Logan and Albert Conservation Association
MIRVAC DEVELOPMENT HAS NO APPROVALS YET –
WHAT ARE YOUR CONCERNS? Voice them in a submission
You might like to see concerns that LACA Logan and Albert Conservation Association has at link below.
Shown below is the concept map presented to community meetings and available on website http://greenbank.mirvac.com/ as well as a Mirvac factsheet
STORYBOARDS as displayed at community meetings are available here.
WRITE A LETTER – DEADLINE 19 December 2016
Any person may on or before 19/12/16 make a written submission to
EDQ Development Assessment
Dept of Infrastructure , Local Government and Planning
PO BOX 15009 ,City East, QLD, 4002
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Phone: Tom Barker 3452 7440
MIRVAC DEV 2016/768 – DEVELOPMENT APPLICATION (to Economic Development Queensland )
Applicant: MIRVAC QLD PTY LTD c/- URBIS PTY LTD
EDQ No: DEV 2016/768 ( QLD GOVT)
At 96 – 102 Brightwell St ,138 – 168 Teviot Rd and 456-520 Greenbank Rd QLD Greenbank, 4124
(Lots 205 & 434 on RP845844 and Lot 9 on S312355)
See application at MIRVAC application and read appendices
PDA preliminary approval for development generally in accordance with a context plan and PDA development permit for reconfiguring a lot (3 lots into 579 residential lots and parkland); material change of use for residential uses (display home, home based business, house, multiple residential and other residential), park and sales office; and operational works (advertising devices) in accordance with a plan of development
ONLINE DOCUMENTS :
Detailed development documents are online under DEV 2016/768 MIRVAC
Development, dogs, disease and car hits behind koala crash - add to that people.
Media has many articles / reports about the state of koalas in South East Queensland - especially Redlands
EXTENSION for deadline for submissions on the Vegetation Management (Reinstatement) Bill to
Friday 29 April 2016! - update provided by The Environmental Defenders Office Qld.
A hand written letter or text document can be posted / faxed to 07 3553 6699 / emailed to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Postal address Research Director
Agriculture and Environment Committee
Parliament House
BRISBANE QLD 4000
Submissions must include:
To have this significant legislation re-instated is vitally important for the future well-being of the land and all species and ecosystems that rely on a healthy forested landscape. CLICK ON WWF image above to make your submission online to your local state MP. Not all members of the opposition - or independants - are opposed to re-instatement of this legislation. It is also an opportunity extend the legislation to close loopholes. As WWF point out The VMROLA Bill is already a significant compromise. Damaging loopholes remain and should be closed. 
LACA will take the opportunity on
Sunday 2 pm, 20 March 2016 at
Shailer Park State High School Hall
to call for stronger than ever vegetation clearing laws, given the recent report by WWF World Wildlife Fund that during the Newman government year 2013-14 around 300 000 hectares (including 40 000 ha of Koala habitat) was cleared compared to a total of 77 000 ha in 2009-10.
The 2013-14 rate of clearing under the Newman government put Queensland back up with Brazil and Indonesia as the worst in the world for deforestation. Biodiversity is now fast approaching tipping points in Queensland and the greenhouse gases released by this level of clearing have severely limited Australia’s chances of meeting its climate change mitigation targets.
Come to the meeting next Sunday, get the facts from a panel of speakers and have a chance to ask questions and have your say about the need for stronger vegetation clearing laws in Queensland.’
Barry Fitzpatrick is a long term passionate advocate and campaigner and LACA's spokesperson about the environment - in particular wetlands, Great Barier Reef and climate change.
Speakers from the Wilderness Society will also be leading discussion. Both organisations LACA Logan and Albert Conservation Association and the Wilderness Society understand that if we don't take actions to reduce climate emissions it will have deeply negative impacts on our natural environment, the Great Barrier Reef and all that rely on both.
The state of vegetation clearing in Queensland revealed by a CO2 study commissioned by the Wilderness Society is alarming and reveals concering discrepancies. Lyndon Schneiders, national campaigns director of the Wilderness Society, says the new data shows
Australia is “lying to the world and lying to ourselves” about the true state of greenhouse emissions.
Read the coverage of the situation from The Guardian
LACA appreciates the opportunty to particiate at this public forum. LACA does not support particular political parties but does support good policy and is encouraged that the Queensland Government ALP Member for Springwood is hosting.
Let's come together on Sunday to discuss our ideas to be presented in parliament to help formulate the good policy that is needed to protect our shared environment.
Persicaria elatior featured as plant of the month April 2009. Listed as vulnerable under the Queensland Nature Conservation Act, Persicaria elatior has rarely been seen in Queensland, being recorded by the Queensland Herbarium only 6 times before this discovery - at Cornubia Wetlands Reserve
Ratifying the TPP with ISDS inclusions will not be in Australia’s national interest......
4 days left to HAVE YOUR SAY ie make a submission to the Senate sub-committee due this Friday 11 March 2016.
A Senate committee is about to assess whether the TPP, Trans Pacific Partnership, as it stands, is ‘in the national interest’. The Turnbull Government will then put forward legislation to ‘ratify’ the TPP. If this is then approved by a majority in the Senate, Australia will be stuck with this agreement for longer than most of our lifetimes.
Submissions can be emailed directly to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Submissions are ultimately all about numbers.
LACA believes this "FREE TRADE" agreement is the most dangerous and immediate threat to our capacity to protect the environment from climate change, and future bad development decisions. With its toxic Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provision in the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement our country's ability to make decisions can be challenged by a corporation and go to trial at an offshore international tribunal.
In order to assist you LACA has a prepared a question and answer backgrounder for those not familiar with this issue. Read it here 
TransPacificPartnership_QuestionandAnswer.docx
Brief one page summary submission for a quick cut and paste and send today TPP-ISDS_Submission-brief.docx
There is also a longer more detailed document if you prefer TPP_Submission-to-JSCOT.docx
Please send your submission to the Senate Committee before this coming Friday 11 March, letting the Senate committee know that you do not see the TPP with ISDS inclusions as even remotely ‘in Australia’s national interest’.
HAVE YOUR SAY on this critically important matter.
Submissions can be emailed directly to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
LACA has been writing about this issue for several years. If you are new to the issue search for TPP in the search function of thsi website.
In addition EDO provides some useful links at http://www.edoqld.org.au/news/have-your-say-on-the-tpp/
Do we want a pro-fossil-fuel, anti-environmental Abbott-type government in office - permanently?
ISDS threats / agreements are currently part of TPP or TPPA Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement
Richard Ackland’s article in last weekend's 'The Saturday Paper' sums up the ISDS / Investor-State Dispute Settlement threat perfectly:
‘So here we have a potential for environmental protections to be struck down, and where the consequences would be to create a chilling effect on governments that contemplate the introduction of new laws and regulations in this area. It would be like having a pro-fossil-fuel, anti-environmental Abbott-type government permanently in office’
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2016/02/13/trans-pacific-partnership-stall-climate-change-action/14552820002886
There remains a vital window of opportunity for us to press for the removal of ISDS provisions in the TPP: while the TPP agreement has now been accepted by Australia and the 11 other nations involved, it has not yet been ratified through parliament. This is expected to occur over the first half of this year. Labor and the Greens do not support ISDS in free trade agreements, but Labor may support the passing of TPP legislation including ISDS if there is not enough public outcry.
So building community awareness and lobbying Labor members and the Senate is crucial now.
Need to know more?
See the attached question and answer guide to knowing more about how ISDS in free trade deals will impact on our future capacity to protect unique Australian environment .
TransPacificPartnershipQuestionandAnswer.docx18/02/2016, 13:33
Contact Barry Fitzpatrick (LACA ISDS campaign leader) 0427002640
Last question in Q and A document: What can I do to stop the Turnbull Government from ratifying the TPP with ISDS?
A: Write to your local federal member and senators, objecting to the inclusion of ISDS in the TPP.
Urge them to support you in seeking a re-negotiation of the TPP without ISDS.
Write to each of the members of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties http://www.aph.gov.au/jsct which will be providing a final report on the TPP before the Turnbull Government moves to ratify the agreement.
Above all, let as many people as you can know about the threat that ISDS poses not only to our future environmental regulations
but also social, health and internet regulations.
The Treaties Committee is empowered by its resolution of appointment to inquire into and report on 'matters arising from treaties and related National Interest Analysis and proposed treaty actions presented or deemed to be presented to the Parliament.' The Committee invites interested persons and organisations to make submissions for the the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) by Friday, 11 March 2016. Submissions for this inquiry can be lodged online via the link on this page. For information on how to make a submission, go to our Making a submission to a Parliamentary Inquiry page.
Membership of Treaties Committee can be found here.
GREATER FLAGSTONE is supposed to be one of Queensland's "master planned satellite cities" with planning decisions made by state government - not local councils.
Yet Queensland Government agency DEPARTMENT OF INFRASTRUCTURE, LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND PLANNING has not included local community in any of its planning meetings for North Maclean proposed Enterprise Precinct. There have obviously been detailed meetings with local government Logan City Council and developers as revealed when DAs are added to EDQ website for PDAs.
Currently a seach shows that there are 11 applications relating to Greater Flagstone and 30 applications that have been approved - some in Pub Lane, Teviot Road, Jimboomba, North Maclean, Undullah, Kagaru, New Beith, Cedar Grove. There has never been any community consultation arranged for these 31 applications and as a "master planned city" there is NO CONCEPT PLAN for the "city" which is devoid of adequate infrastructure.
Public notification has not been well displayed - if at all.
820 Greenbank Road is DEV2015/727 by The Planning Place Lot 2 on RP868726 has 14 documents
Action Community has delayed a decision date for 15-20 days after 27 January - apparently an extension granted by applicant?
This gives community and concerned residents more time to make further representations to EDQ state MPs and local politicans.
HAVE YOU WRITTEN YOUR LETTER TO OBJECT TO 820 GREENBANK RD DEV 2015/727? IF NOT email your concerns to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
See a sample letter attached which you might like to use as a guide. It reflects issues that LACA Logan and Albert Conservation Inc has.
NO DECISION YET for 820 Greenbank Rd .
The decision timeline has been extended by 15-20 days apparently because the applicants have agreed to this.
This gives our community more time to lobby and get organized. This is a small win but an important one which has come about as a result of successflly campaigning on behalf of the community.
Please see next article for ideas to help you MAKE YOUR OWN SUBMISSION
This comes despite the verbal assertion by state government planning assessment officer is that a
decision will be made on or before Wednesday 27 January 2016.
Community is being denied a formal consultation process but despite this we can - and should - communicate our concerns to state and federal government!!
An analysis of Council’s nature playground proposal for Murray’s Reserve and the LACA alternative
Introduction
Once believed to be extinct, the only known natural community of the endangered tree Gossia gonoclada left in the world was re-discovered in the late 1980s along the banks of Slacks Creek on Murray’s farm and in what is now Murray’s Reserve. This community numbers around 50 plants, making it one of Australia’s rarest trees. It is listed as ‘endangered’ under the Federal EPBC Act.
Within Murray’s Reserve 75 rainforest flora species including Gossia gonoclada form an important patch of subtropical lowland rainforest partially buffered by other ecosystem types within and beyond the Reserve. Subtropical lowland rainforest only occurs in Australia between Grafton NSW and Maryborough Qld. Because ninety two per cent of it has been cleared since settlement, Sub tropical lowland rainforest is listed as critically endangered under the Federal EPBC Act.
Australia has a very poor record when it comes to protecting our native plants and animals, losing more mammal and plant species over the past 200 years than any other country. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List now puts Australia in the top five nations for extinction of animal and plant species, and the top 10 for the number of species currently in danger of extinction. (1)
Gossia gonoclada at Murray's Reserve
Clearly, Australian governments have failed to provide protection of the habitat of the country’s most endangered species, with 90% of the 120 most endangered animals having few safeguards around loss of their habitats. Recovery plans, with the best intentions, consistently fail in practice to provide genuine measures to limit habitat loss. Indeed it can be argued that, due to the failure to protect habitat in any realistic way, successive governments at all levels are unwittingly helping to entrench the process of extinction across our landscape.
It is with these considerations in mind that LACA believes Council’s ‘nature playground’ proposal for Murray’s Reserve is in need of further consideration with respect to whether, in its current location, it is really compatible with the primary aims of the Reserve, which are to provide adequate protection of the endangered species/plant community on the site.
To help inform this process LACA has prepared the following submission which analyses the Council proposal and puts forward an alternative aimed at strengthening the Murray’s Reserve habitat while still providing for significant community outcomes in this unique part of Logan City.
LACA’s alternative proposal -Complete document
Trans Pacific Partnership Q and A
Q: What is the TPP?
A: ‘TPP’ stands for the Trans Pacific Partnership – a so-called free trade deal between 12 nations rimming the Pacific Ocean. It is really more about entrenching multinational corporate power than free trade, with only six out of the thirty negotiation chapters in the treaty having anything to do with trade. The signatory nations are Australia, US, Canada, New Zealand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Chile, Peru, Japan, and Mexico. It is the biggest ‘free trade’ deal in history. Australia still needs to ratify its agreement through possible legislative changes, and this is likely to happen in February 2016, if these changes are passed by the Senate. The TPP contains ISDS (corporate powers to sue in offshore tribunals), allowing multinationals to bypass our legal system and sue Australia, offshore in a foreign tribunal, if they believe at any time that our environmental and other public interest laws are impacting their profits here.
Q: Will the TPP benefit Australia economically?
A: There is great doubt around this. The TPP is often described as not about trade but about enforcing the rights of multinational corporations to over-rule democratic governments, their citizens and communities. Australia’s Productivity Commission – established to give independent advice to the Government on economic matters - as recently as June 2015 was deeply critical of Australia's latest series of free trade agreements, saying they ‘grant legal rights to foreign investors not available to Australians, expose the government to potentially large unfunded liabilities and add extra costs on businesses attempting to comply with them’.
Under the TPP, some tariff changes for Australian agriculture exporters will be slowly lowered in stages over years, but on the negative side, for example, labelling of national origin of foods is very likely to be prohibited, impacting on local producers and retailers who currently proudly promote their products on the basis of ‘made in Australia.’ The Philippines may in the future join the TPP, meaning that our banana industry could face disease threats.
Trade policies are contentious because they are approximately zero-sum games. There are domestic winners and losers, and although the national welfare gain is not zero, it is usually small. Unlike a good health or social policy, which can make everyone a winner, a trade policy tends to pit the interests of one part of the community against those of another
Q: What is ISDS?