(We) can do better

If you have anything you would like to raise, which is likely to be of interest to our site's visitors, which is not addressed by other articles, please add your comments here.

This article title is based on the title of a debate at the Municipal Association of Victoria AGM, which took place on Thursday, October 21 at Hotel Sofitel. The article itself is based on speech notes from SPA Victoria's president, Jill Quirk, for her part in the debate. Panel members were: Jill Quirk, President of Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian branch); Pru Sanderson, CEO, VicUrban; and Professor of Physiology, Roger Short, Melbourne University. The Chair was Jon Faine.

Sustainable population MUST BE THE DEAL since the alternative is societal and ecological collapse.

Sustainable means – able to be sustained/maintained without decay or degradation. Unless this is envisaged over a long period of time, it is meaningless in human terms. The previous custodians of this continent had staying power of over a period of 40,000 -60,000 years. Europeans have only made their mark- over about 230-50 years.

In other words if we are to be sustainable over any significant and meaningful time period, we’ve hardly begun.

Victoria at present does not have a sustainable population.

The State of the Environment (SOE) report 2008 reflects the simple fact that most areas of the state are highly stressed. Most natural vegetation, waterways, wetlands, coasts and rivers are reported in a parlous condition.

“Population growth, settlement and consumption patterns and climate change are the key drivers of environmental degradation in Victoria”

“Victoria’s population growth, increasing affluence and the expansion of our cities and towns, have contributed to unsustainable levels of resource consumption and waste production.”

It is clear that population growth combined with the broad practices of our society are leading us in the wrong direction. It is ultimately our environment which will dictate whether or not we are sustainable and it is therefore non negotiable. In order to achieve sustainability our environment must come before all the considerations including the economy.

To understand the seriousness of the SOE report and that with continuing population growth, if no changes are made, the situation will worsen must be also to understand that the end of our stay here is in sight.

Sustainable population must not be confused with "sustainable growth" in population which of course is an impossibility, even an oxymoron. Stabilization of our population as soon as we can should be our aim as it is necessary but not sufficient for long term sustainability

From localized to more pervasive environmental issues -

Greenhouse gases are an example of a waste product and in Australia rise in lock step with population growth.

Instead of striving to stabilize our population, which is necessary but not sufficient for sustainability, the push from those with the loudest voices is to grow as fast as we can.

Our leaders and planners need to incorporate resource depletion, including peak oil, in realistic rather than fanciful visions of our future.

In Victoria- what I hear is:

“Extension of UGB
High rise /Activity centers.”

But:

Post peak oil, Melbourne's outer suburbs and established areas will become less sustainable. Peak oil will highlight terrible problems of transport and self sufficiency.

Authorities, leaders and planners must bear this in mind.

Right now, as we cannot start any sooner –

Democracy crucial

The issue of democracy at a local level is crucial in shaping our future and needs to be protected.
We associate planning very much with local government. The role of councils ideally is as an intermediary between the rights of some and the assumed freedoms of others. At this level, the sustainability of local areas has the best chance of being protected.

As David Suzuki once said, referring to the protection of the environment, “Every victory is temporary, every defeat is permanent.”

We have no serious option but to be a sustainable population, so to me it is definitely a deal. The possibility of achieving it rests with all levels of government.

We need to acknowledge our impact, lessen our individual impact, stop seeking more, do less, and acknowledge that infrastructure is not the cure-all for runaway population growth.

We can stabilise our population. We cannot do it immediately but by mid century – yes.
We are not sustainable now.
We face oil depletion and declining environment

We owe it to ourselves and to our grandchildren and great grandchildren that a sustainable population must be THE DEAL.

Details of Event:

Audience of about 250 Councillors and Council officers from across Victoria, at MAV Annual Conference on Thursday, October 21, at Hotel Sofitel. Session title: "Sustainable Population – Deal or No Deal?"
Session Chair: Jon Faine
Panel members: Jill Quirk, President: Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian branch); Pru Sanderson, CEO, VicUrban; Professor Roger Short, Melbourne University.
Each Panel member spoke for approximately10 minutes , followed by questions and general discussion.

Shrinking Attention Spans

It is so frustrating. We need long articles (or books) and lengthy documentaries to properly and thoroughly develop our point. But if I drew a graph, with the numbers of words in my article on one axis, and the number of “visits” or “hits” and “comments” on the other, every 50 words above 700 would see a drop in the number of visits, hits or comments. Beyond a thousand words, the drop-off would be steep. No wonder a lot of editors won’t accept submissions beyond that. It is not just that other stories compete for column inches, but that reader interest “ain’t what it used to be”. Our growth-oriented society has cultivated an extreme impatience with anything that does not titillate or excite us for more than 20 seconds.

Fordism Writ Large: Restless People Speaking at 45 RPM

People are even speaking in MSN text language, as if they are on a walkie-talkie. Quick, glib and terse. If the digital generation is not aloof, sullen and withdrawn in their ipod solitude, they typically fire out their words in machine gun bursts like DJs and computer store salesmen. No wonder they can’t suffer the relatively plodding discourse of the grandparents they never visit in care homes. Our speech mimics the “speed up” inherent in Fordism. Like so many Charlie Chaplins on an assembly line who sound like chipmunks on amphetamines. Not only is the workplace more frenzied and drained of creativity, but our leisure hours are structured to keep up the pace. Even our children cannot be left to their own devices, but must be force-fed through a pressure-cooker schedule of dance lessons, martial arts, scout meets or hockey practices all while engaging in school activities, strangers who too often take their meals in microwaved tupperware after siblings and parents have eaten and scattered in pursuit of solitary goals. It is as if we are channel-surfing through conversations, relationships, marriages, and jobs. We feel compelled to keep on movin’ and keep on consumin’ because our appetities have been conditioned for the quick fix of immediate gratification. Why should I be bothered to work through my marital difficulties when I am told that I am in a supermarket of alternative mates? Why should I hang in there at work when as soon as I feel dissatisfied I can jump ship to another employer? And employers cycle through employees as if they are pushing in and out of a revolving door? It used to be that Type A behaviour was conspicuous, but now it is the norm, and it is celebrated. Having too much on your plate is thought to be an attribute, a mark of ambition, and we all must be ambitious—to be otherwise would be sinful. The puritan ethic has been harnessed for consumerism and the perpetual restlessness and cultivated discontent that drives it.

The Broken Promise of Hyper-Industrialism

This is the culture that we must contend with. It is not only that people don’t want to know about the bad news— they don’t want to take time to know. Of all the deadly sins, in my judgment, greed is the worst. And greed is not confined to the desire for more toys, but to the desire for more. More activities, more commitments, more irons in the fire. We must keep busy to avoid thinking and avoid our friends and families. More than for the ruin to nature’s life-support systems, I resent this growth-mad society for its destruction of personal relationships. When is the last time someone sat down and poured out their feelings in a long handwritten letter to you? That once was common-place. How often are people taking time to really listen to their friends? To think that hunter-gatherers worked just two hours a day. What happened to this leisure society that was promised by our industrial civilization a half century ago?

No Time To Listen

The man who taught me how to use a computer four years ago, so that I could begin to write and converse with interesting people across the world, suffered a private turmoil that few in the community bothered to notice. We used his services but never took the time to find out how his life was going. He was a good man, who lived at the base of the cliff my house is perched on. Just a 3 minute walk from here. One morning I found him slumped over the wheel of his truck, beside a spilled glass of wine that his hand once held, as the carbon monoxide from his exhaust was filling the cabin. He had attached an “O” tube to the end of the exhaust pipe, with the other end entering a small gap near the door, taped to trap the fumes inside. He had turned on the ignition and left it on. He was stone dead when I saw him. If only we had taken the time, we might have helped him out of his hell. But even in a tiny rural community like mine, people don’t have time anymore. That to me, is what growth-madness is. The thief who stole time.

Tim Murray

Dear site visitor,

Candobetter was off-line since some time before 7.00PM until roughly 10:00PM on Sunday 24 October. This was because a database table, used by the Drupal Content Management System (CMS) had been corrupted. After the problem was diagnosed and the corrupted table table repaired, I was able to restart candobetter.

My apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused you, I hope this unfortunate experience doesn't slow down too much the greater interest that candobetter has enjoyed in recent weeks.

Please keep up your visits and feel most welcome to contribute your ideas to our discussions.

James Sinnamon

ScienceDaily (Oct. 1, 2010) — The world's rivers, the single largest renewable water resource for humans and a crucible of aquatic biodiversity, are in a crisis of ominous proportions, according to a new global analysis.

The report, published Sept. 30 in the journal Nature, is the first to simultaneously account for the effects of such things as pollution, dam building, agricultural runoff, the conversion of wetlands and the introduction of exotic species on the health of the world's rivers.

The resulting portrait of the global riverine environment, according to the scientists who conducted the analysis, is grim. It reveals that nearly 80 percent of the world's human population lives in areas where river waters are highly threatened posing a major threat to human water security and resulting in aquatic environments where thousands of species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction.

"Rivers around the world really are in a crisis state," says Peter B. McIntyre, a senior author of the new study and a professor of zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Limnology.

The Nature report was authored by an international team co-led by Charles J. Vörösmarty of the City University of New York, an expert on global water resources, and McIntyre, an expert on freshwater biodiversity.

Examining the influence of numerous types of threats to water quality and aquatic life across all of the world's river systems, the study is the first to explicitly assess both human water security and biodiversity in parallel. Fresh water is widely regarded as the world's most essential natural resource, underpinning human life and economic development as well as the existence of countless organisms ranging from microscopic life to fish, amphibians, birds and terrestrial animals of all kinds.

Over many millennia, humans have exerted an increasingly pervasive influence on fresh water resources. Rivers, in particular, have attracted humans and have been altered through damming, irrigation and other agricultural and engineering practices since the advent of civilization. In recent times, chemical pollution, burgeoning human populations, and the accidental as well as purposeful global redistribution of plants, fish, and other animal species have had far-reaching effects on rivers and their aquatic inhabitants.

"Flowing rivers represent the largest single renewable water resource for humans," notes Vörösmarty. "What we've discovered is that when you map out these many sources of threat, you see a fully global syndrome of river degradation."

What jumps out, say McIntyre and Vörösmarty, is that rivers in different parts of the world are subject to similar types of stresses, such things as agricultural intensification, industrial development, river habitat modification and other factors. Compounding the problem is that some of the negative influences on rivers arrive in indirect ways. Mercury pollution, for example, is a byproduct of electricity generation at coal-fired power plants and pollutes surface water via the atmosphere.

"We find a real stew of chemicals flowing through our waterways," explains Vörösmarty, noting that the study represents a state-of-the-art summary, yet was unable to account for such things as threats from mining, the growing number of pharmaceuticals found in surface water and the synergistic effects of all the stresses affecting rivers.

"And what we're doing is treating the symptoms of a larger problem," Vörösmarty explains. "We know it is far more cost effective to protect these water systems in the first place. So the current emphasis on treating the symptoms rather than the underlying causes makes little sense from a water security standpoint or a biodiversity standpoint, or for that matter an economic standpoint."

Among the startling conclusions of the study is that rivers in the developed world, including much of the United States and Western Europe, are under severe threat despite decades of attention to pollution control and investments in environmental protection. Huge investments in water technology and treatment reduce threats to humans, but mainly in developed nations, and leave biodiversity in both developed and developing countries under high levels of threat, according to the new report.

"What made our jaws drop is that some of the highest threat levels in the world are in the United States and Europe," says McIntyre, who began work on the project as a Smith Fellow at the University of Michigan. "Americans tend to think water pollution problems are pretty well under control, but we still face enormous challenges."

The hard lessons learned by the developed world, says McIntyre, can help governments and planners in other parts of the world avoid making the same mistakes and experiment with new strategies for promoting water security and protecting biodiversity. Instead of investing billions of dollars in expensive remediation technologies, strategies such as protecting watersheds, for example, can reduce the costs of drinking water treatment, preserve floodplains for flood protection and enhance rural livelihoods.

Rivers of the world least at risk are those where human populations are smallest. Rivers in arctic regions and relatively inaccessible areas of the tropics appear to be in the best health.

The analysis used data sets on river stressors around the world. Built into state-of-the-art computer models, the data yield maps that integrate all of the individual stressors into aggregate indices of threat. The same strategy and data, say Vörösmarty and McIntyre, can be used by governments worldwide to assess river health and improve approaches to protecting human and biodiversity interests.

"We've created a systematic framework to look at the human water security and biodiversity domains on an equal footing," Vörösmarty says. "We can now begin presenting different options to decision makers to create environmental blueprints for the future."

The work underpinning the study was funded by the Earth System Science Partnership, an international scientific consortium that supports research on global environmental change; the Bonn-based Global Water System Project, an interdisciplinary research effort to articulate human-water interactions; and the freshwater BIODIVERSITAS project of Paris-based DIVERSITAS, an international collaborative whose mission includes providing accurate scientific information related to issues of biodiversity. The work was also supported by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Global Environmental Facility, and the Society for Conservation Biology's Smith Fellowship Program.

In addition to McIntyre and Vörösmarty, authors of the Nature report include Mark Gessner of the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science & Technology; David Dudgeon of the University of Hong Kong; Alex Prusevich and Stanley Glidden of the University of New Hampshire; Pamela Green of the City University of New York; Stuart Bunn of Griffith University, Australia; Caroline Sullivan of Southern Cross University, Australia; Cathy Reidy Liermann of the University of Washington; and Peter Davies of the University of Western Australia.

Originally published on-line in Science Daily.The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by University of Wisconsin-Madison. The original article was written by Terry Devitt. See also: Murray Darling Basin plan must not become a political football, Fair Water Use

John Faine refused to debate Kevin Bracken, a caller to his Melbourne ABC 'talk back' show on the September 11 terrorist atrocity, after which Faine, in seeming league with Labor and Coalition politicians and the corporate newsmedia, whipped up what almost became a national witch-hunt against Bracken. However, they got more than they bargained for when public opinion swang behind Kevin Bracken. We have transcribed in full, with comments, one of Faine's videoed "defences" of his conduct, so that readers can judge for themselves.

See also comment Jon Faine baits, refuses to debate, Kevin Bracken, Gillard, Faine, disdainful of reasonable doubt on 9/11

9/11 conspiracy theorists swamping talkback: Faine

And welcome to the Friday wrap-up. It is a bit chaotic today. We've got Di Fingleton, Bill Mc Innes and a cast of thousands.

It's been an extraordinary week , too.

(Inaudible response to Jon Faine.)

I don't want to talk about 9/11 conspiracies theorists and the like. Well, I kind of do, but I don't. I don't want to start it up again.

Editorial comment: After refusing to debate Kevin Bracken and starting what came close to becoming a national witch-hunt against Bracken for his supposedly outrageous questioning of the official account 9/11, Faine tells his listeners that he, himself "kinda do[es]" "want to talk about 9/11 conspiracy theorists and the like." Perhaps he should explain to his listeners why he thinks he should judged any less harshly than he judged Kevin Bracken for raising the taboo topic of questioning 9/11 on his 'talk-back' show.

We are clearly being targeted now after what happened on Wednesday afternoon when Kevin Bracken from the Maritime Union and the President of the Trades Hall chose to call in₁. We didn't call him. He called us. ...

Editorial comment: It's a talk-back show, I would have thought. What is Jon Faine trying to say? That he thinks that a member of the public, such as Kevin Bracken, with a view about the principle justification for this country's, so far, nine year intervention in Afghanistan, is not entitled to ring up a talk-back show in order to put that view?

... He said you can't have a parliamentary debate about Afghanistan unless you are prepared to talk about what really happened and the truth of what happened at the World Trade Centre in New York on 11 September and off it went. ...

Editorial comment: So Jon Faine believes that the principle justification for the war in Afghanistan should not be discussed by the very same body which voted to send our soldiers to fight in that war?

...And now it's Friday and I have probably countless e-mails, text messages and phone calls. We are clearly being targetted now, by all the people who think there is more to it than we've ever been told and "the media" (with a gesture with both hands indicating quote marks) are part of the conspiracy. And having just got a little crack in the door open, we're getting phone calls from all around Australia. We're getting e-mails from around the world. People are saying "Uhh! Here is a point where we can have our claims fully explored. It's been a very intense week because of that. Ahh! On the other hand, I stuck my neck out. I've called them loonies. I've had a go.

I think this is corrosive of peoples' trust in the rule of law and democracy. I still believe that. I don't resile for a moment from anything I've said. , but in the background you can see that --- There's John Standish, one fo my producers -- dealing with all the complaints of people saying that we're arrogant, we're high-handed and we're dismissive and that's not our role here at the ABC and that will take weeks for us to deal with. Such is life!

Footnotes

1. [back] See also PM story "Vic union leader says September 11 attacks a conspiracy" for some of the dialogue and my comment. As with the dialogue show above the actual words of a person, baiting someone for having expressed an honestly held opinion about an important issues do that person making those remarks no credit.

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2010/s3043700.htm

See also comment Jon Faine baits, refuses to debate, Kevin Bracken, Gillard, Faine, disdainful of reasonable doubt on 9/11

Jon Faine refuses to debate justification for continuing 9 year old Afghan war -another 10 years. As of 10:00AM this morning a Herald sun poll is showing that over 60% of respondents agree with Union leader Kevin Bracken's view that the official explanation of 9/11 does not stand up to scientific scrutiny.

Republished from 911oz.com. See also: comments Jon Faine baits, refuses to debate, Kevin Bracken and Gillard, Faine, disdainful of reasonable doubt on 9/11, 'Anti-racists' silence on the most racist lie of all

Update, 31 October:

A more recent figure of support for Kevin Bracken on the abovementioned poll is 76.78%, or 8277 votes to 2501 votes) so those, who agree with Jon Faine that discussion of the controversy raging over 9/11 should be suppressed must be, as they should be in any free and educated society, a small minority .

Let us know your opinion! Please leave a comment

As of 10:00AM this morning a Herald sun poll is showing that over 60% of respondents agree with Union leader Kevin Bracken's view that the official explanation of 9/11 does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. ₁

Radio host John Faine previously attacked Bracken's views on air over two days, describing him as a nutter and an extremist, and stating that his views were "offensive".

In Parliament on Wednesday Australian PM Julia Gillard stated that Bracken's views were "stupid and wrong".

Herald Sun poll clearly shows that Kevin Bracken's views on 9/11 are now mainstream

Republished from 911oz.com. See also: comments Jon Faine baits, refuses to debate, Kevin Bracken and Gillard, Faine, disdainful of reasonable doubt on 9/11, 'Anti-racists' silence on the most racist lie of all

Update, 31 October:

A more recent figure of support for Kevin Bracken on the abovementioned poll is 76.78%, or 8277 votes to 2501 votes) so those, who agree with Jon Faine that discussion of the controversy raging over 9/11 should be suppressed must be, as they should be in any free and educated society, a small minority .

Footnotes

1. [back] Editorial comment: In an earlier comment I reported that 46% of the respondents to that poll had agreed with Kevin Bracken and had disagreed with thought policeman Jon Faine. Since then, the proportion in agreement with Kevin Bracken has grown to 66.34% (to 33.6%). The numbers of votes were 4740 to 2405. The fact that the majority of the public oppose Faine's edicts on what they can think on the September 11 terorist attacks shows just how out of touch Jon Faine is. Even if the figure had remained at 46% opposed to Jon Faine with a majority in support, the listening public surely have every right to expect of hosts of 'talkback' shows to allow those views to be publicly expressed. If Jon Faine is right about the views of September 11 "conspiracy theorists" being so absurd, this would surely be demonstrated very quickly very in any fair debate on his program, and the harm that Faine claims that such discussion will cause will be limited and quickiy put behind us. In fact, there has not been one fair debate in the Australian newsmedia, least of all on Jon Faine's own program in the 9 years since the attack. Surely, those, like Faine, who have prevented debate should not be surprised that the raising of this issue, in Faine's own words, causes "corrosion of peoples' trust in the rule of law and democracy". Faine, no doubt, prefers his listeners to have unquestioning trust in a system of 'democracy' that allows bloody and destructive wars lasting decades to be waged without their claimed causes being scrutinised by our newsmedia.

'Laboral'* invitation of hoards of foreign populations from 'contra-cultural' societies is directly displacing the lesser numbers of traditional Australians (those born here and with traditional ancestral origins in Australia). It is a repeat of British colonisation of Australia that directly displaced Australia's Aboriginal people. It is what the Dutch immigrants did to the native South Africans under Apartheid. It is what the Chinese immigrants have done to the indigenous Fijians.

It is immigration history repeated!

The Laboral policy of immigrant favouritism is 'reverse racism'. It is discriminatory against local people and their traditional way of life, their values and their rights. It is a form of 'cultural treason' against the incumbent population.

Then when an immigrant gets into a position of influence (management, politics) favouritism to the immigrant's countrymen and women is ignored by Australia's anti-discrimination laws. Australia has one rule for immigrants, another rule for traditional Australians who feel unjustly targeted by the various laws that favour immigrants. These laws treat traditional Australians as if we are inherently racist. But by such favouritising and by immunising immigrants from racism rules, Australia's anti-discrimination laws have become a passive form of reverse racism.

The tragedy to all parties (locals and immigrants alike) is that the unjust discrimination felt by traditional Australians is causing local disaffection, understandably. But what conveniently goes unmentioned by supporters of cultural immigrants to Australia, is the aggressive intolerance of foreigner cultures by the countries of origin of many Australian immigrants cultures - Indian intolerance of Christians and China's intolerance of Falun Gong are classic examples.

Traditional Australian are feeling marginalised in their own native country. That disaffection and sense of injustice is steadily converting tolerant easy-going Australians, like myself, into angry resentful protectionists. The vocal outrage is perceived as racist, but it is an early cry for justice by disaffected locals. Reverse racism risks inciting reactionary racism. It throws civilised tolerance out the window and descend humanity into its primitive mode of protecting its own clan. It is a slippery slope.

Once reactionary discrimination takes a cultural hold amongst a local population united against a perceived threat of invading immigrant culture, local attitudes become entrenched. Human history has many stories of such and many quite recent and close to home.

One shouldn't have to sign a declaration of accepting cultural diversity of foreigners if that cultural diversity is open ended without parameters and that policy does provide for Australian cultural values and standards to prevail. Yet it has become standard policy for Local and State governments to mandate all public servants comply with accepting cultural diversity - willy nilly!

I shouldn't have to speak Mandarin to get a job in North Ryde. Immigrants should though have to accept Australian values and social standards by living in Australia - equality of women, free speech, reward based on merit (no chronyism), fair pay for a fair day's work (no slavery), highs standards of hygiene, etc.

Australian social values and standards were once common sense and taken for granted, but with so many arriving with different values and standards, Australia has got to the point of needing its social values and standards protected in legislation - an Australian Values Act.

Cronulla in 2005 was a warning to governments. Heed it and curb the immigration and listen to us locals! Yet in the government of our modern society, especially across Australia, members of parliament are naive, and untravelled idealists who invariable tow their Party's line and whom hold no experience or qualifications in sociology. We are ruled by incompetents of dangerous naivety.

---

*Laboral is the hybridisation of the Australian Liberal Party and Labor Party, which over decades have become so closely aligned ideologically as to be indistinguishable. Both are positioned Centre-Right, growthist and seek popularism. Each has lost any long term vision for Australian society. Together they have been reduced to factions of tired 20th Century industrial 'boomerism'. They recruit career short-termers typically legalese types. Only by the comparative popularism of their leader of the moment does each Laboral faction take alternate turns of government at Federal and State level. Whitlam and Fraser were ideologically aligned and Turnbull could have had a bet each way.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada has happened upon the John Howard confidence trick. In the shell game of electoral politics, it is important to get the audience to focus on the pea marked "bogus refugees" rather than the one marked "unsustainable immigration". That way corporations get the policy they paid for. The growth of the cheap labour pool and legions of new consumers. We clap our hands at the crackdown, and are none the wiser for it.

I seem to recall that Australia's one-man wrecking crew (lest we forget) John Howard, successfully exploited public anger over incoming boat-loads of refugees by making a show of his hardline crackdown, then using that stance as a screen to jack up immigration levels to stratospheric heights. Right? Well it seems that the Stephen Harper government is taking the same tack. Use the refugee issue as a decoy and a lightening rod so that an even higher number of migrants can be waived through the airport. This is not about curbing immigration to more sustainable levels, levels that would permit cultural integration and ecological recuperation from the two-decade demographic assault Canada has suffered since 1990. It is about quelling growing public anger so that it does not threaten the great unquestioned project of unsustainable economic growth, which all major parties wrongly believe is dependent on population growth.

It is not just Canada's refugee system that is out of control. Immigration is out of control. Making scapegoats out of phoney refugees and the slime who smuggle them takes the heat off an immigration policy based on economic folly and cynical political empire-building. And the Prime Minister knows it. He wants more immigration, not less. And if the opposition parties, who share his mad dream, were smart, they would accede to his inadequate bill, because it appeases misplaced public wrath. Canadians could then be given the false assurance that everything is now "under control", when in fact immigrant-driven population growth will be more out-of-control than ever. While I support the government's half-measures---as far as they go---- I wonder if by applying a band-aid we might forget that we need major surgery. We need to stabilize and reduce our population, and to accomplish that, we could double or triple the intake of legitimate refugees while slashing the immigration quota to modest and reasonable totals. Cleaning up the refugee mess is not sufficient.

Harper's comments, recorded in this news report, "Human smuggling threatens Canada support for immigration: PM"
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/101020/canada/canada_srilanka_politics_refugee_immigration, makes his motives clear.

"A failure to act and act strongly (against human smugglers) will inevitably lead to a massive collapse in public support for our immigration system.... Not only do we have relatively speaking the largest immigration program in the world; not only do we have the most generous system of sanctuary for refugees in the world -- we also have a level of public support for immigration that is unparalleled elsewhere in the world," Harper said. "And that must continue, because our economy will need even more immigrants." The strong new laws will provide incentives for would-be immigrants to enter the country through "legitmate channels".

Tim Murray
October 22/ 2010

Background stories: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Tories+take+refugee+fraudsters+smugglers/3706309/story.html
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/Laws+turn+tide+refugees/3709436/story.html

Remember the lesson of the great Newfoundland cod fisheries. Rudyard Kipling’s Captains Courageous gives a description of fish so plentiful that the waters seethed with them. In 1977 Canada tried to stop the reduction of the cod stocks by declaring 320 kilometers off Newfoundland off limits to foreign factory ships. The local industry flourished, bringing prosperity to Newfoundland. In the 1980s marine biologists warned that the future was threatened by the heavy fishing and recommended an annual target of 125,000 tonnes of cod. But the community outcry about the economic and social damage made the government set the target at 235,000 tonnes. Stocks fell below a sustainable level and in June 1992 one of the richest natural resources was closed down. 30,000 jobs were lost and Newfoundland fell into rapid economic decline.

Millions of people depend on Murray River health

The lesson for the health of the Murray River is clear. (See Peter Goodwin’s letter in the AGE, October 2010)
Millions of us depend upon this river. We cannot repeat the mistake of Newfoundland when scientists warn us of consequences of letting it die.

We are doing some silly things.

Is water wasted that is not directly used now by the people? Is it wasted if it keeps the river alive for our future use, if it floods the plains where the red gums grow, or keeps alive the swamps, which the migrating birds, and other wildlife depend upon? This is a question, which must be answered by us all now, for the sake of the future.

Four States of Australia squabble over what water there is – Queensland, where much of the water originates, New South Wales and Victoria which have the problem of whether to keep the trees of the flood plains alive, and South Australia, where the river used to flow into the sea, and is now struggling to keep the lakes and estuary alive, as well as the capital of Adelaide.

Water waste by irrigators and country towns is now greatly reduced by more enlightened practices, but some areas are more progressive than others. It is still not worked out which crops are best suited to different areas, especially with water-hungry cotton and rice. Other crops such as dried fruit would prosper more if they could compete with Middle Eastern imports, which have low labor costs but a high real cost in freight, which adds to carbon emissions and fuel loss.

There are some crops necessary for feeding our population, which it would be wiser to grow to some extent at least, in our fertile Murray River Basin, than rely entirely on imports. Water is a scarce commodity the most of the world, and we use the water overseas for our imported food too.

Private ownership of water is disastrous for this country

A great waste of the Murray River is the private ownership of water. This means that government must pay private interests for water to use in the public interest. Originally far-seeing legislators in Victoria decreed that all water belonged to the state, which gave irrigators and others the rights to use it. Unfortunately this right has become a right to own it. Not only irrigators but financial interests have now got a source of income that costs the Murray River and the State dearly. A title system for the use of water similar to land ownership would be disastrous for this dry country.

Farmers and States trading rights to use water on an annual basis is one thing. To have titles to private ownership of water is reckless.

Water ownership would inevitably accumulate into the hands of a few. There would be no legal way to prevent foreign ownership. Greedy people have their eyes on water ownership globally, as with growing population pressures it becomes the most valuable commodity on earth. The pressure on governments from these private interests may be great, and must be resisted.

Governments selling our life-blood away are treasonous

There is such a thing as treason, and selling away our life-blood is one of them. Although distribution can be allowed through private companies, and private interests assist in infrastructure, the living water itself must remain inalienably in public ownership, and subject to public control. Free trade agreements must never have a legal chance to include water.

North South Pipeline is a really stupid waste

The stupidest waste of the Murray River is the North-South Pipeline of Victoria, built by the Victorian government to keep the Melbourne electorates happy, takes water down south for Melbourne, which otherwise would flow down the Goulburn River to the Murray River and associated irrigators.

Australian Aboriginals did it much better than we do

The aboriginal inhabitants for 40,000 years lived sustainably on the banks of the river, and harvested its wildlife without extinction, keeping their population within the bounds of existing technology, droughts and floods.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself

Have you seen the latest TV commercials promoting the new Jeep Grand Cherokee for 2011? The theme is summarized with the slogan, "The Things We Make, Make Us". The 'manifesto' video ad, 1:01 minutes long, makes an unanabashed appeal to American pride and patriotism. Poignant scenes are punctuated by proud declarations.

"This once was a country that made things, beautiful things, and so it is again." "It was a country of colts (with the image of colts galloping across the screen) that made Colt revolvers, and Jeeps (pictures of a stream of Army Jeeps presumably poised for the Normandy invasion, then liberating the streets of European towns in the Second World War).... These things make us who we are."

The American industrial heartland will surely rise again, given the inspirational lead that Chrysler beckons us to follow. The fact that the non-renewable resources critical to this heroic enterprise will not be affordably available to sustain it is just one of life's tiny, inconvenient details that are best swept under the carpet. Pessimism, not the reality of limited resources, is our real enemy you know. What did Obama say? He repeated FDR. "The only fear we have is fear itself." God, is that all. And here I thought I had to worry about Peak Everything and the prospect of a thermo-nuclear exchange that might follow the desperate scramble for scarce resources. Or the strong possibility of biological and chemical war, but then, here I go being pessimistic again. Maybe I should look on the bright side of life, the life that these SUV ads promise me.

The reality of urban gridlock vs. the fantasy of wilderness escape

It is interesting that the product Chrysler is pitching an SUV whose production involved the expenditure of a least 400 barrels of oil per vehicle--or its equivalent--and tons of metals and minerals first mined, then transported, then smelted, then shipped to a factory to rendevous with rubber harvested thousands of miles away and fashioned into a vehicle by hundreds of employees who demand a range of products and services as recompense for their beautiful craftsmnship. Employees who fought two hours of traffic driving their Jeep to work, only to repeat the ordeal after their shift. But hey, they are Americans, like the can-do Americans we once knew, who get the job done! And once it is done, this same vehicle then is marketed as an off-road machine that is seen dashing through lush forests, across unpolluted rivers and over the vast and seemingly pristine Moab desert of Utah."Go where regrets can't follow" is the motto that subtitles the scene. Cameras don't show the getting there, however. You know, the Jeep Grand Cherokee stuck in bumper-to-bumper freeway traffic on a Friday afternoon as its driver tries to make it to his weekend gettaway, cursing and honking in a vehicle built for speed but trapped in a nation of gridlock. But alas, the promised land of galloping colts, lush forests and pristine deserts, the America of our fantasies, the one advertisers play on, surely awaits us. It is quite the juxtaposition. The nasty, noisy and smoky process of primary and secondary industrial activity that heralds the resurgence of proud American manufacturing, co-existing with an apparently vast and uncluttered American hinterland.

There are more than 254 million registered passenger vehicles in America and more than 100 million are SUVs and trucks, with over 8 million of that category sold in 2008 alone. Few of them apparently know or care to know that it takes 98 tons of dead plants and animals buried for eons at seabed, lake and river bottoms to produce one gallon of gas for a nation that consumes one quarter of the world's crude oil. America isn't a country of colts but a country of dolts. How sad it is to see so many fat-ass Crocodile Dundee wanabees and redneck "chicks with dicks" lay down $40,000 US to feed a self-image manufactured by Madison Avenue when their SUV spends most of its life outside a shopping mall or in the drive-in queue of MacDonalds? How many ever see the wilderness? And of those who do, how, one wonders, do they all manage to find it---where are these huge pristine expanses in a nation bursting with 308 going on 508 million people? The answer can be found in the last line of the commercial that has dominated the airways recently:

"The Jeep Grand Cherokee---built for a world without limits"

That just about says it all. American car manufacturers and their ad agencies--- and those who fall for their pitch---really don't have a goddam clue. The phrase "Peak Oil" is notably absent from all of videos and from all the reviews. Instead, we read about "fuel economy". We are supposed to be impressed that the new Jeep Grand Cherokee can allegedly travel 500 miles on a full 24.6 gallon tank. "That's 16 miles in the city and 22 miles on the highway!". Wow. That means that when gas is $20/gallon as analysts like Christopher Steiner predict it will be, it will cost you about a dollar per mile---that is if hyperinflation doesn't overtake us. Auto journalists, like the consuming public who read their columns, are like deer transfixed by the headlights. They see all the bells and whistles and all of the specs but are blinded by the same infatuation with these toys that Americans of three generations ago had for the Model T Ford. The internal combustion engine is as inefficient as it ever was. But maybe that's a good thing, otherwise there would be more drivers driving more cars. You have to feel sorry for American capitalism, it just can't defeat those efficiency paradoxes. Especially when it encourages runaway populaton growth to grow the pool of cheap labour and delusional, manipulated consumers.

I must agree. The Jeep Grand Cherokee for 2011 really is built for a world without limits. Unfortunately, that world is not the one we live in.

Tim Murray
October 15/2010

GEERT WILDERS (witnessing the Dutch experience):

“People are waking up. They see that we are losing our identity, that neighborhoods are unsafe, that women are shouted at and hassled in the streets, that schools are unsafe. If my party were extremist, we’d be at the margins and we’d be getting 1.5 or 2 percent of the vote.

We’re not. In Holland, fortunately, we don’t have many racists. The Dutch are a very tolerant people. We have no problem to be tolerant of the tolerant, but we should be intolerant of the intolerant.

Source: ‘The Jerusalem Post’: What does the rise in support for your party say about Holland?'

---

Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/250038/what-wilders-trial-means-editors

Article by Jill Redwood, in response to the historic agreement which has reportedly been reached to save Tasmania's wild forests. The intention is to move loggers from the old forests into the plantation industry. The Age reported that "Parties to the talks, who all strenuously rejected the involvement of politicians in the negotiations, refused to comment before today's announcement." International markets for woodchips have been down for some time. Victorians might wonder, is the Tasmanian Green movement different from - and more really green - than the one identified with the Victorian "Green Brand" party? (See discussion below "Are the Greens a real alternative?".) Consider also that Environmentalist movements exist outside political parties and that we do not need political parties to make a difference if those parties do not serve us well. The following article is sourced from Jill Redwood. This 'teaser' is from candobetter.org Photos by Sheila Newman

Dot points on Tuesday 19th October 2010 Tasmania agreement announcement and implications for Victoria and beyond

(thanks to Luke for some of these figures).

· Gunns has seen the light and is moving into plantations only.

· Very courageous move by industry to get together with green groups and come to an agreement that helps everyone.

· Victorian industry can also follow suit – govt should help these negotiations along.

· Needed now more than ever – native forests logging is on down-hill run as:

o plantation products dominate the timber market,

o high Aussie dollar (and Asia still recovering from GFC) means export woodchip industry in steep decline,

o resource running out – forcing govt to move loggers into highly contentious areas = provoking conflict.

o Gunns – large company, has seen the future is not in native forests.

· Industry also agreed not to use native forest wood “waste” to burn for electricity – a major win.

Plantation option in Victoria is real.

· Plantations can meet 98% of our timber and woodchip/paper markets right now – meaning there is no excuse to continue clearfelling and industrial scale logging in native forests.

· Many new building products like compressed wood board and engineered lumber (flooring/craft wood/paneling/LVL etc) don’t require large diameter trees. General framing timber (scantling) is easily supplied by pine plantations. The small amount of feature grade hardwood timber that can’t yet be supplied by plantations (such as for high grade hardwood flooring and high quality panelling) can be provided by alternate and engineered wood products, recycled hardwood or carefully selected trees from native forests (but not clearfell logging).

· The logging industry is in terminal decline in East Gippsland with employment being less than 1% of the region’s total workforce. The rest of Eastern Victoria is similar – and even Maryvale paper mill is 80% plantation based. Not difficult to get them out of Central Highland’s forests.

To ensure secure employment, the industry needs to:

1. Retool their mills to process plantation wood (from Tumut NSW, Sth Gippy or NE plantations).

2. Receive govt assistance to relocate workers and families to the plantation areas of Western Vic. where the plantation companies are actually importing workers from overseas to fill the employment gaps in logging.

3. Take exit packages and be assisted into other areas of employment.

In Victoria we take 1.9 million tones of native forest wood out every year. Of that, 1.5 million tones is pulplogs – all of which is 100% substitutable with plantation wood.

Of the other 400,000 tonnes that are sawlog trees, the are used for pallets, roof battens, fence palings, crossbars on power poles, subfloor bearers - all are easily substitutable by plantation wood and other products.

The 1-2% used for high quality appearance grade furniture, paneling etc could still be taken from native forests if very carefully selected and used. Clearfelling thousands ha is now unnecessary (never was needed until woodchipping dominated).

1986 – NIEIR reported on the projected impacts on the new parks in East Gippy (LCC recommendations). They calculated that unless govt altered their policies there was no future for the industry. They recommended reduction in the take of logs from around 360,000m3 a year of sawlogs (not counting woodchip logs) to 70,000 m3 to ensure sustainability. But government and industry continued cutting at 280,000 through all 1990s and 110,000m3 average in the 2000s).

(In 2002-03 - 191,000m3 sawlogs, in 2003-04 - 135,000m3, 2004-05 – 122,000m3, 2005-06 - 106,000m3, 2006-07 - 91,000m3, 2007-08 - 99,000m3 sawlogs. Plus about 350,000m3 of pulplogs as well. Clearly overcutting – ‘cut-out and get-out’ mentality has ruled the industry and govt)

85% of trees taken from native forests ends up as woodchips. Criminal.

Small 2% of high grade timber can be taken from selectively logged trees off public land while hardwood plantations are established (20-25 years). Some hardwood plantations for pulp could already be used for this if managed for sawlogs and milled in a particular way.

Western Vic plantations is where it’s mostly at – ABARE figures show that up until 2007-08 – only getting 0.5million tonnes m3 of plantation hardwood chips – but this year these plantations are supplying 4 million tonnes! The wall of wood has hit us from plantings in the 80s and 90s.

Western Vic plantations companies (Gunns, Australian Blue Gum Plantations and ITC) are importing jobs from OS to log the plantations! Plenty of scope for helping relocate Eastern Vic logging workers into secure jobs there.

Jill Redwood
Coordinator
Environment East Gippsland Inc
(6800 Bonang Rd Goongerah)
Locked Bag 3
ORBOST Vic 3888

Ph (03) 5154 0145
www.eastgippsland.net.au

Update footage on you tube:

Ed. On 18 October 2010 I received a short email from Prof Francis Ronsin, in Paris, headed “Strikes”. He wrote: “Social war has broken out in France. It is a long time since I had reason to be proud to be French!” So I wrote back to ask for a few paragraphs about the strikes that are paralyzing business as usual and liberating French society, which I have translated here -- Sheila Newman See also "1.3-2.5m French demonstrate against raising retirement age" and "French General Strike on Retirement Age takes to highways of France 13 October"

A surprise for everyone

What is happening in France today comes as a surprise to everyone. A pleasant one for some, an unpleasant one for others.

For several months there have been calls to strike – often with little response – and big demonstrations – with totals of several million people involved, each time, throughout France. The government insisted continually that it would not give in and it seemed possible that the strikers and the demonstrators would finish up becoming discouraged.

Involvement of school children

The first change in these trends occurred last week. High school children (15-18 years old) then middle school children (12-15 years old) began barricading their school entrances and confronting the police in the streets. They were protesting: many young people are unemployed and if the elderly are made to work longer … It was also a game, a party.

Domestic Petrol supply blocked

Another change in trends occurred over the weekend. Protesters blocked access to petrol depots. Truck drivers were asked to form roadblocks. Police were running everywhere. As they unblocked roads in one place, roadblocks would go up somewhere else. Petrol has now run out in many towns and even throughout regions. Little demonstrations are occurring everywhere, involving a few dozen or a few hundred people.

Why in France and not elsewhere?

Today (Tuesday) is a day of strikes and demonstrations throughout France. It’s likely to be risky! Sheila Newman asks the question: “Why in France and not elsewhere?” Do the French have a more conflictual temperament? Is it because of historical tradition? Difficult to say. What is certain, is that there is a link between opposition to a law which most French people do not want and a very strong anger, even hatred, towards the government, above all, towards President Sarkozy.

Francis Ronsin
(Translated by Sheila Newman)

Francis Ronsin was Professor, Department of Contemporary History, at the Université de Bourgogne (Dijon). He has published several books and numerous articles that focus on the relationship between political struggles and private life: La Grève des ventres - Propagande néo-malthusienne et baisse de la natalité en France 19ème-20ème siècles (Aubier, Paris, 1980); Le Contrat sentimental - Débats sur le mariage, l'amour, le divorce, de l'Ancien Régime à la Restauration (Aubier, Paris, 1990) ; Les Divorciaires - Affrontements politiques et conceptions du mariage dans la France du XIXème siècle. (Aubier, Paris, 1992); Le Sexe apprivoisé -Jeanne Humbert et la lutte pour le contrôle des naissances (La Découverte, Paris, 1990) ; and La population de la France de 1789 à nos jours. Données démographiques et affrontements idéologiques (Le Seuil, Paris, 1997); La Guerre et l’oseille (Syllepse, Paris, 2003). He is also the principal organizer of the international research seminar Socialism and Sexuality.

Rights of partial or full reproduction of this article are forbidden without permission from Francis Ronsin.

Anti-growth activists are caught in a vice. In large urban areas bursting at the seams with overtaxed infrastructure, the potent force of the growth lobby and the pervasive influence of the media that supports it makes opposition to the growth juggernaut hazardous to mind, body and spirit. Yet life in a rural locality presents an even more daunting challenge. The costs of growth are not so manifest to those who do not understand its exponential nature. The benefits of fresh air, tranquility and wildlife are taken for granted, and the allure of big city amenities is irresistible. Locals are beguiled by the promise that new development will solve unemployment, increase the supply of affordable housing and keep young people close to hearth and home. To stand up against growth in a small town is to invite ostracism and ridicule from uncomprehending minds that cannot understand why anyone would oppose "progress". The following letter was submitted to the newspaper of one such town, but it could have been the template for letters to almost any small town newspaper in North America or Australia or elsewhere---newspapers which live on the advertising revenue from the businesses that profit from growth.

Civic boosterism predictable and mistaken

From rural Nova Scotia to rural BC, the clichés of civic boosterism are as predictable as they are wrong. Sables-Spanish Rivers appears to be no different. Forum participants in the upcoming township elections seem to be reading from the same script that growth-addicts in my own community are.

“We need to bring in business to bring down taxes.” “Economic development is a priority...its not just about bringing new business...it’s about smart growth, maintaining the tax base.” “ New development will create needed jobs”. “We need to attract new families”. “We need to bring our kids back”. “There is nothing here for the kids”. “Once a school is gone a community begins to collapse”.

Reality

It is the same tired record heard across the land for time immemorial. But what are the facts?

Bigger towns, bigger taxes and lower average incomes

As a rule, the larger the town or city, the higher the taxes. Why? Because the tax revenues that are generated by growth do not offset the infrastructure costs of extended services that must be provided—water, sewage, road maintenance, police and fire protection, waste disposal and so forth. Creating new jobs may indeed attract newcomers, but is so doing it does not lower the unemployment rate. More people require more jobs. Moreover, business growth is correlated with lower per capita incomes, and lower paying jobs-- not limited housing stock or serviceable land--- makes housing unaffordable. And undeveloped property pays more property taxes than it costs in services---not many cows or trees demand medical or educational services.

Self-importance blinds local boosters both to real values and real limits

Some people seem to equate quality of life with more amenities, and having left the urban rat race wish to reproduce it in the bucolic paradise that attracted them, while accusing those who oppose them of being selfish. But the real question is not whether continued growth is necessary or desirable, but whether it is possible. It is astounding that civic debates are conducted without the slightest comprehension or awareness of Peak Oil and its implications. With triple-digit oil and ten dollar a litre gasoline on the near horizon, we will have more to worry about than keeping ice rinks and schools open. Feeding the mouths that are already here may prove to be an insuperable challenge. Forget fuelling the local Zamboni, fuelling tractors will be our focus. Growth ,“smart” or dumb, will not be an option.

Tim Murray

Quathiaski Cove, BC
October 14/2019

Victoria - the place to be? - for bloody whom?

Clearly, the Victorian Brumby Government is hell bent on accommodating immigration hoards regardless of triple-bottom line impacts. The Brumby Government changes to the Victorian State Planning Policy Framework – Amendment VC71, are summarised by Chairman Brumby's growthist mates up at the Property Council on its website.

This is Chairman Brumby's Big Victoria manifesto. He has set up a Growth Areas Authority to prepare Melbourne and its fringes rural areas for "new residential
communities and new employment areas", to "increase consistency and certainty in growth area planning".

Chairman Brumby's Melbourne @ 5 Million ruling proclaims creation of a multi-centre city through six new Central Activities Districts in Box Hill, Broadmeadows, Dandenong, Footscray, Frankston and Ringwood" and "expansion of the outer Melbourne Urban Growth Boundary to accommodate some of the 284,000 new dwellings". Perhaps Brumby's next demographic phase of his cultural revolution will be to rename his six new Central Activities Districts in Box Hill, Broadmeadows, Dandenong, Footscray, Frankston and Ringwood respectively 'New Guangzhou', 'New Shenzhen', 'New Nanjing', 'New Chanchun', 'New Qingdao' and 'New Chengdu'.

True-to-form Chairman Brumby's 20th Century growthist mindset shows contempt for socio-ecological quality standards. The bottom line outcomes for a Big Victoria are made starkly clear.

Victoria - the place to be?

Meanwhile, the Victorian Greens are tokenly supportive of triple bottom line principles and the desire for limits on urban growth. But true to form, their policy offering remains idealistic and motherhood, with no shovel-ready strategy nor costed programmes. They may aspire to socio-ecological quality standards, but are the triple bottom line outcomes for a Livable Victoria are starkly missing. The Victorian Greens profess a Land Use Planning policy (see below) and that is where the Victorian Greens contribution to Victorians seems to stop.

---

Brumby's VC71 'Big Victoria Manifesto'

(summarised by the Property Council)

"ready for tomorrow"...for whom?

---

Message:

Melbourne's 'most liable city' reputation was once was the envy of the world!
But Brumby is proclaiming - bugger the incumbents and ignore the society and lifestyle that Melbournians have built over generations. If you're from an impoverished underdeveloped country and seeking a better life then sure

Victoria is the place to be...for immigrants!

---

Meanwhile, the Victorian Greens Land Use Planning Policy reads as follows:

Victorian Greens Policy on Land Use Planning

Source: http://vic.greens.org.au/policies/land-use-planning

Try writing to the daily newspaper, or commenting on a Murdoch News Limited newspaper blog or to a Fairfax newspaper blog, or even on an ABC Radio programme blog.

There, feel better? So what have you gained? Well you have perhaps vented spleen, so gained personal gratification. But another day another paper and reader memories are short. Soon the blog comment section will be 'closed' and inaccessible. So what then have you really gained? Has anyone read it? Will what you've written have any impact, even if people did read it? Will your comments contribute in anyway to an issue?

Don't delude yourself! Writing to corporate (mass) media only benefits the media moguls in stymieing dissent. Blog comments in the mass media go nowhere and achieve nothing. The comments quickly get 'closed' and inaccessible. Dissent is thus lured, netted and buried.

The mass media have only recently promoted their blogs in order to distract vocal readers from contributing to free (alternative) media, like the not-for profit CanDoBetter, Tasmanian Times, etc.

This is one reason why I do not contribute any information to corporate media.
Let the moguls wallow in self-serving propaganda, let them continue be more irrelevant to ordinary people, to lose readership and advertising revenue. Their only in it for the money and the influence anyway. Many of the tabloids have become comic books.

Think I'm being unfair on corporate media? Well, an exposé article in the Fairfax-owned Sydney Morning Herald 9th October 2010 by former News Limited editor Bruce Guthrie was entitled 'Falling out with Rupert' (Murdoch). The opening two paragraphs read:

"Within the News empire, talent is one thing but absolute discretion to Rupert Murdoch's world view and various causes is another. And it's far more important than talent.

The most highly regarded people at News are little more than Murdoch robots, programmed to consider him first and the issue second..."

Guthrie further observes:

"Newspaper editors are never far from power or, at least, the people who wield it. This can be quite seductive if you forget one simple fact: it's not you they're really interested in, it;s the machinery you sit atop. Lose the job tomorrow and most politicians will want to cosy up to your successor, regardless of teh circumstances or their qualities."

These extracts are from Bruce Guthrie's new book 'Man bites Murdoch', which I yet to read.

If you have anything you would like to raise, which is likely to be of interest to our site's visitors, which is not addressed by other articles, please add your comments here.

"SMS and Facebook work really well. People discuss these matters all night. The next day they are organised."

Members of the massive French union confederation CGT (Confederation Generale du Travail) joined with other union confederations, taking from the streets to the freeways and regional highways in France. Members used slow driving to slow traffic and others distributed information to drivers and passengers all over France, and encouraged ordinary citizens to express their support. School students and young workers continue to participate.The striking had gone into a new organisational mode.

This article updates the French general strikes first described in this article describing events of 12 October 2010. 1.3-2.5m French demonstrate against raising retirement age

Update 13 October 2010: French Unions leaflet drivers in snail road campaign over retirement age

Source of pictureshttp://jt.france2.fr/20h/

Members of the massive French CGT (Confederation General de Travail) joined other unions, taking from the streets to the freeways and regional highways in France. Members used slow driving to slow traffic and others distributed information to drivers and passengers all over France, and encouraged ordinary citizens to express their support.

The striking had gone into a new organisational mode.

Young workers

Young workers expressed themselves in groups outside factories and marching in the streets.

"You only have to look at your parents when they come home from work half dead to know that working longer is a bad idea."

One said that you have only to look at the state their parents return home from work of an evening to know that it is a bad idea to extend working years. They return home half-dead.

High school children

High school children and young workers were also much in evidence again. 3 per cent of high schools were said to have participated, according to Actualites Francaises (http://jt.france2.fr/20h/

As one girl said, "SMS and Facebook work really well. People discussed issues all night." Obviously French youth are using electronic opportunities to organise, along with their parents and compatriots.

French Government worried at political awareness of young people

In what looks like a defensive rear-guard action by the government, which feels threatened by real political engagement of young people in France, Ségolène Royal, who, in 2008 contested leadership of the French Socialist Party was accused in parliament of having inadvisedly mobilised schoolchildren in the streets. She defended herself by saying that she had advised them to participate safely.

"Grève Générale" - Massive National Strike against raising retirement age in France

Between 1.5 and 3.5 million French people demonstrated in the streets against raising the retirement age on Tuesday.

The French can still really organise a democratic protest.

Where the populations of so many Anglo* countries have been politically fragmented by mass immigration and the consequent geographical restructuring of society with constant changes to streets, suburbs and buildings, big towns in France largely retain their original street plans and the French themselves retain the characteristics and the capacity to network of a big old tribe that shares the same history, in a land still largely controlled at local level, despite the sophisticated central government.

Between 1.23 m and 3.5 m march

On Tuesday 12 October, between 1,230,000 million and 3,500,000 million French protested in the streets of Paris and in hundreds of towns and cities in a National General Strike against Retirement 'Reform' policies that the government has been trying to bring in for some time. The unions estimated the number at 3.5m and the government estimated it at 1.23m. 250 marches took place in different parts of the country simultaneously.

High school students as young as 15 also marched

This was not the first strike against the raising of the retirement age, but for the first time many high school children were out in the streets, as well as university students and young people who had just begun to work. They were campaigning on their own behalf because they saw their futures as threatened by attempts to raise the number of years worked in order to qualify for a full retirement pension from 41 to 43 years.

It is hard to imagine such political engagement by youth on intergenerational issues of finance in Anglo countries. The solidarity is lacking.

Late retirement means no jobs for young people

They were protesting that, if the trend to raise the age of retirement continued, they would be working until they were extremely old. They also protested that if people retired later and later, there would be no jobs for young people.

Unlike the anglo-norm where people have been taught to endorse the work-ethic as the be-all and end-all, the French are more sensible and frank. As one elderly man said, "I don't want to work two more years. I'm tired. Give my job to a young person."

And a young woman, who said, "If I have to work for 43 years to put aside enough to qualify for retirement, what if I want to have children? When will I have time to do that?

Other young people said, "We don't want to work until we drop. And there won't be any jobs for us if people continue to work past the age of 60."

Entire families went out into the street, like this woman, who held up a sign, explaining that she was 43 years old and employers said she was too old to work, but if the government had its way she would have to work for 43 years to get a pension. She said the situation meant that for her family poverty will be permanent.

She would, of course, be worse off in the US or Australia, where rents and land and house-prices are far higher and there is almost no public housing, and where unemployment benefits are not guaranteed, as they are in France.

Vive la France! We can all learn from France.

For another article showing the tribal muscle of the French, see what happened when the government tried to privatise the post-offices.

Obviously the same pressures are being applied to France as have been successfully applied to the Anglo-countries, where privatisation and superannuation, instead of proper pensions, is rampant. The difference is that, even though the French Press, like the Anglo-press, tries to manufacture a reality and normalise the idea that 'most' people agree that privatisation and working longer are 'necessary', due to the relatively intact family and clan organisation of the French and the strength of local government, it is harder to put one over them, because neighbours and families still communicate.

Why don't Anglo populations have the same ability as the French to self-organise?

In countries like the USA, England, Canada and Australia, the artificial organisation of their populations, with people working far from their homes, and living in newly built estates where neighbours have no shared history, and where people are out of touch with their relatives and 'clans', the basic structure of social organisation has been fragmented and smashed. The growth lobby has been in control too long and the people are not really citizens, more clients of a corporate state which is in the business of land-speculation, financed by taxes and the selling off of national estate. In France, state property development and subsidisation of all housing have made it hard for the private growth lobby to pervert democracy and impose their own restructuring on the population. For more on this read the relevant sections on The Growth Lobby and its Absence".

French pension system

There are two levels of ordinary pension in France. To get a full pension you now need to have worked for at least 41 years. You may qualify for a pension at age 60 years, regardless of when you began to work, but 10% is taken off for every year less than 41. People who work 65 years get a better pension, although this is also subject to deductions if they have not worked for at least 41 years. There are also variations on the retirement age depending on occupation. For people who work in the liberal professions, it is 65, and for some other occupations, it is 50 or 55. In some cases people who have not been in paid work nonetheless are counted as if they had been, for example, mothers who have disabled children.

Special Retirement fund law of 1999

A law in 1999 created the Reserve Fund for retirees.
The left, which came into power in 1997, did not try to change the retirement age, but voted in a law on financing social security in 1999, through which a Reserve Fund for retirees (FRR) was created. This fund made it possible to put aside a surplus which originated during the years of strong economic growth, 1999, 2000 and 2001. The FRR aimed to protect low-waged workers against the possibility of harsh changes to retirement law which might accompany an economic crisis. The funds accumulated under the FRR were expected to reduce the pressure the government might feel to raise the retirement age or increase superannuation levies.

The French government decided after 2002, when economic growth had slowed, to stop putting money into the retirement reserve fund. Nonetheless, in June 2010, there were 34 billion euros in the FRR funds. (Source: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retraite_en_France#Confiscation_des_sommes_capitalis.C3.A9es_en_1941

Source of photos and major source of news was: JT France2

*"Anglo" - refers to countries which have inherited the British systems of land-use planning and inheritance, usually through colonisation, but also refers to the UK, even though it is now part of the EU and may now change.

Few are prepared to admit when they are wrong, so then why has this expression become a cliché?

Humans as animals have a survival instinct and so by extension are naturally defensive of criticism. They will defend their actions to the hilt, despite the surrounding damage they knowingly cause. Modern 'progressive' Man (humans) even more arrogantly proclaims that the world without human endeavour would be a wasteland.

So blaming human overpopulation for the earth's ills does not come easy to humans, especially to those self-righteously but religiously conditioned to traditional procreation; far more palatable to blame some external force for human damage.

Climate change is just pollution re-badged. Many were protesting back in the 1960s and 70s about the impact of pollution on the planet. Pollution seems to have matured into climate change - whatever. Some even let humans off the hook.

But climate change is 1% of the environmental problem.
How so? Well, when one considers the exponential sexed up epidemic in developing countries (India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh), compounded by the human food demand for more farmland, the human deforestation to make way for food growing, human consumption habits driven by corporate marketing increasing in sexed up developing countries, increased housing demand pushing into nature, increased energy demands to feed the consumption demands of more sexed up humans, biofuels clearing more of nature to fuel exponential human energy demand...

Well ain't the core driver of environmental damage caused by the sexed up habit of humans and the selfish overpopulation they procreate?

Independent scientists have proven that 'climate change' is a contributor to the environmental damage collectively across the planet. But when compared with the cumulative impact of human overpopulation, the impact of climate change pales to 1% like the impact of passive smoking on a chain cigar smoker.

Societal Two Year Olds
This is a dilemma of the immature society that like a typical human two year old selfishly believes that it is the centre of the world and has an unlimited right to have what it wants.

The problem of the two year old is one for the parents, to reshape immature thinking and behaviour so it learns to be part of society rather than falsely thinking it is the centre of society.

Immature societies have a similar problem. Twentieth century societies emerged out of 19th century societies that were spoilt by their governments. Exploitative, selfish habits are cross generational. Emerging third world societies are now aspiring to the execesses of their 'first world' older siblings.

What to do with Societal Two Year Olds in the 21st Century?

The once wholesome term 'sustainable' has long been stolen by the Corporate Sector - aka big business and corporatised government. The term continues to be misused and abused by those employed with communications degrees (aka 'spin doctors') to mean anything they want it to mean.

'Sustainable' has become almost compulsorily used in public relations to justify proposed works that may adversely impact on the natural environment and upon society. In so doing, the proposed works pacify potential detracting 'greenie' and 'socialist' types.

'Sustainability' has become a corporate pseudonym for 'viable' - viable for corporate sustainable profit or government saving money.

So in order to drag the Corporate Sector to social and environmental accountability, it is preferable to instead use the once popular but clearer term 'Triple Bottom Line'.

Triple Bottom Line (TBL) was coined in 1998 by John Elkington:

'An addition of social and environmental values to the traditional economic measures of a corporation or organization's success. Triple Bottom Line accounting attempts to describe the social and environmental impact of an organization's activities, in a measurable way, to its economic performance in order to show improvement or to make evaluation more in-depth.'*

It is much harder to greenwash the defined term 'Triple Bottom Line' than it is 'sustainable'.

'Sustainable Population' or Triple Bottom Line Immigration Policy

In developed countries like Australia, human population size, distribution and demographics are not influenced by organic growth, but in the main are a consequence of government open-door immigration policy. If developed countries, like Australia, applied a Triple Bottom Line test to the performance of immigration policies, then the social and environmental values of those policies would be added to the more traditional economic measures in order to evaluate immigration policy performance.

Currently, the narrow Economic/Accounting (single) Bottom Line approach only considers the economic benefits of immigration. Even then, the measures of economic impact are limited to short term macro-economic metrics such as consumption, GDP and labour force.

Of course more immigrants will demand more so consumption rises, but also demand on public services and environmental resources (such as drinking water) - which are conveniently not reported by government.

Of course more skilled immigrants will plug skills shortages of business and so business grows and GDP rises and tax revenues rise. Plus business and government save money by not having to spend on education and skills training. But this skill matching is inequitable as it displaces and disenfranchises an unskilled local population. Most job growth ignores rural and regional Australia. GDP growth also puts more pressure on environmental resources (such as coal-fired power stations) - such TBL impacts are conveniently not reported by government.

Of course more skilled immigrants will increase the labour force. But why are immigrants (born overseas) over-represented in the public service and in unskilled positions like transport drivers, while Australia's registered unemployment numbers are over 611,000? A domestic social impact of immigrant employment is domestic unemployment.

And how many of the registered unemployed are immigrants? Such Triple Bottom Line impacts are conveniently not reported by government.

Is not immigration policy a economic, social and environmental responsibility of national governments?

The following article takes the Victorian Greens severely to task . We at candobetter.org are very willing to publish a reply from the Greens explaining their failure to move a motion to replace or to vote against VC71.

Labor and Green MPs' condemned on VC 71

This week Protectors of Public Land Victoria and Planning Backlash both condemned Labor and Green members of Parliament for failing to act to remove the infamous Clause 16 of Planning Amendment VC 71.

VC71 clause 16 was to be challenged by the Liberals on 6 October. Greens were approached to support it and many people expected that support to be automatic. The Greens had voted against clause 16 in an earlier form[1] and it had now reappeared without significant changes. Many conservationists and planning activists throughout Melbourne have seen in the Greens some hope of an alternative to population growth and development uber al. They were aghast to realise that the Greens had finished up supporting the Brumby Government's ecologically unsustainable population growth and this crowning horror of Justin Madden's bad development laws.

But there were signs of this earlier. See "Are the Greens a real alternative?".

Mary Drost, of Planning Backlash, wrote that she was "devastated" to have to tell people that, when the partial debate took place on Wednesday night (the 6th):

Greg Barber, Planning Spokesperson for the Greens, talked so long that the time was up and there was no time for a vote, due to Standing Orders of Parliament. Reading his words in Hansard I am still not sure what he was saying. Some are calling it a "Filibuster" (to avoid a vote being taken). Hence it means that VC71 clause 16 was not challenged and remains in force."

"Even worse," Mary continued,

"On Thursday (the 7th) there was a motion that the Upper House return to Parliament next week to vote on deleting the clause from VC71 motion. The Greens voted with Labor against returning to Parliament, saving the Greens the decision whether to vote for deleting Clause 16 of VC71 and upsetting Labor or voting against the motion and upsetting the community. Well we are upset, we feel badly let down. We condemn those members of Parliament - Labor and Green – for allowing Clause 16 of VC71 to remain in force.

So VC71 stays in and is already being used in VCAT to help developers. It is pie in the sky for Greg Barber to say in his lengthy speech that it can still be got rid of in the new parliament.

Of Clause 16, Julianne Bell, of Protectors of Public Land wrote,

"PPL VIC has long campaigned against such high rise urban development along transport routes and also against the extension of the urban growth boundary. The community has not been consulted over VC 71 but it has been imposed on Melburnians by the Brumby Government despite the extraordinary community opposition demonstrated through Melbourne, including several rallies at Parliament. This plan to line public transport routes with multi storey apartments to accommodate the anticipated increase of one and a half million population had its genesis in the blueprint "Transforming Australian Cities" commissioned by the City of Melbourne and the State Government in May 2009. (This plan was said to have been derived from a South American architect who sought to house former shanty town dwellers in high rise/multi storey apartment units along bus routes.)

Atkinson's opening speech to the motion 6 October 2010

Liberal, Bruce Atkinson, despite the party's formal opposition to Clause 16,
summed up his party's spineless endorsement of Labor's laws to mandate land-speculation and profit at the expense of democracy through high density development, in this piffling piece of hairsplitting:

Mr. Bruce Atkinson (Liberal) speaking to the motion in the Upper House on Wednesday last 6 October : "What concerns us about the government's approach in planning amendment VC 71 is not higher density development per se but the fact that this particular provision is indiscriminate. This provision would suggest that higher density development could run along every major railway, every major bus route, every major tramline throughout the metropolitan area and could quite conceivably involve development along these major transport corridors to a level of five, six, eight or nine storeys and for a significant depth, some 400 metres in, from those transport corridors - those bus routes, tramlines or train lines. That is a very significant change to the character of Melbourne and its suburbs."

(...)

"We are not opposed to some of the objectives the government had in arriving initially at its Melbourne 2030 policy — a policy that became discredited in the community and needed to be re-badged as Melbourne @ 5 Million. "

Victorian Greens Greg Barber's hollow words

What did Greg Barber talk about for so long that everyone else ran out of time?

Barber canned both Labor and Liberal for their failure to care for the environment or to provide better policies. All very well, but completely hollow words, for the Greens simply failed to supply an alternative to clause 16. And they all went right along and voted against any further review of Clause 16.

Read the full text at the end of this article, [2] but here is a stirring and clever excerpt which unfortunately led from nowhere to nowhere and round and round and round until all the allocated time was gone:

[Ed. Excerpt reparagraphed for clarity.]

"Ms Mikakos described this proposal by the government as policy neutral, which is a very post-modern Labor way of saying, ‘The document actually does nothing’ — and I
agree.

This document, which appears to update and make changes to the highest level decisions and aims of our planning scheme, does nothing.

We all know with the sorts of environmental, social and economic pressures on our city that doing nothing right now is not really an option. In a way, doing nothing is making a decision.

It allows the invisible hand of the market to have its way, and when you intervene it is usually at the ministerial level, site by site, favour by favour.

Let us have a look at this policy-neutral document in front of us.

If we take Ms Mikakos at her word, it is policy neutral in relation to the supply of urban land, but in fact having just voted on an expansion to the urban growth boundary (UGB), which the Greens opposed, this material anticipates the next extension of the urban growth boundary. It is policy neutral in the sense that we will continue to have the oxymoron known as a growth boundary, which really means sprawl-for-ever.

It is policy neutral in relation to planning for growth areas.

When we debated the UGB and the growth areas infrastructure charge the Greens knew the major issue then was the failure of planning for growth areas, not just in the sense of structure planning but in all the matters that go along with a livable community on a greenfield site.

It is policy neutral — that is to say it does nothing in relation to structure planning, a phrase that first popped up when Melbourne 2030 landed on our city like a group of lost aliens and said, ‘Take us to your leader’, or more importantly, ‘We are in charge now’.

Structure planning was meant to indicate that councils would take control of how development was to occur in activity centres. The amendment is policy neutral in relation to open space, which is to say that the government will continue to chip away at it where it is most needed, where it is already underprovided.

Nothing in this will protect open space, particularly when even what we think of as open space turns out not to be zoned for public purposes. Nothing in this suggests that land used as open space and essential to the community must have an appropriate zoning, let alone the kind of zoning that can just be wiped away in an instant at the stroke of a pen by the minister. That is exactly what happened in relation to the Abbotsford convent until we fought the government back.

The document is policy neutral in relation to activity centre hierarchy because we just do not have one. Sure, we have different forms of activity centres listed in a document, but it does not tell us what will then be the fate of each of those activity centres.

The amendment is policy neutral in relation to employment corridors.

When I asked the minister in hearings with the Growth Areas Authority what the idea of the employment corridors was he could not really explain it to me. Mr Guy is not here and I do not want to verbal him, but I had the same conversation with him. What does it mean?

It says: Develop the following employment corridors: Avalon Airport to Werribee, Melton, Melbourne Airport and Donnybrook (Hume-Mitchell). Who will work there and what will they do? Who said that that will be a great place for a set of industries?

Under this same section transport networks are being provided that will allow circumferential in addition to radial movements. That means that you can be a metalworker living in Werribee and working in Warrandyte and every day on the Western Ring Road you can pass another metalworker who does the opposite and you can wave to each other on the freeway.

The amendment is policy neutral in the sense that the government will just keep on building roads and people will just keep on driving on them. The government will not ask us about how we want the city to develop. We will just follow the cars that have an asphalt truck in front of them.

The document is reasonably policy neutral in relation to central Melbourne because there does not seem to be a vision for central Melbourne. Between the two census periods central Melbourne added 25 000 jobs. Some of the CADs (central activities districts) have only about 25 000 jobs each. If in one census period central Melbourne added the equivalent number of jobs of a CAD, why did that happen? Is that what was intended? What will the government do about it?

Why did the government not buy enough trains to get those people to work?

If the government could not make provision for even those sorts of things, what chance does it have with other CADs in other locations across the landscape?

We absolutely know that the amendment is policy neutral in relation to green wedges because the government has done nothing for green wedges, to protect them and their values, since it has been in power. The green wedges have been there forever. As Mr Atkinson said, the city has always been there and the green wedges have always been there. The government has recognised them in policy occasionally. As with the CADs, the test is what the government did and what this document does to protect and enhance the values of the green wedges. The fact is that they are chipped away every year. "

Such reasonable observations. All talk apparently. The Greens offered up no new motion or recommendation. Perhaps they have some explanation - in which case, we want to hear it and publish it.

Three political parties or one big land-corporation?

All three parties seem to have become completely subservient to the developers and their agenda of growing Victoria (and Australia's) population just in order to promote inflation of their assets and demand for their products. There is much evidence to suggest that the ALP is no longer a real political party but more of a land-development corporation (see articles here), but the absolute lack of real opposition from Greens or Liberals to the way that the Labor government promotes its party's own financial agenda makes observers wonder what the pay-offs are.

The "Greens"

Most activists realise now that they cannot expect any kind of democratic reform from the Liberal or the Labor party. But many still had illusions about the Greens.

Maybe Victorians need to realise that branding - as in calling a party "Green" doesn't make it green. I mean, do you buy a dishwashing detergent just because it comes in a green bottle and calls itself 'environmental'? or do you look at the ingredients? Do you vote for a politician because they are a member of the "Greens" or do you look at the politician's record on ecological fundamentals - population, development and democracy?

Parties and politicians need to be judged by their actions and inactions. All the parties have politicians who are only ever seen or heard around election time, often in a photograph with the party leader, endorsing some motherhood cliche.

Others, more sophisticated, have developed a technique of trailing enticing isolated soundbites on issues of significance - population, development and democracy - but if you look more closely, you see that their parties have policies not unlike those of the State Labor government. For instance, check out the Greens' policies on Land-use planning. Not a word about avoiding population growth. Tim Murray's comments here about 'The Green Contradiction' are very apt, even though he is talking about Canadian Greens.

Truly, we are in dire need of new independent candidates. More activists should step forward and give it a go - outside the parties. Consider forming alliances of community independents.

Victorians urgently need someone else to vote for besides the Greens, Labor and the Liberals, or we are doomed. Let us hope for an outcome at the very least similar to the Federal election outcome, which gave the public for the first time in many decades, the possibility of real choice over policy directions.

Julianne Bell of Protectors of Public Lands writes:

"We consider that candidates standing in the forthcoming elections should be questioned on this issue and asked if they would consider acting to rescind Planning Amendment Clause 16, VC 71. We understand that the Liberal Party has recently advertised in a local paper that "a Coalition Government is committed to scrapping John Brumby's planning law changes." PPL VIC will circulate details of candidates election forums. Please send me details of any in your area for which you would like publicity."

REFERENCES

[1]
On Wednesday October 6th, the Coalition moved a motion to remove clause 16 from Amendment VC71 which Madden had signed 2 weeks earlier. This was a rewrite of the old clause 12 that had been sliced off VC67 earlier in the year, and resurrected in VC71 in the form of clause 16:

Link to the current clause 16 in VC71.

This will give developers an easy road to high density high rise development along tram train and bus routes and in and around all hundreds of Activity Centres. (see below quote from VC71 clause 16) This will allow indiscriminate development all over Melbourne. This will enable developers to win easily in VCAT, residents and councils would be rendered powerless in opposing high rise on transport routes and around Activity Centres, including even Neighbourhood Centres.

[2] Speech by Mr Barber

Hansard: Wednesday, 6 October 2010 COUNCIL PROOF 109 (pp.105-112 includes other speakers)

Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — It is amazing. It has taken four years and I never thought it would happen, but Ms Mikakos and I agree on something in relation to planning. Ms Mikakos described this proposal by the government as policy neutral, which is a very post-modern Labor way of saying, ‘The document actually does nothing’ — and I
agree. This document, which appears to update and make changes to the highest level decisions and aims of our planning scheme, does nothing. We all know with the sorts of environmental, social and economic pressures on our city that doing nothing right now is not really an option. In a way, doing nothing is making a decision. It allows the invisible hand of the market to have its way, and when you intervene it is usually at the
ministerial level, site by site, favour by favour. Let us have a look at this policy-neutral document in front of us. If we take Ms Mikakos at her word, it is policy neutral in relation to the supply of urban land, but in fact having just voted on an expansion to the urban growth boundary (UGB), which the Greens opposed, this material anticipates the next extension of the urban growth boundary. It is policy neutral in the sense that we will continue to have the oxymoron known as a growth boundary, which really means
sprawl-for-ever. It is policy neutral in relation to planning for growth areas. When we debated the UGB and the growth areas infrastructure charge the Greens knew the
major issue then was the failure of planning for growth areas, not just in the sense of structure planning but in all the matters that go along with a livable community on a greenfield site. It is policy neutral — that is to say it does nothing in relation to structure planning, a phrase that first popped up when Melbourne 2030 landed on our city like a group of lost aliens and said, ‘Take us to your leader’, or more importantly, ‘We are in charge now’. Structure planning was meant to indicate that councils would take control of how development was to occur in activity centres. The amendment is policy neutral in relation to open space, which is to say that the government will continue to chip away at it where it is most needed, where it is already underprovided. Nothing in this will protect open space, particularly when even what we think of as open space turns out not to be zoned for public purposes. Nothing in this suggests that land used as open space and essential to the community must have an appropriate zoning, let alone the kind of zoning that can just be wiped away in an instant at the stroke of a pen by the minister. That is exactly what happened in relation to the Abbotsford convent until we fought the government back. The document is policy neutral in relation to activity centre hierarchy because we just do not have one. Sure, we have different forms of activity centres listed in a document, but it does not tell us what will then be the fate of each of those activity centres. The amendment is policy neutral in relation to employment corridors. When I asked the minister in hearings with the Growth Areas Authority what the idea of the employment corridors was he could not really explain it to me. Mr Guy is not here and I do not want to verbal him, but I had the same conversation with him. What does it mean? It says: Develop the following employment corridors: Avalon Airport to Werribee, Melton, Melbourne Airport and Donnybrook (Hume-Mitchell). Who will work there and what will they do? Who said that that will be a great place for a set of industries? Under this same section transport networks are being provided that will allow circumferential in addition to radial movements. That means that you can be a metalworker living in Werribee and working in Warrandyte and every day on the Western Ring Road you can pass another metalworker who does the opposite and you can wave to each other on the freeway. The amendment is policy neutral in the sense that the government will just keep on building roads and people will just keep on driving on them. The government will not ask us about how we want the city to develop. We will just follow the cars that have an asphalt truck in front of them. The document is reasonably policy neutral in relation to central Melbourne because there does not seem to be a vision for central Melbourne. Between the two census periods central Melbourne added 25 000 jobs. Some of the CADs (central activities districts) have only about 25 000 jobs each. If in one census period central Melbourne added the equivalent number of jobs of a CAD, why did that happen? Is that what was intended? What will the government do about it? Why did the government not buy enough trains to get those people to work? If the government could not make provision for even those sorts of things, what chance does it have with other CADs in other locations across the landscape? We absolutely know that the amendment is policy neutral in relation to green wedges because the government has done nothing for green wedges, to protect them and their values, since it has been in power. The green wedges have been there forever. As Mr Atkinson said, the city has always been there and the green wedges have always been there. The government has recognised them in policy occasionally. As with the CADs, the test is what the government did and what this document does to protect and enhance the values of the green wedges. The fact is that they are chipped away every year. Land values, in farming, the landscape and biodiversity, are in decline in the green wedges. The document is certainly policy neutral in relation to wildfire. That in itself is a minor scandal given that members of this place have spent an awfully long time talking about wildfire and the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission and its recommendations. I go back to what the recommendations in relation to planning are so that we can remind ourselves that they are not being implemented, at least not through this exercise. The bushfires royal commission wanted a number of tasks done. In terms of actual strategic planning, these were the specific recommendations: The state amend the Victoria planning provisions relating to bushfire to ensure that the provisions give priority to the protection of human life, adopt a clear objective of substantially restricting development in the areas of highest bushfire risk — giving due consideration to biodiversity conservation — and provide clear guidance for decision-makers. The amendments should take account of the conclusions reached by the commission and do the following: outline the state’s objectives for managing bushfire risk through land use planning in an amended state planning policy for bushfire, as set out in clause 15.07 of the Victoria planning provisions — It is not there in this effort — allow municipal councils to include a minimum lot size for use of land for a dwelling, both with and without a permit, in a schedule to each of the rural living zone, green wedge zone, green wedge A zone, rural conservation zone, farming zone and rural activity zone amend clause 44.06 of the Victoria planning provisions to provide a comprehensive bushfire-prone overlay provision. The commission then goes on to talk about a number of other changing rules for various decision-makers and referral authorities, including the Country Fire Authority. It suggests some considerable changes being made to those, changes that cannot be seen in the document that is being considered here. It is possible that the government is working on this and it will bring forward another document, but there is no alacrity. There must have been some kind of momentum behind this particular document, which is a complete review, if you like, of the overarching state planning policy framework, but it seems to have overtaken the efforts that we are making in relation to bushfire, which I would have thought were urgent. I spoke about that at length in various responses to the bushfires royal commission, and I have spoken about it in relation to particular planning decisions that have been made since February 2009. I do not really need to speak to it much more but simply point out that the government has failed at that particular hurdle. In relation to the continuing chipping away of productive agricultural land, which is a problem at the urban fringe but also in those leapfrog growth areas such as the Macedon Ranges, again there is nothing in the amendment from the point of view of protecting productive agricultural land, which we can expect to shrink over time under the climate change scenario. Members of the coalition are looking very worried. On a matter of procedure I just want to tell people not to despair because there are two possibilities when we come back here in February. One is that the coalition parties are in government and Mr Guy is the planning minister, in which case they can rewrite this amendment however they want. The second possibility is that we are back here and where we started, at which point this amendment is still a disallowable instrument. The capacity to disallow this or any part of it, including the small part that Mr Guy is going after today, will still be disallowable when we get back here in February, and no doubt in our first sitting week in March, because the clock will not have run out on it. There is plenty of time; there is no shortage of time. I know that some members are looking at the clock. There is no shortage of time, firstly, for the coalition to put out an alternative vision to what is here and, secondly, for Mr Guy to become planning minister, if the planets line up. The worst-case scenario is that if the opposition is fair dinkum about what it is saying tonight, it can come back and make the same motion in February, and it will not have run out of time. It is policy neutral in relation to Aboriginal cultural heritage, but of most concern, I would have thought, to people thinking years down the track is the impact on our rural landscape, which has been under pressure ever since this new form of planning scheme has been in place. Having addressed Ms Mikakos’s issues I now want to pick up on what Mr Atkinson, the mover of the motion, said. He said he is worried that this provision is indiscriminate. Everything in the planning scheme is indiscriminate. ‘Nothing’ means ‘nothing’ under this planning scheme, and that is the way the Liberals, when last in government, designed it. That is the way that Labor, for 11 years, has kept it. It loves it. What we are really debating here is a by-law. There is the Planning and Environment Act, and then there is a by-law to the act, which this thing is. However, what we are told is that it is a wonderful form of law because it is performance-based; it is objective-based. The very things that Mr Atkinson is objecting to today, on behalf of Mr Guy, are in fact objectives; that is all they are. They are objectives to be achieved. We would never vote for an objective-based traffic law. Would we come in here and say, ‘We’re passing this new law and there will be some by-laws worked out later by the minister, but effectively what they will say is that the objective of the traffic law is “Don’t kill people”, and here is a table of preferred maximum speeds’. It would be like these preferred maximum heights that the Liberal-Labor coalition is so keen on when it comes to every other aspect, including the Windsor Hotel, which we could have had a crack at if we had had our chance. Preferred maximum speeds are designed to achieve more objectives. As a driver you can consider the different factors at play. There will be a list. There will be decision guidelines underneath that you have to check off. If someone says you are doing the wrong thing, you go to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, spin the wheel of fortune and argue about whether or not you were speeding. At VCAT you can bring in various kind of road consultants, perhaps physicists, mechanical engineers and so forth to prove that on balance — not as a matter of law, but on balance, when all the different parts of the decision-making guidelines are considered — that you were generally compliant with the preferred maximum speed on the Geelong Road. That is an extremely contrasting example, I have to say, but this is an extremely important issue. We are trying to do some really important things here — maybe not as immediately important as road safety, but important for the entire fate of all the people who live in Melbourne. It is sometimes their physical wellbeing, sometimes their access to buildings, if the question is accessibility and sometimes their ability to afford a house, if the question is affordability, which we can come back to when we debate this motion a bit further. It is very much their direct and daily welfare, but it is also our shared welfare. It is our social, economic and environmental future. It includes things such as biodiversity, which we want to pass on to generations to come and which in a way are not really ours to mess with. We might think we are the Parliament, that we are elected and that people gave us the job to make a lot of decisions, but there are certain decisions that I think should be virtually out of bounds because they are for future generations. We might pride ourselves on being in a liberal democracy, but it was a reasonably democratic liberal democracy that sat down and made the very considered decision to kill all the Tasmanian tigers. Unfortunately today’s Tasmanian Parliament does not get to vote them back into existence. When it comes to matters of biodiversity, environment and the future legacy we leave to our children and grandchildren for many generations to come we have to be extraordinarily careful in the way we exercise that power. Mr Atkinson said he was worried about consultation in relation to the way planning schemes were amended, if I understood him correctly. The mechanisms for consultation and having your say under amendments to the planning scheme I would say are fundamentally the same as they always were under the Kennett government that created this architecture. The bigger question, though — and there is no doubt that Mr Atkinson thinks very deeply about these things — is the proper planning of the city. He said it is the major issue. He said the opposition is not opposed to high density. He said it is not opposed to a number of other things as well. Unfortunately over the four years I have been here I have discovered to my cost that the opposition is not opposed to development assessment committees. It was opposed to them for a while. Then it got scared and decided they were all right. The opposition is not opposed to urban sprawl. It is not opposed to the growth areas infrastructure charge. It is not opposed to raking in the same sorts of donations from developers that the government of the day does, but the opposition thinks the donations are a bit cleaner in its hands simply because it is not the government writing these planning schemes at the moment. However, the opposition is writing them because ever since the Greens have been here we have been bringing these matters up for debate, and the opposition was never opposed to Mr Madden’s intervention on the Yarra River down there at Richmond or down there on the bay — — Mr P. Davis — Yes, we were, actually; some of us were opposed to that. Mr BARBER — No, you may have been opposed, but you did not vote that way, Mr Davis. And you were not opposed to Mr Madden’s intervention down there in Williamstown, despite the fact that the entire community, Joan Kirner, Steve Bracks and the local council were all opposed to that intervention.

The Greens were opposed to it too. The coalition and the Labor Party were not. There is a certain point when you need to be opposed to a few things. It is a good start to say what you are against, what you are not for. If you can go on from that, you can start talking about what you are in favour of. I am in favour of all the things the government lists in its table here. That is what planning is for — it is to allow for changing things we want to change and protecting things we want to protect. Unfortunately Ms Mikakos’s policy-neutral document does not give those sorts of things the protection they need, and therefore I am against it. I am against the lack of protection in Ms Mikakos’s planning scheme, inherited from those guys. Mr Atkinson quite rightly pointed out that in established areas we need infrastructure. He was talking about drains and sewers, but there is a lot more to that when you are running an inner city or even middle suburban municipality. It is very important. That is why the Greens support enhanced developer contribution plans, not just out in the greenfield areas where you have the growth areas infrastructure contribution now but also in established areas where the question of infrastructure provision is a lot harder. The densification builds up very quickly. You cannot simply create new open space. You cannot always shoehorn in community infrastructure such as child-care centres; it is very expensive to do so. What you are really doing is site-by-site development. You are supposed to be giving the money to councils so they can provide something for all of the residents, both established and new, but the trigger is new. If you have ever tried to deal with one of these developer contribution plans, you know it is an absolute nightmare. The way it is structured under the planning scheme and under the Planning and Environment Act makes it not worth doing. It is hopeless. Some councils have looked at doing them. I know the City of Darebin did one and it has barely collected any money from it so far. It probably has not even paid back the cost of going through the exercise, which the government forced it to do.

Business interrupted pursuant to standing orders.

Quark writes about how the mainstream press is becoming increasingly hysterical in its promotion of growth lobby propaganda, particularly since the Australian Federal election in August 2010.

This article was originally placed as a comment to Tim Murray's article, "Four Stages in Finding a Mechanism for Rapid Population Decline,"

Quark writes about how the mainstream press is becoming increasingly hysterical in its promotion of growth lobby propaganda, particularly since the Australian Federal election in August 2010.

Since the Australian Federal election in August it seems any talk in the public realm of population sanity in Australia has been drowned out by articles in the mainstream press e.g The Australian, The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, embracing a large population, rubbishing a "sustainable population" and lecturing on how Australia's population will grow anyway no matter what the federal government does.

Just as there is a difference between a tree right next to my back door growing to 4 metres with a slender trunk and it growing to 50 metres with girth half the width of my house, the rate of population growth over which governments certainly do have control makes a difference to where we are in 2050. One would think 2050 by the way is the year that time will end given the number of references to it in demographic predictions and projections. In addition, federal government politicians have all received a "Red Book" delivered from Treasury containing sage advice . It seems the bureaucrats are telling the government that there must be no more nonsense about a sustainable population.
According to a "PM" interview on September 24th the Red Book says it's all about infrastructure and planning.

"MARK COLVIN: What about population growth which was such an issue during the election campaign and on which Julia Gillard appeared to back away from Kevin Rudd's idea of the big Australia?

LYNDAL CURTIS: Yes in fact both sides of politics did but Treasury says if the net overseas migration averages only 60,000 a year over the next 40 years, a figure it says has been exceeded in 25 of the last 30 years, the population will be 29 million by 2050.

It says given the powerful forces driving the economy, net immigration figures in excess of that are probably inescapable but it says strong population growth is not necessarily unsustainable providing the planning is right. And it says there are concerns about the level of planning that has been done and it says there's a chronic under-investment in infrastructure. "

The Sydney Morning Herald reported yesterday that the "Think Tank" Centre for Independent Studies has just come out with a report on Australia's population which "...... tested 36 scenarios using different combinations of migration levels, fertility rates and life expectancy. Population would grow under every scenario except in the unlikely event where migration was cut to zero, the birth rate plummeted and life expectancy stagnated." ("Bigger Australia as certain as death and taxes," Sydney Morning Herald, Oct 7th)

Since Australia's birth rate is now approximately twice the death rate this is not surprising although without immigration our population would stabilise towards mid-century.

What the Centre for Independent Studies gets out of this is that the government should not even think it has any control over future population levels but simply plan for a larger population in terms of infrastructure.

This conclusion of the C.I.S. appears from the article to be so simplistic that if Clive Hamilton's sanity and logic had not been reported, the thinking coming out of this might have been widely accepted by those who read the article. Mr. Hamilton points out and is reported in the article that it does in fact make a difference if Australia's population increases by 3 or 14 million.

Nationalism is a domestic reaction to foreign invasion (be it militarily or by mass immigration) and the consequential displacement of the local population - real or perceived.

Foreigners visiting are guests and are welcome. But foreigners arriving as permanent settlers threaten to compete with the territory and rights of the local ancestral population - again, real or perceived. So any immigration program warrants prior approval by the local population, and sensitive and respectful settling, adjustment, communication and time and space for assimilation to integrate.

Humans are territorial by nature. Foreigners visiting are guests and are welcome. But foreigners arriving as permanent settlers can threaten to be competition with the local population - again, real or perceived. So the immigration process demands local acceptance and careful and respectful settling, adjustment, communication and time and space for foreigner assimilation with the local ancestral population.

History has shown that over time, foreigners can become accepted by the local population if assimilation is carefully managed in small doses over time. The rate needs to be evolutionary not revolutionary.

Britain's foreign invasion of Australia never respected or tried to assimilate with the local Aboriginal peoples. It is a lesson of history still not learnt in Australia.

When many foreigners arrive as permanent settlers, ancestral locals feel their territory and rights naturally threatened, like all territorial animals.

When social pressures ensue (higher costs of living, higher rents, higher house prices, jobs filled by immigrants, increased unemployment, congestion of public infrastructure - roads, public transport, schools, hospitals, child care, migrant favouritism in the workplace) such domestic fears are confirmed. Resentment then builds.

Mass immigration is by definition non-military invasion. Nationalism is a domestic reaction to foreign invasion. Stop the mass immigration and nationalism pressures subside. Read history and learn from it. Nationalism is always just below the surface in any established identifiable community.

Australia's open-door policy on immigration is driven by the short-term published yet narrow economic benefits and lobbied by those who stand to personally gain financially. But Australia's open-door policy on immigration is ignorant of the social consequence and longer term capital burden of requisite infrastructure.

Australia's LibLab politics of mass immigration is set to fuel fervent nationalism for years to come. Sydney's Cronulla Riot of 2005 was one of unchecked localised domestic resentment to foreigners.

The riot was a spontaneous groundswell by local juveniles defending their traditional beach turf from a perceived invasion of gangs of arrogant Middle Eastern immigrants muscling in. It was classic tribal territorial reaction and a regrettable chapter in Australian history. Since that ugly time, the relationship between the two groups has cooled due to concerted efforts by all parties to work together. But the underlying cause of the riot was the Immigration Department's abandonment of assimilation.

The Cronulla Riot was a warning to all national governments who choose to narrow-mindedly ignore the domestic social implications of uncontrolled mass immigration and who abandon immigration assimilation principles. If perpetuated, mass immigration and the displacement it causes to traditional populations may in future be more co-ordinated and organised.

Our politicians do not study social history and they are the cause of the problem, not the immigrants themselves. Australia should learn from the Fijian experience of mass immigration by Indians, which ended up outnumbering the indigenous Indo-Fijians. indigenous Fijian Commodore Frank Bainimarama stated that:

" his main reasons for overthrowing the Qarase government were that it was corrupt, and that it was conducting racially discriminatory policies against the country's Indo-Fijian minority. In a speech publicly announcing the coup, he stated that Qarase's policies had "divided the nation now and will have very serious consequences to our future generations".
[Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Bainimarama#Explaining_the_coup]

It is critical for social cohesion in any country, Australia, Fiji, New Zealand or anywhere that immigration is carefully planned, implemented and monitored and that assimilation is effective through to full integration. For governments to abandon its core protective responsibility of the ancestral rights of its citizenry is unpalatable in its social consequences.

National public water rights and environmental advocacy group Fair Water Use is encouragedby the broad recommendations made in the guide to the draft Basin Plan released earlier today by the Murray Darling Basin Authority, but is concerned that Federal and State parliamentarians will use the forthcoming consultation period to justify softening of the Plan for short term electoral advantage, rather than to promote the long term interests of the river system and its communities.

The group’s national coordinator, Ian Douglas, commented this afternoon, "The progressive degradation of the Murray-Darling cannot be resolved without significant impact upon those who were previously encouraged by successive governments to overexploit the waters of the nation’s most vital rivers."

Fair Water Use believes that Australian governments must shoulder much of the blame for the crisis, as a result of a raft of inept policies, including the hyper-allocation of Murray-Darling water, the COAG decision of 1994 to develop a national "water industry" and the promotion of agribusiness-based managed investment schemes.

"Basin communities have themselves been exploited by Federal and State administrations and the pro-market lobby and have every right to feel aggrieved", Dr Douglas added.

A politically fudged and compromised Basin Plan will be no friend to those who seek to make responsible use of Murray-Darling water. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority must be allowed to develop its Basin Plan free from pressure from those who fail to grasp, or choose to ignore, the profound, long term, economic, social and environmental implications of a degraded Murray-Darling river system.

"Governments must now devise concerted regional development initiatives, to enable Basin communities to transition to a sustainable future," Dr Douglas concluded.

See also: Murray Darling Basin plan must not become a political football

The mass slaughter of rhinos have continued in South Africa and with the indiscriminate
slaughter of more than 250 rhinos since January 2010 it can only be described as a
genocide; with all due respect to the human race. The slaughter has been fuelled by man’s greed and the recent arrests of various prominent business men, professional hunters and game farm owners have rocked South African communities.

The manager of a well-known game farm called Maremani in the Mussina district and
owned by the AAGE. V. Jensen Charity Foundation Mr. Tommie Fourie (52) have systematically been de-horning rhinos on the property and selling the horns. He appeared in the court in Mussina on the 1st November on charges of the illegal rhino horn. It is alleged that he sold 36 rhino horns to a prominent game farmer in the Thabazimbi area Mr. Jacques Els (36).

Els handed himself over to the authorities and was released on bail of R30 000.00. He
was also charged for the illegal trade in rhino horns. He admitted that he also dehorned some of his own rhinos without the necessary permits. When he was asked about the alleged sale of rhino horn between him and Fourie, he denied this vehemently.
I only held onto someone’s horns for them. He reiterated that he was not involved in the illegal poaching of rhinos.

Earlier the owner of a safari operator, his wife and a professional hunter are alleged to
be some of the masterminds arrested and taken into custody for rhino poaching.

Mr. Dawie Groenewald (42) a director of Out of Africa Adventurous Safaris in Polokwane Limpopo South Africa and the alleged master mind behind the poaching syndicate, his wife Sariette (34) and Tielman Erasmus a professional hunter all spent a couple of day behind bars before they were released on bail.

They were arrested on the 20th September along with Drs. Carel Toet and Manie du
Plessis of the Nylstroom Animal Clinic and Toet’s wife Marisa.

Source: newsletter, October, 2010 San Wild

Midday: Anti Desal Plant Rally on steps of parliament, Melbourne. All supporters welcome. After that, go to the Upper House Gallery, Parliament House,and show your support to the Opposition's motion to Overturn Amendment VC71

Anti Desal Plant Rally, Wednesday 6 October, midday until 1.30

Watershed (formerly Your Water, Your Say) – those protesting the now infamous Desal Plant at Wonthaggi, ARE HOLDING A RALLY ON THE STEPS OF PARLIAMENT HOUSE, calling for the very expensive and deeply troubled project to be scrapped. You are enthusiastically invited to support them by being there – after all, its OUR money and OUR future too, not just theirs.

Parliament House – Opposition To Overturn Amendment VC71

Wednesday 6 October (time to be advised but likely afternoon)

Matthew Guy, Shadow Planning, will be moving a motion in the Upper House to get rid of the terrible Amendment VC71 that was approved by Planning Minister Justin Madden last week. VC71 is a terrible amendment and terrible planning which puts Melbourne 2030 across all of Victoria, forcing metro standards on country areas, and makes it obligatory to have high rise and high density across the metro area (these provisions could also be applied in country areas).

Please show your support for getting rid of this horrid amendment by being at Parliament House Upper House gallery if you can. If you haven’t been to parliament before, here’s your chance to see how our democracy works (or not).

Also, please encourage Greg Barber (Greens) greg.barber[at]parliament.vic.gov.au and Peter Kavanagh (DLP) peter.kavanagh[at]parliament.vic.gov.au to support Matthew Guy’s motion by sending a message to both.

Source: Christine Pruneau of Macedon Ranges' Residents Association (MRRA)

4th October 2010

Jan Beer, Plug The Pipe spokesperson and environmental activist in opposition to North-South Pipeline, is taking legal action against Government Agency Melbourne Water for alleged infringements of her right to privacy over a 2 year period.

Mrs Beer was photographed, video-taped and followed whilst the pipeline was being constructed. The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal heard this morning that over 100 documents exist detailing the monitoring of Ms Beer by Melbourne Water.

“At no time during this period was I informed who the people collecting my information were employed by, why they were collection my information, and what it would be used for" says Mrs Beer.

“I felt harassed, persecuted and along with other opponents of the pipeline have been branded a “quasi-terrorist” by a Minister of the Victorian Government. In fact I feel as though I have been treated like a dangerous terrorist that needed to be silenced” said Mrs Beer “ It is like living under a dictatorship, rather than a democracy, where people have the right to peacefully protest.”

A Memorandum of Understanding is in place for the North-South Pipeline, similar to that for the Desalination Plant, between Melbourne Water and the Victorian Police. It is possible that the information collected on Ms Beer has been transferred to other parties pursuant to the MoU.

“The sheer volume of information collected on my client is astounding” said Elizabeth McKinnon, solicitor at the Environment Defenders Office. “At issue in the proceedings is whether Melbourne Water attempted to comply with the Information Privacy Act in relation to the management of protest activity at the site”.

The next hearing in this matter will take place in February 2011.

Freeway proponents' argument for clearing push prior to provision of net gain offsets:
"Their main argument was that granting this injunction would cost them millions of dollars. They did not challenge that the Incorporated Document said the offsets should be in place prior to construction. They did not produce a list of offsets that are being considered." (Gillian Collins)

Ed. The below was written by Gillian Collins. The only editorial changes are the use of subtitles and emphasis by formatting changes. Note that VCAT stands for Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal - an institution where Victorian laws are meant to be administered in a relatively low key and inexpensive way by 'members' who are usually not professionally legally trained.

"At the VCAT Directions hearing yesterday, the Frankston North Community Group, Inc., Pines Protectors, was represented by Felicity Millner of the Environment Defenders Office, and Barristers Julie Davis and Stephen Grant. Julie Davis presented the argument. And I was there.

The LMA, Southern Way, and AbiGroup had a total of 19 lawyers, solicitors, and helpers, including one Queens Council for LMA. Frankston City Council and Mornington Council each had one lawyer there. Neither supported our application, which was very disappointing.

Four against 19 - David and Goliath indeed.

At the hearing in the Administrative Division, Planning and Environment section, we asked for an Interim injunction to prevent AbiGroup from clearing the two remaining sections of the Peninsula Link right-of-way that still contain rare and endangered plant communities - the Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve and the Eastlink interchange Herb rich Grassy Wetlands - until the entire application could be heard. That may take up to six months.

Conservationists' Argument

"Our argument was fairly simple - the Incorporated Document in the Frankston and Mornington Planning Schemes that give permission for the project state that net gain offsets will be provided prior to the beginning of construction and works."

Ms Davis presented the evidence based on the documents and Ms Millner and Mr. Grant supported her with additional points. It took about an hour and 15 minutes.

The rest of the 4 hour hearing was taken up with the QC and other lawyers presenting the defence, plus a 10 minute break. Their affidavit from Geoff Rayner of LMA was only presented shortly before the hearing, and it was huge, so neither the Judge nor our representatives had had time to read it.

"During their testimony, they actually presented a new version of the Environment Management Plan. Quite extraordinary."

Freeway proponents' argument

"Their main argument was that granting this injunction would cost them millions of dollars. They did not challenge that the Incorporated Document said the offsets should be in place prior to construction. They did not produce a list of offsets that are being considered. They did produce a letter from Mark Winfield from DSE dated after the Incorporated Document saying they had one year to produce them. They created lots of date discussion that seemed without any relevance to the application."

We finished about 7:00pm with the Judge saying that she will have her decision on the interim injunction by close of day on Monday. The date for the regular appeal about the offsets will probably be set then."

Source:
Gillian Collins
Pines Protectors
0414 309 960