As a result of a peculiarity in the way Government works, the motion to call native forest furnace electricity ‘renewable energy’, has been sneakily placed on the 'non-controversial' list. That means that unless the Labor Government decides to force a vote, within days this back-door change in renewable energy policy could sneak through Parliament without there even being a vote!
Tony Windsor has publicly stated he won’t be voting for the Oakeshott motion to burn forests for power – thanks to all of you who emailed and called as per our last ‘call for action’. BUT …
…as a result of a peculiarity in the way Government works, the motion to call native forest furnace electricity ‘renewable energy’, has been sneakily placed on the 'non-controversial' list. That means that unless the Labor Government decides to force a vote, within days this back-door change in renewable energy policy could sneak through Parliament without there even being a vote!
Your local Labor MP has the power to lobby their peers to prioritise this vote before it's too late. We can't let this go through without a democratic vote. Can you contact your local MP and urge them to make sure this is the number 1 issue in Parliament when it returns on Monday? Get-Up is calling on all Australian’s to get cracking on this – before our forests get thrown into power furnaces, as renewable energy! and with financial credits to boot!
Window of two days only - Parliament votes on Monday
We've got just 2 days to make sure the government prioritises this issue and brings it on for a vote first thing Monday. Please – can you contact your Labor MP or Senator now to ask them if they’ll stand up for our forests? Click here to find your local pollie.
Background:
Last year, the Greens, Independents and Labor passed the climate agreement with the Greens’ critical provision - to make sure that burning native-forests in power plants won’t be classified as renewable energy. The logging industry has been lobbying Oakeshott hard to reverse this provision. If this is allowed to go through – our remaining forests will disappear into the atmosphere as carbon pollution, and the regrowth as well - for decades to come. This one is super critical ! Please help if you can.
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Sheila Newman
Fri, 2012-11-23 22:11
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VicForests avoids Supreme Court - won't log rainforest sites
In an out of court settlement – VicForests on 21 November avoided being taken to the Supreme Court a third time by environment groups. This follows the case against VicForests coming to an agreed end in the Supreme Court today.
VicForests agreed to protect 9 areas in nationally significant rainforest sites in East Gippsland.
The fight against Department of Sustainability & Environment for not protecting all Rainforest Sites of National Significance would have continued in the Supreme Court next week, but after its significant win for rainforest sites this week, where VicForests agreed not to log in important rainforest zones, EEG decided to drop the Supreme Court case against the DSE Secretary.
EEG believe their legal arguments were strong, but after considering the valuable time and money still needed to pursue them in the Supreme Court, they made the decision to drop the case. It was more of a ‘tidying the edges’ issue of forcing DSE to put the rest of the areas inside protected zones (which are only non-statutory, non-permanent zones anyway).
EEG is now diverting its resources and legal team’s efforts into an even bigger case which it hopes to get up and running before the end of the year or in the new year.
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