Groups opposing coal mining on agricultural land in southern Queensland met with members of the Senate Committee into the impacts of mining in the Murray Darling Basin, including Greens Senator, Scott Ludlam.

The committee met at Oakey, near Toowoomba and were taken on a tour of potentially affected areas. The groups represent farmers from the Felton, Acland and Haystack areas.

These beautiful, highly productive farms will be overtaken by open cut coal mining and no one is buying the mining companies’ hogwash that they can rehabilitate such country “as good as it was.”

Scott was able to meet with farmers’ representatives and to ask several pertinent questions about impacts and the consultation process.

This is an issue that will keep coming back as coal mining stretches across the state and State and Federal Governments recoil from taking on the mining industry.

Hi everyone,

You should have received your ballot papers today so don’t forget:

• Vote 1 Libby Connors and then number every other square according to your preference.
• Enclose the marked green ballot paper in the small envelope in the “Enclosing Envelope”, putting your name, signature and date on the front.
• Enclose that envelope in the main envelope which has the return address on the front. There is no need for a stamp.  It is “Reply Paid”.
• Then don’t forget to post it!

If you haven’t received a ballot and think you should have or have any other problem, you should contact the independent Returning Officer (Richard Kidd) on rkidd@austelect.com.

The Bligh Government is planning to allow a massive tourism development on the spectacular Shute Harbour and, once again, their ‘mates’ are set to profit while the Queensland environment suffers.

The location of the proposed project within the waters of Shute Harbour is a World Heritage area, a National Heritage area, A Great Barrier Reef Coastal Marine Park, a Habitat Protection Zone and is in an Area of State Significance. It is surrounded by the Conway Range wilderness, Mt Rooper terrestrial national park and the waters and islands of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

The potential impact of the project on the Great Barrier Reef alone should rule out any chance of it going ahead…but that’s not how things work here in Queensland.

The development will contain:

• A multi-building, five-storey resort with 109 suites.
• High density, three-storey apartments built on several hectares of reclaimed seabed.Other commercial and retail outlets.
• Multi-storey car parking. A 669 berth marina for big boats, the vast majority over 10 metres.
• A one kilometre long breakwater.

Both leases covering the area and permits to occupy have been renewed over and over again regardless of the fact that proponents have not delivered on time and/or been unable to meet lease conditions.

A former Department of Natural Resources heavyweight with oversight of the project took time off to work for the developer who later became his boss. This stirs more silt in the murky waters of unseemly contacts between government and business.

Like Great Keppel Island, False Cape, the Traveston Dam and a host of other projects currently being fast-tracked and approved by the Bligh Government the Shute Harbour development is just another example of the cronyism, corruption and addiction to unsustainable development that afflicts this government.

Following a meeting between representatives of the Greens, Drew Hutton and Michael Kane, and the Minister for Main Roads, the Minister today announced there would be an independent review of the Department’s decision to chainsaw 1400 beautiful, old growth trees along the main rod between Toowoomba and Crows Nest.

This follows a strong campaign by my branch, the Toowoomba Greens, and the local group SAVE to stop the clearing of the trees which are identified by the State Government as an endangered regional ecosystem.

I congratulate the Minister for taking this decision and am confident it will lead to a positive outcome, both for the safety of road users and the protection of the environment.

The review will take place over the next two months and the Greens and SAVE will play a key part in its proceedings.

The preselection campaign has been busy but lots of fun.  During the past 2 months I have visited 10 regional branches, spoken publicly on 3 major environmental issues, written to more than 700 members and phoned and emailed many Queensland Greens personally.  All of this was achieved while working full-time.  In the event that I am preselected I intend to take long service leave so that this sort of energy and campaigning momentum could be devoted to winning a senate seat. 

Visiting distant parts of the state brought home the many challenges facing us in Queensland but also served to remind me how much Queensland needs an environmental champion in the Senate to stand up for our wonderful places.

The work we need in the Senate

The urgent policy priorities I want to pursue in the federal parliament include:

1. Reform of the EPBC Act:

• to include providing a greenhouse gas emissions trigger which would allow federal  government intervention over the granting of coal mining and coal gasification leases
• to focus on protecting whole significant ecosystems and habitats rather than particular threatened species.   Let’s get rid of the nonsense that you can dam the Mary River but guarantee the survival of the Mary River Turtle and the lungfish or destroy the Caley wetlands near Bowen for industrial development but not harm migratory shore birds.

2. Transitional economic strategies to wean Queensland off its carbon economy.  We need to set specific targets and proposals especially for those regions currently being promised windfalls from coal.  These should include bio-fuels, bio-char, baseload solar power stations for rural areas and heavy and light rail for our cities.  
3. National standards for care and funding for disability services.  It is shameful that the Australian constitution guarantees equal treatment of goods and services across state boundaries but not of people.  At the moment if a person with a disability needs to move across the border from NSW to Queensland they suffer a significant loss of support and funding because Queensland social services lag behind other states. 
4. Reintroduction of federal mineral export licensing this time with the inclusion of coal so that there is national power to block inappropriate mining ventures for uranium, mineral sands or coal. 
5. Use of federal incentives to convince Queensland to establish an integrated system of linked protected areas of conservation significance that include the state’s stock routes and riparian areas which act as wildlife highways.  Our wild spaces are dying the death of a thousand cuts so we need a system of sticks and carrots to protect our desert uplands, inland rivers, coastal places and overdeveloped southeast.

There are many other policy matters, such as education, that I feel strongly about – too many for a final email.

If you would like a reminder of my professional and political achievements please go to my website: www.libbyconnors.com.au.

How we can win

We can win a Senate seat in Queensland if we have a lead Senate candidate who can conduct a strong campaign.  We need to raise our vote to 10% in a state where we are up against the combined entrenchment of the 2 major parties, and the wealth and self interest of the mining and developer industries.  Queensland Greens need a candidate who can put in 100% effort.  I am that candidate.  I have committed myself at every level of the party, and ( despite having been asked on more than one occasion to stand for the Senate,) I have now reached a stage in my life when I am confident I have the experience, the fortitude and the energy to run for the Senate.     

My ability to withstand pressure is a matter of public record

The next parliament is likely to be the most stressful in the history of the Australian Greens.  Predictions are that we could win 7 seats and hold the balance of power. (Bob Brown will be faced with several senators with little or no experience, as well as the immense pressure that comes with balance of power.)  This is the kind of pressure that tore the Australian Democrats apart in spite of the fact that they had twenty-five years parliamentary experience.  In Queensland, we cannot afford to elect a part-time senator.  We need a strong voice to keep our issues on the agenda - issues that are of national and international significance.  My ability to withstand pressure is a matter of public record, as I effectively managed as secretary and deputy-convener of the Queensland Greens at a time when we had no staff and few resources.  I have advocated for Queensland at national conferences where bigger and better resourced states expected us to give way to their interests.  I have held strong when my civil disobedience and arrests landed me in overnight detention during the worst of the Bjelke-Petersen days.  I do not relish these stresses, but my commitment to the principles that we Greens espouse gives me the courage and resilience to continue.  I have been tested through 30 years of grassroots political activism, and I have 19 years experience as a founding member of both the Australian Greens and the Queensland Greens. 

Building the party across Queensland

Finally, we need to elect a senator who will be mobile and committed to travelling the state.  We need a senator who is prepared to experience first hand, the impact of this state’s mining and development disasters, a senator for the Great Barrier Reef, a senator for the inland rivers, a senator to say No to Traveston Dam and the horrific overdevelopment of the southeast.  But just as importantly for the Queensland Greens is that we have a senator who understands the need to build the party organisationally.  A senator who will be free to visit regularly our regional branches and give them as much support as the senator’s role allows.  I will use the Senate role to help break through at local, state and federal level, so that Queensland Greens are heard at every opportunity.

The challenge for our generation

I think there is one other concern that many members harbour about any of our candidates and that is how deep their conviction goes.  When I was in Mackay recently a member of the branch wanted to know what drove me philosophically and how she could be sure that I wouldn’t sell out as so many elected to parliaments before me had. 

In a number of speeches that I have had to give as spokesperson for the Greens I have spoken about the need for a sense of place and how that lack of a sense of place allows any number of developmental travesties.  But we desperately need also to foster a sense of time. 

As a professional historian I am keenly aware of how our sense of time has become hopelessly distorted.  Let me explain. 

I spoke at the Queensland Conservation Council’s 40th anniversary seminar at the Queensland Museum recently.  The afternoon wore on and speaker after speaker referred to on-going environmental problems which they had been campaigning on over several decades until someone bravely asked, ‘How can you keep going when all the environmental indicators show that we are going backwards?’  John Sinclair, the champion of Fraser Island who had bravely withstood defamation and other writs from Joh Bjelke-Petersen governments, immediately responded ‘You’ve got to engage.  What’s the point of living if you don’t engage?’
I guess I would add that we also fight because we have the freedom to. 
This is the joy of living in this era when so much other news seems designed to disempower us.  We’re the first generation with the standard of living and the political power to enable us to engage.  It is why we formed the Greens. 
And when you add the extension of knowledge and education to that wealth and power you can add that it is the responsibility of our generation.  Others had to fight hunger, famine and repression.  We have to fight for the planet and our own much-loved Queensland part of it.
So yes we know how desperate this election is for the environment, for the planet and especially for Queensland.  But I want to contest this election on our behalf because I finally can. 

The media experience, the campaign knowledge, the family support have finally all lined up and I know that I can get out across this state to take us over that 10% hurdle so that with preferences we can scrape home with that elusive 14% and a senate seat. 

That’s what I bring professionally to this party – a sense of time and a sense of awareness that this is the role of our generation.  Our grandparents had to fight wars and depression but our generation has the wealth, the scientific knowledge and the freedom to defend this planet from the tyranny of others and it is our duty to do so. 

I have the time and support to wage a full campaign, I have the resilience to face the pressures that lie ahead if we are successful, I have the knowledge, history and commitment to use the senate role to build this party so that we are no longer the poor cousins of the Australian Greens.  I want you to put me No. 1 on your ballot. 

A much-expanded port of Abbot Point is the focus of a huge industrial plan for the areas north of Bowen. This will be part of the proposed Northern Economic Triangle (Townsville-Bowen-Mount Isa) which will link inland mining development with huge new coastal ports, industrial infrastructure and power and transport networks. The environmental effects will be dramatic and devastating as pointed out by Mackay Conservation Group coordinator, Patricia Julien. The 16,000 ha State Development Area on a narrow coastal plain neighbouring Abbot Point will have, among other things, 230 million tonnes of coal exported per annum, a LNG plant and a 450 MW gas-fired power station. This area adjoins the Great Barrier Reef and a national park and contains the Caley wetlands, an area that hosts 200 bird species. (See photos above) This development is linked with the massive coal mining developments in the Galillee Basin, inland from Mackay. With 80 per cent of the state under mining exploration permits, including nature refuges and farming land, and 168 more mining EPs and mining leases being given out, the environmental costs will be enormous. Only 3 per cent of the desert uplands is national park and so protected from mining. Bimblebox Nature Refuge, outside of Alpha, is one such area under threat from a mining exploration permit. Its beautiful woodland is set to be annihilated by a huge coal mine thereby taking with it the habitat of at least ten bird species listed by the Federal Government as having conservation significance. One of my main aims, if elected as a Greens senator for Queensland, is to toughen up the Federal Government’s Environmental Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) so that the Federal Government has more responsibility to stop or limit such destructive developments.