IN THE shadows of anti-dam celebrations, a Wide Bay conservation group has this week continued its legal challenge to the suitability of a fishway for lungfish at Paradise Dam, north-west of Biggenden. Sunwater is being challenged in the Federal Court by the Wide Bay-Burnett Conservation Council which claims the State Government utility breached Federal Government environmental controls by operating the dam since 2005 without an effective fishway for lungfish.

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Updated on Monday, November 16, 2009 at 07:03AM by stevem

Updated on Monday, November 16, 2009 at 07:22AM by stevem

Updated on Monday, November 16, 2009 at 07:34AM by stevem

Updated on Monday, November 16, 2009 at 08:04AM by stevem

Updated on Monday, November 16, 2009 at 08:15AM by stevem

Updated on Monday, November 16, 2009 at 08:22AM by stevem

Updated on Monday, November 16, 2009 at 09:00AM by stevem

A Split has opened in the state government over whether a desalination plant would be built and operating at Marcoola by 2017. Queensland premier Anna Bligh responded to the federal government’s axing of the Traveston dam last week by declaring that sites at Marcoola and Lytton, on Brisbane’s bayside, would “be needed for desalination to be operational in 2017. This will mean more expensive water as a result of the federal decision this afternoon”. However, the department of natural resources, in response to several questions asked by the Sunshine Coast Daily, has cast serious doubt on those time lines.

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Updated on Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 04:29PM by stevem

Updated on Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 10:43AM by stevem

THE Bligh Government is sitting on a high-level report identifying the location of the second-wave of desalination plants planned for Queensland. The report, completed months ago, reveals which of two environmentally sensitive sites at Bribie Island or Marcoola on the Sunshine Coast will host a proposed new desalination plant. A site at bayside Lytton in Brisbane and either the Bribie or Marcoola options - both of which involve building in national parks - were identified last February as “priority” locations. However, despite promising a final decision on sites by mid-year, the Government now says it will not release the report until a decision is made on the Traveston Dam in the Mary Valley.

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UNUSUAL Parliamentary vocabulary rules kept Deputy Speaker Jason O’Brien busy last night as Parliament debated the issue of lying in the House. Mr O’Brien had to reprimand MPs for unparliamentary use of the word ‘lie’ and any of its variants. “Order! Honourable member, I find the word ‘porkies’ unparliamentary and I ask you to withdraw it,” he told LNP Member Aiden McLindon. Under current laws, telling lies in the House is not an offence but using the word “lie” is banned.

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Updated on Friday, October 30, 2009 at 09:46AM by stevem

THE Bligh Government has been accused of peddling commercial-in-confidence as an excuse to hide the real performance of its corporations. Queensland Auditor-General Glen Poole has lambasted the lack of openness of government-owned corporations in his latest report, tabled in State Parliament yesterday. The report found that recommendations from 2006 to provide the public with more information about the performance of government-owned corporations had been ignored. Mr Poole’s report said the corporations were using commercial-in-confidence to hide or delay the release of information.

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Updated on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 07:18AM by stevem

Updated on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 03:11PM by stevem

Updated on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 09:02AM by stevem

Updated on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 11:48AM by stevem

Updated on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 01:44PM by stevem

Updated on Friday, October 16, 2009 at 10:02AM by stevem

COORDINATOR general Colin Jensen has rejected claims by environmentalists that the independence of his assessment of the $1.8 billion Traveston Crossing Dam proposal was compromised. Environmentalists argue that as both coordinator general and director general of the department of infrastructure charged - according to the government’s own website - with responsibility “for overseeing the delivery of the largest infrastructure program in Queensland’s history’’ that he effectively approved his own work. Questions have also been raised about scientific endorsement of the project by academics from the University of Queensland because of the $45 million worth of benefit it would gain as a direct result of the dam’s approval.

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Updated on Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 09:23AM by stevem

Updated on Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 02:02PM by stevem

Queensland’s attempt to build what it calls “Australia’s greenest dam”, is about to be put to the test. Green groups and local residents have long argued the project would result in serious environmental damage and one particular issue they’re focussing on is the plight of the Australian lungfish. Transcript follows

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Updated on Thursday, July 9, 2009 at 10:28AM by stevem

I find it necessary to write this letter through the newspapers because previous correspondence to the Governor, received only a curt acknowledgment by a staff member but no reply or acknowledgment from the Governor whatsoever. I am appealing to the Governor who under the Constitution of Australia is the Representative of Her Majesty the Queen in the State of Queensland and as such the Guardian of our Constitutional and Democratic rights in this State. She is the Servant of the People, not the personal servant of the Government sitting there just to rubber stamp anything that the Government want. I am appealing to the Governor, to call to order the Government of Queensland, dismiss the Parliament and call a fresh election and at the same time have the new “Constitution” that Peter Beattie created in 2001 put to a referendum of the people as required under the Constitution of Australia.

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Updated on Sunday, June 28, 2009 at 10:56AM by stevem

Updated on Sunday, June 28, 2009 at 11:55AM by stevem

A leading Sunshine Coast environmentalist has accused the state government of deliberately downplaying last week’s lungfish kill at North Pine Dam which, he believes, should spell the end of the Traveston Crossing Dam proposal. President of the Conondale Range Committee, Ian Mackay, claimed SEQWater had both under reported the number of lungfish killed and over exaggerated the success of its “rescue operation” to return the relatively few survivors to the water. “This couldn’t have come at a worse time for the state government, with the Traveston Dam proposal now well overdue in being passed up to federal environment minister Peter Garret for approval,” Mr Mackay said. “There’s no way you can mitigate against this sort of catastrophe.”

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Updated on Monday, June 22, 2009 at 08:27AM by stevem

Updated on Monday, June 22, 2009 at 08:36AM by stevem

Updated on Monday, June 22, 2009 at 08:38AM by stevem

Updated on Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 11:01AM by stevem

Deputy Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg yesterday seized on the poll, labelling Ms Bligh a “political dead duck” who would not last until the next election. “She is a compulsive bare-faced liar,” Mr Springborg said. “And once people think you are a liar and see evidence to back it up, then they will always think you are a liar.

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