Our democracy is a thin facade anyway. Just how many issues are we allowed to vote on? How many issues are we really allowed to influence through our votes or through our local Federal and State MPs? Once governments are in power, they do what they want. Kevin Rudd was voted into power to address climate change and now has negated this "greatest moral challenge of our time". We never asked for a "big Australia", contradictory to any climate change fix, yet we have no say over our numbers, and who makes Australia "home".
We are simply thrown a few crumbs to allure us to vote for these parties, but there is little difference between the Libs and the Labs! We are allowed mostly, to vote for our hip-pockets, as if that were all the voters were interested in! We are denied the big-picture issues that affect us, and our children, the most.
Unless people study the issues, and really do their "homework" on the alternative parties and independents, they will just take the easy route and vote for either the major parties - or none at all!
Comments
Updates on Peter Bethune's plight
Sea Shepherd's Conservation Society website provides regular updates on the plight of Captain Pete Bethune’s Trial.
As at 3rd June 2010, the site read:
The first phase of Captain Pete Bethune’s trial in Japan has ended and he remains both unbowed and in good spirits. Captain Bethune is being represented by a highly capable team of Japanese lawyers.
Though some in the media have written that Captain Bethune pleaded guilty to four out of five counts against him, this is incorrect, as Captain Bethune continues to maintain his innocence on all counts. He contested some of the facts claimed by the Japanese prosecutor, including, most importantly, that anyone on the Japanese vessel the Shonan Maru 2 was ever injured by anything done by anyone on a Sea Shepherd vessel. A crewmember from the Shonan Maru 2 claimed to have been injured by rancid butter tossed onto the Shonan Maru 2 by Sea Shepherd volunteers, but the evidence revealed that no doctor ever actually saw the alleged injury and there was no dispute that this crewmember was fine before his vessel ever arrived back in port.
Captain Bethune’s overall defense is based on the illegality of whaling and on the United Nations World Charter for Nature authorizing private organizations like Sea Shepherd to engage in government-like activities to protect the environment. The Shonan Maru 2 was engaged in illegal whaling and Captain Bethune’s actions against that vessel were the equivalent of a coast guard acting to stop it.
On the first day of the trial, Captain Bethune’s lawyers and the prosecutor read their opening statements, and one crewmember from the Shonan Maru 2 testified regarding what he had seen. On the second day of the trial, a crewmember from the Shonan Maru 2 testified regarding a minor three-day skin rash on about a one-inch patch of skin he attributes to rancid butter used by Captain Bethune. A doctor who never actually saw this crewmember (because his injury did not even warrant an in-person visit) testified that the injury could have been caused by rancid butter. Sea Shepherd has a strict policy against violence, and in its more than thirty years of operation, has never injured anyone.
Captain Bethune testified all day on the third day of trial as to why he had done what he did. He talked about his anger at the Japanese whalers killing whales in international waters. As Captain Bethune put it, “They are coming into my backyard and killing what belongs to all of us.”
The trial will resume on June 10th, at which time Captain Bethune’s attorneys and the prosecutor will read their closing statements. Captain Bethune himself will also read a statement in Japanese – intended for the court, the world, and, in particular, the Japanese people. It was entirely Captain Bethune’s idea to read his statement in Japanese; he wants to do that as a sign of respect for the Japanese people. It is important to him that Japan understand that neither he nor Sea Shepherd has ever had any problem with Japan or its people. The actions of Captain Bethune and of Sea Shepherd are designed to end whaling wherever it may be happening. The issue is whaling, not Japan.
After the June 10th hearing, the three judges in charge of trying Captain Bethune are expected to take anywhere from one to four weeks to issue their verdict and sentence, if any. Sea Shepherd’s fervent hope is that the judges will realize Captain Bethune violated no laws and will release him immediately. He has been in a Japanese jail since March 12th and he was held in custody on the Shonan Maru 2 prior to that, totalling well over 100 days in captivity to date. The Japanese Coast Guard continues to refuse to investigate the Shonan Maru #2’s intentional sinking of the Ady Gil (the ship that Captain Bethune was at the helm of) or even to cooperate with the ongoing investigations of the New Zealand and Australian maritime authorities.
Regular updates can be found at:
http://www.seashepherd.org/matilda/support-captain-bethune.html
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
Koalas under extinction from being burnt out.
It is a shame that you Vivienne, are not unlike the people who make these decisions, and do not come form the bush.
It is not the loggers that are causing the decline of koalas, but bushfires. National Parks and Wildlife lock everything up and leave it. This allows the undergrowth, and fallen trees, branches to build up. When a bushfire occurs, there is so much fuel that the trees are burnt to the top along with koalas. No one survives. Victoria is a prime example of this. Back burning is neccessary to save koalas, and the loggers who make roads aka fire trails through the bush are actually protecting them.
When will people learn....
Cousteau's Sin Of Omission
Or,as Bush Senior opined : we need the vision thing.
CEC a covert government wing?
If the CEC are not working for the government, they should be on the pay-roll.
Like the Socialist Alliance and the Greens, despite claims of wanting big changes, the CEC always seem to support the government of the day's overpopulation agenda and the suppression of democracy.
NSW Government wastes $86M on catholic recruitment drive
Sydney's newspaper, the Sun-Herald has just reported that annual catholic youth recruitment drive otherwise known as World Youth Day World, hosted by Sydney in 2008 cost taxpayers of $86 million. The original total cost estimate was $20 million, so it blew out by $66 million.
The Evangelistic Spin
Held between 15th to 20th July 2008, the forecast attendance of 'pilgrims' for WYD08 was supposed to be some 500,000. It was promoted to NSW taxpayers as promising a 'massive injection' into the Sydney economy...'the single largest gathering of people since the Sydney 2000 Olympics will generate tourism earnings, business opportunities, global brand positioning and cultural exchanges.'[Source: Sydney Chamber of Commerce].
In 2006, the NSW Department of State and Regional Development (DSRD) had undertaken an Economic Impact Analysis (EIA) in considering NSW hosting the World Youth Day event. DSRD estimated ‘the gross total direct and flow-on value added’ to New South Wales from hosting the event to be $152 million. But it excluded potential benefits from additional tourism, business generated, international media coverage and intangible costs such as business disruption.
NSW Minister for Finance at the time, John Watkins MP, claimed that the event would generate $190m in tourism revenue, and the Sydney Chamber of Commerce projected an even more optimistic estimate of $230m! [Crikey - 'NSW spending too much on World Youth Day? Pope a Catholic?']
Wonderful stuff one we were meant to believe!
The Reality
Well WYD08 officially attracted 223,000 registered pilgrims. [WYD08 website], even though the unofficial wiki website somehow claims "300,000 young people from 200 countries attended during the week, and more than 1,000,000 came for the weekend." Evangelism or facts?
An independent audit report by the NSW Audit Office into the World Youth Day Co-ordination Authority confirmed that the combined NSW and Commonwealth Government contributions came to $68.8M, while the Catholic Church contributed just $10M. Direct revenue totalled $10.5M.
The catholic event involved taking over Randwick Racecourse not just for the event but for four months preventing racing anytime between 6 September 2008 and 31 December 2008. The racing industry was compensated $41.1 million out of taxpayers money, even though the horse trainers at Royal Randwick had estimated the compensation should have been $50M.
Additional costs of turf replacement totalled $2.3M
The Undisclosed Costs
Other costs of services provided by other government agencies involved seconded staffing, dedicated policing including considerable overtime, yet according to the audit report "the cost of these services does not appear in the Authority’s financial report as the value could not be reliably determined."
So the full costs could have been more than double $86M! Yet, spite all the promises, the so-called international profile and economic benefits of Sydney's World Youth Day have still not been confirmed.
Could the $86M+ have been more equitably spent?
What tangible benefit did that $86M+ contribute to NSW society?
What were the opportunity costs of those millions?
According to a NSW Government Briefing paper on Homelessness in NSW:
"Data from the last Census in 2006 published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in its “Counting the Homeless Report”, indicated that at the time of the last Census, there were approximately 104,676 people who were counted as homelessness, with approximately 27,374 people counted as homeless in NSW. There were also approximately 16,375 people who were “sleeping rough” in Australia on the night of the Census and approximately 3,715 people “sleeping rough” in NSW. The City of Sydney also recently conducted a street count of people “sleeping rough” on 17 February 2009. It found that there were 340 people “sleeping rough” in the CBD and surrounding suburbs, including Woolloomooloo, Kings Cross, Paddington, Glebe, Surry Hills, Ultimo and Redfern."
Compare the self-serving benefits to the catholic church of WYD08 of the $86M+ to what the social benefits could have been dividing the money equally between Mission Australia, The Salvation Army and the Red Cross - each charities providing direct tangible benefits to society's most needy.
New data from The Salvation Army reveals that in the past 12 months, 1 in 5 people (20%) coming to them have never asked for help from the Salvos before.
The Salvos estimate that in the past 12 months they have seen approximately 80,000 Australians in need come to their door for the first time ever.*
The Salvos need to raise $75 million nationally from this year’s Red Shield Appeal including $9.7 million from the big doorknock on 29 and 30 May.
Major Brad Halse, spokesperson for The Salvation Army, said, “Our services are stretched greatly. The demand on our frontline personnel is still huge. Without doubt many, many Australians in the cities and the bush are doing it tough. It doesn’t take a lot to tip struggling families into a situation where they desperately need help." [Source: Salvation Army website]
It ain't as if the catholic church is 'needy'
BRW magazine's investigative research has shown that churches generated almost $23 billion in 2004, with the Catholic Church turning over almost two-thirds of that.
The Catholic Church is almost five times larger than any other church and dominates the top 20 charities, the magazine says. It estimated the Catholic Church's gross revenue at $15 billion in 2004. The next largest was the Uniting Church with $3.1 billion.
The Catholic Education offices in NSW, Victoria and Queensland made up three of the top four charities. Several Catholic hospitals were in the top 20. BRW estimates the Catholic Church owns property and other assets worth more than $100 billion. [Source: 'Catholics lead rise in charity revenue', 23rd March 2005]
All the while, the catholic church, like all religious groups, do not pay tax. So the $8M+ of taxpayers dollars spent on WYD08 was effectively an annual religious recruitment drive by the catholic church.
'In 2005, BRW research found that the Catholic Church earned the bulk of the more than $23b in revenue earned by the ten largest religious groups - $16.25b. At the same growth rate identified by Adele Ferguson, this would be $20.47b in 2008. If even just 5% of that revenue was profit, that’s more than $300m that the Catholic Church will avoid this year in company tax alone. Ferguson estimated that the Church had more than $100b in assets, the bulk of which would be property – which would mean several hundred million dollars more in land tax that state governments are missing out on.
So, courtesy of our exempting religions from taxation, the Catholic Church alone keeps the best part of a billion dollars a year minimum. Throw in everyone else – the Uniting Church, the Anglicans, the happy clappers and their coffee chains, the Salvos – and we’re talking a billions of dollars a year in tax revenue forgone. The $160m being poured into the Youth Day is small beer indeed."[Source: NSW spending too much on World Youth Day? Pope a Catholic?'Bernard Keane on Crikey, 28th April 2008].
Conclusions and Questions
Not only has this event demonstrated the absolute ineptitude of the NSW Government to even come close to cost estimates for such major events (a four fold blowout), it has failed to publicly disclose the full public economic costs (such as policing and that of seconded agency staff), so the NSW Government has been less than honest with the people of NSW of whom it squandered their taxes.
What were the benefits from additional tourism, business generated, international media coverage and intangible costs such as business disruption?
The NSW Government has close ties with the catholic church and many of its cabinet ministers are catholic. At the time of the staging of World Youth Day, Premier Morris Iemma was catholic, Deputy Premier (and the minister responsible for World Youth Day) John Watkins was catholic, the Minister for Juvenile Justice, Barbara Perry was catholic, Minister for Ports and Waterways, Joe Tripodi, was catholic and the then Minister for Ageing, Kristina Keneally, who met her husband at a previous World Youth Day, was also catholic.
This $86M+ of taxpayers money going to a catholic church recruitment drive and appropriating Randwick Racecourse for a church group was not only a gross misuse of public monies and an inappropriate favouritism by government on a massive scale; it has compromised the democratic principles of separation of church and state. Clearly in NSW the two are not so separate. Imaging the outcry if Iemma and Watkins were members of the church of scientology and they arranged all this the same way!
The catholic church mislead the NSW government and the people of NSW with its inflated estimates of attendees and should be held financial responsible to reinburse the NSW Government for the shortfall. WYD08 only registered 223,000 pilgrims not the promised 500,000.
What 'massive injection' went into the Sydney economy? The NSW Government and the Sydney Chamber of Commerce need to clarify the actual revenues.
What contribution did the catholic church in NSW contribute to NSW society in 2008 by way of charity and humanitarian support in verifiable dollars? How does this compare with the likes of The Salvation Army, Mission Australia and the Red Cross? How much does the NSW Government contribute to these social charities on an annual basis?
How can the catholic church ethically request the NSW and Commonwealth Governments fund its WYD08 recruitment drive to the tune of $86M+, when many citizens of NSW were not asked and many are not catholic, do not want to be and object to their taxes being undemocratically used to fund a church festival?
How can the catholic church ethically request the NSW and Commonwealth Governments fund its WYD08 recruitment drive to the tune of $86M+, when the catholic church has been found to generate $15 billion in 2004 alone?
The catholic church has robbed taxpayers in self-serving recruitment drive , that it could have easily finance out of its bank account.
The catholic church has an ethical obligation to refund the $86 million less its own contributed $10m (so the balance of $76M) to the NSW and Australian taxpayers. The $76M should then ethically go directly to our society's most needy in provide tangible long term life-improving support and the full $76M be independently and publicly accounted for.
That would be an ethical use of taxpayers money.
An announcement from our Mandarin speaking PM.
Dear People of Australia ,
Due to the current financial situation caused by the slowdown of the
Economy, your Government has decided to implement a scheme to put
Workers 50 years of age and older on early retirement. This scheme
Will be known as RAPE (Retire Aged People Early).
Persons selected to be RAPED can apply to the government to be eligible
For the SHAFT scheme (Special Help After Forced Termination).
Persons who have been RAPED and SHAFTED will be reviewed under the
SCREW program (Scheme Covering Retired Early Workers). A person may be
RAPED once, SHAFTED twice and SCREWED as many times as the government
Deems appropriate.
Only persons who have been RAPED can get AIDS (Additional Income for
Dependants & Spouse) or HERPES (Half Earnings for Retired Personnel
Early Severance). Obviously, persons who have AIDS or HERPES will not
Be SHAFTED or SCREWED any further by the government..
Persons who are not RAPED and are staying on, will receive as much SHIT
(Special High Intensity Training) as possible. The government
Has always prided itself in the amount of SHIT it gives out. Should
You feel that you do not receive enough SHIT, please bring this to the
Attention of your local MP. They have been trained to give you all the
SHIT you can handle.
Sincerely,
Kevin Rudd
Canberra
PS: Have a nice life. . . . .
Why pillory planners?
Some would say that it is unfair to target planners. After all, they are working under the thumb of the developer-funded politicians. Well, to me they are like the Kapos---the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto whom the Nazis selected as delegates to organize and manage deportations to the camps. Planners are schooled in an ideology which assumes that growth is inevitable---if not good. Their job is to lubricate the process of growth by tiding it up and managing it. Some may rationalize their intervention as trying to blunt potentially negative impacts, but the net result is that their plans make growth more palatable.
I am not in awe of the profession. The most effective planning tool in most cases is neglect. Not building that bridge or not adding another runway to the local airport. Allowing congestion to finally reach a point where people decide to leave their cars at home or where businesses decide not to expand or locate in your city because air travel facilities can't cope with the volume. Say's Law stipulates that supply creates its own demand. Widen a highway or a bridge and in no time flat it becomes filled with more cars. New highways and bridges, by initially shortening commutes, allow realtors and developers to use this fact as a selling point to entice people to the new subdivisions served by the new highways and bridges. Then five or ten years on, commuters from these new subdivisions are clamouring for another highway or bridge. How many times do we have to witness this cycle before people get wise?
Planning for more growth is much like a dog chasing its tail. We are told that we must grow the tax base to provide for more services. But the infrastructure costs of new subdivisions and commercial parks out-strip the tax revenues that they return to city coffers. We are told that growth will create needed jobs. But new job opportunities attract outsiders to compete for those job opportunities, and while locals may gain employment, the unemployment rate is unaffected. There is an optimum population level for an locality. Beyond that, growth only offers diminishing returns. Why don't more people see through this scam?
Tim Murray
More is not necessarily better!
"-that the future of our civilization lies in growing cities". The problem is not with civililsation as such, in art, in knowledge, in architecture, but the idea that we can continue and keep growing and growing cities forever! People are not just economic units, fillers for the "planning" and be expected to comply, meekly!
No biological communities can grow forever. Growth is only one stage, then there has to be an equilibrium with other species, and natural resources. This is the trade-off period, when growing more will jeopardize the future and well being of the community and individuals. We are still biological creatures, and we must live harmoniously with our environment or else we destroy the basis of our existence.
A biological community can create conditions that lead to its own destruction. Human activities such as logging or clearing land to make agricultural or urban ecosystems can also destroy a biological community.
For example, as trees grow older, they become weak and vulnerable to destruction by insects or diseases. When this happens, a biological community ‘grows old’ and ‘dies’, and another biological community takes its place. We could over-grow our limitations to our own demise.
Grey kangaroo mugs Cathcart farmer, saved by kelpies!
Gotta luv ya 'Slav of Cathcart' (your comment above).
The Jim Beam must be flowing freely up there in them thar Monaro hills, lol.
You say "in recent years the number of Kangaroos increasen 10 times." Must be plague proportions them varmints god damn! lol
Wholly Molly! Them big greys now mug farmers wives from behind while check'n the fences along Big Jack Mountain Road out back?
A huge male too! She got 11 sutures by crike!
So we can expect to see her huge roo scar in the Monaro Post or The Land?
If you go down to the woods today,
You're in for a big suprise.
If you go down to the woods today,
You'll never believe your eyes.
For every bear that ever there was,
Is gathered there for certain because,
Today's the day the teddy bear's have their picnic.
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
anti-grwoth activists are too negative-use of language
Can we expand the viral mindshare and innovate real-time infomediaries ?
Yes we can!
Andalusian Lamb
Thank you for this timely article in your business section. You are right to celebrate the opportunities in maximising human resources. I wonder if you are aware that the business of having less biological diversity and more diverse people and choices in cuisine is now poised for a marketing leap, with optimistic and creative business planning, to educate people to be more accepting of cannibalism as a product of the educated and multicultural palate. Soylent Green, that bland product of a totalitarian state, was a dud on the market for good reasons. Predictably, it never sold well beyond the niche-market of remote airplane crashes and marooned arctic expeditions. Beyond those demographics, whenever competing food products were available, with the exception of a small cohort of illegal hobbyists, consumers would invariably choose the other-species competition. What the creative corporates are planning now is for Thai, Indian, African, Afghani, Spanish and Canadian ethnic human biscotti as a value-add product, putting the choice back into the product. Population growth, as ever, will keep demand and production rising in synergy, attracting the discriminating investor. Led as always by the creative expansion of the Real Estate Lobby, this spring Australian state parliaments will be voting on laws to overturn the early colonial protectionism which prevented the human biscotti from competing openly with the beef and sheep variety. We have this time provided protection for elite humans who might otherwise have become a target for black market operations, thus removing the last obstacles to these culinary reforms. What we anticipate is a continuous sort of chain production line with possibilities of expansion only limited by persistent ethical considerations in a few NIMBY change-resistant communities. We know from prior experience that we can break down that resistance by offering jobs to their children in the industry, who can probably even be convinced by TV cook-shows to prepare their own parents as food.
Advice
Keep hitting the council. If you are in Victoria, Police can issue fines or charges under the law. My best advice is to learn the law. Go to the internet and find the law for your state, then your local law. The state laws are superiour or Local Laws are Sub-ordinate to state laws. If you understand the laws, you have a better chance of getting them enforced. I would keep complaining to the council though. Call them all the time. Visit them and go to council meetings. Make sure you get involved by asking questions about the law in council. Keep complaining. Keep emailing ministers for local government and ministers of primary industry. Keep mailing your neighbours who are not the dog owners and ask them to join you or war will break out in your street in which they may get hurt. Ask them for support or you may subpeona them to court anyway. No one wants to go to court so they may get the message and support you.
Just go hammer and tong to get the peace you are entitled to. Just be persistent and never be silenced. NEver believe what council says if they say things like, "we must be fair to the dog owner" for if that is the case, they are not being fair to you. "We have to careful of malicious complainants" and ask them if they consider your complaints as malicious. "We do not want to get involved in neighbourhood disputes", dog barking is not a neighbourhood dispute, it is an unlawful condition being maintained by a dog owner for which you are a victim! "We will not investigate your complaint as we suspect there is another un-related issue" and as such, ask the council to provide proof of such issue and how it relates to dog barking, because this is the biggest joke of all and very misleading.
Council officers and managers throw these lines out, and the un-suspecting public buy them, usually. But if they say something, never believe it and ask how that affects your dog barking issue and why are they not stopping the barking. Managers get used to throwing out lines like this and downplaying things. Just do not put up with it and do not relent until they promice to stop the barking. If the barking continues, at this point, do not blame the dog owner, it is councils fault! FIght them!
Dog BArking.
Hello all. I am a victim of severe dog barking. So was another neighbour of mine and many friends at work. The issues of keeping pets are now so clear to me and I know exactly what is needed. NO JOKE!
My family was forced out of our home due to years of animal noises and drumming. It started with two years of drumming, thump, thump, thumping right through our home at a very rapid beat. The bass drum could not be heard in the front room until one lay their head on the pillow. You know sound travels further and faster through solid objects. As a shift worker, you try and sleep in the morning while this is going on. Begging pleading, making demands and threats to all I could to have it resolved. It finally stopped. Three months later, that very same neighour introduced us to dog barking. Every minute of every day was punctuated with barks and yaps. nearly another two years of this. At the same time, the neighbour next door to them (we were behind) was having troubles with the way these people conducted themselves in the street with noise and other goings on. We were labelled as malicious, vindictive, whingers and all sorts of things. Told to get a life etc.. Council did very little to stop the issues, same as the Police. Infact, the Police refused to enforce a law that they are nominated as the primary authority to be able to issue a charge of an offence, UNCONDITIONALLY!
Yep, we love our pets, and I loved the dogs I new in my family before I got married. I never got pets because I always felt it was not suited to my lifestyle and that I did not want such a burden. I did not want to clean up after them, I did not want to train them, I did not want to deal with noise and smell issues that may come from having a pet in the neighbourhood. I was man enough to view the full list of considerations one should have before buying a pet. I bought a fish tank and never filled it because I had second thoughts of what it entails, having had fish tanks filled with fish in my youth (I was very enthusiastic about African Cichlids - fish back then).
The issue is all about consideration with a broad view. The only way for people to consider properly these issues associated with pet ownership is through education. Some people are very panoramic in their views on many isues and may be able to consider these things before they are swayed by impulse. The following are absolutely what is needed to resolve these issues of human suffering in our communities, animal sudering and cruelty as well.
!. Do a course of animal care FOR ANY PET!
2. Get a licence to acquire ANY PET!
3. Get permission from the neighbours to obtain any pet that may affect their quality of life.
4. Present these documents to your council, or council may manage this procedure.
5. Prove ou have a proper, child roof enclosure for any pet.
6. Keep, train, maintain the health of any pet your own and contol its noise immediately!
7. Government must consider residential zones that are deemed pet free!
8. Specific laws on dog breed and size must be included in the licensing procedure;
a) A person must be informed of how to keep larger, more powerful dogs, which may cause harm to other people and animals.
b) A person must be educated on breed needs and suitability to suburban, or country lifestyles.
c) A person must learn about their responsibilities on pet ownership and the laws.
9. Compulsory insurance for any pet owner must be introduced so that those attacked by an animal being kept as a pet have access to full compensations needed for complete rehabitation or ongoing health expences.
10. Owners of animals that roam or cause serious injury to be held to account and face gaol terms if found negligent or contributing to the conditions where an injury by an animal resulted.
11. Barking is something that must be stopped AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, as it is known to cause health problems in communities.
So these are very basic concepts. In consideration before getting a dog, one must be very aware of barking problems. There is no excuse to cause a disturbance in the neighbourhood, and barking victims know all too well how damaging barking can be. Damages for me because of a barking dog, squawking bird and bad neighbours are ongoing. I was forced out of my home, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars lost to do so. I am forced to travel further to my work, costing me every week around thrity dollars. I was forced out of a municipality that showed no concern for my well being or no effort to enforce the laws. I have not been able to resolve this issue and I am now fighting this issue years after I have moved out of the troubled area. I am angry and I want justice, something that continually evades me to this day. The introduction of laws as I have described may resolve these issues for me, because I know, the very moment I have to deal with another barking dog issue, I will have years of torment on my hands, years more of injustice and may agian have a cost associated with it. There goes my retirement. Oh yeah, money I could put aside for my retirement is now significantly reduced, and we know the direction government is heading with pensions these days. So barking will have affected my life to my dying days. I am only 43 years old, still have many years to work.
You may consider a dog to be important to you and a "BENEFIT", but I assure you, many that have had dogs and made the conscious decision to not get a dog again have told me they have been liberated, have much more time for their family and better holidays and have so much more money available than before. Yep, get a dog if you like, but take aboard all the aspects of dog ownership too. And just because no neighbours complain about your dogs barking, does not mean it is not a disturbance. QUiet your dogs anyway, just to show you have consideration and compassion for your neighbours needs too.
Excellent post, John
Excellent post, John Marlowe, although you would not find that everyone agreed with your judgement about which politicians are trustworthy. There are a few names there that speak out of both sides of their mouths in different forums. What you say about the press is true, but the press isn't loyal to the two parties; the two parties are loyal to the press. Part of the awful predicament Australian politics has become results from a series of prime ministers giving the media barons more and more power over information. In truth it is the media which invents the political parties and chooses their captains. And the media is a big commercial corporation that shares investments with political parties and our parliaments make laws to privilege those investments.
Refuse to pay levies, rates and taxes
Sometime round the second world war a law was passed to make it possible to deduct tax from wages. In many other countries people can withhold their taxes if unsatisfied with the government. This right has been removed from Australians. We need to get it back. No Queenslander should pay rates, parking fines or any other monetary levy until Campbell, Bligh and the rest of the unrepresentative swill in power are removed from government or agree to stop population growth.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
Copyright to the author. Please contact sheila [AT] candobetter org or the editor if you wish to make substantial reproduction or republish.
Why would the people of Queensland pay more taxes?
The populations of Queensland and Western Australia are expected to more than double within the next 50 years.
The Queensland Government must consider an increase in taxes to manage future population growth, a new report has found. Population expert Professor McDonald warned that population growth "could not be slowed and the imposition of higher taxes may need to be considered".
Professor McDonald said that the Inquiry recognised community concerns about the pressures of continuing population growth and impacts on the quality of life. However, future growth is already "embedded in the state’s economy" and that there appears to be little immediate prospect of current growth rates in Queensland. In words, the addiction to growth is already set in to the mind-set and like the Titanic heading towards the iceberg, they can't change the course!
If we are supposed to get more "prosperity" from population growth, why must the Queensland government consider more taxes? It is a matter of limited supply and increasing demand for finite resources - environmental and infrastructure-wise! It probably spells disaster for Queensland's remaining wild koala populations.
Peak Oil
A very interesting overview and contrast of 2 periods in Australia with different population levels.
re Peak Oil- A US oceanographer interviewed on the ABC the other night said (among many things) regarding the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and as though it was a given fact, that oil exploration and extraction is going into places that are decreasingly accessible.
I guess we can expect more of these oceanic disasters as we desperately try to obtain oil from diminishing reserves for an increasing global population.
The extent of the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico seems to be a graphic indication of the strife we are really in.
Having finished my uni'
Having finished my uni' degree and having been looking for jobs I could do, I've yes, been on Newstart this year, so far! My experience with the Job Employment Network agency or organization Centrelink refer me to has been similar to that of one of the replies on here. It's actually quite un-user friendly when going there, to use the facilities... Stationary has to be requested each time and nothings just there for people to job search on their own. Ok there are two computers available for clients to just sit down on and a phone to call out for jobs, with a photocopier and printer. But the main room for job searching is normally for groups and sessions, not just walk-ins. I'm currently being 'weaned' off my Newstart payments and found employment all on my own, no thanks to the so-called professionals. Even with a Reduced Work Capacity for jobs and job seeking, there was no 'extra' assistance to find an appropriate job. My personal job-seeking and working experience has been done by my own efforts, and none of someone else or a group! I'd really hesitate before going to an Agency of any kind really; there're suss things that interviewers really want out of candidates for the sake of their clients.
SBS interview of Stable Pop Party Oz
Short but superb SBS Interview with William Bourke of Stable Population Party of Australiahttp://www.population.org.au/index.php/links/114-population-articles/294-radio-interview-of-william-bourke-stable-population-party-of-australia
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
Copyright to the author. Please contact sheila [AT] candobetter org or the editor if you wish to make substantial reproduction or republish.
religions aren't irrelevant for large sections of society
Religions may be unethical but they aren't irrelevant because so many people are influenced by them. For this reason it seems important to give space to comments by sensible (and ethical) commentators within their forums on issues which are relevant to candobetter's objectives. You and I may have a natural tendency to ignore religions - I was never brought up in one - but the government, the media and many people do not.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
Copyright to the author. Please contact sheila [AT] candobetter org or the editor if you wish to make substantial reproduction or republish.
These fruit-cakes are at it again!
On Sunday, CEC activists stood up for the people against the genocide lobby, in a public forum in western Sydney which is one of the many forums of this kind being held around Australia. The CEC is fighting back against the well-publicised and "well-funded" (by who?) campaign fronted by “Kill-them” Thomson, Dick Smith and Bob Carr, to lay the blame for the visible crisis in Australia’s economy, such as run-down infrastructure, water shortages, on the number of people in Australia -rather than where the blame really lies, which is their globalisation policies.
This campaign aparently is accused of seeking to impose “solutions” to the manufactured crisis, such as health care rationing, shutting down the Murray-Darling Basin, blocking development of Australia’s northern region, etc. by killing people! Really! There's a difference between the problem and the solution, and cause and effect.
Of course, globalisation has caused a loss of jobs and training, but the problem of excessive population growth is multi-dimensional, and the financial implications of having to provide infrastructure, and artificially supplying water, means that the public ultimately have to pay for it, whether it is supplied by private or public enterprises.
See the web page with the video of the disruption
"“Whether you directly cull people like cattle by killing them en masse, or indirectly by denying economic development, infrastructure and industry, it’s all genocide." The second part is not a definition of "genocide" but one of their own creations! You can't kill people who don't exist!
Their interruptions were crude, inappropriate and showed a lack of intellectual input.
Do they really want to liquidate our natural biological support systems, and our biodiversity, in the quest to crowd as may people into Australia as possible! This idea would be the most foolish and misanthropic plan ever!
One would have to query their true intent, their true agenda?
Stable Pop Party Aust registered
We can now officially announce that the Stable Population Party has achieved the 500 members required for federal registration as a political party.
On 31 May 2010 we lodged our application for registration with the Australian Electoral Commission.
Thank you to everyone who supported the membership drive. It has been a big project with a range of invaluable contributions.
Here is a link to the latest newsletter from the Stable Population Party with the announcement:
http://www.populationparty.com/newsletter/newsletter_display.php?secID=108&id=164
It is my view that an election in August is quite possible - perhaps 50/50 - which would prevent us from standing candidates under the party name. We need to complete the (approximately 12 week) registration process before the election is called.
That is out of our hands, so we will now progress with other aspects of the party's development and wait for news from the AEC and the Rudd Government.
Kind regards
William Bourke
Stable Population Party of Australia
www.populationparty.com
Usually however the
Usually however the offenders are not caught and all we are left with is a dead kangaroo with a rope tied around its tail as was the case in Gidgegannup..
No more nations to plunder
It is because the increase in the world's population has been accompanied by such a rapid rise in the quality of life on earth that the population of the planet is larger than ever before. Economic growth brought by the Industrial Revolution and by capitalism's triumphant march through the 19th and 20th century has vastly bettered the conditions of human existence. However, cause and effect are hard to trace in human affairs. The industrial revolution was spurred on by the availability of energy and human resources. The continuation of growth and industrialisation are assumed will continue to bring prosperity despite world-changing conditions and crisis that exist today. Once we are over our optimum level of growth, and finite resource on our planet are compromised and exhausted, there will be nothing to gain by expanding. There are no more potential nations to colonise, and no more new oceans to plunder. Lack of water and peak oil should rein in population growth in Australia, and elsewhere, and let's hope it destroys globalisation and brings back local manufacturing, local jobs, home-grown renewable energy sources, national pride and patriotism.
Kangaroo population control
You do not know what You are talking about. I am a farmer in Cathcart, NSW. In recent years the number of Kangaroos increasen 10 times. I am talking about the big Easter Gray ones. They are not affraid anymore. My wife was checking the fences along Big Jack Mountain Road couple of days ago. Was suddenly kicked in back by a huge male; lackily our 3 Kelpies were nearby and saved her. She got 11 sutures, due to come off tomorrow.
Do not get into subjects You have no idea about!
Slav
cruelty to animals
I am very pleased to see thisorganisation being formed.
Cruelty will always exist as long as people are prepared to eat meat.Eating meat is another form of cruelty.I have printed a slogan which reads CRUELTY BEGINS AT HOME ON YOUR DINNER PLATE.Unfortunately there are many organisations that form with good intentions but are not prepared to tackle the problem head on.To eliminate cruelty the meat industry must be totally shut down.This is a very difficult task as the largest animal murderers are very powerfull,own the media and or can buy it.It is also the road to the enslavement of mankind being the least intelligent animal on this planet.
As for the idea that the population growth should be zero,i find it very strange that we can have approximately 135million beautifull sheep,35million cows,billions of chicken and millions of other beautifull,intelligent and loving animal just to be slaughtered to satisfy some mentally de arranged humanoid.I hope that all your members are vegetarian or prefably vegans and if so wonderfull,if not the party is compromised from the outset.In spite of what I have said i wish you luck and am proud of you for doing quite a bit towards this disgusting DR MANGELS attitude towards our beautiful children the animals.
Jacko's kangaroo plague myth to justify slaughtering wildlife
Re: Jacko's hysterical 'hysterical nonsense' comment above of 28th May 2010:
In response:
1. Jacko claims: "this article is hysterical nonsense."
My response:
Crap. Where's the hysteria? The above article describes factual events. It offers an opinion and it compares the treatment of wildlife in 2009 and 2010 to the treatment of Aboriginals by colonists up until 1928. Actually the article should have included the Appin Massacre of 14 Aboriginals on 17 April 1816 "as a result of the orders issued by Governor Macquarie in 1816." It should have included the many Aboriginal deaths in custody including the bashing of Mulrunji Doomadge on Palm Island on 19th November 2004 and that of Ian Ward while being transported in a privately run prison van in searing heat on January 27, 2008.
2. Jacko claims: "It is a defamation of the aboriginal people, putting them on the same level as native animals"
My response:
Jacko has either naively misinterpreted my comparison or more likely deliberately selectively read the article and twisted it to cause offence. Jacko's criticism is a desperate fallacious attempt intended to change the subject through digression and false emphasis.
My argument is that the contempt for Aborigines in Australia's colonist and recent history as vermin is comparable to the treatment of Australia's wildlife as vermin. Both are utterly despicable. This argument does not compare Aborigines to wildlife. It compares the similarity of backward attitudes of colonists to neo-colonists.
3. Jacko claims: "My objection to the controlled (RSPCA) killings is that the meat was wasted... the numbers got out of hand. Controlled slaughter and use of the valuable meat is the solution. Anyone who knows Australia knows that kangaroo species are far from extinction, reaching- artificial - plague proportions in many areas."
My response:
The justifications for the slaughter of about 4500 kangaroos at Belconnen and Majura has been discredited. It was purely to clear the way for real estate development (now underway) and as a convenience for Army training by Duntroon cadets.
The "wasting meat" argument is separate from the justification argument. Killing wildlife is wrong. Commercial trade in wildlife parts including meat is wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Using the spoils of immoral wildlife mass slaughter may well have been an incentive for the slaughter on its own. If the meat was not used, would the slaughter have been supported or proceeded. With the kangaroo industry denied the spoils and profit, what would the ACT Government have done? Would the cost of disposing of 4500 odd kangaroo carcasses have been prohibitive?
The 'wasting meat' argument could be applied to the many cats and dog euthanased by the RSPCA every month.
Can Jacko honestly proclaim no personal involvement or commercial gain in this slaughter that would have framed his opinion?
4. Jacko claims: "Anyone who knows Australia knows that kangaroo species are far from extinction, reaching- artificial - plague proportions in many areas."
My response:
The kangaroo plague myth is a tired, unproven pious fraud. Where are the facts?
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
I have not the slightest
I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that if this planet makes it through the next 50 years to sustainable and just ways it will be via some kind of Transition Towns process. retirement communities in arizona
ISOFIX
Of course the current car seats are a nightmare that’s why 25 years ago Australia and a number of other countries started to develop the new standard or car seat. 10 years ago these seats hit the market in UK Europe and even the USA (that place where seatbelts were not mandatory in all states) These seats fit correctly every time with little to no training. They are simple and easy to move between cars. Simple to drop off at the day care / school and pick up on the way home. Why are they not here?
I paid a couple of hundred dollars for each of my child's car seats. They will last for a number of years, so not much cost over time. My wife is now working so I am looking at another two just to get them to and from home. So some of the first weeks wage will go into car seats.
I could walk to the local school! Perhaps if I skip spending money fixing my breaks, or that leaky exhaust - it’s not they are that important. I am a carful driver I can slow down before I need to stop. Will be fine so long as no one else is on the road. Hmm maybe not. I know I will skip buying the expensive fire resistant pj's or proper shoes, perhaps the smoke alarm battery - I never have fires.
Kids cost money car seats, Braces, time off when they are sick, child care, clothes, correct foot ware. You can skimp in many areas and your child may not be the worse off - but if you think that’s OK are you really being the parent you should be? Will they thank you for it in the long run? Should we be happy with others low standards for their defenceless children?
Never forget the victims and the church complicity
Never forget the victims; the victims never will forget.
Never forget the complicity of the churches of the immoral crimes by trusted immoral priests. To ignore, to cover up is to be complicit.
Agent Provocateur says above:
"No free kicks, witch hunts or 'free for alls' - respectful, reasoned argument must always prevail if any kind of change for the better, is to be accomplished.
We Can All Do Better than this'.
Yes, these are appropriate questions for the church and society. Indeed the church can do better, or deserved to become more irrelevant and rightfully shunned by an increasing number in society. The future of church is up to its fraternity.
Bernard Salt as a trend "forecaster"
Bernard Salt is a KPMG Partner based in Melbourne Australia. Bernard has established an international reputation as a trend forecaster for business and government.
KPMG deliver a wide range of Audit, Tax and Advisory services to many of Australia's – and the world's – fastest growing and leading business enterprises, as well as government bodies. KPMG’s Migration Services practice has been helping companies and individuals navigate Australian immigration law for nearly a decade and a half.
Hardly an objective or indifferent organisation to forecast "trends" they actually want to perpetuate.
“Australia risks becoming an international pariah if it relies the environment as an excuse to resist further migration, the Future Summit heard today." Hardly an "excuse" but a reason to stem the flow of people - the biggest environmental threat!
Clearly our way of life has been built upon liquidating our own and foreign natural life-giving ecosystems to access resources for consumption. To equate chipping old growth forests, dumping waste into water, over-fishing oceans, air pollution, offshore oil mining disasters and ignoring the threatening progress of human population growth with "progress" is absurd!
Experts say that at least half of the world’s current species will be completely gone by the end of the century. Most biologists say that we are in the midst of an anthropogenic mass extinction. Numerous scientific studies confirm that this phenomenon is real and happening right now.
Our country will collapse, many if not all will needlessly suffer and prematurely die, and a livable Earth may cease to exist. All in the name of profits and growth!
On behalf of James
Thank you on behalf of James, Agent Provocateur.
Actually, I wasn't going to broadcast his illness in case it comforted his enemies!
He is making progress after a collision between his bicycle and a car thirteen days ago, but is still in a great deal of pain and cannot walk without assistance. It could be months before he is able to resume aspects of his normal life. We all feel very upset for him and all his supporters are invited to invoke whatever magic they may believe in to restore James back to health and to cheer the rest of us up, who miss him.
Here's the problem
The problem is that the government statistics aren't worth a candle. They are not consistently collected. They do not cover relevant areas. They are unreliable. Consider the recent auditor generals' reports on state stats https://candobetter.org/node/1748 and https://candobetter.org/node/1750
and these articles analysing arguments about numbers: https://candobetter.org/node/1196 and https://candobetter.org/node/1274 (which no-one has even tried to counter)
and these you-tube reports.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmbOKOMkdts
http://www.youtube.com/user/QueenieAlexander2000#p/u/24/LYK2bvPd5Fc
and this article and others.
Why would we believe the Australian government on this (or much else) let alone the US government?
Fine to hunt kangaroos if there are less than one million humans here - not viable for export or for present population.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
Our capacity to accommodate genuine refugees is impeded
Here in Australia pensioners, students and the unemployed are being denied a liveable wage, and the funding to our public schools, hospitals, housing and higher education is continually being stretched, due to our heavy population growth rate.
Both the Labor and Liberals are more interested in corporate wealth and profits than the needs of people, and with our manufacturing industries and many public assets sold off for globalisation, land speculation and property investment are the the biggest urban industries now - thus the need for a continual flow of buyers!
In a report released in December last year, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said 25 million to 1 billion people could be displaced by climate change by mid-century.
Some asylum seekers no doubt are unsuitable to assimilate, but where is our nation's compassion and duty of care towards people, climate justice, and protection for the environment that all life depends on?
We can't take all the world's refugees, but our capacity to accommodate refugees is being impeded by our own, manufactured, population growth rate.
Bravo Raymond F. Smith on his article:The maths of refugeeism
Raymond F. Smith - formerly a Senior Lecturer in Communications Media at the Regional Centre for Education in Science and Mathematics, Malaysia...
- who finishes his article with some arrant refugee numbers - and where to put them!
(...Since there are about 10 million houses in Australia, that would mean that each house would have to accommodate 250 refugees in each house.)
... "Now, some of my good mathematician friends argue that my calculations are exaggerated, that my figures are much less, as much as 50%. Raymond says finally: "If they are right, Canberrans will be relieved to know that they will only have to share each of their bedroom with only 4165 "refugees".
A while ago I also dared to ask the question of when enough is enough - but was denounced as racist.
Apparently it is our 'humane duty' to accommodate refugees (presumably until the cows came home).
(Thesaurus.com definitions of refugee follow)
blow in (s)
floater (s)
foreigner (s)
greenhorn(s)
guest (s)
immigrant(s)
incomer(s)
interloper(s)
intruder(s)
invader(s)
migrant(s)
newcomer(s)
noncitizen(s)
refugee(s)
squatter(s)
stranger(s)
visitor(s)
weed(s)
Hmmnnnn? ... Yes, I was of course, denounced as selfish and inhumane, as usual... but do we have reciprocal laws in countries where ... incomers - are fleeing from? - I'm ready to flee...
Catholic Church may be flawed.. but lets not have a Witch Hunt..
As Jonathan has said:
...not all religions have this dogma and indeed to damn all of religion based upon the ills of one arm of Christianity is extremely ignorant and shows incredible bias towards mono and (poly) theistic belief systems.
No free kicks, witch hunts or 'free for alls' - respectful, reasoned argument must always prevail if any kind of change for the better, is to be accomplished.
We Can All Do Better than this'.
Yes, This is True! -Where's the example for us to follow?
I agree with you here - I have asked the same question! Why are car & boat racing allowed to continue - with the shortage of fuel and emissions caused by this banal form of ... sport?!!?
There's nothing sportsman-like about brazenly and extravagantly using up valuable resources.
There is an arrogance and insupportable audacity attached to the presumption that it is quite alright for rich men and their so called sports to continue.
Meanwhile Ordinary Australians - indeed Ordinary Citizens of the planet- are expected to cut back on the use of the worlds' resources - acknowledged by communities to be much needed elsewhere, in order to maintain our current level of civilization.
Indeed, where is the incentive to turn off the porch light or cut back on the use of water when our Honorable leaders condone large scale, lavish, and immoderate use of our resources?
I agree - Hysterical nonsense!
I've just had a quick look at the 'argument' which Jacko stated was 'Hysterical nonsense!'
"Today's 21st century official slaughter of Australian native animals is no different to the official slaughter of Australian native people by European colonists, who treated Aboriginal people as vermin."
Jacko said that his objection to the 'controlled (RSPCA) killings is that the meat was wasted.'
... 'Anyone who knows Australia knows that kangaroo species are far from extinction, reaching- artificial - plague proportions in many areas.'
By the way, did the 'conscientious objectors know their facts?
On Kangaroo farming...
http://www.dfat.gov.au/facts/kangaroos.html
Kangaroo management and use
Kangaroos have long been important to the survival of Australia’s Indigenous peoples, who have hunted kangaroos for tens of thousands of years for both the meat and the skins.
... and...
The commercial harvesting of widespread and abundant kangaroo species contributes to the sustainability of the Australian environment.
...The kangaroo industry
Australia’s kangaroo industry began exporting kangaroo meat to Europe in 1959 in response to interest from the European game meat industry. Today kangaroo meat and skins are exported all over the world.
Even the Americans have modified their views...
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/new-york-overturns-ban-on-sale-of...
After a six month lobbying effort, New York lawmakers have agreed to drop a ban on the sale of all but one kangaroo species.
Only the rare Tasmanian Forester Kangaroo will remain off the menu, the Herald Sun has learned.
Australian officials recently rejected a push to place the giant marsupial on the national threatened species list.
What's the problem? Did the writers of the 'Hysterical Nonsense' do any research?
Get Well Soon James & Happy Birthday
I hadn't been in my emails for quite a while, so when I opened my mail this evening, it was with a great sense of shock that I read of James' accident.
I know that we all wish him a speedy & full recovery - and must keep writing here, to ... keep the site 'patent'.
Also, James had a birthday during this time, and I would like to take the opportunity to wish him Happy Birthday - and it .is -because he is surrounded by people who care about him - and this site.
Good Wishes
AP
Baseless assertions re kangaroo plagues
"Anyone who knows Australia knows..." is meaningless. You would need to cite reliable statistics, but there appear to be none in Australia to support your assertion. Which makes it hysterical, to use your own inflammatory term.
The article suggests that those who slaughtered Aboriginal people were placing them on the same level as other indigenous species and classifying all of them as vermin. Does the article defend or criticise that attitude?
Hysterical nonsense
This article is hysterical nonsense.
Worse than that it is a defamation of the aboriginal people, putting them on the same level as native animals.
"Today's 21st century official slaughter of Australian native animals is no different to the official slaughter of Australian native people by European colonists, who treated Aboriginal people as vermin."
My objection to the controlled (RSPCA) killings is that the meat was wasted. In those reserves, devoid of predators and other competition (except from grubby and lying real estate developers) the numbers got out of hand. Controlled slaughter and use of the valuable meat is the solution. Anyone who knows Australia knows that kangaroo species are far from extinction, reaching- artificial - plague proportions in many areas.
This kind of hysterical anthropomorphism discredits sensible environmental concern.
Meaningless accusations
Around 20 Japanese protesters staged a noisy rally and waved signs saying "Hang terrorist Peter Bethune!" and "Destroy Caucasian discrimination against Japanese!" outside the Tokyo District Court.
If there is nothing else to accuse activists of these days, then they trump up the "racist" or "terrorist" labels so that these words have little genuine meaning any more. It is like those losing a debate taking the last resort of personally insulting the opposition!
Having a high moral ground, as Sea Shepherd does, is an affront to these environmental criminals and their supporters. They have to resort to modern, meaningless, throw-away vocabulary, as their only defense!
Gladly I let my porch light burn while F1/V8s extravagantly burn
I shall continue to let my porch light burn so long as F1 and V8 supercar races race. And I don't mind if Iceland's volcano grounds ozone-depleting airlines. Rail is superior, more energy efficient and door-to-door convenient for cross-land transport. Lufthansa, United Airways and Virgin could invest in rail if they wanted and foresaw peak oil.
Bushfire agencies are allowed to burn millions of hectares of forest without account of the tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions they cause. Ain't relativism convenient?
Governments react to catastrophe, so bring on GFC2 and 3 to expose the one-eyed reality of economic classism. Stop 'progress', 'growth', 'pollution' 'population' and think what matters to ordinary people.
I care more for the energy waste and the ordinary locals excluded from the South Africa world cup, than who plays or wins in Johannesburg. International sport remains an extravagance that humans follow to distract them from reality.
Let ants poo and cast all care to the wind.
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
My email to Nedlands Council
Dear Nedlands Council
I am very disturbed to hear about UWA's proposal to destroy Underwood Ave Bushland. The City of Nedlands has gone back on its decision and voted to endorse the proposal with a few minor adjustments, apparently. Why is it so hard to say "no" to developers and land destructors?
Councilors in favour of UWA's proposal were heard and then the motion to accept it was forced to a vote without allowing any councilors to speak against it. Is this tranparent government and council administration? Why would they approve of it? Please investigate.
It is surprising that a university, presumably interested in the state of their environment, high ideals and learning, would be for this destruction. Of course, councils want more rates, but maturity and ethics should over-ride raw greed and malignant growth.
The University of Western Australia had been determined to bulldoze rare bushland in the middle of Perth for future property development. The greatest threat to Australia today, besides climate change, is land and ecosystem desecration. Doesn't destroying the habitat of one of very few remaining West Australian Black Cockatoos cause any concern? Destruction of habitat of threatened birds is vandalism.
sincerely
HELP ME SAVE THE ANIMALS OF AUSTRALIA!
I love liveing in austlia but look at all the bad things we are doing to our butiful animals how would australia peopal like it if we where one of the animals.I think we need to say something out to the peopal of australia and show them pichers and tell them what thay are really doing so WE CAN DO BETTER! I may only be 9 terning 10 but i want to help you save the animals of australia just because i am 9 but i still think i can make a diffrice too!
WA Black Cockatoos threatened once again
The City of Nedlands has reversed its decision made back in December 2009 to protect bushland and vital black cockatoo habitat in Shenton Park. Private meetings between the University of Western Australia and the council have resulted in a sham voting process that allowed supporters of the development to speak yet gagged those that were opposed. Two years ago our current WA premier, Colin Barnett pleaded with the Labor government to buy the land from UWA so that the area could be preserved. Today he appears to have changed his mind and states that the issue has "moved on". I would suggest it is more likely he himself has moved on and refuses to include the aquisition of this land in his state budget.
This will be an impressive
This will be an impressive building! I hope they have the demand for it otherwise they risk losing a lot of money. It would make more sense if this was one of the San Francisco hotels for instance, San Francisco is a big city and has the power of "clientele absorption" for such a hotel. I am not so sure about Brisbane though...
Depopulate or perish, urges actor Jeremy Irons
THE world is becoming so overpopulated that nature will one day wreak its revenge, actor Jeremy Irons says.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/depopulate-or-perish-urges-act...
He is seeking funding for a film on sustainability, which he hopes will be in the manner of An Inconvenient Truth, the Oscar-winning Al Gore documentary on climate change.
"We'll be pulling in a lot of expert opinion, and we are in talks for funding," Irons says. "We hope it will be a movie."
The elephant in the room is not always invisible, but why do non-science based celebrities have to say the obvious? Perhaps they are naive enough to announce that the Emperor has no clothes on!
There is potential for good if implemented properly
Yes, property owners in the affected areas should be able to contest and have their arguments heard regarding the property that is owned BY them. And yes, it does seem that developers do stand to gain a lot from this policy.
BUT, there is an undeniable housing problem (lack thereof) and in other documents i have read(mainly Melbourne @ 5 million and my understanding from a Rob Adams presentation) the areas that are proposed for Substantial change zone (the biggest change to accomodate medium density housing) are only allocated ON routes with tram or bus lines on it- therefore improving accessibility to public transportation. For example; in the Carlton areas along Swanston/Lygon, Rathdowne, Grattan, Johnston & Nicholson streets might be subject to change but Cardigan, Drummond, Canning & smaller streets and laneways will remain untouched and will be limited change zones in order to preserve the charater of the suburbs.
In addition, even along the tram/bus routes, it isnt high-rise towers that are being encouraged- it is medium density 5-7 level residential units with potential commercial space on the ground levels (providing services for the people who live in the areas). Also, im quite sure an owner has the right NOT to sell off their property to a developer/government/anyone, just as they have the right to sell it off as well, and therefore, there will be many properties along the routes that are very low density.
Yes, there will be some change to certain areas, but change will happen REGARDLESS of these zoning policies being legislated or not! And this solution seems ideal as it acknowledges the preservation of suburbs characters as well. Whether you like it or not, Melbourne IS growing, and will for a long while more, and this seems like a plausible solution to it!
I have read a lot of the documents concerned with the Melb 2030 plans, and i suggest anyone who agrees with this article, to keep an open mind and look through all the documents u can find regarding this BEFORE making your mind up against it just based on this ONE article (which is terribly biased). The plans arent perfect, but there is no such thing as perfection.... I just see more good than bad that can happen.... IF it is ever implemented...lol!
Al
Who is too far to the "right"?
Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser has quit the party, allegedly over a belief it has tilted too far to the "right". He allegedly told friends his replacement, Tony Abbott, was "all over the place" on policy and disliked the "racist" overtones adopted by the party in the debate on immigration.
Fraser was a champion of immigration and a high population. Any suggestion that those who oppose our high immigration rate are "racist" is confusing the issue and are being politically manipulated. It is wrong to assume that our migrants are the ones who want a continued high population growth rate. Surveys show that the majority of the population are against our high immigration rate - including immigrants. They are being disadvantaged like the rest of us.
What about the racism in India, China, Africa and the Middle East?
We are more and more feeling the costs of our government's socially-engineered population growth rate, and the squeeze is being felt my even professionals and the middle classes. We need a more compassionate and just approach to asylum seekers, but while we have such as high population growth rate, driven by immigration, the "racism" is against these people, and existing citizens, as our resources, and ability to accommodate the needy, is being overtaken by economic migrants.
Co-author Mark O’Connor of Overloading Australia said that: “Both as PM and since, Malcolm Fraser has been a persistent advocate of levels of population growth that our book shows are irresponsible. He claimed to be leading Australians to a better future. Yet our current shortages of oil, water, housing, electricity, and amenities are closely related to such policies, as are our increasing emissions and deteriorating environment".
Fraser claimed that reducing the rate of population growth "would have little impact on sustainability if governments perfected their policies on climate change and efficiency measures." It seems that he can't draw the dots between our present environmental threats, costs of living, eroding liveability and that Australia is the world's highest per capita in greenhouse gas emissions, are all about over-loading Australia with too many people? Just who is too far to the "right"?
Pollution.
Do computer users contribute to pollution levels? What about those who use local sewerage services? How about radio, television, electric and gas cooking? The dentist's drill? The lights and equipment used to keep us alive inside emergency wards? When populations were smaller, wood heaters kept the kids warm until high density living became the norm.
Are we not carrying the downside of human activity to ridiculous lengths?
I ask: what does science say about levels of human induced pollution, should world population be gradually reduced to pre-1975 "global warming" levels? Has science said anything?
Excellent article, Tim. I
Excellent article, Tim. I can thoroughly empathise with you! When my daughter in law told me at Christmas they were planning to start a family, I struggled to restrain the look of horror that was threatening to break out all over my face. She did notice my total lack of exhilaration and I managed to ask her calmly 'but what kind of world will you be bringing your kids into. I am very concerned for our future.'
"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
Nielsen's existing mine is
Nielsen's existing mine is in Moreton Bay Region. Their proposal is for a NEW mine, adjacent to the current one, but in the adjoining Brisbane City. When the council assesses the application they will consider any submissions made by third parties (such as neighbours). Submissions can be made on the Brisbane city council website for development applications http://pdonline.brisbane.qld.gov.au. The relevant applications are A002422976 and A002423015. Submissions can be made at any time, but submissions made during the public notification period allow the submitter to appeal against the council's decision. The public notification period will start after enough documentation has been lodged by Nielsen's. That MAY be several months from now.
Electric cars are really coal-cars
Electric cars, of course, run off coal-fired power generation, or nuclear. And the more coal we use the worse the quality gets.
Air cars are a pretty interesting development, except that you need electricity to compress the air.
However, society organises according to fuel sources and cars are a feature of the Petroleum Age. With no cheap and abundant petroleum, cars are not a given. They may become fundamentally rare or disappear entirely.
The whole area of energy sources is vastly under-discussed.
Oz Icons afternoon roaring success - Report
Hi Everyone,
I am so happy to announce that our Afternoon with Australian Icons was a roaring success!!! The Australian Society for Kangaroos made $6,850 in profit, and Nikki also sold 50 t/shirts! There are more to sell still if anyone is interested.
An attendance of around 200 people were impressed with the line up and programme, Lynda Stoner and Johnny Pace were fabulous with their introductions and auction skills.I cannot thank you both enough.
The Speakers were dynamic, they produced much emotion and passion during all of their speeches, the audience were wonderful, they listened intently to every word. Thankyou so much to all of you.
The Entertainers were so enjoyable, and so professional, the audience sang along, clapped, swayed and the vibe was very uplifting. You were shining stars!
The sound techs upstairs were terrific,as well as my dear friend Casey Knox was great as the sound person on stage.
I cannot thank the Revesby Workers girls enough for all their help with the advertising, and set up of the room on the day.
Carol Maroun did a fantastic job of setting the stage up as an Australiana feel, which set the atmosphere ready for an afternoon full of entertainment, serious talks about the kangaroo's alarming situation, and heart felt reactions from both celebrities and the audience were both suprising and encouraging.
I'm sure everyone enjoyed the day as much as I, and took away a huge amount of information with them, to continue to do their best to help our Australian National Icon, the Kangaroo.
Thanks again to everyone for your kind contribution of raffle and auction items and to all of you who made such a huge effort to come along and show your support on the day.
Also, to everyone who helped me on the day, to make it such so successful, I thankyou very, very much. I could not have done it without you.
It was truly an inspiring afternoon with Australian Icons.
Warm wishes,
Gail.
www.gailbrowning.com.au
Can we not have such
Can we not have such sensationalist and bigoted headlines? Although the Catholic church's flawed doctrine of priests-shall-not-marry has largely created this problem of abuse by the clergy, not all religions have this dogma and indeed to damn all of religion based upon the ills of one arm of Christianity is extremely ignorant and shows incredible bias towards mono and (poly) theistic belief systems. Candobetter can do better than that!
Schapelle needs to come home to Australia where she belongs
Schapelle needs help. What can we do to save her? We, as Australians should not stand by and let this happen. We DO! Every day she rots away we live our lives and forget her pain. It's got to stop. I just read Hotel Kerobokan. It's full of disgusting, degrading, horrific accounts of treatment to the prisoners. Where is Amnesty International?
It's still pollution, which started in the Industrial Revolution
It's all pollution. 'Climate change', 'global warming', whatever the label, it is still just pollution - the problem that was apparent in 1975.
Where do the climate change deniers think smoke, fumes, exhaust goes?
Just because the next day has a blue sky morning doesn't mean the pollution has vanished. It has just been spread around the globe in the atmosphere.
It has been blowing around since the linen mills, then the coal fired power stations.
And since the Industrial Revolution, human population has grown with 'progress'.
Electric car technology is available and denying family benefits after two children per family would start to make a difference. The problem lies in greedy selfish people, greedy selfish corporations and a political lack of will. Look at the families complaining about expensive child care as if it were a right after people decided to have multiple children, or the power stations complaining about a emissions tax as if they had a right to pollute.
The politicians certainly do need to be strong will to stand up to greed.
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
Build up not out.
Only developers want parkland destroyed. There is plenty of opportunity to renew aging suburbs and build highrise or midrise apartments in place of houses.
Darwinism and Spencer
Well said, John Marlowe! You are particularly spot-on about Darwin's theories.
There is a great book: Thomas F. Glick, (Ed.), The Comparative Reception of Darwinism, University of Chicago Press, 1988 composed of articles on this subject. In fact the mere mention of Darwin inspired me to ferret out an old piece of writing and post it as "Darwinism, Secularism and Religious Education in Australia - 1860s to 21st c.
The mathematics of refugeeism.
The maths of refugeeism.
There is a serious lack of understanding of basic mathematics by Australians, but it's not in the schools, it's with the Ministry for Immigration & Citizenship, with Chris Evans. The maths of refugeeism goes something like this.
The world population of humans is over seven billion, which is about six billion more than our little Earth can sustain without wiping out all other species of animals and most plants.
Of this seven billion humans, at least five billion live in countries where there are conditions that meet the criterion for genuine refugeeship, that is, where there is a regime where people have a genuine fear for their lives, from Indonesia, China, Sri Lanka, all middle-East and African countries and most South American countries.
About half of the populations of these countries face death under their governments and the other half face death if the alternative government gets into power. That adds up to five billion people world wide who can claim to be "genuine refugees".
Where can they go? There are only a seven countries where foreign groups are not in fear of their lives, Europe, USA, Japan, Russia, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Problem is that Japan and Russia are maths savvy, and so, are well aware of the number-of-refugees problem, and have closed their doors. Europe and the USA are closing their doors too. That leaves Canada, Australia and New Zealand to accept those five billion "genuine refugees".
If Canada takes in half of them, that leaves 2.5, billion refugees for New Zealand and us. Being a caring and sharing person, I'm sure John Key who seems to have inherited the politicians' disease of maths deficiency, would happily share the load and take in, say, a mere 100 million which would increase New Zealand's population to polyglottery of 103 million and neatly solve the Maori "problem".
Which leaves Australia with a more-manageable number of 2.499 billion "refugees" for us to accommodate.
Since there are about 10 million houses in Australia, that would mean that each house would have to accommodate 250 refugees in each house. Add on four of us Australians, that makes 254 which means about 83 in each of the three bedrooms. Frankly, we wouldn't like that, nor would any of our friends, because we are not maths deficient like Mr Rudd's colleagues. Nor would our rellies in Perth or the other four cities readily put out the welcome mat for them. And an Aboriginal mia mia would be stretching to accommodate three, let alone 83!
So the only solution would seem to be to accommodate them in Canberra, after all it's their idea. But don't tell Canberrans that they'll have to share each bedroom with 8330 more people. The maths of it is, of the 93,000 homes in Canberra, there would probably be 300,000 bedrooms to be divided amongst the 2.499 billion genuine "refugees".
Now, some of my good mathematician friends argue that my calculations are exaggerated, that my figures are much less, as much as 50%. If they are right, Canberrans will be relieved to know that they will only have to share each of their bedroom with only 4165 "refugees".
Raymond F. Smith
Retired, formerly:
Senior Lecturer in Communications Media at the Regional Centre for Education in Science And Mathematics, Malaysia.
Area Specialist with the Australian Science Education Project
Population and Climate Warming.
Is it correct that human-induced "global warming" kicked in around 1975 (?) when the world population was around 4 billion? Is it correct that temperatures have sufficiently increased since then to raise scientific alarm and today's resultant energy austerity measures?
The world population was 4 billion in 1975. Since then it has increased to almost 7 billion.
Is there any correlation between a 3 billion growth in human activity over the past 35 years, and recent "warming" signals?
If there is a 3 billion human activity connection during the last few decades, then wouldn't a staged population reduction programme entirely halt "warming", resulting in maintenance of present living standards?
Would initial incentives towards zero population growth, then further steps towards population reduction, be a more sensible and feasible option than the chaotic, costly and highly doubtful sustainable energy plans currently proposed?
Malthus and his 'borrowed' interpretations deserve scrutiny
Seems there is much variation between history's account of Malthus and the subsequent borrowings of his ideas into various interpretations.
None right nor wrong per se, but best to be factually correct and clear on which variant one refers.
Note an initial Google list provides the following:
* 'Thomas Robert Malthus'
* 'Malthusian Catastrophe'
* 'Malthusian Theory'
* 'Malthusianism'
* 'Malthus Society'
Each offers quite a distinct proposal.
A well misunderstood presumption is the theory of 'Darwinism'.
Charles Darwin, an English liberal scientist, who controversially advocated his theory of 'natural selection' in his 1859 book 'On the Origin of Species'.
It was however, Herbert Spencer (1820 – 1903), a contemporary compatriot of Darwin, who while not a scientist, but a philosopher, applied Darwin's theory to his own work. It was Spencer first coined the concept "survival of the fittest," not Darwin.
Spencer applied Darwin's revolutionary theory in his scientific book 'Principles of Biology' of 1864, extending Darwin's concept of evolution into the realms of sociology and ethics, making more use of Lamarckism than Darwin's 'natural selection'.
So it is important on this historic basis to be factually careful, else theories can erroneously lead to falsehoods.
The Pope cannot change the Church stance on contraception
The Catholic Birth Control Commission (1963-66) in fact voted 30 to 5 in favour of allowing the use of contraception but was overruled by the Pope. However, the Catholic Church maintains that the use of contraception is a violation of "natural law". It is supported by the obscure biblical passage in Genesis which describes the spilling of Onan’s seed, and that it is prohibited in the Apostolic tradition by the teachings of the First Council of Nicaea and St. Augustine. Such a conclusion from such as passage, to base an over-riding principle until today, is absurd and totally stretching the meaning of the context.
According to this ancient practice, a man - whether he was already married or not - was expected to marry his deceased brother's wife if she was still childless at her husband's death; and the first-born son of this union was then regarded as a legal descendant of the dead man. Onan's sin is presented here as consisting only in his selfish intent to deny offspring to his brother's widow- not how it was done!
According to Catholic dogma, when the pope formulates a doctrine, he is simply transmitting this dogma on God’s behalf. Therefore, the teaching cannot possibly be in error. He is infallible! As it stands now, the Church cannot change its position on birth control without undermining all of its dogma.
Thus we see today the falling power and the number of declining priests due to unrealistic expectations and teachings. The Anglican church is to be congratulated for its enlightened report.
Religion belongs to 20thC - another month another dodgy priest
Why do parents in the 21st Century blindly trust their children to be taught by religious institutions? Children would be safer in a maximum security gaol of convicted prisoners.
How much more evidence of pedophelia and abuse does it take?
Take this current month's display of religious leader immorality exposed, with the following three examples:
1. 'Priests kept working despite investigations', by Nick McKenzie and Rafael Epstein, SMH, 17th May 2010.
"The Catholic Church is accused of bungling sex abuse inquiries, with at least two priests continuing to work despite church investigations into the cases.
A Sydney priest, Finian Egan, was found to have groped two girls over many years in the 1980s, yet he was praised at a public Mass in Carlingford last year for 50 years of service.
A Melbourne priest, Patrick Maye, twice celebrated the annual Mass for Victoria's Irish community, despite being banned from acting as a priest after church investigators found that he had committed serious sexual abuse in 1973 by forcing himself on a 31-year-old woman when she was in a ''vulnerable'' state.
The church also found he groped two sisters in their family home in the 1980s. Father Maye denied the allegations. Victims of both priests went through the church's Towards Healing process, which is supposed to give closure and compensation to victims.
The church inquiry into Father Egan took more than two years, despite victims being told it would take no more than six months. The inquiry and Father Egan's appeal were delayed while he took overseas holidays.
During the appeal, he officiated at a wedding.
Kellie Roche, who was groped by Father Egan while a teenager, said: ''I wonder what the married couple would have felt if they knew.''
Another victim, who does not want her name used, was repeatedly groped by Father Egan when he gave her guitar lessons. She says the church discouraged her from going to police.
Father Egan worked at St Gerard in Carlingford in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His service was honoured last August - after the findings had been made - when he was lead celebrant at a Sunday Mass. A supper was also held in his honour and he was mentioned in the honour roll in the archdiocese's newsletter.
In a statement to the Herald, the Bishop of Broken Bay, David Walker, would only say ''it would not be appropriate to make any response that could jeopardise the balance of trust that is placed in the church's process of healing''.
In 2005 the church forced Father Maye to retire early with his ''canonical faculties'' removed, so he could not act in public as a priest - the most serious church penalty apart from defrocking.
Despite that, Father Maye has for the past two years acted as a priest at the St Patrick's Day Mass, defying the Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, who has repeatedly written letters warning him against working as a priest and saying ''any publicity will reflect adversely upon yourself [and] upon the church''.
Archbishop Hart also acknowledged the pain his victims would experience on learning of the priest's actions, but has been unwilling to publicise Father Maye's name to ensure he can't act as a priest.
In February, Father Maye was the ''surprise guest'' at a party for the Sydney bishop David Cremin. The Sydney function was also attended by the Irish ambassador.
In 2004 and 2005, Father Maye continued his work at St Augustine's Primary School in Yarraville, while police and the church investigated abuse claims. The girl he groped in the 1980s said the church should not have allowed this. ''I was feeling sick about the thought of him possibly abusing kids there,'' she said.
The police inquiry did not proceed to court. Father Maye denied the allegations through his lawyers.
One victim said: ''Dealing with the church itself was a hell of a lot more traumatic than dealing with the abuse.''
2.Victims suffer years of self-harm and depression, by Nick McKenzie and Rafael Epstein, SMH, 17th May 2010.
"There is a wall between me and sex"...Kellie Roche, who says she has put up a facade all her life. The struggle to obtain recognition of their abuse has devastated these women, write Rafael Epstein and Nick McKenzie.
Before the nightmare began, Kellie Roche was a happy 11-year-old. "I remember always being loud but so naive. I was very protected."
But Roche's life was traumatically transformed in 1981 when she was abused by a man she had revered. He was a priest, Father Finian Egan, and the impact never left her.
"I have put up with a facade all my life … there is a wall between me and sex," she says.
Abuse by the Irish-born priest began when she was at St Gerard's in Carlingford in the 1980s. For the girl from a strict Catholic family, the guitar-playing priest was the centre of her world. At youth group meetings, she says, he would "arrange me on his lap and put my arm around his neck so my breasts were in his face''. Then he would put his hand between her legs and, she says, ''I would feel his erection''.
Since 1996 the Catholic community has been dealing with the fallout from abuse through a process called ''Towards Healing''. The Melbourne archdiocese uses a similar system called the ''Melbourne Response''. An independent assessor examines claims of clerical abuse, which helps guide church-paid compensation. Victims who submit to the process sign away any rights to sue.
For Father Egan's other known victim, ''Kathy,'' the process has been devastating. "I believe in God, I just don't believe in the Catholic Church," she says.
In 2008, both women were told their complaints would be resolved within six months. But delays and an appeal meant it took more than two years until their complaints against Father Egan were completed. The compensation claims dragged on into this month.
For Kathy the delays were ''like a sledgehammer … in the chest'' and sent her into a spiral of depression. She'd already suffered many abusive relationships. ''I don't feel worthy because with every guy there is just no trust. You just don't want to live."
She contemplated going to the police but was told that if she did the church process would stop and jeopardise chances of compensation.
In the 1980s, Melbourne woman ''Lucy'' was groped in her family home by a trusted Catholic priest, Father Paddy Maye, a colleague of her father. One night he clutched her thigh while he sat between Lucy and her father. He also groped her sister.
Her experience shows not only that the Towards Healing process is tough on the victim but that the church has little power or determination to enforce its punishments.
What Lucy did not know was that a woman complained that in the 1970s Father Maye had forced himself on her and, she says, had intercourse without consent. As a result of that complaint, Father Maye was forced to retire at the end of 2005 and the Archbishop, Denis Hart, removed Father Maye's right to act in public as a priest. It is the most serious punishment short of defrocking. But Father Maye repeatedly ignored this sanction.
In 2005 the church and the police were looking into Father Maye, yet he continued as parish priest at St Augustine's Primary School, in Melbourne's west.
''I was feeling sick about the thought of him possibly abusing kids there,'' says Lucy. She believes the church should have kept him away from the school as any ''teacher would be" if they were under police investigation. Father Maye was one of the priests at the annual Mass for Melbourne's Irish community for the past two years.
In April, the Archbishop again wrote to the renegade priest, pointing out his conduct had brought great shame on himself and the church and caused significant harm to his victims.
The problem for the church is that few know Father Maye is an illegitimate priest. In February Father Maye was the surprise guest at an 80th birthday in Sydney for senior Sydney Bishop David Cremin. A notable attendee was the Irish ambassador.
Finian Egan was the senior celebrant at a service last year to honour his 50 years of service. The event was advertised in a handful of parishes and held only a few hundred metres from the office of the Bishop of Broken Bay, David Walker, the bishop charged with supervising Father Egan.
As a young girl Kathy received guitar lessons from Father Egan. She says he would slide his hand between her legs and fondle her - and "he always had a hard-on''.
Kathy started harming herself about that time, slamming the shower door on her hand to ensure she could not play guitar. Still, the abuse continued.
For a girl who saw this priest as "God on earth'' the result has been a process of continual self-harm and she has had ''countless'' abusive relationships.
After going through the Towards Healing process, Kathy says she fell into deep depression and did not get out of bed for weeks.
Finally in the middle of last year, Father Egan's appeal was rejected, but the mistreatment from the church continued. In July Kellie and ''Kathy'' received apologies but each received the letter addressed to the other woman. The error cemented their despair.
The church magazine Broken Bay News contains Bishop Walker's monthly editorial. In last November's issue, next to a photo of smiling priests, Father Egan is listed for his 50 years of service.
In the editorial, Bishop Walker writes: ''Those who are called to be followers of Jesus are not always … the most outstanding in the eyes of the world.''
3.Church of Scientology faces new abuse claims, by Ellie Harvey, SMH, 20th May 2010.
"More accusations against the Church of Scientology have emerged, with new allegations they were involved in covering up the repeated sexual assault of an 11-year-old girl.
A woman told the ABC's Lateline program last night she had been repeatedly molested as a young girl by her stepfather, and that she had been coached by a senior member of the organisation to lie to investigators.
''Between the age of about [seven or eight] to 11 he was molesting me,'' Carmen Rainer told the program.
At 11, she told a friend who was the daughter of the chief executive of Barnardo's, Louise Voigt. Ms Voigt informed Ms Rainer's mother who decided to seek help from the organisation.
But a senior Scientologist from the Sydney branch, Jan Eastgate, allegedly told the mother and daughter to lie to the police and community services about the allegations. ''Just say no, she kept repeating that … don't say yes because otherwise you will be taken away from your parents and you'll never see your family again …,'' Ms Rainer said.
The Scientologists also told Ms Rainer the abuse was her fault. ''They told me it was my fault because I'd been bad in a past life … I believed them, as a child I believed them. I was 11 that's what I knew, I grew up believing what they believed,'' she said.
Ms Eastgate denied the claims, saying the organisation insisted Ms Rainer's stepfather go to the police in 1999. Ms Rainer made a statement 18 months later, and her stepfather pleaded guilty to indecent assault and was given a good behaviour bond, Lateline reported.
Ms Rainer recently made a statement to Balmain police about Ms Eastgate's interference with the police inquiries at the time, which they are now investigating. She was accompanied by the independent senator, Nick Xenophon.
Lateline said the Church of Scientology wrote in a statement the allegations were untrue."
So why are so many parents in the 21st Century blinded by family tradition and trust in religious institutions? Children are so vulnerable. Once abuses at a young age by a trusted adult, children are never the same.
We read of repeated instances every month!
Wake up!
Wake Up - Labor recognises immigrant rights over locals!
Wake Up! The Australian Labor Party recognises immigrant rights over locals. Recall colonialism did this to Aborigines. Neocolonialism is extending the philosophy to accommodate what Labor conceives as a new wave of workers to boost economic data, so locals can move aside.
Federal Labor's propaganda labels it 'securing our future', 'building a 21st century economy', 'delivering fairness', 'securing an inclusive future for all Australians', 'strengthening Australia in a changing world'.
Victorian Labor propaganda labels it 'A Fairer Victoria'...'helping those clichéd 'working families', 'growing the western suburbs'... by evangelistic 'urban renewal' and a shit load of houses.
As for Melbourne's eastern suburbs, Labor plans "to make sure Melbourne remains one of the most liveable cities in the world."
Get with it Liberal Camberwell. Camberwell's heritage pedestrian scale rail station needs to be bulldozed to make the precinct look like Southbank on a Hong Kong vision. This is where you get the 9-storey building, 3-storey building and a public plaza and 118 units.
Accommodating immigrant demand in then name of progress.
How dare locals criticise, else be dismissed as racist.
Camberwell's historic and cultural character of the area may be offensive to immigrants. By having such a strong local heritage may not newcomers feel welcome.
Opposing progress just stifles growth and the economy.
Camberwell' - Brumby's new centre for high rise for progressive new Australians and their multicultural richness!
Invite the change! Share the diversity!
You may have more congestion, less room, more shops whose signs are in foreign languages, but greater 'urban renewal' and greater choice of restaurant cuisine.
Enjoy!
Not misathropic
It is not misanthropic to address the global and national problem of over-population. "Be fruitful and multiply" was directed to Adam and Eve in Genesis. There have been a few changes on the planet since then! Taking on Scripture, without reason, outside context, in a fundamentalist "religious" doctrinal way is the route to heresay, spiritual blindness, intellectual denial and even destruction. Over- population is the cause of conflict, unequal allocation and distribution of resources, violence, wars, ecological destruction and greed. Our population growth in Australia is not "natural" in any sense, but driven by the politics of greed.
Our lifestyles, for the most, are spiralling downhill due to the stress of population growth and the associated costs and loss of social capital. Once ecosystems melt down, they are gone. It doesn't depend on what we want, but how many people our land can realistically and desirably support. Big is not necessarily better and when it comes to social justice, each person matters less. Christian agencies trying to provide food and resources for the needy must be becoming overwhelmed by the demands, especially as more Australians are being excluded from housing or suffering poverty due to mortgage stress.
Ecomalthusians
I think you mean an 'Ecomalthusian', Tim.
Repellant spray offers children protection
As most Irish-Canadian kids of my generation knew, when you are alone in an elevator with a priest, it is not an optimum moment to tie your shoe laces. If only we had this product then, "Priest-Off", a repellant spray that, at least in dry conditions, will keep children safe from clerics and hockey coaches for at least 24 hours after application. See ad at http://vodpod.com/watch/668195-priest-off
Melbourne's liveability to be sacrificed for population growth
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal has ruled in favour of a major development of Camberwell Station, because it "meets the demands of state planning policies".
The development comprises a nine-storey building, a three-storey building and a public plaza and 118 units.
The VCAT panel has found the proposal strikes the right balance between creating a more sustainable urban form for metropolitan Melbourne, increasing housing density in activity centres close to transport, and meeting the desire of the local community to respect the historic and cultural character of the area.
Celebrities such as Barry Humphries have objected, and so has Mary Drost's Boroondara Residents Action Group.
Ms Drost said residents, who have spent more than six years fighting the application, would consider picketing the development. Planning Institute Australia, Victorian president David Vorchheimer said building above railway lines would become more common.
Pity that these developments don't need to meet the requirements of the public, the ratepayers and tax-payers. The only way we can stop is through our votes!
PLANNING BACKLASH is a network of more than 140 Resident Action
Groups right across Melbourne Metropolitan area, along the coast and into
the country, all very concerned about the effect the Government’s flawed
Planning Policy known as Melbourne 2030 is having on the liveability of
their areas. They believe that the Government has -
"an erroneous belief that they can keep overloading the infrastructure with yet more people. It is also understood that the Government see increase of population as the way to keep the economy strong as most manufacturing has gone offshore and all we make now is buildings".
Thus people need to be imported to live here and help create profits for developers and investors.
BP's interests or America's interests?
BP has had one of its contractors cause the oil rig failure and this oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico.
BP as tried to control the oil leak and the spread of the oil slick and repeatedly failed.
BP has a problem outside its control.
The problem is America's. It is time America stepped in and controlled the problem. BP's repeated failure to address the leak and its impact demonstrates obvious incompetence by BP.
For the US Administration to continue to rely on BP to address this problem, mindful that BP has not and cannot, instantly transfers the responsibility to the US Administration.
The US Administration therefore has a moral, legal and sovereign obligation to take responsibility for this international disaster.
The cost is horrific. The US Administration must immediately seize BP's assets in the US and beyond in order to ensure the ultimate cost - economic, social and environmental are recovered by the American government on behalf of the American people.
Since the Gulf of Mexico borders other nations like Mexico, the Caribbean nations and South American nations, spill containment, clean up and compensation is equally attributable to any such affected nations as a result of this spill.
BP's market capitalisation as at 31 Dec 2009 was $181 billion. BP's Sales & Other operating revenue was $239 billion.
The total cost of this spill could well exceed $239 billion.
The United States needs to seize the assets of BP in order to secure the finances necessary to pay for the total cost - economic, social and environmental.
BP has inflicted massive damage on US territory.
This is not about corporate interests and responsibilities. This is about massive damage to the United States.
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
Fake ALP 'Environment group' pretends to save forest
A new ALP funded ‘enviro group’ called the Melb Water Catchment Network is currently out there campaigning to have some of the Central Highlands protected. It’s a long story, but please don’t be sucked in. This is the exact same tactic the ALP used previously.
Hoping J.M will report on this talk.
Please tell us how it went, J.M.
Oil leak threatens wetlands wildlife
Crude leaking from the giant slick off Louisiana was being dragged towards Florida's popular tourist beaches and fragile coral reefs, threatening a new dimension to the unfolding environmental disaster. Experts warn the potential damage to the region's teeming marine life and fragile coastlines could be enormous. Several professors who have watched video of the leak have said they believe the amount spewing out is much higher than official estimates.
Much of southeast Louisiana's coastal waters have been closed to fishing and oyster harvesting because of the oil. Heavy crude washed into Louisiana's wetlands for the first time. Breton National Wildlife Refuge, about eight miles from the Louisiana coast, had been fortunate so far in avoiding the worst of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Then on Thursday morning, workers found a young brown pelican on a sand spit with its neck and one wing matted in oil.
An estimated 4,500 pelicans and tens of thousands of terns nest on the dozens of islands that make up the sanctuary.
Correct Bermagui Map Requested
Hello Robert,
I missed your reply and only found it by chance by scanning blog archives.
Yet I appreciate your response. But you will likely not receive my reply because this blog does not link to you. So I shall go through my local contacts to try to get back to you.
I am happy to replace this map with a Biamanga NP map or another as you suggest, so please send me that.
Regards
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
Two years since the shameful Belconnen slaughter in Canberra
Yesterday, the 19th May, was two years since over 500 kangaroos were brutally slaughtered at Belconnen, and then later another 4000 or so kangaroos were also "culled" at the Majura Army Base.
Kevin Rudd or Environment Minister Peter Garrett declined to stop the killings. It was supported by the RSPCA's Micheal Linke. Strangely, kangaroos don't fit into any of "all creatures great and small" categories!
As a result of the slaughter, many people now work together to campaign even more strongly for the kangaroos.
The environmentalist who were so concerned about the endangered species that were being "threatened" by the kangaroos are now silent about the land where once these gentle native animals once roamed. The land cleaners are there now, and no voice for the legless lizards, endangered sunflowers and native grasses?
Bulldozers have moved in and the area is being razed for houses, with scant concern for the small endangered animals that the kangaroos were supposed to be threatening. Having hypocrisy revealed is a great silencer!
The real threat to native species are livestock grazing, infrastructure and population growth, but kangaroos don't have political or economic power! They are easy targets to "manage" and eradicate.
There are shifts and changes in thinking towards our environment, including attitudes towards native animals, that are positive and constructive. However, our politicians are driven by economic growth, quantitative measures of "success" and our native animals don't "fit" into their agenda, their modus operandi, their paradigm.
The easy way to solve perceived wildlife problems is with firearms, but the treatment of and concern for animals is increasingly becoming a social and legal issue, as well as a political force.
We must not forget the shameful slaughter of Australian wildlife in such a large-scale and brutal manner, in Australia's heart-land "Bush Capital".
Debunking the roo shooter myths
Vivienne, the aim of the article is to debunk some of the standard roo shooter myths, in this case the false claims that 'kangaroo meat is 'green', better for the environment and could replace farmed livestock outright.
* The ethics of killing wildlife still has not been justified by roo shooters.
* The ethics of the means of killing kangaroos and their joeys still has not been justified by roo shooters.
* The ethics of encouraging a wildlife export trade in kangaroo meat by Anna Bligh to Russia says a lot about Anna Bligh.
* The inherent risk of using kangaroo meat for human consumption still has not been justified by roo shooters.
* The lack of effective government controls associated with kangaroo killing continues to be ignored by state and federal governments.
Red Meat Consumption
The debate over whether we should reduce our consumption of meat is warranted, both from an ethical standpoint and an environmental one. If farmers were paid a decent kilogram price for traditional livestock that factored in the cost of land management and rehabilitation on downgraded farmland, the consumption would reduce as it would become unaffordable to most.
The first step is to make livestock read meat (beef, lamb) a gourmet food - high quality and high price - say $40/kg like fillet steak. Market forces would then reduce the demand. Livestock farmers would need to transition to other more sustainable industries (with government subsidy). The primary industry outcome would see a fraction of the current land being used for red meat production. It would be organic, grass feed/ free range, humane and profitable - but government restricted like the abalone industry.
The other strategy is to develop sustainable alternatives that offer natural nutritional equivalents - heam iron, protein, selenium (antioxidant) , zinc, omega-3 fatty acids, Vitamin D and B-group vitamins (riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, vitamin B6 and in particular vitamin B12).
"But Vitamin B12 cannot be found in plant foods, therefore inadequate intakes of B12 are a problem for strict vegetarians. Lacking vitamin B12 can adversely affect neurological function including memory and concentration." [Meat and Livestock Australia website]
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
Needs robust economic case against population growth
This is positive feedback on yes "a grave national problem" which is encouraging to have come from a new political party in Australia. Australia needs a paradigm shift away from irrelevant dominance of a post-war Lib Lab two party system. It has become self-serving.
Bourke would do well to research the economic theories on growth and the relationships to population growth, so that he can enunciate in economic terms the problems. For instance, what does Bourke mean by "population growth is a false economy?"
Is strong economic growth a desirable end on its own? Is not the ultimate goal of government a higher per capita standard of living; that is a per capita outcome, not an aggregate outcome; that is a broader long term social outcome, rather than a short-term, economic metric? The originator of GDP post-Great Depression never intended GDP to be a stand-alone indicator of a country's fortune or success.
Another perspective: where is there current evidence of bigger being better? Where is there current evidence that a denser population is better? How does one compare the success, prosperity, wealth, sustainability, happiness or any other measure between say the Sydney CBD and Bathurst?
Why do we have to become big so that we can compete on scale internationally? This is a commoditisation strategy where the only advantage is volume to achieve low unit costs of production. It is ludicrous that we have to become as big as China and the US to compete on a level playing field, yet this is the presumption of free trade. NAFTA has proven that free market free trade just breeds monopolies allowing the big players to win like the US, while the small ones lose - like Mexico and Canada.
Ought Australia not differentiate based on quality and niche market focus on high value add products and services that we have an existing competitive advantage in?
Immigration is not a panacea to derive more tax revenue to fund our increasing number of retirees. Australia's retiree issue is separate and unrelated, yet one conveniently used to justify increasing immigration. The government should take full control and ownership of a compulsory contribution guaranteed superannuation scheme to ensures that by retirement age each Australian has an indexed pension annuity equivalent to the average real wage (as a minimum). Today that would equate to about $52,000 p.a., and more if one contributed more throughout their working life. (i.e. separate issue, unrelated to immigration).
This issue deserves to be on both national and state agendas, and recognised a the prime driver of social stresses - cost of living, congestion, public infrastructure, social problems, etc.
I am interested in where this new party is going and shall check their site.
What is important, is to separate the issue of the few thousand or so asylum seekers, which is an humanitarian problem and an international one for Australia to engage more proactively in. It is distractive nit picking on less than 1% of the immigration problem. Focus on the other 99%!
Population growth in Australia is primarily driven by economic immigration facilitate by the 457 Visa Programme - the full name being 'Temporary Business (Long Stay) - Standard Business Sponsorship (Subclass 457)'.
A key issue is that certain industries in Australia are seeking skilled workers, yet Gillard's supposed 'Education Revolution' is not matching and timing vocational training to those needs. The bandaid stop gap is for the Australian Givernement to import the skills. But this bandaid job fill has costly triple bottom line implications which the government treats as out of scope of its Immigration responsibility. Governments seemed to have conveniently forgotten the concept of triple bottom line accountability.
Government immigration responsibility continues long after passing through the international arrival gate. The terms of immigration/residency/citizenship, government support, adjustment, training, resettlement, assimilation, acculturation naturally varies on a migrant case by case basis. Immigration needs to start being recognised at this granular level for it to be rich and workable. The full cost of settlement and impact on local society is the real aggregate cost of immigration to Australia.
rats leaving a sinking ship
The power of the growth lobby is so strong it just over-rides common sense and science. With the MDB food bowl compromised and climate change impending on our land's future abilities to produce food and water, surely the first priority is food and water security. If one of our major exports is food, then protecting fertile areas should be a major priority. The sponsorship of our political parties by businesses that benefit from developments and population growth should come to an end. This collusion is corruption and the people already here should be protected, and future generations.
In a new study published in Science on wheat and the mustard plant at the University of California at Davis, scientists found that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide interferes with plants’ ability to convert nitrate into protein resulting in lower nutritional yield. We will need more land, not less!
Our generation is addicted to short-term-ism and like rats leaving a sinking ship, they will take what they can in the process and leave the land for the next generation desolate and depleted!
Laboral sprawl fettish also threatens Sydney basin farmland
The same thing is happening in western Sydney...
'Sprawl eating us out of house and homes'
by Debra Jopson and Kelly Lane, Sydney Morning Herald, 16th May 2010
by Debra Jopson and Kelly Lane, Sydney Morning Herald, 16th May 2010
'The body representing 10 western Sydney councils has accused the federal government of ignoring its plans to stop the nation's biggest city from gobbling up its farmland, risking a disastrous loss of crucial fresh food sources.
''The failure to take seriously the need for long-term agricultural land in the Sydney basin will have disastrous consequences for our food supply,'' Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils (WSROC) president Alison McLaren said.
''The federal government needs to realise that agriculture is not just the domain of rural areas.''
State government research estimates the Sydney agricultural industry is worth between $800 million and a $1 billion annually, with 10 per cent of total NSW produce coming from 1 per cent of the state's agricultural land. Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows more than 8500 people are employed in the Sydney industry.
Cr McLaren said WSROC's attempts to get a response from the federal government about its Urban Adapt program - aimed at ensuring the continuity of fresh produce to Sydneysiders - had failed.
About 30 groups and institutions, including state departments, are working on the plan despite the lack of federal involvement.
She called on federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke to immediately pledge to work with WSROC and other bodies ''to secure the food supply grown in western Sydney''.
The Sydney region grows about 15 per cent of the state's vegetables, according to NSW Primary Industries research. It produces at least 80 per cent of ''perishable'' vegetables - defined as those that are fresh, have not been processed and have a short shelf life - for NSW. These include Asian vegetables, capsicums and chillis, celery, parsley, basil, coriander, mushrooms and silverbeet.
It is also the state's most important area for producing chickens, ducks, turkeys and eggs.
But an internal NSW government analysis has predicted that two Sydney areas earmarked as growth centres to house 1 million more residents by 2036 will cause that production to plummet.
Planned development in the south and north-west growth areas will lead to a possible 29 per cent drop in vegetables grown and a 35 per cent drop in poultry meat produced.
''Over 50 per cent of NSW's vegetables are grown in the Murray-Murrumbidgee region, where water availability is becoming a significant issue,'' says the document, produced by the state department governing agriculture.
''According to Professor [Ross] Garnaut, the rivers in the Murray-Darling basin could deteriorate to a trickle by 2050 as a result of climate change. Sydney has good agricultural land and may also have better rainfall than inland as climate change occurs. The capacity for Sydney to continue to provide vegetables should be increased - not reduced.''
Urban Adapt would weigh up how much farmland should be kept on the city fringe and whether there should be new farming zones along motorways, WSROC executive director Jeremy Goff said.
It would consider how to source food when climate change made the Murray-Darling and Murrumbidgee food bowls less viable. And rising fuel prices would increase the cost of freighting food.
Possible new intensive farming greenhouse technology to allow growing food close to the city and a blossoming movement in community gardens were also on the agenda, Mr Goff said.
The aim was to ensure that fresh, equitably priced food will still be available to Sydney people and those in the west in particular.
Most of the city's vegetable farms were set to disappear over the next 20 years as housing development marched across the south and north-west, he said.
David Brunckhorst, director of the Institute for Rural Futures director at the University of New England, said plans must be made to extract the maximum benefit from what little good soil and rainfall areas we have: ''In this country we have very few and they are very precious.''
The Murray-Darling basin had gone down the drain while much of our topsoil had blown away, he said. Farming on city fringes and in rich soil around the Great Divide must be nurtured, and homes could be built in rocky areas.
Mr Burke acknowledged the importance of food being grown locally but would not answer questions about Sydney's farm land being rezoned. Nor would he say whether the federal government should intervene to protect Sydney's agricultural land.
''The food eaten by people in Sydney already comes from all over the nation,'' Mr Burke said.
NSW Primary Industries Minister Steve Whan said there were ''plenty of good reasons to ensure food should continue to be grown here in the Sydney basin''.
''The region has the advantage of a mild coastal climate, with a range of suitable soils and access to reliable water supplies, transport, labour and markets,'' he said.
And of course the likes of the developer lobby which calls itself 'The Urban Taskforce', cries foul over 'high council levies and reams of bureaucratic red tape" in Sydney, which it argues is limiting its frenetic sprawl. It says because of this Melbourne is set to outgrow Sydney. [Red tape, levies drawing Sydney back]
So which city wants to outgrow Shanghai first - Sydney or Melbourne?
Hopefully, new suburbs will be using Class A water
Interesting ... if not scary.
Hopefully the new suburbs will be using Class A water from the upgraded ETP in 2012.
Bernard Salt marginalises those who dispute assassination myths
I thank Sheila for having raised this critical issue.
The four most charismatic, effective and incorruptible leaders of the 1960's -- President John F Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy -- were all murdered. Those who refuse to believe that these four murders could have been just a coincidence are baited by the establishment as "conspiracy theorists".
An example is an article by Bernard Salt "Jackson's death becomes celebrity thriller" of 2 July 2009. (It was published in the Australian on 2 July here, but the story is no longer available.)
However, I did copy some of it to an online forum:
THERE are still questions to be answered about the untimely death of pop singer Michael Jackson and I suspect these questions will continue to be asked long after he has been laid to rest.
The reason is that all the ingredients are gelling for a grand conspiracy theory.
To bake a delicious conspiracy theory, here's what you need: Take a celebrity with global fan appeal but make sure your candidate is aged between 33 and 50 (any younger and they haven't amassed the fan base necessary to incite hysteria after death; any older there's a diminution of the feeling of being robbed by their death). There's no "injustice" in an 80-year-old dropping dead.
The article then goes off to raise other conspiracy theories such as those surrounding the death of Princess Diana, the disappearance of Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt and Elvis faking his own death. It is as if Salt means to imply that all conspiracy theorists unquestioningly accept each and every one of these theories.
This is a technique similar to that employed by Time magazine in its article "Conspiracy Theories" around the same time in July 2009. (See article "Time Magazine: 9/11 Truth lumped in with "The Reptilian Elite" and "Holocaust Revisionism" for further discussion.)
Bernard Salt continues:
But if you really want to create the perfect conspiracy theory, then have a celebrity power figure, say a 46-year-old US president, assassinated in public. And then have the whole thing captured on a single movie camera operated by a middle-aged man with an exotic name such as, oh I don't know, say Abraham Zapruder.
Naturally, Salt takes a swipe of that most taboo of all conspiracy theories, that of 9/11:
Other conspiracy theories question the motives behind global events: the bigger the event the greater the market for an elaborate theory.
Did you know that 9/11 was orchestrated by the CIA so a pretext could be established for George W.Bush to invade Iraq via Afghanistan? And this is because Bush wanted to please his father, who regretted not taking Saddam Hussein out after Desert Storm
Salt's supposed humour appears to be an intellectually cowardly way of avoiding discussing the evidence.
One of many pieces of evidence that proves that Oswald could not have killed Kennedy or, at least could not have killed Kennedy acting alone is to be found on the very film by Abraham Zapruder that Salt alludes to. That evidence is that the fatal shot pushed Kennedy's head backwards and not forwards --- a physical impossibility if the shot had come from behind Kennedy from the Texas Book repository from which Oswald was alleged to have fired the fatal shot.
It seems that those who like to bait JFK assassination theorists avoid mentioning the other assassinations, particularly that of Martin Luther King.
In part this is because a jury trial found that there was a conspiracy to murder Martin Luther King, as Sheila has shown so it is not nearly as easy to dismiss them.
Also, it is because it can be implied (falsely) that President Kennedy was corrupt and tainted by power merely because he held high office and therefore either he somehow got what he deserved anyway or at least his death was no great loss. One who argues the latter is the supposed dissident American intellectual Noam Chomsky.
The same cannot be so easily said of Martin Luther King.
Kangaroo meat is not viable
"24 million roos would be needed for everyone in Australia to have one meal a week". The general omnivorous public don't just eat one meal of meat a week! It is at least once a day, and more! They would still want the lamb, chicken, beef etc. Also much of our meat is exported overseas. According to Austrade:
Meat is one of Australia’s core food export products and underpins a significant proportion of Australia's food export statistics.
Exporting is vital to the meat industry representing 60 per cent of the industry’s trade with exports consisting mainly of beef, mutton and lamb, goat meat and pork.
Kangaroos can't be expected to artificially breed, or be fast-paced for industry convenience. Their bodies do not "grow" as much meat as quickly as a cattle or sheep.
Seeing animals as a source of meat, as done be Gaunat and others, is just too simplistic and naive. Kangaroos are wildlife and can't be treated, transported or herded like domestic animals.
Dangerous levels of salmonella and E.coli have been found in kangaroo meat destined for human consumption. As well as poisoning from salmonella and E.coli, diners on kangaroo sourced from unhygienic environments also risked contracting toxoplasmosis, which can result in foetal death or birth defects in affected women.
The sickest animals are likely to be shot at first, and refrigerated containers can't be trucked into remote areas, in the heat and dust of where the "harvesters" go!
A post-carbon age should mean a deep cut in meat eating, if not abandoned as a food altogether!
Re: James Earl Ray's involvement
It seems that he was already serving 20 years for armed robbery, but escaped from prison. He was caught trying to leave the country and brought back and charged with the crime. The later investigations by the King family showed that someone else killed King, so that J.E. Ray could not have. He is said to have pled guilty on the advice of his lawyer, even though he was not, in case he was found guilty (despite his innocence), in which case he would risk the electric chair. It doesn't really matter if he was 'guilty of something'; the point is that he wasn't guilty of that crime. Whilst some people might think that his other crimes may have made him fair game, one of the problems with that view is that it means that the real perpetrator escaped. Since the whole thing seems to have been shown beyond doubt to have been a US government organised conspiracy, that makes the crimes against James Earl Ray all the worse - to say the least.
J.E. Ray said that he might have inadvertantly done something to help people in his family to assist with the assassination, but that is not what he was on trial for and I don't know any more about that aspect of the story.
It seems odd that, even if his brother or other people had been involved partially in the conspiracy and Ray knew something about it, no-one tried to find out more or to convict more people. The state preferred the lone, mad gunman story and the state knew the truth.
That's pretty scary, isn't it, because, if the US government conspired to assassinate King and forty years later it hasn't been overturned in disgrace, what does that say about the way we live?
From: James Earl Ray
Early life
James Earl Ray came from a poor family in Alton, Illinois, and left school at age fifteen. He joined the US Army during World War II and served in Germany. He was convicted of his first crime, a burglary in California, in 1949.
In 1952 he served two years for armed robbery of a taxi driver in Illinois. In 1955, he was convicted of mail fraud. After an armed robbery in Missouri in 1959, Ray was sentenced to twenty years in prison for repeated offenses. He escaped from prison in 1967 by hiding in a truck transporting bread from the prison bakery.[1]
Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Main article: Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Lorraine Motel, now known as the National Civil Rights Museum, where King was assassinated
Martin Luther King was shot and killed by a sniper on 4 April 1968, while standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
Capture and trial
On 8 June 1968, a little more than two months after King's death, Ray was captured at London's Heathrow Airport while trying to leave the United Kingdom on a false Canadian passport. At check-in the ticket agent noticed the name on his passport was on a Royal Canadian Police watchlist. He was using the name of Ramon George Sneyd.[2] At the airport, officials noticed that Ray carried another passport under a second name. The UK quickly extradited Ray to Tennessee, where he was charged with King's murder. He confessed to the crime on 10 March 1969, although he recanted this confession three days later. After pleading guilty he was sentenced to ninety-nine years in prison.[3] Ray entered a guilty plea on the advice of his attorney, Percy Foreman, in order to avoid a potential trial conviction, which could have led to a sentence of death. The method of execution in Tennessee at the time would have been electrocution.
Ray fired Foreman as his attorney and derisively called him "Percy Fourflusher," thereafter. Ray began claiming that a man he had met in Montreal, who used the alias "Raoul", had been deeply involved, as had his brother Johnny, but that he himself had not. Instead he asserted that he did not "personally shoot Dr. King," but may have been, "partially responsible without knowing it," hinting at a conspiracy. He spent the remainder of his life attempting unsuccessfully to withdraw his guilty plea and secure a trial.
1977 escape
On June 11, 1977, Ray made his second appearance on the FBI Most Wanted Fugitives list, this time as the 351st entry. He and six other convicts had escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tennessee on June 10, 1977. They were recaptured on June 13, three days later, and returned to prison.[4]
A year was added to Ray's previous sentence, to total 100 years. Shortly after, Ray testified before the House Select Committee on Assassinations that he did not shoot King.
Later developments
In 1997, King's son Dexter met with Ray, and publicly supported his efforts to obtain a retrial. Loyd Jowers, a restaurant owner in Memphis, was brought to civil court and sued as being part of a conspiracy to murder Martin Luther King. Jowers was found legally liable, and the King family accepted $100 in restitution, an amount chosen to show that they were not pursuing the case for financial gain.
Dr. William Pepper, a friend of King in the last year of his life, represented Ray in a televised mock trial in an attempt to get him the trial he never had. Pepper later represented the King family in a wrongful death civil trial against Loyd Jowers. The King family has since concluded that Ray did not have anything to do with the murder of Martin Luther King.[5]
Death
Ray died in prison on 23 April 1998, at seventy years of age, from complications related to kidney disease and liver failure caused by hepatitis C. He probably contracted the disease through a blood transfusion given after he sustained a stabbing while at Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. Ray was survived by seven siblings. His brother Jerry Ray told CNN that his brother did not want to be buried or have his final resting place in the United States because of "the way the government has treated him." Ray was cremated and his ashes were flown to Ireland, the home of his family's ancestors.[6]
From: William Pepper
"Pepper was the attorney for James Earl Ray, who pled guilty to killing Martin Luther King, Jr.. After conducting his own investigation into the assasination of his friend Pepper agreed to represent James Earl Ray once he had convinced himself that James was innocent. He believes that Ray was framed by the federal government and that King was killed by a conspiracy that involved the FBI, the CIA, the military, the Memphis police and organised crime figures from New Orleans and Memphis. Pepper represented James Earl Ray in a televised mock trial in an attempt to get Ray the trial that he never had. Ray was found not guilty.
Pepper then represented the King family in a wrongful death lawsuit, King family vs. Loyd Jowers and "other unknown co-conspirators." During a trial that lasted four weeks Pepper produced over seventy witnesses. Jowers, testifying by deposition, stated that James Earl Ray was a scapegoat and not involved in the assassination. Jowers testified that Memphis police officer Earl Clark fired the fatal shots. On December 8, 1999, the Memphis jury found Jowers responsible and found that the assassination plot included also "governmental agencies." The jury took less than an hour to find in favor of the King family for the requested sum of $100."
What was James Earl Ray's involvement?
Ray later claimed to have been talked into the guilty plea by his lawyer, in order to avoid the possibility of the electric chair. I wonder what he was guilty of? If we was completely innocent surely he wouldn't have been talked into pleading guilty.
I have decided to join Australia First
I have decided to join Australia First.
I shall give them a go since I support their values.
I see no reason to support Labor, Liberals, Greens or Nationals, based on their lack of performance.
Over the years, I have voted for all of them at one time or another, kidding myself they will bring change.
I have had a gut full.
If another party presents itself with fresh ideas I will consider that too.
JM
Useless resumé writing courses intended to harass the unemployed
John Marlowe and Sheila Newman are, of course, correct.
I have gone through two periods in my life which, after I lost my livelhood through no fault of my own, I found myself unable to make myself jump through the hoops required by the Social Welfare and that is clearly their intention.
During one period in which I did receive unemployment benefits, a person who taught one of the pointless courses in applying for jobs and writing resumés back in 2004 freely acknowledged to me that the purpose of requiring unemployment benefit recipients to attend these courses was to drive them away from Centrelink rather than to actually help them.
That taxpayers money is thus wasted to harass unemployed people instead of providing them with useful training is a scandal and reveals the malevolent mindset of those who design these systems.
They should be abolished.
When jobs are provided which match the skills of those seeking work, skills in applying for jobs or wrting resumes will not be anywhere as nearly valued by decent employers as actual vocational skills.
Sadly, even when today's unemployed jump through the necessary hoops required by Centrelink, the amount of money received will be far less than what anyone will need to live with any dignity, thanks to the fact the our Governments have consciously set about to drive up the cost of a basic necessity of housing for the benefit of society's true bludgers.
Real bludgers are in the property sector
I think that the real rorters, who really cost society, are our members of parliament who transfer all our taxes to the corporate sector via works in the service of unwanted, unwarranted and undemocratic population growth. I would be happy to keep every member of the Property Council of Australia and every member of parliament on the dole, as long as they stopped meddling with Australian affairs and allowed us to get started again with a democratic parliament and transparent processes, with the public sector doing all land-use planning and development, with NO fees for service; just public service salaries.
This would represent a real saving - both economic and financial.
The cost of a few people on the dole is nothing compared to the money that goes to developers, bankers and parasitic parliamentarians, with very few exceptions.
Australia's growing underclass
I can attest to the inadequacy of the Australian Government's treatment of unemployed people via Centrelink. The forms are longer and more invasive than a tax return. The processing took eight weeks after which I was rejected because my partner was working part-time.
Eventually I got back into work off my own bat, but the experience was humiliating, a waste of time and has turned me vehemently against government.
So many Australians are vulnerable to losing their job and don't have sufficient financial reserves to get back on their feet, let alone meet bill payments when there is no income. When this happens it comes as a shock that the presumption of a safety net does not exist. One must be in abject poverty to be eligible for government support so one can get back on their feet. To men in particular, the loss of esteem as a failed breadwinner can tip many to depression and worse. Many in rural Australia and on the land are isolated and are particularly vulnerable.
Both Labor and Liberal argue that many rort the system and so have respectively made the claim hurdles so high so as to eliminate most who go through the Centrelink system. The unemployment benefit of $220 a week if it is paid is so low as to be below most weekly rents and for those with a mortgage, to force one down a path of bank repossession. It is a steep slippery slope for many.
Many workers now work on contract terms, like me without leave entitlements, with no unions, with no rights. When the contract ends there is nothing and sometimes those contracts end at a whim with a tap on the shoulder at 5pm on a Friday.
And it is not just unemployment that has many Australians placed in dire circumstances - those with a disability, widows, veterans, older people who have been thrown on the scrap heap, those with mental health issues, the homeless and those simply having found themselves in poverty and in broken homes. Many Australians do not realise how close they are to joining the growing underclass.
Labor and Liberal have lost touch with ordinary Australians who fall from being able to fend for themselves. The Greens as the main alternative seem to be stuck in some ideological utopia pressing for 'green' issues that prioritise environment and climate change over basic human needs.
Meanwhile Australia's growing underclass is undermining the health and cohesiveness of our society.
It wouldn't take much for a new alternative party focusing on life's fundamentals to get up.
Orange-bellied Parrot habitat lost
I would like to also point out that this parrot's winter migration destination is also the Lower Lakes of South Australia. And while it would be very obvious to point out what the drought has done to the Lower Lakes and the Coorong, with a bit more research, one can see that man messed up this birds habitat a long time ago. 1940 to be exact. The barrages that split the River Murray Estuary into two pieces, one the salty side the Coorong, and the other the fresh side of the Lower Lakes. The Coorong as we know it today represents only 10% of the total size of the estuary before the barrages. The Lower Lakes were turned fresh in 1940 and that corresponds with the biggest drop in bird numbers. A coincidence? I think not. The salt marshes that would have flourished around the Lower Lakes when they were estuarine, have been trampled by grazing cows, and more recently just dried up. The territory these Lakes cover is immense and by far the largest amount of salt marsh habitat to have been lost. This page has more links http://www.lakesneedwater.org/letters/orange-bellied-parrot .
When is immoral practice justified?
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) may well offer benefits, but given it relies on immoral treatment of wildlife and illegal trade in wildlife some of which are threatened with extinction, how can it be morally justified?
If Chinese medicine adopted a completely animal free product policy that was able to be certified independently as 'animal free' in the same way Body Shop is, then it may well start claiming legitimacy.
Until such time, it is backward and should be condemned and outlawed, just like illicit drugs and slavery.
Users of TCM drive the sort of cruelty evidenced on Moon Bears. They are complicit in animal cruelty.
Modern medicines and products that rely upon animal testing, and the users of those are no different.
Problem is that our governments lack the moral courage to mandate compulsory disclosure labelling on any product that has relied upon animal testing.
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
Progress photo
Any chance you can put up a recent photo of the joey Menkit? I'm amazed she has come this far after seeing her injuries. Well done Steve and Rosemary Garlick!
Alternatives to medicine using animals
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a "holistic approach to healthcare where patients are treated using natural plant, mineral and animal-based ingredients".
TCM utilises the body's own healing abilities. It holds the human body in great reverence , respecting & promoting its endless capacity for rejuvenation & recovery. This "reverence" doesn't however include reverence for animal species it exploits, and not limited to the human body's "own" healing abilities.
TCM is based on a belief in yin and yang - defined as opposing energies, such as earth and heaven, winter and summer, happiness and sadness.
The typical TCM therapies include acupuncture, herbal medicine, and qigong exercises.
According to the World Health Organization, nearly 80 percent of the world’s population depends for its primary health care needs on medicines derived from plants and animals. The rising demand, combined with reduced habitat, has caused an alarming increase in the number of plant and animal species (used for medicinal purposes) at risk.
TCM uses approximately 1,000 plant and 36 animal species, including the tiger, rhinoceros, black bear, musk deer, and sea horse; the tiger, rhinoceros, and sea horse are endangered. Although substitutes for bear bile exist, there is still a huge demand for the real thing. Because of the significant reduction in the population of wild Asiatic black bears that has resulted, bear farming was introduced in China in 1984.
It is hardly "holistic" if it depends on the "use" of animals, cruelty, confinement, poaching and the endangerment of species.
However, Western medicine is not free from guilt. Vivisection is in fact a multi-billion dollar global industry and is deliberately hidden away from the public eye to avoid unwanted scrutiny. The numbers of animals used are enormous, for example, a small country like Australia uses approximately 7 million animals each year.
There are alternative to vivisection including:
- Epidemiological Studies
- Clinical studies and trials
- Autopsies and Post-Mortem Studies
- Post-Marketing Surveillance using computer technology
- Non-Invasive Imaging Techniques
- Tissue and Cell Culture
- Mathematical and Computer Models
- Chromatography and Spectroscopy
I was really bothered by
I was really bothered by this private member's bill. I can't imagine animals being shot just for fun and pleasure for recreational hunters. It doesn't sound nice, just the thought of it makes me feel sorry for this innocent animals. What about animal rights?
'Bad' is not a relative term, it is an absolute term
That some "evil priests" have infiltrated into religions is a convenient excuse to blame religious individuals. How does this excuse explain the recurring evil by trusted religious leaders over generations and exposed perpetually?
Is it not true that ordinary men having joined the priesthood as ordinary people are by the unnatural celibacy rules of an indoctrinating religious order (including sex) become unnatural and perverted?
Religion's perversion to the unnatural is in itself a breeding ground for converting natural ordinary people to perversion.
That immoral acts have been committed by those most trusted in our community and that it is those most vulnerable and trusting who have been abused reveals the unnatural perversion of man made orthodox religions.
That such immoral acts are repeatedly covered up by religious orders says much about the depth of orthodox religious immorality.
'Relativism' is a dangerous slippery slope undermining virtue. 'Relativism' is a vital concept that many do not understand.
That charitable causes are taken up by religious organisations is a separate matter and one of abject neglect by the governments of the day which collect taxes.
When is animal cruelty acceptable?
When is animal cruelty acceptable? Answer: morally never
How does Traditional Chinese Medicine distinguish between practices that involve animal cruelty and create demand for trade in endangered wildlife and those that don't? Answer: it doesn't.
The issue of the virtues of medicine alternative from 'western medicine' is irrelevant.
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
Chinese and Western medicines
I have no argument against banning Chinese medicine which causes cruelty to animals, but does TigerQuoll really mean to claim that 'all' Chinese medicine (a) causes cruelty to animals and (b) doesn't work?
My question is based on my understanding that some branches of Chinese medicine do work well; I just don't know much about what does and doesn't work, notably in the areas of drugs/medicines. (I do know that the Chinese have one medicine that a tropical disease epidemiologist has claimed cures drug resistant malarias. I will look that up and put the details up later.)
I also have a problem with the whole notion of 'progressive' and progress and the idea that all European medicine is 'better'. I do concede that most European medicine is stronger, more accurately dosed, targeted, truly effective and better tested than other kinds. Nonetheless European - by which I mean 'Western' medicine - has the same problems as everything else in our society; vested interest, i.e. money invested in various medicines, products and ideas, or money made out of their impacts or perceived impacts, keeps bad or inneffective medicine and concepts alive and blocks the arrival of new medicine and ideas.
Furthermore, Western medicine is focused on 'cures' and treatments rather than on causes and avoidance of diseases. For instance, Western society allows mass production and mass consumption of products which are enormously linked to rise in diabetes and obesity. I could write a lot more, but should be doing something else and I don't want to take away from Tigerquoll's rightful rage against cruelty to animals and profiteering from endangered species and peoples' ignorance.
It is not all bad!
There are some evil priests who have infiltrated into the church as a career, and their crimes are inexcusable and horrific. For too long the Church has hidden them and moved the priests on. Like for any human organisation, there needs to be clearly defined procedures and policies to protect the congregations and the public.
However, we must remember too the many NGOs and charities that are based on churches and denominations. Many community services are agents of churches, and they are often at the forefront of providing practical help, counselling and prayer when there are needs, inequalities, disasters and tragedies. It is not all bad!
Peru puts kangaroo meat on the menu