Thread: Keeping tabs on Australia"s newly elected Government

• What’s next for Australia’s trade deal with the EU

The European Union is ready to sign up to a free trade deal with Australia as soon as February now the federal government’s climate laws meet the bloc’s exacting environmental standards.

One of the union’s top trade negotiators says that now progress has been made on environmental policy – a stumbling block in previous talks – there is room to negotiate on key concerns such as naming rights for cheeses and wines.

The EU is shopping for stable trading partners in critical minerals such as lithium as the war in Ukraine continues and subsequent sanctions on Russia take effect, while Australia wants to secure broader access for beef and dairy exports.

Bernd Lange, the German chair of the European parliament’s committee on international trade, said the EU was keen to seal the deal before the parliament’s term ended.

“Australia has now good climate targets, the new legislation passed [about] a week ago is quite similar to the European Union, and now it’s really important to agree on some concrete projects,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

“We are here to push for a new trade agreement, and the push is necessary because we want to have a conclusion at latest [by] February next year.”

Lange met Trade Minister Don Farrell in Canberra on Monday alongside eight other delegates from the European committee on international trade. It’s the first time members of the committee that evaluates all EU trade agreements and scrutinises negotiations have been in Australia since 2017, when the free trade negotiations began.

The government’s recently passed climate law was a “breath of fresh air” in the negotiations, Farrell said, and opened up new opportunities for Australia, which had been exposed to potential EU carbon sanctions without those targets.

Farrell said the government would only agree to a deal that provided “substantial” new access for key agricultural exports, including beef, dairy, sugar, rice and grain.

“We are very keen to advance our agricultural interests to make sure that we get a fair deal for our farmers in Europe,” he told The Age and the Herald.

The minister noted Australia’s critical minerals were in huge demand around the world.

“We want to make sure that the Europeans share in those critical minerals, but there’s got to be something for Australia in that process,” he said.

Lange said Europe wanted to depend on reliable partners such as Australia for access to the minerals needed for energy and digital industries. Late last week, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the union could not rely on some of the countries that currently controlled supply.

Lange acknowledged that agricultural trade was a sensitive topic – while Australia wants greater market access, some in Europe want to restrict imports to protect local markets.

Another tricky point in negotiations is the EU’s desire to protect naming rights to smallgoods and alcohol, including feta and Irish whiskey. However, Lange said there was room for flexibility, and pointed to the trade agreement with Canada.

“We had a compromise on feta, so ‘feta cheese, Canada style’. I could imagine ‘Australian prosecco’ so at the end of the day, it’s clear that the interest to protect local production and on the other side the interest to use traditional trademarks fight together,” he said.

Opposition trade spokesman Kevin Hogan, who is meeting the European delegation on Tuesday, said a good trade deal for Australia meant a good deal for the agriculture sector.

Australia will begin negotiations with the European Union on a free-trade agreement covering a market with 500 million people and worth $17.3 trillion.

“This is a test for the government, there are things you have to negotiate that are for the benefit of your country at the expense of another. We encourage the Labor government to get a good deal.”

This week’s meetings with government ministers, parliamentary committees and business groups come ahead of next month’s formal round of offers on goods, services and market access.

Farrell said ultimately, a trade deal with the EU, which has a GDP of about $23 trillion and a population of 450 million, would be important for Australia.

“We think that there’s prosperity for both [sides] by a trade agreement, and we’re going full steam ahead to get one negotiated,” he said.

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Australians are clear that they want urgent and serious action, and they have given their government a mandate. Among the first acts of the new Australian Government has been to submit our ambition, nationally determined contribution to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and we have just passed legislation that makes these targets law. Our climate policies mean that, within this decade, 83% of Australia’s energy supply will be renewable. We want to help the global energy transition. Australia will be a renewable energy superpower.

And while we are playing our part to reduce our own emissions, we are working in our region to support Pacific countries, which have the most to lose from the changing climate. Nothing is more central to the security and economies of the Pacific than climate change. As Pacific leaders themselves put it plainly in the first article of the 2018 Pacific Islands Forum’s Declaration on Regional Security, we reaffirmed that climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security, and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific, and our commitment to progress the implementation of the Paris Agreement.

In my first months as foreign minister, I have visited six Pacific Islands Forum countries. It is a clear sign of our priorities that, by the end of this year, I will have visited nearly all. Australians want to enhance our defence, maritime, and economic cooperation with Pacific Island countries because our peace and prosperity are one, and we want to be the Pacific’s partner of choice for development and security.


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• Santos loses offshore drilling court case

A Tiwi Islander has won a landmark case in the Federal Court to stop Santos drilling at a massive gas project northwest of Darwin.

Federal Court Justice Mordecai Bromberg ruled the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority should not have approved Santos’s drilling off the Tiwi Islands.

Dennis Tipakalippa, who launched the legal action against the regulator’s decision, said Wednesday’s judgment made him the happiest man alive.

“The most important thing for us is to protect our sea country,” he told AAP in a statement.

“We want Santos and all mining companies to remember – we are powerful, we will fight for our land and sea country, for our future generations no matter how hard and how long.”

The Munupi elder said he was not consulted over the company’s environmental plan and feared the project could damage his people’s sea-country.

Santos, Australia’s second-largest independent gas producer, had told the Federal Court it had all necessary approvals to drill eight wells in the Barossa gas field following consultation with stakeholders.

But in his judgment handed down on Wednesday afternoon, Justice Bromberg said the regulator should not have been lawfully satisfied the project’s drilling plan met the legal criteria.

“The task that NOPSEMA was required to perform could not have been performed in accordance with the regulations on the information provided by Santos,” the judge said.

“Furthermore, there was material … that NOPSEMA was bound to consider which NOPSEMA did not consider.”

He ordered the regulator’s approval be set aside and the current drilling injunction continue to October 6.

Santos will suspend drilling activities as it awaits either a favourable appeal outcome or the approval of a fresh environment plan, a company spokesperson said.

“Santos will be seeking to expedite these processes,” the company told AAP in a statement.

“Given the significance of this decision to us, our international joint venture partners and customers, and the industry more broadly, we consider that it should be reviewed by the full Federal Court on appeal.”

Santos was committed to improving its consultation processes and the company’s relationship with traditional owners was very important, the spokesperson said.

The offshore gas regulator said it would consider implications of the decision.

During last month’s week-long hearing, the court sat at Melville Island where Justice Bromberg heard from several witnesses in words, song and dance.

The court was told of the Munupi people’s connection to the land and sea, and how they feared the Santos project would damage the environment and impact their way of life and spiritual wellbeing.

Santos argued the traditional owners from the Tiwi Islands were not relevant stakeholders in the Barossa project so they would not need to be consulted.

The Nurrdalinji Native Title Aboriginal Corporation says it will closely examine Wednesday’s judgment to see what it means for companies hoping to frack for gas in the Beetaloo Basin.

“The Tiwi people’s story is our story too,” the corporation’s chair Johnny Wilson said in a statement.

“We have not been properly consulted by fracking companies, or the Northern Land Council, and when they do consult they often don’t consult widely.

“We should be better consulted and have the final say on whether development should proceed.”

The $US3.6 billion ($A5.2b) Barossa project was expected to create up to 600 jobs and pipe gas 280km to the Darwin LNG facility, with first production originally expected in 2025.

The company said the project, which it purchased from ConocoPhillips in 2020, was 43 per cent complete and on schedule.

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• Australia signs global nature pledge committing to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030

The Australian government has active a all-around agreement accustomed by further than 90 countries committing them to abandoning biodiversity accident by 2030.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, alien Australia had abutting the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature at an accident demography abode on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

In a video message, he answered Australia’s access to ecology challenges had afflicted and the government accepted altitude change and the all-around accident of biodiversity were bifold crises.

“This highlights Australia’s reinvigorated access to maintaining our ambiance and altitude administration and signals our adherence with added apple leaders in our charge to demography able action on the bifold crises of biodiversity accident and altitude change,” he said.

The Leaders’ Pledge for Nature is the aforementioned certificate the Morrison government refused to assurance in 2020 because it alleged for commitments which were inconsistent with Australia’s behavior at the time, including greater appetence to decrease greenhouse gas emissions.

The agreement was once developed by the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), Belize, Bhutan, Colombia, Costa Rica, the EU, Finland, Kenya, Seychelles, the UK and an accord of organisations.

Countries which have accustomed the agreement have promised accomplishments including stronger all-around accomplishment to decrease deforestation, awkward unsustainable fishing practices, eradicating environmentally adverse subsidies, and alpha the alteration to acceptable aliment assembly systems and a annular abridgement all through the abutting decade.

The certificate promises action to decrease biodiversity accident and stop human-caused extinctions of added species.

Australia signs global nature pledge committing to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 - Bksfe

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Originally Posted by S Landreth

I think there are some misinformed readers (of Sky News Australia and The Australian) here at TD.

• Sky and the Australian find ‘no evidence’ of a climate emergency – they weren’t looking hard enough

Here’s one now.

Originally Posted by Hugh Cow

You do drone on with this......

Remember this denier……..

Science and continued awareness,.........rule.

Originally Posted by S Landreth

• Santos loses offshore drilling court case

A Tiwi Islander has won a landmark case in the Federal Court to stop Santos drilling at a massive gas project northwest of Darwin.

Ok, time for some perspective and background to this ...

"Our client argued that he and his clan were not properly consulted about drilling that could irreparably damage their Sea Country. Witnesses gave compelling on-Country evidence about the physical and spiritual impact the drilling could have on them, their culture and the sacred animals that call this sea country home." ... Tiwi Traditional Owner wins legal challenge to Santos Barossa Gas Project - Environmental Defenders Office

"The Barossa Field is 265km (165 miles) north of the gas-hub city of Darwin on the Australian mainland and 138km (86 miles) north of the Tiwi Islands." ... Australian Indigenous island community halts $3.6bn gas drilling | Energy News | Al Jazeera


"Traditional Owners told the court that Santos’ Barossa offshore gas project posed a risk to food sources and continuous spiritual connection to Sea Country that has endured for millennia" ... Tiwi Islander triumphs over Santos, Federal Government as Federal Court tears up Barossa drilling approvals - Petroleum Australia

^ FFS, it's 138km from the shoreline!


"When someone drills underground or in the sea and it's close to the proximity of your land, or your boundary in whitefella way — in our way, spiritually, they are drilling a hole in our body," he said.

"It can be damaging, spiritually."

All four also spoke about the sea serpent Ampitji, who would be disturbed and angered by any damage to the sea country.


^ FFS, it's 138km from the shoreline!