Terms of Reference stink!
Alarm bells rang when we saw the recently announced appointees to the SEES Panel Hearing, but now we've had time to look at the Panel's Terms of Reference we are even more alarmed!
A comparison between the 2004 and 2007 Panel Hearing Terms of Reference is stark.
The First Panel Hearing allowed extensive cross examination and its Terms of Reference outlined a commitment to an equitable fair process and the principles of Natural Justice.
No reference to Natural Justice in the 2007 Terms of Reference!
In 2004 it was cross examination of the Port's "experts" which revealed the myriad flaws in the project, which the Panel reported in its 137 recommendations as to why the project should not proceed as designed.
Now that the Channel Deepening Facilitation Bill has temporarily faded from view having received such notoriety for its draconian line, it seems government has had to come up with some other tactics to try to ram the channel deepening project through. Reducing our access to natural justice seems to be their management style!
It took 3 months of Hearings in 2004 for the Panel process to trawl through 7,000 pages of the Port's 'Business plan for the Bay' and to reveal so many problems with it. The Port now tells us the SEES is a completely new document, a "stand alone body of work" to the SEES. Given it is double the size of the EES surely it deserves even closer scrutiny than the first EES?
See articles by Royce Millar in the Age Monday 23rd April at: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/alarm-bells-ring-loud/2007/04/22/1177180483928.html
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/outrage-at-dredging-probe-ban/2007/04/22/1177180483906.html
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