Comments

John Bentley (not verified)

Thu, 2015-12-03 16:19

Mark while I don't disagree with you that the Greens (and even if the independents are in accord) need to challenge both the Coalition and Labor over their growth fetish, do you not think that they will be derided by the major parties and the mainstream media Australia wide. It would be an honourable and it would a courageous exercise on their part, but, unfortunately, they would be outvoted and therefore it will not be enough.

We, the electorate, had our chance 12 months ago and we weren't up to the task. We caved in to the false prophets who espoused more of the same bullshit we've been dieting on since we got Jeffed!! Why?? Because we're shit scared of having to forgo a couple of creature comforts, of having to get our hands dirty, terrified of having to put our values on the line, petrified of the unknown.

WE ... got ourselves into this mess and WE have to get ourselves out of it.

I earlier suggested that the ballot box would be the way forward which it will be, however, if more prompt action is required, WE must extract the digit and become more verbose about our thoughts and actions. WE must show both Labour and the Coalition that we don't want more of the same. WE must demonstrate that Melbourne's/Victoria's burgeoning population is a noose around our necks. We want to be able to live in peace and harmony into our old age with our kids and grandkids. But first we must demonstrate and demonstrate hard and long until they give in. There is no other way!!

With the preferential voting system, it is possible a voter to give her/his first second and voting preferences to small party or independent candidates who stand for policies that the major parties won't. Before you vote at any election, find out which of the candidates in your electorate commits himself/herself to opposing 'growth' and allocate your voting preferences accordingly.

Other policies of candidates I would vote for are listed in the article Issues that should be decided at the 29 November Victorian State elections of 14 Oct 2014. - Ed

Mark Allen (not verified)

Thu, 2015-12-03 12:02

"I would add that population policy should be to the benefit of people already living in Australia that is apart from refugee policy which is in the interests of the people arriving." Population policy can be about both. Refugees are a small component of our annual intake and they have played and continue to a play a major role in enriching our multicultural society. Ironically, I believe that due to large-scale migration aimed at boosting GDP, we are making it harder for incoming refugees to build meaningful communities, precisely because multicultural areas such as Footscray are in danger of being gentrified through high density apartment development. The savings in infrastructure that we would make by slowing non-refugee migration could free up more money to help refugees whilst also giving us the opportunity to start to catch up on our existing nationwide 200 billion dollar infrastructure debt.

Cienwen Hickey (not verified)

Thu, 2015-12-03 10:43

There are times when I totally despair for our wildlife, there are people who have the courage of their convictions and take action to bring Governments comply with the wishes of the majority. Not an easy task, people need cause and motivation to do this and they need strong leaders to make Governments realise that they are given a Mandate by the people to govern on their behalf. Unfortunately in the genre of wildlife there is massive complacency and too many armchair wildlife warriors who have a lot to say on social media but are mute when it comes to taking action to write or lobby Governments about their concerns. When was the last demonstration about the plight of our wildlife? When was the last demonstration about urban sprawl? When has a comprehensive petition been presented to the Victorian Government dealing with wildlife the urban sprawl or over population? Nothing will change until we force the Victorian Government or the Federal Government take our dissatisfaction seriously. If we want change we have to get out there, spread the word and confront the government.

Chris (not verified)

Wed, 2015-12-02 14:22

Older people might think that they have a moral duty to vacate their houses to make room for our societies' "children" i.e young couples with their children. Most of them will not be able to think this through since understanding of Australia's population growth is generally very poor, at least amongst those I speak to. If Australia had a stable population number within its shores with birth numbers equivalent to death numbers and immigration equivalent to emigration then there would be sufficient housing, without needing to stress vulnerable groups and pressure them to vacate their premises. We would have a pretty happy situation for most except developers and those who actually want rapacious population growth to fuel associated enterprises such as shopping centres and barn- like furniture stores; anything that feeds on growth. Australia does not, unfortunately enjoy a stable population but rather one that grows very rapidly with more than half of the growth from overseas migration. So vulnerable older people would be almost half right in thinking they were cooperatively making way for younger Melbourne families - not their own family but at least someone local. But it's more likely that they will be moving out to make way for a family from overseas that already has somewhere to live in that country! It won't be homeless people from anywhere who will be buying their Glen Iris or Murrumbeena bungalows! Is this remotely morally right? Once older people sell up the "family home" it cannot be left to their children. It amounts to stripping property and very modest wealth from middle and working class families. They have paid for their houses paid with after- tax dollars. Nobody has a right to move them on.

quark

Wed, 2015-12-02 09:48

I cannot see how any wild life can continue to survive when its habitat is alienated from it. What could Mr. Temby have possibly meant when he said that is was possible? What he says now, I'm afraid is more realistic. I live in an established suburb and there are no kangaroos here. I'm sure there would have been 150 years ago. All the kangaroos in the path of Melbourne's development juggernaut will die eventually, as they have in my suburb, whether they are massacred by a "wildlife authority" or they die adventitiously as cars mow them down. It is painful to hear any news item about this. It is even distressing to hear of one poor animal trapped in a car park or on a road. Sometimes an incident will be depicted as humorous by various radio presenters when they issue their radio warnings to motorists. Maybe the attempt at humour is to stop us feeling and to objectify the suffering animal. Painful as it is , I think people should be confronted with it more often. The newspapers and television should be full of it complete with photographs and footage so that people know what population growth is costing. Wildlife corridors as suggested would be palliative for the situation because in the end the habitat is gone and it seems to me that the animals would be escaping to nowhere. Correct me if I am wrong. The only kind and humane solution, really is to stop population growth. Why doesn't Mr. Temby say that?

John Bentley (not verified)

Wed, 2015-12-02 09:17

Good stuff Mary! John Quiggin has a good article on the financial sector at johnquiggin.com

anon (not verified)

Wed, 2015-12-02 09:07

The Greens launched their plan for a “Better More Liveable Melbourne” but what impact will this plan have considering Victoria's population is increasing by a hundred thousand a year! Just how are they to propagate the "liveable" policy while this number of people keep swelling our city? What other designers and professions need to try and manipulate and plan around ongoing growth? What we have now as town planning is not really planning at all, but a knee-jerk reaction to accommodate growth, and then tring contradictorily conserve our living standards and open spaces. It's a contradiction in terms. It's more about damage control, and retro-fitting to make the best of a compounding system of "economic growth" that actually creating more poverty and deprivation. We once benefited from high immigration, when there were advantages for all - the hosts and the migrants. Now, there's little joy for anyone, except for those from the third world, those who are lucky to find employment and others who can take advantage of our welfare system! The Greens are avoiding the issue of population growth, and are trying to keep "green" above the housing Ponzi pyramid. The power of PC is so great, we may as well live in a country that lacks freedom of speech, such it's is social power!

anon (not verified)

Wed, 2015-12-02 08:59

Erysikhthon or (Erysichthon) was a mythological Thessalian king who chopped down the sacred grove of the goddess Demeter in order to build himself a feast-hall. As punishment for the crime the goddess inflicted him with insatiable hunger, driving him to exhaust his riches and finally, in poverty, devour his own flesh. After Demeter had noticed that this tree in her sacred grove had been chopped down, she told Famine about this, which led to Famine inflicting voracious hunger upon Erysichthon. This caused Erysichthon to grow hungrier and hungrier and the more he ate, the hungrier he got. So, in order to get more money to buy more food, he ended up selling his own daughter, Mestra to a ship's captain as a slave. What we have seen over the years is the globalization of an economic system that sees money as an end in itself—in fact the production of money has become one of the main endeavours of our time, money and its derivatives having become the main trading good on the world’s markets. Perpetual growth is the exponential rise of nothingness, interest upon interest, fire that feeds fire. It swallows and consumes everything in its path. Land, natural resources, housing, living standards, open spaces, biodiversity and wrecks pristine climatic systems. Perpetual growth consumes our forests, ecosystems, native species, and means always loosening environmental laws and policies to cater for Capitalistic growth. We end up devouring the very elements that make up our own identities as Australian! The pursuit of endless growth means diving into an abyss of debt, deprivation, and disadvantage. The costs of growth are never considered, and we end up with an economy addicted to almost forced to keep selling off portions of our country, so much so that we end up eating our own "flesh"- like Erysichthon.

quark

Tue, 2015-12-01 22:55

I would add that population policy should be to the benefit of people already living in Australia that is apart from refugee policy which is in the interests of the people arriving. There is no chance of Australia being able to significantly alleviate overpopulation globally. As the article points out, 40% of us live in 2 cities. We do not inhabit the whole continent mainly because it is a desert. The worlds population increases by about 80 million per year so if we took the whole global increase of one year over 5 years we would be hopelessly out of our depth and it wouldn't work at all and the rest of the world would still have an extra 360 million people to accommodate and feed. Australia cannot help the world's problem of overpopulation in my opinion. It is an arid land with impoverished soils and a deteriorating environment. That's the reality.

Sheila Newman

Tue, 2015-12-01 20:21

Syria needs your help. We need your help. Next week we will be in Syria.

November 27, 2015

Dear Friends of a Sovereign, Independent and Unified Syria,

At the invitation of the Syrian Ministry of Reconciliation, a delegation of 6-8 members of the Syria Solidarity Movement will arrive in Syria on Dec. 4, 2015. Its mission is to pursue all means of supporting the internal efforts of Syrians to overcome divisions and to end foreign intervention.

The delegates include analysts, researchers, commentators and organizers like Ajamu Baraka (US, living in Colombia) and Glen Ford (US) of the Black Agenda Report, Eva Bartlett (Canada) and Paul Larudee (US) of the Free Palestine Movement and human rights advocates Vanessa Beeley (UK) and Jacob Cohen (France). Palestinian organizer and civil rights campaigner Amal Wahdan will also join us from Ramallah, and hopefully community organizer Dr. Issa Chaer from the UK, as well. Many of us are on SSM governing committees.

We will meet with former armed opposition members that have accepted government amnesty, with representatives of civil society groups, religious leaders and community representatives. We will try to arrange for some of them to come to Europe and North America on speaking tours and to meet with their counterparts, as well as government officials. We hope to challenge established thinking on the issues that are driving the conflict.

But we are in desperate need of your help in order to make this happen.

We do not need a lot of financial support to accomplish what we have in mind, but we need some. In fact, we need only $3000 to make this mission possible without cutting corners and causing hardship to the participants. But until now we have managed to raise less than $850.

PLEASE, PLEASE help. We do so much on a volunteer basis, and we’re willing to sacrifice. But we have been unable to pay even the meager stipend of $250/month that supports our hardworking webmaster, Eva, who has nonetheless accepted to continue on a volunteer basis. SNAG, our weekly news magazine has almost entirely been the volunteer work of the tireless Rick Sterling.

Please help us bring a different voice to the issues affecting Syria, one that is not well heard or understood. Shouldn’t we hear all the points of view? What is the point of having an open mind if some viewpoints are inaccessible?

SUPPORT OUR WORK with your donations, at http://www.syriasolidaritymovement.org/donate-2/. Please be generous. Thank you.

The Syria Solidarity Movement

PLEASE NOTE: A group in the UK is illegally using our name and also recommending illegal actions against Syria. We are pursuing legal remedy to compel them to stop using our name, but the process is slow. Please be aware of this problem. Your donations to help with our effort are gratefully appreciated.

All donations are US tax exempt.

Mary (not verified)

Tue, 2015-12-01 17:40

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2015/s4363283.htm I heard this interview today- with Eleanor Hall and a rep. from the Productivity Commission. Gist of it was that people now live in houses worth lots of money and most of many retirees' wealth is in the family home (which to me says they are not very well off) and so they need to either downsize or take out a reverse mortgage. It was couched in terms which made it sound as though the Productivity Commission had the retirees' interests at heart (Ha!) - they will have a much better quality of life if they can unlock the capital in their houses. The general idea was that they should give up the idea of leaving the family home to their children. Then there was the acknowledgement that it was better for people to “age in place” which is also Federal government policy. To overcome this conflict the idea put forward was that people should be able to purchase something smaller within their area. (What a ridiculous complication to face late in life, and, living in the same area is not the same as having your garden, street, floor layout remain the same - which is what elderly people need, especially if likely to dement.) It’s government polices that have inflated housing prices - and they are colluding with industry lobbies like the Property Council, Real Estate Institute of Australia and others among the few who actually benefit from this terrible situation. It’s not the fault of people who saved and possibly even built their own houses (an example was a 90 year old war veteran on the ABC today who would like to stay where he is, thank you!) and have paid taxes. This is all about cutting these people out of the Age Pension. It’s not fair. And it is also about passing on all our pension money to a small bunch of tycoons in the finance, property and similar industries. This kind of big business interest is quickly slithering us down the road to fascism. We have already experienced undemocratic changes in planning laws in order to allow these bastards open slather and unending population growth.

Mark Allen (not verified)

Tue, 2015-12-01 13:16

Unfortunately we do not have enough time on our hands to rely upon the ballot box to save Melbourne from the worst of sprawl and concrete boxes. Even if we did, the Greens' infrastructure goals would not keep up with population growth. While their planning policies are an improvement on Labor and the Coalition, it is nevertheless going to be a case of too little too late. Therefore, unless the Greens confront the State and Federal government now on population and infrastructure policy, they will find that they are lulling their electorate into a false sense of security. It is after all their job to hold the government accountable. It would be a tragedy if they were to find themselves dangling the carrot on the very stick that the developers are holding.

quark

Tue, 2015-12-01 13:02

A computer technician working on my computer activated or downloaded Windows 10, responding to the pop -up. The next time I turned on my computer I had to go through an activation process which could not be completed. About half way through an error message appeared and I would have to start again but could never get any further. This problem prevented me from using Microsoft Outlook. A few days the same technician kindly fixed it up for me but it was extremely complex involving about 6 re-boots of the computer during a process lasting about 1 hour. (after which he did not not want to charge me) He said it was something to do with Microsoft not recognising me as a legitimate user (but I am). He said that Microsoft just left it up to technicians to pick up the pieces after these debacles.

Mark Allen (not verified)

Tue, 2015-12-01 12:08

I believe that many of the middle suburbs are lacking in housing diversity and while I do not wish to see an end to the quarter acre block, I do realise that there is a growing demographic who are willing to sacrifice larger backyards for all the benefits that come with medium density living. This is why the inner suburbs are so much in demand. It is fair to say that there are a large number of post-war houses in the middle suburbs that are not just not worth retrofitting. Therefore it makes sense to use this opportunity to create more duplexes and in turn make the middle suburbs more appealing to a wider demographic. However there are many houses that are worth retrofitting and many gardens that are worth saving. Unfortunately planners cannot pick and choose on a house by house basis which ones should be saved and which ones should go. Also, upon demolition, the general tendency is that the whole site is cleared, including all of the soil that has been enriched over the years and all the fruit trees etc. Therefore new incentives need to be put in place to ensure that the area that is cleared is restricted to the space in which the new building is going to sit. I agree that the design of new builds is generally poor and they often do not look any better than what replaced the original building. This is why we also need to focus on ensuring that better design guidelines are put in place. It would be impossible to halt all development in Melbourne so it is still preferable in my opinion to direct more development to the middle suburbs where residents would nevertheless have access to at least some private open space and where any poor design outcome is less intrusive than many of the disasterous apartment blocks in the inner suburbs. In the meantime we must continue to exert pressure on the powers that be to ensure that improved measures are put in place.

John Bentley (not verified)

Tue, 2015-12-01 12:02

I hear your lament Dennis and I agree with you wholeheartedly! I've also just read admin's piece on the Greens and while the Greens may be a tad fanciful, at least their proposals are better than what is occurring currently. The neo-liberal policies of both of the major parties is not only killing Melbourne, but Australia as a (w)hole!! The way I see it is if we don't vote for an alternative party or an independent, we'll continue to suffer at the hands of these megalomaniacs for years to come. Which leads me to the point which I don't understand. Why do the people of Melbourne and Australia put up with this crap? Why do we allow ourselves to be force fed tons of bullshit and act as if nothing is happening? Where is our intestinal fortitude? Are we waiting for some white knight to come to the rescue? To me we, as Australians, have had it too easy. We are prepared to wear it as long as we're comfortable and some mug in a suit tells us that is so. We're being shafted and we don't know it. Our governments at all levels and all persuasions are rolling over to the ruling elites, the transnationals and are selling us out. This is a glimpse of the dark side. And it will only get darker unless we, the electorate, do something about it!!

admin

Tue, 2015-12-01 00:24

The above interview with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, only one of many in the last four years, should be compared with an interview below by ABC News 24 with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Oppostion leader Bill Shorten. The 'interview' lasted only 3 minutes. The interview video was included within a short article in the Age newspaper, Australia's stance on Assad (19/11/15).

The interview

Interviewer: ... has described Assad as a butcher. Is that how you would classify him, and is that why he has to be removed?

Malcolm Turnbull: Well, he's killed - he's been responsible for killing many, many thousands of his of his citizens. So, the many people have described him as a butcher. I think he has been a murderous tyrant. There is doubt about that.

The calculation is this. There is a lot of opposition. Obviously there is a very deep enmity, as I've said the other day, towards Assad and his regime by many people - perhaps most people in Syria. Well, it's hard to tell. There's obviously, there's deep enmity towards him by other players in the Middle East - the Sunni, you know the Sunni majority states. His supporters, of course Iran and Russia. I think the reality however is that the approach has to be a pragmatic one, and whatever combination of players that are able to achieve the settlement - that includes groups inside Syria, with the exception of Daesh, who as I say, have no interest in settlement and nobody has any interest in a settlement with them, but there is going to be a need to be very pragmatic about it.

If you look at the other countries that are close to the scene and, that is, certainly what neighbouring countries are talking about, now. A more pragmatic approach and I think that David Cameron spoke for the room in [Antalia?] when he said the negotiations had to be approached in a spirit of pragmatism and compromise.

The fundamental problem is that there is a war there that is going on there that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, is still killing thousands of people and there are 4 million plus refugees - two and a half million of them, or thereabouts, in Turkey alone. So this is a humanitarian catastrophe of extraordinary scale. It's said to be the worst since the Second World war and I have no reason to doubt that. So a resolution is absolutely critical.

Bill Shorten: I do not believe that long term peace in Syria can be guaranteed while Assad the butcher remains in control. Now I understand that in transition arrangements, some compromises may have to be made in the short term.

Well, what I am completely convinced of, is that if Assad was to remain in charge of Syria, then there is no prospect for any stability and peace for the millions of people who live in Syria and there's very little chance of the millions of Syrian refugees wanting to return to Syria whilst Assad remains in control.

Other recent, more informative interviews

To become better informed about recent developments in Syria, read:

President al-Assad to the Italian TV Channel RAI UNO: ISIS has no incubator in Syria…Terrorists are main obstacle in front of any political progress (19/11/15) | SANA and

President al-Assad to Chinese PHOENIX TV Channel.. From the very first day, we were determined to fight terrorism (22/11/15) | SANA.

Sheila Newman

Mon, 2015-11-30 23:18

An elderly relative and a friend have both had their computers wrecked by downloading and then activating Windows 10. It looks as if it works, then, when you try to reboot your computer, or turn it on after shutting it down, you cannot access any microsoft program. The elderly relative, who is a 92year old avid windows user, had to take his computer to a specialist in data recovery. Then he still could not recover some windows program that he used for email and as a calendar. In the end he found that he had to buy a new computer. My friend gave in to the frequent messages to activate Windows 10, "It's free!". Now, all she can do is open her computer; she cannot access any windows program. She cannot read her email. I don't know if these Windows 10 free downloads are the real thing or a virus. I also have a constant invitation to download and activate Windows 10. The invitation tells me that my computer has been assessed and it is compatible. Frankly, every time I have to move to a new windows version I lose a lot of time and often software I paid dearly for turns out to be incompatible. But Windows 10 seems to be truly destructive. Pass it on. Also, here is a link to a Windows discussion where lots of people have experienced this catastrophe. No indication that Windows is going to compensate anyone. They should be taken to court, but how does one do that? http://forums.windowscentral.com/ask-question/336439-hard-drive-destroyed-after-windows-10-anyone-else.html

Dennis K

Mon, 2015-11-30 20:48

I'm not sure how the new tenements and townhouses being put up are any less boring. No eaves. Square blocky architecture. Similar colour schemes. Similar frontage. Similar fake grass lawns with succulents and rocks (yes, so many new houses have PLASTIC lawns now). Melbourne is devolving into a slum, and it's sad to see it happen piece by piece, but I can't help but think that the rot started a long time ago. Our society values nothing but "economic progress", whatever that actually is, and "growth", whatever that means. It was like that when I was a child, a teenager and is like that now. It's just now that "progress" and "economic growth" has reached peoples homes and backyards, and now they grumble. Have things changes, or is it just that the destructive nature of comsumer culture has come home. We've sold everything else off, now there is nothing left to sell except the very land from our childrens feet. This is like traffic. I spoke 15 year ago about this outcome, and no one cared then. Now they suddenly care when its too late. Likewise, the congestion and housing crisis will only become a problem when its too late. I think I may just have to leave Melbourne and leave the idiots here stew in the mess they've created.

quark

Mon, 2015-11-30 20:30

Kangaroos are in the news again and not for any positive reason. The poor creatures are caught up in unending inexorable development on Melbourne's urban fringe. They end up trapped in people's gardens, and one was even featured caught on a roof. They get killed on the roads after traumatic bids to escape. The authorities receive 40 calls per day regarding kangaroos in outer suburban areas in the "wrong" places. The problem is that they are losing their habitat as developers arrive on the scene.They are just "collateral damage". There is really no hope for them once their territory is taken over. It is completely uncivilised. It's a "jungle" out there in the most disturbing sense. Population growth needs to be curbed which would be very easy since over 50% of it is from immigration and far better overall planning is needed for the additional population from "natural increase" each year. And how about incorporating wildlife corridors if they absolutely MUST develop on the urban fringe? At least the poor animals would have escape routes although where they might go is an unanswered question.

admin

Mon, 2015-11-30 13:39

Paul Craig Roberts, who was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during Ronald Reagan's Presidency and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal shows the inconsistencies in tyhe official account of the Paris Terrorist attack of 13 November.

Clearly elements of the French security security services colluded with the terrorists in order to provide 'socialist' President Francois Hollande with a pretext to launch military attacks against Syrian territory. Supposedly these attacks are against their ISIS footsoldiers, but, in reality,they are against the popular and legally elected government of President Bashar al-Assad.

anon (not verified)

Mon, 2015-11-30 12:40

Quite incredible that the weapons sold to ISIS are now being turned on the suppliers. In the late 1700?s French general, expert strategist, and leader Napoleon Bonaparte would note that, “an army marches on its stomach,” referring to the extensive logistical network required to keep an army fed, and therefore able to maintain its fighting capacity. The current conflict with ISIS in the Middle East is operating, and simultaneously fighting against, is built upon a logistical network based on black market oil and ransom payments.

When militants launched a string of coordinated attacks in Paris on Friday night, they carried AK-47s and were wrapped in explosives. The Islamic State picked weapons from deceased soldiers, slipped arms across borders, and stolen Humvees and guns from fleeing Iraqi forces. ISIS has in the past showed off its American M16 rifles in flashy propaganda videos, and Russian-style Kalashnikovs are considered a favorite. Terrorists and weapons left over from NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011 were promptly sent to Turkey and then onto Syria – coordinated by US State Department officials and intelligence agencies.

Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) published the first video report from a major Western media outlet illustrating that ISIS is supplied not by “black market oil” or “hostage ransoms” but billions of dollars worth of supplies carried into Syria across NATO member Turkey’s borders via hundreds of trucks a day.

Why is ISIS not running out of weapons and ammunition? Where do they continue getting arms? (undated as of 30/11/15) | Quora

Now, the Europe, thanks to the UN and EU, have opened up routes for migration, and the war against "terror" can be spread in further implemented, destabilizing the world and promoting the arms industry.

Stop the housin... (not verified)

Mon, 2015-11-30 12:28

What irony! The drabness and predictability of Australian bland suburb, the 1/4 acre block, triple fronted cream brick veneer what was ridiculed as being predicable and even boring - is now almost a dying species. What we took for granted, in middle Australia, is now dying out like threatened species, being eradicated by bland, concrete-facaded boxes and towers that are called "apartments". While most people now would concede that the days of 1/4 acre blocks have passed, with "progress", but what's happening to our once gracious and dignified city, Melbourne, is a tragedy. So bereft of ideas, productivity, innovation and creativity are our political leaders, and economists, what we are selling out now is our housing to the real estate, mortgage and property developers. The mess the unfettered housing industry is forcing upon us is unemployment, entrenched deprivation, increasing poverty, loss of amenities, and a bland city. Congestion is being addressed by ever-increasing road capacity, freeways, more public transport costing multiple billions, but still the frenzy of "developments" continues. It's like a self-consuming monster, eating away at our city and leaving behind a cheap imitation of itself - and the housing Ponzi pyramid keeps growing and consuming our individual incomes, wealth and living standards.

Katie (not verified)

Fri, 2015-11-20 14:28

As if the kangaroos at Somerton have not had enough to contend with being boxed in by new roads, noise and traffic as Melbourne spreads with ever increasing population, now I hear there is a fire in a disused rubbish dump, the smoke from which is about to impact on residents of the area. Fire fighters are undergoing decontamination. The poor kangaroos have probably been displaced by development over the past 5 years but if any of them are still alive then it seems they will be in danger of severe smoke inhalation. Human residents have been advised to stay indoors but kangaroos will not have that "luxury". What an environmental mess!

Geoffrey Taylor

Wed, 2015-11-18 23:33

It seems to me that the track record of at least the most recent four decades shows that Islamic governments are just as tolerant, inclusive and socially just as non-Islamic governments. Examples include: Iran, Libya before the government of Muammar Gaddafi was destroyed in 2011, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. (Of course, there are a few striking exceptions including the dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.) Moreover such countries have formed much of the axis of resistance to the plans of the New World Order to destroy national sovereignty and take away much of the wealth of the people across the world and give it to large corporations. Political organisations opposed to these governments, such as ISIS (aka ISIL and Islamic State) and al-Qaeda which claim to be Islamic, have, in fact, been set up and funded by the United States and its allies in order to organise supposed colour revolutions to overthrow sovereign Islamic governments. This is how the Libyan Government was overthrown in 2011 and how the current conflict in Syria started in March 2011. There's abundant evidence that the current mass exodus of refugee/immigrants from the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa has been organised by the same interests who started those wars against Libya and Syria to: 1. create political chaos in Europe; and 2. enable them to concoct pretexts to invade Syria amidst that chaos. The recent terrorist attacks in Paris were committed by terrorists who were already known to French authorities and could have easily been prevented had they the will to do so. The attacks could have occurred without the massive influx of refugees. Of course the chaos caused by the large influx helped the French government to sell its explanation of the terrorist attacks.

anon (not verified)

Wed, 2015-11-18 16:24

How can anyone claim that Terrorism is a new ideological trend, and nothing to do with Islam! The US and NATO forces of course have initiated the problems in the Middle East, with intervention and support for terror in Syria, and illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They've open and poked a nest of venomous vipers. The word Islam means "peace", but it's a contradiction in term, an oxymoron. The citizens of France are the ones paying the price for the aggression of their nation. Western aggression in Iraq was directly responsible for the conditions that have given rise to ISIS. Pervasive among these conditions is bitter hatred for America and its allies. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, had people killed for insulting him or for criticizing his religion. This included women. Muslims are told to emulate the example of Muhammad. Muhammad directed Muslims to wage war on other religions and bring them under submission to Islam. The Qur’an contains injunctions that call both for peace and for violence. The problem is not that they are there; the difficulty is that non-violent and militant Muslims appear equally justified. Christians and Buddhists also have a track record of fanaticism, such as the bombing of abortion clinics and hardliner Buddhists in Myanmar. Today violence racks the Middle East, South Asia and much of Africa in the name of Islam. Meanwhile, many Muslims, like their neighbours of other outlooks, recoil in horror. The goal of French intervention in Mali was then to free the northern part of the country from jihadist occupation, bring back peace, and restore Malian sovereignty on the whole territory. In 2013, the motives were questioned, even by relatively conservative sources, given the massive strategic resources of the African nation, what GlobalResearch described as an ‘El Dorado’ of uranium, gold, petroleum, and strategic minerals. The question that Malians have to ask themselves is: Do they prefer having to fight against jihadists for a long time, or having their sovereignty challenged, and their territory occupied by an ancient colonialist state or partitioned to satisfy a group allied with the colonial power? Islam’s scriptures forbid forcible conversion. Unbelievers are always given a choice: exile or conversion. The punishment for apostasy, or conversion away from Islam, is death. The problem of terror is not just in the Middle East. The Nigerian-based terror group, also known as Islamic State’s West’s Africa province (ISWAP), was responsible for 6,644 deaths in 2014. In comparison, Isis is believed to have killed 6,073 people in the same period. Boko Haram promotes a version of Islam which makes it "haram", or forbidden, for Muslims to take part in any political or social activity associated with Western society. The ideological goal of ISIS is cemented in its name: Their objective is to create a large-scale theocracy made up of Syria, parts of Iraq, Lebanon, and much of Palestine and Jordan. It's a totalitarian, Right wing cult. Islam is not just a religion, but has military, social, legal and political arms. The route to "Peace" is strewn with weapons, and hard-line military tactics, without tolerance for what's "Western". The UN's migration pathway to Europe has created a route for terror to enter, under the guise of humanitarian compassion. What started as a humanitarian-crisis, became a refugee-crisis, a migration-crisis, and now a terror-crisis!

Vicki (not verified)

Wed, 2015-11-18 12:54

There were no 'internships' a few decades ago. Anyone trying to employ someone for nothing would be hauled off to court on a charge of slavery. And you get nursing students, social work students, and just plain looking for a job people, working as 'interns' for nothing, full time. They can only afford to do this because they pay with prior savings, with taxpayer money via work incentive schemes, or their parents/spouses pay. Worse, this seems to happen a lot with charities. Charities are often another big scam; a kind of tax deduction arm of big business, another way to get people to work for nothing; a new slavery with a white collar uniform.

anon (not verified)

Wed, 2015-11-18 12:48

http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/at-work/be-the-one-to-stop-working-for-free-by-asking-the-boss-to-go-home/news-story/c26db405edb4cffa95d0a90ed03b6d43 I heard this on the ABC this am— workers donate more in unpaid overtime to their employers than they do to charities - then found this article. It would have been interesting to have heard this during the time when it was predicted that our biggest challenge in the future would be filling our leisure time. The boundaries between work and leisure are now burred also with technology - i.e. being able to respond to work emails from home. Who are the “leaners”? but I guess that is now quite an old question.

quark

Wed, 2015-11-18 09:44

The SBS French news today played a few different statements over the past months from Francois Hollande, which indicated a changing point of view regarding the enemy in Syria. Whereas before the Syrian government was included as part of the problem, today's sound bite was that Da'esh was the enemy.

Sheila Newman

Tue, 2015-11-17 23:12

French Primeminister, Francois Fillon, on a France 2 news special of 16 November 2015, announced that he will ask the French president to reopen a French embassy in Damascus in order to reengage with the Syrian 'regime' (meaning the Syrian Government) towards fighting Daesh. See http://www.francetvinfo.fr/faits-divers/terrorisme/attaques-du-13-novembre-a-paris/attentats-du-13-novembre-francois-fillon-revient-sur-les-annonces-du-president-au-congres-de-versailles_1178937.html

Mr Fillon also volunteered his opinion that this route should have been taken long ago, soon after the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks. "So much time lost, so much time lost. On this very forum, a year ago, I said that we needed to organise with the Russians, with the Iranians, with all the countries of the region, in a true coalition to attack ISIS. ... During the time that has elapsed since then, ISIS has grown; the monster has become more and more powerful, and now much harder to fight."

Australia should invite Damascus to reopen its embassy/consulat in Canberra, which Australia shamefully closed down some time ago in an abject refusal to keep communications open.

Sheila Newman

Sun, 2015-11-15 21:20

The man whose Syrian passport was discovered near the body of one of the kamikazes nearby the France Stadium (Stade de France), had entered Europe via Serbia on 7 October. He had asked for asylum. The Serbian Minister for the Interior, cited by Reuters, has confirmed this.

Translated from:
#ATTENTATS L'homme a qui appartenait le passeport syrien, découvert près du corps d'un des kamikazes à proximité du Stade de France, était entré le 7 octobre en Serbie. Il y avait demandé l'asile. Le ministère serbe de l'Intérieur, cité par Reuters, l'affirme. Source: francetv info, http://www.francetvinfo.fr/faits-divers/terrorisme/attaques-du-13-novembre-a-paris/direct-attentats-de-paris-l-enquete-avance-les-francais-se-recueillent_1176393.html

James Sinnamon

Sat, 2015-11-14 12:15

Hell-Bent - Australia's Leap into the Great War (2014) by Australian author Douglas Newton is a groundbreaking account of Australia's international diplomacy up to the start of the War to End All Wars, sorry, the First World War in 1914.

This book shows that, as well as being a victim, with 59,330 military deaths by one estimate, or 1.2% of its 1914 population of 4,948,990, Australia was also a perpetrator, which on three occasions - the 1911 Moroccan Crisis, the Second Balkans War of 1913 and during the crisis from June until August 1914 which led to the outbreak of war - did all it could to influence Great Britain to declare war. It was quick to offer volunteer expeditionary force and to offer to hand over the command of the Royal Australian Navy to Britain.

On the first two occasions the Australian government and the forces seeking war in the British cabinet and across Europe were thwarted by popular protests, led by the likes of Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Vladimir Lenin and Jean Jaurés against war.

On the last occasion, the war-makers succeeded. The consequences include not just the 15 million military and civilian and dead of the First World, but also 60 million dead of the Second World War and a massive destruction of much of the world's material a wealth.

The tragedy of the First World War could have been minimised after the establishment of trench warfare. Had the generals just left soldiers on all sides to defend their ground and had the politicians transparently negotiated an end to that war, the scale of the catastrophe would have been vastly reduced. Instead on both sides, but particularly the Anglo-British-Russian Enténte, again and again, insisted on ordering their soldiers to make suicidal attacks across the mud and barbed wire of no-man's land into rifle and machine gun fire and artillery counter-bombardment.

In April 1917, after the disastrous Nivelle Offensive soldiers in the French Army mutinied. They told their commanders they would defend their ground but not attack. Some even marched on Paris. Sadly the mutiny was crushed and many of its leaders executed. The bloody war was to continue for one and a half more years, and we were to live with yet more of the terrible consequences throughout the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st century.

admin

Sat, 2015-11-14 01:33

Yesterday, during his Friday 'Weekly Wrap' Conversation Hour from 11:00AM until midday on the ABC's Local 774 Melbourne Radio Station, Jon Faine, claimed:

"President Assad has killed more of his own people than anyone else has."

This smear of the Syrian Government mirrors the mainstream media narrative of the United States' phony war against ISIS for 12 months. On the one hand the media reveals the appalling savagery of ISIS to justify the West's supposed war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, but on the other hand they assert that the Syrian government is even more brutal than ISIS, thereby justifying efforts by the same Western forces to destroy Syrian infrastructure and ultimately to overthrow the Syrian government.

People who are informed about the Syrian conflict know John Faine's above claim against the Syrian government to be a lie. Certainly none of the world political leaders opposed to the Syrian government – U.S. President Barack Obama, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, French President Francois Hollande, former Australian Minister Bob Carr and, British Prime Minister David Cameron, etc. – or their newsmedia mouthpieces have ever been able to produce evidence to prove that the Syrian President is a mass murderer.

If such evidence exists, then it has never been produced on the occasions in recent years when the Syrian government has submitted itself to close scrutiny by the newsmedia. Two such examples include:

1. The interview of President al-Assad by Charlie Rose of 60 Minutes (31/3/15); and

2. Syria's press conference the United Nations doesn't want you to see (21/6/2014)

In the 60 Minutes interview, shown above Charlie Rose put President al-Assad the claims made by the Western Mainstream media against his government. All the claims were refuted by President al-Assad.

The second story is about the media conference by four accredited observers of the Syrian Presidential elections of 20 June 2014 at the United Nations headquarters. All testified that in the elections of 4 June, in which 88.7% of the 73.42% of eligible Syrian voters who voted, voted for President Bashar al-Assad, were held fairly and transparently. If Faine had been present and had attempted to make the above claim he would have been laughed out of the room.

anon (not verified)

Fri, 2015-11-13 19:19

Two nephews of Venezuela's powerful first lady Cilia Flores were arrested in Haiti on charges of conspiring to smuggle 800 kilograms of cocaine into the U.S. and will be arraigned in New York. This is likely to exacerbate already tense relations between the U.S. and Venezuela and cast a hard look at U.S. accusations of drug trafficking at the highest levels. American prosecutors have been steadily stepping up pressure on high-ranking members of Venezuela's military, police and government officials.

The pair were scheduled to next appear in court Wednesday, and attorneys for each said after the hearing that their clients would plead not guilty.

Relations between Venezuela's socialist government and the United States have been strained for years. Earlier this year, Washington sanctioned several senior Venezuelan officials accused of violating human rights of government opponents during a crackdown on anti-government protests.

Social movements, intellectuals, and Latin American and Caribbean governments have voiced their solidarity with Venezuela against U.S. threats and intervention in the South American country. In Peru and Bolivia, for example, activists have launched campaigns to raise awareness about the implications of U.S. aggressions in the region and state support for Venezuelan people and President Maduro’s government.

The United States uses human rights as a “political weapon” against Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday.

Maduro explained how his government's opponents manipulated Venezuela's human rights record in an attempt to remove the democratically elected executive, as in reality, despite a hard year due to the economic war, the state had continued to fight poverty, reduce unemployment, and continue with its housing, education, health and nutrition missions.

Nov 8– The Venezuelan Defense Ministry on Sunday claimed that a U.S. DASH-8 military aircraft violated its maritime airspace and the armed forces of Caracas said they detected “unusual” air activity by other U.S. “intelligence equipment” based in Curacao. The United States and Venezuela have not had ambassadors in each other’s capitals since 2010, but the two countries have had a testy diplomatic relationship since the late former President Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999, and that tension has continued under his successor, Nicolas Maduro.

"The most perverted, corrupt and discredited organization in the world, the OAS (Organisation of the American States)... threatens the people of Venezuela," National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello said in comments published by local media. Venezuela has for years clashed with the OAS, accusing the organization of being a front for U.S. interests and meddling in its internal affairs.

See also: Venezuela claims US military aircraft violated its airspace (9/11/15) | ICR News, Venezuela: U.S. military plane violated our airspace (8/11/15) | Fox News Latino

Kate (not verified)

Wed, 2015-11-11 15:38

What happened here is a tragedy, but I'm confused. If the cow was in so much trouble on the Wednesday, why did this person wait until the weekend before they contacted the RSPCA? Good on her for giving it food and water, but why wait to make the report? Poor thing :(

Katie (not verified)

Wed, 2015-11-11 11:13

I just paused for a few seconds listening to the "Last Post" at 11.00 a.m for Remembrance Day. i couldn't help thinking about the soldiers of WW 2, my parents' generation, who endured torture enslavement, injuries and death to defend "Australia" and now look at what the next generation and the one after have done to follow up. They have sold us out Our control over our destinies is gone along with our rights to protect our environment all with the signing of this TPP.

Megan (not verified)

Wed, 2015-11-11 10:13

Reading the above article I get the feeling of citizenship of a country in the future becoming an archaic concept, where goods from all over the place are available, a bit like toys for children, but where people's lives are circumscribed and controlled, where we are more like animals in a feedlot than citizens functioning as part of a society.

James Sinnamon

Wed, 2015-11-11 03:00

Today, Remembrance Day 2015, is the 97th anniversary of the day on which the guns stopped firing in 1918.

Ironically, today is also the 40th anniversary of the infamous dismissal of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam by the Governor General on Remembrance Day 1975, less than 3 years after Gough's newly elected government ended Australia's war against Vietnam.

Barely 20 years after the supposed "war to end all wars" ended on 11 November 1918, a new and even more terrible conflagration, in which, by one estimate, 60 million were to die, commenced.

As we know the Second World War was followed by a succession of yet more wars, in many of which the death tolls were barely an order of magnitude less. These include the Korean War, the abovementioned Vietnam War and the invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen.

This has also been posted to johnquiggin.com.

Sheila Newman

Sun, 2015-11-08 18:20

Yes, the photos are extremely distressing. It makes you feel that our parliaments that make the laws that permit palm oil must be dominated by psychopaths. I consider growth-dependent capitalism to be at the heart of this. It seems that we are in a system that so prioritises money - where ONLY money (profit to be made or lost in a pareto efficient paradigm) has any validity in seeking damages or rights - that our behaviour is now predominantly responsive to untrammeled market forces. This has made us a terrible species, inflicting a terrible world on itself. The photo of the orangutan hiding his or her head with his or her hands is so expressive of abject horror that we had to publish the article. This could be a human in a war somewhere else - the Middle East, Ukraine, Congo... The scale now is so much greater than it ever was in history. How can we tolerate leaders who will not stop this reality?

quark

Sun, 2015-11-08 15:25

I find these photos extremely distressing as I did the description given to me by an animal welfare organisation representative 2 days ago on the phone. This description was of baby elephants crying for days on end after their mothers have been killed for their tusks. The organisation needed money to pay 24 hour carers in a sanctuary to stay with the animals and care for them for as long as the animals need this. When they are ready they are released into the wild (presumably to be the quarry of poaching tusk seekers) It's a bit like the wild life carers in Australia with years on end of broken sleep as they keep tiny nocturnal marsupials alive and to release them into the wild, only to be killed on the roads or shot later on. The whole thing, the burgeoning human numbers the ruthless go-getters, the careless, ignorant drivers on country roads makes me feel powerless and despairing. From the photos of the orang-utans there seems to no mercy for them as their habitat is ripped away. About 20 years ago I visited an orang-utan rehabilitation centre in Borneo. They were raising orphaned animals, many of which had been bought and kept as pets. They had a staged process whereby the animals were moved progressively nearer to a wild forest-y situation. The staff seemed very enlightened and in my naivety I thought that the worst might be over for the orang-utans. Not so, unfortunately.

Sheila Newman

Sun, 2015-11-08 12:07

Because palm oil is 'everywhere' in packaged products in supermarkets, it seems that avoiding it requires a systemic approach. The only way I can think of doing this is to stick with fresh food and check what oils I use. Products like soaps, shampoos, dish and clothes-washing detergents also require scrutiny.

I know there are lists of products containing palm oil around, but it would be simpler to list the few products that do not contain palm oil. If anyone wanted to do this, I would be happy to publish it.

anon (not verified)

Sun, 2015-11-08 11:03

This habitat destruction and the stealing of homes from Orangutans is an illustration of human population growth, demand for resources, and corporate greed. Primates and intelligent, gentle and cognitive species, and in actual fact are more highly evolved than humans. They live socially and peacefully within their environmental limits, in their family settings. They do not pollute, destroy, invade or cause wars - unlike homo-sapiens! The world is in a cruel mess, and it's heart-wrenching to see these innocent victims suffer. Huge, out-of-control fires rage through the forests of Indonesia – and the source of many is the practice of deliberately burning the land to clear it for palm oil and paper products. These forests are an environmental disaster and is turning habitats and species into cinders. It's a graveyard, a catastrophe. By burning down forests companies can get access to the land and can commence industrial pulp and palm oil plantations. The daily carbon emissions of the Indonesian fires had been equal to the daily emissions of the US, accelerating humanity's progress along the upward line of global emissions by about one to two years. Palm oil is pretty much everywhere. It's the most widely used vegetable oil on the planet and is found in roughly half of all packaged products in supermarkets. Palm oil is pretty much everywhere.

End the Growth Ponzi (not verified)

Sun, 2015-11-08 10:55

The greatest pressure on Council budgets is population growth. They are expected to keep providing more and more services, expand their spending, and keep blowing out their budgets.

Councils do not have the legislative powers to change laws, so State governments dump Councils with the costs of population growth, and limited powers to prevent it. So much money can be sunk into Planning Objections, to be over-ruled by VCAT and property developers, that Councils must end up reluctant to represent the rate-payers.
Dis-economies of scale end up blowing out Council costs.

Governments are reluctant to increase charges and taxes, but Councils just keep increasing rates with impunity, with no reviews.
Population growth in Australia is more a consequence of government immigration policy than what's going on in the country's bedrooms.

While our attention is diverted by "boat people" and the refugee crisis, the bulk of our population growth is arriving on our front door!
Oliver Hartwich, and a colleague from the Centre for Independent Studies, sent a survey to all 560 Australian local governments (mayors and senior executives) to ask how they responded to population growth and whether their revenues were adequate. They received 121 responses, covering a good range of metropolitan and regional councils, large and small.

More than half of respondents said they had put up their rates “to cope with population growth”. One third said explicitly that population growth “damaged their bottom line”, which is not what should happen when more potential taxpayers arrive. Indeed, economies of scale in administration might even warrant lower taxes for existing ratepayers.
VICTORIANS will be stung with an average rates rise of $67 in 2015-16. Residents of Murrindindi in the state’s northeast growth corridor will pay the highest rise of $145 on average.

According to Ian Lowe, "What seems a modest rate of population increase, well below what has been recently experienced in south-east Queensland, actually doubles the cost to the community of providing infrastructure. The population increase only adds 2% to the local council’s rate income and the state government’s tax receipts, so it is obvious why we are fighting a losing battle to keep pace with the needs of the growing population. Thurow concluded that any nation whose population increases at a rate of more than 2% will probably go backwards economically".

Why We Need to Stabilise Our Population (June 2010) by Ian Lowe | Issues Magazine

Dennis K

Thu, 2015-11-05 21:44

A lot of the refugees are genuine, even though many are purported not to be from Syria, something I've seen confirmed in the YouTube videos. One school of thought is the Europeans deserve this, for tacitly supporting the US. That applies, if you believe that Europe has functional democracies, and that the leaders represent their nations and give their voters a choice. I don't subscribe to this, therefore I do NOT believe it is warranted to foist this calamity on Europeans for what leaders they have NO control over do. Rather, the EU leaders need to be brought to justice and tried for treason. I think there is a strong case for it. There are some oddities though, which I think a month ago I mentioned that there was a sense of 'manufacturedness' about this crisis. Why so many leaving all of a sudden, despite the fact that the war has gone for years? A lot of it may be due to Erdogan releasing, our pushing out the many refugees that Turkey holds. How do the refugees seem to coordinate to move together in LARGE, well organised, virtually military columns? How do they coordinate their boat trips and get life jackets? How did they choose the few, same destinations? Where are they recharging their mobile phones? Do they have a prepaid plan? Why has the EU given figures on how many to accept? Where are the armies of the European nations? Don't they protect borders any more? Why did Merkel ask Zuckerberg to censor comments against the invasion on facebook? Why kind of leader punished their own people for speaking against those transgressing their borders? This is BIZARRE. The media are trying to paint a picture of people who, last minute, are fleeing fighting, but none of these observable facts match the media narrative. Fleeing trouble they are, but the nature of this movement seems a more calculated, more organised affair. The media re painting the most tragic picture possible, but why? I presume these refugees won't be competing for jobs in journalism, but why the unanimous, unquestioning view? Most of the time a people lose territory, it is NOT through war or invasion, but through migration. Migration, or mass movements of people is the prime reason for others losing land, being pushed out. Armies occupy, but mass movements of people displace. I need not repeat the warning I've given many, many times before, that the far right will become a much bigger force, and that unless others take action to address their concerns, they will have a political monopoly on solving these new issues.

anon (not verified)

Thu, 2015-11-05 16:04

The "welcome culture" is a German word not born of custom but created to establish one in Germany. It was coined by politicians a few years ago. It was originally meant to be the siren call that would attract people from other countries to come to Germany and compensate for a big shortage of skilled workers. These days the term is used to encourage help for the hundreds of thousands of refugees coming to Germany. As the Germans share their bread and resources with the refugees, Angela Merkel made clear in her speech that she won’t accept Italy, Greece or Hungary not pulling their weight and opening their borders. According to the UN’s refugee agency, almost 1.8 million have gone to Turkey, more than 600,000 to Jordan and 1 million to Lebanon – a country whose population is just 4 million. While Turkey has been very generous in providing immediate care for the large inflow of refugees, it now faces the challenge that the overwhelming majority of refugees no longer live in camps but rather in the wider Turkish society. Several UN and other international agencies recommend that more countries open themselves to immigration. The OECD's chief economist, Ignazio Visco, said in mid-July 2000 that "immigration confers small net gains to the host country." In reality the flow is uncontrolled, uncounted, and at least seven times as large — with no end in sight. Three thousand are arriving every day — on the island of Lesbos alone — so the numbers are staggering. Almost all asylum seekers prefer to go to Western European nations such as Germany, where wages are high and public support is generous. In a borderless Europe, authorities will face challenges in keeping refugees in the country to which they are assigned. Yet while Europe struggles to find a solution to the millions asylum seekers making perilous journeys there, Saudi Arabia – less than 2,032.5 km from Syria and with resources at its disposal – has been largely unresponsive to the crisis. According to the UNHCR there are around 500,000 Syrians living in Saudi Arabia, but they are not classified as asylum seekers, and it is not known when they arrived in the affluent country. No Gulf country has signed the U.N. Convention on Refugees, an accord standardizing the level of treatment of people fleeing to new countries. Meanwhile, Germany announced that it will bring border controls back into action Sunday and will temporarily leave the Schengen system, claiming it can not longer cope with the overwhelming amount of asylum seekers crossing the border from Austria. The UN has given refugees are great sense of entitlement to access Europe, and the West, and they are obliged to accept the human avalanche. While nominally "Christian" countries struggle, with this heavy obligation, the Arab States are privileged, and are able to preserve their living standards and their wealth. "Ageing countries" exist because of declining birth rates. They are taking on their right to secure a sustainable population size, and their living standards. It doesn't meant they have a moral obligation to take on more asylum seekers!

Vicki (not verified)

Thu, 2015-11-05 14:20

Jon Faine stated yesterday, if he gets enough complaints about a government body, he will investigate it, so here goes! His email address is [email protected] but please make sure you mark it to the attention of Jon Faine. Subject: Fw: SHOCKING CASE OF NEGLECT! Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2015 12:02:39 +1100 For the urgent attention of: Mr Jon Faine. Dear Mr Faine, It was yesterday when I heard you say that if anybody had any complaints or issues with a government department, then you will investigate it, providing you receive enough complaints! Well there are many of us from various animal rights groups who are totally fed up with two groups in particular. The first one is DELWP, for their total lack of care when it comes to safe guarding livestock and farm animals, such as the case below. And the other group we complaining about is the RSPCA, for their lack of care as well! Jon, the case below gives detail to a mother cow and her calf two weeks ago in a place called Charlton, country Victoria. [...] /node/4643 Vicki Lloyd-Smith Animals Alliance.

DennisK (not verified)

Thu, 2015-11-05 14:03

I did not mean to imply that townhouses are the domain of migrants. My argument is that other cultures, based on my observation, are less perturbed by denser living arrangements. This is evidenced by living standards overseas, and the demographics of people in Australia who show political concern about crowding. This is also based on discussion at my very diverse workplace, where there is a clear division. Why this is so I wont speculate on. I also note fewer younger people are worried, so there is a generational aspect as well, though young people today fight for nothing unless explicitely authorised and told to anyway.

Sheila Newman

Thu, 2015-11-05 13:53

Carola Anstis and Ceinwin Hickey have started a Facebook page ‘Stop issuing permits to kill next to wildlife shelters'. This is the link : https://www.facebook.com/groups/881660225258096/

The group is about lobbying your Upper House rep (in the state of Victoria, Australia) to get an enquiry started into the whole spectrum of the ATCW permit system. There is a heap of information on the page and it could tie in very well with what other activists may be doing.

Cienwin says: I am trying to get anyone who feels they can help with the lobbying to contact their Upper House rep. I have done all the ground work for it so everyone will be singing from the same song book.

If we can get an enquiry started it will expose all the problems with the ATCW’s and should bring about change.

I have an appointment with my rep 14 December which is really good as the Pet Food Trials are due to end on 31 March 2016 and we need to have a voice if these trials are to be stopped.

Just as a by the way, I made an inquiry to the Federal Government to find out if any of the processors involved in this trial had made an application to export the skins of the Kangaroo shot under the permits for the pet food trial and a permit was granted to one of them in March 2015 It’s obvious where these trials are headed, the money’s in the skins. If the trials are deemed a success then it will be wholesale slaughter in Victoria for the Kangaroos.

If anyone feels they can help with the lobbying please give me a call 51548581

DennisK (not verified)

Wed, 2015-11-04 14:22

Yes Megan, this is what I think is happening. Our "standard of living", or state of civilisation is being liquidated for profit and power. Kind of like inheriting a house, then tearing it apart to make some money. But what is happening, is the system is geared so a few beneficiaries benefit from the liquidation and everyone else pays. Housing is one of the big ways it is done, but not the only. We are in the "deconstruction" phase, where we pull apart what others have built with blood, sweat and tears. Almost all of it is done by people who have no right or mandate to do so. You can also see it with respect to vital freedoms, culture, civic rights, they are all being deconstructed. Listen to the way people talk about migration. It often invokes ideas of sacrifice, dealing with unwanted change, etc. In the past, migration was considered to be only for our benefit. Now, it is used to create laws to limit freedom and lower living standards due to some obligation. So essentially, the future standard of living for the young and future generations is being quite literally taken from then, for profit today. Their space is being torn apart and divided, and the economic system is altered to cater for this. The politicians struggle to understand why they cant balance the budget, or why there is a constant state of economic crisis... It also therefore indicates it is NOT just a planning issue, as some seem to suggest. The planning issues exist because the new normal created by the elite permits it, recommends it, and considers it factually sound. We will see more and more "extreme" groups emerge, like Reclaim and the newly minted ALA, because of this. There is another factor though, many will simple leave. Australia may suffer a brain drain as people will find better opportunities elsewhere. I am considering this seriously myself.

Mark Allen (not verified)

Wed, 2015-11-04 13:27

I think to suggest that town house living is purely the domain of new migrants is an oversimplification. The colonial-era town houses of the inner suburbs of Melbourne for example are mainly inhabited by white, educated middle class residents. I do understand your concerns however because the problem is that most attempts at town-house development and higher density living in the past few decades have been very shoddy indeed. This is in part due to our planning system being too accommodating to profit-driven developers and because our population is growing at too fast a rate to enable well considered planning outcomes. This is why, on the current trajectory, the future of Melbourne is indeed one of increasing high-rise and ever diminishing green space and of course suburban sprawl. I believe that sensible planning and multiculturalism can go hand in hand but it requires sound planning and a manageable rate of population growth.

Megan (not verified)

Wed, 2015-11-04 10:03

What you will tolerate is relative to what you started with, what you are used to and what your peers have. Any step up will be welcome, I would imagine if one's main reason for re-locaing is economic. (For some refugees , re-locating for other than economic reasons could conceivably be or have been actually a step down in economic and living circumstances compared with what they had originally.) So with high economic migration to Australia it is a case of someone's gain being at the expense of the incumbent population. Those who live in Australia especially in the bigger cities see a constant decline in their lived environment. Eventually it will all seem normal and no-one will remember the way it was in the year 2000 or even in 2015. There will be a new "normal" with far more concrete , far less green, far less space, far fewer trees, hardly any native animals or birds in the urban and suburban environment. What people hate is to have their well- being, their amenity, their wealth stripped from them. The pain will go away when there is no-one left who remembers and if change is slow enough not be in -your -face every day.

DennisK (not verified)

Wed, 2015-11-04 09:07

Don't people realise that many other cultures come from areas where high densification is the norm? Where it is more tolerated? Where our townhouses and shoddy units would be welcome? Do these people not travel? Do they not actually speak to migrants? Do people who like our "rich tapestry" actually bother to listen and find out what "new Australians" expectations actually are? It is self defeating to argue for sensible planning and multiculturalism at the same time. OUR culture likes space, others not so much. If it was, then groups arguing for sustainable population would resemble Melbourne in terms of cultural mix, but they don't. I think I'm the only one who's noticed this. The future of Melbourne is suited to many on the planet. Even if it is high rises and no yards or green space.

anon (not verified)

Tue, 2015-11-03 16:53

The study, on the housing crisis in Sydney and Melbourne, which was conducted by founding director of the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University Dr Bob Birrell and former Deloitte Analytics partner David McCloskey, estimates that Sydney and Melbourne will receive around half of the 240,000 people expected to migrate to Australia every year until 2022, which will require Sydney to build another 308,000 dwellings and Melbourne another 355,000, if they are to accommodate both overseas migrants and a growing local population. The authors note that although current urban policy is aimed at housing a growing population, based largely on immigration levels. It's a deliberate policy, based on great favoritism for the housing industry, and real estate. The report notes the strain that an increasing number of older people living alone in detached houses will have on the market, especially as data shows that the share of older households living in detached dwellings does not start to decline significantly until people reach 75 years of age. It's an admission that our living standards won't be maintained, but downgraded. It's a cruel way of dividing the community against older people who are "hogging" the market and stalling "progress". The inner and middle suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne, as of 2011, has 50 to 60 per cent of the separate housing stock was occupied by older households… They are meant to shove-off and allow young people to move in, by building apartments and towers. The divisive policy will create tension and pressure on the community, but the fact that more than half of the new home occupiers will be from overseas will be ignored. It's all about a stagnant, non-productive shallow economy, addicted to construction and housing, and little diversity!

Katie (not verified)

Tue, 2015-11-03 16:15

Paul Ehrlich was a refreshing blast of intellect, especially compared with rest of the dull and predicable guests on the ABC's "Q and A" panel last night. So, he may have been a few decades out in some of his predictions of last century but it's not as though the "population bomb" is NOT in the process of exploding. It is. Britain may not be full of hungry people as apparently predicted but surely it is well past its best in terms of well-being for all? Likewise, Australia where quality of life and well-being are falling as the population rises. When about a billion people on the planet don't get enough to eat, the world's wild life is in an utterly precarious position due to human overpopulation, and the world population has doubled since Ehrlich’s book came out it's not as though he was wildly wrong or that the opposite has come to pass. As Ehrlich pointed out last night , it's hard to predict the future and not get some things wrong. One needs to look for themes in past writings about the future for what the writer was able to foresee even if it isn’t a replica of the actual present. George Orwell's dystopia of "Nineteen eighty four" was not recognizable as having arrived that year but it would have been premature to say, as one did on January 1st 2000 re the Y2K problem "Phew , we got past that and it didn't happen." Surely elements of what George Orwell portrayed in his 1949 work are recognizable in today’s world are elements of what Paul Ehrlich had to say?

Mark Allen (not verified)

Mon, 2015-11-02 21:36

The study as outlined in a recent article in The Conversation compares the recent pattern of dwelling approvals by housing type in Sydney and Melbourne and concludes 'that there are too few separate houses being approved in both cities and too many apartments, especially in Melbourne.'

This backs-up what I have been saying at workshops for the past several months; that the current high-density apartment building boom in Sydney and Melbourne will have no meaningful impact upon slowing urban sprawl in the medium to long-term. This is because more than 90 percent of new apartment approvals in Melbourne 'are predominantly tiny 60 square metre or smaller dwellings with no access to protected outdoor space' and 'are totally unsuitable for raising a family'. Furthermore they are tiny because 'investors prefer to buy at prices below $600,000'.

This raises two important points. The first is that we need to be clear that the vast majority of Public Transport Orientated Development (TOD) in Melbourne and Sydney is aimed at property investors and secondly that it would likely cost more than 600,000 dollars to purchase a unit that is even remotely suitable for raising a family. This means that it is highly unlikely that the people who are currently forced to live in the car dependent outer suburbs could ever afford to live in the TOD that is being built today.

The author of the article calls for a sharp increase in detached dwellings to make up the shortfall but doesn't specify how this can be achieved without increasing development on the urban fringe. He also doesn't question the high rate of population growth that is greatly exacerbating the problem.

Interestingly he does say that migrants may eventually end up by-passing Australia altogether and that those who choose to stay will have to make adjustments to their lifestyle such as delaying starting a family. This feeds into another point that I often raise; that if you have a population policy based upon raising GDP and stimulating the property market, the town planning outcome is such that it becomes increasingly more difficult for new migrants to feel part of a community. This has a profoundly negative impact upon refugees and other people who come here in order to feel part of meaningful and supportive society.

Fortunately the issue of population is discussed in the comments section which is well worth a read.

The root of Sydney and Melbourne’s housing crisis: we’re building the wrong thing (2/11/15) | The Conversation

Megan (not verified)

Sat, 2015-10-31 19:43

I approve the new name of the party. The name of a party is a bit of a tag just as is the name of a person. "Liberal"can mean different things at different times and in different contexts so one could almost say it is meaningless. Politics is the art of the immediate and as someone who has given out "how to vote" information at polling booths, the easier it is to explain something in 10 seconds, the better. There are no real ambiguities or negatives in the word "sustainable" even though it is overused and exploited. With the name "Sustainable Australia" one does not need to get into a complete tangle with voters on their way to the polling booth and then never get the chance to properly explain policies. I think the new name is easier to work with.

anon (not verified)

Sat, 2015-10-31 16:37

"Sustainable" is such a generic, almost meaningless word now, and a victim of over-use. The word is used to justify what's actually not sustainable, as an oxymoron. Why leave out the word "population" from the Party's name? It's too general, and too bland. The Party should not be coy in addressing population growth as the "everything" issue. Perhaps Better, not Bigger would have been a better name for the Party, considering it's agenda of addressing the social-economic dystopia of BIG! The addiction cycle of population growth won't be stopped with soft-footing, and edging around the topic. So much of our economy is addicted to housing, construction and real estate. It means keeping the growth machine rolling, to keep up the artificial demand for housing. We've been so conditioned to thinking anything about "population" and "immigration" is race-based, and thus shunned - not debated. The immigration issue is dominated by the debate on asylum seekers, and the bulk of our growth is not discussed. The media treat population growth as an inevitable truth, one that has to be planned for! There's no place for being shy, or reluctant to mention the P word for population in this political agenda!

Sheila Newman

Sat, 2015-10-31 11:06

Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Moscow this Friday October 29 [2015] for a meeting with Vladimir Putin. Both men signaled their closeness by using the informal mode of address to each other. "I am very happy to see you again, it's been a long time," the Russian president remarked to Nicolas Sarkozy, who replied, "Many things have happened and you know that I feel that the world needs Russia and that Russia and Europe are made to work together."

Criticism

Nicolas Sarkozy criticizes the French government for maintaining complicated relations with Vladimir Poutine. The past president of the [French] Republic defends Russia's intervention in Syria and [French] Prime Minister Manuel Valls has reacted by asking Nicolas Sarkozy to be more circumspect, without actually naming him. "He should not throw our current engagements into question. We need unity. There is also an element of strength and credibiliity for France's presentation to the outside world." Even members of the Right side of politics [Sarkozy is a conservative] have criticised what they see as "parallel diplomacy".

Source: France 2 News: "Russie : Nicolas Sarkozy a rencontré Vladimir Poutine:" http://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/russie/russie-nicolas-sarkozy-a-rencontre-vladimir-poutine_1150731.html Includes video.

Nicolas Sarkozy s'est rendu à Moscou ce jeudi 29 octobre pour rencontrer Vladimir Poutine. Les hommes ont affiché ostensiblement leur proximité avec tutoiement réciproque. "Je suis très content de te retrouver, cela fait longtemps que l'on ne s'était pas revus", a lancé le président russe à Nicolas Sarkozy qui lui a répondu : "Beaucoup d'évènements se sont passés, et tu connais ma conviction que le monde a besoin de la Russie et que la Russie et l'Europe sont faites pour travailler ensemble".

Des critiques

Nicolas Sarkozy reproche au gouvernement français d'entretenir des relations compliquées avec Vladimir Poutine. L'ancien président de la République défend l'intervention russe en Syrie et a fait réagir le Premier ministre Manuel Valls qui sans le nommer demande plus de retenue à Nicolas Sarkozy : "Qu'il ne mette pas en cause ce qui est aujourd'hui engagé. Il faut de l'unité, c'est aussi un élément de force, de crédibilité, pour la France à l'extérieur". Même à droite plusieurs personnalités critiquent ce qu'elles jugent être "une diplomatie parallèle".

Sheila Newman

Sat, 2015-10-31 10:18

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/edward-snowden-eu-charges_56322f85e4b0631799112728?section=australia&adsSiteOverride=au

EU
Parliament Votes To Drop Charges Against Snowden

They also
encouraged members to block his extradition "in
recognition of his status as a whistleblower and human
rights defender."
Ryan
Grenoble
News
Editor, The Huffington Post
Posted:
10/29/2015 11:58 AM EDT  |  Edited: 1 hour ago
[link
to 6-minute video in original]
A
big win for Edward Snowden came with the narrowest of margins.
By
a vote of 285 to 281, Members of European Parliament (MEP)
passed a resolution Thursday calling for EU member
states to drop criminal charges against the former NSA
contractor and protect him from extradition.
In
June of this year, the White House rejected the idea of
dropping charges filed against Snowden under the Espionage
Act. The former CIA contractor fled the U.S. in 2013 and
resides in Moscow.
“The
fact is that Mr Snowden committed very serious crimes, and the
U.S. government and the Department of Justice believe that he
should face them,” Obama administration spokesman Josh
Earnest told
the Guardian at the time. “That’s why we believe that Mr
Snowden should return to the United States, where he will face
due process and have the opportunity to make that case in a
court of law.”
Snowden
faces the possibility of extradition to the U.S. should he
enter any of the EU’s 28 member countries. At the time of his
departure, Snowden applied for -- and was denied -- asylum in
Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the
Netherlands, Poland and Spain. The FBI pursued him
relentlessly, even notifying Scandinavian countries in advance
of their intent to extradite him should he leave Moscow via a
connecting flight through any of their countries.
The
new EU proposition specifically asks countries to "drop any
criminal charges against Edward Snowden, grant him protection
and consequently prevent extradition or rendition by third
parties, in recognition of his status as whistle-blower and
international human rights defender." 
***Snowden
called the vote a "game-changer" on Twitter, adding, "This
is not a blow against the US Government, but an open hand
extended by friends. It is a chance to move forward."***

V.A. (not verified)

Sat, 2015-10-31 10:08

Has Obama made the neocon’s wet dream come true? Will US forces really be deployed among rebel groups in Syria? And are these the groups that Russia is bombing, currently, in their campaign against ISIS/ISIL? Is an incident that provokes one major power or the other into open hostility an inevitability? IMO, the sane people in the US Administration, if any, would be well advised to keep US boots OFF THE GROUND in Syria.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-84874718/

U.S. to send small force into Syria

The Pentagon will deploy several dozen U.S. special operations forces into Syria for the first time to advise moderate rebel groups, facilitate airstrikes and gather better intelligence
in the war against Islamic State, U.S. officials said Friday.

The special forces teams are expected to operate in northeast Syria with vetted rebel groups arrayed against Islamic State and other extremist groups involved in the country’s bitter
civil war, the officials said.

The move represents an escalation for the Obama administration, which has sent several thousand military advisors and trainers to Iraq since August 2014 but none -- at least publicly
-- to Syria.

This story will be updated.

nimby

Thu, 2015-10-29 18:57

Thousands of people have arrived in Europe in recent months in what experts have called the worst refugee crisis since World War II. Back at the end of World War 2, the global population was 2.66 billion people. Now, it's surging up to 8, 9, 10 billion, and our planet is overflowing with humanity.

The lack of new discoveries, of new places to colonize, combined with record numbers of refugees, illustrates just how over-crowded our planet is.

Recent figures from the U.N. and other aid organizations, however, have shown that the majority of people arriving in Europe often come from upper middle class, well-educated backgrounds. Many of the refugees living in camps in Lesbos, Greece had smartphones. At least a few people could speak English on every boat arriving to Lesbos, meaning that many of them likely had a formal education. All told, Syrians tell a story of a country, devastated by four years of punishing war, that is now being depopulated of its educated middle class. With Syrian refugees trying to enter European countries, questions have been raised over why they are not heading to wealthy Gulf states closer to home.

Officially, Syrians can apply for a tourist visa or work permit in order to enter a Gulf state. Syrians are required to obtain rarely granted visas to enter almost all Arab countries. The entitlement that Europe will offer refuge is due to the UN, but there's no pressure on the Gulf States? These states have more of a duty than Europe towards Syrians suffering from over four years of conflict and the emergence of jihadist groups in the country.

Cables revealed by Julian Assange suggest that “Encouraging [them] to flee Syria by Germany saying they will accept many-many refugees, and by Turkey taking nearly three million refugees thus significantly weakens the Syrian government,” Assange stressed adding that “regardless of whether there is a design behind it the forces engaged in trying to overthrow the Syrian government must be happy with the results.”

Read more: Refugee Crisis Was Designed to 'Strategically Depopulate' Syria – Assange (27 Oct 2015) | Sputnik News

The United States commenced its attempts to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2006, way before the opposition protest in the country in 2011, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said.

So, without Syrians productive and educated middle classes, their powerhouse is dismantled and their brains removed, making the country moribund and populated by the weakest and the poorest.

Sheila Newman

Wed, 2015-10-28 15:12

Coming Up on Q&A

Population control, education and diversity could be on the agenda this week. Joining us on the panel in our Sydney studio:

Internationally renowned ecologist and biologist Paul Ehrlich; Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham;
Shadow Finance Minister Tony Burke; Comedian and Broadcaster Wendy Harmer; Businesswoman, Diverse Australasian Womens’ Network Dai Le;

Please register for the audience now or submit a video question by 9am Monday.

Watch Q&A Monday 9.35pm on ABC, streamed live 9.35pm AEDT on ABC iview or on our website http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/

Katie (not verified)

Tue, 2015-10-27 00:02

I believe that policies and planning need to be primarily about and considerate of the people living in a given place right now, today and their children rather than about people who may come to the country from overseas tomorrow or any time in the future. Whether urban density is increased by covering more of the soil with dwellings or making buildings higher to fit in more people, densification must make it increasingly difficult to practice permaculture in our cities. As i understand it, permaculture requires soil, water and sun. The closer people in their dwellings are squeezed together the less possibility there is to grow anything. Your neighbour's 2nd storey extension on your north boundary will most likely be be the end of your plans to grow corn and green vegetables. The only possibility I can think of to mitigate something as devastating as lost sunlight, blocked by a high building is a system of mirrors but ultimately the mirrors will, themselves block out sunlight. The effects of blocked sunlight extend to the generation of electricity with solar panels installed on the roof of your house. Once you get a 3 storey block of apartments next door, the sunlight will be blocked from the panels on the roof of your single storey house. In any multi storey building it is only the top floor that actually has a roof on which to put solar panels. I conclude that population growth needs to be slowed right down with a major cut to non-refugee migration (by far the largest part of Australia's intake from overseas) in order for planning for sustainability to have any hope of making sense and achieving its goals.

End the Growth Ponzi (not verified)

Mon, 2015-10-26 19:16

A qualified town planner who actually criticizes population growth instead of worshipping and celebrating it makes for a rare breed. There is a lot of pressure and expectations on town planners these days, and it's assumed that there can be massive "population pressure" that can be smoothed out by these miracle workers! It all comes down to "planning", not forethought and logic! They are expected to have the silver bullet and be able to protect our living standards, accommodate population explosions, promote the industry of unlimited urban growth, and keep everybody happy! Urban sprawl is threatening our market gardens and local food supplies in Melbourne. How can planners actually produce more food, with less land and resources? The Cornucopopia myth is well and truly entrenched into the minds of our politicians, and because of their wealth, they and their families will be immune to the squeeze! Surely when the "brick wall" of limits to growth are reached, then it's time to rethink the growth era! Unaffordable housing, joblessness, homelessness, infrastructure deficit, and food IN-security - the growth stage is over!

ZPG (not verified)

Sun, 2015-10-25 18:41

Year after year, Australia has twice as many births as deaths. Latest ABS figures claim 298,400 to 155,500, a ratio of 1.92. Childless-by-choice, why then, are my taxes strewn over the breeders to increase the birth rate still more? Treasurer Morrison, don't tinker with the shonky 'Family Tax Benefit A and B". Abolish them completely. Vote bribes in exchange for middle-class tax churn. Stop the whinging by the bleeding hearts industry: women who are too lazy or too stupid to use birth control deserve to be miserable. None of the big name self righteous charities spend a cent here on family planning. Local government can (and did) fund baby health centres. States can fund schools. Federal can fund universities and TAFEs. Double the number of children and child care costs twice as much. Schools cost twice as much. Hospitals cost twice as much, Disability NDIS cost twice as much. Did our entire political class fail state school arithmetic?

anon (not verified)

Fri, 2015-10-23 19:32

There's been a dramatic decline of halibut in the Bering Sea caused by over-fishing. The U.S.-Canada International Pacific Halibut Commission is considering shutting down the commercial hook-and-line Bering Sea halibut fishery, which would devastate native and non-native Alaskan fishermen in that area. Codfish had been successfully fished for five hundred years by low tech handliners until the 1980s when the Federal Government allowed huge ships with monster nets to trawl the seas until the cod were nearly commercially extinct. Now the population is so low they may never recover. During the 1913 salmon run nearly 40 million salmon were killed in Puget Sound. Before European settlers showed up, local Indian Tribes didn’t have the technology to wipe out marine life. Statistics show that over the last decade, more than 85% of the total volume of timber harvested for industrial use in Canada each year originates from provincial Crown lands. Herring populations outside Juneau, Alaska, crashed in 1982 and have never come back. Prince William Sound herring collapsed in 1993. Washington State's largest herring population has declined 90 percent since 1973, and herring that used to live for ten years now rarely survive more than four. The southern Beaufort Sea polar bear subpopulation declined by approximately 40 percent between 2001 and 2010 from 1,500 to 900 bears. We know human activities have caused global wildlife populations to drop by over half in the last 40 years. Birdsong that has graced the Earth for millions of years, and for all of human history, could soon be stilled in a human-made perfect-storm of negligence and unintended consequences. The common denominator is human interference in their way of life. From cats being allowed to roam free, to large glass-walled skyscrapers, human activity is to blame for much of the decline of these beautiful birds. Up to billion birds fall victim to high-rise buildings alone. Birds fly into the reflective windows and are killed or seriously injured. Canada's population growth is the highest among the G8 countries. International migration has been Canada's main source of population growth since 1993, and currently represents two-thirds of the population growth. Growing populations mean we are growing into environmental poverty, and destroying biodiversity. Economists only measure economic growth, without considering Nature, long term implications on natural resources and future generations.

Sam (not verified)

Wed, 2015-10-21 13:23

This story is very touching. It gives me hope for all the critters out there and reminds me why I remain an unofficial wildlife carer. If the powers that be knew what animals I have, and have had, pass through my hands, they would blow a gasket! This way, people can always drop in with the sick and injured and know that they will be loved and cared for to the absolute best of my abilities...and no-one will come take them and kill them simply because they no longer fit in!

End the Growth Ponzi (not verified)

Sun, 2015-10-18 11:30

Even some of the exporters themselves are complaining about live export cruelty. After evidence of sledgehammers being used in Vietnam to kill cattle, live export industry bosses finally recognised in March 2015 that there was a serious problem in Vietnam. They responded with a “crisis meeting” and a “6 point plan”. The fact that 5 out of 6 points in the industry’s action plan address things the industry should already be doing reveals just how dire the situation in Vietnam was. Sending live animals to under-developed third world countries inevitably means that there's going to be little control over care and slaughter of animals. Animals Australia says it has lodged three more legal complaints relating to the video footage, concerning widespread ESCAS breaches during the recent Eid al Adha festival, involving thousands of sheep in Kuwait, Oman and the UAE. Already Saudi Arabia is under fire for their massive breaches of human rights. How can animals be protected with any "animal rights"? How can the ESCAS system be controlled, from Australia, once the animals are in the Middle East? If the rules were being properly enforced then re-offending export companies would be facing criminal charges by now. “The situation in Kuwait during the Festival of Sacrifice was particularly egregious as Animals Australia had warned the Australian government eight weeks earlier that export laws were still being breached there, with hundreds of sheep facing brutal slaughter,” said Lynn While, chief investigator for Animals Australia. Rather than focusing on addressing breaches of regulations, exporters were allowed to send three more shiploads of sheep to Kuwait and those hundreds turned to thousands of animals brutalised during the Festival of Sacrifice - of Festival of Suffering. Animals Australia’s investigators witnessed terrified sheep being dragged through the streets and stuffed in car boots in suffocating 48°C heat, in the three Middle East markets. Wellard chief executive officer Mauro Balzarini said ESCAS compliance costs importers hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost sales and similar amounts in extra staff and costs, for exporters. The system is broken, but one reason only, why export laws are being ignored and that is because there are no meaningful consequences for breaking them! There's unconditional support for the live export industry, from Barnaby Joyce and our government, because the industry has become "too important" to lose! Thank God for Animals Australia. How can anyone watch this footage and continue to support this vile trade. Is this industry and government incapable of compassion? Continual claims that ESCAS works, yet they tell that to the 10,000 sheep that were brutalised. There should be no compromises, or agreements. The live export trade must end!

Dennis K

Sat, 2015-10-17 13:58

'Catastrophic event': Bacchus Marsh hospital investigated over seven 'avoidable' baby deaths The death of seven babies at a regional Victorian hospital could have been avoided in what has been described as a "catastrophic event". A Health Department probe into 10 stillbirths or deaths in 2013 and 2014 at Bacchus Marsh and Melton Hospital, which is run by Djerriwarrh Health Services, has found that hospital practices could have contributed to the seven Seven babies died 'unnecessarily' all at the same Victorian hospital MADELEINE MORRIS: Bacchus Marsh is transforming from rural community to urban fringe. There are now 900 babies delivered at Bacchus Marsh hospital a year, twice as many as five years ago, a rapid expansion which was also a factor in the babies' deaths. This is somewhat typical of the West of Melbourne, now part of the "Growth Corridor". The population growth here is tremendous, but the spending on schools, hospitals and other services is minimal. New suburbs are going up with primary schools, but NO new secondary schools. The Point Cook, Tarneit, Truganina mess has no school for year 9-12. Students have to go Laverton High school. The suburb was designed to attract young couples starting a family, but no provision was made for when the children are older. Even more telling, is when you look at the suburban plan, there is no provision for such a school to be built in the future. "Cram 'em in and bleed 'em dry" is the state governments motto, and now we have potentially a scenario where babies have died due to developer greed and governments caving in to the growth lobby.

End the Growth Ponzi (not verified)

Sat, 2015-10-17 11:13

"President of the Czech Republic (2003-20130 says there is no 'human right' to migration and that civic rights are more important than human rights." What's given migrants "rights" is the UN and their one world agenda. What's primarily important is the welfare and security of the host nations, not the UN agenda of spreading people over Europe. The UN should be at the fore-front in ensuring world peace and ending foreign interventions and disturbances. The UN should be a the forefront in assuring that each government provide water, food, health care, sanitation and education for their population, and maintain sustainable population sizes. Exporting people spread problems, and resentments. What's the UN done to protect Syria from intervention, and assure good government? They simply endorse the evacuation of the people into Europe, and expect the countries to comply? The human "right" to migrate has given the evacuees a massive sense of entitlement to resources and welfare at the cost of existing citizens.

End the Growth Ponzi (not verified)

Sat, 2015-10-17 11:07

"Every time we open the borders to more migrants, the more economic growth we get..." and conversely, the "less migrants that come, the more our economy slows..." That's the paraphrase of George Megalomaniac! We are a nation of people, families and taxpayers, not a mere "economy" to grow and decline, and be measured by it! Our economy is meant to serve the people, the participants, not be enslaved by it. Are we meant to concede that we spend hours each week in traffic congestion, be locked out of home ownership, suffer unemployment, and crowding, because it's "good for economic growth"! If "economic growth" is not economic, or desirable, then it's time to change our definition of nationhood, or our economy. Just what neo-liberal thinking came about that we must subdue our needs to the welfare of "economic growth"? Overcrowding with migrants, and high inflows from overseas, no doubt increases consumption levels, but corporations aren't paying the costs of infrastructure, and the downward dive of living standards can't be replaced by more consumers. We are falling into an abyss of massive infrastructure deficit, to de-congest our roads and freeways, yet our governments still celebrate and endorse "growth" and consider it inevitable. We are a nation, with history, identity, and people. People, and the environment, must be prime considerations, and the economy must be based on the former, not grow like a cancer to destroy our nation! The Greens are hypocritical, on the "far Left", and the more we have the "far Left", the more we'll find swelling numbers on the "far Right".

Sheila Newman

Sat, 2015-10-17 09:40

It's time for Australia to have a conversation about population, says Tom Elliott.
http://www.3aw.com.au/news/its-time-for-australia-to-have-a-conversation-about-population-says-tom-elliott-20151016-gkb89r.html

The 3AW Drive host said the issue was not being discussed enough at political level.

He said it was too important to ignore.

"I'm sick of hearing stories about the Monash being crowded, the West Gate being crowded, people not being able to afford houses, everything is crowded – there's too many people – etc. etc – we have a choice in this country," Tom declared on 3AW Drive.

"Sixty per cent of our population increase is due to immigration.

"We are one of the few places on earth that can control our own immigrant numbers.

"We can have them higher if we want, or lower if we so desire.

"Why don't we talk about it more?"

He also questioned the stance of some when it came to the issue.

"Why do you get branded a 'racist' if you suggest you want the population to be lower?" Tom said.

"One of the interest things about the Greens, one of the hypocritical things, is that they want us to throw open the doors to asylum seekers but also want our population to be lower because they worry about the effect on the environment of having too many people."

LISTEN: Tom Elliott's full editorial on 3AW Drive LISTEN: Tom Elliott's full editorial on 3AW Drive


Minnie Mouse (not verified)

Fri, 2015-10-16 17:47

From the report: “From our research a strong majority of Australians favours immigration levels as high as, or higher than, at present by 69 per cent to 27 per cent,” Mr Young said. “But that’s where the agreement stops.

"It also claimed that 69 per cent of Australians 'support high migration'." This "high migration" is unlikely to get 69% population support! We just can't help querying just what questions were asked, and how they were framed. No doubt it was assumed that "high immigration" was that of boat people, and our humanitarian intake. The word "immigration" is mainly discussed in reference to asylum seekers or our humanitarian intake, and the public likely assume that it's the total of our intake, despite being about 5% of our total immigration rate. Making "immigration" synonymous to asylum seekers is using the latter as a smoke screen to avoid the discussion or revelation that the greatest proportion of our net overseas migration is in fact overwhelmingly from economic migrants - skilled migrants and family reunions!

No doubt this Institute of Progress is really run by property developers, and those with vested interests in superannuation funds, and investment portfolios.

Australian Institute for Progress

Bob Tucker is the Chairman of this "Institute". He also is the Chairman of Trade Coast Central, a company developing an innovative high-tech industrial subdivision adjoining Brisbane Airport. He is one of Brisbane’s major property developers specialising in industrial and retail developments.

Bob is a former state president of the Queensland Liberal Party.
He graduated from the University of Queensland with a B Pharm Bsc, subsequently founding Green Spot Chemists.

There needs to be an Institute of Sustainability, to learn about limits to growth and how to maintain our lifestyles and future - protected from the hands of growth-lobbyists and their self-serving interests.

ZPG (not verified)

Thu, 2015-10-15 22:33

Page 31 of today's Australian paper newspaper Oct 15 reports the following ....... MOGULS JOIN THE RUSH TO SELL Greg Brown SITES Rich listers Kerry Stokes and Peter Scanlon have joined the list of cashed up private investors who have put property on the block to capitalise on the sweltering prices on offer. Mr Scanlon's investment house Hume Partners has appointed CBRE Melbourne City Sales to market four commercial properties as one 7896 sq.m site. Known as the Spencer Portfolio, the West Melbourne site covers the properties at 83-113 Batman Street, 371 Spencer Street, 355 Spencer Street and 102 Jeffcott Street. The Batman Street part of the site already has approval for 522 apartments. It is expected to entice Chinese parties looking for sites in West Melbourne. CBRE's Mark Wizel said it was one of the largest sites offered in Melbourne this year, while Josh Rutman said demand was hot for sites in West Melbourne. Meanwhile in Perth, Mr Stokes' Seven Group Holdings ..................etc etc.

DennisK (not verified)

Wed, 2015-10-14 09:24

The assumption is that the terms "racist" or "xenophobia" are supposed to be descriptive of a reality. In a few cases, inadvertently, it is. But the terms are used because they work. They use terms like this precisely because it gives a political one up when used. It works because the accused goes into a defensive posture and the West has a very strong reaction to it. People complain about "racist" being overused, but they adjust rhetoric and moral stances and allegiences to avoid the term, which validates the power of the term, which encourages more use. Its only overused because people consistently and reliably react in a very predictable manner. Why would they drop a political weapon that works so well? The pro FTA lobby use it only because they can rely on the defensive reaction it will elicit. So in this sense it is not overused, any more than the guns of the enemy firing at you are not overused as long as you keep going into retreat. The only solution is to ignore and maintain an offensive stance.

Anonymous (not verified)

Tue, 2015-10-13 18:03

The word "racism" is over-used and almost meaningless. It's just thrown at protester at anything contrary to the media, and governments. The objection to the China Free Trade agreement is that it could impose on our sovereignty, our trade freedoms and jobs. The "race" is not an issue. On the contrary, we should wear the label of "racist" as a badge of honour as a patriot.

Dennis K

Mon, 2015-10-12 20:04

http://www.pressreader.com/australia/herald-sun/20151012/281741268252100/TextView Kelvin has discussed the FTA as well http://kelvinthomson.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/whats-wrong-with-china-free-trade.html On a side note, I was listening to Rafael Epstien on ABC Radio this afternoon, and he was discussing foreign investment in residential property and whether this would have an impact on affordability (it obviously does). I noted he mentioned he had messages and calls to read out and answer soon, but oddly, he didn't seem to get around to it? Instead, he went on with two laboured interviews which made me suspicious...

Sheila Newman

Sun, 2015-10-11 21:41

Russian Air Force destroys 29 ISIS camps in Syria in 24 hours
https://www.rt.com/news/318193-russian-military-syria-isis/

The Dirty War on Syria: Barrel Bombs, Partisan Sources and War Propaganda
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-dirty-war-on-syria-barrel-bombs-partisan-sources-and-war-propaganda/5480362

Putin Destroys 40% of ISIL’s Infrastructure in One Week
http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/10/09/putin-destroys-40-of-isils-infrastructure-in-one-week/

Countering the dangerous MSM (mis)perceptions of Syrian conflict
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/318202-msm-syria-propaganda-russia/

quark

Fri, 2015-10-09 12:17

Today on ABC 774 Jon Faine said that -No one's questioning that the pre- season burning in Victoria needs to happen. This was to a rather stroppy female farmer caller on his program whose farm is so far untouched by the fires and probably now safe whilst several other people have lost their houses in this runaway fire. She expressed vitriol that people were complaining about the manner in which the prescribed burning was being carried out and that they were angry and seriously questioning the expertise and common sense of the department in charge of this program. This caller also expressed relief that the fire near her had remained "in the timber" and burnt it all so it can't now burn again. If it were true that no-one's questioning the merits of the pre-burning idea then I wouldn't see much future for Victoria's bushland environment. I hope this burning program doesn't become another sacred cow.

DennisK (not verified)

Fri, 2015-10-09 09:04

Our economy is divorced from reality, the physical, tangible world. We now have the stick market going up on bad news, because it means low interest rates and stimulus. We have housing markets judged by abstract figures and not the ability to provide housing. It seems economists are measuring lots of things, but not the ability to produce what people need efficiently. Money is abused as a concept. Its all a sham: none of this is making our lives better, which I would have thought the whole point of an good economy is.

End the EU (not verified)

Thu, 2015-10-08 12:40

The UN are part of the problem. Instead of peace keeping, and negotiations to protect peoples being involved in wars and conflicts, they see their one way solution as evacuating people, and spreading them out across Europe and the West.

The UN is launching "The 2030 Agenda," hailed as the "new universal agenda" for humanity. The New World Order is not a conspiracy theory, it is very real, an agenda that has been acknowledged openly for decades, yet still people wave it away as if it is a "fringe" belief.

The United Nations is now in the process of defining Sustainable Development Goals as part a new sustainable development agenda that must finish the job and leave no one behind. This agenda, to be launched at the Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015, is currently being discussed at the UN General Assembly, where Member States and civil society are making contributions to the agenda.

For example, one of the goals of the sustainable development crowd is to push the human population into giant “megacities” and to allow nature to recapture much of what has already been settled by humanity.

Towards a sustainable development agenda | United Nations

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the 70 winners of the United Nations-sponsored Many Languages, One World contest who wrote “inspired” essays in languages not their own about a new sustainable development path that will lead to an end to poverty and a life of dignity for all.

"Sustainable development" is itself an oxymoron. Not all countries can live like those in the first world as there aren't enough resources. It's an illusion. The population of Africa is said to double by mid century, so if the migrant crisis continues, there will be a homogenized mass of humanity, with poverty and overpopulation spread world-wide.

After World War 2, the global population was 2.6 billion. Now, the overflow is due to 7.3 billion and rising by 80,000 each year! The UN think their "sustainable" goals can be reached, without addressing overpopulation? The UN Refugee Convention was formulated at a different time, and it outdated.

save our City (not verified)

Thu, 2015-10-08 12:26

There is a groundswell of people "speaking out" against the destruction of Melbourne, and it's heritage, but our government is not listening. They have their ears solely on the whims of property developers, and the lucrative nature of the real estate industry. There's nothing to be gained from pumping up the population of Melbourne, and much to lose. We are being restricted in what we can do in the city because of inadequate public transport and congested roads. The cost of infrastructure is blowing out. So much of our investments, superannuation and finance industry is resting on property, housing growth and developments. These industries don't pay for growth, but we do! It's time to leave the rat race.

Dennis K

Wed, 2015-10-07 23:13

I note a lot of the commenters on that article published in The Age remarked about population being the issue, and that rapid population growth is neither desirable or inevitable. The biggest issue isn't lack of knowledge, but fear and apathy. Apathy leading to inaction, and fear of being taken the wrong way. One of the big barriers is the intractable problem of addressing population growth without appearing xenophobic, a technically impossible task. Comments on this page have been discontinued. Please add further comments here. - Ed, 2:39AM, 11 Nov 2015

Dennis K

Wed, 2015-10-07 20:57

I do agree that there is a sense that the refugee crisis is manufactured. EU Migrant Crisis created by political elites http://www.wingswatchman.org/2015/09/24/german-journalist-huge-industry-behind-eu-refugee-crisis-video/ The Western leaders are not only engaging in political and demographic destablisation abroad, they are engaging it at home. This is the side I think most people miss. We ourselves are part of the colonisation, demographic disruption process just as much. This refugee crisis serves both purposes. I also note, that the next country over is Greece, or any of Turkey's other neighbours. Yet it seems wholly appropriate to pass through several nations to reach Germany. The entire situation stinks to high heaven.

The end of the ... (not verified)

Wed, 2015-10-07 15:29

Unless we change the way we develop our cities, particularly Melbourne, Sydney and Perth, we are going to turn one of the most liveable nations into a gridlocked, polluted urban mess, with millions of people blocked from opportunity in under-serviced and isolated sprawl as our population surges. And surge it will. A high-level report to the government, released today, indicates the extent to which the legendary "lucky country" is, well, at risk of blowing its luck. How the 'lucky country' is blowing its luck (7/10/15) | The Age The comprehensive study into how to create smarter, more modern cities is by the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA), http://www.acola.org.au/index.php/projects/securing-australia-s-future/8.... Australia’s population is set to reach 37 million by 2050, which will almost double the number of people in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. The report finds that city planning needs to take a three-pronged strategic approach, including finding ways to reduce or avoid travel, shifting to more environmentally friendly transport and improving the energy efficiency of transport. The report also says urban areas need to change from having a dense CBD with sprawling suburbs to polycentric cities with “nodes” which will bring people closer to places of work and recreation. The full report is here: Delivering Sustainable Urban Mobility (pdf - 6.3M Oct 2015) The report says that against the background of poor transport and reliance on fossil fuels, a business-as-usual approach will not work. As the Australian population continues to increase—and as that population growth is further concentrated in Australia’s major cities—so the social inequities, environmental pressures and economic consequences will intensify. Melbourne and Sydney are expected to accommodate populations of more than 7 million people each in this century. Air and noise pollution are causes of ill-health while traffic accidents cause death and disability. By 2050, the Australian population is expected to reach 37 million, which will almost double the number of people in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth. The capacity of these areas to withstand the pressures of population expansion and limited modes of mobility provision has finite limits. Nothing is said about the driver of this massive and implosive growth - our full throttle immigration rates! It's been more than 40 years since the think tank Club of Rome published Limits to Growth. Despite high educational standards, our economists and governments leaders are still addicted to "growth"! It's alluring, and it's the easy way to keep up our GDP and demand for consumables, and housing demands. Considering that Victoria has the lowest fertility levels, and the highest rates of growth, this manufactured population growth is driven by unsustainable levels of immigration - that's silently been increased numerous times since the Howard era! (60% of our population growth is due to immigration). The costs of growth are compounding, and retro-fitting our city is becoming increasingly expensive. We need to redefine what we are aiming for, with our "economic growth" model. It's more than redefining how we "develop our cities"! Actually Australia is more than ever living up to the original source of the "lucky country" saying: "a lucky country run by second-rate people who share its luck". The bucket is full. If the old concept was still true and our new record migration numbers, but we see everything now worsening.

Jane S. (not verified)

Wed, 2015-10-07 13:05

It never fails to amaze me that Americans actually believe anything at all that the mainstream media tells them. And yet most Americans still actually believe that Syria's Assad is the father of ISIS. No, no, no and no. The CIA is the father of ISIS. The CIA is probably also the father of this sudden refugee influx into Europe. Apparently a mass Tweet actually went out to every single Syrian refugee with a Twitter account that there were lots of free goodies in Europe -- and to get their booties over there ASAP. Propaganda at its finest.

Sheila Newman

Wed, 2015-10-07 01:03

Here's my two cents.

The term 'refugee' has a strict legal definition at international law and a much wider meaning outside the law.
In international law (Geneva Convention) it means a person fleeing specific forms of persecution who has made it to one country and is applying to go to the closest next country.

Outside the law it means a person is fleeing risk of death to one country seeking safety in another safer country. In this larger meaning, the person fleeing might not be specifically targeted in his own country; he might simply be one of millions suffering in a war. An entire population might be considered 'refugee' under this meaning. The notion here is, however, still political and at risk of violence, possibly death. But it's not the 'legal' definition.

A person who is not in immediate fear of their life but whose potential for healthy survival is affected because s/he cannot make a living in a country whose economy has been destroyed or greatly damaged by war does not fit the 'legal' category of refugee. They are an economic migrant.

In reality most people are not going to leave their home if it still provides them with decent opportunities to make a living, for it is extremely difficult to survive in a new country unless you have family there and money, skills and influence. Extreme poverty will cause people to migrate for survival.

Overpopulation, wars and colonialisation can all reduce certain sectors or large swathes of populations to extreme poverty. This is what we are looking at in the Middle East at the moment.

The overpopulation is the result of the destruction of long-held intertribal territories and traditions which kept populations in check through kinship rules that limited fertility opportunities both exogamously and endogamously. [1]

Characteristic of wars and industrial 'development' are new land-laws, new definitions of ownership, privatisation of property, border redefinitions, and mass movement of populations, with rural to urban drift. Displaced clan and tribe members must seek waged work in urban centers where kinship rules are almost irrelevant, marriage opportunities are many and niche opportunities for child labour provide the only opportunities to increase family income.

Wars, colonialism and development are all part of the same displacement and economic destruction syndrome. We see the same thing in the 'developed' countries, like Australia, Britain and the United States, where power elites have kept those populations in constant disorganisation with forced accommodation of huge quantities of mass migration.

It has been much harder to disorganise continental Europe, due to its Roman legal codes (based on the Napoleonic code) which guarantee its citizens (and legal immigrants) certain rights at law. The right to housing and economic survival guaranteed by the state made mass immigration policies impossible to implement. It took this huge recent engineered crisis to provoke a situation where it became possible, momentarily, for a corrupt press to manufacture the appearance of consent to mass migration of refugees and economic immigrants in Europe. That was this recent 'Syrian refugee movement' that Angela Merkel has abused that has ripped open Germany's and Europe's borders, with downstream consequences that no-one can predict. She should be held to account for this at law.

To get those immigrants to leave en-masse required bombing and terrorising Syria for years and the neighborhood for decades. It required the financing of gangs of professional terrorists by foreign powers, notably the US and NATO pouring arms into the region, with Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar and Turkey delivering them. Finally the creation of the demonic ISIS seemed to do the trick, with Turkey then organising the bus-loads of immigrants to the coast and the rafts into the Aegean Sea while the Turkish police turned a blind eye. All probably organised in cooperation with the United States, Britain and some European powers - all allies of Australia.

The only people to blame in this situation are the leaders of the powers that tried to remove or succeeded in removing governments and thus destabilising entire countries. They have engineered false flag attacks, 'color' revolutions, and terrorism. They have misrepresented what was happening to the world, through corrupt media (which should also stand trial) and dumbed-down education institutions. These agents would take us past the brink of World War. As Russian President Putin said recently at the UN: "Do you even know what you have done?"

No country should be destabilised by war or by mass immigration or emigration.

Refugees and stateless persons can best be stemmed by the world somehow prosecuting world leaders who intervene in the affairs of relatively peaceful states in efforts to cause 'regime' change. We have a huge line-up of war criminals today, many of them very very rich, in the US-NATO bloc. Somehow they need to be tried and imprisoned. Then their wealth - much of it from aggressive development and the arms trade - needs to go to restore the environments and economies of the countries whose people were made refugees and economic migrants. As far as that is possible. And to provide temporary asylum and accomodation for those who have been forced to leave their own countries by the consequences of foreign interference.

It should be noted that the United States has attempted to put itself outside normal international criminal proceedings. [2] How do we deal with this problem - beyond writing about it? Do we appeal to Americans to find ways to hold their leaders to account in domestic law?

[1] It is a popular misconception that 'all' non-industrial peoples had huge numbers of children, who mostly died in infancy and that adults had short life-expectancy. Thus the theory that human populations grew due to modern medicine causing more children to survive and longer adult life-expectancy. This theory can be attacked on so many levels that I cannot be bothered to start, except to say that classically overpopulated 'third world' countries lack the 'modern medicine' that is supposed to have prevented the high infant mortality and huge families which characterise them. Further that places like India and Africa had rich intact biodiverse environments that could not possibly have survived centuries of human overpopulation such as has characterised the last couple of centuries. I have written a book on this: http://www.lulu.com/shop/sheila-newman/demography-territory-law-rules-of-animal-human-populations/paperback/product-21735874.html#

[2] The United States government has consistently opposed an international court that could hold US military and political leaders to a uniform global standard of justice. The Clinton administration participated actively in negotiations towards the International Criminal Court treaty, seeking Security Council screening of cases. If adopted, this would have enabled the US to veto any dockets it opposed. When other countries refused to agree to such an unequal standard of justice, the US campaigned to weaken and undermine the court. The Bush administration, coming into office in 2001 as the Court neared implementation, adopted an extremely active opposition. Washington began to negotiate bilateral agreements with other countries, insuring immunity of US nationals from prosecution by the Court. As leverage, Washington threatened termination of economic aid, withdrawal of military assistance, and other painful measures. The Obama administration has so far made greater efforts to engage with the Court. It is participating with the Court's governing bodies and it is providing support for the Court's ongoing prosecutions. Washington, however, has no intention to join the ICC, due to its concern about possible charges against US nationals. Source: https://www.globalpolicy.org/us-un-and-international-law-8-24/us-opposition-to-the-icc-8-29.html

Dennis K

Tue, 2015-10-06 23:14

I agree with anonymous. Expanding refugee to mean anyone who has fled, even years ago, makes the definition too broad, virtually meaningless. It is one thing to have your life in danger if you are denied entry, it is another to make people think that they are endangering lives, because they are not fulfilling the refugees wish of living in their country. The level of manipulation going on in the media regarding this immigration crisis is off the charts. Big business is just loving the opportunity to further break down European identity, and turn the EU into a homogeneous, cultureless mass of rootless consumers who are just interchangeable economic units. The EU migration chief specifically stated this should be the goal. The Liberals and others are loving the opportunity for status signalling and bringing demographic change they've always said should be undertaken. There is plenty, documented reason to be very cynical. A lot of the refugees aren't even from Syria. This is easy to believe, considering the previous crisis from Africa and the demographic composition. There are some genuine refugees, but I think what has happened, is that much of the world has realised what a pushover Europe is, and that it can be very, very easily taken advantage of. Westerners always ascribe good, virtuous motives to these people, as if they are ALL, without exception, just kind hearted people, and that no one would ever take advantage of them.

anonymous (not verified)

Tue, 2015-10-06 21:05

The family were not given refugee status by the UN. They were already safe in Turkey. The idea of being a refugee is that by default, they can't live in safely in their own country. It's not to find the elusive "better life". The oil-rich Arab nations take no refugees, even though the great majority from Syria are Muslim.

Eddy (not verified)

Tue, 2015-10-06 20:02

Subject was : The 'news' is not always the truth. That title matches the previous title, so could have been typed in error. - Ed

The article states that the family were safe in Turkey, but does not say how they were living, whether he was gainfully employed and was treated equally as any Turkish citizen.
From video clips and interviews I have witnessed, I have seen first hand, whilst it may be claimed they are safe, they are in no way leading a normal life in such a foreign country, and in most cases, discriminated against most heavily.

What person would not choose to leave such a life and look for a better deal elsewhere?
I challenge the author of this article, to walk a mile, in another's shoes, before again printing such a biased self serving article.

Eddy (not verified)

Tue, 2015-10-06 19:54

The above article asks the question, "Are Australians selling out" specifically to the Chinese ? I guess we need to look at our Government which is charged with looking after the interests of Australian citizens FIRST. Many countries have laws to ensure ownership of property and land remains in the hands of their citizens, thus preventing the take over of their country by cash heavy internationals. Australia, on the other hand, has no such legislation, allegedly our M.P.'s are supposed to oversee the sale of properties to such buyers and make a decision THEMSELVES, whether the exchange is in the interests of Australians, and surprise, surprise, in the majority of cases it is alleged that it is. Now the question is, If it IS in the interest of Australians, why is there this back lash from the electorate against such sales ?

anonymous (not verified)

Tue, 2015-10-06 18:28

Shows that we shouldn't put matches into the hands of arsonists! These "controlled" or "prescribed" burns are about using fire to squelch fire. This is about burning hectares of our bush, in Victoria, to clear it of vegetation, and wildlife are simply the collateral damage. In reality, it's making our State more flammable by destroying what actually limits fires - the biodiversity, ecosystems, fungi and wildlife such as kangaroos that eat the long grass! Victoria is so cleared, and damaged, it's like a tinder box, really to inflame more due to so-called "controlled burns" out of control. Fires were heading towards the animal sanctuary, Edgar's Mission, but it fortunately has moved away.

anonymous (not verified)

Tue, 2015-10-06 18:23

Subject was: Trade deficit widens - Ed

Australia's trade balance has stayed in the red with a worse-than-expected deficit of $3.1 billion in August, following a revised deficit in July of $2.8 billion.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics said exports were flat, while imports rose one per cent.

Read more: Trade balance deficit widens to $3.1b in August (6/10/15) | SMH - BusinessDay

The typical forecast in a Reuters survey was for a deficit of $2.25 billion, in April, which would have already been almost twice the previous month's trade shortfall.

So, despite all the population growth, any real growth has flattened. We are importing more than what we're exporting. The trade is largely going one way. Houses, or people, are not export commodities, or exportable produce!

quark

Tue, 2015-10-06 18:20

Today there are many fires burning in Victoria but the most serious one, that is now threatening people's houses in Central Victoria near Lancefield ,according to the state Department of Environment Land, Water and Planning originated from a "controlled burn" last week. (Just for the record). I wonder how many birds and animals who can't escape are now being incinerated.

anonymous (not verified)

Tue, 2015-10-06 18:17

At least there's no pandering to Left sentimentality with Putin, or Russia. Iran, Russia are backing Syria in its battle against Takfiri terrorists and Western attempts to establish their dominance over the Arab country. Russian parliament gave a formal consent to President Vladimir Putin to use the country’s military in Syria to fight terrorism at a request from the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Their campaign has dislodged ISIL and al-Qaeda associated terrorist brigades. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said Russia's airstrikes against targets in Syria are vital for stability in the Middle East. Moscow is simply doing what we in the West just had no guts to do. The West does not want to fight because the Syrian opposition is deeply fragmented. In Putin's version of Syrian history, as laid out in his United Nations speech on Monday, the Islamic State was "forged as a tool against undesirable secular regimes" and propelled by foreign military support for Syrian rebels. In other words, Western nations helped create the Islamic State by rejecting Assad. "We should finally acknowledge that no one but President Assad's armed forces and Kurdish militias are truly fighting the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations in Syria," Putin told the U.N. General Assembly.

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