growth lobby

This is is a call for help.
The University of Western Australia wants to bulldoze rare bushland in the middle of our city for future property development. The Minister for the Environment David Templeman is soon to make his decision on whether 60% of this pristine 36 hectare bushland will be destroyed to make way for offices and housing.

David Templeman's contact details are:
The Hon. David Templeman MLA
Minister for the Environment,
Climate Change, Peel
29th Floor
St. George's Terrace
PERTH 6000

email: david-templeman[at]dpc.wa.gov.au

Please open the website www.blackcockatoorescue.com.

Once in there have a look at the site and click on UWA link.
Watch the videos and then click on the link to protest, on each vision or just one.
Make your comments known to the ministers and send it off.
Remember the ministers have not made their decisions yet so be nice.
We need all your help.
click for video
WE NEED TO ACT NOW AS THE DECISION IS NEAR, VERY NEAR.

Glen Dewhurst of Black Cockatoo Conservation team

These are lovely, intelligent, sociable and long-lived animals. To lose them would be tragic - and the situation already is tragic. (Ed.)

(illustration by Sheila Newman)
In “Population grows at record rate", an article by Tim Colebatch, The Age, June 6, 2008, an Australian journalist has once again been given license by the Fairfax Press to frame Australia’s overpopulation problem as some kind of triumph.

In an article akin to the spin used to sell large bags of potato crisps and sugar, caffeine and phenelalanine-laden soft drinks to adolescents, Tim Colebatch sells overpopulation to Age readers.

Whilst relating the latest ABS statistics, the journalist chooses resoundingly positive terms for this undemocratic and frightening complex phenomenon:

Australia “turned the corner” into 2007 by having ‘almost 21.2 million people'.
In Victoria, the state’s population grew by a “record” 82,430 people. Tasmania “reached a milestone” and is ‘now “on track” to reach 500,000 residents’

Portraying this bizarre engineered growth as some kind of race for supremacy, Colbatch comments that Victoria “lost slightly” ‘in net migration flows to other states.’ ‘Queensland (+25,647) was the “big winner” from interstate migration, as usual, while NSW (-24,028) was again the “big loser”.’

The article concludes with some of the costs of population growth in Australia, but without portraying them as costs. In contrast to the hyped up descriptors for the growing numbers, journalist Colbatch leaves right for the end a peculiarly unemotional account of some of the suffering involved:

“The rapid population growth is driven by business recruiting ready-trained skilled workers from poorer countries rather than training Australians. In the six months to April, almost 100,000 temporary workers arrived, while the Government has just increased the quota for permanent skilled migration from 102,500 to 133,500. Critics point out that there has been no increase in housing supply, so the arrivals are intensifying the housing shortage and helping to drive up rents.”

There is no warning of how the extra people will affect the chances of Australians to weather oil, soil and water depletion.

The statistical news is actually unrelievedly awful, especially as related with ghastly flourishes like these for Victoria:

‘VICTORIA's population has “soared” to more than 5.2 million, with the Brumby Government "claiming the biggest growth in 35 years”' and ‘Treasurer John Lenders said the figures were "an endorsement of our Government's record investment in making Victoria the best place to live, work and raise a family"’.

No mention at all of the growth in groups all over Victoria and the rest of the country protesting at the loss of democracy and control over their environments. This is not reporting. This is propaganda, pure and simple.

Please circulate this article to help to counteract mainstream-media propaganda for population growth.

Maryland Wilson, President of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council, stated yesterday that the Southern and Eastern Integrated Transport Authority (SEITA) has failed to adequately address the concerns she raised on behalf of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council or the Coalition of Wildlife Corridors.

Wildlife campaigner says SEITA route for Frankston Bypass will severely impact wildlife

Maryland Wilson, President of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council, stated yesterday (May 14, 2008) that the Southern and Eastern Integrated Transport Authority (SEITA) has failed to adequately address the concerns for wildlife she raised on behalf of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council or the Coalition of Wildlife Corridors. These concerns were specifically about the threat posed to wildlife and their habitat by the infrastructure and traffic which will be created if the SEITA proposed bypass route goes ahead.

Ms Wilson said that the AWPC's observation as well as discussion with persons well-informed in road-engineering, population and land-use planning, Peninsula Biosphere maintenance, wildlife-ecology and social amenity leaves the AWPC in no doubt that

a) the proposed route will severely impact on scarce habitat for local, regional and State biodiversity
b) SEITA and the government have not seriously examined viable alternatives
c) the Pines draft master plan – part two and part three fail to remedy these problems
d) the Pines draft master plan suggestion of a connection between the parts of the Reserve it will split would only present a very insignificant mitigation of the overall drastic damage
e) the proposed restructuring and popularisation of the reserve inaccurately markets new and additional habitat-stress as habitat and wildlife friendly.

"Even worse", said Ms Wilson, "The proposed route will divide the Peninsula in two, making any hope of interconnecting wildlife corridors from East to West of the Peninsula impossible." "Plans for interconnecting corridors have been on the AWPC website now for over a year," she said.

The Wildlife campaigner explained that it is not acceptable for the government or its chosen contractors to go ahead with a structure which, despite some rhetorically supportive policies in Pines draft master plans, parts two and three, is in practice oppositional to international, Australian, and local practice and science for protecting the needs of wildlife.

She added that people needed to be made aware that, "At the moment Frankston and the Peninsula, although part of an international UNESCO agreement for a biosphere that protects fauna and flora, are facing unacceptable decimation of indigenous animals in all or most areas where they struggle to survive."

"Roads, through habitat fragmentation and isolation, through very high rates of road-kill, and through their spear-heading of suburban expansion, are the drivers of animal deaths and species loss."

President Wilson said that SEITA will only encounter and should only encounter opposition if it fails to use alternative routes to protect any indigenous fauna habitat from being cut off from the rest of the Pines, or indeed where similar fragmentation is threatened for any other habitats.

"Australian fauna is at greater risk than at any other time in history due to climate change, drought, habitat-fragmentation and annihilation. The need for more, not fewer, bio-links to save species and individual animals is critical."

"With regards to the other areas of Frankston and the Peninsula, if SEITA continues with the same lack of awareness as previous road-builders in this country, of the many modern methods for mitigating road-kill, such as bridges, tunnels and overpasses, then it cannot expect and will not deserve support."

Her concluding remark demonstrated that the AWPC has a more sophisticated awareness of economy perhaps than do investors in freeways and the governments which support such massive infrastructure projects:

"The population growth and urban expansion which SEITA and similar industry corporations rely on in Australia for customers and investors is not supported by the incumbent population and will probably become very problematical very soon due to oil depletion."

Maryland Wilson, President of the registered charity, Australian Wildlife Protection Council Inc., and spokesman for the Coalition for Wildlife Corridors can be contacted at kangaroo AT peninsula.hotkey.net.au or at 03 59788570, mobile 0417 148 501 The AWPC is located at 247 Flinders Lane Melbourne, Victoria 3000. For further details go to www.awpc.org.au

ABC Breakfast Show host, Ross Solly, gives Property Council of Australia 20 minutes-plus free advertising at tax-payer expense to market industry hobby-horse.

Since when did our taxes go to fund the ABC as a national real-estate agent or an arm of the PCA?

ABC Radio 666 Breakfast Show host, Ross Solly, gave Catherine Carter, the A.C.T. Executive Director of the peak lobby group for developers, financiers, builders and engineers, more than 20 minutes between 8.30 and 9am, April 28 to beat the drum for growing Canberra's population by 500,000 over the next 20 years.

Why was there no counter-argument?

These publicly privileged views come from a professional lobby-group which markets population growth on behalf of commercial property developers, yet they were put without any counter argument, as if they emanated from a disinterested scientific or analytic body, like the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

"Ms Carter says the Territory's sluggish population growth is also a threat to economic well being." "A good size for a medium size city, we think that kind of population target is one to aim for," she said.

Ms Carter opined, on behalf of the PCA, that Canberra's economic fortunes should be pinned on population growth at "1.75 per cent" or "5,200 people per annum."

For Canberra, 500,000 people over the next 20 years would average at something like an increase of 7,500 people a year, and on a divider of four, about 2,000 new dwellings a year, or 40,000 over the Council's defined period.

In fact there are many reasons, not just to question such a promotion of population growth for Canberra, but to severely filter it out of the national public medium, because Canberra's land, water, housing, schools, hospitals, roads and transport are not coping with the current population and neither are similar services all over Australia.

To advocate artificially increasing population growth anywhere, when the world faces a petroleum supply and price wall, and widespread famine related to the unwise diversion of agriculture for biofuels seems like arrogant and dangerous folly.

The percentile growth rate of 1.75% per annum is the same one promoted by the Scanlon Report (written by the populationist Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE), which is part of Australia's development lobby). [See also Scanlon Report on this site.]

The figures originally came from work the ATSE and the Scanlon Foundation contracted from Peter McDonald and Rebecca Kippen, of the Australian National University's demography department, and was paid for by the Scanlon Foundation

Rebecca Kippen

.

The rationale for this figure was to prolong and expand the population of working age as if our economy will continue forever in the mass production factory mode of last century, for the benefit of big business. If you read between the lines of the Property Council's press release, you will realise that their concern is labour for construction sites. Their agenda is to get the local, state and federal governments to grow populations through immigration and higher birth rates. Thus it is hoped to continue to stimulate the already over-stimulated demand for building materials, new houses, roads, water technology, and raise, not only interest rates, but the price of land-holdings, agricultural produce and water itself.

Among other methods, Ms Carter is pushing for the integration of "programs like the ‘Live in Canberra’ campaign and the Skilled and Business Migration Program." Growthist lobby groups seem undeterred by the fact that,according to Dr Bob Birrell of the Monash Centre for Population Research, less than one third of skilled immigrants are working in their field; most are merely cogs in the engineering of population pressure and housing demand.

Of little or no concern to big-population-lobbyists, apparently, is the increase in the cost of living which results from this aggressive promotion of land-speculation, the rising numbers of homeless and indebted, and the short-term nature of this kind of employment and industrial activity. The risk for Australians of starvation and disease from population pressure on food supply and water, present already in many parts of the world, is never mentioned.

For those of you who may resent the spending of public funds to promote commercial ventures which will rely on increasing Australia's population and who fear the resultant social and environmental stresses, you may make your complaint to the ABC

What organisation has only 24 members of which the first ten comprise the current Prime Minister and nine past and present Australian Prime Ministers or Prime Ministerial contenders? And why would they be so dedicated to an organisation with a focus so antithetical to democracy and Australians? Read on.
See also: "Nuclear power, totalitarian spin and overpopulation in Australia", "Bernard Salt on the Population 'debate'> and "Ziggy Switkowski, Population Numbers and Nuclear in the Australian" and "Normalising endless immigration and coupling it to nuclear power in Oz"

The document below probably furnished the blueprint for the Australian government to plan to transform Australian society in a manner which will displace and disenfranchise the bulk of its current population.

The Scanlon Report 30/50 - The Technological Implications of an Australian Population of 30 million by 2050

Note - this link no longer functions - see "Notes" [1]

Here is a new link: https://www.atse.org.au/Documents/reports/30-50-technological-implications-australia-population-2050-report.pdf. (Date last visited was 8 June 2018).

In the 150 pages the word 'democracy' is not mentioned once, although every aspect of Australians' lives and governance is dealt with here.

This is a 'peak oil' document, but it advocates a route whereby any choice Australians might have of reorganizing, locally, to adapt to declining availability of cheap energy, is being abrogated by the Scanlon Foundation’s grand plan to increase Australia’s immigration intake by 1.5% per annum to achieve a population of 30 million by 2050.

Australian politicians have apparently accepted the Scanlon prescription for continued economic growth through social and infrastructure engineering, and social indoctrination at the expense of democracy.

Immigration to increase by 1.5% of total population per year

To cater for our 'aging population' and 'economic growth', with immigration to increase by 1.5% of population every year, based on a recipe worked out by ANU demography, with demographer Peter McDonald, we are to have imposed upon us an unwanted and unsought massive population increase to accompany, service and pay for massive engineering works. Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, the report is the result of a study carried out by The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering with money from the Scanlon Foundation. The Scanlon Foundation was, until 2001, the Brencorp Foundation, and the child of Peter Scanlon, of IXL and Patrick/Corrigan fame, currently marketing credit cards to Asia.

The Australian Multicultural Foundation and the Institute for Global Movements

In 2006, the Scanlon Foundation recently made “one of the biggest private sector donations for social sciences” to the Monash University Institute for Global Movements and the Australian Multicultural Foundation,[1] in the words of Professor Nieuwenhuysen (formerly Director of the Bureau of Immigration Research), now director of the Australian Multicultural Foundation and of the Institute for Global Movements.

The study in question seems to have been a project investigating ways to get Australians to accept a massive immigration program, draconian changes to their way of life, and loss of the natural amenities and space they grew up with, in the context of huge engineering works and infrastructure expansion proposed by the abovementioned Scanlon Report. Nieuwenhuysen commented in 2006, when the Monash University study began, that "The results of these studies are destined to generate much interest from government, academia and the wider community, both in Australia and internationally."

Membership list of this exclusive club

Indeed, if you look at the 24 person strong membership list of the Australian Multicultural Foundation, you might consider this a foregone conclusion. Here are the first 10 members:

The Hon Kevin Rudd MP (Prime Minister of Australia), Mr John Howard, The Hon Mr Simon Crean MP, The Hon. Mr Alexander Downer MP, Mr Robert Hawke AC, Dr J. R. Hewson, Mr Paul Keating, Mr Mark Latham, Mr Kim Beazley, andMr Andrew Peacock AC.

This must be the most exclusive club in Australia. I cannot help but wonder, what's in it for the members? Maybe this is how you get a crack at being the titular head of the country, by selling out your constituents to big business.

At any rate, any illusion some naive people may have been clinging to, that the Australia 2020 conference really meant to consult with Australians, rather than get them to do the bidding of engineers and industries which benefit from rapid population growth, should now be dispelled, along with the illusion that we are still living in some kind of democracy, or that the future is safe in the hands of our politicians.

[1] "Monash University > News and Events > Monash Memo
$600K for study on social cohesion

22 February 2006

The Monash Institute for the Study of Global Movements has received $600,000 from the Scanlon Research Foundation to study social cohesion in Australian and international societies.

The research program for the Social Cohesion Project will be undertaken in partnership with the Australian Multicultural Foundation.

The grant will fund major interrelated studies on social cohesion: analysing and measuring the components of social cohesion; how to constructively attain social cohesion in Australia; and a study on minorities in Australian and international society.

The research will be led by academics from Monash's Faculty of Arts, including School of Political and Social Inquiry senior lecturers Dr Nick Economou and Dr David Wright-Neville, lecturer in sociology Dr Michael Ure, and Professor Andrew Markus, Director of the Jewish Civilisation department within the School of Historical Studies.

The research will be undertaken in cooperation with scholars at Chatham House in London, the Australian National University and Macquarie University.

The institute's Director, Professor John Nieuwenhuysen, is managing the project in association with Multicultural Foundation Director Mr Hass Dellal.

"This is one of the biggest private sector donations for social sciences," Professor Nieuwenhuysen said. "The Scanlon Foundation is genuinely interested in research and public policy issues and is greatly impressed by the calibre of research staff at Monash.

"The Social Cohesion Project is of central importance to the future of Australia and the international community and is a significant event for the institute.

"The results of these studies are destined to generate much interest from government, academia and the wider community, both in Australia and internationally."

The findings from each study will be presented at the 12th International Metropolis Conference to be held in Melbourne in October 2007. The conference, to be co-hosted by Monash, is the world's largest annual conference on international migration and settlement issues. It is the first time it will be held outside North America and Europe.

The Scanlon (formerly Brencorp) Foundation was established by the Brencorp Group in Victoria in 2001. The foundation's current focus is population and cultural diversity in Australia."

NOTES

(Added to article on 2 April 2010.)

[1] The URL for "The technological implications of Australia at 30 million in 2030" was a href="http://www.atse.org.au/index.php?sectionid=128 but the file is no longer listed there. I have copied and pasted the Address by Peter Scanlon below, to document the launching of the document. This address is quite interesting because it gives us an economic belief context and even admiringly cites a chapter written by Harvard economist, Benjamin M. Friedman, written with the notorious Milton Friedman: Benjamin M. Friedman, Milton Friedman, A. W. Clausen, "Postwar Changes in the American Financial Markets," in Martin Feldstein, ed., The American Economy in Transition," University of Chicago Press, 1980.

If anyone wants an electronic copy of the 2007 ATTSE Report itself, "The technological implications of Australia at 30 million in 2030," contact me through candobetter.org and I will send one to you.

"ADDRESS BY

FOUNDATION CHAIRMAN, PETER SCANLON

TO ATSE REPORT LAUNCH

18th April 07

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Ladies and Gentlemen:

The Honourable Robert Smith MLC, President of the Legislative Assembly.

The Honorable Jenny Lindell MP. Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and Parliamentarians;

Mr. Peter Laver, Vice president of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering

Mr. Vaughan Beck
Distinguished guests.

The Scanlon Foundation is committed to the belief that Australia needs to continue to grow and that this growth will require a substantial and increasing role for migration. As a consequence we see social cohesion as critical to both migration and Australia’s growth.

In that context and separately from the study by ATSE The Scanlon Foundation’s Social Cohesion Research Program incorporates six (6) individual projects, managed by the Monash Institute for the Study of Global Movements and the Australian Multicultural Foundation.

One of these projects is the innovative benchmark survey throughout Australia measuring the current status of social cohesion in Australia. This survey has been commissioned and field interviews will commence in May. We anticipate results in July ready for analysis and preparation for release at Metropolis 2007.

However, the study released today by ATSE, and although very much part of our program, has different origins. In the early days of our work on social cohesion it was clear to us that there are a number of people in Australia across a broad spectrum who queried the underlying principal of growth because they worried whether the country was able to accommodate more people. In essence they asked “can we have a population of 30 million people by the year 2050 without creating substantial infrastructure and environmental issues”.
It was to deal with this perception, this question that led the Foundation to commission this study. That is why it is specific both as to numbers and Australia. That is why we went to ATSE as the independent expert with its 750 eminent Fellows.

Clearly the study says we can accommodate 30 million people by 2050. However it does say there are issues and that these are legitimate issues that need to be discussed and dealt with. ATSE concludes in fact they need to be dealt with irrespective to 30/50.

However I ask that as you reflect on this study that you do not do so in isolation. There is a flip side to the debate. That is the consequences of Growth. Too often growth is mistakenly seen to be only about material outcomes.

In his book “The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth” Benjamin Friedman demonstrates why the elements, held out by the Enlightenment thinkers so central to Western philosophy, of openness, opportunity, tolerance, economic and social mobility, fairness and democracy are all enhanced by growth.

Freidman explains that growth, rather than simply creating a higher standard of living, is the key to effecting political and social liberalization in the third world. He shows that even the wealthiest of nations puts its democratic values at risk when growth stops. Merely being wealthy is no protection against a turn toward rigidity and intolerance when a country’s citizens lose the sense that they are getting ahead.

Post war we had the growth of economic socialism which tried to deal with the imbalance of material well being by relying on redistribution rather than creation. It failed miserably.

Today, to me, in many ways there seems to be a populous move to a form of environmental socialism in that there is a concentration on regulating and redistributing what we have as was the case with economic socialism. It won’t be the answer. Separately from mans proven record of ingenuity and adaptation we need to get back to planning and doing. This will be the answer.

That we need to manage better is without doubt. The ATSE report is very clear about this. The short period of elected governments, our system of Federation together with upper and lower houses, the politicisation of the public service and so on has left us with ineffective long term planning. And this when there has never been a better time to set these priorities with our prosperity and surplus investment capital which is searching the world trying to find a home.

If Social Cohesion was not the Foundations main game I think we would have tackled this issue. Pressure and knowledge needs to be focused on our infrastructure and environmental planning. The current situation is a disgrace. We probably need for the want of a better title a Reserve Bank of Infrastructure.

However right now that’s not for us other than to support ATSE’s call for leadership and planning.

In conclusion the Foundation expresses it appreciation to ATSE. In particular my thanks to Vaughan Beck, Ian Duncan, Ian Rae and of course many talented authors and contributors to the 30/50 study.

We at the Foundation look forward to pursuing our ongoing work on social cohesion and positive migration strategies for the future prosperity of Australia.

Thank you"

Brisbane's Courier Mail newspaper recently posed the question "Have these been the most boring elections?". This triggered an exchange of e-mails which began when Independent Mayoral candidate James Sinnamon wrote an open letter to the Courier Mail's City Hall reporter. See further below for Emma Chalmers' #reply1">reply and James Sinnamon's further #reply2">response.

Dear Emma Chalmers,

On page 11 of the Courier Mail of election day Saturday 15 March, you asked:

"Have these been the most boring Council elections?"

Given that your newspaper has systematically excluded any views which clash too markedly with the orthodoxy of the Courier Mail's editorial writers, is it any wonder?

And given the striking similarities between the policies of both the Labor Party and the Liberal Party, I would have thought that the Courier Mail, if it had wanted to inject any excitement into the campaign, let alone be objective and balanced, would have given more coverage to alternative views about how our city should progress.

As far as I can tell, all that Brisbane residents were able to learn from the pages of Courier Mail newspaper of my policies was contained within one sentence at the end of your article "Newman wary on rates as Rowell dithers on costings" of Friday 14 March_#main-fn1">1 :

"... Mr Sinnamon ... wants a population cap."

Have I missed something?

It's not as if I had not provided you with material about me and it is not as if I didn't have something to say that was not relevant to the campaign or that was not different to what had been said by others. I sent you two media releases including links back to my web site (candobetter.wikispaces.com, candobetter.net _#main-fn2">2). You interviewed me at City Hall on Thursday 14 March and you would have heard my contribution to the debate amongst the candidates.

Why was it not possible for your articles not to have fleshed out my views a little more? As examples:

• Why couldn't you have reported my point, backed up by the views of the Local Government Association, that it would have been impossible for Greg Rowell to keep his promise to keep rates at less than the rate of inflation without sacrificing current service levels service if population growth continues_#main-fn1">3?
• Why couldn't the point I made during the debate on Friday, linking of Brisbane's current crisis of extreme housing unaffordability to Queensland's population growth, recklessly encouraged by Lord Mayor Campbell Newman, the BCC Labor Councillors, the Queensland State Government and, I would add, the Courier Mail, itself, have been reported in Saturday's Courier Mail_#main-fn4">4?
• Why couldn't the point raised by members of the audience, and taken up by me, about Campbell Newman's failure to honour his 2004 election promise to Cannon Hill residents to save Minnippi Parklands, have been reported?

I will concede that I have been far less prolific than I wanted to be, due to time constraints, but I still believe that what I did provide you with certainly warranted considerably more than less than half of one sentence of coverage.

I believe that Lord Mayor Campbell Newman's unprecedented personal triumph of yesterday owes much to the Courier Mail's unbalanced reporting of the campaign and its unbalanced reporting, in past years, of issues at stake in Saturday's election - the North South Bypass Tunnel, the Hale Street Bridge, population growth, clearing of bushland, the water crisis, housing unaffordability, the second airport runway, the proposal for a new passenger ship terminal to cater for luxury passenger cruise ships, the bizarre proposal to entomb one third of the Brisbane River adjacent to the North Bank under concrete, etc.

As a result, Lord Mayor Campbell Newman intends to take this result as a mandate to continue with his extravagant plans to construct an alternative transport network underground and many other plans which, if not stopped, will destroy what remaining quality of life Brisbane has left to offer and its long term sustainability. Mr Newman's road infrastructure plans, given their ever-escalating costs and the ongoing depletion of the world's stocks of petroleum, make as much sense as the construction of pyramids by the Mayan rulers in the midst of the growing ecological crisis which was to ultimately destroy their civilisation.

The Brisbane residents will learn, to their cost, of the mistake they made on Saturday, and, when they do, I think many will reflect upon what factors influenced them to vote the way they did on Saturday.

As one intending to stand for office in 2012, I will have a lot to say about this in coming years. Will the Courier Mail be prepared, from now on, to report more objectively on these issues than it has in the past?

Finally, I have posted this to my web site. If you don't believe I have been fair to you in this letter, you are welcome to state why. I will post any response from you immediately below this letter, if you wish me to. Also, please feel welcome to phone me about this.

yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon

Footnotes

#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. See "Newman wary on rates as Rowell dithers on costings", Courier Mail, 14 March 2008. I would also like to point out that I don't think the photo of me does me justice. I did cooperate with the cameraman by looking down at him at an odd angle. I would have with appreciated either being advised to pose differently or having a better photo of me selected.

#main-fn2" id="main-fn2">2. The domain names begining with 'candobetter' predated any thoughts of my challenging 'Can Do' Campbell for election as Lord Mayor of Brisbane. I would have chosen 'wecandobetter.net', but that was taken. Nevertheless, I believe that Brisbane residents would have found the domain name to have been true of myself had I been elected.

#main-fn3" id="main-fn3">3. For further information, see, also, my response to the questionnaire from the Property Council of Australia.

#main-fn4" id="main-fn1">4. See "Newman's Liberals close on Brisbane majority", Courier Mail (online) of Friday 14 February. This story was at the URL www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23376890-952,00.html, but is seems that the story at that location has been over-hastily removed and replaced with the story Landslide means Campbell Newman must deliver promises of Saturday 16 March.

#reply1">

Emma Chalmers response of Monday 17 March

Dear James,

Thank you for taking the time to put together a comprehensive email.

From what you have written it appears that you have already made up your mind about the reasons you feel that you didn't get adequate coverage during the election, so I don't feel that there is much I can say that will change your view.

As you would appreciate, we have many demands on space in our paper and, while a number of mayoral aspirants around Queensland would have liked greater coverage, we have an obligation to adequately scrutinise the promises being made by the major parties and major contenders. I note you secured 700 votes on Saturday.

As you would also appreciate, even if you were to be elected Lord Mayor, the agenda of one of the major parties would end up prevailing because you would not have the numbers on the council floor to push through your policies.

I will point out that you did manage to get your photo prominently in the paper on Thursday, a feat not managed by the bulk of the mayoral aspirants in Queensland, let alone in Brisbane.

Kind regards,

Emma Chalmers, City Hall Reporter

#reply2">

James Sinnamon's further response of 20 March to Emma Chalmers

Dear Emma Chalmers,

Firstly, thank you for having taken the time to read my e-mail and respond to it. I have posted it to my website, immediately below my original letter. Please let me know if that is not OK. You are, of course, welcome to respond further, as is anyone else who wishes to either defend or criticise the Courier Mail's recent coverage of the Brisbane City Council's elections.

You wrote: From what you have written it appears that you have already made up your mind about the reasons you feel that you didn't get adequate coverage during the election, so I don't feel that there is much I can say that will change your view.

I believe that, to the contrary, I can fairly state that I am always open to persuasion by the evidence. I try to live by Keynes' dictum:

"When the facts change, I change my mind."_{#reply-fn1">1}

At the moment, the overwhelming evidence is that, for the past four years at least, the Courier Mail has not provided balanced coverage of the issues at stake in last Saturday's elections. These include, as referred to in my earlier e-mail, the North South Bypass Tunnel and the Hale Street Bridge, in favour of which the Courier Mail has repeatedly published editorials, ignoring mountains of contrary evidence provided by experts, concerned citizens, and affected residents. I will pursue this further below.

You wrote: As you would appreciate, we have many demands on space in our paper and,while a number of mayoral aspirants around Queensland would have liked greater coverage ...

If you had only slightly reduced your newspaper's lavish, uncritical and fawning coverage of almost every word coming from Campbell Newman's campaign machine, I believe that you could easily have found the the space to give the independents more reasonable coverage.

Whilst I appreciate the Courier Mail's efforts to cover all of the local Government elections in Queensland, the Courier Mail is principally a Brisbane newspaper. So I would have thought it should have been able to manage, at one point over the past four weeks, to print a modest profile of each of the Mayoral candidates. If the local newspapers, B magazine, Qnews, with much more limited space, could have managed to do this then why not the Courier Mail? Certainly this could have been done with utmost ease on-line.

You wrote: ... we have an obligation to adequately scrutinise the promises being made by the major parties and major contenders. ...

But the fact is you did not. A case in point is the story of Thursday 13 March "It's plane to see, this Mayoral race has gone green" with a photo depicting Lord Mayor Campbell Newman accompanied by Virgin Blue flight attendants in front of a aeroplane pushing trolleys with seedlings . That planting a few trees around Brisbane can in any way offset the destruction of vegetation caused by land-clearing and infilling residential developments in the suburbs of Brisbane, let alone Mr Newman's efforts to make Brisbane more car-dependent than ever before, is hotly disputed by many. This is classic greenwashing. In case you wish to better understand how corporations and governments employ greenwashing in order to cover up their environmentally harmful activities, can I suggest you read the transcript_{#reply-fn2">2} of Radio National's Background Briefing documentary "Greenwashing" of 10 February 2008. The point made by Cannon Hill residents and myself during Friday's debate about Campbell Newman's failure to honour his 2004 election promise to protect the Minnippi Parklands was certainly relevant and, I believe should have been reported on those grounds alone.

In regard to the Hale Street toll bridge, far from scrutinising the case for the Hale Street Bridge, the Courier Mail has enthusiastically clamoured for the bridge to be built and has systematically censored from its pages nearly all views critical of the bridge.

The Courier Mail did not publish the media release_{#reply-fn3">3} of 24 February from the "Stop The Hale Street Bridge" group nor did it publish the informative and well-written feature article "What price for City Hall accountability?"_{#reply-fn4">4} submitted by Darren Godwell, President, West End Community Association on 5 March. Moreover, David Bratchford of the "Stop The Hale Street Group" tells me his letters are not published, including one in response to an editorial in favour of the Bridge.

Whilst the Courier Mail does, on occasions, carry stories about some of the more overt adverse consequences, including the traffic chaos anticipated in the Hale Street Bridge's construction and cost-blowouts, they seem to be quickly forgotten by your editorial writers or when pro-bridge propaganda from Mr Newman is reported.

The case for these extravagant white elephants in the face of looming world-wide depletion of petroleum supplies simply does not exist. I believe that if the Courier Mail had scrutinised Campbell Newman's case for these projects and his overall record, as you claim to have done, he could not have won last Saturday's election and those who had unambiguously stood against these polices would have received a much higher vote.

These examples are only the very tip of the iceberg of the Courier Mail's unbalanced reporting in favour of Campbell Newman.

You wrote: ... I note you secured 700 votes on Saturday.

As of now, it has reached exactly 800 votes_{#reply-fn5">5}. Still, at only 1.5 per thousand formal votes cast, I won't attempt to claim that that was a resounding vote for me. However ...

My point of contention still stands. I had views which differed substantially from those of the major candidates and I believe that the Courier Mail should have reported those views, especially as you, yourself, had correctly observed how boring your unbalanced focus upon the major candidates, with little tangible policy differences, had made your coverage of the campaign. Had this happened, I believe my vote would have easily been much higher.

You wrote: As you would also appreciate, even if you were to be elected Lord Mayor, the agenda of one of the major parties would end up prevailing because you would not have the numbers on the council floor to push through your policies.

Thanks. I greatly appreciate that you have taken the trouble to speculate on an outcome that may not have been likely last Saturday. Had I had been elected, I think it would have also been likely that City Council would have consisted of many councillors other than those from the major parties. If, to the country, the council were to have been dominated by the major parties, I would, nevertheless, have continued to argue within the council and publicly for policies I believe to be in the best interests of the people of Brisbane. In such an unlikely scenario, I would hope that my views would be reported by the Courier Mail. As I believe my reasons to be sound, I see no reason why I would not have gained broad public support, in which case there would be no reason to assume that the Councillors could not be convinced to support my policies.

In contrast, I believe that if Campbell Newman's polices of the past four years had been truly in the interests of the people of Brisbane, then he would have had little difficulty in overcoming what he has labelled as 'obstruction' on the part of Labor majority leader David Hinchliffe. In most cases the reasons for Hinchliffe's 'obstruction' was well-founded community opposition to his white elephant projects, which, as I repeat, was not fairly reported in your newspaper. I believe that Lord Mayor Campbell Newman can count himself lucky that, instead of standing up for the affected communities, Hinchliffe gave in to him. I don't believe Campbell Newman would be Lord Mayor today, had David Hinchliffe stood his ground.

You wrote: I will point out that you did manage to get your photo prominently in the paper on Thursday, a feat not managed by the bulk of the mayoral aspirants in Queensland, let alone in Brisbane.

Of course I am grateful, but I had expected some publicity in return for my effort to be at the City Hall for that event. However, I was, frankly, aghast when I saw how that photo_{#reply-fn6">6} turned out. I did not recognise myself until after I had read my name under the caption under the newspaper. Others, who knew me, tell me that they were barely able to recognise me either. Perhaps, I have to get used to the fact that my thinning hair doesn't always lend itself to the photographic portraiture I would wish for, However, the Quest Newspaper photographer took some effort to make sure the photo he took turned out well. If your photographer had let me know how looking down at such an odd angle but not at the camera in the way I did had affected my appearance, I would certainly have posed differently.

I also believe that words describing what I stood for would have been more helpful to me than even a photo which had turned out well.

Finally, I realise that you may not necessarily be personally responsible for all of the matters of which I complain. Nevertheless, I have to deal with these issues at face value.

I still greatly appreciate the time and effort you have taken and your courtesy.

Yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon

Footnotes

#reply-fn1" id="reply-fn1">1. See en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes

#reply-fn2" id="reply-fn2">2. See transcript of Radio National's Background Briefing documentary "Greenwashing" of 10 February 2008 at www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2008/2155943.htm.

#reply-fn3" id="reply-fn3">3. See "Hale Street record set straight in runup to Gabba ward election" of 24 Feb 08 at www.stopthehalestreetbridge.com/downloads/media releases/HSL_media_release_240208.pd, candobetter.net/node/336.

#reply-fn4" id="reply-fn4">4. See "What price for City Hall accountability?" of 5 Feb 08 at www.stopthehalestreetbridge.com/downloads/media releases/OpEdPieceFeb2008.pdf, candobetter.net/node/337

#reply-fn5" id="reply-fn5">5. See www.ecq.qld.gov.au/elections/local/lg2008/BrisbaneCity/results/Mayoral/summary.html

#reply-fn6" id="reply-fn6">6. See www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23369923-3102,00.html

OVERPOPULATION AUSTRALIA 2008 - Surprising admissions in McDonald & Withers' latest beat-up for mass worker immigration “Workforce needs more migrants!” screamed the headlines on the front page of “The Age” (Sarah Smiles, “Workforce 'needs more migrants,' “The Age,” February 6, 2008). Hardly news, when the Age is always going on about this purported ‘need’ – and ABC radio, and just about every news organ now for years. But the real news about Peter McDonald's and Glenn Withers', “Population and Australia’s Future Labour Force,” went entirely unreported. Amazingly, these two veteran population boosters, McDonald the coffin-demographer, (famous for implying the demise of populations not growing explosively), and Withers, the growth-mad economist, state: “…the Australian experience has been that significant environmental degradation and some resource shortages have arisen from the failure to plan adequately for population growth." And, they add that "the absence of government policies to coordinate population growth with energy and the environment [among other considerations] would be a sufficient reason for restricting immigration increases.” The full paragraph and recommendations are below, plus some concluding comments: “… the Australian experience has been that significant environmental degradation and some resource shortages have arisen from the failure to plan adequately for population growth. This stems largely from a failure on the part of governments to acknowledge the reality of population growth, accommodate that and plan ahead in a coordinated way. A ‘headin-the-sand’ approach that pretends that future population growth will be curtailed presents far greater dangers of future environmental degradation than does future growth with adequate planning. Hence, an explicit population/migration policy should be adopted that acknowledges the global environmental issue and gives weight to the argument that greenhouse gas emissions in Australia must be limited. It must also address the infrastructure issues related to congestion in cities, sewerage and waste disposal, and the provision of water and energy. In this respect, good environmental and infrastructure policies are a necessary component of a positive immigration strategy. “RECOMMENDATION: The Federal Government should adopt a forward-looking population policy that incorporates both domestic population growth and migration, acknowledges their impact on Australia’s economic, social and environmental goals, and design population and complementary strategies accordingly. The population policies should include fertility, migration, population distribution and social integration and settlement. Complementary policies should include education and training, infrastructure and housing, and energy and the environment. These need to be effectively coordinated with State and Territory Governments, and their absence would be a sufficient reason for restricting immigration increases.” Don’t hold your breath that this means that the population growth and development lobby or its cheer-leading economists and demographers intend to stop riding jocky on the bulldozers. What we are almost certainly seeing here is a strategy by the development-finance-materials lobbyists, who benefit financially from all that population growth, to get the government to do their damage control. Just as the same crowd blame the government for housing shortages, high land and housing prices, and overall inflation when they successfully lobbied for precisely this situation. Australians are enraged by the undemocratic transformation of every aspect of their landscape, government and society. Does the reader need reminding that a criteria of facism is the close association of governments with big business? Reference:www.assa.edu.au/Publications/OP/op12008.pdf

The article below was originally a comment on webdiary

On December 4, 2003, Australia’s population was estimated at 20 million and projected to reach about 30 million by 2050. Slightly less than 50 per cent of this growth rate resulted from net overseas immigration. By 5 November 2007, Australia’s population had ballooned by more than one twentieth of itself (or 5.66 per cent) to 21,131,216 and was projected to reach 34 million by 2050.#fn_i">[i] In fact, with that growth rate of 1.5 per cent per annum, it is on course to double within less than 50 years. Annual immigration has been responsible for more than half this growth, even though the birth-rate had increased in a context of misleading pronatalist propaganda.

Before British colonization in 1788 the peoples of Terra Australis managed to conserve an almost exclusively hunter-gatherer nomadic lifestyle. Art#fn_ii">[ii] but no written history, has been found, and reconstruction of their impact relies on anthropological, archeological and ecological studies. “Australia” was transplanted and adapted from a British society which was on the cusp of industrialisation. Pre 1788, Australia’s aboriginal population averaged continent-wide less than one person per 8.5 square kilometers – possibly as few as one person per 51 square kilometers.#fn_iii">[iii] Numerous clans inhabited the continent at different population densities, reflecting regional rainfall, soils and climate.#fn_iv">[iv] Also patterned by climate and soils, the fossil-fuel-era population distribution is similar, but much denser.

Early attempts to establish agriculture failed with some unintensive exceptions recently uncovered.#fn_v">[v] The British managed to gain an agricultural foothold using ‘white’ slaves in the form of convicts drawn mostly from the ragged army of their dispossessed. Their number was later supplemented by indentured labour, displaced aboriginals, and, until Federation, ‘black-birding’ – the practice of kidnapping Pacific Islanders and bringing them to work in Australia, principally for the Colonial Sugar Refinery Company. There is thus no history or tradition of an established pre-fossil fuel agricultural society. The gold-rushes of the 1850s attracted capital, finance and economic migrants, resulting in a rapidly morphing population and economy and formation of a working class. This class made a national wage-fixing pact with capital at Federation in 1904 and also obtained the agreement of CSR to outlaw black-birding #fn_vi">[vi] and the importation of other 'non-white' labour, widely perceived as synonymous with slaving.#fn_vii">[vii]

The economy intensified after World War II, but much land was cleared and divided up for development by land speculators from the time of the gold rushes of the mid 19th and early 20th century. When the gold ran out, there was a massive depression, which probably assisted the formation of the above industrial laws.

After WW2 business promoted a fear of population implosion among politicians and a policy for mass immigration came in. High immigration, combined with the unforeseen baby-boom that accompanied the petroleum era, made the newly privatized housing industry very powerful and consolidated an economic addiction to population growth. Although the ‘white-Australia’ policy was dismantled, wages and conditions legislation under the 1904 constitution protected workers and made it unprofitable to import labor simply to undercut wages. However, in 2006-7, the conservative government found a way around this - (Workchoices).#fn_viii">[viii] At the same time net immigration was encouraged to increase from an average of around 75-80,000 per annum to upwards of 160,000 per annum,#fn_ix">[ix] at the behest of the development, housing, mining and financial lobbies. All this took place in the context of a huge increase in mining and construction, including massive engineering projects in most states which have drawn angry but useless protests from Australians. These circumstances underpin Australia’s demographic and material overshoot.

The ideology of multiculturalism has been useful for suppressing protest against this massive population growth by tarring as 'racist' any protest against immigration for whatever reason. It is ironic that the White Australia policy, which was introduced to combat the kind of slavery which the USA was built on, has been replaced with a much nicer-sounding Multiculturalism, which allows the importation of low-wage labour and the flooding of the housing market to benefit speculators, in the context of rising land prices and rising homelessness.

Footnotes

#fn_i" id="fn_i">[i] “Australia’s Population” (Population Clock), Australian Bureau of Statistics, www.abs.gov.au [5 Nov 2007]

#fn_ii" id="fn_ii">[ii] Much of which functioned as maps of areas of land with markers for water, game, people and landmarks.

#fn_iii" id="fn_iii">[iii] Total land stock is 770 million ha of 7,700,000 square km. Estimates of population range between 150,000 through 300,000 to 900,000.

#fn_iv" id="fn_iv">[iv] Joseph B. Birdsell, “Australia: Ecology, spacing mechanisms and adaptive behaviour in aboriginal land tenure”, in Ron Crocombe, (Ed.), Land Tenure in the Pacific, OUP/MUP 1971, pp.334-361

#fn_v" id="fn_v">[v] Jennifer Macey, “Vic bushfires uncover ancient Aboriginal stone houses”, The World Today, 3 Feb. 2006 12:45:00, www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2006/s1561665.htm

#fn_vi" id="fn_vi">[vi] “With Federation, the Commonwealth Parliament became dominated by spokesmen for ‘White Australia’. In October 1901 legislation was passed prohibiting the introduction of Pacific Islanders after 31 March 1904.”, McKillop, R.F., referring to Bolton, G.C., A Thousand miles away: A History of North Queensland to 1920, ANU Press, 1972, p. 239, in “Australia’s Sugar Industry” on the Light Railway Research Society of Australia site, www.lrrsa.org.au/LRR_SGRa.htm

#fn_vii" id="fn_vii">[vii] The Colonial Sugar Company aroused similar responses among indigenous Fijians who also objected to black-birding as well as to the importing of Indian indentured labour. “The Indian Connection”, Frontline, Volume 17 - Issue 12, June 10 - 23, 2000, www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1712/17120130.htm

#fn_viii" id="fn_viii">[viii] “How low can you go?”, Colin Fenwick, Economic and Labour Relations Review,5; (2006) 16(2) www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/ELRRev/2006/5.html

#fn_ix" id="fn_ix">[ix] “Largest population increase ever: ABS,” Media Release, September 24, 2007, http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/Latestproducts/3101.0, “Net overseas migration contributed 54% (162,600 people) to this growth, which was more than the natural increase of 46% (138,100 people or 273,500 births minus 135,400 deaths).” This occurred with confusing changes to statistical methods plus new ease of transfer from temporary to permanent migrant (largely equivalent to European citizenship).