Australia

Woodside's massive Scarborough gas development is dealt a major blow, with the Federal Court finding an environmental plan for part of the project was not legally approved and was therefore invalid.

Australia has some of the most beautiful landscapes - yet we don't have a banner photo here. Here's what we're going to do about it: We want you! Yeah that's right you. To submit some photos which you believe worthy of the honour of being our banner photo.

To submit a photo do two things:

• Post it in !pics@aussie.zone
• Comment below this post with a link to that post

The comment with the most upvotes by Wednesday 4th of October AEST (whenever I check it that day) will be installed as our banner photo and the submitter will be credited in the sidebar

Yes campaigners get baited by bad-faith provocations, while some in the no camp point directly to this online madness confusing the too-time-poor-for-politics

The Indigenous voice to parliament proposal is not a secret UN plot to steal Australian land. It is not a proposal for a “third chamber of parliament”. It is also not a conspiracy to stop dairy farming, impose “backdoor communism”, force people to listen to rap music or start a new religion … though I have been told all these things on social media this past fortnight.

Welcome to Disinformania; Australia, you’re standing in it.

G'day all! Just thought I'd chuck up this random thread for a bit of a yarn. You know, sometimes it's nice to have a chinwag about anything and everything – could be your latest DIY project, a recipe you're stoked about, or even just how your day's been. It's all about sharing the good vibes and having a fair dinkum chat. So, what's the goss? Jump on in and let's have a good old chit-chat, like a bunch of mates sitting 'round the table. Cheers!

Victoria is in the grip of a heroin addiction problem. Experts say too few people are getting access to the treatment they need and that needs to change before fentanyl becomes a bigger issue in Australia.

Dozens of campaigners across the Northern Territory have gathered to push for more federal government support to combat the territory's domestic violence crisis.

Hey everyone we have a new community called !foodaustralia@aussie.zone where you can post your food pics under What's for dinner tonight? Or share recipes, ask any questions, post food articles basically anything food related. Come join us. Cheers.

Don't forget to visit !frugal@aussie.zone too.

The Op-Ed by Opposition Leader Peter Dutton published in The Daily Telegraph on Friday, September 22 demonstrates a level of ignorance and misinformation that is alarming in a man who is seeking to be the Prime Minister of our country.

It is a tragedy that several leading “No” campaigners, including Mr Dutton, Senator Jacinta Price and Warren Mundine are using the referendum campaign to boost their own political ambitions, even if it means condemning First Nations Peoples to more of the brutal policy failures that were delivered while the Opposition Leader was a Minister in previous governments.

DUTTON: “A Voice would be the most consequential change to our system in history. There is no similar constitutional body anywhere in the world – and there is nothing “modest” about the proposed change before us.”

THE FACTS: The 93 new words proposed for the Constitution make it absolutely clear: “The Voice may make representations to Parliament and the Executive Government”. The Parliament is free to ignore those representations. There are similar structures set up around the world, and indeed in Australia at state and local government levels, to give voice to First Nations Peoples.

DUTTON: “Because we are all Australians, we are treated equally under the law. A Voice will change this fundamental democratic principle.”

THE FACTS: As a would-be Prime Minister, Peter Dutton urgently needs a tutorial on our nation’s Constitution. Contrary to his claim here, our founding fathers actually recognised that inequities exist in any society and that we can use our laws to address them; that is why the Constitution established a Senate in which Tasmania has as many Senators as New South Wales, despite having far fewer people. The founders actually recognised the importance of giving Tasmanians a “voice” through representation, that might otherwise be drowned out by the larger states. The Constitution also contains a races power. All Australians are not treated equally.

The Constitution has always divided by race, to the detriment of our people. A Voice corrects this.

DUTTON: “A Voice will not deliver the change and improvements we all desire. The Voice will be more Canberra bureaucracy.”

THE FACTS: When we asked Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through our Dialogues what changes they wanted to improve their lives, they were emphatic: no more Canberra bureaucracy. The Voice is supported by more than 80 per cent of First Nations Peoples precisely because it delivers what they have asked for: the ability to give direct advice to government on the matters affecting their communities.

DUTTON: “If you want to alter our Constitution, details should come before the vote, not the vote before the details.”

THE FACTS: Again, our would-be Prime Minister is failing Constitutional Law 101. The Constitution contains a set of clear, simple principles. It was always the intention that the parliament would debate and decide on the details about how to apply those principles. For example, the Constitution established the High Court in 1901 but was not legislated for until several years later.

DUTTON: “The fact that our best legal minds remain divided on the Voice shows that this constitutional change is risky.”

THE FACTS: There is almost no division in the legal profession. In fact, Australia’s “best legal minds” - our most reputable legal experts including the Law Council of Australia, public law academics, major law firms, barristers and former High Court judges - have repeatedly stated the Voice poses no legal threat. They have also confirmed the prospect of the Voice creating a flood of litigation to the High Court is grossly overstated.

The Law Council of Australia supports the Voice, as does former Chief Justice Bob French and former high court justices Hayne and Gaudron. Most of Australia’s major law firms openly support the Voice, both the most significant plaintiff law firms and blue chip client firms: including Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Allens, Herbert Smith Freehills, Norton Rose Fulbright, Hall & Wilcox, DLA Piper, Holding Redlich, Baker McKenzie, King & Wood Mallesons, Slater & Gordon, Macpherson Kelley, Maurice Blackburn, Piper Alderman, Lander & Rogers, Ashurst, Arnold Bloch Leibler, Gilbert + Tobin, Hive Legal, and MinterEllison.

DUTTON: “No issue is off limits to the Voice and that the High Court – not parliament – will determine the Voice’s powers and remit… If anything goes wrong with a constitutional Voice, we are stuck with it. This Voice comes with a no-returns policy.”

THE FACTS: The 93-word addition proposed for the Constitution, to be voted on by the Australian people on 14 October makes this clear: while the Voice can “make representations”, the Parliament retains “power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the [Voice], including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.”

This means that if the Voice is not functioning well, the Parliament retains the power to update or remodel its functions and powers.

DUTTON: “It will drive us apart, not bring us together. Voting “No” is not to turn our backs on disadvantaged Indigenous Australians.”

THE FACTS: What is driving Australians apart is the relentless flow of misinformation and lies, as demonstrated here by the Opposition Leader. What is driving us apart are the campaign tactics that the No campaign are on the record as using; that is, by stoking fear and confusion when they speak to Australians. By his own actions, by refusing to listen to the voices of First Nations people, Mr Dutton is already turning his back on us.

Police operation Uniform Kalahari reveals horrific alleged abuse and challenges popular narrative about the state’s youth crime ‘crisis’

Our reporters have uncovered a cache of messages, sent by Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo to a Liberal powerbroker, where he tried to protect his allies and denigrate his enemies.

These were the top posts across Aussie Zone at the end of this week

Top 5 from Australia:

• Weekly Random Thread #38 19-09-2023
• Rooftop solar eats up all demand in South Australia, world’s most renewable grid
• Scientists take out full-page New York Times ad calling on Australia to end ‘climate annihilation’
• Australian journalist calls her baby ‘Methamphetamine Rules’ as a test of naming regulations
• Tens of thousands of Australians hit the streets in support of the October 14 referendum

Top 5 from Aussie Enviro:

• Australians support fossil fuel industry paying for the costs of climate change
• Fenced in from predators, these numbats are thrilling ecologists as they repopulate the Eyre Peninsula
• Colonists upended Aboriginal farming, growing grain and running sheep on rich yamfields, and cattle on arid grainlands
• Honeypot ant honey used in Indigenous traditional medicine effective against golden staph bacteria
• [Opinion] Don’t mention the coal: Australian Government tries to walk both sides of climate policy.

Top 5 from Australian News:

• Poll is Complete Satire is allowed
• [satire] Guy who says unemployment should rise weirdly doesn’t want to lose his own job
• Australians left with rotting teeth, unable to smile in 'completely unaffordable' dental system
• Fears lives could be lost due to lack of volunteer rural firefighters during 'traumatic fire season'
• Dating apps threatened with regulation unless they improve safety

Top 5 from Australian Politics:

• Emotion
• Labor scraps Peter Dutton's billion-dollar military drone plan
• Scheme to ask by-election rival about her pregnancy plans ends in 'regret' from candidate

Top 5 from World News:

• VIRAL GAFFES: Trump Talks About Poll Numbers Against Obama, Warns Biden Is Taking Nation Into WWII
• 'The time is right': Rupert Murdoch steps down as chairman of Fox Corporation and News Corp

I don't blame them but fuck this is scary.

The Australian Energy Market Commission says it will get to work applying an emissions reduction objective to its rule-making and review processes, setting in motion what has been described as the most important reform to the Australian energy market in decades.

The AEMC said on Friday that with the Emissions Reduction Objectives Bill 2023 now passed through the South Australian parliament and assent gazetted, it can consider environment alongside the existing criteria for price, quality, safety, reliability, and security.

The announcement ushers in the first substantial change to the objectives of the National Energy Laws in 15 years and is expected to result in a rethink of key rules and regulations that will, in turn, help fast-track the shift from coal and gas to a renewables-based grid.

Perhaps most importantly, it promises to grease the wheels of Australia’s huge Rewiring the Nation task, by making it much easier to usher through investment in the pipeline of major grid upgrades urgently needed to support the shift to renewables and storage.

“This change presents a significant opportunity for us to formally consider emissions reduction in our work, helping to manage the transformation towards a net zero future, as we continue to protect the long-term interests of consumers,” said AEMC chair Anna Collyer.

“We consulted extensively on our guide, as our stakeholders’ insights and perspectives are invaluable in shaping our processes, and we are proud to release it today, to be transparent about how we will achieve this welcomed change.”

“We know firmed renewables are the cheapest, cleanest form of energy and the transformation to more renewables will be supported by making emissions reductions an objective of the national energy laws – a move supported by all state and territory energy ministers,” said a spokesperson for federal energy minister Chris Bowen on Friday.

“This change will ensure that regulatory processes concerning the energy market are fit for purpose to deliver the energy transformation.” A long time in the wilderness

The move to put the environment back in energy market decision making and redesign comes at a crucial time for Australia and the world, as an increasing number of experts warn we are almost out of time to avert global climate disaster.

At this week’s climate ambition summit, United Nations secretary general António Guterres warned the world is “decades behind” in the transition to clean energy.

In Australia, a Climate Council report released this week says Australia – with its abundant renewables resources – must set a new target to cut emissions by 75 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, and achieve net zero emissions above pre-industrial levels by 2035.

As RenewEconomy has reported, the lack of an environmental objective has hamstrung regulatory decisions, investments and rule making since it was dropped from the rules of the newly created market in the late 1990s by then Prime Minister John Howard.

Its absence has resulted in some clearly absurd decisions, such as backing new diesel generators rather than a storage option at Broken Hill. For these reasons, Australia’s powerful fossil fuel lobby has railed against the proposed change to the rules.

Other investments, particularly in transmission, have also been dumped or delayed for similar reasons, and because arguments that the investments would lead to lower emissions could not be considered.

And transmission – where so much of Australia’s success in renewables currently hinges – is expected to be a key beneficiary of change to national energy laws. Big win for transmission

“I think the primary effect of this will actually be in terms of supporting transmission investments,” says Christiaan Zuur, who worked at the AEMC before his current role as director of market, grid and investment at the Clean Energy Council.

“It’s all about network planning. …It will just make it easier to pass RIT-Ts (regulatory investment tests for transmission) and get transmission augmentations built,” Zuur told RenewEconomy on Friday.

“And that’s, of course, good for renewables because renewables and transmission and storage all go hand in hand.”

More braadly, Zuur says the reintroduction of emissions and the environment into the NEO is important progress for Australia’s rapidly changing grid that has been a long time coming.

“We’ve been pushing for inclusion or explicit consideration of emissions in the NEO for years and years,” he said.

“For quite some time now we’ve had to try to account for the reality of carbon costs through… kind of almost backdoor measures. It’s great to finally be able to just account for them upfront and get on with it, frankly.” Where to from here

The AEMC says it has begun consulting on the two rule change requests it received from Australia’s energy ministers to “harmonise” or align the electricity and gas rules with the emissions objective.

“These steps are required to allow emissions to be transparently considered in network and pipeline expenditure and planning and investment rules,” the commission says.

The AEMC has also released a guide on how it will apply this new objective in its rule-making process, and when making recommendations in reviews. A targets statement sets out a list of jurisdictional targets to be considered by the three market bodies (AEMC, AER and AEMO) when applying the national energy objectives.

Moving forward, Zuur says that the next big reform for energy market bodies and regulators will be determining a “value” of emissions reduction.

“That’s actually the next big thing that we need to understand as an industry … and I understand that that’s being worked on right now,” he told RenewEconomy.

The Andrews government dumped an ambitious cabinet-approved plan to lift the proportion of social housing in Victoria by almost two-thirds, opting instead to respond to the housing crisis with a voluntary, developer-led delivery of so-called affordable housing.

Former Australian prime minister’s nomination revealed a day after Rupert Murdoch retired as chair of Fox and News Corp

Excellent interview by Joe Walker with Peter Singer.

A really interesting part towards the end of the interview about Australia's (after colonisation) unique ethics foundations compared to US and UK, and possible reasons for the differences, given the closeness of relations.

This week the Victorian Government released its Housing Statement, outlining a number of large and small changes across the housing sector. From changes to planning laws, to the demolition of public housing towers across Melbourne some of the plans will have significant real-world impacts, but they may not all be beneficial.

AMA joins human rights commissioner, legal and health experts in criticising narrow terms of reference announced by federal Labor