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IntroductionGovernments of the state of South Australia tend to have many of the same faults as do those of the nation of Australia (See Failings of Australian Governments.)One of the great failings of both levels of government is that while they officially espouse freedom of speech, in practice they try to limit it when and where it suits them. (See also Freedom of speech in the public service.) I'd be pleased to receive suggestions for additional points for this page; Email me at daveclarkecb@yahoo.com. Also, let me know if you think I'm wrong (give me evidence).
A true, functional, democracy requires four things:
Of course other things such as the rule of law, a judicial system, a public service and health and education systems are also required, but these are subsidiary. SA's water problems are discussed on another page. |
The Bannon Government was a financial disaster because it gave us the
State Bank collapse that cost South Australians about $5B: around
$4 000 of debt for every man, woman, and child in the state.
This was followed by the Brown and Olsen Governments; a period of selling off of assets, secret and questionable deals, broken promises, and very little imagination. John Olsen went into an election promising not to sell the Electricity Trust of SA (ETSA), and then sold it; he was finally forced to resign after misleading Parliament. (Shortly after he was given a lucrative government position as Australian High Commissioner to California by the corrupt Australian Government.) The Kerin Government didn't last long enough to make an impression. |
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The Rann government talked a lot about its greenhouse credentials, but
if you look beneath the surface it hasn't done a lot.
It has cynically used symbolic actions for the sake of appearance and
for publicity, while failing to take actions that could make a big impact
on SA's greenhouse gas production.
Sustainable energy and the SA government
The government's initiatives are symbolic only (table at right), designed for media attention and popular appeal, and are trivial in scale compared to what industry is doing and could be doing if given real support from government. The South Australian government has an apparently commendable aim of 20% sustainable electricity by 2014. As I understand it this is no more than an aim, there is no commitment, no legal need for the goal to be achieved; it's only an 'aspirational target'. (I have attempted to confirm this by downloading the actual legislation. I was unable to do so because of some apparent fault in the government Internet site. I informed the Premier's department of this problem and got no response.) The Australian Business Council for Sustainable Development has criticized the SA government for its lack of commitment to sustainable energy. Victoria and NSW, even the Commonwealth government, under their mandatory renewable energy targets, require electricity retailers to buy a certain percentage of their electricity from renewable sources, South Australia does not. (NSW has a mandated target of 10% by 2011 and 15% by 2020, Victoria has mandated a target of 10% by 2016, the Australian government's MRET is discussed elsewhere.) This is typical of the Rann government's attitude to sustainable energy, it is all symbolism and opportunism, no real commitment. As a couple of examples of this, the District Council of Yorke Peninsula approved an extension to the Wattle Point wind farm about 2005. Construction couldn't proceed because the State Government would not fund the needed upgrade to the power transmission lines. Also, in regard to the Snowtown wind farm, Trust Power stated that construction had been delayed because of tough licensing rules brought in by the SA government. South Australia has much more wind energy and wind energy potential than any other Australian state, but this is no thanks to the SA government, it is purely because SA is well suited to wind power. In fact, as mentioned above, the government has made it more difficult for wind farm operators to set up in SA. In its Strategic Plan, released in January 2007, the government proudly said that government departments buy 20% green power. 20% is not enough, they should buy 100% green power. (Some friends and I buy 100% green power and have all been surprised by how little it increased our electricity bills.) |
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In a full page advertisement to inform South Australians about the June 2007
State Budget Premier Rann, under 'Attaining Sustainability' wrote that
additional
mini wind turbines would be placed on public buildings and at the Adelaide Zoo.
This is not a real step toward attaining sustainability, it is symbolism,
money spent on improving the Rann Government's environmental image.
How much more could be done toward attaining sustainability if laws were
changed to make SA a more attractive place to build wind farms, or by
mandating a renewable electricity target, rather
than adding a few mini wind turbines to public buildings?
Who does Slick Mick think he is fooling? Are South Australians really stupid
enough to fall for it?
Premier Rann's mini wind turbines will produce several kilowatts of sustainable electricity in a good wind. 2000MW of wind farms have been proposed in SA but not built because of lack of the right signals from State and Federal Governments. Changing the laws to encourage the construction of wind farms could allow many of these to be built. 2000MW is 20 000 times the 100 or so kilowatts that Premier Rann might get from his mini wind turbines on public buildings; it would make a real difference to Australia's greenhouse gas production rates. |
The SA government has not gone to the trouble to produce a similar map of the South Australian wind resource. This demonstrates again that whatever Mike Rann says he is doing about developing sustainable energy, he is actually doing very little. The Federal Government has released (2008/10/17) a national natural resources map which includes wind resources. |
This runs entirely counter to the government's advertised greenhouse-friendly ideals. I wrote to Minister for the Environment Gail Gago on this matter on 2007/06/06, but have never received a reply other than a note saying that my letter had been received and passed on to the Premier. |
If we are to reduce our terribly high rate of greenhouse gas production
then it is essential that as many of us as possible move from using our
private cars to public transport.
For this to happen, government must make public transport a viable
alternative to private cars.
On 20th December 2007 the Rann Government announced that they had decided not to extend the railway from Cristies Beach to Sellicks Beach as previously announced. This shows, yet again, that the Rann government is not interested in actions that will have a significant impact on greenhouse in spite of its rhetoric. |
Population targetThe South Australian government has quite unrealistic population targets. They seem to not be able to look past the weird idea that growth will solve all our economic problems.
Our government seems unable to see that with increased population comes the need for increased infrastructure:
The world as a whole is grossly over-populated. One of Australia's advantages is that it is less over-populated than most countries, therefore we are able to export foods. Increasing our population would decrease our ability to export. Quality farm land is becoming scarcer world-wide; the government is proposing to house many of the new people on some of our best farm land; The world needs more forest if we are to reduce our greenhouse gas production rates, the Adelaide Hills are one of the few places in the state with sufficient rainfall to grow forest, yet the government wants to cover the area with houses. |
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Red dust in WhyallaHendrik Gout wrote..."South Australia's Environment Protection Agency [EPA] worked closely with the health department and with local residents who were long sick of their washing turning ochre on the line and the linings of their lungs turning the same colour. The stage was set for new standards to limit the dust emissions. They weren't tough new regulations, just sensible ones, and the EPA was about to make those emission controls legally binding. Penola pulp millSouth Australia's largest paper-pulp mill is to be built at Penola in the state's south-east without an environmental impact statement. The Independent Weekly (2007/03/17) reported that the State "Government has said it will block moves in Parliament which would guarantee people's rights to criticise such developments or pollution."Victoria Park grandstandHendrik Gout wrote...In Opposition, Mike Rann was the Great Defender, "We ara a city in a park," he said in 2001. "Too often the Parklands have been seen as land on which to build, as empty space. Parkland isn't cheap land - it's priceless. It's time our Parklands were protected for good."Now we are to have $35m of taxpayer's money spent on a huge grandstand and permanent motor sport facility in the Adelaide park lands, and the public is being blocked from having any say in the matter. |
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I have written at greater length about SA's water supply problems on
another page.
In June 2007 the government announced that it was considering increasing the size of Mount Bold Reservoir about three-fold. The aim of this $850 million project is to provide a place to store a much larger quantity of water from the Murray River for use, as required, in Adelaide. The flaw in the logic of this idea is that the Murray River has become much less reliable than it was before global warming. See Murray Darling. At best the salinity of the Murray is gradually increasing and if this continues it will be more saline than the UN recommendation for human consumption in a decade or so. At worst there may well not be enough water reaching Mannum - where the water pumped to Mount Bold is taken from the river - to fill the enlarged reservoir. It seems to me better to clean up and re-use water now going to waste. |
In October 2005 Premier Mike Rann offered the managing director of the new
Adelaide Airport a 'birthday' gift of a million dollar array of solar panels
to help power the airport's needs.
Why a gift? One can see the value of the airport as an example of energy
sustainability to be seen by people flying into the state. But a gift?
Surely a generous contribution toward the cost of the array would have been
sufficient. It is estimated that the panels will save the airport
$35 000 a year in electricity costs; if the government offered to pay
half the cost that should have been enough to get the project going.
A million dollars put toward making the electrical grid more compatible with wind farm electricity would have been more valuable environmentally. Or the money could have been put into research into a sustainable transport system. |
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The Rann Government is committed to stopping the Australian Government
from placing a low level radioactive waste dump in South Australia.
Such a dump will pose no risk to anyone, it will be no more harmful
to the environment than any other small rubbish dump, and the
stuff has to go somewhere.
The Rann Government is willing to spend a great deal of taxpayers' money (that could be far better spent) in using the courts to oppose the Australian Government. On the other hand the Australian Government, reasonably, has stated that the money it has to spend on fighting the South Australian Government will come out of South Australia's share of Federal Money. Mike Rann seems to be fighting this purely because he perceives it to be a vote winner. It's past time that he dropped the subject, allowed it to happen, and got on with more important matters. This sort of show-case environmentalism that does no good for the environment is easy for a government to stage, but a total waste of money and effort in terms of achieving anything of value. While Premier Rann fights the establishment of a low-level radioactive waste dump in the outback South Australia's low-level radioactive waste continues to be dumped at Wingfield on Adelaide's northern outskirts. (The Advertiser, June 27th 2003) Premier Rann is very strongly in favour of the proposed expansion of the Olympic Dam copper-uranium-gold mine. The amount of radioactive waste in the Olympic Dam tailings dam is incomparably greater than the amount that will go to the proposed low-level dump that Rann is so strongly opposed to. |
Zero wasteThe Rann Government has a Zero Waste policy.Compact fluorescent light bulbs (also called long-life light bulbs), while having the advantages over the old incandescent light bulbs of a longer life and reduced power consumption, have the disadvantage of containing the toxic heavy metal mercury. This being so they need to be disposed of carefully if they are not going to result in contamination that future generations are going to have to live with. What has the Rann Government done to give all South Australians a convenient way to safely and correctly dispose of their CF bulbs? There is one place in the state (in Wingfield, I believe) that is open for one day a month where the bulbs can be handled! |
Centralisation of hydrogeologists(Many of the comments below would also apply to other professionals, I have written about hydrogeology because it is my field.)Over ten or more years up to the present (2003) there has been a tendency to concentrate hydrogeological staff in Adelaide. This is foolish and counterproductive for several reasons:
Advantages of country posting of hydrogeologists
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