Damascus, SANA-Deputy Foreign and Expatriates Minister, Fayssal Mikdad, described the hostile war launched by the Turkish regime on Syrian territories as “invasion,” saying that attacking a sovereign, independent country is considered as an outrageous act against the UN charter and international law which flagrantly contradicts Security Council relevant resolutions. “The Syrian Arab Army, which confronts the terrorist organizations, will confront the foreign invading forces which are present illegitimately on the Syrian territories and it is ready to face all challenges to which Syria is exposed,” Mikdad said in a press statement at the HQ of Foreign Ministry.

He added that the history will hold Head of the Turkish regime, Erdogan, responsible for being a war criminal who has perpetrated all crimes against the Syrian people.

“A liar and a reality forger has no right to claim that he defends the Syrians or accuse the others of crimes he has perpetrated against the Syrian people," Mikdad said.

Mikdad affirmed that the Syrian army has confronted the Turkish aggression on Syria since the beginning of the terrorist war on the country in a lot of sites and it fought the terrorists who were supported and armed by the Turkish regime.

He held the Turkish regime responsible for displacing the Syrians from their lands as it has perpetrated crimes against them through its terrorists and mercenaries, but, the Syrian state has been and still is committed to all its citizens and their return, without preconditions, to villages and towns in Syrian al-Jazeera.

On whether there are any contacts in order to pave the way for the entry of the Syrian army to Syrian al-Jazeera regions or not, Mikdad stressed that the Syrian government has made discussions with all its citizens and expressed, as from the beginning, readiness to make necessary reconciliations, but, the armed powers in that region rejected all attempts and insisted to pave the way, directly or indirectly, for the Turkish occupiers to invade north of Syria.

“The Turkish aggression on the Syrian territories makes Turkey in a position that doesn’t differ from Daesh terrorist organization and many other terrorist groups,” Mikdad said.

He affirmed that the Turkish aggression on Syrian territories will have political repercussions and impacts on the political process in Syria, saying that the international community and the UN should halt this aggression, deter it and make pressures on the Turkish regime to withdraw its army in order to run the political process and the work of the constitutional committee, unless, it will face a lot of obstacles while Turkey threatens to occupy Syrian territories.

Mikdad concluded by affirming that Syria, with its heroic army, will defend each Syrian citizen wherever he was in the framework of its legitimate right according to international law and UN conventions.

Source of article: Mikdad: Turkish aggression is an invasion of Syrian territories… Syrian Army ready to confront all challenges,"10 October، 2019.

Hasaka, SANA-The Turkish regime on Thursday went too far in its aggression on Syrian territories in Hasaka, Raqqa and occupied Tal Halaf, penetrated into Allouk and Katsho villages in the surroundings of Ras al-Ayn and the Industrial region in the city. Meanwhile, the Turkish aggression targeted a number of villages and towns in the countryside of the two cities, concentrating on infrastructure, and vital utilities like water, electricity, dams, oil facilities and residential neighborhoods, and leaving a number of civilians martyred in addition to a huge destruction in properties and infrastructure.

Earlier, SANA’s reporter in Hasaka said that the Turkish regime’s forces continued their aggression with artillery and warplanes on Ras al-Ayn and al-Qamishli cities in Hasaka countryside, and Ein Issa area in Raqqa northern countryside.

Later, the reporter said that a child was martyred in an attack by Turkish regime forces with rocket shells on Qadour Beik neighborhood in Qamishli.

He added that a number of civilians were injured in a Turkish aggression on the western neighborhood of Qamishli through artillery.

Meanwhile, Allouk water station in Ras al-Ayn city went out of service due to a second Turkish aggression on the electrical cables of the station.

Earlier, the reporter said the Turkish regime’s forces have been targeting with warplanes and artillery the city of Ras al-Ayn, claiming the lives of 5 civilians and injuring 9 others, in addition to carrying out artillery strikes and airstrikes on the villages of Naddas, Alouk, Hamid, and Tal Arqam in the city’s countryside, in addition to targeting Saeeda petroleum station on the borders with Turkey, which led to it burning down completely.

The Turkish regime’s forces targeted with rockets the town of Ein Issa in Raqqa’s northern countryside, causing material damage.

SANA’s reporter also said that 3 civilians were injured and dozens were injured as a result of the Turksih regime forces targeting cars on the road between Raqqa and Tal Abyad.

On another note, the reporter said that 100 US soldiers withdrew from Syrian territory in two batches, heading to Iraq along with dozens of vehicles, while ten US officers and a number of foreign experts left the illegal US base of Rumailan and headed to Iraq.

Meanwhile Qasad (SDF) militias continued their oppressive practices against locals, storming dozens of houses in Tal Tamer village in Hasaka countryside, detaining youths to forcefully recruit and send them to conflict zones, and the families of the detainees gathered in front of Gwairan Prison demanding the release of their sons.

On Wednesday, 8 civilians were martyred and 20 others were wounded in a Turkish aggression on Qamishli, Dibasyah and al-Mishrafah in Ras al-Ayn in Hasaka countryside which also targeted service facilities and infrastructure , such as dams and electricity and water plants.

Originally published as "Turkish regime goes too far in its aggression on Hasaka, Raqqa and penetrates into Ras al-Ayn," at https://sana.sy/en/?p=175350, English Bulletin on 10 October 2019.

US corporate media is either pro-Republican or pro-Democrat and they are nearly always in violent disagreement, except on the subject of war. Both sides love war. Here is a rabid example, dated 19 September 2019, from Sean Hannity, of Fox news. (The video is only embedded here for the record. Most visitors probably won't choose to put themselves through all of Hannity's war-mongering tirade.) Surprisingly, the only mainstream US journalist who seems to be against war is also on Fox - Tucker Carlson.

In contrast to Hannity, Tucker Carlson, another Fox News presenter, is outspoken in his opposition to any new United States' war as well as to its current, ongoing wars. Unfortunately, Tucker Carlson still accepts, by omission and commission, some, if not all, of the narrative, used to justify those wars. One example is his unjust claim that socialism, and not the savage and illegal U.S. sanctions, is the cause of all the hardships faced by Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. In spite of these and other shortcomings, Tucker Carlson's weekday new service, which lasts about 45 minutes, in contrast to Sean Hannity's, is well worth a look.

The rest of humanity can breathe a sigh of relief, given that Trump has not yet fully taken up Sean Hannity's advice. In large part this is probably due to the fact that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and their allies in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, seem to have have shown themselves capable of standing up to the United States' bullying. Examples include when the IRGC on 19 June shot down the US drone which had violated Iran's air space and the more recent devastating military defeats inflicted on Suadi Arabian invaders by Yemen's Armed forces.

Tree expert Dr. Greg Moore will speak at the Port Phillip Conservation Council Inc. Annual General Meeting on Monday 21st October 2019, 7pm at Longbeach Place,* 15 Chelsea Road, Chelsea (Vic, Australia). Dr. Moore is an engaging and in demand speaker. A botanist and 'plant mechanic' at the University of Melbourne, Greg’s research interests are in horticultural science, revegetation and ecology, specializing in arboriculture. His passion for trees is centred around understanding how trees cope with their environment and promoting the benefits trees provide in urban spaces.

Greg has been a major speaker at conferences in Australia, Israel, Hong Kong, USA and New Zealand in recent years. He was the inaugural president of the International Society of Arboriculture, Australian Chapter. He has been a regular on Melbourne radio, particularly with ABC 774 and 3AW.

Greg’s talk will include research he presented at the 2018 Chicago Landscape Below Ground Conference.

See Dr. Moore’s CV at University of Melbourne’s Find an Expert https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/display/person2461

*Longbeach Place, our usual venue, is walking distance from Chelsea station. Proceed down Chelsea Rd from Nepean Highway approx. 300 metres. Longbeach Place is on your left directly behind Chelsea Library. There is a car park between the library and Longbeach Place. Entrance door faces the car park. See Google Maps Longbeach Place.

Jenny Warfe,
Secretary,
PPCC Inc.

0405 825769

This short documentary shows the problems that birds face in the US, but they face the same problems in Australia. The current push by powerful property developers, niched in our government, will remove more habitat for the birds where most of us live. Birds Australia's report, The State of Australia's Birds 2015, showed shorebirds in steep decline, and that our familiar friends, magpies, kookaburras, and willy-wagtails, are now struggling.

“This is where we have got to with government-engineered breakneck population growth that also puts property developers and associated professions in charge of planning. 110 golf-courses, which occupy green, treed spaces, in all kinds of areas in Melbourne and its suburbs and another 374 in Victorian regions, now carry hugely increased potential resale value if speculators can get them rezoned for more intensive use. Predictably, golf-course owners and probably management committees are now complaining that they aren’t making enough money. Some of their complaints will be well-founded, because state-imposed population pressure has caused demand for land, water and power, hence their costs, to rise rapidly. If nothing is done, either to reduce population growth, or exempt golf-courses from paying these charges, they will skyrocket.” (Sheila Newman, Population, environment and land-tenure systems sociologist.)

After a 2017 discussion paper that not many of us heard about, the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, has again discreetly invited people to provide feedback to draft guidelines for their Golf Course Redevelopment Standing Advisory Committee, which is composed of property development industry professionals

SUBMISSION IN RESPONSE TO PROPOSAL FOR GOLF-COURSE REDEVELOPMENT

by Sheila Newman, Population, environment and land-tenure systems sociologist.[1]

Redeveloping golf courses and land-speculation:

This is where we have got to with government-engineered breakneck population growth that also puts property developers and associated professions in charge of planning. 110 golf-courses, which occupy green, treed spaces, in all kinds of areas in Melbourne and its suburbs and another 374 in Victorian regions, now carry hugely increased potential resale value if speculators can get them rezoned for more intensive use. Predictably, golf-course owners and probably management committees are now complaining that they aren’t making enough money. Some of their complaints will be well-founded, because state-imposed population pressure has caused demand for land, water and power, hence their costs, to rise rapidly. If nothing is done, either to reduce population growth, or exempt golf-courses from paying these charges, they will skyrocket.

Outrageous:

The proposal is outrageous, of course. It is outrageous in scale, in potential irreversibility, in lack of statistics, and in lack of adequate notification[2] of all Australians that something so huge is in train. If a government can provide wide, ongoing promotion of the dangers of bowel cancer, it could have reached more people on this.
It is also outrageous in the impossibility of most Victorians to find the time to contextualise, assess, and reply to the proposal, even if they knew about it.
It is notably shocking in its potential costs to environmental quality and diversity for all Australians.
It is especially outrageous in its potential strategic profit-grabbing by the property development and construction industry, which has positioned itself with government to generate focused benefits in demand from the massive population-growth engineering it has lobbied for so successfully and undemocratically. In the game of mates, the property developers and the state government (which has become dependent on stamp-duty[3] in lieu of a real economy) are organised to receive the focused benefits, but the public will pay – and not just in dollars - the diffuse costs of this massive expansion and intensification.[4]
This proposal, which flags a copious series of case-by-case fights over rezoning golf-courses for development, is a fine example of the kinds of diffuse and hard to identify costs that the public will bear if this goes ahead. The proposal would require Melbourne’s increasingly socially precarious population, already severely stressed by constant change, to endlessly monitor what is happening to golf courses along with all the other continuous development.
We should have the ability to reject out of hand such proposals all at once, in a job lot.
We should not be expected to devote our lives to fighting to keep what we have, against people who are supposed to be protecting it on our behalf.
Who, except developers, who are networked, resourced and organised at national, state and local level, could find out where all the golf-courses are and then attend, in person or by proxy, all the hearings and reviews, and engage in all the processes, that a Golf Course Redevelopment Standing Advisory Committee would apply to each of them? Who else could afford to do this? Who else controls the process?

Over-commodification:

On the technical side, these ‘planning guidelines’ lack adequate recognition or an overview of the huge natural benefits of relatively undeveloped land. Golf courses have important uses other than golf – as habitat for birds and other fauna, for climate stability, and for the green relief they provide from densely populated spaces. I personally prefer natural landscapes with native plants and animals to golf-courses, and I prefer landscape painting and bird-watching to golfing. Nonetheless, I can see that golf courses are much better for ecology and environment than buildings, roads, and other intensified land-uses. Melbourne, which was planned with large avenues and many green spaces, now lacks green spaces and is choked with traffic. Unfinancial golf-courses, if they cannot be made financial (see further on) should be returned to nature, to provide scarce habitat to our native animals and contact with nature for humans. These golf-courses often got by on the pretext that they would preserve open land and some habitat in the form of golf courses, as a trade-off for more development. “Since 2000 around over 10 new golf courses have been established as the centrepiece of high-end residential developments in Victoria.”[5] No surprise if they want to develop it now.

Golf courses per capita and Victoria’s population juggernaut:

Given that the Victorian Government intends to keep inviting people to come and live and work in Victoria, anticipating doubling and redoubling of the population, if Victoria has more golf-courses per capita than other states, it will need them, for golf or for return to nature.

Birds:

The situation is particularly dire for birds – they really need golf-courses. Australia is a land of birds; we have the most extraordinary range. Doesn’t anyone in planning know of our amazing evolutionary history? It is world famous! The majority of the world’s bird species started here, notably perching birds[6] and song-birds.[7] Humans who are able to hear and see birds deeply enjoy this experience, which seems to become more important as they get older. Bird-watching is an extremely popular activity in Australia. Birds Australia has multiple branches and a busy membership. Does the property development lobby/government really want to be responsible for wiping birds out in more and more places, and removing our age-old relation with them? Although birds are equipped to survive in many circumstances, able to move in search of water and food, massive population growth-fuelled development is transforming the sparse green fringes of this land into a hard-surface desert.
The situation for birds in the South East Region of Australia – Melbourne and Victoria – is increasingly difficult. Birds that require nesting hollows are devastated by the destruction of trees. ‘Common’ much-loved species like kookaburras, magpies and willy wagtails are now struggling, and shorebirds are in steep decline.[8] Golf-course land, because it is not intensively used and retains trees, is a vital resource for birds. There are golf-courses in just about every kind of habitat, including near sea-shores.

Reward golf courses for their environmental services:

With regard to strengthening the viability and continuity of golf clubs, governments should reduce or remove the rates paid for land, water, and power, for golf courses (and any other undeveloped land). The government could pay golf-course owners for mitigating climate change and urban island heat effects through their green spaces. Developers should be levied for this purpose in order to compensate the damage that they do.
Development, with its land-clearing and massive use of materials and energy, as well as creating huge carbon emissions, creates clumps and blocks of aggregate dead material. This is hard for organisms to break down, and incapable of re-ordering and reproducing itself. Living things, however, are the only things that can actually reorder energy and materials, in the acts of ingestion, reproduction and cellular repair.[9] The exception here is ‘modern’ human life, because humans come with more and more dead stuff per capita, in the form of roads, buildings, cars, and other consumables. Hence, we need more golf courses, or to return them to nature, more natural spaces, trees, forests, and healthy water bodies to support the organisms and ecologies that can clean up our synthetic concretions.
In this regard, the current economic model which taxes land in order to induce profit-making activity on it, is now a liability. It needs to change in order to promote natural land. State Governments have to get over their addiction to stamp duty. Otherwise, all this land will disappear under tar and cement.
Redevelopment is a bad thing for golf-courses. We have too much development now, and too much human population growth. Any golf-courses that are going to be abandoned as such, should be returned to nature.

No Re-zoning and prices capped:

Government may need to buy this land from owners of golf-courses who do not want it, and this is a major reason why this land should be excepted from rezoning possibilities. Overpopulation has already drastically overpriced land in Melbourne, even if it is not zoned for development. This makes it difficult and often impossible for local governments to purchase it in order to preserve natural space for Australians. This is why golf-course land and other relatively natural land must not be alienated from its low-use zoning. It must be taken out of the insane speculation cycle, for the thermodynamic reasons stated above as well as the social ones. Speculative gains are not a citizen’s by right.

Sports grounds and Playgrounds:

The ‘guidelines’ have also skewed the idea of open space with social, ecological, and environmental benefits to something always involving some infrastructure, such as ‘playgrounds’ and ‘sports grounds’. It is a form of regimentation as well as an unnecessary kind of capitalisation. As I have intimated, people can enjoy natural surroundings just by walking, and these places can provide habitat for our native animals. They already provide bio-links or wildlife corridors. Any further ‘development’ would reduce the size and viability of these bio-links, which should be increased and consolidated.

Hospitals, affordable Housing etc:

If we have to put hospitals on golf course land then we should realise that we have gone too far in our population and development paradigm. Unaffordable housing and homelessness have increased as Australia’s population has grown, especially from 2009 with massively increased its overseas immigration. Once again, unaffordable housing is a sign that we should interrupt our population and development juggernaut.

The Composition of the Planning Committee lacks diversity and disinterest.

There are no ordinary people on it who do not have deep involvement in the commercial property development industry. One of them was the secretary of population growth-lobbying APop from about 1999 to 2015.[10] For this reason the Committee should not have the power to say whether or not a golf-course may be considered for development. A cross-section of ordinary people should be able to decide this on a case by case basis. Only after this, in the unlikely event that such a democratic cross-section felt that any golf-course could be let go for development, it might be passed on to the Committee for more technical assessment.

Capitalisation:

The documents for this golf course redevelopment proposal have rationalised the closure of golf-courses largely in monetary terms, especially noting that some were not making a profit. The proposal seems to have attempted no education of the public on the main reason why, which is that state- engineered population growth had raised the costs of land and water involved in running golf-courses, thus narrowing their profit margin, and making it tempting for them to cash their land in. It is also suggested that people are not playing golf as much as they used to. We are not told why this is, although the 2017 discussion paper suggested that ten new golf courses that established themselves as centrepieces of high-end residential developments in Melbourne, had added to an oversupply. The development industry runs VCAT planning; it authorised those developments. It should return that land to nature. Many other possible reasons present themselves – changing demographics, difficulty in travelling due to congestion, increased fees, subtle discouragement of golfing by owners wanting to speculate, overwork among the financial, and poverty among the unemployed. The point is, we should not allow the developers or the government to goad us into a situation where land-availability becomes so desperate that it must be constantly used and attract a high financial return.

Low standards in the development industry:

As for redevelopment and the construction industry: The cladding crisis has highlighted the long-known fact that our construction and development industry is largely incompetent, unaccountable, and uninsurable.[11] With respect, it seems quite remarkable that the same industry thinks it should get golf course land or do any more building at all, let alone continue to be in charge of major decisions in Victorian planning.
This golf course redevelopment proposal is very important. It flags a major danger-point that we have reached, preparing to sacrifice something Australians have counted on – natural land. It shows what happens when a government engineers break-neck population growth and then puts property developers in charge of planning.  All natural spaces are threatened.  The fewer green spaces there are, the more their potential price for resale as developments increase. If you have planning outsourced to developers, as we do in Victoria (and all States) you will finish up with no green spaces, no birds, no native animals, and hugely priced high-rises. 

Democracy and the pace of change:

The massive population-growth engineering that our governments/growth lobby are carrying out, with their push for infrastructure and housing, is breaking our democracy. The pace of change is undemocratic because it is impossible for people to effectively engage, let alone democratically participate, and this juggernaut has been set up by an industry that invests all its time in it for massive profit. There is no way that people with normal responsibilities can keep up with what is happening, even when they desperately want to. Elected members of parliament cannot keep up with this either. In Sleepers Wake, Barry Jones MP warned of the danger that we were heading to a time when government would outsource things it could not understand to a technocracy and that is part of what is happening here.
I personally had no desire to make a submission, but I feel I must, if only so people can read my reasons. Just reading the material provided by DELWP was enough to give me nightmares, because I know that DELWP has the bit between its teeth. The property development, infrastructure, and population growth lobby inside and outside of government is waging war on the rest of us in their quest for personal profit and power. The only difference is that they are using bulldozers instead of tanks.

NOTES

[1] I am a population, environment and land-tenure systems sociologist. I completed a 143,000 word research thesis called The Growth Lobby and its Absence in 2002 on the difference between the Australian and French systems for housing, land production and policies on environment and population. Since then I have edited two editions of The Final Energy Crisis, Pluto Press, 2005 and 2008, a book of articles by different scientists on the subject of the future of energy resources. I have also written two volumes of a planned four volume series entitled Demography, Territory, Law. The titles published so far are Demography, Territory, Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations, Countershock Press, 2013, and Demography, Territory, Law2: Land-tenure and the origins of Capitalism in Britain, Countershock Press, 2015.

[2] “Notification was given via letter or email to all golf facilities, local governments, industry bodies such as Golf Victoria as well as all people and organisations who made a submission to the Planning for Golf in Victoria Discussion Paper released in 2017. For more information (and access to the 2017 discussion paper itself) on the Planning for Golf in Victoria process please click here. This process was also publicised on the Engage Victoria website.” Source: Personal correspondence with Michael C. Everett of DELWP. My criticism is that this notification went to local governments and industry bodies and boards in golf, who would not necessarily have passed it on, and who would probably not have looked at or communicated the wider impact of the loss of such spaces to all of Melbourne. Notification did not go to the wider population that will be impacted, or to wildlife networks, such as Birds Australia.

[3] Stamp duty income for the Victorian Government was $1.284b in 2001/2 and only 17 years later it was $6.933b in 2017/18. Source: https://www.sro.vic.gov.au/land-transfer-duty-stamp-duty-statistics

[4] James Q Wilson in Wilson, J.Q., ed., The Politics of Regulation, Harper, New York, 1980,) classified four types of politics depending on whether the benefits and costs of policies were concentrated or diffuse, and he applied this model to immigration politics. In this way, mass immigration has become entrenched in systems where its benefits are narrowly focused but the costs that it imposes are diffuse (and therefore not easily identified by the public that is paying for them). Narrowly focused benefits mean that those benefiting from immigration are consciously aware of this and are able to recognise each other and organise to keep those benefits flowing. Where costs are diffuse and fall upon a disparate population at many different points in many different ways, they are difficult to identify and there are no obvious political rallying points for the public to organise a protest around. I used this methodology in my research thesis, Sheila Newman, The Growth lobby in Australia and its Absence in France, 2002. https://researchbank.swinburne.edu.au/file/a3115a39-c50a-4504-8d1f-4aca21be26fd/1/Sheila%20Newman%20Thesis.pdf

[5] “Planning for Golf in Victoria Discussion Paper (2017). https://engage.vic.gov.au/download_file/3592/907

[6] State of Australia’s Birds, 2015, Birdlife Australia, 2015; Threatened species recovery hub, National Environmental Science Program, https//www.nespthreatenedspecies.edu.au/news/gimme-shelter-conserving-hollow-nesting-birds

[7] Tim Low, Where Song Began: Australia's Birds and How They Changed the World, Penguin, 2017.

[8] State of Australia’s Birds, 2015, p. 11.

[9] Excerpt from “In the end: Thermodynamics and the necessity of protecting the natural world, Chapter 23 in Sheila Newman (Eds), The Final Energy Crisis, 2nd Edition, Pluto Press, 2008. See most of the article below:

“Humans already use most of the land on the planet. In many places in the world the competition is between the land-poor and the land-rich. This is a political problem which needs to be solved without further trashing the natural environment. Some systems are more equitable than others and, as discussed in other articles in this volume, the Anglo-Celtic system used in most English speaking countries is worse than most. We humans have to share the land we already have more equally with each-other. If we insist on growing our population then the competition for land will be increasingly severe. We have already taken enough from other creatures and need to give some (a lot) back. Land for wildlife is not a luxury. The perception that it doesn't 'do' anything needs scientific countering with a thermodynamic explanation. That explanation is that Life is the only force that can reorder spent energy.

The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created but is never lost. However the Second Law of Thermodynamics states that energy is transformed by use and that you can never make it how it was before. (You can't have your cake and eat it.) Industrial society provides a good example in biological energy (food) with the idea that a machine can make a sausage out of a pig, but it cannot make a pig out of a sausage. Once you have turned the pig into sausage for human consumption the energy in the sausage will never be pig again. It will be human waste. The passage of the cake or the pig into something less coherent is part of the usual flow of chemical and physical reactions in a process known as ‘entropy increase’ or a tendency to ‘disperse’.

Otherwise the planet and the atmosphere would be completely filled with sludge and debris. This is the way that ecology and the life-cycles that make up an eco-system are able to temporarily make order from disorder. Industrial manufacturing can grossly restructure dead things, but life is the only process that is able to do this efficiently, keep the process going, and reproduce itself.

Of course if you feed a pig a pork sausage, some of that sausage will become pig again. Most people would see, however, that converting a pig into a sausage through an energy intensive industrial process and then feeding the sausage back to a pig so that the sausage contributed to a miniscule portion of pig-flesh is a pretty inefficient way to make pigs. Nonetheless pork sausages and many other processed foods do find their way back to pigs' troughs. This is quite illustrative of the circular and needlessly wasteful (and cruel) cycles that occur in consumer-industrial societies.
Modern human societies are in fact quite different from those of pre-fossil-fuel human societies and those of other animals.

We modern humans no longer just produce animal waste that is 'biodegradable' in a normal ecological cycle. Through extractive technologies we have artificially extended our bodies and amplified our activities, so that we consume quite enormous quantities of material and energy. In the process of digging up the materials and burning the energy to make things with, we also clear almost every other living thing in our paths. The waste carbon, nitrogen, phosphates, sulphur and other products which our artificial system puts out largely overwhelm the services of the remaining (shrinking) natural eco-systems. Yet the natural eco-systems are the ONLY agents capable of saving us from being buried, suffocated and burned by the physical and chemical interactions of our industrial-society waste.

That is how the second law of thermodynamics can be used to explain why it is vital to allocate increasing space to natural processes. Returning land to wild grass and forests and giving animals their freedom to live naturally is the most positive thing that we humans can do about the accelerating rate of planetary entropy that consumer society multiplied by huge human populations is causing. Entropy comes in the form of increasingly unpredictable climate and in broken, dead and dying eco-systems. [...]”

[10] Geoff Underwood (who chaired the Victorian Planning System Committee 2011) was the Secretary of APop, (the Australian Population Institute) from 2000 to at least 2015. This was an organisation with the sole aim of vastly increasing Australia’s population, and almost entirely officiated by property developers who had the money and clout to aggressively promote this. Ordinary Australians had no ability to combat this organised input to policy and media. APop has largely been replaced by the Property Council of Australia, of which several government departments are members, and which, in 2009, announced to its members via a Powerpoint display that its number one aim was “More political influence.” It seems to have achieved this.

[11] See Anne Paton, of Victorian Building Action Group (VBAG) on the long history of bad building and its costs: https://youtu.be/zsyyVILjGpE. Also see Nerrida Pohl on cladding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFVNL8rV_ZQ .

“Since July 2002 there have been 54 separate reviews of the building industry, including by the Victorian Ombudsman and the State Auditor-General, all pointing to serious shortcomings and all calling for reform.” Clare Kermond, “When your dream becomes a nightmare,” The Age, August 16, 2015.

'It's not about the source, it's about the numbers, stupid'

Professor Carr was the longest serving Premiere of NSW from 1995 to 2005. He also served as Federal minister for Foreign Affairs from 2012 - 2013.

Bob Carr has been a long time advocate for a sustainable population. In 2000, as Premier of NSW, he stated that Sydney was full, bringing the issue of population into the headlines at a time when domestic population policy was rarely discussed.

While serving as foreign minister, Carr also advocated for a global population policy, including foreign aid for family planning and empowerment of women. During this time, he was approached by SPA to be Patron, a post to which he accepted.

Since leaving politics, The Honourable Bob Carr is Industry Professor (Business and Climate Change) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS).

In this video, Bob discusses his role in advocating for a sustainable population when in politics, public opinion on the issue, and why organizations such as SPA are crucial to advocate for this critical issue.

"The greatest threat to our environment is not carbon dioxide but unsustainable immigration. As the son of a farmer, I was taught from a young age about carrying capacity and never to overstock your paddocks. Yet immigration is doing just that, causing major city congestion and overdevelopment on our city fringes. Meanwhile, regional communities are struggling as opportunities, from the lack of infrastructure, go begging. While I agree with the government's wind-back of permanent visa places to 160,000 annually, the almost two million temporary visa holders living in Australia should also be reduced." "All war is a failure of diplomacy. The current military intervention in the Middle East has lasted almost as long as World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War combined. It has gone on for too long and needs to end. Bin Laden is dead, Saddam is dead and there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. ISIS will only be defeated when the world calls out the Milo Minderbinder who is funding them."

First Speech: Chamber Senate on 10/09/2019 [1]
Mr President, I would like to acknowledge my colleagues in the chamber and special guests in the gallery who are here today. I would also like to thank the people of Queensland and the LNP for the faith they have placed in me to represent them over the next six years.

Self-belief is the conviction that leads to achievement. It is the optimism that inspires hard work, that turns adversity into opportunity and convict colonies into countries. From humble beginnings modern Australia has overcome immense challenges to become one of the world's great liberal democracies. Few countries epitomise the power of self-belief and the ethos of 'a fair go' better than Australia, a country that remains a beacon to those fleeing persecution and those who seek a better life for themselves and their children. Gratitude towards our forefathers who built this nation and in doing so gave us so many opportunities is what drives me to see this country continue to provide opportunities for our children. It is that aim that brings me here today.

Of all the issues faced by Australia, few are more damaging to our country than the fiscal imbalance and ambiguous responsibilities between state and federal governments. You've really got to ask why Australia, a country of 25 million people, has nine growing health bureaucracies while maternity wards are being closed in my home state of Queensland.

Our Constitution was designed to hold government to account by the people, yet 120 years of compromise has rendered it ineffective. It is time for COAG to hold a constitutional convention to clearly define and separate these responsibilities, with proposed changes put to a referendum. The blame game needs to end. Australians deserve accountability.

People pay taxes in return for essential services, not more regulation. They expect governments to build infrastructure, not sell it. Despite this, governments have privatised much of the infrastructure that delivers those services. At the same time, they have marched into the family home, the bedroom and the classroom, telling people how to live their lives, parents how to raise their children and owners how to run their businesses. The jackboot of bureaucracy is suffocating everyday choices, the very thing liberal democratic governments are meant to defend. Is it any wonder that people are cynical about governments when they walk away from providing services while imposing more regulation? Australians smell a rat when it comes to asset sales. At almost every opportunity, they have rejected it. Foreign owners, superannuation funds and corporations aren't elected, so how are they held accountable to the Australian people if they fail to provide essential services? They aren't. As such, privatisation undermines accountability, the bedrock of democracy.

The sale of critical assets to offshore entities also undermines our security and sovereignty. Just look at the Darwin Port, neoliberal economics at its finest. It seems ludicrous that Australian super funds invest $580 billion in offshore equities and bonds, yet critical national infrastructure has to rely on foreign capital for funding. This is a classic case of ideology gone mad. Our founding fathers Barton, Deacon, Isaacs and Higgins—all members of the Protectionist Party—would be turning in their graves. My forefathers left Ireland during the great famine, when powerful foreign landlords exported wheat rather than selling it to feed the starving population. National interest should always take precedence over vested interests.

Most infrastructure assets are monopolies that aren't subject to competitive market forces that drive efficient outcomes. Australia's high energy prices are one example of what happens when a market is artificially manipulated to achieve a predetermined aim. Only six per cent of superannuation is invested in infrastructure. This needs to increase.

Today, more than ever, governments need to build income-generating infrastructure such as dams, power stations, rail and ports. Just as Governor Macquarie funded an ambitious building program through the issue of the holey dollar, a government owned infrastructure bank should be created to do the same. Funding could come from infrastructure bonds and superannuation. These measures would provide essential services, employment and fixed income for retirees. It is a much better option than interest rate manipulation, which has only punished savers and prospective homebuyers. If dairy farmers can't set the price of milk to earn a fair return on their efforts, then why does the RBA, an unelected body, get to fix the price of money on behalf of the money markets? Why is there one rule for one industry and not the other?

Australia is endowed with vast natural wealth, yet until the last quarter it has run current account deficits for the best part of 50 years. In the last financial year, despite a trade surplus of $50 billion, Australia plunged further into debt, with a current account deficit of $12 billion due to capital profits paid to offshore entities. Because of the tax treaties, most of these profits are taxed at around 10 per cent or less, while profits retained in Australia are taxed at 30 per cent. Our own taxation system acts as a reverse tariff on entities domiciled here in Australia, sending profits and business offshore because of the regulatory and taxation burden placed on them. The solution to this is to ensure that the withholding tax rate on profits transferred offshore is the same as the tax rate on profits retained in Australia. Given there is $2.8 trillion in super, tax concessions for foreign investors need to stop. Australia has no shortage of capital. Increasing withholding tax revenue could fund cuts in both payroll tax and income tax. This would give workers more money in their pockets, increase business turnover and boost productivity. It's a win-win.

Ultimately, markets are a mechanism for buying and selling goods, not for producing them. The mechanism for that is the Australian people. When the convicts got off the boat, all they had was their will to survive. There were no financial instruments, regulations, scoping studies or subsidies in sight. Our prosperity has come from the hands of our carpenters and mechanics, the minds of our scientists and engineers, the hearts of our teachers and nurses and, most importantly, the persistence and innovation of small business owners. Yet today financial rewards go to the paper shufflers—bureaucrats who impose red tape, lawyers who argue semantics, fund managers who trade financial instruments and universities who sell degrees.

A true market economy is a system in which individuals own most of the resources and control their use through voluntary decisions. It is a system in which the government plays a small role as regulator. This is no longer the case in Australia, where combined government spending accounts for around 37 per cent of GDP. Our remaining GDP is becoming more concentrated between a handful of oligarchs and superannuation funds where there is very little competition or innovation. Australia will not continue to prosper while such a power imbalance continues. Innovation and productivity are driven from the ground up by individuals' hard work, not top-down by vested interests shuffling paper. As Adam Smith said:

The directors of … companies … being the managers … of other people's money … it cannot well be expected that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which … partners … watch over their own … Negligence … must always prevail …

While economic growth is important, it should not come at a cost to our quality of life. It is time immigration levels were reduced so communities can deal with infrastructure, the environment and skills shortages. Despite almost a doubling of the population in the last 30 years, state governments have built very few base-load power stations or dams. They need to address declining services to everyday Australians before the population increases any further.

The greatest threat to our environment is not carbon dioxide but unsustainable immigration. As the son of a farmer, I was taught from a young age about carrying capacity and never to overstock your paddocks. Yet immigration is doing just that, causing major city congestion and overdevelopment on our city fringes. Meanwhile, regional communities are struggling as opportunities, from the lack of infrastructure, go begging. While I agree with the government's wind-back of permanent visa places to 160,000 annually, the almost two million temporary visa holders living in Australia should also be reduced.

Skills based training through TAFE should take precedence over non-vocational university studies. Too many young people are graduating from university with massive debts but no employment prospects, while business import labour to fill skills shortages. The government's incentive payment schemes for apprenticeships are a step in the right direction. Sending everybody to university has not resulted in a well-educated population. It has resulted in worthless degrees, dumbed-down standards and vast amounts of student debt. It is a sad indictment of our education system that Australia, a First World country, has to import skilled labour, especially doctors, from developing countries.

There are over 600,000 foreign students studying in Australia, who use infrastructure funded by the taxpayer. They can also work up to 20 hours per week, competing with unemployed Australians looking for work. It is time universities, and not the taxpayer, funded the economic cost of hosting them. Universities should also underwrite student loans, which total over $60 billion. Why should the taxpayer underwrite this without a guarantee from universities that their graduates will get a job and repay their debts?

Almost 20 years ago, I finished a seven-year journey around the world that took me to most corners of the globe. The Elamite tells in Iran, and the Aleppo souk and Palmyra ruins in Syria were some of the more spectacular places I saw. It would be almost impossible for me to travel to those places today, which is a shame. As the birthplace of writing, irrigation, astronomy, algebra and our major religions, the Middle East is the cradle of our civilisation.

All war is a failure of diplomacy. The current military intervention in the Middle East has lasted almost as long as World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War combined. It has gone on for too long and needs to end. Bin Laden is dead, Saddam is dead and there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. ISIS will only be defeated when the world calls out the Milo Minderbinder who is funding them. As Eisenhower said:

>
No nation's security and wellbeing can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow nations.

Any nation's attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible. Twenty-first century foreign affairs have been characterised by belligerent rhetoric and an unwillingness to seek peace through diplomatic channels. This needs to change. Sound diplomacy and strength of position is the foundation of peace.

Of all the foreign policy achievements in my lifetime, none was more inspirational than Reagan and Gorbachev in ending the Cold War. Their willingness to work together is the example that world leaders should follow today. As Reagan said:

People want to raise their children in a world without fear and without war. They want to have some of the good things over and above bare subsistence that make life worth living. They want to work at some trade that gives them a sense of worth. Their common interests cross all borders.

Australia needs to continue the good work the government is doing by building alliances with our Indo-Pacific neighbours. We are only as strong as we are united and as weak as we are divided. We also need to strengthen our defences here in Australia, using superior technology that will protect Australians and not line the pockets of vested interests.

The undeniable truth I learnt from my travels is that we're all the same. We all want a roof over our head, food in our stomach and a better life for our children. What binds us together is much more than what drives us apart. We must promote a unified Australia, rather than ideologies that seek to divide us. To rephrase Reagan, our common interests cross all identities. Cicero once stated: 'Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.'

There are so many people I have to thank for being here today, but first I would like to acknowledge a special place—my home town of Chinchilla. As a small agricultural town of around 6,000 people on the Darling Downs, it has played a major role in the development of the gas export industry in Queensland. Despite this, there has been a gradual erosion of essential services to it and many other small towns in Queensland. Worst of all was the loss of its maternity ward. When I grew up, Chinchilla had at least three midwives, one of whom was my mother. Despite a much larger economy today, it has none. The people of Chinchilla deserve better.

A rural upbringing has given me a deep appreciation of the land, its people and the challenges they face. I will stand up for our regions to ensure that they receive their fair share of government funding and services. Their contribution to this country has been the foundation of our success.

I would not be standing here today if it wasn't for the support and hard work of the party members. The LNP, as a volunteer organisation, only survives thanks to the tremendous hard work of its grassroots members. When the media ask, 'Who is the "base" of the party?' the answer is simple. It is the members and volunteers, who give up so much time and effort to run election campaigns, organise meetings, write up the minutes and keep the books. Without volunteers, the party and our communities go nowhere. They represent the silent majority who are proud of their country and their way of life. Thank you for your support.

Special thanks to my fellow Senate candidates Paul Scarr, Susan McDonald, Amanda Camm and Nicole Tobin, and to my fellow LNP Queensland colleagues for their invaluable advice and support. I also acknowledge all the candidates who ran in the federal election for having a go. Our democracy is only as strong as the courage of the people who are prepared to stand up for what they believe in.

To my mates here today, thanks for taking the mick! God forbid we ever take ourselves too seriously!

To my elder siblings, Michelle, Jim and Caroline, thanks for guiding your little brother here today. I know mum would be proud of us all.

To my in-laws, Robyn and Darcy, thank you for all of your support and help over the years.

To Dad, you've been my political mentor throughout my life, and your values and views I will carry with me in this chamber.

To Mum, I wish you could be here. Your unconditional love has, without a doubt, made me the person that I am today.

Family and self-reliance are values I hold strong. The family unit is the foundation of a stable society. As a father of three, I believe in the saying, 'It is not what you do for your children, but rather what you teach them to do for themselves.' We need to teach our children that with self-belief comes self-reliance.

That same attitude is one all Australians should adopt. We should not take our success for granted. To remain self-reliant, Australian control of our infrastructure, defence and natural wealth is vital. How can we teach our children to be self-reliant when we've left them with nothing in the cupboard for them to rely on?

For the last four years, I have had the pleasure of staying home and raising my young children. So I know how important it is that parents are with their children at such a young age. There is no greater bond than that between the parent and the child, and it is one that governments should seek to preserve. There is no substitute for mum and dad.

This brings me to my two great loves, my wife and children. Lauren, you are a wonderful mother and a fantastic wife. I couldn't ask for anything more. To my children, Sean, James and Scarlett, staying home to help raise you for the last four years has been the greatest pleasure of my life. And, while I will miss you, always know that, just as I have found strength and support from my family and friends, you will too. We live in a great country that with self-belief and hard work will reward your efforts.

In the words of Henry David Thoreau:

… if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected … He will … pass an invisible boundary … solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty, nor weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

To that end, I look forward to serving the Australian people to help nurture their aspirations so they too can build their castles in the air. Thank you, Mr President.

NOTES

[1] This speech is published in Australian Hansard, Tuesday, 10 September 2019, p.68. https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/chamber/hansards/fa4eb7cb-4d6f-4c8d-9f9d-61609bc1003a/toc_pdf/Senate_2019_09_10_7134.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf#search=%22chamber/hansards/fa4eb7cb-4d6f-4c8d-9f9d-61609bc1003a/0146%22">

Since 2005 the Reclaim the Radical Spirit of the Eureka Rebellion Celebrations Committee has awarded six Eureka Australia Medals (EAM) at Bakery Hill, Ballarat (the site where the Eureka Oath was taken) on Eureka Day, 3rd December.

The EAM is awarded to people living in Australia who have lived lives that reflect the sentiments expressed in the Eureka Oath which was sworn by miners and their supporters at Bakery Hill, Ballarat on the 29th November 1854 –

“We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties”.

It’s time those people (both living and deceased) whose actions have improved the lives of Australians and have been instrumental in changing this society for the better, are recognised.

If you know somebody who should be recognised, not just those people who are well known, please contact me via either

Email: [email protected]
Post PO Box 20 Parkville, VIC 3052

with the following details:
The person’s name
A few sentences on why they should receive the EAM
A contact address for the person you have nominated
Nominations close Sunday 10th November 2019.

See you in Ballarat on Tuesday 3rd December 2019 to celebrate the 165th Anniversary of the Eureka Rebellion.

All the very best,
Dr. Joseph Toscano / Convenor Reclaim the Radical Spirit of the Eureka Rebellion Celebrations
Tel: 0439 395 489

This is the second in a series of interviews with Nerrida Pohl about lack of proper regulation of the construction and development industry in Australia. Nerrida talks about the 30 story appartment building in Victoria, where she bought two appartments 'off the plan'. The building is a shared commercial/private one, that is meant to share one plan, but Nerrida has discovered with some amazement that there are actually two different plans. Although the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) ruled, in a dispute between the developer and Stonington Council, that residents would share the building's loading bay with commercial occupants, this right was sold off by a member of the building management for $1.00 per annum peppercorn rent. This has meant that moving vans park at the front entrance, causing traffic problems in a very busy area. The front doors are propped open so that furniture etc can be brought into the building, creating a security risk. Furthermore, the ''Residents Meeting Room' specified in the plan, has been occupied by a real-estate agency. This means that residents have no formal or designated place to meet, communicate, and organise for their own benefit. It is especially hard because many appartment owners dwell overseas and cannot easily be contacted by other owners who, when they ask, are only given overseas mailing addresses, which might be PO boxes or legal firms in distant cities.

VIDEO UNPUBLISHED: Unfortunately the person interviewed in this video has asked me to unpublish it because the publicity she has received has apparently caused her problems.

Australia's construction industry is corrupt, but protected by government. This has left building consumers in a terrible situation. A current scandal is that they are being forced to pay billions for builders' mistakes in a situation where no building over 3 stories is insured. This video is of an interview with Nerrida Pohl about the dangers of inflammable cladding on skyscrapers, using her own building as an example. The location affords views of similar problems on surrounding skyscrapers in South Yarra. It also illustrates the irony of having one's view built out, even when one lives in a skyscraper, as massive population growth an deregulation accelerate infilling and raise heights. Nerrida was a speaker at the Victorian Building Action Group AGM this year.

VIDEO UNPUBLISHED: Unfortunately the person interviewed in this video has asked me to unpublish it pending her dealing with some pressure she has received in response. Because this was a very educational video, I am regretfully unpublishing it for the time being.

Waleed Aly ("A Rhetorical State of Emergency," Sydney Morning Herald, 12 September 2019,) has dressed up banality as insight and has been very long-winded about it. His focus is climate change and he laments the fact that we have so "engineered a lack of [political] consensus" that Australia is never likely to successfully address it.

But there is a sense that Waleed believes his unique understanding sets him apart from the problems he describes ... I would like to help him find his feet of clay.

That we worry about climate change is because of the harm it is doing and will do to the natural environment; Waleed's focus, therefore, ought to be environmental decline from any cause, and not just climate change.

The two key drivers of environmental decline are the growth in human population and ever rising levels of consumption. Remarkably, the two key components of Australia's particular economic model are: more people -- population growth via high immigration -- consuming more and more ... forever.

If Australia wishes to address environmental decline -- as Waleed believes we ought -- we must address our levels of consumption and the growth in our population. The latter will require a substantial reduction in immigration -- the principal driver of our population growth.

There is a popular consensus for this measure. What stands in the way? Well, among other things, pundits like Waleed and his occasional employer, the ABC, who refuse to go anywhere near the immigration issue.

For all his posturing and puffing over our dysfunctional politics, Waleed is part of the problem he describes.

(Photos by Fiona Bell.) I have strongly supported the RUANELA (Residents United Against North East Link Option A) campaign against the North East Link. I am opposed to the removal of thousands of mature trees and the massive loss of open space particularly in the Koonung Creek Reserve. 12.7 hectares of parkland will be permanently lost.

I am opposed to the overkill which this project is - a 24 lane freeway at one point, rivalling the word's 26 lane widest at a massive cost of $16 billion, which could properly fund mental health, homelessness or indigenous disadvantage if it were directed there instead.
I am opposed to the impact on sporting and recreational pursuits for my constituents. The Boroondara Tennis Centre will go. The Freeway Public Gold Course will have holes removed, threatening its viability."

I am opposed to the way this project destroys the Doncaster Rail Project - for years residents have been promised this Project was on the drawing board.

I supported local residents and the City of Boroondara in a letter to the Transport Infrastructure Minister in March. I supported local residents in the speech I gave during debate on this project in the Legislative Council in May. I supported local residents in asking a Question in the House urging the Government to reconsider the Doncaster Rail Line in June.

And I will be raising this issue in the Legislative Council again today, urging the Government to reconsider Option A in the light of new modelling work commissioned by Councils.

For further information, or to support the campaign against the North East Link please don't hesitate to get in touch with my Electorate Office.

Your Sincerely,

Clifford Hayes M.L.C.

206-208 Bay Street North Brighton 3186

P (03) 95308399 E: [email protected]
https://www.cliffordhayes.com.au

Melbourne lacks open green spaces. Unfinancial golf-courses should be returned to nature, to provide scarce habitat to our native animals and contact with nature for humans. These golf-courses often got by on the pretext that they would preserve open land, as a trade-off for more development. Melbourne is not just overdeveloped, it is overpopulated. Furthermore, our building industry is so incompetent that all its activities should be halted. Below you can read the nonsense being proposed by your government, as an excuse to give more land and free kicks to developers. It's a criminal economy that takes nature and destroys it just for more dollars for Australia's rich and greedy class. Submissions opened on 2 September 2019. Submissions can be made until 5.00pm on 30 September 2019. See example of a submission from Sheila Newman here: "Save 110 golf-courses for birds, not high-rises - Sociologist".

/Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning

Golf Course Redevelopment Standing Advisory Committee

Introduction

Golf is one of Australia’s most popular organised
recreational activities. The sport is experiencing big changes in demand.
Overall, traditional golf club membership is in decline and clubs are facing
changing leisure patterns and increasing operating costs. Some golf clubs have
been forced to merge or close. This trend has drawn developer interest in golf
course land.

Recognising that golf course land, especially within
Melbourne’s Urban Growth Boundary may be considered for rezoning, the Victorian
Government seeks to ensure new proposals for redevelopment are assessed
according to consistent criteria outlined in a planning decision-making
framework.

Draft Golf Course Redevelopment Guidelines (PDF)

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"People end up with nothing because they really don't believe we have a system as bad as we do." Consumers are unprotected in Australia's building disaster. "You may have a house that's being demolished, but you still have a block of land. If you've got any superannuation or anything in the bank, at least hang on to that." Anne Paten of Victorian Building Action Group (VBAG) talks about how the system that's supposed to help building consumers actually bleeds the victims of the industry even more. People qualify for insurance, but never get the money. They go to VCAT and are sent away with nothing. The results are bankruptcy, divorces, and suicides. Substantial reports and inquiries are removed from the internet. Australians need to realise that the government won't help them; they have to join together and help each other.

We have transcribed some highlights from the videoed speech full of extraordinary revelations - made at the Victorian Building Activists Group AGM 2019.

Since 2002 there have been mandated payments for builders in all states to take out domestic building insurance (DBI in Victoria), yet almost no owner who has suffered by bad building has successfully claimed their insurance, despite multiple defects. For instance, in 2011, $88m was paid into the Victorian fund, a year when 40% of building consumers suffered financial loss. [1] Yet, for that same year, only three owners had successful insurance claims against their builders. Yet many, many more qualify. The money goes to salaries in administrative infrastructure for the funds. Recently it was reported that owners who suffered in the 2011 Lacrosse dangerous cladding fire disaster had a 'big' win of $7.5m at VCAT. This sum does not even cover the amount paid to get people out of the building on the day of the fire. Owners have borrowed far more than that just to go to court. And the builder was not even held responsible. They system protected him.

At 10 minutes into the video:

"In 2012, the Victorian Omsbudsman found [2] that the [Victorian] Building Commission, instead of being a 'regulator'[...] was taking the big building companies out to dinner, to the best restaurants, with the best bottles of wine then getting them tickets for the tennis centre, for the football, and so on, and giving the money to the HIA, the MBA. [...] the money that runs all of those organisations is from building permits [...] so, in other words, all of us [victims of this system]. [...]"

"[The Victorian Building Commission, VBA] uncovered the registration system. Effectively the registration system is, if you cannot speak English, cannot read plans, cannot write a sentence, know nothing about building, and have never seen a hammer, you would make an excellent builder. So get registered. The book, the Game of Mates, calls it the 'favour system'. It's not like you go to the doctor, the teacher, the school: These people have no qualifications. And, of course, they don't build! So, we have builders who don't build, we have surveyors who don't survey, and we have regulators who don't regulate. So, in a sense, that's it. That's all we have to really understand.

So, by 2015, they had changed the name of the [Victorian] Building Commission. They had removed everything from its 20 year history from the web."

[You cannot even find the Auditor General's 2012 report. The link from TROVE to the pdf at Auditor General's site leads to a page-error.]

In 2015, they're [...] doing the third Auditor General's report, and they've changed auditor generals and they've changed the Ombusdsman, because anyone who is putting all the facts and pointing out has to be moved on.

NOTES

[1] Consumer Confidence and Market Experience Study Victorian Consumers CAV 2011.

[2] Victorian Ombudsman: Own motion investigation into the governance and administration of the Victorian Building Commission 2012-12-12. See https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/175510781?q=Victorian+Building+Commission&c=article&sort=holdings+desc&_=1567828294045&versionId=261204408.

"This report identifies problems in the governance and administration of the Victorian Building Commission and the manner in which it expends monies generated from its regulation.

"In March 2012 the Ombudsman's Office received information from several sources in relation to concerns about the Victorian Building Commission (the Commission). These concerns included that the Commission:

- paid contractors significant amounts for investigative services
- contracted external investigators who were former Commission staff
- made significant payments to external investigators based upon invoices which lacked detail about the amounts charged
- employed former police officers as investigators with little or no building experience
- poorly managed an information technology project which was several million dollars over budget
- operated at a significant deficit.
-This resulted in Ombudsman conducted an own motion investigation into the governance and administration of the Commission.

During the investigation additional issues were identified. These included significant expenditure by Commission staff on hospitality and entertainment and concerns about the administration and integrity of the registration system for building practitioners."

Source https://apo.org.au/node/32338. The link from this source to a pdf at the Auditor General's office results in a "Page not found" at the Auditor General's site. Here is the link, try for yourself: https://www.ombudsman.vic.gov.au/resources/documents/Investigation_into_the_governance_and_administration_of_the_Victorian_Building_Commission.pdf.

Each spring I feel a tinge of grief when magnolia buds appear.
For I never see the glorious display I yearn for every year.
I might see a hint of pink withstanding every storm
But the elaborate blooms I see next door on my tree are still- born.

I know who is responsible, a possum small and shy,
I feed him in the vain hope that he will my tree pass by,
Although my ploy has never worked I keep it up from habit
And I never In my wildest dreams would take my knife and stab it!

I met him one night on the fence; he froze upon his feet
What right had I to stand right there when he was passing on his beat?
In all the years I've felt the need to leave him something yummy,
He never speaks and never looks, just puts it in his tummy.

From today at start of spring my blooms may have a chance,
I saw some fur upon the lawn and from my window looked askance,
Oh what awful savagery has happened in my tame garden?
I must go outside and know the truth, my feelings I must harden!

Yes, torn and ripped my possum lies all spread out on the grass
His stomach, full is tossed aside, no use to he who broke his fast
Looking up, a butcher bird with innocent expression
Too small is he to do this deed but will not say no to its digestion!

Minutes on I saw a large black crow alighting on the scene
Pulling apart from near the heart the meat that had once been
Little ring tail quiet and shy, no personality to speak of
But meant the world to his family who now can only think of.........

The Russian military says that the United States' missile strike on Idlib, August 31, has jeopardized further implementation of the ceasefire in the Idlib de-escalation zone, as well as disrupting it in a number of areas.

MOSCOW, September 1. A US airstrike on Syria’s Idlib province has left numerous casualties and a major destruction, the Russian Center for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides in Syria (part of Russia’s Defense Ministry) said in a statement on Sunday.

The US carried out the airstrike at 3 p.m. on August 31 on an area between Ma’arrat Misrin and Kafr Haya, the center reported.

"There are numerous casualties and a major destruction in the settlements targeted by the US airstrike," the center said, stressing that this strike came in violation of the earlier reached agreements because Washington had not notified Russia and Turkey about its plans.

The Russian military notes that the US has jeopardized further implementation of the ceasefire in the Idlib de-escalation zone and also disrupted it in a number of areas. According to the center, such steps of Washington, which keeps accusing Russia of its alleged indiscriminate shelling in the Idlib de-escalation zone, raise eyebrows.

"Despite the shellings carried out by militants, provoked by the US strike, the Syrian forces are currently observing a moratorium on carrying out combat actions in the interests of achieving peaceful settlement in the Idlib de-escalation zone as soon as possible," the statement reads.

According to the Russian military, at 6 a.m. on August 31 at the initiative of Russia and Turkey the Syrian army unilaterally declared a ceasefire across the Idlib de-escalation zone, and notified all parties to the conflict. "Over the past day the government forces have strictly complied with their undertaken commitments. Flights of combat aviation of Russia’s Aerospace Defense Forces and the Syrian Air Force have been fully suspended," the centre said.

The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (POCTA) Regulations 2008 sunset on 15 December 2019. New regulations need to be made before this date.

Following a thorough review of existing regulations and extensive consultation with a range of stakeholders, the Victorian Government has developed the proposed POCTA Regulations 2019 and associated Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS). These documents are now available for public comment.

The POCTA Regulations 2019 aim to protect the welfare of animals in Victoria by supporting requirements set under Victoria’s primary piece of animal welfare legislation – the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986.

This is achieved by preventing, or minimising, harm through regulation of specific activities.

The RIS examines the costs and benefits of the proposed POCTA Regulations 2019 and considers possible alternatives.

New or amended regulations include:

· Animal transportation and tethering requirements

· Use of pain relief for mulesing

· Sale and use of wildlife safe fruit netting

· Sale and use of electronic devices

· Approvals and other processes related to the use of traps

· Operational and administrative processes for Rod Scientific Procedure record-keeping, the sourcing of animals, and training of Animal Ethics Committee members

· Fees

You are encouraged to contribute your views, expertise or ideas on the draft proposed regulations and options presented in the Regulatory Impact Statement. Consultation is open until midnight on Thursday 26 September 2019.

Copies of the RIS and the proposed regulations may be obtained from the Engage Victoria website at https://engage.vic.gov.au/prevention-cruelty-animals-draft-regulations-2019

The Engage Victoria website is the preferred method for receiving submissions.

Please note that all comments and submissions received will be treated as public documents.

Thank you and regards

Animal Welfare Victoria

Lord Mayor Clover Moore has nothing to congratulate herself on with regard to homelessness in Sydney. The City of Sydney’s most recent street count has revealed that homelessness has risen and crisis shelters are at capacity. Although the City has been collecting levies from developers to create affordable housing since 2004, it has only created 835 new affordable housing dwellings in that time. Whilst the *official* number of homeless in Sydney reached 592 in August 2019 (with so many more couch-surfing and living on credit), Australia has continued to import approximately one million immigrants every two years, pushing up the price of housing and causing pressure on Sydney's very scarce land, to the extent that NSW State Premier, Gladys Berejiklian asked the Federal Government to halve the immigration numbers - to no avail. Lendlease private developments is forcing new suburbs into koala territory despite years of organised protests from nearby residents. It is clear that property development is disorganising human communities, extinguishing wildlife, and over-riding every democratic measure in our society. It is ironic that the City of Sydney, in a country run by property developers for their own enrichment through population growth, should give the biggest private landowner in Australia (the Catholic Church) $100,000 to pay various humble workers to telephone between services looking for empty beds each night for the homeless. The same Catholic Church is a notable property developer, owner of the oldest bank in the world, and a chronic promoter of mass immigration.

According to a press release from the City of Sydney, while the number of those sleeping rough fell by 24 people compared to the count in August last year, occupation of temporary or crisis accommodation rose by 16.8 per cent to 592 people – 94 per cent of available bed capacity.

August 2019
People Sleeping Rough: 254
Occupied Crisis and Temporary Accommodation Beds: 592

August 2018
People Sleeping Rough: 278
Occupied Crisis and Temporary Accommodation Beds: 495

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said that the high level of temporary bed occupancy showed outreach services run by the NSW Government, City of Sydney and non-government organisations were working, but that those numbers would remain high without the provision of more stable, long-term affordable and social housing. In 2017 she had blamed the State Government for not providing enough accommodation, and had refused to move people out of Sydney's "tent city".

In NSW State Premier, Gladys Berejiklian's defense, Ms Berejiklian had, in 2018, asked the Federal Goverment to reduce immigration to NSW by half, with no success.[1]

Sydney's Mayor has a complete disconnect about the problem of massive immigration numbers driving up demand for housing and personally welcomes 1000 international students each year, observing that there are now more than 35,000 studying in the City's local area. Whilst homelessness is increasing, she actually describes student immigration as 'increasing Sydney's livability'.

"International students enhance Sydney's vibrancy and liveability through contributing to our city's cultural diversity. The international student community also plays an important role to grow and strengthen Sydney's global connections – today and in the future." [2]

According to Australia's 2016 census, the number of homeless people in Australia jumped by more than 15,000 — or 14 per cent — in the five years to 2016. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said 116,000 people were homeless on census night in 2016, representing 50 homeless people per 10,000.

Let them eat cake, eh, Clover?

“These figures tell us that people experiencing homelessness are seeking help, and know where to find the services that can offer them a bed or a free meal for the night, but these are temporary solutions to a systemic crisis,” the Lord Mayor said.

“254 people sleeping on our streets is 254 too many. In a prosperous city like Sydney, this is an unacceptable situation demanding decisive and compassionate action. To break the cycle of homelessness we need the NSW and Federal governments to fund provide more social and affordable housing in the inner city. We cannot allow Sydney to become an enclave for the rich. We need a diverse range of housing to accommodate our diverse community.”

Minister for Families, Communities and Disability Services, Gareth Ward, participated in the count and said the figures showed the NSW Government’s assertive outreach programs are making a real impact.

“Since 2017, our assertive outreach teams have helped house more than 450 people previously sleeping rough on inner city streets,” Mr Ward said. “Our staff are compassionate, skilled professionals and to see a drop in the number of people sleeping rough compared to last year is encouraging, but of course there is still more work to be done. The reality is that across the state, homelessness is an issue. That’s why we recently announced the expansion of assertive outreach to Tweed Heads and Newcastle and the extension of the street count to regional areas. We’re delighted to partner with the City of Sydney in tackling this issue and we will continue to work with other local councils and non-government organisations to build on the strong foundations we have set.”

Member for Sydney Alex Greenwich welcomed the joint action between local and state government on homelessness.

“Sadly, it is no secret that homelessness has reached a crisis point in NSW,” the Member for Sydney said. “The latest street count results prove once again that people are seeking help, but that the system is at capacity – we need to provide safe and affordable homes in order to truly stop the cycle of homelessness in our state.”

The homeless in Sydney count was conducted in the early hours of Tuesday, 6 August. A total of 195 volunteers made up of residents, sector workers, students, local businesses 15 advisers who have lived experience of homelessness and 30 City staff members took part in the count from 1am to 3am.

In February, the City signed an agreement with the NSW Government, the Institute of Global Homelessness, St Vincent de Paul, St Vincent’s Health, Mission Australia, Salvation Army, Wesley Mission, Neami National and Yfoundations to:

- reduce rough sleeping in the City of Sydney area by 25 per cent by 2020
- reduce rough sleeping in the City of Sydney area and NSW by 50 per cent by 2025
- work towards zero rough sleeping in the City of Sydney area and NSW

These goals are totally inadequate given the number of new migrants coming into Sydney every day plus all the overseas immigrants and the likely total by 2025.

The City has contributed $100,000 to the St Vincent de Paul Society[3] to establish a Sydney office to coordinate the project. It says that the local, *independent* organisation is bringing together organisations and services working to reduce homelessness. The city believes that this will allow for greater information sharing and enable a more coordinated response to reduce the number of people sleeping rough and to prevent people entering in to homelessness.

It is ironic that a City in a country run by property developers for their own enrichment through population growth should give an organisation affiliated with the biggest private landowner in Australia (the Catholic Church) $100,000 to pay various humble workers to telephone between services looking for empty beds each night for the homeless.

The City has also invested $6.6 million over three years to help reduce homelessness in the city. This includes a $3.5 million contribution to the NSW Government’s Department of Family and Community Services over three years to fund specialist homelessness services.

The City of Sydney says that it has helped build 835 new affordable housing dwellings since 2004, by collecting levies from developers and selling *our* land to affordable housing providers at discount rates.

Meanwhile, between 2014 and 2017 'Cloud Arch', a single ribbon of steel shaped sculpture intended to be installed over George Street in Sydney, had its budget rise from A$3.5 million to 11.3 million dollars. It has been criticised on cost and aesthetics, but the mayor has said that it will become a "drawcard for residents, workers, tourists and visitors." She obviously hasn't figured out that Sydney isn't coping with its current population, if she wants to attract even more people.

NOTES

[1] "On Wednesday the New South Wales premier, herself the daughter of Armenian immigrants, called for a halving of the state’s migrant intake, citing concerns about population growth in Sydney. But a Guardian analysis of immigration data shows any reduction in migration in Australia would involve hard and potentially costly choices for the state’s economy. While permanent arrivals in Australia are at the same level as they were under the Howard government, the increase in net overseas migrants has been driven by the lucrative international student market, tourists and skilled workers." source: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/oct/10/gladys-berejikilian-calls-for-immigration-cut-but-it-could-cost-nsw.

[2] Source: https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/community/community-support/international-students

[3] "The St Vincent de Paul Society is a lay Catholic organisation and does not receive any direct funding from the Catholic Church. The Society enjoys a close relationship with the Catholic Church and is assisted through parishes and schools." (Source: https://www.vinnies.org.au/page/About/FAQs/Is_the_St_Vincent_de_Paul_Society_a_part_of_the_Catholic_Church/)

The Vatican, on the other hand, manages $64 billion of assets on behalf of its 17,400 customers, according to a Dec. 5, 2014, article in International Business Times .
The Vatican bank owns $764 million in equity. The bank keeps gold reserves worth over $20 million with the U.S. Federal Reserve. (Source: https://www.nasdaq.com/article/how-much-money-does-the-vatican-have-cm500605.

VBAG is the only organization representing building consumers in Australia. VBAG estimates conservatively that for 2019 more than one million Australians will lose more than $400b on shonky building, as well as suffering decades long distress from disputes, leading to deaths, suicides, shattered families, and ruined lives. Come along and inform yourselves and participate.

VBAG AGM is on 26 August 2019 at 7pm at 1 Wendell Street, Brunswick. (Best to enter from Victoria Street.)
Topic: ‘Dream into Nightmare: In the SHOES of Building Consumers’

VBAG's conservative estimate for 2019: more than 1 million Australians will lose more than $400 Billion. This without considering the toll of the years or decades’ long distress from disputes, and without taking account of the deaths and suicides, shattered families, the lives forever ruined.

This is the reality of living in the lucky land of Oz! Here we have no - NO - consumer rights, no human rights, no freedom of speech and no 'fair go'!

Please make the effort to come, and bring your family and friends. This corrupted industry does not discriminate. Everyone is a building consumer and all are at high risk. People from all walks of life have and will continue to be ensnared into the wicked web of building fraud - because ‘shelter’ is a basic need delivered for three (3) decades by a lawless ‘industry’!

HELP US with strategies to reclaim our rights as the number ONE stakeholder, to speak as ONE united CONSUMER VOICE and to end this biggest ever man-made human disaster.

Enquiries: Telephone or text President Anne Paten on 0401 226 048

https://www.vbag.org.au

Building is more than risky business; it's a killer

As the only registered building consumer organization in the country, we have been working hard on behalf of owners for 13 years, but the powerful vested interests who
control the industry and our politicians have locked us out, rendered us utterly voiceless.

The destruction of the con-struction industry has delivered a massive man-made disaster, a horrific human tragedy. This was preventable, but profits count more than people!
- We supposedly live in a first world country, but our built environment is third world.
- Deregulated in 1993, the 'governance framework' underpinning the industry was con-structed to support a lawless industry and to crush consumer cash-cows.
- The biggest con: Big business directed our governments to steal our rights and to authorize legalized fraud.
- The cowboys have destroyed our families and shamelessly left millions of them broke and broken. This year more than one million owners will lose an estimated $400b. Yes, $400 BILLION!

Australia shows contempt for an international rules-based order, agreeing to join the US and UK with a naval, air and ADF personel presence in the Persian Gulf without any national debate or UN resolution.

PM Scott Morrison announced today that Australia would join an international mission to protect trade through the Strait of Horumz.
The international force consists of the UK, US, Australia and Bahrain.

Spokesperson for the Independent and Peaceful Australia network, Ms Brownlie said: “This is being presented as protection of the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf and in Australia’s national interest, but it is clear the US is chafing at the bit for an opportunity to attack Iran having spent many years imposing harsh sanctions on the people and most recently pulling out of the JCPOA effectively destroying prospects for peace with Iran.”

“It is also worth noting the irresponsibility of our government in allowing our oil stocks to be so low making us more vulnerable to supply issues creating a dependence on the US to provide back-up reserves”

“The last illegal action taken by the US ,UK and Australia was to form the so-called coalition of the willing to mount an attack and invasion of Iraq opening a pandora’s box of instability in the whole region.”

“Australia has no interest in a conflict in the Persian Gulf, and no enmity towards Iran. Such a conflict without a UN Security Council resolution would be illegal, and would expose Australian leaders and the ADF to accusations of the war crime of aggression,” said Ms Brownlie.

Former secretary of the defence department, Paul Barratt, told The Guardian. Australian involvement in potential military action in the Gulf could be illegal, and argued it was “very foolish for us to get involved in this provocative behaviour”.

“This is an application of military force. There ought to be a debate in the parliament, and we ought not to engage in any activity that would foreseeably involve the use of military force without that debate,” he said.

“Australian leaders need to heed the lessons of the past. Its time we decoupled from US foreign policy and act independently in the interests of peace and stability,” said Ms Brownlie.

Independent and Peaceful Australia Network
https://ipan.org.au | fb. Facebook

It was 1959 and I was in grade 5. I can remember hearing this population statistic; Australia's population had reached 10 million. I was one of 10 million. It was the first time I had ever been aware of the population of Australia. When my mother was born in 1918 it was 5 million It took another 45 years for the population to double from 10 million to 20 million.

So what was Australia like when the population was 10 million?

Well, if you drove up the Hume highway to Albury, it was a 2 lane gum tree lined road, and you went through every town. So it wasn't such a big decision to stop along the way because you were not coming off a motorway and covering more miles. (Yes miles, we were still in imperial measurements.)

There was far less obvious infrastructure in the suburbs, less concrete involved in bus stops and tram stops, fewer roundabouts. The population was, however, growing and so you did see building works going on, but they were for free standing ordinary sized houses on what had been vacant blocks. You did not see the mass demolitions of today and replacements with much higher density construction. Roadworks were the exception, unlike today, where you run into detours and narrowing lanes all the time.

The population did not stay at 10 million; not for one day. It kept on growing. 1 million migrants arrived between 1945 to 1955 and of course were still coming in 1959. On top of that there was a baby boom (over 200,000 babies were born) and it seems to me now that every second woman was wheeling a pram. Our way of life was not static but, to me, being a child, it almost appeared that way because my perception of time was so stretched out compared with the concertina effect of time now in my senior years.

I do remember being a bit aware of migration to Australia, as the newspapers would, from time to time, make a news item out of a particularly photogenic family. One I can remember was a large blond northern European or Dutch family with 7 or 8 children all smiling as they descended the gangplank of their ship on arrival in Melbourne.

Many migrants spent time in Bonegilla migrant camp when they arrived in Australia. There was a housing shortage as there had been little construction during the war and so they made do with semi cylindrical corrugated iron huts. A relative of mine was the doctor at Bonegilla and because of this I visited the camp at least once. The day I can remember was sunny and warm and the place looked quite pleasant to me although I have read many complaining accounts of the basic nature of the place and the monotonous food from those who have passed through. I know this migrant influx put a huge strain on the education system in the surrounding area. I was told there were 50 pupils in my cousin's class at school in grade two compared with half that at my private school in Melbourne

We lived near a main road on which the traffic was quite fast and heavy during "peak hour". Peak hour was in fact only one hour each end of the day. Our dog still managed to get run over on this road resulting in a broken pelvis. Fortunately he recovered.In the street where we lived there was far less traffic and very little during the day so we could use the road for roller skating and billy carts.

With respect to dogs at that time it was quite normal to see dogs walking the street in the day time without their owners. To me they usually appeared purposeful as though they might have been visiting a friend down the street. Somehow they learned some road sense and could be trusted . The increasing traffic soon made this impossible necessitating leads and designated walks with owners in charge.

Writing about Australia with a population of 10 million, it is tempting to indulge in nostalgia about the way things were done which may or may not actually be related to the wonderfully small size of the population. For instance the fact that my mother hardly had to go out to shop for food at all seems very attractive compared with my supermarket excursions and the battle for the carpark. In 1959 our meat, milk, bread, groceries, green groceries all had separate deliveries. The grocer, green grocer and butcher all came to the back door and took my mother's order. They would then bring it back to her from the van parked outside the house. Bread and milk were a standing order and delivered delivered early each morning to the front door. Shopping could not be any easier than that!

Our favourite places to spend leisure time were the beach in summer and maybe play in the back yard or riding bicycles in the cooler months. We could park the car at the beach for as long as we wanted, free. Now our time at the beach is metred and measured and therefore far less relaxing. Now it is an advantage to have a friend with a disabled parking permit just to ease the stress of parking the car.

When Australia's population was only 10 million it was easy to get out into the countryside around Melbourne as it was so close by. Cows grazed in green fields in what is now the suburb of Dingley. My father used to complain about other drivers just as we do now but there weren't as many of them.

One stark difference between Australia with 10 million, and now with 25 million, is that land was less defined and deliberately purposed. It was not as fiercely contested, not as "valuable" as it is now. At my school with 250 pupils we had about an acre of what I remember as almost virgin bush. We had wildlife emerging from it occasionally; a possum and a lizard at least! We didn't venture into it at play time as I think it was too thickly vegetated but we played on its perimeter and sat together on old gnarled, horizontally growing ti-tree branches polished over many years from this repeated use. That bushland has gone now. Some of it disappeared to make an oval for sports whilst I was still at the school.

There was a nature sanctuary quite near where we lived and a swamp across the busy road from where children collected tadpoles. This swamp had been drained before I reached secondary school level and a new school built to accommodate the children of the area as they exited their various primary schools. In the same period the vacant blocks of land nearby to where we lived, with their resident horses with names who we would visit, also were built on and the horses disappeared.

Things were changing quite quickly although I was too young to notice. I was changing and my life was changing so I did not grieve with each lost pleasure as I do now when population growth and development claim the little pockets of my area that everyone could once enjoy. I did not back then stop to ponder that what I was losing was being lost to everyone forever. How could I have known? I did not understand the implications any more than young people do today, although changes are now happening so much faster.

The high cost of accommodating population growth: "It is really undesirable that turning Seaford and Frankston into 'Transport hubs' is denying residents, and especially children, proper use of the amenities they have previously enjoyed."

18 August 2019
Letter to Frankston Council

Dear Councillors,

Despite much of the land around Seaford station being increasing converted to car parking for train commuters, also the parking at Seaford North reserve is now entirely filled with commuting traffic.

I wish you to record my objection to this use of the Reserve parking, of which at least half should be timed so as to allow reserve users to use the car-park - which is the real purpose of that car park.

Children and their parents who use the reserve during the day and at the end of the day need to park in surrounding streets - creating problems there, and requiring parents with young kids, and often babies, to have walk considerable distances because of the commuters taking up all the car parks.

I know - as a former teacher - that schools used to use the reserve during the day - with many buses of kids using the car-park for sports days and parents also coming to park and watch for some or all of the day. That would not be possible now, and presumably the park is not used in this way anymore.

It is really undesirable that turning Seaford and Frankston into 'Transport hubs' is denying residents, and especially children, proper use of the amenities they have previously enjoyed.

I therefore ask if you could please consider making at least half of the car-parking at Seaford North Reserve available for park users only - a 6 hour limit on parking there would be sufficient for this.

I look forward to reading your response.

Regards,

Mathew Mitchell
Seaford, Victoria
Australia

It amazes me that people will give their pets dry kibble or absurdly perfumed wet tinned food day after day, years after year, and it is even more amazing and shocking that vets sell this crap. And that a lot of people buy and eat similar food for themselves and their children. How did we get so stupid? We republish Australian veterinarian Tom Lonsdale's submission to the Australian Senate Pet Food Inquiry 2018, plus links to films he has made about the shocking effects of commercial pet food on dogs' and cats' health. We have embedded a film from the United States, Pet-fooled because it is comprehensive, as well as one from Tom Lonsdale, Stop the mass poisoning of pets, which focuses on dogs' teeth and gums rotting from bad food. Dr Lonsdale promotes 'free meaty bones' - not a brand, but a food-source. He specialises in what happens to pets' mouths when they eat processed food. The same things happen to dogs and cats when they eat processed food as happen to humans, but because dogs and cats do not need carbohydrates, let alone starches, at all and tolerate them poorly, they get sick even faster than we do on junk food. If you haven't thought about this before, you will be shocked and it might inspire you to change your diet as well. The Pet-fooled film suffers from its belief in the human food pyramid that privileges cereals, but it's worth watching nonetheless.

(The submission below is downloadable with links from Regulatory approaches to ensure the safety of pet food

Links to the Senate Inquiry.

See also Dr Lonsdale's videos at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzZmYoLjxA8bFUepVvHmv_A

Regulatory approaches to ensure the safety of pet food: Submission to Petfood inquiry by Veterinary Surgeon Tom Lonsdale.

Introduction

As a student at the Royal Veterinary College, University of London from 1967 to 1972 I began to feel uneasy about the arbitrariness of the veterinary endeavour. However, almost 20 years elapsed before I gained a solid understanding of the inconsistencies and irregularities of the veterinary culture that on the one hand is dedicated to the preservation of life and the prevention of suffering and on the other hand turning a blind eye to mass cruelty and suffering arising from the junk pet-food scourge.

When preparing my contribution to the 1991 Veterinarians and the Environment Conference, I researched and drew together the various strands of information. It became clear that the veterinary environmental footprint exists primarily as a result of global veterinary involvement with the artificial pet-food industry. Since 1991 I have continued researching the factors — scientific, clinical, regulatory, economic and political
— as they affect the safety of pet food.

Reduced to its elements, the pet-food industry relentlessly promotes carnivore pet ownership not as modified wolves (dogs), modified desert predators (cats) and modified polecats (ferrets) with biologically defined nutritional imperatives, but as animated furry toys. The furry toys are to be fed furry toy formula — bearing no resemblance to the natural carnivore food/medicine. In the event that the ‘toys’ become sick, as they must surely do, then there’s a repair man/woman (vet) only too keen to provide treatment, but never prevention, for the litany of ailments directly or indirectly attributable to the junk food diet.

The veterinary profession, by various subtle and not so subtle means, has been co-opted to the junk pet-food companies’ cause. Vets are the primary beneficiaries of the pandemics of pet ill health. Vets are, for the most part, staunch promoters and defenders of the junk pet-food products and the companies that make them. Alongside the vets, the animal welfare groups manage the oversupply of pets and discarded pets.

Since every additional pet mouth is worth around $15,000 to the processed pet-food industry, it’s small wonder that the companies pay hush money to the charities and the charities spout industry propaganda — whether in their vet clinics, gala events and submissions.

Insofar as new regulatory proposals are mooted I can comment, from bitter experience, about systematic regulatory failures as a result of junk pet-food company influence and control of the regulatory mechanisms. In 1994 Dr Barbara Fougere, Mars Corporation employee, brought a complaint against me in her private capacity that the NSW Board of Veterinary Surgeons attempted to keep confidential. So began serial harassment and the prosecution of pet-food company inspired complaints by the NSW Board of Veterinary Surgeons through its Veterinary Surgeons Investigating Committee (VSIC). Complaints to the VSIC cannot be publicly discussed under penalty of a $2,000 fine and/or a year in jail. Consequently, for the companies, using the government regulatory apparatus of the VSIC was an effective strategy for silencing dissent away from public gaze. Whilst the NSW Board was harassing me they were not, in keeping with all other Australian veterinary boards, investigating and dealing with allegations of widespread animal cruelty, over- servicing by vets, public safety and consumer fraud.

Since 1992 I have endeavoured, through correspondence and by standing in annual elections, to persuade the UK veterinary regulator, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, to investigate and resolve the junk pet- food issue — entirely without success. Similarly in Australia, together with Dr Breck Muir, I attempted to influence the Australian Veterinary Association. The Association, closely allied with the pet-food industry, refused to listen and in 2004 convened a kangaroo court and terminated my membership.

Effectively, I suggest that the junk pet-food/vet/fake animal welfare alliance hides in plain sight whilst engaged in $multi-billion white collar criminal activity that inflicts immense harm on pets, pet owners and the wider community.

Matters of such magnitude are difficult to encapsulate in a submission. However, I believe that the 2001 book Raw Meaty Bones: Promotes Health provides a treatise on the interrelated aspects. The easy reader, Work Wonders: Feed your dog raw meaty bones provides simple solutions for pet owners attempting to free themselves from the oppression of pet-food company propaganda and a compromised veterinary profession.

Brief history

From the outset processed pet food was a giant confidence trick perpetrated upon an unsuspecting populace. At the time of the American Civil War when quack medicine men refined the art of creative hyperbole, American entrepreneur Jack Spratt is credited with establishing the first industrial scale production of processed pet food. Spratt’s concoction of wheat, vegetables, beetroot and beef blood sold under the label ‘Patent Meat Fibrine Dog Cake’. The young Charles Cruft, showman and marketeer, aided in the enterprise. Cruft hit on the idea of promoting pedigree dog shows as a means to promoting dog ownership and thus selling Dog Cake.

Spratt and Cruft became rich and influential. Crufts Dog Show and the pet keeping, pet feeding fantasy they created lives on ever stronger promoted by vast multinational corporations and their vet collaborators.

Australian uptake of the canned and packaged offerings lagged behind the USA and UK until 1966. That was the year young John Mars set up his factory in Albury Wodonga and his Petcare Information and Advisory Service (PIAS), the public relations and marketing front established to convert the Australian public to Mars’s way of thinking. Targeting radio, TV, magazines, newspapers, vets and vet associations PIAS was hugely successful. (See PIAS and Dr Jonica Newby in Raw Meaty Bones.)

Nowadays paid pet-food ads flood the airwaves. Newspapers and magazines provide free advertorials and promotions for pet keeping and vet services. Dogs and cats are shown swallowing the 2018 version of Dog Cake. It’s all positive feedback, a reflective mirror, to those who have succumbed to the 150 years of cultural conditioning. For those who do not yet have a pet and do not yet visit the supermarket pet-food aisle, there’s the constant reminder that they too can have the canine, feline status symbols when the opportunity presents.

The fantasy that modified wolves and desert cats, unlike their wild and feral counterparts, are somehow better suited to feeding out of the can or packet has spawned an enormous research and marketing drive.

Inevitably, with an industry founded on fallacy, things must go wrong.

In 2007, following the contamination of junk pet food with the chemical melamine, thousands of dogs died. This was a case of confidence trickery piled on confidence trickery. Dogs and cats are carnivores evolved to consume a high protein diet. Pet-food manufacturers augment their products with wheat gluten. Gluten, rich in plant protein, allows the manufacturers to claim a higher protein content for their products. Unfortunately the cheaper inferior plant protein, as opposed to meat protein, is not as biologically available to the unfortunate dogs and cats forced to consume the product.

Since testing for protein is not so straightforward, testing for nitrogen content is more commonly employed. Chinese suppliers of wheat gluten reinforced their shipments with melamine and thereby increased the nitrogen, and thus the presumed protein, test score. Unfortunately melamine adulterated ‘food’ also increased the toxicity of the junk food.

2007 was the year the media took a closer look at the artificial pet-food industry. The September 2007 New York Times exposé provides essential insights into the attitudes and values of the junk pet-food industry and the vet collaborators:

Dogs can get along just fine on a daily ration of corn and soybeans. “That’s about the cheapest diet you could put together,” Fahey said, and it provides all the vitamins, minerals, protein, fat and carbohydrates a dog needs. But it wouldn’t sell to broad segments of the modern market.

So much for the industry claims of ‘complete and balanced’ nutrition touted by the manufacturers, vets and fake welfare groups as superior fare. The grim reality is least-cost formulations designed to trick pets’ digestive systems and least-cost formulations acceptable in the family home.

Now, in 2018, millions of Australians have bought the fantasy that dogs — even those that look like wolves, for instance police dogs — should be fed from the junk food sack. When nine Victorian police dogs succumbed to a rare disease, megaesophagus, believed to be attributable to the Mars Corporation, Advance Dermocare dry kibble there was an outpouring of indignation followed by calls for more and better regulation. There was and is no outcry about the vets prescribing the unsuitable, unsafe products in the first place. There was and is no outcry against the endless list of junk food induced diseases that claim the lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pets every day.

Calculating niche marketers have noticed. They have discovered the simple truth that by stopping the feeding of industrial pet food, animals show a remarkable turnaround in health and vitality. Attributing the observed improvements to their minced meat, fruit and supplement concoctions a slew of ‘nutritionist’, ‘BARF’ and ‘prey-model’ proponents ramp up their marketing efforts. They boast that their wares contain ground bone and thus shield the sensibilities of their customers from the imagined horrors of raw meaty bones consumption. The pets, however, are thus denied the strongest, safest, most gentle, most effective medicine for all domestic carnivores.

In the UK the Raw Feeding Veterinary Society provides cover. The Society President declares that ‘dogs are omnivores’ and that:

If you find preparing fruit and veg a bit of a pain, then please note that those nice people at AMP have thought of this and done all the dirty work for you. Nature's Menu Frozen Range offers a choice of diets where raw meat and veg have been mixed and frozen for you. They are ideal for those too busy to do the whole BARF diet or for those who can, but find holidays and trips difficult.

Closer to home, the Australian veterinary schools are enthusiastic proponents of the large-scale industrial offerings. They collaborate with the multi-national junk pet-food makers, brainwash vet students with junk food propaganda, but fiercely resist examination of their secret deals. Although, by administrative mistake, one such deal was leaked. In Sydney, my attempts at alerting Dame Marie Bashir, Chancellor of the University and the other 22 members of the University of Sydney Senate regarding the junk food scandal affecting their university foundered in the Vice Chancellor’s office. On 21 July 2010 I delivered a box of individually addressed packages to the Vice Chancellor’s office. Rather than provide the packages to the Senate Members as addressed, the Vice Chancellor’s office intercepted and disposed of the books and documents.

In the 150 years since Jack Spratt and Charles Cruft’s early imaginings, Dog Cake and the investments in pets have come a long way. As recently as 19 July 2018, Sydney’s Small Animal Specialist Hospital (SASH) recommended that the owners of Dozer a 4 month old terrier spend $6,455 for a battery of further tests. Meanwhile, wrote the specialist vet, ‘I recommend a high quality commercial diet such as Hills or Royal Canin. Dozer should not be fed raw food for the rest of his life.’

Selected documents and videos

For people wishing for a quick overview, I suggest the following articles and videos. The 2007 unabridged Nexus article provides a convenient overview of the subject.
Elizabeth Farrelly writing in the Sydney Morning Herald told about feeding her cats ‘exorbitant science- nosh’ and the resultant ill-health and exorbitant vet bills:

Before remortgaging the house, I did what you do. Googled, found a website called Raw Meaty Bones. The message was obvious and compelling. I decided to try it. For a month, I gave them each a daily, raw chicken wing. Period. Pretty soon both cats were bouncing. No trouble peeing. No bad- breath or sore inflamed gums. Their coats became thicker and glossier. Two happy cats.

Than and Nicola Wright writing in the University of Sydney Centre for Veterinary Education (CVE) Control & Therapy told of their difficulties finding a vet who understood the linkage between a chronic ear condition and commercial food diet.

In light of the implications of the Wright’s article I attempted to submit a letter to the Control & Therapy. Alas the attempt at achieving some exposure and some debate was stymied by the CVE.

Despite the CVE and Sydney University being in thrall with the junk pet-food makers, Dr Richard Malik retains his job at the CVE.

Dr Malik provides an insider’s view in the 11 September 2015 edition of The Conversation with his article: The convenience food industry making our pets fat.

So much of the noxious pet-food industry has been normalised. Three huge multi-national companies privatise the profits and the costs are socialised — purchase of the product, cost of vet services and cost of ‘welfare groups’ and municipal pounds for the unruly and untrainable dogs. In 2003 I attempted to alert the Australian Veterinary Association and State Veterinary Boards to the very real connection between unpredictable, dangerous dogs and diet. Despite the human health and potential legal liability issues, no one was interested.

Several legal liability issues get an airing in my 15 June 2018 Open Letter to the NSW Attorney General.

Mention of the pet-food debacle first appeared on Australian TV screens in 1993 when the ABC Investigators aired a story. In that segment Tess Abson, a Maltese terrier, can be seen undergoing radical dental surgery. Tess, apart from suffering from a foul mouth, was also suffering from anaemia, heart, liver, kidney and immune system problems. Nevertheless, with the benefit of dental surgery and a change of diet you can see her transformation four months later on Ray Martin at Midday.

Maltese terrier Wally Muir represents another junk pet-food victim, resurrected by dental surgery and diet change. And our Science Death experiment reveals how quickly dogs succumb to the ravages of a kibble diet.

Possible regulatory approaches to ensure the safety of pet food, including both the domestic manufacture and importation of pet food

I believe that the current concerns arise out of the megaesophagus outbreak in police dogs and the presence of plastic particles found in dry dog ‘food’. Experience tells me that these matters are but a tiny tip of an enormous iceberg. Problems have gone undetected and unresolved due to failure of regulators to enforce current regulations.

Conceptually it’s impossible to manufacture food that is safe for pets. There have never, to my knowledge, been published controlled studies demonstrating that artificial, manufactured products are either suitable or safe for the feeding of domestic carnivores. Insofar as the veterinary profession is the highest authority on the suitability and safety of pet foods, please see how systematic failures affect the veterinary educational and regulatory mechanisms as per the Freedom of Information pages: https://www.rawmeatybones.com/foi.php

Introducing more regulators and more regulations at this early stage, in my view, cannot and will not achieve acceptable outcomes — in the face of industry opposition and manipulation.

I believe that first there needs to be a full Commission of Inquiry with full judicial powers designed to gain a full understanding of the scientific, regulatory, social, economic and political issues. Based on firm foundations, subsequent regulations can then be enacted.

a.) The uptake, compliance and efficacy of the Australian Standard for the Manufacturing & Marketing of Pet Food (AS5812:2017)

AS5812:2017 is available for $121.52. It’s a creation of the Pet Food Industry Association of Australia Inc (PFIAA). The mostly huge commercial enterprises, but with some smaller ‘BARF’ raw meat producers are responsible for the widespread cruelty and suffering affecting pets, pet owners and the wider community. Besides the PFIAA the following were involved in the development of the document:

Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (Commonwealth) Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Commonwealth) Department of Primary Industries, Victoria
Pet Food Industry Association of Australia RSPCA Australia.
Australian Veterinary Association

Zero credibility can be accorded AS5812:2017, its uptake, compliance or efficacy. There’s a well-worn saying: ‘Foxes in the hen house’. And it’s of especial concern that Commonwealth and State Governments were involved in the drafting of the document.

b.) The labelling and nutritional requirements for domestically manufactured pet food

As per my comments above, the labelling and nutritional requirements of manufactured pet ‘food’ cannot meet biological imperatives.

The Australian Government should not be party to intellectually bogus concepts that lure unsuspecting consumers into the belief that harmful products are either suitable or safe for intended purpose.

I believe that existing labelling and advertising laws should be enforced to the full. If the commercial products are to remain on supermarket shelves, then warning labels must be attached.

Pet owners need to know that the commercial products slowly and sometimes rapidly harm pets forced to consume those products.

If anyone wishes to promote the opposite view, then I ask: Why is it that zoos do not feed the canned and packaged products? Why do zoos feed whole carcasses or raw meaty bones?

It should also be noted that in the current un-regulated environment there’s a rash of minced meat and vegetable products that carry false and misleading label claims.

c.) The management, efficacy and promotion of the AVA-PFIAA administered PetFAST tracking system

Besides foxes we can talk about Dracula in charge of the blood bank as per Senator Stirling Griff’s media release. The AVA-PFIAA system provides the vet/pet-food alliance with early warning of acute toxicity and bacterial contamination issues that may adversely affect their businesses.

PetFAST is the Clayton’s option. It does nothing to warn of the chronic debilitating ill-health affecting all animals fed junk food. Nor does it warn of the acute end-stage diseases following on from a lifetime of junk food induced suffering — for instance the heart, liver, kidney, immune system failures, diabetes and cancer.

d) The feasibility of an independent body to regulate pet food standards, or an extension of Food Standards Australia New Zealand’s remit

I believe that premature uptake of new or extension of existing standards should be avoided. I believe that new regulations and likely new regulatory bodies are both feasible and necessary, but only after rigorous investigation of all the scientific, economic, legal, educational, social and political issues.

e.) The voluntary and/or mandatory recall framework of pet food products

All processed pet foods, whether directly or indirectly, injure the health of animals. From time to time identifiable additional hazards arise — for instance chemical or bacterial contamination and formulation deficiencies and excesses — that give rise to outbreaks of acute disease and death.

The manufacturers need to be held accountable for both the long term chronic diseases arising from their products and the sporadic outbreaks of acute disease.

I believe that Australian Governments, both federal and state, should be and probably are legally liable for the sale and promotion of known harmful products under the guise that those products are suitable, safe and enjoy official/Government endorsement.

f.) The interaction of state, territory and federal legislation

Only by establishing a major Commission of Inquiry, will it be possible to draw together all the disparate pieces of legislation affecting consumer safety, animal cruelty, vet education, dangerous dog legislation, labelling, advertising and etc. This summary only partly deals with the various acts and regulations.

g.) Comparisons with international approaches to the regulation of pet food

Comparisons are of little or no value since no other country has properly dealt with the abomination of the pet-food scourge. Effectively, in all other countries the ‘Dracula in the blood bank’, ‘foxes in the hen house’ syndrome prevails. The global veterinary profession, ultimate authority and therefore regulator of pet food, is in lockstep with the processed pet-food makers. Australia must, as a matter of vital national interest, act to curb the activities of the multi-national pet-food makers and their vet and animal welfare collaborators.

h.) Any other related matters

At the very core of the issues under review, the dead hand of the processed pet-food industry has suppressed and subverted the science we, as a society, depend upon.

Since first blowing the whistle in 1991, I say that there’s an effective veterinary profession ban on researching and publishing of information adverse to the pet-food makers. When, in 1993, Professor Colin Harvey proposed a study to make the simple comparison between the oral hygiene of research colony dogs fed either dry kibble or raw meaty bones, he was blocked. Simultaneously, of course, there are immense company and vet research efforts devoted to junk pet-food product improvement and marketing.

Since pet carnivores, at the extreme end of the nutritional spectrum, suffer serious health issues as a result of a junk food diet, this very fact can inform vast new research fields of benefit to veterinary and human medical and nutritional research.

In the lay media self-censorship is the general rule. In August 2001 The Australian and Sun Herald newspapers prepared articles to coincide with the launch of Raw Meaty Bones. On the eve of publication both pulled the articles. In the UK, Reader’s Digest and the Weekend Independent spent months researching the junk pet-food story. Both publications pulled their stories on the eve of publication.

Conclusion

The 150 years junk pet-food experiment has imposed relentless cruelty on pet carnivores, defrauded consumers and placed undue burdens on the wider society and natural environment. I believe that the experiment constitutes white collar crime on a global scale.

The main perpetrators, the multi-national corporations and their veterinary and animal charity collaborators, should be subjected to searching investigation by a full scale commission of inquiry with full judicial powers.

On the evidence, I believe it would be inappropriate for wrongdoers to be accorded ‘stakeholder’ status and thus insider opportunity to either influence or, as is currently the case, control policy. Independent scientists and administrators will be needed to resolve the endemic, culturally conditioned malfeasance. Long term planning for wise management over many years will be essential. South Africa emerged from apartheid aided by its Truth and Reconciliation Commission. A similar concept may be of value in rehabilitating those involved in the $multi-billion pet-food scandal.

Despite the flood of disinformation, obfuscation and double-speak, I believe that the Senate Committee can identify key issues and initiate measures leading to a renaissance for pets, pet owners and the wider Australian and global communities.

Tom Lonsdale
25 July 2018

"Your program and so many on the ABC ignore the real prospect of widespread social, economic and environmental breakdown consequent on a human population having exceeded the long term carrying capacity of Nature. The ABC in its general coverage assumes a continuation of Business as Usual. Climate change, if present trends continue leads to a world 3 – 4 degrees warmer at century’s end. (David Attenborough in his recent TV program on climate change used the figures 3 - 6 degrees.) Together with declines in soil quality, water availability, food shortages and massive biodiversity loss these things have many scientists foreshadowing an imminent reduction in the global human population and a world in chaos."

Dear Geraldine,

Your program re infrastructure on [16 August 2019] yesterday's 'Breakfast' program did a great disservice to your audience. It perpetuated myths not supported by facts and failed to mention the real alternative context in which matters like this must be considered.

As a former medical epidemiologist I am very familiar with statistical analysis. Among OECD industrialised countries there is no statistically significant correlation between rates of population growth and per capita growth of GDP. Among poor countries there is a significant and strong negative correlation between population growth and growth of per capita GDP. It is therefore misleading to claim that population growth is causing increases in per capita GDP, i.e. making the average Australian materially better off. This myth serves the interests of those who do benefit from population growth.

GDP and per capita GDP are themselves misleading indicators of real benefit. The costs, yes costs, borne by people as a consequence of growth of population and expenditure on infrastructure are added to GDP. Travel times are reported to have increased by 23% with increases in fuel costs, car maintenance, insurance etc. These are real costs but are added to GDP. The costs of a growing economy have exceeded the benefits for many years for ordinary people explaining why it is that so many feel worse off even while governments and programs like yours keep telling people they have never had it so good.

Your program and so many on the ABC ignore the real prospect of widespread social, economic and environmental breakdown consequent on a human population having exceeded the long term carrying capacity of Nature. The ABC in its general coverage assumes a continuation of Business as Usual. Climate change, if present trends continue leads to a world 3 – 4 degrees warmer at century’s end. (David Attenborough in his recent TV program on climate change used the figures 3 - 6 degrees.) Together with declines in soil quality, water availability, food shortages and massive biodiversity loss these things have many scientists foreshadowing an imminent reduction in the global human population and a world in chaos. Despite this evident danger every government in Australia and most around the world continue to make decisions based on an assumption of business as usual, that they can go on driving both population and economic growth, the two primary causes of our worsening situation. How do you reconcile that prospect with a continuation of unquestioned population growth in Australia. Climate change is likely to impact Australia's ability to grow food quite severely. We may have difficulty even feeding the present population let alone a much larger one before century's end.

Australia's ecological footprint has varied between 4 and 5.6 Earths over the last decade. Do you really think it morally right for us to go on increasing the total size of our demand on Nature by seeking both to increase our population and our per capita demand (growing GDP as our main goal)? I invite you to do the sums which show that we could achieve more human welfare by massively increasing our foreign aid and addressing that aid primarily toward education for girls, family planning and contraception than spend that some money on more infrastructure in Australia for the purpose of accommodating a much larger population.

Here is a much saner voice on the issue of infrastructure from a fellow journalist, Crispin Hull.

http://www.crispinhull.com.au/2019/08/16/treating-symptoms-no-help-to-australia/

John

Tomorrow it will be exactly 10 years since Kelvin Thomson spoke to the Parliament describing increasing population as the underlying cause of the world’s problems. He listed each of them - global warming, food crisis, water shortages, housing affordability, overcrowded cities, traffic congestion, species extinctions, fisheries collapse, increasing prices, waste, terrorism and war - and described the role that population growth was playing in fuelling them.

Sadly in the ten years since he gave that speech population growth has continued unabated, and Kelvin says he can’t claim that the speech has had any effect on it.

But the speech has certainly stood the test of time. Every thing he pointed out ten years ago remains valid and has been vindicated by the growing problems and turmoil that we see around us.

Kelvin Thomson gives the example of water shortages, which are now even more acute than they were in 2009. He cites a New York Times report which appeared 10 days ago (“A Quarter of Humanity Faces Looming Water Crises”) which said that World Resources Institute researchers had found that among cities with more than 3 million people, 33 of them, with a combined population of over 255 million, face extremely high water stress, with repercussions for both public health and social unrest.

Even worse, by 2030 the number of those cities in the extremely high stress category is expected to rise to 45 and include nearly 470 million people. Clearly the World Resources Institute doesn’t believe either the engineering solutions of the technological optimists, or the consume less/waste less exhortations of the social justice warriors, are going to actually prevent this debacle.

He was only wrong about one thing, he says:

"The one area where Australia has taken a different path from the one I predicted has been the question of price rises. Prices have risen less than I expected, largely because our mass migration program has put downward pressure on wages and caused them to be stagnant. Of course the effect on living standards, which was my concern, has been the same. As the ABC economics writer Carrington Clarke observed in 2017, the reason Australians have been concerned that their living standards haven’t been rising is because they haven’t, while migration has enabled Governments to pretend we have been recession free and that the economy is improving."

"We continue to go down a totally unsustainable path and ordinary people have less control over their lives than ever before. It’s time we started to take it back," he concludes.

Kelvin Thomson's Population Speech to the Australian Parliament Monday, 17 August 2009

https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;db=CHAMBER;id=chamber%2Fhansardr%2F2009-08-17%2F0178;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansardr%2F2009-08-17%2F0000%22
Mr KELVIN THOMSON (8:40 PM) —We all know that the world has plenty of problems. Let me run out some that come to mind without much effort: global warming, the food crisis, water shortages, housing affordability, overcrowded cities, transport congestion, the fisheries collapse, species extinctions, increasing prices, waste and terrorism. We scratch our heads and try to come up with solutions. It staggers me that so often we ignore the elephant in the room: increasing population. Each of these problems is either caused by or exacerbated by the global population explosion. In the first two million years of human existence, the global human population was only a few million. Up to 1950, it had managed to climb to two billion. In the 50-odd years since, it has trebled to six billion people. And the population is projected to double again.

The consequences of the present population pressure are dramatic. In my belief, it is not plausible that the world’s population could double without the consequences becoming catastrophic. Yet, when it is suggested that the world’s population is a problem, there is zero interest from policy makers. In my view, it is not so much a problem as the problem. Let me return to that list of problems and describe the impact of population on them.

One: global warming. Population plays a critical role in global warming. We have one earth and one atmosphere, and every carbon dioxide molecule we release into it contributes to global warming. The more of us there are, the more carbon dioxide is released—simple and undeniable. Al Gore identifies population growth as one of the big three drivers of the rapid spurt of greenhouse gasses during the past 50 years. People who believe that we can meet serious carbon targets without curbing population growth are kidding themselves; they are delusional. There is no reasonable prospect that Australia will reduce its total level of greenhouse emissions while our population grows by one million every four years as is presently the case. Population stabilisation must be part of the plan to contain greenhouse emissions not merely for Australia but for the rest of the world as well.

Two: the food crisis. The combination of declining arable land and continued population growth has caused the world’s per capita food production to go into decline. We are now in a situation where there is a global shortage of food which is set to get worse. In future, more people will starve—not fewer. Figures released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation show that the number of people suffering from chronic hunger is rising, not falling. In June last year, the Australian government’s Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation said that world agriculture is experiencing a growing crisis, and its first named demand-side factor was increasing global population.

Three: water shortages. As with agricultural decline, population growth is fuelling water shortages both indirectly through climate change and directly through extraction and pollution. Around the world, one in three people is suffering from water shortage. Assuming modest rates of population growth, we will use 70 per cent of the world’s accessible fresh water by 2025. Already, 400 million children worldwide are drinking dangerously unclean water, and one child dies from a waterborne disease every 15 seconds. According to Melbourne Water, water scarcity in and around Melbourne is being driven by both climate change and population growth.

Four: housing affordability. Housing affordability in Australia has undergone a period of dramatic decline. John Edwards, an economist with HSBC, has noted that Australia’s high level of migration, the highest level in our history, is going to keep upward pressure on house prices. The same goes for rent. The General Manager of Australian Property Monitors, Michael McNamara, has said the shortage of rental properties will continue to worsen because of rising migration.

Five: overcrowded cities. Our cities are too large. They dwarf people. The sheer scale of them is overwhelming for some, who lose the plot and fall victim to mental illness or drug and alcohol abuse. For the rest of us, the madding crowd swells every year, giving us that little bit less room. Every square metre of space is fought over. In Africa and Asia the accumulated urban growth during the whole span of history is in the process of being doubled between the years 2000 and 2030. A United Nations Population Fund report released in June 2007 says that, as a result, a billion people—one-sixth of the world’s population—live in slums. The overcrowding of cities is not merely a Third World phenomenon either. In my home city of Melbourne, a lot of people of goodwill have supported high rise as preferable to urban sprawl. What they do not realise is that it is not halting any urban sprawl at all. Suburbs continue to continue to march out onto the horizon. Property developers are having their cake and eating it too. We are growing upwards and outwards. Melbourne is becoming an obese hardened-artery parody of its former self. There is something intangible but important about the personal space of a backyard. I believe the children who grow up in concrete jungle suburbs are subject to more bullying and harassment and are more vulnerable to traps such as crime and drugs.

Six: traffic congestion. More people equals more cars, and the more cars there are out on the roads the longer it takes us to get anywhere. The time that motorists spend on the roads in and out of Brisbane, for example—to the Sunshine Coast, the Gold Coast or Ipswich—is truly appalling. Each suburb we build out of the city fringes means more traffic coming through the inner suburbs, more congestion, more pollution and more noise. It does nothing for our calm, our quality of life or our sanity. We think we have no choice but to grin and bear it. It is not true.

Seven: species extinctions. The USA based National Academy of Sciences has reported that human activities are leading to a wave of extinctions over 100 times greater than natural rates. Over 12,000 varieties of animal, plant and water life are critically endangered. Thirty per cent of Australia’s 760 bird species are under threat. The world has entered the 21st century with little more than 10 per cent of its original forest cover intact. According to anthropologists Richard Leakey and Roger Lewis, all the forest cover will be largely gone by 2050. Sometimes I think we have declared war on everything else. The more there are of us the less there is of everything else. I consider it a grotesque piece of arrogance on our part as a species that we think that we have a right to destroy everything else on our way to affluence.

Eight: fisheries collapse. One of our favourite old sayings was, ‘There are plenty more fish in the sea.’ Not anymore: 90 per cent of the large fish in the ocean are gone. Australia is in the same boat as everyone else. Our annual catch has steadily gone down, and a Bureau of Rural Sciences fisheries status report says that two-thirds of Australia’s fisheries are either overfished or uncertain.

Nine: increasing prices. Increasing population consumes resources and makes them scarcer, leading to price rises. The rising price of petrol is a clear function of scarcity fuelled by population growth, and the increased cost of basic resources such as water and petrol feeds into everything they contribute to—food costs, transport costs, insurance, housing et cetera. Some economists argue that increasing population will create economies of scale and put downward pressure on prices. In reality, this downward pressure on prices is sighted less frequently than Elvis Presley.

Ten: waste. A vast area of the central Pacific Ocean has become smothered in plastic. It is referred to as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The area affected is estimated to be twice the size of Texas and to a depth of at least 30 metres. What a disgrace!

Eleven: terrorism and war. Analysts spend a great deal of time assessing the political and religious factors leading to the scourge of terrorism and war in the modern world. They spend less time noting the underlying cause: conflict over scarce resources—scarce land, scarce water and scarce oil—brought about by increasing population. A Pentagon report in 2007 detailed a range of scenarios in which population displacement caused by global warming and triggered by extreme weather events would lead to border tensions and armed conflict. An Oxford University study has estimated that 26 million Bangladeshis, 73 million Chinese and 20 million Indians are at risk of displacement from rising sea levels.

In short, it is time for governments and policy makers around the world to come to their senses and take steps to stabilise the world’s population. It needs to happen in every country, including here in Australia—especially here in dry, arid Australia. And it is time people and communities stood up and demanded better of their policy makers than the ‘she’ll be right’ growth fetish which is making an utter mockery of our obligation to give to our children a world in as good a condition as the one our parents gave to us.

"Not only is Geelong now effectively subsumed into the greater growth orbit of the Melbourne conurbation, but there are surprise population surges in some of the state’s remoter provincial cities and communities. I am so excited about this.” (Bernard Salt, "Victoria reimagined from basket case beginnings," The Australian 8 August 2019.)

In a News Limited piece whose title fails to take into account the original careful planning by Robert Hoddle for natural open space and avenues rather than choked alleys for Melbourne, Bernard Salt somewhat maniacally promotes the Federal and Victorian State Government's planned immigration innundation on disenfranchised Victorians.

“The previous set of state projections released in 2016 had Victoria rising to 7.7 million by 2031 whereas the latest iteration has upped this outlook to 8.1 million. That’s another 400,000 Victorians and another 200,000 houses or apartments that must be delivered during the 2020s. That’s important if you’re in the property game.”

Salt lists 15 local government areas with the biggest absolute increase in their 2021 populations according to the 2016 to 2019 projections, and says,

“This is important for big property players. It shows a significant shift in the demand for housing.”

Here’s the line I’d run: “Minister, we need to rezone more land to accommodate the population projections released by your own department.”

“The 2031 outlook for ¬Monash has been upped by 19,000 while for Whitehorse the upward revision is 14,000. More units, I would imagine. And maybe even a touch of high rise or perhaps a more vigorous application of the principles of suburban densification.”

The article also dooms Melton, Whittlesea and Hume to severe growth and Salt predicts that the ‘urban growth boundary’ will need to be pushed out: .

“I can only imagine that all this net additional growth is taking Melbourne’s footprint closer to the edge of the urban growth boundary.

He asks himself:

“I wonder if the really big property players are thinking about where this boundary might next be “adjusted” to accommodate a city not of the five million we have today, but of the eight million projected by mid-century?”

Of course Bernard Salt with KPMG has been a major driver and promoter of such population growth, frequently seen at the various confabs of the ‘big property players’, so this wondering seems very rhetorical.
He discloses the nature of population growth as a ‘burden’. Indeed, it is costing all of us more than money, although the “big property players” probably consider themselves adequately compensated and possibly above suffering from the destruction of community networks, natural spaces and freedom.

“I do think it’s important that the population burden being added to Victoria needs to be fairly distributed, with the inner city taking a higher proportion. It’s a bit like the progressive tax system where the rich pay a higher tax rate. In demographic planning, greater growth should be attached to localities culturally aligned to higher density, and that offer access to jobs and public transport.”

He describes the metastasies of the ghastly tumour that Melbourne is becoming with a pathogist’s delight:

“It’s in rural Victoria where the demographers have done their most riveting work. Yes, riveting. Not only is Geelong now effectively subsumed into the greater growth orbit of the Melbourne conurbation, but there are surprise population surges in some of the state’s remoter provincial cities and communities. I am so excited about this.”

Excited at the loss of control by residents of their city and citizens of their democracy? Excited at the rising costs of living, at water shortages, at pollution, at wildlife extinction?

Excited?

I think that growthism is an addiction with consequences that cause enormous harm. Like war, which some also consider exciting, it needs to be recognized for the all consuming ill that it is, for the vast majority, with only a tiny few reaping the questionable benefits of cash and power over their increasingly beggared fellows.

Article by Sheila Newman, Demographer and Evolutionary Sociologist.

United States immigration officials raided numerous Mississippi food processing plants Wednesday, arresting 680 workers in what marked the largest workplace sting in at least a decade. As reported by USA Today, the raids were planned months ago, and the largest took place at a Koch Foods Inc. plant in Morton, 40 miles east of Jackson. Workers who were confirmed to have legal status were allowed to leave the plant. Other linked operations were executed in Bay Springs, Carthage, Canton, Pelahatchie, and Sebastapol Mississippi.

Article first published at Numbers USA on Thu, Aug 8th 2019 @ 9:20 am EDT.

Matthew Albence, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Acting Director, told The Associated Press that the raids could be the largest such operation thus far in any single state. When Acting Director Albence was asked to comment on the fact that the raid was happening on the same day as Trump’s El Paso visit, Albence responded,

This is a long-term operation that’s been going on. Our enforcement operations are being done on a racially neutral basis. Investigations are based on evidence.

The sting was one of the most blatant demonstrations of Trump’s signature domestic priority to crack down on illegal immigration, and one of his first notable actions to crack-down on illegal hiring, one of the most prominent incentives to illegally enter the United States. “HSI’s [Homeland Security Investigations] worksite enforcement efforts are equally focused on aliens who unlawfully seek work in the U.S. as well as the employers who knowingly hire them,” HSI New Orleans Special Agent in Charge, Jere Miles said in a statement. Many are speculating that these ICE operations are part of the promised operations that were hinted at last month but suspended after President Trump gave House Democrats two weeks to produce legislative action to stem the crisis at the southern border as well as the loopholes of the current U.S. asylum policy.

According to federal officials, some of the hundreds of illegal aliens arrested on Wednesday have already been given orders of removal by an immigration judge and have refused to self-deport. Those illegal aliens will be quickly removed. Other illegal aliens have yet to go through the immigration courts and will be afforded a review process where they will make a case to remain in the U.S.

Such large shows of immigration enforcement were common under President George W. Bush, most notably at a kosher meatpacking plant in tiny Postville, Iowa, in 2008, the largest immigration operation before President Trump's most recent operation in Mississippi, netting 595 arrests. President Barack Obama avoided them, limiting his workplace immigration efforts to low-profile audits that were done outside of public view. President Trump resumed workplace raids, but the months of preparation and hefty resources they require make them rare. Last year, the administration hit a landscaping company near Toledo, Ohio, and a meatpacking plant in eastern Tennessee. The former owner of the Tennessee plant was sentenced to 18 months in prison last month.

In preparation for the arrests, a hangar at the Mississippi National Guard in Flowood, near Jackson, was set up with 2,000 meals to process employees for immigration violations on Wednesday. There were seven lines, one for each location that was hit. Buses had been lined up since early in the day to be dispatched to the plants. “I’ve never done anything like this,” Chris Heck, resident agent in charge of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit in Jackson, told The Associated Press inside the hangar. “This is a very large worksite operation.”

Koch Foods, based in Park Ridge, Illinois, is one of the largest poultry producers in the U.S. and employs about 13,000 people, with operations in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Ohio and Tennessee. Forbes ranks it as the 135th largest privately held company in the U.S., with an estimated $3.2 billion in annual revenue. The company has no relation to prominent conservative political donors and activists Charles and David Koch.

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi Mike Hurst, who was present at the facilities, told the media at a press conference:

We are first and foremost a nation of laws and the Rule of Law is the bedrock, the very foundation, of our great country. I heard someone say that a country without borders is not a country at all and while I agree with that, I would also add that without law there is no order. Without the enforcement of law, there is no justice.