Exhausting lungs with spin

Queenslander!

Last year the Federal Government began an environmental audit of the Paradise Dam, west of Bundaberg in south-east Queensland. The result is here.

If there was confirmation the dam is complying with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 you would expect the subsequent press releases from State Water Minister Craig Wallace to flood the MSM. You would also expect the State Government to now use it as an example of successful dam operation to illustrate its arguments in favour of the Traveston Crossing proposal, if there was confirmation the dam is complying with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

What the summary of findings of the dam’s performance audit does refer to is “only partial compliance with a key condition” of the dam’s approval in 2002 by then Environment Minister David Kemp.

However, the minister says “the audit report confirmed what the State Government has said since the dam was constructed in 2005 — that all steps have been taken to ensure it is environmentally responsible”. Well the audit report actually says the Paradise Dam was approved “subject to conditions for the protection of relevant matters of national environmental significance”. One crucial condition being that the dam provide downstream access for the Queensland lungfish. On this it fails to achieve full compliance on the lungfish, specifically listed as vulnerable under the EPBC Act. Don't worry, Minister Wallace assures us “the Paradise Dam has good green credentials".

Really? The report goes on to quote the dam’s operating authority as admitting the fishway to be an imperfect compromise between lungfish protection and “cost-effectiveness”.

This is far from the Compliance Audit of Paradise Dam confirming the dam is complying with the Act, as claimed by Mr Wallace, and in reality confirms the Minister prefers to spin rather than address the vital and legally relevant environmental issue of the dam.