Feathers fly over unwanted blow ins to Brisbane dress circle suburb
Brookfield residents says they are being overrun by snakes and turkeys released in their leafy suburb.
QLD Business
Don't miss out on the headlines from QLD Business. Followed categories will be added to My News.
WILD AT HEART
IT’S home to some of Brisbane’s wealthiest business people but for some reason the dress-circle suburb of Brookfield also has become a dumping ground for wildlife of both the scaly and feathered variety.
Your diarist reported earlier this week that residents of Savages Road have erected a sign warning snake catchers not to release reptiles in the area because they are snacking on local chickens. One residents complains he has had 16 snakes suddenly appear in his backyard.
Now it can be revealed that snakes are not the only wildlife being relocated to, or dumped in, the leafy suburb. Local environmentalist and ecologist Gordon Wilkinson says scrub turkeys and possums are among the animals regularly released in the Savages Road area.
“A couple of years back a neighbor saw six scrub turkeys being released here,” says Wilkinson. “This upsets the ecosystem even though we do have local scrub turkeys.”
The Environment Department says there are rules around the capture and release of wildlife. Snakes for example must be taken in a humane manner and released the same day as capture. The snakes also must be released as “close as possible to the place of capture” but regard must be had to public safety.
PEOPLE POWER
SURGING power prices in Queensland are set to be challenged in court with the two-state owned generators Stanwell and CS Energy in the firing line.
Piper Alderman has launched an energy class action against the two generators for allegedly misusing their market power to inflate energy prices.
Piper Alderman special counsel Lachlan Lamont says the basis of the case is that the generators are using “gaming strategies” to create artificial scarcity of supply in the National Electricity Market which results in spikes in prices.
Lamont says this conduct amounts to a contravention of the competition laws which prohibits misuse of market power.
Piper Alderman says that since 2007 Australian electricity prices have increased faster than any other OECD country with Queensland prices rising faster than any other state or territory. One major manufacturer feeling the pinch of unsustainable high power prices is Rio Tinto which this week wrote down the value of its Boyne aluminium smelter by US$118 million and warned the future of 1000 workers at the plant depended on cheaper energy.
Lamont has already signed up 5000 businesses and consumers to the class action and has been touring Queensland regional areas to drum up support.
He recently met with canegrowers in Bundaberg which have long been victims of high power prices. Lamont say the only solution is to break up the big generators so the market becomes more competitive.
But he points out state governments - no matter who is in power are reluctant to do that because of the “super profits” they reap from the generators. “It really is taxation by stealth,” he says. Watch this space!
ON THE DEFENCE
Both Stanwell and CS Energy have vowed to defend the action and refuted the allegations of misuse of market power being made by Piper Alderman.
Stanwell says it has an impeccable record of compliance with all of the laws and rules which govern the National Electricity Market and the law firm has been “very selective in their publication of out-of-context snippets from detailed and complex regulatory reports.”
SENTINEL TV
With COVID-19 putting a kibosh on Sentinel Property Group’s regular half-yearly roadshows, the commercial real estate investment trust turned to a live broadcast from its Brisbane base to bring investors around the country up to speed on latest developments during the pandemic.
Sentinel‘s boardroom – known as the Colosseum – was transformed into a TV-style broadcast studio to substitute for the investor functions which would have been held in venues around this time of year in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
The online broadcast watched live by several hundred investors naturally starred Sentinel executive chairman Warren Ebert, who relished his Alan Kohler-type role explaining the market conditions in which Sentinel has performed “exceptionally well.”
Sentinel CEO, Stacey Jones, said the Group had only lost one out of 619 tenants across its entire portfolio due to the COVID-19 outbreak.