Australian Politics
Climate plans of Australian companies would be exempt from private litigation for three years under proposal
Long overdue. Should be 5 years
The climate plans of Australian companies would be immune to private litigation for three years under an Albanese government proposal before parliament.
The grace period is included in legislation before the Senate that would expand the information companies must provide about the risk the climate crisis poses to their business and what they will do about it.
The bill has been praised as a necessary step in improving corporate climate disclosure and accountability, but lawyers and shareholder activists are concerned that polluting companies accused of greenwashing could avoid public scrutiny – and investors could be denied information about companies – for an extended period.
The draft legislation says some types of statements by companies, directors and auditors would be protected from legal challenge during a phase-in period unless the business was accused of criminal behaviour or an action brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic).
Law firm Equity Generation said the laws would have almost certainly prevented cases that successfully challenged the Commonwealth Bank and NAB over funding fossil fuel projects. The bill could also have stopped a “world-first” challenge to Rest Super over its duty to consider the climate crisis when making investments.
David Barnden, Equity Generation’s principal lawyer, said the proposed immunity – which applies to company statements about climate scenario analysis, transition plans and “scope 3” emissions released by customers when they use the company’s products – would “remove a critical avenue for investors to ensure market integrity”.
The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, a shareholder advocacy organisation, said “an extended enforcement holiday” from existing accountability would reduce motivation for companies to take mandatory climate disclosure requirements seriously.
Its executive director, Brynn O’Brien, said she was particularly concerned the immunity period would affect the information disclosed by big heavy emitters that already release climate transition plans in line with the recommendations from the global taskforce on climate-related financial disclosures.
“[The centre’s] case that challenges statements made by oil and gas company Santos, for example, could not be brought by a shareholder for three years under the draft legislation,” O’Brien said. “It is an inappropriate burden to place the sole responsibility of enforcing these provisions on under-resourced regulators for such a prolonged period.”
Mayleah House, of boutique fund manager Ethical Partners, said the immunity period would undermine shareholder rights and corporate responsibility. She said directors had adequate protection under existing misleading and deceptive conduct laws.
“Companies that have had the foresight to see what’s coming down the track should be – and are – prepared for disclosures,” House said.
The Greens have proposed an amendment to reduce the three-year immunity period to one year.
The party’s spokesperson for economic justice and Treasury, Nick McKim, said Labor’s mandatory disclosure legislation was “an important part of pushing money out of coal and gas and into the clean investments we need for a safe future”, but “a three-year holiday given to the biggest corporations is too generous”.
“Asic hardly has a reputation as a tough corporate cop on the beat, so we hope the government supports the Greens’ amendments in the Senate to rein in the disclosure immunity back to one year and narrow its scope,” he said.
The mandatory disclosure proposal is based on the work of the International Sustainability Standards Board. A spokesperson for the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said the government was “taking action on climate reporting to unlock more investment in cheaper and cleaner energy and help companies and investors manage climate risks”.
“We’re doing this in a responsible way that ensures we incentivise more investment as quickly as possible without the risk of penalising businesses that are trying to do the right thing,” he said.
The Coalition has said the mandatory reporting regime would increase costs on business, particularly small and medium-sized operators, describing it as “more red and green tape”.
If passed, the new regime would start on 1 January.
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Lending statistic about big four banks: Greenies are 'very concerned'
Australia's big four banks loaned more than AU$3.6 billion to fossil fuel projects and companies in 2023 - at odds with the government's 'net zero' targets - according to research by Friends of the Earth.
Analysis by Market Forces - a part of the green group Friends of the Earth - found ANZ, NAB, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac loaned a combined total of $3.6 billion to fossil fuel reliant energy projects in 2023.
That was half the level of financial support that existed in 2022.
Market Forces banks analyst and report author Kyle Robertson said it was important the Big Banks understood its customers didn't appreciate greenwashing.
'Customers are very concerned that big banks are pouring billions of dollars into companies expanding coal, oil and gas when we must accelerate efforts to limit climate change and deadly disasters,' Mr Robertson said.
'The big four banks are engaged in a monumental facade as long as they continue undermining a safe climate by funnelling billions to companies steaming ahead with more coal, oil and gas.'
'When will the banks live up to their climate commitments, follow the science and stop funding climate collapse?'
The new research found 2023 was the first year the big four Australian banks did not directly finance a new or expanded coal, oil or gas project since the Paris Agreement on carbon dioxide emissions was signed.
'ANZ takes the cake as the biggest funder of fossil fuels, pouring more than $20 million into coal, oil and gas since Australia adopted the Paris Agreement to limit climate change,' he said.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13636411/ANZ-CBA-Westpac-NAB-fossil-fuel.html
*********************************************************CFMEU want traffic controllers paid $250,000 per year
A deeply parasitic union. They have no shame
More than one 100 construction workers are striking at the access to one of Brisbane’s major Cross River Rail sites, marking the latest instalment of tense CFMEU protests in the city.
About 150 tradies are outside the entry to the Roma St entrance of the Brisbane City Cross River Rail site after gathering around 6.30am.
Workers are also protesting at Albert St, Woolloongabba, Boggo Rd and the Exhibition Station sites, with many holding flags and banners.
It’s understood the protest occurred following a breakdown in days-long negotiations between the CFMEU and CPB, the Cross River Rail lead contractor, over pay.
People familiar with negotiations revealed the union had asked for traffic controllers on sites to be paid the equivalent of an entry-level construction worker - some $250,000 if the union is successful in its call for a pay increase.
CFMEU representatives and CPB were locked in negotiations for several days, including almost all of Monday, in an effort to avoid protest action.
It’s understood the stop work action could happen for the rest of the week.
No roads are blocked and the group is not causing any disturbances.
The Courier-Mail understands a group of CFMEU members are discouraging workers from entering the sites, but not physically preventing them from entering.
Earlier reports that the worksites had been blocked by a padlock are incorrect.
It’s understood the action is over a pay dispute between the union and contractor, CPB Contractors, which has been ongoing for months.
The previous agreement between CFMEU and CPB Contractors expired at the end of last year.
A Cross River Rail Delivery Authority spokesman said it was a matter between the contractor and union.
“Enterprise Bargaining Agreement negotiations have been ongoing for some time, and this is a matter between the major contractor and unions representing employees,” the spokesman said.
“We encourage all parties involved to continue to bargain in good faith and to reach a resolution, so we can continue to deliver this transformational project.”
The protected action is expected to continue until Friday, and again on Monday, July 22.
CFMEU’s Qld Assistant State Secretary Jade Ingham slammed the CPB Contractors over major occupational health and safety hazards.
“I cannot speak highly enough of the workers who, over the past four years, have given everything to turn this job around despite immense pressure and mismanagement by CPB,” Mr Ingham said.
“Many workers are labouring long hours, and with none of the usual protections afforded to permanent workers.
“That’s why CPB workers are resolute in their demands for equity across the entire project, so that no worker is left behind in the agreement.
“The workers are united in this democratic action and expect CPB to engage in good faith.”
In Bowen, Hills, about 20 workers were also sat at the end of the gate 5 driveway at the Exhibition Showgrounds talking to workers as they approached.
Another group were standing near the Exhibition Equestrian Centre entrance on O’Connell Tce.
They had tied CFMEU flags on nearby street signs.
At a site carpark across the road workers were gathered in small groups chatting as others left.
The union has previously made headlines earlier this year when a picket line at Dutton Park Cross River Rail site was the scene of an explosive brawl among workers.
Sources at the time told The Courier-Mail frustrated subcontractors were attempting to access the site to work, only to be confronted by men - some wearing CFMEU-branded attire - blocking access.
In 2022 the union stormed the Department of Transport and Main Roads building, forcing staff to hide.
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Time’s up for Qld Labor’s own Dead Parrot Sketch
If you are not familiar with the Dead Parrot Sketch as made famous by John Cleese and the Monty Python crew, it goes something like this.
Cleese brings a parrot into the pet shop where he had bought it a few hours earlier and complains that it is dead. Plainly, it has deceased. Not so, says the pet shop owner. It’s sleeping.
If Premier Steven Miles and his merry band are wondering why it seems likely they’re headed for the Opposition benches in October, it’s because Queenslanders have finally tired of political versions of the Dead Parrot Sketch.
There’s the one in which the government tries to pretend that opening medical centres which have no beds or doctors is the same as building new hospitals. Most people know this is nonsense, and those who don’t find out quickly enough when they turn up for treatment and are sent off in search of a real hospital. The parrot is dead, not asleep.
The government blames immigration, winter, road accidents and everything except the war in the Ukraine for an ongoing and scandalous shortage of beds and staff in the health system, when it is evident that the cause is a lack of planning and political leadership under Labor for the past nine years. The parrot is not dead, the government insists. It is sleeping.
We’re told that everything will be just fine come 2032 and that Brisbane will host an Olympic Games of which we will all be proud.
No we won’t. Most people don’t want them and the entire affair has been a shambolic, half-arsed, ego-driven exercise since day one. Little has happened except lots of meetings which have generated nothing but media releases.
Watching from our imaginary grandstand we can see this but we are told that all is sweetness and light. Our Olympic plans aren’t dead. They’re sleeping.
If you heard a whistle blow last week, it was the one announcing the imminent arrival of the latest gravy train to pull into trade union headquarters courtesy of Premier Miles and Energy Minister de Brenni.
On board was a draft copy de Brenni’s plans to apply Best Practice Industry Conditions to the state’s renewable energy projects, plans which he said were close to being finalised.
BPIC is the sweetest of sweetheart deals struck to accommodate one of the government’s paymasters, the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union. This deal guarantees massive take home pay packets for its members and ensures it takes up to 65 weeks longer to build an apartment block in Brisbane compared to Sydney and depending on size, adds from $140,000 to $600,000 to the cost of an apartment.
The state’s renewable energy projects, those that actually have a business case and some chance of being built, backed by government subsidies and in semi-remote locations offer the potential for even richer pickings for the CFMEU.
Everyone knows that BPIC is a disgraceful rort for which ultimately we all end up paying, but Minister de Brenni insists otherwise.
“Our job is to deliver good wages for working Queenslanders – that is our purpose,” he says prodding the supine parrot and insisting it’s just sleeping
No it’s not minister. It’s to govern the state in the best interests of us all without fear or favour.
It’s not sleeping, mate. It’s dead.
The government can at least claim to have outshone the rest of the nation in one regard and can now proudly claim to run the most strike-prone state in the country with 105 days lost to industrial action on every worksite in the first three months of this year.
CFMEU Queensland boss Michael Ravbar, giving the parrot’s cage a shake, has dismissed claims of industrial anarchy as representative of an “unhealthy obsession with our union”.
All those non-CFMEU workers not earning $250k-plus and who have to turn up on hot days and when rain threatens reckon the parrot didn’t move. It’s not sleeping, mate. It’s dead.
Should Opposition Leader David Crisafulli gain government, he has the job in front of him to show the electorate that responsible government in Queensland isn’t dead. It’s just sleeping.
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http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
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http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Sahara Ray is undoubtedly a good-looking woman. Since she is Australian-born there is even a possibility that we may be distantly related. I hope she recovers soon from her encounter with Guillain-Barré syndrome
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
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