(We) can do better

Update, 17 Dec 2013 : UN's Syria "Aid" Appeal is Bid to Relieve Trapped Terrorists by Tony Cartalucci. Ottawa, (SANA) - Mother Agnes Mariam el-Salib said that the international media is involved in hiding the facts and incidents taking place in Syria such as sending mercenaries and Takfiri gunmen to fight beside the armed terrorist groups. This article originally was published on 8 Dec 2013 by the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).

During a gathering organized by Solidarity Group with Syria n cooperation with Syrian-Canadian Association in Ottawa, Mother Agnes, mother superior of St. James Monastery in Qara, screened images and footages at St. Paul University clarifying the reality of events in Syria.

She stressed that the Syrian people are always able to reach a solution formula provided that they are let alone without foreign interference, yet the problem lies in those mercenaries who came only to kill and sabotage.

Mother Agnes stressed the importance of dialogue and the need for renouncing violence and concentrating on the role of national reconciliation.

Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) is delighted to announce that Bindi Irwin has accepted its invitation to be its Youth Ambassador. Bindi is the daughter of the original Wildlife Warrior and conservationist Steve Irwin. Bindi, 15, who has inherited her father’s love of animals, is an actress and television presenter who calls the Sunshine Coast’s iconic Australia Zoo home.

National president of SPA, Ms Jenny Goldie, says earlier in the year Bindi wrote an essay as part of Secretary Hillary Clinton's endangered species initiative.

In responding to the request to say why she had devoted her life to wildlife conservation, Bindi had written:

"I believe that most problems in the world today, such as climate change, stem from one immense problem which seems to be the 'elephant in the room' that no-one wants to talk about. This problem is our ever expanding human population. We are experiencing Earth's sixth mass extinction right now. Keep in mind that the previous five were caused by things like asteroid impacts or volcanic eruptions."

Ms Goldie says that the US State Department clearly did not approve and sent it back to Bindi, heavily edited with references to population cut. Bindi rejected the changes and duly withdrew it.

“This took great intelligence, courage and wisdom,” says Ms Goldie.

“Bindi has since made further references to discuss the issue of our ever expanding population indicating she is clearly committed to making a difference.”

Ms Goldie says Bindi understands the link between growth in population and habitat decline. Retention of quality and quantity of habitat is essential for other species’ health and survival.

Ms Goldie says it is hard to imagine anyone better than Bindi to be its Youth Ambassador.

Further information: Jenny Goldie 0401 921 453; Luke Reavley (Australia Zoo) 0419 643 509

Published on Wednesday 23 October, 2013 on http://www.brimbank.vic.gov.au/News_Updates/Media_Releases_2013/October_2013/Proposed_sale_of_land_at_93_Furlong_Road_Cairnlea

Council is seeking community feedback for a proposed sale of a 1.925 hectare plot of vacant land at 93 Furlong Road, Cairnlea.

Chair of Brimbank Administrators John Watson said the land was an ideal opportunity to invest in Brimbank as the rapidly growing centre of the West.

“The land, which is in a Mixed Use Zone, has been vacant for a long time; a potential sale presents a great opportunity for appropriate development of the site,” Mr Watson said.

“The purchase and sale of appropriate properties is part of Council ensuring it has the right facilities in the right places at the right time to meet the needs of residents.

“Selling land which is surplus to community needs is an important part of Council’s long-term financial management of the City.”

The site is identified as a site for incremental development in Council’s Home and Housed strategy – which allows for low-scale and low to medium density residential development.

Council undertook a thorough assessment of 93 Furlong Road and found that the area is well serviced with community facilities, so will be an attractive site to a prospective buyer.

Council’s original intent for this plot in 2000 was for the possible development of a civic centre/municipal building.

In February this year, it was decided that the site of the Sunshine Library was the preferred location for a new Library, Community and Civic Centre.

Council cannot and will not sell any land without a full public process of consultation. The first stage of the statutory process that any Council is required to comply with is for Council to publicly signal its intent to sell this land, and then begin the public process to ensure that residents have an opportunity to comment on the proposed sale so Council has all the information prior to making a decision to sell the land.

Council has also appointed a Committee including two Brimbank Administrators (Chair of Brimbank Administrators John Watson and Brimbank Administrator Jane Nathan) to hear any public submissions that are received before a decision can be taken in the matter.

In accordance with a recommendation endorsed at its Ordinary Council Meeting on 22 October 2013 Council will now publicly advertise its intention to sell the land.

Interested residents can make a written submission to Council about the sale of the land.

Nelson Mandela is dead and, despite his immense charisma, intellect, capability and courage, Africa remains poor, divided, overpopulated and spectacularly unhealthy. In her monumental book, The Shock Doctrine, Penguin, 2007, Naomi Klein told how economists got control of the details of the revolution during handover negotiations, blinded revolutionaries with their sophistry, and tied it up in red tape. They actually returned the management of the central bank to its apartheid boss. This article is an excerpt from pp200-204 of the chapter in The Shock Doctrine entitled, 'Democracy born in chains.' The greatest loss to the African Revolution was that by the time Mandela rose to power, his government no longer had the right to redistribute land - which is the essence of revolutionary government.

"[...] the de Klerk government had a twofold strategy. First, drawing on the ascendant Washington consensus that there was now only one way to run an economy, it portrayed key sectors of economic decision making - such as trade policy and the central bank - as 'technical' or 'administrative.' Then it used a wide range of new policy tools - international trade agreements, innovations in constitutional law and structural adjustment programs - to hand control of those power centers to supposedly impartial experts, economists and officials from the IMF, the World Bank, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the National Party - anyone except the liberation fighters from the ANC. It was a strategy of balkanization, not of the country's geography (as de Klerk had originally attempted) but of its economy.

This plan was successfully executed under the noses of ANC leaders, who were naturally preoccupied with winning the battle to control Parliament. In the process, the ANC failed to protect itself against a far more insidious strategy - in essence, an elaborate insurance plan against the economic clauses in the Freedom Charter every becoming law in South Africa. "The people shall govern!" would soon become a reality, but the sphere over which they would govern was shrinking fast.

While these tense negotiations between adversaries were unfolding, the ANC was also busily preparing within its own ranks for the day when it would take office. Teams of ANC economists and lawyers formed working groups charged with figuring out exactly how to turn the general promises of the Freedom Charter - for housing amenities and health care - into practical policies. The most ambitious of these plans was Make Democracy Work, an economic blueprint for South Africa's post apartheid future, written while the high-level negotiations were taking place. What the party loyalists didn't know at the time was that while they were hatching their ambitious plans, the negotiating team was accepting concessions at the bargaining table that would make their implementation a practical impossibility. "It was dead before it was even launched," the economist Vishnu Padayachee told me of Make Democracy Work. By the time the draft was complete, "there was a new ball game."

[...]

"We were caught completely off guard," recalled Padayachee, now in his early fifties. He had done his graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He knew that at the time, even among free-market economists in the U.S., central bank independence was considered a fringe idea, a pet policy of a handful of Chicago School ideologues who believed that central banks should be run as sovereign republics within states, out of reach of the meddling hands of elected lawmakers. For Padayachee and his colleagues, who strongly believed that monetary policy needed to serve the new government's 'big goals of growth, employment and redistribution,' the ANC's position was a no-brainer: "There was not going to be an independent central bank in South Africa."

Padayachee and a colleague stayed up all night writing a paper that gave the negotiating team the arguments it needed to resist this curveball from the national Party. If the central bank (in South Africa called the Reserve Bank) was run separately from the rest of the government, it could restrict the ANC's ability to keep the promises in the Freedom Charter. Besides, if the central bank was not accountable to the ANC government, to whom, exactly, would it be accountable? The IMF? The Johannesburg Stock Exchange? Obviously, the National Party was trying to find a backdoor way to hold on to power even after it lost the elections - a strategy that needed to be resisted at all costs. "They were locking in as much as possible," Padayachee recalled. "That was a clear part of the agenda."

Padayachee faxed the paper in the morning and didn't hear back for weeks. "Then, when we asked what happened, we were told, "Well, we gave that one up'." Not only would the central bank be run as an autonomous entity within the South African state, with its independence enshrined in the new constitution, but it would be headed by the same man who ran it under apartheid, Chris Stals. It wasn't just the central bank that the ANC had given up: in another major concession, Derek Keyes, the white finance minister under apartheid, would also remain in his post - much as the finance ministers and central bank heads from Argentina's dictatorship somehow managed to get their jobs back under democracy. The New York Times praised Keyes as "the country ranking apostle of low-spending business-friendly government."

Until that point, Padayachee said, "we were still buoyant, because, my God, this was a revolutionary struggle; at least there' be something to come out of it." When he learned that the central bank and the treasury would be run by their old apartheid bosses, it meant "everything would be lost in terms of economic transformation." When I asked him whether he thought the negotiators realised how much they had lost, after some hesitation, he replied, "Frankly, no." It was simple horse-trading: "In the negotiations, something had to be given, and our side gave those things - I’ll give you this, you give me that."

From Padayachee's point of view, none of this happened because of some grand betrayal on the part of ANC leaders but simply because they were out-maneuvered on a series of issues that seemed less than crucial at the time - but turned out to hold South Africa's lasting liberation in the balance.

What happened in those negotiations is that the ANC found itself caught in a new kind of web, one made of arcane rules and regulations, all designed to confine and constrain the power of elected leaders. As the web descended on the country, only a few people even noticed it was there, but when the new government came to power and tried to move freely, to give its voters the tangible benefits of liberation they expected and thought they had voted for, the strands of the web tightened and the administration discovered that its powers were tightly bound. Patrick Bond, who worked as an economic adviser in Mandela's office during the first years of ANC rule, recalls that the in-house quip was "Hey, we've got the state, where's the power?" As the new government attempted to make tangible the dreams of the Freedom Charter, it discovered that power was elsewhere.

Want to redistribute land? Impossible - at the last minute, the negotiators agreed to add a clause to the new constitution that protects all private property, making land reform virtually impossible. Want to create jobs for millions of unemployed workers? Can't - hundreds of factories were actually about to lose because the ANC had signed on to the GATT, the precursor to the World Trade Organisation, which made it illegal to subsidise the auto plants and textile factories. Want to get free AIDS drugs to the townships, where the disease is spreading with terrifying speed? That violates an intellectual property rights commitment under the WTO, which the ANC joined with no public debate as a continuation of the GATT. Need money to build more and larger houses for the poor and to bring free electricity to the townships? Sorry - the budget is being eaten up servicing the massive debt, passed on quietly by the apartheid government. Print more money? Tell that to the apartheid-era head of the central bank. Free water for all? Not likely. The World Bank, with its large in-country contingent of economists, researchers and trainers (a self-proclaimed "Knowledge Bank"), is making private-sector partnerships the service norm. Want to impose currency controls to guard against wild speculation? That would violate the $850 million IMF deal, signed, conveniently enough right before the elections. Raise the minimum wage to close the apartheid income gap? Nope. The IMF deal promises 'wage restraint.' And don't even think about ignoring these commitments - any change will be regarded as evidence of dangerous national untrustworthiness, a lack of commitment to 'reform' an absence of a 'rules-based system.' All of which will lead to currency crashes, aid cuts and capital flight. The bottom line was that South Africa was free but simultaneously captured; each one of these arcane acronyms represented a different thread in the web that pinned down the limbs of the new government.

A long time antiapartheid activist, Rassool Snyman, described the trap to me in stark terms. "They never freed us. They only took the chain from around our neck and put it on our ankles." Yasmin Sooka, a prominent South African human rights activist, told me that the transition 'was business saying, 'We'll keep everything and you [the ANC] will rule in name ... You can have political power, you can have the facade of governing, but the real governance will take place somewhere else. It was a process of infantilization that is common to so-called transitional countries - new governments are, in effect, given keys to the house but not the combination to the safe."

Jill Quirk of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA), Victorian and Tasmanian Branch, writes about the many problems of Plan Melbourne. Indeed there are so many problems that it is crazy to go ahead. But most of us realize that the Planners and Ministers behind Plan Melbourne intend to just go on driving bulldozers until something bigger stops them or they run out of oil. There is no plan B and so no room to listen to comment. This is a real problem for the rest of us because we live here.

Welcome. I always worried about population but I believed the demographers who said it would take care of itself. They were wrong, so I stopped listening to them. I kicked off a national debate about this issue in 2009. The points I made were about endangered species, climate change, traffic, housing, and the cost of living and the problems of Australia at 36 million. In 2010 there was movement - from the Greens, the Liberals, Kevin Rudd at Easter establishing a Population Minister, and Julia Gillard renouncing Big Australia. The election came and went, but there was no action. I don't know why Julia never delivered on this - I personally think she might still be PM today if she had.

In political debate people are very frightened about being called racist or xenophobic. This is true of Prime Ministers and also of the people who live in our street. Yes there are racists out there, it's a pity, but it's true. But the use of the term racism has become a new kind of McCarthyism, used to stifle debate. Just as there were communists in the 1950s, but the fear of communists was used in an hysterical way to shut down and discredit and attack all kinds of political ideas that the McCarthyists disliked, so too now we see the name calling used to stifle and shut down debate on things we desperately need to debate.

How do we counter this?

It's not easy, but

1. We need to point out that Australia already is a multi-racial society - one quarter born overseas, one half with one or both parents born overseas. The bird has flown. No-one is trying to maintain Australia as a white Anglo Saxon outpost of the British Empire - it can't be done, and I haven't come across anyone who is trying.

2. As a consequence of this, our actions will assist, and are intended to assist, Victorians of all backgrounds. For example Broadmeadows has double digit unemployment. Many unemployed people in Broadmeadows are of Turkish background. They are entitled to our consideration, rather than running migrant worker programs that stuff up their ability to find work.

3. We need to point out that if talking about population makes us racists, we are in pretty good company. People don't usually think of Dr Martin Luther King as a white supremacist. What did he have to say about population? “Family planning, to relate population to world resources, is possible, practical and necessary. Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is solvable by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of billions who are its victims".

And people wouldn't ordinarily think of David Suzuki as a puppet or fellow traveller of Pauline Hanson. What did he have to say about population? Dr Suzuki said “of course human numbers are at the very core of our crisis.

The explosive rate of growth simply can't continue". And while we're at it, let me point out a few more. - John Stuart Mill, the great nineteenth century philosopher said " solitude, in the sense of being often alone, is essential to any depth of meditation or of character, and solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur, is the cradle of thoughts and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society could ill do without. Nor is there much satisfaction in contemplating the world with nothing left to the spontaneous activity of nature... Every hedgerow or superfluous tree rooted out, and scarcely a place left where a wild shrub or flower could grow without being eradicated as a weed in the name of improved agriculture".

Former US President Bill Clinton told the United Nations in 1993 that “to ensure a healthier and more abundant world, we simply must slow the world's explosive growth in population". And his Vice-President, Al Gore, said. Quote “I consider the dramatic growth in the world's population to be the greatest challenge currently facing the environment. ... He said the "effects of this rapid increase are felt around the globe. Starvation, deforestation and lack of clean water are just some of the problems".

4. Finally, on issue of racism, we just have to toughen up a bit and accept that it will happen, and that if we're going to win, we can't run away from this issue just because people will call us names. There are people out there who will look you in the eye and put their hand on their heart and swear black and blue that they are progressives, that they are left of centre, but they will not touch population because they are scared of being called names.

This is very ironic, given that the most common characteristic I find in the people who I have come across in my work on the population issue is compassion.Many of you are motivated by compassion for the environment, by compassion for other living creatures. You do not think it is alright to trample species after species into extinction on our relentless growth path. Others are motivated by compassion for the poor of the world, and feel deeply about the plight of the poor and the great disparity of wealth between globally rich and poor. You see population growth as the great obstacle to lifting the poor out of poverty.

It is ironic in the extreme, therefore, that we have a couple of agents provocateur out there accusing us of trying to hijack the environmental movement, when we are the most fair dinkum environmentalists you'll find. I defy anyone to challenge the environmental credentials of Jacques Cousteau, who has devoted his entire life to marine conservation.

Cousteau said. "We must alert and organize the world's people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises - exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources”. He says “Over consumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today".

I defy anyone to challenge the environmental credentials of Captain Paul Watson, the Founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, who has spent his life risking injury and imprisonment to harass Japanese whalers.

He says quote “the accusation that a stand to reduce immigration is racist is music to the ears to those who profit from the cheap labour of immigrants. They are the same people who love to see environmentalists make fools of themselves. And there is no environmentalist more foolish than one who refuses to confront the fact that uncontrolled human population growth is the number one cause of the world's increasing environmental problems”.

And does anyone think Sir David Attenborough, with a lifetime behind him of educating and advocating for the protection of our rainforests and other wilderness areas, a bogus environmentalist? David Attenborough has described global population increase as frightening, and said the following. “I've seen wildlife under mounting human pressure all over the world and it's not just from human economy or technology - behind every threat is the frightening explosion in human numbers. ". He said " I've never seen a problem that wouldn't be easier to solve with fewer people, or harder, and ultimately impossible, with more".

Well I am not scared of being called names. I don't enjoy it, but I dislike a whole lot more the fact that instead of the optimistic view I had of political progress when I was young, that we were getting better at looking after the environment and had learned from our mistakes, that we were going to stamp out global hunger and poverty, that we would stop going to war, that in fact we are going backwards. On the Environment, war, waste, terrorism, global poverty, extreme weather etc.

And I dislike more the fact that this has happened during my political career and that I have been quite unable to stop it. Being an MP is a great opportunity and privilege, and with my remaining time as an MP I want to do everything I can to turn this around.

I want to put forward an alternative, a smart alternative, to the direction we are going now, which I absolutely believe is the wrong direction. At the heart of this smart alternative is the idea of stewardship. I got the word from my sister Jaquie. She is a strong Christian, whereas I don't have any religious beliefs. But you will have heard the phrase, we don't inherit the earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children, and I think that it is spot on. We don't own the place, we have the privilege of managing it for a while. And I have regularly finished speeches by saying that we have an obligation to hand down to our children and grandchildren a world in as good a condition as the one our parents and grandparents left to us.

I think stewardship is a good word to express this fundamentally crucial idea. I've decided I like it better than sustainability.

You could fill libraries with the work done on sustainability, and properly understood it is indeed a powerful and useful idea, but sadly it has been so used and abused and prostituted, including by the forces of darkness, that it has become an Alice in Wonderland word - you know, when I use a word it means whatever I choose it to mean, so nowadays pretty meaningless. So when you hear the word sustainability in future, substitute for it the word stewardship - I find it works pretty well.

The second thing about my smart alternative is that it is very mainstream or middle of the road. I believe in giving the voters what they want. People who believe in giving the voters what they want are, again, at risk of being called names - for example, populist. But the people who scream populist are essentially trying to fool us into supporting ideas that are not in our own best interests. The people who scream populist reveal a basic contempt for the people and their ideas, and a lack of respect for democracy. Again, if we are going to succeed, we have to be strong enough to put up with a bit of name calling. Because population is not about race, it is about stewardship.

Some people will think my ideas radical, because they are very different from the path we are on at the moment. Some will think them conservative, because they place a lot of value on our heritage and value the past and are sceptical about the changes that are happening in our world. Indeed I often think my ideas are more conservative than the Liberal Party, better for workers than is the Labor Party, and better for the environment than are the Greens. But at their heart is giving the voters what they want, not what some billionaire or their media puppets think is good for them.

And another element of my ideas, again consistent with giving people a genuine say, is making things as small, and local, and self-sufficient, as we can be. Globalization has helped a lot of people, but it's also harmed plenty, and in the world of the future we will be better off retaining as much independence and self-reliance and self-sufficiency as we can.

And given that, and because we have to start somewhere, I want to focus on Victoria First. Victoria has a greater population increase each year that any other state or territory, driven by having the largest migration intake.

What on earth is the value of this?

We are told the big increase in Australia's migrant worker programs is to meet the needs of the mining boom, and to find workers for remote and inhospitable parts of Australia that locals won't live in. That's the myth.
The reality is that more people come to Victoria than anywhere else, and that Victoria ends up with all the problems associated with this rapid population growth - Melbourne grows by 200 per day, 1500 per week, 75000 per annum. In my view Melbourne and Victoria is the archetypal example of the folly of rapid population growth, and for me as Melbourne and Victorian born and bred, it is exactly the place to start a fight back and push back against this foolishness and short-sightedness.

So what is Victoria First going to do? There are many things we could do, but first and foremost we have to grow. You probably know that exponential growth is behind the population problems the world has. But I want us to make exponential growth work for us.

How will we grow?

Of course any and all suggestions to do this are welcome. I need and value your assistance in this mighty enterprise. But my ideas are as follows. First, enjoy the summer. I love the Australian way of life. The warm summer nights, the caravan parks by the beach ( not sand overshadowed by high rise) the cricket on TV. I want to save that, not spoil it. So have a rest and enjoy the summer. But I do want you to do three things over the summer.

First, join. It costs $10. But this is not about money. It's about your time and your energy and your various abilities. If you don't join today, please take a membership form and join later.
Second, take one or more of the takeaways, speeches etc. on the table and read them one day when you're sunning yourself somewhere.

And third, when you have those family or office or neighbourhood get togethers, or you're down the beach or up on the Murray River talking to someone in the tent next to you, get them gently, GENTLY - don't ram it down their throats, no-one likes being lectured - onto the topic of population and stewardship. And somewhere, in your family, or your workplace, or your street, or your holiday spot, find someone else who will join up.

If you all join up, and the people who are apologies who've told me they'll join up join up, we'll start with over 100. But by February 1st next year, let's make it 200. If everyone here finds one other person in the next two months, we'll have that.
And with 200 people we can letterbox a Federal electorate. Now it's up to me to find the money and get the leaflets printed - all help gratefully received! But it's up to me to accomplish that. And of course not everyone can letterbox, but I'm hoping that in your elaborate network and complicated circle of obligations and favours given and received that you can find someone to do that for you.

And if we can do this every month or couple of months next year we could build up to 1000 by the end of the year. They might prove to be very easy, or it might prove too ambitious, but it is a target, a goal.

And then the year after that, we will use our 1000 members to build up to 10000. Because then we will be taken seriously. We could have a rally now, but we will be ignored, almost certainly by media and certainly by governments. And even with a membership of 1000, in a state of several million we will still be ignored and overlooked. But if we have 10,000, and can turn out half of them to a rally outside Parliament House or the Melbourne Town Hall or the Property Council - then they will listen to us.

Of course we can support and be involved in campaigns which reinforce our message. A few meters from here they want to build a freeway through Royal Park and over what's left of the Moonee Ponds Creek.

It's a disgrace. Let's fight that. And my Council, Moreland, has released draft Planning Zones, or daft Planning Zones, that would enable high rise to move right through beautiful single story detached dwelling suburbs like Brunswick West, Pascoe Vale and Oak Park. Let's fight that.

And I'm up for innovative ideas on spreading the message. Use social media, of course. And taking our leaflets and membership application forms to places where people are feeling the sharp end of population growth - CBD car parks for motorists who've been stuck in traffic jams, Council meetings and VCAT hearings where residents are being done over by developers, universities, where students are facing ferocious competition in the job market, maybe auctions where young people are missing out on a home of their own, senior citizens clubs where older people struggle to pay the bills for our infrastructure expansion.

We need to find the people who are suffering from rapid population growth, support them, and recruit them.

CONCLUSION Edward Kennedy's speeches were undoubtedly some of the finest of the twentieth century, and everyone knows two passages from his speech about his second assassinated brother Robert, - ' my brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, but be remembered as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. And secondly, "some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were, and say why not?

But before he said those things in this most memorable of speeches he said the following.

"Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. And I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the moral conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the globe".

I believe that as well. My fellow Victorians, it is time we went out and found ourselves some companions in this little corner of the globe.

All over the world right wing 'think tanks' will be commemorating the work of economist Ronald Coase, who died on the second of September this year (2013) at the age of 102. Unfortunately his work has been used as an excuse to marginalise civil and human rights by making it legally acceptable for the interests of big business and the wealthy to over-rule everyone else’s financial, social and environmental interests. Coase's work is largely responsible for many of the problems of democracy, overpopulation and overdevelopment that are ruining more and more peoples' lives and freedom today. Many of its lesser supporters are naive followers of fashion and don't really understand what they are losing through their innocent embrace of 'efficiency' any more, perhaps, than did the followers of Chairman Mao's 'Great Leap Forward'. (This article is based on an extract from Sheila Newman's forthcoming book, Demography, Territory, Law 2: Land-tenure and the Origins of Capitalism in Britain, Countershock Press, probably early 2014.)

Industrial Capitalism has become a normative ethic in Britain and Anglophone societies. It has been conflated and massaged to fit a political idea that it represents a positive evolutionary development which is inevitable in human societies unless artificially or accidentally blocked. From this stems the notion of ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ societies, promoted almost without question in schools, churches and mainstream media. The presumption about the ‘developing’ societies (which were generally stable non-industrialised ones prior to the disruption of industrial development with or without colonization[1]) is that they were deprived and ‘stunted’. Industrial development in such a construction is presented as a form of normalization; a restoration to health and a normal growth curve. From this view it becomes ‘normal’ to ‘develop’ into an industrial capitalist society. Social costs are minimized in a kind of “Coasian” equation (see citation below) where all changes which increase available capital are treated as a positive benefit to the whole society. This logic justifies almost anything which will assist that transformation, notably changes to the land-tenure or property-law system. [2]

“In the eighteenth century, when the British economy entered an unparalleled era of expansion, Britain’s Parliament began operating according to Coasian principles and reorganized property rights en masse. In the nineteenth century, when most common-law doctrines reached their modern form, doctrines of equity (enforced through the Chancery Court) dominated the conveyance of land. These doctrines were designed to protect beneficial interests, not to maximize productivity. Efficiency became a dominant doctrine in the English legal system only after Parliamentary intervention.”(Bogart and Richardson, p.7)[3]

Coasian economic theory was originated by Ronald H. Coase in “The Problem of Social Cost”, Journal of Law and Economics, 3: 144, 1960. The theory assigns value arbitrarily, according to the highest dollar profit probability. It takes no heed of non-monetary values and therefore is unresponsive to social cost or individual equity. [4]

To the inhuman 'invisible hand', is attributed the responsibility and authority for the impacts of such decisions. But there is no redress against the ‘invisible hand’. As Block points out below, referring to property law: “Whatever the judge decided would endure; there could be no opportunity for mutually beneficial exchange” [after the decision was made].

“And what was the advice to the judiciary which emanated from this new outlook? Judges were to rule in such a way as to maximize the value of economic activity. Under a zero transactions cost regime, it really wouldn't matter -as far as the allocation of resources was concerned - which of two disputatious parties received the rights in question. If they were given to the person who valued them more, well and good. If not, the loser would be able to pay off the winner so as to enjoy their use. But in the real world of significant transactions costs, in contrast, the juridical determination was absolutely crucial. Whatever the judge decided would endure; there could be no opportunity for mutually beneficial exchange, ex post.” (Block: Property Rights: A Reply to Demsetz, p.63)

The impact on civil society has been enormous. No human value, no environmental value may prevail over a financial win. This is a recipe for corporate dominance. Block makes this clear:

“From these deliberations emerged, especially in the writings of his followers, the ‘Coasian’ public policy recommendation. The jurist must ignore tradition, property rights, ownership, and the niceties of Lockean homesteading theory upon which all were based, and instead make his award solely in order to maximize wealth. That is, he should find in favor of the disputant who values the rights in question more strongly; the one who, had he lost the court battle in the zero transactions cost world, would have successfully bribed the winner. [5]

NOTES

[1]
Newman, Sheila, Demography, Territory, Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations, Countershock Press, 2013.

[2] Block, Walter, 1995. “Ethics, Efficiency, Coasian Property Rights, and Psychic Income: A Reply to Demsetz,” in The Review of Austrian Economics, Vol.8, No. 2 (1995): 61-125, ISSN 0889-3047, http://miawa.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae8_2_4.pdf: “In this new view, property rights became the handmaiden of so called economic efficiency. The very determination of private property became dependent on cost considerations. Another way to put this is that in the pre-Coasian days, property rights were exogenous to economics. Thanks to Coase and his followers (Demsetz 1966, 1967; Posner 1986; Landes 1971, 1973, 1979),' this is no longer true. Now, if anything, economics is the independent variable; property rights have become indigenous on it.’ It is an indication of the ideological nature of the Nobel Prize of Economic Sciences that Ronald Coase (1910-2nd September 2013) won it in 1991 for work which has been used to argue for the primacy of economic ‘efficiency’ over social organisation in transaction costs and property rights for the institutional structure and functioning of the economy. His work has been used as an excuse to marginalise civil and human rights by making it legally acceptable for the interests of big business and the wealthy to over-rule everyone else’s financial, social and environmental interests. In other words, all conflicts can be resolved through money and if what you want to conserve does not make money, then if someone wants to destroy it to make money, then they will have that right. It is obvious that natural amenity, wildlife, houses with gardens, decent working conditions – anything that stands in the way of someone making more money – must fall away before the Coasian bulldozer. The theory does not stand up to natural science, the laws of thermodynamics and ecology, however it has been co-opted into everything from international aid and development to local planning.

[3] Bogart and Richardson, 2008, “Making Property Productive: Reorganizing Rights to Real and Equitable Estates in Britain, 1660 to 1830, NBER Working Paper No. 14107
Issued in June 2008. National Bureau of Economic Resarch, Cambridge, MA., p.2 http://www.nber.org/papers/w14107

[4] “Even mere preferability, let alone legal justice, runs into problems of interpersonal comparisons of utility. As we have seen, there is no warrant, anywhere within the corpus of value-free economics, for us to compare the utilities of one group of people-e.g., "worshippers" with another, "cancer patients'-and to claim that one outweighs the other.” Block, Walter, 1995, op.cit.

[5] Block, Walter, 1995, op.cit.

"Populate and reap rewards," was Monday's editorial (2 December 2013) in the Australian Financial Review. Its flimsy self-serving logic provides a curious contrast to Kelvin Thomson's superb speech on the same topic to a full auditorium of concerned citizens on Sunday. (The speech is embedded in this article.) Where Thomson has reacted to the news that population growth is completely out of control by attempting to help people to organise against the growth pushing forces who seek to benefit financially from overpopulation, the editorial in the Financial Review is cynical in its enjoinder to exploit those problems for elite gain.

Click here for Kelvin Thomson's speech about Victoria First and our population problem.

Orwellian AFR Editorial

In this editorial, Fairfax news markets overpopulation in a sinister fashion. It distorts economic principles. It views the economy only from the angle of the very rich, but doesn't bother to warn the uninitiated that that is its perspective.

It minimises the projections to 53.6 million by 2101, rather than the even worse likelihood of 70m by the end of the century. (See http://candobetter.net/?q=node/3560.)

The editorial talks rot about the dangers of a 'stagnant' population, taking a gratuitous swipe at Julia Gillard's initially unfavorable attitude to big populations.

It pretends that a small population causes inflation, when inflation is actually created by demand, i.e. more people wanting finite or fixed goods and resources.

The rationale appears to be a belief in endless economies of scale making everything cheaper, however this is contradicted by the reality, which is diseconomies of scale. These the editorial ignores because that is what big business is able to profit from at everyone else's expense. Hence Victoria and other states' problems with huge infrastructure projects that trample democracy and trash natural and social ammenity, like the East-West link.

Shameless

The editorial shamelessly promotes the idea that a small population would harm the 'national housing wealth' - which it fails to admit is a product of just the inflation it pretends would result from a smaller population, as well as a recipe for homelessness and housing stress. The rising cost or 'value' of housing is a direct result of rising demand related to population growth. Fairfax (like Murdoch) should declare its dependency on the real estate market to its readers.[1]

The editorial fear-mongers by relating the possibility of housing prices coming down to loss of returns on superannuation, shares and savings, but fails to factor in how lower housing prices would cause lower cost of living, making it much cheaper to live. We would not need inflated returns on investment.

What manufacturing?

It claims, nonsensically, that we would lose manufacturing to bigger populations overseas. A sane response would be, "What manufacturing?" When there were 7 million people here we had a thriving manufacturing sector, which has actually declined to almost nothing during the precise period that successive Australian governments have been engineering population growth through mass immigration. The rising cost of land, power and other resources, like water, drives up all costs of manufacturing. Wages must be higher for people to be able to afford these costs and businesses must also pay those costs. These are direct results of population growth.

The only kinds of business that can survive in this environment are huge corporations, such as transnational banks, mining, agribusiness, infrastructure and property developers. These corporate entities survive and 'prosper' because they actually own most of the resources, assets, and utilities that cost the rest of us - wage earners and small business - so much. But these are the only kinds of economic entities that really interest the elite agenda.

What is this editorialist smoking?

It is as if the editorialist is drunk, or believes that his/her audience is, as he/she strings outlandishly contradictory assertions together. For instance, the article maintains, on the one hand, that we need a huge population, but then bases this on the idea that Australia will "prosper as a supplier of minerals, energy, food, specialised manufacturing and professional services" to growing middle classes in Asia. That is not a description of the kind of economy that needs a lot of workers. Mining, utilities, industrialised agriculture and professional services are sectors with low ratios of workers to product.

This statement is bizarre:

"Instead, the striking successive increases in population projections since 2003 reflect the advent of Australia's China boom since that time, and subsequently the broadening of the opportunities through our so-called Asian century."

It can only be due to the lack of media diversity in Australia that this kind of intellectual foaming at the mouth can get published.

The editorialist insists: "A wealthier nation in turn will attract more people both to produce these export-oriented goods and services and to supply services to a more prosperous (and ageing) domestic population."

Note that more immigrants means bigger faster-aging cohorts,[2] but that seems to be what the Murdoch Press and its cronies really want: more expensive problems to market expensive 'solutions' to the rest of us.

The editorialist raves on, like the Queen in Alice: "This provides the chance for the Australia concept as we know it - a western outpost at the foot of Asia embodying the best of British-American Enlightenment concepts such as the rule of law, an open society and a vigorous meritocratic democracy - to fortify our security through increased national wealth that will sustain a healthy defence force and underpin our diplomatic and trading efforts."

What democracy?

What democracy? We have super-corrupt governments at every level of our society.

As Ted Mack recently commented in his brilliant Henry Parkes Oration [emphases added]:

"The fundamental problems of our system of government have not seriously ever been addressed since Federation. These problems can be summarised as the level of over-government. The obsolescence of the constitutional relationships between the three levels of government. The two party “winner-take-all” executive domination of parliament and the associated corrupted voting systems. The domination of the political system and public service by the two private unregulated political parties and their largely self regulated access to the public treasury. Almost a total absence in the school system and for new citizens of any education concerning the three levels of government, their function and voting systems."

"Big business is implacably opposed to more democracy. It wants more centralisation of power. It currently employs more than 600 registered lobbyists in Canberra and spends millions of dollars to subvert democracy. Big media is always constrained by its owners' interests. Since the Second World War there has been a growth of corporate propaganda to protect corporate power against democracy."

"The 2010-13 Federal Parliament saw the major parties virtually eliminate any real form of democratic debate substituting little but character assassination of opponents. It was a three-year election campaign of personal abuse and fear mongering. It was debased even further with aggressive bullying by the media and special interests at unprecedented levels. The same period saw both state and federal governments pandering to special interests allowing massive increases in the promotion of gambling and alcohol. Pandering to the development and mining industries and the seemingly endless privatisation of public assets often creating private monopolies, continued irrespective of public opinion." - Ted Mack, Henry Parkes Oration 2013 [3]

Perseverative demographic policy

The Australian Press's 'Asianisation obsession seems to be code for a big population - of any origin. Not just a big population, but for population growth at frightening levels never previously imagined, rightly feared by those already here.

I liked what Aung San Suu Kyi had to say about this systematic legalised mass invasion, which many won't criticise for fear they will be called racist, even though it is the massive numbers rather than their origin that is so frightening:

“I’d also like to remind you that you are unique and you do not have to go all Asian,” she said. "I understand that this is a trend of Australia today – to try to become ‘Asianised’ as it were. “You are special because you are a unique combination of the east and the west. “I hope and pray that Australia will … make an example of the possibility of genuine unity and diversity.” [4]

As Kelvin Thomson says, the bird has flown; we are already a multi-racial society. No-one I know is trying to make us British again. We do not have to work to make Australia multicultural. It already is.[5]

Push for overpopulation and authoritarian government in Australia

The editorial rightly says that "Immigration will be the major driver of this fresh population growth." As our population grows the fertility opportunites increase so that high immigration finds its echo in a rising birth rate overall. We are now facing the loss of control over population growth that India still faces and which caused China to bring in the one-child policy. At the same time we are looking at a decline in energy resources that power the world's economy. We are on a collision course of overpopulation with dwindling resources. And the press is applauding.

Although the huge volumes of mass migration that are now in train threaten to impoverish Australia's environment and most of its people, by far the most immediate threat they pose is their ability to atomise our social organisation through displacement and induced competition for scarce resources and opportunities. Our vulnerability in this is already apparent in the lack of public participation in government or independent grass-roots movements among our young. Without the social organisation that we once grew up with, along the lines of family, clan and neighborhood communication, we will increasingly become isolated overworked commuters, forced to observe the rules of a manufactured consensus such as we can read today in this intellectually and morally corrupt editorial in the Financial Review.

The editorial gives no quarter to democracy on this issue. It concludes with this understatement:

"It will be hard work to accommodate a bigger population. Sydney in particular, where 40 per cent of the population already live in apartments, and which is playing catch-up with road, airport and rail capacity, will need to be better managed. Tony Abbott's promise to be the infrastructure prime minister, with improvements in financing, regulation, incentives, and demand triggers, could not have been better timed."

Under these demographically explosive terms, Australia has as much chance of catching up on its infrastructure needs as the Phillipines and its democracy is similarly doomed.

There is one new hope: Join Kelvin Thomson's "Victoria First" NGO, which is helping Australians to organise against overpopulation. Contact Kelvin's office to know more at http://www.kelvinthomson.com.au/

NOTES

[1] "The reverse takeover of Fairfax’s high-value classifieds business Domain by glossy real estate upstart Metro Media Publishing is complete after Antony Catalano was appointed Domain’s CEO this morning. Property Observer's sister publication Crikey can reveal that Catalano, a former Fairfax executive, will seize the reins of the Domain group following Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood’s decision in March to spin the booming business unit out as a standalone entity. There is now frenzied speculation that Hywood and Fairfax will end up floating Domain to prop up shaky revenues elsewhere in the business. Alternatively, Hywood could sell all of Fairfax’s flailing publishing and broadcast assets and retain Domain with Catalano at the helm." Andrew Crook, "Catalano appointed CEO of Fairfax’s Domain,"
Tuesday, 19 November 2013 http://www.propertyobserver.com.au/news/catalano-appointed-ceo-of-fairfaxs-domain/2013111866435

[2] Because immigrants arrive in Australia after they are born they are always older than people born here, thus contribute to an older population. In fact they are usually of working age or quite mature, and will often bring out their elderly parents. That has quite a bubble effect on our demographic pyramid. See, for instance, http://candobetter.net/?q=node/1986
[3] The Henry Parkes Oration 2013, The State of the Federation, presented by Ted Mack, Sir Henry Parkes Memorial School, http://www.parkesfoundation.org.au/HPoration2013.pdf
[4] "Aung San Suu Kyi awarded honorary doctorate from ANU"
[5] Paraphase from Kelvin Thomson's speech launching Victoria First. See video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL4e0swBntg&feature=player_embedded

Venue
NIDA Parade Theatres
NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Art)
215 Anzac Parade
Kensington NSW 2033

Date & Time
Wed 11 Dec 2013 9:00am

Some special prices for students of $30 + bf (this includes catering for the day) on offer. They must go through this link
The School of Mathematics and Statistics at UNSW is hosting a Symposium on the Limits to Growth on the 11th of December. This event is the final event of the UNESCO Year of the Mathematics of Planet Earth. It would be greatly appreciated if you could please pass this message around to any students or staff that may be interested.

This is a limited time offer and these tickets will not be available from Wednesday the 4th of December.

Key themes

What is the impact of climate change on the economy (and society as a whole)
What is the best measure of the economy? GDP or something else?
How can mathematical models influence policy makers in this area?
How will an ageing, stagnant population affect the economy?

Keynote Speakers

Professor Graciela Chichilnisky: Professor of Economics, Columbia University, architect of the carbon credit emissions trading market underlying the Kyoto Protocol.

Graeme Maxton: Economist, Fellow of the International Club of Rome, author of The End of Progress.

Professor Jørgen Randers: Professor of Climate Strategy, BI Norwegian Business School, co-author of Limits to Growth and author of 2052.

Professor Peter Victor: Professor in Environmental Studies, York University, author of Managing without Growth.
Ross Gittins AM: Economics Editor, Sydney Morning Herald.

Peter Cosier: Director, Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists

Professor Clive Hamilton AM FRSA: Professor of Public Ethics, Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, author of Growth Fetish.

Peter Harper: Deputy Australian Statistician for the Population, Labour and Social Statistics Group at the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Chair of the UN Committee of Experts on Environmental Economic Accounting.

Ken Henry AC: Economist, Former Secretary of the Department of Treasury.

This article is sourced from Protectors of Public Land Victoria. It is about the need to make submissions on East West Link at this point in process. Whilst she acknowledges the public lack of confidence in the process, Julianne Bell of the grass-roots but heavy hitting Protectors of Public Land Vic Inc. argues that making submissions is still important. She has supplied templates here to help submitters avoid the absurdity of reading hundreds of pages before submitting. Find at the end of the article: PPL VIC: East West Link (1) Template Statement to Assist Making Submissions on the Comprehensive Impact Statement on the East West Link (2) Cover Sheet to Accompany Submission 4.

Dear Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. members and friends,

Here is the State Government spiel which reads that it has

"appointed an assessment committee under Sections 35 and 235 of the Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act 2009 to assess the Comprehensive Impact Statement for the East West Link (Eastern Section) Project and to make recommendations to the Minister for Planning whether or not to grant any applicable approval required for the project to be developed and if so to recommend appropriate conditions for applicable approvals."

Public submissions are being called for on the Comprehensive Impact Statement and have to be in keeping with the Government's "scoping directions". The closing date is C.O.B 12 December 2013.

In order to help you make sense of this process and to avoid your having to digest mountains of literature, we are sending you a template statement on the Comprehensive Impact Statement which you can simply sign and send off or develop as you see fit. You might want to add some additional comments. Be sure to fill out the Cover Sheet. You can send your submission by email or by snail mail. Many thanks to staff in the Office of Greens Federal Member for Melbourne Adam Bandt who developed the statement. (We added to some sections.)

While many regard the "consultation" process over the East West Link as a sham, we consider that it is imperative that Victorians deluge the State Government with objections to the East West Link in the form of submissions to this enquiry. In 2008 over 2,600 people make submissions to the Eddington Review on the then Government's proposal for Mark I of the East West Link. (Many submissions were on proforma.) As you may know the East West Link was "deleted" from the Brumby Government's 2008 Transport Plan.We were told that "people power" was a factor in the decision.

More bad news re the East West Link. We have confirmation that a 700 metre section across Royal Park will be open cut (and cover later - if ever); that the excavated spoil will be trucked out of Royal Park to fill up quarry sites in Keilor; and that CityLink will be widened on the west side taking out parklands, gardens, sports fields and a playground in the municipality of Moonee Valley.

We urge you not only to make a submission but if you belong to a group, please send on this request to your members.

Download the templates here (word docs):

- Submission to Comprehensive Impact Statement on the East West Link November 2013(1).doc
- East-West-Link-Submission-Coversheet-301013.doc

Regards

Julianne Bell
Secretary
Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.
PO Box 197
Parkville 3052

NOTES

Thanks to Bernard Flinn for the Video giving graphic information on the proposed development.

Victoria First is a new organisation to promote democratic empowerment over the size of Victoria's population. It was launched today by Kelvin Thomson, Labor MP for the Wills electorate in Victoria. Victoria is a state in Australia that is at the center of the elite push for a huge population, which is projected to go from 17m in 1994 to 37.5 million by 2050, and possibly 70 million by 2100. Currently immigration contributes 60% + to annual population growth in Australia. Membership forms for Victoria First inside.

This first film of Kelvin Thomson's Victoria First launch speech is the first of several records of this event. Other films will be uploaded of interviews, discussion, election and question time.

Download Membership application form for Victoria First here

Already, infrastructure and services are failing to keep up. In the wake of the population tsunami inflicted on Australia by a runaway power elite in parliament and the press, nature is being paved over with unique fauna in danger of disappearing forever. Homelessness is a new feature of Victorian society. Suicide rates and drug use are climbing. Industrial conditions and wages are declining. There are weekly protests in front of parliament over loss of self-government in the suburbs. Many of these protests are led by women representing community groups. The mainstream media reports little of this, but Kelvin Thomson seems to have picked up on it. Julianne Bell, the force behind Protectors of Public Lands Inc. and Jill Quirk, President of the Victorian and Tasmanian branches of Sustainable Population Australia hold the offices of Secretary and Assistant secretary to Victoria First. This is a reflection of Kelvin's trust and respect for them. The vice President is Michael Bayliss, who ran for the Stable Population Party this year and the President is, of course, Kelvin Thomson .

Kelvin Thomson seems to be the only politician in Australia who chooses to represent the environmental and democratic interests of Australians in the face of the Growth Lobby. See more detail at http://candobetter.net/?q=GrowthLobby and http://candobetter.net/?q=taxonomy/te

Film 2.Kelvin Thomson Victoria First incorporation 1Dec 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhFbwNJ8Dk4&feature=player_detailpage

This film documents the Elections, Resolutions, and Incorporation of Victoria First.

By Brian McGavin, UK-based writer and analyst. 2013

Burning the candle at both ends
Today there is a ‘Silent Crisis’ in our midst. The crisis, still largely unrecognised, is potentially greater than all the other problems that transfix our policy makers.

For many decades now there has been a wilful blindness in recognising that relentless human population growth is one of the pre-eminent problems we face. A problem that is driving the astonishing growth of fossil fuel use and its depletion, climate warming, bio-diversity loss, the growing shortage of fresh water to meet human needs - and as a consequence of these changes - the prospect that agriculture will be unable to produce enough food to feed us.

Our children our facing a hugely challenging future. We are already feeling the changes – declining real wages, soaring commodity and energy prices, growing infra-structure pressures and overcrowding, driven by unsustainable population growth. Add to this a now faltering global economy based on the impossibility of endless growth and debt, with politicians throwing billions in taxpayers' money around to feed ‘business as usual’. This will need to be radically rethought to keep our complex society functioning.

In most countries today existing populations are not living environmentally sustainably, yet even if the UN’s assumption of birth-rate decline in developing countries happens, global population will rise to over 9.6 billion by 2050. Less reported is that if current birth rates persist, the United Nations Population Division warned in October 2011, that the world's population could more than double to over 15 billion in the lifetime of many people alive today.

In Africa, the UN admits that it won’t meet key Millennium Development Goals. Many countries in Africa already have massive unemployment and not enough food. How will they provide all the schools, jobs, hospitals and food to sustain populations that are set to more than double and in some cases triple in size in less than 40 years?

Governments will be struggling with millions of unemployed and hungry people attracted to violence and extremism. Look at the problems already in our news in countries like Haiti, Pakistan, Somalia, Mali, Yemen, Egypt and Afghanistan – all countries on food aid, with exploding populations and increasingly scarce resources, who export surplus people to North America, Europe and Australia – yet population growth is barely mentioned!

In a few years, we face major oil energy decline as global demand outstrips supply.

A huge problem is most alternative energy sources are poor net energy performers.

Professor John Beddington, former UK Chief Scientist, warned in March 2009 that: “Our food reserves are at a 50-year low, but by 2030 we need to be producing 50% more food, we will need 50% more energy, and 30% more fresh water. They are dramatic problems, and they are all intimately connected.”

You can try reducing consumption all you want, but when you keep adding 100 million and another 100 million, you simply drive every human to a lower and lower standard of living. You cannot escape that reality.

Saving the planet and greenwash

Most environmental organisations tell us that ‘if only we each reduced our environmental demand, population growth would not be a problem’. But our economic system based on growth is driving us in the opposite direction. Even if all the efficiency and renewable alternatives could be implemented the savings would be quickly wasted if populations continue to grow.

Demographic impacts were discussed sensibly back in the 1970s but since then a combination of political blindness and political correctness, an alliance of ill-informed religious dogmatists and an economic doctrine of 'out with limits', has undermined common sense and political backbone.

Climate change is heard, but many people, not least politicians, are in profound ignorance of the huge challenges we now face, nearly all linked to the relentless rise in human numbers and diminishing resources. Aiding and abetting this is a celebrity and sport obsessed media that cheers endless growth to prosperity and drowns out wider coverage on key issues impacting on our future.

Why would we think it better to create energy shortages, resource shortages, lowered quality of life, a housing crisis, lowered standard of living, more air pollution, grid-locked traffic, bio-diversity loss, and many more calamities caused by ever increasing population pressures?

If governments won’t talk population, then they are not serious about cutting emissions, managing the water supply, managing food supplies, and a secure quality of life for our people.

It is not a question of ‘either or’ and who needs to act. We are in this together. Rich nations are consuming too much and populations continue to rise. Legitimate aspirations to raise living standards in high population countries like China and India are consuming ever-more resources. In many developing countries with acute water and food shortages, populations are projected to double or triple in size within 40 years – driving social unrest and migration on a massive scale.

There are several key challenges we have to talk about and face. In particular, ensuring development aid from donor countries delivers fully accessible and properly funded reproductive health care for all, along with equal access to education for girls and women. In many countries there are still barriers to this. We also have to start incentivising welfare systems to encourage fewer births rather than more and aim for balanced migration.

Moral values?

Some people believe they have a right to have as many children as they want, whether they can look after them or not and fail to understand or just ignore the consequences of growing populations. Many commentators wilfully promote an ever-larger population in the name of freedom of choice and growth. There will be precious little choice left if we go on multiplying with no thought for the future.

Others claim their religion for actions that impact on others: Have large families "in the name of God" ; Over-consuming resources? "God will provide” - so we don't need to think about the consequences; and when the day of reckoning and collapse arrives - "It is God's will" – an opt-out from moral responsibility.

We have higher intellect to understand the consequences of our actions. Do we plan for a secure and better life or do we carry on blindly toward a minefield of lethal limits?

Rights come with responsibilities. Society has a right to expect its citizens to act in ways that do not endanger others. We still have a choice. The world badly needs a grown-up, rational discussion on population - without blame, abuse and hysteria.

Our children will not thank us for being driven to an abyss.

The media’s treatment of the recent tragedy of migrants drowning off the Italian island of Lampedusa was predictable. Whenever a local population—whether it be in Greece, Italy, or elsewhere—is inundated with a flood of refugees, a standard news template is applied.

The formula is to convert a broad social calamity into a heart-rending human-interest story that will provoke an emotional response trumping any sober analysis. The intended message is clear. Any number of refugees have an unreserved right to be accommodated by the host society, at whatever the cost.

And the host society and its politicians have an unequivocal moral obligation to meet migrants’ demands, notwithstanding the burdens of preserving a tattered social safety net in the midst of austerity measures and high unemployment in many Mediterranean countries.

Then we discover that most have fled in the night within a day of being landed on the Italian mainland and being offered six months accommodation, according to Rome Social Services. Many are though to be heading for the more generous benefit cultures in Northern Europe.

The fate of the Lampedusan boat people is tragic, but do the media and politicians seriously think that Europe can take in the populations of Eritrea and sub-Saharan Africa? Where and when will the line be drawn? Do not Europeans—indeed, any people—have the moral right to set limits to their generosity or to husband resources for the primary use of their own citizens?

These are the issues that so many journalists never raise. Apparently the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the BBC and many others do not acknowledge limits and refugees have rights. That is what we have been told and that is what many of us have come to believe.

Thus it is possible for an indigenous population to see its own displacement as a necessary and vital exercise in humanity, "diversity,” "tolerance,” "pluralism," and democracy rather blatant colonization. In many primary schools in the UK now, virtually 100 per cent of pupils are of foreign origin, where many translators are being hired at public expense to maintain communications in the classroom.

On CBC radio, for example, in a discussion with a French author who expressed concern about growing Islamification of Europe, it was possible for the CBC interviewer to say, without fear of challenge that "we" in Canada are proud of our great diversity of religions and cultures. The multicultural experiment has been a big success. Like the audience, he had lived in the CBC Matrix for so long that he could no longer distinguish between the reality of grassroots concern and the virtual reality that he and others have synthesized over time.

In October and November 2013 the BBC and the UK’s Channel 4 News, did several reports looking at the plight of 'migrant workers looking for a better life' in Athens, southern Italy and Sodertalje - a town south of Stockholm, where the Swedish government's 'remarkable humanity and generous welfare system' has enabled 1000's of immigrants to move in and soon be granted Swedish citizenship.

The Channel 4 news reporter, Matt Frei, noted that they didn't come across any white people while in the town. No mention was made of the views of indigenous Swedes to this social onslaught or whether it was a good policy for Sweden. In the cities of Oslo and Malmo crime rates and attacks on women have gone up significantly. None of this is covered by the international media. The would-be migrants are hardly ever referred to as illegals - always the positive term 'migrant workers', proffering a sense of legitimacy.

Now the Swedish government wants to spread the burden more fairly, pushing other EU countries to take their 'fair share' of this Swedish generosity to would be immigrants. The tone politically and in the media is to unquestioningly accept this continual pressure on the EU, Canada and elsewhere to accept its humanitarian duty, never questioning how this is increasing home grown terrorist threats, food insecurity and infrastructure pressures. It is blatant one-sidedness by a supposedly balanced media.

The migration of Europeans to North America and Australia in the 19th and early 20th century took place in a less crowded world, but large-scale migration now raises vital social, environmental and economic questions about where the world is going and how we deliver reform and a better life for people wherever they are born.

By Tim Murray and Brian McGavin

Please help spread the word on this Animal Liberation petition.
#10;ey-with-fridge-or-freezer-purchase">http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/bing-lee-stop-the-offer-of-a-free-turk
ey-with-fridge-or-freezer-purchase. It relates to Animal Liberation's expose earlier this year at an Inghams turkey slaughterhouse where turkeys were beaten repeatedly.

Lateline Report with video footage (Text below)

Lateline Report transcript

Australian Broadcasting Corporation Broadcast: 20/03/2013
Reporter: Michael Vincent

Animal Liberation has obtained video footage of workers apparently bashing and kicking turkeys at a major poultry processor on the outskirts of Sydney.

Transcript TONY JONES, PRESENTER: Police are being asked to investigate video footage that appears to show repeated acts of animal cruelty at a major poultry processor on the outskirts of Sydney.

The video, showing some workers bashing and repeatedly kicking turkeys, was obtained by Animal Liberation at an Inghams plant.

And a warning: there are some graphic and disturbing images. This exclusive report from Michael Vincent and producer Sashka Koloff.

MICHAEL VINCENT, REPORTER: For two weeks hidden cameras tracked workers as they took turkeys from crates and shackled them before they were stunned and slaughtered

A fallen bird is kicked. Then kneed. Distressed, it flaps about helplessly and is kicked again.

The bird's distress appears to bring joy to this worker.

Finally the bird is picked up and slammed onto the floor and bashed into the cages four times.

A co-worker observes without intervening.

And then a final act of cruelty: the turkey is repeatedly stomped on until it is still.

This is just one incident from two weeks of covert filming at Inghams' turkey processing plant in Sydney's south-west.

Here, another bird is bashed and kneed.

On another day, a bird is kicked five times.

It appears to be common behaviour.

Sometimes the workers take it in turns to knee then kick the same bird as it hangs in its shackles on the production line.

A few seconds later, the two workers appear to celebrate. Then one of them slams a bird against the factory wall.

These live birds are treated like toys to be ridden or bashed.

EMMA HURST, ANIMAL LIBERATION: I think this is definitely some of the worst that we've seen.

MICHAEL VINCENT: Emma Hurst is from Animal Liberation which provided the footage to Lateline.

EMMA HURST: You're just seeing this whole - complete disconnect from the suffering that these animals are experiencing as though these animals are just mere objects and that they're there for their enjoyment to torture
them.

MICHAEL VINCENT: Here, a worker apparently tries to separate the bird's head from its body, stretching its neck from the cages while it is attached to the moving shackles. He fails. But later, there's another attempt. The bird
breaks free.

EMMA HURST: Every single day we found incidences of concern where workers are going out of their way to intentionally abuse these animals and to cause harm on these animals. And that's - it's just absolutely horrendous.

MICHAEL VINCENT: It's not just the intentional harm; there are also serious concerns about the general handling of the birds.

EMMA HURST: Because these birds are so large, it's not appropriate for them to be shackled. If you think about an eight to 17-year-old - eight to 17 kilogram animal, it's almost the same weight as a three-year-old child being
hung upside down by its ankles and we're seeing feet actually rip off the animals as well.

MICHAEL VINCENT: Animal Liberation says these images capture legs being separated from live birds.

This, however, is perhaps the most telling image captured in the entire two weeks.

Look at this. The worker - you can actually see him - he looks around, sees his work colleague, goes and has a check of the doorway and then comes back to line up the animal.

EMMA HURST: Yeah, so, it's looking around to make sure - he knows there's something wrong with this. It's not that these people could argue that, you know, "We thought that this was perfectly fine. They know that this is unacceptable.

MARK SIMPSON, VETERINARIAN: Having done work for a number of welfare organisations, it's amongst the worst I've ever seen.

MICHAEL VINCENT: Dr Mark Simpson is a vet who has viewed the footage. He's been asked by Animal Liberation to prepare a report which will go to police and animal welfare authorities.

MARK SIMPSON: If this sort of behaviour was witnessed in general public, there'd be a huge outcry. There'd be - the people involved would be physically restrained, I'm sure, police would be involved, the full force of the law would be brought immediately to prevent any further pain and suffering to animals.

MICHAEL VINCENT: At Inghams' processing plant the production line was continuing today. Inghams is Australia's largest turkey processor.

This afternoon we went to Inghams' Sydney headquarters to show their CEO the footage.

We've just spent an hour in the office of Inghams chief executive Kevin McBain. He sat silently while watching the entire footage. He's declined to give us an on-camera interview, but he did provide us with this statement:

KEVIN MCBAIN, CEO, INGHAMS (male voiceover): "We want to reassure Australians that Inghams does not tolerate the mistreatment of our livestock. We condemn the animal abuse we have seen in the footage and will - as a matter of urgency - work to review, retrain and reinforce our animal welfare standards throughout our organisation. We are investigating and working with all relevant parties to address and resolve these intolerable incidents."

MICHAEL VINCENT: Animal welfare groups are now demanding constant CCTV monitoring in all abattoirs.

MARK SIMPSON: I'll be making a strong call in my report for mandatory video monitoring of these critical stages in the process of slaughtering animals. They're - you know, these animals give their life for the benefit of humans and we have a responsibility to make sure where that happens, it happens as humanely as possible.

MICHAEL VINCENT: New South Wales police have been asked to investigate the Inghams footage.

Michael Vincent, Lateline.

TONY JONES: And you can read Inghams' full statement on the Lateline website, below.

20 March, 2013

Media Statement

"In light of the footage that we have viewed today we want to reassure Australians that Inghams does not tolerate the mistreatment of our livestock.

We condemn the animal abuse we have seen in the footage and will - as a matter of urgency - work to review, retrain and reinforce our animal welfare standards throughout our organisation.

Inghams has a strong commitment to animal welfare. We have Best Practice Animal Welfare Programs and Standards in place. We work with regulatory animal welfare specialists to ensure these programs are active and operating throughout all aspects of the company. The programs are regularly audited internally and by second and third party auditors to ensure compliance with standards.

We are investigating and working with all relevant parties to address and resolve these intolerable incidents."

Kevin McBain, CEO, Inghams Enterprises Pty Limited

SYDNEY | It is the third day that Malaysian citizens have occupied the headquarters of Australian rare earth miner, Lynas Corporation. The ‘Bury Lynas with 1,000,000 signatures’ petition campaign was launched in August and already 1.2 million Malaysians have signed the petition. This is how strongly many Malaysians feel about the plant.

Wong Tack, chairman, Himpunan Hijau (Green Assembly) said,

“We have set up our protest camp right on the doorstep of the companies head quarters.”

Video: Himpunan Hijau occupies HQ of Australian toxic polluting company Lynas.

“We will stay here until the Lynas Annual General meeting of shareholders this coming Friday the 29th November. More Malaysians will fly into Sydney on the 28th November to join us.”

The Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) is located 2km from a residential area of 30,000 people and some 25km from Kuantan potentially putting 700,000 people directly at risk from many toxic leaks and emissions. A by-product of the plant is radioactive thorium (Th). Exposure to Thorium can cause cancer posing serious risks to workers at the LAMP and surrounding communities, flora and fauna.

“Our purpose here is to send the strongest message to Lynas’ management and investors that we will never let go of our struggle until the Lynas plant in Gebeng is SHUT DOWN!”

‘Bury Lynas with 1,000,000 signatures’ petition

In the month of August 2013, Himpunan Hijau launched the ‘Bury Lynas with 1,000,000 signatures’ petition campaign. They achieved their target of 1 million signatures in just 36 days. To-date, 1.2 million Malaysians have signed the petition.

“Our petition clearly demonstrates the strong determination and commitment of Malaysians to shut down Lynas advanced material plant,” stated Mr Wong Tack

“Lynas operates it’s plant with violations of rules, regulations and safe practices. Such incompetent, irresponsible and immoral acts cannot be tolerated.”

“The health of Innocent fishermen and villagers, including women and children is at risk. Their livelihoods are being jeopardised by bad business from Lynas who has no social licence to operate.”

“Most importantly, radioactive pollution does not just affect people of this generation, but for generations to come. On the grounds of humanity, no one should be a bystander on this issue”.

For more info and contacts: http://imgur.com/a/8rDQr

NOTES

Photos: Peter Boyle Six Malaysian activists from the Himpunan Hijau (Green Assembly) group have begun a 24-hour, week-long occupation of the front of the corporate HQ of Lynas, the Australian company that has built an unwanted toxic rare earths refinery in Kuantan , Malaysia. They have come with a petition with the signatures of 1.2 million Malaysians who demand that the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant be shut down. See and share this video: Please share this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YdLKRvV4Zo http://stoplynas.org

Blackfish tells the heartbreaking and shocking story of Tilikum, an orca who was torn from his family in the wild and imprisoned in a concrete bathtub at SeaWorld, where he made headlines after killing trainer Dawn Brancheau in 2010. After more than 30 years in captivity, he lashed out in frustrated rage, drawing worldwide attention to SeaWorld’s practice of imprisoning sensitive, intelligent marine mammals and denying them everything that is natural and important to them.

#ixzz2lt3Qbcxj"> Screaming orca fated for SeaWorld urges public to watch Blackfish

BlackFish – official trailer

Attracting up to 12 million visitors a year across the three locations, SeaWorld was rocked by Brancheau's death after Orca whale Tilikum dragged her by her ponytail into the water, scalped her and dismembered her.

Officials claimed trainer Mrs Brancheau's hair brushed the nose of the killer whale, called Tillikum, as she petted him in a pool (2010). 

Mrs Brancheau, an experienced trainer, was lying down in a few inches of water with her head close to the whale when it reached across to grab her hair.

The whale grabbed the 40-year-old married trainer in its awesome jaws and held her until she drowned. The death was witnessed by up to 50 tourists.

Kidnapped Marine Wildlife

Kidnapping marine life from the ocean, removing them from their families, imprisoning them for life, and forcing them to perform tricks for people who pay $75 a ticket is not about educating the public as Sea World would have you believe; it's all about profits.

John Crowe, a former diver, explains the kidnapping process in one of the most poignant interviews in Blackfish. In 1970, he was involved in a kidnapping operation in Puget Sound, Washington. When he and the other hunters tried to get the baby orcas into a stretcher, the family was in a big line communicating and refused to leave when their nets were removed.

At that point, he realized he was kidnapping a child from its mother. On the verge of tears, he said it was the worst thing he'd ever done. 

Unbeknown to the the victim, and the public, Dawn Brancheau was not Tilikum's first casualty.

In 1991, trainer Keltie Lee Byrne fell into a tank holding Tilikum and two other whales at Sealand of the Pacific in Victoria, Canada. A homicide inquest found that the whales had prevented Byrne from climbing out of the tank and ruled her death an accident.

Soon afterwards he was sold to SeaWorld where he sired 12 calves.

In 1999, 27-year-old homeless Daniel Dukes was found dead and nude, draped over Tilikum’s back. He had stayed until SeaWorld closed for the evening, evaded security and managed to get into the tank.

"Death at Seaworld"

Death at SeaWorld is written by New York City reporter David Kirby, who claims that killer whales kept in captivity suffer immense emotional and psychological trauma and spoke to former trainers and  campaigning animal rights advocates to present his damning case. Staff interviewed by Kirby told him of killer whales destroying their teeth on metal gates and then subsequently having those teeth removed by staff wielding power drills.

He claims that calves are separated from their mothers, causing both parent and child massive distress and in one instance almost leading to a fatality as an irate mother took out her anger on a trainer at SeaWorld's San Diego headquarters.

 There are no known records of killer whales attacking humans in the wild, while even mild aggression towards trainers at close quarters is not uncommon.

Orcas are inherently wild animals, and their size, behaviours, psychologically damaging capture, separation from their mothers and pods, and having to be confined in bath-tub sized aquariums, makes them unsuitable for training, displays for human entertainment. It seems that people like to see wild animals “perform”, in a submissive display of dominance.

MRI scans have revealed that Orca whales have a large component of their brain used for processing emotions. They have a language, they move in large interconnected families and, as one hunter said, ‘they know what is going on.’ The wails are nothing more than the sounds of excruciating grief.

Killer whales are incredibly beautiful, intelligent and emotional animals. They simply do not deserve to be ripped away from their families and kept in restrictive concrete pools for the entertainment of humans. Keeping animals in captivity is bad, but the depth to which it damages and arguably destroys them, and they become self-destructive and spontaneously violent.

The Australian Sea World doesn’t have orca whales, but it does have dolphins and a baby polar bear – all of whom I reckon would rather not be kept in enclosures in Queensland.

Things at SeaWorld are not looking good—even its owners are jumping ship. Following declining ticket sales and a public outcry over the documentary Blackfish, the chair of SeaWorld's  board of directors David D'Alessandro sold 43,179 shares of the company's stock.

Petition: Help Animals Imprisoned by SeaWorld

New projections released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics have revised upwards the growth estimates that triggered the Big Australia debate in 2009 and 2010. At that time it was estimated that Australia was heading for 35 or 36 million by 2050. Now according to the ABS central projection we are tracking for 37.5 million by 2050, and possibly 70 million by 2100.

This growth will be overwhelmingly in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and Brisbane. Melbourne is set to double by 2060, to 8.5 million, and Perth and Brisbane are also set to double. Sydney will increase by 80%.

This increase will be disastrous for these cities. It will drive traffic congestion and gridlock, high rise and the loss of public open space, a widening gap between rich and poor and social inequality. It will fuel housing unaffordability and job insecurity for our young people.

It makes a farce of the view that population growth in Australia is about populating our regional and remote areas

14 million of the extra 18 million people projected for 2060 will move into just 4 cities.

The latest upward lift is a consequence of net overseas migration rising yet again. The Bureau of Statistics is now using a net annual migration figure of 240,000 per year, more than double the numbers just 10 years ago. Migration is now the source of 2/3 of our population growth.

To challenge the view that rapid population growth is a good thing, I am setting up a non-government organisation called Victoria First.

Its first meeting will be:
• Sunday, December 1st, 10am- 12 noon
• Flemington Community Centre, 25 Mt Alexander Rd, Flemington

From a Press Release by Kelvin Thomson, 27 November 2013.
(Cartoons by candobetter.net).

SYDNEY: Just a week after another fatal shark attack in Australia, University of Sydney PhD candidate and shark policy expert Christopher Neff is leading a world-first project to help reduce the public’s fear of sharks.

The project, entitled ‘Taking the Bite Out of Jaws: An evidence-based look at public fear of sharks’, is part of the Shark Week activities running until Saturday this week at Sea Life Sydney Aquarium.

The research will use 10 iPad touch-screens to survey Aquarium visitors when they enter and exit the Aquarium’s ‘Shark Valley’ exhibit to register their perceptions of sharks after witnessing different science- and conservation-based messages.

“Movies and television have made scaring people about sharks the easy part. This research is trying to find a new way to reduce public fears of sharks,” said Neff.

“This study uses iPads to survey people before and after they walk through an underwater tunnel with sharks swimming over them. We are looking at what messages lower people’s concerns about sharks because this can create more opportunities for shark bite prevention and conservation education.”

Following the week of survey collection, the statistical data will be analysed to seewhich messages are the most effective to reduce fears. Once the results have been reviewed, the survey will be adjusted and the project will be tested at other aquariums around the world.

Shark Week activities at Sea Life Sydney Aquarium are supported by the Sea Life Conservation Fund and the Save Our Seas Foundation.

For other candobetter.net articles on sharks see: the Secret life of sharks by Peter Kimley (book review) and "Jaws 2009, Coming soon to your shores" about how the monster shark in Jaws was actually a metaphor for property developers ruining local democracy and landscape.

A report released by the Federal Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics underlines just how inadequate and incompetent Melbourne’s recent planning has been.

The report analysed population growth, jobs growth and commuter flows in Australia’s four largest cities. It found:

1) Melbourne was the only city in which jobs growth in the outer suburbs had failed to keep pace with the population boom. Parts of outer Melbourne now have less than one job for every three working people, forcing residents to commute further for employment.

2) Eighty-four per cent of outer Melbournians drive to work, the highest level among Australia’s biggest cities, and just 9% use public transport.

Monash University Professor of Public Transport Graham Currie said any city growing in population without expanding public transport was planning for decline. He said “the future cupboard of public transport projects is looking bare” and that “If population grows by 25% but services remain essentially static, we have a per capita decline of 25 per cent in service levels. We are not responding to growth. Rather we are going backwards”.

This report reveals as a fraud the idea that Melbourne’s rapid population growth is okay. Jobs are far removed from homes, and workers are not using public transport, leading to traffic congestion, long commutes, and reduced quality of life for everybody – a planning debacle.

It’s all very well to say that what is needed is better planning, but expanding the urban growth boundary and high rise and urban consolidation have both given us the outcomes we have today. The better planning never happens, and it won’t as long as Melbourne’s population continues to grow by 200 a day, 1500 a week, 75,000 each year.

Originally published at http://kelvinthomson.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/melbourne-planning-debacle.html

Geoff at Aussiebushtreks writes, "This is very urgent. Please watch Corine Fisher's video. [Inside article]" Then Email upper house pollies without delay. There is still a chance to stop O`Farrells dreadful destructive Planning Law. If you go to http://betterplanningnetwork.good.do/nsw/email-upper-house-mps/ your email will automatically go to Upper House Parliamentarians. Don't dilly dally!

(Video URL is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJfrSqxpmYY#t=37)

The film tells about the Better Planning Network, which has 115 groups involved, with their numbers rising.

Unlike in the Lower House of Parliament, the NSW Government does not have the majority in the Upper House. Therefore, to ensure that its Planning Bills get through the Upper House, the Government needs the vote of either: Labor; and/or the Greens; and/or the Christian Democrats and the Shooters and Fishers.

The Upper House debate of the Planning Bills could occur as soon as 12 November. It is therefore vital to email Upper House MPs NOW and voice your concerns about the Government's Disgraceful, corrupt and Destructive Planning Bills.

Please write an email in your own words. Some key points you may wish to make are:

The Government's Planning Bills go against its election promise to return planning powers to the local community.
The Government's Planning Bills will not deliver certainty or transparency for communities.
The principle of Ecologically Sustainable Development must be the overarching driver of the legislation.
The ease with which developers will be able to override local councils' planning controls to get their rezoning requests approved by the State, by the issuing of Strategic Compatibility Certificates (a green light to a spot rezoning) goes against the very concept of strategic planning. These provisions must be removed from the Bill.
The restriction of code-assessable development to 'nominated growth areas' will create 2 classes of residents: the first, in low-density suburbs, will have the right to comment on most developments in their neighbourhood; the second, in growth areas, will not.
The Government's Planning Bills do not provide any simpler or more user-friendly a system that the one we already have.
There is no evidence that the Government's Planning Bills will improve housing affordability simply by increasing housing supply. This is because the drivers of housing affordability are complex and include tax (eg. negative gearing) and welfare policies which the Planning Bills will not address.[1]
No amount of tweaking can fix the Bills and it's best to scrap the Bills and work with all stakeholders to draft new legislation.

NOTES

[1] Candobetter Ed.: Less complex but poorly known by the general public is that State governments in Australia drive population growth upward to benefit developers. They do this by encouraging business immigration and family reunion via State websites inviting immigrants. Australia's federal government is in charge of setting a ceiling on total immigration but, since 2009, Australia's population growth has come 60 per cent from extremely high mass immigration. We are talking hundreds of thousands here. See http://candobetter.net/?q=taxonomy/term/5149

Job cuts and price increases in the lead-up to privatisation were the reason Royal Mail missed key performance targets earlier this year, postal union Unite claimed yesterday.

Postal regulator Ofcom said the recently privatised company missed a requirement to deliver 93 per cent of first-class letters the day after collection, reaching only 91.7 per cent.

Ofcom said Royal Mail was also required to meet a target of 91.5 per cent of next-day delivery for first-class post throughout Britain and not just in densely populated areas.

But it achieved this level in only 62 per cent of the required postcode areas in the year to March 2013.

"Ofcom is concerned about Royal Mail's failure to meet certain service targets," the regulator said, threatening fines if the company continued to deliver late.

Unite, which represents around 7,000 postal managers, said the failures were due to job reductions in the run-up to the firm's privatisation.

Unite Royal Mail officer Brian Scott called for a company-wide review into tackling the issue of staff reductions and overworking.

He said: "Royal Mail has been setting itself up for privatisation in the last year, making unnecessary job reductions and cutting corners to make it a more viable sell-off.

"Members working in delivery offices are under a huge amount of pressure and this continues with no obvious solution."

The Campaign for Public Ownership said it was not just job reductions that were part of the government's preparations for privatisation.

Stamp prices were also increased in the run-up "to turn the people against the company" and to pre-empt an inevitable price rise once investors gained control - which would have resulted in a public backlash.

Campaign director Neil Clark said the future was bleak for the service. He told the Star: "After the next general election the universal service will disappear or mail delivery will take on the heavily subsidised railway model."

A Royal Mail statement said: "We were disappointed that we didn't meet all of the regulatory quality-of-service targets we were required to last year."

Footnote[s]

Today I helped a registered nurse to scan documents to submit in a job application. While we were doing this, she mentioned to me with great concern that she had heard that the government is talking about making people work until they are 70 years old and make them take out loans on their homes in order to fund their retirement. "I'm only 46," she said, "but I didn't work when my children were young and I never had the money to save for a home. So I'm supposed to keep on working until I'm 70. I'm too tired now to work full-time because, even though standards are slipping, working conditions are getting tougher and tougher and management more and more unreasonable." The latest productivity report on An Aging Australia supplies policies to undermine the political strength of older people who would otherwise be able to represent the rest of the community and defend the wealth and security basis of the younger generations. Blaming older people for economic decline that has its real seeds in resource decline sets the scene for generational splitting. However, the real targets are actually today's young people and their children.

You would think that in an Australia where the Productivity Commission (see below) is banging on about how health care for an aging population is going to be a huge slice of our economic pie that my friend would be sitting pretty. Not so.

Setting the tone for scary policies: "An Aging Australia" Productivity Commission Report

The news about people working until they are 70 years old and being made to sell their houses back to the bank comes from another rather Orwellian report by the Australian Productivity Commission. The Commission seems to want to blame a lot of its suggestions here on the aging population and the costs of health care. (The reference is An Aging Australia, available at this URL: http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/129749/ageing-australia.pdf).

The report has a narrow economic basis whereby GDP = Numbers of Workers X Productivity X Terms of trade. There is no overt consideration of resource depletion, although you can tell it is lurking namelessly. The report presents as an excuse for more population growth, even though it predicts an indefinite (possibly endless) period of economic poverty, when people will have to borrow on their homes to live and work until they drop for declining returns, which it relates vaguely to the end of the mining boom.

Demographic Fairy-tales

In a section entitled "Demography: Net overseas migration", the Report comes clean on what is driving high population growth in Australia: Successive recent governments have pushed very high immigration.

"Unlike either fertility or mortality, [Net Overseas Migration - NOM] is more readily controllable by the Australian Government (DIAC 2013). Most particularly, the Government can set quotas on its migration program [...]."

The report also admits that our extremely high mass immigration is a wild card, although it uses less colourful language:

"Were such levels of [Net Overseas Migration - NOM] to persist over the next 50 years, it would imply a considerably more populous Australia than most population projections."

The section concludes with a sublimely irresponsible comment about why our population might not spiral out of control but somehow stop after 2017 or something like that:

"Typically, advanced countries experience population growth slowdowns as their population numbers rise, and some reversion of Australian population growth rates to the average OECD rate might ultimately be expected," it concludes, blithely.

My comment The Report's faith in Australia experiencing a population growth slowdown to the 'average OECD rate' is dangerously ridiculous in the light of Australia's high immigration. It is presumably relying on 'demographic transition' ideology, which is (a) unreliable and (b) does not take high immigration into account. Australia's population growth was slowing naturally but this natural trend has been completely distorted by State and Federally led mass immigration.[1]

See footnote for full quoted passage.[2]

There are some very slanted presentations of the medical costs of aging, notably in a diagram, "Hospital Costs by Age and Sex 2010-2011," which shows a kind of upside-down pyramid with costly old people at its wide top and low cost young people near the narrow base. This gives an apparent cost-weight per elderly person. The casual observer could easily infer from the graph that there were more people over 65 and 85 plus than all the other age-groups in 2011. In fact, due mostly to mass immigration, these numbers will actually be continually bloated, year after year, instead of dying back naturally as the baby-boomers leave their mortal coil.

Mass immigration, discontinued in Western Continental Europe after the first oil shock in 1973, meant that population numbers will decline naturally there as oil declines. In Australian and other Anglophone countries, however, there will be no such gentle and natural decline if artificial population boosting through high immigration is allowed to continue.

The report justifies its presentation of 'trends' in the following statement:

"The apparent neat precision of any particular number is not meant to convey that this shall inevitably be the result, when over a 50 year period a wide variety of unknown factors will arise. But the existence of unknown factors is no basis for not considering the trends, which are the important aspect of this analysis. The trends are unmistakable in most cases."

The problem is that those 'trends' in population, and their proposed solutions in erosion of housing equity and retirement benefits will be taken for gospel by the mass media and parliament. They will be portrayed as inevitable and used to further the corporate agenda, which is to control more and more of Australia's remaining wealth, and allow the majority of citizens less and less control over their material and political circumstances. The very narrow context of this kind of economic report prevents it from recommending citizen empowerment or admitting to resource depletion or inviting comparison with more democratic societies and reconsideration of our legal system. Can the report researchers and writers be criticised for this? Not really; they are working within the same paradigm as the nurses I described at the beginning of this article. It would be career suicide for them to suggest that we are going in the wrong direction with overpopulation and overconsumption.

The Report fails to take into account some enormously influential trends in climate change, overpopulation, oil depletion, loss of democracy (e.g. laws against 'terrorism'), numbers of wars with increasing impact.

It doesn't consider that during the industrial revolution where its life-expectancy charts begin, life expectancy went down to less than half of the ordinary biblical span of three score and ten before it went up again 'due to modern medicine'. And that now diabetes and other nutritional diseases related to our so-called advanced lifestyles and medicine are reducing life expectancy, not increasing it. It does acknowledge a failure to factor those disease risks in, but still merrily uses its projections:

"As the ABS notes, this approach also ignores the possibility of major adverse events, such as major pandemics or wars, though historically these have sometimes been important. Some of these events would be difficult to estimate given their rarity in historical data, and at best, could be treated separately as low probability, high impact events with assumed statistical distributions. For example, the European Actuarial Consultative Group (2006) assesses that there is a high risk of a major global pandemic over a decade, but that events with significant excess population mortality are unlikely. Others doubt that it is possible to make ‘any scientifically based prediction about the emergence of future pandemics ’ (Taubenberger and Morens 2009). Given this, it is more reasonable to take account of other significant risks — such as the possible adverse impacts on longevity of lifestyle factors (growing obesity) and antibiotic resistant bacteria, which would have a gradual effect and could be modelled as a lower - life expectancy scenario in mortality projections. "

In fact, the Report shows what struck me as a wicked sense of humour at times, as if it recognises its own absurdity. On prevention of obesity and other diseases like AIDS, it seems to suggest that dying young might be more economical in the long run:

Second, and more subtly, gauging the effectiveness and efficiency of preventative measures on a disease - by - disease basis can miss the reality that people live to die another day (Bonneux et al. 1998). Dollars saved on avoiding (or minimising the costs) of one disease opens the possibility of people experiencing another costly disease. Ideally, assessments of particular interventions should adopt a longitudinal approach that takes into account the timing and costs of disease and quality of life under the counterfactual that no preventative action is taken.

Housing equity, poverty and power

The Productivity Commission Report "canvasses "policy approaches currently over - the - horizon, but nevertheless relevant to a deeper consideration of the challenges of an ageing Australia (including the role of non - fungible housing equity as a financing method and the link between labour force participation and the Age Pension eligibility age)."

Comment:This report supplies policies to undermine the political strength of older people who would otherwise be able to represent the rest of the community and defend the wealth and security basis of the younger generations. Blaming older people for economic decline that has its real seeds in resource decline sets the scene for generational splitting. The power elites (in the form of banks and corporate government) can then find ways to seize remaining assets and resources in the community for their own enrichment. Young people should realise that this report actually targets their generation - see the huge bulge in the 2014 population pyramid of people below the age of 60. These are the post-baby-boomers. It is their old age that is targeted here. Without land and housing they have no means to grow food, no secure shelter, no security to pass on to their families. The Productivity Commission, with its very narrow parameters of examination, is effectively providing future governments with excuses to make laws to beggar the population. And the Commission is cynically aware of this, implying that young people are stupidly myopic and won't realise that it is their futures that are being targeted, because they cannot imagine being old:

"Despite the possibility of such responses [i.e. protests against giving up their homes], governments can use anti-avoidance measures to reduce the risks of such behaviours at older ages (as it does already with gifting provisions). And responses by the young to possible asset tests when they are old are likely to be relatively weak, reflecting discounting of the future , myopia and the fact that caps would apply to any government - backed equity withdrawal."

Don't you love the term government-backed 'equity withdrawal'? A great new term for the State stealing from its citizens.

On Housing equity: Aim: Put land outside the reach of banks.

To avoid being patsies to these predator policies, Australians need to create new community ownerships with special laws of inheritance for their children, to help relocalise power and organisation in line with families and clans. These are the only secure bases for people in hard times. The British legal model promotes the opposite. If Australia changed its system to Roman Law (the kind used throughout continental Europe) children would be guaranteed to inherit from their parents; shelter and income would be deemed civil rights at law. Another model that amounts to the same thing is the New Zealand Maori land-rights model, which guarantees every Maori descendent land which cannot be sold. Banks should not be able to take shelter and food-gardens from owners or their inheritors. Governments should not be able to legislate water prices out of reach of suburban food producers. Planners should not be able to authorise buildings which block sunlight from gardens and solar panels. People should all have rights to viable land. This is what is missing from this report, which assumes that we will all work for other people and rely on diminishing rations when we can no longer compete with young workers.

The Report trots out the low inflation assertion with which many Australians would disagree:

"The average Australian has nevertheless fared well in the last two decades in terms of net national disposable income per capita, low inflation and low unemployment."

In fact, inflation indicators fail to take into account the very high cost of land for housing, which drives up all other costs. Wages must be high enough for workers to pay the highest accommodation costs in the world and business must pay similar costs for premises, plus wages. Shrinking disposable income has appeared to stretch because of cheap imports from low-wage and low land-cost countries, like China. People have only been able to afford trinkets, however. Whilst rents and mortgages rose, dependence on wages and debt grew. With mass immigration and watering-down of industrial protection, wages and conditions are deteriorating and the cost of finite resources, shelter, food, water and power are inflating.

Conclusion: These trends are the result of government engineering the population to please corporate fancy. If Australians do not start to band together against their corporatised governments these nightmares will come to pass.

Commission Press Release: Key Points of An ageing Australia: preparing for the future

Productivity Commission, 22 November, 2013 [3]

"The report examines the effects of ageing on economic output (underpinned by changes in population, participation and productivity) and the resulting implications for government budgets were current policy settings to be maintained.

Key points:

Australia's population will both grow strongly and become older. Such slow but profound shifts in the nature of a society do not elicit the same scrutiny as immediate policy issues. The preferable time to contemplate the implications is while these near inevitable trends are still in their infancy.

Population ageing is largely a positive outcome, primarily reflecting improved life expectancy. A female (male) born in 2012 will on average live for an estimated 94.4 (91.6) years.

However, population growth and ageing will affect labour supply, economic output, infrastructure requirements and governments' budgets.

Australia's population is projected to rise to around 38 million by 2060, or around 15 million more than the population in 2012. Sydney and Melbourne can be expected to grow by around 3 million each over this period.

The population aged 75 or more years is expected to rise by 4 million from 2012 to 2060, increasing from about 6.4 to 14.4 per cent of the population. In 2012, there was roughly one person aged 100 years old or more to every 100 babies. By 2060, it is projected there will be around 25 such centenarians.

Total private and public investment requirements over this 50 year period are estimated to be more than 5 times the cumulative investment made over the last half century, which reveals the importance of an efficient investment environment.

Labour participation rates are expected to fall from around 65 to 60 per cent from 2012 to 2060, and overall labour supply per capita to contract by 5 per cent.

Average labour productivity growth is projected to be around 1.5 per cent per annum from 2012-13, well below the high productivity period from 1988-89 to 2003-04. Real disposable income per capita is expected to grow at 1.1 per cent per annum compared with the average 2.7 per cent annual growth over the last 20 years.

Collectively, it is projected that Australian governments will face additional pressures on their budgets equivalent to around 6 per cent of national GDP by 2060, principally reflecting the growth of expenditure on health, aged care and the Age Pension.

Major impending economic and social changes can create the impetus for new reform approaches not currently on the policy horizon. For example:

The design of the Age Pension and broader retirement income system might be linked to life expectancy after completion of the current transition to 67 years in 2023.

Using some of the annual growth in the housing equity of older Australians could help ensure higher quality options for aged care services and lower fiscal costs.

Wide ranging health care reforms could improve productivity in the sector that is the largest contributor to fiscal pressures. Even modest improvements in this area would reduce fiscal pressures significantly."

NOTES

26/11/2013: Correction to Stupid mistake about baby-boomers' ages corrected on population-pyramid-2014.jpg. I had them as tweny years older than they are. Apologies. Thanks Jill Quirk of SPA Victoria for pointing this out.

[1] For the latest on demographic theories and which ones hold water, see Sheila Newman, Demography, Territory and Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations, Countershock Press, 2013, Chapter 2, "Modern Fertility, Mortality and Development Myths."

[2] An Aging Australia, (Productivity Commission), pp.37-38:
"DEMOGRAPHY
While the technical definition and estimation of net overseas migration (NOM) is complex, it is a measure of long - term arrivals less long - term departures.

NOM has been a critical factor behind Australia’s population growth and will continue to be so (PC 2011 d ).

Unlike either fertility or mortality, NOM is more readily controllable by the Australian Government (DIAC 2013). Most particularly, the Government can set quotas on its migration program — which comprises three categories of migrant (humanitarian, skilled and family re-union). That said, the Australian Government does not have full control over NOM as any number of Australians (and New Zealanders) can arrive or depart. Moreover, the number of temporary entrants, such as long - term visitors and working holiday makers, is effectively uncapped. Their numbers are largely driven by other factors, such as economic conditions. However, since temporary entrants ultimately leave, they do not contribute to long - run population growth.

Currently, NOM is around 230000 per year, which is well above the longer - term average.

From 1948 to 2003, NOM was around 90 000 per year, with no upwards trend. In contrast, in the period 2003 – 2012, the average NOM was around 200000 and the trend growth was around 10000 per year (figure 2.2).

DIAC (2013)forecasts that current high levels of NOM will persist at least until 2017, but that its growth rate will decline. It projects NOM of around 250000 in 2017.
Were such levels of NOM to persist over the next 50 years, it would imply a considerably more populous Australia than most population projections.

It is difficult to establish whether a level of NOM around 200000 – 250000 is likely to persist. In part, the high recent levels may reflect strong relative economic and income growth in Australia c ompared to other countries, which make Australia an attractive destination. Given that the terms of trade are now declining, it is possible that NOM will fall somewhat from its current level.

The contribution of high relative fertility rates and migration means that Australia’s population is growing at a rate well above most OECD countries. Over the period from 1999 to 2010, Australia had the 4th highest population growth rate among OECD countries, with higher growth rates than some less developed economies, such as Mexico and Turkey (OECD 2013). The average growth rate for Australia (1.47 per cent growth per annum) was more than four times that for the 27 European Union countries (0.35 per cent per annum) and more than twice that of the OECD overall (0.68 per cent per annum). The persistence of NOM of 250000 persons per year would underpin continued high growth rates of this order.

Typically, advanced countries experience population growth slowdowns as their population numbers rise, and some reversion of Australian population growth rates to the average OECD rate might ultimately be expected. "

[3] This is a press release from the Productivity Commission about its report.

People all over the world have been shocked to discover that Mother Agnes Mariam, heroine to many women and men all over the world and peace activist on the ground in Syria, withdrew from speaking at a UK peace conference because two British supposedly 'left-wing' male speakers and journalists - Jeremy Scahill and Owen Jones - threatened to withdraw from speaking if she spoke. Neither speaker has given any substantive explanation for their objections to Mother Agnes, but it seems that both have succumbed to propaganda that the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad is brutal and that Agnes Mariam supports the government. This treatment of Mother Agnes Mariam is tragically bizarre, when she has eclipsed professional peace negotiators in so many spheres at once: In her physical bravery in rescuing thousands of people in the war-torn region; as a nun-pacifist woman-leader in the male-dominated politics of church and war; and as a local peace-activist in an internationalised field of jihadists. The article below seeks to highlight just some of these injustices. See links at the end of this article, under "Notes," including a filmed interview with Mother Agnes Mariam done by Susan Dirgham of AMRIS in Australia July 2013.

A few weeks ago, following months of siege in a suburb of Damascus, over 5000 civilians were helped to safety during a ceasefire negotiated by Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross. This suburb of Moadamiya al Sham was one of several around Damascus held by armed rebel groups and foreign jihadists, with the residents trapped there and facing serious food and supply shortages.

Whether these residents were supportive of the 'revolution' - or insurgency - or not, it was in the rebel groups interests to hold them there as 'human shields'; negotiating their release. Movement to the safety of government shelters in Damascus was therefore fraught with difficulties and dangers.

Mother Agnes risked life and got 5,400 people released from rebel capture

A 'negotiating team' was assembled to go into the heart of rebel territory, led by Mother Agnes - not just figuratively. She went ahead with a white flag, risking her life and faith that a sniper would not put an end to this humanitarian mission. Joined by the rest of the team she then came to a reconciliation and agreement with rebel leaders on the release of some 5,400 people, mostly women and children.

While this was a great success, perhaps more significant was the voluntary surrender of over 500 'rebel fighters', who had clearly been impressed by her entreaties to give up the fight and return to 'fight for Syria', accepting the Government's offer of amnesty.

In her report on the 'rescue of Moadamiya' she emphasises that the Government for its part kept to its word, and faith - that those men who genuinely surrender will not be punished or ill-treated.
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Syria inspired

It is as though the spirit of reconciliation and peace embodied in Jesus' preachings and actions 2000 years earlier in this land is being reborn, and it is happening through the agency of people of such genuine good will and faith as Mother Agnes. Such a spirit is infectious, and others are inspired to forgive and to reconcile and to trust; this is the spirit now which can heal Syria's dreadful wounds.

Treacherous foreign powers

The spirit that could heal those wounds .... were it not for the treachery and ill-intent of foreign powers who have already invested so much in destabilising Syrian society and destroying its wealth and infrastructure with their proxy armies of fanatics and mercenaries. The regaining of control by the Syrian government threatens the whole project for regional influence and control that is the driving force behind 'the West's' behaviour over Syria. It is increasingly clear that the West has lost the battle, in the absence of military intervention.

What should the 'Western powers' do?

So what should 'We' do? How can the West stop the truth of the last two and a half years emerging? The truth behind the many 'massacres' confected to excuse Western intervention? The truth of Syrians fleeing from rebel 'liberated' areas? ("Liberated from their inhabitants," as Mother Agnes points out.) The truth of the 'Chemical Weapons attack' on Ghouta that nearly brought about a regional war, despite not a single proven victim? ( The OPCW team did no autopsies.)

Perhaps those responsible for the recent denigration of Mother Agnes Mariam were inspired by biblical history, realising that a 'betrayal' from those who would be her supporters could deliver a mortal blow. And so it came to pass that contributors to the Stop the War Peace Conference in the UK refused to share a platform with this true peacemaker.

Have we learned anything in two thousand years?

NOTES

Related material:

Richard Edmondson, "‘Investigative Journalist’ Scahill Takes Swipe at Mother Agnes" of 17 Nov 2013.

Neil Clark, Mother Agnes and the ‘liberal’ hawks out to silence her of 20 Nov 2013.

Candobetter.net's Mother Agnes Mariam pages.

Mother Agnes Mariam's letter withdrawing from the Stop the War conference (pdf, 66K).

Internet Site of the UK Stop the War Conference.

What have Penrith Council done to address wild dog problem at the old ADI Site, where environmentalists attempted to resist Lend Lease clearing of wildlife rich, rare Cumberland Woodlands for years? Kangaroos killed by wild dogs metres from new houses at Jordan Springs. Lend Lease have been licenced by the NSW Environment Minister to manage the remnant Kangaroo population which is now contained within the proposed 900 ha Wianamatta Regional Park.

Western Sydney Conservation Alliance Inc
20th November 2013

The last remaining Kangaroos and Emus at the old ADI Site in Penrith are under attack from wild dogs with recent photo evidence showing one such attack on a large male Kangaroo took place only metres from new houses being developed by property giant Lend Lease. Lend Lease have been licenced by the NSW Environment Minister to manage the remnant Kangaroo population which is now contained within the proposed 900 ha Wianamatta Regional Park. The proposed Regional Park adjoins the Lend Lease housing development. Lend Lease, the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and Penrith Council have known of the the wild dog problem on the ADI Site for many years.

In February this year when Emus were escaping from the ADI Site and wandering the streets of Penrith a report came before Penrith Council on the issue of Lend Leases macrofauna management practices. A WSCA member addressed the Council meeting and raised the issue of wild dogs hunting Kangaroos and Emus. Council at the time resolved to write to Lend Lease, National Parks and Wildlife and Robyn Parker the NSW Environment Minister about feral animal management. http://bizsearch.penrithcity.nsw.gov.au/pccbps/Open/2013/CNL_04022013_MIN_WEB.HTM

Failure to maintain fencing endangers roos and children

“The fact that Kangaroos are being killed by dogs metres from new houses at Jordan Springs nine months after Penrith Council resolved to do something about the issue tells us that Penrith Council has failed to take this matter seriously. If a large male Kangaroo can be killed by dogs at the site so could a child. This is not just a matter of environmental destruction this is a matter of public health and safety involving the residents of Penrith. That risk is real as photo evidence shows Lend Lease are failing to maintain fencing between the houses and the proposed Regional Park”.

“The Jordan Springs development, supported by Penrith Council, has been an environmental and social disaster with hundreds of hectares of critically endangered Cumberland Plain Woodland turned to moonscape and our local roads in chaos due to traffic congestion and road works. And now Penrith Council is doing nothing to stop the poor old Kangaroos, that once called Jordan Springs home, being decimated by wild dogs.”

Council cheer-leader for Lend Lease, need to represent citizens

“Council must finally act on this matter and stop being a cheer leader for Lend Lease. Council is fully aware that Lend Lease and Robyn Parker the NSW Environment Minister have legal responsibilities for the welfare of Kangaroos of Emus at the ADI Site and to have a feral animal management plan in place to control animals such as dogs.”

Macrofauna reduction program and wild dogs

“In granting development zonings to Lend Lease over ten years ago the NSW Government required them to develop and implement a feral animal reduction program. This clearly is not happening as wild dogs have been on the site for years. The NSW Government also required Lend Lease to implement a Macrofauna population reduction program – a program meant to be overseen by the NSW Environment Minister. Lend Lease has spent millions of dollars on a sterilisation program and it is feared they are turning a blind eye to the wild dogs because the dogs are assisting them to quickly bring down the Kangaroo numbers.”

“Penrith Council, the NSW Government and Lend Lease appear complicit in this further attack on western Sydney's dwindling populations of macro fauna.”

Geoff Brown
President
Western Sydney Conservation Alliance Inc
0431 222602

Bled dry - the fate of greyhound racing's 'wastage'
7.30 recently exposed widespread doping in the greyhound racing industry, and since then they've had a huge response.

Greyhound racing is an industry that a lot of people enjoy, but behind it lies a terrible toll on the dogs. There's a massive toll of injured animals. Many exhibit crate and muzzle sores, and stress from high speed chases. Australia's greyhound industry is the third biggest in the world, and each year Australians wager about $3 billion on the sport.

7.30 Report: Bled dry- the fate of greyhound racing's "wastage"

The ABC has received thousands of emails, calls and Facebook posts, some from insiders who've raised more concerns about the industry, others who claim we didn't show the positive aspects of their sport.

ABC: 7.30 report">Bled dry - the fate of greyhound racing's 'wastage'

In the past year more than 70 dogs have tested positive to banned substances, but insiders say many more cheats go undetected and use popular drugs including cocaine, amphetamines, caffeine and EPO, the performance-enhancing hormone favoured by disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong.

The industry estimates that some 25,000 greyhounds are bred in Australia each year, for a gambling industry.

The greyhounds who do make it to the track may endure harsh training regimes and are put at significant risk of sustaining serious injuries, such as broken legs, paralysis or head trauma, during training and racing. Some even die from cardiac arrest due to the extreme physical intensity of racing. On many occasions the injuries are 'uneconomical' to treat and the owner will instead have the dog killed.

They will finish racing between the ages of 2 and 4.  Of the chosen dogs only about half reach naming and training age. Thousands of puppies and young dogs are routinely killed.  The racing industry use the euphemism that they are  "humanely euthanased", or kept by their owners or adopted as pets.   The grim reality is that campaigners believe that 20,000 dogs are slaughtered every year. 

Many retired greyhounds are dumped, used for medical research or bled to death for their blood.  In a macabre irony, unwanted and dying greyhounds are being drained of their blood to help with the treatment of other dogs!  It's like "farming" spare body parts, from third world impoverished countries, and risking the lives of the "donors" or killing them, for the benefit of the wealthy.   It's predatory as is assumed that greyhounds, being part of an "industry" rather than pets, have less intrinsic value.

7.30 Report has exposed widespread doping of the racing dogs, but even more saddening and grotesque is that veterinary nurses claim they are being forced to kill some of the 17,000 healthy greyhound dogs believed to be discarded by the industry each year.

SELENA COTTRELL-DORMER, VETERINARY NURSE: You get eight dogs dropped off, oftentimes they will be just, yeah, just absolutely bled to death and euthanased, put in a body bag and put in the freezer and taken away for incineration. That's absolutely routine. No-one would bat an eyelid at that being the reality.

VICTORIA LUXTON-BAIN, VETERINARY NURSE: They would be brought in by a trainer. Normally we would get about three or four dogs and then they would arrive and then they'd be bled within about 48 hours of arriving. So they'd be put under anaesthetic and then bled and then euthanased while under anaesthetic.

Animals and entertainment/gambling industries are not compatible, and inevitably lead to exploitation.  The greyhound racing industry cruelly adds to our already abysmal pool of unwanted animals, doomed for "death row".

Like the horse racing industry's over-breeding and high rates of disposals, each year thousands of dogs never make it to the track because they fail to chase - or simply aren't fast enough.  They then become "wastage" and end up being destroyed.

Export

The Australian greyhound racing industry exports hundreds of greyhounds to supply and stimulate racing industries in other countries, where most of them will also be killed after their racing days. One of the biggest markets is Macau, — where the Canidrome racing track does not allow any dogs to be adopted.

Greyhound racing has been recognised as a cruel sport and therefore banned in 6 states of the USA and also in South Africa, with growing opposition in other countries.  Australia's standard as a first-world country, with humane treatment of animals, is failing to give these dogs a "fair go".  

This "sport" that uses, consumes and disposes of dogs in a wholesale manner and needs to be banned, like blood sports.

Greyhounds maybe fast, but they don't need much exercise.  They are naturally docile and gentle dogs and given the chance they make loving and faithful companions.  

Greyhound rescue - dogs available

"I, and every other post-war baby boomer, can count myself incredibly lucky to be born when I was, because our children do not have the opportunities my generation had—job and career opportunities, housing opportunities and free education. For all the hype about growth and progress and development building a better world, it is not. It is tougher for our kids than it ever was for us." (Kelvin Thomson Thursday, 14 November 2013, House of Reps Chamber Speech)

(Candobetter recommends that you start this video at 2.25 minutes in for the guts of population and planning democracy. Note that in this speech, Thomson refers to his new NGO, Victoria First, but this reference does not seem to be in the proofed Hansard.)

Environment book by the Prince of Wales

[1]

Recently, I read a thorough and detailed book written by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. It is called Harmony.

My copy was given to me by Dick Smith. Dick is an outstanding Australian who cares deeply for this country. Dick's work on issues like population and Australian ownership is inspirational for me and, I know, many others.

I absolutely commend Prince Charles's book, Harmony to everyone who is interested in the future of our planet. The breadth of his knowledge is exceptional, and both the intellectual rigour and creative insight lying behind this book are deeply impressive. There is way too much about environment, population, food and architecture in it for me to do justice to it here.
You will have to read it for yourselves. But I will give two examples.

Nature directly benefits peoples' health

Let me cite first page 220, where he discusses academic studies which have found that contact with nature can make people more resilient to illness. One piece of research investigates the recovery rates of patients who had access to a view of trees in a Texas hospital courtyard, compared with those whose windows gave sight of only a concrete wall.

All the patients had undergone the same gall bladder surgery, so were considered to be a broadly comparable group. Those patients who enjoyed a view of trees out the window spent fewer days in hospital, used fewer narcotic drugs, had fewer complications and registered fewer complaints with nurses responsible for their care.

By contrast, the people who could not see images of nature suffered increased depression, were in need of more pain relief and spent more time in recovery. So being exposed to the patterns produced by nature is directly necessary for our health. Prince Charles says the findings underline how harmony and connection with nature is not some vague or fringe concern but has real benefits for people.

Back local residents, not property developers if you want a long career in parliament

The second example I will draw to attention of the House is on page 232, where he bemoans 'the modern trend towards more and more central planning'. He says:

Communities get what others decide for them—there are no alternatives on offer. ...

A top-down approach to planning has been something of a partner of the industrial-scale copybook urban scheme. It is driven by the brutal economics of 'growth' and competitiveness and the pursuit of efficiency targets that care little as to whether a place ends up with 'soul'.

But Prince Charles believes that if people are empowered to work together there are huge benefits.

He says:

"... the ability of people to self organise can be a very powerful force, but sadly it is an opportunity that is too often untapped. Centralised spatial planning devised by specialist planners trained in a 20th century mechanistic ideology sometimes misses fundamental choices and can lead communities in directions that are not in their best interests. I have enough experience now to know for sure that if people had been put more at the heart of the planning process, some of the disastrous urban environments created in many cities during the twentieth century might easily have been avoided."

I personally think it incredibly important that local residents get to determine what kind of street, neighbourhood and community they live in. And I will provide some free political advice to any of the new MPs in this place who decided parliament is all right and that they would prefer a lengthy parliamentary career to a brief one: back local residents, not property developers. I repeat: support local residents, not property developers.

Prefers to remain back bencher so that he can speak out for the environment

I was not a candidate for the opposition front bench.

I was a shadow minister for 10 years prior to 2007. I have been there and done that. It is my experience that being a shadow minister brings with it obligations not to speak outside your portfolio, and to have everything you do say cleared and approved by the Leader of the Opposition's office. For me, these limitations are simply too great in a world and an Australia that I believe is facing massive challenges.

World being irreparably damaged by population growth

The world is being damaged, perhaps irreparably, by rapid population growth, climate change, unchecked rainforest and other habitat destruction, poverty, war and terrorism. Australia is not immune from these challenges. Many of our unique and beautiful birds, plants and animals are on the brink of extinction. Our young people cannot afford to buy a home of their own, and their jobs are insecure, while pensioners and retirees battle rapidly rising electricity, gas and water bills and council rates.

Need to be on the back bench to speak out these problems in Australia

I need to be able to speak out about these things, and I intend to. Anyone who thinks my decision to return to the back bench means that I am looking to lead a quiet life and slip out the back door is very mistaken. On the contrary, it is a necessary pre-condition for being active in the debate about the issues that are of greatest importance to the world and to this country.

I, and every other post-war baby boomer, can count myself incredibly lucky to be born when I was, because our children do not have the opportunities my generation had—job and career opportunities, housing opportunities and free education. For all the hype about growth and progress and development building a better world, it is not. It is tougher for our kids than it ever was for us.

This is not just true for Australia. It is true in many other countries as well. It is heartbreaking to hear the stories of all the African migrants who drowned off the coast of the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa.

Terrible, terrible, terrible. There is a response that says we should tackle this problem by dismantling our borders and allowing people to live wherever they want to live. But anyone who has seen the Gumballs video, by Roy Beck of NumbersUSA—and if you have not, I cannot recommend it too highly—will know that there are two billion people in the world living on $2 per day or less, and that their numbers are increasing by 80 million every year. No nation in the world—not the United States, not Europe, not Australia—can cope with such numbers.

Causes of mass migration

There are two causes of mass migration. One is people fleeing political violence and repression. The other driver is poverty and people wanting a better life. In those countries that are beset by political violence, the most common cause is religious fundamentalism.

There is religious violence, oppression of minorities, not enough respect for the rights of women, and not enough separation between religion and politics and between church and state. This needs to be called out.

It is a task for all of us, from whatever religious or ethnic background we come, to condemn, to denounce, to shun and to treat as outcasts religious leaders who preach hate and violence. It has to be called for what it is. Until political and religious violence stops, there will be people fleeing it.

Of the other motive for getting on board a boat—the search for a better life—again, we all have a role to play. We should lift our foreign aid budget to 0.7 per cent of GDP. We should not cut our aid by $4.5 billion over the forward estimates as the Liberal government is doing. It is claimed there is a budget emergency and we cannot afford this aid. Why then is the defence budget to be increased? The government target of 2 per cent of GDP spending on defence is quite arbitrary, and absolute nonsense. Spending money on aid builds goodwill with our neighbours and makes us more secure. I have seen it with my own eyes—the people in Wills.

In my view, honourable defeat is overrated. In my view there is little honour in avoidable failure. In my view those who want to save the environment, those who want to help workers and those who care about the future have a responsibility to succeed. Honour comes from success, from solving problems, from being able to proudly hand the baton over to the next generation.

Racism accusations used to stifly debate in a new kind of McCarthyism

In political debate people are very frightened about being called racist or xenophobic. This is true of prime ministers and it is true of ordinary people. Yes, there are racists out there. It is a pity; it is true.

But the use of the term 'racism' has become a new kind of McCarthyism, used to stifle debate. Let me point out in response to the allegation of racism or xenophobia against people who want to contest our rapid population growth that, first, Australia is already a multiracial society—one-quarter born oversees, one-half with one or both parents born overseas. The bird has flown. No-one is trying to maintain Australia as a white Anglo Saxon outpost of the British empire. It cannot be done and I have not come across anyone who is trying.

Secondly, stopping rapid population growth will assist Australians of all backgrounds. For example, Broadmeadows has high unemployment. Many unemployed people in Broadmeadows are of Turkish background. They are entitled to our consideration, rather than running migrant worker programs that wreck their ability to find work.

Thirdly, if talking about population makes you a racist, you are in pretty good company.

People do not usually think of Dr Martin Luther King as a white supremacist. What did he have to say about population?

"Family planning, to relate population to world resources, is possible, practical and necessary. Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess.

What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victims.

People would not ordinarily think of David Suzuki as a puppet or fellow traveller of Pauline Hanson. What did he have to say about population?

Dr Suzuki said:

Of course human numbers are at the very core of our crisis. The explosive rate of growth simply can't continue.

And, while we are at it, I will point out a couple more.
In 1993, former US President Bill Clinton told the United Nations:

"And to ensure a healthier and more abundant world, we simply must slow the world's explosive growth in population."

His vice-president, Al Gore, said:

"I consider the dramatic growth in the world's population to be the greatest challenge currently facing the environment ... The effects of this rapid increase are felt around the globe."

It is ironic in the extreme that we have a couple of agents provocateur out there accusing people who talk about population of trying to hijack the environmental movement when, in fact, they are the most fair dinkum environmentalists you will find. I defy anyone to challenge the environmental credentials of Jacques Cousteau, who has devoted his entire life to marine conservation, and who said:

"Population growth is the primary source of environmental damage."

I defy anyone to challenge the environmental credentials of Captain Paul Watson, the founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, who has spent his life risking injury and imprisonment to harass Japanese whalers. He said:

"The accusation that a stand to reduce immigration is racist is music to the ears to those who profit from the cheap labor of immigrants. They are the same people who love to see environmentalists make fools of themselves. And there is no environmentalist more foolish than one who refuses to confront the fact that uncontrolled human population growth is the no. 1 cause of the world's increasing environmental problems."

NOTES

[1] Thursday, 14 November 2013
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES CHAMBER SPEECH

It's interesting that we now have a Shadow Treasurer, the previous minister for Immigration under Labor, commenting on the blowout of the housing bubble, who is seeing the evidence of high rates of immigration - and loose borders that allow foreign investors to strangle the real estate market.

Economist Saul Eslake, a member of the National Housing Supply Council, said vested interests from property owners and politicians meant policies that could support first home buyers - such as the abolishment of negative gearing and lower costs for new developments - were unlikely to ever see the light of day. The housing Ponzi scheme is being driven and manipulated by investors, who create and guarantee their portfolios delivered by high rates of population growth and heavy support for domestic and foreign investors.

Booming housing market leaves first home buyers behind, says Chris Bowen by Glenda Kwek and Simon Johanson in the Melbourne Age of 16 Nov 2013.

All Ponzi schemes eventually collapse. Back in February 2012, Deakin University’s Philip Soos said that the only thing that prevented Australian house prices from crashing during the 2008 GFC was the first-home owners’ boost, who believes the sector is now operating like a Ponzi scheme. According to Soos, the tipping point for the mark will come when “the household sector is so overloaded with debt there exist no more ‘greater fools’ willing to commit to a lifetime of debt serfdom to purchase property”.

See Australian housing a Ponzi scheme and the housing bubble will burst by Larry Schlesinger in the Property News of 7 February 2012.

Sooner or later you run out of unsuspecting new investors and the whole thing collapses.

The end of the housing bubble will hurt our economy, but it's time to make the transition to a real and productive economy, rather than the predatory one of mortgages, accumulating more and more potential buyers (victims) into the scheme, and the strangle-hold property developers.

Highlighting the hypocrisy and double standards of Australia's official 'commitment' to the 'war on terror' in Afghanistan, and the celebration of the 'heroic sacrifices' made there by Australian soldiers on Remembrance day, was the appearance in our media of a video clip from Syria the following day.

This video, from the studios of the 'Al Qaeda linked group' Jabhat al Nusra, showed the last minutes before the martyrdom of 'Abu Asma al Australi', as he drove an explosives packed truck towards a military checkpoint at an airport in Deir al Zour, in Syria's north-east. In the video 'Abu Asma's' face was fuzzed out, though we could see a bushy beard and a stocky physique. He delivered a propaganda message of encouragement to Muslims everywhere to take up the Jihad in Syria, and make the ultimate sacrifice.

While this man was known to Australian authorities, - allegedly 'Ahmad' from Logan near Brisbane - and belonged to a community there which supports 'the jihad' against the Assad government, his family claims he never went to Syria to fight, and is alive and well and living in Turkey. They also claim that he didn't speak Arabic like the man shown in the video ....

But these are details; the intent was there, and the 'operation' supported by Australian supporters of the insurgency or jihad if you prefer. Our concern should be whether this support extends beyond Ahmad's community, and whether allowance is being made for Australia's first suicide bomber because he was striking an 'approved target'?

Although our media may not be strictly government operated, the man who pays the piper calls the tune; the language used to describe this terrorist atrocity tells us the story. Nowhere is there mention in the ABC report on this video of 'terrorist' or 'war crime' - we have only 'jihadist', and 'hard-line group'. But worse by far than this, we are never told about 'the target' of 'the operation'. A TV reporter referred to 'people' killed, but honourably corrected himself with 'government soldiers', but failed to say how many.

The truth is shocking.

This one Australian 'hero' ( as he is regarded now as a martyr) on one day killed as many Syrian soldiers as those of our Australian 'heroes' who have been killed in Afghanistan in a decade. Thirty five Syrian soldiers were obliterated by 'Abu Asma al Australi's' truck bomb; ordinary men with families, mothers, wives, sons, fathers. Men fighting to save their nation from a foreign invasion of barbarians and fundamentalist psychopaths; fighting to protect their neighbours and communities from random acts of violence, and save their country from the malign foreign powers who slash and burn what they have failed to seduce.

An estimated 27,000 Syrian soldiers have now died protecting their country, many as a result of similar bombings; along with a further 15,000 militia members fighting on the government side, they constitute the largest group of casualties in the total death toll of around 115,000.

ABC report from M/E correspondent Matt Brown with video link:
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2013/s3888818.htm

In Costa Rica, publicly-owned banks have been available for so long and work so well that people take for granted that any country that knows how to run an economy has a public banking option. Costa Ricans are amazed to hear there is only one public depository bank in the United States (the Bank of North Dakota), and few people have private access to it.

So says political activist Scott Bidstrup, who writes:

"For the last decade, I have resided in Costa Rica, where we have had a "Public Option" for the last 64 years. There are 29 licensed banks, mutual associations and credit unions in Costa Rica , of which four were established as national, publicly-owned banks in 1949. They have remained open and in public hands ever since--in spite of enormous pressure by the I.M.F. [International Monetary Fund] and the U.S. to privatize them along with other public assets. The Costa Ricans have resisted that pressure--because the value of a public banking option has become abundantly clear to everyone in this country.

During the last three decades, countless private banks, mutual associations (a kind of Savings and Loan) and credit unions have come and gone, and depositors in them have inevitably lost most of the value of their accounts.

But the four state banks, which compete fiercely with each other, just go on and on. Because they are stable and none have failed in 31 years, most Costa Ricans have moved the bulk of their money into them. Those four banks now account for fully 80% of all retail deposits in Costa Rica, and the 25 private institutions share among themselves the rest."

According to a 2003 report by the World Bank, the public sector banks dominating Costa Rica's onshore banking system include three state-owned commercial banks (Banco Nacional, Banco de Costa Rica, and Banco Crédito Agr-cola de Cartago ) and a special-charter bank called Banco Popular, which in principle is owned by all Costa Rican workers. These banks accounted for 75 percent of total banking deposits in 2003.

In Competition Policies in Emerging Economies: Lessons and Challenges from Central America and Mexico (2008), Claudia Schatan writes that Costa Rica nationalized all of its banks and imposed a monopoly on deposits in 1949. Effectively, only state-owned banks existed in the country after that. The monopoly was loosened in the 1980s and was eliminated in 1995. But the extensive network of branches developed by the public banks and the existence of an unlimited state guarantee on their deposits has made Costa Rica the only country in the region in which public banking clearly predominates.

Scott Bidstrup comments:

"By 1980, the Costa Rican economy had grown to the point where it was by far the richest nation in Latin America in per-capita terms. It was so much richer than its neighbors that Latin American economic statistics were routinely quoted with and without Costa Rica included. Growth rates were in the double digits for a generation and a half. And the prosperity was broadly shared. Costa Rica 's middle class - nonexistent before 1949 - became the dominant part of the economy during this period. Poverty was all but abolished, favelas [shanty towns] disappeared, and the economy was booming."

This was not because Costa Rica had natural resources or other natural advantages over its neighbors. To the contrary, says Bidstrup:

"At the conclusion of the civil war of 1948 (which was brought on by the desperate social conditions of the masses), Costa Rica was desperately poor, the poorest nation in the hemisphere, as it had been since the Spanish Conquest.

The winner of the 1948 civil war, José "Pepe" Figueres, now a national hero, realized that it would happen again if nothing was done to relieve the crushing poverty and deprivation of the rural population. He formulated a plan in which the public sector would be financed by profits from state-owned enterprises, and the private sector would be financed by state banking.

A large number of state-owned capitalist enterprises were founded. Their profits were returned to the national treasury, and they financed dozens of major infrastructure projects. At one point, more than 240 state-owned corporations were providing so much money that Costa Rica was building infrastructure like mad and financing it largely with cash. Yet it still had the lowest taxes in the region, and it could still afford to spend 30% of its national income on health and education.

A provision of the Figueres constitution guaranteed a job to anyone who wanted one. At one point, 42% of the working population of Costa Rica was working for the government directly or in one of the state-owned corporations. Most of the rest of the economy not involved in the coffee trade was working for small mom-and-pop companies that were suppliers to the larger state-owned firms--and it was state banking, offering credit on favorable terms, that made the founding and growth of those small firms possible. Had they been forced to rely on private-sector banking, few of them would have been able to obtain the financing needed to become established and prosperous. State banking was key to the private sector growth. Lending policy was government policy and was designed to facilitate national development, not bankers' wallets. Virtually everything the country needed was locally produced. Toilets, window glass, cement, rebar, roofing materials, window and door joinery, wire and cable, all were made by state-owned capitalist enterprises, most of them quite profitable. Costa Rica was the dominant player regionally in most consumer products and was on the move internationally."

Needless to say, this good example did not sit well with foreign business interests. It earned Figueres two coup attempts and one attempted assassination. He responded by abolishing the military (except for the Coast Guard), leaving even more revenues for social services and infrastructure.

When attempted coups and assassination failed, says Bidstrup, Costa Rica was brought down with a form of economic warfare called the "currency crisis" of 1982. Over just a few months, the cost of financing its external debt went from 3% to extremely high variable rates (27% at one point). As a result, along with every other Latin American country, Costa Rica was facing default. Bidstrup writes:

"That's when the IMF and World Bank came to town.

Privatize everything in sight, we were told. We had little choice, so we did. End your employment guarantee, we were told. So we did. Open your markets to foreign competition, we were told. So we did. Most of the former state-owned firms were sold off, mostly to foreign corporations. Many ended up shut down in a short time by foreigners who didn't know how to run them, and unemployment appeared (and with it, poverty and crime) for the first time in a decade. Many of the local firms went broke or sold out quickly in the face of ruinous foreign competition. Very little of Costa Rica 's manufacturing economy is still locally owned. And so now, instead of earning forex [foreign exchange] through exporting locally produced goods and retaining profits locally, these firms are now forex liabilities, expatriating their profits and earning relatively little through exports. Costa Ricans now darkly joke that their economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the United States."

The dire effects of the IMF's austerity measures were confirmed in a 1993 book excerpt by Karen Hansen-Kuhn titled Structural Adjustment in Costa Rica: Sapping the Economy. She noted that Costa Rica stood out in Central America because of its near half-century history of stable democracy and well-functioning government, featuring the region's largest middle class and the absence of both an army and a guerrilla movement. Eliminating the military allowed the government to support a Scandinavian-type social-welfare system that still provides free health care and education, and has helped produce the lowest infant mortality rate and highest average life expectancy in all of Central America.

In the 1970s, however, the country fell into debt when coffee and other commodity prices suddenly fell, and oil prices shot up. To get the dollars to buy oil, Costa Rica had to resort to foreign borrowing; and in 1980, the U.S. Federal Reserve under Paul Volcker raised interest rates to unprecedented levels.

In The Gods of Money (2009), William Engdahl fills in the back story. In 1971, Richard Nixon took the U.S. dollar off the gold standard, causing it to drop precipitously in international markets. In 1972, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and President Nixon had a clandestine meeting with the Shah of Iran. In 1973, a group of powerful financiers and politicians met secretly in Sweden and discussed effectively "backing" the dollar with oil. An arrangement was then finalized in which the oil-producing countries of OPEC would sell their oil only in U.S. dollars. The quid pro quo was military protection and a strategic boost in oil prices. The dollars would wind up in Wall Street and London banks, where they would fund the burgeoning U.S. debt. In 1974, an oil embargo conveniently caused the price of oil to quadruple. Countries without sufficient dollar reserves had to borrow from Wall Street and London banks to buy the oil they needed. Increased costs then drove up prices worldwide.

By late 1981, says Hansen-Kuhn, Costa Rica had one of the world's highest levels of debt per capita, with debt-service payments amounting to 60 percent of export earnings. When the government had to choose between defending its stellar social-service system or bowing to its creditors, it chose the social services. It suspended debt payments to nearly all its creditors, predominately commercial banks. But that left it without foreign exchange. That was when it resorted to borrowing from the World Bank and IMF, which imposed "austerity measures" as a required condition. The result was to increase poverty levels dramatically.

Bidstrup writes of subsequent developments:

"Indebted to the IMF, the Costa Rican government had to sell off its state-owned enterprises, depriving it of most of its revenue, and the country has since been forced to eat its seed corn. No major infrastructure projects have been conceived and built to completion out of tax revenues, and maintenance of existing infrastructure built during that era must wait in line for funding, with predictable results.

About every year, there has been a closure of one of the private banks or major savings co-ops. In every case, there has been a corruption or embezzlement scandal, proving the old saying that the best way to rob a bank is to own one. This is why about 80% of retail deposits in Costa Rica are now held by the four state banks. They're trusted.

Costa Rica still has a robust economy, and is much less affected by the vicissitudes of rising and falling international economic tides than enterprises in neighboring countries, because local businesses can get money when they need it. During the credit freezeup of 2009, things went on in Costa Rica pretty much as normal. Yes, there was a contraction in the economy, mostly as a result of a huge drop in foreign tourism, but it would have been far worse if local business had not been able to obtain financing when it was needed. It was available because most lending activity is set by government policy, not by a local banker's fear index.

Stability of the local economy is one of the reasons that Costa Rica has never had much difficulty in attracting direct foreign investment, and is still the leader in the region in that regard. And it is clear to me that state banking is one of the principal reasons why.

The value and importance of a public banking sector to the overall stability and health of an economy has been well proven by the Costa Rican experience. Meanwhile, our neighbors, with their fully privatized banking systems have, de facto, encouraged people to keep their money in Mattress First National, and as a result, the financial sectors in neighboring countries have not prospered. Here, they have--because most money is kept in banks that carry the full faith and credit of the Republic of Costa Rica, so the money is in the banks and available for lending. While our neighbors' financial systems lurch from crisis to crisis, and suffer frequent resulting bank failures, the Costa Rican public system just keeps chugging along. And so does the Costa Rican economy."

He concludes:

"My dream scenario for any third world country wishing to develop, is to do exactly what Costa Rica did so successfully for so many years. Invest in the Holy Trinity of national development--health, education and infrastructure. Pay for it with the earnings of state capitalist enterprises that are profitable because they are protected from ruinous foreign competition; and help out local private enterprise get started and grow, and become major exporters, with stable state-owned banks that prioritize national development over making bankers rich. It worked well for Costa Rica for a generation and a half. It can work for any other country as well. Including the United States."

The new Happy Planet Index, which rates countries based on how many long and happy lives they produce per unit of environmental output, has ranked Costa Rica #1 globally. The Costa Rican model is particularly instructive at a time when US citizens are groaning under the twin burdens of taxes and increased health insurance costs. Like the Costa Ricans, we could reduce taxes while increasing social services and rebuilding infrastructure, if we were to allow the government to make some money itself; and a giant first step would be for it to establish some publicly-owned banks.

NOTES

Original source was: OpEdNews Op Eds 11/12/2013 at 12:32:55

About the Author: Ellen Brown is an attorney, president of the Public Banking Institute, and author of 12 books, including WEB OF DEBT and its newly-released sequel, THE PUBLIC BANK SOLUTION. Her websites are http://WebofDebt.com, http://PublicBankSolution.com, and http://PublicBankingInstitute.org.