Support for Bluescope needed to keep high skilled manufacturing jobs in the Illawarra

Shoalhaven Greens call on State and Federal Government to support Bluescope Steel.

The Shoalhaven Greens are calling on the NSW State and The Federal Government to get behind the Green Jobs Illawarra Plan and enact this plan which could save Bluescope’s blast furnace number 2.

Greens Councillor Amanda Findley said “Bluescope are well placed to be at the forefront of renewable energy in Australia with their manufacture of high quality Australian Steel and we have the associated highly skilled work forced to get the plan moving”.

Meanwhile the Prime Minister will roll back investment in the renewable energy sector with his direction to the Clean Energy Fund to cease funding wind and solar and the reduction in renewable energy targets. The Abbott Government’s backward attitude to renewables condemns the Green Jobs Illawarra Plan”

The Green Jobs Illawarra Plan presented to the NSW Premier in 2009 has a strong focus on renewable energy – in particular wind turbine manufacture. The action plan also focused on skilling up our work force to be part of the renewable energy revolution.

“The Baird Government needs to get on board and campaign for the Illawarra with his Federal party colleagues to make them see the economic sense of the Greens Jobs Illawarra Action plan”.

“It will be a major setback for the local economy and manufacturing if the blast furnace closes. We should be manufacturing multi-million dollar wind turbines in Wollongong and exporting across the country and the world not importing them.

Past Federal Governments in Australia have taken aggressive positions in respect to infrastructure and now is a great time to invest heavily in renewables, re-energise our country, our manufacturing and especially the Illawarra.

The Green Jobs Illawarra Action plan was a bi-partisan plan that was broadly accepted by our diverse community.

https://www.nswbusinesschamber.com.au/NSWBC/media/Ilawarra/Advocacy/2009-Green-Jobs-Illawarra-Action-Plan.pdf

Bawley Point vs Crown Castle Communications Round 2

Image Courtesy of Crown Castle.

Earlier in the year Crown Castle Communications put forward a proposal to build a 50-60m lattice telecommunications tower on the ANU owned land a Kioloa.

The community were mostly outraged with such a large ugly development with over 100 residents making their opinions known to Council. Through out the process it was evident that residents would like their phone coverage improved but not at any cost and the cost to coastal visual amenity was high with this proposal.

What the company failed to learn from that exercise that the Kioloa / Bawley Point community want to be consulted and included in the process not locked out and treated like Country hicks who can be walked all over.

Now Crown Castle have come back for round two- this time they have invoked the State Environment Planning Policy b(SEPP) for Infrastructure- which basically allows for a 50 m tower to be built in a rural zoning as complying development meaning the first time the community heard of it was when it went onto Councils website approved by a private certifier.

The SEPP Infrastructure for NSW is one of those dodgy bits of planning law that allows things to be built without notification and in my opinion is a recipe for disaster and build mistrust in the community when it comes to governance around development.

If Crown Castle had simply learnt it lesson and spent some time with the people of Bawley Point / Kioloa Im sure they could have worked together as they have done in the past to find a constructive solution to the problem which could have resulted in some monopoles rather than a hideous lattice tower.

Right now the community are angry over this corporation basically bullying its way in with whatever means it sees fit. The process is all wrong and needs to be part of the overhaul of the State Planning regulations that are currently under review.

Sample letter to Stop woodchipping

here is a sample letter to the government regarding stopping wood chipping, letters don't have to be complex or long but it is better that they are sent snail mail (in my opinion). If you include a CC to all house members and federal senate then all should get a copy- or you may just want to target a few individuals. This is the link to the feds web page for contact details.


http://australia.gov.au/directories/parliament-of-australia-contacts#localmember

its not about a technically correct letter, but getting something in front of the noses of those who make decisions- some of them I'm sure would be oblivious to the wood chipping issue


The Hon Julia Gillard MP


Prime Minister

Parliament House

CANBERRA ACT 2600
 
CC All members House of Representatives and the federal Senate
 
I call on the Federal Government of Australia to intervene and cease Native forest wood chipping for export immediately.


In NSW the industry is recording losses up to $14 million and yet as a country we continue to provide subsides directly and indirectly to an industry that has obviously failed. These figures appear to have been hidden and absorbed by the plantation industry in the same state under Forests NSW stewardship..

While we continue to subsidise a failed industry we are missing out on redirecting these valued funds into research and development opportunities for replacement fibre for paper and cardboard production and the extension of the plantation timber resource.

More critically though we are missing out on opportunity’s to mitigate our intense carbon use and tackle the issue of climate change.

There is much talk about reinvigorating regional Australia and intensifying population in different areas. Without a clean, green workforce for people to participate in a migration back to the job centres will occur. Instead of small aging forestry workforces there are many opportunities to provide good forest stewardship jobs to young people and help ease the outward flow of young people from regional areas.

There are many environmental benefits for ceasing native forest logging operations for woodchip, yet the environmental argument has been eclipsed by economic interests-the time has come to recognise that the current economic arguments are fallacies and fantasies.

I challenge you to uncover the economic truth that is a failed native forests woodchip industry and think laterally about the possibilities’ that are currently passing us by.

I look forward to the end of native forest ‘mining’ and hope that you can make this issue a priority for this government early in its parliamentary life.

Feed in Tarriffs a HUGE Disappointment

It seems that the NSW State Government are masters at turning a good thing bad.

Yesterdays feed in tarriff announcement for solar electricty should have been a resounding yeah, but instead they added a three letter word to the whole deal and turned it into a booo.

So what is wrong with NET feed ins, well the average household system in NSW is rated at 1.5kw, which on a great sunny day only produces half of the household energy requirements and that is assuming that you have been smart and installed a solar hot water heater first. So a net tarriff only pays you $0.60 when you have surplus energy to sell- which as you can see will never happen-unless your away camping for a month somewhere nice!

And yet these stooges blow their own trumpet and tell us that you could earn up to $900 a year reduceing the payback of grid interacting solar power systems to less than 15 yrs.

I looked at my bill today, and we have a 2.5kw system installed and we wont be getting a cheque anytime soon! We may still be paying back our $28000 investment- but it feels as though we have well and truly got our moneys worth over the last 10 years. For what most people fail to think about is every dollar saved in outgoings is about $2.50 less that has to be earned!

So without a gross feed in tarriff and a decent rebate installing solar energy will start to be pushed further down the household wishlist- however I still think its a much more tangible option than the stock market investment wise.

follows is the text from todays Media Release- have a look at the SMH article hyperlinked above too.


Solar plan is road block to climate solutions

The battle within Nathan Rees’ cabinet over solar feed-in tariffs has been won by the coal faction, according to Greens Councillor Amanda Findley.
Commenting on the decision to opt for a ‘net’ feed-in tariff that does not reward renewable energy that is used by households, Clr Findley said: "Environment Minister Carmel Tebbutt has been run over by her colleagues.
"Finance Minister Joe Tripodi and his ally Energy Minister Ian Macdonald won the day for an ineffective scheme that will become an excuse for no further action to stimulate household renewable energy generation.
"The ‘brown’ faction in cabinet has robbed potential investors of the certainty of payment streams that is needed to secure financing for solar panels.
"Only the ACT has got it right with a ‘gross’ tariff that pays the bonus on all the energy generated.
"NSW has lost the opportunity to build on this state’s world leadership in solar research.
"Ian Macdonald’s net tariff will have almost no impact on jobs growth, cutting greenhouse gas emissions or building an export industry.
"Ministers Tebbutt and Macdonald claim this is the most generous scheme of all the states.
"This is simply spin to disguise the damage they have done by opting for an ineffective net tariff that will discriminate against stay-at-home mums, older people and the self-employed who work from their homes.
" I have invested $28000 on a 2.5 kilowatt system that is larger than the average 1.5 kilowatt system that has been taken up under the Federal Gov rebate scheme, under Rees scheme I will not see an extra cent returned on my bill and neither will any one else.
"The figure of up to $900 is a carrot that will only be received by those who install a system on an unoccupied holiday home or the like.
"By taking away the income certainty, a net tariff locks in a low level of uptake.
"This might suit those in cabinet who are hostile to renewable energy. It might help the coal industry by damaging a competitor. However it is bad news for NSW.
"The Greens will be seeking to amend the legislation to create an effective, gross feed-in tariff," Cl Findley said.