By Tina Perinotto 16 May 2012 – If you are confused about the star ratings for buildings, a proposal on the table from the federal government might just sort it all out and bring the sustainability rating schemes into harmony, across types of ratings, between residential and commercial, and ramp the whole lot up to 10 stars for good measure. These ideas, part of a proposal released on Monday only days after the budget’s axing of the Tax Breaks for Green Buildings program, seem to have taken the industry by surprise. But the ideas are a draft only and members of the working party that helped devise the framework say theu are not as radical as they might at first appear The proposal, the National Building Energy Standard-Setting, Assessment and Rating Framework, is essentially a roadmap for the rebranded National Building Code, previously the Building Code of Australia. Key questions raised in the framework include, should the star ratings of tools that might figure in minimum... 
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14 May 2012 – The NSW Government has announced a program to retrofit 150 of its buildings for energy efficiency with projected annual savings of $5.8 million. Among the properties to be included are:  The NSW Police Academy at Goulburn, Westmead Hospital, and fire, police and ambulance stations (14 of these in the Illawarra). The move, announced last week NSW Minister for the Environment Robyn Parker, preceded a similar investment, of $6.9 million, announced by on Monday the City of Sydney Read More  
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14 May 2012 – The City of Sydney has appointed Origin Energy to be lead contractor on a major overhaul of its 45 properties to make them more energy and water efficient, ahead of the rollout of the city’s trigeneration network, also by Origin. Read More  
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11 May 2012 – Following is the text of an open letter sent to  Greg Combet, Minister for Climate Change & Energy Efficiency, from Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council president Tom Roper, sent Wednesday, 9 May 2012. Dear Minister Combet, I write to you, both in sorrow and in anger, at the Government’s action in breaking its key election promise on Tax Breaks for Green Buildings. Many of our members have already contacted us, concerned at what this broken promise means for future government/industry relations. You will remember Read More  
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By Tina Perinotto 10 May 2012 – Australian Greens Leader  Christine Milne has jumped to support the sustainable property industry declaring she will challenge the federal government on its axing of the $1 billion Tax Breaks for Green Buildings program. The sustainable and mainstream property industry and energy efficiency associations in unison have slammed the action Read More  
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9 May 2012 –The Property Council of Australia, ClimateWorks and Seed Advisory has called on the Australian Energy Market Commission to streamline the grid connection process for embedded generators, and asked it to change the national electricity rules. The Property Council said that the electricity rules needed to be changed to: Provide an improved connection process for embedded generators that are ineligible for automatic access and a right of export. Allow electricity network companies to charge an optional fee-for-service to promote collaboration with their customers. Oblige electricity network companies to publish annual network reports identifying where capacity is limited. Provide an automatic right of connection to the grid and standard access terms. This would apply to generators that meet automatic access standards. Enable embedded generators a right to export electricity to the grid. “These improvements will replace electricity customers’ case-by-case negotiations... 
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2012 federal budget coverage 9 May 2012 –[Updated 10.26 am and 11.23] Well, they axed the $1 billion  Tax Breaks for Green Buildings program in last night’s federal budget, amid a few scraps for sustainability and casual redirection to the Clean Energy Finance package.  We were warned early last week. The Property Council chief executive Peter Verwer was scathing. The axing of the Tax Breaks was sending a valuable program that could leverage $7 billion of investment to the “policy knackery,” he said. The PCA would ask The Greens to step in and try to reverse this “short sighted decision.” Tom Roper, president of the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council and chair of the industry roundtable convened to  redesign of the program was also furious. Read More  
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4 May 2012 – The Greens have confirmed that Peter Whish-Wilson, an economist, finance lecturer and winemaker who previously worked for Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch will replace former leader Bob Brown in the Senate. See our story 16 April 2012 Peter Whish-Wilson, from Merrill Lynch to Greens Senator Mr Whish-Wilson, 44,  a vocal opponent of the proposed Gunns pulp mill in the state’s north, said he was humbled by the appointment. “I’m also very conscious of the responsibility that will go with this position, both to Greens voters and all Tasmanians, in fact all Australians,” he said in an ABC News report. “I would just like to say that I think it is a very significant move for the Greens to put a senator in the north of Tasmania, to put an office there. Read More  
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By Tina Perinotto 4 May 2012  –If you think the  political world is stacked against sustainability right now, go to a book launch by a former Liberal Leader John Hewson, a strong climate change supporter. Listen to the author, young climate campaigner Anna Rose, who her publisher Louise Adler of Melbourne University Press  tips could well be a future Prime Minister of this country. Read More  
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3 May 2012  – South Korea has passed legislation for a national emissions trading scheme, bringing to 34 countries around the world including Australia that, that will use emissions trading as the primary vehicle to drive carbon pollution reduction. “We are far from leading the world, as some have claimed,” Read More  
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3 May 2012 – The NSW Government has released a discussion paper for contribution to a new metropolitan strategy for Sydney over the next 20 years.. “Throughout the year the Department of Planning & Infrastructure will consult with communities, residents, businesses, workers, government and industry about what people want from Sydney,” an announcement form the Department of Planning and Infrastructure said. A draft strategy will follow in mid-late 2012. A final document will be released following community consultation. For details see: Sydney Over the Next 20 Years The Discussion paper  
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By Tina Perinotto 2 May 2012 – On Monday Eureka Funds Management executive director Niall McCarthy told the Property Funds Association annual conference on the Gold Coast that the Tax Breaks for Green Buildings program worth $1 billion would be scrapped. Where he got his information from, he would not say; he would not even confirm he “knew” this to The Fifth Estate, but there it was. By Wednesday the story had broken in the financial press and two more indicators emerged. Read More  
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25 April 2012 – Two prominent climate change commentators with opposing views, former Liberal senator and climate change sceptic Nick Minchin and founder and chair of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition Anna Rose, go head to head in a special ABC Q&A program at 8.30pm on Thursday, 26 April. In an interactive program of more than two hours a live studio audience follows the journey as the protagonists attempt to change each other’s attitudes. Following the documentary, Tony Jones will host the Q&A with  
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By Tina Perinotto 16 April 2012 – Comment: News that the man who will nominate to replace Bob Brown in the Senate is a former employee of Merrill Lynch in New York and Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong, must have buoyed many Greens who spent the weekend worrying about their future after their charismatic founder resigned on Friday. Former capital markets player turned award winning Tassie chardonnay maker Read More  
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16 April 2012 – This is the coal seam story from GetUp!. The crowd sourced agitators have devised a detailed map that zooms in to show locations of wells, the underlying aquifers and homes in on individual stories from people whose lives are being encroached on by the booming industry. And from the US and the UK, evidence is now emerging that earthquakes  could be caused by the practice of fracking in coal seam gas extraction.In the UK research concluded it was”highly probable” that fracking was the cause of 50 seismic events near Blackpool, an article in Fairfax newspaper reported. Read the whole story See our recent  Bathurst Burr: Last rites for the farmers, towns and Murray-Darling rivers  
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By Tina Perinotto 14 April 2012 – Bob Brown who resigned on Friday as leader of The Australian Greens led the campaign to save the Franklin River nearly 30 years ago. He was a charismatic, galvanizing force then and nothing has changed. Read More  
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By Lyn Drummond 11 April 2012 – China, one of 32 countries with an emissions trading scheme, is deploying renewable energy at an astonishing rate and had prioritised climate change in its latest five year plan, Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Mark Dreyfus, told the Australian Industry Group economic forum today (Wednesday). Read More  
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By Tina Perinotto 4 April 2012  – City of Sydney and Origin’s Cogent Energy have overcome some of major barriers to ambitious plans for a low carbon emissions trigeneration energy network in Sydney and signed a heads of agreement for the first tranche of the rollout. Read More  
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By Tina Perinotto 3 April 2012 – The states and territories capacity for strategic planning and report card against key performance criteria are neither uniformly good or bad. There are some high achievers in some areas that could be good exemplars for other jurisdictions, but overall there is huge room for improvement. None of this is surprising. The assessment is from the Council of Australian Governments Reform Council’s Review of Capital Cities Strategic Planning Systems. Read More  
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By Lyn Drummond 27 March 2012 – Lawyers say a threat by a NSW developer to take a local council to court because it is warning property owners of potential flooding from sea level rises has little chance of success. The threat followed a report warning that new homes are being approved in coastal zones under local government planning Read More  
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21 March 2012 – Clive Palmer shocked the nation last night  with accusations that the CIA was behind plans by Greenpeace to block the expansion of coal mining and export in Australia.  Here is GetUp!’s response. Read More  
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By Lyn Drummond 21 March 2012 – The City of Fremantle’s recent initiative to ban plastic bags was driven by local businesses, a public petition, and strong commitment to sustainability and renewable energy, according to the WA city’s mayor, Brad Pettit. The city is the first carbon neutral local government in WA  Read More  
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By Tina Perinotto 8 March 2012 - NSW Environment Minister Robyn Parker opened Green Cities 2012 on Sunday night with a challenge to other states and territories. Her promise was that NSW will lead the nation in green buildings and energy efficiency. Read More  
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By Tina Perinotto 8 March 2012  –Comment: The miners and other megarich one percenters in our society are outraged by the Treasurer Wayne Swan’s attack on their influence and unparalleled political sway on the nation. Read More  
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By Tina Perinotto 7 March 2012 ­– The Prime Minister Julia Gillard and NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell today (Wednesday) jointly announced that Sydney would be the headquarters for the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation. “Sydney has been selected because it has a strong clean energy sector and a network of financial, legal and professional services that will ensure the smooth set up and operation of the Corporation,” a statement from the Prime Minister’s office said. Read More  
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By Tina Perinotto 1 March 2012 – It’s official Sustainability Victoria will be focusing strongly on waste, drop several of its programs – particularly those aimed at households –but the property industry is hopeful that its lower grade inefficiency buildings will finally come in for attention. How much attention is still unclear. The review document released this week concentrated on discussion of waste management. Read More  
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29 February 2012 – A new SA urban renewal authority aimed at increasing the supply and diversity of affordable housing and to accelerate the renewal of social housing stock will start operating from 1 March, the SA Premier and Minister for Development, Jay Wetherilll has told the SA Parliament. The authority will be responsible for all the residential and industrial land holdings of the Land Management Corporation and Defence SA industrial holdings will be added to this portfolio, Mr Wetherill said. . It would have a mandate to work on creating a vibrant city, maintaining safe communities and healthy neighbourhoods and having an affordable place to live for everyone. The authority would work with communities, local government, the private sector and the not for profit sector and would have a strong focus on community engagement, he said. It will plan all future significant redevelopment projects of assets owned by the South Australian Housing Trust and work with not-for-profit organisations... 
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By Tina Perinotto 29 February 2012  –UPDATED 5.59 pm The Greens have called on the Federal Government to re-instate the Renewable Energy Bonus Scheme for solar hot water systems, which it said produced the cheapest forms of greenhouse emissions reductions but was suddenly axed on Tuesday. Read More  
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By Tina Perinotto 27 February 2012 – Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s decisive win in today’s leadership spill is a win for stronger climate policies than Kevin Rudd would have delivered. Read More  
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By Tina Perinotto 9 February 2012 – Sustainability Victoria will call tenders for the sale of its FirstRate5 residential thermal rating tool, but only private industry need apply, it seems. Newly appointed chief executive officer of SV Stan Krpan on Wednesday said: “We believe owning and maintaining software is not in line with our future direction and FirstRate5 would be better maintained by private industry. Read More  
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