Industry News

The Federal Government is seeking comments on the Draft National Building Energy Standard-Setting, Assessment and Rating Framework.

Under the strategy, Federal, State and Territory governments have committed to developing a framework that will work towards consistent approaches on how buildings are assessed and rated for energy efficiency and sets a pathway for establishing a minimum energy performance standard for new buildings over time.

Comments are welcomed on the Draft Framework until 6 July 2012. Consultation forums on the Draft Framework are also being held in all capital cities in May and June.

For more information on the forums and related documentation, visit Draft National Building Energy Standard-Setting, Assessment and Rating Framework.

The Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government (ACELG) has released a report into the emerging trend of community governance in local government.

The report explores recent trends in community governance throughout the country, recognising it as distinct from the role of and practices of local government.

The report concluded that community governance had evolved to such a point that it is significant to local government planning and development as it represents the interest of council’s constituents.

The ACELG has urged that the relative freedom of local governance that has allowed community governance to flourish be allowed to remain.

The report found 11 key findings:

• Local government's communities have a stronger expectation that they will be involved in decisions which affect them, and this may influence the way in which individuals vote.
• Size and geography both matter.
• A community governance approach changes the roles of elected members, from a purely representative democracy model to one where community input is sought issue by issue.
• It is critical that all parties are well informed.
• A community governance approach highlights the importance of ensuring that the council is able to hear all the voices within the community and not just the traditional 'squeaky wheels' or other loud voices.
• In all councils it is councillors who have ultimate responsibility for the council's policy on community engagement but there is a need to tailor actual delivery to the circumstances of the individual council, other pressures on elected members, and the council's culture and structure.
• Most councils involved in the study have recognised in different ways the need for community capability building initiatives and community governance often amounts to a process for decision-making about a particular place or places within the larger area served by a council.
• Place-based management virtually amounts to a prerequisite for a genuinely effective and comprehensive approach to community governance, and there is likely to be a growing trend for councils to look at reorganising their structures to reflect this.
• There is likely to be tension between state government planning, for example planning directed to allocating anticipated population increases within metropolitan centres, and a community governance approach. The former is a top-down approach to imposing decisions on individual communities and the latter a bottom-up approach expressing the community's preferences.
• Councils adopting a community governance approach recognise the need for three separate roles: around decision-making and implementation, facilitation, and advocacy.
• The development of community governance as discussed in this report should remain free from statutory direction

The full report can be found here

The New South Wales Minister for Local Government, Don Page, has hit out at the expected cost increases that the state’s councils will face after the Federal Government’s Carbon Tax comes into force in July.

Mr Page said the Federal Government has not factored into account the ‘significant impact of the tax on the local government sector.’

Mr Page released the following estimates:

• Dubbo City Council, which has estimated that its power bill alone will increase by $500,000;
• Tamworth Regional Council, which will see its electricity costs increase by $300,000;
• Camden Council, which is budgeting for Carbon Tax costs of $155,000;
• Wagga Wagga City Council, which has already put aside $660,000 to pay for the tax; and
• Shellharbour City Council, which estimates that it could pay up to $800,000 per annum or $15,000,000 over the life of their local tip.

“As Minister, I believe it is appalling that an already struggling sector like local government will have no direct compensation for the huge costs it will face due to the imposition of the Carbon Tax,” Mr Page said.

“Councils have been left confused and uninformed, leaving councils to play a guessing game as to how much the tax will cost them.”

Mr Page’s comments come after it emerged that two local councils in NSW, Shellharbor and Wagga Wagga, will be featured on the country’s top 500 polluters and will have to pay the $23 per tonne of carbon.

The Western Australian Government has announced it will wind back a recent decision on decreasing penalty interest rates to support families.

The move to increase the rates was initially proposed to support families by reducing penalty rates on late payments, but the Western Australian Local Government Association (WALGA) successfully argued that the move would be counter-intuitive and would result in increased costs for the average ratepayer.

The move would have seen the penalty interest charged by Local Government on late rates payments from 11 per cent down to seven per cent.

“While the move was well intentioned, WALGA demonstrated to the Minister that it would actually have the opposite effect to helping families,”  WALGA President Mayor Troy Pickard said.

“WALGA estimated it would have created a $6 million shortfall which would have had to be recovered through rates increases which would actually result in most ratepayers having to pay more.”

Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, has outlined NBN expansion in the North and mid-North Coasts of New South Wales, with expansion in Coffs Harbour, Taree and Port Macquarie expected in mid-2012.

The announcement will see fifteen thousand premises in over 170 communities and seven local government areas receive a fixed wireless service, which is expected to be fully completed in 2015.

"Through the NBN, the government will also deliver uniform national wholesale pricing. This means that people living in and around Coffs Harbour, Taree, and Port Macquarie will pay the same prices for NBN services as people in Sydney, Newcastle, and Wollongong. This is a truly exciting time for broadband consumers in regional and rural Australia,” Senator Conroy said.

Through the use of fixed wireless technology, the NBN will deliver speeds exceeding 8 times of current ADSL speeds.

The Queensland Government has formed an expert panel to review the Cross River Rail Project with an aim to ensure the next major investment in rail is “affordable and meets the future needs of South-East Queensland.”

State Transport and Main Roads Minister Scott Emerson said the panel would help deliver a ‘realistic solution’ for the region’s needs.

The expert panel will consist of:

• Mike Scanlan, Specialist Rail Advisor with more than 35 years in rail transport
• Scott Lennon, Partner of PWC Economics and Policy Group
• Barry Broe, Co-ordinator General

The panel will deliver a report on 13 June 2012 that will properly analyse and confirm the problems facing the rail system, consider the options available, assess the business case already prepared for the project and provide recommendations for consideration by the State Government.

“This project has already cost $40 million, half of that contributed by the Federal Government to develop a business case and determine feasibility,” Mr Emerson said.

The Defence Science and Technology Organisation’s nutrition research facility at Scottsdale in Tasmania is to undergo an $18.7 million upgrade.

The works include the redevelopment of food technology facilities, upgrades to existing chemistry and nutrition laboratories and improvements to site infrastructure and working areas.

Minister for Defence Science and Personnel Warren Snowdon said the redevelopment will result in a modern food science facility equipped to meet the future nutritional needs of ADF personnel and support their performance in highly demanding operational environments.

The redeveloped Scottsdale site is part of an initiative to establish a new Centre of Food Innovation in which the University of Tasmania and the CSIRO are partnering with the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO). The centre will focus on high-tech nutrition and survival foods for high performance athletes and defence personnel.

The Federal Government recently announced $150,000, matched by the University of Tasmania (UTAS) for a business plan to develop commercial opportunities for the proposed Centre for Food Innovation.

Regional Development Minister Simon Crean said the business plan will identify how this latest investment, as well as the partnership in the Centre for Food Innovation can leverage further investment and create more long-jobs in the broader community.”

Construction works will begin this year with an expected completion date in late 2014. The contract for the project has been awarded to Australian company Cockram Constructions.

The Federal Government has launched the new $3.8 million upgrade to Karratha’s Wastewater Recycling and Conveyance System, which is expected to increase the supply of recycled water to the town by over 150 million litres a year.

Launching the project, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water Don Farrell said the Federal Government was contributing $1.5 million to the project, which will fund the upgrade of the site’s wastewater re-use pipeline and pump station.

“This will improve treated wastewater recycling and increase the volume of recycled wastewater available to irrigate the golf course and town ovals,” Senator Farrell said.

“This water would otherwise go to waste but instead will provide an environmentally friendly alternative to mains water use.

That project will save more than 1,100 million litres of drinking-quality water across the West Pilbara region.

The Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings has released the Government’s blueprint for energy reform, announcing that power retailing will be privatised, but the wholesale electricity market will be kept in public hands, despite a recommendation by the Expert Panel that it be open to competition.

Under the reforms, the customer base of the state-owned electricity retailer Aurora Energy will be sold off in two or three tranches to mainland power retailers.

The Government has also decided to simplify the structure of Tasmania’s energy businesses, reducing the number from three to two which, it says, will save at least $8 million annually.

Aurora’s Distribution Business and Transend Networks will be combined into one State-owned business responsible for the transmission and distribution of electricity.

Ownership of the Tamar Valley Power Station will be transferred from Aurora to Hydro Tasmania.

The Government will also consider selling the power station if it does not compromise the State’s energy security and is more valuable under private ownership. A final decision will be made by June 30 next year.

Ms Giddings said Government was “steering a responsible and well considered course through the issues facing the electricity supply industry and is also determined to ease pressure on power customers”.

“The Expert Panel concluded after its 18-month review that major reform was needed, Government agrees and now we can act.”

Ms Giddings said following consideration of the Panel’s work the Government would immediately move to limit the effect of steep power price rises expected in July.

“Reducing the wholesale price on electricity together with the Government’s ongoing commitment to index energy concessions will provide relief across the board, particularly for Tasmanians on low and fixed incomes.

“The fact is that instead of facing power price rises as high as 26 per cent on July 1 Tasmanians will now have the second lowest increases of anywhere in Australia.

Ms Giddings said the Government has accepted most of the Panel’s findings but has addressed key issues that will deliver improved outcomes for Tasmanians in a lower cost, and less risky and complex way.

“The Government will achieve this without privatising or breaking up Hydro Tasmania and by retaining ownership of our network of poles and wires.

“This will ensure our power generation and distribution remains in public hands and continues to provide significant value to Tasmanians who have invested in these assets over generations.

Ms Giddings said the introduction of a price on carbon from July 1 would also mean Tasmania will begin to realise the true value of its renewable energy reflected in the price Hydro Tasmania receives in the national market for its energy.

“Future returns from Hydro Tasmania are forecast to be strong, as a result of both its business model and the Federal Government’s carbon pricing policy, and this will allow the State Government to spend more money on priority areas like health, education and police,” Ms Giddings said.

Mr Green said strict and independent regulation of prices that can be charged by Hydro Tasmania, and a decision to sell Aurora’s retail customer base would enable competition to be introduced for all Tasmanian households and small businesses by a target date of January 1, 2014.

“The Government agrees with the Panel’s conclusion that to facilitate competition there must first be reform of the energy sector.

The Panel concluded that  “Simply removing Aurora Energy’s monopoly over supply to non-contestable customers will not deliver competitive retail outcomes, because such a policy would lack the foundation of a competitive wholesale market in which new retail entrants could source contracts. The likely outcome would be piecemeal and unsustainable retail entry that would provide only small benefits to consumers while undermining the value of Aurora Energy’s retail business.

In short, gains for customers would not be widespread and any such gains would probably be short-lived, while Tasmanian taxpayers, as the ultimate owners of Aurora Energy, would lose value.

Deputy Premier Bryan Green said the Expert Panel found there was a compelling case for the sale of Aurora’s customer base to further facilitate competition and choice for consumers.

“At the same time, it is extremely important to the Government to provide certainty as quickly as possible to all employees likely to be affected. We are determined to minimise any job losses.

“We are looking to maximise opportunities for Aurora’s retail personnel and assets, including the call centre and customer care and billing services, in the Momentum business. 

The new WA Office of Bushfire Risk Management (OBRM) is now operating to independently assess the risks of prescribed burns undertaken by the Department of Environment and Conservation, following the release of the Keelty report into the Margaret River bushfires.

Emergency Services Minister Troy Buswell said the new office reported directly to Fire and Emergency Services Authority (FESA) CEO Wayne Gregson.

“Once fully-established, the OBRM will assess the risks of all prescribed burns, as well as the level of resources available should such burns flare out of control,” Mr Buswell said.

“This office reports directly to the FESA CEO to ensure the prescribed burning process is independently scrutinised before ignition of the burn, and has the authority to direct a burn to be delayed or even cancelled if it deems the risks to be too great.”

The Minister said prescribed burning had an important role to play in protecting local communities and important economic, social, ecological and heritage assets from bushfire, but had to be carefully managed.

“The Government is committed to achieving the benefits of prescribed burning while ensuring it is conducted in such a way that the associated risk is understood and is as low as is reasonably practicable,” he said.

“Once fully-established, the OBRM will ensure that the future approach to bushfire risk mitigation programs and decision making is consistent with international risk management practice.

“In line with the Keelty recommendations, it will also facilitate greater information sharing and co-ordination between agencies involved in prescribed burning and management of bushfire-related risk generally.”

The interim director of the OBRM is Mark Webb, who will return to his role as CEO of the Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority once a permanent appointment is made in the coming months.

Appreciating the Risk - The Report of the Special Inquiry Into the November 2011 Margaret River Bushfire is available here.

The Western Australian Government’s submission to the Western Australian Industrial Relations Commission’s State Wage Case has recommended the State minimum wage be increased in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

WA Commerce Minister Simon O’Brien said the Government recognised the importance of ensuring the incomes of workers who were dependent on minimum wages or award rates kept pace with the cost of living.

“It’s also important in the current economic conditions that we support the viability and competitiveness of our small businesses,” Mr O’Brien said.

“An inflation-based adjustment represents a balanced and sustainable outcome for employers and maintains the standard of living of workers in this State.”

A copy of the WA Government’s submission will soon be available on the Department of Commerce’s Labour Relations website: http://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/LabourRelations 

In 2011 the Western Australian Industrial Relations Commission granted a $19.90 per week increase to the State minimum and award pay rates. This resulted in the current minimum wage of $607.10 per week, or $15.98 per hour.

The South Australian Government has signed an agreement with the Centre for Automotive Safety Research (CASR) to extend funding for its road safety research for another five years.

Minister for Road Safety Jennifer Rankine said the funding - more than $1 million each year until 2017 - demonstrates the State Government’s ongoing commitment to road safety in South Australia.

CASR’s research has been the catalyst for successful road safety initiatives, including the implementation in 2006 of the default 50 km/h urban speed limit, which is credited with preventing five fatalities each year.

CASR Director Professor Mary Lydon said the State Government’s ongoing support and confidence was vital in order to build on the expert knowledge and ongoing research that is being undertaken at the centre.

CASR was formally established by the South Australian Government in 2002, and has since been invited to collaborate with international organisations from France, Japan, Malaysia and the United States.

CASR is also the only research organisation in Australia that attends the scenes of road crashes, in order to collect data. The group has 20 staff members and seven postgraduate research students. CASR is also home to a new purpose-built Vehicle Safety Laboratory – the only facility of its kind in Australia.

The Laboratory is the official testing facility for pedestrian impact testing, a major part of the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) crash testing process.

Upcoming projects include monitoring young driver travel patters, evaluating the effects of the Graduated Licensing Scheme and monitoring the implementation of the South Australian Road Safety Strategy 2020.

For more information about CASR visit www.casr.adelaide.edu.au

Researchers at the University of South Australia’s Ian Wark Research Institute and Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Science at Monash University have developed a way to use innovative nanotechnologies to ensure disease-controlling drugs are absorbed in the body much more efficiently.

Lead researcher on the project and UniSA Professor of Colloid and Pharmaceutical Science, Dr Clive Prestidge says the research should lead to more reliable and predictable delivery of oral medications.

“Most medications need to be taken in a prescribed relationship with food – before, during or after meals – because what and when you eat, can affect the absorption and availability of the active ingredients in medicines,” Professor Prestidge said.

“And what we know about human nature is that people often don’t follow through with taking medicines in compliance with the recommendations – sometimes they even underestimate the importance of that.

“But because food can be vital to the absorption of drugs, not following the recommendations can have serious consequences both in overdosing or underdosing.”

Professor Prestidge, Dr Angel Tan and their team have just published a paper in the journal Angewandte Chemie, reporting on their development of a new particulate structure that can deliver drugs into the body already loaded to absorb at superior levels.

Professor Prestidge says the leap forward is in developing a matrix at the nano-particulate level that can be used as tablets and in capsules, structured to imitate the food effect when inside the stomach or intestines.

He says the technology will be invaluable for a wide selection of medicines and vitamins from ibuprofen and antibiotics to anti-hypertensives and even calcium supplements.

In trials with dogs the researchers have shown the benefits of the new technology.  A control group of fasting dogs was given medicines to establish a baseline for drug absorption then comparisons were made for absorption between a group fed dog food with a medication, and a group simply given the new nano-structured tablets without any food.

“The absorption levels for the active ingredient was six times higher with the nano-structured tablets, two times better than for medicines delivered with food,” Prof Prestidge said.

“This is a great result because it has such potential to improve our use of medicines, delivering safer and more effective medications.

“This technology also has huge commercial potential for the pharmaceuticals industry through the development of new medicines that are not required to be labelled “to be taken with or without food”. 

“Through the careful development of these technologies we can make the kinds of adjustments in dosages that will ensure people get the best, fastest and most efficient delivery of drugs for the control of pain and inflammation and a range of other common conditions.”

The new technological platform developed by Prof Prestidge and his team is now being commercialised through Ceridia, a spin out company developed through ITEK, the University of South Australia’s commercialisation arm.

Ceridia has relationships with major pharmaceutical companies around the world and has undertaken phase one human clinical safety trials of the technology, the first step on the road to bringing the benefits of these new developments to health consumers.

A concerning gender-gap exists in career aspirations among Australian youth across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, a new study has found.

The study, published in Developmental Psychology last month, was the first to compare participation and related occupational planning for STEM careers among senior high-school boys and girls from different country contexts.

Led by Associate Professor Helen Watt from Monash University’s Faculty of Education, researchers cross-examined data from Australia, Canada and the US, finding significant gender differences only among Australian youth in mathematics-related career aspirations, with fewer girls aspiring to maths-related careers than boys.

The gender-gap was attributed to the greater and earlier degrees of choice Australian adolescents have to specialise in their school studies, than in the North American curriculum.

Associate Professor Watt referred to the ‘leaky pipeline’ where students drop out of advanced mathematics along various points of their educational trajectory as concerning.

“The leaky STEM pipeline has become a major area of concern in terms of economic growth in Western countries, particularly if Australia is to compete on the international platform,” Associate Professor Watt said.

“These findings increase our understanding of when and why girls ‘leak’ from the mathematics pipeline in an effort to address the issue in schools.”

The findings challenge current conceptions that girls and women opt away from high-prestige mathematical occupations.

For girls who did aspire to mathematics-related careers, it was found their planned careers were of equal status to those planned by boys.

An important element of the study was examining whether the ‘leaky pipeline’ would have a ‘glass ceiling’. That is, whether girls aspiring to mathematical fields of career would not plan on high-prestige jobs.

“This was not the case and girls were found to plan equally prestigious careers as boys,” Associate Professor Watt said.

“The gender gap in STEM-related career aspirations should be addressed by nurturing secondary students’ interest and demonstrating how maths and science can be useful in the careers girls are most attracted to.

“The relatively early specialisation in secondary school course selections also needs careful thought, timely as the new national curriculum is under consideration.”

Associate Professor Watt presented the findings as an invited address at the Biennial Gender Development Research Conference in San Francisco last month and has actively researched this field for the past 20 years, recently securing a prestigious ARC grant and five-year Fellowship.

The Department of Environment and Conservation and WWF-Australia launched a community survey to locate populations of the quenda, also known as the southern brown bandicoot (Isoodon obesulus fusciventer), living in the greater Perth region.

DEC Swan Region ecologist Geoff Barrett said quendas were living all around us in remnant bushland across suburban Perth, and called on residents to report sightings as part of the survey.

“Quendas have all but disappeared from other Australian cities, yet can still be seen throughout the Perth metropolitan area,” Dr Barrett said.

“Numbers have fallen significantly since the 1960s, but they can still be found throughout much of the south-west of Western Australia.

“Quendas are native mammals about the size of a rabbit with brown to yellow-brown fur, a long pointed nose, very short ears and a short tail. They prefer to live near waterways where dense low vegetation persists.”

Quendas are under threat from habitat loss, vehicle strike and predation from cats, dogs and foxes.

A new, broad-based international ranking of global universities has found Australian institutions are some of the world’s most productive, scoring 8^th on the ranking.

Despite this, the ranking also found that Australian universities are still chronically under-resourced.

"This innovative approach to international rankings of higher education shows Australia at 8th place in the world for performance, but at 19th for the level of resources it receives," said Belinda Robinson, Chief Executive of Universities Australia.

In ranking performance the Universitas 21 report looked at 48 countries and territories across all regions of the world, comparing 20 different measures. The measures were grouped under four headings:

• Resources: Investment by government and private sector (19th);
• Output: Research and its impact, as well as the production of an educated workforce which meets labour market needs (7th);
• Connectivity: International networks and collaboration (4th); and
• Environment: Government policy and regulation, diversity and participation opportunities (7th).

"What this clearly reinforces is that Australian universities are highly productive and efficient, but investment levels are too low," Ms Robinson said.

"This comes as no surprise as report after report, including Government-commissioned reports including the Bradley review into higher education and the Lomax-Smith report into base funding, point to a significant under-investment in the university sector."

The full report can be found here

New research from the UK and Australia suggests that the rate of acidification of the world’s oceans is having a bigger effect on the population of plankton than previously anticipated.

According to a paper published by the team, human impact on the environment is driving acidification at an alarming rate, and could double current acidity levels by 2100, and it is unclear how the growth of micro-organisms, such as plankton, would respond.

"Human impact on the environment means carbon dioxide is dissolving in the ocean, which is naturally alkaline, and causing a decrease in seawater pH levels – an event termed ocean acidification,” said Professor Kevin Flynn of Swansea University in the UK.

"However, given the important role these organisms play in the Earth's biogeochemical cycles, the impact that ocean acidification-induced changes in the chemical composition of seawater will have on plankton is a major concern.”

Using simulations, the team has presented and discussed mechanisms by which many marine plankton will experience a substantially more acidic environment than currently suggested by ocean acidification scenarios – experiencing pH conditions which are completely outside their recent historical range.

Their results suggest that changes in the pH at the cell surface of plankton could adversely affect cellular equilibrium, leading to poor growth if not death. 

The Productivity Commission (PC) has published a report examining the impact of the reforms implemented by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).

The Commission’s role was to assess the economic impacts of the reforms and, where practicable, examine whether the reforms potential were being met and opportunities properly explored.

For the first report in the series, the Assistant Treasurer has directed the Commission to focus on the impacts and benefits of two reform areas:

• aspects of the 'seamless national economy' deregulation priorities
• the vocational education and training (VET) reforms and initiatives that support young people make successful transitions from school to further education, training and employment.

The report concluded that COAG reforms in the VET area include the potential to:

• Increase GDP by a total of 1.95 per cent
• Boost productivity by 0.35 per cent
• Increase completions by 1.29 million over the period 2010-2020
• Increase the gross payments to individuals over their working life by more than $108 billion.

The Productivity Commission report identified the following reforms were needed, which align with the Commonwealth’s reform agenda announced by the Prime Minister ahead of COAG last month:

• Better quality through regulation – the Commonwealth established the Australian Standards Quality Authority to ensure nationally consistent regulation of VET providers;
• Greater transparency for users – the Government is developing the My Skills website, to be launched later this year;
• Better information available for students – the Commonwealth’s Unique Student Identifier will allow students to build a online skills passport that tracks their training history;
• Increased completions - The Commonwealth has set completion targets in the agreement with the States to tackle low completion rates in the VET sector.

The Commission’s report can be found here

WWF has welcomed ongoing funding for key environmental programs but warned that Australian species would continue to go extinct without increased investment in future budgets.

Australia has a terrible record of extinction, with at least 27 mammals and 23 birds lost. To halt extinctions future budgets would need to go beyond the current 0.5% expenditure to the environment.

WWF-Australia Director of Conservation Dr Gilly Llewellyn said she was disappointed the government had delayed by one year the promised increase in overseas development aid, and failed to implement rumoured cuts to diesel fuel rebate and accelerated depreciation.

“Failure to keep the promise to increase overseas development aid means that critical assistance for struggling communities to adapt to climate change and foster ecosystem resilience will not be forthcoming,” Dr Llewellyn said.

“The Government could have cut inefficient expensive fossil fuel subsidies and reinvested this money to assist our neighbours to adapt to and mitigate climate change.

“The Government has missed an opportunity to show real leadership at the upcoming UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio, where on the agenda is calls to remove environmentally harmful subsidies.”

WWF welcomed new money to implement reforms to the Environmental Protection Act but remain concerned about the ‘cutting green tape’ rhetoric and warned state and federal governments not to confuse streamlining with delivering more effective regulation.

A new international research team has joined up with CSIRO’s Sustainable Agriculture Flagship to help reduce the quantities of greenhouse gas emissions made by the livestock sector.

The Australian agriculture industry currently accounts for 10 per cent of the country’s overall greenhouse gas emissions, a figure that the new research body aims to reduce.

Led by researchers from the University of Melbourne, the collaboration aims to improve both measurement and management of methane emissions for the grazing lands of northern Australia, thought to account for half of the sector’s total emissions.

Professor Deli Chen, Project Leader from the University of Melbourne, said the Cluster will draw on recent international findings and research to measure methane emissions in real grazing conditions.

“This is a critical step if we are to help agriculture reduce its emissions because if you can’t measure, you can’t mitigate,” Professor Chen said.

CSIRO’s Research Project Leader, Dr Ed Charmley, said, “The Australian Government’s Clean Energy Act sets a long-term goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent of 2000 levels by the year 2050. This research will help identify field-based measurement techniques and protocols that can support management actions and technologies that can help Australia meet such ambitious targets.”

“The Cluster will also develop science that supports methodology development for the Carbon Farming Initiative, an Australian Government program that enables farmers to earn ‘carbon credits’ for undertaking abatement activities on their properties,” Dr Charmley said.