Greens to introduce bill to ‘end destructive logging of Australia’s precious native forests’
Lisa Cox
The Greens will introduce a bill to repeal the Regional Forest Agreements Act which grants logging operations an exemption from national environmental laws.
The party’s forests spokesperson, senator Janet Rice, will introduce the bill in the Senate today.
In addition to repealing the Regional Forest Agreements Act, the bill proposes the tabling of an annual statement from the threatened species commissioner on how logging is affecting Australia’s progress towards the government’s zero extinctions target.
It proposes a second statement be tabled by the environment minster outlining how logging is affecting Australia’s progress towards its commitment to protect 30% of the country’s land areas by 2030.
Rice said federal and state governments had failed to meet their responsibility to protect the environment and fix failing environmental laws. She said logging operations covered by regional forest agreements had been granted an exemption from national environmental laws for too long.
The Regional Forest Agreements have allowed for decades of reckless destruction of native forests across Australia, pushed native wildlife to the brink of extinction, endangered our water supplies, heightened bushfire risk, and made the climate crisis worse.
If passed, this bill will end the destructive logging of Australia’s precious native forests, by repealing the Regional Forest Agreements and closing the loopholes used by the logging industry to skirt our national environment laws.
The Albanese government has proposed introducing legislation to reform Australia’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act later this year.
Key events
Home values sink by record 12-month pace but decline is slowing, CoreLogic says
Peter Hannam
As we noted yesterday, Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe reckoned falling housing values were contributing to weaker demand, and hence taking some of the heat out of the economy.
In the December quarter, household consumption increased by just 0.3%, which, in per capita terms, represents a small decline,” Lowe said. “[T]he combination of cost-of-living pressures, higher interest rates and the decline in housing values is weighing on consumption.”
Data out today from CoreLogic, a data firm, shows that its rolling 28-day tally of home values suggests that “decline” has plateaued lately:
To be sure, home owners in most parts of the country have seen property prices fall over the past year.
According to CoreLogic, the 7.9% slide over the past 12 months is the largest on record.
Sydney leads the falls, with values down 13.4% from a year earlier (and are 13.5% below their record high).
Melbourne‘s 9.6% drop from a year ago is also how much they’ve fallen from the record.
Hobart‘s values are off 11.8% in the past year, and a similar 12.1% retreat from the city’s record.
Perth’s prices, meanwhile, are up 2.4% over the past year and are just 0.9% below their record. Darwin‘s on the rise too, with prices up 2.9% over the past year but remain 11.5% below the city’s record set almost nine years ago.
So that readers in other cities don’t feel left out: Brisbane‘s values are down 6.8% in the past year (and are 11% off their highs); Adelaide‘s prices are up 5.1% (to be 2.3% below their record); Canberra’s values are off 6.7% (and are down 9% from their peak).
We’ll have to see whether hints at a pause in rate rises from Lowe (perhaps after one more hike in April) encourages buyers back into the property markets.
Global debt ratings agency, Moody’s, meanwhile, has forecast housing affordability will remain poor over this year, with Sydney the worst.
In February, new home loan borrowers needed an average 30.9% of monthly income to meet monthly mortgage repayments, up from 26.4% in May 2022, when interest rates began to increase, the agency says.
“We expect that ongoing housing price declines will broadly balance out further interest rate rises in terms of their effect on housing affordability this year,” it says. “If the RBA raises the cash rate to 4.1%, the share of income that borrowers need to meet repayments on new mortgages will hold around the
February level if housing prices decline 4.5%.”
Sydney was the least affordable city, with new borrowers needing 40.7% of household income to meet mortgage repayments in February, compared with Hobart (33.9%), Melbourne (34.5%), Adelaide (31.1%), Brisbane (27.9%), and Perth (19.3%), Moody’s said. (Sorry, Canberrans, no number for you)
Tamsin Rose
Fare-free day for Sydney commuters
Sydney commuters will receive a free travel day some time after the election in a fortnight following the major network disruption yesterday.
The premier, Dominic Perrottet, on Thursday apologised to voters for the shutdown that he says was believed to be the result of an IT system issue.
He said:
These challenges occur from time to time. What’s most important is when they happen they get fixed immediately. I’ve been assured by the secretary of the Department of Transport that this won’t happen again.
I’ve made it very clear to the secretary, the department, that my expectation is that there is a fare-free day to make up some way for what occurred yesterday.
He said there was no indication there was a cyber-attack on the network.
Sydney commuters will receive a free travel day following the major train disruption yesterday. The premier Dominic Perrottet apologised to commuters for the shutdown that he says was the result of an IT system issue. #nswpol pic.twitter.com/pM0gznaUtP
— Tamsin Rose (@tamsinroses) March 9, 2023
Sussan Ley on reconstruction fund deal: ‘We will fight Labor’s recklessness all the way to the Senate, then to the election and beyond’
Liberal deputy leader Sussan Ley has responded to the news the national reconstruction fund will pass (the Coalition is voting no):
Australian households and small businesses face soaring energy bills and Labor seem determined to make it worse with Anthony Albanese caving to the Greens and selling Australian manufacturing up the creek.Every expert in the country is calling on the prime minister to unlock more supply of gas, but today’s awful deal with the Greens is another demonstration that this government is utterly unable to deliver policies that would bring affordable and reliable energy.
The industry minister always claims to acknowledge the importance of gas as a transition fuel but today he is preventing investment in this critical area of our sovereign manufacturing policy.
This is a bad bill that has become even worse. We will fight Labor’s recklessness all the way to the Senate, then to the election and beyond.
The resources industry is the only industry singled out for prohibition in this fund, a damning indictment on the priorities of this bad Labor government.
And for more information on the wheeling and dealing that led to the national reconstruction fund getting the numbers it needed in the Senate, here is Paul Karp:
Ed Husic on the reconstruction fund: ‘one of the largest peacetime investments in manufacturing this country has ever seen’
The industry minister is very happy to have struck a deal on the national reconstruction fund legislation with the Greens:
After a decade of neglect from the former Liberal-National government, the Albanese government is revitalising Australian manufacturing.
By voting against the National Reconstruction Fund, the Liberal and National parties have once again shown they are not on the side of Australian manufacturers and only care about manufacturing when it comes to a photo opportunity.
We are now one step closer to delivering one of the largest peacetime investments in manufacturing this country has ever seen.
The Greens will hold a press conference about the amendment they secured very soon.
The About the House twitter account – which updates you on the business of the chamber – has embraced emojis.
The cupcakes do not make up for the cringe memes.
I’d take raising the jobseeker rate over 1m cupcakes though.
And it always pays to read the terms and conditions
Greens to introduce bill to ‘end destructive logging of Australia’s precious native forests’
Lisa Cox
The Greens will introduce a bill to repeal the Regional Forest Agreements Act which grants logging operations an exemption from national environmental laws.
The party’s forests spokesperson, senator Janet Rice, will introduce the bill in the Senate today.
In addition to repealing the Regional Forest Agreements Act, the bill proposes the tabling of an annual statement from the threatened species commissioner on how logging is affecting Australia’s progress towards the government’s zero extinctions target.
It proposes a second statement be tabled by the environment minster outlining how logging is affecting Australia’s progress towards its commitment to protect 30% of the country’s land areas by 2030.
Rice said federal and state governments had failed to meet their responsibility to protect the environment and fix failing environmental laws. She said logging operations covered by regional forest agreements had been granted an exemption from national environmental laws for too long.
The Regional Forest Agreements have allowed for decades of reckless destruction of native forests across Australia, pushed native wildlife to the brink of extinction, endangered our water supplies, heightened bushfire risk, and made the climate crisis worse.
If passed, this bill will end the destructive logging of Australia’s precious native forests, by repealing the Regional Forest Agreements and closing the loopholes used by the logging industry to skirt our national environment laws.
The Albanese government has proposed introducing legislation to reform Australia’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act later this year.
Michael McGowan
‘No indication so far’ cyber-attack caused Sydney rail shutdown
Sydney transport bosses say there is no evidence at this stage to suggest the hour-long shutdown of the city’s rail network was related to a possible cyber-attack.
During the shutdown, which saw tens of thousands of commuters stranded during peak hour on Wednesday, the transport minister, David Elliott, said that while it was likely a “glitch” in the network, he was waiting for briefings on the possibility it was due to “foreign interference or industrial sabotage”.
But on Thursday the head of Sydney Trains, Matt Longland, said during a press conference that “based on the detailed review overnight” the delays were caused by a failure in a piece of technology and “wasn’t related to any suspected issue in terms of any cyber activity or any anything of that nature”.
The NSW government is currently in caretaker mode in the lead-up to the state election on 25 March, and during a press briefing the chief operating officer for Transport for NSW, Howard Collins, said he had contact with Elliott and his office within minutes of the fault being discovered.
Asked whether the possibility of foul play was raised during those discussions, Collins said:
There is always a concern with any IT systems or even these OT systems, which are an enclosed system, is there any foreign interference or any other issue coming in to the network?”
I think so far, and it’s important to say so far, we haven’t concluded the final investigation, but so far this is leading to a component failure, or a failure of overloading the system with software. We will get to the bottom of it. But no indication so far indicates this is something coming into the network like a cyber attack or data which is coming in from outside our system.”
Katy Gallagher on safeguard mechanism deadlock: ‘We’re just going to continue to talk with Senator Pocock and others’
The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, is also a senator for the ACT. So if the ACT doesn’t want new coal and gas projects (as the Australia Institute polling Paul reported on has found) doesn’t that affect her too?
Gallagher told the ABC:
It [the findings] doesn’t surprise me. I mean, the ACT has been leading the way in terms of adoption of renewable energy targets, including when I was chief minister … we rely on 100% renewable energy now in our jurisdiction because of policies that were put in place 10 or 15 years ago, so that that doesn’t surprise me and I understand the issue more broadly, people do want to see the shift to renewable energy generation.
I guess the argument we’re having is, you know, the pathway to get there and the transition to get there.
That doesn’t just affect people in the ACT, it affects the entire country, and the country … is very different, as we know. But the safeguard mechanism is … a real opportunity to make huge progress forward in reducing our emissions in a way where we can all work together and so I am really hopeful that we don’t get to a situation where we have a stalemate in the Senate on this – like that we can’t make something that doesn’t please everyone to 100% – [a] stall in the face of the progress that we know we need to make.
So we’re just going to continue to talk with Senator Pocock and others to get this through the Senate because it’s essential if we’re going to make the first and important steps to reducing emissions from our biggest polluters.