The 2004 Commonwealth funding offered to the West Coast Council for the Mt Lyell mine rehabilitation project – some $7 million dollars – has been taken way in 2010 by Peter Garrett and whatever’s left of it (unspent) is to be re-directed to Tasmania’s fox eradication efforts.
The impression given in the Mercury on-line article (below) was that this was State Government money getting transferred and West Coast Mayor Darryl Gerrity was none to happy.
“While the State Government is out and about giving money to others throughout Tasmania, they are taking it away from the West Coast,” Cr Gerrity said.
“There is no doubt there are mines in Tasmania but there is some scepticism that there are foxes. We need the money to mitigate pollution problems.”
And it wasn’t the Minister for Tasmanian fox funding, David Llewellyn that delivered this news either, it was none other than Tasmania’s real Minister for Environment, Michelle O’Byrne.
Apparently the Tasmanian Government got the heads-up letter from Peter Garrett in January 2010, not last week.
According to a press release from former Mercury journo, turned Government Media officer, Rohan Wade, Michelle O’Byrne had expressed her extreme disappointment at the Federal Government’s decision to withdraw from the Mt Lyell mine rehabilitation project. [Are Government Media staffers allowed to pump out media releases for Ministers under teambartlett.com.au Labor banner-heads during an election campaign?]
Ms O’Byrne said she had written to Federal Ministers Peter Garrett and Tony Burke asking that this decision be re-examined.
“The Bartlett Labor Government has been committed to this project, and has invested more than $1 million to date to ensure it continues. I will continue to urge the Federal Government to maintain its funding to this project.”
“There is no doubt that fox eradication in Tasmania also needs to be addressed, but it should not have happened at the expense of this rehabilitation project.”
Apparently fighting fox pollution has replaced fighting West Coast mine pollution; we can’t have both!
But I want to know how much of this budgeted $7 million announced when John Howard was still PM and Turnbull wasn’t even the Commonwealth Minister for the Environment remains unspent in 2010?
Is it ‘virtual’ funds for ‘virtual’ foxes…‘Claytons’ funds for ‘Claytons’ foxes?
ABC news reported Michelle O’Byrne saying the Federal Government considered the Mt Lyell remediation method as ‘controversial’, and that’s why they withdrew their funding.
I wonder whether Peter Garrett had thought about how ‘controversial’ his rebadging of this funding was.
Tally-ho Pete!
Fox funding angers West
Helen Kempton, Mercury
THE West Coast community is angered by a decision to redirect funds from the Mt Lyell mine clean up to Fox Eradication.
West Coast Mayor Darryl Gerrity said a letter from Environment Minister Michelle O’Byrne’s office has confirmed that the $7 million left in the Mt Lyell Remediation Project coffers would be taken away to fund the hunt for foxes in Tasmania.
The remediation funds were to have been used to divert acid drainage from clean water at the mine and to construct a treatment plant to clean up water in the Queen River.
“While the State Government is out and about giving money to others throughout Tasmania, they are taking it away from the West Coast,” Cr Gerrity said.
“There is no doubt there are mines in Tasmania but there is some scepticism that there are foxes.
“We need the money to mitigate pollution problems.”
The original $9 million set aside for the Mt Lyell Remediation Project was given by both the State and Federal governments.
Some money has already been spent but more than $7 million remained.
But Ms O’Byrne said the money had been redirected by the Federal Government, not the State, and she had written to Canberra to express her concerns.
Meanwhile, In the last decade, the likelihood of seeing a European Red Fox in certain ‘hotspots’ around the state has increased considerably. Togatus’ Kim Burley explores their sly invasion into Tasmania. Togatus, HERE
Dave Groves
March 1, 2010 at 08:14
The good news is that without these regeneration/remediation/planting works, there will be less places for the foxes to hide?????
amyb
March 1, 2010 at 09:00
This is to be expected when constituents continually provide safe booths in a safe Lib/Lab seat. No-one bothers to further chase such guaranteed votes with funding sweetners.
Want to fix the problem? Vote Green and scare the lazy Lyons Lib/Lab pollies Llewellyn, Aird and Hiddings out of their arrogant complacency.
Actually that is quite an amusing thought, the West Coast booths returning a majority Green vote. I realize this is in the same category as flying pigs, but it certainly would shake them up in the Lib/Lab coalition.
William Boeder
March 1, 2010 at 09:53
Is this another case of indolent performance by this State government?
Whereby the funds had been allocated to the State and then the matter left alone until some opportunistic time in the future?
That is if the Labor government held any inclination to progress the matter thus to make use of these funds?
This matter reeks of the same tardy beginnings with the monies allocated by Federal government for water pipelines in this State.
Isla MacGregor
March 1, 2010 at 10:14
Gerrity is just using a media opportunity during the election bandwagon to shore up his tattered image after the Rosebery fiasco.
You won’t hear Gerrity talk about needing to fix up mine pollution in Rosebery – because there isn’t any there of course!
West Coast Council have refused to spend money on drainage problems in Rosebery that have lead to further contamination of residential properties.
Gerrity has been too busy hiding behind Chrissie Pickin’s skirts when it comes to his inaction on contamination issues in Rosebery.
Whatever is behind the realocation of funds for the fox taskforce it begs the question why hasn’t the money already been spent on the rehabilitation program since its allocation in 2004? Is the writing on the wall for Gerrity at the next Council elections?
Ian Rist
March 1, 2010 at 11:34
Who is responsible for this? Surely this isn’t another Garrett stuff up…has he been misled again. I suppose when one of Garrett’s staffers IS on the scientific committee of the Fox Eradication Program… Canberra is going to have a fair bit of say.
My goodness there is so much nonsense out there,
read the February edition of Togatus – the Uni. of Tasmania newsletter:
http://togatus.com.au/issue/february-2010/article/foxes-in-tasmania
The elusive scarlet pimpernel…
TTblogger
March 1, 2010 at 11:51
For once both William and Isla, I have to report that both of you are seriously off the mark.
In this instance it is not a case of indifferance by the State government or by Council but in fact the Feds via Environment Australia.
The original funding allocation of approx $9m came from a variety of funding sources including Natural Heritage Trust funds etc. Approx $1-1.5m was spent on significant research into the most appropriate and technologically sound manner in treating the AMD from the legacy of over 100 years of mining at Mt Lyell, while a further sum of money was spent on engineering design, and construction of drainage measures to collect the AMD and stormwater runoff from the Mt Lyell site. As anyone who would know the site it is both complex and covers a vast area, with significant disturbance from its long mining history.
The project to treat into perpetuity AMD and especially to remove the copper needed to be cost effective and robust as a treatment system in order to be viable. The project decided upon involved making a copper precipitate/concentrate via a relatively technologically sound process involving copper cementation.
However, approval for the project to proceed and the funding to be made available lay directly with the Commonwealth. The State governement from my understanding actually did all it could to make the project viable and to support it proceeding. However, in the end the feds chose not to support it.
Sorry Isla but this issue has absolutely nothing to do with the West Coast Council, as it was not within its jurisdiction nor can or should be related to your issue of concern re Rosebery.
In respect of the issues of pollution by the mine again it is actually not Council’s role as this is a State government and industry responsibility. The mine is regulated by Mineral Resources Tasmania in respect of mine leasing issues and the EPA Division in respect of its level 2 permit.
Both these agencies have and continue to regulate the mine’s performance to ensure it operates within the requirements of the legislation.
Your issue would appear to be a political/legal fight which is predicated on a belief that the mine or some other source of contamination has resulted in human health issues.
There is another and quite probabalistic cause for such matters which you simply choose to ignore or overlook, that being the very obvious due to natural sources of metal contamination because of the mineralised nature of the west coast and also the very strong liklihood of metals associated with fill material brought into the Rosebery township from various sites around the west coast mining region.
Whether or not Council has been slow to answer or deal with some of the issues of concern you raise is a matter for Council to respond to.
Ian Rist
March 1, 2010 at 12:06
“A small group of sceptics have really managed to muddy the waters”. Togatus Februay 17th 2010.
Not according to the huge number of sceptics that write in to the papers and comment on blog sites just about everyday.
Run an open poll Cassy…I dare you.
Besides if the FEB and the Government were so sure of themselves they wouldn’t be at all worried about the sceptics.
I think they are more afraid of the truth, like vampires with sunlight.
Finally I wonder how many of these “fox believers” would care to reveal their true agendas…
One major problem why just about everyone doesn’t believe you…you haven’t produced, cannot produce and are unlikely to produce a single fox, well not unless you bring it in from the mainland again.
Ian Rist
March 1, 2010 at 13:23
What contantly annoys me from the “foxes are everywhere” minority is:
(a) They can’t catch or shoot or poison or even photograph a single fox..
(b) The constant rabbiting on about the catastrophic damage foxes do to tourism, the economy and the sheep industry…hasn’t closed down any of this on the mainland or anywhere else in the world.
(c) The total avoidance of responsibility or even recognising the disgraceful feral cat problem that exists here in Tasmania…
cats threaten far more native species than do foxes,and cats are unbelievably aboreal; AusStats Invasive Species graph – Australian Government.
Graph 14.21
The number of bird and mammal species threatened by processes associated with these invasive animals is shown in graph 14.21. These invasive species also threaten a range of plants, amphibians and reptiles. Threat abatement plans have been prepared under the National Feral Animal Control Program and the EPBC Act 1999 for the European fox, cat, rabbit and goat (EA 2002b). These plans focus on strategic approaches to reducing, to an acceptable level, the effects of processes that threaten the long-term survival of native species and ecological communities.
This AUSTATS graph clearly shows cats threaten more species than foxes.
john Hayward
March 1, 2010 at 15:25
We should make the most of the thoroughly absurd side of it.
Here is a government which elsewhere displays anything from contempt to sheer indifference to the environment, purporting to be gravely concerned about an introduced predator that their forestry bosses would love to see. Reynard would clean up all those paddies and possums as well as the bettongs , pottoroos, bandicoots, etc that promise to be problems when they inevitably show up on the Threatened Species Register.
Habitat destruction is the world’s numero uno cause of extinctions, and here is Barty’s crew backing the fastest such process in the developed world. We have the Tasmanian platypus dying off from a fungal infection the government has done almost nothing about. We have the devil rescue program turned over to the commercial sector. We have a feral aquarium plant, Elodea canadensis, choking some of our major rivers without a peep from that bona fide chicken, David Llewellyn. And much, much more.
Tassie has something special, some of the most lightweight clowns on earth. Use them, or get rid of them.
John Hayward
David Obendorf
March 1, 2010 at 15:46
“A small group of sceptics have really managed to muddy the watersâ€.
Who made this quote, Mr Rist?
I will try not to get a headache over it though. 😉
Did that person name ‘the small group of fox sceptics’ so that at least they could defend themselves before this mud sticks!
As a Tasmanian politician wrote to me on another Tasmanian controversy recently – the ‘truth’ will come out at some stage. That’s all I have ever wanted.
Yes, I am sceptical; particularly of ‘political foxes’ and in my opinion Tasmania has those creatures in abundance!
If securing Commonwealth funds under false pretenses is a case of “the END justifying the MEANS” then I guess it confirms one thing: I’m NOT a politician, by nature.
David Obendorf
March 1, 2010 at 15:54
John Hayward [commemt #9]..you’ll be happy to know that on the back of VOLUNTEER community science and research on platypus mucormycosis infections and frog chytrid fungal disease in Tasmania done over the last decade or so, DPIWE and its new alphabet lettered rebadge – DPIPWE secured over half a million dollars for chytrid work and over $300,000 for platypus work (from the Commonwealth again!)
It kept a number of State-funded biologists in their DPIWE jobs.
William Boeder
March 1, 2010 at 18:25
TT blogger #6.
In reply to you comment, I accept that my concerns re the Queenstown clean-up funding were subsequently unfounded, and as such I withdraw my criticisms.
Though the work performed to date in dealing with the clean-up of Queenstown and its historical contaminant issues, has somehow drawn to a inconclusive halt, thus it seems this matter has been slapped into the too hard basket for the present.
This matter may then be presumed to rest entirely in the hands of the State government.
They being the in the position to vigorously pursue said Federal funding, or if not, to let the matter enter the realms of oblivion?
In your comments re #6, you appear to have manouvered my name to include the Rosebery issues?
Let me state that I do not have or share any affiliation with the supposed and or alleged claims of contaminants.
To suggest otherwise is a gross false claim, in that of your presumption and or suggestion.
Ian Rist
March 2, 2010 at 06:29
David re your question # 10 click on the link in # 5 this thread…read paragraph number 3 and number 4.
I am sure the poll will not be conducted…a huge percentage of Tasmanians have already made it very clear everyday in the media where they stand.
Ian Rist
March 2, 2010 at 11:15
David re # 10 again… securing funds is exactly what the fox scare is all about, always has been.
Go back to 1997-98 when NPWS and DPIWE were in so much of a budget shortfall everyone was scratching there heads wondering where the money was going to come from.
Then in May 1998 a fox jumped of the boat in Burnie, a few people read about threat abatement plans and knew there was an almost bottomless pit of money (well 1100 hundred million dollars in the NHT for conservation from the partial sale of Telstra)…then the lights came on.
All we needed was a “key threatening process” and the fox was it, Lewy wrote to Senator Hill on the 23rd August 2001 seeking funding for a problem his own Police Department had told him only a month before didn’t even exist…the rest is history, nine years on and they still haven’t got one fox but the money is still flowing.
Ian Rist
March 2, 2010 at 16:56
If anyone wants confirmation of how much the fox has been worth simply check the Auditor- General’s reports.
David Obendorf
March 3, 2010 at 02:19
Very soon, either the labelled but unnamed “small group of fox sceptics” are going to be run out of Tasmania when the WIDESPREAD and CHALLENGING wild Tasmanian foxes are finally flushed out by the authorities, or the Fox Eradication Program foresenic team will continue to recover “physical evidence of fox presence” – scats and skulls, road kill and blood spots.
Thank goodness our Tasmanian devils remain in the landscape….they seem to be doing a pretty good job at keeping those WIDESPREAD and CHALLENGING foxes in Tasmania at virtually undetectable levels…as rare as hens’ teeth, you could say.
The Tasmanian Times $1000 Fox Reward remains unclaimed since its announcement in September 2006.
Cassy
March 5, 2010 at 10:22
[comment deleted]