World's Biggest Marine Reserves Network

I welcome yesterday’s announcement by the Australian Government of the world’s largest network of marine reserves which will ensure protection of Australia’s most precious ocean environments.

The inclusion in the Coral Sea network of Osprey and Shark Reef is something I lobbied for and spoke about in the Parliament. I have attached a copy of this speech for your information. Protection of these iconic reefs in the Coral Sea Marine Reserve is important for both marine turtles and large ocean predators.

http://www.kelvinthomson.com.au/Editor/assets/speeches_2012/120521%20adj%20speech-coral%20sea%20marine%20reserve.pdf

The new marine reserves take the overall size of the Commonwealth marine reserves network to 3.1 million square kilometres, by far the largest representative network of marine protected areas in the world.

Together the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and the Coral Sea Commonwealth marine reserve will become the largest adjoining marine protected area in the world, covering 1.3 million square kilometres.

Melbourne’s Quality of Life Under Siege

The Baillieu Government is displaying a disregard for Melbourne’s quality of life by both unveiling plans to extend Melbourne’s urban boundary and allowing Government-owned businesses to sell off public land.

It will be the fourth time the boundary has been shifted since 2002, and makes a joke of claims that all that high rise we are allowing will save us from urban sprawl. We are getting both high rise and urban sprawl!

Urban sprawl gives us more communities isolated from reliable transport services and highly car dependant, as well as clogged, congested inner suburb streets, and leaves new communities without adequate facilities.

Urban sprawl eats into the Green Wedges – areas set aside by the Victorian Government in 1967 to be forever protected from development. How ironic that it was a visionary Liberal Party Premier, Dick Hamer, who established the Green Wedges.

We need to retain Green Wedges as permanent wedges between growth corridors, not as potential urban land supply that is bulldozed as soon as there is a demand for it. The fact that new suburbs are being announced to house another 100,000 people shows that our migrant worker programs are bringing people to Melbourne rather than to the Pilbara.

The Baillieu Government has also failed to deliver a pre-election promise to establish a State Register of Significant Public Land and to require Ministers to spell out to Parliament why any public land is to be sold off. This promise needs to be honoured!

A current example is public land close to Kororoit Ceek in Sunshine, prized by local residents for over three decades as a place of community recreation, that is now targeted for development.

It should be retained as open space, as should other similar public open space, which allows people to breathe and find refuge close at hand from hectic urban life.

Breaches of Animal Welfare Export Standards

In my view 37 breaches is way too many and the two exporters should have their licences suspended or even cancelled.

The Department Deputy Secretary said if further animal welfare breaches occur they would face the possible loss of their export licence, but you have to wonder how many chances they get. When the trade was resumed last year after being suspended, the Government said the industry was on notice, so I think the public would expect that any exporters now found to be treating animals inhumanely would be run out of the industry.

Even more worrying for me than the question of penalty is the fact that it wasn’t industry self-regulation that brought these breaches to light, it was Animals Australia- Lyn White and her little video camera. You have to wonder whether we are really seeing the tip of the iceberg.

I think the only way we are going to ensure our animals are not being mistreated is to insist on mandatory stunning- that all animals are stunned before being killed. I further think we should be supporting proposals for the establishment of abattoirs in northern Australia, such as the Australian Agricultural Company proposal for Livingstone Valley south of Darwin, and transitioning away from live exports and into domestic processing, which is better for both animal welfare and for Australian jobs.

Manufacturing Industry is vital locally, and nationally.

Last week on Wednesday 11^th April, it was announced that APV Automotive Components would be going into voluntary liquidation. This underscores the importance of manufacturing for Melbourne and more importantly in Wills.

The fact that this company has been going since 1946, that 126 workers are presently without work, and that Ford, Holden and Toyota all look to it to supply parts make it an important component of Melbourne’s manufacturing infrastructure.

Last week I had discussions with the newly appointed administrator Stephen Longley, and with the Vehicle Building Division of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union.

I indicated to both that I am ready to help in any way I can. I understand that APV Automotive Components parent company received a $4.5 million Structural Adjustment Program Grant not so long ago. I will be pursuing the way in which that money was used, as both workers and taxpayers will want to be satisfied that that money was used to secure the best possible future for APV.

On Thursday 12^th April I met with Mr Julian Grobler, Customer Service Manager for AusIndustry, to discuss support for manufacturing in the Wills electorate to ensure it remains globally competitive with the introduction of a carbon price on July 1 this year.

I am a strong supporter of the Australian Government’s programs to assist manufacturing in Victoria. The Australian Government’s Automotive Industry Structural Adjustment Program provides support to the automotive supply chain to achieve greater scale and retain core capabilities. Additionally, as part of its recent co-investment with Holden, the Government announced a new $35 million Automotive New Markets Initiative to help component manufacturers develop new business opportunities domestically and overseas.

The Prime Minister’s Taskforce on Manufacturing held its second meeting in Melbourne on Wednesday 11^th April, with the Minister for Industry and Innovation updating the Taskforce on measures to strengthen Australian Industry Participation rules for major private sector and government funded projects. These measures will significantly improve opportunities for local suppliers and service providers to win contracts on large resources and infrastructure projects.

Without initiatives like this, the high Australian dollar will see manufacturing continue to retreat and, we will end up with a two state economy. Queensland and Western Australia will benefit from the mining boom, but states like Victoria will not.

Baillieu Government set to renege on election promise of 20 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions

I would like to share the following from Climate Code Red in light of the recent report in the The Age that the Baillieu Government is considering dumping the states plan to cut Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent over the next decade. It is noteworthy that many of the commentators who fire up the most about the significance of Julia Gillard’s ‘no carbon tax’ statement are conspicuous by their absence when a Liberal Government changes a position it took to an election, especially when it waters down action on climate.

·         While government support to renewable power sources is subject to seemingly endless media and political scrutiny, the 500% larger subsidies given to oil, gas and coal rarely get much attention.

·         Worldwide, governments and taxpayers spent $409 billion in 2010 supporting the production and consumption of fossil fuels, three-quarters of which went to the oil industry. 

·         Just 8% of that $409 billion went to the poorest 20% of the population

·         Global subsidies for fossil fuel consumption are set to reach $660 billion in 2020 unless reforms are passed to effectively eliminate this form of state aid, according to International Energy Agency chief economist Fatih Birol.

·         Eliminating fossil fuel consumption subsidies by 2020 would cut global energy demand by 4 percent, cutting demand for oil by 3.7million  barrels a day.

·         Dropping subsidies could slow growth in CO2 emissions by 1.7bn tonnes a year, equivalent to the total emissions of the UK, Germany, Italy and France.

·         In Australia, the SMH reported that taxpayers spend about 11 times more encouraging the use of fossil fuels than on climate change programs. Fossil fuel incentives and subsidies will cost about $12.2 billion this financial year in Australia, compared with $1.1 billion spent on programs designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions and boost research.

It’s hardly as though big oil needs the cash. The five biggest oil companies made a record-high $137 billion in profits in 2011, and have made more than $1 trillion in profits from 2001 through 2011. And for every $1 spent on lobbying in Washington, the big five received $30 worth of tax breaks.
    

On 24 January 2012, Independent US Senator Bernie Sanders pledged to introduce legislation to repeal federal tax breaks and subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, declaring at a Capitol Hill rally that "the most profitable corporations in the world do not need subsidies from the American people."

Australian Financial Review's ‘Brave New World’

The Australian Financial Review of 6 March had a wraparound front cover with the headline “First we revolutionised the Price. Now we’re revolutionising the Agenda.” The two page colour spread below the headline appeared to be a graphic of the Fin Review’s idea of Australia. I found it a very troubling picture.

It was entirely devoid of any Australian wildlife. There were no Kangaroos, Koalas, Emus, Lyrebirds, Echidnas or Platypus. There were no birds or animals or reptiles at all. In one sense this was scarcely surprising, because the picture of mines, industry, agriculture and infrastructure left no room for them – they cannot survive in an Australia without forests and grasslands and waterways and wildlife corridors.

But it is a barren Australia, totally stripped of the natural beauty which has been such a source of joy and inspiration to Australians and visitors for hundreds of years.

The Financial Review’s accompanying words refer to a clean environment, but surely an environment without birds and plants and animals would be a sterile nightmare. I hope the omission was inadvertent.

Australian War Graves desecrated in Libya

Tuesday 6^th March 2012/ac

Australian War Graves desecrated in Libya

I was shocked and appalled to see footage of Australian War Graves being desecrated in Libya.

Footage of violent extremists smashing and violating Australian War Graves is highly disrespectful to those brave Australian servicemen who paid the ultimate sacrifice in the defence of Libya from aggression during the Second World War.

More than 1000 servicemen who lost their lives in the Western Desert wars in 1942 and 1943 are buried at the site, including at least 55 Australians.

The sacrifice of these young servicemen allowed us all to enjoy the freedom and liberty that many of us today now take for granted. Their vision of a just world was not unlike the vision the rebels in Libya had to liberate them from the tyranny of Colonel Gaddafi. Many of the same countries who helped Libya in 1942 and 1943 came to their aid again last year.

Religious fanaticism and fundamentalism never bring about a better world. People who think their religious beliefs entitle them to violence against members of their own families, members of their communities, or people of different beliefs, are totally and utterly wrong and must be resisted at every turn. The perpetrators of this horrific behaviour must be brought to justice.

Kelvin Thomson MP

Federal Member for Wills