TRE tries to heavy the greens

Buggar – I’ll have to cough up.

It’s a good cartoon, but it’s theirs and not ours.

Gungahlin Al said :

CT cartoon on this today was an absolute crack up. (I emailed it to you JB)

I absolutely refuse to buy the Canberra Times (aka The Labor Propaganda Daily); JB can you please pretty-please post the cartoon at all?

Ok, so the TRE and Actewagl deal looks to be going elsewhere. maybe. I really hope that it isn’t.

it would then join a long line of businesses who have tried to build various ventures here, only to be knocked back by the incumbent govt at the time.

My personal favorite, many years ago, was the proposal to build an assembly plant for an australian computer company, injecting about 300 jobs into the market and god knows how much more revenue to the ACT Govt. It was planned to be built where, surprisingly, DFO is now.

The bureaucrats nailed that one early on. as it was in the time of the panel period contracts, after DESINE, just after the ACT government was formed, they felt that it wouldn’t send the right message to the local businesses or their employees.

Wangaratta got that one. and all the revenue as well.

we need diversified business opportunities here. The power station idea isn’t bearing fruit, but the datacentre would.

CT cartoon on this today was an absolute crack up. (I emailed it to you JB)

Passy said :

ably supported by the neo-liberals of the Canberra Times

That made me smile, thanks.
Though I don’t dare to think what this makes the editors of The Australian.

“And realise even now that the next four years will see the Canberra Times spew forth anti-Green propaganda to ensure your principled approach doesn’t stand in the way of what Kevin Rudd called extreme capitalism.”

Yes passy, the CT have been adopting a quite anti-Green sentiment haven’t they? Started about one day in when they got their nose out of joint with the “they can’t even choose a leader” story.

“Didn’t dance to the timing our presumed news cycle” more like it.

Audio from the interview on ABC radio 666 (29 October 2008) via the CPR Inc. website:
http://www.canberrapowerstation.info/ftp/ABC29OCT.mp3

Passy said :

I voted Green.

Sorry Passy… Karl Marx wasn’t standing as a candidate at this election so you picked the next best thing?

I voted Green. I didn’t see Technical Real Estate on the ballot box, although some of their proxy candidates didn’t do that well.

This pressure on the Greens, led by TRE but ably supported by the neo-liberals of the Canberra Times, shows how contempuous business is of the democratic process.

Profit comes before people in TRE’s eyes. Well, here’s a message for business in the ACT. I voted Green to put people first.

So to the Greens I say: Stand firm against TRE. Stand firm for the platform you were elected on.

And realise even now that the next four years will see the Canberra Times spew forth anti-Green propaganda to ensure your principled approach doesn’t stand in the way of what Kevin Rudd called extreme capitalism.

Ok don’t know enough to comment on the intricate details case but it appears to me this is what they are saying.

“We have spent $3 million in good faith on getting this site – another site whould cost an additional $800k, but because the ACT has incresased policital risk for investment (ie we don’t know how the Greens will behave, will we spend the money on another site only to have some other issue raised as to why we can’t be there or to be there you will need to build it in certain uneconomic way)”.

So like all reasonable investors they are asking on a risk to return basis – “Do we want to spend more investors money with more uncertainty” – and I would presume that in the current environment they are not wanting to do that. They can spend their money in a jurisdiction that wants and will remove barriers to gewt their investment and jobs.

So the greens should stand their ground – if TRE are bluffing Canberra will get the investment on their terms. If they are not and the jobs go elsewhere then…. thats the cost in jobs that electing the Greens results in – for some people that important for others it is not.

Its not conspiracy its democracy (or at least our flavour of that)the tribe has spoken.

BTW the TRE guy also said that the reason they couldn’t consider another ACT site was that they (his investors) didn’t have any more money. then he went straight on to say that they’d look at other sites in NSW or overseas – presumably with the same money that they DON’T have for another ACT site.

Another contradiction.

Too much just does not stack up with these people…

Why is it that every apect of this project just dosn’t add up? 2 + 2 = 7.

Throughout, the arguement has been ‘right project, wrong location’. This is exactly the Green’s policy at the moment, so only the rabid company men can argue that the Greens have skewed the equation.

Selection of the Macarthur site was a lay down misere, as far as Sonic, ACTEWAGL and TRE were concerned.

Reasonably valid local opposition has been denigrated. Now we have TRE claiming a site swap in the ACT would be financially impossible, but a move over the border (with an expected somewhat similar cost), a logical business decision.

I agree with JR that the sum supposedly already spent, as a proportion of the expected total cost, is a pittance.

A business group have built a data centre in Hume with mind boggling technology. It has been constructed on the basis of ‘build it and they will come’. They have a couple of high profile customers with more coming on board. Why do ACTEWAGL/TRE et al consider Macarthur the Holy Grail of data centres?

There has to be more to that block of land than has been made public.

At the end of the day Greens are percieved as being more difficult for business. At least they increase the risk. If the risk is increased, all else being equal the investment will go elsewhere. This is not a problem per se, just the cost of going green. The Canberra people have handed the power to the greens and have decided to have less investment, but a better environment (to the extent that things that happen over the border do not blow in)

I listened to the 666 interview this morning.

The spokesperson for TRE demonstrated the example of the type of “big business” we don’t want in the ACT, especially those businesses with massive chips on their shoulders and bully boy attitudes. If the alternative options are all so good interstate and overseas why are they wasting their investors time and money arguing the toss in Canberra – be gone and good riddance!

A comment a caller made later was that if they have only spent $3 million pursuing a billion dollar investment and they are whinging about that, then they really can’t be serious about the project! (work that out as a percentage of the total project)

You’ll find that there are other “big businesses” that would be prepared to consider Canberra and from the sounds of it others could make far better corporate citizens than TRE with their ActewAGL mates will ever be.

Labor sweetheart deals:

And what has happened to ACT Labor effectively giving their mates in the CFMEU union who control the Tradies club Woden, a direct grant of the carpark next door to expand their club? Was this placed on hold pending the election? Will the Greens stop this sort of blatant rort or don’t they care because it is a mere carpark? Where is the transperancy in the process Stanhope?

Like everyone else this situation really annoys me. Just as a comment, though, the angry fella might be acting on behalf of the company OR he might have some sort of performance bonus related to the timing of the project 🙂

“They have sweetheart deals on every aspect of this proposal and I suspect they have probably been promised the proposed location due to its cost ‘convenience’. However, their bluster about relocation to NSW is meaningless – they just want to blackmail the ACT govt/hold them to the (totally inappropriate) promises of the previous majority government. And that, folks, is why I didn’t vote labor for the first time ever.”

I think you are onto something there miz. The land in question is Broadacre zone, therefore very limited in what could be put on it (because it IS supposed to be predominantly green buffer), and therefore of low sale value to the government. OTOH if the government were to gift TRE land within an industrial estate like Hume, they would have to write a significant lost sale value for that land into their books. One they can give away, the other will hurt the bottom line.

“We don’t understand why TRE are prepared to go overseas or interstate, but they are not prepared to move down the road.”

I heard the TRE rep and Amnda talking on 666 this morning and found myself asking the same question. The rep was bunging on a very angry act, and in the process seemed to get himself caught up in a contradiction that exposed the falsity of his ploy.

How ’bout this left field idea…..

Give all east Tuggers homes solar panels that then provide the electricity to power the data centre. Both environmentally friendly and will give a good example of what critical mass (in numbers of solar panels) can do for an electricity grid.

Remember Canberra has more sunny days than any other cap city in aus….

Would it work?

What’s special about the Tuggeranong location is that it is near the Narrabundah gas junction and they will save a lot of ongoing dosh in gas pipeline costs. An added bonus is that it’s near Gilmore substation. So, it’s all about the money, never mind the social and health costs to the community or what their competitors would have to outlay.

This whole deal really, really smells. And the smell is coming from quite high up the food chain.

They have sweetheart deals on every aspect of this proposal and I suspect they have probably been promised the proposed location due to its cost ‘convenience’. However, their bluster about relocation to NSW is meaningless – they just want to blackmail the ACT govt/hold them to the (totally inappropriate) promises of the previous majority government. And that, folks, is why I didn’t vote labor for the first time ever.

johnboy said :

The point, peter, is that the power station advocates are trying to make us believe that there is only one possible location and that any other location would force them to go interstate.

This means that either they’re lying to us, or there’s something more special about the location than we’re being told.

perhaps there are plans to use the landfill’s methane generation?

or the fact that there are 2 new datacentres being built in hume right now, not to mention the fact that the NLA’s offsite storage facility is there as well? Both sites for the new datacentres are private industry funded.

The point, peter, is that the power station advocates are trying to make us believe that there is only one possible location and that any other location would force them to go interstate.

This means that either they’re lying to us, or there’s something more special about the location than we’re being told.

perhaps the powerstation could be relocated on to the majura road area? The datacentre, minus the power station could be built at macarthur and there wouldn’t be a problem.

That would reduce the noise issues, as well as allowing the power feed to the city and north canberra to be increased. the property developments in tuggeranong are now far less than gungahlin, and dunlop areas. these will be the areas that will need far greater power resources.

and if the residents on the other side of mt majura complain about the noise, why DO they put up with the majura firing range? I would think the noise of a few cannon would be more disturbing than the noise of a turbine….

Skidbladnir has nailed it. TRE can bawl about political interference after the election, but they were content to enjoy plenty of political interference when Stanhope was making decisions to get them this location in Tuggeranong.

Any other developer would have to buy their land on the open market and would have to take industrial land rather than broadacre land. TRE have a sweatheart deal from the Government to give them a direct grant of land over this block in Tuggeranong. No other commercial buyer was allowed to bid for that block in an open auction.

TRE are playing the bad boys in the media today because ACTEW – the real culprits of this stuffup – are now trying to keep their heads low. ACTEW are closely associated with the ALP Government and they need to minimise the noise they make until Stanhope stitches up a deal with the Greens. There is politics all over this issue, even if it isn’t all visible in the media.

argh I didn’t want to come back to this but I just can’t help myself……. I’m not Hargreaves, or katy or who ever, and by the way when people start to argue bias when they don’t agree with me and can’t take on my arguments I just laugh at them.

My interest in this is issue stems from the fact I live nearby and was a little concerned when this first came to light but once the facts became clear I grew to like the idea. ( oh and I have a severe dislike of this bunch of nimbies from the karralilka days)

Okay, the Project’s interested parties talk about political interference in the project only now, after someone threatens to interfere and stop it.

Can anyone remember which local infrastructure organisations (who ran their own political ads prior to the election, but not on this topic) were keen to get this project off the ground, and which parties gave it the go ahead, without an EIS in the first place?

The blade of political interference is apparently all well and good while its cutting through red-tape for you, right up until it starts swinging your way.

Or Costello

I’m beginning to think that tom tom is Katie, or hargreaves, or Berry…

However, even given the somewhat shady lead up, planning and consultation, I do agree that, if the site is safe, then build it. From memory the area out there is a fair distance from residential areas.

Besides, all the ALP need to do is get a few Libs on board and it’s a done deal, something we will see a lot of in the next four years.

My guess is Hargreaves 🙂

Technical Real Estate will have an interesting time putting pressure on the Green MLAs. Considering Greening Australia and the RSPCA can’t even get the current crop of MLAs to talk to them, what hope does a developer have?

tom tom: When it comes to “properganda” you seem to be very good at distributing it for the Labor party.

I don’t give a shite about what the reviews say. I don’t want power stations (or jails, or airports) any where near where I live. End of story. That is why I VOTED Greens.

oh and i’m not going to respond to this anymore, i’ve got better things to do with my time then rebut CPR properganda…. my opinion is simple; if the project fails the reviews then it shouldn’t get built, if it passes and is deemed safe then it should.

first of all i said ‘from’ not ‘about’ macarthur; a subtle difference which tears a massive hole in your rant.
second of all fadden has never been a strong booth for labor and the swing there wasn’t far off what it was elsewhere. i honestly dont believe the powerstation was a major factor in determining how people voted. the issues macarthur people raised were broadly the same as every other suburb in town; better schools, shops, buses etc.

as for your questions; my understanding was the original assessment was stood down after ACTPLA began an EIS (something about not wasting money duplicating a study)and TRE is not running (and has no involvement in) ACTPLA’s study so i dont exactly know where you’re pulling these allegations of bias from.

‘on your first point; a bad decsion is a bad decsion is a bad decision regardless of how popular it may or may not be. and to be honest i talked to a lot of people from macarthur and concerns about the power station were very much a minority view (at most 5% of people, and even fewer once they understood the facts of the matter) and at the surrounding booths the green vote was relatively low anyway so i dont think this issue was a big one in deciding votes. in short i stand by my position and in the end think your response is irrelevant to my argument on this point, using call in powers on this issue sets a poor precedent for the how they will be used in future.’

Wow Tom Tom; you gauged that only 5% of the Macarthur population care about the power station from ‘talking to a lot of people about Macarthur’. I think if you check the polling results from Fdden (our nearest polling place) you might see that a whole lot more folks are not voting Labor (as compared to the last election) because of this issue. I hope the Greens are true to their pre-election promises on this issue and frankly, I would find it quite hard to believe that any member of that party would condone this project so close to residential areas. And you have to ask yourself, why was the independant assessment panel (set up by Labor) disbanded and silenced once they had formulated their findings? How accurate will the TRE EIS be, when they are the ones who stand to lose the most if the EIS doesn’t stand up??????

sepi said :

The greens should also remember that they may have won votes from people hoping they would can this project in the location 600m from homes.

Using this reasoning, the project should be approved forthwith because Steve Pratt, who campaigned strongly against the project, was voted out.

People are only worried about property prices because if this thing goes ahead they’ll want to move out.

The govt messed this one up, by going ahead with it secretly, and even lying about what suburb it is in. They (Katy) also denied any need for environmental assessments (recommended by the sole Green voice in govt at the time) until public pressure changed their minds.

If they had done things right, and complaints stopped the project you might be able to blame nimbies, but the way this was mishandled, all blame lies with the previous government.

If the new government wants to make a different decision then they can.

(This whole thing reminds me of the GDE actually – another mishandled project where the lack of proper environmental assesments left them open to court cases which delayed the whole thing.)

miz;

on your first point; a bad decsion is a bad decsion is a bad decision regardless of how popular it may or may not be. and to be honest i talked to a lot of people from macarthur and concerns about the power station were very much a minority view (at most 5% of people, and even fewer once they understood the facts of the matter) and at the surrounding booths the green vote was relatively low anyway so i dont think this issue was a big one in deciding votes. in short i stand by my position and in the end think your response is irrelevant to my argument on this point, using call in powers on this issue sets a poor precedent for the how they will be used in future.

on your second point; the site never was meant to act as a primary back up powersource but had the capability to provide something at peak times and in emergergencies, the new proposal has the same capabilities to do this.

on your third point; my understanding was that ACTEW were paying for the site, and your assertion that this will cost jobs in other data centres is so misguided it is laughable; a.)data centres are a growth industry, the more we build the more we’ll need and b.) nobody but those who dont want to see increased competition is pushing this myth.

on your fourth point i fail to see how your assertions in any way shape or form address my point; allow me then to restate it; if the govt refuses to allow a safe sustainable project that there is no good reason to turn down and has already seen a significant made then that will encourage investment to go elsewhere, costing the community

on your final point; if not electoral fraud what exactly would you call handing out unauthorised and inaccurate how to vote cards at a polling place? (for the record i stand entirely behind that comment)

you and me agree on one thing though; this porjects affects all of canberra- if it’s turned down we are all going to miss out on the benefits becase a few nimbies were worried about their property prices.

Sorry tom-tom but you are incorrect. You said:

“firstly it sets a bad precedent for the new govts relationship with ACTPLA; if they are willing to overrule in this case, will they overrule in a case where the opposite is true?” – A new government has the people’s backing to carry our their promises. I’m sure ACTPLA would have this contingency covered.

“secondly it will cost the community access to a level of emergency power generation which i think we need. (just imagine what would have happened if we had lost our only power generator during the fires for instance)” – The scaled down power station is no longer proposed to be a backup power generator for teh ACT. That is now proposed for Williamsdale. If it were to have the occasional overflow some MAY go into the grid but not a reliable amount.

“thirdly it will cost the local economy roughly 400 jobs (350 during construction and 50 ongoing) and 2-3 billion dollars worth of investment” at the cost to the local economy of the value of the land (supplied free from their mates at ACTEW) and of course all the smaller data centres already here will go out of business – losing jobs. Profits will go OS as it is financed by Singapore.

“fourthly it will create a perception that canberra is a poor place to invest in for buisness” – um, WHO did this? I think we can honestly say, the Stanhope government have been less than honest to both the community and the consortium, as they basically had it up and running (glossy brochures overseas) as if it were a done deal. Though obviously they would like to find a convenient scapegoat.

“and finally it panders to a group of nimbies who have deliberately and repeatedly distorted the facts and have shown themselves to be so decietful as to even commit electoral fraud in order to get their own way” – apart from the ridiculous accusation about electoral fraud which I will not address, the community this proposal affects is a good chunk of Woden and all of Tuggers. Hardly nimby. And don’t forget, if this one goes ahead they have one for MacGregor waiting in the wings.

The thing has to be somewhere. Macarthur was assessed as the best version of somewhere. Then the nimbies, led by the unlamented Pratt, got into the act. No-one realy objected to the thing, just to it being near the nimbies – they wanted it put near someone else.

If it doesn’t happen in Macarthur, it may not happen in the ACT. This will cost jobs and opportunities.

How about this? A motion to reinstate the original planned station in Macarthur. The Greens oppose. The ALP supports. And so do, say, two Liberals (not including anyone who lives in Macarthur) – they would be the Libs who bother to listen to Chris Peters and the beautiful and gifted Ms Carter (you know, the core Liberal constituency). The thing happens. All honour is satisfied and we get something we need. Labor and Liberal get the credit for being smart, and the Greens get the credit for sticking to their guns.

it’s pretty simple; TRE acted in good faith and invested a lot of time and money into the project and the project is now under a review to determine if it will have negative impacts into the health and well being of nearby residents. If it will have those negative effects the project gets canned, if it doesn’t then it the good faith TRE showed should be repaid.

there are several implications i think any decsion made by the greens to block the project (if it passes the reviews) will have;

firstly it sets a bad precedent for the new govts relationship with ACTPLA; if they are willing to overrule in this case, will they overrule in a case where the opposite is true?

secondly it will cost the community access to a level of emergency power generation which i think we need. (just imagine what would have happened if we had lost our only power generator during the fires for instance)

thirdly it will cost the local economy roughly 400 jobs (350 during construction and 50 ongoing) and 2-3 billion dollars worth of investment

fourthly it will create a perception that canberra is a poor place to invest in for buisness

and finally it panders to a group of nimbies who have deliberately and repeatedly distorted the facts and have shown themselves to be so decietful as to even commit electoral fraud in order to get their own way.

“TRE should point some of the finger of blame at their consortium partners ActewAGL who chose the location for the power station.” Agreed. No one is saying ‘get rid of the proposal’, but if it is only viable because of that particular (free) bit of land and could only get up with the ‘persuasion’ of certain less-than-honest politicians, well then, the proposal is NOT viable.

ACTEWAGL should not have made promises it can’t keep.

whistle said :

Development approval has not yet been granted by ACTPLA. The white shoe set do not have the authority to declare unilaterally that they pass all the planning tests.

In my view TRE should point some of the finger of blame at their consortium partners ActewAGL who chose the location for the power station. If Michael Costello and John McKay had not mishandled community consulation and they had thought about community impact in the first place, then the project would not now be in political no mans land.

Well said Whistle, well said. ‘The Nimbies’ (including myself) will be/have already been blamed for jeapodising this project, but this project was mishandled from the very start.

48 megawatts is tiny, as power stations go. And the site boundary was 600m from the closest home, but the power station was to be several hundred metres further away on the site.

He is also proposing a 48 megawatt power station in Tuggeranong, 600m from homes.

John Mackay said he will build a bigger power station at Williamsdale. Surely the Greens and TRE would not object to the data centre being built there?

nathan said :

We’re a town of only 340,000 or so. Perhaps a town council would be more appropriate.

A typical Sydney council area covers about 30 square km and has about 65,000 people. If we were a country, we would rank about 171st out of 221, between Brunei and the Bahamas.

sepi said :

The greens should also remember that they may have won votes from people hoping they would can this project in the location 600m from homes.

Which would account for what, 50-100 votes at the most.

Development approval has not yet been granted by ACTPLA. The white shoe set do not have the authority to declare unilaterally that they pass all the planning tests.

In my view TRE should point some of the finger of blame at their consortium partners ActewAGL who chose the location for the power station. If Michael Costello and John McKay had not mishandled community consulation and they had thought about community impact in the first place, then the project would not now be in political no mans land.

The greens should also remember that they may have won votes from people hoping they would can this project in the location 600m from homes.

Deano said :

We are best served if the government acts as a government and not as a town council.

We’re a town of only 340,000 or so. Perhaps a town council would be more appropriate.

Actually the vast majority of legislation is passed by both parties.

It’s the relatively rare disagreements which get media attention.

It always seemed to me that the Libs and Labor opposed each other on principle

caf said :

Not to mention, the Greens can’t scupper anything by themselves – so it’s only “if the Greens and Liberals together decide to” that it can be canned.

Unless they made it a deal breaker in negotiations on supply.

johnboy said :

The Greens were elected, if their power as MLA’s allows them to scupper the facility then that is completely legitimate.

Absolutely not!. The Greens and other parties were elected to determine the criteria by which development proposals will be impartially assessed. If a proposal meets the applicable criteria then there is no reason to stop it. They were definitely not elected (by a minority) to personally approve individual projects. The danger is that arbitrary approval works both ways – projects that don’t meet the assessment criteria can be approved at the whim of the government, which we have seen is equally controversial through the use of call-in powers.

We are best served if the government acts as a government and not as a town council.

Not to mention, the Greens can’t scupper anything by themselves – so it’s only “if the Greens and Liberals together decide to” that it can be canned.

Business needs to respect the wishes of the communities it wants to operate in and not think that hiring lawyers to massage process is an acceptable alternative.

The Greens were elected, if their power as MLA’s allows them to scupper the facility then that is completely legitimate.

They have to decide for themselves if that best serves the community which elected them.

That’s my reading of the situation too Deano. TRE has spent a lot of money on the necessary environmental studies only for the Greens to say they are opposed to the project regardless. Business does need certainty.

Actually, what TRE are saying is that they want to the Greens to agree that they will allow the project to go ahead if the environmental impact study shows there is no reason for it not to. This is just business asking for some certainty in the process.

I would argue that this is an important test case. If, after going through due process and meeting all requirements, a project can be arbitrarily scuttled because a minority component of the government doesn’t like it, it opens the way for abuse of power. If this becomes the case then the way to get things done in the ACT will involve getting politicians on side before even submitting a proposal. At first it will start with intense lobbying and eventually develop into bribery and corruption.

An essential component of a functional democracy is the separation of powers and the application of due process. That is all TRE are requesting.

TRE should just give up.

The status quo has changed and a minority government with four Greens holding balance of power means this current deal is DEAD.

A good test for the Greens… will they crumble on a pre election promise so soon ?