AFP letter warns MPs delay reporting crimes could lead to reoffending in wake of Brittany Higgins rape allegation
"Smoke screen: how Australia's biggest polluters have been free to increase emissions "Fires and floods: Australia already seesaws between climate extremes – and there's more to come "High troposphere superstorms bring welcome rain to Australia."" "
By political reporter Jade Macmillan Posted 4h ago, updated 5m ago
AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw wrote a letter to MPs urging them to report crimes in the wake of an alleged rape in Parliament House.(ABC News: Luke Stephenson)
The head of the Australian Federal Police has warned Prime Minister Scott Morrison about the need for politicians to report crimes quickly, as fallout from a rape allegation made by former staffer Brittany Higgins continues.
Key points:
* The Prime Minister says he requested a letter from the AFP to provide guidance to MPs
*The letter warns against delay in reporting criminal conduct
* A number of ministers were aware of a 2019 allegation of rape in Parliament House before they were made public last week, prompting questions about how they responded
"I cannot state strongly enough the importance of timely referrals of allegations of criminal conduct," Commissioner Reece Kershaw said in the letter, first published by news.com.au.
"Failure to report alleged criminal behaviour in this manner, or choosing to communicate or disseminate allegations via other means, such as through the media or third parties, risks prejudicing any subsequent police investigation.
"Any delay in reporting criminal conduct can result in the loss of key evidence, continuation of the offending and/or reoffending by the alleged perpetrator."
Scott Morrison's office said the Prime Minister requested the letter to provide members and senators with clear guidance of what to do if they received a complaint.
Mr Morrison then wrote to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Senate President asking for Commissioner Kershaw's advice to be circulated to all politicians.
"As we all appreciate, these are serious and traumatic events for anyone to deal with," he said.
"The events of the past fortnight have demonstrated again why it is so important that all members and senators are informed of their responsibilities in these situations, both to provide compassionate support to those who are affected and to ensure that we uphold the rule of law in dealing with these issues."
Commissioner Kershaw said members, senators and their offices could receive complaints from a variety of sources but that they should be referred to the AFP without delay, "taking into account the rights and privacy of the victim".
He said that should happen regardless of which jurisdiction in which the alleged conduct occurred.
Former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins alleges she was raped in 2019 in Parliament House.(Supplied)
PM 'wishes' he'd been told
Ms Higgins made a formal complaint to police on Wednesday, alleging she was raped by a male colleague inside Parliament House in 2019.
A number of federal government ministers were aware of the allegations before they were made public last week, prompting questions about how they responded.
Ms Higgins's employer at the time of the alleged rape, Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, has apologised for the way Ms Higgins was treated in the aftermath of the alleged incident, but insists she always acted in what she believed was her staffer's best interests.
In question time, Mr Morrison defended Senator Reynolds for speaking with police after she became aware of the allegations.
"It's very clear that what we should seek to do is both in supporting the person who'd be the subject of any possible complaint, that we should seek to ensure that these matters are brought to the attention of the police," he told Parliament.
"Which is what (Senator Reynolds) did."
However, Mr Morrison said Senator Reynolds could have informed him of what had happened.
"That Minister did not disclose that in an anonymised way," he told parliament.
"That is something that I wish she had, but she did not.
"And her reasons for doing that was to protect Brittany Higgins' privacy. She has said that and I've reflected on that people may form different views about whether that was a wise decision."
Mr Morrison has repeatedly said he did not find out about the allegations until the day they were published, despite his office becoming aware several days earlier.
Australia’s carbon credit scheme ‘largely a sham’, says whistleblower who tried to rein it in
"Smoke screen: how Australia's biggest polluters have been free to increase emissions"
I'd guess there may be some relevance somewhere in this to current United States carbon policy.
Australian companies put good government policy before profit. Extraordinary. Some Australian companies who are actually making money from Australia's Cap and Trade (carbon emissions) scheme have come out in support of serious criticism of the scheme. They say they should not be getting credits for business practice they would normally perform. In going public, as some recently have, they are exhibiting an extraordinary public duty in encouraging good government public policy before personal company profits. The companies are in essence supporting this whistleblower's claims.
Australia’s carbon credit scheme ‘largely a sham’, says whistleblower who tried to rein it in
Prof Andrew Macintosh says the system, which gives credits for projects such as regrowing native forests after clearing, is ‘a fraud’ on the environment, taxpayers and consumers
Professor Andrew Macintosh is an environmental law and policy expert at The Australian National University (ANU). Australia. Photograph: Energy Transition Hub
Adam Morton Climate and environment editor Wed 23 Mar 2022 19.35 AEDT Last modified on Thu 24 Mar 2022 09.21 AEDT
A whistleblower who spent years working on the integrity of the Australian government’s carbon credit system has launched an extraordinary attack on the scheme, describing it as a fraud that is hurting the environment and has wasted more than $1bn in taxpayer funding.
Prof Andrew Macintosh, the former head of the government’s Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee, said the growing carbon market overseen by the government and the Clean Energy Regulator was “largely a sham” as most of the carbon credits approved did not represent real or new cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
It also raises questions for the rapidly growing number of polluting companies promising to buy carbon credits to offset their impact on the planet. The private market in carbon credits was worth $150m last year.
Macintosh, an environment law and policy professor at the Australian National University, said all major methods approved by the government to create carbon credits had “serious integrity issues, either in their design or the way they are being administered”.
This particularly applied to projects for regrowing native forests in cleared areas. Known as “human-induced regeneration”, it is the most popular method used to create carbon credits. Landholders using the method have signed contracts with the government worth an estimated $1.5bn.
Macintosh and his colleagues analysed 119 human-induced regeneration projects in New South Wales and Queensland. They found that despite the government issuing 17.5m carbon credits to these projects – with each credit meant to represent one tonne of carbon dioxide absorbed by growing trees – the total forest area had barely increased.
Q&A What are carbon credits? Show ---- [INSIDE]
For 59 of the projects, the amount of forest was found to have reduced. They still received 8.2m carbon credits, worth more than$100m.
The researchers also found problems with projects at landfill sites that are awarded credits for capturing methane – a potent greenhouse gas released from waste – and using it to run on-site electricity generators.
Macintosh said nearly two-thirds of the claimed cuts in emissions would have happened anyway because the power projects were economically viable without carbon credit revenue. It meant the carbon credits generated did not represent “additional” cuts in emissions, as required under law.
-- A billion dollars in public money has been wasted Prof Andrew Macintosh --
“What is occurring is a fraud on the environment, a fraud on taxpayers and a fraud on unwitting consumers,” he said.
“People are getting credits for not clearing forests that were never going to be cleared, they are getting credits for growing trees that are already there, they are getting credits for growing forests in places that will never sustain permanent forests and they are getting credits for operating electricity generators at large landfills that would have operated anyway.”
‘The public deserves an explanation’
Macintosh described himself as a “deep believer” in the ability of environmental markets to drive behaviour change and improve environmental outcomes in a cost-effective manner, but said the government needed to take immediate steps for the carbon market to be worthwhile.
He called for it to abolish the flawed methods, stop low integrity projects from receiving further credits and set up an independent inquiry into the failures of the system with the power to compel people to give evidence.
“The public deserves an explanation for what has occurred and what can be done to ensure this does not happen again,” he said.
Macintosh said he believed the initial errors in how carbon credits were issued were unintentional, but subsequently attempts had been made to cover up those mistakes. More recently, as demand for credits increased with fossil fuel companies under pressure to show they were addressing the climate crisis, he believed the government had made a conscious decision to prioritise building an abundant supply of cheap offsets over ensuring their integrity.
Andrew Macintosh criticised the award of carbon credits to projects that capture methane from landfill to generate electricity. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
Macintosh said the failures in the carbon credit system were in part due to a single agency, the Clean Energy Regulator,being responsible for almost everything: designing and regulating carbon credit methods, advising and providing the secretariat for the committee that oversees the integrity of the methods, and buying credits on behalf of the government.
“It is a case study in poor governance,” he said.
The regulator rejected Macintosh’s assertions, saying both it and the committee had undertaken considerable work using independent experts to test claims made by Macintosh and found no evidence to support them.
“Analytical material provided previously by Professor Macintosh has been refuted by more sophisticated independent analysis,” a spokesperson said.
The regulator said it had “well established and rigorous processes” to address potential conflicts of interest that arose from it developing carbon credits methods and issuing and purchasing credits, and that the emissions reduction fund was a “robust offsets scheme with a high degree of integrity”.
It said issuing carbon credits was underpinned by “rigorous assessment processes” using geographic information system mapping and other “big data”, and that compliance was assured through audits.
On the native forest regeneration method, it said a review had found “a very high” level of compliance. Legislation prevented it from releasing data from the specific forest areas that had been used to estimate the change in carbon storage due to regrowth, but they did not match Macintosh’s analysis, it said.
Macintosh said there was nothing in the legislation stopping the regulator from releasing the data aggregated across all project sites, or on a project-by-project basis with identifying information removed. He said a lack of transparency was a major problem with the system.
Q&A What do Macintosh and his colleagues specifically allege? Show ---- [INSIDE]
A spokesperson for the emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, said as chair of the committee Macintosh had reviewed and signed off on methods that he now claimed lack integrity. “Is [he] now suggesting he provided flawed advice to successive commonwealth cabinet ministers?”
The Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee was also contacted for comment.
Macintosh said he attempted to address the problems with carbon credits while on the committee but had limited success, and regretted he had not taken a stronger stance on some issues. He said he had continued to try to persuade the regulator and other officials of the need to act before deciding to go public.
Macintosh’s intervention is the strongest in what has become a growing call for an overhaul of how carbon credits are issued, and of the emissions reduction fund.
Macintosh said the analysis by him and his colleagues had two main implications.
“Firstly, $1bn in public money has been wasted. The Clean Energy Regulator was meant to be buying emissions abatement but, by and large, it has bought nothing,” he said.
“Secondly, where these low integrity credits are being used to offset emissions from polluters, it is actually increasing emissions … because we get the increase in emissions from the polluters but there is no [genuine] offsetting.”
Carbon credits are central to the government’s plan to reach net zero emissions by 2050. The plan, which has been criticised for a lack of detail or new policies, says up to 20% of the cut in emissions needed will come from carbon offsets.
To that end, the government is planning to significantly expand the number of ways under which companies can earn carbon credits. It has approved a new methodology that allows fossil fuel companies to generate credits by using carbon capture and storage.
Taylor announced in January that generation of credits would also be allowed through plantation forestry, emissions cuts at industrial sites, and the use of biomethane and “blue carbon” – storing carbon in coastal wetland ecosystems.
The minister has taken two other steps in recent weeks to increase the supply and trade of carbon credits.
The first was to release credit-generating companies from government contracts under the emissions reduction fund so they can earn more on the private market, which triggered a sharp fall in the carbon price for polluting businesses. The second was to cut the tax rate on the sale of carbon credits for primary producers.
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