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Environment

№ 8 in Wading through greenwashing

NSW Environmental regulator prosecutes Macquarie-owned waste facility for breaching pollution law

A year after the alleged first pollution offences occurred, the NSW EPA has notified residents that it has commenced legal proceedings against Macquarie-owned Bingo Industries waste facility at Eastern Creek. Local residents filed hundreds of complaints about odours spreading through their Western Sydney suburbs. The odours still continue. This story also covers Bingo's poor record at managing asbestos.

Green Bans turn fifty

Last week was the fiftieth anniversary of the first Green Ban in Sydney. In this piece for City Hub, I reflect on the Green Ban period and report on this week's events at 'Willow Grove' Parramatta, the site of the most recent Green Ban.

№ 3 in Wading through greenwashing

Bingo still polluting Sydney's West - and how a previous audit revealed landfill problems

The NSW EPA ordered Bingo Industries to install a gas plant to remove unhealthy hydrogen sulphide odours. Two gas flares were lit but the odours continue. Western Sydney residents, backed by local Labor MPs, are calling on the EPA to close the plant down. In this blog post, I reveal long term weaknesses in the landfill's environmental record, management and regulation.

Remembering Juanita Nielsen

In July 1975, Kings Cross anti-development campaigner Juanita Nielsen was disappeared. She was murdered as a result of her opposition to the development of Victoria Street. This post includes some shots of her newspaper and two others that were produced in protest against her disappearance.

Communities planning rights under attack from NSW government

A big issue in the NSW state election in 2011 was the Part 3A planning law which handed development consent for many major projects over to the Minister for Planning backed up by selected panels of experts. Councils and communities felt betrayed by Labor and hoped for something better from the Liberals, who promised to return rights to the community. Now eighteen months later, those same communities and Councils are fighting proposals put forward in an O'Farrell government  Green Paper that look even worse.

Big Plans For NSW Development

A promised overhaul of NSW's planning framework has drawn the ire of resident and environment groups, whose contributions have been scrapped in favour of cosier relations with developers.

CSG company Dart Energy drills for gas near NSW World Heritage area

I first heard about Dart Energy when I was told anti-CSG activists were campaigning against Dart Energy drilling for gas in the Inner West of Sydney where I live. I was equally surprised to learn that the NSW government had given permission to Dart to drill near the NSW village of Putty, just near a World Heritage listed wilderness area.

Newcastle Business Lobby Targets Labor MP

This NSW election New Matilda story by  Nicole Gooch and I was about a Hunter Valley lobby group Newcastle Alliance which declared itself as a 'third party organisation' and ran print and radio ads urging voters not to vote Labor. The Non- Labor candidates included Mayor John Tait and Liberal Party candidate, Tim Owen, previously the deputy commander of Australian forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What Will The Libs Do About Part 3A?

In the lead-up to the NSW 2011 State election, Nicole Gooch and I published a number of stories about the notorious Part 3 A leglislation which took power of planning decisions away from Local Council and gave it the Minister for Planning and panels appointed by the Minister. After the election, the new Liberal and National Party government is repealing Part 3A but it is not yet clear what form its replacement will take.