Latest news with #North-WestShelf
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Outback discovery prompts theory of new sub-species: 'We know they exist'
Researchers have discovered an isolated group of possums living in Western Australia are part of a locally extinct population that once roamed the Red Centre. Separated from other possums, the group found around the Pilbara and the Midwest have become smaller overall, grown larger ears, developed a thinner tail, and become less furry to cope with the heat. Lead researcher and Edith Cowan University PhD candidate, Shelby Middleton, theorised they could one day evolve into their own sub-species because they are now isolated. 'They are showing differences in the way they look, and will not be mixing with other populations because they don't have any gene flow anymore,' she told Yahoo News Australia. Although these possums appear visually different, the population is actually the same subspecies that lives on the east coast and South Australia. This means its ancestors once had a range that extended over 3,000km across the continent to Melbourne and Sydney. Sadly, the population has become isolated because the introduction of cats and foxes by European settlers killed them off in central Australia. It's hard to imagine how different Australia looked 250 years ago, when the centre would have been teeming with life. Another small marsupial, the greater bilby, once covered 80 per cent of the continent, but it is now threatened with extinction. Previously, it had been thought that the population of brushtails in the Pilbara and Midwest was the same subspecies as those in Perth and the southwest. But they had simply evolved to appear visually similar because they lived in a similar environment. But after Middleton and her team partnered with the Western Australian Museum and Department of Biodiversity, they linked its genetic material to the east coast subspecies. This was done using preserved museum specimens and roadkill collected by locals in the regions being studied. Prior to the research, there was only one other subspecies known to exist in Western Australia, the smaller northern brushtail, which is found in the Kimberley. Trichosurus vulpecula arnhemensis exists in the Kimberley and the Top End. Trichosurus vulpecula hypoleucus exists in southwest WA, Barrow Island, and Broome. Trichosurus vulpecula vulpecula exists in Pilbara, Midwest, the east coast and South Australia, While populations of brushtails in the east remain stable, some in the west are gradually declining. The Pilbara is continuing to develop industrially, with the federal government approving a new fertiliser plant for the region last year, and an extension of Woodside's North-West Shelf fossil fuel extraction program last week. 🚨 Rare fish linked to dark legend on windswept Tasmanian beach 🏝️ Late-night beach find highlights sad side of Queensland tourism 😡 Anger erupts as Indigenous site 'totally destroyed' in violent act Traditionally, new projects have had to evaluate their impact on threatened species, but not those believed to be abundant. They are also probably overlooked at sites when construction is being undertaken. 'We need to increase awareness so mining companies take more notice of brushtail possums when they do see them,' Middleton said. 'We've got a lot to learn about this population in the Pilbara and Midwest because it's been previously overlooked. We don't completely know their range. We know they exist in some small populations, but outside of towns we don't know where they are.' The research is published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. Love Australia's weird and wonderful environment? 🐊🦘😳 Get our new newsletter showcasing the week's best stories.
Sydney Morning Herald
03-06-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘How do they sleep at night?' Allan and Minns governments, experts demand Albanese fix GST
The Minns Labor government and its treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, have been pushing for an overhauled distribution model that would give states GST corresponding to their population. 'NSW will continue to argue for a fairer carve up of GST on a per capita basis,' a government spokeswoman told this masthead. 'That would include support for the smaller jurisdictions as required. This would help eliminate the wild fluctuations which hinder states from being able to properly budget for future GST contributions.' Queensland's Coalition Treasurer David Janetzki warned Labor against 'locking in a Western Australia sweetheart deal for political reasons' and SA Labor Treasurer Stephen Mulligan argued the GST model gave WA 'an unfair financial advantage'. Albanese and his ministers will spend two days in Perth this week and hold a cabinet meeting in a state that has received lots of attention from this government. Labor last week approved an extension of the North-West Shelf gas project off the state's coast, watered down a petroleum rent tax last term, and backed off on legislating a new environment protection agency last year, partly due to concerns from the mining state. Loading Independent economists Saul Eslake and Chris Richardson want Labor to seize the moment to scrap the WA deal. The cost blowout is the largest in the federal budget and only comparable with the NDIS, according to Eslake, who has been a frequent critic of the WA arrangement. Eslake said Albanese's big win meant he did not require a group of seats in any one state to remain in power. 'This government didn't introduce the worst public policy decision of the 21st century. But they extended it, and they defended it. And if they are serious, then they have a chance to end it,' Eslake said. 'Given that Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers profess to believe in equality and in sound financial management, how can they sleep at night knowing they are giving the richest state in the country $8 billion more than it needs while simultaneously saying they can't afford to increase the JobSeeker allowance?' In 2016, under pressure from the politically influential WA government, Morrison came up with a plan under which no state's GST share could fall below 75 cents for every dollar of the tax raised within its jurisdiction. This was designed to offset WA's frustration that it had fallen to a much lower share than 75 per cent because the GST formula punished WA for its ability to raise billions in mining royalties. The top-up was initially forecast to cost $2.3 billion over four years, but, combined with another policy to make sure no other states were worse off, the total package of changes combined to push the expected cost of Morrison's original plans to $60 billion by the end of the decade. WA's GST share was expected to lift due to a forecast fall in iron ore prices and royalties, but that did not occur, baking in the costs to taxpayers across Australia. Unlike other states struggling to manage budgets, WA is projected to bank cumulative surpluses worth about $20 billion over the eight years to 2026-27. Richardson said the only way the WA deal would end was if the Coalition agreed not to turn the issue into a political issue to gain votes in the state. He said Chalmers must give the Productivity Commission an appropriately expansive terms of reference for its review of the GST next year, which he said would inevitably find that the WA deal was the equivalent of the country 'smoking 100 notes'.
