Comments

O-for-Justice (not verified)

Sat, 2009-12-19 22:58

Subject was: "Judge halts Delaware dredging over toxic sediment concern" - JS If only the state of Victoria had the guts shown by the state of Delaware. See Judge halts Delaware dredging over toxic sediment concern. "The proposed channel deepening has been a source of friction in the region, with Pennsylvania championing the idea amid questions from officials in Delaware ..."

Tigerquoll

Sat, 2009-12-19 21:12

Someone should inform Kevin that 'big is not better'. Perhaps Rudd has Obama-envy.

If Rudd wants to perform for Australia's interests and not his own, Rudd needs to start achieving quality not quantity on combatting climate change, because after 18 months Australia is knee deep in committees and speeches, yet parched on betterment results. Since coming to PM-ship what has Rudd done to combat deforestation in Australia? What new national parks has Rudd announced?

The days of thinking big 20th Century Fox scale industry is just going to dig us a deeper economic boom-bust cycle and worsen urban Australia's greenhouse gas cultural addiction. Obama and Rudd both would do well to invest less energy into speech craft and more into tangible ecological results.

Ecological science is about life processes, distribution and abundance of organisms, the movement of materials and energy through living communities, the successional development of ecosystems, and the abundance and distribution of biodiversity in context of the environment

Rudd would be better informed by having fewer economists on his staff and just one independently thinking ecologist to informing him what the above paragraph means.

The Gunns board made a strategic mistake culturally shifting away from its core hardware industry to what the latest charismatic CEO thought was a gangbuster - harmful deforestation. What drugs were the board on that day? Tasmania is a local pure New Zealand within Australia with one of the rarest opportunities for leading the new green industry revolution in every one of its industries, yet 19th Century Gunns has committed to rape and corrupt Tasmania natural assets and condemn the island to pure image pergatory.

Yes Vivienne, the 'per capita' benchmark is a more honest comparable measure of a country's performance and instantly discounts those who say wait and do nothing until the big emitters move. Such folk in need of guidance should perhaps form a 'Sheep Party' and then advertise for a shepherd.

The proven analysis technique of 'Standard Costing' should be applied to greenhouse gas measurement. It has similar benefits to measuring socio-economic performance on a 'per capita' basis.

Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia

Vivienne (not verified)

Sat, 2009-12-19 14:52

Kevin Rudd wants a "big" Australia with a big population, big mining and coal industries, big logging companies such as Gunns, big polluting desalination plants and a big economy. Australia's population growth rate the highest in 40 years. We have the highest number of livestock per capita in the world, and we are major exporters of coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels! We are world leaders in greenhouse gases per capita. Anything he does towards reducing economic output will be thrown back at him and business sectors won't sponsor his re-election. Unfortunately all these "bigs" mean high greenhouse gas emissions and high pollution. There is no way Australia can align with the big populations of China, India, Japan and the rest of Asia. Our one-issue political parties, based on economic growth and power, are not compatible with negotiating global climate change agreements.

Tigerquoll

Fri, 2009-12-18 15:22

Ranking countries on the basis of carbon emissions per capita has merit just like ranking according to aggregate carbon emissions. The reduction responses and funding of carbon reduction programmes should be proportional on both bases.

There are many related issues and many causes and many options.
The first step should start by being pragmatic and focusing on what works the fastest and has most reduction impact. While population growth is indeed a herd of elephants charging in the room, in the short term only wars and famine would make a noticeable impact and I think that is too unethical. One child policies cannot work in democracies.

Better to have focused on what works fastest most effectively. Tackling deforestation is the fastest and is simply a matter of compensation being paid by the haves to the have nots. As it turns out the 'have nots' are the ones ripping down native forests the fastest.

If Copenhagen had just addressed deforestation, it would have achieved a significant inroad - 20% reduction in one year or something in that order.

News of the pledge by US based Climate Progress of US$1 billion over three years towards decreasing deforestation is an excellent outcome. The funding will go to developing countries that develop REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) programs.

I like the term 'Logger Compo'.

Developing countries need the money, the world needs to keep its forests intact - a simple, workable, political solution. They could have let Obama announce it and his global followers would be happy.

Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia

Tigerquoll

Fri, 2009-12-18 11:21

Pity the crossing lacks a natural setting. The crossing was designed by road engineers no doubt! Cattle loaded through steel pens on to trucks for the abbatoir probably have a quieter time. I suspect it's a secondary road anyway - look how thick the bridge is! You wouldn't need a bridge that thick for wildlife. Tiger Quoll Snowy River 3885 Australia

Vivienne (not verified)

Fri, 2009-12-18 09:02

Kevin Rudd said developing nations needed to acknowledge that if they did not act to bring down their own emissions they would soon be responsible for 50 per cent of all carbon emissions in the atmosphere. This is quite ironical as Australia has surpassed the US as the world’s biggest per capita producer of carbon emissions, according to a report by a British risk consultancy. Analyst Maplecroft estimates that Australian CO2 output per head of population now stands at 20.5 tons annually, putting it ahead of the 19.7 tons emitted by the average American. Developed nations typically have high carbon dioxide emissions per capita and total carbon emissions. Therefore, even with a large population in the developing countries, they are only responsible for carbon emissions of 7 per cent: one-seventh of what the wealthy nations are contributing. The emission of greenhouse gases, associated with industrialisation and strong economic growth from a world population that has increased sixfold in 200 years, is causing global warming at a rate that began as significant, has become alarming and is simply unsustainable in the long term. Every time wealthy nations are reminded of their contribution to the degradation of our environment, they tend to point fingers at poorer countries and talk about population. No wonder there is now an impasse at Copenhagen! The Optimum Population Trust wants the world to prioritize family planning. It estimates that 200 million women - mainly in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia - don't have access to birth control. Given the opportunity, the Trust believes many people would choose to have fewer children. In the last 20 years, the number of international migrants around the world has increased 200 percent from 100 to 200 million per year. Developing countries are unable to cope with the high level of demographic growth and are unable to create enough jobs for the number of people entering the labor market. Immigration is globalising the problem of overpopulation and acerbating emissions rather than allowing each nation to face their own contributions and stabilise their growth. In some developed countries like Australia, the low birth rate and the increasingly aging populations mean that for "continued economic prosperity and the ability to care for the needs of the aging", a steady labor flow from other countries is seen as "necessary". Without discussion about global population growth, and developed countries like Australia's "need" for mass immigration and developing countries runaway and disastrous growth in human numbers, there was never a chance of a climate change deal being sealed in Copenhagen. The elephant in the room was being ignored!

Sheila Newman

Fri, 2009-12-18 01:06

Re your comments about the apparent panic of the speaker after Bob Carr Certainly not very elevating arguments - misery loves company; it's all global (let's not look at the detail); and let's move those cattle around through the PHD dip and get them to make technology that isn't viable but who cares ... blah blah blah. And such people actually think they have a right to tell us what to do. It's really just a variation on Marie Antoinette's "Let them eat cake." Sheila Newman, population sociologist

quark

Thu, 2009-12-17 22:20

In the first clip, the man who spoke after Carr seemed to be very tense and threatened by what Carr had said and was having trouble making his point. In fact he seemed almost panic stricken.

Tigerquoll

Wed, 2009-12-16 23:15

Sambar hunter should be shooting ferals, including that Central Australian camel mob of a few weeks back. Poachers need to justify the morality of killing Australian native wildlife. Just because Kangaroo numbers are not threatened is not a moral justification to kill them. Immigration is out of control, so are you going to set up a live range at Sydney Airport to keep the numbers under control? Black and White Rhinos were once prolific and so were hunted. Now they're extinct. The argument is not emotional. It is about questioning the morality of killing native wildlife. Why don't shooters rip into dingos, wild dogs, wombats, koalas and dolphins while they're at it? The bias against kangaroos is because: (a) there are many of them out there in places (b) pet food companies pay money for kangaroo meat (c) roo shooters' daddies did it so it must be ok (d) shooting roos has become an outback accepted culture. Well, shooting Tasmanian Tigers was accepted practice in Tasmania in the 19th Century. They were hunted down like vermin. Makes me think every time I sink a Cascade. Shooting kangaroos has persisted as accepted culture in some diehard red neck communities. So Sambar Hunter witnesses foxes, cats and rabbits are less prevalent. Good, keep going until feral pests are eliminated, but do it humanely and under independent zoolgical supervision, not the supervision of the local ammo dealer. If you run out of ferals leave the natives alone! I object to taxpayer funds going to an organisation like the NSW Game Council when its head Borsak shoots elephants. Borsak has no morals shooting elephants and no ethics in supporting Mugabes's regime in Zimbabwe that gave his poaching party an exemption. If I had the money and knew he was going over there I would have paid top money for a local posse to take his poaching party out, nice and quiet. The Shooters Party Game Bill before the NSW Parliament proposes to kill native animals in National Parks. What part of that fact do you not comprehend? What part of that is indeed a lie? Quote me a part of the Bill? No one has yet. May be you lot can't read, let alone distinguish kangaroo types or male and female..roos that is! If the Shooters Party were realistic, they would restrict their focus to ferals outside national parks and limit the shooting only to DECCW certified pest control marksman. But this red neck Bill is really a free for all for cowboy shooters of any age down to age 12, with a mindset to shoot anything that moves in the bush any day or night, inside or outside National Parks. Hey, throw in backbackers and you may as well ask Ivan Milat to be your patron!

Tigerquoll

Wed, 2009-12-16 22:03

Vivienne, I tend to agree with your argument that there is no (positive) correlation between population size and GDP. I also tend to agree with the argument that there is an inverse correlation between high population growth countries and GDP growth. Developing countries like those in Africa, India and Asia tend to have a high population growth, yet a low GDP growth. China and India are changing this trend for the worst - high population growth and high GDP leading to a massive middle class leading to exponential consumerism. You may need to review your definitions as these are quite different. If Australia has high GDP growth and high population growth, this suggests Treasurer Wayne Swam's stimulus needs to back off the double shot cappuccinos or our Reserve Bank will keep upping interest rates and Westpac even double that! We'll all get interest rate palpitations! It is obvious that migration is being driven by a misconception that it will target plugging the right jobs that local businesses claim can't be filled locally. Then how is it most taxi drivers in Melbourne and Sydney are foreign? Are these the skilled workers? Is this where the skilled migrants are going? And what about mining companies which lay off contractors at the whim of a drop in commodity prices like BHP did in Hopetoun, WA. How many were brought it from overseas on the cheap scabbing Aussie workers? How does this benefit Australia and its economy? The statistics on where the skilled migrants go needs to be investigated and made publicly transparent by industry type and by geographic region. Again I don't care from they come, but I do care if they don't assimilate into the Australian way of life. Why do we have concentrations of Vietnamese in Springvale if they are assilimilating intoteh Australia way of life? I also question how Rudd can justify his migrant demand pull against the Copenhagen aim of demand reduction and supply reduction. Rudd is two faced on this, and that is before one takes into account his promise to global warming vulnerable Pacific Island nations. Rudd is a politican. He is not a leader of our time. He is a populist short term pragmatist, no more. Rudd win the next election because the uninformed electorate will take another term to realise. I suggest a country comparable to Australia in size, population, culture and growth is Canada. 1. Canada colonial language and heritage (English and French), Australia (English) 2. Canada's indigenous average life expectancy 7 years less that non-indigenous, Australia 20 less than non-indigenous 3. Canada land area 9,976,140 km2 , Australia 7,686,850 km2 4. Canada % arable land area 5% , Australia 6.4% 5. Canada population density 3.3/km2, Australia 2.7/km2 6. Canada's population is 33M, Australia 22M 7. Canada's population growth rate is 0.5%, Australia 2.1% 8. Canada's GDP growth 0.4%, Australia 0.6% 9. Canada's unemployment rate 8.5%, Australia 5.7% SOURCES: (5 minute Google searching) Food for thought eh? Canada should be Australia's benchmark and vice versa. Frankly, Australians should be more closely diplomatically aligned to Canada than we are to the US in every way possible! The US in every way sets a bad example! Name one way it doesn't? Tiger Quoll Snowy River 3885 Australia

James Sinnamon

Wed, 2009-12-16 16:45

Thanks, Tigerquoll,

This may be the single most important political issue in the coming months.

If this gets through, then the abilitiy of ordinary people to use the Internet, to show up the lies of Governmen, the Corporate newsmedia, the suupposedly indempendent and, indeed, even much of the supposedly alternative media will be under threat.

As it happens, I phoned Brisbane's local ABC radio station and unusually, perhaps, because they are now in the summer break period, was able to say my piece this morning. I rang after a lot of toing and froing from callers about whether or not mandatory Internet filtering would achieve its claimed objective. Here's what I said from my own recollection (minus all the clumsiness that often occurs when I speak on the spur of the moment):

"The main question we need to consider here is whether or not any Government now in office in Australia can be trusted with these powers.

"If the answer is 'yes', then it would be appropriate to move forward to the technical discussion about whether or not Mandatory Internet Filtering can achieve its stated goals of blocking Child porn.

"However, our experience of at least the last 20 years demonstrates that governments cannot be trusted with those powers. If they had those powers they would be able, at will, to remove acess to sites whose views are threatening to them.

"The Internet is one thing that has allowed democracy to function to any extent at all in recent years.

"Imagine how Mandatory Internet Filtering could be used to silence an effective campaign against privatisation in Queensland or an effctive campaign against Rudd's insane lifting of immigration levels through the ceiling."

I wascut off after that, which may have been just as well, as I had not orgnaised my thoughts well beyond that. At first I feared that it was not going to be played, when it was not aired shortly after the 10.00AM news, but it was played about roughly an hour later after the 11.00AM news.

I don't think we can afford to assume that it will be voted down by the Liberal National Party opposition, although, at the moment, they have said that they will.

In 2007, I would have though it would have been great if Labor had won an even greater majority than it did, but if it were to win a majority across both houses as a result of a double dissolution election it could ram this legislation through straight away.

How we stop this without going bakc to the Liberals and Nationals with WorkChoices, slash-and-burn budgets is not immediately obvious and even if we do, there can be no absoute guarantee that they will maintain their opposition to Mandatory Internet Filtering.

Whatever, this issue has to be given utmost prominence in the coming Federal elections.

James Sinnamon

Brisbane Independent for Truth, Democracy,
the Environment and Economic Justice
Australian Federal Elections, 2010

Vivienne (not verified)

Wed, 2009-12-16 11:30

There is no correlation between population size and GDP.
The top ten most wealthy nations, according to GDP, are:
-Luxembourg (pop. 491,775)
-Qatar* (pop. 2.59 mil)
-Norway (pop. 4,360,593)
-Kuwait* (pop. 2,691,158)
-United Arab Emirates* (pop. 4,798,491 )
-Singapore (pop. 4,657,542)
-United States (pop. 307,212,123)
-Ireland (pop. 4,203,200)
-Equatorial Guinea* (pop. 633,441)
-Switzerland (pop. 7,604,467)

Some of these nations are rich through oil reserves (*). Except for the United States, they all have well UNDER Australia's population!

Except for Kuwait and United Arab Emirates, oil producing countries, the nations with the highest population growth rates are amongst the poorest.

The 10 highest population growth rates include:

-*United Arab Emirates 3.69%
-Niger 3.68% (Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world)
-*Kuwait 3.55%
-Yemen 3.45% (Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Arab world)
-Gaza Strip 3.35% (High population density, limited land access, and strict internal and external security)
-Mayotte 3.32% (The economy and future development of the island are heavily dependent on French financial assistance)
-Burundi 3.28% (resource poor country -Burundi will continue to remain heavily dependent on aid from bilateral and multilateral donors)
-Ethiopia 3.21% (Ethiopia's poverty-stricken economy is based on agriculture)
-Congo, Democratic Republic of the 3.21% (Economic progress was badly hurt by slumping oil prices and the resumption of armed conflict in December 1998, which worsened the republic's budget deficit)
-Oman 3.14% (Oman is a middle-income economy that is heavily dependent on dwindling oil resources)
(Source: World Fact Book)

Australia's GDP is 19th in the world. However, we have the highest population growth rate in the developed world. This is seen as an "opportunity" for businesses!

ABS: A population growth rate of 2.1% was recorded for the year ending 30 June 2009, up from 1.7% recorded last year. This is the highest growth rate in 40 years (2.1% in 1969).

As of June 2009, Australia's net overseas migration contributed to more than half of this growth at 64% or 285,000 people.

Latest figures show that Australia's greenhouse gas emissions have soared 82 per cent since 1990. How are we to have any ambitious cuts to emissions by 2020? Our government has gone to Copenhagen not only empty-handed but as one of the globe's greatest atmospheric warmers, and guilty of climate change charade!

According to Science alert:
As the growth of population, economies and consumption outpaces the earth’s capacity to adjust, climate change could become much more extreme - and conceivably catastrophic.

The Population report, 2009 quotes environmental journalist Fred Pearce (2009): “[T]he world’s richest half-billion people - that’s about 7 per cent of the global population - are responsible for 50 per cent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions and the poorest 50 per cent are responsible for just 7 per cent of emissions.”

Tigerquoll

Tue, 2009-12-15 14:27

Thank you Sheila, this interview is instructive in thrashing out the classic pros and cons on open door immigration policy. What is important is to focus on the key driver of the issue which is Immigration Policy, rather than the much broader and less distinct 'over-population' issue.

I think Carr's highlighting the problems with the current immigration rate and questioning the bases is a more sound approach. Bracks on the other hand is simply dragging up the old arguments to justify high immigration. Bracks 'populate or perish' basis is naive and narrow minded. This 1950s argument was always misconceived and is irrelevant today. It fails to take into account economic, social and environmental impacts nor does Bracks offer any need to measure those impacts. Bracks comes across as a representative puppet without disclosing who is pulling his strings.

Here is a summary of the main arguments pro and from the interview from what I could summise:

High Immigration - Pro Case (Steve Bracks)

* High immigration was seen as a positive by Australians post World War II, so this still holds true
* High immigration can be accommodated in higher density urban design to avert pressures of sprawl ('infil' argument)
* High immigration provides economies of scale for urban unfrastructure, such as enabling expensive fast rail to be viable, which would not be justified or efficient with a small population
* High immigration is good for Australia because it opens Australia up to the world and encourages greater multicultural diversity, which is considered desirable
* High immigration is good for the Australian economy because more people means more demand for goods and services, which is considered desirable
* Criticising high immigration policy is to be 'isolationist'
* Stress on the environment and natural resources is due to bad management, not high immigration per se
* Australia's community needs a better skills base in the long term. Only immigration fill the gaps in the skills base.

High Immigration - Con Case (Bob Carr)

* Immigration and population growth is not bad per se; it is the high unsustainable rate of immigration that is the problem
* High immigration may be accommodated in higher density urban design, but pressures on sprawl are not controllable and this is evident in all Australian capital cities
* High population exceeds Australian's carrying capacity (economic, social and environmental). By having no limit on population, we don't know what impacts this will cause. We have no target, which is irresponsible planning.
* High immigration is inversely proportional to the quality of life, as it increases our quality of life is decreased
* Ramping up the immigration rate is the most significant driver of planning, yet it is occurring without environmental impact statements or public consultation so government is allowing this planning without being mindful of the environmental consequences
* Pressure on water use by population growth has caused Australian major cities to have to spend billions on water desalination plants
* All problems are multiplied when one ramps up immigration. State governments have to provide the infrastructure to support this immigration
* We do not know the ultimate impacts of immigration on the environment. Immigration is not reversible.
* With the dependents that follow skilled migrants, this exacerbates the skills shortages too meet the increased demand
* It is a simple economic management view that immigration shows a quick surge in activity in housing and building shopping malls for instance, but it produces costs. High immigration only considers the total overall increase in economic activity, but ignores output per person.

Perhaps I have got some of these wrong, but the debate must continue no less.

Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia

Tigerquoll

Tue, 2009-12-15 13:32

Most Australians would realise kangaroos are Australian wildlife. That they are in such large numbers in some areas is likely either because that is their natural population for that area, or they have been fenced in and had most of their natural habitat destroyed by land clearing and farming. The reasons why kangaroo numbers are high in certain locations should be investigated by expert zoologists and a report made public. Understanding the populations will be start to picking apart the standard justification by poachers that because there are many, it's ok to kill Australian wildlife. Then poachers claim, well because its now dead let's sell as pet meat for profit or get Anna Bligh to market it overseas to Russians. Australians are mugs for disrespecting what is Australian and exploiting it for a quick buck. It's like us letting the Chinese buy up Australian iron ore resources so they can refine it and sell the steel back to us for a profit. Perhaps the kangaroo poachers will end up selling big chunks of western Queensland and NSW to the Russians for pittance so the Russians can control their kangaroo supply. Perhaps our 'Hulk' does not realise kangaroos are Australian wildlife. Perhaps our hulk is Korean. Hey Koreans traditionally eat dogs. There are many lost dogs in RSPCA centres around Australia. Now there's a captive market! Hulk could set up with the RSPCA export dog meat back to the Koreans. At least the RSPCA kills humanely with lethal injection. There should be a good supply next month as many dog Christmas presents get abandonned and end up at RSPCA centres. Now that's not such an extremist idea - making good profit from unwanted feral pests. But Hulk's argument that because kangaroos are so damn plentiful, they should be kept under control, sounds extremist. This argument is no different to the human population. Humans are so damn plentiful, you see them everywhere. Perhaps they too and anything of high number should be kept under control? So who is the extremist? One could justify keeping such extremist pests and their dogs under control, except hulks are few and far between. and life will only get tougher for them out back. That they have desperately turned to profit from wildlife means there must be little else viable out there. Perhaps their unviable farm has already been sold.

Tigerquoll

Tue, 2009-12-15 12:46

Like water naturally flows down hill, people will flow toward places that offer a better life if given the choice.

Australia attracts record immigrants because it still offers a better quality of life comparable to many other countries, otherwise people wouldn't chose to migrate to Australia. A similar attraction exists for the United Kingdom, except since Britain has been doing it for longer and has reached a population of 62 million and is struggling to cope, it is now arguably less attractive than Australia. With population saturation pressures, Britain's quality of life has been diluted. The natives now seek a better quality of life elsewhere. Those that can, emmigrate.

The UK official Office for National Statistics (ONS) in 2006 reported "an estimated 400,000 people left the UK for a year or more - up from 359,000 in 2005. This is the highest figure since the estimates began in 1991. Of those, just over half - 207,000 - were British citizens. Some 591,000 people arrived in the UK to live for a year or more. The previous highest was 586,000 in 2004. Net immigration was 191,000, some 53,000 lower than the record estimate of 244,000 in 2004. There were 316,000 more non-British citizens and 126,000 fewer British citizens in the UK." [Source: BBC, 2006, 'Record trends in UK migration']

These UK population statistics indicate a significant ethnic/cultural replacement occuring across the British demographic mix. It is a consequence of the British Labour Government open door policy on immigration.

The open flood gate arguments are classic ones according to UK Labour Government MPs:

* 'to plug gaps in the jobs market"
* to provide a positive fiscal impact because a greater proportion of migrants are of working age and migrants have higher average wages than natives.'
* 'to make Britain more multicultural and therefore have a positive effect on British culture'
* 'to enrich Britain'.

On 27th August 2009, BBC News reported in its article Population growth at 47-year high> the UK population is now growing by 0.7% every year (it grew by 408,000 in 2008) - the biggest increase for almost 50 years, according to the Office for National Statistics. There were 791,000 babies born in 2008, an increase of 33,000 on 2007 and half of that increase were to women born overseas, but living in the UK.

Labour MP Frank Field and Tory Nicholas Soames claim "There has been a lot of irresponsible scaremongering about immigration in recent years which was based on the false assumption that high migration was inevitable for years to come." "Even at the present level of immigration, we are still on target for the UK's population to exceed 70 million within 25 years," they said.

And anyone who dares criticise Labour's open-door immigration policy, like the opposition Tory conservatives, is automatically branded as 'playing the race card', or 'scaremongering', or 'xenophobic', or 'isolationist' or just 'out of touch'. For instance, in 2001 Tory leader William Hague accused by Labour as ''playing the race card' when he raised questions about immigration policy and accused PM Tony Blair of turning Britain into a 'foreign land'.

UK POPULATION INCREASE “OUT OF CONTROL”,

The Optimum Populatiion Trust on 21st October 2009, reported "The latest population projections for the UK show that population growth is out of control and highlight the urgent need for a national population policy.

The figures, published by the Office for National Statistics, show the UK population growing by over four million to 65.6 million by 2018, passing 70 million two decades from now (2029) and reaching nearly 86 million by the end of the projection period – 2083 – when growth will still be running at over a quarter of a million a year. The ONS says just over two-thirds of the projected increase over the next quarter century is either directly or indirectly due to migration."

Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia

Milly (not verified)

Tue, 2009-12-15 08:43

"Most people" in Australia are environmentally illiterate! They have their heads in the sand and are basically ignorant. "Most people" at the time of Tasmania's colonisation supported the annihilation of the Tasmanian Tiger as a "pest" species. The same is happening to the koala - due to development-driven population growth. Extinction is forever! The future of our native species, due to climate change and habitat deterioration, it bleak. "Most people" are mob or herd species and see little worth outside their own interests, or outside their own herd. This is an evolutionary flaw! Lucky there are some "extremists" who can see the bigger picture, some holistic values on our planet, and appreciate the vast variety of species we are lucky to have inherited from its pristine origins. The "pests" species are not the indigenous animals!

Vivienne (not verified)

Tue, 2009-12-15 08:31

The population density of Italy is also one of the highest being the fifth densest in all over Europe. However, the natural population growth has been negligible, with less than 0.1% per annum. This is interesting for a basically Catholic nation! The same can't be said for other developing Catholic nations. Large religious groups will not address this issue for the same reason as the media - they depend on growth for power and income! The newspapers are part of the growth lobby. Businesses and mass markets use the media to sell their wares and promote consumerism. They are major sponsors of real estate and land developers. They are owned by giant multi-millionaires. It is not in their interests to publish articles or letters about our population explosion or excessive immigration. The Age is probably much more transparent and have published more on the topic than The Australian, Canberra Times or the Sydney Morning Herald. I have sent in many letters on the topic, and others have too no doubt, to have them ignored. There has been a lot of political attention about the ETS and climate change, but very little about the root cause - swelling populations and the increasing demand for power and thus emissions. The same with our water supply - the elephant in the room is ignored. Any comments or surveys though reveal the truth - most people are concerned about the topic but there is very little place in the mass media for their voices. Federal MP Kelvin Thompson is to be applauded, but he is probably committing political suicide. This is why it is reassuring to have independent web sites like Candobetter!

Sheila Newman

Tue, 2009-12-15 00:20

With all due respect, the word and concept of 'population' and 'population management' are bandied around constantly by the mainstream media. To the nauseating point where the Australian periodically trots out Angela Shanahan as a multiparous female opining on how deficient people without children are etc. I can also see signs of catholicism being used to bolster the big population lobbies deathlike-grip on debate - with Rudd having hobnobbed with the pope and now rushing to be seen with the remains of Mary McKillop. This is seriously disquieting. As I recall, Murdoch became a catholic at one stage - and possibly still is. Between Murdoch and Rudd and the Pope, we need to take lessons from the Italians, who have managed to get round the problem of religious doctrine affecting peoples' rights. What the media are allergic to is the OTHER side of the debate - population moderation. However, if you want another word for population, use 'development'; it amounts to the same thing. You can't have more houses without population growth and you cannot have population growth without more houses. Sheila Newman, population sociologist

Hulk (not verified)

Mon, 2009-12-14 22:33

Subject was "What?" - JS Oh boy, some more extremist fools! I have to laugh at the bit about 'Australia not being a democracy'...why? because most people of Australia won't bow to your minority extreme view? Has it ever occurred to you that more people are ok with the culling of the Kangaroo population? I have no problem with it. The comparison of killing Kangaroos, who are no where near endangered, to the killing of whales that are endangered is another ridiculous line of reasoning. Kangaroos are so damn plentiful, you see them everywhere! Come on you minority group of extremists, give the majority of Australian's a break from your ludicrous analogies. Most of us can see the necessity of keeping these pests under control.

Tigerquoll

Mon, 2009-12-14 20:56

So Australia's mainstream media are avoiding the obvious common cause of multiple social, economic and environmental problems impacting every state in Australia - over-population.

The proverbial herd of elephants are waved through in silence as if we're all Salman Rushdies. Why?

Answer that and you are more than half way to the solution.

Well mainstream media must keep faith with the mainstream if they to continue in the business of selling mainstream news. If they upset their target readers, listeners and watchers, they jeopardise losing them. The known way to lose an audience is to treat a taboo subject insensitively or with an approach that challenges/undermines core mainstream values. Dealing with a cultural taboo will cause mainstream disfavour. Subjects in Australia (and indeed most countries) that cause this are:

* Suicide (a no go rule for media)
* Depression (no longer a taboo)
* Child Pornography and Pedophilia
* Racism and ethic bias
* Violence against women
* Torture
...and I am sure there are others.

The media perception then of population then must be probably aligned and connected to the cultural taboo subject of 'racism and ethnic prejudice'.

So how to raise the issue and encourage open public debate without awakening the racist funnel web spider?
Not easy. Such communications challenges are faced by governments all the time to sell the unsellable. This is why there is a boom in communications degrees. Note they do not use the word 'propaganda' in communications circles - it is taboo!

One approach is to have someone respected publicly and sensitively raise the issue and clearly distinguish it from an issue of race or prejudice. Kevin Andrews MP has bravely done so to his credit and respect for Australia long term. Scientist Dr Tim Flannery is another. Neither of them are racist.

Another approach is to persist with exposing the facts and evdence in multiple media opportunties until the public is exposed to the issue so much that it becomes mainsteam by saturation. (Could take a long time)

Another approach is to publicly throw down the gauntlet and expose the subject as a taboo, like depression was exposed so well by Jeff Kennett of Beyond Blue, to his credit. Find out how depression became 'de-tabood', learn from it and apply the lessons to overpopulation/mass immigration.

Another approach is to find out what other societies have done combatting this taboo...and to learn from it.

Another approach is to make the subject the next black. Think marketing.

Or one can listen to Fairfax gospel like in its article 'The Big Squeeze' on 12th December, 2009, which prophesises: ... "Sydney has no choice but to make its homes smaller to accommodate a population boom."

Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia

Anonymous (not verified)

Mon, 2009-12-14 17:08

Modern day London eludes to the likes of a former colony, lets say Zimbabwe, for example. One might go there, and find minimal British residents, or British descendants there. Many, if not most, have left. This seems to be similar to what is happening in London in England. The whites I saw there remind me of this scenario in Africa, even in South Africa. The British in England are leaving, are they not, to the regions of Britain, if not overseas. The ones I saw there, haven't left, well not yet. Does this not ring a bell? While emigration might be happening in Africa - immigration of the kind happening in the UK is definately not occuring in Africa, no. Yet this white minority swelling scenario could well occur, who knows if not already, in parts of Britain!

Tigerquoll

Mon, 2009-12-14 14:23

Last September Federal politicians awarded themselves a 7% pay rise. The Rudd Government on 12th October to combat the global credit crisis announced it would guarantee all bank deposits held with Australian financial institutions for 3 years. It did this unconditionally with the banks at the time deposits in Australia tally totalled about $700 billion.

Just two weeks prior, the Westpac Bank has just reported its financial results for 30 September, showing revenue from ordinary activities up 42.2% to $16,505m. Last week, Westpac CEO, Gail Kelly reportedly in The Age received her annual cash bonus of $2.6 million. Her potential annual salary is $8.3 million [Daily Telegraph, 14-Dec-09]

Commonwealth Bank CEO Ralph Norris has a nice earner of $9.21 million, ANZ CEO Mike Smith gets $10.9 million a year, while NAB CEO gets a measly $5.2 million a year. Then Wespac last week doubled the Reserve Bank's interest rate increase to boost profits.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, The Poverty Lines for the June Quarter 2009 as recorded by The Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research is $761.69 per week (inclusive of housing costs) "for a family comprising two adults, one of whom is working, and two dependent children." [16 September 2009].

Five years ago, an Australian Council of Social Services report found that 9.9 per cent of Australians, or nearly 2 million people, fell below the international poverty line in 2004. I wonder what the 2009 figure is?

Last month the ABS reported Australia's unemployment rate at 5.7 per cent, which translates to the seasonally adjusted number of people unemployed at 653,100.

Our once envied Australian value that distinguished us from other countries around the world, most notably from Britain, was that Australians regarded themselves as a 'classless society'. Clearly, the evidence is that this is no longer a feature of Australian society. The above figures demostrate that we have become and allowed our society to become highly inequitable... and I haven't even mentioned the inequity faced by our indigenous peoples.

Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia

James Sinnamon

Mon, 2009-12-14 12:50

Given the monumental misgovernment of Queensland by the Bligh Government in recent years, I would consider any salary paid to them equal to or greater than that paid to cleaners to be generous. So, naturally I am in full agreement with Vivienne, However, in one sense, their pay rise may not seem so generous. In recent decades politicians like Bligh, Beattie, Rudd, Howard, Keating, Hawke, etc. have changed the Australian economy so that much of the wealth has been transferred to the wealthy. Consequently salaries of private sector managers have gone up considerably more than those of politicians. But that is no reason to increase politicians' salaries, It is cause to reverse those past Government policies and transfer the wealth back out of the pockets of the wealthy.

Vivienne (not verified)

Mon, 2009-12-14 11:34

State MPs, including Anna Bligh, will get a 3.1 per cent pay rise on their base salary from next month and a 2 per cent increase in allowances. This generous rise is a parliamentary privilege that is denied to the great majority of us! Surely if the State can afford such pay rises then privatisation isn't necessary. "The question of wage restraint is important when we're enduring some tough economic times," she said. However, the "wage restraint" needed doesn't include the MPs who are responsible for the "tough economic" times but don't have to exercise the restraints! Teachers have had pay rises too. How interesting. MPs had a pay freeze for a mere 2 years, and now they have their snouts in the trough. She has made mistake after mistake and the Traveston dam fiasco has left people hurting. "Ultimately this (pay rise) has little or nothing to do with the Government's other Budget decisions like asset sales", says Bligh. However, privatisation will not only reduce wages due to private competition but outsource jobs and apprentices as it did in Victoria. Maybe if she capped population growth they would save money spent on infrastructure. It could simply be done by not allowing any more land subdivisions. The Queensland Premier yesterday announced she would lead a trade mission to the US to attend the G'Day USA industry promotion. She will "aggressively promote opportunities for Queensland in the world's biggest economy as it starts to emerge from recession". What about she stays in Queensland and tries to save public assets for the public and listen to the concerns of the people? Surely there is money still in Queensland's coffers if it has the "world's biggest economy"! Editorial comment: I would assume that by "the world's biggest economy," Bligh was referring to the United States and not to Queensland. - JS

Tigerquoll

Mon, 2009-12-14 10:46

Quiet Please, I think you may be misinformed.

What Murdoch Said

A month ago, on 10 November 2009, Rupert Murdoch in an interview on Sky News expressed his frustration about the ongoing the theft of news content of his media companies online via Google by external parties, whom he labels 'content kleptomaniacs', and in order to combat content theft, he is proposing removing the free online access and charging for content .

Murdoch is concerned about lost revenue from those using his news content in breach of copyright to use for profit. He sees Google access as the means these competitors are accessing his news content and so Murdoch is suggesting "he may block Google's search engine from accessing information on their company's websites." Murdoch here is concerned with fighting back at Google which he sees is unfairly profiting from News Corp's news content, by selling ads next to the search results. [SOURCE: 'Murdoch faces off with Google in Free vs Paid', by David Cate, accessed 14-Dec-09].

Erosion of Mainstream Media Revenues

What the media have since teased out of this story is the broader issue of free online content versus paid content. This is a hot topic because newspapers have been steadily losing millions in revenues from paper sales and advertising to online media. Revenue from newspaper advertising such as employment advertising have largely gone online to websites like SEEK. In addition, Google's advertising has acquired much of the advertising revenue from traditional news media such as News Corp. So the challenge and debate is how does mainstream media stay competitive and remain profitable in this 'Information Age'?

Murdock, in the above article states "I would rather have a smaller audience of paying customers than people accessing it for free." His Wall Street Journal offers a partially-paid service - the website features an initial paragraph for most content, but ultimately requires visitors to subscribe to read the complete story. Back in September, Fairfax trialled charging a nominal $2.20 (inc GST) for news stories. It didn't last long, probably because few readers saw the value in paying. The Fairfax new online newspaper 'The National Times' is now completely free online.

Competition for News is fierce

Let's be clear about the distinction between 'news reporting' and 'news analysis'. The mainstream media has fierce competition for new stories and their reporting. If Murdock charges more for this he will clearly lose readership to the competition, simply on price.

As for new analysis, there is less competition. But if Murdoch starts charging for his 'news analysis, he has less competition sure, but this is the realm of the blogger - a disparate mix of qualified journalists, citizen journalists, experts of a particular field, and the odd letter contributor. Newspaper blogs are only part of the online media. There are many blogs outside the mainstream media. To dominate this realm would be like trying to use Patton tactics in Afghanistan against Taliban guerrillas. Bloggers will find ways of attacking government. They will move about using nom-de-blogs and pop up at different locations. Bloggers will migrate to the many free online media sources out there like the ABC (which will never charge), Crikey, New Matilda, CanDoBetter. In Australia. much is coming in from AAP, so if it is in The Age, odds are the same news item will be on the ABC. The online traffic will shuffle away from the greedy to the noble. One would have thought Murdock would have some understanding of market forces. I think he is testing the market to gauge likely reaction and to stimulate debate before he commits. I am sure he has his staff monitoring the debate for him.

Personally, if I need to refer to an article, I can do so from the printed newspaper. I can even scan it into OCR. I can access radio news which is recorded online in text format. Importantly I respect copyright and so always try to reference the source. So in this way, my scrutiny of government shall endure. I intend to continue "to hop from one news chain to another". I have no loyalty with greedy moguls. They already have enough influence.
So bring it on Rupert!

Cost Recovery is morally distinct from Profiteering

I am not opposed to a nominal account fee for special privileged access like what Crikey does or to donations or to voluntary contributions like what CanDoBetter is proposing. If Murdoch and Fairfax and others in-it-for-the-money and start charging for access to information that readers have become accustomed to obtaining for no charge, those readers will migrate. Many bloggers I suspect don't trust the mainstream media, often don't get 'airplay' anyway and so chose not to participate in mainstream media blogs, expect with the odd informed and targeted comment.

Further Analysis

To demonstrate that I practice what I preach, relevant to this issue, University of Queensland academics Ian Ward and James Cahill of the School of Political Science and International Studies, wrote a paper 'Old and New Media: Blogs in the third age of political communication' I recommend reading it online. It's free! In their abstract they observe:

"The Internet offers an unprecedented confluence of low cost production, distribution and marketing in a single publishing platform with minimal barriers to entry. At least in the USA, this distinctive political economy has seen an explosion of bottom-up, grassroots journalism and political discussion without the centralised direction, large-scale funding, and editorial control which are hallmarks of traditional news media."

"In effect bloggers now constitute a ‘fifth estate’, fact-checking and—often obsessively— analysing the output of mainstream news media including its coverage of politics. In some cases bloggers have also shaped the course of political events by publicising issues originally overlooked by traditional news media. Yet in Australia the picture is rather different. In a different institutional setting blogging has not emerged as an important vehicle for political
news and debate, nor even taken firm root. This would appear to pose a difficulty for the argument advanced by its champions that, with its particular political economy, the blogosphere is destined to transform political communication."

On this last point, I think Australian bloggers are catching up - this little black duck is at least.

Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia

Jim Walts (not verified)

Mon, 2009-12-14 08:35

I first knew of you many years ago when I found your book The Conserver Society. It changed how I thought of life from that point on. Yes it has made life frustrating caught between what I agree is needed and how life seems to force me. As for myself I have strove to share views of how life needs to change, and have strove to learn the old skills to position myself to help in sharing these skills, aka woodworking, blacksmithing, food production, drinking water, thinking outside the box... and so on. I have these questions. If a country breaks up into small independent villages, what will stop others from waging small scale wars to get what they want instead of working for it? What issues for the first areas to make the change, would the remaining centralized nations swallow them up? I hope to hear from you regarding these thoughts. Respectively yours, Jim

James Sinnamon

Mon, 2009-12-14 02:28

I greatly appreciate all the interest in raising funds, however there is one point I would like to make clear: The most important contribution anyone can make to this site is to add comments and write articles for it. After that it is to publicise the site or simply to read the content in order to inform themselves, so that they may eventually be able to inform others. I would not want anyone, who feels unwilling or unable to financially contribute at this point, to allow that to become a barrier to participation. Personally, I use a good many other sites that I am unable to contribute to. Even if I had a less modest income I would not be able to contribute to all the sites I would like to, so I can understand that a good many who use this site may be in a similar position. I intend to set up a facility (most likely PayPal) to allow people to contribute. However, it will only be there for people who feel motivated to, and able to contribute financially. If they do not choose to contribute financially, but continue to contribute in other ways, then that is fine by me. When it is set up I also intend to list the contributions (anonymously where people prefer) and list all the corresponding direct expenses as well as, possibly, indirect expense (i.e. Internet connection, computer hardware, etc.)

Sheila Newman

Sun, 2009-12-13 22:23

Dear AP, We don't have members. We are a naturally formed association of people who see value in contributing articles and comments to the site, and who read it. I will quote myself rather than reinvent a serviceable paragraph: The political problem with formal associations with membership and all that is that they then get set in concrete and people invest all kinds of emotions in them and they do their utmost to make them conform to their expectations and then there are divisions and conquests etc. Loose associations seem to work better, so that you can distance yourself and stop sending in work if you don't like what CDB is doing, and send in more work if you do etc. Then there is the OTHER problem, which is that the most committed people seem to get dragged down into eternal clerical, reporting and membership services - how would any of us keep writing? I do appreciate your suggestion though. It is good to have an agent provocateur on side. Feel free to ask more questions, make more suggestions. Sheila Newman

Tigerquoll

Sun, 2009-12-13 13:56

What are 'Australian Values'?

Australians need to start debating what it means to be Australian, what values we treasure, and which aspects of our way of life we are prepared to compromise and which ones we are not. Then we need to look at what is happening to those values and way of life and start addressing their erosion.

If we don't and just sit back, 'she won't be right'. Those values will have eroded and have become relegated to history, under our watch. When 383,000 from overseas are rocking up every year, their sheer numbers unchecked will inevitably reshape Australia.

What is Immigration Policy accountable for?

Government immigration policy needs to be held accountable to immigrants and to the consequential impacts that immigration brings to Australia and to Australians. It has become clear that it is unacceptable to all parties that immigration policy stops at the International Arrivals Gate, that it ignores the special needs of immigrants, ignores integration and assimilation, ignores the costs to accommodate this direct increase in demand, ignores the consequential costs on Australia. Assimilation takes time and generations.

Public and private infrastructure and resources are proportionally consumed for every additional person added to Australia (be it by birth or immigration) - housing, roads, schools, public transport, hospitals, childcare, fuel, groceries, and every human consumption need and want. Marginal planning for immigration that stops at the International Arrivals Gates and hand balls the triple bottom line problems to under-resourced State government budgets is irresponsible. It is no different to allowing cheap import dumping into Australian markets and sending local industry broke.

This is not an argument for protectionism. It is an argument about the lack of accountability of Australia's current immigration policy for the economic, social and environmental consequences it is causing. Immigrants deserve protecting and nurturing more than most and it takes decades to assimilate. Look how long it took the Greeks and Italians post-WWII to assimilate. My estimate it took two generations and it wasn't until the 1970s until the Australia-Italian mixed culture was embraced by the mainstream, even then there must have been a lot of trauma in the intergenerational acculturation process.

Are we really 'sorry' for marginalising some of Australia's society?

What is appalling is the continued marginalisation of Australia's traditional people from the mix. If Australia's way of life and values embraced aspects of that of Aboriginal peoples, like in some way the Maori in New Zealand have shaped Kiwi culture - (look at the All Blacks Haka), then as a society Australia may not have as much need now to reverse its environmental damage.

Rudd-gazing

Mass immigration is indeed the elephant in the room. For Rudd to ignore this, the dominant driver of consumption, and to spend time on trading green house gas emissions is to negligently navel gaze as if pre-occupied in Sudoku one of the Titanic deck chairs. 'Rudd-gazing' has become the greatest eroder of Australian way of life.

Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia

Quiet Please. (not verified)

Sun, 2009-12-13 09:09

I have long held the view that no one group or individual should access facilities for which they do not make a contribution. Having worked for governments of various colours over 30 years, and within the inner sanctums of Ministerial offices, I can say with some experience that policy advisors would be accessing, on a daily basis, major newspaper blogs as a standard method of measuring the national mood as well as the mood of their own electorates. In fact I have noted the correlation between politicians' electronic media responses, and the general tone contained in newspaper blogs. There have been times when specific newspaper blog opinions have been the subject of political question and answer interviews. This is all going to change when the Murdoch empire begins charging for internet-accessed news. The other media chains will quickly follow. Newspapers have done a good job of baiting the market, many of them have moved to "Log-in" and "Register here" boxes at the foot of newspaper stories. I feel sure they have built huge email address data banks that will be useful in advising potential subscribers of plans to charge for future access. Think about it. E-readers will no longer be able to hop from one news chain to another. They will no longer be able to email instant links and news across the world, because the receiver may not have a subscription to each and every media outlet. I suspect this will severely restrict the massive scrutiny to which governments are now being exposed. It doesn't feel like a deliberate News Corp plan to do that, but it will occur by default. Newspaper/journalist/advertising returns are rapidly diminishing as internet news is freely available. They all have to pay their staff for hunting down the news. It was only a matter of time, and that time will soon arrive. On the back of all this will be another type of communication revolution. What will happen and how, is difficult to predict. So what are the costs involved in providing news and public access? How much per contributor is required in order for the continuance of WCDB and how will this forum react to the e-news changes that are predicted? How can sites like this take advantage of what lies ahead when newspapers begin to charge subscriptions? Will contributors be quite as well-informed and therefore feel their subject knowledge remains up-to-date? Forewarned is forearmed.

Vivienne (not verified)

Sun, 2009-12-13 07:35

We are becoming a generic country as a place to store people. Developer-driven population growth leaves no room to respect and remember our history, culture, early Australian architecture or the story of our pioneers. Our identity as Australian is being fragmented and destroyed for mass immigration and $$$. We are a plastic society with plastic people who care nothing for historic values or tradition or of intrinsic worth of our what was a wonderful country.

Agent Provocateur

Sun, 2009-12-13 06:06

Hello, I found Rudd-Led 'De-Cultural Invasion' of Australia very interesting - Chilling - but interesting. I have been very aware of these issues - for years. No one wanted to listen to an Hysterical - probably menapausal... female. I'm now 52.. and I am shaking my head; I'm quite frightened by what is happening in Australia - how do we stop the unsustainable population EXPLOSION!?! I tried to deal with some of these issues in my own book, published this year (graphics by Mike Cook). We wanted to raise awareness in a way that would engage readers... with humor - the book is, primarily - about the anti-smoking campaign - (it alienates its audience, rather than engages them...) and we compared smoking & other pollutions (and population explosion) - we addressed Civil Liberties... There was ... is - so much to discuss that one little book hardly cuts it... but we tried... www.somethingfunnygoingon.com is for Everybody - smoker or not - because we are concerned that rubbishy people with rubbishy values... are running the planet... Once again, I enjoyed the articulate and informative way you wrote your piece

Agent Provocateur

Sun, 2009-12-13 03:59

Perhaps the best way to raise the money is to ASK for it... how many members.. divided by dollars required... a 'donation'.. I dunno... 100 members by $100 is... umnn.. $10,000... how many members would be willing to pay an annual fee of $100? How much is required?

Agent Provocateur

Sun, 2009-12-13 03:40

Hello Sheila, as you've also emailed me the link to this page, I will email it on.. thankyou - quite distressing, and incomprehensible?!? Surely even the Commercial Growth Lobby must be able to see the outcomes here.. Every time we 'Import' either 'legitimate' Immigrants or 'Refugees off boats' - we should be looking not at their 'face value-numbers' - but their potential 'breeding' numbers... 2x2 =4!! (at least!) I hope you don't mind my mentioning it again here, Sheila, but our book, while primarily dealing with ... Civil Rights, actually... and the smoking issue.. is also about - Populations and Pollution - an undeniable correlation, I'm sure you'd agree. If people were to get the message, either by alarming, unalterable statistics represented here, or with my book, which deals with these issues in a somewhat humorous way... between us... we may get the messages across. Our web address is: www somethingfunnygoingon.com As I've promised, I will email this link and/or your email onto as many as I can Best Regards

Anonymous (not verified)

Sat, 2009-12-12 15:42

"With so many arriving so quickly, there is no time for them to properly assimilate into the Australian culture and way of life." I’ve noticed there is a belief held by many pro-immigrationists that supposes that Australia is just another Antarctica: not a real nation with a culture and identity of its own and with a right to control who comes in, but just some sort of international treaty area like Antarctica that belongs to whoever wants to come. An extreme version of the “Antarctica argument”, one which could be called the “Bad Guest syndrome”, is the argument one hears frequently from newly-arrived immigrant groups that the very generosity with which Australians have welcomed in large numbers of immigrants means that they no longer have a nation of their own and no longer have the right to decide who may enter Australia and live among them. According to this view, no one has the right to limit immigration to Australia, not even the Australian electorate (not that they’ve ever been consulted on immigration policy!). Nor do immigrants owe Australians any debt of gratitude for inviting them in, because you see they’re aren’t any Australians anymore, for they have been multiculturalised out of existence. As historian Geoffrey Blainey remarked, "One almost detects a deathwish at work." According to Blainey, many of those who advocate mass immigration and multiculturalism "believe that we should not be a nation but a subsidized rooming house for the peoples of the world - a rooming house without any safeguards which a nation needs for its preservation." Presumably, such people would be happy to see the traditional Australian culture and identity disappear forever.

Sheila Newman

Sat, 2009-12-12 15:14

Steve Bracks and Bob Carr argue over population growth on Lateline. It is frankly obscene that Bracks and his allies actually believe they have the right to impose their obviously disproven ideology on us. They are behaving like psychopaths and have only recently been dragged out kicking to listen to some protest about the perilous impact of their taking over of democracy by a distorted planning plutocracy. Carr argues that the ramping up of population growth by the self-appointed (but scientifically ignorant and authorities) has been democratically and scientifically unconsulted. I don't believe most of what Bracks has to say; it is mostly ideology. I don't know if he believes it. If he does he must be extremely stupid. For instance he talks about us 'suddenly discovering there is a scarcity' of water' and that the 'public has largely accepted this'. The scarcity of water has been looming and ongoing since Australia was colonised. Bob Carr asks, Do Bracks and his mob recognise any limits? I think you have to say that they don't and that, psychologically, they are in infantile mode. Sheila Newman, population sociologist home page Copyright to the author. Please contact sheila [AT] candobetter org or the editor if you wish to make substantial reproduction or republish.
Quiet Tasmania's picture

Quiet Tasmania

Fri, 2009-12-11 16:43

Thankyou for responding. I think informal, freewill donations through PayPal would prove quick, easy and efficient for some of us out here, and I recommend that this course be investigated and implemented. In the circumstances, as outlined above, it seems to me entirely appropriate that James initially opens a personal account in his own name. I suspect he could have one up and running within the hour. Peter Bright Hobart Tasmania

Sheila Newman

Fri, 2009-12-11 16:30

For some reason, people think that 4th generation nuclear is up and running. I heard Bob Carr talk as if it was the other day at a Property Council of Aust conference. But it isn't. There are articles all over the place talking about how great it will be etc as if success is a certainty - but we ain't there yet - so we cannot take Gen IV for granted. There are many hurdles and perhaps we won't overcome them all. Here is an article which has received over 1000 reads since it was posted in January. See Nuclear Fission and the future for Fast Breeder Reactors Posted January 22nd, 2009: It deals with this question: "Potentially thorium breeder-reactors would enable a process of converting all the 98.3 per cent of the natural uranium into radioactive substances which can maintain a sustained fission process in a chain reaction. No-one is doing this yet. Why?" Only death and taxes ... Sheila Newman, Energy & Population sociologist

Sheila Newman

Fri, 2009-12-11 16:17

No, it just has James Sinnamon's bank account. Perhaps we could start a new bank account named 'Candobetter V-server' and publish the balance from time to time, but, at the moment, it would just go to James's account and people could send cheques or do a 'pay anyone' electronically etc. That might be too much effort. James doesn't have an accountant or anyone else to run to the bank and to send out letters and to file reports etc. Previously people have paid bills or parts of bills on James' behalf, which means that they know where the money is going and what it is for. No-one makes a profit out of CDB; it draws no income whatsoever and makes no payments to anyone. It is James who pays the group that rents him the server, who pays the electricity that runs his computer, telephone, broadband etc etc. The rest of us contribute stories as we see fit, from our own machines, using our own sources of electricity and internet connections etc. If at any time CDB gets to replace the Murdoch Press (this idea keeps ME going!) we might consider something more formal. The problem with formal associations with membership and all that is that they then get set in concrete and people invest all kinds of emotions in them and they do their utmost to make them conform to their expectations and then there are divisions and conquests etc. Loose associations seem to work better, so that you can distance yourself and stop sending in work if you don't like what CDB is doing, and send in more work if you do etc. Feel free to ask more questions, make more suggestions. all the best, Sheila Newman, population sociologist
Quiet Tasmania's picture

Quiet Tasmania

Fri, 2009-12-11 10:28

Even the impecunious might contribute small sums occasionally via their PayPal account. Does WCDB have its own PayPal account to receive them? Peter Bright Hobart Tasmania

Quiet Please. (not verified)

Fri, 2009-12-11 09:50

Thank you for allowing me to comment here. I am preaching to the choir but will go ahead anyway. I think these things are often more widely exposed in newspaper blogs, where political advisors go to measure the public mood.

Anyway, what has stunned me this week is that more than one hundred Australian bureaucrats used polluting jet aircraft to join the 15,000 other jet-setting climate change agitators in Copenhagen. The hypocrisy of this floors me.

There we have an onslaught of self-righteous panic-stricken who want to dictate to the rest of the world how each country manages its assets, its people, its economic structures. Anyone who democratically presents an alternative viewpoint is disparagingly dismissed as a climate change denier. Recently I heard Malcolm Fraser referring to Australians who don't approve of illegals attempting to queue-jump their entry into Australia as "red-necks".

These attempts to bludgeon alternative opinion into oblivion serve as reminders that power, in the wrong hands, can reap havoc.

As a milder example, the unfortunate global panic about the Y2K bug isn't far behind us.

The shocking absence of any Copenhagen debate ... on the likelihood that non-harmful population control could contain global warming to an increase of no more than 2 degrees, tells me that all national leaderships are so short on brains that they should be totally ignored until such work is undertaken.

The shocking absence of any Copenhagen debate, or advertised scientific assessment on the likelihood that non-harmful population control could contain global warming to an increase of no more than 2 degrees, tells me that all national leaderships are so short on brains that they should be totally ignored until such work is undertaken.

An even worse scenario for Australia, is the mad idea by one K. Rudd that there can be a S.E. Asia Union, where Australia with its population of 22 million would become a population dumping ground for the larger nations around us.

An even worse scenario for Australia, is the mad idea by one K. Rudd that there can be a S.E. Asia Union, where Australia with its population of 22 million would become a population dumping ground for the larger nations around us. Is this idea more to do with K.Rudd's ego, and ambitions to be Secretary General of his S.E. Asia Union just in case his application for Secretary-General of the UN falls over?

And on the United Nations, beware Australia. The push by the UN to impose a global order on countries that are doing quite nicely without the dramas and hatreds of foreign teeming hordes, is looming larger every day. Let's hope that the current Australian government doesn't sacrifice Australia's autonomy under the veil of self-congratulatory political expedience. We are seeing this every single day, in one form or another, under K. Rudd's subtle iron fist. But not so subtle really, because there are some who see right through agendas sooner than others.

Can someone please tell me what the projections would be if all nations were successfully encouraged to reduce their populations, and by what amount, by 2060, in order to curb over-demand on resources, thereby cutting carbon emissions to an environmentally safe level?

Would it be true to suggest that population control (and given the science on the lifetime eco-footprints of domestically confined animals, a similar reduction in their numbers) should be a first and soundly affordable first step?

I don't think that we can advocate human population control, without acknowledging the need for concomitant domestic animal control. The domestic animal industry is an equal contributor to environmental pollution. Whether or not we humans love and need to lean on companion animals should not exclude this side of a legitimate debate.

I am not calling for austerity control measures, but it seems to me that the measures being proposed by the Australian government and others, are overly complex, replacing common sense for confusion and international stress.

If anyone has any science or modelling on the levels to which curtailment of human and domestic animal populations would likely reduce the pollution that is causing so much Copenhagen hysteria, then I would love to read about it here.

Eclipse (not verified)

Fri, 2009-12-11 00:29

The thing is, with *many* various approaches to solar thermal baseload on the way, baseload wave power (especially my favourite CETO), even 3rd and 4th Gen nuclear if we *have to* (which could run the world for 700 years just on the world's current stockpile of nuclear waste and weapons), I'm not sure that the situation is as permanently dire as presented. Yes peak oil is serious, but I'm sensing a "peak energy" debate here and I just don't think that the scientific literature out there warrants this view. That is, as fossil fuels decline so to does humanities ability to find useful energy. I'm not sure that conclusion is warranted anymore. Maybe it once was, but the "T" in IPAT is changing so fast today that we have to give it some credit. Sure the wrong Technology only multiplies the damage, but the right technology may just head in the other direction. And if a global "demographic transition" takes place as the 3rd world leapfrogs into brighter, greener cities (of the future) then hopefully the P will be under control as well. There are truly amazing things happening, and truly awful things happening. Will the negative trends overwhelm us before we can introduce the positive? Will "Cradle to Cradle" regenerative design systems be implemented before other critical resources are thoroughly depleted? Who can say? but do all drop by worldchanging.com which documents the latest changes in information and meme spreading, technology, political organisation, and green city building. They are bright green, and with reason it would seem!

Tigerquoll

Thu, 2009-12-10 22:29

On the issue of native deforestation by State-sanctioned loggers, Vivienne rightly draws upon historical analogy of the Maya and how deforestation of ancient Central American rainforests brought on the collapse of a wealthy complex society.

Studying History

Understanding the collapse of societies in history can aid insight into sustainability of today's wealthy complex societies, to recognise symptoms of problems early to help avert repeating histories. Clearly, halting deforestation is lesson numero uno.

History is not studied to the extent that it has been. The trend is for 'short-termism' and so many now choose to study wealth generating courses in 'business', 'commerce', and 'finance'. The trend started with the baby boomers and has become trans-generational. Boomers have sold short-termism 'get-rich-quick' career directions to X-Gens and Y-Gens. Even in these fields, there exists history of the science and profession, yet it is not taught, because it doesn't earn the big bucks. In the field of accounting, the study of Accounting Theory provides so much insight into accounting concepts and assumptions of which short-termists accept unquestioningly.

It is this unquestioning rush to prove the previous generation old hat, that caused the Global Financial Crisis. Financial history has been ignored and look at the consequences! The young turks and vikings of finance thought with new methods they could, abandon the lessons of financial history, supplant traditional risk and return finance funamentals. Now we see the pendulum swinging back toward the traditional, in finance, society and politics. Human strends are predictable so long as one does not follow the herd, or sheep.

Succession Planning

In the world of acccounting and business, especially family business, the need for succession planning has long been an important focus. What happens to the familiy business when the family head dies? The business should not collapse in a heap. Yet where is the succession planning at the community level and in government? Individuals and communities could never trust government to look after them. Individualism and self-reliance throughout Australia's colonial history has been a prominent trait of Australian's because they couldn't rely on government.

Public education needs to be about succession planning on an individual and community scale. Tight knit communities risk collapse if they seek to rely on government for salvation and not to learn from their own histories and the histories of comparable others and to succession plan. Since Australia went to war, the Australian public has turned to political leaders to get them through, since only the federal government has the where-with-all at a national level. This reliance has been reinforced in subsequent national crises - WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, the Fuel Crisis now the GFC.

Problem is this reliance on a national leader has made us psychologically dependent. We have lost that innate self-reliance of colonial times and we are weak for it, like lost sheep. In the last few weeks, Australia has been so caught up in the Federal Liberal Party leadership dilemma, like sheep lost without a leader. Now they've found one, every one can go back home, the world is not going to end. Happy sheep.

Community media like CanDoBetter have an opportunity to educate the community about the relevance and importance of history and to learn from it, and of the importance of being self-reliant and of succession planning at all levels - federal, state, region, community and family.

Vivienne, please elaborate on how we can learn from the Maya.

Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia

billie G (not verified)

Thu, 2009-12-10 18:12

Are today's unemployment numbers to be trusted? Has unemployment fallen? I think my friends' sons are still looking for work - quite a surprise for upper middle class professional families to have unemployed university educated children with work experience in professional fields. Oh well the Australian labour market has shifted and these children bought up in Higgins haven't kept up with the changes. Meanwhile we will import labour on 457 visas to do the work these unemployed Australians used to have and can still do.

Tigerquoll

Thu, 2009-12-10 11:36

Thinks Rudd, good Christian samaritans are we, so Rudd gives us this day our hourly plane load, and asks us to forgive those who trespass against us. Well this once tolerant Australian has had a gutfull. Liberal/Labor (Lib-Lab) governments at federal and state levels have driven immigration since post-WWII on the misguided unquestioned belief that more migrants necessarily means more economic growth means more wealth. But with more people, the share of the Australian pie is proportionally diluted. Now the numbers have exceeded optimal resource capacity and we are suffering dilution of Australia's once prized living standards. I feel for the Aboriginal Australians who back in the late 1700s must have watched in disbelief as hundreds of white fella disembarked boats and then drove them off their lands. Every day in the Australian newspapers we read of population pressures causing some resource problem. It is pushing up prices of housing and utilities and soon economic druids will wake up to there being an interest rate problem, then an inflation problem. I used to be part of the tolerant Australia, but that tolerance has been abused. I'm not even Christian so I don't subscribe to any of what Rudd preaches. Amen. Tiger Quoll Snowy River 3885 Australia

Quiet Please. (not verified)

Thu, 2009-12-10 09:32

Tiger Quoll, thank you. Rudd annoys me. He burns up environmentally polluting aviation fuel sashaying around the world almost non-stop inside a low-occupant aircraft. Reports are that he engaged in a Copenhagen "secret deal". The deal I am waiting for is the one that, in no uncertain terms, tells the over-populated nations that there will be no money for them if they don't sign a treaty that promises population reduction. What's going on? If climate change is indeed the result of human activity, wouldn't it be somewhat mitigated by a serious reduction in human numbers? I've heard absolutely nothing from Copenhagen representatives of the teeming hordes on this aspect of eco management. Australian culture has been disregarded, diminished and therefore stolen. It has been given up for self-congratulatory political reasons. Time and again the Australian population expresses the view that 'multi-culturalism' has replaced 'Australianism'. Who said "Give us our daily boat"... and so the boats keep arriving.

Tigerquoll

Wed, 2009-12-09 15:42

When we have an annual record 383,000 net migration this last year, this is tantamount to foreign invasion by stealth. It is an 'immigration invasion'.

It is being led by Kevin Rudd and Australians are being pacified and re-educated into believing misleading justifications like economic growth, addressing skills shortages, multi-culturalism, being a world citizen, etc.

Pacification is the final stage of any invasion and we're copping that when all criticism gets morally put down as 'racist'. But race has nothing into do with it. The problem is the sheer numbers, not whether they're from Suffolk or Timbuktu.

Australia's post-WWII notion of 'populate or perish' was a falsehood promoted by PM John Curtin's man Arthur Caldwell, fearing Australia's vulnerability to invasion from the north in the wake of how close the Japanese got in 1942. Our government no longer uses the justification 'populate or perish'; it's been long tried, debated and dismissed as nonsense.

But Rudd's Mass Immigration is nonsensical. He is fuelling domestic demand on the one hand and yet supposedly leading the international charge to cut greenhouse emissions on the other side of the world. Is this two-faced, dumb or is there an ulterior motive? Look at all the stress increasing population is putting on urban infrastructure and resources in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane - where all most of the migrants chose to stay! There is an absence of demographic planning to spread the populatiion demand burden. Rudd is accelerating urban sprawl in these cities, repeating California's Dust Bowl Migration of the 1930s which caused the massive urban sprawl in Los Angeles. We have also adopted the US 20th Century car-centric urban design model. Rudd has a 20th Century US mindset and prima facie condemning Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane to a Hong Kong vision.

A consequence of this invasion is the emergence of ghetto cultures. Assimiliating Immigration (sporadic, small scale) works when a few from many different nationalities integrate, then after a few generations they assimilate into the mainstream culture. New Australians learn the language, acclimatise, get accustomed to Australian mores and values. We witnessed this gradually, progressively over decades with the Greek and Italians, then the Vietnamese, and we are midway through with the Lebanese. Each of these people in many cases were fleeeing poverty, like the initial British colonists a hundred years before them. They were seeking a new life and opportunity in Australia. They keenly acculturate, adapt, blend in, intermix and become accepted as Australians. This is how immigration should work to maximise the benefits to both settler and host country and to minimise the problems...again to both settler and host country.

But the 'Rudd Gates' policy of Mass Unsustainable Immigration is churning such a mass influx of new arrivals in such a short time. The social outcomes have been ignored is a desperate attempt to maximise the perceived faster economic benefits. New arrivals are abandoned at the airport arrivals gates to fend for themselves. With so many arriving so quickly, there is no time for them to properly assimilate into Australian society, culture and way of life.

Through no fault of their own, new immigrants without a sense or compulsion of assimilation retreat to their own group and end up forming ghettos of different cultures, quite emotionally detached from the Australian maintream. How ist thsi good for the host coutry Australia and indeed these new arrivals? This government abandonment helps no-one - the locals, nor the new arrivals. Immigration without active integration is flagrant social neglect and abuse on a national scale to all involved.

Mass unsustainable immigration over a short time has been shown to cause a deculturation of the prevaling society's values, cultures and ways of life. On only has to look at the social outcome and costs of the mass influx of Turkish immigrants in Germany, or the recent mass influx of Middle Eastern muslims into Switzerland or closer to home at the 2005 Cronulla Riots.

Mass immigration without integration unnecessarily hightens the risk of fuelling social friction and antagonism on both sides. It breeds nationalism and in the worst cases, racism and racist violence. And it is all because governments naively manage complex societies with an economic hat on, wanting to boost its economic performance figures.

But immigration without integration and assimilation is effectively a decultural invasion, that threatens the identity of the imcumbent culture. Look at what a Koel does:

"The Common Koel is a brood parasite, that is, it lays its eggs in the nests of other bird species. Common hosts are the Red Wattlebird, Anthochaera carnunculata, friarbirds, the Magpie-lark, Grallina cyanoleuca, and figbirds. A single egg is laid in the host's nest and once hatched the chick forces the other eggs and hatchlings out of the nest." [SOURCE: http://birdsinbackyards.net/bird/54]

Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia

Sheila Newman

Wed, 2009-12-09 13:41

(Sent to various recipients today 9 December 2009)

Comment by Kelvin Thomson on Record Immigration Numbers

· The record number of migrants is fuelling runaway population growth in Australia, and it’s time the skilled migration program and temporary entry work permits were seriously cut back.

· The ABS figures for the year to June show net overseas migration at 285,000. It should be cut back to 70,000. We can do this while increasing the refugee program and keeping family reunion relatively constant.

· Last year’s record population growth for Australia of over 440,000 is taking us down the road to environmental disaster. It is making a mockery of our obligation to pass on to our children a world, and an Australian way of life, in as good a condition as the one our parents gave to us.

· Two examples from the last couple of days – first the Penguin chicks at Phillip Island who starved because there is simply not enough fish in the sea for the adults to bring home to them. Second, the Reserve Bank’s interest rate rise this week. Interest rate rises are being fuelled by house price rises, and these are being fuelled by population growth. Housing affordability is falling, and our children are being denied the same opportunity to purchase a house that we had.

· Population growth is galloping along on all fronts – the number of migrants, students and long term workers is up 15% compared with last year, the number of departures is down, and the birth-rate is up – a record 300,000, with a fertility rate of 1.98%.

· This is putting pressure on water supplies, and upward pressure on food, water, petrol and energy prices. It is damaging the quality of life in our cities through traffic congestion and loss of open space. And everybody’s talking at the moment about how to cut our carbon emissions. It’s pretty hard to reduce your carbon footprint when you keep adding new feet.

Milly (not verified)

Wed, 2009-12-09 12:58

How is it that Kevin Rudd, presumably concerned by climate change, yet at the same time has increased the number of permanent and long-term migrants arriving in Australia to more than 500,000 a year? Most of our leaders have a law, administration or business background, and as such worship growth and are basically environmentally and scientifically illiterate. If Kevin Rudd was really sincere about climate change, his strategies would focus on stabilising our population and optimising our lifestyles with less reliance on carbon emissions, not on a tax that exempts the biggest polluters - the coal and livestock industries! Climate change is threatening Australia's coastlines, our liveability, our biodiversity, our waterways and our agricultural outputs. Surely our Government is being reckless allowing more people to come here? Population growth and climate change are diametrically opposed. If Kevin Rudd is a climate change skeptic he should say so and not play out a political charade to fool the public. There has never been a debate about immigration or population, or a scientific assessment of our carrying capacity. The elephant in the room is being ignored!

Tigerquoll

Wed, 2009-12-09 11:44

Perhaps Nathan Rees listened to former NSW Premier Bob Carr, who according to a Sydney Morning Herald [SMH]article five months ago dated 24-Jul-09, Carr urged Rees to support the campaign to stop logging river red gums in the Riverina, arguing that saving the forests was, "the most urgent nature conservation challenge we face in this state".

"Environmentalists accuse Forests NSW of allowing "illegal" logging of the red gums, saying it breaches federal laws protecting threatened species including the superb parrot."

The SMH article is entitled 'Carr tells Rees to save Riverina red gums' by journalists Marian Wilkinson and Brian Robins.

Carr argued in his SHM article dated 24th July "for large parts of the river red gum forests to be declared national parks. This would seriously curtail logging that has been strongly supported by the Primary Industries Minister, Ian Macdonald."

Carr states:

* 80 % of the landscape along the Murray has already been cleared
* Some stretches 75 % of the trees are already dead or dying or stressed because of drought and climate change

So Nathan Rees appointed the state's Natural Resources Commissioner, Dr John Williams, to conduct a forest assessment of the Riverina red gums to recommend which areas to conserve and which may be subjected to further logging. The NRC's Preliminary Assessment Report on River Red Gums was released to the public on 30 November (a week ago). Rees had delayed the delivery of the NRC's final report to 21 December so that further consultations could be undertaken.

Rees stated view was "The NSW Government is committed to achieving a long-term balanced outcome for the region, having consideration for both the high conservation value areas of the forest and the sustainability of jobs in the region." So looks like he decided early in light of the uncertainty of him retaining the NSW Labor premiership that was decided on 3 December.

The forest dispute puts the state forestry lobby and Mr Macdonald in conflict with federal Environment Minister, Peter Garrett. The industry claims more than 1000 jobs are at stake but conservationists say fewer than 200 jobs are involved.

Carr back in July argued "there are only 136 jobs in red gum logging on public lands in this state. Timber jobs are 0.2 per cent of employment in the region. All can be accommodated in new national parks. How can I be so certain?

First, because Victoria has just done it. As of June 30, logging stopped forever in 91,000 hectares of red gum wetlands. The outcome is jobs positive because there are 30 new park ranger jobs in four new parks, 10 jobs in forest management and 24 jobs in the tourism sector.

Second, because NSW offers loads of experience in world-significant nature conservation made possible through industry restructuring without job losses.

..."Rural towns did not "die". The old timber towns now boast communities with a strong economic base, world-class national parks on their doorstep and thriving nature-based tourism.

So again, loggers case to justify profiteering from scarce native forests, is to rely upon the jobs pretense. In this case they've pulled a nice round 1000 jobs out af a very dark place. The jobs pretense has become a tried a tested hookwink gem used by loggers, developers and those seeking to profiteer from natural asset destruction.

Vivienne (not verified)

Wed, 2009-12-09 08:32

The Mayans used a slash and burn method of clearing the forest in order to produce ground for crop growing. This extremely wasteful method created a lack of natural food for the local wildlife and forced migration and scattering.

From pollen trapped in ancient layers of lake sediment, scientists have learned that around 1,200 years ago, just before the Mayan Empire's collapse, tree pollen disappeared almost completely and was replaced by the pollen of weeds. In other words, the region became almost completely deforested.

Lack of ground cover would have caused rising temperatures would have also disrupted rainfall patterns and caused soil erosion.

The Maya would have relied on rainwater saved in reservoirs to survive, so a disruption in rainfall could have had terrible consequences.

The Maya’s survival relied on the cultivation of their crops, such as maize, which requires rainfall. With a 200-year long drought, the soil would have gone almost completely dry and there would be crop failure resulting in widespread famine and probably susceptibility to disease as well.

Nature has no obligation to provide "jobs" and support "tight knit communities"!

It seems that modern people are repeating some of the Maya's mistakes.

Sheila Newman

Wed, 2009-12-09 00:12

Yes, this is good news, but why do the rally thing through the Caldera? Rees and now Keneally - just working for the property nabobs. Was the park an afterthought - the only thing they would let him do? The mind boggles. Sheila Newman, population sociologist home page Copyright to the author. Please contact sheila [AT] candobetter org or the editor if you wish to make substantial reproduction or republish.

Tigerquoll

Tue, 2009-12-08 22:19

The concept of desexing a feral is valid, but I sence Eco lady is disingenuous in her comment and challenge her (or him, or it) to approach a Brushtail and hand feed it. Even Steve Irwin would have had difficulties. The most humane and effective proposal thus far is 'immunosterilization'. Where is the New Zealand Government on this?

Eco lady (not verified)

Tue, 2009-12-08 16:37

Surely if other species can take oral contraceptive, surely one could be developed for possums too? It could be fed to them via their feed. There would be no more babies and they would die out. However, wildlife are given little funding as they are not commercially viable, or important enough. This would be the must humane method of ridding NZ of the possums.
Quiet Tasmania's picture

Quiet Tasmania

Tue, 2009-12-08 15:28

Tigerquoll's suggestion of a monetary bond for every dog owner is a good idea in principle and it's actually one of a dozen or more that I've promoted (eg at http://www.quietas.net/Page51.html ) however many recalcitrant dog owners have little or no respect for their control obligations as it is, and imposing a heavy financial burden upon them would predictably provoke widespread defiance. You could safely bet on it! Although I greatly favour mandatory bonds as a sensible method of bringing the nation's dog plague under control, many would regard the sum of $1000 as excessive. A bond related to a person's income, and taking into account his history of good or bad ownership, would be much fairer in many instances, as would an "abuser-pays" system. An up-front bond of say $250 would also deter many potential dog owners into deciding against keeping that particular animal. This would be very good considering that the prime cause of the excessive barking so damaging to human health is that animal's unnatural confinement in the nation's backyards. This is a ubiquitous cruelty that the RSPCA and comparable organisations remain completely oblivious to, although the RSPCA's Dr Hugh Wirth has recently suggested penalties to $12,000 for those owners who fail to excercise their dogs. This proposal is unenforceable, and is therefore doomed from the start. As it is, all councils set dog registration fees at quite low levels and one of the reasons for this is their fear that higher levels will inhibit registration compliance. Their view is that it's better to have dogs registered at a low rate to secure SOME enforcement cost-offsetting income, than to have a higher fee that's ignored and secures none at all. I particularly like, in principle, Tigerquoll's paragraph here: "Perhaps an RSPCA $1000 bond for a domestic dog subject to a 12 month inspection designed and conducted by the RSPCA would prevent a lot of domestic animals // being sold to irresponsible owners. The inspection would cost $200, so the owner would get $800 back after 12 months subject to full compliance. The bond money should be invested into more rangers patrolling urban areas for stray cats and dogs and particularly barking dogs." I like the notion of reducing fees progressively for an owner's compliance with his moral and legal obligations. It provides incentives inducing good behaviour. If the barking situation does not improve substantially, then noise-distressed neighbours will remain obliged to relocate, and some of them, driven mad, will still kill either the dog - or its owner. And yes, murders DO occur because of excessive barking! Thankyou Tigerquoll, for your sensible comments. Peter Bright www.pebri.net

Tigerquoll

Tue, 2009-12-08 14:30

Yes, I agree the real pest is the human. Yes, I agree the New Zealand environment would be better off without the Australian Brushtail Possum.

To round up and try repatriating the many Brushtail possums in New Zealand back to Australia would be extremely impractical. Do we know the numbers and their geographic concentrations? Assuming the possum are on both islands, can one island be targeted first?

Where woudl they be repatriate to? Possums are territorial mammals. Even in Australia native wildlife experts claim that it is not possible to relocate possums, which poses problems for both possums already in Australia and for the reintroduced possums. The cost exercise would highlight the extent of the problem and the real costs of New Zealand having neglected a serious pest invasion for nearly two centuries. This reinforces the scale and complexity of introduce pest problems when left ignored.

But what is the alternative that is both ethical and effective? The sterilisation science sounds encouraging, yet even then 'immunosterilization' as it is formally labelled has questions about efficacy of fertility control, the means for delivering antigens. Then there are the potential legal and social concerns that relate to the possible future use of antigens.

But I do recommend this is where the $80 million of New Zealand taxpayers money should be diverted instead of indiscriminate 1080 drops by helicopter. Question is why has the New Zealand Government become so complacent about seeking a humane and effective permanent solution?

Australia's feral camel problem in central Australia is comparable to New Zealand's possum problem. I understand they will be shot, which suggests a faster clean kill (so long as the shooter is a trained marksman with appropriate knowledge of camel to effect a single round quick kill, rather than some recreational shooter), but what to do with the carcasses? Is shooting humane and ethical? Is shooting the only answer, or is it just the cheapest and nastiest quick fix coming from some staffers desk? Could these camels not be herded and shipped live back to their native country in the Middle East or North Africa or from wherever their ancestors originated?

Question again is, why has the Australian Government also ignored the feral camel problem for so long to allow it to build to becoming so numerous and widespread?

I am not in favour of New Zealand ignoring its possum problem, because such a defeatist stance would only perpetuate further destruction of New Zealand's forest ecology and to inevitable local extinctions of native flora and fauna. It would also encourage the perpetuation of New Zealand's immoral fur trade, which is no different to Canadians commercially clubbing fur seals.

Is the New Zealand Government just as complacent with its Biosecurity? Less than a month ago Queensland cane toad was found in an Australian tourist's hiking boot in Queenstown on the South Island. All it needed was a mate and it would have been off and breeding. "A MAF biosecurity spokeswoman confirmed the toad arrived last Tuesday but was not spotted"
[SOURCE:'Cane toad evades Kiwi airport biosecurity' , by Tamara McLean, AAP, 26-Nov-09]

Tigerquoll

Tue, 2009-12-08 13:36

A key problem with Rudd's immigration policy is that he doesn't have one - not publicly anyway.

Rudd leaves the Rudd Gates open and is blind to the over-demand and dilution of quality of life this is casung Australians already here. We have undersupply in every aspect of Australian social infrastructure, let alone to stretch to support more people. It's like opening the farm gate to allow sheep to graze on a spare paddock, except the paddock is full, the grass has been eaten and yet the gate is left open so more sheep enter. All the while farmer Rudd is off to overseas markets telling other farmers how to farm.

Go to the Australian Government website on immigration and try finding Australia's immigration policy for yourself. Hey let us know if you find one!

Then go to the ALP website and you find the media article 'Tackling Housing Supply & Affordability' by PM Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan dated 7-Dec-09 (i.e. yesterday) announcing:

"The Council of Australian Governments today tasked Treasurers with accelerating and expanding on work underway through COAG, making housing a priority for microeconomic reform for 2010.

Ensuring an adequate supply of housing as our population expands in coming decades is also a key economic challenge, impacting on the mobility of our labour force and our capacity for sustainable growth.

Key issues addressed by first ministers and Treasurers included:

* Utilising the land audits recently undertaken by the Commonwealth and state and territory governments to progress the release of surplus land;
* Implementing more efficient approaches to Development Assessment processes; and
*Developing a timetable for housing policy reform for consideration at the first COAG meeting in 2010.

The policy development process will build on a number of measures already in train aimed at increasing the housing supply:

* The COAG Cities Infrastructure and Planning Taskforce has developed a national objective and criteria for capital city strategic planning systems;
* Planning Ministers have developed national planning principles and code-based development approvals processes and intend to work with Housing Ministers to progress reforms; and
* The Henry Tax Review is examining tax issues as they relate to housing.

This work is consistent with COAG's agreement to national criteria for planning transport, housing, urban development and sustainability.

Today's announcement will ensure that the Federal, State and Territory Treasurers are working with Housing and Planning Ministers to ensure we are doing all we can to address housing supply and affordability issues in the interests of Australians wherever they live."

So, the Rudd Government, by encouraging record immigration into Australia has self-perpetuated this "key economic challenge" and housing shortage. Rudd is driving "the release of surplus land" aka sprawl. Rudd is setting up a sprawl taskforce called 'The COAG Cities Infrastructure and Planning Taskforce'. It is to consider a sprawl tax out of The Henry Tax Review to help pay for the sprawl.

The COAG will then try to deal with planning transport. The only thought of 'sustainability' is the use of the term in the propaganda.

Immigration Lobbyists

Then we have vested interest groups like ASA promoting maximising immigration into Australia. It has offices in Australia (Head Office), United Kingdom (England), South Africa (Pretoria), Singapore, Brazil, Malaysia & association offices in 17 countries.

The ASA website promotes the classic economic benefits of immigration:

"Growth"

"This growing population spends more and invests more, thus contributing to the expansion of the country's economy. Along with such essentials as housing and food, migrants help business expansion through investment which then produces extra goods and services in both the private and government sectors.

It also affects the supply side of the economy by introducing labour, skills and money into Australia; by setting up of new businesses by migrants and by their contributions to new technologies. All of these elements are important in a time of high technological growth and increasing international co-operation and competition."

Rudd's Immigration Revolution is self-perpetuating the cycle of demand, spending, consumerism, sprawl, resource depletion, excess consumption, increased greenhouse gases and immigration; that is, everything that contrary to the spirit of Copenhagen.

Tigerquoll

Tue, 2009-12-08 13:00

If only all owners of domestic animals were responsible to pets, wildlife and neighbours. But alas it's like shooters - some are responsible and others end up turning the rifle on familiy members or get like Ivan Milat. If only the RSPCA, all domestic animal breeders and anyone selling a domestic animal were subject to ethical legal controls. Compulsory desexing, microchipping, vaccinations, worming, then there is the particular problem of dogs - barking, not walked, confined, untied on the back of utes, etc. Perhaps an RSPCA $1000 bond for a domestic dog subject to a 12 month inspection designed and conducted by the RSPCA would prevent a lot of domestic animals not being sold to irresponsible owners. The inspection would cost $200, so the owner would get $800 back after 12 months subject to full compliance. The bond money should be invested into more rangers patrolling urban areas for stray cats and dogs and particularly barking dogs. If only more would-be dog owners took to intelligent Jack Russells, instead of larger more problematic dogs. But what has this got to do with the article's focus on the overpopulation problem Doggone?

Possum lover (not verified)

Tue, 2009-12-08 08:24

As always- the real pest is the human. However, I can see from this article that the New Zealand environment would be better off without the Brush Tail Possum. Apart from the cruelty a possum fur industry makes little sense as it would rely on a sustainable population of the animals - and this would mean continued deleterious effects on the environment. Bringing millions of animals back to Australia seems extremely impractical as I think there would be a lack of habitat and how would one round them all up? Human population growth is continually robbing possums of habitat in Australia even though they are very good at sharing with humans. The poisoning and trapping options are not acceptable at all- and anyway -- it seems clear that whatever they are doing in NZ to reduce the population of possums -- they are not being effective, anyway ! (As I write this I hear on radio National that a few hundred camels will be shot in central or northern Australia because their numbers have got out of hand and they come close to human settlements looking for water. Who brought the camels to Australia? Who put them to work in opening up the centre of the continent.? Who abandoned them to the wild when they had served their purpose?) Back to the possums- realistically it seems to me that it's a choice of either accepting the possums and a changed environment (just as humans changed the ecosystem by extinguishing the moa) or making a concerted effort to humanely totally eradicate the animals from NZ. There is no point in partially reducing the population as more possums will fill the available habitat. More info on the practicalities of sterilisation would useful. If only there was a measure of the suffering that humans inflict on each other and on other animals. All other suffering on the planet would be dwarfed by this measure.

Pat (not verified)

Mon, 2009-12-07 16:44

Fertility controls the only longterm option for control NZ possums, anything else is only a bandaid. We have the technology to do this, it only needs some more research and it could proceed. Its crazy to allow unwanted animals to breed out of control, then cruelly kill them, 1080 or not. 40 years ago we put a man on the moon....and then bought him safely back....and yet we cant humanely solve the NZ possum problem? I dont believe it! The NZ DOC appears to be as incomptent and as useless as our own Australian wildlife bureacracies.

Doggone (not verified)

Mon, 2009-12-07 15:51

Whilst I agree with you about the humans, Quiet Please, I think your comments about dogs are out of proportion. As an elderly jack russell cross, I eat very little and occupy only one chair and have no children. In the case of native animals I think that their population needs boosting to survive the human plague and I am prepared to make a personal contribution in the form of a canine amnesty on possums.

Quiet Please. (not verified)

Mon, 2009-12-07 15:24

Agent Provocateur: you provoked me! Denial is a common human behaviour. We have holocaust deniers, climate change deniers, and we also have population overload deniers, to name just a few. Uninformed denial of science as it relates to one subject, while actively promoting a favoured subject, places a (temporary) barrier (and double standard) between the crux of a troubling issue and the remedy for it. I have been looking through Mark O'Connor's writings on Australia's population overload, and couldn't agree more with you, Agent Provocateur, and Mr O'Connor. Yet some Australian politicians continue to turn their denial eye to Australia's population over-growth. They will not acknowledge Australia's human over-growth as the detrimental thing that it is repidly becoming. Mr O'Connor's projected population growth figures are much more concerning than anything I have yet seen. And in the context of climate change, New Scientist reports that the cradle to grave eco footprint of a medium size dog is twice that of a 4.6l Toyota land cruiser! Studies have confirmed this rather surprising fact. So it follows that necessary containment of Australia's human population, particularly if accompanied by a reduction in domestic animal numbers, would make a positive contribution to the curtailment of global warming. In order to argue the benefits of human population curtailment, and possibly even population reduction, it would be sensible to also advocate against the population growth of domestic (and other) animals.

Vivenne (not verified)

Sat, 2009-12-05 20:55

Research has begun recently into biocontrol of brushtail possums as the only long-term, cost-effective solution to the possum problem in New Zealand, where possums cause significant damage to native forests, threaten populations of native plants and animals, and infect cattle and deer with bovine tuberculosis. see the abstract for the CSIRO report Immunocontraception is a humane means of controlling possums with wide public acceptance. Although several studies have investigated or modelled its demographic consequences, there have been few studies of the possible effects of the presence of sterile females on local males. implications for biological control Cynanide kills more quickly than 1080, but no less violently. Researchers have called this death humane! Food is provided in a feeder for a few of days to lull the animals into a false sense of security. Then their trust is betrayed with the food being replaced with encapsulated cyanide pellets. The animals die within metres of the feeding station. Possums are endearing little animals and what they suffer is horrific! The legacy of human ignorance and delinquency is enormous! Our Colonial attitudes continue to haunt us today, with species continually threatened and made extinct by human expansion and self-interests.

Tigerquoll

Sat, 2009-12-05 20:23

Vivienne,

Thanks. Your article is very pertinent and indentifies a rural symptom of the core ecological problem facing Australia - land degradation from traditonal farming coupled with climate change.

The management problem is that Australia's urban-centric politicans turn a blind eye to rural issues and instead pour billions to perpetuate the obscene weath and bulemic sprawl of Australia's capital cities to the detriment of what they euphemistically label 'the bush'. This systemic neglect of non-urban Australia is beyond urbanism. It is 'urbanist' - a bias towards urban and a bias against rural.

Burgeoning city votes are driving city preferences for investment, population and political attention. The so-called 'bush' suffers again. They even call Newcastle and Townsville bush can you believe it?

Your issue is replicated across inland Australia such as in the two following current articles:

Lachlan River to stop flowing

[ABC, Brad Markham/Michael Condon from Condobolin 2877, Saturday, 5 Dec 09]

"It's now just days until unprecedented steps are taken preserve dwindling water supplies in Wyangala Dam in central-west NSW. The amount of water released from the dam each day into the Lachlan River is to be slashed by about 500 megalitres. That will have major consequences for farmers at places like Condobolin and further downstream.

Releases from the dam, which is less than six per cent full, will be cut from about 700 megalitres a day to 200 megalitres from October 31st. It'll mean the Lachlan River will stop flowing past Condobolin early next month.

"That 200 megalitres a day that we are aiming for is only a predicted flow," says Lachlan Valley Water chairman Dennis Moxey. "It has never been done before that we have run the river in the hot summer months this low."

Mr Moxey says it's an unprecedented situation. "There's been hardly any inflows into Wyangala Dam," he says. Restricting water releases from the dam will affect hundreds of farmers who depend on the river for water.

"It's not just 300 water licence holders below Condobolin who'll be affected," Mr Moxey says. "There's also other farmers whose creek systems will run dry."

Those creeks provide drinking water for livestock and hundreds of people.
"I think it's been hard for people to understand that this is actually going to happen," he says. "But I don't think [the State Government] realises the gravity of the whole situation.

"People are desperate, particularly along the lower part of the Lachlan. Things are just getting worse." While the river will stop flowing at Condobolin, water will still be "pulsed" down to the weir pool which feeds the Lake Cargelligo township.

"If it gets to the stage where that water isn't enough to enable the river to keep flowing to Condobolin, we'll just have to release a bit more water from Wyangala Dam," Mr Moxey says. "That'll mean the resource won't last as long, but we have supply those townships with water."

The mayor of the Lachlan Shire, Des Manwarring, says the situation is serious.
"They tell us if there's no inflows into Wyangala Dam by April the dam will run dry," he says.

Inflows into the Lachlan River have hit record low levels."

Home no more as graziers get big or get out

[Sydney Morning Herald, Brad Markham/Michael Condon from Condobolin 2877, Sunday, 25/10/2009]

"THERE are still pegs on the Hills Hoist, three tiny toy cars are lined up on a brick wall, white curtains with green fern designs hang at the windows, and the speed dial on the wall phone lists local names like ''Bones'', a roo shooter, and Helmers, the town store.

But no one is at home. No one has been home since July 1993, the calendar hanging by the phone indicates.

The homestead on Wongalara station, 90 kilometres west of Wilcannia, is an abandoned farmhouse, one of hundreds of ghostly shells that speak of the old days of the family farm, before the NSW west emptied out.

Its walls are coated in red dust, its floor carpeted with roo and goat droppings, the chicken wire around its tennis court droops, and the children's desks in its entertainment outhouse are ripe for horror movie casting as they cradle a doll whose eyes stare at a sagging ceiling.

Two dead TVs sit on the veranda. Only the cactuses have survived in a garden where the skeletons of once well-tended vines loop around wires. An FJ ute lies abandoned outside a garage where the painted shadows of long-gone tools haunt the walls. A Dunlop volley shoe lies beside a white kangaroo leg bone in the dust. Life was once sweet here.

''Wongalara was the social hub of the area and now there's no one there,'' said the Elders real estate branch manager at Broken Hill, Ian Jaensch.

Seven in 10 of the properties Mr Jaensch is selling have secondary homesteads on them, as neighbour has eaten neighbour in a brutal process called aggregation. Most farms must grow ever bigger to be viable.

''That is the sad long-term fact; it's just inevitable,'' said the Victorian social researcher Neil Barr, the author of The House on the Hill: The Transformation of Australia's Farming Communities.

In his five years in the area, Mr Jaensch estimated, half the properties he had sold went to pastoral corporations. Their farm managers tended to stay a few years and move on, changing the social fabric of the bush, he said.

Bob Pratten acquired Wongalara in 1947 as a returned serviceman. He and his late wife, Joyce, raised four children and ran sheep on its 8600 hectares. They threw tennis parties for 20 to 30 neighbours and their gangs of kids.

Now 88, Mr Pratten has retired to Dubbo. None of the children farms. His daughter, Dianne Spears, a Sydney office worker, remembers mustering with ponies, speedboat rides in a neighbour's lake, and, one drought-stricken summer, spending every day as a teenager ''sweeping one inch of red dust off the verandas''.

The Prattens sold in 1986 to a neighbour, Lin Huddlestone, who amalgamated it with her 27,733-hectare Burragan station and 17,700-hectare Bellvale. The entire property was being sold to a syndicate of local graziers unlikely to use any of the three homesteads for more than a ''crash pad'', Mr Jaensch said.

Mr Pratten has not been back to see the house he built: ''I have called in several times and looked from the hill before you get there but I don't want to go down there, the way they said it was.''

Tiger Quoll
Snowy River 3885
Australia

Quiet Please. (not verified)

Sat, 2009-12-05 10:41

I listened to that recording. It's the most grotesque, environmentally hideous assault on a neighbouring domestic soundscape that I've ever heard. Oh, give me the day when someone sues one of these belligerent noise-makers for everything they own. Oh, for a personal damages claim so huge that those who allow (and defend) the rights of dogs to bark would never, ever attempt to force their barking dogs, their self-righteous justifications or their under-informed denials on another decent-living human being. The person who put that sound-track out there would be a candidate for post-traumatic disorder. What a disgraceful indictment on society.

Tigerquoll

Fri, 2009-12-04 13:24

I appreciate Jack responding with his justifying claims. These have become part of the popular culture over generations to an extent that they are accepted as fact. But are they facts?

My response to Jack's claims about justified killing of possums and kangaroos warrant considered response. Due to the detail I have replied by way of contributing new articles on this issue.

Brushtail Possums are a destructive pest in NZ - but is persevering with a backyard fur trade New Zealand's ethical solution?

Jack (not verified)

Thu, 2009-12-03 17:24

I understand that they are a destructive pest in that country so I see no problem in that industry, provided the possums are killed humanely. By the way, I was told by my father that possum pie was a favourite when he was a boy living on a farm. The same for the kangaroo in Australia - in some areas they are in epidemic proportions, so their humane culling and careful and economic use of the products is sensible.

Tigerquoll

Thu, 2009-12-03 10:43

Agent Provocateur, I suggest the global 'excess problem' stems from two drivers: 1. The problem avoidance of overpopulation and all its consequential demand pressures 2. The overriding domination of economics on political thought and policy driving an unquestioned pursuit of economic growth as if with out it, we face Armegeddon. The ideal of Optimal Living (in a generic sense) should supplant Economic Growth. Our world is indeed a rich place, except when one sees it with greedy eyes. Tiger Quoll Snowy River 3885 Australia

Tigerquoll

Thu, 2009-12-03 10:19

Many post-war ideals that Liberal and Labor, Tories and Labor, Democrats and Rebublicans all adhere to, are obsolete. Menzies steered Australia through war and boom times. Chifley's post-war immigration scheme may have been appropriate at the time. But it's time for new political parties to break the mould and to break community polarisation. Independents including Greens need to start having quarterly conferences to thrash out issues of consensus and to consider forming coalition to get a third and forth alternative out there. Australians are tired of the Lib-Lab pendulum. But at election time many vote for the lesser of the two evils simply because there is no alternative. The right stuff is not attracted to the Lib-Lab circus and can earn more in corporate anyway. The apportionment of wealth away from government and to the top 500 is squewed to the private and away from the public. Poor media ethics, standards, paparrazzism and the dominance of Fairfax and Murdock are disssuading many of the right stuff from entering the political landscape. Australia is suffering as a consequence.

James Sinnamon

Thu, 2009-12-03 09:18

Thanks, Vivienne. It's important that we are honest about not not only the Labor Government, but the alternatives. Whilst my own inclination has been to always put Labor ahead of the Liberal and National Parties on my preferential ballot paper (that is, after having voted 1, 2, 3, ... for Independents, Greens, etc.), the experience of the thoroughly despotic and incompetent Queensland Labor Government as well as the seemingly principled stances of the Liberal National Party Opposition in State Parliemant in support of democratic principles, is causing me to rethink that. In Victoria, it may still prove to be the case that the Liberal National Opposition could prove to be even worse than the already unbelievably awful Brumby Labor Government. Whatever choice, if any, candobetter eventually advocates on election day, it is critical that we be strictly honest about both of the two major alternatives as Vivienne has been. We should not be so blinded by our disgust at the ruling Labor Governments as to excuse the grave shortcomings of the opposition parties. This certainly happened in the 2009 state elections, when the Save the Mary River coalition openly attacked the Greens with at least one for not explicitly recommending that their supporters preference the Liberal National Party (the Queensland combination of the former state Liberal and National parties) over Labor. I consider this stance of the Save the Mary River coalition to have been harmful to democracy and probably their own cause, (although the latter may seem less obvious now as a result of Federal Labor Environment Minister Peter Garrett for once having made a decision in favour of the environment by over-ruling the Queensland Government's plans to build the dam). Of course, the real solution is to create an alternative (which the Greens, sadly, are not) to both pro-big-business alternatives, so that the choice between Labor on the one hand and the Liberals and Nationals on the other becomes irrelevant.

Vivienne (not verified)

Thu, 2009-12-03 08:42

"If elected to government in November 2010, the Liberal Nationals Coalition will work with Racing Victoria to reinstate jumps racing and to rebuild racing across country Victoria".
“We want jumps racing to continue, the May Racing Carnival to continue with the economic and job flow-ons to continue to Warrnambool,” Dr Napthine said. “When Warrnambool is losing hundreds of jobs and $20 million a year in income because changes are being made by an agency established by the Victorian Government through parliament, I believe the State Government has a responsibility to work with the city to develop a strategy for economic opportunities that will create jobs and income.”

DENIS NAPTHINE, Shadow Minister for Racing, Shadow Minister for Regional Cities

Interesting that Denis Napthine was a vet before entering politics! Vets also work for the live export trade, support puppy mills and factory farming. It is tiresome to hear the same old arguments to exploit and kill animals and destroy environments - "jobs", "income" and "economics"!

Good reason to not vote for Liberals in the next Victorian elections!

Agent Provocateur

Thu, 2009-12-03 05:01

... Encourage recycling of those leaflets... to ALL family members!

Sheila - this says it all!

The answer is to slow down and produce less.

This will cause less heat and pollution.

We do not actually have to produce more.

We spend too much time working and we have more than we can pleasurably consume.

What we don't have is time, political power and quality social interaction.

... I rest my case.

Agent Provocateur

Thu, 2009-12-03 04:52

... Named after Charles Ponzi, a man with a remarkable criminal career in the early 20th century, the term has been used to describe pyramid schemes... 'They are not only conspiring to transfer wealth from the majority to themselves, but they are also making each member of our society on average necessarily poorer and therefore causing there to be even less to go around for the rest ' So - what can you do? I have noticed more disparaging emails of late, on immigration, population - and housing issues... so perhaps 'awareness' is the first step - a major strike? A concerted campaign? Create a new 'Movement'? Because unless something is -done- rather than talked about, nothing will change - and we desperately need change. Not just in Queensland but in the whole of Australia. How many disenfranchised, marginalised Australians will it take, before we stop the rot?

Agent Provocateur

Thu, 2009-12-03 04:33

Hello James.. honestly, I have had a general look around the site - there are so many interesting pieces, I hardly know where to start! (Sheila Newman's too)

Perhaps, inadvertantly, the house-prices may influence population growth (am I too naive?) - well, we can only hope.

You may be interested to know, that amongst my accomplishments is the now listed fact, that I have owned 5 homes in 23 years - between the years of 1985 - 2009 and never paid over $100,000.

I've owned units and houses and now, one unconventional dwelling; on the last four homes, I made a profit, but that was never the main agenda. The agenda was NOT to live beyond my means - sustainable living.

I ought to feel sorry for the strangle-hold that fluctuating/increasing mortgage rates have on the Ordinary Australian - but I don't. Nobody would listen to me, when I would ask the 'what if?..' questions - they kept on breeding - they kept on buying those expensive houses.

...'Mortgage repayments now account for 30.8 per cent of an average first-homebuyer's income a 0.8 per centrise on the previous quarter.' ...

It used to be that banks wouldn't lend money over 25% of the borrower's income. Does anyone still remember the term 'usury'?

Does anyone know the 'real' value of a block in the burbs? ... or just its 'notional' value?

I'm sure I saw the outline of an article this evening which said Queensland ... requisitioning land, for building purposes... (off farmers? house-holders?) - it has been done, in the past, I know - for instance, to build free-ways:

dictionary.reference.com/browse/requisition: the taking of property by a public authority for a public use : the exercise of the power of eminent domain

... In anycase, my point is - land 'owner-ship' has, and is a 'notional value' - and I refuse to 'buy' it! In any sense of that word. I've chosen to purchase an unconventional dwelling, which does occupy land, but which land - I don't own. No Stamp Duty & a cheaper house (yes, under $100,000)

While many are appalled at my choice of 'dwelling' & its where-abouts - I am 'smug as a bug in a rug'. It is not - he who dies with the most toys wins' - after all. I believe that its actually 'he who dies with the least toys wins - and had lots of spare money to enjoy the new 'Gold Standard' - Time. ... Because you can't take those toys with you - The Egyptians tried...

I'm afraid that, while I had a choice in the matter of my dwelling, many in the near future will not - I make one plea here - do not be seduced into 'the market place' and be enslaved - find viable alternatives, while there are still some of those alternatives to be had.

... So, perhaps a transient 'Winnabago' society will prevail... a land of Gypsies... no, I don't have a caravan... but .. what a lovely idea!

Agent Provocateur

Thu, 2009-12-03 03:41

I lay no claim, what-so-ever to being an intellectual, however, one doesn't need to be, to see that Australia is leaning toward an unsustainable population; water, arable land, real jobs to support expensive houses and cost of living. But what I want to know, is why - successive governments, at both State & Federal levels, are behaving in such a contrary way? If it's obvious to half wits like me (and perhaps to quarter-wits and even eighth-wits...) that we are beyond sustainability, why are we allowing it to happen? What drives the push for more people?

Agent Provocateur

Thu, 2009-12-03 03:20

Hello Sheila Re-Introduction: I've been in contact with James over the last couple of days, and I noticed your name in the list of blogs. I believe that we have already met - we also seem to be on the same wave-length. My name is Amanda Burchell - I've recently written and published a book called: Agent Provocateur: the backlash against the anti smoking campaign. ( The QUIT campaign is ugly, rude and alienates those it wishes to avail themselves of its dogma - I have a better solution.) You may be interested in the sub-text, which compares other forms of pollution (over population & pollution). And while the book is intended to be humorous, within its 'rant' you may find a serious intent. Mike Cook has provided some entertaining graphics to encapsulate the writer's message, and as the saying goes: 'You catch more flies with honey than vinegar' - humour can often be said to engage, where a tongue-lashing, brow beating may not. ( Another wit has said: ...But who wants flies?) Our website: www.somethingfunnygoingon.com ... Sheila, I see that you have done some great research into the area of population ~ I've long thought that Australia was heading for 'unsustainability'. - I've mentioned elsewhere this evening, that I spoke with a scientist a few years ago in the 1990's who said that Australia could sustain around 12 1/2 million - after that, there would be a serious 'liquidation' of resources, (or words to that effect) - i.e. arable land; water; those proponents of 'more people/ cheaper goods and more for all' (mainly builders, I spoke to in the 1980's!) - were wrong, as evidenced by house prices alone! ... Have you unearthed the contrary reasons behind the push for population growth to the detriment of the Nation's tax paying citizens, by any chance? Regards Amanda Burchell

Agent Provocateur

Thu, 2009-12-03 02:19

I know this one well, lol - 'hope you don't mind my mentioning my book, here! (Thankyou, James - for buying a copy - its on the way!) Agent Provocateur... while not against children per se - is against encouraging population growth! We don't have the resources or infrastructure to cope with population growth in Australia.

Population Growth is Responsible for the following in Direct Proportions:

  • crowded roads
  • Emissions! (very sore point at the moment - with the Federal Liberal Party re-shuffling and 'stiffing' Malcolm Turnbull, because he did (apparenty) care about the Green issues/pollution)
  • Arable land being used for housing
  • While water isn't such a problem in Queensland, it certainly is in Victoria and Sth Australia.
  • A scientist stated in the 1990's that Australia could sustain a population of about 12 1/2 million - after that - we would start to run the resources (Water, land, etc) into 'liquidation'.

    • ... Mandatory Infrastructure Required: decent, affordable homes; free, usable roads - roads which interconnect effectively!

Agent Provocateur

Thu, 2009-12-03 01:57

Hi James! ( I was finally able to log in!) Excuse me for not replying sooner - I've been working nights and doing in-house training here, at Peninsula Health, in Victoria. I read the extracted pieces on child restraints with interest, as somewhat wryly, I recall that I was booked in Victoria for not having my son properly restrained in the car when he was 3 1/2 - some years ago, now. That son is now 27 and has an IQ of 142, but he didn't need the high IQ to undo his safety belt! - And I don't believe that larger, more expensive car-safety seats will defeat the children who are supposed to be safely contained within them! I do have a suspicious mind though: I wonder if there might be a 'kick-back' to the company and policy makers who are insisting that safety will be improved by 50% - as you say - with little reference to proven statistics. I believe that Victoria has beaten Queensland in successfully legislating for these very same regulations, never the less... You've included the following: "Many, who don't have children of their own, but who are occasionally asked to drive children of relatives will be faced with the unpalatable choice: either go to the trouble and expense necessary to install the seat belts or be unable to offer lifts when the need arises." I think that the parents will have to go through the rigmarole of leaving 'baby sitters' with the car seats - very cumbersome. ... My eldest son lives on the Gold Coast, (Victorian born) - and says that Queensland has appalling road conditions and public transport; this last' would be the solution I might advocate in either Melbourne or Sydney - (and not drive the car!) - but my son says that public transport in Queensland is nowhere near as good as other States, such as NSW and Victoria. My sympathies are with you on all the above topics - as a single parent for many years, the cost of caring for children was exorbitant - and I would not have a family in the current financial climate - because - I would not be able to afford to do so!

Terry (not verified)

Wed, 2009-12-02 23:26

Just tell me one thing, Tigerquoll, do you own one leather item or any animal product in your abode? because if you do your a complete hipocrite. Given that all animals are native to some country and native animals on foreign soil seem to be of a sensitive nature to you. I am never to return to a site like this because it only encourages idiots like you.

Milly (not verified)

Wed, 2009-12-02 14:59

"Humankind's future is to colonise the solar system and, indeed, the wider galaxy. Earth is not our only home". Basing policies and population growth on the chance that we may be able to colonise the solar system, and the wider galaxy, is surely rather speculative and based on massive uncertainty! This is the stuff of science fiction, not a solution to the Earth's current problems! As for the Royal family, what ever their limitations and defects, they are not against humanity and do not support genocide. Climate change is something real, not scam. These "opinions" are simply fiction, sensationalistic gossip. Sorry, but fantasy is not relevant in today's current affairs.

James Sinnamon

Wed, 2009-12-02 13:18

Firstly, I thank Sean, Tigerquoll, Vivienne and others for their contributions to this discussion. I think it is necessary that differences be discussed openly in this way. I thing it is important to recongnise that very few individuals or groups are completely right about everything or completely wrong. Even where a group such as the CEC is so badly mistaken on such critcal issues as population and the environment as Tigerquoll, Vivienne, Steve and I believe they are, they can still offer some worthwhile ideas in other important areas, as I have said. I am not opposed to technology. I just think we need to be realistic about what we can hope to achieve with it and must be prepared to use it sustainably. We must be prepared to acknowledge that humankind's technological achievements thus far have been dependent upon the extraction and processing and fabrication of finite non-renewable resources, particularly fossil fuels and metals. Personally, I even hope to see a space exploration and colonisation program undertaken as Sean has suggested. However, such a program would need to be self-sustaining, and not dependent upon earth's finite resources, to have a long term future. The raw materials to build the hardware for the space colonies would largely have to be mined from the Moon and the asteroids. To be self sustaining we would need to create artificial environments that can sustain human life and the other forms of life upon which humans are dependent that would require little input other than energy from the sun. It would have to be capable of recycling almost 100% of the materials contained within it. My understanding is that that has never been achieved. It may well prove impossible in any environment as small as even a very large enclosed space colonies that T A Heppenheimer wrote of in the 1970's in his book "Colonies in Space". As it seems unlikely that we will get space colonisation to work in the near future, then we may need to, instead focus on the technolgies that will help us repair the Earth. That could be a good start towards achieving the goal of eventually creating artificial environments capable of sustaning life, including human life, in space.

Terry (not verified)

Wed, 2009-12-02 01:34

Subject was: 'Good product'. - JS I had no idea that they were doing that. I checked it out and ended up buying myself two of their products. Thanks for the link.

Anonymous (not verified)

Tue, 2009-12-01 23:49

Brisbane and much of Queensland is a noisy, ugly, dusty wound, of rotting tree carcasses bulldozed into moonscaped red mud battlefields, intersected by heavily trafficked new roads. And everywhere ticky-tacky boxes covering the hills and bearing down on the disappearing woodlands, like infestations of locusts, the desperado families herded by advertising into Bunningses and Big Ws etc, looking for manufactured meaning in lives where meaning, reality and nature lie bleeding, dying and dissed. The city groans with pain as a tribe of phallicly challenged pharaoh parvenus compulsively seeks compensation for their an-epiphany in continuous erection of redundant concrete and glass monuments, with no care as to the absurdity of their conduct and its awful financial, aesthetic and environmental costs. The government in Queensland is completely out of touch along with the developers. I wonder where it will all end. I don't think the insensitive ones are going to get away with what they are doing forever.

Tree (not verified)

Tue, 2009-12-01 23:27

Bernard Salt, again given more air-time in the main stream media in article "Adelaide block sizes shrink" The developers in Adelaide must have both of Mike Rann's ears. They have achieved an average block size of 450sqm, below the national average of 527sqm (note that the old 1/4 acre block is 1011 sqm !!) and then on today's news: "Australians have world's biggest homes" from: http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2009/s2756847.htm and "Welcome to Victoria, home to super-sized houses" http://www.theage.com.au/national/welcome-to-victoria-home-to-supersized-houses-20091129-jywb.html So we have 2 opposing trends, smaller block sizes and bigger houses. Clearly what is happening is that backyards have become token paved "outdoor entertainment" area, while the house has moved up right to the boundary on all sides, only subject to limits as required to by local planning rules (i.e. set-backs). So it looks like that developers are succeeding in selling small blocks by fully covering them, compensating home owners with increased interior space. from: http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,26413813-2682,00.html

Tigerquoll

Tue, 2009-12-01 11:24

An excellent and well researched article Vivienne. This is a national ecological emergency. It is where Bligh and Rudd should be focusing, not on kangaroo meat exports or intangible ETS appeasement. According to a ten year old study by the CRC Reef Research Centre & James Cook University "Tourism is the activity with the highest commercial value within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) (GBRMPA 2000a). Approximately 1.6 million visitors travel to or through the GBRMP on commercial tourism operations each year. In addition, more than one million visitor nights per year are spent in accommodation on island resorts within the boundaries of GBRMP (extrapolated from Driml 1987, Zann 1996). The direct value of marine tourism is over $1 billion per year (Zann 1996, Dinesen and Oliver 1997, GBRMPA 2000a), approximately four times that of the next most valuable commercial activity, i.e. commercial fishing. The marine tourism industry is a major contributor to the Australian economy, with an estimated direct value in excess of $1 billion (Wachenfeld et al 1998, GBRMPA 2000a). Total employment was estimated at 120,000 people (Zann 1996)." Queenslanders don't realise what's looming. The bleaching of the Reef threatens to ruin GBR marine tourism and with it to instigate a recession across the Queensland economy. Beautiful one day... Tiger Quoll Snowy River 3885 Australia

Vivienne (not verified)

Mon, 2009-11-30 23:05

Subject was: "We cannot have limitless growth on finite ecosystems." - JS Outbreaks of toxic blue-green algae and infestation by pest species such as the crown-of-thorns starfish appeared to be becoming more frequent and more serious in the Great Barrier Reef. "Improving the quality of water flowing into the reef is one of the most important things we can do to help the reef withstand the impacts of climate change," Environment Minister Peter Garrett said. How do we stop the effects of industrialisation, agriculture and the global shipping trade? Ocean acidification, caused by increasing levels of dissolved carbon dioxide, is a newly recognised and serious threat to the reef. Hoegh-Guldberg, head of the University of Queensland's Centre for Marine Studies, argues that coral reefs will likely recover in geologic terms, but not in terms of a human lifetime. The short term impact of dying and degraded reefs will be significant. Hoegh-Guldberg suspects corals will face a difficult adjustment period in the face of rapidly rising sea temperatures and falling carbonate ion concentrations. He argues that coral reefs will likely recover in geologic terms, but not in terms of a human lifetime. A decline in the number of small fish meant lower numbers of predatory fishes such as high-value commercial and recreational species such as coral trout. This exposed them to predators that snapped them up. The GBR is home to significant biodiversity, including more than 4000 mollusc species, around 1500 fish species, most of the world’s marine turtle species, the dugong, and many species of whale and dolphin, with possibly more yet to be discovered. There is more than tourism dollars at stake! Unusually high sea temperatures in the Great Barrier Reef have already led to mass die-offs of seabird chicks, from parent birds being unable to find enough prey as fish populations have moved. The sex and viability of sea turtle hatchlings depends on sand temperature, and warming could lead to a significant bias towards females and potentially a decline in future populations. There is more than the economy at stake! British economist Sir Nicholas Stern says that climate change could shrink the global economy by as much as 20%. Maybe these dramatic changes to our ecology and economy, the latter being dependent on the former, is the cost of a wake-up call that growth in our economy and human numbers cannot be limitless on finite ecosystems.

James Sinnamon

Mon, 2009-11-30 17:17

I think we need to ask exactly what sort of jobs are being generated by sand mining in particular and the whole South East Queensland development juggernaut in general. If you drive around Brisbane any day, you will observe with your own eyes easily hundreds of workers engaged in some of the most unpleasant, lowly paid, unskilled occupations imaginable with little job security, training or prospects for career advancement. The most noticible are the hapless traffic controllers who have to stand up in the hot sun mostly on bitumen surfaces through the working day, breathing in car exhaust and all the dust and chemicals entailed in road works. If they can put up the necessary money for training courses and take the time off work and they find an opening whilst they still have the skills obtained in training, they may hope to rise to the grand heights of being a heavy equipment operator, but that would seem to be it. What would be most revealing would be a proper audit of exactly what sort of occupations people are employed in today's runaway growth economy as opposed to the less frenetic paced economy of a generation or more ago. I would not expect that today's figures would compare favourably.

Tigerquoll

Mon, 2009-11-30 16:01

MES is correct that it is not the only trader of possum fur, but MES it is very prominent in its online marketing which makes it stand out. MES website portrays an image of doing a good thing for the New Zealand natural environment, which I criticise as disingenuous greenwash.

The purpose of the article is not to target any one fur trader, but to question the merits of this fur trade being marketed as an eco-sustainable solution. It is to highlight the problem of Australian possums in New Zealand - an historical problem, long dismissed by New Zealand authorities as one for the too hard basket. It is to highlight the immoral perpetuation of a fur trade in native animals (acknowledging they are not native to New Zealand, but introduced by New Zealanders). They still remain Australian native animals.

It is to challenge the trade as a disingenous attempt to promote the industrial trade as a noble worthy environmental cause promoting glamorious exclusive garments out of Australian native amimals. It is to highlight the lack of independently supported evidence that the possum fur trade is actually addressing the population of possums in NZ in an humane manner and is actually effective to any serious extent - or is it really just perpetuating the trade for profit? If the trade is effective it should have a timeline for when the possum population can be confirmed to be eliminated from both South and North Islands. It is to question the long held defeatist view of the New Zealand Department of Conservation [DOC] that the introduced possum problem in New Zealand is unsolvable, despite DOC spending $80 million a year in cruel 1080 baiting.

A quick online search reveals other traders not just based in New Zealand. MerinoSnug is an Australian trader of possum products - Australian based yet claiming to source possums from New Zealand, which sounds doubtful.

Others include:

* Nichols NZ

* Basically Bush

* Lanamania

* Merino Snug

* Snowy Peak

...amongst others no doubt.

This issue is important for New Zealand ecology and for the possums themselves and warrants public debate across the Tasman. What about the introduced weasels and stoats? Are these having a more serious adverse impact on NZ native fauna?

The issue of introduced animals is one of systemic government problem avoidance. The issue of culling is also just as serious. Readers may have noted on this blog that I hold similar condemnation for Australians poaching kangaroos in Australia. I am being wholly consistent. Native animals belong in their native homes and deserve to be treated with respect.

Tigerquoll

Mon, 2009-11-30 12:24

Chapter one, page one of the development propaganda manual to get a development application through is: 'Thou shalt proclaim a development is good for jobs, even better 'local' jobs.' Proven effective in even the most contentious of circumstances, the jobs appeal (pretense) serves to instantly quash moral objections, and divide and conquer objectors. The jobs pretense seeks the moral high ground. Most people regard jobs for people with higher value than the value of ecology. The jobs appeal is an anthropocentric appeal. It attracts irresistable political support - jobs mean votes! The jobs appeal will get local support - 'jobs for locals'...see -rolls off the tongue nicely. How can anyone object to more jobs for locals? But as to what jobs? How many? Who will get the jobs? How long will the jobs last? Mmm, well as long as one comes up with a figure on the number of jobs, say 123 to pluck one out of the air (or a darker place) the public will assume that the company must have carried out an economic case to support that figure, so presume the figure unquestioningly to be true. How could doubters disprove a jobs figure when the jobs figure is an internal estimate by the developer? The jobs pretense has become a tried a tested hookwink gem that works every time! Details are not important. Who follows up on the job count anyway? Once the development is approved, the protestors go home, the politicians forget, the planning process is over, the conditions of consent are delegated to internal accountability which instantly is not publicly accountable. As for job count...I can hear it...'well this is not a consent condition so outside our terms of reference, and a political issue, so you'll have to contact your local politician...' "Jobs"! What a crock!"...absolutely! It's a developer con numero uno! Tiger Quoll Snowy River 3885 Australia

MES (not verified)

Mon, 2009-11-30 04:15

I read your article with great interest and I only wanted to remind you that there are other companies as well producing and trading possum wool. Only to name Zealana which is imported into the EU by Lanamania from Munich, Germany. Is there any reason why you only mention the Merino Possum Consortium? If not, please, be aware that for equality reasons you should mention the other producers and suppliers as well. Otherwise one might come to the conclusion that you have a sole problem only with the company you mentioned and not with whole subject itself!

chugg (not verified)

Mon, 2009-11-30 03:27

Why worry? It WILL go back down all by it's self when it's good and ready. It allways correlates with Glacier retractions and expansions and periods of extra sizmicity because of emissions from hot rock This is where Ian Plimer is right but misunderstood with volcano emissions Not all CO2 comes from volcanic lava. CO2 released from hot rocks and Earthquakes produce carbon dioxide in crustal faults. SO YOU WOULD HAVE TO MULTIPLY ANY INCREASE OF LAND BASED EQ’S, VOLC’S BY THOUSAND'S PROBABLY TO COVER WHAT'S GOING UNDER THE OCEAN TO ARRIVE AT ANY-WHERE NEAR A CORRECT FIGURE. WHERE'S THIS IN THE IPCC ASSESMENT? ------ 3 MILLION + submarine volcanoes and a 'billion' Superheated Thermal Vents. . www.breadandbutterscience.com/GWE.pdf Based on continental and oceanic studies, the atmosphere had ~30% higher CO2 concentrations than pre-Industrial Holocene levels (Kürschner et al., 1996; Raymo et al., 1996). Not all CO2 comes from volcanic lava. An estimated 85 percent of all forms of seismic activity happens out of sight under oceans at plate boundaries. More is now known of undersea hot rock emissions of CO2, CO2 released from hot rocks and Earthquakes produce carbon dioxide in crustal faults adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008E&PSL;.265..487F --------------------------- An estimated 3 MILLION plus undersea volcanoes, probably a BILLION plus superheated hot water thermal vents which may have increased parallel with CO2. Just as it HAS happened EVERY time at the start of each Deep Ice Age. NOT WARMING !! AN ICE AGE IS ON THE WAY.

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