Comments

Geoffrey Taylor

Sat, 2011-07-09 00:02

The Financial Times newspaper has reported that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy, the former coloniser of Libya "has voiced serious doubts about the success of the NATO mission over Libya , saying he had been against the operation from the outset.he had been against the operation from the outset." "Mr Berlusconi said he felt forced to go along with the mission despite his doubts because of political pressures inside Italy. “'I was against this measure,' Mr Berlusconi said at a book presentation in Rome. 'I had my hands tied by the vote of the parliament of my country. But I was against – and I am against – this intervention which will end in a way that no one knows.'" However Italy is still allowing its territory to be used for NATO air strikes against Libya. Berlosconi's reason for his personal prior silence and effective acquisition to the unprovoked war against the Libyan nation including the 1,000,000 (or 1,700,000 reported in Mathaba) of its 7,000,000 population who demonstrated in support of Colonel Ghaddafi on 7 July, hardly seems compelling, but his preparedness to speak out now may be an indication an indication that the strength of the Libyan people's defiance of NATO may have been more than the US/NATO warmongers had bargained for.

Katie G (not verified)

Fri, 2011-07-08 11:54

The Torquay issue is akin to metastases breaking out in yet another organ of a cancer sufferer. Victoria and indeed the whole of Australia is in the grip of a terrible process whereby a forceful few are taking advantage of natural and built amenity, undermining it with over development with which they make obscene profits. The effect on the incumbent population is vastly negative. These profiting few will continue until the law of diminishing returns means that they can no longer capitalise on anything further in a particular area-in other words they will have trashed it -and then they will move on and continue with the process.

I have just read the introduction to a history of Melbourne written by Tim Flannery which is profoundly moving . It details the horrific and progressive dispossession of the Aborigines in Victoria especially around Melbourne a century or so ago. The new settlers showed little mercy to the indigenous people driving them further and further away from their home range which were of course the areas of interest to the Europeans, onto smaller and smaller areas of land until only a fraction of the original population survived. The local natural environment was largely destroyed in a few decades and a whole way of life that had endured for tens of thousands of years was at an end. This knowledge is not new to most of us , but the detail in Flannery's account brings those horrific decades to life. My first impulse was to find out how I could help the descendants of these people,at least those who remain near where I live. I kept thinking about this and then realised that the time has passed. It is over and we cannot ever make up for what has happened to the former custodians of "Victoria". Intending no disrespect and not wishing to diminish what happened- a total catastrophe for the Aborigines- we also face dispossession right now. We are a few decades away from finding our lives unrecognisably impoverished. The hardest thing to do is to fight for it but if we do we are fighting for all of us including the descendants of those suffering people. The easier thing is not to see ourselves as under attack and to see others as victims. The word NIMBY is used to dis-empower and embarrass people and dissuade us from sticking up for ourselves.
We see ourselves as sophisticated because we can read and maybe went to university, but we are being robbed in a sophisticated way- through persuasion and being divided amongst ourselves so we can't pull together in our own interests. Just as the Aborigines gave up land in what is now Melbourne for some blankets and tomahawks, we are being persuaded that we are better off than decades ago because of e.g. electronic gadgetry or affordable comfortable furniture. We are being persuaded that we have more than previous generations who went to a place like Torquay, camping there for next to nothing as though they owned it ,freely enjoying its natural offering . All that is finished.

Our whole environment is being progressively ruined with over development relying on and facilitated by very high population growth, and the sale of real estate overseas. Sounds like nothing compared with the trauma to the Aborigines inflicted by the 19th century European settlers. Instead, we are being robbed insidiously,distracted with what we can buy in the shops while that which matters most -- our real estate -- is taken from under us.

Where will this end? Fewer and fewer of us will own our own homes. This is trivialised as "The great Australian dream" but at least most of us had a chance at it and it meant some sort of security especially with a backyard with enough sun falling on it to grow food. The attainment of a home will increasingly be a box (apartment) rather than a house. The coast will be for the rich, not for everyone. Is that not dispossession, too? When that process is complete, what then?

ref. The book I am reading is -The birth of Melbourne- edited and introduced by Tim Flannery

Bandicoot

Fri, 2011-07-08 10:57

As one of the few countries of the world with an active immigration program, there is an expectation that Australia allocate places for refugees as well as migrants. Countries that have ratified the Refugee Convention are obliged to protect refugees that are on their territory, in accordance with its terms. The convention was approved at a special United Nations conference on 28 July 1951. It entered into force on 22 April 1954. It was initially limited to protecting European refugees after World War II1967 Protocol removed the geographical and time limits, expanding the Convention's scope well after World War 2's displacement of peoples. While the Convention-based asylum system may have operated well enough until the end of the Cold War, it was not designed with today's mass refugee outflows or migratory movements in mind. While a number of African countries (including Angola, Mozambique, Liberia, Zambia) are signatories, it has always been obvious that the Convention is of limited use for dealing with the refugee situation in Africa. Already Africa's population growth is unsustainable. In 1984 Latin American countries adopted the 'Cartagena Declaration' which incorporates a similarly broad refugee definition. For countries like China or Cambodia being a signatory state amounts to permitting asylum applicants to remain in their countries while determinations regarding resettlement needs are made by the UNHCR. Regardless of their Convention status, or whether the Convention even registers in their scheme of priorities, it is the poorer countries of the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe that are carrying the bulk of the world's refugee burden. Mandatory detention of illegal arrivals has made routine, if sometimes difficult and controversial, the removal of boat people (the most high profile asylum seekers) refused refugee status. In other countries, only a minority of failed asylum seekers actually ever leave, voluntarily or otherwise. Some of the countries hosting the most refugees include countries like Pakistan, Syria, Jordan, Iran, and Guinea. Approximately 70% of the world refugee population is in Africa and the Middle East. There are many countries that have signed the convention between the Middle East and Australia! Global overpopulation is prohibiting resettlement. Australia's high immigration intake, high human rights standards and generous Centrelink benefits, make us an ideal target for asylum seekers. We can't be the release-valve for humanity's overpopulation and poverty woes, certainly not while we have a heavy economic immigration rate.

Sheila Newman

Thu, 2011-07-07 17:12

I agree that it is a terrific movie. One of the reasons I would recommend it to children and their parents is that it portrays the difficulty busy parents have in adjusting to the fact that their children have independent lives. It also shows dope-smoking up for the way it dumbs people down and makes them boring and tuned out. Each child character is superbly individual, self-confident and focused. Despite very varied backgrounds, and some tragedy, all of which have their problems, the children just go ahead and do what they need to do. As they approach the cusp of adulthood they retain an unselfconsciousness that our modern societies tend to rob us of, via an increasingly puerile media that panders to narcissistic CEOs and politicians. The setting is the 1970s, when corporations had not quite succeeded in robbing peoples lives of almost all local meaning and action. The children have loads of open space to play in and life, although it is beginning to move rather fast, has not yet robbed people of most of their freedom to use time creatively. But the military machine is up to no good as usual and presents a greater hazard than another of Spielberg's aliens. This alien is really nicely done, and uses a very cute technology, which of course the military will stop at nothing to get, at peril of private citizens. Well done Spielberg, you are a force for good.

nimby

Thu, 2011-07-07 12:53

Minister Karl Hampton, Minister for Natural Resources in the Northern Territory Government is quoted as saying. “The Territory Government believes in protecting the environment and the pastoral industry and that’s why we have developed landmark legislation to achieve this goal.” It would appear as if the Minister is unaware of the ongoing ecocatastrophe and the impossibility of protecting the environment and the pastoral industry simultaneously. The Minister is also not aware that the grazing of beef cattle in Central and Northern Australia was identified as ecologically un-sustainable in the 1996 national State of the Environment report. The pastoral occupation of the lands had drastic consequences for the Aboriginal people and their traditional economy. The new fire management regime imposed on the land by the pastoralists blocked the recruitment of new individuals to the mid-stratum and the upper-stratum of the forests and woodlands, Grazing and trampling by cattle and other introduced stock animals wrecked the lower-stratum. Frequent burning has stopped the nutrient recycling systems in the soil from working well and nutrients are being lost from the system. Many trees are sterile or nearly so because they are malnourished due to the nutrient recycling failure. Land clearing has catastrophic consequences but they decided to ignore that fact. Large scale land clearing for agriculture and pastoralism in the Northern Territory should be stopped. The Pastoral Land Act of 1992 makes it very clear that the pastoral use of land must be sustainable. The industry has been exporting nutrient elements in stock for more than 100 years without making any attempt to replace them with fertiliser. This is a serious matter. This is theft pure and simple. (The safely of gm crops cannot be assured either). This theft inevitably weakens the ecosystems and sabotages the natural essential element recycling systems. It inevitably reduces the nett primary productivity of the ecosystems. The fire regimes imposed by the industry have also caused a loss of nutrients to the atmosphere. Soil compaction, trampling and grazing have also damaged the soil and the hydrology, and blocked the recruitment of new trees. In many places it seems that run-off of rain water has increased by a factor of 10, so that the infiltration of water into the soil ( and to some extend down to the underground water supply) has been reduced to one tenth of what it was. Central Australia holds the Guinesses Book of Records, record for the most mammal extinctions on the planet in modern time. Cattle did not co-evolve with the Australian biota and its ecosystems in antiquity. Inevitably they are parasitic grit in the machinery of our ecosystem. How could it be otherwise ? There is a grave conflict between the fire regimes required to conserve biological diversity (and ecological integrity) and the fire regimes that suit the pastoralists. Inadequate and unsatisfactory fire management seems to be an inevitable side effect of the pastoral occupation of the land. We should cut our ecological losses and shut the industry down now. The industry is not ecologically sustainable, and it is not economically viable. It is an anachronism in modern Australia. The fact that cattle stations in Northern Australia have been un-profitable for the last 5 years or so has recently been reported by the ABC. What we should be doing is working out how to replace the fire management role of the industry and organise appropriate compensation for the lessees when the industry is closed down. Read more on The pastoral industry in the Northern Territory is ecologically unsustainable "Flogging a dead horse" is a horrible expression, but the live export exposure of gross mis-managment, secrecy and hiding of sadistic abuse of animals should be the sign of just how unsustainable and unethical the NT pastoral grazing industry really is.

James Sinnamon

Wed, 2011-07-06 23:58

I saw "Super 8" with a friend tonight. I enjoyed it like I can't remember enjoying a film for a very long time. This was felt by the friend who accompanied me and a number of other cinema-goers, I could talk to. I don't know for how long it will be still showing at the cinemas, but if you can possibly see it on the big screen at the cinemas, don't miss it. It will still be worth watching on video, but there is no way that a small screen in the home can do justice to the special effects and sounds of "Super 8". The plot turns out in a way that I could not have imagined. The acting and characterization of the lead characters, mostly children, was superb. The plot involves an encounter between the US Air Force, a small rural US township and an alien in 1979. Whilst most of Spielberg's movies approach "Super 8" in excellence, I have occasionally been disappointed with his movies. Spielberg movies, which have disappointed me, include some, but not all, of the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" series, and "Saving Private Ryan". However, "Super 8" is confirmation of his talent and deserves every possible success.

Geoffrey Taylor

Tue, 2011-07-05 06:25

"The old Federal Democratic Republic is dying"

Is the US turning into a National Security State?

Army colonel, former Chief of Staff for Colin Powell and Bush-Cheney administration insider, Lawrence Wilkerson says "yes."

"This is crazy. This was what we do today. We do war. The old Federal Republic is dying."

Embedded interview with Lawrence Wilkerson, A former Republican military man sees the light with comments originally posted to BrassCheck TV at http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/war-is-a-racket/they-love-war.html  Embedded video also on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/v/FDjiGln8O6w?version=3&amp&rel=0.

Anonymous (not verified)

Sun, 2011-07-03 00:16

Gosh, this is so sad. Now we are going to have years of legal argument about what constitutes "safety"? Tepco and friends will surely drag that one out. And all the while, little kids will be peeing radioactivity. OT, but apropos of some of the difficulties any attempt Fukushima Daiichi clean-up might face in future, here's a link to a 2007 engineering presentation on the Dounreay Shaft Isolation (SI) Project (scroll down a bit to find it/PDF only). The SI project became necessary after a huge explosion in a waste shaft at the Dounreay nuclear plant in Scotland in 1977. 100kg uranium and 4kg plutonium wastes are known to be in shaft. The relevant pages are pp7-17. Page 11, a schematic showing the contents of the shaft, is illuminating, as is page 12, showing how much waste was chucked into the shaft each year (eg 1965 quite a lot, 1970 not so much). There’s also a photo (unattributed, undated, uncaptioned) on page 14, which I take to be the view from the top of the shaft, looking in, which is absolutely shocking. Recently, I was told by an engineer that apocryphally, the contents of the shaft are broadly unknown/were never fully documented, and that there’s a Ford Cortina down there. Also, that efforts to discover its contents ended in failure, probes couldn’t operate. As I say, this is apocryphal, so who know? But what is known is that the clean-up of Dounreay, including this explosion, which much smaller than anything that has happened so far at Fukushima Daiichi, was expected to take 60 years in 2000 (if clean-up is possible at all, which is moot) and to total £4.5bn/US$7.2bn. Of that vast sum, the 20-year project to isolate the shaft is alone estimated at £355m/US$570m.

Tigerquoll

Sat, 2011-07-02 00:14

I still cannot find a more humane nor more planet-saving strategy than mass human sterilisation for a few generations using say hormone modifying powered milk. No-one dies, no one physically suffers, no famine, plague, wars or pestilence; yet effecting an outcome that could return global human population to what it was in 1800 - about 1 billion or less in just two generations, providing a Great Flood like fresh start and the Earth and its disenfranchised nonhuman inhabitants a new lease on quality life. Tigerquoll Suggan Buggan Snowy River Region Victoria 3885 Australia

Tigerquoll

Sat, 2011-07-02 00:09

VicForests?... more like Viking Foresters! - raping, pillaging, and plundering - an apt stereotype for those marauding barbarians arriving in their helmeted hordes to pillage their way through native forests. Tigerquoll Suggan Buggan Snowy River Region Victoria 3885 Australia

Tigerquoll

Fri, 2011-07-01 23:47

Why bailout an immoral trade like live cattle and live sheep export? The immoral trade was entered into by buggering the northern savannah ecosystems of Australia, treating them as cow paddocks. The participants have been fully cognisant of the inhuman shipping conditions, have turned a blind eye to the primitive 'slit throat while facing Mecca' ritual and well aware of the fact that the weight limits are such that the likes of Indonesia are buying livestock live to eventually eliminate livestock imports anyway. The whole live export bizzo is short term profitteering, buggering everyone else in the process. It is a backward attitude feeding off a backward culture. Those who choose to live by the immoral sword... well no sympathy for participants going to the wall, fast the better! Taxpayer $30 million bailout is akin to bailing out people smugglers, drug traffickers and slave traders...I could go further, but this comment would be censored. Tigerquoll Suggan Buggan Snowy River Region Victoria 3885 Australia

nimby

Fri, 2011-07-01 18:25

According to Bush Heritage Australia, although it has been reduce somewhat, we are still clearing much more native vegetation than is being replanted or that is regenerating naturally. Clearing increases erosion and sedimentation of waterways and reduces water quality. Rates of land clearing in Queensland and New South Wales are still unacceptably high and proposals continue for development in northern Australia involving clearing of hundreds of thousands of hectares. In addition, land clearing helps weeds and invasive species to spread, affects greenhouse gas emissions and can lead to soil degradation, including erosion or salinity, which in turn can harm water quality. Revegetating land to a complexity that resembles intact native vegetation is difficult and expensive. For every 100 hectares of bush destroyed, between 1,000 and 2,000 birds die from exposure, starvation and stress. Nearly half our mammal species, including some wombats, wallabies and bandicoots, are either extinct or threatened with extinction as a result of land clearing, habitat destruction and other threats. The Australian Greenhouse Office has estimated that land clearing contributed 13 per cent of Australia's total greenhouse gas emissions during 1996. The Wilderness Society has raised concerns that the Coalition’s interim assessment policy for mining and gas developments will fail to include core environmental concerns, including clearing of threatened forests, and disposal of polluted water from coal seam gas operations. Land use – including agriculture – makes up around 23 per cent of Australia’s emissions. Halting land clearing could reduce emissions by up to 63 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent a year, nearly half of the government’s unconditional target of a 5 per cent cut by 2020. Land clearing includes clearing for urban development or pasture land. According to the WWF, by 2030, we will need two Earths to soak up the carbon dioxide we emit and supply the renewable resources we currently base our lives on. By 2050, under current predictions, we will need 2.8 Earths to support us. Beyond that – with the human population forecast to reach more than 9 billion people – there is no guarantee the Earth can continue to support us all. Certainly not in the same way we are currently living. Humans are digging at, consuming, polluting and chopping away at their only home as if there were other planetary options!

Bandicoot

Fri, 2011-07-01 16:15

There will be a $30 million bailout made to struggling farmers. The government is cautious about resuming the trade until it can assure animal welfare standards. Producers and farmers cannot rely on gross animal cruelty for their livelihoods. How could they not be aware of the atrocities happening to the cattle they bred? Don't they have any morals, ethics or compassion? We need Wikileaks and groups like Animals Australia to expose the government and industry corruption in high places. The slashing deaths of millions of animals is horrific and shameful for Australia. These farmers should be held accountable, and not be pushing for the resumption of such on obscene industry. No amount of profits and income can be based on animal abuse. For nearly 30 years animal activists have witnessed tragedies and cruelty because of the live export trade. There is a long list of other disasters over the past 25 years, for example: 1980 – Farid Fares – abandoned on fire 160km off the SA coast; 40,605 sheep died. 1996 – Uniceb - abandoned on fire off coast of Africa; 67,488 sheep died. 1999 – Kalymnian Express – 300 cattle died or were put down after ship met a cyclone. 2003 – Como Express - 5,581 sheep (around 10% of its cargo) died. Some improvements were made, but the industry is inherently risky and animal welfare can't be assured. Now, the extent of the cover-up and evil is exposed, many - and some innocent people - will suffer. Ultimately, it's us, the taxpayers, who will have to bail-out the farmers for something most people have been against for years! Dark and cruel secrets and corruption aren't good for business, and exposure makes many people vulnerable. New Zealand banned live exports years ago when the safety of their animals couldn't be assured, so why is it taking Australia so long to learn?

nimby (not verified)

Fri, 2011-07-01 15:10

Hope this horror show goes all around Australia! Human herding instincts prevents them seeing herd size as an issue. The Australian Sovereignty Party is NOT primarily about protecting Australia and our sovereignty. They believe that the planet can hold millions more people and it's just the distribution of food that's the problem. They believe that water from the north of Australia through a pipeline would enable them to construct "beautiful new towns and cities in the outback, as we make our push to reclaim much of the desert areas for agriculture, and for population growth potential. We will invest heavily in this effort to green our deserts, which is perfectly possible". There is no acknowledgment that we have poor and thin ancient soils in Australia. Water is needed for biodiversity and ecology, and can't just be taken out of the land without massive infrastructure costs. The supply is also irregular. They believe that we should consider the "building-up of our rural areas and country towns to support a growing population". They believe we should not be "over-populating already congested cities where new infrastructure has not been provided". It is assumed that our population growth is inevitable, unavoidable, and must be accepted! Those pushing for growth are always demanding infrastructure, but the economic benefits of population growth are only short term cash flows and don't cover infrastructure costs! The ASP believe that we have immigration because the national birth rate is dropping to record low levels. However, this won't be needed as their policies will "financially liberate most working families, providing greater impetus for families to have more children who are the future of Australia." It's about the retro Populate or Perish! The Greens wont address population growth because its just too politically incorrect and 'racist' to talk about stemming population growth. We don't have any truly "green" parties in Australia as any environmentally responsible party would actually discourage population growth. Where are we getting your water from in 20 years? Natural resources are finite, and any political party that supports a carbon tax and still fails to stop our population growth is simply hypocritical and pushing suicide.

Mary (not verified)

Fri, 2011-07-01 10:55

Melbourne's green wedges are under attack. With growing obesity, Melbourne's spreading suburbs was obviously not sustainable, as done by our former Brumby government. The financial and environmental costs are considerable, and the short-term cash grabs didn't carry over and cover long term spending. The Liberals promised to stop the sprawl, but now they are forcing higher density living and cancerous inroads on our "green lungs" of Melbourne! Every "vacant" piece of land is available for more developments - even heritage land like this one! Where will it end? The parasitic disease spreading over our cities and destroying their liveability is a reliance on population growth to maintain our economic health - but it's basically fatalistic. We should learn from Greece and their economic woes. Economic reliance on secondary industries, being overtaken by cheaper imports, cannot sustain modern living standard of Europe. This has happened in the UK too. Without our mining resources, Australia would be struggling financially. Population growth and property investment can't be maintained in the long run. It's all short-term and fatalistic. With foreign mining companies and foreign governments buying up our land, we are being sold off by Treasury - due to being bankrupt of ideas. Our heritage should not be for sale, and flogging off land to the highest bidder must stop before we become foreign owned, our food producing land has gone, and our heritage and history covered by generic high-density housing.

Colin (not verified)

Thu, 2011-06-30 08:18

In Reply to Luke Daglishs comments regarding Golden Cockerel. The Benfer family has been operating a poultry business at Mt Cotton since the early fifties and other agriculture enertprises long before that. When did you arrive in the area Luke. Nearly every property that is in close proximty to the plant is owned by decendants of the Benfer family that migrated to Mt Cotton in the late 1800's. If you didn't like Golden Cockerel, who was there long before any development and long before the tree huggers moved in, why did you buy there. It's like buying a house next to an airport and then whinging about the noise You also failed to mention that Golden Cockerel also has to comply with all enviromental safegaurds for the area Get a grip or move out

Tigerquoll

Wed, 2011-06-29 21:31

Crawling out from the nearest log, a little bird has awoken me to my 17th July 2009 article 'Victorian aircraft capability', by an anonymous commenter dated 15th June 2011.
Two years later, I am glad I was not waiting up Mr Anonymous. Your antagonistic opening line of 'hiding under a log' is a tad hypocritical.
Your inept powers of persuasion almost make me want to crawl back to the warm moist log.

In response:

1. Giving 'anon' the benefit of the doubt, I did "try Googling "SAU Victoria" and I found the following options:

a. Victoria Sau, Mujeres en Red
- [ Translate this page ]
SAU, Victoria (Barcelona 1930) Licenciada en Psicología y en Historia Contemporanea y profesora de Psicología Diferencial en la Universidad de Barcelona. ...
www.mujeresenred.net/sau-victoria.html

b. SAU Victoria
SAU VIC Committee · - Club Contact information · - Membership information · - Sponsors & Supporters · - SAU VIC Constitution ...
www.sauvic.com.au/

c. www.skylinesaustralia.com/.../363168-2011-sau-vic-events-calendar/

Seems all a bum steer here!

So then addressing the tangible comments by our 'anon', which I list in turn:

Anon Claim 1: 'Victoria has an extensive aircraft fleet for aerial firefighting and has had for several decades - by far the best and most well organised in the country.'

Response from the log:
* If Victoria has an extensive aircraft fleet for aerial firefighting,
1. Where is the fleet based?
2. What is the fleet's record in responding to and extinguishing bushfires?
3. Why was the fleet not able to save 173 Victorians in February 2009?
4. If it is "far the best and most well organised in the country" why does it not have a website?

Anon Claim 2: 'As the report says you need to get aircraft up fast to stop a fire.'

Response from the log:
* Yes agreed, properly equipped aircraft are inherently faster and more flexible in suppressing bushfires in remote country than fire trucks can be.

Anon Claim 3: 'In the case of Black Saturday the only successful saves by aircraft in stopping the fire were 1 in Narrie Warren when an Aircrane "dropped in" on the way past and another in the Dandenongs when a Bell 205 was already airborne heading to another fire. In no circumstances on Black Saturday did an aircraft get dispatched from a standing start and stop a fire.'

Response from the log:
1. Since the CFA knew that the bushfire index was off the risk scale to an unprecedented level, why did it decide on business as usual preparedness and response?
2. How many bushfire equipped and ready aircraft were sourced and put on operational standby by the CFA on 6th and 7th January 2009 ahead of this known catastrophic bushfire risk condition? What percentage increase did this number represent over and above standard conditions?
3. How many aircranes were available to the CFA at the time?
4. If aircranes were deemed the most effective early response to bushfire then given the unprecedented bushfire risk conditions, were not more sourced and deployed?

Anon Claim 4: 'In 98% of cases (Black Saturday) the aircraft could only undertake asset protection works (which they did well).'

Response from the log:

1. Why?
2. When risk of uncontrolled wildfire is apparent, why was the bushfire management strategy in response to Black Saturday to 'only undertake asset protection works', knowing that extreme uncontrolled wildfire allowed to build and rage in natural forest, would within hours engulf human assets downwind?

Anon Claim 5: It is totally unrealistic to have aircraft in the air just flying around waiting for a fire to start - particularly given the conditions of Black Saturday.

Response from the log:
If it is 'totally unrealistic' to have aircraft in the air just flying around waiting for a fire to start, then when is the CFA and bushfire management declaring defeat in being able to fight serious wildfire and being unable to protect human lives and property, as well as high conservation value natural assets? If so, it needs to publicly declare this, in which case it should be immediately dismissed as under-resourced, incompetent and useless.

Question: If a dozen spotter aircraft had been deployed to monitor ignitions across know high risk bushfire areas of Victoria at this time of extreme bushfire risk on Black Saturday, could the ignitions have been detected faster than relying upon public calls to 000, and could the response have been more targeted, and could the suppression timing been more effective, so as to reduce the wildfire catastrophe?

Fire fighting agencies that do not fight fire effectively have no validity. They may as well go to the pub and grant respect to residents who already know that:

In the event of bushfire, fight your own fires!

Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia

nimby

Wed, 2011-06-29 13:40

All the emphasis on "sustainability" and recycling is a distraction, a "feel good" technique, so that the public are lulled into thinking they are doing something for the environment to offset their carbon and ecological footprints. It's all greenwashing! Our governments are doing quite the contrary, with their adherence to a growth-based economy, consumption rates and population growth. It's just distracting from the real and unmanageable amount of pollution, waste products, and greenhouse gas emissions being raised each year and distributed. While our population is being imposed upon to keep adapting to growth, our economies of scale for waste collection are blowing out, utilities are more expensive because we are forced to pay for expanding infrastructure needs, and our eating habits are also ignored. Higher density housing is denying people a chance to live sustainably and do their "bit" for recycling, food growing, solar panels and water harvesting. The livestock industries and junk food means methane emissions, massive water consumption, environmental polluting waste, and waste collection. Even "green" and climate change groups often ignore population growth. Recycling and the zero waste strategies are the band-aid when the monster in the room is population growth! Nothing can be planned or addressed properly while our communities are still growing, and no closure will be found until we stabilise our swelling numbers. Growth keeps outstripping solutions!

nimby

Sun, 2011-06-26 12:34

THE head of the meat industry has joined animal welfare groups in opposing the religious slaughter of sheep while they are conscious, amid calls to ban the ''unnecessary and unconscionable'' practice in Australia. Outrage grows on ritual killing - The Age Most sheep remained conscious for up to 20 seconds after their throats were cut. Religion should inspire higher moral and ethical standards, and compassion for other living beings. There is nothing to be gained by prolonging the suffering of animals being slaughtered - nothing useful at all. It's all about dogma, rituals and scriptural interpretation of ancient creed. Rabbi Mordechai Gutnick is out of depth by calling for humane animal treatment as "anti-Semitism". This is clouding the issue, and manipulating what has been the terrible treatment of the Jewish people. However, there are parallels. The confinement of animals in factory farms and the mass slaughter of animals for our increasingly meat-based diets inflicts horrific cruelty and abuse on sentient creatures. Violence towards animals overflows into society - and it not surprising that we have increasing crime and violence towards each other. "Diversity" should not include more animal suffering and abuse, and what "god" really enjoys allowing pain to be inflicted on His creatures? Animals have rights too, and our animal welfare standards and laws in Australia make stunning mandatory. Religious "rights" should not over-ride animal rights. Religion is no excuse for animal cruelty, and it should not obfuscate the laws or transparency on how animals are treated. Suffering achieves nothing but enforces ritualistic human dominance. Times have changed, and so should we. Pain and bleeding and stress in animals is detrimental and cruel, and using religion to support it is about avoiding scrutiny and accountability. Meat is not an essential food item, and there is a lot of evidence to support the healthy aspects of vegetarian/vegan diets - and it saves lives!

Anonymous (not verified)

Fri, 2011-06-24 15:04

I posted the following comment to Ex Senator Andrew Bartlett's blog at 9.00AM this morning. As of 2:56 PM it's publication is still awaiting approval (although nothing else has yet been added in the intervening 6 hours either). I will be interested to read Andrew Bartlett's response.

Andrew Bartlett,

Have you noticed that none of those who have been outspoken for the rights of the ‘boat people’, not even you, it seems, have been able to find their voices to speak up against the bombing of Libya and the threatened war against Syria?

Editor's comment: The article Time to remove mandatory sentencing of ‘people smugglers’ was published on 17 April, over two months ago, and only two more articles have been added to andrewbartlett.com in the intervening period of more than 2 months, so I would not hold my breath waiting for Andrew Bartlett to read your comment, approve it and respond to it. Still, should he ever respond, I would be most interested to read his response.

nimby

Thu, 2011-06-23 23:04

Due to global population blowouts, top quality agricultural land has never been more valuable. Government-backed foreign companies have begun buying up farmland around the world, with Australia’s vast tracts of top quality primary production land a prime target. Our land is becoming international territory. For example, Qatar-based Hassad Foods has been a major player in the big local farmland buy-up. The company has invested more than $60 million in prime Australian sheep grazing land in the past year, with more properties in the company’s sights. The secretive deal includes five homesteads around Willaura and Dunkeld, near Ararat, and is believed to be one of the largest acquisitions of Victorian pastoral land in recent history. Foreign government-backed and private companies from the Middle East, China and the US continue to buy into Australian agriculture - parasitically to secure land for their swollen population numbers. Australia's foolish open-door policy needs to be made accountable to scrutiny. Australia is easy-picking due to our government willing to sell off our assets to the highest bidder. The Middle East agricultural company is poised to snap up 8500ha of Western District land in a $35 million deal. Hassad’s burgeoning portfolio also includes 6800 hectares of sheep grazing land in Canowindra in New South Wales. Our sovereignty is being sold - our birthright is vanishing due to our generous globalized government. Last week Hassad were poised to snap up a further 8500 hectares of land in Victoria’s western district in a deal worth $35 million?—?about 20% above market price. Filthy lucre - money - can buy out our own food security and we are still be become a "big Australia"! While our Lucky Country has faded away due to poor leadership and population growth, at least we could hold on to our heritage - and the heritage of our indigenous and Colonial fore-bearers. Losing our own land is allowing a parasite infection to invade our inner-most being, our soul, our very being. It makes you wonder what the Anzacs fought and died for - only to have foreigners buy and control land under the Australian flag! It's invasion by stealth. Qatar’s economy boom, a result of its plentiful supplies of natural gas, has led to large-scale immigration of Western expats hoping to benefit from the country’s growing economy. Farah Ahmed Hersi, senior economist at Masraf al Rayan said: "We believe Qatar's population will continue to grow at an steady base of 5.3 per year, as there are still plenty of untapped resources in the country, including some energy-related resources that would fuel growth in the foreseeable future and serve as a magnet for expatriates.” Obviously their food-growing resources don't match their energy and economic resources, so they must import 90% of their food! This means searching out land to secure their food security in the future. Few people feel any connection with Australia now, and the patriotism of the past is fast fading. This is a betrayal of the interests of all Australians, now and in the future. With "big Australia" inevitable, how is our own food security going to be ensured? We should be investing in food for the coming famine, due to land degradation and global overpopulation. Food could be come the next resource boom, and it will be lost due to our own population size, urban sprawl of lush arable land, and lack of farming land. We could be struggling to feed ourselves, and at the mercy of these new owners! Why is Australia's ownership being dismantled and dispersed? It just lack of respect for our sovereignty and our heritage. Qatar land grab angers bush Arab buy up in Western District
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Tony Boys

Thu, 2011-06-23 11:55

Horrific story, but the details are not clear to me. Lanco Infratech bought the coal mine, but also own the power station supplying the electricity? Or is it that they are going to demand double the price of the coal or export it? Also, the Japanese companies are buying a power station from the same person (company?) that owned the coal mine, but is this the power station that is involved in the doubling of the price of electricity, or is it another power station, or are there several power stations? (Sorry, I'm not doubting what you say, but just want to get a a better visualization of what is happening.) How large an area of WA will be affected (and about how many people?) And if you know, what is the price of 1 kWh there now and what will it be if they have to pay double in September? I also agree that maintaining a hold on national mineral (energy) resources amid the advances of globalization is a serious problem. Look at Indonesia and the UK as examples of countries that have recently become net oil/NG importers after being net exporters just a few years ago. Further, Australia is also a major uranium exporter. I'm sure you do NOT agree with the exploitation of the uranium resource either for export or domestic use, but this issue (in the overall context of 'energy' and in the context of nuclear power) needs to be discussed, which is what I am trying to do in the Australian context on Nuke Talk - I'd be very happy to exchange views with Australians and others on that forum!

Sheila Newman

Wed, 2011-06-22 20:50

Population activists who have contributed letters to the Age calling for reductions in population growth in Australia recently received letters of a threatening tone where the sender (using a false address) implied that they should be concerned that he/she knew their addresses. The police have been contacted in these cases.

Bandicoot

Wed, 2011-06-22 20:21

NEWSFLASH – IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 22, 2011 Animal advocates across Australia are still being targeted with death threats following the enormously successful rallies against live exports across the country last Saturday. Numerous threats were directed towards advocates prior to the National Day of Action to End Live Export. The death threats have continued. National organiser, Dr Patricia Petersen, has received death threats and other threats of violence by phone, email and text message, and advocates in other states and territories who are afraid to reveal their identities have confirmed the threats. Tasmanian organiser Suzanne Cass has confirmed that she has received a number of threatening, abusive and obscene text messages following the successful rally in Hobart. Dr Petersen and other supporters in favour of banning live exports, have reported the threats to the police. Ms Cass filed a report with Tasmania Police today. ‘This is a seriously alarming turn of events’, said Ms Cass. ‘Because we have exposed the horrors of the Indonesian cattle trade, people who would do anything to continue subjecting their animals to this obscene torture are targeting us and threatening us with violence, or even death. Because we don’t know who or where they are, our families and our animals are potentially in danger. And these people have firearms. In one of the messages I received, the sender claimed he (or she) was being paid over $35.00 per hour to send these messages, so who knows what else he might be paid for? 'Dr Petersen has been told that she will be murdered and my mobile phone is still receiving disgusting messages containing threats of violence.' Ms Cass says that industry claims of mass job losses as a result of the suspension of the Indonesian cattle trade are grossly exaggerated, with most of the jobs continuing to exist without the live shipping, and points to the 40,000 meat workers who lost their jobs as a direct consequence of the live export trade. ‘This industry wants its trade resumed in the full knowledge that their cattle will be subjected to the same torture we saw on ‘Four Corners’ three weeks ago’, Ms Cass continued. And not only do they want that, they want compensation for not being able to abuse any more animals. ‘Meat and Livestock Australia, the Cattlemens’ Association and the government cannot be trusted to safeguard the welfare of the animals shipped to torture in all importing countries’, Ms Cass concluded. For further information, please contact Suzanne Cass, 0420988221 or Patricia Petersen, 0418470605

Bandicoot

Tue, 2011-06-21 16:22

Australian cattle exported to Indonesia will be not required to be stunned, under guidelines put forward by Federal Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig. Stunning should be mandatory, and by sending more cattle to Indonesia without this requirement, the horrific cruelty will continue. Our government is under tremendous pressure to return to live exports, due to NT graziers' livelihoods being at stake. We and they have all assumed that this industry, endorsed by our Government, was a bona fide and well controlled one, not with animals abandoned in a country with no standards or laws regarding treatment or care. Basing economies on false assumptions means that they flourish, only to be dashed by media and animal activists' revelations. The exposure has revealed not only the atrocities and horrific deaths inflicted by over 6 million cattle in the last 10 years, but government and industry corruption and ineptitude. Depending on public ignorance and silence does not make good industry practice, especially when families are involved and costs are high.

Sheila Newman

Tue, 2011-06-21 16:04

Although I find merit in Tony Ryan's article, his statement that Halal is meant to inflict pain cannot stand without substantiation. If anyone can find any evidence that Halal requires a blunt knife and a sawing action, please write in. In the absence of this, I supply a contrary point of view, where the author insists that the knife is meant to be surgically sharp and that the act of slitting a throat with such a knife does not cause pain. The Four Corners footage showed blunt knives and all kinds of pain infliction, and probably the argument as to what Halal intends is pretty irrelevant if killings in the name of Halal don't carry out those intentions but are allowed to continue in Indonesia and to promote themselves as Halal. I would welcome some critical writing about Halal killings, theory and practice, preferably with good documentation. The article below argues its case well (surgically), in my opinion, but unfortunately for the writer, we know that the reality in Indonesia is quite different from the theory. Source of the below is: "An up-to-date assessment of the Muslim method of slaughter." (Note that it appears to be written by a medical professional, however it is written by a fundamentalist who takes Noahs Ark seriously and shows little understanding of animal ethology, or the real situation in abattoirs, where animals cannot help but be aware of the doom that surrounds them, with regard to his objection to stunning.)
"The act of slaughter (Al-Dhabh) starts by pronouncing the name of ALLAH (s.w.t), The Creator (BISMILLAH ALLAHU AKBAR ), to take His permission and in order to make the Slaughter-man accountable and responsible and to give compassion and mercy to the animal during this act. Besides, any action we do in our daily life should be commenced with the mention of the name of ALLAH (s.w.t ) The Most Kind, The Most Merciful. The Qur’an says: “And eat not of that where on ALLAH’s name has not been mentioned for verily it is abomination. ( Surah Anam 6/121) Then, by a very, very sharp knife (which should be kept like a surgeon’s knife in sharpness and cleanliness, as previously stated by DR Ghulam Khan (UFAW, 1971), a Deep swift cut done instantaneously and quickly to the blood vessels of the neck (the two caroid arteries which carry blood to the brain and head, the two jugular veins which bring blood from the brain back to the heart), the trachea (windpipe) and the oesophagus (gullet), but the central nervous system (the spinal cord) should be kept safe and intact (not cut). This deep, large cut through all the blood vessels of the neck causes acute blood loss and haemorrhagic shock: we know the blood is under great pressure , especially in the big carotid arteries (systolic pressure ) and at high speed and, according to physical law, the pressure always goes from the high to low resistance - the point of the cut is the scene of low resistance for blood to and from the brain. As we have a fully intact, alive heart, so most of the blood is going to be pumped and poured out instantaneously and quickly under pressure leading to a rapid fall in the blood pressure. Thus depriving the brain of its main source of oxygen and glucose, and with no blood which is necessary to keep the animal alive and functioning and able to deal with any perceptive sensation this leads to anoxia and almost immediate loss of consciousness (anesthetization or “stunning” ). The cerebrospinal fluid pressure falls even more rapidly than the blood pressure because of the jugular veins being cut, and this results in a deep shock and more loss of consciousness. The animal, at this stage after the cut, is in a stable and quiet state with no movement or any distressed behavior. One would assume, if there was any pain or suffering, it would kick, move or show signs. After this short resting phase, and because the brain is deprived of oxygen and blood due to the huge amount of bleeding, the heartbeats increase in order to increase the flow of blood to the brain and other deprived areas. Tonic and clonic involuntary contractions and convulsions start and occur as automatic physiological reflexes in order to send and push blood up, especially to the brain. These contractions and convulsions are ‘painless’ (not, as the layman would imagine, that the kicking is due to the pain) especially when the animal is already unconscious and still has an intact spinal cord with safe nerve centers to the limbs, muscles and organs. So, we have a huge amount of bleeding from the initial cut then blood loss is continuing with the squeezing pressure of these contractions and convulsions, leading to maximum bleeding-out and less retention of blood in the carcass, giving a better quality of meat [both safer and healthier (this is like direct method of slaughter, “but without stunning”)]."

Sheila Newman

Tue, 2011-06-21 15:36

This article makes several highly contentious statements as fact without supplying documentation, so I would expect some of our readers to raise a number of objections on those grounds. However the article is published for the obvious merits in its advocation of relocalisation and steps towards this. Some of its statements about aboriginal employment in the live export industry are common sense. It won't please those among our readers who want all meat consumption to cease.

People who admire the camel for its remarkable adaptations, and then again those who also see it as a form of transport - indeed a major part of such an economy - to replace petroleum (in a futuristic nomadic culture for Australia) won't be impressed at any idea that reduces this animal to its value as meat alone. Advocating the use of camels for meat runs the risk of entrenching the camel further since it would acquire industrial value and similar industrial lobby strength as cattle and sheep. However the camel, even if it is a damaging eater, has virtuously padded rather than hoofed feet

The article also won't please ecologists who would see buffalo as highly destructive to the northern territory environment, although, in the buffalo's defense, its hoof has been described as wider and bigger than that of other cattle in proportion to its size and therefore less compacting to the environment. Another argument is that the buffalo has existed in wetlands in northern Australia for 150 years and the harm attributed to it needs to be taken in the context of the many other causes of damage to the wetlands.

I cite from "The Water Buffalo: New Prospects for an Underutilized Animal," where you will find more on the buffalo and the environment.

"Soil Compaction

Water buffaloes have larger hooves than cattle of comparable size and thus they compact the soil less. But buffaloes often live in damp, boggy areas where their feet may compact soft soils. Also, buffaloes are creatures of habit and, when able, they set up fixed points for drinking, feeding, defecating, wallowing, and sleeping. Between the points they wear sharply defined trails in the vegetation and soil.

Wallowing

Possibly the water buffalo's greatest environmental limitation is its propensity to build wallows. In hot climates every buffalo will wallow at some time during the heat of the day if water is available. When they can, buffaloes will make their own wallows, enlarging a mud puddle by rolling in it or even using their heads to flip water out of a drinking trough and muddying the ground nearby.

The pasture in the immediate area of the wallow is usually damaged by trampling and waterholes may become fouled, but buffaloes return to the same wallow day after day and do not build new ones indiscriminately. Thus, the muddied area is not a large proportion of the location in which they graze unless a large number of animals are confined in a small space(At Gainesville, Florida (possibly because of its subtropical but not hot climate), a herd of 52 buffaloes concentrated in a one-hectare field did not attempt to build a wallow at all. - Information supplied by H. Popenoe.) . In addition, man-made wallows can be dug at safe sites and the animals will use them. The problem of wallowing is therefore not generally a serious one." Source:
http://www.cd3wd.com/cd3wd_40/lstock/001/CattlGen/Wat-Buffalo/B1723_13.HTM

Anonymous (not verified)

Mon, 2011-06-20 20:04

The carbon tax will put undue financial burden on families, and taxpayers in general. It it were a case of us all in this together to combat the worst of climate change, and reduce carbon emissions, then maybe the public could be convinced that a united effort was worthwhile. However, there are too many contradictory policies coming from Canberra. Despite the global challenges of overpopulation, climate change devastation, environmental degradation, food threats, pollution and species extinctions, we as a top-species are still multiply our numbers and keep consuming at an exponential rate! It defies logic and that we are supposedly rational and intelligent creatures. It's all about denial, and thinking irrationally that a bigger herd will actually protect us from multiple threats, but this is what, in turn, is actually threatening us! Global populations boomed with colonial expansion,oil and technological developments, but there are no new territories to conquer, and scientists know there are limits to growth. Economic demands for growth are hijacking governments, contrary to our interests. Australia is the biggest exporter of coal, and we are still clearing land, exporting woodchips, encouraging the livestock industries, and immigration means that those from developing countries adopt our lifestyles and consumption patterns. The same politicians enforcing population growth are those also imposing a carbon tax on consumers!

admin

Sun, 2011-06-19 15:29

There is no way, even if we achieve our most ambitious plans for the expansion of candobetter.net, that we can hope to be able to publish, on this site, more than a small fraction of all the stories on the Internet that are likely to be of interest to all of our regular readers. But we can, with your help, in addition to publishing here some of the more far-sighted material on the Internet in our areas of interest, hope to be able to provide links to more of the important material on other sites in similar fields. For now, until we develop a more comprehensive system, please visit the page Links to articles which may be of interest to candobetter visitors and add, as comments, information, including links, about articles which may be of interest to candobetter visitors.

Geoffrey Taylor

Sun, 2011-06-19 11:35

Pertinent arguments about Obama's claim that the US is not engaged in hostilities against Libya are cited in the Christian Science Monitor article linked to above: UN resolution on Libya: Does it let allies target Qaddafi? * “An honest appraisal of the activities that the United States continues to engage in would put the administration squarely within the purview of the War Powers Resolution,” the Washington Post editorial board opined Thursday, noting continuing US airstrikes, use of Predator drones, and logistical and intelligence support. * “It is absurd to say that US forces are engaged in Libya for purely humanitarian missions,” wrote Fox News contributor and former State Department adviser Christian Whiton, on Friday. “Were this true, we would not be striking Tripoli directly, including repeated strikes on Qaddafi’s headquarters.” * And from House Speaker John Boehner on Friday: “The White House’s suggestion that there are no ‘hostilities’ taking place in Libya defies rational thought.”

Sheila Newman

Sun, 2011-06-19 10:52

This is an amazing piece of news commentary because it reports so very frankly on how people in the US don't want the war and also how people in Libya don't want it. It also illustrates the war with realistic footage of injuries that are its consequence. RT Media have a lot of interesting reports on You Tube. Here is another about protests in Latin America at US training schools that have produced violent officials, where reporters were arrested, apparently for filming the protests. http://www.youtube.com/embed/1LyU0z_WpCU

Anonymous (not verified)

Sun, 2011-06-19 08:49

Forget the "virtual sex life" - try some memory stimulants! In Australia, the world's driest inhabited continent, drought punctuates the climate record with disheartening regularity. We are a nation of droughts and flooding rains! Some droughts last for a long time, while other droughts can be short, but cause lots of damage. Here are some other major droughts that have affected Australia: * 1864 to 1866 – this drought affected all States in Australia, except Tasmania. * 1880 to 1886 – the southern States of Australia were affected, especially along the east of the country. * 1895 to 1903 – this was one of the most severe droughts in Australia. It caused the death of almost half of all sheep and cattle in the country. * 1911 to 1916 – 19 million sheep and 2 million cattle died from lack of water. * 1918 to 1920 – only parts of Western Australia were not affected by drought. * 1939 to 1945 – nearly 30 million sheep died during this six year drought. * 1963 to 1968 – this drought destroyed almost half of Australia’s wheat crop and 20 million sheep. * 1982 to 1983 – this was an intense drought that affected many areas of Australia. * 1991 to 1995 – a long-term drought that affected rural producers and cost about $5 billion to Australia. The last drought, or "big Dry", started in 2003 and has only recently broken with flooding. We need to be reminded at times that we depend on Nature's bounty, and should not assume it, or destroy the ecological basis for our survival and well-being.

Nihilist (not verified)

Sat, 2011-06-18 17:49

Subject was: Virtual Water Supply Virtual : Existing in the mind, specially a product of the imagination. (thefreedictionary.com) While the usage of Murray-Darling River water for various agricultural purposes is certainly contentious and debatable and all affected or concerned are unlikely to ever agree on the answers to the problems it seems to me that this report has very little relevence to the debate. Australia has an embarrassing oversupply of water as many Queenslanders have found this year, it just seems to be in the wrong places at the wrong times. My use of 8,000 virtual litres to buy a pair of leather shoes or 2,400 virtual litres to eat a hamburger or the export of cattle (or minerals or most other products) to China is hardly going to affect anything that this Fair Water Use mob is concerned about. So - The problem is? And - The answer is? On the scale of things I need to apply my mind to this is certainly well down the list and well below the problem of my virtual sex life. If the only answer to a problem is that we need to go back to living in caves, count me out of being part of the solution.

nimby

Fri, 2011-06-17 15:52

This is your opportunity to be involved in shaping Victoria’s economic reform agenda by contributing your views on important issues affecting the states productivity, participation and competitiveness. The Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission have today released an issues paper outlining a series of questions and topics the Commission would like to explore. A report into Victoria’s productivity, competitiveness and labour participation prepared by ACIL Tasman to inform the issues paper has also been released. An issues paper has been released to assist those wishing to participate in the inquiry. Submissions are invited by 29 July 2011. The issues paper outlines: • how to make a submission • issues on which the Commission is seeking feedback and further information • the Commission’s consultation processes, including the inquiry’s key dates. In addition, the report provides a preliminary assessment of Victoria’s competitive position in the areas of: • regulation and red tape reduction • infrastructure, including transport, water and waste-water, and energy • state taxes • education and skills • innovation • quality of living. Maybe reminding our politicians and administrators that there is more to our lives than economic growth, and that the basis of our economic and State's holistic welfare depends on environmental health, integrity and outputs. This means protecting our diminishing ecosystems, our wildlife, our soils and our waterways. Inquiry into a State-based reform agenda By mail to: Victorian State-Based Reform Inquiry Victorian Competition & Efficiency Commission GPO Box 4379 Melbourne VIC 3001 OR By facsimile to: 03 9092 5845 By email: [email protected] You can also register your interest by emailing your name and contact details to [email protected] and include ‘Registration of Interest – State-Based Reform Agenda Inquiry’ in the subject heading.

Mary (not verified)

Fri, 2011-06-17 10:57

To avoid nursing home fees, and the government grab of property, you must make sure you are devoid of assets. The family home should stay the home of the family, not subsidize nursing care. With rising housing costs, inheriting the family home is more important than ever. So many people are being displaced from ownership of land and housing, due to the manufactured housing bubble. Before old age sets in, make sure your assets are distributed to those who you want. It's a sad reality, but Treasury are doing everything they can to dismantle Australia, and the "Lucky Country" we once had will become a faded memory. International settlers are largely much more satisfied with little and these people make much more compliant citizens.

nimby

Thu, 2011-06-16 12:41

Up to 500 stakeholders from northern Western Australia's cattle industry will meet in Broome today (16th June) with the aim of reviving live cattle exports to Indonesia as soon as possible. They are concerned about their financial futures. There's little concern about the horrific pain and grief caused to cattle exported during 10 years. They are concerned only for their own welfare. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said that the Australian ban on live export should serve as a challenge to become self-sufficient. Australian Farmers and pastoralists have set up their businesses, relying in government integrity and sound administration. They are betrayed too. Though eastern Indonesia's "Spice Islands" country's cuisine as a whole, developed largely as a result of spice-seeking immigrants. Ancient meals consisted of fish, fruits, and vegetables, including bananas, yams, coconut, and sugar cane. Although meals are generally simple, the plentiful use of various roots, spices, grasses, and leaves adds zest to most dishes. Beef products are consumed mostly by urbanites. Rural consumption of beef is kept in check by the need to maintain buffalo as draught animals and cows as milk producers. These animals are accustomed to being handled, and so their slaughter is not fraught with struggles like that of Australia's wild and free range Brahman cattle. Chicken remains the meat of choice – Indonesians generally eat twice as much chicken as beef. Soya-based tofu and 'tempeh' are an important part of the daily diet throughout the archipelago. The poor in Indonesia are periodically experiencing low scale famines. Due to the expected growth of world population until 2050 and the need to face climate change, the world will have to produce more food in the years to come. Lack of oil and fertilzers will mean that each nation must learn to be sustainable, and grow local crops. If farmers knowingly kept sending their animals to overseas developing nations knowing that they have no animal welfare standards and that the atrocities against them must be kept secret from the Australian public, then their economic foundations were based on false security and unethical foundations. Crying poor after 30 years of animal activist lobbying against the live export industry, and the revelations of sadism in hell-hole abattoirs, does not help us to feel sorry for the farmers. Industries boom, and bust. Many people lose job to overseas markets and when industries become outdated and unsustainable. Australia must come to terms with food security, soil depletion and sustainability issues of long-term livestock farming.

Fair Water Use

Thu, 2011-06-16 12:25

As stated in the paper, the definition of virtual water is somewhat variable:

“In 2003, A.Y. Hoekstra (a scientist at the University of Twente in the Netherlands) expanded the definition of virtual water as being to denote the water used in the production process of an agricultural or industrial product, “including the water applied in the use and waste stages of the product.”. He used this definition to calculate the Virtual Water Content (VWC) of various agricultural commodities and later did an extensive estimation of the Virtual Water transfers between nations.”

Although a proportion (as yet undefined) of virtual water will certainly return to the hydrologic cycle, the water consumed in the creation of produce for export in any given year is effectively lost to other uses, including environmental flows and production for the domestic market.

Bandicoot

Thu, 2011-06-16 10:33

The Burned Area Emergency Response Report (BAER) from a team of more than 60 scientists and specialists recommended that the government "must reduce logging volumes to reflect the reduction in habitat and timber resource". The reports acknowledged that only a small area could be safely salvage logged. However, this advice was ignored. More than ten times the amount of salvage logging stipulated in these reports was logged. Excess logging continued under the smoke-screen of pseudo-science. VicForests used the tragic Black Saturday fires as an excuse for a timber grab. The abundance of large trees with hollows is significantly reduced in forests after salvage harvesting. Salvage logging also reduces the number of places that typically support the highest diversity of tree-living marsupials and forest birds. Thousands of tonnes of high-quality sawlogs from Victoria’s bushfire-devastated Central Highlands forests (near Healesville) are being secretly shipped to China, against state government policy, The Wilderness Society has revealed. “VicForests is responsible for implementing the ban on whole log exports, but it appears they have allowed the system to be rorted. We find it very hard to believe that VicForests didn’t know this was going on” said The Wilderness Society’s Victorian Campaigns Manager Richard Hughes. Secret export of sawlogs destroys native forests, betrays Victorian communities A timber merchant has been accused of putting Victorian jobs at risk by sending thousands of tonnes of wood salvaged after the deadly Black Saturday fires overseas for processing. VicForests investigates timber claim Now the timber merchants, the pillagers and the plunderers who are stripping our Victorian native forests, are fighting over the spoils of their crimes! Our native forests are another natural asset being stripped to fuel China's economic growth.

Sprinkler Buff (not verified)

Thu, 2011-06-16 07:09

I find this very hard to believe. Who is allowing Australia to ship so much water? More than any other nation? There's just no way. My dad was there a few years ago and he could hardly find words for the seriousness of the drought they've been having. Who is collecting all the shipped water? Surely someone needs to be fired.

Editorial comment: 1 litre of water can be very closely approximated to 1000 cm3 = 1 x 10-12 km3. This means that the 72,998 Gigalitres that Australia is exporting each year can be thought of as 73 cubic kilometres of water, figure that is almost too huge to imagine.

If we take into account, the water imports of 9,07 cubic kilometres, the total net exports of water would be 64 cubic kilometres. However, very little of that imported water would help offset the environmental damage caused by the extraction of 73 cubic kilometres for export.

Rahul (not verified)

Wed, 2011-06-15 21:07

I am from India have been keeping exotic birds for some time now - coincidentally I am expecting my first batch of 'captive-bred' Gouldians this week. It is a shock to learn that there are only about 2500 Gouldians in the wild and more shocking to know that the Australian authorities are turning a blind eye to this impending crisis. I pray that good sense prevails and they take all possible measures to protect these living jewels. Better late than never . .

Anonymous (not verified)

Wed, 2011-06-15 13:14

Not sure which log you guys have been hiding under but Victoria has an extensive aircraft fleet for aerial firefighting and has had for several decades - by far the best and most well organised in the country. As the report says you need to get aircraft up fast to stop a fire. In the case of Black Saturday the only successful saves by aircraft in stopping the fire were 1 in Narrie Warren when an Aircrane "dropped in" on the way past and another in the Dandenongs when a Bell 205 was already airborne heading to another fire. In no circumstances on Black Saturday did an aircraft get dispatched from a standing start and stop a fire. In 98% of cases the aircraft could only undertake asset protection works (which they did well). It is totally unrealistic to have aircraft in the air just flying around waiting for a fire to start - particularly given the conditions of Black Saturday.

Try Googling "SAU Victoria" and you will find out all about the States comprehensive fleet.

Bandicoot

Mon, 2011-06-13 17:55

The Northern Territory coroner has declared a cattle station in the territory a restricted area after finding that a 17-year-old boy who worked there died of suspected arsenic poisoning. The teenager may have been exposed to the arsenic through groundwater or from treated timber. The tests are inconclusive as yet. It appears that authorities may have ignored recommendations for bore water testing in the Northern Territory. There's arsenic poisoning of at least eight cattle station residents. A report identifies the area surrounding Mount Bundy Station as being at high risk of arsenic concentrations above Australian drinking water guidelines. Up to 60 people, including a dozen residents, were advised on Saturday night that they would have to leave the station. The NT coroner has declared Mt Bundy Station, on the banks of the Adelaide River, a restricted area and has asked all residents and visitors to leave. The source of the arsenic was "unknown". According to Dr Gavin Mudd from Monash university: Basically the exposure of a lot of what used to be effectively crystalline rock that wasn't very leechable, by mining it, by blasting it and crushing it whether it becomes the tailings after say gold processing or the waste rock that is associated with say an open cut mine, that allows more water and oxygen and so on to get into that rock and help accelerate the chemistry of leeching the arsenic out of that rock. ABC

Milly O (not verified)

Mon, 2011-06-13 12:51

The dark humor of kangaroos organising a "cull" of the plague of humans actually shows just how absurd the "cull" of wildlife - on nature reserves - is. It's as if these ecologists, (actually Danial Iglesias is a ranger) are making kangaroos the political sacrificial lambs to appease the "gods" of public opinion for our own toxic expansion! Someone has to pay the price of human expansion, but we ourselves can't be touched, and economic benefits of human population growth are sacred, just like human lives - even of the people yet unborn! People are not an endangered species - far from it! Ignoring intrinsic values and land rights of animals means that the dimension of numbers can override any other attribute of a species existence. Justification for wildlife "culls" phrased in ecological terminology cloaks them in lingo that people are ready to believe in an accept, but easily hide a lot of prejudge and mis-information.

quark

Sun, 2011-06-12 22:08

Whose numbers are out of control? Who is overgrazing? Who is moonscaping? Who is poisoning Earth's environment? Who destroys forests killing everything in their path ? Who is endangering all the endangered species in the world ? The kangaroo killers need a reality check and a good mirror on their own species.

Anonymous (not verified)

Sun, 2011-06-12 16:48

The government’s chief energy adviser predicts household bills will jump 30 per cent by mid-2013, as companies move towards the 20 per cent renewable energy target by 2020. People will have to pay the extra carbon tax on top of these already significant rises. The heavy infrastructure needed is for our existing population, but at the same time must keep abreast out outstrip the demands of a population boom. $11 billion in subsidies will be given to fossil fuel industries, including coal, each year, that would be better spent on renewables, directly. In Victoria, where the market is privatized and retailers are free to move rates as they see fit every six months, prices have risen an average of 8 per cent during the past year. Gas prices are also predicted to rise in coming years. "No amount of sugar-coating can disguise the fact that this tax on electricity and petrol will hit Australian families right now" said Shadow Climate Change Action Minister Greg Hunt. The carbon tax is a bribe to go towards reducing carbon emissions, but the costs will be poured onto the public, with no guarantees "market forces" will bring the desired outcome.

nimby (not verified)

Sun, 2011-06-12 15:28

Not only are our traditional owners under attack, but also our Colonial history. Australia is becoming a generic land, manipulated to being devoid of history, culture and heritage due to us being multicultural, a global entity. It's about having our sovereignty also weakened by ongoing immigration and "diversity". It assumes that we are still considered terra nullius, or devoid of any culture or historical identity, or previous "baggage", and just a carte blanche to write upon. Australia is just a blank canvas to imprint upon and use. The urge to spread and consume and dominate is well entrenched in us humans, and the urge to take hold of "vacant" land and transform it into something for our use, and capitalize on it, is well and truly developed and encouraged in our modern times.

quark

Sat, 2011-06-11 22:20

Following on from Bandicoot's comment -Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu, says that Government ministers are no longer forced to acknowledge the original custodians of the Australian continent at major functions. Well wouldn't anyone with the remotest sense of Australia's history want to do this as much as they would want to sing the national anthem? With this thin end of the wedge Baillieu announcement, our history is blurred and will be gradually forgotten. It is with repetition of this at events that younger people and people new to the country come to incorporate our history into their own psyches whether of not they read history. With Baillieu's attitude now set in law it is both the indigenous and non indigenous people who lose.

James Sinnamon

Sat, 2011-06-11 02:52

On the ABC Radio news I heard that Foreign Minister and former 'Labor' Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had taken sides in the civil war now ravaging Libya by recognising the Transitional Council and not the administration of Muammar Gaddafi as the legitimate government of Libya. However, the Sydney Morning Herald reported the same day:

The federal government will continue to recognise the Gaddafi-appointed Libyan ambassador to Australia despite declaring it considers the rebels to be the country's legitimate representatives.

The Murdoch press, which stridently supported the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, which has so far cost many hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, has endorsed Rudd's recognition of the Transitional Council asthe Government of Libya (if not his continuing to recognise the Libyan ambasador) in the article, Rudd takes the lead on Libya:

RESCUING Libya's people from the ravages of the Gaddafi regime is one of the great moral challenges of our times, and Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd's success in placing Australia in the forefront of countries doing something tangible about it deserves bipartisan support. ...

nimby

Fri, 2011-06-10 15:03

GroundswellSA, a group of farmers and food producers opposed to building developments engulfing valuable agricultural land, will be launched tomorrow with a guerrilla gardening event at Seaford Heights. As many as 200 "guerrilla gardeners" will build and plant a garden on an undisclosed plot in the area earmarked for housing development. The group is based at McLaren Vale, but has strong interest in the Adelaide Hills. They say they are not "anti-development" but just protecting farming land. Why don't they just admit to being "anti-development"? The paradigm of constant growth needed for our economy is not sustainable, and is actually fatalistic. When does growth stop? We are like bacteria growing in a closed system. What happens when all our fertile and arable soils become covered over and concreted with housing? What if Australia's agriculture, once we stop being able to fertilize soils, can't produce enough food? Future generations won't be able to support an economy based on growth. There is nothing "sustainable" about it. Food and wine growing areas should be protected, and our growth-based economy needs to be replaced with one based on stability. Our population growth is not due to excessive fertility or due to a natural growth rate. It is deliberately manipulated through our immigration numbers, and baby bonuses. Our government is running an Economy primarily, one that demands constant population growth. It's short-term-ism at its worst! Our descendants obviously won't be able to rely on such a misanthropic economic model. "Sustainable" development is a lie. Populations grew and spread due to cheap oil and technology, and it is in decline, like other non-renewable natural resources. Peak oil and peak soil will make our food security paramount. "Big Australia" must be avoided, and can be, for our sake and that of our descendants. More information as Groundswell Org

Anonymous (not verified)

Thu, 2011-06-09 23:14

Also need to remember the 50% capital gains tax concession for real estate held for at least 12 months before selling. Why should a real estate investor get 50% income tax discount when an ordinary wage earner is never entitled to an equivalent discount. CGT gains are unearned income? This type of unearned income just a form of rent on resources (land and housing). There is also a total CGT exemption for owner occupied housing. This should be adjusted so the first $500,000 is tax free and then a concessional amount above that depending on how long it has been occupied, the greater the length of time the greater the concession. This change will effect only the top end of the market. Lastly, death duties. It would be easy to set it at a level which wouldn't effect most people. Say first $750,000 of an estate is exempt and every dollar above that is taxed at say 30%-40%. Most of the value of estates are in real estate, in the form of unrealized capital gains. Death duties will capture lost tax revenue of unrealised capital gains especially for multi-property estates. There would be exemptions for agricultural land if it was continued to be run as a farm business. By discouraging speculation in real estate, we can divert investment income into productive enterprises, instead of rampant and useless speculation which has the consequence of transferring wealth from low and middle income earners to those who own property.

Anonymous (not verified)

Thu, 2011-06-09 22:45

by Cynthia McKinney from Global Research, 8 June 2011 Some of the DIGNITY Delegation has departed and some have remained. We were to visit the camps of the internally-displaced persons who include Libyans and migrant workers from other parts of Africa and West Asia, but the intense bombing prevented our going out. The bombing yesterday started at 11:00 am and went nonstop until we went to sleep around 11:30 pm and we counted 89 blasts in the Tripoli area. NATO also bombed in areas outside of Tripoli including the busy part of the harbor where offloading of ships takes place. We are on our way now to continue our fact-finding.

Bandicoot

Thu, 2011-06-09 19:07

Aboriginal elders and rival politicians have urged Premier Ted Baillieu to reconsider his decision to drop at official events the mandatory acknowledgment of traditional land custodians. Australian's indigenous peoples are not convenient to recognise any more for their traditional land and their culture. They are to melt away while our land continues to be occupied and consumed by developments, farms and population growth. Australia's history apparently is not relevant and wanted any more. We are to be remodeled as a modern, generic nation and our history forgotten. Federal member for Wills Kelvin Thomson said the acknowledgment showed Australians came from a number of traditions. Australia of the past is under threat, our indigenous and Colonial history, and so is the Lucky Country we once knew! With the fragmentation of society due to ongoing immigration, it is only the older people and baby-boomers who remember Australia patriotically. Indigenous peoples are a reminder of the real Australia, our heritage, and our pre-Colonial past, and are now just another part of our multicultural minority groups. The thrust to generalise Australia in line with Asia, especially China, means that Australia is to be globalised as part of a conglomerate of nations with tied economic dependencies. The ongoing hatred of kangaroos and the massacre in Canberra, despite the science supporting their contribution to grasslands and ecology, is also evidence of the generalisation of Australia. There is little connection with traditional Australia. Australia is being disemboweled and stripped of assets and identity to make way for China's growth. Are Aborigines, along with wildlife, not welcome here?

Geoffrey Taylor

Thu, 2011-06-09 15:21

Don't miss The Kennedys this Sunday Night on ABC TV 1 at 8.30PM

I think the series is great, although it would be hard for any producer not to make a good series given the subject matter. I don't know yet how it will treat, on Sunday 12 June, the subject of his murder, the truth about which has been made a taboo topic by both the establishment newsmedia and much of the supposed alternative media. Even if the show fails to grasp that nettle, it will has still been well worth watching so far simply for showing how John F. Kennedy got to become President of the United States, what he achieved as President with the help of his brother Bobby and why he took the choices he did.

Jackie to her daughter: "Your daddy just saved the world!"

Last week JFK's wife Jacqueline Kennedy told her daughter, "Your daddy just saved the world!" after JFK had found a way to defuse the Cuban missile Crisis in 1962 as many of his generals (and some of their opposite numbers in the Eastern bloc) were doing their utmost to inflame it.

JFK was a courageous and selfless hero in every real sense: in wartime as commander of PT109 and in office when he successfully stood up to the military-industrial complex the former President Eisenhower warned against in January 1961. His example puts to shame most other world political leaders before and since.

Jack (not verified)

Thu, 2011-06-09 13:54

I just heard Jon Faine ask Wayne Swan "what business is it of ours how the Indonesians run their abattoirs. I know he has to ask provocative questions- but to me that is like asking what business is it of our how the Germans run their concentration camps. This is important because he is, for better or for worse, a leader in Australian debate.

dave1 (not verified)

Wed, 2011-06-08 13:45

I completely agree with Vivienne's points about population growth and its effect on housing supply. To my mind, the housing affordability crisis in Australia could be solved quite quickly with three policy changes: 1. Immediately reduce net immigration to a level designed to stabilise Australia's population at a sustainable level. 2. Invest in genuine decentralisation initiatives to encourage people out of the major cities and into declining rural centres, and, lastly 3. Scrap negative gearing (NG) for investment properties. On the third point, I understand that there is a perception that negative gearing adds to the pool of available rental properties. To some small extent, that might be true, but I do wonder about whether it really does as much good as its advocates claim? You might remember that in 1985, Paul Keating as PM scrapped NG on investment properties, but then quickly restored it. The story goes that this was because without NG, rents skyrocketed and tenants were forced onto the street. This story is now unassailable and repeated as fact by the HIA and REI's every time someone questions negative gearing. The trouble is, the story's not true. Some years ago, Ross Gittins explained why in an excellent article (Pollies tell fibs about negative gearing by Ross Gittins, 25 August 2003) in the Sydney Morning Herald. Gittins rightly points out that the real message that pollies are giving when they tell this story is, 'if someone as tough as Keating got beaten by the real-estate agents, why would you expect a wimp like me to take them on?' The other thing to consider is whether many current renters would prefer to buy a house, but can't afford to? Scrapping NG may mean that in the short term, some investors sell off their properties - and probably at lower prices than they'd hoped for. But this will be self-limiting because the pent up demand for reasonably priced residential homes will absorb those properties that do come onto the market. Other people (like me) who have a house that's rented out but get no benefit from NG will continue to rent their places out for the same price.

Fearless (not verified)

Wed, 2011-06-08 00:38

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/25/3226855.htm By 2050 Catholic latinos (many Mexican) are likely to be the dominant population in the USA. This article tells how Obama plays to this crowd for fear they will vote him out if he doesn't. And apparently Pres Reagan once said that Latinos are republicans; they just don't know it yet. These are conservative voters with larger families than many other Americans. They have already driven up the US birth rate. Peak oil and peak catholic population. Bad moon, folks.

nimby

Tue, 2011-06-07 21:29

Graphic footage of cattle cruelty not shown on television has been given to Prime Minister Julia Gillard by an MP in a bid to force her to act on live animal exports. One MP has sent her footage that was not shown in the programme to persuade her to support a total ban that would be phased in over the next three years. Some Labor MPs including Victorian Kelvin Thomson have urged the Prime Minister to suspend all live exports to Indonesia while an investigation is completed. Cattle will only be exported to the 25 "best" abattoirs in Indonesia. Butchers are reporting a drop in beef sales of 10-15% since last week's programme featuring graphic footage of animals being slashed and whipped. People forget that meat comes from animals. Incredibly, abattoir workers are likely to be vegetarian! If Julia Gillard has any heart, any compassion and any integrity she will be shocked and appalled by the brutality and sadism in the horrific slaughter of the poor animals betrayed by Australia. No amount of profits or economic benefits can justify what happens in these abattoirs, hell-holes, and she must agree that the live export trade in untenable and must end.

nimby

Tue, 2011-06-07 08:12

Yes, negative gearing is a tax shelter for those with enough wealth to invest in property at a time of un affordable housing, mortgage stress and homelessness. However, it does provide some rental accommodation for those who choose to rent. Negative gearing should at least be limited outer and regional areas to give first-home buyers some access to more inner-urban "cheaper" housing, but competition from investors is exacerbating the housing "shortage" - but the root source of the problem is really population growth! Economists and politicians deliberately set out to create the Australian housing bubble in order to boost the banks and property development industries' wealth. It's about redistribution of wealth from average wage-earners and families into the hands of the elite. The population growth needed for these industries has caused a massive redistribution of wealth, and it has been an easy way for banks to make profits due to a guaranteed increasing demand - through immigration. Cheap housing has been eradicated by our government. Australia used to be the "Lucky Country" - something that is fading into history! We had the highest rate of home-ownership of any nation, and the envy of the world. The real problem is that our (engineered) population growth continually outstrips housing, public funding and public spending. At a time of planetary depletions and decline, we should be in the consolidation stage of our community's life-cycle, not still pumping up our growth! This growth-push puts enormous pressure on our society, with the threats of urban sprawl and high-density living impinging on our green wedges, parklands, our sustainability, our quality of life, and our heritage areas. To add injury to insult, we are expected to pay a carbon tax? Why should the public be forced, financially, to reduce power consumption and greenhouse gas emissions while our government continues "business as usual" with growth, mining and coal exports? Anthropogenic climate change can't be mitigated while at the same time a large part of our economy relies on population growth - it's a cruel contradiction.

dave1 (not verified)

Mon, 2011-06-06 14:38

In what comes as a surprising admission from one of our Big 4 Bank's CEO's, Phil Chronican has come out questioning whether negative gearing on investment properties is healthy for the nation. Negative gearing, which provides billions of dollars of tax breaks and is used by about 1.7 million property users, has correctly been identified as a major cause of spiralling real estate prices.. ''Governments might want to look at whether the current extent of negative gearing tax breaks are fostering an unhealthy focus on housing as an investment vehicle, thereby compounding affordability issues,'' Chronican told a business lunch in Sydney. He said real estate should not be regarded as speculative investment vehicle but as ''a place to live in, sleep, eat and raise your family''. Go Mr Chronican!!

Anonymous (not verified)

Mon, 2011-06-06 09:38

Speaking of immigration and population growth, it appears that Julia Gillard's undeclared mass immigration programme is pushing us toward an even Bigger Australia than the 36 million supported by Rudd. "... according to the Treasury assumptions behind the plan to get the budget back in surplus in 2012/13, she is planning over the next three years to increase population by 1.5% pa, greater than the 1.2% pa which leads to a forecast 36 million by 2030 in the Intergenerational Report." Source: http://www.theindependentaustralian.com.au/node/140

admin

Mon, 2011-06-06 08:19

From Global Research (http://globalresearch.ca) article by Imed Lamloum: Libya has accused NATO of killing 718 civilians and wounding 4,067 in 10 weeks of air strikes, as African efforts for a truce stalled and Italy said Muammar Gaddafi's regime is "finished." The toll of dead and injured was given at a news conference on Tuesday in Tripoli by government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim, who also warned the departure of Gaddafi would be a "worst case scenario" for Libya. "Since March 19, and up to May 26, there have been 718 martyrs among civilians and 4,067 wounded - 433 of them seriously," Ibrahim said, citing health ministry figures which cannot be independently verified He said these figures do not include Libyan military casualties, a toll the defence ministry refuses to divulge. ...

admin

Mon, 2011-06-06 08:10

Read Global Research (http://globalresearch.ca) article by Marta Soler and Carlos Robles.

During the day, one can see several hundred working class demonstrators against the cutbacks at the postal service near Syntagma Square (the parliament), with the fear that the government will privatize it and sell it to a German company which will lay off large numbers of postal workers (perhaps over 50%). At 6 o’clock in Syntagma Square, a crowd starts to gather under a banner which says "no to apathy – direct democracy (amesi demokratia)." It is the ninth day of such gatherings and discussions. There is an open mike for speeches and proposals. By 8, some 50,000 people have gathered (I am with some friends near the speaker on the edge of the people seated, the crowd surges around, and up the high steps to the road that separates the Parliament and may extend over in front of it. The woman who moderates (one of several moderators) calls for a continuation of a discussion proposed the previous night (that meeting ended at 4 AM), and takes hands for 20 speakers (eventually there is a vote which approves hearing from all of them before continuing).

Most of the crowd is young, the people in their twenties. The European Union, to which the Greek government is obsequious, even though headed by a Socialist (George Papandreou, who is reputed - a rarity among leading Socialists - an honest man), has demanded that the Greek parliament vote on June 15 on a maximum salary for every young worker before she reaches the age of 25: five hundred – 500 - euros a month. This is a poverty, near starvation wage for a young Athenian (barely enough to pay rent – perhaps if 4 people share an apartment - let alone eat).

The Greek parliament has been a weak institution, limited by fascism and a military coup and tyranny (1967-74). It is a series of small desks (one has to hunch in to sit in them, as I discovered when I took my students to see it three years ago). There is no space for an audience. Parliament in Greece is confined, and behind closed doors. A generally discussed proposal in the crowd is to block the parliamentarians from entering the parliament, prevent a vote, get them to drop the proposal. ...

Greg (not verified)

Sun, 2011-06-05 19:53

Salt's moderated position in this discussion was transparently disingenuous to anyone abreast of the issue. The notion of growing for 'just another 10-15 years' is obviously an oily smokescreen. It seeks to maintain the momentum of the status quo by diverting attention from, and marginalising as 'extreme', the action that is immediately necessary. Given similar politics in 10-15 years time, Mr Salt or his regenerative industry clones will be maintaining the same notional horizon for delay.

A rejoinder to Salt's pretense is to ask him to define the process by which building trades jobs will transitioned to enable his envisioned growth slowdown in 10-15 years time. If he has or knows of such a plan, then why not apply it now? If he hasn't one, or any clue where one will come from, then quite obviously he is going to chant the same reasons for extending growth rates at that future time.

It is true that employment patterns and collateral-based debt (hinged upon property price increases) within the current economy are huge structural problems. However these problems only get worse by propping them up via ongoing population growth.

I've recently come across the following stark illumination:

"The earth isn't dying, people are killing it. These people have names and addresses."

I understand that Mr Salt's address is Camberwell, a leafy Melbourne suburb largely unaffected by the negative conditions pursuant to Mr Salt's advocacy. B.S. and his ilk are able to protect their own amenity with the considerable wealth they garner from activity that commits many others to hell. He should perhaps plan on building himself higher walls if he intends to continue touting the growth of hell on earth around him.

dave1 (not verified)

Sun, 2011-06-05 17:24

You are correct. I must have been having a brain fade when I wrote 'Ted'. Either that or I was channelling Ted NUGENT!?!

nimby (not verified)

Sun, 2011-06-05 14:20

The latest costs from last summer's Queensland floods and Cyclone Yasi have climbed to $6.8 billion, $1 billion higher than the State Government's February estimate.

As well as loss of lives and livelihoods, there has also been enormous damage to infrastructure and significant costs incurred in managing the response and recovery process. Queensland will end up being liable for around $1.8 billion in damage costs when the loans provided are redeemed. It illustrates just how fragile our economy is to natural disasters and human error. Julia Gillard's "big Australia" will mean that far from ensure a bigger tax base and more prosperity, there will be more potential risks and damage especially in a nation prone to droughts and flooding rain.

The second line of "Advance Australia Fair":

For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share;

... needs to be revised!

Protect Public Land (not verified)

Fri, 2011-06-03 14:24

Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. members and friends I Public Meeting - Save St Mary's Paddock : Our Open Space for Children's Farm and Abbotsford Convent 10:30 am Saturday 4 June 2011 Good news is that Heritage Victoria has refused an application for a school in the Abbotsford Convent Precinct to expand and build classrooms on St Mary's Paddock. So the event will be a celebration. CARA (and all of us) thanks the 2,400 objectors. The meeting will consider plus to consider "where to from here." When: 10:30 am Saturday 4 June 2011 Where: The Farm Building Abbotsford Convent. Enter Clarke Street, off Johnston Street Collingwood into St Heliers Street.(Melways Map Reference: 2D B9) Transport: Parking off St Helier's Street in Abbotsford Convent Precinct. Johnston Street Bus. Contact: C.A.R.A (Collingwood and Abbotsford Residents Association) See Website: http://cararesidents.wordpress.com Facebook Fan Page: 'Save St Mary's Paddock: Our Open Space for Farm and Convent' PO Box 304 Abbotsford 3067

Mary (not verified)

Fri, 2011-06-03 11:05

Recruited from the Master Builders Association to head the ACT Government's affordable housing strategy, Mr Dawes says he is fighting for development on all fronts, from every back street of Canberra to Commonwealth legislation to protect the environment. Mr Dawes said the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act Commonwealth protection of nationally and internationally important flora, fauna, ecological communities and heritage places was causing him grief. He said he had not realised the ACT harboured so many endangered critters. In the past 5 years, the average property price in the ACT has grown from just on $400,000 to $550,000. On one hand there is the need to live sustainably within the constraints of our environment and infrastructure, and on the other the need for further growth to enhance the services expected by the community. The "need" for growth needs to be questioned. The illogical fear of kangaroos when the real threat to our environmental integrity is human developments and urban sprawl is a case of blindness and arrogance. Kangaroos are native animals, they don't emit greenhouse gases, they are able to peacefully co-exist with other native flora and fauna, and do not need housing or bulldozing of land. It seems that anything is tradeable and destroyable when it's in the path of growth of people!

PR for Australia (not verified)

Fri, 2011-06-03 09:46

Editor: This comment will lead you to a Singapore site that markets immigration to Australia, using articles from our major newspapers. The actual comment was "Some will require a job offer in regional Australia. In other words some people will have fewer immigration hurdles to overcome than others." We take it that this site is encouraging people to apply as if they intended to live in regional Australia in order to have a better chance at permanent visas. Just publishing this very misplaced comment for educational purposes about how our media are used to pump up Australia's immigration rate and how there are internet sites all over the place recruiting more immigrants. We need some sites that tell potential immigrants that we are overpopulated and that the government and corporate sector and media are advertising for immigrants against the will of citizens.

Public Interest (not verified)

Fri, 2011-06-03 06:43

June 1, 2011"[...] Now, the controversial drilling activity is being linked to earthquakes ? first in Arkansas, where companies are developing the prolific Fayetteville play, and now at Britain's first shale gas exploration site, near Blackpool in northwest England. U.K.-based Cuadrilla Resources suspended its hydraulic fracturing ? in which chemically laced water is injected at high pressure to crack open gas-bearing rock pending a review of the seismic activity near the Preese Hall drilling site. The British Geological Survey said it recorded a 1.5-magnitude earthquake on Friday, following a 2.3-magnitude quake in April, both near the drilling site operated by Cuadrilla. Neither caused any damage. In a statement posted on its website, the BGS said evidence suggests the high pressure "fracking" as the process is also known ? may have caused the quakes. "The timing of the two events in conjunction with the fluid injection suggests that they may be related," it said.[...] From: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-news/shale-gas-fracking-halted-after-possible-quake-link/article2042598/

Anonymous (not verified)

Fri, 2011-06-03 02:06

I heard that Bernard Salt had another good go on ABC radio the night before last or early yesterday morning - this time without an opponent. I think it would be only fair for Tony Delroy (host) to give someone from the other side an equal opportunity. Tony used to be quite good and original - but now appears to be toeing the line. I don't know how these journalists can look at themselves in the mirror each day. They have to realise that Salt is plying a fraud and its a dangerous fraud for Australia.

Bandicoot

Thu, 2011-06-02 18:29

ACT Parks and Conservation is this year targeting 3427 kangaroos on six sites in the Canberra Nature Park. It's history repeating itself! The great enemy, kangaroos, have over-bred and now need "managing" in Canberra, our official kangaroo-hating national capital. The irony is that kangaroos are in Canberra's Nature Park, and they are part of Nature! They are part of our national natural heritage, represented on our Coat of Arms, yet their presence is loathed and hated! The "cull" is justified because kangaroo numbers continue to rise despite the Government’s Kangaroo Management Plan culling program. The greenwashing is that kangaroos need to be "managed" to "protect the integrity of ecosystems, several of which contain endangered flora and fauna". Kangaroos evolved with our fauna and flora, and are not their enemy! The hypocrisy is appalling! The integrity of the ecosystem is at danger from man, not native animals. They are felling old growth forests and land continues to be degraded for pasture but the enemy is the kangaroos! They are just scapegoats for the number of cars, human population expansion, feral plants and animals, and livestock. Welcome to Australia, the land of kangaroos!!! Contacts to write to: ACT Minister Environment Simon Corbell MLA Phone: (02) 6205 0000 Email: [email protected] ACT Chief Minister- Katy Gallagher Phone:(02) 6205 0840 Email: [email protected] PM Julia Gillard http://www.pm.gov.au/contact-your-pm Tony Burke- Federal Minister Environment http://www.tonyburke.com.au/get-in-touch/

quark

Wed, 2011-06-01 11:43

Dally Messenger reminds us of the productivity of retired people. This is never mentioned by those using the ageing argument to keep increasing the population through high immigration intakes of people due also to be "old" in 30 or 40 years ! It was good to hear mentioend on the program the fact that only a minority of people in Australia end their lives in aged care faclities. The growthist rhetoric with regard to ageing gives the impression that people go from being productive members of the community (or should I say economy?) to being being a burden as they move from full time work to retirement. I would say there are people who are "working" and might descibe themselves as productive who are actually a burden on the rest of us: those who are make profits from growth at the expense of most of us who are not.

dave1 (not verified)

Wed, 2011-06-01 11:04

In the post above, R. RAVEINDRAN says: 'There exists a railway street in Baulkham hills next to the bowling club. This would mean that a railway line existed between Parramatta and Castle Hills (forgive me if I am wrong).' There was indeed - once - a railway platform at Baulkham Hills. It was part of the short-lived Rogans Hill railway line, which replaced an even earlier tram service. The line was closed in 1930. I remember seeing a photo of the Castle Hill station in a school text book during the early 1980's. The Wikipedia article on the Rogans Hill line says of it's demise; 'The line proved to be unsuccessful - unlike the tramway, goods traffic was not carried and the stations were too sparsely spread to be as convenient as the tram it replaced. The rise of motor traffic on the adjacent roadway, which was not divided from the railway, also assisted in the lines demise. Passengers preferred the new and faster motor buses which could take them directly to businesses in Parramatta, and the line closed on 31 January 1932. The district that the line served is now substantially developed, and is a region of Sydney deficient in fixed-rail public transport infrastructure. A railway to the Hills District is currently (2007) being planned to remedy this, but following a different alignment' NSWRail.net also has a good piece about the line here. Cheers.

dave1 (not verified)

Wed, 2011-06-01 10:41

Correction made to heading. Heading had incorrectly given Joe Bageant's first name as 'Ted'. Thank you to the anonymous commentator who pointed out the mistake. - Ed, 3 Jun 11

Ted Bageant was one of the finest observers of corporate capitalism and it's effect on the working poor in the US.

He chastised the traditional right in America for it's sycophantic relationship with corporate America and it's greed-based philosophy, which is entirely as you might expect.

Where he was almost unique, though, was in his acute critique of what passes for the new left. He noted that many on the left felt nothing short of disdain for 'white trash' and were more comfortable espousing fashionable causes than in taking action that would directly confront big business or improve the lives of some backwards rednecks.

A similar trend can be observed clearly in Australia, where Green Left Weekly (see greenleft.org.au - Ed) is still more likely to be banging on about Tamils celebrating Mulivaikal Rembrance Day than arguing for trade or finance system reforms that would directly benefit Australian workers.

A full copy of one Mr Bageant's last interviews, with the ABC's Big Ideas program, can be found here.

We could use more like Ted.

Dally Messenger III (not verified)

Wed, 2011-06-01 06:25

Isn't this a no brainer? The report on climate change comes out. We are heading to 2 degrees or more average climate change in the world with its disastrous consequences. I am personally very conscious of this, yet I use up the world's resources at an alarming rate. (Just look at your garbage, folks). So every person we bring into the world makes the position worse. One would think that every rational being could see this. And I object to Salt's contention that we need more young workers to pay for the likes of me. I am 73, yet I did not semi-retire until I was 69. I still do at least two days a week of work, much of which is voluntary for the community. Most retired people I know are still contributing something. My GP friend, Dr Raoul Tunbridge, is 84 and is still working three days a week - bringing a lifetime of experience to his patients. The attitude to retirement is changing. Doing nothing leads to an early death, Bernard. Kelvin Thomson, Mark O'Connor, and Dick Smith should be society's heroes - perhaps they are.

Anonymous (not verified)

Tue, 2011-05-31 21:12

What you have written in this article reminds me a lot of the book I just finished reading: Joe Bageant's final book - Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir In it he describes how large number of white semi-subsistence farming clans in the US had there lives destroyed by industrialisation and corporatism. They migrated in great numbers to the towns and cities where they lost all the bonds they previously had and entered the mainstream economy as unskilled workers, a position they still occupy today, if they still have a job. Families that had largely provided for themselves became dependent on jobs for a weekly pay cheque, often at the bottom rung of the workforce living precariously until hit by illness or job loss that stopped their income, at which points their lives became even more difficult. Joe Bageant has written a fascinating account of the process which has lead to the situation we have today. Admittedly the situation in Australia is not as bad. Australia has a higher minimum wage, and has a relatively functioning universal health care system. The other difference is that in the US these rural clans where well established with some having farmed the same area for around 200-300 years before the great post WW2 migrations.

Joe Z (not verified)

Tue, 2011-05-31 21:02

Jon Faine seems to assume that 80% of Australians need to change their opposition to population growth, rather than that he should change his attitude and listen to and represent those wise Australians. What presumption these ABC announcers have! With a public media like that, what do we need enemies for? They've been romanced by the bankers. Can anyone tell me why this is happening? Why doesn't any party stand up against these growthers? Why don't the people insist that the media stop reporting them?

Jack (not verified)

Tue, 2011-05-31 20:53

I disagree with the comment that taking fish from nature to eat is somewhat wrong. I assure you that far more than 30 bream are killed and discarded during a single session of prawn trawling. You cannot compare the industrial harvesting of commercial fishing to recreational fishing. Tell me of a single fish species that has been decimated by recreational fishing. Why should recreational anglers have to pay for the excesses of commercial fishing when we put in the effort and dollars to enjoy our sport and bring something home to the table at the end of the day? Why don't you suggest increasing the cost of commercially caught fish so that consumers who refuse to pay can go without which might actually shut down or reduce commercial fishing activities and do some good for the future of fish stocks.

Millicent (not verified)

Tue, 2011-05-31 17:31

""Australia should understand that the level development of Indonesians is different from the level of development of Australians" says Indonesia's Vice-Minister of Agriculture, Bayu Krisnamurthi, Animal cruelty is animal cruelty, no matter what language. What has "development" got to do with it? Is this guy saying Indonesia is a primitive country full of savages with no empathy or compassion? Next they'll be crying "racism" - another new meaning to the word for political convenience and manipulation. Animal suffer when they are butchered while still conscious - and animal welfare MUST transcend politics, diplomacy and profits.

Geoffrey Taylor

Tue, 2011-05-31 15:59

It is instructive that Bernard Salt did not attempt to respond to Dick Smith's point that since the 1950's when his parents were able to buy a free standing suburban home in Sydney, with only his father having paid employment, that housing has since become five times less affordable. With the cost of a basic commodity as shelter having risen five times in real terms, is it any wonder that, in so many households, both parents have to work? Is it any wonder that often each or both partners often have to work for considerably more than the 40 hours that Dick Smith's father would have had to work back in the 1950's? How could anyone but an 'economist' seriously maintain that living standards have risen, when very many ordinary people, even on what would be considered middle class incomes, must now work so hard to service the debt necessary to be able to pay for the secure shelter that could be bought by Dick Smith's father on only one income in the 1950's? 'Economists' maintain the fiction that living standards have risen in Australia because of population growth with claimed measures of wealth such as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Unfortunately, many critics of modern economists, apparently including Dick Smith, aren't aware of just how flawed the GDP is. Dick Smith also alluded to the GDP when he showed how GDP in the United States, contrary to Australia's experience thus far, had fallen massively during the recent period of population growth. If Dick Smith had understood the serious shortcomings of the GDP then he would have realised that the fall in average real wealth in the US during the period of population growth would have been even greater than that indicated by the the amount by which the US per capita GDP has fallen. The GDP, as computed by 'economists' fails to recognise many cost of living increases. If it did it would be a far more useful measure. However much of what is shown by the GDP as increased real wealth must be spent on expenses that people did not have to meet in the past. If a proper measure of prosperity could be used, there is no way that Salt could put over so much of the Australian public the lie that population growth somehow adds to their prosperity.

Mother-of-none (not verified)

Tue, 2011-05-31 14:27

I think it is very interesting the way that Jon Faine sort of lets the underdog express themselves but always manages to bolster the corporate business view. Is this because he is so middle-class and therefore so much inside the paradigm that he cannot see it from the outside or because it is his job?

James Sinnamon

Tue, 2011-05-31 13:39

Contrary to ABC radio 2GB's promotion, the debate was only for half an hour and not one hour. The second half hour was given over to a businessman[1]. Even though, Dick Smith and Bernard Salt remained in the studio, the second half hour was taken up with the businessman's pet topics including the claim that many very wealthy people are philanthropic. Some of the second half hour was given to the claim that Australia was becoming a smarter country because of high immigration, but none of the second half hour was given to the case against immigration. So, if we take away the time taken up by the 10.00AM news and the formalities of starting the program, probably only 20 minutes was given to any actual debate of which only about 10 minutes would have been taken up by Dick Smith arguing against population -- nowhere near enough time for Dick Smith to put his case and to shoot down Salt's spurious pro-population-growth arguments.

Unsurprisingly, the debate was not conclusive. The full fifty minutes may have been just enough time to give some justice to this critical issue. Had this been done, the arguments put by Salt, which he is given so much other air time to put elsewhere, could have been easily shown up to be as illogical as they were.

Footnotes

1. I have forgotten the businessman's name and it is not currently listed on the web site.

R. RAVEINDRAN (not verified)

Tue, 2011-05-31 13:12

Discussion consideration at a Macro Level: The whole and sole Purpose of Democracy is to do maximum good to the maximum number as described by Abraham Lincoln i.e : “Rule of the People by the people and for the people” (strictly speaking !!!). This is most certainly not happening in the current “CAPITALISM induced Democracy” we have inherited. I seriously mean “capitalism” first and then “any available democracy” within this dimension of capitalism. As George Soros (a former Capitalist turned philanthropist says: “We can have a market economy but we cannot have market people”. However, assuming that we need to get through our lifetime in Australia under this “Capitalism induced Democracy”, hard decisions need to be made. The only way available then “as right minded people” would be to provide this “maximum good for the maximum number”. The need for ‘Economic Rationalisation’ at the corporate level has been going on for quite some time now. In my humble opinion, this could have been at least 20 years aggressively and is percolating down to more socialistic countries like Australia with very egalitarian views on society and social structure as a whole. Please consider the fact that this can never be the “Second United States of America” . If there is a such a race to be run, I think we Australians should boycott or withdraw from this “sporting event” however glamorous or alluring. Now, with rising food prices in the Third World, the much foreseen economic progress could be elusive. We are heavily dependent on the progress of China for our economic progress .We need to consider that China is at best a “Black Box”, which we do not know in any form or shape. Transparency with regard to anything tangible is at best non-existent. Therefore we are unable to feign this economic progress or the possible lack of it anymore. Let us face it, hard economic decisions made by corporate Australia corporate America in the past is now here at the doorstep of the Government of Australia. “Yes”, the much dreaded words “Government downsizing” is just round the corner. I would say to each one of us to “take” this opportunity and “live happily ever after” (at least with the happiness that the correct decision was made at the correct time !!) or leave this for a “later date” and “live miserably grinning an bearing” all of our lives. Question pertaining to the our future generation (children and Grand Children) need to be well thought out by “us” (current generation) with the gift of “extended prophesy” ( substitution for want of better words- my apologies please !!!) to be asked and answered by “US”. As parents, this is crucial food for thought. For a country of just over 22 Million people, I think it would be a worthwhile need for the existing structure to be looked into to re-write the constitution. We should critically examine and re-examine our existing three-tier governance - a bias for economic rationalism is absolutely imperative. There is obviously no domestic political solution to an alarmingly large fiscal problem that we are facing under the current system of governance and constitutional set up in Australia. It is imperative that we need to come up with an optimal - Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to cost of Governance ratio. The current ratio of Governance cost for just 22 million people is highly unacceptable (whatever that figure may be). Australia is unique and hence has unique needs. Therefore, comparisons with other political models and adoption of models from elsewhere in the world, are to be avoided. The uniqueness of Australia is to be duly recognised in implementing a new model of governance be proposed. Discussion consideration at a Micro Level: A national debate or a referendum be proposed considering the following: 1. The perception that Australia is being over governed in the following context: a) Wastage Duplication and conflict between various levels of governance be avoided. b) Consider, modifications on the existing local governments/ state governments and Federal governments be recommended to avoid duplications and conflict of functionalities. c) Evaluate funds spend on governance per capita and put in productivity measures to improve political performance. d) Include constitutional experts in the debate to evaluate outcomes. e) Wastage reduction mechanisms- come up with the optimal Governance funds required as a percentage of GDP with definite reasons as to why that is the best way to spend our funds. f) Modelling off other states or countries which have vast isolated territories like Alaska or Argentina and putting them with due consideration to the Australian context. g) Consider education public as to why a shift from existing norms and practices, have to be thought about – eg. NSW was the first state and needs to be preserved that way (rationality to prevail over emotions). h) A massive focus on bettering lives for aboriginal Australians (A plethora of ideas supplemented by vastly increased funding). Increased tourism with a spiritual focus – by spiritual focus I mean moving away from pedantic religious ideologies and looking at the larger purpose of spiritual existence (could be conglomerate of all possible religious belief system available). In the sense, create a meaningful connectivity with our Aboriginal people. i) A massive focus on bettering lives for rural Australians (A plethora of ideas supplemented by a vastly increased funding). Eg. Larger inland cities with sustainable population with sufficient flood protection and geological viability. [Editor's comment: The author may not be aware that inland Australia is mostly desert. The most populous inland area is on the Murray Darling Basin, dependent on our major river system. The author notes the problem of the Murray Darling Basin further down and suggests that it may be too hard to bother solving. Because candobetter.net is for reform in population and environmental and planning policy as well as democracy and free speech, I feel we have to make a comment here. We do thank the author for his submission, however, which we might have published as an article if the population and environmental factors were more cognisant of local conditions.] j) Conditional National flood insurance Plan if possible. k) Consider historical perspectives and move into/ move away from the mundane old thinking to induce collective betterment of lives of people in Australia ( coming off point “h” above). l) Politicians do not have to take Cityrail to work in Sydney. Even if they do how could they work without any foresight. I mean politicians of either side. Please have a hard look at Wynyard and Town Hall railway stations. How could one ignore the possibility of thousands of people in some form of emergency “say a Tsunami” or a large surge of water from the ocean or an Earth tremor? What about a reasonably tall elderly person losing consciousness and falling on top of the person in front of him/her and that person in turn falling into the tracks ? It is common knowledge that provisions need be made for a maximum number of people to try and make an escape. These two railway stations during peak hour is a perfect recipe for disaster. The occurrence of a stampede is most certainly not out of focus. The narrow platforms and walking space is a ticking time bomb about which no body cares. m) The Murray-Darling river system is in absolute shambles. I suppose in the scheme of things it does not matter anyway as it is too challenging. n) Petrol- sniffing Aboriginal people who have lost a sense of purpose of existence are ignored with little or no support. It would appear that our own people do not matter anyway. o) Apparently, African immigrants taking advantage of young Aboriginal girls in Alice Springs is Ok and nothing needs to be done about this. p) Tony Abott can pays lip-service to the business of cost cutting and will not take the idea of re-examining “government spending on the cost of governance”. He e-mailed me by saying “We are not in power” and cannot consider the same just after the Federal Election when negotiations were going on to form a government. It is appalling that educated people in Australia are obliged to listen to this “toxic verbal effluence” with no substance or future whatsoever. q) No new options for a second Airport in Sydney. r) Young disillusioned voters are “Green Voters”. I suppose this is nectar to the ears of politicians on either side !!! s) Older disillusioned voters looking up to the “intellectually famished” Pauline Hanson to deliver for them hoping against hope. I suppose this is the “manna” from heaven that politicians on either side are looking for !! t) There exists a railway street in Baulkham hills next to the bowling club. This would mean that a railway line existed between Parramatta and Castle Hills (forgive me if I am wrong). This was taken away from where it was !! Honestly, when the whole of America grew on the back of the railway station and cities like Las Vegas thrived on these railway systems (the ethics of which may well be questionable – however, economical rationale does prevail). How could intellect of any form allow railway systems be uprooted in favour of “anything more productive” or even be considered in the first place. Who ever did this or which ever side of politics proposed this is seriously guilty to have even tried to endorse this. Thinkers of this order should have no place on politics. Why do we need this change (more reasons) ? • The impact of new technology such as Nano-technology could reduce need for natural resources world over and there by impacting on a mineral/ore export oriented society. This could reduce our export earnings • Budget tightening is happening now. Obviously Fiscal strains are showing. The treasurer is telling us that the mining boom is not going to help us reduce the deficit. • Queensland floods cut a fair chunk out of our GDP. • Funds for Northwest Railway project and Epping Project jointly is not existent or Federal government is unable to spend the same. Both projects are needed to support a green environment going. • Negative politics and rhetoric excessively played by both major parties. • Extreme Right and extreme left political parties holding the sway in upper houses and possibility of increasing numbers over a period in time. Possible expected outcomes could be : 1. Better usage of funds avoiding duplication and conflict in the process of governance. 2. Ending up with a form of government / tiers of government which comes up with the best option. 3. Two-tier government or modified three-tier governments or large powerful integrated councils or other workable non-duplicating political mechanisms. 4. Appropriate boundary changes to states and territories if necessary to facilitate national interests. 5. Integrated approach to problem solving rather than conflicting and “stale-mate-ism” – e.g We do not have a Sydney Basin joint action committee (including greater Sydney, Georges, Parramatta, Hawkesbury ) although we have several councils servicing its own interests rather than the collective interest of Sydney city. This vastly ends up being detrimental to the planning of a large city with interest groups preventing consolidated planning from occurring. 6. A well defined two tier government with large lean Local governments and a strong Federal government with a “Super-credit” rating in the eyes of the IMF. This is just a very basic discussion paper. I would highly appreciate if counsellors / Members of Parliament (both retired and current) contribute to this discussion, there by, enhancing Its potency and relevance purpose this discussion. In view of repeated catastrophic events occurring on a regular basis all round Australia and elsewhere in the world, I believe that business as usual may not be an option. A two-tier government with a changed constitution including well organised large lean and functional Local government (councils) and Strong “Super credit rated” Federal governmen What I am trying to drive at is :- A major change and overhaul needs to happen to the constitution for a Two-tier government. The most complicated scenario can be this :- Take Western Australia for example. Due to the mining and resources boom, they provide a major share of money for the Australian Economy. Now given that this is a "Capitalistic Democracy", do we need to factor as to how each "Western Australian" should vote in a Federal Election - this could be something like 1.2 votes per person rather than 1 vote per person. This is just a complex example of how things may finally settle. This may increase the population in WA and they may have a greater share of power. But this is going to happen anyway for as long as they hold the sway in the resource boom or for as long as that lasts.

Anonymous (not verified)

Tue, 2011-05-31 13:06

It is usually stated that we can cope and benefit from population growth if we have planning! "Planning" costs an exorbitant amount of public money. It's population growth itself that prohibits and stifles planning. We don't know how many people our cities will have in a certain year, and where the people will flow to. Our growth is blowing out our economies of scale, and living costs keep rising. We depend primarily on not man-made resources, but natural resources. They are finite and depleting. What about food, water, weather, biodiversity, living conditions, peak oil, and sustainability? The Property Council and Committee for Melbourne have vested interests in pushing for population growth. They are being feted at a time smaller populations are much better for the majority of peoples. The most wealthy countries invest in intellectual growth and assets, not depend on gross numbers of people! The biggest problem in the world is now overpopulation. Why do we have to have absorb global problems? As for the big threat of an "ageing population", it is actually the result of a population boom after the post war period and high immigration numbers. The perceived problem of the number of older people can't be solved by boosting our population any further. A problem and the solution can't be the same thing! Immigration can't keep our population young as every person ages one year per year, and how then will future generations manage their "ageing population"? Higher rates of growth? This is a destructive and misanthropic pyramid scheme, and totally illogical on a closed system.

Katie G (not verified)

Tue, 2011-05-31 12:31

I agree with the above writer that Salt minimized the differences between himself and Smith. They are actually poles apart and on opposite sides. Faine interrupted a lot and rushed through as though his agenda was more important than Smith in particular expressing his viewpoint. The environment was underplayed as essential to our survival as well as essential to our quality of life.

Mary (not verified)

Tue, 2011-05-31 11:00

www.getup.org.au/campaigns/animals/live-export/ban-live-export We'll present this petition tomorrow at Parliament House in a press conference with the RSPCA, Animals Australia, and the Australasian Meat Industry Employers Union (AMIEU). Please add your name now and share this campaign with friends and family. ABC's Four Corners program last night showed graphic footage provided by Animals Australia and RSPCA that shows Australian cattle being mistreated in Indonesian slaughterhouses. There, cattle are often maimed and cruelly mistreated before slow and painful deaths that take agonising minutes after a cow's throat is cut. What's more, the callous slaughter is done using equipment paid for by Australian taxpayers. PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION The torture of animals cannot be tolerated. These third-world abattoirs are not accountable to anyone. The sadism and horror are not "isolated incidents" as Joe Ludwig and the industry claim with the pretend shock and horror. So much of these atrocities have been revealed before. They just want to keep it quiet, away from public eyes. Even billions of dollars profit cannot justify such horrific treatment of our gentle long-suffering animals. Four Corners and Animals Australia should be congratulated for having the courage to film this bloodbath!

Bandicoot

Tue, 2011-05-31 08:21

Brahmans are intelligent, inquisitive and shy. That's more than can be said of those who support the brutality of the live export industry to Indonesia! The live animal export industry has gone into damage control, following the release of graphic footage of the inhumane slaughter of Australian cattle in our largest overseas market. The Australian government began supplying the boxes to Indonesian abattoirs in 2000 because local plant workers were having difficulties restraining Australian cattle prior to slaughter. They don't want to use stunning because their religion demands suffering and a prolonged death! Four Corners' graphic depiction of suffering and bloodshed and sadism was gross and disgusting. Thanks to Animals Australia for taking on the horrific task of filming and exposing these horrors. Lyn White is a wonderful trouper and as an animal lover, the sights of such bloodshed and horror must be hard to endure. She is a credit to Animals Australia. There is no justification for these atrocities, and Australia has blood on its hands! These workers obviously enjoy their work as dominance over these big animals. They don't use stunning because of religion? No concept of "god" would endorse suffering or such sadism! They are hiding behind religious dogma to support their brutality. The industry is feigning horror at animal cruelty. They know this goes on - it's all been revealed before. Money cannot justify such suffering, and neither can religion.

ED (not verified)

Mon, 2011-05-30 21:09

"There are plenty who would disagree about calling Australia a Christian country, but we are..." Indeed. To claim otherwise is simply absurd. Our society was founded by British settlers. And the single most decisive feature that determined the way Australian society developed was the Judeo-Christian-Western tradition carried here from Britain and Western Europe by those early settlers. As a society, we are who we are because of that heritage. I am not sure this is well understood in Australia today. It may be that a majority of Australians no longer believes the orthodox Christian faith. But whether they believe it or not, the society they share is one founded on that faith and one that draws on the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Sheila Newman

Mon, 2011-05-30 15:41

JulesTAS writes: Vivienne, if these countries wont become responsible by controlling their population growth

[insensitive suggestion which author probably desensitized to has been edited out here to preserve candobetter.net's non-violent policy] they are going to starve sooner or later as our own increasing population needs more of the food that we produce on less and less arable land that is left after urban sprawl and climate change has eaten up and destroyed farms.

SHEILA. We should not forget that our own business leaders, who have vast influence over our government, which is corporatised, actually suggest that we buy up such countries' precious agricultural land for our own use. See Prof Robin Batterham - Australia should buy farms in Mozambique Our leaders want us to behave like a pack of vultures.

JulesTAS: They have no right to think that everyone else in the world can absorb their overflowing population, and by us taking them in just leaves their home country free to continue breeding to maintain the status quo of their overpopulated state.

SHEILA: The above statement assumes that these populations have the power to restrict their breeding. It does not account for problems imposed from above, such as displacement from rural economies into cities where child labour is permitted and becomes the only means by which ill-paid labourers are able to increase their ptififul incomes. See more on Doepke in "World Population Day - what helps keep populations sustainable?". Doepke showed that child labour is a variable strongly associated with population overshoot and that its disappearance depends on governments overruling corporations by outlawing and enforcing the outlawing of child labour. Further, they must increase basic wages. Scolarising women to make them more valuable as wage earners than as child-labourer creators is another associated factor. What JulesTAS seems to be seeing as a failure of personal restraint is more of a collective political problem which can be laid at the feet of church, government and corporation, wherever they allow or promote the uprooting of settled stable populations and fail to promote and enforce child labour laws.

JulesTAS: Every time you hear Tim Costello whining about Australia's Foreign Aid commitment give him the bird. Around 20%, or less, of aid actually hits the ground after it's guts has been feasted upon by people like Costello, the UN, and every other parasite in between including the Swiss bank accounts of corrupt politicians.

SHEILA. The writer has a point. Much foreign aid is only business aid dressed up, or a begging bowl for modern day corporate Fagens. See "Haiti - Should the world protect Haiti from US 'Aid'?" and books on the subject of "Development AID rorts", such as Lords of Poverty and The Road to Hell. And Tim Costello, alongside Steve Vizard, was actually one of the early promoters of Steve Bracks's so-called Australian Population Summit. Costello did seem a little perturbed when I pointed out that this was only a land-speculator's festival at the time.

JulesTAS: (For instance, who in their right mind would donate money to Pakistan when Pakistan operates a nuclear defence force and just recently spent squillions on new machines (think it was jet fighters). They have a better defence force than we do!)

These countries have had their natural attrition systems interfered with by patronising Western nations and groups who insist on feeding them up to better health so that fertility rates are higher and more babies survive; stopping diseases; and supplying food during famines all without installing an effective, and if necessary compulsory, birth control regime so that their populations remained at, possibly, sustainable levels.

SHEILA: The primary western interference was colonisation where land was stolen and landless labour was created in beggar-like conditions. This happened first to Ireland, then, during the European Trade Wars, via the slave trade from Africa, then, as Britain (due to her coal and iron possessions) won the Trade Wars, through her industrial revolution driven empire, in India, Hong Kong, and later in Pacific Islands and Australia. All these places had their own land-tenure and inheritance laws pulverised and replaced with the British system. This - idea that populations of all kinds, from peoples of the third world to Australian kangaroos survived on the edge for centuries and milennia with only gruesome predator-prey mechanisms, starvation, disease and natural disaster to control their numbers - is the result of the near-total intellectual bankrupcy of the so-called science of demography, which only seems to exist to fit the ideologies of colonial empires - corporate and monarchic. How mainstream and popular demography can ignore the fact that steady state populations have existed in many places and times as a norm is amazing. Even Malthus in his Summary Essay on Population (in the 6th edition) acknowledged this fact, starting with the example of a Swiss canton.

A more sophisticated appraisal of what may be involved in population regulation is to be found in Pimentel, “Population Regulation and Genetic Feedback”.[ David Pimentel, “Population Regulation and Genetic Feedback,” Science, Vol.159, 29 March 1968, p.1433.] The author identifies a number of rules. One is that most species are quite rare, relatively or ‘by whatever criterion they are judged’. [H.G. Andrewartha and L.C. Birch , “The Distribution and Abundance of Animals, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1954, and Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, “rarity is the attribute of a vast number of species of all classes, in all countries,” cited by David Pimentel in “Population Regulation and Genetic Feedback,” Science, Vol.159, 29 March 1968, p.1433.] This rule helps to construct the idea that huge numbers involved in overshoot by a species are probably rare and do not last for long. Another is that nearly all animals feed off live material. This observation is important because dead material cannot evolve genetically in response to predation. Pimentel describes field observations and laboratory tests which show that predated populations evolve in response to a particular predator “only if the numbers of the animal are sufficient to exert some selective pressure on the host.” Using a variety of examples, he observes that the dominant control mechanism operating initially is “competition” (meaning selection), “but genetic feedback became dominant with time and through evolution.” He observes that “subtle genetic changes” affect the predator, and gives this example:

“For instance, when young pea aphids (Acyrthosiphum pisum) were placed on a common crop variety of alfalfa (Medicago sativa), they produced a mean of 290 offspring in 10 days, whereas the same number of aphids for a similar period on a resistant alfalfa variety produced a mean of only two offspring. In another example, the mean rate of oviposition (eggs per generation) of the chinch bug (Blissus leucopterus) on a susceptible strain of sorghum (Sorghum vulgare) was about 100, whereas on a resistant strain the mean oviposition was less than one. In both, reproduction in the animals feeding on the resistant plant hosts decreased more than 99 per cent. This reduced reproduction obviously would have dramatic effects on the population dynamics of the feeding animal populations.”[David Pimentel, “Population Regulation and Genetic Feedback”, Science, Vol.159, p 1434.]

JulesTAS: In around 60 to 80 years time Australia will be well on the way to becoming a shit hole just like the countries that those refugees have left behind. And we will have our illustrious forward thinking Governments, the corrupt UN and refugees to thank for it.
....end of rant....

SHEILA: Actually, this could be the beginning of your rant. I would like to point out that what is happening to us is what happened to them. We are also being disorganised, uprooted, and attracted or forced into new, artificially created populations, where the fertility opportunities are higher (although immigrants new to the problems of the Australian economy are more likely to take these on face-value. Artificially created new populations occur as a consequence of a political system which has been distorted to meet the demands of a rapacious new corporate and private elite that has got control of rural and suburban land feeds of land-speculation. This same elite has investments in the production of raw materials in mining for instance, for which demands mass-imported labour. The Greens, Socialist Alliance, ALP and Liberal parties are compliant cooperative and beneficiaries of this horrendously undemocratic system which Australia has in common with the other third world commodity economies.

Why aren't Australians jumping up and down about this? Why aren't they controlling their rate of population growth? For the same reasons as the more recognised third world countries. We also lack political power. Yes, we don't have child labour yet, but, give it time. As the welfare system fails to keep up any semblance of compensating for the horrendous cost of rent, the mass of people in this country who have nothing except their day labour to stay alive will have to find some way to do so. Stealing, prostitution, and trafficking in drugs are already happening. These ways of living do not observe child labour laws. How long before the formal system adapts the ways of the black economy?

But for Mr Fraser and his helpmates, Australia might have been one of those oil-rich countries which became independent after the 1973 oil crash. [See Chapter 7 of The Growth Lobby and its Absence.] Perhaps we would now be organising against our corporate oppressors. Whitlam's plan has been to borrow to develop Australia's mineral wealth for self-sufficiency. But, due to political machinations and media hysterics Australia did not become independent and instead, it developed its oil assets by selling them off in exchange for royalties and some taxes to corporate interests. Result - we are now net importers of oil. Currently we are accessing and selling off our gas as fast as possible (a rapidly exhaustible product - no pun intended) and we are importing hundreds of thousands of foreigners to dig what we have up for export, and inviting them to remain here as consumers.

If Australians don't realise that they share common cause with other commodity economies, colonies and ex-colonies, we are stuffed.

I hope that JulesTAS will forgive me this rant and keep commenting. I am awaiting publication and availability of a book I have written on the subject of my posts here and cannot release my theory in advance. Of course most of what I communicate here, although I am familiar with it, is only patchily available to most people. I also understand why JulesTAS angrily included the part in his post which the editor "commented-out". It is intensely frustrating living within the insane political paradigm that our leaders and so-called intellectuals feed us via commercial, public and academic media.

JulesTAS (not verified)

Sat, 2011-05-28 19:36

There are plenty who would disagree about calling Australia a Christian country, but we are. They also hold up census figures as to how many of us are Christians. Fancy believing the census. I refuse to answer questions of race, religion or precise annual earnings. Always remember what wonderful and accurate collectors and preservers of data the Germans were and that allowed the Nazi movement so much success with it's genocide programme. In fact I had a Census person on my doorstep about six months ago insisting I tell him if I was Aboriginal or not. I told him I didn't answer race questions and besides I hadn't done a family tree to see if I was Aboriginal or not. He was going to fine me for not answering, and he finally filled in his notes with his own estimation if I was or wasn't, which would have been made entirely on his own racial stereotyping of what an Aboriginal should look like.

Back to religion.....with the lack of primary Christian teachings as an educational tool not as a conversion technique, I do wonder just how well kids understand many sayings, literary works or artworks. Thn agn thts proby why they h8 inglsh & spk and rite shrt txt.

I am non-religious and would be classed as agnostic, and thank my mother for sending me to Sunday School and allotting me to scripture classes through school as our culture is Christian. I am happy to live under society's laws that are based in Christianity, I celebrate Christmas etc. and wouldn't want our country to change from the voluntary adoption of religion to a system of convert or be put to death.

JulesTAS (not verified)

Sat, 2011-05-28 18:05

Dear Ed. (thanks for your added food for thought.)

I do know that the Islamic invasion of our country comes from more than boat people. Although without actual figures I would feel safe estimating that at least 90% of boat people are Muslim. (I will keep searching for some figures to post).

Our leaders are too ignorant of Islam and Sharia to realise what they are creating for our future, while they cherry-pick at bits of Sharia they will allow and bits they outlaw, eg. Sharia banking: (money & the chance for profit here) so that is a good idea; female genital mutilation....not allowed. Yet they don't have any policy in place to police those who take their female children back to their homeland for this dodgy slice job. Perhaps these female children need to have genitalia checks as part of a medical to get back into the country. Wife beating is recommended by Sharia, so is killing adulterers and homosexuals. (Funny how you never seem to hear of male adulterers being flogged or killed, it seems as though the women have to suffer the punishment for both parties.) Our Gov is supposed to be encouraging assimilation yet they divert our money to Islamic schools, that also teach Sharia.

If separation of education and religion is strengthened, will the Gov stop throwing money at Islamic schools? (Also other fundamentalist religious schools). Women wearing face coverings is offensive, yet all the PC twits get around banging the Women's Rights drum and saying they have the right to wear what they like. The West has to bend every which way so as not to cause offence to Islam but it is OK for Islam to offend us as much as they like. I wouldn't get away with covering my face at a servo or the shops.
You see Ed, division all the way down the line, and it will only get worse the more Muslims we import, until we are on the brink of civil war just as Britain is almost there. The Brits will survive a civil war as they know how to throw them. We have never had one and we shouldn't have to.

My reference to the cost of hosting Islam was in the thought of how much better use that money could be put, say, indigenous housing and other public housing etc. The cost of processing two refugees would buy a kit home.

JulesTAS (not verified)

Sat, 2011-05-28 15:29

Vivienne, if these countries wont become responsible by controlling their population growth

[insensitive suggestion which author probably desensitized to has been edited out here to preserve candobetter.net's non-violent policy] they are going to starve sooner or later as our own increasing population needs more of the food that we produce on less and less arable land that is left after urban sprawl and climate change has eaten up and destroyed farms.

They have no right to think that everyone else in the world can absorb their overflowing population, and by us taking them in just leaves their home country free to continue breeding to maintain the status quo of their overpopulated state.
Every time you hear Tim Costello whining about Australia's Foreign Aid commitment give him the bird. Around 20%, or less, of aid actually hits the ground after it's guts has been feasted upon by people like Costello, the UN, and every other parasite in between including the Swiss bank accounts of corrupt politicians.
(For instance, who in their right mind would donate money to Pakistan when Pakistan operates a nuclear defence force and just recently spent squillions on new machines (think it was jet fighters). They have a better defence force than we do!)
These countries have had their natural attrition systems interfered with by patronising Western nations and groups who insist on feeding them up to better health so that fertility rates are higher and more babies survive; stopping diseases; and supplying food during famines all without installing an effective, and if necessary compulsory, birth control regime so that their populations remained at, possibly, sustainable levels.
In around 60 to 80 years time Australia will be well on the way to becoming a shit hole just like the countries that those refugees have left behind. And we will have our illustrious forward thinking Governments, the corrupt UN and refugees to thank for it.
....end of rant....

Please see next comment for Population sociologist Sheila Newman's response.-  Ed.

Anonymous (not verified)

Sat, 2011-05-28 14:00

Originally posted on 27 May 2011 . -  Ed The non-white population of the England and Wales has crept up to almost 1/6th of the population. The white British population has basically stayed the same since 2001. The non-white population have added 2.5 million people in the same period. Other "white" people from Europe and Australia have also increased from 1.4 to 1.9 million people. The mixed-race population is up nearly 50% to almost a million for the first time – up from 672,000 in 2001 to 986,600 in 2009. London has a large mixed-race, Asian, black and Irish communities making up the rest. Low-skilled workers from Eastern Europe are heading to the UK in their droves to look for work as net migration hit its highest level in more than five years. Sir Andrew Green, of MigrationWatch UK, said: "If immigration continues at this rate, our population will hit 70 million within 20 years and immigrants will account for half of new households". He said the shock figures showed firm measures were now "absolutely essential". It's a tribal race to divide and conquer by subversion. The net migration of 242,000 was nearly 100,000 higher than the previous year beside David Cameron's vows to cut immigration. The fragmentation of societies from immigration means that the host nation become eventually overwrought by the new-comers. It' a reverse colonisation, with permission. They obviously have no border controls!

James Sinnamon

Sat, 2011-05-28 12:48

The following comment was posted to ABC Radio National's National Interest web pages on Friday 27 May 2011. The post was in response to a discussion. Too fast, too furious: why industry opposes a carbon tax of the previous Friday 20 May.

Wasn't the "free market", that is, serving the greed of a small minority rather than the wishes of the sovereign majority, supposed to hold all the answers to society's problems when it was imposed upon Australia and much of the rest of the world back in the 1980's?

How is it that, three decades later, it still hasn't worked out how to protect the world from global warming and other environmental threats?

Why is it that 'government', held to be so fundamentally flawed by the "free market" ideologues whose prescriptions have been so unquestioningly accepted by our political leaders, must spend so much of its time and energy trying to find a way to persuade the "free market" not to destroy our environment?

If the "free market" was all that Howard, Keating, Hawke, Fraser et al had held it out to be, it would have surely found a way to save the world from global warming a long time ago.

But it has not and no amount of tinkering with incentives from Government is any more likely to prevent the "free market" from causing calamity now than it has to civilisations in the past - the Mayans, Angkor Wat, the Greeks, the Romans, the Mesopotamians, the Anasazi of the Chaco Canyon and numerous earlier civilisations. This has been documented in books such as Jared Diamond's "Collapse" and David Montgomery's "Dirt: The Erosion of Civilization".

The only difference we face this time, is that if the sovereign peoples of the world don't take back from the "free market" the right to decide their futures, the catastrophe won't be confined just to some regions of the earth. It will affect the whole world and be unimaginably more terrible.

If, as one example, we don't act now to stop the greed of the "free market", from digging up Australia's vast deposits of coal for export to be burnt in China and India, then we will have shown that we have learnt nothing from history.

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