Katie Milne to Apply for Injunction in The Land and Environment Court
Cr Katie milne
Katie Milne Tweed Greens Councillor's application for an injunction
to stop the Repco rally in the federal Court on Thursday was rejected.
However this brave and fearless woman is not to be deterred. She is
applying for an injunction in the Land and Environment Court on Monday
hoping it won't dismiss her application as quickly as the previous
one, Katie Milne now faces a legal bill of $40,000 over the previous
federal court case, as the defendants have applied to "vigorously pursue"
costs.
Cr Milne admits she does not currently have the money to pay .
But even if she goes bankrupt, her position as a Tweed councillor appears
safe after council officials confirmed yesterday that bankruptcy would not
disqualify her from staying on the council
Police to Demonstrate at rally!!!
In an interesting twist, police intend to demonstrate at the Rally as well. The Tweed Heads branch of the Police Association of NSW (PANSW) wants to see an extra 15 officers take up positions in the Tweed/Byron Command and are now planning to voice their campaign during next week's Repco Rally Australia. This looks like an interesting situation. 600 police officers sent to the region at huge public cost and then police demonstrating as well as anti rally protesters.This would make the Government look really silly to the world.
The fastest Court case in the Northern Rivers.
Justice Stone was assigned to hear the case for 3 hours only. She had only just received the last of the reports an hour before it was heard. She admitted she had not had time to read all the material and yet she somehow was able to determine the issue in about 10 mins flat after it was heard.
We didn’t even have a chance for all the issues to be heard. They assign 600 police for 5 days including training, but they couldn’t even assign a Judge for a proper full day trial to hear all the evidence.
We knew we were gone when the Judge said times up, you’ve got one more issue you can raise. We hadn’t even started. We had only just got past the argument where she dismissed both our ecologists’ reports.
Dr Ambrose had presented a resume 12 pages long in fine print of qualifications and papers he had written, committees he had chaired and court cases he was involved with. He supplied a huge dossier of issues of a comparative study and a raft of arguments refuting the methodology and assumptions made including that animals actually frequent roadside verges .
He was in fact the key ecologist in the V8 Homebush Supercars where he recommended it be deferred. He is a bird specialist and knew what he was talking about. There is a population 35-45 Black Breasted Button Quails along the route and loss of one or disruption to their breeding cycle could be fatal to the viability of the population.
Mr Mark Graham, our other ecologist, had extensive and specific local experience of the area. He had coincidently carried out a 3 month on ground survey of the endangered Frogs specifically in the region in question at Byrill Creek. The spray of dust can settle on their larva and destroy their totally destroy the breeding cycle.
She made no attempt to ascertain the validity of the arguments at all with Dr Ambrose who had come to be interviewed. The whole crux of the case ecological was not even argued..
This matter should have been debated by the ecologists but it was never even heard. It feels like we haven’t even had a proper hearing and it feels extremely unjust..
Repco Rally organiser's claim that “this is going to be the most environmental friendly rally in the world” is a joke. They have had to completely extinguish all of our environmental laws to get this through. This race will run between World heritage areas and through National Parks. This race will set a new environmental standard but its an absolutely appalling one, one where there is no protection from any law and none of the conditions or amelioration measures are enforceable. There is No law being applied here.
Regards Clr Katie Milne
