(We) can do better

Professor Jeffrey Sachs has described the US as “the most violent country in the world” and then was made to be quiet at the Athens Democracy Forum. "Sach’s argues that what matters is a country’s unique governance culture: classifying countries in political systems (“liberal democracy or not”) is oversimplifying.

"To date, I understand that 2,268 jurisdictions in 39 countries have declared a climate emergency. It is the one issue about which there is widespread global consensus. It presents a common threat to all countries and no country can isolate itself from it. However, to effectively tackle climate change, there must be an equal focus on population growth and the disastrous effect it is having on the earth's natural environment. To date, there is little evidence of governments doing that.

Victoria Police has decided to withdraw speeding infringements issued between 15 April 2022 and 16 June 2022 for driving at speeds of up to 60km/h, at the intersection of Nepean Highway and Davey Street, Frankston. Speeding infringements issued for exceeding the 60 km/h may still be enforced.

Most middle class Australians don't expect ever to finish up in prison, and they show little interest in prison conditions. A lot of people believe that all people imprisoned in Australia are imprisoned because they deserve to be. Even if this were so, which it is not (see list of research articles end of this article), removal of freedom is not supposed to be exacerbated by additional horrible conditions.

The United Nations has decided to suspend its anti-torture mission to Australia after inspectors were denied entry into several jails, calling it a “clear breach” of international obligations.  (Report from Presstv.ir originally published on 24 October 2022 at https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2022/10/24/691487/UN-halts-visit-Australia-after-anti-torture-mission-barred).

The Australian Wildlife Protection Council (AWPC) was able to help citizen advocates generate a groundswell of public awareness and fight-back in June and July 2022 against the now annual ‘cull’ in Canberra of the kangaroo (our icon holding up one side of the federal coat-of-arms). Whole kangaroo families are shot behind suburban backyards — for reasons that remain unclear despite government blame-the-victim narratives — on nature reserves in the national capital.

Attempts by a Queensland coal mining company to import foreign labour has been condemned by the Mining & Energy Union.Sojitz Blue has applied to import coal mineworkers from overseas whilst simultaneously offering current workers substandard work contracts and delaying negotiations for an enterprise agreement.The company operates the Gregory Crinum and Meteor Down South (MDS) coal mines near Emerald in Queensland and employs 350 workers.

Update, 19 February 2023: According to a video by EU President Ursula von der Leyen on 30 November 2022, which she soon edited, 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have perished [1] since the launch of Russia's Special Military Operation on 24 January 2022. If true, the number of Ukrainian military deaths greatly outnumbers her figure for 20,000 claimed civilian deaths. This makes Ukrainian soldiers, mostly conscripts including ethnic Hungarians the greatest victims of the Ukraine conflict, a conflict, which is clearly a war of choice by the West and its puppet, Zilenskyy.

Former German Chancellor Merkel, former French President Hollande and former Ukrainian President Poroshenko have all revealed that the 2014 Minsk Accords were only designed to buy time for then Ukrainian President Poroshenko to re-equip the Ukrainian Army. Even President Zilenskyy admitted on Thursday 9, February that he personally refused to implement those agreements. So the ongoing war in Ukraine is clearly a war of choice by President Zilenskyy and and his US masters.

However, even if we were to, somehow, still find a way to attribute all of those deaths to Russia and not to the Kiev regime, how does this compare with the record of the United States, which by one estimate, has, since the end of the Second World War in 1945, killed between 20 and 30 million people in many bloody wars of aggression across the globe? Even United States political leaders such as President JFK, his brother, Robert and Marin Luther King, who tried to stop these wars have also fallen victim in circumstances, which can be described at best, as very suspicious.

This edition's headlines: Pre-Election forum; State Election Questionnaire Responses; Floods; Queen Victoria Market; A win at Oaklands Junction; Saving Mount Eliza's reservoir as a public wetland; Royal Exhibtion Building and Carlton Gardens; Kilmore's Equine Overlay; Beaumaris Modern Open Day; Kingston Planning Scheme Amendment C203; Hepburn Shire Biodiversity Threat; Toondah Harbour - Walker Corporation; Save Westesrn Port Woodlands; Caring for Western Port Country; Value

Planning Democracy has designed this questionnaire to help its network of concerned community groups understand where you and/or your party stand on using the Planning Framework to give communities a genuine say in protecting Victoria’s environment, heritage and natural resources.

The lab team behind the mutant variant was accused of “playing with fire.” Scientists at Boston University claim to have created a new variant of Covid-19 with an 80% mortality rate, by combining the highly-transmissible Omicron variant of the coronavirus with the original Wuhan strain. The research, which echoes experiments thought to have created the virus in the first place, has caused outrage.

PPCC’s forthcoming AGM is on Thursday 17^th November. Our guest speaker is internationally renowned Climate Scientist Dr. Kathy McInnes, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere.  

Dear friends of PPCC Inc.

You’re the culprit. Unfolding collapse is down to you.  Forget population overshoot. You’re consuming too much. Own it!

Is the Murdoch Press secretly anti-war? Fox News' Tucker Carlson continues to amaze with his constant exposes of the lies behind America's funding of the Ukraine war that now teeters on the edge of a nuclear holocaust.

To navigate the rapidly changing international system, we must replace three dangerous assumptions underpinning Australia’s defence planning.

It is absolutely pants-on-head gibbering insanity that these direct negotiations are not already presently underway. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow was open to talks with the the US or with Turkey on ending the war in Ukraine, claiming that US officials are lying when they say Russia has been refusing peace talks.

New waves of protests against rising living costs amid an escalating energy crisis have hit Europe in recent days, as many people were angry about their governments waging war on their own people by following the US in sanctioning Russia over the Ukraine crisis. 

Over the weekend, protests filled the streets of Paris, Berlin and Prague with some shouting out "leave NATO" or "Our country first", according to media reports, which analysts said hinted at a deeper crisis that Europe is now facing.   

IPAN calls on the Australian Government to reach out to the United Nations and to Ukraine and Russian leadership and call for an immediate ceasefire and a negotiated settlement of the conflict. Recent statements from Defence Minister Richard Marles echo knee jerk response from then Prime Minister John Howard after 9/11 leading us into the horrific no exit 20-year war in Afghanistan.

The Human Chain for Assange was attended by more people than we have seen at any Free Assange demonstration in Australia to date.  SBS says, "Thousands," Victoria Police estimate 3000.

One fact, apparently not properly appreciated amongst the vast popular movement in support of Julian Assange, both in Australia and overseas, is that, in spite of the fact that the Government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese could make the British Government release Julian Assange today, it has chosen not to.

EveryAGE Counts: Seven in ten older Australians believe 'ageism against older people is a serious problem,’ but those in their 50s and 60s are significantly more likely to hold this view than those in their 80s and 90s, according to landmark new national polling commissioned for the nation's second Ageism Awareness Day today (Oct 7).

The research also finds a strong majority of older Australians want the government to invest in a national awareness campaign about ageism and its effects. 

A new network has been launched calling on the Australian Government to support a UN Convention on the Human Rights of Older Persons.

Planning Democracy will be holding a Pre-Election Forum for community groups on Saturday 8 October 2pm at the Ashburton Library, 154 High Street Ashburton. Full details are in the attached leaflet. Please feel free to forward the leaflet to your friends, family, and networks, and I hope to see you there.

Video of debate facebook All Labor and Liberal members voted down this simple but inspiring and compassionate motion. It was like watching people walk past a person trying to help someone bleeding on the road after a traffic accident, saying that maybe the bleeding had gone on 'long enough' but it wasn't up to them to help.