What moral right does CHIA, a large, well-auspiced professional organisation, have in fueling animosity against local government candidates who defend their communities' planning powers and their right to veto subdivisions - key pillars of self-determination?
In early 1990 I changed my name to ZPG and stood for the NSW Senate because of the big lie - that without immigration, Australia's population is declining. It was so wrong then, and it is so wrong still. But recently Nine/Fairfax/ABC/SBS/News have been revving up the old propaganda. Is the big lie propaganda being orchestrated by dark hands?
We, the undersigned, call on the Australian government to terminate the AUKUS agreement with the United States and Britain, and abandon the commitment to buy nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy.
This article provides a quick analysis of the 128 page document, Creating Liveable Cities in Australia. Although it does not provide a complete picture, it finds many obvious flaws which suggest that it should not be accepted at its face value.
Creating Liveable Cities in Australia [download from http://cur.org.au/project/national-liveability-report/] bills itself as "the first “baseline” measure of liveability in Australia’s state and territory capitals. It represents the culmination of five years of research." It warns that, "by 2050 Australia’s urban population may double, increasing pressure on transport, congestion, infrastructure and housing affordability. Planning that creates compact, pedestrian-friendly and inclusive cities is essential since liveable cities are recognised as part of the solution to chronic disease and health inequities."
The full report is at: http://cur.org.au/project/national-liveability-report/
This report also contains a summary of the key points of ‘Creating liveable cities in Australia: Mapping urban policy implementation and evidence-based national liveability indicators,’ October 2017.
The government asserts that:
• Governments in Australia and internationally recognise the benefits of urban liveability.
• Liveable communities are good for the economy, social inclusion and environmental sustainability, and promote the health and wellbeing of residents. They have affordable housing linked by public transport, walking and cycling paths to workplaces, public open space and all the amenities required for daily living.
• The ‘Creating Liveable Cities in Australia’ report details the first measurement of liveability in Australia’s state and territory capital cities.
• The report maps policy standards designed to create liveable cities and seven domains of urban liveability that also promote the health and wellbeing of Australians – walkability, public transport, public open space, housing affordability, employment, and food and alcohol environments.
• The report also assesses policy implementation.
• In many cases government planning policies are failing to deliver liveability equitably across our cities. Measurable spatial policy standards were identified for only three of the seven key liveability domains.
• Current policies and guidelines do not appear to be informed by the growing body of evidence about how to achieve healthy, liveable cities.
• No Australian capital city performs well across all the liveability indicators, with many failing to meet their own policy targets designed to create liveability.
• There are geographical inequities in the delivery of liveability policies within and between cities, with outer suburban areas generally less well served than inner-city suburbs.
• Evidence-informed policy and practice are needed to maintain and improve urban liveability, improve the health and wellbeing of residents, and ensure that people’s quality of life is maintained as our cities grow.
• All Australian capital cities appear to value walkability and liveability, but there is little evidence that the policies reviewed are sufficient to create, maintain and enhance urban liveability in Australia.
There is also little evidence the policies are informed by the growing body of evidence on how to create healthy, liveable and walkable cities.
• No measurable spatial policy standards were identified in any capital city for promoting local employment, housing affordability and access to healthy food choices, or limiting access to alcohol outlets.
• Policy standards for walkability, public transport and public open space varied markedly in the specific urban characteristics measured and their level of ambition (e.g. residential density targets varied from 15 dwellings per hectare to 30 dwellings per hectare, in the case of urban areas in Brisbane).
• Some states had similar policies but different targets. For example, WA’s target for access to public transport is that 60% of dwellings should have access to nearby public transport, while NSW’s target is much more ambitious and less achievable i.e. that 100% of dwellings should have access to nearby public transport with frequent services.
• In Melbourne, nearly 70% of dwellings had access to a nearby public transport stop in line with the policy. However, once half-hour service frequencies were included, this dropped to only 36% of dwellings having access to a frequently serviced stop. How our cities are performing
• Cities with less ambitious policy targets were meeting their targets, but generally not performing as well as other cities with more ambitious targets in terms of creating healthy liveable communities.
• No city performs well across all the policy and/or evidence-informed liveability indicators. For example, Perth has some walkable neighbourhoods on the urban fringe, but these areas have poor access to public transport.
• There is also substantial variation within cities, with inner-city areas (and many middle-level suburbs) substantially better served than outer suburbs by the urban design, infrastructure and land use planning policies needed to create liveable communities.
The study identifies many problems, such as the need for access to public open space and the excess of fast food and liquor outlets (which are not seen as a health problem). (In Perth, Sydney and Brisbane, on average, there are more fast food outlets than supermarkets within 3200 m of residents’ homes, see p.78 of the report). The report does not mention our large gambling industry which is able to manipulate planning deals gaining access to public land.
There are many references to walkability in cities, which should include all forms of active transport, such as cycling, which was mentioned only once. However these all have different requirements. Cycling is better for commuting than walking and should be isolated from vehicles on dedicated cycleways. Shared paths create problems as human densities increase. No mention that the higher the density, meaning more people, the more important transport systems, including cycleways, will become, and the harder it will be to find land corridors for all forms of transport . There is also a need to address the requirements of new technology especially when it comes to defining what is “active transport,” since there are now a large variety of electric powered devices like scooters, skate boards and segways, all of which are fast and incompatible with walkers and cyclists.
There was no mention of the health importance of pets and their requirements, such as leash free areas, poo bag dispensers. Nor was there mention of the benefit of domestic animals like chooks, ducks, and even goats. These bring benefits both as pets and as providers of fresh food but become difficult or impossible in high density areas.
The report also argues that “walkability” [ hence liveability] in cites is directly related to densities and that this requires densities higher than 15 dwellings/ha. While this is true in terms of accessing shops, cafés and other venues, it ignores the casual walker who simply walks for pleasure. Nor does it address the issue of congestion which will deter walking or lead to increased risk of injuries. New York State averages nearly 300 pedestrian fatalities annually because footpaths have become so crowded that people are forced to walk on the roads. See, for instance: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/nyregion/new-york-city-overcrowded-sidewalks.html and https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/11/opinion/unjamming-the-sidewalks-of-new-york.html and NYC Bill Would Improve the City’s Dangerously Overcrowded Sidewalks.
While admitting that, as our cities increase population densities, they will need more public open space to avoid a decline in the amount of POS per person, they do not say how this can be done, except in new suburbs. For inner suburbs with ever increasing densities there can only be a decline in POS/person.
The health impacts of housing affordability were discussed but there was no explanation as to why houses were expensive, nor was unaffordability linked to population growth. The report also failed to cover the increasing rates of psychosis and depression associated with increased densities. See, for instance, Kristina Sundquist, Golin Frank, Jan Sundquist, “Urbanisation and incidence of psychosis and depression: Follow-up study of 4.4 million women and men in Sweden,” The British Journal of Psychiatry Mar 2004, 184 (4) 293-298; DOI: 10.1192/bjp.184.4.293 and Lederborgen, F. et al. 2011. “City living and urban upbringing affect neural social stress processing in humans,” Nature 474, 489-501, 23 June 2011, cited by Tony Recsei in Health, Happiness, and Density, New Geography, 2013..
There was no mention of how densities, height limits or heritage restrictions can be changed by developers or how some suburbs seem to remain immune from consolidation. Importantly developer-related corruption was ignored even though this has created many of the problems that have arisen including shoddy buildings, money laundering, and even buildings that are unsafe, a situation made worse by government policies of de regulation and privatization.
However the biggest flaw in this research paper must be its almost complete failure to consider the effects of climate change on cities even though they are already apparent. There was one mention of the Urban Heat effect which could see temperatures reach 50 degrees, enough to cause breakdowns in important facilities like power supplies , fires to become uncontrollable, and cities unlivable According to a UN report
The effects of urbanization and climate change are converging in dangerous ways. Cities are major contributors to climate change: although they cover less than 2 per cent of the earth’s surface, cities consume 78 per cent of the world’s energy and produce more than 60% of all carbon dioxide and significant amounts of other greenhouse gas emissions, mainly through energy generation, vehicles, industry, and biomass use. At the same time, cities and towns are heavily vulnerable to climate change. Hundreds of millions of people in urban areas across the world will be affected by rising sea levels, increased precipitation, inland floods, more frequent and stronger cyclones and storms, and periods of more extreme heat and cold. Source: “Climate chage – UN-Habitat, https://unhabitat.org/urban-themes/climate-change/
To combat climate change cities need to become more energy efficient and less dependent on external services like power, water, food, waste disposal and sewerage. Increasing density through high rise apartments does not do this. In fact, it increases reliance since they lack enough roof area to collect rain water or solar power for all residents. They often are impossible to design with flow-through' ventilation and thus become dependent on air-conditioning, while the exhaust from the condensers pushes hot air into the streets or other units.
The above comments were a quick analysis of the 128 page document and do not provide a complete picture. However considering the importance of the report there are enough flaws to suggest that it should not be accepted at its face value.
Add up all the neglected costs of downsizing and retirees have good reason to be wary of making the move. It’s time to debunk the myth of zero housing costs in retirement if we want to understand why retirees resist downsizing. Retirees have at least five reasons to be wary of the costs of downsizing. [Article first published at https://theconversation.com/downsizing-cost-trap-awaits-retirees-five-reasons-to-be-wary-80895 on 31 July 2017.]
Retirees living in middle-ring suburbs face frequent calls to downsize into apartments to free up larger allotments in these suburbs for redevelopment. Retirees who fail to downsize into smaller units and apartments are viewed as being a greedy, baby-boomer elite, stealing financial security from younger generations.
It also makes sense to policymakers for retirees to move into less spacious accommodation and make way for high-density housing. Housing think-tank AHURI fosters this view. Yet seniors remain resistant to moving, in part because of the ongoing costs they would face.
The concept of zero housing costs in retirement is based on a 1940s view of a well-maintained, single dwelling on a single allotment of land where the mortgage has been paid off. This concept is incompatible with medium- and high-density housing and refusing to acknowledge ongoing housing costs may cause significant poverty for retirees.
When a house is sold the owner receives the sale funds minus the real estate and legal fees. When the same person then buys a different property to live in, they pay legal fees plus stamp duty.
For cities such as Melbourne and Sydney, these costs are likely to exceed A$70,000.
These high transfer costs may mean it is not cost-effective for the person to move.
Because apartment owners pay body corporate levies, people often assume this is just the same as periodic payment of rates, water, insurance and other costs. It is not.
Fees remissions for low-income retirees for rates, power, insurance and water are difficult to apply within a body corporate environment. As a consequence, these are usually not applied to owners of apartments.
The costs of maintaining essential services, such as mandatory fire-alarm testing, yearly engineering certification, lift and air-conditioning inspections, significantly increase ownership costs.
When additional services are supplied, such as swimming pools, gyms and rooftop gardens, these also require periodic inspections. Garbage collection, cleaning, gardening, concierge and strata management services also must be paid.
Owners of standard suburban homes choose whether they want these services, with those on fixed incomes going without them.
Annual levies for apartment buildings vary, but expect to pay between $10,000 and $15,000. They may be more than this.
Apartments are often sold as a maintenance-free solution for older people. The maintenance is not free. It needs to be paid for.
Maintenance costs are higher in an apartment than a standard suburban home because there are more items and services to be maintained and fixed. Lifts and air conditioning need periodic servicing and fixing. This is in addition to the mandatory inspections listed above.
It is a mistaken belief that the maintenance costs that form part of the body corporate fee include periodic property upgrades. This relates to items that are owned collectively with other apartment owners.
Major servicing at the ten-year mark and usually each five-to-seven years after that include painting, floor-covering replacement, and lift and air-conditioning repair or replacement.
Major upgrades may also include garden redesign or other external building enhancement including environmental upgrades. All owners share these upgrade costs.
Costs of upgrading the inside of an apartment (a bathroom disability upgrade, for example) are additional again.
Once the body corporate committee members pledge funds towards an upgrade, all owners are required to raise their share of the funds, whether they can afford it or not. Communal choice outweighs an individual owner’s need to delay upgrade costs.
Owners who buy apartments that are part of a body corporate effectively lose control of their future financial decisions.
Loss of security of tenure is usually associated with renters. However, the recent introduction of termination legislation in New South Wales gives other owners the right to vote to terminate a strata title scheme. When this occurs, all owners, including reluctant owners of apartments within that scheme, are compelled to sell.
There are valid reasons why termination legislation is desirable, as many older apartment complexes are reaching the end of their useful life.
Even so, as termination legislation is rolled out across the states, owner- occupiers effectively lose control of how long they will own a property for. They no longer have security of tenure, which means retirees may face an uncertain housing future in their old age.
Further reading: Why strata law shake-up won’t deliver cheaper housing
Because current data sets do not adequately take account of ongoing costs associated with apartment living, the effect of downsizing on individual households is masked.
Downsizing retirees into the apartment sector creates ongoing financial stress for older people. Creating tax incentives to move does not tackle these ongoing costs.
Centrelink payments for of $404 per week are well below the poverty line. Yet we expect retirees to willingly downsize and to be able to cede most of their Centrelink payments to cover high body corporate costs.
Requiring retirees to downsize for the greater urban good will shift poverty onto retirees who could barely manage in their previously owned standard suburban home.
Failing to understand the effect of high ongoing costs associated with apartment living and reinforcing the myth of zero housing costs in retirement will continue to lead to poor policy outcomes.
Josh Frydenburgh, the minister for Energy and the Environment has belatedly released the greenhouse gas pollution data for the period up till the end of 2016. According to the report there has been a considerable improvement in the way the data is recorded allowing them to give more accurate estimates from individual sectors. The data show a total increase of GHG emissions of 0.7% for the last 2 quarters of that year but a considerable drop in emissions from the electricity sector. This could be due to more solar, hydro and wind use, the closure of big users like smelters but also the impact of high energy prices causing more restrained use. The new data also included historical figures going back to 2001 showing that emissions were higher than previously thought with most of these being attributed to what is called “fugitive emissions” - the GH gases like methane that escape from coal mines and gas facking. The worry from these is that methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and that the emissions from a coal mine can continue long after the mine is closed as gases are released from the exposed overburden.
Interestingly the ministers press release: Quarterly Update of Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: December 2016 (incorporating the Quarterly Update: September 2016 quarter) showed a more positive picture stating that:
Total emissions for Australia for the year to December 2016 (including Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry) are estimated to be 543.3 Mt CO2-e. This figure is 2.0 per cent below emissions in 2000 (554.4 Mt CO2-e), and 10.2 per cent below emissions in the 2005 which were 605.0 Mt CO2-e.
The release also included a graph which showed declining emissions in terms of per capita and in per dollar of GDP growth, a process of data presentation know as decoupling, which attempts to show the best possible outcome for bad news. Decoupling also popped up in the latest State of the Environment report showing environmental damage is independent of population growth. (Apart from things like land clearing, pollution and a few others) The graph-image below will probably win a gold medal at the next Spin Doctors convention.
In this case the apparent good news is achieved by a thimble and pea trick - climate change is a function of absolute values of CO2-e increase and is unrelated to GDP movements. When it comes to our population's impact on GHG emissions the apparent falling line on the graph obscures that fact that our population is simply growing faster than our emissions, scarcely anything to celebrate. For a better understanding there is an article on the ministers release of GHG data in the Guardian which includes a graph of the changes in our absolute emissions showing the spikes and troughs over the period from1990 till the present which explains how the minister can make the bad news look good;
After all its not just that our emissions increased by about 6Mt, its the huge gap that exists between where we are now and where we should be if we are to meet our international requirements made as part of the Paris agreement. These require emissions to fall to at least 26% below 2005 levels by 2030 and commit us to ratchet up that ambition over time, in line with the goal of keeping global warming to well below 2deg C. In a related media interview the minister suggested that the increase in emissions could have been due to the higher number of cattle and their considerable flatulence. There is very likely some truth in this, after all more cows or cars, (and there were 1,178,133 new cars in 2016) will increase emissions, its a feature of a growth economy. We are getting cleaner cars but they will still need more roads and 50 million tires every year, just as more cows mean more land clearing, its all part of our ecological footprint which is estimated to be 7.7Ha/person.
(The ecological footprint is a number expressed in global hectares/person that measures the amount of land required to support the demand for goods and services and absorb its waste including greenhouse gasses.)
Using the concept of a global “footprint” might be a better way to gauge our GHG emissions since under the present system we do not record the impact of the GHG we export in the form of coal and gas. If we did then the graphs shown above would be highly skewed in the opposite direction. Surprisingly there has been considerable work done by the CSIRO as well as in other countries on what has been labelled as “embodied energy” which is the energy consumed by all of the processes associated with the production of a building, regardless of where it occurred. This includes the mining and processing of natural resources, manufacturing, transport and product delivery, but not the operation and disposal of the building material, which would be considered in a life cycle approach.
www.yourhome.gov.au/materials/embodied-energy
An early study conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) found that, taking embodied emissions into account, construction was the fourth largest indirect emitting sector (excluding direct residential emissions) behind manufacturing , electricity, gas, water & waste services and transport. Other research by the Federal Government (Australian Federal Department of Industry Science and Tourism ). found that buildings are responsible for significant environmental impacts (30 % of the raw materials used, 42% of the energy, 25% of water used, 12% of land use, 40% of atmospheric emissions, 20% of water effluents, 25% of solid waste and 13% of other releases)
If we look at the broader infrastructure, including bridges, roads and so forth, materials account for upwards of 70% of total materials flows globally, a figure believed to be similar in Australia where in 2013 imported goods and services contributed 23.6% of our national carbon footprint. In the UK a study found that energy used in constructing, occupying and operating buildings represents approximately 50% of greenhouse gas emissions. They also did a study to examine the climate change implications of housing, whether it was better to refurbish an old house or build a new one to meet new efficiency targets. It found that building a new 2 bedroom house created 80 tonnes CO2e - a huge amount - while refurbishing was only 8 tonnes.
hat's the carbon footprint of ... a hoWuse | Environment | The Guardian
What's the carbon footprint of a house? (Guardian article)
The carbon footprint of building a house depends on all kinds of things – including, of course, the size of the house and the types of materials chosen. Concrete is by far the worst offender because it is used in large quantities while steel has almost the same embodied energy as plastics. Applying that modest estimate of 80 tonnes of CO2e to the Australian building industry, where in 2016 there were 200,000 houses built we get a figure of 16M tonnes of CO2e being produced every year. The large number of houses was the result of a building program to meet our population growth of some 372,800 mostly due to the high immigration policies introduced by John Howard. Had we kept to the previous immigration levels of around 70,000/year we would not have had a blow out in our GHG emissions, nor would we have around 3 million residents, many of them migrants, who are either unemployed or underemployed.
There would be other benefits as well, with less urban sprawl cities like Sydney could retain their farmland which at present supplies 20% of its food requirements as well as employment in the food industry.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sydneys-vegetable-basin-losing-ground-to-urban-sprawl-20160205-gmmg1v.html.
There certainly would be less congestion, cleaner air, more green spaces and less infrastructure shortages. With lower demand housing would more affordable, better quality and there would be less developer-related corruption which has now extended to money laundering. Unfortunately this is not an option that will appeal to the major parties who are driven by a growth fetish nor strangely enough, will it be accepted by the Greens.
The ABC is a driving force behind the corrupt agenda setting bias of Australian politics. A clear explanation of this is provided by the ABC News and Current Affairs, who seem confused about their role. They seem to think they can use agenda setting bias as a tool in their manipulative armoury, as if they are elected politicians rather than journalists with a Statutory Duty to act as objective critics of the political agenda. Instead the ABC News team seems dedicated to creating agenda setting bias to ironically reinforce the objectives of the major political parties.
This is best illustrated by the contrast between the Statutory Duty of politicians as described in the oaths or affirmations that are required of them, and the Statutory Duty of the ABC which is focussed on impartiality and the avoidance of deliberate misrepresentation:
Oath
I, [Minister’s full name], do swear that I will well and truly serve the Commonwealth of Australia in the office of [position]. So help me God!
or
Affirmation
I, [Minister’s full name], do solemnly and sincerely affirm and declare that I will well and truly serve the commonwealth of Australia in the office of [position]
Refer to the ABC Editorial Policy document and the ABC Code of Practice to understand what is required of the ABC.
A key driver of the sinking of Australian politics to such low levels in recent years has surely been the ABC's role in chaperoning public policy debate to where it pleases, which is often where politicians wish to take it.
The most important example of this in recent years has been the Carbon Tax debate incorporating the bias of ABC News. That pro Carbon Tax and pro population growth bias has taught us all an important lesson that only an open class action lawsuit can ultimately prove; because the ABC complaints process appears to be as biased and dysfunctional as the ABC's conduct of Editorial Policy.
By using unlawful tactics to support the passage of the Carbon Tax in November 2011 there have been real costs incurred by both industry and government.
This has resulted in many forms of injury to the Australian people. This injury has been inflicted on us all, and the ABC has acted unlawfully in supporting the perpetration of that injury on us all.
A definition of advertising: "The act or practice of calling public attention to one's product, service, need, etc., especially by paid announcements in newspapers and magazines, over radio or television, on billboards, etc.: to get more customers by advertising."
By using conventional broadcasting channels to advertise the Vote Compass, the ABC, in turn, provided access to the biased coverage within the Vote Compass: Proof of the ABC’s Vote Compass Bias?
That biased coverage (1) advertised (for example) the name of the Wikileaks Party but concealed the name of the Stable (now Sustainable) Population Party under the description "other"; despite the latter having more candidates and arguably having a broader impact on the 30 election issues. The Election Issues List also (2) advertised 30 election issues but omitted the Population Growth Management election issue; identified as a Top 15 election issue by the Essential Report, 23 July 2013.
Both these acts constituted advertising of one political party, or parties and political issues at the expense of another party and its political issue(s).
Over 1 million Voters who accessed the Vote Compass were subjected to this advertising. This would be between 7% and 10% of the voting public.
Extracts from ABC Editorial Policy Document
Scope:
"The ABC Editorial Policies apply to all content produced, commissioned, acquired or otherwise obtained by the ABC for broadcast or publication by the ABC on platforms and through services operated by the ABC, or by the ABC on platforms and through services operated by third parties. The ABC Editorial Policies do not apply to the activities of ABC Commercial except to the extent that ABC Commercial exercises editorial control over content for broadcast or publication by the ABC which has not been already broadcast or published by the ABC. In all its activities, ABC Commercial must operate in a manner consistent with maintaining the independence and integrity of the ABC."
Section 11.7 of the Editorial Policy states:
"Product placement and other forms of embedded or surreptitious advertising are prohibited."
Will the ABC now be called to account for prohibited political advertising throughout the 2013 Federal Election campaign?
Quite apart from this, complaints were also submitted to the ABC, over years, about the way its broadcasts limited the Carbon Tax debate to discussion of a range of financial schemes to reduce emissions, without also discussing the prime cause of emissions growth (aka population growth). A fact cited in these complaints was that in the 20 years BEFORE introduction of the Carbon Tax both fossil fuel based emissions and population had grown roughly 32%. This rate of growth was far higher than the rate of reduction that any of the proposed emissions reduction schemes could achieve in Australia.
The ABC was made aware of all these facts before the Carbon Tax legislation was passed in 2011, but still it supported misrepresentation of the Carbon Tax facts.
The Carbon Tax aspect of my complaints was analogous to complaining that the ABC had broadcast repeatedly for over 5+ years that the only way to control obesity was by exercise, when the truth is that the amount eaten also influences weight gain.
Imagine the fat people's class action lawsuit. The ABC wouldn't stand a chance.
But when it comes to one of the biggest humanitarian, social, environmental and economic challenges facing Australia today, the ABC can broadcast whatever it pleases and remain unaccountable for any lack of editorial integrity. An obvious example of this is ongoing omission or concealment of the population growth management issue from public policy debate.
Will a public apology be forthcoming that is disseminated as far and wide as the Vote Compass and the biased ABC Carbon Tax Debate were disseminated over the last 5+ years? Or will the ABC continue to get off "Scott-free" (excuse the pun)?
Don't miss the Video inside if you want to know what is going on between Russia, Crimea, Ukraine and the US allied forces! It's great to see women profiting from the internet intelligently and finding a place for themselves on the international media without needing to kow-tow to any particular country or the corporate media or a bunch of bloke-bosses. Syrian Girl is an impressive, self-managed commentator and analyst on Syria, who has created her own excellent reporting service. She has earned respect from powerful people, known and unknown, all over the world and obviously gets information from many different sources. Syrian Girl is one-woman education service on Syria today. Now she has introduced the world to "Ukrainian Girl", whom she interviews in this video about what is going on in Ukraine. Good on you Ukrainian Girl! Most readers will find Syrian Girl's questions to Ukrainian Girl helpful in understanding where East, West and 'south' (Crimea) Ukraine fit in the world, politically and historically. The interview is followed by an extremely useful and well edited illustrated analysis of the extremely poor behaviour of the US-aligned forces in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Although Syrian Girl is aware of oil pipelines in this region, she does not go into it here. She does touch on it in this article by Adrian Salbuchi about her on Russia Today. This report puts the the ABC, SBS and of course the Murdoch and Fairfax Press and the Australian government foreign policy to shame.
UPDATE: Still no reply from Mediawatch on 11 December 2013. Inside, letter to Mediawatch. Many people who are concerned about government-engineered population growth in Australia and the commercial growth lobby's impact on democracy have noticed a clear pro-growth bias in the ABC and other mass media. The fact is that population growth is almost constantly aired as something we must have more and more of, but the many contrary arguments are not. Some of them are occasionally reported, almost always with a negative spin. It is a fact that population numbers affect every aspect of society. It is therefore vital that decisions about population numbers be made with real democratic consultation, at the level of local government upwards.
From: Michael S.
Date: 1 October 2013 11:28
Subject: Vote Compass Fraud
To: [email protected]
Mediawatch,
Please prove that there is impartiality at the ABC................
The ABC stands accused of undemocratic conduct on a grand scale over the last 5+ years.
Is the ACMA an ineffective stooge? Is the ABC the propaganda machine of the Australian pro-growth dictatorship?
What are you going to do about it?
Will you pre-emptively face the music or will you cling to the hope that you will continue the style of gross misconduct seen during both the 2010 and 2013 election campaigns? Remember the Carbon Tax? Allegedly dropping (fossil fuel based) emissions by 60 million tonnes pa by 2020 while population growth increases it by over 90 million tonnes? And the target is 5% below 2000 levels by 2020, which means a drop of 28% per capita by 2020 despite continued chaotic expansion of the carbon-based economy? This is driven by developing-world population growth rates which the ABC relentlessly conceals from public discourse by characterising the whole issue as being limited to asylum seekers and immigration; rather than sustainable population.
But hang on, is it those plantation forests that were planted between 1990 and 2010 that are actually reducing (fossil fuel based) carbon emissions? So we are just doing what we've always done and pretending that something has changed?
There are two aspects of emissions growth:
(1) What creates it
(2) What reduces it
What creates it is going gangbusters as always; but has the ABC ever, in over 5 years of endless carbon tax debate, sought to lay these cards on the table? Is it showing support-by-omission for extreme population growth?
This issue is ENORMOUS compared to anything you have ever addressed on Mediawatch.
Please provide a response. Are you prepared to address this?
Regards
Michael S.
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