When the federal government bungled its Carmichael mine approval, it blamed its defeat in the Federal Court on ‘vigilante lawfare’.
This very same government has stood by while a major offshore oil and gas supply base was built on Melville Island in the pristine Top End waterway, recognised internationally for its conservation values.
Despite the NT government’s environment department iin 2013 ssuing a series of warnings to the federal government, which has the responsibility for such development, it was ignored and this development by a foreign company to service the Timor Strait oil and gas industry proceeded unheeded with no environmental approvals or oversights.
After Senator Nova Peris raised this matter in parliament the government is scurrying to explain itself!
On our home front in the Tweed this same government has made the decision that airport expansion can proceed along the shores of the Lower Tweed River Estuary without any environmental approvals or oversights.
This is despite this area of our estuary recognised for its national environmental significance, international agreements to protect the migratory birds and that a number of previous developments required federal approvals and oversight!
And now this government is proposing to remove the rights of our nation’s citizens from upholding the law to protect our nations environmental values and priceless water resources for future generations.
Lindy Smith, Tweed Heads
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
