Mark today in your diary. Today is the day that the rule of law died in Western Australia and if permitted to stand, all of Australia.
This is the bill that was passed and has (by) now been given Royal Ascent.
Iron Ore Processing (Mineralogy Pty. Ltd.) Agreement Amendment Bill 2020
Here are some highlights:
- Any WA Government liability extinguished.
- Rules of Natural Justice do not apply.
- Freedom of Information does not apply
This is a national disgrace. This will reflect on the sovereign stability of all of Australia and not just Western Australia.
All GST remittances to WA should be terminated until this act is repealed.
And just remember everyone, as Thomas Jefferson said:
A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have
Some relevant sections
11. State to have no liability connected with disputed matters
(1) On and after commencement, the State has, and can have, no liability to any person that is or would be —
(a) in respect of any loss, or other matter or thing, that is the subject of a claim, order, finding or declaration made against the State in a relevant arbitration; or
(b) in respect of any other loss, or other matter or thing, that is, or is connected with, a disputed matter (whether the loss, or other matter or thing, occurs or arises before, on or after commencement); or
(c) in any other way connected with a disputed matter.
(2) Any liability of the type described in subsection (1) that the State has to any person before commencement is extinguished.12. No appeal or review in respect of disputed matters
(1) Any conduct of the State that is, or is connected with, a disputed matter cannot in any proceedings —
(a) be appealed against, reviewed, challenged, quashed or called into question on any basis; or
(b) be the subject of, on any basis —
(i) a remedy by way of injunction, declaration, prohibition, mandamus or certiorari; or
(ii) a remedy having the same effect as a remedy referred to in subparagraph (i).
(2) The rules known as the rules of natural justice (including any duty of procedural fairness) do not apply to, or in relation to, any conduct of the State that is, or is connected with, a disputed matter13. Documents
(1) The Freedom of Information Act 1992 Parts 2 and 4 do not apply to a document connected with a disputed matter.
I’m no fan of the blowhard Palmer but this bill seems to be an admission that they screwed him over.
Just shows how easy this was to do. Hardly a peep from the media in general. Can’t say there was much opposition at all. You can only assume from this that it will be regarded as a precedent and watch now for all the other States be they Socialist or not to pass any laws they think will be favourable to them.
This Bill makes your average absolute monarch of yore look benevolent.
The High Court will strike this legislation down.
My thoughts too Ubique.
We have any State governments in Australia that are not socialist?
Maybe the Principality of Hutt River?
I certainly cannot think of any other one.
Time to raise the Flag of the Eureka Stockade
Wow.
They actually wrote that into a law.
I suspect this is an expression of the colonial constitution WA was endowed with. It also enabled a lot of private farm land to be sterilised from production without compensation.
Has cost us plenty for nought.
“natural law does not apply”?
that’s not an expression of any constitution.
No no. The media in WA, particularly The West Australian, is the propaganda arm of the government. Over the last three days the front page photo of the West (2/3 of the page) has portraid Clive as Dr Evil, a cane toad and a cockroach.
Strangely, they do take his money to run his double page ads, but then slam him in the editorial.
Wow indeed. The speed that the dictatorial instincts of governments in Australia have manifested is mind blowing.
@ John Bayley-
Sorry to say mate, that the Hutt River Principality has gone bankrupt and is returning to the benificent(!) fold of Sandgroperstan.
The family have had to start about selling up and moving off the land- Prince Leonard died, and between debt issues and the kids not wanting to keep at the game, it has just become unviable.
Time, bureaucracy and economics wait for no man.
But this adoptive sandgroper is unimpressed, and hopes to see a good spanking levelled at this leftwit and his pack of wets, fools and class ideologues by the HCA.
Civics, civility and the rule of law for all, or bayonets, bombs and anarchy. Take your pick…
(Also, Pete Tinley for Premier! The Navy obviously didn’t do a good enough job at seasoning Mr McGowan, so let the ex-SASR officer have a go. And Andrew Hastie for PM!)
Were there any words of comfort in the explanatory memorandum or the second reading speech about why this legislation is absolutely, definitely (blah blah blah) a one-off and that anyone whose name is not Clive Palmer need have any fear that such things would be done to their rights?
Whatever the answer to that question, this will likely end up as a deal for one-off financial support from the Commonwealth to WA, or another go at re-jigging the GST distribution formula.
Apparently the Minerals Council CEO had something to say yesterday, can’t get past paywall unfortunately. Will give her a spell but hasn’t had the guts to make it formal on the MCA twitter or news feed. No free to air even expressing a peep.
Getting slugged three million quid by the A.T.O. had a lot to do with the decision.
Rex Anger #3547867, posted on August 14, 2020, at 8:02 pm
Now, there is a word for the Catictionary!
May be expressed as “San Groperstan” for that patina of Latina, given the resemblance to Marxist governments (cough!) of Central and South America.
What an awesome bill.
Where can I get one?
Nothing to do with iron ore.
Just one to cover all my unwanted romantic advances.
The Worst won’t be rocking the boat. Kerry Stokes never knows when he might need a favour.
This should at least mean we can now all stop pretending that we have so called “Private Property Rights”.
From shuttering of private business in The Covid Days, to Peter Spencer, to the Thompson’s battle (WA again) for their feedlot, to multiple instances of lawfare, fines and restrictions on land clearing even where safety is a factor to local council crap we are just serfs.
I doubt that it will make it to the High Court as that will expose the entire “Private Property” scam.
Does Palmer have recourse to ISDS under any of these FTAs?
Indeed. Releasing your inner Nazi is all the go these days. . I can almost sympathise with m0nty’s desire to punch them in the face. Trouble is, there’s a lot of them and most, strangely enough, in positions of authority.
That being said, I think this WA legislation is effectively in conflict with the enabling legislation of a number of Australia’s FTA’s, and so could be struck down under section 109 of the constitution.
It will be interesting to hear the howls from the Left if that happens, given how frequently they seek to use that same principle when it favours them, particularly with regards to environmental or human rights treaties.
@ John A-
Now, there is a word for the Catictionary!
May be expressed as “San Groperstan” for that patina of Latina, given the resemblance to Marxist governments (cough!) of Central and South America.
You are welcome, sir!
I like bananas. ‘Republics’ built on them? Not so much…
Probably not 2dogs. At the end of the day it is a ‘just terms’ case and s51(xxxi) is an exclusive power of the Commonwealth and does not apply to the States, s109 has no effect. Period. They can distribute, or not, compensation anyway they like and our politicians and Constitutional experts have been aware of this State Constitutional anomaly for a very long time and have repeatedly been warned about it. That’s the reason that the Commonwealth uses the States to do indirectly what the Commonwealth cannot do directly. The Commonwealth got the States to lockup freehold agriculture land otherwise the Commonwealth would have been subject to s51(xxxi) if it had done this themselves. The Commonwealth and the States work hand in glove to avoid their conventional compensation requirements. It’s a bloody disgrace and can only rectified through a referendum to bind the States to s51(xxxi).
See – Durham Holdings Pty Ltd v New South Wales [2001] HCA 7; 205 CLR 399; 177 ALR 436; 75 ALJR 501 (15 February 2001)
Also, Palmer might go to the High Court citing section 117 of the constitution.
Not a “just terms” case. I am talking about international agreements here, so section 51 (xxix), and to some extent section 51 (xx), but not section 51 (xxxi).
I repeat. Quigley the government chap in charge of law is a man who uses law not to set boundaries but to obtain outcomes he prefers.
Only 2 weeks since he sacked all Justices of the Peace from court duties and parachuted in 8 or so “diverse” new magistrates.
Awful chap, I hope he ends up as Palmers catamite or stick on a sponge cleaner by the time it’s all done.
This is not the first time this sort of thing has been done. This outrage has been enacted before the decision of the court has come down.
In 1997 after the High Court struck down the Howard government denied affected parties their remedy against the states.
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Publications_Archive/CIB/CIB9798/98cib01
Costello should forever hang his head in shame. What happened to the separation of powers between the legislature and the judiciary. If any private citizen threatened a litigant like Costello did in that case he would have been done for a serious contempt of court.
There is a precedent of sorts, as I recall, in Bardolph’s case in NSW. Bardolph was a mate of Jack Lang who got a big advertising contract from the Lang government shortly before it was sacked. The conservative government that succeeded Lang passed legislation to void the contract, and the courts ruled that the laws were valid, citing the classical British doctrine of the inherent powers of parliament. That was in 1932, of course, and the law may have changed since then, in part because of treaty obligations.
PS: my grandfather knew Chifley and Bob Heffron, both of whom assured him that Lang was massively corrupt, and that he went meekly as a lamb when Game sacked him because he knew he had painted himself into a corner with his impossible promises.
So the NPV of any agreement, contract or common law understanding with the WA Public Service Government and its Politicians ™ is ZERO.
I wonder how much real bullion actually sits in The WA Public Service Government Perth Mint ™ ?
Sorry 2dogs, doesn’t work. FTAs are between the Commonwealth and Foreign Governments as a framework for cooperation in mutual areas of trade. These do not necessarily bind any of our States unless the State in question has signed a Bilateral Agreement with the Commonwealth to enforce the FTA in that State. For example refer to Fracking bans in certain States. There is a difference between Exclusive Powers and Concurrent Powers of the Commonwealth.
Like I said, this is a just terms compensation case and nothing more.
Are you sure? Then how is it that international agreements on environmental issues are effective in giving federal laws the ability to override state laws (e.g. climate change laws), but not international agreements on trade?
That is to say, the enabling legislation for an FTA (such as https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2004A01355) would override any conflicting state law by virtue of section 109.
Bilateral Agreements between the Commonwealth & the States. Look those up under the EPBC Act and the Natural Heritage Trust Act.
s109 does not apply. FTAs only apply (s109) where there has been an inter governmental agreement or bilateral agreement between the Commonwealth & the State(s) has been entered into. Where there is no agreement s109 does not apply. The States Constitutions are preserved at s106 & s107. s109 only applies to the Commonwealth’s “Exclusive Powers” not “Concurrent Powers”.
Then why did it apply in, say, the Gordon below Franklin dam case?
How are international agreements in relation to trade different from international agreements on environmental issues?
There was no “bilateral agreement” between Tasmania and the Federal government in the Gordon below Franklin dam case.
It didn’t. The HCA threw out the first part where the Commonwealth used s109 through their National Parks & Wildlife Act. The Commonwealth won the case based solely on the U.N’s Agenda 21 & the signed inter governmental agreements with the States writing in Agenda 21 into those agreements.
The section that Hawke wrote into their National Parks & Wildlife (Cath) the HCA declared invalid.
You are making stuff up. There were no such signed inter governmental agreements with the States.
As a side note, you also have the wrong treaty. The treaty was the “UNESCO Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage”.
The U.N’s Agenda 21 wasn’t signed until then 1990’s, so it could hardly have affected a court case in 1983.
Good, ok sorry. I thought that was the wrong one, but nonetheless.
Bullshit.
This “concurrent” powers bullshit is often used, and they get away with it.
Section 51 clearly sets out what areas the commonwealth parliament has responsibility regards lawmaking and the states can make laws where they don’t.
If those state Laws conflict with the constitution, (or commonwealth law) they are invalid.
Simples.
It’s in areas such as education and health that they claim concurrency, but the feds have no business being in those areas at all, and as our constitution stands, unless by referendum they have no business being involved in any lawmaking outside of sect 51.
And wouldn’t it be better for the ending of the “blame game” if they just stuck to the consti- fucking- tution?
If they want to get involved, in what is the responsibility of the states, ask the people.
WA knows it won’t face the HCA, or at least it’s betting it won’t.
The country will be long gone before that happens.
Believing this dribble is what got us into this mess.
It’s royal assent not ascent.
I have the receipts amigo: I’ve been researching this since the introduction of SEPP 46.
That’s what the Land & Environment Court believes dipstick. Do you want receipts to mate, copy and pasteing old documents is a pain in the arse ?
Don’t tell me dipstick, I didn’t make that up, it’s copy and paste from the fucking link. Take it up with them fuckwit. I personally don’t give a fuck what you do or don’t believe, the mess was created long before I was born, you know like 1 July 1900.
All that legal discussion here, and yet I think you all have it wrong.
The fact is, only those laws the governments like (everywhere in Veneztralia, not just in WA) will apply to them. The other laws are for the rest of us only.
It’s no different to when you take the ATO to court and somehow manage to win.
They then get the government to change the law, and you are still on the hook and bankrupt to boot.
Get it yet?
One thing worth thinking about is that this represents the elected representatives of the people making law rather than leaving their responsibilities to the vagaries of unelected judges.
So there is an upside.
Those “receipts” are clearly the wrong ones. For a start, both are two decades post dated: “AUGUST 2004” and “August 2003”. Also, neither of them are with Tasmania.
You want more amigo ? Here you go. What’s wrong with you ?
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/JCULawRw/1995/3.pdf
http://www.environment.gov.au/about-us/esd/publications/national-esd-strategy
http://www.environment.gov.au/node/13011
National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development
Prepared by the Ecologically Sustainable Development Steering Committee
Endorsed by the Council of Australian Governments
December, 1992
ISBN 0 644 27253 8
Appendix A – Summary of the InterGovernmental Agreement on the Environment
The environment is one of the most important issues facing Australians today. It has also been an issue sometimes marred by damaging intergovernmental disputes, as governments respond to the challenge posed by public demands for a better and healthier environment.
The Prime Minister’s One Nation Statement of 26 February 1992 announced that agreement had been reached on an Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment.
The agreement represents the beginning of a new approach to intergovernmental dealings on the environment. It sets out the roles of the parties and establishes the ‘ground rules’ under which the Commonwealth Government, State, Territory and local governments will interact on the environment (Section 2); includes a broad set of principles to guide the development of environment policies (Section 3); and, in a series of schedules, sets out cooperative arrangements on a wide range of specific issues.
History Of The Agreement
The proposal to develop the agreement arose as part of the Government’s initiative to reform intergovernmental relations. The intention to develop the agreement was announced in the Communique issued by the first special Premiers Conference in October 1990.
Purpose Of The Agreement
The agreement aims to provide the basis for a new cooperative approach to the management of environmental issues in Australia. In particular, it will be the mechanism for providing:
a cooperative national approach to the environment;
better definition of the roles of respective governments with respect to the environment;
a reduction in intergovernmental environmental disputes; more certain government and business decision making; and better environment protection.
Major Features Of The Agreement
Responsibilities and interests
Section 2 of the Agreement delineates for the first time the responsibilities and interests of each of the three spheres of government. In doing so, it recognises that the States and Territories have responsibility for the majority of environmental issues within their borders. Nevertheless, it makes provisions for the Commonwealth Government to become involved in those issues where it has demonstrated responsibilities and interests.
Accommodation of interests
Section 2 of the Agreement also provides mechanisms and procedures for accommodating the interests of the various levels of government in environmental issues. These procedures emphasise timely consultation, more streamlining of intergovernmental processes and the need to avoid duplication of decision making.
In particular, the agreement specifies the mechanisms for the Commonwealth and a State/Territory or States and Territories to handle those issues where both spheres of government have an involvement, viz: the cooperative setting of outcomes and standards; and accreditation by the Commonwealth (or a State or Territory as the case may be) of the decision-making processes or systems of the other sphere of government.
Under the agreement, once a party has accredited a process or system, it will be obliged to give ‘full faith and credit’ to the outcomes of that process when making decisions on those outcomes. This aims to avoid the arbitrary revisiting of environmental issues by the parties.
International conventions
International environmental issues have in the past been an area of disputation between the Commonwealth and the States and Territories. The agreement establishes improved consultative arrangements between the Commonwealth and the States and Territories in relation to negotiating and entering into international conventions on the environment. These arrangements will result in a more harmonised approach to implementation of such conventions.
Identification of interests
For those environmental issues where responsibility for an issue is not readily apparent, Section 2 requires consultation between the Commonwealth and the relevant State/Territory or States and Territories to determine the nature of the interest and how it should be handled. Such consultation is subject to strict time limits.
Duplication of interests
The agreement also includes a commitment to aim to eliminate functional duplication between the Commonwealth and the States and Territories wherever the interests of the relevant sphere of government have been accommodated.
Principles of environmental policy
Section 3 proposes a series of broad principles to guide the parties in the development and implementation of environmental policies and programs. These principles include the adoption of a precautionary approach to environmental issues and the effective integration of environmental and economic considerations in decision making.
Schedules
Schedules to the agreement spell out cooperative arrangements between the Commonwealth Government and State and Territory Governments in a range of specific environmental areas. The agreement provides for the amendment of schedules and the development of additional schedules as environment issues evolve.
Environmental data
Schedule 1 provides for the development of a national approach to the collection and handling of environmental data. The schedule requires the development of consistent standards for the description and exchange of land-related information and improved mechanisms for making data more accessible across spheres of government.
Land-use decisions and approval processes
Schedule 2 provides the basis for joint collaborative efforts which facilitate rational and environmentally sound land-use decisions and approvals processes. It includes a common set of characteristics which should apply to land-use decision making (including consultation with all affected parties and dispute resolution procedures). As a means of eliminating duplication, the schedule provides for the Commonwealth to accredit State and Territory land-use and resource-use planning systems.
Environmental impact assessment
Schedule 3 sets out a common set of principles which will achieve greater consistency of EIA throughout Australia, and avoid duplication and delays in the process. It provides for the negotiation of a single national agreement between the Commonwealth and the States and Territories to eliminate any duplication in assessment processes and for the Commonwealth, States and Territories to accredit each other’s processes.
Environment protection
Schedule 4 establishes a cooperative Commonwealth-State/Territory process for developing national environmental standards, guidelines and goals. The National Environment Protection Authority established under the schedule will be backed by complementary Commonwealth and State legislation.
Climate change
Schedule 5 acknowledges the potentially significant impact of greenhouse induced climate change and provides for the cooperative development of a National Greenhouse Response Strategy.
Biological diversity
Schedule 6 puts into place intergovernmental arrangements to oversee implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity signed by Australia at UNCED on 5 June 1992.
National estate
Schedule 7 recognises the role of the Australian Heritage Commission in identifying the National Estate and advising the Commonwealth on its conservation. The schedule provides for closer cooperation between the Commission and State and Territory agencies, for example through an expanded process of joint assessments of national estate values. It also includes a commitment for the Commission and the States and Territories to reach agreement wherever possible on the timing of their assessment processes and thus avoid duplication.
World heritage
Schedule 8 will reduce conflict in this area by recognising the Commonwealth Government’s international obligations to protect Australia’s World Heritage and by codifying arrangements between the Commonwealth, States and Territories on identification and nomination of World Heritage areas. Under these arrangements, the Commonwealth will be required to use its best endeavours to obtain the agreement of relevant States and Territories on nominations to the World Heritage List.
Nature conservation
Schedule 9 formalises cooperative arrangements on a wide range of nature conservation issues. It includes a commitment to develop a strategy for a national approach to the protection of rare, vulnerable and endangered species; endorses a cooperative national approach to the control of introduced animals and plants which pose a threat to the natural environment; and proposes development of improved intergovernmental arrangements for regulation of commercial use of native wildlife.
You want more receipts amigo: How did Hawke stop the Hydro project in Tasmania ? Join the damn dots.
First: http://envlaw.com.au/tasmanian-dam-case/
The Tasmanian Dam Case is the most famous and influential environmental law case in Australian history. It was also a landmark in Australian constitutional law.
In it, the Commonwealth Government succeeded in stopping a large hydro-electric dam proposed to be constructed in South-West Tasmania. The seven judges of the High Court split 4:3 in deciding (amongst other matters) that the Commonwealth had power under section 51(xxix) of the Australian Constitution to stop the dam based on Australia’s international obligations under the World Heritage Convention.
Second: http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/epabca1999588/s51.html
ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AND BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION ACT 1999 – SECT 51
Agreements relating to declared World Heritage properties
(1) The Minister may enter into a bilateral agreement containing a provision relating to a declared World Heritage property only if:
(a) the Minister is satisfied that the provision is not inconsistent with Australia’s obligations under the World Heritage Convention; and
(b) the Minister is satisfied that the agreement will promote the management of the property in accordance with the Australian World Heritage management principles; and
(c) the provision meets the requirements (if any) prescribed by the regulations.
(2) The Minister may accredit a management arrangement or an authorisation process under section 46 for the purposes of a bilateral agreement containing a provision relating to a declared World Heritage property only if:
(a) the Minister is satisfied that the management arrangement or authorisation process is not inconsistent with Australia’s obligations under the World Heritage Convention; and
(b) the Minister is satisfied that the management arrangement or authorisation process will promote the management of the property in accordance with the Australian World Heritage management principles.ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION AND BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION ACT 1999 – SECT 51
All of your receipts are post 1983, except you did post a link to the actual case. This link says
So your only valid “receipt’ shows I’m right.
You’re polluting this discussion with your Agenda 21 nuttery.
All GST remittances to WA should be terminated until this act is repealed.
100% agreement from me, on condition that all W.A. GST collections cease immediately.
Opps…………..no wrong. Mate I’m just trying to explain how both the Commonwealth and State governments achieve indirectly in each other’s interest what they cannot do directly. I’m on your side, I’ve been fighting to try and save my own freehold land from these arseholes since 1997. I’ve had no success, I’m just let you know from experience how they fucking do it. It’s virtually impossible to beat the bastards, they just simply change the law in their jurisdictions (States) or get the Commonwealth to create law out of thin air, like using ‘External Affairs’. We need a new many times government limiting Constitution with an attached Common Law bill of rights that the States can’t simply circle around.
So, when you are called out, you shift the goalposts. I initially said “section 51 (xxix)” – the external affairs power – and it was you had said section 51 (xxxi).
No compulsory taxation of any kind should be the first clause in any constitution.
Go back and read what I said moron. I mentioned that the States are not bound to s51(xxxi) – i.e s109, nothing more idiot. s109 was your goalpost mate not mine.
I think that Palmer’s best chance is through s75(v) – denial of natural justice – abuse of power. Now fuck off.
Return to the old Crown Proceedings Acts I suppose, before they were liberalized. The High Court may find it hard to get past the State’s prerogative rights (like it or not), as a Crown Colony in its own right. It can legislate as it likes so long as it doesn’t tread on the Commonwealth toes. I suspect it is all solely within the State’s jurisdiction.
Palmer has got something of a front run with his registration of an arbitration decision that must be recognized throughout the commonwealth under the full faith and credit provision of the constitution.
The State could have put a cap on damages that would have been even more difficult to dislodge – limitations on awards are nothing new.
Two things can be true at once. Palmer is a dickhead and possibly a grifter. Also, this legislation is scary solely on the basis of the manner in which it was passed, let alone that it’s barely understood by anyone in WA yet is overwhelmingly popular because McGowan said Palmer is going to bankrupt the state if he doesn’t get his legislation. The local media is also fully on board. There is some epic demagoguery going on right now.
No statement from the WA Law Society about this. Is it if no interest to them?