A recipe ripe for disaster

webmaster Letters, Normal

The amendment to the Environment Act to prevent landowners from taking resource development companies to court of law to seek remedy or compensation for damages done to their environment is another sign of a weak government.
The government has failed in its duty by not funding independent and reputable consultants to verify and audit resource developers’ environmental impact studies. 
The government also failed to conduct awareness and educate the people living in the footprint of resource development.
This is another bad piece of law that comes on the heels of the amendments to the Ombudsman Commission Act.
This repressive law adds further to the perception that this government is heading down a dictatorial path.
The timing and manner in which this amendment is pushed through raises suspicion as to who the real architects of the amendment are.
It rings a bell on a similar case in 1995 when BHP lawyers drafted amendments to Ok Tedi Mining Act (8th supplemental agreement) and pushed the PNG government to pass the amendments.
It prevented Papua New Guineans from suing resource developers in foreign countries or to seek recourse in foreign courts (against resource development companies for actions committed in PNG).
The amendments to Ok Tedi Mining Act was passed to prevent Fly River people from seeking compensation in Victorian (Australia) supreme court from damages to their river by Ok Tedi mine operated by BHP.
This type of hijacking of PNG Parliament by vested interests through the executive arm is becoming a norm nowadays as confirmed recently by Dr Allan Marat’s revelations that the PNG LNG agreements were drafted in a foreign country and bulldozed through Parliament.
Whose interest is the government representing?
If the law makes it illegal to pursue redress, remedy, cessation or compensation, what other venue is there for the aggrieved to pursue? 
The amendment to the Environment Act is a workmanship of shortsighted and selfish MPs and is a recipe for disaster.

 

Enlightened
Townsville, Queensland