Protesters bail up PM

Bill Hoffman
4th November 2009

 
AS protesters challenged the prime minister in Hervey Bay yesterday to block the Traveston dam, an Aboriginal group lodged a stop-work order on the project.

Kevin Rudd told demonstrators outside a health forum that the issue was not political.

He said it would be determined by environment minister Peter Garrett independently and based on its environmental merits.

“What the Biodiversity Act says is that the environment minister must make his own independent decision on this,” Mr Rudd said.

“I understand full well local sensitivities on this.

“I grew up not a long way from here, a few hours south, and as a kid I used to go swimming in the Mary River.

“So I know something of how this is felt in the local community.

“What the environment minister has before him is a matter on which he’s got to make an independent decision on its environmental merits, and Peter Garrett is a minister of great integrity.

“Under the law of Australia, it’s important for him, it’s essential for him to make an unfettered, independent environmental choice, that’s what’s required under the statutes of Australia, and that’s what will occur.”

Save the Mary group organisers who had earlier given Mr Rudd an “I love Mary” mug, a “No Dam” pen and a Mary River book, met last night to thrash out their strategies ahead of Mr Garrett’s decision, which is expected by November 18.

Campaigner Glenda Pickersgill said the Queensland government approach had not been about consultation or any proper assessment of other options.

“It was a case of decide, announce, defend, defend from the start,” she said.

If Mr Garrett decided to reject the Queensland government proposal, Ms Pickersgill said the Mary Valley community had a vision for its future as a food bowl for south-east Queensland.

Mr Garrett told federal parliament last week that a report he had commissioned into the vulnerability of Australia’s biodiversity to the impacts of climate change had found that freshwater fish species were at risk from reductions in water flow and quality and had limited capacity to migrate.

Meanwhile, Gubbi Gubbi elder Eve Fesl has lodged a stop-work order on the Traveston project under the Queensland Cultural Heritage Act of 2003.

Ms Fesl said the Indigenous Land Use Agreement for the project had excluded her tribe because it refused to agree, in return for a share of a $3 million money pool, that the dam area should be flooded before any study of cultural significance was carried out.

Instead, Ms Fesl said, an agreement had been signed with groups, some of whichwould not know where the Mary River was.

“There was no heritage testing and because we refused to sign we were banned from all meetings.”

The Nimbin Times (pdf)

Aug 2007 

Opposition leader Kevin Rudd travelled to Tyalgum in late July and spoke with some 200 residents about Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s proposal to dam the northern rivers.

He was accompanied by Member for Richmond Justine Elliott and Shadow Minister for Water, Anthony Albanese, who all stated their opposition to the dams.

Speaking outside the general store, Mr Rudd congratulated the northern rivers community for their concerted campaign to oppose the proposal, and in particular, Peter Bennett the members of the Save the Caldera Rivers Campaign committee.

Mr Rudd described the SMEC report into four new dams to pump water to Queensland as being full of assumptions and generalisations.

“There’s no site visits, no costings, it looks to me as though it’s been done on Mr Turnbull’s kitchen table.”

Mr Albanese said that various solutions to Queensland’s water shortage were already underway, including the largest project for greywater recycling in the southern hemisphere, a desalination plant at Tugun, and better water efficiencies.

“We will not support a dam at Tyalgum, it’s that simple.” said Mr Rudd, which earned him rousing cheers.

After the speeches, the party adjourned for a cup of tea nearby, but the topic of conversation remained the same, as it will unil the election.

Spiritual leaders join against dam

Janine Hill
4th November 2009

 

SPIRITUAL leaders united against the injustice of the dam proposal will hold an ecumenical service at Pomona’s Catholic Church on Sunday.

Save the Mary activist Adrienne McVerry, left, with Reverend Iain Watt at St Patrick’s Catholic Church, where a service will be held for those affected by Traveston dam.
Geoff Potterna

Spiritual leaders united against the injustice of the dam proposal will hold an ecumenical service at Pomona’s Catholic Church on Sunday afternoon to pray for the Mary River and its communities.

Father Mark Franklin, of the Noosa Catholic Parish, said participants would pray that federal government politicians were guided by wisdom in making a decision about the dam.

Father Mark said the dam proposal had been devastating for many parishioners in the area and the neighbouring Gympie parish.

“Some people have been greatly affected by it. Their whole life has been turned upside down,” he said.

The Reverend Iain Watt, of the Uniting Church at Imbil, who will speak in the liturgy, said the emotional, social and economic fall-out of the dam was continuing more than three years after then-premier Peter Beattie announced the dam.

He likened the state government’s push for the dam to a cyclone from which the community was unable to recover.

“I couldn’t help but reflect that Traveston was very much like a disaster situation. One’s natural, this one’s man-made, and the complications keep going,” he said.

Leaders from the Uniting Church and other churches have previously raised their concerns about the dam with the premier.

Adele Coombs, from the Save the Mary River Coordinating Group, said the prayer service was being held because a decision was imminent.

Environment minister Peter Garrett is expected to announce whether or not he will approve the dam within the month.

Ms Coombs said the service was open to all Sunshine Coast residents, and would include words from the Dalai Llama, as well as an indigenous ceremony, and renditions of river songs by the Cooloola and Pomona A Capella choirs.

Father Mark said the service would be held outside if the 140-seat St Patrick’s church was not big enough to accommodate the crowd. The 3pm service will be followed by a sausage sizzle.

***MEDIA RELEASE***
3 November 2009

A cry for strong environmental leadership from the Prime Minister on Traveston

Today in Hervey Bay representatives of groups concerned about the impact of the proposed Traveston Crossing dam on the Mary River and Great Sandy Strait will issue a cry to Prime Minister Rudd to show strong environmental leadership and oppose the proposal.

“There is a lot at stake here. The Mary River is the life force of wetlands of international significance which migratory birds, dugong, turtles, rare indo pacific humpback dolphins, whales and our commercial and recreational fisheries all depend on,” explained Darryl Stewart, president of the Greater Mary Association, the group representing the downstream communities opposing the proposal.

“However, the Mary River is currently not flowing to the sea and that is without a single drop of water going to Brisbane. No matter how much the spin doctors play with the numbers, the River just can’t support more extraction,” said Mr Stewart.

The group will make a simple request to the Prime Minister and ask that his government follows it’s own policy on water and environment which was recently released as part of the ALP 2009 National Platform.

“We are crying out for strong environmental leadership from the Prime Minister on this issue,” explained Ms Smith, research coordinator for the Greater Mary Association. “Saying No to Traveston is the right thing to do. To do otherwise would be a direct contradiction of the Prime Minister’s own policy platform.”

“The decision is Minister Garrett’s. But the Prime Minister, being a Queenslander is uniquely placed to help Anna Bligh out of the corner she has painted herself into. Mr Rudd should encourage the Queensland Premier to pursue some of the range of alternatives available. Many offer better water security and are more cost effective,” said Ms Smith.

“The people of Hervey Bay clearly showed their feelings on the proposed dam during the election in March. People voted against Anna Bligh’s government because of their arrogant attitude towards the people of this catchment,” explained Mr Stewart.

“We hope that Mr Rudd understands how passionate people in this region are about this issue,” continued Mr Stewart.

Representatives of campaign groups will attend Prime Minister Rudd’s visit to Hervey Bay hospital today.

MEDIA RELEASE

22 September 2009

Fraser Coast Regional Council continues to oppose Traveston Crossing Dam

The Fraser Coast Regional Council has re-iterated its opposition to proposals to build a dam on the Mary River at Traveston Crossing, near Gympie.

At its meeting last week the Council moved again to state its opposition in light of reports that the Queensland Co-ordinator General had approved a list of conditions that would need to be met for the dam to be approved and state government moves to push ahead with the project.

The Queensland Government submission is being investigated by the Federal Minister for Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett.

“This is not the first time Fraser Coast Councils have opposed the dam,” Fraser Coast Regional Council Mayor Mick Kruger said.

“The former Councils helped fund a $120,000 independent study to find alternatives to the dam. The South East Queensland Water Optimisation Study was undertaken by Dr Stuart White of the University of Technology, Sydney. It was funded by the nine local governments that made up the Mary River Council of Mayors.”

The mayors initiated the study after being told by then Premier Peter Beattie that if they wanted to look at alternative sites for a proposed Mary River dam they would have to fund the investigations.

The study examined the social, environmental and economic impact of the proposed dam.

In May, 2008, the Fraser Coast Regional Council endorsed the actions of the previous Councils and challenged the Environmental Impact Statement prepared for the project.

The Council directed the following concerns to the Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and the Deputy Premier and Minister for Infrastructure Paul Lucas, the Project managers and the Federal Minister Peter Garrett and Federal Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong.

The concerns included:

1. Water supply security for the Fraser Coast Region is not adequately considered;

2. Justification for the dam is made on the basis of flawed and / or inadequate economic analysis;

3. The effects of downstream changes on social and economic factors have not been adequately considered;

4. Hydrological analysis probably underestimates the downstream flow impacts to a considerable degree;

5. Hydrological modelling is not linked with aquatic ecology and water quality; there is no predictive analysis of water quality or biota in the impoundment or downstream and the discussion on impacts is necessarily speculative;

6. In some cases, the evidence from research, case studies and even studies within the EIS are contrary to the conclusions in the executive summary;

7. The Mary River Water Resource Plan (WRP) is not considered to have sufficient scientific basis to provide reliable flow targets; most of the targets are expert panel derived, and there is an acknowledged lack of scientific understanding of the flow requirements of several of the iconic species;

8. Inconsistent and sometimes misleading treatment of Stage 2 and other related projects that will have cumulative impact on the Mary River (Northern Pipeline and Borumba Dam raising); these are included in the water supply benefits, but not in the costs or impacts;

9. No allowance for climate change in the modelling, which is likely to further reduce the frequency and volume of flushing flows;

10. Inconsistency about mitigation measures – many of the measures recommended in the chapters are not included in the executive summary and even fewer are included in the cost assessment; and

11. In consideration of points 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 and 9 particularly, the downstream impacts on the Mary estuary and the Great Sandy Straits are inadequately predicted and the optimistic assessment has no evidentiary basis.

When the Council re-iterates its opposition to the dam it will send another copy of its concerns to the state and federal governments and ask for the points it raised be answered and considered during any investigation into the proposed dam.

“The Council also will write to the Premier to ask that the Co-ordinator General’s report be released to the public,” Cr Kruger said.