population

Report on the Victorian Transport Infrastructure Conference
11-12th May 2009 @ the Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre
by Catherine Manning
President, Southern Victoria Community Action Group Inc.

Foreword: A huge thank you to all of the groups and individuals who contributed to the cost of a ticket so that our community could be represented at this conference. As expected, the conference failed to provide any new information about the implementation of the Victorian Transport Plan (VTP) and seemed to have left some who'd paid up to $1655- for a ticket deeply disappointed. (One participant told me he was so stressed about what he was going to report back to his boss, as he'd convinced him it was worth spending the money to go and 'do business'.) However, I believe it was well worth SVCAG being there, as I was able to publicly question several ministers and bureaucrats on behalf of all of our groups, and made it known that we were concerned at the 'exclusivity' of the event that was publicised as a 'high level forum for discussion and debate'. To download a copy of / or view the VTP please go to www.transport.vic.gov.au

Disclaimer: I have compiled this report from my notes taken at the conference. I cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information, only to say this is purely an honest account of how I saw the event, but others may have seen it differently. I have tried to dot point as much as I can, and have added some questions that I asked (and some I didn’t !).

Day1

MC: Rob Gell opened the event .
Rob Gell thanked the sponsors/supporters: Project Link, Theiss, DLA Phillips Fox, Vibropile, Brifen, Coffey Rail, Leighton, Dial Before You Dig, GTA Consultants, Engineers Australia, and of course the State Govt - Dept. of Transport.

9am

Jim Betts - Secretary, Department of Transport Victoria

After explaining his disappointment at his title of ‘secretary' which made it sound as though he should just be ‘taking minutes’, Jim convinced us that he is really a very important person. He then proceeded to give a quick explanation of the VTP...

• Melbourne @ 5million and the Victorian Transport Plan were produced together and will be updated every 3-4 years to adjust figures ie. population growth, etc.
• would like to work with industry to spread the freight task
• Into the future 2030 - more freight 'immune to economic issues’
• Vision for a 24hr operation, mass transit orbital system, significant expansion in port rail as per Eddington Report.
• 'We're planning for Hastings at the moment'
• Mentioned the 'Freight Futures' document (more on that later)
• Channel Deepening (plug for)

It was then opened up to the floor for questions. Rob Gell asked about four questions on interstate rail, emissions reduction and fuel efficiency.
(I didn’t hear a substantial answer, other than 'we're working on it' or words to that effect.)

Tim Holding as Minister for Finance, Victoria

• restated that the State Budget saw an $8b investment in 09/10 infrastructure for transport, schools, etc..
• Victoria the best place in the country, best workers... Wants to be the 'best placed in the country' - jobs jobs jobs... in transport - freight & logistics.
• VTP is the plan, the vision, the context to tell the community where to go with infrastructure projects...
• Sustainability is at the heart of this plan…sustainability…sustainability..
• mentioned Peninsula Link, Epping Line (rail upgrade), Lynbrook (road)

Question Time:

Catherine Manning Southern Victorian Community Action Group (SVCAG): Minister, I notice you say 'sustainable and sustainability' a lot, what is your definition of sustainable when it comes to this Transport Plan? How can more and more growth, less local manufacturing, a massive increase in freight imports, more port development i.e. Hastings, and the associated truck movements, be anything but unsustainable?

Tim Holding: ‘freight needs the best possible infrastructure to be sustainable’, etc., etc. Said something to the effect that now we all expect higher quality living, we have to develop Hastings so we can provide it. (Incredibly, he then went on for another ten minutes without answering my question….)

Halvard Dalheim - Director, State Strategy, Planning Policy Branch

1. Green Spaces. Spoke about Melb @5million, 1.8 additional people by 2036. 600,000 dwellings in the next 20 years. How are we placed to deal with growth? Govt response was to release its 'transport policies'.
2. Challenges - Shaping Victoria, linking regional Victoria, Sustainable Growth, unblocking congestion, responding to climate change.
3. Unique Collaboration - benefits/new approaches/relationships/new opportunities - VicRoads/DOI (now DOT)/DSE. Urban Growth Boundaries - new issues raised and discussed...loves collaboration...(group hug with DSE/VicRoads/DOT)
4. Managing Melbourne's Growth
5. Scale of Growth .. (up, up and up..). How do we accommodate this growth?

6. Components of Growth - international migration levels never seen before...address future labour force. Long term drivers - migration. Health infrastructure needed - maternity wards.

7. Trends of Growth Maps - bridge the Yarra/Maribyrnong
8. Affordability and Growth - affordable living, housing, etc.
9. Shaping Melbourne's Growth - The growth equation: 316,000 established areas. 284,000 growth areas. 134,000 new growth areas. Shift new growth areas North and West. Expand growth areas and high density living in Melbourne.
10. Urban Form and Growth. Block sizes.
11. Accessible Jobs. Can't keep building roads and tunnels to handle our transport issues. So now we have 'land use and transport planning' so we can influence potential behavior patterns.
12. Disadvantaged with Jobs
13. Mode of Travel and Jobs - cars cars cars.
14. Proximity of Jobs
15. A Sustainable City Form. 'Polycentric' Multiple major centres - jobs close to home. Box Hill, Broadmeadows,Dandenong, Footscray, Frankston, Ringwood.
16. Inner Core - housing.
17. Tram Network
18. Conversions - housing
19. New Opportunities
20. Infill - across metro area
21. Residential Initiatives - lot densities. 'Local intelligence' looking at City of Moreland.
22. Melbourne's Newest Sustainable Communities - rail links, smartbus, Northern Suburbs.
23. Delivery - 'Transport plan.....shaping Victoria....jobs...jobs...jobs.'

Ray Kinnear - Dep Director Strategic Policy and Planning, Public Transport Division

• Growth rate exceeding current growth forecasts across all models
• More people on public transport: Why?Fuel costs, Global Financial Crisis, 20% environmental concerns
• Operating railway - creating a metro
• Local Bus Networks
• Offer early bird schemes to encourage travel before peak.
• Rail infrastructure projects underway...New track Laverton, Clifton Hill Rail Project..etc...$18b over next 2 years
• $10b sought from Building Aust Fund
• Regional Rail Link - Western part of Melb - sharing tracks/bottlenecks. Build new line west of Werribee on Geelong Line. Able to run v-line trains - no longer on suburban line.
• Build a second tunnel- Dynon area across to Parkville-Domain.
• South East capacity problem. Metro tunnel to Caulfield - all lines independent.
• Waiting for Govt Funding
• 70 new trains 50 new trams, maintenance facilities, light rail, more stops.

Question from Cameron of Coffee Projects: How long do you anticipate that growth to continue?
Answer from Ray Kinnear: planning on continuing at 8%p.a.

Jonathon Metcalfe - Exec Chair Connex

• challenging times
• Pollution 'we've talked about that'
• PPP's - more from the VTP about what's being delivered....
• more PR pitch about keeping customers happy and 'managing dissatisfaction'.
Question: What about level crossings?
Answer from JM: Where there's a business case.

(mass exodus - about 15 people left the auditorium at this point)....

Question unposed: When you say ‘pollution – we’ve talked about that’, when exactly did we talk about it? I’ve been awake the whole time…did I miss something?
Question unposed: Shouldn’t we refer to climate change as a problem, not a ‘challenge’? I know it’s very ‘Chopra-esque’ to say ‘challenge’, but doesn’t that make it sound like a fun run or math’s quiz, not the serious environmental issue that it is? It may be challenging to find solutions, but if we’re to be really honest, wouldn’t you say that climate change is really a big ‘issue’ or ‘problem

Brad Vann - Partner, Clayton UTZ

• Cost $60b to replace all of Victoria's level crossings - how to deal with this in Global Financial Crisis?
• Impact of credit crunch - lack of liquidity - banks retreating from long tenure and complex lending
• Cost of funding PPP's - as liquidity in markets decreases, lending margins increase....
• Feast or Famine: sales pitch for PPP's - alternatives: Govt underwrite financing bids (potential conflict of interest) - unsyndicated portions of debt taken up by govt entity until full syndication possible - shorter concession periods - shorter term financing.
• Market disruption risk
• Govt takes back some risk - ie. Hospital infrastructure project - decrease payments from the private sector if not bringing in the $$$.
• Unbundle the project
• Peninsula Link 'economic infrastructure' - No toll, therefore needs $$$. then Govt repay private sector. Govt looking at this way.
• Super Funds - Institutional Funds. Govt guarantee to lift the quality of the project and attract investment thru super funds etc. In turn, super and industry funds invest to keep their members in work.
• Regulatory changes - at the moment there is better returns for people to invest overseas.
• Develop by Govt then sell to private sector [Comment by editor: This is privatization in advance]
• Ask Industry Fund Managers, if we meet operational parameters of the project, will you agree to support it?
At this point just before lunch, the MD of Theiss got up and said 'we need accelerated spend up on transport infrastructure'. However, I didn’t notice anyone jump up and wave their wallet around.

Lunch: Met a few of interesting people. Am beginning to think I'm not going so mad after all. Some of these people do seem to get it too, and aren't as excited about all aspects of the VTP as I thought they would be.... Almost managed to attract a few new members (LOL).

Panel ‘Discussion’

Darren Bilsborough – Director of Sustainability, Parsons Brinckerhoff
Rob Turk – Associate, ARUP
Sean Murphy – GM Infrastructure & Environment, Worley Parsons
Glenn Hedges – Environmental Manager/Project Services, Thiess

Refreshingly, Darren Bilsborough spoke of the ‘elephant in the room – climate change’
• the VTP failed to adequately address climate change, health impacts, peak oil or our aging population.

Rob Turk

• minimising environmental impacts by collecting run off from freeways (used Frankston Bypass as an example) to provide solutions to other issues ie. Water.
• offset planting, ‘integrated resource management’, using road corridors as IT corridors (i.e. Broadband network infr.) and ‘smart energy zones’.
• the formation of the ‘Australian Green Infrastructure Council’, formed in 2007 by various industry reps, applying for state govt funding to try to create a ‘green star’ national rating scheme for business/developers.

Lots of talk about ‘fast tracking’

• geopolymer concrete / fly ash – being used as a better alternative to concrete. 80% less emissions.
• Waste vegetable matter for ‘sandwich panels’ – reinforced skins.
• Glass work – discharge from desalination plants to replace timbers, beams, concrete, etc.

Glenn Hedges repeated much of what had already been said, plus
• A ‘promo’ for Theiss providing indigenous communities with training & jobs to build a construction workforce
• More about the Green Inf. Council and Theiss’ efforts to replace lightweight truck bodies instead of stainless steel. Auto timing switches on mobile lighting banks, and more use of diesel

Questions for panel:

Questions from Catherine Manning: What payoff will there be for developers fastracking development to seek endorsement from Aust Green Inf Council, and will it have any real effect?
Answer: No real effect as yet, but it will be a ‘feel good’ exercise. There will be no legally binding contracts

Question from Catherine Manning: Doesn’t this just provide a vehicle for developers to appear green without being green when there are no real ‘green’ guidelines for development (apart from what comes out of the EES – EPBC Act). Where we have Work Cover and legal guidelines for other things, why aren’t there laws for developers to abide by when it comes to environmental/health impacts, etc.?
Answer: inadequate policy.

Question unposed: Do you think the Global Financial Crisis is being used as justification to fast track development so that even less community consultation can be justified?

Dr Lewis Gomes and Peter Zahnleiter (Brisbane Roads and Tunnel Experience)

• Spoke of the project delivery (if you really want me to document this, let me know, but it was about as exciting to me as watching grass grow).
• Their airport link averaged $56million per kilometer.

Peter Bentley – CEO Connect East

We then heard yet another promotion and back patting exercise about Eastlink. $3.8b for 39klm of toll way. Heard about Mullum Mullum Valley, the untolled Ringwood and Dandenong Bypasses, 88 bridges, 17 interchanges and 2 tunnels.

• 270,000 trips during the toll free period
• 135,000 once tolls introduced.
• Community consultation…’no one can ever say there was a lack of dialogue on this project’. Local community forum settled community matters
• Thanks to EPA ‘s communication between groups, there were ‘no public appeals when Connect East got works approval for the tunnel/ventilation project.
• 60 wetlands established / 3.5million shrubs and trees planted

Wrap up of day 1: So much of today sounded like repetitious, back patting, spin. There was nothing learned that wasn’t already in the VTP book. I got the sense by the end of the day that many of us hoped that tomorrow would provide far more substance, and we looked forward to ‘doing business’ and having that ‘high level debate’……

Media presence

*I contacted the conference organisers beforehand to enquire about media access to the event. I was told there was none. However, Jason Dowling from The Age was there on the first day. On Day 2 Jillian Verhardt from Radio Port Phillip was permitted to attend (I didn’t see any other media at all).

DAY 2.

Good morning Rob.

The Hon. Tim Pallas, Minister for Roads and Ports, Victoria, Steve Bracks Advisor 1999.

• The VTP will connect communities, build economies..etc…enhance livability, enhance amenity….etc…etc..

Apparently famous for his PowerPoint prowess, Mr Pallas lived up to his reputation and provided a lovely slide show….

10 Challenges facing infrastructure.

1. Congestion: $20.4b p.a. cost of congestion by 2020
($2.6b p.a. cost of congestion now)
‘Victoria is Australia’s Freight and Logistics hub’ – more talk about VTP Projects.

2. Port Capacity: 2035 - 8million containers annually.

Expand Swanston Dock – berth extensions
Webb dock for container handling
Transport plan for Hastings
Relocate market
Move Sth Dynon Rail terminal to Donnybrook
75% of channel deepening done – physical works due to be completed by
end of August.

3. Transport Linkages: Seymour Wodonga – Standard Guage Rail
4. Road Toll: duplicated roads safer than unduplicated
5. Freight Mode Share: more freight onto rail

Retain status as manufacturing state
90% of freight travels on road
Rail freight subsidies/freight access charges to encourage larger off-peak
use of port.

6. Intermodal Capacity: Container volumes not yet at a stage where rail is viable.
Until then encourage larger road transport to get freight around.
30m / 28m b-doubles and b-triples: tried and proven.
‘the public are accepting of b-doubles sharing the road’

7. Airport Capacity: Melbourne Airport Strategy

See Draft Airport Master plan 2008

8.

Infrastructure Funding: imbalance – requirement of state to raise revenue, failure of states to deliver. Money taken from road fines/tolls etc. goes back in to building/infrastructure.

Availability of PPP’s – i.e. Peninsula Link

9. Residential Amenity: Freight Futures

Truck action plan: new off ramps Westgate Fwy at Hyde St will remove 1.2 million trucks a year. Sunshine/Dempster/Paramount Rd – trucks will divert around Seddon using tunnels and new routes.

10. Port of Hastings: Bolte’s vision – lots of talk about ‘vision’

Question: Jason Dowling (Age News) asked about the funding of the Peninsula Link, state gov. has allocated $350m but nothing in the Fed. Budget.
Answer: Tim Pallas said he was confident they would receive the Fed. funding and said it was not unusual for items to be funded after any given main budget.

Question: 30mt. super B trucks, are they suitable for our roads?
Answer: Length is an issue, so they will only be trialed on certain routes, monitored by gps system to ensure they stick to nominated roads. See map.

Question: Catherine Manning – Considering all roads in the VTP lead to Hastings, is it not a bit dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket prior to any environmental assessment or EES? There are other ports around Victoria that could service our needs. What is ‘Plan B’ if Hastings proves to be an unviable location for major port development?

Answer:Tim Pallas: There is no plan B. Hastings is it. The EES just tells us what we need to watch out for, not whether or not we can do something. Minister Pallas assured the audience they would secure the necessary environmental approvals/considerations. Geelong has limitations. The EES is not a yes or no process. Hastings will happen.

Justin Madden – Minister for Planning

Again spoke of VTP and Melb @ 5million. Spoke about:
• Fast tracked approvals for infrastructure developments / collaboration
• Housing – growth growth growth….
• 325,000 will live in provincial areas by 2026
• Something about extra help for councils to measure households within their municipalities
• Online planning systems / ‘modernising’ planning and environment act
• Finally, we need to consult communities

Questions:

A man from Moonee Ponds: Why hasn’t growth been considered around Geelong etc.,…?
Answer: Again, hard to decipher, but something about ‘social issues as population reaches 3+million’, and ‘hamlets, villages and hinterland…’

Question: Jason Dowling of The Age asked if the Minister would sack his staffer after recent revelations re Brimbank Council.
Answer: No
Jason them commented cities over 3M seem to consistently present increased crime and other social problems.
Further reply from Minister, that our City is Attractive, especially housing as it is cheaper than Sydney. House and land packages here are around $60k less.

When does the population growth & infrastructure expansion come to an end?

Q. Catherine Manning: Considering your PowerPoint showed massive growth on Melbourne’s outskirts, are you concerned about the impact of all this growth on our food bowl, particularly the Koo Wee Rup Swamp/Gippsland regions? When does the growth come to an end?
A. (the following is a summary of what I understood of his lengthy response):
The south/east is almost at capacity and they are planning to move more people out to the West where there are larger tracts of land to be built upon (I then asked ‘so why develop Hastings???’ to which he said ‘Minister of Ports answered that’ – oh did he??? Well, just because it was ‘Bolte’s dream’ isn’t a good enough answer to me!). He said the rezoning of the 6 areas identified on the far edges would be done so in an environmentally sensitive manner. The North and West were definitely the only places to develop. He then went on to say that he welcomed my questions and was assuming my next would be about the EES process after Minister Pallas’ comments (well, actually I was planning on letting him off the hook on that one as I thought I might be removed from the gallery if I asked another question!!!) He spoke about the EES as something the community feels contains a ‘do nothing’ option. He said they (govt.) were more sophisticated now and complexities have to be managed. However, he did mention that although it ‘sounds like a done deal’ (my words), he would still have to seek federal approvals (EPBC Act).

Terry Garwood – Exec Director, Freight Logistics and Marine, DOT, Victoria

• More talk about more people, more freight, more, more, more. Planning, building managing freight network.
• Victoria is home to most efficient element of road industry: B Doubles – larger b-doubles under consideration to be trialed on certain roads.
• Freight task to double from now to 2030 ‘efficiency/capacity/sustainability
• Private sector moves freight on shared networks: trucks/cars, air freight/passenger, recreational boating/shipping.
• Government owns ports ( the ones in the VTP)
• ‘Planning and protecting’, ‘building and maintaining’, ‘managing and regulating’….( lots of buzzwords!)
• National rail that bypasses all major cities (now you’re talkin’!)
• International terminal at fresh market
• Truck Action Plan: building the network, freight charge during the day – encourage night road use
• Port of Melbourne’s charter to change to expand its role outside the port gate, giving them more power beyond the fence line of their current site.
• New policy document: Port Futures – tweaking the PLUTS
• This document will take Hastings and the UGB’s into consideration.
• There are no plans to introduce b-triples onto our Victorian road network, just longer b-doubles.

Question: Would Rail-Share suffer with the introduction of larger trucks?
Answer: Yes. Intra rail is port related. Interstate Rail non port related. National by passes all Capitol Cities. eg. Donnybrook Terminal. Metro rail freight is currently zero.

Question: Rob Gell: were green-house gas emissions part of the over all decision making process, especially trucks?
Answer: Aviation was quoted as 1.5% emissions, shipping 1.5% emissions. (Maybe he meant shipping and Transport, but that needs to be looked at.)

Rob said if Darwin was the Sea/Container terminal, how about train to the rest of the nation?
Further A. Melb. to Sydney Rail attracts barely 5% all freight movements. Funds are likely to be directed to increase rail and they are in close contact with Fed. Gov.

Question Unposed: Have the social impacts been considered or ‘costed in’ of the hundreds and thousands of ‘Daddies’ out there encouraged to drive their trucks only at night?

Stephen Bradford – CEO, Port of Melbourne Corporation

After a few figures relating to the Global Financial Crisis’s impact on freight movements, Stephen Bradford got stuck right in to the community for daring to suggest that things might not go so well to plan as expected. Here’s a rundown:

TEU’s (containers) Motor Vehicles
Dec. down 5.2% down 28.7%
Jan down 16% down 33.8%
Feb down 7.6% down 35.9%
Mar down 7.6% down 38.7%

TEU’s down 1.5% to Mar 09
Cars down 15.9% to Mar 09
Dry Bulk down 1.8% to Mar09

Long Beach down 30%
Seattle down 24%
Tacoma down 15%
Oakland down 16%
Los Angeles down 17%

(anyone wanna buy a transport plan???)

• 8 million TEU by 2035
• 60% container vessels are draught constrained, need ‘a hole in the sand’ – dredging.
• $12million EES
• Headlines cut and pasted on PowerPoint of ‘Negative Headlines’

He then went on to show news footage of ‘community reaction’, including the ‘Battle Zone’ story with Jo Hall, a Blue Wedges Rally, protesters and the exclusion zone, Federal Court story….etc..

• EES – after 130 recommendations from initial panel, rebuilt the team, performed the highest environmental studies, project liaison group, ‘subsequently we then had the SEES peer review by experts not on the original panel as selected by the state government’.
• Successfully dredged with no environmental impacts
• On schedule and within budget
• Port corporation took the option to be vigilant and open
• EMP is very rigorous

Followed by the ‘Big Tick’ video of the Queen of the Netherlands
• Took on an advertising campaign
• Showed the media ad
• More justification of media campaign
• Looking at Hastings and other ports
• By the way, loves the little penguins – lots of monitoring of the little cuties.

Question: What benefit to the environmental outcome of spending the $120M second/further EES re Bay Dredging.
Answer: He said it was worth it, they learned more about sea-grasses, penguins and turbidity. He also commented that the second 'team' convened to carry out the 'further' EES were almost an entirely new crew.

Question: CEO RACV Negus asked about increased container volumes on roads.
Answer: Negus was directed to the presentation by the previous speaker and he had answered all that. Negus only attended for the Bradford presentation and left the conference shortly after.

Question: Was Mr. Bradford concerned about increased severity of storms, King Tides etc. adding to an increase water level in the bay.
Answer: No.

Question unposed: When you say the port corporation ‘took the option’ to be vigilant and open, what was the other ‘option’?

The Hon. Jacinta Allen, Minister for Regional and Rural Development

More of what seemed like a ‘press release’ from the VTP.

Question Jillian Verhardt (Radio 3RPP): Despite a recent massive upgrade there is great congestion at times at the Tulla/Calder merge. Bendigo and towns such as Gisborne had been touted as ‘commuter satellites’ for those seeking affordable regional housing yet wishing to remain working in Metro yet get home at a reasonable hour. Asked about the Melbourne City to Tullamarine light rail in terms of alleviating serious congestion, and stated that the airport had been doubled in capacity around 5 years ago, and the management were out there last year stating another doubling would be required to keep up with increased aviation activity.

Answer: Dismissed the question as it was in her opinion a metro issue, yet the highway, Calder and Tullamarine Freeway are heavily used already. As other road issues around the freeways are ‘addressed’, it is assumed that will ease congestion.

Panel ‘Discussion’

Tim Ryan – GM, ARTC
Helen Newell – Director, Corporate Dev. & Government Relations, Asciano
Andy McNicol – Coffee Rail

Tim Ryan

• Nth/Sth rail corridor: Melb/Bris/Syd – 16m gross tonnes to 28/35m 2015
• East/West: Melb/Syd/Perth – 80% market share - focus to sustain operation – not much growth in it.
• Include customers, deliver what the market wants, location of terminals to take long trains, commercial opportunities in regional areas.
• Trucks have access to good road networks, makes it difficult to compete for $$$ for rail infrastructure.
• 1.8klm trains Syd/WA 1.5klm trains Bris

Helen Newell

• Engage with stakeholders
• Freight transport through inner urban areas an issue
• Need proper debate to find the best place for development (she’s speaking my language!) Hastings provides ‘many challenges’.
• Containers from Tasmania
• Asciano prefer development out west (i.e. Geelong).
• National freight rail system only way to justify freight on rail.
• Rail freight under 500klm cannot compete with trucks.
• Asciano position: move freight to west out of Dynan precinct to allow double stacking of Rail

Andy McNicol

• Literally arrived in Melbourne from Scotland 4 days ago.
• Was impressed by the ministers and audience being so embracing of the VTP and mentioned that there was much more ‘debate’ about such matters overseas.

Questions/Discussion:

Catherine Manning: Andy, you say that you are impressed that the Ministers and audience at this conference seem to be ‘embracing’ of the VTP. That may be because this is a ‘target audience’. The exorbitant cost of a ticket to this event prevents many community groups from attending (I am here representing a number of groups across Victoria). Further, when Tim Pallas said earlier that ‘the community had accepted b-doubles on the roads’, I beg to disagree. I don’t believe we’ve ‘accepted them’ at all, what choice did we have? They just arrived, and I can tell you that amongst the greater community there is huge support for a National Rail System that would reduce the number of trucks on the road, removes the parochialism and assesses the best place for port development.

To Helen Newell, if the cost to society of health impacts and safety issues were assessed and added to the cost of trucking freight, would that not bring the margin closer and make rail more competitive?

Helen Newell's response was that we’d be pleased to hear that the Federal Government are looking at this very issue and are about to release a document that she couldn’t elaborate on as yet, but that we would find it very encouraging. She went on to say that health issues and safety of trucks is being considered - Asciano stated it would help if trains were priced more economically, using all the columns. When they did their study, using all aspects, including safety, congestion etc. it produced a compelling argument showing trains can reduce road stressors currently present around centres.

(With this in mind, I wonder if we should hold off on the whole VTP until we can ‘collaborate’ with everyone for the best possible outcome for our freight needs! So far, the budget looks like it has done that for us, and I didn’t see anyone pulling dollar bills out of their pockets at this conference….)

More q & a for the panel:

Q. Freight via large trucks (all) around Port of Melbourne has a curfew to avoid commuter peak times and maybe residential considerations.

Is Infrastructure worth the cost to solve? Sydney has 4 hr curfew morning and evening re rail movements (noise and road closure/s?) where trucks are not limited there making it hard for rail to compete.

A. Asciano talked about doubling the track to Wodonga/Albury and said the Melb. to Bris. rail system was a major impediment.
Sydney was a rail bottleneck, in terms of getting freight through, especially sharing tracks with commuters as above.

Q. Wyndham Planner? The West is preferred location for rail terminal in a highly built up area.

A. The North-South and East - West must be connectable. The Sunshine triangle is part of this. North or West, both need corridors as a location. Donnybrook is 'looking good'.

Q Rail Lubrication from an expert in reducing friction, wear and tear etc. Apparently Aust. is using ineffective product and this adds to maintenance both trains and tracks.

A. This Q was dismissed immediately by the 3rd member of the 'panel', he explained he had heard of superior products but was sticking with existing suppliers and technology.

Q. Regional Hubs, who might be the operators? Terminals, rail, have their own economies of scale.

A. Financially, Rail always struggles. Multiple users is an answer and other business is required other than simply 'lifting' containers.
Single box rail transport does not pay.

Footnote - US does not allow double B's. Their policy is if the freight is that big, it must go by rail.

Parsons Brinkerhoff

• Freight and Congestion have risen sharply. Though, traffic volumes appear to have leveled off. Public Transport is steady and has experienced strong growth. Of the $38B, how best to use.

• Plan beyond today’s needs, we are simply catching up with a back-log not actually creating future capacity. Look at least 30yrs ahead.

• Current government plans will barely provide for the next 10 yrs.

• EIS is the opportunity for Community to improve the environment.

• Land use is predicator for location of transport.

• The presenter used Boston as the model to demonstrate how transport planning can work, for both commuters and road users.

• Development on roads are best, in their opinion, near major intersections.

Over and out.

Catherine Manning
Southern Victoria Community Action Group Inc.
P.O. Box 707,
Pakenham 3810
www.svcag.org
svcag[AT]ozemail.com.au

There is one key fundamental driving the real estate market, Australia's population growth.

We are in 3rd world territory as far as population growth goes,
We have just topped 1.9% growth !!!

source:#10;http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/MSB/71.htm</a></p>&#10;<p>Even in the midst of a recession we are bringing in plane loads of people here each week. And the Victorian Infrastructure Plan is based on higher immigration than ever seen before here. See <a href=" http:="">Report on the Victorian Transport Infrastructure Conference
Most immigrants end up in the suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney, these new immigrants are definitely supporting the real estate market of the big capitals.

Also note that I know areas that have many empty houses. They are in areas on the coast and inland, places like Lorne and Daylesford. The houses are owned by Melbournians and used as weekenders. I was told by a resident of Hepburn (next to Daylesford) that the census showed a very small proportion of permanent residents, with most houses owned by out-of-towners, used only on the weekend. Of course there would be some empty dwellings in the areas of highest demand (less than 15km from CBD), but not many, and I would bet more on the urban fringe.

Of course they are not anywhere near most jobs, markets or public transport.

Discrepancy

Ms Pennicuik, Greens member of Victorian Parliament, has drawn attention to discrepancies between figures apparently given the Auditor-General by the Port of Melbourne Corporation and figures obtained from them by the Supplementary EES statement process and the hearings and the Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration.

If it is true that 96% of ships were able to use the Port of Melbourne with no problems, does this discrepancy mean that the Auditor General will have to review his report and the validity of the PoMC's business case, quality of information and practice?

Dredging has cost Victorians enormously already financially, socially and environmentally. Confidence is not high in the PoMC. It is to be hoped that Ms Pennicuick will follow this matter up urgently. Any member of the public wishing to find out more could put questions to Ms Pennicuik to ask in Parliament.

Ms Pennicuick (Greens) (Southern Metropolitan)

"I am speaking today on the Auditor-General's report on the channel-deepening project. This project has been the subject of much public interest since it was first announced in 2002. That interest continues as, unfortunately, dredging is under way. It is a mega-project with a scale of dredging way above anything seen before in Port Phillip Bay -- or pretty well anywhere else in the world. "

"I have read through the Auditor-General's report on the channel-deepening project (CDP), and he concludes that after a very poor start the Port of Melbourne Corporation had developed an effective channel-deepening project. On page 2 of his report he says that the CDP included: "

" a robust business case, complying with better practice guidelines and providing government with the type and quality of information it needed to endorse the project "

" an environmental management plan that addressed the requirements of the environmental assessment process and was endorsed by ministers under the state and commonwealth environmental legislation "

" contracting arrangements, where the corporation followed sound processes in determining how works should be procured and the contractual terms. "

"The Auditor-General concluded that all of these were in order. "

"I am pleased that the Victorian Auditor-General's Office chose to audit the channel-deepening project, because due to public and community concern about the scale and risks of the project it certainly needed independent analysis, which has been sadly lacking hitherto. This report is a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate about the pros and cons of channel deepening, which, it must be remembered, is still happening. It is not a finished project, a point the Auditor-General himself acknowledges. It is still continuing, and he has not in fact audited a completed project. "

Was Channel Deepening needed or will it ever be needed?

"The Auditor-General's report is, perhaps, unable to answer some of the fundamental questions about channel deepening. The first question is: is it, was it or will it ever be needed? The second question is: will it provide any benefits to either exporters or importers or to the people of Victoria? These questions cannot be and are not answered by this report. "

"The fundamental question regarding the channel-deepening project has always been the need for it and the extent to which ships are actually depth constrained in the port of Melbourne. "

Wide range of figures has been quoted by PoMC

"Over the last few years the Port of Melbourne Corporation has quoted figures ranging from 25 per cent to 38 per cent of ships being unable to enter the bay fully loaded, but during the supplementary environment effects statement process and the hearings, and in the Report on Port Phillip Bay: Channel Deepening by the Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration released last September, the port admitted that the true figure is around 4 per cent of ships that cannot come into the bay or leave it fully loaded. That means 96 per cent of ships are able to come in and out of the bay fully loaded. "

"The Auditor General's report states that 50 per cent of ships are unable to come into the bay fully loaded. I asked the Auditor-General at his briefing yesterday where he obtained that figure from; he replied that he had obtained it from the port. Elsewhere in this report it states -- in fact, it recommends -- that the Port of Melbourne Corporation start to collect figures on this. "

PoMC does not collect data on number of depth constrained ships entering/leaving Port Phillip Bay

"In fact it does not collect data on what ships are able to come in and out of the bay and are depth constrained. That was an assertion by the port, and it is unfortunate that that figure was used in this report. "

"The Auditor-General then went on to say that in order to measure the benefits the port should start collecting figures on what ships it feels has made use of the benefits of the project. "

Costs of shipping in Port Phillip Bay rising due to 'Channel-deepening levy'

"The other benefits of the project, as they were raised in the briefing, are to be measured by reduced costs to exporters and importers. Certainly information that has come to us is that costs to exporters are rising, because they are paying a $60 channel-deepening levy, whether they need it or not. Many exporters have said throughout the lead-up to this project that they did not need or want the project, and they did not want to be paying for it. They are now paying for it. "

"It will be interesting to see whether, through the life of the project, that measure -- the reduced costs to exporters and importers, when they are in fact rising -- ever comes to be seen. "

Source: Member Sue Pennicuik, Council, Statements on Reports, Auditor-General: The Channel Deepening Project, Hansard, 7 May 2009, p.2141

Population growth, climate change and industrial push threaten Westernport ecology

There seems to be a big focus on Westernport at the moment, as population growth, climate change and further industrialisation threatens to further harm its fragile ecology.

Ordinary people are worried about social and environmental impact

There has been a shift in attitude amongst ordinary people who are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of protecting our environment. The Global Financial Crisis, water shortage crisis, climate change and predicted population expansion have incited an awakening about how fragile our society is, and how dependent we are on the health of our environment and the role we all play in it.

Spread the word about Western Port Seagrass Partnership's DVD launch & website

Last week, SVCAG Vice President Gillian Collins and I attended the launch of The Western Port Seagrass Partnership's DVD about the loss of seagrass in Westernport and the efforts of WPSP and others to address this problem. We urge you to visit their website www.seagrass.com.au and click on the link to receive a free DVD, then spread the word to others. Raising awareness about the importance of a healthy Westernport is crucial to addressing the problems facing it.

Report on Victorian Transport Infrastructure Conference

On the 11-12th May, I attended the Victorian Transport Infrastructure Conference, representing various groups and individuals across Victoria. What amazed me was that although all roads lead to Hastings, as you can see from the q & a's asked at the conference, there are many questions still left unanswered. Interestingly, the speaker from Asciano (who own the interstate rail and the Port of Geelong) completely got it when I spoke with her about a National Transport Strategy which would allow for the utilisation of other existing container ports. We will follow up on that conversation shortly.

PoHLUTS Pollutes becomes PLUTS

Recently, we had Ralph Kenyon CEO of the Port of Hastings Corporation attend our committee meeting to discuss where the PoHLUTS [Port of Hastings Land Use and Transport Strategy (Consultation Draft)] stands now. (To our disappointment, they've taken the 'oH' out of it so now it's just 'PLUTS' - maybe they didn't think it was quite as funny as we did, that spell-check wanted to make it 'Pollutes'.)

Anyway, Mr. Kenyon informed us that the Port Futures document would be out in a few months which would outline the grand plan for Victoria's ports, and contain details in response to the original PoHLUTS. Keep an eye on www.portofhastings.vic.gov.au .

Why the Refusal to include SVCAG in PoHC "Community Reference Group"?

Ralph Kenyon

We have also requested several times that SVCAG be included on the Port of Hastings Corp Community Reference Group so that we may better inform you, our supporters, but Mr Kenyon refuses our request on the basis that 'this is the group we began with, so we'll keep it that way until we review it later when the next stage of the port strategy document is released.'

I'm sure if Mr Kenyon or the Chairperson of the CRG said to the other members of the group 'considering SVCAG have been heavily involved within the community helping us to raise awareness regarding the PoHLUTS, would it be OK that they join the group, particularly considering the professional manner they have maintained, and valid points they have raised?' I couldn't imagine anyone would refuse - would you?

PoHC funding not evident

In the meantime, the PoHC have been unsuccessful in their attempts to acquire funds from both state and federal governments to begin Stage 1 of their EES. After attending the Vic Transport Plan Conference, I'm not convinced that anyone has any money to do anything, let alone develop yet another port for container imports, especially when they haven't even finished dredging Port Phillip!

Frankston Bypass lacks financial, political and democratic support

Frankston bypass cuts and damages wildife corridor via The Pines

The Frankston Bypass, a key transport route for the Port of Hastings development as outlined in the PohLUTS, did not get complete funding in this year's State budget either, and got nothing from Infrastructure Australia. Mr Brumby is still talking as though it will go ahead, and there are surveys being conducted along the route. Gillian Collins, who has been working tirelessly to protect the Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve, along with local activists, has been visiting Federal and State politicians, Environment Victoria and Green Wedges Coalition representatives, and urges all of you to contact Federal Environment Minister, Peter Garrett and raise your concerns about the unnecessary construction when traffic congestion alternatives exist. There will be destruction of endangered habitat, and endangered species will be threatened if this freeway proceeds.

Again, the lack of funding gives us a bit of a reprieve and allows more time for people to connect the dots, and raise further awareness of the importance of protecting Westernport.

Catherine Manning
President
Southern Victoria Community Action Group Inc.
www.svcag.org
Contact her via contact at candobettter.org or via info[AT]Svcag.org

Community members of a small green wedge, rural-residential township south east of Melbourne have won their fight to relocate industrial infrastructure for the Wonthaggi Desalination Project to a more suitable location, away from residences and their local primary school.

Unfortunately Wonthaggi itself has lost its battle against the actual desal plant.

Last November as the Environmental Effects Statement (EES) panel hearing began, Cardinia resident Catherine Manning stumbled across plans for a massive Booster Pump Station and possible chemical dosing facility. Horrified, she pulled together a petition and thorough presentation of the impacts to the local community.

Her submission to the EES hearing prompted the panel to personally visit the site. Their visit resulted in their recommending relocation of the Booster Pump Station. This was one of the panel's forty two final recommendations made to Planning Minister Justin Madden.

However, to Ms Manning's dismay, that recommendation was rejected by Minister Madden.

"I had followed what I was told was 'proper process' and felt vindicated when the panel wholeheartedly agreed with our community's concerns, but was alarmed that the Minister had missed the point of our submission and rejected that recommendation', Ms Manning said. 'I felt that the process was flawed and undemocratic, and that as a small community, we were being ignored and our concerns overlooked.'

Delegation to Parliament House

Not to be deterred, Ms Manning contacted Eastern Region Upper House MP Johan Scheffer. She requested a meeting with Minister Madden's office and the head of the desalination project Peter Sammut, to outline her concerns. Local primary school principal Allan Armstrong, and adjoining landholder Udyta Clark helped form the delegation to Parliament House.

'Having not been consulted properly in the first place, then feeling let down by the process, this final result is a real victory for us and an example of what can be achieved by ordinary people determined to seek an appropriate outcome,' said Ms Manning.

Source: Media Release from residents of Cardinia township. Thu, 11 Jun 2009
Contact: Catherine Manning by contacting us at candobetter.org

What kind of incompetent government cannot even keep small creatures like bandicoots from extinction? Wildlife ecologist and forensic animal hair identification expert, Hans Brunner, says politicians and greedy planners have seriously watered down and misinterpreted the meaning of the word 'reserve'. Parks Victoria complain about the lack of money, but spend money on infrastructure for people leaving no money for the protection of plants and animals, or for weeding, predator control and fencing, which should be their first and only priority.

by Hans Brunner

Obvious role of Nature Conservation Reserves

Nature Conservation Reserves are meant to be primarily secured for the protection and enhancement of indigenous plant and animals. These reserves must be strictly only used as a refuge for the plants and animals that have been destroyed everywhere else. Outside these reserves people have taken up over 95% of space available. This includes the many sports grounds, schoolyards, golf courses, botanical gardens, beaches and similar open spaces where people can enjoy open air activities.

Obvious role of Nature Conservation Reserves ignored and exploited for other reasons
Unfortunately, insensitive politicians, greedy planners and most of the selfish public have seriously watered down and misinterpreted the meaning of the word reserve. Why then call them 'reserves'?

It is obvious, when people already occupy 95 % of all the other space that the reserves are there to keep people out from what is clearly reserved for our unique plants and animals.

Offsets do not replace habitat
Whenever Nature Reserves are compromised and mutilated with infra structure, we are even hoodwinked to believe that offsets will replace lost habitat. But offsets are really only as good as criminal money laundering is. They are fake!

Humans do far more damage than the foxes, cats and dogs that get the blame
There is also no argument that in environmental terms, it is not foxes, cats and dogs, but us humans, who are the most serious pest species on earth. So, why are humans always given preference?

Yet humans are always given priority in 'Nature Reserves'
Whenever a master management plan is created for a Nature Reserve, it is always people that get the first consideration. The animals and plants have to suffer the consequences of these unbalanced decisions, which result in ongoing local extinctions, and in serious loss of biodiversity.

Parks Victoria cries poor but spends up big on humans

Parks Victoria is always complaining about the lack of money and we know why. They spend all the money on infra structure to accommodate people and then have no money left for the protection of plants and animals and for weeding, predator control and for fencing, which should be their first and only priority. A Nature Conservation Reserve is very much cheaper and easier to manage when people are mainly kept out of it. It becomes affordable.

...and fails to adequately monitor, mitigate and repair indigenous fauna and flora decline
Why doesn't Parks Victoria make plans to regularly monitor the presence of native plants and animals and to act when there is a decline or possible loss of a species? Have they ever made plans to re-introduce previously lost species?

Incompetent treatment and skewed priorities damage Pines Flora & Fauna Reserve

An area of prime habitat for the Southern Banded Bandicoot

A typical example is the near demolition of the Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve. Only a very short time ago this reserve has been doubled in size to 220 ha in order to protect and enhance the nationally endangered Southern Brown Bandicoot. Now it is going to be bisected by a four line freeway taking away a large area of prime habitat for bandicoots. As if this is not damaging enough, further plans are for a cycling and walking track, as well as lots of other walking tracks and a primary visitor node, involving lots of infra structure and parking space, all for the people at the expense of the plants and animals that are supposed to be protected. In the ex-Dara land, where bandicoots were most prevalent, a large area has also been taken over by a school, surrounded by several ha of open space. And this was not the end. To cap it all, a large housing estate has been placed exactly where bandicoots used to roam. DSE admits that because of all this habitat loss and disturbance caused, the Southern Brown Bandicoot may become lost in the Pines, but nothing is done to stop it.

And now the miserable history of the bandicoots.

When the Dara land was occupied by the Dept. of Agriculture and Vegetable Research, hundreds of bandicoots lived in the unused heath land. They were incidentally protected by regular poisoning programs of foxes and rabbits which did damage to the vegetables. In 1970’s, I (Hans Brunner) carried out a bait acceptance trial on bandicoots in the Dara land where I trapped twelve bandicoots. In the 1980’s I collected 18 bandicoots for the La Trobe University within two trap nights. They were still plentiful then.

Brunner indicating bandicoot diggings

Again in the Dara land, in 1997 Sally Kimber studied the bandicoots near whereI had earlier carried out the bait acceptance trial. Sally's supervisor was Peter Brown from Deakin University. I was also involved and inspected the trap lanes with Sally and Peter to examine the trapped bandicoots. In 1999, the Pines population of bandicoots were described again to be the largest on the Peninsula, ( Taylor ).

In 2005, about two years after the Dept. of Agriculture left the Dara land, a number of people including Dr.Terry Coats and I inspected the whole of the Dara land for the presence of bandicoots. No signs of bandicoots were found. The land has been opened to the public by installing gates to allow people with their dogs to roam freely throughout, what should have been a reserve for bandicoots.

Parks Victoria was now in charge and I blame them totally for the loss of these bandicoots. Fox control has stopped and rabbits have increased in numbers, all to the detriment of the bandicoots.

Shortly after Sally's study, her study area was burned for fire reduction without consulting ecologists to assess the possible danger to bandicoots. To rub salt into the wound, another, huge area of bandicoot habitat was also burned just next to it, long before any remaining bandicoots would have been able to have recolonise the previously burned area.

What else could be expected from Parks Victoria?

Really silly plans for a Primary Visitor Node must be stopped to save what is left

And now, the plans are to construct a “ Primary Visitor Node”, again just for the people, in the same Dara land with more visitor tracks that will meander throughout prime bandicoot habitat. Another part will be occupied by a cycle trail. Who knows what else will be added for human use at the expense of natural habitat?

This 'primary visitor node' must never be built anywhere within a reserve. Instead, this money should be spent on fox and rabbit control and on fencing.

Coming back to my opening remarks about the purpose of Nature Conservation Reserves, it is imperative that the whole of the Dara land (half of the total the Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve), be locked up and used for the urgent recovery of the nationally endangered bandicoots and all the other iconic native plant and animals that will benefit.

In the absence of people and dogs it will then allow for the unhindered control of foxes and rabbits. The area is already fenced with a type of fence that allowed bandicoots to flourish as they did when this area was managed by the Dept. of Agriculture.

There can be no more excuses! The other half of the Pines should also be used only for very passive recreation such as walking but without dogs!!

The four lane bypass and the cycle trail will always remain a shameful monstrosity which causes enormous damage, not only to the Pines, but the whole region.

Hans Brunner

Australians are losing their human rights to power, water, affordable housing, agricultural land, wild healthy biodiverse landscapes, self-government, education, and sustainable population very very fast.

Do you all know about the current Human Rights Consultation in Australia? You can register your concerns. Deadline is 15 June. Format is not limited to filling out the form; you may express yourself freely.

Please strongly consider writing your concerns about what is happening to human rights in Australia through commercially driven population growth, development, media and government. Circulate this article as widely as you can. Print it out and help elderly people, homeless people and others not able to access the internet to contribute to this consultation. The mailing address is lower down in this article.

This consultation provides avenues for people to record their concerns about the government's big population policy and its effect on human rights.

Examples of rights impacted and diminished by government policy and its coalition with the commercial Growth Lobby include:

- safe clean natural affordable water
- healthy river and soil and forest systems
- beautiful natural landscapes
- a healthy wild biodiverse envelope
- a kind and respectful treatment of farm animals and wildlife, with land-use planning for their welfare
- functioning democracy not overwhelmed by commercial interests fed by population growth
- the right to local self-government
- affordable housing

Towards protecting or retrieving these rights, we suggest that you demand:
- an end to the tendency towards monopoly of ownership, outlets and delivery by the mainstream press
- an end to commercial representation on the boards of the ABC and other public media
- the right to demand that the owners of the commercial press daily declare their commercial and corporate interests and associations to the public in an accessible manner
- public ownership of institutions and assets
- proper consultation about privatisation
- limitation of corporate rights
- add your own (The highlighted areas above may give you some ideas and material.)

The National Human Rights Consultation is seeking views about human rights in Australia on the following, but not limited to the following:

1. Which human rights and responsibilities should be protected and promoted?
2. Are these human rights currently sufficiently protected and promoted?
3. How could Australia better protect and promote human rights?

You can send an electronic submission via the submissions page or send it by mail to
National Human Rights Consultation Secretariat
Attorney-General's Department
Central Office
Robert Garran Offices
National Circuit
BARTON ACT 2600

or register to attend a community roundtable discussion in your state. The Consultation will run from 10 December 2008 until August 2009. The last date submissions can be accepted is 15 June 2009. After listening to the views and ideas of the Australian people, the Consultation Committee has been asked to report to Government on what they have heard by 31 August 2009.

Help http://candobetter.org to amplify your concerns and help you organise

We here at candobetter.org would also appreciate your contributing your submissions or to discussion at http://candobetter.org where we can amplify any ideas. There is no guarantee that the people appointed to represent the submissions will do this adequately without public pressure. Please help us to stimulate and organise this public pressure by sending your submissions to us as well, via the comments section, so that we can keep a public record and promote your concerns, show where others shared your concerns, and publish your views.

Sheila Newman
Population, Environment and Energy Sociologist
Sheila Newman (Ed.) The Final Energy Crisis, 2nd Edition, Pluto Press, UK, 2008

Australians receive little useful coverage in the mainstream media about new laws which are constantly being brought in to privilege overpopulation and overdevelopment in various states. Candobetter tries to publish information to fill this gap. The Bill discussed below, if passed, will make Victorians slaves to developers. They will not be able to influence most of what happens in their state and they will be punished if they try to stop developments by other means.

The comments below were on a debate (in an ALP-dominated parliament) was on the second reading of a motion by Mr Batchelor, The Minister for Community Development, for the Victorian Planning Legislation Amendment Bill 2009.
Labor Ministers who spoke in support of this bill were Mr Brooks of Bundoora, Victoria and Ms D’Ambrosio, of Mill Park, Victoria.

Mr Clark of Box Hill and Mr David Morris (in the Liberal Opposition) spoke against it. Here is Mr Clark's speech. We present Mr David Morris's speech in the next article, to be published shortly, "New Vic Planning Legislation Bill "a blatant, naked grab for power"

Criticism in Parliament of the Victorian Planning Legislation Amendment Bill

Mr CLARK (Box Hill) —

The Planning Legislation Amendment Bill has five main purposes. It makes amendments to the Planning and Environment Act 1987 so that any area of Victoria may be deemed to be a growth area, it creates a regime for the establishment and operation of new development assessment committees (DACs), it increases penalties in the Heritage Act 1995, it amends the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Trust Act 1996 to remove the limitation requiring that the trust only operate within the city of Port Phillip and the city of Melbourne, and it amends the Docklands Act 1991 to allow VicUrban to continue its involvement in projects in the Docklands development beyond 31 December 2005. The last of these purposes is effectively a tidy-up amendment, because VicUrban is already continuing its involvement in such projects.

I would be interested to hear the government’s reasons for removing the limitations on the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Trust so it can operate beyond the city of Port Phillip and the city of Melbourne. The increased penalties in the Heritage Act continue policy initiatives started in previous legislation.

The bill proposes to give the Governor in Council the power to declare as a growth area any part of Victoria that the Governor in Council sees fit

The two main provisions of the bill are the first ones I referred to. The bill proposes to give the Governor in Council the power to declare as a growth area any part of Victoria that the Governor in Council sees fit, and the bill contains extensive mechanisms for the constitution and operation of development assessment committees.

The government has announced that the initial development assessment committee areas will be the activity areas of Camberwell, Doncaster, Geelong, Preston and Coburg, but they can go much further than that. They can basically be extended as the government sees fit.

Once created, the new DACs will act in lieu of the responsible authority for all developments within their deemed operational areas, as determined by the ministerial order. The order will specify the class of development to which it applies and the areas it covers.

Each DAC will consist of five members. Three, including the chair, will be appointed by the Minister for Planning, and two will be nominated by the relevant municipal council from a group of five persons who are councillors or members of staff of that council.

There are provisions in the bill relating to the disclosure of membership of the DAC, provisions relating to conflicts of interest and disclosure of those conflicts, and provisions empowering removal of DAC members in certain circumstances. The bill specifies that the DAC will have the powers of the responsible authority in relation to the matters it considers. The decisions it makes will be treated as the decisions of the responsible authority. The relevant municipal council is required to provide documents, information and assistance to the DAC and to reimburse all reasonable costs and expenses incurred by a DAC other than the remuneration of the three members nominated by the minister. Once a decision is made by the DAC, it is treated as if it were effectively the decision of the council itself. For example, it is liable to be appealed at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT). This is the scheme of the bill. In putting forward the bill the government has said it is partnering with local government in seeking to improve the operation of the planning system.

I have to say that I have been struggling to think of an initiative announced in the planning sphere, or indeed in any other sphere of government, that is as stupid as the provision contained in this bill in terms of achieving the objectives for which it is said to be put forward.

There has certainly been other legislation that has been more damaging to the community than this, but in terms of its sheer illogicality, this bill is hard to beat.

The argument in favour of this legislation effectively says — and perhaps I will put some words in the government’s mouth — the current planning system is not working properly. There are long delays and interminable arguments.

Bill won't help create jobs

The government may claim councils cannot make timely decisions and that this is inhibiting the capacity to get on with developments and create jobs and prosperity for the state. Taking that argument as a given, this bill does absolutely nothing effective to overcome the bulk of the problems that exist in the system on that account. It simply creates a new decision-making body, the DAC, to make a decision in lieu of the councillors of the municipality sitting around the table in the council chamber.

Every other element of the process remains as it is.

Problems with the adequacy of zoning, planning scheme definitions, flawed criteria for deciding about the issue of planning permits and local government planning departments that are short staffed or where staff are slow, lacking in ability, pedantic or unaccountable — or any of the other accusations that are made from time to time — continue. Exactly the same group of council officers will be servicing the DAC as are currently servicing the councillors.

Beyond the point of a decision being made, if people object to a decision, they can appeal to VCAT against the decision of the DAC, just as they can appeal to VCAT against the decision of the council. The potential for this measure to overcome perceived problems in the planning system is extraordinarily limited. Those who hold out hope that once the DAC makes a decision the development can proceed ignore the fact that if there is strong resident opposition to a proposed planning initiative, that decision can go off to VCAT just as it can in the case of a council decision. If we assume the council would have rejected an application and the DAC would approve it, nonetheless the residents who were opposed to that application could still take it to VCAT. Any potential improvement to remedy the current problems of the planning system is extraordinarily limited. I fear those who were hoping to get great benefit out of this scheme, if it is enacted and implemented, will be sorely disappointed.

But that is only half of the problem with this bill.

The even greater half of the problem is the extraordinary price at which it comes in terms of intrusion on local communities, the diminution of the capacity of local communities to have a say in their own destiny, and the undermining of the role of local government councillors. The government appears to be treating local government councillors with disdain and disregard.

The government has the nerve to call this bill a partnership with local government, whereas in fact it will take away the existing responsibilities of local government to make decisions on planning permits and offers councils only two places out of five at the table of development assessment committees. The government is doing that on an extraordinarily limited and constrained basis.

To start off with, because councillors will have only two places out of five they will always be at risk of being outvoted. The second-reading speech claims that there is going to be an independent chair, but when members look at the bill they will see there is nothing of the sort — the chair is to be appointed by the minister as are the two other non-council nominees.

The local community representatives can be either councillors or members of staff. I think it will be highly likely that councillors will find it virtually impossible to become involved with a DAC. If they do, they are certainly going to be under extraordinary constraints.

There are confidentiality provisions governing members of DACs. The councillors who take part in them are almost certainly frequently, if not always, going to find themselves outvoted. They are then likely going to come under attack from the local community.

DAC Confidentiality provisions stop councillors talking to their communities

They will be trying to defend themselves with one arm tied behind their backs, because they will not be able to cite confidential information in their defence. They will be in a no-win situation.

Councillors squeezed out of planning process, leaving only government officers

If this scheme ends up being enacted, I would not be at all surprised if councillors say, ‘We are not going to take part in this at all. We are not going to be tarred with this brush. We’ll send some council officers along to make the decisions’. Councillors are effectively being squeezed out of the process altogether.

No reason required for overriding public policy

A further concerning aspect is that the DACs are not only being created in defined areas where the government has demonstrated there is some overriding public policy reason as to why in particular cases and in particularly sensitive or important parts of Victoria a DAC should be established.

Crocodilian policies

The DACs can be set up anywhere the government chooses. It reminds me of Churchill’s metaphor of people hoping the crocodile will eat them last while the crocodile goes around gobbling up one at a time. The Brumby government crocodile has designated a handful of local communities to gobble up in the first instance, and it will soon be chomping its way further through other communities.

A bil to destroy any democratic resistance to any development

It will not only do so in activity centres. The government has talked about its policy of imposing high density development along tram corridors. If the government runs into local community opposition to that proposal, next we will find that it has constituted a DAC to take responsibility, for example, for the entire strip of properties along the tram 109 route. Thus that entire strip, running from the city of Yarra through Boroondara to Box Hill, could also be pulled out of the hands of the local community.

The government is seeking an extraordinarily broad grant of discretionary power from this Parliament.

Exactly the same point applies in relation to the power it seeks through this bill to designate growth areas. It is not as if, for example, the government has a schedule in the bill and is seeking to designate areas in the schedule as growth areas; it wants the power to declare any part of the state to be a growth area. It could designate 1 hectare in Mildura, 100 hectares in Sale or a former commercial site in Camberwell to be a growth area, and all the rules relating to growth areas would then apply.

What would also apply is the obligation on people who develop land in any of those areas to pay the growth areas infrastructure contribution. This is a new burden on the people — a new tax being introduced for the first time in Victoria in 2009–10.

The government has claimed that there are going to be no new taxes, but if one looks at the budget papers made available to the house earlier today, one sees that for the first time in 2009–10 something in the order of $84.7 million is going to be collected from growth areas. The budget papers are a bit confusing as to exactly what this is going to consist of, and there is an inconsistency between budget paper 4 and budget paper 3.

Flat tax of $95,000 per ha on land owners whose land is rezoned from rural whether they asked for rezone or not

Budget paper 4 talks simply about a growth areas infrastructure contribution, estimated to be $85 million in 2009–10 — it explains that land brought into an urban growth boundary in future will be liable to a levy of $95 000 per hectare. In budget paper 3, under ‘Revenue initiatives’, at page 369, this figure is split into two figures, which designate a growth areas development fund and a growth areas infrastructure contribution, one of $42.3 million and the other of $42.4 million. This seems, although the budget papers do not make this clear, to reflect the fact that some of the money in the growth areas infrastructure contribution will in turn be assigned to a growth areas development fund — at least that is my assessment. If government members can confirm or vary that, I look forward to hearing what they can tell us.

[T]his bill will enable the government, without any further recourse to the Parliament, to declare an area to be a growth area. Following on from that will be the liability of citizens to pay this increased levy.

Be that as it may, this bill will enable the government, without any further recourse to the Parliament, to declare an area to be a growth area. Following on from that will be the liability of citizens to pay this increased levy. I would have thought that was getting pretty close to violating longstanding constitutional principles about the need for taxation or similar imposts to be authorised by Parliament rather than be imposed by the government through open-ended delegated legislation.

However, regardless of the constitutional principles, it arms the Brumby government with yet another way of grabbing revenue out of the community without proper debate and without proper authorisation by this Parliament.

This legislation seems to be completely at odds with the promises and claims that the Bracks and Brumby governments have made and the Labor Party made when in opposition about planning and their support for local communities. The former planning minister, John Thwaites, made out that he was going to be the champion of local communities and would restore authority, which he claimed had been taken away by the previous government, to local communities. But instead of restoring authority or allowing local communities to have a legitimate say, the government is taking that ‘say’ away from local communities at just about every step of the way. The bill before the house is a particularly gross example of that.

As I said, this bill is not going to be of any significant benefit in creating jobs and speeding up the development process. It operates at only that one particular point in the continuum at which an initial decision is made by a responsible authority.

It also may well not be of much help to small and medium-sized developers if the government is going to exercise its power primarily at the instigation of larger developers who come to it and persuade it to act in any particular case.

The fundamental opposition to this is twofold. On the one hand it does nothing to fix the serious problems which the Bracks and Brumby governments have allowed to evolve and fester within our planning system. It does nothing to overcome unreasonable delays; it does nothing to provide certainty to residents or those seeking to develop properties. It puts one more complicating element, in particular instances, on an existing convoluted structure that is not working properly.

Yet on the other hand it dramatically derogates from any potential for local communities to have a say through their local representatives. It is treating local government and local councillors with contempt, asking them to be part of a process through a DAC in which they have only two votes out of five — three votes are appointed by the minister against them — and to try to defend their position with one arm tied behind their backs.
The bill, whichever way you look at it, is badly flawed.

It attacks principles of democracy, of devolution and decentralisation. It attacks principles of accountability to Parliament by government for revenue raising. It is bad in all of those respects, and it is opposed by the coalition.

Source: “Planning Legislation Amendment Bill, (Second Reading), Members Statements, Assembly, Hansard, Tuesday, 5, May, 2009 pp. 1103-1115

The Black Cockatoo Conservation Team has just pulled off a remarkable rescue of wildlife habitat. One West Australian Black Cockatoo colony has been saved from the developers, in the nick of time, but the species is still not out of danger. Video-link inside article.

See also: “Help save West Australian black cockatoo from extinction”, blackcockatoorescue.com.

Last year we ran an article calling for help to save land for the Black Cockatoo at “Help save West Australian black cockatoo from extinction”. The University of Western Australia had been determined to bulldoze rare bushland in the middle of Perth for future property development, and that would have destroyed the habitat of one of very few remaining West Australian Black Cockatoos. Sixty per cent of pristine 36 hectare bushland was to be razed to make way for offices and housing. The situation looked hopeless, but this area has now been saved.


I was delighted today to receive an email pointing to a video link to a news item which shows David Dewhurst and others from the Black Cockatoo Conservation Team in West Australia reporting on the establishment of that threatened habitat as land for Black Cockatoos under Land for Wildlife provisions on private land.

Having said this, I have to add that I have personally run into trouble over Land for Wildlife in Victoria. The occasion was when a number of people went to the Victorian Civil Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) to attempt to stop intensive development of 9 Diosma Court Frankston, on the banks of Sweetwater Creek. One of our major arguments was the new development would impact adversely on parts of the creek held under Land for Wildlife. We were astonished and dismayed to hear that the Member who presided over the case had never heard of Land for Wildlife and that he held that it had no legal status to protect wildlife from adverse developments.

The history of this struggle and others to do with these birds may be read at this website.
There will soon be a new website. And there are two other struggles to save what remains of these endangered birds' habitat at Perth Airport and Jandakot airport.

These birds take a long time to mature sexually and then they only have a maximum of one baby every two years. This means that as they have already become rare the risk of losing all of them is very serious.

See also: “Help save West Australian black cockatoo from extinction”, blackcockatoorescue.com.

Human Population growth impacts on wildlife: The endangered Earless Dragon is being used to justify killing thousands of Eastern Gray kangaroos in Belconnen and Majura, but the motive is really developers' profit. As grasslands are turned into building sites, as human population growth is encouraged.. Kangaroos are in the way, as is democracy, so both are being buried. See also:Kangaroo articles

When an Earless Dragon is like a smoking gun we should ask who fired the gun.

Did the ACT government organize the mass killing of thousands of Eastern Grey kangaroos in Belconnen and Majura, near Canberra, in a sudden uncharacteristic and galvanic effort to save the endangered Earless Dragon?

(Illustration of dragon as gun by Carol.)Thousands of Eastern Grey kangaroos have recently been shot and bulldozed into pits in Belconnen and Majura, [1] Australian Capital Territory (ACT), in fatal massive round-ups which have not been seen since early last century. In a torrent of official reports and statements, scientists and politicians have fingered the Eastern Grey Kangaroo for overgrazing rare grasslands and thus threatening their other inhabitants, notably the endangered Earless Dragon.

Who would have thought that the little Earless Dragon had such powerful friends in government, planning, universities and business - even the Canberra International Airport? [2] The Grasslands Earless Dragon doesn't pay taxes and doesn't directly contribute to political fundraisers, but it is often associated with grants and development programs these days.

Were these culls really for the benefit of the Earless Dragon? Or was the Earless Dragon only an excuse for this macropod massacre, in which case, what was the real motive?

Although these planned culls aroused public ire and many questions, formal responses were highly selective. Many questions about the Belconnen cull went unanswered and remain unanswered. When the Majura cull came up on the agenda, the same angry questions received the same infuriating non-responses.

The public and the kangaroos deserve much better.

It was so difficult to make sense of what was happening. Could the whole thing actually be as cruel and stupid as the kangaroo-cull protesters claimed? Or were the protesters really childish people who could not accept the obvious need to put some animals which had ‘bred like rabbits’ out of their misery?

After all, the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals (RSPCA) had given its seal of approval. That meant it must be okay, right? Right? (See, for instance: "Questions to Michael Linke, RSPCA re the Majura Massacre of Kangaroos")

Absence of testable theoretical basis for cull

My own preoccupation over the months intervening between the Belconnen and the Majura kills had been to ascertain what population theory was used to arrive at the diagnosis of overpopulation or to assert that there should be only one kangaroo per hectare. My search failed. This question has now become one of whether there was any population theory at all. A theory of how kangaroo populations behave is necessary for any outsider to be able to test the validity of the judgement that the Majura Roos or the Belconnen Roos or any other roos were overpopulating and needed ‘culling’. Saying that there should be one per hectare or that they may die of starvation are remarks which, on their own, do not justify culls.

I was amazed that official reports did not begin with a description of how kangaroo populations were thought to operate, how this theory had been tested and the populations measured. In an effort to find out if any real theory and application had taken place, I attempted to contact officials and scientists involved in kangaroo management programs of one sort or another. No population theory of any kind, whether or not demonstrating lemming-like multiplication tendencies in kangaroos, has yet surfaced as a reasonable basis of the culling of the Belconnen or Majura roos.

What did emerge was that there was an overtly declared perception of conflict between human activities and the presence of kangaroos in grazing and a less overtly acknowledged conflict between land-use intensification in urban development, such as roads and new suburbs, accompanying the promotion of radical human population growth policies in the ACT. (See, for instance, this description of planned expansion and intensification in the area.)

Dr Fletcher’s thesis oddly at odds with Canberra culls

One scientist who was closely associated with the Belconnen cull and the Majura cull, was Don Fletcher. Fletcher is the Senior Ecologist in Research and Monitoring in Parks, Conservation and Lands, Department of Territory and Municipal Services, ACT. His involvement in the Belconnen Roo cull seems to have been officially limited to capturing then releasing female survivors after inserting contraceptives in them. He was one of the writers of the public consultation document leading up to the Majura cull.

He defended these culls and has defended the assessments leading up to the Majura culls in a public consultation document. Yet his own thesis on the “Population Dynamics of Eastern Grey Kangaroos in Temperate Grasslands,” (pdf 4.27mb) seemed to discredit claims at the basis of these culls, which were too high population density and a need to manage it down to one kangaroo per hectare. For instance, he wrote on page 237 of his study that :

“The study did not provide evidence that high densities of kangaroos reduce groundcover to the levels where erosion can accelerate. Unmanaged kangaroo populations did not necessarily result in low levels of ground cover. Groundcover had a positive but not significant relationship to kangaroo density, with the highest cover at the wettest site where kangaroo density was highest. Weather has an important influence on groundcover.” [3]

He also wrote that some of the populations he was studying were at the highest density recorded. They ranged between 4.5 and 5.1 kangaroos per hectare. The density in the studies below was expressed in square kilometers. To get density per hectare, divide by 100. [4] Fletcher wrote:

“The kangaroo density estimates reported in Chapter 7 for the three study sites (mean eastern grey kangaroo densities of 450, 480 and 510 km2) are the highest kangaroo densities reported. For comparison, the maximum density of combined red kangaroos and western grey kangaroos in the Kinchega study was less than 56 km2 (Bayliss 1987) and the density of eastern grey kangaroos at Wallaby Creek (Southwell 1987b) was 41 to 50 km2. The next highest kangaroo density outside the vicinity of my study sites appears to be that of Coulson et al. (1999a) for eastern grey kangaroos at Yan Yean Reservoir near Melbourne, which was 220 km2.”

Coulson’s study of kangaroos at 2.2 per ha was published in 1999 as Coulson G, Alviano P, Ramp P, Way S “The kangaroos of Yan Yean: history of a problem population”. [5] Graham Coulson’s Yan Yean article is frequently cited by kangaroo population students and he seems to be thought of as the originator of the “one kangaroo per kilometer” ‘rule’.

I did contact Dr Fletcher by email, and he was initially quite friendly, but when I attempted to ask him questions about his thesis responses to my emails ceased, even though I re-sent the emails.

For every assertion a contradictory one remains unanswered

The ACT Kangaroo Advisory Committee Report No.1 (issued prior to the Majura cull) reported conflict between kangaroos and the rural community which uses 23% of the ACT.

“A key issue for rural lessees is the conflict between kangaroo grazing and pasture and fodder crop production.”
(ACT Kangaroo Advisory Committee Report No.1. )

It stated as fact anecdotal reports that kangaroo populations ballooned due to man-made pasture improvements.

“There is general consensus that, in other parts of Australia at least, land clearing and swamp drainage to extend areas for introduced pasture, together with the increase in the number of farm dams has improved habitat for Eastern Grey Kangaroos and some other macropods, leading to increased numbers.”

But these anecdotal reports are very selective and easily countered by others, for instance in Dr John Auty’s comprehensive review of original documents forming the history of kangaroo populations from the time of European settlement in Australia. See “Red Plague Grey Plague - Kangaroo [numbers] myths and legends”

Other ACT researchers have also questioned the logistical principle of blaming kangaroos for human pressures on the environment, i.e. why blame kangaroos when we know that the damage is outstandingly done by sheep and cattle? In the Olsen and Low report case cited below the researchers are talking about farming, but they could just as much be talking about new suburbs, i.e. why blame kangaroos when the damage is obviously being done by human population growth, accompanying infrastructure and housing development (roads and suburbs), and human activities (driving cars, growing lawns, shopping, expansion of production, etc.)?

“The discontinuation of damage mitigation as grounds for harvesting is in many ways a more honest approach to kangaroo management given that damage is difficult to monitor, predict and even to prove empirically to be an issue. It also removes the implication that kangaroos are pests.

However, some landholders still perceive damage mitigation to be the main reason for harvesting and continue to call for greater quotas, mainly during the recent years of low rainfall. Arguably, this is a socio-economic problem rather than an ecological one. Certainly, the issue of land degradation will never be redressed by simple reduction in kangaroo numbers when there is no concomitant control of sheep and other introduced herbivore grazing impacts.” Olsen and Low Report. [6]

Is the real conflict over the grasslands between developers and kangaroos rather than kangaroos and earless dragons?

Fletcher, in his thesis, describes Kangaroo density in the ACT as having “increased more rapidly from 1996 to 2000 after sheep and cattle grazing had ended.” [7] Sheep and cattle had been allowed to graze in the threatened grasslands. In some cases they have even been returned to the areas where kangaroos have been ‘euthanazed’ to protect those fragile grasslands.

The question asked here should not be whether the kangaroo density increased to take up pasture vacated by sheep and or cattle. The real question should be: Did such a reduction in sheep and cattle grazing then bring the unfortunate kangaroos into conflict with urban developers over the rezoning of agricultural land for rural use?

In fact, if we drop the non-issue of kangaroo numbers, the relevance of developer-ambition conflicting with retaining grasslands for any indigenous animals becomes obvious.

Kangaroos graze there, which is obviously better than sheep and cattle grazing there, but property developers want to raise far more lucrative crops of humans there by building roads and houses where kangaroos now graze, along with earless dragons.

Unfortunately the government is encouraging developers. Maxine Cooper, Commissioner for Sustainability, in her report on ACT Lowland Native Grassland Investigation, says that the "ACT is fortunate in being in a strong position to be able to advance the protection of lowland native grassland, in particular Natural Temperate Grassland communities and the species it supports," ... BUT... [she adds]:

“Protecting lowland native grassland from development is also a challenge as these areas, being generally flat to gently undulating with no trees, are often prime potential development sites. Much of Canberra’s development is on lands that were once lowland native grassland.” Maxine Cooper Report, p. v.

“Development that potentially affects lowland native grassland is either underway or
planned for the ACT (see Section 5). This development has the potential to sever corridor and connectivity between grasslands and woodlands and/or other adjacent habitats. Many of the recommendations presented in this report reinforce the importance of connectivity.” Maxine Cooper Report, pp 74-75,

Now most of the competition with kangaroos is from property development. Stimulating property development is government policy and the means of stimulus is a policy to encourage interstate immigration and natural increase through baby bonuses. This government decision to stimulate human population growth in the ACT and to expand development in the ACT causes pressure on the local kangaroo population and the population of the Earless Dragon in the ACT.

Grave failure of public education and democracy

The commercially-based decisions about human population policy which cause these pressures, however, are kept entirely out of official calculations, negotiations, and rationales pertaining to kangaroo culls and definitions of kangaroo overpopulation in Belconnen and Majura, ACT. This omission means that the public do not have the information to hold the government responsible where it should be held responsible, nor to question the costs of its policies. This represents a grave failure of public education and democracy.

Oddly, Maxine Cooper, in her “Report on ACT Lowland Native Grassland Investigation,” 12 March 2009, mentions and notes the threat to the grasslands from development, yet she does not factor this logically into the reasonableness of blaming and killing kangaroos.

Instead, she uncritically accepts the illogical explanations which she is provided with about kangaroos. She even provides further faulty measures of kangaroo population densities by rate of car-kangaroo collisions.

“The 2007–08 State of the Environment report states that motor vehicle accidents involving kangaroos has increased by 38% (from 563 in 2005–06 to 777 in 2006–07). Rangers have advised that they now attend more than 1,000 roadside kangaroo incidents per year in Canberra.” [8]

Although Maxine is aware that the building of roads and suburbs is impacting the grasslands, she does not stop to think that these are also impacting the kangaroos through an increasing rate of driving them out of their habitats and onto the roads to make way for houses.

If, however, commercial development pressure were properly assessed, then its role as the primary population impact on the grasslands and the cause of ACT policies to depopulate kangaroos would become obvious and the government would no longer be able to deflect criticism of overdevelopment and cruelty to kangaroos.

Who profits? When an Earless Dragon is like a smoking gun we should ask who fired the gun.

What of the Earless Dragon in all this? Small and scarce, it is not hard to imagine it fitting into a developer’s pocket-size native-style garden. You could even imagine thirty-something refugees from housing prices in Sydney and Singapore cultivating it in garden pots in new high-rises. Imagine is the key, since who would check up?

Pardon me for being skeptical, but the high profile of the Earless Dragon makes me think of advice to writers about mentioning loaded guns in detective stories. If there is a gun it is there to shoot a victim for a motive. The huge importance suddenly given to the humble Earless Dragon bespeaks a greater purpose than the self-evident worth of its own preservation. Cherchez le maccabe. [Find the cadaver.] The Dragon is the weapon to get rid of the much-loved kangaroos. There can be no argument there, for we hear little else but how the kangaroos are threatening this little animal. Once the kangaroos are gone, the tiny Dragon’s profile will almost certainly sink back to the level which escapes most humans’ notice, unreported by the mainstream press.

Let us ask the ever-useful sociological question here. Who benefits?
Developers and their friends do.

Let justice be done

You wouldn’t think it from listening to politicians, but I have it from a reliable source that, in the ACT, the biggest source of public complaint is cruelty to animals. People should realize that they are not alone in their horror at the cruelty entailed by all this unwanted (except by its few focused beneficiaries) and costly population growth and development. The Earless Dragon has been deployed with the effect of sowing paralysing confusion among nature groups by implying an ungenerous bias for furry kangaroos against ugly dragons.

”To save the beauty, or the beast; that is the question
Eastern grey kangaroos are among the most appealing of mammals (Figure 12), while Ginninderra Lepidium, Grassland Earless Dragons, Coorooboorama Raspy Crickets (Figure 4), Striped legless Lizards, Perunga Grasshoppers (Figure5), Golden Sun Moths (Figure5), and other grassland-dependent plants and animals, are all ugly. Well that may be one opinion, but if so, it is irrelevant. Governments are legally and morally obliged to protect each species. Beauty is not a consideration.” ”A Pictorial Guide to the Kangaroo Culling Issue, Dept of Territorial and Municipal Services, ACT Government” [ 9]

This has the hallmarks of a straw man argument.

Let the community be heard as it rises to save the grasslands and return them to their rightful management by kangaroos and Earless Dragons. Let due opprobrium be publicly dealt the Growth Lobby by exposing its greed and cowardice in orchestrating the cold-blooded execution of thousands of living, breathing, social creatures for economic and ecological crimes they could never have committed, merely to defend its exceedingly narrow and debt-ridden interests. Let us sheet home to the Growth Lobby and its minions in government the depravity with which they attempt to corrupt our wider society. We are not cruel or injust. We do not support cruelty and injustice.

It seems amazing that Maxine Cooper can support a kangaroo cull when she also writes that the Majura Valley grassland is “arguably one of the largest areas of Natural Temperate Grassland remaining in southeast Australia” but that it has no long-term planning protection and there is no commitment for any, and that to protect it by defining it as a reserve would

“[…]constrain future development options, for example, the potential Canberra International Airport northern link road and the potential east-west Kowen road [… and] would also ensure that the Natural Temperate Grassland, the Grassland Earless Dragon and other threatened species are not adversely affected through incremental developments, as would be the case if the potential Canberra International Airport northern link road and the potential east-west Kowen road were to be progressed according to existing concept plans.” [10]

In other words, Maxine Cooper is aware that plans for several new roads and urban expansion are planned for the Majura grasslands and sees that it will be necessary to curb this development to protect the grasslands. [11]

Some of Cooper’s other recommendations (apart from those which promote the culling of kangaroos on illogical grounds) are good. I provide these in the appendix to this article.

Earless Dragon scarcity previously coincided with kangaroo scarcity in ACT

Don Fletcher, in “Population Dynamics of Eastern Grey Kangaroos in Temperate Grasslands,” describes how, in the 1940s and 1950s kangaroos actually became rare in the ACT due to competition by European grazing stock. Even when these stock were removed, they remained rare for some time. Salt blocks were put out in the 1960s to attract kangaroos to the Tidbinbilla Fauna Reserve, where in 1963 employees went for three months without seeing one.) [12]

Oddly, at the same time as kangaroos were banished from the ACT, the Earless Dragon also became scarce. It couldn’t have been because of too many kangaroos.

“The Grassland Earless Dragon was very common in the ACT up to the 1930s but there are now very few left. This is mainly because there are so few areas of its native grassland habitat remaining. There are now only two main populations known in the ACT; and there is one near Cooma in NSW.” Source: The ACT Conservation Council, http://www.consact.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=47&Itemid=34#GED
[13 ]

Note that the Earless Dragon was also found in 2001 in Mount Tyson on Queensland's Darling Downs. [14]

APPENDIX: Maxine Cooper, in her “Report on ACT Lowland Native Grassland Investigation,” 12 March 2009

Recommendation 23: Plan a Majura Valley Reserve to protect Natural Temperate Grassland and its supporting species, particularly the Grassland Earless Dragon, by defining the boundaries of this proposed reserve in the near future.”

“Findings that informed Recommendation 27
During the investigation, the Commissioner’s Office found it difficult to identify the location of lowland native grassland sites relative to planning zones that guide land use. To help the community and developers gain information on grassland sites relative to planning zones it is recommended that a map of the location of lowland native grassland sites relative to planning zones be published.

Recommendation 27: Publish a map that shows the location of lowland native grassland sites relative to planning zones. This should be readily available through the ACT Planning and Land Authority and the Department of Territory and Municipal Services.” Source: Maxine Cooper, Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment, “Report on ACT Lowland Native Grassland Investigation,” 12 March 2009, pp 73-74

“In terms of biodiversity conservation, the ideal approach is to establish a series of conservation reserves (which may include voluntary schemes) that are of sufficient size and biodiversity to maintain a full range of ecological communities (and hence species) on a long-term basis. It is also desirable for such reserves to be located to enable connectivity for animal movement and other interactions between them.125
The natural connections between grasslands and adjoining woodlands have mostly been severed, but should be retained where they still exist.

Important grassland sites for connectivity between woodland and grassland are at:

• Mount Ainslie Nature Reserve and Campbell Park (MA05)
• ‘Callum Brae’ (JE02)
• Jerrabomberra West Reserve (JE03) and woodland to the west
• Gungaderra Nature Reserve (GU02) and Gungahlin Hill
• Aranda Bushland and Caswell Drive (BE10)
• Majura Valley at the Majura Training Area (MA01).

Important grassland sites for connectivity between grasslands are at:

• Campbell Park (MA05) and Majura West (MA06)
• adjacent grassland on either side of the ACT and New South Wales border via Harman Bonshaw North (JE06) and Harman Bonshaw South (JE07), Jerrabomberra East Reserve (JE05), Woods Lane (JE06), and Queanbeyan Nature Reserve (Letchworth, New SouthWales)
• adjacent grassland between the Canberra International Airport (MA03) the Majura
Training Area (MA01) and ‘Malcolm Vale’ (MA04). Pp. 74-75

NEW POPULATION BOOK HOLDS SOLUTIONS TO HABITAT DEPLETION: Sheila Newman has just published new theory in a new book, Demography, Territory & Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations (see link). Two chapters are on multi-species demography, the rest apply the theory to non-industrial societies and the author comes up with a completely new test for the collapse model of Easter Island, which will stun those who thought they knew all about it. Forensic biologist, Hans Brunner writes of it: "This book takes us to a completely new paradigm in multiple species population science. It shows how little we understand, and how much we need to know, of the sexual reactions when closed colonies with an orderly reproduction system are destroyed, be it people or animals."

NOTES

[1] “Majura roo cull targets 6000, Canberra Times, 2 May 2009, http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/majuraroo-cull-targets-6000/1502384.aspx and
Victor Violante, “Roo cull under way: 2000 shot”, Canberra Times, 9/05/2009,
“About 2000 eastern grey kangaroos at the Department of Defence's Majura Training Area have been culled this week, with a further 4000 expected to be shot. Defence confirmed yesterday that culling had begun on Tuesday and contractors doing the cull had already achieved about a third of their target.
Defence spokesman Brigadier Brian Dawson said there were about 9000 eastern grey kangaroos on the Defence-owned site, and they would reduce the population to the ''sustainable level'', a density of one per hectare. This would reduce the population to about 3000.
‘The cull is being conducted humanely by licensed and experienced professional contractors,'' Brigadier Dawson said yesterday.’”
[2] Kangaroos Threaten One Of Australia's Last Remaining Original Grasslands, And Endangered Animals (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/ 080521114923.htm) “The eastern grey kangaroo (Macropus giganteus) has always been part of the cityscape of Canberra, also known as the "bush capital" of Australia. But even Leipzig-based scientist Dr Marion Höhn and Anett Richter of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) are surprised by the high numbers of them. In her doctoral thesis, Anett Richter is investigating how selected invertebrate species such as ground beetles are affected by landscape fragmentation and habitat alteration in natural grasslands in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). Yet during her fieldwork she discovered that there were far fewer of them than expected.
What she found instead were dry grasslands, grazed bare and scarred by the worst drought to hit Australia in a century. Particularly, she was surprised to find large quantities of kangaroo dung, especially in the enclosed military areas: "The results of the fragmentation studies are not yet available. But we assume that there is a relationship on individual sites between the extremely high density of kangaroos and species diversity among the invertebrates – especially in times of severe drought."”

In Peter Robertson & Murray Evans, /files/earless-dragon-management-2009-tympanocryptis-pinguicolla.pdf National Recovery Plan for the Grassland Earless Dragon Tympanocryptis pinguicolla, published by the ACT Department of Territory and Municipal Services, Canberra, 2009: http://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/43f24013-b621-4ff6-bf09-34da942e8ced/files/tympanocryptis-pinguicolla.pdf the Canberra International Airport is listed as responsible for the management of earless dragon habitat at the airport (p.9); as possibly relatedly suffering economic impacts (p.12); as supporting ongoing studies p.19.

The Airport legal framework for protecting dragon habitat, including land management agreements and conservation directions, is outlined in section A5.1, p.4:

"Development at the Canberra Airport requires approval for Major Development Plans (MDP) (defined under the Airports Act 1996) from the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government (Infrastructure Minister). The Infrastructure Minister, under Section 160(2)(c) of the EPBC Act, must obtain and consider advice from the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts (Environment Minister). Although an approval may be given by the Infrastructure Minister for a MDP, a permit from the Environment Minister under Section 201 of the EPBC
Act to move, take or kill is required to harm a Grassland Earless Dragon or its habitat. In issuing such a permit the Environment Minister must be satisfied that the action will not have an adverse impact and will contribute significantly to the conservation of the species."

[3] Don Fletcher, “Population Dynamics of Eastern Grey Kangaroos in Temperate Grasslands,” was on line as a pdf, which is the form I downloaded it as. A copy is preserved now under this article, linked here: /files/Fletcher-kangaroo-thesis.pdf because the pdf is now of limited availability, although copies are still at the University of Canberra Library, reference: http://nla.gov.au/anbd.bib-an42269526. A book by the same title and author has also been published.
[4] There are 100 ha in one square km. So if density varied between 450 and 510 kangs per square km, then that is 4.5 p ha or 5.10 per ha. With 220 per square km 2.2 per ha.
[5] Coulson G, Alviano P, Ramp P, Way S (1999). “The kangaroos of Yan Yean: history of a problem population”, Proc R Soc Vic 111: 121–130.
[6] Penny Olsen and Tim Low, “Situation Analysis Report Update on Current State of Scientific Knowledge on Kangaroos in the Environment, Including Ecological and Economic Impact and Effect of Culling”, School of Botany and Zoology, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200
26 Henry Street, Chapel Hill, Queensland 4049, Prepared for the Kangaroo Management Advisory Panel, March 2006
[7] Don Fletcher, “Population Dynamics of Eastern Grey Kangaroos
in Temperate Grasslands”, p.40
[8] In Note 11: “The 2007–08 State of the Environment report states that motor vehicle accidents involving kangaroos has increased by 38% (from 563 in 2005–06 to 777 in 2006–07). Rangers have advised that they now attend more than 1,000 roadside kangaroo incidents per year in Canberra.” Although Maxine is aware that the building of roads and suburbs is impacting the grasslands, she does not stop to think that these are also impacting the kangaroos through an increasing rate of driving them out of their habitats and on to the roads. Nor does Don Fletcher, in his thesis, where he accepts reports on increasing rates of car collisions with kangaroos in Victoria, also a state with a population growth policy which manifests in rapid population growth and development and rapid depletion of kangaroo habitat.
[9] A Pictorial Guide to the Kangaroo Culling Issue (2006) from the ACT Department of Territorial and Administrative Services.

[10] Maxine Cooper Report, pp. xv-xvi
[11] Maxine Cooper Report, pp.74-75 and pp xv-xvi:

“Development that potentially affects lowland native grassland is either underway or
planned for the ACT (see Section 5). This development has the potential to sever corridor and connectivity between grasslands and woodlands and/or other adjacent habitats. Many of the recommendations presented in this report reinforce the importance of connectivity.” pp 74-75

“Majura Valley’s large, intact lowland native grassland area, which consists of a number of sites under the control of various government agencies, does not have long-term planning protection; it is not in a reserve and there is no commitment for this to occur.

Given the significance of the Majura Valley grassland, arguably one of the largest areas of Natural Temperate Grassland remaining in southeast Australia, the presence of five threatened species including the Grassland Earless Dragon, it is strongly recommended that a commitment be made to create a reserve in this locality.” [xv-xvi]

[…]defining the site of the proposed Majura Valley reserve would constrain future
development options, for example, the potential Canberra International Airport northern link road and the potential east-west Kowen road, it would provide a more certain context for potential developments. It would also ensure that the Natural Temperate Grassland, the Grassland Earless Dragon and other threatened species are not adversely affected through incremental developments, as would be the case if the potential Canberra International Airport northern link road and the potential east-west Kowen road were to be progressed according to existing concept plans. [xv-xvi]

The lands for the proposed reserve could be the subject of a formal conservation agreement between the ACT and Australian governments.”
[12] Don Fletcher, “Population Dynamics of Eastern Grey Kangaroos
in Temperate Grasslands”: “3.3 History of eastern grey kangaroo populations on the sites
All three sites had been grazed commercially for 50 – 150 years until withdrawn in recent decades for conservation or water supply purposes. Each site supported an unmanaged population of eastern grey kangaroos, which was at high density. Kangaroos were scarce in the ACT region in the 1940s and 1950s (Schumack 1977; ACT Kangaroo Advisory Committee 1996, p. 9). This included the study sites. The first employees in the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve lived there for three months in 1963 before seeing a kangaroo (Mick McMahon, former employee, personal communication; ACT Kangaroo Advisory Committee 1996) and salt blocks were put out to attract kangaroos in the years before the reserve was opened to the public (ACT government official file: Tidbinbilla Fauna Reserve Advisory Committee – 1966).”
[13] Source: The ACT Conservation Council description of the Grassland Earless Dragon - Typanocryptis pinguicolla.
[14] Mt Tyson's Grassland Earless Dragon: not extinct after all
“Chocolate bilbies are facing stiff market competition from the Grassland Earless Dragon in Mount Tyson on Queensland's Darling Downs. GED (as the Grassland Earless Dragon is affectionately known) was thought to be extinct, but was rediscovered in 2001. An adult GED grows to around 12 centimetres long and has spotted spiky skin which makes it a camouflage specialist. […] The Landcare Group has received more than $7,000 from the Australian Government to fund a variety of activities designed to promote awareness of GED and create a conservation management strategy for the species. […] The Group had previously received funding through a State Government Community Natural Resource Awareness Activity Grant, which they used to commission the chocolate mould that was provided to manufacture the chocolate dragons. Support has also been provided by local businesses such as Ergon Energy in Toowoomba and by the Queensland Museum and the University of Queensland Gatton campus.”

Also published on Online Opinion, Sinking Lifeboat.

In echoing the sentiment shared by many environmentalists who, according to an Australian testament, "want a stronger native tourism industry and more people enjoying our parks", a travel writer made the following case:

"The travel industry cannot prosper in a degraded world if we destroy the natural beauty and ambience people came to enjoy. Both need each other to survive..A sensitive and well-managed tourism industry brings benefits for the visitor, the host country and can help preserve the national environment."

But this argument prompts several questions. Questions like, why "must" there be a stronger nature tourism industry, with "more people enjoying our parks"? Why does nature "need" the travel industry to survive? How does a "sensitive and well-managed tourism industry help preserve the national environment"? In fact, why does healthy biodiversity require people at all? If we were to go extinct, would not biodiversity be on the road to recovery? I know that I need to enjoy nature. But I don't why nature needs me to enjoy it.

I would assert that "sustainable tourism" is an oxymoronic delusion. I suspect that no matter how carefully sensitive flora and fauna is protected, the beauty and allure of ecologically attractive tourist destinations inevitably motivate visitors to become permanent residents. In other words, there is a direct correlation-and causation-between tourist visits and subsequent population growth. In their paper "Beautiful City: Leisure Amenities and Urban Growth", Albert Saiz, professor of real estate at Wharton College (University of Pennsylvania), and Gerald Carlino, a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, correlated leisure visits with population growth. According to the Saiz-Carlino formula, cities that offer substantial leisure amenities grow an average 2% more than they would have grown had they had fewer amenities. This seemingly trivial increment has an exponential impact. A town that grows 2% per year will double its population in 35 years. But if Saiz and Carlino are right, such a town will double its population in just 17.67 years if it is a popular tourist destination.

In fact, tourism provides a more accurate forecast of future population growth than any other factor, according their conclusions. Tourists come to visit, and almost instantly resolve to stay-some day. They typically snap up once cheap property, and then drive up the cost of living for those who had welcomed them. Some locals simply cannot pay for escalating property tax assessments. Others can't even pay the higher rents.

It is my observation and contention that this growth overwhelms the most vigilant defense of natural ecosystems, as well as gentrifying small localities and effectively pricing local inhabitants out of the real estate market. Locals, or their children, become a low wage service class that caters to the needs of the richer migrants while struggling economically to remain in the community they grew up in. To add insult to injury, many of the relatively wealthy newcomers appear in the guise of environmental crusaders who demand sacrifices of the locals while living immodestly themselves.

Visitors to impressive destinations typically purchase real estate as a holding property to await their retirement or summer vacations and often withhold it from the rental market of local young or poor residents. The host community then comes to resemble a ghost town in the winter and a booming madhouse in the summer, with service workers subsisting on low wages while scrambling to find affordable housing in this now gentrified environment.

On British Columbia's Saltspring Island, the magnet for visiting Albertans flush with oil money, one in three homes is said to lie vacant half the year. The homeless can be identified carrying discarded bottles in ragged clothing along the road, or standing as hitchhikers in the rain -- a scene not uncommon in other coastal localities and coveted tourist havens across the land.

To my reckoning, "sustainable tourism" is merely the bastard child of "sustainable growth", itself a mutation of "sustainable development", which, as Garrett Hardin noted, only affords the defenders of the unsteady state "a few more years' moratorium from the painful process of thinking." It is a fraudulent delusion that offers up ecological nuggets to attract a wave of migrant gold-diggers who wish to "retire at first sight" and, in the execution of their plans, conjure up a bigger service sector to serve them and spawn a fifth column of real estate sharks who gather to feast on the dreams of subsequent visitors. No matter how carefully flora and fauna are sequestered and defended, the resulting population boom will overwhelm them. Then a fatal political dynamic is born.

Socialists and progressives take up the cudgels of both locals and newcomers marginalized by inflated real estate and the rents that climb with it and in the process become growth advocates by lobbying for more housing construction to accommodate them. They bleed for unfortunate people but not so much for unfortunate biodiversity, concerns for which they attempt to allay with smart growth snake-oil nostrums.

Those few of us who would aspire to arrest growth rather than "manage" it are then caught in a vise between seemingly unlikely bedfellows. On the one hand there is the coalition of developers and real estate pimps and the planners who do their bidding by coating their naked greed with the greenwash of "strict" land-use planning. Planning that bends with the times and their insatiable appetites. Planning which defies the authentic mission of planning, which is not the passive accommodation to projected trends ("it's inevitable so let's plan for it'), but the proactive imposition of popular will upon those so-called inevitable trends by the simple expedients that some jurisdictions like Noosa Shire, Queensland or Qualicum Beach, BC, have flirted with. Try just withholding building permits for starters!

On the other hand, working in tandem with these dark forces, are the race-baiting, soft green yuppie leftists who collude with growthism in the name of social justice, yet somehow manage to cloak it with a respectable environmentalist ethic. Caught with us in this "squeeze of the sleaze", this excruciating, ineluctable drama of greed, hypocrisy and myopia, are local wildlife, which the growth coalition with brazen duplicity celebrates while holding it out as bait to attract new arrivals whose motto should be "I came, I saw, I destroyed."

Economic considerations then become part of a more "holistic" paradigm, whereby "environmental" sustainability is balanced off against "economic" and "cultural" sustainability. This "three legged stool" model of viability represents what may be termed "the fallacy of equivalent concerns". It is the assumption that would, if applied to human health, rate the heart as an organ of equal importance to every other organ in the body when, as we know, a patient can survive with one lung, or one kidney, or a colonoscopy, or brain impairment, but when his heart stops all of these important but ancillary parts die with the patient. The economy is, as Herman Daly famously noted, "a fully owned branch plant of the environment." We make a living in an economy, but we live in a biosphere.

Many advocates see ecotourism as a mechanism to assist indigenous or traditional groups, who comprise 5% of the global population, maintain their culture. But Brock University professor David A. Fennell, in his article "Ecotourism and the Myth of Indigenous Stewardship" (Vol. 16, No. 2 Journal of Sustainable Tourism) has shown that "ecotourism research abounds with cases where traditional lifestyles (eg. fishing and farming) have been displaced by hotels, golf courses and other tourism developments."

Fennell's references comprise some one hundred studies and books. Citing King and Stewart (Biodiversity and Conservation 5, 1996), he makes the point that "the onset of tourism forces a shift in the relationship between indigenous people and the environment, 'from a source of direct sustenance with a use value to a commodity with an exchange value.from one of working with the land to one working for tourists." It is a shift seen in northern Canada "where the cash economy translates into the ability to purchase newer forms of technology and transportation for the purpose of reaching harvesting sites." Fennell relates a testimony from an academic observer at Pond Inlet who, during his guided eco-tour, saw 'large numbers' of narwhals being hunted by Inuit "with high powered rifles and fast boats, purchased with Canadian government assistance to service the tourism industry." Non-traditional technologies employed by aboriginals, who are wrongly credited with a conservation ethic that predated European contact, clearly threaten conservation efforts.

While the travel industry may employ 200 million people throughout the world, those millions represent, after all, only 3% of the population, and the income they generate is seldom weighed against the staggering costs, both environmental and economic. One needs to ask, would we sacrifice critical habitat for 3% of our population if doing so increased the likelihood of die-off of 90% (or more) of our global population?

To answer in the affirmative would surely place one in the company of those who say that the local pulp mill must be maintained at the cost of severe environmental damage because it employs so many people, or that the Alberta Tars sands development should not be shut down because it is now vital to the livelihood of so many people.

To argue that we can flood an ecologically sensitive area with tourists but at the same time protect it is delusional and contradictory. There are many case histories to showcase my point, but the Galapagos Islands will do nicely. I have enumerated its problems, and salient is the point that tourists need services, which need people to provide them. Hotels, motels, roads, cars, auto mechanics to maintain them, doctors, nurses, dentists, dental assistants, school teachers to instruct the children of service workers etc etc. And the provision of those services cannot be satisfied by local labour. Even if they had the requisite training and skills, the number of local workers is insufficient to meet the growing demand for their services as the "protected" areas gain fame.

Not surprisingly, since the tourist boom began in the early seventies, the human population on the Galapagos Islands has increased 14-fold. This has resulted not only in visual damage and the introduction of foreign species, but also an increase in solid waste generated by the extra 130,000 residents. It is not really about the irresponsible behaviour of tourists, but their numbers. Because their numbers generate ancillary services, which then require people to render them. As Brishen Hoff of Biodiversity First commented, "Tourism does not help preserve the natural environment. It may provide jobs to locals that offer an alternative to primary resource extraction, but jobs only encourage more people to move there (some will extract primary resources and others will work in tourism, likely a growing number of both). Tourism requires infrastructure like hotels, water, sewage, supply stores, etc to accommodate visitors no matter how eco-friendly it is." And it must be noted that nascent commercial greed grows along with tourist numbers and stimulate more tourism by aggressive marketing. But the joke is on the local businesses. Because the cruise ships and the big tour operators external to the locality rake off the big profits.

You can post educational signs on every trail and hire vigilant park wardens to supervise tourists. But these defenses cannot cope with large numbers. That realization has dawned on Ecuador's green-left President Rafael. His first move was to begin the expulsion of the illegal immigrants on the Galapagos who took up jobs in the tourist industry. Imagine a left-wing President coming down on poor, immigrant service residents. Good on him.

Some sober critics have praised his actions, but argue that a cap must be placed on the number of tourists as well. But President Rafael wants to have his cake of ecological integrity and eat it too. He wants the $350 million in tourist revenue but not the tourists. A conundrum. Without services, he will satisfy the demand for a cap because many tourists won't come. Then the cruise ships will fill the vacuum. Tourists can come to visit, wreak havoc on nature, then return to their floating hotel with all services provided on board. Environmental damage but without state revenue. So where is the advantage? To big off-shore tour operators, obviously. Certainly not to wildlife.

To this dynamic of increased tourism>larger sector of resident service workers and their families>environmental damage wrought by that population irrespective of the respectful, educated behaviour of tourists, add the numbers of visitors who decide to make the tourist destination they fall in love with a retirement destination. Or one that they can hold a rental property in while they wait for retirement, or for staying during their visits during peak season, or just for real estate speculation. This may or may not be the case in the Galapogos, but it surely is where I live, and where millions of others live world-wide. Gentrification corrodes and divides a community. Local "haves" either develop a vested interest in growth or are priced out of their community by wealthy part-time residents who invest little of themselves in community life. And there is always a parasitical class of real estate agents who rise up like a Phoenix to lubricate this process by embellishing paradise and disguising its troubles for the visiting love-struck affluent.

The Sierra Club believes that national parks and areas like my own cannot be effectively defended if they do not build up a constituency of political support by allowing more and more visitors to enjoy them. In other words, we need to degrade our treasures in order to promote their preservation. This is a pernicious argument. I can fight for animals without disturbing them with my presence. Let a handful of wildlife biologists do the filming. I am thrilled to see flora and fauna in the wild-that is why I live where I do- but their survival trumps my enjoyment.

No doubt numerous palliatives and controls (e.g., changes in the tax regime) can be offered to mitigate the tourist assault on the environment and the social structure of small local communities that exist at the gateways. But in the context of the corrupt and apparently insuperable power structure that prevails, these measures seem utopian or hypothetical at best. In the more environmentally fragile zones of precious biodiversity at least, it is clear that we must stop tourist growth, not manage it. This effort would reprise David and Goliath, except that it would not likely duplicate David's success. But heck, why not go for it? Anything less would be unsatisfactory.

Postscript

PS Barry Murphy of Ireland commented:

Brilliant article.

Here in the West of Ireland, we have many such problems - tourist towns where locals can only rent a house Sept to May, then get kicked out for the tourists to arrive and pay weekly, rather than monthly.

Other places where well over 3 in 4 houses lie empty during winter.

Tourists come to see 'beautiful, unspoiled' places. By definition, then, do they leave them less beautiful and unspoiled?

Barry in Ireland.

tourismpure.wordpress.com

In his review of "Overloading Australia" by Mark O'Connor and William Lines, Frosty Wooldridge author of #AmericaOnTheBrink">America on the brink who has cycled 100,000 miles across six continents in the past 25 years, refutes commonly held misconceptions that the Australian continent is underpopulated.

Also published on Australia.to News and in American Chronicle as part 1 and part 2.

With a scant 21 million people on the vast continent of Australia, how could anyone state with any certitude that Oz suffers from human overpopulation? What impudence might that take? How out of touch? How completely absurd? Definitely not 'fair dinkum'!

China features not much more land mass than Oz but houses 1.3 billion souls. The United States--at least the lower 48 states--equals about the same land mass, but houses 306 million people. Mexico, less than a quarter the size of Australia, features 108 million people.

So what's the problem? How could there be a snag? Australia encompasses an endless amount of land. It features 2,970,000 square miles of terra firma. How do I know? In 1984 through 1985, I cycled 17,000 kms around Australia including Tasmania. One Aussie, after learning that I intended to cycle the entire perimeter of Australia said, "Well Yank, you must be dead from the neck up!" I answered, "Yes, but it's a great adventure." He responded, "Do you know what the Nullabor Plains means?" I said, "No." He said, "It means treeless for 2,000 kms and 40 degrees C. every day. You'll fry in the heat!"

None the less, I traveled from Sydney down the Princess Highway to Melbourne; sailed over to Tasmania, up the Great Ocean Road to see the 12 Apostles, to Ceduna and across the Nullabor Plains (treeless) and on to Esperance and then to Perth, onward to Port Headlands and upward to Darwin. From there to Cairns and back down to Sydney! What did I see and how did I feel? I fried in the saddle and sweated while I slept at night under the Southern Cross. Withering heat at 120+ degrees F. daily! I stopped at the Great Australian Bite, saw Bondy's (Alan Bond) boat that beat the Yanks in the Americas Cup, viewed the Pinnacles of Cervantes, rode past the ant castles, witnessed the 'prison boab tree' near Port Headlands and watched the big crocs in Darwin. A frilled lizard scared the daylights out of me near Tenant Creek and I dove on the Great Barrier Reef. I read A.F. Facey's "A Fortunate Life." I'm still friends with John Brown in Kiama and Lance Hill in Perth. I've backpacked with Lance in Nepal and push-biked across the USA with John. I love Oz and its people.

So why does Australia suffer an overpopulation crisis? From my firsthand experiences, I am here to tell you: desert and sand cover 95 percent of Australia. No water and no arable land! It's a wasteland with kangaroos, emus, wombats and stray camels eking out their existences in the devil's horrid heat.

So why does Australia suffer an overpopulation crisis? From my firsthand experiences, I am here to tell you: desert and sand cover 95 percent of Australia. No water and no arable land! It's a wasteland with kangaroos, emus, wombats and stray camels eking out their existences in the devil's horrid heat. When I traveled Oz, it featured 14 million people which it could support. Today, at 21 million, it's on the edge of its own non-sustainable future. Australians might fool Mother Nature in the short term, but they cannot in the long run. Oz doesn't possess water or arable land needed to grow food thus to sustain a large human population. That's a brutal fact!

However, powerful governmental, capitalistic and growth oriented organizations expect to push Australia's population to 50 million tortured souls. Much the same holds true in the United States and other countries where 'growthists' disregard reality and push human populations beyond the ability of the land and water to sustain them. How do they do it? They promote unlimited immigration from other countries that have already exceeded their carrying capacities---and simply exhaust their excess humanity onto the shores of Australia and other countries that possess stable populations. The third world grows by a net gain of 77 million annually, so the line never ends. That alone should give any Oz citizen pause!

The author Mark O'Connor of Overloading Australia, lamented, "I found this book almost impossible to write." He found the fortitude to finish the project only after teaming with his co-author, conservationist William J. Lines.

With electrifying clarity, O'Connor and Lines spell out a sobering future for Australia. Any kangaroo could figure out what the 'kangaroo' government in Canberra cannot seem to grasp! As one man who has seen more of Australia than 95 percent of Australians, I can vouch for the fact that Oz does not possess the farmland or the water to sustain any more population.

"Rightwing growthists demand endless growth of 'the economy' backed by endless population growth," O'Connor said. "Forced since late 2006 to accept a serious public debate about water supplies and about how to maintain 'growth' without increasing greenhouse gases, they are nevertheless determined to scotch any discussion about limiting growth."

I found it exceedingly exasperating that the 'very' people in charge of Australia's future, like Prime Minister Rudd in 2008, did and does not understand the consequences of his/their own actions. He promotes a "Faustian Bargain' on every citizen in Australia that will force a "Hobson's Choice."

"Rudd announced a million new homes would need to be built over the next six years to house the influx [of people] he did not venture to question," Lines said.

Where might that influx originate? Answer: Australia immigrates roughly 300,000 people annually into its dry and dusty desert country.

Why?

"There is a powerful lobby concerned not with whether human life or that of other species would be better in a 'larger' Australia, but with profits!" O'Connor said.

What 'growthists' create stems from that "Faustian Bargain" or selling their souls to the devil of growth for the present to place everyone into an environmental and unsustainable 'hell' later. Once another five or ten million Australians manifest on that desert continent, everyone suffers "Hobson's Choice": if you pick door number A---you walk through and over a cliff. If you pick door number B---you walk through and sink into quicksand. In other words, all your choices lead to death of your civilization.

How do I know that? My cycling travels across six continents have given me a bird's eye view of death from overloaded countries. Over 18 million people starve to death or die of starvation related diseases every year. Over 10 million of them are children under the age of 12 years.

"'Business as usual' desires even more people each demanding more from a finite Nature. A sustainable future is one in which human demands on the natural environment are within the capacity of that environment to meet. It means living within a boundary set by Nature. As we are already well beyond that boundary, it means reducing our population and our per capita demand. Both! Not one or the other!" John Coulter, author "Population and Sustainability: A Global Role for Australia." (pdf, 83K)

In the first part of this book review, Overloading Australia, by O'Connor and Lines, we covered Australia's daunting future if it continues on its present immigration-driven hyper-population growth path. We discussed a "Faustian Bargain" and "Hobson's Choice." We discovered that Australia does not possess enough water or arable land to sustain more than 20 million citizens.

Yet, corporations, politicians and immigration groups known as 'growthists', defy all logic while pushing their agenda toward a 50 million population in Australia.

Oz and the United States, where I live, share similar paradigms. Both maintain stable populations via their own citizens, but both find themselves suffering hyper-population growth by immigration forced down their throats by pandering politicians. Both countries don't comprehend their end-result of relentless immigration

.

U.S. demographic expert Dr. Albert Bartlett said, "A century of 1.6 percent per year growth, which is Australia's current growth rate, would cause Australia to increase to 100 million."

It shows you that if you were riding in a car with Kevin Rudd, he would drive over a cliff and take you with him. Once you arrived in Heaven, and you asked him why he did that, he might answer, "I didn't realize where I was going."

The fact remains, folks pushing growth agendas don't understand where they take Australia, but overpopulation advocates drive Oz over a cliff.

"First, we need to clear away a quite different objection," O'Connor said. "Clearly the writers of this book care about nature. So why, some conservationists will ask us, are we writing about the number of people, instead of worrying about the amount of damage each person does?"

You'll hear about tons of people pushing alternative gardening, alternative energy and all sorts of environmentally feel-good concepts that fail to address the one issue that will negate all their efforts.

Obviously, like in the U.S., Australian media and politicians deftly avoid the population issue. It's the sacred cow of Faustian proponents. You'll hear about tons of people pushing alternative gardening, alternative energy and all sorts of environmentally feel-good concepts that fail to address the one issue that will negate all their efforts. No matter how many new energy saving light bulbs or 100 kilometers to the liter of gas automobiles or water conservation---when you add another 10 million people, you lose on all counts.

It's simple mathematics, but those devils drive you toward the cliff by spinning the facts into confusion! Amazingly, they assume they are not, nor are their children vulnerable to the consequences.

Simon Grose, writing in the Canberra Times, in 2007, said, "Can we really expect to increase our numbers by about 30 percent over 50 years and keep all fed and comfortable with the hope of a car and a fridge without raising greenhouse emissions? No way!"

Finally, a mind that writes a reality based piece! What a concept! Reality! Deal with it or be swept away by it!

"No one wants to go back to rushlights and mule-back," Lines said. "But there are just two problems. First, any interruption to the power-supply brings chaos and before long, deaths. Second, there seems no way that the planet can provide resources for this lifestyle to be shared by nearly seven billion people, let alone another two or three billion by 2050."

At the head of each chapter, O'Connor and Lines place compelling quotes from experts and world leaders. It doesn't take a Sydney lawyer with an ounce of common sense to connect the dots! Australia already stands in the cross-hairs of terrible environmental conflict with its own human numbers.

Mikhail Gorbachev said, "We are all passengers aboard one ship, the Earth, and we must not allow it to be wrecked. There will be no second Noah's Ark."

What I found most compelling with O'Connor's work stems from the fact that I have witnessed firsthand the ramifications facing other countries that allowed their populations to spin out of control. For example, Bangladesh, not much bigger in landmass than Tasmania, houses 144 million people. Can any Australian fathom Tasmania with 144 million people? That's what's happening worldwide and that's why people flee those countries by the millions.

nstead of absorbing an unending line of immigrants, Australia and other first world countries might help those other countries by NOT taking their refugees, but instead, send them birth control and family planning along with food production techniques and water purification. Help them in their own countries.

Instead of absorbing an unending line of immigrants, Australia and other first world countries might help those other countries by NOT taking their refugees, but instead, send them birth control and family planning along with food production techniques and water purification. Help them in their own countries. If they refuse help, then, in the final analysis, they must suffer their own Malthusian overload. If Australia keeps taking immigrants, then, Australia becomes another Bangladesh or variation thereof at some point in this century.

"Most Western elites continue urging the wealthy West not to stem the migrant tide, but to absorb our global brothers and sisters until their horrid ordeal has been endured and shared by all--ten billion humans packed onto an ecologically devastated planet." Dr. Otis Graham, Unguarded Gates

In chapter 5, the authors land, like the shocking wildfires in Sydney and NSW last year, with a savage reality punch: food or the scarcity of it!

The Green Revolution is basically over, it's gains already cancelled by population growth.

"There are several reasons why Earth is failing---but they all come down to the fact that an increasing number of people are making increasing demands on a single planet," Lines said. "The Green Revolution is basically over, it's gains already cancelled by population growth."

To attest to that fact, an average of 18 million people die of starvation or starvation related diseases annually worldwide. I can say, that in my world bicycle travels, I've seen those deaths firsthand. It's not a benign statistic to me; it's a harsh visual reality. If you look at any "Save the Children" program begging to feed the children, you have seen what I have seen. For anyone that really wants to save the children, first world countries should send birth control with food. (www.quinacrine.com)

"Humans will continue to clear the diminishing lands left to other species," O'Connor said. "Wreaking disaster upon creatures already pushed to the margins."

Worldwide, humans cause the extinction of 100 creatures daily via human encroachment on habitat. In Oz, many kangaroos suffer endangerment as well as dozens of other species.

"The debate ought to be about the carrying capacity of the continent---a continent that has lousy soils, fragile soils and depleted and degraded river systems." Bob Carr, writing for Weekend Australian, June 1994

In the third part of this book review, Overloading Australia by O'Connor and Lines, we covered the fact that Australia cannot sustain added population numbers as to food, energy and water. That hasn't stopped 'growthists' in their 'spin' to obfuscate the realities facing the 'desert continent'.

The authors covered the 'refugee' dilemma, but again, the world grows by 77 million annually, which leaves long-term immigration a futile gesture. At some point, all civilizations must come to terms with their own numbers and their own recovery.

... what's the point of growing more population in Australia when you see what it did to China, India, Indonesia and other hyper-populated countries? Let's face it, the reason those immigrants flee their countries provides the exact reason Australia should stabilize its own population in order to remain within its carrying capacity.e

How many more people can Australia sustain? Short answer: not many! The most realistic question arises from anyone with a three digit IQ: what's the point of growing more population in Australia when you see what it did to China, India, Indonesia and other hyper-populated countries? Let's face it, the reason those immigrants flee their countries provides the exact reason Australia should stabilize its own population in order to remain within its carrying capacity.

John Coulter said in a letter to the editor in The Age, "If I were a Melbournian, I would not reduce my water consumption until Premier Bracks abandons his crazy plan to bring another million people into Melbourne. Why should I save to have my savings squandered by an irresponsible Premier and leave my children in an even worse situation than today?"

The question that Planning Minister Justin Madden should ponder is: how do we cater for increased population given that our rivers, dams and reservoirs are drying up, the drought shows no sign of breaking, one-third of the state is affected by bushfires, and blackouts are becoming commonplace?

Another writer said, "We have been told that Melbourne must populate or perish and that by 2030 we must absorb another one million residents. The question that Planning Minister Justin Madden should ponder is: how do we cater for increased population given that our rivers, dams and reservoirs are drying up, the drought shows no sign of breaking, one-third of the state is affected by bushfires, and blackouts are becoming commonplace?"

O'Connor addressed the 'shortage of workers' façade that also occurs in the United States. While 2.4 million legal and illegal migrants pour over our borders annually, corporations demand hundreds of thousands of work visas for foreign workers.

However, as of March 2009, the U.S. suffers an 11.1 percent unemployment rate and 32.2 million Americans live on food stamps. Yes, that number 32.2 million is correct!

If Australia's politicians prove as cunning and feckless as my country's leaders, both our countries face being overwhelmed by the third world---again with no end of the line of immigrants fleeing their own misery as they grow by 77 million annually. Once millions of poor established in both our countries, our poverty rates, language chaos and sustainability will not survive.

While you read this book, you can't put it on the coffee table. Every chapter enlightens you to greater understanding. If you feel like it, start yelling at the top of your lungs, because it could put you into a logical rage.

"We know that by mid-century the world population is going to be as high as 10 billion people. The world advice is that, that simply cannot be sustained. We are down to fewer than 50 days of flow-on food availability to meet any great emergency and will be facing a mammoth, chaotic social outcome of too many people with too few resources on the planet in the lifetime of some of us here. That is why I asked the government whether it had a population policy, and I do not believe it does," Bob Brown in the Senate, September 16, 2008

That same applies to the U.S. It causes you to wonder if the patients run the insane asylum. Why can the media and government maintain such a high level of arrogance and stupidity side by side?

One writer said, "How can you kill a planet and still expect to live on it?"

O'Connor and Lines in the final chapters of the book provide a sobering rendition of the consequences of endless growth to the 'desert continent'. I invite every politician, college professor, high school and college student in Australia---to read this book. It needs to be read in boardrooms and bedrooms of parents. It needs reviews by every critic across Australia. It needs to be a best seller in the first world. Every mother and father needs to read it because their kids will be wrapped up in this great 'human dilemma'.

Thankfully, the authors addressed 'racism' in the book. I can vouch for Mother Nature that she doesn't care what your race, creed or color happens to be when your species overwhelms its carrying capacity. Mother Nature kills and cripples without prejudice. As in Chapter 15 of the book, "Fooling people, fooling nature", you bluff Mother Nature for only so long, and then, she will kick your Aussie ass! That blunt, that simple!

The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said, "Twaddle, rubbish and gossip is what people want, not action. Politicians know this. Aided by the media and cheered by intellectuals, they peddle illusion, fantasy, myth, faith and hope."

"But then there is the natural world," O'Connor said. "It's vastly different from politics and our delusions. People can be fooled over and over again, but nature cannot, not even once."

At the end of the book, Lines and O'Connor show how 'green groups' avoid the population equation along with the media. It's a cute and dangerous façade. They address the "Aborigines" guilt complex. They talk about climate change and ecological footprint. They nail it!

"You'd have to be an economist or a fool to think you can keep adding population forever!" said Kenneth Boulding, economist.

While the authors present cogent advice at the end of the book, I found myself laughing out loud at one of their ideas. "Why we should all waste water!" While all the environmentalists and do-gooders cry out to conserve, and the same happens with the Sierra Club in America, all the conservation in the world won't help as Australia adds another 10, 20, 30 or 50 million people. Therefore, start wasting as much water as possible today to force the population issue to the front burner. Frankly, it will power its way into the public's attention either now or later.

As I said at the beginning of this review, I've already seen what's coming in my world cycling travels. It's not pretty. Instead of walking that same perilous path as overpopulated countries, I invite every Australian to read this book, heed its wisdom and change course toward a sustainable nation and bright future for all Australians. Call for an "Australian Sustainable Population Policy" that limits mass immigration to near zero. You cannot save the rest of the world, but you can destroy your own civilization or turn it into a water starved, food scant and quality of life nightmare. Your children will thank you in 2050 and the world will thank you for leading the way for humanity toward a plausible and livable planet. By the way, the rest of Earth's creatures will thank you, too!

Overloading Australia: How governments and media dither and deny on population
Mark O'Connor & William J. Lines

#AmericaOnTheBrink" id="AmericaOnTheBrink">America on the brink: the next added 100 million Americans

By Frosty Wooldridge

Published April 27, 2009; Available at 1-888 280 7715;  Barnes and Noble   www.barnesandnoble.com ;  Borders ; Amazon www.Amazon.com

Reviewers - Radio, TV, newsprint: for complimentary media copy, call Yvona Doane: 1 888 519 5121 Ext. 5299

"Eye-opening, incisive, brilliant!

"The U.S. has the fastest growing population of any industrial nation, and one of the world's highest consumption rates.  Water, topsoil, forests, fish, petroleum... the more of us, the more pressure we exert on our environment.  Many discuss our personal consumption patterns, but few dare talk about the underlying crisis of population growth.  Wooldridge is one of the few courageous voices warning us about the implications of our current direction, and informing us what we can do to change course."

   - Richard Heinberg, author of Peak Everything

"Electrifying reading!  This is a veritable cannonade of a book.

"Wooldridge targets the people and institutions, from the President on down, who refuse to look at the consequences of population growth in the modern era.   His focus is on the United States, but his range is the world.

"He fearlessly addresses issues that politicians fear to mention, such as the effects of mass immigration on our population future and our social systems.  He engages to force population issues into our local and national political decisions."

   - Lindsey Grant, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment & Population

"The environmental community may be outrageously AWOL on the important subject of population, but not Frosty Wooldridge.  Read this book!"

   - Richard D. Lamm, Governor of Colorado 1975-1987

"Wooldridge's powerful indictment of our political leaders for failing to address U.S. overpopulation should be required reading in classrooms and boardrooms.

"To mindlessly add 100 million more people to our nation's population in the next 30 years will put the United States economy and social order at further risk.  His challenge needs to be addressed on individual, national and international levels before it's too late."

   - William B. Dickinson, The Biocentric Institute

America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans --

injects a whole new dynamic facing the United States in the 21st century.  While national leaders at every level ignore accelerating consequences, immigration-driven hyper-population growth will become THE single greatest issue facing America in the years ahead.

In adding 100 million people by 2035, every crisis facing Americans today accelerates in harsher consequences -- whether it is water shortages, climate change, energy scarcity, dwindling resources, gridlock, air pollution and a decline of quality of life.

Wooldridge compellingly states the obvious... the U.S. cannot continue unplanned population expansion indefinitely.

He offers Hobson's Choice as a final result of mass denial.  If the U.S. adds another 100 million people via immigration, it faces two doors:

   -- if the country picks door # 1, this civilization walks over a cliff.

   -- If it picks door # 2, it walks into quicksand.

Once that 100 million people manifest, no one, no matter what their race, creed or color---escapes.  Americans will endure water shortages, energy problems, crowding and a much diminished standard of living.  The American Dream will no longer be available.

However, Frosty offers concrete ways to change the future.  In all great social change, it takes a 'conscious shift' that leads to a 'critical mass shift' and finally, a 'tipping point' whereby a civilization turns toward a sustainable and viable future.  It's up to each citizen and leader to make sure that 'tipping point' occurs.

The fate of this civilization hangs in the balance.

Author Contact: www.frostywooldridge.com

J Bell to me
show details 3:22 PM (3 hours ago) Reply

Dear Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. - Sheila and Jill You know people in Frankston. Can you circulate?

Rally to oppose Peninsula link Frankston Bypass Sunday 24 may , 2009, Noon at Trig Point.

Why Rally?: The proposed freeway the Peninsula Link will bypass Frankston and cut straight through the guts of the Pines Flora & Fauna Reserve.

When: Join Rod Quantock (Deputy President of Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. PPL VIC) ) on Sunday 24 May at 12 noon
Where: The Excelsior Drive entrance to the Pines, Frankston North. Mel. 100 C9 to reclaim the Pines for the people of Frankston at Trig Point.

Website: The website Save the Pines will be launched at the same time. This website not only deals with the Pines, but also highlights other areas and flora/fauna that will be affected by the proposed Freeway. www.savethepines.net
Organisers: The Connies See www.connies.com.au

Why Save The Pines?

It was once described by the Victorian Government as the most botanically significant land in Melbourne's south and south east. It's the closest place this side of Melbourne where the swamp wallaby, echidna, koala, ringtail and bushy tailed possums, sugar glider and swamp rat roam freely. The Reserve has also supported the Swamp Skink, Dwarf Galaxias, Hooded Robin, the Powerful Owl and Swift's Parrot.

If not stopped, the SEITA by-pass and toll way will also cut a 4 lane 26 kilometre swathe through the landscape from Carrum Downs to Mount Martha. It will destroy an extraordinarily rare patch of Herb Rich Grassy Wetland at Carrum Downs, which Minister Jennings' experts say can't be offset or replaced. It will plough through 60% of the Belvedere Reserve in Seaford, the Pobblebonk/Willow Road Reserve and the Wittenberg Reserves in Langwarrin and destroy a pristine remnant at the heritage Westerfield property, whilst bisecting precious farmland on the Moorooduc Plain.

See also www.savethepines.net.

There are alternatives.

The Eureka Flag was flown at Trig Point in the 1970's by a group of residents to recalim the Reserve for the people of Frankston from development. The Pines bneed our help again. See you Sunday 24 May at the Excelsior Drive entrance to the Pines.

Contact: Julianne Bell Secretary PPL VIC 98184114 or 0408022408

The Queensland Government's Draft South East Queensland Regional Plan, far from achieving its lofty claimed goals of "protect(ing) and enhanc(ing) the quality of life", landscape values, biodiversity and natural assets of the region, will, instead, turn even much of that region into an economically depressed, crowded and ecologically unsustainable slum for no better purpose than to keep profits flowing into the pockets of developers who largely bankroll the ruling Queensland Labor Party.

An earlier unfinished draft of submission was mistakenly published on 17 Mar 09.

Dr. Jane N. O'Sullivan
Chelmer Qld

Draft SEQ Regional Plan Submission
Department of Infrastructure and Planning
Reply Paid 15009
City East Qld 4002

General comments

The current draft SEQ Regional Plan 2009-2031 (the Plan) is a travesty against the people of South East Queensland. It should be withdrawn, and a new process undertaken which addresses its shortcomings.

• It does not achieve its own stated goals. It does not "protect and enhance the quality of life", landscape values, biodiversity and natural assets of the region, but accelerates the development processes which have demonstrably undermined them to date. It fails to acknowledge fundamental conflicts between stated goals (such as biodiversity preservation and population growth) nor does it provide any process or guidelines for resolving such conflicts.
• It fails to achieve key elements of a regional plan, required under the Integrated Planning Act S.2.5A.11, to identify key regional environmental, economic and cultural resources to be preserved, maintained or developed, and define how that is to be achieved.
• It conflicts with the National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development. The goal, core objectives and guiding principles of this strategy should be integral to the Plan. Instead, its regulatory provisions directly undermine existing controls that defend these principles.
• It ignores the findings of the State of the Region Report for SEQ (2008), which showed biodiversity loss and climate change impacts as grave problems in the region. It makes only token attempts to reduce the intensity of pressures known to be exacerbating these vulnerabilities, while significantly increasing their scale. The outcome will certainly be increased biodiversity loss, greater greenhouse gas emissions and greater vulnerability to climate change impacts.
• It pre-empts the findings of a number of studies and policies currently underway, thus failing to integrate their conclusions, and limiting capacity to incorporate changes that may be recommended by these processes. These include SEQ Natural Resource Management, Water Strategy, Rural Futures Strategy, Biodiversity Value Assessments, Climate Change Response, Peak Oil Response, and the SEQ Infrastructure Plan and Programs.
• It undermines a core component of quality of life, namely the self-determination of communities through open and equitable democratic processes.
  • The Plan limits and overrides capacity of local councils to control development.
  • It compromises the Desired Environmental Outcomes of local government planning schemes.
  • It increases discretionary power of the Minister for Planning to gazette areas for any level of development without opportunity for community consultation or appeal.
  • It increases the scope of landholder rights of use without referral or environmental impact assessment, on land outside the urban footprint.
  • Importantly, it fails to provide complete and balanced data on both the resource base and the impacts of the proposed development, to enable informed public response.

All these travesties are done in the name of one single goal, that of incorporating an additional 1.6 Million people into SE Queensland.

If that growth were inevitable, the best that could be said of the Plan is that it is an attempt at damage mitigation, dressed up (deceitfully) as progress.

However, neither the inevitability nor the costs and benefits of this population growth have been explored.

In the first instance, it is important to acknowledge the extent to which the Plan itself acts to attract more population. Land releases, removal of regulatory barriers, and the commitment of State Government to fund the infrastructure requirements of new residents (through the Metropolitan Development Program), all fuel the rate of growth. It is argued that these things are needed to improve housing affordability, but in fact they do the opposite by fueling property speculation. [DRO 8, Policy 8.4.1: the Queensland Housing Affordability Strategy is misguided and entrenches outdated patterns of urban sprawl and socioeconomic stratification.]

Secondly, it must be noted that there are no new sources of funding identified in the Plan. The ideals of good urban planning and infrastructure espoused in the Plan are not new, but to date funding has not been adequate to achieve these goals. There is no basis to expect that an increased rate of demand growth will make the provision of good services any easier than it has been in the past.

Part B: regional vision and strategic directions

"The regional vision for SEQ is a future that is sustainable, affordable, prosperous, liveable and resilient to climate change."

If the Plan, as currently drafted, were to take effect, NOT ONE of those criteria would be greater in 2031 than today.

The document avoids saying SEQ will be safer, healthier, more accessible, more inclusive, more affordable, more livable or more resilient to climate change. The authors know that these objectives cannot be delivered. This entire section is an exercise in weasel words.

It is noted that no comparative adjectives are used in the vision statement. Communities may indeed be described as safe, healthy, accessible and inclusive, depending on what you are comparing them with. The document avoids saying SEQ will be safer, healthier, more accessible, more inclusive, more affordable, more livable or more resilient to climate change. The authors know that these objectives cannot be delivered. This entire section is an exercise in weasel words.

The strategic directions do claim that the plan intends to create a more sustainable future. However, there is no doubt that the 2031 SEQ envisaged will consume more energy and water than the current SEQ. Only aspirational reference is made of improved building standards to reduce energy requirements and withstand extreme weather events [DRO 1: Policy 1.3.5 and Program 1.4.5], but no evidence is given that these gains will off-set the increase in dwelling number. Little attempt is made to restrict development on low-lying coastal plains or forest fringe areas at increasing risk of bushfire, indeed several such areas are inappropriately included in the urban footprint.

Perverted Economic Priorities

Anna Bligh has said that population growth is needed to maintain jobs in the building sector_#main-fn1">1. This irrational statement is on a par with Maurice Iemma's claim (in relation to climate change response) that there is no point saving the environment if doing it harms the economy. Both show an alarming lack of understanding of the extent to which our quality of life depends on our natural resource base.

If the Premier wants to preserve these jobs, we could employ people to dig holes and fill them in again. This would have equal benefit to existing Queenslanders (none but the salaries involved), and far less adverse impact. It would be cheaper than the publicly funded infrastructure needed to service the extra dwellings. But if completely futile activity is an improvement on current proposals, it's easy to see that we could achieve a far better outcome employing the same people to implement the changes we need to transform into a low-carbon economy. We need green jobs, replacing unsustainable activities, not brown jobs adding to them.

In other words, the proposed population trajectory is part of a model of economic development for the region, which is inherently unsustainable. It places construction as a priority focus, to the detriment of tourism (through crowding and degradation of our natural attractions), manufacturing (through uneconomic land values and increased costs of services), and the cost of living and quality of life (reversing the stated intention of economic growth). I do not need to justify the statement that population growth is unsustainable. All sensible people agree that there must be a limit to the number of people we can accommodate in the region, and that quality of life will erode as we approach that limit. That the limit is near if not surpassed, and that quality of life is already eroding through overdevelopment, is apparent to all. There can be no doubt that climate change will further reduce the region's carrying capacity. Therefore, to increase our economic dependence on the growth process, knowing that it must soon end, is foolhardy. It is the antithesis of "sustainable economic development".

What is it that the planners are aiming to create? What is the vision for SEQ's future? The only constant offered seems to be the rate of change. The Plan gives an idea of what the region might look like with 4 million people, but what about 6 million? Or 10 million? Such numbers are only a few decades away at current growth rates. What will be our legacy in 200 years? [DRO 1 and DRO 2 are oxymoronic and incompatible with the scale and style of growth proposed. These objectives can only be conceived with a steady-state future in mind, but the Plan offers no route towards population stability.]

However, limits to growth seem to be far from the minds of both politicians and media. We are frequently invited to celebrate that Queensland's growth has surpassed Victoria's, or that we will soon be Australia's second biggest State. I cannot help being reminded of Yertle the Turtle.

It is not difficult to see how the Premier has come to this perspective. The property industry has the ear of government, because they fund both main political parties. It is up to informed citizens to protest at this corruption of public interest in the name of short-sighted private interests. I make this submission in the spirit of such protest, but also to propose that there are achievable alternatives, both in process and outcome.

The Costs of Growth

Both State and Federal Governments champion the importance of population growth for our economic progress. However, they fail to relate the resulting growth in GDP to per capita wealth.

The Productivity Commission's 2006 research report, Economic Impacts of Migration and Population Growth_#main-fn2">2 modeled a 50% increase in skilled immigration, and found that, while GDP increased 4.6% over 21 years (a small proportion of the expected GDP growth), per capita income increased only 0.71% (about 0.03% per annum). Most of the gain accrued to the skilled migrants themselves and to capital owners, and the effect on incomes of existing residents was negative. The report further commented that a range of impacts on living standards and environment are also likely, but these were not economically quantifiable. It left open to the reader to interpret whether the net effect on wealth and wellbeing was positive or negative.

A further omission from this GDP-based analysis is the fact that a considerable proportion of the economic activity in a growing population does not enrich the current population, but is undertaken on behalf of future population at a cost to the current population. For a stable population, the same quality of life could be delivered for a lower per capita GDP.

Increased costs are most easily quantified in the areas of skills and infrastructure.

Skills shortages have been used as a primary argument for the need for high immigration levels. However, immigration is more likely to have exacerbated than relieved skills shortages. Consider that in a stable population, post-secondary training in trades and professions is needed to replace retiring skilled workers. Assuming an average working life in the order of 33 years for each skilled worker, the annual graduation needs to be around 3% of the total workforce in each skill area. In a growing population, graduations also have to grow the total workforce (not the population of graduates) proportionally. For Australia's current growth rate of 1.8% per annum, graduate requirements increase from 3% to 4.8% of the workforce: a 60% higher training burden than in a stable population. Over the past decade, as Australian population growth has increased, spending on higher education has not increased to accommodate this extra burden. It is little wonder that skills shortages have intensified. Immigration may have alleviated shortages in selected areas, but has increased them across the board. Stabilizing population would make a far more cost-effective contribution to aligning training capacity with training needs.

Given that growth requires us to replace still-functional infrastructure with higher capacity versions, the cost may be even higher.

The working life of individual items of infrastructure may vary over a wider range than that of people, but a similar average of about 33 years is plausible, if conservative. The longer the actual lifespan, the greater the extra burden from growth. Therefore, a similar or greater increase in the total infrastructure burden exists, as a result of our rate of population growth. Given that growth requires us to replace still-functional infrastructure with higher capacity versions, the cost may be even higher.

In Queensland, the growth rate is much higher than the national average. At 2.5% annual growth, the increase in infrastructure and training burden is likely to be in the order of 85% higher than a stable population.

If public expenditure does not increase to cover the burden of our increased growth rate, then the capacity of public facilities and services cannot keep pace with the increased demands on them. We do not stand still -- we rapidly go backwards, eroding quality of life particularly for the most vulnerable, who rely most on public services. This is exactly what we have witnessed in Queensland, in health, education, transport, water, and other services. It is a direct consequence of our growth. Yet growth is pursued as the solution.

It is very difficult to estimate the exact cost of infrastructure for each additional person. Government does not collate and publish appropriate data. A colleague of mine attempted to make such an estimate, and arrived at a figure in the order of $200,000. This is not implausible: a cost of $2 Billion to provide all the facilities for 10,000 people, including schools and universities, hospitals and health clinics, roads, sewage, water supply, electricity generation, storm water management, recreational facilities, offices and equipment for public servants and publicly funded NGOs, port and rail infrastructure, waste transfer stations, public transport rolling stock etc. If the Government wants to dispute this figure, I welcome it to do the accounting and publish the actual cost.

Imagine if the State were to levy each additional dwelling with a fee of $427,000, to cover the increased infrastructure for 2.14 people (the average household size anticipated in the Plan). Would people still be flocking to our region?

Our tax base is overstretched. But the Government contrives to hide this cost from us all.

However, by not doing this, the Government is levying each of its existing tax payers to subsidize the newcomers. That this levy is unaffordable is demonstrated by the crises in our hospitals, schools, water and transport systems. Our tax base is overstretched. But the Government contrives to hide this cost from us all.

The Plan has acknowledged the particular challenge of broadhectare infrastructure provision [DRO 10], and states that "contributions may be achieved through other mechanisms such as third party financing". This is extremely worrying. Privatization of public infrastructure, especially when this provides a monopoly, has failed to deliver public benefit wherever it has been used. It should be explicitly ruled out as part of the Plan. Instead, the affordability of infrastructure should feed back to regulate the rate of growth we can afford.

It may be argued that the State Government does not control our national immigration policy, and the consequent inflow of people to SEQ. Yet no attempt has been made by the State to challenge it.

If the State Government were to point out to the Federal Government that each additional Queenslander costs it $200,000, and suggest that extra tax revenue is essential to cover this, it is unlikely that the current immigration policy would be sustained.

It may be argued that the State Government does not control our national immigration policy, and the consequent inflow of people to SEQ. Yet no attempt has been made by the State to challenge it. Instead, the Queensland Government has acted to suppress the choice of local councils to cap their populations. If the State Government were to point out to the Federal Government that each additional Queenslander costs it $200,000, and suggest that extra tax revenue is essential to cover this, it is unlikely that the current immigration policy would be sustained.

Part D8: smart growth

Urban Footprint and Urban Infill

The Plan purports to "manage" growth, through defined additions to the urban footprint, and a focus on "smart" infill development to achieve compact urban development, in theory reducing car dependence by concentrating growth close to public transport nodes and employment opportunities.

In practice, these claims fall short of the spin.

The attraction of broadhectare development over infill is that it is cheaper for developers. However, this is because the State (i.e. the existing tax payers) subsidizes the development with the provision of public infrastructure and services. For the State, infill development is cheaper up to a point, as it is cheaper to increase the capacity of existing services than to duplicate them in new locations. This cost of broadhectare development is acknowledged in the Plan, and mechanisms for planning the infrastructure are discussed. However, it is not apparent how better planning will actually deliver better infrastructure, when we are unable to fund our current infrastructure needs.

The main area for broadhectare development, the western corridor, has little to recommend it for either residence or business. If it was a desirable location, it would have developed already. It is chosen only as the area least likely to arouse significant protest. Its existing residents enjoy spacious semirural settings, to off-set their not-yet-too-onerous commuting costs. These values will be lost by the proposed density of development. Forcing new growth into this area will create a new slum. Mostly, those with the least options will choose to live there. Goodness knows what level of public funding will be needed to build desirable public facilities and subsidize the establishment of local businesses, in a probably futile attempt to prevent the area turning into a low-socioeconomic enclave. This has not been costed as part of the Plan. [DRO 8: Policy 8.4.1: note that the Queensland Housing Affordability Strategy specifically directs low-cost housing to new broadhectare developments where they have least access to services.]

Would Sydney, with the benefit of hindsight, choose to add a Western Sydney, with all its socioeconomic problems, if it could possibly be avoided?

Would Sydney, with the benefit of hindsight, choose to add a Western Sydney, with all its socioeconomic problems, if it could possibly be avoided? Brisbane is now at that point in history, about to launch into a massive project to create our own Western socioeconomic millstone.

The claim that the new areas will "accommodate appropriate employment capacities" ignores the drivers of population growth into the region [Policy 8.2.4]. People come for employment opportunities in existing areas. They look for housing in outer suburbs because of its affordability, availability or utility compared with housing closer to their employment. The jobs that are likely to be created in the neighbourhood are only a fraction of the suburb's economy: the people needed to service the new population. They illustrate the multiplier effect of population growth, and this effect is greater in more disbursed outer suburbs than in higher density areas, as the latter have greater economies of scale for service provision.

It is unclear how the Plan proposes to influence the proportion of infill to broadhectare. One must assume that the projection of 44% infill is only an extrapolation of current rates of subdivision. It is implied that this is an optimal rate, to achieve "smart development". However, if infill is acknowledged to provide lower environmental impacts, the best way to encourage it is to limit the release of broadhectare land. This is not proposed. On the contrary, the rate of land release is to be accelerated.

As for urban infill, the impression is given that most development will be high-density housing around transport and employment nodes [Policy 8.1.1]. But the Plan contains no effective measures to ensure this happens. It may only serve to encourage local councils to lift density limits around those nodes. A recently published study from Monash University_#main-fn3">3 demonstrated that similar intentions in the Melbourne 2030 plan have not been realized in the City of Monash. Instead they observed that "redevelopment proposals are more opportunistic than systemic" and "activity centres are not the magnet for high density development as originally envisaged by the Melbourne 2030 policy". They conclude:

"The City of Monash infill pattern resulting is one mapped as a dispersed pattern of dual occupancy and unit development. The resulting redevelopment is thus unlikely to deliver many benefits of the type most sought under the Melbourne 2030 planning scheme. Rather, the existing pattern of transport within established suburbia, which involves a heavy reliance on the private car, will be adopted by those living in the new infill developments."

Public transport proximity commands a premium in the real estate market, so if development at the nodes is left to developers, it will target the high end of the market, in direct competition with detached housing, rather than providing small units at affordable prices.

The only way the Government could implement the sort of "smart development" outlined in the Plan, would be by compulsorily acquiring extensive areas of land at the transport nodes, and commissioning their redevelopment. Not such an unattractive proposition, when compared with the cost of servicing new broadhectare developments. Perhaps politicians fear local protest -- from voters less expendable than those in the Mary Valley. Yet, if done well, the outcome is likely to be far better than the continuation of pragmatic infill, with its accompanying loss of green space, increased local traffic and heat island effect. It may be an effective way to achieve affordable housing with adequate mobility for the elderly to sustain independent living. Public transport proximity commands a premium in the real estate market, so if development at the nodes is left to developers, it will target the high end of the market, in direct competition with detached housing, rather than providing small units at affordable prices.

If high density development could only be built on State-acquired land, it would take a lot of heat out of the property market, and improve housing affordability far more than the release of broadhectare land.

Of course, it would be immensely unpopular with developers and land speculators, who receive an enormous windfall benefit when height or density restrictions are lifted. If high density development could only be built on State-acquired land, it would take a lot of heat out of the property market, and improve housing affordability far more than the release of broadhectare land.

There has been some recent media debate, particularly in Melbourne, about proposals to build "up instead of out"._#main-fn4">4 Note that this is not what I am suggesting, although there are elements in common. The aim of redeveloped precincts would be to limit the impact of urban infill on the surrounding leafy suburban streets by providing for unavoidable growth in an orderly way, as well as providing less car-dependent housing options and ensuring affordable housing is near transport and services. This strategy will only provide a sustainable solution in the context of transitioning to a stable population. It is not intended as the first stage of a cancerous growth that would spread across the urban landscape, but a way of giving a viable focal point to neighbourhoods and achieving a housing mix better suited to our future demographic profile. Building height should be limited to a walkable 5 levels, and open spaces should be traffic free. The style would be more like old European town centres, rather than the towering and alienating unit developments hemmed in by busy roads, that are beginning to surround Brisbane city [see photographs on p 5 and 13 of Part E].

Policies 8.7.1 and 8.7.3 favour street-frontage retail development rather than enclosed malls. This is regressive and results in traffic-dominated public spaces. Internationally, the most successful centres combine open malls (traffic-free streets) with enclosed malls containing or adjoining rail stations.

[DRO 12] There also needs to be a far greater integration of programs. If car dependence is to be reduced, new high density housing units should be encouraged not to accommodate cars. A limited number of car park spaces might be available for hire . However, for people to choose not only to commute without a car, but to not own a car, is a difficult choice in our current system. Numerous international examples offer alternatives to remedy this difficulty. In Switzerland, the railways run a car pool system, where subscribers can pick up a car at most railway stations, and use it for a nominated time. The fee is modest, and compares favorably with owning a car for infrequent use. Clients can secure their booking by mobile phone, and this locks the car to any but their personal access card. I have recently learned that such car pool systems have been established in Sydney and Melbourne, but have been impeded in Brisbane due to refusal of the Council to provide dedicated parking space for the pool cars. Bus routes need to offer far more local neighbourhood access, and routes between the main radial corridors rather than forcing clients to go via the city. Also in Switzerland, in neighbourhoods where it is not economic to run frequent regular bus routes, buses can be booked with 20 minutes notice, to take clients door-to-door, via other pick-ups as needed. The fee is a standard bus fee, much more attractive than a taxi but still cheaper for the municipality than running low-occupancy routes. Thus bus drivers and their clients are free to negotiate their own schedule and routes.

The Queensland petrol rebate constitutes a perverse incentive, acting against emissions reductions. In place of the rebate, the State should provide a no-fault road trauma compensation scheme and end compulsory third-party insurance by indemnifying licensed drivers from third-party claims. The current scheme, in which every vehicle owner is required to have a separate insurance policy individually negotiated with an insurer but providing identical cover, is entirely unnecessary, a honey-pot for insurance providers, and a significant further stress for road trauma victims facing the complications and expense of making claims. Insurance is a means of risk-spreading, but the aggregate risk to the State is relatively predictable and does not need spreading. Importantly, the State would receive the benefit of increasing road safety and reducing road use. The value to the average driver, and the cost to the State, would be similar to the petrol rebate, but those who drive less would be rewarded. [This would be a State-wide initiative, but is relevant to the demand-management goals of the Regional Plan -- D10.3]

Bicycles have even lower environmental impact than public transport, and have added advantages of freedom from routes and schedules, and promoting healthy exercise. However, personal safety of cyclists on our congested roads forms a major deterrent for many people from taking up cycling. If this is to be remedied, much more serious efforts need to be made to balance cycle and car priorities on our roads. The on-road cycle lanes currently used do not provide sufficient connectivity for commuter routes, and do not significantly improve safety for cyclists. They tend to encourage cyclists to ride too close to parked cars, putting them at greater risk of car door incidents. All parking should be removed from on-road cycle lanes. Off-road bikeways need to be designed for commuters, who wish to travel at efficient speeds, rather than the winding and out-of-the-way recreational routes that currently dominate Brisbane's off-road cycle paths. Queensland driving licence tests should incorporate questions relating to cyclists' rights to share roads, and expected etiquette and safety measures for cars to respond to cyclists. [Currently the Plan has no substantive policies to support bicycle use. Policy 12.2.2 does not address the existing barriers to cycling as a means of transport.]

Despite the Plan's intention to promote sustainable travel options [Policy 12.2.2 and 12.2.3], it is difficult to see how these options can flourish in a landscape increasingly congested with cars. Increasing population density through either pragmatic infill or broadhectare sprawl will increase traffic volumes, with a positive feedback effect that roads become less friendly to active transport, and people choose cars instead. A partial solution is to restrict car access to activity centres, offering park-and-ride options instead. But without limiting population growth, reclaiming the streets from the car will be an uphill battle.

Clearly the Plan is not written with the intention of achieving best outcomes for SE Queensland's people. It is a plan written to deliver maximum benefit to developers.

There are many fine sentiments expressed in the Plan, but they lack a realistic means of achievement, and avoid quantitative goals or benchmarks. Clearly the Plan is not written with the intention of achieving best outcomes for SE Queensland's people. It is a plan written to deliver maximum benefit to developers.

Recommendations

I have no illusions that the following suggestions will be embraced by State Government. However, I wish to make the point that there are realistic, affordable alternatives to the pragmatic, developer-driven growth rush that we currently endure.

1. [Part B] Acknowledge openly that additional population threatens the biodiversity and quality of life in South East Queensland. Emphasize that the plan's aim is to minimize the negative impacts of growth, and to ensure that the process of accommodating growth does not attract growth. Outline the steps the State Government intends to take to reduce immigration to the region, and explain the benefit that such reduction will yield by freeing up revenue to enhance quality of existing services and facilities.
2. [Part C] Provide an accurate inventory of natural resources, including natural vegetation on both public and private land, and truthful incidence mapping of endangered species (unlike the convenient omissions of known koala habitat from the koala distribution in the current Plan). Map areas of impact from various possible (explicitly and quantitatively defined) scenarios of sea level rise, increased coastal storm intensity and increased bushfire risk, and define and justify the boundary of acceptable development to limit future climate change vulnerability. Remove areas of climate change vulnerability and remaining natural vegetation from the urban footprint, removing any current development entitlement on them. Recognize the exceptional ecological and productive value of the red soils of Redlands and the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, and prevent further urban development on them.
3. [Part D8] Prohibit further subdivision of private land. Redevelopment of double-title blocks, and intensification on blocks within designated zones, would continue.
4. [Part D8] Increase the mandatory environmental standards for new buildings to at least a 5 star rating, mandate minimum proportions of roof to be oriented for solar and water collection (I suggest at least 50% of roof area for solar, more for water), and limit new high-density development to a walkable 5 levels to remove residential dependence on lifts and to ensure open spaces between buildings enjoy sunshine and vegetation.
5. [Part F] Reinforce local council powers to prohibit development on land of environmental significance, and to dictate the standard of impact assessment required on development applications. Do not allow developers to bypass council requirements by claiming they are stalling tactics.
6. [Part D12] Do not support further road capacity expansion projects. Road development should focus on improving safety and efficiency, and better accommodating buses and small, low speed vehicles (including bicycles, but possibly accommodating next-generation light electric vehicles). Congestion should be allowed to motivate people to opt out of private car use. Rather than increasing capacity, it could be controlled via a congestion tax which increases this motivation (if carefully designed to avoid inequitable impacts, and only after provision of realistic public transport alternatives).
7. [Part D12] Extend the metropolitan rail network to Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast activity centres. Extend the Ferny Grove_#main-fn5">5 and Cleveland lines to Samford and Redlands respectively, and create a spur from Oxley to the south-west suburbs. Provide regular passenger services Open the Exhibition line for regular use, with a station providing access to the Royal Brisbane Hospital precinct (in terms of car-kilometers saved per dollar spent, this would rate very highly).
8. [Part D12] Provide for innovative transport options such as car pooling, on-call buses, and school buses that provide a realistic option for parents by accepting responsible custody of children and designing routes annually based on addresses of enrolled children, to pick up children within a block from their home.
9. [Part D8] Acquire substantial areas of land precincts around selected suburban public transport nodes, for the purpose of redeveloping activity centres and meeting housing demand in an orderly way that avoids property speculation and population pull-factors. Apart from limited intensification on existing titles, aim for all new housing to be in walking distance of an activity centre and transport node. Precincts could be up to 400m radius, but could be staged to transition existing services and businesses to new accommodation, and may incorporate heritage features to be preserved. Tender for precinct redevelopment under best-practice standards of environmental impact, energy efficiency and social equity. Developments should combine residential, commercial and recreational functions, with traffic-free open spaces. They should not aim to provide expansive prestige accommodation, in competition with detached housing, but cater specifically for singles and couples, leaving surrounding detached housing for the larger households it serves best. Housing for people with restricted mobility should be prioritized. The sale price of units need not pay for the entire development, as it would include components that would have otherwise been publicly funded in the form of infrastructure to broadhectare subdivisions and suburban centre renewal projects. So it should be possible to provide relatively affordable housing and viable commercial rents. Such projects would attract prestigious international design bids, and would put Brisbane on the map in terms of sustainable urban design.

My proposal may be seen as authoritarian, even socialist, among free-market thinkers. I do not mean to argue against the role of private capital in a stable, well-balanced society, in which the sum of private interests approximates to public interest. However, when faced with the need for a substantial transition, requiring remodeling of many of our societal systems to accommodate peak oil and climate change, severe conflicts arise between vested private interests and long-term public interest. In such a situation, government needs to take a greater role, in controlling resources and shaping development in the public interest. This is a strategy for transition, not a socialist manifesto.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Plan. I sincerely hope that its next iteration is substantially improved, as a result of this consultation process.

Jane O'Sullivan

Footnotes

#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. #main-fn1-txt">↑ www.theage.com.au/news/NATIONAL/Qld-govt-rejects-population-cap/2007/04/22/1177180460654.html.

#main-fn2" id="main-fn2">2. #main-fn2-txt">↑ Productivity Commission 2006. Economic Impacts of Migration and Population Growth www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/9438/migrationandpopulation.pdf.

#main-fn3" id="main-fn3">3. #main-fn3-txt">↑ Phan T, Peterson J and Chandra S, 2008. Urban Infill: extent and implications in the City of Monash. People and Place 16(4), 23-31.

#main-fn4" id="main-fn4">4. #main-fn4-txt">↑ The proposal from Jason Black, president of the Planning Institute of Australia's Victorian division, has probably been sensationalized in its media coverage, such as Peter Familari's article "Planning expert says Melbourne must destroy leafy eastern suburbs" in the Herald Sun, 29 April 2009.

#main-fn5" id="main-fn5">5. #main-fn5-txt">↑ This is a good suggestion, but for this to happen, built-up residential blocks that occupy land immediately adjacent to Ferney Grove Station over which the extension railway line would have to be built would have to be bought and the houses demolished. How such an astonishingly irresponsible decision as to allow such land to be built upon was arrived at would be very interesting to learn.

“Victoria's water reality and a growing population”

Come and hear

Dr. Ernest Healy

Senior research fellow in the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University who will present new research into fundamental considerations and constraints in the fast growing city of Melbourne including the potential capacity and limits of our rail network and of our most basic necessity- water.

At the

Sustainable Population Australia

(Victorian branch)

Annual General Meeting

Saturday May 16th 2009 at 2.00p.m.

North Melbourne Library (Upstairs)

66 Errol St, North Melbourne 3051
All welcome!

How to get there

Melways Reference: 2A J10
Car: On street parking (meters)
Tram: 57 from Flinders St. Station up Elizabeth Street.

Contact: Jill Quirk President Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian Branch)

Tel 03 95097429 mobile: 0409742927

[email protected]

Ed. Consider joining SPA Victoria and helping President Quirk in the massive and urgent task of overturning Victoria's politically engineered and undemocratic population growth.

Ed. This article is adapted (with insertion of headings) from the introduction at www.savethepines.net This reserve is located at the top of the Mornington Peninsula, which extends south of Melbourne like a boot. Until Jeff Kennet became Premier of Victoria, this area was zoned rural. With his arrival it was rezoned into 'Greater Melbourne' and thus became targeted for continuous urbanisation. There is a video of the freeway route & landscape at the bottom of this article.

Brumby to bulldoze tollway through Pines

Premier Brumby has announced his intention to bulldoze the Peninsula Link Freeway through the centre of Frankston’s 220 hectare Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve. He pre-empted the “Independent” Panel report reviewing the South and Eastern Integrated Transport Authority’s Environment Effect Statement thus wasting $5m of taxpayers money and thousands of hours of submitters time.

This land was recommended by Victorian bureaucrats in 1993 for reservation as a National Park. They also recommended that Vicroads remove the road reservation.

Vital for wildlife corridor to save Peninsula species

This is the closest place to Melbourne where the endangered Southern Brown Bandicoot and other endangered species survive in the wild. It’s also the closest place in Melbourne’s South and South East where Swamp Wallabies, Echidnas, Koalas and other iconic Australian species roam freely.

The Department of Environment and Sustainability said “The potential impact of the proposed bypass may cause the local extinction of this species.” This advice was repeated to the EES Panel by many experts including the Government’s ecological consultant.

In 1995, the Minister for Conservation (Mark Birrel) advised Parliament that “This is the most botanically significant reserve in south-eastern Melbourne.”

214 Regionally significant flora

Alternatives not being considered

There are alternatives. If fly-over’s could be built over Burke, Toorak and Tooronga Roads, then so to can Cranbourne road be overpassed and the delays alleviated.

Mark Birrel’s statement followed 20 years of public controversy regarding successive proposals to subdivide and quarry this land. The issue first came to media prominence in 1975 when a group of residents hoisted the Eureka flag and claimed the land for Frankston residents.

The time has come to reclaim this land.

The time has come to reclaim this land.

But there is more.

Most precious reserves sacrificed to unnecessary urban expansion

The 20 odd kilometer swath cut into the landscape from Carrum Downs will destroy an extraordinarily rare patch of herb rich grassy wetland. DSE says it can’t be replaced. The road will plough through 60% of the Belvedere Reserve in Seaford, the Pobblebonk/Willow Reserve and the Wittenberg Reserves in Langwarrin, destroy a pristine remnant at the heritage listed Westerfield property and bisect precious farmland the length of the Moorooduc Plain.

Help us save this priceless landscape and species that are our Australian heritage.

The www.savethepines.net asks readers to "Please contact your local member and Federal Minister Garrett to voice your opposition."

All around Australia, indeed all around the world, towns are fighting against having huge costly marinas foisted on their communities and much loved beaches. It is about time that someone founded an international anti-marina association to coordinate democratic movements against unsustainable business proposals for locally unwanted marinas .

Below we reproduce correspondence between the Frankston Beach Association Inc to the Hon. Justice Madden MLC, who is Victoria’s current Minister for Planning. It was the latest in Frankston community’s attempt to make itself heard in a more than 30 year battle to prevent a marina from being forced upon the community. The letter was a response to nine dot-points made by the Minister in an attempt to justify the [many times reproposed] marina in question. Ed.

"Frankston Beach Association Inc.
Preserving the beach for all to use"

www.vicnet.net.au/~fbainc
Registration Number - A0031686R ABN - 68 874 762 644 Secretary: Graeme Lyell, 2A Fenton Crescent, South Frankston, 3199 Tel: (03) 9783 7445

1st March, 2009
Hon. Justin Madden, MLC
Minister for Planning,
8, Nicholson Street,
East Melbourne, Vic 3002.
Dear Minister,

Proposed C50 Frankston Planning Scheme Amendment relating to a marina at Olivers Hill

The Committee of the Frankston Beach Association (FBA) wish to thank you for your correspondence of the 30 January 2009, responding to our letter of 19 December 2008 and our submission of 17 December 2008 commenting, (at the invitation of the Frankston Council) on the proposed Frankston C50 Planning Scheme Amendment.

Detail of your correspondence was conveyed to us by Mr. Alistair Harkness, MP. A copy of this January 30 correspondence is attached for your reference.[1]

The Frankston Beach Association is puzzled and disappointed with the statements made in the nine points in your correspondence, responding to our 17 December 2008 Submission relating to the proposed C50 Amendment.

None of the 'nine points' in your correspondence, directly address the financial, environmental and social concerns and issues that we have clearly detailed in our Submission of 17 December 2008.

Rather, these 'nine points' appear to be a clumsy attempt by the three Authorities referred to in your correspondence, ie., Frankston Council, the DSE and Tourism Victoria, to justify their support for a grossly enlarged Marina at Olivers Hill, by falsely suggesting that their support is consistent with the previous EES and Advisory Panels' and Ministers' 'Recommendations'.

Is the Minister aware that the 'nine points' in several instances are inaccurate and misleading and appear designed to obfuscate important facts?

We briefly comment below, on each of these 'nine points'.

Point 1.

Justin Madden MLC wrote: “The concept of a safe boat harbour at Olivers Hill, Frankston has been actively supported by Council, the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), Tourism Victoria and the boating industry.”

Since the formation of the FBA in 1982, no member of the Public has advised that they are in favour of providing a marina at Olivers Hill, at the cost of destroying the Frankston Beach and Daveys Bay.

Why are Frankston Council, the DSE and Tourism Victoria controversially wanting to develop a grossly enlarged marina, significantly larger than the one currently approved and larger than the Frankston CBD, with a diameter twice the length of Frankston Pier, that:

i. On the advice of seven eminent scientists and coastal engineers will likely destroy Frankston Beach and cause Daveys Bay to silt up? and

ii. Is more than twice the size required to accommodate the boating and retail, commercial and industrial activities prescribed by the proposed C50 Amendment?

The activities proposed in the C50 Amendment can adequately be accommodated in the 15.8 hectare marina area currently approved.

Why are these Authorities pursuing a development for which no credible cost analysis or financial viability studies have been made public, no environmental studies have been undertaken and which directly conflicts with and contravenes the financial, environmental and social parameters and standards established by the past Planning Processes?

Point 2.

Justin Madden MLC wrote: "Olivers Hill has undergone a comprehensive planning assessment including an Environmental Effects Statement, Planning Scheme Amendments and Ministerial Assessments."

This point states that Olivers Hill has undergone a comprehensive planning assessment and refers to the 1999 EES and the 2003 Planning and Advisory Committee Panel Reports, and the two Ministers' Assessments in 2000 and 2003.

This statement falsely suggests that the recommendations and standards prescribed in these Reports and Assessments are continuing to be adhered to.

In reality, Frankston Council, DSE and Tourism Victoria are paying little more than tokenism to these recommendations and through the proposed C50 amendment they are arbitrarily rejecting and disregarding many of the financial, environmental and social standards and recommendations prescribed in the Panel Reports and Ministers' Assessments.

Does the Minister accept that such conduct by these authorities is deceptive and misleading and makes a mockery of the State Planning Process?

Point 3.

Justin Madden MLC wrote: "The Frankston Planning Scheme was amended in 2003 to facilitate the provision of a safe boat harbour at Olivers Hill."

The Frankston Planning Scheme was amended in 2003 to facilitate the provision of a 15.8 ha marina including a reclamation area of 5.8 ha.

The development and operation of this marina was subject to compliance with the Recommendations of the 1999 EES Panel Report and 2000 Minister's Assessment and the 2003 Panel Report and Minister's Assessment.

Point 4.

Justin Madden MLC wrote: "The Environmental Effects Statement (EES) assessed the impacts of rezoning 35 hectares of land and sea to a Special Use Zone for use as a safe boat harbour. The revised model proposed by Council encompasses 22 hectares and is still within the parameters initially tested by the EES."

This statement is totally incorrect and misleading.

The 1999 Environmental Effects Statement (EES) did not assess the impacts of rezoning 35 hectare of land and sea to a Special Use Zone.

The EES assessed two areas for a marina development ie., one of 6.6 hectare (option 2) and one of 15.4 hectare (option 3). The EES did not assess any specific area for rezoning to either a Public Park and Recreation Zone (PPRZ) or a Special Use Zone (SUZ).

The 2003 C15 Panel of Inquiry and Advisory Panel assessed the impacts of a 15.8 hectare marina within a 35 hectare PPRZ. The Panel recommended that a SUZ would be more appropriate than the proposed PPRZ .

Within the 35 hectare SUZ, the Panel and Minister approved a marina of 15.8 hectare including 5.8 hectare of reclaimed land, the development of which was subject to specified detailed recommendations, parameters and standards being complied with.
The proposed C50 Amendment increases the size of the marina from 15.8 hectare to 22 hectare. We ask the Minister, why increase the size of the marina? (seepoints 5 and 7)

Point 5.

Justin Madden MLC wrote: "In 2006, Frankston City Council completed a cost analysis for a preferred development model. The revised model identified more land to be reclaimed, a larger breakwater to increase the number of berths, the introduction of dry boat storage, an increase in parking provision, short term accommodation and increases to floor area for boat repairs and for retail purposes."

No credible cost analysis has been made public for the larger 22 hectare marina.

Contrary to the current Planning Scheme, no size limit has been specified in the proposed C50 amendment, on the amount of land that can be reclaimed.

As less than half the 22 hectare marina is required to accommodate both the prescribed 330 marina berths and the permitted commercial, retail and industrial activities including the stacked dry boat storage and 60 berth hotel, what additional activities are intended for the remaining unused area? (See points 4 and 7).

Point 6.

Justin Madden MLC wrote: "Council’s revised model contains dry boat storage and an increased commercial area. The current planning controls in the Frankston Planning scheme do not facilitate these elements. Therefore an amendment to the Frankston Planning Scheme would be required to accommodate these changes."

Council's revised model, described by the proposed C50 Amendment, contradicts and conflicts with the environmental, financial and social recommendations and standards determined by the 1999 EES and the 2003 Planning and Advisory Committee Panel Reports, and the two Ministers' Assessments in 2000 and 2003.

Point 7.

Justin Madden MLC wrote: "In May 2007, Council adopted a preferred development model for a safe boat harbour. I referred this model to the Priority Development Panel (PDP) for advice and evaluation."

The proposed C50 model recommended by the Priority Development Panel, differs from the 'Preferred Development Model' adopted by Council in 2007, following advice from their financial advisors, by removing the upper limit to the reclamation area.

With very high breakwater construction costs, no developer will build a larger marina than one required for the permitted activities, unless expecting the permitted activities to be further expanded.

What additional activities do Council, DSE and Tourism Victoria intend for the extra land inside the larger breakwaters? Will additional activities be offered and permitted as inducement to a developer? Will these activities include residential housing and more commercial, retail and industrial development? Will they also include an entertainment complex?

Has the Minister been advised of and considered these implications?

Point 8.

Justin Madden MLC wrote: "The PDP worked closely with key stakeholders, Frankston City Council, the Frankston Design Panel and representatives of the State Government including the DSE and Parks Victoria. Advice was sought on a number of issues including the environmental sustainability of the proposal. The Frankston Beach Association was also invited to make a submission during the process."

The Key Stakeholders were nominated by Council. In total they numbered approximately 13 organizations and 8 individuals.
Does the Minister consider this miniscule amount of community consultation adequate and appropriate in a community of approximately 150,000 persons, where many residents and visitors use the beach throughout the year, when the proposed marina is putting Frankston beach at risk?

The statement is made in this point that, 'Advice was sought on a number of issues including the environmental sustainability of the proposal'. This statement is meaningless. Who was invited to give this advice, when was the advice sought and on what part of the proposed marina development did the advice relate to?

Was advice sought on the effect of the marina on the Frankston Beach and Daveys Bay? No environmental studies to determine the effects of the marina on these assets have been undertaken.

Insufficient data is available on which to undertake these studies and data over a period of more than one year is required.
Are such flippant statements relating to environmental standards acceptable to the Planning Minister?

Point 9

Justin Madden MLC wrote: "Frankston City Council will seek tenders from private industry to fund the construction of a safe boat harbour. State Government funding for public infrastructure through the DSE and Vic Roads Asset Management Program for slope stabilization at Olivers Hill and funding for boat ramps through the Boating Facilities Grants through Marine Safety Victoria may be made available."

The funding advice made in this point is contradictory to the funding information approved by Council and proposed to be placed in the Tender Documents.

Council's information in the proposed tender documents commits the Government to all public infrastructure funding, including Public Boat Ramps, and car parking and trailer parking and five boat launching ramps together with stabilization of Olivers Hill.

Is the Minister satisfied that Frankston Council has the authority to make this financial commitment on behalf of the Government, when development costs have not been determined?

Is the Minister aware that contrary to the current Planning Scheme requirements the proposed C50 Amendment fails to require the proponent to be financially responsible for beach restoration, sand bypassing and maintenance dredging costs?

Is the Minister aware that construction costs may be more than $150 million and more than half these construction costs, plus future costs associated with beach restoration, sand bypassing and maintenance dredging will be to the account of the Government, unless the C50 Amendment and Tender documents are changed from those proposed in the C50 Amendment?

Are Frankston Council, the DSE and Tourism Victoria being open with the Government and the Public with respect to the issues raised above?

Summary.

Frankston Beach Association continues to harbour grave concerns as to the financial, environmental and social probity of this proposed development. Our main concerns relate to safeguarding Frankston Beach and Daveys Bay for the present and future use of residents and visitors to Frankston City.

A small number of self-interested parties continue to perversely push ahead with a so-called iconic development that will put Frankston on the map. This proposed development is flawed, and if it fails, the Frankston community will pay the price.
We are currently witnessing the financial failure of iconic developments world wide. The community of Frankston can ill afford a financial, environmental and social disaster on their doorstep at this time.

We respectfully request that our concerns carefully detailed in our 'Comments and Review of the proposed Frankston C50 Planning Scheme Amendment' dated 17 December 2008, be individually and properly considered and be factually responded to.

Yours sincerely,
Graeme Lyell
Secretary Frankston Beach Association Inc.

[1] Ed. Attached was this document from Justin Madden, from which I have transcribed the nine dot points corresponding to the responses of the Frankston Beach Association.

A Stonington Council resident and Yarra Valley Water 'customer' (can you be a 'customer' if you have no choice in the matter? What about a 'serf'?) writes to us:

"Dear Candobetter,

I have just opened a Yarra Valley Water brochure which came with the last account. The account tells me I use over 500 litres water per day with no-one else in the house,where the dishwasher is not used, the car is not washed the lawn is not watered, the washing is done rarely (and when it is rinsing water is carried in buckets to the parched garden), the toilet is flushed as little as possible,and there are no leaks. Yarra Valley insist their meters never run fast so that usage figure is correct and I am asked to reduce this usage to 155 litres per day.

How can I do this without seriously compromising health and hygiene?!!

As far as I know Yarra Valley Water is a private company that bills me for water. It is one of many . It is not a council. Water used to be supplied by the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works- but I think there have been a few incarnations scince then and to do it justice I would need to do some research. Not sure what the reponsibility is of Yara Valley Water."

Firstly, we see that the Victorian Government has succeeded in completely confusing this constituent. Yarra Valley Water is actually owned by the Victorian Government, but it has been corporatised with the effect of distancing responsibility and removing the Government from direct accountability to the electorate. It is as if Melbourne Water is still in the same location but has changed the name of the street so that it can no longer be found.

Our correspondent goes on to describe the literature she has received promoting this affront to democracy, hygiene and tax-payer affordability. Due to the government's corporatisation of water-distribution in conjunction with forcing a massive increase in consumers (via population growth without the consent of the community) prices are going up - well most first graders could do that sum.

Page 1 of the brochure, "Preparing for our future", has a picture of a little blond girl, laptop on lap, eucalypts in the background.

Page 2 of the Brochure has this large heading:

"Helping Melbourne to grow"

and continues in bold- "average bill to increase by about $35 per quarter"

Underneath the paragraph reads:

"While the price increase is absolutely necessary, we understand that it will have an impact on some of our customers. [Note the dishonest gloss: it must have an 'impact' on all of their customers, and more and more as the financial depression bites.] We will provide information to help you prepare your household for higher bills and we are committed to ensuring that the average water bill will no more than double over the 5 year period between July 2008 and July 2013,consistent with previous commitments by the state government....."

And, on the last page:

Heading

"Why do prices need to rise?

continues:

"The increased prices will pay for essential projects to increase Melbourne's water supplies, service new growth and protect the environment..."

A little further down:

Preparing for the future

"The price increase will also help us to build extensive new water and sewerage infrastructure to service Melbourne's rapid growth, (our correspondent's emphasis) including provision of major water recycling projects while maintaining and renewing the existing infrastructure.

The big question:

Why didn't Yarra Valley Water (a corporation owned by Victoria) inform these residents that the State Government was pushing population growth upon them and that these exponential price rises would be the consequences if growth were not stopped? And that the only alternative would be to decrease water-use to below normally acceptable or possible levels in an every more densely populated urban environment?

I am sure that Yarra Valley Water would have answers and excuses for not discussing these questions in depth, but only ones which would reinforce Victorians' loss of self-government and control over vital resources.

State Government has moral and civic duty to indemnify constituents

The State Government has failed their duty to adequately inform, consult and represent Melbourne people about its responsibility for Victoria's aggressive demographic growth policy and the consequences of this to cost of living for the electorate. The Government thus a moral and civic duty to indemnify constituents against higher charges. There is no way that Yarra Water can guarantee that prices will not double again... and again... and again... after the five year period it guarantees them for. And, doubling the price of water, even once, is totally unacceptable. In fact, part of Yarra Valley Water's brief is that it

"(f) Must manage its business operations to maintain the long-term financial viability for the Licensee".

How can it do this without constantly raising prices as Melbourne's population constantly rises?

Why did the Victorian Government corporatise Melbourne Water into commercial parcels like Yarra Valley Water? One theory is that the Government intends to sell these corporate bodies off to public shareholders, as happened with Telstra. It is nigh impossible to exert real control over corporations, as we learned in a high court decision on the Wheat Board, See "Justice Michael Kirby on Why Privatisation is wrong"so the prospect of marketing water to a captive population which has no choice but to purchase it will be very attractive to the psychopaths who are buying up and privatising water all over the world.

Maud Barlowe, who leads a global grass-roots network against erosion of basic rights by governments colluding in the commercialisation and inflation of water prices through induced scarcity (via forced population growth, for instance), warns that:

...the global corporate cartel that I worried about when I wrote my first book, Blue Gold has come to pass, and water is being more and more corporately controlled. Now we all know about the delivery of water by these big utilities, Suez, Vivendi, or Veolia, and that continues apace and of course bottled water which is an enormous industry.

But the one that kind of was newer to me was the creation of a massive new water reuse technology which is being heavily heavily funded by governments, particularly by US and European governments, which I think is going to be a disincentive to enact water protection laws or to enforce water protection laws because we’re building a massive international industry to clean water up and there is going to be trade and environmental services so-called, through the WTO and GATS (General Agreement on Trade and Services) around water technology cleanup. And I envisage a world in 20 years when we’ve dried out so much of the planet and all of the oceans are ringed by massive desalination plants, run by nuclear power. That’s not in my head. That’s coming. That’s for sure. Those plans are there. Which is terribly polluting, a horrible, polluting, energy intensive industry. And that people—rich people—will buy bottled water from the few remote, clean places left on earth or take it from the corporations from clouds—literally that technology is being developed—while millions and millions more die. This is just the future that I can see unless we start to change course so that the ecological crisis, the human rights crisis, and the corporate control are just absolutely so clear to me."

Source: Video: Maude Barlow: Water Stress

by Mark Simpson

Surrender Democracy now

Surrender Australia to overpopulation now, argues "demographer" and investment spotter Bernard Salt, rather than have China lean on us later to take in its millions! (Australian, April 30th, "No room to be smug as population peaks").

What a wonderful combination of long-term cowardice and short-term business convenience!
What a failure of democracy to have a business-man given the spurious authority of the press to manufacture such appalling opinion, which will be read all around the world.

Mr Salt and Mr Murdoch might just as well send personal invitations to the Chinese, telling them to come here. Of course the Chinese would not last very long, and neither would we. We are already running out of water and soil, as Bernard Salt well knows.

The hell with Anzac, eh?

No wonder young Australians flock to the War Memorial on Anzac day, to commemorate their WWII grandparents who thought Australia was worth defending against the Japanese superpower, even when the odds seemed overwhelming.

And Salt's argument is demographic nonsense. Pushing Australia's population to 34 million, as he advocates, would take us way beyond the 23 million that the Australian Academy of Science told the Keating government should be our limit. The extra 11 million people, even if every one was a Chinese immigrant, would make negligible difference to China's vast population and is unlikely ever to be a major policy objective of the China's government.

Article written by Mark Simpson

See also: "Bernard Salt, Murdoch media insult the memory of Second World War Australians" of 2 Apr 10, "Invasion victory ensured by complacency" in The Australian of 1 Apr 10, "No room to be smug as population peaks" in The Australian of 30 Apr 09, "Working man's vegetable plot under threat again" of 22 Apr 08.

Brisbane's local ABC radio station 612 disregarded its own listeners' expressed dissatisfaction with both the major parties when, during the 2009 Queensland state elections, it refused any air time to local independent candidates. Instead, virtually all the available time was given over to candidates from the governing Labor Party or the Opposition Liberal National Party, who even according to the ABC's own listeners, provided little useful information.

See also: ABC's response in "ABC dismisses complaint claiming privatisation not 'newsworthy' in 2009 Queensland elections" of 10 Jun 09, "Courier Mail, ABC back Department of Main Roads land grab" of 29 Mar 09, "Why the Brisbane Mayoral elections should not have been 'boring'" of 23 Mar 08, "Courier Mail provides 'boring', yet unbalanced, coverage of Brisbane City Council elections" of 17 Mar 09.

See also: ABC's response in "ABC dismisses complaint claiming privatisation not 'newsworthy' in 2009 Queensland elections" of 10 Jun 09, "Courier Mail, ABC back Department of Main Roads land grab" of 29 Mar 09, "Why the Brisbane Mayoral elections should not have been 'boring'" of 23 Mar 08, "Courier Mail provides 'boring', yet unbalanced, coverage of Brisbane City Council elections" of 17 Mar 09.

#PopulationElectionIssue" id="PopulationElectionIssue">Population-growth-driven chaos observed by ABC, but ignored as election issue

On Friday 20 March 2009, the last day of the hectically brief Queensland state election campaign, a listener phoned Brisbane ABC radio 612 to say:

"It would be a lot better if the Queensland Government would stop inviting people to come to Queensland."

The following morning, on the day of the actual elections, Tony Eastley, ABC radio's national AM program presenter, reported:

"... Transport is increasingly a problem because of the huge population that's coming to south-east Queensland. Thousands and thousands of people arrive each week in south-east Queensland to take up employment, searching for something new in their lives, and the infrastructure in those places has really struggled to keep pace.

"When we were down there the other day there's always road work going on, there's always something happening, and I think people just genuinely get frustrated. Anyone listening to this program who lives in a city knows that there's an ongoing battle between what you want and what you get in cities as far as infrastructure goes."_#main-fn1">1

The fact that the Queensland Government had deliberately encouraged the population growth that had needlessly resulted in the "ongoing battle between what you want and what you get," as Tony Eastley had put it, and fully intended to continue doing so_#main-fn2">2, should have been a hot issue in the election campaign.

However, the Queensland Opposition is every bit as committed to the reckless encouragement of population growth as the Government,_#main-fn3">3 although this has not prevented it from taking cheap political shots at the Government for the problem of traffic congestion mentioned by Eastley and other problems that simply would not exist but for past population growth.

The Queensland Greens, on paper, stood opposed to population growth, but said nothing about it during the election campaign._#main-fn4">4

So that only left myself, and possibly a few other independents, who were prepared to speak out against population growth. None were approached by the ABC as far as I could tell. Even though I had sent a lot of material on population growth, the ABC ignored the issue or ignored me.

This meant that the majority of Queenslanders opposed to population growth, were kept ignorant by the ABC of how to express those views at the ballot box.

#InformationNeeded" id="InformationNeeded">Voters' wishes for information on alternatives to the two major parties ignored

During the elections there was abundant evidence of voter dissatisfaction with both the ruling Labor Party and the Opposition Liberal National Party. Population would have been one of many factors.

On 6 March, the Courier Mail newspaper's Galaxy Poll showed that 56% of voters did not believe that the Labor Government deserved to be re-elected. 57% of voters did not believe the Opposition Liberal National Party (LNP) deserved to win. Immediately prior to the date of the elections, two weeks later, on Friday 20 March, the same poll showed that attitudes had barely changed. 57% of voters believed that the LNP did not deserve to win and 57% believed that Labor did not deserve to win.

These poll results were confirmed throughout the election campaign by many listeners' calls to the ABC's local Brisbane Radio station 612.

One listener objected to the LNP because they supported Uranium mining, but he said he didn't like the Labor party either. Another said she would be voting for the LNP, but not because she liked the LNP, only because she saw it is preferable to Labor. Still another stated, "None of them are any good."

One listener stated that he wanted to vote for a good independent and explicitly asked that more information be provided.

The fact that most of their listeners had expressed dissatisfaction with the major parties did not deter the ABC from devoting nearly all the available election coverage to those same major parties -- usually state government ministers and shadow ministers -- and to almost no-one else.

Of what was said on air by the major party spokespersons, one listener complained, "they come on and waffle on and on." That they had indeed waffled on, and that the ABC had wasted its listeners' time was further confirmed immediately after the elections.

On the Monday 23 March, at least two listeners phoned in to say that the ABC had provided them with insufficient policy detail about the major party candidates. One of them stated that she consequently voted for Anna Bligh only on the basis of her having been depicted well in a personal light in interview with her husband (referred to also below).

#DisdainForIndependents" id="DisdainForIndependents">Open ABC disdain for independent candidates

It was incumbent on the taxpayer-funded ABC to encourage any independent candidate who overcame Anna Bligh's engineered time constraints and had information ready for the voting public despite often limited campaign budgets. Instead, one ABC presenter effectively ridiculed an independent candidate before her audiences on one occasion, when, on Friday 20 March, the day before the elections, a morning presenter_#main-fn5">5 told listeners of an independent candidate who had only managed to release his policy statement the previous day. Then she remarked:

"They're leaving their pitch until a little late, aren't they?"

No useful information was given to the audience about that candidate.

#RequestsIgnored" id="RequestsIgnored">Requests for air time ignored

In fact, one candidate, namely me, had provided the ABC with plenty of information, and in plenty of time, but the ABC presenter neglected to tell her audience this.

I was not given air-time and the information I made available was not used, in spite of its clear relevance to concerns expressed by ABC listeners during the election campaign.

Although I presented it to the ABC through e-mails, media releases, text messages, telephone calls and even a printed brochure, delivered to the studio on Saturday, one week before the elections, no information was passed on to the public. Nor did the ABC give me any opportunity to put that information to voters myself. If any other candidate also campaigned actively for those policies, they certainly got no exposure either.

The total return on all my efforts was only two tiny instances of exposure (see, also, below):

• When I phoned in around 8.00am on Monday 9 March, I was able to introduce myself as an independent candidate for Mount Coot-tha and then announce a 'meet the candidates' night for my electorate scheduled for Monday 16 March;
• After the 10:00am news Friday 13 March, Madonna King put to Andrew Fraser a question on my behalf: Would he commit himself to not privatising any more Government owned assets? His response to that question, which I considered unsatisfactory, was accepted without further pursuit.

#SpuriousJustifications" id="SpuriousJustifications">Spurious justifications for refusal of air time

On the two occasions I spoke to ABC staff to request more time, they protested that I had had more than a fair amount of coverage. They argued that they could not allocate air-time to every independent candidate.

However it was Anna Bligh's decision_#main-fn6">6, and not mine to hold an early election of less than four weeks duration.

So, far from compensating the electorate for Anna Bligh's own decision, the ABC lavished her and other Labor candidates with air-time. At the same time the ABC seemed to go out of its way to ensure no Greens or independents like me, might challenge her policies with substantially new or different ones.

The ABC even found time to broadcast an interview with Anna Bligh's husband Greg Withers, who, unsurprisingly, depicted Anna Bligh sympathetically, but gave no useful policy information._#main-fn7">7

Thus the ABC, the nation's public, tax-paid broadcaster, utterly failed to disseminate vital information to taxpayers on the core business of government - a state election. It did not just fail; it seemed to present an obstacle to a real election choice.

Much of the little time scheduled for election coverage was often taken up with other stories of little practical relevance to ordinary voters. For instance, one session discussed an article by Murdoch journalist, Glen Milne, in the Australian,_#main-fn8">8 which advocated that Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman join the campaign on Lawrence Springborg's side. Whilst the article may have held interest for LNP strategists, it is clear that these sorts of programming decisions prevented many of the ABC's listeners from being able to arrive at informed decisions when they voted.

Why didn't the ABC schedule enough time to interview all the candidates? In fact, that is the policy of the ABC's local Adelaide Radio Station. On 22 Mar 09 the following was posted to a forum discussion:

"Here in South Australia, we enjoy the award winning ABC 891 Adelaide who make a feature of giving all the independents adequate time to present their policies and issues.

"Listeners obviously appreciate being fully informed, a fact which seems to have gone over the heads of ABC 612."_#main-fn9">9

If it could be done in Adelaide, then why not also in Brisbane?

#MyApproaches" id="MyApproaches">Madonna King refuses to hold Labor Government to account for public asset fire sale ...

As part of my efforts to obtain air time on the ABC, I sent a number of ABC presenters, including Madonna King, copies of an e-mail concerning privatisation, which I had sent to Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser (see #appendix3">Appendix 3).

The e-mail pointed out that a large number of publicly owned assets had been privatised since the Labor Party won government in 1998, but that those privatisations had not been put to the Queensland public at election times, nor had the public been consulted in any other way. I concluded the letter as follows:

"If the public had been consulted, none of these privatisations would have occurred and the Queensland public would have been spared the harm caused to them.

"I therefore ask that you give, to the Queensland public, a categorical assurance that you will not privatise any more assets during the coming Parliamentary term.

"If you are not prepared to give such an assurance, then privatisation is an issue at stake in these elections and should be openly discussed.

"Accordingly, I would ask that, as a candidate opposed to privatisation, you justify your stance before the Queensland public in a debate_{#main-fn10">10} with me.

On the following day, Friday 13 March, when I heard that Andrew Fraser was to be interviewed by Madonna King, I created the text message which follows as fast as I could and sent it off as the interview was proceeding:

"James Sinnamon, Independent for Mount Coot-tha asks: Why weren't Qld public consulted about privatisation of Brisbane, Mackay Cairns airports, Energex, etc?"

It turned out that Madonna King had already decided to put a question to Andrew Fraser on my behalf as James Sinnamon, an Independent candidate for Mount Coot-tha. She asked him:_{#main-fn11">11} would he commit himself to not privatising further Government-owned assets?

Andrew Fraser responded by telling listeners that he had already sent me a letter in response to my question.

In fact, no posted letter ever arrived and I only received an e-mail later that day, which means that it could not have been sent at the time Andrew Fraser claimed. The e-mail actually arrived three and a half weeks after I had first e-mailed my question to Andrew Fraser._{#main-fn12">12}

Any impression audiences may have received that Andrew Fraser was in this case responsive to the concerns of his detractors, would have been misleading, in fact.

Mr Fraser then claimed that the Government had no plans to privatise more assets and that he was ideologically opposed to privatisation.

Nothing further was asked by Madonna King concerning privatisation.

None of the many other facts contained in my e-mail, my text message, or my web site, were put to Andrew Fraser. The fact that he neither made the firm commitment I was seeking, nor agreed to defend his stance in a public debate, was not pointed out to the audience. The interviewer did not confront him with the general failure in the previous election to consult the public about the privatisations which had followed, including Mr Fraser's own enactment of airport privatisations. Nor did she put to him that the public overwhelmingly opposes privatisation.

To my knowledge, that was the only time during the whole election campaign, that I am aware of, that the ABC ever raised the issue of privatisation with the Labor Government, although the ABC's listeners did raise it themselves on a few occasions.

After I received the promised letter from Andrew Fraser, I found its contents differed significantly from his account on the ABC. At one point the letter stated:

"We will only ever agree to such sales where there are demonstrable benefits to the Queensland community."

This was clearly different to Fraser's stated claim that he had "no plans to privatise" and it obviously fell even further short of the assurance I had been seeking.

At the end, his letter stated:

"We ... will not pursue an ideologically driven agenda of privatisation."_{#main-fn13">13}

Again different to Mr Fraser's claim that he was "ideologically opposed to privatisation".

I believe that I was entitled to air time on the ABC, to rectify that misinformation.

However, my subsequent e-mailed requests for more time were also ignored.(see Appendices #appendix8">8 and #appendix9">9)

My e-mail to Andrew Fraser and Anna Bligh (see #appendix6">Appendix 6 ), CC'd to Kellie Riordan and Madonna King, pointing out Mr Fraser's self-contradiction and re-affirming my challenge to debate him on privatisation, was also ignored by all recipients.

#ElectricityShambles" id="ElectricityShambles">... but proves capable of asking hard questions when she chooses to

In contrast to her lightweight handling of Andrew Fraser on privatisation, the following week, on Wednesday 18 March, Madonna King showed that she could, when she applied herself, nail politicians down with their own words.

A listener called in to ask if Anna Bligh was prepared to apologise to electricity consumers for promising them that electricity charges would not go up as a result of privatisation of Energex - the retail arm of the state's electricity service, when, in fact, they had faced massive hikes, with the caller's own annual electricity having risen by $450.

Anna Bligh did not apologise. Instead, she claimed that she merely promised that no-one would have been any worse off than they otherwise would have been (which, if it had been made at the time, would have been regarded as the meaningless guarantee that it was). She attributed much of the increases to the need to build more electricity infrastructure (which would have been unnecessary if she had not encouraged #PopulationElectionIssue">population growth, although she neglected to mention this).

Madonna King confronted Bligh with the question:

"Are you absolutely sure that you didn't say that it would be cheaper?"

Anna Bligh responded:

"I didn't say that."

The next day, Anna Bligh's words from Hansard of 28 Sep 2005 and which had been looked up by a researcher from the LNP were quoted by Madonna King:

"Most importantly, it does not matter where you live, nobody--not one Queenslander--will be worse off under the government's proposal."

So, whilst no evidence that Anna Bligh had explicitly told the Queensland public that electricity prices would be cheaper was found, her guarantee that nobody would be worse off had been unconditional and it would have appeared that Queensland consumers were, after all, entitled to the apology that had been asked of Anna Bligh.

Over the following days, the ABC rightly reminded its listeners of this.

If Madonna King could have held Anna Bligh to account on that one issue, then why not on others, and why not also with Andrew Fraser on the issue of privatisation, when she had all the information provided by me at her finger tips?

The fact, that the link to the question put to Andrew Fraser about privatisation the previous week, which should have been blindingly obvious, was not pointed out to the ABC's audience, contributes to the impression that these rare examples where politicians are asked truly hard questions are part of a token, rather than systematic approach.

#GoalPostsShifted" id="GoalPostsShifted">The ABC shifts the goal posts

On the morning of Monday 16 March, I received a mobile phone voice message from Kellie Riordan, the ABC Radio's news director. The message advised me once again that they could not give me any more time than I had already been given. However, if I sent them anything that could be considered newsworthy, I might stand a chance.

I sent an e-mail back (see #appendix9">Appendix 9) restating that I believed that I was entitled to time, anyway, in the circumstances, but that I would do my best to provide material that was newsworthy.

The following day, I sent a media release "Andrew Fraser's three different responses to a question on privatisation" (see #appendix10">Appendix 10) to Kellie Riordan and other ABC staff, but they still did not report it and they still failed to give me air time.

During the rest of that last week before the election I sent to the ABC's Brisbane radio station:

• On Wednesday, an e-mail to Madonna King asking for air time in response to listeners' expressed dissatisfaction with major party candidates (see #appendix11">Appendix 11);
• On Thursday, an e-mail asking that they publicise a survey sent to all candidates I could reach and the responses to which had been published on my web site (see #appendix12">Appendix 12).
• On Thursday, a text message sent at the time Lawrence Springborg was being interviewed: "Could u ask Mr Springborg if he would agree to respond to my survey at candobetter.org/qldelections/survey ? James Sinnamon ind 4 mt coot-tha"
• On Thursday, an e-mail to Lawrence Springborg challenging him to defend the pro-privatisation view that he had espoused in an interview in a public debate (see #appendix13">Appendix 13), which was CC'd to the ABC;
• On Friday, a media release about my challenge to debate Lawrence Springborg (see #appendix14">Appendix 14);

All of these communications were ignored. None were used in any news broadcasts as far as I am aware and no air time was given to me as a result.

#SurveyIgnored" id="SurveyIgnored">Survey ignored

The survey mentioned above was to inform voters of candidates' attitudes towards the issue of privatisation and population growth, mentioned previously, as well as:

• Premier Bligh's plans to triple Queensland's already record levels of coal exports by 2030 entailing the destruction of agricultural land and nature refuges;
• the construction of a second massive Chinese-owned aluminium smelter in addition to the existing smelter at Gladstone;
• making access to affordable housing and water a human right; and
• a government sponsored full-employment program.

The list was not comprehensive, but, nevertheless covered a good many more important issues that I believe the Queensland public had a right to be informed about before they voted.

Evidently, the ABC did not agree.

I had set it it up to make it as easy as possible for any voter to quickly work out where each candidate standing in his electorate stood on each of these issues. I included a table with an entry for each candidate in each electorate. Where a candidate would not have been able to simply provide a 'yes', 'no' or 'undecided' to any of the questions, a further column included a link to another page containing comments.

By the morning of 19 March I had received responses to the survey from some of the Greens and Independents and had published them. Although not one major party candidate had answered and although the ground covered by the survey was far from complete it was a start and provided an opportunity for voters to gain more vital knowledge of the candidates' policies. Had other politicians been encouraged to respond to the questionnaire and had its existence been made known, it would have filled a major deficit in electoral policy information.

As I have said above, I sent an e-mail (see #appendix12">Appendix 12) to Madonna King and other presenters on Thursday 19 April, advising her of the survey. I also asked that the ABC use its influence to prevail upon the major parties to respond and, on the following day, a text message was sent whilst Lawrence Springborg was being interviewed.

Even the fact that on Thursday morning the ABC's own listeners had, yet again, expressed their dissatisfaction with the major parties and had asked for information on alternative candidates, as I pointed out in the e-mail, failed to galvanise our public broadcaster.

#DaveZwolenski" id="DaveZwolenski">Dave Zwolenski's campaign material also not good enough for the ABC

Dave Zwolenksi stood as an independent candidate in the same electorate in which I stood. He campaigned on the more limited, but, nevertheless, important platform of total truthfulness and openness in our politicians. During the campaign he produce some polished and original material included a media release, posters and a YouTube video.

In the YouTube video, he appeared in a succession of scenes in the Mount Coot-tha electorate, each progressively closer to the Queensland Parliament, itself not far outside the electorate. In each successive scene, he takes off more and more clothes. In the final scene, he removes his pants and stands stark naked, although with an electronic equivalent of a figleaf in from of him, in front of the Queensland Parliament as a metaphor for the openness for which he was campaigning.

This campaign was also totally ignored by the ABC as well as by nearly all of the rest of newsmedia._{#main-fn14">14}

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that the ABC never seriously intended giving substantial air time to me or any other independent candidate. Had they had the courtesy to say so at the outset, then I could have used the time I had spent trying to get air time on the public broadcaster more productively elsewhere.

#VotersRightsDenied" id="VotersRightsDenied">ABC's election coverage denies voters the right to hold elected representatives to account

Democracy was famously defined by US President Abraham Lincoln during his address following the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 as "government of the people by the people for the people."

In Australia, in the early 21st century, democracy has been effectively redefined by the mass media to mean something far more limited. It has come to mean no more than the right of the electorate to decide, every three or four years, which of the two major parties, promoted by Australia's corporate elite, may make the sweeping decisions they claim via the mainstream media to be in the electorate's best interests.

In the intervening period between elections, voters have practically no right to influence what the elected government can and cannot do.

Even during the elections only a small subset of policy areas is ever discussed. In the 2004 federal elections, as examples, Prime Minister John Howard made no mention of his plans to savagely attack the wages and conditions of ordinary workers with his so-called "Work Choices" legislation, and discussion of his plans to fully privatise Telstra was almost completely avoided. In the 2009 Queensland state elections, the issues covered were mostly limited to fiscal management, health, road transport (but not public transport), water, and power supply and only within very restricted parameters.

In effect, this means that the public are usually left with very little to choose from between the major parties when they reach the polling booth and are largely ignorant of candidates, like me, who question the status quo.

This practically guarantees that politicians who have poorly served their constituents will continue to be re-elected or, at worst, only be replaced occasionally by one from the other major party who is unlikely to be any better. New candidates stand hardly any chance of being heard, let alone winning.

This is how the ABC has itself largely brought about the circumstances of which its own listeners complain, that is, about how they are ruled by governments that 57% don't believe deserve to rule.

In the past, the ABC in Queensland was rightly viewed as a fierce and independent critic of the state government, particularly during the Bjelke-Petersen years. However this is no longer the case. The ABC is no longer part of the solution. It has become part of the problem.

#appendix1" id="appendix1">Appendix 1: E-mail of Fri 6 Mar 09 to Kellie Riordan requesting air time

Subject: Air time on ABC 612 for independent candidate for Mount Coot-tha?

Dear Kellie Riordan/Anna Reynolds,

Could you tell me what my prospects are to have air time on the ABC in these coming two weeks?

I am essentially available at any time.

Whilst I am slow off the mark, you will find some information about my campaign at http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha http://candobetter.org/QldElections.

There's more about me on my home page, included below.

Throughout the years I have been interviewed on radio, mostly on the issue of privatisation of Telstra(1). I also stood as candidate for Lord Mayor and was interviewed once last year in the studio at Lissner Street.

If you know of anyone else you think may be interested, please let me know. Also, please feel welcome to pass on my contact details to such people.

Best regards,

James Sinnamon
Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
james -dot- sinnamon |AT| gmail -dot- com
0412 319669
http://candobetter.org/james

1. Some information (although now largely dated) can be found at http://citizensagainstsellingtelstra.com.

#appendix2" id="appendix2">Appendix 2: E-mail of Tue 10 Mar 09 to Madonna King requesting air time

Subject: Please give more air time to discuss election issues of substance

CC'd to Kellie Riordan, Richard Fidler and Spencer Howson.

Dear Madonna King,

I believe that yesterday's discussion on whether or not Lord Mayor Campbell Newman should enter the Queensland election campaign could have been better spent discussing issues of substance at stake in the elections.

In my view far too much air time and newspaper column inches has been given in recent years to topics which, whilst of interest to members of the LNP and Labor Parties, hold far less interest to members of the broader public.

I am an independent candidate contesting the seat of Mount Coot-tha. I am standing, in part to raise, before the broader public, issues of critical importance which I believe are at stake in this election, but which are not being adequately covered by the newsmedia.

These include:

* Privatisation, of which my electoral opponent Treasurer Andrew Fraser has been principle architect.

* The run away housing unaffordability crisis, which is literally impoverishing many Brisbane people, including even well-paid professionals (such as a surveyor who lives near me who had to cancel his annual flight back to Europe because of recent rent increases).

* The destruction of businesses in Inner city Brisbane also due to excessive rental increases. Only the weekend before last week the Baboa Art Gallery, which had operated on Latrobe Terrace Paddington for only two and a half years had to close its doors because its rent had doubled in that time. On Monday last week I walked by to see the interior of the Gallery, carefully constructed by its operator Joan Winter only two an a half years earlier already destroyed by workmen in preparation for the next tenant.

Since early 2008, virtually a whole retail community further down Latrobe Street closer to Given Terrace has been similarly wiped out by rent increases, actively encouraged by local real estate agents.

I could not recognise a single business that had been there when I wrote and talked of it during the Brisbane City Council elections as Lord Mayoral candidate (See "Rent gouging threatens Brisbane inner city retail community" at http://candobetter.org/node/360).

* Population Growth, which is the principle driver of all our social, environmental and economic problems (including housing unaffordability).

* The despoliation of Queensland's natural habitat (see "Coal mine threatens Queensland Nature Refuge" at http://candobetter.org/node/1129) and the rest of the world by Queensland's mining industry. (see "Why I am contesting the Queensland state elections as an independent").

* etc., etc, etc.

I think if you or other ABC presenters can find the time to interview me about these issues and others I have raised in my article "Why I am contesting the Queensland state elections as an independent" at:

http://candobetter.org/node/1121
http://candobetter.org/QldElections
http://candobetter.org/QldElections
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

... your listeners will be very grateful.

yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon

Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
http://candobetter.org/james

#appendix3" id="appendix3">Appendix 3: E-mail of Thu 12 Mar 09 to Premier Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser

Subject: Independent candidate seeks assurance from Government against any further privatisations

CC'd to: Madonna King, Kellie Riordan, Spencer Howson, Annie Guest, Lawrence Springborg and others.

Dear Premier Anna Bligh and Treasurer Andrew Fraser,

In the letter I sent to both of you on 17 February, before the elections were called I asked for "your firm assurance that if you do intend to privatise any (publicly owned) assets that you state your intention to do so to the public before the forthcoming elections, or, alternatively, that you will put any planned privatisations to the public at referenda."

I have still not received that simple assurance.

I ask this because I believe that, in a democracy, the public should be consulted by their elected representatives about all questions that will affect their lives, particularly decisions the (claimed) need for which can be easily foreseen.

However, as you are both surely well aware, the Queensland public has never been consulted about any of the numerous privatisations that have occurred since your Government came to power, starting with the full privatisation of the already partially privatised State Government Insurance Office (SGIO - now called SunCorp) in 1998 against a specific election promise made by former Premier Peter Beattie.

Had the Government retained ownership, or at least partial ownership, then at least one insurance company could have been directed by your government not to have resorted to the unconscionable business practices that have been described on the Madonna King radio show over the last two days.

Other privatisations, which have been imposed on the Queensland public since
then include:

* The remaining government stake in Brisbane airport in 2009

* Cairns Airport in 2009

* Mackay Airport in 2008

* The Qld Government's stake in the Emu Downs wind farm in Western Australia in 2008;

* The Enertex (not be confused with Energex) gas business in 2008;

* The Golden Casket state lottery agency in 2007;

* Ergon Gas in 2006;

* Energex, the retail arm of Queensland's electricity generation utility in 2006;

* the Dalrymple Bay coal loader in 2001

* TAB in 1999

I believe all have been detrimental to the public interest and some, including the privatisations of Energex, Ergon, the Dalrymple Bay coal loader and the SGIO, as discussed above, have been indisputably disastrous.

If the public had been consulted, none of these privatisations would have occurred and the Queensland public would have been spared the harm caused to them.

I therefore ask that you give, to the Queensland public, a categorical assurance that you will not privatise any more assets during the coming Parliamentary term.

If you are not prepared to give such an assurance, then privatisation is an issue at stake in these elections and should be openly discussed.

Accordingly, I would ask that, as a candidate opposed to privatisation, that you justify your stance before the Queensland public in a debate with me.

Yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon

Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
http://candobetter.org/james
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

#appendix4" id="appendix4">Appendix 4: E-mail of Thu 12 Mar 09 requesting air time

Subject: The prospects of air time discuss privatisation, population growth, climate-changing coal exports, etc.

Dear Kellie,

I tried to phone today to find out whether or not I was likely to get air time on ABC 612 in the coming days.

I believe that the issues I want to raise are of immense interest to the Queensland public.

It seems to have been implied that because I was heard once on the radio at Breakfast show I should not be heard again before the elections.

If that is what has been decided, then I think that that would be a mistaken decision, that is, unless you are giving air time to other candidates, who are raising the same issues which I am trying to raise (see below) -- which I would welcome.

Whatever, I want to see all the candidates are properly scrutinised by ABC journalists on all the questions I have raised so that at least ABC audience will properly informed of the choices before them at these elections.

I trust that you will do what you can to bring this about.

So, could you phone me on [...] to discuss this?

Yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon

Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
http://candobetter.org/james
http://candobetter.org/QldElections
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

#appendix5" id="appendix5">Appendix 5: E-mail of Fri 13 Mar 09 to Kellie Riordan

Subject:Re: The prospects of air time discuss privatisation, population growth, climate-changing coal exports, etc

Date: 13/03/09 02:02 pm
CC'd to: Madonna King

Dear Kellie,

Further to yesterday's e-mail, I would still like to know whether or not it will be possible to have air time on Brisbane local radio in the coming days.

I appreciate that Madonna King put my question to Andrew Fraser this morning, but it seems to me that she left him off the hook far too easily.

His response that he had no plans to privatise electricity and that he was ideologically against privatisation should have been easily anticipated by anyone familiar with this issue.

Points I had made in my correspondences which could have been used but were not put. Even a text message I sent to Madonna King could have been easily use to follow up but was not. That text message was:

"James Sinnamon, Independent for Mount Coot-tha asks: Why weren't Qld public consulted about Brisbane, Mackay Cairns airports, Energex, etc?"

Consequently, our politicians, who should be being held properly to account in this period are getting off far too lightly making the current elections a pale imitation of true democracy.

I suggest once again, you give time to candidates like myself to candidates who are raising the issues of real concern.

Another candidate you should get in contact with is Robert Huston, Greens candidate for Mount Ommaney who wrote a short article which I posted on my web site.

"Qld Greens: 'competitive' market a calamity for electricity consumers" at http://candobetter.org/node/1139

He can be reached at mount.ommaney[AT]qld.greens.org.au 0428 XXX XXX

I am sure he would be happy to speak to you.

Yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon

#appendix6" id="appendix6">Appendix 6: E-mail of Fri 13 Mar 09 to Andrew Fraser

Subject: Categorical assurance against privatisation has not been given by Andrew Fraser

Date: 13/03/09 04:45 pm

CC'd to: Madonna King, Kellie Riordan and others

(Subject was: Response)

Dear Andrew Fraser,

The letter I have received from you is not the categorical assurance against privatisation that I was seeking from you.

Furthermore, it significantly contradicts what I recall that you told Brisbane listeners on Madonna King's Breakfast show this morning.

This morning, according to my recollection, you said that there were no plans to privatise any more of Queensland's assets and that you were ideologically opposed to privatisation.

In contrast, your letter states:

"The Queensland Government's record on the Sale of Government. We will only ever agree to such sales where there are demonstrable benefits to the Queensland community."

Further along, in marked contrast to my recollection of your statement that you were ideologically opposed to privatisation, the letter merely states, "We have not and will not pursue an ideologically driven agenda of privatisation."

So can you please make clear to me whether you are ideologically opposed to privatisation or just merely not ideologically in favour of privatisation?

Either way this doesn't provide the categorical assurance I was seeking.

I therefore repeat my challenge to you, and to other candidates, who appear to favour privatisation during the next term of Parliament, including, it would seem, the opposition leader Lawrence Springborg, that you publicly debate the issue of privatisation with a candidate opposed to privatisation, such as myself.

I will also be asking all candidates for categorical assurances that they will oppose privatisation during the course of the next Parliament. I trust that the ABC, the Courier Mail and other newsmedia will make the responses known to electors so that they can be fully informed when they cast their votes.

Yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon

Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
http://candobetter.org/james
http://candobetter.org/QldElections
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

#appendix7" id="appendix7">Appendix 7: E-mail of Mon 16 Mar 09 to Kellie Riordan advising that anti-privatisation Greens candidate Robert Huston would like air time

Subject: Robert Huston, Greens Candidate for Mount Ommaney confirms that he would like air time

Date: 16/03/09 12:21 am

CC'd to Madonna King.

Hi James,

I would be happy to talk to local radio about the disaster of electricity supply management.

Regards

Robert Huston BVSc. BEnv.Sc. MPhil.
Greens candidate for Mt Ommaney
...

#appendix8" id="appendix8">Appendix 8: E-mail of Mon 16 Mar 09 to Madonna King requesting air time to counter Andrew Fraser's misleading statements of Friday

Subject: URGENT: request air time to correct misleading statements by Andrew Fraser broadcast on Friday

Date: 16/03/09 08:51 am

CC'd to: Kellie Riordan and others

Dear Madonna King,

Further to my e-mail on Friday, I request that I be given air time on your program to correct the misleading and incomplete response, given by Andrew Fraser, the sitting member for Mount Coot-tha in response to my question.

That question which attempted to establish whether or not Queenslanders can expect even more of their assets to be privatised in the next term of Parliament. How Andrew Fraser's answer misled your audience was explained in an e-mail, sent to Andrew Fraser (included also below), which was cc'd to you:

"Furthermore, (the letter) significantly contradicts what I recall that you told Brisbane listeners on Madonna King's Breakfast show this morning.

"This morning, according to my recollection, you said that there were no plans to privatise any more of Queensland's assets and that you were ideologically opposed to privatisation.

In contrast, your letter states:

"'The Queensland Government's record on the Sale of Government. We will only ever agree to such sales where there are demonstrable benefits to the Queensland community.'

"Further along, in marked contrast to my recollection of your statement that you were ideologically opposed to privatisation, the letter merely states, 'We have not and will not pursue an ideologically driven agenda of privatisation.'"

I believe that your audience is entitled to have this misinformation corrected.

This is all the more urgent as I am a candidate who represents the overwhelming opposition of electors both in Mount Coot-tha and the rest of Queensland to privatisation. That popular rejection of privatisation has been repeatedly defied, in practice, by both the Labor Government, in particular, the Treasurer Andrew Fraser and the LNP opposition, which, in Government, has conducted its own privatisations and, in Opposition, has voted for all the Government's privatisation bills, should be treated as a serious election issue.

I am the only candidate in Mount Coot-tha, and one of very few across the state, who has attempted to give this critical issue the prominence it deserves.

I am happy to be interviewed on my own or together with Andrew Fraser.

In my view, to not agree to my request for air time in these circumstances would amount to withholding to Brisbane electors, information about a vital issue at stake in these elections.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,
James Sinnamon

Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
...
http://candobetter.org/james
http://candobetter.org/QldElections
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

(Subject was: Response)

Dear Andrew Fraser,

The letter I have received from you is not the categorical assurance against privatisation that I was seeking from you.

(See #appendix6">Appendix 6 for the rest of this included e-mail.)

#appendix9" id="appendix9">Appendix 9: E-mail of Mon 16 Mar 09 to Kellie Riordan in response to voice message

Subject: Robert Huston, Greens Candidate for Mount Ommaney confirms that he would like air time

CC'd to: Madonna King

Dear Kellie,

Sorry I missed your call just now. I will try to keep the phone closer to me from now on, but a return number would also be helpful.

I don't think your response addressed my concerns, so my request for air time still stands. I have shown that Andrew Fraser misled your program's listeners and did not fully answered my question, so on that grounds alone I believe I am entitled to air time.

If there is insufficient time to allow such misinformation to be corrected and to force candidates to adequately answer questions of electors and other candidates, let alone for views, which enjoy overwhelming public support such as opposition to privatisation to be put, then this election is a farce and the ABC should be telling that to its listeners.

However, as I wrote before, the ABC programmers could help by focusing more on substantive issues rather than pondering whether or not it would be a good idea for Campbell Newman to help Lawrence Springborg.

I would also suggest that whilst the story about Anna Bligh's husband Greg Withers was not altogether without interest, given the time constraints, of which you complain, that should have been left until after the election.

I will, as you suggest, send news items, but you must appreciate that it is more difficult with few resources and not enough time.

Thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon

Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
...
http://candobetter.org/james
http://candobetter.org/QldElections
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

#appendix10" id="appendix10">Appendix 10: Media release on privatisation sent to Kellie Riordan and others

Andrew Fraser's three different responses to a question on privatisation
Media release of 17 Mar 09

Queensland voters, who overwhelmingly oppose privatisation, have a right to know which candidates can be relied upon to block any further sell-offs of public assets, said James Sinnamon, independent candidate for the Brisbane inner-north-west seat of Mount Coot-tha.

"The privatisation of the Cairns, Mackay and Brisbane airports, the Golden Casket, Energex and Ergon during the last term of Parliament, demonstrate that privatisation was an issue at stake in the 2006 state elections," said the independent candidate, "yet where were the electors told of this?"

(For the rest of the media release, see "Andrew Fraser's three different responses to a question on privatisation" of 17 Mar 09.)

#appendix11" id="appendix11">Appendix 11: E-mail of Wed 18 Mar 09 to Madonna King asking for air time in response to listeners' dissatisfaction with major party candidates

Subject: If listeners are dissatsifed with major parties, why aren't others given air time on your program?

Date: 18/03/09 11:39 am

CC'd to: Kellie Riordan, Richard Fidler

Dear Madonna King,

As you have just heard from your own listeners, a lot of electors are extremely dissatisfied with what both major parties have to offer.

So, why are candidates, who stand for something different and, on many issues,such as privatisation and population growth, actually represent the majority view, getting so little air time on your program, and on the ABC in general?

Yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon

Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
...
http://candobetter.org/james
http://candobetter.org/QldElections
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

#appendix12" id="appendix12">Appendix 12: E-mail of Thu 19 Mar 09 to Brisbane ABC local radio staff asking that survey be publicised in response to listeners requests for more information

Subject: Please advise listeners of my online survey sent to all candidates

Dear Madonna King, Richard Fidler, Kellie Riordan, Annie Guest et al,

I have heard a number of listeners saying to Madonna King on her program that they are dissatisfied with the major parties and that they want more information about policies.

Could you please advise your listeners that they can find answers to much of the information they seek printed in results to a survey on my web site.

Late last night and this morning I sent out survey questions concerning privatisation, population growth, the environment and full employment to every candidate I was able to e-mail. That survey is included below.

As I write, I am receiving responses. I am publishing the results at:

http://candobetter.org/QldElections/survey

I am also publishing any more detailed comments I have received.

Could you please advise your listeners of this survey and do you think you could use your good influence to prevail upon candidates from the major parties to respond to my survey?

So far, none have responded.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

James Sinnamon

Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
...
http://candobetter.org/james
http://candobetter.org/QldElections
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

#appendix13" id="appendix13">Appendix 13: E-mail of Thu 19 Mar 09 challenging Lawrence Springborg to debate privatisation

Subject: URGENT: Please justify your pro-privatisation stance in a public debate

Date: 19/03/09 02:37 pm

CC'd to: Madonna King, Kellie Riordan, Richard Fidler, Annie Guest and others.

Dear Lawrence Springborg,

If you intend to privatise any more of public assets I believe you have an obligation to satisfy Queensland voters that this is justified.

To date this has never happened and all privatisations have been overwhelmingly opposed by public opinion.

All privatisations, without exception, have been public policy disasters and any further privatisations undertaken by a further LNP Government or a future Labor Government are almost certain to be no different.

I therefore challenge you or any other LNP candidate to justify in a public debate before the election your refusal to rule out any more privatisations, or, else commit yourself to not doing so until you have obtained the specific consent of the Queensland public.

My past challenge to Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser (or any other Labor candidate) to publicly debate their pro-privatisation stances also still stands.

yours sincerely

James Sinnamon

Pro-democracy independent
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
...http://candobetter.org/james
http://candobetter.org/QldElections
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

#appendix14" id="appendix14">Appendix 14: Media release of 19 Mar 09 challenging Lawrence Springborg to debate privatisation

Subject: Media Release: Lawrence Springborg out of step with the public on privatisation

Date: 19/03/09 06:44 pm

CC'd to Madonna King, Richard Fidler, Kellie Riordan, Annie Guest and others

Lawrence Springborg out of step with the public on privatisation

James Sinnamon, independent for Mount Coot-tha
Media Release, Thur 19 Mar 09

During an interview on Brisbane ABC local radio's Madonna King show, today, Lawrence Springborg told listeners that he has 'no objection' to the further sell-off of publicly-owned assets.

However, Mr Sinnamon pointed out that only the day before, Mr Springborg's Liberal National Party had rightly taken Premier Anna Bligh to task for misleading electricity consumers by promising that no electricity consumer would be worse off as a consequence of the privatisation of Energex.

(For the rest of the media release, see "Media release: Lawrence Springborg out of step with the public on privatisation" of 20 Mar 09)

#footnotes" id="footnotes">Footnotes

#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. #main-fn1-txt">↑ "AM's Tony Eastley live from Brisbane on polling day" in ABC radio's AM archive of 21 Mar 09.

#main-fn2" id="main-fn2">2. #main-fn2-txt">↑ In "Have your say" in the Village Green section of the Courier Mail of 21 March, Lavinia Wood also commented on Premier Anna Bligh's deliberate encouragement of population growth when she commented on the draft South East Queensland Regional Plan 2009-2031:

"No one but the developers thinks that bringing an additional 1.3 million people into a region that is already under stress is a good idea. Yet the South East Queensland Regional Plan is driving this agenda, touting a target of 4.4 million by 2031."

See, also "Exposing Queensland Government population growth duplicity" of 1 Apr 09.

#main-fn3" id="main-fn3">3. #main-fn3-txt">↑ See, also, my letter to Lawrence Springborg within the article "Lawrence Springborg responds to Brisbane Save The Mary River Questionnaire" of 10 Mar 09.

#main-fn4" id="main-fn4">4. #main-fn4-txt">↑ During the 2007 Federal elections, Greens Queensland Senate candidate Larissa Waters, who also stood in 2009, as a Greens candidate in Mount Coot-tha, in which I stood, advised me that the Greens had judged that raising the issue of population growth could make the difference that could cost her the Senate seat. As it turned out, Larissa Waters did not win a Senate seat anyway. This raises two questions:

1. Why is opposition to population growth judged by the Greens to be an electoral liability? and
2. Even, if it is, then when is a good time for the Greens to begin educating the public in order that opposition to population growth eventually does not become an electoral liability?

In regard to the first point, all opinion polls show that population growth and immigration are unpopular, so why the Greens apparently believe that a stance against population growth would harm them is not obvious. In regard to the second point, the Queensland Greens are noted for doing very little outside election campaign periods, so, if they are reluctant to raise the issue at election time, then when do they ever intend to educate the Queensland public about their opposition to population growth.

#main-fn5" id="main-fn5">5. #main-fn5-txt">↑ I can't recall whether the presenter was Madonna King, the mid-morning presenter or Kellie Higgins-Devine who, for that week, replaced Spencer Howson as the early morning presenter. However, it was definitely one of the two.

#main-fn6" id="main-fn6">6. #main-fn6-txt">↑ Anna Bligh's stated reason, that early election speculation was destabilising our economy, seemed disingenuous. If that had truly been her concern, she needed only to reaffirm her March 2008 promise to serve her full term. Instead, she remained silent whilst early election speculation was fueled by the Courier Mail from at least November of the previous year. (See also "Courier Mail misreports water recycling to demand early election" of 5 Jan 09.) So, by by her own logic, Premier Anna Bligh had allowed needless harm to be caused to Queensland's economy for at least two and a half months.

When she did call the election on the morning of Monday 23 February, water from devastating floods was receding in the north of Queensland, which still faced threats of further cyclones. Both these factors made it harder for many candidates to campaign and harder for some to vote.

The very night on which she called elections, TV stations began broadcasting Labor Party election advertising in slots which had to have been booked well in advance.

#main-fn7" id="main-fn7">7. #main-fn7-txt">↑ The ABC also sought to interview Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg's wife, but she declined.

#main-fn8" id="main-fn8">8. #main-fn8-txt">↑ "Springborg's hope lies with can-do Campbell" by Glen Milne in the Australian of 9 Mar 09.

In any case, Milne's prediction that Newman's intervention would help Lawrence Springborg badly misfired. Newman turned out to be considerably less popular than Milne believed him to be and his association with the LNP's campaign appears to have turned Brisbane voters against the LNP. As one ABC listener pointed out on the morning of Monday 23 March:

"When I saw (Campbell Newman's) photo in an advertisement with Lawrence Springborg, I knew it was 'all over Red Rover.'"

In the 2008 Brisbane City Council elections in which I stood against him for Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Campbell Newman earnestly promised not to increase rates beyond the rate of inflation. He broke that promise only weeks later and imposed savage rate hikes on high rise dwellers. For this and a number of other reasons he now appears to be widely disliked in Brisbane. On the night of the elections he headed towards the Brisbane tally room in order to share the limelight with the Lawrence Springborg, whom he assumed would win. However, before he reached the tally room, he learnt that voters had turned against the LNP and he ordered his driver to turn around.

#main-fn9" id="main-fn9">9. #main-fn9-txt">↑ Forum discussion #comment-231829">"My election night" on johnquiggin.com on 22 Mar 09.

#main-fn10" id="main-fn10">10. #main-fn10-txt">↑ Whilst some may judge a relatively unknown independent candidate to have been audacious in challenging the state's leading politicians to publicly debate privatisation, no other candidate had done so and no journalist, as far as I am aware, had confronted the Government over this issue. So as far as I am aware, this was the only attempt to hold our Government leaders for having sold off publicly owned assets without the consent of the owners of those assets.

#main-fn11" id="main-fn11">11. #main-fn11-txt">↑ This has already been mentioned in my article "What was achieved by my election campaign?" of 22 Mar 09.

#main-fn12" id="main-fn12">12. #main-fn12-txt">↑ See Open letter to Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser asking that any planned privatisations be put to the public at forthcoming elections of 17 Feb 09.

#main-fn13" id="main-fn13">13. #main-fn13-txt">↑ This has been covered in the article "Andrew Fraser's three different responses to a question on privatisation" of 17 Mar 09.

#main-fn14" id="main-fn14">14. #main-fn14-txt">↑ The only substantial coverage that either Dave Zwolenski or I received during the course of the campaign, was from the University of Queensland-based community radio station, 4ZZZ. Dave was interviewed twice by 4ZZZ, whilst I was interviewed once for 5 minutes.

The first summit of the Rudd Labor Government was the 'Australia 2020 Summit' held in Canberra on 19th and 20th April 2008, just five months in from Labor's federal election win. It was intended as a positive open engagement by the new government with selected intellectuals "to help shape a long term strategy for the nation’s future."

A critical issue of the Summit was that of the impact of population on Australia. But this was watered down by being lumped under the Summit's discussion category entitled: 'Population, sustainability, climate change, water and the future of our cities'

The session was co-chaired by Roger Beale AO and Senator the Honourable Penny Wong; neither holding academic qualifications or having employment experience in population studies or the social sciences. Roger Beale an history/law/economics graduate with experience as a federal bureaucrat in the Department of Environment and Heritage. Wong a graduate of Arts/Law with labour union experience and a background in forest policy.

Thus arguably, neither convenor appropriately qualified in population studies nor the social sciences to informly chair such a pivotal national topic as population and immigraton policy. The Summit was all about 2020, so by assumedly its purpose was to offer intellectual insight fronm communty leaders about what Australia's population and immigraton policy ought to prioritise for the next twelve years - Rudd optimistic of three 4 year terms.

The Summit session specific to 'POPULATION AND CITIES' must have been quite short, given just two days for this specific forum to discuss population amongst the broad and complex issues of sustainability, climate change, water and the future of our cities'. It always smelled of a token talkfest.

The final report from this Summit specific to 'POPULATION AND CITIES' identified the following 'AMBITIONS' for Australia to aspire to by 2020:

AMBITION 1: (same as Ambition 3)
-----------------------------------------
"Cities will be sustainable and offer all residents access to employment, education, transport and affordable housing. They will be prosperous, diverse, creative and connected."

AMBITION 2: As population increased, consumption will decrease
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Australia will have a sustainable population and consumption policy: while the population grows, net consumption should decrease. "

AMBITION 3: Social equity
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Australian cities will be among the most sustainable in the world underpinned by the principles of social equity. This will mean:

- opportunity for all in terms of jobs, education and affordable housing prosperity, creativity and diversity

- cities are net contributors to energy and water supply

- all homes and buildings are carbon neutral

- all people in major cities are living less than 800 metres from access to mass transit public transport

- clear performance goals and targets for sustainability

- the population is fully educated in relation to sustainability."

It all sounds wonderful, but pessimism aside, what are the key ideas emmanating from the new government's selected intellectuals? [Was the selection criteria ever made publicly transparent?]

The main 'IDEAS' relevant to population policy were:

3.16 "There should be a national agenda to plan for cities and population through establishment of a planning commission type organisation that sets goals and targets for cities. It is important that there be a re engagement by the national government in planning for cities and examining the potential role of the Council of Australian Governments and federal funding to drive change across jurisdictions.

3.17 Transport and infrastructure: to redirect federal funding from roads to public transport—passenger and freight. There should be a focus on driving compact and efficient transit oriented developments across all Australian cities as a means of supporting population growth at the same time as not increasing our ecological footprint.

3.18 A national building and sustainability system which creates an emissions reduction program for all new and existing buildings. The system would use measurable, reportable, verifiable methods. This would enable Australia to be a world leader, provide global leadership, and support innovation. This was seen as a breakthrough idea.

3.19 Education: develop a national school-level strategy that includes a broad public awareness program on how to be sustainable. Need to work with business to create incentives and achieve a fundamental shift in people’s thinking and behaviour.

So what progress has there been on each of these ideas and where can the public find out?

Two years hence, the reality of population in Australia's most populous and migrant popular city, Sydney, is described by Urban Affairs Reporter in the Sydney Morning Herald in the article 'Growing suburbs running on empty' (24-Apr-09) page 5 as follows:

"THE Sydney suburbs experiencing the state's largest population growth are among the worst for public transport and employment infrastructure, planning experts say, and the result is likely to be rising unemployment and increased social problems.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released yesterday show that the populations of the Blacktown, Baulkham Hills, Parramatta and Liverpool local government areas grew by nearly 16,000 people in the 12 months to June last year, accounting for about 20 per cent of the population growth in NSW.

The areas were characterised by high rates of childbirth and a steady flow of migrants, but according to the NSW president of the Planning Institute of Australia, Julie Bindon, they will struggle to cope with the extra growth because of a dearth of transport infrastructure.

"Those areas are among the worst affected by the State Government's decision to shelve the north-west and south-west rail links, and the Parramatta to Epping line," Ms Bindon said. The Rees Government's own submission for funding under the Infrastructure Australia Fund predicts that large sections of major traffic arteries such as the M2 and M5 will be over capacity by 2016, while some roads, such as the M2, are already at breaking point.

"A spokesman for the Transport Minister, David Campbell, said yesterday that the Government was committed to delivering transport solutions to western Sydney, including 143 new buses.

"The Planning Minister, Kristina Keneally, said the region would also be well catered to in terms of employment infrastructure, thanks to employment hubs in the north-west suburb of Riverstone and Oran Park town centre in the south-west.
But the director of the University of Western Sydney's Urban Research Centre, Phillip O'Neill, described these hubs as "ad hoc and badly lacking in supporting infrastructure", predicting that unemployment in the region would rise significantly during the recession.

"Firms will only locate in western Sydney when there is a high level of amenity and different kinds of employment spaces [such as] business and high-tech IT parks, and that has simply not been planned for," Professor O'Neill said.

"It's a simple equation - there are areas of Sydney such as the south-west corridor that have high population growth, no infrastructure and amenity and no transport infrastructure. If these issues aren't addressed then there will be a rise and intensity of social problems such as higher crime rates, health problems [and] household distress and increased rates of family break-up."
[SOURCE: http://www.smh.com.au/national/growing-suburbs-running-on-empty-20090423-agu5.html]

So despite the hype of Rudd's popularist summit promises, the population pressures of Rudd's mass immigraton policy are defaulting to a neglectful under-resourced migrant underclass across a sprawling western Sydney. Many metropolises like Sydney have shown that government immigration policies that encourage high intake volumes over short time frames and that neglect necessary resourcing, infrastructure, services lead to migrant communities forming ethnic enclaves.

In about ten years time, with these factors blantantly evident, are we set to see Sydney's west descend into Rudd Enclaves? The social problems are already emerging.

Letter to Caroline Batty, Manager, Population Policy Unit, Department of Trade and Economic Development (DTED) in South Australia

Thursday 9th April, 2009

Dear Ms Batty,

In light of the following points:
(a) that over two-thirds of our overall water use is in food production, and
(b) the Murray-Darling Basin is receiving its lowest inflows in 117 years of record-keeping, and
(c) the irrigation water supply to most of the Food Bowl has collapsed, and
(d) Adelaide's proposed $1.3 billion desalination plant will provide part of the water needed for households but only a tiny fraction of the water that would be needed for food production; and
(e) continuing predictions from the top climate scientists in the country and the world that droughts are likely to get worse; and
(f) the recent rises in fertiliser costs to farmers; and
(g) the widely-accepted fact that crude oil production has reach a "ceiling" worldwide and is likely to decline in the coming years due to lack of investment,

I am very interested to know how the Population Advisory Group intends to meet its stated goal to "support the achievement of South Australia’s Strategic Plan targets to grow the South Australian population"?

Does the Group intend to come clean with the State Government and the public about the fact that our country is set to soon become a net food importer if we continue to increase our population? Does the Group intend to come clean with the public about the fact that, as well as absolute reductions in fuel and energy use (due to declining oil production and increasingly strict emissions targets), there will need to be a steep and ongoing reduction in per-capita consumption in order to "make room" (both metaphorically and literally) for all of the additional people?

Of course, there are food choices that could greatly reduce our land- and water-footprint, enabling us to accommodate more people. For instance, countries like Bangladesh manage to keep their population very high and their footprint very low through a highly successful culture of abject poverty. Does the Group have a similar vision for South Australia? Has the South Australian population been consulted to find out if they desire a lifestyle and diet similar to that of a typical Bangladeshi?

Below is a recent letter to my local MP and councillors on these issues. I expect it (and this) to be the first of many such letters.

Yours sincerely,

Dr James Ward
Ph.D., B.Eng.(Civil) (Hons), B.App.Sc.(Env. Mgt)

Postdoctoral Research Fellow
School of Chemistry, Physics & Earth Sciences
Flinders University

Letter to member of Parliament about democratic and other concerns re population policy in South Australia

TO:
The Hon. Mark Goldsworthy MP, Member for Kavel

CC:
The Hon. Isobel Redmond MP, Member for Heysen
The Hon. Jamie Briggs MP, Member for Mayo
Mayor Ann Ferguson, DC Mt Barker
Cr Lindsay Campbell, DC Mt Barker
Cr Jason Kuchel, DC Mt Barker
Cr Kathy Brazher-Delaine, DC Mt Barker
Cr Lyn Stokes, DC Mt Barker

5th April, 2009

Dear Mr Goldsworthy,

I am writing to express my gratitude for your taking the issue of population growth to Parliament [See also at end of this article], and to add my voice of disgust at the current Labor government's deliberate assault on Mount Barker, Nairne and Littlehampton (as well as other areas targeted for unnecessary growth).

My wife and I moved into the old township of Nairne in mid-2007. As first-home buyers, in part we were forced to move here by unaffordable house prices elsewhere, but the truth is that we both cherish the country lifestyle - we have some chickens, ducks, vegetables and fruit trees, happy relationships with neighbours and the local shopkeepers who know us by name. However, in the State Government's relentless pursuit of population growth, they apparently wish to abolish all desirable
aspects of this country lifestyle, in favour of short-term economic rewards (read: profits to property developers). To quote the State Treasurer, Kevin Foley, "the population is rising, and that's a damn good outcome." As with most people, I violently disagree.

Very scary numbers (like 400,000) are already being touted for this area. If that nightmare came true, we might as well all be living in one big, filthy city covering the whole of the Hills, with no culture of place whatsoever. As the Member representing citizens from this happy and attractive part of the world, I ask that you fight this proposed development with all of your power. I understand that your party may also have been pro-development in the past, but let us not forget the
Liberals' true heritage as a conservative party. If there ever was a time when we needed conservative thinkers, it is now in the face of the reigning Government's reckless push for a population explosion.

Of course, as conservative thinking people we must bear in mind that it is impossible for the proposed experiment in population growth to be successful. Like a population of bacteria on a Petri dish, the human population cannot increase forever. I direct you to the Ronald Wright's small book "A Short History of Progress"; the book contains numerous
sobering examples we would do well to learn from before embarking on this doomed quest for more growth. Another excellent book, only just released, is "Overloading Australia" by Mark O'Connor and Bill Lines, which provides the irrefutable case against further population growth in this country.

As you know, in the case of the modern industrialised global economy, we have now reached an upper limit to global oil production. The International Energy Agency has finally endorsed the reality of Peak Oil, predicting a global energy supply crunch. Right on cue, last year we witnessed the first collapse of some of America's "suburbia" - it doesn't take a genius to connect the dots: as fuel prices skyrocketed, the car-dependent suburban lifestyle became rapidly unsupportable, the
collapse of vulnerable mortgages ensued as people were no longer able to meet their financial obligations, and this generated what we now call the Global Financial Crisis. This is discouraging further investment in oil production, so it is fair to say we have begun the bumpy descent.

We would be well-advised to compare the example of the failed suburban experiment in America to the State Government's proposed experiment in endless growth in the Adelaide Hills. The magnitude of the proposed growth betrays a total disregard for the limitations on the world's fuel and energy supply that all intelligent and informed people now accept as real and extremely serious. As global fuel supplies contract further, the existing suburbs will be hit hard as they were in the US, let alone any proposed new car-dependent suburbs in semi-rural Adelaide Hills.

For brevity I will not go into water scarcity in detail (this tends to receive more media coverage in any case). Suffice to say that increasing the population increases the demand for domestic water supply, but more significantly it increases the demand for irrigated crops and pasture. Not only are we experiencing water restrictions at home, but the area under irrigated land is in decline due to limits to water abstractions in the Murray Darling Basin. To increase the population now would force
us onto tighter water restrictions in our homes (we've already said goodbye to green lawns, long showers, and children playing under sprinklers), but it would also generate higher food prices due to the water-scarce farming situation.

I must state that I am not opposed to development, as long as all future development is negotiated to be within certain very reasonable requirements. As a starting point, the bare minimum requirements are that all new developments must be:
- Commuter-independent, through a strong local job market (i.e. Mt Barker CBD), and - Car-independent through full provision of public transport and safe cycling facilities, and

- Energy-independent through suburb-scale renewable power generation, and
- Water-independent through stormwater and wastewater recycling, and
- Food-independent through local (including suburban) production, and
- Within prescribed, and unchangeable, limits such that biodiversity and aesthetics are maintained forever

These are completely reasonable obligations in the face of widely accepted global (and national) shortages in water, energy, fuel and food, and ongoing biodiversity loss. If property developers and governments are happy to work together to meet these obligations, then as a citizen I am happy for such developments to take place. However, if the vision they have for our future is one in which we are all crammed in like sardines with only the distant memory of what it was like to be able to afford fuel, or water-intensive products like beef and milk, and only a distant memory of such amenities as cars, fountains, swimming pools, air conditioners or warm baths, then let us encourage them to move to India or China and ask the residents there if they are happy - please don't let the Rann Government force such conditions on us here. The people simply do not want the growth, and any effort to hide this fact is grossly undemocratic.

I trust that you will take this on board and continue campaigning for the abolition of the State Strategic Plan's population target. You are not alone!

Yours sincerely,

Dr James Ward
Ph.D., B.Eng.(Civil) (Hons), B.App.Sc.(Env. Mgt)

Postdoctoral Research Fellow
School of Chemistry, Physics & Earth Sciences
Flinders University

Here is the document where Mark Goldsworthy questions the rate of growth in South Australia from

WILL THE PLAN FOR GREATER ADELAIDE BE THAT GREAT FOR HILLS RESIDENTS? Email this page Back

Friday, January 09, 2009

Mark Goldsworthy MP, Member for Kavel, announced today that he will undertake extensive community consultation within the local community as a result of the Rann Labor Government’s plans to allow the urban sprawl to continue in the Hills as part of their Plan for Greater Adelaide.

Mr Goldsworthy said whilst the State Government would be conducting their own consultation, they have a poor track record as has been experienced recently with their Country Health Plan and the water resources issues for the Mount Lofty Ranges.

“The Rann Government claims they consult with the community, yet the community feel the Government makes the decision and then tells them what is to occur, all in the spin of consultation”, said Mr Goldsworthy.

Mr Goldsworthy will contact residents and businesses in Mount Barker, Nairne and Littlehampton to gather their comments about the proposed expansion of housing in the district. He wants to know what people think about increased population, increased traffic, and increased demand on already stretched services such as schools, health and police.

Mr Goldsworthy’s consultation will include those service providers, being schools, health, police and others.

Mr Goldsworthy said the comments he has already received are that the services are now at or near capacity and it doesn’t appear the Government is doing much to meet the current demand. If the Government hasn’t been able to address current community expectations, what commitments will they give to provide improved services and infrastructure in line with their plans to reach the 2 million population target in the State? To give an example, car parking at the new Park and Ride in Mt Barker was at capacity virtually from day one, with bus services also full to capacity. The second freeway interchange is continually ignored by the State Labor Government and there are other examples.

“Some people tell me that housing development in the Hills is at a point where we should consolidate our current position and that it is at the limit, with now being the time to stop and properly assess the situation.”

“I understand the concerns already put forward by academics and the SA Farmers’ Federation, for example, the continued growth of residential development into prime agricultural and horticultural land”, said Mr Goldsworthy.

“I support economic development and sustainable growth, in a manner that is not detrimental to other important factors that impact on our community such as social and environmental effects. Some of my concerns are the fast rate in which the Rann Government is acting to expand the housing development, the impact on infrastructure and services, the loss of agriculture to the Hills, and the destruction of the Hills environment.”

“I undertake to ensure the local community is properly consulted about what they want to take place in their area. My community survey will go out in the coming two months to residents in Mt Barker, Nairne and Littlehampton who are most affected by the developments, however, anyone is welcome to contact me at any time to inform me of their views”, Mr Goldsworthy said.

“I intend to compare the results of my consultation with that of the Government’s, to hold them to account and to ensure that the wishes of the local community are heard loud and clear” Mark Goldsworthy said.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Address: 20 Main Street, Lobethal SA 5241

Email: kavel[AT]parliament.sa.gov.au
Web: www.markgoldsworthy.com.au

Article republished with permission from Kangaroos Myths and Realities, ISBN 0 9686178 1 3, 2004, available from www.awpc.org.au/ which also contains articles by Professor Peter Singer, Barrister Cliff Papayanni, Dr. Daniel Ramp, Dr. Dror Ben Ami, Dr. John Auty and Kakkib Li’dthia Warrawee’a along with co-editors Maryland Wilson and Dr. David Croft.
Also published as Auty, J., "Red plague grey plague: the kangaroo myths and legends", Australian Mammalogy
26: 33-36, 2004.

Red plague Grey plague

The Kangaroo: Myths and legends
By Dr John Auty

The conventional wisdom is that kangaroo (Macropus spp.) numbers have increased in Australia since European settlement due to cessation of predation by Aborigines and dingoes (Canis lupus dingo), as well as increased availability of water. The historical record shows that at the time of first European contact the kangaroo was numerous and abundant over the continent and Tasmania. The Aborigines were at best poor hunters of kangaroos and quickly incorporated the Europeans’ large hounds into their hunting methodologies. C. l. dingo was a solitary hunter and scavenger. Its lack of capability as a hunter of kangaroos was recognised by the Aborigines who appear to have not used C. l. dingo for this purpose unlike their early use of the Europeans’ kangaroo dogs. Water supplies were largely unimproved by 1860 when Australia de-pastured domestic livestock equivalent to 110 million kangaroos. In 1880 when therewere 240 million kangaroo-equivalents, water supplies had been upgraded only in closely settled areas. It seems probable that at the time of settlement kangaroo numbers exceeded the present population at least threefold.

EXAMINATION of the historical record reveals that kangaroos (Macropus spp.) were widespread in their distribution at the time of European exploration and settlement of Australia and are usually described as being numerous or abundant. This paper reports on a review of records from the 18th and 19th centuries and provides information about the possible numbers of kangaroos during the early years of European exploration and settlement. A previous study by Denny (1980) has shown that kangaroo numbers in New South Wales (NSW) were not as low as commonly assumed. This paper confirms these conclusions.

John White, Chief Surgeon at Sydney (NSW) in 1788 saw kangaroos during local exploratory journeys (White 1962: 129). By 1794 John Macarthur was taking 300 pounds of kangaroo meat a week using one hunter and six greyhounds at Parramatta

Illustration: Adult and juvenile eastern grey kangaroos seen in abundance by early explorers. (Photo: Bill Corn)

(Onslow 1973: 43). At Sutton Forest to the west of Sydney James Macarthur saw kangaroos in immense flocks in 1821 (Onslow 1973: 371). In Van Diemens Land (Tasmania) kangaroos were harvested for human consumption as early as 1804. The usual means was to hunt them with suitable sight hounds, apparently crosses of the greyhound. Kangaroos were in “abundance” (Historical Records of Australia 1922a: 380). By 1808 hunting pressure had driven the kangaroo into the interior. Hunting and loss of habitat reduced populations to such an extent that in Tasmania the kangaroo was in danger of extinction by 1850. In 1814 G.W. Evans was sent by Governor Macquarie to open a road over the Blue Mountains in NSW. Hoping to victual partly on kangaroos he took hounds. Although he saw numerous kangaroos in his passage the dogs, after suffering wounds, became shy. (Historical Records of Australia 1921: 167). Three years later Evans saw numerous kangaroos on the Lachlan (Historical Records of Australia 1921: 614).

During 1829-1832 a series of explorations were made in the south-west of Western Australia. The explorers recorded “numerous herds of kangaroos” (Cross 1833: 67), “kangaroos and birds in abundance” (Cross 1833: 93), “kangaroos and birds in great abundance” (Cross 1833: 96), “heard kangaroos in the night and found numerous traces of them” (Cross 1833: 113), “saw many large kangaroos on the plain” (Cross 1833: 125), “great numbers of kangaroos” (Cross 1833: 143), “plenty of kangaroos” (Cross 1833: 188), “numerous impressions of the feet of natives and kangaroos” (Cross 1833: 190), “kangaroos ...seemed abundant traces in all places” (Cross 1833: 198), “plenty of kangaroos here without going out of our tract we saw at least twenty” (Cross 1833: 216), “The kangaroo must be very numerous in the interior if we may judge from the quantity seen walking in a straight line” (Cross 1833: 221). In the far north of Western Australia in 1838 George Grey recorded that of all the animals present “kangaroos are alone numerous” (Grey 1841: 239).

In eastern Australia, Mitchell in his journals repeatedly refers to the presence of kangaroos and indeed in three chapter headings records them as “numerous”. He describes the taking of kangaroos by his dogs: on one occasion one dog pulled down four in a short time (Mitchell 1839: 322). After entering Victoria he describes many kangaroos as present about the Loddon River. This was confirmed by the overlander Hawdon (Hawdon 1952: 19) who in 1837 saw kangaroos in “great numbers”. After entering South Australia Hawdon recorded kangaroos as being in “great abundance” and hunted by Europeans for the Adelaide market (Hawdon 1952: 60). At Point Lincoln further to the west Captain Phillip Mitchell recorded in 1836 that kangaroos were in “numerous flocks” (Light 1984: 118).

In 1839-41 Chief Protector Robinson made traverses to the west and north of Melbourne (Victoria). Although he argued that the Aborigines had just cause to kill sheep because they had lost access to their gathering and hunting grounds, he repeatedly reported sightings and taking of kangaroos. Almost every European had a pack of hounds, Robinson noted that “kangaroo dogs are at all the stations” and “there is not a station home or out station but the men and the master have dogs to hunt kangaroos” (Robinson 1980: 111). Hall amongst the first of the overlanders into Garriwerd (the Grampians) in 1841 found kangaroos “abounded” in the forests of the Grampians and that “kangaroo soup, in its abundance, ceased to have any attraction for us” (Bride 1969: 268). Rose an early settler in the Grampians, recorded the kangaroo were still “plentiful at the foot of the mountains” (Bride 1969: 321). Writing of conditions in the 1850s, H.W. Wheelwright hunter, naturalist, and writer knew of no kangaroo-ground within “30 miles” (48.3 km) west of Melbourne. At the same period Wheelwright estimated that his and another party shot at least 2000 kangaroos within a short distance to the south-east of Melbourne (Wheelwright 1979: 19).

Illustration: The core of the eastern grey kangaroo mob are freely associating female relatives and their offspring. (Photo: Jan Alderhoven))

In south-eastern Queensland Hodgson an early squatter, wrote in 1846 “it is a pitiable fact that in places where I have seen herds of 300 there is not one to be seen now” (Hodgson 1846: 159). Leichhardt took kangaroo dogs on his trip to Port Essington and wrote about the selection of such dogs. The dog “Spring” the only one to survive almost to the end was the means of obtaining “the greatest part of our game” (Leichhardt 1847: 437). He saw flocks of kangaroos on the Burdekin (Leichhardt 1847: 227), and estimated by their tracks on the watershed that they were numerous (Leichhardt 1847: 260). Hovenden Hely a member of Leichhardt’s party to the Victoria
(Barcoo) River recorded “loads” and “hundreds of kangaroos” (Sprod 1989: 271-2).

The Gregorys, explorers and surveyors, made sightings of kangaroos during their traverses to the north-east of Perth (Gregory and Gregory 1884: 9). Sturt is the only one of the early explorers whose records I have examined who did not record sightings. It is to be noted that he spent long periods in incised river beds and he was on the Darling during drought. He sums up: the great kangaroo did not extend beyond latitude 28: whilst the red kangaroo did not extend beyond the Murray and its plains (Sturt 1849). Giles whilst searching for the Finke in the north of South Australia saw “numerous kangaroos” (Giles 1889: 40).

Although most modem commentators write only in general terms about populations of kangaroos at first settlement Tim Flannery (1994) in the Future eaters is more specific. He reveals a lack of knowledge of both the journals of the explorers and the history (timescale) of geographical and faunal exploration. On the basis of a slight review Flannery concludes: “Clearly, red kangaroos were much rarer early last century than they are today” (Flannery 1994: 214). He relies for this finding on his interpretation of the writings of Mitchell, Gould, and Krefft. Thomas Mitchell as shown above described kangaroos as “numerous” over a large area of his travels. When commenting on the lower Darling he makes the point that the absence of kangaroos (and emus Dromaius novaehollandiae) is “sufficient proof of the barrenness of the adjacent country” (Mitchell 1839: 291). The remarks of Gould in the 1840s are irrelevant since at that time the range of the red kangaroo (Macropus rufus) was hardly known, whilst Krefft’s statement of 1862 can be similarly ignored. To sustain his conclusion Flannery must find other authorities.

Predation by Aborigines

Although there is no doubt that Aborigines successfully hunted kangaroos the effects of this hunting by the small Aboriginal population could have had little effect on the large numbers of kangaroos. Grey lists six methods of hunting kangaroos (Grey 1841: 268-274) to which we can add a seventh, hunting with dogs which Grey, and Grey alone and somewhat ambiguously, describes in the Kimberley. Later authors describe two principal methods of hunting: the surround on burnt ground, and the stalk. Both needed large inputs of energy and the former required a substantial gathering of hunters. The burning of scrub and grasslands may in fact have encouraged the growth of kangaroo populations.

That the Aborigine was not wholly satisfied with his own methods of hunting the kangaroo is shown by his eagerness to take up European methods both on the continent and in Tasmania. On the Tasmanian Aborigine Jorgen Jorgenson is worth recording at length (Plomley 1991: 52)

“the natives had no dogs for hunting ... but when they succeeded in stealing dogs ... or otherwise obtained them, the chase became neither so laborious nor so uncertain. They displayed great natural capacity in the training of their dogs, and they treated them more like children than brutes. They were taught not to bark ... in pursuit of game”.

Reporting from Westemport in Port Phillip (Victoria) in 1826, Hovell states the Aborigines “look strong and healthy and live well by means of very fine kangaroo dogs, for which they have plenty of employment, which not only provide them with food but raiment also” (Historical Records of Australia, 1922b: 856. Mitchell (Mitchell 1839: 204) on the Bogan (NSW?) in 1835 comments on the attempt of the Aborigines to steal his dogs after observing their ability to kill kangaroos. He later presented a greyhound pup to the “king” (Mitchell 1839: 241). A year later Darwin on a visit to Bathurst (NSW) wrote that the Aborigines are “always anxious to borrow the dogs from the farmhouses to hunt kangaroos, the kangaroo ... has become scarce ... the English greyhound has been highly destructive” (Darwin 1889: 321). Inland from Shark Bay in Western Australia Gregory in 1858 saw “several large white dogs which were evidently of Australian breed” (Gregory 1884: 42). Whether these were used to hunt kangaroos is unknown.

Illustration: A group of antilopine wallaroos, the large kangaroos seen by explorers in northern Australia. (Photo: David B Croft)

Protector Thomas of the Victorian Aborigines Protectorate in 1839 was “much struck” by the care with which the Aborigines at Momington in Victoria cared for their guns (Historical Records of Victoria 1983: 538). Their camp looked like a “butcher shop” (Historical Records of Victoria 1983: 541).

Predation by dingoes

Aborigines at the time of first contact had domesticated dingoes (Canis lupus dingo). Mitchell (1839: 347) wrote, “The Australian natives evince great humanity in their behaviour to these dogs. In the interior, we saw few natives who were not followed by some of these animals, although they did not appear to make much use of them”. They were not used in hunting of kangaroos. The reason is not difficult to find. The kangaroo was a redoubtable fighter. The first European experience of this ability to fight off dogs was a report by White (1962: 147) on a mauling given to a large Newfoundland.

Lieutenant Bradley reported that a kangaroo had taken to the water and tore the pursuing dog so much that the kangaroo had to be despatched. Henderson (1832: 138) records the ability of the large kangaroo species to inflict severe wounds. Dogs which had been bested by a kangaroo were reluctant to be set on thereafter unless in superior numbers. Such reports are commonplace in the literature.

Although the historical record appears to demonstrate that the dingo was the universal dog of Australia, Grey recognised another breed in the Kimberley and described it as follows:

“The new species of dog differs totally from the dingo. ... Its colour is the same as that of the Australian dog in parts having a blackish tinge. The muzzle is narrow, long, thin, and tapers much, resembling that of a greyhound, whilst in general form it approaches the English lurcher. ... I cannot state that I ever saw one wild, or unless in the vicinity of natives” (Grey 1841: 239-40). “The dogs they use in hunting I have already stated to be of a kind unknown in other parts of Australia, and they were never seen wild by us” (Grey 1841:252).

Clearly C. I. dingo might cut off immature, weak, or injured kangaroos but as predators they were outclassed by the ability of the larger macropods to defend themselves. It has been suggested that recent work on canine predation of kangaroos shows that at the present day C. l. dingo is a successful predator of kangaroos (Newsome and Coman 1989: 998). The historical record is unambiguous. I have sighted no observations of the hunting of kangaroos by C. I. dingo. On the other hand the failure of the Aborigines to utilise C. l. dingo to hunt kangaroos whilst quickly availing themselves of the demonstrated ability of the Europeans’ hounds to successfully pull down kangaroos, suggests that Aborigines had little regard for C. I. dingo’s ability as a kangaroo hunter.

Kangaroo numbers at the time of European settlement

Having demonstrated that kangaroos were abundant at the time of European settlement and that Aborigines and C. I. dingo were at best of little consequence as predators, I now address the question of kangaroo numbers in 1788. My base is the capacity of native pasture and scrublands to support introduced herbivores, cattle, sheep, and horses. I allow ten sheep-equivalents to each large stock, and 0.7 sheep to each kangaroo. In 1860 based on the population of introduced herbivores (Chisholm 1963) the kangaroo-equivalent is approximately 110 million, in 1880 240 million. In 1860 settlement had not extended into western Queensland, central and northern Australia, and the central and northern regions of Western Australia (Chisholm 1963) . Water conservation was in its infancy, as was cropping and pasture improvement (Chisholm 1963). In 1880 settlement had barely commenced in western Queensland, central, northern, and north western Australia, some surface water storage and wells had been established, but the artesian and sub-artesian basins were untapped, and pasture improvement and cropping as
known today had hardly commenced (Chisholm 1963).

Conclusions

At first European contact, kangaroos were widely distributed in large numbers over the continent and Tasmania. The Aborigines’ hunting methods were wasteful of energy when compared with those based on hounds as used by the Europeans. Because of this superiority European techniques were quickly copied by the Indigenes. C. l. dingo was a poor predator on kangaroos and for this reason was not used by Aborigines in hunting them. The numbers of kangaroos present in Australia at the time of European settlement can be estimated on the basis of the number of introduced herbivores supported on unimproved pasture and browse.

The population was probably of the order of one to two hundred million.

Illustration: Red kangaroos aggregate in loose groups where water runs on to sustain green grasses and herbs. (Photo: David B Croft)

The article below come from the Population Institute of Canada (www.populationinstituteofcanada.ca) although it has not yet been published on their website which is undergoing an upgrade. It has also been republished, with additional comments and introductions on the Ecological Crash blog (ecologicalcrash.blogspot.com). Footnotes, which may seem out of sequence in relation to the original source citations, and headings have been added - JS.

Canada's Policy of Mass Immigration: Hoary Myths and Unasked Questions

by Madeline Weld

Contents: #ImmigrationIntake">Canada's record high immigration intake, #CharacterLynching">The character lynching of Ontario's environment commisioner, #PoliticalParties">Mass immigration supported by all national Canadian political parties, #MythAndReality">Population growth and immigration: myth and reality, #PopulationAndEnvironment">1. Human population growth and the environment: globally and in Canada, #Pro-ImmigrationArguments">2. Arguments used to justify Canada's immigration policy, #AssessmentOfArguments">3. Assessment of the arguments used to justify Canada's immigration policy, #Conclusion">Conclusion.

#ImmigrationIntake" id="ImmigrationIntake">Canada's record high immigration intake

Per capita, Canada takes in more immigrants than any other Western country._#main-fn7">7 In 1990, Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative government began to take in about 250,000 immigrants each year, regardless of economic conditions. This policy was continued by his successors, both Liberals and Conservatives. Canada has taken in over 4 million newcomers since it was initiated. It has had major impacts on our cities, on our society, and on our environment.

But try finding a good discussion about immigration. An actual discussion that is, where people assess immigration policies from different perspectives. The vast majority of media coverage treats our current policy of 'mass immigration' as morally unassailable or as something we just have to accept, like the Earth orbiting the sun.

But try finding a good discussion about immigration. An actual discussion that is, where people assess immigration policies from different perspectives. The vast majority of media coverage treats our current policy of "mass immigration" as morally unassailable or as something we just have to accept, like the Earth orbiting the sun. No national leader has ever questioned the policy. At the time of writing, with an election in the offing, the leaders of 3 of the 4 national political parties(Conservatives, Liberals, New Democrats) are calling for an increase in levels of immigration. The Green Party essentially ignores the issue; its leader says the Alberta Tar Sands are a much more serious problem, and has previously said that immigration produces economic benefits and promotes diversity.

Let's crunch a few numbers. While our intake of immigrants and refugees has been a bit less than 1% of the population (now 33 million), that figure is often cited as a target. In fact, Liberal immigration critic Maurizio Bevilacqua is proposing to immediately increase intake to 330,000 a year. An intake of 1% of the population leads to a doubling time of 70 years. That means that Canada's population would be about 66 million in 2078 and 132 million in 2148. How would the infrastructure of our cities cope with such a population and what would be the environmental impact?

#CharacterLynching" id="CharacterLynching">The character lynching of Ontario's environment commisioner

In our free and open society that prides itself on free speech, one shouldn't ask such questions. In his 2004-2005 annual report (released November 2005) and at a news conference relating to it, Ontario commissioner for the environment Gord Miller addressed the impact of 4 or 5 million more people in southern Ontario a few decades hence. "This is a vast number of people settling in an already stressed landscape. Will the resulting demands for water, sewer systems and roads leave our natural heritage areas intact? Will there be enough natural lands left over to support biodiversity?" his report asks. Miller was immediately accused of being anti-immigrant. He was asked by reporters whether he was calling for a curtailment of immigration. When the answer was no, he was asked whether he was saying that immigrants should move to northern Ontario (no), whether the era of the single family home is over and whether immigrants shouldn't dream of having their own house (no). Though he'd said earlier that it wasn't his job to dictate where people should go, after some hounding he told one reporter that immigrants could move to northern Ontario as a solution to the Greater Toronto Area's overcrowding. This clip was played multiple times on all local news channels. The CBC aired a response by city councillor Maria Augimeri calling for Miller's resignation. Said Miller, "If people actually read the report, [they'll find that] the only thing in it about immigration is that it's another element of population growth and that it's under federal control. That's it." _#main-fn1">1

The character lynching endured by Miller for daring to address the issue of rampant population growth in southern Ontario is revealing of the state of public discourse (if we can dignify it with that name) on immigration in Canada. First his accusers felt no obligation to offer a single fact-based refutation to the concerns he expressed. Second, he himself did not dare to suggest a reduction in immigration, although that would have been totally reasonable based on the environmental impacts of population growth described in his report. Third, if people from northern Ontario are leaving for economic reasons, does it make sense to send immigrants there? And fourth, if high population density has already caused extensive environmental damage in southern Ontario, is it a good idea to go down that route in northern Ontario which, based on climate and agricultural potential, is less able to support a large population?

#PoliticalParties" id="PoliticalParties">Mass immigration supported by all national Canadian political parties

The subject of immigration to Canada is addressed from an almost completely ideological and emotional perspective with no serious analysis of the real benefits versus costs to Canadians. It is based on the paradigm of perpetual economic growth and all tied up with our official embrace of multiculturalism and diversity as well as our feelings of guilt for real and perceived wrongs toward immigrants in the past.

Because the policy of mass immigration to Canada ... has insinuated itself into our concept of ourselves as a tolerant society ... dots whose relationship to one another should be blindingly obvious remain unconnected in the media, in public discourse, and in government policies.

Because the policy of mass immigration to Canada, pursued or endorsed by all national parties, supports a veritable industry and because this misguided policy has insinuated itself into our concept of ourselves as a tolerant society such that those who challenge it do so at their own peril, dots whose relationship to one another should be blindingly obvious remain unconnected in the media, in public discourse, and in government policies.

It is not only political parties who can't connect the dot of bringing in over one million newcomers every four years to the dot of trying to reduce Canada's greenhouse gas production. The silence of environmental organizations on the relationship between population growth in Canada and greenhouse gas production and other environmental effects has been deafening.

It is not only political parties who can't connect the dot of bringing in over one million newcomers every four years to the dot of trying to reduce Canada's greenhouse gas production. The silence of environmental organizations on the relationship between population growth in Canada and greenhouse gas production and other environmental effects has been deafening. In their mail-out literature soliciting donations, environmental organizations either completely ignore population growth as the driver of urban sprawl, habitat loss, species extinction, water shortages, gridlock, and other problems they are allegedly concerned with, or treat it as something inevitable. I have never received a letter from any organization questioning the government policy of relentlessly promoting the growth of Canada's population through immigration.

Evidence for this cognitive dissonance is provided by the fact that environmental organizations nominated Mulroney as Canada's greenest prime minister for his efforts to reduce acid rain and greenhouse gases, and ignored the fact that he initiated the "tap wide open" immigration policy that has been pursued to this day and has put the rate of Canada's population growth on the fast track _#main-fn2">2. Because we live in what I call an age of hysteria, I feel compelled to emphasize that the aim of this article is to analyze Canada's policies on immigration. It doesn't mean that I am anti-immigrant, that I want to entirely shut the door on immigrants and refugees, or that I think people from other cultures and ethnic backgrounds are less worthy as human beings. I am saying that, for about two decades, Canada has been pursuing a policy of increasing its own population by something approaching 1% each year through immigration, that this policy is having a major impact on Canada's environment, economy, and society and that it should be subjected to public scrutiny and discussion. Boosterism, emotional appeal, human interest stories, and unsupported statements about our need for immigrants should not be allowed to sideline a factual analysis on the impact of continuous very high levels of immigration on Canada.

#MythAndReality" id="MythAndReality">Population growth and immigration: myth and reality

What I propose to do with this analysis is to (#PopulationAndEnvironment">1) briefly look at the global and Canadian realities in terms of the impact of human population growth on resources and the environment, (#Pro-ImmigrationArguments">2) list the principal arguments used to justify Canada's current immigration policies, and (#AssessmentOfArguments">3) examine how those arguments hold up to scrutiny.

#PopulationAndEnvironment" id="PopulationAndEnvironment">1. Human population growth and the environment: globally and in Canada

Something is amiss with the state of planet Earth. Human activity is bringing about the sixth great extinction of species, with the current rate of species extinction estimated to be 1000 times above background level. About 50% of the world's forests have been cleared and 25% of coral reefs have been destroyed. Over one billion people lack access to clean water, a number that is anticipated to rise steeply. All the world's fisheries are being fished at or beyond capacity and the number of large fish caught has declined by 90%. Despite the fact that much more land has been put to agricultural use in recent decades at the expense of wildland, the number of people that must be fed per hectare of arable land has risen from 4 in 1950 to 8 in 2000 and is anticipated to be 14 in 2050. Humans have in some way impacted about two-thirds of the global land surface outside of Antarctica (and one could say that it has been impacted by climate change) and 41% of the oceans' area have been strongly affected by human activities relating to climate change, fishing, pollution and shipping. Human activity through the use of fossil fuels is driving climate change. We are running out of said fossil fuels and there is no alternative energy source with the density and versatility of oil. Yet, much like immigration levels to Canada, the annual increase of about 80 million people and the projected human population of 9.2 billion are accepted as an inevitability.

Traditionally, Canada has thought of itself as "underpopulated." The idea that a country or area is underpopulated is primarily a reflection of human anthro-pocentrism. The perception of Canada as underpopulated persists despite the fact that Canada's population increased six-fold during the twentieth century (compared with "only" a four-fold increase in the world population). People still refer to Canada's "vast open spaces" as if the best thing that could happen to these vast open spaces would be to fill them with people. But putting humans there would require a great deal of energy to heat their houses and to transport their food -- as little could be grown locally and hunting can support only a small population. Furthermore, immigrants don't go to those mythic vast open spaces -- almost all settle in Canada's twelve largest urban centres, and in particular in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. The habitable parts of Canada are already experiencing serious problems associated with their rapid unplanned growth: urban sprawl, loss of inner city greenspace, garbage disposal problems, traffic congestion, and smog. The Ontario Medical Association estimates that there are close to 6,000 premature deaths and 17,000 hospital admissions in Ontario each year caused by smog. Energy sufficiency in that province is also a concern and future shortages are anticipated.

Environmentally, the trends in Canada are going in the same direction as those globally. The most recent appeal (August 8, 2008) sent to me by Nature Canada says that during the last 40 years, the populations of common terns, boreal chickadees, and evening grossbeaks have dropped by 71%, 70%, and 78%, respectively. The letter also says that of the 428 species of birds that regularly breed in Canada, 60 are at risk of extinction. Overall there are now close to 500 endangered species (plants, fish, reptiles, mammals, birds) in Canada. But we're not just paving over wildlife habitat, we're paving over our own food supply. The amount of class 1 farmland in Ontario converted to urban use increased from 6% in 1971 to 11% in 2001, the comparable numbers in Alberta are 2% and 6%. Furthermore Alberta, which is now destroying its environment at a breathtaking pace in the mad extraction of tar sands oil, might be facing much more severe drought conditions through global warming and may lose much of the glacial melt that currently irrigates its agricultural land. Water shortages on the prairies caused $5 billion in economic damage in 2001. The western pine beetle has devastated British Columbia's forests and has crossed the Rockies into Alberta. The east coast cod fishery collapsed and other fisheries (fish and crustacean) in Canada are showing signs of stress. Climate change is anticipated to affect all aspects of the Canadian economy but to have the greatest impact in the north, where its effects are already being felt most strongly.

From an environmental perspective ... there is absolutely no evidence that Canada is underpopulated.

From an environmental perspective--Canadian and global--there is absolutely no evidence that Canada is underpopulated. Canada is one of the highest per capita users of energy and producers of greenhouse gases in the world. Bringing people to Canada from almost anywhere else in the world increases their carbon footprint even if their relative standard of living in Canada is low.

Canada's leaders know, or ought to know, that the pursuit of growth is harming Canada. In 1998, I came across a newspaper clipping from 1991 describing a confidential government document which said that environmental degradation in the Third World was so severe that North-South conflict over the issue is virtually certain, that global warming would have devastating consequences globally and in Canada, and that Canada could expect to have increasing numbers of environmental refugees. The article said the document was prepared by the "Canadian Intelligence Committee" with input from Environment Canada, the Defence Department, and External Affairs. My quest to obtain the document is a story in itself. After months of futile enquiries at the departments named, I was directed to the Privy Council Office. My Access to Information request was rejected by the PCO.

Following a complaint with the Information Commissioner's office, I obtained a copy that was about one-third blanked out. Fortunately I had a diligent officer, and finally, in December 2000, he obtained a copy of the document that was only about 10% blanked out. The confidential document was called "The environment: marriage between Earth and mankind" _#main-fn3">3. The letterhead on the first page (deleted in the first release) indicated it was from the Intelligence Advisory Committee. As my Information Commission officer had predicted, the report, while blunt, contained very little information that an interested person would not be able to find from publicly available resources, including the Internet.

The report states that "Controlling population growth is crucial to addressing most environmental problems, including global warming" (p. 9). The report says that with the emergence of global environmental problems which threaten their own self-interest, developed countries will have to engage in policies in which resources are transferred to developing countries to promote environmentally sound development. "This can be seen as one aspect of paying the bill for our past environmental damage caused by rapid economic growth" (p. 11). With respect to Canada, the report says that "It is, because of its harsh climate and long distances, the most energy-intensive of the free-market industrialized nations. Canada is endowed with vast water resources, but with 90 percent of its population concentrated within a band up to 100 miles of the USA border, water resources in these areas are already being utilized to their fullest.

Polluted water has become an everyday concern. .. Although Canada's population is not large in world terms, its concentration in various areas has already put stress upon regional environments in many ways. Canada can expect to have increasing numbers of environmental refugees requesting immigration to Canada, while regional movements of the population at home, as from idle fishing areas, will add further to population stresses within the country." There are chapters painting a bleak picture of the environmental situation in different countries and regions of the world.

There is no way that a reasonable person could interpret the report as promoting population growth in Canada, through immigration or otherwise.

#Pro-ImmigrationArguments" id="Pro-ImmigrationArguments">2. Arguments used to justify Canada's immigration policy

The arguments used to justify Canada's immigration policy are ultimately based on growth -- the sacred doctrine of our economic system. Like all sacred doctrines, the paradigm of perpetual growth which has guided Western economies for a few centuries is not receptive to challenges based on facts. So when in 1972 a document was published challenging the idea that there can be infinite growth on a finite planet, it was met with resistance, and ultimately sidelined. The document, commissioned by the Club of Rome, was called The Limits to Growth_#main-fn4">4. Using computers (a novelty at the time), Limits to Growth (LTG) examined the evolution of the whole world's economy using a mathematical model that kept track of a large number of variables and their interactions as the system changed over time.

Based on a number of scenarios with different assumptions, LTG's authors concluded that, unless specific measures were taken, the world's economies would collapse within 100 years (i.e, by 2072). About 10 million copies of LTG in 30 languages were sold. Despite creating a big stir, LTG's message was ultimately ignored. According to an article by Bardi (2008), the Italian economist Giorgio Nebbia identified four primary sources of resistance: those who thought that the message threatened the growth of their businesses and industries; professional economists who saw LTG as a threat to their dominance in advising on economic matters; the Roman Catholic church; and the political left in the Western world, who saw LTG as a scam of the ruling class_#main-fn5">5. The message of LTG was distorted and ridiculed. Conveniently for LTG's detractors, the oil crisis of the early 1970s, which helped get LTG's message across when it was first published, seemed to be over by 1980.

Canada's blind adherence to the growth doctrine is reflected in the fact that all administrations have ignored the findings and recommendations of the confidential document prepared for Mulroney's Privy Council. The denial of the concept of limits is reflected in the term "sustainable growth," a mutation of "sustainable development." One even hears the argument that the environment must be protected so that economic growth can continue. And one way to promote economic growth is with population growth. Since Canadian women are falling down on the job, producing on average only 1.5 babies, we are told that we have to turn to immigration.

The economic arguments for immigration are repeated often and emphatically and totally without analysis.

The economic arguments for immigration are repeated often and emphatically and totally without analysis. They seem to be meant to scare us into acquiescence. How can we question Canada's immigration policies when our country is facing a looming labour shortage (the alliteration itself has a fine ominous ring to it). We are warned that by 2011, a few short years hence, ALL (!!) labour force growth in Canada will be due to immigration. Nobody explains why it is essential for the Canadian labour force to keep growing--it seems to be taken as a given that it will be a disaster if it doesn't. Another favourite bugaboo is Canada's aging population--soon there will too many old people supported by too few working people. The buzz word here is the dependency ratio, the number of people not working (including children and retirees) over the number of people in the workforce.

#AssessmentOfArguments" id="AssessmentOfArguments">3. Assessment of the arguments used to justify Canada's immigration policy

The widespread perception that there would be no population growth in Canada without immigration is false. Women of the baby boomer generation have small families, but they constitute such a large cohort that population growth in Canada would continue until 2030 in the total absence of immigration. Of course, the rate of growth would be much lower. And that's not good enough for developers, bankers who like mortgages, and others who benefit from growth.

No one says specifically that more people would benefit the environment. When our alleged need for immigrants is being promoted, the arguments given are always economic ones or fuzzy ones, like promoting diversity. The economic arguments implicitly assume that the economy is separate from the environment. In fact, as pointed out by economist Herman Daly, it is a "wholly owned subsidiary of the environment." But if we go along, for the moment, with the fiction that we can "save the environment" in the face of continuing population and economic growth, how do the economic arguments stack up on their own merits?

I think that nobody would deny that the Fraser Institute, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, is focused on the economy. It may therefore come as a surprise that some of the best arguments demolishing the reasons usually offered to justify Canada's very high intake of immigrants have come from the Fraser Institute. Fraser Institute Fellow Martin Collacott has written a number of papers on Canada's immigration policy, including "Canada's immigration policy: the need for major reform" (2002) and "Is there really a looming labour shortage in Canada, and if there is, can increased immigration fill the gap" (2003). (Papers from the Fraser Institute can be found by following the links at www.fraserinsitute.org.)

The following are some of the relevant pieces of information assembled by Collacott in his papers:

• a 1991 study by the Economics Council of Canada found that in the past century, the fastest growth in real per capita income occurred at times when net migration was zero or even negative;
• a 1989 report issued by Health and Welfare Canada called Charting Canada's Future noted that, according to the OECD, there was no correlation whatsoever between population growth and economic growth in its 22-member community;
• a 2000 United Nations study concluded that immigration can only serve as a tool to arrest the aging of the population if carried out at levels that are unacceptably high and ever-increasing;
• Statistics Canada released 2001 census data in July of 2002 showing that the population was aging and that immigration, even at very high levels, would have little impact on the average age of the population;
• a 2002 survey by the Canadian Labour and Business Centre found that only a very small percentage of managers and labour leaders in the public and private sectors regard the hiring of foreign-trained workers as very important in resolving the problem of a specific shortage of skills from time to time, instead they looked overwhelmingly to solutions involving the existing workforce, such as upgrading the skills of current employees, hiring young labour market entrants, and phasing in retirement policies.

Things have not changed since the above studies were published. According to Statistics Canada's analysis of the 2006 census, the median earnings of Canadians (in inflation-adjusted 2005 dollars) have increased by 0.1% since 1980_#main-fn8">8. Not only that, but the earnings of the poorest fifth fell dramatically in that time, by 20.6%, while the top 20% of earners saw their incomes rise by 16.4%.

The finding that population growth through immigration does not translate into economic benefits was also made by a cross-party committee of the British House of Lords (Lords Economic Affairs Committee), which published its findings in March 2008. The House of Lords' panel said that the British government's claim that immigrants were boosting the economy was a misleading measure, and that a better one would be the impact on income per head of resident population. The Committee said that some groups, including the low-paid, young people seeking jobs and some ethnic minorities may have suffered because of competition for work from immigrants willing to accept low wages and poor working conditions (which is in agreement with US economist George Borjas, who estimated that immigration reduced US workers' salaries by 5% in 2006). The House of Lords Committee also predicted that a continuation of the high rate of immigration would result in a 10% increase of house prices over what they would have been without immigration by 2028._#main-fn9">9

In June of this year, I attended a one and one-half day conference on immigration held in Montreal by the Fraser Institute. Virtually every paper presented challenged the Canadian government's immigration policy. Several speakers presented data showing that overall immigrants receive in services and benefits far more than they pay in taxes. (Milton Friedman's remark "Mass immigration and the welfare state are incompatible" was cited by at least 2 presenters.) Economist Herb Grubel of Simon Fraser University and a Fraser Institute fellow calculated that the 2.9 million immigrants who came to Canada between 1990 and the end of 2002 received $18.3 billion more in government services and benefits in 2002 than they paid in taxes. Other presentations addressed the fact that, despite the government's economic arguments, only 20% of immigrants are selected on the basis of their skills_{#main-fn10">10}, the remainder are family class, refugees and humanitarian cases. Six million offspring of the boomer generation will soon be entering the labour market and may be facing stiff competition for jobs. In big city ridings, members of parliament spend most of their time dealing with immigration questions.

To keep the dependency ratio at 0.2 (retirees/workers), one would need to raise the population to 165 million by 2050, or take in 7 million immigrants each year. Productivity will only increase if immigrants are more productive than the existing population, but recent immigrants have been less productive. The performance of recent immigrants has been deteriorating according to the 2006 census and recent cohorts of immigrants haven't been catching up to native born Canadians in their earnings. This could lead to the creation of an economic underclass.

#Conclusion" id="Conclusion">Conclusion

One question that we should be asking is: Is all this growth really improving the lives of Canadians? The economic arguments used to justify Canada's immigration policy are contradicted by every major study and by census data. A large percentage of immigrants from recent decades have not succeeded economically. Only 20% of immigrants are selected on the basis of their skills (most are family class and the definition of family is very extensive indeed). Nevertheless, by seeking to attract the most educated people from developing countries, we deprive those countries of the people that could best promote development and in whom they may have invested many resources (eg. by subsidizing their education). Canada's immigration policy has an adverse impact on the environment, not only from the paving over of wildland and farmland in Canada but from the net increase in global greenhouse gas production caused by moving people to Canada, because in Canada, their greenhouse gas production will almost always increase.

It is clear that Canada's immigration policies are not designed for the benefit of ordinary Canadians, who are not even considered to be "stakeholders" by the government.

It is clear that Canada's immigration policies are not designed for the benefit of ordinary Canadians, who are not even considered to be "stakeholders" by the government. Canada's immigration policies are beholden to the growth_{#main-fn11">11} and immigration industries and designed to get the immigrant or visible minority vote in swing ridings in urban areas. There is also credible evidence that our immigration policy is influenced by organized crime. Donna Jacobs of the Ottawa Citizen describes the struggles of diplomat Brian McAdam to expose infiltration and corruption at the Canadian consulate in Hong Kong in the early 1990s _#main-fn6">6. The consulate was far too cosy with members of organized crime gangs connected to the Chinese Communist party, the Triads, who were buying visas and smuggling their members to Canada. McAdam's reports to Foreign Affairs were ignored, and he was eventually called back to Canada and eased out of his job. A joint CSIS and RCMP investigation into Chinese criminals and the Communist government's program of acquisition, espionage and political influence, called Operation Sidewinder, was launched in 1995. It supported McAdam's allegations. A few days after Sidewinder's final report was sent to CSIS in 1997, Sidewinder was shut down. CSIS disbanded the team and directed the investigators to destroy every document. The Sidewinder team destroyed hundreds of pages of McAdam's research, his books and his reports. The Sidewinder team leader was demoted after submitting the report and resigned.

So far, immigration has never been a major issue in Canada. Despite the evident environmental impact of Canada's immigration policy, the lack of economic success of many newcomers, and the appearance of what might be called an economic underclass, Canadians have not yet begun to ask serious questions of their politicians nor to demand a more intelligent and objective coverage from their media. It is time they woke up.

See also: "How skills migration has denied careers to Canadian engineering graduates" of 8 Feb 09, www.immigrationwatchcanada.org, and Immigration Watch Canada articles on this web site.

.

Madeline Weld is a toxicologist evaluator at Health Canada (Food Directorate). She is president of the Population Institute of Canada, an organization that seeks to raise awareness of the impact of human population growth on Earth and promotes the development of ethical policies for population stabilization and reduction (www.populationinstituteofcanada.ca).

References :

#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">(1) #main-fn1-txt">↑ Gord Miller, Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, 2004-2005 Annual Report, Planning our Landscape. The media reaction was described by Andrew Athanasiu (Gord Miller says GTA can't take more folks; why is he getting trashed?) in News This Week, vol. 25, no. 11, 28 November 2005.

#main-fn2" id="main-fn2">(2) #main-fn2-txt">↑ CTV Mednews Express. 2006. Mulroney praised for his green record as PM. (April 20). CTV.ca

#main-fn3" id="main-fn3">(3) #main-fn3-txt">↑ Intelligence Advisory Committee (Government of Canada). 1991. The Environment: Marriage between Earth and Mankind. CIE [Canadian Intelligence Estimate] Chapter 11, May 1991. (This CIE comprises a series of papers previously issued individually by the IAC.) The article that describes it is by Paul Mooney, "The polluted third world," The Ottawa Citizen, 24 June 1991.

#main-fn4" id="main-fn4">(4) #main-fn4-txt">↑ Meadows, D.H, D.L. Meadows, J. Randers, and W.W. Behrens III. 1972. The Limits to Growth. New York: Universe Books.

#main-fn5" id="main-fn5">(5) #main-fn5-txt">↑ Nebbia, G. 1997. Futuribili, New Series, Gorizia (Italy) 4(3): 149-182. Cited by Ugo Bardi, in "Cassandra's curse: how 'The limits to growth' was demonized", posted online 9 March 2008 on The Oil Drum: Europe (europe.theoildrum.com/node/3551).

#main-fn6" id="main-fn6">(6) #main-fn6-txt">↑ Jacobs, D. 2008. "The price of fighting for what you think is right" (18 August, p. A2) and "One man's China crusade" (25 August, p. A4). The
Ottawa Citizen.

Footnotes (added to original document on 11 Apr 09)

#main-fn7" id="main-fn7">(7) #main-fn7-txt">↑ Possibly this dubious honour may now be held by Australia, and not Canada. This would be a result of Labor Immigration Minister Chris Evans having, in May 2008, ramped up immigration to levels even higher than the record levels reached by the former Howard Government. In spite of a much ballyhooed reduction of skilled immigration by 18,500 places on 15 Mar 09 immigration levels have been left at record levels as noted by Andrew Bolt ("What cut in immigration?" of Monday 16 Mar 09).

#main-fn8" id="main-fn8">(8) #main-fn8-txt">↑ I would personally even dispute that there was a 0.1% per capita growth in income. These figures are based on two clearly wrong assumptions: (1) that all monetary transactions (e.g. to pay for an alarm system to protect from burglary) are necessarily indications of greater material prosperity and (2) that only activities that result in monetary transactions are necessarily beneficial.

This is addressed by Geoff Davies in Economia (2004) p23 where he discusses the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measure devised by Simon Kuznets in the 1930's for use by the administration of the US President Roosevelt . Kuznets, himself, subsequently complained that the GDP was misused by economists for the reasons mentioned above. In reality, if we discard those assumptions, and come up with more accurate measures of human prosperity then we will most likely find that the prosperity of Canadians on average, let alone for poorer Canadians has declined. If, to the contrary, it can still be shown that true average prosperity has coincided with population growth, it will almost certainly have been as a consequence of the accelerated destruction of our natural capital and, hence, will be paid for by future generations. See also article "Living standards and our material prosperity" of 6 Sep 07 by James Sinnamon in Online Opinion. - JS

#main-fn9" id="main-fn9">(9) #main-fn9-txt">↑ See House of lords tells UK government to limit immigration of 11 Apr 08, House of Lords' immigration report "forgets environment" of 2 Apr 08 based on British Optimum Population Trust media release of 1 Apr 08. The second, whilst acknowledging the value of the House of Lords report, is still critical of the report's shortcomings in its treatment of the environment.

#main-fn10" id="main-fn10">(10) #main-fn10-txt">↑ Of course, this argument can cut both ways. As acknowledged further on in this article, the goals amongst immigration proponents can be mutually contradictory, or at least appear to be. Some are able to profit at the expense of the rest of society regardless of the qualities of the immigrants, whilst others attempt to use skilled immigration as a means of shifting the costs of training onto other countries, often poor third world countries.

An example of the latter is the Queensland state Government which infamously poaches qualified professionals, particularly medical professionals, from other countries. This was referred to in "How the growth lobby threatens Australia's future".

An example of the former thinking is to be found in the transcript of "Paying to be permanent" the episode of 17 Aug 08 of the ABC Radio National's Background Briefing. In this program, Polish born immigration proponent, Sev Osdowski, acknowledged that he considered the mismatch between skills and immigrants irrelevant. He said:

"We are really talking about the size of the population of Australia, whether it should be around 10-million as some people close to environment movements have suggested, or 20-million as it's about now, or maybe 50-million as some people are proposing. So all the other battles are really proxy battles. The focus is about the size of Australia's population for the future."

#main-fn11" id="main-fn11">(11) #main-fn11-txt">↑ See also "How the growth lobby threatens Australia's future" of 24 Jan 09, republished on Online Opinion.

Cumulatively worse than bushfires: Destruction by development, all year round.

On the outskirts of a north eastern Victorian town there is a nursing home nestled beside a golf course which is framed by ancient eucalypts.

The nursing home is quite expensive and even more so if your room looks out on a restful view of the golf course.

An elderly relative after breaking her leg in July was admitted to this nursing home- the best available it seemed after exhaustive searches in the area. The main feature of this new living situation for my relative was the wonderful setting which she could enjoy from the common living area that she inhabits by day.

I visited her recently en route to Canberra and found her to be well cared for in a light and airy place. She ruefully said to me, though "Isn't it a shame that they're getting rid of the golf course to build houses?" My heart sank as she had been there for less than half a year and already here was a massive change! I checked with a few people and found that the golf course would in fact remain but that it would soon fringe a new housing estate replacing a treed area.

When I returned from Canberra 3 days later, there was a pile of tree trunks lying in the middle of the view from the window. How many birds had lost their habitat in that exercise? I was told that the trees had been chopped down that day and the residents of the nursing home were naturally were very unhappy about. One lady said sadly "I suppose people have to live somewhere."

How quickly our environment is being destroyed! This kind of loss of nature happens every day, it happens in many places in Australia on the same day. Is there another way of describing this apart from "environmental destruction"?

Editor: I assume that the author of this article has left the geographic identifiers out because she is afraid of repercussions for her elderly relative. It's a nice world we are making for ourselves by passively accepting the dictates of the growth lobby. That governments at local and state level actually facilitate this kind of anti-social system is cause for alarm.

For those with their eyes open population growth and the immigration that fuels it are never out of the news. ... unaffordable housing drives young families into debt slavery (even pushing some to the less-expensive urban fringe where a number died in Melbourne’s recent fires)... strained infrastructure leading to blackouts, cancelled train services... traffic congestion, draining energy from the economy and from human lives...hospitals that can no longer care for the people they serve... water supplies that dwindle as drought and growth desiccate cities and stretch the capacity of farms... pleasant suburbs degraded by intensive redevelopment; greenhouse gases ...and a natural environment wilting under the burden of numbers.
Click here to purchase book
"Review by Katharine Betts of Mark O’Connor's and WilliamJ. Lines's book,Overloading Australia,"
People and Place, vol. 17, no. 1, page 76.

Australia’s population is growing rapidly. In March 2009 it stood at 21.6 million. The current Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, takes it for granted that it will grow to 35 million by 2051.[1] In 1999 when Philip Ruddock was Minister for Immigration he told Australians that there was no need for a population policy because we were unlikely to grow much beyond 23 million. He added that the ‘nation cannot afford to return to [an immigration] program characterised by big numbers and little thought’. [2] Nonetheless the current growth surge, keenly embraced by the new Labor Government, began quietly under the Coalition soon after Ruddock’s 1999 statement.[3]

Much of Australia’s growth is directly due to immigration (nearly 60 per cent in 2007–08) and much of the growth from natural increase is attributable to the Australia-born children of immigrants. For example, in 2007, 25 per cent of all births were to overseas-born mothers.

For those with their eyes open population growth and the immigration that fuels it are never out of the news. There is the unaffordable housing that drives young families into debt slavery [4] (even pushing some to the less-expensive urban fringe where a number died in Melbourne’s recent fires).[5] There is strained infrastructure leading to blackouts, cancelled train services, and to traffic congestion, draining energy from the economy and from human lives. [6] There are hospitals that can no longer care for the people they serve;[7] water supplies that dwindle as drought and growth desiccate cities and stretch the capacity of farms;[8] pleasant suburbs degraded by intensive redevelopment;[9] greenhouse gases that refuse to abate;[0 ]and a natural environment wilting under the burden of numbers.

But while stories of water shortages and degraded infrastructure abound, few of the public figures who comment on them acknowledge the role of population growth in creating these problems and making them harder to overcome. Here Mark O’Connor and William Lines have done us an important service; they have joined the dots between these social and environmental ills and our rapid growth.

From the picture they create a reader could, at first, believe that Australia’s pattern of growth was promising. It is mainly due to government immigration policy, so shouldn’t it be relatively easy to rein it in? Besides immigration is not popular; support for the post-2000 increase is minimal among both the Australia-born and migrants themselves.[11] But as O’Connor and Lines make clear, immigration in fact makes it harder to halt growth because the businesses that profit from it lobby for it, and property developers with deep pockets appear to have bought the favour of some of the politicians who create it.[12]
High migration means more customers, cheaper labour, and minimal training costs. All of these boons intensify pressures from self-interested groups to keep the numbers coming. As O’Connor and Lines put it: ‘It is no surprise that the housing industry lobbies not for the size of housing industry that Australia’s population needs but for the size of Australia’s population that the industry needs’.[13] The concentrated benefits enjoyed by special interests (on the right of the political spectrum) trump the unorganised interests of the majority who bear the costs.

At the same time many opinion makers on the left are quick to decry criticism of immigration-fuelled growth as scapegoating immigrants, even as racism.[14] As if this were not enough, business interests fund academic research into demography and immigration, naturally channeling their money towards those likely to produce results friendly to growth. This is a chilling circumstance at a time when universities are starved of money and academics are under crushing pressure to bring in research grants.[15] Other sources of research funds include state and federal government departments, most of which are committed to the growth targets set by politicians.[16] Researchers who might otherwise point to the costs of growth are unlikely to win such grants; they also risk the disapproval of their left-liberal peers.

The authors point out that the left’s fixation on seeing criticism of immigration-fuelled growth as racism is ‘a good cloak for elitism … the people must not be given power because their views are barbaric’.[17] Thus even though high migration is unpopular, a pro-growth right and a left that is anti-anti-growth mean that voters are unorganised and voiceless.
The authors marvel at the way in which the motives of the occasional reformer who questions growth are earnestly probed while no one examines the growth lobby as it enjoys the handsome profits brought to them by each plane load of new consumers. O’Connor and Lines assert that left-wing xenophobia hunters are not interested in old fashioned rent seekers despoiling the community for their own advantage; they prefer to enjoy the comforts of their moral superiority.[18]

Why must O’Connor and Lines be the ones to point to the damage done to Australia by this blend of greed and snobbery? Why have the media failed to show it to us? Here the authors have a telling vignette about Ian Lowe, a distinguished scientist who takes population seriously. He is also president of the Australian Conservation Foundation and a frequent media commentator. O’Connor asked him why he so seldom spoke out about population. Lowe replied that he often did but that when he did he was ignored. He also told O’Connor ‘how he was sacked as a columnist from one paper for insisting on it. He [Lowe] found that the most biased media were the grossly pro-growthist Murdoch papers’.[19]

Media silence on the question is not always an accidental byproduct of pleasing pro-growth advertisers while deferring to the sensibilities of the intelligentsia. It can be deliberate.[20] O’Connor and Lines argue that just as other vendors to the domestic market have a product to sell, so too do the commercial media; it is always easier to sell to a growing market rather than to compete for market share, or indeed to export. The commercial media have their own vested interests in growth. While the ABC should be immune from these interests, it is more likely to be infected with the racism virus, the infection that makes its host see any scepticism about growth as racism in disguise.[21] Nonetheless, perhaps because it does not profit from growth, the ABC has proved more receptive to Overloading Australia than have other media outlets.

Both authors are accomplished writers and the book is brief and clear; so far it has achieved a fair degree of media coverage. It was launched in February 2009 by Bob Carr, former premier of New South Wales, and a rarity among Australian premiers in that he is a critic of growth. At the launch Carr said: ‘There is a hardly any significant process at State or Federal level today that is allowed to proceed without an environmental impact statement ­ except the pushing up of population’.
O’Connor’s account of the launch goes on to report how Carr ‘spoke of his frustration, when he was Premier, at having a vastly increased Sydney population forced upon him by decisions made in Canberra. … He was then in the invidious situation of having to destroy amenities and allow developers to invade protected areas. As he put it, people don’t want Sydney to be crowded and built up, but they also don’t want it to expand into places like Kuringai Chase and Botany Bay; yet one of those two things has to happen if a million extra people are put into Sydney’.[22]

Some of the media reports have been neutral [23] or even favourable. For example O’Connor was invited to write an opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald,[24] and the Adelaide Advertiser.[25] He was also interviewed on the ABC Radio National station on Counterpoint,[26] Breakfast [27] and Late Night Live.[28] But press coverage has been more ambivalent and its tenor bears out the authors’ analysis.

A former Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, said that ‘the extent to which population influenced environmental policy depended on how selfish Australians wanted to be’ and that ‘some people citing environmental reasons for reduced migration were simply opposed to immigration’.[29] Charles Berger, in a generally sympathetic piece in The Canberra Times, wrote that: ‘Overloading Australia … has sparked another round of debate about Australia’s population. Some commentators have been quick to detect a murky agenda of xenophobia hovering behind a green cloak in the population debate. They are right to be suspicious. …’[30] He did, however, go on to exonerate O’Connor and Lines.

Brigid Delaney in the Melbourne Age was not so generous. She wrote that to rein in growth was to risk ‘the development of our inner lives’ because immigrants energise their adopted countries. But there was worse:

Environmental issues can be a handy Trojan horse with which to wheel in policies and debates about immigration that we are too squeamish to discuss baldly. After all, no one wants a rerun of Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech in 1968 that led to race riots across England, nor Pauline Hanson’s polarising comments on immigration that brought Australia to the brink of a spiritual crisis.[31]

But O’Connor and Lines do not advocate an end to immigration, just a balanced intake which would still leave room for refugees.[32] This is a humanitarian position; they write that deliberately ‘pushing up our own population … cannot be justified on environmental grounds. It could only be justified on international humanitarian grounds if we could believe that it would leave us, somehow, very much more able and more willing to help our neighbours’.[33] They also point to the immorality of Australia continuing to pirate doctors and other health workers from poor countries to compensate for our own reluctance to invest in local training.[34] Xenophobia hunters, however, are more interested in displaying their self-righteousness than in understanding and debating an opposing point of view.

How can serious advocates of a moral and sustainable position on population growth cut through in such a climate? One way is to write the kind book that O’Connor and Lines have written, well researched, cogent and readable. Another is put forward a shocking policy proposal.

This concerns both sacrifice and exploitation. We can see its outlines in debate about the Rudd Government’s proposed emissions trading scheme. This will cap Australia’s overall greenhouse gas emissions through the sale of permits to industry, but it will also set a floor under which emissions are unlikely to fall. As community awareness of this has spread many householders are dismayed; their individual sacrifices to lower emissions are not only going to count for nothing, they will actively help polluters to pollute. Private spending on solar panels, solar hot water, and on low-emission cars will do nothing to reduce greenhouse gases; it will just enable dirty industries to emit more. But the same can be said of many sacrifices that individual Australians make for the environment; they are all nullified by the extra people brought in to pander to the growth lobby.

Here O’Connor and Lines put forward their suggestion. Instead of washing up only once a day and letting the garden die, we should all waste water. Saving water just makes it easier for growthists to increase the population. (They do say that would never suggest that we waste a non-renewable resource.)[35] But why struggle to cut your shower to less than two minutes when the Government is bringing in more than 200,000 extra people a year?

The answer? Take a deep bath and bring the crisis to a head. And while you are enjoying your bath you could read this excellent book.

Mark O’Connor and William J. Lines, Overloading Australia: How governments and media dither and deny on population, Envirobook, Sydney, December 2008, ISBN 9780858812246, A$19.95

Available online from , and .

References
1 See Rudd quoted in M. Franklin, ‘Rudd warns Australia must prepare for emerging arms race across Asia­PM flags major naval build-up’, The Australian, September 10 2008, pp. 1, 6
2 P. Ruddock, ‘The Coalition Government’s position on immigration and population policy’, People and Place, vol. 7, no. 4, 1999, pp. 6–12
3 See P. Kelly, ‘Restocking the nation’, The Weekend Australian, 3 August 2002, p. 28.
4 J. Hewett, ‘Under mortgage pressure’, The Australian, 20 October 2007, p. 21; B. Day, ‘How to plan for a fiasco’, The Australian, 22 April 2008, p. 14
5 Editorial, ‘A tragic week in Australian history’, The Australian, 14 February 2009, p. 16
6 AAP, ‘Heatwave claims lives’, The Age, 1 February 2009; AAP, ‘Qld: Labor plan to cut southeast traffic conges­tion’, Australian Associated Press General News, 26 February 2009; J. Gordon and R. Sexton, ‘National road chaos looms’, The Age, 8 March 2009, p. 1; C. Lucas, ‘Connex hit with commuter squeeze’, The Age, 5 March 2009, p. 10
7 R. Wallace, ‘Hospitals fail to meet most targets’, The Australian, 3 October 2008, p. 7
8 G. Roberts and P. Murphy, ‘Recycled sewage “will have bugs”’, The Australian, 29 October 2008, p. 9; B. Doherty, ‘Water plan may not go far enough’, The Age, 23 October 2008, p. 1
9 M. Clayfield, ‘There’s a hole in our suburb, dear Labor, oh dear’, The Australian, 7 March 2009, p. 5
10 G. Readfearn, ‘Pollution skyrockets ­ Coal and gas for electricity blamed’, The Courier-Mail, 12 January 2009, p. 11; T. Arup, ‘Emissions heat up in economic meltdown’, The Age, 14 March 2009, p. 4
11 See M. O’Connor and W. J. Lines, Overloading Australia, Envirobook, Sydney, 2008, p. 107.
12 Others may not need persuading. See ibid., pp. 4, 8–9, 26, 88ff, 98, 106, 145, 162.
13 ibid., pp. 125–6
14 ibid., pp. 141ff, 160, 164, 167, 172–3
15 For the role of the Scanlon Foundation with its mission to create ‘a larger cohesive Australian society’, see ibid., p. 82 and p. 205 n. 199. The Foundation believes that the future prosperity of Australia is ‘underpinned by continued population growth’. See accessed 9/3/09.
16 For example academics critical of the high growth trajectory of the Victorian Government’s Melbourne 2030 strategy, and who are likely to apply to it for research contracts, are well advised to keep their criticism to them­selves. A public servant conveyed this warning, as a friendly gesture, to a group that I was a member of in late 2003.
17 O’Connor and Lines, 2008, op. cit., p. 144
18 See ibid., p. 145. 19 ibid., p. 171
20 ibid., pp. 38, 133–34
21 O’Connor and Lines devote a chapter to the pro-immigration bias of the ABC. See ibid., pp. 158–164 and p. 141ff.
22 Email from Mark O’Connor to [email protected] 10 February 2009
23 See P. Ker, ‘Population Australia’s “big threat”’, The Age, 24 January 2009, p. 3; P. Ker and A. Morton, ‘Popula­tion debate booms’, The Age, 30 January 2009, p. 2.
24 M. O’Connor, ‘Many in denial over rising population’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 December 2008, p. 27
25 M. O’Connor, ‘Australia’s bizarrely high population growth lies behind many of our worst problems’, The Advertiser, 3 March 2009, p. 18
26 Monday 1 December 2008, audio available at accessed 9/3/09
27 Wednesday 28 January 2009, audio available at accessed 9/3/09
28 Tuesday 5 March 2009, audio available at accessed 9/3/09
29 Quoted in Ker and Morton, 2009, op. cit.
30 C. Berger, ‘Aim for sustainable population and generous immigration’, Canberra Times, 13 February 2009, p. 15
31 B. Delaney, ‘Murky agenda behind this green debate’, The Age, 27 January 2009, p. 11
32 O’Connor and Lines, 2008, op. cit., p. 72ff
33 ibid., p. 57
34 See ibid., pp. 69, 110.
35 ibid., pp. 182–184

Date: Sunday, February 08, 2009
Source: CNN.com
Author: Anna Coren and Tim Schwarz

Dateline: Manila, the Philippines

Thanks to Bill Ryerson of the US Population Media Center for having advised me of this - JS

A debate is stirring in the predominantly Roman Catholic country of the Philippines: should the government provide contraceptives to the public?

More than 100 members of the House of Representatives have co-authored a bill that would allow government funds to be used to promote artificial contraceptives -- which is now prohibited in the Southeast Asian nation.

"The bill is not about religion. It is not about morality," said Edcel Lagman, a congressman. "It's about rights, health and sustainable human development."

Some one-third of the country's 90 million people live in poverty. The Asian Development Bank said that problem will persist until the country curbs its birth rate -- one of the highest in the world.

The nationwide Pulse Asia Poll found nearly two-thirds of people support the bill. But the Catholic Church is fiercely opposed, and is pressuring lawmakers to vote against it.

"Why should we use contraceptives, teaching our children the use of contraceptives," said Ed Sorreta of Pro-Life Philippines. "It's totally against the teaching of the Catholic Church. The poverty is really caused by other issues, moral values."

"When you talk about natural family planning, it needs discipline, that's where many couples fail. They lack the discipline."

Abortion is illegal in the Philippines, except in cases to save a mother's life. But the United Nations estimates that half a million illegal abortions are performed in the country every year.

Sheila Villanueva, a 25-year-old maid earning $2 a day, has five children.

"I married at eighteen. I had my first baby by the time I was nineteen. Then the babies came, one after the other," she said.

"Life is so hard, kids get sick easily, prices of goods are so high. That's one of the reasons why I don't want them to have too many kids," she said.

Still, Villanueva said she would not use contraceptives.

"Even if they say you'll end up with too many kids, I don't get swayed by their persuasions, I won't use those contraceptives," she said.

The legislation will go before the nation's Congress in the next few months.

"This bill, once it becomes a law, it will give information and access to those who want it," Lagman said. "But I will also underscore that central to this bill is the freedom of choice. ... (W)e compel women to make their own choices."

"(T)he government should be there to give them free information and free access to the products, particularly to the poorer of the poor," he added.

See also: www.populationmedia.org. Add your comments to the PMC blog.

Food garden in White House

In the aftermath of breaking ground on the new, 1100 square foot White House garden, Michelle Obama named chef Sam Kass to head the White House Food Initiative. And Kass isn't a fan of big agriculture and mass fertilisers.

All of this positive PR for organics feels very threatening to Big Ag. So one group, the Mid America CropLife Association, has sent an email defending chemical ag to Mrs. Obama. See the letter reprinted below.

After sending the letter, MACA forwarded it around to others, with the following message:

"Did you hear the news? The White House is planning to have an "organic" garden on the grounds to provide fresh fruits and vegetables for the Obama's and their guests. While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made Janet Braun, CropLife Ambassador Coordinator and I shudder. As a result, we sent a letter encouraging them to consider using crop protection products and to recognize the importance of agriculture to the entire U.S. economy. Read below for the entire letter.

If you want to send your own letter, it can be sent to the White House ..."

Except one person on the forward list didn't shudder at the idea of an organic garden - and that's how the letter reached the person who sent it on. Here it is:

Letter from Big Ag

"March 26, 2009
Mrs. Barack Obama
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mrs. Obama,

We are writing regarding the garden recently added to the White House grounds to ensure a fresh supply of fruits and vegetables to your family, guests and staff. Congratulations on recognizing the importance of agriculture in America! The U.S. has the safest and most abundant food supply in the world thanks to the 3 million people who farm or ranch in the United States.

The CropLife Ambassador Network, a program of the Mid America CropLife Association, consists of over 160 ambassadors who work and many of whom grew up in agriculture. Their mission is to provide scientifically based, accurate information to the public regarding the safety and value of American agricultural food production. Many people, especially children, don't realize the extent to which their daily lives depend on America's agricultural industry. For instance, children are unaware the jeans they put on in the morning, the three meals eaten daily, the baseball with which they play and even the biofuels that power the school bus are available because of America's farmers and ranchers.

Agriculture is the largest industry in America generating 20% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. Individuals, family partnerships or family corporations operate almost 99% of U.S. farms. Over 22 million people are employed in farm-related jobs, including production agriculture, farm inputs, processing and marketing and sales. Through research and changes in production practices, today's food producers are providing Americans with the widest variety of foods ever.

Starting in the early 1900's, technology advances have allowed farmers to continually produce more food on less land while using less human labor. Over time, Americans were able to leave the time-consuming demands of farming to pursue new interests and develop new abilities. Today, an average farmer produces enough food to feed 144 Americans who are living longer lives than many of their ancestors. Technology in agriculture has allowed for the development of much of what we know and use in our lives today. If Americans were still required to farm to support their family's basic food and fiber needs, would the U.S. have been leaders in the advancement of science, communication, education, medicine, transportation and the arts?

We live in a very different world than that of our grandparents. Americans are juggling jobs with the needs of children and aging parents. The time needed to tend a garden is not there for the majority of our citizens, certainly not a garden of sufficient productivity to supply much of a family's year-round food needs.

Much of the food considered not wholesome or tasty is the result of how it is stored or prepared rather than how it is grown. Fresh foods grown conventionally are wholesome and flavorful yet more economical. Local and conventional farming is not mutually exclusive. However, a Midwest mother whose child loves strawberries, a good source of Vitamin C, appreciates the ability to offer California strawberries in March a few months before the official Mid-west season.

Farmers and ranchers are the first environmentalists, maintaining and improving the soil and natural resources to pass onto future generations. Technology allows for farmers to meet the increasing demand for food and fiber in a sustainable manner.

Farmers use reduced tillage practices on more than 72 million acres to prevent erosion.
Farmers maintain over 1.3 million acres of grass waterways, allowing water to flow naturally from crops without eroding soil.
Contour farming keeps soil from washing away. About 26 million acres in the U.S. are managed this way.
Agricultural land provides habitat for 75% of the nation's wildlife.
Precision farming boosts crop yields and reduces waste by using satellite maps and computers to match seed, fertilizer and crop protection applications to local soil conditions.
Sophisticated Global Positioning Systems can be specifically designed for spraying pesticides. A weed detector equipped with infrared light identifies specific plants by the different rates of light they reflect and then sends a signal to a pump to spray a preset amount of herbicide onto the weed.
Biogenetics allows a particular trait to be implanted directly into the seed to protect the seed against certain pests.
Farmers are utilizing 4-wheel drive tractors with up to 300 horsepower requiring fewer passes across fields-saving energy and time.
Huge combines are speeding the time it takes to harvest crops.
With modern methods, 1 acre of land in the U.S. can produce 42,000 lbs. of strawberries, 110,000 heads of lettuce, 25,400 lbs. of potatoes, 8,900 lbs. of sweet corn, or 640 lbs of cotton lint.
As you go about planning and planting the White House garden, we respectfully encourage you to recognize the role conventional agriculture plays in the U.S in feeding the ever-increasing population, contributing to the U.S. economy and providing a safe and economical food supply. America's farmers understand crop protection technologies are supported by sound scientific research and innovation.

The CropLife Ambassador Network offers educational programs for elementary school educators at http://ambassador.maca.org covering the science behind crop protection products and their contribution to sustainable agriculture. You may find our programs America's Abundance, Farmers Stewards of the Land and War of the Weeds of particular interest. We thank you for recognizing the importance and value of America's current agricultural technologies in feeding our country and contributing to the U.S economy.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions.

Sincerely,

Bonnie McCarvel, Executive Director
Janet Braun, Program Coordinator
Mid America CropLife Association
11327 Gravois Rd., #201
St. Louis, MO 63126"

Real proportion of farmers in the US

Note that Christopher Cook, in Diet for a dead planet gives the number of farmers in the US at around 2 million only now, and he comments that this is fewer than the number of Americans in prison.

As for big ag being environmentally caring ....!
Oh puhlease!

Listen to the interview with him about his research for many more realities of the unsustainable and depraved basis of our industrial economy - currently worst of all in the US but quickly turning Australia into something very similar.

As for the claims made by Big Ag above about the time needed to tend a garden - well, it certainly takes a lot longer to work to buy food and the car to tote it from the supermarket than it takes to produce enough for one person to eat! And it's a lot more enjoyable. What is hard is making a big profit out of agriculture, but that's not what you and I are necessarily seeking when we plant an easy to maintain orchard and a few vegetables. I am so over hearing how hard gardening is. Once everyone did it and had plenty of time to spare.

See also: discussion on the Life After the Oil Crash Forum

This brief article is in response to the following #comment-232844">comment made during forum discussion on John Quiggin's blog on 31 Mar 09 in respons to my article "Courier Mail, ABC back Department of Main Roads land grab" of 29 Mar 09:

"As for the comments on population growth, I partly agree. Population growth is the problem. However the boom in immigration was under Howard not Rudd; Rudd has reduced the numbers. AFAIK Australian state governments do not have the power to halt interstate migration, which is the cause of population growth in Qld, not overseas immigration. The cause of interstate migration is almost invariably job supply; thus people tend to leave SA and Tasmania and migrate to QLD and WA. Beattie and Bligh are guilty of taking credit for something they neither caused nor can control."

The article also draws on material used in the section "End Queensland Government encouragement of population growth" in the article "Why I am contesting the Queensland state elections as an independent" of 9 Mar 09. - JS, 1 Apr 09.

In fact, imigration Minister Chris Evans has ramped up immigration to levels even higher than they were under Howard, and that is taking into account the recent much ballyhooed reductions.

The simple fact is that Queensland's runaway population growth occurs because Premier Anna Bligh and, before her, Premier Peter Beattie also wanted it to happen.

If they wanted to, they could easily have raised their voices loudly to demand that Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, end his record high immigration levels.

Bligh and Beattie could also have acted to stop immigration in the time of Howard. Just simply alerting the public to the fact that Howard had so massively ramped up immigration whilst pretending to be tough on 'border security' would have gone a long way towards stopping it, but, instead, they said nothing.

If anyone insists that state Governments are powerless to influence federal Government policy, just remember how Beattie and the other 'Labor' premiers got their way on the GST and the Australia -US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA).

By negotiating with Howard over the implementation of the GST when its fate was still in the balance, Beattie did more than any other individual to sabotage the growing popular opposition to the GST in 1999. In 2004, Beattie and the other Labor Premiers pre-empted any opposition to the rotten AUSFTA by loudly insisting that it be signed as the Federal Labor Party was trying to decide its position.

So, just as the Queensland Government can cause outcomes against the public interest at the Federal level when it chooses, it could add its decisive weight to calls to bring about the end of high immigration if it had the political will to do so.

But, instead, Bligh and Beattie did everything possible to bring about run away population growth and have been playing the Queensland public for fools whilst doing so.

On many occasions they have basked in the glory their supposed 'achievement' of having increased Queensland's population (see, for example, full page Qld Government advertisment of 8 Dec 2005 in the article "Why I am contesting the Queensland state elections as an independent").

But on other occasions, when confronted with the problems caused by population growth -- hospital waiting lists, the water crisis, traffic congestion -- they turn around and blame population growth as if this had not been their own policy.

I asked Peter Beattie personally at a public forum to discuss the water crisis in 2006 whether he would acknowledge that population growth had caused the water crisis and would he use his voice to try to stop it.

He firstly thanked me for having asked such a 'good question', but failed to answer it. He said, contrary to what he had said on many other occasions, that he wished that so many people would not come here. But that quickly morphed into his arguing that we needed more skilled people. By the time he finished he seemed to be saying that we needed at least another million migrants to cope with the problems caused by previous population growth!

Beattie and Bligh are either stupid or something worse.

I believe that much of the explanation for this is to be found in my article "How the Growth Lobby Threatens Australia's future" of 24 January 2009. It is published here and on Online Opinion. The article largely based on Sheila Newman's 2002 Masters Thesis "The Growth Lobby and its Absence : The Relationship between the Property Development and Housing Industries and Immigration Policy in Australia and France " downloadable here.