No offence, but your comments appear only half-educated. A prescribed burn is done in pockets, so that an entire area is not burned off all at one time. This allows animals to continue to flourish in the wider area. This is what is called a "mosaic" effect. Which is why you see the DSE have burnt a little each year over the last few years. This is not "bush phobic" but takes into account the fact that the Australian bush has a complex and necessary relationship with fire for propagation and the DSE tries to work with the bush to encourage it at its natural state as best as possible without injuring or harming the humans that now inhabit it so profusely. In fact you will find that when prescribed burns as the Aboriginals carried them out stopped, certain species of animals that thrived and lived in the edges of them became extinct. As fire is the natural state of the Australian bush, you will never stop it, the best we can do in our situation, is learn to harmoniously work with the land and manage it. If you understand it from this angle you will understand that prescribed burns cause no where near the damage to flora, fauna, the environment and humans as the huge deadly wildfires that occur if we don't prescribe burn. The DSE and the CFA are both committed to working to save the environment as much as possible, unfortunately too many people see them as the enemy - humans love to have a tangible enemy to attack, even if that means turning on one another when convenient. It will be nice when people finally realize that prescribed burns are much more green than they first understood.
Comments
Australia's cities are becoming more and more violent.
Premier Brumby says that the rising violence in Melbourne is "un-Victorian". This impotent and feeble protest is a way of objecting but doing nothing!
Australia's cities are becoming more and more violent. We are living in pressure-cooker conditions, due to human densities without a culture to unify people. Diversity is celebrated and encouraged, but the reality is that we are not a conforming culture like in Japan or China. We are not a monolith! We lack leadership in Australia, and without a unifying and adhesive "glue", such as a faith or some ideals, violence and discord will continue. Add alcohol and drugs to this mix, and organised crime, there is mayhem! We have secularism, materialism, ramped population growth, greed and diversions of all kinds, each of us with selfish aims and directions. We can't have police everywhere, and this would offend the supporters of civil libertarians! Our cities are centres of violence and vice, but without leadership and ideals, our society will decline into further anarchy and crime.
More on Peter McDonald ...
Peter McDonald's work for the ANU and contracts from growth lobby foundations has had a lot to do with marketing Australia's overpopulation. Concerned Australians should all make themselves aware of some related influences. See:
"Academics debate What Population Australia and Our Region can Sustainably Support"
"ABC at it again!"
"Scanlon report underpins threat to Australian democracy"
"Poet pens a plea to stop population push - new book due out"
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
Tentative thumbs up for black cockatoos!
On Wednesday I had this tentative thumbs up from Glenn Dewhurst about the cockatoos:
"Sheila,
I think we had a win last night. We are able to keep all the aviaries on site under conditions set by the council.
I am unsure what conditions have been put upon us.
They said the minutes will be released Today at 12pm on the below link.
I will email tonight the results once I get to have a look.
Thanks again for all your support and that of your friends; I can say that they were over whelmed with the level of support.
Here is the link: http://www.gosnells.wa.gov.au/default-gosnells.asp
The minutes of the meeting are to be found here:http://www.gosnells.wa.gov.au/upload/gosnells/3BE3CF7EAAB64C4EBAADC8588B8BD715.pdf
My reading of the minutes is also cautiously optimistic although it looks like a lot of work and expense for Glenn over a short period of time. My main qualm is this requirement, "That the number of birds housed on the property be limited to the extent that the noise generated does not exceed the Environmental Protection (noise abatement regulations)." In view of the admission by the noise expert that wild cockatoos contribute to the noise from the caged cockatoos (in rehab, due to be freed) how would the 'appropriate' number of birds be estimated? Would there be any implication for the wild birds?
I have cut and pasted the bulk of the council decision below, minus some formatting:
"CONCLUSION
The proposal to retain the eight outbuildings already constructed with the exception of Outbuilding E, is supported for the following reasons:
• The as of right requirements of Town Planning Scheme No. 6 and Local Planning Policy 6.2.3 – Outbuildings – Rural and Residential Areas have not been met, however any negative impacts can be addressed through conditions
of approval.
• Noise emitted from the aviaries would comply with the Environmental Protection (Noise) Regulations 1997 if the existing Outbuilding E is relocated and modified in accordance with the recommendations of the noise consultant.
• The outbuildings are not considered to have a detrimental impact on the visual
amenity of the local area.
Item 17.1 Continued
23 of 115
The proposal to construct an additional outbuilding is not supported for the following reasons:
• The proposed outbuilding would result in an aggregate outbuilding floor area on the subject property of 885m², which is considered to be excessive within the Rural zone.
• Noise emitted from the part of the proposed outbuilding to be used for the care of sick and injured birds is likely to have a detrimental impact on the amenity of the adjoining property.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
Nil.
STATUTORY IMPLICATIONS
• Town Planning Scheme No. 6 Clause 9.2 and 11.2.
• Local Planning Policy 6.2.3 – Outbuildings – Rural and Residential Areas
• The Environmental Protection (Noise) Regulations 1997 – Regulation 5 (2)(b)
VOTING REQUIREMENTS
Simple majority required.
STAFF RECOMMENDATION (1 of 4)
Moved Cr PM Morris Seconded Cr R Mitchell
That Council grant retrospective approval for seven outbuildings with an
aggregate floor area of 451m² at 49 (Lot 100) Douglas Road, Martin,
identified as Outbuildings A, B, C, F, G, J and K as contained in
Attachment A, subject to the following conditions:
1. A landscaping plan for the development site is to be submitted in accordance with the City’s development landscaping policy and approved by the City’s Technical Landscape Officer. The plan is to show how all outbuildings are to be screened from the view of Lot 101 Douglas Road. Such Landscaping is to be installed within 3 months of the date of this approval and maintained by the owner/occupier to the satisfaction of the City’s Landscape Technical Officer.
2. The submission of a lighting plan for the subject property, which is to be approved by the City’s Manager of Technical Services, prior to the issue of a Building Licence.
3. The approved outbuildings are not to be used for habitation, commercial or industrial purposes.
4. Stormwater drainage from the outbuildings is to be contained on site.
5. A Demolition Licence is to be obtained for the removal of the existing unauthorised outbuilding in the general location of Outbuilding D as contained in Attachment A to the satisfaction of the City’s Manager Building Services.
STAFF RECOMMENDATION (2 of 4)
Moved Cr PM Morris Seconded Cr R Mitchell That Council refuse to grant approval to the proposed outbuilding of
256m2 depicted in the location of Outbuilding D on the plan contained in Attachment A at 49 (Lot 100) Douglas Road, Martin and as submitted in revised plans received on 25 May 2009, for the following reasons:
1. The proposed floor area of 256m² would result in an aggregate outbuilding floor area on the property of 885m², which is considered to be excessive within the Special Rural zone.
2. The proposed outbuilding is proposed to be used for the keeping of birds, but has not been included within the noise assessment conducted on the property. Given that the proposed outbuilding is closer to the dwelling on the adjacent Lot 101 Douglas Road than the existing aviary, which has been identified as requiring relocation or remediation measures to reduce noise impacts, it is considered that the proposed outbuilding has potential to
adversely impact on the amenity of the neighbouring property
STAFF RECOMMENDATION (3 of 4)
Moved Cr PM Morris Seconded Cr R Mitchell
That Council refuse to grant retrospective approval to the 10m2 outbuilding identified as Outbuilding E on the plan contained in Attachment A at 49 (Lot 100) Douglas Road, Martin and require the following actions to be undertaken within 90 days:
1. Relocate the outbuilding to the north-western side of the subject property to the satisfaction of the Manager Planning Implementation.
2. The outbuilding to be reorientated so that only its enclosed sides are facing south.
3. The outbuilding is to be enclosed with Colorbond cladding on two sides and the roof.
4. The outbuilding is to be insulated to the satisfaction of the Manager Health Services.
STAFF RECOMMENDATION (4 of 4)
Moved Cr PM Morris Seconded Cr R Mitchell
That Council advise the applicant that a Building Application is to be lodged providing scaled drawings of each of the buildings for which retrospective planning approval has been granted and of the relocated Outbuilding E, to the satisfaction of the Manager Building Services.
Amendment
During debate Cr R Hoffman moved the following amendment to staff recommendation (4 of 4):
“That staff recommendation (4 of 4) be amended by inserting after the word “services” where it appears in the last line, the following:
“with such application to be lodged, along with the relevant application fees, with the City within 60 days of this meeting”.
Cr R Hoffman provided the following written reason for the proposed amendment:
“To provide clear guidance to the applicant as to when the application is to be lodged.”
Cr J Brown Seconded Cr R Hoffman’s proposed amendment.
The Mayor put Cr R Hoffman’s proposed amendment, which reads:
Moved Cr R Hoffman Seconded Cr J Brown
That staff recommendation (4 of 4) be amended by inserting after the word “services” where it appears in the last line, the following:
“with such application to be lodged, along with the relevant application fees, with the City within 60 days of this meeting”.
with the amended recommendation to read:
“That Council advise the applicant that a Building Application is to be lodged providing scaled drawings of each of the buildings for which retrospective planning approval has been granted and of the relocated Outbuilding E, to the satisfaction of the Manager Building Services, with such application to be lodged, along with the relevant application fees, with the City within 60 days of this meeting”.
CARRIED 10/0
FOR: Cr B Wiffen, Cr S Iwanyk, Cr J Brown, Cr R Hoffman, Cr C Fernandez,
Cr W Barrett, Cr P Morris, Cr T Brown, Cr R Mitchell, and Cr O Searle.
AGAINST: Nil.
The amendment was put and carried with the amendment becoming the substantive motion. The Mayor then put the substantive motion, which reads:
COUNCIL RESOLUTION
313 Moved Cr R Hoffman Seconded Cr J Brown
That Council advise the applicant that a Building Application is to be lodged providing scaled drawings of each of the buildings for which retrospective planning approval has been granted and of the relocated Outbuilding E, to the satisfaction of the Manager Building Services, with such application to be lodged, along with the relevant application fees, with the City within 60 days of this meeting.
CARRIED 10/0
FOR: Cr B Wiffen, Cr S Iwanyk, Cr J Brown, Cr R Hoffman, Cr C Fernandez,
Cr W Barrett, Cr P Morris, Cr T Brown, Cr R Mitchell, and Cr O Searle.
AGAINST: Nil.
Additional Motion
During debate Cr R Hoffman moved the following additional motion to the staff recommendations:
“That the number of birds housed on the property be limited to the extent that the noise generated does not exceed the Environmental Protection (noise abatement regulations).”
Cr R Hoffman provided the following reason for the motion:
“Key issue of concern is the noise generated from the keeping of these birds on the property”.
Cr B Wiffen seconded Cr R Hoffman’s additional motion.
The Mayor then put the staff recommendations which read:
STAFF RECOMMENDATION (1 of 4) AND COUNCIL RESOLUTION 314 Moved Cr PM Morris Seconded Cr R Mitchell
That Council grant retrospective approval for seven outbuildings with an aggregate floor area of 451m² at 49 (Lot 100) Douglas Road, Martin, identified as Outbuildings A, B, C, F, G, J and K as contained in Attachment A, subject to the following conditions:
1. A landscaping plan for the development site is to be submitted in accordance with the City’s development landscaping policy and approved by the City’s Technical Landscape Officer. The plan is to show how all outbuildings are to be screened from the view of Lot 101 Douglas Road. Such Landscaping is to be installed within 3 months of the date of this approval and maintained by the owner/occupier to the satisfaction of the City’s Landscape Technical Officer.
2. The submission of a lighting plan for the subject property, which is to be approved by the City’s Manager of Technical Services, prior to the issue of a Building Licence.
3. The approved outbuildings are not to be used for habitation, commercial or industrial purposes.
4. Stormwater drainage from the outbuildings is to be contained on site.
5. A Demolition Licence is to be obtained for the removal of the existing unauthorised outbuilding in the general location of Outbuilding D as contained in Attachment A to the satisfaction of the City’s Manager Building Services.
CARRIED 10/0
FOR: Cr B Wiffen, Cr S Iwanyk, Cr J Brown, Cr R Hoffman, Cr C Fernandez,
Cr W Barrett, Cr P Morris, Cr T Brown, Cr R Mitchell, and Cr O Searle.
AGAINST: Nil.
STAFF RECOMMENDATION (2 of 4) AND COUNCIL RESOLUTION 315 Moved Cr PM Morris Seconded Cr R Mitchell
That Council refuse to grant approval to the proposed outbuilding of 256m2 depicted in the location of Outbuilding D on the plan contained in Attachment A at 49 (Lot 100) Douglas Road, Martin and as submitted in revised plans received on 25 May 2009, for the following reasons:
3. The proposed floor area of 256m² would result in an aggregate outbuilding floor area on the property of 885m², which is considered to be excessive within the Special Rural zone.
4. The proposed outbuilding is proposed to be used for the keeping of birds, but has not been included within the noise assessment conducted on the property. Given that the proposed outbuilding is closer to the dwelling on the adjacent Lot 101 Douglas Road than the existing aviary, which has been identified as requiring relocation or remediation measures to reduce noise impacts, it is considered that the proposed outbuilding has potential to
adversely impact on the amenity of the neighbouring property
CARRIED 10/0
FOR: Cr B Wiffen, Cr S Iwanyk, Cr J Brown, Cr R Hoffman, Cr C Fernandez, Cr W Barrett, Cr P Morris, Cr T Brown, Cr R Mitchell, and Cr O Searle.
AGAINST: Nil.
STAFF RECOMMENDATION (3 of 4) AND COUNCIL RESOLUTION 316 Moved Cr PM Morris Seconded Cr R Mitchell
That Council refuse to grant retrospective approval to the 10m2 outbuilding identified as Outbuilding E on the plan contained in Attachment A at 49 (Lot 100) Douglas Road, Martin and require the following actions to be undertaken within 90 days:
1. Relocate the outbuilding to the north-western side of the subject property to the satisfaction of the Manager Planning Implementation.
2. The outbuilding to be reorientated so that only its enclosed sides are facing south.
3. The outbuilding is to be enclosed with Colorbond cladding on two sides and the roof.
4. The outbuilding is to be insulated to the satisfaction of the Manager Health Services.
CARRIED 10/0
FOR: Cr B Wiffen, Cr S Iwanyk, Cr J Brown, Cr R Hoffman, Cr C Fernandez, Cr W Barrett, Cr P Morris, Cr T Brown, Cr R Mitchell, and Cr O Searle.
AGAINST: Nil.
The Mayor then put Cr R Hoffman’s additional motion, which reads:
COUNCIL RESOLUTION
317 Moved Cr R Hoffman Seconded Cr B Wiffen
That the number of birds housed on the property be limited to the extent that the noise generated does not exceed the Environmental Protection (noise abatement regulations).
CARRIED 10/0
FOR: Cr B Wiffen, Cr S Iwanyk, Cr J Brown, Cr R Hoffman, Cr C Fernandez,
Cr W Barrett, Cr P Morris, Cr T Brown, Cr R Mitchell, and Cr O Searle.
AGAINST: Nil.
8:54 pm - Cr D Griffiths returned to the meeting.
The Mayor, upon the return of Cr D Griffiths to the meeting, advised that Council had endorsed the staff recommendations as contained in the Report.
8:55pm – Cr B Wiffen left the meeting.
8:56 pm - Cr B Wiffen returned to the meeting.
Let's ensure that growth pushers most of all pay the price
Very good questions, Tigerquoll.
What kind of political leaders would deliberately set about to harm the interests of the current residents of this country in the way that this Government is?
From the standpoint or our society as a whole anybody should be able can see that cramming ever more people into this continent cannot possibly be in its best interests.
Clearly they have calculated that they, and that tiny minority whose interests they serve, stand to benefit from this. However, the cost to be paid by the rest of us must necessarily be huge and, in total, far in excess of what they can hope to gain, in total.
As a means of transferring wealth from the poor to the rich, population growth is hugely wasteful and inefficient, because of the following factors:
1. each of us on average having a smaller share of the pie;
2. the growing inefficiencies of scale that are inevitable once populations have exceeded their optimum population size as Australia did a long time ago;
3. economic activity that is socially useless, but necessary for the growth lobby to prosper.
Surely those of us who stand to lose would be better if we simply agreed to give them an equivalent amount outright?
Of course such an agreement is unlikely to ever occur. For the growth lobby even to acknowledge this reality, would immediately make their malignant and parasitic relationship to the rest of us undeniable.
However, should it prove impossible to stop the Growth Lobby, then when it eventually and inevitably becomes impossible to deny that population growth is harmful and was avoidable, then we must be resolved to make them pay, more than the rest of us, the price for what they are now doing.
Why they should feel entitled to hold on to their ill-gotten wealth whilst the rest of us struggle to repair the damage they are now willingly causing to our environment, to our economy and to our society?
For further information, see my article "How the Growth Lobby Threatens Australia's future"
Phillip Adams' denial of evidence of conspiracy to murder JFK
Only earlier this year I heard Phillip Adams state that the second of the World Trade Centre (WTC) towers decided to collapse after the first collapsed on 9/11 , because it could not bear to stand there on its own. Whilst of course, Adams an avowed atheist and scientific sceptic, could not have been altogether serious in what he said, it is striking that he is only willing to discuss the collapse of Twin Towers in such mystical terms whilst refusing to consider the hard scientific evidence that the Twin Towers could not have been brought down merely as a consequence of the impacts of the planes and resultant fires.
My misplaced trust in Phillip Adams' integrity and judgement caused me from the early 1990's to dismiss the evidence presented in Oliver Stone's monumental JFK, in spite of my having been immensely moved and persuaded by it at the time I saw it in 1991 . About roughly a year after I saw JFK, during an interview with a guest, whose name escapes me Adams put to his guest that Jim Garrison, who was featured in JFK and who heroically, to the end of his life, tried to bring the murderers of JFK to justice, was a fraud and that Oliver Stone had been duped by him.
He never explained why to his audience, as far as I know, but as I trusted Adams, I came to the conclusion that I must have been duped in turn by Oliver Stone and for well over a decade discounted the valuable knowledge that Stone had made available about that critical event of late 20th century world history.
Over the last two years as I have become aware that the official 9/11 story was a lie, I have also been made to look again at the JFK issue and have learnt that Stone and others, who questioned the JFK single-crazed-gunman myth, had been telling the truth all along.
By smearing Jim Garrison and Oliver Stone in the way he did, I consider that Phillip Adams has, like Chomsky, done immense harm to the progressive causes he claims to support. Whether he did so intentionally or simply because he placed unwarranted trust in others not deserving of that trust, I cannot say.
I include below two e-mails, I sent to Phillip Adams concerning this issue.
He replied to neither.
1. E-mail sent 13 Oct 08
Hi Phillip,
...
I note that you dismiss the (alternative as opposed to official US Government) 9/11 conspiracy theories as 'utter nonsense', 'bullshit' and 'nuts'. (See www.kimspages.org/phillipadams.htm)
As you cited Noam Chomsky's authority amongst others to justify that view, could you tell me also, do you share Chomsky's view that “it doesn’t have any significance” if it was indeed the Bush administration that planned the 9/11
attacks? thefilter.ca/articles/indoctrination/noam-chomsky-and-the-gatekeepers-of-the-left www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoDqDvbgeXM)
If you agree with Chomksy, would you extend that view to the Reichstag fire of 1933? If you had lived in Germany in the 1930's would you also have argued that “it doesn’t have any significance” whether or not Hitler was behind the Reichstag fire?
The reason I ask is that you do wield enormous influence over a sizable section of Australian public opinion and it seems to me that, largely because of such influence, those demanding a proper investigation into the 9/11 attacks have been marginalised, at least up until now, in Australia.
An example of your influence was your pronouncement of Jim Garrison as a fraud and Oliver Stone as his dupe some years ago. I still don't know the basis of that allegation, however, up until that point I had found Oliver Stone's "JFK" to have been a very persuasive and moving film.
Was it because Chomsky believes that Oswald acted alone in killing JFK that you dismissed Stone's movie, or where there other more substantive reasons?
I note that Chomsky also stated that he doesn't believe it is of any great consequence it the lone gunman theory turns out not to be true. Do you also agree that it is of no consequence?
Also, could I have your permission to publish any response to this and other e-mails?
Thank you.
sincerely,
James Sinnamon
2. E-mail sent 14 Oct 08
Dear Phillip Adams,
Further to yesterday's e-mail concerning Oliver Stone's JFK, Canadian Journalist Barrie Zwicker author of "Towers of Deception: The Media Cover-up of 9/11", wrote to me the following of Oliver Stone's "JFK":
"Olive Stone's JFK not only has not been comprehensively
debunked, it has not been debunked in the slightest. The
brilliant monologue of J. Fletcher Prouty (played by Donald
Sutherland in the movie) has the whole DNA of Kennedy's
assassination and who was behind it, in a couple of minutes.
No one could read Garrison's book On The Trail of The
Assassins (I can't recommend it too highly) and come away
without admiration for Garrison, or solid belief in the whole
story he tells (and tells so well) in that book."
So, could I ask you again, why did you pronounce Jim Garrison to be a fraud all those years ago (some time in the mid to early 1990's), and why did you pronounce Oliver Stone to be a dupe of Jim Garrison? Why did you choose in a subsequent program, as I recall, to liken Oliver Stone to gallstones?
And, again, can I ask do you agree with Noam Chomsky that it is of no consequence whether or not senior US Government officials and legislators were complicit in JFK's murder?
I would like, with your permission, to be able to publish your responses to this and other e-mails.
yours sincerely,
James Sinnamon
Livestock and Population
Quite right Vivienne...
Not only from the global warming perspective. The world has approximately 1.5 GHa of crop farmland. 1/3 is used for livestock feed and then some is used for biofuels and non-food crops. If we can feed 5 to 7.5 people on one hectare (not counting the animal-derived foods now) that's a world population of 5 to 7.5 billion. Since world population is now roughly 6.7 or 6.8 billion and we will likely reach 7.5 billion around 2020, we are either now in overshoot or will be in about 10 years' time, so it's time to start thinking about:
1) reducing livestock feed crop areas (reducing animal foods to what can be sustainably produced in other ways),
2) shifting to equitable distribution of food,
3) reducing world population growth to zero and then reducing the world population itself.
While I'm about it, I'm adding a couple more inconvenient tasks, just to be a little more complete:
4) Halt deforestation and rehabilitate the forests,
5) Halt the destruction of farmland and rehabilitate the soil through 'organic' (permaculture, non-chemical, etc) soil husbandry techniques.
This means the end of industrial agriculture and the industrialized food system (who needs it?). If all of humanity were really 'serious' about making meaningful inroads into GHG emissions, this is one large step we could take which would be beneficial for everyone (health, let's not even talk about making money by making others sick) and could be carried out in a way that would not even need to have very much of an effect on other aspects of our highly industrialized/materialistic lifestyles. However, if we were really 'serious' about reducing emissions of GHGs, wouldn't we be talking about major lifestyle change? I don't hear Al Gore and the other politician-experts ever mentioning that possibility. I wonder why not...
Inconvenient tasks to go with the inconvenient truths.
I saw a nice cartoon of a fat Al Gore munching a chicken leg. The caption was "Too chicken to go Vegetarian/Vegan?"
Just about sums it up.
Best wishes,
Tony
Adams' uncritical acceptance of Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory
I have personally encountered resistance from Phillip Adams when it comes to looking at the issue of 9/11. Adams' claims he accepts the Official Conspiracy Theory and disparages those who question it. He does not seem to have any interest at all in the research that has been done over the last eight years. He likes to characterize all who doubt the official story as "conspiracy nutters" and he has no time for anyone who does not support the Official Conspiracy Theory. I see troubling signs here.
"Sustainable growth" is an oxymoron!
If building of thousands homes on Melbourne's fringes will cost Victorians around $40 billion more than if they were built in existing suburbs, why is it being justified except for a grab at short term gains at the expense of long term sustainability? Eventually if we destroy the ecology that supports our livelihoods, and compromise and stretch natural our biodiversity "services" beyond the point of no return, costs of compensating and repairing will soar! There is no economic sense in utilising our green wedges, our coastlines, our semi-rural fringe areas for housing developments if our wealth depends on continual population growth. Peak oil, lack of water and food-miles means that "sustainable growth" is an oxymoron!
Developing existing suburbs is not always desirable or feasible.
There is not one problem our society can solve by adding more people! On the contrary, urban growth and the growth lobby's political power will ensure that we the public will continue to have our pockets raided to pay for the necessary infrastructure to satisfy the greed of the developers, the media, real estate and building industries. The cost of repairing Victoria's ultimate eco-destruction will be massive, and maybe impossible!
Damn lies, statistics, and roo plagues
Hi Rob,
Thanks for your polite and considered comments on a highly conflicted subject.
There is an article on this site by John Auty -Red plague Grey Plague - which goes into the records of kangaroo numbers pre-European settlement and finds that the assertion that kangaroos are denser because there is more biomasse doesn't stand up.
Then there is another, "When an earless dragon is like a smoking gun, which I wrote myself, citing data in a thesis by a 'kangaroo authority' Don Fletcher, which contradicts his own pronouncements on what is sustainable and looking at various other completely half-baked 'authorative' statements.
It is quite astonishing really, how unanalytic and unscientific the basis for government policies is in this country..
Sheila N
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
CSIRO and bunkers
Tigerquoll, you said ....."However, no information can be found about bushfire bunkers on the Bushfire CRC website. Perhaps there should be."
I was informed by a gentleman that some time ago, someone then working for the CSIRO went on ABC radio and spoke about research into fire bunkers. Eg: What construction methods were most suitable, how far they should be built from the house (too far and you get lost in heavy smoke or die from exposure to radiant heat), that they should have a ramp into them rather than steps (less likelihood of a harmful fall) and which direction they should face in relation to other structures.
Both this gentleman and myself searched vigorously the CSIRO site, but could find no mention of either the ABC radio story or any related research, although my friend is adamant he heard it there and at the time listened intently. I emailed the CSIRO asking for information about this matter and a reply stated only that "the CSIRO is currently not investigating fire bunkers." The thing they failed to mention is that they did at one time investigate fire bunkers. I had intended to reply and request information on the radio lecture and earlier research into the effectiveness if fire bunkers, but quickly realised that they'd probably deny such an investigation ever took place or of any knowledge of the radio show.
Why would they do this? Possibly because if their findings were made known, people would use their research as a basis for building a fire bunker and if a tragedy occurred as a result of someone dying in one of these bunkers, then they may fear litigation. It's the only explanation I can come up with.
Native Vegetation Act
Following the tragic February bush fires, I was desperate to build a fire bunker. It was a brief period of 'loss of logical thinking' since this home was originally built 16 years ago with the threat of fire in mind, even to the point of simple metal fire shutters for days of potential fire threat, slab, sprinklers, etc. Up until Feb this year, I knew little about the Victorian Native Vegetation Act and how it applied to my area until I rang my local council's planning department concerning another matter and was told in no uncertain terms that I was not allowed to cut or lop a single tree on my property without first putting in a planning application which would cost $99 (money grab) and if that application didn't involve a building, dam or other necessary improvement, then the application probably wouldn't be allowed if the only purpose was to remove native vegetation. In other words, I could wave goodbye to my $99 and remain surrounded by acres of miserable, stunted re-growth forest. I now fully agree with the above author concerning potential fire bunker money being better directed towards greater fire protection for the home, but am increasingly frustrated by the Victorian Government's unwillingness to consider applying the law to require a buffer zone (for those that want it) around their homes in bush settings.
Now before anybody sees red over my comments and calls me an eco-vandal, let me point out that I love the bush. It's the appeal of the bush, the tranquillity and distance that brought me out here all those years ago, but there's bush and there's bush. Back in the 1800's and early 1900's, my area was barren of trees. What the old miners hadn't cut down, the local wood cutters had in their quest to keep local homes in the Ballarat and surrounding areas warm in winter. Natural gas and the widespread use of gas for heating didn't occur until the late 60's. Everything called a tree around here at present is the result of overwhelming regrowth. The Eucalypt has a cunning defence against other competing species. The rotting leaves of the Eucalypt release a 'poison' that effectively prevents many other species from encroaching on it's territory. It's why veggies gardens won't grow well near Eucalyptus. The regrowth is so prolific that the trees themselves compete for sunlight which results in acres of stunted and useless native vegetation that I refer to as "woody weeds." Were I allowed to thin them, many of those trees would grow to become majestic specimens, but sadly, under current legislation, they'll be left to struggle, fall and rot creating even more mess on the forest floor.
Because of current drought conditions, these spindly trees compete with each other for water, which is lacking to the degree that the trees become stressed and dump tons of leaves and fine fuel around my home each year and as I get older, I struggle to clean up the massive amounts of debris that collects and find a place to dispose of it. As the author asks "Isn't it cheaper and better all round for specific funding to be provided to municipal councils to help less able householders put their properties in a safe state before summer?" The answer is yes, but wouldn't it be cheaper again to allow those occupying bush properties to thin the bush which in turn would allow landowners to better keep the area clean? The Government is only too willing to pander to the developers who open up these vast areas of bushland to housing estates, but they're not so willing to provide money to help clean up the debris around such areas. Money flows only one way where Governments are concerned and that includes local Government.
Just over five months have passed since those terrible and devastating February fires. For many people living in large cities or well away from the affected areas, life has returned to normal. The loss of life at the time made newspaper selling headlines and glued horrified viewers to the small screen. Unfortunately, many non connected people who bought those newspapers or watched the horror each night on the television news week after tragic week have largely forgotten the plight of those left to pick up the pieces. If this sounds harsh, it's not meant as a condemnation. Life is life and for some who were not affected at a personal level, it quickly returns to the mundane. For those who suffered horrendous loss of life , pets, animals and property, my heart goes out to you. You'll never fully recover from that terrible and unimaginable ordeal. You've suffered the worst that could be imagined, yet there is another group of people who continue to suffer, albeit not as badly. It's those who continue to live in bush settings hoping in vein that someone in Government will have the foresight and common sense to revisit the Native Vegetation Act and change it so that those whom the fire missed this time don't have to face the devastation that occurred earlier this year when the next blast of hot summer wind breathes down their necks. My biggest fear is that this issue won't be address by the Royal Commission, or if it is, then it's recommendations will go the same way as have past Royal Commissions into loss of life during bush fire events. I'm not a praying person, but this is one time I pray that I'll be proven wrong.
Bunkers a last desperate defence, one for CSIRO's 'Bushfire CRC'
Given the inherent risks of the Australian Eucalypt landscape, surely the concept 'Complete Bushfire Safety' can only be an ideal, less so when state planning legislation allows houses to be built in high bushfire prone areas, and at the same time that same state government under-resources its bushfire management.
Bushfire Management should not descend to one of desperate wildfire fighting with inadequate resources. Any wonder, bush residents are considering personal last ditch defences. But is this last ditch focus where our prime bushfire management strategy and resources should go? Once we start focusing on bunkers, aren't we being defeatist by assuming that all the lead up causes of bushfire cannot be dealt with? Thinking outside the square is one problem solving approach. People that build in bushfire prone areas could always not. That would be thinking outside the square.
But perhaps a better approach to protecting Victorians from the risks of bushfire (the problem defined) is the approach of Root Cause Analysis (RCA). This problem solving approach recognises that there is usually more than one potential root cause for any given problem. It looks at investigating the known causal relationships between the root causes and the defined problem. Significantly, RCA involves identifying which causes if removed or changed will prevent recurrence. Recommendations are implemented and tested.
If bunkers are to be one of the recommendations, then the Victorian government ought to commission research to the organisation best qualified to research and evaluate the design options and merits of considering a bunker strategy. The CSIRO's Co-operative Research Centre [Bushfire CRC] is arguable the best placed. "Co-operative Research Centres (CRC) bring together researchers from universities, CSIRO and other government organisations, and private industry or public sector agencies in long-term collaborative arrangements that support research and development and education activities to achieve real outcomes of national economic and social significance." Under its Bushfire Research Fund, it undertakes research on bushfire research projects.
However, no information can be found about bushfire bunkers on the Bushfire CRC website. Perhaps there should be, but then what government would publicly guarantee any bunker in the event of a bushfire?
Kangaroos herded to extinction
Rob's unsubtantiated comments above makes the following claims without evidence, so one must question their truth and validity:
(Claim 1) 'There may be a looming problem with roo numbers' - where Rob? What is sparking any 'looming'?
(Claim 2) 'The vast majority of roos are living on grazing country' - which grazing country Rob? Where were the roos before and here are they now..sme place except for having to contend with barbed wire fence skin tears?
(Claim 3) 'Agricultural land management practices have modified the kangaroo's natural rangeland beyond what they evolved to cope with' - So what can kangaroos cope with? What does Rob mean by 'what they evolved to cope with'? Has Australia's unsustainable colonial farming modified or indeed fenced in the kangaroo's natural homerange?
(Claim 4) 'There is a kangaroo population explosion' - Where is this so-called "explosion" Rob? Is this where Kangaroos have been fenced in to a confined area by barbed wire by our Defence Department - for example on Duntroon's Majura Range? What was the scale of these kangaroo's natural free home range prior to them being fence in? Facts Rob!
Rob's above assertions are without foundation, source or evidence. Thus they are merel baseless, false assertions. Perhaps Rob has fabricated them from undisclosed ulterior self-motivation. Rob's inference that farming has caused Kangaroo numbers to explode must be rejected as absurd.
Rob should consider the following qualified assessment of the plight of macroped reality across Australia: World Wildlife Fund (WWF)"has identified 83 species of macropods, of which nine have become extinct since European settlement and 28 are threatened. The main threats to macropods in Australia are habitat loss, altered fire regimes, introduced predators and now climate change. These are the main drivers of decline affecting many mammals in Australia and have resulted in this continent having the worst rate of mammal extinctions worldwide.
"Macropods live in a variety of habitat types and, with European settlement, much of this land was cleared of native bush to accommodate agricultural and grazing land. Developing land for human needs reduces the amount of natural space available to wildlife. As natural space diminishes, so does habitat diversity - the great variety of forests, bushlands, grasslands, wetlands and deserts that exist in nature. The result is both a decline in the number of species and even fewer individuals of those populations survive."
For Rob to draw his conclusion of a kangaroo population explosion caused by his above premises, is to make bold falsehoods and baseless circular argument. Perhaps Rob can provide evidence of a kangaroo population explosion where they are free to roam over a natural home range without any fences or modified habitat? As kangaroo native habitat is reduced to islands, those islands get crowded by the survivers. Do we then shoot the survivers because we have forced them into inescapable and desperate congestion. What is the definition of ethnic cleansing? What is the definition of genocide? Sounds like what the Sulhanese did to the Tamils in northeast Sri Lanka last May.
manufacture of consent and paralysis of democracy
As long as big business, including the corporate press, make so much money out of resource, housing and service scarcity, selling less for more, published arguments against high immigration will be a mere drop in the ocean compared to advertisements and stories promoting it, excusing it, or stigmatising people who complain about it. Democracy has become paralysed by profit motives and the result is a selfish plutocracy which controls the press and manufactures a false consent.
What "looming problem"?
Rob said: "However, now that the export market has collapsed, I believe there may be a looming problem with roo numbers". Why should there be a "problem" with roo numbers? The "improved" lands from grazing is about "improving" income, not the land! Kangaroos have lived and evolved in Australia for millions of years without causing damage or destruction. This "pest" status of kangaroos is being propagated by the industry and pseudo-scientists to justify the massacres. Their soft paws do not damage pasture, like livestock, and they have only a fraction of the grazing pressure of sheep! They help fertilise the soils with their urine and excrement, and they do not destroy grasslands when they eat. They should be left to do their job - protect our biodiversity and add value to our landscape. Farmers should be outlawed from shooting native animals that come on their property. They need to value kangaroos and their contribution to our ecology. If they really need to keep out the roos, they should install fences. Kangaroos are natural and well-refined indigenous Australians, not a looming threat!
A sceptical, but open-minded view
Firstly, I thank Menkit for yet another thoughtful, informative and helpful article.
Still, I am sceptical of some of the claims made in the article, however, as Menkit tells me that what is said by Masuru Emoto about the effects of human emotion upon water and other matter strongly conforms to her own personal experience, I feel bound to try for myself, with as open a mind as I can, the experiments suggested by Masaru Emoto in his video.
Whatever the outcome of any experiments may be, the observations should be considered valid whether or not they conform to current scientific understanding or whether or not a theory to explain the observations can even be conceived.
Nevertheless, until such experiments can be performed in circumstances that can be controlled and reproduced, it will be difficult to get the mainstream of today's scientists to accept the validity of Masaru Emoto's observations.
Kangaroo exports must be stopped.
Hi Robyn,
I read your letter with interest, and agree with most of your sentiments, however I might just try and raise a few points for discussion.
Now before you get your blood up, so to speak, I do agree that we should not be exporting kangaroo products.
I have killed and eaten the kangaroo, and found it to be quite a nice meat to eat. I have also worked in and around the industry, in positions ranging from shooting offsider to meat slicer, including in the plants that have caused the shutdown of imports into Russia. Why? It is great money, in an area that it is hard to earn money in.
However to adress the issues that are raised in your letter.
1. Sustainability:
I agree with your comments about Killing the biggest animals leading to a deterioration of the gene pool. You are dead right, although I must admit I have never really thought about it that way. I agree that current practices do not bode well for the longevity of the Kangaroo as a species.
However, now that the export market has collapsed, I believe there may be a looming problem with roo numbers. Remember that the vast majority of roos are living on country that has been 'improved' by graziers, meaning that for the most part, introduction of management practicies that increase the carrying capacity of land, has modified the kangaroo's natural rangeland far beyond what they evolved to cope with. The natural outcome - a population explosion. What will we do then when the next drought hits and all the improved pastures wither away, as they tend to do? (Farmers haven't got that one figured out yet) What do you think?
2. 'Inhumane harvest'
I think you need to draw a distinction between the Kangaroo harvester and the recreational shooter.
I concede that in the case of the recreational shooter & the farmer employing pest control tactics, humane destruction techniques are not adhered to, and the animal welfare considerations for these types of shooters should be more strictly policed.
However, for the professional shooter delivering a product to the 'box', I reject your statement outright. Panicked animals being shot from a moving vehicle?? That may be the case for the recreational shooter, but not from one trying to make a living. Most animals are shot in about the 200 - 500m range, a distance at which they will readily 'sit' and be clearly seen in the spotlight. Professional shooters use high powered rifles with telescopic sights, and at night, one can not see anything through a telescopic sight unless the weapon is rested - meaning the vehicle is stopped and the shooter is resting the weapon on a bar mounted on the windscreen, or off the drivers side mirror. Unless the animal is still, the shot is not taken. Remember, the people are in this for the money, they don't want to waste expensive ammunition, or endless litres of diesel chasing mobs of roos around trying to 'nab one on the fly'. The ideal night is when there is a light breeze, and a bright moon. Kangaroos will readily 'sit' in this weather, as they are totally sure of their surrounds - it maximises their chances of detecting a predator. You'll find that on a windy dark night, pro shooters will not even go out, as the roos will be nervous and will not 'sit', with the weather conditions limiting their senses and as a result they can not easily detect predators. In any case, a shooter cannot sell anything that is not shot in the head. It is illegal, and if they do, their licence can be suspended.
Shooters try not to shoot females with joeys, their meat is dark, and they won't get paid. Female roos are easy to pick in the spotlight. But you are right - if a nursing mother is shot, the joey's fate is nothing less than barbaric. I have witnessed this many times, and I sit here with my head hung in shame for not having done anything to stop it.
Food Safety:
I agree that pre processing plant, from a food safety perspective, the harvesting practices are not in any way acceptable for human consumption. AQIS needs to be held to account for signing off on the 'fact' that the harvest process meets any sort of hygiene standard.
AQIS does have a standard for roo shooters rigs, including water and gutting racks (Roos are not gutted on the ground), galvanised iron/stainless steel processing surfaces etc.
But to say that the conditions would meet a HACCP quality system or it's equivelant, which is the ideal standard for a food processing system, would be a gross overstatement, and an outright lie.
The Russians are quite right in expressing their concerns about systemic QA problems. The current system of harvest does not, and will never be a safe way of handling foods for human consumption. Full Stop.
In the plant, AQIS veterinary inpectors inspect for parasites, so wormy and fungal infected animals do not make it through the inspection process. I am told that viruses cannot live through the freezing process, where all meat produced is snap frozen to minus 35 degrees, so from a consumption point of view, the product is quite safe from that perspective. Good plant hygeine practices, independantly audited, reduce the incidence of salmonella to less than any Australian standard. Incidences of Salmonella & E Coli are a failure of AQIS standards being applied, and not a reflection of the source product. The same problems occur in other meat sources when processors fail to maintain the appropriate standard of hygiene practices. However - handling the chilled product before it is packed is quite dangerous. I am thinking in particular of Q Fever - a zoonotic bacterial infection that is carried readily by Kangaroos. I contracted Q Fever from working in a wild game plant. 10 days in hospital and 15 kgs lighter, with recurring fevers, joint problems and occasional physe issues, I can tell everyone who reads this that Q Fever is one of the nastier diseases one can run across.
In summary I agree with you, but think you need to steer away from emotive exaggerations and concentrate on the critical points:
1: Australia cannot guarantee the safety of its product for Human consumption.
- The process of in-field harvesting cannot be brought to acceptable hygeine standards.
2: The practice of 'unmanaged' harvesting will lead to the deterioration of the Kangaroo gene pool
3: The policing and regulatory structure surrounding the killing of female kangaroos and the subsequent clubbing of Joeys is inadequate. The practice is barbaric, and must be stopped.
Let me know what you think.
- Rob
What about Repco's competitors?
Have you considered asking for financial support from some of Repco's competitors (as long as they are not going to push the race)? What about Ansell?
All of these packaging and plastics companies are in trouble, due to resource and fuel inflation, especially if they are into cars and plastics.
Some make medical and health products. Being identified with democracy and environmental sanity and honour might assist their profile in Australia, especially if they have well established operations here. (Think of how popular the Australian film The Castle was).
Show Repco's environmental thuggery up by showing up another company's exemplary behaviour.
If all else fails, put up ads for the Repco rivals in the windows of your houses, on fences and in your cars.
Sheila Newman
"No stone unturned" - Brumby, 16th Feb 2009.
The terms of reference for Brumby's Royal Commission into the Victorian Bushfires of Jan-Feb 2009 basically are to investigate all matters it deems to be relevant. Sounds vague but Brumby has intentionally and rightly provided the Royal Commission with the widest possible terms of reference into Victoria''s bushfires: "to investigate all matters it deems to be relevant to the blazes"; "able to demand evidence from anybody it sees fit"; with "unfettered access to Government officials"; "the most open inquiry that is possible. No stone unturned. Every bit of information on the table. And if that means calling ministers or premiers, or whoever it is, we will be happy to assist." - according to Premier Brumby in February 2009. ABC story
So, should a conflict emerge between the powers of the Royal Commission and rules imposed on employees of the organisations who played some role in the emergency function who are contributing input to the Royal Commission, then this is a matter for Premier Brumby to resolve. If the integrity of the Royal Commission's terms of reference is not preserved, the public perception of the process to seek the truth will indeed be "seriously compromised."
Brumby's Royal Commission for the 2009 episode is scheduled to cost $40 million. The public and bushfire management must hold Brumby to account to provide a satisfactory return on that $40 million investment. This is on top of the $2 billion or so that the fires cost Victorians and on top of the Victorian Government's moral obligations to do so.
Royal Bushfire Commission & police submissions
Royal Commission & police submissions
On July 12th, 2009 Anonymous (not verified) says:
From Anarchist Media weekly, issue No 838, 1st-7th of June 2009
"CONTEMPT OF COURT?
Michael Bachelard’s article in the Sunday Age(31/5) “Rigid bureaucracy fuelled Black Saturday Chaos” highlights how the Royal Commission into the Black Saturday bushfires is being undermined and sabotaged. The purpose of a Royal Commission is to give individuals and organisations the opportunity to make submissions to the Royal Commission on the understanding they will not be penalised by outside authorities for making a submission. The ability of a Royal Commission to obtain the facts and opinions it requires to make recommendations to the government hinges on witnesses knowing they will be able to give their opinions without being punished by extra judicial authorities for publicly articulating their opinions.
It says volumes for the men and women of the Victoria Police Force, (many of whom dealt directly with the disaster) that only one Police Officer, Senior Constable Ken Dwight, has made a direct submission to the Royal Commission bypassing the Victoria Police Force’s “Royal Commission Liaison Unit”. For his troubles Senior Constable Ken Dwight is now facing an internal disciplinary hearing for making a submission. Other members of the Victoria Police Force, concerned about their careers, have spoken to Michael Bachelard anonymously about what they believe are the problems police encountered with the response to the fires. Unless the Royal Commission is willing to charge those police officers who have instigated disciplinary action against Senior Constable Ken Dwight with contempt of the Commission unless the disciplinary hearing is stopped, the authority and the ability of the Royal Commission to gather all the information it requires to make its recommendations to the state government are seriously compromised. "
Does the Governor have the power?
Vivienne,
Finally, a good idea about what to do. Does the Victorian Governor have such powers?
Sheila N
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
Governor should sack corrupt Victorian Government
Our State government is certainly corrupt and they are abusing their mandate to provide a democratic government to serve the interests of Victoria. They have become spokespeople and supporters for the pro-development lobby and are over-riding democratic processes and citizen inputs. Our Governor of Victoria, David de Kretser, should be taking note of the public's dismay and the destruction of our suburbs and put into place some action to dissolve state government. Surely this is his duty as the Queen's representative? Waiting for elections will be too late!
Addresses of Chinese Embassies to write to
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/200907/s2621363.htm
Please write to the Chinese embassies:
1) Chinese Embassy in Australia:
Address: 15 Coronation Drive, Yarralumla,　ACT 2600
Tel: 0061-2-62734780　 Fax: 0061-2-62735848
E-mail: [email protected]
2) Chinese Consulate General - Sydney
Consul General: Hu Shan
Address: 39 Dunblane Street, Camperdown, NSW 2050, Australia
Tel: 0061-2-85958002, 0061-2-85958000 (Record)
Fax: 0061-2-85958001
Website: http://sydney.china-consulate.org; http://sydney.chineseconsulate.org
3) Chinese Consulate General - Melbourne
Consul General: Shen Weilian
Address:75-77 IRVING ROAD, TOORAK,MELBOURNE, VICTORIA 3142
Tel: 00613-98220604, 98246450
Fax: 00613-98220320
Website:
http://melbourne.china-consulate.org
http://melbourne.chineseconsulate.org
E-mail: [email protected]
4) Chinese Consulate General - Perth
Consul General: Li Shugang
Address: 45 Brown Steet, East Perth, W.A. 6004, Australia
Tel: 0061-8-92220333, 92220305
Consular Office (Visa and Overseas Chinese Affairs): 0061-8-92220300, 92220321, 92220302
Commercial Office: 0061-8-92220311, 92220310
Fax: 0061-8-92216144
E-mail: [email protected]
[email protected]
5) Chinese Consulate General - Brisbane
Consul General: Ren Gongping
Address: Level 9, 79 Adelaide St., Brisbane QLD 4000
Tel: 07-32106509
Fax: 07-32106517
Website:
http://brisbane.china-consulate.org
http://brisbane.chineseconsulate.org
6) Chinese Consulate General - Canberra
Website: http://au.china-embassy.org/eng/
Email: [email protected]
Ambassador: Mr. Zhang Junsai
Address: 15 Coronation Drive, Yarralumla, ACT 2600
Tel: +61-2-62734780
Fax: +61-2-62734878, 62735848
Economic and Commercial Office
Tel: +61-2-62734785
Fax: +61-2-62734987
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://au.mofcom.gov.cn
Fax: +61-2-6273550
You might also send them the following website to check out http://www.nokangaroomeat.org
and also watch the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUZrKj6ClBg
Thanks,
Menkit
"It’s embarrassing for Australia that we eat our own wildlife ....I’m here to tell you it’s just not right. Simply do not buy, use or eat kangaroo products”
~ Steve Irwin
Sign the most important petition ever created to help kangar
comment
What a beautiful story and good thoughts for living with our wildlife friends. I especially like the suggestion and plans for the possum house. We need to remember we live in their world.
Write China while this issue is a hot topic, pls.
Letter to Chinese Embassy and General Consulates, Australia:
I am writing with great concern because I understand your country has agreed to import kangaroo meat.
The beautiful kangaroo is our county's iconic symbol and is on our coat of arms. The kangaroo is recognised and loved around the world; the fact that kangaroos are commercially slaughtered here for profit is an Australian National disgrace and our government should be deeply ashamed.
And in the interest of profit, you have been told lies by the government sponsored Kangaroo Industry.
You have been told the "harvest" is "sustainable", but it is a lie.
There has never been any commercial wildlife slaughter in the world that was ever "sustainable". Ever. The world almost lost all whales, walruses, and koalas due to the lie of "sustainable harvest" regarding wildlife. The koala was another beautiful Australian iconic animal commercially slaughtered over 80 years ago...and the koala never recovered. (Koala experts have estimated extinction to be within our life time.) The Australian government didn't learn with our koala and they are doing the same to our kangaroo for profit. Over-exploitation is not "sustainable".
Kangaroos are being slaughtered faster than they can reproduce and because the largest animals are the most desirable for slaughter, the species is losing vital genetic diversity. Killing the strongest of a species in a country where the weak do not survive is not "sustainable".
You have been told the "harvest" is "humane", but it is a lie.
Most adult kangaroos are not shot with a single bullet through the head. Shooting any panicked wild animal in the dark from a moving vehicle using a spotlight cannot possibly always be "accurate" and RSPCA/Australia in 2002 expressed grave concern about the large number of adult kangaroos killed inhumanely.
And every year, it is estimated that 440,000 kangaroo babies are killed as cruelly as Canadian baby Harp seal pups are killed. Ripping a baby from her dead mother's pouch and bashing her head with a metal club is considered "humane" by the Australian government. It is no different from what Canada does to its baby seals except it happens in Australia, in the dark, and is not publicised.
You have been told the "harvest" occurs under very strict safety standards, but it is a lie.
Kangaroos are killed in hot, dusty conditions, gutted in the dirt, and hung on hooks in open-air trucks for hours before before being transported to a holding chiller. There is no water and no sanitation. There is very little industry supervision because it is impossible to monitor millions of isolated kill sites in the Australian outback.
The filthy blood-caked chillers store the dead bodies for up to 2 weeks before shipping them to processing plants located hundreds of miles away. Bacteria actively breed in faecal matter and congealed blood on "chilled" kangaroos. Maggots have been photographed openly feasting on dead flesh.
Russia is absolutely correct in their charge of a "systemic problem" regarding issues of food safety and have wisely banned all kangaroo meat import.
You have been told eating kangaroo flesh is "healthy", but it is a lie.
Like all wild animals, kangaroos are infected with parasites that cannot be treated because they are not domesticated or farmed. Like all wild animals, kangaroos are infected with fungal and viral diseases. There has been little scientific investigation concerning the potential link to human health.
Of a significant public health interest, however, it is known that kangaroos are prone to infection with toxoplasmosis and salmonnella bacteria, both of which can spread to humans through handling, processing, or eating kangaroo meat. Australia experienced a human outbreak in Queensland that was traced back to contaminated kangaroo meat, but it is not well publicised.
You may not care as deeply as I do about the ethical issues of inhumane kangaroo killing. You may not care as deeply as I do about the ethics of eating a nation's National icon, but I hope you will carefully and deeply consider the known heath and safety issues. Logistically, it is impossible to provide identical standards of health safety in killing and processing "game meat" versus domestic livestock, and no amount of rhetoric will change this basic fact.
The world stood horrified as Chinese babies died from contaminated material in baby formula. The same material that killed hundreds of overseas pets just a year prior. From pet food made from the same contaminated material that killed Chinese babies.
Russia has banned the import of kangaroo meat based on very valid health and safety issues. I sincerely hope China does the same and doesn't allow known contaminates to endanger public health.
Kangaroos really are the most amazing, remarkable creatures and deserve great respect and appreciation. Please invite your country to come enjoy beautiful, living kangaroos instead of eating them and we'll all stay healthy!
With kind regards,
~robyn cooper
Melbourne's new industry - accommodating people!
Industrial areas of Melbourne that used to produce goods for domestic consumption and for the overseas markets for footware, fabrics, electronics etc are now being transformed into warehouses for people! The new "industry" is importing and accommodating people, not producers but consumers! People are economic units for a new style of economy, one that relies on stacking people into numerous identical apartments. In the 1960s and 70s, people were brought here to stimulate the economy as we had full employment and few Aussies wanted to work in factories. Now people are brought here to consume more and more imports rather than Australian made products. Building housing is our major industry now, and this implies supplying people to occupy them.
Are the powers of globalisation forcing us to treat people as commodities in an effort to secure the best of human resources before ecological and economic collapse?
Australia's optimal population for a benchmark lifestyle?
If "Australia was a big country well able to absorb a bigger population", then we would have full employment and all governments would be in surplus and there would be no undue pressures on our economy, society or ecology. This is clearly not the case. Demand stress upon all resources is worsening and at its root, this demand is driven by the growth of human population and its proportionate demand for those resources.
What is needed to clarify the problem is to establish measures and benchmarks. The ‘best or most favourable’ population for Australia and each of its cities and regions will be its 'optimum population'. This is one key benchmark. It is a more appropriate measure than 'sustainable population', because 'sustainable' implies the maximum possible, which is a less than ideal outcome. If Australians want to live in congestion akin to Bangkok or Hong Kong, then even if our resources could be pushed further to the sustainable limit, Australia's 'sustainable population' would be a scary number!
But how do we measure the benchmark of 'optimum population'? The Optimum Population Trust (OPT) approaches this measurement by applying the test of ecological footprinting (or eco-footprinting) This seeks to measure the ecological carrying capacity of a district, province, country, global region and even the whole planet. Carrying capacity is defined by OPT as "the size of human population that can be supported in a given territory, in a specified life-style (for example 'Modest European'), without degrading its physical and ecological environment, and without imposing wastes on the global environment beyond a specified limit." OPT Research Co-ordinator Andrew Ferguson defines eco-footprinting as "the process of determining the bioproductive area that a person or a population needs in order to sustain a specified lifestyle."
So the test then comes down to one of lifestyle. This assumes lifestyle is inversely proportional to population - where the larger the population and faster the growth of that population the lower the standard of lifestyle - 'room to move', lower costs, opportunities, resource access, reduced competition, etc. In Australia, we apparently have one of the best lifestyles on the planet.
But this is relative and these days it depends on where one lives in Australia and one's socio-economic status. Back in the 1960's Australia was arguably a classless society. These days not so. In 1960 Australia's populatiion was 10 million. In 1970 it was 12 million. In 1980 it was 14 million. In 1990 it was 17 million. In 2009 it is 21.8 million and increasing exponentially currently at 300,000 per year and could reach $23 million by 2010. So in 50 years, Australia's population has more than doubled. With current government policy at both federal and state levels our population will likely double again to 50 million in less than 50 years. Based on policies and historical trends to concentrate population in Australia's capital cities, this means Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and other major cities will be twice the size they are now. Imagine that for a moment! This is the real risk. It is the frankly biggest problem facing Australia.
Some other useful measures to better define the population growth problem are:
'Ecological footprint' is defined by the World Wildlife Fund as "an ecological footprint compares countries' consumption of natural resources with the Earth's biological capacity to regenerate them," or "a measure of humanity's use of renewable resources."
'Ecological space' is "the biologically productive space available to each person on the planet. Divided into equal shares (i.e. divided by world population) it was 5 - 6 hectares per person in 1900 and decreased to 1.5 hectares per person by 2000. Ecological space can expand or shrink depending on resource consumption, technological innovation, population growth and other factors."
Hectare, global (gha) "In eco-footprinting, 1 hectare (10,000m2, or 100m x 100m) of biologically productive space with world-average productivity. In 2002 the biosphere had 11.4 billion hectares of biologically productive space corresponding to roughly one quarter of the planet's surface. These 11.4 billion hectares include 2 billion hectares of cropland, 3.5 billion hectares of grazing land, 3.8 billion hectares of forest land, 0.3 billion hectares of inland waters and 0.3 hectares of built-up land. One global hectare is therefore a hectare representing the average capacity of one of these 11.4 billion hectares. Thus a hectare of highly productive land represents more 'global hectares' than the same surface of less productive land. Global hectares allow the meaningful comparison of the ecological footprints of different countries, which use different qualities and mixes of cropland, grazing land, and forest."
Becoming familiar with these measures and benchmarks will enable us to be more definite on what population Australia can indeed 'absorb'.
Bad State policy wins: Camberwell project approved
For Victorians who have not seen this in the Age, after 6 years of a highly-publicised non stop campaign by residents and council to hold back Victrack and Victracks' developer wrecking heritage Camberwell and its station, VCAT in one sentence dismissed residents and heritage as not counting against State Policy, or at least that part of State Policy that talks about development - ignoring the part that talks about protecting neightbouhood character.
If you could see what they are going to build you would be as sick and angry as me. It is an insult. And believe me it will be expensive. I have the feeling we are on a runaway train, with lunatics in the driving seat.
We are actually a small country in a big area!
Climate and Energy Secretary, Ed Milliband, responded by saying that "Australia was a big country well able to absorb a bigger population". This is a misconception that fools so many people. We are actually a small country in a big area, with most of it with unreliable rainfall and hot temperatures. Our ecology is already under threat, and our waterways in southern states are under stress. Surely the condition of our Murray Darling Food Bowl should send alarm signals off!
It was due to "projected" population growth, over 45% increase on 1999 numbers, that Kevin Rudd could only commit to 5% reduction in ghg emissions by 2020!
Australia's population in 1990 was 19 million. It was predicted to be 21 million by 2010 but we have surpassed this already.
We need scientists, religious leaders, scholars, writers, politicians, NGOs and philosophers to discuss and debate how to limit the size of our population, humanely and ethically. We need to invite open and intelligent discussion on alternative ways we can still have the economic growth our governments and businesses relentlessly pursue and also have an equitable way of supporting developing countries.
As for addressing climate change, it is pointless trying to mop up the flood while the tap is still running!
Tasmania's animal cruelty
While the local authorities are doing their best in terms of seizing Mitchell's cows and calves, the management of the Department of Primary Industries and Water maintains that 'nothing can be done' because Mitchell has yet to be 'convicted of anything'. And that is indeed a sorry indictment of Tasmania's justice system, which manages to haul before the courts peaceful forest protesters charged only weeks ago, yet cannot deal with serial and egregious animal abusers charged over two years ago.
Mitchell is due in court to face a large number of the 200 or so charges on July 22, where it is expected that some sort of plea bargain will occur. In other words, he will probably get away with much of the carnage with a 'slap on the wrist', as has been the case with other farmers who have starved and neglected their animals.
Woolworths maintains that Oliver has not offended before and they want to support him to improve conditions for the pigs.
At least Balke, the battery farmer was convicted and fined, but nothing sufficiently substantial to reflect the terrible suffering he caused. Another battery farmer, Nicholas Pitt, had all the charges against him dismissed because, in spite of shocking evidence aired on Stateline, the prosecution 'tendered no evidence' There were reports that there was a 'tip-off' to Pitt about an impending inspection, giving him time to clean up. The Minister claimed that he could not understand why there was such a difference in the material gained in the raid and what the authorities found when they got there.
Why is NSW NPWS gagged from commenting?
Why is the NSW authority on National Parks across NSW, the spin-inspired Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC), so quiet on The Shooters Party's proposed hunting 'solution' for our native fauna in NSW National Parks?
DECC, as the authority and custodian of National Parks across NSW and our protected native wildlife, has a moral obligation to the NSW public to provide its expert voice to the NSW Cabinet on the issue of what ought to be appropriate strategies to target and control feral animals in National Parks. Why is the DECC gagged from doing so?
Does the DECC not have a budget to physically address the high priority feral problem it reports? Where are the performance statistics for DECC controlling feral animals in National Parks across NSW?
In DECC's 'State of the Environment Report for 2006 [Ch. 6.4] on 'Terrestrial invasive species', which conveniently lumps weeds with feral animals, DECC confirms that “invasive species remain one of the greatest threats to biodiversity in NSW." Of the feral animal threat ('introduced terrestrial species’), DECC identifies (in order of threat) the following: feral cats, foxes, Lantana (weed), feral goats, rabbits, exotic perennial grasses, feral pigs, Bitou bush and boneseed, exotic vines and scramblers and the cane toad.
The worst offenders listed are the same usual suspects - the feral cat and European Fox. "Predation by feral cats and red foxes has contributed to regional declines and the extinction of a range of native species, particularly among small- to medium-sized ground-dwelling and semi-arboreal mammals, ground-nesting birds, and freshwater turtles (Dickman 1996)."
But DECC, although recognising feral predation as a key threatening process, is somewhat vague when it comes to reporting on how it is actually responding to these target species. It mentions the need for more research and preferred strategy of 'biological control'. To deal with feral cats for instance, it lists nine threat abatement strategies to help tackle the feral cat proble. The recommended high priority actions include: preparing a plan (TAP, threat abatement plan), prioritising feral cat control based on a review of the evidence of cat impacts, researching trials into cat-specific baits that will ensure non-target species are not impacted, developing cost-effective methods for broad-scale control of feral cats (does this mean shooting them? - it is not clear), identifying the biodiversity most at risk from predation by feral cats. It talks about establishing monitoring programs for the threat abatement plans, and about more research into biological controls.
But what has DECC physically done to control feral cats and foxes in National Parks across NSW, say over the past 2, 5, 10 years?
Is it the chronic and neglectful failure by DECC to physically control feral cats and foxes in National Parks, beyond tokenistic planning and report writing, that has likely got the Shooters Party chaffing at the bit to do something?
It's no different to our police force letting crime run rife, which forces residents to taking the law into their own hands and becoming vigilantes.
No credit due here ....
The only backflip on the part of Rees which would well and truly earn him any credit, would be to totally disallow the shooters party into national parks at all. However the pressure is on Rees because voters do not want shooters in national parks shooting native animals. At the same time the government desperately wants to sell the TAB.
Making a concession like allowing the shooters into national parks to assist with feral control is simply not good enough. It will be only a matter of time before they bring in stronger legislation allowing shooters to shoot without supervision. Even the police want to join in the target practice with helicopters. Then the continued illegal practice of releasing feral animals into parks will increase for the hunters benefit. And then they will bring in the shooting of native animals, one species at a time, and then the game parks will come in. Selling off our wildlife in exchange for a bailout is just plain not acceptable and Rees' concession is just the beginning.
The only solution would be for the Greens to help labor get their way - and that's not likely.
This bill is the worst possible nightmare for biodiversity. Nowhere will be safe for native animals - nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
"It’s embarrassing for Australia that we eat our own wildlife ....I’m here to tell you it’s just not right. Simply do not buy, use or eat kangaroo products”
~ Steve Irwin
Sign the most important petition ever created to help kangar
tourism boycott
That photo will go down in history as a record of what those in power think of our wildlife. Those who committed this atrocity shall go down in history as traitors to our wildlife.
May these poor animals rest in peace and may the killers be remembered for their lack of empathy and their lack of compassion, for they are the most despicable of the human race
Hear hear.
Hear hear. Couldn't say it better myself.
What is Tasmania's government doing about the cruelty?
Fronterra at least had the decency to stop any contract with Roderick Mitchell, the so-called farmer who abused, tortured and killed his cows! Why aren't the animals taken away, swiftly? How can Woolworths, the "fresh food" family supermarket chain, keep supporting Gary Oliver's pig farm? How are hens allowed to be trapped and crushed into tiny cages, all legally? We often hear that farmers care for animal welfare, and there are some sympathetic farmers, However, there are many cases, and the massive numbers of livestock in Australia, means that keeping tabs on animal cruelty to farm animals is almost impossible unless there are tight government and legal controls to prevent it. Of course, these animals are considered assets, first and foremost, but we cannot consider ourselves a civilisation while these horrific examples of cruelty continue without firm action taken to form a legal and ethical standard and precedent.
Give credit to Joan van Lieshout where credit is due
Whatever can be rightly said against Mayor Joan van Lieshout for her role in imposing the Repco Rally and the Nightcap developments, it is an outrage that the other councilors intend to sack her for asking Mr Rayner to step down from his extra role on the board of Rally Australia.
On this issue at least Joan van Lieshout deserves the support of Tweed residents.
For a good many other reasons, it would seem that Joan van Lieshout does deserve to be sacked, but if she is to be sacked by the Tweed Shire councilors for taking a principled stand against Mike Rayner being on the board of Rally Australia, then Tweed residents should demand that all the whole council be sacked and new elections be called.
Check rally's history of financial failure !!
The above comment: 'Buy No More Repco spares In Australia' has merit but won't stop the Repco Rally going ahead in December. In order to effectively stop this rally, the campaign ought to focus on multiple initiatives, including publicising in the mass media the event's history of financial failure at Dwellingup, south of Perth.
1. Research the failings of the previous rally being expelled from Dwellingup. This will clearly reveal core weaknesses of the entire rally business case. The event in Western Australia was previously called Rally Australia in 2006 and the key sponsor was Telstra Rally Australia
Check the following websites on the event's financial failures:
http://www.worldrallychampionship.net/features/index.php?id_display=9
http://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Lists/Statements/Attachments/128008/rally.pdf
2. Contact former Western Australia Tourism Minister Mr Mark McGowan, who back in 2005 canned the Telstra Rally as it was called then in WA and proclaimed: "The State Government will seek to end its contract with the motorsport event Rally Australia in 2006 in light of concerns over the economic viability of the event."
Further to the history of the failure of this event, I also direct you to the following relevant weblink:
...."Mr M. McGOWAN: In 2003 and 2004 Rally Australia cost taxpayers $5.9 million. It was the biggest event on the EventsCorp calendar in terms of cost, and that cost was predicted to grow because insurance costs were increasing and some competitors were dropping out.
"The fees payable to the various motor sport bodies involved were also increasing. In addition, we received advice - it has been publicly noted - that the Rally Australia sponsors would not continue to sponsor that event.
Mr R.F. Johnson: Who - Telstra?
Mr M. McGOWAN: Yes, Telstra.
"Costs were rising and the sponsors were pulling out. In addition, crowd attendances were declining, and the international television coverage and core markets relevant to Western Australia were very poor. That meant that Rally Australia was not securing the benefit for the sponsors, the overseas television coverage, and interstate and international visitors to Western Australia. In direct spend, a $6 million event returned - as members have noted - $9.3 million to the state. As I have said ad nauseam, a return of $1.60 on every dollar spent is the worst return by a country mile for an event sponsored by a government. I will go through some of the other events so that members understand the situation."
All the best.
Newfie Seal-Hunters to Club Abducted Cats
Perhaps Australians could take the heat off kangaroos by following the latest tactic of the Sea Sheppherd Society in Canada to protect seals:
NEWFIE SEAL-HUNTERS TO CLUB ABDUCTED CATS
Deal Finally Struck between D.F.O. and Paul Watson
Press release March 14/09:
In an all-night bargaining session between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), the government of Newfoundland and Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an agreement was reached that will see hundreds of unmolested seal-hunters club a million kittens to be released on Atlantic ice flows next season.
It seems that both federal and provincial authorities finally bowed to Captain Watson’s argument that spending ten dollars on Coast Guard and helicopter patrols to thwart protesters in order that seal hunters earn one dollar for skinning baby seals, is not entirely cost-effective. A fact that until now has never weighed too heavily on politicians eager to harvest the votes of Newfoundlanders.
By the same token, Captain Watson was finally reconciled to the need of 21st century men with clubs to play at being hunter-gatherers for a few weeks just to augment the family income and address some deep-seated primeval need to bloody an animal, however meek and defenseless. So he offered the family cat as a more deserving scapegoat than Grey and Harp seals, which in fact eat some 780,000 fewer tons of fish than the world’s 200 million domestic cats. In reality, Australian cats, for example, eat even more fish than Australian hominids.
But as much as the quantity of fish consumed by felines is alarming, it is the kind of fish that these parasites eat that is even more troubling. By consuming sardines, herring, anchovy and capelin, they are robbing larger fish like cod, tuna and swordfish, as well as marine mammals and birds of their mainstay and thereby knee-capping the aquatic food chain at its critical foundation. At least seals control those fish populations which predate other fish like young cod, and bequeath nutrients to the ocean with their afterbirths and dead carcasses.
Domestic cats, on the other hand, contribute harmful bacteria and viruses through the fecal material that is flushed into the aquatic system. In effect America sends out an armada of 85,000 fishing vessels to ravish the life-support system of larger fish, mammals and sea-birds in order to, in Watson’s words, “spoil one fish-eating species that does not eat fish naturally, while bashing out the brains of another species that evolved in harmony with fish species in a valued predator situation.”
In addition to their fish habit, domestic cats each kill 25 animals a year on average, including 4 birds apiece, or a staggering 18 million birds collectively in Canada every year. While human population growth must be assigned primary responsibility for mining a fishery that is 157% in overshoot and causing bird and other species loss through habitat fragmentation and destruction through logging, industrial and residential development and so forth, the growing domestic cat population is a function of a growing human population. More people, more cats.
In Canada, for example, there is one cat for each 7 citizens, so that by growing its human population by 1.08% annually, or 356,400 people, it will likely result in the acquisition of another 50,914 cats, who at 4 birds a pop, will maim, torture and kill some 203,656 birds each year. So with an immigration quota of 265,000 that will yield, again according to averages, some 37,857 extra cats, Prime Minister Stephen Harper sentences 151,428 birds to death each and every year and costs the aquatic eco-system 469.43 tons more fish than our domestic cats consumed last year. Since 200 million cats eat 2.48 million tons of fish annually, each cat eats .0124 of a ton each year, bringing Canada’s feline fish consumption to 55,800 tons. Before criminalizing Harper, it must be remembered that the so-called “Green coalition” of Liberals, New Democrats and Greens that was proposed to oust the minority Conservative government, would boost immigration levels by 38%, so feline fish consumption would consequently be higher under their enlightened leadership, as would green house gas emissions and the conversion of farmland to immigrant-driven housing development.
It might be argued that dog owners merit equivalent scorn for their indulgence, but dogs don’t eat cans of fish, although their “paw” print is substantial. Dogs are the pet of choice for Canadians (5.7 million vs. 4.5 million cats), but the reason is mysterious. Perhaps it is because cats cannot sniff for drugs at the airport, take down criminals, find earthquake victims under the rubble or avalanche victims under the snow, guard important installations, shepherd sheep, guide the blind and disabled, track lost hikers or accompany them on hikes, or even catch rodents with the ruthless efficiency of Jack Russell terriers. So other than serve as useless ornaments to the vanity of masochistic owners who adore being ignored, I have no idea why more Canadians don’t favour cats. Beats me. Undercutting a critical ecosystem that provides humanity with 25% of its protein needs is trifling surely.
Nevertheless, the DOF needs a scapegoat for the loss of fish. Whales won’t do anymore because scientific evidence does not vindicate the belief that commercial fisheries are negatively impacted by them in tropical breeding areas. And seals are, as Captain Paul Watson has so ably demonstrated, wrongly castigated. So cats will do nicely. It is unrealistic to hope that cat owners will ‘fix’ them when they won’t even fix themselves. Therefore it has been agreed that millions of domestic cats, preferably kittens, will be abducted at dawn by cross-country raids conducted by crack, battle-hardened veterans of the Afghanistan conflict, sanctioned by the parliamentary implementation of the Emergencies Act, which obviates the need for warrants.
It is thought that such a show of force will be necessary to counter the resistance of vegetarian cat-lovers whose proclaimed love of animals apparently does not extend to the marine and terrestrial creatures that fall victim to their pets. It is not yet certain if those hypocrites will be “belled”, confined to detention camps and fed the meat extracted from the hides of their clubbed pets on the ice-flows.
Tim Murray
March 14/09
Speed, entropy and the Fordian process
Thanks for this response, Tim M.
I was struck by what you said about the 'professional jobs that once demanded creative inputs, jobs that offered some satisfaction,' [which] have been progressively de-skilled and specialized.' I had not thought of that, but you are right. Even nursing, which demands physical exertion, attention to individuals, initiative, responsibility and risk, has been made onerous and formulaic by the demand that its practitioners fill in forms to satisfy the collection of statistics and bills. Real patient needs must be squeezed in between the fulfillment of what the insurers, the accreditors and the budget managers decree as first priority.
And the same with citizenship, now reduced to the filling of tax-form, short questionnaires, payment of charges, attendance at policy marketing forums, and once every three year ticking of boxes.
A major impact, as you say, is to speed things up. The division of labour is designed to do this.
In simplifying systems, we go faster and faster, until, eventually, what we were doing becomes disconnected from its purpose, and carries us along as isolated passive fragments of material in an increasingly dispersed and aimless system.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
Buy No More Repco spares In Australia
Buy no more spare parts from repco stores
Boycott these un-Australian french rev heads!
Those that pay rates to a local NSW AUSTRALIAN council and Govt land taxes are being shafted by foriegn companies and our elected members, so that we have no rights!
Yet they will let drivers drive at 200kphr and not have to pay for repairs to the road?
In doing so they will scam profits from television coverage and advertising.
Yet as compensation all we are offered is $22 AUD"free ticket"- yet we pay $ 600+per year to maintain this road?
To be priveleaged to drive at 40 ks or risk damage to your car,and risk running off the road due to the potholes and badly done grading.
There will be no jobs created, Repco can only afford voluntees as officials not paid workers?
No rev heads are going to spend up big at "farmers markets"buying organic veges.
they will not want to stay here when a beach resort SALT comglomerate motel awaits that night, or night clubs to drown their stink of fossil fuels!
No, It is not "bong" smoking "nimbys" seeing and protesting this, it is common citizens not blinded and duped by lies or handing over their rate payements for a 4 hour thrill ride to recoup their mispent youth.
We live here,we respect our environment
and do not throw rubish and oil in our creeks or dump our litter along the roads we have to pay for that in council dumps above our rates costs!
What Creates the Market for Manufactured Reality?
OK, here is my take. The process Sheila Newman describes is dialectic.
The media constructs an artificial reality (oxymoron?) or ideological prism through which it wishes us to view the world. But at the same time, it only responds to our demand for short and entertaining soundbites. That demand can be understood as a manifestation of the continuing division of labour, which Canadian Harry Braverman analyzed some 25 years ago. Contemporary industrial society, he contended, was marked not just by a concentration of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands, but by a similar concentration of creativity. Even professional jobs that once demanded creative inputs, jobs that offered some satisfaction, have been progressively de-skilled and specialized. Lawyers who do nothing but conveyances, or architects who lost artistic rendering or design to software programs begin to resemble the guy at a Ford assembly line using an impact wrench all day. To the boredom of modern work is added the stress that comes from demands for higher productivity, the requirement that after downsizing, fewer staff take up and tackle the workload of laid off employees. And the point of specialization, after all, is higher productivity, not job fulfillment.
After a work day like that, it is not likely that either white or blue collar workers would seek intellectually challenging puruits. A mindless sitcom or a horror flick would be the choice over adult education classes or a National Geographic documentary about disappearing rainforests.
People demand escape, and addictive consumerism and the ABC or CBC are able and willing to provide it. Andre Gorz complemented Braveman's insight by saying something very much like that. Excessive consumerism was the flip side of excessive division of labour and specialization, and the loss of power that de-skilling implies. Tradesman have a lot more leverage and control than "unskilled" drones.
My experience is that people are too exhausted and stressed to bother thinking for themselves. Research and independent thought involve work. But "workers" don't want to work in their leisure moments. They want R and R, not mental calisthenics. If and when they want "information" about current events, they want it concisely packaged in entertaining newsclips from the sources they trust to shore up their belief system. They want to be left in their comfortable shoe. Their ideology is a shrine with a front door that reads "Do Not Disturb".Thus the popularity of prefabricated information filtered by the news source they favour. Not only public and commercial media, but the latest blurb from the political party, church, professional body or environmental NGO they subscribe to. All of these institutions hold up a lens for us, a looking glass that focuses on the truth that they want us to see at the exclusion of that which they don't want us to see. And I am happy with the blinkered vision, for the progressive division of labour and the "speed up" that comes with it has allowed the Growth Economy to rob us of our time and energy. We haven't the strength or the inclination to be citizens. Only the desire to be somnabulent consumers. Consumers of fast food and fast information. Not books, not 1200 word essays, not academic dissertations, but quick serve terse letters to the editor, or better yet, you-tubes. And make it interesting.
So give it to me now, but give it to me in a delectable bite size that will satisfy my passing craving for news. I need the assurance that the universe can be fully comprehended by swallowing a sugar coated one-a-day multi-vitamin of pre-digested summation with a cup of greenwash. And the exclusive reliance on this one hit of manufactured reality in the absence of networking and personal interaction is precisely the goal of every totalitarian society of the last century. Ms. Newman is right, as was Solomon Asch. We feel so isolated in our dissension that we begin to feel that it is our own independent perceptions that are not real. After all, how can we be right if every news presenter and commentator finds us wrong?
Bushfire organisation response - how to improve?
Have you any ideas as to how a new fire fighting organisation might be started up? I gather from your articles that aircraft are crucial as well as early spotting of fires, which should be possible with current meteorological technology, fly-overs and ?satellites.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
sheila [AT] candobetter org or the editor if you wish to make substantial reproduction or republish.
Similar undemocratic development in Ku-ring-gai (Sydney)
Take the following instance of a local resident protest in the Ku-ring-gai shire in Sydney's still leafy north shore which is dominated by national park:
Katrina Adamski of The North Shore Times on 28 May 09 reported "Angry crowd jeers as Planning Panel adopts town centre plans"
'HUNDREDS of angry residents packed a Lindfield hall to protest against the "sham plans’’ adopted by the Ku-ring-gai Planning Panel last night.
Up to 600 people packed into the Greenhalgh Auditorium at UTS Lindfield, many holding placards and banners. More than 100 people registered to speak but in the time allowed only 60 had a chance to air their views.
As the night wore on, residents grew angrier at the "flawed process’’ with most holding the opinion that their words would not make a difference to the outcome. After listening to people speak for three and a half hours, (chair) Ms Crouch said the panel members would adjourn for a few minutes before voting on the motion to adopt the plans. This was met with boos and jeers as residents cried out that they had wasted their night and started to leave the auditorium. Before the meeting started, Ms Crouch said the panel had held a series of community consultation sessions as well as reviewing more than 1800 submissions and meeting with resident groups.
During the following hours, residents spoke about ad hoc zoning, of impacts on their family homes, about the height, bulk and scale of development destroying the amenity of the area, and how Ku-ring-gai could be reduced to a slum.
When Ms Crouch said that no more speakers could be heard, one resident threatened to report her to the Planning Minister Kristina Keneally. But Ms Crouch said a large number of issues had been raised and proceeded to adjourn for a few minutes to "consider these issues’’. When they returned she thanked people for their "stringent opinions, ideas and suggestions’’. Ms Crouch then put the motion to adopt the plans and send them to the Planning Minister for gazettal and this was unanimously adopted.'
[Extract from The North Shore Times]
Withholding taxes in Australia where democracy is failing
Australian and state governments[1] are creating major political and budgetary problems by flooding the country with people when they are already unable to provide adequate water, transport, employment, land or housing. The vastly over-sold problem of funding an aging population has nothing on this kamikazi economic policy. Public private partnerships, corporatisation and privatisation are all failing hopelessly to attract private funding for (deeply unpopular) projects like salinisation, toll-ways, housing and socially and other financially costly major infrastructure. The industries and companies involved in such projects expect governments, State and Private, to fund their projects by raising taxes and increasing public debt. And Australia is already deeply in debt. Even though governments are increasing charges for most power and resources, private businesses based on the inflation of resources are still not viable and the world is in financial crisis.
For several years now NO government can claim a mandate to increase the population and charges and taxes to 'manage' water and power, because the electorate has never been asked to choose this as an option. Governments at federal and state level have misled Australians about the origin of our population problem by pretending it was something they were somehow obliged to 'manage', as if they had no responsibility in it, when in actuality, Federal and State governments have been running advertisements and internet sites encouraging people to migrate here in larger and larger numbers. At the same time there have been concerted efforts to encourage women to have more children here, by misleading women about economic prospects.
The commercial press and the ABC have consistently failed to inform the public of the government's role and the opposition's collusion in the democratically anathema business-case to overpopulate Australia. Although the media have begun to publish articles about how out of control the costs of population growth have become, they still fail to show that Australia has been willfully overpopulated to the extent that vital resources, especially water, are now dangerously overstressed.
All state and federal governments had a duty to advise the electorate of their activities in raising immigration numbers and that this would cause rises in all basic costs. All oppositions also had a duty to allow the public a choice to not go down the route of overpopulation, yet they have failed to do this and continue to fail to do this. All governments should have made this matter a voting issue at elections by using public money to give proper information where the commercial media did not.
The electorate is entitled to withhold taxes on the grounds that it has not had representation on these issues. The PAYE tax system makes it impossible for most wage-earners to withhold taxes, unless their employers do this for them. Many employers must be sick and tired of the increasing charges for rent, water and power, which raise their costs and lower their margins. Withholding PAYE tax would be a democratic option to bring the government to its senses.
The PAYE tax system was brought in around the time of the second world war. Unions and employers could attempt to cooperate with Australian citizens in withholding the PAYE tax at the request of salary earners, by organising resistance and legal strategy. Ratepayer groups could cooperate to assist residents to organise together to withhold their rates from councils which, by failing to limit building permissions, undemocratically commit residents to subsidising the costs of infrastructure expansion to accomodate unwanted and avoidable population increase.
[1] Yes, State governments are deeply involved in the people-importing business. It is not just the Commonwealth that has power and responsibility in this.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
Ageing population clouds growth forecasts
According to the Productivity Commission, implications of population ageing in Australia means that said economic growth would slow during the next 40 years and consequently there would be deep deficits in government budgets for many years. Maybe we should encourage older people to voluntary lay down their lives for the benefit of the economy!
Further restricting access to entitlements such as the age pension and increasing the official pension age to 70 or 75 would lead to a further reduction in the living standards of pensioners who are already victims of our country's greed. Chronological age cannot be matched to health or needs.
Our population is socially engineered to be constantly increasing, fed by our excessive immigration that is stressing infrastructure and raising the costs of natural resources as they become less available. We can never keep a population young, and the numbers of older people will continually rise. We can't keep replacing older people without blowing out our numbers!
Better than the squeeze on vulnerable older people would be to not keep accommodating our population growth and the current spending on new arrivals.
Click to see the article in the Australian
We don't live in an economy, we live in a society of people of all age groups and globalisation means that our older and less productive senior citizens are being treated as a liability to "economic growth" rather than as humans who should be treated with dignity and respect.
Enivronmental NGO Silence
North American environmental NGOs are not constrained so much by the conditions imposed by their charitable status, but my their corporate donor base. For the American experience, just review the history of the David Gelbaum affair and the corruption of the Sierra Club. Or read Christine MacDonald's "Green Inc" about how the most prominent and high profile environmental orgs not only accept money from energy and logging corporations but allow the directors of these companies to sit on their boards.
In Canada the Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy and the David Suzuki Foundation are beneficiaries of serious corporate donations. Suzuki of course, poses as a Great Crusader against climate change, playing to the Green yuppie gallery by his demand that MPs who deny anthropogenic global warming should be jailed---hardly the action of someone inhibited by possible government retaliation from the tax department. Yet he receives donations from EnCana Corporation, a world leader in natural gas production and oil sands development, ATCO Gas, Alberta's principle distributor of natural gas, and a number of pension funds including OPG (Ontario Power Generation) Employees' and Pensioners' Charity Trust. OPG is one of the largest suppliers of electricity in the world, operating 5 fossil fuel-burning generation plants and 3 nuclear plants. The Suzuki Foundation's 2005/06 financial report also lists 52 corporate donors including Bell Canada, Toyota, IBM, Microsoft, Scotia Capital, the Royal Bank of Canada and the Bank of Montreal. The latter three benefactors explain Suzuki's silence on the obviously negative environmental impact of mass immigration. The financial industry is fueled by mortgages to home-buyers---70 to 85% of whom are foreign-born.
The Sierra Club of Canada employs the second "solution" offered in this article to circumvent the intention of the law. They set up a dummy organization which they call the "Sierra Club Foundation" as a purely educational group and entice membership to it. Then they use the membership fees in a transparently discreet way to fund their political arm, the Sierra "Club" of Canada, which is blatantly partisan, even to the point of assigning "grades" to the political parties who contest an upcoming federal election. They assigned an "F" to the Conservative Harper government, even though the opposition parties did not actually promise to terminate the Tar Sands project and promised to hike immigration levels by 38% which, in practice, would mean that they would raise GHG emissions by 38%. I gave the Sierra Club an "F" on two counts. One, for their appalling blindness to the relationship of population growth to climate change and immigration to carbon emissions. And two, for tax fraud. There is no "Chinese Wall" between the Sierra Club Foundation and the Sierra Club. Money went from one hand to the other. Meanwhile, over 700 legitimate charity groups were disqualified for doing legitimate charity work in 2007. Groups that provided food banks, hospice care, trauma counselling etc. Many people who gave money to the Sierra Club Foundation believed that it was not to be used for partisan purposes. They were Conservatives, Liberals or New Democratic Party supporters who woke up to read the morning newspaper and found that the organization they donated to was endorsing the party of hyper mass immigration, the Green Party of Elizabeth May. How would you feel if you learned that the SPCA or the animal protection agency you donated to had forwarded your money to the Howard or Rudd government or to any of your political opponents along with their endorsement?
North American environmental NGOs are doing the work that corporations pay them to do. The job of Pied Pipers to green yuppie dupes, decoying them down inconsequential pathways away from the root cause of environmental degradation---mass immigration and rising fertility rates. Best to let them exhaust their members by using them as a fire brigade to put out the brush fires that constantly pop up everywhere. Save this forest, or that river, or this endangered species of the month. Fight symptoms, not causes. After all, corporations can suffer the odd environmental victory. Dedicated parkland can later be ravished with the stroke of a parliamentary pen. What is really important is that environmentalists stay silent while the nation is being flooded with more consumers and cheap labour.
Well, it looks like the environmental NGOs have kept their end of the bargain. Barking dogs that yap at the mailman, but ignore the crook who is robbing the house.
Tim Murray
A music award but nothing for the whales!
It is no doubt an honour that we have a Federal Environment Minister awarded the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres joining the ranks of other famous artists. However, Peter Garrett was at the IWC Whaling conference and achieved nothing for the whales!
Our government promised to end the illegal slaughter, but has failed to achieve anything towards this aim.
There is no such thing as Japan's "scientific whaling" and it should not even be called such. It is commercial whaling, and due to our country's procrastinations and floundering, Iceland and Norway have also sought to make grisly profits from whale meat. Gigantic and gentle performing Humpbacks are also on the menu!
We need to see the promised "tough" action against Japan's whale poachers as diplomatic options have failed.
An "arts" award does Peter Garrett credit, but more than that we need to see an active and successful Environment Minister!
THE OECD and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation report
THE OECD and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation have just released their combined annual agricultural outlook. It suggests that with one billion undernourished people in the world already, food availability must increase by 60 per cent in the next 20 years to overcome this mess.
With population growth, and one billion people undernourished already, "food availability must increase by 60 per cent in the next 20 years to overcome this mess". Easily said than done! With a global population crisis and less land to cultivate for food, increasing food production by 60 per cent is going to be a phenomenal challenge considering that we can't just have wall-to-wall cities and then the monoculture of farms!
Ecosystems have their own lifecycles, and we can't just keep destroying oceans, rivers, forests and biodiversity and still maintain that resources will just keep expanding!
A plant-based diet needs to be phased in world-wide. We also need a world sustainable population program before Gaia takes her own revenge on this "mess"!
ferals and natives and shooting
I think that part of the problem is the idea of making a sport out of feral animal control. Even 'scientific' control, under government departments, seems to be subject to the corruption of satisfying other targets - such as freeing up land for more development to profit from induced human population growth.
The government needs to clean up its act but encouraging the shooting of animals for sport in areas where we are supposed to be protecting them is really bad.
As for shooting leading to extinction in native animals - we know that the ferals are 'ferals' because they out-compete the natives. The native animals generally have a low reproductive rate or can only survive in habitats that are being reduced, whereas the ferals owe much of their success to the ability to survive in many or most habitats. Think of cats, rats, dogs, pigs, humans - they are very widespread. Not so the red kangaroo, the wombat, the quoll, the cassowary etc etc.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
'Extremism' thirsts for 24/7 open season for natives in NPs
Given there is a "plague of feral animals", so produce any independent zoological report that shows an effective control programme for a given feral species without adverse impacts on native species.
Our cereals could increasingly come from China and the US if Australian farmers and graziers don't start engaging in sustainable practices - just like they have been teaching at TAFE Agricultural colleges for some years.
Ferals can already be controlled on agricultural land. If feral control was the genuine aim of the Shooters Party Gamer Bill, why does this Bill deliberately add native animals in National Parks as new 'game animals'?
Smells like a Milat motive for natives. Such a Bill deserves tossing!
The problem of immigration is all one of scale
If a broad spectrum of the Australian population on a wide geographic basis received an unnoticeable small number of migrants, irrespective of origin that were committed to assimilation and that this was carefully planned by government over an extended period time, so that assimilation was seamless, then immigration wouldn't probably be seen as a problem.
But extremism with any policy, like mass accelerated immigration, as per the current Rudd Experiment is likely to have consequences and as we are experiencing, is.
Rudd' immigration experiment is extremist and it is turning a very tolerant society into an intolerant one.
Immigration a form of 'lemon socialism'
"After the immigrants arrive, they are at low wages, pay little or
nothing in taxes and demand full social benefit."
Immigration is essentially a form of 'lemon socialism' in which the costs
are socialised while the benefits are privatised. It provides huge
indirect subsidies to certain industries in the form of more consumers and
cheap labour, but imposes a significant burden on the wider population.
It is certainly true that immigration places downward pressure on wages;
indeed, it is impossible to argue otherwise.
And, yes, immigrants also place pressure on public infrastructure and
services without having contributed anything to the cumulative
intergenerational investment that gone into building up such
infrastructure and services.
There is also the impact of immigration on housing costs and our national
balance of payments - both major issues here in Australia.
Posted on behalf of RD. - JS
Scientific Whaling - no different to Ishii's depraved Unit 731
So, we think taking over half an hour for a whale to die from explosive internal harpooning is inhumane?
We think 'scientific' whale research is cruel and should be stopped, but not sure how?
Japan's claim that it is conducting 'scientific' whaling is as scientific as Japanese Unit 731 and its 'scientific' human experiments during World War II, commanded under microbiologist Lieutenant General Shiro Ishii of the Imperial Japanese Army.
Try this...
Those engaged in 'scientific' whaling should be publicly labelled as Unit 731 'Nana-san-ichi butai' in the Japanese media!!
This would be one damn nasty way to stop the whaling. How so? Read below extracts.
Activities of Unit 731:
A special project code-named Maruta used human beings for experiments. Test subjects were gathered from the surrounding population and were sometimes referred to euphemistically as "logs" (??, maruta?).[11] This term originated as a joke on the part of the staff due to the fact that the official cover story for the facility given to the local authorities was that it was a lumber mill. [SOURCE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-439776/Doctors-Depravity.html]
Vivisection
* Prisoners of war were subjected to vivisection without anesthesia.
* Vivisections were performed on prisoners after infecting them with various diseases. Scientists performed invasive surgery on prisoners, removing organs to study the effects of disease on the human body. These were conducted while the patients were alive because it was feared that the decomposition process would affect the results. The infected and vivisected prisoners included men, women, children, and infants.
* Vivisections were also performed on pregnant women, sometimes impregnated by doctors, and the fetus removed.
* Prisoners had limbs amputated in order to study blood loss.
* Those limbs that were removed were sometimes re-attached to the opposite sides of the body.
* Some prisoners' limbs were frozen and amputated, while others had limbs frozen then thawed to study the effects of the resultant untreated gangrene and rotting.
* Some prisoners had their stomachs surgically removed and the esophagus reattached to the intestines.
* Parts of the brain, lungs, liver, etc. were removed from some prisoners.
* In 2007, Doctor Ken Yuasa testified to the Japan Times that, "I was afraid during my first vivisection, but the second time around, it was much easier. By the third time, I was willing to do it." He believes at least 1,000 persons, including surgeons, were involved in vivisections over mainland China.
Weapons testing:
* Human targets were used to test grenades positioned at various distances and in different positions.
* Flame throwers were tested on humans.
* Humans were tied to stakes and used as targets to test germ-releasing bombs, chemical weapons and explosive bombs.
Germ warfare attacks:
* Prisoners were injected with inoculations of disease, disguised as vaccinations, to study their effects.
* To study the effects of untreated venereal diseases, male and female prisoners were deliberately infected with syphilis and gonorrhea, then studied.
* Prisoners were infested with fleas in order to acquire large quantities of disease-carrying fleas for the purposes of studying the viability of germ warfare.
* Plague fleas, infected clothing, and infected supplies encased in bombs were dropped on various targets. The resulting cholera, anthrax, and plague were estimated to have killed around 400,000 Chinese civilians.
* Tularemia was tested on Chinese civilians.
Unit 731 and its affiliated units (Unit 1644, Unit 100, et cetera) were actively involved not only in research and development, but also in experimental deployment of epidemic-creating biowarfare weapons in assaults against the Chinese populace (both civilian and military) throughout World War II. Plague-infested fleas, bred in the laboratories of Unit 731 and Unit 1644, were spread by low-flying airplanes upon Chinese cities, coastal Ningbo in 1940, and Changde, Hunan Province, in 1941. This military aerial spraying killed thousands of people with bubonic plague epidemics.
Other 'scientific' experiments:
Prisoners were subjected to other experiments such as:
* being hung upside down to see how long it would take for them to choke to death.
* having air injected into their arteries to determine the time until the onset of embolism.
* having horse urine injected into their kidneys.
* being deprived of food and water to determine the length of time until death.
* being placed into high-pressure chambers until death.
* being exposed to extreme temperatures and developing frostbite to determine how long humans could survive with such an affliction, and to determine the effects of rotting and gangrene on human flesh.
* having experiments performed upon prisoners to determine the relationship between temperature, burns, and human survival.
* being placed into centrifuges and spun until dead.
* having animal blood injected and the effects studied.
* being exposed to lethal doses of x-ray radiation.
* having various chemical weapons tested on prisoners inside gas chambers.
* being injected with sea water to determine if it could be a substitute for saline.
* being buried alive. (This practice included infants.)
[SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731]
Petition against REPCO Rally law
There is a petition against this injust and undemocratic law, but it can only be signed by "Residents and Current/Prospective Visitors to the Tweed and Kyogle areas." This is just as offensive as the State law against protecting the National Park from the race. The Green Caldera National Park is a World Heritage area. If the world cannot sign to get the Australian government to protect it, surely Australians everywhere ought to be able to place pressure on the NSW government to stop the race.
Here is where people can go to sign if they are eligible: http://www.petitiononline.com/NRG01e/petition-sign.html
Oz has a fascist big population policy
Yes,
I think that APop hoisted SPA and Tim Flannery on their own petard by coming out with calls for a population policy for a BIG population, with incredibly high immigration. This has come to pass with continuous lobbying by members of the Growth Lobby and Kevin Rudd's summit came out and said that they wanted to have a certain population in 2020 - and gave the Citizens - as opposed to the paid-up lobby groups - NO SAY AT ALL in the matter.
It was certainly a laugh to hear Mr Rudd claiming in China that Australia has a 'robust democracy'. Nothing of the sort.
Here is where our Federal population policy comes from Scanlon report underpins threat to Australian democracy. But there are also State population policies, which you can read about here: Melbourne 2008: Life in a destruction zone Check out 'Growth Lobby' in our 'site tags' for a group of other articles on this theme.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
Problems ordering "The Howard Legacy"
RD, I am unable to order "The Howard Legacy" through the link you have posted. I have added the book to my shopping cart, but can't see how to proceed to the checkout, that is, when I use the (Apple) Safari browser.
When I use Firefox, it complains that my browser doesn't allow cookies, when it has been set to allow cookies, so I can't even reach first base.
Can you help?
Can you suggest how i might otherwise get a copy?
Thank you.
Stop bad town planning outcomes
Our household has been affected by bad town planning decisions. Yarra City Council is hiding behind Melbourne 2030 to justify it poor planning decisions. Overcrowding, noise, lack of parking controls, undesirable neighbors urinating from three storey balconies right in front of our eyes are just a few issues we have to thank our Yarra City town planners for.
During a recent IDAC meeting for a planning application for former Yarra City Councilor Paul D'Agostino (Labor) the committee unanimously carried the motion to approve a permit for a four storey apartment block in a tiny North Fitzroy backstreet 18m wide. There is nothing new about apartment blocks in the North Fitzroy street that the application was proposed for. However a large group of objectors did want Yarra City Council to apply some restrictions to the permit, namely to reduce the number of levels from four to three, which prior to this application, was the maximum number of floor levels permitted in this compact street. The objectors also wanted the committee to address issues of potential parking stress which was considered and issue by the objectors. Needless to say, Steve Jolly (Stephen Jolly) was first to move that Paul D'Agostino's building permit be approved. The other Yarra councillors followed.
See also: urbanplanningyarra.blogspot.com.
It's not about immigration. Its about unbridled greed.
The wealthy use immigrants to break their countrymen's ability to command a working wage. If you object to this, you are called a racist. They say Australians won't do the work. Of course not! And neither will the immigrants child. Are you going to immigrate the entire labor force every 20 years.?
After the immigrants arrive, they are at low wages, pay little or nothing in taxes and demand full social benefit. You subsidize these immigrants and dilute your own benefits. Your corrupt politicians may even ask you to provide subsidized housing for "low income families". Don't do it. You are simply subsidizing greedy employers and ruining you own opportunities for meaningful employment. If you force the immigrants to demand a living wage watch how quickly greedy employers loose interest. Watch how the money flows. The greedy get the money and the politicians pass the burden on to the taxpayers.
It's all over the world news about Aussie women now working as prostitutes in record numbers to get by. How gutless can Aussies get? Does anything matter to you? Stand up to your politicians and their backdoor lobbyists.
(My emphasis - JS)
Australia's de-facto population policy
"What is conspicuous by its omission is any information on immigration policy, planning, objectives, let alone the holistic leadership concept of population policy."
I would argue that the Federal government does have a de facto population policy - bring in as many people as quickly as possible. It is an unspoken policy rarely enunciated in public. Aware that ongoing mass immigration is generally unpopular with the Australian public, federal politicians on both sides of the political divide have assiduously avoided developing an open policy by means of electoral and other consultative mechanisms, preferring instead to devise immigration policy behind closed doors. Immigration policy is conducted as if it were none of the general public's business.
Such an approach has allowed successive federal governments to avoid explaining why they believe Australia needs to be running one of the largest, if not the largest, per capita immigration programmes in the world.
If Australia was to have an open and honest debate about immigration and population, I am certain the case against ongoing immigration-driven population growth would prevail. As far as I can see, there is no convincing justification - economic or otherwise - for the ridiculously high levels of immigration that successive federal governments have inflicted on this country. For the general Australian public, mass immigration brings much pain with little gain. It drives down wages, pushes up the cost of housing, strains our public infrastructure and services, worsens urban congestion, increases our national carbon emissions, exacerbates our water scarcity problems, leads to the clearing of more land for urban sprawl, adds to our national current account deficit, undermines social cohesion, erodes our shared sense of nationhood, and seriously degrades our quality of life in general.
The sooner the issues of immigration and population are brought out into the public domain, the sooner Australia can work toward implementing an immigration and population policy which actually serves the national interest.
Frosty incorrect on this point
Frosty writes, "Australians must ask themselves if they wish to import the poor of the world to become the new entrenched poor of Oz". He is in error to say that we are importing the poor of the world. The growth lobby which drives the high immigration in Australia targets the well-off and well-qualified. Australia is not, in fact, importing a new poor strata; it is importing an international rich class and that class is part of the making of a new disenfranchised, poorly housed, casually employed, class, composed largely of people born here.
The reason that the growth lobby imports rich people is because it wants to create competition for land, housing, water and power - the things it invests in for private profit.
In the US a large part of the incoming diaspora is from central and South America - notably Mexico - and most of those people are poor. In Australia poor immigrants are mostly a thing of the past. The only stream of poor people now coming permanently to Australia are the refugee and asylum stock - an insignificant proportion of the vast numbers of 'cash cows' currently entering this country, sponsored by big shopping centers (at a cost), by hospitals wanting doctors and nurses, infrastructure engineering firms in the business of building roads etc and the construction and mining sectors.
There are many things wrong with this traffic from the point of view of the immigrants too. They are 'shaken down' by entrepreneurs wanting them to finance projects; they are shaken down by financiers looking for projects to finance. How? Because the immigrant is after permanent status, whereas the financier is out to screw a victim.
As for the exploitation of foreign students and the displacement of local students at the universities - who also invest in land and housing for students - it is indeed shameful.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist.
home page
Possums have become a garment export industry in New Zealand
Don't joke, our native animals that got to NZ somehow, now as ferals face commercial killing and export profiteering.
Visit: http://www.possumnz.com/
'Possum New Zealand'
"Five years ago in a small leather shop in Auckland’s CBD, Ms Possum was born. Her mission? To create beautifully designed, hand-crafted Possum products.
With over 20 years commercial design experience, Ms Possum’s designs are unique and innovative. The influence of her previous work as designer for the New Zealand licencee of Christian Dior, can be seen in the stylish range. The combination of these factors has seen Possum New Zealand's products exported all over the world from Europe to America."
The Brushtail Possum fur has a hollow fibre to ensure that all products are ultra warm. Available in 19 different natural and dyed colors, there is something for everyone in Possum New Zealand’s eco-fur collection.
Description
The Brushtail Possum (Trichosurus Vulpecula) was introduced to New Zealand from Australia about 150 years ago. Nocturnal marsupial mammals, Brushtail Possums are about 50cm long, with grey or brown fur, sharp claws and a bushy tail. After gestation, the young live in the mothers pouch for around 4 months.
The Environmental Impact
A prolific breeder, the Brushtail Possum has become the greatest threat to New Zealand’s native flora. Numbers are estimated at 70 million, and they devour 8 million tonnes of vegetation annually. That equates to 20,000 tonnes (or 4000 truckloads) every night!
In addition to competing for food, Brushtail Possum’s also eat or destroy the eggs and chicks of endangered native birds.
Action taken to Protect the Environment
The Department of Conservation i(NZ) in conjunction with central and local governments has spent millions of dollars trying to contain the problem, through humane trapping or baiting. However, full eradication will never be possible.
In addition, harvesters are collecting the animals for processing by tanneries, and it is from this non-farmed source that Possum New Zealand sources its A-Grade hides. All fur has been harvested from the wild.
Utilizing a National Pest
Possum New Zealand believes that a commercially driven approach is an effective way of containing this problem. We have developed an innovative Possum fur range of funky, colourful garments, hats, scarves, bags and accessories, in a myriad of finishes and hues.
Wear your possum fashion with pride: “Buy a Possum and save a forest!”
----
For an Australian, demonising and exploitation of our native possum as a feral is disturbing isn't it? But the possum is in New Zealand. This sends a poignant, if not repugnant, message that locally indigenous animals, plants and indeed people only retain natural rights, respect and protection in their country of origin. But take any of these out of their home and they are considered unnatural - 'ferals', 'weeds' and 'ethnics'...victims of slaughter and open to commercial opportunism.
How dare New Zealand!
My question is that as a close neighbour of Australia, why has New Zealand not sought co-operative arrangements to repatriate Australia's possum's back to Australia?
If the Kiwi were found in Australia, would we use its pelt for scarves?
The concept is abhorent and New Zealanders should hang their heads in shame.
The ignored correct but difficult repatriation solution has made way for expedient commercial opportunism.
Has this 'commercial opportunism' become 'The Kiwi Way' and so lowering ts population of its worth as a society?
Australia lacks pride in its own because it does nothing.
Australia lacks a 'Sustainable Population Policy'
RD,
Thanks for your thoughtful contribution to this core national issue.
I am an advocate for birth rights having precedence in shaping any nation's direction. Moreso indigenous rights deserve the ultimate precedence, as indeed England has recently realised and as let in blood in Peru. 'Charity begins at home' and 'think global act local' remain two fundamental aphorisms that should underpin any nation's policies respect for its national values.
Yes, our own young people deserve opportunities. We must realise that we are competing in the global village that has become all the rage yet equally all the threat. If we leave our lifestyle to global markets and treat global demand as a numbers game, Australia like all smaller nations will be directed by the most populous nations. On this basis, China and India seem destined to impose their cultures over less populous nations. Utilitarianism is wrongly overruling local rights.
This is not a racial issue. It is about preserving and establishing a national competitive advantage in a climate of globalisation.
The problem is that legacies of lost opportunities and of staged national decline have been ignored as like a 'pass the parcel' game in Australia's population policy - but if only we had one. In our first world society in 2009, Australia can only muster an 'immigration policy' - a narrow subset of what ought to be a population policy. Population drives all social policies, yet it is ignored. A national 'SUSTAINABLE POPULATION POLICY' [SPP] in Australia would indicate our federal government actually acknowledge the serious implications and costs allowing uncontrolled, undirected population growth has on all of its other policies. Long term, the implications for Australia, with its laisse faire neglectful approach, is heading towards decending toward a second world society - a class society like New Zealand has become.
Complacency is a big enemy facing Australia and then we go and spend $26 billion on defence. On Australia's population policy, Prime Minister Rudd's lack of interest, direction and policy on population is as dangerous as Neville Chamberlain's policy void that failed to recognise the threats of World War II.
We are subject to 'immigration in our time' and witnessing systemic incapacity of all state infrasructure and public services to cope. Meanwhile Rudd opens the Ruddgates and justifies to himself - aint I a Christain samaritarian for doing so? Who can fault myselfless gesture?
If only Australian politicians had an appreciation of the 'long term' concept, i.e beyond the election cycle. Australia's immigration is controlled at federal level under the Australian Government's Department of Immigration and Citizenship and like all governments they have given it an acronym. Visit: www.immi.gov.au.
What is conspicuous by its omission is any information on immigration policy, planning, objectives, let alone the holistic leadership concept of population policy.
What is disturbing in the light of all levels of government in Australia, except those few extremely dense highrise councils like Sydney CBD, is that the growing population demand is not being met by public infrastructure and services. Worse is that as one heads farther bush, the public infrastructure and services vanish, as if the original Australians and the original Australia has less value than the newcomers to the cities. If one examines government funding distribution of public infrastructure and services it is all about looking after the cities. Government cost accountants favour this because they apply the utilisation test where in cities more resources are benefiting more people living close together. The unit cost of service provision is always lowest in highrise CBDs. They feed this metric to the incumbent overstretched polly who happens to be in power and it becomes policy and in NSW, a principle of the 'State Plan' which drives every NSW government decision.
Go to Rudd's 2020 Summit on immigration policy initiatives at www.australia2020.gov.au/final_report/index.cfm. The focus on population and immigration was watered down at this summit swamped by inadequate time and smothered beneath other popular issues like CLIMATE CHANGE, WATER, SUSTAINABILITY, CITIES and YOUTH SUMMIT.
In fact, the only reference at Rudd's summit to 'population policy' was under the sub-heading 'Disagreements', where a need for, and the direction of, a population target was mentioned. A mention is as good as this central issue got.
Since I only have one possum
Since I only have one possum (sadly) it doesn't sound like an army. I agree with you, it is reassuring to hear him. It's such a hard life for animals in the wild and I look out for not only the possum but also the wallaby (who shows up very rarely) and the two or three purple swamp hens (or whatever they are). They don't seem to be having much luck in getting their chicks past the horde of predators waiting with open fangs (eels, foxes, pythons, goannas, kookaburras, wild dogs, what have you ....) all hungry for their next meal. Same with the ducks who live on the dam by my house. We are lucky to still have wildlife. The powers that be are doing their best to wipe them out while pretending to be protecting them with all kinds of ineffectual conservation bills that they never enforce.
"It’s embarrassing for Australia that we eat our own wildlife ....I’m here to tell you it’s just not right. Simply do not buy, use or eat kangaroo products”
~ Steve Irwin
Sign the most important petition ever created to help kangar
Whaling Conference
It is sooo sad that such wonderfully intelligent and inspirational creatures as the whales and dolphins are treated so poorly and without respect for their Gifts to the World.
Miranda mulch
Fortunately there is no longer anything to stop us criticising Miranda Devine's ill-based opinions, which the Australian promotes so enthusiastically. On candobetter.org we have a number of articles with arguements, on far more specific terms than Mirandas', which can show that Miranda has gone off on a rather injurious frolic. See for instance "Victorian Bush-fires: ABC 7.30 Report ignores facts, creates scapegoats" and "Responding to incorrect fire information by joining the debate" and "Comments on recent fire-management in bush-fire areas" and "Greens, logging, forest fires and malaria" and "Deforestation drys continents - new theory explains how" What do you expect of journalists in the mainstream press? Once journalists were selected from the best writers and thinkers, but since the 20th century they have become syndicated and dumbed down merely to sell real estate and other products, to finish up as packaging for fish and chips and garbage. Although you can also mulch them, it would be altogether better if we just didn't chop the trees down in the first place. In fact, you could look at the whole thing this way: Miranda Devine writes for crummy newspapers which use up a lot of trees for paper. Cutting down trees causes drying of landscape and predisposes our environment to more bushfires. Miranda Devine must take personal blame for deaths in bushfires. She could help the bushfire effort therefore by stopping writing.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
Howard's immigration legacy
"Our educational institutions are back doors to residence in Australia, and our high immigration program is partly justified by "skills shortages"! Why don't our own young people get opportunities?"
I recommend you track down a copy of a book entitled The Howard Legacy: Displacement of Traditional Australia from the Professional and Managerial Classes by Dr Peter Wilkinson.
In the book, the author examines how Australia's federal immigration policies, in particular the policy of granting of permanent residency to full fee-paying foreign students who complete a degree in Australia, is effectively depriving native-born Australians of what should be their birth right - access to the educational institutions that their forebears founded and financed.
According to Wilkinson:
Australian politics has a set of largely unspoken bipartisan beliefs and policy directions whereby:
• We believe that our own citizens do not have sufficient innate ability to make Australia a prosperous knowledge economy, so we need immigrants of high cognitive ability.
• We can skimp on educating our own children and compensate by bringing in immigrants with the advanced education which is necessary for the knowledge economy.
• Even better, they must pay for that education in Australia, so that the government can cut grants to the universities for educating Australians.
• We are comfortable with letting the children of recently arrived immigrants have unfettered access to our premium schools and universities, displacing children of long standing Australians from the prestige universities and the lucrative professions.
• We are not concerned that universities discriminate against Australian students by lowering the standard for overseas students, who can then apply for a visa on the basis of the conceded pass.
• We are comfortable with introducing an economy dominant ethnic minority at the expense of long established families.
• We are not concerned that the combination of the economy dominant Chinese and increasing trade pressures will place Australia under the influence of superpower China rather than the USA.
possum footwear
Not high heels. They remind me of a small army wearing boots running across the galvanised iron roof and I enjoy the sound. They also make amazing calls like out of breath banshees. Nothing more homely and reassuring than possums on the roof, as expected and unexpected as the rain. When I hear possums on the roof I know that this little part of the world (my home) is still alright.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
Robert Browns comment
Robert Brown and Roy Smith are the Shooters Party members here is what Robert has said about the bill.
"My Bill does not allow hunting of native animals in National Parks.
That would be ( as it is now under the NPAct 1974) the Minister for DECC's call ....and her call alone. My Bill simply removes the impediment to her in the existing G&FAC Act of obtaining the benefit of volunteer conservation hunters hunting Ferals on National Parks Estate."
There was an accurate article in the Australian newspaper yesterday. Here is part of the article.
"The bill that would allow regulated hunting in national parks to eliminate feral animals or cull animals such as deer.
Unlike in Victoria and South Australia, hunting on public land in NSW is limited to state forests."
Supporting RSPCA is supporting Corruption - animal control for $
RSPCA Qld incorporated in December 1999 and are a business trading in pets – Federal Court Decision.
RSPCA Qld have police powers to seize property using warrants and charge people under the Justices Act. Defendant’s Negotiated settlements can be payments of as much as $300,000. This is the worst sort of corruption. Enter a person’s property, take their property then make them pay such that they lose their home and everything they worked for and accumulated in their long hard working lives. Google “ruth downey” or “rspca dark side”.
This RSPCA “approved farming scheme” will creat more opportunities for RSPCA to exploit their Policing Powers for $. This should be a warning to every farmer – do not participate, it will make you vulnerable to being exploited by RSPCA for $hundreds of thousands.
RSPCA a private business has corrupted government into giving them an Act of Parliament to administer without any supervision – The Animal Care and Protection Act 2001. Google “Stanford prison experiment” to see what happens to a small group given policing powers without supervision – they go rogue. Then Google “rspca corruption” or “ruth Downey” or “rspca poodles” or “rspca dark side” to learn how rogue RSPCA have become. RSPCA is a “Stanford Prison Experiment” with a money motive let loose on the community by Government. It will fail and eventually be revealed as corruption of the worse type. Google “flying pig” to see how ridiculously and extreme RSPCA are in their abuse of their power.
With Ruth Downey they shot and killed her healthy cows, many were feeding calves and there was hay there to feed them, then had her found guilty of animal cruelty and fined Ruth Downey $300,000.
RSPCA Qld kill 12,000 dogs a year and say they care for animals. There are cases where RSPCA have seized every animal owned and cared for by an old lady, killed all of them, then charged her with animal cruelty and negotiated out of court settlements where RSPCA get a $200,000 payment. A corruption of the worse type condoned and supported by State Governments.
Supporting RSPCA is supporting corruption. RSPCA have bullied government into giving them an act of parliament "Animal Care and Protection Act 2001 Qld" Police powers without supervision. Google "stanford prison experiment" to learn why RSPCA have gone rogue. Then google "rspca corruption" or "rspca poodles" or "ruth downey" to learn how rogue RSPCA have gone.
RSPCA have the power to make people pay big time. fines + legal fees of over $300,000 - RSPCA can take everything a person has.
Feral Animals BIll
The native animals listed as game animals have been done so as they are, I believe animals which are commonly shot on NPWS native animal control permits. At the moment only the owner of the land or employees are allowed to shoot animals on the permit and all animals shot are not allowed to be moved. If they are listed as game animals Game Council hunters will be allowed to do the shooting and they will be allowed to remove animals but this is not compulsory. As ducks and Kangaroos have a lot of good meat on them hunters do not want them wasted. Just calling them game animals does not change their protection status. They are still protected animals and require NPWS permits as now to kill.
The board is made of mostly people from hunting organisations as it is their members who take the Game Council test to get their restricted licence and then have the right to book and hunt in open forests.
National parks will only be declared public land if the bill passes. The government still has the right to open areas for hunting or not. They also decide on species of animals which can be hunted, as they do now in state forests.
Trained and qualified hunters are those with a restricted licence from the Game Council. This is required to hunt in any of the state forests now open and it would be the same system in any open NP.
When a forest is booked to hunt a permit is printed out which must be carried at all times. It states conditions such as no hunting from sunset to sunrise and also has a map showing the area allowed and any exclusion area, which there are usually a few.
Shooting is a way of reducing pest numbers. No method is available which will eliminate these animals. Poison campaigns can reduce animals quickly, but can not be sustained and there is no definite result, as dead animals are rarely found, and non target animals are killed too. Shooting has been proven to work all over the world. DOC in NZ has set densities which deer need to be kept bellow and this is maintained with hunters. South Australia has been very successful in controlling goats in the Flinders ranges using hunters.
I don't know much about the dog side but I believe pig dogs are allowed to bail up pigs and are a very efficient method of removing pigs. Other dogs are scent trailers or pointers for deer.
HECS fees and globalisation
As a mature-aged student who missed out on an opportunity to go to university when younger, I enrolled at university and accepted that I would pay HECS fees and that we didn't have to pay interests. To my horror, I find that there is no interest to pay, but there is an index, really an interest under another name, and the amount continues to accummulate! I have no hope to pay back this huge amount, $23,000 +, and it is continuing to rise! I will just have to make sure I die without assets!
Young people are prevented from a university education because of massive HECS fees, and this includes TAFE now in Victoria. Places are short because due to the over crowding of courses by international full-fee paying students. Youth Allowance is limited too, so it depends on parental generosity.
Our educational institutions are back doors to residence in Australia, and our high immigration program is partly justified by "skills shortages"! Why don't our own young people get opportunities?
Our ANZACS fought patriotically for Australia, but the Australia they would have known is not the culture we have now. We do not even have a shared common history or culture any more. Globalisation is giving minority groups power of the majority, and our values have been fragmented, yet most people are totally oblivious and kept busy with their own life quests. What does the RSL have to say?
Bill's purpose is to include native animals as 'game animals'
Chris,
In response to your reply above:
Your first point of three parts:
1.1 You claim: "The bill would not give anyone the right to shoot native animals"
1.2 You claim: "Rules for killing native animals are not being changed"
1.3 You claim: "Declaring them game animals only allows game council hunters to do the shooting and remove dead animals instead of leaving them where they fell as now."
I direct you to the following site where the complete Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2009 Bill is available: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/bill/gafacab2009320/
Schedule 3 at page 17 lists the native animals deemed to be 'game animals'. Read this and explain how this does not negate your points 1.1 and 1.2. Then explain where in the Bill it requires shooters/hunters to 'remove dead animals instead of leaving them where they fell as now'?
2.1 You claim: "The Game Council is a government body not private."
Yes, Chris you are correct on this one. The Game Council NSW "is a statutory authority of the NSW Parliament, established under the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002 and its associated Regulation of 2004." (SOURCE: http://www.gamecouncil.nsw.gov.au/portal.asp?p=AboutGC2). I have made the correction in the article, thank you. I had assumed the small house in Orange, NSW which houses The Game Council, was a private residence. It doesn't appear very accessible to the public.
However, I point out that the Game Council comprises membership dominated by representatives of private hunting interest groups. Of the following current council members the following 16 members, only 4 are government public servants accountable to the government of the day - Eric Davis, representing Minister for Primary Industries, John Willey, Rural Lands Protection Board, Adrian Harte, Director - Department of Lands and Nick Roberts, Forests NSW.
1. CHAIRMAN: Cr Robert Borsak, Australian Hunters International.
Councillors:
2. Stephen Larsson, Australian Deer Association.
3. Eric Davis, representing Minister for Primary Industries.
4. John Willey, Rural Lands Protection Board.
5. Rod Drew, Field & Game Australia.
6. Dr Tony English, Australian Veterinary Association, NSW Division.
7. Dr Murray Williams, wildlife management scientist.
8. George Kourt, Hunters & Fishermans Association of NSW (Artemis).
9. Douglas Shupe, Federation of Hunting Clubs Inc.
10. John Mumford, GameCon NSW.
11. John Pond, Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (NSW).
12. Daryl Venables, Australian Bowhunters Association.
13. Adrian Harte, Director - Department of Lands.
14. Nick Roberts, Forests NSW.
15. Dr Rob Mulley, wildlife management scientist.
16. William Murray, NSW Aboriginal Land Council.
3.1 You claim: "There is no shooting of native animals in national Parks proposed in the bill." Yet, cleary, the stated purpose of this Bill is for "an An Act to amend the Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002 to make further provision with respect to the management and regulation of the hunting of game; and for other purposes." Does it not? The Bill details that 'game animals' include listed native animals per Schedule 3, which I draw your attention to this list on this website. They include many native birds, quails and kangaroos, etc.
3.2 You claim: "The bill will allow the government to declare some areas in some parks available to trained and qualified hunters to kill feral animals."
Killing feral animals by shooting may be an effective method of controlling feral animals. Buy where is the DECC science to support this? Your claim of "trained and qualified" hunters needs clarification. Where is this provided for in the Bill?
3.3 You claim: "There is no spotlighting or night shooting allowed in any of areas of public land, by Game Council hunters."
Where is this provided for in the Bill?
4.1 You claim: "Why is the picture of Ivan Malat in the article?"
Well, Milat was a licensed competition shooter. In police interviews he referred to a shooting range in the Belangalo State Forest he knew of and perhaps used.
(SOURCE: http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2004/s1239470.htm)
Milat was probably a member of a local shooting club, perhaps the Bowral Pistol Club situated in the Belangalo State Forest or with the Southern Highlands Rifle Club? As such, Milat would have been eligible to have been one of the licensed shooters/hunters under this Bill before being convicted of his crimes. This example of a licensed competition shooter does not engender public confidence in the shooting and hunting fraternity to be trusted to self-regulate itself and attract law abiding citizens and carte blache access to National Parks for shooting!
Message: Exclude all native animals as 'game' and prohibit the use of dogs in all hunting and shooting and you will have me starting to listen to proposals by The Shooters Party to control feral animals. But as for controlling feral animals in National Parks in NSW, this is an ecological management matter for DECC to be held accountable for.
Feral and Native animals.
Let me get this strait, you say the people shooting feral animals will "ensure that their past time is extended by making sure the supply continues"
But on the issue of shooting native animals "As for native animals, our record of conservation is abysmal, and at least native birds and animals should be safe from gunmen in what bush is left in our country."You imply it will lead to extinction.
These two assumptions are contradictory. "Shooting introduced animals ensures they will continue survive, while shooting native animals leads to extinction."
As the bill is not about shooting native animals it is irrelevant, but the shooting of introduced animals will reduce their population therefore help native animals. There is no control method which has so far been found to eliminate feral animals, they all reduce the numbers as shooting will. The only difference is that this bill allows trained and licenced voulonteers to do it instead of the taxpayers paying for it.
Give credit where credit is due
In comparison to the almost countless crimes of the NSW Labor Government, not giving the Shooters Party all that it has demanded may seem minor by comparison.
Nevertheless, whatever may be the underlying motives of the Rees Government, it is a positive step and should be acknowledged as such.
So, I myself would not have chosen the term 'backflip'.
That term seems to imply that not backing away from its outrageous stance of giving to the Shooters Party everything it wants is in some way preferable to waht has happened, when clearly it is not.
It is also reminiscent of the way corporate newsmedia reports such issues.
They tend to praise 'strong' leaders such as in Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and Treasurer Andrew who doggedly persist with completely unpopular policies such as the asset fire sale, because they claim to know what is best.
If they give in to puplic opinion, they are depicted as weak and indecisive.
Personally I would welcome any 'backflips' by Bligh and Fraser on the fire sale question.
Shooters Party bill
I would like to correct some errors in your article.
* The bill would not give anyone the right to shoot native animals. Rules for killing native animals are not being changed. Land owners will still have to get the permits to kill problem problem native animals from the National Parks and Wildlife service as now. Declaring them game animals only allows game council hunters to do the shooting and remove dead animals instead of leaving them where they fell as now, to feed feral animals such as foxes and pigs.
*The Game Council is a government body not private.
* There is no shooting of native animals in national Parks proposed in the bill. The bill will allow the government to declare some areas in some parks available to trained and qualified hunters to kill feral animals.
*There is no spotlighting or night shooting allowed in any of areas of public land, by Game Council hunters.
One other question I have, is why is the picture of Ivan Malat in the article. The ironic thing about that is that if while he was committing his crimes in the Belangalo State Forest, it was off limits to hunters and anyone with firearms. Now it is one of the forests open to Game Council Hunters. I can see a different outcome for him and his victims if the forest was open to hunters then. If he had come across someone who was hunting while he was committing his crimes he would have been likely stopped earlier, saving many lives.
Shooters Party should be banned
That's interesting, Sheila. I can see why they came into existence. However it seems that the need for such a party is passed.
How hypocritical of them to be against government interference and then be in such control of governments in such sneaky ways (virtual blackmail) to get what they want which is then to be enforced on unwilling people!
I am also against the term 'recreational' hunting. How can an act destroying life use the term 'recreate' to describe it? Are they taking an animals life and creating it into another species? It should be called what it is i.e. killing animals for sick fun.
How can establishment of the NSW Game Council, legislation allowing specifically licensed hunters to hunt on public land; government funding of shooting clubs, establishment of regional shooting complexes; recognition of membership of a hunting club as a "genuine reason" for obtaining a firearms licence; extension of minor’s permits from ages 18 to 12, be considered achievements of any value to the rest of society who opposes hunting?
After this recent debacle the Shooters Party should be made defunct and illegal. Clearly they are trouble mongers with undemocratic intent. You might as well have a Child Pornography Party for pervs since it seems the only thing they advocate is hunting and what is the point if the majority of people are against it? They shouldn't be allowed in office.
"It’s embarrassing for Australia that we eat our own wildlife ....I’m here to tell you it’s just not right. Simply do not buy, use or eat kangaroo products”
~ Steve Irwin
Sign the most important petition ever created to help kangar
Ex Prime Minister Bob Hawke said the same thing!
While he was our PM, Prime Minister spouted about multiculturalism ad nauseum, but now he has retired he has the luxury of stating that one of the biggest challenges in our time is human over-population! (Andrew Denton show, the Elders). Pity he didn't think about it before! It seems that he and former Environment minister McNamara both have the luxury of hindsight! Maybe there is some conspiracy is governments, and the media, about topics NOT to mention, such as immigration and optimum population size.
Feral animals is a human caused problem
Animals want to breed and survive, as we all do. The problem of feral animals is due to careless of humans who abandon, desert, release deliberately and allow to escape from enclosures. Leaving shooters to the job of managing feral animals and killing for sport will not solve the problem. Being human, they will ensure that their pasttime is extended by making sure the supply continues and the problem is not "solved". Giving recreational hunters access to the parks under the guise of pest control could exacerbate a problem the policy is meant to solve. There is evidence from all around the world and it is clear that recreational hunters rarely, if ever, contribute usefully to control programs because it is a conflict of interests. As for native animals, our record of conservation is abysmal, and at least native birds and animals should be safe from gunmen in what bush is left in our country. There should be special theme parks with simulated hunting, but nothing is killed.
I don't think most of you
I don't think most of you tossers understand the plague of feral animals. Hunters do respect native animals, it's the unlicenced shooters that cause the dramas and shoot anything that moves. where do you think all of your cereals come from? straight out of a box? If the feral animals aren't hunted then alot of your staples will be destroyed and farmers will be forced off farms. Looking after the environment is one thing, but being an extremist is a joke.
Political crisis NSW today - shooters party
Yes, Chris.
The devil is in the detail, and I didn't have time to analyse it - just posted it, hoping for some comments and maybe that someone else would write an article analysing the Lib policy more closely.
However the NSW Legislative Council has actually closed down for today. Apparently, since the Feral Animals Control Bill didn't get up, the Shooters Party has been voting against the government continually and the government cannot get any policies or business through! This article below in the SMH is where I heard about it. It would be really good if someone in the field out there would tell us some more about this. The mainstream press will have a field day and try to get the Libs in, but they are not much different from the ALP now. We need a coalition of new independents, to open up the parliament to some democracy. The Greens are okay, but Family First and the Shooters Party look to me like well-financed spearheads to get policies in that the usual lobbies cannot get from the two big parties.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/night-of-the-long-bell-rees-faces-new-cri...
"Night of the long bell: Rees faces new crisis
Andrew Clennell
June 25, 2009 - 12:18PM
The NSW Parliament has descended into chaos this morning, with the Government pulling the plug on the Legislative Council last night to avoid having its plan to sell off NSW Lotteries put to a vote.
The Rees Government is now facing a full-blown crisis to get any legislation through the Legislative Council.
The opposition claimed this morning that such a move to "collapse" the house had not occurred since the 1920s.
The crisis has risen because the Shooters Party has been voting against the Government all week after cabinet failed to back the Shooters Party's push to hunt in national parks.
With the opposition and Greens opposing the Lotteries privatisation, the Government needed the support of the two Shooters Party MPs.
The decision by Premier Nathan Rees and Deputy Premier Carmel Tebbutt to oppose the Shooters' legislation was opposed in cabinet by Treasurer Eric Roozendaal, who wants the $500 million proceeds from NSW Lotteries.
Last night, as it became clear to the Government it was losing every vote, the only minister in the upper house, Tony Kelly, walked out of the Legislative Council at 12.36am, leaving government legislation unconsidered. [...]" The rest is here.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
Shooters Party, about
From their site at The Shooters Party
About Us
The Shooters Party is an Australian political party. It is registered for Federal elections, and for state elections in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.
The party came into existence on May 2, 1992 when the New South Wales Government proposed laws preventing citizens from owning self-loading firearms or firearms for personal protection. It was founded by John Tingle, who was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council in March 1995 as the party representative. Tingle resigned in May 2006, and was succeeded by businessman Robert Brown as the party’s sole representative in the Upper House of parliament.
The party’s policies are not entirely focused around firearms. It asserts that every law-abiding citizen should have the right to own and use a firearm for legitimate purposes, including self-defence. It strongly supports recreational hunting, and laws giving shooters access to land for hunting. It also has policies relating to personal freedom, and reduction of govermental interference in citizens’ lives; as well as the need for five-year reviews of all legislation. The party’s motto is "Reclaim Freedom." It actively supports recreational fishing, four-wheel drivers and other outdoor users.
The Party counts among its achievements, a number of succesful Bills, including those giving rights of self defence to any citizen, anywhere, with immunity from civil or criminal liability; providing extra penalties for attacks on vulnerable people; giving families of homicide victims the right to be heard in court; establishment of the NSW Game Council, and legislation allowing specifically licensed hunters to hunt on public land; government funding of shooting clubs, and establishment of regional shooting complexes; recognition of membership of a hunting club as a "genuine reason" for obtaining a firearms licence; extension of minor’s permits from ages 18 to 12, etc. The Shooters Party also assists firearms organisations.
Before the federal election of 2004, the Shooters Party was deregistered by the Australian Electoral Commission for failing to contest a federal election for four years. It was re-registered after this election.
The South Australian 2006 state election saw the Shooters Party run two candidates for the Legislative Council, Robert Low and Michael T Hudson, preferencing the Family First Party as well as the One Nation Party. The Shooters Party received 5 991 votes out of 1 055 347 voters enrolled, which is 0.6% of the vote, with a 0.08 quota. Neither candidate was elected.
McNamara and the Wiggles
It is a pity the former Minister didn't actually DO SOMETHING while he was the Minister. He went from making speeches, to total silence as Minister, and now back to making speeches again. All we got from the Minister was "change your lights bulbs, run your fridge and the air-con a notch warmer, and pump your car tyres up."
"Every little helps" he kept telling us, while at the same time approving the 17 billion dollar motorway to the airport, and OK-ing the expansion of our coal industry, and lying to the people of Mount Isa about their exposure to lead, which his office has been covering up for decades.
"Would anyone like me to talk about Peak Oil ?"
Good Speech Menkit
Thats a very good speech Menkit, Im sorry you were not allowed to present it. The attitude that exists in many conservation groups is that we have to go softly, softly, or we upset people. So what? Let's upset them!
We dont have time to pussyfoot around, we are on a very limited time span, to being able to continue to exist on this Planet. Forget the so-called conservation groups, I urge you to put your considerable talents elsewhere where they will do more good. Cheers, Pat
Great speech Dorothy
Great speech Dorothy. Pity you couldn't speak for the urban electorate, since what you said applies as much to them.
Sheila Newman
Feral Animals Control Bill
The Liberal party seems to support most things in the bill but dont know it.
*The bill does not make for Forestry and DECC officers to approach hunters. They as well as police National Parks rangers and Game council officers will enforce rules and check on hunters.
*The Minister has full power in the bill, to declare or not any area they see fit. They also decide on which animals can be hunted.
*Farmers and their families and employees are not affected at all by the bill. They are exempt on their own property.
*Live bird trap shooting has been banned from the 70's. This bill does not change that.
It needs to be remembered that the earth was made for humankind"
Why would they pass such legislation? Because Labor could then rely on the Shooters to pass their evil Planning reforms! However, we have Labor, Fred Nile of the Christian Democrats and the Shooters Party passing each other’s legislation in some cosy deals. At least John Howard did the right thing with his automatic firearms amnesty after the Port Arthur massacre, but now more people are to be empowered with guns!
What is outrageous is that Rev. Fred Nile, as a Christian minister, can support the use of weapons against sentient creatures, and corruption of power? How can his Faith, that supports compassion, a Living God Creator and sustainer of all life, allow him to consider the slaughter of animals for fun as legitimate? Where is his responsibility as a steward of Creation, his respect for God's handiwork, the magnificence of the Earth that was made "good"? (Genesis ch 1). It is humans that have brought havoc and corruption to the planet, due to sin and disobedience, and this wayward politician/Christian is supporting the killings of our beautiful native birds and animals- all in the name of recreation!
The Invasive Species Council agrees that feral animal control is very important, but concludes there is no evidence to support the claims that recreational hunting is an effective or low cost option. Hunters will propagate more animals to kill!
According to the Christian Democrat Party's website: It needs to be remembered that the earth was made for humankind.
With such self-centred anthropocentric attitudes, it seems that the "earth" and its non-human creatures can be traded in for human society's "advancement" at whatever cost!
Keep up long-term vision
Thanks, Tigerquoll, for keeping on about this subject, which will be right back with us in Victoria in just a few months.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
Bushfire bunkers past and present
Aime's initial article did not pretend to be the last word, but it was great food for thought. Joan Webster's responses and comments are most informative. James also makes good points. I would like to hear more from Joan about the design of her above ground shelters, but also about the old fashioned timber worker bunkers that were large and well ventilated and sheltered enough to securely shelter a number of people in the middle of the forest. How deep, how big?
I also know that Aime lives in an area which was severely deforested for gold mining in the 19th century, where the trees have only grown back sparsely and spindly. The area has no topsoil to speak of and only sparse grassy tufts, but it is full of mine shafts, held up by timber and dug in rocky strata.
It seems to me that these mines could be prepared as bunkers, bearing in mind, of course, the need to safely shore up timber and allow for enough ventilation. They could also be linked up.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
An easy solution, Tigerquoll
I agree, we should not eat our native animals AND feral livestock is wrecking our environment. According to the U.N. report 'Livestock's Long Shadow' the livestock industry is the most destructive industry, producing more greenhouse gases than the entire transport sector (cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes, ships).
Therefore the best solution is not to eat animals at all. We are designed to be 100% herbivore so by only eating plants (veges, grains, beans, fruit, nuts, seeds) we will be healthier and avoid diseases of civilisation. At the same time, we help the planet and the animals.
That is the best ethical solution I can see if only people would cut the umblical cord with the traditional meat/dairy diet.
"It’s embarrassing for Australia that we eat our own wildlife ....I’m here to tell you it’s just not right. Simply do not buy, use or eat kangaroo products”
~ Steve Irwin
Sign the most important petition ever created to help kangar
Let them build up the coast...
Anonymous, you seem to have lost the point. It's about dwindling biodiversity due to habitat destruction caused by humans. Better to build up on the coast and leave some space for the few remaining species left than to encroach on their territory with all our chemicals, noise, tree-felling and cars. Please read my speech to the council on biodiversity and see why our survival depends on protecting the entire ecosystem.
As for Cr Milne, she happens to agree with us. Why else would she be in her position if she didn't? I just wish more councillors were willing to fight for the environment instead of wanting more economic development at the cost of our biodiverse environment.
In case you haven't noticed, humans now number almost 7 billion and we are in plague proportions! Not all living beings are equal. We take and give nothing back. Other species take and give back.
"It’s embarrassing for Australia that we eat our own wildlife ....I’m here to tell you it’s just not right. Simply do not buy, use or eat kangaroo products”
~ Steve Irwin
Sign the most important petition ever created to help kangar
No hunting wildlife
Does the NSW government seriously want Australia to become like the US where guns are the norm and killing for fun is completely acceptable? Intimidation is not a reason to legalize brutality. Protect all Australians - Reject the Bill.
Address human overgrazing and the kangaroos will be fine
It is vital to bring zoological science into mainstream discussion on Australia's habitats. I refer readers to:
'THE IMPORTANCE OF REFUGE HABITAT IN THE LOCAL CONSERVATION OF STRIPE-FACED DUNNARTS SMINTHOPSIS MACROURA ON ARID RANGELANDS, by
ANKE FRANK AND TODD SODERQUIST.
Abstract:
"ANTHROPOGENIC change to Australian habitats accelerated rapidly during the late 1800s as sheep grazing spread across the continent. In particular, intensive grazing in arid and semi-arid regions is believed to have vastly altered vegetation communities, triggered extensive soil erosion, and reduced shelter available to small mammals, thus increasing their vulnerability to predation (Morton 1990). It is not surprising, then, that since European settlement 32 species (42%) of mammals inhabiting the arid zone of Australia have become extinct (Landsberg et al. 1997), and many others have suffered major range reductions or are currently considered widespread but rare. This faunal collapse was due to multiple factors (Burbidge and McKenzie 1989; Morton 1990), but the most consistent predictor of marsupial decline is geographic overlap with domestic sheep (Fisher et al. 2003).
While overgrazing is a serious broadscale problem, the destruction of naturally occurring pockets of highquality habitat probably played a critical role in the extirpation of species that relied on refugia for survival during droughts (Morton 1990). Domestic grazing continues on approximately two-thirds of Australia, while less than 5% is dedicated to nature conservation (Ehmann and Cogger 1985).
SOURCE: http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=AM05075.pdf
What about kangaroos?
Thank you so much Sheila for that article - very hopeful. One comment I have is on the following statement:-
“We will oppose this and introduce other amendments aimed at genuinely managing the real environmental and other threats posed by feral animals - not Australian native species.
What about the so-called threat that one native animal species poses to grasslands and endangered lizards? I speak, of course, of the grossly maligned kangaroo, which deserves as much protection as all the other native animals. To blame it for overgrazing when we have five times more sheep that eat four times as much grass and far more damaging to the environment than kangaroos ever were, is ludicrous.
People still continue to believe the lies being fed to them that kangaroos are in plague populations, which is utter rubbish. Go to http://www.stopkangarookilling.org and see what I mean.
"It’s embarrassing for Australia that we eat our own wildlife ....I’m here to tell you it’s just not right. Simply do not buy, use or eat kangaroo products”
~ Steve Irwin
Sign the most important petition ever created to help kangar
Native fauna targeted in Feral Shooters Bill
Be clear, the Game and Feral Animal Control Amendment Bill 2009, Schedule 3, Part 2 lists the following Australian native fauna as free 'game':
Native Ducks:
Australian Shelduck (or Mountain Duck) (Tadorna tadornoides)
Australian Wood Duck (or Maned Duck) (Chenonetta jubata)
Black Duck (or Pacific Black Duck) (Anas superciliosa)
Blue-winged Shoveler (or Australasian Shoveler) (Anas rhynchotis)
Chestnut Teal (Anas castanea)
Grass Duck (or Plumed Whistling Duck) (Dendrocygna eytoni)
Grey Teal (Anas gibberifrons)
Hardhead Duck (or White-eyed Duck) (Aythya australia)
Pink-eared Duck (Malacorhynchus membranaceus)
Water Whistling Duck (or Wandering Whistling Duck, Whistling or Wandering Tree Duck) (Dendrocygna arcuata)
Native Quails:
Brown Quail (Coturnix ypsilophora)
Stubble Quail (Coturnix pectoralis)
Native Birds:
Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca)
Black Swan (Cygnus atratus)
Common Bronzewing Pigeon (Phaps chalcoptera)
Galah (Eolophus roseicapilla)
Little Corella (Cacatua sanguinea)
Long-billed Corella (Cacatua tenuirostris)
Purple Swamphen (Porphyrio porphyrio)
Straw Necked Ibis (Threskiornis spinicollis)
Sulphur Crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita)
Topknot Pigeon (Lopholaimus antarcticus)
Kangaroos:
Eastern Grey Kangaroo (Macropus giganteus)
Euro (Macropus robustus)
Red Kangaroo (Macropus rufus)
Western Grey Kangaroo (Macropus fuliginosus)
If the proposed legislation is genuinely and solely to control feral animals, the NPWS must first answer these questions:
Why are native animals included amongst the ferals?
What action in fact has the NPWS undertaken over the last 20 years to control ferals in National Parks across NSW?
Which measures have been successful at dealing with the target species and which have not?
Which measures have caused a detrimental impact on non-target species?
What interstate or overseas model/case study does NPWS rely upon to justify why shooting is the preferred method of control?
What standard of identification test is imposed on would be feral shooters?
What standard of marksmanship is required and what NPWS-approval system would be in place?
What monitoring is to be conducted of these shooters and by whom?
What happens to the carcasses to prevent disease?
If NPWS was serious about controlling ferals it would have a permanent programme to specifically deal with the key threatening processes that involve ferals, namely to target:
1. Competition and grazing by the feral European rabbit
2. Competition and habitat degradation by feral goats
3. Herbivory and environmental degradation caused by feral deer
4. Predation by feral cats
5. Predation by the European Red Fox
6. Predation, habitat degradation, competition and disease transmission by Feral Pigs
SOURCE: DEC, http://www.threatenedspecies.environment.nsw.gov.au/tsprofile/pas_ktp.aspx
These species and these species only need to be the primary target. Professional contract shooting may be an option, but it is not for weekend warrriors.
The solution must be science based not sport based.
According to the Australian Wildlife Conservancy "Australia has the worst mammal extinction record in the world – 27 mammals have become extinct in the last 200 years. No other country or continent has such a tragic record of mammal extinctions."
Shooters Party bill article misleading
You seem to have got most of the facts right about the bill, but then put a radical animal liberation and discriminatory slant on them.
The NPWS are in charge of managing our National Parks and they should continue doing it. The Game Council are another government body the same as the NPWS, just that there expertise is in managing animal populations not parks. For that reason the GC should manage things such as permits to control problem animal populations using the same procedure to set numbers and permits as now. The NPWS will then have more time to concentrate on managing National Parks.
Your next part on opening up National Parks for hunting is misleading as it implies anyone will be able to hunt anywhere. The legislation only gives approval for the government to open an area in a National park if it sees an environmental benefit. The government still chooses when and where, and only Game Council licenced and trained hunters can participate.
Game reserves are another issue and are legal in all other states except NSW. The claims about these are also misleading as they are present in other states and have none of the claimed problems.
The reason it being illegal to approach hunters is that protesters have been interfering with people going about their legal business. It is to avoid situations such as in Victoria recently, where protesters stole legally shot ducks and interfered illegally with others. The safety issue was alresdy brought up before huting in State forests was started and all fears were unfounded. The same system of policing will be used as in NSW State Forests for the last 3 years. All hunters will book before hunting and are required to Carry the written permission at all times while hunting. Police, Game Council staff and NP rangers will have the right to check that written permission at any time. You then make many discriminating comments about hunters being unable to identify species and polluting the bush. It is unfounded discrimination like this that leads to racism.
If you are so concerned about the possibility of someone who had to book to go in the NP, and a record of them being there kept, possibly littering, how do you feel about bushwalkers being unregulated. Any of those bushwalkers could leave rubbish or light a fire and we would not even have a permanent record of them being there.
Lastly your last comment about Australia having the world’s worst record for wildlife extinctions. Over 38% of our mammal species have been driven extinct since 1778. This is indeed a terrible figure and the control of feral pests is the main way to prevent more extinctions. NPWS has had many years to try all methods of pest control and has achieved little. Don't you think it is time to try a holistic approach and allow community volunteers to become involved. That is what this bill will allow and I can only see benefit in removing feral pest animals from out National Parks.
NO PREFERENCES TO LABOR IN 2011 if Shooters Bill goes ahead
My letter to ALP Ministers (with an appropriate variation to media)
I am outraged at the Shooters Bill to shoot native animals in national parks. This bill needs to be thrown out in its entirety. This bill trashes our national parks, animal welfare, public safety, the democratic process and Labor's 'green' standing.
If you read the bill the Game Council itself will set quotas for all the native species listed, not the NPWS! OUR WILDLIFE IS BEING PRIVATISED. Our native species will effectively classified as game animals. There's no provision in the bill for the Game Council to provide the scientific evidence for setting quotas.
The next most dangerous part is opening up of national parks for 'game' hunting. Also you will be aware of private game reserves being set up for canned hunting. They will breed up animals and birds just for shooting and then shoot them in a confined space. Hunting dogs and bows and arrows are allowed. This exposes their lie about being "conservationists". They, as we know, merely shoot for the excitement of killing. National Parks would no longer be a safe refuge for native animals already encroached upon by humans.
Furthermore, it would be illegal to approach hunters to verify if they are licenced or illegal. Who would police these hunters? Can we trust them to identify endangered species? Won't their 4 wheel drives, lead bullets, 6 packs, trash and cigarette butts pollute remote ecosystems and potentially cause bushfires?
Australia has the world’s worst record for wildlife extinctions. Over 38% of our mammal species have been driven extinct since 1778. With politicians like Ian Macdonald trading our native animals for Shooting Party votes to privatise Lotto is it any wonder our species extinction rate climbs?
Anyone who wants to enjoy National Parks must now do so at their own risk. Tourists come to see our unique native animals and flora, not to dodge bullets and rednecks! The tranquillity of the natural world would be shattered by the sound of exploding guns hitting animals or whizzing past us. Are we going to stand by and let this madness unfold as our beautiful country turns into a hunters' paradise where nobody (human or non-human) feels safe any more?
I'm not sure if you and your fellow Ministers have any idea how powerful the feelings are in the community about the Shooters Party bill which Ian Macdonald has negotiated as part of a deal. The general public oppose hunting yet they have not been consulted.
It's a disgusting piece of legislation.
http://www.npansw.org.au/web/conservation/hunting_in_nps/hunting.htm
The price Labor will pay for this insidious deal will be devastating. I for one will not be voting Labor OR giving my preferences to them at the next election if this bill goes ahead!
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/greens-oppose-recreationa...
- a bill to allow hunting in National Parks - including native animals,
plus a scheme for the licensing of private game reserves (that is,
private land in which game animals are confined, or game birds are
released, for the purposes of being hunted by licensed game hunters who
have paid a fee to hunt on the reserve).
*Native animals that would be allowed to be hunted if this Bill gets
passed are:
KANGAROOS
Eastern Grey Kangaroo (Macropus giganteus)
Euro (Macropus robustus)
Red Kangaroo (Macropus rufus)
Western Grey Kangaroo (Macropus fuliginosus)
DUCKS
Australian Shelduck (or Mountain Duck) (Tadorna tadornoides)
Australian Wood Duck (or Maned Duck) (Chenonetta jubata)
Black Duck (or Pacific Black Duck) (Anas superciliosa)
Blue-winged Shoveler (or Australasian Shoveler) (Anas rhynchotis)
Chestnut Teal (Anas castanea)
Grass Duck (or Plumed Whistling Duck) (Dendrocygna eytoni)
Grey Teal (Anas gibberifrons)
Hardhead Duck (or White-eyed Duck) (Aythya australia)
Pink-eared Duck (Malacorhynchus membranaceus)
Water Whistling Duck (or Wandering Whistling Duck, Whistling or
Wandering Tree Duck) (Dendrocygna arcuata)
QUAILS
Brown Quail (Coturnix ypsilophora)
Stubble Quail (Coturnix pectoralis)
OTHER BIRDS
Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca)
Black Swan (Cygnus atratus)
Common Bronzewing Pigeon (Phaps chalcoptera)
Galah (Eolophus roseicapilla)
Little Corella (Cacatua sanguinea)
Long-billed Corella (Cacatua tenuirostris)
Purple Swamphen (Porphyrio porphyrio)
Straw Necked Ibis (Threskiornis spinicollis)
Sulphur Crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita)
Topknot Pigeon (Lopholaimus antarcticus)
Please throw this bill into the trash where it belongs.
Sincerely,
Menkit Prince
Ministerial addresses to write to (copy and paste into recipient space):
[email protected] (Nathan Rees)
[email protected] (Carmel Tebbutt, Deputy Premier)
[email protected] (leader of gov in legisl. council)
[email protected] (Attorney general)
[email protected] (Treasurer)
[email protected] (transport)
[email protected] (women, education)
[email protected] (planning)
[email protected] (finance)
[email protected] (Primary Industries)
[email protected] (community services)
[email protected]> (gaming, racing, sport + rec)
[email protected]> (ageing, disability, aboriginal affairs)
[email protected] (mental health)
[email protected] (Youth, veterans)
[email protected] (roads)
[email protected]> (water, regional development)
[email protected]> (fair trading, citizenship, Assisting Arts)
[email protected] (Housing)
[email protected] (tourism)
[email protected] (corrective services, public sector reform)
[email protected] (emergency services, small business)
"It’s embarrassing for Australia that we eat our own wildlife ....I’m here to tell you it’s just not right. Simply do not buy, use or eat kangaroo products”
~ Steve Irwin
Sign http://www.gopetition.com/kangaroo-extinction.html
The AAT don't have power over the status quo!
The Administrative Appeals Tribunal has ruled the culling of kangaroos on Defence Department land in Canberra can resume. The Tribunal had no other choice than to coincide with the powers that be!
That kangaroos cause "substantial damage to declared ecological communities and threatened species" is clearly slack and shonky science! Majura is not a nature conservation reserve but an area for Defence training, but this impact was ignored. However, because Eastern Grey Kangaroos haven't had the common decency to become endangered or vulnerable, they appear to be a threat to civilisation.
The Tribunal do not have the powers to over-ride Defence and the leaders of the ACT, so had to bend according to the status quo.
Like the NSW Shooters party, who want to be able to shoot native animals and birds in private reserves and national parks, fauna are only considered pawns to make deals with the power-brokers who want to privatise NSW lotteries.
Our native animals may not have a lot of economic value, but like some humans, that does not mean they don't have intrinsic value. Non-quantitative values are easily discarded in our materialistic societies and in Canberra's cold hearts.
Look im just a layman but if