Farmers Demand The Coalition Government Do More On Climate Change

Fairfax - Fergus Hunter

A thumping majority of Australian farmers have concluded they are witnessing the effects of climate change, urging the Coalition government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare the country for a future that is drier, less predictable and more prone to bushfires.
This is according to a survey of 1300 primary producers across states and agricultural sectors, conducted by advocacy group Farmers for Climate Action with the co-operation of the National Farmers Federation.

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It found 88 per cent of respondents want rural and regional politicians to start advocating for stronger climate change action. Two thirds have seen changes in rainfall over their time on the land and half have seen an increase in droughts and floods.
Nine in 10 are concerned about damage to the climate and eight in 10 support Australia moving towards 100 per cent renewable energy.
A delegation of six farmers visited Parliament House on Monday and Tuesday to convey the findings, meeting with politicians of all persuasions to make their case for emissions reductions, global leadership and boosted research on new technology.
Derek Blomfield, a beef producer from the Liverpool Plains in Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce's New South Wales electorate, has observed increasing unreliability of weather.
He now finds managing his property more difficult and wants to see "strong leadership" from the Coalition government and thinks farmers shouldn't be scared of initiatives like emissions trading schemes and carbon taxes.
"For our industry, it's critical that we don't let this thing get out of hand. When I say for our industry, it actually means for everyone. Because we all need a farmer three times a day."

Victorian dairy farmer Karrinjeet Singh-Mahil and Liverpool Plains beef farmer Derek Blomfield at Parliament House in Canberra on Tuesday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

To  some of the MPs more sceptical of climate change, including Mr Joyce and other Nationals, "we just try and point out how critical this is for our industry," he said.
The survey found changes to rainfall had been observed by 67 per cent of respondents, more frequent and worse droughts by 47 per cent, floods by 46 per cent, increased temperatures by 42 per cent, changing planting times by 41 per cent and more frequent and worse bushfires for 22.5 per cent.

Victorian cattleman Craig Porter takes his cattle for grazing on the roadside due to the 2007 drought. Photo: Justin McManus

They were most concerned about less reliable rainfall, higher temperatures that increase evaporation, heatwaves, pollution from mining, bushfires, rising costs and invasive species.
Karrinjeet Singh-Mahil, a dairy farmer from Crossley in Victoria, wants boosted climate change research funding and improved access to the Emissions Reductions Fund for farmers to pursue new initiatives.

Dried up vineyards near Menindee, NSW hit by drought in 2016.  Photo: Edwina Pickles

"We want them to get over the ideology and to accept that change is happening, for whatever reason, and we want them to have a consistent message that it is and that it is affecting farms," she told Fairfax Media.
Ms Singh-Mahil said her property is suffering from increased erosion and pastures not surviving the season. She is satisfied with the reception from Canberra MPs, especially the understanding of those who have real experience on farms.
Climate change, which scientific consensus has found to be a unique threat driven by the human-generated increase in greenhouse gas emissions, gradually lifts air and ocean temperatures, making weather more unpredictable, raising sea levels and undermining critical environmental processes.
The average global temperature has already risen one degree celsius above pre-industrial levels and 2016 is set to knock off 2015 as the hottest year on record.

Links

• Australian Farmers for Climate Action | Facebook
• National Farmers Federation partner with Climate Action farmers
• Farmers have power to lead the way on climate action
• Grants help farmers take climate action | Landcare Australia Limited

Fossil Fuel Giants Using Questionable Deductions To Shrink Tax Bills: Auditor-General

Fairfax - Heath Aston

A damning investigation has found multinational companies are claiming billions of dollars in questionable deductions while exploiting the nation's natural riches, using accounting tricks allowed to flourish under a hands-off government approach that is dudding Australian taxpayers of royalties.
And in a stunning disclosure, the probe by Auditor-General Grant Hehir found nearly two decades had passed since a federal government audited the self-assessed royalty payments from the North West Shelf, a giant project located in the lucrative oil and gas region off the West Australian coast and jointly owned by Woodside, Shell, Chevron and BHP Billiton.

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Big companies can get very creative with their tax avoidance strategies, including global resource giants Chevron and Shell.

Underlining rising concerns over whether the $200 billion liquefied natural gas industry is paying its fair share of tax, Mr Hehir's report discovered a $5 billion bonanza of deductions claimed by the project in just one 18-month period.
Some of the Auditor-General's most damning criticism was reserved for a single $705 million cost deduction that helped reduce royalties owed to the taxpayer by $88 million. Mr Hehir argued the $705 million deduction may not have been technically valid.

Auditor-General Grant Hehir warns his review may only scratch the surface. 

The multibillion-dollar deductions - which are still being taken despite the project being fully mature after 25 years in operation - dwarf the $1.9 billion in royalties it paid in the same 18-month period.
Mr Hehir warned his review may only scratch the surface.
"There has been limited scrutiny of the claimed deductions...the available evidence indicates that the problems are much greater than has yet been quantified," he found.
Among the most concerning findings were:

• It has been 17 years since the government audited the self-assessed royalty payments from North West Shelf;
• One of the meters relied on to measure gas output, and therefore royalties due, was broken for five years;
• The Royalty Schedule which governs payment calculations has not been updated in 10 years, and;
• The West Australian government engaged audit firm Ernst & Young to conduct a 2014 "external review" of deductions even though the firm is also the long-time auditor of the North West Shelf's financial accounts.

Mr Hehir found deductible costs, which include operating and capital expenditure, depreciation and crude oil excise, can represent up to 90 per cent of the gross value of the gas produced.
"There are some significant shortcomings in the framework for calculating North West Shelf royalties," he found.
North West Shelf has already paid $8.6 million in underpaid royalties as a result of the Auditor-General's investigation.
Mr Hehir also made a withering assessment of the hands-off approach of bureaucrats in the federal Department of Industry, Innovation and Science and the state Department of Mines and Petroleum, which oversees the royalty system.
"Given the actual and potential size of allowable deductions being claimed by NWS producers on a monthly basis, it would be reasonable to expect [the departments] to have developed and implemented a robust compliance strategy and included strong controls around verifying the validity of deductions being claimed," he wrote.
He said there were no agreed procedures and no assurances sought that deductions are being claimed correctly.
Mr Hehir recommended the state and federal governments work together to ensure deductions claimed by the North West Shelf producers in 2015 are valid, as well as work to "verify the validity" of deductions claimed prior to 2014.
A Woodside spokeswoman said the company had "robust compliance processes with regard to royalty obligations" and had assisted audits in an "open, transparent and cooperative manner".
Woodside pointed to a reference in Mr Hehir's report about underpaid royalties totalling "$11.6 million" but that total was in direct relation to a 2014 external audit, which the Auditor-General described as "limited in scope".
Resource tax expert Diane Kraal, a lecturer from Monash University, said it was hard to know just how much has been lost from the North West Shelf without a forecast for how much royalty revenue had been expected.
In its response to the Auditor-General's report, the federal department agreed the system could be 'improved" but argued it was nonetheless "robust".
For historical reasons, the North West Shelf pays royalties but also comes under the petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT).
Newer LNG export projects like Chevron's massive Gorgon and Wheatstone ventures are not required to pay royalties at all but are only assessed for the profits-based PRRT.
Fairfax Media has revealed over recent months that just 5 per cent of 150 oil and gas ventures are paying any PRRT, despite Australia being poised to eclipse Qatar as the world's single biggest exporter of LNG by 2020.
The industry has built up a mountainous $187 billion in exploration and development tax credits, which continue to rise sharply and will be used to insulate companies from paying PRRT for years to come.
Last week, Craig Emerson, one of the architects of the PRRT in the Hawke government backed calls for a parliamentary inquiry into why the boom in LNG exports shows no sign of delivering any meaningful contribution to the wealth of Australia.
On Monday, Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson accused the government of getting things "arse-about" by focusing on tax paid by backpackers before the giant fossil fuel companies.
"They have been trying to penny-pinch from backpackers and some of the lowest-paid workers in the country, and yet they have been blind to potentially multi-billion-dollar rorts from massive multinational corporations," he said.

Links

• Auditor-General: Fossil fuel giants ripping us off on tax
• Australian business woefully unprepared for climate change
• Fossil fuel emissions have stalled: Global Carbon Budget 2016
• Why Coal-Fired Power Stations Need To Shut Down

Great Barrier Reef Suffered Worst Bleaching On Record In 2016, Report Finds

BBC News - Hywel Griffith

Warmer waters has led to the worst destruction of coral ever recorded on the Great Barrier Reef. ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies

Higher water temperatures in 2016 caused the worst destruction of corals ever recorded on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, a study has found.
Some 67% of corals died in the reef's worst-hit northern section, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies report said.
The situation was better in the central section, where 6% perished, while the southern reef is in good health.
But scientists warn recovery could be difficult if climate change continues.
Coral bleaching happens when water temperatures rise for a sustained period of time.
In February, March and April, sea surface temperatures across the Great Barrier Reef were the hottest on record, at least 1C higher than the monthly average.
"Some of the initial mortality was down to heat stress," said study leader Professor Terry Hughes.
"The coral was cooked."

How bleaching occurs
Far more has been lost through gradual starvation, after the coral expelled the colourful algae zooxanthella, which turns sunlight into food.
This is what leads to the white, skeletal appearance of the coral, which is left without its main source of energy.

For three months, sea temperatures were a degree higher than average. ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies

The study also found that the coral which survived the bleaching have now come under greater threat from predators such as snails and crown of thorns starfish.
This year's mass bleaching was the worst-ever recorded on the Great Barrier Reef, following two previous events in 1998 and 2002.
Professor Hughes is certain that the increased water temperature is the result of carbon emissions, and warns that climate change could bring annual bleaching within 20 years.
"Most of the losses in 2016 have occurred in the northern, most pristine part of the Great Barrier Reef," he said.
"This region escaped with minor damage in two earlier bleaching events in 1998 and 2002, but this time around it has been badly affected."

Where is the damage?
One of the worst-hit areas is around Lizard Island in Far North Queensland, where around 90% of the coral has died.
Dr Andrew Hoey, whose team charted the area, said the impact was far worse than feared after an initial survey in April.
"It's devastating to get in the water somewhere you've been coming for almost 20 years, and it's just knocked it on its head," he said.

Bleaching is caused when water temperatures rise for a sustained period. ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies

"There's very little coral cover left there. It was dominated by the acropora - the branching corals - but we lost most of them."
Lizard Island is home to a research station, where scientists from across the world have come for decades to study marine life
One of its directors, Dr Anne Hogget, said this was by far the worst event to hit the Great Barrier Reef since she started working there in 1990.
"We had bleaching here in 2002," she said. "We thought this was bad at the time, but this has blown it completely out of the water."
She is hopeful that the reef is capable of recovery, but fears it may not be give an opportunity, as sea temperatures continue to rise.

Dr Andrew Hoey (pictured) said the loss was far worse than feared

"The trajectory is not good," Dr Hogget explained.
"We keep pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and this happened absolutely because of that."

What happens next?
On the central and southern parts of the Great Barrier Reef, where bleaching was not as prevalent, there is concern that it has been misreported, with one magazine even publishing an obituary of the reef earlier this year.
Tourism operators like Michael Healey from the Quicksilver Group are keen to point out that many sites were unaffected, but there is concern for the reef's long term health.
"Without the Great Barrier Reef, we wouldn't survive," he said.
"So it is absolutely of the utmost importance that we ensure that our politicians and everyone else in our community and around the world are doing what they can."

ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies

The Australian Government has published a long-term sustainability plan for the reef, and pledged financial support for research into coral bleaching.
The 2050 plan identifies the need to help make the reef more resilient to climate change in the future, while trying to lower carbon emissions.
Mr Healy argued even those not financially involved had a stake in the reef.
"I'd say every human on the planet does," he said.

Links

• Can super coral save the Great Barrier Reef?
• Is the Great Barrier Reef coming to the end of its life?
•  Australia's Great Barrier Reef hit by 'worst' bleaching
• Hidden viruses may threaten Australia's Great Barrier Reef
• Great Barrier Reef spared 'in danger' listing - for now