Uploaded on Sep 26, 2011
http://www.wildlifesos.org.au/
When the NSW Minister for the Environment (or should that be the minister against the environment?) said in a press release issued to the local press in August 2011 that she was going to ask her department (OEH) to expedite the granting of a licence to disperse the Maclean High School Flying-fox colony, following briefing from local member for Clarence Steve Cansdell, she was in direct contravention of at least three of her own department's policies and directives with regard to the colony: 1. the Grey-headed Flying fox is listed as a threatened species, and therefore OEH should be protecting, not disturbing, it; 2. OEH's own Grey-headed Flying fox camp management policy specifically counsels against dispersals as a management option; 3. the Maclean Flying-fox management strategy, produced for a large sum of money under the auspices of her own department, identifies dispersals as a "non-viable" option."
By acting in contravention of her own department's instruments, the minister may well have acted unconstitutionally. Especially concerning is the fact that the local member advising her admitted, just after this press release, to acting corruptly whilst in office, and has stood down pending ongoing inquiries into the crimes with which he is charged
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