(We) can do better

We publish here correspondence with Frankston Council over residents' objections to unilateral replacement for bluestone toilet blocks with inferior and costly new ones. The bluestone bricks were not recycled within the council and it is not yet known where they have gone or who may have finished up with them. This toilet inquiry by locals has shown its use in focusing on a small but important unit and asking simple questions, which may yet educate a public more or less overwhelmed by the scale of the ongoing dismantling of Melbourne. The photographs show how well the toilet unit fits into the natural environment, because of the use of natural, almost unprocessed, materials.

Questions sent to the Councilors about reasons for replacement of these toilet blocks

On Tue, May 22, 2018 at 9:12 PM, Matthew Mitchell wrote:

Dear Councillors,

Can you please provide a justification for replacing the blue stone toilet blocks on Seaford foreshore and advise what action is being taken to review this decision ASAP - as I have raised this issue now several times with you and your officers, and not one Councillor has responded.

Following are the reasons why this decision needs review - in short the official justification does not make sense, the new toilet so far suffers the following deficiencies:

1. There is no space to get changed. I use the current toilet blocks so my kids and I can get changed and wash up. The new blocks only allow one person to fit at a time.

2. They are a shared facility - i.e no urinals for the men, the floor and seat etc in such toilets end up covered in urine. The old toilets have proven in this and other ways to be cleaner than the new ones. I have NEVER seen the old ones dirty or full or rubbish like the new one are (over 18 years).

3. The new toilets are frequently locked. People have been checking this. The existing toilets are never locked. Is this a new model for Frankston? Toilets that are locked and therefore cannot be relied on, and thus not really of much use?

4. The argument about graffiti does not stack up to evidence - the bluestone toilet block at the end of Armstrongs has hardly any graffiti, so clearly they are not being graffitied or it can be cleaned off.

5. The new toilet blocks detract from the natural environment of the foreshore, they are overly high, garish in colour and design and not appropriate for this location.

6. The blue stone toilet blocks have historical value.

7. The argument that there should be a 'universal design language' suggest a standard design regardless of appropriateness to environment and context. When was the decision make to 'standardise' all the buildings in Frankston along these lines? Can you provide evidence and records of community consultation on the need for a 'universal design language' or was that not a democratic decision, but rather one made by Council officers?

8. I suggest that there are now sufficient facilities for disabled access in terms of toilets. In any case, the disabled toilet has been to my experience - and that of others - constantly locked, so is of little use in that respect.

9. We are in a period of global warming - replacing perfectly good and durable infrastructure unnecessarily is an irresponsible use of resources, and one the features of our unsustainable society that needs to change.

10. Frankston has many poor residents for which purposes money can be better spent than replacing perfectly good infrastructure rather than maintaining what is there.

This issue is clearly of interest to the community, as since I published an article on this the middle of last month, well over 3000 people have read it, and there has also been much discussion on facebook around this issue.

In short, can you please advise on what processes you are following to have this decision reviewed?

Looking forward to your prompt reply,

Regards,

Matthew Mitchell

Councilor Response

Sent: Tuesday, 22 May 2018, 11:38:36 pm AEST
Subject: Re: Answer on decisions to replace bluestone Toilet blocks

As for the other comments - I find the bluestone toilets to be, frankly, repugnant. For many reasons, many people associate the outdated bluestone model with substandard design. I personally have no interest in retaining the bluestone toilets; and I will not be pushing internally for a reversal on this approach.

I will get back to you on hours of operation re: toilets

Kris

The House Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy will hold a public hearing tomorrow for its inquiry into the management and use of Commonwealth environmental water.

The Committee will hear from the National Farmers’ Federation and the National Irrigators’ Council.

The inquiry is focused on the role of the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, including how environmental water is being used, the outcomes achieved and options for improving community engagement.

Further information about the inquiry can be found on the inquiry website at www.aph.gov.au/environmentalwater.

Public hearing details:
Time: 9.50am – 11.10am
Date: Wednesday 23 May 2018
Location: Committee Room 1R1, Parliament House, Canberra

Interested members of the public may wish to track the committee via the website, www.aph.gov.au/environment. Click on the blue ‘Track Committee’ button in the bottom right hand corner and use the forms to login to My Parliament or to register for a My Parliament account.

Well not really praise as such but, bear with me, while I justify wandering into this absurdity. I know it's difficult to say nice things about MP Craig Kelly, who claimed that people would die because renewables were raising electricity prices. He was perhaps unaware that the World Health Organisation in 2008 calculated that coal particulate pollution caused one million deaths across the world. And Tony Abbott who, between mouthfuls of onion, told us that coal was good for humanity - which was in opposition to both the Pope and the British Royal family's position - the two institutes he holds dear to his heart. Those are just two of 34 confirmed deniers in the LNP, although the Institute of Public Affairs claims half of the LNP members are supporters of their position.

Money and truth

That sounds like a lot of politicians on the wrong track (the US has 180 deniers in Congress!) and its certainly one of the reasons that action on climate change has stalled. But there are a total of 226 federal politicians in both houses, so what were the rest doing? Can 34 deniers be so powerful as to dominate an issue, or are these the nice guys who are actually honest enough to nail their colours to the mast and challenge their electorate to vote for them on the policies and their natural charm and charisma? And, as such, are they not more commendable than the other 192 so called “believers”, including Malcolm Turnbull, who promote or knowingly participate in the processes that are destroying the planets climate?

Which then prompts the question as to why on earth would we have a higher percentage of deniers in parliament than in the general public, and why are so many advocating or just accepting policies that harm the planet? Well, there is money, and lots of it, that comes from those who would like the government to continue with policies that benefit the donor at the expense of the environment. These donations are so important, and so potentially embarrassing, that the major parties have only been transparent with 10 to 20% of their disclosures. What we do know is that Fossil Fuel companies have declared donations of $968,343 to the ALP, Liberal and National parties in 2016-17, which was slightly down from the $1.03m donated in 2015-16 and $1.94m in 2014-15 (which was also a Federal election year).

https://theconversation.com/the-truth-about-political-donations-there-is-so-much-we-dont-know-91003

The usefulness of economics in political ideology

However even the most cynical politician, one who depends on this source of money for re election, would baulk at supporting some of the improprieties we have had thrust upon us by successive governments, unless there was some way to quell his/her distaste for their parties' actions. One way this can occur is via embracing a particular ideology - which by definition is a system of beliefs and ideals which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy. As such, it's not all that different to its equivalent in religion – faith – as both tend to smother reasoning lest it lead to inconvenient conclusions.

Ideology plays a big part in how political parties and governments function, largely because aspiring politicians can't get endorsement without supporting the parties' theories and must then ‘tow the party line’ or risk dis-endorsement. But it does mean that a minority group can usurp control of a party, something that has occurred in all parties: The modern Liberal is nothing like the Menzies model which was high tax, (by today's standard) protectionist on trade, big on regulation, and ran with a budget surplus and low unemployment (2.2%). The Labor party was instinctively socialist until Paul Keating embraced Milton Frieberg's fantasies with the result that we have two mainstream parties of the right with the Liberal party pushed into the hard right effectively destroying the moderates (wets) and handing power to the ultra conservatives. Barry Jones the former ALP science minister described this as "political compaction," giving voters a choice between McDonald's and KFC.

And when it comes to ideology economics is a star performer. No matter what political camp, be it neo conservative, (hard right) neo liberal, (center right to center left), socialism or communism, economics rules, and does so without a soul, because its criteria for assessment is reduced down to a single figure called the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Governments of the world assume that this one statistic can show whether things are getting better or worse despite the occasional hic-up like the Global Financial Crises. Yet as a measurement it was only adopted in the war years when production (of war material) was the key to winning the war. It did not measure human health, education, poverty, unemployment or environmental damage because the war took precedence over all the things that make up human well being. As a result today's governments will still prioritize policies or projects that will add to GDP, especially if it does so in the governments term of office. They can also virtually ignore those things that are not measured in financial terms and this includes damage to human health or the environment which are dismissed as being “externalities” of lesser importance than its contribution to “the economy” .

Nobel family rejected economics for inclusion in Nobel Prize

Economists (and to a lesser extent politicians) are so obsessed with this they have described GDP as one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century - and they have a point. Because now there is something definitive to give them credibility as policy makers and guardians of wisdom even though there is no correlation between GDP and wellbeing. To enhance this self appointed credibility and to justify all the absurdities they inflict upon us, economists usurped the prestige associated with the Nobel prize which as you may know was an initiative of Alfred Nobel back in 1901. The awards were issued for Chemistry, Physics, Literature, Medicine and Peace, there was no prize for economics mentioned in Alfred Nobel’s will. This didn’t materialise until 1968, when the Swedish Central Bank wanted to do something special for its 300th birthday. It made a donation to the Nobel Foundation to sponsor a prize and to make it more acceptable they called it a prize for ‘economic sciences’. Since the economics prize is announced at the same ceremony it is virtually indistinguishable from the others but the Nobel family estate didn’t approve so at the family’s insistence, the prize was given the name it has – the Sveriges Riksbank Prize given ‘in memory of’ Alfred Nobel, and not a true Nobel prize. Which is just as well since Nobel specified that his prizes should go to people who’s work has “conferred the greatest benefit on mankind”. That’s relatively easy to decide a winner in the traditional sciences, but the economic prize has often gone to people with completely opposing views. One recipient, Myron Scholes the 1997 winner, will forever be remembered by the failure of his hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) which collapsed in 1998 losing $US4.6 billion of investment.

Like any Nobel, the prize gives economists a stamp of approval in the mind of the general public, legitimising their entire philosophy. Of the 74 laureates so far, 28 are affiliated with the University of Chicago, the home of neoliberalism including Milton Friedman and Friedrick Hayek (architects of what become known as Reaganomics - deregulation, and the trickle down effect which double the US national debt) but even Hayek expressed doubt about the award saying:

“If I had been consulted whether to establish a Nobel Prize in economics, I should have decidedly advised against it. The Nobel Prize confers on an individual an authority which in economics no man ought to possess.”

Economic absurdities and political policies

This does not matter in science where the influence exercised by an individual is chiefly on his fellow experts - and they will soon cut him down to size if he exceeds his competence. But economist have influence over laymen: politicians, journalists, civil servants and the public, which gives them undeserved authority that is often used to override warnings from almost all other avenues, including scientific bodies. John Howard once remarked that “we could grow forever,” later admitting that we would need to rely on imported food to do so. Larry Summers, a former adviser to President Obama, stated, "The idea that we should put limits on growth because of some natural limit is a profound error, and one that, were it ever to prove influential, would have staggering social costs." It is a comment often repeated, despite being contrary to even basic mathematics, and was justified by referring to growth as being “sustainable”. When this was seen to be an oxymoron the wordsmiths produced an alternative, environmental problems can be “decoupled” - that is isolated - from growth, and even from population growth. There is no doubt that this form of economics, with its obsession with an ever expanding economy and dubious accounting, has been a great benefit for corporations like the fossil fuel industry. But it is also partially or wholly responsible for most of problems that now beset the world, including plastic pollution in oceans, air pollution in cities, the obesity pandemic, the collapse of coral reefs, and all the threats associated with catastrophic climate change. All so much different from a previous age, when President Kennedy was said to have had a plaque on his desk with the message, “The Buck Stops Here,” meaning that responsibility lies with those in power. Oddly enough the last time Australia had a prime minister who took responsibility for his mistakes was when Kevin Rudd admitted we could not meet his GHG reduction targets because of the population growth he had championed. And his Big Australia dream is still alive and well in the major political parties as well as the Greens.

Don Owers

"In an irresponsible and callous move and buried in the discussion paper of the Authority To Control Wildlife Review, the Daniel Andrews’ Government has signalled interest in adopting a policy that will see ALL sick, injured and orphaned kangaroos, wombats, possums and cockatoos KILLED instead of rescued and rehabilitated. This short-sighted and catastrophic policy may act to drive wildlife carers underground and will see members of the public refusing to hand over animals to vets and shelters in the fear that joeys and saveable animals will be automatically killed, resulting in horrendous and widespread animal suffering." (Helen Round, Wildlife carer, Macedon Ranges, Victoria.)

Text of letter to media

As one of the wildlife carers in Victoria, who shoulders much of the cost and responsibility of caring for sick, orphaned and injured wildlife in Victoria, I am writing to you because of a recent horrific proposal coming from the Andrews' State Government that could force Victorian wildlife carers to kill all healthy, saveable and viable kangaroos, wombats, possums and cockatoos that come in to care.

It’s a tough life being a volunteer. Apart from the exhausting, relentlessly routine physical work involved in wildlife rehabilitation, (cleaning pens & feed bins, round the clock feeding schedules), there’s the financial outlay on items like feeding equipment, cloth pouches, towels, fencing materials, veterinary medications, petrol and electricity bills.

Wildlife carers – who are mostly overtired, under resourced and overstretched women – are currently fighting a state government proposal that will result in mass animal deaths and horrific and widespread animal suffering. But, we need to be visible to be effective and that is why I am writing to you.

Authority to control wildlife - culling abuses

In an irresponsible and callous move and buried in the discussion paper of the Authority To Control Wildlife Review, the Daniel Andrews’ Government has signalled interest in adopting a policy that will see ALL sick, injured and orphaned kangaroos, wombats, possums and cockatoos KILLED instead of rescued and rehabilitated. This short-sighted and catastrophic policy may act to drive wildlife carers underground and will see members of the public refusing to hand over animals to vets and shelters in the fear that joeys and saveable animals will be automatically killed, resulting in horrendous and widespread animal suffering.

As they rescue and rehabilitate injured and orphaned wildlife, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, hundreds, if not thousands, of trained, experienced and self-funded volunteer wildlife carers and rescuers provide a service to the community that the public expect and the government fails to and cannot hope to provide.

Shockingly, volunteers fund all wildlife rescue and rehabilitation from their own pockets with no funding from the state government apart from a tokenistic and inadequate annual wildlife shelter grant system. Yet the Andrews’ Government is planning to deprive the community of this invaluable service, declaring that it is too costly to raise these animals and that they want to free up shelter resources. This is a cynical and disingenuous ploy and an insulting falsehood from a government who does not fund wildlife rescue and rehabilitation and support a raft of policies that are detrimental to wildlife across all sectors.

No one else can give the same level of service with the commitment, dedication and efficiency that existing volunteer wildlife carers and rescuers provide. No Government budget would be big enough and no department would be competent enough to achieve the same outcomes.

As carers and rescuers, we are committed to rescuing injured animals and we will continue to rescue and euthanise when necessary but, we will not become Daniel Andrew’s ‘killing machines’ to slaughter viable and healthy animals. We will not facilitate a policy that is morally corrupt and that has no scientific merit.

It is incomprehensible that politicians and bureaucrats have not considered the psychological impact these cruel policies will have on wildlife rescuers, carers and veterinarians who will be expected to kill viable animals, let alone the impact on members of the community who also encounter wildlife in need.

The fate of Victoria’s native wildlife is in the hands of a mega-department with interests that conflict with flora and fauna conservation and that is actively working to harm and exploit wildlife for political and economic gain.

I want to ask everyone to contact Victorian parliamentarians and remind them that wildlife and wildlife volunteers are valued, that Australia has the highest rate of mammalian extinction on the planet and that all ‘threatened’ and ‘extinct species’ were once considered ‘common and secure’.

A plan to build a massive hydropower dam in Sumatra as part of China’s immense Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) threatens the habitat of the rarest ape in the world, which has only 800 remaining members. It is time for a clarion call for greater caution. While led by China, the BRI will also involve large financial commitments from more than 60 nations that are parties to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, including Australia and many other Western nations. (Article republished from https://theconversation.com/china-backed-sumatran-dam-threatens-the-rarest-ape-in-the-world-95874 at The Conversation.)

The plan to build a massive hydropower dam in Sumatra as part of China’s immense Belt and Road Initiative threatens the habitat of the rarest ape in the world, which has only 800 remaining members.

This is merely the beginning of an avalanche of environmental crises and broader social and economic risks that will be provoked by the BRI scheme.

Read more:
How we discovered a new species of orangutan in northern Sumatra

The orangutan’s story began in November 2017, when scientists made a stunning announcement: they had discovered a seventh species of Great Ape, called the Tapanuli Orangutan, in a remote corner of Sumatra, Indonesia.

In an article published in Current Biology today, my colleagues and I show that this ape is perilously close to extinction – and that a Chinese-sponsored megaproject could be the final nail in its coffin.

Ambitious but ‘nightmarishly complicated’

The BRI is an ambitious but nightmarishly complicated venture, and far less organised than many believe. The hundreds of road, port, rail, and energy projects will ultimately span some 70 nations across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Pacific region. It will link those nations economically and often geopolitically to China, while catalysing sweeping expansion of land-use and extractive industries, and will have myriad knock-on effects.

Up to 2015, the hundreds of BRI projects were reviewed by the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, which is directly under China’s State Council. Many observers have assumed that the NDRC will help coordinate the projects, but the only real leverage they have is over projects funded by the big Chinese policy banks – the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China – which they directly control.

Most big projects – many of which are cross-national – will have a mix of funding from various sources and nations, meaning that no single entity will be in charge or ultimately responsible. An informed colleague in China describes this model as “anarchy”.

Tapanuli Orangutan

The dangerous potential of the BRI becomes apparent when one examines the Tapanuli Orangutan. With fewer than 800 individuals, it is one of the rarest animals on Earth. It survives in just a speck of rainforest, less than a tenth the size of Sydney, that is being eroded by illegal deforestation, logging, and poaching.

All of these threats propagate around roads. When a new road appears, the ape usually disappears, along with many other rare species sharing its habitat, such as Hornbills and the endangered Sumatran Tiger.

The most imminent threat to the ape is a US$1.6 billion hydropower project that Sinohydro (China’s state-owned hydroelectric corporation) intends to build with funding from the Bank of China and other Chinese financiers. If the project proceeds as planned, it will flood the heart of the ape’s habitat and crisscross the remainder with many new roads and powerline clearings.

It’s a recipe for ecological Armageddon for one of our closest living relatives. Other major lenders such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank aren’t touching the project, but that isn’t slowing down China’s developers.

What environmental safeguards?

China has produced a small flood of documents describing sustainable lending principles for its banks and broad environmental and social safeguards for the BRI, but I believe many of these documents are mere paper tigers or “greenwashing” designed to quell anxieties.

According to insiders, a heated debate in Beijing right now revolves around eco-safeguards for the BRI. Big corporations (with international ambitions and assets that overseas courts can confiscate) want clear guidelines to minimise their liability. Smaller companies, of which there are many, want the weakest standards possible.

The argument isn’t settled yet, but it’s clear that the Chinese government doesn’t want to exclude its thousands of smaller companies from the potential BRI riches. Most likely, it will do what it has in the past: issue lofty guidelines that a few Chinese companies will attempt to abide by, but that most will ignore.

Stacked deck

There are three alarming realities about China, of special relevance to the BRI.

First, China’s explosive economic growth has arisen from giving its overseas corporations and financiers enormous freedom. Opportunism, graft and corruption are embedded, and they are unlikely to yield economically, socially or environmentally equitable development for their host nations. I detailed many of these specifics in an article published by Yale University last year.

Second, China is experiencing a perfect storm of trends that ensures the harsher realities of the BRI are not publicly aired or even understood in China. China has a notoriously closed domestic media – #wvflezrfe5mdMDjr.97">ranked near the bottom in press freedom globally – that is intolerant of government criticism.

Beyond this, the BRI is the signature enterprise of President Xi Jinping, who has become the de-facto ruler of China for life. Thanks to President Xi, the BRI is now formally enshrined in the constitution of China’s Communist Party, making it a crime for any Chinese national to criticise the program. This has had an obvious chilling effect on public discourse. Indeed, I have had Chinese colleagues withdraw as coauthors of scientific papers that were even mildly critical of the BRI.

Third, China is becoming increasingly heavy-handed internationally, willing to overtly bully or covertly pull strings to achieve its objectives. Professor Clive Hamilton of Charles Sturt University has warned that Australia has become a target for Chinese attempts to stifle criticism.

Remember the ape

It is time for a clarion call for greater caution. While led by China, the BRI will also involve large financial commitments from more than 60 nations that are parties to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, including Australia and many other Western nations.

Read more:
China’s growing footprint on the globe threatens to trample the natural world

We all have a giant stake in the Belt and Road Initiative. It will bring sizeable economic gains for some, but in nearly 40 years of working internationally, I have never seen a program that raises more red flags.

Greensbush Association is screening the new international film about Kangaroos in Australia at 5.30pm May 25th at Main Ridge Community Hall, Main Creek Road, Main Ridge, (Mornington Peninsular) Victoria. This film has been screened and reviewed widely around the world to stunned reviews and I have not found any negative ones. It is not so well known in Australia, of course, because it challenges what governments and corporate press have to say about kangaroos. The Association screening this film is named after Greensbush Mornington Peninsular National Park, which is one of few places where kangaroos might now dwell in comparative safety, were it not for people on neighboring properties who treat them like pests and the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning which encourages this redneck approach to wildlife. Victorians will be concerned to hear that this film tells how the West Australian Commercial Kangaroo Meat industry is running out of kangaroos and planning to open up in Victoria. Of course the grubby Victorian Government is looking for any excuse to get rid of our wildlife. Turn up to this film-screening and maybe you can network with fellow wildlife warriors. The kangaroos need all the help they can get. If you doubt this, check the film out. Donations to cover the cost of the film and venue hire. All welcome! Map to venue at end of article. You can hire this film, host a screening, from kangaroothemovie.com.

"Essentially, the film examines how the roo industry - both for meat and skin - has stealthily and very profitably capitalised on two words - “pest” and “plague” - to run itself in a chaotic, slipshod, unhygienic, inhumane and seriously under-regulated fashion. We are introduced to whistle-blowers, activists and politicians who are advocating not so much for revolution as transparency, while farmers and industry reps are also given their say.

The film does have a point of view, though, and a strong one, and will doubtless cause some consternation among those who don’t want their ways challenged. The thing that shines through, however, is the integrity of the McIntyres: they didn’t set out to challenge an industry, they simply learned about it, and what they learned, we all, as Australians who love Skippy, need to know." ("Nightlife," http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/nightlife/cj/9546930)

"To avoid a nonstop focus on bloodshed, “Kangaroo” occasionally offers up images of the outback and drone footage of wild animals in their habitats. Those can be breathtaking. Yet the filmmakers, to their credit, don’t flinch from stomach-turning sights. This film isn’t always pretty, but its message is necessary." (New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/movies/kangaroo-a-love-hate-story-review.html)

Julian Assange is in immense danger. Remarks made this week by Ecuador’s foreign minister suggest that her government may be preparing to renege on the political asylum it granted to the WikiLeaks editor in 2012 and hand him over to British and then American authorities. On March 28, under immense pressure from the governments in the US, Britain and other powers, Ecuador imposed a complete ban on Assange having any Internet or phone contact with the outside world, and blocked his friends and supporters from physically visiting him. For 45 days, he has not been heard from. [Article first Published May 13, 2018 at "Information Clearing House"]

Ecuador Hints it May Hand Over Julian Assange to Britain and the US

Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa stated in a Spanish-language interview on Wednesday that her government and Britain “have the intention and the interest that this be resolved.” Moves were underway, she said, to reach a “definite agreement” on Assange.

If Assange falls into the hands of the British state, he faces being turned over to the US. Last year, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated that putting Assange on trial for espionage was a “priority.” CIA director Mike Pompeo, now secretary of state, asserted that WikiLeaks was a “non-state hostile intelligence service.”

In 2010, WikiLeaks courageously published information leaked by then Private Bradley [now Chelsea] Manning that exposed war crimes committed by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. WikiLeaks also published, in partnership with some of the world’s major newspapers, tens of thousands of secret diplomatic cables, exposing the daily anti-democratic intrigues of US imperialism and numerous other governments.

For that, Assange was relentlessly persecuted by the Obama administration. By November 2010, it had convened a secret grand jury and had a warrant issued for his arrest on charges of espionage—charges that can carry the death sentence. The then Labor Party government in Australia headed by Prime Minister Julia Gillard threw Assange, an Australian citizen, to the wolves. It refused to provide him any defence and declared it would work with the US to have him detained and put on trial.

On June 19, 2012, under conditions in which he faced extradition to Sweden to answer questions over fabricated allegations of sexual assault, and the prospect of rendition to the United States, Assange sought asylum in the Ecuador’s embassy in London.

Since that time, for nearly six years, he has been largely confined to a small room with no direct sunlight. He has been prevented from leaving, even to obtain medical treatment, by the British government’s insistence it will arrest him for breaching bail as soon as he sets foot outside the embassy.

Now, for six weeks and three days, he has been denied even the right to communicate.

Jennifer Robinson, the British-based Australian lawyer who has represented Assange since 2010, told the London Times in an interview this month: “His health situation is terrible. He’s had a problem with his shoulder for a very long time. It requires an MRI [magnetic resonance imaging scan], which cannot be done within the embassy. He’s got dental issues. And then there’s the long-term impact of not being outside, his visual impairment. He wouldn’t be able to see further than from here to the end of this hallway.”

The effort to haul Assange before a US court is inseparable from the broader campaign underway by the American state and allied governments to impose sweeping censorship on the Internet. Lurid allegations of “Russian meddling” in the 2016 US election and denunciations of “fake news” have been used to demand that Google, Facebook and other conglomerates block users from accessing websites that publish critical commentary and exposures of the ruling class and its agencies—including WikiLeaks and the World Socialist Web Site.

WikiLeaks has been absurdly denounced as “pro-Russia” because it published leaks from the US Democratic Party National Committee that revealed the anti-democratic intrigues the party’s leaders carried out to undermine the campaign of Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary elections. It also published leaked speeches of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton that further exposed her intimate relations with Wall Street banks and companies.

As part of the justification for Internet censorship, US intelligence agencies allege, without any evidence, that the information was hacked by Russian operatives and supplied to WikiLeaks to undermine Clinton and assist Trump—whom Moscow purportedly considered the “lesser evil.”

In response to the hysterical allegations, WikiLeaks broke its own tradition of not commenting on its sources. It publicly denied that Russia was the source of the leaks. That has not prevented the campaign from continuing, with Assange even being labelled “the Kremlin’s useful idiot” in pro-Democratic Party circles. WikiLeaks is blamed for Clinton’s defeat, not the reality, that tens of millions of American workers were repulsed by her right-wing, pro-war campaign and refused to vote for her.

Under conditions in which the Ecuadorian government has capitulated to great power pressure and is collaborating with British and US agencies to break Julian Assange, there is an almost universal and reprehensible silence on the part of dozens of organisations and hundreds of individuals who once claimed to defend him and WikiLeaks.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which in February 2016 condemned Assange’s persecution as “a form of arbitrary detention” and called for his release, has issued no statement on his current situation.

In Britain, the Labour Party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn have said nothing on the actions by Ecuador. Nor have they opposed the determination of the Conservative government to arrest Assange if he leaves the embassy.

In Australia, the current Liberal-National government and Labor leadership are just as complicit. The Greens, which claimed to oppose the persecution of Assange, have not made any statement in parliament or issued a press release, let alone called for public protests. Hundreds of editors, journalists, academics, artists and lawyers across the country who publicly defended WikiLeaks in 2010 and 2011 are now mute.

A parallel situation prevails across Europe and in the US. The so-called parties of the “left” and the trade unions are all tacitly endorsing the vicious drive against Assange.

Around the world, the Stalinist and Pabloite pseudo-left organisations, anxious not to disrupt their sordid relations with the parties of the political establishment and the trade union apparatuses, are likewise silent.

The World Socialist Web Site and the International Committee of the Fourth International unconditionally defend Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. If the ruling elite can haul him before a court, it will hold him up as an example of what happens to those who speak out against social inequality, militarism, war and police-state measures. His prosecution would be used to try to intimidate and silence all dissent.

If Assange is imprisoned or worse, and WikiLeaks shut down, it will be a serious blow to the democratic rights of the entire international working class.

Workers and young people should join with the WSWS and ICFI in demanding and fighting for the immediate freedom of Julian Assange.

There is in fact a Middle Eastern nation that is in fact in control of a vast, undeclared stockpile of nuclear weapons. This nation does have the capability of deploying those weapons anywhere in the region. It is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and its arsenal has never been inspected by any international agency. But this nation is not Iran. It's Israel. (James Corbett)

The Transcript below has been republished from https://www.corbettreport.com/israelinukes/
TRANSCRIPT

DONALD TRUMP: I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. In a few moments I will sign a presidential memorandum to begin reinstating US nuclear sanctions on the Iranian regime. We will be instituting the highest level of economic sanction.

SOURCE: President Trump Gives Remarks on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action

When President Trump announced that the US was going to de-certify the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and reinstitute sanctions on that country, one of the reasons he cited for that move was the presentation of “new” evidence from Israeli intelligence showing that the Iranians had lied about its nuclear program during the negotiation of that deal.

TRUMP: Last week Israel published intelligence documents long concealed by Iran conclusively showing the Iranians regime and its history of pursuing nuclear weapons.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: A few weeks ago, in a great intelligence achievement, Israel obtained half a ton of the material inside these vaults. And here’s what we got; 55,000 pages. Another 55,000 files on 183 CDs. Everything you’re about to see is an exact copy of the original Iranian material

SOURCE: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gives statement on Iran Nuclear Deal

Theatrical props and dramatic rhetoric aside, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent presentation on the “Iranian nuclear deal” in fact contained no new information.

That Iran had explored a nuclear weapons program prior to 2003 has been known and admitted for years. That they have an archive of this information is not a violation of the Iranian nuclear deal completed in 2015. In fact, if anything, Netanyahu’s presentation actually proved the exact opposite of what was intended: Namely, that Iran is abiding by the terms of that treaty and is not covertly pursuing any nuclear weapons activity. That’s why they had to go back to 15 year old information and present it as if it was something new and revelatory.

But here’s the real head-scratcher in this new round of propaganda over the Iranian nuclear non-threat: There is in fact a Middle Eastern nation that is in fact in control of a vast, undeclared stockpile of nuclear weapons. This nation does have the capability of deploying those weapons anywhere in the region. It is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and its arsenal has never been inspected by any international agency. But this nation is not Iran. It’s Israel.

This is the story of the real Middle East Nuclear Threat. You’re watching The Corbett Report.

Hand-wringing over Iran’s nuclear program is nothing new. It became a mainstay of western political discourse after an Iranian dissident revealed the Iranian government’s plans for a uranium enrichment facility in Natanz in August 2002. But the surprising fact for Americans and others around the world who get their information from the corporate mainstream media, is that Iran’s pre-2003 nuclear weapons program has long been known and admitted. Since 2003, when the program was scrapped, not a single piece of evidence has been presented (not even by Netanyahu or the Israeli government) that the Iranian government ever pursued anything other than what it said it was pursuing: a nuclear energy program.

Not that that fact has ever stopped Netanyahu from using any opportunity to use cartoon-level propaganda tactics to convince the world otherwise:

NETANYAHU: In the case of Iran’s nuclear plans to build a bomb, this bomb has to be filled with enough enriched uranium. And Iran has to go through three stages.

The first stage: they have to enrich enough of low enriched uranium. The second stage: they have to enrich enough medium enriched uranium. And the third stage and final stage: they have to enrich enough high enriched uranium for the first bomb.

Where’s Iran? Iran’s completed the first stage. It took them many years, but they completed it and they’re 70% of the way there.

Now they are well into the second stage. By next spring, at most by next summer at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage. From there, it’s only a few months, possibly a few weeks before they get enough enriched uranium for the first bomb.

Ladies and gentlemen, what I told you now is not based on secret information. It’s not based on military intelligence. It’s based on public reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Anybody can read them. They’re online.

So if these are the facts, and they are, where should the red line be drawn?

The red line should be drawn right here. Before Iran completes the second stage of nuclear enrichment necessary to make a bomb. Before Iran gets to a point where it’s a few months away or a few weeks away from amassing enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon.

Each day, that point is getting closer. That’s why I speak today with such a sense of urgency. And that’s why everyone should have a sense of urgency.

SOURCE: Israel PM Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu Address to United Nations Sept 27, 2012

Of course, Iran was not pursuing nuclear weapons and Netanyahu’s Wile E. Coyote bomb and red line warnings bore no greater semblance to reality than the cartoon propaganda surrounding Saddam’s “weapons of mass destruction.” Not only did the IAEA repeatedly confirm that Iran never diverted any nuclear material into any military program, but even the US intelligence community itself conceded that Iran was not trying to build a nuclear bomb. Most remarkable of all was Mossad’s own assessment that Iran was “not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons.”

As I detailed earlier this year in “We Need to Talk About the Iran Protests,” fearmongering over Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons program was the basis for an extraordinary series of measures against the country in recent decades. These measures included “NITRO ZEUS,” a full-scale military cyberattack against Iran the best-known element of which was Stuxnet, the military-grade cyberweapon co-developed by the United States and Israel that specifically targeted Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz.

Iran’s non-existent nuclear program also provided the pretext for sanctions aimed at crippling the country’s economy, including the de-listing of Iranian banks from the Swift Network connecting the world’s financial institutions.

The fearmongers even went so far as to plant evidence of nuclear weapons involvement on Iran to further justify these attacks.

But the great irony is that there really is a nuclear armed nation in the Middle East. It is not a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It does not allow inspections of its arsenal. It does not even officially acknowledge its stockpile of nuclear weapons. It has even resisted the push for an international treaty recognizing a nuclear-free zone in the middle east. And that country is Israel.

Sometimes ranked as the world’s sixth largest nuclear superpower, Israel actively pursued a nuclear program from the time of its inception as a state in 1948. By the late 1950s, they had begun building a reactor and reprocessing plant at Dimona with British and French aid. And by 1967, a classified CIA report estimated that Israel would be capable of producing a nuclear warhead in “six to eight weeks.” Shortly thereafter, it is believed, Israel began producing and stockpiling a nuclear arsenal.

OLENKA FRENKIEL: It was the young Shimon Peres, back in the fifties who negotiated a secret deal with the French to buy a nuclear weapons reactor like theirs. But while Dimona was going up, intelligence reports reached Washington that Israel was building an atom bomb.

Despite claims that Dimona was for peaceful purposes only, Israel’s leader Ben Gurion was summoned to Washington. President Kennedy feared an arms race in the Middle East and demanded inspections. But when inspectors finally entered the plant in May 1961 they were tricked. They were shown a fake control room on the ground floor. They were unaware of the six floors below where the plutonium was made.

PETER HOUNAM, Freelance journalist: Well this was something of great pride and almost a legendary story in Dimona, according to Vanunu. When the Americans came they were completely hoodwinked. All the entrances including the lift shafts were bricked up and plastered over so it was impossible for anyone to find their way down to the lower floors.

FRENKIEL: After Kennedy’s assassination the pressure on Israel was off. His successor Lyndon Johnson turned a blind eye. Then In 1969 Israel’s Golda Meir and President Richard Nixon struck a deal, renewed by every President to this day. Israel’s nuclear programme could continue as long as it was never made public. It’s called “nuclear ambiguity.”

The term “nuclear ambiguity,” in some ways it sounds very grand. But isn’t just a euphemism for deception?

SHIMON PERES, Former Prime Minister of Israel: If somebody wants to kill you, and you use a deception to save your life it is not immoral. If we wouldn’t have enemies we wouldn’t need deceptions. We wouldn’t need deterrent.

FRENKIEL: Was this the justification for concealing the floors of the plutonium reprocessing areas from the Americans, the inspectors, when they came?

PERES: You are having a dialogue with yourself, not with me.

FRENKIEL: But that’s been documented in a number of books.

PERES: Ask the question to yourself, not to me.

FRENKIEL: I mean, is it not true?

PERES: I don’t have to answer your questions, even. I don’t see any reason why.

FRENKIEL: Ambiguity is a luxury unique to Israel. Today the country’s an inspection-free zone, protected from scrutiny by America and her allies.

SOURCE: Israel’s Secret Weapon

Although estimates vary, it is now believed that Israel has somewhere between 75 and 400 nuclear warheads, and that it possesses the capability to deliver these warheads to Iran.

The existence of this stockpile, while known to governments around the world for decades, was only revealed to the public in 1986, when The Sunday Times published photographic proof and a detailed account of Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program. That story was provided by Mordechai Vanunu, a technician at the Dimona facility, who spent decades behind bars for his part in revealing this truth to the world.

NARRATOR: On October 5th, 1986, The Sunday Times announced they had evidence to prove that Israel had become the world’s sixth biggest nuclear power, having developed their arsenal beneath the Negev desert at Dimona. Photographs like this were given to the Sunday Times by a former technician at Dimona, Mordechai Vanunu.

[…]

Mordechai Vanunu’s family, Moroccan Jews, settled in the Negev in the early 60s, inspired by the idea of being a part of Israel. Vanunu did national service in the army. Then, while he worked at Dimona he began studying philosophy. He became active in student politics. He opposed Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Vanunu came to believe that Israel’s nuclear development program was immoral. He left Damona and, eventually, Israel itself.

Vanunu arrived in Sydney armed with photographs he’d taken inside Dimona. Here, he turned his back on Judaism and became a Christian. He met Oscar Guerrero, a Colombian journalist who urged him to sell his secrets to The Sunday Times. His evidence was processed at a local photo shop. Vanunu talked openly about what he’d done.

It’s said that by the time Vanunu arrived in London on September the 12th, 1986, Australian intelligence had already alerted MI6 and the CIA, and Mossad—Israeli intelligence—had already begun questioning his family in Israel. The Sunday Times disguised their informant and moved him from place to place for protection. But in Leicester Square one day, Vanunu met a blonde who called herself “Cindy,” a beautician from Florida. Meanwhile, Oscar Guerrero, eager to profit from what he knew, turned to The Sunday Mirror. Vanunu’s photograph appeared on page one. Vanunu began to despair. At this point, Cindy was able to lure him to Rome to sp end the weekend with her at her sister’s apartment. Not once did Vanunu suspect that Cindy was a Mossad agent and that this was the beginning of a plot to kidnap him.

In Rome, the tactics of the Mossad agents changed dramatically.

MEIR VANUNU: In the apartment, two Israeli agents attacked him and bit him and strangled him really hard. And then chained him, injected drugs [in]to his body. And later on he woke up in a small cell on a boat. The boat went to Israel for a few days and he arrived to Israel on the 7th of October, 1986.

Vanunu was assumed dead until he turned up weeks later in Tel Aviv. Vanunu himself, on his way to court, gave the first clue of what had happened to him. Scrawled on his hand was the message “Vanunu was hijacked from Rome, Italy. 30.9.86. BA 504.”

SOURCE: Vanunu’s exposure of Israels nuclear program

But a key element of the story is missing from the handful of documentaries that acknowledge Israel’s nuclear stockpile. Namely, that these weapons were not merely developed by Israeli scientists working in isolation, but with the aid of a nuclear smuggling ring that helped develop and advance Israel’s arsenal by stealing important nuclear technologies from their “ally,” the United States. These rings and their activities have been known about and even investigated by the FBI for decades, but largely kept secret from the public.

It has fallen to researchers like Grant F. Smith of IRMEP.org, author of Divert!: NUMEC, Zalman Shapiro and the diversion of US weapons grade uranium into the Israeli nuclear weapons program, to piece together the story from the documents that have been released. On The Corbett Report in 2012, Smith revealed the name of one of the high-powered Israeli officials who was at the heart of a plot in the 1970s to smuggle 800 nuclear triggers from the United States.

GRANT F. SMITH: In terms of the FBI uncovering a multi-node network, this one happened to be centered in California. MILCO was a company that was incorporated in 1972 by a man named Richard Kelly Smyth. He was discovered sending 800 krytrons, which are dual-use items that could be used to trigger nuclear weapons. When he was discovered doing that, he skipped bail in the mid-1980s and disappeared until he was picked up by Interpol in the early part of 2000.

And so the story is interesting and explosive, because after multiple attempts and denials we had a document release in which the key contact, or one of the key contacts that Smyth was meeting with to set up sales in Israel was none other than Benjamin Netanyahu. And so the document—which I’m kind of holding up right here for the people who are on video—actually names Benjamin Netanyahu as being an employee of Heli Trading Company, which was the node in Israel that would receive Ministry of Defense requisitions that they would pass on to MILCO.

And so the interesting thing about this, of course, is the high-profile nature of Benjamin Netanyahu, [and] the fact that the smuggling ring ring leader has been identified as Arnon Milchan, a person any American knows for his movie productions such as Pretty Woman and other favorites, who is running this and who a recent book has named as being a top economic espionage fly a spy for LAKAM, who worked under Benjamin Bloomberg and Rafi Eitan. But the FBI documents that we published on July 4th related to an antiwar.com story which was really short and direct. And its core focus was on the fact that in a period when Netanyahu was building himself up as a leader in the terrorism industry—hosting major conferences, having just returned from his studies in the United States, hosting major conferences in the Jonathan Netanyahu Terrorism Institute, named after his brother who was killed on the Raid on Entebbe.

Here’s a person who was supposed to be working as a furniture company executive, and yet these documents which are very credible because of what they were—which is testimony from Richard Kelly Smith after he was returned his exile overseas and finally forced serve a prison sentence. These were the statements he made to an FBI agent in a district attorney office when they debriefed and wanted to know what the extent of the nuclear technology smuggling network was and—boom!—there’s Benjamin Netanyahu.

SOURCE: Corbett Report Radio 214 – Israel’s Nuclear Smuggling with Grant F. Smith

Benjamin Netanyahu. And now this unindicted nuclear smuggler is lecturing Iran about a 15 year old, long-acknowledged nuclear weapons program that never produced a single nuclear weapon.

Even more worryingly, Israel’s nuclear knowledge has not only helped to arm its own nation, but actually helped to proliferate nuclear weapons to Pakistan through the so-called Khan network. One of the men who helped to transfer the nuclear triggers used in the construction of the Pakistani bomb was Asher Karni, an orthodox Jew living in South Africa who had been a major in the Israeli army prior to emigrating to Cape Town. Upon his arrival there in 1985, he began teaching Torah at the local synagogue and educating Jewish youth, encouraging them to relocate to Israel.

In 2004, U.S. authorities arrested Karni for his role in supplying the nuclear triggers and in 2005 he was sentenced to three years in prison. It has never been officially explained why this Israeli citizen and former Israeli military officer was interested in helping proliferate nuclear technologies to Pakistan.

But perhaps the greatest irony of all is that it is Iran who has been arguing for decades that the Middle East should be a nuclear-free zone. The idea was first floated by the Shah in 1969, and was first formally proposed by Iran in a joint UN General Assembly resolution, but the idea failed to garner any support. The idea was again raised by then-Iranian President Ahmedinejad in 2006 and yet again by then-Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki in 2008, but these calls to banish nuclear weapons from the Middle East have not even been acknowledged by the west, let alone seriously considered.

Now more than ever, the prospect of a nuclear-free Middle East seems the only way to prevent a nuclear conflagration that threatens to draw in the world’s superpowers, and yet the idea is being ignored by Israel and its staunchest ally, the United States.

Why does Israel refuse to declare its nuclear weapons stockpile? Why do they refuse to sign on to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty?

Why do they refuse IAEA inspections of their nuclear facility?

Why did they kidnap and imprison Mordechai Vanunu for 18 years for providing the proof of this nuclear program?

And perhaps most importantly, why does the United States, the only country who could single-handedly force NPT compliance from Israel, still refuse to even admit the openly-acknowledged status of Israel as a nuclear power?

Don’t hold your breath waiting for these questions to be answered by the teleprompter readers on the nightly news.

Still, as even many in the mainstream are now admitting, Netanyahu’s presentation on Iran’s nuclear non-secrets are a cheap display of political theatrics. The only thing he ended up doing is underlining the point that Iran, unlike Israel, fully cooperated with the IAEA, lived up to its obligations as a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and pointedly has not violated the 2015 nuclear deal.

And now that the United States has allowed the Israeli tail to wag the American dog once again by de-certifying that Iranian deal without valid cause, negotiators in North Korea and elsewhere will be watching, reminded yet again that a promise from the American empire isn’t worth the signed agreement it’s written on.

The left has been hijacked by unwitting servants of the neo-liberal agenda.

I was talking to a friend the other day explaining how I always considered myself left wing, but now apparently I wasn’t. I explained why and she declared that the left has been hijacked.

And it struck me: she is right, it totally has. Remember when the left was about worker’s rights? It was about preventing the rich giving themselves privileges whilst denying ordinary people both rights and access to resources. It was, in large part, about protecting people and the environment from the rapacious appetites of the elite rich. In short, the left was about ensuring that everyone had a level of human dignity and the ability to raise a healthy, happy and educated family.

So what is the left now? – I tell you it is no longer about these things. I know this because I am being told that am I no longer left wing, but alt right wing. I tell you why I find this strange, for many years I have written, spoken publicly and protested against: TPP trade agreements; GMO’s; Fracking; homelessness; and the destruction of the environment. I am, and have been involved in environmental groups for over a decade. I have been a union branch committee member for nearly 10 years, I have gone on strike while colleagues kept working. I have gone on union marches. But I am informed, by other supposedly left wing people, that I am now right wing. Even though I continue to do all these things. It gets worse, not only am I being told I am right wing, but I have also recently been categorised with Incels. Why? To be honest, I don’t fully understand the logic, but it seems it has lot to do with not agreeing that there is a “Patriarchy”, and accepting the whole gamit of complaints and grievances based around this concept.

It seems now that you are not left wing if you fight for worker’s rights, you must largely forget that and fight now for trans-rights, for same-sex marriage rights, you must denounce the Patriarchy and acknowledge it as the source of all humanity's problems. This is NOT what the left wing used to be about.

Thus the left wing has been highjacked. And I argue that it has been highjacked by – perhaps unwitting – servants of everything the left wing used to stand against. The left has been highjacked by agents of the neo-liberal system.

We do not see in our papers headlines decrying the excesses of the rich, we do see headlines about global warming – but only because it can no longer be ignored. But where is people’s energy going? It is going into false battles about same-sex marriage, about supposed Patriarchy – which sets women against men - causing much damage and pain. Meanwhile – hidden behind this smoke screen - the rich get richer, the earth dies, common people bicker and argue about Patriarchy and marriage rights while everything burns around us. And all the while the press declares this as progress, and trumpets changes in laws about marriage, and discriminating for women (and against men) as signs of progress. The world is being destroyed, families are being destroyed, debt is growing, congestion is growing, the environment is being destroyed, and men are being pushed out of work, becoming more and more sidelined in society. Families are falling apart and people becoming more frustrated, more angry and more violent. Yet amongst all this discord it is declared that there are signs of social progress. What a bloody mess! And who can we turn to now? The union movement has almost been crushed by neo-liberal forces, or sold out to growth, and it too has been directing resources into the new ‘left’ agenda.

Where do we turn? It seems the neo-liberals have finally won at last. I guess we will all go down fighting and bickering about the various ways men have oppressed women though-out history, and still do today, as the rich appropriate the remaining resources on the planet then party as they watch it, and all us, die.

We had an A grade example of the type of parallel universe Australia’s mainstream media has descended into late last week.  A completely false story given prominence in the national media by The Australian, which was then picked up by various other Rupert Murdoch papers, but which sadly even made it beyond that – all without a single shred of fact, and all without anybody thinking to check, or even think about, the main line of the story being reported.

(This article was first published at https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/05/immigration-compact-nothing-propaganda/ on 7 May 2018. Republished with author permission.)

Better still it shows just how easy it may be to get a view into the public domain and have it picked up, with a mobile number, and a basic website splashing about a few logos, to create a Potemkin public ‘movement’.  And from there we can get a sighter into the sort of desperado vested interests who’d go there to try and stoke public opinion.

The story began with the following piece which was plastered front-and-centre of The Australian on Thursday night:

Business and unions in rare alliance for Big Australia

The Australian

12:00AM May 4, 2018

SIMON BENSON

 

NATIONAL AFFAIRS EDITOR

Sydney

@simonbenson

Let’s start with the headline and the glossy of Sally McManus underneath.  Any half-baked sentient thinker looking at that would assume that there has been some sort of major agreement signed by the Unions and Business on the subject of immigration.

Anybody remotely familiar with Simon Benson and his work can tell you he is a long term lackey for Rupert Murdoch’s Australian operations and has bounced around the Sydney Telegraph as a political codpiece, honing his act, before shifting to mission control last year.

The article is, in fact, highlighted as an ‘exclusive’ by the The Australian. So you would ordinarily think that for something being touted as such they would want to really nail their facts.  Presumably Benson had some sort of information basis on which to write the story, and you would have thought that someone somewhere would have checked out something going into the The Australian proclaimed as ‘exclusive’.

Even more, if it is an ‘exclusive’ – did absolutely nobody at the Murdoch press think for a moment, ‘This is a major public announcement, and the idea of public announcements is to ensure the public knows, and if any organisation is making public announcements then it is in their interest to get it out as many media channels as they can.  Why are we running this piece as an ‘exclusive’? Why isnt Fairfax, the broadcast channels and the ABC getting this as well? ‘

Alas, it appears we have two strikes from the ‘journalists’, ‘opinion leaders’, and ‘editorial processes’ at The Australian…….. (but it gets a whole heap better):

Big business has joined forces with the ACTU in an unprecedented compact to back a Big Australia, calling on the federal government to maintain current levels of permanent migration amid calls for the rate to be cut.

A stark statement to open the onslaught.  A one sentence paragraph which is simply and utterly false – so false it is almost refreshing to see it as stark as it is for the plain and unadorned rubbish it represents.

There is no evidence anywhere to support it apart from an advertisement placed into The Australian on Friday (which we will get to).

There is not the faintest skerrick of evidence anywhere that the ACTU and its President Sally McManus have joined forces with big business on anything to do with immigration.  There is no indication anywhere in their public pronouncements that the ACTU and its President Sally McManus have proclaimed, signed agreement to, funded or done anything to promote, a ‘compact’ promoting permanent immigration at its current levels, or any expansion or reduction of permanent migration levels.

The historic coalition of peak unions, employer groups and the ethnic lobby will release a united policy document today warning of the economic and social consequences of dropping the annual migration rate.

Well Friday came and went, and now the weekend too – and not a sign of any policy document uniting the ethnic lobby, big business and the unions came from anywhere.

The ACTU’s involvement comes as it embarks on a high-profile campaign to rein in employers’ access to temporary foreign workers.

Now for sure the ACTU has run a high profile campaign against temporary employees.  And for sure the ACTU did on Thursday release, ‘Five-point plan to address unemployment and end exploitation of temporary visa workers’. But absolutely nowhere in that presser does the ACTU mention anything about any ‘compact’ with anyone on immigration numbers, and the need to maintain a high permanent level of immigration.

The first migration document of its kind in the nation’s history calls for the current goal of an ­annual intake of 190,000 to be ­retained, with long-term levels set proportionally to the population.

Now the bullshit quotient goes up a notch right here.  Think about that paragraph for a second.  No caveats on why we need an additional 190k per annum, no relating it to how the economy is going, no historical reference – and certainly no mention that the 190k figure itself is a massive historical ramp up on a long term average of about 75k per annum.  And then, before you get past that there is a fine sliver of the choicest grade 24 carat bullshit right at the back half of that sentence – ‘with long-term levels set proportionately to the population’.

Think about that for a moment.  Our 190k isnt an ideal, it is a starting point and it keeps going up every year “proportionately to the population”.  If 0.76% of 25 million brings us to 190k in the first year, in ten years time that same 0.76% will bring us more than 204k.

And no mention of employment outcomes, wages, land usage and degradation therein, consumption, whether or not that makes any form of economic sense, and no mention of who we bring in, or what skills they bring, or what they are expected to provide.  Just 190k plus in – every year as far as the eye can see.  And we are expected to believe the ACTU has signed up to this with business and the ethnic lobby – without discussing it with Unions under its aegis, with their members, without a debate in the public domain.

The accord will see the ACTU and United Voice, one of the most influential unions in the country, sign a National Compact on Permanent Migration with the peak employer body, the Australian Industry Group.

But on the day of the announcement neither the ACTU or United Voice have any mention of signing a compact with the Australian Industry Group on the subject of immigration numbers.  The AIG has a reference to it on Saturday – on the front of its web site.

If you click on that link we end up at a very strange website headed National Compact on Permanent Migration with a number of logos splashed about to make it look well supported.  These include

• Migration Council Australia
• Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU)
• Australian Industry Group (AIG)
• Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS)
• Welcome to Australia
• Settlement Council of Australia
• Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia (FECCA)
• United Voice (better known once as the LHMU or the Liquor Hospitality Miscellaneous Union)

Now at this point aspiring journalists would once have been asking themselves ‘What do these organisations have to say about the compact they have signed?’ and maybe even ‘What are they telling their stakeholders about why signing the compact is a good thing or not?’  I say ‘once’ because it often isn’t the case anymore, and the focus these days is being able to copy and paste a media announcement, or parts therein, into a piece being written, and just assuming that because there are logos and because there are links then it is all legit.

As a hat tip to the old timers I thought I would check out these organisations and what they have to say about the ‘compact’.

The Migration Council Australia – has no mention of any ‘compact’ or any tie in with the AIG or the ACTU or ACOSS on the subject of permanent immigration numbers.  Their #the-economic-impact-of-migration-2015" target="_blank" rel="noopener">policy area makes no mention of it either.

The ACTU  – has no mention of any ‘compact’ or any tie in with the AIG or ACOSS or migrant organisations on the subject of permanent immigration numbers.  Their media section makes no mention of it either,  apart from the Thursday press release on the subject of temporary visa employees.

The Australian Industry Group – has a direct link to the ‘compact’ website, but has no mention of, discussion of or consultation with members about any compact, and no press release or media promotion of the compact.

ACOSS – has no mention of any ‘compact’ or any tie in with the AIG or ACTU or migrant organisations on the subject of permanent immigration numbers. Their news section makes no mention of any compact on immigration numbers.

Welcome to Australia – has no mention of any ‘compact’ or any tie in with the AIG, ACOSS or ACTU or migrant organisations on the subject of permanent immigration numbers.  They have no news or press release or policy section referring to immigration numbers in any way.

The Settlement Council of Australia – has no mention of any ‘compact’ or any tie in with the AIG, ACOSS or ACTU or migrant organisations on the subject of permanent immigration numbers.  They have no news or press release or policy section referring to immigration numbers in any way.

The Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia – has issued a statement about the compact on May 4, 2018.  That statement refers to  ‘maintenance of Australia’s permanent migration intake’ without specifying a number or linking that to any criteria or parameters.

United Voice  – has no mention of any compact or tie in with ACOSS, AIG, the ACTU or migrant organisations on the need to maintain a permanent immigration volume.  Their news and media section makes no reference to any compact, or any consultation with members on immigration numbers.

So that currently leaves us with a website linked to by the Australian Industry Group, and referred to in a presser by FECCA as the substance of the compact which provided the basis for the ‘exclusive’ story being touted by The Australian on Friday.  At the bottom of the page is a mobile phone number – 0499 991 098 – which if you ring gets to a voice message saying in a female voice to leave a message and someone will get back to you.

If you type that number into google however, you soon end up with this result – http://fni.org.au/author/fniadmin/ – for whatever the Friendly Nation Initiative involves.  The only thing we need concern ourselves with here is that the contact number – 0499 991 098 – is the same one in play for the ‘Compact’ web page and refers to a media contact by the name of Alexander…..*drumroll*…….Willox.  And he happens to be a Policy Officer at the Migration Council of Australia according to the Australian Institute of International Affairs.

Next, if we pop along to Whois.net to take a look at who has registered the domain name https://www.nationalmigrationcompact.org.au we come up with the below snippets of information.

So this tells us that our compact domain has been registered by some gent by the name of Scott Mills on behalf of the Migration Council of Australia.  Scott could easily be a cleric or IT guy of some low level sort, and all he has done is the registering of the domain name, with the costs incurred not necessarily borne by him.  As anybody with a domain name can tell you they aren’t hard or expensive to establish, and even that someone could establish a website on behalf of someone, without being connected to it whatsoever.  For example  I could go to a domain provider and register the domain www.utterbullshit.com on behalf of the Australian Prime Minister, and nobody at the domain provider will check to see if I actually do have anything to do with him.

But before we go there lets take a look at the Migration Council of Australia.  In particular lets go to the Board, where amidst a sea of corporate players the very first name to greet the eye is Innes Willox.

Now at this point the lay reader thinking about contemporary Australia, as opposed to the journalist hurriedly trying to cut and paste an ‘exclusive’ together, may think to themselves our Innes is a man about town, for yea verily he is also the main honcho of the AIG, isnt he:

And in his spare time Innes writes for The Australian, and has recently tossed off a piece about immigration which was comprehensively dismantled at Macrobusiness for the rubbish that it is.

So from all this we can assume that Innes has his hands all over whatever is unfolding with any ‘compact’ and he likes his immigration numbers up, and he doesn’t mind a lot of bullshit, and he will have contacts in just the right places to be able to create a weird population ponzi website, is the father of the boy with the phone number listed – who just happens to be a Policy officer with the Migration Council of Australia, then link to such a website, and be able to get someone to whip up an article giving it just a whiff of public airing.

That stench you can smell, isn’t something on your shoes.

From there, it is worth going back to take a look at the ‘compact’ because you could reasonably assume that if the ‘journalists’ in Murdoch Press overlooked the above, then the actual compact may not have withstood much examination either.

And so it is.  The National Compact on Permanent Migration is an ineptly written a document.  From Australia’s immigration taking place as a program in the first half of the first sentence to being a scheme at the end.  To a rushed set of exhortations unadorned by any logical or rationale that might easily have been thrown together in a liquid lunch (or thrown up afterward) to a weird collection of principles of which the only remotely measurable one is a need to keep permanent immigration numbers up – presumably where they are at around 190k per annum, though it doesn’t actually say that.

Our permanent migration program has been central to Australia’s economic and social development and will be critical to Australia’s future as a productive and globally integrated economy and society.

Australia is a country based on multicultural values where migrants enjoy the equality of opportunity to participate and benefit from Australia’s social, economic and political life. As our economic opportunities in the Asia Pacific continue to advance and our population ages, Australia will need migrants to bring skills and youth to complement and develop our domestic workforce and to help to grow the national income needed to support our high standard of living.

We support the current planning levels for the permanent migration program and encourage future programs to maintain a level proportional to the population.

Migrants bring relationships, knowledge, skills and social capital that ensure Australia’s economy is well placed to trade and invest with the countries of our region and beyond. Many Australians in turn live and work in other countries during their lives. In this century, our people to people ties will drive our competitive edge and spread the benefits of our multicultural values.

The successful settlement of millions of people ranks among Australia’s greatest achievements as a nation. As a result, approximately one in four of Australia’s population today was born overseas and half of all Australians have at least one parent born overseas.

Migration is a two-way street that has helped Australia forge ties to every continent, country and culture. It has made our society more cosmopolitan and our thinking more open and dynamic.

Migration nourishes our cultural and linguistic diversity and is one of our greatest strengths in the contemporary globalised world. Our humanitarian program is an important reflection of our values and adds strength to the character of our nation.

We must plan for our success as a nation by supporting settlement services and programs that foster a sense of belonging, encourage social cohesion and enable economic participation.

We must ensure that all those who come are provided with the same rights and opportunities so that our values of equality and a fair go are maintained.

We agree that the following principles should form the foundation of Australia’s migration policy:

1. We affirm that Australia’s permanent migration program is essential to Australian society and economy and do not support any reduction to the scheme.
2. The permanent migration program should be set within a national strategy for well managed population growth that provides the community with the education and training, infrastructure, housing and other services needed to support growth and social cohesion.
3. Australia’s permanent migration program must be evidence-based and calibrated to meet Australia’s national interests taking account of the role migration plays across all our economic levers. Migration, along with education, training, retraining and a strong system of social supports is part of our long-term economic strategy.
4. Australia’s migration program must be selective but non-discriminatory in terms of ethnicity, national origin, class, religion, gender or sexual orientation.
5. All migrants have a right to live and pursue economic opportunities in an Australia free of racism, discrimination and exploitation.
6. Migrants must be given every opportunity to contribute and fully participate in all aspects of Australian life, supported by access to services that assist their capacity to build the skills and knowledge needed to chart their own future.
7. English language is recognised as critical to participation, both in the workplace and in the broader Australian community, and migrants should have access to free services to develop their English language skills where needed.
8. The temporary skilled migration program should be limited to instances of genuine skill shortages which are based on evidence–based assessments of the need for specific occupations in the labour market. Where temporary visa workers are necessary we must ensure a robust regime to monitor and enforce compliance with protections incorporated in the program for preventing exploitation of overseas workers and guarding against the undercutting of local wages and conditions as well as holding those who abuse the labour rights of workers accountable.
9. Encouraging and facilitating permanent settlement has been a key part of Australia’s migration framework and migrants should have a pathway available to seek permanent residency and citizenship.
10. The confidence of the Australian community in an effective migration program, with appropriate safeguards, is paramount to its success and is contingent on strong and bi-partisan political leadership.

We agree that the following principles should form the foundation of Australia’s migration policy:

1. Continuing to promote the importance of permanent migration to Australia’s sustainable economic and social development to the wider community.
2. Supporting efforts to make the migration experience positive for migrants and for the Australian community, free of discrimination and exploitation.
3. Promoting migration as a stand-alone portfolio function.

Around this utter tripe, Simon Benson crafted his exclusive.  Imagine the scene if you will.  Innes pops over to Simon’s desk and asks if he could write something on some utter bullshit he is conjuring up and Simon does not miss a beat.

Meanwhile Simon is not a man to question bullshit, Simon is a man to spread it around…….

But the unified stance is designed as a ­circuit-breaker to the increasingly heated immigration debate, which the signatories believe has become toxic, xenophobic and at risk of ignoring the economic benefits that underpin skilled migration.

The document, spearheaded by the Migration Council, signals the first time unions and employer groups have reached general agreement on temporary skilled migration but based on stricter policing of the program.

We can assume the unified stance has in no way pared the marginal propensity to bullshit, with the document signaling nothing more than the desperate straits the population ponzi lobby is now descending into to get traction in a world where everyone can now see Australian immigration has been run too hard for far too long.  Of course, that is before we get to the not insignificant matter of there being no indication at all that any unions have signed up to the compact.

Simon (and Innes?) obviously decided a chart would help things along about here and threw up this one which did at least identify the ramp up in immigration numbers post 2006.

But even there it doesn’t really do justice to the insane level at which Australia has been running immigration numbers over the last last 12 years.  Here is an accurate depiction of that:

Simon then works the Union angle some more……

ACTU secretary Sally McManus told The Australian the ­country had a history of permanent migration for “most of the 20th century”.

“That system was predicated on civic inclusion as an Australian ideal; the idea that if you lived and worked in Australia, paid taxes and abided by the law, you should also get a say in the content of those laws, as well as the chance at full participation in our social, economic and political life,” she said.

There isn’t anything to doubt about Sally McManus having said anything there.  But there’s a lot to ask about how it relates to the ACTU signing up for a ‘compact’ upholding a level of 190k per annum immigration.

The issue has divided government ranks, with cabinet ministers publicly at odds with each other over whether the annual intake should be reduced as first proposed by former prime minister Tony Abbott.

Simon is obviously a master craftsman who knows well to weave some factuality into your bullshit narrative so that the reader can feel that something rings true. If we assume that the Prime Minister and Treasurer bullshitted the public about whether Home Minister Peter Dutton took any form of proposal to reduce immigration numbers by even a small volume, then we can assume that there has been some tension on the subject.

The business-unions compact follows the release of a report by Treasury and the Department of Home Affairs that backed a Big Australia and revealed that permanent annual migration was forecast to add 1 per cent to GDP growth each year for the next 30 years.

Well, we still haven’t seen any trace of the union side of the compact apart from a photo of Sally McManus so we could easily start that sentence with the ‘business-tooth fairy compact…..’ but our craftsman has some more fact in the narrative.  Treasury has recently put out a report backing a big Australia which has been comprehensively debunked, dismantled, chewed, laughed at, snorted on  and facesat at Macrobusiness.

Signatories to the compact — announced today in an advertisement in The Australian — include the Migration Council of Australia, the Australian Council of ­Social Service, the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia, the Settlement Council of Australia and migration lobby group Welcome to Australia.

Simon has at least got the names right (he is obviously a senior Murdoch ‘journalist’) but he missed the small fact that there is no sign of anyone signing anything.  There arent any signatures on the compact site, and not a scintilla of evidence anybody on the union side of of the compact is even aware of it.

It will also involve the Business Council of Australia in what the compact’s signatories claim is a “historic” agreement between business and the trade ­unions for the economic good of the country.

One wonders if the BCA actually knows of it yet.  There is nothing on their website to suggest they do, and they certainly haven’t put out any pressers on the subject.

The 10-point policy document sets out critical elements of the migration program including ­English language skills, evidence-based skill needs, national interest and selectivity at the same time as being non-discriminatory.

“This historic national compact brings together civil society, business and our union movement in shared tripartite commitment to migration as part of Australia’s future,” the document says. “We affirm that Australia’s permanent migration program is essential to Australian society and our economy and do not support any reduction to the scheme.”

The compact, as can be seen above, is nothing more than a collection of motherhood statements in abysmal English.

The government has argued that the 190,000 intake was a rigid target set by the former Labor government that was based on the “quantity rather than quality” of migrants.

The Coalition reset the target to a “goal” that has been allowed to reduce to an expected 160,000 this year.

This is the blame apportionment line, but seemingly takes us towards a reduced number of immigrants arriving this year anyway, despite the compact ostensibly calling for no reduction.  Did Simon or Innes read what they were writing, or were they a tad under the weather by this stage?

Former Business Council of Australia head and current Migration Council of Australia board member Tony Shepherd said the compact was without precedent.

“I welcome this compact and congratulate the signatories,” Mr Shepherd said. “Immigration is the cornerstone of our incredible post-war development. It remains vital to our prosperity and security given our ageing and small population.”

All of a sudden we are back with the BCA and another business gargoyle who is gracing the board luncheons of the Migration Council.  He too is talking about signatories despite nobody having seen any sign of anybody signing anything , but he does lay in with two other oft exhorted placebo rationales for higher immigration which have been debunked more times than anyone would care to think about with ageing and small populations.

The AiGroup, representing 60,000 businesses, said it was critical that the migration program retained the confidence of the public. “The benefits of migration are felt across every sector of the Australian economy and the skills migrants bring are vital to the development of future industries,” AiGroup chief executive Innes Willox said.

“Migration has helped Australia maintain our long record of uninterrupted growth and has assisted us in building our national infrastructure and skills base. It is important that we come to a consensus that migration is a key part of Australia’s future prosperity.”

Innes works himself into the story with a few comments. Innes is probably part of the world which has seen Australia shed economic diversity and sell out Australian employers with Free Trade Agreements.  Could he tell us why we need more immigrants if all we do is spread around the wealth from mining operations?

Carla Wilshire, the chief executive of the Migration Council who drove the agreement, said migration was one of Australia’s greatest strengths.

“Migration has been central to our nation-building story and the national compact creates a platform to build consensus around the importance of migration to Australia’s future,” she said.

All of a sudden we slip a new character in at the end – another Innes flunky from the Migration Council.  She is described as ‘driving’ the agreement, rather than a compact, which leads us to wonder if she was taking dictation at lunch with Simon and Innes.

The peak union body recognised the need for a temporary skilled migration program on the condition that it was based on a robust compliance regime, restricted to genuine shortages and used “evidence-based” assessment of specific occupations.

Yesterday the union issued its own briefing paper demanding more stringent labour market testing for temporary workers claiming there was an over-­reliance in some regions.

Surreally the piece concludes with reference to the one thing the ACTU has clearly stated this week – to the effect that temporary employment visas have been abused.

So there it is.

It’s a compact, it’s an agreement, it’s been signed and it involves business, unions, immigration bodies and ethnic councils and social service providers, and it argues for maintaining a high level of permanent immigration – just that it consists of nothing but a web page with some logos, and three quarters of the organisations behind the logos have not even mentioned any agreement or compact.

Maybe The Australian would like to verify whoever paid for the advertisement which appeared in The Australian on Friday and their connection with the Migration Council of Australia? And maybe the Migration Council of Australia may want to clarify with a statement that whoever has paid for that advertisement has been duly authorised to expend monies on its behalf, and that it considers the advertising of the ‘compact’ an efficient use if its resources?

That of course is before we look at Rupert Murdoch’s world and ask ourselves if his minions write ‘exclusive’ pieces based on advertising connected with its own opinion writers, touting websites which are closely connected with that writer.

It has Innes Willox’s fingers all over it.  And it stinks.

Kevork Almassian shows us on a coloured map with symbols who is occupying what in Syria at the moment, and discusses the Syrian Government's policy.

The cover photo is of one of the 13 ringtail possums brought into care at stage 1 of VicRoads' clearing. (See "VicRoads mulch wildlife on Mornington Peninsula -AWPC intervention".) She had a deep facial injury which eventually recovered; she has since been released back into the wild. She was one of the lucky ones, many animals were mulched alive or run over by the heavy machinery that VicRoads used. Autumn has arrived and re-planting of the cleared median strip has not commenced, I would assume that it’s because they haven’t yet finished installing the safety barriers. This begs the question why did they go ahead and clear in spring, if they were going to take this long to complete the barriers? They could have left nesting birds to fledge.

Eve Kelly, Secretary

Australian Wildlife Protection Council Inc.

An article appeared in the Irish Times in 2007 about the danger that the wire safety barriers cause to motorcyclists. Back then, some countries were considering removing these types of barriers from their roads. VicRoads, in the meantime, has razed vegetation and mulched wildlife recently in order to install these barriers with their dubious safety record. (See "VicRoads mulch wildlife on the Mornington Peninsula.") No doubt someone is making a lot of money out of selling them to VicRoads. But that's no justification for clearing vegetation and injuring, killing and orphaning protected wildlife. All the less so if they may need to remove the barriers in the future because they are unsafe. The illustration in the article is taken from the Times Record News reporting a 2017 incident in Vernon Texas where a motorcyclist received near-fatal injuries on this kind of barrier. This article is based on part of one called "AWPC call for VicRoads to cease clearing plans on the Mornington Peninsula", by Eve Kelly of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council.

It is likely to be just as nasty as the one on same sex marriage with all sorts of accusations that target people rather than immigration policies. There will be a rash of claims made against Asians, Muslim, Middle East, and African migrants matched in venom by attacks on the WASP (White, Anglo Saxon Protestant) Rednecks who dared to question their suitability to be citizens. Just like the SSM debate very few people will be persuaded by the opposing claims and instead will only be entrenched further in their own beliefs.

Some of the opening salvos from politicians have already been fired - Scott Morrison has said cutting immigration will cost the economy more than a billion a year which seems like small beer alongside his proposed $64b in tax breaks. Tony Abbott, perhaps sniffing the wind, has called for a cut of 80,000 per year which would bring the rate down to that set by John Howard. Bob Carr wants the present immigration number halved, the Greens want it increased by 50,000, the Sustainable Population Party wants it cut back to the pre-Howard level of 70,000 and the Scientific community say we have already overshot our sustainable numbers - but then nobody listens to the science. However, perhaps the most insidious pro-immigration argument – one that has been aired many times – is the claim that Australia is the best in the world when it comes to accepting different cultures. It’s the sort of feel good statement that appeals to our vanity, a bit like being told we are the best sporting nation, so consequently very few people bothered to challenge Chris Bowen MP the former minister for immigration when he said were indeed the world’s most successful multicultural nation. So while we all sat back and marvelled at how wonderful we are, no one remembered that the other major culture in our society is our indigenous population who, given the level of disadvantage they experience, have good grounds for disagreeing with the statement.

And they would not be alone. Bowen's appeal to our good nature was probably an attempt to detract from the negative comments made earlier by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said Germany's attempt to create a multicultural society had failed completely, while Dutch Interior Minister Piet Hein Donner presented a bill in parliament that read:

“The government shares the social dissatisfaction over the multicultural society model.... A more obligatory integration is justified because the government also demands that from its own citizens. It is necessary because otherwise the society gradually grows apart and eventually no one feels at home anymore.”

It was a sentiment echoed by Britain's former Prime Minister David Cameron, France's former President Nicolas Sarkozy, Spain's former leader, Jose Maria Aznar, and Belgium's former PM Yves Leterme. Indeed most of Europe is of the same mind with many seeing the rise of extreme right wing political parties as a direct result.

In fact MC has had a dismal record almost everywhere around the globe. Czechoslovakia fell apart and it’s not going well in Ireland. Scotland is not happy in GB, and the US, once the poster boy for immigration, seems to be on a race-related downward spiral. China spends an estimated 1.24 trillion yuan ($193 billion) on its domestic security system mainly in areas with major populations of religious and ethnic minorities; an amount that is more than its spending on external security.

However, while there are many MC problems in Europe, they pale in comparison to those countries that have fallen into internal conflict, the result often descending into ethnic cleansing. This is a relatively new term that originated in 1992 when, in the former country of Yugoslavia, the Serbians tried to drive out the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The process is, however, as old as human history and the number of victims as large as human diversity. Even if you don't believe the biblical account of the Passover the Jews have been persecuted at least since the Roman era, a process that continued intermittently in most nations, culminating in the holocaust, an event in which most of the Nazi-occupied nations participated. More recent atrocities such as those in Myanmar, Rwanda, Tibet and Sri Lanka have received much media attention but the murder of about one million Armenians, Assyrian’s and Greeks during the chaotic collapse of the Ottoman empire was largely ignored by a world lost in its own troubles. Unfortunately other such crimes, like the actions of Indonesia in east Timor and Papua, which are ongoing in the latter, are ignored for political reasons.

One list of the 10 bloodiest civil wars of the twentieth century (Sarkees 2000), half of the cases were ethnic conflicts and these all involved minority groups that were identifiable by religion, color, language or culture. The outbreaks of violence were usually triggered by factors such as unemployment, food prices, exploitation or repression, problems that are increasing in Australia. Over the last decade or so, Australian governments have considered it necessary to respond to a perceived terror threat by increasing ASIO's budget 471 per cent over 9 years.[1] Athol Yates, executive director of think tank the Australian Security Research Centre, has calculated that Canberra has spent about $10.5 billion on homeland security, while state and local governments plus private industry have forked out another $5.5 billion, taking the total domestic security bill to about $16 billion. Oddly enough this expenditure increases our GDP allowing politicians to boast about the economic benefits of Multiculturalism but in reality the real success for governments has been the division it has created in the population, enough apparently to divert attention away from our absurdly high immigration rate.

NOTES

[1] https://www.smh.com.au/national/australias-bill-27b-and-counting-20110910-1k32c.htm and #10;</body></html>">

Railway workers, protesting against changes to the French National Railways [Société nationale des chemins de fer - SNCF], forced their way into the Paris offices of Macron's political party, the Republic on the Move (la Republique en Marche (LREM)) on Friday 4th of May in the afternoon. The economic rationalist French government has used the Orwellian term 'reforms' to describe these changes, which roll back hard won twentieth century gains to workers in France, whilst supporting tax reductions for the super rich.

A Republic on the Move employee told franceinfo that about 100 railway workers broke into Emmanuel Macron's political party offices. "They broke the door and stayed half an hour in the courtyard before being removed by the police." They chanted their slogan, 'We are angry railway workers and we won't let you push us around."

A political party spokesperson said that the party valued to the right to demonstrate, but would not support any form of violence and intended to make a formal complaint.

"This is a symbolic act," explained Fabien Villedieur, a delegate of South-Rail (Sud-Rail) to franceinfo . Since the government has "refused to talk with us, refused to negotiate, we have gone to the seat of Emmanuel Macron's party." According to him, there were "400 activists from South and from the General Confederation of Labour." [Confédération Générale du Travail - CGT.] Their banner carried the slogan, "We won't let you break the French National Railway."

The union member admitted that the door of the offices of the Republic on the Move party had been broken. After that lightening action, the railway workers went on foot to the Opera Place in Paris for a brief meeting before dispersing.

The offices of the Republic on the Move opened at 63 re Sainte Anne, in the heart of Paris, in September 2017.

The term, "Republic on the Move" has been compared to the Soros financed American organisation called "moveon.org", which is similar to GetUp in Australia. The Party was remarkable in causing the disintegration of all established French political parties, including the French socialist party, with the exception of the Front National. See https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/02/whos-behind-the-mysterious-rise-of-emmanuel-macron/

During the week commencing 12 March 2018 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation aired a number of programs on a Big Australia — the phrase used to encapsulate debates about the desirability of Australia’s rapid immigration-fuelled population growth. The specific programs included episodes of 4 Corners and QandA. Subsequently I submitted an official editorial complaint as per the ABC’s complaint-handling process. In the complaint I took care to refer in detail to the ABC’s own documented editorial standards. The ABC has acknowledged receipt of the complaint and will respond in writing in due course. As this response may take some time to provide, in the meantime I am publishing the text of my complaint here (PDF), for the interest of those who follow the population and immigration debate. I will also publish the text of the ABC’s response when received. The summary of the complaint is as follows (extracted from the conclusion of the document). [Article first published at http://www.peakdecisions.org/the-abc-population-growth-and-a-big-australia-official-complaint/]

Based on the arguments and evidence presented in this complaint, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Programs do not meet Editorial Policy 4. Highly relevant principal perspectives were omitted or given very limited time. The Programs overwhelmingly favoured one perspective: that a Big Australia is inevitable and there is no room for debate about alternative scenarios. The Programs ignored opportunities to present alternative perspectives even when they were offered as low-hanging fruit (for example, the video questions on QandA). There was repeated reliance on the same narrow range of expert opinion, while other expert opinion was omitted, in defiance of the weight of evidence on these matters. Given that these same one-sided viewpoints and imbalances were repeated over several programs, it is very hard to argue that excesses in one particular program were re-balanced by the views expressed in other programs during the week that the Programs were aired or published. And it is hard to avoid the conclusion that in this instance, these outcomes expressed an implied editorial stance of the ABC towards the desirability of a Big Australia.

Let's avoid World War Three and bring justice, light and humanity to reporting on Syria and stop the lying deeds of US-NATO.

Time: 6:30pm
Place: State Library of Victoria
Date: 30th April 2018
Organisers: Hands Off Syria (Sydney) is coordinating with a group of activists and Syrians to organise a rally in Melbourne.

Hi Everyone,

This is a call to arms. The science and other evidence is now without doubt - we are in the final days of our civilisation, whatever it might be called by history; it is hardly Western Civilisation anymore, since the destruction of nature (and I would argue human values, and quite possibly humans) has extended now across the globe.

We have environmentalists who, mostly in small groups, have been fighting the enslaught against nature since industrialism began. They have had their successes, but the rate of destruction is too fast and vicious, and their efforts are overwhelmed.

There is one example that has recently prompted me to post this call. At Stanley one company (with more soon to join) are buying farmland and mining the water i.e extracting the water which is supposed to be for farming and selling it as though it is their own private property. This is not like mining gold, extracting water in this way extracts it from all the neighbours as well. And now more companies/selfish individuals look likely to join the extraction, adding to the problem.

The local community resisted this and took the fight to VCAT, then to the supreme court, then to the appeal court. They lost, and $90,000 worth of costs have been awarded against the community (see here see also: The Guardian on this).

What has failed here? Firstly local democracy: the local council and local community banned the extraction. VCAT allowed it. The second failure: the legal system: even if the outcome was fair, the cost of justice is too high - how can individuals and communities possibly fight such expensive battles, even in this case much pro-bono work was provided to get to the court. The final failure is political again: at state and national level. It is reported to me that neither of the main political parties are even prepared to meet with the residents of the community to discuss changing the law around water mining.

This is our system - change is stifled politically, and by an over-expensive justice system. So what is to be done? Previously on this site I have suggested starting alternative local 'shadow' parliaments, but calls for this have not been taken up. The permaculture community have a philosophy that people should not waste energy on the current system, but rather put their energy into the building the replacement. This is a view I have much sympathy with, but I fear the current system will not leave much to work with.

So what to do? I think at this stage it might be worth one last-ditch effort at political reform before the collapse becomes unrecoverable (collapse both environmentally and financially). Can we call for a new Party, one which is a union of all the little environmental groups, the civic groups and all the individuals that want to save nature and mankind? The trade union movement has failed us. It is pro-growth, seeking short-term outcomes (jobs) for its members cutting down the forests and building more monstrous buildings. So we need a new union - and we need it urgently to bring about radical reform. Even if the new Union of Australians (for want of a better name) does not achieve power, it may gain enough seats (or threaten loss of seats) to change policy.

So here is the call - who is with me? No-one can do this on their own. As we have learned from history, the only way everyday people can stand against power is to do it together, otherwise they are crushed - as we truly are being crushed now by the never-ending greed and power lust that has been unleashed over the past 200 - 500 years and is serving the interests of a small minority - as it ever has.

Ps: The photo above is supposed to be the St Kildan's leaving their Island - perhaps the last traditional community to be removed from the land in the process of the Scottish highland and lowland clearances. Something I will write more about shortly.

Today Mary Drost, of Planning Backlash, went to a Forum in South Yarra to meet the 14 candidates for Lord Mayor of Melbourne. She says, "We need a good Lord Mayor and not one who will overdevelop and wreck our city even more. These last few years have been terrible. Go and take a look. If you use a search engine to check the population of cities in North America and Western Europe, you will find that Melbourne and Sydney are bigger than all cities except New York, Toronto, London, Paris and Berlin, and add Singapore as that is first world also. We are increasing much too fast - it is wrong."

At the forum, there were ten mayoral candidates and a big crowd of residents. There were probably developers there as well.

They all spoke and then there were questions. Mary had the last question and it was to Sally Capp, Chair of the Property Council and, it seems, a front runner. Mary's question was,

"You are head of the Property Council, so, if a development was proposed and the residents objected to it, but the Property Council urged you to approve it, what would you do?

Sally gave a long answer, which Mary thought really said nothing, seeming to say that she would support the residents if they all thought the same.

Mary responded, "But you hate resident groups, I learned that at Planning Panels."

Mary says she thinks it would be a disaster for Melbourne if Sally Capp gets in. She would vote for Gary Morgan or Michael Burge or Sally Warhaft. At the bottom of her list would be Sally Capp, Ken Ong and Rohan Leppert. She adds that the council has been so dysfunctional, that she doesn't think it is a good idea for a present councillor to be Lord Mayor. Leppert was Deputy Chair of Planning and Ong was Chair. "Think of the damage to Melbourne with their planning in the last few years," she concluded.

Newly re-elected Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has declared Open Society Foundations, organisations funded by billionaire international currency speculator, George Soros, unwelcome in Hungary. I think he is right. Soros funds, in tens of billions of dollars, lots of Non Government Organisations (NGOs) around the world, many of them through his Open Society Foundations (OSF). Although these NGOs usually identify as 'charities' or 'grass roots' movements, all have in common the political aims of open borders and identity politics, a form of balkanisation. Backed by billions, not millions of dollars, this is the opposite of democracy. In Australia GetUp, which has links to the Australian Greens and the Labor Party, is one of the best known of Soros-linked foundations. (See "Australian democracy swiss-cheesed by George Soros Open Societies Foundations.") GetUp collects your information and resells it or uses it for its own political ends, employing 'organisers' to find and interact with likely prospects for influencing Australian politics the GetUp way (and they don't like population restraint). GetUp has also been running very expensive campaigns to prevent their being obliged to declare themselves as political lobbyists, although they describe this as campaigning for democracy. (See GetUp vid about 'attack on democracy'.) Interesting problem, isn't it? See John Bentley here: "Diversionary tactics, smokescreens and the Electoral Funding and Disclosure Bill 2017.") Soros also funds the 350.org, which has empowered the Shoalhaven Greens to fight the Adani Coal Mine in Queensland, driving down its share prices. Sounds good to you? But, meanwhile, Mr Soros massively invested in coal and fossil fuels as the share price fell. You could say, well, Mr Soros is profiting from bad to fund good - except that he is funding coal, anyway. A number of writers in the Australian Independent Media Network (AIMN) defend Soros when people criticise him, which makes me think that AIMN isn't all that independent. The financial press, such as Bloomberg and investing.com defend Soros like some kind of white knight. See, for instance, https://m.investing.com/news/world-news/civil-organizations-in-hungary-brace-for-government-crackdown-on-ngos-1413683?ampMode=1.

The bigger picture

George Soros's influence has seen identity politics manifest through the calculated funding and training up of 'minorities' (or those who claim to represent them) so that they are able to skew national politics and real grassroots, always to the end of promoting high immigration and wedge politics. Open Society Foundations funded political support for the wave of mass immigration of refugees and others to Germany that began in 2015. Mr Soros's political manipulations seem sometimes to bring currencies down (see interview in video below, "60 Minutes: One Evil Man - The Exposé on George Soros.") Some believe that Soros backs wars, such as those in the Middle East, profiting in part from weapons investments and in part from reconstruction after disasters (known as 'disaster capitalism') and probably buying and selling currency as it goes up and down in response to wars. The Panama Papers recently revealed that Soros has invested private equity with the Carlyle Group, a private equity partnership that specializes in buying and selling weapons manufacturing and intelligence gathering companies with government and military contracts and it also uses secret offshore companies to conduct business. (See "Panama Papers reveal George Soros' deep money ties to secretive weapons, intel investment firm."

Soros' financial support for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign seemed obvious from the identity politics she pursued, but the film below shows Soros visiting Haiti after the 2014 earthquake with the Clintons on Clinton Foundation business. Read here for more about his investments. Soros's main game seems to be to buy a country's currency when it is going through tough times, and to sell it when the country is on the mend. He seems to be in the business of promoting mass population movements, including those caused by war. The economic effect of mass population movements is to drive up demand for and inflate the price of major infrastructure and resources, which benefits investors in these. This is known as 'disaster capitalism'. Although Soros is behind the 350.org organisation which militates against fossil fuel and has had a high profile in Greens politics against the Adani Coal Mine in Queensland, his is also investing in these fossil fuel resources. See, Richard Pollock, "George Soros Makes Massive Financial Investments On Fossil Fuels" and Thomas Landstreet #8b8e1881f4d6">'Soros Doesn't Like Coal Stocks; He Likes Money'. How might we explain this? Well, if Soros puts money into making it politically difficult for the petroleum and coal mining industries, that means that he can buy their shares more cheaply. Today, in an article that Soros should have paid for if he didn't, Bloomberg has recently characterised him simply as a 'holocaust survivor' but Soros himself described how he survived by identifying as a Christian and pointing out jews to the Nazis. (See more below).

Bloomberg Soros's Foundation to Exit Hungary Amid Crackdown, Presse Says accuses Hungary of opting for an 'illiberal state' rather than what they call the EU's 'liberal democratic model' - which many in European countries think is wrecking their democracies. Bloomberg also promotes the heroic idea that Soros is a Holocaust survivor, but the story is not so straightforward.

Bloomberg goes on to say

"The move follows the re-election of Prime Minister Viktor Orban for a third consecutive term earlier this month, after a campaign demonizing Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor Soros and promising a crackdown against NGOs he supports. Orban has condemned the European Union’s liberal democratic model, based on checks and balances and a thriving civil society, and has pledged to create an “illiberal state” modeled on countries such as Russia or Turkey.

OSF, which is active globally, established its first office abroad in Budapest in 1984 to support the democratization of the then still communist country. The charity is the main conduit for aid to more than 60 Hungarian NGOs and has spent more than $1.6 billion on democratic development in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in the past 30 years."

Man, this is big scale stuff, not 'grass roots'!

How Soros helped the Nazis and declares he has no regrets

Kroft (Interviewer):
When the Nazis occupied Budapest in 1944, George Soros’ father was a successful lawyer. He lived on an island in the Danube and liked to commute to work in a rowboat. But knowing there were problems ahead for the Jews, he decided to split his family up. He bought them forged papers and he bribed a government official to take 14-year-old George Soros in and swear that he was his Christian godson. But survival carried a heavy price tag. While hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were being shipped off to the death camps, George Soros accompanied his phony godfather on his appointed rounds, confiscating property from the Jews... And you [Soros] watched lots of people get shipped off to the death camps.

Soros: Right. I was 14 years old. And I would say that that’s when my character was made.

Full relevant Kroft-Soros dialogue on Soros helping Nazis

KROFT: You're a Hungarian Jew who escaped the Holocaust by posing as a Christian, right? And you watched lots of people get shipped off to the death camps, right?
SOROS: I was 14 years old and I would say that that's when my character was made.
KROFT: In what way?
SOROS: That one should think ahead, that one should understand and anticipate events and one, one is threatened - it was a tremendous threat of evil - I mean it was a very personal experience of evil.
KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson
SOROS: (nods) Yes, yes.
KROFT: Went out in fact and helped in the confiscation of property from the jews?
SOROS: That's right.
KROFT: That sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many many years. Was it difficult?
SOROS: No. Not at all. Not at all. Mabye as a child, you don't see the connection, but it created no problem at all.
KROFT: No feeling of guilt?
SOROS: No.
KROFT: For example that, "I'm Jewish and here I am watching these people go. I could just as easily be there. I should be there. None of that?
SOROS: Well, of course, I could be on the other side. I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away. But there was no sense that I should[n't] be there, because that was, well actually, funny way, it's just like in markets, that if I weren't there, if I wasn't doing it, somebody else would be taking it away anyhow, and it was whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator, the property was being taken away. So I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt."

Analysis

The way that Soros analogises the luck of the draw in Jews' fates under the Nazis to the stock market is particularly interesting. One wonders if that is how he justifies the way he behaves himself on the stock market and when speculating on currency: "If I don't do it, someone else will." The assumption here seems to be that in all systems personal advantage will always outplay tit for tat (social cooperation). This seems especially amoral and antisocial, a kind of doctrine that might find justification in Thatcher's 'There is no society' and in Ayn Rand's work, which glorifies businessmen and damns those who lack their 'courage'.

Another candobetter writer comments,

"There is an interesting rigidity of thought and passivity here. It is as though he were an actor in a play rather than a real person who can decide one way or the other or change anything. Maybe the fact that he was placed in that position as a fourteen year old has had an effect that he does not recognise. Had he been a bit older he may have felt more power in the situation and not seen himself as just acting in a pre-set role.

This seems to have set him on a path and give him an unchanging perspective. I think more normal people re-assess things from time to time.

He has adopted what one could call an amoral approach (and I'm only going on the dialogue above). Nothing has any value and we choose the role we want out of what is on offer. Does he act out of anything but self interest?

In Sartrian terms - he could be said to be acting in bad faith i.e he is in fact free to choose more than he admits to. He was not able to change what was going on in Europe when he was 14 but he could have made other riskier , more heroic choices.

Maybe he has difficulty discriminating between the world he inhabits as created by humans and the actual physical world. He perhaps sees them both as immutable."

Here is a sanitised history of George Soros, that portrays him heroically as a businessman with an economics degree and a philanthropist.

Why do I have it in for George Soros? Because I see him funding undeclared political movements to pretend they are representing democracy, when in fact they are perverting it. The huge sums of money behind these pseudo grass roots movements mean that real democracy has no chance at all. These movements draw people in and waste their time and energy, whilst they actually bolster mainstream politics in the sense that identity politics which (largely helped by Soros' money) have now taken over the Labor Party and the Greens. I am amazed that people fall for it, but find some explanation in the concept of 'slactivism'. Being able to click on a link to save the world is a comfort when you are time poor. So maybe it's just that Moveon.org and GetUp and all the other ones are as convenient as television or fast food, and we are so atomised that people just don't know what else to do.

We have noticed many more letters to the local newspapers raising the issue of high population growth mainly due to immigration. A recent survey conducted by The Australian Population Research Institute (TAPRIS) has reported that “74% of voters thought that Australia does not need more people”. The following points set out some of the reasons why we should be demanding better immigration controls by our governments:

· The reason why many people feel they haven’t benefited from Australia’s long stretch of economic expansion is because they haven’t.

· Our pay packets haven’t increased while many of our essential goods and services have gone through the roof

· High Migration makes it nearly impossible for Australia to fall into recession.

· It’s great for business because it keeps wages low and there are more people to buy their goods and services.

· It looks great for governments because it means that economic growth looks better than it really is.

· But it isn’t that good for our existing ordinary wage and salary workers.

· More people means more demand for scarce goods and services. When there’s tight supply it results in huge price rises (such as Housing).

· As the new Reserve Bank Governor, Phillip Lowe, has stated “the role of good economic policy should be to raise living standards – not make the population and therefore the economy bigger”.

· And why don’t the politicians do that? Political donations influence? Maybe too many have investments in property and development that require more and more customers.

0ur very high rate of population growth is twice the world average and three times that of UK, France, the US and similar western countries. Our governments over the last 20 years or so have claimed that this has driven our economic growth without us suffering from a recession like other countries. The reality is that our citizens have gained no real fiscal benefit from this population growth.

In 2016 our intake was reduced to around 200,000 p.a. from the 250,000 mark and just recently our Minister for Immigration was suggesting we should reduce our intake by a further 20,000. However our Prime Minister was not prepared to do so. Why not?

The reality is that, since the GFC, Australia has seen per capita income go backwards as evidenced by stagnant wages growth. The slight reduction in the long term arrivals to departure ratio presents a misleading picture because migration to Australia is still proceeding at a record pace with a massive lift in long term visa holders which are not included in our immigrant numbers. There are currently around 2 million long term visa holders in Australia right now all needing somewhere to live. Overall our rate of population growth has averaged 1.7% which compares with around 0.7% average for UK, France & the US.

Right now the rate of population growth for Melbourne is up around 2.4 %. That’s four times more than UK, France & the US and other OECD countries.

Time for action. There is an election coming so take advantage and confront your local member and vote for change. If we reduce our migrant intake to around 70,000 p.a. we would still be ahead of the pack and meeting our international obligations. That would give us breathing space to catch up with the infrastructure upgrades we desperately need for our existing population and, maybe in time, we could provide infrastructure to cope with our future migrant intake.

To continue as we are will result in further degradation of our environment, lifestyle and flat financial position and ultimately end up living in overcrowded high rise ghettos and no one wants that do they?

Jack Roach

Consultant to the Boroondara Residents’ Action Group. (BRAG)

http://www.brag.asn.au [email protected]

Incredibly, Heritage Victoria's second formal Permit refusal to allow a developer's plans to build within the tree lined avenue approach to the former Willsmere Hospital is set to be reviewed by Heritage Council Victoria. (See Herald Sun / Progress Leader 31 Oct 2017.) The Heritage Council will hold a Public Hearing commencing on the 18th June 2018 to review Heritage Victoria's rejection of Walker's application to build private apartments on the parkland.

Renewed threat to Kew Cottages Parkland

Sydney billionaire developer, Lang Walker, has lodged an appeal against Heritage Victoria's insistence that the whole of the avenue approach to Willsmere must be properly restored as parkland.

Brian Walsh, President, Kew Cottages Coalition, said today that, "Walker Corporation now appears to have spent over a decade trying to find ways to legally encroach upon this fabulous piece of public parkland."

This is the Sydney developer's fourth attempt to overcome the long standing Heritage permit conditions imposed on the Main Drive Kew housing estate development.

"It's now gone beyond a joke," Brian Walsh commented. "Nothing surprises me any more."

He added, "It appears to me that if developers have enough money, and access to Government bodies, then they can go on appealing against the umpire for ever ! One problem appears to be that although all of the land in question is still public land, Walker has been permitted to use a temporary site office on part of it."

"Now Walker appears to be acting as though that temporary site office gives them 'squatters rights' !"

"This is very strange, because I understand both the developer and the Government gave an undertaking to Heritage Victoria over a decade ago that they would remove the site office, and fully restore the parkland by 2012."

"Perhaps Walker are hoping that the Andrew's Government has quietly forgotten all about that promise made to the people of Victoria way back in 2005 ?"

Commenting further, Mr Walsh said, “This application is also frustrating because it directly stops the creation of the new Kew Arboretum that has been proposed by the Kew Cottages Coalition and mirrors the initial vision of Baron Sir Ferdinand von Mueller who designed this area (and the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria).”

The Heritage Council will hold a Public Hearing commencing on the 18th June 2018 to review Heritage Victoria's rejection of Walker's application to build private apartments on the parkland.

For more information:
Brian Walsh
President
Kew Cottages Coalition
M. 0414 979 300
W. https://www.kew.org.au

The National Trust of Australia (Victoria) and the Royal Historical Society of Victoria invite you to attend the launch of the National Trust’s Advocacy Toolkit. This free online resource, supported by the Victoria Law Foundation, will [try to] provide communities across Victoria with the tools they need to protect their natural and cultural heritage. Wednesday 16 May, 12.45pm at Royal Historical Society of Victoria, 239 A'Becket Street, Melbourne.

Date and Time: Wednesday 16 May, 12.45pm for 1pm–2pm

Location: Royal Historical Society of Victoria, 239 A’Beckett Street, Melbourne.

At this special launch during Law Week 2018 and the Australian Heritage Festival, hosted in partnership with the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, experts and community advocates will discuss recent heritage campaigns, sharing insights arising from both wins and losses, and their top tips for successful advocacy.

Confirmed speakers:

Professor Michael Buxton, RMIT University
Fiona Austin, President, Beaumaris Modern
Moderator: Felicity Watson, Advocacy Manager, National Trust of Australia (Victoria)

Refreshments provided.

This event is presented by National Trust of Australia (Victoria) in partnership with the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. The Advocacy Toolkit is generously supported by the Victoria Law Foundation.

Bookings Essential.

Book online: https://www.trybooking.com/book/event?eid=346911

Or contact the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) Bookings Team: 9656 9889; [email protected].

Please feel free to distribute this invitation to anyone who may be interested in attending.

Thousands of pet birds in Victoria will be subjected to totally unnecessary, inexcusable and inhumane stress after Agriculture Minister Jaala Pulford rubber-stamped a request from bird keepers to ignore Victorian law relating to the sale of non-native birds, warns Animal Justice Party president, Bruce Poon. According to Victorian law, bird species which originated outside Australia cannot legally be sold in Victoria except from pet shops and private residences.

Animal Justice Party president Bruce Poon said “The meaning of this law is clear and straightforward. It means that those birds cannot be removed from their normal locations and taken to sales such as those organised by bird clubs associated with the Victorian Avicultural Council”.

According to Poon, the Minister’s move is a disgrace.

“The minister should have greater regard for the welfare of the birds, which are taken from reasonably-sized aviaries and then stressed by being put into tiny boxes to be taken to sales where they are subjected to prodding and up-close-and-personal examination by hundreds of people for up to six hours,” (see photos below)

“It is especially upsetting because the clubs, urged on by the Victorian Avicultural Council, had previously flouted the law by displaying non-native birds at sales, supposedly not for sale, but with mobile phone numbers on the boxes clearly intended for the purpose of communicating sales.”

“By doing that bird keepers made an ass of the law and of the Minister, facilitating illegal sales, treating the law with complete contempt and subjecting birds to needless stress, all in the name of profit,” Mr Poon said.

“The Animal Justice Party, which is greatly concerned for the welfare of those birds, urges the Minister to cancel the exemption she granted which allows non-native birds to be sold at bird sales in Victoria.”

During a Barcelona concert on April 13, Roger Waters denounced the Syrian White Helmets as “a fake organization that exists only to create propaganda for jihadists and terrorists.” Warning that the groups’ unverified claims about chemical weapons attacks across insurgent-held territory were aimed at triggering Western military intervention, Waters cautioned his audience, “If we were to listen to the propaganda of the White Helmets and others, we would encourage our governments to start dropping bombs on people in Syria. This would be a mistake of monumental proportions for us as human beings.”

In fact, Waters had first hand experience with the powerful pro-war PR operation behind the White Helmets. Back in October 2016, a public relations firm representing the White Helmets called The Syria Campaign attempted to recruit Waters by inviting him to a lavish dinner organized by a Saudi-British billionaire, Hani Farsi. The rock legend and renowned activist was told that by signing on to the organization’s mission, he could help “elevate the voices of Syria’s peaceful heroes”

[This article, by Max Blumenthal, is republished in part from Gray Zone.]

Just days before his recent concert in Barcelona, Waters was lobbied again to support the White Helmets, this time by an eccentric French photojournalist affiliated with what he described as a “very powerfull [sic] syrian network.” The activist demanded to join Waters on stage and deliver a message for the “children of syria.”

Waters did not respond to either request.

These emailed solicitations from White Helmets representatives and activists were provided by Waters to the Grayzone Project, and are published in full at the bottom of this article. The documents demonstrate how the organization’s well-funded public relations apparatus has targeted celebrities as the key to the hearts and minds of the broader Western public.

Unlike many other A-listers, however, Waters took time to research the White Helmets and investigate its ulterior agenda. 

“I was quite suspicious after I was invited to that [White Helmets] dinner,” Waters told the Grayzone Project. “And now my worst suspicions have been confirmed.”

The Syria Campaign’s initial approach

The October 2016 dinner invite was delivered to Waters by a representative for the Corniche Group, an international holding company belonging to the family of the London-based Saudi billionaire Hani Farsi. Farsi was seeking Waters’ presence at a fundraising dinner he had organized on behalf of The Syria Campaign.

The Syria Campaign is a well-funded public relations front established to promote The White Helmets as a group of heroic rescuers who require the protection of Western militaries. Through series of petitions and public demonstrations, The Syria Campaign has unsuccessfully pushed for a No Fly Zone in Syria that would have likely resulted in the kind of Western military intervention that toppled Libyan President Moammar Qaddafi and destabilized Libya.

The slick PR firm has also resorted to astroturfed public stunts like a pro-White Helmets flash mob and orchestral performance at New York City’s Grand Central Station where participants were paid up to $600 each.

Farsi’s relationship to the The Syria Campaign had been kept private until now. A Syrian-British oil tycoon named Ayman Asfari has taken a much more vocal role with the PR group, providing it with seed money to advance his mission to stimulate US and UK support for regime change in Syria. Waters was informed that Asfari’s wife, Sawsan, would be on hand for the 2016 White Helmets fundraising dinner.

Read more and see the emails at https://grayzoneproject.com/

Invitation to a meeting to coordinate contingency plans for an emergency rally in the event of war breaking out or bombing resuming in Syria/Middle East or on the Korean Peninsula.

Thursday 19 April
6pm
Level 4
Trades Hall
(Please note that we have changed to a larger room)

The global situation is unpredictable and inflammable.

The peace movement needs to come together to make contingency plans in advance to mobilise mass protests and rallies in the event of war breaking out.

A contingency plan and a broad coalition is needed to mobilise a wide range of people, organisations and contacts at a very short notice.

A co-ordinating group will be set up.

If you want to find out more or be a contact for your organisation or community but unable to come this Thursday, please reply to this email or phone 0417456001.

Shirley Winton
IPAN-Victoria
Independent and Peaceful Australia Network

A group of MEPs held placards reading “Hands off Syria!” during Emmanuel Macron’s address before the European parliament on Tuesday, overshadowing the French president’s call for greater European unity on security issues. (First published time: 17 Apr, 2018 14:11n at https://www.rt.com/news/424390-parliament-macron-protest-syria/)

Members of the European Parliament display placards "Stop the War in Syria" France, April 17, 2018. © Vincent Kessler / Reuters

In his speech, Macron laid out his vision for a “profound transformation” within the EU, by which member states would abandon their “selfishness and negativity” for “what brings us together.” He characterized the current political climate in the EU as a “civil war,” and called for greater unity in the face of emerging “authoritarian powers,” which seek to undermine the bloc.

However, Macron’s impassioned appeal for unity was coldly received by more than a dozen MEPs, who displayed signs that read “Hands off Syria!” and “Stop the War in Syria” in protest at joint missile strikes carried out by the US, Britain and France against Damascus on Saturday.

Members of the European Parliament display placards "Stop the War in Syria" on their desk as French President Emmanuel Macron (unseen) delivers a speech before a debate on the Future of Europe at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, April 17, 2018. © Vincent Kessler

“Where was the democracy you talk about when you undemocratically attacked Syria President Macron?” Liadh Ni Riada, an MEP from Ireland’s Sinn Fein party, tweeted during Macron’s speech. Fellow Sinn Fein members Lynn Boylan, Martina Anderson and Matt Carthy were also seen holding the anti-war placards in defiance of Macron’s melodramatic call for European solidarity.

In a debate held on Monday, France’s National Assembly roundly criticized Macron’s decision to launch the strikes without first obtaining a UN mandate. Assembly members denounced the strikes as illegal and carried out at the behest of Washington.

This video will make you feel better about thinking, in a world where being programmed seems easier.

Filmed by Dima Aboud in Spain. Roger Waters exposes NATO-member-state White Helmets as a multi million dollar funded propaganda construct for terrorist factions inside Syria.

It seems we are losing our natural foreshore by a process of stealth. The Seaford community has fought for years to retain the beautiful natural bush land along the foreshore. It is, and has always, been at risk. I have spoken to people who would like to see the bush removed and grass and palm trees planted all along there. But we have resisted this. We have also resisted repeated pushes for hard paths through the bushland (for bike access). But not-so slowly we are seeing the foreshore change, gradually more and more of it is being developed, paved and covered with boardwalks, and even street-lighting in the bush area:

Much of this onslaught is by our own Council, who now are replacing the blue stone toilet blocks - which sit naturally and unobtrusively in the bush:

with garish, enormous new toilet blocks:

Which seem to need a large amount of bush to be cleared around them:

I communicated with Council about this (see extract below) and I was told that in large part this was to allow access for disabled people - this sounds very noble, except if you go to the new toilet already built (opposite the caravan park) you find the DISABLED TOILET LOCKED (i.e vacant, but inaccessible) - so much for the lip service of caring for the disabled!

The second issue was regarding cleanliness and graffiti resistance. The current bluestone toilet blocks have very little graffiti, and it is never been bad enough for me to really notice - so either it is not happening, or it can be removed.

As for cleaniness, the toilets are at time of writing quite unclean. One resident even reported the cleaner arriving while she was there photographing the mess, but the cleaner just left after looking in the toilet, and didn't bother to unlock the disabled toilet.

So we are seeing our beautiful historic toilets being removed, under these pretexts. I would appreciate it if anyone could let me know if they have connections to representatives of the disability community - because I really do wonder if we need ALL the toilets on Seaford foreshore to have disabled access? Currently there is disabled access at:

1. Seaford pier.
2. Keast Park
3. Opposite the cabin park.

I know people who have needed disabled access, and they have said they only would expect (and need) only one or two places to access the beach.

Here is Council's justification for the works:

Subject: RE: Frankston City Council - Toiletblocks

Hi Matthew,

As previously mentioned, Council want/need to cater for all abilities, provide safe, inviting and user friendly/comfortable facilities which are easy to clean and maintain. While also presenting a universal design language with modern and compliant facilities throughout the Municipality. In 2011 Frankston City had over 60+ public toilets, with a large number of these amenities requiring replacement, removal or upgrade to meet Australian Standards as well as the future needs and expectations of the community.

The public toilet action plan which covers all of the existing public toilet amenities across the municipality, this informs our capital works program over the coming 10-20 years to ensure public toilets are prioritised.

The facility at Armstrongs Rd is listed as being removed and replaced and at this stage is on our program during FY19/20.