Property Rights Australia

17/10/2026

Nasty ATO campaign specifically targeting small business, using AI to find any late payment of superannuation, however small, and then going for the jugular.

Miss a quarterly deadline by even a day, you don't just owe super, you owe the Super Guarantee Charge and a whole different aggressive formular. The shortfall will be passed onto the employee's account but the interest that ATO demands to be paid plus an administration fee of $20 per employee, per quarter are kept by the ATO.

17/10/2026

Cartoonist for the Herald Sun in Melbourne, Mark Knight.

17/10/2026

20 DAYS
Under Qld government mining objections amendments [1] currently under consideration, this is all the time available for “eligible entities” to raise concerns about how a new mine could affect them, including access to quality and quantity of surface and ground water.
For a little more information about this aspect, refer to this previous post. [2]

In 20 days, a massive document has to be accessed, key parts read and understood and respond with a submission.

Qld Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) documents, which a mining company prepares for the government to grant an Environmental Approval (EA) for a new mine, are notoriously massive. They are split into volumes which as PDF files are often 10Mb each. There are at least 2 core volumes that need to be read and whatever relevant technical volumes, about specialist engineering or environmental studies, that depending on the size and impact of the mine can be between 5 to well over 15 volumes. A complete printed mining EIS package typically ranges between 5,000 and 15,000+ total pages requiring roughly 1.5 to 3 linear meters of shelf space.

Landowners are forced into responding to the EIS because environmental matters are removed from Mining Lease (ML) decision criteria, concerns about environmental harm, conditions, or rehabilitation cannot be raised later on. Taking on this task in a limited 20 days is now a landowner’s only opportunity raise concern of impacts to their property.

When 20 days become 15 days

In the case where a mining company applies for a variation or an amendment to an already approved EA, the applicant must publish a notice in an approved newspaper circulating generally in the area and the objection period will end 15 days after publication.

It has become far too common for resource companies, especially CSG companies, to make an original EA application where the EIS shows a modest footprint and then subsequently sometime after approval apply for an EA amendment that expands the project considerably.

The Property Rights Australia submission can be read here. [3]

[1] https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Work-of-Committees/Committees/Committee-Details?cid=0&id=8608
[2] https://www.facebook.com/PropertyRightsAustralia/posts/pfbid02pTwxR3Qysn7PEKZ3FbjwnK2gWKGeH16qtfAfYVyA9Wv3ohXGKn5tWYtjHwX1m8jpl
[3]https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/com/PIRC-1135/MROLAB2026-4295/submissions/00000135.pdf

***
Previous posts about the Mineral Resources and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2026 (MROLA Bill.
Sept 19 – Law firm JWS
https://www.facebook.com/PropertyRightsAustralia/posts/pfbid0NXMxRLyCzyc56sTjZvgXirMCmDVG5AEu4yc21UJYo6w3pnRRT9NHL6gsJei5ikZul
Sept 30 – Excellent summary from P&E Law
https://www.facebook.com/PropertyRightsAustralia/posts/pfbid0UVzfScVseJCH3i5EtCWUz5ukitrLxkunCNBfx4kRvYxqEa33geoqVKX83eBaE4Hkl
Oct 5 – Environmental Authorities and Mining Lease
https://www.facebook.com/PropertyRightsAustralia/posts/pfbid02pTwxR3Qysn7PEKZ3FbjwnK2gWKGeH16qtfAfYVyA9Wv3ohXGKn5tWYtjHwX1m8jpl
Oct 7 – concerns of Llew O’Brien MP
https://www.facebook.com/PropertyRightsAustralia/posts/pfbid02QUcUMXNS8EqNjTveuzNAaVsh1u1ghji18xYf7AyMNKyR4Xb6nsaTn7iKyQH48aYul
Oct 12 – Agforce, 125km eligibility zone
https://www.facebook.com/PropertyRightsAustralia/posts/pfbid0FVnmnzJJKmkoVw7ppyZbgEesbTQJ9tKtfKNBYFsjPUatWvMA8FALQVJPYtFJBwc9l
Oct 15 – Increase in executive power
https://www.facebook.com/PropertyRightsAustralia/posts/pfbid0fV8HHjywuwTkKM1MwbHmWjPMozkzMZYHzzoMxsCE7zeJG5Zv2kFjNVHspQSs5rBpl

17/10/2026

"Australians are directly funding organised crime by consuming illegally harvested timber, said Dr Tyron Venn of the University of Queensland, whose research maps the sources of Australia’s elevated-risk timber. Countries at elevated risk of illegal logging supplied 87 per cent of the growth in Australia’s timber imports over the past 30 years, he said, with China alone supplying 64 per cent.

He estimated Australia imports 2 million cubic metres a year of elevated-risk timber in log terms, double its annual native forest harvest. Australia is the seventh most forested nation on the planet, Venn said, and should be “supplying so much more of our own wood products”."

IndustryEdge's Tim Woods says Australia would be much more certain where its timber comes from if it made more of its own LVL.

17/10/2026

BOM Scandal - "A forensic audit has found copied and pasted temperature readings, statistically impossible data sequences and 110 years of one-way warming adjustments." is the opening lines from an article in The Australian by environmental editor, Graham Lloyd.

Jo Nova takes the story up in her blog - "Everyone knows the BOM publishes adjusted formally “corrected” datasets, and we have debated the many versions of ACORN adjustments and homogenization many times, but if the guardians of the raw data are presenting mistaken or altered data as though it was the original recordings, that crosses a new line. Significantly these strange duplications were not corrected in any version of the expert corrections. They were spread across the whole country, and many were even in the modern era, not just among the old digitized records copied from handwritten notes.

As the two auditors say: “None of these findings require any knowledge of climate science – they are purely data integrity failures that would disqualify any dataset in any other field of science.”

This error prone data is being fed into climate models that farmers (used to) rely on, and town planners, health officials and insurers are trying to use. We’re betting the economy and transforming our energy grid on this data. We’ll spend a trillion dollars killing off coal but we won’t audit the original data? "

After all the high minded purity of BOM claims that they provide all their raw unadjusted data to critics, an audit by Geoff Sherrington and Tom Berger has found that “almost all CDO* data sets that we have studied, about 150 stations, show some past adjustments.” In one case 82 years of daily d...

16/10/2026

shared via Walcha High Country Guardians
- is with Voice for Walcha and Protect The Valley - Upper Hunter.

·
"The EIS report is out today, and it is over 16,000 pages. More than 33 reams of paper - with just 30 days to respond - during peak farming season.
Yet again, regional communities are being asked to take on an enormous task, with little consideration for the realities of running farms and managing livestock at the busiest time of year.
Other major renewable energy projects have received 99 days for public submissions. We’re being given 30.
We are asking from day one for an extension to 60 days. This is a huge ask of affected landholders, and a reasonable extension is the least we should expect.
Regional communities deserve a fair go, not another poorly managed rollout. "

16/10/2026

Speaker Snapshot

16/10/2026

This is truly disgraceful. This is not how democracy is supposed to work.
Victoria again (still).
*
“The Labor government has successfully blocked a Victorian Coalition bid to gain access to key VicGrid documents on its cost-benefit analysis of the VNI West and Western Renewables Link until after next month’s state election.
Coalition energy spokesman David Davis first lodged a freedom of information request with VicGrid in September 2024, asking for all “cost-benefit analyses both in-house and any consultancy reports that examine the costs and benefits” of VNI West project and WRL.
But VicGrid only gave partial access to most documents and refused to release three that outlined its analysis of VNI West’s capital expenditure, schedule and alternative options for the 500kV powerline.”
Mr. Davis’ appeal to VCAT was foiled last week when VicGrid’s lawyer argued that the government’s transmission provider was exempt from FOI under amendments introduced by Labor last year.
VCAT had no option other than delay the hearing until after the election.
The Victorian government also seems to have skirted principles rlating to value for money and least cost options.

The Labor government has successfully blocked a Victorian Coalition bid to gain access to key VicGrid documents on its cost-benefit analysis of the VNI West and Western Renewables Link until after next month’s state election.

16/10/2026

“The National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) has welcomed historic telecommunications laws passed in Parliament, but cautioned a crucial chance was missed to lock in more meaningful changes.
NFF President Hamish McIntyre said the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2025, passed in Parliament today, should’ve been an opportunity for major reform.
“From the get-go, we warmly welcomed the introduction of the Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation (UOMO),” Mr McIntyre said.
“The UOMO means telcos must provide outdoor mobile coverage to their customers from anywhere those customers can see the sky.
“Using Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellite technology for the UOMO is undoubtedly a step forward for regional connectivity, and we hope to see it implemented as soon as possible.
“But it’s not a silver bullet. There is so much more to be done to strengthen telecoms in the bush.
“Farmers face regular outages that hamper productivity and cause Triple Zero calls to fail.
“Regional outages are not just a productivity issue – they’re a huge safety issue,” Mr McIntyre said.”
https://nff.org.au/media-release/giant-leap-for-regional-telecoms-but-mission-not-yet-complete/? (no pay wall)

FacebookXLinkedInEmailThe National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) has welcomed historic telecommunications laws passed in Parliament, but cautioned a crucial chance was missed to lock in more meaningful changes. NFF President Hamish McIntyre said the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal ...