The Papua New Guinea Government has passed legislation that removes the rights of PNG nationals to challenge the government's own approvals for environmentally destructive activities. According to Charles Roche, executive director of the Mineral Policy Institute, the legislation will give the PNG government carte blanche powers to approve future projects without ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto 1 June 2010 - Dexus was the clear winner in Round 5 of the Federal Government’s Green Building Fund grants,  with  $3.3 million approved to fund projects in six of its buildings. The grants, designed to be matched on a dollar for dollar basis by the building owner, are ...Read More > >

26 May 2010 - The Shopping Centre Council of Australia says  that sustainability drivers for shopping centres “do not exist”, and that there are huge barriers to energy efficiency investment  that warrant government funding and changes to the law to recover capital investment in these areas The claims, made in a  ...Read More > >

LETTER - from Sharon Lameris - 27 May 2010 - [Following] are a few words to Boris Kelly, as author of the article [Strata is popular but neglected in green initiatives] ...which also appears via a link to the website of Go Low Energy. Remember that old adage -  never judge ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto 17 May 2010 - The NSW Government today announced the country’s first legally binding bio-banking covenant to protect environmentally sensitive land in return for development rights over similar land. But The Greens have slammed the scheme, saying it will enable the destruction of endangered species. “Biobanking is a backward step ...Read More > >

by Lynne Blundell 12 May 2010 - The federal budget delivered last night by Treasurer Wayne Swan has been described by some commentators as frugal and restrained. The focus was on reining in debt, with the government forecasting a return to budget surplus by 2012-13. To do this it is relying ...Read More > >

Sylvia Hrovatin, general manager approvals for Walker Corporation is fed up with some of the arguments about the challenges of meeting urban housing demand. This is the view she presented to national conference held by the Urban Development Institute of Australia at Darling Harbour on 8-11 March this year - - ...Read More > >

By Boris Kelly 30 April 2030 - The City of Sydney's Sustainable Sydney 2030 plan has set itself tough environmental targets that its own senior executives say will be hard to meet. This article, based on extensive interviews with council staff and written reports, profiles the major strategies that will lead the ...Read More > >

By Andrew Starc 27 April 2010 - Green groups have reacted angrily to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s scrapping of the emissions trading scheme, at last until after 2012. Australian Greens Deputy Leader Senator Christine Milne said the Prime Minister had “thrown away any claims to global leadership on climate action.” In a statement ...Read More > >

From the Council of Australian Governments – 22 April 2010 – COAG said this week it would look at competition issues in land supply as part of its inquriy to target the slow supply of new housing, house price pressures, population growth and “a healthy economy continuing to add to ...Read More > >

By Andrew Starc 21 April 2010 - A new report by Curtin University of Technology and Parsons Brinckerhoff highlights evidence that the potential for the Federal Government to enforce deregulation of urban zoning and planning across Australia could  have detrimental effects on both the health and productivity of urban populations. In ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto 22 April 2010- Planners have reacted angrily to widescale moves to deregulate zoning controls, create land “competition” and fast track more urban sprawl that emerged in an avalanche of government announcements in the past week. Leading sustainability and planning authority Professor Peter Newman of Curtin University said more low-density ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto 19 April 2010 - The NSW Government today said it would strip away restrictions on retail competition contained in zoning laws, in a move designed to result in lower retail prices for consumers. NSW Planning Minister Tony Kelly said the NSW Government would implement the recommendations of a ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto 19 April 2010 - [Updated 19 April 2010] A Productivity Commission inquiry into development controls is set to raise a storm of controversy if it results in loosening zoning controls for residential and retail property, as anticipated. Expect planners who have long argued for orderly and controlled zoning ...Read More > >

By Lynne Blundell FAVOURITES - 8 April 2010 - As the deadline for the introduction of mandatory disclosure of energy efficiency in commercial buildings draws near, many owners of lower grade buildings are completely unprepared. And with these buildings accounting for around 80 per cent of the commercial market, property agencies ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto 8 April 2010 - The updated Building Code of Australia is about to hit the market next month – on 1 May – but many architects and consultants have little idea how significant the changes will be, especially for glazing commercial buildings. What’s likely is a huge reduction of ...Read More > >

By Andrew Starc 7 April 2010 - Melbourne will become an “Eco City” if  Melbourne City Council’s new strategic plan is adopted next week. The Future Melbourne Committee will vote next Tuesday, 13 April, to endorse the plan, a review of the Municipal Strategic Statement, as a proposed amendment ...Read More > >

By Lynne Blundell The smart grid is a “much riskier business model, beyond poles and wires, as it’s now about a customer response. Letting customer response drive initiatives is riskier. We have to break the existing business model and build a new one. And it’s a riskier model because there is ...Read More > >

By Lynne Blundell 31 March 2010 - public discussion paper on the federal government’s proposed framework for setting energy efficiency standards for buildings has been released for public consultation. The discussion paper presents the National Building Energy Standard-Setting, Assessment and Rating Framework, which is part of the National Strategy on Energy ...Read More > >

1 April 2010 - The Federal Government has announced more details on the Home Insulation Safety Plan. According to Greg Combet, Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, the Plan has been designed to restore confidence in the insulation industry, including measures to “track down and prosecute any ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto 23 March 2010 - Property owners who fail to comply with the mandatory disclosure legislation now before Parliament will face fines of up to $100,000 through a National Administrative Unit, if the bill goes through in its current form. As foreshadowed in our article published yesterday, the proposed legislation ...Read More > >

By Andrew Starc - 31 March 2010 – The formation of the Prime Minister’s Task Group on Energy Efficiency has been welcomed by environment and green groups for its promises of economic benefits and emissions reduction. The Task Group, which will make recommendations for generating a step-change improvement in Australia’s energy efficiency, ...Read More > >

By Romilly Madew, chief executive, Green Building Council of Australia 31 March 2010 - The Australian Government’s Building Energy Efficiency Disclosure Bill is currently being debated in federal Parliament. If passed, the Bill will require non-residential commercial buildings to disclose their energy efficiency to potential purchasers or lessees. The Green Building Council of ...Read More > >

BRIEF – 30 March 2010 - Parliament has established the Australian Centre for Renewable Energy in a move aimed at centralising $560 million of Government funding for renewable energy. ACRE is designed to be a “one stop shop” for Australian renewable energy businesses, aiming to consolidate the Government’s $235 million ...Read More > >

BRIEF - 24 March 2010 - Co-owners of 1 Bligh Street, DEXUS Wholesale Property Fund and Cbus Property have announced that the 1 Bligh Street office development in Sydney has been awarded a 6 Star Green Star Office Design v2 Certified rating. The building’s double skin façade system is a major ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto 23 March 2010 - [See update] Mandatory Disclosure could have a starting date of about October this year and it may come with a heavy stick, according to industry sources. Speaking off the record, insiders say that Senator Penny Wong’s Federal Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto COMMENT 18 March 2010 - “What we have here is failure to deliver,” the surly prison guard in the mirror glasses might have said in Cool Hand Luke. The NSW Government deserves to be locked up. It has failed to deliver the credible long term planning which is the fundamental ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto NABERS, the environmental rating system that today measures the performance of about half of Australia’s CBD office space is under review - and the property industry has been promised full consultation. 11 March 2010 - For many people NABERS, the performance rating tool managed by the NSW Government, is ...Read More > >

From The Economist - 20 March 2010 - In the 1990s cap-and-trade—the idea of reducing carbon-dioxide emissions by auctioning off a set number of pollution permits, which could then be traded in a market—was the darling of the green policy circuit. A similar approach to sulphur dioxide emissions, introduced ...Read More > >

By Tina Perinotto The Green Building Council of Australia said the Australian Government’s State of Australian Cities 2010 report would support the property and construction sector’s drive to Sustainability. GBCA chief executive Romilly Madews said the new Green Star –Communities environmental rating tool, which is under development would help address the key ...Read More > >