A Company Co-Owned By Our Energy Minister Was Found Poisoning Critically Endangered Habitat

A ministerial review has found a landholding company co-owned by Angus Taylor, Australia’s fucking Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction, illegally poisoned critically endangered native grasslands in NSW.

The review looked at an original 18-month investigation into allegations Jam Land illegally cleared about 30 hectares of grasslands n the Monaro region with herbicides in late October 2016.

Jam Land was ordered in April to restore 103 hectares of grasslands on on a separate area of the property to the cleared land.

Restoration involves weed management, building stock-proof fences and, oh, not covering the whole thing in herbicides or fertilisers again.

Jam Land requested the ministerial review — something no company has done before under these circumstances — in the hopes that it wouldn’t have to restore the grasslands. But on Friday the decision was upheld by Environment Minister Sussan Ley.

Richard Taylor, Angus’s brother and one of Jam Land’s directors, said he was “disappointed” and “annoyed” the company would consider appealing the decision in the federal court.

Allegations that the company had poisoned the grasslands using herbicides without permission first surfaced in 2016, before Liberal MP Angus Taylor took over his current ministerial portfolio.

The Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment’s initial investigation found that a critically endangered ecological community, the Natural Temperate Grassland of the South Eastern Highlands, was significantly impacted.

Jam Land’s action carries a maximum penalty of $11 million.

At the time the company said it believed followed the rules by getting an ecologist to assess the property before the clearing in 2016.

This whole investigation has been a bit of a shitshow.

A 2019 Guardian Australia investigation revealed Angus Taylor had meetings with senior environment officials about the listing of the grasslands in the middle of the investigation.

The office of the then-environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, then looked into whether grassland protection laws could be changed.

Hmm, maybe this is where a federal corruption watchdog could be handy.

Jam Land was also awarded a $107,000 grant earlier this year to fund research to support lobbying efforts to loosen protections for endangered native grasslands.

The company thanked former deputy premier John Barilaro for the grant. Hmmmmm.

So looks like our native vegetation has to contend with bushfires, heatwaves, floods, agriculture and yep, deliberate poisoning. Everything’s fine.

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