Queensland's Liberal/National Party Government is planning to bring its land clearing amendments to parliament. .
The World Wildlife fund is arguing its case before the state's Development, Infrastructure and Industry Parliamentary Committee, claiming that the Campbell Newman-led administration has reneged on an election promise that it would "retain the current level of statutory vegetation protection."
Under the State Government's proposed Vegetation Management Framework Amendment Bill, landholders would be able to clear land for "high value agriculture and environmental works".
WWF-Australia has called on Premier Campbell Newman to honour an election-eve promise to retain the laws. "The undoing of that protection would accelerate the risk of extinction of a number of animals," CEO Mr O'Gorman said.
"I think that Queenslanders love their koalas, love their cassowaries, and those vegetation areas also provide a vital protection to reducing run-off into the Great Barrier Reef.
All of the good policies in the past that protected valuable land and biodiversity from indiscriminate clearing is being undone by the the Queensland Liberal-National Government.
Twenty-seven academics from universities across Queensland are urging Premier Campbell Newman to reconsider proposed changes to the Vegetation Management Act.
“These are big policy decisions and they’ll affect our wildlife and our biodiversity forever, so we think it’s really important to get them right,” said Concerned Queensland Scientists spokeswoman Martine Maron.
Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/land-clearing-will-devastate-...
There’s many species that rely upon not just mature bushland, but also that high-value regrowth, in order to survive. A group of 27 experts from five Queensland universities issued a statement today calling for the state government to reconsider the changes.
"As scientists with expertise in biodiversity, conservation and sustainable development, we wish to express grave concerns about the future impacts of the proposed changes," they said.
It is estimated that at least 700,000 hectares of endangered or ecologically important woodlands and forests could disappear, with other bushland being cleared as well.
This destructive madness, malice and environmental vandalism is because more land is needed for agriculture. It's about cutting "red tape" so that farmers can increase their productivity, despite the fact that trees and vegetation are the homes for many species, and they are a buffer against climate change, flooding and soil erosion.
Comments
VOTE: HORROR IN EGYPTIAN ABATTOIR
Is the Australian Government doing enough to protect the welfare of our live exports?
Yes, the government is doing all it can to improve standards. It’s very hard to police.
No, the government need to step up its pressure overseas. We can do better.
VOTE
Stop the misuse of antibiotics on factory farms
You can help stop factory farms being propped up by antibiotics. Help us challenge Dr Tonio Borg, EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy, to reduce the use of antibiotics in farm animals. Please complete the petition below:
RAW: Take Action
Today we need your help to get animals back into the fields. They do not belong inside industrial farms – propped up by antibiotics.
Loggers will own Victoria's forests
The Victorian Government is on the verge of handing over control of the state's forests to an unprofitable, poorly-regulated logging corporation - potentially for decades, writes Nicholas Croggon.
newMatilda.com
The State Government has put forward a new bill, debated in Parliament 7 May, to provide "security" for Victoria’s logging industry – which, in other words, means giving away our native forests to be logged for the foreseeable future.
In Victoria, the government owns all state forests, and permits logging in certain parts of the native forest estate by VicForests, a state-owned enterprise. As you would expect, the government has responsibilities to manage Victoria’s native forests in the public interest, and the interests of the environment.
Under the current law, the government flags forests for VicForests to log in an Allocation Order. Then, VicForests must every five years submit a plan listing each of the forest coupes within this area that it wishes to log, which government can approve or reject. Only after this second step does the timber become the property of VicForests.
Under the new law, the government will no longer have the power to review these plans. Instead, they will simply approve the Allocation Order, and the large areas of forest stands mentioned in the order will belong to VicForests. VicForests will be left to decide which coupes within these stands to log, and when. The Fox will be in charge of the Chickens!
It's a fast-tracking of logging approvals, and getting rid of cumbersome "green" or "red" tape causing excessive administration to our State government!
It will instead have to rely on monitoring VicForests’ performance against existing environmental controls. The problem is that existing environmental controls are inadequate, and out of date. For example, the Leadbeater’s Possum Action Statement, which supposedly protects Victoria’s faunal emblem (which experts say faces extinction in the near future) has not been updated since 1995, despite the lost of almost half its habitat in the 2009 bushfires.
In five of the past seven years, VicForests has made cash losses, which it has borrowed money to cover. So in fact, VicForests’ logging of native forests is losing them cash.
The bill currently before Parliament moves us in the opposite direction from a bright future for Victoria by locking current and future generations of Victorians in to decades more of native forest logging. It is hard to the see any social, economic or environmental reasons why.
Australia's oil reserves drying up
The Financial Times said that “In 2000, when there were eight refineries in Australia, only 5% of fuel was imported – equivalent to less than 100,000 b/d (barrels per day). Fuel imports rose to nearly a quarter of total demand by 2010, or 320,000 b/d, as consumption increased and one refinery closed."
Martin Ferguson, Minister for Resources and Energy, has said that the refinery closures ‘will not jeopardise Australia’s energy security’. That is is plain wrong. Australian energy security is at extreme risk. Australia’s political leaders have not always been living in a fool’s paradise on the subject of liquid fuel security.
Australia needs liquid fuel security
With such a spread-out population, Australia relies heavily on road transportation to move goods and services around. Our transport system is more than 95 per cent dependent on oil.
Sydney will have no refining capacity after 2014. The Clyde refinery closed last year and Kurnell will follow soon. If our supplies are cut off due to disruption to our shipping lanes, we would find ourselves in a crisis situation very quickly. Australia could come to a standstill within three weeks if there was a major disruption to the country’s liquid fuel supply, according to a new report commissioned by NRMA Motoring & Services.
We have about three weeks’ worth of fuel at our disposal before the country would come to a standstill. This fact alone should cause concern within the Australian Government and we want them to bring the planned 2014 assessment of Australia’s liquid fuel vulnerability forward to address this problem.
Australia imports most of its refined petroleum products from Singapore, which depends on the Middle East for more than 80% of its supplies. Political instability or conflict in the Middle East, or along oil supply chains such as the Strait of Hormuz, would have detrimental effects on Australia’s energy security.
Our politicians are in the pocket of big businesses and imagine that the world of yesterday will continue for decades to come. Building tunnels and freeways would have been appropriate in past decades, but not in 2013 as our oil reserves are drying up.
The congestion that is causing our productivity to decline by time wasted in traffic queues won't be eased until we have a population policy for Victoria. Ongoing growth will continue to exacerbate the problem while it is being "fixed"!
Our city's heritage Royal Park and open space for grasses and birds will be destroyed for short-term gain, due to the demands of big business supply chains that need rapid access across Melbourne. If the people were asked, they would prefer updated public transport, not more cars and trucks on our roads.
Obvious, isn't it? A foreign
Obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.
A change from mass media budget ranting
Tired of the constant media and political belly-aching over 'budget black-holes'?
Read this sensible analysis of the situation and weep even more over the abysmal quality of our public debate.
Imagine if the media narrative was directed toward things of substantial merit rather than sensational concoction.
Germany's positive economic report on a declining population
A surprisingly strong report on German industrial output in March has helped the euro gain ground on the dollar and yen. Markets were caught off guard by a positive German economic indicator for the second day in a row.
Output jumped by 1.2 per cent on the month in March - beating even the highest forecast of 0.8 per cent in a Reuters poll -after an upwardly revised 0.6 per cent increase in February as factories churned out more goods and energy production rose.
German industry grows in March as economy gears up slowly
“German industry has entered the current quarter with a lot of momentum,” said Heinrich Bayer, an economist at Deutsche Postbank AG in Bonn. “We expect a strong pickup in growth this quarter after a 0.2 percent increase in gross domestic product in the first quarter.”
The German economy is in better shape than many others in the 17-strong group of European Union countries that use the euro and is believed to have returned to growth in the first quarter. It shrank slightly in last year's final three months, which Schaeuble cited as the main reason for the lower tax revenue forecast.
Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/05/08/2588972/german-industrial-production-rises.html#storylink=cpy
The last two German states to charge tuition fees, Bavaria and Lower Saxony, are expected to abolish them in the coming months, making Germany an outlier amid a global trend toward the introduction and increase of tuition fees.
The Bavarian parliament is expected to scrap university tuition fees. The Social Democrat-Green government in Lower Saxony means tuition fees will be phased out in that state by 2014. On the contrary, over $2 billion has been scrapped from an already struggling university sector.
The German Education Union argues that higher education is a human right -- a belief enshrined in the United Nations’ International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Among the 34 members of the OECD, a club of rich nations, it is estimated there are 26m youths not in education, employment or training (so-called NEETs). Germany, which has a relatively low level of youth unemployment, places a lot of emphasis on high-quality vocational courses, apprenticeships and links with industry. But it is an exception.
Despite the enmity often directed at Berlin for its insistence on painful austerity as the cure for Europe's sovereign-debt crisis, Germany has become a new land of opportunity for tens of thousands of people fleeing their recession-racked homelands . Language barriers, rigid German labor laws and the reluctance of some German firms to hire foreigners remain impediments, some analysts say.
Germany has managed to avoid the Ponzi economic growth paradigm and is gaining economic and educational success on a declining and ageing population. Australia should take a lesson from Germany's example.
Reply to comment | (We) can do better
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'Infinity' logging bill - Important strategy you can help with
An update on yesterday’s gathering at Parliament House.
There was a presence all afternoon from 1-5pm on the steps of Parliament House. But the appalling new logging law Bill went through the upper house without amendment. It will now be sent to the lower house possibly in the week of 28 May. It will likely pass without any difficulty – unless someone crosses the floor.
More details below and please sign the cyber petition to help convince Geoff Shaw to consider what this Bill will mean – financially if not environmentally.
John Lenders (Labor) moved that it be referred to committee but the vote was split 18-18, so failed. He then tried to propose 3 amendments but each was defeated.
Greg Barber (Greens) spoke strongly against it and asked questions that the Lib/Nats couldn’t answer.
Lenders spoke up too.
Greg thanked all the forest supporters who attended. He says it's rare to get such public interest and he really appreciates it.
There is a rumour that people who tried to get into the PUBLIC gallery were told only friends of Dr Napthine's could get in!
The Greens sorted out security and about 40 supporters sat and heard the debate.Please keep promoting the petition at http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/defer-the-bill-that-would-lock-in-long-term-native-forest-logging - we have almost 4000 signatures.
Hitting double digits will help convince Geoff Shaw to cross the floor. Email Geoff Shaw
If people are in Geoff Shaw’s electorate – we desperately need you to gather friends/family and go see him, write a letter or call him. This could be the only chance to stop this Bill going through.
Promised surplus for Victoria in four years?
The State Government is promising a $2.5 billion Budget surplus within four years, relying on a strong recovery in the Victorian property sector forecast to deliver thousands of new jobs. Jobs in housing construction are not ongoing, but depend on population growth. We are becoming entrenched in growth, and short-term gain at the expense of a sustainable budget, and future.
Treasurer Micheal O'brien relying on strong recovery in property sector
Strong "recovery" from the property sector implies an economy heavily reliant on on-going population growth, and the demand for housing. The government relies on land tax and stamp duty, rather than production, innovation and manufacturing for healthy exports. But economists said the Budget papers were "overly optimistic" in tipping growth would rise from its current 1.5 per cent to 2.25 per cent next year and then 2.75 per cent in following years. The race for high rates of population growth, instead of good and services, has become the measure of our State's economic performance. However, it's a bog hard to get free from, like an addiction. It's easy to shoot-up, but withdrawal is hard.
The ANZ Bank's senior economist, Cherelle Murphy, warned the Victorian Government was being a bit too "optimistic" in terms of a property boom and population growth. "Nationally, unemployment looks like it is going to rise in the coming months and stay high," she said.
The cost of population growth are never considered. We have a population growth rate of 1.7%, and our debt has increased to a new peak of $23 billion, up from $16 billion. It's perfect Ponzi scheme that consumes the "investors" at its base so that costs of living continues to increase, and we are plagued by "shortages" of services, congestion, cut-backs to funding and accumulating debt for infrastructure.
Toolangi destruction continues
This week, the Victorian state government's logging agency, VicForests, sent logging contractors into one of the last mature and unburnt stands of forest in Toolangi, near Healesville.
The Wilderness Society: Toolangi's forest sanctuary disappears
Nolan's Gully was one of the areas that was spared from the 2009 Black Saturday inferno. It’s a beautiful, mixed forest where pristine rainforest gullies and towering Mountain Ash trees coexist in quiet harmony. Nothing stays in pristine condition in Victoria! The machinery of VicForests means that logging will continue at whatever environmental or economic loss.
Areas like Nolan’s Gully are critical to local biodiversity too, particularly the endangered animal emblem of the state – the Fairy (Leadbeater’s) Possum – of which fewer than 700 are thought to be left in the wild. The fact that this possum is Victoria's faunal emblem is an irony that isn't lost.
Surveys show that the tiny possums are certainly living in Nolan's gully. VicForests have chosen to ignore them and continue on with their destructive, irresponsible and potentially illegal practices. One day of logging devastated the area!
This logging, which is occurring in many other native forests across the state right now, is driven by Australian Paper's insatiable demand for cheap pulplogs from our publicly-owned forests to make consumer products such as Reflex office paper. These forests cannot be replaced as they take hundreds of years to grow and provide us with water catchment areas.
Sign the petition.
Defer the Bill that would lock-in long-term native forest logging
Stupidity and ignorance
A policy to lock in over-logging and infinite forestry is destructive madness! It's not policy but malice and greed for short term gain that can't be maintained or sustained. In a world of finite and diminishing resources, we should be conserving and protecting our environment even more, not just raping and pillaging what's left.
It's as if our governments know that our time on our planet as it is is short, and they are about to take what they can.
Scientists must realize that we as an ever growing resource-hungry population, must learn to live in Harmony with the Earth. If you become an environmentalist you always come up against resistance and opposition because of vested interests in "jobs". "growth" and "economic benefits".
We as supposedly 'intelligent' life forms, must change our self-serving ways in order to see a change in our future.
It's amazing how Human nature allows us to rape and pillage and pollute and destroy our own environment (Gaia – Earth - Planet), before we look back and realize it's too late to undo that damage. The whole ecological world has been severely compromised, as well as our enjoyment of our only home Planet.
What other species should overpopulate and destroy their only home, except mindless bacteria or viruses?
Unlike colonial invaders we can no longer continue to rape and pillage our natural world for political power and quarterly balance sheets without paying a devastating price.
“In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.” ? Napoleon Bonaparte
Obviously the same applies today. We allow the inept to control our lives, our finances, but our forests and environments in the hands of politicians is even a greater disaster! Their jobs are evaluated by growth, GDP, productivity and jobs - not conservation, respect for Nature, long term planetary goals or even long term survival on a planet facing climate change and increasing extreme weather events.
Forests and pillars of stability, and climate regeneration, and they should be preserved as natural heritage of future generations.
you must be kidding
you must be kidding or going senile.
Ed. More info needed here. Very vague comment.
Horrendous torture of cattle in Egypt
The treatment of cattle in an Egyptian abattoir as shown on ABC TV's 7.30 last night was in fact torture to watch. I keep hearing claims by devil's advocates and proponents of the live cattle export trade that these exposures by Animals Australia are isolated cases. Who would believe that for one moment? Animals Australia randomly find these practices that are not representative of animal treatment in the country in which they are filming? It is so unlikely that it would be laughable if it were not so serious.
Property Council Dystopia Australia
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/tolling-existing-freeways-on-wish-list-20130506-2j3jz.html
TAKE A LOOK AT THIS AGE ARTICLE AND THE PROPERTY COUNCIL WISH LIST. Fine to tackle the infrastructure back log - but they want higher GST, want to put a land tax on our family homes and toll all freeways. Not once do they suggest slow the population growth and remember that the figures show that each extra person equals $200,000 more for infrastructure. Last night on the news it showed that our growth in Melbourne is 1.7. If you divide 70 by 1.7 gives you the number of years for the city to double in population which is 41, so by 2054 Melbourne will have 8 million. Sounds a recipe for disaster to me. Where are they all going to live - on top of you?
Mary
Federal budget $17 billion hole in the economic Ponzi scheme
Finance Minister Penny Wong confirmed that the government was ''not in a position to proceed'' with an increase to Family Tax Benefit Part A that was due to start on July 1.
"Not in a position to proceed" is a cruel and cold understatement, and wipes away a $600 maximum available for Australian families.
The Age: Federal budget takes 17 billion hit
This proposed increase in Family Benefits was supposed to be from the proceeds of the mining boom. More than 1.1 million families were to receive an increase to the maximum rate of FTB-A of $300 a year for those with one child and $600 a year for those with two or more children.
Senator Wong said that on top of the revenue hit in 2012-13, the government anticipated revenue hits across the forward estimates.
Joe Hockey tweeted that the federal budget, due to be handed down next Tuesday, was in ''chaos''.
''Wong says revenue write downs now $17bn. Last week Gillard said $12bn. Week before Swan said $7bn. Budget in complete chaos !!'' The budget continues to blow out, despite our record levels of high immigration and "economic growth".
A Ponzi scheme investment fund can last only as long as the flow of new investments is sufficient to sustain the high rates of return paid out to previous investors. As recently as 1950 or so, the world economy was living more or less within its means, consuming only the sustainable yield, the interest of the natural systems that support it. But then as the economy doubled, along with population growth, and doubled again, and yet again, multiplying eightfold, it began to outrun sustainable yields and to consume the asset base itself. Politicians and economists are captured by the cornucopia myth of never-ending growth and riches, but the real world is finite.
Almost everyone — in Europe and in the United States — has been living beyond their means, from consumers to politicians to entire countries. Governments have become servants to the markets upon which they have become dependent. Old debts are paid with new ones, with borrowers giving not the slightest thought to repayment.
Our economic system is, at its base, a giant Ponzi scheme, dependent on ever more people producing and consuming ever more stuff.
Our government's "economic growth" Ponzi scheme is flattening out to a plateau of de-growth. It's always the most vulnerable at the base of the Ponzi scheme that bears the brunt of the decisions of those at the apex.
Animal Justice Party - Media Release
NEW POLITICAL ANIMAL ON THE BLOCK
ENDING LIVE EXPORT IS IN ITS SIGHTS FOR THIS ELECTION
LUDWIG CALLED ON TO RESIGN AFTER YET ANOTHER APPALLING EXPOSE OF ANIMAL BRUTALITY UNDER HIS WATCH AND HIS DEPARTMENT'S COVER-UPS
The Animal Justice Party (AJP) will be fielding 10 candidates including 6 women, for the Senate in the September Federal Election.
Mark Pearson, NSW 1st Candidate for the Federal election states:
“The Animal Justice Party (AJP) stands for animal well-being without fear or consequence.
"The AJP is totally opposed to the live export trade, as are the majority of the Australian people (as has been shown by numerous polls). The fact that the major political parties ignore the people's well formed opinion is staggering.
"If the government will not get rid of live export, the people will get rid of the government. That the opposition leader, Mr Abbott, has promised to expand the industry and apologise for suspending it shows callous disregard for both the animals and the electorate.
"The Gillard Government’s own self-acclaimed livestock export monitoring system has now been shown to be completely useless, as we all expected it would be. Its time Minister Ludwig resigned. Its time these major parties put the well-being of animal lives ahead of losing votes in certain sectors of the country and bowing to a ruthless industry."
_________________________________________________________________________________
The news of the AJP comes following a string of Government supported animal cruelty incidents over recent years including the live animal export trade, the commercial and recreational slaughter of kangaroos and other native animals, ongoing evidence of brutality in intensive factory farming and puppy mill practice.
NSW: Mark Pearson (1), Kate Vickers (2)
ACT: Marcus Fillinger (1), Jessica Montagne (2)
Victoria: Bruce Poon (1), Cherie Wilson (2)
South Australia: Colin Thomas (1), Sally Sutton (2)
Western Australia: Katrina Love (1), Alicia Sutton (2)
A full list of AJP policies and its manifesto can be found at http://www.animaljusticeparty.org. For further information please email [email protected] or tweet us @justice4animals.
Media Enquiries:
Mark Pearson, NSW Candidate – 0417 252 107
Tom Godfrey – Bell George PR - 0449 681 282 – [email protected]
Editors’ Notes
The Animal Justice Party of Australia" (AJP) was formed in 2009 to help ensure principles of kindness, compassion and capability are applied to all animals in all parliaments of this country. The AJP will be contesting the 2013 Federal election in the Senate in five jurisdictions and is considering candidates for selected lower house seats.
Where's the business ethics in the live export trade?
The revelations of atrocious and hideous animal abuse in Egypt is shameful for Australia. How many tragedies, incidents and ugly animal abuse must be revealed by Animals Australia before the industry is closed down? Money can't take precedence over ethics or morals. Another exposure must be the last.
The dark side of humanity is exposed with relation to its treatment of animals, and our government is defending and indefensible. Where's the business ethics? Australia is sending live, wild animals to foreign third-world countries. We can't tell them what to do! The animals are being butchered live by peasant with no conscience or empathy. They are primitive and barbaric slaves.
The supply chain assurance scheme has nothing to do with animal welfare - it's only administration. The point of slaughter means animals are exposed to the slashing of knives and cutting up of live animals! This barbaric and unconscionable trade is devoid of business ethics and morality, and must end.
Timing was right for me but not for today's young people
Thank God that I was ready to complete a degree, was independent from my parents and managed to complete a post graduate qualification while T.E.A.S. (Tertiary Education Assistance Scheme) was operating in the late 1970s! I could not have done it otherwise. As I recall , my university fees were paid for the years that went beyond those I had already put in at tertiary level and a small living allowance. I was able then to complete a university degree full time and a post postgraduate year. This allowance paid my rent and made it all possible. I worked for 27 years in the field for which my postgraduate studies qualified me. Was that a worthwhile investment for the government? People at the time criticized the scheme saying that people were using it to pursue hobbies. How likely is it that an adult would put in the slog required to attain degree status if s/he were not serious? How does our society lose by educating motivated adults even if the studies are not directly applied to a profession? We no longer have this luxury and cannot even offer free education to young people starting out on their first qualification. How sad.
Local workers sacked to employ 457 visa workers
THE mineworkers union has accused a major mining contractor of abusing the 457 visa scheme after it sacked more than 100 Australian workers at the Boggabri open-cut mine while retaining temporary workers on the 457 visas.
The company, Downer EDI, was also preparing to bring 360 more visa workers for mines in three states - including Newcastle exporting mines Ashton and Moolarben - but recently withdrew the bid.
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1479631/downer-edi-hires-foreign-workers-sacks-miners-union/?cs=305
Downer spokesman Michael Sharp said the six men from Papua New Guinea were "specialist diesel fitters" with skills that could not be found in the local workforce. Really, we don't have enough diesal fitters in Australia, and less than in this third-world country? Obviously the pressure is on for Australia to accept lower wages.
The mining industry has previously reacted angrily to the CFMEU's proposals, labelling them as 'extraordinary' and 'at odds with the values of the Australian community'. The "values of the Australian community" are to protect their jobs!
Hawke 'Labor' Government began commodification of education
This was posted to a discusion, Young people these days, on johnquiggin.com .
Ikonoclast (@ #9) wrote:
Then [Peter Costello] got rid of free university education so he and his selfish mates would have to pay less tax.
It was the Hawke ‘Labor’ government which first set in train the course of events that would lead to the commodification of Australian vocational and tertiary education, when they introduced the Higher Eduction ‘Contribution’ Scheme (HECS) in 1986, the year I began my degree as an adult student.
I supported the boycott of HECS organised by the National Union of Students by not filling out the forms required by HECS.
The campaign failed as we know, so, nearly three decades later, we are living with the consequences of that and a host of other neoliberal economic ‘reforms’ of Keating, Costello and like-minded people from within the ‘Labor’ and the Liberal/National parties – an Australian Dollar which has ‘floated’ to its currently high exchange rate, privatisation, massively reduced government services, the export of jobs, loss of control of natural resources, support for wars started by the US and its allies including two illegal wars against Iraq, the invasion of Afghanistan, etc.
"Ageing population" threatens to sink the budget
A report, by Deloitte Access Economics, estimates that as Australia's population ages, and more survive long into old age with costly health and aged-care needs, government will struggle to fund services to them unless tough decisions are taken.
The Age: Tough decisions needed before ageing sinks budget
Healthcare, pensions and aged-care services will eat up almost half of all federal and state government spending by 2050 without reforms to create a more sustainable system, a report for the Business Council warns.
With good health care and high living standards, a boom of immigration or babies will inevitably have an "ageing population" down the track.
''With no change to policy, expenditure growth would need to be funded by debt, and the cost to budgets would grow exponentially,'' the council said.
Creating a sustainable system means ending the growth pyramid that we call "economic growth" through productivity-hampering population growth - or Ponzi demographics!
Exponential growth of debts is evidence of the nature of our economy, based on growth. It's a perfect Ponzi scheme, where those at the base of the system are penalised and seen as an unnecessary burden to the system- to the elite at the apex.
Today's demographic bulge of 20 to 39-year-olds will eventually become 60 to 79-year-olds, yet the number of people entering the Ponzi scheme continues to be boosted by high levels of population growth, mainly through record levels of immigration.
The Deloitte report estimates that by 2050, Victoria would be spending 42 per cent of its budget on health and ageing, and NSW 39 per cent. The Ponzi pyramid spits out the least economically-viable victims at it's base, as burdens to the system. The "ageing" are considered excessively expensive, but the young and dependants are fresh and new and welcome, despite their costs in the economic system. They are potential participants, so that the elite at the apex can drain their earnings and wealth through mortgages and banking loans.
No community can stay "young", and what we need to end our demographic meddling so that our population can grow organically and naturally, through more births than deaths, and allow our society to age with dignity.
Great Barrier Reef in danger according to UN report
Great Barrier Reef is deemed under threat by United Nations' environmental arm after UNESCO raised concerns in a new report. With up to 43 proposed developments along the coastline of the reef, UNESCO recommends the reef's status be listed as "in danger".
The federal government must refuse any further development applications in the Great Barrier Reef area if it wants to avoid the world-heritage-listed site being classifed as "in danger" by UNESCO, environment groups say.
The report claims the federal and Queensland governments have failed to improve water quality or halt coastal developments that could impact the reef. The Newman and Gillard governments have continued to fast-track mega industrial ports alongside the reef.
Greenpeace Georgina Woods said if the government wanted to stop the reef being listed as in danger, no more projects should be approved. The Queensland government has flagged possible developments up to 50 kilometres from current ports.
The drive for economic growth and developments for export dollars could cost future generations their natural heritage. It's assumed that the environment is an asset that can be drawn upon without losing it's "capital".
It's assumed it's a disposable asset, in surplus, that can be traded in for economic growth. Selling our future assumes nothing is more important than the economy, and human benefits. The destruction of world heritage marine ecosystems can't be justified. It's mypopic, and theft from future generations and a deliberate undervaluing of the value of non-human species and habitats.
Feasability studies
I would be safe in saying that feasability studies have been carried out on most Australian rivers over the last hundred years or so , Way back when it was called surveying ,It's a reliable way of spending money and time but little else , Australia ,Like china has an opportunity to reinvent and expand itself in an otherwise wasted space ,
After nearly 200 years of annual burnoffs most of Northern Australia isn't terribly beautiful in fact the annual runoff in this badly degraded region during the rainy season has sullied our northern waters forever,Dams and irrigated cropping can ease the momentum of the flood runoff restricting the damage to waters closer to the coast and eventually improving water quality in the gulf and those wonderful productive waters to our north ,We can actually improve the environment in our north but not if we can't access it , Engineering answers aren't always bad in fact South Korea's recently completed three rivers project actually solved many long standing environmental problems , Refilled wetlands and overcome the effects of recurrent droughts , Australians on the whole are visionary and caring they need the opportunity to realize their dreams and not be condemned for wanting to build something and leave a legacy for their children's children
Tas gov gives $10m to voracious logging family corporation
While tax-dodging tycoons fare far better than refugees in gaining admission to Australia, a few scraps of red tape remain, at least until the next federal election.
In the meantime, Onn Mahmud might consider a shift to Tasmania, where a company linked to his even richer brother, Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud, was not only welcomed by the state government but was given more than $10 million of public funds to set up a branch of the family's forestry empire, the most voracious in south-east Asia. The company is now the main driver for the loss of Tasmania's native forests.
JOHN HAYWARD, Weegena, Tas
http://www.theage.com.au/national/letters/problem-is-far-deeper-20130504-2j015.html#ixzz2SQCOP79C
Lab, Libs, Greens & S.A. seemed to collude on WTO vs Citizens
This comment is now republished as an article, here: http://candobetter.net/?q=node/3278
Human rights, not just job rights, negotiated away...
Thank you for this highly relevant and educational article, Bandicoot.
The CFMEU's submission (a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/102510/subdr090.pdf">http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/102510/subdr090.pdf, which you cited, contains many valuable points, including this one that highlights the Productivity Commission's economically reductionist dogma on human rights.
"In its discussion of Labour standards in the body of its report, the PC concludes by noting that a recent report from the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade[1] ‘also recommended that Australia seek to have core labour standards incorporated in its BRTAs’ but that the PC took a different view:
"....., the Commission’s draft assessment is that government should adopt a cautious approach to this matter. There are generally likely to be more direct and appropriate means of alleviating poverty and lift living standards in developing countries than through Australia seeking to include enforceable provisions on labour standards in BRTAs. (Draft report, p13.23)CFMEU comment The CFMEU considers that this reasoning by the PC misses the key point about core labour standards. As the PC report itself notes, the ILO core labour standards relate to freedom of association, the right to organise and bargain collectively, abolition of child labour, discrimination and slavery. These are universal rights, not simply a means of alleviating poverty and lifting living standards. They should be recognised as such, vigorously pursued for inclusion in BRTAs, and in the strongest possible form. As the ACTU initial submission pointed out, the Labour Standards Chapter in Australia’s FTAs could be modelled on the Canadian version or the EU model, but preferably the strongest version is contained in the US - Peru FTA in which both parties are obliged to ‘adopt and maintain’ in their laws and regulations the core labour standards (rather than ‘attempt to ensure’ them); and dispute settlement procedures are provided.[2] " What, I wonder, has been the outcome of this submission to the "Productivity Draft Research Report, 'Bilateral and Regional Trade Agreements, July 2010'?
Recommendations in Birrell/Healey paper, "Immigration Overshoot"
I note that Birrell and Healey in the paper that this article cites have made some important and useful recommendations, which I reproduce here:
" The paper concludes with recommendations for policy change.
Employers should only be permitted to grant visas under the 457 visa subclass in the following circumstances:
Where the Australian Government establishes that there are skill shortages in the occupation sponsored in the capital city or region where the employer is located.
Where the 457 applicant receives a positive skills assessment from the relevant occupational authority and, in the case of professionals and man agers, achieves level 6 on the IELTS test (as is the case with all applicants for points test ed visas).
Projects seeking an EMA should only be allowed to sponsor semi-skilled migrant workers after domestic workers have first been offered the opportunity to take on the work and provided with the necessary training.
The State/Territory Sponsorship visa subclasses should be abolished.
The WHM program should be capped according to the state of the domestic labour market.
There is an urgent need for a review of the temporary-entry visa subclasses, which examines the impact on young domestic workers of the flood of migrants competing with them for available jobs. "
Live exports must end
Even hard-hearted live export supporters and promoters have been aghast and appalled by the recent grotesque video evidence of torture at two of Egypt's abattoirs. Minister Joe Ludwig was "sickened" by the cruelty, but nevertheless the industry still will continue! It has "bright future" if and when the cruelty can be controlled!
The history of this evil trade is littered by tragedies, atrocities and disasters. The slave trade promoters could have said the same thing! Fix the cruelty and the profits will continue! If something is inherently wrong and cruel, it must stop!
The live exports industry is suspended for the moment, until it "improves"! Egypt is a third-world country suffering from overpopulation, conflicts and human rights abuses. How can uneducated peasants understand and have empathy for wild Australian cattle, and Australian standards of slaughter? Having conscious animals slaughtered is part of the Islamic code.
The industry must end - this latest "incident" must put the nail into the coffin of an unconsciousable trade.
The 457 "rort" is quite legal
An Immigration Department report has highlighted the need to strengthen the 457 foreign worker scheme but found only rare instances of clear abuse. Immigration Minister Mr O'Connor at the weekend claimed that one in 10 visas were being used illegitimately. The report found little evidence that employers discriminated in favour of overseas workers.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-02/immigration-report-finds-457-visas...
This Minister and his predecessors have cut the resources for enforcing and policing abuses in the immigration system by 30 per cent over the last five years.
Latest figures show there were 105,600 holders of 457 visas in Australia at the end of March, 19.2 per cent higher than at the same time last year, but there had been a general downtrend in visa grants since the peak in August 2012.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/opinion/political-news/457-visa-rort-fig...
If these jobs were all in remote areas, in mining operations, then the problem would not be so great. However, this is not the case.
The 105,600 visa holders are all working "legally", and is part of our international trade agreements. Minister Brendan O'Connor needs to be congratulated for his fortitude, but these jobs have already been promised, can't be capped, and entrenched in our trade relationships. Australians don't know of any reciprocal agreements where our unemployed and skilled can go an work in the countries we trade with.
The 457 visas is evidence of who is running our country - big vocal businesses who want to avoid trade unions, the commitments to long term employees, and drive down wages and condition by employing foreigners from overseas - willing to submit to gain sponsorship and residency in Australia.
"Australian" animals tortured in Egyptian abbatoirs
It has come to light today, thanks to the video exposure by "Animals Australia" that hideous acts of cruelty have occurred in Egyptian abattoirs and The Australian Livestock Exporters Council has quite rightly halted exports of live animals to that country. I heard the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard talk about tracking and tracing animals. To me the situation is not that complex. If cruelty continues in Egypt, then no animals should leave Australia for that destination. The journey is far too long, anyway which in itself is cruel. Ultimately it doesn't matter what passports the abattoir- bound animals hold the suffering they endure will be immense and "our" animals will not get VIP treatment.
Claims that possums are pests
The article claims that there are thousands of trees dead or dying in many locations in Mornington Peninsula because of overgrazing by possums. One must remember that these areas were once small fishing villages, with holiday houses and camping. The rate or urban sprawl has increased, with more people living there permanently. Traffic and disturbances have continued to increase. It means loss of trees, and habitats for native animals.
The loss of habitat would mean that predators would be fewer, and more dispersed. It's easy to look at the lack of leaves on bare branches and dead or dying trees, but the big picture must be considered. It seems that while many of our Australian native species have fragile existences and cannot cope with changes and loss of habitats, and climate change, etc, some have the audacity to survive urbanization - then they are called a "pests".
Kindness to cockatoos and longevity in other species
Yes. Imagine a 70 year old human in a cage like that for his or her whole life. What an outcry there would be. However it is even worse for a bird because they are potentially the freest of terrestrial creatures because they can fly.
Good on your friends for cutting the hole in the fence. Maybe they should go the whole hog and let the cockatoo escape.
Longevity in animals is something that should strike a common cord but there are a lot of humans, it seems, who simply consider other creatures as things or decorations. You wonder why someone would have a sulphur crested cockatoo if they did not want to interact with it.
It is amazing that some animals totally out do our relatively long lives.
Wikipedia has a fascinating page on the matter here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long-living_organisms
Evidence of possum damage
For convincing evidence of possum induced tree decline, you only have to see it: possums can be readily observed in affected trees eating leaves and causing the defoliation directly, and they leave characteristic tear marks and bite marks on the remaining leaves.
In addition, possum droppings are abundant on the ground, and are obvious on decks, on rooves, in gutters and on hard surfaces. Incidentally, hygienic rubber gloved protection must be used when cleaning these often wet and difficult to access places as Brushtail Possum carries the parasitic diseases leptospirosis, giardia, cryptosporidiosis and Q fever, all transmittable to humans. Despite the problems associated with possums I still like them.
The tree branch in the article photo could not be saved because its angle was too low (it was near horizontal) so that possums could walk over the guard and continue to access the branch and eat its leaves. I watched the branch slowly die and was not able to prevent its defoliation.
I have had to remove possum killed trees (for safety reasons) and so have many other residents in the local area. It can cost $1500 to remove a large dead tree, so a possum guard is a sensible investment that saves money and saves trees. I have been involved in the installation of many possum guards on the Mornington Peninsula over 20 years and they definitely save trees.
Fusarium palm wilt is a problem of palm trees, and, whether or not it is spread by possums, it is not related to possum induced tree decline in native vegetation.
Jeff Yugovic
Captive suphur crested cockatoo
On the subject of native animals and birds as pets, friends of mine live next door to a caged sulphur crested cockatoo. It has been in a rather dark and gloomy, but reasonably large enclosure for over 30 years. It seems he gets very little attention from his owners, so it is a lonely life. The enclosure is right on the boundary fence, so my friends cut a window in the fence so that now the lonely bird can see what goes on in their garden and they can give it some company. The dream is one day to build an annex into my friends' garden. But the bird has to wait until the humans have time to do this. Maybe it will be a present for "Cockie's" 40th birthday, ..........or his 50th or 60th, maybe.
Attorney-General steps in for justice for slaughtered alpacas
Attorney-General and Minister for Justice
The Honourable Jarrod Bleijie
Attorney-General Orders Second Appeal
Attorney-General and Minister for Justice Jarrod Bleijie today directed the Director of Public Prosecutions to appeal the sentence of the second teenager involved in animal cruelty against two alpacas at Caboolture State High School.
Earlier this week, the Attorney-General announced he would appeal the sentence received by Wayne Charles Hartwig for abhorrent acts of animal cruelty that resulted in the death of two alpacas.
A second offender, who is a juvenile, was also sentenced for the crime in the Caboolture Magistrates Court last week.
The juvenile was convicted of two counts of cruelty to animals by night, one count of trespass and other unrelated charges.
The juvenile was dealt with under the Youth Justice Act 1992 and received a sentence of 12 months’ probation and 80 hours community service. He was also ordered to pay restitution.
The Attorney-General is of the view that the sentence is manifestly inadequate, does not set an adequate deterrent and is not in line with community expectations.
[ENDS] 3 May 2013
Media contact: Katherine Hornbuckle 0402 862 351
Battle for backyards as NIMBYs create housing crisis
Committee for Sydney CEO Dr Tim Williams, in his report Homes for All, revealed two thirds of 35-year-olds cannot afford a home but a fifth of the population owns half the homes. He is blaming NIMBYISM for creating a "magic circle" for a few privileged home owners, forcing Sydney into a housing crisis.
Battle for backyards as NIMBYs create housing crisis at http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/battle-for-backyards-as-nimbys-cre...
It's easy to blame those protecting their backyards against the forces that would have them disappear for more property developments in the face of Sydney's rampant population growth. He's simply deflecting focus from the real problem, unsustainable, politically-driven, population growth.
Developmer lobby Urban Taskforce CEO Chris Johnson called for more high-density housing, community groups warned apartments would ruin suburbs and councillors rejected 10 per cent of projects proposed last year. Suburbs overrun by high density housing and towers is NOT the solution to Sydney's housing crisis, but a stable population - something obvious but not surprisingly missing from the debate.
The average cost of a Sydney house has gone up in real terms by 49.2 per cent and units have risen by 22.1 per cent since 2001. Dr Williams called for an end to nimbyism, dubbing it a "threat to our children's futures". There are limits to how much families and people on fixed incomes can afford to pay for mortgages. Mortages are able to drain the wealth and incomes of workers into their own profit pool.
McKell Institute executive director Peter Bentley said the high cost of housing in Sydney was forcing workers to spend up to 16 hours a week travelling to and from their jobs. They have become slaves to the elite and the money lenders!
The Committee of Sydney, in their recent media release, have asked for planning to be "streamlined". This sounds ominously an effort to avoid democratic input, and stifle the NIMBYs.
MEDIA RELEASE: Committee for Sydney hails Planning White Paper Reforms - could be a breakthrough for Sydney of 16 April 2013 at http://www.sydney.org.au/think-sydney-blog&post=media-release-committee-...
Research by the Committee for Sydney shows the failure to manage population growth as effectively as Melbourne has cost Sydney $43 billion in lost GDP growth. If what is touted as the route to prosperity - population growth - is actually costing a loss in GDP, then surely this "economic growth" model is outdated?
Possum proof?
The photo of the tree with the possum band on the branch which has recovered its foliage is fairly compelling , but doesn't totally convince me that possums damaged the other branch. I wonder why I am so hard to convince. I would want to see other proof that possums had consumed a large amount of the tree's foliage. That would show up in possum scats if it were so. Has anyone watched their browsing behaviour? i.e caught them in the act. I am skeptical because of my experience with a council which was hell bent on evicting possums from a park.When the reason for installing over 100 metal guards on palm trees- that possums spread fusarium palm wilt, was found not to be true and that neither did the trees in question have this disease, after all, another reason was 'found'. This was that the possums were eating the palm fronds. It seemed that the decision had been made to put the bands on the trees whether they were needed or not.
Importance to save forests
If we truly understand the importance of the forest, then we would know that a forestless world could spell doom for man. And so, we would make every effort to guard against the destruction of our forest resources.
Healthy Foods Center | A better way to be healthy
Editorial comment: Thank you for the supportive comment. In general, we don't allow links to sites which contain a lot of advertising. The site linked to above includes a number of advertisements. The site's principle contents are 'authentic Indian recipes' for what appear to be very succulent dishes, although we cannot vouch for the claims that these dishes are healthy and nutritious.
Muslim immigrants opposed to Sydney neglect & population growth
MUSLIM leaders have slammed the federal and state government because politicians had failed to provide jobs, core infrastructure, funding for community organisations and sport as well as neglecting resources needed for policing.
Western Sydney has become a ghetto as a result of mass immigration, with complete disregard for the lack of infrastructure, debt, crime, congestion, amenities and resources.
... by Simon Black from The Daily Telegraph of 1 May 2013
Lebanese Muslim Association president Samier Dandan said that unemployment is very high and more and more land is being opened up to cater for population growth. Our governments assume that immigrants want, will vote for, and approve of our rampant population growth. However, they are being invited to live here under the illusion that we have jobs, skills shortages, a high standard of living and education.
"This state government has totally ignored the area."
A 2012 report by Urban Taskforce Australia said there was a jobs deficit of 200,000 in western Sydney as of 2011. Under current growth forecasts this deficit is predicted to grow to 319,000 by 2031. Youth unemployment in the region is running at 17.9 per cent.
The Urban Taskforce are part of the powerful growth lobby, and support high growth at whatever costs. Their own forecasts predict the growth in unemployment and deficit. The Urban Taskforce, instead of promoting rampant population growth, should be a force in fixing the mess.
$12 billion budget deficit - our Ponzi economic-growth economy
The federal budget will lay down a path to surplus despite the hit to revenues from the high Australian dollar and the end of the mining investment boom, Treasurer Wayne Swan says. Prime Minister Julia Gillard warned on Monday that revenue for 2012/13 was expected to be $12 billion less.
It's believed the government decided to introduce the special tax, which effectively takes the 1.5 per cent Medicare levy to 2.0 per cent, following an expenditure review committee meeting on Tuesday. The current Government rakes in substantially less tax as a proportion of the economy than its predecessors. The "prosperity" promised from record levels of population growth aren't providing fruition.
Too many people are getting too many benefits they don’t need because successive governments have tried to buy their votes. The health and welfare systems have been used as political tools, not safety nets.
Read more:
... by Alan Kohler, 7 hours ago (i.e approx 5.55PM, 1 May 2013) at http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2013/5/1/politics/handout-blowout-thats-costing-budget
"Too many people" is due to 23 million people expanding the demand for resources.
The government struggles to contain a ballooning budget deficit as the strong revenue flows during the first phase of the resources boom are over.
The Australian economy grew around or just below average pace last year. NDIS, changes to carbon pricing, dental funding, offshore processing of asylum seekers and educational reforms are all very expensive items.
Australia’s population reached 11.5 million in 1966 and so it has taken less than 47 years to double to 23 million. Our country continues to grow at the fastest rate in the developed world.
Why don't our government, and economists, question the monetary and financial implications of funding this rapid growth rate? This growth demands vital infrastructure projects, education, welfare and health care, and we have a projected $12 billion budget "hole". Our economic and jobs growth slow-down since 2010 has been matched with increasing immigration levels.
We live in a finite world, so we can't grow forever. Our huge population is going to become an economic and ecological liability one way or another, and its doubtful it will be needed in the future centuries with the growth of technology, and the slow-down of the resources boom.
Our Ponzi economic growth model is unravelling at the seams, evidenced by debts, budget short-falls, cutbacks, increasing costs of living and lowering living standards.
Please add further comments here - Ed, 1 May 2013.
Vulnerability and exposure, not a possum 'plague'
I take it that Mornington Peninsula Botanist Jeff Yugovic is not suggesting that we need more foxes, cats and dogs on Mornington Peninsula? That would be as good as admitting defeat and surrendering any ways to manage our environment. It would open the door to complete mayhem and destruction, and would only denude the area of any wildlife habitat.
The "plague" of native possums is because habitats such as trees and canopy have been destroyed by clearing, infrastructure and urban sprawl. The Peninsula Link has increased the number of native animals being slaughtered on the road. It's not evidence for a "plague", but their vulnerability and exposure.
It seems to me to be like blaming the victims instead of pointing the finger at the real source of disaster - excessive human behaviours and greed for growth.
David Attenborough - humans in "plague" proportions
Forget the "plague" of possums or any other native animal in Australia! Conservationist (and infamous patron of the Optimum Population Trust) David Attenborough recently said that humans, as a species, are a “plague” on the environment. He therefore proposed limits to human populations, “or nature will do it for us.”
On the official website of the Prince of Wales, prince Charles commended the Ehrlich’s latest population study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society on January 8 of this year, calling among other things for globally provided “back-up abortions” to avert overpopulation catastrophe. The prince writes:
“We do, in fact, have all the tools, assets and knowledge to avoid the collapse of which this report warns, but only if we act decisively now.”
Attenborough says that "maybe it is time that instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, we should control the population to ensure the survival of the environment," in a letter to John Guillebaud, Professor of Family Planning and Reproductive Health at University College London.
"Based on the Optimum Population Trust's findings, it is proposed that family planning methods should be a primary tool in the optimum strategy for reducing carbon emissions," the report said.
While much of the projected growth in human population is likely to come from the developing world, it is the lifestyle enjoyed by many in the West that has the most impact on the planet.
Human population blindness stops seeing the plague we ourselves are, and instead projecting the problems onto wildlife, overconsumption or even capitalism.
Swiss batten down the hatches on migrants
Swiss batten down the hatches on migrants by David Charter in The Times, April 27, 2013.
"EUROPEANS hoping to escape the economic downturn were told yesterday the continent's most prosperous country was pulling up the drawbridge to stop a surge of jobless migrants.
To fury in Brussels, Switzerland announced quotas for new residents that will apply to immigrants from the eight eastern European countries that joined the European Union nine years ago. These include Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic."
The Times and other English and US mass media constantly put Europe down for the way its economy has suffered after international banks invested in the US housing bubble, yet, when Europe sensibly puts the lid on population growth and expansion, they disapprove.
In the first Oil Shock, European countries all cut down on immigration because they preferred to secure the jobs of their citizens and not to invest in new infrastructure and housing for immigrants. It make sense.
What about human population numbers?
This so obvious it hardly needs saying, but the real pest species is the human who now seems not to have any predators at all except the occasional crocodile or shark. Humans are inexorably spreading all over places that our native fauna called home. Humans do not just damage trees and compromise their survival, they annihilate them altogether to make way for development. They leave areas effectively sterile with respect to plant and animal life." Dogs and cats can not be considered separately from humans. Wherever you have humans you have cats and dogs. We love them but we do not act responsibility enough with them as a society.The human dog and cat package is deadly for wild life. I would need real evidence that possums have destroyed trees before I set the carnivores onto them! We are becoming irrational with respect to possums.In recent years in an urban park, possums were blamed for transmitting fusarium palm wilt and excluded from the palm trees where they slept during the day and had done for about 50 years. Expert advice obtained was that possums do not spread this disease and that the palms in question were not suffering from it anyway. The possums were then evicted, on another pretext - that they were eating the palm fronds. The palms look exactly the same to me as they did 6 years ago when possum exclusion bands were installed. If the possums were eating palm fronds it could not have been enough to worry the tree! Real science and stabilisation of the human population are desperately needed for the sake of the remainder of our wild life.
Australia is a wild life tragedy
Seems that where there is wild life and too many humans there will be tragic results. Australia has wild life and a rapidly expanding population. Suburbs expand into kangaroo habitat and the kangaroos come off a very poor second best. Even if they are not shot, they are annihilated after the enormous stress trying to survive as they are progressively surrounded by traffic laden roads. It is a fast deteriorating situation for our native fauna.
Native Animals shouldn't have to justify their existence
The problems of human overpopulation means mass species extinctions, pollution and environmental degradation, more competition for fewer resources.
Most humans consider our species the pinnacle of evolution, our big brains rendering us capable of solving any problem. Yet this very anthropocentric attitude means we are destroying the very ecosystems that sustain our lives, not to mention the lives of every other species.
With a majority of the planet's societies in the phase of dramatic population growth rates, with births outstripping deaths, some claim that we may be approaching the ecological limits of our species' numbers.
Edward Wilson estimates 27,000 species are currently lost per year. By 2022, 22% of all species will be extinct if no action is taken.
The animals that survive the extinction must somehow be adorable, iconic, useable, domesticated for pets, or have commercial/monetary value. Human expansion, justified under our economic growth through property developments, fool the public as they assume this will bring them prosperity and wealth for our nation. The destruction of the displaced wallabies is considered the inevitable cost of growth and progress. These wallabies at Mission Beach don't fit into the categories as worthy of being "saved" from extinction or death, and they therefore must be culled as agricultural pests or a threat to the children! Once you mention the safely to children, nobody would argue that a displaced wallaby would have more rights to safety than the children!
The Greens, for all their "green" credentials, have little time for native animals, especially macropods. Without a population plan and policy for Australia except for growth and more growth, our native animals will continually be confronted by their haters and detractors, and moved to the extremes of their habitats. No native animals should have to justify their existence. However, this is what animal activists are forced to do, despite millions of years of these wallabies living harmoniousness in Australia.
Love you guys
I am Minty. I am a cook from Las Vegas. This is my first time browsing this site. People in this site are generous and enthusiastic.
Expense of keeping electricity customers
My electricity billing company recently sent me a pamphlet outlining my rights not to answer the door or take phone calls from other companies who would steal my business from them. This exercise to all customers would have a significant cost.
Hell's Gate indeed:Pipe dreams of daming the Burdekin
[This comment originally posted on ROEOZ list. Identifyers removed. Hope that is okay.]
Wayne Swann recently gave $2.5 million to further a study into
the Pentland Project, Bob Katter's pet idea.
The project is to dam the upper Burdekin at Hell's Gate,
pipe the water to the Pentland area
and use it for irrigating 120,000 ha of sugarcane,
a new sugar mill producing sugar, molasses and bagasse,
turning the molasses into "green" ethanol fuel,
burning the bagasse to produce "green" electricity,
much needed by the mining industry in the Galilee Basin.
What they didn't say was:
It is dry tropical savannah country with occasional flooding,
so when you remove the trees and grasses, and plough the land,
it blows away on the wind and is washed away during floods,
it needs massive amounts of water and fertiliser,
which also washes and leaches away,
and nice juicy sugarcane will attract plagues of pests,
from locusts to mice and feral pigs.
And 120,000 ha of sugarcane will only produce enough bagasse
to run the mill and put 40 MW into the grid, 21 weeks of the year.
So the 800 MW power station they are talking about
isn't going to be powered by bagasse.
Guess what it IS going to be powered by ...
yes, that's right, 97% COAL and 3% bagasse.
And where are the cane farmers going to come from?
Where are they going to live?
Where are they going to shop?
What roads are they going to drive on ?
Hopefully this is just a sop to Katter to get his preferences,
and when it is studied, they'll then know that it doesn't stack up,
but that won't be till after the election.
Australian Op Ed growth propaganda defies belief
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/editorials/the-more-people-the-m...
In this article the claim is made that, "Australia is unambiguously a far more prosperous, secure and vibrant nation than it was 50 years ago, when 11 million people called Australia home?"
Ridiculous! Surely Australia was wealthy and had zero unemployment back in the 1960s and 1970s and better quality of life.
Just more Murdoch growthist propaganda. Evidence for an argument to restrict press ownership inversely in relation to wealth.
SBS online poll majority against a Big Australia
Have a lookat SBS site. Overwhelmingly AGAINST Big Australia
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/yoursay/1759060/Do-you-support-a-bigger-Australia
Media no more truthful in 2013 than they were about Iraq in 1990
This comment is a response to a discussion in response to John Quiggin's article Bolt and Krauthammer Day of 23 April 2013 This comment has also been published on Syria News (http://www.syrianews.cc).
Megan @ #21, TerjeP @ #20,
No doubt, you also remember the lie that in 1990 Iraqi soldiers brutally threw Kuwaiti new-born babies out of artificial incubators onto the hospital floor where they perished?
Those, who do not, may find find of interest this Youtube broadcast by Barrie Zwicker, which features that infamous broadcast in which the 15 year old "nurse Nayirah" presented her fabricated claims to a Washington press conference to help the first Bush administration overcome public oposition to their war plans.
The same mass media which peddled that lie has since peddled more in order to justify "The Illegal war on Libya" (2012, Clarity Press - edited by former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney) and, since then, the proxy terrorist war against Syria in which 70,000 have so far died.
Fortunately, the Syrian people and their government have proven more capable than Iraq and Libya of defending themselves against the world's bullies and their terrorist proxies. But no-one's endurance can last forever against the hordes of terrorist killers now flocking into the hostile countries bordering Syria. The Syrian people need the help of people of conscience throughout the rest of the world. Without that help, the same terrible fate endured by the Iraqis since 1990 awaits them.
Australia hits 23 million - and silence from our government
Australia hits 23 million
Australia's population officially reaches 23 million.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, however, says the government wasn't interested in setting "arbitrary targets". Without targets, and no population policy except just accelerating growth, we will overshoot our ecological, economic and social optimum limits.
"We are interested in where the population is and the type of groups within our population," he told reporters on Tuesday.
The Australian: Aust Population set to crack 23 million
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/aust-population-set-t...
It's not an occassion to crack open the Champaign and celebrate! There's nothing pretty about over-population - something common all over the world.
Maybe the government should be worried about numbers. They are trivializing the matter by being concerned only about he "groups" of people and where they are! Australia is the driest continent with large ranges of arid and semi arid desert. The "Asian Century" is an strange ideal while urban sprawl is whittling away our food bowls.
Asia's human "carrying capacity" is higher than Australia's, yet ironically we are meant to be their "food bowl". Many countries are already over their sustainable population levels, yet Australia is heading the same way?
The skills-shortages justification is shallow too, considering the huge cut-backs to tertiary education.
A bigger economy is not necessarily a better quality one. The "big" economies of China, India and Indonesia etc have many people who would prefer to live in Australia. Increasingly, Australia is being run by megalomaniacs with their own grandiose agendas, distracted by big profits and corporations with power to sway government decisions.
The Stable Population Party of Australia, and other minority political parties, are becoming more attractive as the mainstream Liberals, Coalition and Labor have passed their use-by-dates and appropriateness.
The power to determine our future, and that of our descendants, lies in the next Federal Elections. There are a number of political parties with population agendas that should be supported.
23 MILLION MILESTONE NOTHING TO CELEBRATE
Sustainable Population Australia - Media Release 22nd April
The arrival of Australia’s 23 millionth person tomorrow is no cause for celebration, according to Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).
National President of SPA, Ms Jenny Goldie, noted that in 1994 the Australian Academy of Science had said: ‘In our view, the quality of all aspects of our children's lives will be maximized if the population of Australia by the mid-21st Century is kept to the low, stable end of the achievable range, i.e. to approximately 23 million.’[i]
Ms Goldie says: “But we are not stabilising our numbers. We continue to grow at Third World rates, at 1.7% pa.”
In 2009, then Secretary of Treasury Ken Henry expressed concern about the addition of another 13 million people by mid-century. He said a ‘population expansion of this order has a host of implications for the Australian economy and society; and it raises a number of profound issues for economic policy’.
“Yet if 1.7% continues, there will be even more than Secretary Henry cited. There will be 43 million by mid-century and 100 million by 2100,” says Ms Goldie.
Ken Henry’s comments prompted the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) to commission a study[ii] on the impact of different levels of Net Overseas Migration (NOM) on Australia’s physical natural and built environments out to 2050.
The 2010 DIAC-commissioned study found, amongst many findings
· Higher levels of NOM impose greater adverse impacts on the quality of our natural and built environments (note: NOM to September 30, 2012 was 228,000 pa)
· Decreased urban water supply is a significant environmental constraint exacerbated by higher NOM
· Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are expected to grow to several times current levels by 2050 unless rapid mitigation activities are implemented, and will be significantly higher with higher NOM
· Urban expansion will cause the loss of horticultural production from peri-urban areas which will reduce access to high quality fresh food, especially vegetables, with Sydney being particularly vulnerable.
[i] Joint Statement of the Population 2040 Working Party, April 1994. http://www.science.org.au/events/sats/sats1994/Population2040-section8.pdf
[ii] http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/research/_pdf/physical-implica...
Football is the most important news item
The author should realise that even though he is in essence writing about our very survival on this dry ancient continent, in fact what is of paramount and immediate importance in Australia is what is happening in the Australian Football League. I know football is not as absorbing to people "like us" as is the contemplation of environmental collapse ahead of the speeding population train.But if the author really concentrated and tried to appreciate the nuances of the teams and the game itself, he would realise his folly and change his priorities. 23 million people now gives us more blokes to choose from for all those "footy" teams. And its going to get better as we proceed to our next million or so!
WA still Australia's economic powerhouse!
How economist quantify the "best" of Australia's states is different from how the public and residents value livability.
Western Australia is still the nation's economic powerhouse, according to CommSec's quarterly State of the States report.
The gap between the best- and worst-performing states in the country appears to be widening, but only when economic terms are considered.
WA leads the way on retail trade, population growth and equipment investment, but ranks second strongest in economic growth. There is only a dubious correlation between population growth and economic growth.
Until there's an optimum population size, in consideration of environmental and economic constraints, excessive population is detrimental. Victoria's economy is pear-shaped because population growth continues to outstrip infrastructure, and costs of living are increasing beyond the average hip-pocket's ability to pay.
There are "worrying" signs South Australia and Tasmania could fall further behind the rest of the country. In both the 2010 and 2011 My City Survey, Adelaide remains the most liveable Australian city as voted by its residents. Adelaide was voted the most liveable city in Australia for the third year in a row this year because it is an affordable place to buy housing, has a good standard of living and is clean.
Australia is a whole nation, and the competition between separate States is superficial and meaningless as the benefits are shared country-wide. Australia should be integrated as a whole, with more power to local governments. State governments are an artificial political construct, a relic of colonial administration.
The flip-side of WA being the nation's economic powerhouse is that the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) revealed Western Australia was the only State in the country where suicides rose and the State has the highest homelessness rate in the nation.
Melbourne has been ranked first on The Economist's Global Cities Liveability Index for the second year in a row. However, housing is unaffordable and utility costs are soaring because of population growth.
WA still nation's economic powerhouse: Herald Sun
Retraction and Apology to Dr Jeff Yugovic
Dr Jeff Yugovic felt that the title supplied by Candobetter Admin to an article written by Hans Brunner (biologist) about an article published elsewhere by Dr Yugovic misrepresented Dr Yugovic's intentions in the latter article which was about introduced predators and local populations of indigenous animals (“Ecosystems need predators” in Indigenous). Dr Yugovic pointed out that, where Mr Brunner had argued scientifically, an anonymous comment and the title (and possibly the 'teaser' of the article - not written by Mr Brunner) implied or made assertions which Dr Yugovic felt were not actually supported by his article. Apparently Dr Yugovic and or a community group attempted to get this point of view across to candobetter.net editors but their comment was not published. Eventually I was contacted about this matter by phone. I am really sorry that those concerned had to go to such trouble. When I looked for it I could not find the comment they had tried to submit and I think this was almost certainly because of the enormous volumes of SPAM candobetter has been dealing with since its upgrade to Drupal 6.5, which seem to mean that, no matter how much we try to read everything carefully, we still finish up deleting bona fide comments.
Below is Dr Yugovic's letter.
Letter to Admin, We Can Do Better
14 April 2013
Please remove your Admin post titled ‘Australian botanist wants more foxes, cats and dogs’ and the comment post ‘Easy to blame the victims’ – they are offensive and misrepresent me.
Please post an apology or retraction regarding these libellous posts.
These posts have deliberately misinterpreted my article without asking me to provide comment.
In the event that you do not remove the posts and replace them with a retraction or apology, I will have no option but to refer this matter to my legal team.
Yours faithfully
Jeff Yugovic
I would like to invite Dr Yugovic to submit comment for publication again if he wishes. I would be happy for him to contribute beyond this, perhaps elaborating his argument about introduced predators and indigenous prey and his evidence and findings regarding the interaction between vegetation and species in the disrupted ecology on the Peninsula within the context of human population growth and infrastructure expansion.
I hope to republish Hans Brunner's article with another less offensive title and introduction, by and by, especially after I have reread Dr Yugovic's article. I am also keen to publish any further response from Dr Yugovic on this and anything else to do with the predicament of fauna and flora on our human-overpopulated Mornington Peninsula.
Candobetter.net DOES uphold a principle of people being able to defend their views and to write on any level without regard for popularity or any particular demographic. Where writers hold views antithetical to those we espouse under the rubric of 'A website for reform in democracy, environment, population, land use planning and energy policy' that does not mean we will not publish them. We may prefer to publish them (in full) as comments if they are advocating growth in human population and economic through-put, but we won't censor them [except where they break laws such as those against incitement to violence].
If writers have difficulty getting through to us lately (due to the problem of SPAM, which we will overcome eventually) please ring us at the contact number supplied under 'Contact' at the top left hand of this page and we will give you an email address.
Truth through Controversy is a major motto for candobetter.net but we do not aim to misrepresent.
Apologies again to Dr Yugovic.
No comment on population growth
I left a comment on this page, mentioning that population growth must be addressed to prevent overdevelopments and the spill-out that will ultimately destroy Melbourne. They didn't publish it! Maybe this Orrong group are a group of NIMBYs - happy to protect their own back yards, and send the developments somewhere else - but not prepared to look at the whole problem State-wide.
Editor's comment:
Firstly, my apologies that dealing with spam comments has prevented from aprroving this post until now (11:38am on Sunday 21 April 2013)
Thank you, firstly for making the comment above and secondly for advising us that your comment was not published. This is one feature of much of the supposed 'alternative' Internet that corrupts the World Wide Web (www) and prevents the Internet/www from becoming as effective a safeguard of democracy and peace that it might otherwise be: that posted comments are not only censored, but censored in a manner that is not even transparent. Other site visitors, particularly those who agree with your views are not even made aware that others might share their views. The time has long since past when a site should have been set up to blow the whistle long and hard on such sites. (Just possibly, the non-publication of your comment may have been due to oversight or because of the actions of one person who may be censoring at his/her own behest. In time we will know one way or the other.) In the meantime, we could use your post as a start of a more methodical response to censorship on candobetter.
By the way, except for spam and a very few posts which contain material, which is illegal, we have never censored any comment from candobetter. Unlike many other supposed 'alternate' web-sites, our views, many of which are contrary to supposed conventional wisdom, are based on evidence and logic and can be shown to be such through debate with detractors (and were someone ever to show that any view was not, we would soon change our view.)
Lebanon can no longer cope with refugees from Syria
Lebanese Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel warned Saturday that his country could no longer absorb the influx of Syrian refugees.
He asked that the burden [of assisting them] be distributed among states on the basis of collective responsibility because "Lebanon has exceeded its ability to absorb them."
18,000 people registered with their agency over the past week, with the total number of registered refugees rising to 428,000.
Western imperialism has created a human tsunami of suffering in Syria. The suffering in Lebanon, where most of the Syrian refugees have fled, seems particularly acute. In one month, and with the current funding, more than 400,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon will no longer receive food assistance. Lebanon expects there to be more than 1.2 million Syrian refugees by the end of the year.
The UN refugee coordinator noted that the thousands of refugees have also burdened the already deteriorating economic situation in the country by putting "pressure on the labour market and [causing a] rise in inflation" rates.
The refugees find shelter in private homes — sometimes the landlord chooses not to collect rent. Families sleep in old schools, and in at least this one case, in a former jail. Lebanon has seen its population swell by about 10 per cent since the Syrian crisis began more than two years ago.
The rich Muslim nations do nothing in all this. It is always the west that has to come through with aid. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates had each pledged $300 million for the humanitarian needs of refugees and it was hoped these would arrive soon.
Editorial comment: Whilst you are right to point out that "Western imperialism has created a human tsunami of suffering in Syria," I find your concluding remarks:
The rich Muslim nations do nothing in all this. It is always the west that has to come through with aid. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates had each pledged $300 million for the humanitarian needs of refugees ...
... to be somewhat wide of the mark.
In fact a number of 'rich Muslim nations', namely the dictatorships of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain have been doing a lot: paying the wages of, and supplying weapons to, the terrorist killers who are murdering unarmed Syrian civilians and killing Syrian soldiers. The 'west' and Israel is doing much the same. Whilst waging war against the Syrian people the west and the reactionary Arab governments make a pretense of supplying humanitarian aid, but only for public relations and as a means to manipulate some of the refugees who have fled Syria to escape the terror caused by the same governments.
Twisted, callous arguments used to support live exports
According to Elders managing director, Malcolm Jackman, the ban on live exports and the subsequent regulations have damaged Australia's trading relationship with Indonesia, as well as other markets including Japan.
Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences is predicting live exports will drop 22 percent to 450,000 this year, after Indonesia cut its intake.
According the industry lobby group, restrictions on Australian live exports would force countries to import animals from developing nations, where animal welfare levels are much lower than Australian standards. This means that unconscionable activities, like whaling, environmental destruction and slavery and other assaults on animal and human rights, should continue so the conditions can be "improved", whereas stopping it would allow others to take the place of the perpetrators.
Trade relationships, and profits, are deemed of higher status than the ethics of animal welfare. It assumes that animals are merely commodities to be traded like inanimate cargo, and can be brutalized with no remorse.
It's a twisted, negative and callous argument with no substance or absolutes about the basis of how living creatures deserve to be treated, and basic standards of protection from atrocities and human exploitation.
The Coalition, if elected, would continue with the live export trade. The activists have vowed not to give up!
Robbing one sector to pay for another is Ponzi economics
More evidence of Ponzi economic is our cut-backs to university funding of $2.3 billion to pay for State education.
It's not really funding, but cutting one educational sector to pay for another. It's really money-shuffling, taking from one already starved sector to pay for what should be available to another.
Ms Gillard always praised her chance to have a university education, had cut her teeth in student politics when she became president of what was then the Australian Union of Students as a Melbourne University student in 1983.
National Union of Students tweeted "@JuliaGillard as a former student activist and representative how can you justify slashing one part of education for another?" How many of our politicians enjoyed free, if not cheap tertiary education, just to put the screws on opportunities for this generation of prospective students?
The Federal government cut would result in losses of about $100 million in research funding, an estimated further $15m in infrastructure funding and $50.4m in teaching support at the university over the next four years.
The education industry would then be forced to rely more on international students, and increase the already unwieldy fees.
Our economy has become over-sized, unfathomable, unsustainable and cumbersome. It has created its own momentum - to gather more "economic growth" and this means losing control of what our economy is all about!
If the future of our young people is jeopardized by not being ready and educated for the 21st century, then the economy has developed a "mind of its own" and has lost the purpose of what it was supposed to do in the first place - provide for the people, the citizens, who are part of it. That means trading goods and services for high standards of living, working and high standards of education.
If our economy fails when debts become oversized, it becomes self-feeding and counterproductive.
The Ponzi pyramid serves the sharks, the elite, the high-rollers at the top, but further down the victims are being deprived of economic and social benefits.
This "funding" is simply moving around funds from existing budgets, and spitting out people - those nearer to the pyramid's bottom get more and more deprived and impoverished.
Comment posted at the Orrong Group's page
"There was a great community turn-out to the Supreme Court hearing, with "standing room" only for the first morning. More than 85 people were present to hear Stonnington Council challenge VCAT's ruling. Even the 'jury box' had to be made available to accommodate the crowd.
Justice Karin Emerton presided over the hearing. Stuart Morris QC acted for Stonnington Council and Chris Canavan QC for Lend Lease and Larkfield. Both held the same positions at last year’s VCAT appeal.
Stuart Morris led the Council's case stating that more than three quarters of the 450 submissions to VCAT from residents were "simply ignored”.
Mr Morris suggested that VCAT had diverged from “established practice" and its decision could be in breach of the Planning Act and in "breach of its own charter". He stated that this case was important as it went towards "the administration of planning law in Victoria".
Council argued a second important “error of law”: VCAT’s interpretation of Stonnington Council‘s “‘Large Site Policy” and whether account had been given to the need for developments to reflect the surrounding neighbourhood character.
If the Court rules that the case be referred back to VCAT, Council called for it to be heard before a newly constituted VCAT panel.
The Judge reserved her decision. We will notify you as soon as we hear, which will probably be in the next 2 to 6 weeks.
Our impression of the Supreme Court hearing is far more positive than previous planning hearings. We share the Mayor's hopes for a positive outcome and "one that respects the opinions of our residents and one that will protect the rights of residents everywhere". He said "the residents have a right to speak up and be heard". There is more from the Mayor on the Council web site.
We believe that this will be a test case and perhaps a 'watershed' case for planning law in Victoria. Listening to all the arguments and issues raised over the last two days we have a picture of a planning scheme that could be described as a minefield for the community to navigate. It should not be like this and hopefully this case will give a strong message to Government."
The Orrong Group:Fight the Towers
Government must eventually be held to account to its people
Geoffrey,
Whilst it is clear that the US has used elections to interfere with countries to its south, and has done much worse, surely decent government cannot endure if the government is not, at some point, held to account by those on whose behalf the governing?
Crime and population growth
The crime wave in Australia must have similar explanations, due to high population growth. Our cities are riddled with crime, especially in the areas of high growth and congestions. Wyndham in outer Melbourne and Western Sydney are famous for fly-by shootings, random attacks, stabbings and many other crimes.
It's a dystopia, and the laws haven't been upgraded to face the surge in urban dis-ease.
According to the Australia Institute of Criminology, reported crimes for Australia have risen by almost two-thirds, from 845,923 in 1980-81 to 1.41 million in 1988-89. (1991) Research conducted in Australia
and overseas suggests that, "although worrying, these rising crime figures
may be due to a short-term trend in population growth, together with some familiar changes in society".
More recently, the 2011 census data has confirmed that Western Australia is the fastest growing state in Australia, increasing by 14.3% between 2006 and 2011. This is significantly above the national growth rate of 8.3%. Roads are heavily congested, cost of living has increased, crime has increased, and interestingly, homelessness has increased.
Social and cultural dimensions of quality of life which are widely perceived as having declined in recent years, at least partly as a result of population growth, include rising crime rates and other sociopathic behaviour, quality of human relationships, quality of outdoor recreational opportunities, quality of community services including health, education and transport, ethnic tensions, loss of small freedoms (like burning garden leaves) and conflicts over resource use, particularly in peri-urban areas. ( POPULATION-IMMIGRATION POLICY IN AUSTRALIA, Doug Cocks, CSIRO Division of Wildlife and Ecology, Canberra, Australia Dec 1998)
The government is only interested in short term outcomes which will come with long terms costs. What are our goals as a nation to invite the squalor, urban blight, poverty, crime, environmental degradation, resource depletion etc that accompanies over population?
Our government is making immigration decisions guided not be common sense, but by a market economy. What's the point of an increasing GDP but with infrastructure in a mess, homelessness increasing, a shortage of affordable housing, crime rates increasing, and food security diminishing? It's madness!
Studies show that there appears to be a loose relationship between population growth and the overall volume of crime. However, some types of crime lag behind the population just as other types soar ahead of it. Although there is obviously more to crime than population growth, it seems safe to say that rapid acceleration of population tends to facilitate, and perhaps even promote, some types of crime. (The Case of Two Growing California Cities, Beaumont and Banning: Ronald G. Corwin, Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology, Ohio State University)
One billion people, one-sixth of the world's population, or one-third of urban population, now live in shanty towns, which are seen as "breeding grounds" for social problems such as crime, drug addiction, alcoholism, poverty and unemployment. (Whitehouse, David (2005-05-19). "Half of humanity set to go urban". BBC News. Retrieved 2011-11-30). With the world's population continuing to surge towards 9 billion, the systems that try to contain the dark side of humanity will be under more stress.
Muduro won in the face of massive improper US interference
Only 1,000km away to the North-West in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, there can be no doubt that the socialist Cuban government of Raul Castro enjoys the overwhelming support of the Cuban people. Had it not, the Cuban counter-revolutionaries, who tried to overthrow it during the US supported Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, would surely have succeeded. If the Cuban Government was the unpopular tyranny the US government claimed it to be, surely the Cuban people would have found some way to cast off that government in the 53 years since the revolution.
In my view the Cuban government was right not to hold any election in all that time for two reasons:
1. Given the huge resources that the US, its allies and global corporations could have poured into the pockets of Cuban counter-revolutionary candidates, a fair election would not have been possible. Where they only just failed to get the outcome they wanted recently in Venezuela, they would have more likely succeeded in Cuba.
2. The United States military, together with Cuban counter-revolutionary guerrillas could well have used the necessary disruption entailed in elections to militarilly overthrow the Cuban government.
The consequences for Cuba could have been as terrible as they were in Guatemala and El Salvador where many tens of thousands were murdered by US funded death squads in the 1980s.
I think Maduro would be well advised to cancel future elections until such time as the United States and its allies agree to cease interfering in Venezuelan elections as they have just recently and end threats of military aggression against Cuba and Venezuela.
Crime rates and high population growth correlation
This letter was sent to The West Australian (newspaper) recently but not published.
Dear Editor
Like many residents of Perth I am concerned at the many reports of violence in our paper these days. Recently I discovered the “2.5% rule” from a 2006 United Nations report. It stated that amost all the nations experiencing high levels of violence were countries with population growth above 2.5%.
Perhaps our Government and Police Commissioner should consider relieving the pressure on our overcrowded courts and jails by reducing WA’s high, 3.4%, population growth rate.
Patricia Weaver,
Nedlands
US interference in Venezuela
The top US diplomat John Kerry said Washington was not yet ready to validate Maduro's narrow victory in Sunday's disputed Venezuelan elections in which he defeated opposition candidate Henrique Capriles by a margin of 1.7 per cent.
Venezuela is a sovereign nation, and the US has no authority to question their election results. It's a national concern. They want a re-count!
Elections were triggered in the South American oil-rich nation after its fiery leader Hugo Chavez succumbed to cancer in March, having already anointed Maduro as his political heir. Obviously the US has great interests in this small country, for their oil supplies. Any disruption of their stability, eyes off their internal cohesion, is welcomed by the United States, hungry for oil.
Voting has been computerized since 1999, so a recount would achieve nothing.
EU countries - an abyss of poverty and unemployment
Italians, Spaniards and Greeks are forsaking their homelands and heading to Germany and Switzerland as economies throughout the Mediterranean contract. The great big Capitalistic Ponzi scheme is becoming unravelled.
SMH: Jobs security lure Mediterraneans away
The massive unemployment in Europe is proof that economies can't keep growing to absorb population growth, austerity measures, debt and countries without borders. There are limits to any growth, and debts continue to accumulate and jobs end up being slashed.
People with professions are moving away from massive unemployment and deprivation to Germany and Switzerland.
Reports in Switzerland suggest that the country’s government is currently considering placing a temporary limit on the number of EU immigrants allowed to enter the country each year. Between February 2012 and January 2013, more than 90,000 EU citizens became residents of Switzerland – a more than 10% increase on the same period the previous year. The 2004 quota meant that only 2,000 residency permits a year are awarded to citizens from eight countries. Four parties which make up Switzerland’s coalition government are keen to introduce the quotas, meaning fewer EU citizens may find the country so welcoming to them in the near future.
Levels of racism are rising in Germany. But they're not rising equally everywhere. East German states have seen the largest uptick - and the German government's policy of allowing those states to combat it is failing.
"The only reason foreigners come here is to take advantage of our welfare system," postulated one of the statements in a recent survey. Unwelcome immigration is easily dismissed as "racism" rather than other social economic issues.
The German government has taken its first steps towards making the country more welcoming to skilled immigrants. Germany has already started to witness an increase in immigration, mainly due to the country’s economic strength making it a popular destination among migrants from other, recession-hit, EU nations.
Eastern European migrants are more likely to have jobs than native Britons, a research study revealed recently.
Eastern Europeans more likely to have jobs than native Britons
Researchers found that in the UK, workers from the countries that joined the EU in 2004 and later were 7 per cent more likely to be in work than British-born people.
It's easy to blame economies for not growing enough to absorb human numbers than the reality of population overload.
So the developed EU countries are falling into the abyss of poverty and unemployment, the same conditions those from third-world countries and the bankrupt EU countries are trying to escape. Global overpopulation and over-debt means that a greater number of economic migrants are trying to escape the Ponzi scheme collapse, but there are fewer countries to escape to.
Why give these growthist myths any credence at all?
"lower fertility rates mean older, less innovative and productive workforces. "
What is your evidence that as people grow older they become less productive and less innovative?
I may have become even less acquisitive with age but I think that, even though my work involves considerable physical input, I'm actually more productive and innovative as I have more experience in being pushed to innovation and have acquired mental techniques for, and experience of being innovative. I'm also less "hormonal" as I age and subsequently more focused which in turn makes me more productive. I can't work as hard physically as I did 20 years ago but working smarter more than makes up for it.
I don't argue with the general premise that the obsession with growth economics is essentially "Ponzinomics" but the assertion that being older makes you less innovative and productive (socially or economically) buys into the ageist rubbish being pedaled by Ponzinomists.
I'm pushing 50 but can't see retirement anywhere in my future and hope to pay for my own retirement and then have either the freedom or the guts to stop being a burden sometime down the track when it suits me.
The envisioning of what a steady state economy might look like or the questions of how to manage a shrinking economy and ageing population should not be confused with, or sucked in by the systematic "elder abuse" being pushed by conservatives and neoliberals (almost invariably the same people denying me the right to choose my own time of death).
We already know that you can't "immigration" your way past the challenges posed by ageing populations , why give these growthist myths any credence at all?
4 Corners 'reveals' that Iraqi WMDs was a lie
Ten years after the event and two years after the Australian release of the movie Fair Game, based upon the book by Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson, who together blew the whistle on the Iraqi WMD fraud back in 2003, ABC's Four Corners has 'revealed' to its audiences that they were lied to by their governments in order to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands.
However, Four Corners' seeming resolve to inform the Australian public about lies used to promote one unjust war has not extended to the two year old Syrian conflict, where tens of thousands have died at the hands terrorist killers, judging by its earlier report, The Battle for Syria of 8 October last year. The terrorists of the so-called "Free Syrian Army" (FSA) have been armed, supplied and paid for by the same criminals who waged the 10 year old war against Iraq made possible by the WMD lie.
Judging by the fact that this report also repeated the fraudulent Official account of the 9/11 terrorist attack, Four Corners' resolve also does not extend to Afghanistan, the invasion of which was justified by that lie.
Did Julia Gillard once knock back a pass from Mr Murdoch?
I just watched Q & A and could not believe more repetition of the same questionable opinions about mistakes Gillard has purportedly made. They were actually pushing Abbott!
Paola Totaro in the Guardian Weekly writes of amazement at how the ALP is constantly trying to destabilise Julia Gillard when the Australian dollar is high and we have had 21 years of growth. Whilst, like many on candobetter.net, I don't like growth, I will take Julia Gillard any day in place of Kevin Rudd. I find what Simon Crean is doing disgusting. It is like Murdoch will highlight anyone prepared to say something horrible about Gillard.
What did she ever do to Mr Murdoch - did he make a pass at her that she rejected or something? Sure looks like it.
Below is Totaro's article:
http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/20338607/1764018166/name/Preview%20of%20%80%A0%A2%E2%92%A0%92%BCAustralians%20don%26%2339%3Bt%20kn
Deliberate skills shortages in Australia.
The State Government is under pressure from parents and teachers to help deliver a $4 billion shot in the arm for Victorian schools. Mr Gonski recommends more funding for universities, not taking from them.
It's hard to swallow the "skills shortages" that our economy is supposed to be crippled by if the Gillard Government is taking $2.8 billion from universities toward a $14.5 billion boost to school funding over six years. Already universities are forced to depend on international students to stretch their budgets, and this will exacerbate their needs.
Our tertiary education system is how we are to be ready for the many challenges in the next decades and it's backward thinking to deprive it of funds. Our record levels of immigration are based on our "skills shortages", yet any skills shortages will increase unless TAFEs and universities are supported. Our universities should primarily be for our domestic students, not excessively relying on foreign sourced dollars! The globalization of jobs, education, housing, industries, living standards and farm land is detrimental to Australia, and eroding the "Lucky Country" we used to have.
The reality of "skills shortages" in Australia is politically motivated and caused through privatization of utilities, and depriving our educational institutions of sufficient funding.
Victoria going from Bad to Worse!
If the conflict of agriculture and primary industries with wildlife wasn't already entrenched enough, it's about to get worse!
Thanks to Premier Napthine's "shakeup" of Victorian public services, the departments of Sustainability and Environment and Primary Industries was "married" or merged with DPI!
The interests of farmers, loggers, hunters, fishers and primary producers will inevitably clash with the intrinsic values of protecting our biodiversity.
Wildlife, our coasts, ecological communities, native forests and the diversity of our environments already have serious conflicts of interests with government land-usage policies.
The liberal permits to "control" (ie kill) native animals such as kangaroos, and many other native birds and animals, by landholders as pests will be even more freely distributed.
Land for wildlife will be compromised for economic growth in the primary industry sector and for urban sprawl. The logging industry will have free reign to our native forests. DSE's responsibilities for flora and fauna and habitat protection will collide head on and we'll see the numbers of our already endangered species in further decline.
National parks will be promoted for "developments", and more human impacts and cattle grazing.
Napthine said "this is about improving services, getting better value for money so that we can get better outcomes for people". Monetary values and lure of cash flows will see Victoria's long-term preservation under threat by property developers and other primary industries such as fishing, hunting, logging and farming.
Better outcomes for people and better value for money would be better served by streamlining the State government into non-existence. With the doubling up of services and policies with our Federal government, and too many expensive politicians, Australia would be better off altogether with only two tiers of government and a more holistic, overall vision for our nation and our mega-diverse landscapes.
To save money, the State government is abandoning plans to save threatened species.
Herald Sun: No plan to save threatened animal species
The latest list of threatened animals, released by the Department of Sustainability and Environment, found one animal had become extinct in the wild in the past five years and more than 50 had advanced into more serious categories of threat. Greens MP Greg Barber said that "More than a third of the plants, animals, communities and processes that were listed a quarter of a century ago still do not have action statements." Flora and fauna obviously are dispensible by our developement-driven State government and they would prefer to denude our forests for timber and have wall-to-wall housing!
Concerns jobs figures mask public health issues:ABC
Australia's latest unemployment figures might look good on a global scale, but there are also concerns they are masking serious public health issues.
The unemployment rate jumped to 5.6 per cent today due to the estimated loss of more than 36,000 jobs in March.
The latest Bureau of Statistics figures show nearly 500,000 people want full-time work but cannot find it.
In March 2013 an estimated 1.37 million Australians (10.8% of the workforce) were unemployed. This is down 0.1% from last month. The Australian workforce was 12,644,000, (a record high) comprising 7,671,000 full-time workers (up 174,000); 3,604,000 part-time workers (down 50,000) and 1,369,000 looking for work (up 9,000) according to the Roy Morgan monthly employment estimates.
10.8% unemployed is disguised by people taking up casual and part time work, artificially being added to the "employed" numbers.
Underemployment, like unemployment, raises several housing policy concerns about the capacity of households to meet ongoing housing costs during a period of reduced or inadequate income. Small changes to incomes for some households pose a significant threat to housing security and stability.
In Australia, underemployment is well above the OECD average (OECD Employment Outlook, 2010).
The mental health of job seekers is deteriorating as people are giving up and not being included in the economy. "What Beyond Blue is noticing is that mental health issues are continuing to escalate," she said.
"Last year stress claims topped $10 billion and we know job insecurity, over-work and under-work are contributing factors to the cost, both personally and to the economy."
Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor argued that there were 107,510 temporary workers on primary 457 visas in Australia during February 2013, a rise of 21.5 per cent on the corresponding month last year. Mr O'Connor also noted that both nominal and real wages for those with 457 immigration visa holders have been tumbling by as much as 12 per cent in the IT-related jobs sector.
Record rates of both temporary and permanent immigration at a time of our economy's slow-down is hurting Australian families, and the 457 visa rort is only the tip of the iceberg.
Despite Julia Gillard's slashing of the 457 visa, she recently announced that immigration would continue to be "sizeable", and we would have a "big Australia" of over 40 million by 2050. The lure of "economic growth" through force-feeding more and more people into our country ignores the fact that our economy is not growing despite our high levels of immigration, and the boom years are over.
The "skills shortages" rant is looking thin! It's hard to even find casual jobs. Entry-level jobs demand at least two years' experience and a tertiary degree.
Concerns jobs figures mask public health issues
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Possum killed in Lutwyche, Queensland
A possum was attacked by a domestic dog in the northern Brisbane suburb of Lutwyche earlier this evening at roughly 7.30PM Queensland Time (8.30PM elsewhere on the Eastern Australian seaboard). It sadly died an hour later in spite of efforts by Lea-ann to contact the Brisbane Area Network Association animal rescuers listed above and the care she gave to the injured possum.
The phone number for BARN, 0405 056 066, was inactive when Lee-ann tried to ring.
It seems unlikely that BARN would have been able to save the possum even if Lea-ann had been able to reach them. Still, let's hope that the mobile service works better next time a possum's life is threatened with injury.
Another way to better assure that injured possums receive more timely treatment in future would be for more contact phone numbers to be listed here. If you know of any other numbers through which people able to help injured wildlife can be reached, please leave a comment here or 'phone me on 0412 319669.
Postscript: (11:25PM) The following was posted to Twitter, just now:
Phone numbers of more people able to treat injured Australian possums & other wildlife needed http://candobetter.net/?q=node/2820#comment-33873 A possum died tonight.
Easter Oysters
I suppose the oysters from Tasmania contaminated by a leaking sewerage outlet and which gave gastroenteritis to about 200 people at Easter were part of "celebratory" Good Friday meals.
Trial jury: Conspiracy to kill Martin Luther King
The Conspiracy to kill Martin Luther King: Not a theory but a fact from Global Research, 4 April 2013.
Should the United States government be allowed to assassinate its own citizens? That question was in the air briefly not long ago. April 4 is an excellent day to revive it: On April 4, 1968, the government was part of a successful conspiracy to assassinate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
That's not just some wing-nut conspiracy theory. It's not a theory at all. It is a fact, according to our legal system.
...
The above was posted to johnquiggin.com. On 20 October 2011, a comment, which concerned this topic, was deleted from that site.
Other posts, the contents of which been labeled 'Conspiracy Theory', have also been censored.
3 North Korean Doctors Are Killed in Nigeria (11 Feb)
POTISKUM, Nigeria (AP) — Assailants in northeastern Nigeria have killed three North Korean doctors, beheading one of them, officials said Sunday. ...
The story, linked to above, is in the New York Times of 11 Feb 2011. The murdered doctors are from North Korea, which has been particularly demonised recently in the Australian newsmedia, lately, Foreign Minister Bob Carr, who has also condemned the Syrian Government and imposed sanctions, has done the same to North Korea, allegedly in reponse to its recent nuclear tests.
As with Syria, a truly objective judgment is only possible if the broader historical context, which also comprises the New York Times story, is taken into account
Scary joining of Islam and Catholicism with globalisation?
12:30-12:38 on RN ABC Radio Australia (listen live here, linked to from RN 'Special Broadcasts' page, roughly 1/3 way down on right of page)- Talk between Islamic and Catholic 'sociologists' of how science is an ideology that is receding as religion comes back, of how roman catholicism was uncomfortable with development of nation states post Napoleon ....
Sound horribly as if the Catholics and the Muslims are working to establish a new common power basis. Religion has always been a political powerbase to get hold of capital. Just look at the wealth in the Vatican . What is the situation in Islamic institutions? One assumes that the leaders of Islam and Catholicism are basically into money and power, whatever the ideology they hand down to their 'flocks'. With globalisation of capital and loss of civil rights as nation states are eroded, we should fear capital and religion getting back together to run and ruin the world.
Government would surely participate in any truly free market
The comment below was intended to be a response to a debate on Ellen Brown's Web of Debt web site. However, I was not able to log on toWeb of Debt, due to technical problems.
A contradiction in the ideology of the so-called 'free marketeers', which should have been obvious when it was imposed on Australia in 1983 by the then Federal Treasurer Paul Keating (and subsequently codified in the (misnamed) National Competition Policy, authored by Fred Hilmer), is that both Government and private entrepreneurs should be free to operate in a truly free market.
If a government of any sovereign community is prevented from owning operating or building, as examples:
an insurance company, a railway, a road, a bridge, telecommunictions infrastructure, a funeral service, housing, a real estate service, or a bank
... and competing[1] with private entrepreurs (except where there are natural monopolies), then the market is not free.
Footnote[s]
[1] 'Competition' is not meant in the race-to-the-bottom sense that was implied by Paul Keating, rather, it is meant in the sense that those who produce a better value product will prosper more, whilst those who do not will not be driven to bankruptcy and ruin as long as they produce a product of worth.
Obesity is contradictory to the outcome principles
Population over-growth, or obesity, is actually contradictory to the main aims, or "outcome principles" of the Strategy. Obesity in humans means bodies become bloated and distorted, and they lose their distinctive body shapes, and functions.
Obesity impacts on good circulation and inhibits movements, adding to cardio vascular disease. Obesity is an important determinant of cardiovascular disease (CVD). A connected city depends on a high level of movement, but obesity hits at the heart of good public transport and blocks efforts of extending it into the growth areas.
Social and economic participation is inhibited by excessive population growth. Community planner Eben Fodor studied 100 of the fastest metropolitan areas in the US and found that the myth of growth bringing prosperity is wrong. Growth drives higher taxes, pollution, and the fragmentation of communities. It also increased crime rates as people feel they are not noticed, disconnected, and can get away with it. It leads to higher unemployment and social dis-ease.
Having "strong communities" as well as forced-fed population growth are contradictions. Strength is a result of cohesion, not fragmentation and internal stresses.
As for "environmental resilience", it's population growth that's causing species extinctions, pollution, the fragmentation of land, over-consumption of natural resources and threatening urban sprawl.
Despite the community consultation, our Victorian Planning Department must inevitably become more autocratic to streamline higher density developments - to crush democracy.
Foreign fighters in Syria- backed by NATO
A former US soldier has been arrested and charged with terror offences after he allegedly travelled to Syria. Eric Harroun, a 30-year-old army veteran from Phoenix, Arizona, is alleged to have joined a squad of guerrilla fighters from the Al-Nusra Front. Harroun has been charged with "conspiring to use a destructive device outside of the United States", an offence that carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.
British security services said that scores of UK citizens are fighting in Syria. A recent Home Office’s annual report titled ‘The United Kingdom’s strategy for Countering Terrorism’ highlights the growing threat that might come to the UK from Syria.
The fighters have come from range of ethnic backgrounds include young Asians, converts to Islam and men from north African backgrounds.
Hundreds of international fighters have flocked to Syria to join the war against Bashar al-Assad's government. Some are fresh-faced idealists driven by a romantic notion of revolution or a hatred for the Assads. Others are jihadi veterans of Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan.
US Army's own West Point Combating Terrorism Center report "Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq," was extensively cited by historian and geopolitical analyst Dr. Webster Tarpley in March of 2011, exposing that NATO-backed "pro-democracy" rebels in Libya were in fact Al Qaeda's Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), listed by the US State Department, United Nations, and the UK Home Office as an international terrorist organization.
According to a Reuters news report Dr. Jacques Beres of Doctors without Borders served at a hospital in Aleppo for a two week period claims the majority of his patients were foreign fighters (see article: Jihadists join Aleppo fight, eye Islamic state, surgeon says http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/08/syria-crisis-jihad-idUSL6E8K80... ).
Here is what he said exactly: "Well, they’re (Syrian rebels) recruited by networks of NATO intelligence. This is after all a CIA covert operation, they form a secret army."
The reports were that foreign fighters were a significant and growing part of this insurrection, so they’ve been recruited from Morocco to Pakistan and from Somalia to Chechnya.
At least 25 are reported dead after a chemical weapons attack targeting Syrian soldiers was carried out by NATO-backed terrorists in the northern city of Aleppo. Any chemical weapons imported into the country would implicate NATO either directly or through gross negligence, as the weapons would have passed through NATO-member Turkey, past US CIA agents admittedly operating along the border and along side Western-backed terrorists inside Syria.
Of course reporters aren't able and free to give the "news" objectively as it is! Like all media operations, they have their set agendas and vested interests in selling newspapers/media outlets, not broadcasting independent and objective "news" based on facts and empirical evidence.
Don’t miss 60 Minutes on Channel 9 this Sunday
The 60 Minutes Crew accompanies ANIMAL LIBERATION (NSW) Rescue Team in exposing the titan of animal abuse.
This Sunday at 7:30, 60 Minutes will feature an Animal Liberation exposé of the cruel broiler chicken industry, airing never seen before footage. The Australian broiler industry is shrouded with secrecy, and has received little media attention before now.
An avian veterinarian is interviewed while treating rescued broiler chickens showing major health issues directly caused by intensive husbandry practices common across the three major companies in Australia.
Tune in this weekend to watch this important story and help promote this vital program by sharing on Facebook and/or Twitter.
Help us continue our vital broiler campaign. We are the DIRECT ACTION Group that opens the door to institutionalized hidden animal abuse.
Fish now a luxury, not a sacrificial Easter feast
Unfortunately Easter and Christmas have become commercial and cultural activities, primarily to promote consumption of goods and the sale of items in supermarkets. It's crass, commercial and a cannibalization of the real significance of these religious events. At least other religions aren't put in the grinder and the mixer and manipulated by the common public!
That's the price of Christianity being, in the past, the mainstream religion of our fore-fathers!
Eating a fish meal on Good Friday, in the past, was symbolic of a sacrificial meal as fish was considered inferior and more humble than meat. It was symbolic of fasting, a Jewish spiritual exercise that early Christians adopted. In those days, meat was an expensive luxury. On the other hand, anyone could grow vegetables or catch a fish.
Due to exponential human overpopulation, and resultant overfishing, fish prices have risen enormously and are now a luxury! We are straining our Oceans' ability to breed the fish we eat, to sequester carbon, and to replenish the air. Now even some of the "trash fish" of that era are too rare to fish commercially or recreationally.
According to the new study, "Catching the Limit: Population and the Decline of Fisheries", population growth will especially strain the availability of fish in developing nations, where more than 700 million people already cannot obtain sufficient calories and nutrients to lead healthy and active lives. The global fish catch peaked in 1989 at 89 million metric tons and has hovered at around 85 million tons since then. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that nearly 70 percent of the world's conventional fish species-such as cod, hake and haddock-are already fished up to or beyond sustainable limits. http://www.jayhanson.us/page5.htm
"By 2100, the terms 'climate conflict', 'water wars' and 'resource conflict' will become highly likely in parts of the world," said Stephen Emmott, who heads Microsoft's Computational Science Laboratory at Oxford.
The production of a single cup of coffee requires 100 litres of water, while a chocolate bar draws upon 27,000 litres. Even a simple computer search for www.CNBC.com consumes the same energy as boiling a kettle.
Human overpopulation, largely ignored by most Christian churches and actively encouraged by the Catholic church, will even make common food - including chocolate Easter eggs - a "luxury" in the future.
Australians are not global citizens
The discrimination against Australians must end. Australians have not chosen to be global citizens, but are part of Australia as a sovereign nation. Like our resources, our land, our home, our shores, none are international property. The same must be for jobs. How dare our government sign such a discriminatory international agreement that prohibits employers from searching for willing local people before giving jobs to 457 visa holders?
Rather than "xenophobic" or "racist" that Australians are being accused to being, this social engineering of Western or "white" guilt is to make us more accepting of high immigration - at whatever costs. When politicians or the media accuse the public of being "xenophobic" they really mean that the government's highest priority towards the rights and welfare of Australian citizens as their primary obligation is being undermined.
Global citizenship means foreign workers have the superior rights to locals.
Such trade agreements are discriminatory, and are to soften national borders of the more wealthy countries to distribute more wealth and opportunities to third-world countries.
Australia needs to drop its international trade obligations
They are doing us nothing but harm ...
Employers will not be forced to check if locals are available to fill jobs before they import foreigners, under the federal crackdown on temporary skilled visas.
The office of Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor has confirmed that Australia has international trade obligations that forbid mandatory testing of the local labour market by employers seeking to bring in people on 457 visas.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/no-check-on-locals-in-work-visas-rort/story-e6frf7jo-1226607919269
Iraq:10 years on - what was the bloody point?
Simon Crean said John Howard mistaken to join US war in Iraq
Former Labor leader Simon Crean says it was a mistake to join the war in Iraq, because it diverted Australia's attentions away from Afghanistan. John Howard willingly went to war because the US asked him to.
"My view is the decision was wrong," Mr Crean told ABC News 24. "The weapons of mass destruction weren’t found and I think the people who justified that on that basis ought to explain."
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/simon-crean-said-john-howard-mistaken-to-join-us-war-in-iraq/story-fncynkc6-1226608928181
Mr Smith said around 1000 of the 1550-strong force would be out of the country by December this year.
While pockets of the country are certainly far more secure than they have been, there is real concern about the Taliban quickly filling the security vacuum left once troops withdraw. It is estimated that 162,000 Iraqis have died since the 2003 invasion.
The Bush administration made the argument that in the post-9/11 climate there should be a belated reckoning with Saddam Hussein.
Thirty-nine Australians have been killed in action and more than 245 wounded, many seriously, during the war 11-year-war. Canada refuse to go to Iraq, but not Australia or Britain. Almost 4,500 U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq and 30,000 wounded. More than 100,000 Iraqis were killed.
“It was absolutely an error,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said. “It’s obviously clear the evaluation of weapons of mass destruction proved not to be correct.”
Since there was no direct connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam, George Bush probably would not have taken the risk of invading Iraq.
According to the UN's latest estimates, at least 3.6 million people are internally displaced in Syria. The 70,000 refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia still living in Syria are facing the same hardship and dangers as their Syrian hosts.
Of the 1.5 million Iraqi refugees who have fled the country, only about 80,000, or 5 percent, have been resettled in the U.S. In the years following 2003, Iraq’s refugee problem has grown into what many observers regard as an unprecedented crisis. Engineers, artists, lawyers, academics, doctors, and other professionals were among the first to escape the war. It dismantled many of Iraq’s cultural and educational institutions and social fabric. Few refugees plan to return.
In an overpopulated planet of many crises, and more threats and conflicts over scarcities to occur in the future, never has there been a time in history when steady-state planet-wide stability was needed.
There are no new frontiers to conquer, no new lands to colonize, no places where the displaced are welcomed, and wars and the displacement of humanity must be avoided at all costs.
Sea Turtles under threat from coal mining at Abbot Point
Mining giant Adani plans to build a new monster coal port, Terminal Zero, just metres from a beach where sea turtles have come to lay their eggs for decades.
Hundreds of extra coal ships would travel through a narrow passage, greatly increasing the risk of collisions and spillages. Then once the coal is burnt, it’ll drive global warming faster than ever before. It’s another monster coal plan with monstrous consequences.
The Port of Abbot Point is one of Australia’s most significant emerging bulk ports and is undergoing a major transformation into a port precinct of global importance. It is an existing operating coal port located just north of Bowen in north Queensland.
The National Environmental Significance Management Plan needs to maximise the ongoing protection and long term conservation of EPBC listed threatened fauna
Several management plans will manage potential impacts on the values of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and species including dugongs, turtles and migratory birds. Greenpeace's Georgina Woods says there is some information about possible environmental impacts that has been withheld.
She says there is sea grass providing for green turtles and dugongs and other marine life such as dolphins in the area that would be affected.
Since obtaining a 99-year lease of the X50 Abbot Point Coal Terminal, Adani identified the need to increase terminal capacity.
Profits and economic growth should not be at the expense of habitat destruction and ongoing threats to species while we are on the cusp of an era of mass extinctions.
Greenpeace - Take Action Now
Australia's population boom to reach 40 million
JULIA Gillard is steering the nation's population on a course to more than 40 million by 2050, despite warning just three years ago against "hurtling towards a big Australia". Demographer Bob Birrell warned that, in the flattening labour market, such a rapid rate of population growth posed a threat to Australian jobseekers.
Despite an Intergenerational survey in 2010 that revealed that about two thirds of the population do not want 35 million people in Australia, it will be at least 40 million by 2050! Julia Gillard has broken her first promise as PM, to not "hurtle towards 'big Australia'".
While population growth no doubt does increase the crude size of the economy, the GDP, it's at a great cost to the environment, our jobs market, the environment, climate change and our life styles.
Despite Gillard cutting down on the 457 visa "rort", the number of temporary 457 visas being issued was feeding into the surge in net overseas migration. It proves that there's nothing more permanent than a "temporary" migrant!
Foreign students graduating in Australia will be free to work for 4 years in Australia, and no doubt once they have a job they will stay here!
Besides MP Kelvin Rudd, all the politicians are intent on increasing the size of our economy at whatever costs. At an election time, when one would assume the government would be in listening mode, they are isolating themselves and distancing themselves further from the voters.
Australia's economic growth has dwindled and plateaued, but our government, bereft of ideas, are resorting to the only way they can think of to stimulate the economy - the no-brainer one of making our borders even more permeable and opening the flood gates to more immigration!
Great
It would take far more than the space allotted here to comprehensively describe the philosophical and ethical debates that have contributed to the foundation of animal law. Suffice to say that although in the law animals are regarded as the property of human animals, yet in being accorded some protection against mistreatment and cruelty, it could be said that animal law has an ethical, or moral, cornerstone that other property law does not have.
Agricultural census covert government surveillance of US farms
USDA agricultural census program is a covert surveillance operation to compile government database of food and farm assets
Wednesday, 27 March,2013
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) The USDA "census of agriculture" is a government-run farm surveillance program designed to register and inventory detailed private data on farm assets, operations and personnel. A census form is mailed to each farmer in the United States, accompanied by threats of compliance and a warning that farmers who do not comply will be visited in person by government agents.
These agricultural census forms -- see a link to a scanned copy below -- demands farmers reveal the following information, all of which is compiled into a vast government database:
- # of acres of land owned
- Physical location of the land
- # of acres of croplands harvested
- # of acres of pasture land
- # of acres leased for cash
- # of acres irrigated
- How much money you've received from state or federal agricultural programs
- The exact number of acres grown and harvested for each crop: corn, oats, peanuts, cotton, rice, soybeans, wheat and many more
- # of acres of hay or forage crops
- # of acres used for Christmas trees or maple syrup
- Detailed inventory of your greenhouses, vegetable seeds, mushrooms and "propagative materials"
- ...
Should we put our money under the mattress now?
Does Ellen Brown have any advice about what ordinary people might do to prevent loss of their savings if governments and banks start making moves on accounts outside Europe, similar to what has happened in Cyprus? Should we all just convert everything to gold and bury it somewhere?
Editorial comment: You could consider posting part of the above question to Ellen Brown's twitter page, as I have already done. if you can compose a message no larger than twitter's limit of 140 characters per messsage. Your post would look something like:
@ellenhbrown http://candobetter.net/?q=node/3213#comment-32385 Does Ellen Brown have any advice about what ordinary people might do ...
Need we care about threatened crash of global paper economy?
The following was posted to Ellen Brown, author of Web of Debt. This is further to the two tweets:
twitter.com/malthusista/status/316797626425176064
twitter.com/malthusista/status/316794317182226432
It seems to me that people, who otherwise know better and work to expose the lies of the rulling elites, including Paul Craig Roberts and Alex Jones (in the YouTube broadcast embedded below) have failed to see through private banking and similar frauds. Were more governments simply to establish public banks (as you have pointed out that the U.S. state of Montana has done), then all the crises of the paper economy -- the "all ordinaries index", exchange rates of the Australian Dollar, US Dollar, the Euro, the UK Pound, etc., news of which puts us to sleep each night at the end of the evening news -- would be history.
Alex Jones and Paul Craig Roberts discuss global economic crisis
BIO-ENERGY: THE NEXT HORROR FOR OUR FORESTS
ACTION ALERT
BIO-ENERGY: THE NEXT HORROR FOR OUR FORESTS
It’s the next wave of destruction for our native forests. The forestry and energy industries are now poised to unleash their plans to feed our forests into furnaces to produce electricity, convert them into bio-fuels, and into pellets for export. This will mean more destruction of forests and their wildlife, and release massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.
Industry calls this ‘renewable energy’. It wants the government to help pay for it in the form of ‘renewable energy certificates’ and other subsidies at the community’s expense.
This is despite the fact that many eminent scientists and researchers consider this form of bio-energy to be neither clean nor renewable.* And despite the fact that this form of energy will actually outcompete genuine renewable energy like solar and wind power.** It’s imperative governments don’t support this industry.
Join us to show the energy industry and energy retailers, the forestry industry and governments that we will not stand by while our forests are destroyed for energy production. Let them know that our precious forests must be protected for wildlife, climate, water and the air we breathe, not trashed for electricity or fuel.
Join our Action on April 15 -
we'll have a giant toaster ‘incinerating’ threatened wildlife!
When: 15, 2013 at 9am
Where: Outside the ‘Residues to Revenues’ conference
Bayview Eden, 6 Queens Road Melbourne , VIC 3004
What to bring: Just show up, we will have all the materials you need.
Phone Lorraine on 0414958714 for further information
http://www.noforestfurnaces.wordpress.com
Facebook causes
Protect native forests for climate change
Energy needs are obviously becoming in short supply, needed to fuel our economic growth.
You can't be friends of Saudi Arabia AND friends of democracy
I see that this article posted by Geoffrey comes from a press release from the Syrian Foreign Ministry in Damascus. For those unfamiliar with a non-Western alliance interpretation of events in the Middle East, it might be helpful to clarify that last comment,
"The source stressed that "such biased, non-objective and unbalanced resolutions" consolidate the double standards policy practiced by some countries that claim to defend human rights while at the same time they ignore the outrageous record of human rights in the countries sponsoring this resolution."
The comment undoubtedly refers to the United States, Britain and France as countries claiming to defend human rights whilst at the same time ignoring the outrageous record of human rights of Saudi Arabia, which forms part of that alliance.
It is indeed amazing that the US, Britain and France can stand, as it were, shoulder to shoulder with Saudi Arabia and speak of human rights. http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/world-report-2012-saudi-arabia
Many people also feel that the United States, with its huge numbers of people in prison, of people below the poverty line and without secure shelter, of violent crime, prostitution and addiction, is also an abuser of human rights at home, as well as based on its record of illegal invasion of foreign countries.
Malthusian fears means a diet of insects