Two things strike me on first reading of this article. The footage of Victorian Premier Napthine's advertisement for "Victoria, the freight state" is unbelievably uninspired. If I were trying to push these 2 crazy projects- Port of Hastings and East West Link- I would at least show some images of intended benefit to the people of Victoria who will necessarily lose so much in the way of natural environment if these projects are realised. Napthine admits that having the main ports in Victoria rather than much further north is sort of illogical or counterintuitive yet ,with egocentric mania he wants to reinforce this geographical stupidity. There is a feeling that those in charge have quite lost sight of what is important to people which can be summarized as “quality of life” in their hunger for growth and development and freight volumes for a level of population growth that is even way beyond what is expected in the future.
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Byron residents standing up against property developers
NEARLY 200 people attended an anti-development meeting at Byron Bay Community Centre last Thursday night, organised by the Byron Residents Group.
The meeting brought together locals, including young people, opposing the West Byron Development and the planned Seniors Living development surrounding the new Byron Hospital, both on Ewingsdale Rd.
New Voice for youth
The Byron Residents Group say the minister is being misled by planning Minister Pru Goward's department about the supposed need for the housing development and state planners were ‘cooking up a planning shortage’ of housing in Byron shire that did not exist in order to justify the West Byron development.
Department of Planning and Environment (DoPE) population projections, which are used to identify future housing needs, varied widely. A 2013 estimate of a 3.2 per cent population growth for Byron Shire from 2011-2031 increased almost six-fold to 18 per cent less than a year later. Once the retrograde "developments" are approved, of course the population will increase six fold!
This revision is highly suspect and seems intended to justify the over-development of Byron Bay.
Residents are prepared to protect their living standards, amenities and local environment from predatory property developers, with their destructive intentions.
Rezoning approval by the state government of a 108-hectare site for the West Byron housing/commercial development angered residents who say the up to 1,100 houses proposed would make traffic congestion along Ewingsdale Road much worse than it already is.
They also say a large area of wetland and koala habitat there will be severely affected. A rezoning application for the controversial West Byron housing development was approved by the State Government in November.
The rezoning was the major hurdle for the developers of the West Byron Project, among them millionaire Queensland property developer Steve Agnew who is behind another controversial development at Great Keppel Island. And the state government is also backing the developers’ bid for tiny, 150-square metre allotments in both subdivisions.
94% of Ewingsdale residents say No! They don’t want to make Ewingsdale built up like Nerang on the Gold Coast. With all the hundreds of extra people in their cars attending to the seniors and adding to the Ewingsdale Road traffic chaos will just enrage the traffic gridlock situation. The plans are very ambitious profit driven for this sensitive rural ‘Regionally Significant Farmland’ area. This creek is below the heritage-listed Higgins Homestead on either side.
At West Byron, the minister for planning has now zoned core koala habitat for housing, allowed mapped actual acid sulfate soils to be drained and dug down to a metre without further assessment, failed to ensure development does not commence until the bypass and other traffic solutions are implemented, and taken the unprecedented step of allowing subdivisions down to 150 square metres in both residential zones.
Minister misled need for rezone of West Byron
Byron Residents' Group president Cate Coorey said the group had invited local MPs and Byron Shire councillors to attend the meeting at the Byron Community Centre. "The people of Byron are outraged at the town's future being decided by developers, aided by members of council," Ms Coorey said.
Support Great Forest National Park, Victoria
Pledge your support
The Great Forests National Park proposal is a vision for a multi-tiered parks system for bush users and bush lovers alike. It is a Parks system that protects and maintains important ecosystem functions critical for our way of life. See the Park Plan.
The tallest flowering trees on Earth grow north-east of Melbourne. In their high canopies dwell owls, gliders and the tiny Leadbeater's (or Fairy) Possum. Victoria's precious and endangered faunal emblem lives only in these ash forests of the Central Highlands.
Montane ash forests flourish along the Great Divide receiving high rainfall. They harvest water from the air and provide most of Melbourne's drinking water. Research has shown these forests to be among the most carbon-dense forests on Earth due to their rapid growth and relatively slow rates of decay in the cool, wet climate.
The Park, stretching from Kinglake through to the Baw Baws and north-east up to Eildon, will host a range of activities such as bike riding, bushwalking, fishing, bird watching, four-wheel driving, motor biking, camping, zipline tours and much more.
David Lindenmayer, from the Australian National University, is an ecologist and conservation biologist who has spent over 30 years studying the Mountain Ash Forest of Victoria.
Iconic naturalist and filmmaker Sir David Attenborough has lent his support to the Great Forest National Park proposal to help save the Leadbeater’s (Fairy) Possum, while more than 30 groups have called on all Victorian election candidates to do the same.
Great Forest National Park
generalising about age cohorts is growth lobby tactic to divide
This stuff about what 'all' or 'most' baby-boomers think and do is the same stuff the growth lobby put out in the mainstream media pretending it is a reflection of majority opinion.
I was on the Jon Faine Show conversation hour with Steve Bracks (http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2010/04/19/2876868.htm?site=melbourne&...) in 2010 and Jon and Steve both said to me something like, "But surely you can see that if population growth went down and house prices went down that would be a real problem." And I replied that they were out of touch: most people don't have two houses. Many people don't own houses and the majority of people would be really pleased if house prices and rents went down. The phones were ringing hot with people who agreed with me, but the desirability of increasing house prices has been normalised in media-land and media jocks just can't allow the real majority to capsize that carefully promoted myth.
My point is that the mainstream media is 'manufacturing consent'. It is telling us how it wants us to think we all feel. It manages thus to contrive an apparent climate of reduced criticism of greed. I think that the reality is that 'we' are not all investing in housing, many of us are disgusted by the land-speculation. A minority are able to speculate.
As Kate implied, there is a whole sex maligned under guise of the spoilt baby-boomers who didn't earn equal salaries. If they had children that meant even less earning power and years in paid work. For those who did not have children, then they could not be said to have deprived their children of their inheritance. Look at all the women in the anti-growth movement! They deserve our recognition. Most of the real political activists are women - working outside the failed party system. Working for nothing. Doing what our paid politicians should be doing. Most of those women are baby boomers.
By the way, it is the Anglo system of inheritance (derived via the Normans in Britain) that gave us this system where it is so easy to disinherit children. In sensible countries with Roman law, your children have a right to inherit your property equally. Although you might sell it off before you die, it's not well thought of. (In some countries like Switzerland, it used to be required of a parent that they get the consent of their children, or that they give them first option to buy.) Furthermore, the Roman-law state is bound to see that every citizen has housing that they can afford, as well as right to work or be supported by the state.
Also, in Australia, the temptation to cash in on properties is probably one of the few ways of having a chance of avoiding destitution in old age these days. That again is the system and the growth lobby who market property as a commodity, rather than a place, a value, and a right of one's children and clan.
And what got us into this housing unaffordability?
1. population growth engineering
2. foreign ownership liberalisation
3. internet marketing internationally from late 1990s
We were never asked (as Mary Drost pointed out) whether we wanted a big population. As Bernard Salt (who writes like you about babyboomers and has a specialty in personifying age cohorts) says, "80 per cent of Australia doesn't want a big Australia."
We knew this would happen if Big Australia were forced on us. How do we deal with it? Surely not by pitting the generations against each other? We need to change those manufactured norms - by combatting the mainstream media propaganda - by writing for candobetter etc. Castigating the people who advocate commodification of the family home and sacrifice of children to debt for their education and housing in a hopeless job market from which for an increasing number the only way out is dealing drugs, stealing, prostitution, joining the armed forces or suicide.
It's late. Hope this makes some sense.
Human rights and population policy
I thought that SOS use of human rights was fine in the context which is one where people have been conditioned by the growth lobby and its political class merchants via the mass media to believe that reducing population growth in Australia means forced sterilisation and walled cities. We are in a climate of paranoia and profound ignorance of numbers and impact, due to the mass media message. There is a conflation of asylum seekers with the much greater planned invited economic immigrant stream. SOS have to deal with those labels, brands and beat-ups. I thought they did it very well. Thank heavens they chose to do something.
Help Ban Super trawlers for good- Petition
The two-year ban on super trawlers has just run out THIS WEEK. But an international fleet of industrial freezer-factory trawlers (with nets large enough to fly a fleet of aeroplanes through) could soon be back on our doorstep. And the industry is still trying to bring them into our waters.
In 2012, together with our supporters, we stopped the Margiris super trawler from causing irreparable damage to our marine life and coastal fishing communities.
Sign the petition to ban these monsters from our waters for good.
Super trawlers represent the most extreme excesses of global over-fishing, wreaking ecological havoc in our oceans. Once they have a foot in our door, there is an international fleet around the world just like it - where would it end?
A permanent ban is the only way to protect our marine life, fisheries and the future of our fishing from all super trawlers. Sign the petition today.
Our petition to Prime Minister Tony Abbott
We call on the Australian Government to permanently ban super trawlers from Australian waters.
Super trawlers are large freezer-factory fishing trawlers that threaten our unique marine life and fisheries, and the recreational fishing, commercial fishing and tourism industries that rely on these.
Super trawlers are part of a global problem that has led to the devastation of the world’s fisheries, marine life and local livelihoods, and we don’t want to set a precedent for that kind of fishing in Australia.
We want fishing activities that ensure healthy oceans, sustainable employment for local fishermen, ecosystem based fisheries management, and no unwanted by-catch.
There is a reason for the negative views
Interesting how so many younger people come to the same conclusion, no? Why so much boomer criticism here and abroad? Why is "F#*K you, I got mine" considered by many to be the boomers motto? Did this come from nowhere?
No, because I like so many are sick of seeing older people looking for an investment property at inspections for family homes. I live in a suburbs where half the street are retired, in large homes, and I'm working to give THEM money!. Unacceptable.
People are willingly pushing people out of the country, borrowing against their children, and then claiming that criticism isn't fair.
If there is a crisis, and we remain neutral, then this is an evil. Dante reserved the hottest parts of hell For such people. This has been part of western culture, a consideration of treason and neutrality in troubled times as an evil.
I wouldn't judge an individual for what they didn't do, but there is no doubt that the affordability crisis is met by neutrality all through the board. It is therefore reasonable for people to be critical, and people will be critical at those they identify as issues, groups and individuals alike.
I don't disagree with your comments that we shouldn't jump to conclusions, but it is not realistic in my opinion to expect a change. Boomers will be maligned and blamed, and they'll have to accept that. The worst is yet to come. Unfortunately, our economy, through debt has put future spending power in the hands of established people today, and there is no real sense of those who hold it, that they want this to change.
This has forced a generational conflict. But unless the issue is redressed, the conflict HAS to be fought.
This is what is missing, any serious effort to redress this issue. Maybe as wages and job opportunities stagnate or fall, young people will just leave.
The way in which Australia, and many other western nations are treating their own young people is a travesty. Allowing dirty money from corrupt China to outbid a born and bred Aussie just wanting a home near his/her work is national treason. But unless you are part of the solution, then you are part of the problem.
Power corrupts
In the last few years, our power bills have doubled, making Australia's electricity prices some of the highest in the developed world.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott blames two things: the carbon tax and the renewable energy target. He says the government's review of the target will look at its impact on bills, because 'renewable energy targets are significantly driving up power prices right now'.
Twice as many NSW families have had their power disconnected in the past financial year compared with five years ago, the Australian Energy Regulator has revealed.
Origin, Australia's largest energy retailer, disconnected one in every 100 of their customers in the past financial year – double the previous year's rate.
About 108,000 households in NSW, or 3.6 per cent of customers, are burdened with an electricity bill debt, defined as an amount that has been outstanding for more than 90 days. The average debt is $529, the report also shows.
By comparison, only 2 to 3 per cent of customers in Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory are in arrears, though the average debts are larger, at $704 and $825 respectively.
The AER report, which will act as a benchmark to monitor future energy market trends, also showed the average low-income household paying market prices paid 4.3 per cent more for electricity and 4.5 per cent more for gas.
SMH:Electrictiy disconnections in NSW double in five years
A second rail harbour crossing, new motorways, and billion dollar upgrades to schools, hospital and sports facilities will be built if the NSW government wins a mandate to sell 49 per cent of the state electricity network at the next election. The sale would also provide an extension of the west Connex freeway-like conditions across much of the Sydney road network.
Premier Mike Baird said that the sale would allow a once in a generation opportunity to attack congestion in Sydney. Like Melbourne's East West Link, relieving "congestion" means more spending, and encroaching on public assets, not relieving the population pressure!
State Electricity Commission of Victoria was sold off during the Kennett government's era of neo-liberalism. The authority was created in 1921 to provide cheap energy for the state, using the abundant brown coal reserves of Gippsland. Under the guidance of engineer and soldier Sir John Monash, among others, this is largely what it did for the next 70 years. Cheap, reliable power provided to a growing state. Privatization put an end to it!
In the study commissioned by the Electricity Trades Union, Professor Quiggin examined 20 years of pro-privatisation reform in his report, “Electricity Privatisation in Australia: A Record of Failure”:
– price rises have been highest in states with privatised electricity networks;
– customer dissatisfaction jumped, with complaints to the energy ombudsman in privatised States leaping from 500 to over 50,000 per annum;
– resources have been diverted away from operational functions to management and marketing, resulting in higher costs and poorer service;
Electrictiy privatisation a dismal failure
It is time to eradicate the myth that coal doesn’t cost much. In reality, it is costing humanity more than we can imagine (or are willing to admit). Coal also has enormous environmental, social and health costs. Some of these “externalities” can be accounted for. The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering has found that these extra costs effectively double the wholesale price of coal-fired electricity.
Reports based on international evidence show that air pollution — especially the tiny particles emitted from the mining, transport and burning of coal — increases the risk of heart and lung disease, and reproductive problems.
Since 2009, the electricity networks that own and manage our “poles and wires” have quietly spent $45 billion on the most expensive project this country has ever seen. They’ve spent vast sums on infrastructure we don’t need, and have charged it all to us, with an additional fee attached. This is the single biggest reason power prices have skyrocketed. According to the federal treasury, 51% of your electricity bill goes towards “network charges”.
Thanks to the networks’ infrastructure binge, we now pay some of the highest prices in the developed world. The impact has been felt most keenly in New South Wales and Queensland, where the networks are government owned and network charges have accounted for two thirds of the price increases. We are suffering from the dis-economies of scale , which benefit land speculators, banks etc to the misery of the existing population and our natural and built environment .
The Monthly: Power Corrupts
The poles and wires investment is caused by the need for new connections.
This need is driven by a population growth rate of 1.2 million extra people every 3 years.
Third world is a euphemism
The term "Third World" originally referred to the non-aligned nations during the cold war. That is, those nations which weren't part of the first world (the West) or the second world (Communist Bloc).
People noticed that these countries were often developing, or poor, and the term then came to mean poor nations.
Technically, there is no third world as the cold war has ended, but the term remains with an alternative connotation. It is interesting to see how people apply the term, and what they assume to be third world.
I think the term which more accurately describes where we may head, is a banana republic.
third world country
I think that if we are to avoid becoming a third world country, the car factories can be saved simply by making more robots for replacing humans because the wages have exceeded their limits which they can no longer afford these costs. That's why countries like Thailand, Philippines and China can work at much lower rates but their food mainly consist of fish and rice whereby in Australia, we have a much wider variety of food to choose from.
So the question remains, is it possible to save our car factories by replacing humans with robots like they do in Japan or will it be a fact that Australia will become a third world country which nobody wants?
Australia - the next third world country?
How many people criticize anyone suggesting we cut immigration by saying "we are a nation of immigrants" and "we are all immigrants" - or offspring of them!
It's saying that the past is the precedent for the present, and future? While we are all "immigrants" out of Africa, it doesn't mean we can have the doors open forever, in a finite nation. We might benefit from something in the past, but it may not be able to be propagated forever in a closed system.
Is there a conspiracy to make Australia a third world nation, with economic "muscle" from masses of people, rather than from high standards of living, good education, and knowledge investment? Masses of people create a pool of cheaper human resources, and economic power from workhouses of employees willing to take on whatever housing and jobs that are available? Surely it's the end result of neo-liberal policies?
Besides Australia becoming the big Quarry for China, Prime Minister Tony Abbott, has come under fire of late, with the significant stripping back of funding for Australia’s pre-imminent research body the CSIRO, the ARC and universities.
As reported in Lateline, Peter Doherty, University of Melbourne wrote a Tweet in April this year that caught my attention. It read, "Cutting resources for science, technology, innovation and education is a sure way of accelerating our transition to a Third-World economy."
"Well, if we're just going to have an economy based in farming, mining and tourism, that's not really a First-World economy, is it? I mean, we do have other attributes - higher education sector and the education sector in general, but it is kind of disturbing if we lose a lot of our capacity for science and innovation".
Lateline - cuts to science and research
It almost appears that there’s an unspoken bipartisan agreement in place to silently allow manufacturing to whither. Manufacturing is critical to our future wealth. What other first-world country on earth that maintains its standard of living off agriculture and resources alone. Third-world nations that do!
"Australia will start to become a third world country in its living standard." Professor Goran Roos, Advanced Manufacturing Council.
If third world immigration continues at the current rate, Australians will become a minority in their own country within a few decades. The major political parties support the idea of a ‘big Australia’. The International Monetary Fund expects Australia will have the worst jobless rate in the Asia-Pacific region over the next two years, bar the Philippines.
Like third world countries, many families in Australia struggle to get food and this can negatively affect the social, emotional and education outcomes for the children in these families. Our economy, living standards and access to basic resources are now declining.
On top of this, we now have fierce cuts to the ABC and SBS! The ABC's Media Watch program reported the Government will cut the broadcaster's budget by $50 million a year, on top of the $9 million announced in the May budget. We have seen how prices skyrocket under privatization. When all public assets are sold we become the unlucky country, a poor country, a disadvantaged country that squandered its resources.
What else can we do to stop this country becoming a third world country?
Correct categorizing is useful generalisations often misleading
I apologize then if I have attributed something to you that you did not write or mean. I got the impression from what you wrote that you were saying that although the people you saw at Victoria First meetings appeared to be of the Baby Boomer generation that your impression of those belonging to that generation was that they were characterized by a lack of concern, apathy and indifference. I thought when you wrote that the generation was not “born bad” the implication was that they are in fact “bad” and as a result of enjoying a good quality of life and being rewarded for their work (remember women got less until early 70s) this lack of struggle had led to complacency and loss or proportion. This I find a bit of an amusing role reversal of the proverbial older generation chiding the younger one for having it easy compared with them!
Of course you can’t look at every detail of life separately without making connections and putting events, and experiences into categories as you have done with the economic situation in Greece , US, UK Ireland . That’s how one comes to grips with what’s happening . One has to give it meaning by seeing similarities and giving groups of experiences and observations labels. If one did not do this one would keep eating something one is allergic to because it wasn’t quite the same as the one before ! If one can’t link things up and see commonalities it is really hard to understand the world we live in. But as the cataloguing librarian classifies books, (and other materials ) s/he must find exactly the right Dewey number for each book so it goes with books that are related in subject . But If you are the acquisitions librarian and need to choose material for the library and you have read 4 books with green covers and decide on that basis that you will avoid buying green books then you have misused the facility of categorizing and have generalised in a way that is not useful. If that example does not ring true, it could be that the librarian discards all books written by people born in 1956 on the basis of have found some unappealing, silly books written by authors born in that year, but then the next book written by Tim Flannery would not be acquired for the library despite its merit.
With question of the attitudes of Baby Boomers or any other generation, I would want to see a reliable scientific survey before making a pronouncement or judgement. It could well be that 70% of them are smug and uncaring, but the question to be asked is "Do they differ significantly in this respect from members of other age groups?" It could be that they do. I don't know until I see some hard evidence.
Australia part of sinister conspiracy prepared to bury MH17
It is really sinister if Ukraine, the Netherlands, Australia and Belgium are conniving towards a consensus not to publish unless they (alone) agree on the cause of MH17's destruction. What about Russia and East Ukraine, which have been accused by these conspiring western nations, who are looking for excuses to make war on the East? What if investigations show that Ukraine (rather than East Ukraine) caused the accident, with other covert western assistance? And what about the right to know of Malaysia! What about the relatives of the victims - from all countries? What about international responsibility and justice? It is imperative that the whole investigation be conducted transparently and that all the results are released to the public. If ever there were an occasion for Wikileaks or other leaks it would be from this investigation. This 'agreement' sounds criminal and carries consequences that could bring us closer to war.
I stick to generalisations, because they work for me
I think you are attributing comments to me that I didn't make. I don't recall saying that Boomers were solely at fault, in fact, I stated in no vague terms any criticism one may level at them, can be leveled at my gen, and the next one. I don't believe there is a definite line, where one joins one group, to another, it is a continuum.
I stick to generalisations, because they work for me. Provided they have predicting power and based on fact. Maybe you are thinking generalisation is the same as prejudice? I find I've been able to understand, and more importantly, predict trends, based on broad movements. As I said, it may not be fair, at least by prevailing post age of enlightenment thinking. I acknowlege that, but I'm far more interested in holding a working and usable model of the world. This I think is moSt important.
Take for example the financial crisis that countries like Greece, UK, US, Ireland, Iceland etc experienced. Some people I speak to go into minute detail, and say they are all separate, based on different problems. Greece was due to government spending, US was lack of confidence, etc. Some neglect the underlying commonality, rejecting it as simplistic and attribute it to the specific differences. But in general, each was a debt based problem. Too much debt. The same problem crushing us now. This is a generalisation, but this explains better the potential future movements and challenges. There is a trend in modern finance to rely on bringing spending forward to inflate wealth, which racks up debt. Our financial system encourages and propels this debt creation. This may manifest itself differently in different countries, whether it be a stock market crash, housing boom strangling the economy or the state just running out of money, but has root in a common flaw which is shared, debt based finance. Take the housing boom. Again, people will think that it is due to aussie exceptionalism, but they ignore all the other asset bubbles in the world. "It's different here".
Same with people, social conditions manifest behaviours and attitudes, which may vary between people (not all) and may appear varied, but stem from common conditions. These manifest differently between gens, due to communication (people tend to communicate and exchange ideas with their own age group), but are the result of environment, and I would say genetics as well, though this is not PC.
The problem is, people take this personally, as if I am talking about them as an individual. It's social phenomenon. It's culture and environment and external pressures and means of acquiring resources which can shape morals, attitudes and culture. Much of what we think and do, is not based on our will. It may be we have no free will at all, science is indicating it is less than we think, and many of our rational decisions are not ours at all.
What I am suggesting is that environment and economics and culture has had an underlying influence on the way people make decisions, formulate morality and behave, and that conditions which existed in the 20th century have influenced this course of action. It not peoples "fault" anymore than you can fault the plant growing towards the sun. It is necessary though to see it, and account for it and govern.
Bias and assumptions not good journalism
This is biased and pre-assumed reporting at its worse! To "assume" that the MH17 was the result of pro Russian militants without a full report is poor and biased journalism at its worse.
Russia maintains a Ukrainian fighter jet shot down flight MH17 on 17 July.
But Ukraine and the West blame pro-Russian separatists armed with a Russian BUK surface-to-air missile.
A leaked document dated August 8 was obtained by Russian website Live Journal and translated into English by Global Research.
The document is a non-disclosure agreement signed by the four nations involved in the investigation. It says that the results and data obtained will only be published once all enquiries are completed. The agreement seemed standard if not for a stipulation that states publication of the results would only be done if Ukraine, the Netherlands, Australia and Belgium arrived at a consensus.
MH17 investigation Update conspiracy
Global Research concludes that the "intermediate results of the investigation directly prove the innocence of Russia and/or the Donetsk militia" since all data are kept and experts' opinion unreleased.
The chief Dutch prosecutor investigating the MH17 downing in eastern Ukraine does not exclude the possibility that the aircraft might have been shot down from air, Der Spiegel reported. Intelligence to support this was presented by Moscow in July.
Though the West has accused Eastern Ukrainian militia forces of shooting down the plane, it has provided only circumstantial evidence in support of such claims. Moscow has urged the US to release satellite images that prove its claims.
“This may be a coincidence, but the US satellite flew over Ukraine at exactly the same time when the Malaysian airliner crashed,” a Russian Defense ministry spokesman said in a July statement.
Dutch investigation MH17 crash
ABC video: Kind humans help orphan bat-babies survive drought
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-21/fruit-bats-rescued-from-destroyed-homes-get/5910812
It has been suggested that people contact the ABC on
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/abctv/contact.htm and commend them for their truthful and compassionate treatment of the plight of bats and bat rescuers in a heatwave in northern New South Wales. Accurate and appropriate bat stories are rare on TV. If you missed this lovely story it's at: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-21/fruit-bats-rescued-from-destroyed-homes-get/5910812
Jenny
Fetish for elusive "growth"
The most recent figures from the Bureau of Statistics confirm the economy has grown at an average annual rate of only 2.5 per cent over the past two financial years. Since it needs to grow at its medium-term trend rate of about 3 per cent just to hold unemployment steady, the jobless rate has been rising slowly over that time.
SMH: RBA wants all on board in a waiting game
It is not surprising people are wondering what more we could be doing to get things moving. Some have noted the impending loss of jobs in car making and elsewhere, and are wondering where the new jobs will come from. Growth in consumer spending is being constrained by weak growth in household income because growth in employment is so slow and wages are rising so modestly.
"The most recent figures from the Bureau of Statistics confirm the economy has grown at an average annual rate of only 2.5 per cent over the past two financial years". At the same time, with population growth at nearly 2% per year, it means that our population has growth nearly 4% in 2 years, faster than the economy! No wonder we have increasing poverty and unemployment. We are in population overshoot! The more of us there are, the more thinly our wealth is spread between more people.
Per capital GDP is shrinking relative to population growth. Per person income and wealth on average is shrinking. It's only being disguised by a high immigration rate of wealthy Asian immigrants that have the cash to buy into the upper-middle end of the residential market and squeeze the existing middle class out.
Unfortunately there are limits to growth that we have no, or very little control over. The main restricting factor being we live in a closed natural system called planet Earth, within it's spherical form.
Candidates' replies
Did the candidates say yes to a wider public debate; or say yes to a stable population policy? These are completely different things.
Generalisations are lazy and can be dangerous
Generalisations are lazy and can be dangerous. They represent lazy thinking , which seems to be that “my experience and resentments can be used to scapegoat an entire generation”. Dennis K , the “trends” you are “pointing out “ are no more than generalisations. Furthermore they attribute far more materialism to a particular period than I think existed. Of course that in itself is sort of a generalisation, although not a dangerous one.
Just because you say your own examples fit ”trends “ does not make it so. You will not be disappointed, I’m sure, that I am not convinced by this.
I think also that the division of people into generations is a bit artificial. I say this because it is a continuum. Baby Boomers are still in action. They are all through the Federal Parliament , in the State Parliaments and all through business as well as being found in conservation groups and all kinds of activist circles. They are working simultaneously with Gen X and even Gen Y in all these arenas. One generation does not leave off as another gains its majority!
Age is (as is race ) a very visible characteristic, so making unpleasant generalisations about a particular group of people who are visible as that group is dangerous and reprehensible.
Regarding the question about why you or your generation stood up for gay marriage and not against selling our sovereignty, well that is no more the responsibility of Gen X than it is of Gen Y or the Baby Boomers, surely you must be aware that members of the adult population of Australia range from 18 to over 100. This issue is not particularly yours , it’s happening on OUR collective watch! The gay marriage issue is not seriously contentious as are matters touching Big Business. It is a convenient distraction from the issue of the theft of our wealth and heritage and destruction of our environment now well under way.
Generalisations are just that, general.
I note that there are exceptions, but I don't find it useful to concentrate on individual examples. Note, I'm not blaming "boomers", just pointing out trends. These are trends and generalisations, and while unfair to those who don't fit the trends and generalisations, they are nevertheless useful to figure out where we are going. I use my personal examples, because they fit the trends from others I've spoken to.
I completely expect my daughters generation to blame mine for the lack of privacy, all encompassing surveillance, and for perhaps many of the other issues I'm vocal against. That is completely fair, because if it happened, it happened on my watch, not hers. It happened because others I spoke to got irritated that I brought it up, and not kept discussion the "fun" stuff like sports or Game of Thrones, or some totes awesome new dumplings place in the city.
But I don't go about writing that 'generations' are to blame, and you won't see this in any of my articles. But I do acknowledge that there are tendencies in generations, which are a result of environment and social upbringing. For example mine, (Gen X or Y, depending on who defines it), has a tendency to mature later, value "Social Justice Issues" and be sceptical of authority. These tendencies will no doubt shape the future, and will be blamed later for problems the next generation will face. "Why did you protest for Gay Marriage all the time, but not against selling our sovereignty?" they might ask.. They may very will blame us for migration problems, and could have a 'counter culture' revolution, rejecting our cosmopolitanism, and considering our virtues of 'diversity' as old fashioned, ignorant and outdated. They won't understand why we protested many of the things we did, but wonder why we didn't protest other things which affect them.
I think this is starting already in Europe. The ideals we hold as supreme will pass.
Few today can see these tendencies exist, and how they shape societies development. Perhaps one has to stand outside to see it, where those who stand within the generation can't see it at all. Perhaps why there is intergenerational conflict, they see things in each other that they can't see themselves. This is useful.
My point was that the Post WWII Generation/Generations inherited much, gained much, and I note a tendency to believe that this is somehow normal, that progress just happens, is good, and will continue. Yes, some have after many years of observation, have realised that what is occurring today, is not what was occurring during their time. But I don't think it is as simple as a bad planning minister, a few dodgy developers and some migration policy. The cause I think runs deeper. These problems are symptoms of a general malaise, which is not only in Australia, but throughout the West. Please note that I'm not suggesting that this is particular to that generation, it exists among the 30 some-things today, but that these people lived through a type of apex.
Generalisations should be handled with care
I would agree that Baby Boomers (those born from 1945 to 1965) in Australia experienced an economy and environment far better than now as judged by quality of life in all respects (although there was not equal pay for women until the early 70s) I would like to point out re standard of living in Australia , that it was much lower key and not as high tech in the 1960s as it is now. For most middle class people it was comfortable, adequate but not in any way jaw dropping. One of the wonderful things was that actual sunlight came through the windows whereas now it could just be 10 minutes per day as dwellings are now too close to one another and too high .
But if it were true as claimed that fairly pleasant, not overly stressful living conditions have made people decadent and lacking a sense of proportion then we should be glad on that account that now our economy is teetering on a Ponzi pinnacle, that middle class people worry about putting food on the table (on tonight's ABC news) and that foreign investment means that our country is really for others , not for us any more. That should eradicate decadence and complacency, (undesirable attributes ) shouldn't it?
No, seriously what this means is that people will have no idea in a decade or 2 how things should or could be unless they travel to a nice small city e.g. Geneva or Vienna. But because many Baby Boomers do have some idea you will find them in organizations like Victoria First (whose concerns include rapid population growth, over-development, traffic congestion, and the protection of Victoria's unique birds, animals and plants,) Sustainable Population Australia, and at environmental rallies especially those focused on local issues. I find your claim that Baby Boomers are complacent contradicts your observation, that they are spending their time and energy trying to salvage what they can of the wreckage being wrought on us.
As with all “generations” you will find some complacent people and some highly concerned and political
It must be pointed out that the oldest cohort of Gen X is now pushing 50 years old and must bear some responsibility for the way things are panning out currently.
I think it is invalid to generalize about people’s attitudes by comparing one’s own grandparents with one’s parents as that is a sample comparison of 1 only. Generalizations about Baby Boomers or any generation, or nationality are dangerously divisive when we need some solidarity in our fragmenting society.
Updates on SOS survey and the Democrats
Robert Hoddle wrote the following, containing updates regarding the SOS survey:
Good on you for the CDB article
"Victorian Candidates who support wider public debate on stable population - per SOS survey"
Sat, 2014-11-22 23:15 which has kindly just been forwarded to me.
1) Are you aware that our most important candidate - Steven Armstrong - is missing from the article?
His results only went onto the SOS website yesterday as at
Latest update of individual responses: 141122 Planning Survey Candidates RO
http://sos.asn.au/vic/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/141122-Planning-Survey-Candidates-RO1.xlsx
It would be useful for completeness if the article included his results.
2) I found the Australian Democrats are unusual in having an explicit sustainable population policy as on their website at Population and Immigration. (pdf)
URL http://sos.asn.au/vic/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/141122-Planning-Survey-Candidates-RO1.xlsx viz..
"To ensure our continent’s long-term sustainability, we aim to first stabilise then reduce Australia’s population to an ecologically sustainable level."
Sadly in contradiction of this, I found in recent personal conversation with their Vic Upper House candidate (Southern Metropolitan Region), Clive Jackson from Oakleigh that he personally is quite unconcerned about rapid population growth and high immigration as "there is plenty of room left". [Guaranteed exact quote from personal convo last week]. His bio, otherwise environmentally aware, is at http://vic.australian-democrats.org.au/ He is actually a planner with the Victorian Dept of Human Services (DHS) concerned about housing unaffordability. Yet he has apparently not made the direct connection between high immigration and housing unaffordability.
Robert Hoddle
Boomers were largely catered to
The issue with the Baby Boomer generation, is that they were lucky. Born just after a major conflict, during a time when money was put into manufacturing, into improving the standard of life, and in some ways, the Cold War forced governments to prove that Capitalism worked better than Communism, by offering a better quality of life. There was credit expansion and major investment and development projects. It was perhaps the height of Western Civilisation and the best standard of living experience by humanity, ever, anywhere.
Most probably wouldn't have guessed that house prices would escalate. I certainly wouldn't have back them.
There are many of that generation who are concerned about the future. Just go to any Vic First meeting.
But, in general, the lack of concern about the future perplexes me. There are exceptions, but by and large the apathy and indifference infuriates me. That is not to say that young people today are different. They aren't and may even be worse, as young people tend to focus on "fad" issues, which give one cred with peers, but ultimately, aren't critical to the future.
I don't believe that a generation was just "born bad". They are the same as any other generation. Genetics didn't change, but environment did, and that environment was one where quality of life was generally improving, where efforts were rewarded (I don't doubt they worked hard, but they got results for hard work, unlike today) and where there were major changes, both socially and technologically, to improve things.
My view is that the BB generation are decadent, not deliberately so, but because they won many of their battles, they got their payments and lived through the best living standards that have existed on this planet.
I note the stark difference in attitude between my parents generation and grandparents generation. One went through temporary high interest rates, the other lived through firebombings. One had easy access to education, jobs and housing, the other was booted out of their home permanently by an invading army.
Lack of adversity, lack of struggle leads to complacency and a loss of proportion.
The Western world is in my opinion, decadent, weak and downwards looking. We are "packing up" civilisation, as if somehow we are done with it, and putting it out for sale in the driveway to spend the last pennies in some comfortable twilight. You can LITERALLY see the "For Sale" signs around Melbourne and the Docklands.
While I think we are in some ways, at war with China (wars always start long before shooting begins), I have to admire the fact that Chinese are setting themselves up for the future (albeit in an unsustainable and deeply flawed way), for the Chinese people. China simply does not care, at all, what the impact of their investment is doing to people here, because they are doing this for themselves.
Where is the drive here? How many politicians are far sighted? Now many in our establishment care about the security and future of next generations? This isn't just a feel good thing, these sentiments are critical to social health. Society has to have a vision for itself, where it considers itself worthy of continuation and propagation. This doesn't exist today. In fact, many celebrate the demise of their own people and eventual decline.
This is perhaps my favourite proverb.
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” -Greek Proverb
http://imgur.com/gallery/xtaW7WF
Point well made...but
The point that it is futile looking only at one cause when there are dual or multi intertwined causes is well made in this case re climate change.
I do question , however the reference to multi- millionaire Baby Boomers who borrowed to buy multi properties a few decades ago. The author is writing from a perspective of 20:20 hindsight and I'm not sure that ordinary rank and file Baby Boomers back in the 80s were aware that they could make a killing by availing themselves of this option in life. Unless they were in the business I don't know that the BBs could see that this route for money making was a cert. Unless you are driving the prices e.g. by being part of the growth lobby or consciously helping them in some way then you are taking a punt with a housing investment. At one point, at least over the last few decades housing prices actually dropped - in the early 90s (about when immigration dropped, surprise surprise!) But how many Baby Boomers then aged 25 to 45 would have been aware of this? I could have bought C.S.L. shares when they first floated and made a killing especially if bought lots but I didn't because I didn't know the price would go up. I could have put $10,000 on the winner of the 3rd race at the last race meeting at Flemington and my finances would now be very different but I didn’t because I didn’t know it was going to win. We all have the chance to buy Medibank Private shares now but we don't know what's going to happen. I think the author is giving Baby Boomers credit for clairvoyance that most did not have . There are plenty of homeless Baby Boomers. The house prices of 2 and 3 decades ago look cheap now but they were only cheap if you could afford them. More people could afford a first home then than now but remember, salaries were lower and interest rates were often higher than now. It was an extra stretch to buy a second or 3rd real estate investment. It must also be remembered that ordinary people were not thinking about this all the time and many would not make it their life’s work Repeating Baby Boomer myths and characterising them as undeservedly rich perpetuates generational envy and friction which I'm sure the growth lobby, our enemies would just love. If you are the child of a Baby Boomer, your parents' foresight in buying a house when, as young people, they could have blown their money on overseas travel, the home they bought will be to your utter advantage.
I don't understand the Greens
I think it was Steven Armstrong who told me there are two groups, the old Greens, the environmentalists, and the more Social Justice oriented (I would say quasi-Socialist) new Greens.
As for Socialist Alliance, I've had the fortune of speaking to some Socialists in the past, and many advocate violent revolution, have a disdain for working Australians and advocate some weird system where parents don't get to raise their children, rather children are raised communally by the state. Some boasted to me about using violence and intimidation to silence "facists" and "racists" and I've personally been threatened with violence by them.
It strikes me as odd that the state doesn't come down on them harder,
I'd like to point out the parties they accuse of fascism and racism, such as Australian First, don't engage in such behaviour.
PS. I've just gotten off the phone from a representative of the Greens party. She agreed that rampant growth and population is an issue, and pointed out that while I was sceptical of the effectiveness of their housing policy, at least they had one which puts them above the other candidates (with the possible exception of the Christians). I pointed out that while many in the Greens may share my view, the public message doesn't make this as clear and explicit as perhaps they should.
So I suspect the Greens is a party which is best examined by the inclinations of its individual members, rather than its publicly stated policies?
Immigration and Human Rights
It is great that SOS asked the population question in their survey. However prefacing it with "While ensuring that human rights are protected .."
People hide behind the term "Human Rights" to support demographic and social engineering projects which are immoral and which deny people rights.
I'd like to ask SOS, which rights specifically they fear might be violated, and where in internationally recognised law these rights are defined. And if not defined, how does one figure someone has a "right" of entry? Do I have a "right" to enter someone house if I think it is a better proposition for me? Does that trump the home owners right to refuse entry of they think it is better for themselves and their family?
Odd that in a country like Australia, which greatly values home ownership over renting and values private property, we dump these ideals when it comes to collective ownership over our country.
Where is Human Rights defined as mass migration, economic exploitation of migrants and using human movement as a business scheme? People use "Human Rights" all the time, but in contexts where these rights are not defined, officially recognised or stipulated in international law. The UN Declaration of Human Rights does not seem to include the right of people to impose on other nations due to their own economic preferences. Nor does it include the right of politicians to engage in demographic engineering, and deliberate dilution or 'culture busting' (As UK Labor admitted to doing last decade).
The legal immigration issue has nothing to do with Human Rights of the migrants. Asylum seekers are another issue entirely.
Usually, people who loudly proclaim a virtue, often stand opposite of it. Countries with "Democratic Peoples Republic" in their title can be guaranteed not to be free countries for the people. In a similar vein, many who proclaim human rights, are usually the most vocal in suppressing and denying human rights and limiting a peoples autonomy in determining their own affairs. A good example is those who seek to silence critics of mass migration, by suggesting that this is "racist" and has no place. In reality, they are seeking to deny a people the right to determine their own affairs, and shape their community in freedom of externally applied population policy.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of sloppy thinking about this issue, not just by advocates of continued mass migration, but often by its critics too.
Voice of the West and other Niddrie candidates
I had the opportunity to briefly chat with Paddy Dewan, who is the candidate for Niddrie for "Voice of the West". After a discussion about his primary concern (hospitals, as that is his profession) I mentioned my wife's and my most pressing concerns, over development and ruination of our home, Melbourne and the problems this will cause for our child, who will have to squeeze in somehow. I spoke about Victoria First and its aims, goals and desires.
The discussion didn't last long after that. While he wasn't critical, I didn't get the sense that he considered these pressing problems. Generally any candidate which focuses on roads as an issue, is off the mark.
I note on one of their electoral leaflets, under transport they recognise that there is a transport backlog, and that we need move this to match the increasing population of the west.
While I support voting independent to break the Labor/Liberal duopoly, you have to be careful. These independents could hold balance of power, and if they are pro Growth-Ponzi, this could be just as bad, if not, worse, than voting Labor. ( I don't consider the Liberals an option at all).
There is a link here for those in my electorate (Niddrie).
http://www.theweeklyreviewmooneevalley.com.au/story/1813213/state-electi...
Independent: Andrew Gunter
Notable quote :
" Like all infrastructure, our home values depend on schools being there, in good condition, providing a good service to the Niddrie community"
Most important thing about schools, is house prices remaining high? This is not only anti-community, it is a fiscally irresponsible mentality.
Independent : Andrea Surace
http://www.mvcc.vic.gov.au/about-the-council/councillors/councillor-andr...
Quotes development as a strength. Also multiculturalism (This is quite often a placeholder term for population growth).
Australian Christians: John Warner
I'm not keen on religious parties, their environmental policy sounds good.
On housing "Housing is one of the necessities of life. For Australian Christians a family home is more than just a material asset. It is central to family life and the raising of the next generation. It is also essential for the disabled, the poor, the aged and other marginalised groups."
On Media and Censorship, this is concerning
Media, including television, films and the internet, play an increasingly influential role in the formation of public opinion and taste. Children, including teenagers, are especially vulnerable to media influence. Aggressive and pornographic media is now making inroads into mainstream advertising and merchandising.
Society has a moral duty to limit what can be conveyed by the media in order to protect children and the whole community from what is harmful, especially violent and pornographic content.
Independent: Appollo Yianni
His primary issue seems to be radiation from smart meters from leaflets and signs I've seen.
http://www.emraustralia.com.au/smart_meters.html
There is a party running for the Senate, title, People Power Victoria - No Smart Meters.
There is a Greens candidate, but my opinion is that the Greens fail miserably in ignoring the entire working and middle class, and only focusing on niche minority issues. For example, reading their housing policies it seems they believe that it is only an issue for the homeless. At least they acknowledge it is an issue (which places them above most other candidates), but without an understanding of the underlying problem (engineered population growth, credit expansion and mass printed money searching for yield to prop up an unsustainable financial system), they can't possibly solve the problem.
BUT, if the Greens can force it as an issue, even if they push their flawed solution, it is better than nothing. Putting housing as an issue, will spark further debate, which will put focus on the issue, and the surrounding issues which cause it will then come to the fore. They may not have a solution, but highlighting the problem is better than nothing.
SOS question on population
It is great that SOS asked the population question in their survey. However prefacing it with "While ensuring that human rights are protected .." might lead respondents to think that Australia's high immigration is about human rights and that reducing it may run some risk of this being compromised. Australia’s immigration program is not on the whole a matter of altruism. e.g. There is a business immigration visa that requires the applicant to have AU$5 million to bring with them. Most immigration to Australia is planned economic migration. The people whose human rights are at stake are refugees and asylum seekers who get a very thin slice of the cake and if they arrive by boat they can't live here anyway. I would not be surprised if the “No” vote was inflated by prefacing the question with the rider about human rights. I don't know anyone who wants to stabilise the population and reduce economic immigration who would want the humanitarian program to be reduced. Currently the rights of ordinary Australians are being infringed by mass immigration which is necessitating huge, often traumatic changes for the worse in our cities and suburbs and is impacting very badly on the wider environment. It is clear that Victoria and Australia are already overpopulated.
Voices of the West irony!
Voices of the West have some sound and rational policies, but they support ongoing population growth, "as long as there is enough infrastructure". This is ironical because they seemingly are addressing all the problems cause by over-population and overloaded infrastructure. It's irrational to want to fix the problems, yet also support the cause!
Vote for Phil Cleary - Northern Metropolitan Region
If in the Northern Metropolitan Region consider voting for Phil Cleary, opponent of the East West Link and advocate of public transport. When a Federal MP for Wills he saved the Upfield rail line from closure. Where would the northern suburbs be now if this vital line had been closed? For many years Phil has been a great supporter of Protectors of Public Lands Victoria and parks groups in Melbourne.
See Age article 22 November 2014 "Cleary wants apology for provocation defence" This is part of his long standing campaign regarding domestic violence.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victoria-state-election-2014/cleary-wants-apology-for-provocation-defence-20141121-11r56a.html
"Your" ABC anoints corporate 'right to rule' Australia
I am very concerned about the forces pushing for growth and the money involved especially from overseas. I am relatedly very concerned about the free trade agreement with respect to selling off land particularly in Tasmania.
This morning the NSW 7.30 program was aired on ABC News. The people being interviewed were speaking with enormous confidence as though they ran the country and that the interviewer did not challenge them.
I particularly noted the loss of council powers and the progressive removal of open space in Sydney for multi- storey /high rise buildings.
Victoria's stretched economy is failing!
Victoria has the worst performing state economy on the east coast apart from Tasmania's, new figures reveal.
The Australian state accounts, produced by the Bureau of Statistics as a complement to the national accounts show Victoria's economy grew by just 1.7 per cent in 2013-14, not enough to keep pace with population growth, meaning economic output per Victorian actually fell, slipping 0.2 per cent.
The Age: Victoria's economy slipping official figures reveal
The adage that economists and governments keep to justify our rapid population growth, and that it's an indicator of economic growth and prosperity, is wearing a little thin!
There is a time for growth, and there's a time for stability, and the enhancement of what we have! The election issues are overwhelmed by basic shortfalls of services, such as crowded public transport, "inappropriate developments", unemployment, increasing homelessness, crime and anti-social behaviours. There are enormous stresses on the public, and increasing costs of living, but we still see high rise towers, high density developments as if our economy was flourishing!
Both Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory grew even more weakly than Victoria, although Tasmania's weak population growth meant that unlike Victoria it recorded positive growth per person. In Victoria, our per capita wealth has declined because population growth means that what we have must be shared more thinly!
And, what's surprising, despite all the property boom and growth in "developments", the construction industry recorded no real growth during 2013-14, neither adding to nor subtracting from the total.
The growth fetish being imposed on us needs to be grounded by a good dose of reality! Growth is not always "good", but can be a malignancy!
Simpson's creator Sam Simon supports Sea Shepherd
The MV Sam Simon is one of four ships in the anti-whaling fleet of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. It’s a fearsome-looking vessel, in a paint job of grey camouflage and a toothy shark’s jaw.
Simon is the legendary writer with a long list of credits to his name, best known for his work on The Simpsons. But in the past few years, his reputation has been growing as an aggressive philanthropist, escalating his giving after a terminal diagnosis of colon cancer. He’s also been making some notable gifts to raise hell for those who would abuse animals.
The Australian government over the years has consistently broken promises to the Australian public with regards to our "anti-whaling" policy, however it has only been Sea Shepherd that have kept their promise to the whales, to the Australian public and the whale-loving people of the world."
"We as humans have forgotten the interconnectedness we have to nature and to all life on this planet. As we overfish the oceans and decimate entire families of dolphins and whales at a time, we are destroying the ocean along with them -- an ecosystem that we ourselves need to survive. There are many children, who don't want to see that happen, and they will lead the way, but we all have to do our part and the time to act is now. Sea Shepherd is not just defending the oceans, but safeguarding nature and the planet for future generations," remarked a determined Simon.
Trees and vegetation lower temperatures
Trees and vegetation lower surface and air temperatures by providing shade and through evapotranspiration. Results show that, averaged over all urban areas, the added vegetation decreases surface air temperature in urban street and road-surface and building-wall temperatures as a result of tree shading and evapotranspiration.
An urban heat island is lifting city-centre temperatures, with Melbourne leading the nation for heat-related deaths, according to a national report.
And Melbourne City Council has found temperature variations of up to 4 degrees between the city centre and suburbs because of the heat-island effect.
The Age: Melbourne city centre a death trap as heat island effect takes its toll
The number of heat-related deaths in Melbourne is expected to more than double by 2030.
In 2012 the City of Melbourne commissioned a study into the economic impacts of the heat waves, extreme heat days and urban heat island effect within the municipality. The report examined the current and predicted future costs associated with heat across a range of areas including human health, antisocial behaviour, transport delays and energy use.
Moreland has been assessed has having a high social vulnerability to extreme heat events by recent scientific research involving spatial vulnerability analysis of urban populations.
Australia’s major cities routinely rank among the world’s most liveable. But for all our clean streets, good healthcare and educational opportunities, one of the things we have to contend with is our sweltering summer heat. Rising temperatures due to climate change and the urban heat island effect has made our transport system vulnerable. Contrary to logic, environmental health and human welfare, more than 9 hectares of Melbourne’s historic Royal Park is set to disappear under the East-West Link toll road.
Predictably, The Property Council of Australia says it is deeply concerned by the announcement of the Opposition's promise to abandon the East West Link project, which comes after it received repeated assurances that any signed contract would be honoured. Those with vested interests in Victoria's bondage to the real estate and population growth industries, and the extension of corporate supply chains, will benefit from the East West link - until population growth catches up again that clogs up our public transport and road again!
Melbourne is becoming a monster, a monument to ignorance and a retro economic model based on generic growth in human numbers, housing, concrete road networks, and a city designed and "planned" by the property industry and business corporations.
Homeless being mainly ignored in Victorian election
The Victorian election is being bogged down by fundamental, basic issues of over-development, joblessness, public transport, traffic gridlocks, and all the shortfalls of basic services due to ongoing runaway population growth. While attention is on raising the funds and commitments to address these issues, they distract the public from higher order concerns that we should be voting on!
We should be debating the proposed Great Central National Park, threatened species, food security, climate change, research funding, marine protection, industries, job creation, and higher education!
Another issue largely, and conveniently being ignored, is the homeless! In our frenzy to approve of and build more and more housing, to keep up with socially-engineered demand, the lost are forgotten!
Advocates for the homeless say Victoria needs an extra 50,000 public and community housing properties to meet demand. With housing a major industry, the increasing demand for "affordable housing" has been forgotten!
They said an investment of $200 million a year for the next two decades would be needed to bring Victoria's public housing stocks up to par with the rest of Australia.
Yarra Community Housing reported a 23 per cent increase in requests for crisis accommodation in the last financial year. There are now 22,000 people living on the streets in Victoria and affordable housing is rare. And there is a new class of white-collar homelessness.
More and more people, not traditionally homeless, are being discarded by the real estate Ponzi scheme by not being able to afford rent, or mortgages!
Candidates urged not to forget the homeless in election campaign
Ironically, all the "planning" permits and real estate expansion continues, in a bid to outpace population growth and provide "affordable housing"! It's an oxymoron as our economy has become locked into the housing bubble, and profits from increasingly unaffordable housing - that's why foreign investors have been invited in (too keep the housing prices inflated).
Population Policies
After the Victoria First/SPA VicTas meeting earlier this year I contacted the major parties regarding their population policies. The Greens are the only party to have a policy which I might add isn't much chop, both Labour and PUP were going to get back to me and of course neither of the Coalition members replied to my request. Many of the problems Melburnians face are the same up the bush: health, education, public transport, emergency services, local government, etc and are often magnified by the tyranny of distance and out of the eye of the mainstream media.
In the electorate where I'm voting, Murray Plains, the incumbent National Party member Peter Walsh, the disgraced Minister for Water, is odds on to get back in. His strongest opposition will probably come from Byron Winn a candidate from Country Alliance and Peter Williams belatedly nominated by Labour. Perennial Greens candidate Ian Christou will stand once again and will be joined by Laurie Wintle Rise Up Australia and Laurie Hicks as an Independent. While I can't see anybody unseating Peter Walsh, a 5% swing against him would be good, a 10% swing would make him take notice. Such is life in a safe Coalition seat.
All of Melbourne suffering from similar issues
One only has to read the election issues facing different suburbs, and they are almost ALL the same all over Melbourne: unemployment, traffic congestion, over developments, shortage of schools, health care, a growth of crime and drugs. Each electorate seems to be coping with similar issues, but on different magnitudes. The one thing that's common to all is population growth - but the public seem to be willing to swallow the inevitability of it all!
While property developers, planners and banks make huge profits, the public are meant to bear the stress and the squeeze of overloaded infrastructure, over-crowding and rising costs of living. There's no parties committed to addressing the population issue - except for Steven Armstrong, Independent in Albert Park but supported by the Sustainable Population Party (SPP).
We Will Decide- the Democratic way to decide migration
Australia has a major population problem. In many parts of the country, the population is growing faster than our capacity to provide the infrastructure and services the people need.
City dwellers face traffic gridlock and crowded public transport. Hospital waiting lists are a problem in several States. Many schools are stretched to capacity. In established residential areas, we are being told that the family home must make way for five storey units, and along our coastline the environment is under threat from spreading urban development.
The common factor in all these problems is population growth. Those who exercise power in this country treat population growth as inevitable. We are constantly told we must plan for change, because there will be millions more of us in 20 years’ time.
Has anyone asked Australians whether they want millions more people? The extra people have to live somewhere. Have you been asked whether you want more people in your area?
We Will Decide: The Democratic Way to Control Migration and Development
The Purpose
1. The aims of the We Will Decide proposal are:
- To give people control over the population density in their residential area, by preventing development in that area which would allow the population to grow by more than the people want. People have a legitimate self-interest in controlling the scale of development in their local area.
- To provide a connection between the number of migrants and the preference of the people for more or fewer people in their area. The number of migrants permitted to enter the country in Australia’s self-interest will be restricted by reference to the total of the local decisions made by people about the population in their area.
- To continue to allow the Commonwealth Government to determine the number of migrants permitted to enter the country pursuant to our international obligations.
The online census of 2016 will give us screens to decide on these important issues, and gives a guide on how to answer them. The proposal only applies to the online census form, for administrative convenience.
Stop the Trawler Alliance: PETITION
The two-year super trawler ban ends in November already! But there is an international fleet of freezer-factory trawlers on our doorstep and the industry is still trying to bring them into our waters. Sign the new petition and help convince Prime Minister Tony Abbott to permanently protect our marine life, fisheries and the future of our fishing, from all super trawlers!
Dear Prime Minister,
We call on the Australian Government to permanently ban super trawlers – large freezer factory trawlers - from Australian waters.
Super trawlers are large freezer-factory fishing trawlers that threaten our unique marine life and fisheries, and the recreational fishing, commercial fishing and tourism industries that rely on these.
Super trawlers are part of a global problem that has led to the devastation of the world’s fisheries, marine life and local livelihoods, and we don’t want that kind of fishing in Australia.
We want fishing activities that ensure healthy oceans, sustainable employment for local fishermen, science based fisheries management, and no unwanted by-catch.
PETITION: Stop the Trawlers
Vote 1 John Carbonari - Australia First Party
Australia First Party Vote 1
JOHN CARBONARI For Bayswater
RESTORING
QUALITY OF LIFE
TO AUSTRALIANS
The Lib/Lab/Greens offer:
Relentless increasing of Municipal Rates to fund non ratepayer services/Corporatised Councils.
Gas and other Utility Bills through the roof, and forecast to skyrocket for foreign utility owners.
Neighbourhoods of family homes being destroyed for increased density to cater for immigrant plague.
Jobs sent overseas, and swarms of foreign 457 visa scabs throwing Aussie workers onto the scrapheap.
Youth adrift/purposeless through Aussie culture relegated under the pox of multicultism.
The scourge of drugs and violent crime rampant, undermining families and a civil society.
Aussies priced out of housing market by Chinese buyer access/demands.
Never ending revenue raising “fines”, stressing family budgets to pay for politicians squanderings
POLICIES TO PUT AUSSIES FIRST:
Returning power to electors via Delegated Democracy, Citizens Initiated Referenda and Parliamentary Recall.
Reclaiming/Nationalising utility enterprises, to return to affordable pricing. Public ownership to retain local oil refining as an essential strategic industry. Redress for Lib/Labs unconstitutional sale of Public Assets.
Usurping by State Government of Federal property rate tax levy to be rescinded, and replaced by fees limited for needed services of local Councils.
Government purchasing from local businesses to increase employment for Australians.
Aussie culture only in education studies, and or for public life. Return to values for a High Culture. Multicultural infestation to be dumped.
457 Visa scabs taking Aussie jobs all to be sent to the next boat out of Australia. [along with fake refugees]
Shutting out immigrant settling, avoiding further decline to our Australian way of life.
Re-establish trade training/education to ensure productive work skills for youth. No TAFE fees
Restrict politician’s perks to provisions of Constitution for allowances only. ALL other snout in trough type payments to be redirected towards Work Corps for unemployed, to maintain independence and dignity.
Unlawful “fines” to be abolished, and innocent until proven guilty by peers rule of law returned for citizens.
Foreigners bidding for Aussie housing to face 100% stamp duty charge, to be allocated to Aussie public housing, etc.
Parental input for compulsory rehabilitation of addicts
Martial Law principles to eradicate Drugs of Death. Drug cartels/promoters will do so at OWN PERIL
Contact - Mobile 0408 554542 www.australiafirstparty.net
email: ausfirst [ AT ] hotmail.com P O Box 223 Croydon 3136
Authorised/printed by R Blythe Warbuton Hway Wesburn 3799
TAKE BACK OUR AUSTRALIA –
JOIN AUSTRALIA FIRST
Housing BOOM!
There have been people saying a housing crash is imminent, for years. I didn't think it would have taken so long, but I underestimated the mania and stupidity of those caught up in the hype. The old adage that one never loses underestimating the intelligence of people rings true. But now you mention that we are relying on housing price growth to fund consumption, when all indicators point to growth in price slowing and stopping. Ooops. I've read these two statements in the media, haven't seen a journalist plucky enough to mention them together and add these proverbial "2s" together.
BUT now, the RBA, the Banks, and even now Saul Eslake are referring to a peak, or a bubble. This is different. They are bearish on the housing market, where they weren't before. A warning sign. As I mentioned in my last article, it will be the Aussie amateur property investors who'll be the last to realise there is a problem.
Waioona, you are right they we should avoid the major parties. I vote to upset the balance of power and for hung parliaments and power to independents. There are a few in my electorate, which is good news.
The Housing Bubble We Have To Have
Neoliberal governments at all levels of all persuasions have been, and still are, banking on the housing industry to keep their heads above water. As the Australian recession tightens its grip on these same governments, they espouse more of the same. Reliance on the mining and housing industries is like flogging a dead horse in the Melbourne Cup, it's not getting us anywhere let alone making us a dollar.
These governments are bereft of any idea how to stimulate the economy which is being strangled by high net migration, employment opportunities and a fractured taxation system. Governments are bullied by big business who are marching to a beat of a different drum to 99% of Australian citizens. The revolving door between big business and government has rendered government ie the major parties Labor and the Coalition, craven to an extent where government does the bidding of big business.
The demise of the manufacturing industry, while not the be all and end all of industries, was skills based, unlike the service industry which is supposed to replace it. Further to this the lack of investment in the education, health, agricultural, renewable energy, to name a few industries, has produced a future outlook that is very grim indeed. With youth unemployment running at up to 25%, the jobs market is extremely bleak for even our best qualified youth. Competition between these kids and allegedly skilled migrants is skyrocketing with all too often the migrants winning out because they are prepared to work for less cash and in poorer conditions.
Less cash in the market place only adds to our woes. Whether it be migrants earning less or a former tradesperson earning less as a cleaner, less lass cash means less sales. This in itself is not a problem, but it adds to the cycle of workers being laid off. This is the classic neoliberal conundrum and the very reason why neoliberalism will never work!
Those who control the strings will make a killing while those below, the majority, will struggle and some will not survive. This cold harsh reality of our governments' decision making. We get told after the event of what is going to happen a la East West Link and the Desal Plant. You've got it, it's going to cost you a packet, does it work? - who cares!!!
November 29 is polling day, I beg readers to keep the above in mind when voting. A vote for either of the major parties is for more of the same. More bad decisions, a housing market that's set to explode, less jobs, more misery and more people on the dole!!!
Thank you, Waiona, for this insightful contribution. Please consider also having having a look at
Issues that should be decided at the 29 November Victorian State elections (14/11/14, also at candobetter.net/MakeYourVoteCount) and give us your thoughts. - Ed
GDP Growth lagging behind population growth
The most recent figures from the Bureau of Statistics confirm the economy has grown at an average annual rate of only 2.5 per cent over the past two financial years. At the same time, with population growth at nearly 2% per year, it means that our population has grown nearly 4% in 2 years, faster than the economy! No wonder we have increasing poverty and unemployment. We are in population overshoot! The more of us there are, the more thinly our wealth is spread between more people
SMH: Ross Gittins- RBA wants all on board in a waiting game
Some have noted the impending loss of jobs in car making and elsewhere, and are wondering where the new jobs will come from? With an economy increasingly based on housing and population growth, where will the jobs come from? We are in population overshoot of jobs, yet our government is aiming at more "growth"!
Gittins says "some people imagine the economy grows only to the extent the government is doing things to push it along. It ain't true. What propels the economy, keeping the number of jobs increasing virtually every year, is the material aspirations of business people and households". We can't keep accumulating material possessions, and there's limited natural resources, and compounding wastage and pollution.
Australia is really in the midst of a recession. Why? Because per capital GDP is shrinking relative to population growth. Per person income and wealth on average is shrinking. Collectively the Australian people have squandered their wealth into property. Property is static, and doesn't produce long term jobs. It was quite predictable that the mining boom would come to an end and we have nothing else to replace it. With unaffordable tertiary education, and cut-backs in funding for science and research, it means that our jobs are more likely to be in customer service industries, not those with highly specialized skills. We can only wonder how many of our "skilled migrants" are actually working in their skilled area - or in customer service?
Our real estate sales to foreigners aligned with other real estate initiatives like land banking and drip-feeding housing growth and high rates of immigration all pushes up house prices and is considered as GDP growth. This alone accounts for more loss of productivity when you compare the amount of money needed for housing in Australia and wage levels needed just to keep up.
Official figures released in May this year show Australians owe $1.8 trillion to banks and other lenders. But while the household debt is growing at a slower pace, it is still growing, and over the past 25 years it's been growing at twice the pace of house prices. Dwelling investment now accounts for 10.7% of our GDP, and such a healthy proportion means inflating the housing bubble, and exploiting household budgets, to their full-blown extent.
Mallee birds extinct in 20 years: government policy to blame
What sort of government deliberately burns our land and deliberately extinguishes our species knowingly in the process! The Victorian Government stands accused of all but guaranteeing the extinction of threatened Mallee birds as a consequence of its bushfire prevention policy. The Mallee emu-wren, in particular, is just one fire away from being wiped from the planet.
Policies are meant to guarantee their protection, not their extinction!
There are not many people, or properties, in the remote Mallee, but it's easy to burn and reach the quantitative target of 5%!
With the sixth extinction means that many species are disappearing off our planet, due to human overpopulation and destruction or degradation of habitats, our Victorian government wants to burn 5% each year, and thus have our whole State made "safe" from bushfires - and the lives of native animals and birds are considered no more than collateral damage in the process". It's a deliberate scorching and incineration of our land, and the specialists habitats of native species, to their demise.
There are 314 most important sites for birds in Australia – and five of them, including the Victorian Murray Mallee - are in danger of losing the species for which they were nominated. Birdlife Australia's report says vegetation in the Mallee "recovers slowly after fire" and, to be suitable for threatened Mallee species, "cannot be re-burnt for at least 15 to 20 years".
The Wildlife Act, the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, and the EBPC Act are all nothing but a thin facade that assumes to "protect" our wildlife , but the dangers that's causing them to fall down the extinction cliff are those that are "exempt" from the laws- such as logging, mining, and State government who ignorantly make these draconian, deadly and cruel decisions.
The Age: Mallee Birds extinct in 20 years and government policy to blame
Planned Burns in habitat forests
if you object to a fuel reduction burn it is then relabeled an ecological burn and visa versa....then it is labelled an ecological and a fuel reduction burn...with the blink of an eye....but sadly little authenticated science as researchers keep telling us.....just hypotheses to be tested.
Those directing this catastrophe to the Australian landscape are like the actions of a malignant parent who detecting something wrong uses adverse care to observe its outcome.
Save our Ducks: In The Age today!
Native waterbirds in Victoria need your voice. Over 50 animal welfare, conservation and environmental groups have united to call on the Victorian Labor Party to support an end to duck shooting. And you can add your voice too!
The Victorian Labor Party has a vital opportunity this election to take a stand against the cruelty of duck shooting. It was Labor Governments that banned duck shooting in WA, NSW and QLD on cruelty grounds. But both major parties in Victoria still support the recreational slaughter of native waterbirds.
And our birds are paying the price...
Many ducks aren't killed instantly. Instead they suffer fractured legs, shattered bills, splintered wings, pellets through their eyes and gunshot lodged in vital organs. These wounded birds often face a slow, painful death.
With duck shooters making up less than 1% of the community, it’s time the government listened to YOU , the Victorians who oppose duck shooting. So please join RSPCA Victoria, Animals Australia and
over 50 other organisations, in urging Victorian Labor to ensure our native waterbirds are safe, not shot.
You can add your voice by contacting your Labor MP or candidate or by visiting
SaveOurDucks.com
Yours sincerely,
Ms Glenys Oogjes
Executive Director Animals Australia
Dr Liz Walker
Chief Executive Officer
RSPCA (Victoria)
LABOR: we want our wildlife safe, not shot.
Indicators
Vivienne, you raise a good point about needing more diverse industries. We are stuck just with constructing (crappy) units and declining mining.
I'm an admirer or Dr Deming, an American engineer from Iowa, and statistician who made large improvements in quality management (my profession). This was when Americans made quality products. Today, management is obsessed with KPI's, metrics and so forth. Deming said that these were overstated in importance, and management by metrics is a poor strategy. Amen!
I quote, "...management by numerical goal is an attempt to manage without the knowledge of what to do, and in fact is usually management by fear".
"Out of the Crisis" 1982 Ch2 - Principles for transformation.
He stated often the most important things were unknown, unknowable or unmeasurable and these things which evade easy measurement and are difficult to quantify, or even define, are often most important. Do our leaders think like this? It certainly is true. The biggest factors determining out lives, are currently beyond any metrics. Hence why "most livable city" titles are a side splitting joke.
Perhaps the best metric, is to just ask people if they think life and their vision for the future is getting better. Problem is, most people will give the answer that News Limited will have drummed into their heads, rather than their own answer.
GDP growth is narrow, and needs to be redefined for 21st century
In February, G-20 leaders vowed to boost collective GDP by an additional 2 percentage points by 2018 – an ambition that appears increasingly challenging as members from Japan and China to Germany and Russia witness slowing growth.
While the world hails China and the US for moving forward on curbing carbon emissions, Australia is backsliding by scrapping a tax on carbon and resisting pressure to expand the use of renewables. Abbott's justification? The need for "growth". In fact, Australia's prime minister wants the rest of the G20 also to pledge to grow by an additional 2 per cent or more over five years. "Growth" can be malignant, and destructive!
Mr Abbott: The world doesn't need another growth target at G20
China's annual pledge to generate a fixed expansion in gross domestic product - 7.5 per cent this year - is also the biggest roadblock to clearing its air and eventually reducing emissions. So, there comes a point in which growth becomes detrimental, and the benefits end up being eradicated by the cost of pollution, environmental degradation and carbon emissions. Tony Abbott, a climate change denier, would rather ignorantly forge ahead and leave future generations with the burden of cleaning up the mess from this generation's megalomania. and greed for GDP growth. At least China will reduce their target next year, but Abbott is still forging backwards towards detrimental and unsustainable growth fixation!
In a step towards true social justice, we need to redefine ‘growth’ in our finite world. Not just for our sake, but for future generations. If we are to secure a prosperous economy, healthy environment and better quality of life, growth must focus on quality, not quantity. At present, who could argue that Australia’s economy, environment or quality of life are heading in the right direction? Under the current political duopoly, we're getting much bigger, without getting better.
As stated by William Bourke, Australia’s economic prosperity does not depend on the GDP statistic. In fact, GDP is a side-show. It would be more accurate to say that our economic prosperity is underpinned by three key pillars:
1. Investment in better education and skills training to improve job security, workforce participation and innovation
2. Encouragement of a diverse range of productive industries and
3. Maintenance of our natural economic advantage via careful management of food, water, energy and mineral resources.
What we need is for economic growth to be redefined to one that's descriptive of present day times, approprate to the challenges of climate change, human population growth, the decline of finite natural resources, and the rights of Nature to exist and thrive for the benefit of ALL species - not a narrow definition based on a narrow economic metric.
All the emerging markets members of the G20 were expanding slower than their 10-year average.
Fact is, the G20 will struggle to meet current growth hopes, let alone elevated ones. Rather than obsessing over a nonsense target. It's time for Australia to go beyond real estate, population growth and mining-dependant economy. We need another indicator of economic targets, one that's based on our nation's population and environmental health, and good stewardship of finite natural resources.
Berlin and growth
One thing that struck me when I was in Berlin, while going through an exhibition about the city, was how static its population was. A world class destination, reknown city, which many throughout the world want to move to, and a stable population for several decades. A city which is the capital of Europe's economic powerhouse.
Many other truly world class cities don't have growth.
So why does does Australia "need" it? We don't, but you can sell this manure if people don't know better.
Note the fear growthists invoke. Fear of regression, recession, stagnation, irrelevance, invasion. All nonsense. Fear that "low" birthrates will mean well disappear of the face of the planet.
The need for growth IMO is a weakness, and "Big Australia" actually reveals a "small Australia". If a country thinks being "big" is just a matter of feet on the ground, then that is actually a small vision, a petty vision. Small in terms of culture, development, progress and vision.
GDP indicator of prosperity, not cause
If breaking a window increases GDP, why not go down the street and break them all? This is the glaziers fallacy, a thought experiment introduced by Bastiat.
We are taught that GDP = Standard of living, which is partially true. But does GDP alone do this? If standard of living is eroded to increase GDP, obviously not. It is frustrating that many leaders dont acknowledge this, or refuse to acknowledge the paradox of increasing GDP by reducing quality of life.
In the past, GDP wasn't considered important, so why is it now? Why do we obsess over this, when throughout much of history, it wasn't a thing to gear a nation towards or even measure.
My hypothesis is that this is the result of a society beginning to find metrics for everything, and measure and compare, and then coming to the wrong conclusion. When one decides to measure GDP, something obvious becomes apparent. Nations with higher GDP have a better standard of living. The correlation is strong, so people became even more fixated on metrics. Metrics, metrics, metrics. We judge everything my metrics, even a cities livability is measured by plonking data into a spreadsheet.
So there is a correlation, what does that mean? Higher GDP means better quality of life? Generally, yes, but not necessarily. A nation which can PRODUCE will have a better quality of life, because it is capable of providing people with the housing, food, medical treatment and lifestyle they desire. It very simple. Nations which cant produce, don't have food, medicine, tools and hence social stability and peace. Nations which can, generally do. GDP is an indirect measure of this, as it reflects the productive capability. The capability and potential to produce, innovate and invent is the key. This results in higher GDP, but it is this, not GDP which ultimately matters.
But rather than GDP being a coarse indicator, it became the be all and end all. Now, we equate the exact GDP figure with success, and like absolutely everything we develop a metric for with regards to society, it becomes corrupted, misunderstood and a problem. From this observation, we now think the metric itself is responsible for success, rather than the processes behind it.
Consider life span. Life span is a good indicator of quality of life, as nations with longer lifespans are healthier and safer. But what if we said good, now lets work towards increasing it, and did so by banning dangerous activities, keeping terminally ill and suffering patients alive as long as possible, and keeping old people alive as long as possible in palliative care in a vegetative state. We could ban unhealthy food, drinking and lots of other things. It would be sure to raise the average lifespan, and then we could point to the number and say "Look here, this PROVES we are better off", all while forgetting the point of it all.
So it is with GDP. I think GDP is important, and gives indicators, so I disagree it is a sideshow. But I think that targeting a GDP percentage is a problem, just the same way setting population targets can lead to evil. We should only observe it, and try to deduce what trends mean, within a broader context. Rises or falls may or may not be a problem. It all depends on context, and economists don't do context.
Greg Hunt: the prize for being the Anti-Environment Minister
An Environment Minister who refuses to agree with a sustainable population policy, and approve of our ridiculously high rates of immigration, is an oxymoron! What other factor are creating all the environmental challenges of today other than humans, and are not being exacerbated by swelling human numbers? Of course, there is climate change, which is anthropogenic, and feral species, which is also a problem created by humans!
An Environment Minister who fails to acknowledge human impacts on the environment, and that population growth will natural increase the threats, is a contradiction. It's like a church pastor being an atheist, the fox in charge of the hens, a criminal gang running the police force, a speaker in a Temperance Society advertising alcohol, a Christian missionary running a brothel!
We've had some very mediocre "environment" Ministers in the past, but Greg Hunt should receive a special prize as the most UN-environmental- Minister of all time!
An Auditor-General's report has highlighted serious problems with the department's enforcement of environment laws, and failures to check on new mines, waste dumps and resource developments, and slammed its "passive" approach to ensuring developers comply with conditions to protect areas such as the Great Barrier Reef. The department was too under-staffed to administer Australia's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and officials were not properly trained to monitor the activities of developers.
It's the Environment Department to support if you don't want one! With the Abbott government's anti-science and climate change stance, and being "open for business" globally, they don't want "science" or the "environment" to get in the way of economics, and "progress"!
We can only admire MP Kelvin Thomson for audacity of addressing some of the unwelcome questions to our government! He's the thorn in the flesh, the one who makes our politicians uncomfortable for their hypocrisy, and makes them squirm with pertinent questions that uncovers their deceptions, and contradictions.
Our gate-keepers and office-holders need to be ethical, moral and have the highest integrity. Now, they are selected to fit the party policies, rather than be qualified in their departmental folios. It's Orwellian:
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”– George Orwell, 1984
Public Transport demo - 1pm, 15 Nov, Melbourne
Following our Rally4PT (28 June) which was endorsed by over
60 Victorian community groups and leading up to the State Election in
November, we are determined to continue to keep our 3 demands in the
campaign to stop East West Link front and centre in the minds of pollies
and voters, and to demand an integrated public transport system for
Victoria.
Can you and your organisation
help publicise and support our second Rally4PT - The Transport Election: We demand our say! to be held:
Saturday, 15 November,
1pm
State Library lawns,
corner LaTrobe and Swanston Streets, Melbourne
- speakers (to be announced
soon) will give updates on this campaign and discuss further action for the
remaining weeks to the 29 November.
We hope your group can
take part. It's vital that we send both major political parties a clear
message.
DIY/BYO signage and placards are also warmly encouraged. (eg
Doncaster, Rowville, Mernda, Mildura, Wyndham etc)
See attached leaflet for further information and for circulation.
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.
sharing.
Further information on Rally for Public Transport: http://www.ycat.
Follow #Rally4PT on Twitter: https://twitter.com/
cheers,
Jill Koppel
On behalf of the Community campaign to stop East West Link and
invest in real public transport
and
supported by
Collingwood and Abbotsford Residents Association
Website: http://cararesidents.
Australia's economic 'growth' hides increasing poverty
We are told that one of the most notable aspects of recent Australian history has been unbroken economic prosperity. We are told about more than two decades of growth, the proceeds of the mining boom, the benefits of deregulation, and 'dodging the bullet' of the Global Financial Crisis through clever economic policy measures. The GFC is being used as a scapegoat for poor economic management, and tunnel-vision on monetary values rather than per capita GDP growth, and social welfare.
The ACOSS 2014 report ... finds that 603,000 or 17.7% of all children were living in poverty in Australia.
ACOSS' 2014 report on poverty in Australia, finding that 13.9% of people in Australia are living in poverty, and 17.7% of all children. "The Government appears to have developed a country growth plan for the G20 without engagement with those who will be most affected - the community," said ACOSS CEO Dr Cassandra Goldie.
The report provides the most up to date picture of poverty in the nation drawing on new data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics Income and Expenditure surveys for 2011-12 and previous years.
The disproportionate urbanisation of Australia is ... keeping regional centres from reaching their full potential.
In Victoria, in July our unemployment rate hit 7%, the highest rate since 2001. This is the tenth month in a row that unemployment in Victoria has been above 6 per cent. With the closure of many manufacturing industries and a high population growth rate, it's clear that more needs to be done to create new jobs. At the same time, the housing industry is "booming", and spreading the few jobs being created even further between more people.
Our measure of economic growth, based on population growth, is being used to hide the poverty and the dysfunctional nature of our economy. Population growth is the no-brainer, lazy way of boosting the size of our economy. The more of us there are, the more thinly our natural and built resources are spread and shared out between a swelling number of people. The disproportionate urbanisation of Australia is not only placing a strain on the large cities, but is keeping regional centres from reaching their full potential. The great big Ponzi scheme of perpetual economic growth means feasting and gorging at the top of the pyramid of wealth, and discarding the less well-off on it's way!
Sir David Attenborough pleads to save Leadbeater's possum
Adapted from the Herald Sun, 10 Nov 2014:
Sir David Attenborough has weighed into the state election, backing a call for the creation of a Great Forest National Park to protect the state faunal emblem, the Leadbeater’s possum.
David Attenborough supported the creation of of a new National park in the Yarra Ranges and the Central Highlands that is 89% of Victorians.
Sir David said: “The maintenance of an intact ecological system is the only way to ensure the continued existence of biodiversity, safeguard water supplies and provide spiritual nourishment for ourselves and future generations.
World to breach IPCC's carbon limit by 2040
Global energy demand growth will halve by 2025 but fossil fuels will continue to dominate, leaving the planet on a warming trajectory of 3.6 degrees, according to the International Energy Agency.
Australia is becoming a top-three gas producer and reclaiming its title as the world's largest coal exporter, and our government continues with deaf-ears to climate scientists.
Carbon-dioxide emissions blamed for global warming will grow by 20 per cent by 2040 with overall energy demand rising 37 per cent. By then, the world will have exhausted its entire CO2 budget of 1000 gigatonnes – the amount of emissions estimated by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to keep temperature rises to within 2 degrees.
Energy poverty will also foster continued reliance on lower-cost carbon fuels, with electricity now available to only one in three sub-Saharan Africans,
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/world-to-breach-ipcc...
IPCC warns greenhouse gas levels are at their highest they have been in 800,000 years, with recent increases mostly due to the burning of fossil fuels. The planet is unequivocally warming, that burning fossil fuels is significantly increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the effects of climate change - like sea level rises - are already being felt.
Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have increased since the pre-industrial era, driven largely by economic and population growth, and are now higher than ever. This has led to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide that are unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. Their effects, together with those of other anthropogenic drivers, have been detected throughout the climate system and are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. Without additional efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions beyond those in place today, global emissions growth is expected to persist, driven by growth in global population and economic activities, the IPCC warns.
The risks associated with temperatures at or above 4°C include substantial species extinction, global and regional food insecurity, consequential constraints on common human activities, and limited potential for adaptation in some cases, the IPCC warns.
With an economy based on perpetual economic and population growth, and the destruction of our Great Barrier Reef's security for coal exports, our Australian government's only response can be to deny it, and cut funding to scientists!
David Packham
That "expert", obviously with academic tunnel-vision, is the David Packham mentioned in the article. He's said to have links with the timber industry. He's a former CSIRO scientist, but obviously does not care about native wildlife, and our biodiversity already struggling to hold onto existence against the odds in Victoria.
Naming our vegetation as "fuel" is emotive and loaded. It's also the food and homes of native birds and animals, and some habitats take at least 40 years to establish, especially hollow logs and old growth forests.
The arson of 5% of Victoria each year would mean that it's all incinerated every 20 years, leaving flora and fauna dry of homes and habitat!
Such a draconian approach to keeping people and property "safe" is at a high cost, and will the resultant regrowth will be ideal windfall for the timber industries. A 5% target is objective and quantitative, and an easy target to implement. However, real fire mitigation needs to be based on quick response, targeted burning to where the greatest threats are, a holistic conservation approach to preserving wetlands, forest densities, and keeping urban expansion away from forested areas.
"Expert " said 8%-12% of Victoria should be burned
I heard an "expert" interviewed on ABC radio yesterday who was saying that the burning should be increased to 8%-12% a year. Unfortunately I did not register his name. That increase would bring our environment down to complete sterility just that much faster.
Report from conference: Prescribed burns - state arson!
The whole foundation of these prescribed burns as a remedy for excess "fuel" and the danger for fire for people and property was turned over, and exposed as being based on lies, false indigenous history, and ignorance. Poor economic management, fear of litigation, destruction of ecosystems, human environmental destruction are all factors that hinder natural process of decay, and natural fire management. Prescribed burns are dumbed-down and cruel, the destructive way of preventing fires, by actually causing them in the first place! Insects, fungi, native animals are all part of the natural processes that decay and recycle excess timber, undergrowth and vegetation. Bob McDonald said that kangaroos and koalas should have CFA vests on as they help eat the excess vegetation, and spread the fungi.
Misinformation about Aborigine burning was all exposed as being false. As explained by Joel Wright, traditional owner from south east Victoria, there's never been a word in the indigenous language to describe deliberate burning! This would have destroyed their hunting and food sources, and impinged on neighbouring tribes, causing riot and conflicts.
Bob McDonald explained that the smoke seen my early explorers arriving by ships, including those seen by Captain Cook and his crew, were actually smoke signals to rely the notice of the ships arriving, and impending invasion. They were not randomly burning the landscape!
Many in the Bush Fire Royal Commission were from the timber and forestry industries, with vested interests in "young" forests for logging, not in biodiversity or conservation.
David Packham: Inferno stoked by green vote
Former CSIRO and fire expert David Packham blames the misguided "greens" for non-action to burn off all because of the "environmental fantasies of outraged extremists and latte conservationists". David Packham has long links with the forestry industry, and it suits their vested interests to have bushfires, to create young rather than old forests from re-growth.
Burning native habitat is State-sanctioned arson. Many prescribed burns actually get out of control and become the threat to human safety they are trying to avoid. Bushfire fighting is all about rapid detection, response and suppression of ignitions. According to naturalist Bob McDonald, we have heat-detecting technologies, from towers, with the ability to sent out SMS messages to initiate rapid response.
Some Australian flora have become more fire tolerant that others, but others remain sensitive to fire and vulnerable to fire. Just because some species have become tolerant of fire, it doesn't mean they all actually benefit from it!
This generalist claim disregards the complexity of biodiversity. It’s like claiming the bush grows back and so must be ok. Again, what ecological authority do you base you claim?
Heavy rain after burning will leave exposed subsoils and attracted weeds, but bushfire authorities who engage in prescribed burning abrogate themselves of responsibility for follow up weeding – ‘not our problem’ they say. Wildlife carers are forced to endure heavy restrictions, training regimes and limited funds.
The horrific deaths of native animals is overlooked, and their pain and screams are simply and callously deemed as collateral damage!
Frankston Beach Assn AGM - Nov 19- Speaker Neil Blake
Invitation to the Frankston Beach Association’s Annual General Meeting 2014.
Guest speaker 'Port Phillip Bay Keeper' Neil Blake will discuss ‘NAVIGATING COASTAL PLANNING’.
All welcome. Please invite your friends and neighbours.
Wednesday November 19th at 7.30pm
LONG ISLAND TENNIS CLUB (Corner Nepean Highway and Gould Street, Frankston)
Light refreshments served
The association reports that they have just won a grant of $8792 for ‘Sand dune
regeneration to combat storm surges’ and that this year the tea tree flowers have been stunning.
"Valuing Secularism in Syria" promoted elsewhere
The following comment, which quotes from the start of this article, was posted to the "Monday message board" of the johnquiggin.com forum discussion web site. Comments posted by myself or James to that web site often don't attract much interest from other site visitors, but in recent days our posts have drawn interest, including from one other contributor who expressed some support.
Thank you James. On the subject of Syria, I have just published an excellent speech by Susan Dirgham, National Coordinator of "Australians for Mussalah (Reconciliation) in Syria" at http://candobetter.net/node/4170, for anyone who would like to understand more. Susan is worried that if Syrian government falls, the danger of WW3 will be acute, and I agree. She compares the situation now to the one accompanying the Vietnam war, in terms of what is needed to stand up to propaganda.
She writes, "And at that time, in the US especially, it required informed, courageous individuals in the media, in churches and academia to challenge those lies in order for there to be peace. And in the countries of Indo-China, an extraordinary level of courage and resilience was needed to survive war. To sow sectarian hatred, to damn a person or a group of people or even another nation only takes a few stories, repeated over a period of time by people in positions of influence and then accepted as a truth." Susan identifies a formula for writing [propaganda] on the conflict in Syria. It is to invoke the use of chemical weapons by the Assad government as if this were established fact and to "Damn Assad and the Alawites and your article has a good chance of getting published even if you know virtually nothing." She gives the example of a Waleed Aly article doing just this, ironically just a week after the presidential election in Syria when there was a truly exceptional voter turnout and the president received overwhelming endorsement by Syrians. At the end of her speech, Susan warns that if Syria falls the danger of World War Three will be acute. Susan’s highly informative and moving speech was delivered at a Social Policy Connections Public Forum at The Study Centre, Yarra Theological Union, on 6 November. The speech was filmed and we hope to be able to link to the film soon.
Past harsh rule seen as necessary for survival of Syrian state?
This is to be posted to johnquiggin.com .
Thank for that insight into the Syrian conflict. You wrote on November 7th, 2014 at 18:02 :
"[The Syrian Christian] explained to me that Assad's foot on the throat of all warring ethnicities was the best rule the place could have. ... Sometimes a dictatorship is better than the alternative. The colonial boundaries imposed geopolitical proximity to warring ethnicities, religions and factions thereof."
I suggest that that more accurately describes the rule of President Hafez al-Assad (1930-2000) than that of his son, Bashar.
To me, it seems plausible that, in the circumstances faced by Hafez al-Assad, he may have felt that he had no choice but to resort to very harsh measures in order to stay in power, prevent invasion and prevent ethnic strife. The video broadcaster known as The Syrian Girl, who, in 2014, is an outspoken supporter of Syria, actually fled from Syria with her family to escape persecution. So, presumably, even many loyal Syrians suffered unfairly at the hands of President Hafez al-Assad.
Bashar al-Assad (born 1965), who trained in London as an ophthalmologist, has a somewhat different style to his father. Whilst he has show himself to be just as capable as his father of making the harsh decisions necessary for the survival of the Syrian state, he has also shown himself capable of governing Syria in a way that is remarkably free and open in the face of a bloody terrorist war.
On 4 June 2014 at an election which was certified as free and fair by a large number of international observers, he was elected by a huge majority of Syrian voters. according to Wikipedia, 88.7% of the 73.42% of eligible Syrian voters who were able to vote amid the war and chaos, voted for President Bashar al-Assad.
What leader of any of the Western countries hostile to Syria can claim anywhere near as much support?
Sadly this story has largely been hidden from most Australians by the lying newsmedia.
Many believe in the Cornucopian myth!
Former NSW state architect Chris Johnson has forecast Sydney needs to build 100 new high-rise apartment towers a year for the next 50 years to "protect suburban life from being ruined by over-development as the city’s population grows". “Five thousand new towers, containing 110 apartments each, would provide 550,000 new homes — that will accommodate only a third of our planned population growth over the next 50 years,’’ Mr Johnson said.
Daily Telegraph: High time for Sydney as population swells
What about food bowls, natural finite resources, open space, natural values, land for native species, and ecological systems?
Of course, nobody is politically incorrect enough to suggest winding down our generous and overwhelming net overseas migration program! That would be "locking up", xenophobic, or even "racist"!
Fundamentally people who adhere to the cornucopia myth might accept that animals become extinct, but when it come to humanity, they believe that there is enough matter and energy on the Earth to provide for the ever-rising population of the world.
There are no limits to human growth, and goodness and abundance for all. Planners and economist believe that our cities must never stop sprawling, and growing taller. It seems that most politicians think that the environment is such a horn, full of natural abundance, an endless supply of resources to allow society to expand indefinitely.
Continuous economic growth, of course, is rooted in the fantasy of Cornucopia! It's assumed that a well-planned city will work the miracles of maintaining our city's liveability, and living standards, and all the qualities of the past, yet at the same time still continually increase our population without compounding debt, traffic congestion, rising costs of living, unemployment and crime.
The cornupopia ideal is a myth, and nothing finite can be filled forever. We must eventually end the growth-based economic model for the more realistic and sustainable one of a steady-state model. Any country, city or land mass is finite, and can't keep supporting endless population growth and the consumption that's required. Instead of addressing our politically-engineered population growth, people always talk about more "infrastructure" such as public transport and housing, and avoid the elephant in the room!
and it gets worse for Australian cattle
Yesterday I singed up to give a monthly donation to Animals Australia for their campaign against live animal exports from Australia. Today I hear there is a new $1 billion deal to export 1 million animals to China. It seems to dwarf our efforts. Oh well, I guess the best thing to do now is double our efforts against this inhumane, greedy practice.
Bushfire risk measured as Disastrous for Victoria
Victorian bushfire fuels are at "disastrous levels" and if a megafire ignited in the Dandenongs or in Melbourne's eastern or northern fringe, thousands of lives could be lost, former CSIRO bushfire scientist David Packham has warned.
The Age: Victoria's bushfire risk measured at disastrous levels
"Only management of fuel by prescribed burning can avert this certain future disaster," Mr Packham said, calling for a major increase in fuel reduction burning on public land. Why is there so much prescribed burning in sensitive areas for wildlife, where not many people live, or in East Gippsland's old growth forests? It's a lazy and easy response to focus the 5% where it's less likely to be effective in preventing loss of houses near areas concentrated near Melbourne or regional towns!
The current target for fuel reduction burning in Victoria, a rolling annual average target of five per cent of the public land estate per year (equivalent to about 385,000 hectares), should be substantially lifted to between eight and 12 per cent, Mr Packham said. How much of Victoria's natural wealth, and flora and fauna, survive this inferno?
The Government’s annual Fire Action Week and warning program must be brought forward, so residents at risk have time to remove fuel loads and re-evaluate their fire plans.
So, we have anthropogenic climate change, which our governments continue to drag their feet on and be in denial of, the logging of the stronghold of old growth forests, urban expansion, and a cycle of more heat waves and dry spells, so governments then ramp up the fires to keep burning the State dry, and clearing it of "fuel", in a lethal effort to make Victoria denuded and fire-proof! The collateral damage of wildlife destruction, and their long-term homes, is not even considered!
Instead of living sustainably, within the constraints of Nature and our fragile ecology, our governments think they have a right to destroy, burn and clear to make it "safe" for human property and lives - when it will compound the problem and more even more in the future!
Sign the petition to stop BHP locking locals out of jobs!
BHP is refusing to allow Central Queensland locals the opportunity to work in its two newest Bowen Basin mines. The Queensland District is fighting with the Federal and State Liberal National Party (LNP) governments over their locking out local workers from local jobs through 100% FIFO practices and temporary foreign workers on 457 visas.
Caval Ridge and Daunia have a compulsory 100% FIFO policy – only employing permanent workers from Brisbane and Cairns.
This policy locks out workers from all Central Queensland regional cities and local towns like Moranbah, just kilometres from the mines.
It also denies freedom of choice for FIFO workers so they can choose to have their families move closer to where they work in regional Queensland.
Can you sign our petition to CEO Andrew Mackenzie and tell BHP to stop locking locals out of work and to end its discrimination against regional communities?
Don't lock locals out
CFMEU Mining & Energy Queensland President Stephen Smyth said workers at the 100% FIFO mine deserve better than what is on offer. The region was still reeling from BHP’s ruthless decision to cut 700 permanent jobs from across its Bowen Basin coal mines weeks ago.
Stance by Russia, Syria against NATO supported by the evidence
This was posted to johnquiggin.com on 4 September at 13:19.
J-D wrote on November 3rd, 2014 at 07:42:
I could go on to quote from other sources, ...
Or, perhaps, you could just respond to the arguments I posted above (on November 3rd, 2014 at 02:03). If you were to dispute any of what I have written, you could always ask me to provide sources.
As it is, in the copy of the post on my own web site linked to above, as well as two links to the FIDH, there is a link to one other article on my own web site which has been republished from rt _dot_ com . That article includes that 2:05 video of Natalya Poklonskaya. If you look at the tags at the foot of the article I have linked to here, you will find a large number of articles, most of which also contain citations from elsewhere.
Tags at the bottom of that article include: anime, Crimea, feminism, Japan, Natalya Poklonskaya, NATO sanctions and Ukraine.
The following posted to johnquiggin.com on 4 Nov 2014 at 23:26.
J-D wrote on November 3rd, 2014 at 07:42; November 4th, 2014 at 17:12 and November 4th, 2014 at 19:15
... what kind of sources you regard as reliable, and why[?]
I would have thought the answer was self evident:
The sources, I find reliable are those which I have cited in the various discussions on this site and on my own web site.
Why do I find them reliable?
I find the reliable, because no-one – least of all, you – have been able to show me that any article, cited by me, is wrong.
Of course, feel free to prove me wrong. Just choose any article written on my own site, candobetter -dot- net or any of the other sites I listed in the Gough Whitlam discussion:
globalresearch -dot- ca, voltairenet -dot- org, landdestroyer -dot- blogspot -dot- com, presstv -dot- com and rt -dot- com
... and show all of us, with evidence and logic, how wrong it is.
Of course, I won't hold my breath waiting.
Neoliberal Dogma
After reading Bill Gammage's "Biggest Estate on Earth" and watching indigenous Australians on NITV talk about their culture, I'm often left in tears. The invasion of Australia by gubbas has been catastrophic not only for the first nations, but for the Australian biota as a whole. Our current attitude is governed by neoliberal dogma that predicates that this attitude shall continue to dominate our thinking well into the future.
Both major political parties, governments at all levels, the mass media, big business, think tanks and many more are craven to neoliberalism. Neoliberalism which became entrenched in Australia from the advent of the Hawke Labor government in 1983 and has dominated political thinking ever since. This is the same doctrine that lead the world to the economic recession/depression of 2007. The global economy was changed forever! Nothing will be the same again despite what the economic rationalists will tell you. Inequality is here to stay as is the high growth economy especially high population growth which is being promoted by the above governments, etc. Furthermore, the current Abbott Coalition federal government with its neoconservative agenda will drive austerity measures to the hilt.
In Victoria, both the Coalition and the Labor party have jumped into bed with James Packer and his cronies at Crown in the sweetest of sweetheart deals. A vote for either party in the forthcoming state election will be a vote for more of the same in years to come. How many times, in recent years, has a government been elected on a given mandate only for that government to veer off on a tangent with secretive backroom deals? Too many! Australians, indeed Victorians, must be courageous enough to prevent this from happening. Despite the gnashing of teeth, the squealing and other fallacious arguments from the mainstream media, minority governments can make better and more decisions than majority governments. We need to send the major parties a message that enough is enough by voting elsewhere whether it be the Greens, another party or an independent. As Gough would say: "It's time"!!
Climate science funding continues to be cut - and must be!
"Technological development has been allowed to advance without the associated social intelligence". Governments are now gagged and hand-cuffed by their own contractions, and ineptitude, due to vested interests.
How can Australia have a part in tackling the global threat of climate change when our coal industry and exports are almost second to non in the world? It's too lucrative to leave it in the ground.
We can't be world leaders, or co-operate in climate change efforts, while our country is making mega profits from coal exports.
The Abbott government can only cut funding to climate change research, and go into full-scale denial!
Australia won't be ready to respond and predict impacts of climate change, and whole areas of research are losing funding. These concerns come as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body, released its latest report warning of irreversible damage from global warming, and climate scientists from the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and universities rush to meet Wednesday's deadline to apply for funds under the reduced National Environmental Science Programme (NESP).
SMH: climate science funding deadline looms
At the same time, we have an economy that's evolved to be locked into to high population growth, meaning that even if per capita levels of carbon emissions are reduced, in absolute terms they will continue to rise due to sheer numbers of people - consumers of fossil fuels.
Over the weekend, the government announced the Climate Change Ambassador's title would become just Ambassador for the Environment when the current holder Justin Lee steps down. Even the "environment" doesn't get much profile. We have a world heritage natural jewel of the Great Barrier Reef, but even it's protection won't stop coal-laden ships export coal near the reefs.
Sign Community petition to stop East West Link
Joe Edmunds has announced he has just created a campaign: "Stop the East West Link toll road from being built." PPL VIC supports his campaign.
Please add your name to the petition as we are seeking firmer assurances from Labor not to build the East West toll road should it win the election.
http://www.communityrun.org/petitions/stop-the-east-west-link-toll-road-from-being-built
After you've signed the petition, please also take a moment to share it with others - post it on facebook, tweet about it, or you could simply forward this email onto your networks, friends and family.
Joe says" Real change happens when everyday people like you and I come together and stand up for what we believe in. Together we can reach many people and create change around this important issue." Obviously we do not need to explain why the East West Link toll road is possibly the most disastrous project - and the most expensive - ever to be proposed for Melbourne and so must be stopped.
Direct Action on Climate change - burn native forests!
Earning carbon credits from native forests is the forest management model of the future.
Government budget cuts continue to bite at Australia’s premier science organisation and one union says it threatens Prime Minister Tony Abbott's direct action policy.
CSIRO’s research into understanding bushfires includes detailed reconstruction, fuel modelling, research into fire suppression and recurrence and management of the Pyrotron - a bushfire wind tunnel that allows researchers to conduct controlled experiments into fire behaviour. So, without scientific backing, politicians are not confined to control, or logic.
Environment minister Greg Hunt hailed the passage as ‘real and practical action to achieve our emissions goals and targets without a carbon tax’. The Direct Action package that will allow for Tasmania native forests to be cut down and burned to generate electricity. So we now know that there is the potential for the clearing of our native forests and the use of wood products that are harvested from those forests to be considered as eligible carbon farming initiatives.
The majority of Australians want to see protection of our native forests, it is going to be opening the door for logging of those native forests—and getting further subsidies for doing that—and destroying our native forests by burning them in forest furnaces for energy.
Australia has a climate policy again – sort of (31/110/14)
March claims of Crimean human rights abuses since 'forgotten' ?
This is to be contributed to a forum discussion on johnquiggin.com
J-D wrote on November 2nd, 2014 at 07:24 :
'Other people do worse things' is neither a justification nor even a mitigation.
Where did I write that the staged murders by the neo-Nazi putschists in January and February and its subsequent war against the people of East Ukraine justifies the persecution of gays in Russia?
On November 1st, 2014 at 21:59 I wrote that, in comparison to the war crimes of the Ukraine regime and the even greater crimes of the the United States in Iraq, Libya and Syria, "the prohibition of 'propaganda on non-traditional sexual relations' seems almost insignificant by comparison."
We may have to differ on whether the latter is 'trivial' or 'insignificant' in comparison to the former, but I fail to see how the latter could any way be likened to the former.
JD wrote on November 2nd, 2014 at 07:25 :
I can see that the FIDH is no more than yet another a vehicle to manufacture pretexts for the many wars launched by the United States in recent decades. This is shown by its article "Crimea: 16 March referendum not admissible in international law" (16/3/14).
"Since the announcement of the 'referendum', the self-proclaimed Crimean authorities, supported by the deployment on the territory of increasing numbers of Russian military forces, have carried out abductions and expulsions towards continental Ukraine pro-unity activists, acts of intimidation of local communities, and the closing down of all independent media, thereby violating Ukrainian and international Human Rights legislation. Given the lack of security, many persons are presently fleeing from Crimean territory.
...
"At the same time, the Russian media under government control have organised a continuous disinformation campaign, pretexting the defence of ethnic minorities for propagating a message of hatred and threats. The representatives of the Russian and Jewish minorities in Ukraine, along with the Crimean Tatars, have frequently denounced such an attitude."
Curiously the FIDH has had nothing more to say about Crimea in the ensuing 8 months in spite of the ominous developments of which it wrote in that article.
I would have particularly thought the FIDH would have had a lot to say about the Crimean prosecutor, Natalya Poklanskaya. Surely Natalya would have to have been complicit in all of the crimes of which FIDH complains? But, not a word has been written of her by the FIDH.
A good many who read about Natalya and see her astonishing youthful good looks, whose anime-style images have gained her overwhelming popularity, particularly in Japan, would inevitably want to know why she, and the near unanimous majority of Crimeans, have supported the Russian government against the Kiev regime. If this were to happen, a vastly greater number of people would scrutinise the Ukraine narrative of both the Western mainstream media the FIDH and see it for the tissue of lies that it is.
The claims made against the Syrian government by the FIDH are no less deceitful. Much of the fearful 195,000 death toll in that conflict is the consequence of such lies by phony human rights organisations such as FIDH.
Class Action against our Government re. live export anguish
Class Action on live export and the Australian Government.: Ban live export
To: Class Action on live export and the Australian Government.
The petition is really important and could use our help. Click here to find out more and sign:
Class action against the Government for mental anguish and emotional trauma
Many of us have been damaged and traumatized since viewing the ABC 4 Corners program exposing the shocking cruelty inflicted on Australian animals within the live export trade.
Over one million of us have signed petitions/ participated in polls/sent emails/letters and held rally's all over the country.
Time and time again we have done this as new horror stories and videos have been released.
We just don't understand how our government can continue to ignore its people!.
Many of us have been deeply affected by the images we have seen, and for many of us this has changed our lives.
We are totally disillusioned with our Government and have lost faith in democracy.
We are attempting to put together a class action against our Government, so if you have been affected by the live export trade please sign the petition and give a brief comment on how this has impacted on your life.
Thank you.
Israel's hostility to many who fought the Nazis, including JFK
The following was also posted to johnquiggin.com .
Megan @ (#25(?),) November 1st, 2014 at 21:10
Curiously, less than two decades later, JFK, whose brother Joe had died fighting the Nazis in Europe and who, himself, almost perished in 1943 when PT109 was sunk by the Japanese, was to be menaced by the pro-Israel lobby in the US. Check out Kennedy, the Lobby and the bomb of May 2013 on Voltaire Net. This shows that if the USS Liberty incident had not been witnessed by a Soviet warship, there would have been no survivors and the incident would have been blamed on Egypt, thus providing a pretext for the United States to intervene in the Six Day War on the side of Israel against Egypt. We came that close to having the Six Day War turn into a far more terrible conflagration in the Mediterranean.
Corrupt and weak...
I quote Mencken.
“The state — or, to make matters more concrete, the government — consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting ‘A’ to satisfy ‘B’. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advanced auction on stolen goods.”
? H.L. Mencken
Democracy is a system stale and tired. The idea is corrupted in the minds of people, so far gone that "Democracy" is considered to mean decency, support of the status quo, acceptance of the social norms pushed by the state and by media and rejection of new ideas and contrary thought. Democracy is no longer a process, an ideal, but a concrete thing, which even though harms and represses us, evades scrutiny and attack because it labels itself as "Democracy" and is therefore sacred.
In what Democracy would a nation of people, against their will, have their very homes sold off to Communist China?
In what Democracy would a nation of people be held as captives of a state, unable to scrutinise their government?
I think there is some wilful ignorance, in that it pays not to know, pays not to think. A thinking politician finds themselves in trouble, or alone. Kelvin Thompson has obviously thought about the issue of population and growth, and for that is alone in the party.
Off topic, I'd like to share this interesting link...
http://fadingvictoria.com/
Petition Signed
I've signed, and I encourage everyone else to do the same, and pass the link on.
It is a shame that no political party is suggesting that politicians should be put to trial for this act against their country. I certainly believe this sort of action warrants putting people in the dock.
Forum discussion: fabricated claims of Syrian govt mass murder
This has been posted to johnquiggin.com. - JS, 1 Nov 14
JD (@ #17(?)) wrote on October 27th, 2014 at 20:29:
Here's part of an item I found on the website of the International League for Human Rights (FIDH):
Why didn't you include the link? I tried to find it with a search engine and couldn't.
JD continued:
The Caesar report is ... evidence smuggled out of Syria, including photographs of around 11,000 detainees' corpses. The source of the report is ... a former photographer for the Syrian military police and his job was to take pictures of killed detainees. Ten of the photos were released publicly in January 2014. The report was made available to human rights groups, governments and the UN. ...
Almost certainly this is a fabrication by the same liars who gave us Russian tanks in East Ukraine, Iraqi WMDs, incubator babies, USS Liberty, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the Warren Commission, etc.
Until you show me where you obtained this, I cannot comment further.
As for claims that the Russian government discriminates against gays: If true, this would be of concern, but compared with the monumental violations of human rights by the Kiev regime and even more monumental violations in Iraq, Libya and Syria, the prohibition of "propaganda on non-traditional sexual relations" seems almost insignificant by comparison.
Leaders not clueless, but corrupt
In response to Bernard Ellis's letter, I would say that our leaders are not clueless - except in the moral, long term, thermodynamic and philosophical sense - they are corrupt. They are getting something out of this growth, financially and in terms of power. Maybe some are being blackmailed to go along with it, or threatened with being dropped from the party. I guess there are a number who really are clueless - but they are not the leaders - they would be some of the members of parliament who simply follow, without actually understanding what is happening. I remember raising population with an MP on the Mornington Peninsula more than a decade ago, and he said, "Yes, I don't understand why we have to have population growth either. I wish someone would explain, but I know the party thinks we must.
Doesn't matter which politician or which party because all the parties seem to be dancing to related corporate incentives. The leaders of the parties are like executives implementing policies that further finances. And I don't think it's donations - the parties are corporatised themselves. The main political parties have huge financial investments in banking, land, mines etc and growth in demand via growth in population, grows the party finance and its influence. The hell with the voters. They are just a brand now, with little consumer power, moreover. I worked this out for Labor, (see Australian Labor Governments or Commercial Corporations?with help from other research, and I assume it is the same for the Libs and the Greens; I just don't have the data. If anyone does have data or useful theory, I'll publish it on candobetter (with the usual attention to defamation and documentation).
Victoria's economy irrevocabably linked to population growth
Victoria has joined Tasmania as the only states where economic output per resident is shrinking. When account is taken of Victoria's strong population growth, economic output per resident shrank 0.2 per cent in 2012-13. So, without population growth artificially propping up our State's economy, we would fall into recession! Victoria's standard of living almost certainly fell in this period with flat-lining gross disposable income. Victoria now has the second lowest gross household disposable income per person in the nation, ahead of only Tasmania.
SMH:Economic output rates shrink in Victoria, Tasmania
When combined with Ford’s announced closure last year, with a total of 1,200 job losses expected in Geelong and Broadmeadows by 2016, as well as thousands of potential job losses in the Goulburn Valley region in the event that SPC Ardmona closes its operations, it is clear that Victorian manufacturing – once the mainstay of the state economy.
Over the past six years, Victoria’s economic model seems to have been built around endless population growth, with the state leading the nation.
Macrobusiness: Major employment shock coming to Victoria
Letter in The Age- 26th October
Leaders clueless
It is no wonder Lord Mayor Robert Doyle is encouraging population growth. It is the only economic input keeping the state and Melbourne, in particular, from sinking into recession. But population growth will not sustain Victoria. Eventually the added load on its underfunded and underplanned infrastructure will collapse and we will be in a highly perilous state, if we aren't already. The latest CommSec, State of the States, report paints a dismal picture for Victoria. Unemployment at a 10-year high, collapsing commercial and industrial investment and wages lagging behind inflation.
We need to be asking the parties what they plan to do to lift Victoria out of this tired and unsustainable population-driven economy. How will they create a sustainable economy with real wealth and employment growth? The problem is, our leaders and would-be leaders are very quiet regarding this debate because they don't have a clue.
Bernard Ellis, Windsor
So, we are locked into an economic model based on never-ending growth, and no politician has the courage to bear the brunt of a circuit-breaker - into a recession! With housing the main economic activity, in Victoria, houses and towers must continually be built, even where there's no infrastructure, and the approval system continually deregulated and fast-tracked, to camouflage our economy's inherent weakness!
So, even an iconic, semi-rural area out of Melbourne such as the Macedon district can't be protected from over-development! The real estate Ponzi scheme consumes everything in it's wake, and can't be stopped by runaway housing growth!
The only way is out!
Relevance of Syria's free universities to discussion about Gough
The following was posted to a discussion about Gough Whitlam on johnquiggin.com.
J-D wrote:
... discussion of the present government of Syria and discussion of the present government of Russia have only a tenuous connection to the original post ...
Gough's attempt to introduce free tertiary education was rolled back by subsequent 'Labor' and Liberal governments to the point where a perverse debt collection industry based on buying and selling debts that students incur attending university has been established in Australia as has alo occurred in the UK and other places. Syria, in the midst of wars and a terrorist insurgency, is able to provide free tertiary education to all its citizens as I showed on October 26th, 2014 at 23:29. If Syria can do it, why can't Australia, the US and the UK? Clearly this suggests that Gough was right to attempt to make University eduction free.
The other obvious link is that Bashar is, like Gough was, the target of an attempted US 'regime change' Unlike Gough, Bashar has been more successful in stopping foreign powers meddling in his country's domestic affairs.
Petition against foreign home ownership here
Already nearly 18000 signature.
https://www.change.org/p/the-executive-members-toughen-the-regulations-for-foreign-investment-in-australia?alert_id=DpFnJQGwxC_Vyx69HKsb9dM0cAQ4Wd4DGTUlqhmU9sWMGr0bfVlRVD4ln31%2Bx%2F7YSo4K8eE58Vg&utm_campaign=169709&utm_medium=email&utm_source=action_alert
AUSTRALIA’s investment authorities are investigating a fraction of the more than 5000 foreign purchases of established homes over the past nine months despite widespread concern that current regulations are either inadequately enforced or widely flouted. Treasury says it is investigating 33 cases where a foreigner has purchased an established home — which is banned in all but a narrow range of circumstances — including several “high value” purchases.
The figure amounts to less than 1 per cent of the more than 5000 foreign purchases of established homes since March. It is unlikely to alleviate the pressure on the Foreign Investment Review Board from MPs and renters to boost its lax enforcement efforts amid soaring real estate prices. The Australian revealed recently that the FIRB, which sits within Treasury, has not prosecuted a single foreign investor for an illegal purchase since 2010. Treasury’s submission in response to a committee of MPs pushing for better enforcement of FIRB rules cites three examples of prosecutions it has led, but the most recent case date back to 2006.
The issue of foreigners, in many cases, wealthy Chinese investors, sidestepping FIRB regulations to buy established property is driving a backlash from would-be buyers priced out of city markets. The FIRB has come under pressure from the House of Representatives economics committee chair, Liberal MP Kelly O’Dwyer, and other MPs on the inquiry into foreign investment in real estate over its lax oversight. In response to questions from the MPs, the Treasury said it “is currently investigating the acquisition of foreign interests in 33 residential real estate properties”. “All of these properties are in the established residential category, with a small number involving very high value established purchases. “In most instances the investigation activity involves the need to establish the identity of the relevant investor and to assess their eligibility to own the property in question.”
The only situation in which foreigners can purchase established homes here is if they are temporarily residing in Australia, and even then, the property must be sold within three months of the buyer returning to their homeland. As The Australian has revealed this loophole is being exploited by wealthy foreigners looking to park cash in the Australian housing market. In many cases they are using their children studying in Australia, or lawyers or other service providers, as investor proxies. The latest figures from the FIRB show that foreign investors have doubled their purchases of Australian property in just one year with 5755 homes worth $5.5 billion bought in the nine months to March alone. More than 100 agencies are active in China openly marketing Australian established housing even though would-be buyers would almost certainly be breaking the law.
Until recently, the lack of compliance has been largely ignored, but media interest and rising prices have increased the pressure on MPs to act on these practices. Foreigners are laughing at us. Australians and our Companies are not able to buy any property in China, as an example. Why foreigners should then be allowed to flout our flimsy FIRB rules in an almost unregulated way, threatening the viability of local buyers by forcing up prices. [Source: The Australian]
I would not be able to buy property in China, Sri Lanka with 100% tax on foreign freehold purchases, Thailand and Singapore generally prohibited with strict limitations, Indonesia prohibited and many emerging economies requiring citizenship. I am not suggesting no foreign investment, but a more thorough testing of foreign buyers and purchases and a toughening of regulations by the Foreign Investment Review Board.
Thank you for your support...
To:
The Executive Members., Foreign Investment Review Board, Canberra.
The Executive Members, FIRB
To introduce more thorough testing of foreign buyers and their purchases; rigorously scrutinizing every purchase for irregularities and requesting the toughening of regulations surrounding Foreign Investment of ALL Property Types in Australia by the Foreign Investment Review Board.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
Kerry's failure to nominate for President no loss to humanity
@FranBarlow (11:42 21/10/1),
Given that whistleblower Ray McGovern has labeled US Secretary of State John Kerry a "serial liar" for his repeated assertions, earlier this year, that he had proof that the Syrian Government had used chemical weapons against its own people, in order to justify an invasion of Syria (which so far has lost 195,000 lives resisting US-armed terrorists) Kerry's failures to win the 2004 Presidential elections and the Democratic Party Presidential nomination in 2008, were no great losses to humanity.
Whatever his flaws may have been, Al Gore's defeat at the 2000 Presidential elections, given the scale of tragedy that humanity had to endure at the hands of President George W.Bush since then, clearly was.
Overpopulation
I whole heartedly concur with you on this one. The answer to climate change and global food shortages is rampant overpopulation yet here we have Doyle, Napthine and the Wabbott (dumb, dumber, dumbest) promoting growth and especially population growth as the panacea to all our problems.
Those of you who may be wondering where we're up to with climate change ie the 2 degrees Celsius tipping point, well we're knocking on the door with maximums at 1.5 degrees and minimums at 2 degrees Celsius above the norm. Last summer was the second hottest on record after 1980-81 followed by 2009-10, 2008-09, 2012-13 &c. Further to this, according to my reckoning (via Inigo Jones method of rainfall forecasting) 2015 will be average at best and 2016 poor. Please keep in mind that even Inigo wasn't always correct, the forecast for this year was for good rains which occurred early in the year, but have petered out during the latter months.
Unless overpopulation is addressed head-on we as a species will find the going a lot tougher in coming years as food, water and energy scarcity really kicks in. These scarcities will lead to wars even more horrid than we're currently experiencing. Rising sea levels will see low lying land inundated with millions upon millions displaced with developed nations overrun by refugees. Once we have crossed the 2 degree Celsius tipping point which occur anytime soon, there may be no turning back. Now is a time for action not shilly-shallying, but, alas, I don't think our government (state or federal) have the balls!!
The coal industry's economic powerhouse
It's a David and Goliath battle, with mere canoes of Pacific Islanders blocking massive coal export vessels bound for overseas! Members of the 15-nation Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) finalized the Majuro Declaration, named after the Marshall Islands' capital where they gathered in September, saying it should be a "game changer" in faltering efforts to address global warming.
The burning of coal and other fossil fuels has contributed to climate change, which in turn will causes sea levels to rise. That poses an existential threat to residents of low-lying areas around the world, especially in the Pacific, where entire island countries could disappear.
Of course the action failed! Newcastle handles more than 4,000 ship movements annually, more than 90 percent loaded with coal from the nearby mines of BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Glencore and others. The industry is an unbeatable Goliath, a monolith of power and wealth.
Australia appears set to fast-track approval of a coal port expansion project that would dump millions of tons of dredged material onto wetlands near the Great Barrier Reef - for the benefit of coal export to China and India. The dredging at Abbott point will be fast-tracked, instead of carrying out a full environmental impact report, which is standard practice for a project of this size.
Australia has the fourth-largest share of proven coal reserves in the world. Australia has 110 years of black coal and 510 years of brown coal. Australia is the world’s fourth-largest coal nation, with a A$16.9 billion industry that produces 401 million tonnes a year – almost 8.9% of the world total.
Coal prices are already falling, and Australian exporters could also face the extra prospect of having to “wash” their product to bring ash and sulphur within China’s new guidelines – which will add costs and damage profit margins. While environmentalists are trying to combat the impacts of climate change, our Australian government is doing it's best to increase exports!
China’s coal demand, which currently accounts for more than 50% of global demand, has been so strong that the IEA called for coal to surpass oil as the leading global fuel before 2030. China’s coal demand could surprise people by peaking in 2016 and then decline gradually thereafter, driven by efficiency measures, increased renewables, hydro, gas and nuclear and tougher policies to cut air pollution.
Galilee Basin is one of the largest coal projects in the world, the new mine will cover 200 square km and add up to 60 million tonnes annually to Australia’s existing coal production. Conservationists seeking an emergency injunction to stop winter clearing of the Leard State Forest. Whitehaven insists it is sticking to an approved biodiversity management plan. Whitehaven boss (Mr Flynn) said that "global demand for cleaner coal, as well as carbon capture technology, which is now being used commercially in Canada, was the best way to address climate change". So, coal is the "solution" to climate change is surely an oxymoron!
Climate change to threaten food supplies
Climate change and food insecurity are "threat multipliers", and 32 countries dependent on farming face an "extreme risk" of conflict or civil unrest in the next 30 years, a global analytics firm said on Wednesday.
Threats to food will exacerbate global tensions, based on finite resources, religious, ethnic and political divides.
The already overpopulated countries of Bangladesh, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Nigeria, Chad, Haiti, Ethiopia, Philippines, Central African Republic and Eritrea face the highest level of risk, the Maplecroft report said. 65 per cent of their combined working populations are employed in farming, which contributes 28 percent of their overall economic output.
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that the production of staple crops such as rice, wheat and corn could fall by as much as 50 per cent in some areas over the next 35 year as a result of climate change.
Climate change a 'threat multiplier for farming-dependent nations: report
Over the next 50 years population growth, climate change and environmental degradation will jeopardise international food security. By 2050, 9 billion people are expected to inhabit the planet. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that US$83 billion in investment is required per year to meet global food demand.
A report on food security 2014 found that while the number of people who experience chronic hunger was reduced by 100 million over the past decade, there are still some 805 million people that go without enough to eat on a regular basis.
There are already too many people on the planet, and this overpopulation drives the ongoing environmental crisis. Why, then, do we fixate on technological fixes like solar power and carbon capture, rather than addressing global population growth?
São Paulo, a Brazilian megacity of 20 million people, is suffering its worst drought in at least 80 years, with key reservoirs that supply the city dried up after an unusually dry year. One of the causes of the crisis may be more than 2,000 kilometers away, in the growing deforested areas in the Amazon region. With fewer trees, the Amazon’s capacity to work as a water pump, absorbing moisture from the Atlantic Ocean and releasing millions of liters of humidity into the air, is being reduced, scientists say.
A devastating global pandemic that killed 2 billion people was only projected to reduce population size to 8.4 billion, while 6 billion deaths brought it down to 5.1 billion. Global population has risen so fast over the past century that roughly 14% of all the human beings that have ever existed are still alive today.
A report released last week by researchers from Lund University, in Sweden, said the ability to produce food in the Sahel region in Africa is not keeping pace with its growing population, and global warming will only exacerbate the imbalance. Mass migration will spread the problem, not solve it!
The Guardian: Global overpopulation would ‘withstand war, disasters and disease’
Immigration and population policy now on We vote for you
You can create a new policy. I just did. (you have to have a log-in and provide a name). I think you will find it here: https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/policies/52
Here is my policy: "For reducing planned economic immigration for economic and environmental reasons
Federal and State governments have a duty to ensure training, higher education, employment and housing are provided to citizens as a priority over invited economic immigrants. Furthermore that Australia should keep its population small in light of (1) - diminishing natural space and habitat for Australian plants and animals (2) - demand-driven housing unaffordability and developer-driven population growth policies impacting democracy and quality of life (3) - demand-driven resource unaffordability and scarcity, including water, fuel and power (4) - infrastructure overuse (5) - diseconomies of scale (6) - associated cost of living rises"
I am also advised to "To select votes for this policy, search or browse for divisions. On the page for each division you can choose how somebody supporting this policy would have voted. If you haven't edited a policy before please read about how policies work."
I think I can also edit the policy. I don't have time now, but suggestions welcome.
Sheila N
Live exporters set to "sue" the Commonwealth over ban
To add insult to injury, the live export industry is taking out class action against our Commonwealth for the live export ban in 2011!
The lead entity in the class action claim is Brett Cattle Company Pty Ltd of the Northern Territory, and the claim is backed by the Australian Farmers' Fighting Fund.
Government sued over Live export ban
The problem is that cattle producers' corporations are becoming larger and extremely wealthy and powerful. They can use their power against our own legally-elected government!
As a democratically elected government, it's our government's duty to respond to the public. That's why the ban was enforced - not to inflict a loss to profits!
The Gillard government put a moratorium on live exports due to horrific revelations of animal cruelty in Indonesia, where cattle from Australia were sent. The level of sadism and extreme cruelty shocked our nation and was exposed on Four Corners.
Now, they have the audacity to confront the electorate! On the contrary, our government has failed time and time again to prosecute export companies for defiling and failing to regulate the ESCAS scheme - to at least give some accountability and minimal animal welfare to the supply chains. However, they ignore the government with impunity.
Like Japan's criminal whaling, long term ignoring of illegal actions and pandering to their economic power eventually gives emphasis and power to the perpetrators.
The overview ignores Immigration!
Yes, it's an excellent program, but it avoids a vital issue - Immigration! It's an "everything" issue that impacts on our liveability, jobs prospects, environment, housing costs, energy consumption and sustainable use of natural resources.
Migrants had jobs, nation building to do, and bright futures to look forward to in the past. Now, it's damage mitigation!
Governments will turn on, and less often turn down, the immigration tap on their whims, without democratic consultation or how it impacts on our nation and its people! They see the GDP ticking over, increasing, to avoid a recession, and use population growth to camouflage the short-comings of our economy, and hide its weaknesses.
Real economic growth requires planning, sustainable use of resources, innovation, ideas and project creation appropriate to 21st century cutting-edge technology - for domestic sales and overseas exports. Without vital manufacturing, governments rely on housing growth as a substitute for real economic activities, but it's unsustainable and static.
Real economic growth needs ideas, intellectual inputs, statesman ship, and vision! It's sadly lacking in today's politicians.
Amnesty complicit in 100s of 1000s of deaths since 1990
This is a contribution to a discussion about Gough Whitlam on johnquiggin.com .
JD @ #32 wrote:
What I posted in my previous comment was ... a direct quote from an Amnesty International magazine posted to the Web.
Have you forgotten that by peddling the Kuwaiti 'incubator babies' lie in 1990 Amnesty International national facilitated over two decades of war and sanctions against Iraq? This caused the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. One estimate had put the total death toll since 1990 as high as 3,300,000 including 750,000 children.
I have put together some information at candobetter.net/AboutAmnestyInternational. Be sure to watch Canadian peace activist Barrie Zwicker demolish the 1990 'incubator babies' lie used to justify that war. Please feel welcome to post further comments to that page or to here.
JD wrote:
The story said nothing about the Syrian election, so anybody discussing the election is saying nothing about that story.
88% of the 74% eligible voters voted on 3 June 2014 for Bashar al-Assad - a far greater endorsement than that given to any of the Western 'leaders' hostile to the Syrian government.
Can't you see that if at the elections of 3 June 2014, the Syrian people gave President Bashar al-Assad a far greater endorsement than has been given to any of the 'leaders' of Western governments hostile to Syria that we should be even more skeptical of Amnesty's claims that that government is brutally repressing its people?
One reason for al-Assad's popularity is the government programs, including free education, including tertiary education.
Of course, this is what Gough also tried to do. However, Paul Keating, who pretends to bear the mantle of Gough's legacy, started the privatisation of tertiary education with the introduction of HECS, the Higher Education 'Contribution' Scheme in 1989 (as I have been advised elsewhere on this blog). Let's not forget that Keating and Hawke also sent our armed forces to participate in the illegal war against Iraq in 1991 and implemented the illegal sanctions that caused so many deaths that I referred to above. As a result of that and the subsequent war of 2003, 1.3 million Iraqis fled to Syria according to Wikipedia.
Respecting Whitlam's birthplace brings us together
Ironically the casual disrespect shown to Gough Whitlam's birthplace by the NFIRB and Melbourne planning has provided Victorians with their first opportunity since the Dismissal to show how much they were offended by it and how much they appreciated and cared for Gough Whitlam. Because our society is so atomised by big business and so artfully misrepresented by our monopoly press, we lack free public forums and networks whereby we can spontaneously unite to express our opinions. Instead we are usually confined to sitting in front of televisions listening to self-important talking heads give their views or reading accounts in the press of what our opinions are supposed to be. Now we find out that, not only did many of us care about Whitlam, but we still care and he is remembered and appreciated far more than any other primeminister in this country because he was the last to stand up for the very things that his successors have so shamefully sold off and destroyed. Yes, it is indeed fascinating to realise that the policies of the Foreign Investment Review Board that invite overpopulation and wasteful destruction of established buildings, might have remained unsuspected by most Australians, if Gough Whitlam had not died just before the scheduled demolition of his birthplace by a foreign purchaser. How inconvenient for the planners and the NFIRB and how convenient for democracy and the rest of us. It is as if Gough Whitlam, a primeminister who sought to reform urban and regional development by offering the people an alternative to private land speculators and to preserve Australian assets from globalisation, is having the final word.
Bob Day criticises Albanese for high density policy
Opposition spokesman for infrastructure, transport and cities Anthony Albanese’s “more efficient cities” is a euphemism for higher density (“Labor wants to give cities back a voice”, AFR Letters, October 21). Before we embark on this folly, let it be known that urban “densification” (squeezing more people into existing suburbs) is an idea that has failed all over the world. Whether it’s traffic congestion, air pollution, the destruction of biodiversity or the unsustainable pressure on electricity or stormwater infrastructure, the policy has been a disaster. It is not good for the environment, it does not save water, it does not reduce motor vehicle use, it does not result in nicer neighbourhoods, it does not stem the loss of agricultural land, it does not save on infrastructure costs. Worst of all, it puts home ownership out of the reach of those on low and middle incomes.
Senator Bob Day
Adelaide, SA
457 Visa report admits risk of free-for-all
I am surprised that this report on 457 visas has received so little attention or comment.
The Executive summary notes that employees have widely complained that :
“….is too easily subverted and, in practice, can turn into a free-for-all, to the disadvantage of
Australians.” (page 8)
"In submissions and interviews, both employers and employees expressed dissatisfaction with the current system, employers because they say it is inflexible and does not reflect the rapidly - changing nature of the Australian labour market, and employees because they say it is too easily subverted and, in practice, can turn into a free - for - all, to the disadvantage of Australians. "Considering the number of young people dropping out of the workforce and unemployed, this deserves more attention. However as it is buried in a lengthy report it does not surprise me that it has been largely overlooked. Read it at :- http://www.immi.gov.au/pub-res/Documents/reviews/streamlined-responsive-457-programme.pdf In the same context, Easy Migrate has been running an advertisement in the West Australian newspaper featuring their 95% success rate and offering a discounted first consultation at $60 , cf regular charge of $100, for first consult. They cover a wide range of visa and migration classes, including student, visitors and permanent settlement. Feedback from users gives an interesting insight into their wide ranging "fix almost any problem” activities. P.W.
US now forcibly quarantining Ebola risks - New York
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/25/nyregion/new-york-ebola-case-craig-spencer.html
New York and New Jersey Tighten Ebola Screenings at Airports
By MARC SANTORAOCT. 24, 2014
The governors of New York and New Jersey announced Friday afternoon that they were ordering all people entering the country through two area airports who had direct contact with Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea to be quarantined.
The announcement comes one day after an American doctor, who had worked in Guinea and returned to New York City earlier in October, tested positive for Ebola and became the first New York patient of the deadly virus.
“A voluntary Ebola quarantine is not enough,” said Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York. “This is too serious a public health situation.”
Outlined in a late afternoon news conference, the new protocols raised a host of questions about how, exactly, the screening process would work and who, exactly, it would target. The two airports in question are Kennedy International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport.
The rapid escalation of screening measures came as a surprise after a day in which public officials had gone to great lengths to ease public anxiety.
It was also taken without consulting the New York City health department, according to a senior city official.
Earlier in the day, the White House sidestepped questions about whether a quarantine of health care workers was being considered. Instead, officials defended the procedures the administration has put in place, including enhanced airport screenings and the monitoring of people returning to the United States from Ebola-afflicted countries.
“I’m not going to get into the ongoing deliberations of our public health professionals,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Friday.
“These kind of policy decisions are going to be driven by science, and by the best advice of our medical experts, and by our scientists that have four decades of experience in dealing with Ebola outbreaks in West Africa.”
There was immediate concern that the move might have an adverse effect on getting workers to West Africa, where more than 4,500 people have died of the virus and medical workers are in short supply.
Details about how the policy would work — and how they would determine a person’s level of exposure to Ebola patients — have not been announced. But a nurse traveling to Newark Liberty International Airport was ordered quarantined for three weeks, despite the fact that the individual displayed no signs of illness.
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said that the federal guidelines, which starting Monday will require all people traveling to America from one of the countries in West Africa where the disease is endemic to monitor their own health and report those results to a local health worker, were not strict enough.
“We are no longer relying on C.D.C. standards,” Mr. Christie said, referring to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In New York City, disease investigators continue their search for anyone who came into contact with the city’s first Ebola patient since Tuesday morning, health officials said, adding they were acting out of an abundance of caution to ensure that they find anyone who might have been at risk of infection.
Three people who had contact with the patient, Dr. Craig Spencer, have been quarantined, and investigators have compiled a detailed accounting of his movements in the days before he was placed in isolation at Bellevue Hospital on Thursday.
He remains in stable condition and doctors are discussing the use of various experimental treatments that might help him battle the virus.
Read more of the article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/25/nyregion/new-york-ebola-case-craig-spencer.html
Debate questions from audience
There were some very obvious points that ought to have been made in response to Robert Doyle's strawman arguments.
1) We all agree that population growth is happening but all I hear from Kelvin is negativity.....
Yes we can all agree that population growth is happening and that something need to be done about it.
But the audience seemed to let him off the hook too easily about deliberate federal immigration policy resulting in the bulk of current population growth. Instead Doyle just kept falling back to is spurious argument that it is inevitable.
He doesn't know what the annual immigration intake should be.... No good enough. If he is genuinely concerned about 'smart growth' then logic would dictate that he is also concerned about the quanta of local population growth versus his and Victoria's financial capacity to cater for it re infrastructure and services.
2) We can't go back to the 1960s re culture and population size.......
That was not the point of Kelvin's argument. The point was that it is not necessary to have population growth or a larger population in order to have vibrant and interesting communities!
Or that we are so brilliant that we can totally avoid the break down of communities - increasing poverty, crime and inequality etc, that has resulted from large populations and population growth in other parts of the world.
What's happening to Gough's birthplace is happening to all of us
The irony is that Gough Whitlam condemned inflation caused by foreign buyers of Australia's assets.
His election speech of 1974, he said:"The Australian dollar was grossly undervalued. Foreign money was flooding in to buy up Australian resources and Australian industries on the cheap. ... By shelving the Trade Practices Bill they (The Senate) left the door open to monopolies and big corporations to fix prices, organise cartels and exploit the Australian customer. By shelving the Australian Industry Development Corporation Bill they blocked the most effective instrument for ensuring Australian control of our industries and developing new industries. They have left the door open to foreign takeovers and foreign exploitation of the Australian economy".
Election Speeches - Gough Whitlam 1974
What's happening to Whitlam's birth place is a micro example of what's happening to our houses, real estate, public assets and agricultural land. Inflation of house prices, deliberately manipulated as a "housing boom", thanks to heavy immigration and Australia being "open" to business! We are losing industries and businesses to free trade agreements and high rates of cheap imports flooding our markets!
It means peak property prices for those at the apex of the Ponzi scheme, the demolition of our heritage and traditional family homes, and foreigners owning properties that should be in the hands of Australians.
Our political leaders dwarf into nothing more than corporate spruikers instead of real leaders, showing statesmanship and patriotic fervour for a better life for Australians, and Australia as a unique and strong nation. Gough Whitlam had a vision for a fair and equitable Australia, with a strong singular identity, with high standards of living and nationalism. Now, we are enslaved to mortgages, renting (from foreign landlords), privatisation of public assets, paying heavy debt for a tertiary education and overloaded health care system!
Forum discussion about Gough Whitlam on JohnQuiggin.com
James
See Christopher Boyce: Burial of Gough's legacy continued after 1975, above.
Sheila Newman
Gough’s policies showed that he was well aware that the long boom was ending; he engaged with a project for energy self-sufficiency. Arguable, had he not been deposed, he might have made Australia independent, like so many other oil-producing countries of the era. (We no longer produce much oil at all, having used it all or exported it.) For more on this see “Another take on Whitlam, Population, Energy Resources, and the Khemlani loan scandal” at http://candobetter.net/node/4135. When I was engaged in a research thesis that I finished in 2002, I approached the history of the Whitlam government at an angle from which it had not previously been approached.
John Brookes
So what do we aim for? I don’t see much point in starting with the leadership of the ALP. We need to start with a vision of a world we want. Unless we have a vision, how can we sell it?
In many ways we need to go back to Gough. He wanted equality of opportunity, hence the free education and health care. Where do we go?
I look at life a bit like a game of footy on the school oval. The best game has everybody playing. But more and more we have too many people sitting on the side lines, not really wanted or needed. Out there on the oval, if the game doesn’t work for the majority of kids, then it breaks up. Kids start changing the rules until the game works again.
But right now, to stretch an analogy, we have the kids who are getting all of the footy telling us that this is the only way that footy works.
So we need someone to step up with a clear vision for remaking society so that it works for more people. Back in 1972, the conservative world was looking more and more ridiculous. Change seemed inevitable. But back in that era, there was a youth movement. They really wanted change. When I look at today's uni students, my main worry is that they are too trusting and may end up being sorely disappointed when they do all the right things and life doesn’t work out for them. We’ve already put home ownership out of reach of many.
James
This comment is 'awaiting moderation' - JS, 01:14 +10:00 25 Oct 2014
John Brooks @ #9 wrote:
@James
So what do we aim for? I don't see much point in starting with the leadership of the ALP. We need to start with a vision of a world we want. Unless we have a vision, how can we sell it?
Apologies for being so slow to respond, and apologies and that my initial response is so brief:
If you look around the world in 2014, as well as military aggression, mass murder and tyranny, there is much in the world to give us hope, but only if you remember to believe almost nothing that you read about today's geopolitical conflicts in the mainstream media .
Whilst despots, fraudsters, gangsters and fascists run much of the world, much of the rest of the world is run by people who are every bit as humane and decent as Gough was.
However, unlike Gough, they have shown themselves to be far more capable of standing up for themselves and their countries against the global forces of darkness. Of course, those same leaders are demonised by the mainstream media.
Two striking examples are Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Contrary to the implication manufactured by msm 'reports', both have not only been elected in certifiably democratic elections, both enjoy domestic popularity which dwarfs that of any Western leader I can think of - Tony Abbott, Barack Obama, Francois Hollande, David Cameron, Stephen Harper, Angela Merkel, Kevin Rudd, John Howard, Paul Keating, Bob Hawke, Malcolm Fraser and even Gough in 1972 and 1974.
Presidents al-Assad and Putin have also shown themselves to be far more willing to confront critical media scrutiny than any of today's Western 'leaders'. I have watched a number of interviews where both were able to demolish what has been peddled as 'news' to Western audiences. No doubt, Gough would have been able to do the same before a far less unbalanced international mass media.
Some good web sites are:
globalresearch -dot- ca, voltairenet.org, presstv -dot- com, landdestroyer -dot- blogspot -dot- com, rt -dot- com (as well as my own web site, candobetter -dot -net).
By all means, continue to read the printed msm and watch and listen to the msm broadcast media, John Brookes, but I think, over time, you will see, when you are able to compare their narratives with those on the sites such as those listed above, that little truth is to be found there.
Suggestion bushfire mitigation election policy
James,
Great suggested policies!
How about adding a bushfire mitigation policy of "Pause and review" regarding prescribed burning of Victorian Bushland. It is killing all the wildlife and, arguably, within 20 years all habitat would be so devoid of wildlife and so reduced in quality that it would all have been destroyed, to all intents and purposes. Any routine burning should only be conducted very judiciously near human infrastructure, if at all.
Hans Brunner has added the following excellent summary of the arguments:
"Before you burn think four times:
1. It kills wildlife
2. It adds to air pollution.
3. It prohibits the area to work as a carbon sink.
4. The blackened area absorbs more heat."
Maybe incorporate this?
War Culture
by David Swanson , first published on warisacrime.org, 23 Oct 2014
According to a book by George Williston called This Tribe of Mine: A Story of Anglo Saxon Viking Culture in America, the United States wages eternal war because of its cultural roots in the Germanic tribes that invaded, conquered, ethnically cleansed, or -- if you prefer -- liberated England before moving on to the slaughter of the Native Americans and then the Filipinos and Vietnamese and on down to the Iraqis. War advocate, former senator, and current presidential hopeful Jim Webb himself blames Scots-Irish American culture.
But most of medieval and ancient Europe engaged in war. How did Europe end up less violent than a place made violent by Europe? Williston points out that England spends dramatically less per capita on war than the United States does, yet he blames U.S. warmaking on English roots. And, of course, Scotland and Ireland are even further from U.S. militarism despite being closer to England and presumably to Scots-Irishness.
"We view the world through Viking eyes," writes Williston, "viewing those cultures that do not hoard wealth in the same fashion or make fine iron weapons as child-like and ripe for exploitation." Williston describes the passage of this culture down to us through the pilgrims, who came to Massachusetts and began killing -- and, quite frequently, beheading -- those less violent, acquisitive, or competitive than they.
Germans and French demonstrated greater respect for native peoples, Williston claims. But is that true? Including in Africa? Including in Auschwitz? Williston goes on to describe the United States taking over Spanish colonialism in the Philippines and French colonialism in Vietnam, without worrying too much about how Spain and France got there.
I'm convinced that a culture that favors war is necessary but not sufficient to make a population as warlike as the United States is now. All sorts of circumstances and opportunities are also necessary. And the culture is constantly evolving. Perhaps Williston would agree with me. His book doesn't make a clear argument and could really have been reduced to an essay if he'd left out the religion, the biology metaphors, the experiments proving telepathy or prayer, the long quotes of others, etc. Regardless, I think it's important to be clear that we can't blame our culture in the way that some choose to blame our genes. We have to blame the U.S. government, identify ourselves with humanity rather than a tribe, and work to abolish warmaking.
In this regard, it can only help that people like Williston and Webb are asking what's wrong with U.S. culture. It can be shocking to an Israeli to learn that their day of independence is referred to by Palestinians as The Catastrophe (Nakba), and to learn why. Similarly, many U.S. school children might be startled to know that some native Americans referred to George Washington as The Destroyer of Villages (Caunotaucarius). It can be difficult to appreciate how peaceful native Americans were, how many tribes did not wage war, and how many waged war in a manner more properly thought of as "war games" considering the minimal level of killing. As Williston points out, there was nothing in the Americas to compare with the Hundred Years War or the Thirty Years War or any of the endless string of wars in Europe -- which of course are themselves significantly removed in level of killing from wars of more recent years.
Williston describes various cooperative and peaceful cultures: the Hopi, the Kogi, the Amish, the Ladakh. Indeed, we should be looking for inspiration wherever we can find it. But we shouldn't imagine that changing our cultural practices in our homes will stop the Pentagon being the Pentagon. Telepathy and prayer are as likely to work out as levitating the Pentagon in protest. What we need is a culture dedicated to the vigorous nonviolent pursuit of the abolition of war.
Christopher Boyce: Burial of Gough's legacy continued after 1975
The following is a contribution to a discussion in response to John Quiggin's artcle Gough Whitlam (23/10/14).
Thank you, Professor Quiggin. I find the above a helpful guide to Gough's achievements that his successors and the mainstream media have tried to bury.
However, as noted by Christopher Boyce in "The Falcon Lands" episode of SBS Dateline of 18 February, the subversion of Australian democracy by no means ended in 1975. It continued until the influence of all who shared Gough's vision was marginalised within the Labor Party by the likes of Bob Carr, Paul Keating and Peter Beattie.
John Quiggin wrote:
With the failure of the global financial system now evident to all, social democratic parties have found themselves largely unable to respond.
I think that supposed social-democratic parties of the twenty-first century have shown that they are unwilling, rather than 'unable' to respond.
John Quiggin continued:
We need a renewed movement for a fairer society and a more functional economy. We can only hope for a new Whitlam to lead that movement.
So, let's try to bring that about. A good start would be the repudiation of leaders of the Labor Party, mentioned above, who have attempted to bury Labor's traditional program and have, instead, embraced economic neoliberalism and privatisation.
Irony of Matthew Guy saving Gough's house
Ironic that if Gough had set policies for Australia today
(a) built property would not have gone to a foreign buyer
(b) there would not have been incentive to destroy established houses
(c) population pressure would hardly exist
(d) we would not have developers running parliament and changing laws in their industry's favour and against citizens
Pity that Matthew doesn't step in and save homes from the East West Link.
Oh Vale Gough! Vale!
East-West Link/Port of Hastings/Exporting Brown Coal