(We) can do better

The Australian Wildlife Protection Council (AWPC) was able to help citizen advocates generate a groundswell of public awareness and fight-back in June and July 2022 against the now annual ‘cull’ in Canberra of the kangaroo (our icon holding up one side of the federal coat-of-arms). Whole kangaroo families are shot behind suburban backyards — for reasons that remain unclear despite government blame-the-victim narratives — on nature reserves in the national capital.

Attempts by a Queensland coal mining company to import foreign labour has been condemned by the Mining & Energy Union.Sojitz Blue has applied to import coal mineworkers from overseas whilst simultaneously offering current workers substandard work contracts and delaying negotiations for an enterprise agreement.The company operates the Gregory Crinum and Meteor Down South (MDS) coal mines near Emerald in Queensland and employs 350 workers.

According to the United Nations, the "Special Military Operation" against Ukraine on 24 February 2022, for which Russia has been so vilified, has caused deaths on both sides totalling 7,387 civilians and 81,207 military. Even if we were to attribute to Russia the blame for every one of these 88,594 deaths, how does this compare with the United States' record?

This edition's headlines: Pre-Election forum; State Election Questionnaire Responses; Floods; Queen Victoria Market; A win at Oaklands Junction; Saving Mount Eliza's reservoir as a public wetland; Royal Exhibtion Building and Carlton Gardens; Kilmore's Equine Overlay; Beaumaris Modern Open Day; Kingston Planning Scheme Amendment C203; Hepburn Shire Biodiversity Threat; Toondah Harbour - Walker Corporation; Save Westesrn Port Woodlands; Caring for Western Port Country; Value

Planning Democracy has designed this questionnaire to help its network of concerned community groups understand where you and/or your party stand on using the Planning Framework to give communities a genuine say in protecting Victoria’s environment, heritage and natural resources.

The lab team behind the mutant variant was accused of “playing with fire.” Scientists at Boston University claim to have created a new variant of Covid-19 with an 80% mortality rate, by combining the highly-transmissible Omicron variant of the coronavirus with the original Wuhan strain. The research, which echoes experiments thought to have created the virus in the first place, has caused outrage.

PPCC’s forthcoming AGM is on Thursday 17^th November. Our guest speaker is internationally renowned Climate Scientist Dr. Kathy McInnes, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere.  

Dear friends of PPCC Inc.

You’re the culprit. Unfolding collapse is down to you.  Forget population overshoot. You’re consuming too much. Own it!

Is the Murdoch Press secretly anti-war? Fox News' Tucker Carlson continues to amaze with his constant exposes of the lies behind America's funding of the Ukraine war that now teeters on the edge of a nuclear holocaust.

To navigate the rapidly changing international system, we must replace three dangerous assumptions underpinning Australia’s defence planning.

It is absolutely pants-on-head gibbering insanity that these direct negotiations are not already presently underway. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow was open to talks with the the US or with Turkey on ending the war in Ukraine, claiming that US officials are lying when they say Russia has been refusing peace talks.

New waves of protests against rising living costs amid an escalating energy crisis have hit Europe in recent days, as many people were angry about their governments waging war on their own people by following the US in sanctioning Russia over the Ukraine crisis. 

Over the weekend, protests filled the streets of Paris, Berlin and Prague with some shouting out "leave NATO" or "Our country first", according to media reports, which analysts said hinted at a deeper crisis that Europe is now facing.   

IPAN calls on the Australian Government to reach out to the United Nations and to Ukraine and Russian leadership and call for an immediate ceasefire and a negotiated settlement of the conflict. Recent statements from Defence Minister Richard Marles echo knee jerk response from then Prime Minister John Howard after 9/11 leading us into the horrific no exit 20-year war in Afghanistan.

The Human Chain for Assange was attended by more people than we have seen at any Free Assange demonstration in Australia to date.  SBS says, "Thousands," Victoria Police estimate 3000.

One fact, apparently not properly appreciated amongst the vast popular movement in support of Julian Assange, both in Australia and overseas, is that, in spite of the fact that the Government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese could make the British Government release Julian Assange today, it has chosen not to.

EveryAGE Counts: Seven in ten older Australians believe 'ageism against older people is a serious problem,’ but those in their 50s and 60s are significantly more likely to hold this view than those in their 80s and 90s, according to landmark new national polling commissioned for the nation's second Ageism Awareness Day today (Oct 7).

The research also finds a strong majority of older Australians want the government to invest in a national awareness campaign about ageism and its effects. 

A new network has been launched calling on the Australian Government to support a UN Convention on the Human Rights of Older Persons.

Planning Democracy will be holding a Pre-Election Forum for community groups on Saturday 8 October 2pm at the Ashburton Library, 154 High Street Ashburton. Full details are in the attached leaflet. Please feel free to forward the leaflet to your friends, family, and networks, and I hope to see you there.

Video of debate facebook All Labor and Liberal members voted down this simple but inspiring and compassionate motion. It was like watching people walk past a person trying to help someone bleeding on the road after a traffic accident, saying that maybe the bleeding had gone on 'long enough' but it wasn't up to them to help.

Yesterday I became aware of the terrifying circumstance where the Nordstream1 and Nordstream2 pipelines have been sabotaged by huge explosions, soon after the time when US helicopters were reportedly in the area.[1]

Entitled, "Growing Regional Victoria," the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is pushing yet more growth in infrastructure and housing on regional Victoria, with the accompanying short-term jobs and destruction of environment, space, and biodiversity.  Anyone travelling through regional Victoria (and almost any Australian state) will notice the drab housing estates with their ever meaner lots and devegetated surrounds, wedging miscellaneous drifts of precarious humans desperate for accommodation

Kevork Almassian does not agree with laws forcing women to cover their heads, in Iran, Saudi Arabia, or anywhere else. He thinks Iran should not have these laws, but he thinks that western media publicity for these protests is done because they don't like Iranian foreign policy, not because they care about women's rights. And we should think of why that is.

On his 27 September 22, program, Tucker also points out that a new pipeline from Norway has just opened as Nordstream 1 and 2 have been sabotaged. The US elites seem to be utterly sociopathic.This important document on youtube video has predictably since been replaced by a Hindi cartoon, but fortunately rumble.com is now carrying a copy, which underlines, again, the importance of the internet diversifying from youtube, and facebook etc. If you have problems viewing this, due to censorship, use TOR browser.

Community opposition to the secret deal of AUKUS, dropped on the Australian people one year ago, is evidenced by this petition being tabled today in the Senate by Senator Jordon Steele-John signed by almost 27,000 Australians.

Opposition to AUKUS is also evidenced by the public statement signed by over 1000 people, advertised over the past week in The Saturday Paper and The Weekend Australian.

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