest logging Environment Minister Hunt will grant himself retrospective legal immunity. What does this mean? Greg Hunt will be immune from any legal challenges to environmental approvals he issued before December 31st, 2013. Many of these… Read more
Taking the Politics out of Saving the Reef
Last Saturday, a series of small rallies took place in our state capitals protesting the recently approved dredging and dumping project at Abbot Point. The event was organised at the last minute by ASEN, the Australian Student Environment Network and got a pretty good turnout… Read more
Another World Heritage Listing Gets the Axe
In another blow to the Australian environment, the government announced that it will remove 170,000 hectares of forest from the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, opening it up to logging. In a week that also saw approval granted to dump 3 million cubic metres of… Read more
The Great Barrier Reef – A Dumping Ground for Industry?
On December 12th 2013, the Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt announced his decision to approve an application by North Queensland Bulk Ports (NQBP) to expand its coal terminal at Abbot Point. This news was a great shock to those campaigning against the project as well… Read more
The Global Attack on Climate Science
There has been an ongoing war against the evidence-based science of anthropogenic climate change. Despite this year’s abundance of extreme weather events, more people than ever do not believe that climate change is real, with Australians among the most sceptical of the OECD member states.… Read more
The Anti-Environment Minister Strikes Again
What’s scarier than an ocean without sharks? An ocean without them. Environment Minister Greg Hunt has cleared the way for the cull of Great White, Tiger and Bull Sharks in Western Australia by exempting it from legislation designed to protect the threatened species. Thousands have… Read more
The Silent Killer
An old but powerful message from the Surfrider Foundation about plastic pollution, the silent killer. According to the Australian Marine Conservation Society, around one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals are killed every year by plastics. Say no to plastic bottles. Say no to plastic… Read more
Why Aquis Reef Casino is Bad for Cairns
Chinese billionaire and developer Tony Fung is proposing to build his Macau style mega-casino and resort, the Aquis Great Barrier Reef Resort, on the Cairns northern beach of Yorkeys Knob. The $4.3 billion casino will have 9 luxury hotels, a convention centre, 2 x 2500-seat… Read more
