(We) can do better

Originally published: 8 Dec 09. Updated twice since then.

Many Queenslanders, appalled at their state Government's blatant disregard for their wishes not to sell AU$15billion of worth of publicly owned assets, actually look to Rupert Murdoch's Courier-Mail newspaper to stand up to what has to be amongst the most inept and despotic of state governments in Australia's history. However, the dishonest spin encompassed in the title of the story "Asset Sale Anger on the wane"_#main-fn1">1, together with the sub-heading "Christmas boost for Bligh", reveals that newspaper's true colours on that issue.

To at least 79% of Queenslanders reported by the story as remaining opposed to the fire sale, surely the most pertinent fact was that the Queensland Government was so brazenly ignoring their will.

However, for Steven Wardill, the Courier-Mail's state political editor the apparent drop by 5% in public opposition to the sale, giving a total of all of 17% of Queenslanders in favour of privatisation as opposed to 79% against was of far greater significance.

December 2008: Courier-Mail openly calls for elected dictatorship

The Courier-Mail newspaper has been playing a double game over the fire sale at least since 4 December 2008 when state political reporter Craig Johnstone wrote an opinion piece_#main-fn2">2 calling for Premier Anna Bligh to break an earlier promise and to call an early election_#main-fn3">3. The arguments in Johnstone's article were echoed in an edtorial_#main-fn4">4 on 28 December 2008.

These articles complained of Premier Anna Bligh, backing away from unpopular, but, in the Courier-Mail's view, necessary decisions. The backdowns complained of were the abandonment of plans to impose recycled water on South East Queensland, a seeming backdown on plans to build the Traveston Dam in the Mary River Valley_#main-fn5">5, banning the shale oil mining in the Whitsundays and the scrapping of plans to entomb half the Brisbane River adjoining the CBD at the North Bank beneath high-rise concrete residential blocks.

The Courier-Mail perceived that this to be the result of the Government paying too much heed to the wishes of fickle public opinion. The cure it prescribed was an early election so that Queensland could once again have, with elections behind it, the "firm leadership to steer it through uncertain economic times".

March 2009: Courier-Mail gets its wish

On 23 February 2009 the Courier-Mail got its wish when Bligh announced an early election to be held less than four weeks away on Saturday 21 March. Together with the ABC and the rest of the corporate newsmedia, the Courier-Mail ensured that during the ensuing weeks that Bligh's government escaped any real scrutiny for its monumental mismanagement of the Queensland since 1998, particularly it's sell-off of public assets, and that electors remained ignorant of Independent candidates such as myself or the Greens, who were prepared to offer any real alternative to the Bligh Government.

May 2009: Bligh shows "firm leadership to steer [Qld] through uncertain economic times" ...

Anna Bligh was re-elected and barely 2 months later on Saturday 23 May, citing the cost of the floods as the apparent straw that broke the camel's back, announced a fire sale in order to make ends meet. As reported in the Courier-Mail:

The repair bill from the fifth natural disaster in a year is likely to wipe hundreds of millions of dollars from the June 16 State Budget.

It has forced the Government into unprecedented action, with Ms Bligh declaring yesterday that "nothing is sacred" as she looks to recover over $14 billion in lost revenue._#main-fn6">6

In the following weeks and months that excuse was dropped_#main-fn7">7 and the Global Financial Crisis became the principle justification for the fire sale.

... but Queensland public doesn't buy Bligh's and Fraser's arguments

The public didn't buy any of these excuses. Letters to the editor, talkback shows and online forums were overwhelmed by expressions of anger by people who felt that they had been deliberately deceived by the Queensland Government. The Galaxy Opinion polls in June and Sept both showed 84% opposition to the sale and only 13% and 12% respectively in favour. One Courier-Mail online poll showed 91% opposition. One poll showed that 66% of Queenslanders believed that Anna Bligh had deliberately lied to them about her privatisation intentions.

Courier-Mail hypocritically postures against "the way" Qld Government went about privatisation

During that time, the Courier-Mail has succeeded in giving many Queenslanders an impression that it was opposed to privatisation. It certainly made some telling points about the conduct of Bligh and Fraser in that time. One occasion an editorial_#main-fn8">8 rightly took Treasurer Andrew Fraser to task for his claim that his ambiguous vague answer to a question put to him by ABC presenter and Courier-Mail journalist Madonna King on privatisation amounted to him being frank with the Queensland public.

However, the Courier-Mail never opposed privatisation per se. A careful reading of the Courier-Mail articles on privatisation would reveal only its objection to "the way" the Queensland Government had gone about it.

Why Courier-Mail could have stopped privatisation if it had wanted to

Clearly, with such overwhelming opposition to privatisation, the Courier-Mail could have easily forced the Queensland Government to abandon privatisation if it had the will to do so.

One example is its own campaign in which it enlisted its readership to force Swire Shipping to eventually pay $25 million, rather than its initial offer of $14.5 million out of the total cost of $34 million towards the costs of cleaning up the mess created by the spillage of dangerous chemicals during Cyclone Hamish in May 2008_#main-fn9">9. Another was its campaign in 2008 to force the Rudd Labor Government to honour its commitment to fully fund the Ipswich Bypass_{#main-fn1">10}.

But, of course, the Courier-Mail clearly had no wish to stand in the way of privatisation. It was stridently in favour of the deeply unpopular full privatisation of Telstra by the Federal Howard Government and largely turned a blind eye towards the more recent privatisations carried out by the Beattie and Bligh Governments_{#main-fn10">10} since 1998.

Given the Courier-Mail's own role in bringing about the needlessly early state elections of 2009, as described above, its objection to "the way" it went about it would seem to have been disingenuous.

How the Murdoch press hedges its bets with discredited political leaders

Reading between the lines of various articles_{#main-fn11">11}, it is clear that, in time, the Courier-Mail's intention, if the economy 'improves', to eventually 'forgive' Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser for the harsh, but necessary means employed by them to bring about 'reforms' they deemed to be in everyone's best interest.

In the months and weeks of the 2004 Federal elections the Murdoch press was full of stories about Howard Government scandals. As a result of public servant Michael Scrafton's revelations about the "Children Overboard" scandal, Prime Minister John Howard was pronounced a liar in an editorial of Australian newspaper, also owned by Rupert Murdoch. This was even republished on the johnhowardlies.com web site. However, in the final days of the elections, the Howard Government scandals were deemed by the Murdoch press to be unimportant in contrast to his supposedly monumental economic achievements and the public seemed to largely swallow that.

So, whatever damning pronouncements the Courier-Mail may make against the Bligh Government, the example of the Murdoch Government's treatment of the Howard Government, and its subsequent about face, illustrates that there may be plenty of scope for the Courier-Mail to rehabilitate the reputation of the Bligh Government in future should it judge it still to be useful to it.

Pro-privatisation weasel arguments beneath the veneer of apparent moral indignation

Although the Courier-Mail has rarely, if at all, put the argument in favour of privatisation outright, it has pushed subtle and not-so-subtle pro-privatisation propaganda. The most common is to simply uncritically report the repetitive rationales put by Fraser and Bligh in favour of privatisation. Another is apparent efforts to deflect anger against Premier Bligh by promoting, for example, Bligh's participation in the program Celebrity Chef. Another is to simply treat privatisation as inevitable and convince the public that they are powerless to stop it.

The editorial "Under the influence: Anna Bligh dances to union tune" of 20 Aug 09, as the title implies, tried to argue that the privatisation saga as well as the forced local government amalgamations of 2008 was an example of the state Government dancing to the tune of the union movement tune in spite of the fact that the union movement sought neither. Both were imposed undemocratically upon Queensland by the state Government.

How could the Courier-Mail editorial writer have so inverted reality?

In regard to the Council amalgamations, all the problems are apparently the result of unions having obtained guarantees of protection of jobs and working conditions for 3 years prior to the forced amalgamations.

The editorial made much of Bligh's agreement not to privatise the non-coal freight arm of Queensland Rail, including rural livestock and grain transport services upon which much of rural Queensland is dependent. The editorial continued:

Even the surviving items on the Government's privatisation shopping list will have conditions attached, courtesy of union influence._{#main-fn12">12}

By 'surviving items', the editorial writer meant everything else: the Abbot Point coal loader, the coal fright lines, the ports and the forests, not to mention, all else that had been privatised since Labor won office in 1998 without any popular mandate._{#main-fn13">13}

The editorial went on to complain:

In a similar deal to the one giving amalgamated councils so much grief, the 450 workers employed by Forestry Queensland Plantations have been guaranteed their jobs for three years after the sale of the government-owned company.

Earlier in the editorial, agreements to protect workers' jobs and entitlements in the process of the anti-democratic forced council amalgamations of 2008 that the Courier-Mail had supported to the hilt were held to be solely responsible for the problems caused by those amalgamations. For workers in the industries to be privatised to insist upon similar guarantees was presented as beyond the pale. The editorial continued:

The Australian Workers Union also wants the Government to help find a job for any worker sacked in the two years after the three-year no-job-loss deal expires.

How selfish is that! Instead of agreeing to be thrown onto the scrap heap, forestry workers have asked that they be given help seeking new employment. The editorial continued:

With conditions such as these attached to any contract of sale, the Government has doubtless pleased its union mates, but in the process it has devalued the private sector's attraction to these assets, thereby potentially lumping the taxpayer with a less-then-optimal price for their asset.

This ignores the opposition of 84% of the Queenslanders to the sale and that, therefore no price likely to be offered by a private investor would have been considered 'optimal'. The editorial continued:

In return, the unions say they will continue agitating against privatisation of public assets, an outcome that, to use the Premier's parlance, looks for all the world like a "loss, loss" for the Government.

As neither the workers nor the public were asked about the sale, then why shouldn't they?

How Trade Union inaction helps union enemies

The editorial appears to be an attempt to fan the flames of resentment of ordinary Queenslanders against the workers in the industries to be privatised. The editorial purports to be standing up for ordinary Queensland taxpayers against the supposedly unreasonable demands of the workforce, but takes no account of the fact that Queensland taxpayers overwhelming oppose the sale. If those wishes had been respected none of this would even be an issue.

To date, the union 'agitating' against the sale to which the Courier-Mail takes such apparent exception has been notably ineffectual and promises to be little better in future._{#main-fn18">18} Not one union, least of all the right wing Australian Workers' Union,_{#main-fn19">19} covering the plantation workers, has attempted to oppose privatisation with a coordinated campaign of industrial action. At best, only a few short-lived actions have been taken at the initiative of rank and file members. This is in spite of the demonstrated willingness of many members to support such a campaign as well as the support expressed by many members of the public, many not even normally sympathetic to the union movement, for such a campaign.

Yes, even the Queensland Trade Union movement has failed to stand up for the best interests of its own members, let alone those of the broader Queensland public. It has thereby thrown away the best opportunity it has had in years to win broad public sympathy for trade unionism. Moreover, as the Courier-Mail editorial demonstrates it has needlessly handed to the hostile newsmedia a propaganda advantage.

Censorship of news of protests against privatisation

One fact that stands in stark contrast with the Courier-Mail's ostensible moral indignation at "the way" privatisation is being brought about is the Courier-Mail's almost complete failure to report any of the protests against privatisation. The last protest that I remember which received any coverage in the Courier-Mail was the protest outside the Queen's Birthday weekend State Labor Conference on Sunday 7 June, which it could hardly have pretended not to have known about. Protests since that date, unreported in the Courier-Mail, include:

• The union sponsored protest and March through the Brisbane CBD of Friday 3 July that attracted approximately 2,000 supporters;
• A protest of 350 unionists against privatisation in Ipswich on 31 July;
• A protest of 100 people in West End outside Premier Anna Bligh's electorate office on 15 August.
• A protest of 200 people in Ipswich outside the state Government Community Cabinet meeting of Monday 30 November._{#main-fn14">14}

Another reporting omission was of Opposition leader John-Paul Langbroek's call for a referendum on privatisation on 10 Nov 09. This was reported once on the ABC news at 2.00PM and then dropped and not reported at all by the Courier-Mail.

Even if the participation in some of the protest events could have been construed as small -- and who could blame opponents of privatisation for not giving up more of their free to time to attend such rallies, given the lack of any coherent strategy by the unions to defeat privatisation? -- they are significant events involving groups of people expressing views shared by the overwhelming majority of Queenslanders and clearly of interest to the latter. Failure to report any of these events is a failure of the Courier-Mail to serve the Queensland public.

Courier-Mail's hollow pretence at being champion of the Queensland people

The Courier-Mail's failure to report grass roots protests undoubtedly helps it give its readers the impression that it will attempt to convey at every possible opportunity, that it, alone, is the cause of all things good that have occurred in Queensland in the last 20 years. The Courier-Mail makes a great deal of its campaigns for better Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, against some of the more blatantly corrupt practices of the Queensland Government, its pet stances on civil liberties such as its position against the uncontrolled use of tasers by the Queensland police, and brutality against aboriginals, etc.

However, if the Courier-Mail were objective it would acknowledge that, regardless of who can claim credit for these achievements, they are insignificant in comparison to the overall decline in the standards of governance, the quality of life the environmental health and financial security that has afflicted Queensland in the last 20 years.

Why Courier-Mail is culpable for what is rotten in the state of Queensland

At both the 2009 and 2006 state elections a majority of Queenslanders expressed dissatisfaction with both the major political parties. During the 2009 elections 2 successive Galaxy polls showed that 59% of Queenslanders supported neither of the major political parties. If the Courier-Mail was sincere in its stated desire to move Queensland well and truly beyond the corruption of the pre-Fitzgerald era, then it would have used the opportunity in both these elections to promote alternatives to the two major parties, which had brought Queensland to where it is today.

But it did not. Instead, most Queenslanders voted, not for what they truly wanted, but for the less unpalatable of the only two viable choices that they saw on offer in 2009, that is the Bligh Labor Government.

And since the elections, for all of its sanctimonious bluster against some of the excesses of the Bligh Labor Government, the Courier-Mail has appeared, at best, an ineffectual voice against this elected tyranny and, at worst, one of its puppeteers.

#update">Update: Murdoch's Australian openly endorses Bligh Government's disregard of the will of 79% of Queenslanders

Whilst Brisbane's Courier-Mail continues to tread somewhat warily through the minefield of Queensland public opinon in order to peddle its pro-privatisation propaganda, the national daily newspaper The Australian in its editorial "Anna Bligh's on the right track"_{#main-fn15">15} of 10 December is far less circumspect:

"Reform has always been tough in a state where the conservatives have long been happy to engage in agrarian socialism, and Labor has long been hostage to entrenched union power. In embarking on privatisation, Ms Bligh risks becoming Queensland's Jeff Kennett, the Liberal premier who, after a seven-year tsunami of privatisation, was unceremoniously dumped by Victorians in 1999."

This editorial echoes all the same contempt for the ordinary public that was evident of the Australian's coverage of the controversy over the Iemma Government's attempt to privatise New South Wales' electricity generators in 2008._{#main-fn16">16}

The Australian editorial writer treats the public, which it acknowledges 79% of whom are opposed to privatisation as being too stupid to understand what's in its own best interests. So it is up to supposedly more visionary politcal leaders like Bligh, Fraser, Kennett, Iemma and Costa to act heroically and selflessly bring about the 'reforms' they know to be necessary. in the face of and then incur the odium of the public for having done so. Like Kennett before her, Bligh risks facing a similar fate in two and a half years time from similarly ungrateful electors.

The first lie in these words is, of course, the familiar, but, nevertheless, Orwellian use of word 'reform' right at its start.

Privatisation is nothing of the sort. It is no more than the organised looting of publicly owned property by corporations, facilitated nearly always undemocratically by political leaders serving them rather than the broader public.

The Australian well knows that whether or not politicians like Bligh succeed in holding onto power, they can normally expect to be well looked after by their corporate benefactors for what they do, whilst the public, whose wishes they blatantly disregard today, will pay the cost for years to come. So, perhaps its depiction of Bligh as a martyr is a little wide of the mark.

Kennett was deservedly dumped in 1999, but the damage he inflicted has not been reversed by the succeeding 'Labor' government, even in the case of the privatised trams and railway, where the 'Labor' Government subsidises these services with hundreds of millions of dollars of public money instead of re-nationalising them.

The same newspaper that insists that Australia's past invasion of Iraq and continuing intervention in Afghanistan are necessary to defend democracy both there and here.

One can only hope that the democracy now practised in Iraq and Afghanistan is somewhat different to the kind of 'democracy' that the Australian would see prevail in this country.

#update2">Further Update: Courier-Mail also openly endorses Bligh Government's disregard of the will of 79% of Queenslanders

With the editorial "Premier must hold the line on asset sale"_{#main-fn17">17} of 11 Dec 09, the Courier-Mail has changed tack from its abovementioned weasel-argument peddling of privatisation to explicit overt support.

The third paragraph begins:

The Courier-Mail has supported the Premier in her privatisation program ...

In fact, this would be news to many readers who had not read each article on privatisation carefully and, at that, between the lines of each of those articles. The Courier-Mail had indeed supported privatisation, but up until now not so overtly.

Its pro-privatisation propagandahad largely avoided explicitly putting the case for privatisation. Instead, it peddled its propaganda in a more roundabout way as described above. And for much of the time this propaganda was shrouded in hypocritical denunciations of "the way" that the Government went about privatisations.

It should also be remembered that like Bligh and Fraser, the Courier-Mail avoided coming out so openly in favour of privatisation during the election even though it could hardly have been unaware that privatisation was at stake.

That it failed to do so then and only now, that the elections are so far behind, does it openly reveal its hand to the Queensland public, confirms that it has been playing a double game with them,

Of course, given that railway workers struck against privatisation and given that the public, in spite of the prevalence of anti-union propaganda appears to overwhelmingly support that action, the Courier-Mail is clearly playing with fire.

Perhaps the Courier Mail editors are gambling that as the workers are likely to be dissuaded before Christmas from taking further action, now is the time to go all out to push its pro-privatisation message,

It seems unlikely that such propaganda will succeed in convincing the public of the case for privatisation. Nevertheless, they are, no doubt, gambling that a less subtle propaganda campaign in the coming weeks may succeed in wearing down the resistance on the part of both the unions and the broader public to privatisation.

Footnotes

#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. #main-fn1-txt">↑ The headline was "Queensland anger over Anna Bligh's asset sales on the wane" in the online version.

#main-fn2" id="main-fn2">2. #main-fn2-txt">↑ "Early election" by Craig Johnstone in the Courier-Mail of 4 Dec 08.

#main-fn3" id="main-fn3">3. #main-fn3-txt">↑ See also "Courier-Mail misreports water recycling to demand early election" of 25 Jan 09.

#main-fn4" id="main-fn4">4. #main-fn4-txt">↑ Courier-Mail editorial "Time to put an end to early poll speculation" of 28 Dec 08.

#main-fn5" id="main-fn5">5. #main-fn5-txt">↑ This perceied backdown was short-lived. The Bligh Government went all-out to build the dam, but was finally over-ruled by Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett in one of his very few decisions in favour of, rather than against the environment. See "Decision to block the Traveston Dam no more than what should have been expected of a Minister for the Environment" of   09

#main-fn6" id="main-fn6">6. #main-fn6-txt">↑ "Floods, storms spark State Government fire sale" by Darrell Giles and Daryl Passmore in the Courier-Mail of 23 May 08.

#main-fn7" id="main-fn7">7. #main-fn7-txt">↑ Perhaps the change in the story was because it may have been too reminiscent of the disaster capitalists' excuses for plundering New Orleans, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Maldives etc in the wake of other natural disasters as chronicled in "The Shock Doctrine" (2007) by Naomi Klein.

#main-fn8" id="main-fn8">8. #main-fn8-txt">↑ My guess is that this editorial was written in August 09. I have the hard printed copy of it somewhere but no URL.

#main-fn9" id="main-fn9">9. #main-fn9-txt">↑ "Swire shipping boss wipes hands of oil spill bill" in the Courier-Mail of 9 Jul 09, "Swire Shipping cuts oil clean-up offer for Queensland spill" in the Courier-Mail of 16 Jul 09, "Pay up, Swire shipping! Online petition" in the Courier-Mail of 9 Jul 09, "Queensland oil spill sparks calls for tougher polluter penalties" in the Courier-Mail of 3 Dec 09.

#main-fn10" id="main-fn10">10. #main-fn10-txt">↑ "Labor denies it ever pledged to fix Ipswich Motorway" by Steven Wardill in the Courier-Mail of 13 Jun 08.

#main-fn11" id="main-fn11">11. #main-fn11-txt">↑ I am unable to provide citations for the articles I am referring to. However, I recall more than one article argued that Bligh's hasty actions to curtail the activities of lobbyists and reduce political donations in the wake of Tony Fitzgerald's damning speech about of the record of the Queensland Labor Government should go some way towards absolving her of her poor record thus far. Another argued that the public are likely to come around to the Government's view on privatisation once the claimed economic benefits had been realised. A good example of how the Courier-Mail attempts to rehabilitate the deservedly tattered reputations of the likes of Anna Bligh can be found in my article "Courier Mail praises Bligh Government's 'solving' of population-growth-driven water crisis of its own making" of 3 Feb 09

#main-fn12" id="main-fn12">12. #main-fn12-txt">↑ "Under the influence: Anna Bligh dances to union tune" of 20 Aug 09.

#main-fn13" id="main-fn13">13. #main-fn13-txt">↑ See "Open letter to Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser asking that any planned privatisations be put to the public at forthcoming elections" of 17 Feb 09 for list of assets privatised prior to 2009 state elections.

#main-fn14" id="main-fn14">14. #main-fn14-txt">↑ The Queensland Times newspaper story "Ministers dodge QR protest" of 1 Dec 09 reported that "more than 100 QR workers protested", whilst the Ipswich News newspaper story "Call to come clean on rail privatisation" of 8 Dec 09 reported that 200 attended.

#main-fn15" id="main-fn15">15. #main-fn15-txt">↑ "Anna Bligh's on the right track", editorial in The Australian of 10 Dec 09.

#main-fn16" id="main-fn16">16. #main-fn16-txt">↑ See "Media contempt for facts in NSW electricity privatisation debate" of 28 Sep 08.

#main-fn17" id="main-fn17">17. #main-fn17-txt">↑ "Premier must hold the line on asset sale" in the Courier Mail editorial of 11 Dec 09.

#main-fn18" id="main-fn18">18. #main-fn18-txt">↑ On Wednesday 9 December 1300 workshop workers struck against privatisation. On the whole, notwithstanding some hostility and ambivalence towards unions that can be read in online discussions (see 119 comments as of 11 Dec 09 posted to Courier-Mail story "Rail workers walk off job" of 9 Dec 09), it appears that the industrial action has very strong public support. An online poll in Brisbane Times shows 68% support for the strike as of 11 Dec 09.

See also "Queensland Rail workers strike against theft of public assets" of 9 Dec 09.

#main-fn19" id="main-fn19">19. #main-fn18-txt">↑ The following comment posted to the article "Rail workers walk off job" of 9 Dec 09 is most revealing about the Australiand Workers Union (AWU):

QR workers, you are lucky with the union you have got, our union the AWU called a meeting straight after the sale of FPQ (Forestry Products Queensland) was announced . All they wanted was to do the three year deal and a membership drive, not opposing it ,this is what we pay $500 dollars a year for, but not for long. So stick it to Captain Bligh and her band of cut throats. Their day will come in 2011

They say a week is a long time in politics but in Victoria a day is a long time.

They say a week is a long time in politics but in Victoria a day is a long time. Community members tracking the progress of the Planning and Environment Amendment (Growth Areas Infrastructure Contribution GAIC) Bill have been stunned at the mercurial changes in policy exhibited by Planning Minister Justin Madden in relation to this Bill. A month ago Minister Madden was saying that he expected the planned expansion of the urban growth boundary by 43,600 hectares to be the last expansion in his lifetime. Yet a week ago he was conceding that there may have to be changes to Melbourne's urban growth boundary. He made the excuse that his not-in-my-lifetime comments were about major changes to the outer urban growth boundary not just little amendments.

Julianne Bell Secretary of the Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. commented:

“We have been taking a great interest in the progress of this Bill. If passed it will change the face of Melbourne forever and irrevocably affect the lives of many outer suburban/rural land owners. PPL VIC considers the GAIC tax is grossly unfair, unequal and discriminatory impacting on small landowners and property owners on the rural fringes of Melbourne. We are implacably opposed to the extension of the Urban Growth Boundary and alienation of Green Wedges which will automatically be implemented if the Bill is passed.

Internal contradictions, political twists and turns

We found it most extraordinary that on Tuesday last Jenny Mikakos, MLC Member for Northern Metropolitan representing the Government, said “…the government does not support any move to delay consideration of this bill… It is important that Parliament deals with this bill before Christmas so that the government can give certainty to land-holders and industry. We believe there is no logical reason to delay consideration of this bill any further, and we will be opposing the procedural motion on that basis.” Yet late yesterday Wednesday Minister Madden approached the Opposition with a series of amendments and changes to the GAIC Bill. This was the fifth proposed change to Bill and gave the Opposition, let alone the community just 16 hours to scrutinise the amendments. This is an absolute joke and indicates to us that that planning in this State is conducted on the run.”

GAIC Bill deferred to 2 February 2010

The Bill has been “deferred” which means that it will not be considered until the next sitting of Parliament starting on 2 February 2010. As it will have been deferred for than two months it will be referred to the Disputes Committee. So its fate is uncertain. Meantime the Government blames the Opposition and Greens for holding up the Bill and for not giving the landowners “certainty.” The question is what sort of certainty Minister?

Rally at Parliament 2 February 2010

Make a date for 2 February 2010 - see you at the biggest rally ever on the steps of Parliament to continue our protest over the GAIC Bill! Best wishes for the festive season and a tax-free, green and carbon reduced 2010!

Source:
Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.(PPL VIC)
MEDIA RELEASE
Thursday 10 December 2009

The media froth and bubble over recent asylum seekers arriving by boat near Ashmore Reef mid ocean between Timor and the west Kimberley coast pales in comparison with the daily arrivals at Kingsford Smith Airport in the middle of Sydney.

The Australian newspaper on 2nd November 2009, tallied the total number of Christmas Island detainees at 1165.
Given the genocidal situation caused to the Tamils in Sri Lanka, that number is miniscule to what it could be.

Australia stood back while the Tamils were being slaughtered, when it could have as a joint member of the Commonwealth, like Sri Lanka , got involved in the humanitarian crisis there years ago. What is the point of having a Commonwealth of Nations when at time sof crisis with one of its members, the others turn a bilind eye. Regional Indian Ocean members Australia, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Mauritius, Pakistan, Seychelles and Singapore - what did they do to help Sri Lanka resolve the Tamil conflict by diplomacy? Nothing? Sat back and turned a blind eye to Rajapaksa's Sinhalese government inflicting genocide on ethnic Tamils?

Now, Australia claims it has an asylum seeker problem, mainly from Sri Lanka, but also from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Pull the other one! According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR] in March 2009, estimates of the number of asylum seekers in industrialised countries increased by 12 per cent in 2008 to 383,000. In 2007 the figure was 341,000. Of those, just 4,750 people sought asylum in Australia in 2008, compared to 3,980 people in 2007. Now we have just 1165 on Christmas Island, or 0.3% of the global asylum problem.

I agree with the Australian Human Rights Commission that Australia has obligations to protect the human rights of all asylum seekers and refugees who arrive in Australia, regardless of how or where they arrive, and whether they arrive with or without a visa." Refugees in this small number don't even show on the radar of Australia's immigration problem. If the number was up about 5000 a year the issue would deserve closer scrutiny and policy review.

It is about time the Australian media frenzy over asylum seekers was exposed for what it is - racist incitement!

Whereas in fact, the Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS] has confirmed net migration into Australia for 2008-09 was 283,300. That is 776 new immigrants per day and most arrive into Sydney by plane. This is where the media should have their cameras - at Kingsford Smith Airport's International Arrivals gate on the ground floor. Again the issue has nothing to do with race, ethnicity or difference, but simply the sheer numbers arriving by the plane load daily.

This time last year, in December 2008, "the estimated population for Australia was 21.64 million - this represented an annual increase of 406 100 people (comprising the excess of births over deaths plus net overseas migration) and a population growth rate of 1.91 percent. This population growth rate was the highest since 1988."

Australia's Migration Programme

Why so high? Well, successive Liberal and Labor governments have persisted with a 'Migration Programme'. The planning level under the Migration Programme for 2009–10 is 168 700. It was originally going to be 190,300, but was adjusted down due to the Global Financial Crisis. 64% of that programme focuses on what the government calls 'The Skill Stream'

This Australian Government Skills Stream is killing off Australian jobs. It needs to be scrapped immediately. A skills audit needs to be conducted across Australian industry and the results channelled into the education and training sector to deliver appropriately skilled Australians into these skill shortfall areas. If there is a time lag, let's learn from why education has failed to deliver and fix the disconnnect.

Compare the 'Skill Stream' of 2007-08 to what it was in 1997-98:
'PERMANENT VISA OUTCOMES: 1997-98 to 2007-08'

Migration Stream	1997-98	2007-08
Permanent Migration	98 538	206 135
Migration Program	67 090	158 630
Skill stream	34 670	108 540
Family stream	31 310	49 870
Special eligibility stream	1 110	220
Humanitarian Program	12 055	13 014
NZ settlers	19 393	34 491

So instead of the government investing in education and training to skill up Australians to meet skills needs, it invites immigrants to fill the skills shortages. It's a form of scab labour. What happened to Rudd & Gillard's 'Education Revolution'?

The Flood of Overseas Students

The Skilled– Overseas Student visa (permanent residence) is effectively an invitation to overseas students to come to Australia replacing local students in education and then displace local Australians in the workplace.
Since, the 1990s, Australian governments have deliberately reduced university funding. This has forced universities to seek alternative funding sources, most notably from overseas students required to pay full-tuition. Consequently, there has been a flood of overseas students driven both by education demand and massive international promotion by all Australian universities to the target countries. Not surprisingly, Australia has seen a considerable growth in the number of overseas students.

Way back in 1996, Ian Dobson from Monash University in his paper 'Overseas Students in Australian Higher Education: Trends to 1996' reported a 153% increase in overseas students in Australian higher education from 21,010 in 1989 to 53,188 in 1996. The Australian newspaper on 26th February 2009 reported the number in 2008 was a staggering 543,898. So on the 1989 base year, this represents a 2589% increase!

In the article 'Overseas student enrolments in Australia at record high' Federal Education Minister, Julia Gillard was happy with what's seen as 'international education' contributing $14.2 billion to Australia's economy in 2007-08, making it Australia's third-largest export behind coal and iron ore and "the rise in student enrolments from Asia - up 21.5 per cent - was recognition of Australia's ongoing relationship with its Asian neighbours and the strong awareness of Australia as a quality education destination."

Australia's Unemployment

Then we read today, the ABS announced Australia's Unemployment rate (seasonally adjusted) for November 2009 was 5.7%. This translates to 659,400 Australians that are unemployed.

People Dumping

Immigration is importing people and when it is on such a massive scale it is 'people dumping' just like import dumping of imported products on local markets. Australia needs to recognise, that it has local values to protect. Anti-dumping duties on low cost imports are imposed to fair up the pricing to protect local industries. In respect to Australian people and local jobs, displacing locals for overseas skilled labour is 'people dumping'.

I am convinced that Kevin Rudd is anti-Australian.

More than 1,300 Queensland Rail workship employees walked off the job in Ipswich, Rockhampton and Townsville in protest against plans to include the workshops in the Queensland Government's $15 billion public assets fire sale. The workshop employees had been led to believe that they at least would be spared from privatisation. However, on 8 December, Queensland Government announced that workshops were to be included after all. Instead of selling Queensland Rail to a private bidder the Queensland Govenment intends to offer shares to the Queensland public in a manner similar to the way in which Telstra was floated. Workers, who would only be guaranteed employment for a further two years after change of ownership were to given $1,000 sharess and offered $4,000 more at a discount.

But the broader Queenland public, many of whom had been burnt in buying Telstra shares aren't interested. An comment in response to a Courier-Mail online article "Rail workers walk off job" was typical of the public's response on both talkback radio and online forums:

Why should the people of Queensland by shares in QR or any other government owned assets. They own it already!!!!!!

Nor were workers interested in the miserable pittance of bribe that they were expected to accept in return for the destruction of their own and their children's job security. ABC online news reported Owen Doogan Secretary of Railway, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) stated that there was "Absolute anger at the idea that $1,000 worth of shares is going to be okay for them to sacrifice the job security of what they have at the present time - absolute joke."

Another ABC online story "Rail workers strike over Government asset sales" reported RTBU Vice-President Ian Moffit had promised more industrial action leading into the new year. He said:

"The union movement have now declared war on the Queensland Government,"

"We are not going to sit back idly and allow all this to go ahead.

It is certainly not a moment too soon. The Queensland Government has been at war with trade unionists together with the rest of the Queensland public for years. The $15billion fire sale is but the latest salvo in that war.

Finally they are getting back a small taste of their own medicine.

Update, 11 Dec 09: A Brisbane Times poll question "Do you support rail workers decision to strike against the Queensland Government asset sell-off?" had 67% of respondents voting 'yes'. Whilst it is possible for the poll to be biased in either direction, this result is encouraging. It would seem consistent with the current 79% of opposition to the sale, but allowing for the fact that many Queenslanders have still swallowed the virulent anti-union propaganda, exemplified by the Courier-Mail editorial "Under the influence: Anna Bligh dances to union tune" of 20 Aug 09. Also, Trade Union equivocation over the sale and their past failure to take decisive action would have compounded the problem. This is discussed in the article "Courier Mail spins news of 79% opposition to fire sale to reveal its privatisation colours" of 8 Dec 09. If this industrial action were to grow into a strong and decisive industrial campaign against privatisation and the union movement were to carefully explain the necessity of industrial action to the public, there is no reason why support for the Trade Union could not at least match the current 79 public opposition to the sale.

On New Zealand's North Island at the Bay of Plenty, another backyard possum fur trader, BASICALLY BUSH, runs a thriving business slaughtering Brushtail Possum for profit. It's just like the good ol' days of the 19th Century.

It seems the preferred kill method is by shooting..."Be careful not to get rubbish into the bag, and that you don't end up dropping bullets or spent shells in." But then they sell traps to possum poachers as well, so take your pick.

Check out the possum trap called 'Bushmaster No 1':

A good sound trap, leg hold. Freight Costs incl GST: 1 - 12 traps: $6.50 12 - 24 traps: $17.00 24 - 48 traps: $25.00 48 - 96 traps: $65.00 Please add the cost of freight to your payment.

Basically Bush's motto is "SKIN THE BEST and PLUCK THE REST"
It claims "this exciting raw material that has revolutionised the knitwear industry in New Zealand. Possum fibre is referred to as 'possum merino' and is promoted as 'lighter than cashmere'

And profits are healthy. Back in 2007, "there has been a marked increase in fibre availability since we raised the price to $105/kg. "This increase was necessary to make sure that there was enough raw material to meet the needs of domestic production. "

These pest controllers have now gone international, making trips to India to promote fur sales, with brands like 'Snowy Peak' and 'Woolyarns'.

Click here to meet the poaching team.

Ban Developer Donations Now!

Send to: drostmary[AT]gmail.com

NSW former Premier Nathan Rees told the ALP State Conference in Sydney last month that 'a clean slate' ban on all donations from developers would apply to all levels of the party in NSW.

[Hmm, is that why he was replaced?]

The challenge for Victoria, other States, and the Commonwealth to follow NSW's example and reform their own political funding models without further delay is now clear.

Political campaign reform here in Victoria is long overdue. The public has had enough of the stench brought about by large political donations that appear to be closely linked to contentious property developments and favourable planning decisions.

Political donation disclosure is a joke. The next Victorian State election is expected to be held on 27th November 2010, but loopholes in election campaign disclosure law mean that political donations made between now and June 2010 will not even be disclosed to the public by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) until 2011, and donations made between June 2010 and Election Day will not be disclosed to the public until a year later in 2012 !

This lack of transparency is undemocratic, and must not be allowed to continue.

A Victorian Parliamentary Report earlier this year recommended the 'Harmonisation of Victorian and Commonwealth electoral law' including funding and disclosure obligations.

So Brumby has no time to lose. The Premier must act swiftly to ensure bans on developer donations and other changes necessary are all firmly in place for the next election in November 2010.

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More about candobetter.org

Most of our contributors and many of our readers are becoming aware of how unfree the mainstream commercial press and even ABC radio and TV are in Australia, due to the common commercial focus of government and the growth lobby, which seems to be the source of most of the problems that candobetter.org focuses on. Just to remind you, Candobetter.org is "A website for reform in democracy, environment, population, land use planning and energy policy." Perhaps we should add that it is also a website for media reform.

I started out writing about the environmental effects of population growth. Later I began to write about who and what are driving population growth in Australia - notably the property development and finance lobbies. Then I realised that the reason we could not stop these commercial interests from ruining our country was that they had overwhelmed democracy and coopted government. Finally, I have come to the conclusion that the disempowerment of democratic communication in favour of commercial and corporate interests has been made possible by the cooption of the media.

This has occurred through the reduction in ownership of the media and through the weakening of cross-ownership laws. It has also occurred, historically, through the ownership and cost of media (communications) technology. Owning a television or radio station or a newspaper print works was not within the purview of everyone. It was a very expensive business.

Thank heavens that the whole business of mass communcation has changed. Electronic publication is comparatively cheap and the readers are not so passive and are able to contribute material. Many people still do not understand this revolution and it is imperative that they rapidly begin to, since, at the same time that a new free press has become accessible, democracy, freedom, and vital resource sufficiency are increasingly menaced by corporate interests. These interests and the associated spin continue to be fostered and represented by the commercial mainstream press.

It is up to you and me and us to encourage a self-reliant free press.

Whilst maintaining a website is relatively cheap, it is not cost free, and requires several thousand dollars a year. It is also very labour intensive, yet all of us on candobetter earn our livings in other ways.

This is a labor of love and a political commitment. Please help candobetter.org's owner - James Sinnamon - by making a financial contribution if you can. Alternatively, if you have a spare v-server, perhaps you would like to share it.

Contributions to:

Please e-mail james [AT] candobetter.org for details of the bank account.

It's not tax-deductible and what you see is what you get. If you like it, please try to help support it.

The initiative for this announcement came from me, Sheila Newman, although James Sinnamon is aware of it and has surrendered to my persuasion on this matter. He is not a commercially oriented person and earns his living in a low-paid occupation because of his committment to social, political and ecological reform. It would represent a hardship for him to pay for the extension of equipment and virtual space that candobetter.org now needs. I have personally contributed to candobetter.org in the past and will continue to do so, simply because I know Australia and the world need it.

In solidarity.

Some highlights (or lowlights) from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data. (All passages are quotes from the ABS website). The only thing good is that there is now more public discussion - despite the government and mainstream press wanting to suppress anything except the propaganda that growth is good. The incoming diaspora is not some irresistable force of nature; it has been coordinated by Federal and State Government policy in cahoots with the commercial growth lobby.


http://www.census.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/DetailsPage/3101.0Jun%202009?OpenDocument

Natural Increase to net immigration rate:

For 2008-09 natural increase was 157,000, and net overseas migration 283,300. No matter how you measure it, net migration has never been so high. (p. 10 has the overview of the main data.)

Natural increase for the 12 months ended 30 June 2009 was 157,800 persons, an increase of 8.4% (or 12,200 persons) on the natural increase for the year ended 30 June 2008 (145,600 persons).

Births

The preliminary estimate for births during the year ended 30 June 2009 (300,900) was 4.6% higher than the figure for the year ended 30 June 2008 (287,700).

The total fertility rate (TFR) for the year ended 30 June 2009 was 1.978 babies per woman.

For the 12 months ended 30 June 2009, Australia's population growth rate (2.1%) was almost double that of the world (1.1%).

After a recent increase in growth, Australia is now growing at a faster rate than many countries including the Philippines (2.0%), Papua New Guinea (1.7%), Malaysia (1.6%), India and Hong Kong (both 1.4%), Indonesia (1.2%), Viet Nam and Sweden (both 1.1%), United States of America (1.0%), Canada (0.9%), China (0.6%), France (0.5%), the United Kingdom (0.3%) and Republic of Korea (0.2%). The populations of Greece, Italy and New Zealand all failed to register a
significant growth rate (both 0.0%). Further, Japan experienced a decrease in its population (-0.2%). One country that experienced faster growth than Australia was Singapore (2.2%).

Impact

Australians are losing control over access to housing, resources and ammenities, with incoming immigrant stream often much wealthier than the average Australian. There is something very wrong with a political system that allows this to happen, indeed encourages it.

In my view our non-representative 'representative' government comes from our land-use planning system, which favorises aggregation of private land, which means that private individuals and corporations can acquire more power than governments. Our governments, at Federal and State level, are hard to distinguish from private enterprise, with the ALP having massive property and financial investments, and, in government, running government owned investment and property development companies - with private intermediaries like Advance and other lobby groups, Progressive Business organisation and Labor Holdings and Labor Resources. Sources: http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2152596.htm, http://www.theage.com.au/national/labor-mates-linked-to-lucrative-winning-tenders-20090808-edlz.html, http://www.theage.com.au/national/in-the-murky-world-of-lobbying-mateship-is-king-20090808-edm6.html, etc.

What you can do

Be aware of what is happening, and try to educate other people.

Tell people overseas - notably in Britain, the source of many immigrants - that the government and private immigration agents are misrepresenting Australia as a big empty country.

Say that we are 75% rangelands (grasslands) and desert. The interior is flat and salty, with few permanent water-sources. Our rivers are slow-flowing and lose much of their water to evaporation. Our soils are thin and infertile - because the land has been worn down by erosion, without recent input from glaciers (as in Europe), river deltas (as in India) or volcanoes (as in Indonesia), which contribute to fertile soils.

Most people live on the South Eastern and the South Western coast. There is only one well-watered populous settled interior area, around the Murray Darling Basin, which is our major river system. Unfortunately this area is on the brink of ecological collapse. That means that we may lose our capacity to feed our own population in the manner to which it has become accustomed.

The only reason we appear rich is that we have shared a relatively small GDP among a relatively sparse population, like Argentina - which increased its population and lost that advantage. In fact, Australia is roughly comparable to Central and South American countries with low density indigenous populations and aggressive agricultural and mining colonisation.

Australia's GDP relied on the agricultural rape of the soil, which is ongoing, and on serendipitous gold-rushes and other mineral booms and speculation on real-estate. It now relies increasingly on selling off our assets, including finite supplies of minerals and hydrocarbons, along with flogging real-estate and the illusion of permanent jobs associated with ephemeral service industries.

There are severe water problems in most cities, massive public and private debts, housing shortages. Australians work extremely long hours, their industrial relations rights have virtually disappeared, the work-culture is cruel and competitive in the worst way, and obesity is rising.

Say emphatically that Australians were not consulted about this massive program of immigration. Say that we may appear like a democracy, but that we are being treated still like a colony, with cheap workers and an extractive economy. The suicide rate is up and so is obesity.

Neighbours is a developer's wet dream and more and more people live like Kath and Kim, like aging, half-educated children, herded into 'estates', reliant on cars, with shopping center, commercial parlor games and more debt their only desolate outlet.

This was never the Australian dream.

Skippy is being starved out and chased onto the road for new developments to accommodate off-shore purchasers.

Say that the government is working with big business to take over our agricultural land and making it almost impossible for people to supplement their incomes by growing their own food.

Say that our native animals are being hounded to extinction, losing their habitats to urban expansion, and our cities are being turned into inhospitable and unnatural glass and concrete human menageries.

Write for candobetter - in comments and articles - on your feelings about this, since we represent one of the few 'free presses' in Australia. Write for other good internet publications. Join and assist protests by groups like Planning Backlash, Protectors of Public Lands, and Sustainable Population Australia, Australian Wildlife Protection Council. Eschew professional 'conservation' organisations and councils that receive grants from government or from big business.

If you are a member of any political party, raise the issues at stake and encourage your membership to get behind Kelvin Thomson's point population reform plan. Point out that your leaders are not representing the electorate or the party membership and look around for new leaders. Form breakaway groups if you can.

Your party leaders will not thank you - yes, not even the Greens. Unfortunately, the 'authorities' are simply not to be trusted; they have parasited an undemocratic situation. You will encounter severe opposition from a self-important few. That is how things got this way; anyone who raised the issue of population stability or reduction would be attacked by stooges. But people will note your courage and gradually you will find support.

There is the beginnings of a ground-swell, however, and if you and I stand up to be counted, others will.

Every day the problem gets worse; everything we can do to reverse the process or slow it down, gains time for more action.

In solidarity.

Media Release by Australian Society for Kangaroos:

Wildlife groups are calling for an inquiry into the slaughter of half a million kangaroos in Victoria by farmers since 1999.

According to the 1975 Wildlife Act, Eastern Grey Kangaroos are a "protected" species!

Landholders in Victoria are being given permits to kill tens of thousands of protected kangaroos every year, even in good seasons and in areas not affected by drought. This is despite research showing that kangaroos do not compete with stock for pasture.

Kangaroos are also being shot without proper assessment of population numbers, locally or regionally, putting them at risk of local and regional extinction.

In recent cases, local residents were devastated to discover that permits has been given to kill the equivalent of the total population of kangaroos in Colac, Gippsland, and Bendigo, causing a public outcry for the unjustified and brutal killing of protected native wildlife.

Colac resident Carola Anstis and East Gippsland resident Valerie Hickey, recently had to stand by and watch as their local kangaroos were shot by local farmers.

“Why permits to kill kangaroos in the Marlo area (East Gippsland) are being given, is beyond comprehension. The land here where sheep and cattle graze is in excellent condition, and unaffected by drought.  Kangaroos are not abundant in this area, and pose no threat to stock pasture.

The DSE and farmers have a long association, and I believe the DSE feels obliged to comply with farmers wishes. This issue could be addressed if DSE provided farmers with accurate facts about our wildlife and the current research about their positive co existence”, said Valerie Hickey.

Carola Anstis is equally disturbed by the current situation and the destruction of kangaroos that live at her wildlife sanctuary.

"With regard to my particular case, and recent permits to kill kangaroos on my neighbours property, no assessment was made of the property with regard to pasture improvement and carrying capacity to determine whether in fact there is direct competition for food. No assessment was made as to whether the kangaroos are on the property all day, part of the day or just passing through, and no means of control other than the limited suggestions for gates in fences were examined before the permit to cull was issued.  

I refer to Wildlife Act 1975 and remind DSE that Eastern Grey Kangaroos are a protected species", stated Mrs Anstis.

“The research is very clear, that kangaroos do not compete with sheep and cattle for food, yet state and federal governments continue to allow the slaughter of millions of kangaroos every year across Australia based on this myth. In fact research is showing that kangaroos are beneficial to the environment and can enhance farm production if allowed to graze with stock”, said Nikki Sutterby,
Australian Society for Kangaroos.

The RSPCA has also expressed concern for the slaughter of kangaroos by private landholders and reported the following in its “Survey of the Extent of Compliance with the Requirements of the Code of Practice for the Humane Shooting of Kangaroos”. (Prepared for Environment Australia by RSPCA Australia July 2002).

RSPCA Report 2002 Kangaroo Shooting Code compliance

“The cruelty associated with non-commercial kangaroo killing is neglected by the authorities and control over the number of kangaroos killed and the methods used is ineffective”.

“The consensus of opinion given by those associated with kangaroo management is that there is a far higher degree of inhumane killing of kangaroos in non-commercial killing.”

“There is no requirement for the license/permit holder to undertake any training in humane shooting or in firearms competency. In no state is there any system in place for monitoring the extent of cruelty associated with non-commercial shooting of kangaroos and it seems unlikely that any could be organised under the present method of damage mitigation”.  

If this government has it's way, "protected" indigenous animals will no longer be living in our State, except in parks, zoos and sanctuaries.   Victoria is already the most damaged and cleared State of Australia.  Native animals are being made the scapegoats for Victoria's demise when they are actually a part of our ecology, not environmental threats.

“In summary, the Code requires that when a female has been killed her pouch young must also be killed immediately by decapitation, a heavy blow to the skull, or shooting.” Is this how we treat our wildlife?

AWPC - Government sanctioned cruelty

PLEASE CONTACT VALERIE HICKEY FOR PHOTOS THAT EXPOSE THE HEALTHY PASTURE COVER ON HER NEIGHBOUR'S PROPERTY, WHERE KANGAROOS WERE AUTHORISED TO BE KILLED TO PROTECT PASTURE.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT

VALERIE HICKEY
03 51548581/0427548581/41079007

CAROLA AND RON ANSTIS
CARLISLE RIVER WILDLIFE SANCTUARY
PH; 52350202

NIKKI SUTTERBY
CO-ORDINATOR
AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY FOR KANGAROOS
PO BOX 524 CASTLEMAINE VIC 3450
PH; 0417354408

To his credit, NSW Premier, Nathan Rees in the days preceding the 4th December 2009 (his ousting as Premier) announced the creation of a massive new red gum national park along the Murray River near Deniliquin to protect much of the state's remaining river red gum forests from logging.

Loggers have complained because all the 300 year old trees they chainsawed have gone but won't magically grow back, so they want more old red gums trees to chainsaw 'to feed their families' and to 'keep their jobs' and to preserve their 'tight-knit communities' which depend on logging... just like in the 1800s when similar 'tight-knit communities' in Hobart and Albany depended on whaling.

Someone enlightened should play them a DVD on Easter Island's history.

Jill Quirk, of the Victorian Branch of Sustainable Population Australia, did a cracking job on this meeting that has given people another opportunity to hear and talk with Kelvin Thomson, Federal MP. Wills, Victoria. It would be a good start if all the other SPA branches in Australia also invited Kelvin to enlighten their cities and regions.

Why do I make such a fuss of Jill's part in this? Well, without people like Jill, persevering on population politics in Victoria - for years now - we would be in an even worse position vis a vis the tsunami the growth lobby wants to unleash. Credit, of course, has also been given to Julianne Bell, of Protectors of Public Lands and Royal Park Protection Group who convened an earlier speaker-meeting with Thomson. We should also be aware of Mary Drost, of Planning Backlash, and a number of other activists, such as Christine Pruneau of MRRA and Maryland Wilson of AWPC - almost all of them women - in Victoria - who have chosen not to remain silent and, self-funded, have stood up to be counted on population matters.

Kelvin Thomson's speech has been recorded in six parts on You-tube by film-maker, Andrew Melville Smith: see below

Part 1

Kelvin Thomson

There is no doubt that if anyone can save Australia's democracy, environment and quality of life, it may be Kelvin Thomson. It is such a relief to hear someone speak up clearly over the constant dull roar of the growth merchants, from our Prime Minister, through every Australian state premier and treasurer, and all the bankers and property developers.

It seems that nearly everyone in big business has become completely craven, and, like King Midas, fascinated by gold, deaf to every birdsong. Official Australian values seem to have become as crass as those of the Egyptian pyramid commissioners, who wanted to take it all with them, and had their slaves killed so they would join them in death.

Yes, many Australians feel as if they are being enslaved by the growth lobby.

It would be wonderful if other politicians began to see through the growth merchants and got behind Kelvin. That would change Australia's outlook from one of anxiety to hope.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4 - Questions and discussion

Part 5 - More discussion

Part 6 - More discussion and closure

Click here to view goverment film - (note slow quicktime download 47 mb)

Anna Bigh says she cannot see, "any sensible or legal way" to cap the population.
"As attractive as a population cap sounds, I think it's misleading to imply to people that such a thing could be done," she says.

NewsComAu reports today that a Galaxy poll's results "suggest that 60 per cent of Queenslanders want the Government to take steps to limit the state's southeast population growth explosion." (Source: (Craig Johnstone and Natalie Gregg, "Queensland residents want to cap population growth," The Courier-Mail, December 07, 2009)

Misleading, irresponsible propaganda from Anna Bligh

But, although her government actively advertises for overseas and interstate immigrants, Premier Anna Bligh is quoted as saying that, "she said she was yet to see "any sensible or legal way" to cap the population. "As attractive as a population cap sounds, I think it's misleading to imply to people that such a thing could be done," she said."

Population sociologist, Sheila Newman, responds here on candobetter.org:

Premier Bligh could start by ceasing to advertise for more interstate and international immigrants.

Her statements implying that population caps are not possible are ridiculous, misleading and irresponsible. All societies have numerous democratic ways of controlling population, unless they are politically prevented from doing so by undemocratic governments like Anna Bligh's.

We have only to look at the Scandinavian and EU countries in Europe. Among the most important is the ability to limit the issue of building permits at a local level in accordance with residents' wishes. /files/qld-immigration-page-capture.jpg

Premier's stance that resistance is futile is wrong

The premier's stance seems to be that resistance is futile; the growth lobby (driven by property developers) will have it's way with us. It might suit the ALP's interests in land speculation, but it's just not true. A Premier has a duty to her constituents well-being and should be above this kind of propaganda.

The consequences of continuing to grow Queensland's population threaten the welfare of present and future generations far into the future as well as destroying Queensland's magnificent and delightful fauna and flora.

Australians should be aware that the population growth that is happening in Queensland and the rest of Australia is not democratic. It is engineered upwards by government and drives ecological damage, native animal extinction, and unaffordable cost of living.

Here is a quick lesson in how populations are controlled when societies are governed democratically.

Population Policy Battlefronts for democracy and ecological sustainability
1. Local Government
2. State Government
3. National Government
4. Global

1. Local Government

* power of limiting building permits (and thus of limiting population growth) in line with water catchment capacities, aesthetics, civil hygiene, preservation of agricultural land and natural amenities, like green wedges, nature reserves and parkland
* promotion of energy efficient public and private buildings
* facilitation of householder independence from the State power and sewerage grid
* incorporation of local indigenous species' needs for space, food and water within the concept of local planning and as participants in the regional ecology.
* residents should have self government
* local elected officials and paid staff are servants of residents and should not implement plans without their agreement
* food and fiber production should be local where possible, minimising energy used to transport goods in and out of a community

2. State Government

Wherever States have the responsibility for and power of limiting impact on the bio-regions within their borders they should exercise this within the context of national and local population policy. In Australia the states have the power over land-use and water sources and the ability and responsibility to signal when infrastructure is close to capacity. They have a number of tools for limiting urban expansion. Among these are:

*taxes on second homes, taxes on windfalls gained by sellers when land is rezoned,
*redevelopment, not new development - of old buildings, insulation of old buildings - instead of land-clearing for new construction. These taxes are there to feedback order into the allocation of construction permits and should not be relied upon as something that can be grown to subsidise increases in government spending.
*housing as a citizen's right, a state's duty and a public cost
*land-development by the state to provide low-cost land to undercut speculative private development, which raises costs through unreasonable profits, thus driving up all other costs, and providing a motive for overpopulation

- Water should not be disaggregated from land because this removes valuable biofeedback that signals limits to growth.

- State governments must be entirely transparent in all their transactions and so must the political parties in and out of government. See "John-Paul Langbroek and why the Liberal National Party won't survive unless Labor Governments reform."

- Business can only be the servant of democracy and should not dictate population limits.
- Economy is a subset of the environment.
- State governments have no business making plans for local government to follow if these are not inspected and agreed to in detail by local residents.

3. National Government

* adoption of democratic and ecologically informed population policy
* separation of political and administrative responsibility for population and immigration
* chairing of a cabinet committee on population by Prime Minister adoption of a consumption strategy
* aim to stabilise population numbers by:
- promoting small families and a
- zero net migration program - gives around 70,000 person-spaces
* plan immigration program for the humanitarian longterm, staggering intake to cope with foreseeable ongoing demands and climate change
* Change the emphasis on immigration and population research funding from its longstanding almost exclusive focus on internal migration and ethnic group demographics, in order to give far greater attention to population numbers, per capita energy use and environmental impact.

4. Global

Australia should support policies to help people to protect local controls over land-tenure, recognising that the population problems of Africa, India and the Pacific Islands, only started when colonisation dispossessed people from their local lands and stable economic traditions in homeostatic indigenous ecologies.

Australia should direct more money into foreign aid to combat the conditions that contribute to overpopulation by assisting initiatives for educating and enfranchising women, enhancing children's health, promoting family planning education and safe, non-coercive family planning methods and protecting local self-government and self-sufficiency.

Australia and other 'Developed' countries should cooperate with United Nations global initiatives in developing longsighted population policies which take into account our high environmental/energy consumption impact per capita.

As an ecologically impoverished commodity producer, Australia should lead other commodity producers by example and assist in the development and use of low energy consumption technology and lifestyle, being careful to keep its population low in conformity with the limiting characteristics of the continent's ecology and the nature of commodity dependent economies, which also do not require large volumes of workers, unless they are conducted as slave colonies to furnish cheap supply to other countries - a practice that is neither ethical, humane or sustainable.

Australia should not encourage high birth rates or high immigration without their constituents knowledge or agreement, based on useful and true information about optimal carrying capacity and the preservation of democratic rights and local empowerment.

What you can do: If you are a Queensland resident and Australian citizen, please sign the petition here.

Dalby is situated one-hour from Toowoomba, two-and-a-half hours west of Brisbane and three hours from the Gold and Sunshine Coasts. The town faces a severe water shortage and the worst drought in history.
Map of Dalby

The Mayor Ray Brown says the town's in real danger of running out of water and restrictions may be increased to their highest level if the situation doesn't improve.

Cr Brown says the weir is empty and the town's been drawing its water supply from bores.

The construction of a reverse osmosis plant will provide an additional 1.7 million litres per day or about 25% of Dalby's water supply needs on an annual basis. Will allow the conversion of previously unsuitable water into water suitable for town supply purposes of a very high quality, which will improve the overall quality of our town supply. The reverse osmosis produces water at a cost comparable to the treatment of river water but is much more reliable in dry times.
Dalby's economy

Dalby and the surrounding Wambo Shire is is at the centre of rich coal and natural gas reserves which underpin the power generation industry for SE Qld. The region is renowned as a rich agricultural area, growing crops such as cotton, sorghum, wheat, barley, sunflowers, chickpeas, mung beans and corn, as well as the production of lamb, beef and pork.
Dalby's economic forecast looks “bright” as infrastructure developments, a growing resource sector and population increases combine to promote continued business growth.
Over the period to 2031, the population of Dalby is expected to increase by 3,723 persons – or an average annual rate of 0.9% – to a population of approximately 19,734 persons.

El Nino:

El Niño - the extensive warming of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean that leads to a major shift in weather patterns across the Pacific - is often experienced as drought affecting large parts of eastern and northern Australia. The 1982/83 Ash Wednesday bushfires were largely due to drought conditions caused by the El Niño effect. The most recent strong El Niño event was 1997/98.
The El Niño phenomenon affects runoff in catchments serving all major water supply systems in eastern Australia.

IPCC have indicated that El Niño events have become more frequent and drying in the last 30 years compared to the previous 100 hundred years.
Additionally, IPCC make the point that many world climate models indicate that mean conditions that are ‘El Niño-like’ may well prevail in the future.

Fastest-growing region:

Peter Garrett’s decision earlier this month to kill off Queensland Premier Anna Bligh’s $1.8 billion project to dam the Mary River at the Traveston Crossing, near Gympie, has got the Premier in a spin about how the Government’s going to manage future population growth without running out of water.
Ms Bligh described the veto as a blow to the residents of Australia’s fastest-growing region. With figures showing 70 per-cent of new arrivals to Queensland settled in the south-east, it’s now critical the government find ways to move people on to regional areas.

Dam levels in Toowoomba, Queensland's biggest inland city, are down to 8.5 per cent.
A pipeline has been built connecting Toowoomba to Brisbane's major water source, the Wivenhoe Dam.

It is due to begin pumping in January. In the meantime, Mayor Peter Taylor says several emergency bores have been sunk to keep the city going.

Obi Obi Creek:

Obi Obi Creek, the town's only source of water of the Sunshine Coast hinterland town of Maleny, received just 39.2mm of rain in November, almost 100mm short of the 140mm November average.

Maleny resident, zoologist and conservationist Dr Les Hall has been in the limelight again lately. And it's all because of his survey of platypus burrows in the banks of the Obi Obi Creek, adjacent to Cornerstone's proposed construction site for a Woolworths supermarket.  Les told the company that the creek bank adjacent to the site has the highest platypus population density compared with any other part of the creek. He said that in his survey he counted an average of one burrow every three metres; some of these were old, some collapsed, but many others along the bank were fresh and in use and some were obviously occupied by mothers and their young.

"No matter what happens, whatever the developers' protections, they will still destroy the platypus burrowing area along the creek bank," Les warned.

The wetlands will also provide habitat and feeding areas for the two bird species, rainbow bee-eater and cattle egret, listed in an international agreement (RAMSAR) that Australia has signed. The two sites will provide habitat for a number of wetland-dependent threatened species.

Obi Obi Creek is the main contributor of water for the Baroon Pocket Dam.  This dam will soon be linked to the southeast Queensland pipeline network.

Water crisis:

‘Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink;’ Thus spoke the Ancient Mariner in the 18th century.

A recent report warns that without global action, demand for water in 2030 will outstrip supply by 40 per cent.

Desalination technology comes with drawbacks as they require significant energy, and pollute the marine environment with hot, hyper-saline and chemical-rich outflow that is discharged back into the ocean. There are already dead areas in our oceans.

There is a limit to the number of dams that can be constructed, the amount of water that households water restrictions, and the number of rivers that can be manipulated and strangled.   

A 2% growth rate means a double of population every 35 years, even if it doesn't sound much.  Growth should be "managed" at a time of climate change and global water and food threats. 

Wivenhoe Dam failure

"Recent pronouncements have left us exposed to a repeat of History. (...with the prospect of dam failure evident since 1992 in the dam levels chart and as yet unexplained). 

Large scale rainfall events occur, on average, every 3.7 years, The panic caused by a 6 year gap will be repeated in the future with the possibility of even larger gaps as wide as 14 years.”

Limitless Growth?

There is no such thing as limitless growth on finite ecosystems, or finite natural resources.

An action plan has been developed in consultation with the body responsible for regional water security, the Queensland Water Commission. There will be four or five tanker loads of water this week (up to 11,000 litres in each tanker) trucked to Maleny.

Despite the massive problems with water in southeast Queensland, it still has an unfettered high rate of population growth. No effort whatsoever has been put into slowing this growth rate. Apparently not even a thought of it from anyone in the state government except for Gold Coast Mayor Ron Clarke.

Bligh acknowledged recently that south-east Queenslanders are beginning to think the lifestyle costs of population growth outweigh the economic benefits. "But population growth is a fact of life in Queensland. We cannot put up the barbed wire fence at the border, we can't stop people having babies, so we have to find a way of coping," she said. She could cap the population and ask our Federal government to stop economic immigration!

The southeast corner of the state is becoming more populated, with an estimated 15,000 people a year moving there from all over Australia in search of a “better life”. Premier Anna Bligh is considering a $3000 boost to the  first-home owners' grant for people buying property outside the southeast.

South-east Queensland already resembles one giant building site, as the State Government spends billions this year alone on bridges, rail extensions and new bus and motorways to help move all these extra people around.

Premier Anna Bligh is not interested in a sustainable water supply for Queensland, but in water to sustain population growth, something that is not fait accompli but socially engineered by immigration and baby bonuses.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh says she has assurances that the town of Dalby won't run out of water. 'If we need to help them truck in water, we'll do that'. She will probably have to!

Yes, Brushtail Possums are a destructive pest in NZ. Probably the most relevant and credible authority on the centuries old problem of human introduced possums into New Zealand should be New Zealand's own Department of Conservation (DOC).

Yet DOC has no watchdog to vet its possum control policy, to evaluate the ethics of its indiscriminate aerial 1080 poison programmes, its budget decision making, its pest control methods. DOC is its own master, answerable to no-one. It dictates possum control and culling only on the basis of it deeming it administratively cost effective and efficient. Perhaps this is a leftover culture of Rogernomics applied to lean management of New Zealand's ecology.

On the DOC website the possum problem in New Zealand is clearly explained. An issue this author accepts as a serious ecological problem facing New Zealand.

Under the heading 3.3 Possum damage to native forests, the possum problem in NZ is explained as follows:

"Over the past 50 years, possums have emerged as one of the major threats to the health and wellbeing of forests throughout New Zealand. Many of these impacts are subtle and indirectly affect native birds and insects. Possums cause damage to native forests from the ground level to the canopy where, by concentrating on individual plants of their preferred species, they can kill trees by defoliation over several years. Possums preferentially feed on some of the tall canopy species – such as tawa, northern rata, kohekohe, southern rata, kamahi, pohutukawa and 20 Hall’s totara – while ignoring others. They also prefer some of the smaller trees, such as tree fuchsia and wineberry, along with mistletoe, forest herbs, some ferns, and a number of endangered shrubs.

It is difficult to imagine that possums, which are about the size of a large cat, can kill individual trees that have dominated forest landscapes for centuries before possums were released here. But when the number of possums is combined with the total amount each one eats, their impact on their preferred species is easier to appreciate. The amount of food consumed by an adult possum each night is about 160 gm of digestible dry matter. There are probably tens of millions of possums living in native forests. In total, possums are consuming thousands of tonnes of vegetation each night.

Possum populations have now modified many New Zealand forests. The rate and extent of these changes vary widely between different types of forests. Beech forests are the least affected, but in the vulnerable southern rata-kamahi forests of Westland many valleys have lost between 20% to 50% or more, of their canopy trees. In severe situations, possums have caused the complete collapse of the canopy within 15–20 years of their arrival. Tall forest is then replaced by shrublands.

While the impact of possums is most visible and dramatic when it involves canopy trees, their most pervasive impacts are often less visible. Possums have recently been described as “reluctant folivores”. This means that possums prefer to eat other forest foods than the leaves of trees. Flowers, fruit, leaf buds, fungi and insects are all highly favoured. The consumption of these foods has the largest impact on the healthy functioning of forests and the animals that rely on them. The consequences of possums concentrating on these foods are:

Loss of flowers:
•preventing the formation of seeds
•removing nectar sources for birds and bats
•reducing the food supply for many invertebrates
•nectar loss reducing food supplies for chicks, e.g. kaka, tui.

Loss of fruits:
•reducing food supplies for birds and invertebrates
•affecting bird breeding condition and nesting success, e.g. kakapo, kereru
•reducing or eliminating seed dispersal
•reducing the regenerative capacity of native plants.

Loss of new shoots:
•reducing the ability of plants to overcome leaf loss from weather and seasonal patterns
•reducing numbers of new leaves, jeopardising plant health."

DOC also states that "the damage to native forests can be seen all too clearly in many areas. Possums ignore old leaves and select the best new growth. In some areas they have eaten whole canopies of rata, totara, titoki, kowhai and kohekohe.

Possums compete with native birds for habitat and for food such as insects and berries. They also disturb nesting birds, eat their eggs and chicks and may impact on native land snails. DOC cites examples of natural vegetation damaged by possums at Pirongia Forest Park, and the upper canopy of NZ native forest trees on the slopes of Mt Karioi, south of Raglan."

So, assuming DOC's account is correct, the introduced Brushtail possum is a serious pest to New Zealand (NZ) native ecology. But what to do about it?

The repatriation option

It's long overdue for the New Zealand Government to get serious about its self-caused possum problem and look to resolve it once and for all for the benefit of the New Zealand ecology and the possums themselves. It needs to look at the root causes. The possum was introduced to New Zealand by New Zealand profiteering colonists. It is not the possum's fault it is in New Zealand.

Pouring $80 million a year of taxpayers money into cruel indiscrimate aerial baiting is not working. If it was the possumproblem woudl be reducing and there would not be a burgeoning possum fur trade.

Instead of perpetuating a 19th Century immoral fur trade, in order to control possums and other introduced pests in NZ, one option is to catch and relocate them back to their native home country habitat. This may seem highly expensive and labour intensive and far fetched, but what other option is both humane and effective?
It's not the possums' New Zealanders introduced them from Australia to New Zealand. The problem is an inherited inter-generational problem caused by New Zealand colonists. It shoud be solved by their descendants, not perpetuated as a fur trade.

Questioning DOC's claims of Humane Possum Control

Acknowledging the possum in NZ is an introduced pest, the question in this case is whether the possums in New Zealand are being killed humanely and whether this is being effectively monitored by a government watchdog worthy of the public trust?

By killing possums, humans have a moral obligation to do it humanely. Possums like all animals feel pain, fear and suffering.

But in NZ, DOC's officially choice of death is aerial baiting with the the literally chaep and very nasty poison '1080' ('ten-eighty', or Sodium Monofluroacetate). DOC's argues it is humane and safe.
Heading out to drop 1080 poison across NZ forests

But The World League for Protection of Animals argues otherwise and offers the following explanation about '1080' poison.

"1080 (sodium monofluroacetate) is a cruel and indiscriminate poison used to ‘remove’ unwanted populations of animals.

Banned in most countries, 1080 is still used liberally throughout Australia to control so-called ‘pest’ species, and reduce ‘browsing damage’ caused by native animals on private land.

1080 poison is a slow killer. When ingested (usually through baited food) the animal suffers a prolonged and horrific death. Herbivores take the longest to die – up to 44hrs, while carnivores can take up to 21hrs before finally succumbing to final effects of the poison. The speed of death is dependent on the rate of the animals metabolism.

A Slow & Horrific Death
Witnesses to the deaths of herbivorous animals, such as macropods, have reported:
"Affected wallabies were sometimes observed sitting hunched up, with heads held shakily just above the ground. Generally they appeared non-alert and 'sick', with shivering or shaking forelimbs and unsteady balance. Most individuals then experience convulsions, falling to the ground and lying on their backs and sides, kicking and making running motions with their hind legs before dying. Many individuals also ejaculated shortly before death, and, with others, exuded a white froth from their nostrils and mouth."

Carnivorous animals such as dingoes, dogs, foxes, and cats become very agitated, as they tremble, convulse and vomit.

The list of symptoms include:

"…restlessness; increased hyperexcitability; incontinence or diarrhea; excessive salivation; abrupt bouts of vocalization; and finally sudden bursts of violent activity. All affected animals then fall to the ground in teranic seizure, with hind limbs or all four limbs and sometimes the tail extended rigidly from their arched bodies. At other times the front feet are clasped together, clenched or used to scratch frantically at the cage walls. This tonic phase is then followed by a clonic phase in which the animals lie and kick or 'paddle' with the front legs and sometimes squeal, crawl around and bite at objects. During this phase the tongue and penis may be extruded, their eyes rolled back so that only the whites show and the teeth ground together. Breathing is rapid but laboured, with some animals partly choking on their saliva. Finally such individuals begin to relax, breathing more slowly and shallowly and lying quietly with the hind legs still extended but apparently semiparalysed".

From the above descriptions, it is without question that 1080 poison inflicts great pain and suffering on affected animals. Aside from the physical pain endured over the many hours before death, the terror, fear and anxiety felt by these animals is unimaginable."

The main reason DOC uses 1080 is because it is cheap. Dropping it it indiscriminately by air is efficient and convenient.

Setting caged traps for possums is expensive. Using poisons that act faster that 1080, sush as cyanide is also more expensive.

So DOC's key justification for its use of 1080 is one of cost. DOC also justifies using 1080 because other countries use it for pest control, like Australian & the USA , so implying that 1080 must therefore be ethically acceptable. But New Zealanders should make up their own mind and should recall that both the USA and Australia used Agent Orange in The Vietnam War.

DOC also justifies 1080 use because NZ has no natural mammals so the risk to non-target species are nil. But this claim is FACTUALLY INCORRECT!

On 30 July 2008, The Dominion Post reported that after a DOC aerial drop of 1080, seven kea had died at Fox Glacier from eating the 1080 poison, wiping out almost half a group of the endangered and protected parrot being monitored by the Conservation Department. DOC came up with excuses, but with such an endangered bird with so few kea left on the planet, DOC cannot afford to gamble with the kea's extinction.

Anti-1080 campaigner Mike Bennett said the kea deaths were the tip of the iceberg. "These are only the monitored ones. If that percentage is extrapolated for the entire population, that doesn't leave many for the next drop" and has called for a ban on all aerial 1080 drops in alpine areas.

NZ's Commercial Possum Fur Trade

New Zealand's own backyard fur trade has seen a recent resergence since the 1830s when New Zealand hunters first introduced the possum to the wilds of New Zealand. the traditional method of possum slaugher is by trapping. For nearly two centuries the cruel 'gin trap' with serrated jaws was used. Although the trapping laws have recently banned gin traps, leg-hold traps remain the method of choice for trappers.

According to the NZ Lifestyle Block website:
"Leg-hold traps such as the Lanes Ace or gin trap have been widely used for possum and rabbit control for many years. The gin trap is more than 10.5 cm across its open jaws, which are serrated, and it is powered by a flat metal spring, so it's a "size 1½ long spring" trap.

Traps of size 1½ or larger are more likely than the smaller traps to snap shut across the belly or chest of an animal. Although larger traps have been banned, traps of size 1½ can still be used if they are powered by double-coil springs. From January 2011 they will have to be padded, and you can't modify them yourself to make them padded...

Why are these traps cruel?

When the gin trap snaps shut on its victim, the teeth bite into the skin and can cause a lot of trauma and no doubt agonizing pain. All leg-hold traps are indiscriminate about what they catch. If they are set in possum tracks or runs it's more likely than not that any catch will be a possum, but it might also be a cat, hedgehog, rat, bird or small dog. Large dogs can sometimes pull out of them but they may be injured in the process.

Icing sugar or flour around traps is sometimes used to attract possums, but if used beneath a trap the animal is likely to be trapped by its snout or head.
What are the alternative leg-hold traps?

(In NZ) it is still legal to use size 1 leg-hold traps such as the Victor within the restrictions on location and setting described above. It is smaller than the gin trap and doesn't have serrated jaws. The Victor No 1 can be bought with cushioned inserts that make it more humane. It tends to cause less frequent and less severe injuries than the gin trap and larger leg-hold traps, but it can still cause severe bruising, and trapped animals will sometimes cause themselves severe injuries in their struggle to get free.

Trappers favour the Victor No 1 because it is compact, light and relatively efficient. The changes in the legislation mean that it is likely to become even more popular.
There's good advice for landowners on the most humane way to use leg-hold traps and their alternatives on the National Possum Control Agencies website (www.npca.org.nz), and not just for possums but for ferrets too."

Typical traps used in NZ for possums are the flat jaw/leg hold' type such as the the Bushmaster. While recognised as more humane that the serrated jaw 'gin trap', it can still cause suffering to a trapped animal, and of course is indiscriminate.

The Hamilton City Council prohibits the use of leg-hold traps such as gin traps in residential areas and within 150 metres of dwellings or places where there are likely to be pets. It instead recommends cage traps and Timms traps for possums and other feral animals.

Feratox (encapsulated cyanide)

According to the Lifestyle Block website NZ veterinarian Dr Marjorie Orr, BVM&S, PhD, BA and lifestyle farmer on , the most humane method of possum control is to use Feratox capsules, which is an encapsulated cyanide. The preferred baiting method is to use these in specially designed "bait stations or sachets stapled to trees, baited with peanut butter (possums like it and dogs and birds usually don't). The pest control companies that put out the poison will usually on request remove the sachets after a few days, and this helps reduce the risk of accidental poisoning of other animals. The poison in the capsules, cyanide, is quickly destroyed on exposure to air. Death is quick and relatively stress-free and there is no risk of secondary poisoning of dogs that scavenge poisoned carcases."

The test of humane killing must be conditional on the absence of pain and stress caused to the animal and that the killing be very quick.

But the killing of a native animal is wrong, despite it being introduced by humans. It has become a convenient excuse for New Zealanders to kill possums. Possum control by either DOC or the fur trade is not effective and in both cases teh chosen methods are inhumane. New Zealand's possum problem has been allowed to escalate into an immoral industry for profiteers. The New Zealand Government is responsible for failing to deal with the problem effectively and humanely. It has perpetuated an immoral fur trade that begun in the 19th Century, and at the same time allowed much irreversible harm to be caused to New Zealand's fragile ecology.

The Queensland Liberal National Party leader, John-Paul Langbroek tried to restore some democracy in Queensland last week. Perhaps it is because his party can see that if democracy is not restored - by restraining the pursuit of the ALP's private financial power through government - no other political party may ever have a chance to govern again, simply because the ALP has become so rich and its power so far-reaching, and arguably it is less a government than a commercial corporation. Langbroek's reforming initiatives have taken two forms: 1. to call for a referendum into privatisation and 2. to submit a bill to make inquiries into corrupt systems and specific activities in Queensland. Predictably this bill was killed by the ALP on the 2nd reading.
See also"Anti-privatisation e-petition calls on Queensland government to resign"

LNP Leader should not give up trying to restore democracy to Queensland

The Queensland Liberal National Party leader, John-Paul Langbroek, has attempted to restore some democracy in Queensland over the past two months. Perhaps it was because his party can see that if democracy is not restored - by restraining the pursuit of the ALP's private financial power through government - no other political party may ever have a chance to govern in the foreseeable future, simply because the ALP has become so rich and its power so far-reaching, that arguably it is less a government than a commercial corporation.

Langbroek's example should be followed by other politicians and other States.

Reform needs to take place on at least two levels - reigning in corruption by legislating for transparency and to limit cronyism between government, political parties and private entities - and to engage the public more vigorously in their self-government - i.e. democracy. Greater engagement of citizens is imperative because this is the only power left in politics which may be capable of overcoming commercial corporate power which has now merged with a government whose only weakness is its estrangement from the actual electorate.

So far Langbroek's reforming activities in in this regard in parliament have taken two forms:

1. to call for a referendum on privatisation (see p.3143 of Hansard) i.e. public engagement in an issue it knows the public don't agree with the government on [1] and

2. to submit a bill to make specific inquiries into corrupt systems and activities in Queensland.

This bill was first read on 28 October 2009. It was voted down, not surprisingly, by the majority Labor government on 25 November 2009.

The bill was of extraordinary importance, but to understand it, you need to understand what has been going on with ALP finances. It was of extraordinary importance because it potentially affects the Federal government and potentially every state government. This is because of a massive blurring of boundaries between the ALP, government and business, at Federal and State level, notably involving Labor Holdings P/L, Labor Resources P/L, the Progressive Business organisation and the Advance Lobby Group, and various State Investment Companies, such as the Queensland State Investment company.

The Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, has rightly accused the Liberal National Party of doing the same thing, i.e. having 'holding companies' where moneys coming in need not be called political donations because they are not going directly to the political party and can mingle with other earnings. So the argument, on the face of it, is the Wolf's when he is accused of eating little lambs. "Didn't you have roast lamb last Sunday yourselves? Why does that make me bad and you good?"

The problem is that this very big ALP wolf might eat all the sheep and leave none for anyone else, so it means that all the other wolves will have to start regulating their industry and cooperate with the lambs for the stability of the whole. Of course the wolves are the political parties and the lambs are the voters. The industry is politics and the problem seems to be that it has become confused with financial investment, notably in property assets and development.

All over the country, State parliaments are making laws to ensure that the interests of financiers and developers take precedence over those of the electorate.

Cliche's like, "We were elected to make hard decisions," do not justify the failure to consult the community.

Regulation of the industry means rigorously separating political parties from exploiting their positions in government for private sector or party profit. This is especially necessary if ALP financial interests - private, personal or party - have lead ALP governments to pursue unpopular policies and to make undemocratic laws in order to create an advantageous economic and regulatory climate for their members, friends and organisations. The reason that it is especially necessary is that the ALP is allegedly probably one of the richest political parties in the world and rules this land from coast to coast against mostly puny or unenthusiastic opposition parties.

Corruption, Cronyism and Unethical Behaviour Bill - details:

The Commissions of Inquiry (Corruption, Cronyism and Unethical Behaviour) Amendment Bill 2009 was a Bill for An Act to amend the Commissions of Inquiry Act 1950 by inserting new terms to have it inquire into corruption, cronyism and unethical behaviour. Its terms are particularly informative of problems in the Queensland Government, but the same processes and some of the same people and organisations seem to be involved in similar activities in other states. People should encourage Opposition politicians in other states to try to bring in similar bills.

Details from the bill

‘(7) The commission is to inquire into the following—

(a) the matters and circumstances that led to, and permitted to continue, the breakdown in integrity and incidences of misconduct in the public sector in relation to the payments received or sought by Mr Gordon Nuttall whilst a Minister, despite the Crime and Misconduct Act2001 and the bodies and powers created under it;

(b) the circumstances and procedures relating to all contracts of Queensland Government departments, or Queensland Government owned or controlled entities or appointments to Queensland Government boards or boards of Queensland Government owned or controlled entities in relation to which Mr Gordon Nuttall had Ministerial responsibility;

(c) the allegations made by Ms Jacqueline King that she and Mr Scott Zackeresen complained to the office of the former Premier, the Honourable Mr Peter Beattie, in 2002 about misconduct by Mr Gordon Nuttall, and the circumstances surrounding the cessation of their employment allegedly as a result;

(d) the circumstances that led to Sunsuper Pty Ltd, a superannuation fund with over $12 billion of funds under management, a substantial portion of which funds are the superannuation investments of Queenslanders, deciding to withdraw $100 million of the funds from the management of Queensland Investment Corporation and place those funds under the management of Trinity Property Trust (‘Trinity’), or a Trinity-related entity, and the coincidence of the payment by Trinity, or a Trinity-related entity, of $1m to Mr Ross Daley (or his company Veritate Pty Ltd), the then senior executive of the political lobbyist Enhance Group, and any other person;

(e) the dealings between Ministers, former Ministers, ministerial staff, former ministerial staff or persons exercising delegated authority on behalf of the Queensland Government, or Queensland Government owned or controlled entities, with lobbyists concerning access to government, the grant or withholding of approvals, the awarding of tenders, the entry into contracts and other decisions;

(f) the relationship between members of the Queensland Government and persons who have been appointed to the judiciary or magistracy by Labor Attorneys-General between 1998 and 2009;

(g) the termination of the employment of Mr Scott Patterson by the Labor Government and the failure of the Crime and Misconduct Commission to adequately address matters raised by Mr Patterson;

(h) the adequacy of the following legislation and government policies, with a view to advising on a coherent, uniform, consolidated and harmonised scheme for stipulating standards of conduct and supervising the integrity of government business in Queensland—

• Auditor-General Act 2009
• provisions of the Criminal Code dealing with
misconduct in public office
• Electoral Act 1992
• Financial Accountability Act 2009
• Charter of Fiscal Responsibility under the
Financial Accountability Act 2009
• Government Owned Corporations Act 1993
• Judicial Review Act 1991
• Local Government Act 1993
• Ombudsman Act 2001
• Police Service Administration Act 1990
• Public Sector Ethics Act 1994
• Public Service Act 2008
• Right to Information Act 2009
• Whistleblowers Protection Act 1994
• Witness Protection Act 2000
• Code of Conduct for Ministerial Staff under the
Public Sector Ethics Act 1994
• Codes of Conduct for Public Sector Entities under
the Public Sector Ethics Act 1994
• Code of Ethical Standards issued by the Members’
Ethics and Parliamentary Privileges Committee of
the Legislative Assembly of Queensland
• Queensland Contact with Lobbyists Code and the
Register of Lobbyists
• Ministers’ Code of Ethics published in the
Queensland Ministerial Handbook;

(i) any other matter raised with the commissioner during the commission of inquiry that the commissioner considers worthy of investigation for the purposes of the inquiry.’.

NOTES:

[1]
On 10 November in the Queensland Parliament Mr Langbroek said to Premier Bligh, "Last week the Premier admitted that her Labor government had spent $62.7 million on advertising in 2008. Given that the annual report of the Electoral Commission indicates that a referendum could be held for less than a quarter of that amount, will the Premier now hold a referendum on privatisations to give Queenslanders a chance to have their say, or is it the case that the Premier wants to be heard but refuses to listen?

Ms Bligh, the Premier of Queensland, responded by attacking the opposition for its past record of failing to oppose her government's privatisation. Bligh thus avoided dealing with the two substantial issues:

1. that the wide population does not support privatisation
2. that they were not asked by the government prior to the election because the issue was not put to them
3. that Mr Langbroek is asking for their opinion to be sought and empowered now via a referendum.

Mr Langbroek also asked Premier Bligh why surveys being distributed to householders still did not canvas citizens' views on privatisation.

"Mr LANGBROEK: My second question without notice is also to the Premier. I refer the Premier to the ‘Have your say’ surveys currently being distributed by Labor MPs in their electorates seeking community feedback. Given that the Premier and her Labor Party are spending $1.9 million of taxpayers’ funds to sell the privatisation agenda, will the Premier explain why her local MPs ask for feedback on 11 issues, none of which is privatisation?"

The Premier's response was that Mr Langbroek's party had prepared the way and that the government stand for "jobs" and that it was selling off assets to pay for "a modern Queensland with better services and better infrastructure."

In other words, she failed to answer the question, talked of a very vague mandate, and implied, by reiterating the government's usual justification of privatisation that the ends justify the means and the citizens have no say.

Grounds are that the government failed to inform people during the last Queensland State elections of their intentions to privatise Queensland assets to the value of $15billion.

If you are a Queensland resident and Australian citizen, please sign the petition.List of Queensland e-petitions http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/EPetitions_QLD/CurrentEPetitions.aspx?LIndex=1

CURRENT E-PETITION
http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/EPetitions_QLD/CurrentEPetition.aspx?PetNum=1360&lIndex=-1
Subject:

Call for immediate resignation of the Queensland government and new
elections

Eligibility: Queensland Citizens
Sponsoring Member: Dorothy Pratt MP
Principal Petitioner: James Sinnamon
PO Box 86
RED HILL QLD 4059

Posting Date: 02/12/2009
Closing Date: 02/03/2010

TO: The Honourable the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland

Queensland citizens draws to the attention of the House the Queensland public, the rightful owners of $15 billion worth of assets which are to be sold, were denied any say over this because of the failure of the Queensland government to reveal those plans during the course of the elections. We consider the stated intention of the government to proceed with the sale in the face of opinion polls, which show at least 80% public opposition, to be amongst the most serious breaches of public trust imaginable.

Your petitioners, therefore, request the House to call upon the Queensland government to resign immediately to give the Queensland public a chance to elect a new Government which can gain its trust. Your petitioners also warn any private investors considering buying the assets, not to do so and call upon a future State government which does enjoy the trust and confidence of the Queensland people not to honour any such contracts for the sale of assets.

Nichols (NZ) Ltd is a "supplier of quality tanned skins of New Zealand and Australian origin." It is based at 29 Wickham Street, Bromley, Christchurch, New Zealand and is a subsidiary of UK based L H Nichols Ltd.

Nichols slaughters Australian native possums for commercial profit.


Nichols (NZ) Ltd is a "supplier of quality tanned skins of New Zealand and Australian origin". It is based at 29 Wickham Street, Bromley, Christchurch, New Zealand and is a subsidiary of UK based L H Nichols Ltd.

The Nichols Group has operated since the 1950's and now includes tanneries in both the United Kingdom and Christchurch, New Zealand and also operates in Victoria, Australia.

Nichols has a well established customer base in Australasia, The Americas, Europe and Asia, offering manufacturers high quality finished leathers, and other tanners, carefully selected and graded raw material.

Nichols slaughters Australian native possums for commercial profit.
Nichols argues it is doing New Zealand a favour in the process.
How is it killing them?

Meanhile, back in their native home Australia, possums are respected as an important native animal by the volunteer Wildlife Informaton Rescue and Education Service Ince. [WIRES]

The NSW Wildlife Information,Rescue and Education Service Incorporated WIRES is the largest wildlife rescue organisation in Australia. When an echidna is hit by a car, a possum is attacked by a cat or a lizard gets its head stuck in a drink can - WIRES is there to help.

Since 1985, WIRES has established a network of hundreds of volunteers who rescue, rehabilitate and release sick, injured or orphaned native animals. Each year WIRES receives over 100,000 phone calls and rescue over 56,000 native animals, from injured bluetongues to orphaned wombats.

WIRES is a non-profit, non-political charity with branches operating across NSW. Over 90 per cent of our funding comes from public donations. Each year we receive a small grant from the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and the NSW Department of Agriculture these grants represent less than 2.5per cent of our funding.

At WIRES, the best interests of the animal are always placed first. After treatment - often involving intensive veterinary care and nursing by unpaid rescuers and carers - animals are returned to the wild, with as little human intervention as possible.

See also: candobetter.net/Wildliferescue - Ed, 6 Apr15

As the Federal Govenment's reckless and anti-democratic imposition of population growth causes several hundred thousand extra vehicles to be added to Australia's roads each year, Protectors of Public Lands is planning to hold a meeting featuring transport planning expert Dr Paul Mees to talk about ending our dependence upon the private motor vehicle. From Protectors of Public lands Dr Paul Mees is the guest speaker at the Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc AGM for 2009. He has been a great supporter of community groups during campaigns opposing the East West Link which would have devastated inner city Melbourne and Royal and JJ Holland Park. Joint community action helped ensure that the East West Link - the extension of the Eastern Freeway - with its super size road tunnels was deleted (albeit temporarily) from the Victorian Transport Plan. We hope groups can show support for PPL VIC by attending. Here are the details of the meeting: Time: 1:45 pm for a 2 pm start Date: Saturday 5 December 2009 Venue: Meeting Room 1 Upstairs North Melbourne Library 66 Errol Street North Melbourne. It is one building along from the Town Hall and Post Office on the south east corner of Errol and Queensberry Streets. Tram up Elizabeth Street from Flinders Street Station to Errol Street. Parking in surrounding streets. Disabled parking in front of Library. Guest Speaker: Dr Paul Mees, senior lecturer in transport planning at RMIT, will speak on "The Cars that Ate Melbourne" - Public Transport Solutions for the State." Stay for afternoon tea and make contact with other groups, including transport action groups. Background Note: See below link to Dr Mees' Age article of 22 November 2009 "We can keep our leafy suburbs and still save the planet". This was presented on 18 November as a paper at a "State of Australian Cities" Conference in Perth. His book "Transport for Suburbia: Beyond the Automobile Age" will be released in December. See also: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/we-can-keep-our-leafy-suburbs-and-still-save-the-planet-20091122-isqz.html">"We can keep our leafy suburbs and still save the planet" in the Age of 23 Nov 09 Contact: Julianne Bell Secretary Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. jbell5[AT]bigpond.com Mobile 0408 022408

On Monday, the 30th of November, Richard Gage of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, gave his final presentation in New Zealand on the Hard Evidence Down Under Tour, to an audience of 143 in Auckland, at the Trades Hall in Grey Lynn.

Says Martin Hanson, who had also attended Gage’s Wellington presentation of the 21st of November: “The hall was full except for two or three empty seats.”

The event began shortly after 6pm and lasted for 3 hours. A show of hands at the beginning indicated that the audience was comprised largely of people who already were aware that the official story of 9/11 was a hoax. Only 11 indicated that they believed the WTC buildings were brought down by jet fuel and fires, while 18 indicated they were unsure.

Evan Ward, who was recording the event said: “Richard Gage was very professional. The presentation was down-to-earth and in layman’s language, so the information was accessible to most anybody.” Ward, who has been investigating the evidence of 9/11 for approximately 3 years, said he also had learnt something new.

Brian Reiersen, an Auckland bus driver who attended said: “The information Gage presented was very hard to argue with. It was very, very good. I couldn't fault what he had to say and any reasonable person shown this on TV would realise, given the free-fall nature of the collapses, that the Twin Towers and Building 7 of the World Trade Centre, were brought down with explosives. Richard Gage proved it.”

What Reiersen found most convincing he said were the telling photos of all the cars in the vicinity of the WTC buildings that were covered in dust after the building collapses, that remnants of WTC 1, 2 and 7 were found outside the buildings’ footprints, including that huge girders were thrown 600 feet horizontally and were embedded in adjacent buildings, and that dust samples contained nanothermite.

As Gage points out, nanothermite is a highly advanced, highly energetic material that does not come from a cave in Afghanistan. Evidence indicates that the explosive material, known as the “loaded gun” of 9/11, was developed by US government scientists, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, not by Osama bin Laden.

There were five or six in the audience who were obviously 9/11 truth debunkers initially, says Reiersen. “I was sitting behind them. They were lawyers and intelligent, yet paradoxically they believed the official story. Gage easily handled their questions and then they became silent. He is a very, very professional person and exposed that there was a monster cover up.”

Near the conclusion of the presentation, Gage asked for a show of hands of those who still believed the official story and only one raised a hand, while five indicated they were still unsure.

Reiersen, who walked behind the vocal debunkers following the event, heard one of them say that they had a lot to think about now.

The 1st of December is Gage’s last night in New Zealand on this tour. He is flying out tomorrow morning to Japan for the start of the 7-city Japan Truth tour, which kicks off on the 4th of December and concludes on the 13th. He said he is particularly looking forward to meeting Yukihisa Fujita, the Japanese politician who has been challenging the validity of the official account of 9/11 in the political arena.

He said he regards the New Zealand tour as a huge success, largely owing to the mainstream media coverage it got. Gage was on Close Up, the country’s most popular current affairs program, and on Radio NZ’s popular Saturday morning show with Kim Hill. While he said the latter interview was not very good, he believes it helped to attract a lot of attention to the tour.

It also appears to have attracted a lot of attention to Radio NZ. Mark Cubey, the producer of the Kim Hill show advised via e-mail on the 2nd of November, that Hill has received over 350 e-mails from listeners regarding the interview, a representative sample of which she read out on air on the 28th of November. If the comments she read out are anything to go by, as they included: “Poorest interview I have ever heard…corporate whore..”, “Disgusting piece of trash..she should be fired,” “What a horrible stupid vile woman,” “Most dreadful interview…,” the Gage-Hill interview will likely go down in Radio NZ history, as one of their worst ever.

The night before he left New Zealand, I asked Richard Gage if he had anything he wanted to convey to the people of New Zealand. He replied that everyone must make every effort to spread the truth. Inform your family, friends and colleagues, even though it might not be easy to do so. He says you must go out of your way to wake everyone you know up to what really happened on 9/11.

---

Originally published on clareswinney.wordpress.com.

See also "Utzon's son signs up for September 11 conspiracy theory" in the Sydney Morning Herald of 25 Nov 09 about how Jan Utzon, son of the late Joern Utzon, designer of the Sydney Opera House, is a member of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Of course, the SMH typically attempts to trivialise the 9/11 Truth Movement and Utzon by referring to their beleifs as a 'conspiracy theory'. They neglected to point out that the alternative theory of a world wide conspiracy based in Afghanistan is also a 'conspiracy theory'. In spite of this trivialisation, the publication of this story, nevertheless represents substantial improvement upon the almost complete media blackout, including by the ABC, endured by the 9/11 Truth Movement in Australia up until now.

Columnist Elizabeth Farrelly, in her Fairfax article ‘Critter cullers turn our lives into roadkill’ (2-Jul-09) claims "so disdainful are Kiwis of our beloved Trichosurus vulpecula (Australian possums) that, not content with persecuting what they carelessly tag the "common brushtail", they pay themselves a hundred bucks a pelt, call it conservation and use the fur for beanies and rugby scarves. (And no, the critters are not simply shorn).”

Farrelly, like many Kiwi’s acknowledges New Zealand’s introduced possum problem, but like many Kiwi’s with an Australian chip on their shoulder, she is quick to deride anything Australian. On the New Zealand introduced possum problem, Farrelly is defeatist. Why not offer a genuine suggestion to New Zealand’s introduced possum long ignored plight? But instead, Farrelly quips “happily shoot the little varmints, pink noses and all” or even “shove them home through some great sub-Tasman possum pipeline.”

Farrelly, an urban futurist in her 2008 book ‘Blubberland: The Dangers of Happiness’ prescribes a utopian urban Australia as one that crams urban sprawl vertically into extreme high-rise where people aspire to the ‘simple life’ by “growing veggies on a postage stamp city lot”. And Farrelly's an urban planner?

In Fairfax media, 5-Aug-09 Farrelly taunts “make climbing the Rock an initiation rite for every Australian." Is this ignorance or a neo-colonist contempt of Aboriginal spiritual lore?

Farrelly is disdainful and condescending of this author's proposal in CanDoBetter to repatriate possums humanely back to Australia. Perhaps Farrelly has a better humane suggestion? Or perhaps to balance the population scores, the repatriation could be reciprocated by repatriating introduced Kiwis taking Aussie jobs should packed up humanely back to New Zealand? This would simultaneously address Australia’s population sprawl, caused by the many immigrants displacing Australians and underpinning the sprawl of which Farrelly is so critical in her book.

Kiwis in glass houses....

Out of Australia’s dark white colonial past, colonial antagonism towards its indigenous people and fauna has been typically incited by smug prejudiced colonists. 'Colonialism' is a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another. [Stanford Dictionary].

Colonialism is a form of cultural imperialism and should be relegated to dark white history. Neo-colonialsm is immigration. Immigrants to any country have a moral duty to be respectful of the values of their new country of choice. Immigrants do have a choice after all.

When offered Australian citizenship, one of the greatest privileges anyone on the planet could be granted, Australia's compulsory 'Pledge of Commitment' reads:
“From this time forward, I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey.”

But smug new Australians in their generous host country have a nerve to sling off and put down locals, indigenous peoples and their culture, and to condemn its nature. Asserting acquired situational narcissism involving racist vilification should be a breach of conditions of citizenship and a precursor to questioning permanent residency privileges.

During 2008-09, short-term arrivals of New Zealand citizens totalled 1 354 500, an increase of 0.9 percent over the previous year. [ABS]

Whale fall:

Whale fall is the term used for a whale carcass that has fallen to the ocean floor. When a whale dies in shallow water, its carcass is typically devoured by scavengers over a relatively short period of time—within several months. The carcass can provide sustenance for a complex localized ecosystem over periods of decades. Many whales die when female whales or newborns, stressed by the process of birth, make their annual migration.

In 1987, a manned submersible called Alvin was making a routine dive along the muddy plains of the deep sea when its pilot spotted what he thought was the fossilized remains of a dinosaur. Instead of an exotic underwater beast, it turned out to be the 21-metre-long skeleton of a blue whale. Just as windfalls deliver a sudden bounty of ripened fruit, whale falls see the death of a whale bring a host of nutrients to the sea floor.

The falls are few and far between, and difficult to track and study, but researchers are learning ever more — sometimes through extreme measures — about the new species to be found among the remains.

Scientists now estimate that a whale-fall community can survive for up to a century by sucking the fats and sulphides from these bones. In fact, one cadaver offers the same amount of nutrients that normally sinks from the surface to the sea floor in 2000 years, and this is of great benefit to innumerable species.

Dr Craig Smith:

For almost 20 years, Craig Smith, a biological oceanographer at the University of Hawaii, has studied whale carcasses after they have sunk to the seafloor. Such research has unveiled a number of strange creatures. The prize find so far is a newly described worm genus, Osedax2 — Latin for 'bone-devourer'. With no mouth, stomach or eyes, Osedax has evolved a root system to excavate the fat out of whale bones. Osedax evolved roughly 40 million years ago, about the same time scientists believe many whale species arose.

Whaling is threatening newly-discovered deep-sea creatures with extinction, according to research by Craig Smith. He is sounding the alarm that whaling continues to be a threat to these ecosystems. His research, based on models and reported last week at the Deep-Sea Biology Symposium in England, suggests that extinctions may have already occurred in the North Atlantic where 13 species of great whales were decimated in the 1800s. Extinction may also be ongoing in the Southern Ocean, where intense whaling persisted until the 1970s.

One whale fall can provide up to 160 tons of organic material, as much as thousands of years of marine snow, the organic debris that drifts down from surface waters.

'The possibility that whaling has caused species extinctions at the remote deep-sea floor gives us new appreciation for the scale of human impacts on the ocean,' said Smith. 'We must recognise that the oceans consist of a group of tightly connected ecosystems – over-fishing or pollution in surface waters is bound to cause problems hundreds of metres below.'

Smith estimates that about one-third of whale fall specialists may have already been wiped out. “Removal of whales from the ocean will cause the extinction not only of whales, but likely dozens to possibly hundreds of deep-sea species that appear to rely on whale fall communities to complete their life cycle,” explains Smith.

As exotic and diverse as whale fall communities are proving to be, whaling in the 1800s and 1900s may have drastically reduced the number of carcasses that sank. “The decimation of whales during the last century also has consequences for an entire community of decomposer animals that live at the bottom of the ocean,” says Monterey Bay Aquarium evolutionary biologist Bob Vrijenhoek.

Whale populations and commercial whaling:

After many hundreds of years of unregulated commercial whaling some whale populations were so depleted - such as that of the blue whale, which has never recovered - that they were at serious risk of extinction. Whale populations have not sufficiently recovered enough to sustain hunting, especially given the other threats they currently face.

Threats to whales:

These threats include toxic pollutants such as DDT, dioxins, PCBs (organochlorines used in industry) and mercury. They suffer from deadly high intensity sounds produced by military sonar and air guns, and by-catch, with some 300,000 dolphins and whales drowned every year after they become entangled in fishing nets or other fishing gear.

There is also over-fishing of prey species, ship strikes, climate change affecting habitat, migration routes and prey species availability and habitat destruction. The threats on the oceans today are increasing.

Destruction of marine ecosystems:

“The systematic destruction of the great whales was a stupendous act of modern ecological folly...” Jeremy Jackson of Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego writes in a recent paper in Whales, Whaling and Ocean Ecosystems. He argues that the new findings on the past profusion of whales show our conventional view of marine food chains is upside down. Modern oceans are dominated by small and lowly creatures. They comprise most of the biomass, with larger species further up the food chain comprising ever less biomass. Jackson offers a startling new picture of life on Earth, a world in which giants ruled, and ruled in huge numbers. And if Jackson is right, then even the most “recovered” of today’s whale populations are only a tiny fraction of their former numbers.

In 1998 a group of scientists published a study about the impact of whaling on the environment. The study showed that a 1% change in the diet of killer whales was enough to cause significant declines in marine mammal populations. In the last 30 years, the population of sea lions has decreased by over 80 percent.

Whales began to eat sea lions when the seal population declined. Once sea lions became rare, sea otters became a part of the whales' diet.

Whales the scapegoats:

The whaling countries, Japan, Iceland and Norway increasingly argue that whales need to be culled to protect fisheries. What is certain is that marine mammals like whales and seals make convenient and profitable scapegoats, when in fact; it is human over-fishing and other destructive fisheries practices, and their impact on commercial fish stocks, which need to be curtailed.
photo: Antarctic Krill - under threat.

Climate change:

There is growing evidence that global climate change has led to a reduction of ice algae, the main food source of krill. When the ice forms too late the production lessens impacting on zooplankton populations like krill that graze under the ice surface on ice algae. ”The ice edge is an absolutely critical habitat, a nursery for larval krill.” says Scott Gallager, a marine biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (Woods Hole, Massachusetts, United States).
Krill is believed to be a key factor in the reproductive success rate of the whales but a deep understanding of their role and affect on predator populations when climate temperatures rise has yet to be understood.

The resumption of whaling may not necessarily be an option anymore. Recent scientific researches have revealed that whaling is not ‘harvesting a sustainable resource.’ There is no such thing as sustainable whaling.

In rural Wassau in the southern US state of Florida, the Wausau Possum Festival has become an annual summertime folk festival over the past forty years. This event is said to celebrate the role of the opossum in the survival of the populace of Northwest Florida during the depression. Aside from the music, a key feature is the fundraising possum auction for the local Wausau Development Club, which involves holding opossums by their tail. Possum is served up as a main fare.

The Virginia oppossum (Didelphis virginiana Kerr) is the only marsupial native to the south eastern region of North America and extending through Central America.

American Republican politician Katherine Harris of Florida is shown here in August 2006 during her campaigning for the 2006 Florida United States Senate election, holding a possum by the tail and is said to have bid $400 at the so-called 'possum auction'.

According to the festival's sick tradition, every election year, national and statewide candidates in Florida must prove they are good country folk by mistreating a possum at the Wausau Possum Festival. "Candidates bid for a possum, taking it out of a holding area by its tail and giving it a shake to terrify the creature into going limp so it won't claw them. They're later fed and released into the wild.

As one commenter rightly suggested:

"Someone should pick her up by her nether regions and shake her until she goes limp. Then take her back to the woods."

New Zealand's native and threatened flightless birds - the Great Spotted Kiwi or Roroa (Apteryx haastii), the North Island Brown Kiwi, the Okarito Brown Kiwi or Rowi and the Haast Tokoeka (Apteryx australis) are not about to be culled for down for sleeping bag export.

The much very smaller Little Spotted Kiwi (Apteryx owenii) has become locally extinct on the New Zealand mainland due to decades of unchecked predation by introduced pigs, stoats and cats. Less than 1500 remain in the wild on New Zealand's Kapiti Island.

Maori value Kiwis for spiritual reasons as part of natural respect for native forests. The culling of Kiwis for their feathers would be abhorent to Maori and most colonist descendant New Zealanders, especially to the famous South Canterbury Battalion and the Hastings Rifle Volunteers, which borrowed the kiwi as their respective mascots.

No-one is suggesting that a new wildlife industry be setup to slaughter a native bird for sleeping bag down or for any other profiteering.

Yet a commercial profiteer based in Dunedin in the South Island is actively promoting culling the Australian Brushtail Possum for commercial yarn. The company is Merino Possum Consortium located at 47 Craigleith St, Dunedin, New Zealand. It's website is at www.possumnz.com

No such profiteer exists in Australia either for possum fur or kiwi down.

Merino Possum Consortium justification for what it does reads as follows:

Supreme Possum Merino "Nature's Wonder"

Supreme Possum Merino Yarn
"Supreme Possum Merino’s unique New Zealand yarn provides garments that are light, soft and very warm. It has taken 7 years of research to perfect the process of blending Merino wool with possum fur.

The possum fur is hollow and, when spun with merino wool, produces a hardwearing yarn with superior heat retaining qualities. And while other similar fibres contain only 15 - 30% possum fibre, Supreme Possum Merino yarn has a 40% fur content.

In knitwear, possum fur, unlike angora, resists pilling and is a lot fluffier. Has minimal or no skin irritation.

Yarn Structure
Supreme Possum Merino yarn structure and attributes remain intact because the possum fur is painstakingly hand-plucked - machine plucking breaks down the hollow fibres, resulting in a fibre with less quality and length.

The combination of possum fibre with merino wool followed research in the 1990s and a possum fur market that had been in decline.

Possum – National Pest (justification)
Introduced one hundred and fifty years ago to provide the basis of a New Zealand fur industry and declared a national pest in 1936; possums now inhabit all areas of native forest where they cause extensive damage.

Key Justification: Purchase of Supreme Possum Merino yarn is another step in the conservation of New Zealand, as 5% of every sale goes into the preservation of New Zealand environment.

The company offers the following justification for its commercial culling for yarn programme:

"The brushtail possum is an introduced species released in NZ in 1837 to establish a fur industry.

As demand for fur fell and its value dropped to uneconomic levels the numbers of possums dramatically increased. They have now reached epidemic proportions with well over 70 million possums munching their way through 21,300 tonnes of vegetation nightly, decimating New Zealand's native bush and birdlife.

With no predators, New Zealand's bush is defenceless against possums. Possums are a serious threat that has spread to 92% of New Zealand's three main islands and, with their habitat destroyed by the possum, many native trees, plants and birdlife, including the kiwi, are under threat of extinction.

The only way that we can get the possum numbers down to manageable levels is by marketing possum products worldwide and getting people who care about the environment to purchase these products. Only then, will it become financially viable for hunters to trap the possum, reduce their numbers, and help save New Zealand's environment.

NZ possum fur blended with merino is luxurious, warm & soft, anti static and a luxury that nearly everyone can afford. By purchasing our products not only are you helping to protect our environment, you are also buying a truly versatile and extremely warm natural fibre that will last years.

[Author's comment: a superior aim ought to be to humanely remove all possums from New Zealand. Profiteering from animal slaughter is immoral. If Merino Possum Consortium is ecologically genuine, I challenge it to post NZ Dept of Conservation [DOC] assessments of the company's possum control activities on a quarterly basis. I also challenge Merino Possum Consortium to post its annual financial results on its website to reveal the true extent of how the business owners are financially benefiting from slaughtering these animals.

But let's consider a different perspective and ask New Zealanders and Maori if they would accept such treatment of their Kiwi birds. It is no different.

Questioning Ethical Fur - by Animal Liberation

"So it seems that possum fur has been labeled as the 'ethical fur' for the animal welfare and environmentally aware consumer. However, there is no such thing as ethical fur and Auckland Animal Action is in firm opposition to the possum fur trade. To enable the trade to remain profitable, it will have to rely on continued possum numbers and as such has no conservation value. To wear a dead animal's skin is disrespectful to the animal. Many people consider criminals to be 'bad' yet we do not shoot them and wear their skins. The promotion of possum fur will also lead to demand for other factory farmed furs, and in the worst case, could lead to the introduction of possum factory farming. To be ethical, do not wear fur. To kill for ones own vanity is disgusting and unnecessary in today's world.

IMPACT OF POSSUMS - A RURAL LEGEND!

The myth of possums destroying our environment is one that fashion designers often refer to in order to back up their bloody trade. However, MAF has admitted the actual number of possums in NZ is about 1/3 of what is sometimes claimed. If we were to destroy the creatures most responsible for the destruction of our native forests, we should look no further than ourselves. New Zealanders taste for meat has left most of our land barren and razed for intensive and unnecessary farming. If these people are serious about saving our forests they should go vegan right away!

Possums eat about 21,000 tonnes of vegetation per day (300 g wet weight per possum x 70 million possums). This oft-quoted figure is frequently used to depict possum as a rapacious consumer of all things green, but that implication ignores the daily foliage production of perhaps 300,000 tonnes for forests alone (7.5 million ha x 15 tonnes wet weight of foliage/ha/yr).

These rough calculations are backed up by a study at Waihaha, West Taupo, which showed that possums there ate only a small percentage ( [Source - Landcare Research NZ]

THE FUR INDUSTRYS' SICK SECRET REVEALED!

Brushtail possums were among the earliest animals introduced into New Zealand by European settlers. They were first brought from Australia in 1837 to establish a fur industry.

By 1922, 36 batches of possums had been imported, mostly from Tasmania where possums were larger and had the black fur preferred by furriers. These possums and their descendants were liberated at more than 450 places around New Zealand by 1930. [Source - Landcare Research NZ]

WILDLIFE ETHICS

Possums were brought to New Zealand over a century ago in the hopes of introducing a bloody fur trade. The fur trade itself is responsible for bringing the possums here. How can we expect this industry to treat its own mistakes with care and ethics?!

It is our responsibility to treat these animals fairly and humanely. No animal is a 'pest'. It is humans alone that categorise animals such, reflecting our anthropocentric philosophies. Possums can feel just as much pain as a dog or a cat. They are highly social animals and loving parents.

It is our own fault possums are here in the first place therefore it is our duty to possums to find ways of controlling their numbers that are humane. Barbaric hunting and trapping, is not the answer, not to mention the horrendous 1080, which is a bigger problem to our natural environment than the possums themselves!

1080 completely dehydrates all the cells in the body. 1080 causes convulsions, internal bleeding and continual vomiting. It is simply a long painful inhumane death.

Leg hold traps cause immense pain and trauma to possums caught in them again the animal can suffer a slow languishing death. Such traps are indiscriminate and often catch non-target animals. Kiwis have been reported as caught in traps meant for possums!

In the 1980's several experimental intensive possum fur and meat farms were set up. All failed as the possums experienced high mortality rates due to stress at confinement. Why were such farms ever attempted when our bush land is apparently over-run with possums?

SUMMARY OF OUR CASE AGAINST THE POSSUM FUR TRADE

The damage possums are causing to Native bush is overstated, as are their numbers. Possums were brought to NZ by humans in the hopes of making money from their fur.

Perpetuating an industry that relies on slaughtering introduced animals is not going to solve the introduced animal problem. If anything, profiteering and building a market for pssum fur will only perpetuate the problem.

It is defeatist and convenient for the New Zealand government to proclaim 'the possum will never be eradicated in New Zealand'. What a easy cop out! And what will that management avoidance strategy do to the New Zealand natural environment? The NZ government approach to possum control is to apply 1080 poison in the wild and spends $80 million p.a. of taxpayers money in the process. The 1080 poison is banned in many first world countries because it causes a cruel agonising death. The New Zealand Government is unethical in using it.
[SOURCE: http://www.debandada.com/About+Possum+Fur/Possum+History.html]

What about controls on introduced stoats and weasels that are a serious predation threat to indigenous Kiwi birds?

TIGERQUOLL RECOMMENDATION: Repatriate all possums safely back to Australia.

New Zealand colonists owe the Maoris and New Zealand itself 170 odd years of introducing animals like the Australia native Brushtailed possum, rabbits, stoats and weasels into the New Zealand wild for misguided reasons and its subsequent breeding and environmental damage. The introduction (or species invasion) was not by the possum, but by New Zealand colonists.

The full cost of recovery and rehabilitation and redress for the 172 years of environment damage caused to New Zealand and its flora and fauna, ethically must be borne jointly by the Australian and New Zealand governments. Colonial crimes against the environment must be brought to account.

If it costs a billion dollars to repatriate possums out of New Zealand back to Australia so be it. May be Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will realise that he is squandering Australian taxpayer money on his pet personal projects that Australia can't afford, such as his splurging of $750 million topping up F35 joint strike fighter extravagance to appease US-Australian political agenda. May be New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key will stop wasting $1.5 billion on duplicating a regional fibre-to-the-home broadband plan.

The problem is not one of resources in either country; it is one of lack of political will and skewed priorities.

Jumps racing in Victoria will cease at the end of 2010 but key stakeholders say they will fight the decision announced on Friday by Racing Victoria Ltd. 
The "death knell" of jumps racing in Victoria will mean a reprieve for horses from the ugly public deaths 10 have had on the race track this year.

In 2008, 12 horses died during hurdle and steeplechase races.

The fact that some will be condemned to the knackers if the "sport" is banned shows just how little the lives of the horses are valued, nothing but meat, outside the industry. It is a reflection of the exploitation of these fine and hard-working animals, and how little the owners, trainers and jockeys bond with them.

History or tradition do not justify animal cruelty or suffering. It is time horses were treated and respected for their intrinsic value and any horses past their "use by" date should be re-homed, not slaughtered, while still healthy and in their prime.

Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses yesterday welcomed Racing Victoria's decision. The group has also offered to find loving homes for all soon-to-be retired jumps horses to save them from being destroyed.

THE decision to end jumps racing in Victoria at the end of the 2010 season struck a blow in many regional communities around the state, but none more than in Warrnambool. Their Grand Annual Steeplechase carnival has been the mainstay of the local economy for decades. A $1 million for a transition and marketing fund is aimed at helping the Warrnambool Racing Club convert and promote the May carnival to a flat race meeting. Sincere concern for the horses' welfare  can't compete with money and "tradition"!

Jumps racing needs to be shelved into our dark history, along with whaling and sealing.

Hundreds of animals were left in their cages without food or medical attention. Dogs and cats died from cancer and starvation.
The President Mr. Trom was also arrested and charged.
If convicted, all face 5 years in prison, a ten thousand dollar fine, and a lifetime ban on owning animals.
This has been hailed as a major victory for all of the animal activists in the Toronto area.

Some of the people involved explained that the president had a 'no kill' policy, but others said that animals were kept in inhumane conditions instead of being euthanised, describing advanced cancer and another illness.

To contact the Ministry of the Attorney General here:http://tinyurl.com/yfrztmc
http://tinyurl.com/yfrztmc and, to fill out the online message to the AG, . Click "I want to send a message", then fill in the form.

Meeting 29 November - details end of story

Overpopulation will worsen if government has its way

Australia's population is now rising at about 2% per annum. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that our population could rise to 35 million by the middle of the century. Other experts estimate that 35 million is a conservative figure and it could be more like 40 million. It is certain that If the current growth rate continues, the population will double in 35 years. That means our population would be 44 million by 2045.

Natural and Vital resources becoming rare and unaffordable

Australia's environment is under stress already with 22 million people. Not enough water reaches the mouth of the Murray River to keep the lakes of the Coorong alive. In Victoria water restrictions prevail and a desalination plant is being built. This means there is not enough fresh water in the state for people's current needs.

Who do our leaders represent?

Why are our political leaders so pleased about the level of population growth when it causes so many logistical and environmental problems?

Democracy now

A handful of politicians voice an opposing view to the prevailing glee about growth.

The Hon.Kelvin Thomson MHR for Wills is notable amongst these.

Come and hear Kelvin Thomson speak on:

- "Population reform- Political challenges"

When?
3.00p.m. Sunday November 29th 2009

Where?

Meeting Room 1 North Melbourne Library (upstairs) 66 Errol Street, North Melbourne

(next to the Town Hall and Post Office near the corner of Errol and Queensberry St. (Parking usually available in surrounding streets.) Tram No 57 from Elizabeth St. travels along Errol St.

All welcome ! This is a public meeting held by
Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian branch)

Please join us for afternoon tea and meet Kelvin Thomson afterwards.

contact

Jill Quirk President: Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian branch)
[email protected] (If that doesn't work messages will be forwarded from astridnova[AT]gmail.com)

0409742927

Ed. (Sheila Newman) Last year I spent a lot of time editing with Alice Friedemann a new version of her essay, "Peak Soil" for a book called The Final Energy Crisis (2nd edition) Pluto Press, UK, 2008. I was impressed by the way her writing made the reader sit up and see that soil was not just dust and minerals, but alive. Here's a typical paragraph:

"There’s so much life in the soil; there can be 10 “biomass horses” underground for every horse grazing on an acre of pasture. Just a tiny pinch of earth could have 10,000 different species - millions of creatures, most of them unknown. If you dived into the soil and swam around, you’d be surrounded by thousands of miles of thin strands of mycorrhizal fungi that help plant roots absorb more nutrients and water. As you swam along, plant roots would tower above you like trees as you wove through underground skyscrapers."

When I read Dairyman Dave's explanation of soil structure, published below, although it is much shorter and quite different in style, I was similarly impressed by a capacity to evoke interest and understanding in what for most people is an invisible, indestructible firmament, taken for granted.

Soil structure by Dairyman Dave

When I was very young, 18, I remember taking a college course on agronomy, taught by an old professor with white hair. Many years later I realized the values he was trying to teach us. It became clear that he wasn't too fond of the direction that agribusiness was taking agriculture but he had clout and was "allowed" to speak his mind some of the time. For example, he taught us how hybrid corn was made and why but at the same time he pointed out that non-hybrid corn could be just as good and to prove it he always planted some in his test plots so he could show us. Of course, I couldn't have cared less at the time.

He retired the next year; they finally got him out of the way. He also posted a philosophical truth across the blackboard each day which no one paid any attention to, of course.

This man stressed the importance of soil structure and spent time explaining what it was and how it is made and what destroys it. Again, I couldn't have cared less at that time of my life; the course was required. I was into engineering, high tech stuff, important stuff.

I will try to explain soil structure. Think of the World Trade Center buildings before they collapsed. They had structure. After they collapsed, aside from the dust, all the materials were still there but without structure. Imagine that we want to add to the building materials. We dump a few truckloads of cememt, steel and glass on top of the rubble. It's all there but still no structure.

This is how modern farming works; we just dump on the materials and mix it in. Heavy machinery crushes whatever structure there might be. We farm without the structure.

But healthy soil has structure. What would it take to change that pile of rubble back into the World Trade Center? Who would do it? How much energy would it take? Answer: I couldn't do it, you couldn't do it. It takes experts to do it, it takes lots of time and it takes lots of energy. Those experts are the soil organisms, many different experts, and we need to give them their due respect...and get out of the way and give them what they need to do the job. These "bugs" like good food, not just minerals and lignin. Only they can build soil structure.

Dairyman Dave is a US farmer

This comment, by Canadian Tim Murray, was originally posted to the ABC Background Briefing program, 'Housing for Millions'. In response to statements by a planner which implied that the doubling of Vancouver's population in 15 years had been accomplished without pain, he writes, "Vancouver is a success story only if compared to other major urban failures."

As a victim of the “Vancouver model”, and one of tens of thousands of its refugees, I was chagrined to hear that my growing necropolis of noise, congestion and crime had “doubled its population in 15 years without pain”. To whom, developers?

The people who, according to the 52 page MacDermid report, “Funding City Politics,” finance three-quarters of Canada’s urban election campaigns and buy the zoning they want? Or urban planners, the pimps of the Growth Management Industry who, notwithstanding the universal failure of ‘smart growth’ nostrums to protect Greenfield acreage from sprawl by packing more and more people into urban feedlots where more energy inputs are required to sustain them than rural dwellers?

Vancouver is a success story only if it is compared to other major urban failures, all of which are of a scale unfitted for a post-carbon world. Don’t take my word, ask two educated Vancouverites.

Dr. Michael Healey led a team of 23 researchers from the University of British Columbia in a $2.4 million federally commissioned study of the sustainability of Metro Vancouver and the valley it encroaches upon with relentless greed. They concluded that the area had almost three times too many people to be sustainable, and had an ecological footprint 25 times its size.

Urban streams are threatened with toxic runoffs, valley soils are overloaded with nutrients from intensive agriculture and septic systems leading to the contamination of the acquifer and rural waterways . Ninety per cent of Fraser River fish revealed at least one pathological abnormality.

And this was 12 years ago in a city which has been growing 3% per year. Humans are not fairing too much better either.

According to UBC Professor James White in his study of loneliness, Canadians who live in dense compacted areas—cities---have one third fewer “close” friends than rural residents and almost half of those interviewed declared that other people are not to be trusted. The data says that the last planner interviewed on this ABC radio show is dead wrong. Even the young generation would be happier living with the Brady Bunch than stuffed in an urban rabbit warren with his “Friends” . “Smart” growth? How dense can people be?

Tim Murray
November 24/09

An article by Associated Press entitled: "Kangaroo tries to drown dog, attacks owner" dated Tuesday, 24 November 2009 (today), naturally drew the author's attention...
"A kangaroo startled by a man walking his dog attacked the pair, pinning the pet underwater and slashing the owner in the abdomen with its hind legs. The Australian, Chris Rickard, was in stable condition Monday after the attack, which ended when the 49-year-old elbowed the kangaroo in the throat.

Rickard said he was walking his blue heeler, Rocky, on Sunday morning when they surprised a sleeping kangaroo in Arthur's Creek northeast of Melbourne. The dog chased the animal into a pond, when the kangaroo turned and pinned the pet underwater.

When Rickard tried to pull his dog free, the kangaroo turned on him, attacking with its hind legs and tearing a deep gash into his abdomen and across his face.

"I thought I might take a hit or two dragging the dog out from under his grip, but I didn't expect him to actually attack me," Rickard, 49, told The Herald Sun newspaper. "It was a shock at the start because it was a kangaroo, about 5 feet high, they don't go around killing people."

Kangaroos rarely attack people but will fight if they feel threatened. Dogs often chase kangaroos, which have been known to lead the pets into water and defend themselves there. Rickard said he ended the attack by elbowing the kangaroo in the throat, adding Rocky was "half-drowned" when he pulled him from the water."© 24-Nov-2009 AP

Comment: This account seems consistent with known kangaroo behaviour of fleeing its natural predator the dingo, that the kangaroo fled into the water. The owner allowed (or perhaps encouraged) his dog to chase the kangaroo into the water. The kangaroo's final self-defence was to use its hind legs against the dog in the water. The dog persisted and then the owner went in after his dog. The kangaroo defended itself against both the dog and against the owner elbowing it in the throat. It is a human trait to plead innocent when involved in conflict even when the aggressor. Perhaps the editor should have adopted a more factual title of "Kangaroo set on by dog and owner, defends itself in water."

...then there's this story from 2003:

Half-Blind Kangaroo Saves Life Of Unconscious Man

by Sherry Morse:

"A farmer who suffered serious head injuries after being struck by a falling tree branch was rescued by a partially blind kangaroo who is being hailed as a hero.

Lulu the kangaroo banged on the door of the family’s home in Morwell, Gippsland in southeast Australia after discovering the farmer lying unconscious in a field. According to Rural Ambulance Victoria paramedic Eddie Wright, the man had been checking his property for damage following a severe storm when he was struck by the branch.

Wright said that if Len Richards’ family had not found him so quickly, he might have died.

"The kangaroo alerted them to where he was and went and sat down next to him, and that’s how they found him," he said. Richards was taken to an Austin hospital. Richards’ daughter Celeste said, "Lulu and Dad are very close and she follows him around, but we all just love her so much."

About ten years ago, the family found Lulu in the pouch of her mother who had been killed by a car. The authorities allowed them to care for Lulu and adopt her because she is missing one eye.

The Australian Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) has urged the family to nominate Lulu for its National Bravery Award. "From my point of view, it’s a darn good story, and I would hope Lulu is nominated," said RSCPA president Dr. Hugh Wirth. © 2003 Animal News Center, Inc.

"Kangaroos are shy and retiring by nature, and in normal circumstances present no threat to humans. Male kangaroos often "box" amongst each other, playfully, for dominance, or in competition for mates. The dexterity of their forepaws is utilised in both punching and grappling with the foe, but the real danger lies in a serious kick with the hindleg. The sharpened toenails can disembowel an opponent.

There are very few records of kangaroos attacking humans without provocation; however, several such unprovoked attacks in 2004 spurred fears of a rabies-like disease possibly affecting the marsupials. The only reliably documented case of a fatality from a kangaroo attack occurred in New South Wales, in 1936. A hunter was killed when he tried to rescue his two dogs from a heated fray. Other suggested causes for erratic and dangerous kangaroo behaviour include extreme thirst and hunger." (Wikipedia)

Kangaroos like dingos are wild native animals and deserved to be treated with respect as wild animals.

Angry landowners and Taxed Out supporters will rally against the Brumby Government’s Growth Areas Infrastructure Contribution (GAIC) bill, currently before Parliament, tomorrow on the steps of Parliament House in Melbourne at 1.00pm.

The rally has been called by Taxed Out and will be supported by Protectors of Public Lands Victoria, Planning Backlash and the Green Wedges Coalition.

Taxed Out committee member David Trenerry will act as MC and speakers will included: Michael Hocking (Chairman of Taxed Out Inc.), Matthew Guy MP (Shadow Minister for Planning), Greg Barber MP (Greens State Member for Northern Metropolitan Region), Julianne Bell (Protectors of Public Lands Victoria), Mary Drost (Planning Backlash) and Rosemary West (Green Wedges Coalition).

Messages of support from growth areas councils will also be read out.

Mitchell, Melton, Whittlesea, Hume, Casey and Cardinia Councils; The Victorian Farmers Federation; the Urban Development Institute of Australia (Victoria); the Australian Property Institute; the Property Council of Australia; Seniors Australia; the Housing Institute Association; Protectors of Public Lands Victoria, Green Wedges Coalition and Planning Backlash are among the organisations who agree that the GAIC should only be charged at the point of development.

Ed. Note however that the Australian Property Institute, the Property Council of Australia, and the HIA are all profiting from and lobbying for the undemocratic population growth that is the cause of these new taxes. I hope some people carry some signs pointing this out. People should not be misled into thinking that these pro-growth organisations will put democracy ahead of their sectional interests. They are in fact the source of most of the problems in Australia today. They have the ears of government and one wonders what their purpose is in going to the steps of parliament, except perhaps to mislead the public into thinking they are friends of the people.

The current GAIC bill still targets the first sale of property after its inclusion in the Urban Growth Boundary despite the fact that much of the land will not be developed for 15 to 20 years or longer.

So-called “fairness measures” announced by the Government amount to exemptions that are in direct conflict with planning provisions; a deferment option that incurs a premium interest rate set by the Treasurer; and hardship provisions that apply to purchasers who buy in full knowledge of the tax but do not extend to landowners inadvertently caught up in the government’s UGB tax snare.

“We have a situation here where virtually no one agrees with the Government’s position on the GAIC and yet Mr. Brumby and Mr. Madden want to blindly forge on in the face of clear and overwhelming public opposition,” says rally MC, David Trenerry.

“That’s not the Australian way, it’s not the ‘fair go’ we all expect. It’s simply unfair, un-Australian and undemocratic. The simple truth is that Mr. Brumby and Mr. Madden have got the palms of their hands fixed firmly over their ears. They have stopped listening.”

MEDIA RELEASE

Monday 23rd November 2009
Media Contacts:

Michael Hocking 0400 248 099
Jeanette Laffan 0438 452 641
David Trenerry 0403 464 985