FoE

Housing Crisis Requires Nordic Policy Solutions

roman May 6, 2022

From the Australia Institute, Nordic Policy Centre

The key driver of Australia’s acute housing affordability crisis is its over-reliance on just two housing options – private home ownership and private renting.New research from the Australia Institute’s Nordic Policy Centre shows that Nordic countries have a wider repertoire of policies, and Australia can learn from policies that are already in practice in Nordic countries.
Key Findings:

In Australia, the proportion of social housing is estimated to have fallen from over 7% of all housing in Australia in the early 1990s down to just 4% in 2019. That proportion needs now to be ramped up to double digits.

In Sweden, public housing is more than triple the proportion it is in Australia. Sweden’s housing co-operatives amount to 22% of the total housing stock, while in Norway this figure is 15% nation-wide, but 40% in the capital, Oslo.

Sweden, Norway and Denmark also have extensive co-ownership whereby individuals own, use, and control their own dwellings but shared spaces and property are owned jointly and managed collectively with neighbouring members of a housing co-operative, which improves affordability.

Finland’s ‘Finnish Housing First Principle’ views housing as a prerequisite that will enable solving a homeless person’s social and health problems, not the other way round.

Coupled with the nation’s belief in the notion that people have a right to decent housing and useful social services, this has seen an impressive reduction in homelessness and the current government has a policy to eliminate homelessness by 2027.

Finland currently has less than one homeless person per 1,000 people, compared to Australia’s nearly five homeless people per 1,000 people.

“If we are to have any hope of tackling Australia’s housing affordability crisis, policymakers must stop favouring investors over tenants and shift the priority in housing policy to supporting low- and middle-income earners who simply want a secure place to live,” said Professor Andrew Scott, convenor of the Australia Institute’s Nordic Policy Centre.

FoE

Budget ignores environment…

roman April 5, 2022

The Sydney Morning Herald’s analysis (30 March 2022) of the budget from an environmental perspective paints a grim picture:

“5-Minute Budget” – eight policy areas covered but no mention of the environment.

Headline: “Fuel excise cut brings relief for six months”. Let’s help people burn fossil fuels but nothing to promote EVs.

“Where it goes” pie chart of the $628 billion total Commonwealth expenditure: the environment doesn’t feature in the pie.

“Top Spends”: $3.8b to halve the fuel excise and $1.9b over 5 years for a floods package – responses to flooding, that is, not prevention of.

Headline: “Extra $1.3b for net zero emissions by 2050” – financial support for the private sector to expand Australia’s gas resources and continue to flog the dead horse that is carbon capture and storage.

“Losers”: “Climate Change Mitigation – No major promises on how to get to net zero emissions by 2050” is one of four losers along with an increase in net debt, less foreign aid and nothing for people with a disability.

In a rather more detailed analysis, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) concludes the budget allocations show a strong focus on gas, carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), and blue hydrogen, “all of which add to Australia’s and global emissions, not reduces them”. The CCUS scheme in the Pilbara will pump CO2 into oil and gas wells to produce more oil and gas, while blue hydrogen is produced from natural gas and produces more greenhouse gas emissions than simply burning the gas. Spending to tackle climate warming will decrease from $2 billion in 2021/22 to $1.3 billion in 2025/26.
see more from Peter Sainsbury at Pearls and Irritations

FoE, Old_Notes

Public comment on EPBC Act referral

roman March 19, 2022

Referral:
EPBC 2021/9128 — National Radioactive Waste Management Facility NRWMF, SA
Submission by Philip White, Friends of the Earth Adelaide

Introduction

In response to the question raised in the Minister for the Environment’s invitation for comments, the proposed action is a controlled action. It is acknowledged as such by the proponent, the Australian Radioactive Waste Agency (ARWA).

Establishing that fact may be the formal aim of this particular part of the assessment process, but, before the proposal can proceed, it must be subjected to a full public Environmental Impact Assessment under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).
It should not be approved based solely on documentation provided by ARWA, or anything less than an Environmental Impact Assessment, for reasons including the following:

The wastes that will be stored and/or disposed of need to be isolated from the environment for thousands of years. The long timescale greatly increases the opportunity for foreseen and unforeseen environmental impacts.
The transport of radioactive waste over thousands of kilometres represents a serious environmental hazard. Besides problems related to mishandling, there is the potential for various types of transport accidents. Radioactive waste shipments are also potential targets of theft, terrorism, or even, as we are currently seeing in Ukraine, acts of war.
The fact that the Barngarla traditional owners are opposed to the plan makes it even more important that aboriginal heritage issues are thoroughly addressed.

Recommendations

1. The referral should be rejected because (a) it is clearly opposed by the Barngarla people, the Traditional Custodians, and (b) there are better alternatives that have not been presented for consideration.

2. If, despite the arguments in recommendation 1 for rejecting the referral outright, the Minister decides not to reject the referral, it should not be accepted in its current form, based on s74A of the EPBC Act, which allows the Minister to not accept a referral if it is a component of a larger action.… Read more >>

FoE, Nuclear, Old_Notes

Adelaide FoE AGM May 22nd

roman May 18, 2021

The Draft Agenda

Welcome @2pm

(A) Guest Speaker Frank Barbaro, and a preview of Adelaide 2.0, looking at how the city might be better designed.

Jim Green, editor of Chain Reaction, talks about the new issue!

** Break **

(B) Formal AGM

Minutes and reports from ASC

The appointment of the following officer-bearers:

facilitator, who shall convene meetings of the association and arrange for their facilitation;
secretary, who shall deal with correspondence and keep the records of the association;
treasurer, who shall keep the financial records of the association and organize an audit when necessary;
membership officer, who shall keep up-to-date membership records;
and public officer;
appointment of other ASC members

Any other Business.

If you wish to attend via Zoom, here are the details:
2pm start:

Meeting ID: 896 0740 2046
Passcode: 715075

FoE

10 Years since the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

roman March 17, 2021

By Philip White* March 2021

Philip White was international liaison officer for the Tokyo-based Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center at the time of the Fukushima nuclear accident. In 2014 he completed a PhD on public participation in Japan’s nuclear energy policy-forming process.

Remembering the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster
How the disaster unfolded
What’s the situation now?
Evacuees — Health issues — Liability and compensation — Decontamination of the environment and agriculture — Radioactive water and fishing — Decommissioning of nuclear power plants — Cost
Post-Fukushima energy policy
Putting it in perspective
References
Remembering the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

Ten years ago, three of the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station suffered melt downs in the days following a Magnitude 9 earthquake that struck off the northeast coast of Japan on 11 March 2011. Along with the 1986 nuclear accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in the former Soviet Union, it was one of the two worst nuclear power accidents in history.

On the tenth anniversary, it is important that we remember what happened then and what has happened since. It is in the interests of those who caused the accident that we forget. We must refuse to do so, for the sake of the victims and to prevent more disasters in future.

The most important take-home message is that the disaster is far from over. In order to win the bid for the (now postponed) 2020 Olympics, then Prime Minister Abe asserted that the nuclear accident was ‘under control’. The government now calls the games (if they are ever held) ‘the recovery Olympics’, with the torch relay route running through Fukushima Prefecture. But despite the efforts of the Japanese Government and the nuclear industry to lull the Japanese public and the world into a false sense of security, the fact is that radioactive contamination remains and many people continue to suffer.… Read more >>

FoE, Nuclear

FoE