Water inquiry calls for community impact statements
ELIZABETH JACKSON: The long-awaited guide to the draft report into the management of the Murray Darling Basin will be released later today.
But ahead of that a senate inquiry has handed down its own report on water rights, calling on the Federal Government to make a community impact statement each time it buys water licences in the Murray Darling Basin.
The inquiry has also recommended the Government publish an annual report on infrastructure upgrades across the basin, detailing the costs of the programs, whether they're meeting their timeliness and how much water they're saving.
But one committee member says regardless of the inquiry's findings or this afternoon's report there'll never be a satisfactory management of the basin until there's a federal takeover.
From Canberra, Sabra Lane reports.
SABRA LANE: In August last year the Senate's Environment and Communications Committee started investigating the vexed issue of sustainable water management by the Federal Government.
It morphed into an inquiry about water management and water licences across the entire Murray Darling Basin.
The committee handed down its report late yesterday on the eve of the Murray Darling Basin Authority's draft guide to managing the basin. That report be released later today.
Coppied by http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s3032880.htm
Showing posts with label inquiry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label inquiry. Show all posts
Friday, 8 October 2010
Thursday, 26 August 2010
claimed that the Chilcot Derisory' Iraq inquiry blasted
Derisory' Iraq inquiry blasted
Campaigners have claimed that the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War had paid only "derisory" attention to Iraqi casualties in the conflict.
The UK-based Iraq Body Count project, which compiles figures for Iraqi civilian deaths since the 2003 invasion, suggested a separate full judicial inquiry into all those killed or injured in Iraq might be needed.
The group said the Chilcot Inquiry had "obsessed minutely" about battles between politicians and generals in Whitehall to the "detriment" of everything else.
"One would almost think that the Iraq war largely took place in Britain," it said in a statement.
Iraq Body Count said it received a letter from inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot in November, in which he said the information collated by the group would be "very useful" for him and his team.
Former armed forces minister Adam Ingram admitted in his evidence to the inquiry last month that the British Government probably should have tried to establish how many Iraqi civilians were killed in the war.
But he said: "Establishing that fact wouldn't have altered where we were because we couldn't, in one sense, easily have stopped the civilian casualties... The establishment of the facts probably should have been carried out by elsewhere in Government. I don't really think it was a Ministry of Defence function in that sense."
Mr Ingram also said British lives would have been put at risk to make an accurate calculation of the number of Iraqi deaths in the conflict.
He said: "If I had been asked as the minister of the armed forces 'are you prepared to put units in every one of the hospitals to count the bodies in and the bodies out?' and it was my choice, 'no' would have been my answer."
Iraq Body Count has recorded up to 106,000 documented violent Iraqi civilian deaths since 2003, although the true figure is likely to be much higher.
Coppied by http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/feedarticle/9238005
Campaigners have claimed that the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War had paid only "derisory" attention to Iraqi casualties in the conflict.
The UK-based Iraq Body Count project, which compiles figures for Iraqi civilian deaths since the 2003 invasion, suggested a separate full judicial inquiry into all those killed or injured in Iraq might be needed.
The group said the Chilcot Inquiry had "obsessed minutely" about battles between politicians and generals in Whitehall to the "detriment" of everything else.
"One would almost think that the Iraq war largely took place in Britain," it said in a statement.
Iraq Body Count said it received a letter from inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot in November, in which he said the information collated by the group would be "very useful" for him and his team.
Former armed forces minister Adam Ingram admitted in his evidence to the inquiry last month that the British Government probably should have tried to establish how many Iraqi civilians were killed in the war.
But he said: "Establishing that fact wouldn't have altered where we were because we couldn't, in one sense, easily have stopped the civilian casualties... The establishment of the facts probably should have been carried out by elsewhere in Government. I don't really think it was a Ministry of Defence function in that sense."
Mr Ingram also said British lives would have been put at risk to make an accurate calculation of the number of Iraqi deaths in the conflict.
He said: "If I had been asked as the minister of the armed forces 'are you prepared to put units in every one of the hospitals to count the bodies in and the bodies out?' and it was my choice, 'no' would have been my answer."
Iraq Body Count has recorded up to 106,000 documented violent Iraqi civilian deaths since 2003, although the true figure is likely to be much higher.
Coppied by http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/feedarticle/9238005
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)