I AM REPUBLISHING A NOTICE FROM THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY
OF WA.

You will see from my previous posts that I welcome some serious attention political to this oil spill.

THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY WA Tell the oil and gas industry: 'Never Again - Protection not Pollution!' On August 21 2009, an oil/gas well being drilled from the West Atlas oil rig off Australia’s north west Kimberley coast blew out, uncontrollably spewing oil into the ocean. Since then the oil has spread through an area known as a marine wildlife super-highway, now covering thousands of square kilometres of turtle, whale, dolphin and fish habitat. This an environmental disaster in a pristine area, and the oil and gas industry must be held to account. Join us this Friday 30th November as we say "Never Again - Protection not Pollution". Visit www.wilderness.org.au/oilspill for more information. Flash mob: To set the scene we will have volunteers covered in oil, standing in barrels, representing the plethora of marine life affected by the spill. Dress in black & join us to protest against the oil spill and campaign for greater protection of our Kimberley marine life! Where: APPEA (Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association) offices 190 St Georges Tce (cnr of Mill St) When: 11am, Friday 30th November Speakers: Dr Jill StJohn, The Wilderness Society and Piers Verstegen, The Conservation Council of WA RSVP: We need to be able to cater for numbers at the location, so please let us know if you're coming! For more information about the oil spill visit www.wilderness.org.au/oilspill Don't live in Perth? You can take part in this action regardless of where you live. We're asking everyone who is as outraged as we are, but doesn't live in Perth - to email the oil and gas industry's representatives APPEA and our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. Thank you Renae Williams Community Campaigner The Wilderness Society WA 0433 295 385 renae.williams@wilderness.org.au powered by phplist v 2.10.5, © tincan ltd The Wilderness Society (WA) Inc City West Lotteries House, 2 Delhi Street, West Perth, WA, 6005 Australia Phone: (08) 9420 7255 | Fax: (08) 9226 0994 | Email: wa@wilderness.org.au

Oil Spill in the Timor Sea - Update - little change.

You may recall that I posted a blog about this scandalous environmental disaster, ages ago.

Well, I am disgusted to say that the leak is still going strong, despite numerous attempts to pump thick mud into the well, supposedly to block the leak.

Peter Garrett is wringing his hands, but doing little else.

The company concerned is either unable or unwilling to fix the problem.

I propose that PTTEP, be banned from further exploration in Australian Territories as obviously they are unable to control the problems which their drilling has unleashed.

Furthermore, the Government ought be looking to recover from this company costs for the clean up. And that ought happen before the company can re-arrange its affairs to shelter behind its Grand Cayman tax shelter.

Is Peter Garrett even aware of this as a possibility? Or the Minister for Resources and Energy? Or the Attorney-General? Or the Minister for Foreign Affairs?
In all four cases, I doubt that they have even considered the possibility.
Why not?

Are they incompetent?

Time will answer that question.

Oil Spill in the Timor Sea

This is cross-posted with Miss Eagle's "Network".

OIL SPILL OFF THE W.A. COAST

This report is extracted from several ABC News stories.

There are some interesting things to note about these reports (of course). Denis Wilson offers to guide you through these murky waters.

Oil Spill Emergency off WA Coast

(Updated Fri Aug 21, 2009 9:19pm AEST)

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/21/2663062.htm

In a statement this afternoon, a spokesman for the owner of the unit, PTTEP Australasia, said the leak is continuing, however, the scale of the leak remains unknown.

"PTTEP has notified authorities as part of its emergency response," spokesman Mike Groves said.

"The Australian Marine Oil Spill Centre (AMOSC) is mobilising aircraft and dispersant to be in Darwin tonight and on-site in the Timor Sea tomorrow to begin aerial spraying of the spill.

"The size of the spill is not known.

"Approximately 40 barrels of oil were discharged from the wellhead in the initial incident - some of it into the sea.

"Since then, condensate has been discharged at pressure dispersed in the gas stream.

"It is not known how much condensate is in the gas."

It is still not clear whether the spill will impact on the Ashmore Reef or the Kimberley coastline.

The Australian Marine Oil Centre, based in Victoria, is flying truckloads of chemicals to the spill site to help break up the oil.

(Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/21/2663062.htm )

WA oil rig: Worker expects huge spill

Updated 3 hours 11 minutes ago (as of 1:00pm 22 August)

An employee on the rig that is spewing oil into seas off the coast of Western Australia says the spill may cover eight kilometres of ocean. ......

Crude oil began spilling from the rig about 4:00am (AEST) yesterday.

The National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority (NOPSA) says it is investigating the incident and is unsure of how extensive the problem is. .....

Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman Tracey Jiggins says a search and rescue plane with an environmental specialist on board is assessing the size of the spill and the environmental situation.

She says a Hercules aircraft on loan from Singapore is expected to arrive in Darwin this morning, which will be used to spray chemicals to disperse the oil. ......

"Obviously we're concerned about the oil spill and about any onshore oil, so that's why we're getting the dispersements ready and hopefully that will affect the situation."

Mining company PTTEP Australasia said last night that there were no injuries among those evacuated.

PTTEP says the spill is likely to be carried away from the Australian coast by south-westerly winds.

Australian Marine Oil Spill Centre general manager Ivan Skibinski said aerial spraying will start at the site this morning.

"Oil in the water disperses naturally. With a bit of wind and choppy water the oil breaks up into smaller globules and droplets," he said.

"Chemical dispersant just aids that activity. You spray it on the oil and it helps pull the oil apart into smaller globules."

DENIS'S COMMENTS.

Did you get all that?

1. Its OK for the oil to disperse by itself in the water. Ask the Whale Sharks (a "protected species" under the EPBC Act). Ask the Trepang which the Indonesian Macassan fishermen have been fishing for hundreds of years - the first recorded trade with Aboriginal peoples.
   
2. As long as the oil doesn't come onto the shore - the Australian shore, that is - presumably because the media would take photos
3. If it gets carried north-west (as it will) it becomes Indonesia's problem.
4. Australia's oil-spill response unit is based in Victoria - a very long way from the north-west shelf and the Timor Sea.
5. We have to hire planes and equipment from Singapore. How long have we been drilling oil in the Timor Sea? Isn't it time we were better prepared for accidents like this?
6. What does Peter Garrett think? That would be interesting to know, especially in view of the recent fiasco in China when Martin Ferguson signed up a 20 year deal for gas production off the North-west Shelf, without Garrett having yet approved the deal to go ahead off Barrow Island. Check out Martin's "What's New" page - it is blank! What a "goose" that man is!
7. PTTEP is a company based in Thailand. If you investigate their chain of companies, the very first one Andaman Transportation has its office in the Cayman Islands. That's encouraging - a "Tax Haven".
   
8. Australian Marine Oil Spill Centre (AMOSC)

• The establishment in 1991 of the Australian Marine Oil Spill Centre (AMOSC) in Geelong, Victoria, at a cost of ten million dollars represents a major commitment by the Australian oil industry to safeguard the Australian coastline in the event of a major oil spill. The Centre is financed by nine participating oil companies and other subcriber companies. These companies carry out the vast majority of the oil and gas production, offshore pipeline, terminal operations and tanker movements around the Australian coast.

Aren't you glad that everything is under control?

UPDATE:
The ABC news at 2:00pm AEST has just carried a report that the Australian Maritime Safety Authority is now investigating this incident. That is a delay of more than 36 hours since the incident occurred. But don't worry they have lots of "plans" you can read on their website.

Rudd vs Turnbull

Am I the only person in Australia who thinks Rudd is being short-sighted in persisting in chasing Turnbull over the Auscar fiasco?

Surely if Rudd pushes too hard on Turnbull, it is more likely that the libs will panic and dump Turnbull.

Short -term victory for Rudd might sound attractive, but lets not forget that Costello has not yet left Parliament. Rudd's strategy could play into Cossie's hand - sitting there, sulking, and just waiting to be "drafted" by the party which refused to go begging to him before.

With the prospect of drafting Andrew Robb being seriously considered (apparently), then the prospect of drafting Costello must surely be a better alternative (for them).

Costello would give Rudd a much closer run (if not be a walk-up start for victory) than Turnbull.

So, in my opinion, Rudd is better served by leaving a weakened Turnbull sitting there, than pushing the Libs so hard that they panic and dump Turnbull and go begging to Costello.

The desire to rub Turnbull's nose in the ignomy of an abject apology is understandable. But Rudd risks over-playing his hand.

How Democracy works in NSW - if you run a Pub

How Democracy works in NSW - if you run a Pub, anyway.

 

This is an extract from Crikey.com.au

 

12 . Pubs get lucky with Nathan Rees

Alex Mitchell writes:

After an intense lobbying campaign by the NSW pub industry, Premier Nathan Rees is reportedly ready to ease his crackdown on alcohol-fuelled brawling and anti-social behaviour at "hot spot" hotels.

Soon after taking the premiership Rees named and shamed 40 pubs which had a statistically high incidence of drunken misbehaviour and ordered Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione to step up anti-booze patrols.

This infuriated publicans who have given millions of dollars to the ALP's war chest in return for a free ride, or at least a non-interference policy, from the Labor Government.

With more than $12 million in the bank, and having just spent $6 million on new headquarters in Macquarie Street, the Australian Hotels Association is in no mood to be rolled by the weak and unpopular Rees Government.

It has used all its lobbying influence to cut a better deal for its members, especially rolling back the drift to restrict trading hours and to increase fines and sanctions for licensing offences.

It has valuable allies within the government, including Rees's chief of staff Graeme Wedderburn, senior policy adviser Jeremy Anderson, a former consultant to the AHA, and treasurer Eric Roozendaal, the former ALP general secretary who helped establish publicans as pre-eminent donors to the Labor electoral machine.

NSW's poker machine tax remains the lowest in Australia and was not reviewed in the recent June Budget. With the State's revenue base collapsing, the hotel industry couldn't believe its luck.

Having escaped a tax hike, the top end publicans now want to get the Office of Liquor and Gaming and the police force off their case.

They believe that shaping the regulatory system in their favour is a right and an entitlement, and that they have special rights not enjoyed by other businesses or citizens.

The government's imminent backdown will be an open admission of the power of the pubs in public policy in NSW. What about Her Majesty's Opposition? Is it capable of telling the AHA to take a running jump? No, not really.

 

Beware the Media in a "Feeding Frenzy".

How quickly they forget - the Media, I mean.

I am sure that you will recall, that Dr David Kelly, a British Weapons Expert, got caught up in a Media interview about the so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction which were supposed to be in Iraq. He subsequently was grilled in Parliament, in a hearing which resembled in style the grilling handed out to Godwin Grech last week in Canberra.

The substance of the David Kelly matter was much more serious:
... "David Christopher Kelly CMG (May 14, 1944 – July 17, 2003) was an employee of the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence (MoD), an expert in biological warfare and a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq.

... "Kelly's discussion with Today Programme journalist Andrew Gilligan about the British government's dossier on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq inadvertently caused a major political scandal.
... "He was found dead days after appearing before the Parliamentary committee charged with investigating the scandal."
... Source: Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_(weapons_expert)

The matter at hand the other day relates to a supposedly fake email, purporting to have come from the Prime Minister's Office. The subject matter is by all reasonable assessment - trivial - supposed assistance to a car dealer in getting finance.

However, the manner of the Media's treatment of the poor guy at the centre of this "Storm in a Tea Cup" is far from trivial. He was grilled last Friday in a Senate Estimates Committee hearing, for about two hours. His immediate supervisor and the Minister presiding over the hearing both sought to prevent him from answering questions. By all accounts they "monstered him".

There is a possible alternative interpretation that they were trying to protect him from himself. Why?
Perhaps they already knew - what I believe - that this guy is too honest for his own good. He cannot bring himself to lie. If so, then I fear for him.

This morning's media reports that Godwin Grech's house was "egged" last night. That is hardly life threatening - unless one is already of a fragile psychological disposition.
By all accounts this guy is very quiet, very private.
Thanks to the Media exposure, any hooligan with a political motive knows where he lives and can go and harrass the poor guy.

Let us not forget the tragic outcome of the David Kelly case.

Before it is too late, the Media ought back off Godwin Grech's case.

I have deliberately not linked to any Media stories. If you have not heard of this story, I would be amazed. But I do not wish to add to the feeding frenzy, by posting any links.

If it transpires that someone with a political motive deliberately set up Godwin Grech, by sending the fake email to him - because they know he is so "straight" that he would not imagine it to be a hoax - then I hope that the full power of the law descends upon that person (and his or her fellow conspirators).

UPDATE: WEDNESDAY 24 JUNE
Well, I am glad that I gave Godwin the benefit of the doubt. But it now appears he might not have deserved it.
Today's papers say he has been a "Liberal Party Mole" for years - providing leaked information from Treasury to them.
If that is true, then the bureaucracy will deal with him.
And so they should.

As an old Public Servant I have known such people, and I despise them. Standards of service need to be upheld.
Traitors deserve to be punished - and the bureaucracy has a million ways of doing that.

Or else, he could do the decent thing, and resign. But then he would probably end up a Liberal Party hero.
Better that the Bureaucracy bury him in a room with no window, no in-tray, no out-tray, and especially no telephone or computer.
They can do that, you know!

DJW

Arms sales "build relationships"

This came from crikey.com.au today

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Meanwhile in the real world ...  number 452 in an occasional series.

U.S. government-to-government arms sales are growing fast and will likely exceed the bullish estimate of $40 billion for 2009, the Pentagon's top arms sales official said on Wednesday at the Paris Air Show.

Vice Admiral Jeffrey Wieringa, head of the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency, told Reuters it was unclear if arms sales would keep rising, but noted that was possible since several large weapons competitions were underway, and many countries had aging equipment to replace.

Arms sales were at a "pretty unprecedented level" after averaging $8 billion to $13 billion per year in the early 2000s, Wieringa said in an interview.

Sales in the first half reached $27 billion, some 60 percent of the year's expected total, making it likely the actual 2009 total would top $40 billion, he said.

Wieringa said the Obama administration was committed to building international partnerships, and arms sales were an important instrument of that policy.

"We sell stuff to build relationships," he said.

Boom times for irony too.

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Indeed - it is almost as good as that old "Hippy" era Anti-War slogan:

"Fighting for Peace is like Fu*cking for Virginity".

Who thought that the Obama Presidency would make a difference?

With people like Admiral Wieringa in charge, think again.

Denis