(We) can do better

I found what struck me personally as egregious growthist propaganda dressed up as an academic research article on The Conversation, yesterday: "Blaming immigrants for unemployment, lower wages and high house prices is too simplistic." [February 23, 2018 11.26am AEDT]. The article was headed up by professor of economics, Robert Breunig from the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, and co-authored by Mark Fabian, Postgraduate student, Australian National University. Professor Breunig disclosed that he receives funding from the Productivity Commission, which I think is a leopard with continuously changing arrangement of spots according to whatever political background it needs to blend into for survival. Leith van Onselen's debate with Migration Council's CEO Carla Wilshire of the on the ABC’s National Wrapdocumented here, seems to illustrate this, but for all I know the professor and his student actually believe what they write.

Jobs! The plaintive refrain and the crocodile tears...

Criticising ex-PM Tony Abbott's extremely belated calls for reducing Australia's immigration-fed overpopulation problems, Breunig and Fabian write, “But migrants also bring capital, investing in houses, appliances, businesses, education and many other things. This increases economic activity and the number of jobs available.” It sounds like they are describing molecules in a heated gas.

Increasing economic activity increases impact on our environment and politically disempowers us

Increasing economic activity increases impact on our environment and politically disempowers us. Massive population growth in this country is removing our choices of what we can buy with money, whilst inflating the cost of the reduced amenity and shelter that population growth is causing. That's impoverishing. Just on the business side, the cost of premises and paying wages so that employees can afford housing makes Australian businesses globally uncompetitive and provides an explanation for their mysteriously high rate of failure.

I am going to talk about how changes to laws and standards as to how our natural environment and urban spaces are treated and our rights within them are taking place without any meaningful public discussion or empowerment in order to allow growth to proceed.

Breunig and Fabian's article completely ignores the beautiful non-human environment we have in Australia, the green bits of which are being cut up into biogeographical islands, then paved over, subdivided and sold for ever higher monetary value. I suspect this failure to engage with nature is because its writers currently live in a bubble and simply don’t know or care about wildlife or green spaces or have compartmentalised this reality. So they are writing without my values or those of many other Australians or the values that attracted many immigrants.

Although there are laws for the protection of wildlife in this country, they are simply not applied. This is one reason that population growth can continue, for the recently beefed up Prevention of Cruelty Act 1986, the Fauna and Flora Guarantee Act 1988 and the Catchment and Land Protection Act 1994 would otherwise prevent the big business and government agenda for a big human population and infrastructure expansion.

Who cleans up the blood and guts as humans overrun nature?

I am, however, acutely aware, because I am involved personally, of how various authorities and contractors are expecting local wildlife carers and rescuers to clean up the huge callous mess and damage to flesh and blood that they are causing. Carers and rescuers are paying for artifical nests, feeding, nursing and medicating so many injured and displaced animals. Then those carers have to find some other place to release them, as habitat is destroyed all around them, whilst people like the authors of this article I am commenting on are claiming that the only problem about housing is failure to release land. We on this side of reality are fighting to stop the ‘release’ of land to bitumen and profit for a few in the growth lobby. (I am also qualified to talk about the growth lobby because I was the first person to write about it in Australia in a 2002 thesis - The Growth lobby in Australia and its Absence in France - which compared our system to the French one, which latter costs population growth as a cost to the public purse.)

Here are some examples of the callous vandalism that is taking place as we speak:

I live in Victoria and currently VicRoads and Melbourne Water are removing an extraordinary number of trees. For the expansion of the Melbourne metro rail project (which aims to cater for our artificially stimulated population growth) I have been informed that around 800 trees are being removed from urban Melbourne. Most of these are large mature trees, which have provided shade and enjoyment to people, and habitat for Australian wildlife, including birds and mammals. The public has not been consulted in any meaningful way about this. The St Kilda Road Avenue that leads to the war memorial and the botanic gardens, has been vandalised for this purpose. This avenue is a feature of Melbourne not unlike the Champs Elysees of Paris. To vandalise this is equivalent to a resounding slap across the face by Melbourne Planners of citizens who grew up here. Many find it shocking and distressing as a recent protest shows. /node/5413

But wait, there's more....

But it is not just rail changes that are destroying wildlife habitat. Melbourne Roads have recently changed their policy on roadside and median strip vegetation, with absolutely devastating results for local climate, ammenity and habitat: /node/5304

Then Melbourne water is now treating small local retardant basins as major dams, under the ANCOLD guidelines. Why are small retarding basins being treated as major dams? Because our 60% immigration fueled population growth has caused urban densification and the proliferation of hard surfaces. Although this was predicted by residents with foresight in many VCAT battles, these hard surfaces now carry the threat of major floods, so the small retarding basins that were adequate for many decades, now are deemed in need of reinforcement to bring them up to major dam status!

What has this got to do with trees and wildlife habitat and human amenity, you ask?

These new ANCOLD guidelines require the removal of all trees from ‘batters’ or dam banks. Since previous thinking caused the planting of trees because trees stabilise earth-forms, this ‘new’ thinking requires the removal of another huge quantity of mature trees, denuding much parkland throughout Victoria. Can you blame me if I suspect this is also to suit private developers and people who want land ‘released’ [from the commons and nature]?

The implications of these ANCOLD guidelines (which are now an Australian standard that is threatening green spaces all over the green bits surrounding this 70% hot desert and rangeland island) are staggering for the green wedges that follow Victoria’s rivers and creeks, their canopies cooling our environment through transpirational heat exchange, lowering water tables through the same transpiration, providing habitat for our wildlife and a green commons for our human spirits. Melbourne Water is in charge of more than 200 such basins. It pretends to follow guidelines to protect the displaced wildlife but in fact it does not have plans in place for their survival and reestablishment. It invites people to ‘revegetate’ what it has devastated, but our wildlife cannot wait for 25 yrs while trees grow to maturity, or 100 yrs plus until natural hollows occur. And the cheek of Melbourne Water to invite the people for whom its works have diminished their natural ammenity to replant such areas and not be paid! Insults added to injury. If you want to read more about this scandal, and its impact on wildlife, community and democracy, have a look at /node/5401 and https://awpc.org.au/awpc-to-melbourne-water-response-on-tree-removal-lee-st-retardant-basin/. Furthermore, there is a rumour that the Federal government is planning to make work like tree-planting mandatory for environmental organisations to qualify as tax-deductible. Slave labour for public works damage! And when every government leads with the plaintive cry of "Jobs!" This is where the labour is required.

Still more ... Cull permits for gentlemen farmers

And it doesn’t stop there. Big money in densifying rural areas is impeding the passage of kangaroos to their feeding grounds, with the usual myth [See https://awpc.org.au/roo-scientists-admit-industry-stimulates-roo-population-growth-whilst-calling-roos-pests/ ] that there are ‘too many’ - a hollow farce familiar to the wildlife carers who must deal with the injuries that come from ‘gentlemen farmers’ taking potshots with permission from the ever generous and poorly overseen permissions to cull issued by DWELP: https://awpc.org.au/awpc-speak-out-against-the-culling-of-kangaroos-in-cape-schanck/.

And more ... Freeways and tollroads devastate our landscapes and wildlife

And then there are there is the devastation caused by freeways and tollways created to ‘solve’ the congestion problems created by overpopulation. Money given to Parks Victoria by Peninsula Link for predator proof fences around scarce bandicoot habitat has been diverted to another program far from the original area, consolidating the damage that wildlife campaigners thought they might have mitigated in this place.

And don't rely on Parks Victoria to help the situation ...

Of course the public think that Parks Victoria is looking after animals in the parks it manages for ‘healthy people’, but we cannot rely on Parks Victoria. See /node/2376 and /node/2377.

Australian Wildlife Protection Council

And the examples I give here are actually taking place at the mouth of the Mornington Peninsula Biosphere - scheduled for densification, of course. Shame!

It is not the big-name conservation organisations but the hands on volunteers in organisations like AWPC (whose articles I have used as examples) that are doing the hard yards in this vicious losing battle against a delusional ideology fueled by speculative money that wants to increase human population despite our population being bigger by an order of magnitude than it has ever been for the bulk of its history. Does economics totally lack a sense of proportion or irony? The King Midas myth and the magic pudding pale against the science of modern economics which seems so similar to 17th century economics and official religion.
The notions put forward in the article I am commenting on simply stagger me in their unreal, coldly irrational model of the world we live in, biological human values, and what passes in The Conversation for research and analysis. Unfortunately these are the dominant models and values that are then acted on by governments and their contractors, in a great tragedy for this beautiful and fragile land that gives us all life.

Australia has no coherent population plan other than to inundate the major cities with people. Instead of a well though-out population policy, the strategy has been to stoke overall economic growth to support big business. This suits the property industry and retailers but GDP per capita growth is stagnating while ordinary Australians are worse off.

Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott have both recently called out for a reduction of immigration to Australia. To quote Mr Abbott: "At the moment we’ve got stagnant wages, unaffordable housing, clogged infrastructure and there is no doubt the rate of immigration impacts on all of these things.”

We support Mr Abbott's comments but it's unfortunate he didn't consider this while he was Prime Minister. Australia is suffering cumulative economic and environmental damage from unconstrained growth.

It is incorrect of Peter Dutton to suggest that “in the Labor years the number peaked at about 305,900 in one year which was an enormous number, we’ve got that number down now below 190,000 ”

While it is true that net overseas migration (NOM) – which includes both permanent and temporary long-term residents – peaked under Labor (at 315,700), it was still running at 245,500 as at the year to June 2017.

Most importantly, Peter Dutton failed to mention that Australia’s permanent migrant intake has never been higher than under this Coalition Government, set at nearly 210,000 a year currently.

Currently 60% of Australia’s growth is skilled migration whereas the humanitarian intake is less than 10%.

Foreign aid has also been significantly cut whilst the coalition has been in power. This is particularly true for overseas family planning services and the access to education that is required to empower women to choose the size of their families.

Paul Hawken, who was the keynote speaker at Melbourne’s Sustainable Living Festival, stated that family planning and access to education are together the most significant global responses to addressing climate change.

SPA calls for a fundamental change to population policy that addresses population issues both nationally and globally. This should involve reducing total migration to around 70 000 per annum (without any cuts to our refugee program) while also implementing a generous proactive humanitarian aid program that will address global overpopulation and displacement issues without coercion.

This will help to lead us towards stabilising populations both at home and abroad in the most sustainable and equitable way possible.

Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) is an Australian, member-driven environmental charity which works on many fronts to encourage informed public debate about how Australia and the world can achieve an ecologically, socially and economically sustainable population.

Dear Marina,

As producer of the segment this morning about the current campaign to liberate Eastern Ghouta from its terrorist besiegers, I would like to offer this alternative perspective on what is actually happening in Syria. I understand only too well that all Western governments, NGOs and UN organisations, including Amnesty International, speak with one voice, but they still present the situation in Damascus and its suburbs in completely misleading and false terms.

While these voices talk of a “humanitarian disaster”, and make many claims regarding deaths of children and attacks on “hospitals” and “Syrian civil defence”, their sources are not in any way trustworthy.

The armed groups who have occupied Damascus eastern suburbs since 2012, holding the local population under siege, are the very same groups who staged the so-called Sarin attack in Ghouta in 2013, distributing videos of kidnapped children they had themselves gassed through the sympathetic media networks supporting the Syrian insurgency.

Regardless of whether we believe this in the West, or dismiss it as propaganda from “Assad apologists” or “Kremlin Stooges”, the fact remains that the vast majority of Syrian citizens know it to be the case, along with most Russians, Iranians and Lebanese. Their media do not present videos produced by the “White Helmets” as credible evidence of crimes by the Syrian Army, but as evidence of the criminals behind the White Helmets organisation in Westminster and Washington.

And while our media and leaders just dismiss Russian opinion and expertise as invalid, and portray Russia’s role at the UN as criminal, it is only the media who actually believe this. There would not be an intelligence agency in the US/UK/French/Israeli/Saudi network who does NOT know the truth of what their countries are trying to do to Syria, which makes their crime in fomenting and sponsoring the war on Syria truly the crime of the century.

People close to Syria and Russia, including myself, have been trying to bring the truth to the attention of the media here for the last seven years, as it was apparent within weeks of the so-called uprising that it was not genuine and not supported by Syrians.

There are now many commentators and journalists presenting the truth in alternative internet sites in the West, and in public broadcasters in the ‘non-West’ such as on RT, Al Mayadeen, Press TV and Xinhua.net, and at some point the Western mainstream is going to have to come to terms with this.

But things don’t look good. Many people fear that a “World War” is imminent, because of the US and Israeli attacks on Syria, and the NATO moves in Ukraine. Given the US recent talk of using tactical nuclear strikes against conventional attacks, such a conflict will rapidly become an inferno.

We have reached a crisis point, but it will not be solved by UN meetings calling for ceasefires, or Amnesty calling out the alleged war crimes of America’s enemies. What must be called out is OUR OWN direct sponsorship of terrorist organisations in Iraq and Syria, including IS, to achieve our global strategic objectives.
These objectives have absolutely nothing to do with “democracy and freedom” or “responsibility to protect”, as the war on Syria so amply demonstrates. This war would have been finished in 2013 had the West’s media organisations done their job, and exposed the sponsors of the Sarin attack – Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the US.
It is these countries, including all their partners – Australia, UK, France, Qatar, UAE, who hold responsibility for the half million deaths in Syria, and the swath of destruction across the region, NOT the Syrian government, nor its allies, Hezbollah, Russia and Iran and Iraq.

Veteran correspondent Robert Fisk is one journalist who has learnt the lesson that the mainstream needs to learn, and wrote this particularly accurate article about the campaign on Ghouta yesterday.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ghouta-siege-syria-death-toll-civilians-armed-attack-rebel-aleppo-latest-a8221086.html

I would like to think that all at the ABC read this and think about it, as they – and probably quite innocently – shield the real criminals from the public’s view. Fisk used to regularly get interviews – with Fran Kelly amongst many others – on the ABC, perhaps until he started showing sympathy towards the Syrian army. It is urgent that his view is now shared with your audience again, along with that of many other investigative journalists and commentators who write in the alternative press, and are frequently interviewed on its programs.

I hope you can bring this to the attention of your colleagues, and senior staff.

I welcome your response.

kind regards,

David Macilwain,
Sandy Creek, Victoria, 3695

DEMAND
We, the residents of Melbourne demand that the
Government stop its plan to damage St Kilda Road and that
they make alternative plans such as an alternative route via
Kings Way and linking it into South Yarra Station, or deep
tunnelling the entire length or stop work , re-focus and re-
plan, in meaningful consultation with the people of
Melbourne.

Voted on and approved unanimously by the attendees at the
Public Protest at The Domain Interchange on the 21 st
February 2018

Yesterday between 1 and 1.30pm a rally was held to save the trees in St. Kilda Road destined for removal to make way for the new underground metro. It was organised by the combined forces of Planning Backlash, Protectors of Public Lands and Walk in St. Kilda Road and environs Approximately 80 people attended including the 9 speakers listed below. The M.C of the event was Mary Drost , Convenor of Planning backlash.Prof. Michael Buxton was unable to attend and Dr. Ernest Healy , Vice President of Protectors of Public Lands Victoria deputised by reading Prof. Buxton's speech. Feelings for the impending loss of ancient trees and for those already lost ran high. The general consensus from the speakers was that the damage envisaged for avenue of trees in Melbourne's beautiful boulevard, St. Kilda Road was not necessary to accommodate the project and that a better way must be found. A statement to this effect will be sent to Shadow Minister for Planning, to be read out in both houses of Parliament.

Rally for St. Kilda Road trees February 21st 2018

Speakers at the event

1. Kristin Stegley OAM, Chairman, National Trust of Australia (Victoria)

2. Michael Buxton, Professor of Environment and Planning, RMIT University (in Prof. Buxton's absence speech read by Dr. Ernest Healy)

3. The Hon. Barry Jones: a statement by himself and Tom Harley, nominators of St Kilda Road and Environs for emergency National Heritage listing

4. Dr Greg Moore, OAM, president of the International Society of Arboriculture, Australian Chapter; member of the National Trust’s Register of Significant Trees from1988, Chair since 1996

5. Bea McNicholas, Director, Walk in St Kilda Road and Environs, Planet Ark National Tree Day

6. Senator Derryn Hinch

7. Dr Judith Buckrich, historian; author of “Melbourne’s Grand Boulevard: The Story of St Kilda Road”, 1996.

8. Jill Quirk, Protectors of Public Lands, Victoria

9. David Davis, MP, Shadow Planning Minister

The following speech was made by Hon. David Davis, Shadow Minister for Planning in the Victorian Parliament yesterday afternoon.

"Today I was pleased to join a very large crowd, a significant gathering, on the corner of Albert Road and St Kilda Road. Many people there were very concerned about the state government's approach to the construction of the Metro Tunnel. This is an important project, a project that is needed to deliver the additional capacity, but it should not be beyond the wit of government and community in Victoria to deliver projects without trashing our heritage. We see that large European cities are able to deliver major projects without the loss of their important heritage, and in this case the state government has, in my view, adopted an appalling process of trying to crunch through the legitimate concerns of local community and not listen at all.

The attendance there was significant and included not just myself but my colleagues Ms Fitzherbert and Ms Crozier. Also Barry Jones was there speaking as a former state MP and former federal Labor MP. He was highly critical of Jacinta Allan and her approach to a number of these major projects, particularly the tunnel. Barry Jones made some very clear points. A former Governor, Alex Chernov, was there as well, and he joined the group who were prepared to stand up and say, 'Enough is enough. This should've been constructed in a different way, a way that did not destroy the very important avenue of trees that is part of St Kilda Road'. Derryn Hinch was there as well, so we actually had a federal MP attend to make some very clear points about his disgust and concern as he sees trees being torn down in a way that is not necessary.

When I addressed the group I made the point very clearly that in fact there were alternate locations and alternate ways of doing the construction. I am aware of at least two worked-up alternatives, including one which the previous government looked at, which was further to the west. A group of local and experienced engineers also put together a proposal which would have seen a different alignment and different approach to the loss of trees. This proposal was a very thoughtful one, but instead of independently assessing it I was concerned that Jacinta Allan immediately gave this proposal to the Metro Tunnel authority, effectively asking it to check its own homework.

It is hardly surprising that the authority said, 'Oh, no. We're doing it the right way'. Unfortunately the state government would not, in an independent way, consider alternative approaches that could have delivered less destruction, less loss of trees and a more mature approach to this sort of construction.

I was proud to join that group today. I pay tribute to all the activists who are determined to protect our important heritage along that corridor. St Kilda Road has recently, as we know, been permanently listed, along with the Domain and Government House — that whole precinct through there — on the National Heritage List. This is an important step that I congratulate Josh Frydenberg for taking.

But you have to ask real questions about what was going on with Heritage Victoria. On the Monday, when the national heritage listing was gazetted formally, it became clear that in fact late on the Friday night the head of Heritage Victoria, Steven Avery, who has popped up from somewhere — I do not quite know where he has come from, but he is a recent appointment to the position — made the decision, seemingly in the knowledge that on the Monday there would be a national heritage listing. He gave the go-ahead. He said, 'Start your engines. Start your chainsaws. Start your crushers. Away you go and you try and beat the national heritage listing'. What a shameful and disgraceful approach. Daniel Andrews is a bully. He is bullying communities, and he is leaving a legacy that is not what Victorians expect."

Postscript:
The loss of the trees in st. Kilda Road causes deep distress to many people. I spoke to one local resident who was suffering very visibly from dust irritation form the earthworks in progress. She also reported to me that since work has started and trees have been removed, mice have entered her house and the sound of distressed displaced birds was deafening.

Researchers from Museums Victoria and the University of Melbourne have CT scanned all 13 known Tasmanian tiger joey specimens to create 3D digital models which have allowed them to study their skeletons and internal organs, and reconstruct their growth and development. This has revealed important new information about how this unique extinct marsupial evolved to look so similar to the dingo, despite being very distantly related.

The digital scans show that when first born the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) looked like any other marsupial.

But three months later, when they left the pouch they had taken on the appearance of a puppy and continued to grow with a dog-like appearance.

The research, led by the University of Melbourne and Museums Victoria and in conjunction with an international team of scientists, is published today [Wednesday 21 February, 11:30AM AEST] in Royal Society Open Science.

It comes from the same team who successfully sequenced the thylacine genome in December 2017.

The Tasmanian tiger was a marsupial, which raised its young in a pouch.

Its resemblance to the dingo is one of the best examples of “convergent evolution” in mammals. This is where, two species, despite not being closely related, evolve to look very similar.

The Tasmanian tiger would have last shared a common ancestor with the canids (dogs and wolves) around 160 million years ago.

Dr Christy Hipsley, Research Associate at Museums Victoria and the University of Melbourne said after sequencing the Tasmanian tiger genome in 2017, this research fills one more piece of the puzzle on why they have evolved to look so similar to dogs.

“This is the first digital development series of the Tasmanian tiger, Australia’s most iconic extinct marsupial predator. Using CT technology we have been able to garner new information on the biology of this iconic species, and its growth and development.”

“These scans show in incredible detail how the Tasmanian tiger started its journey in life as a joey that looked very much like any other marsupial, with robust forearms so that it could climb into its mother's pouch. But by the time it left the pouch around 12 weeks to start independent life, it looked more like a dog or wolf, with longer hind limbs than forelimbs.”

Once ranging throughout Australia and New Guinea, the Tasmanian tiger disappeared from the mainland around 3,000 years ago, likely due to competition with humans and dingos.

The remaining Tasmanian tiger population, isolated on Tasmania, was hunted to extinction in the early 20th century, with the last known individual dying at Hobart Zoo in 1936.

Axel Newton, PhD student and Lead Author on the paper notes, “Until now, there have only been limited details on its growth and development. For the very first time, we have been able to look inside these remarkably rare and precious specimens.”

Unable to study the living species, the team had to look to the 13 Tasmanian tiger joey specimens that exist in museum collections worldwide, including three from the collection of Museums Victoria.

These joey specimens, representing five stages of postnatal development, were scanned using non-invasive X-ray micro-CT scanning technology to create high-resolution 3D digital models, in which all their internal structures such as skeleton and organs could be studied.

Associate Professor Andrew Pask from the University of Melbourne and Museums Victoria explains this was an incredibly effective technique to study the skeletal anatomy of the specimens without causing any damage to them.

“This research clearly demonstrates the power of CT technology. It has allowed us to scan all the known Thylacine joey specimens in the world, and study their internal structures in high resolution without having to dissect or cause damage to the specimen.”

“By examining their bone development, we’ve been able to illustrate how the Tasmanian tiger matured and identify when they took on the appearance of a dog.”

The study has also revealed the incorrect classification of two specimens held in the collection of the Tasmanian Museums and Art Gallery (TMAG). Instead, they are most likely to be quolls or Tasmanian devils, based on the number of vertebrate and presence of large epipubic bones (specialised bones that support the pouch in modern marsupials).

Senior Curator of Vertebrate Zoology at TMAG, Ms Kathryn Medlock said that the museum had received many requests to dissect its pouch young over the years but requests were always refused.

“One of the major advantages of this new technology is that it has enabled us to do research and answer many questions without destruction of the sample specimens. This is a significant advancement that also has an additional benefit of helping us to learn more about the identity of these specimens that have been in the TMAG collection for many years.”

An exciting outcome of the research is that the 3D digital Tasmanian tiger models are to be made publicly available as a resource for current and future researchers.

Syrian women are helping to save Syria and all of humanity against the scourge of Western-supported terrorism. The Canadian government, [Candobetter.net editor: and others, including Australia's, supporting the US-NATO agenda] on the other hand, is destroying women’s rights (and all human rights) in Syria and beyond.  If the truth were ever accepted by broad-based populations, then our government, led by those who project progressive fronts, would be exposed as the misogynist, life-hating rot that it is.

This article was first published at https://www.globalresearch.ca/womens-rights-in-syria/5629648

Canada's Sanctions Regime against Syria Undermines Women's Rights

Trudeau is destroying Syria through illegal sanctions, and through direct and indirect support of every single terrorist in Syria. Canada is a member of the NATO terror organization, which along with its allies, seeks to create “regime change” in Syria, — the highest crime according to Nuremburg Principles.

All Syrians, but especially Syrian women, have much to lose if the Canadian government’s diabolical ambitions are realized.

Amany Ashy[1] lives in a government-secured area of Syria where she is headmistress of a high school.  She explains that life for women in government-secured areas hasn’t changed much. She explains that

The government supports women’s right and liberty before and now. We have the liberty to choose our work , to wear whatever we like , to choose the type of education we want and even to fight side by side with the army. We have the safety to go at anytime during day or night.

She also explains that

men now are busy fighting with the army or trying hard to work double shift after the crazy raise of prices and after the sanctions. Women’s life as the life of all Syrian has been affected badly by the sanctions. The prices of food and vegetables have become double. Medicine prices are very high and some are not available.

Life in terrorist-occupied areas, however, is entirely different, and alien to Syria and to most Syrians. Ashy explains that

women in the areas controlled by the US- backed terrorists have no rights at all. They have to wear a black uniforms to cover their bodies and this uniform must be very simple and loose and if any women try to break their rules they take them to Hespah (prison). They keep them imprisoned for hours and force them to buy a uniform that they have and agree on … Women are prevented from going to schools or working any kind of job that they don’t approve of.

Ashy adds that the government respects freedom of thinking and religion and that nobody has the right to interfere in someone’s religion.

Saudi Arabia, one of Canada’s allies in the war for terrorism and against human rights is both a fountainhead of terrorism and Wahhabism, and it is this Wahhabi ideology that prevails in terrorist-occupied areas of Syria.  It is also this Wahhabi ideology (takfiri/salafi) that is referenced in a 2012 DIA document[2] (14-L-0052/DIA/287) which laid out clearly the West’s plans to destroy Syria, one of the 7 countries targeted for destruction as enumerated by General Flynn.

As the U.S and its terrorist allies occupy the oil rich areas of Eastern Syria – also laid out in the aforementioned DIA document — Canadians should remember that this war, like its predecessors in Libya, Iraq and beyond, was sold to them and continues to be sold to them through outrageous, constantly repeated, war lies.

*

Notes

[1]Amany Ashy is a pseudonym for an actual Syrian source. She shared her narrative in a private Facebook message dated 2 October, 2017.

[2] Brad Hof, “2012 Defense Intelligence Agency document: West will facilitate rise of Islamic State ‘in order to isolate the Syrian regime.’ “ LEVANT REPORT THE REAL MIDDLE EAST, DEBUNKING THE SOUND BITES. 19 May 2015. (https://levantreport.com/2015/05/19/2012-defense-intelligence-agency-document-west-will-facilitate-rise-of-islamic-state-in-order-to-isolate-the-syrian-regime/) Accessed 18 February, 2018.

---

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Taliano talks and listens to the people of Syria. He reveals the courage and resilience of a Nation and its people in their day to day lives, after more than six years of US-NATO sponsored terrorism and three years of US “peacemaking” airstrikes.

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Tonight, [Feb 18, 2018] I appeared on the ABC’s National Wrap to debate the Migration Council’s CEO, Carla Wilshire, on Australia’s mass immigration program. Below are notes from the debate explaining my position and refuting Ms Wilshire’s key lines of argument.

By Unconventional Economist in Australian Economy at 11:01 pm on February 18, 2018. First published at https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/02/leith-van-onselen-tackles-growth-lobby-monster/.

Economic modelling on immigration is unflattering and does not reflect real life:

During the debate, we got into an exchange over the purported economic benefits of immigration, as noted by the various Productivity Commission (PC) modelling.

Ms Wilshire argued the modelling shows unambiguous benefits to Australians because GDP per capita is increased, whereas I argued that incumbent Australian workers are made worse-off from falling wages (let alone broader impacts like congestion, higher infrastructure costs, smaller and less affordable housing, etc).

At the outset, it is important to note that economic modelling around immigration is inherently limited and often does not reflect real life.

First, it is generally assumed in these models that population ageing will result in fewer people working, which will subtract from per capita GDP. However, it is equally likely that age-specific workforce participation will respond to labour demand, resulting in fewer people being unemployed, as we have witnessed in Japan, where the unemployment rate is below 3%.

Even if this assumption holds true, the benefit to GDP per capita would only be transitory. Once the migrant workers grow old, they too will add to the pool of aged Australians, thus requiring an ever increasing immigration intake to keep the population age profile from rising.

Second, it is generally assumed that migrant workers are more productive than the Australian born population and, therefore, labour productivity is increased through strong immigration. However, the evidence here is highly contestable, with migrants generally being employed below the level of their qualifications, as well as having lower labour force attachment than the Australian born population (more information here).

Third, these economic models typically assume that immigration allows for either steady or increasing economies of scale in infrastructure (i.e. either assumes that population growth does not diminish the infrastructure stock; that bigger is always cheaper; or there is under-utilised capacity). At the same time, they completely ignore the dead weight of having to build more infrastructure each year, as well as the dis-economies of scale from having a bigger population, which necessarily makes new infrastructure investment very expensive (e.g. tunneling, land buy-backs, water desalination, etc).

Finally, and related to the above, these models ignore obvious ‘costs’ of mass immigration on productivity. Growing Australia’s population without commensurately increasing the stock of household, business and public capital to support the bigger population necessarily ‘dilutes’ Australia’s capital base, leaving less capital per person and lowering productivity. We have witnessed this first hand with the costs of congestion soaring across Australia’s big cities.

With these caveats in mind, what does the PC’s modelling on immigration actually say?

Well, the PC’s Migrant Intake Australia report, released in September 2016, compared the impact on real GDP per capita from:

• Historical rates of immigration, whereby population hits 40 million by 2060; and
• Zero net overseas migration (NOM), whereby the population stabilises at 27 million by 2060.

The PC’s modelling did find that GDP per capita would be 7% ($7,000) higher by 2060 under current mass immigration settings. However, all the gains are transitory and come from a temporary lift in the employment-to-population ratio, which will eventually reverse once the migrants age (i.e. after the forecast period):

The continuation of an immigration system oriented towards younger working-age people can boost the proportion of the population in the workforce and, thereby, provide a ‘demographic dividend’ to the Australian economy. However, this demographic dividend comes with a larger population and over time permanent immigrants will themselves age and add to the proportion of the population aged over 65 years.

The PC also explicitly acknowledges that per capita GDP is a “weak” measure of economic welfare:

While the economywide modelling suggests that the Australian economy will benefit from immigration in terms of higher output per person, GDP per person is a weak measure of the overall wellbeing of the Australian community and does not capture how gains would be distributed among the community. Whether a particular rate of immigration will deliver an overall benefit to the existing Australian community will crucially depend on the distribution of the gains and the interrelated social and environmental impacts.

It is worth pointing out that the PC’s modelling unrealistically assumed that Australia’s infrastructure stock would keep pace with the extra population, which is vital if economy-wide productivity is not to dimish:

Specifically, the expansion in labour supply through migration is projected to lead roughly to the same proportional growth in capital and output in most industries including infrastructure industries. That is, the modelling broadly assumes that there are constant returns to scale in production…

As the modelling broadly assumes that there are constant returns to scale in production, the economy-wide modelling results are broadly linear. Hence, while the modelling provides insight into the economic impact of NOM, in practice limits on Australia’s absorptive capacity (including environmental factors) mean that constant returns to scale are unlikely to hold for very high rates of immigration.

Clearly, this assumption is at at odds with the Australian economy’s ‘lived experience’, whereby massive infrastructure deficits have accumulated over the last 15-years of hyper immigration, particularly in the major cities.

Most importantly for incumbent Australian workers, the PC’s modelling finds that labour productivity and real wages are projected to decrease under current mass immigration settings versus zero net overseas migration (NOM):

Compared to the business-as-usual case, labour productivity is projected to be higher under the hypothetical zero NOM case — by around 2 per cent by 2060 (figure 10.5, panel b). The higher labour productivity is reflected in higher real wage receipts by the workforce in the zero NOM case…

With zero NOM, real wages are projected to increase over time, and at a rate greater than in the business-as-usual scenario. That is, in the zero NOM scenario labour is relatively scarce which puts upwards pressure on real wages and causes a substitution towards capital, contributing to the marginally higher labour productivity relative to the business-as-usual scenario (figure 10.5, panel b). Higher rates of labour force participation through immigration in the business-as-usual case is projected to moderate such wage pressures.

Therefore, according to the PC’s most recent modelling, high immigration improves per capita GDP by 2060 by boosting the proportion of workers in the economy, but this comes at the expense of lower labour productivity and lower real wages.

Moreover, beyond the forecast period (2060), the migrants will age and retire, thus dragging down future growth – classic ‘ponzi demography’.

As noted by the PC above, its latest modelling also did not take account of the distribution of gains to per capita GDP, which is vitally important. Thankfully, it’s 2006 major study on the Economic Impacts of Migration and Population Growth did, and the results were unflattering.

Here, the PC modeled the impact of a 50% increase in the level of skilled migration over the 20 years to 2024-25 and found that “the incomes of existing resident workers grow more slowly than would otherwise be the case”. Below is the money quote:

The increase in labour supply causes the labour / capita ratio to rise and the terms of trade to fall. This generates a negative deviation in the average real wage. By 2025 the deviation in the real wage is –1.7 per cent…

Broadly, incumbent workers lose from the policy, while incumbent capital owners gain. At a 5 per cent discount rate, the net present value of per capita incumbent wage income losses over the period 2005 – 2025 is $1,775. The net present value of per capita incumbent capital income gains is $1,953 per capita…

Owners of capital in the sectors experiencing the largest output gains will, in general, experience the largest gains in capital income. Also, the distribution of capital income is quite concentrated: the capital owned by the wealthiest 10 per cent of the Australian population represents approximately 45 per cent of all household net wealth…

To it’s credit, the PC’s Migrant Intake Australia report does go to great lengths to stress that there are many costs associated with running a high immigration program that are not captured in the modelling but are borne by incumbent residents and unambiguously lowers their welfare:

High rates of immigration put upward pressure on land and housing prices in Australia’s largest cities. Upward pressures are exacerbated by the persistent failure of successive state, territory and local governments to implement sound urban planning and zoning policies…

Urban population growth puts pressure on many environment-related resources and services, such as clean water, air and waste disposal. Managing these pressures requires additional investment, which increases the unit cost of relevant services, such as water supply and waste management. These higher costs are shared by all utility users…

Immigration, as a major source of population growth in Australia, contributes to congestion in the major cities, raising the importance of sound planning and infrastructure investment …governments have not demonstrated a high degree of competence in infrastructure planning and investment. Funding will inevitably be borne by the Australian community either through user-pays fees or general taxation.

…there will be additional costs for the community where environmental services that are currently ‘free’ have to be replaced with technological solutions…

Accordingly, the PC explicitly asks that these costs be considered as part of any cost-benefit analysis on the immigration intake, rather than blindly following the results of its modelling.

A prime example of these costs is infrastructure. In its Migrant Intake Australia report, the PC pulls no punches about the higher cost of living imposed on incumbent residents from mass immigration, particularly in the big cities:

…where assets are close to capacity, congestion imposes costs on all users. A larger population inevitably requires more investment in infrastructure, and who pays for this will depend on how this investment is funded (by users or by taxpayers). Physical constraints in major cities make the costs of expanding infrastructure more expensive, so even if a user-pays model is adopted, a higher population is very likely to impose a higher cost of living for people already residing in these major cities.

This follows the PC’s warnings in 2013 that total private and public investment requirements over the next 50 years are estimated to be more than 5 times the cumulative investment made over the last half century:

The likely population growth will place pressure on Australian cities. All of Australia’s major cities are projected to grow substantially… In response to the significant increase in the size of Australian cities, significant investment in transport and other infrastructure is likely to be required… Total private and public investment requirements over this 50 year period are estimated to be more than 5 times the cumulative investment made over the last half century…

Similarly, in its latest Shifting the Dial: 5 year productivity review, the PC explicitly noted that infrastructure costs will inevitably balloon due to our cities’ rapidly growing populations:

Growing populations will place pressure on already strained transport systems… Yet available choices for new investments are constrained by the increasingly limited availability of unutilised land. Costs of new transport structures have risen accordingly, with new developments (for example WestConnex) requiring land reclamation, costly compensation arrangements, or otherwise more expensive alternatives (such as tunnels).

In short, there is little hope of achieving the level of investment required to sustain current levels of mass population growth, let alone an increase in the immigration intake to 250,000 (from 210,000 currently), as demanded by the Migration Council.

Overall, the PC’s economic modelling on immigration shows little (if any) material economic benefit to incumbent Australian residents. And once you add the various external costs not captured in the modelling (e.g. more expensive housing, more expensive infrastructure, congestion, and environmental degradation), the overall costs of mass immigration to ordinary Australians almost certainly outweighs the benefits.

Further information on why mass immigration is not in Australia’s interest is explained in MB’s submission to the federal government’s Migration Program review, which is reproduced below. (You can also download a PDF copy here – please share it around).

The Migration Council must believe in exponential population growth:

In responding to my claim that Australia’s NOM is running at triple the historical average, Carla Wilshire argued that when measured in percentage terms (i.e. the rate of growth), it isn’t actually that high and could be increased further. (Again, the Migration Council has lobbied for the immigration intake to be increased to 250,000 from 210,000 currently.)

In taking this line of argument, Ms Wilshire is being very loose with the facts.

First, as noted by the PC’s Migrant Intake Australia report, Australia’s immigration intake as a percentage of population (currently 1%) is very high by historical standards:

Second, and more importantly, it is not the immigration rate that matters for infrastructure, traffic congestion, or the environment, but rather the sheer numbers. Does Ms Wilshire honestly believe in exponential population growth? Because that’s what a stable immigration growth rate implies, which is clearly unsustainable [note: Australia’s current population growth rate in 1.6%]:

Seriously, how big does Ms Wilshire want Australia to become? As noted by The Australia Institute:

Figure 10 shows that under the ABS central forecast, in 2061 Victoria would have the same population as all of Australia had in 1960. In 2061 Queensland would have a larger population than all of Australia had in 1950. It is important to note that these are not the projections of the high growth scenario (Series A), but of the one that most closely matches current trends (Series B).

How much population is enough?

Migration Council is just another mass immigration lobby group:

During the interview, I claimed that the Migration Council’s economic modelling on immigration could not be trusted as it is a vested interest lobby group backed by big business.

Ms Wilshire responded angrily claiming that it was non-partisan and not-for-profit.

Really?

Since its inception, the organisation has lobbied strongly for a ‘Big Australia’ and for the immigration intake to be increased to 250,000 (from 210,000 currently).

It has also been chaired by pro-Big Australia business people and has stacked its board accordingly.

Andrew Jakubowicz, Professor of Sociology, described the formation of the Council in 2010 as follows:

The announcement of the formation of a Migration Council of Australia and its launch by the Governor General on August 1, confirmed by Department of Immigration and Citizenship official Gary Fleming at the Settlement Council of Australia conference in Adelaide in late June, marks a critical juncture in population and immigration policy…

The MCA wants to find a new space to assert the importance of migration and effective settlement, and has brought together some heavy hitters to make this happen. Headed by Peter Scanlon (ex Patricks Chair) – and bringing together Business Council of Australia chair Tony Shepherd, Australia Post head Ahmed Fahour, Ethnic Communities Federation chair Pino Migliorino, Adult Migrant Education Victoria head Catherine Scarth and a number of others – the organisation seeks to build a bridge between those with an economic interest in a big Australia, and those with a social interest in a fair Australia.

Scanlon has been a key figure in building an information base about immigration and settlement through his Foundation… He is also a major real estate developer and will come under scrutiny for how this new lobby group might create benefits for his commercial interests…

Peter Scanlon is a key leader of Australia’s ‘growth lobby’, and has a clear vested interest in mass immigration, as explained by John Masanauskas:

MAJOR investor and former Elders executive Peter Scanlon hardly blinks when asked if his conspicuous support for a bigger population is also good for business.

Mr Scanlon, whose family wealth is estimated to be more than $600 million, has set up a foundation with the aim to create a larger and socially cohesive Australia.

It also happens that Mr Scanlon has extensive property development interests, which clearly benefit from immigration-fuelled high population growth.

“My primary driver in (setting up the foundation) is if we don’t have growth we are going to lose all our youth because the world is looking to train people around the world,” he explains. “Instead of having stagnant growth, we’re going to have a serious decline.”

Mr Scanlon believes that governments aren’t doing enough to sell the benefits of a bigger population so he has put his money where his mouth is…

Peter Scanlon vacated the chair of the Migration Council in 2015 and was replaced by long-time mass immigration booster and Australian Industry Group CEO, Innes Willox, who was affectionately described last year by The AFR “as one of Australia’s top business lobbyists”.

Let’s not pretend that the Migration Council of Australia is impartial in the immigration debate. It is a stealth ‘Big Australia” lobbyist for the business sector.

On a side note, a quick look at the Migration Council’s modelling of immigration’s economic impacts reveals the following howler of an assumption: it “allows for economies of scale in infrastructure”.

You read that right. Their model ridiculously assumes that bigger is always cheaper and/or there is always under-utilised capacity. This flies in the face of the ‘lived experience’ of growing infrastructure bottlenecks and rising congestion costs, as well as increasingly complex and expensive infrastructure projects (i.e. classic dis-economies of scale).  

I’ve already discussed these infrastructure issues above with respect to the PC’s modelling, so I won’t do it again. But clearly the Migration Council has chosen favourable assumptions to get a positive modelling result in support of its Big Australia agenda. Garbage in, garbage out.

Carla Wilshire admits a ‘Big Australia’ will lower residents’ living standards:

Finally, after spending the whole segment arguing that mass immigration will raise Australia’s living standards, Ms Wilshire tacitly admitted that, actually, living standards will fall for those of us living in Sydney and Melbourne:

“…congestion in Sydney and Melbourne is undoubtedly getting to a point where a significant investment in infrastructure is going to have to happen. In fact, one could argue that point was some years back…

One of the ways that we are going to have to solve that problem is decreasing the per capita cost of investment in infrastructure. And migration is part of that solution…

And in some senses it is also about an acceptance that the way in which these two cities function, and the way in which we live in these two cities, is going to change over time. It’s going to be much more about apartment living. It’s going to be much more about public transport. And it’s going to be much more about sustainable cities”…

Only in the Bizarro World of the Migration Council do you solve an infrastructure deficit by adding millions more people. And only in the Migration Council’s world does having to live in shoebox apartments, suffering from greater congestion, as well as making everyone consume less of everything, just so we can make room for mass immigration, equate to higher living standards.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

February 2018

THE BLIND MARCH TOWARDS A ‘BIG AUSTRALIA’

Submission to the Department of Home Affairs’ Managing Australia’s Migrant Intake Review

Summary

At MacroBusiness we support immigration, but at sustainable levels.

Australia’s immigration levels are too high – higher than our cities can absorb. The infrastructure costs of high immigration are excessive and Australia’s infrastructure supply is not keeping up with demand, despite our best efforts.

The economic arguments frequently used to justify high immigration fail the evidence test. Empirical data does not support mass immigration. Excessive immigration also damages Australia’s employment market and the environment.

It is time for an honest debate.

Currently, Australia’s immigration program is overloading the major cities with tens of thousands of extra people each year to stoke overall economic growth (but not growth per person) and to support business (e.g. the property industry and retailers), despite growth per person stagnating.

Meanwhile, individual living standards are being eroded through rising congestion costs, declining housing affordability, paying more for infrastructure (e.g. toll roads and water), environmental degradation, and overall reduced amenity.

The economic evidence for the above is contained in this submission.

The Australian Government needs to stop ignoring these issues. Australia’s living standards are at stake.

MacroBusiness urges the Australian Government to reduce Australia’s immigration intake back towards the historical average of around 70,000 people per annum.

1. Australia’s immigration program is unprecedented:

One of the most profound changes affecting the Australian economy and society this century has been the massive lift in Australia’s net immigration, which surged from the early-2000s and is running at roughly triple the pace of historical norms (Chart 1).

In the 116 years following Australia’s Federation in 1901, Australia’s net overseas migration (NOM) averaged around 73,000 people a year and Australia’s population grew on average by around 180,000 people.

Over the past 12 years, however, Australia’s annual NOM has averaged nearly 220,000 people a year and Australia’s population has grown on average by 370,000 people.

The principal driver of Australia’s population increase has been the Australian Government’s permanent migrant intake, which has increased from 79,000 in 1999 to nearly 210,000 currently, including the humanitarian intake (Chart 2).

Due to this mass immigration ‘Big Australia’ policy, Australia’s population has expanded at a rate that is more than 2.5 times the OECD average, easily the fastest of advanced English-speaking nations (Chart 3).

This rapid population growth is expected to continue for decades to come, with the Australian Government’s Intergenerational Report projecting population growth of nearly 400,000 people a year – equivalent to one Canberra – until Australia’s population reaches 40 million mid-century (see Chart 1 above).

However, the problem with Australia’s mass immigration policy is not just the extreme volume, but also the concentration of migrants flowing to Australia’s largest and already most overcrowded cities.

As shown in Chart 4, around three quarters of Australia’s NOM has flowed to New South Wales and Victoria, principally Sydney and Melbourne:

In the 12 years to 2016, Melbourne’s population expanded by nearly 1.1 million (30%), while Sydney’s population expanded by 845,000 (20%). There was also strong growth in Brisbane (537,000) and Perth (502,000) (Charts 5 and 6).

The migrant influx helps to explain why dwelling price growth has been strongest in Sydney and Melbourne, and why housing is most unaffordable in these two cities (Charts 7 and 8). While the Australian Government and property lobby likes to blame a ‘lack of supply’, the problem rests primarily with excessive demand from mass immigration.

The chronic problems around housing and infrastructure will only get worse under the current mass immigration policy.

State Government projections have Melbourne’s population expanding by 97,000 people each year (1,870 people a week) and Sydney’s by 87,000 people each year (1,670 people each week) for the next several decades until both cities’ populations hit around 8 million people mid-century.

To put this population growth into perspective, consider the following facts:

• It took Sydney around 210 years to reach a population of 3.9 million in 2001. And yet the official projections have Sydney adding roughly the same number of people again in just 50 years.
• It took Melbourne nearly 170 years to reach a population of 3.3 million in 2001. In just 15 years, Melbourne expanded by 34% to 4.5 million people. And the official projections have Melbourne’s population ballooning by another 3.4 million people in just 35 years.

No matter which way you cut it, residents of our two largest cities will continue to feel the impact of this rapid population growth via: traffic gridlock; overloaded public transport, schools, and hospitals; pressures on energy and water supplies; as well as more expensive (and smaller) housing.
It is a clear recipe for lower living standards.

2. No economic bonanza:

Politicians and economists frequently claim that maintaining a ‘strong’ immigration program is essential as it keeps the population young and productive, and without constant immigration, the population would grow old and the economy would stagnate.

For example, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has stated previously that “anyone who thinks it’s smart to cut immigration is sentencing Australia to poverty”. In a similar vein, former KPMG partner and “unabashed supporter of a bigger Australia”, Bernard Salt, has produced reams of articles warning that Australia faces economic and fiscal catastrophe without ongoing strong immigration.

Economic models are often cited as proof that a strong immigration program is ‘good’ for the economy because they show that real GDP per capita is moderately increased via immigration, based on several dubious assumptions.

First, it is generally assumed in these models that population ageing will result in fewer people working, which will subtract from per capita GDP. However, it is just as likely that age-specific workforce participation will respond to labour demand, resulting in fewer people being unemployed, as we have witnessed in Japan, where the unemployment rate is below 3%.

Even if this assumption was true, the benefit to GDP per capita would only be transitory. Once the migrant workers grow old, they too will add to the pool of aged Australians, thus requiring an ever increasing immigration intake to keep the population age profile from rising.

Indeed, the Productivity Commission (PC) has for more than a decade debunked the myth that immigration can overcome population ageing. For example, in its 2010 submission to the Minister for Population, the PC explicitly noted that “substantial increases in the level of net overseas migration would have only modest effects on population ageing and the impacts would be temporary, since immigrants themselves age”.

Academic demographer, Peter McDonald, has also previously stated that it is “demographic nonsense to believe that immigration can help to keep our population young” .

Second, it is generally assumed that migrant workers are more productive than the Australian born population and, therefore, labour productivity is increased through strong immigration. However, the evidence here is highly contestable, with migrants generally being employed below the level of their qualifications, as well as having lower labour force attachment than the Australian born population (more information here).

Third, economists and their models generally ignore obvious ‘costs’ of mass immigration on productivity. Growing Australia’s population without commensurately increasing the stock of household, business and public capital to support the bigger population necessarily ‘dilutes’ Australia’s capital base, leaving less capital per person and lowering productivity. We have witnessed this first hand with the costs of congestion soaring across Australia’s big cities.

Moreover, the cost of retro-fitting our big cities with infrastructure to cope with larger populations is necessarily very expensive – think tunnelling and land acquisitions – with costs borne largely by the incumbent population. This fact was explicitly acknowledged by the PC’s recent Shifting the Dial: 5 year productivity review:

“Growing populations will place pressure on already strained transport systems… Yet available choices for new investments are constrained by the increasingly limited availability of unutilised land. Costs of new transport structures have risen accordingly, with new developments (for example WestConnex) requiring land reclamation, costly compensation arrangements, or otherwise more expensive alternatives (such as tunnels)” .

Finally, while economic models tend to show a modest improvement in real GDP per capita, the gains are more likely to flow to the wealthy, whereas ordinary workers are made worse-off.

In 2006, the PC completed a major study on the Economic Impacts of Migration and Population Growth, which modelled the impact of a 50% increase in the level of skilled migration over the 20 years to 2024-25. The modelling found that even skilled migration does not increase the incomes of existing residents. According to the Commission: “the distribution of these benefits [from skilled migration] varies across the population, with gains mostly accrued to the skilled migrants and capital owners. The incomes of existing resident workers grow more slowly than would otherwise be the case” .

Of course, there are other costs borne by incumbent residents from immigration that are not captured in the economic modelling, such as worsening congestion, increased infrastructure costs, reduced housing affordability, and environmental degradation – none of which are given appropriate consideration by politicians nor economists.

Adding a Canberra-worth of population to Australia each and every year – with 80,000 to 100,000-plus people going to Sydney and Melbourne – requires an incredible amount of investment just to keep up. Accordingly, Australia’s infrastructure deficit has fallen badly behind over the past decade, and will continue to do so under Australia’s mass immigration program, thus eroding residents’ living standards.

3. Empirical data does not support mass immigration:

While the economic models might show small per capita gains from immigration-fuelled population growth, based on faulty assumptions, the actual empirical evidence shows no link between population growth and prosperity.

Since Australia’s immigration intake was expanded in the early-2000s, trend GDP per capita growth has plummeted to recessionary levels, suggesting falling living standards (Chart 9).

Chart 10 plots the growth in GDP per capita versus population change between 2000 and 2016 across OECD nations and shows no correlation (Australia denoted in red):

Meanwhile, there is a slight negative relationship between labour productivity and population growth (Chart 11):

Whereas there is zero correlation between population growth and multifactor productivity across OECD nations:

A recent study by economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) also found “that even when we control for initial GDP per capita, initial demographic composition and differential trends by region, there is no evidence of a negative relationship between aging and GDP per capita; on the contrary, the relationship is significantly positive in many specifications” (Chart 13).

There is also evidence to suggest that mass immigration is partly behind Australia’s trade and current account deficits, as well as the nation’s ballooning foreign debt.

The lion’s share of Australia’s export revenue comes from commodities and from Western Australia and Queensland in particular (Chart 14):

However, the majority of Australia’s imports and indeed private debt flows to our biggest states (and cities), New South Wales (Sydney) and Victoria (Melbourne). Sydney and Melbourne also happen to be the key magnets for migrants (see Charts 4,5 and 6 above).

Increasing the number of people via mass immigration does not materially boost Australia’s exports but does significantly increase imports (think flat screen TVs, imported cars, etc.). Accordingly, both New South Wales and Victoria have driven huge trade deficits as the extra imports have far outweighed exports (Chart 15):

All of these extra imports must be paid for – either by accumulating foreign debt, or by selling-off the nation’s assets. Australia has been doing both.

Australia would improve its trade balance and current account deficit, as well as reduce the need to sell-off assets and binge on debt, if it simply cut immigration.

Australia will ship the same amount of hard commodities and agriculture regardless of how many people are coming in as all the productive capacity has been set up and it doesn’t require more labour.

4. Lowering immigration would raise wages:

Hand wringing over Australia’s anaemic wages growth (Chart 16) hit fever pitch recently, with politicians, economists and media all searching for answers.

One cause that has received scant attention is the role caused by mass immigration in driving-up labour supply and reducing the bargaining power of workers.

Employer groups often argue that a strong ‘skilled’ migration program is required to overcome perceived labour shortages – a view that is supported by the Australian Government. However, the available data shows this argument to be weak.

The Department of Employment’s 2016-17 Skills Shortages report revealed that Australian skills shortages “continue to be limited in 2016-17”, and that there are a high number of applicants per job (Chart 17):

The Department of Employment also revealed a record number of Australians studying at university (Chart 18):

Of whom many graduates cannot gain meaningful employment (Chart 19):

The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ labour force data also shows that Australia’s underutilisation rate remains high, especially for Australia’s youth, despite the recent improvement in the labour market (Chart 20).

Curiously, Australia’s permanent skilled migrant intake is significantly higher today (128,550) than it was at the peak of the mining boom in 2011 (113,850). Why? Unlike then, labour shortages are “limited”, wages growth is running near the lowest level on record, and labour underutilisation is high. What is the economic rationale for running the highest permanent migrant intake on record when economic conditions do not warrant it?

Standard economic theory claims that net inward migration has minimal long-term impact on wages. That is, when the quantity of labour increases, its price (wages) falls. This will supposedly increase profits, eventually leading to more investment, increased demand for labour, and a reversal of the initial fall in wages. Immigration, so the theory goes, will enable the larger domestic population to enjoy the same incomes as the smaller population did before.

However, a recent study by Cambridge University economist, Robert Rowthorn, debunked this argument. The so-called ‘temporary’ effects of displacing incumbent workers and lower wages can last for up to ten years. And if there is a continuing influx of migrants – as is the case in Australia – rather than a one-off increase in the size of the labour force, demand for labour will constantly lag behind growth in supply .

In other words, if the Australian Government was to stem the inflow of foreign workers, then workers’ bargaining power would increase, as will wages growth. It is basic economics.

As noted in April last year by The Australia Institute’s chief economist, Richard Denniss, the very purpose of foreign worker visas is to “suppress wage growth by allowing employers to recruit from a global pool of labour to compete with Australian workers”. In a normal functioning labour market, “when demand for workers rises, employers would need to bid against each other for the available scarce talent”. But this mechanism has been bypassed by enabling employers to recruit labour globally. “It is only in recent years that the wage rises that accompany the normal functioning of the labour market have been rebranded as a ‘skills shortage'” .

Australia’s youth is effectively caught in a pincer by the Australian Government’s mass immigration program. Not only does it hold down their wages, but it also inflates their cost-of-living via more expensive housing (both prices and rents).

5. It’s time for a national debate and population policy:

The Australian Government under both the Coalition and Labor has long supported mass immigration and a ‘Big Australia’ on flawed economic grounds.

Behind the scenes, the ‘growth lobby’ of retailers, the banking sector, the property industry and erroneously named ‘think tanks’ all push the growth-ist agenda, while completely ignoring the cost burden on ordinary residents.

At the same time, many on the left pursue the globalist agenda of ‘open borders’ citing spurious social justice concerns.

Currently, there is no coherent plan other than to inundate the major cities with extra people each and every year to stoke overall economic growth (but not growth per person), to support big business (e.g. the property industry and retailers), and to prevent Australia from going into recession (despite growth per person stagnating).

Meanwhile, individual living standards are being eroded through rising congestion costs, declining housing affordability, paying more for infrastructure (e.g. toll roads, water and energy), environmental degradation, and overall reduced amenity.

Never have Australians been asked whether they want a population of 40 million-plus mid-century. Nor whether they want Sydney’s and Melbourne’s populations to swell to eight million mid-century.

Yet immigration and population growth affects every facet of Australian life, including: how long one spends stuck in traffic; whether one can get a seat on a train or a spot in hospital or school; and/or whether one can afford a good sized home within a decent commute to where one works. It is a key determinant of living standards above all else, yet is rarely questioned by the media nor politicians.

Without mainstream political representation on this issue, divisive elements like Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party have emerged to wrongly use the ills of overpopulation to attack the small number of refugees arriving in Australia, as well as Muslim and Asian immigration.

As this submission has shown, there is strong justification to reduce Australia’s permanent migrant intake back to historical levels primarily by slashing skilled migration, which has been the driver of the influx. This would take the strain off the major cities, put a floor under wages growth, and safeguard Australia’s environment.

Australia could achieve such immigration cuts without affecting its global obligations via the humanitarian migrant intake. Indeed, much of Australia’s 130,000 strong permanent skilled migrant intake comes from countries where skills are more desperately needed than in Australia. Australia’s immigration program is depriving these countries of skills, and we have a moral obligation to limit the brain drain.

More broadly, Australia desperately needs a national debate and a population strategy, led by the Australian Government. The Government needs to conduct a population plebiscite asking Australians how big they want the nation to become, and then set immigration policy accordingly. The Australian Government also needs to provide a comprehensive plan detailing how and where it will accommodate all the extra people, while safeguarding incumbent residents’ living standards.

St Kilda Road, Melbourne's Champs Elysees, is being vandalised for population growth that we don't need, but big business is imposing. Join a public protest Wednesday 21 Feb 2018, 1pm-1.30pm. The meeting is now in the reserve which is outside 1 Albert Road. It’s a triangle of land in the fork of Albert Road. Some more details and yellow arrow on map inside.

Come and see for yourself the disaster of our beautiful boulevard.

1 Albert Road, in front of ‘the Domain’ building
(in St Kilda Rd, opposite Melbourne Grammar, next to Albert Reserve.)

Tram: Get off at Domain Interchange.

Bring posters, write slogans
Photo and media opportunity

A shameful destruction

It is hard to believe our state government is allowing the world's most beautiful boulevard to be destroyed. (The Age 15/2). How dare it destroy St. Kilda Road in this shameful way? Why can't it learn from London, which is 'deep tunnelling' for 42 kilometres for the new line, Crossrail. This work is being done without damagin anything on top. In contrat, we vandals are bulding the relatively small Metro Tunnel and wrecking this wonderful area by cutting and filling (because it is cheaper than deep tunnelling) and bulldozing those beautiful trees. People will have to cope with years of a mess-up city. Vote out the government.
Mary Drost, letter published in The Age, Feb 16, 2018.

In this podcast interview inside, Christine Hong speaks about the Korean history not told in corporate media, present day moves towards peace on the peninsula, and more. The interview is by journalist Eva Bartlett.

https://soundcloud.com/eva-k-bartlett/interview-with-christine-hong-whats-happening-on-the-korean-peninsula

Christine Hong is an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an executive board member of the Korea Policy Institute. She has spent time in North Korea, including as part of a North American peace delegation.

She specializes in transnational Asian American, Korean diaspora, critical Pacific Rim, and comparative ethnic studies.

She is a board member of the Critical Ethnic Studies Association, an executive board member of the Korea Policy Institute, a coordinating committee member of the National Campaign to End the Korean War, and a member of the Working Group on Peace and Demilitarization in Asia and the Pacific.

Web Sites:

Korea Policy Institute
kpolicy.org/

National Campaign to End the Korean War
www.endthekoreanwar.org/

Working Group for Peace and Demilitarization in Asia and the Pacific
www.asiapacificinitiative.org/?doing_wp_…7021484375

Legacies of the Korean War
legaciesofthekoreanwar.org/

literature.ucsc.edu/faculty/singlet…&cruz_id=cjhong

The games have begun. The younger sister of North Korea’s ruler Kim Jong-un has captured the attention of the media, while US Vice President Mike Pence was mocked as a dud, even undiplomatic. The two Koreas are engaging each other. This makes the Washington foreign policy swamp fume. CrossTalking video with Brian Becker, Gregory Elich, and Myung-Koo Kang. This Crosstalk video pretty much covers the major bases in 30 minutes, with a stunningly well-informed cast.

[This is a translation from the French version, "Quelle est la théorie du complot la plus crédible que vous connaissez?"] The mass media is the mouthpiece of the corporate world. It pretends to reflect the opinions of we masses but, in reality, it tries to create a perception that the exploitative economic system benefits us. Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent is about this conspiracy. Chomsky shows how people are convinced that the corporate media reflects the opinions and thoughts of ordinary people, even if it isn't true. Ordinary people continue to read the corporate media, believing that it will represent them. They finish up adapting to what is presented to them as the opinion of their equals, even though this is rarely true.

The idea of 'fake news' is a feature of this propaganda machine, which now characterises all criticism of its prejudices as 'fake news'. This distortion of reality is more exaggerated and obvious in video games and social media, which exploit a younger, naive, social cohort, who lack classical education.

Stigmatising the nation state

I think that one of the principal results of this media has been the stigmatisation of nationalism. When you think of it, what other concept can unite a country? Initially, small localities resisted the notion of 'nations' because they feared that nations would overwhelm their self-determination, their identities, their societiies and their local economies. In many cases, they were right, although the French system of communes within the roman (Napoleonic) system, resisted this better than the Anglosphere systems.

In general, however, national systems conquered small regional entities and people came to identify with the nation and to expect national governments to serve their people. It is important to note that the members of nations frequently won the right to vote. In effect, to vote - to be enfranchised - characterises the modern nation.

Global 'citizens' have no votes and no civic rights

Today globalism seeks to stigmatise the nation and fails to offer the global 'citizen' the right to vote on questions that concern him or her. In effect, there are no 'global' citizens. There are only global populations. National governments, once required to serve their citizens, now take orders from global forces. What globalism promises is that the global market will be the final arbiter of everything. Some elites can profit from the global market, but most of us are its playthings.

It is true that warlike elites have often abused nationalism, during the last two world wars, for example. But nationalism is also a product of the French Revolution, which gave birth to durable values of civil rights and the maintenance of the family land, rather than having it in the hands of elites. As long as the nation remains the only political level where people may vote to influence their fates, I am in favour of its preservation.

Perhaps I should qualify my implication of Chomsky's theory as a conspiracy theory, since Chomsky himself described what the mass media does as a hegemonic system, which means a sort of pragmatic adaptation by its beneficiaries, rather than having begun with a careful plan. The massive and rapid campaign to call media views outside the mass media's views 'fake news', in particular those alternative opinions against the wars and sanctions of the US-NATO, seems to me to be a true conspiracy against anyone who tries to cast doubt on US-NATO politics.

I would like to add that Quora could become a way of helping other points of view, for it provides a huge platform. This does seem rather too much to hope, but I would like to hope.

This article sprang from my response to a French language Quora question here: What is the most credible conspiracy theory you know?" (Quelle est la théorie du complot la plus crédible que vous connaissez ?).

Les médias de masse sont le porte-parole du monde des grandes entreprises. Ils prétendent refléter l'opinion de masse mais, en réalité, ils essaient de créer une perception que ce système économique exploiteur est à notre avantage. Le livre de Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent, traitait de ce complot. En francais ce livre s'intitule, La fabrication du consentement : De la propagande médiatique en démocratie. Il y en a qui disent que depuis Chomsky a ete coopté dans la disinformation, neanmoins ce livre montre comment les gens ordinaires sont convaincus que les médias reflètent ce que les gens ordinaires pensent, même si ce n'est pas vrai. Les gens continuent à lire les mass media, croyant que cela les représentera et ils s'adaptent à ce qu'il leur present comme l'opinion de leurs egaux, bien que ce soit rarement la vérité.

L'idée de «fausses nouvelles» est une caractéristique de cette machine de propagande, qui désigne désormais toutes les critiques de ses préjugés comme de «fausses nouvelles». La distorsion de la réalité est plus exagérée et évidente dans les jeux vidéo et les médias sociaux, qui exploitent une classe plus jeune, naïve et sociale, sans éducation classique.

Stigmatisation de l'État-nation

Je crois que l'un des principaux résultats de ces médias a été la stigmatisation du nationalisme. Quand vous y pensez, quel autre concept unificateur peut unir un pays? Au départ, les petites localités ont résisté à la notion de «nations» parce qu'elles craignaient que les nations ne subsument leur autodétermination, leur identités, leur societés et leur economies locales. Dans de nombreux cas, ils avaient raison, bien que le système de communes français dans le systeme romane (napoleonique) ait résisté à cela mieux que les systèmes de l'anglosphere.

En général, cependant, les systemes de nations ont conquis les petites entités régionales et les gens sont venus s'identifier à eux et s'attendre à ce que les gouvernements nationaux servent le peuple. Il est important de noter que les membres des nations ont souvent acquis la possibilité de voter. En effet, voter - la franchise - caracterise la nation moderne.

Les «citoyens» mondiaux n'ont aucun vote et aucun droit civique

Aujourd'hui, la mondialisation cherche à stigmatiser la nation et n'offre pas au «citoyen» mondial la possibilité de voter sur les questions qui le concernent. En fait, il n'y a pas de «citoyens» mondiaux; il n'y a que des populations mondiales. Les gouvernements nationaux, autrefois tenus a servir les citoyens, sont maintenant redevables aux forces mondiales. Ce que le mondialisme promet, c'est que le marché mondial sera l'arbitre final de tout. Certaines élites peuvent profiter du marché mondial, mais la plupart d'entre nous sont ses jouets.

Il est vrai que les élites guerrières ont souvent abusé du nationalisme, par exemple lors des deux dernières guerres mondiales, mais le nationalisme est aussi un produit de la Révolution française qui a donné naissance à des concepts durables de droits civils et de maintien de la propriété familiale, plutôt que dans les mains des élites. Tant que la nation reste le seul niveau politique où les gens peuvent voter sur leur bien-être, je suis en faveur de sa préservation.

Je devrais peut-être qualifier ma description de la théorie de Chomsky comme une théorie du complot, puisque Chomsky lui-même a décrit ce que font les médias de masse comme un système hégémonique, c'est-à-dire une sorte d'adaptation pragmatique par ses bénéficiaires, plutôt que de commencer par un plan réfléchi. La campagne massive et rapide pour qualifier les vues de presse en dehors des médias de masse de «fausses nouvelles», en particulier contre les guerres et les sanctions US-OTAN, me semble être une véritable conspiration contre quiconque met en doute ces politiques US-OTAN.

Je voudrais ajouter que Quora pourrait devenir un moyen d'aider d'autres points de vue, car il fournit une énorme plateforme. Cela semble presque trop espérer, mais je voudrais espérer.

Cet article est né de ma réponse à une question Quora francophone ici: Quelle est la théorie du complot la plus crédible que vous connaissez ?

It seems that tax cuts are all the rage with the PM praising Trumps bold initiatives and vowing to push through similar (but smaller) cuts in Australia. Bill Shorten, while not opposed to this form of pea & thimble trick has tentatively suggested that the the government ought to say how these cuts could be funded. Well the answer is all there in the history books. Ronald Regan while not the first to use tax cuts was however the one who tried to justify it by claiming the cuts would so boost the economy that tax revenues would increase even more than the loss incurred by the cuts. It became know as trickle down economics which then morphed into voodoo economics when it was found that the national debt had doubled. To his credit John Howard learnt two things from this débâcle - tax cuts win votes and any problems created will be inflicted on the next government.

So he went in boots and all with a wide range of tax cuts to get maximum voter appeal. He introducing the over-60 superannuation tax holiday and other super concessions, family payments to middle-income households, age-based tax concessions, lots of income-tax breaks for middle to higher-income households and introduced the capital-gains-tax concession; bolstered the first-home buyers' grant; and boosted immigration, particularly skilled immigration which not only reduced the need (and cost) for local training but put pressure on housing demand. In education, he dramatically increased federal funding to private schools, and cut funding to public schools with the result that the number of public schools has actually decreased (58 in 10 years) despite a rapid rise in the number of students.

Supporters of this policy argue that Howard left the nation with a sizeable government surplus which is not quite correct, the actual surplus amounted to only 7.3% of GDP , about half of that held by Chile , a tenth of that in Finland and a twentieth of that of Norway This was a dismal performance considering Howard had the benefit of the minerals boom which boosted government revenue by $334b over the years 2004 to 2007. There was also the sale of assets like airports the National Rail Corp, Dasfleet, Telstra, the remaining share of the Comm. bank and many other valuable enterprises which yielded another $72b. In a somewhat bizarre move they also flogged off nearly all the nations gold reserves, 167 tonnes of it, for $306 per ounce just before the gold price more than tripled. Despite their mantra for lower taxes the Howard government introduced the GST which reduced the burden of providing federal funding for the states by $44.38b in 2007/8 .

Unfortunately the tax cuts made plus those promised by Howard at the 2007 election were matched by Rudd and will be extremely difficult to reverse by any future government which will have to find alternative revenue sources or make even more spending cuts. Malcolm Turnbull intends to put the medicare levy up from 2 to 2.5% , has cut 15,000 public service jobs since 2013, slashed university and even medical and scientific research funding with 700 full time jobs lost in this sector. He has now announced that he intends to cut the corporate tax from 30 to 25%, a move that will cost $65.4b over 10 years. Unlike the Howard years Turnbull is introducing these cuts at a time when the government has a budget deficit of $33.2b and is doing so without explaining how they will be funded. But like any politician he put a positive spin by saying the tax cut was a way of “putting more money into people’s pockets” and the Government’s priority was to “lower middle income tax rates”. He then added that there was “no doubt” taxes in Australia were high, an assertion contradicted by the Organisation for Economic Research and Development (OECD) which put Australia near the bottom at 28th out of 35 nations.

Putting money in peoples pockets does sound attractive and its possible that some corporations would use the tax cut to increase shareholder dividends. But what happens then? If the lucky shareholder decides to buy some new gadget on line the net result is a higher import bill. Alternatively if the corporation decides to spend the tax windfall on increasing their productivity with new equipment the import bill goes up and employees risk becoming made redundant by the new technology. Not exactly a win-win situation.

Animals are losing their trees in droves. The cause is population growth. There is a new tree removing policy for all dams and retarding basins in Victoria, treating small retarding basins as if they were big dams, and treating trees as problems, where previously they were considered desirable. See inside for locations. This policy applies in other states as well. VicRoads is also suddenly removing trees en-masse from roadsides and median strips! None of these policies gives adequate consideration to wildlife habitat or cruelty impacts. There is no overall coordinating policy for Australia to ensure the preservation of wildlife and wildlife corridors at local, state and national levels, nor to avoid heat-island creation and local climate change, or citizen despair. With constant clearing for new suburbs and roads all over habitable Australia, tree removal by governments and contractors is reaching the level of a national civil emergency.

Trees and Retarding Basins

The reason for this change of policy around retarding basins is that we have become so overpopulated, due to wilful government policy, that flooding has become a problem.

"When a natural catchment is progressively urbanised, the stormwater runoff characteristics of that catchment change accordingly.The runoff response becomes quicker and larger as the introduction of urban features (eg paved streets, tiled roofs, concrete driveways) reduces the capacity of the catchment to store and retard stormwater flow." (Norman Himsley, "A guiding hand for flood retarding basins," ANCOLD.)

Trees are blamed, when previously they were planted to keep the water table low, stabilise landforms, and suck up floodwater. If there has been a scientific review of the literature regarding the pros and cons of trees on dams, it has escaped me. For this reason, I am very leery of the new policy. ANCOLD is the source of the new guidelines, but you have to pay over $100 to access them, since Melbourne Water is using a private publication.

Victoria's population growth

Victoria's population growth - at around 2.4% is one of the fastest in the world, with a doubling time of under 30 years. Australia's growth at 1.6% is the fastest of OECD countries. No wonder Victoria is now using the ANCOLD rules for *large dams* in order to manage small local retarding basins. These basins were adequate when they were made, before Jeff Kennett, Steve Bracks, and their successors, decided to rapidly grow Victoria's population. (See /node/5262 and /node/5268. In Victoria, where Melbourne Water manages about 224 retarding basins, there has been a sudden onslaught of mass tree removal with very limited 'community consultation' and absolutely no viable plans for affected wildlife. In this article I have named some affected retarding basins. If you put them together you can see how this de-treeing policy will impact all Melbourne's green wedges and wildlife corridors. How can anyone pretend that we can preserve Victoria's wildlife and our pleasant green spaces if this population tsunami is allowed to go ahead?

Banyan Reserve retarding basin, Carrum Downs.
Removal of trees. Late January schedule.

https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/banyan-reserve-retarding-basin-upgrade

Campbellfield retarding basin, Sages Road, Glenroy, 80 trees to go

https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/campbellfield-creek-retarding-basin

Fairbairn Road retarding basin, Duff Street, (within the J and P Cam Reserve) at Cranbourne, tree removal

https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/fairbairn-road-retarding-basin-upgrade

Glen Valley Retarding Basin located on Glen Valley Road in Forest Hill

Lernes Street Retarding Basin located on Hylton Crescent in Forest Hill

Glen Valley retarding basin - no info here.
https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/glen-valley-retarding-basin-upgrade

Jack Roper Reserve (CSL) retarding basin in Glenroy. Tree Removal.

https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/jack-roper-reserve-retarding-basin

Masons Road retarding basin, Masons Road Reserve, Blackburn

https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/masons-road-retarding-basin-upgrade No information here. Just takes you to a Melbourne water search engine.

Navan Park retarding basin, Navan Park, off Centenary Avenue, Melton West

https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/navan-park-retarding-basin-upgrade No mention of removal of trees.

Roxburg Park retarding basin: Retarding basins at Shankland Gully (also known at St Clair Reservoir), Shankland Gully 2C, Lake Mcivor and Tiffany Crescent. Work includes removal of trees.

https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/roxburgh-park-retarding-basin-upgrades

Ryans Road retarding basin, Diamond Creek. Removal of trees.

A community bulletin was issued in November 2017. https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/ryans-road-retarding-basin-upgrade

Retarding basin located in Taylors Lakes, Chichester Drive, neighbouring to both Lake Shelduck and Lake Heron. Removal of Trees:

"trees must be removed from the whole length of the embankment."

https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/sasses-avenue-retarding-basin-upgrade

Troups Creek West Wetland and Hallam Bypass retarding basin on Drysdale Avenue in Narre Warren North. Tree removal.

"Vegetation removal from the wetland; this will be replaced with plants that will improve the natural treatment of stormwater"
https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/troups-creek-west-wetland-upgrade

Yarraman Creek retarding basin, Elonera Road, Noble Park North. Removal of trees.

Undated community bulletin indicating works would have started on Monday 22 January 3pm – 4pm.
https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/yarraman-creek-retarding-basin-upgrade

Christmas Hills land-sale. Melbourne water selling off public land previously earmarked for the Watsons Creek Storage Reservoir, which it says it no longer needs. There was some 'community consultation', but this land is going to be turned into a suburb.

https://yoursay.melbournewater.com.au/christmas-hills-land-sale

RECENT PAST WORKSThompsons Road retarding basin, Lawson Poole Reserve in Cranbourne. Trees were removed. https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/thompsons-road-retarding-basin-upgrade

Trees have been removed. There is a community information bulletin here: https://www.melbournewater.com.au/files/Communitybulletin-EastBurwood-May2017.pdf The following link leads nowhere useful: https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/east-burwood-retarding-basin-upgrade

Several more if you do a search for Melbourne Water and retarding basins.

AWPC writes that only two of its questions were answered satisfactorily. It asks Melbourne Water what happens to the wildlife after the clearing? “The AWPC, wildlife rescuers and shelters regularly experience the fallout of such projects. Consultants and wildlife handlers are contracted at a premium price, only to hand over displaced, orphaned and injured wildlife to either vets or local wildlife shelters who are then expected to deal with these sentinel beings at their own cost. Quite frankly this is unacceptable and needs to stop, which is why the AWPC ask you the following questions once again.” Inside, full correspondence to date.

 

Craig Thomson
President, Australian Wildlife Protection Council
502 Waterfall Gully Road, Rosebud 3939
[email protected]
0474 651 292

Mark Lawrence
Melbourne Water Project Manager
990 La Trobe Street Docklands VIC 3008
PO Box 4342 Melbourne VIC 3001
[email protected]

Dear Mr. Lawrence,

Re: your response to my email sent 23/1/2018 about the ‘Lee St Retarding Basin Upgrades’

Overall, it was a very disappointing response, especially as most of your answers are already available on your community information sheet. Only two questions were answered satisfactorily; were you confirmed that you have forwarded my query about the sale of Melbourne Water land to the relevant department and the dates of the pre-fauna survey. We have spent a great deal of time putting these questions to you because of the lack of information provided by Melbourne Water to concerned members of the community.

Is Melbourne Water concerned about genuine community consultation and being transparent to the community to whom they provide an essential service? The Australian Wildlife Protection Council (AWPC) will be putting in a Freedom of Information request for the documents you have not supplied, including the ecological/fauna reports, however we will also complain to the concerned ministers, local councilors and community members about Melbourne Water’s lack of openness and communication. We believe you are scaring the community to justify these works whilst refusing to be transparent about the true risks. This is highlighted in your reply, by the following text, coupled with the fact that you are asking us to then submit an FOI for proof of this.

“Failure of the embankment would have a significant impact on a number of properties in the area.”

As you have identified, we are particularly concerned about the impacts on wildlife with the removal of vegetation; of the fifteen questions we sent to you eight are about wildlife. We ask Melbourne Water what happens to the wildlife after the clearing? The AWPC, wildlife rescuers and shelters regularly experience the fallout of these projects. Consultants and wildlife handlers are contracted at a premium price, only to hand over displaced, orphaned and injured wildlife to either vets or local wildlife shelters who are then expected to deal with these sentinel beings at their own cost. Quite frankly this is unacceptable and needs to stop, which is why the AWPC ask you the following questions once again:

1. Which wildlife rescue groups, wildlife shelters and vets have been contacted to look after or treat any injured wildlife?
2. Do local wildlife shelters have the capacity to look after injured wildlife during this busy time of the year?
3. What arrangements have been made to financially compensate these groups?
4. What measures have been taken to install nest boxes or other artificial habitat for displaced wildlife? (Please note that installation of nest boxes needs to be carefully planned in advance so as to enable wildlife to be bonded to new nests before re-release).
5. Do the contracted ‘wildlife handlers’ have appropriate wildlife handling experience as well as knowledge of the legislation about the re-location of wildlife.
6. Do the ‘wildlife handlers’ possess the appropriate permits to have protected wildlife relocated within a safe distance from their habitat loss or will animals be euthanased?

If Melbourne Water maintain, “Protection of wildlife is of great importance to Melbourne Water and we have committed to implement the handler’s recommendations” does Melbourne Water also commit to answering our questions for the ongoing protection of wildlife who will be effected by this project?

We can only assume, from your response, that the only community engagement so far planned by Melbourne Water, is to provide wood from the felled trees to various groups to make furniture. Yet, the community groups who will be most effected like environmental groups, wildlife rescuers, wildlife carers and shelters have not been included in this process what so at all!

To indicate that you are only going to plant 30 canopy trees within Frankston, in a place yet to be identified, does not seem to be fair compensation for the loss to the local environment. How did Melbourne Water come to this conclusion? Are these trees to be planted by community volunteers or are there to be separate plantings by contractors? The AWPC has identified a number of suitable sites close by, owned by Melbourne Water for these plantings.

We look forward to your reply and answers to our questions and we at the AWPC are happy to consult with Melbourne Water and/or your ecologist consultants to work on a better plan, communication and management for the future of this project.

Yours sincerely,

Craig Thomson
President, Australian Wildlife Protection Council

LETTER TO PRESIDENT CRAIG THOMSON FROM MARK LAWRENCED, MELBOURNE WATER PROJECT MANAGER

Mr Craig Thomson
President
Australian Wildlife Protection Council Inc.
[email protected]

Dear Mr Thomson
Thank you for your email enquiry regarding safety upgrade works at the Lee Street Retarding
Basin in Frankston.

We understand that you are concerned with the planned tree removal at the site and the
impact this may have on wildlife and their habitat.

Under Melbourne Water’s Statement of Obligations (2015) issued by the Minister for Water, we
are required to assess all existing retarding basins against the Australian National Committee
of Large Dams (ANCOLD) Guidelines. An assessment of the Lee Street Retarding Basin against
these guidelines identified that the site does not comply and safety upgrade works are required
to continue to reduce flood risk for the local community.

To ensure Lee Street Retarding Basin continues to operate safely and comply with the ANCOLD
guidelines, trees and vegetation on the length of the embankment will need to be removed as
part of the works. We have worked hard to ensure that we only remove trees that will affect
the integrity of the retarding basin and have committed to planting trees at other locations in
the Frankston City Council area.

The ANCOLD guidelines are publically available and a copy can be purchased online from
ANCOLD at their website: www.ancold.org.au The guidelines do not specifically mention trees
on retarding basin embankments. They provide guidance on how to assess risk on dams and
dam-like structures.

In the past, it was common practice to have trees on retarding basin embankments. However,
as international understanding of dam engineering has improved it has become evident that
trees significantly weaken embankments and increase the risk of failure in a high rainfall
event. Failure of the embankment would have a significant impact on a number of properties in
the area.

In 2015, Melbourne Water received independent specialist advice that trees on retarding basin
embankments increase the chance that the embankment may fail in the event of a large rain
event. The chance is increased due to:

“internal erosion and displacement of soil – tree roots create erosion pathways
through the embankment which are worsened when the tree dies and its
decaying roots leave voids through the embankment;

“trees uprooting and taking part of the embankment with them; and

“water speeding up around tree trunks and causing faster erosion.

As part of the works, the embankment must also be hardened to operate safely and this can’t
be done without the trees being removed.
We understand the importance of trees to the local community and have committed to
mitigating the impact of removing the embankment trees by:

“planting 30 canopy trees elsewhere in the Frankston City Council area;

“using the cut-down logs to provide a woodland habitat for wildlife at Lee Street
Retarding Basin; and

“recycling the cut down logs to make furniture that will be donated to Frankston
City Council.

A reinstatement plan has been developed in adherence to Frankston City Council’s Local Law
22 permit requirements and we will implement it in the coming months. In addition to the
reinstatement plan, wood from the trees at the site will be utilised by a local community group
and the community will also have an opportunity to participate in a planting day in Frankston
in coming months.

As part of the planning for the project, Melbourne Water engaged specialists to complete a
flora and fauna assessment and arborist assessment as part of Council’s requirements under
Local Law 22.

In your email you asked us to provide you with the arborist report and water depth and flood
modelling records. We ask you to request these under the Freedom of Information Act 1982
(Vic) to make an FOI request, please visit our website and use the online FOI application:

www.melbournewater.com.au Our FOI Officer, Michael Keough, is available to assist with your
application if required. Michael can be contacted on 9679 6821 or at
[email protected]

In addition to the flora and fauna assessment we have engaged a wildlife handler who will
manage and implement the wildlife management practices prior to and during the tree removal
activity. Protection of wildlife is of great importance to Melbourne Water and we have
committed to implement the handler’s recommendations including:

“undertaking a pre-construction visual inspection and assessment at Lee Street retarding
basin. This was completed on 29 January 2018 and found no EPBC Act-listed threatened
ecological communities or FFG Act-listed threatened flora communities present within the
Lee St study site.

“marking trees that have possible habitat to ensure that they are removed appropriately.

“confirming the species as listed in the flora and fauna assessment

“remaining onsite during the tree removal works to check and safely move fauna prior to
tree removal.

The wildlife handler we have engaged is a qualified ecologist and zoologist with 25 years’
experience.

The EPA guidelines referred to are in relation to hours of work. Work for this project will be
carried out in line with EPA guidelines between 7am and 6pm Monday to Friday and 7am and
1pm on Saturdays.

Your email included concern at the sale of Melbourne Water land in the Frankston area and the
potential loss of biodiversity. We have passed this on to our Property Team who will respond to
you direct.

Once again, thank you for your email.

Yours sincerely,
Mark Lawrence
Melbourne Water Project Manager

 

ORIGINAL LETTER FROM CRAIG THOMSON TO MELBOURNE WATER ABOUT REMOVING TREES FROM LEE ST RETARDANT BASIN

Letter from Craig Thomson, President AWPC
Dated 23 January 2017.

Subject: Lee st Retarding Basin Frankston

Addressed to: [email protected] (Biodiversity Officer at Frankston Council), [email protected] (Minister for Police and Water) [email protected] (email address for Melbourne Water retardant basin upgrades).

The Australian Wildlife Protection Council understands and recognise the needs to protect our communities from potential danger. We are also aware that the removal of vegetation has an impact on wildlife species. In fact it is a guarantee that wildlife will be killed during works that clear vegetation. As such we expect that every possible measure is undertaken to see if in fact clearing is necessary and if so that appropriate actions are taken and that local wildlife shelters are not left too pick up the pieces of poor planning.

We have received concern from the local community members that the threat of flooding to the local community at the Lee St retarding basin has not deemed a risk in the past and believe the proposed clearance of vegetation is excessive and will have significant impact on fauna as well as other issues, particularly of erosion and dust as well. So the Australian Wildlife Protection Council would greatly appreciate if you could answer the following questions;

-What pre-fauna surveys have been carried out and when?

-What species have been identified on site?

-What are the actions have been put into place for fauna pre, during and post construction activities for fauna?

-Which wildlife rescue groups, wildlife shelters and vets have been contacted to look after or treat any injured wildlife?

-What arrangements have been made to financially compensate these groups?

-Do local wildlife shelters have the capacity to look after injured wildlife, as they could be attending to heat stress events or bushfire effected wildlife?

-What measures have been taken to install nest boxes or other artificial habitat for displaced wildlife?

-Do they have appropriate wildlife handling permits as well as permits to have protected wildlife euthanised if injured or unable to relocate wildlife in a safe distance from their habitat loss?

-What community groups have they contacted to work with as stated in their community information sheet?  [Ref: ] “We understand the importance of trees to the local community and are committed to working closely with council, residents and community groups to develop an appropriate plan for reinstatement of trees else where in the area” in the information document provided for this project https://www.melbournewater.com.au/files/2018-01/Communitybulletin-LeeStreet.pdf

-Where are other trees being planted, what species are to be planted and how many?

-Are offsets being provided?

-Is there an arborist report of the trees health?

-Can records of water depth be provided for the Lee St retarding basin to show threat of flooding to neighbouring properties over the years of its existence?

-Can modelling or records be provided of local flooding for once in a 40+ year storm event?

-What are the EPA regulations you are keeping to with to for this project?

-Can you provide a copy of the ANCOLD guidelines?

The Australian Wildlife Protection Council also has the understanding that you are in the process of selling off land on McClelland Dve to Ambulance Victoria for an ambulance station and another permit application has been made by Log Cabin Caravan Park. In fact we believe that all land owned by Melbourne Water from Skye Rd to Frankston/Cranbourne Rd is being considered surplus land by Melbourne Water. So it appears there are several sites across the Frankston city council municipality owned by Melbourne Water that poses a potential loss of biodiversity.

So the final question we have to you is what is Melbourne Water’s commitment to biodiversity in Frankston?

In a project funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, a philosophy research group at the University of Vienna investigated how "structuralism" became established in the field of mathematics and decisively influenced its current success.

Mathematics is a special science in the sense that it is not entirely clear what it is about. How real mathematical objects are and what significance this question has is something people have been pondering since ancient times. For the practice of mathematics, it is sufficient to define certain properties of mathematical objects, such as natural numbers, using some simple statements called axioms. But this does not explain what numbers actually are.

A widespread approach today goes by the name of "structuralism": according to structuralism, the axioms themselves define the mathematical objects – know the axioms, and you know enough. From this perspective, mathematics is not about numbers, but about abstract structures.

What sounds like an excessively subtle point has not only had a great influence on the development of mathematics itself but also on modern science during the 20th century, which is shaping our lives today. A group led by the philosopher Georg Schiemer from the Institute for Philosophy at the University of Vienna is now investigating how this view emerged. In a project funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, the researchers traced the origins of structuralism back to the first half of the 20th century and found connections leading to Rudolf Carnap and the Vienna Circle (Wiener Kreis), among others.

Axioms as definitions

“One focus area of the project was the history of mathematics in the 19th and early 20th century,” says the principal investigator Georg Schiemer. “We explored certain developments in 19th-century geometry that led to a structural turnaround.” Originally, axioms were intended to describe known objects – be they real or imaginary. “There was an evolution towards understanding axiomatic systems to be implicit definitions of abstract structures.” In this context, “implicit” means that the objects are explained exclusively by the axioms. “This was the step from a descriptive viewpoint to an understanding of axioms as definitions”, notes Schiemer. The German mathematicians David Hilbert and Richard Dedekind, as well as the group led by the Italian Guiseppe Peano, were involved in this development. Among other things, they explored how to determine the consistency or independence of axioms.

Birth of modern disciplines

Originally, axioms were designed to represent something accepted as known. If the representation was correct, the question about the consistency of axioms did not even arise. Hilbert and his colleagues wanted to know how to prove the consistency or independence of axioms in purely formal terms. Such proof made it possible to set up axioms first and wonder about what they actually described later.

“It was the birth of modern disciplines, which today belong to the field of logic or mathematical logic, especially model theory and theory of proof,” explains Schiemer. David Hilbert was also the mathematician who, a few decades later, formulated his famous “Programme” in which he called for mathematics to be put on a solid footing by proving that all axioms were free of contradictions. As we know, the venture failed, but it paved the way for mathematical logic, a discipline to which we owe not only a deeper understanding of mathematics, but also the concept of the computer. “Hilbert’s Programme builds directly on these earlier works,” emphasises Schiemer.

Structuralism in Philosophy

“The second area we explored in the project was how philosophers in the early 20th century reflected these 19th-century developments in mathematics,” notes Schiemer. “Structuralism is the dominant position in the contemporary philosophy of mathematics.” Schiemer refers in particular to Rudolf Carnap, an important representative of the Vienna Circle, who was looking for a philosophy based on exact methods. “In the 1920s and 1930s, Carnap gave a great deal of thought to these developments in mathematics.” The philosopher Ernst Cassirer was also actively involved in this field.
Carnap and Cassirer thus anticipated what today is considered to be a natural notion of mathematics. “The basic tenet of structuralism can already be found in philosophy in the early 20th century,” says Georg Schiemer.

A working group on structuralism

“What we have tried to do is to explain historically and analyse in philosophical terms how mathematics became what it is today,” relates Schiemer. His work on the FWF project helped the philosopher to land an ERC Starting Grant from the European Commission and to establish an interdisciplinary research group on this topic with which to continue this endeavour.

Personal details

Georg Schiemer is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Vienna and Research Fellow at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP). His areas of interest are the history of logic, analytical philosophy and philosophy of mathematics. He also was Erwin Schrödinger fellow funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF.

Publications

Schiemer, G., Reck, E. and Zach, R.: Carnap’s early metatheory: scope and limits, Synthese, 2017

Schiemer, G. and Gratzl, N.: Two types of indefinites: Hilbert & Russell, IfCoLog Journal of Logics and their Applications, 2017

Schiemer, G.: Carnap on logic and rationality, Synthese, 2017

Schiemer, G. and Andreas, H.: A choice semantical approach to theoretical truth, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 2016

[Candobetter.net Editor: This submission was made available as a pdf attachment to an earlier article. It is such a useful document that we have converted the pdf version to a web document for easier reading.]

Submission in response to the issues paper on Managing Australia’s Migrant Intake
Peter G Cook, MA PhD
2 February 2018

It is commendable that the Australian government, through the Department of Home Affairs, is seeking to broaden its consultation with the Australian public about the future shape of Australia’s migrant intake. This is consistent with Recommendation 3.1 of the recent Productivity Commission report [1] , Migrant Intake into Australia, that:

The Australian Government should:

• develop and articulate a population policy to be published with the intergenerational report
• specify that the primary objective of immigration and the Government’s population policy is to maximise the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of the Australian community (existing Australian citizens and permanent residents) and their future offspring.
Australia’s immigration and population policy should be better informed through:
• genuine community engagement
• a broad range of evidence on the economic, social and environmental impacts of immigration and population growth on the wellbeing of the Australian community
• a published five yearly review of Australia’s population policy.

The Australian Government should calibrate the size of the annual immigration intake to be consistent with its population policy objectives.

It is to be hoped that this current Departmental consultation is just the first step towards implementation of the remaining parts of the Productivity Commission’s Recommendation 3.1. In particular, towards the ongoing development of an explicit population policy which would draw upon a wide range of input and evidence from government, the community, other stakeholders and experts. As the Commission points out in Finding 3.1, Australia has low and stable rates of natural population growth, therefore “decisions about the size of the permanent and temporary immigration intake amount to a de facto population policy.”

If migrant intake planning is not integrated with a broader, systematic and explicit focus on population policy, then planning for migrant intake is not doing justice to the great importance which this matter holds for the national interest.

The following brief comments may be of interest in the Department’s consideration of the questions which it has raised in the issues paper. I have organized the comments under some of the relevant questions posed in the issues paper. I draw considerably upon the Productivity Commission’s report because this is a major work of synthesis which draws upon a large range of expert evidence and community input. While I do not necessarily agree with all of the Commission’s conclusions, it is vital that this report be closely studied within government and that its major findings and recommendations (eg Recommendation 3.1) be acted upon.

Underlying my comments throughout is the following policy prescription which represents my viewpoint, and which I commend to the Department:

Australia must stabilize its population at less than 30 million people. This can be done through a gradual tapering of our net overseas migration towards zero. This could be initiated by an immediate reduction, by some twenty thousand, of the annual migrant intake from its current level of 190,000. Further reductions could be implemented over time to a point where intake is approximately equal to annual emigration – previous estimates have suggested this could be approx. 70,000 places, which is also considered to be around the historical 20th century average annual intake.

1. What factors are important to consider in planning the Migration Program over the next five years? Would those factors change over the next 10 or 15 years? If so, how?

If by ‘factors’ it is meant something like ‘goals’ or ‘criteria’ for assessing what size the migrant intake should be, then the key factors are:

- The quality of life (well-being) of the Australian people, in particular a quality of life that is not continually being degraded as it is presently by increasing congestion and deteriorating infrastructure in our main cities, due to high levels of immigration-fuelled population growth.

- The price of housing is surely a key factor for both the quality of life and standard of living of Australians. In its Finding 7.1 the Productivity Commission reached the unambiguous conclusion that: “High rates of immigration put upward pressure on land and housing prices in Australia’s largest cities. Upward pressures are exacerbated by the persistent failure of successive state, territory and local governments to implement sound urban planning and zoning policies.”

- The continuing destruction of ecosystems (habitat for human and non-human creatures) and agricultural land in Australia’s urban fringes, caused by urban sprawl. This may not necessarily be caused directly by immigrants but it is caused by immigration-fuelled population growth. This destruction needs to be much more closely controlled, if not called to a complete halt.

- The alternative to continual expansion of housing outwards into peri-urban areas – namely inappropriate infill projects that destroy traditional urban and suburban neighbourhoods – is equally unacceptable. For a perfect example of such ugly and inappropriate inner city development, look no further than the inner suburbs of Brisbane such as Newstead, Fortitude Valley and West End, where 20 or 30 story (and higher) high rise apartments are being packed together like so many upended and oversized shipping containers. Urban infill must also be reduced and much more tightly controlled for aesthetic, amenity and sustainability reasons.

- The Productivity Commission report also noted that: “Population growth also increases the pressure on environmental services where these are major inputs into the provision of a range of water, sewerage and sanitation services. These too can be resolved by investing in more technical solutions, adding to the cost of living.”

For each of the above criteria, the indicators are going backwards: more congestion, more crowded amenities, higher housing prices in the biggest cities, unsightly and shabbily built high rises, higher costs for environmental services and, finally, destruction of biodiversity and vital agricultural land.

The Productivity Commission report clearly recognized the population pressures that Australia’s current high levels of immigration places upon our cities and our environment, and concluded that “Without substantial change in policy settings and the effectiveness of government action, high levels of population growth will impose adverse impacts on the quality of Australia’s environment.” (p. 333)

2. How can we plan migration to ensure it is balanced to manage the impact on the economy, society, infrastructure and the environment in a sustainable way?

At the risk of being repetitive, the only hope of ‘planning migration’ to manage the impacts mentioned, is to make the planning part of the development of a population policy which is well-integrated into the machinery of government at all levels in Australia. The purpose of a population policy is to enable the setting of objectives for Australia’s future, and in particular:

(a) What is the ‘absorptive capacity’ (to use the Productivity Commission’s phrase) of our natural environment and social infrastructure to accommodate further population growth?
(b) what should be the size of our population in order to keep at or (preferably) well below this absorptive capacity, and still enable a reasonable level of well-being for all of us human inhabitants along with all the other creatures with whom we share this planet?

It is probably obvious, but perhaps still should be stated, that population policy assumes that the size of a country’s population is, in fact, under the control of the inhabitants of that country, at least to some degree. This would seem to be a reasonable assumption, particularly in the case of Australia, where the level of population growth can be altered by a simple administrative decision made annually – namely what is going to be the prescribed migrant intake for the coming year. This decision need not cause the sort of angst about interfering in personal reproductive decisions that might be the case if the decision was about trying to influence the rate of natural population increase in Australia.

And yet, despite this seeming to be a no-brainer, governments have, in the main, shied away from developing population policy. In doing so they have committed Australia to a default policy of unending population increase, driven overwhelmingly by those special interests who can clamour the loudest to seek the spoils from, for example, the unending subdivisions of land and construction of new ‘development’ required to meet new population-driven demand.

By refusing to entertain discussion about possible constraints to unending population increase, there is an absurd scenario where Australia could continue growing at the same rate of increase until it reaches 100 million people, or 200 million people, and beyond. Although there are some players (eg wealthy property developer Harry Triguboff) who actually hope for this scenario of not merely a ‘big Australia’ but a ‘gigantic Australia’, is this scenario actually what the government, or indeed most of the Australian people, wants? If not, then wouldn’t it be wise to develop a population policy which explores what the Australian community does want?

This is where the Productivity Commission’s report makes a critical intervention in calling for an injection of democracy into the whole area of migration planning and population policy:

…decisions on the migrant intake should be part of a transparent population policy based on well-informed engagement with the Australian community so that the policy reflects the preferences of the broader community as well as businesses. (Migrant Intake into Australia, p. 244)

Not only do I totally concur with the Commission’s assessment on this point, but also with its scepticism that the current operation of our parliamentary democracy is serving us well when it comes to migration and population issues:

Consistent with a large body of political economy literature, the opinion of many participants … is that Australia’s system of parliamentary democracy has an in-built predisposition towards ‘hearing’ from certain stakeholders (who typically have a vested interest and are well organised). In contrast, members of parliament are less likely to ‘hear’ from affected constituents for whom the effect of a policy change is individually small, but is large when added up over many constituents. The debate surrounding tariff reductions is one historical example of this type of imbalance. Debates surrounding immigration and population policy may be subject to a similar imbalance. (p. 106)

The Commission goes further, to politely highlight the fact that the ‘incentives’ for the various stakeholders are not ‘aligned’. There is a key difference between the incentives of:

businesses who benefit from the increased supply of labour and, with this, demand for their goods and services, and [the incentives of] members of the community, as reflected in the large number of submissions raising concerns about house prices, congestion, and other environmental impacts. Even if all of the concerns raised are not proven, these views do need to be taken into account in setting the migrant intake. (p. 243)

Had it been published at the time, I wonder whether the Commission could also have made good use of the cogent arguments and evidence presented by Cameron Murray and Paul Frijters in their book Game of Mates (2017) [2] , which lifts the lid on the way the decisions of various levels of government are used to distribute the spoils of property development and other industries to those ‘in the know’. This is not necessarily by means of overt, legally definable corruption (although it can be) but more a revolving door system of mutual back-rubbing in which everyone in the know wins a prize.

So in summary to answer question 2: For all of the above reasons, particularly dominance by large special interests and the existence of decision making processes at all levels of government that are lubricated by the circulation of rewards to a limited number of insider ‘players’, the Commission’s recommendation 3.1 must be implemented in full. That is the only hope we have to ‘plan migration’ to ensure it is balanced to manage the impact on the economy, society, infrastructure and the environment in a sustainable way.

3. How can governments, industries and communities help ensure infrastructure and services best support migration as well as the broader population?
i. Do you think migration is currently being planned with a sufficient view of Australia’s long-term needs?
ii. If not, how could these considerations be better incorporated?

In short, the answer to (i) is a definite no. But to go back a little, the phrasing of the main part of question 3 is a little strange in the way it seems to put support for migration ahead of the general population, when you would think it should be the other way round.

Be that as it may, we can draw again on the Commission’s report to highlight that Australia’s infrastructure and services are patently not keeping up with increasing demand generated in large part from immigration-fuelled population growth.

The Commission issues a number of devastating judgements on this matter, including its Finding 7.1 (above) which refers to “the persistent failure of successive state, territory and local governments to implement sound urban planning and zoning policies.” The Commission also notes that, “[a]s past Commission reports have identified, state, territory and local governments have not always distinguished themselves in managing the environmental implications of population growth.” (p. 239)

This is a matter of obvious frustration for the Commission, which patiently (re)explains that:

..it is important that there are appropriate coordination and governance
arrangements in place to help deliver better planning outcomes. Although as has been noted previously) coordination is strong in some planning areas, it is weak in others (PC 2011f). The Commission enunciated principles of good governance — transparency, accountability and responsibility, and capability — as part of its inquiry into public infrastructure (PC 2014c). The recommendations made by that inquiry remain valid, and in view of the population pressures created by immigration even more important. High immigration rates only reinforces the need to get planning right, and attention to the ability of cities to absorb immigrants should be part of the consideration in determining the migrant intake. (p.241)

The Commission tends to have a predilection for market-based solutions for many of these planning issues – something of which the present author is not so readily persuaded – but it is interesting that the Commission also seems sympathetic to a proposal that:

clear and enforced outcome-based codes and standards that apply suburb wide and can be assessed by a builder, surveyor or consultant should replace the more lengthy and often discretionary local government processes or approval. For this to work, buildings that do not comply need to be forced to do so or be demolished at the expense of those who assessed the building as compliant. Codes would also need to cover all the issues that existing residents care about, such as maintenance of privacy, limiting overshadowing, and traffic management. (p. 230, emphasis added)

Such is the level of frustration that the Commission seems prepared to entertain some rather drastic measures.

To summarise, it is clear that there are multiple failures in Australia’s ability to cope with the immigration-fuelled population growth that is thrust upon this country annually by administrative fiat. The Commission has unambiguously called out this failure of governance and planning in its Migrant Intake report.

The question then is, what to do about it? One idea which comes to mind is to say, ‘well, if immigration-fuelled population growth is adding to the stresses and strains on Australia’s environment, services and infrastructure, and if this is being exacerbated due to failed planning and governance processes – then perhaps it would be a good idea to slow down the rate of population increase by reducing the annual migrant intake. Perhaps this could be done just for a few years to give us some breathing space while we embark on institutional and planning reform, including population policy development, which will greatly increase our adaptive capacity, improve the quality of life for the vast majority of us, and give the Australian community some sense of ownership over the direction in which the country is heading.’

Such a course of action could be undertaken irrespective of whether one thinks that, in the longer run, Australia could or should end up with a population of 50 million or even 100 or 200 million (and so this temporary reduction could be seen as ‘preparation for the deluge’) – or whether one sees this action as the beginning a more prolonged reduction in migrant intake to eventually reach a stabilised level of population.

It could also be done, dare it be said, with an eye to various political side-benefits which have to do with the apparently growing concern within the Australian community about the impact of immigration upon social cohesion.[3] Although this topic is not a focus of the current submission, there is no doubt a significant segment, if not a majority, of the Australian community with such concerns, including a great number on the conservative side of politics. Depending upon how they are framed (ie in non-racist terms), these concerns should not be automatically dismissed outright and without careful consideration – social cohesion is indeed an important societal goal.

And yet, for all the apparent merits of this simple idea to significantly reduce the migrant intake just for a few years, one has the feeling that this idea would not be able to ‘get up’, as they say. Why is that? It has a lot to do with the problems or our democracy highlighted in the previous section: The special interests are indeed very ‘special’, and the mates are indeed very good mates with the other players in the rewards game.

4. Does the current size and balance of the Migration Program reflect the economic and social needs of Australia?
i. What information do you need about migration? Would information about future migration planning levels numbers assist you?

Probably enough has been said already in order for the reader to accurately predict that my answer to question 4 is a categorical no – and some of the reasons for this should be clear from the above.

In terms of question 4 (i), there is very definitely some extra information that would assist me and the Australian community to have more informed discussion about Australia’s (nascent) population policy.

One of these, highlighted in the Commission’s report, is the need for ongoing systematic research into Australia’s ‘absorptive capacity’, which the Commission defines as:

the capacity of the market and non-market sectors to respond to the increased demand for goods and services induced by immigration and population growth. A sustainable rate of immigration (and population growth) is one that gives all residents the opportunity to engage productively in the economy and the community. It is also a rate that does not put undue burden on the environment to the extent that it undermines the wellbeing of existing and future generations. However, a rate of immigration that is defined as ‘sustainable’ may not necessarily be one that maximises community-wide wellbeing. (p. 3, emphasis added)

In one of Commission’s concluding chapters, on long-term impacts of migrant intake, it makes the following interesting observations:

A positive rate of immigration that is within Australia’s absorptive capacity and oriented towards young and skilled immigrants is likely to deliver net benefits to the Australian community over the long term.

However, there are various weaknesses inherent in current processes surrounding immigration policy decision making, particularly in terms of their ability to take into account broader and longer-term considerations (chapter 3 and finding3.1).

Taken together, these issues raise questions as to whether, without changes to increase Australia’s absorptive capacity, the annual intake (which is currently at historically high levels) is consistent with achieving a population that at least sustains (and over time maximises) the wellbeing of the Australian community. (p. 367, emphasis added)

In that context, I support the Commission’s very important Recommendation 10.1 of the Migrant Intake report:

The Australian Government should fund the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) to publish projections of the likely impact of varying rates of population growth on the built and natural environment. This analysis could form part of the CSIRO’s National Outlook publication.

The release of this analysis should be synchronised with the release of the Australian Government’s Intergenerational Report

It is only proper that this important task be undertaken by a respected and independent body such as the CSIRO. This is despite there being some questions raised about the plausibility of certain scenarios described in its recent National Outlook project.[4] However, such issues can be further reviewed during CSIRO’s continuing work on this matter.

There is also clearly a need for ongoing studies of public attitudes and values relating to population growth, immigration, and the desired future for Australia. It would be preferable if there were funding for ongoing (eg annual or two-yearly) tracking studies on these topics.

5. How could the permanent Migration Program be more responsive to global migration trends, including the rise of temporary migration?

First of all, let it be said that there will never be a shortage of people wanting to migrate to Australia. National pride aside, there can be no doubt we have a quality of life that is second to none. The challenge is that such quality of life is deteriorating due in part to immigration-fuelled population growth.

The interest in migrating to Australia can be only expected to increase during the remainder of this century. This will include more pressure for temporary migration.

Many experts point to a series of inter-related ecological and energy problems (including of course climate change) which are intensifying on a global basis and multiplied by global population increase to 9 or 10 billion (or more) before the end of this century. This is very likely to make the 21st century an era characterised by slow or no growth and looming threats to the adequacy of global food supply due to increasing population, climate change and peak oil. It will definitely be an epoch of large and increasing movement of populations responding to war, social and environmental disruption, and the search for a better quality of life.

This future scenario may be unpalatable and does not square easily with the orderly world assumed by economic modelling or the short-term growth fix sought by politicians. No one can know the future exactly, but the above scenario is a very plausible one supported by an abundance of expert analysis. [5]

If such a scenario eventuates it can be fully expected that there will be immense pressure on Australia to further ‘open its borders’ to some degree or other. By all means we should offer a generous refugee quota and an even more generous, well-targeted foreign aid budget which aims to improve quality of life at source and thus obviating the need for people to migrate to new lands for the sake of survival or improvement.

However, I submit that no matter how much such global population pressures grow, we need to adhere to a goal of a stable population at no more than 30 million. That is the way to guarantee a rich, biodiverse, thriving Australian continent and an ongoing high quality of life.

NOTES

[1] Productivity Commission, Migrant Intake Into Australia, Inquiry Report No. 77, (2016) Canberra, Australia.
[2] Cameron Murray and Paul Frijters, Game of Mates, 2017. Published by the authors. www.gameofmates.com
[3] Betts, Katharine, and Bob Birrell. "Australian voters’ views on immigration policy." Australian Institute of Population Research (October 2017). http://tapri.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/TAPRI-survey-19-Oct-2017-final-3.pdf
[4] Alexander, Samuel, Jonathan Rutherford, and Joshua Floyd. "A Critique of the Australian National Outlook Decoupling Strategy: A ‘Limits to Growth’ Perspective." Ecological Economics 145 (2018): 10-17.
[5] See, for example: Moriarty, Patrick, and Damon Honnery. "Three futures: Nightmare, diversion, vision." World Futures (2017): 1-17; McBain, Bonnie, Manfred Lenzen, Mathis Wackernagel, and Glenn Albrecht. "How long can global ecological overshoot last?." Global and Planetary Change 155 (2017): 13-19; Ripple, William J., Christopher Wolf, Thomas M. Newsome, Mauro Galetti, Mohammed Alamgir, Eileen Crist, Mahmoud I. Mahmoud, William F. Laurance, and 15,364 scientist signatories from 184 countries. "World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice." BioScience 67, no. 12 (2017): 1026-1028.

It is a peculiarity of Australian policy making that a decision with major import for our society, economy and environment — namely the size of our annual intake of permanent migrants — is made in virtual secrecy and announced in an obscure line of the annual budget papers and an equally obscure line of a Departmental press release. The decision is important because our prescribed annual migrant intake (last year it was set at 190,000) makes a large contribution to Australia’s annual population growth.

According the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in the year to 30 June 2017, our population grew by 388,100 to 24,598,900 people. We are adding people in numbers equivalent to a city the size of Canberra, every year. Net overseas migration (NOM) contributed 245,400 or 63.3% to this increase, while ‘natural’ increase was only 36.8% or 142,700 people. NOM is overwhelmingly the biggest contributor to our annual population increase, which at an annual growth rate of 1.6% is one of the highest in the OECD, in third place after Luxemborg and Switzerland. These facts are worth re-stating here because many people may not be aware just how much immigration is contributing to our very high rate of population growth (including a red-hot 2.3% in Victoria).

In turn, this population growth is putting pressure on housing prices, infrastructure, services and the environment.

However, a small change has occurred this year. For what is probably the first time, the Department of Home Affairs (formerly Immigration) has sought public submissions on the question of what are the ‘right’ settings for migrant intake. I have contributed a submission here (PDF). It is possible that this new step has been taken as a result of the recommendations of the Productivity Commissions report on Migrant Intake into Australia. This report, to which yours truly contributed two submissions, is a major work of synthesis which draws on a wide range of community and expert evidence.

It is important that the findings of this report be fully studied and the major recommendations implemented. One of the most important is Recommendation 3.1, for the Australian government to develop an explicit population policy to serve as a context for making decisions about migrant intake. A significant part of the Commission’s findings and recommendations are for more public consultation and input into the development of the proposed population policy, and into decisions about migrant intake in particular. In short, the Commission is calling for an injection of democracy into this whole policy area.

In the past I have been critical of the Productivity Commission for its narrow economic focus and lack of attention to broader sustainability issues. However in this case it is important to give credit where it is due. The Commission has made some important findings relating to the impact of immigration-fuelled population growth upon the environment, society and economy — albeit still discussed within an orthodox and unadventurous framework of economic analysis.

My submission [or submission second location] to the latest invitation by the Department of Home Affairs, goes into some detail to highlight the important findings and recommendations of the Commission report.

This article was first published at http://www.peakdecisions.org/2018/02/managing-australias-migrant-intake-submission-dept-home-affairs/, Peter Cook's blog, "Peak Decisions."
See the full submission as a web page here: "Peter Cook's very useful submission on immigration to Dept Home Affairs".

When listing high-immigration bias at ABC and SBS, we tend to forget the many ABC shows now aimed at the younger demographic (where the ABC had been losing audience dramatically). The ABC have hired a lot of youngish talented comedians out of the vast pool of stand-up comedy talent among young Australians. It’s mostly smart-arse stuff without much pretence to news value, but there are some shows like The Chaser and Planet America that hybridise comedic style with serious debate on current affairs. These are in effect part of the ABC News stable, and their biases matter more.

The problem is that the ABC seems to have selected its comedians for having the right political and social views. One reason these comic shows seem a bit dull, especially to anyone over 30, is that there seems to be almost no difference of opinion or political stance among these comedians. Think how much more interesting it would be if the comedians on these panels actually had different points of view, instead of merely having different comedic styles!

When listing high-immigration bias at ABC and SBS, we tend to forget the many ABC shows now aimed at the younger demographic (where the ABC had been losing audience dramatically). The ABC have hired a lot of youngish talented comedians out of the vast pool of stand-up comedy talent among young Australians. It’s mostly smart-arse stuff without much pretence to news value, but there are some shows like The Chaser and Planet America that hybridise comedic style with serious debate on current affairs. These are in effect part of the ABC News stable, and their biases matter more.

The problem is that the ABC seems to have selected its comedians for having the right political and social views. One reason these comic shows seem a bit dull, especially to anyone over 30, is that there seems to be almost no difference of opinion or political stance among these comedians. Think how much more interesting it would be if the comedians on these panels actually had different points of view, instead of merely having different comedic styles!

Yesterday (Friday 2 February 2018) on Planet America the presenter, Chas Licciardello, produced an absolute rant in favour of high immigration, primarily in the USA, but by implication in Australia too. He had clearly got hold of a stack of dubious statistics from high-immigration sources, including our old favourite myth, the “ageing population” scare.

It is far from the first time this program has done tendentious stuff like this, but this time I have taken the trouble to transcribe it.

I’ll leave it to the experts to pick apart Chas’s errors, but they clearly include some well-known tricks of our own Australian high-immigration spruikers. e.g.

1. Selective assumptions: Chas assumes that we (i.e. the US and by implication Australia too) are heading for a terrible lack of workers, though there are many indications (such as stagnant wages) that both countries have the reverse problem.
2. Selective alarmism. The rather high US birthrate of nearly 2 children per woman, which in fact ensures a surplus of births over deaths, at least until the population is considerably older, is represented as a disaster. Why? Similarly, the staggering rise of the USA’s working population from 45 million in 1950 to around 150 million in 2015 rings no alarm bells, yet a possible decline of just 7 million by 2035 is represented as a disaster. In fact this may be too small a drop, if automation and robots mean that only a much smaller workforce can be kept in work.
3. Misunderstanding of the “dependency rate”. Traditionally this term means the ratio between the number of people of “working age” (traditionally 15-65 years, but today that might have to be raised to at least 20-70 years) to those either too old or too young to work. The trick is to get the naive hearer to imagine that only old people are “dependants”, and that everyone over 65 is on the pension. In fact the dependency rate was often worse in the past, when people had large families and the population was more full of “unproductive” children than it is now.
4. Forgetting that to have a high percentage of the population within “working age” is only good if there is work for them. If not, the extra “workers” just add to the number of persons on social security. And a working age breadwinner without work often means a whole family on social security, whereas a retired person has very likely already paid for their retirement, and may be financially supporting younger dependants.
5. Caricature and moral grandstanding: e.g. assuming that people who dislike high immigration must “hate” immigrants.
6. Ill-defined and contentious statistics: How rigorously was “innovator” defined, for instance? Do we really know how many US patent applicants are by immigrants?
7. Forgetting that the brain-drain of doctors and surgeons and of top graduates into rich countries, which certainly occurs, has cruel effects on poor countries. “All our doctors are in America.”
8. GDP worship, and belief that growth can go on forever. E.g. Chas: “ . . . to slow annual GDP growth by 1.2% this decade! That is a lot.”

No doubt demographers and economists will find further and probably larger holes in Chas’s rant. What a great target its complacent self-righteousness would make for an astute ABC comedian—if only the ABC employed comedians with diverse views!

Below is my transcription of it:

Planet America program, “Episode 1” 2018
ABC TV channel 24. Screened on 2 and 3 February 2018
c. 38 minutes into program as stored online at http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/planet-america/NC1814H001S00

Chas Licciardello’s “Deep Dive into US Immigration”

NOTE ON TRANSCRIPTION by Mark O’Connor:
This is a monologue, with pre-prepared slides, spoken by presenter Chas Licciardello in his trademark emphatic manner with dramatic gestures. Latter part is sub-titled by the program itself, with emphasised words in capitals. Earlier, my under-linings indicate heavy emphasis.

Chas Licciardello: “We spoke earlier about Trump’s immigration framework, which tries to tilt the balance of legal immigration more towards those with particular skills rather than family connections or pure diversity. But the truth is the immigration pool is skilling up anyway. Let’s go deep!

Logo appears: THE DEEP DIVE (sound effects))

Chas Licciardello: “Immigrants are becoming more educated. 38% of native born Americans over the age of 25 have a college degree. But immigrants over the age of 25 who arrived in the last 5 years, 48% of them have a college degree. What about African immigrants? 41% of them have a college degree, even though they most of them arrived on diversity visas. Finally, what about Asian Immigrants? A whopping 75% of 25-34 year old Asian immigrants have college degrees.

Logo appears: Source: Census Bureau, Migration Policy Institute, Pew Research.
Logo: 25-34 y Asian Immigrants 75%

Chas (continuing emphatically): Immigrants are innovators. 35% of US innovators are immigrants, with European or Asian immigrants

Logo: Europeans/Asians = 5x native-born innovators

Chas (continuing): . . . being 5 times more likely to have created innovations than a native-born American. Between 2000 and 2010, immigrants filed about 200 thousand American patents

Logo: 194,600 patents (2000-10)

Chas: Immigrants were twice as likely to be entrepreneurs as native-born Americans.

Logo: 28% of entrepreneurs (= 2x native-borns)
Logo: Source: Information Technology and Information, 2015 Kauffman Index, National Foundation for American Policy.

And immigrants founded over half of America’s 87 $billion start-up companies.

Logo: Skilled Immigrants: founded 44 of 87 $billion start-ups

Chas: In fact 50% of Silicon Valley workers aged 25-44 are immigrants.

Logo: 50% of Silicon Valley workers (25-44)

Chas: And so are 28% of America’s doctors and surgeons. So they are bringing the skills already!
But I don’t want to debate who immigrants should be or where they should come from, because those are questions of opinion. I’d like to focus more on the numbers of immigrants, because that (dramatic hand gesture) is a question of economics. You see, America is AGING! (dramatic fast-paced music)

Logo: Graph labelled Projected US population over 65: (Source: UN World Population Prospects 2008). Graph shows the percentage over 65 rising from about 7% in 1950 to about 12% in 2010, kinking up to about 21%by 2040, and then largely flattening off at around 22%.
Chas (dramatically): This is the percentage of the population that is over 65 today. [Graph shows about 14%]. And this is the percentage of the population that will be over 65 in 15 years time. [Graph shows about 20%.] And the aging of the workforce [sic] [dramatic gesture] is projected by Rand Corp . . .

Logo: The effect of population aging on Economic Growth, the Labour Force, and Productivity
NBER July 2016 “Our results imply annual GDP growth will slow by 1.2 percentage points this decade.”

Chas (continuing): to slow annual GDP growth by 1.2% this decade! That is a lot. Of course as the population ages, there’s going to be less workers, unless you have immigration. For instance, current rates of immigration . . .

Logo: US Working-Age Population (Pew Research Center)
Graph showing US working-age population moving steadily up from around 45 million in 1950 to c. 150 million in 2015.

Chas: ... the working-age population will grow 10 million by 2035, but without immigration it will shrink by 7 million. And by the way, the places that would die[sic] the fastest without immigration, are rural cities [dramatic finger-point at viewers]—Trump country! [double-eyelid wink]

But why does it matter if the working population shrinks? Well, according to the Labor Secretary in 1917 . . .

Logo: Medicare’s hospital trust fund will run out of money in 2029
The Washington Post, 13 July 2017 “Labor Secretary Alexander Accosta pointed out that in 1960 there were 5 workers for every Social Security recipient. By 2035 there will be only two workers for every beneficiary.”

Chas [reads this text, varying the ending to]: for every social security recipient, but by 2035 there will be only TWO workers for every beneficiary, so that each worker has to carry a bigger load. And Medicare is gonna be even more expensive, which is how you end up with headlines like this, about Medicare running out of money.

Logo: Dramatic red flashing arrow point to the Post headline: Medicare’s hospital trust fund will run out of money in 2029

Chas: Well what about America just having more kids, then? [dramatic eye-widening] Too late! America’s fertility rates haven’t been high for decades! And they are just getting worse[sic].

Logo: American Fertility Rate: Source National Center for Health Statistics: Graph showing births per woman falling from nearly 4 to around 2.

Chas: So, bottom-line: whether restrictionists like immigrants or not, America needs to take a heap of them.

Logo: [A visual clip showing an abusive British celebrity chef.]

Chas: Well, probably not THAT one.
[Program Wrap-up]

"Bush heritage makes some rather big assertions about the impact of kangaroos at their Scottdale reserve and the impacts this wildlife species is having on the biodiversity there. If Bush Heritage is serious about their claims then they need to be a little more transparent," writes Craig Thomson, President of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council.

"Bush Heritage Australia has forfeited the inheritance of a 350-acre property near Bega and lost numerous donors as they face backlash from a planned kangaroo cull at Scottsdale​ Reserve, south of Canberra. Regular supporters of the non-profit organisation have pulled donations following reports of a cull, with one referring to the organisation as "hopeless frauds". Bush Heritage aims to "conserve biodiversity" at properties either purchased or donated across Australia." http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/bush-heritage-australia-faces-backlash-after-kangaroo-culling-claims-20160708-gq1fpa.html

They can start by answering and providing information to the following questions

- When do they class a wildlife species as being over abundant?
- What is a sustainable kangaroo population at Scottdale Reserve?
- What is the roos' population current range in and around their reserve?
- Are there any neighbouring or local land uses or management practices that would see kangaroos returning to Scottdale reserve more often and in greater number?
- How many kangaroos are on the reserve day in and out?
- Has there been any scientific data of kangaroo starvation cases at Scottdale reserve or regionally before?
- While it is hard to watch an animal starve to death, it is a common condition of the natural world, in particular with drought and over abundant populations. So why do Bush Heritage feel the need to interject in a natural process, which in itself could have far bigger ecological problems?
- What is the science and guidelines being implemented by Bush heritage?
- Who are the independent experts being engaged by Bush Heritage?
- What humane methods are being developed?
- What scientific evidence can Bush Heritage provide that kangaroos are having a detrimental effect on other species?
- Has all weed habitat changing plants like serrated tussock grass been removed from Scottdale reserve and regionally?
- Do Bush heritage conduct any fuel reduction burns at Scottdale reserve?
- Is Scottdale reserve free of pest animals such as rabbits?

We hear explanations of why there are too many and debate what control measures should be taken. What is very rarely discussed is what is a sustainable population size, the roos ecological benefits and social structure. In a race to demonise our national icon for commercial vested interest or in this case a so called natural balance. The critical point missed is the roo social structure. Large alpha males control breeding within the mobs. When shooting takes place which animals are shot first? Well you can very confidently say it would be the roos who control the social structures within the mobs.

So the question about controlling kangaroos should be whether or not a bias against kangaroos prevents us from understanding their biology, ecology and social structures? Has this led to poor management practices, where the preferential killing of large males has possibly caused early breeding of youngsters, increasing numbers in some cases? (See Sheila Newman, "Roo scientists admit industry stimulates roo population growth whilst calling roos pests".)

Also published at https://awpc.org.au/awpc-bush-heritage-big-assertions-on-kangaroos-need-evidence-before-any-action/

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has unleashed on the revised Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement (dubbed “TPP11”), which will reportedly allow employers unfettered access to ‘skilled’ migrant workers from member nations. From The Guardian:

The revived Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal will allow at least six countries to access temporary skills shortage work visas without first testing the Australian market, unions have said.

According to the unions’ peak body, the Australian government has confirmed in consultations that employers will be able to hire workers from Canada, Mexico, Chile, Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam in 435 occupations without first advertising jobs to Australians.

The consultation from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade appears to confirm for the first time that the text of the new TPP11, negotiated after Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement, will lower Australian barriers to skilled migrants…

The ACTU president, Ged Kearney, said the deal would mean that migrant workers could be brought in as nurses, engineers, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, bricklayers, tilers, mechanics and chefs.

“Clearly the only allegiance the Turnbull government values is to employers,” she said, accusing it of putting big business ahead of “the rights of workers and the national interest of Australia”.

“There has been no analysis of how this will affect local employment, nor have there been any safeguards proposed to protect these vulnerable workers.

“This agreement would be a disaster for Australia and we call on the Turnbull government to immediately cease negotiations until they have proved that the deal will not come at the cost of massively increased exploitation and unemployment”…

This is pathetic by the Turnbull Government. The recent Senate Report, entitled A National Disgrace: The Exploitation of Temporary Work Visa Holders, explicitly recommended stringent labour market testing of all temporary ‘skilled’ workers to ensure that employers employ locals first wherever possible:

Recommendation 7: The committee recommends that the replacement of local workers by 457 visa workers be specifically prohibited.

Recommendation 8: The committee recommends that the current exemptions on labour market testing for ANZSCO skill levels 1 and 2 be removed.

Recommendation 9: The committee recommends that the Migration Regulations be amended to specify that labour market testing applies to all positions nominated by approved sponsors under labour agreements and Designated Area Migration Agreements.

Immigration should never be included in trade agreements. Immigration is covered in Australia’s ‘Migration Programme’, and there is little sense in negotiating away control of our sovereign borders other nations – and in the process diluting Australian wages and working conditions – for slightly improved market access.

Trade agreements should be for trade and nothing else.

[email protected] Article first published at https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/12/tpp-2-0-open-immigration-floodgates/

"We cannot hide the fact that the European left has a clear agenda. They are supportive to migration. They actually import future leftist voters to Europe hiding behind humanism. It is an old trick but I do not understand why we have to accept it. They consider registration and protection of borders bureaucratic, nationalist and against human rights. They have a dream about the politically constructed world society without religious traditions, without borders, without nations. They attack core values of our European identity: family, nation, subsidiarity and responsibility. [...] We have a heartfelt compassion for the people who left their homes. They are victims of the bad governance of their own countries. They are victims of bad international political decisions. And they are victims of our bad European policy as well which raises expectations that are impossible to be fulfilled. They are obviously victims of the human traffickers. But considering them victims must not turn ourselves into being victims. Just because we do not consider them enemies we must not act against ourselves. Our moral responsibility is to give back these people their homes and their countries. It can’t be our objective to provide them with a new European life. Right to human dignity and security are basic rights. But neither the German, Austrian nor the Hungarian way of life is a basic right of all people on the Earth. " (Speech of Viktor Orbán at the EPP Congress in Madrid, on the 22nd of October in 2015 - more than ever, relevant today.)

You can find more recent speeches and transcripts here:

Video Transcript below:

Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen, President, dear Delegates,

I would like to congratulate to Partido Popular and to the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy for the outstanding performance of their government. Today I would like to speak about the migration crisis. This issue will determine the future of our political family. We are in a deep trouble. The migration crisis is able to destabilize governments, countries and the whole European continent. We need a strong and clear-cut answer, timetable and action plan of EPP. The Hungarian delegates welcome the resolution of the congress, declaring that the Spanish approach is the right one.

Dear Friends,

The danger we have been facing demands open and honest speech. First of all, dear Friends, what we have been facing is not a refugee crisis. This is a migratory movement composed of economic migrants, refugees and also foreign fighters. This is an uncontrolled and unregulated process. I would like to remind you that free choice of a host country is not included in the international law. I also want to underline that there is an unlimited source of supply of people, after Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Africa is now also on the move. The dimension and the volume of the danger is well above our expectations.

Dear Colleagues,

This is the right time to make clear the nature and the dimension of our moral responsibility. We are Christian democrats so the issue of moral responsibility must also be put high into consideration. We have a heartfelt compassion for the people who left their homes. They are victims of the bad governance of their own countries. They are victims of bad international political decisions. And they are victims of our bad European policy as well which raises expectations that are impossible to be fulfilled. They are obviously victims of the human traffickers. But considering them victims must not turn ourselves into being victims. Just because we do not consider them enemies we must not act against ourselves. Our moral responsibility is to give back these people their homes and their countries. It can’t be our objective to provide them with a new European life. Right to human dignity and security are basic rights. But neither the German, Austrian nor the Hungarian way of life is a basic right of all people on the Earth. It is only a right of those ones who have contributed to it. Europe is not able to accept everyone who wants a better life. We have to help them to get back their own lives with dignity and we have to send them back to their own countries.

Dear Colleagues,

Let me draw your kind attention to the fact that European Christian democratic approach doesn’t tolerate any anti-Muslim policy. Muslim faith which we honor and respect is not responsible for the root causes of this mass migratory movement.

Dear Delegates,

We cannot avoid speaking about the quality of our democracies. Does it comply with the freedom of information and speech that medias usually show women and children while seventy percent of the migrants are young men and they look like an army? How could it happen that our people’s feel that their opinion is not being put into consideration? And we have to address the question whether our people want what has been happening. Did we get authorization from them to allow millions of migrants to enter our continent? Did we get authorization not to comply with the Schengen regulations for months? No, distinguished Delegates, we did not. And it is not a convincing argument any more that what we have been doing is because of emergency. I believe we have to gather all our courage, we have to throw away PC-ness and we should launch a big debate. We have to discuss our own intentions regarding our own continent without hypocrisy and pharisaism. What do we think about our civilization heritage? Can the change of cultural pattern forced externally? Do we accept parallel societies? Or we defend our tolerant and rule of law based way of life we have lived so far?

Dear Delegates,

Europe is currently rich and weak. This is the most possibly dangerous mixture. We seem not to be able to overcome our challenges on our own. Turkey is an important strategic partner. But if based on the lack of our own power we expect the solution from them that will make us exposed. This is the current situation of Europe. If we do not want that we have to protect our borders. If we are unable to do so at Greece which is the Eastern gate of the Balkans and the first line of defence than we have to do it at the Western gate of the Balkans at Hungary and Slovenia.

Dear Friends,

We cannot hide the fact that the European left has a clear agenda. They are supportive to migration. They actually import future leftist voters to Europe hiding behind humanism. It is an old trick but I do not understand why we have to accept it. They consider registration and protection of borders bureaucratic, nationalist and against human rights. They have a dream about the politically constructed world society without religious traditions, without borders, without nations. They attack core values of our European identity: family, nation, subsidiarity and responsibility.

Dear Friends,

We are EPP. Our behavior should not be determined by the opinion of our rivals. We are a strong and great party. The stronger the attack, the stronger we need to fight back. We need to be ready to fight for our principles. We have to be innovative as well. In the rise of the new crises, the old ways do not work anymore. We need courage and new experiments, even if not every idea we try succeeds, but it should not stop us from trying. And we should not attack those who are trying. I thank for our President and for sister parties who defended us, Hungarians in the difficult times when we offered new solutions.

Dear Friends,

We are the European People’s Party – Partie Populaire, Volkspartei, Partido Popular, Party of the People – our responsibility is towards the people. Listen to the people. Let’s be determined, let’s defend Europe. Do not let the leftist mess up and reconstruct Europe! And do not let them oust the soul of Europe! Do not let liberals and socialists take away Europe from the people!

Thank you very much for your attention.

U.S. imperialism’s deteriorating position in the Middle East was confirmed on Jan. 17, by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s bold assertion for U.S. plans in Syria. The arrogant statement was followed, within hours, by almost immediate backpedaling.

Tillerson’s talk at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University confirmed that the only hope of maintaining U.S. domination is another desperate attempt to close all borders and dismember the entire region. But the latest plan has also created a rupture in NATO, the oldest and largest U.S.-commanded military alliance. [Article first published on Global Research at https://www.globalresearch.ca/war-in-syria-the-us-a-wounded-predator-spreads-chaos-in-middle-east/5627212]

Meanwhile, Turkish planes bombed 100 positions in Syria of U.S.-backed Kurdish YPG forces (the Kurdish acronym for People’s Protection Units) on Jan. 21.

As the war in Syria stretches into the seventh year, Tillerson grandly announced the U.S. military will remain in Syria indefinitely. The newest U.S. plan is to create and train a military border force of 30,000 soldiers. The Secretary of State also arrogantly restated the U.S. demand that has met with failure for seven years: the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the overthrow of the Syrian Arab Republic government.

This was not the first mention of new U.S. plans there. General Joseph Votel, commander of U.S. Central Command, said on Dec. 24 that a training program was being established for Kurdish and Arab fighters to become a permanent U.S. occupying force in Syria. Votel declared, “What we don’t want to do is leave a mess.” (us.pressfrom.com, Dec. 24)

In fact, U.S. long-term plans are to permanently divide Syria and Iraq and expand their imperialist “mess” into Iran.

Since Jan. 14, news reports around the world reported U.S. plans to create a new “border force” in Syria on the borders of Turkey and Iraq. This U.S. plan would separate the oil-rich northern region from the rest of Syria, create a mini-state and close the borders.

Washington said it would help Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of militias in northern and eastern Syria led by Kurdish YPG militias, to set up a new 30,000-strong border force.

A flurry of other U.S. statements drew out this plan more explicitly.

The coalition’s Public Affairs Office said: “The base of the new force is essentially a realignment of approximately 15,000 members of the SDF to a new mission in the Border Security Force as their actions against ISIS [the Islamic State group, IS] draw to a close.” (Reuters, Jan. 14)

Before the announcement of a new U.S. plan to occupy and divide the region, numerous commentators described an unprecedented development with the defeat of IS – open borders among Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. The whole region has been divided since the 1991 U.S. war to recolonize and divide Iraq.

Turkey immediately slammed this new plan of a permanent U.S. occupation through an alliance with YPG Kurdish forces in Syria. Turkey warned of military action against the U.S.-armed and -protected YPG forces.

In the face of Turkey’s fierce opposition, Tillerson claimed, “That entire situation has been misportrayed, misdescribed, some people misspoke. We are not creating a border security force at all.” (aljazeera, Jan. 18)

The Kurdish Nation

Turkey’s great fear is that a “border force” of U.S.-armed Kurdish militias will siphon off advanced U.S.-supplied weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles, to Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) forces in Turkey.

Although there are 1.5 to 2 million Kurds in Syria, there are almost 20 million nationally oppressed Kurds in Turkey. Making up 20 percent of population, they are the majority population in southern Turkey, bordering northern Syria, Iraq and Iran.

For decades the Pentagon has armed Turkey and aided in the brutal repression of the Kurds, who resisted under the leadership of the PKK.

But imperialism sees an opportunity to use the smaller Kurdish population in Syria, where they are 5 percent to 8 percent of the Syrian population, as a way to divide Syria. The Kurds in Syria are under the leadership of the Democratic Union Party (PYD); their armed units are the YPG. These are the main units of the U.S.-armed Syrian Democratic Forces.

U.S. imperialism used a similar scenario to impose a division on Iraq. This is imperialism’s divide-and-rule strategy for the entire region. Using the Kurds’ national aspirations for a temporary U.S. military or political advantage, and then cynically dropping them, dates back to Henry Kissinger.

The Kurds are a historically oppressed nation with a distinct language and culture, numbering over 30 million people. They are the largest nation without a state. They live in the underdeveloped, mountainous region spanning four countries: southern Turkey and northern Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Some 72 Turkish jets bombed U.S.-backed Kurdish militias in Syria on Jan. 21. The Turkish news agency Anadolu reported that jets bombed more than 100 targets, including an air base, in the first day of air operations against YPG militias. The operation targeted YPG barracks, shelters, positions, weapons, vehicles and equipment.

Each U.S. maneuver has created greater destruction, but the U.S. has been unable to consolidate its position in the region or gain stable allies.

U.S. divide-and-destroy tactics

Since 2011 the U.S. has covertly armed a whole series of conflicting militias and mercenaries.

With a wink and a nod from U.S. forces in the region, which were arming numerous extremist militias, Saudi Arabia and Turkey armed the fanatical IS army. This became an excuse for open U.S. bombing of Syrian infrastructure.

The U.S. military command pulled 19 other NATO and Gulf countries into the war in Syria. This military onslaught was totally uninvited by the Syrian government.

The Syrian government appealed to Iran, Russia and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon to aid them in defeating IS and the Pentagon-funded militias and mercenaries. This forced Washington to change tactics, but not its objective -- the recolonization of the region.

U.S.-imposed sanctions against Iraq and then Syria were an effort to destroy all forms of normal economic exchange and to shut down all commercial and social life. The U.S. occupation of Iraq divided the country into walled-off mini-states with checkpoints and inspections. All borders were closed. U.S. intervention in Syria was designed to do the same thing.

U.S. wars in the region have displaced more than 10 million people and decimated the region. They have created animosity and suspicion on every side, divided the corrupt and a brutal feudal Gulf state regime aligned with imperialism, and are now dividing the oldest U.S. military alliance -- NATO.

But after seven years of war and 15 years of sanctions, U.S. imperialism has still not succeeded in destroying the sovereign government of the Syrian Arab Republic.

About Sara Flounders: Sara Flounders is an American political writer who has been active in anti-war organizing since the 1960s. Flounders sits on the board of directors for the International Anti-imperialist Coordinating Committee, is founder and an organizer with United National Antiwar Coalition, and is Secretary of the National Board of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms.

Alan Hood is a Flood Researcher. Melbourne Water owns this Retarding Basin and their maintenance contractor, John Holland - KBR Joint Venture intend removing trees and various works in "late January" - any day now. This could be an attempt to cater for increased suburban stormwater runoff without increasing the capacity of the chain of retarding basins. Although prepared for dams which would normally be at least 10 to 15 m high, ANCOLD guidelines can also be used to assist with decisions on smaller dams, particularly where such dams create potential loss of life or significant damage. The attached Planning map shows Special Building Overlays (SBO) for Frankston; the identify areas likely to be flooded. If the Lee St Retarding Basin batters are at least 10 to 15 metres high, there might be some justification for removing the trees, but see more inside this article. [Introduction written by candobetter.net editor.]

Melbourne Water owns this Retarding Basin, and their maintenance contractor John Holland – KBR Joint Venture intend removing trees and various works in “late January” – any day now.

The trees around this Retarding Basin are a critical Koala corridor, and other native species live in and use them.

So, there is a conflict but the advice from John Holland and Melbourne Water appears to be too little, too late; the last community information session took place on January 22.

John Holland are using ANCOLD guidelines for removing these trees www.ancold.org.au

See full-size map here.

The Australian National Committee on Large Dams says: “ANCOLD guidelines are applicable for water or tailings dams with potential to cause loss of life or significant environmental or physical damage through operation or failure.

Although prepared for dams which would normally be at least 10 to 15 m high, ANCOLD guidelines can also be used to assist with decisions on smaller dams, particularly where a dam or series of dams creates potential loss of life or significant damage.

A Retarding Basin is not a permanent dam; it is one of the riskier methods of flood control, which seems to have become popular in Melbourne. In theory, when there is a heavy rainfall event, water rushes into the uphill end of the dam, and a small outlet at the lower end allows a much smaller amount of water to flow out. During this process the water level in the basin rises, and the hope is that the stormwater flow will stop before the basin overflows and send water cascading down the valley at full strength anyway.

If the Lee St Retarding Basin batters are at least 10 to 15 metres high, there might be some justification for removing the trees, however:

• Certain types of tree roots can bind certain types of soil
• If a retarding basin further up the chain overflows, the whole chain goes down like a pack of cards
• action looks like an attempt to cater for increased suburban stormwater runoff without increasing the capacity of the chain of retarding basins.
• It also looks like an opportunity for a grass only site to reduce the cost of maintenance
• An alternative corridor for the Koalas needs to be found, perhaps by delaying the removal of Koala-critical trees.

Unless John Holland – KBR Joint Venture has carried out engineering calculations for each of the retarding basins in the chain, and found deficiencies, and has addressed the points outlined above, they haven’t really addressed the safety issue or the wildlife issue.

Simply quoting the ANCOLD guidelines, which are for bigger, permanent, dams is not an excuse to avoid engineering calculations.

Attachment S4235

This Planning map shows Special Building Overlays (SBO) for Frankston; the identify areas likely to be flooded.

The history of Australia as a nation has been brutal to the humans who lived here first, to the animals and birds, and brutal to the landscape. Australia needs a day to stop and reflect on what has been done, where we are now and where we are going. We cannot fix the problem by continuing to do the same thing that caused it. Current discussion about Australia Day focuses on the way colonisation affected and continues to affect the aboriginal population. In addition to the injustices and atrocities, Australian Aborigines have been, and continue to be, overwhelmed by sheer numbers from elsewhere. The non-Aboriginal population born here is now being overwhelmed in the same way. The fast growing population as a whole has ongoing devastating environmental impacts on this land. It has social impacts too, as it enriches a very few members of the growth lobby, while the rest pay for population growth.

In the run-up to Jan 26th, the anniversary of the arrival of the "First Fleet" into Port Jackson from Botany Bay under the command of Commodore Arthur Phillip (who had brought them from Portsmouth some 8 months earlier ) there has been much discussion regarding the appropriateness of this date as Australia's national day of celebration. It is not the day that Australia became a nation, it's not the day that the British first landed on the continent. It was the day the British flag was raised at Sydney Cove, a day that marks the beginning of massive colonisation from Britain to the Pacific Island of Australia.

The colonisation begun then is a fait accompli. It is irreversible. The hapless convicts who were brought to Australia have made themselves part of the place.Their descendants cannot go back and live in Britain as their forbears are too far removed to give them any rights of abode.

The sequelae of the Port Jackson landing amounts to an ongoing, unceasing chain of migration from not only Britain but other parts of the world, unceremoniously taking over the land of the previous human custodians

Importations of exotic animals on the scale of multi giant cruise ships have also followed - horses, deer, foxes, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs camels, dogs , cats all loaded onto the finely balanced and well adapted fauna of the continent. They now live here in their millions.These animals are by no means ideally suited to Australian soils and climate . Foxes were released so that the English gentry could resume one of their bloody pleasures,- fox hunting. Goats and deer have escaped into the wild making tracks throughout the fragile landscape with their hard hooves. Camels and horses were brought in as workers and as transport as there was no equivalent native animal. -indigenous (or exotic ) birds were brought in despite a resident cornucopia of marvellous native and migratory birds.

The vegetation of the continent took and still takes a tremendous beating. The state of Victoria has lost most of its forest cover. Grasslands are being swamped with housing to the west of Melbourne. Exotic plants have been introduced and have taken over as weeds. The biosphere of the continent of Australia- the most diverse on Earth at the time of European arrival is only a shadow of its former glory. Now we are watching the remainder of it disappear.

The humans who inhabited the continent of Australia for the previous 60,000 years in varying degrees of density from coast to coast and across the desert had learned to exist within the constraints of the land. On arrival, the first explorers and settlers found people leading their lives in what appeared to harmony with nature. The land was abundant with wildlife. The people were self sufficient. They were not waiting with baited breath for some sort of salvation through invasion. Following "our" arrival their lives would never be the same again. They were rounded up and killed or displaced at the convenience of the invaders. Until 1967 they were considered under the constitution as part of the Australian fauna. They now have status, land rights and even their own TV stations but I can see their relatively newly found voices being drowned out by the noise of the competing multicultural groups within Australia. It seems that these groups are not so much interested in hearing one another but in being heard. What space in their agendas will the be afforded the First People of Australia?

The groups of audience comprised families and groups of friends, the usual multi -cultural mix of English-speaking Australians and other ethnic groups. The Chinese-speaking group in front of us paid little attention to the singer's music and even less to his introductory narratives. What relevance would it have to them? Indeed, what relevance could it have for the Manchester-accented couple to our right who were commenting on real-estate-ads on their phones? I could just hear Archie over the barking dogs, the clatter of camp furniture prematurely packed up, and the loud good-byes as people parted company, while Archie continued to sing on the stage. I struggled to see Archie as our neighbours in front stood up for a long chat before leaving, obstructing even our view of the singer.

Where does this leave us with respect to Australia Day? The history of Australia as a nation has been brutal to the humans who lived here first, to the animals and birds, and brutal to the landscape. Australia needs a day to stop and reflect on what has been done, where we are now and where we are going. We cannot fix the problem by continuing to do the same thing that caused it. Current discussion about Australia Day focuses on the way colonisation affected and continues to affect the aboriginal population. In addition to the injustices and atrocities, Australian Aborigines have been, and continue to be, overwhelmed by sheer numbers from elsewhere. The non-Aboriginal population born here is now being overwhelmed in the same way. The fast growing population as a whole has ongoing devastating environmental impacts on this land. It has social impacts too, as it enriches a very few members of the growth lobby, while the rest pay for population growth.

We cannot alter our course without reflection. Yet we must change our course and soon. I suggest we keep the date, January 26th, as a marker of the beginning of immense, irreversible change. But let's be grown-up about it! Rather than seeing it as a day of celebration and beer, let's see it as a day of reflection and re-assessment of our situation and our direction.

If we could look at things more objectively, historically, critically and realistically, then all parts of our society could participate in trying to set the right course, one which will be the best possible for all on board. Make it a day to reflect on where we are going, because if there is a brick wall in the way,and we do not change direction, we will certainly crash into it. A lot of damage has been done and we need to salvage what we can. Changing the date of Australia Day achieves little in this respect. Let's take the old Australia Day to a new level and try to get the public thinking about the next 230 years as well as the 230 years since that landing at Port Jackson!

The Australian Wildlife Protection Council has written a letter to Melbourne Water, David Fairbridge, Frankston, and Lisa Neville, the Victorian Minister for the Environment, about a plans to remove mature trees from a wildlife corridor on the batters of a retardant basin in Frankston. They have received concern from the local community members that the threat of flooding to the local community at the Lee St retarding basin has not deemed a risk in the past and believe the proposed clearance of vegetation is excessive and will have significant impact on fauna as well as other issues, particularly of erosion and dust as well. They ask Melbourne Water a number of questoins and note that they expect that every possible measure will be undertaken to see if in fact clearing is necessary and if so that appropriate actions are taken and that local wildlife shelters are not left too pick up the pieces of poor planning.

Letter from Craig Thomson, President Australian Wildlife Protection Council, (AWPC)
Dated 23 January 2017.

Subject: Lee st Retarding Basin Frankston

Addressed to: [email protected] (biodiversity officer at Frankston Council), [email protected] (Minister for Police and Water) [email protected] (email address for Melbourne Water retardant basin upgrades).

The Australian Wildlife Protection Council understands and recognise the needs to protect our communities from potential danger. We are also aware that the removal of vegetation has an impact on wildlife species. In fact it is a guarantee that wildlife will be killed during works that clear vegetation. As such we expect that every possible measure is undertaken to see if in fact clearing is necessary and if so that appropriate actions are taken and that local wildlife shelters are not left too pick up the pieces of poor planning.

We have received concern from the local community members that the threat of flooding to the local community at the Lee St retarding basin has not deemed a risk in the past and believe the proposed clearance of vegetation is excessive and will have significant impact on fauna as well as other issues, particularly of erosion and dust as well. So the Australian Wildlife Protection Council would greatly appreciate if you could answer the following questions;

-What pre-fauna surveys have been carried out and when?

-What species have been identified on site?

-What are the actions have been put into place for fauna pre, during and post construction activities for fauna?

-Which wildlife rescue groups, wildlife shelters and vets have been contacted to look after or treat any injured wildlife?

-What arrangements have been made to financially compensate these groups?

-Do local wildlife shelters have the capacity to look after injured wildlife, as they could be attending to heat stress events or bushfire effected wildlife?

-What measures have been taken to install nest boxes or other artificial habitat for displaced wildlife?

-Do they have appropriate wildlife handling permits as well as permits to have protected wildlife euthanised if injured or unable to relocate wildlife in a safe distance from their habitat loss?

-What community groups have they contacted to work with as stated in their community information sheet? [Ref: ] “We understand the importance of trees to the local community and are committed to working closely with council, residents and community groups to develop an appropriate plan for reinstatement of trees else where in the area” in the information document provided for this project https://www.melbournewater.com.au/files/2018-01/Communitybulletin-LeeStreet.pdf

-Where are other trees being planted, what species are to be planted and how many?

-Are offsets being provided?

-Is there an arborist report of the trees health?

-Can records of water depth be provided for the Lee St retarding basin to show threat of flooding to neighbouring properties over the years of its existence?

-Can modelling or records be provided of local flooding for once in a 40+ year storm event?

-What are the EPA regulations you are keeping to with to for this project?

-Can you provide a copy of the ANCOLD guidelines?

The Australian Wildlife Protection Council also has the understanding that you are in the process of selling off land on McClelland Dve to Ambulance Victoria for an ambulance station and another permit application has been made by Log Cabin Caravan Park. In fact we believe that all land owned by Melbourne Water from Skye Rd to Frankston/Cranbourne Rd is being considered surplus land by Melbourne Water. So it appears there are several sites across the Frankston city council municipality owned by Melbourne Water that poses a potential loss of biodiversity.

So the final question we have to you is what is Melbourne Water’s commitment to biodiversity in Frankston?

All the news today is about Turkey attacking Afrin, a Kurdish governed city in northern Syria and threatening another Kurdish run city named Manbj. This is a very dangerous situation and another devastating assault on the Syrian people who have already suffered so much from a war that that was started by foreign manipulation and fed by foreign fighters, foreign weapons and foreign cash. The war should have ended by now and be winding down, but Syria’s enemies are persistent and cunning. We should not forget, however, that the foremost enemy of Syria, the strongest, most powerful country, the managing force in this war to destroy Syria is the United States […A Brief Analysis] Article first published 20 January 2018 at https://unac.papillonweb.net/2018/01/20/increasing-us-aggression-in-syria-leads-to-chaos/

Syrian Internal Security Forces are sworn in during their graduation ceremony, at Ain Issa desert base, in Raqqa province, northeast Syria, Thursday, July 20, 2017. Some 250 residents of Syria’s Raqqa province are the latest batch to graduate from a brief U.S-training course that is preparing an internal security force to hold and secure areas as they are captured from Islamic State militants. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla) MintPress, 10/17

US Occupation Forces

The United States has announced that the US is preparing a ‘border force’ of 30,000 fighters to “keep the peace in Syria”.    The plan is for these forces to have the US backed, Kurdish led forces of the SDF (Syrian Defense Forces) at their core, and will occupy nearly a third of sovereign Syrian territory.   This region is not the traditional Kurdish homeland in Syria, but rather the area east of the Euphrates that the SDF was able to occupy with US assistance while the Syrian Arab Army and their allies were busy liberating the rest of Syrian including the more densely populated regions in the west, reintegrating neighborhoods, towns and villages one by one, demining and removing dangerous remnants of the war while providing whatever services and resources they could to local civilians.

According to a report in Bloomberg,  US Secretary of State Tillerson said that the US is not into ‘nation building’ but they will assist with rebuilding Syria AFTER Assad is gone.   In any case, Syrians will wait a long time for any constructive US aid.  So far, the US has done little or nothing to assist with recovering Mosul or Raqqa, not even demining, and certainly nothing that would encourage the return of the civilian population.

The Kurdish forces, originally allied with the Syrian Government, were independent enough to operate on their own with government provision of arms and other resources when they were adopted and offered an independent state by the United States.   The YPG fighting forces emerged from a small sliver of land on the Turkish border  inhabited by several ancient Christian sects, Arabs and Turkomen, indigenous Kurds and Kurdish immigrants who have been arriving in waves throughout the 20th century, escaping pogroms targeting Kurds in Turkey.   The recent immigrants from the 1980s, affiliated with the PKK, a Kurdish resistance organization in Turkey, form the nucleus of the YPG.   Since  the Syrian war began they have been increasingly dominating the other residents of their region, and they now they have spread well beyond it to occupy Raqqa and other cities in a largely Arab region.

US Proxies on the Move

Today the US backed SDF  centers around the Kurdish YPG, but also includes local tribal leaders who want to keep control of their own territories and ISIS members rescued from previous war zones by the US for future use.   According to an article on the World Socialist Organization website, the US has about 2,000 forces in Syria though I have heard estimates as high as 5,000.  They currently claim  to have 230 men in training.   US actions in Syria are spreading chaos and risking a wider regional war – or worse. According to the WSW:

[Turkish President] Erdogan condemned US support for the YPG, declaring on the weekend: “The US sent 4,900 trucks of weapons in Syria. We know this. This is not what allies do.” At a rally yesterday he reiterated his determination to “vanquish” the Kurdish militia. “We have finished our preparations,” he said. “The operation can start any time.” Erdogan accused the US of “creating a terror army on our border,” adding: “What we have to do is nip this terror army in the bud.”

The Syrian government denounced the planned pro-US border force as a “blatant assault” on the country’s sovereignty. The state-run news agency, SANA, cited a foreign ministry spokesperson as insisting that the army was determined to thwart the US “conspiracy, end the presence of the US, its agents and tools in Syria, establish full control over the entire Syria territory and preserve the country’s sovereignty.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday accused the US of seeking to split up Syria, saying it “does not want to keep Syria as a state in its current borders.” Washington was helping “the Syrian Democratic Forces to set up some border security zones.”

An investigation by a couple of Russian journalists has been published on Sputnik reports that the US has a training camp for jihadists near al Tanf, a primary border crossing between Syria and Iraq.   They claim that there are as many as 1,500 fighters there including SDF, New Syrian Army (perhaps represented by the Free Syria Army leaders in Washington last week) and over 200 ISIS fighters.    These men are on the payroll.   Another 5,000 potential fighters reside in nearby Rukban refugee camp which is cut off from all outside access including the United Nations and other NGOS.   Syrian and Russian forces are bombed if they approach the area.   Civilians in Rukban and the US controlled territories are in a desperate situation.   They are lacking the basic necessities while members of criminal gangs control the wells and sell water at inflated prices.    Restless fighters rob  local homes and attack trucks passing on the highway.

It must be noted that the United States has invested not a penny in rebuilding any part of Syria.  Secretary of State Tillerson has said that we will assist rebuilding AFTER Assad has left.     Since this is unlikely to occur, this responsibility will not fall on them in the foreseeable future.    The Arab population of Raqqa has been driven from the city to local refugee camps, and some into the government controlled areas of Syria.  Meanwhile, Syrians living in territories under the control of US forces and US proxies remain in the rubble of the war just as Palestinians in Gaza live in the rubble of the communities that Israel has destroyed.

Fox News has reported that the Free Syrian Army (FSA) members have been in Washington this week meeting with US officials. These are the same ‘moderates’ who have consistently fought side by side with ISIS and al Qaeda from the beginning of the war, and who could not be separated from those organizations to create functioning deconfliction zones.   The article says these FSA leaders claim to have 60,000 fighters.  This is absurd given that they didn’t have that many fighters before they lost the war, and according the investigative report below, they had only a couple of checkpoints in the remaining center of Syrian Opposition, which is controlled by al Qaeda (under various names) and an extremist group called Ahrar al Sham.

One of these FSA leaders in Washington is quoted as saying “Iran and Assad contributed to the creation of Al Qaeda and other extremist groups,” another absurdity since we know that the United States created Al Qaeda in the 80s to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, while Turkey, Qatar, Saudia Arabia and their US backers are responsible for transporting these foreign fighters into Syria as well as training the FSA forces. Today, Syria is terrorized by fighters from Saudi Arabia, Libya, Tunisia, and Iraq, Uighers from China, Chechens from Russia, rebellious youth from France, Germany, UK, USA and other western countries, and around the globe.  In fact, it’s big news when somebody takes out one of our own.

Syria for Syrians

The Syrian Government, after recovering Deir Ezzor, long under siege by ISIS, and clearing the Baghdad Damascus road across the border with Iraq, has turned it’s attention to Idlib province.    A strategy of restoring control to urban areas, towns and villages through reconciliation programs has been effective in freeing up the army to move from one area to another, and it has saved many lives.   Although the western media has focused on the use of siege to induce surrender in reconciliation areas, the program is more robust than that.

Areas under the control of Al Qaeda or criminal gangs affiliated with one militant organization or another are not well provisioned even in the best cases because the fighters keep the majority of supplies for themselves and govern through force.   The reconciliation programs attempt to create back channels to deliver resources to the civilian population.  By empowering the civilian population they can convince them to stand against the occupying forces.   The final resolution is negotiated for an end where as many civilians as possible will be protected; where Syrian citizens fighting against the government are given an opportunity to restore their citizenship.  Concessions are made. In some areas, sharia courts continue under the governance of local fundamentalists.   Those who might otherwise fight to the death are given an opportunity to leave.

Idlib

Those who chose to leave are allowed a personal firearm and bused with the families to Idlib province on the Turkish border.       Today, as the Syrian state moves to liberate Idlib,  the situation there is dire.   The province is completely under the control of al Qaeda forces (under various names) and flooded with foreign fighters.  The following is a video produced about a year ago by Jenan Mousa, a roving reporter for Al Aan TV, a pan Arab TV station in out of Dubai.

The reconciliation program will work in Idlib, and has been ongoing for some time. It is clear the civilians there have many unmet needs. The recent change of face implemented by al Nusra/Hayit Tahir al Sham seems superficial and clearly an initiative to influence western backers and not for the benefit of the locals.   The one difference from other reconciliation plans is that there will be no buses to an Al Qaeda haven.   Instead, extremists and mercenaries with families and those who do not want to die in Syria will be driven back across the Turkish border to their training camps and refuges where President Erdogan and the Turkish people will have to deal with the consequences of his folly  just as the people of Pakistan continue to deal with the consequences of Zia al Haq’s collaboration with US plans to build an army of fanatics to fight the soviets in Afghanistan.

Erdogan’s Dilemma

At the moment, Turkish President Erdogan is far more concerned about the Kurdish forces being trained by the US to occupy land in Syria that he once coveted for Turkish occupation.   He is quite beside himself over the US empowerment of Kurdish militias affiliated with the Turkish PKK in Syria.  The Turkish army has begun an attack on the largely Kurdish city of Afrin in northern Syria, and Erdogan has stated that once he has ‘liberated’ Afrin (from the US backed Kurdish forces) he will move on to occupy Manbj, another city in the original Kurdish region of Syria.       The YPG Kurds of the US backed SDF  are followers of a Abdullah Ocalan, a Turkish dissident currently residing in a high security Turkish prison.   The Turkish state has been persecuting the Kurdish people and fighting Kurdish rebellions within its borders since it’s inception.  At that time, an angry and disappointed Kurdish population found themselves denied a promised state in an area (Turkey) where they represented nearly a third of the population, unlike Syria, where Kurds, including recent immigrants, represent less that a tenth of the population.

Increasingly at odds with the US government, and engaged through Russian diplomacy in a tenuous detente with his erstwhile victims in Syria, Turkish President Erdogan is an easy target.  Turkey is the largest military power in the region, with a history of western alliances, and as the war has wound down he has been increasingly isolated and under threat.   They lost and he is holding the bag.  This is not to say that his own bad choices didn’t bring him to this place, but it certainly makes him a dangerous force in the Syrian conflict.   Denied the fruits of his support for the international attack on Syria, he is also faced with the reinforcement of an archetypal enemy of the Turkish state.   His reaction to the latter problem may well give him at least some of the rewards that providing services for the anti-Syrian forces did not.

US officials should have seen this coming.  Well, of course, they did see it coming.  What we are seeing here is politically a Turkish civil war being played out on Syrian territory at the expense of the Syrian people.   Two Turkish forces are fighting for control of northern Syria, one enabled by US backing.  If you look at US objectives, this situation is surely advantageous.   Even as the Syrian forces and their allies move in to clear out the last holdout of Al Qaeda and the other Turkish proxies, Turkey is moving in to occupy Syrian towns and villages along the border in areas where the US can’t hold them.

How convenient is that for US objectives, which include the breakup and destruction of the Syrian state.  In his rage and frustration, Erdogan continues or support the needs of US military strategists who do not really have the forces to hold the large  swathe of Syria they have announced their intention to occupy.   Yesterday, Tillerson again softened his line.   But he well knows that at this point, it doesn’t matter what he says.  He is blowing wind, talking to the press and the people of the United States.   There has been no significant diplomatic engagement with Turkey since Trump came in to office.   Meanwhile, the diplomatic initiative of the Russians has been disrupted and a loose cannon is pivoting out of control on the northern border of Syria.

US Policy in Syria

The US policy of destruction and devastation is clear in Syria as in Libya and Iraq, Afghanistan and even Yugoslavia.   They really only need enough land to put their regional military bases.    Destruction jand chaos are the goal.   Destruction by ISIS, by Al Qaeda/Al Nusra/…/Hayat Tahir,  by Turkey, by the Kurds, by the French and British, by our own forces, it really doesn’t matter.    It’s all the same to US strategists.   Blaming Russia, blaming Muslims, blaming the Turks blaming Iran, blaming Assad – its a ll a pretext for the destruction of an ancient land and culture, of a society that is at the root of our own culture.   This policy has not changed one iota since the beginning of the war fueled  by Libyan fighters with US weapons in the south and Turkish trained proxies armed and funded by the Saudi Arabia and Qatar in in the north.

We need to stand up and set aside our confusion NOW.   The US role and that of the Kurdish militias in Syria has no upside.   It is a bold initiative to create chaos and destruction in Syria and to continue the war that was started by the United States and its allies to crush the independent sovereign Republic of Syria.

Hands Off Syria!  Hands off the Middle East! 

Stand up today against the vicious policy of destruction adopted by the US government!

Melbourne Water is about to de-tree Frankston koala corridor by removing mature trees from banks of a huge park with a water retarding basin in it at Lee Street Frankston 3199. They are claiming that the trees are 'destabilising' the banks. But of course the trees are holding the banks together and keeping the water-table down. Who is accountable for these kinds of decisions that are based on what sound like lies that make no sense? Frankston Council is apparently going along with this. It seems totally insane and anti-life and nature. Inside is a video alerting us to the details.

This is a link to a facebook video: https://www.facebook.com/Michellekoalasaver/videos/1831105523600205/.

The person speaking in the video is Michele Thomas, of Animalia, who is a well-respected wildlife carer, who knows what she is talking about regarding koalas. See "Animalia's Michelle Thomas gives koala mouth to mouth in night rescue".

Mad tree removal excuses

This tree removal with barmy excuses seems to be a new trend. Recently they machine-ripped out trees all along the sides and median strips of a shady Mornington Peninsula highway, one of few relatively pleasant highways to travel on, due to the shade and green. See http://candobetter.net/node/5304. The reasons given were that cars might run into them and that they were for eliminating all risks. (Not risks of depression leading to suicide in those who were revolted and felt powerless, of course.) AWPC managed to stop them from ripping them out quite so fast, but the kept on with a different machine at a different pace and they paid for a few possum boxes (not enough for all the possums and other wildlife that were and continue to be displaced.)

The overpopulation link

We know that trees are being ripped out for more houses and more roads to squeeze in the invited economic immigrants that make up over 60% of population growth in Australia. This is obvious with the road widening in Hoddle Street and in the destruction of Melbourne's equivalent of Paris's Champs Elysees - St Kilda Road - the latter for underground rail extensions.

Knowing how the impacts of population growth have caused the de-treeing of Hoddle Street and St Kilda Road makes you wonder if the freeway de-treeing on the way to Dromana is really to allow more lanes to go in and if removal of trees from the retardant basin at Lee Street is really to permit houses or access routes there. It is like an engineering conspiracy against nature. And, of course, in the short term, there is money in it for the tree rippers and machine operators. What a sick sick society we have become in about 200 short years.

VicRoads recently closed down Hoddle Street for a week to work on streamlining the corridor. The project is expected to continue for the rest of 2018.

"Streamlining" in this case is a euphemism for increasing the capacity of Hoddle Street for higher volumes of vehicle traffic every day. Whilst dedicated bus lanes are part of the project the Andrews government intends that the overwhelming future growth in traffic movements will be passenger cars.

The project was previously under serious consideration by the Brumby Labor government which lost office in 2010. It was sidelined by the incoming Baillieu government which, at least initially, sensibly "parked" the project with a view to, at last, building a rail line to Doncaster Hill instead. That did not materialise in the wake of an inadequate analysis that contemplated a rail line from Melbourne CBD, not to the major passenger destination of Doncaster Hill, but to the "Park and Ride" at the intersection of the Eastern Freeway and Doncaster Road in Doncaster.

The fact is that increasing road capacity at the expense of public transport, as the Hoddle Street streamlining project does, is far less space efficient than increased public transport capacity. One fully loaded train carries about as many people as one freeway lane occupied by passenger vehicles in a whole hour. The successor Napthine government's favourite, if critically flawed infrastructure project, the proposed East West Link, would have sacrificed significant open space, including much of the priceless parkland of Royal Park for a "spaghetti junction" with the Tullamarine Freeway in Parkville.

Importantly, it would have also absorbed the median strip on the Eastern Freeway between Hoddle Street and Bulleen Road for additional vehicle lanes. As this space has for years been earmarked for a rail line to Doncaster it would have dealt a severe, if not terminal, blow to the promise of an acceptable public transport service for residents of Melbourne's north eastern suburbs who have no tram or train services.

As we head into this 2018 election year we have a deep obligation to put a stop to this freeway madness and the serial sidelining of public transport by the major parties. There is no sign yet, though, that they have heard the message. If the status quo were to be maintained we also face the future threat of further "streamlining" of Punt Road to the south of the current Hoddle Street project. Existing residential properties in South Yarra would be the victims of that exercise, if it were to see the light of day.

In addition to resurrecting the discredited East West Link project, the coalition also wishes to build the so-called North East Link from Greensborough to the Eastern Freeway. The Labor government, if re-elected, would also build the North East Link as well as the West Gate Tunnel, a cosy deal which it hatched with toll road operator Transurban but did not declare in their election campaigning in 2014. The West Gate Tunnel is proposed instead of the adequate public transport desperately needed by western suburbs residents who the Andrews government claims to serve.

As part of the North East Link project the Victorian government proposes to add seven extra lanes to the Eastern Freeway between Bulleen Road and Springvale Road. The North East Link Authority, the government body established by the Andrews government to "spin" the project to the public has so far been mum on how this is to work. However, one thing is certain: Substantial public parkland would be lost, including much of the Koonung Creek Reserve. This Reserve, even in its current condition is a remnant of the extensive open space in the valley that was lost to the Eastern Freeway when it was opened in 1977 and then progressively extended eastward. Now they want more of it. The Reserve would be reduced to a "buffer zone" between the bloated Eastern Freeway and ever closer residential areas along the Eastern Freeway from Bulleen to Nunawading.

For its part, the West Gate Tunnel would feed more motor car traffic from the western suburbs into the inner suburbs and the Melbourne CBD in much the same way as the government's Hoddle Street "streamlining" project and the East West Link, if it were to materialise, will feed more traffic into inner suburbs and the CBD from the north and the east.
All in all the Victorian government seems set on filling up Melbourne CBD with cars every day in the same manner as the trainless Melbourne Airport.