John Brumby

Brumby's call for 'pause' in rate of population growth insufficient

Mr Brumby's concession that our population growth from migrants will be "paused" for a short time is not enough! The argument that Victoria "still needed skilled migrants to help its economy" is indicative of the greed of business leaders at the top-end of town who are driving this growth to the detriment of the environment and the lifestyles of most of its inhabitants. Victoria is the most cleared state in Australia. Thirty percent of Victoria's animals are either extinct or threatened with extinction. Our state has been losing its endangered grasslands at a rate equivalent to more than three football fields a day. So-called "sustainable" industries such as intensive farming, irrigation, native forest woodchipping, and overgrazing are pushing the endurance of Nature to new and dangerous limits. Victoria's climate change figures are predicting the worst-case-scenario! Mr Brumby is arrogantly intent on making more freeways, growth corridors, and other mega-developments, while squashing any protests. He will leave the mammoth task of repairing the damage for the next generation! We can't have continual growth on finite and depleting natural resources.

Short portrait of Victorian leader, Mr Brumby

Nicknamed "Benito" Brumby, by his many enemies:

"Like many of the post-Whitlam generation of Labor leaders, Brumby - and a handful of his senior ministers - share a background that could have also made them suitable preselection candidates for the Liberal Party. John Brumby, whose father owned a shoe shop, spent part of his secondary education at elite Melbourne Grammar, along with the now leader of the Opposition, Ted Baillieu, before studying commerce at Melbourne University." (The Financial Review (Tuesday 6 May 2008) p. 60)

What an epitaph for a Labor leader.

Australia is becoming more and more like George Orwell's Animal Farm every day.