Anyone who thinks we should not cull possums or come up with uses for their fur has no idea of the carnage they create in our bush every night. to say this is the same as saying it's great that other pests like rats, stoats & weasels should be left to destroy native birds & lizards. anyone that have had a number of hens killed in the night by a stoat will understand what these nasty pests are capable of. The possums are doing the same only the results are not as instant on our native trees but a far wider spread of damage is being done.
Creating uses for possum fur creates value for it & in turn a motivation for people to seek it & in turn reducing possums numbers which NZ's native fauna so desperately needs. the possums not only eat the leaves of trees & plants they also eat the berries. this gets rid of certain seeding berries stopping the reseeding process & also taking food from native birds that need it in certain times of the year to thrive.
to say "we can do better" & comparing it to us culling other countries icon simply because we want to is an emotional, unresearched take of a cute looking tree bear that if left alone will have most of our native trees dead in 20 years. Fortunately there are many smarter people than the creator of this city people driven "leave the cute animals alone" speech & big numbers will be shot in organised events & others like myself that shoot around 100 of these lovely tree bears off an area of around 4 acres will continue & NZ will be a lot better off for it.
Comments
Preston Beach kangaroo cull outcome
It appears 76 kangaroos were shot on Wednesday night. Reports are that several were actually shot within the "sanctuary" of Yalgorup National Park. On Thursday I went down to Preston Beach myself and found several pools of blood (and bone) that were at least 50 metres away from the fairways the roo shooters were supposed to limit their shooting to. Early morning walkers in Preston Beach have reported amongst other things, a decapitated young female and pools of blood on footpaths. A joey-at-foot was found in nearby bushland that morning with broken bones and had to be euthanised.
This cull has attracted some media attention and it seems the shooting has ceased. The Shire of Waroona has stated that no more kangaroo killing is to take place, maybe they don't like media choppers flying over the little tourist town of Preston Beach. It would appear that the efforts of Trish Brown and everyone else involved in the protest may have saved 24 kangaroos and their joeys.
Evolutionary failure
According to Colorado Physicist (retired) Prof Al Bartlett, we humans have an evolutionary failure to comprehend exponential growth. Politicians study law and economics, but clearly the mathematics of growth is not one of their strong points. One dimensional studies, economics and the benefits of economic growth, fail in addressing the social, environmental and biological impacts on finite resources. In the stages of growth in living communities, growth is only one in the life cycle, then stability. Ecology and exponential mathematics should be part of every economic course.
Well done, but AAFNAS needs a web site
Well done, Sheila. Let's hope this group has a strong legal enforcement arm. The government appears to ride roughshod over indigenous rights along with our native animals who appear to have no rights in the eyes of the law. It would be good, however, if they had a website, so people could make a donation, support them in some way.
You expect politicians to understand exponential function?
"The current population growth rate of 2.1% extrapolates to 50 million by 2050! Do the maths!"
Maths? You're asking politicians to have any understanding of the exponential function? If you pointed out that at our current third world growth levels we'll have 50 million by 2050, and over 100 million by 2100 they'd probably scratch their heads and wonder what you're talking about.
Venues, transcripts and some input
Can someone please advise the venues and if transcripts may be available?
This is the most important social, economic and environmental issue impacting Australia, and indeed many other countries like China, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, USA, Brazil, Nigeria and the UK.
The discussion should explicitly distance itself from issues of ethnicity and from the asylum seeker issue.
Clarifying and measuring Australian values, Australian lifestyle values, quality of life and Australia's carrying capacity are important in odre to start quantifying the extent of the human population problem. If governments can;t meassure problems, they don't recognise them as problems - it's an economic mindset.
The bandied figure of $35 million by 2050 needs to be exposed as false. The current population growth rate of 2.1% extrapolates to 50 million by 2050! Do the maths!
What happened to triple bottom line standards?
What happened to urban green belts?
The self-serving growth cult has brainwashed Australian politics and media into a 'growth is good' fetish.
Australian Government genocide-complicit
Australia receives a very low number of asylum seekers compared with other nations.
We have a capacity to receive and resettle refugees in Australia. The 2000 or so on Christmas Island and elsewhere is really a minor issue for Australia to cope with. Refugees comprise less than 1% of the immigration pressure annually impacting upon Australia's economy and society, yet because it is a newsworthy topic, more than economic immigration, Australia's media allocate a disproportionate about of media space to the issue.
Successive Australian governments continue to ignore the root causes of asylum seeker problems in our region - the civil unrest in the origin countries, like in Sri Lanka. How is the ‘internal affairs’ excuse morally acceptable by neigbouring countries, when those internal affairs comprise genocide, mass murder, rape and mass displacement and persecution of a people?
The Australian Government should call on the UN to have the International Criminal Court indict both Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and Sarath Fonseka for genocide.
That neighbouring countries of the region stood back idle and in some cases fueled and supported Sri Lankan President Rajapaska's atrocities knowingly and willing has been genocidal complicity. Sri Lankan neighbours of the Indian Ocean community - India, Bangladesh, Burma, Australia, Indonesia, Maldives, Malaysia, Pakistan, Madacascar, etc have not only reneged on their responsibilities to act to prevent Tamil genocide, they have been genocideal complicit and thus criminal.
That many of these nations are members of the Commonwealth of Nations, shows this organisation to be a meanlingless farce. The Commonwealth of Nations, which includes Sri Lanka and Australia, is "an international organisation through which countries with diverse social, political, and economic backgrounds are regarded as equal in status, and co-operate within a framework of common values and goals, as outlined in the 1971 Singapore Declaration."
These so called common values and goals "include the promotion of democracy, human rights, good governance, the rule of law, individual liberty, egalitarianism, free trade, multilateralism, and world peace, and are carried out through multilateral projects and meetings."
What a hypocritical farce. In the wake of the Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka culminating in mass murder of Tamils in May 2009, the Commonwealth of Nations ought to be disbanded.
Tamils continue to be persecuted by the Sinhalese dictatorship in Sri Lanka. So Tamils are fleeing persecution to safe havens like Australia. For the Australian Government to reject Sri Lankan asylum seekers and indeed return them to Sri Lanka is inhumane and genocide-complicit.
Australia's economic migrants on the other hand, are Australia's root problem impacting on society. The 300,000 per year are driving multiple overload stresses in Australia's capital cities (where the jobs are, or were) -housing, public utilities etc. The Australian government seems selectively blind to this elephant in the room.
Compassion before economics and politics
Our Government recently made the appalling decision to flat out stop processing the asylum claims of people fleeing war in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.
Over 90 percent of Sri Lankan and Afghan asylum seekers are found to be genuine refugees fleeing persecution, and the situation is still dangerous in both countries. Furthermore, the Government's recent targeting of Sri Lankan and Afghan asylum seekers is discriminatory and violates the Australian values of tolerance and fairness.
The so-called 'boat people' are not 'jumping a queue' - they're entitled to seek protection from persecution like the rest of us.
Kevin Rudd's "big Australia" idea is unsustainable and cruel. Why discriminate against the most needy when the educated and wealthy are welcome? With such a heavy economic and "skill-shortage" immigration, there is little room or compassion for the needy.
Over the years, Australia has resettled thousands of refugees fleeing horrible situations in places like Vietnam, Ethiopia and Iran. We should build on this proud history - not stop it.
As we approach a Federal election, we should expect leadership from our politicians, not cheap political point-scoring at the expense of the world's most vulnerable people.
Australia's place in the world stage should be one of integrity, compassion and leadership - not arbitrary discrimination, imprisonment and fear-mongering.
Amnesty International:
Tell your MP: put people before politics
7:30 - 8:30 am at the Melbourne Zoo !! Booked Out Now..
I can't believe I'm going to miss out on this forum at the Zoo in the Bong Su Room - I'm actually relatively close by too ~ staying in Melbourne City with my youngest son this week... I wish I'd seen the messages about this event earlier.. although Sheila Newman had sent me an email late April...
Keep me posted anyway.. : (
Germanic chardonnay justifies huge population in Oz - Expert
The Growth lobby is growing desperate ...
In "Survey finds Australians say no room for population growth Adelaide,"05-05-2010, Callie Watson writes,
'Social analyst David Chalke said that "Population Minister Tony Burke was appointed last month to design a growth policy within 12 months."'
Well, so much for democracy, but thanks for letting the truth escape, David.
You can see the papers are desperate to keep growth going to be able to sell all that property because of the really childish arguments they print by so-called 'experts', like this one, in the same article:
"James Cook University social demographer Dr Sue Bandaranaike said there was a general view that Australia was "over-populated", but those who did not support immigration were short-sighted.
"You cannot forget that skilled migrants come here and do actually contribute. Even looking back, even in South Australia, many of the winemakers came from Germany," she said."
Okay. If the people don't have water, let them drink old German wine from South Australia.
Sheesh! What a pathetic argument. And this is an academic????
Roo decline in West Australia - Golfers anti-wildlfe
Are all golfers anti-wildlife? What's wrong with them? In West Australia kangaroo numbers are declining rapidly:
CALL To End Kangaroo Open Season 9.10.09 by Sarah Quinton in The West news:
" Department of Environment and Conservation Officer PETER MAWSON said kangaroo numbers in the Pilbara were at the lowest levels since 1981, but more because of drought than over -culling.
Karratha Pet Meats and licensed shooter Darryn Cutting said only three of nine shooters remained in the Pilbara and1$million of processing equipment sat idle because there were not enough wild kangaroo to sustain the
business.
Also Mr Cutting said animals were not being killed with a single bullet to the brain but suffered prolonged deaths while their joeys were left to starve. He said the State government did not control what essentially an 'open season', the kangaroo population would continue to decline. Information about kangaroo cruelty should be referred to the DEC."
Why play golf near a National Park?
Why are they wanting to kill wildlife when the golf course is located next to Yalgorup National Park? These idiots want the benefits of a bush setting without the wildlife that are all part of the ecosystem. It is just like the issue in Pantom Hills in Victoria where most of the residents live near a wildlife area and live in harmony with kangaroos. One farmer was given a permit by the DSE to kill a mob of 8 because they were accused of causing erosion to the soil. The real problem was overstocked paddocks with livestock, but it was much easier to blame the kangaroos! Colonial attitudes of cut -down, kill, eradicate and burn still exist today. Fortunately the residents successfully protested.
Just sent my application to join the Animal Justice Party ...
It's about time we take action! give a voice to those who can't speak for themselves, but give us so much love and joy.
Rudd's policies are contradictory to climate change
Mr Rudd has confirmed the ETS has been shelved until at least 2013 so the Government can "see what other countries do" is due to the contradictory nature of his own policies.
Other developed countries with large industrial sectors have reduced emissions since 1990 using a combination of energy efficiency, renewable and low-emission technologies and re-forestation. Norway has reduced emissions by 18%, Germany by 17% and the United Kingdom by 14%. We are a wealthy nation; we have plentiful renewable sources and access to world-class skills and technology.(WWF Climate Solutions report Download from http://www.wwf.org.au/publications/gefreport/)
The Rudd government committed to reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emission levels to 60% below 2000 levels by 2050. Australia’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions are the highest of any OECD country and are among the highest in the world, and coal is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Australia. Our coal contributes to other countries' greenhouse gas emissions. The Australian coal rush is fuelling global climate change and preventing us from transitioning to sustainable industries
Kevin Rudd's climate change scheme had to be shelved as his "big Australia" and rapid population growth agendas would require, according to the Australian Conservation Foundation, a massive 79% per capita reduction for a "forecast" (manufactured) 36 million people by then!
The "moral challenge of our generation" is being pushed aside in the "too hard" basket due to the contradictory policies of the Rudd Government.
Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Melting Ice
Currently research indicates that the Ice in the Artic and Antarctic will have melted by 2040, and at most, by 2100. This ice is melting so fast that ice sheets are rubbing against each other and internally collapsing, causing earthqaukes which can be detected as far away as Greenland in the North, and in Australia in the South.
Ice weighs a lot. One cubic metre of ice weighs nearly a tonne.
If all the ice in Artic and Antartic melt by 2040, apart from releasing large quantities of methane, it will cause a dramatic reduction in weight concentrated where this ice once was, hence causing earthqaukes and volcanoes as the underlying tectonic plates shift weight.
If one cubic metre of ice weighs a ton, and the glaciers at the arctic and antarctic are at least 4.8 km deep, and combined (14.2 million + 5.26 million sq km) are 19.46million square kilometers across, then that's 93.408 billion tonnes of ice that will have lifted off the tectonic plates in the Arctic and Antarctic by 2040.
The recent events in Haiti, Adelaide, Kalgoorie, the volcano in Iceland, and the Tsunami in Asia all indicate an extraordinary increase in the frequency of seismic activity. The progressive increase in earthquakes has already been directly correlated with the melting of ice in the Artic and Antarctic, but it seems as though there are not enough good scientists who are aware of and vocal about the issue, or that the media, in combination with the relative ignorance of the majority, has simply chosen to ignore the connection.
But they can't ignore it forever!
And if they do, it will only be at their peril, since things will only get worse, in a seismic sense, for at least another 30 years! If not 90.
Please correct me if Im wrong,
A post by Aaron.
Comments welcome: [email protected]
References:
Ice and Earthquakes
Serreze, Mc; Holland, Mm; Stroeve, J (Mar 2007). "Perspectives on the Arctic's shrinking sea-ice cover". Science (New York, N.Y.) 315 (5818): 1533–6. doi:10.1126/science.1139426. PMID 17363664.
Seasonality and Increasing Frequency of Greenland Glacial Earthquakes Ekström, G., M. Nettles, and V. C. Tsai (2006). Science, 311, 5768, 1756-1758, doi:10.1126/science.1122112
Analysis of Glacial Earthquakes Tsai, V. C. and G. Ekström (2007). J. Geophys. Res., 112, F03S22, doi:10.1029/2006JF000596
Vale to Victoria's native woodland birds!
Victoria could be facing a wave of extinctions following a dramatic crash in bird numbers in the Box-Ironbark forests of northern and central Victoria over the past five years.
A systematic study across northern and central Victoria (covering a 30,000 km2 region) over the past 15 years has shown that about two-thirds of bird species, including lorikeets, pardalotes, thornbills and honeyeaters, have declined dramatically.
The region had been largely cleared and the remaining woodlands poorly managed over many decades, making the system more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. This has compounded the already serious effects of broad-scale habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation. There was little evidence of successful raising of young birds even in the largest remaining forest areas. and most of the remaining large old trees in the region pre-date European settlement. Many are on private land and are likely to die in the next 50-100 years as they reach the end of their lifespan.
National Parks are not enough. the reserve system is unlikely to sustain biodiversity especially under the greater ecological stresses that will be experienced with a drying, warmer climate. Very large scale restoration of habitat is required to reconnect isolated bushland remnants.
The scientists, leading ecologists, concluded that the urgency and magnitude of remedial action required are many times greater than current practice.
See also: Victorian Woodland bird numbers collapsing (PDF 513K)
Union Movement dudded and betrayed by Bligh Labor
The lying spin to unions of Bligh Labor last weekend was palpable.
Enough is enough! The union movement has blatantly been betrayed by Labor and repeatedly.
It would seem prudent that for any Government experimenting with an untried policy, to first consult with its electorate to demonstrate empirical proof of performance for such untried ideas, or ones proven to have failed on expectation elsewhere.
Why should established society's investment heritage be gambled on unproven political ideas and empty spin promises? Established society has invested in their values, property and lifestyle such to not permit all that be gambled away on some politician's insecure empty promise.
Privatisation is a worn methodology that governments have abused in order to acquire cheap new revenue out of selling off public assets not theirs to sell. The benefit delivers only to the government coffers of the day, but such is a short term gain and unwisely forgoes the surety of long term revenue.
Such a profiteering strategy only plays to the shortsighted election cycle of a short-sighted politician. It is at the end of the day selling the public farm without democratic right.
It is so Cesarean and immorally exploitative of a trusted electorate.
The union movement should accept that Labor across Queensland has abandoned them and their cause for the ordinary worker just to allow Anna Bligh unjustly remain in power. The union movement, to survive, needs to hold its heritage pride and immediately distance itself from a corrupt Labor Party to conceive a brand new ideological political party committed to the cause of workers rights.
Whatever that party be, it must only hold workers's rights as principle absolute.
JM
Privatisation in Victoria has cost jobs and training
The reason that privatisation of public assets is bad is that instead of encouraging the 'innovation' and 'expertise' trumpeted by government PR, all it does is set up a cosy arrangement between private operators and the government bureaucracy, where both parties have an incentive to collude against the public's best interests. Profits become the main reason for continuing, not management of public funds to provide a public service. In the operator's case an aim is to minimise its costs, and in the bureaucracy's case to protect the government from political damage.
Jeff Kennett started privatisation in Victoria as an 'easy way out' of debt.
He privatized public transport, electricity, favoured private education by cutting funding to schools, closed a lot of schools, and other public services. But then people realise he didn't get rid of the debt. He just let someone else take over these things so there's no debt. And now we are paying more while the government says they are in 'surplus'. Some government activities may be unsuited to outsourcing. It means we have a "skills shortage" due to lack of apprenticeships and jobs.
A decade after the Kennett privatisation push - which extended to hospitals, prisons and toll roads - the radical changes are showing mixed and questionable results. Public debt was cut from a crippling 30 per cent of Victoria's gross domestic product to 1 per cent. The problem is that there has been very little independent evaluation of the real benefits or otherwise that have resulted from privatisation in Victoria. Victoria's state debt was slashed, and history has shown the Kennett government negotiated exceptional prices for many of the assets sold.
Most of the private investors that bought assets have subsequently struggled to generate an acceptable return on them.
Fifty-thousand public servants were retrenched in the privatisation process. As well, 350 government schools were closed, 7,000 teaching jobs removed. At the same time, reforms were made in state education including self-management, increased use of technology and greater emphasis on literacy and numeracy skills. The government forced through amalgamations of local councils, and also reduced their powers.
The social cost of the Kennett reforms was considered high by many commentators, academics and those who suffered economically and provoked a campaign of demonstrations by trade unions and community groups. The government's sharp cuts to government services were particularly resented in country Victoria,
The 1999 election meant that the Liberals lost 13 seats to Labor, most of them in regional centres such as Ballarat and Bendigo, and to three Independents in rural areas. Maybe Anna Bligh should take a lesson from Victoria's history!
Needed: Oz peak oil drama film script and production
On behalf of Brian Spittle:
Peak Everything is leaning heavily upon us and and it has finally become fashionable to consider the possibility that sunshine and flowers is not our inevitable lot. Serious documentaries about population and oil are shown to the minority who watch serious TV and the ongoing discussions about Big Australia are reaching many more. Newspapers will now have a go to a limited degree, and the ABC radio belatedly joins in.
Nevertheless something may be lacking
Political change is possible if a big part of the population gets the message.
We need to reach the people who happily watch films of romance, horror, sport or fashion but switch off when the gore, the shooting and the sex is absent.
A film of generous length; placed in 2050 or later, when the peak everything shortages are making life miserable for everyone except James Packer, with lead roles played by two popular actors, could be made to knock off everyone's socks.
The end would not necessarily need to be universal death. A ray of hope would be essential.
The drama, horror, conflict, passion, hope and titillation are all there. The script writes itself. The film precedents are in the archives. Gone with the Wind and Titanic for instance. Maybe The Good Earth.
I would not suggest Dick Smith finances it, but he would be a wizard at passing the collection plate.
This comment page closed.
Please post further comments to Miscellaneous comments from 4 May 2009.
Department of Exploitation and Contra Conservation
Thanks Scott for highlighting yet another example of an Australian state or federal government acting contrary to wildlife conservation principles.
We are living through a dark period in wildlife conservation. Governments in Australia have all but abandonned wildlife conservation leaving the cause to private individuals and organisations. Government funding and resources are being removed, conservation objectives are being diluted, environmental legislation is being unravelled.
In NSW, the Keneally government is seeking make its National Parks open to commercial tourism development and is diluting the conservation objectives of the NPWS to being a tourist revenue agency.
It is neo-colonialism, likened to when Australian early colonists treated native wildlife and native people as vermin.
When the law makers of the land are corrupt in the values of the land, to where does the people turn to save the natural world from destruction and killing?
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
Bushfire authorities: underfunded dad's armies playing with fire
In response to comment above: "Authorities who do their best to save your homes."
What is the latest excuse for these 'bushfire authorities' failing to save homes in Victorian in February 2009?
The simplistic strategy applied to rural fire fighting across Australia is to burn the bush before it burns. Get rid of the bush (fuel), with no thought to the impact to wildlife of burning and to the sterile ground cover landscape such practice leaves.
Bushfore authorities do this to hide the blatant fact that they are incompetent at suppression fires before they cause serious damage. By the time the detect the fire and get to it, it is too late.
As for bush being a natural asset would even occur to them. Only houses matter because they are the only thing they know how to defend, and they can't even get that right. It is not the volunteers at fault, it is the Government dependent on volunteers and token funding that is at fault. Try taking that approach with the police?
Brumby and Rudd were ultimately responsible for the 17 Victorian deaths. They simply avoid funding a serious emergency force to prepare for and to mitigate such natural disasters and bush arson. A pre-1939 Black Saturday approach to bushfire fighting is gross public negligence. I hope those affected take up a class action and sue the pants of the government authorities. Only then will the billions needed to to do a proper fire fighting job be invested by Australian governments rather than paid out after the tragedy and rely on volunteer charities.
Fire is beneficial is only beneficial for those with a penchant for lighting fires. If it isn't doing too little too late to put wild fires out, the rest of the year is spent lighting new ones. If there is no fire there is nothing to do, so we better light a fire and look busy. Drip torches and airborn incendiary - burn the lot seem to be the Neanderthal thinking!
Didn't learn much from Ash Wednesday 1983 or the hundreds of fires since. Bloodly uselfess lot these dad's army. No I don't expect a fire truck to turn up outside my house if there is a fire. I know here I stand and it's every man for himself.
'Fire ecology' what a farcical term for State-sanctioned arson. Well name one species of flora or fauna made extinct due to lack of fire? - there's a good one for your so called 'ecology' course.
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
To give credit where credit is due to the ETU ...
The Electrical Trades Union has fought the hardest of all the Queensland trade unions against privatisation.
But the fact remains that they have 'fought' within the narrow paradigm of wheeling and dealing with Labor apparatchiks and union officials and have avoided mobilising the grass roots of their own union or reaching out to the rank and file of other unions above the heads of their union officials, who are openly resolved to prevent a fight against privatisation.
Almost certainly they would learn that the stances of the leaderships of unions such as the AWU and the ASU does not reflect the wishes of the rank and file of those unions.
If the ETU simply commenced a determined campaign of industrial action, even without the support of the other more right wing unions such as the AWU or the 'soft left' unions such as the ASU and the AMWU, I don't believe there is any way that the ranks of those unions would tolerate their officials leaving the ETU hang out to dry, especially given the expressed wishes of the AMWU members at Redbank that industrial action be used.
In any case, there is a solid core of other unions besided the ETU that are just as strongly opposed (at least on paper) to privatisation, so there is no reason for the ETU to be totally isolated even at the outset of any industrial campaign.
If both the factors in their favour as well as the factors stacked against them were explained to ETU members at meetings, I believe there is every reason to believe they would nevertheless choose to fight rather than surrender.
At least they should be given that choice.
Where are Australian unionism values?
Clearly the hard fought values of Australian unionism have been chiseled by economic-minded Laborals.
Simpson needs to step down from high-horse
Attacking James only makes it look as if Simpson and his Union supporters don't want to answer the questions.
These questions seem to me to be:
Why didn't the unions call meetings to let their members decide whether they wanted to take industrial action, and to seek support from families, friends and the general public, who were mostly against the sell-off?
Why did they encourage a long-drawn-out campaign? What good could that do?
Whatever the rights and wrongs of Sinnamon's perception of the issues, it is clear that he wants to oppose privatisation. In this he reflects the majority of people. What makes the union leaders so arrogant that they are actually indignant that he has sought democratic dialogue with them and has asked the questions we would all like to ask them if they were not so united in evading real interaction with members?
What is wrong with a dialogue and with working together on this? Candobetter can help to organise the public. You clearly need a lot of help and the Murdoch press isn't going to help. If you think that you have lost the battle, then give someone who is still prepared to fight a helping hand.
Good on James!
What makes you think Abbott is any less pro-immigration?
What makes you think howard or abbot are any less pro immigration than rudd? We should lynch the lot of them. (the politicians that is LOL)
20 endangered pink Amazon Dolphins killed
There are 20 less examples of Amazonian Dolphin, pink dolphins. That's because clandestine fishermen (?) in Peru decided to poison them so they'd not make holes in their nets and try to eat their illegal catch while they poached the Bazagán lake in Loreto, Peru. The bodies of the 20 dolphins were found dead in the lake on the morning of 1st May.
* Freshwater living (found in Peru, Brazil, Ecuador Colombia and even one or two in the Amazon feedrivers of Bolivia)
* Beautiful and friendly
* Grow to three metres long and are very intelligent (their brains are some 40% bigger than human brains by weight)
* Endangered (according to the IUCN (intl union for the conservation of nature))
Apparently, they were poisoned by local fishermen, who usually complain that these animals damage their fishing nets, according to daily La República.
The animals were found floating on the lagoon, located in the province of Requena, in the north east of Loreto in Peru.
La República newspaper reports that the dolphins have probably been given poisoned fish, despite killing animals from endangered species is legally punishable offence according to Peruvian laws. Investigations are on the way. However, this is what the official version says- it is could easily be a case of the river being poisoned and polluted by mercury from mining activities! Rivers are being poisoned due to lack of environmental accountability and corruption in Peru.
Feeling "sorry" for the "cute and fluffy animals" is sickening
Feeling "sorry" for the "cute and fluffy animals" is sickeningly patronising and degrades our wonderful and diverse wildlife. How could you be studying ecology and not have some appreciation of our stunning and awesome range of unique species in Australia, and their tragic decline? It is ecologist like you who, without peer support and without having a shred of compassion or empathy with living creatures, become paid to "manage' wildlife with fire-arms! (Such as Canberra's kangaroo managers[1]).
There was no capacity for fires to be as large or as intense as what we are seeing today. Land clearing and logging have made soils and undergrowth drier and more open for oxygen, increasing fire risks.
Since European settlement, the landscape has changed dramatically. Trying to replicate Aboriginal fire practices in southern Australia would unfortunately now be a risky experiment. European land management has seemingly done everything necessary to turn the Australian landscape into a moonscape. The argument that we should engage in widespread and regular burning of the forest because that's what Aboriginal people did for years is, as the 2003 bushfire inquiry put it, "a highly attractive philosophy". However, we simply do not know enough about traditional burning in southern Australia to be able to re-create an Aboriginal burning regime.
Firstly, in most parts of Australia, we don’t know how Aboriginal people used fire. Secondly, since European occupation, ecosystems have been changed so much that Aboriginal burning would no longer be possible. The native animals that ate and buried plant material have largely disappeared, so there is a lot more flammable vegetation in the bush now than there was before Europeans arrived.
Many wildlife have traits that enable them to survive fire. Often they are
adapted to specific fire regimes, determined by intensity, frequency, season and scale. However, inappropriate fire regimes may have undesirable consequences including declines or local extinctions of biodiversity.
Footnotes
1. See Roo culls lead to tourism boycott calls of 6 Jul 09, RSPCA rubber-stamp in Majura Kangaroo kills unworthy of this organisation's aims of 17 Jun 09, ACT Roo killings: Who profits? Behind the Earless Dragon mask of 25 May 09, Fitzgibbon's Massacre - 9th May 2009 of 14 May 09, , It is clear that the government is interested in "managing" wildlife such as kangaroos out of existence of 13 May 09, ACT Environment Commissioner unqualified to condemn kangaroos of 16 Apr 09, Majura kangaroo killings: Another Belconnen Cover-Up? of 15 Apr 09, etc.
Conservation biologist disputes that burn-offs harm ecology
Subject was: Myth? are you serious? - JS
Myth? Are you serious? Perhaps you should learn the basics of Australian ecology and the critical role of fire for the majority of Australian flora before you go and bad mouth the authorities who do their best to save your homes. I know there is a lot of debate but you can't base your arguments from what you hear in the media. I am a studying ecologist and conservation biologist, you need to hear the real truth from the experts - not the damn reporter who gets paid to write what ever will sell papers. without fire the prom will disintegrate. sure you feel sorry for the cute and fluffy animals that may be caught in these fires but if you had any decent knowledge you would know that our native wildlife have evolved with fire and they wont all perish, They have adapted the most interesting adaptations and behaviours that allow them to escape or rebuild their populations at amazing rates after fire. For most, if not all, of the Australian biota, fire is beneficial!!
Growth begets growth
According to the Urban Taskforce, "Australia would be making a serious mistake if any government attempted to cap the annual rate of population growth to half its historical level and keep numbers under 30 million at 2050".
According to their website, The Urban Taskforce is a "non-profit organisation representing Australia's most prominent property developers and equity financiers. We provide a forum for people involved in the development and planning of the urban environment to engage in constructive dialogue with both government and the community". It may be "non-profit organisation" but their ideals are about profits!
"Any reduction to our nation’s rate of population growth puts at risk the very things that have made Australia what it is today.” Yes, things such as the drought, loss of biodiversity, homelessness, traffic congestion, urban sprawl, loss of native species, degradation of waterways and wetlands and quality of life.
"“Businesses in these cities (without a strong immigration program) will be forced to offer whatever they can afford to attract people from other parts of Australia". Maybe a few more unemployed Aussies would be offered some job opportunities.
The parameters of growth, social, biological, environmental, greenhouse gas emission targets, and costs, are simply ignored. People are considered simply as economic units to be accumulated to create as a resource for the business elite and for a big "tax base".
A community action group
A community action group fighting a proposed biodiesel factory site at Warrnambool's Levys Point has been buoyed by legal advice the project would be unlikely to pass scrutiny. Animal tallow would be used to produce biodiesel for the company's truck fleet. This means that animal body parts from the meat industry would be used to fuel the trucks and make it "green".
IT is supposed to be a coastal reserve but the scenic beauty of Levys Point is now closer to resembling a rubbish dump. Levys Point is a key area of the Mahogany Walk, which spans from Warrnambool to Port Fairy.
The proposed processing plant would convert tallow into an estimated 12 million litres of biodiesel a year to be used in the company's truck fleet and maybe sold at a service station.
The livestock industries is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions and land and waterway degradation. Creating biofuels from such an environmentally un-friendly industry, and destroying wetlands in the process, is surely greenwashing at its worse!
Oz Population Parties report in Indian internet-business-news
Significantly, this report is tagged for the Real-estate section in this Financial news outlet):
"Housing shortage makes Australia ask if it is full," by Meraiah Foley, Apr 29 2010 , SYDNEY
Tags: Australia, Real estate, News
Meraiah Folely has done a good report though.
An excerpt:
"‘‘Australia is a small market, so you don’t need too many more people coming into the market to push up prices,’’ said David Airey, the president of the Real Estate Institute of Australia, an industry group, which blames a tangle of local, state and national building regulations for the failure of housing supply to keep up with demand.
The government keeps no statistics on foreign investment in real estate, so the true effect of overseas buyers is impossible to measure. But Mr. Airey said agents had seen a noticeable increase in foreign buyers, particularly from China and Russia, over the past year.
Australia is roughly the size of the continental United States, and land hardly seems scarce. But this giant landmass is dominated by vast, inhospitable deserts that push all but the hardiest residents to the coastal fringes.
Just 6 percent of the country is considered arable.
Many people are beginning to wonder how big the population can, or should, get.""
Meraiah Foley concludes her article with the following statement:
"Both the Stable Population Party of Australia and the Stop Population Growth Now party say they would restrict immigration from English and non-English speaking countries alike.
‘‘This is not a question of where from,’’ said Mr. Bourke, a marketing executive from Sydney. ‘‘It’s a question of how many, and what is sustainable for our future.’’"
Candobetter.org is hoping for a report soon on the Stop Population Growth Now party in South Australia.
Chemical industry for coastal wetlands
The Age, letters to the editor: April 30th
Chemical industry for coastal wetlands
IN WARRNAMBOOL, beautiful coastal saltmarsh wetlands are threatened with having a biodiesel factory built on them. The Lower Merri Wetlands are listed in the directory of nationally important wetlands by the federal Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and are home to many endangered species, including the orange-bellied parrot, and other flora and fauna guarantee-listed species.
Despite the fragile and important environment, the council looks likely to approve this development. I agree with Vivienne Ortega (Letters, 29/4) that wetlands are often looked on as ''wasteland''. The risk of contamination by fuel spills or flooding would make it a reality on this site.
The Victorian Government must fulfil its obligations under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988. No environmental effects statement has been done on this project, despite Planning Minister Justin Madden being aware of the case, and the criteria for referral being met. (my emphasis)
A chemical industry in a coastal wetland with no environmental risk assessment?
Delia Crabbe, Merri Wetlands Protection Group, Warrnambool
PS: This is adding injury to insult to our already abysmal record of wetland conservation and our Ramsar international rating.
Pope approves genetic engineering for Economic Growth
ROME today.
Flanked by international developers from Mary McKillop Gene-Works and Suburban Developments (based in Melbourne Australia) today, Pope Benedict XVI (25-4-2010) weighed into the international financial crisis, with a change of policy on genetic engineering of the human species.
"This is a crisis calling for unusual measures", said the Pope, remarking on the financial losses which the Vatican had recently sustained.
Benedict added, "I am therefore blessing this new Civil and Genetic engineering team's courageous program, and I urge all Catholics to support it."
Scientists say that the new program calls on a boostered version of a virus that can be spliced into human beings, which it is thought will lead to successive resizing downwards of humans over the next three generations. It will be communicated naturally, through activities leading to conception.
In 60 years, with the help of this program, humans will be the size of mice.
In this way the Pope, the banks, developers and real-estate agents hope to be able to subdivide more than has ever been possible before, whilst drawing upon less and less water and petroleum.
"There are no limits to the future of this brilliant scheme," said a smiling Benedict XVI. "Soon we may all be microscopic!"
Indeed, with any luck our species may completely disappear.
Somali Pirates Say They Are Subsidiary of Goldman Sachs
Somali Pirates Say They Are Subsidiary of Goldman Sachs
Could Make Prosecution Difficult, Experts Say
NORFOLK, VIRGINIA (The Borowitz Report) -- Eleven indicted Somali pirates dropped a bombshell in a U.S. court today, revealing that their entire piracy operation is a subsidiary of banking giant Goldman Sachs.
There was an audible gasp in the courtroom when the leader of the pirates announced, "We are doing God's work. We work for Lloyd Blankfein."
The pirate, who said he earned a bonus of $48 million in dubloons last year, elaborated on the nature of the Somalis' work for Goldman, explaining that the pirates forcibly attacked ships that Goldman had already shorted.
"We were functioning as investment bankers, only every day was casual Friday," the pirate said.
The pirate acknowledged that they merged their operations with Goldman in late 2008 to take advantage of the more relaxed regulations governing bankers as opposed to pirates, "plus to get our share of the bailout money."***
In the aftermath of the shocking revelations, government prosecutors were scrambling to see if they still had a case against the Somali pirates, who would now be treated as bankers in the eyes of the law.***
"There are lots of laws that could bring these guys down if they were, in fact, pirates," one government source said. "But if they're bankers, our hands are tied."
Page 2 Comments
A bug with the installed version of the drupal comments module prevents comments from the second and subsequent pages being linked to properly from the right-hand side box side box. Here are the correct links.
Needed: Oz peak oil drama film script and production of 3 May 10.
20 endangered pink Amazon Dolphins killed of 2 May 10.
Growth begets growth of 1 May 10.
Pope approves genetic engineering for Economic Growth of 30 Apr 10.
This comment page closed.
Please post further comments to Miscellaneous comments from 4 May 2009.
Brumby is a dictator
The immoral, dictatorial, arrogant party-centric politic of John Brumby reveals the depth of selfish corruption plaguing Victorians.
Wonthaggi, Melbourne sprawl, Brown Mountain forest genocidal rape, Windsor Hotel, developer brown paper bag approvals, the 173 bushfire victims - Victoria could do no worse than a Brumby chrony dictatorship.
Brumby is a dictator
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
Too late
We're all damned already, Milly.
Peter Bright
www.pebri.net
The next generation will be damned by this generation's greed
A recent Government report that found Victorians clear grasslands more than three times the size of the MCG every day. We now have less than 1% of its original grassland across the west of Victoria — and the clearing is pushing many species towards extinction. Victoria has the most devastated landscape in Australia, with about half of all native vegetation and 80% of private land cleared since European settlement. Nearly 70% of bushland has been cleared. There is little compassion or welcome for remnant wildlife, yet livestock are not considered problematic because they are considered assets!
Outer areas means cheaper housing, but less public transport and more cars! We are being pressed into higher density living in regions closer to Melbourne, but this is not family-friendly. Urban sprawl must stop destroying Victoria's grasslands, native vegetation and squeezing out our struggling native wildlife. However, the power of money, profits, finance and growth speak louder than logic, or reason.
Prime agricultural land could be under threat from urban sprawl in the Mid North Coast of NSW and in Sydney's outer west. Along with peak oil and climate change, food and water security are being totally ignored!
This generation is all about greed, and the next generations that come after can be damned!
Jon Faine's Population Forum now fixed
Jon Faine's site wasn't working when I tried several times to make a post during the long week-end. It is now working. Jon Faine's population forum site for comments
Please use Jon's site to make comments about the ABC's pro-population growth policy. We are missing a valuable opportunity here.
Garrett is waste of space, boycott Japanese
What has Peter Garrett achieved as Environment Minister?
How many whales has he stopped being poached in Australia's Southern Oceans and Whale Sanctuary?
The Japanese poachers and their government have no respect for Australia's maritime sovereignty in the Southern Ocean. They pirate our wildlife with impunity.
The best course of action is to boycott Japanese products, prevent all Japanese vessels from birthing and refueling in Australian ports, sack Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) and implement honest and proper food labelling across Australia. Australian's should know whether they are eating dolphin, Bluefin tuna, whale meat or palm oil, etc.
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
Our government has only ever taken the "first step"
A proposal currently before the global whaling body would allow controlled commercial whaling operations by existing whaling nations, including Japan. Australia will offer an alternative.
"We've always been committed to the diplomatic engagement that's necessary as a first step to properly resolve these matters," Peter Garrett said.
However, the diplomatic "first step" is as far as our Federal Government has ever been! If they had been forceful, Japan's illegal whale slaughter could have been quashed by now. Instead , procrastinations have allowed a de facto legality, and thus confidence to continue. Their "scientific research" facade should not have been recognised in the first place. Allowing criminals to knowingly continue their crimes is being an accessory before the fact, and means that our Government is complicit in supporting them.
Any children born in Australia are Australians - end of story
Yes, it must be a natural birth right that the country one is born in is that person's country by birth right.
How else can it be right to assign one a nationality to a country that one was not born into? A baby has no choice. Its parents and family do.
Immigration is a separate issue.
But this is not to say that the issue is not complex or abused - we are dealing with people after all.
Do not confuse birth right from family reunion. Family reunion is a distinctly separate issue to that of birth right. One could argue that one's second great cousin twice removed is Swiss and seek to gain Swiss citizenship - good luck! Where does one set the limit of what constitutes 'family'?
Both the Birth Right and Family Reunion are separate issues that should be publicly debated.
"Under German law (pre-1999), children born to foreigners in Germany were not entitled to German citizenship because the law was based on jus sanguinis, in other words on a blood connection. This was outright racist. It deemed immigrants as noncitizens for their lifetime, which was unjust.
The law was modified in 1991 and in 1999 German citizenship law recognised jus soli whereby people born in Germany could now claim citizenship." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turks_in_Germany]
As for migrants, I don't think the status of 'permanent residency' should exist on its own, since it suggests a right to live in country indefinitely without adopting the rights and responsibility of citizenship. It is like a pseudo status akin to 'permanent foreigner'.
Instead, 'permanent residency' should only be granted as part of being granted citizenship privileges - and indeed citizenship must be seen as a privilege. Awarding citizenship should be a bigger deal that it is currently given away willy nilly. Citizenship is a renouncing of one's allegiance to one's country of birth in favour of in our case, Australia. It is a citizen's contract with the adopting country and has implied rights, responsibilities and conditions. These should be explicit.
I don't believe local police are best placed to judge whether a person should be granted residency or citizenship. They are unqualified for such a role. It is a job of Immigration. The problem is that Immigration is not doing its full job of assimilation.
Breaking Australian law to the extent of committing serious crime is a clear breach of that citizen contract and should automatically anul citizenship and with it permanent residency. Why should the adopted country take responsibility for an immigrant that has chosen to become a criminal and breach Australian laws?
As I have posited, Australian gaols should only hold Australians and this should reciprocate overseas. This is not to say that a deported immigrant after having served a sentence overseas could not re-apply for entry into Australia and for Australian citizenship, but it would be a lot more difficult.
Such a policy would send a very clear message and no doubt reduce criminalty in Australia and its justice system. Why should Australia and Australian society carry the burden of social deviants problems from other countries?
As an international citizen, Australia could and in fact is contributing to the United Nations humanitarian efforts to help reduce poverty and conflict in affected countries. Australia should be doing more in this regard in its immediate region - such as in Sri Lanka, Tonga, Fiji, Solomons, West Papua and Burma.
Yes, citizenship should be codified - but citizen rights attach citizen responsibilities. As an Australian born I have rights but also a civil responsibility to this nation. I have to follow its laws and fit in with society's mores.
Family reunion is basically a humanitarian form of immigration. It needs to be factored in at the time of granting residency to any migrant, since clearly working migrants will be the driver for subsequent family reunion. Historial statistics would provide a starting basis. The ratio of those immigrating via teh Skills Stream should be compared against the number of those immigrating under the Family Stream. If the ratio is say 2:1, then it is a case of limited the Skills Stream accordingly, nowing that Family Stream will eventuate to an annual immigration target.
Of course, Australia needs to first set an annual immigration target, and that target needs to be proven to be within Australia's carrying capacity. So long as this problem is avoided by the Australian Government and the major political parties, lower living standards and ethnic conflict in Australia's urban areas are set to escalate.
New Stop Population Growth Now party launched
Bob Couch heads up the Stop Population Growth Now (SPGN) party, which was launched in Adelaide today, and is running for a Senate seat in the federal election, expected this year. The SPGN party believes Australia's population will surpass 42 million by 2050, forecasting 50 million people by 2050, crippling environment, water supplies and infrastructure. But the party, which says it plans to run candidates in every state, can't register with the Australian Electoral Commission until it has 500 members. So far, its membership is little more than a handful. "Four polls in recent months have all indicated that about 70 per cent of Australians do not support the Rudd government's deliberate push for a 'big Australia' with all its adverse environmental, social and economic consequences," Bob Couch said. Sounds reasonable but we need some contact details.
No web page yet?
Editorial comment: The web page is: stoppopulationgrowthnow.com
It's not completely clear to me why they haven't thrown in their weight with the Stable Population Party. If anyone can find out, please let us know. - JS
Immigration, citizenship, criminality and deportation
You write,
"* Any children born in Australia are Australians - end of story. "The countries that have that law finish up with unmanagable problems whereby people arrange to have children in them and then claim family reunion with their child as a national of the country. This can become an industry in itself. It can become the last resort for someone who is about to be deported - they have a child and can no longer be deported and are for all intents and purposes, citizens. Australia retains some control over that phenomenon which bedevils the USA and most European countries. With regard to exporting a permanent immigrant or a naturalised citizen: These two are nearly equivalent in Australia, but not everywhere. In many other countries 'permanent' only means visaed for one year or less. Acquired citizenship is a very rare thing, which you have to apply for, usually after a long residence, renewed year by year, and which is not easily granted. I think that if a person has been accepted as a citizen then we accept them in every way as a citizen, including taking responsibility for their criminal behaviour. Our citizens' rights should be codified. At the moment immigrants don't actually need citizenship because it carries so few rights. At the moment a permanent immigrant is pretty much a citizen by any other name and therefore I think we should take responsibility for that person - even if they turn out criminal. To reiterate, however, I would, if in charge, give citizens in Australia a full set of rights and I would probably limit the concept of 'permanency' to one year visas, renewable via some system which included the police. Once again I take my model from France, where visas are renewable via the regional police, who grant them according to their knowledge of the person's behaviour, work record, regard in the community, sponsorship etc. That said, I'm not too hung up on the value of paid work, particularly in a corporatised consumer economy, and I'm not always in accord with the simplistic notion of law and order and I realise that money buys justice in this country - often according to laws that are not just. In summary, at the moment, I would be in favour of deporting non-permanent immigrants and non-citizens who committed felonies. If they had children and a wife who are citizens, however, they should qualify as close family and perhaps therefore be treated as citizens, however unpleasant that seems. This however brings into light the problem of family reunion. Yes, it is a good thing for immigrants to be able to reunite with their families, but a policy of high immigration which also favours family reunion, encourages chain immigration - far greater than the initial high immigration. The ALP and the Greens tend to overlook this problem, but it is something that has to be confronted.
Holding on after all hope lost: Herald comparing John Untan case
A Sydney Morning Herald journalist has written a current article linking the criminal "case of Tongan born Motekiai Taufahema, convicted of manslaughter over the 2002 death of policeman Glenn McEnallay, but allowed to remain...(in Australia)."
This journalist links this case to his article about the demise of Romanian-born John Untan who last November attempted suicide in London from "atop London's Westminster Bridge" into the Thames.
The full article is worth reading, and so I have extracted it below (quoted).
My comments:
This journalist's comparison between the two case is inappropriate in many ways.
* My argument that foreign nationals received by Australia on trust and gaining Australian residency, then convicted of serious crimes in Australia is one that deserves questioning as to whether they deserve a right to remain in Australia in gaol at Australian taxpayer expense;
* My argument that the Australian Government establish a bilateral agreement to repatriate Australians convicted of crimes to serve out their sentences in Australia and for foreign nationals vice versa - deserves public debate;
* The murder of an Australian policemen in Sydney by Tongan national Sione Penisini in 2022 should see Penisini not have his sentence committed in Australian gaols but rightly repatriated to his origin country, Tonga, to serve time at Tongan taxpayer expense, same with the three accomplices including Taufahema. These four men have breached their moral and legal obligations to Australia an so forfeit their residency and citizenship rights.
* Any children born in Australia are Australians - end of story.
* John Ultan, a Romanian national, was granted Australian residency and then committed serious criminal acts in Australia. Why should Ultan be considered different to Penisini?
* The abject poverty of Romania, Ultan's country of origin, is not Australia's responsibility. He remains ultimately the responsibility of the Romanian Government and its people, but also that of the European Union (since Romania is technically European), the United Nations (of which Australia is a member nation) and of the Russian Federation particularly since it contributed to economic demise of Romania while for decades under Soviet rule.
* Ultan was Australia;s responsibility while in Australia, until he committed serious crimes in Australia
* The plight of Jon Ultan was after having served his sentence, was negligently ignored by the governments of each nation he resided in - indeed including Australia, Romania and the United Kingdom. This is despicable.
* When an innocent person in need is ignored and allowed to become destitute by the government of that country, that country's humanitarian credentials need to be internationally paraded in shame.
* The plight of the convicted needs to be measured and compared with the greater
rights of their victims, like Glenn McEnally and his family, friends, colleagues and associates.
* No-one has a right to take a life. Such persons, convicted, forgo all citizen rights including citizenship and residency.
This is the article by journalist Joel Gibson:
'Holding on after all hope lost'
[24th April, 2010]
'The millions who saw Ion ''John'' Untan attempt suicide never knew the deportation story behind his pain, writes Joel Gibson.
FOR FIVE interminable hours, Ion ''John'' Untan stood atop London's Westminster Bridge and stared into the frigid River Thames.
As Big Ben struck four, the hour he had chosen to die, hundreds of gawkers, media, police and rescue service crew saw him take the leap. His suicide attempt received broad coverage on British TV and news websites in November. But the millions who saw it never learnt what drove the 48-year-old father of three to despair.
''I didn't want to tell anybody my problems,'' he said this week. ''I had just had enough, you know what I mean? Some days I just wake up and I have had enough.''
Untan today in a London squat. Photo: Jon Enoch
The Romanian-born Untan was tortured as a political prisoner and escaped to Australia in 1984, aged 23.
He married Karen Uebel, an Australian citizen, two years later and they had one happy year and a set of twins together before his slide into crime began.
With a handful of other Romanian migrants, he got involved in the lucrative drug trade on the Golden Mile in Kings Cross in 1988, selling heroin and paying off crooked cops such as disgraced detective Graham ''Chook'' Fowler for the privilege.
He was jailed for 5½ years for drug and firearms charges in 1989. By late 1997, he was back inside after a failed armed robbery attempt on a suburban home he claimed was owned by fellow dealers.
Untan had three months with his family after completing his sentences - just enough time, Karen says, to re-establish a bond with his three children. But he had never taken up citizenship, so the then immigration minister, Philip Ruddock, cancelled his refugee visa. He was deported to Romania in 2003.
In an interview with officials, Untan accused Mr Ruddock of ''ruining people's lives and separating families'' to win votes and threatened to shoot him. Untan's 15-year-old son, Joshua, wrote to the prime minister, John Howard, saying his father was ''more Australian than most people'' and it was the saddest day of his young life.
A psychologist, Raymond Hudd, warned his deportation would be ''tantamount to destroying the lives of his sons, his wife and his daughter because it is the thread of hope of re-establishing the family unit that holds the family together''.
He feared Untan would become dangerously suicidal and his sons' behaviour would become increasingly difficult for his wife to manage, ''which could negatively impact on her mental health''.
Most of those predictions came true. Today the 49-year-old is homeless on the streets of London because, he says, it is a better life than being homeless in Romania and his elderly mother could not support him.
When he can afford to, he calls his wife and children Joshua and Ionel, both 22, and Danica, 14, in the suburbs of Sydney. ''It's like their father's died but there's a ghost that's still there,'' said Karen Untan, who developed an anxiety disorder after being left to care for two intellectually disabled 15-year-old boys and a seven-year-old daughter.
She knows why some refer to character test deportations as ''taking out the trash'' and why they say her children are better off without a former Kings Cross crook in their lives.
The TV show Underbelly ''has glamorised it too much. There's no glamour in it. It's just people looking over their shoulder seeing if they are going to get shot,'' she says. ''But my husband is two people: the criminal who was a dumb-arse and the good dad. Even when I threw him out he still had a relationship with his children. He came and saw them all the time. My children became depressed after losing their father. They became detached from the world. What happened to them was very cruel.''
Eating breakfast at a soup kitchen in London's Canning Town this week, John Untan said it was the thought of seeing his family one more time that kept him alive.
''I have done many things wrong but who doesn't? I never went to school. I grew up poor. I learnt the streets. I learnt the hard way. That's why I got into crime. Other people do bigger crimes than I did. But I paid for everything. I did 10 years' prison. But to send me from my family forever, that's very hard. It still is. I think about it every day.''
His story follows revelations in the Herald about Scottish-born Andrew Moore, who lived 32 years in Australia and left behind a teenage son when he died of a heroin overdose two days after being deported in October. They illustrate the inconvenient truth about Australia's policy of deporting non-citizens who are sentenced to more than a year's jail. But for many, punishing criminals - and their families - twice by dumping them abroad is a small price to pay for public safety.
The policy is in the spotlight again with the case of Tongan-born Motekiai Taufahema, convicted of manslaughter over the 2002 death of policeman Glenn (McEnally), but allowed to remain for the sake of his six-year-old daughter. The federal government is under pressure to appeal the decision for a second time. It has until Wednesday to do so."
64,300 out of 434400 aged 15-19 Australians not employed -28.5%
Have a look at the latest edition of the the ABS Labour Force Statistics (March 2010). As you probably know the overall unemployment rate is 5.3%, but for young people aged 15-19 it's 18.2%, up from 14.6% in March 2007.
If this were just students who were looking for part time work it might not be so disgraceful but the overall picture is this.
There were 434,400 people aged 15-19 in Australia in March 2010.
Of these 64,300 were not in full time education and they were looking for work, ie they were officially unemployed and not studying (or at least not studying full time).
A further 59,700 were neither in full time education nor were they looking for work (so they don't show up as unemployed).
This means that overall there were 124,000 15 to 19 year olds who were not working (either full time or part time) and not in full time education, that is 28.5% of the whole age group.
See ABS, Labour Force March 2010, Catalogue no. 6202.0, ABS, Canberra, 2010, p. 21 (This can be downloaded from http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6202.0Mar%202010?OpenDocument)
Yet we overlook them and say we have a labour shortage and lament the lack of local skills.
Source: remark on PopForum
Market follows money, not logic
Our society is subsidiary to the market, and the market sets its course in the direction of wherever dollars accumulate fast. There is no sense in it, only money. Because no-one objective stands back and says, we have to stop because look where this is taking us, the government just continues to allow money to set our priorities. And money has no more interest in social justice than it does in the environment.
So your protests about logic are irrelevant to this system.
With all due respect,
Nerodog
Why in rational economy would even rich want population growth?
You make some good points, nerodog.
However, I dispute that it should seem at all 'natural' that Big Business, or, indeed, anyone would want population to grow indefinitely.
As I have said often, including here, our intuition and normal common sense would surely tell us that it would be in no-one's interests to have the number of people amongst whom the resources are to be shared to increase.
Whether rich or poor, the amount of wealth available to anyone should be less.
The fact that the rich actually get richer from circumstances in which all of us must necessarily become poorer on average and our very future destroyed, is a sign that there is something extremely flawed in the way our society is run.
Survey - big business wants pop growth - at our expense
In the rather pretentious Business Spectator"CEO Pulse", a survey of chief executive sentiment shows "CEOs agree with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that a “big Australia” is best."
Yet another reason to vote against population growth.
"CEOs" are people at the head of big business organisations. The ones that are behind the World Trade Organisation and huge and costly developments that stamp out our freedom of movement and raise property prices and commodify water and power.
Yes, population growth does mean economic growth for big business; it is just small to medium enterprises and everyone else who suffer at the expense of those who profit from population growth.
Big business invests in many assets the prices of which inflate with population growth, notably land, housing, water, agriculture, minerals, and mass production plant and retail.
So, naturally CEOs in the areas would usually support population growth. Their organisations can even avoid the taxes involved in many cases.
Our government - the ALP - is nought but a big corporation that invests in banking, land, and insurance and who knows what else. So from its point of view population growth is fine.
It has a feudal view of the rest of us - independent businesses and wage earners.
Going to Court
Forcing anyone into court is risky. For the ordinary citizen, courtrooms are alien places seething with tension and loaded with the potential for hurt.
Despite this, I am considering forcing Tasmania's state housing authority there for its refusal to comply with its own Tenancy Agreements prohibiting health damage to its tenants through invasive cigarette smoke. As with councils called upon to deal with a barking complaint, this authority denies everything.
A very long-term anti-barking Queensland colleague sent me this message today ..
"Re what is or is not allowable in Court. As I have pointed out thousands of times, going to Court is not advisable for the ordinary person no matter what evidence they have. The outcome is never guaranteed, and the plaintiff could be landed with thousands of dollars in court costs, etc. If Council will take a complaint to Court, well and good - but as we know they never will. "
Peter Bright
www.pebri.net
barking dogs
Dear Vincent,
There are some neighbourhood problems that degrade to a level where peace is unlikely. A lawyer experienced in neighbourhood problems once advised "For cases that disintegrate so badly, one of two things will happen. The troublemakers will move, probably for some completely unrelated reason, or the victim will be forced to move."
We know that for many hapless recipients of dog (and music) noise, being forced out of home with its associated costs can be unaffordable.
However, the fact is many years of unhappiness, family disruption, constant tension and sleep disturbance, can indeed cause psycho/physiological illness, so even with the relocation costs and risks that the same hideous dog noise will occur elsewhere, there's always a chance that moving may be an improvement, even if nearby dogs are not as appropriately managed as they should be.
If it's just one idiot dog-owner next door who doesn't exhibit a multitude of unsocial behaviours, and it's limited to dog noise, a small minority of troubled people do work through the issue. Unfortunately, retribution for complaining about dog noise is the rule, and not the exception.
If your neighbour's mindset has been to use music as a weapon of retaliation, and the police describe them as sh..givers, I think you have the misfortune to be living beside unchangeable recalcitrants. If I were in your shoes, I would consider all possibilities to remove my family from an unhealthy living environment.
However, everyone's circumstances and resistance levels are different, and we all have to do the best we can with the personal resources at our disposal.
I'm very sorry about what is happening to you and understand your desperation, having documented hundreds of similar case studies.
Thus far there's insufficient research on this noise source, although it can be categorised as "impulse sound". Focused dog barking research will be required in order to convince government, policitians and bureaucrat decision-makers about the serious consequences on the large numbers of families, children, aged, sick, dying, shiftworkers and single home occupants who are forced to endure ongoing misery.
The human health costs are under-estimated. Very often recipients of dog noise feel unable to express the depth of their distress and when they attempt to do so, they are not acknowledged, and they are often humiliated. So their suffering is compounded, and some will even begin to doubt that what they are feeling is a normal reaction - it most certainly is.
I can only wish that matters will improve, and that you are in a position to somehow seek out and achieve a better way ahead.
Cost of excess immigration, multiculturalism hidden from public
Yes, "the cost of constant immigration and multiculturalism is taking its toll, but hidden from the public. Our cities are becoming centres of violence and conflict, drugs and alcohol, and unemployment, and some of it is due to the "diversity" of an alienated and society full of inequalities and stresses."
I could not agree more with the above comment.
Australia's world leading excessive migrant numbers risks festering into social costs,
into local disaffection
into local resentment
into local anger and alienation of immigrants
into further ethnic tension, like the Cronulla Riots
into emergence of right wing grass roots fascism.
Australia does not need fascism.
But allowed to fester, immigration driving inequalities and displacement will seed primary instincts in human behaviour to seek security.
Fascism plays on this and is never far below the surface of any society.
Rudd is breeding this and in a few years fascism in Australia will be evident.
It need not be.
Poaching kangaroos same as poaching koalas
Re: Mike WG 'Kangaroos are an environmentally sustainable source of meat.'
In response:
Mike WG Dodgy Claim 1: "The difference between clubbing fur seals, killing pandas and shooting kangaroos is that kangaroos have different ecological roles"
What unsubstantiated crap. What is an 'ecological role'? What is the ecological role of each of these wildlife? Canadian indigenous Intuit insist on clubbing fur seals despite the availability of supermarkets. Nostalgic traditions that are unnecessary for survival and threaten a species are immoral and backward (like the Solomon Islands traditional cannibalism example).
Then apply this made up concept to koalas and justify the bizarre logic.
Poaching kangaroos same as poaching koalas.
Mike WG Dodgy Claim 2: "The difference between clubbing fur seals, killing pandas and shooting kangaroos is that kangaroos are under very different levels of threat."
So if a wildlife species is not threatened with extinction it is morally acceptable to poach it? This was the attitude of British colonists with the Tasmanian Tiger. So justify that logic. Justify the morality. There are no tests for roo poachers tio distinguish between sexes of kangaroos let alone the multiple species of mcropods across Australia. What is the difference between the Bridled Nail-Tailed Wallaby and the Swamp Wallaby and a juvenile Western Grey? Roos shooters are not trained ecologists/zoologists so cannot tell a threatened macropod species from a non-threatened species. After a few cans I am surprised they can tell the hot end of a rifle from its butt.
Mike WG Dodgy Claim 3: "The three main species of kangaroo that are hunted in mainland Australia for meat and pelts are not endangered and kangaroo meat is healthier and far more sustainable than any other red meat."
(see response to 4 above)
Mike WG Dodgy Claim 4: Dodgy appeal to the authority of the CSIRO to support claim that it is acceptable to kill kangaroos because the meat is healthier than other read meat.
Mike WG's reference is Kangaroo meat - health secret revealed
This reference is to a 'media release dated 23-Apr-04 and is of findings of a PhD student Clare Engelke who found Western Grey kangaroos had less fat content than dairy products, beef and lamb. No kidding! And she got a PhD for such common knowledge? She should try for a PhD in why flies swarm around a dead carcass too.
What this study also found, which Mike WG failed to reveal is that the research outcome was that "if successful, it may be possible to increase the CLA content of other meats and products to increase potential health benefits to consumers."
Mike WG Dodgy Claim 5: Poaching kangaroos is more sustainable than any other red meat in this country because kangaroos are not farmed, they live in the natural environment and do not require land clearing or feed lots and because kangaroos are soft-footed.
Poaching is cheap lazy farming. It is more "sustainable" for the poacher because there are less costs. Roo poaching exploits native wildlife in its natural habitat. No need for fences, feed, fertilizer, veterinary costs, inoculations, artificial insemination, etc. No farming costs once you have a rifle, scope and ammo from the nearest gun shop and refrigerated ute set up. You can kill as much wildlife as you want to rake in the cash!
Harvesting is a euphemism for State-sanctioned poaching of wildlife. It is a mugs game that even 12 year olds are legally allowed to participate in. Even rabbiting is more ethical - they are ferals, faster and harder to shoot.
The comparative ecologically sustainable argument tries to justify killing wildlife is acceptable because sheep and cattle destroy the environment. The two are unrelated. Where is there a farmer in Australia removing all sheep and cattle from his/her property, rehabilitating the existing degraded land, and grazing kangaroos on that land instead? The argument is make believe. Roo shooters head off to where kangaroos want to graze. They are not farmers transitioning their sheep and cattle land.
Lamas and alpacas are soft footed. What is wrong with this form of husbandry?
Mike WG Dodgy Claim 6: I have no problem shooting and eating kangaroos even though i love them as a native animal.
How hypocritical. It would be more sustainable to shoot and eat your dog.
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
Federation Square forum on population
Another Clayton's debate on population. Apart from Mark, who was superb, the others on the panel were out of their depth: No discussion of the market imperfections that lead to urban agglomerations overshooting their optimum size or causing excessive centralisation of urban structures; no discussion of the decentralisation alternative; little discussion or criticism of Marcus' multi-nuclei urban structure; no discussion or criticism of Marcus' proposal of increased density (e.g. the escalating costs of high-rise buildings or the widespread opposition to medium density housing).
Domestic dog interference.
The present Australian of the Year would do better concerning himself with documented accounts from the thousands of Australians who are suffering stress-related illness and sleep disturbance from neighbouring barking dogs, than focusing on the mental health of illegal detainees comfortably housed at taxpayer expense in the Christmas Island Motel.
It's disgusting that Australians who pay their rates, pay their taxes, trouble nobody, yet encounter a myriad of unnecessary difficulties in having a dog quietened, are treated like second-class citizens.
The only way to get real action from self-serving politicians is to thoroughly embarrass them.
Depending on the known personal and financial circumstances of the offending dog owner, a strong lawyer's warning can do wonders, if the complainant is comfortable about being named (and therein lies well understood and serious personal safety danger).
Beyond that, it's going to take a hefty civil damages case that empties out one of their bank accounts.
The only language understood by socially corrupt, insensitive, brainless, cruel, uncaring, rude and often violent psychopath keepers of barking dogs, would be the sound of dollar notes exiting their wallets.
Foreign investment in Australian property
The door may have been slammed against foreign housing investments in Australia, but nothing has been said about agricultural investments. Japan owns substantial dairy and drink manufacturing businesses, and China is land hungry.
Kevin Rudd may appear to be a mild, well-spoken, concerned just man, but his looks and manners are deceiving. He is probably the most subversive and dangerous PM Australia has ever had. His efforts to increase our population and internationalise our land and property is a betrayal of Australian interests.
Paul Keating opened the flood gates to free import tariffs for goods that undermined and destroyed many of our own manufacturing industries, despite Labor being traditionally concerned for the "working class", and now we have an Prime Minister who is continuing to betray our agricultural interests. He is ignoring peak oil, climate change threats against our capacity to produce food and water, and import the global threat of over-population.
I suspect that the increasing interest in ANZAC day by our young people of Anglo background is, along with honouring our heroes, partly due to their trying to hold on to our heritage, an era of their patriotic ancestors, a nostalgia of a time when Australia was a proud new nation with an emerging identity - one that failed to converge into a modern, united, contemporary one.
barking dogs
Wow, thank you all for just writing a few words, I don't feel alone anymore...
I learnt the hard way that I should have shut my mouth. ...
barking dogs
By the way, my problems with my neighbours are now lasting since around 2 years, with barking dogs (having at one stage six dogs... four fortunately removed by the Council.) and now, occasional Saturdays/Sundays loud music. I talked to my neighbours more than 6/7 times, so one can't say I didn't try to fix the problem on my own... They always promised to fix the nuisance but never did it. Last incident, the police had been called by a neighbour for loud music and probably for swearing (?) and by me as I was threatened (for some reasons that escape me) and called names repeatedly even in the presence of the two policemen, the mother and son were obviously pretty drunk. Names which when repeated to my friends, they advised me never to use them... I was wishfully thinking about getting support from some neighbours in the street who could suffer from barking/loud music nuisances but first it has to be anonymous as people refuse to get involved and second I'm French, often regarded as a migrant who took the land of the real "true blue OZ"...
(What are the first inhabitant of the continent then, true brown???) Anyway, not only I feel dumped by the Council with their stupid diary recording of barking (That the man from the pond advised me to fill again for each barking dogs despite telling me he needs at least 3 complaints from 3 different neighbours and after I told him no one around is going to make one) but I feel like an idiot each time I complained, which I stopped as soon as I got the concept... The local policeman told me you are wasting your time... despite having said just before: "You know what's going to happen now you called me, I know them (neighbours) they are sh... givers and won't let you in peace..." I tried twice the mediation but the neighbours refuse it. The police advised me to keep calling when the music is played but are so far away that they need 20m to be on the spot. I even feel ashamed to take their precious time... At a last resource I'm thinking about writing a letter to my neighbours to invite them to a mediation, mentioning nicely and courteously what the problems are... Could someone please help with this letter by giving me some samples, advices about what I should do?
Woodchip con about renewable energy - ABC National radio
Please find attached a copy of the radio segment on this morning's ABC Radio National program "Breakfast" regarding the burning of native forest woodchip waste for so called renewable energy generation.This item can be played in Winamp by clicking on it to open.
(Refer to ABC website >Radio National> Breakfast, item "Woodchip waste fuelled power plant" 8.13 am, Monday 26 April, to stream or download this item if unable to listen to this attechment: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/)
The reason they are pushing this now is not because they give a hoot about ‘renewable energy’, or using up ‘waste’, it’s because their old markets for woodchips are on the way out. Please don’t be conned. If this forest fuelled power generator gets the tick in Sthn NSW, it could open the door for others.
Back in the 1960s and 70s, when they introduced widespread clearfelling to replace selective logging, they gave absolute assurances that woodchipping would never drive the logging industry, and that woodchips would only come from the waste. History has shown this was an absolute lie!! Now over 85% of all trees taken from Victoria's native forests ends up as woodchips and waste.
These projects must be stopped!!
Reply to Kangaroos an environmentally sustainable source of meat
Mike,
Your arguments used to sway me and would still sway me IF
- We had reliable statistics on numbers and integrity of roo population structures, but we don't because no Aust gov collects valid, reliable, reproduceable statistics for accurately monitoring roo or other wildlife populations over useful state or national areas. See Damning Auditor General Report on Fauna protection for Victoria and Tasmania, West Australia, Victoria - our wildlife are ignored by government and two films on You-tube which I made from interviews: "3. Kangaroo Industry and Official Story"and
"4. Lay Reports on Kangaroo Numbers". Also see some reliable statistics of the situation on the Mornington Peninsula, for instance - and kangaroos are not even shot for meat here: Grave loss of native fauna on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia
- We only had a population of around one million people and no export market and no high tech weapons and no industrial mass-production perspective driven by a growth economy philosophy that recognises no limits except complete collapse of ecosystems
- big business were not buying up agricultural land for more intensive farming and for creating more human settlements and therefore motivating local and state governments to neglect wildlife protection and find excuses to cull it (based on the unreliable statistics it keeps) - examples, pardon the cliche which may seem strident but no-one has yet countered a single argument here, Belconnen and Madura in Canberra - See my article here: ACT Roo killings: Who profits? Behind the Earless Dragon mask
What you may find is that we once shared a perpective in trusting basic government statistics and policy. We would diverge probably now on the trusting part, since every effort to obtain details from government has shown me the paucity of methodology, coordination, collection and recording and the shallow veneer of committment to wildlife welfare is most obvious in the absolute refusal to do anything useful to protect or create wildlife corridors of any significance countrywide. See another film: "4A Urgent need for Wildlife Corridors in Australia "
And, almost certainly we would diverge on the evaluation of statistics part. Being a sociologist makes one very aware of the need for valid, reliable and comparable statistics that are able to be reproduced. Most disciplines don't seem to be aware of the fact that if the measures you are using are invalid, then the data you are manipulating isn't really worth very much. There is another fault of the stats: they are often collected by vested interests: notably the kangaroo industry.
Please don't think that I personally bear the industry or farmers or any scientists who push the idea of eating roos any ill-will. I don't and I was once among them. (I personally learned a lot from Tim Flannery's Future Eaters and would continue to recommend the book as a magnificent way to get to know our country and how it works. What he says about eating our wildlife makes sense - but only if we have a much smaller population and a different economy and, from my own specialty, a different land-use planning system.) Why did I change my mind? It's just that, according to my investigation of the matter now, I had to admit that the whole scenario is shot-full with holes. I admit also that it was information put to me by wildlife activists whom I would formerly have considered hysterical, that convinced me.
So, if we both share the primary desire of having a flourishing biological ecology with a happy and stable population of roos, I say, look at the stats and look at our system and look at our population and then tell me how we do it?
So I invite you to look at the stats, first and foremost, and call for much better ones - indeed, just as the New Australia Party now has in its policy. I don't believe that any negotiating is possible until:
- We have superb statistical methods and collections about all our wildlife and notably the key species in ALL areas of Australia
- We have absolutely locked in major wildlife corridors linking EVERY region in the country including suburbs, parks and the green-belts of cities
- We have got control over our population growth
- We have exported the property development and growth lobbyists to the Simson Desert to eke out their living in selling real-estate there - sorry, just a joke
- We have got control over the property development and growth lobby so that it no longer controls us
Over to you!
Please keep writing to us or for us. I can see that you are sincere and probably able to revisit the matter carefully.
If Australians can make their governments honest then that is the first building brick to having them live up to the principles many still believe they endorse.
Things are coming to a head
Population growth is the most important issue by far facing Australia. Population growth may have been good once, but growth for growth's sake is getting ridiculous - and politicians and business leaders are still obsessed with their perpetual 1%-2% population growth, with no end in sight. Even a 1% population growth will double our population in around 70 years, and we already have too many problems with water etc as is. I have been trying to work out how it will end, and sadly Peak Oil is looking like the likeliest culprit. I like our modern high-tech civilization, but unfortunately it seems to be 100% dependent on cheap oil, once thats over Mother Nature will get her day.
Wants stronger action against barking dogs
It is best if the offending dog just simply dissappears. Society has a highly unjustified love of dogs, and barking is just an anti-social side affect of keeping dogs in our communities. The effort to quiet dogs is wasted for victims of barking and the owners are just as useless at controlling their dogs as are councils enforcing poor or even suitable laws.
The easiest by far solution is that the offending dog just happens to disappear. I do not know how it happens, I moved house at great expense because of noisy dogs and animals in my neighbourhood. I have known people to move many times because of barking dogs. When will Government get a grip on this issue, I can not tell you. So at this time or until Government enforces quiet of dog in our communities, dissappearing dogs may just be on the increase.
Airguns to teens are a catalysts for psychopaths
The book 'Sins of the Brother: The Definitive Story of Ivan Milat and the Backpacker Murders' is an eye opener into a case of a hard rural lifestyle controlled by hardline paternal corporal punishment, when guns are part of life and temper tolerated.
"Guns are power" as confirmed by Ivan Milat's brother Boris.
Untempered power leads to consequences only limited to the discretion of the person in control.
Gun laws in Australia fuel criminal opportunity, yet gun laws don't test for criminality.
A cocktail of a gun acceptance culture, killing of animals from an early age, an insular rural upbringing, a penchant for control, an uncontrolled aggression, and opportunity are how Ivan Milats and Martin Bryants are made.
Milat's upbringing featured a tolerance of incest, which fueled sexual depravity.
In hillbilly culture a 'virgin' is a girl who can run faster than her brothers.
Rural mass murder occur in Australia again while gun laws are so lax.
It starts with children being given airguns. Airguns inculcate shooting living things as acceptable.
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
Barking dogs and the law
Vincent, your story is typical and it's happening everywhere.
It's a standard council trick to require the victim of barking to keep a diary. The illicit purpose, under cover of pretending to need evidence, is to defer its involvement indefinitely.
I know a Melbourne man who carefully logged local barking for over a year - only to find his council ignored the lot. This tormented man and his family eventually had to relocate to the countryside.
I'm not aware of any state's dog laws that demand the keeping of a diary. If a council demands such evidence let it compile it itself. Keeping a diary yourself exacerbates your distress. Don't do it.
The refusal of neighbours to get involved is also standard human behaviour. It's rooted in cowardice and fear of retaliation. Bad dog owners are often bullies and the neighbours know it.
You may learn more at http://www.pebri.net/index_5.htm and you may apply for membership of the US barkingdogs discussion group at http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/barkingdogs/
Peter Bright
www.quietas.net
Kangaroos are an environmentally sustainable source of meat.
There is a difference between clubbing fur seals, killing pandas and shooting kangaroos. They are different species, they have different ecological roles and are under very different levels of threat.
The three main species of kangaroo that are hunted in mainland Australia for meat and pelts are not endangered and kangaroo meat is healthier and far more sustainable than any other red meat. Check the CSIRO article on kangaroo meat: http://www.csiro.au/files/mediaRelease/mr2004/kangaroofat.htm
The harvesting of kangaroo meat is more sustainable than any other red meat in this country because kangaroos are not farmed, they live in the natural environment and do not require land clearing or feed lots. Kangaroos are also soft footed so they don't cause soil profile damage and they are drought tolerant being able to survive on far less food and water than cattle, sheep or pigs. They are the perfect Australian meat animal as they are adapted to this environment.
The ethics of "USING WILDLIFE" as you put it and the exploitation of natural resources is a big issue. However, of all the sources of red meat in this country, kangaroo meat is a strong contender for the healthiest and most sustainable.
I suppose a more appropriate comparison might be, Australians shooting kangaroos is similar to:
Americans shooting a very prolific ecologically secure species of deer.
And if you ask me as an Australian if I have a problem with shooting and eating the iconic Australian animal, the answer is NO! And I love kangaroos, I think they are beautiful animals!!!
Civil action final way to legally deal with nuisance barking dog
To Vincent Anonymous,
Only deal with local council about nuisance barking dogs if you want to have nothing done, waste your time and get frustrated and annoyed in the process.
Civil action is the only way to legally deal with barking dogs. The area of law concerned is 'private nuisance', which is not a crime, but a private dispute. Contact your local solicitor (preferably one with experience and success in this specialty), record all costs and take civil action against the dog owner. Make sure you have first identified the correct dog and verified the correct owner.
In Victoria, as a start read: Private Nuisance and similar approaches would be available in other Australian states.
If you win, the dog owner must pay your legal costs and probably a fine and be legally required to keep the dog silent. Also if you win, publise the outcome as a deterrent to other selfish and neglectful dog owners.
But if you lose, you pay the dog owners legal costs. The case could cost $8000 and be drawn out by immoral dodgy solicitors of the dog owners, but this is the legal option.
There are illegal options, like 1080, but outside the scope of this website.
But beware, some dog owners are like their dogs. One recent criminal case in Sydney R v Whitmore resulted in the complaining neighbour, Joseph Durrant, being stabbed to death by the dog owners in June 2007. Katrina Megan Whitmore is currently serving 10 years and her brother Frederick Reyon Whitmore is serving 4 years each for murder.
:)
Hope this helps.
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
Barking dog...
What recourse do victims of nuisance dog barking have?
Posted July 18th, 2009 by James Sinnamon...
I read the text and felt I wrote it myself in nearly every words...
I talked several times to my neighbors about their barking dogs and loud music but at the end felt like I was the nuisance...
The Council asked me to keep a record, diary of the barking, then when done told me that they needed at least three complaints from surrounding houses... so, this time recording barking was a pure waste for me... other people I talked to do not wish to be involved in complaints even if telling me they are suffering from the same nuisance as I do...
Rudd: Australia's first Chinese Prime Minister
He may not look Chinese, but everything Rudd does benefits the Chinese over Australians. Effectively Rudd has become Australia's first Chinese Prime Minister.
He welcomes hoards of them in with open arms. He allows Chinese to buy up residential property forcing prices up for ordinary Australians. he relxes foreign ownership in Australian property and corporations allowing Chinese to own more of Australia's wealth.
To get into power last election, Rudd targeted the growing Chinese demographic. He placed Maxine McKew in the Chinese concentrated federal seat of Bennelong to appeal to the Chinese vote and effectively ousted Prime Minister John Howard. He brought in Penny Wong (a Malaysian born Chinese) to target the Chinese vote during his election campaign. This is possibly Australia's first case of the ethnic vote changing Australia's government.
Rudd must be convinced that Australia should become a southern province of China and he runs his government like a Chinese Politburo.
Nothing wrong with foreigners contributing to Australian society, but there is a fundamental problem when foreigners are allowed to change Australian society and supplant Australian culture with their own - language, shop signage, customs, rules, ways of life, and employment bias.
It is immigration invasion.
When one ethnic group dominates the management in a workplace, in order to maintain 'cultural fit' employees are selected on the basis of having the same ethnicity. It is of course racist. But such practice is most prevalent in workplaces (including government) where one non-English speaking ethnic group dominates.
When the shoe is on the other foot, locals are branded racist and the Ethnic Communities Council steps in claiming discrimination.
And Rudd is encouraging this displacement of locals for foreigners.
Election cycle argument too charitable to our political rulers
I think the election cycle argument is far too kind to our political rulers.
The real reason is that this policy helps the powerful vested interests to whom they are beholden.
Whether we had three year, four year or five year electoral electoral cycles, is unlikely to alter their fundamental behaviour.
The only difference, if anything, would be that if there were longer terms of office, the behaviour of our political rulers would be even worse.
If we were a healthy democracy, the remedy would be to boot out all the politicians from both major parties out at the next elections, but we are not a healthy democracy so that may prove to be a little harder, although, hopefully not altogether impossible.
Russell Rees' resignation presents an opportunity
The decision by Victoria's Country Fire Authority chief, Russell Rees, to resign is appropriate.
The problem is that Premier Brumby wrongly supported him. Indeed the right thing would have been for him to resign last year.
The ‘time is right’ for change at the helm of the organisation. When the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission is due to hand down its final report in July, the need for this change will be more obvious to the general public not closely following this investigation process.
But there is no indication that CFA chairman Kerry Murphy will make real changes to his CFA to handle another Black Saturday event any differently. It is same old same old volunteer blame and Brumby is integrally complicit. Murphy and Brumby are complicit in Victoria's preparedness and response to the State Government's and to go as well.
Bushfire management has become of a scale and severity and deadly impact to warrant a military equivalent organisation and approach. Fumbling dad's armies are grossly inadequate and a negligent government approach that have been inadequate ever since the shock of 1939's Black Friday. How many such bushfire emergencies and bushfore deaths has Australia experienced since 1939?
Yet both state and federal governments around Australia have for 70 year squirmed away from serious resourcing bushfire management. Brumby and Rudd perpetuate that squirming.
The community expectation is that government is responsible for mitigating the impacts of natural disasters and national emergencies, like the February 2009 Bushfires, like the Queensland floods, like the Melbourne and Perth recent hailstorms. Sending volunteers in harms way is worse than recklessness. It is criminal negligence and the community have a right to hold government legally responsible. I am surprised a class action has not been brought by the victims.
These governments know the risks, know the consequences, yet abandon bushfire management to the lot of volunteers. But criminal negligence is a 'misfeasance' or 'nonfeasance', where the fault lies in the failure to foresee and so allow otherwise avoidable dangers to manifest. The degree of culpability is determined by applying a reasonable person standard. Criminal negligence becomes "gross" when the failure to foresee involves a "wanton disregard for human life."
Next time there will be a class legal action in the billions. If government invested billions upfront to properly equip bushfire fighting seriously, it would save lives.
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
Madden allows canal estate at Point Lonsdale
Madden has just signed off another huge and inappropriate development.
This time it is the Stocklands Development at Point Lonsdale.
When Hulls was Minister, this was refused and Stocklands were given Tooronga on a silver platter.
Now Madden gives them Point Lonsdale. which is as odds with the government's 2008 coastal strategy, which prohibits 'the development of new residential canal estates to ensure the protection of coastal and estuary environments'
So here we are, again the government breaking the rules.
Source: Email from Planning Backlash
Vocational training benefits are outside election cycles
My cynical but pragmatic answer to Milly's question above: How does our government justify head-hunting the educated from overseas, especially doctors where they are needed?
Vocational training benefits are ouside the timeframe of election cycles. Our current Labor Government is currently only interested in getting its health deal to win voter brownie points in time for the next election.
But it takes ten years to train a medical doctor through internship to being a GP. Australian governments typically marginally in power are so desperate for the swinging vote that they focus on election sweetening programmes in four year cycles. But Labor, Liberal, Nationals or Greens lack any long term policy or funding programme that matches the employment needs of the health industry to targeted vocational training of Australians to fill GP, nursing and health care worker positions in Australia in say ten years time.
It takes about five years to build a new hospital as the new West Australian example suggests: Nedlands Children's hospital built by 2015 We are behind building new hospitals in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, where the Federal Government forecast millions more people to be living over the next few decades. Brisbane is planing to merge the Royal Children's Hospital and the Mater Children's Hospital but this is not adding a new hospital to the mix. The Liberals in Victoria claim they are considering a new children's hospital in Melbourne's southeast, but has stopped short of fully backing the plan. Sydney is doing nothing.
Australian government culture at all levels is short sighted and immature and the Australian mainstream media are part of the problem.
In Australia, successive Liberal and Labor governments have allowed a chronic disconnect between growing employment needs in both the private and public sectors, and targeted vocational education. Employers have reneged on training their workforce. Workplace training has been abandoned because employers have been allowed to adopt the habit of recruiting skilled people rather than train their existing people.
Eventually, the local talent pool dries up, so employers look overseas and governments help them. It is a short sighted bandaid solution that ignores the vocational training needs of Australians.
In my industry, IT, Australians are being left behind in technology skills. Indians and Chinese dominate IT because language and cultural fit is deemed less vital than other fields and so many thousands of them are qualified in software - read to 'plug and play'.
It amounts to job invasion.
Concern about increased investment in rural property
The Real Estate Institute of Australia has launched a review of foreign purchases of Australian farms, fearing agriculture could suffer. There are reports in a ten fold increase in farms being sold to Chinese recently. Professor Zhangyue Zhou from the James Cook University says the move to buy "international land" is coming from the Chinese Government, which wants to ensure the country has food security for the future.
Chinese investors were interested in going to Tasmania to buy investment in dairy farms.
Supporting our agricultural producers is vitally important in terms of ensuring food security is maintained in Australia. It is also about ensuring that regional and rural communities are sustained by strong industries with promising outlooks.
ABC Rural
Instead of Australia belonging to Australians, we are becoming "international" property, part of the Asia Pacific region that includes China. Surely Kevin Rudd's first priority should be to serve the people of Australia and ensure our own food and water security, not that of China!
Alienated and disjointed society
"Australia is racist". We keep hearing all about the wonderful benefits of multiculturalism, and there have been benefits, but nothing about the costs of "diversity"! With the increasing number of migrants, Anglo (original) Australians are becoming a minority. Our society has become fragmented and disjointed. The "melting-pot" of cultural diversity isn't all vibrancy and harmony. The down side is over-population, increasing high density living, infrastructure and environmental stress and rising costs etc. But, another problem is that Australia is being reported as "racist" when there are problems with Indians being assaulted - but they are part of a multi-million dollar industry!
Generally the media are not allowed to report the ethnicity of the perpetrators or victims unless it is relevant to the crime. Instead of it being a problem in a multicultural and ailing society, it appears that "Australians" are racist.
The cost of constant immigration and multiculturalism is taking its toll, but hidden from the public. Our cities are becoming centres of violence and conflict, drugs and alcohol, and unemployment, but and some of it is due to the "diversity" of an alienated and society full of inequalities and stresses.
The ideals of multiculturalism and harmony are fine, but the flaw is in the nature of humanity in the face of multiple stresses.
head-hunting educated from developing countries
How does our government justify head-hunting the educated from overseas, especially doctors where they are needed? It is cheaper to import professionals than to subsidise those educated in Australia. We should be training doctors of our own. We don't lack skills in Australia. Education is prohibitively expensive, and with the costs of housing out of reach of even professionals, young people are burdened very early in life with long-term debts. It is wrong to lure doctors away from their own countries, for more income, when they are needed where they are.
India needs 600,000 more doctors: Plan Panel
India needs 600,000 more doctors: Plan Panel
April 07, 2008 11:29 IST
"Painting a grim picture on the healthcare sector, the Planning Commission has blamed the shortage of medical professionals for the dismal scenario. There was a requirement of at least 600,000 more doctors, it said.
The situation is particularly bad in the public healthcare sector [...] has been on a serious decline during the last two or three decades because of non- availability of medical and paramedical staff, diagnostic services and medicines."
In Community Health Centers something like 59% of positions for surgeons, 45% of positions for gynecologists and obstetricians, 61% of positions for physicians and 53 % of positions for pediatricians remained vacant.
"The number of doctors registered by different state councils stood at 6,68,131 during the year 2006 giving a doctor to population ratio of 60:100000. [...] If the targeted doctor population norm is taken as 1:1000, there is a requirement of at least 600,000 doctors. [...]"
About 282,130 dental surgeons were needed but there were only 23,271.
"While the ideal population of nurses should have been 2,188,890 in 2007, currently only 1,156,372 nurses were available."
[...]
Read more here:
India needs 600,000 more doctors: Plan Panel in Rediff India Abroad.
The discussion is interesting and ressembles some of Australia's. Both countries have governments which don't provide what is necessary.
Spin is worse than open rejection of Australian values
Scott,
Your quote from local council..."...an area that celebrates its diversity through its social connectedness and activities, is a welcome open safe environment and is enhanced by local parks, managed bushland and 'green' streetscapes. It has a community that respects differences and one that is proud of their area."
And the propaganda is 'Social Housing'.
This is despicable deceptive spin to cloak what is government organised concentrated migrant settlement of Mirrabooka. Some right-wingers with 'eugenics' leniencies in Australia's inner Immigration policy bureau have selected Mirrabooka as a convenient test waste site for troubled male immigrants of war-torn Somalia, Sudan and Afghanistan.
This is now exposed lads!
'Mirrabooka' sounds like an Aboriginal word. So what do the local Aborigines think of this mass of Africans and Afghans being trust on them?
Is this Bartlett's immigrant refuse tip?
The City of Stirling's vision for Mirrabooka is to dislocate locals for immigrants.
Mirrabooka may as well be dubbed New Kandahar or New Bangalore.
Rudd has become a traitor to Australia.
Australia actively recruiting offshore
Thanks Daniel,
While your warning is tongue in cheek, the examples you provide underscore the truth of what is happening.
As for Telstra Customer 'Care', try phoning Telstra's national fault number 13 22 03 as I have recently done. It's Russian Roulette you get an Australian, but the blanks are a Philippino operator with a strict spiel and poor English.
Row erupts over Telstra's 'outsourcing' to Indian companies
[2nd April 2003]
This very day back on 22nd April 2003, the ABC 730 Report reported as follows:
Australia opens exam centres in India to recruit doctors
"No one is surprised these days if a telephone inquiry to a big company takes them to a call centre in some other part of the world. But revelations today that Telstra is importing IT contractors from India to work in Australia has given the globalisation debate here a renewed intensity. The union movement quickly condemned the practice, claiming that cheaper Indian workers were taking jobs from Australians and undercutting hard-won wage gains. Telstra, which has shed thousands of jobs in the past few years, maintains it is just doing business in a world economy and the best advice from the experts is "get used to it".
Since 2008, the Rudd Government has been actively recruiting doctors from India:
"Sydney, Oct 21 (IANS) Australia is set to open five examination centres in India to recruit overseas trained doctors, desperately needed to meet the acute shortage of medical professionals in the country.Indian doctors, who have applied for migration to Australia, will be able to sit for a multiple-choice exam that will test their medical knowledge at one of the five centres in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai, The Australian newspaper reported Tuesday.
The first exams are scheduled to be held as early as Nov 17-19.
Until now, Indian doctors had to sit for the exam in testing centres set up for the past few years in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai or London.
The Australian government, under the MedicarePlus reforms introduced five years ago, had pledged not to actively recruit or in other words poach doctors from developing countries such as India.
“There has been a very careful review of the situation in India, and we have been given instruction that they are no longer part of these sensitive areas,” Australian Medical Council Chief Executive Ian Frank told The Australian.
“We are permitted to go back in there now. We don’t think it’s going to make a significant difference to the number recruited, it will just make it a bit easier for the candidates,” Frank told The Australian.
India is perhaps the biggest single source of overseas trained doctors migrating to Australia. About 6,500 foreign doctors come to work in Australia each year, most of them from the Indian subcontinent, Britain and South Africa.
However, in the aftermath of the much publicised botched terrorism case of Indian doctor Muhammad Haneef, the number of overseas trained doctors coming from India had plummeted.
The Australian health system relies heavily on foreign doctors, particularly in regional and remote areas where Australians don’t want to work. Forty percent of all doctors in Australia were overseas trained and a large proportion of these doctors hail from the Indian subcontinent. Almost 15 percent of overseas trained doctors in Australia are Indians.
The Patel Lesson
In recent years, there has been lot of talk about making tests more stringent for overseas trained doctors and also formally assessing knowledge and skills of medical professionals before they arrive on the shores of Australia, especially after India-born US doctor Jayant Patel’s case came to light few years ago.
Patel has been charged with 14 offences, including three counts of manslaughter, two counts of grievous bodily harm, and fraud, relating to his employment as director of surgery at regional Bundaberg Base Hospital in Queensland between 2003 and 2005. He will face court for a committal hearing in February next year. It is said to be probably the worst medical-negligence scandal in the country."
Australian standards - what are they?
Rudd's a rotten traitor.
Immigrant Backlash
This morning, from a cave somewhere in Pakistan, Taliban Minister of Emigration, Mohammed Omar warned Australia that if military action against Iraq & Afghanistan continues, Taliban authorities will cut off Australia's supply of Convenience Store managers, and if this action does not yield results, Cab Drivers will be next, followed by Telstra Customer Service Representatives, Telemarketers and finally Queensland Doctors.
THIS IS GETTING UGLY, FOLKS !!!!!!
State housing in Mirrabooka
Last year the Barnett government sold off most of the remaining state housing (homeswest) properties in the western suburbs (including Colin Barnett's suburb of Cottesloe) and used the money to build even more dwellings in Dianella and Lancelin. This has the "desired" effect of moving indigenous Australians out of the affluent areas and cramming them into Perth's northern burbs. Of course Mirrabooka used to be a landfill site and the groundwater in the area (including Dianella) was last year declared to be contaminated.
I can only assume that the Office of Multicultural Interests "Harmony Forever" plan is not having the desired effect. The City of Stirling's vision for Mirrabooka in 2020 is :
......an area that celebrates its diversity through its social connectedness and activities, is a welcome open safe environment and is enhanced by local parks, managed bushland and 'green' streetscapes. It has a community that respects differences and one that is proud of their area
Back on planet Earth I wonder if the locals are aware of this fabled "Mirrabooka"
Now we have a threat of the under 30s unemployed
We are supposed to have an "ageing population" threat, and now it is also young people under 30! Where does that leave this generation? In the middle of despair? There are just not enough jobs for everybody, despite job hunting. People can't be expected to just change location according to job availability. The cost of housing, transport and relocating is expensive and may not be available anyway.
Education is prohibitively expensive, apprenticeships are almost impossible to find, and jobs are scarce. At the same time, we are supposed to have "skills shortages". This generation has been locked out of housing, or into mortgage stress, and many out of tertiary education due to massive HECS depts.
What do the Coalition plan to do - import more people from overseas to off -set the under 30s, just as they do for the ageing?
People are being treated as economic units, and society as a resource for the elite to manipulate and plunder for their own ends.
Whatever happened to governments FOR the people? That's what they have been elected to do, make policies for the welfare and benefits of the people, the voters.
We live in a society, with families, not an just an economy to alienate the "unproductive" who don't add to the GDP!
I stand by the comment made
I stand by the comment made that the botanist employed by Biolink was aware of the presence of eleocarpus williamsianus on our property. I refer to the regeneration and rehabilitation plan for this plant on our farm which was drawn up by Bushland Restoration Services and Landmark Ecological Services under the auspices of the Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority in 2006, and I quote: "The two sites selected were identified during previous surveys (Kupsch undated) as suitable for this project." While Mr Kupsch may not have actually used GPS during his surveys he was noted to be on our farm in the 1990s at a time when he was using GPS to get co-ordinates for other rare and endangered species in this region. As stated at the beginning of that section of my submission, I decided not to go into detail on environmental issues as they had been covered by others far more qualified than myself in that field, I simply wanted to point out some omissions from the Biolink report. I do not understand why this has caused such a strong reaction.
The reference to distance from the road is in my submission because I read in the Federal EPBC Act that no activity which would put an endangered species at risk should occur within 2km of that species without Ministerial involvement in setting conditions. This was highly pertinent to the No Rally Group attempt to have the event referred to Minister Garrett under the EPBC Act and to our sightings of the Mitchell's Rainforest Snail on the road. The trees which Mr Kupsch alleges not to have surveyed are only 80m below the road, on the edge of the bananas closest to the road. I refer to distance in plan view using the topographic map and a set of dividers to measure distance. While the Giant King Fern is above the road, hence at low risk from fuel spill or crushing by out of control rally cars (unlike the eleocarpus williamsianus) , I measured it as less than 1km from the road using the same tools.
I have made contact with the author of the above comment to explain where I got my information. If he wishes to have his name removed from this record of my submission that is fine by me.
National Men's Health forum (Andrology) in Bondi - June 4-6
Andrology Australia Forum 4-6 June, Bondi, NSW: Registration Open
Don't forget to register
Andrology Australia is pleased to announce that registration is now open for the 4th annual Andrology Australia Forum, as part of the program's 10 year celebration in men's health, and the year of the launch of the first National Men's Health Policy.
This year's theme is 'Tackling the Inequities of Men's Health' to provide an overview of research, policy and practice to address the disparities that exist between different groups of men.
The 1-1/2 day Andrology Australia Forum is being held on 4th to 6th June, 2010 in Bondi, NSW.
An exciting program has been developed including Plenary Speakers Dr Noel Richardson (Ireland) and Governor Prof David de Kretser AC (Vic) confirmed to speak at the event. A RACGP accredited GP workshop is also being planned (facilitated by Dr Mark Wenitong) to consider ways for GPs and other health professionals to better engage and support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males in health.
More details about the Forum can be found at http://www.asnevents.com.au/andrology/.
Registration is now open and can be made directly on the conference website Registration
Letter to the Australian re Stable Pop Party
Yesterday, apparently, the Australian said it would print the following in the Letters section:
"New party embraces migrants
The Stable Population Party of Australia welcomes both continued immigration and the migrants who have joined our party. It was therefore disappointing to see The Australian misrepresent our position with its ‘New party slams immigrants’ headline on April 20.
It not only misrepresented our philosophy of an open and tolerant Australia, but it bore no resemblance to the article. It is undisputed that Australia has a rich history in migration, but there are limits to growth and we now have a small margin for error.
The evidence is overwhelming. We have major population-driven problems around housing, water, health, traffic, carbon emissions, infrastructure, biodiversity, urban planning, trade deficits and foreign debt, to name a few.
The most recent research shows that around seven out of ten Australians support a stable population, and it seems most immigrant Australians agree.
On current evidence, the only democratic and sustainable choice for Australia is to rapidly stabilise at around 23 million. A flexible migration program with around 50-80,000 immigrants per annum and the predicted natural increase of one to two million would land us around this level at 2050.
William Bourke
Convenor
Stable Population Party of Australia
Sydney"
A Muslim majority in 20 years?
Many new migrants are having babies and retaining their culture of origin - language, religion, customs, laws, food, way of life, values and attitudes.
'Figures from demographic consultants Macroplan Australia show record overseas migration and an ageing population mean migrant families will overtake the number of locally born residents by 2025 - far sooner than previously imagined. The Australian-born family will become a minority group within 15 years - outnumbered by a surging wave of migrants from Europe and Asia.'
Read We'll be a nation of new migrants
In this article, our omnipotent Bernard Salt materialises again justifying: "It all adds to the cosmopolitan nature of modern Australia," KPMG demographer Bernard Salt said. "It means our views become less blinkered, and we become more tolerant, confident, engaged, opportunistic and optimistic because we are open to new ideas, not obsessed with keeping things the same."
----------------
Statistics show that Belgium could be a muslim majority in 20 years? Could Australia follow?
Brussels: A Muslim majority in 20 years
Are Australian-borns feeling 'more tolerant, confident, engaged, opportunistic and optimistic' about becoming a minority and swamped by 50 million by 2050? Mmmm, Cronulla rising.
Mark O'Connor debates Population with Marcus Spiller tonight
POPULATION FORUM 6PM BMW EDGE AT FEDERATION SQUARE
with Mark O"Connor against Marcus Spiller.
Put on by the City of Melbourne and I have just heard from them that they are doing it because I suggested it to them and to Councillor Peter Clarke - so please support if you can possibly make it.
Source: Planning Backlash
More babies
Mr Abbott is a Catholic.
This will end very badly
So Australia's role in the world is to rip minerals out of the ground as fast as possible (an irreplaceable resource we should be saving for future generations), to grow our population to 100 million as quickly as possible to facilitate this (thats where we are headed to in a century's time at current rates). So we need population growth to fund an aging population? Population growth just creates an even huger aging population in the future.
Look at this headline I saw today: "The Westpac-Melbourne Institute leading index of economic activity, which indicates the likely pace of activity three to nine months into the future, rose 1.3 per cent to post an annualised growth rate of 7.2 per cent in February." Does anyone think that sort of growth rate is at all sustainable?
This is a flaw of the human brain. We are incapable of accepting that things might change in the future, so we cannot effectively plan for it. This fuzzy headedness is programmed into us by evolution unfortunately.
Liberals want more babies
Abbott wants more babies, fewer people
[Lenore Tayor, Sydney Morning Herald, 10th April 2010]
Liberal Opposition leader 'Tony Abbott hopes a Coalition government's family-friendly policies will boost Australia's birth rate but at the same time says projected population increases - fuelled by a baby boom and high immigration - are not sustainable.
Over the past five years Australia's fertility rate has jumped from 1.7 births each woman to 1.9 births, but Mr Abbott told the Herald that raising the birth rate even higher was "a desirable goal" and getting it above two births each woman "would be a very good thing".
Mr Abbott has promised more assistance for families with children, who he describes as "the new poor", on top of his generous policy of offering six months' parental leave.'
Labor and Liberal are different factions of the same growthist ideology.
Both ignore local social downgrades of Australian standards of living because they are both 20th Century in thinking and aloof from the social problems.
Sydney's 'Metropolitan Strategy' for another 1.1 million
In 2004, the NSW Government prepared its
Metropolitan Strategy as a "broad framework to secure Sydney's place in the global economy by promoting and managing growth...over the next 25 years."
It is a reaction to mass federal immigration encouraged by the Howard Liberal Government and accelerated by the Rudd Labor Government - same ideology different faction.
The Metropolitan Strategy states:
'Sydney's population is anticipated to grow by 1.1 million people between 2004 and 2031, from a current population of 4.2 million to 5.3 million by 2031. To cater for this growth, the Government has predicted we will require the following:
* 640,000 new homes;
* 500,000 more jobs are being planned for over the next 25 to 30 years
* 7,500 hectares of extra industrial land if current trends continue
* 6.8 million square metres of additional commercial floor space; and
* 3.7 million square metres of additional retail space.
Even if we have zero population growth over that time, i.e. our births and migration equal deaths, we would still require 190,000 new homes in Sydney to respond to demographic changes where fewer people are living in each home.'
It idenifies the TRENDS AND DRIVERS as follows:
* population growth and demographic change, including migration trends, birth rates, and ageing population and less people living in each household;
* employment growth and change, including more service and office based jobs and a shift to integrated office, production and warehousing operations which means more land is required for some economic activities;
* the increasing globalisation of the economy, which means Sydney and Australia have to compete internationally to attract investment and sell goods and services overseas to remain prosperous;
* the push for more sustainable development, in the face of global environmental and climatic changes, which creates drier and more unpredictable weather events, and increased rates of consumption of natural resources such as water and fuels for energy;
* the rising costs of transport-fuel prices, congestion, greenhouse gas emission, air quality and community physical and mental health - are placing in! creasing burdens on families and business.
* Demand for travel is increasing faster than population growth and the largest increase is in the use of private vehicles.'
Love that phrase 'sustainable development'. Sustainable for whom?
Whereas, “a Coalition state government would allow more Greenfield developments on Sydney’s fringes.” [SMH 12th March 2010, p.4]
It's just like the 1960s all over again and a 1960s Lib/Lab response.
People are not just stackable economic units
For our leaders and elite, people have been reduced to being merely economic units to sustain their own privileges. People like Steve Bracks, who manages superannuation and insurance properties, have no vision beyond their own ivory towers. Yes, growth has been good and technology has improved, but people are not stackable units, non-descript consumers, to be accumulated as a resource for the benefit of mass markets, land developers and investors!
Despite what Steve Bracks says, our lifestyles have seriously deteriorated in recent decades, and Melbourne with its flashy buildings has superficially improved, but not the well-being of the majority. The so-called "vibrancy" of a cultural melting-pot is really evidenced in increased violence, poverty and outer-suburban hopelessness, inner ghettos and cultural sterilty.
We live in a society, not an economy, and people are more than units to exploit to increase our overall GDP!
Growth addiction undermines social health
"No growth can be limitless"? Well perhaps in the minds of those driving it and benefitting from it.
But what does the property aristocracy care for the plight of renting serfs? So long as the rent is paid and their property prices keep rising, personal wealth is all that matters. Rudd and Swan are simpletons convinced we live in an economy, but we live in a complex society.
But few politicians are educated in sociology. Most politicians living gated lives with insulated salaries, looking through their rose coloured glasses consider people just economic 'resources'. Economic statistics drive an unquestionned, almost evangelistic movement of 'ECONOMIC GROWTH'.
Australian society is being told that only the economy really matters and they believe it as if it were a deity. And so economic growth is encouraged to drive exploitation, personal wealth imbalance, while social issues are ignored. Liberal and Labor are factions of the 20th Century simplistic free market ideology. They do not care who is NOT benefitting from economic growth, nor the downsides, nor the social inequities and social costs. We do not have Quality GDP, just GDP. Rudd and Swan live by the KISS principle. They seek to reduce complexity to simplicity because it is easier to understand and manage. It is blissful ignorance.
Society is not harnessing growth. Instead, Liberal and Labor philosophy is to just let economic growth run a muck presuming all good will flow from it to all corners of society, which is deluded simpleton fantasy. The only blunt control used is for the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates. Mortgage holders are financially punished for the excesses of consumer spending and corporate marketing.
What should be GROWING is the quality of life of underprivileged Australians - of whom there are many.
The addition to growth is undermining our society. Growthism fuels urban sprawl, congestion, rising costs of living, housing unaffordability and social stress manifesting as longer work hours, reduced leisure, recued exercise, family breakdown, substance abuse, homelessness, crime, mental health problems and suicide.
Alongside quarterly GDP, I would like to see posted by local government area Suicide Rates, Cost of Living Index and Homelessness as indicators of social health around the country.
Here's a good read: Why Economic Growth may not bring increased Happiness
No growth can do on forever
No growth can be limitless, as our media and political leaders seem to think. Already the liveability of our cities is being eroded, and our costs are spiraling. Housing is becoming un affordable due to competition with rapid population growth. Our land's resources are finite, and already our environment is suffering from 230 years since Colonial settlement. Our economy may grow, but ultimately we live in a society that depends on intact ecosystems, not just the economy. The economy should serve us, not enslave us to growth addiction.
Pests are foreign indigenous invading here, i.e. 'immigration'
Re: comment above: "Possums in NZ ... but what about koalas and rabbits in OZ?'
Yeah, it's pretty brave to shoot a koala - sleeps in trees 80% of the time and otherwise is eating gum leaves. So it's the sort of sick thrill Robert Borsak would entertain, like his shooting a trusting African bull elephant from six paces.
Rabbits in Australia need to be controlled humanely just as possums in New Zealand do. It doesn't mean Australians go back to selling rabbit fur to perpetuate this immoral trade. It means get rid of the rabbits!
How true you say, "introduced species can become pests ... and when they do, they do need to be either reduced sufficiently (the likely if not inevitable outcome) or extinguished which has proved almost impossible with established pest species.' The right species in the right place ..."
So, when can this start applying to human plague?
Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) should be prioritising addressing the plight of their own indigenous peoples. As comparatively wealthy countries in this region, ANZ would do better to assist the sustainablity of economies and societies of Pacific Island nations rather than ignoring their plight.
By ANZ just ignoring these smaller nations in our region, just encourages the demise of Pacific Islands and the forced emigration of Pacific Islander people to New Zealand and Australia anyway.
This migration is robbing the talent pool from those nations, displacing workers and home owners in ANZ, shifting problems from one nation to another and fueling racial tensions. ANZ are reckless in their leadership and support for our region.
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
New Zealand poaching of possums backward
Re: comment above 'Analysis of NZ possum culling simplistic'
There is no confusion about what backyard descendants of New Zealander colonists are doing: poaching possums for profit to perpetuate an immoral 19th Century fur trade.
Where is the confusion?
If the New Zealand Department of Conservation (DOC) was genuine, competent and not morally bankrupt it would have an effective programme of gradual humane eradication of possums from New Zealand. Traps, cruel 1080 poision (banned in many countries) and allowing mum and dad poachers to profit from possums is not a genuine attempt at pest control (despite it wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayers money every year) and clearly incompetent and morally bankrupt.
DOC calls possum poaching 'Possum fur recovery'. DOC 'supports possum fur recovery in a number of regions' and attempts to make the trade "economic." It's as bad as if introducing foxes to New Zealand so mum and dad poachers can have a fox fur trade. It's bloody lunacy!
DOC also engages in what it calls 'aerial control' - chucking 1080 poison indiscriminately out of a helicopter over forest. Nice and 'simplistic' approach to pest control! Luckily the reckless bastards don't have access to Agent Orange!
Such practice sends a message that New Zealand is a backward culture.
Yes, all feral pests should be 'controlled' in new Zealand but humanely and not to perpetuatre an immoral trade. This includes the possum, stoats, weasles, rats, goats, pigs and rabbits and deer - all the ferals introduced by human colonist ferals. I'd be pissed off if I were Maori about all this damage. And I reject your labelling of Maori as 'noble savage'. These are your words - how racist!
Has NZ asked Australia for assistance to help with pest control?
You claim removing feral animals from N.Z is "naive" and "not possible". Whate has the NZ Government done and why is it failing, yet still wasting money?
Why not repatriate the possums back to Australia - at New Zealand's expense of course - since it was NZ colonists that put em there in the first place? New Zealanders can keep their apples out of Australia by the way - no more exotic species across the Tasman! Perhaps New Zealanders should leave Australia alone as well!
What I did say is true. The Maori did hunt the flightless Moa into extinction.
Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moa and all the references references.
Bugger the cuteness, if it is feral, control it and if possible re[patriate it to its country of origin.
Every feral animal in the wild should be removed from the wild humanely. This is the progfessional approach. Your EVERY animal is fair game approach resounds of ethnic cleansing.
Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia
Prices of properties driven up by foreign investors
foreign investors drive Knox prices upward
Ray Abley of Ray Abley Real Estate in Ferntree Gully warned an influx of foreign cash was having a ridiculous effect on local property prices. He said properties were being snapped up by recently landed migrants and overseas investors, some of whom were flying into the country for whirlwind weekend property splurges.
For those unfamiliar with Melbourne, it is an outer suburb on the foothills of Mount Dandenong. It is a residential area that includes industries. It is NOT Toorak or Brighton - a comfortable suburb but the people are generally not wealthy.
This is a betrayal of the interests of Australians. Already we are struggling with mortgage stress and homelessness. Thanks to Kevin Rudd, the dream of home ownership and land with a front and back yard is impossible. Not only this, but foreigners are allowed here to buy property and “help Australia’s growth” - according to Treasurer Wayne Swan!
By displacing the public from home ownership, Kevin Rudd can implement his agenda of high density living onto us, and also increase demand for “social housing”. This is all part of making Australia more “prosperous” through a “big Australia”. However, it is not the public who will share this wealth but the elite and privileged few investors and the already wealthy - even though they may not even live in Australia. Australian could end up paying rent to landlords in China!
Correction to this letter by Fiona McCormick
Editor's comment re the below: The comment below just arrived on our website. It is not clear to me who the author is. He cites two paragraphs containing two names - "Steve" and "Dr Phillips", so I guess the email, signed 'anonymous' could come from either person or from someone else. I am publishing it here in the hope that the author of this email will come forward and clarify, but also to show our good faith here. And I will let the publisher of the article know of this email. Read on:
I HAVE ASKED FOR THIS CONTENT TO BE EDITED SO AS TO BE CORRECT AND FACTUAL HOWEVER MY REQUEST HAS FALLEN ON DEAF EARS. THE FOLLOWING IS WHAT THE ARTICLE READS AS.
We also informed Steve of koala sightings, there being a colony immediately above one of the hairpins about 300m along from our main farm entrance. His botanist, Kris Kupsch is aware of the presence of eleocarpus williamsianus ('Hairy Quandong') on our farm ~80m below the road, as he was the first to use GPS to locate it. There are 11 stands of this critically endangered tree in the entire world, all within a 20km radius of our farm.
It is extremely remiss of Dr Phillips to fail to include this extremely rare plant and
critically endangered invertebrate in his report, especially given that he knew of their
existence. The Giant Fern is also present less than 1km from Cudgera Creek Road on
a neighbours farm.
I NEED TO MAKE SOME COMMENTS OR ELSE I WILL BE FORCED TO TAKE STRONGER ACTION AGAINST THE AUTHOR AS THIS INFORMATION BORDERS ON PROFESSIONAL DISCOURSE.
1. I HAVE NEVER BEEN TO THE SITE OF THE TREES IN MENTION.
2. AS I HAVE NEVER BEEN TO THE SITE, I DID NOT RECORD THEIR GPS WAYPOINT.
3. 80M FROM THE ROAD. I THINK YOU WILL FIND ITS FURTHER THAN THAT. FOR 80M ONTO THE SPOKEN PROPERTY, IS BANANAS.
4. WHAT ON EARTH IS THE PRESENCE OF RALLY ROAD USERS GOING TO HAVE ON THE LOCATION OF THE KING FERN? I KNOW THE SITE WELL. THERE IS ONE PLANT LEFT IN NSW, IT IS HUNDREDS OF METRES FROM THE ROAD, UPSTREAM, AND ENTIRELY SAFE FROM THE ROAD USERS.
PLEASE USE YOUR OWN LOGIC WHEN IT COMES TO THIS INFORMATION. IN MY CASE, I HAVE FOUND IT MISINFORMED AND HAS NO ENVIRONMENTAL BASIS AT ALL.
REGARDS
Australian 1/4 acre block dream sold to Rudd's foreign investors
Australia is following Brazil and it has transpired first in the capital cities.
Worst perhaps in Sydney.
According to an article by News Limited journalist in Sydney's Sunday Telegraph 18 April 2010 (which Murdoch has excluded from publishing on the Internet), a study by property analyst Residex has found that 750 new homes a week need to be built in NSW in order to keep up with immigration and population demand.
The article runs:
'Almost 86,000 people migrated to NSW from overseas in the year to September 2009, more than offsetting the 16,700 drop in population caused by interstate migration. [Mainly Australian-born families escaping Sydney's migrant demographic for south east Queensland].
Natural population increase (by both Australian-borns and migrants) added a further 40,000.
NSW managing director of project marketing group, MLG, Chris Freeman is coming from the housing supply side, yet his observations are telling:
"The housing shortage in NSW is dire...we're building far fewer dwellings than we were 20 years ago, and the population growth is two and a half times what it was then."
'Residex managing director John Edwards said most Sydneysiders would be renting by 2040. "The children of the current generation, who've been looking for houses and have given up, will mostly be renters...and the generation that's being born now are unlikely to own their homes."
Since the Rudd Government relaxed its rules on property ownership in March 2009, the floodgates have opened on foreign investment into Australian residential property. In Melbourne, wealthy Chinese based investors are snapping up prime residential real estate and driving up residential house prices and domestic interest rates. Local house hunters are complaining they are being priced out by foreigners who have no intention of living in their new properties.
Chinese buyers fuel top-end property boom by Marika Dobbin 19th September 2009.]
Brighton real estate agent, Nick Johnstone of J. P. Dixon, claimed last September he had made at least 40% sales for the year to the Chinese. Other agents in the east and south-eastern suburbs have reported the same level of demand. "Australia is the flavour of the month amongst the Chinese investors,'' Mr Johnstone, 41, said yesterday. ''They love property and there's plenty of money over there so they're good clients to have.''
''They buy them to land bank, not to rent them out. The houses just sit vacant because they are after the capital growth.''
Last month, Treasurer Wayne Swan announced a further relaxation of Australia's foreign investment screening to ''help boost Australia's growth''.
Keen to cash in on the boom, Marshall White, J. P. Dixon and other big agencies such as Jellis Craig are hastily establishing connections with offshore accounts, lawyers and businessmen to funnel a stream of buyers into Melbourne.
Also in hot demand are Mandarin-speaking Melbourne real estate agents and property lawyers.
Meanwhile, Australia's largest developers - including Australand, Central Equity, Simonds, Becton - are setting up offices in China and Hong Kong to spruik off-the-plan developments."
Prominent real estate franchise LJ Hooker in Sydney's north west suburb of Ryde promotes 'Languages Spoken: Cantonese, Mandarin, Italian"
The Rudd Government has condemned the classic Australian dream of owning a house with a backyard (the quarter acre block) to history.
[Single-person homes may replace Aussie dream' by Di Bain of the ABC, 9th March 2010].
"A few key findings were revealed...at the urban developers' conference in Sydney 9th March 2010 - a report has found the Australian dream of owning a three-bedroom house on a quarter-acre block is a thing of the past and that smaller homes for singletons must be built. A housing supply report to be released officially next month predicts the number of single-person homes will account for one third of Australia's housing supply within 20 years.'
'The report says not enough homes are being built in Australia to cope with population and lifestyle changes. According to the National Housing Council (NHC), there will be a dramatic rise in the number of homes from 8.5 million to just under 12 million by 2029. More people will choose to live in the city, with Sydney, Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane the preferred capitals.'
A Salty.
Poor old Bernard 'the salt that's lost its savor'. I love seeing him on ACA playing the whole community family friendly persona nice guy image, but deep down he's a betrayer and a situationist , who mashes the data up as quick as it arrives.
MySchool of elected politicians