Comments

James Sinnamon

Wed, 2008-03-26 15:12

The Following comments were received from demographer Katharine Betts of the Swinburne University.

Skilled professionals on 457 visas

I think the answer is that many people coming in on the temporary 457 visas are quite highly paid. It's a hassle for employers to bring them in (not a huge hassle, but a hassle nonetheless) and so they tend to do it more for professionals and skilled people whom they really want. Consequently it's logical that many of these people will be well paid.

However the average wages can hide big variations and it can still be the case that some people on 457 visas are exploited and underpaid.

Averages, medians, standard deviations and decile ranges

With averages (ie the arithmetic mean) a few big numbers can really skew the results. So if you get a small number of managers being brought in on big salaries this could obscure the fact that many people at the lower end were being paid low salaries.

I presume you are referring to on page 1 of the Australian March 18? (James: Yes)

He just talks about "averages". It's not clear whether he's referring to a mean salary or a median salary. A median is a much more valid measure of central tendency where the data are skewed as it's not biased by extreme values.

.

He's using ABS data and I'd expect them to use median salaries but he doesn't say that that is what he's got. Maybe he thinks the general reader will understand the word "average" and not want to be bothered by fine distinctions? But it does matter.

In any event neither measure tells us about the distribution of all the salaries. If the average used is a mean we'd need the standard deviation. If it's a median we'd want something like a decile range.

James Sinnamon

Sun, 2008-03-23 22:20

I stumbled across a most interestin artile about how none of the candidates in local government elections in a small town of Basalt in Colorado in the US were strongly in favour of growth. This is in contrast to the recent Brisbane elections. The article is .

BASALT — Basalt residents can rest assured that none of the candidates for three open Town Council seats are lobbying for rampant, unfettered growth. That was apparent from a forum sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce on
Wednesday.

The five council candidates in attendance — plus incumbent Mayor Leroy Duroux, who is running unopposed — all laid out convincing cases about their concerns and hopes for the community. They all essentially said they want Basalt to
remain a cool small town where you don’t have to be a millionaire to afford a place to live.

Copyright notice: Reproduction of this material is encouraged as long as the source is acknowledged.

Sheila Newman

Sat, 2008-03-01 22:09

It has been years now since I became interested in why the English speaking world suffers from overpopulation at the expense of democracy and the environment. As I have mentioned before, I discovered that there are obvious focused beneficiaries of population growth among those who derive benefit from demand-inflation for land, property, materials and those who finance development - banks, building societies - and the governments which derive billions of dollars in stamp-duty taxes on land-transactions and power and approval from the undiscriminatingly rich. It is a kind of self-perpetuating machine: you bring people into the country to build the houses, roads, shopping centres etc they will need and, if you own the land they will build on, or the factories that build the houses, or the banks and finance companies that lend them the money to buy, then you are practically in charge of the golden goose. (See ) If you can fix the land-use planning structure to excise any provisions for preserving wildlife, democracy or free access to vital resources, then you can develop a country to death. And that is what is happening to Australia, Canada, the USA and Britain (which started this system). But that doesn't clarify the problem of why the ABC, CBC ... why the public media are so openly suppressive of the alternative viewpoints to those of the Growthists. The problem is looking more and more like a religion to me. You don't expect public media in a strict Muslim or Catholic country to give serious air-time to anti-Muslim or anti-Catholic views. And you certainly don't expect such media outlets to give time to people who propose that Islam or Catholicism are not just wrong religions, but that they are absurd. You see, the interviewers and reporters on the ABC and CBC, and in all the other forms of mainstream media, were formed from childhood to believe that economic growth was the great truth of all time. Onto this great truth population growth was added. And these two icons were united under the great god of Progress, which has been preached as an historic truth, like the birth and death of Jesus. And it has been propped up on Calvinism and Spencerism and a bunch of other ideologies. And the writers and interviewers and newsreaders and editors in the mainstream media actually believe this concoction. So, our problem here might be better thought of as, How do you get rid of a destructive religion? Colleen McCulloch wrote an interesting science-fiction book about replacing the religion of growth with an anti-growth religion. In her book those who wanted to save the world had to find a messiah. She called the book, A Creed for the Third Millenium, Harper & Row, 1985. There is a short and useful review here: , which raises some further philosophical issues. Mass immigration itself is a kind of additional ideology on the basic religion of Growthism, appreciated for different reasons by different classes - by the rich as a kind of charity; by the upwardly mobile as insurance for continued high consumption; by immigrationists as a kind of heroic pilgrimage that transcends all others and cannot be denied. I am referring to the idealised passage of immigrants from the Third World to the First World; a kind of Pilgrimage to the centre of Progress and Enlightenment. For the champions of Growthism see the 'First World' as the pinnacle of Progress and Enlightenment. They want to keep it as that and the only way they can justify this is to pretend that everyone can come and share it. So, rather than being seen as massive consumers and exploiters of third world labour and commodities, the elite of those increasingly divided Richworld countries, can pretend that they are laying their sumptuous tables for an expected influx of deserving guests. On the basis of industrialised food-production, they can pretend to do the Loaves and Fishes. No-one is going to do the maths on this if they benefit from the illusion of continuous plenty for free. You might as well ask heroin addicts to consider how they really live their lives rather than how they imagine they live their lives. As for the financially insecure and the land-less workers, they see mass-immigration as invasion but worry that their views are sinful because they have been taught to believe that every third-world citizen grows up dreaming of the Great Pilgrimage. And there is a huge industry of Growthism Priests marketing that religion of the Great Pilgrimage to Progress and Enlightenment all over the globe. I don't actually think that most of the 'third world' gets to hear it of, if they do, that they believe it targets them, but the professional and monied classes in the third world certainly are targeted and do respond. You can see why the strong religious ideologies of the World's poor countries resent this First World ideology, especially Islam, which, like medieval Catholicism, outlaws lending with interest (which is the basis of growthism). Islam, which preaches modest lifestyles and rewards in the afterlife is undermined by the Growthism to Progress, which preaches Buy Now Pay Later and You Can Have it All, You Deserve it, Greed is Good and Anything Goes. And then there are the Non-Believers; the true Consumerism-Infidels, who think that Growthism beggars our neighbour and ourselves, creating the very problems it then purports to solve. These anti-growthists don't believe in Islam either. They believe in Limits and the Here and Now. They are about as popular as militant sceptics at a charismatic rally or militant teatotallers at a global bacchanale. Sheila N Sheila Newman, population sociologist Copyright to the author. Please contact astridnova|AT|gmail.com if you wish to make substantial reproduction or republish or contact the editor at jaymz|AT|bigpond.net.au

Dennis Anthony (not verified)

Tue, 2008-02-05 00:06

Further to my 1st comment actually about the best Green Parties, if you look at the other two best there is again not a mention of the word 'population'. All are concerned with human rights, gender politics etc. as shown below from the Missouri website: The Ten Key Values: Respect for Diversity Social Justice Grassroots Democracy Feminism Community-Based Economics Decentralization Ecological Wisdom Nonviolence Personal and Global Responsibility Future Focus

Dennis Anthony (not verified)

Mon, 2008-02-04 23:51

I have been to the Green Party of New Zealand's website and sundry links but I don't see even a mention of the word 'population'! Have they deleted the 6 page Population Policy statement? I'll contact them of course.

Tim Murray (not verified)

Tue, 2008-01-29 14:20

James, I appreciate your point. Many "sins" were real. The internment of Japanese Canadians in 1941 was real. The failure to compensate them was real.The abduction of First Nations children from their communities and placement in residential schools of abuse was real. The denial of the right to vote from Chinese Canadians until 1948 was real. Theft of Aboriginal land without honouring treaty obligations was real. The list is not exhaustive. "Alleged" was a poor choice of words, much like saying that the killings at Aushwitz were "alleged". So why did I say it? Because much of what is said about European-Canadian culpability is wrong. Firstly, there was no Wounded Knee or massacre at Sand Creek. The Mounties were not the US Calvalry and we had no George Custer. Instead we had the Riel Rebellion. True a lot of natives died of disease, 80,000 in British Columbia I believe of small pox. But Europeans here did not deliberately infect blankets and pass them out. Native immune systems just couldn't handle a fatal contact. The greatest cross we have had to bear are the Oriental Exclusion Act and the Komagata Maru incident of the early 20th century. The spin that has been put on these developments is that Asians were deliberately excluded from our country for racist reasons. These events are re-visited by the media and the educational system over and over again so as to silence all opposition to future immigration from the region. Much in the way that our Prime Minister's turning back of Jewish refugees from Hitler is waved in our face as a reason never to say no to an unlimited number of refugees. The reason for the Oriental Exclusion Act and the expulsion of the passengers of the Komagata Maru was to protect the wages and working conditions of BCs labour force. Period. These are the "sins" I had in mind when I referred to "alleged" sins. Tim

James Sinnamon

Tue, 2008-01-29 13:25

Tim, I think the argument you make is sound, however, I do take some exception to the way you refer to the sins of many of your white forefathers in Canada as 'alleged'. They were very real (or at least in the US with it's Massacre at Wounded Knee as but one of many examples) and in Australia.

However past ill-treatment of aboriginal societies is no justification for the current inhabitants of our societies being treated largely in the same way as those societies were back then. It does nothing to redress past injustices and only serves to destroy our social cohesion, our environment, and our children's future

Attitudes which effectively amount to racism against people of Anglo-Celtic descent from even amongst amongst left-liberal members of that community are quite common here in Australia, also. See, for example the following on a forum on Online Opinion in response to the article of 8 Oct 2007:

There are already sufficient numbers of Australians of non-Western heritage to ensure that time and demographics will further consign “White Australia” to a slightly embarrassing historical memory.

Wendy Boglary (not verified)

Tue, 2008-01-29 12:15

I attended the meeting last Tuesday where the vote was passed to allow the expansion of the quarry. I was appalled at the lack of regard given to the wishes of the community. Yes the environment is again to be damaged, yes wildlife will again be affected but with the increase in pollution and road traffic people's health will be adversely affected and the lives of our childen endangered. The community must be listened to when these decisions are made to stop these negative consequences on our community. Wendy Boglary Ormiston Resident

admin

Mon, 2008-01-21 09:40

Redlands Shire Councillor Toni Bowler sent me this in an e-mail - james Hi All, I would like to see lots of residents in Council tomorrow, I have just spoken to Associate Professor Bryan Burmeister Lung cancer specialist at PA Hospital, who intends to speak tommorrow, and it seems that a report has been released for Queensland showing a higher level of Lung cancer in the Bayside area, I will move that no approvals be given until a full Health risk report has been done on the dust. The figures from Main Roads department show that there is 1800 commercial vehicles daily on West Mt Cotton Road, that was in October, so if this application gets approved to double the capacity what will be figures increase to, the impact on people, our roads system will not cope. At 10.a.m. at Cleveland Council Chambers residents are asked to speak for 5 minutes I would encourage everyone to have their say, Mt Cotton deserves better. The people of Redlands definitely deserve better, Toni

Dave (not verified)

Fri, 2008-01-04 12:21

According to the Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA), the answer to Australia's housing affordability crisis is to release more land for development and to water down 'draconian' planning laws that add to the cost of building a new house. Of course they'd say this. If you work on the assumption that demand will (and should) grow ad infinitum, you must meet the demand. And if rapidly growing demand keeps prices high, then the best way to deal with that is not to dampen demand (heaven forbid!), but to build shoddier houses and suburbs at cheaper cost. A look at Canberra's suburban development is enlightening. The older (inner) suburbs were subject to strict planning requirements. Such suburbs are characterised by large blocks, tree lined streets and plenty of open space. Despite some recent changes allowing dual occupancy - they remain lovely places to live. As you move north or south, you can see the effects of the of eroding planning requirements over time. The blocks get smaller, the proportion of public space is reduced, the proportion of medium density housing increases. In Banks and parts of Belconnen, the streets are narrow, the blocks are tiny and in general you feel like you could be in any of the mushroom suburbs in Sydney's north-west. There's no concession to local conditions in the architecture. And for all that, the houses are STILL less affordable than they were in the 60's when 'draconian' planning restrictions were firmly in place. Frankly, the REI's ideas amaze me. I can't imagine how proposals so blatantly self-serving and at odds with the interests of the community can be seriously considerded. So what could a responsible Government do to address the problem of housing affordability? Here's 4 ideas to begin with.. 1. Reduce population growth. Preaching to the converted on this site, so i don't think this needs any elaboration. 2. Scrap negative gearing for investment properties. Negative gearing on investment housing encourages people to purchase multiple dwellings. The extra demand that's generated by people wanting an investment property artificially inflates prices, putting the price of simpler properties ('starter' houses) out of the reach of first home buyers. The REI perpetuates the myth that if you stop negative gearing on investment properties, the sky will fall. They claim that Keating's half-hearted rollback in 1985 resulted in a massive jump in rents and subsequent disaster for all concerned. Problem is, that story's just bunkum - as explained by Ross Gittins.. Confronted with this, does the REI back down and admit that it got it all wrong? Hell no. It digs itself in deeper. On 23 July 2007, the REI produced possibly the most confused and misleading media release of the year, entitled "Negative Gearing Improves Housing Affordability". This amazing document concludes that if people are encouraged to invest in housing (even established homes) this will lead to lower rents and thus, more affordable housing. I'd have thought that if people have to pay more to buy investment properties - because of increased demand stimulated by negative gearing - then they'd be needing higher returns and thus charging higher rents. Silly me. The release doesn't touch on the affordability of owner occupied housing at all - presumably the challenge of showing how increased demand will lead to lower prices was too much - even for the experienced spin doctors at the REI. The whole issue of negative gearing and the REI's sorry role in it's defence is worthy of separate treatment, but to move on.. 3. Take the revenue generated by scrapping negative gearing (NG) on investment places, and return it to the people in the form of a tax break on owner occupied housing - only. Such a move could be restricted to houses in areas facing decline or to properties that met specific environmental requirements. In conjunction with scrapping NG for investment places, this'd make the changes to NG revenue neutral and avoid the accusation of a revenue grab by Government. 4. Support schemes that give people the option of trading their part-time labour for a deposit. Such schemes are sometimes referred to as 'sweat-equity' and have been pioneered by Tumbarumba Council in southern NSW. They allow cash poor people with some available time to get out of the rent trap using their own labour. Tumbarumba Council should be congratulated on implementing this progressive program and other local, state and federal government bodies should take a good look at it. Of these ideas, all but would give the REI apoplexy. But surely - just for once - the national interest should be considered. The last 30 years have shown that pandering to corporate lobby groups does not lead to better or more affordable housing. It's time for a fresh approach. Cheers .

Dave (not verified)

Thu, 2008-01-03 12:47

I think that in the public mind, the issues of population, race and of multiculturalism have become confused to the point where they're inseparable.

Try this simple exercise at home. There's a striking but crude bumper sticker going 'round that consists of an outline of Australia with the words "F*ck off - We're full". No question, it's an offensive sort of thing. Its emphatic use of the F word guarantees this (as well as it's popularity in some circles, no doubt).
It's existence has excited much commentary on blogs around the web. Google these and what you find is that there's precious little discussion of whether Australia's actually 'full' or not. The overwhelming reaction - delivered in smug tones of moral superiority - is that the sticker is an example of redneck racism and that it's to be deplored. Not just because it's crude or offensive, mind you, but because it's fundamentally wrong. Most writers feel that its wrongness is evident simply because of the socio-economic status of those sporting it on their vehicles. Or from the class of vehicle on which the sticker appears. One blogger, having ripped into the bogans across the road for decorating their Falcon with the offending sticker, goes on to cite population/land area statistics to 'prove' how underpopulated Australia is compared to China and India (those paragons of sustainability). A sympathetic reader, gushing over this vapid analysis, says;

"I especially like how you backed up your argument with real evidence- like, if you got into a verbal spat with the neighbour you could actually quote statistics and make him/her feel even more ignorant." ()

Deary me. One wonders what a similar analysis of Antarctica's population to land area would reveal. To be fair, later commentators question the relevance of the simple land area/population analysis and of course the blogger provides no response.

Aside from being just plain wrong, the blogosphere is unanimous in its view that the sticker is racist. How so? My own analysis of its limited content is that all comers are being asked to F*ck off, not just those of a particular ethnic origin. But as Sheila's article implies, the 'racist' brush has been used to tar so many for such a diversity of reasons that it no longer matters. If you oppose mass immigration - you're racist.

Crude stickers are probably no help in getting the message about population sustainablity more widely accepted. But the common notion that opposition to mass immigration = racism is a bigger challenge. And with vested interests benefiting from this misconception, changing it will be hard.

El Potiron (not verified)

Sat, 2007-12-29 11:14

Depends on whether most Australians understood, had a choice, had the power to avoid participating in the consumer economy. I think you have to find out who is responsible for our economy. I don't think that Australia is a democracy. We don't get to choose our economy. It is imposed on us by politicians. For instance, consider the proposal to blow up portions of Port Phillip Bay then continuously dredge it so that 4 times the amount of containers can be brought in. Many people have protested a great deal about this, but it is almost certainly going to go ahead. Also, the government keeps imposing more houses in increasingly dense suburbs with lots of garages for second cars. Many people go to VCAT and protest, but it hardly ever does them any good. Melbournians would have to give up their jobs and become professional begging protesters if they were to attempt to combat the mass consumerism being imposed on them. No, I think we need some kind of tribunal trying our leaders - something like a war-crimes tribunal - but this would be an economic growth and consumer crimes tribunal.

Concerned Australian (not verified)

Tue, 2007-12-04 21:53

The Victorian Government and other organisations are just like John Howard and co were only a couple of weeks ago. Ready to push on with out dated thinking. The people of Australia and the world must not allow the destruction or our planet to continue by large coporations that only have their bottom line in mind. Our future depends on working together in sustainable ways. The SEES process has many holes and has disregarded the 139 recommendations from the first EES. When POMC has not got the answers it wanted, it found ways to get another "independant panel" for the "right" answers. We will not put up this any longer, the Bay, Yarra and Rip are not to touched by POMC in this manner.

Andrew McKillop (not verified)

Tue, 2007-12-04 04:00

This is a real-world story, showing how paranoid Wall Street has got about oil, and desperate for cheap oil. For obvious reasons, no names are mentioned. OIL PRICES - ARAB GULF STATES TO THE RESCUE ? Andrew McKillop Late November saw Wall Street shellshocked from stock indices that reeled with the US dollar, from serial bad news on the credit crunch, with home loan defaults shifting now to car loan defaults, and after that who knows ? Perhaps defaults on credit card loans for school books, clothes or parrot cages ? Behind or to the side of this as permanent bad news for seamless, Teflon growth of equity markets so recently at all-time highs, was or is the specter of ultra high oil prices near 100 US dollars a barrel. For starters oil isnt in the same league as improbable, but real paper losses from credit linked and derived financial instruments, swaps, bonds and suchlike, that suddenly lost their glamor and market appeal in summer 2007. In the flight to quality, to low-yielding but surer financial paper closely linked to governments, like US 10-year treasury bills, the Frankenstein creations of financial whizzkids or engineers have left vast stacks of paper to write down in value, often by 90% on face value, sometimes a simple and final 100%. In Europe for example, maybe 2000 billion USD, around 1400 billion Euro or 1000 billion GB pounds of face value paper could be at risk of massive write-downs. Basically, nobody will buy it. In the US, in the home loans sector, any guess will do for the size of junk-status mortgage and credit related paper swilling round the finance circuits, but it could be 3000 or 5000 billion USD in nominal or 'face value' terms. Compared to that, at present sky-high, dangerous and inflation-stoking oil price levels a guesstimate for OPEC's total revenues in the next 12 months might be 650 billion USD. Yet this gets written into the disaster scenario different ways and often. Mostly it hinges on the magic word 'confidence'. Teflon consumers can pull out of their swoon, start paying back their mortgages, buy new cars, take a flight to Honolulu or Hong Kong and joyfully buy a dozen new parrot cages if they get their gasoline, heating oil and plastics or pharmaceuticals just a bit cheaper - not a tiresome and constant bit more expensive. ARAB OIL TO THE RESCUE Over lunch in a chic New York sushi bar very late in November with a former chief oil strategist at a rather well-known investment bank we heard how critical and vital it is to act now and do something. His former employers had themselves been doing some bloodcurdling write-downs of junk paper, so he knew exactly what is needed. Stop the spiral sending oil prices to crazy heights, bring back confidence, save the US dollar and give some collateral life to those drooping stocks and equities indices. Of course our oil strategist doesnt believe in Peak Oil but along Wall Street, and in other places, that is understandable. In a secular age belief in something clear and easy to gurgle at the microphone is necessary. Unlimited oil reserves exist in the Arab lands. Everybody knows this ! Schoolbooks of the right vintage, and prime-time TV of the right and far-right editorial bent say that, so it must be true. We heard from the expert how one and all of his high level contacts inside OAPEC and the GCC-Gulf Cooperation Council were sweating bullets, even in late November around the propane-fired campfire outside Dubai city limits, with a tasty halal lamb chop on the skewer. They had already acted to save Citigroup with a generous injection of 7.5 billion USD in cash, although Citigroup might have another 25 or 30 billion in mortgage derivatives and other junk finance paper to write down and out, but they and the cream of Wall Street knew high priced oil was really to blame. It was now time to act, hike output, and send oil prices back to ground zero - say 55 or 60 dollars a barrel. The uncharitable might say that isnt really cheap, and the outright cruel might say its a campfire dream along the 12-lane desert highway. Cooked up in an alcohol-free bonhomie session with a gas powered Honda generator to run the laptops, lights and music this dream has one fatal flaw - its a dream. At dawn, everybody will be gone to take their next flight in a fuel efficient Airbus or low carbon Boeing, and can forget everything on arrival. Our expert told us to believe the anxiety of sunni sheikhs who own and operate OAPEC and the GCC. They had downloaded clever spreadsheets and amusing blogs convincing them extreme high oil prices will crater world oil demand after destroying US economic growth. After that, they learned, world oil would tilt back to permanent oversupply and permanent low prices, just like the grim days of 1986-1999 when nobody thought of, or could pay for 75-storey office blocks at the desert's edge. Asking the difficult question "Who is going to bail out Citigroup and its lookalikes with 7.5 Bn dollar cash injections, if oil prices slide to nothing ?" only got the reply that this is a structured and targeted confidence building operation, needing 55 or 60-dollar oil for success. After January it could go back to 65-dollars, perhaps; what is needed is instant confidence, right now. The sushi bar session was paid by an interested listener usually trading tech stocks, but as he said you never know where a good tip will come from. As our expert readies to leave us we learned he was flying that very night to a Gulf sheikhdom, and a predictable whirlwind series of inevitably hi-level strategy meetings. Enough new barrels of sheikhly oil would be rolled out to knock prices back to the magic comfort level, say $60-a-barrel, or even less than that, inch'allah. His Arab friends are sure and certain they can do it, they say so, but he told us they need him to mastermind the operation. Otherwise, he forecasts instant doom and his Arab pals agree: "the S&P 500 could slump to 1250 and the US dollar to 60 Euro cents". Gosh and golly. How did things get so terribly bad ? To be sure this will be relayed by the usual finance media culprits. Expect plenty of downside and bearish oil news being injected to Bloomberg TV, CNBC business news, Fox business news, Wall Street Journal, Economist and Financial Times. The newsy-viewsy easy reading, watching and listening will be great for all believers in a cheap oil future. Who cares about reality ? The interested listener footing the bill had the right to one last question, on how rational this strategy can be with world oil supplies so tight. So many things could thwart this noble project if the extra barrels are not physically rolled out. It could turn even colder and stay that way in the US northeast, thought to be the only place on the planet that uses heating oil. Another creaky, under-maintained pipeline or refinery could blow up. The US recession might not be quite as scary as imagined, the US Treasury will keep on printing money and Bernanke will likely go on cutting interest rates. Iran will go on being difficult, to say the least, about its nuclear plans, Iraq can go on being a mess, Pakistan can get to be a mess, with real live nuclear weapons, Chavez can be worse than ever. The litany of dangerous things for the strategy of cutting oil prices back to 60-dollars almost overnight might even include earthquakes. WTI oil at $95 a barrel could seem rather cheap in January 2008. Our well-traveled lad dismissed all that with a wave of the wrist. He was flying out of New York for nice meetings, floating on a raft of petrodollars. Those pastoral herder friends of his would try so hard to do their bit. The Kuwaitis have already, temporarily of course, reversed thrust and now claim their oil production isnt shrinking but increasing, with a production hike of "up to 0.25 Mbd" in the 3 months since August. When oil prices needed a boost they could tell us their reserves were shrinking. When its too high priced for Citigroup and the lookalike crowd of harassed investment banks, they say they are pumping more. Saudi grandeur should allow them to claim 0.75 Mbd more. They would lose face at anything less, but because times are tough they might limit their claims to a nice round 0.5 Mbd. The Emiratis and maybe Omanis will do their bit, also. Pretty soon we have a wall of new oil rolled out, and prices collapse. All this will be done "within days or weeks", he said with a flourish as he left. The oil strategist's colleague who sat and listened to all this with a wry smile later told us he trades a personal account. He has to face facts, not believe campfire stories. He tipped us with advice you can tell your grandmother to put her lifetime savings into, or at least the price of a few parrot cages. WTI nearby futures, or the next month's contract price, he thought could shrink to maybe $75/bbl on the downside, but then rebound well above $101.30/bbl in the next 60 days. Why he chose $101.30 was simple: this is what Wall Street Journal calculates as the ultimate oil price in 1980, in 2007 dollars. January or February calls at $101.30/bbl will be really cheap in the next 15 days, he said, but the 75 puts wont be cheap, so go sparingly on those. Set a 65% upside/35% downside straddle or butterfly spread using this advice. Bet both ways but mostly up. If you dont like that, he added with a wink, try sugar.

admin

Sun, 2007-12-02 03:33

Gabrielle, thanks for passing on this grim news. Any chance you can take photos? Newman must be held to account at teh next elections for breaking his promise to stop this vandalism. Could you call me some time on 0412 319669?

Gabrielle (not verified)

Sat, 2007-12-01 05:07

Has anyone actually been out to the Parklands lately? I and my partner went there last weekend and I was horrified to see that the lagoons are drying out. The southern lagoon is now a baked dry cracked mud flat and the second lagoon is merely inches deep, evidenced by the fact that swimming birds - water hens, ducks etc - are leaving silt streaks in their wake as they try to swim and forage. It is obvious that the new housing development extension on the corner of Meadowlands and Belmont Roads has had a major impact on the flow of the tidal inlet into the lagoons. It is quite erroneous and deadly for human beings to think they can sustain this kind of development. Are the developers blind and stupid? or do they simply not give a damn about anything except making dollars at the expense of our Brisbane ecology? How on earth can CAN DO CAMPBELL imagine he will survive this kind of madness? Do the majority of human beings living in Brisbane, or indeed Queensland, really believe they can survive the ever increasing rate of destruction of protective coastal flora and fauna in the longer term. People are closing their eyes and minds to any analysis of the impact unfettered urban development will have on their long term well being. Why are we turning Brisbane into another ruined paradise, like Britain and America?

Anonymous (not verified)

Sat, 2007-11-24 02:27

Not only Telstra, but also the broadcasting field has been shedding (retrenching) highly skilled technical staff for years, particularly with each new private ownership. I'd like to see some research into where these skilled workers go- Their work is now contracted out, which is not only expensive, but little recruitment of young trainees is occurring-- Furthermore, this work now frequently involves travel from job to job and is very narrowly focussed compared to the previous permanent 'on site' tech's involvements and interest in pre-empting problems.

Anonymous (not verified)

Fri, 2007-11-23 02:31

So Kevin Rudd's uncle is blaming him for not stopping the Traveston Dam on the Mary River? (The Australian, 22/11/07) Firstly, that's a state issue and the only way Mr Rudd could stop it is if he were the current Federal Environment Minister using his powers under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. At this point, the only Party that could stop the Traveston Dam is the Liberal/National Coalition, as they are the ones in power. Unfortunately, it is Malcolm Turnbull, Minister for Environment and Water, who is now in charge of protecting the environment. It is not likely that he will do that given the desperation for water. More importantly, it's the Howard/Costello Coalition government who caused the need for the dam, both by ignoring the warnings about climate change for the past 11 years and by increasing the number of people in Australia with their baby bonuses and high immigration program (which they have doubled since the Hawke/Keating years). If we want a sustainable society in Australia we must put pressure on our leaders to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, provide subsidies for renewable energy, build a new economy based on genuine sustainability and stabilise population at a level our continent, with one of the lowest carrying capacities in the world, can support. Hopefully if Rudd gets in he will be able to do something about the Traveston Dam and all the other devastation caused by the pro-growth-at-any-cost policies of the Howard government. Regards, binky

Anonymous (not verified)

Mon, 2007-11-19 14:12

Channel deepening is also a serious threat to our democracy. It is the worst example of rammed-through massive environmental damage for the benefit of a small lobby group which is driving huge population growth and consumption. Channel deepening means more consumption, more pollution, less freedom. We have a state government in Victoria which simply does not care about the quality of peoples' lives and is apparently prepared to risk complete destruction of the most important natural asset and social and aesthetic common good by far. What is driving this? To my mind it must be corruption and incompetence on the grandest scale yet seen in this country. Unfortunately the same scheme is being 'floated' for Port of Hastings, with a horrible gigantic development in Victoria's "Peninsula Biosphere" - which turns out to be another pretend environmental thing which has allowed government cronies to get the jump on real environment groups on the peninsula. This whole battle has been totally demoralising. I have lost all my faith in democratic government and the Victorian Civil and Administrative tribunal. When one committee failed to get the answers that the government wanted to please its friends, it simply called for another committee. What is going on in this state? What is going on in Australia? It all looks like what Naomi Klein describes in Shock Doctrine, Penguin, Australia, 2007

Anonymous (not verified)

Mon, 2007-11-19 03:00

Great article! I used to wish that the major newspapers would devote more time to comments from the public, but the letters to the editor word-quotas just kept getting smaller. So it's great to read some comments about the commentators! I read Latham's Diaries and enjoyed some of his remarks about Labor hypocrisy and ego-mania. I couldn't find any sign however that Latham had any more ideas than the ALP or the Libs. It was disappointing to see how he bought, lock stock and barrel, growth economics mumbo-jumbo. Now it seems he has completely lost touch with reality on industrial relations. But the man never had any idea of the depth of our material and energy problems. This is the case with just about all the Labor politicians; it's as if they have never been out of the city and have always worked in offices. And the Libs may travel more, but they don't care about anyone. It is shocking that this man who seems to think of himself as some kind of working class hero would now assert that the Libs are not going to do anything worse. I am personally sure that they are. But is Labor going to do any better? Can't leave Howard in though; I agree with that. These are scary times.

Tim Murray (not verified)

Sat, 2007-11-17 18:23

Let me complement Dr. Ravenholt's sensible analysis with a more shocking one. "To feed a starving child is to exacerbate the world population problem." (Dr. Lamont Cole, Professor of Ecology, Cornell University). Eradicating small pox was quite wrong, because if the birth rate won't come down, the death rate must come up. As Jacques Costeau said, we must lose 350.000 people a day just to stabilize the population at its present unsustainable level. A Canadian Senate Report tabled in early 2007 concluded that the $575 billion spent on African development aid in the last 45 years had left Africans in a greater state of misery than they were before the aid was dispensed. Why? Because contrary to the Theory of Demographic Transistion, the temporary illusion of prosperity induced by aid encouraged births and the resulting population boom just over-taxed resources. Without family planning, foreign aid is worse than useless, it is harmful. Looked at in this light, Bill Gates and his humanitarian efforts to curb AIDs is criminal, as is that of the phoney "Sir" Bob Geldoff. Bob is in essence, the "father" of twenty million African children. The aid he generated only encouraged the same population growth that previous foreign aid did. Geldoff would be my nominee for Canada's Foreign Minister. He has just the credentials of misplaced compassion and wrongheadness needed to waste billions of our dollars on making desperate people even more desperate. Recently Canada just threw $300 million at Haiti, without any attempt to require the Haitans to institute family planning. With a fertility rate of 5.4 their population will double in 25 years, wiping out any good that working class Canadian taxpayers have done them (Canadian corporations pay squat). Really with 6.7 billion people in the world, and some like Lovelock, Paul Watson and Dave Forman saying that we can't sustain more than 500 million, we have run out of time to play games. Before long, it will be 9 billion and biodiversity will be dead, followed by a massive human die-off. Global warming is not the boogey man you should worry about because humanity in some proportions can adapt to that, but not to the loss of biodiversity services. Therefore it might soon be time to call in the services of Dr. Eric Pianka or Prince Philip. Pianka proposes the release of a deadly air-born Ebola-like virus that will kill off 90% of the population. His objective is not to exterminate the race, but on the contrary, to save it. For if 90% isn't eliminated, he contends, we'll all die. Prince Philip simply promises to do the same thing. When he dies he hopes to be re-incarnated as a killer virus which will cull the human population. Personally, I favour Melbourne's Dr. John Reid's solution. Put a virus specific to the human reproductive system in the water that would make a substantial proportion of the popultion infertile. Optimum Population Trust of the UK takes the civilized approach of course. All we have do--and this is SO British---persuade the fathers of the world like good chaps to limit their families to two children. This in effect will bring the TFR down to 1.5, enough to level off the global population. Trouble is, the clock is ticking. How much time will it take to wrest power away from the major religions, from patriarchy and to educate women to make that TFR of 1.5 a reality? If and when that happens, it will be too late, if it isn't already. One politician dismissed my concerns over the population bomb by saying that there "was no humane mechanism to reduce population". Therefore lets just be myopic Greens and focus on reducing consumption. Well, if there is no humane mechanism, how about trying an inhumane one? Or would you prefer nature's upcoming inhumanity?

anonymous (not verified)

Tue, 2007-11-13 02:47

Tim, firstly the experience of the NDP in the Canadian province of British Columbia since has striking similarities with the Australian Labor Party in Australia as a whole. The Whitlam Labor Government wanted to seriously reform Australia in the interest of ordinary Australians. They wanted to make Australia energy independent, and, in general, buy back the farm and control population growth (a fact not widely recognised). They weren't quite socialist, but obviously what they did was a lot better than anything that came before or since. They were thrown out in 1975 largely due to a successful campaign by the right wing newsmedia, principally Rupert Murdoch's . Since then the Australian Labor Party has drifted further to the right and the legacy of the Whitlam Government, of which the Labor Party should be proud has, instead, been disowned. Tim wrote: "But how else do you teach an incumbent party of that longevity a lesson?" In Australia, you make use of the preferential voting system. You give your first vote to a party which has better policies than Labor, then make sure you put Labor ahead of the Liberals (the 'Liberal' Party being the extreme right wing governing party in Australia). That way you can both remove the most obnoxious right wing party from office (or keep the out of office) whilst giving a message that you expect something better from the governing 'left wing' party. This is far from ideal, but until you get a choice between something clearly good and something clearly bad, you will have to settle for choosing something bad in preference to something worse. If it is done in the way I suggested using the preferential voting system, at least it could bring forward the day when voters may get a choice of being able to vote for something good, instead of just the lesser evil. If, instead, you allow the most obnoxious right wing party to slip into government because of disillusionment with the 'left wing' party you only put back the date when something better may emerge. Had people not been lulled, as a result of justified disgust with Keating's Labor Government, into allowing the odious right wing Howard Government to be elected in 1996, I think we could have found a way to move Australian politics much further forward. Instead we have allowed Australian politics to be set back by many decades. James

Tim Murray (not verified)

Fri, 2007-11-09 20:29

Yeah, I hear you. Cutting my nose off to spite my face. But how else do you teach an incumbent party of that longevity a lesson? You don't do it by joining it and working within. I tried that. For 39 years. The NDP first gained office in British Columbia in 1972 and they performed like no left-wing government in the Western world. They were not social democrats. They were socialists. And they governed with the expectation that they were going to be turfed from office after one term. So they jammed an incredible number of bills though the legislature. They nationalized resource industries. They established government automobile insurance. Free drugs for seniors. And they froze all farmland from development. After their defeat, subsequent leaderships determined to follow a more conciliatory course. Three more NDP governments followed in the next 27 years. My experience was that when in office, the parliamentary caucus developed a bunker mentality. Criticism from within the party was treated the same way as criticism from outside the party. The government agenda was shrouded with secrecy. MPs followed caucus discipline, not internal party bodies democratically elected by members. A personality cult would emerge whereby the leader was not to be questioned. When they were government of course, they would not listen to our advice. Party policy, indeed long-standing party policy was brushed aside. The God was Growth, and the measure of success was the same standard as the right applied. At this point, re-electing the NDP came to mean electing its right-wing clone. Seeing the right elected in its stead came to be a matter of indifference to many activists. Absention and non-participation became our only weapon. In BC now I am faced with a choice. The ruling rightwing Liberal Government of reckless growth and income disparity, or a milktoast social democratic opposition NDP which embraces something called "managed growth" and promises increased social spending. Even in opposition, the NDP will not listen to me. My MP ignores me and I am banned from distributing literature at meetings even though I was a member of long-standing. Can you imagine how impossible the NDP would be in government? I fought to change this party when I was a 19 year old member of its socialist ginger group. After 30 years of trying I give up on social democracy. Working within the movement accomplishes nothing. Voting for them only rewards their duplicity, hypocrisy, dishonesty, intellectual bankruptcy and corruption. Where the Christ is Che Guevara when I need him? Is there somebody out there in Oz reading this who went through similar tribulations with the ALP? Tim Murray

admin

Fri, 2007-11-09 02:58

Whilst I understand Tim's despair at the NDP, I think its always a mistake to vote for a more right wing party. I can personally remember two occasions when electorates in Australia succumbed to sentiments similar to what Tim has expressed. The first was the election of the Liberal state Government led by Premier in NSW in 1988 after years of mis-rule by a state Labor Government. Upon winning Greiner embarked upon a savage campaign of cutbacks and privatisations somewhat in the spirit of "The Shock Doctrine" as described in Naomi Klein's . Victorian Premier , elected in 1992 was worse. The current abysmally bad high immigration and extreme neo-liberal Howard Government led by John Howard was elected in 1996 after years of mis-rule of Australia by Labor governments

Tim Murray (not verified)

Thu, 2007-11-08 18:32

GREAT NEWS! After 16 years in office the Saskatchewan NDP went down to defeat in the November 7/07 elections, losing 11 seats and gaining just 37% of the vote to the winning centre-right Saskatchewan Party. The NDP had the opportunity to strike out a new and distinct vision for North American society---that of a steady-state economy. It was easier to do this in a province that has been experiencing a net loss in population than one that one was experiencing robust population growth. Instead, the NDP jumped on the growth bandwagon, as it has in Manitoba and British Columbia Growth is good, they said, as long as it is shared. Well, I suppose the electorate decided that they might as well go with the growth experts, the party of developers and big business, the Saskatchewan Party, rather than a pale imitation. The two party system exists so that alternatives can be proposed and are available to be voted on. By playing "Me Too" the NDP in Canada has denied the people any real choice. In fact Social Democrats everywhere seem to be about privatization, cutting services and promoting growth. Even nuclear power is no longer taboo. Is it any wonder that their traditional constituency abandons them? Soon British voters will send David Cameron and his Conservatives into office after a decade of Blairism, of unmet Kyoto targets, rampant crime, and out of control immigration. To say that it is about time that a Tory was back in is an appalling comment on how social democracy has gone wrong.

David Alan Couper (not verified)

Tue, 2007-11-06 23:19

As an independent Senate candidate (Group N on this election's ticket), while I agree with Senator Bartlett's intentions, I think we as a society have the capacity to go two steps further: (a) to move Senate voting towards an electronic format, continuous in its capacity to be altered, powerful in generating a Senator's legislative mandate, and giving the electorate far greater control than what is available; and (b) move to end the role of State governments once and for all. The archaic remnants of a political system based in 19th Century thinking, states are now redundant in the face of a strong Federal system and the potential for local and regional councils to work together to form the most efficient and productive relationships possible. It is thus no wonder Beattie moved on amalgamation only now, considering the awfully tired feeling in the electorate at the last QLD State election - he sensed that the electorate is wearying of the ineptitude of State government (and opposition), and therefore felt it necessary to solidify power into his own hands, even if Bligh is now in charge (Beattie will still benefit in the coming years as a result of his achievements in QLD politics). It is utterly important that genuine independents like Cate Molloy at House of Reps level, and young candidates like myself at the Senate level, play a big part in setting Queensland up for a shift to true sustainability. The Greens have the heart in this area ecologically, but I am uncertain as to whether they have the necessary economic future vision to balance their overall political equations. The Democrats will never be a force anywhere other than at the Senate level (if that), which makes it difficult for them to communicate across the breadth of levels of government. The majors and conservative right minors are, or will be, of detriment if allowed to maintain or increase their powers. Independents, if good communicators and good listeners, will always be better in serving the electorate than parties will, and I hope everyone in Queensland can appreciate that thought even for a moment when they vote on the 24th. David Alan Couper Lead candidate, unendorsed, Group "N", QLD Senate ticket 2007.

Dave (not verified)

Fri, 2007-10-19 15:47

G'day James, In terms of support for multiculturalism, I don't think there's much difference between any of the left's sects. I was briefly associated with the Socialist Party of Australia (the 71-96 version) during the 80's. While the SPA had a healthy skepticism about the Trot prediliction for 'hip' causes, they also gave very little thought to whether multiculturalism served Australian workers or not. I don't recall any discussion about a population policy for Australia either. On the positive side, (some) individuals on the left been critical of globalist, open-border thinking - if not openly then through unions or other groups they've been involved with. For example, the then CPA was active in the leadership of the AMWU when it produced the 'Australia Ripped Off' (1982?) series of publications. Ted Wheelwright has contributed to websites etc that question mass immigration and multiculturalism. I can't fathom the left's support for these things. My half thought-out theory is that rightist groups - somtimes with a racial agenda - opposed immigration during the 60's and 70's. The left found racism an excellent cudgel to bash the right with. In their fervour, left groups championed just about anything that could be prtrayed as anti-racism in action. Often without thinking about the implications, it would seem. The pity is that a few on the left (Wheelwright, John Carroll etc) saw that racism could be rejected without embracing policies detrimental to our social or environmental wellbeing, but that their point of view was never widely accepted. Cheers .

James Sinnamon

Fri, 2007-10-19 02:08

Dave, Thanks for your encouragement and interesting post. I tyr to keep this web site up to date, but I often get distracted, so there are still a lot more hols in this web-site than I would be able to feel happy about. I was a 'Trot' myself from the late 1970's until the mid 1980's. I still think that some Trotskyist ideas are good, although this is disputed by Tim in his article . However, whether or not we accept that there is some merit in Trotskyist ideas, I scratch my head trying to think of any enduring benefit that any of Australia's Troskist parties have brought to the working class. On the negative side they have promoted high immigration and multiculturalism, and, more generally, denied that there were limits to the number of people on the planet who could hope to achieve the material living standards of advanced industrialised nations. Back in the 1980's they peddled "Too many bablies?" which was US Trotskyist Joseph Hansen's attack on Paul Ehrlich. author of "The Population Bomb". I also think that some Trotskyist parties did a massive disservice to workng people in other countries by supporting, for example, Gorbachev's Pererstroika, which was re-cast by one Trotskyist group as 'socialist renewal', that is, until socialism collapsed completely in the USSR, or worse still, the Iranian mullahs, and Croat nationalism, which helped ignite the catastrophic break-up of Yugoslavia.

Dave (not verified)

Thu, 2007-10-18 16:34

The greatest irony of multiculturalism is the Australian left's unwavering support for it. If worker solidarity is required to achieve optimum wage and condition outcomes, how can policies that promote a diversity of national cultures (tribalism in practice) rather than national unity be beneficial? Surely such policies work directly against worker solidarity? As a mischeivous teenager, I got hours of pleasure goading the Trots outside Parramatta Town Hall to try to explain this to me. (Well yes, I was easily amused..) Their stock responses were "racism is the bosses tool for dividing workers" and "it's not all about wages and conditions; diversity should be valued for its own sake". To which I'd respond that (1) racism didn't come into it. Australians of all racial backgrounds could and should be encouraged to share a national culture which emphasised egalatarianism and mateship, which would (incidentally) make for a much more united bunch of workers. And (2) that Australia was already plenty diverse without promoting dangerous national/cultural divisions into the mix. As examples, the culture of alternative lifestylers at Nimbin is different to that of farmers at Holbrook is different to that at Glebe Point Road.... but the single unifying thing all these diverse people have in common is that they're all Australian. Of course, your Parramatta Town Hall Trot of the mid 80's was more inclined to action than debate and these encounters ended badly more often than not. But to this day, I'm amazed by the left's unbridled support for multiculturalism - which must really be regarded as the biggest swindle ever perpetrated by (or on?) the Australian left. Top blog by the way.. keep it up. Cheers .

Anonymous (not verified)

Tue, 2007-10-16 12:28

Keep Howard in. Look at what he has done. He has ran the country for over 2 terms and he has not killed everyone by starting a war. KICK RUDD OUT he is a slime bag and he will cause a war in the long run. Trust me. He is the biggest slime bag and so sneaky. (Note: some corrections made. I have to admit, the point that the contributor was intending to make is not altogether clear to me. - admin)

Anonymous (not verified)

Sun, 2007-10-14 20:01

Help is needed urgently to publicise the sale of this building and to convince the new Premier to withdraw this historic building from the sale and development. This was the building where thousands of the South Sea Islanders were rounded up and held before deportation from Queensland in the early 1900s under the White Australia legislation. Are we that ashamed of our past that we have to sell it off and hope that all memory of it will go away?

Anonymous (not verified)

Sat, 2007-10-13 21:10

Who are these people governing for? Certainly not the land or the people. Are they simply living in a fantasy world? Government by psychotics.

Anonymous (not verified)

Sat, 2007-10-13 21:07

I am astounded to read that Queensland Deputy Premier Anna Bligh recently put the construction industry ahead of water, soil, freedom and survival. This expansion HAS to be stopped before it destroys us, yet this fool of a woman (do they only promote really stupid non-analytical women to positions of power) is prepared to accelerate our collective doom. "The only way we could really (stop population growth) is to put a fence up at the (Queensland) border, or to cancel or freeze all new home building approvals," she said. "That would have a very serious impact on the construction industry that a lot people rely on for jobs." said planning-challenged QL Dep Premier Bligh.

Anonymous (not verified)

Sat, 2007-10-13 20:55

What are these professional politicians getting out of this organisation and why is so much of taxpayers' money at State and Federal level going into it? Members of the Foundation The Hon. Mr John Howard PM (Prime Minister of Australia) The Hon Kevin Rudd MP (Leader of The Opposition) Dame Beryl Beaurepaire DBE AC The Hon Mr Simon Crean MP Mr Ivan A. Deveson AO The Hon. Mr Alexander Downer MP Sir Llewellyn Edwards AC Mr William Charles Fairbanks Ms Gaye Rosemary Hart The Hon. Mr Robert Hawke AC Dr J. R. Hewson Ms Vivien Suit-Cheng Hope The Hon. Mr Paul Keating The Hon. Mr Mark Latham MP Professor Kwong Lee Dow AM Mrs Irene Kwong Moss AO Mr Robert Brooker Maher Ms Wendy Elizabeth McCarthy AO Mr Lindsay Gordon Crossley Moyle AM The Hon. Mr Andrew Peacock AC Lady Stephen Mr Ross Tzannes AM Mr George Wojak AO MBE The Hon Mr Kim Beazley MP The European Multicultural Foundation is supported by UNESCO, United Nations (UK), Commission for Racial Equality and the Royal Commonwealth Society. Australian Multicultural Foundation (AMF) Board of Directors The Hon Sir James Gobbo AC CVO (Chairman) Major General Peter Maurice Arnison AC CVO Professor John Nieuwenhuysen AM Ms Carla Zampatti AM Executive Director and Company Secretary Mr B. (Hass) Dellal OAM Administrative Assistant Mrs Brigit Murikumthara Training and Project Development Manager Ms Lynn Cain Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues (Auspiced by the Australian Multicultural Foundation) Ms Carmel Guerra (Director) Mr Steven Francis (Policy and Projects Officer)

Anonymous (not verified)

Sat, 2007-10-13 20:46

Hmm. And our national and personal debts have grown, and our consumption has grown, and the rate at which we deplete oil has grown, and emissions have grown and the total numbers of the hungry have grown, and land prices have grown and homelessness has grown and ... and... Gee, never thought of it like that before

Greg Wood

Sat, 2007-10-13 14:50

Along the same line, it is evident that growth can be very simply presented to people as a loss not a gain. Firstly it must be presented and accepted that key resources are finite. Basic reality, but it will not be a consciously considered factor by many and there will be those who will argue the infinite capacity of human innovation. The latter group need to be made to account for the vital role energy plays in that innovation, that energy stocks are dwindling, and that comparatively capacitous energy alternatives are all blue sky notions and no better than a religious hope. So these people need to confirm whether the argument is to be based upon science or religion. If the concepts are kept incisive and succinct, the worst of these people can be made to marginalise themselves. From there the issue is simple arithmetic. In a realm of finite resources: 1) Population growth must decrease each individual's entitlement to the resource base. Of course the effect of this subdivision is masked to a 1st world consumer by the remoteness of the impact of the actual loss as it is being created and suffered in the expanding 3rd world. Nonetheless, this deficit must be growing, and must be growing toward the first world. 2) Per capita consumption growth without population growth must reduce the resource entitlements of future generations. 1) & 2) together provide a rapid increase in the distribution and effect of both categories of loss. So equitably sharing the dividends of growth must mean that we all evenly share in the diminishment of our resource base. Sounds exciting. Constituents need to be informed of the quarterly growth figures for water restrictions, water contamination, recreation space conflict, traffic congestion, fish shortage, hospital waiting lists, etc., etc. Growth excites us. We are entitled to be stimulated by these figures that we do all get to share, and not just those that many only get to spectate upon, like average salary, median house price, per capita GDP, etc.

Urban cowboy2 (not verified)

Thu, 2007-10-11 21:22

Larissa says ... Larissa is half way there, but, oh Larissa, NO population growth is sustainable in Queensland. You can talk about sustainable population there, but not about sustainable population growth. You know that we have long gone past a safe population level. And to suggest that Queenslanders should put up with desalination and recycling and 'demand management' when you are not prepared to talk about POPULATION STABILISATION AND NATURAL ATTRITION... Well it isn't green. It isn't anything. It's a cop out! Nice try Larissa, but needs more work. Best of a bad bunch, girl... This is what Larissa said: "...2. ensure that population growth in our region is sustainable. We should refuse to grant new development approvals unless the proponent can demonstrate that the necessary water is available and that planning processes address sustainable water supplies. The Greens water supply solutions put to Queenslanders in the 2006 state election have now been backed by a February 2007 report by consultants Cardno, which found that with a combination of groundwater abstraction, source renewal, desalination, indirect potable re-use and demand management, Traveston Dam is not necessary to ensure South East Queensland's water security."

admin

Thu, 2007-10-11 02:10

Dear Larissa,

Thank you for your reply and thank you for pointing out where the Greens stance on population has been stated in that earlier media release. However, it still seems to me that failure to mention population in the latest media release was a serious shortcoming.

The concluding paragraph, again, was:

"Government should be proposing sustainable solutions to the water crisis, like water recycling, rainwater tanks for every home, stormwater harvesting and demand management," concluded Ms Waters.

Anyone not familiar with the earlier media release could easily come to the conclusion that the Greens do not advocate population stability as a necessary precondition for both solving Queensland's water crisis and safeguarding the Mary River eco-system and rural community. Given that Australia is undergoing record population growth, largely driven by an unprecedented unofficial, but real, annual rate of 300,000 per year, and given that the newsmedia and the two major parties are strongly pushing population growth, it is all the more urgent that those in favour of population stability state this clearly and loudly on every appropriate occasion.

Can we expect the Greens from now on to give population stability the much higher profile that I think it deserves?

Thank you,

best regards,

James Sinnamon

admin

Thu, 2007-10-11 01:38

Dear James, You might like to use an extract of my media release of 16 August which your question: "If we are to get serious about sustainable water supply for South East Queensland, we must do two things: 1. invest in demand and supply management, rainwater tanks, water recycling, stormwater harvesting, evaporation reduction and water efficiency, and 2. ensure that population growth in our region is sustainable. We should refuse to grant new development approvals unless the proponent can demonstrate that the necessary water is available and that planning processes address sustainable water supplies. The Greens water supply solutions put to Queenslanders in the 2006 state election have now been backed by a February 2007 report by consultants Cardno, which found that with a combination of groundwater abstraction, source renewal, desalination, indirect potable re-use and demand management, Traveston Dam is not necessary to ensure South East Queensland's water security." Kind regards, Larissa

admin

Thu, 2007-10-11 01:35

Dear Larissa Waters, Firstly thank you for your media release Could you please respond to my comment to your media release which I have published at "Whilst the Greens commendably oppose the building of the ecologically and socially destructive Traveston dam, they astonishingly omit to address Queensland's enforced population growth, which is the principle driver of South East Queensland's water crisis. Given that the Queensland Labor Government, at the behest of the developers and land speculators upon which it depends for political donations, intends to increase the population of South East Queensland alone by 1.1 million by the year 2026, it is difficult to understand how the Greens can maintain that it is possible to meet the water needs of the additional population without building dams such as the Traveston Dam." ? I would like to be able to include your response on my web site. Thanks

Laura Chavez (not verified)

Tue, 2007-10-09 23:55

In Australia, in Melbourne, at the moment, we have an example of immigration extremists hustling for a HUGE immigration propaganda festival called "The 12th International Metropolis Conference". 25 pages of advertising in The Age sports section! How many million dollars are behind this piece of social engineering? The 'conference' is partly hosted by a university, which, once respectable, now makes a substantial amount of its income by attracting foreign students as cash cows, and squeezing Australians out of the campus. The other host is the Australian Multicultural Foundation, which is acting with sponsorship from the Commonwealth and Victorian State Governments. One of the sessions is called, "Migration:the unstoppable force". So now the Australian Multicultural Foundation has become a dictatorship. How chilling, when we had all been led to believe that multiculturalism was only about helping different ethnic groups to get along together, now we find out that multiculturalism was about forcing mass immigration into Australia. Ya Wol! You WILL agree to be stifled by overpopulation! You have no rights, Australians; you are just servants for us to make money out of. The speakers are hacks from the 1980s who have made their livings out of grants from organisations like the Australian Housing Association. It is a laugh to pretend these people are really academics; they are ideologues. One wonders what planet they think they live on - or are they simply desperate for gigs? These conferences hire a few hacks to make themselves respectable, then they simply flog a message to disguise their next unspeakable rort of the system and violence on our democracy, quality of life and environment. Not a single session gives the merest thought to our diminishing water, our unaffordable housing, our overfull universities and hospitals or our suffering wildlife who are losing all their habitat- or to the constant protests about what is happening to this city and in the suburbs as they encroach upon farmland. So, this is how Australia becomes another crowded third world country, with the help of Monash University and the Australian Multicultural Foundation.

Mary River Turt... (not verified)

Tue, 2007-10-09 23:35

People have been taught that everything they do has to expand and make profit beyond what they need merely to survive. Thus small farms fall away to massive agribusinesses and skills which once were only expected to barely supplement living off the land are now expected to furnish the huge incomes required to purchase increasingly unreasonably expensive houses, transport, educations. And so on. It isn't surprising that people have succumbed to the temptation of importing cheap labor and of excusing their actions with these lies about how it benefits that cheap labor and how locals are unwilling to work for peanuts. The aspirational and competitive society, especially in a very big population, competes against the very people who it should show solidarity towards for mutual benefit. This competitive, cheating, greedy society is like a tissue where the best fed, most active cells are the cancer cells.

P.Fas* (not verified)

Tue, 2007-10-09 23:05

Yes, the Queensland Government is completely insane. It cares not if the people it administers the country for die of thirst or are enslaved by debt. The politics of this state are antithetical to survival. Someone once suggested a t-shirt, "Your government is insane," and frankly that appealed to me. It would save me a lot of time. No-one who believed that the government actually had some reason for its psychopathic destruction of all quality of life and of any living thing that cannot survive the concrete holocaust would talk to me. Anyone who approached would understand and we might be able to get somewhere politically. P. Fascogale

Anonymous (not verified)

Sun, 2007-10-07 04:38

I just returned from Brisbane (4 days on Fraser Island – nice!) and was amazed to see a giant Queensland population counter over the freeway from the Airport, sponsored by NRMA. Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it did seem very strange given the increasing traffic chaos in the city and dire water situation.

Sheila Newman

Sat, 2007-10-06 17:10

That is, more gems from the Senate Committee on Regional Affairs and transport, Queensland Senator IAN MACDONALD - Using that picture for a demonstration, can you explain to me? and this is a bit hard for Hansard, I am sorry? what is supposed to happen? Mr Currie - What is supposed to happen is this. There is supposed to be an adequate water flow at the bottom of the ladder in the fish lock. The lungfish are naturally attracted to the water flow and they will go in there. Once a certain number of them have actually been identified or sensed, the thing is closed up and they are towed up the ramp and they are taken over the top and down the other side. The problem at this stage is that when they get let out the other side there is a 25-metre drop to the water. Senator JOYCE - It is the ladder of opportunity! Mr Currie - It is. It is the ladder to paradise?that is what we call it. However, in essence, if some poor lungfish actually manages to get stuck in there and gets thrown up the side and over the top, they would be dead when they hit the water anyway or severely brain damaged. Senator JOYCE - It sounds like it. Mr Currie - That red circle you can see shows the leaks. The dam is actually leaking there, though I would not say it is a torrential leak. You can see that it is next to the fishway. A patch job has been done there to make out that it is not really a leak. They have sprayed tonnes of concrete over there to cover up the issue. Mr Messenger attempted to deal with that situation, and of course they just denied it. Senator IAN MACDONALD - If the water level was higher on the other side, would that fish ladder system work? Mr Currie - I would say the ladder works but, as Jean Joss pointed out, nobody has actually found a lungfish going up there. It appears as if it does not work down the bottom because lungfish just do not like it, and that was that issue with the Ned Churchwood Weir. Andrew Burgess's paper and Andrew is the officer who has been working on it quite clearly proved that of the 2,000 lungfish that went in there, only seven of them managed to get trapped. That one is ineffective just in getting them up to the top of Walla, and if they can get to Paradise they cannot get over the top. If they do get over the top and are dropped, they are dead when they hit the water. You do not need rocket science to show that the Beattie government is bloody useless at designing something that works and then they claim that it does work with nothing to back it up. As Jean said, the decision on Traveston must be withheld and postponed until such time as we know that we have an effective fish ladder and an effective turtle protection system, instead of just catching turtles somewhere else and chucking them in and using cameras to make out that they are scientifically? Senator IAN MACDONALD - Did you have any response to your accusation that that was a fraudulent claim about the turtles? Mr Currie - No, because they can say whatever they like, can?t they. Beattie said, ?It is an effective fish ladder.? We said, ?Show us the documentation. Show us the data.? It is not there. They are full of it! Senator IAN MACDONALD - You made that point. Thank you.

Todd Daniel (not verified)

Sat, 2007-10-06 12:37

There are regular TV shows that glorify large families, often created by a botched fertility procedure. No one seems to think about the impact of a large family. If we all had five kids, do the math! This seems to go along with a great lie that is embedded in our minds -- that growth is good. This is a big total lie, but I hear our politicians raving about growth all the time. I just read today where a local politician said many cities must envy Atlanta's vibrant growth (Georgia, USA). Well, I'll tell you, what is so wonderful about fouled air, constant traffic jams, water shortages, totally raped and paved over land, crowds of people everywhere, and a loss in quality of life. Who would envy that? Until our leaders get over their love affair with eternal growth, then we will continue on our current, suicidal path. We are in a drought here in north Georgia (USA), which has just been raised to Level IV. That means we have to take shorter showers while the developers continue to rape and plunder the countryside with no accountability. THE WORLD IS INSANE!

P. Loiseau-Lyre (not verified)

Fri, 2007-10-05 20:12

“The federal government’s approach to approving almost everything by imposing conditions which require further reports or studies is like shooting first and asking questions later. I hadn't thought of it like that. I think Larissa Waters is quite clever and, amazingly for a Green, she actually seems a little concerned about wrecking habitat and population growth. I hope she wins. Good on Larissa! Death to her foes!

Sheila Newman

Thu, 2007-10-04 10:33

Sheila Newman, population sociologist Comment received from anon by Sheila on 4-1-07 "There is a conspiracy but it is dressed up very seductively in the form of what is now the symbol for materialism the "plasma screen". Brumby is talking about immigration now on the radio and what a wonderful thing it all is for Victoria. We are having it stuffed down our throats now, not just surreptitiously happening in the background whilst statistics are misused, misinterpreted or misquoted. No, this is force feeding. They mean business."

Sheila Newman (not verified)

Mon, 2007-10-01 21:21

Both communism and capitalism disturb the algorithms of incest avoidance which cause children to move away from their parents to find mates, which manifests in patterns of population spacing reflecting distribution of clans. This occurs in most animals including humans. Capitalism disturbs this algorithm by buying, selling and aggregating land, and encouraging large populations of landless workers to labour for landowners and manufacturers in producing and consuming. Without many landless workers obliged to labour to survive, you would not be able to find people to man factories. Communism similarly reorganises populations to work land for mass production rather than to simply make their living from the properties they were born on and share with their clan or the clan they married into. The author of dematerialism netsite is correct to blame child labor for encouraging landless workers to have children to improve their income. In Russia there was contraception available and I don't think that child labor was encouraged, but in China perhaps it was. Was this a difference? My impression is that Russia and the Soviet Union did not suffer from overpopulation. Overall the bigger the population the less democracy, the less control by individuals of their environment and the actions of the other members of the population, including their leaders.

tom

Sat, 2007-09-29 18:58

Tom Wayburn, Houston, Texas Correct Rendering of Paragraph on Authoritarianism and Intolerance It seems that, corresponding to egalitarian tastes and authoritarian tastes, there has been a right and left wing of every political movement: Nazis, Communists, and, now, Peakers. Apparently, Mr. Hanson is almost completely self-taught. I cannot find any reference to a university background of any type. Like many such people Jay made money in the computer business and, probably, considers himself a self-made man. Regrettably, some people of that description are given to right-wing tendencies. Presumably, they imagine that, since they “made it”, everyone can make it; and, it’s their own fault if they don’t. Jay belongs to the right wing of the Peak Oil movement whereas I belong to the left wing. From time to time, Jay has provided a list of background subjects and associated reading material, not for our personal study as he claims, but to mark out territory throughout which he pretends to have complete intellectual mastery. He claims to be willing to answer our questions, but only if we are willing to sit at his feet. Nor does he tolerate dissent. Although the subject matter is science, scientific doubt and fallibility are completely foreign to his nature, which is anything but scientific. Moreover, he has very little math. Thus, he is vulnerable to the most egregious errors in the interpretation of scientific and numerical data from which he has no chance to recover. In the remainder of this note I discuss the inconsistencies in Jay Hanson’s versions of the Sloth Economy and War Socialism.

admin

Sat, 2007-09-29 16:04

My fear that the four year term would be put as a referendum proved to have been unfounded. This was a relief and a surprise as I saw that no determined opposition to the propsal from any significant party was likley to emerge, so 2007 could have been an excellent time for Australia's welath elite to have further eroded the democratice rights of Australian citizens. (james)

PFascogale (not verified)

Thu, 2007-09-27 19:23

The Queensland government should be stripped of its powers for allowing the property developers to destroy the beauty of Queensland and to overwhelm natural resources like water. How much are Queenslanders expected to put up with? What gives any elected person the right to dispossess their electors and our children so that a few horrible people might dominate shameful empires of bricks and sand? We only have one Queensland; we only have one planet and it is being stripped and murdered. What is wrong with the Australian public? Why do they allow this to happen? Our leaders should go on trial, not to the election! PFascogale

Anonymous (not verified)

Wed, 2007-09-26 12:06

Why cant we have the pulp mill, and how can it hurt our inviroment? it would possibly save time and money because they do the same in China. So whats the difference? Nobody in China makes a huff about it so it cant do much harm......i just dont get it!!!!!!!!! WHY?

chickkindachick (not verified)

Wed, 2007-09-26 12:00

I just want to know what this damned pulp mill will do to our animals and enviroment I am a junior zoologist and I don't belive in hurting mother nature or the animals. I care for this planet and every body should make sure they do what they can to save the enviroment and animals or I can tell you you will end up in hell. signed chickkindachick

Anonymous (not verified)

Sun, 2007-09-23 12:27

Whereas it is true that a number of additional measures should be taken to ensure a Total Fertility Rate less than 2.0 and, preferably, closer to 1.0 (temporarily), it is also true, as I have written at , that, in a society in which everyone's share of the sustainable community dividend were equal regardless of every other consideration (pure communism), intentional excessive procreation would not occur to provide, for the parents, cheap labor and support in old age. As I have discussed in the above URL, in , and elsewhere, excessive procreation would be eliminated in, for example, China if the Communist Party would embrace pure communism as defined above. Every objection to such a program has been answered.

Liberty Belle (not verified)

Sun, 2007-09-23 10:54

Regarding the Chavez and Venezuela article- it would be really interesting to observe this leader's progress, and learn more about him. It's possible that Venezuela may in some aspects provide a role model for the future.

PFascogale (not verified)

Fri, 2007-09-21 09:09

There was an interview with Beazley on SBS last night (20/9/07) on the occasion of his retirement from Fed Politics and Beazley was asked his response to a comment from the Australian and he said something like, "I know the Australian would like to run the country, but it doesn't yet". He added that it never would because Australians would never let it or words to that effect. Well, I don't know. I think that the Australian and the Financial Review and the Age and the Courrier Mail and the TV stations do run the country because they are practically the only unifying source of information about policy and events. They market and authorise the 'facts' (as they wish us to see them). They employ fly-by-night journos, much of the time and syndicate US sourced 'opinion'. I also think that the work ethic which is used to drive workers harder and harder in this country is no accident; peoples' noses are so hard to the grindstone they only have time to consume or flake in front of the tv news, or grab a few paras from whichever Murdoch or Fairfax print mouthpiece is marketed at their profile. Another symptom of this passive vessel work-slave population is the passive entertainment syndrome. I caught some news this morning where an Arts Minister (the Federal Minister, I think) is talking about spending a whole lot of money to import Venezuelan musical performers. What about patronising Australian performers - people who do something of their own. It is all very well and good importing an act we can all watch, but we are already too passive. And children are getting horribly fat. And the nation is heading for higher and higher diabetes. And the education system simply markets propaganda... "Work" and "Consume" and "Sit down and shut up". And even that is promoted as an opportunity for fat surgeons. If you have a BMI of around 30+ the government subsidises gastric banding. But some will say that I diverge. P Fascogale

Anonymous (not verified)

Thu, 2007-09-20 17:38

Is Cate Molloy the only politician in SEQ who 'gets it'? Is that why the Beattie Government dumped her? She was the only person who stood up for the people in the matter of drowning a township and good farmland for an unsustainable dam. P. Fascogale

James Sinnamon

Thu, 2007-09-20 14:01

This also raises an ecological issue. How much of the mountains of e-waste, which are now poisoning our planet is the result of the insistence of Computer and printer manufacturers and software companies, most notoriously the profit-gouging monopoly Microsoft, forcing their customers to upgrade their hardware and proprietary operating systems year in and year out? Even at the bottom of the mounds of e-waste must lie many computers, printers, monitors and other hardware items. perhaps twenty years old, that could still have been be put to good good use if the IT industry has simply standardised their products, had been forced to provide support for older products and had been less relentless in their upgrades. If any one example cries out for more government regulation and more government intervention in the economy, this one does. If Governments had fully thrown their weight behind alternatives to MicroSoft such as the Open Source Linux operting system, then most of humankind would have long ago broken their costly depency upon MIcrosoft products and hardware built for Microsoft products and the problems described in the aticle would be rare. Each item of e-waste, that has been needlessly created. has consumed yet more of the world's finite non-renewable metals, petroleum and other fossil fuels in it's manufacture. Future generations will pay the cost. It should have been no effort for a government owned telecommunications corporation, not driven by the need to maximise shareholder profit, to have provided a network that would have allowed membes of the public useful access to the Internet using old computers and old operating systems. ---- Copyright notice: Reproduction of this material, in full or in part, is encouraged as long as the source is acknowledged.

Anonymous (not verified)

Thu, 2007-09-20 09:49

Your brilliant article about Australian Nurses and Workcare is the best I have read. I currently have no time to comment carefully on it but it deserves to be broadcast far and wide. It tells it like it is from every angle. I wish the best for the original author in her perceptive and courageous fight against the darkness that pervades our hospitals and our wider society. We are now in a dictatorship, with little prospect of help from the ALP, which is also focused on the same mad system and has no real value for real people or the real world (which can be so beautiful). I do agree with Candobetter however that we must vote out the current government or it will only get stronger.

Anonymous (not verified)

Wed, 2007-09-19 18:41

Excuse me MR BOO HOO, WELL I would love your house to be destroyed and put to the ground. There are animals thresterned with extinction in the Minnippi Park Lands. Who cares if people want homes. It's called buying your own property and building a house. Thank you very much!

A. K. (not verified)

Wed, 2007-09-19 11:59

As I was driving to work yesterday, I was intrigued to hear a listener who had phoned the station (ABC Regional) extolling the virtues of having had five children. She was very proud and rightly so, that she's had a hand in populating our vast Australian continent. This struck me as rather odd when you consider how devoid of arable land Australia actually has. I believe it's in the vicinity of just 6% and mostly situated along coastal areas. Australia has a tipping point, where the amount of arable land required to provided a sustainable population through frequent drought events and water availability, over-balances to the point where average Australians will either be forced to buy expensive overseas food supplies, provided those overseas countries have ample to export, or attempt to live a life of ever extending periods of making do with less and less food. The eventual result will be famine, not unlike what we see beamed to us daily from drought ravaged areas of Africa. In fact, Africa is a typical example of what happens when the population is allowed to explode in an out of control manner. It's very likely that with the event of climate change coupled to the "populate or perish" mentality of not only our major Governments and business leaders, but also the people like our ABC phone-in listener, Australia may well have already reached that tipping point. If this is the case, I can see no way of returning to a point of sustainability before much of Australia experiences great suffering as water supplies literally dries up and takes with it the ability to produce basic food staples such as grains and vegetables. It seems, at least from our ABC phone-in woman, that the "populate or perish" mentality is alive and well. It may well be that mentality that sees this once great country become an unlivable dust bowl within our lifetimes.

James Sinnamon

Mon, 2007-09-17 11:59

If that is true, that is good news. However it is hard to imagine how the further encroachment upon their natural habitat by condominium housing and a golf course would be to the benefit of the sugar glider. Please explain.

admin

Mon, 2007-09-17 01:10

I guess we have to give the Courier Mail credit for publishing the letter, but if they were doing their job as well as they should be doing they would make these sorts of observations themselves more often and not leave it so much to their readers.

I think the impct of the letter was lost to some degree by their changing the start of the first sentence from:

Like every thinking compassionate person in this country ...

... to:

Like most compassionate people in this country ...

Sheila Newman

Sun, 2007-09-16 17:54

Sheila Newman, population sociologist It is high time that someone made the comments that you make. It is amazing that the mainstream media does not. My explanation for this is that the media decides what gets published and the political parties have to tailor their 'issues' to the very narrow range which the media will deal with. Barry Jones in his Sleepers Wake said that those who owned the technology and the media would rule the country. This is what I think is happening. How do you think that the political parties could overcome this? Or do you have some other explanation?

Ex_Liberal_voter (not verified)

Sat, 2007-09-15 17:36

If the Liberals wanted to advertise Work "Choices", they should have done so, AT THEIR OWN EXPENSE, before the last election. If they had sought and won a mandate to introduce Work "Choices", the electorate would not now be so bitter about having these extreme unfair laws.

admin

Tue, 2007-09-11 14:06

This post is also to be posted the on Online Opinion in response to the above article also to Online Opinion. Let's put under the microscope Rhian's to have "tried to answer all (my) main assertions with reason and evidence." My understanding of Rhian's 'case' is that:
  1. ABS stats show that average wage growth has substantially exceeded the cost of living, even though the whole point of my article was to dispute the very basis of such statistics,
  2. Evidence from the ABS which "suggests that most employees work the hours they want".
  3. An assertion that I have exaggerated the factors which have added to the cost of living and that for each 'negative' factor not included in CPI calculations he can find several other 'positive' factors (presumably also not included in the CPI calculations).
Rhian apparently has, in his own head, taken account of all of the the less-quantifiable 'positives' and 'negatives' as well as his beloved ABS statistics. From all of this he has computed the answer in his head, that is, "a balanced account would show our average living standard is indeed improving". From this it follows that the picture we are given by the media of Howard's economic brilliance is the correct picture after all, and, being the only matter of any importance whatsoever (as opposed to climate change, peak oil, the Iraq war, the AU$290million in bribes paid to Saddam Hussein etc) we are all beholden to vote this year for return of John Howard's inspired government. Those of us who aren't able to share in the joy that Rhian and Yabby are feeling are psycho-analysed as being afflicted with schadenfreude. In regard to point 3: at the risk of being further diagnosed by Rhian as incurably mysanthropic, here are a few more negatives, which I don't believe have been accounted for adequately, or at all, in ABS statistics:
  • Bulk-billing has been emasculated. Before Howard stuffed up Medicare we could walk into a doctor's practice and get treatment without having to pay money and stuff around with Medicare claim forms and, when the cheques arrived, having to bank them. I estimate that it takes well over an hour of my time to do all this for each visit to the doctor and I am still out of pocket as the payment from the Government is less than the fee.
  • Credentials creep : a degree is necessary precondition for most white collar occupations, whereas year 12 used to be easily sufficient. Occupations which once required a degree now require postgraduate qualifications.
  • Loss of on-the-job training such as the apprenticeship and cadetship schemes run by Telecom (now Telstra) and other government owned utilities. Nurses and paramedics now require a degree.
  • Loss of career paths for entry level employees. On ABC Radio National's Street Stories of 24 June ( - audio file no longer available) a prostitute in Kalgoorlie revealed that she had turned to prostitution in order to go to University. Asked why she needed to go to University, she explained that she needed a degree to get promoted beyond her entry-level job in an advertising agency. Think about it: the only path to career advancement for this girl was through prostitution. A generation ago most employees who were good enough could hope for career advancement without having to sleep with the boss or turn to prostitution. Rhian, do you think this is a step forward or a step backwards?
  • Education is no longer free. Most of today's graduates have crippling HECS bills.
  • Each serious job application I make these days takes at least weeks out of my life. This is to update my resume, fill out job selection criteria, write applications and if I am lucky, to attend the interview. Given the number of applicants for the jobs I go for (when I can bring myself to face such an ordeal). Given the number of applicants fro each of these jobs, simply fining a newer better job can easily consume up to a year of one's life, so many just don't bother. Year's ago, I was able to walk into good jobs by simply talking to the boss. At most, a scrappy job application and a small amount of form filing was all that was needed.
  • The overheads of running small businesses have dissuaded many people I know from working for themselves. A generation ago, almost anyone could start a business without having to spend weekends filling out out paperwork, or, alternatively, employing an accountant part-time. Where is this shown in CPI figures?
  • Housing loan repayment periods are 30, 40 years - some institutions are even planning for 50 year periods - where they used to be 20 years at the very most.(See story about economists, employed by banks, having fiddled statistics to make housing appear more affordable than it actually is at ).
  • Overheads of moving home for those growing numbers of Australians who don't own their own homes and are turfed out when their landlords sell or who have to move because they can't afford the rent increases. These include telephone, Internet (around $170 a hit on 5 occasions between 2001 and 2005 in my own case) electricity and gas reconnection, cleaning in order to satisfy demanding inspection requirements, time and effort searching for new accommodation and filing out paperwork, moving or selling possessions in order to avoid moving costs.
Let's now deal with some which Rhian holds prove that we are better off and not worse off: "Is the decline in youth suicide enough to offset the rise in youth drug taking?" Can't say. Has suicide 'declined' over just the last year, last decade or last three decades? What about mature-aged suicide? All I know is that there is abundant evidence of the growing dysfunctionality of our society. One example: When I went to school in the 1960's 1970's, I could walk alone or with a group of friends. These days most parents are frightened to let their children walk to school without the accompaniment of adults. So they are obliged to drive them, thereby making our roads more crowded and dangerous, or to run cumbersome parent-supervised 'walking buses' "Is the reduced capacity to repair your own car (bemoaned at length in the article) offset by the improved safety and reliability of modern vehicles?" The only cars which are safer and 'more reliable' are new cars. Once they are a few years old, keeping them safe and reliable becomes prohibitively expensive. Thankfully, my older car doesn't have air bags fitted. By the way, an ambulance officer once told me that he and fellow paramedics don't believe air-bags improve car safety and consider them a hazard to their own work. Another case of unnecessary expenses being foisted upon consumers to suit corporations. "Is the increase in greenhouse gas emissions offset by the decrease in air pollutants such as SO2 that directly harm human health?" What a stupid question! If the people in control had done their job properly we would not have had to deal with either by now. Can you show us, BTW how we all stand to come out ahead, in your economic model, with the predicted increased frequencies of events like Hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans in 2005, no doubt helped by Australian coal exports? If you had read my article I had conceded that significant numbers of ordinary Australians were likely to be somewhat better off, notwithstanding the negatives I have mentioned. However this has almost nothing to do with Howard's economic management. It is simply their good luck to be sitting on our bounty of our finite non-renewable mineral wealth at a time when the Chinese and Indian economies are expanding with all of the grave hazards that this poses for our global life support system.

admin

Sun, 2007-09-09 23:34

This post is also to be posted the on Online Opinion in resposne to the above article also to Online Opinion. , Glad that it has finally occurred to you, after three days discussion and five previous posts, to mention that you are "not indifferent to the fact that many people are struggling financially, and some are worse off now than they were in the past." Apart from statistics from the ABS, which you insist, suggest "that most employees work the hours they want", you have barely answered any of the arguments in my article. (BTW not being a Micro$oft Windoze user, I can't use the SuperTable software to which you referred.) If you are correct about those statistics, they run counter to my own personal experience, and it would seem, to the personal experiences of a number of others posting to this forum, much anecdotal evidence including that in Elisabeth Wynhausen's "Dirt Cheap" of 2005 and many studies done into the effects of the "WorkChoices" legislation. In any case, I hardly consider 'most' to be good enough. Any figure which falls significantly short of 100% is not satisfactory IMHO. BTW, does the fact that 'most' work the hours they want mean that they are working the hours they need to meet financial commitments or does it mean that they are working the actual number of hours they want to work? I think that none other than John Howard inadvertently answered that question when he was heralding the "WorkChoices" laws in 2005. He postulated that some workers would be willing to voluntarily trade in two weeks of annual leave and morning tea breaks for additional money. Did this tell you anything, Rhian? It told me that even Howard and Costello didn't believe their own bullshit about how much better off workers supposedly are due to their allegedly brilliant economic management. For what reason, other than sheer financial desperation, would any worker contemplate giving away two weeks of their measly four weeks annual leave? So, whatever happened to promises of shorter working weeks and longer holidays that all the newer technologies were supposed to bring to us?

Anonymous (not verified)

Sun, 2007-09-09 17:59

seriously get OVER it. its not like there wont be anymore area for the animals to live. did you ever think about the people who dont have proper homes and might want to live there so just give them a go. this is just a big sook. find something better to do with your time!

Anonymous (not verified)

Wed, 2007-09-05 09:52

It is inappropiate to delevop an unessesary golf course where the Minnipi Park Lands already stand on which there are endagered species. If this project is going forward I would suggest that all animals sould be taken out and moved to an new home.

admin

Sat, 2007-08-25 01:45

I consider a full page "Know where you stand" advertisement, which appeared in the Courier Mail of 3 August to be extremely misleading. It is impossible to believe that those who created that advertisement were not aware of that.

It makes the claim that

... employers can't sack you for taking time off because your kids are sick.

Or for making a formal complaint against your employer.
Or being a member of a union.

Perhaps they can't sack you for those specific reasons but the removal of unfair dismissal provisions for employees working for any company with less than 100 employees meeans that they can sack you for any number of other reasons. So if you do take time off because your kids are sacked or make a formal complaint against your employer, or in a union and find yourself sacked for another entirely different and trivial reason, then, for all practical purposes you have no recourse.

Also I think John Howard needs to decide whether the right for an employer to dismiss employees without cause is a good thing or a bad thing. When the "Work Choices" laws were initially heralded, John Howard insisted that the existence of unfair dismissal laws was a major factor which caused employers not to hire staff. His argument, repeated ad nauseum, was that the difficulty an employer faced in sacking a worker if that worker were to be found to be unsuitable would often cause the employer not to hire that worker in the first place in order to avoid taking that risk. For a while he pointedly habitually prepended the adjective 'job-destroying' whenever he referred to the unfair dismissal laws. If he truly believed that then he would have to now believe, assuming that there was any truth in the advertisement's claims that jobs will be lost as a result.

I think that Tristan's -743">concern that legislative guarantees against abuses such as the "Work Choices" saturation advertising might have a side effective of preventing governments from engaging in useful advertising is unnecessary.

I don't believe that it would be that difficult to legislate against such campaigns as Work Choices. As an example, the initial AU$55 million campaign of 2005 occurred even before the details of the legislation were made known to the public. It would be easy to draft laws which preveetned that from occurring.

Tests of truthfulness that most "Know where you stand" would fail, could easily be devised.

Tristan Peach (not verified)

Fri, 2007-08-24 16:48

I am not against government advertising, in some cases it could be very useful e.g. encouraging people to switch from car to walking, cycling and/or public transport. But this "WorkChoices" advertising is infuriating - some of these "know where you stand" ads are so meaningless and seem designed to give some kind of false sense of assurance. I am not sure how this problem could be regulated. For example, putting a cap on government advertising could limit the potential for public education on climate change or peak oil, if a government chose to educate (rather than mislead people). It would be good to have some kind of independent review board of government advertising comprised of academics, who checked the facts. But certainly I would like to see regulations on advertising during political campaigns. There needs to be greater restrictions on the total amount of money that can be spend by each party. Perhaps the electoral commission also need to take a role in compiling information for all candidates and distributing an equal amount of information in a newsletter to all voters.

admin

Fri, 2007-08-24 14:07

The following comment has been copied from -194855">johnquiggin.com Howard may not be as brutal as Mugabe, but he has all of the same traits. One billion dollars? wasted? I think that his passport should be confiscated so that he cannot skip the country when he is chucked out.

Sheila Newman

Thu, 2007-08-23 00:20

Sheila Newman, population sociologist Shocking opportunism, cynical act, all the more so when we all know how unusual has the town's solidarity been in the face of destructive development. I understand that the local government representatives are mostly situated a long way from the town which is located in a huge shire. I guess they think they will be able to dodge facing their constituents. Council amalgamations will make the situation even worse. Australian communities everywhere need to stand up against those in State and local government who are conspiring in the destruction of everything pleasant and beautiful for commercial ends. When government is this out of control why should people obey government? The system is broken. Government acts for commercial interests. It has sold out. The people need to take back government.

Sheila Newman

Thu, 2007-08-16 23:21

Sheila Newman, population sociologist "Prime Minister John Howard said in 2004: I haven’t met anybody yet who’s stopped me in the street and shaken their fist and said: "Howard, I’m angry with you, my house has got more valuable."" I think it is amazing that Mr Howard is able to walk down the street and make contemptuous remarks like that about a situation which leads to debt, homelessness and the associated mortality, through suicide, exposure, domestic violence. As far as I can see Australia's "leaders" these days are only spokesmen for developers. I did not vote to elect developers to destroy my country.

Anonymous (not verified)

Thu, 2007-08-16 11:08

Since the system is all about stealing land and power from the majority of people and giving more to the rich and dominant, any streamlining of it will make the situation worse. People are able to affect local, smaller government and make it accountable, but they have little power over the agenda and accountability of State and Federal government. Aussieida sounds like about 70% of human beings; he does not question anointed authority, doesn't have a concept of a system, and will always take up the cry of the 'leadership' and assist them to do what they tell him they must. It is just like Mussolini - very popular for making trains run on time, pity he had to kill people.

admin

Wed, 2007-08-15 15:06

The above post seems to be mostly opinion and fails to acknowledge facts contained on other pages which support the case against enforced amalgamations.

The amalagamations are strongly posed by residents of these local communities (e.g. 80% opposed in Stanthorpe Shire), so it is not just about a few Mayors or CEO's acting to preserve their own selfish interests.

(Aussieida, I thought I saw a request for registration, but it has mysteriously vanished. My apologies. Please , if you did want to register.)

Aussieida (not verified)

Tue, 2007-08-14 22:35

Just how long have you lived in Queensland? The councils are living in the past, and Australian Government system has long needed an overhaul, so why not start at the bottom. The Mayors and CEO's are jumping up and down as they are the ones to lose their influence & power as when you merge five into one, there is but one Mayor, and one CEO, and fewer Councillors to drain moneys from the public purse. Irrespective of What Party they follow, I want the best persons for the job, not someone who will Pandy to their mates to the detriment to the rest of us.

Sheila Newman

Tue, 2007-08-14 01:10

Sheila Newman, population sociologist What is Gross talking about, "Victoria led the way"??? Victoria led the way only by being the first to get rid of a whole bunch of democratic rights, with the Kennett government. Then Bracks consolidated that terrible situation. It is amazing how all dictatorships and their adherents and beneficiaries convince themselves that what they do is good and always justify it as 'efficiency', When I see the word 'efficiency' I get very suspicious about who is benefiting. Sheila N

ilan

Thu, 2007-08-09 17:01

<p> funny how he comes out in support of Kennett's &quot;reforms&quot;, usung the same argument that Kennett used &quot;<span style="font-size: x-small"><i><b>efficiencies</b></i></span>&quot;. This from someone who as far as I know comes from the left wing of the ALP (I know that probably has very little meaning today!) </p> <p>  Perhaps there could have been other ways to force efficiencies without destroying local democary. Local councils could have been directed to pool together buying power for various goods and services without any political amalgamations. Such things could have been done in a public and transparent manner to ensure that any restructuring did not result in a loss to any significant section of the community. </p>  

ilan

Thu, 2007-08-09 16:53

Dick Gross is a member of the ALP, he is one of the front runners to be a candidate for recently resigned ex-deputy premier's Thwaite's seat of Albert Park. When Kennett rammed through the local government changes there was very little opposition to it. I vaguely remember some rural shires putting up a fight, but next to nothing in suburban Melbourne. Kennett had majorities in both houses of parliament and didn't even need the support of the Nationals as the Libs had a majority in their own right. Many changes were pushed through in the aftermath of the failed ALP administration which had the misfortune of being in charge when the Pyramid Building society (actually a commercial property speculation credit institution) failed along with a cowboy merchant bank subsidiary of the then state owned State Bank, "Tricontinental". The media and the Liberals created a climate of panic which resulted in a landslide for the new Kennett government. In this climate all changes where justified without any of the normal process. With regard to local council amalgamations, I vaguely remember talk of increased efficiencies as the only argument that was put forward, that was it. Kennett then sacked all local governments simultaneously and then put a CEO in charge of each of the new merged entities for a year (might have even been 18 months). During this time local democracy was totally non-existent, and when new councils did emerge there was a new balance, where the CEO held a lot more power and elected councilors operated at the fringe. For me it appears than elected members of local councils have very little say, anything they oppose is overturned by VCAT (Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal). So instead they argue about which pool to shut down and what monument they will build with the proceeds. Also where I live (City of Glen Eira), when the CEO's term was about to expire the local councils had the temerity to advertise for his position, for their trouble, he threaten to sue them, and sure enough his contract was extended. Isn't wonderful being stuck with someone who is on $250,000 p.a. +++ who likes the job so much!

ilan

Thu, 2007-08-09 16:29

in 1988 this question was put to the Australian people. A Proposed Law: To alter the Constitution to provide for 4 year maximum terms for members of both Houses of the Commonwealth Parliament. Do you approve this proposed alteration? It was rejected, the then opposition leader campaigned against it, none other than John Howard. There were also 3 other propositions which included federal constitution recognizing local government.

Sheila Newman

Thu, 2007-08-02 15:29

Sheila Newman, population sociologist Not surprising that the Murdoch Press supports amalgamations. The amalgamations support big development, suppression of democratic protest against forced population growth, forced big development, forced suburban expansion and intensification. Since and are owned by the Murdoch and Fairfax press and since commercial (and arguably ABC) TV support multiple 'lifestyle' programs designed to market to new home buyers, naturally the Press will privilege any of the arguments in favour of amalgamation and at best give muted and slanted and partial representation to the HUGE range of arguments against them. People have to wake up to the fact that democracy has been corporatised, which means that it exists more or less in name only. Our political parties behave as if they are the collections of rich men, just like football teams have become. (Sadly). We have to seriously stand up for our rights and remind the politicians in no uncertain terms by participating at rallies like the one described below and -drastically reduce newspaper buying and no-one should purchase housing on newly cleared land. -Don't have children and protest against immigration until land is released naturally, i.e. through natural decrease in population. If you can get to Southbank at 10.30am on Friday 3rd August, please do so. Why? It will give you an immediate and useful means of objecting to the Beattie Government’s swift and merciless gutting of Local Government throughout Queensland. You will also be supporting the rally to save Noosa Shire and its exemplary Planning Scheme. Please help to defend the only resource based Shire Planning Scheme in Queensland, perhaps all of Australia. How can we hope to plan a secure future if there is no example anywhere of the basic method needed to do so? If you are on the Sunshine Coast check transport options at: Even if you live elsewhere, please go along if you possibly can. Please pass this on to others in your contact list. Why are these changes is so unacceptable? The huge electorates now created will: Make election of genuine community candidates nearly impossible. The escalated cost and organizational requirements of campaigning in huge electorates will make it the domain of candidates supported by industry and political parties. Elevate councillors and their decisions even further above and away from being concerned about input from and accountability to the local communities that will bear the effects of unfair or unwise proposals. At a time when relocalisation is so clearly needed to respond to climate change and energy resource challenges, this is a hasty and gigantic move toward the exact opposite. The ‘reform’ program is not progress. It is a dogged and deceitful continuance of what is at the root of nearly all current malaise – the ongoing isolation of ordinary people and their local communities from having any real say in the matters that vitally affect them and their locality. The reasons given for the changes are hollow, misleading and even completely wrong. They have been projected with authority and repetition within an atmosphere and time frame of urgency, if not emergency. By definition this is propaganda. How can it be that more people, and record levels of development and wealth, require that we need less representation of the communities affected? This is a patently absurd equation. But when looked at directly, free of the diversionary waffle, this whole circus act is balanced entirely upon the stupid premise that this equation is not just real, but in urgent need of our compliance. It is clearly a dreadful premise if allowed to continue. When we have 10,000,000, people in SE Queensland will we then (urgently?) need only one Council for all of it? With just half a dozen elected representatives? Maybe it would then be even more efficient by then to simply have them nominated by a board of Commissioners. This is horrific logic and it’s forceful employment is very definitely not good governance. It is manipulative, and possibly very dangerous management toward an agenda other than the stated one. Most simply, this hidden agenda is to reduce the access, and thereby the inconvenient effects, that the local communities can have within the process of government and development. Please choose to help work to resist and reverse this direction of governance. Go to Southbank on Friday if you can. Reply with your interest to be kept informed of other community based initiatives that can benefit from your support and involvement as they are developed. Please offer any ideas or information of initiatives underway that can help. The aim is to assist establishment of a network of resources and initiatives that can help preserve and develop genuine community involvement in local governance. Who decides what happens in your backyard? Someone who knows it and cares, or someone who knows and cares only about profit?

Anonymous (not verified)

Wed, 2007-08-01 22:41

It seems like Brisbane Council is insane. Twenty years ago people could afford housing here. There was beautiful bushland and freedom to move. Queensland resembled everyone's dream of paradise. So why has the government there been so environmentally destructive? Why have they based the entire economy on concrete construction, globalising real-estate with excessive housing sales and prices, and cliche tourism? Why have they exceeded the water supply when there was no need to? Why do they allow more bush to be cleared than in any other state? Why do they invite more and more people? Why would anyone want to destroy Brisbane? The Brisbane and Queensland governments behave like the tommyknockers of Steven King's 1987 novel, *The Tommy knockers*. In *The Tommyknockers* a fragment of a crashed spaceship, buried and undisturbed for years, is exposed to the air and gives off an undetectable gas. Contact with this gas slowly turns earth people into technologically gifted inventors and builders but blunts their social skills so that they behave with increasing callousness and impulsiveness towards each other. Slowly the world begins to descend into a kind of busy violence. So, what causes Brisbane councillors and State politicians to busily build bridges and freeways all over the place until anyone driving in Brisbane feels as if they are in a pinball machine, hurled via endless elaborate circles, loops and scallops through bare concrete skyscraper canyons? Are our politicians the victims of a very selective poisonous gas, a virus that affects the brain and conscience? Is Councillor Newman afflicted with some form of psychopathy which prevents him from caring about other human beings, makes concrete and gasoline fumes irresistable to him, and makes money and status the only things that matter? I heard recently that Newman actually expected the citizens of Brisbane to pay $22.00 just to come and hear him speak">. Now, what kind of overweening public officer would actually take money in the form of a salary from the townspeople of Brisbane and then expect them to pay for the ordeal of listening to him tell them how he is going to put in even more roads and tunnels and pull out even more trees and generally make Brisbane the kind of hell-hole that people emigrate from South East Asia to avoid? Are the councillors in Brisbane being blackmailed by forces the public is unaware of? Is that why they seem to do the opposite of what their constituents want? Brisbane's city and suburbs are polluted, with very few trees, lousy public transport, and heavy upleasant traffic. There are fewer green spaces than in the other Australian capital city, and yet Brisbane, only a few years back, had more trees and forests than other cities. Madmen and mad women seem to be in charge. I read with horror of Mt Cotton and Minnipi. I cannot understand - Can anyone tell me? Why are our 'leaders' doing this to themselves, even if they do not care about the rest of us? Footnotes ">1. This was a public forum probaly held three months ago by the Brisbane Instute to discuss "sustainability". It seems bizarre that a man prepared to spend hundreds of millions of ratepayers funds, and, ultimately, billions more as tolls from the pockets of motorists in order to make Brisbane even more dependant upon the private motor car, which, in turn, ultimately depends upon the world's finite and diminishing stocks of petroleum, could be held by the Brisbane Institute to be any kind of authority on sustainability.

admin

Wed, 2007-08-01 14:23

This raises a host of important questions. Incidentally, Stalinist don't practice "democratic centralism" in any sense only centralism. In fact, this can also said of most political parties, even though they dont't refer to it as either "democratic centralist" or "centralist". Try publicly speaking out against what a Labor Minister if you are a member of the Labor Party (even where Labor ministers act against Labor policy as in fully privatising the State Govenment Insurance Office, still half owned by the Queesnland Government in 1998) or against Bob Brown if you are a Green and see how long you remain a member. I consider the "centralism" part of "democratic centralism" to be a sometimes necessary evil, especially where one is operating under a police state. It allows, within an organisation for differenced to be discussed, but for that orgainisation to present a united public face on that question. However organisations that do practice "democratic centralism" in its true sense often fall into the trap of inisting that the organisation maintain a monolithic united front on every policy or tactical issue no matter how insignificant, and regardless of how free and open the society in whihc they are operating is. Usually, this coincides with growing restrictions upon internal avenues of discussion under the guise of preventing disruption to the party's functioning.

Anonymous (not verified)

Mon, 2007-07-30 09:45

Maybe we should start looking in detail at the terms of reference that such a water coordinating body would have and start campaigning for same. Keep Public Water in Public Hands!! :-) Where did I get that from?

Sheila Newman

Sun, 2007-07-29 00:59

Sheila Newman, population sociologist Yes, we need a national overview and coordinating body for Australia's water. But we also need to keep our populations within local catchments. And we shouldn't be irrigating at all; we should only be doing dryland or permaculture. There you go - all impossible in an overpopulated economic rationalist country. On current trends we are doomed. A severe crisis might save us from total destruction.

admin

Thu, 2007-07-26 02:21

I am not quite sure what this statistic means. If only 52% are participating, then what are the other 48% doing? Presumably only a fraction would be receriving a disabiity pension, so how do the rest feed themselves, clothe themselves and pay the rent? I would be most interested to know. (Presumably, you are the same 'billie' who contributes such fantastic posts to Online Opinion. I am flattered that you have taken the trouble ot post to this web site. Still somewhnat disorganised, my apologies. That should change.)

billie (not verified)

Wed, 2007-07-25 15:39

Another factor to consider when talking about Australia's "record low unemployment rate" is Australia's very low workforce participation rate. The OECD in June said that the workforce participation rate amongst males aged 15 to 55 was 52% which is amongst the lowest workforce participation rates in the world.

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