Level 11, 575 Bourke Street, Melbourne, VIC, 3000
Phone: 61 3 8621 2888 Email: client.services@mckeanpark.com.au
Articles
Below is a list of McKean Park Articles:
Flexible Work Arrangements under the Equal Opportunity Act 1995 (Vic)
Service Area: Workplace Relations
A Carbon Market in Australia
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
Most people will recall the debate following last year’s Federal Election as to whether Australia should make a commitment to reduce its carbon emissions by a fixed percentage before 2020. In the event, the government declined to make such a commitment but seems likely in the near future, to commit to a larger reduction, by a later date.
A Carbon Market in Australia
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
What is a Carbon Market?
In simple terms, a carbon market is merely a bourse where those who have a legal need to, may purchase either emission permits or emission credits. An emission permit gives the holder permission to emit a tonne of CO2-e. An emission credit is to the same effect and is available because someone else has captured and will retain for a fixed period a tonne of CO2-e as a counterbalance.
Embodied Energy in Carbon Market
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
Those who will need to purchase emission permits or emission credits in a carbon market are those who are substantial emitters of carbon and consequently required to acquit their emissions with either emission permits or emission credits. They pass the cost of the purchases on in the price of the goods they sell. The most significant of those who will be required to purchase in the carbon market will be the producers of non-renewable energy derived from coal, oil and gas.
Buying Off-The-Plan: Tips for Investors
Service Area: Property / Conveyancing
In the last decade buying property off-the-plan has become exponentially more popular in many major Australian cities. As the eponym suggests, buying “off-the-plan” means entering into a contract to purchase a property on the basis of design drawings before it has been built. For the investor there are many reasons to consider buying off-the-plan including a lower entry price into the property market, taxation benefits and stamp duty savings as well as capital growth and a fruitful return.
Five Star Building Problems
Author: Ross Blair
The Victorian Government is considering major changes to its five-star building regulations. These regulations were introduced with considerable fanfare in 2002 but have subsequently proved something of a disappointment. True, there may have been some reduction in energy and water usage in new homes as a result of the regulations, although even this is debatable. On the other hand, the regulations have caused considerable problems particularly for first home buyers that ought to have been foreseen at the outset and avoided.
Droughts
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
Drought is nothing new to Australia, nor for that matter, to the author of this paper who was born at Manangatang in the Victorian Mallee during the course of the infamous 1933-1945 drought which ravaged inland southern Australia through the years of the Depression and World War II.
Trouble Getting into Your Car Park?
Service Area: Owners Corporation
I recently received a call from a owners corporation manager who was enquiring as to the rights of an aggrieved member who returns home to find that an unknown vehicle has been parked in his private car space.
This article explores the options available to the member.
Hydrogen - Energy of the Future
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
The Commonwealth Government’s sudden realisation of how badly Australia is trailing in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, has lead to a rush for ‘off the peg’ partial solutions to this problem.
An Augur’s Guide to Repairs and Maintenance
Service Area: Owners Corporation
The Birth of Negligence
It was almost 80 years ago that Miss May Donoghue took her seat at the Wellmeadow Café in the Scottish town of Paisley whereupon her companion, a Mr Gutteridge, ordered and paid for a bottle of ginger beer. The owner served the order and May drank some of the ginger beer from a glass. Mr Gutteridge then commenced to pour the remaining portion into his tumbler when he noticed the remains of a decomposed snail fall out of the bottle. May later complained of stomach pain and emotional distress suffered as a result of the incident.
Getting Smart About Greenhouse
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
For some time there have been two schools of thought as to how the world might go about abating global warming. Both involve very considerable increases in the price of fossil fuel energy.
The Scourge of Global Warming
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
It seems amazing that the combination of two atoms of oxygen and one of carbon can be causing mother earth such a problem. After all, the total CO2 present in the atmosphere is only about .03% and even with the addition of other greenhouse gases like methane, nitrous oxide, water vapour and the various CFCs, the total of carbon based gases is still less than .05% compared with the predominant gases, nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (20%).
Licenses to Use Crown Land
Author: Ross Blair
A recent case referred to me, shows very clearly the extreme care licensees need to exercise in placing reliance on licences to use Crown land. The case involved the purchase of a substantial business asset and the goodwill of the business conducted with the asset for a figure in excess of a million dollars. As a legal requirement, the owner of the asset and the related business, was required to hold a series of permits, licences and leases including a license to use a small area of adjacent Crown land. That licence was crucial to the operation of the business.
Renegotiating the Kyoto Treaty
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
The Prime Minister and senior ministers have spoken frequently of their wish to negotiate the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which 'blossomed' into an international treaty in 2005 when ratification by Russia ensured that a sufficient acceptance of the document had occurred to meet its legal requirements. Of the nations who were entitled to ratify the treaty, the United States and Australia are the only significant nations to have refused to do so.
Global Warning (Things you need to know about Global Warming)
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
The continuation and possible worsening of the great dry that has spread over most of Australia appears at last to have brought global warming onto the politicians’ radars. That result was inevitable, the only question ever was when would it occur. Many of us thought not for some time yet, probably not until one or two more giant storms like Katrina. But un-dramatic as it is, the dry is affecting all of us because of its duration and intensity. The concern now is that it has happened far sooner than most of us expected. This, in turn, has been interpreted as indicating that the intensity of global warming is greater and the speed of its onset faster than, at least mainstream forecasters, have previously predicted. If that is the case, it is a matter of grave concern for all of us.
(An Inconvenient) Truth Must Out
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
There will, of course, be those who reject the arguments put forward by former US Vice President Al Gore in his film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. Very few of the scientists concerned with the issues of global warming however, will be included in that group.
Birth of Global Warming
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
Most people believe global warming is a phenomenon that people first became aware of some time in the 1980s. The general view is that it commenced with the publication of a report of the Charney Panel given to the United States’ National Academy of Sciences. A concerned President Jimmy Carter had commissioned the report in 1979. Its findings were completely unequivocal. The Panel said ". . . if carbon dioxide continues to increase, the study group finds no reason to doubt that climate changes will result and no reason to believe that these changes will be negligible."
Drought or Permanent Condition?
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
Australians are very familiar with drought. Ours is, after all, the world’s driest continent, if taken on a per hectare rather than on a per person basis. Most of the country ranges from outright desert to fairly marginal dry farming and grazing land. But Australian farmers and graziers have developed many skills. It is these that enable them to make a sufficient income in reasonable years that tides them over the inevitable droughts that lie in between. The use of artesian water, improved seed types, greater mechanisation, mulga for stock feed, droving the ‘long paddock’ and many other innovative and practical ‘tools’ has always ensured survival in ‘normal’ droughts.
The Greenhouse Chain Reaction
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
Back in the 1940’s, much of the public discussion about Nuclear Energy centred around the possibility that the splitting of an atom could trigger a chain reaction that would be both uncontrollable and cataclysmic.
Nukes In Our Future
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
As I said last October in ‘A Technological Answer to Global Climate Change’ (www.mckeanpark.com.au), “. . the likelihood is that we will shortly be debating (the use on nuclear energy)”. And so it has transpired. With what seems a sudden realisation that global warming is a massive problem that will not await Australia’s dawdling approach, the government has set up, with unbelievable haste, the inevitable inquiry to precede a “debate”.
The Australian Greenhouse Story - 1. The Background
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
In 1997 a most enthusiastic Robert Hill, on his return from the Kyoto Conference assured everyone who would listen that the Protocol, which bears the name of the host city, was a ‘win win win for Australia’. Hill, at the time was speaking as Minister for the Environment.
The Australian Greenhouse Story - 2. What Went Wrong
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
All this seemed perfectly reasonable to the Australian Government in 1997, and well it might. Australia had also secured a special benefit from Kyoto that no other nation enjoyed. At an earlier conference Australia pointed out that what is called ‘land use change’ caused the emission of huge quantities of CO2 particularly if the land use change was forest clearing.
The Australian Greenhouse Story - 3. What Happened Next
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
The Australian Government in 1997 knew it had an easy path into the first commitment period (2008-2012). It needed to do almost nothing to meet its target and that is exactly what it did do – almost nothing. The government concentrated on maintaining ‘business as usual’.
The Australian Greenhouse Story - 4. Problems
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
CO2, although not toxic in the ordinary sense of that word, is at least as lethal if large quantities are involved. Geosequestration (CCS) as currently planned, is based on the attempted ‘storage’ of quantities of CO2 and for periods way beyond anything humans have attempted before. We will, in effect be ‘playing it by ear’ because of our lack of knowledge of what is involved at this level.
The Australian Greenhouse Story - 5. More Problems
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
CO2, although not toxic in the ordinary sense of that word, is at least as lethal if large quantities are involved. Geosequestration (CCS) as currently planned, is based on the attempted ‘storage’ of quantities of CO2 and for periods way beyond anything humans have attempted before. We will, in effect be ‘playing it by ear’ because of our lack of knowledge of what is involved at this level.
The Australian Greenhouse Story - 6. But There's More
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
In 2004, the world emitted about 7 billion tonnes of carbon. A fair mid-range estimate would see this increase to about 14 billion tonnes a year by 2054 under ‘business as usual’ condition. These figures demonstrate that a huge problem exists in that the world want business to continue as usual because by and large financial results for over a decade have been excellent.
The Australian Greenhouse Story - 7. Some Conclusions
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
In the 6 earlier papers of this series the McKean & Park Future Law Team has attempted to provide an outline of occurrences in ‘the Australian Greenhouse Story’ over the past 10 years or so. We have tried to outline the problems and to look at solutions. We have tried to explain policies, why they have been implemented, where they have failed.
Remembering Lake Nyos
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
As, apparently, we Victorians move towards the storage of liquid CO2 in unused wells and aquifers, it would be opportune to recollect some of the facts surrounding the CO2 blowout at Lake Nyos in Western Cameroon on 21 August 1986.
A Technological Answer To Global Climate Change
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
The government has said for some time that it does not see an Emissions Trading Market as the way to go in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It favours technological solutions. Over the past year or so it has pursued this line more aggressively, pointing out that the world needs to reduce atmospheric CO2 at a much faster rate than Kyoto provides. This, it says, can be achieved only through technological solutions.
Climate Change – Issuing the Writs
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
Let’s say you’re a Mallee farmer whose crops have failed due to ten consecutive years of drought. Or you have commercial interests at Buller or Falls Creek and snow hasn’t fallen in a decade. So what are you going to do about it?
The Warnings of Hurricane Katrina
Author: Ross Blair
Service Area: Future Law Team
It would be quite wrong to suggest that Hurricane Katrina was the result of Global Warming or was intensified by the climatic changes that Global Warming is predicted to produce.