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Mon, 2018-06-04 01:43

From the Australian students support June 17 Sydney rally demanding freedom for Julian Assange (1/6/18) | World Socialist Web Site: The International Youth and Students for Social Equality held campaigns at universities across New South Wales (NSW) this week to promote the June 17 demonstration at Sydney Town Hall Square, called by the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in defence of Julian Assange. Students enthusiastically supported the SEP’s demand that the Australian government act immediately to secure the WikiLeaks editor’s freedom, with a guarantee against extradition to the United States. They spoke about the impact that WikiLeaks has had on their political knowledge and understanding, through its exposure of wars and diplomatic intrigues. ...

James Sinnamon

Sun, 2018-06-03 21:54

From Victorian councils expected to raise rates as China recycling crisis takes hold (21/4/18) ABC News :

Victorian homeowners will ultimately bear the brunt of China's decision to ban foreign waste, with the state's peak local government body estimating ratepayers will be stung an extra $60 a year to cover recycling costs.

The Municipal Association of Victoria is expecting ratepayers across the state to fork out an extra $1 a week to keep up their kerbside recycling services.

…

Comment: From the above, it seems that Victorian ratepayers are now expected to bear more of the cost for the disposal of non-reusable containers in which food and beverage producers store their products

.

James Sinnamon

Sun, 2018-06-03 17:10

Back in 2007, [1] then Prime Minister John Howard proclaimed that Australian home owners should welcome high immigration driving up the property value of their homes. In saying this, Howard seemed indifferent to the plight of other Australians who had to pay much higher rent or who faced the struggle to pay off even higher mortgages in order to have a roff their head.

Now, in 2018, those Australians who supposedly gained from housing inflation, have now found their property rates, based on the valuation of their homes, are expected to climb an extra $100 per year which is above the supposed Victorian state government rate cap of 2.25% per annum as reported (behind a paywall) in the Herald Sun. [2]

Whilst property values increases are the excuse for the imposition of rate increases, the real reason is the ongoing increase in costs per capita to maintain existing services - footpaths, roads, power, garbage disposal, transport - for a population that has long since exceeded its optimum size.

So, not only is our quality of life being eroded through greater traffic congestion, loss of open spaces, native fauna and flora and loss fo social cohesion as a consequence of imposed population growth, but we also are losing in hard economic terms.

Much of the supposed economic prosperity is because services we did not need at all before population growth, or if we did, we needed much less of, creates opportunies for the provision of those services.

Footnote[s]

[1] I am not certain if this was said in 2007 or as early as 2005, but I did have this confirmed in a copy of the Age of Victoria

[2] See Rising property values to push rates above 2.25 per cent cap (3/6/16) (or "Rates about to rise" in the printed version) | Herald Sunby Ian Royall.

James Sinnamon

Sun, 2018-06-03 14:22

Whilst this is a great initiative by all the mainland states of Australia except for Daniel Andrews' Victoria, a deposit of 10c is nowhere near enough. Back around the middle of the 1960's, I recall getting 3c or 5c deposit for reach returned soft-drink bottle. [1] I think the deposit for each bottle in 2018 should be at least 50c, given that the Australian dollar has depreciated to roughly 1/10 of its 1966 value. I also think that such an amount would more accurately reflect the actual cost of manufacturing a good quality re-usable beverage container. [2]

The deposit scheme, which allowed myself and other kids to get extra pocket money by collecting discarded soft-drink bottles, came to an end after 1966 or 1967 (from my recollection), when, suddenly, the Coca-Cola corporation stridently announced on a large-scale television promotion that:

"Hey, do you know that you can now get Coke in Cans!"

I somehow doubt that other soft drink consumers shared the excitement of the Coca-Cola Corporation at this new initiative. My own heart sank, seeing an end to my additional earnings from refunded soft-drink bottles. So, instead of beverage containers being returned and reused, they were, from then on, to be added to our landfill, urban environment, parklands, bush and oceans, whilst an ever greater quantity of raw materials were to be extracted from the earth to replace the discarded cans and bottles.

Footnotes

[1] Soft-drinks, which contain sugar, are a major health hazard. They are particularly harmful to diabetics and could cause a non-diabetic to become diabetic. If people drink soft drinks, they should be of a variety which contain no sugar. One product with artificial sweetener and no other additives is Waterfords mineral waters.

[2] Back in the mid-90's, I think, somebody put forward a proposal that all beverages be stored in standardised refundable beverage containers. If all beverage producers were able to use the same container to store a given volume of beverage, then the cost of producing that beverage would be substantially reduced. Whilst, by my recollection, this proposal received some prominence in the national newsmedia for a while, it seems to have been quitely dropped and forgotten. I would greatly appreciate if If anyone else could confirm this and other recollections of mine and, possibly, provide greater detail.

Astrid (not verified)

Mon, 2018-05-28 12:35

I consider the Andrews Government's policies on public housing to be a scam to facilitate developer grabs of public land and an egregious form of theft from citizens. Coupled with its utterly unconsultative population engineering through mass immigration (called for via its site https://liveinmelbourne.vic.gov.au/ in collusion with the Federal Government) its program amounts to a government sponsored program of housing inflation for the benefit of a few organised beneficiaries at cost of dispossession of growing numbers of Australian citizens. Unfortunately the Andrews Government is carrying on an ugly tradition established by Menzies, and pumped up into a balloon by Kennett. Our governments have institutionalised land-speculation and homelessness. We have not had a government or opposition fit to inhabit the houses of parliament for a long time, speaking of public housing.

quark

Fri, 2018-05-25 13:28

A caller on Jon Faine's show this morning, speaking out for Elsternwick complained that - all the car yards along the Nepean Hwy will be replaced with 12 storey apartment blocks but that this represents only 30% of what they are about to do - the rest will be demolitions - (Do people do a direct swap of house to apartment? Someone I know did this - a run down house and garden for a townhouse on much smaller land! Jon Faine asked the caller "Are you against anything being built?" The man replied "No I'd be happy with 6 storeys," and Jon Faine then filled in the rest -"with lower rise going back from the highway." How reasonable they both are! The 12 storeys several deep is probably an ambit proposal from developers and with 6 storeys being their fall back position!

Sheila Newman

Thu, 2018-05-24 21:02

I've read the book. It's excellent. Very interesting story and perspective. Nice story about mixing ducks with rice growing, so that they remove the insects that prey on the rice. Sheila N

quark

Thu, 2018-05-24 09:36

What a pathetic response! Then again in this sort of situation one cannot expect logic or reason. The decision is no doubt already made.

John Bentley

Wed, 2018-05-23 18:13

Thanks Matthew. I had a squizz at the video, really good stuff and when I get a chance I'll chase up the book. I've also read Farmers for Forty Centuries and Bruce Pascoe's Dark Emu. It's all a matter of working with the land, not against it as industrial farmers do. Cheers.

Matthew Mitchell

Wed, 2018-05-23 13:54

Have a look at Masanoba Fukuoka, He was a Japanese ag scientist who after years of working in that research field stated that 'for every problem we solve we create 3 more' - then he went to his family farm and spent 25 years growing food - equalling the output of his industrial neighbours but he used no chemicals, no added fertilizers, no machines, no fuel. He did not plough his fields, nor flood them when growing rice. See the following short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSKSxLHMv9k Charles Massy etc, are just catching on to this approach to farming. It just shows how beholden we are to those who want to sell chemicals, fuel, tractors etc - all of which is making us sick. If you want to know healthy we could be, look up the Hunza people, and the studies done in the 1930's (in short: zero illness, even in the very old, apart from some cataracts - probably no longer true now though, as they live like all modern people): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W01u-p9pxLE See: G. T. Wrench, 1938, The Wheel of Health C.W Daniel Company (Lond.) (if you can find it now),

James Sinnamon

Wed, 2018-05-23 01:52

The following was posted as a comment to the article Australian workers and youth defend Julian Assange (21/5/2018) | World Socialist Web Site:

The Australian government surely has a duty of care to any one of its citizens under threat of detention and torture. Each Australian citizen who shares our concern for Julian Assange should ask of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and his/her local member of Parliament what has she/he done since 2012 to end Julian Assange's illegal detention and what is he/she prepared to do now to prevent Assange from falling into the hands of Gina Haspell and her torturers?

It is not too late even now for the Australia to act. They should immediatey send to London a contingent of Federal Police to escort Julian Assange to Heathrow Airport and back to Australia.

John Bentley

Tue, 2018-05-22 18:26

Further to my previous comments on this subject, I recently read Tim Spector's book "The Diet Myth - The Real Science Behind What We Eat" which covers a lot of ground in this field. He argues that many of the problems behind our eating disorders stem from Industrial Food. He goes on further to argue that we should be eating more natural or traditional (organic is close) food. Today's industrial food is grown in dead soil using copious amounts of chemicals - fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, etc - while the finished product may look similar to the real thing, it isn't. Because the food is grown in unhealthy soils, most of the phyto-nutrients are missing thus the consumer isn't the full bang for their buck. Only by growing food in healthy, natural soils will be get the full benefit of what we eat. The eating of industrial foods has also been linked to the increase in dementia and Alzheimers, cancers, diabetes, stress, anxiety, &c. Tim suggests that to overcome vitamin B12 and folate deficiencies we should eat traditional yoghurts and cheeses noting that traditional Greek yoghurt is the best. I'm currently reading Charles Massy's "Call of the Reed Warbler" a book on regenerative farming about growing clean and green food in healthy soils with less water and NO chemicals!

John Bentley

Tue, 2018-05-22 11:21

Thanks Don for exposing 'mainstream economists' for what they are, charlatans! As The Great Man, John Maynard Keynes exposed these quacks for what they were before, during and after the Great Depression, we need to apply the blowtorch to them today. Classical economics or neoliberalism as it is now known today is based on a series of assumptions that we are all rational human beings. The truth of the matter is that we are not all rational and assumptions are exactly that, assumptions! My, like Steve Keen's, preferred method of combating such rubbish is to ridicule them for what they are, charlatans. Unfortunately, these charlatans have the eyes, ears and noses of most of the world's governments, bureaucracies and big business including the banks. Although there is some hope as the Bank of England and Germany's Bundesbank have renounced such policies and I believe the World Bank and the OECD may be on the verge of doing so. Let's hope they do!

Herc (not verified)

Mon, 2018-05-21 01:50

More about vitamin B12 for vegan readers: https://cruelty-free-lifestyle.org/%EF%BB%BFvitamin-b12-for-vegans/

Editor: Thanks for this Herc. The link you have given acknowledges the problems with Vit B12, but it does suggest that nutritional yeast is a good source. However, on looking this up, it appears that the B12 is added to 'fortified' yeast and may not be present in unfortified yeast. As a non-vegan whose whole family suffers from difficulties in absorbing Vit B 12 (due to pernicious anaemia etc) - even on a high animal product diet, I would not take chances, because the consequences are terrible. My mother has considerable brain injury from doctors' failure to even look at her blood levels and symptoms. My father had severe peripheral neuritis, probably for the same reason. There are high dose sublingual lozenges of Vit B12. We take 5000iu daily. Because vitamin products are not well regulated if at all, make sure that your supplement is reflected in your blood levels, through testing. Ours are all at the top of the range and our symptoms have improved (where permanent) or disappeared. Note also that vegans and vegetarians are probably more at risk due to their consumption or bread, because of the addition of Folic acid to bread (and some other) products. This can apparently inhibit the absorption of B12 in certain combinations. I have forgotten the mechanism, but will try to get back to this soon. Local doctors where I live have anecdotally reported to me a rise in B12 deficiency (after they missed it in our whole family) and a maternity nurse told me that this is particularly so in new mothers recently. My source for folic acid interaction with B12 was the film of the book in the above article, Could it be B12, now available in its entirety on youtube. Highly recommend watching it:

. Actually I just added it to the article.

John Bentley

Sun, 2018-05-13 09:49

My humble apologies Gunnamatta. Thanks for the excellent article!

Sheila Newman

Sat, 2018-05-12 12:14

Oh Dear, I have changed the poster to 'admin', but the article is by Gunnamatta from Macrobusiness.com, not me. I republished it with his or her permission. The confusion arises because, if candobetter.net republishes something by someone from another blog or whatever, it has the choice of registering that person as an inhouse author or of putting "by such and such" in the title, with more precisions near the intro. So, quite a lot gets posted by Admin or someone else (depending on the work done, such as an intro or illustration) but, if you look, there is another author. We tend to register as an inhouse author people who tell us not to ask permission to republish or who have said it's okay to give them an account (as an inhouse author). So this excellent article was by Gunnamatta. :-)

John Bentley

Sat, 2018-05-12 09:49

Thanks Sheila for an excellent article. The amount of bull shit that is currently circulating in the mainstream media that is passed off as news has become alarming. The amount of comment in today's Age re the reduction of funding for the ABC with people ringing their hands in total mortification of their once mighty Aunty! Well low and behold, when you flick over to Aunty - what do you get - bull shit!! Here we have several scribes in a little piece "You decide Australia's population, we'll show you how it looks......." Using the highly qualified statistics and advice from Dr Tom Wilson from Charles Darwin University, yes that's the same Tom Wilson who's in bed with property developers, the federal and state governments, Dr Tom outlines how Australia is about to become a nation of geriatrics by 2100. Obviously Dr Tom, no relation to Dr Bob, hasn't factored that there are a couple of belligerent countries wandering the planet or climate change caused by overpopulation!!

James Sinnamon

Fri, 2018-05-11 12:23

The following was posted in response to Russia wants Israel, Iran to show restraint in Syria (11/5/18) | Al Masdar News:

These utterances by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are most bizarre:

"In our contacts with the Iranian leadership and the leadership of Israel ... we emphasized the need for avoiding any mutually provoking moves," Lavrov said.

These words run counter to the Russian military actions against the terrorists since 2016, for which Syria, and all of humanity, still owes Russia an enormous debt of gratitude.

This statement seems to equate Israel's repeated acts of aggression against Syria in recent years with the military aid given to Syria by Iran. Would Lavrov have preferred Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah to have abandoned the Syrian people? By one estimate from many months ago, 400,000 Syrians including 80,00 from the army have been killed by the terrorists? How many more Syrians does Lavrov think should have died?

Israel fraudulently claims to be indifferent to the terrorist war in neighbouring Syria (See, for example, this interview with Israeli Lieutenant-colonel Reuven Ben-Shalom by Oksana Boyko at https://www.rt.com/shows/worlds-apart-oksana-boyko/424190-chemical-attack-syria-israel/). Israel claims only to be concerned by the presence of Iranians whom it spuriously claims are there to attack Israel. In fact, Iran is in Syria at the invitation of the Syrian government, to fight the terrorists. Whilst thus feigning indifference to the war in neighbouring Syria, Israel has also been aiding the Takfiris in Syria, for example, by giving medical aid to wounded terrorists in the occupied Golan Heights. [1]

If Israel does not cease its attacks on Syria, Iran, Syria and Hezbollah they may be left with no choice but to fight Israel to end the war.

FOOTNOTE[S]

[1] I believe there were also Israelis, as well as British and French amongst the terrorists in Aleppo. How they managed to escape capture and being put on trial is a mystery to me. Did the Syrian government release them of their own free will, or did Russia persuade Syria to release them?

John Bentley

Sun, 2018-05-06 09:44

Thanks quark, you're definitely on the money with your comments regarding the wire barriers being installed on all Victorian highways. I'll contend that these barriers will not improve conditions for motorists, but could make them diabolically worse. If a vehicle runs off the road (which is bad enough in its own right), but to have it slingshot back onto the road could result in a multiple pile-up of omnific proportions. As you say infrastructure for infrastructure's sake and a waste of money, time and resources!

quark

Sat, 2018-05-05 17:33

When I first saw these wire barriers being put up along the Hume Highway between Albury and Melbourne (holding up traffic for ages in the process) I was furious. I couldn't see how they could help prevent injury and death and could possibly make things worse. It looked to me that a car could collide with the wire fence and be catapulted back into the path of another car. A collision into a piece of wire is still a collision and closer to the road than it would be if the car were allowed to go further off the road into a fence further on in which case the car would have possibly slowed down. Infrastructure for infrastructure's sake!

Matthew Mitchell

Fri, 2018-05-04 10:34

I am thinking that a union of environmental, civic and other groups - along with individuals - could work more like the the trade union movement used to - that is it can come up with its own policies democratically and throw support behind one or the other political party. Thus the union might choose to back Sustainable Australia, and help support and promote it, without being involved directly in politics itself. This might be an appropriate pathway, as environmentalists, civic groups, etc are usually busy enough saving what they can of the environment, seeing people are getting meals, etc, and don't necessarily want to (or have time to) be involved as politicians. Matt

Matthew Mitchell

Wed, 2018-05-02 18:56

Thanks Observer - yes, that party seems ok. It advertises that Dick Smith just joined. The policies - at a quick glance - seem quite reasonable. So perhaps the best we can do is encourage people to support this party?. No point in re-inventing the wheel, or fracturing the sector into smaller, and perhaps less effective, parts.

Observer (not verified)

Wed, 2018-05-02 13:52

The Greens (after Bob Brown) are too concerned with virtue signalling (e.g. mass immigration support) to vote for anymore. There is a minor party - Sustainable Australia - that seems to tick all the boxes as far as I'm concerned.

James (not verified)

Wed, 2018-05-02 02:31

last night, I attended a cinema screening of the Death of Stalin and found it captivating as did the clear majority of audience reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_death_of_stalin/reviews/?type=userhttps://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_death_of_stalin/reviews/?page=2&type=user ... https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_death_of_stalin/reviews/?page=15&type=user "The Death of Stalin" will not be at cinemas in Melbourne after today (3:45pm at the Palace Cinema at Brighton and 7:15pm at the Mornington Cinema). After then you will hve to wait for the DVD to be released. Whilst the "The Death of Stalin" was promoted as a comedy, I don't recall ever having laughed, even if some very clever theatrical devices were used. It seemed to me to be a plausible account of the end of Stalin's life and the subsequent power struggle amongst senior political figures of the Soviet Union. This account is contrary my own past understanding of those events. According to my own understanding, Nikita Khruschev was the great reformer who overturned Stalin's dictatorial police state, whilst Lavrenti Beria, the head of the KGB secret police terror apparatus must surely have acted to prevent that reform. Yet, surprisingly, it is Beria who tried to end the terror and repression after Stalin's death, whilst Khruschev tried to preserve dictatorial rule. As Beria put it, he carried out the terror to suit all the political leaders before him, but now could see that terror was no longer appropriate, if it ever was. Whatever the truth of this, Lavrenti Beria, as head of the KGB, oversaw the deaths possibly as many as 1.2 million people (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge#Number_of_people_executed) during the Great Purge which began in 1938. It is hard to see how Beria would not have eventually been held to account for all these deaths had his proposal to end the terror as depicted in this film been accepted and had he prevailed in his conflict with other members of the politbureau. Towards the end, Beria is arrested and almost immediately executed, without any due process, by Red Army soldiers under the command of General Zhukov. In reality, Beria was arrrested on 26 June, then tried nearly six months later on 23 December 1953 and sentenced to death and executed the same day with no defense counsel and no right of appeal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavrentiy_Beria#Arrest,_trial_and_execution). He was given little more due process in reality, than in the film. The fact that due process was denied to Lavrenti Beria is reason to believe that Khruschev may have had something to hide. Curiously, Russia, which has provided informative global news services, incuding https://rt.com and https://sputniknews.com, to counter the disinformation peddled by the corporate newsmedia, has refused to allow "The Death of Stalin" to be shown in Russia. How denying Russians access to movies critical of aspects of Russia's past will benifit them is unclear. Certainly it won't help lift Russia's image in the international arena.

Matthew Mitchell

Tue, 2018-05-01 17:44

Received April 30, 2018: Dear Mr Mitchell Thank you for your email of 26 February 2018 regarding traffic light sequencing at the Intersection of Seaford Road and Railway Parade, Seaford. I apologise for the delay in responding. As you may be aware, the Andrews Labor Government has embarked on the largest rail infrastructure project in the state's history to remove 50 dangerous and congested level crossings across metropolitan Melbourne. With_ large construction projects like these, VicRoads and the Level Crossing Removal Authority project team work closely together to minimise disruptions of any works on the road network. In this instance, on 20 February 2018, the project team were working to identify the location of underground pipes and cables associated with various utilities. A traffic management plan was Implemented that changed the sequence and timing of the traffic lights at the Seaford Road level crossing. Unfortunately, when the works were completed, the change that had been implemented wasn't removed and this resulted in the delays you experienced. The sequence to the lights was changed back to normal on 27 February 2018. To ensure this does not happen again, the project team and VicRoads have discussed the issue at regular coordination meetings, undertaken training with all workers and will ensure communication of any future disruptions will be provided to the local community. Over the course of the Level Crossing Removal Project, there will be traffic changes from time to time. To keep up to date with these changes and the project In general, I encourage you to register for regular email updates at . Thank you for raising this matter with me. I trust that this information has assisted In answering your concerns and I appreciate your patience while we undertake this vital infrastructure project In Seaford.

John Bentley

Mon, 2018-04-30 18:03

In for a penny.......... Thanks Matthew, a very interesting concept, I like it. And I agree with your sentiments, it's now or never. Climate change has ramped right up in the last 5 years and I believe governments, the Feds in particular, don't understand the ramifications of what's in the wind. This year alone we've, here at Tongala, had the hottest January and April on record while February and March were well above the norm. I also believe that we may be facing another extended dry period, I hope I'm wrong. Count me in!

Matthew Mitchell

Mon, 2018-04-30 13:38

Thanks Sheila, that is encouraging. I was thinking this really should have been the domain of the Australian Greens - but they have been around for a long time now, and the problems seem to be growing. If anyone has any lessons to learn from the experience of the Greens, please post them up. It would interesting to learn why they have not engaged Australians. and are not engaging them now when there is so much frustration at the levels of traffic, of seeing our much beloved city and suburb changing before our eyes - the loss of trees on St Kilda Boulevard is just one little example, even at Seaford Road intersection there has been massive tree removal of quite old trees for Sky Rail, the loss of which now blights the whole neighbourhood. Not the mention the thousand other things that are happening that require urgent action (fracking, water mining, native forest logging etc).

Sheila Newman

Mon, 2018-04-30 12:49

Hi Matthew, you know candobetter.net will get behind anything like this. We also need to work on communcations between Australians to reduce the power of the corporate media. I like the Union of Australians name!

Sheila Newman

Mon, 2018-04-30 10:28

Fine observation, Quark. I suspect though that, like any addict (addicted to the thrill of putting money on all kinds of things), Soros thinks that the open market open borders system will protect him from regulation. His talk of regulation reminds me of how serial killers sometimes say they want to be stopped, or alcoholics say they want to be stopped - but most do not put themselves into a position where they must stop.

quark

Mon, 2018-04-30 09:38

It's interesting that Soros is asking in the interview for regulation of the activities of himself and others like him. Children and dogs like discipline and boundaries for their behaviour. It makes them feel safe. Maybe Soros is starting to feel unsafe after romping all over the place for decades, although I'm not sure how long ago he said that. Part of that first footage is quite old as they say he is 68. He was born in 1930 so he turns or has turned 88 this year.

quark

Sun, 2018-04-29 14:14

Victorian Agriculture Minister Jaala Pulford must understand suffering. She has been through it having watched her 13 year old daughter die of cancer about 3 years ago. I don't know when she "rubber stamped" this but if it was soon after this then maybe she was not focussed. In any case the "rubber stamping" re the birds needs to be reversed.

James (not verified)

Fri, 2018-04-27 08:17

The following was posted as a comment beneath Putin: Russia's young scientists build world's most powerful arms system in 7 years See more at http://www.pravdareport.com/ (26/4/2018) | Pravda: So, for how much longer will Russia's current advance in military technology give humanity a respite from those culpable for starting all the wars since 1945 - in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, ... ? A century ago, Russia's leadership - so much demonised now in April 2018, even amongst much of the otherwise informative alternative newsmedia - understood the peril humanity faced, should it allow those criminals, who, in July 1914, had started the supposed 'war to end all wars' and caused 18 million to die, to continue to wield power. Despite their best efforts the leaders of the new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) failed, most notably in Germany, in October 1923. Those who ruled in July 1914 remained in power across most of the planet, and, as a consequence, humanity got German Nazism, Italian Fascism, Japanese colonial militarism, the Spanish Civil War and a total of 60 million deaths in the Second World War, including 25 million Soviet citizens. Unless today's Russian leaders believe those now running America, Israel and their allies are any less criminal than those in charge in July 1914, then how can they presume that humanity's future prospects are any better than they were back then? If humanity does not properly hold to account those reponsible for millions of deaths since 1945, then I fear humanity could face a future even more bleak than it had to face between 1939 and 1945.

Sean Stinson (not verified)

Thu, 2018-04-26 17:38

A friend just drew my attention to this post in which I am mentioned. Thank you Sheila for your kind words. Alas it seems my 'one sided' opinions have also seen me "blocked" from posting at the AIMN, where I have been a regular contributor for the last 4 years. A shame, since in a cynical way I rather enjoyed writing for a vaguely left-liberal readership of misinformed do-gooders and being variously labeled a 'Putinist', 'Assadist' and 'Kremlin stooge' - it beats preaching to the choir on social media. Ironically I was ostensibly banned for 'cyber-bullying' one of the site's authors mentioned in this post. An accusation which I categorically deny.

James Sinnamon

Tue, 2018-04-17 11:15

The following was posted as a comment beneath the article UK COLUMN: US-UK-France’s Nonexistent Case on Syrian WMDs and More Murdoch Fake News (16/4/18) | 21st Century Wire: Rupert Murdoch has a long history of subverting democracy and promoting military aggression. This began in Australia in 1974, when his formerly pro-Labor newspaper, the "Australian" suddenly turned on the government of Gough Whitlam. This, as much as the CIA meddling, as attributed to by Christopher Boyce (aka 'the Falcon') [1] -and documented by William Blum, helped destabilse Australia and bring down the Whitlam Government in the coup of 11 November 1975. Back in 1974, as a young teenager, I looked to the Australian as an alternative left-of-center news source. When it suddenly turned on the Whitlam government, in the latter part of 1974, I, myself, was fooled. I was persuaded, for many months, that the Whitlam government, for all its good intentions, was incompetent and unfit to govern. (see [above story on this page]) I only saw through this lie not long before before 11 November 1975. To help cover the overall disinformation from the Murdoch media, it does also, from time to time, include very informative reporting which appears to run counter to the narrative of the United States' warmongers. One example is its sympathetic reporting of Mother Agnes Mariam a Lebanese Carmelite nun and outspoken voice for Syria against the United States' proxy terrorists. Footnote[s] [1] See On SBS Dateline: Christopher Boyce blows whistle on CIA corruption of Australian democracy, Labor Party & trade union movement (17/4/14) and The Falcon Lands (18/2/14) | SBS.

D. Macilwain (not verified)

Mon, 2018-04-16 19:19

I wrote this article last thursday, and focussed a little on a young girl who appears in the hospital room gulping for breath after being soaked with a hose. https://ahtribune.com/world/north-africa-south-west-asia/syria-crisis/2221-chemical-weapon-attack-in-douma.html The illustration is one I took off the TV from SBS World News last week. When the video of the guys in the Douma hospital EM room appeared, it gave an explanation for why the girl seemed confused and why she was hosed down. Apparently some men had come into the room shouting that there was a chemical weapons attack, and relatives of those in there started this treatment in a panic, while an unknown man filmed the scene on his phone. It appears now that not a few of the people in this room, including this girl and her mother, were “with” the insurgents, and are now in “a refugee camp in Northern Syria” – they featured on tonight’s SBS news report. The little girl looked very like Bana, and her mother, in black, the woman whose hand she had been holding. This girl explained to the reporter how she had felt pains in her chest, while her mother claimed to have felt a bit numb in the legs, etc.... What has taken me a little while to realise though, is that there is this video showing the girl, and a boy getting Ventolin, and some children on a bed, but this is quite separate from the shots of white looking toddlers and a baby being held by a man; they are in a different place. This latter, as well as the videos of the pile of bodies must have been pre-filmed, while the scene in the hospital is actually around the time of the claimed attack. The videos released are chopped up and out of sequence, and blended together so they look to be in the same building. We’ll probably be seeing more of “Nour”, and her mother “Um al Nour” (Nour’s mother!) Hard to believe the way that the propaganda factory reinvents itself constantly, so it is never caught out by the half-awake public.

Olaf (not verified)

Mon, 2018-04-16 19:00

Herald Sun Article by Rita Panahi, Let's heed public opinion on migration IT says something about the sorry state of Australian politics that issues as crucial as immigration and population are deemed too difficult for public debate. In the vacuum left by gutless Coalition and Labor politicians, the likes of One Nation and lobby groups such as Dick Smith’s Fair Go are weighing in. But for how much longer will mainstream politicians ignore the will of the majority to push ahead with a “big Australia” strategy? As it stands, the population will be boosted by up to 190,000 permanent residents this year, plus 18,750 admitted under the humanitarian program. Add to that figure the hundreds of thousands more who come here as temporary migrants, including those on student visas, 457-skilled temporary worker visas and working holiday maker visas. Every single one of those people adds to the congestion on the roads and the demand for housing and services such as health care. Of course, those migrants who work make a vital economic contribution and help alleviate the impact of our ageing population, which sees the burden of the growing welfare bill carried by a shrinking percentage of taxpayers. It is clear that some migrant groups are better than others in overcoming language barriers, finding work and assimilating — but more on that later. One of the many advantages of being an island nation, with sound border protection policies and a relatively low birth rate, is that we can control precisely how big and how quickly to grow. What should Australia’s population be in 2030, 2050 and beyond? Do we want to grow to a nation of more than 40 million, or is the ideal population closer to 25 million? On current estimates, the population will have grown to 37.5—41.5 million by 2050. That’s fine for those of us who support high immigration and growth, but the reality is that we are in the minority. A number of polls have shown a clear majority want to curb immigration. Voters having two broad concerns about our current intake: the volume and the mix. A 2017 survey commissioned by the Australian Population Research Institute showed three in four voters believed we were “full” and did not support any further population growth. Read more about that study here: "Betts & Birrell: Australian voters’ views on immigration policy: Full Report". Read more of the Rita Panahi article (behind a pay wall) here:http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/rita-panahi/rita-panahi-lets-heed-public-opinion-on-migration/news-story/f3bcbd6dff6e81967719899ad9dadbfc

Sheila Newman

Mon, 2018-04-16 16:04

From Sara Flounders: There is great enthusiasm that over 1,000 rallied on April 15 at Herald Square, NYC on a cold, damp day. Impressive list of speakers from almost 40 organizations represented countries and struggles targeted by US imperialism, along with social justice, union, community, youth and antiwar organizations. Several groups of drummers. including Indigenous drummers and Korean drummers helped keep the rally moving. A very spirited rally opposing ALL US wars and solidarity with peoples under attack. Then several hundred marched to Trump Tower. March was led by Syrian, Yemeni, Palestinian, Korean and Puerto Rican activists with their flags, drums and signs. For a view of a diverse multi national coverage and stream of March, front banner of March and rally all good visuals see links sent by Julie Varughese: Check out our Twitter moment containing photos and videos: https://twitter.com/i/moments/985663956088913923 ​Facebook livestream of the march from Herald Square to Trump Tower in New York City: https://www.facebook.com/WorkersWorldParty/videos/1290378814430093 ​

Sue (not verified)

Sun, 2018-04-15 12:34

I have known the Seaford foreshore area since i was a child in the 1960s. In the last 15 or 20 years as I drive past I have felt that it was under threat. They do nothing to keep it in good nick and it looked almost as though they were gradually killing it. Then I saw to my dismay a cleared area a few months ago about 20 metres square - where they have now erected some structure -probably a toilet. I feel ropable. Where do they think the birds, insects and small animals will live ? They are evil. I was also upset about the manicuring the council did in Beaumaris on one of my favourite local walks. I rang the council to complain. I was told that for every complaint like mine they get more coming about the very existence of the foreshore vegetation from people who would have it all cleared away. I can't bear to walk there now because it's not the same.

Sheila Newman

Sun, 2018-04-15 09:50

The article quoted above ("Pending independent review WA suspends planned sprawl progam http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/work-suspended-on-wa-s-seven-year-plan...") is really really important for population and planning activists everywhere. I hope some of you will log in to whatever discussions are happening re this on WA gov and other sites to learn if we can glean a precedent for sane planning and democracy in Australia.

Sheila Newman

Sun, 2018-04-15 09:42

David Z Hughes has just expressed what many people think, but most do not express. I know David. He is a brilliant engineer and he thinks through social conundrums with an engineering approach. He is a very warm person, who once sent me a card from his factory cat, and with a left-field sense of humour based on pure logic that can take your breath away, but when he is analysing a people problem in the abstract, he comes out with stuff that ignores human social constraints and therefore shocks them. I grew up with an engineer and engineers run our terrible overpopulation and planning program in Australia on the same sort of logic. They sort of accept the way people are presented as economic units and behave as if we people also accept that. So they foist smart cities on us and think we will like it because they have some hypothesis that it will make us more valuable or less costly economic units, which they confuse with virtue. [Edit: Sorry, did not mean to imply that David is a growthist, more that he has an engineering way of ignoring social constraints.]] I made those comments above just to let you know a bit the way I think David thinks and to introduce my response to the statement he has made about increasing the global death rate. I wish I had all day to write this, but actually it is part of my third book on the subject. Humans, like all other animals and plants, once tended to live in viscous populations. (Biological term, look it up). Many still do. These populations or societies have a default of (a) marrying within themselves within the constraints of incest avoidance and marriage rules (b) observing incest avoidance rules and marriage rules (kinship rules) that vary according to the carrying capacity of their local traditional territory, (c) discouraging marriage and therefore children between members of the population who lack land and assets sufficient to raise children without impoverishing the community or themselves. The smaller the population, the smaller the marriage and fertility opportunities. It is quite normal for people to live and die without a partner, whilst enjoying roles as aunties and uncles. In other animals there is often a delay or non-event of sexual maturation where fertility opportunities are not present. Or sexual behaviour may simply not arise. WAR: When war happens, it knocks out established marriage rules, kinship rules and structures, killing off spouses and giving people from another population fertility opportunities they would not have had before. This occurs through widows remarrying, through rape, through young people who would have found no one unmarried of their age, or of suitable station, now exposed to an invading population or to a new host population as refugees and other kinds of immigrants. The melding of the invaders with the invaded, or migrants with the host population, becomes a permanent new population,which may become bigger than the original with a higher fertility structure. You can reexpress this by saying that the quality of endogamy in the viscosity of the people in the place was reduced by a wave of exogamy. (Depending on economic technology, the conquered may have their living spaces reduced as slaves or a lower caste, or work in factories - otherwise, in a subsistence society, the population for the area will come down to its original size.) This process has happened over a couple of centuries in the Middle East, where colonialisation and its accompanying industrialisation have pushed viscous endogamous tribes/peoples together, thus destroying their viscosity and greatly raising their fertility. The same process has both caused and used wars to change patterns of settlement and economic distribution in favour of new classes. Industry also encourages high marriage rates because it wants a lot of labour that is reliant on wages. We can see how this affects Australia. Even if you completely wipe out a viscous population, as long as its territory is still viable, a new population will fill it with the associated increase in fertility opportunities associated with new land. UNLESS they have an ethos of NOT filling up new land - but currently these kinds of ethos are overwhelmed by the commercial imperative of capitalism which will leave no living scrap of earth unconcreted if it can. This process is happening all over the world - but less in populations that live under Roman Law - notably those in continental Europe - because their inheritance and land-tenure system protects viscosity. Their identification as nations assists this. The European Union wants to destroy this viscosity and land-tenure. HOW GLOBALISATION RAISES FERTILITY OPPORTUNITIES Globalisation is a process of de-viscousing (or dissolving) our populations, and it causes many more fertility opportunities. To show this on a computer you would have to model a whole lot of discrete viscous populations (tribes) at some point, and start inserting events like global warming that reduced land availability and resulted in migrations, wars, takeovers, with the usual increased fertility opportunities. Eventually you would get to the 21st century, with the Australian property development industry overwhelming yet again the native born (now including many non-aboriginals) with new couples and fertility opportunities; US-NATO yet again pushing the peoples of the Middle East together by paying 'rebels' to chase them this way and that, rape them, kill their males and marry them; and Angela Merkel welcoming many new young unmarried males to Germany and the EU. This is how you get a world population with an average growth rate of maybe around 1.2, with growth lobbyists all trying to raise the rate, especially in Australia, US, NZ, UK, Africa, India, China and probably South & central America (haven't looked there lately). You did mention Yemen in the original post that I edited. If the Saudis, financed by the countries of US-NATO using British, French and US supplied weapons, get their way, they will almost annihilate the Yemen population. Then the Saudis and others will move in to resettle. Those Yemenis who survive will be in a situation where there are many more fertility opportunities than previously. US-NATO will probably open up some factories or other slave opportunities and the surviving Yemenis will continue to survive through very low wage labour. They may have large families because there will not be child labour laws so each child will raise the family income which otherwise would be stuck. We will be told that the Yemenis are finally 'developing' (uggh! hate that term) but that they have an overpopulation problem, which will require education of females and the eventual use of contraception. The only reason you hear more about Syria here than about Yemen is that we just don't have enough hands to type with! We are well aware of the immense tragedy, and in that tragedy, I include the political fallout of population structure destabilisation. I don't approve of what is happening in the Middle East or in Australia. I wish it would all stop, but war is going to make it worse. IMHO and my scientific opinion. What do you think, David?

Sheila Newman

Sun, 2018-04-15 08:44

This article comes from http://www.moonofalabama.org/

F.U.K.U.S. Strikes Syria - Who Won?

Last night France, the UK and the U.S. launched an illegal attack on Syria and bombed several military and civilian sites within the country. They justify their attack as revenge or punishment for an alleged 'chemical attack' that had taken place a week earlier.

The 'chemical incident' on April 7 in Douma was designed to reverse Trump's publicly announced decision to order the U.S. military out of Syria. The Saudi financed Salafi 'rebels' in Douma collected bodies, probably from another incident, and stacked them up in one apartment to stage a scene and to create fake videos of a 'chemcial attack' which they falsely attributed to the Syrian government.

Trump pretended to fall for the videos and tweeted threats against Syria and Russia. Russia threatened to respond with strong force should any U.S. attack hurt its soldiers or interests in Syria.

The UK and France, who like the U.S. were only recently visited by the Saudi clown prince and showered with fresh Saudi billions, jumped onto the case. France now admits that its 'intelligence' of the Douma incident is solely based on the obviously staged youtube videos and claims made by 'western' financed propaganda operations who cooperate with the Jihadis.

Yesterday the Russian Defense Ministry accused Britain of having organized the 'chemical incident':

Cont. reading: F.U.K.U.S. Strikes Syria - Who Won?

Posted by b at 01:09 PM

| Comments (106)

Giant Mistletoe (not verified)

Sun, 2018-04-15 08:07

http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/work-suspended-on-wa-s-seven-year-plan-to-combat-urban-sprawl-20180413-p4z9jv.html Work suspended on WA’s seven-year plan to combat urban sprawl The government has decided to suspend work on a major and controversial planning blueprint, the Perth and Peel Green Growth Plan for 3.5 million, which has been in the making for seven years. The draft Green Growth Plan outlined how Perth would accommodate a population explosion of almost 70 per cent to more than 3.5 million in the next 30 years without further environmental destruction and urban sprawl. SHARE ON FACEBOOK SHARE SHARE ON TWITTER TWEET LINK http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/work-suspended-on-wa-s-seven-year-plan... All agree urban sprawl must be stopped in Perth, but achieving this is a more complex story. All agree urban sprawl must be stopped in Perth, but achieving this is a more complex story. Photo: Nick Moir The former state government released the draft in 2015, following confronting advice from the Environmental Protection Authority in 2014 that uncontrolled urban sprawl could not continue. It recognised that to accommodate Perth’s present population of 2.1 million, the Swan Coastal Plain had been 70 per cent cleared. To clear at the same rate until the population reached 3.5 million would see a Perth without native vegetation by 2050. RELATED ARTICLES Bush 'Forever' sites anything but, as plans put protected WA land under threat The plan, the largest city-focused environmental assessment ever undertaken in Australia, was the biggest and most complex shake-up to planning approvals in WA ever, aiming to secure upfront environmental approvals for all types of urban development and mines for a 30-year period. It attempted to balance certainty for development with long-term environmental protection, but was controversial; it locked in clearing of nearly 40,000 hectares of native animal habitat, including banksia woodland - which has since been declared endangered - and pine forest comprising more than 50 per cent of the total remaining feeding habitat for Carnaby’s cockatoos. The current government has now published an update on one of its websites, without making any public announcement, that it would suspend work on the document pending “a critical review of the ongoing costs, risks and benefits for Western Australia”. NEWS UPDATE NEWSLETTER Get the latest news and updates emailed straight to your inbox. Enter your email address By submitting your email you are agreeing to Fairfax Media's terms and conditions and privacy policy. It said much “important and complex work” had been completed as part of the process and some outcomes had been delivered – including helping inform sub-regional planning frameworks the government recently endorsed. But the project presented many policy, legal and financial challenges that had been proving “difficult to resolve, amongst the competing priorities of the government”. As a result a re-evaluation of the project was the “responsible step forward”. It said in coming months, an independent review would consult across governments, and with industry, local governments and non-government organisations. Public comments on the 2015 draft closed in May 2016 and the government provided an update in September saying work was continuing, with a major focus involving ensuring it maximised the "transformative effect of Metronet on the Perth and Peel regions". It said release of a revised draft for public consultation was planned for the first half of 2018, subject to government decision-making in late 2017. Former premier Colin Barnett had called the plan a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to meet the challenge of ensuring the sustainable growth of metropolitan area while protecting more areas of land with environmental significance." Work was done to locate future infrastructure corridors together and deliver multiple types of development in the one area to reduce further clearing. But many voiced concern about the Green Growth Plan draft, including the Urban Bushland Council, which believed it over-reliant on "offset" planting and said it would not protect Perth's green corridors. The complex draft left the future of ‘Bush Forever’ sites unclear. Green groups including the Conservation Council of WA, Bird Life Australia, Peel-Harvey Catchment Council, The Wilderness Society, Urban Bushland Council of WA, Wildflower Society of WA and World Wildlife Fund joined forces in October 2017 to ask for a major review. WWF Australia said it had strongly supported the Strategic Assessment approach and it urged the WA government to continue to strategically plan for the protection of Carnaby’s cockatoo habitat. The Urban Development Institute of Australia supported the decision to suspend work. “While UDIA was supportive of the original intent of this project, we have raised major concerns about the GGP in recent years as the scope and implications have evolved,” chief executive Allison Hailes said. “Whilst the Plan seeks to secure environmental values in the region, there will also be a range of economic and social impacts for land development and new home buyers that need to be better understood before the Plan goes further,” Ms Hailes said. “UDIA is concerned that given the scope of the project, in terms of the sheer size of the land area it encompasses and the broad range of matters it seeks to address, the impacts on future infrastructure development and affordability will be far greater than initially anticipated,” Ms Hailes said. “There has been a serious lack of engagement with stakeholders in recent years, which is concerning given the ambitious reach of the project ... even more concerning is that to date no cost estimates to implement the GGP have been released. We believe there will be significant cost for both government and the private sector, with some experts estimating it could be more than $2 billion over the next 10 to 15 years.” “We welcome the government’s decision to suspend work while an independent review takes place. We are hopeful that there will be proper engagement and transparency and that we can avoid the potentially negative outcomes that the process was heading toward,” Ms Hailes said. The state opposition has been contacted for comment.

DAVID Z HUGHES (not verified)

Sun, 2018-04-15 07:39

Sheila is obsessed with Syria and this site has become better and better over the years on Syria. . Special ticks for carrying latest video of independent Fox show commentator. [candobetter.net editor: I have edited the remainder for legal reasons and restated it thus:] But if population is the big issue underlying everything, then we need to raise the global death rate to 80m per year, just in order to stabilise the current appalling level of our human plague.

Sheila Newman

Sat, 2018-04-14 20:03

Yes, there is so much evidence of a gross externally funded conspiracy, repeated again and again in the Middle East. The Russians have worked out what happened, as I report here: /node/5472. We are really being shown in the clearest of terms that our leaders - here in Australia, and throughout the western world - have similar values and mores to the worst medieval princes.

Matthew Mitchell

Sat, 2018-04-14 16:50

I just remembered - they also talked about how when in Syria they saw bodies taken from somewhere - perhaps a morgue, I am not sure - and deliberately placed in areas where it was alleged attacks took place - i.e the evidence was deliberately - and blatantly - planted, for whatever reason.

Matthew Mitchell

Sat, 2018-04-14 16:47

There is local couple in my area who are from Syria. I asked them on Thursday night what they thought about the situation over there. They said it made no sense for Assad to use chemical weapons, and they did not believe it. They talked about the weapons of mass destruction claim of the Bush administration used to justify attacking Iraq, and questioned how anyone could believe the USA on such matters any more.

Frank W (not verified)

Sat, 2018-04-14 14:57

ALL OUT! Stop Bombing Syria http://springaction2018.org/ Don’t believe Trump’s Lies about SYRIA! Trump and Big Oil want a new war in the Middle East. The largest U.S./NATO military mobilization since the 2003 invasion of Iraq has moved into position off the coast of Syria, including U.S. nuclear aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. The bombing of Damascus is underway. Trump and the Pentagon's criminal attack on Syria endangers us all. Already tens of thousands have died in U.S. effort to overturn the Syrian government. This U.S. attack could lead to World War III. With no legal authority - and in clear violation of international law - the Trump Administration has started its criminal attack on the people of Syria. It is urgent for all of us express our strong opposition to another US war. Join hundreds of antiwar and social justice groups that are are organizing demonstrations in New York City, Oakland, CA, and dozens of other cities across the country this weekend, April 14 and 15 against the US bombing of Syria and opposing endless U.S. wars. All organizations are urged to make an all-out effort to contact friends and activists through social media and other means. Join actions this weekend and mobilize to oppose this criminal war. See SpringAction2018.org for a list of actions this weekend. If there is not one near you- organize one! See SpringAction2018.org for a list of actions this weekend. If there is not one near you, organize one

Sheila Newman

Fri, 2018-04-13 18:37

See above one of the banners we will hold at the protest in front of US embassy in Rome, tomorrow 14 april at 11 a.m.; also in Milano tomorrow there will be a protest in the streets tomorrow, at 6 p.m.

Many Italian politicians in the new Parliament are against any attack. Things have changed since the awful NATO attack on Lybia.

Protests in the streets in Western countries are needed against this new warmongering false-flag without no evidence and full of contradictions! (http://www.sibialiria.org/wordpress/?p=3533)

Marinella Correggia
No War Network
Project Truth against War

Giant Mistletoe (not verified)

Fri, 2018-04-13 18:05

This is just the same policy as the corporate media! With the exception of Tucker Carlson on Fox, in Australia and the United States, the controversy surrounding the allegations about chemical weapons as an excuse for a hidious attack on Syria, drawing Russia and China into the fray, is simply not being mentioned. If the United States does not draw back - of which there is now a hope, but no certainty - Australia and the US will be taken almost by surprise if WW3 breaks out. Maybe Quiggan's tenure is threatened because he's been interviewed on RT in the past and his masters do not like that? It is classical John Cleese "Don't mention the war." Thanks to candobetter for its coverage of this topic.

James Sinnamon

Fri, 2018-04-13 17:43

I have just posted the following to JohnQuiggin.com. It is currently "awaiting moderation": Professor Quiggin wrote on 25 March 2018: "Nothing more on this topic, or along these lines, please. Also, no responses from other commenters." I don't know where you have been, Professor Quiggin, but last night I was awake until 3:00am fearing that war would break out between Russia and the United States in the Eastern Mediterranean. Would you have also disallowed, in the 1930's, discussion on the Munich Agreement , the Reichstag Fire, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and the Italian invasion of Ethiopia? Perhaps you could list in your "Discussion policy" what topics are allowed and what topics are not allowed in this "commentary on Australian and world events from a social-democratic perspective"?

Matthew Mitchell

Fri, 2018-04-13 09:08

Thanks Sheila, if there was more I wanted to read it that is all.

James Sinnamon

Fri, 2018-04-13 01:33

The following was adapted from a post to Basic Facts about the War in Syria (29/3/2018) | The Rabbit Hole by Sarah Abed:

In fact, President Bashar al-Assad is a far more legitimate national leader than the leaders of the supposed western democracies who have colluded in the killing of (by one estimate) 400,000 Syrians, including 80,000 Syrian soldiers by their terrorist proxies, since March 2011.

On 19 June 2014, Bashar Jaafari, Syria's permanent representative to the United Nations in New York, conducted a press conference in which he could explain the recently concluded presidential election, of 3 June 2014, to the representatives of the newsmedia and answer their questions. (See Syria's press conference the United Nations doesn't want you to see - republished from Global Research - includes 53 minute embedded video of the press conference at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnFQd4wBXnk).

As even Israel's Haaretz newspaper acknowledged, "Syria's parliament speaker said Wednesday President Bashar Assad has been reelected by a landslide, capturing 88.7 percent of the vote" . Haaretz, whilst more factual than the rest of the corporate newsmedia, attempted to diminish the significance of the election. Other corporate media outlets were quite misleading (see articles listed in footnote 1 of the article linked to above.

Not one of the reporters hostile to Syria, made the effort to challenge to Bahar Jaaafari's narrative.

Surely, if the elections were as rigged and controlled as those reporters claimed, why did not even one of them even attempt to show the world that Bashar Jaafari's claims were false?

Were these reporters negligent? Or did they know that, if they tried to put their claims to Bashar Jaafari, they would be shown up before the world for the liars that they are?

Sheila Newman

Thu, 2018-04-12 23:00

I published a press release. I did not republish an article. The article is by me, but really just based on the press release with little change. I gave it the title myself. The press release was from Veterans for Peace. It arrived in an email list about Syria. The article is exactly the press release, with a slight rearrangement to cite from the press release in the teaser.

John Bentley

Wed, 2018-04-11 09:06

On cue Fairfax Media reporter Michelle Bentley (no relation) quoted "The White Helmets have reported......". Just how sick can you get?? I commented "The White Helmets = Daesh". Which I see this morning was not included as there are still 0 (zero, zip, zilch) comments next to the story, a telling reaction to another MSM lie!!

Sheila Newman

Tue, 2018-04-10 17:06

With the cost of land and rent, driving up salaries and driving profit margins down, and making us unviable competitors on the international market, what other industry but land-sales is possible. Our country is driven by a land speculating mafia.

Sue (not verified)

Tue, 2018-04-10 17:01

Whilst playing tennis recently I saw a vehicle next door within the adjoining golf course -one of those little bulldozer things busily moving back and forth apparently with a purpose in mind. The vehicle and driver were up much higher than we were on the boundary of the golf club and the tennis club. We watched him attack a small rather lovely tree with dense fine very green foliage, ideal for birds to take shelter in. The operator picked the tree up in the claws of the vehicle, pushed it back and forth and then pulled it until it came out. He then backed up and put the arms of the vehicle over the fence into the tennis club and started attacking the vegetation with the claws. He could not go further in because there was a cyclone wire fence there. I finished my game and then went over to find out what was going on. One of the other players uttered words of disgust and another added that "they just rip everything out." I couldn't get the driver's attention from down below so I went out in the street and approached him through the fence. I called out Me "What are you doing?" Him "I'm getting rid of blackberries." Me "Then why did you pull out a tree?" Him "I didn't" Me "Yes you did , I saw you. " Him "And who are you?" Me "I am a member of the the tennis club, and of the [local environment group pubic land protection]" Him "Well this is the golf club; it's private land " Me "i am also a member of the public what's more you were destroying vegetation in the tennis club." Him "Well I'm getting rid of blackberries" Me "I can't see any blackberries. Why are you doing this ? " Him "I'm making way for the land to be used for something else; a nursery " (Sure enough a patch of land about 30 metres diameter had been cleared and was just dirt. I said to him. Me "I will be playing tennis here next week and I don't want to see those other trees removed.". I left at this point. The tennis club has a nice variety of vegetation around the edges of the courts which keeps the courts cool in summer and there is a beautiful array of birds. It's a haven for birds, in fact I don't take it for granted, in fact i live in trepidation expecting it to be ruined one day. I frequently hear chain saws in this valley where the golf club and the tennis club co-exist. It dismays me.

VivKay (not verified)

Tue, 2018-04-10 13:06

" Unfortunately the word "plan" is starting to send shivers down the spines of Sydneysiders. "Planning" means more chaos, costs, cranes and ever increasing traffic, noise and people." writes DiAnne McDonald. The divisive and deceptive word "plan" is not actually about planning, or common-sense fore-sight into happy and sustainable cities, but overloading them! What is "plan" to them is about crowding, over-developing and deriving maximum profits from suburbs - as the economic resource of property developers. The plan is no plan- but keep filling and bemoan after that "we" are not building enough infrastructure. True planning would be to build and pre-design infrastructure first, then open the flood gates to more people in the appropriate numbers. The govt at Federal, State and Council levels have surrendered to the property industry, and with our economy stagnating, housing and real estate has become the only one activity that's booming.

Giant Mistletoe (not verified)

Tue, 2018-04-10 12:30

Some choice replies to another Sydney Morning Herald growth propaganda article by Jane Fitzgerald (Property Council NSW - "Don't shy away from a bigger Sydney") at https://www.smh.com.au/national/growth-is-not-inevitable-and-we-need-more-say-20180409-p4z8mg.html "Growth is not inevitable and we need more say" I appreciate Jane Fitzgerald's comments on how Sydney should grow ("Don't shy away from a bigger Sydney", April 9). What I don't appreciate is the inference that this growth is inevitable. The population explosion in Sydney and Melbourne is a result of the government's determination to increase the number of immigrants to rates that many observers have noted are unsustainable. The state governments are struggling to put the requisite infrastructure in place. Perversely the major political parties refuse to engage with Australian voters about this rush to a "big Australia". Contrary to what Ms Fitzgerald states, we do need to debate about this issue. Politicians need to engage with communities, not developers, about the rising rates of migration and explicitly state what their policies are, that way, the Australian voting public can make its voice heard. The silence from Canberra on this topic is deafening. - Deborah Pelser, Killara Fitzgerald makes it clear that the Property Council definitely does not want two things: a "debate about immigration" (population), and "another inquiry". Well, we already knew that. What we don't know, but suspect, is how much better and more liveable Sydney could be if the same planning expertise and infrastructure expenditure was directed at more manageable population targets. Without blind and endless "growth" we would have pleasant transport options, accessible playing fields and beaches, beautiful pockets of urban bushland, and fewer bitter and frustrated young people. - Norman Carter, Roseville Chase Fitzgerald's optimism about the future planning of Sydney must be based more on hope than evidence. We have had multiple plans since the original County of Cumberland Planning Scheme in the dim distant past, but none of them has led to an efficient people-friendly environmentally sustainable city, and there is no reason to suppose that the new plan will have an outcome any different from the one we are experiencing. As for local environmental plans showing the way to a new future, these are almost invariably backward-looking unimaginative pieces of bureaucratic stodge designed to protect the status quo and fiercely resistant to any innovation. Occasionally, a "courageous" minister will override some of the more egregious development obstacles in these documents, but it's not something to be relied on. If we had a proactive Department of Planning, there might be some possibility of change, but the present somnolent organisation generates expectations only of more of the same. - Bruce Hyland, Woy Woy Unfortunately the word "plan" is starting to send shivers down the spines of Sydneysiders. "Planning" means more chaos, costs, cranes and ever increasing traffic, noise and people. It also means dynamic and sudden change in the local environment – traffic snarls on the trip to the local shopping centre, inability to find a parking spot there, gross overdevelopment of suburban blocks featuring concrete and treeless spaces where once stood heritage bungalows and Queen Anne architecture. No amount of hype will convince some of us that a "Greater Sydney" is "just as it has always grown". We need transparent and inclusive debate on this issue. - Vanessa Tennent, Oatley The vacuous overdevelopment of Sydney was brilliantly summed up by this one sentence in the Domain magazine about the three high-rise apartments about to engulf Epping: "A grove of trees and bespoke street furniture reinterprets the orchards that once stood in Epping" (April 7-8). The entire city is currently under "reinterpretation" where open spaces are being replaced by these dreadful, landlocked leviathans and "bespoke furniture". Make. It. Stop. - DiAnne McDonald, Narrabeen

John Bentley

Tue, 2018-04-10 11:43

Everything we buy comes in a packet. I bought myself a new queen size bed and even that came wrapped in plastic which after I inquired, the home wares owner said he would be taking to the tip. It doesn't matter what we buy, it comes wrapped in either plastic, polystyrene, paper, cardboard or whatever that at best gets recycled, buried or burnt. The world is swimming in rubbish. You only have to have a gander at the rubbish the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the beach, our waterways, all public access areas and it is only going to get worse. Welcome to the neoliberal world of rampant consumerism where anything for a quick buck and economic growth is OK. Bugger the environment!!

quark

Mon, 2018-04-09 23:08

Only being allowed to complain of one symptom at a time when visiting a GP could cause problems of diagnosis. Some seemingly unrelated symptoms can be expressions of a single pathology. When the symptoms are put together they should point to the correct diagnosis. e.g thinning hair and tiredness can mean under active thyroid. If a patient feels reluctant to mention thinning hair at an appointment but focuses on tiredness then this could delay diagnosis. The constraint is counter productive. I think that many non bulk billing (as well as bulk billing) GPs discourage patients from dealing with multiple problems in one appointment unless they have been forewarned. This is obviously due to time pressures, I understand medical practices operate on the assumption that appointments will go for about 7 minutes. If someone has mobility problems getting from the waiting room to the surgery could eat up a minute of that time.

Sheila Newman

Mon, 2018-04-09 20:13

I knew it was a con, but the constant supply of collections by my local council meant that I became used to getting rid of the plastic, paper and metal stuff. I just refurnished a room, which meant emptying a few bookcases, which contained, as well as books, old videotapes, as well as an awful lot of dvds (can't imagine when I bought them, let alone watched them). All the bins inside the house are full, and so is the recycle bin. What happens when they stop taking away the recycle bin? And the hard rubbish collection?

Singing Butcher Bird (not verified)

Mon, 2018-04-09 19:22

Has your council told you what it wants you to do with your recyclables? Mine hasn't! I vote that we all send our recyclables to pile on Cardboard King Richard Pratt's grave, to the Committee for Melbourne headquarters, to Steve Bracks's front lawn, to Victorian Parliament. It's a pity that we cannot just dump all our 'recyclables' on the ridiculous Sustainable Living Festival, that makes participants fill out questionnaires about their footprints and prioritizes the ridiculous furphy of 'recycling', but doesn't ask us if we have children. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle - what crap - our governments and big business want us to work more to produce more stuff to consume more stuff. The Age, "A billion kilograms of recycling in need of a new home, A change to Chinese law has Australia scrambling to deal with vast quantities of rubbish," by Mark Solomons, 9 APRIL 2018 "The scale of Australia's recycling crisis is twice as bad as initially feared, with new figures showing that well over a million tonnes of metal, paper and plastics previously sent to China now has to be accommodated elsewhere. Such a vast amount of rubbish is hard to wrap your head around, so we've converted the figures to regular household recycling items. The illustrations are indicative only, because the range of materials recycled in each category is much broader and includes building waste, industrial packaging and many other types." But this should give you some indication of the amount of rubbish we're talking about. Remember, this is material that was once exported to China that is now, largely, piling up at Australian waste centres. 920,000 tonnes of paper and cardboard That's a newspaper sheet covering an area of 22,255 square kilometres." And the same thing is going to come of technological fixes in other areas.

Alouette (not verified)

Mon, 2018-04-09 18:42

Michael Moore, in one of his movies about the private health care system, responding to an argument that public health was socialism, remarked that libraries are socialist too, yet they are all over America. The same might be said for Australia. Except I had the idea that some libraries had become corporatised and gone all 'efficient' in the suburbs. Of course we also have socialist medicine, except that it doesn't adequately compensate doctors anymore, so we all have to pay extra or only complain of one ailment at a time to bulk billing doctors who feel put upon.

Simone (not verified)

Mon, 2018-04-09 17:43

I am told it used to be similar with the government hearing aids for children and pensioners - all the same unless different by special request on clinical grounds. You didn't pay anything and you did not actually own the aids. You were supposed to return them if they were replaced or if you died. In the latter case of course you could not do this in person.

Sheila Newman

Sat, 2018-04-07 14:19

Hi Matthew, Your point about paving over agricultural land is, of course, crucial. To wit, I am currently working on an article about how Lisa Neville, the Minister for Water, plans to sell off, rezoned for housing, the Mornington Peninsula's South Eastern Outfall, PUBLIC LAND (Melbourne Water) which runs from Baxter to Gunnamatta and provides an agricultural and wildlife corridor. I have just completed a long submission on the preservation of the Mornington Peninsula's Green Wedges where I argue that this comparatively huge strip of land be preserved for wildlife. The information that came with the Mornington Peninsula Shire's request for submissions, included the idea of the Mornington Peninsula providing a food-bowl for Melbourne. This is presumably in light of the fact that successive Victorian governments, including this one, have almost covered with roads and suburbs over Victoria's best and most well-watered agricultural land in the Cardinia Shire. This shire came about through Kennett's council amalgamations and was formed by merging the Shire of Pakenham with rural sections of the Shire of Sherbrooke and City of Cranbourne. With fools and knaves like Liza Neville planning to sell this PUBLIC LAND off for more housing, we are indeed in great peril.

Sheila Newman

Sat, 2018-04-07 14:01

I agree with Matthew about the need for education. Italy has to start somewhere. Why not via the 5 stelle movement, since it is not any more ignorant than the others? By the way, what has brought this movement together, (as opposed to former movements), in your opinion?

Sheila Newman

Sat, 2018-04-07 13:58

Thanks for keeping working on this, Matthew. And we need better inter-citizen communications. We need to stop relying on the corporate press, which has stolen our talking stick. Maybe you should stick to the 5 person thing enough to organise around the water catchments? Do you have anyone in mind for the water catchments around Seaford, Frankston and the Mornington Peninsula?

Matthew Mitchell

Sat, 2018-04-07 09:27

Ok, thanks Sonya. I really appreciate your reply.

Yes, it is good to help people by removing negative gearing for non-genuine investments, but this problem is already out of hand. So many young people are going to be extraordinarily stressed by their high mortgages, and when they have children, even more stressed - and I worry for the raising of these children - with absent (due to work) and stressed parents. If interest rates rise these people will lose their houses, probably never get another one, and yet will still be paying of the banks for the rest of their lives.

But perhaps a bigger problem is that the growth of housing, and ever more and wider roads is moving over prime farmland, land that not only Australians' depend on for food, but also much of the rest of world to whom we export to. Europe has not been able to feed its population for decades now and relies on food coming from former colonies to survive. The production methods used in these plantations and in the USA and Australia, are not sustainable. It is not helping us, or anyone globally, to be permanently destroying our own land. If the houses were on stumps, they could at least be removed in an emergency, but they are on concrete slabs - and production of concrete is also a major contributor to global warming. In fact, all our activities of road building, high density houses (which usually require air-conditioning as there is no tree cover) are contributing to global warming, not to mention the production of plastics which are now choking our oceans, and whose mass will soon exceed that of the fish in the oceans, as I am sure you are aware.

Look, really what our government should be doing is moving onto an emergency footing - equivalent to the efforts put into the two world wars - to restructure our society away from failing industrialism and global fossil-fuel economies as quickly as possible - much as Cuba did during its crisis at the end of USSR. We need to move to localised systems with much smaller land holdings for food production. Research by the UN shows such farms are more productive per-acre than large ones (but large ones require less man-power to run when you use fossil fuels, thus their predominance).
(see Small is Bountiful by George Monbiot)
I am sure you will find plenty of people young and old who are up to the challenge, if they are given opportunities, including access to resources.

It is clear that time is running out to address this fundamental fact: the system has already failed, both environmentally and financially - governments are just living in denial.

Best Wishes,

Matt

(PS: for readers who are interested in what happening in Cuba, and how they responded with a market system based around democratised ownership of land please see: The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil.. The interesting thing about this was that communist Cuba had a mass of small privately run farms and local markets whilst 'Capitalist' America has 6 companies which - for example - control all its meat production. Cuba also had free health care and education, and people during this period were healthier than Americans.

Matthew Mitchell

Sat, 2018-04-07 09:18

Sonya kindly replied to my email about this - for which I am very grateful here is her reply: Hi Matt Apologies, I thought I had already responded to your email about this. Yes, VicRoads had adjusted the traffic light sequencing at Seaford Road while the LXRA was conducting works which required land closures on Seaford Road. These have been re-adjusted so hopefully you’ve noticed that. There are so many more cars using this intersection at Seaford Road and Railway Parade and that’s one of the really important reasons why we are getting rid of the level crossing. As more trains start to run on the line, people will be stuck longer and longer at remaining boom gates. As for housing affordability, I have long advocated for changes that will assist people with housing costs – in particular, removing negative gearing. So many people are leveraged so highly with mortgage costs that a change in interest rate could have a really significant impact. Thanks again for reaching out. Warmest regards Sonya Kilkenny MP State Member for Carrum

Matthew Mitchell

Thu, 2018-04-05 16:27

Ok, given that in a worst-case collapse scenario mass population movements are likely, this may make the restriction of a limited number of citizens in each parliamentary area a distraction, at a time when other matters are pressing.

Also, we have seen the intractable problems water management has caused between our existing state structures, thus I am proposing a modification to the concept, whereby each parliament is determined by its water resources, a critical issue on the world's driest continent. In this regard there is already a mapping of regions to water sources provided by Steve Iron's FOWTOR model at his site: http://www.bloggerme.com.au/

Below is an extract -the full interactive map is at Steve's site, Steve's model has some hierarchical elements, so I am talking to Steve about how this might work.

Concept

If you are standing in a hamlet, a town or a city of Australia, you will be on the slopes or in the valley of a major river system. It is that river system that, over the last million years or so, has determined what the landscape you are looking at looks like, and what the land around you is capable of producing, and other matters such as how many people are living there, and what they can and cannot do with their lives, and so on. Even in the major desert that is at the centre of Australia, where rain rarely falls, this simple observation is valid. So it is possible to divide Australia on the basis of where water, when it drops from the sky, will flow in its (sometimes quite short, sometimes very long) journey towards the sea.

Construction

The FOWTOR Model goes to a major river system and draws a boundary around it based on the 'flow of water' (FOW). All boundaries therefore must be at the 'top of the ridge' (TOR). Water falling from the sky will be in one major river system if it falls on one side of the ridge, and in another if it falls on the other side of the ridge.

quark

Tue, 2018-04-03 12:24

Yes we are paying for population growth we never bought or signed up for, do not need and do not want. The current high level of population growth is detrimental to us in every way.

Olaf (not verified)

Tue, 2018-04-03 12:02

New Zealand Government has a conscience - not Australia. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/new-zealand-homes-not-for-sale-to-foreigners-under-new-pm_1 New Zealand homes 'not for sale' to foreigners under new PM ------BEWARE MALCOLM TURDBULL Something went wrong, we can’t find this video Overseas buyers will no longer be allowed to purchase existing homes in New Zealand, Prime Minister-elect Jacinda Ardern said Tuesday, as she unveiled a raft of policy deals made with her coalition partners. Updated Updated 25 October 2017 The move to tackle soaring property prices was agreed during lengthy negotiations between the Labour Party leader and populist powerbroker Winston Peters to form a new government that also includes the Green Party. Ardern announced plans to slash immigration and focus on regional development and job creation. "We have agreed on banning the purchase of existing homes by foreign buyers," she said, specifying that the new rules only applied to non-residents. "(We) also have plans around farmland and other critical infrastructure," she added.

Sheila Newman

Sat, 2018-03-31 15:29

but for what? We are not getting anything for all this suffering. We don't profit, but we pay. Who profits? The people running the show for their benefit. It's easy to spot them because they are always trying to justify more immigration and they never deal with the subject of wildlife corridors.

Marianne (not verified)

Sat, 2018-03-31 15:24

Switzerland and Austria refuse to "convict" Russia of the nerve gas poisoning in England until a full investigation is completed. Meanwhile records show that RUssia has no stockpiles of the nerve gas. From CLG News: Framing Putin - Saga of the Spy and the Nerve Agent | 15 March 2018 | Which first world countries still have chemical weapons? Russia got rid of all its chemical weapons under the supervision of OPCW. On the other hand, the US hasn't destroyed all its chemical weapons yet and there are still two Chemical Weapons sites in the US! The US government claims it will destroy them within the next five years. Ha ha... Samples Everywhere: The fact is that many labs around the world have samples of that deadly agent. It so happens that there is a UK military chemical lab in Porton Down, just a few miles from where the alleged incident took place. Lab Signatures Each lab has a signature attached to it, so, if the UK wanted to be credible, it would release the samples to third parties -- Russia and OPCW -- so they can analyze it and see where it came from. But the UK refuses to do so. Guess Who Lives in the US? The "father" of Novichok defected to the US a long time ago and lives in the US now. He brags about it openly on his Facebook page. His name is Vil Mirzayanov.

quark

Sat, 2018-03-31 09:11

The areas in Australia where most of us live are changing so rapidly that we can see it on a day to day level. Building and road works are ubiquitous. Every day you see another house demolished and a sign up advertising generic "architecture" townhouses to be built. Yesterday I saw a huge shadow that I had never seen before covering a road cast by a new 16 sorry apartment building where previously all was low rise, no more than 2 storeys. Trees in the city are being felled like ninepins for road widening. The prospect of giant road projects dangle in front of Melbournians, promising to ease their daly struggle to get to work. These road projects come at enormous cost to the environment; compulsory acquisition of houses, loss of parkland, loss of bushland. One cannot help but be aware of it every day. It is all because of Australia's very high immigration which more than doubles what would be its population growth if it only had to cater for its own natural increase. We are paying dearly for this.

Sheila Newman

Wed, 2018-03-28 01:06

5. MY LETTER TO THE TREASURER RE SELLING THE LAND TITLES OFFICE you might want to send one too The Hon. Tim Pallas MP The Treasurer Government of Victoria Dear Minister Please take note that many of us out here are very concerned and angry that you would consider selling the information held by the Land Titles Office to a private organisation. This is dangerous and I resent information about me falling into private hands. This is a government organisation and it should stay in government hands. This is a very bad move and for what? We can see no reason to sell it. Are you so short of money? It is like selling the family silver. Please do not go through with this. Sincerely Mary Drost

VivKay (not verified)

Mon, 2018-03-26 10:24

Valid panellists to support mass immigration don't exist. The support for "big Australia" as beneficial to Australians and Australia does not exist. So they bring in the Grattan Institute and a mouthpiece for the Property Council of Australia? How can they be objective and indifferent? So where is the balanced panel, with advocates for the benefits of big immigration, and growth that would improve our budget, our living standards, better jobs, affordable housing and reduce debt as well as protect our environment? Clearly such panellists would not be found. The pro-growth "experts" are the front for property developers and big planners. The audience can see through this smoke-screen. Bob Carr and Tim Flannery are not backed by sponsors, or industries, that support population stabilization or lower growth rates. They are altruistic. So the supporters of big immigration should also have been objective and valid. The panel was skewed and mismatched. " Most egregious in argument technique and substance was Dr Jay Song, described as an 'Immigration Expert'. Who is paying her? She's obviously a mouthpiece for big growth, and a migrant. Nothing worse than a migrant saying we need to open our borders more. Imagine if we migrated to any of these Asian countries (unlikely as it is) and then told them publicly they needed unlimited number of Australians to work for them to build their economy? We would be slammed, and even arrested.

quark

Sun, 2018-03-25 08:28

Q and A was negligent in allowing ignorance to reign regarding the consequences of the scale of our population growth and negligent in not bringing our the negligence of our short- term thinking and planning governments that place present and future Australia populations in peril.

Sheila Newman

Sat, 2018-03-24 22:38

The ANCOLD guidelines that now cause local retarding basins to be treated as major dams are based on the premise that increased urbanisation, with more hard surfaces, will cause more intense flooding. (See /node/5401.) The scale of flooding they seem to be anticipating is an indicator of the horrendous scale of population growth and urbanisation of which most Australians still have no inkling, due to the gross negligence of programs like Q&A which minimise the frightening reality of our governments' betrayal of Australians.

Sheila Newman

Sat, 2018-03-24 21:55

New migrants drive NSW population growth as birth rate slumps "New arrivals are powering the state’s population growth with overseas migration accounting for 80 per cent of the increase in the NSW population last year." https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/new-migrants-drive-nsw-population-growth-as-birth-rate-slumps-20180322-p4z5rm.html Note the use of the word 'powering' in an attempt to give a positive twist to what has become an invasion. It seems our elites are just begging for a revolution.

Simone (not verified)

Sat, 2018-03-24 21:38

Travelling north along Williams Road en route to Northcote today around 1.00pm, surprise , surprise but after a few hours of fairly heavy rain, (the first in quite a few weeks),the road was flooded. Police car was there blocking off half the road , but the other half was also flooded but just negotiable. I only attempted it as the police car was there and others were going through. It is clear that the increased concreting and paving for ever more intense development is causing more water run-off. Then Punt Rd. was a nightmare of stop- start driving because of roadworks for widening to accommodate yet more traffic.

Dennis K

Sat, 2018-03-24 13:58

Joe's argument is shallow, at best, which is what most pro-immigration articles are. There is no real data or analysis to support the hypothesis that these jobs go unfilled, nor any analysis as to why they may go unfilled. He simply says its "jobs Australian's don't want to do", which is a falsehood repeated again and again. To suggest that there aren't people in Australia who would become radiographers is incredible. If there is a problem filling the gap, its a problem in the employment market within Australia, not because we aren't letting an external radiographer move here. He blames Australians for being lazy, but it is him that is being lazy with his analysis. Not willing to put the effort into examining why there are skill shortages (if they exist at all that is), we stick to the easy solution of mass immigration without bother to fix any structural problems here which may account for the perceived need for mass immigration.

quark

Sat, 2018-03-24 09:06

I read Hildebrande's article and found it highly emotional and tangled up in a network of his own classifications and labels.It appears to have closed the discussion on that forum for now. Reading Mark Allen's excellent response here and then the article it refers to made me go back to what my own long held concerns are regarding an high population for Australia, especially if it is achieved in in a very short time. My concern arose from my appreciation of nature and strong belief that other creatures apart from humans have their right to a place in this country. It would appear from Hildebrande's closing sentence which had something to do with the inconvenience of trying to preserve a tree in the midst of urban transport infrastructure that nature is not one his concerns. We're all different! However, those who care, I would argue surely have more rights with respect to nature than those who don't. As it turns out much of our wildlife live exactly where we are putting more people and the beloved infrastructure that they thrive and operate on. One would think that we could take it as a"given" that it is important that we have an environment (essential, really). Now, the environment in Australia is deteriorating and this is due to population pressures and human activities. This is documented in various state of the environment reports. Here is just one example from the Australian State of the Environment report 2016 "The outlook for Australian biodiversity is generally poor, given the current overall poor status, deteriorating trends and increasing pressures. Our current investments in biodiversity management are not keeping pace with the scale and magnitude of current pressures. Resources for managing biodiversity and for limiting the impact of key pressures mostly appear inadequate to arrest the declining status of many species. Biodiversity and broader conservation management will require major reinvestments across long timeframes to reverse deteriorating trends." https://soe.environment.gov.au/theme/biodiversity Just to put things in a wider context.

Anonymous (not verified)

Sun, 2018-03-18 06:27

Just caught the end of this program. It was Liz Allen's dulcet tones, stating that Australia's population growth is only limited by our innovation! I haven't yet listened to it, but the program listing gives a scarily pro-growth line-up of interviewees. There is a clear intention to paint the "population debate" as a Trojan horse for anti-immigrant and protectionist arguments. Ian Lowe is in there as a token environmental voice. But from Liz Allen's closing words, no heed was taken to those. Looks like another cause for complaint to the ABC. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/talkfest/population/9522424 Population Talkfest, Saturday 17 March 2018 10:05PM George Megalogenis, Rita Panahi, Lauren Duca, Peter Mares and others explore the problem of population in a rapidly changing political, economic and environmental landscape. Debates about population often stand in for other issues in public discourse, from immigration to economic policy. This week on Talkfest we try to get to the heart of things and ask what a discussion of population should mean in 2018 Australia. Peter Mares, Michele Grossman and Rachel Buchanan deconstruct the social and racial dialogue surrounding the population debate - particularly the question of immigration - and argue for a more thoughtful, imaginative discussion of population in Australia. Ian Lowe, Louise Searle, Michael Buxton, and Lenore Manderson explore the many facets of the population question in Australia and how they intersect with the broader implications of a burgeoning global population. And finally we hear from a panel including Lauren Duca, Kenan Malik, George Megalogenis, Tim Wilson, Shen Narayanasamy, Rita Panahi discussing the evolving political landscape, both in Australia and internationally and dissecting hot-button topics from immigration to economic protectionism. Michael's co-host is demographer and social researcher, Dr Liz Allen.

Olaf (not verified)

Sat, 2018-03-17 17:09

Thank you for this article. After Matthew Bryan says how angry we all were, Dr Jay Song just highjacks the debate with nonsense. Dr. Jay Song's response is not intellectual or objective. It is manipulative and personal: "I, myself , I'm one of those recent migrants." It is as though she is saying "You are insulting me! You can't do that. It's bad manners." In a different setting this would be enough to close down the conversation. Then she introduces the "sacred cows" -diversity and multiculturalism [yawn!] "I respect" [you should too!]. She says that population growth is a global trend that is inevitable. Why should Australia be any different? she implies. Yet people on the whole are not having large families in Australia and without immigration Australia would be on the path to population stabilisation and eventual, ( much needed ) decline. She enumerates the serious effects of rapid population growth, but contradicts herself in saying that "the question is not about the number of migrants(!) - because 60% of them are skilled migrants and a further 30% "family migrants"- all contributing. She, by implication reassures that only less then 10% are humanitarian migrants , who are not included in her sweeping assessment of "contributing." She then states her own preference not to be in heavy traffic, for a clean, sustainable environment [which rapid population growth is making impossible] but to "grow together."

quark

Sat, 2018-03-17 09:38

That interactive graph on the ABC site is supposed to convince anyone who uses it that Australia needs its current medicine of high immigration and population growth. This an attempt to persuade a population that does not like what is being done to it! Last year's survey by Bob Birrell and Katharine Betts tells us that over 70% of Australians are opposed to the current immigration led high population growth. People's feelings of being manipulated and told what to think as they lose their quality of life will not be overcome with a graph that gives them the illusion of control for a few minutes in order to see the future in terms of things that don't immediately impact on them e.g the proportion of people over 64 in 30 years. How does that compare with losing the parkland where you used to roam with your dog, losing this for a housing estate, never being able to guarantee reaching an appointment across town at the right time because of traffic, watching the trees where you live and the gardens destroyed as houses are demolished for developments bursting out of their blocks. and watching the council rates and rents rise as your local environment deteriorates before your eyes?

Sheila Newman

Fri, 2018-03-16 17:12

IMPORTANT NOTICE The Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc draws notice to a Public Forum at 7pm Wednesday 21 March at Brunswick town Hall, 233 Sydney Road, to advance a state-wide community based campaign to create a sustainable and integrated transport system. Something that has long eluded elected office-holders. The forum sponsor is the Moreland Community for Action on Transport (MCAT) that worked with PPL-Vic and many other community organisations and individuals to defeat the deeply flawed East-West Link. It will provide an opportunity to hear from and discuss with academics, experts and residents actively campaigning to stop or alter the latest bad road plan ideas being foisted on local communities. You will hear and engage with University of Melbourne Professor John Stone on the need for a new approach for an integrated transport system, from academic Clare Walter on the health implications of failing to do so, from Western Suburbs activists engaged in efforts to stop or alter plans for the West Gate Tunnel and others. You are invited to attend and to help spread the word on this important Public Forum. MCAT contact is Pauline Galvin who can be reached on mobile 0421 828 742. A flier is attached to send on to others. Brunswick Town Hall is easily reached by Tram 19 (Stop 21) and Jewell Station. There is free parking is available on Edwards Street car park, just off Sydney Road two blocks from Brunswick Town Hall. Best regards, Michael Petit, President Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc Mobile: 0417 354 169

Sheila Newman

Fri, 2018-03-16 10:19

SPA VicTas Branch President Michael Bayliss will be on ABC Local Radio
Melbourne 774 Friday 16th March 11AM to 12 Noon.
http://www.abc.net.au/radio/melbourne/live/
This Conversation Hour segment is to follow on from the Four Corners and
QandA programs of Monday night.

Presenter Jon Faine has half the Melbourne morning radio audience and is
extremely influential. The other guest is Toby Kent from the City of
Melbourne (Council) probably to champion 'sustainable' growth as an
excuse for unlimited growth.

The radio show numbers are.. Talkback: 1300 222 774 ; SMS: 0437 774 774

Olaf (not verified)

Thu, 2018-03-15 22:07

13 March 2018: Another immigration item on the ABC this morning: Radio National's AM featured a call for government funded internships to help skilled migrants find work. http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/calls-for-government-support-to-help-skilled-migrants-find-work/9541804 Given that we have actually handed these people permanent residence visas on the false pretense that Australia needs their skills, then yes, we should help them find work. But doesn't anybody think this is glaring proof that the "skilled migration" program is not filling skills needs? They want employers to take immigrants, on government-subsidised wages, instead of taking an Australian job applicant. It generates NO new jobs in these industries. The Bangladeshi migrant featured had been given a permanent visa for himself and at least two children on the basis of his qualifications. All are presumably subsisting on welfare. The "points system" ("skilled independent" and "state & territory & regional sponsored", as opposed to "employer sponsored") is over half the skilled visa quota. It could be abandoned tomorrow without limiting any employer's access to foreign workers.

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