Gavin Jennings studied at Beaufort High School and Monash University, attaining degrees in arts and social work. He worked at various times as a factory worker, actuarial clerk, actor, social worker and policy analyst. Jennings won preselection for the safe Labor Legislative Council seat of Melbourne Province in advance of the 1999 state election, and was thus easily elected.
Following the November 2002 election, Gavin became the Minister for Aged Care and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. After the November 2006 election, Gavin became Minister for Community Services and Aboriginal Affairs.
Gavin is now the Minister for the Environment and Climate Change and the Minister for Innovation.
Gavin’s interests include spending time with his son, Huw; photography; films; innovation and design; supporting his football team, the Bombers; and making – and then eating desserts.
He has no personal interests in ecology, environment, wildlife or any formal qualification in the Environment. He is merely an office bearer, an administrator with no special qualities to endorse his position as leader of such an important role as Minister for Environment and Climate change. With such crucial issues at stake, and our dependence on depleting environmental resources being flattened and consumed, such a role should be of highest priority.
To our State as one of "abundance" and privilege - and one that needs to be shared with the world - in light of drying rivers, species extinctions, climate change threats, loss of native vegetation, justifying logging in catchment areas because of "legislation" commitment is simply a sign of incompetence and being out of his expertise and depth!
Comments
Infrastructure is the monster
I like Tigerquoll's idea. We need to demonise the infrastructure. That's what destroys nature.
Why don't 'growth' pushers lead by example?
nimby writes:
It is about manipulating guilt.
Also, we can't keep our "luxurious lifestyles" and "abundance" for ourselves. We have to "share" with the world, ...
Why don't the "growth" pushers lead by example if they truly believe that we should share our wealth with the rest of the world? Instead they take the wealth of the poorest in our country, mostly through housing hyper-inflation that they have deliberately brought about, whilst forcing the poorest, but not themselves, to share their already meagre wealth with the rest of the world.
Graffiti Goths
'Goth graffiti' may be an effective tactic to deploy against the ever expanding concrete and bitumen.
Brumby's growthist expansion of urban Melbourne by sprawl is like the Roman Empire's insatiable expansion across Europe two millenia ago.
So just as the Goths were amongst the first of the barbarian tribes to launch counter attacks on the Roman Empire a370 C.E. led by King Alaric I, graffiti goths could launch clandestine graffiti attacks on the new concrete and bitumen.
Every new concrete expansion would be tag attacked.
Each ceremonial unveiling of a new highway and development opening by Emperor Brumby would be adorned by 'protest graffiti'.
...given me a home among the gums trees...
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
Manipulated by guilt!
According to Environment Minster Gavin Jennings, losing our diminishing grasslands in Victoria, and we only have about 0.1% of native grasslands left, is the fault of "nimbys" who don't want higher density living! As a consequence we have to keep opening up more land for urban sprawl and keep destroying what grasslands we have - with native vegetation "offsets". That's a bit of reverse psychology,
considering we don't have to have the growth anyway. It is about manipulating guilt.
Also, we can't keep our "luxurious lifestyles" and "abundance" for ourselves. We have to "share" with the world, and people will always reproduce.
How is that we are losing our ecosystems, our rivers, our wetlands, our forests, our species and our lifestyles if we are living abundantly?
There are so many dubious and manipulative ways to justify us shoving over to allow more growth.
Population growth is a political choice, one that is indefensible when our natural resources and ecosystems, here for millions of years, are being eradicated, tarnished and threatened.
All we get is political spin from politicians, who keep plying us with green-washing terms and policies, while the elephant in the room - population growth - grows into a mammoth.
Apoplexy over popular radio program about how we must live
The following letter was written to the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) one year ago. No reply received.
Dear.......
I understand that the next "Australia Talks" program is to be on the subject of "planning."
A few thoughts occurred to me on hearing of this. I write from a Melbourne perspective.
Saturday week ago in the morning there was a program about planning on local ABC radio which made me nearly apoplectic ! It was promoted with the delighted question from the presenter "Is the 1/4 acre block gone forever?"
Naturally, it was all about how we have to live more densely packed in the future because of population growth. The program immediately preceding this one was about research on lack of activity in very small children in Australia - partly due to diminishing space for play. The irony of "The end of the 1/4 acre block" segment aired immediately after did not escape me nor another person who pointed this out in a text message .
As I recall it was a panel of 3 presented by Hilary Harper.
One was a real estate agent called Monique Wakelin who said a number of times during the program that ..words to the effect- "we haven't changed the mindset yet" i.e we have to shake them out of their love of space and amenity and persuade them that they should live in flats and units close together.
As Wakelin specialises in property I don't imagine she lives in a shoe box . In any rhetoric one hears on the media one always gets the impression that living close together is for the ordinary people -not special people or rich people. Rich people in fact do the opposite of what is expected of the rest of us. Rich people can acquire more space by demolishing next door for a tennis court and really take up a lot of room with large residences and multiple homes.
Those who would talk us out of our current but disappearing lifestyle refer to the 1/4 acre block, it seems to me because that is what the ordinary people aspire to.
It's the ordinary people who have to move over.
The other 2 people on the panel were academics in the area of architecture and design from both Monash and Melbourne Universities.
One of the academics rubbished the idea of setback rules - setbacks being the distance between the house and the fence- as this meant people could not use all of their land. He advocated building right to the fence- which is now being done frequently with the result that all the light is lost from the sides of the house!!
We end up effectively in terrace houses.
The other comment from one of the academics that struck me - was that there was "no need to lose privacy" with higher density living as it was "all in the design". He continued- "Europeans have their privacy!" Advocates of high density living always cite Europe as though we have to pull everything down around us and re-start as Europe! This blithe solution ignores the history behind the planning or evolution of either and ignores the relative public amenity in either case.
It is quite true that good design can make a huge difference in terms of privacy and amenity up to a certain density - BUT I do not see "good design" anywhere. It's like saying we could stack more people in if we lived more sustainably. The fact is that we are not doing it !
It seems to me that domestic house design has deteriorated incredibly in the last 2-3 decades.
Domestic architecture theorist Alistair Knox designed beautiful low rise houses with lots of light - 1950s- 60s. Even the much maligned (especially by Barry Humphries) A.V. Jennings type triple fronted cream brick veneer style is a work of art compared with the oversized, monuments to mediocrity crammed uncomfortably and insensitively on their tiny sites on our city fringes where only recently cattle and sheep or kangaroos grazed.
To add insult to injury, these new suburbs on the fringes of the city , are a recipe for unsustainablity in the face of inevitable oil depletion because they lack public transport infrastructure, have insufficient land for food self sufficiency, and in many cases they cover up land that once produced food.
The bayside suburb of Beaumaris, much of it built in the 1960s was characterised by modest sized architect designed houses with plenty of bush surrounding them. Now these are being pulled down and replaced by neo Georgian or neo classical edifices , sprawling over the whole block and up to the sky with their double storeyed greed for a glimpse of the bay and blocking their neighbours' light so the only option for the neighbours is to sell out and let someone else do likewise on either side.
"Planning" in Melbourne is a corruption of the meaning of the word.
It is all about the State government wrenching power from imperfect but not always ruthless local councils and centralising it- fast tracking planning decisions and road projects (recent Transport Facilitation Bill)
Melbourne is bursting its seams- and the Government wants to extend the Urban Growth Boundary.
It seems there is no end to the ultimate boundary of Melbourne.
At the current rate of growth, Melbourne will have a population of 32 million in just over 100 years.
No-one's planning for that, but that's the path we are on
Extremely intriguing post on rights of European homeless
Extremely intriguing post. This is a truly absorbing article. I will drop by again very soon. Thanks a lot
Editorial comment: Date of publication changed from 2010-11-17 19:28 +1000 (which seems unlikely) to force comment to the top of list. Candobetter doesn't endorse the product that the commentator has linked to.
Writing from a small country to support Gouldian Finch
Writing from a small country called Maldives, I've bred gouldians for some time and am madly in love with this beautiful bird, I hope the Australian authorities take the plight of this species seriously. I support the cause 100 percent.
Editorial comment: Thanks for your expression of support. I hope it is OK that we have added the words "to support Gouldian Finch" to the end of your subject heading to make it more descriptive. - Editor
The justice of Direct Democracy - a Swiss model...
Thanks James for your considered input of suggestions.
On your advocacy of 'effective democracy' which I support, I invite you and your readers to listen to the ABC Radio 'Rear Vision' documentary programme on today on Direct Democracy in Switzerland.
'In Switzerland, voters not only elect the government they also directly vote on policy issues and legislation passed by the parliament. What can we learn from Switzerland?'
Direct Democracy in Switzerland
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
Scale of industrial pollution is the essential problem
I don't think that there is necessarily anything inherently wrong with human industrial activity. Although a great deal of output from humankind's industrial processes add little to our quality of life a good many of the produced artefacts do.
If the scale of human industrial activity were a lot smaller and its output more rationally decided upon than it is at present, then I believe it should be possible for industrial processes to provide all people with artefacts which would allow them to live fulfilling and modestly prosperous lives and without putting our planetary life support system at risk.
What is putting our planet at grave risk is:
- The inherent inefficiency of our 'free market' system, which is made even less efficient because of the other factors described below
- The greed of our wealthy elites, which causes them to take a huge and unfair share of the planet's wealth for themselves
- The deliberate introduction of further inefficiencies into our 'free market' system to further facilitate the transfer of wealth into the pockets of the wealthy, but, note, not the creation of additional wealth. Examples include:
- built-in obsolescence, which, for example, forces us to buy new cars roughly every 10 years if we are lucky, instead of after 100 years, which has been shown to be technologically feasible, or even considerably more years.
- The non-standard manufacture of equipment, which forces us to throw away perfectly good items such as electric jig-saws, because the manufacturers stop manufacturing the necessary blades after a few years. Another type of item, which is not standardised is the rechargeable battery. They have limited lives yet many electrical items, including phones and MP3 players depend upon them to run.
- Deliberate increase of population to levels which our planet cannot sustain. This is truly a most bizarre and counter-intuitive way for a greedy elite to increase its wealth, because the increase in numbers can only possibly make each member of society, on average, poorer as well as threaten our very survival. Yet, population growth causes the demand for land, and other commodities in limited supply, and, hence, for the money that they can demand for purchase of or access to such commodities. The increase in human numbers beyond certain optimal levels, which every society on earth, including Australia, has long ago surpassed creates further diseconomies of scale. Consider, for example, how much more in real terms per-capita it now costs to provide each Australian citizen with essential services or commodities such as water,public transport, electricity, gas, etc.
Citizens being disadvantaged
Comment intially posted by Enne K. I wan't able to fix the author field. - editor
My daughter has begun training for an apprenticeship in a specialised trade with a small demand. People know each other. Until she gets an apprenticeship, she is aiming for casual employment, to get experience. She applied to one place and was rejected. Then she found out this place had employed two Indian nationals, probably students, as casual workers! She, understandably, feels let down.
Why should locals be disadvantaged by probably the cheaper rates accepted by foreigners?
Human rights violation and abuses in Iran and Pakistan
Iran:
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Iranian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LDDHI) make a report on discrimination against ethnic communities and religious minorities in Iran. (Oct 2010).
“Iran is a real mosaic: the country has many minorities - Azeris, Kurds, Arabs and Baluchis, among others constitute the population of entire provinces of the country, although there are no official statistics on the composition of the population; such a subject is taboo for the authorities,”said Karim Lahidji, vice-President of FIDH and President of LDDHI. “Religious minorities also face discrimination in addition to being victims of persecution such as through arbitrary detention, extrajudicial executions, destruction of cemeteries and holy places,” he added.
Iran executes the highest number of people per capita in the world, including juvenile offenders in contravention of international law. Iranian Baha’i youth continue to be denied the right to higher education, and any university found to have a Baha’i student is ordered to expel them. Apartheid is a form of laws and regulations that discriminate between citizens based on their race, creed, religious or political beliefs, or gender. It does not view all humans, the creations of God, on similar and equal footing.
In September 2008, the Iranian parliament voted for a draft bill called "Islamic Penal Code", which "would codify the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith. Women would get life imprisonment." The European Union is deeply disturbed by the arrests […] of Iranian converts to Christianity and members of the Baha'i community. It calls for their immediate and unconditional release and the cessation of all forms of violence and discrimination against them.
Pakistan:
Amnesty International: Members of religious minorities in Pakistan suffered increasing abuses, including abduction, murder, intimidation, and harassment, as state officials failed to protect them and adequately prosecute perpetrators. The Taleban imposed jizia, a tax payable by non-Muslims living under Muslim rule, on Sikhs, Hindus and Christians, or in some cases expelled them outright.
Women continued to be victims of "honour killings", with 960 incidents reported. In September, the Punjab law minister announced that crimes against women would be tried under the Anti-Terrorism Act.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan recorded 276 new death sentences, with 7,700 people remaining under sentence of death. No executions were carried out.
The concept of "god" in whatever human political, cultural or religious environment does not transcend the inherently small-minded and deep-rooted bigotry we have on our wonderful planet!
Paul Kelly unqualified to speak about "carrying capacity"
Emphasis has been added to contribution below by editor.
According to Paul Kelly, Editor-at-large of The Australian , the idea that Australia could not "carry" 36 million people is absurd, and the idea of a “carrying capacity” is loopy!
According to his biography, he has no environmental, biological or ecological qualifications.
Paul Kelly holds a Doctor of Letters from the University of Melbourne and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Sydney. In addition, he has honorary doctorates from the University of New South Wales and Griffith University.
He is currently researching economic, social and foreign policy outcomes for Australia during the Keating and Howard periods.
In 2006 Paul Kelly was a visiting fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy where he wrote a research paper on ten years of Howard's foreign policy.
He joined 2009 Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow and author of the Garnaut Climate Change Review Professor Ross Garnaut, Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change the Honourable Greg Combet and Director of Port Jackson Partners Limited, Rod Sims, to speak about the social, political and environmental challenges that climate change presents. Garnaut never mentioned population growth either in his reports, or livestock industries.
He said that Kevin Rudd's 2009 invoking of Big Australia was a mistake. Any prime minister who embraces a target commits a grand folly. The direction Gillard wants, signalled in her Lowy speech in which she said she didn't want to hurdle towards a "big Australia", is clear. She wants to slow immigration but we don't know how much. She wants a new policy method based in regional needs and requirements. Her rejection of "big Australia" was to sooth voter concerns after Labor doing poorly in highly populated areas. It is all about re-distributing population, not limiting growth.
Mr Frank Lowy, Lowy Institute:
Frank Lowy is executive chairman and co-founder of the Westfield Group - major shopping centre developers! Four Lowy family members on the board have interests in growth.
Our skilled workforce begins with locals; refugees cost money
Australia's skilled workforce should naturally begin with its local people - it's called vocational education and training. But vocational training seems to have been relegated to being a 'cost' both in private and public enterprise across Australia. In reality, across industry, vocation training is an investment in an industry and in people.
Since Laboral government tax policy and divestment in the educational sector, Australian industry, commerce and even government agencies themselves, with their quarterly timeframes now habitually import skills. In so doing they brush aside Australians denying them training and career advancement.
And of course, Australia's education sector is contracting from being overlooked, underfunded by sucessive Laboral governments and forced to rely on international students, who are now also falling away.
The refugee quota needs to be lifecycle costed - the full lifecycle of each individual to be processed, transported, resettled, fed, housed, clothed, educated in language and life skills, provided with childcare, health benefits, the bare costs of living, assimilated into Australian society, brought up to a self-resourceful condition that allows that person and his/her dependents survive and live a life above the poverty line to an acceptable humanitarian Australian standard.
How much each?
Let's say that full life cycle process from a penniless, non-English speaking unskilled refugee would typically take 10 years. I offer a guess that the full cost at a broad stab over that ten years would be about $500,000 per individual.
Australia's refugee intake thus far in 2010 is 13,000 accorinding to .
So the full lifecycle cost to Australian taxpayers of refugees is about 6.5 billion per year!
This is equivalent to the
$6 BILLION REGIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE FUND announced by Treasurer Wayne Swan back in June 2010.
And yet Australia's infrastructure is bursting at the seams with its immigration-fuelled population growth - hospitals, public housing, childcare, water, electricity, roads, rail, you name it.
And yet Australia has its growing underclass of homeless and tens of thousands of Australians below the poverty line, who receive less from the government than foreign refugees. Where's the justice?
And how are past refugees coping? Who monitors their condition?
Australia clearly is accepting refugees beyond its means.
New Zealand's current UNHCR annual refugee quota is 750 per annum.
New Zealand's population is just over 4 million. Australia's population is just over 26 million (6.5 times that of NZ), so to be in line with New Zealand proportionately Australia's annual refugee quota should be 5000. Even then the annual Federal refugee budget would need to be $2.5 billion!
Skills quota and refugee quota numbers reversed!
Of course an economically-driven government like ours in Australia still seeks skilled migrants, and still thinks tonnes of refugee people will not be in sure need of asylum. This is 1950s thinking - to grow, and consider our region's desperate as something really 'out there' and not too much in the present or near future.
Our refugee quota should be increased; numbers and applications handled in light of the waves that will be seeking asylum here, while having the correct and humane application process needed, far away from the detention centre idea...
Humanitarian methods of population control
Most animals don’t need to concern themselves with overpopulation because predators take care of the problem. Starvation handles it for predators. In the animal kingdom, only two offspring survive to adulthood even if many young are spawned.
We humans have developed technology to consume Nature's bounty and pile layer upon layer over the land. Vaccines have helped.
We pack ourselves in, we still strive for ever higher populations out of an ancient biological drive, due to culture, survival instincts, economics and greed. Outdated religious creed also propagates our numbers. "Go forth the multiply" of Genesis is no longer appropriate. People also have children for status reasons, to increase their family size and promote their family's powers. They also have children to provide for them in their old age.
Social institutions refuse to adjust to the new reality of overpopulation. Market forces are left to decide how our numbers grow, or decline.
Governments are still intent on maximising populations even though our planet's resources and fertile soils are shrinking.
# Woman who want children are to be encouraged to have two children at most. Any more should not receive any form of government support such as Baby Bonus or paid maternity leave.
# Any families that have more than 2 children should mean that only two of them can reproduce
# No support for underage pregnancies
# Ban on IVF for public patients and encouragement for adoptions and fostering of children
# End of economic immigration and foreign students applying for PR
# Economic benefits for working after retirement age
# Age limit for Baby Bonus and other benefits
# Encouragement of the use of condoms and other contraceptive devices, for free
Definition of "native"
Point taken John, I have changed the title. My posting was actually a reaction to Funnelweb Bill's comments that included the claim that “A Native Australian is a person of our Soil and of European descent” which I find to be a very racist comment. My references to skin colour were once again to Bill's assertion that :
"The paler these Gubba are, the more vocal the whining/disgruntlement about life, and “traditional” claiming, seems to be."
particularly in the context that Bill believes "gubba" to mean:
"the description used by our Aboriginal People to define those whose Aboriginal blood has been denuded by mixing with other races"
I must say that I've never been accused of being racist. Misanthropic perhaps but not racist. Perhaps I'm being a little oversimplistic in my definition of the word "native" which I generally interchange with "indigenous" - I think it's got something to do with my biology background.
I can assure you that I suffer no cultural inferiority complex and I am not from New Zealand. As an 11 month old "British subject" it was not necessary for me to attend an Australian citizenship ceremony nor would I have remembered it anyway. Still, if you want to lump me in with the immigrants who have no right to criticise Australians then that's your perogative. You sound like a seventh generation Australian with a superiority complex to me. I'm not going to throw the "r" word around any more John, you've done enough of that already
Racist slurs have no place in Australia
Scott's reference in his comment above to "gubba gubba" is a racist slur, which has no place in Australia. The comment heading should be removed from this website. What colonists did to indigenous Australians was despicable and unforgiveable.
But Scott clearly is prejudiced in targeting those born in Australia who are not indigenous, and even specific about skin colour. Scott's comments are racist. It is another example of reverse racism by immigrants.
Scott quotes from somewhere “A Native Australian is a person of our Soil and of European descent”. That is also a racist slur. A native Australian is someone born in Australia - ethnicity is irrelevant.
Scott has previously confirmed that he was not born in Australia and now denegrades Australians. He labels anyone not indigenous Australian as... "no more native to Australia than a fox or a rabbit".
Why the derision?
Such derision has frequently come from New Zealanders (usually to Brisbane; less so to Perth) with a cultural inferiority complex of Australians - bit like Fairfax columnist Elizabeth Farrelly, an Aucklander who regularly casts dispersions upon Australian society. [Cases in Point]. Perhaps Scott was born in New Zealand. I wonder if he has pledged his loyalty to Australia and become a citizen?
It is the type of foreigner who does not respect Australian values and who denigrates Australians that is unwelcome.
Europeans are not native to Australia
I can assure you Bill that I am quite familiar with many aspects of Australian history including the relatively miniscule period that Europeans have occupied this land. My understanding is that the first Australians coined the term “gubba” to mean the white man. It was a shortening of government or gubba-min and was most definitely not a term of endearment. I myself went to school in Roebourne and can’t say that I ever heard that term used amongst the aboriginal people who made up 90% of the population. Maybe it’s a NSW thing.
Nor was I aware that there were tribes of aboriginal people that consciously bred themselves out of existence. I would laugh except I am so offended by your notion that the paler these people are, the more they complain. Reading your comment is like reading the transcript of a talkback radio show hosted by Wilson Tuckey. I don’t suppose there is any room in your version of events to include aboriginal enslavement, rape, murder and theft of children? Does it not occur to you that the only people that consciously tried to breed the aboriginal people out of existence were the Europeans themselves?
“A Native Australian is a person of our Soil and of European descent” – that’s a good one. Sounds like something from a Goebbels speech. Europeans are no more native to Australia than a fox or a rabbit.
The demise of a Westminster democracy under Labor
www.hereticpress.com/Editorials/Editorial10.html
Regarding Labor party zealots out to censor critics. I was not always anti-Labor, I voted for Bracks 11 years ago. To protect myself from this "labor" government now, I need; a fortress, a thick hide, html expertise, constant vigilance against hackers, an O/S server and a mirror backup site. Brumby following the lead of Bracks has led labor down a path towards tyranny
A webpage on the dishonesty of the federal labor interfering in telecommunications with Conroy and Shorten breaching democratic conventions of a three tiered democracy by influencing local council at Brimbank. Your council abolished.
http://www.hereticpress.com/Dogstar/Religion/Vilification.html
Tim Anderson
Conditional Citizenship Bill
Re: Two comments above, respectively from 'Funnelweb bill's comment 'Behaving one's self' and 'drogo's' comment 'Second-class Citizenship' (each 15th November, 2010).
In reply, yes.
Australian citizenship is a privilege highly globally valued. It is not a right. Therefore, privileged citizenship has prerequisite conditions and performance conditions, else all Indians, Asians, Africans, Europeans and Americans could argue entitlements to swamp Australia.
Bugger that! That would be unjust on Australia and Australians - a fairness justification any country would stand by. As if Australian Aborgines haven't suffered from successive waves of colonising immigrants from the British torrent and then succumbed to British authorised foreign herds every since?
If one looks at the facts, Australia is being overwhelmed by immigrants. The problem is pathogenic.
Some of these immigrants are committing serious crimes once in Australia. Immigrants who have a record of criminality and foreigners visiting Australia who then commit serious crimes while they are here are rightly automatically deported.
So why should similar serious crimes be immune from deporting the perpetrator simply by Australia's honourable process of residency or citizenship?
Answer: It shouldn't!
Such defence of citizenship has no basis for someone who has breached the conditions of citizenship, flouted Australian laws and cause serious crime in Australia. Once convicted they deserve to be deported to their country of birth.
Simple rule, Fair rule. Try doing same overseas. Name one country that would be more lenient than Australia for such crimes by 'new' citizens!
Apply this rule universally and I challenge that any genuine injustice could emerge.
-- But let me rebuke Funnelweb's claims:
First, I presume this writer is not Australian-born because he feels insulted. (Australians wouldn't).
Second, the waffle about 'skirting around the edges', 'politically correct agenda', 'social engineers and bourgeoisie' is nonsensical, so I have nothing to add.
Third, Australian citizenship offers are hardly second class. I would argue that Australian citizenship is a world-leading privilege and don't millions of humans around the planet well know it?
But logically, posing the worst scenario, that all of India's and China's now millions of educated decided Australia is better than India and China, what condition would protect the incumbent local Australians from immigration invasion? Think of it!
Only birth rights present the fairest universal test. Else Australia risks being overrun by the world's populations that have a life less ideal than Australians.
Economic immigration is a form of human gravity. Humans flow to the attractive countries of least resistance. And at present our ethnic-biased Laboral governments keep the immigration door open despite no local electoral mandate permitting the bastards on Capitol Hill to do so.
To reiterate, the simply test ought to be that if one is not born in Australia, one's citizenship privilege is conditional on performance. If you commit a serious crime in your new host country - then simply that is a fundamental breach of your citizenship conditions and you have voided your privilege and entitlements.
Of course your offspring cannot if they were born here.
In response to Drogo's claims, 'second class citizens' are indeed those who breach Australian laws. This issue is about serious crimes in Australia by foreigners, so what are you advocating?
Your notion of 'inherited citizenship' is a make believe fantasy. Either one is born in Australia or not. Simple. How can one then have inherited citizenship?
Yes, so-called 'naturalised citizens' agree to comply with the "same duties and obligations as those who were born in Australia.
If they breach those duties and are permitted to stay in Australia, then what message does that send to wannabe 'crims' overseas?
And think about it. This rule is not just for Australia. It should be universal.
The only losers are the criminals.
So what ulterior motives do 'Funnelweb Bill' and 'Drogo' have. Are they ethnic 'crims' living it up in Australia at Australian expense?
With all the ethics in Australian gaols it is about time they were deported and Australian draft and vote for a Conditional Citzenship Bill - foreigners are welcome as Australian citizens according to Australian conditions - be law abiding, speak English, assimilate, accept Australian traditional culture, rescind any cultures that conflict with Australian cultures.
Simple, fair and just.
Postscript: 'Funnelweb Bill' and 'Drogo' have inspired me to upgrade this comment to an article, thanks.
Where's the process with regard to this?
There's no mention of any deliberations of zoological experts over this or any ethics committee. What are the powerful owls supposed to do when they run out of habitat and prey in the city? Since it is obviously hyperbole that Cr. Doyle is waist deep in possum poo in South Melbourne, what other reasons does he give for such extreme steps to be taken against possums? No reason given in the newspaper articles.
Event cancelled
Due to unforseen circumstances, our visit to Joe Helper's electoral office in Maryborough this Friday November 19, has had to be cancelled.
For further information please ring Laurie Levy on 0418 392 826.
Brumby boost to native waterbird annihilation and cruelty
Comment moved to here.
Second-class citizenship?
So essentially you are advocating the creation of a second-class tier citizenship. In otherwords, naturalised citizens will always be considered inferior because they have a sub-clause that can see that citizenship revoked while those who inherited their citizenship get away scott-free.
Naturalised citizens have the same duties and obligations as those who inherited their citizenship. They pay the same taxes, they are bound by the same laws and they will be conscripted just like everyone else if Australia finds itself in a great war. Therefore they should receive the same treatment in the criminal justice system.
As a naturalised citizen, I consider myself of equal value as everyone else in this country. No more and no less. The only difference between naturalisation and inheritance is the means of obtaining citizenship.
behaving one's self
The contributors to this thread relative to “the Australian” seem to be both skirting around the edges, perhaps reacting to the agenda of the political correct social engineers and bourgeoisie, or a confusion - lack of knowledge of Australian history.
I doubt you would find any of these attitudes amongst the Chinese or Japanese people, as they have no intent to second-guess themselves for recognizing, and insisting upon their biological community. They stand in good steed for “advancement” in the coming decades of this century.
The confusion may arise from the overuse of the term “traditional” by the largely Gubba driven Aboriginal Industry. For Scott’s information, Gubba is the description used by our Aboriginal People to define those whose Aboriginal blood has been denuded by mixing with other races. The paler these Gubba are, the more vocal the whining/disgruntlement about life, and “traditional” claiming, seems to be.
Confusion may also be added to through elements of our bourgeoisie using the term in their fawning reference to “traditional” Aboriginal landowners at assemblies, etc – even for tribes that have consciously interbred themselves out of existence generations ago. Of course, never in such consciousness is the sacrifices of our military during the Pacific War, and which enabled our very existence today. The inner glow is more important!
Whilst Australian history is being phased out by our so called elites, and therefore immigrants cannot expect any real exposure, nevertheless even a cursory glance over the story of our Australian People reveals that the descendents of our settling and pioneering stock took the common terminology of “NATIVE AUSTRALIAN”, and it has been ingrained for generations.
A Native Australian is a person of our Soil and of European descent, and like the Chinese and Japanese, Australians do not need to second-guess themselves.
In the historical formalization of our identity by our Trade Union Movement, supported by our people under the idealism for a new nation, minor numbers of “others” who remained living here were acknowledged under our well-formed tolerant values, and outlook, but were just expected to enjoy their life in our Australian Community, not much else.
I note the contributor Scott seems to feel the need to be coy in identifying himself as “someone not born here”, as against an immigrant, possibly due to Australians now largely “sick to the back teeth” of immigrants and their detrimental effect on our civilisation. This attitude of Australians is exacerbated through the gall of such who derogatively infer by questioning our unique historical identity as Native Australians, even if as a people we are in decline through the intent of the capitalist class.
But to the capitalist class and their minions - we are not done with yet!
Death penalty for Asia Bibi
Comment moved to here.
Anna Bligh's concrete legacy
Comment moved to
here.
An evil but "necessary" trade off?
Anna Bligh is involved and yes she has already had her handprints placed in concrete.!!! This is totally contradictory to any claims of Australia Zoo being supportive of conservation.
Rangers working in Queensland's Wild Rivers regions will receive mentoring and training from Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. Ms Bligh said the government's partnership with Australia Zoo would give Wild Rivers rangers a chance to broaden their experience in wildlife handling and management issues.
Terri Irwin said the partnership was an important step toward securing the future of indigenous people, and wildlife and habitat in Wild River declared areas. Maybe this is a trade-off - to accept Anna Bligh's handprint as a symbol of the further benefits of conserving the Wild Rivers area and some financial partnership?
The costs - of declining koalas and the ongoing slaughter of kangaroos - is too high a price to pay for environmental protection!
Such are the costs of partnerships with governments, something that Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, to their credit, have always avoided.
The whole planet is "out of balance"
"We live in a ecosystem that BALANCES ITSELF"! Yes, within an evolutionary framework. Ecosystems do not stay balanced when there are excessive of especially ONE invasive and prolific species impacting and consuming resources - humans!
Swarms of stinging jellyfish and jellyfish-like animals are transforming many world-class fisheries and tourist destinations. This is just one symptom of an ecosystem that has been tipped off balance by environmental stresses due to overfishing.
The world's amphibian populations have been dwindling or riddled with limb deformities. Increasing numbers of common parasites are an important cause. However, amphibian habitats really an example of ecosystems out of balance because of human activity. The shark is the apex predator that keeps the whole ecology of the sea in balance and healthy. Nobody knows what the effects of their removal will be but is can be guaranteed to involve a lot of unwanted harmful outcomes due to the mass slaughter of sharks for eating and shark fin soup.
Removing any of the basic elements will result in an ecosystem that is out of balance. Our whole planet is "out of balance" and dying. Climate change is only one factor. The other is misanthropic over population of humans! People can't be "self sufficient" without intact environments. Humans are top eaters due to over indulgence in livestock products, and we are over-tipping environmental limits and at the same time have an evolutionary flaw in not being able to naturally control our reproduction rate, and thus the atrocities of late-term abortions. We fail to understand the impact of our herd size and the arithmetic of growth!
How can candobetter advocate refusal of right to life?
Editorial comment: This came in a feedback e-mail with the subject heading Stupid Website . The commentator gave his/her e-mail address as [email protected]. Perhaps some may not think this 'e-mail address' completely inappropriate after reading his/her comments.
How is it that you can enjoy life and at the same time advocate the refusal of the right of human or any life by saying there are too many and we should only allow so much life? Who in the hell are you or any other human the authority on who should be born or allowed to procreate?
We live in a ecosystem that BALANCES ITSELF. If you really feel that way you should visit a forced, fully conscious abortion of a 7 month old fetus as they perform in China. Playing God w/ the population will only get you problems as in China where there are not enough women for men. I guess you would probably advocate that as a form of control though. Civilization is the problem you cant have billions of people trying to drink from the same water hole. People can be self sufficient, it is socialist / communist / democratic / totalitarian / dictatorship societies that create the illusion that government can protect, feed or control its citizens in an effort to rule and economically devastate the feeble minded.
Steve Irwin Day hypocrisy
Today is Steve Irwin Day at Australia Zoo.
Apparently wildlife hater, habitat destruct-or and kangaroo eating Premier Anna Bligh is allegedly to take part in their "Walk of Fame" where the "stars" print their hand and names in concrete.
Surely this is the height of hypocrisy?
Surely those at Australia Zoo are aware that Queensland promote the commercial kangaroo eating industry, and is trying to extend the exports to Russia and China?
Steve Irwin condemned the kangaroo meat and skin industry.
The losses of koalas is monumental - and they are a flagship species - and our government refuses to list them as Endangered!
Contact Australia Zoo: phone numbers and online form
911 Truth org
It is commonly known that the Twin Towers fell on 9/11, but how many people know that a third World Trade Center high-rise building also fell that day? WTC Building 7, a 47-story steel-framed skyscraper located one block from the Twin Towers was not hit by any plane, but collapsed at 5:20 that evening , imploding in the exact manner of a professionally engineered demolition.
The 911truth.org grassroots communities encompass a geographical area, hold regular meetings with a core group and sponsor events in their local community. Over 280 groups across the US and 60 international groups are educating and organizing their local communities.
The scientific paper "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe" conclusively shows the presence of unignited aluminothermic explosives in dust samples from the Twin Towers , whose chemical signature matches previously documented aluminothermic residues found in the same dust samples.
1358 verified architectural and engineering professionals and 10248 other supporters have signed the petition demanding a truly independent investigation of Congress.
Sign the petition
Incredibly, in the age of Science and Reason, and rising atheism and skepticism, people can still be conveniently irrational and the ignore the obvious solution to any questions about 9/11 - and that is to look for tangible and irrevocable evidence - SCIENTIFICALLY - by an independent group of scientists and engineers evaluating the destruction!
John Faine is in denial, like so many denials of reality going on today.
Doesn't Faine think Parliament should debate Afghan War pretext?
The following piece of transcription, from the article Free speech defenders 'persecute' Jon Faine of 23 October from one of Faine's lame attempts to publicly defend his conduct, bears repeating:
He (Kevin Bracken) said you can't have a parliamentary debate about Afghanistan unless you are prepared to talk about what really happened and the truth of what happened at the World Trade Centre in New York on 11 September and off it went.
How else are to take Faine's words, except that the events of 11 September 2001, which are the main justification used by Howard, Rudd and Gillard for Australia's current 9 year old military intervention in Afghanistan should not be discussed in our national Parliament!?
We can only guess at how many more lives would have been lost in the Vietnam War of 1956-1975, if the public back then had depended upon 'journalists' of Faine's calibre to have called our politicians to account for their 'justification' for that war back then.
Cultural change easier to start with 'R&R' focus
Conspicuous human consumption is one of the key human activities driving planet harm and xmas is a key event of that harmful habit. No more rampant is the conspicuous consumption of xmas each year, especially in western developed countries, and it is these western developed countries that are causing the most planet harm by their high per capita consumption.
But calling for people to reject the habitual ancient tradition of xmas altogether in favour of a return to paganism, is a tad utopian and would only invite stonewalling and risk inciting religious anger.
A more workable approach is to first expose and communicate the planet harm of conspicouos consumption and of the harmful role of xmas, then offer acceptable alternatives in small iterative ways.
Cultural change is easier to start with promoting an 'R&R' focus, which is what many people do at year's end anyway. The first priority is to convince high per capita consumers in western developed countries like Australia and the United States that lots of presents is harmful and that the values of the occasion are not about giving material things but in R&R which involves sharing time with people one values.
This is why I wrote a follow up article on CanDoBetter the following day:
'R&R' focus offers more value and benefit than the dogma of xmas
Perhaps the simple phrases 'happy holidays' is one worth promoting as a replacement to 'merry xmas' with all its religious and consumerism overtones.
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
Frodo the baby koala is stilling clinging to life
Koala joey Frodo, with 15 pellets in her small body, including the skull, would need a miracle to survive. Fortunately, she is in the expert hands of caring people.
The callous attack on the koalas - this joey and the mother - shocked the nation, with newspaper columns and radio airwaves running hot with calls for the offenders to be tracked down and dealt with.
Not only is violence a problem, stress in koalas causing Chlamydiosisis. It is increasing due to fewer trees and more contacts with people, and the threats that accompany human encroachments onto their habitats.
The Australian Koala Foundation estimates there are fewer than 100,000 koalas left in Australia, down from the millions at the time European settlement started in the late 1700s. For a flagship species, this trend means koalas' survival is severely threatened.
Ironically, Australia Zoo is having a 'Walk of Fame' today as one of the activities for Steve Irwin Day.
It involves something similar to the Film stars in America where they press their hands into concrete to leave a print and there is a star above with the name on it.
Who is doing this? Anna Bligh is!!! Yes, the woman who eats Kangaroo and does her best all around the world to promote the export of Kangaroo meat and products. She is also responsible for the mass starvation and destruction of koala habitats due to Queensland's population explosion! They refuse to label koalas as Endangered!
Doug, a previous victim of cruel shooting, and Frodo are symbols of our society's disconnection with indigenous animals. They are also victims of contempt by governments that support property developers and the logging industry that devalues them and propagates their deaths, for profits.
Same goes for birth of Spring rights or 'Easter'
Scott suggests that Australians should replace Xmas celebrations on the 25th with a celebration for the natural world at the time of ending winter solstice in June. I agree, and same for the "Easter" rebirth at the beginning of Spring instead of the beginning of winter.
Hospitals under stress from fat and old Australians
The health system is under siege by fat Aussies who are living longer (and hence need more healthcare). Nothing more. Population growth actually eases pressure off the health system by lowering the average age, thereby increasing the health of the average Australian. Over half of all hospital beds are occupied by the aged and aging, not young people. If you want our hospital system to collapse, strangle population growth and let the average age rise.
Growthist Committee for Melbourne - Macedon Ranges
In breaking news: MRRA (Macedon Ranges Residents' Association) has info obtained under FOI which paints a scandalous picture of what went down to get AAMI into the Gisborne call centre. This information will be forwarded to most local papers this week. The Gisborne community was ‘done over’ with this development, which wasn’t intended to have regard to the things the people of Gisborne think are important about their town.
MRRA has managed to obtain a copy of the (almost) infamous Committee For Melbourne’s recommendation that government include parts of Macedon Ranges in the Metropolitan area – watch out Gisborne, New Gisborne, Bullengarook, South Gisborne, Riddells Creek, Clarkefield, and possibly Macedon. The Committee For Melbourne are the big business lobby group pushing for 8 million people in Melbourne. We have posted a speech given by Kelvin Thomson at the Planning Backlash population forum last week, at which the CEO for the Committee For Melbourne also appeared and spoke.
The draft Macedon Ranges’ draft Settlement Strategy is out for ‘consultation’, if the consultation processes attached to it can be called consultation. This is a critical document and the consultation proposed is pathetic, to say the least. Submissions are due in the week before Christmas, and there is a huge amount of documentation to get through. Only one public meeting is proposed – at Riddells Creek on 9 December.
Women do not make babies on their own
Whoa there, Tim! It takes two to tango.
But anyway, this feminist doesn't have a problem with exercising reproductive restraint and I don't call it feminism to overpopulate the world. It's just plain dumb. And it comforts the corporates, who don't want people to be in control of their lives or their land.
But thanks for a good article. Of course it is coercive for a government to market bigger families or higher immigration and of course it is coercive to make us all put up with the consequences.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
Only birth right grants absolute national protection
If Andrew Chan or Si Yi Chen were born in Australia, then unequivocally they have an absolute right to Australian nationality and protection and are entitled to committed unending support from the Australian Government to get them home.
Even if they committed serious crimes overseas, while they each must be tried by that country, they should be deported to Australia to serve the court imposed sentence.
If Matthew Norman, Scott Rush, Martin Stephens, with names that may sound more Anglicised Australian, were in fact not born in Australia, then consistently such non-Australian borns should in the same way be deported not to Australia, but to their country of birth. It is a simple unambiguous rule.
Scott is looking for racist undertones that do not exist.
The test is one of birth country, not ethnicity or foreign sounding name or skin colour, or religious preference.
But Scot is right to challenge such policy for racist bias.
Scott, the intention is for such policy to be international.
It is absolutely fair.
GreensSupport Green business initiatives that use Native SPECIES
I am particularly upset about one of their policies that says they support green businesses that use native species. Do they mean flora or fauna? Letters sent to all Greens Senators emphatically state they mean flora - so why don't they just change the wording to avoid confusion?
It looks suspiciously like they support the kangaroo and possum industries, particularly in light of the fact that they do NOTHING to protect those native animals from the yawning jaws of commerce.
Perhaps they are angling for the rural vote? Or trying to appease meat-eaters who can no longer eat cow or sheep guilt-free by giving them the option to eat kangaroo or possum?
So much for protecting native species. The Greens Animals policy states as a key principle that "native animals and their habitats must be protected". Australian Greens Animals policy
Do they really believe it's possible to 'harvest' our wildlife sustainably and that is what they mean by 'protection'? If so, someone should tell them that if every Australian ate kangaroo only once a week they would need to kill 96 million kangaroos a year, four times more than exist right now. That excludes kangaroo meat sold as dog food and exported.
"It’s embarrassing for Australia that we eat our own wildlife ....I’m here to tell you it’s just not right. Simply do not buy, use or eat kangaroo products”
~ Steve Irwin
Sign the most important petition ever created to help kangar
Melbourne Mayor Robert Doyle's war on possums
Melbourne's Lord Mayor Robert Doyle is threatening to unleash a brigade of predators - powerful owls - to fix our problem possums. Cr Doyle yesterday declared war on the "exploding" population of "vermin".
Candobetter Editor: This comment has now been elevated to an article on the front page entitled, "Melbourne Mayor Robert Doyle focusing on wrong pest". Glad someone took the time to write in about the mayor's unnecessarily cruel manner of promoting owls. Our thanks to Nimby.
Well I better behave myself then
Well John I suppose I better keep my nose clean seeing as I wasn't born in Australia. I wouldn't be too quick to pass any judgement on individuals such as Andrew Chan or Si Yi Chen, for all you know they could be sixth generation Australians descended from the very mid 19th century Chinese immigrants you refer to earlier in your article. Or don't they fall under the banner of "traditional Australians"? Is a traditional Australian a white person or just someone who has lived here a long time and made a contribution? Or Both?
Puppet Judy Gillard is beholden to Sussex Street's puppeteers
Politically installed puppet Judy Gillard is trying to learn on the job. Judy is beholden to Sussex Street's puppeteers, who installed her. Punch is the developer lobby. So now the 'Labor Favor' needs to be repaid. So Judy's propagating the Right agenda of Sussex Street bover boys to appease the Labor Party's corporate funders - many developers and big business dependent on growth and cheap skills (aka skilled immigrants).
Recall corrupt development linked to Labor Favors - recall Orange Grove, Quattro, Braxton, Lewisham Towers, Sandon Point, Marrickville Metro, Coogee Bay Hotel, Balmain Leagues Club? Nice little earners if you're in the know.
Environment is lip service. Immigration control is lip service. How manipulative for Judy to renege on her Big Australia rejection and now say the government will focus on skills shortages and regional growth, rather than nominating population targets? It is puppetry unplugged!
Labor policy is all about Labor, Labor, Labor and Labor mates. If your not wiv da Labor bruvverhood, forget government funding, maaate.
Many in Labor power broking are ethnic, so is it any wonder? Like back in the old country, political favours make the world go around, eh Joe? And Karl's always watching and listening. How feeble and desperate to Karl to single out Latham's one off presence for Labor's selfish demise? Give over maaate!
Do Sussex bruvvers have a secret handshake?
Freedom of Information Laws
This was a comment to ABC Radio National's National Interest program on the new "Freedom of Information" laws.
I remain skeptical about whether the new Freedom of Information laws will give members of the public the right to know how government decisions affect their lives. That laws which have so effectively prevented the public from obtaining information requested, almost from their inception, were referred to as "Freedom of Information" laws is an example of grossly misleading labelling.
There is very little government information that I believe the government should have any right to withold from the public. The only information that any government should withhold should be that which threatens the personal privacy of other members of the public. The prevention of violations of personal privacy as a result of FOI requests would, I guess, be the role of the Privacy Commissioner, who featured on your program.
It is time that "commercial in confidence" clauses in government contracts with private corporations, which have been used to stop Freedom of Information requests, were stopped. Only if there is good reason to believe that the government would be unable to obtain a given service from a particular contractor or any of its competitors should a "commercial in confidence" clause even be considered. I think it is unlikely in a competitive market that many contractors would refuse to provide services if governments did not agree to "commercial in confidence" contract clauses.
Given the Internet and modern technology, I see no reason why we should not be able to have on our desk, within minutes or hours at most, the order of at least 99% of information we request from our government. Any laws which ultimately fail to deliver something approaching this in the age of the Internet should not be called "Freedom of Information" laws.
Yes, Gabe Watson once found guilty ought to have been deported
Yes, Gabe Watson once found guilty ought to have been deported to his country of birth - the United States.
Foreigner to Australia, Gabe Watson was found guilty of manslaughter by an Australian court for the death of his wife Tina Watson. The Queensland Supreme Court at Brisbane in June 2009 imposed a custodial sentence on Gabe Watson. Rightly or wrongly, the trial judge sentenced him to one year in prison, with a further three and a half years suspended. Subsequently, Watson's failed appeal increased his sentence by a further six months. [Wikipedia]
What should have happened was on the same day as the initial sentence being handed down, Watson, as a foreigner to Australia ought to have been immediately deported by the Australian Government at US Government expense back to his country of birth - the United States. His sentencing should have been served there and his appeal case processed and heard in the United States. the full cost of the appeal process ought to have been rightly borne by the United States as the country of birth of the convicted offender.
This a simple, fair, unambiguous and universally consistent approach to foreigners convicted of serious crimes outside their country of birth. Such justice ought to apply reciprocally and indeed globally.
No country and its citizens have a moral responsibility to harbour foreign criminals. That responsibility lies with the government of the country of birth of that criminal.
Birth country is not of anyone's choice, committing crime is!
Disparity in Penalty
That the state of Alabama imposes the death penalty is a separate issue. The issue then becomes what bilateral agreement Australia and the US are prepared to put in place when sentence is handed down in the trial country (where the crime was committed) that is more lenient than the sentencing country (where the sentence is to be served). As close countries, they should be able to negotiate a mutually acceptable outcome.
That a person born in a country which legally permits the death penalty, should not be an excuse to allow that person commit a serious crime in another country and be granted immunity from deportation back to that person's country of birth.
Else it risks a precedent for all the criminals from the following countries who still permit the death penalty to emigrate to countries like Australia. It would send a ludicrous message that of preparedness of harbouring serious foreign criminals in their gaols.
The following countries permit the death penalty, and so in my view may be characterised as brutal, uncivilised and backward:
Afghanistan
Antigua and Barbuda
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belize
Botswana
Burundi
Cameroon
Chad
China (People's Republic)
Comoros
Congo (Democratic Republic)
Cuba
Dominica
Egypt
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Gabon
Ghana
Guatemala
Guinea
Guyana
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Korea, North
Korea, South
Kuwait
Laos
Lebanon
Lesotho
Libya
Malawi
Malaysia
Mongolia
Nigeria
Oman
Pakistan
Palestinian Authority
Qatar
St. Kitts and Nevis
St. Lucia
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Saudi Arabia
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Somalia
Sudan
Swaziland
Syria
Taiwan
Tajikistan
Tanzania
Thailand
Trinidad and Tobago
Uganda
United Arab Emirates
United States
Vietnam
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe
[Source: The Death Penalty Worldwide]
Epilogue.
Ethical businesses should not trade with such countries. Ethical governments should condemn their backward practice publicly at at International forums like the UN. Sensible travellers should avoid them like the plague and hope their international tourism sectors collapse.
It would be wise for Australians never to visit these countries.
In the case of the Bali Nine in Indonesia, six of whom are on death row,with names like Andrew Chan, Si Yi Chen, Michael Czugaj, Renae Lawrence, Tach Duc Thanh Nguyen, Matthew Norman, Scott Rush, Martin Stephens and Myuran Sukumaran, perhaps many of these convicted criminals were not born in Australia and so should not be entitled to deportation to Australia, but rightly and consistently to the country of their birth.
Population growth is inevitable - Treasury
Julia Gillard's election pitch to avoid a ''big Australia'' is to be abandoned after a Treasury warning that strong future immigration is ''probably inescapable''. She is now revealing the REAL Julia Gillard, now the election frenzy is over!
Her rejection of former MP Kevin Rudd's "big Australia" gaff was just rhetoric, and Treasury have declared that it is unavoidable.
The government will focus on skills shortages and regional growth, rather than nominating population targets. Any skills shortages should be addressed within our own population rather than the global workforce.
Why regional growth when many regional areas are being oppressed by unemployment and land degradation?
Treasury briefing sent to Ms Gillard after the campaign suggests she could have no choice. Even if annual net migration was lowered to an unrealistically low 60,000 per annum, Australia's population would still reach 29 million by 2050! What about stopping the baby bonus if we are too fertile?
''Strong population growth is not necessarily unsustainable. It need not adversely affect the environment, the liveability of cities, infrastructure and service delivery, provided the right plans and policies are put in place now in anticipation of it.''
We already have the MDB drying up, and there are continually "shortages" of infrastructure and public services. Limited fertile land is being covered over by housing estates, despite looming global food and water shortages, climate change, and peak oil.
The quest for "economic growth" is consuming any logic, long-term considerations, the numerous "peaks" the planet is facing, and any logic. They are simply in denial, or obscenely stupid!
Blasphemy is a capital offence in Iran
Asia Bibi, a 45-year-old mother-of-five, denies blasphemy and told investigators that she was being persecuted for her faith in a country where Christians face routine harassment and discrimination.
The court heard she had been working as a farmhand in fields with other women, when she was asked to fetch drinking water.
Some of the other women - all Muslims - refused to drink the water as it had been brought by a Christian and was therefore "unclean", according to Mrs Bibi's evidence, sparking a row.
The incident was forgotten until a few days later when Mrs Bibi said she was set upon by a mob.
In the meantime, someone informed Pakistani police of the attack on the Bibi family.
Police then arrested Bibi on blasphemy charges. Following a lengthy trial, she has been sentenced to death.
We would expect for instance that, as a religion committed to a faith based on tolerance, peace and equality for all humans, they would now step forward to state that there should be no space for bigotry or for the raising of objections over fetching water which seem to have led to more serious charges.
A further complication is frequently created by the fact that extremist groups and clerics rally to create an environment which makes it difficult to look at matters fairly whenever a charge of blasphemy is brought.
Iran's law against blasphemy derives from Sharia. The law against blasphemy complements laws against criticizing the Islamic regime, insulting Islam, and publishing materials that deviate from Islamic standards. The regime uses these laws to persecute religious minorities such as the Sunni, Bahai, Sufi, and Christians and to persecute dissidents and journalists.
Murder carries the death penalty in Alabama
Murder carries the death penalty in Alabama and the Australian government is seeking assurance honeymoon killer Gabe Watson would not face capital punishment should he be found guilty in his home town.
Watson is now being held as an illegal immigrant at Melbourne's Maribyrnong detention centre.
The law of double jeopardy should be applied in the case of so-called honeymoon killer Gabe Watson, according to one of Australia's most respected barristers, Robert Richter QC. He has already been charged with manslaughter by accident, in Queensland.
Mr Richter said Watson should not have to face another trial at all!
No wonder we have so many crimes in Australia, with such "soft" approach to criminals!
Watson killed the very person in his care, the person he vowed to love and hold "till death us depart". Watson is accused of turning off Tina's air supply, holding her underwater until she passed out and then opening the oxygen valve before swimming to the surface to raise the alarm. His motive, they say, was to claim her life insurance!
His crime was one of the worst, the betrayal and killing of the person who should have been able to trust him above all.
Justice should be allowed to take its due course, and he should be sent back to Alabama. Australia should not be a place where murderers can be assured of not facing up to the full penalty for their crimes.
We have all sorts of "human rights" in the western world, but little attention is being given to its counterpart - "human responsibilities".
Capital punishment is not murder, but justice - especially as there is little doubt about his guilt, and motive.
December 25: Renewal of the Sun
I thought December the 25th was traditionally the day that the Romans celebrated the renewal of the sun after the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere... pagan style. Maybe we in Australia should really be celebrating this day after our winter solstice in June and take some time to wonder at the natural world - and forget the presents.
Christmas
Tigerquoll is spot on.
"xmas", is the capitalist class/money changers appropriation of our Aussie traditions for Christmas.
Goodwill, peace on earth, and Aussie co-operative values are preferable to an existence based on "consuming and defecating" as sought for "xmas".
Deport ethnic criminals
I could not agree more and am intensely angered by the fact that we Australians have been overtaken by ethnic people not seeking asylum in aid of 'living better, safer lives with an appreciation of Australian culture' but moreso looking to take over whole suburbs and bring that violence with them.
The number of times I have been verbally abused by ethnic men, spat on through my car window, sideswiped in my car, etc. is unacceptable! I fear for my children - if we have no protective rights and continue to roll over & not only accept but ENABLE these violent people to bring their hostilities to Australia then what rights will my children have in 20 years time?! God help us all. Does the rate of violent crime not speak for itself? How dare Government Officials expect honest, hardworking tax payers to condone, let alone continue to PAY FOR these people to be put up in overcrowded prisons? Sentences are reduced as a result of overcrowding, meaning that these people are back on the streets putting the rest of us at risk within no time at all. Television in prison? Give me a break. Perhaps if these criminals knew they were going to be deported back to their country of origin they would reconsider those acts of violence. Why not put our good money toward a plane trip back home or (considering we just LOVE advocating for the rights of boat people), put them on a boat back home!! Here's another idea - where there is clear evidence of a violent crime having been committed, use that money to bring back the death penalty, then see what happens. At the very least it will either help gain back some control agains those alientating, polluting and endangering our country and our lives, or help start controlling this overwhelming and worsening population crisis we are all doing our best to survive!
Stand up Australia. Fight for what is right - for us!!
Editorial comment: Whilst we don't think that privileges should be allowed for immigrants or those applying for refugee status and that they should not be an undue burden on the Australian taxpayer and we are in favour of the law being applied firmly of immigrant lawbreakers as well as native lawbreakers, we also are in favour of good standards of human rights and procedural justice.
We certainly oppose the death penalty. As for the issue of television in prisons, we are not in favour of prisons being unduly harsh to any prisoner. The deprivation of liberty should be a harsh enough imposition upon a prisoner. The mere provision of TV sets (with the usually second-rate entertainment they provide) would hardly make prisons overly luxurious.
Pets are not throw-away items
This festive season, pounds and shelters across Australia will be overflowing with dumped animals, the discarded end results of ill-thought out Christmas presents and people going on holidays and don't want to pay for kennels. Puppies and kittens are kept inside glass or metal cages inside pet shops, and some can be obviously suffering from confinement, noise and psychological stresses.
Shoppers are lured into buying pets because they look appealing, and can pay exorbitant prices and find later that the pets have behaviour or health problems, from overbreeding, or are too demanding or too big.
During the day they are surrounded by overwhelmingly bright lights, loud noise and excited children; at night they are left alone in the dark. They are merely shelf products, items for sale, like toys or lollies.
Puppy farms are quite legal and continue to produce their products to a saturated market. Shelters and pounds become overwhelmed by the numbers of dumped "best friends" every year.
This Christmas, please adopt, don't shop, and remember that an animal is a commitment, a companion and a family member, not a disposable product or toy.
White Trash
I read recently that there was a circle of white plastic floating in the Pacific bigger than Texas. That's right. There is more white trash in the Pacific than there is in Texas. Maybe they should hold a Republican fund-raiser there. Tim
Christmas has been hijacked by commercial interests
Christmas doesn't have to be a time of pure commercialism and junk! Giving gifts can and should be bought and given ethically. Many charities and ngos have calendars and merchandise, and Christmas cards, to buy that helps their operations and at the same time provide ethically made items to help celebrate the season. It is secularisation that has hijacked this religious, traditional and spiritual festival.
However, some aid organisations are guilty of imposing Western standards when they give gifts that are not appropriate in developing countries. Others encourage the giving of livestock, which ultimately could be imposing our diets and unsustainable eating habits onto people struggling to feed themselves, let alone animals.
Alternative gift ideas and charity cards from national charities, fair trade, international aid and relief agencies will help make this an ethical Christmas.
Go Fair Trading sell online fair trade tea, coffee, chocolate, chocolate drink and sugar. They have a wide selection of fair trade craft produced by talented artisans from areas such as Peru, Aceh, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Chile, Kashmir and Central Australia.
http://www.fairgotrading.com.au/
Christmas has become a season of shopping and advertising frenzy. It should be symbolic and sincere, not betrayed by all the hype and hysteria we see on TV, in brochures and in the shops. They belie the actual message, the significance of the Son of God being born among animals in a stable, and celebrated humbly with the those of the lowest social status - the shepherds!
Junking of perfectly good monitors proves we need "planet tax"
Having seen so many computer monitors, old TVs and other plastic electronic devices thrown out by households in my area in the recent council clean-up, I can see the need for Tigerquoll's proposed 'planet tax'.
The prices we pay for the latest wide flat screen monitors to replace our older monitors is nowhere near the the full costs to their planet of their manufacture (as, indeed, even the costs of the older glass cathode-ray tube monitors were not anywhere near to the costs to the planet of their manufacture) as so well demonstrated in Bandicoot's recent article in which she describes how much of our oceans are covered with floating plastic waste. If the prices were adequate to cover the damage to the Earth, there is no way that so many would have chosen to buy the newer LCD monitors. They would have. instead, chosen to use their older monitors, for as long as their durability would have allowed them to, before buying newer monitors. For sure, it would have meant many years more in front of less visually appealing monitor displays for many, but the savings in non-renewable natural resources, for this and future generations, would have easily made the inconvenience well worth it.
It is important that such "earth taxes" be put to good use, and not just redistributed ultimately towards the wealthy and more privileged the way the Government now does with most of its taxes and charges today. If the revenue gained was spent on programs for the benefit of ordinary and poorer people, then it would be possible to use Tigerquoll's proposed 'earth tax' to modify people to behave with more consideration for their natural environment, but without making them poorer (as the Federal Government's now scrapped "carbon tax", which the Greens are trying to resuscitate almost certainly would).
Feral.org.au
The website Feral.org.au is administered by the Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre .
It says that A pest is an animal that causes significant damage to a valued resource. The pest status of an animal can change with time, between areas or according to the perception of the assessor. What might be one persons pest might be another’s valued resource. Native animals such as kangaroos and possums can be a pest in some situations.
This website, by association, includes kangaroos and possums under the same category as "feral", "invasive", and "pests". This very disturbing, un-Australian and very warped!
Kangaroos and possums have evolved in Australia over millions of years. Surely, under any logic or any evolutionary forces, they are perfectly adapted to our nation, their ecology they have existed so harmoniously in for so long. In 220 years since European settlement in Australia, we have made extinct more mammals than in any other country. (WWF). This, ironically, is the Year of Biodiversity, something mainly overlooked in Australia.
The Murray Darling Report is a scientific report published by the Murray Darling Commission and written by government and independent scientists. It makes clear warnings regarding the risks of hunting kangaroos below 5k/km2 ('quasi extinction'):-
- -Red Kangaroos are quasi extinct across 92% of South Australia, and at less than 2k/km2 across 50% of the state.
- -Western Grey Kangaroos are quasi extinct across 80% South Australia, and are at less than 2k/km2 across 60% of South Australia.
- -Euros are quasi extinct across most of South Australia, and at densities of less than 2k/km2 across 63% of the state.
- -Across half of South Australia 50% of the kangaroos killed by the commercial industry are female. Killing 50% females from a wild population puts a species at great risk of extinction.
How Queensland high density living is criminalising youth
As reported in the Herald Sun article "Boys aged 10 to 14 Queensland's fastest growing group of violent criminals" of Nov 13th:
Boys just 10 to 14 years of age represent the fastest growing group of violent criminals in Queensland and experts are blaming parents who use television and computer games as babysitters.
Higher density living is not only environmentally bad, but bad for children and families.
The statistics were generally in contrast to overall crime rates which saw sexual offences, robberies and break-ins decrease slightly, and assaults rise by 6 per cent.
Increasing crime and social dysfunction are a sign of society's dis-ease and underlying malignancy. Population has just grown too fast, putting pressure on finances, infrastructure and families. Natural growth is fine, and able to be accommodated in the long term, but abnormal growth will inevitably bring internal stresses, as it would to any community of species. Humans are complex, and mass immigration is not in our interests - and it is not about "race" but undue numbers!
Editorial comment: Subject was originally the same as the Sun Herald to which the article refers, Boys aged 10 to 14 Queensland's fastest growing group of violent criminals".
Sea Turtles Are in the Dumps
Earlier this week the BBC reported that one-third of loggerhead turtles recovered recently from the Adriatic Sea had plastic in their intestines. The presence of such an undissolvable substance in the digestive system can be fatal, and probably was the primary cause of death for some of the shell-encased reptiles.
Much of the trash of some 4 million people of Italy and Croatia north of the Mediterranean Sea produce ends up floating on the Adriatic, including plastics in the form of water bottles, food wrappers and whatnot. Loggerheads, according to the BBC, are omnivores who in their youth feed on the surface along the shallow Adriatic shores to bulk up for adult-life eating in deeper waters. Water pollution is a growing catastrophe not just for marine creatures but for humans as well.
Sea turtles are threatened by extinction across the globe and it is thought that along with numerous factors plastic ingestion is contributing to their decreasing populations.
In Europe, issues of high levels of pollution are also found in the Celtic Sea and the northwest region of the Mediterranean. Many more locations exist elsewhere in the world.
What we really need is a long-term approach. We can start by reducing consumption, cleaning up after ourselves more carefully — and keeping in mind that what we do can impact animals such as loggerhead turtles.
However, nobody "owns" the high seas, and thus they are nobody's responsibility. It is not just over consumption, but overpopulation.See also article Are we witnessing the death of our planet?.
Are we witnessing the death of our planet?
Editorial comment: This comment has been turned into the article of the same name. Thanks, Bandicoot.
KPMG migration service profit from migration
Accounting firm KPMG said yesterday that WA employers had increased their use of 457 visa workers more than any other state, with 34 per cent having done so compared with 25 per cent nationally.
KPMG are investors with self-serving interests in immigration. They often bemoan Australia's small population with veiled threats of us lagging behind the rest of the world, and our ageing population. The latest thrust is "skills shortages"!
The Access report says inflation in WA was expected to run at between 2.9 per cent and 3.2 per cent for each of the next four years, leaving the state only behind Queensland and South Australia in increases in the cost of living.
“The 457 visa offers businesses flexibility in meeting temporary skills shortages,” KPMG migration practice head Karen Waller said. “Up to half the people entering Australia under a 457 visa have subsequently been granted permanent residency. For employers and workers 457 visas offer the advantages of a try-before-you-buy system.”
The WA population boom has created an increased cost of living, and this in turn makes moving there prohibitive. If there are skills shortages, they need to be made public and broadcasted to schools, and graduates should be encouraged in the areas needed. If funding for universities were adequate, we would have more skills.
Our universities and colleges have been made reliant on foreign students due to lack of funds and this in turn creates the very skills shortages that in turn mean we "need" more foreigners here! It's a Ponzi-like scheme to increase our population.
Origins of modern Iranian fundamentalist government
A response to the comment from Milly entitled "Stoning of Women in Iran" is now an article, "Origins of modern Iranian fundamentalist government," by Geoffrey Taylor.
Politicians & others forum on native forest logging 24 Nov RMIT
Meet the pollies
On the Panel:
• Brian Walters (Greens Candidate for Melbourne)
• Gavin Jennings (ALP Minister for the Environment)
• Peter Walsh (Liberal Shadow Minister for Agriculture)
• Vanessa Bleyer (Bleyer Lawyers)
• Luke Chamberlain (The Wilderness Society)
Come and see your political leaders present their parties’ policies on the future of native forest logging in Victoria.
To incite healthy debate, politicians will be joined on the panel by forest campaigner Luke Chamberlain and Conservation Lawyer Vanessa Bleyer.
When:
6:00pm, Wednesday 24 November
Cost:
Gold coin donation.
Where:
RMIT University, City Campus, 340 Swanston
St Melbourne (Building 8, Level 10, Room 22)
Active job and training discrimination against locals?
It's beginning to look like a conspiracy against locals.
I had realised that importing labour would increase competition for jobs, and Australia has long had a reputation for poor local training opportunities. From recent comments like yours, however, I am beginning to wonder if there is actually active discrimination against Australians who apply for jobs and apprenticeships. Are employers not just avoiding financing training, but are they actually going for imports in preference to Australians?
My understanding is that there are no longer protections for local workers to ensure that, prior to importing labour, employers show that they have cause due to lack of suitable applicants here.
I hope that more people will write to us about their experiences in this. I would also like people who are doing research in the area to post their theses or summaries, comments related to their work.
Loud voices in The Greens
From what I have heard, no-borders unlimited immigration elements at grass roots level drown out and silence moderate voices within the Greens party who ask for a sensible population approach which is in the interests of the environment as well as present and future generations of Australians.
Governments inconsistent
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen announced a new points system to assess skilled migrants on Thursday.
"The reforms set the foundations for a skilled migration program that will be responsive to our economic needs and continue to serve Australia's interests in the medium to long term," he said.
Australia's interests should be focused on ensuring that we have sufficient training and job opportunities here, not import those already trained at no expense to our government!
The new system would ensure the best and brightest potential migrants were selected, Mr Bowen said.
The list of valued vocations was slashed from 400 to 181 in the revised list. Private dance teachers, piano tuners and naturopaths were among those cut.
The Federal Government has allocated $11.1 million to trade training initiatives in West Gippsland. However, without industries to employ them, this is a hollow action.
A survey of 400 companies found that while many companies anticipate a lift in profit over the next 12 months, the shortage of skilled labour and higher wages may stifle their growth. Instead of advertising our lack of skills, while ironically at the same time also advertising our universities overseas, industries and businesses should be sponsoring traineeships and studentships for our citizens.
With contradictory actions and aims, our "skill shortages" are self-imposed and manufactured by wasteful and inefficient Federal government departments not "talking" to and at odds with each other!
Influence of 'socialist' groups on Greens detrimental, but ....
I agree that the influence of 'red' groups in the Greens is detrimental, but not necessarily for the same reasons as John Marlowe.
I consider socialism a laudable political goal and if it were incorporated into the platform of the Greens it would actually add to their value as an alternative pro-environmental political group rather than detract from it.
The problem is that, as far as I can tell, all significant far-left Marxist 'revolutionary' groups in Australia, including those whose influence in the Greens John Marlowe has discussed, aren't socialist at all. I think true socialists would not seem as anywhere near as alien to normal Australians as most members of these groups manage to seem.
Greens, with so much red influence, are 'browning'
The Australian Greens, with so much 'Red' Labor Left influence, are politically aligning into a confused murky 'brown' as they build numbers recruiting disaffected Labor Lefties.
Disaffected and defecting Labor Left are clutching on to the least worst alternative - The Greens. But old habits die hard and so these Labor Lefties now with The Greens have steadily wormed their extreme Left agenda into Greens leadership platform and policy.
Meanwhile traditional 'Greenies' remain loyal to the Party, despite the clear platform colour changing, simply because they 'can't find a better man' flying the small 'g' green flag.
Other political hopefuls seek any alternative to Lib/Lab 20th Century Laboral conservatism, yet without a clear vision, become stuck in a perverted kaleidescope of ideology that only further confuses and distracts - just making the Greens more ineffectual.
The Greens used to have an inferiority complex about being a single issue party. However, their born again mission to become more 'mainstream' has seen them go to the other extreme. Green policies are now so numerous that they outnumber those of the Liberals, Labor and National combined!
Big 'G' Green has become politically aligned to almost any idealistic notion that is 'alternative', so long as it differentiates them from the other mob - the Laboral Centre Right.
So big 'G' Greens have now drifted into issues so far removed from their environmental conservation core as to make their namesake a misnomer. Perhaps 'New Labor' would be a more apt name, or has that name already been taken? Still, the Greens have now wondered into alliances like feminism, gay rights, gay marriage, multiculturalism, multilateralism, pacifism, childcare, housing, ageing, and suddenly pure chlorophyll Greenies wake up one day to learn their leaders are endorsing heroine injecting rooms in Kings Cross! What planet are we on?
Greens are the new brown - lovely colour that, says everything about ideology, direction and strategy!
Greens, with so much red influence, are browning and smelling decidedly unnatural.
Unemploment jumps..
Australia's jobless rate has jumped sharply to 5.4 percent as more people started looking for work and the number of full-time jobs fell.
The Australian dollar fell on the news to slip briefly below parity with the US dollar.
Official data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show the unemployment rate for October climbed from 5.1 per cent in September to today's 5.4 per cent.
Economists had predicted the rate would drop to 5 per cent, with the creation of 20,000 new jobs.
"It's not all bad news," said Moody's Economy's analyst Matthew Circosta. "The participation rate hit a record high suggesting more people are coming into the workforce and that will boost productive capacity in coming months."
"It won't prompt any response from the (Reserve Bank) in December but we're still of view that strong jobs growth...will lead to further (interest rate rises) in 2011," he said.
While the Australian economy did add jobs for the month - a net 29,700 positions - the gain came from a jump in part-time employees, with 43,800 such positions added. About 14,100 full-time jobs were lost for the month, the worst result in 14 months.
The so-called participation rate - the number of people either working or looking for work - came in at 65.9 per cent, the highest in at least a quarter of a century.
In another indication of strength in the labour market, the aggregate hours worked in the month rose by 7.9 million hours, or 0.5 per cent, to 1,602.6 million hours, according to the ABS, citing seasonally adjusted figures.
Total employment rose by 29,700 to 11.356 million in the month, seasonally adjusted.
Full-time employment fell by 14,100 to 7.971 million in October and part-time employment was up by 43,800 to 3.385 million
Enjoying trickle down economics now?
Hi Enne,
This is what we get when we support globalism. Fight it any way you can.
Also google zerohedge for accurate news on what is influencing your child's prospects.
Editor's comment: I think it's a mistake to become too dependent upon Google (or Yahoo) to find material for us, particularly material opposed to the interests of the wealthy elites. Wherever possible I recommend, that full links to a related or cited article be put directly into articles and comments, in preference to, or as well as Google search terms. The link at the top of the Google search term referred to above BTW is www.zerohedge.com.
Skills shortages here?
My 24 year old son wants to be a fitter and turner and has been looking for an apprenticeship in the industry for over a year. Qantas used to take over 3000 apprentices per year in the early 1990s, but now they have about 3000 applicants in Melbourne and only take 100! There is a very rigorous series of tests and interviews, with such high standards, that is it hardly worthwhile! How do we have skills shortages when apprentices can't get jobs, and our maintenance work is mostly outsourced overseas where there is cheaper labour?
Stoning of women in Iran
The stoning of women is one of the more savage, and revealing aspects of the mullahs' rule in Iran. Since the inception of the mullahs' rule, hundreds of women of various ages have been and continue to be stoned to death throughout Iran. In the Quran and the Prophet's traditions, such barbarism is denounced.
Stoning is more a women's issue because, according to Islamic laws, a man can have four permanent wives and any number of temporary wives.
When caught in adulterous relationships, men can always claim to have been in a temporary marriage contract with the woman involved -- provided she is not already married to someone else. A married woman cannot escape stoning in the same way.
The theoretical foundation of the Islamic Penal Codes is a social model based on sexual apartheid. The chief elements of this model are first: a belief that women are deficient in their natural and “innate” potentials and abilities, including their psychological-makeup and intellectual capacity. Second, a belief in a social and family order where men must be guardians over women, and women must submit.
Recent reports have warned that Iran was preparing to execute Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the woman sentenced to be stoned for adultery. Reports say she would soon be executed. Human-rights groups and ordinary citizens who sympathize with her plight protested her case in many Western cities, earlier this year.
Hadi Ghaemi of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran says Iran has "doubled the number of executions it normally conducts" in recent months and is now second only to China in its per-capita execution rate.
Murder, adultery, rape, armed robbery, apostasy, and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Iran's Shari'a law, enforced since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
It seems likely, in one of the tiniest pieces of good news on record, that Ashtiani will not – following a huge public outcry – be stoned to death, but instead be hanged. Thank heaven for small mercies!
MAKE BRUMBY HISTORY Rally Nov 14th Parliament House 2pm
Don’t just get angry – Get even
Put Labor Last on the 27th November
Sick of the arrogance, the secrecy, the waste and mismanagement?
Don’t like Myki, desal, Windsor planning sham, native forest logging, puppy farms, clearways, high rise towers, north-south pipeline, street violence, duck shooters, Hazelwood, public transport that doesn’t work, government spying on individuals, taking water from the country, government advertising and spin, VCA funding cuts?
November 14 at 2PM – On the steps of Parliament House
Find out more at: makebrumbyhistory.org
Media scrunity is democratically healthy
Media scrunity is democratically healthy. Constant media criticism and the holding to account of those who supposedly represent us, is far better than the alternative - State controlled media who don't and can't.
When I watch ABC's 'MediaWatch' or 'Four Corners' or 'Stateline' or even listen to the odd shock jock irrespective of any personal bias, I reflect that aren't we lucky to be able to challenge those in power without journalists being arrested, disappearing or being shot like in so many other countries? Just type 'journalist shot dead' in Google's search engine and note the number of hits - Greece, Bulgaria, Russia, Rwanda, Philippines, Pakistan, Thailand, Colombia, Mexico....
But some politicians, especially factionally installed puppets operating outside their ability and spending our taxes outside their electoral mandate, deserve more scrutiny than others.
Why "iron law" need not be applied to Gillard
This may be a case where the supposed "iron law" of politics, that any person, who gains a position of power in politics, could only have done so by allowing his/her principles to have been corrupted, actually serves the corrupt elites, who are normally so well served by our corrupt political leaders.
The crude belief that any powerful figure must necessarily be corrupt and against the best interests of society actually allows the wealthy elites to attack even harder those few who rise to great heights in politics, with the best of intentions of the people at heart.
The most striking example is the late President Kennedy (JFK). The record as presented in James Douglass's towering "JFK and the unspeakable: Why he died and why it matters" of 2008 shows that JFK actually stopped the US military industrial complex from launching of nuclear war, not once, but three times.
Whilst this alone places JFK's greatness and goodness far above almost all other historical leaders, this far from exhausts the good that JFK did or attempted to do as President. This is why he was assassinated in 1963. However, a number of supposed left wing intellectuals, by, in effect, claiming that JFK was no less corrupt than any other holder of high office, have been able to obscure the truth about JFK and his murderers. Two such intellectuals who come to mind are Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal.
Of course it is far too early to know if Gillard has truly good intentions or if her eventual greatness will remotely approach that of JFK. However, we should no be blinded by the so-called "iron law" that anyone in Gillard's position could only be there because he/she is corrupt from fairly evaluating Gillard's record.
My apologies, 11 Nov 2010 3.37PM: My apologies that my comment repeats much of what I had already written in the original article. I thought this was a "Your say" page. I hadn't realised that these comments were, in fact, resposes to my article, Can only the corrupt rise to the top in politics? Of course I should have looked more closely. Thank you, Sheila Newman and John Marlowe for taking the time to read my article and for having responded.
Green branding
Yes, these are the kinds of arguments that make you feel that the Greens must actually be fronts for the other parties and big business. I don't like the way they run real environmentalists as candidates from time to time, then muzzle them on population. Whoever benefits from this must be laughing all the way to the bank. When will humans stop being sucked in by brands?
What gives me hope about Gillard
What gives me some hope that Gillard may be for real is that the Murdoch and Fairfax press and the ABC all obviously hate her and are working 24/24 to mischaracterise her and pretend that she doesn't know what she is doing. They started this almost before she replaced Kevin Rudd.
With these kinds of enemies, Gillard can't be too bad.
Australia's press are a big problem for democracy and they are also an insult to the intelligence.
Apart from the problem of the press, with regard to Australian politicians, I prefer independents to the parties. The parties are just too systemically corrupt. Um, like the mainstream press. Because of them....
Update re Official Persecution of Brown Mt protesters
I think there was a small crowd of supporters. The case was – what do you call it – deferred, or put down for another day early next year sometime I think. DSE still refused to drop the criminal charges. That hearing next year should determine if they’ll be charged or be let off.
Geller extremism
Well said, Scott! I wonder why Geller appeals at all, except that official hysteria against Islam is so bad in the US that it must seem almost natural to go along with Geller's extremism. And Christianity, as practised in the US, tends to see itself in natural opposition to Islam. I did have a look at one of Geller's films and noted that she was making very exaggerated claims for France vis a vis Islam. She seems to be very approximate with figures.
Australia's Skill shortage a myth
I dont believe there is a skllls shortage in Australia...I think the goverment says there is a skills shortage so they can bring more and more immigrants in. I live in WA and appled for countless jobs in the mining sector which Iam qualified for and never had a single reply from any of them. The West Australian newspaper seems to have less ads now than before for mining sector workers and there seems to be alot of companies over here going bust now..Where is this skills shortage they keep banging on about...Meanwhile I know of some asian people that were sponsered to come to Australia and work in Mcdonalds flipping burgers and they now have permanent residency in Australia and are still flipping burgers...and I have friends who are highly skilled overseas who cannot get into Australia...Its an insane world we live in..
Why are we called "racist"?
From the Saudi Arabia Immigration website:
"Women with plans of permanently residing in Saudi Arabia should be informed that all children and females living in the country as members of a Saudi household such as adult women married to Saudi nationals, unmarried adult women who are daughters of Saudi fathers, and males below 21 years old with Saudi-born parents are considered household property and will need the permission of the Saudi household male head before leaving the country".
"Married women need to be allowed by their Saudi husbands to depart the country, while male Saudi fathers or guardians grant permission to unmarried women, children and young boys to depart the Kingdom. Saudi mothers cannot independently grant permission to minor children without their husbands consent".
All government business in Saudi Arabia is conducted according to the Islamic calendar. Any Gregorian (western) date you encounter on official documents is there purely for your convenience and is in no way to be construed as official.
Unlike other countries of the GCC, (Gulf Cooperation Council -- Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman) Saudi Arabia does not issue tourist visas nor is it possible for a hotel to sponsor a visitor. Other than the two types of visas which are only available to Muslims.
On the other hand, the Australian Department of Immigration provide spouses, partners, children, parents and relatives of Australian citizens and permanent residents the opportunity of migrating from Saudi Arabia to Australia.
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Anna Bligh's sale of Port of Brisbane
Anna Bligh sale of the Port of Brisbane will add $2.3 billion into the government's coffers. This once proud and vibrant State has been financially and ecologically destroyed by Peter Beattie and Anna Bligh.
Interesting that she is able to sell a public asset on behalf to the public! The money will help pay all the costs for infrastructure that the Queensland population boom doesn't cover. They sold off public transport in Melbourne and it is now totally crewed up. Now, like Victoria, they will lose apprenticeships/training opportunities and jobs will go overseas where they are cheaper. How long it will be before the lay-offs begin?
This in turn will add to our "skills shortages", and then Queensland government will justify more immigration while existing youth find it hard to get opportunities. Such is the price of progress and economic reform!
Islamic paranoia and Pamela Geller
In response to anonymous 9/11. The website that you are basing your post on also contains the following claims and misinformation:
- A video suggesting muslims have sex with goats
- A doctored photo showing President Obama urinating on a US flag
- Claims that Obama's mother was involved in pornography
- Claims that Obama was involved with a "crack whore" in his youth
- Suggestions that Obama is the "lovechild" of Malcolm X
- Islam is an evil religion
- Blacks are the most murderous of people
AUSTRALIA hands Indonesia $500 million to build 2000 schools
Indonesia has a population of 242,968,342 (July 2010 est.) Indonesia is the largest Muslim majority country. Most of its 240 million people adhere to variations of Islamic beliefs to some degree. Mosques are a common sight and Islamic rituals are largely observed. The discovery of a militant training camp in Indonesia, along with persistent terrorist attacks there, have increased U.S. concerns that extremists are regrouping and eyeing Western targets in a country long viewed as a counterterrorism success story.
Julia Gillard offered Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono $100 million for each of the next five years to boost his push to ensure all Indonesian children have at least nine years of schooling by 2015. We handed Indonesia $500 million to build 2000 schools, 1500 of them ISLAMIC SCHOOLS. This is in an effort to reduce radical teaching in Islamic schools, but by their very nature, Islamic schools ARE radical! She herself is a self proclaimed atheist, so there is a fairly good chance of her taking it for granted that all religions are equally bad and none can be more radical than others. If so, she is out of her depth.
Indonesia’s Islamic schools are largely moderate in outlook but there have been pockets of radicalism that have produced terrorists in Indonesia. No promises of clemency for Corby, and Gillard did not condemn Indonesia's invasion or West Papua or the torture of nationals.
So when are Australians
So when are Australians going to wake from heir stupor, take to the streets and refuse to pay taxes. As with every other country in the western world this is the only way to stop these treasonous theives from bleeding every Australian dry...
Meanwhile Gillard donates $500M to Islamic schools in Indonesia!
Meanwhile Australia's Prime Minister Gillard flippantly donates $500 million to 1500 madrasah Islamic schools in Indonesia [Read More], while Indonesian President Yudhoyono is set to splurge Rp 100 trillion (AUD10 billion) over the next five years 'to bring the military’s arsenal up to date'. [Read More]. What bloody for?
Gillard hasn't even had the gumption to make the donation conditional - such as insisting the money not go to Islamic fundamental teachings, that the Indonesian Government tries the military human rights abuses in Papua, and insisting upon sending Australian convicts back to Australia to serve out their time. Gillard is a naiive spendthrift with no national vision - an embodiment of her irrelevant self-serving political party.
As what electoral mandate does Gillard thinks she's got to gift half a billion dollars of Australian taxpayer money overseas anyway? It is not as if Australia is rolling in it, or as if Australia's growing underclass and infrastructure aren't desperate for government funding after decades of neglect under the Howard regime?
Now Labor's Finance Minister Wong and Treasurer Swan claim Treasury's budget is running over...no bloody wonder with wonder woman in the till! [Read More].
Three quarters of U.S. mosques preach anti-western extremism
An undercover survey of more than 100 mosques and Islamic schools in America has exposed widespread radicalism, including the finding that 3 in 4 Islamic centres are hotbeds of anti-Western extremism. The Mapping Sharia in America Project, sponsored by the Washington-based Centre for Security Policy, has trained former counter intelligence and counter terrorism agents from the FBI, CIA and U.S. military, who are skilled in Arabic and Urdu, to conduct undercover reconnaissance at some 2,300 mosques and Islamic centres and schools across the country."
atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/12/mapping-sharia.html
So far of 100 mapped, 75 should be on a watchlist," an official familiar with the project said. Many of the Islamic centres are operating under the auspices of the Saudi Arabian government and U.S. front groups for the radical Muslim Brotherhood based in Egypt. Frank Gaffney, a former Pentagon official who runs the Centre for Security Policy, confirmed that "the vast majority" are inciting insurrection and jihad through sermons by Saudi-trained imams and anti-Western literature, videos and textbooks.
The project, headed by David Yerushalmi, a lawyer and expert on sharia law, has collected data from the 102 mosques and schools. Preliminary findings indicate that almost 80 percent of the group exhibit a high level of sharia-compliance and jihadi threat, including: Ultra-orthodox worship in which women are separated from men in the prayer hall and must enter the mosque from a separate, usually back, entrance; and are required to wear hijabs. Though not all mosques in America are radicalized, many have tended to serve as safe havens and meeting points for Islamic terrorist groups.
Even with such radical mosques operating in its backyard, the U.S.government has not undertaken its own systematic investigation of U.S.mosques. In contrast, European Union security officials are analysing member-state mosques, examining the training and funding sources of imams, in a large-scale project. Some U.S. lawmakers want the U.S. to conduct its own investigation."We have too many mosques in this country," said Representative Pete King. "There are too many people who are sympathetic to radical Islam. We should be looking at them more carefully.
Source: Intercessors for America
Editorial comment:
(This comment was originally published at 12:35PM on 9 November 2010.)
Perhaps a question to consider is just how fundamentally opposed to the interests of the western ruling elites are the 'extremist' 'anti-western' 'Islamist' ideologues? Al Qaeda, itself, is largely the creation of US intelligence agencies. Sincere Islamist fundamentalist terrorist recruits to al Qaeda should be considered no more than patsies, who, in fact, serve the interests of the U.S. elites by providing them with excuses to launch bloody wars against countries in the Middle East or Central Asia.
Controversy and unanswered questions surround all of the major terrorist actions, supposedly committed by Islamist extremists in recent years -- 9/11, the Bali bombings, the London Tube bombings of 7/7, the Madrid Train bombings -- which are cited to justify these ongoing wars.
If it is true that these actions were carried out by terrorists trained in bases in Afghanistan, why has not one with a proven link to any of these atrocities been captured in 9 years of U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan?
Still, it is not altogether impossible for some of these actions to have been assisted by sincere Islamist jihadists. Even if this were ever proven to be the case, it seems that their actions have very nicely served the interests of those looking for excuses to wage war against Islamist nations.
Canada has unlimited human tolerance and land to fill
According to website "Multiculturalism in Canada" , the greater the diversity of the racial and cultural mix, the greater the need for tolerance and openness in accepting one another as fellow Canadians. Canada's future depends on the commitments of all its citizens to a unified Canadian identity, while still taking pride in the uniqueness of their individual heritage.
Surely this is a ideological big ask of human nature, to be unified and diverse and tolerant at the same time? What is the point of stretching human tolerance and social fabric beyond natural abilities? Who really gains, and what motives are the hosts supposed to have in seeing their resources being consumed, their jobs taken, and increasing pressure building up?
As many as 300,000 Canadians are homeless and about 1.5 million tenant households pay more than 30 per cent of pre-tax income on shelter.
Marriages of convenience are a continuing issue for Canada's immigration system, despite internal warnings by immigration officials in 2007 that they were a serious concern. Like Australian conservative newspapers, there are headlines that Westerners simply aren't "breeding." Canada, and several other countries,
have an aging population that is approaching the pension years, the golden ears, the ailing year.
A strong tax base is required to fund "zoomers" until death. Canada is such a large land mass, and so scarcely populated per square kilometre, even in comparison to other northern countries, such as Norway and Finland, that the term "overpopulation" simply doesn't apply to Canada. The only viable course of action is to open the borders fully for peoples from every nation to immigrate to Canada.
Environmentalists point out that Homo sapiens has destroyed 844 other species and some 800 million of its own kind, and they claim that human activity endangers the extinction of thousands of other species. Surely being a plague species is part of our human genetic makeup that creates a timestamp for the total time allowable on this planet.
If you think you are frustrated.....
Thanks for the comments---all were right on target. As I have said many times before, our countries seem to be mirror images of each other. Two siblings in overshoot in a dysfunctional family ruled by a tyrannical greedy patriarch---or so it seems. I cannot find words to articulate my frustration. And sadly, as you can see from my archive, there are times when this frustation has led me to say intemperate things and lash out at allies who deserve better treatment. You must understand that I feel like I am banging my head against a steel door that will never open. The national media ignores us and the community media only permits the odd criticism of local development. The growth paradigm remains unchallenged. Locally, I am caught in a vice between pro-development forces and the green-left who collude with them. I am very rarely published, and in all modesty, it is not for want of logic or reason.
Anti-growth forces in Canada are well below the critical mass of support that our Australian counterparts needed to achieve their breakthrough. Our environmental icon, David Suzuki, has never said what his Australian counterpart, Tim Flannery, once said about Australia. He won't go public with his private beliefs that Canada is overpopulated. And so far, while many books have been critical about mass immigration, no one has yet published a book that has made the ecological case against it with same impact as O'Connor and Lines have made with Overloading Australia. And not one MP in any party has broken ranks to say what Kelvin Thomson has said about Australia. No Kelvin Thomson, no Bob Carr, no Barry Cohen. Not in Canada. More critically, no one with the resources and stature of Dick Smith has given our arguments the credibility they need to open the media door. We've grown our population by 25% in two decades and we don't hear a peep from any parliament, any political party, any prominent academic or incredibly, any environmental NGO. None has said what the Australian Conservation Foundation has said about the need for population stability. And of course, our Anglican Church---in fact no Christian denomination--- has ever described irresponsible fecundity as a commission of one of the seven deadly sins. We are getting hammered by population growth and yet we are made to suffer in silence.
And then there is the generation gap. Joni Mitchell said, in her famous song, that "you don't know what you got until it is gone". The problem is, half the people in this country never knew what we lost. They have grown up in an urban bubble. As Robert Bateman, our world famous wildlife artist has remarked, the digital generation has not had the contact with nature that his and my generation did. The late Steven Jay Gould said that you can't fight for something you don't love, so how can we expect a generation of kids wedded to computers and IPODs cloistered in urban apartments to love something they never knew? Toronto or Bangkok---shrug, what's the difference? Things may get tighter but hey, we will have a broader cuisine. Nature? Who cares---its boring.
Tim
Bangkok population target for Melbourne - woa hoa!
If the destructive growthists keep pushing for an 8 million human target for Melbourne then Bangkok must be their Mecca, with 7.2 million humans and growing. Look out Ballaraat, you're about to be rezoned an outer Melbourne suburb!
Prahran & Malvern - Meet Candidates night Nov 16
Meet the Candidates forum. Tuesday November 16, St George's Anglican Church Hall, 296 Glenferrie Rd, Malvern. (Next to the Police Station which is next to Malvern Town Hall.)
Prahran candidates 6.30-7.30. Malvern candidates 8pm -9pm. Admission free. BYO your signs.
Canada and Australia have same problem
In Melbourne Australia, the government comes up with a figure of a future population and then after a few years of very high immigration expresses surprise that the extra population will be coming early ! Then an influential growthist group says - that it looks as though Melbourne will have 8 million - around mid century. In fact had growth continued steadily at its peak rate we would have been looking at Melbourne reaching 8 million in about 2040. We may still be facing that because who knows what growth rates we'll have in the coming decades? Former PM Rudd tried it on with 36 million for the country mid century and welcoming "Big Australia" - a mistake as it was not popular. Never mind, someone else will try for 40 million and the electorate might swallow it since we've already been semi softened up for 36 million. It doesn't matter whether we like it or not- we'll get what "they" want. Further to the earlier comment re bringing growth to a rapid halt- the same thought always occurs to me! Politicians and growth pushers talk about the middle of the century as though everything is concluded then. In the scheme of things it is the near future but far enough away to slip off most people's radars . After a few more decades of high immigration, given just enough food and enough ill founded optimism even if immigration is then stopped, the population will keep growing. If Australia were by then similar to a 3rd world country what could possibly stop it apart from a calamitous ecological collapse?
Hospitals under stress from population growth
The extent of Victoria's ''secret'' hospital waiting lists has been revealed, with official figures showing more than 200,000 people are on outpatient lists across the state.
The Age obtained documents from many of Victoria's major hospitals showing that at the end of May, 203,584 people were listed as outpatients - separate from the 40,000-long ''official'' elective surgery waiting list.
If Labor was re elected, they would recruit (note: not necessarily train, but possibly "recruit" from overseas) more than 2800 extra doctors, nurses and other health professionals in the next two years, and commit to a $1.5 billion health package.
Like all the other "shortages", our hospitals are under stress from population growth, with people being forced onto our society as fillers for the property developers, and through foreign students being lured here to study - and apply for PR.
The Brumby/Madden Real Estate agency doesn't make enough profits to build enough hospitals and employ enough staff! Solution - bring in a few more people to gain more Stamp Duty and taxes, and thus we have an addition to growth that can never satisfy the demand for infrastructure and public services.
If our universities weren't so starved of funds and outsourced for foreign income, we wouldn't have so many skills shortage and wouldn't have to recruit them from overseas. We used to provide education for those from developing nations so they could provide for their own nation's economic development, but now we head-hunt them to come here! If we funded more medical students from Australia, our doctor shortage could be addressed.
Planning Brunswick's Future - State Election Forum Vic
News
State Election Forum 2010
Should there be firm height limits?
Does the community have enough say?
Will traffic choke our suburb?
Candidates speaking:
• Jane Garrett (Labor) •Cyndi Dawes (Greens) • Liberal Party representative
• Trent Hawkins (Socialist Alliance) • Phil Cleary (Independent — if standing)
• Bill Cawte (Independent)
Chair: Shane Maloney
THURSDAY 11 NOVEMBER
6.30pm-8.OOpm
CLARRIE WOHLERS CENTRE, FLEMING PARK,
51 ALBERT STREET, EAST BRUNSWICK
All welcome! Includes Q&A from chair, plus audience questions. Organised by
local residents’ network. More info: [email protected] 0421 840 100
Authorised by Nancy Atkin, 135 Albert Street Brunswick
Multi-culturalism & anti-immigration
I agree with most of what you said. I am of the understanding that people whatever culture they come from should preserve the parts of their culture that doesn't damage or undermine Australia's way of life or break it`s laws. I believe in multiculturalism but as you say the skills shortage & all the other rorts attached. Multiculturalism has been used as an excuse to create money for Corporations. I don't agree with stopping migration completely but I think that there should be serious cut backs in the numbers migrating to Australia. The issue of asylum seekers is that we went into the iraq & Afghanistan & drove them out of their country so we have an obligation to them even if on the short term. They should be able to live in rural areas in small groups ,not all in one place. Migrants should not be allowed to all live in one place in numbers exceeding 500,000 as it is in some Sydney areas. I am of multi mixed race & try to embrace all of the connected cultural heritage but have never known anything else but Australia. While some of the people are not racist for asking for a reduction of immigration there are a lot of people that are racist that are hostile to other races
.
At the same time the government should be taking an even mix of migrants not favouring any particular race or religion to sustain a Constitutional Monarchy. This Political System is not & never has been a democracy. The system was rigged from the beginning when the Australian public were too small in population to really defend itself. The Two Party preferred system is not democratic, when you are restricted to two parties there are no choices the two parties are one group dictating terms & controlling things with absolutely no regard for public opinion except smaller issues. Most of the smaller parties of the past were inventions of the two main parties to give the public the false hope of democratically changing things only to have them betray public trust & hand preferences back to the enemy. The reason the two main parties don't want a republic is that it requires a new constitution & is the best time for democratic reforms. They know that a republic will be the end of their dictatorship & will resist it or try to steer it back to a two party system so they can retain their power & are under extreme pressure from corporations to do what they are told.
We should have impeachment laws for politicians destroying Australian industries in the interests of Corporations or foreign powers. We need a new system that follows the wishes of the people. It is not multi-culturalism that is the problem it is just the gross mismanagement of immigration. The Government should stop training migrants to take jobs from Australians & should train more doctors instead of hiring them from overseas exclusively. A fair few of those overseas doctors I can't understand or they don't finish listening to me before they start writing a script. I am sick of this anti-democratic system. Yeah you get to vote for half the government or the other half of the government, some choice, any new party is at a real disadvantage & will usually pushed out very quickly if it is not introduced by the main parties. Anyone who thinks they have freedom without any legally protected rights is a clown. The rights you exercise only exist out of the generosity of the Government until they change their minds, that is a gilded cage, not rights.If your rights are not law, then you have no valid grounds in support of your rights in court. Bring on the multi party system & human rights in the constitution. Bring on the republic !
Population growth pushers deluded or else evil
Why we should not crowd more humans into Australia or any other part of the globe should be so straightforward and obvious that we have to question motives of anyone who seriously advocates that we do. If they are not motivated by a wish to enrich themselves by impoverishing fellow Australians, then we must question their sanity.
The claim that population growth can in any way improve the real economy and make us, on average, more prosperous is so ludicrous that it surely barely needs a response. Importing more people can only possibly make existing inhabitants poorer on average and not richer. If more people have to share existing wealth, then how could they possibly become wealthier on average? The only time this could have been at all conceivable was at least many decades ago when Australia had less than what would have been an optimal population for an industrial society (although more likely more than the optimal population for a society that was truly sustainable in the longer term). Only up to such a point in our history could it be honestly claimed that increasing Australia's population would have increased the prosperity of the existing inhabitants.
That point in time has long ago passed. Any knowledgeable person who claims that the same is true today can only be doing so because he/she wishes to profit at the expense of current inhabitants. Most likely such a person would a member of the small elite who actually gains by making his fellow Australians on average poorer and, by impoverishing many and by threatening our future and our children's future.
Most population growth pushers are doing so, not out of any wish that fellow Australians or even migrants prosper but only so they, themselves can hire workers willing to work for less pay, avoid the expense of training fellow Australians or to gouge even more from those forced to rent shelter from them due to the increased demand for the commodity they monopolise.
Anyone who would knowingly so act to harm his/her fellow countrypersons would have to be amongst the lowest possible kind of human being.
The only immigration pushers who could conceivably be considered in any way decently motivated are those who advocate it for the reason of wanting to share the space of this country with people from more crowded countries. However, if they gave this any thought, they would know that, unless we massively overcrowded this country we stand no chance whatsover of making a worthwhile difference to any more than a tiny fraction of the people from those countries.
Why the hatred? - it is backward evil - deviancy like pedophilia
RE: 'Why the hatred? Such is raw human nature' (comment by Vivienne Ortega above, 8th November 2010)
My answer is that a small portion of humans are backward either intellectually or conditioned through misguided parenting, or both, such that they derive warped pleasure from cruel acts to other living beings. In psychology and sociology, this is termed a form of deviant behaviour. An instructive text to better understand this subject is one by Delos H. Kelly 'Deviant Behaviour: A Text-Reader in the Sociology of Deviance' (1989, St Martins Press, New York).
Childhood precursors of deviant behaviour are psychopathic tendencies that can sometimes be recognized in childhood or early adolescence. A good read of psychopathy is illuminating [Read Wikipedia as a valuable introduction].
Certain demographics have such types more prevalent. Certain cultures encourage such cruel attitudes and behaviour. Poorly socialised upbringings, (especially the lack of paternal moral guidance) can harbour delinquency and permit such cruel attitudes and behaviour. Institutional processing such as that of prison systems. William Golding's classic and disturbing 1954 novel, 'Lord of the Flies' is an analysis of the defects of human nature and a recommended read.
The only positive outcome of religion that I can identify is that it has isolated the moral concepts of good and evil. Moral evil is intentionally causing harm or destruction.
Holistic, pantheistic, and panentheistic spiritual traditions regard humanity as existing within a universal natural order and assign human "evil" as the result of ignorance of one's place with Mother Nature.
Cruelty is evil, like the Indonesians torturing West Papuan man, Tunaliwor Kiwo, on 30th May 2010; like individuals being cruel to animals. Shooting a baby Koala in southeast Queensland, and shooting a female joey then inflicting a blow to its head at Jimna are evil acts of cruelty.
Solution: Cruelty caused to any sentient being needs to be ultimately recognised as a crime under the Crimes Act. Penalty needs to be treated in the same vein as other deviant behaviour like pedophilia and those convicted listed on a national police deviant register. The parents and the primary school(s) where the convicted deviant attended should be identified for special investigation for the presence of cruelty cultures being inculcated.
Is Gav a maaate of Garrett and Wong?
Is our Gav a maaate of Peter Garrett and Penny Wong (real name, Huáng Y?ngxián)
Pete was Environment Minister and he can sing; now he is on reprieve trying his luck at being Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth.
Huáng was Climate Change and Water Minister; now she is having a bash at Finance, and she's a lawyer.
And of each, their environmental competence and credibility record?
In Victoria, Hulls' a lawyer, Cameron's a lawyer, Pallas is a lawyer. Gillard's a lawyer and even Howard's a lawyer. Even if you've done a bit of public speaking - may be as a teacher or journo, politics beckons.
So what prerequisite qualifications does a minister need to 'look' credible and competent in a portfolio, or is it not what you know?
Just be prepared to sign your soul over the Paaarty. Apply: NSW Labor Party, 377 Sussex Street, Sydney and ask for Karl.
:)