Great Barrier Reef Board Members Linked to Obeid Family

[icyfroth]

The board of the agency charged with protecting the Great Barrier Reef has failed to adopt its own experts' recommendation that it ban port developments which threaten the reef.

Two of the five board members have links to members of the Obeid family and are coming under scrutiny from environmentalists, who allege a conflict of interest because of their links to resource companies.

Former Townsville mayor Tony Mooney earns $250,000 a year working for a coal company, and Queensland's top public servant Jon Grayson owns a one-sixth shareholding in a company called Gasfields Water and Waste Services.

Both men helped set the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority's position on ports at a number of board meetings.

A debate is currently raging about the pace of port developments in the World Heritage area, with Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt to decide in December whether to allow a port development at Abbot Point that would see 3 million cubic metres of mud dredged and dumped.

At its March 2012 meeting, the authority considered a draft recommendation that it take a tough line:

"The authority will not support port activities or developments in locations that have the potential to degrade inshore biodiversity."

The board decided not to accept that position, and at a meeting in Townsville on September 5, 2012, the board asked this line be changed to:

"In making decisions regarding port development, the potential impacts on inshore biodiversity should be a key consideration."

The board requested greater consultation with the mining industry and approved the draft document for consultation with stakeholders.

The document still has not been released.

Greenpeace reef campaigner Louise Mathieson says this and other changes to the authority's draft port position statement are unacceptable.

Click Here To View Full Article

Mooney and Grayson should resign from the board.

[lakeland27]

 Climate change is going to kill off the reef along with damage from dredging and pollution . its a case of exporting commodities having  precedence over tourism and conservation because of the big money the exports bring in. with newman in office its open slather, i guess with the friends he's made and the financial benefits he'll garner after leaving office (the bribes the likes of him receive After leaving office are huge, and because they work it that way he wont be prosecuted)

[icyfroth]

I understand it's kind of a catch 22 situation, because we need to export our mining resources to provide a national income. On the other hand we want to preserve our natural wonders and wildlife. We can't seem to balance them.

[lakeland27]

---

@icyfroth wrote:

I understand it's kind of a catch 22 situation, because we need to export our mining resources to provide a national income. On the other hand we want to preserve our natural wonders and wildlife. We can't seem to balance them.

---

 it seems the newman government dont even try.  there's little hope of federal intervention in anything now as well. these governments make the claim to being 'grown ups' but behave very differently as i expected.

[spotweldersfriend]

Campbell says he's happy with the arrangements up here in Draconia*



*The state formerly known as Queensland .

[lakeland27]

 he's a little bleep newman.  i feel for the people who live there, unless they support him of course.