Sydney Nannas will be outside the NSW parliament this week for rallies, and inside the Federal Parliament for The Australia Institute’s Climate Integrity Summit. We like to get around!
Extreme Heat Awareness Day
The first Australian Extreme Heat Awareness Day was held on Wednesday, 5 February. Sweltering Cities teamed up with the Australian Red Cross for a Zoom presentation attended by an audience across Australia. Many attendees were from local councils, who were making plans to deal with heatwaves in their areas, including keeping libraries and institutions with air-conditioning open as refuges for people suffering from heat stress.
Professor Ollie Jay, the Academic Director of Heat and Health Research Centre at the University of Sydney, explained the physiological responses in our organs when we can’t regulate our body heat. We produce sweat to cool our bodies, but when humidity is high, this doesn’t work. Then heart, kidneys, and other organs cannot function. The old and the young are particularly vulnerable.
There were other excellent speakers, too.
Tuesday 11 February – Welcome Back Pollies – NSW Parliament
We will be at the top of Martin Place opposite the pedestrian crossing from 10.30am to welcome the pollies back to the NSW Parliament after the summer break.
We’ve invited politicians to speak to us for 5 minutes each. We are expecting about six Independents and Greens to drop by and we’re preparing our questions for them.
In between speakers, Nannas will be singing, saying a few words and handing out leaflets to passers-by.
All welcome. Facebook event.
Wednesday 12 February – Bob Brown Foundation Forest Rally
Top of Martin Place near Macquarie Street at 12 noon. Call for an end to native-forest logging and for the NSW Government to declare the Great Koala National Park (GKNP). North-East Forest Guardians are expected to attend. Watch out for the Greater Glider!
Forestry Corporation are brutally logging our forests, destroying koala corridors and removing greater glider den trees. And is it incompetence or what when they drastically misreport the volume of timber harvested from native forests due to a data error? (ABC News)
Friday 14 February – Valentine’s Day – time to breakup with Whitehaven Coal
Nannas will be delivering a Valentine’s message to Nippon Steel on Friday. Nippon and other Japanese steel companies are forming partnerships with Whitehaven Coal to fund the expansion of their Australian coal projects.
Nannas will be joining Tipping Point and Move Beyond Coal at 115 Pitt Street in the CBD at 11am to call on Nippon Steel to break up with Whitehaven Coal. We’ll be urging them to avoid the reputational damage they risk in partnering with Whitehaven, a company that’s been found guilty of repeated environmental crimes. Valentine’s Day is a prominent event in the Japanese calendar, so it’s a good day to get their attention.
We’ll go to Whitehaven Coal’s offices at 259 George Street afterwards, where the Red Rebels will perform.
Election 2025
Nannas think it’s a good time to consider whether the two-party system of politics is working for us, and more importantly whether it works for the kiddies.
A hung parliament can be more diverse with representatives from a wider range of backgrounds, and it can achieve as much if not more than a parliament controlled by one of the major parties. The major parties hate not having the power to pass legislation without negotiating with MPs outside their own party, so they tell voters it’s risky, and to be avoided at all costs. But most democracies around the world are coalitions of different parties sharing power.
Julia Gillard’s government holds the record for the highest rate of legislation passed – and yet this was a hung parliament (The Guardian). Trust a woman to get things done!
NSW Protest Rights Advocacy group report from Zoom on 4 February
In the next two weeks, the government is likely to bring forward the proposal to ban protests near churches and other places of worship. Labor, supported by Liberal and Nationals, are hoping to get this through both Houses quickly.
The best hope is that it will be possible to delay the legislation by having it referred to an Inquiry in the Upper House. The Government’s bill is aimed at further restrictions on the right to protest. It is not clear what impact it would have because places of worship are usually exactly where protests have been traditionally held. It could restrict protests in small country towns where a church is in the centre of town, and at places like Sydney Town Hall next to St Andrew’s Cathedral.
A Greens bill to repeal the 2022 anti-protest laws could also be debated early in this sitting.
Nature Conservation Council’s Climate & Energy group meeting
Nannas Anne and Claudia attended a meeting of the Nature Conservation Council’s (NCC) Climate & Energy group on 6 February.
Renewables
The NCC’s key recommendations for Renewable Energy Zones (REZs):
- Ensure genuine engagement and consultation with First Nations’ communities
- Identify ecological protection and restoration priorities for each REZ
- Develop regional community benefit plans and strengthen developer consultation.
Coal
The EPA’s new guide for large emitters is summarised well in the Renew Economy.
Centennial Coal is proposing to dump polluted mine water in Sydney’s drinking water catchment. Intensive mining methods have led to excessive inflows of water into mines, interrupting operations.
The NCC is keeping pressure on the EPA to make pollution limits more restrictive and to ramp up enforcement measures for the remaining coal-fired power stations.
Energy supply
AEMO Energy Security Target Monitor assesses whether NSW will have sufficient electricity generation, firming and storage and transmission capacity to meet the amount of reliable electricity needed for customer demand during a summer heat wave, plus a buffer.
Projections of renewable energy into the grid indicate a gap has been identified between supply and demand in 2027-2028, when the Eraring plant near Lake Macquarie is due to close. It also shows a surplus in 2028-29, which indicates there is capacity to close another coal plant earlier than 2030.
Monthly Monday Zoom at 5.30pm
Nannas from loops in the Hunter, Bathurst, Gloucester, Coffs Harbour and Ulladulla joined Sydney Knitting Nannas to discuss our messaging for the federal election what we are all doing and how we can help each other. We agreed to continue to meet once a month. The next Zoom is on 3 March.
Friday – Sunday 21-23 February – Biodiversity Offsets Conference, Narrabri
Nannas are heading to Narrabri by train ten years after the beginning of the destruction of the Leard Forest. Take a deep dive into the planning failures surrounding an endangered ecosystem. The weekend will also include a film and a field trip. Some fantastic speakers will be there. Register here .
Nannas are watching
Senator David Shoebridge’s Adjournment Speech to Parliament about Advance and Atlas Network.
Nannas are reading
“The brilliant allies of our grave-diggers” — reflections on Australian environmentalism. It is no coincidence that accelerated social, cultural and economic upheaval is occurring in concert with non-linear change in global, regional and local physical systems: the Gulf Stream, the monsoon, the Antarctic overturning, are all breaking. (George Woods – Medium)
New political donations data show who’s funding whom (The Grattan Institute)
Forget donations. This is where the major parties make millions and buy what they want. (AFR)
Forthcoming Events