Corruption

Her Majesty the Queen is sitting on top of an explosive pile of stinking manure. Nils Melzer's book is like a bomb about to go off. How long can crooked judges and governments hide? How long can the mainstream press pretend that nothing's happening?

Lebanon Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh has denied statements made that the bank was bankrupt.  Salameh has led the bank for 30 years and claims it is going about its legally-mandated role despite losses in the financial sector.

The 100 years from 1870 is described as the innovation century in which there more more inventions, starting coincidentally with the light bulb, than in the rest of mankind's history. For the most part their roll-out into society was slow enough to dampen the impact of the invention. Electricity, for instance, wasn't connected fully in Australia until 1989. But for me, one event stood out, and that occurred on the 4th of October 1957, just before my birthday.

It was an event of enormous significance yet it is now almost completely forgotten. It changed the world – mostly for the better - in many ways, including preventing or lessening the chance of a nuclear war. It greatly enhanced the standing of science in government. It even made the moon landing possible.

At that time Australia was blessed with a prospective visit by a famous Rock star called Little Richard, (top song Good Golly Miss Molly,) but on that day he cancelled the tour and went into retirement in a monastery after he claimed to see a message from God in the sky.

In fact most Australians saw the same thing. The next night our family went out into the back yard of our house and, looking up into the sky, we saw a little aluminium sphere drift across the heavens. It was the world’s first satellite, launched into space by the Russians, and called Sputnik.

I can't remember anyone saying anything, but right then we realized that the cold war was not restricted to the northern hemisphere. Suddenly the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD for short, was very close to home. The expression one flash and you’re ash had become reality.

For the United States this was a slap in the face - being beaten in science technology by a rival whose political philosophy they had scorned. Sputnik plunged Americans into a crisis of self-confidence, which included the idea that the country had grown lax with prosperity and had used science for frivolous purposes. This was so promoted by the media that people stopped buying luxury cars and Ford Edesel, an oversized vulgar yank-tank that aimed at the luxury market, went broke. One eminent scientist took advantage of the hysteria to proclaim: "Teach Science or Teach Russian."

It would have to be the slogan of the century, because by golly Ms Molly, it worked. Congress responded with the National Defence Education Act, which increased funding for education at all levels, including low-interest student loans to college students, with the focus on scientific and technical education. They enacted reforms in science and engineering so that their nation could regain technological advantages they had lost to the Soviets.

What was most fascinating, however, was that there were no dissenting voices. This was a universal movement: politicians saw they were on a winner and no one was crying caution. Science rules OK?

In the US, schools now placed new emphasis on the process of inquiry, independent thinking, and the challenging of long-held assumptions. Laboratory science was stressed, urging a hands-on learning approach. The emphasis moved from teaching facts to fundamental principles. Children could no longer be educated traditionally and Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which had been successfully kept out of many US classrooms until late 1957, found a place in high school biology textbooks.

In Australia reactions to Sputnik were more pragmatic. The university system had been undergoing reform since 1956 and funding was increased by 300% in just two years to 1960. This was used to promote higher education and research across a broad range of disciplines, not solely to enable government-determined scientific goals. We did however become the third nation to launch a locally manufactured satellite in November 1967.

This was not a science renaissance but rather a re-imagining of science, which people saw as something that had been misdirected and mismanaged. The Science of the ICBM for nuclear weapons had become the pathfinder for space travel and carried the public along with it. Everyone wanted to be a rocket scientist, interest in astronomy boomed and, less than four years later, John Kennedy set out to land man on the moon.

But then something went wrong: science was sidelined, markets and money dominated government policy. So much so, that in 1990, Barry Jones AO, the science minister in the Hawke/Keating Labor government, announced that the crowning scientific achievement of his government was the return of Haley's comet. Yes, he was being sarcastic.
The Abbott government didn't even bother to have a science minister and cut funding for the CSIRO, the Climate Change Authority and many NGO's. Funding to the ABC, TAFE, and Universities, has also been cut, with the later becoming highly dependent on full-fee paying overseas students. The Climate Commission and the National Water Commission were abolished and, in terms of expenditure on research, Australia was ranked 18th out of 20 OECD countries in 2013, and this dropped a further 10% by 2015. Among those scientists made redundant was CSIRO’s Dr. San Thang, who was part of a team listed as a Noble prize contender for his work in chemistry. The technology this team invented has been adopted by 60 companies and royalties generated from the technology are forecast to reach $32.2 million by 2021.

This change in policy was more than just austerity-related cost-cutting, as there was also increased spending on fossil fuel projects, such as carbon sequestration.
It was targeted assassination of a rival philosophy and included drastic changes to our society and the way it functioned.

Manufacturing was almost obliterated, consumerism was revered, and population was purposefully increased through high immigration and a baby bonus.
Land clearing increased, along with animal extinctions and greenhouse emissions.

Unemployment tripled, housing became unaffordable, along with more homelessness and congestion, while mortgage debt exploded - all of which was hailed as economic progress.

Along the way Australia's corruption ranking[1] dropped from 7th place in 2012 to 13th place in 2015 and we became dependent on imports for things we used to manufacture and paid for them mainly with exports of coal and iron ore.

Why?

Economists like to think of themselves as scientists, but really they are not seekers of fundamental truths, but more like lawyers, ready to argue a case regardless of its merits. Thus, all our banks have economists who will argue for among other things, deregulation. The Mineral council has economists who will argue that coal is more valuable to the economy than agriculture, while the property council will have economists telling us that housing price growth is good despite the misery it creates.
We even had economists for the farming lobby telling us that tackling obesity by cutting back on sugar would be bad for the economy and, alarmingly, there are economists in the media who repeat without question whatever line is being proposed, whilst others in universities teach the same nonsense to the next generation.

Just like defense lawyers these economists will defend their clients’ interests without shame or remorse, because in carefully selected economic terms, they can be shown to be correct - or at least beneficial - in growing the GDP. The fact that these organizations can afford to pay their economists very well also helps. Conscience is soothed by a religious-like commitment to growth economics, which is able to replace human or environmental empathy with the certainty of market supremacy. They hide the reality of their philosophy by use of econogabble, a language full of terminology only understood by other economists and then vague enough to have alternative meanings.

Of course, not all economists swallow the idea of market supremacy and there are some very clever human beings like the Australia Institute’s chief economist, Richard Denniss, whose views are called unconventional. But unconventional economists don't get employed by banks or governments - after all who wants someone telling you what you are doing is absurd, immoral, dangerous or even uneconomic? Growth economics has, not surprisingly, resulted in increasing levels of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in the atmosphere, the growth of plastic in the oceans, and is instrumental, if not the direct cause, of every problem that plagues our society.

Now you may think I am biased, and of course you are right, but I am not alone. Even economists don't like economists. The great economist John Kenneth Galbraith once said:

"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable."

Speaking of former US Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, another economist quipped:

"He was the greatest, the Maestro. Only if you look at his record, he was wrong about almost everything he ever predicted."

And that is part of the problem: Being wrong is not a sin if you are an economist. If a scientist had somehow missed something as bad as the GFC he would be forever shunned and his failure relentless analysed, so that it could not happen again.

Gordon Brown, the then UK’s prime minister, made a speech in June 2007 that was surely one of the greatest political and economic misjudgments among postwar politicians. He described his era as one that history will record as a new golden age for the City of London, praising the city’s creativity and ingenuity, just weeks before it collapsed into the GFC.

The UK tax payer was left with a one-sided exposure of £1.3 trillion in loans, investments, cash injections, and guarantees to the banking system, of which over £100bn may be lost forever. But all was not lost for Gordon Brown. Just 15 months later he was honored in the US as ‘Statesman of the Year’ by US former secretary of state Henry Kissinger.

After the GFC there was a great deal of criticism leveled at economists because for all their brilliant models and complex analyses, most economists completely failed to predict the disastrous outcome of the housing bubble. There were arguments as to whether the problem was an imperfect discipline or the result of human failures where biases on the part of many economists that made them blind to the truth. While there are always disagreements in the hard sciences, they're often less significant than some of the fundamentally different schools of thought within macroeconomics. You can have two equally respected economists perform two very well-thought out and rigorous analyses, but come to two different conclusions. That shouldn't be possible in a hard science. Facts plus analysis should lead to a conclusion that can be proven through observation.

The American Economic Association has proposed enhanced ethical standards for academic economists because, currently, they are not always required to explicitly state all sources of income and funding. This could cause bias to creep into their work, a process that was shown to have happened to financial advisers by the Australian Banking Royal Commission (4 December 2017 – 4 February 2019).

It could be argued that economic policy is more likely to contain bias due to outside influences than that of scientists, as there is often a lot of money at stake in either business or politics, depending on what the wisest economists in the land claim to be truth.

Logically then we should at least know who funds think tanks and Media columnists should disclose who they work for. We could go much further. Surely “ethical economics” is about using resources in a sustainable way.

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions, for instance, is certainly kinder to future generations than accepting the dictates of supply and demand.

Should we be importing products made by slave labor just because they are cheap? (Yes we do!)

Should we have traded with dictatorial regimes like Sadam Hussein's Iraq just because he bought our wheat?

Why do we support the arms trade, tobacco, alcohol, and gambling?

Well we do because, while third world countries get taken over by military coups, we were taken over by an economic coup d'état: a legal, constitutional seizure of power by a consortium of business groups who managed to pervert economics for their own benefit.

The way they achieved this can be understood by examining the words of David Suzuki, the world famous naturalist. He was three times voted the most trusted person in Canada. He summed up the economic strategy neatly, when he said:

“The economy — and the need to keep it strong and growing — has somehow become the most important aspect of modern life. Nothing else is allowed to rank higher. The economy is suffering; the economy is improving; the economy is stable or unstable — you’d think it was a patient on life support in an intensive-care unit from the way we anxiously await the next pronouncement on its health. But what we call the economy is nothing more than people producing, consuming and exchanging things and services.”
― David Suzuki, From Naked Ape to Superspecies: Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis

It is apparent that this artificial obsession with a growth economy is a smoke screen that hides all other considerations, including human and environmental survival. I would argue that the wheels didn't fall off, they were stolen while we languished in complacency.

NOTES

[1] See the transparency Organisation at https://www.transparency.org/.

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

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

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

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

How dare the Urban Development Institute of Australia tell the State Government that it should set housing targets for each council to cope with Melbourne's rapid population growth and then if we don't meet the targets they set we will be victimised. [1] They even specifically mentioned Boroondara and Stonnington as not pulling their weight and referred to NIMBYs. As a resident of Boroondara I can assure the Development Institute that Boroondara is being flooded with buildings to such an extent that the whole neighbourhood character is being ruined, what on earth do they want. High rise on every suburban street?

The real problem is that Melbourne is getting too many people coming to the city. Even Planning Minister Wynne is quoted as saying that Melbourne has the highest growth rate of any city in the developed world. We have been saying this for years as we see it's livability being wrecked. People all across Melbourne are complaining as they see their areas being overcrowded and over developed. The Federal Government must reduce immigration - tell them we are full to bursting. Do they want to turn us into a dense third world city with polluted gridlocked streets?

Many of us are saying, having watched the Royal Commission into the Banking World, that it is time for a Royal Commission to examine the Developers World.

NOTES

Below is the article that caused the suggestion that we need a Royal Commission into how development is conducted in this country.

[1]

"Develop or be punished," by John Masanauskas. (Herald Sun, 2 June 2018.

A DEVELOPER lobby has called for suburbs which don’t pull their weight on housing supply to be punished with less investment in infrastructure.

Urban Development Institute of Australia state CEO Danni Addison said the state government should set housing targets for each council area to cope with Melbourne’s rapid population growth.

“That new housing stock, if delivered, should be accompanied by infrastructure investment from government,” she told a UDIA event yesterday.

“And if it’s not delivered where it should be, then investment in infrastructure in those areas should be restricted.”

Developers told the event councils like Boroondara and Stonnington were not providing their share of new housing.

Ms Addison said there were “politically unpalatable areas of Melbourne where growth is uncomfortable ideologically or from a position of NIMBYism (not in my backyard)”.

“But if that growth were to be followed and serviced by infrastructure, then I think the community would definitely be more at ease,” she said.

Planning Minister Richard Wynne said Melbourne had the highest growth rate of any city in the developed world."

This is the first time, to our knowledge, that the ABC has departed from its growthist mantra, allowing its reporters to describe the problem and really let the public know how bad it is. "We need to focus on corruption, population to halt biodiversity loss." Researchers say targets for biodiversity loss ignore key drivers such as human population and corruption." Article by ABC Science, environment reporter Nick Kilvert. First published here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-03-27/corruption-population-impact-biodiversity-loss/9586556

Both Dr Ritchie and Professor Bekessy cited the death of the last male northern white rhino earlier this month as a reminder that we need to be doing more to halt the loss of species worldwide.

Professor Bekessy said she believes people may not realise how much their day-to-day decisions can impact on species loss.

"Whether we choose to have beef or vegetable for dinner, or what sort of coffee we choose to have in the morning, all of these things lead to the survival or extinction of species," she said.

"Extinction is something that people understand. All the media attention around the last white rhino — it was heartbreaking because it was really personal.

"I think, [we need to make our goal] no more extinctions."

"This proposal by Ms Turnbull is just a diversion, an absurdity not worthy of being called a thimble and pea trick, but the agenda behind her smokescreen is worth examining. The GSC is a body set up by premier Baird who, you will recall, had been elected in 2011 on a platform of getting rid of what was undoubtedly the unaccountable and corrupt planning regime of the Labor government. But Premier Baird's promises of returning planning to the community and the councils was soon forgotten and his new government launched reforms that bypassed all community input. These proved to be so unpopular with the public that they were withdrawn and, instead, Premier Baird introduced the GSC, which essentially did the same thing."

Lucy Turnbull is the Chief Commissioner of the Greater Sydney Commission (GSC), and in this role is promoting the idea of “re-imagining" Sydney as three great separate cities - Eastern Harbour City, the Central Parramatta River City, and the Western City in and around the new airport at Badgerys Creek. These smaller cities will, according to Ms Turnbull, be able (in 40 or so years) to meet an essential criteria for a liveable city - the 30 minute transport target where residents can travel to work in half an hour or less. She went on to say that it was essential to embrace the three-cities approach to deal with Sydney's expected population growth. "There's around 4.6 million people living in Sydney now, by 2036, it's expected that number will be more like 6.2 million, and in another 20 years it will be up to eight million." See Michael Bleby and Su-Lin Tan, “Lucy Turnbull’s Grand Plan for Sydney, Australian Financial Review, November 20, 2016.” www.afr.com/real-estate/lucy-turnbulls-grand-plan-for-sydney-20161118-gss887 [Editor: This address is not linked because it lacks the https prefix.]

Sydney does have a major problem with transport – its now ranked 51st out of 100 cities in terms of ease of travel . Congestion cost Sydney $16.5b in 2015 and its been growing every year largely because of increased car numbers. But to suggest that dividing the city into 3 separate identities will somehow mean people will travel less or faster is an absurdity. People commuting to the city centre from Baulkham Hills, Beecroft or Carlingford will still travel the same distance and face the same delays despite having their home address changed to Parramatta River City. And by the same token this name change won't create more employment in Parramatta or western Sydney. Fixing Sydney's transport is almost entirely dependent on providing massive amounts of infrastructure for public transport and has nothing to do with name changing. If previous governments could not do that when the population was 4 million then they certainly won't be able to do it if the population doubles.

The GSC should be aware that retrofitting infrastructure is hugely expensive and disruptive as shown by the unpopular WestConnex which Ms Turnbull described in 2014 as a “necessary evil”. While there are many who would agree that it is evil - the National Trust described the destruction as the “worst hit to heritage” in Sydney’s history and 12,000 submissions from residents as well as 5 councils opposed the project. (These councils were subsequently replaced by forced amalgamations while demolitions were underway.) In 2015 the project was costed at $16.8b but new estimates suggest that it could rise to $45.3b (including $650m so far spent just on legal battles associated with land acquisition) leaving NSW with an impossible debt that will beggar the state for decades curtailing expenditure on other essential projects such as the need to almost double the number of schools & hospitals.

While this scheme may sound a bit like a plot that was rejected by the script writers of the ABC's Utopia it did not receive much in the way of critical analysis. In fact there was even some faint praise because the proposals did mention the importance of cycling, its commitment to women's needs (more street lighting, ramps for prams and footpaths without pot holes) and even gave a slightly bizarre claim to connecting with indigenous history. If you Google “Greater Sydney Commission Plans for Sydney” you will see some inputs that - like the Telegraph -¬ just repeat the governments press release, trumpeting the joys of Jobs & Growth. But there are precious few questioning the validity of the plan let alone the need for population growth - the exception from MacroBusiness. See https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/08/heres-lucy-turnbull-can-fix-sydney/

However there is more than just Sydney's congestion to consider. For instance the planned population growth will require the construction of 725,000 new dwellings along with 817,000 new jobs at a time when employment is threatened by technological changes. There will also need to be a matching increase in our capacity to handle waste and supply water yet we have governments that allow mining under Sydney' water catchment and won't apply even the mildest restrictions on plastic usage. Developer-related corruption is rife, yet the NSW government cut ICAC [Independent Commission against corruption] funding in half and the federals won't even consider having such a commission. Ms Turnbull claims that Sydney is not full and we need to grow to become a “World City”. Well we could argue that Mumbai or Jakarta also aren't full but most of us would consider the European capital, Brussels at 1 million more liveable than Beijing with its population of over 20 million.

This proposal by Ms Turnbull is just a diversion, an absurdity not worthy of being called a thimble and pea trick,[1] but the agenda behind her smokescreen is worth examining. The GSC is a body set up by premier Baird who, you will recall, had been elected in 2011 on a platform of getting rid of what was undoubtedly the unaccountable and corrupt planning regime of the Labor government. But Premier Baird's promises of returning planning to the community and the councils was soon forgotten and his new government launched reforms that bypassed all community input. These proved to be so unpopular with the public that they were withdrawn and, instead, Premier Baird introduced the GSC, which essentially did the same thing. This is a common tactic of governments. The GSC is but one of a number of unloved bodies, like Urban Growth and the Hunter Development Corporation, that can carry out the dirty work while isolating the government from the responsibility of any unpleasantness. Even more importantly the government can dictate the charter of these agencies, in this case limiting their role to planning for population growth without the need to consider adverse consequences. As an example NSW and Queensland recently removed sea level rise from their state planning policies and the former Labor governments sea level planning benchmarks, based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change data, were rejected, and decisions left to local councils. More than $226 billion in Australian commercial, residential, rail, road and industrial assets is at risk from climate change-induced sea-level rise with close to 250,000 residential properties and 8600 commercial buildings vulnerable, as well as ports, power stations, hospitals, and water and waste facilities. See https://www.thefifthestate.com.au/tag/planning-2

It is hardly likely that Ms Turnbull or anyone in the SGC is a climate sceptic, yet they feel no compulsion to listen to warnings from the Climate Council. None of the media outlets – Fairfax, News, or the ABC - felt it necessary to point out that bigger cities are hotter and more prone to damage from severe storms or even that developer-related corruption has become endemic and might be influencing these decisions. Nor did they mention that Sydney's expansion will come at the expense of its green spaces, air quality, and even its food bowl, which provides the bulk of its fresh food production. See https://theconversation.com/urban-sprawl-is-threatening-sydneys-foodbowl-55156

It seems that all those involved in city planning have restricted their activities to searching for land that can be acquired from fortuitously defunct industrial sites or older dwellings – even schools - that can be replaced with high rise. No one seems to heed warnings from the science community on the threats from increased storm intensity, even though at its current size Sydney will be unable to withstand the adverse effects of climate change. Such is the way civilizations have collapsed in the past. Ideology is no substitute for science.

NOTES

[1] ‘Thimble and pea trick’: The shell game (also known as thimblerig, three shells and a pea, the old army game) is portrayed as a gambling game, but in reality, when a wager for money is made, it is almost always a confidencetrick used to perpetrate fraud. (Wikipedia)

While the media and political debates focus on cracking down on boat people, Fairfax media have exposed that rampant visa fraud is happening. It's a multifaceted yarn. Up to 9 in 10 skilled migrant visas are bogus. Militants are suspects in visa frauds. Afghan applicants 90% flawed!

Rampant visa fraud and migration crime involving people flying into Australia are going unchecked while the government focuses on stopping boats, according to secret government files detailing entrenched Immigration Department failings. Leaked confidential departmental documents obtained by Fairfax Media reveal that Australia's national security is being compromised by wide-scale visa rorting and migration rackets operating with impunity.

Internal documents reveal that despite repeated warnings, the department is failing to crackdown on wide-scale visa rorting.

Australia's open borders are a threat to our national security, and can't be justified on any sound basis.

While the immigration debate is anchored on asylum seekers, our open borders are allowing fraudsters to exploit the loopholes in our generous visa system with non-genuine "students", and bogus "skilled" migrants - at a time of record unemployment! There are bogus "skills shortages" that lure students to pay tens of thousands of dollars to study here, expecting a job and residency at the end - when the shortages don't exist! Thousands of foreign cooks and accountants being given visas despite an excess of local candidates.

The whole model of Australia as an Immigration Nation is outdated, and there's no correlation between grass-roots reality, and the number and type of visas distributed.

While there's a lot of media and political attention on a few ad hoc asylum seekers arriving by boats, the overwhelming majority of migrants are arriving by aeroplane, daily, enjoying anonymity and the lack of media attention.

Asylum seekers, and our humanitarian intake of about 20,000 per year, hardly add to our immigration intake, or population growth at all, yet they confuse the public on who our immigrants really are! Refugees make up less than 5 per cent of Australia's annual population growth of around 400,000 people.

This employment migration program and corrupt, especially considering the harsh crackdown on assumed "dole bludgers" who are failing to gain non-existent new jobs! Everyone knows it's going on.

Immigration experts Dr Bob Birrell and Dr Ernest Healy have obtained fresh Australian Bureau of Statistics information showing that 380,000 arrivals to Australia since 2011 had found jobs. But over the same period, net job growth in Australia was only 400,000. Australia continues to grant skilled migration visas to thousands of foreign cooks and accountants despite an excess of local candidates suitable for those jobs.

SMH> Call for migration rort crackdown as data reveals foreign workers snare net jobs growth

Afghanistan and Somalia have a trade in passports. Investigators identified a scam of people using each other's passports, after being lost or stolen. A loophole in passports lets people come into the country twice, without leaving first! With all the sophistication of technology this is happening.

A 2010 report reveals that immigration investigators had uncovered a Somali people-smuggling cell in Melbourne linked to terrorist suspect Hussein Hashi Farah, who "is believed to have links to the al-Qaeda offshoot al-Shabab".

The leaked files revealed that tens of thousands of immigration fraudsters are living freely after being assisted by migration crime networks exploiting weaknesses in working, student, family and humanitarian visa programs, and corruption within the Department that allowes the fraud to happen.

There are too many visas, flexibility and categories of immigration, and passports are not secure for all the tens of hundreds arriving each day at our airports. It's mayhem, and open-border chaos.

The immigration Department is dysfunctional, and needs to be closed for investigation. The number of visas is excessive, and our system is clearly porous and unaccountable.

The holes and flaws the system have been exploited. We've (almost) stopped the boats, but now it's time to stop the planes.

Scott Morrison interview with 3AW

The Age: Broken Borders report- pdf

#F7F8E0;line-height:120%;">"The Victorian government appears to be bent on creating ‘rent-seeking’ opportunities for construction companies and financial institutions rather than meeting the transport needs of the community." (Kenneth Davidson) The following article is the text of a speech given by Kenneth Davidson at the Protectors of Public Lands Victoria AGM 10 May 2014 (Emphases and heading by candobetter.net editor.)

The last time I spoke to Protectors of Public Lands Victoria at the AGM in 2011 I made the subject of my talk ‘how PPPs can make you sick as well as poor’. I looked at the financing costs of building three hospitals – The Royal Children’s Hospital, the Royal Women’s Hospital and Bendigo General Hospital - and the difference between funding exactly the same hospitals, using exactly the same architects and builders but financing them with government debt rather than as a PPP would save the Victorian taxpayer $90 million a year or $3.5 billion over the 25 year life of the PPPs.

Those figures were based on official interest rates of 5.5 per cent. The cost would be even higher today when the state government could use its AAA rating to borrow at 3.6 per cent. I pointed out the $90 million in unnecessary payments compared to government borrowings would be sufficient to pay a salary increase to public hospital nurses an additional $3,000 a year – a 5 per cent increase. This is far better than chiselling their conditions and undermining hospital safety by increasing patient ratios and replacing professional nurses with nurse assistants in the name of productivity offsets.

When you multiply these sort of deals through the financing of government schools, the desalination plant, Southern Cross (Spencer Street) Station and roads and now prisons, rail links, rail corridors and Metro Rail Link (redesigned without a business case to facilitate Crown Casino and a new real estate development at Fisherman’s Bend), you are beginning to talk real money.

According to the budget papers, PPPs, listed under long-term borrowings as finance lease liabilities, now total $7.8 billion. The interest expense on these leases, listed as finance charges on finance leases, total $770 million. This is equal to an interest expense of just under 10 per cent.

In money terms this amounts to about $500 million or half a billion a year more than if the leases had been financed by the issue of state government bonds, currently yielding 3.6 per cent interest.

Neoliberal mythology

The banks and superannuation funds which profit from investing in PPPs rather than public debt promote the neoliberal mythology that governments can’t ‘afford’ debt, even though there are numerous examples of social and economic infrastructure which can yield returns well in excess of the cost of borrowing.

In their own businesses, if directors took the same approach to financial management as they demand from government, to minimise debt to the point where they were missing out on profitable investments, the directors and senior managers would be threatened with dismissal for running a ‘lazy balance sheet’ either through a takeover or shareholder revolt.

But, in Australia the politicians who facilitate the PPP industry are seen generally as wise leaders whose financial rectitude, while promoting ‘tough’ decisions, is in the public interest.

The former Member for Melbourne and Finance minister in the Rudd government, together with former Labor Prime Minister, Paul Keating, are senior financial advisors with the investment bank, Lazard.

When Tanner joined the bank shortly after the 2010 election his job description included working on how to improve the PPP tender process. Lazard has already made one submission to the Victorian government offering to manage the PPP process for both sections of the East West Link Project last year. The proposal was rejected.

The peak industry lobby for the PPP industry, Infrastructure Partnerships Australia, sponsored a conference in March 2012 at the Crown Casino on the subject “user pays, exploring the myths of free infrastructure”. As could be expected the conference wasn’t about the cheapest and most effective ways of financing infrastructure, but how to make PPPs risk free to the private investors to avoid recent losses, particularly involving toll roads.

Tanner was the Keynote speaker. He said that there have to be more innovative ways of financing PPPs to restore confidence in the PPP vehicle following the success of the City Link. He gave the example of the Peninsular Link which substituted an “availability charge” yielding an assured 11.5 per cent for tolls because there was no way the $760 million investment could be sustained on tolls given the likely traffic volumes.

His citing these two examples of successful PPPs makes it clear that the proponents of PPPs are primarily interested in a contract which guarantees a stream of earnings over two to three decades at interest rates two to three times the long-term bond rate without any risk to the proponents.

The background to these successful examples of the PPP method of financing infrastructure shows that PPPs amount to rorts.

It is a moot point whether City Link should have been built. A rail connection to the airport could have provided greater benefit to Melbourne at a fraction of the cost. In terms of passenger numbers Tullamarine Airport is the biggest in the world without a rail link to the city.

Toll charges are at least three times the level which would be needed if the road had been funded by government debt. City Link is one of the most profitable toll roads in the world. In 2012-13 City Link toll revenue totalled $499 million. The operator, Transurban, is allowed to increase toll rates by 4.5 per cent a year or the inflation rate, whichever is the greater. The toll growth compounds at a greater rate than inflation so that a Tulla 24 hour pass is 110 per cent higher now than when the tollway opened in 2000.

The project cost was $1.8 billion but $600 million was mainly capital costs associated with the PPP. For instance $171 million was allocated to Equity Infrastructure Bond distributions during the construction phase before one car had passed under a transponder. Another $350 million was allocated to items such as Consultancy and Sponsor Recovery Costs, Corporate Overheads and Marketing (during construction), and Capitalised Interest Expense.

The Design and Construction Contract was $1.2 billion. This is the main cost which would have been associated with the building of exactly the same road, using the same designers and construction contractors, if City Link had been let out to public tender and financed by public borrowings at the long-term bond rate.

The gross return of $499 million in 2012-13 on $1.2 billion is about 42 per cent. On the assumption that operating expenses, maintenance and taxes more than halved the gross return to 20 per cent, this is still five times the return from tolls needed to fund public borrowings at 4 per cent.

In 1999, Alan Stockdale, Treasurer at the time of City Link negotiations, later announced his retirement from Parliament and his intention to join Macquarie bank as the chairman of the bank’s asset and infrastructure group after the election but before he handed in his commission as Treasurer to the Victorian Governor.

The Australian Financial Review (7th October 1999) said: “As a non-executive director, he was likely to receive a remuneration package in the order of $500,000 a year. Mr Stockdale joins an inner circle of executives at Macquarie whose main role has been described in the banking fraternity as to essentially ‘meet and greet’.”

But PPPs became on the nose after a spate of infrastructure projects financed as PPPs in Queensland, NSW and in Victoria’s case, the EastLink, failed to live up to the optimistic forecasts of toll revenues and investors in the Connect East franchise (set up to build, own and operate EastLink) lost money.

In order to restore investor confidence in these vehicles, the main rationale for the higher returns on PPPs compared to the cost of financing infrastructure with government debt, namely that the ‘risk’ would be transferred from the taxpayer to the private partners, was turned on its head.

The Peninsular Link PPP was developed in the wake of the failure of the EastLink to meet its traffic projections. EastLink was the road from nowhere to nowhere.

It was clear only months after EastLink began operations that the franchise was dying under its burden of debt. Hence the urgency to connect EastLink up to additional traffic to keep its backers from pulling the plug, as had occurred with toll roads financed as PPPs in Sydney and Brisbane. The banks refused to finance the construction of the bypass unless the risk was transferred from the private partners to the government.

Instead of the PPP revenue being derived from tolls it was decided the revenue would be paid by the government via an ‘availability charge’ This meant that providing the Peninsula Link is fit for purpose - i.e. it is maintained in a condition sufficient to carry the volume of traffic for which is was designed - an ‘availability’ payment of $92 million a year will be paid over the 25 years of the franchise, irrespective of how many vehicles use the freeway. It is equivalent to a return of 11.7 per cent on the $760 million cost to build the bypass.

The reader might ask why the government did not borrow the money itself at the long-term bond rate, which was about 5 per cent at the time the road was built and saved $54 million a year or $1.4 billion over the 25 year life of the PPP. The savings would have been sufficient to finance borrowings of $800 million, sufficient to build a public hospital or finance 5,000 elective surgery operations in public hospitals.

But there’s more. The capital cost of $760 million of the four lane tollway, mainly over flat reserve land, works out at $28 million a km. The Abigroup built the Peninsular link. The Abigroup also built 41 km four-lane Geelong Bypass freeway for $19 million per km and it includes a railway station and 100 metre bridge over the Barwon River involving major earthworks. The construction cost of the Peninsula Link is 67 per cent more expensive per km than the Geelong Bypass. Why?

The reason is the Commonwealth put up most of the money for the Geelong Bypass. It refused to put up money for the Peninsular Link because it couldn’t pass a Benefit Cost test required by Infrastructure Australia. As the Commonwealth put up the money for the Geelong Bypass, it ensured it got value for money.

The Victorian government appears to be bent on creating ‘rent-seeking’ opportunities for construction companies and financial institutions rather than meeting the transport needs of the community.

The Mornington Peninsula and the Hastings area are public transport deprived and both the catchment areas include some of the poorest households in Greater Melbourne with acute, unmet public transport needs. But there is already a further study extending the road capacity to relieve congestion on Point Nepean Road completed in 2013 with no consideration of mode shift to public or active transport. Remember, the Peninsular Link was set up by a Labor government.

'Sovereign risk'

Labor has not changed its spots in opposition. In a desperate attempt to win back the Melbourne seat from the Greens it promised to oppose the EWL but it would not refinance the debt because it would create ‘sovereign risk’. Garbage! There is no difference between a government refinancing debt to take advantage of lower interest rates than a mortgagor taking advantage of lower interest rates to refinance the house mortgage.

The major parties were as one in refusing to consider refinancing the AquaSure desalination PPP contract on the grounds of ‘Sovereign risk’.

To add insult to injury, Aquasure received permission from the government to renegotiate the debt for its own interests. It has taken advantage of the lower rates to increase its own profits.

Shadow Treasurer, Tim Pallas, has since backed down in the face of the talk by adjunct professor of Law at the ANU College of Law and author of a standard text on government contracts, who pointed out anybody, including governments, can break contracts subject to damages.

The cost of damages would be miniscule compared to the cost of going ahead with an EWL PPP, especially if the Labor opposition made its intentions clear before any contract is signed so that the private partners would know the risks before entering into the contract.

This article contains very interesting information of which I was unaware. It's judgement on the American Constitution confirms my own impression that the US constitution is an empty and ridiculous document compared to the French Civil Code (which was taken up by all European nations eventually, inc Russia). In my view it is not possible to have significant real democracy with the British land-tenure system that dominates much of the United States because of its tendency to accumulate vast amounts of land and significant assets in private hands. The Napoleonic system (which built on the French Revolution) preserves power in local hands to regulate use of public land, which the inheritance (land tenure) laws tend to keep topping up. In fact, I have found that the contribution and example of the US revolution to the French Revolution, though much touted, was actually very weak and that one of the famous actors in both the US and the French Revolution, La Fayette, was suspected, with good grounds, of being a double agent.

By Rivera Sun, Truthout

[...] After the war, the revolutionary notion of democracy produced a counter-revolution. Oligarchs of that era found it difficult to conduct business among the 13 sovereign states, each of which was developing its own laws regulating commerce, taxes and tariffs. The first constitution of the United States (the Articles of Confederation) endured for 10 years, starting in 1778, before the oligarchs could find a way around it. Even then, they had to resort to extraordinary means.

In February 1787, George Washington (the richest man in the United States) proposed a convention in May in Philadelphia for the alleged purposes of revising the Articles of Confederation. Upon arrival, however, delegates to the Philadelphia Convention were dismayed to discover that Washington, Madison, Hamilton and others wanted to throw out the old Articles of Confederation. In their place, Hamilton proposed a new, second Constitution of the United States, which included a powerful federal government to rule over the state governments, a president for life, a senate appointed for life, an electoral college that elects the president and an appointed for life Supreme Court with authority over the state courts.

"Nothing but a permanent body can check the imprudence of democracy," Alexander Hamilton is quoted as saying according to the Notes of the Secret Debates of the Federal Convention of 1787 taken by Robert Yates.

Many of the delegates left in protest. Of the 62 delegates appointed, only 39 signed the new Constitution. The Philadelphia Convention, widely heralded today as the birthplace of democracy, was nothing short of an oligarchic coup. Terms for elected officials were a minor concession to the proponents of democracy. The Bill of Rights was tacked on at the insistence of outraged citizens during the process of ratification, but it narrowed the list of protected rights to 10 out of the dozens that were initially proposed.
Today, tourists can visit the sunny, open rooms of Liberty Hall, but in 1787, the Convention took place under strict secrecy. The doors were closed; the windows blacked out and security guards ringed the building. In Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, the rules stated, "That nothing spoken in the House be printed or otherwise published or communicated." James Madison, one of the main recorders, refused to publish his notes until all of the framers were buried in the grave.

If the citizens had known what was transpiring in Philadelphia, an uprising reminiscent of the Battle of Seattle at the 1999 World Trade Organization protests might have ensued. In 1787, citizens of the 13 sovereign states considered the United States of America to be a description of a friendly alliance of nation-states similar to the United Nations. Under the new Constitution, however, the federal government of the United States of America became a new, powerful legal body that wielded supreme authority over the subordinate states.
When they found out, citizens of the day were not amused. Resistance to the new Constitution was widespread. In 1787, Washington wrote, "Commotions of this sort, like snow-balls, gather strength as they roll, if there is no opposition in the way to divide and crumble them." To ensure the states' ratification of the new Constitution, his colleagues Madison and Hamilton rolled out their propaganda machines.

William Grayson of Virginia wrote, "We are now told . . . that we shall have wars and rumors of wars, that every calamity is to attend us, and that we shall be ruined and disunited forever, unless we adopt this constitution . . . and the Carolinians, from the South (mounted on alligators, I presume) are to come and destroy our cornfields, and eat up our little children! . . . These, sir are the mighty dangers which await us if we reject - dangers which are merely imaginary, and ludicrous in the extreme!"

A more detailed article is available at
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/23804-oligarchy-as-american-as-poisoned-apple-pie Thank you Matthew Mitchell, candobetter.net writer, for sending this to me.

#FFEB46">Can you *please* read this short article and sign an online petition to help find a Thai Karen human rights activist who has "disappeared" recently, just before he was to give eyewitness testimony in a trial related to the abuses of power alledgedly committed by park officials, including the murder of another activist in September 2011.

Online petition on disappearance of Billy Porlajee

There have been frequent human rights abuses against indigenous peoples in Thailand, including forced relocation, denial of basic human rights, burning of villages and rice barns, extrajudicial killings of local leaders and expropriation of lands and assets during the last half century or so, and particularly since the early 1960s when Thailand initiated its national park system. Since 1993, these abuses have been repeatedly confirmed and reported by human rights activists.

At the beginning of 2011, more than 20 families who had been documented residents for over 60 years in Bangkloy Bon Village, inside Kaengkrachan National Park (established on 12 June 1981 and about 200 km southwest of Bangkok), saw their houses being burned and destroyed by park officials.

On the 10th of September, 2011, unidentified gunmen shot and killed Tatkamol Ob-om, a Thai activist who had assisted Porlajee Rakchongcharoen (known as “Billy”) and other Karen villagers in reporting on alleged abuses, violence, illegal logging and elephant poaching committed by park officials. In January 2012, the Phetchaburi Provincial Court brought a case against Chaiwat Limlikit-aksorn, head of the Kaengkrachan National Park Office, charging him with masterminding Mr. Tatkamol’s murder.

Mr. Chaiwat has not been suspended from duty as required under disciplinary regulations regarding officials under criminal investigation. Chaiwat's continued presence at the national park has been a cause of fear among local activists and villagers, particularly those involved in lawsuits against him.

On the 17 April 2014, Billy Porlajee, an indigenous Karen leader and prominent human rights activist, was detained by park officials in Kaengkrachan National Park. Park officials claim that Mr Porlajee was released that same day, yet his whereabouts are unknown. Mr Porlajee was scheduled to give eyewitness testimony on 30 April (2014) in a trial related to abuses of power allegedly committed by park officials, but to date he is still missing.

The detention of Porlajee Rakchongcharoen, his alleged release and subsequent disappearance have raised serious fears for his safety. Please will you take a moment to click the link below and sign the online petition. By signing this petition you are assisting in our efforts to find Mr Porlajee, fighting to ensure justice in current lawsuits and supporting Karen communities in their struggle for a dignified life.

Here is the link. Unfortunately, it seems that the link may not work from everywhere in the world. If you experience trouble connecting to this page, will you please leave a comment below stating your location and a giving short message of support for this petition. Thank you.

Petition on disappearance of Billy Porlajee

(http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/ms-yingluck-shinawatra-prime-minister-of-thailand-we-demand-a-prompt-and-thorough-investigation-into-the-disappearance-of-the-indigenous-karen-leader-and-hr-activist-porlajee-billy-and-the-removal-of-chaiwat-as-kaengkrachan-national-park-chief)

Please note that the situation is now further confused by the removal from power of the Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra by the Thai Constitutional Court *yesterday*, 7 May 2014. Inside Thailand, this case is now likely to be drowned out by the cacophony of ongoing political chaos that continues to rule in that country. It is therefore crucial that the Thai bureaucracy and national park officialdom are not allowed to hide this serious criminality behind the smokescreen of political confusion and get a strong sense of being under the scrutiny of international public opinion. Please help to reach at least the current goal of 10,000 signatures by next week by re-posting this article far and wide, wherever appropriate. Thank you!

Related youtube clip:

Youtube video clip for petition

Related articles:

Senior park official faces probe

Thailand: Prominent activist feared disappeared

Further resources:

Please see the translator’s introduction (Land Use and Sustainability in the Highlands of Northern Thailand) to Buhpau’s The Karen System of Forest Field Rotation, available in the “Karen Rotational Farming” folder at
https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=0a586522c3d55a14

Please also see one view of the struggle for rights of the Karen people of northern Thailand documented in novel form in Francis Ferguson’s Look Down, see the women weep, available in paper and ebook from Lulu.com. Please search for “Francis Ferguson” from the Lulu.com page or just click #10;">this link.

If you have questions about this case or about Thai Karen rights in general, or comments on the petition and so on, please leave a comment below and we will try to answer your questions and comments as soon as possible. This page will be updated if there is any news to be reported. Thank you.

"Resisting is pointless," we hear endlessly repeated. "So many years of protest but the crisis continues, why bother?" insist others, inoculating us with apathy and resignation. "Protests could lead to something that's even worse," whispers the machinery of fear. They want us submissive, heads bowed. Dreams of change are forbidden. However, history rebels, indomitable. And it shows us, despite the naysayers, that struggle is worth it.

The victories against the privatization of Madrid's public health system, of the Gamonal neighbourhood standing up to speculators and the corrupt, of the cleaners in their battle for jobs in the capital and the struggle against evictions and the banks, are good examples.

It is not easy to achieve concrete victories when the political class betray our rights and sell out to capital. It's hard to win when the state apparatus defends the haves, and rolls back our democratic rights and freedoms. The task of change is arduous, when the media are hijacked by private interests. Still, there are victories, big and small, showing us the way.

The Madrid government's u-turn on its plans to privatize six public hospitals is one of them. The [Popular Party-run] administration in the capital has been forced to revoke the "outsourcing" plan after fifteen months of protest and the announcement of the High Court of Justice of Madrid to provisionally suspend the privatization process on the grounds it could pose "serious and irreparable damage." There have been months of demonstrations, strikes, a referendum with nearly one million votes against such measures, hospital occupations, lawsuits. The triumph swept away its leading promoter, regional health commissioner Javier Fernández-Lasquetty, who has been forced to resign. It's worth the fight.

Gamonal Effect

Gamonal, another great victory. After little more than a week of intense protests, from 10 to 17 January in Burgos, against the construction of a boulevard in the neighbourhood of Gamonal, mayor Javier Lacalle had no choice but to halt construction indefinitely. The conflict, however, came from afar. A multi-million euro project, with huge profits for firms and politicians of the day, in a working-class neighbourhood lacking investment and amenities. The "urban" conflict in Gamonal became the spearhead of the fight against corruption, land speculation and crisis.

Demonstrations were held across Spain in solidarity with the community. And the attempts to criminalize and spread misinformation failed. It's worth the fight.

Thirteen days of strike and tons of debris around Madrid were necessary to avoid 1,134 layoffs of street cleaners and gardeners of the City of Madrid. It took an indefinite strike to paint into a corner private contractors that not only wanted to have hundreds of workers, but to carry out pay cuts of up to 43 per cent. The victory was partial because the staff had to each accept 45 days temporary furloughs (unpaid lay offs) annually over the next four years, and a wage freeze until 2017. Still, this does not detract from an indefinite strike, unprecedented sadly in this day and age, succeeding in protecting every single job. It's worth the fight.

The fight against evictions has been, without a doubt, the ultimate expression of a collective rebellion against this con-trick of a crisis. In response to the unlimited usury of the banks, people organized at the grassroots. Over a period of more than four years, the Platform of People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) has managed to stop 936 evictions, rehouse 712 persons in empty properties owned by financial institutions and today occupied under the Obra Social campaign of the PAH. And it has forced many banks to negotiate hundreds of repossessions and social rent. Some will say that is very small progress compared to the overall offensive. That's true. However, I would put that to all those who thanks to the PAH have a roof over their heads. It's worth the fight.

Since the emergence of the indignados, or 15M movement, we have gone from "They do not represent us" to "Yes we can." We have regained confidence in ourselves. The offensive by capital continues, but our indignation and disobedience increases. Victories today are catalysts of the victories of tomorrow. Struggle is imperative to change things. We must take note. And if we do, we can win.

On the Sunshine Coast development has destroyed a great deal of the beautiful natural surroundings that attracted people there in the first place. Native animals are being cruelly decimated by starvation and exposure.

Developers seem animated by greed alone, machinally moonscaping lots when buyer uptake has dropped to 1996 levels[1] in Australia, despite constant mass immigration. The developer lobbies have not been able to restimulate demand, even by touting for overseas immigrants and selling property to foreign investors off the plan. (That doesn't stop them charging huge fees for membership.)

Photos by Brett Clifton

We need laws to imprison developers who ruin nature but they now run our parliaments

The conduct of developers in needlessly clearing land merits new laws that would imprison them for gross vandalism, cruelty to animals and dangerous greenhouse gas generation. The main reason that Australia lacks effective laws to protect wildlife and that it seems helpless before the grotesque appetites for speculative profits of property developers is because of the Labor and Liberal Parties' huge investment in property development and financing and the cancerous presence in State parliaments of property developers or people who represent their interests over those of other citizens.

Citizens feel helpless against residential developers

James Ray, who is a resident of the Sunshine Coast, moved into a development a little while ago. He enjoyed seeing wildlife in the surrounding bushland. Although he had some idea that this bushland was also marked for development, he was shocked to see these areas cleared way ahead of lots actually being sold. He protested that this seemed premature, but also asked why buyers could not buy lots with trees retained on them and clear them only if they chose. He wrote to his council about this in an article published at http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/ancient-bush-levelled/1794757/

Why clear land brutally and unnecessarily?

There seems no good answer to this question of why clear land unnecessarily except for the corruption in parliament and of our economic system.

In fact Australia should not be clearing any more land for housing at all and it should not be artificially growing its population either. The two things are related. We have huge immigration numbers coming in all the time, inflating prices. Investors in property development lobby constantly for mass immigration. The cost of land is now so high that even this population pressure is not producing more buyers, it is simply displacing people already here, by pricing people out of the market and into homelessness, or leaving only the option of sharing with relatives or living in group houses.

What is happening to our wildlife is a weeping sore in our society. It is consuming and deforming our whole way of life. Although Queensland and West Australia are the worst for recent wildlife annihilation due to state-induced rapid population growth, the older states had already cleared too much to keep on clearing. In Victoria, the most cleared state, population growth has outpaced New South Wales due to State Government policies that ram development down the throats of local communities despite continuous protests.

Stupidly stealing habitat from native animals and the ignorance of people

It seems that the Sunshine Coast is a dark and depressing place for those who love nature. In Victoria, in an outer suburb, also called Sunshine, things are very gloomy too.

Pamela, who lives in Sunshine Victoria, and works in animal welfare, writes:

"Every time we steal more habitat from our native animals people are stupidly surprised to see kangaroos looking lost on a new vacant block where their habitat used to be. They wander down new cul-de-sacs or get hit by cars.

People come into contact with them and call them 'pests' just because they're still there.

People believe kanga numbers are 'exploding' just because they are more visible without their Australian bush to hide in for protection from humans and dogs. When the truth is their numbers are actually dwindling because of floods, dogs, dumb human hunters, vehicle strike and bushfires.

Those who spread the myths of 'ballooning populations' are only the shooters and hunters who have a vested interest in killing them.

We also have a spate of vicious attacks on kangaroos by yobbos. Kangaroos are being shot with arrows, hacked to death, beheaded, joeys are being ripped from pouches and swung against the bullbars of utes or dragged behind them until dead.

I work in animal welfare and these sorts of brutality are an ongoing problem in this country. We should be ashamed of ourselves for the way we treat the animals we proudly display on our Coat of Arms."

NOTES

[1] "House Sales Drop: The number of houses and units sold in Australia last year dropped to 256,559, the lowest level of transactions since 1996, according to RP Data. The second half was 7.6 per cent stronger than the first, but analyst Cameron Kusher said a further incease in sales would be needed to underpin more price rises." Australian Financial Review, 10-17 March 2013, p. 3. Candobetter Editorial Comment: This is a sociopathic policy, to keep housing prices up for the benefit of the few who care more about their investments than in the country, and the disbenefit of the vast majority, who go into debt and homelessness because of this Australian political and economic phenomenon that corrupt parliaments encourage.

WASHINGTON (March 13) – Tens of millions of Americans drink water contaminated with chromium (VI), a compound the Environmental Protection Agency was poised in 2011 to conclude likely causes cancer.

That finding would have set the stage for stricter drinking-water standards. But industry-funded science has caused the process to stall.

Today, the Center for Public Integrity and the PBS NewsHour will tell the story behind the delay, focusing on Hinkley, California, where environmental activist Erin Brockovich made her name and residents are forced to drink bottled water because of chromium (VI) in their wells.

The EPA delayed its assessment of the compound to wait for new studies paid for by the American Chemistry Council, a trade group. The EPA planned to complete the assessment in 2015, but after the Center and PBS began asking questions about the delay, the agency posted a revised timetable showing that the effort would be finished this year.

The Center’s story can be found this morning The Center for Public Integrity's website. The NewsHour segment will air this evening (check local listings).

The Center for Public Integrity write, "This story is part of our ongoing investigation, ‘Toxic Clout’: More than 80,000 chemicals are on the market in the United States, with hundreds added each year. The Environmental Protection Agency and other regulators are supposed to protect the public from contaminants in air, water and consumer products that can cause cancer and other illnesses. But the chemical industry's sway over science and policy is powerful. Toxic Clout explores how the industry's actions create uncertainty and delay, threatening public health.

About the Center for Public Integrity: Founded in 1989 by Charles Lewis, the Center is one of the country's oldest and largest nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organizations. Our mission: To enhance democracy by revealing abuses of power, corruption and betrayal of trust by powerful public and private institutions, using the tools of investigative journalism."

Why do some focus energy
to stop the little possum he
from strutting very naturally
upon the branch that be?

What did possums ever do to humans?

An example of a 'possum band'. This ridiculous sort of chastity belt for trees to stop possums sheltering where they have always sheltered is a cruel device for which residents unwittingly foot the bill to councils in nice little rorts arranged with the manufacturers of these totally unnecessary devices.

Why do some focus energy
to stop the little possum he
from strutting very naturally
upon the branch that be?

What gives? What's up
what motivates
the householder the radio jock
the councillor the passing hoon
to scheme so strangely to deprive
the naive possum of his life?

Is it bloodlust
Is it fear
that so inspires
the deadly sneer
that so conspires
the dark career
to so reject the furry feature
to so harass a fellow creature?

What is this dreadful cowardice
this low pursuit of the defenceless?
How do his persecutors justify
harassment of this little guy?

Time for Reform, St Kilda Councillors:

The Australian suburb of Saint Kilda, Victoria, is memorable in its dedication to possum harassment by possum-banding trees against all opposition and in its provision of easily disprovable reasons for doing so. The Port Phillip Council that oversees St Kilda started out saying that possums transmitted a kind of wilt that affected palm trees and that they were banding the palm trees in Catani Gardens, St. Kilda. They were unable to prove that possums spread palm wilt and unable to show that the palm trees had any wilt. In the picture you can see that the trees' thatches are uniformly healthy. That didn't stop the council putting up the possum bands, though and causing deaths of possums through loss of shelter. There was a war for years between the council and the people who loved and visited the possums. It was a stinking example of despotism on the part of petty officialdom. The most obvious motivation was commercial gain from manufacturing and providing the metal bands, which ratepayers were funding under the guise of combatting a non-existent threat to palms. The wound has still not healed. The bands are still there. The possums still lacking shelter. The unfounded cruelty still unrepented, still shaming. The scandal, the cruelty, still raw, still present. And since spread to other councils, like a commercially motivated cancer, masquerading as science.

The cruel and silly possum band

O see the cruel and silly possum-band
example of the stupid hand
of some man
- or woman
who
given too much power
did not improve the shining hour

What reason pray
to persecute
the innocent arboreal brute?

Were the councillors irate
to know that something lived and ate
yet did not bow to council rate?

How else to make the possum
know
that humans ruled the land
Except to place around its trees
arcane and ugly possum-band?
That piece of steel and human vice
flouting reason, cruel device and -

Ridiculous at any price!
An impost and an insult to
ratepayers of intelligence
moreover anybody who
had the slightest bit of common sense

Cloaked in pseudo science and blindness
- to prevent wilt they said -
bereft of empathy or kindness
- they left the possums dead -
the humans, creaming off some cash
from ratepayers to reimburse
the manufacturers of this trash

Richard Laverack writes about the connections between the Spanish property development lobby and the shocking systemic corruption issues in Spain. There are many similarities between the Spanish and the Australian banking and property development lobbies and their relationships with government. The Ballieu Government's push for Westernport and a new "bubble" in Webb dock is based on the same philosophy of friendly fascism. So was the preceding Labor Government's. This article gives a short history of fascism and corruption in Spain before describing the current financial problems and their relationship with property and finance.

Spain's newly re-instated monarchy

Spain is attracting a great deal of news coverage for all the right reasons lately, but the Spanish people have suffered enough.

It has a recently re-instated monarchy. On 22 November 1975, two days after fascist dictator General Francisco Franco's death, the Bourbon heir Juan Carlos was designated King according to the law of succession promulgated by Franco. In 1969, when Franco named Juan Carlos as the next head of state, Spain had had no monarch for 38 years.

It has a King who, as head of the Spanish “branch” of the World Wildlife Fund, thinks it appropriate to holiday in Botswana shooting elephants.

The king’s daughter, la Infanta Christina Federica Victoria Antonia, is married to Inaki Undangarin, Duke of Palma de Mallorca, who is currently facing charges of embezzlement of millions of euros.

Spain's justice system in tatters

It has a justice system in tatters. The Supreme Court suspended fellow Judge Baltasar Garzon from practicing for 11 years after investigating so called (7) irregularities in Garzon’s investigation into wide scale corruption within the conservative Partido Popular. Up to 70 senior members were being investigated.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Carlos Dívar on Thursday resigned under pressure for charging 32 long weekend trips to Marbella and other Spanish destinations to the judiciary. (1)

Spain and the Oil Wars, News Ltd and ex-Spanish PM, Aznar

Carlos Divar was appointed by Jose Louis Aznar, ex- prime minister of Spain from 1996 – 2004. Aznar, now a very prominent member of Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd board, was a founder member of the “coalition of the willing” leading the “oil wars”, even before John Howard. The only natural resources Spain has is a small amount of coal in Asturia.

Aznar was “scholared” in politics by Manuel Fraga. From 1951, Fraga served in various posts in the Franco regime, including minister for information and tourism. He took part in the Transition (restoration of the Monarchy), and formed the conservative People's Alliance (AP), the precursor to the Popular Party (PP).

Fraga was known as a heavy-handed politician. The drastic measures he took as chief of state security during the first days of the Spanish transition to democracy deeply damaged his popularity. The phrase "¡La calle es mía!" ("The streets are mine!") was attributed to him. This phrase was his answer to complaints of police repression of street protests. He claimed that the streets did not belong to "people" but to the State.

Partido Popular (PP) - The Peoples' Party

Appointing Aznar as head of the Partido Popular (PP) in 1989, Fraga duly became President of the PP. Fraga was known as a “social liberal”. He relaxed censorship laws (despite the severe lobbying of the Catholic Church) and finished his political career as Franco did, in office. He died in January 2012 serving as Spain’s ambassador to the European Union.

The “lineage” is further continued into the present day when Aznar’s “puppet”, Manuel Rajoy became head of the PP in 2004 after Aznar was dumped. (Rajoy is currently prime minister). Aznars wife is Mayor of Madrid, Spain’s largest city and the seat of government.

Fascism and economic crashes: the 1930s and 2012

Nothing has yet been mentioned of the fascist dictatorship, even less is currently spoken about the Second Spanish Republic from 1931 -1933, but if a cursory glance is cast, striking similarities can be seen to current events and recurring themes played out, separated by time but very relevant to the history of Spain.

Spain’s economy collapsed after the Wall St crash in 1930. General Primo’s 12 year dictatorship ended when the monarchy and people (who hated his brutal era) lost confidence in the government and elections were held that produced a republican and very anti-catholic majority. The unification of 1851 under the Bourbon (French) monarchy was being undone as King Alphonso XIII abdicated and Catalunya and the Basque became independent regions.

General Franco earned his stripes and became known as “the butcher of Asturias” after his brutal suppression of the miners strike in1933.

In January 1936 new elections were called which confirmed the socialist alliance as the dominant majority, but a series of assassinations and fascist/socialist violence (this is when Hitler and Mussolini were warming up), saw the invasion of Spain by Franco’s North African army. Three years later the civil war was won. General Franco, supported heavily by the catholic church, led a rebellion which systematically crushed the most progressive social and political reforms of the 20th century.

George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia is a wonderful journey through the rag tag war.

A full length film #more-1632?">“Living Utopia – Anarchism in Spain” (subtitled) – details this tumultuous period. It tells and shows an impoverished, hard- working intelligent, society realising the truths of brutal fascism with original footage. (6)

Franco’s victory in 1939 allowed a period of massive reprisals aided by the catholic church. Claiming neutrality gave licence to untold mass murder under the cover of world war 2, including asking Hitler’s Luftwaffe to bomb and destroy Guernica in the Basque region. A bonus was the post war escape from attention afforded many fascists of the time because Franco was now actively butchering the communist leftovers much to the approval of America and the U.K.

The random killings and brutality continued right up to Franco’s death. Many of the prison camps and detention centres remained into the nineties. It was not until the 2004 dumping of Aznar and election of socialist Zapatero that the statues of General Franco were removed from all the major plazas and intersections around Barcelona.

The Falange lives on in Spain. They recently brought a summons against Baltasar Garzon for forcing the recovery of over 100,000 bodies which still remain in mass graves throughout the country. Manuel Rajoy has stopped any federal assistance to the searches. There is a group called the Commission of Historic Memory Recovery (8) which flounders to bring about what is granted in Australia on an “as needs” basis, a human right proudly supported by the government, - to re associate families with their dead/missing relatives. They are not even buried in a foreign country for God’s sake. (4)

The Catholic Church offers no support, preferring to denigrate homosexuality and force the government to reverse abortion rights, access to the morning after pill, and gay marriage. (5) Their [Rajoy’s Peoples Party government] crackdown on public gatherings makes further fascist tendencies obvious.

Last week, Interior Minister Jorge Fernández gave more details: Peaceful resistance will be deemed a form of illegal undermining of authority, punishable with one to three years in jail; the punishment for civil disobedience, which is currently six months to one year in jail, will be increased to two to three years. (2)

The corruption in the judiciary and government is not a one-sided affair. The first socialist government since Franco was ousted because of corruption, and Garzon had prosecuted both socialist, Basque separatist, and conservative, even handedly, as corruption in Spain is endemic, apolitical and established for many reasons.

Banking, Real-Estate and Development corruption in Spain

The banking industry is yet another industry rife with corruption as a servant of the real estate/development industry and is a prime example of the rampant corruption which extends into every one of the three levels of Spanish government – Federal, Regional (autonomous) and local. All Spanish bank board approvals are political appointments, so builders, teachers, cleaners earn board fees for unknowingly approving sub prime loans and not assessing budgets.

Corrupt regional governments have been allowed to finance self agrandisment projects worth hundreds of billions of dollars with help from the E.U. The country was 3rd world when Franco died, just starting a “package holiday” tourist boom initiated by Manuel Fraga which virtually destroyed the Mediterranean coastline. Jose Louis Aznar’s neo conservative economics saw Spain BOOM. The property market rose exponentially from 1996 until in a repeat of the Wall Street crash of 1929, Wall Street crashed in 2008.

European money providing infrastructure projects such as high speed rail, air ports and solar thermal power generation, saw Spain’s investment levels reach record highs and become the center for European tourism and holiday home acquisition. During the Aznar years regional governments such as Valencia's were given carte blanche to go for the tourist dollar. An airport was built at Castellón at a cost of 200 million euros with a 300,000 euro statue of the regional governor at the airport entry. Although completed in 2010 a license to operate has not been issued and the runway has been found to be too narrow to allow international flights to turn round.
There are now 48 airports in Spain, double the number in Germany. Only 11 make a profit. (9)

1 million empty houses and unsalable real-estate

Many reports detail the 1,000,000 empty homes in Spain as well as real estate which is virtually “unsellable”. (10) Caused by the pre-2008 bubble, exactly the same as in the U.S. Iceland and more particularly, Ireland (see below - McCreevy). It has taken 4 years for the true picture to be known.

It has taken 7 months of lies to hide the true extent of Spain’s bankruptcy and finally ask the E.U. for a 100 million euros “bail out.” Meanwhile Spanish bonds have been downgraded to junk as the taxpayer further bears the brunt of sovereign debt totally caused by corruption, speculation, belief in infinite growth and a destruction of the environment.

Socially the results have been disastrous: 25% unemployment, 50% 18 – 25 year unemployment, evictions, general strikes, indefinite miner’s strike in Asturias causing flashbacks to 1933 and Franco’s repression. (This really is war and perhaps people are only just hearing about it (11))

A veil of secrecy has always been part of the Monarchic/fascist/conservative Spanish governments, which fawn on protocol and tradition, and assume an undue respect. Those that experienced the hardships and brutality of the fascist regime, and the prosperity that followed to make Spain the 4th largest economy in Europe and the 10th largest in the world, are fearful of a return to a brutal past which has never been discussed during the “transition to democracy”. The church is very powerful socially and has easy purchase within the Peoples Party.

Time and again corrupt regional governments in Marbella, Valencia, the Balearic Isles, Catalonia and Gallicia were returned in the hope they would keep the “good times rolling”. Never has the average Spaniard experienced such 'wealth creation'. It is now common daily news reporting to hear of a mayor or regional governor in court facing corruption charges, and a recent (June) El Pais article asks “Is something rotten in the state of Spain”. (12)

Rajoy Peoples Party Government ratifying illegal developments and enforcing evictions

The people voted for Rajoy and the Peoples Party knowing that election day was the anniversary of Franco’s death, and a return to “austerity” was already foreshadowed by Rajoy, who was keen to participate in the friendly fascism underway in the Goldman Sachs-ing of Europe. His answer to the 1000’s of houses built and completed illegally on land not zoned for development, is legalization and further destruction of coastal environment. His answer to whole of the building industry cast into unemployment was to enforce evictions.

Rajoy Peoples Party Government trying for another unsustainable housing bubble

His answer to unemployment and the recession, that Spain seems doomed to endure for another 10 years, is to create another bubble, this one courtesy of Las Vegas and Macau gambling multi billionaire Sheldon Adelston and “Euro Vegas” (13) with 6 casinos, thousands of hotel rooms and 18 BILLION euros worth of investment which would reportedly halve Madrid or Barcelona’s unemployment rate. This would add to the already established 30 casinos currently operating in Spain.

The Legacy

A very insightful book has recently been authored by the son of the Republic in Exile post Franco, Nicholas Sanchez-Albornoz. The book is called Prisons and Exiles and revisits Franco when the police caught up with him and his colleagues in the anti-Franco fight. The escape of Sánchez-Albornoz and his fellow prisoner Manuel Lamana from the slave labor practiced at Cuelgamuros near Madrid in 1948 was one of the legends that most damaged Franco.

The Franco regime never conceived of peaceful co-existence among Spaniards without political exile, the period from 1939 to 1942 in which, according to reports from the time, more than 100,000 people were executed. But Sanchez-Albornoz's account is not from that time. It

“begins in 1947, and I am sure there were still firing squads then because I lived through it. The executions lasted until Julián Grimau in 1962, Franco kept killing after the war.”

Sánchez-Albornoz sees the whole 40 year period as ;

“corrupt. Franco's authority rested on two elements: death and punishment, and corruption . . . .

Q./ The regime ended. But when your father returned from exile in 1976, then Interior Minister Manuel Fraga Iribarne prohibited a formal dinner in his honor. So, the regime was still there.
A./ And it is still here today. There is a de facto group, which stands for everything that fuels that dark side of a segment of the Spanish population.”
Q. How do you see this current period?
A. There is a global economic crisis led by the financial system and its abuses, which in the case of Spain has been worsened by a dreadful economic policy created by the PP in its last government (Aznar), to give free reign to the real estate sector, which resulted in a certain level of euphoria at the time. And Zapatero didn't put a stop to it; he didn't know how to burst the bubble. What is alarming in the current situation is the level of improvisation. There is a return to certain Francoist roots in society, and that is worrying. A very unpleasant Spain is surfacing. “ (14)

The remnants of fascist Spain can most easily be seen at peaceful public demonstrations. Tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets are a first response, now demonstrations are being made illegal. (15)

How did Spain's banks survive the 2008 crash? – Basically, endogenous corruption

The Zapatero socialist government introduced many reforms after 2004, including Zapatero's most popular one of withdrawing troops from Iraq as soon as elected, but weakly caved into a laissez-faire ignorance of the bubble. It has recently been discovered that when the execrement hit the fan, Spain’s central bank, the Bank of Spain, had, in the timeless Spanish tradition, been cooking the books.

The full extent of indebtedness was only hinted at when E.U. contagion was considered. Greece’s debt pales into insignificance when compared to the level of debt owed by the Spanish real estate sector. This comprises anything up to half the money the European Financial Stability fund has on its books, just to recapitalise the Spanish banks, whose debt is now seen as “sovereign debt”.

Both socialist and conservative governments have been shamefully responsible for dereliction of duty with the burden of debt. In true Goldman Sachs fashion, they have transferred the debt from the private to the public sector. Rajoy’s PP government has been in complete naïve denial and lied as much as it could to save face, to just kick the can down the road until after summer and the tourists have gone. The full debt is still not known and Rajoy was refusing to call for assistance as recently as the end of May. He is now openly criticized in all European media.

Only 12 months ago he oversaw the privatization of Bankia, Spain’s 4th largest bank. The share float began at 3.69 euros and is now 1 euro.

The end of year 2011 report declared a 40 million plus euro profit which, on independent audit, was revealed to be a 3.3 billion euro LOSS. Bankia has now asked for a 19 BILLION euro bail out. The total “immediate” bail out for the banking sector is said to be 62 BILLION euros, this is excluding the BoS as it would not have enough time to complete the audit until September as “too many staff would be on leave over summer”.

See also a report republished on The Automatic Earth, with a short history of the Spanish debt and how it has been handled internationally. In 2009 Charlie McCreevy, the EU’s commissioner for financial services from 2004 to 2010, who previously had been Ireland’s finance minister, has said that he knew Spain's banks were violating violating International Financial Reporting Standards, but thought it was okay for them to do so.

Too often we fail to see the connection between the ecological destruction and cultural genocide of so-called "developing" nations and the lax immigration policies of those nations like Canada which play host to both the victims and the perpetrators of the tragedy. A look at the relationship between Sarawak's plight and the inflation of real estate values in Ontario, Canada and elsewhere should give us a better understanding of how plunder abroad promotes in-migration here. Canada, by offering an outlet to dirty money and the people who profit from it, must be seen as a willing accomplice and silent partner to a vast money-laundering operation.

Introducing The Godfather of Sarawak

I had a friend, "David", over for 3 hours this past Wednesday night. David, a serious Christian, and an individual of outstanding character, was a CUSO worker in Sarawak four decades ago and returned for a three month visit this winter to re-connect with old friends. Upon his return he treated me to a travelogue more enlightening and thorough than anything you would find on National Geographic program. Among his major concerns was the alarming growth of the Islamic population which is being favored by the patronage of the province's corrupt Minister, and the ominous potential that demographic shift might have for the liberty and security of non-Muslims. Coincidentally, two weeks after listening to David's account and seeing hundreds of his beautifully graphic pictures, I came upon a television documentary about the politics of this region, and invited David to view the recording. It was the 20 minute documentary that Global TV did on the Chief Minister of Sarawak, Abdul Taib Mahmood, and his kleptocracy. David confirmed the truth of most of what was said in the documentary, and was very pleased that two environmental activists in London, England were following the labyrinthine money trail from "Daddy" to his daughter Jamilah Taib Murray, the wife of Canadian Sean Patrick Murray.

The Criminal Rape Of Sarawak’s Rainforest

I was able, in the second viewing, to record several fascinating facts about Jamilah and Sean Murray's real estate investments in Canada, which ironically began in Ottawa. What I found ironic is that Ontario's 'green' Premier Dalton McGuinty, darling of David Suzuki, leads a government with 11 Ministries who pay $4.9 million a year in rent to the Murrays for office space in their building(s). The Murrays---through their "Sakto Corporation"---- own six major commercial properties in Ontario worth over $100 million , money which has its origin in the criminal rape of Sarawak's rain forest and its conversion to palm oil plantations. This is a catastrophe of global significance. One square mile of Sarawak's rainforest contains more biodiversity than all of North America. More than that, in clearing cutting an area the size of England, the logging companies---owned by Taib's family and their political allies (largely ethnic Chinese)----they have obliterated the culture of the Penan people, one of the last nomadic tribes in the world. Many Penan protesters have been overtly killed or have simply disappeared. One of them, now a Canadian resident, spent a month in solitary confinement just for participating in a blockade to stop logging trucks. He walks the streets of a Canadian suburb like a disembodied and broken spirit, stalked by memories of a life spent in a tropical heaven, a heaven that is now rapidly being transformed into hell. As he spoke to the camera, his face was concealed in darkness---a testimony to the ability of Sarawak's "mob boss" to intimidate even the people who, one would think, should be beyond his grasp.

Corruption in Sarawak Finances Real Estate Development Abroad

As the logging has proceeded, the Taib family has grow richer and richer. At least 84% of the shares of Cahya Mata Sarawak (CMS) , a Sarawak-based construction conglomerate with net assets of $760 million (US) are held by Taib’s late wife and his four children Mahmuc Abu Bekir Taib, Sulaiman Rahman Taib, Hanifah Taib and Jamilah. According to Malaysia’s Anti-Corruption Commission, CMS ,“has a track record of receiving untendered public contracts worth millions of dollars and holds a cement monopoly in Malaysia’s largest state...and has also massively benefited from the Bakun dam construction which has been labelled by Transparency International as a ‘monument of corruption’”. A CMS subsidiary “Similajau Industries” has also formed a connection with Rio Tinto Alcan to oversee the an aluminum smelter with the scope to produce up to 1.5 million tons per year.

When Jamilah was a foreign student in Canada in 1983, Daddy the Godfather and Piggy Bank, gave her $23 million to play with, and so began her real estate acquisitions in Ottawa, now extended to America, Britain and elsewhere. In fact the British government is currently looking into alleged Taib family money-laundering in the UK and British offshore financial centres. Through “Ridgeford Properties”, Sean and Jamilah Taib Murray hold luxury properties in Central London estimated to be worth several hundred million pounds. Jamilah is also currently a Director on the boards of some 63 Malaysian companies.

Canada The Land Of Opportunity And The Champion Of Diversity

It warms the heart—doesn’t it---to know that it was Canada, the land of opportunity, which allowed this enterprising immigrant to launch a business empire stretching almost across the globe, fuelled by monies obtained by crony capitalism and the wanton destruction in a faraway tropical land, home to so much biological and human diversity. How ironic that diversity can be destroyed in Sarawak to feed real estate development in a country that brags about its “diversity”.

Dalton McGuinty too can take pride in helping her to grow her business and reward Minister Taib for his program of relentless rainforest destruction. Whatever initiatives McGuinty has taken to reduce carbon emissions in Ontario have been more than offset by the deforestation that has enabled Jamilah to build her empire. With the destruction of this magnificent jungle, the world is not only losing a unique culture, and untold species---including the orangutan---but a carbon sink of similar scope to the Amazonian forest. And Canada, it seems, must make itself a haven for refugees fleeing from these kinds of tragedies, but for the perpetrators and their ill-gotten gains as well. Is this an effective remedy for a problem that is all too common in the "developing" world? In many ways, Sarawak is a microcosm of the world. Greed, corruption, economic disparity, religious friction, environmental degradation and the displacement of indigenous peoples---it is all in play. Perhaps we can attack the problem in another way. A way that would assist both Canada and those who we would want to protect from persecution. Rather than open the door to untold millions of refugees, maybe we should slam the door to the forces of greed, corruption, and destruction that drive them out. Could we not embargo their exports, most especially their exports of corrupt politicians, their family and their fortunes?

Always Follow The Money Trail

Clare Brown --the London-based environmentalist determined to expose Taib's corruption---has been able to shine a light on Taib's activities by pouring through the paper trail of investments. This, I think, is the key to discrediting any group. Thanks to Vivian Krause and Sun Media TV's persistence in showing the fraudulent nature of the David Suzuki Foundation's "charitable" status, Suzuki has been forced to distance himself from his own foundation. And the public is finally waking up to the corporate corruption of environmental groups. The Conservatives--to their credit--- seem determined to prevent green NGOs from taking donations from foreign-owned corporations. Our project, however, is to make the point that environmental NGOs should not be able to take money from ANY corporation, foreign or domestic. Shining a light on the big three (the DSF, the Sierra Club and Nature Conservancy ) and their practice of taking corporate money should be key to our effort to question their failure to address the profoundly negative impact of mass immigration---and their integrity. How does this smell: the Sierra Club of Western Canada has accepted money from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RFB) to protest the oil sands development and Enbridge pipelines. How interesting. Jay Rockefeller, a major donor to the RFB, is the long-time Governor and now senior Senator of West Virginia, one of the biggest coal-producing states in America, supplying coal for electricity generation to two dozen other states. According to Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria, the burning of coal is 40 times more impactful than the burning of oil in terms of green house gas emissions, not to mention its medical effects. It seems that environmental groups are willing pawns of a corporate game that is less motivated by genuine concerns about the environment than deflecting attention from the damage they are doing in their own backyard. Shades of the East India Company, which supported Wilberforce's campaign to end slavery in order to undercut their chief rival in tea production---the West Indian slave plantations.

Scratch a noble cause and you find a mercenary motive.....

Green Inc. And “Green” Corporations---A Partnership Made In Hell

It is high time that the public come to understand that Green Inc. and the corporations that fund them are first and foremost a business. In return for the funding that maintains their paid bureaucracy and sustains their relentless quest for more and more donations, environmental NGOs give corporations what they crave---ecological dispensation, the seal of approval that they can wave on their websites and brochures as proof of their corporate "responsibility". Meanwhile, they can lobby for higher immigration quotas and aggressive outreach initiatives to recruit the foreign labour they want to fuel their drive to drill, mine and develop at an ever quickening pace----secure in the knowledge that they have bought the silence of their 'kept women' in the DSF and the Sierra Club and Nature Conservancy.

The Moral Stench Of Canada’s Growth Lobby

Canada is the Chicago of the 1920s writ large. It's bipartisan immigration policy is like a numbers racket where everyone from the cop on the beat to the politicians at City Hall get a "piece of the action". Environmental NGOs must be regarded as key constituents of the Growth Lobby, every bit as important to the team as are the slimy immigration lawyers, the cheap labour employers, the big banks, the Puppet Intelligentsia in academia and the CBC, which like the ethno-cultural organizations, feed off the taxpayer tit while they tirelessly work to undermine our country. Together they form a stew of putrid slime that has no equivalent except what one would see while peering through the hole of a outhouse. Next time you're in a Provincial Park and nature calls, take a whiff. That, my friend, is the foul stench of Canada's Immigration Industry---an industry that is fully complicit in the rape of Sarawak and regions like it across the world.

Tim Murray
May 4, 2012

Public housing’s operating model is unsustainable. Costs are outstripping rental income and the division is forecast to be in deficit in 2012–13. Full report here.

Ed. Never have we had more developers and more draconian laws passed to interfere with citizens environments and rights to shelter. We are working harder and harder for less and less. Where once one wage would buy a home for a family, these days two people working full time are more likely to leave their home to the bank than to their children. Workers cottages with gardens are now the goals of socially aspiring professionals. Workers and the unemployed have fewer and fewer choices and more and more sleep rough. That public housing has been allowed to get into such a mess while the private sector runs the country is another piece of evidence - if you needed it - that Victoria is corrupt and a democracy in name only. This has been so since Kennett and did not improve with Labor and will not improve with the Liberals. We need many independents and a free (non-corporate) press to promote them.

The state and future of public housing

Public housing is facing major challenges, including growing demand due to reduced housing affordability, more tenants with complex needs, ageing infrastructure and high maintenance costs. Meeting these challenges to provide access to public housing now and into the future requires decisive direction and a sustainable operating model.
Conclusion

Public housing is operating unsustainably and without direction. The Department of Human Services’ (DHS) Housing and Community Building Division (the division) has been slow and short-sighted in responding to a changing operating environment. Despite DHS and the departments of Treasury and Finance and Premier and Cabinet awareness of the problem for at least six years, sustainable solutions are yet to materialise. New directions now being developed through the housing framework must innovate and unlock portfolio value to assure viable public housing in the future.
Findings

Public housing’s operating model is unsustainable. Costs are outstripping rental income and the division is forecast to be in deficit in 2012–13.
The division’s short-term strategies to address the financial position have deferred and compounded the problem.
The asset base is deteriorating, with an estimated 10 000 properties reaching obsolescence.
The division has not articulated long-term objectives or plans for public housing.
A housing framework is being developed but it is not yet clear how it will support public housing sustainability.

Recommendations

The Department of Human Services should:

develop and apply options to overcome the unsustainable operating model
assess its operational efficiency and role in public housing
develop a long-term plan for public housing with clear objectives.

Source: Victorian Auditor General:
"Access to Public Housing."

"Oakeshott has been very vocal about the need to "challenge the power of money in politics" yet he seems to have been strongly influenced by the desperate native forest logging industry to support forest furnaces. We are very disappointed with his actions on this." (Prue Acton, Australian Forests and Climate Alliance.)

Australia's forests and wildlife had a desperately narrow escape from an increase in destruction today when Parliament voted not to subsidise the urning of native forest wood for electricity. The vote was 72-72, with Speaker Peter Slipper casting the final 'no' vote to Rob Oakeshott's motion.

The Australian Forests and Climate Alliance said it had succeeded, native forest wood burnt for electricity would have received the government's Renewable Energy Certificates. This would have provided a huge financial incentive for a vastly expanded logging of native forests.

Greens and Independent Tony Windsor

"The Greens and independent MP Tony Windsor had pivotal roles in supporting the protection of the Labor government's Clean Energy Bill and ensuring that our native forests will not be burnt as phony "renewable energy", said Prue Acton from AFCA.

Ms Acton said that Oakeshott's back flip on his previous support fo excluding native forests as "renewable energy" in the Clean Energy Bill came about after he was lobbied by Douglas Head, a local mill owner and forme National Party Electorate Council Chairman.

"Douglas Head, of Kempsey-based Australian Solar Timbers in Oakeshott's electorate, is also a past President of the National Association of Forest Industries lobby group" said Ms Acton.

"The export woodchip industry that has been driving destruction of Australia's native forests for the past 40 years is now faltering so companies like Boral, SEFE, Nippon Paper and Ta Ann are desperate for a new perverse market for "waste woodchips" so they can continue to log our public forests" said Ms Acton.

"Oakeshott has been very vocal about the need to "challenge the power of money in politics" yet he seems to have been strongly influenced by the desperate native forest logging industry to support forest furnaces. We are very disappointed with his actions on this." she said.

"Renewable energy credits will now go to genuine clean renewable energy rather than subsidising the clear-felling and burning of our native forests.

Logging is a massive source of carbon pollution. We need to protect our forests, not burn them." concluded Ms Acton.

For comment:
Prue Acton 0419 393 203 or 0264945144
Jill Redwood 0351540145
Lorraine Bower 0414958714 or 0280688805

Jill Redwood
Coordinator
Environment East Gippsland
Locked Bag 3
ORBOST 3888
ph (03) 5154 0145

www.eastgippsland.net.au

East Gippsland - our breathing space!

Source: 19th March, 2012, Media Release, Australian Forests and Climate Alliance

Feb. 6, 2012 - Last Wednesday, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Josh Fox was arrested after refusing requests from Republican committee members to leave a hearing on hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." The hearing focused on a recent EPA report that suggested that hydraulic fracturing methods of extracting natural gas most likely caused contamination of drinking water in Wyoming.

The filmmaker, a noted critic of hydraulic fracturing, was removed after Republican members of the
Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee asked his camera crew to leave the hearing because they were not accredited. Mr. Fox refused to leave and was arrested for "unlawful entry." The hearing continued despite the excitement, with Republicans questioning the scientific rigor of the report and Democrats and EPA official Jim Martin defending it.

The process of hydraulic fracturing has been heavily criticized by environmental groups because of its potential to contaminate drinking water, while representatives of the natural gas industry have repeatedly claimed that it is safe.

MapLight has conducted an analysis of campaign contributions to members of the House Science Subcommittee on Energy and Environment from interest groups representing Oil & Gas,
Natural gas transmission & distribution, Major (multinational) oil & gas producers and Independent oil & gas producers as well as Environmental policy and Alternative energy production & services.

• Interest groups connected to natural gas industries have given a total of $199,808 to members of the subcommittee, with 90% of those contributions going to Republican subcommittee members.
• Republican subcommittee members received 9.2 times as much ($180,308) from interest groups connected to the natural gas industry as did Democratic members ($19,500) of the subcommittee.
• Interest groups representing environmental policy and alternative energy have given a total of $99,568 to members of the subcommittee, with 93% of those contributions going to Democratic subcommittee members.
• Democratic subcommittee members received 14.3 times as much ($93,068) from environmental and alternative energy interest groups as did Republican members ($6,500) of the subcommittee.
• Republican subcommittee members received 94% more from interest groups representing the natural gas industry than Democratic subcommittee members received from environmental and alternative energy interest groups.

METHODOLOGY: Includes reported contributions to congressional campaigns of Members of the House Science Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, including Ex Officio members, in office during the 112th U.S. Congress, from
Oil & gas, Natural gas transmission & distribution, Major (multinational) oil & gas producers, Independent oil & gas producers, Environmental policy and Alternative energy production & services interest groups selected by MapLight, July 1, 2009 - June 30, 2011. Contributions data source:
OpenSecrets.org.

A link to this data release can be found
here.

MapLight is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that reveals money's influence on politics.

Media Contact:

Pamela Heisey

c: 415-299-0898 | w: 510-868-0894 | e:

Connect with MapLight on
Twitter and
Facebook.

Increasing private-public partnerships, contracting out, privatisation, creation of authorities 'outside government' etc over the past 20 years in Victoria "has led to a steady erosion of accountability to Parliament and the public, as these services and the public monies that fund them fall outside existing accountability frameworks and the mandate of this office." (Auditor General, Victoria) The forward plan also notes concerns about population growth and food security.

On Tuesday 24 May 2011 Victoria's Auditor-General, Des Pearson, tabled his Annual Plan for 2011-12 today in the Victorian Parliament.

The Annual Plan contains details of areas of audit interest for 2011-12, and a forward program of proposed audits for 2012-13 to 2014-15. Among these, are plans for ammendments to the Audit Act 1994[1]. Below we cite from that document, although some of the headings are from the editors of candobetter.net.

Amendments to the Audit Act 1994 are needed

Over the past 20 years, Victoria has seen an increase in the ‘arms-length’ delivery of public services through the private and community sectors. There has been increased private sector involvement in the delivery of public services through arrangements such as outsourcing and public private partnerships. There has also been a trend to create new legal entities ‘outside government’, such as companies, associations and statutory bodies, allowing these entities to access broader revenue sources and more flexible governance regimes.

Steady erosion of accountability

"This has led to a steady erosion of accountability to Parliament and the public, as these services and the public monies that fund them fall outside existing accountability frameworks and the mandate of this office.

Responding to these changes in the way government delivers services, the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC) held an inquiry last year into the Act.[2]

VAGO made several representations to the inquiry, including a formal submission.

The all-party report of this Parliamentary Inquiry made wide-ranging recommendations, seeking to prevent the erosion of public sector accountability, strengthen the independence of VAGO and update the Act to reflect contemporary trends.

PAEC unanimously recommended measures to:

• ‘close the gap’ on entities currently outside Parliament’s audit mandate
• allow access to public sector information held by private sector contractors
• introduce annual audits of performance statements and management controls
• enable joint audits with other Australian auditors-general
• improve the effectiveness of external performance audits of VAGO
• ensure agency comment included in our reports to Parliament is accurate, balanced and substantiated.

Urgent Need to repair the Audit Mandate

As indicated in our Annual Plan 2010–11, the Act is in urgent need of reform.

Auditor General needs access to public information held by private sector contractors

In April 2011, the government tabled its response to PAEC’s recommendations. The government response included support in principle for some of the key recommendations; in particular access to public sector information held by private sector contractors and ‘closing the gap’. A number of other recommendations were also supported.

Given the importance of the need to repair the audit mandate, a number of technical and legal issues will need to be discussed further with government as it considers how any amendments should proceed. VAGO looks forward to a strong role in the further development of amendments to the Act.

Population growth and diminishing oil supplies

Our scanning during development of the 2011–12 Annual Plan reconfirmed climate change and the environment; the ageing of our population; risks to sustainable development from diminishing oil supplies; population growth; and the continuing need
for transparency and accountability, as major challenges for government in coming years. In addition, the Council of Australian Governments Reform Agenda continues to affect the scheduling and focus of our program of performance audits, particularly in the health sector. [3]

[Candobetter.net Editor:] From reading this report, notably the attachments from page 58, it seems that in 2009 the Auditor-General looked into Victoria's food security and concluded that there were no significant risks. Since then, however, the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC) has suggested that the matter be revisited, i.e. that food security may now be an issue.

"The Committee supports the Auditor-General's commitment to environmental scanning of issues and understands this underpins the Office's multi-year audit program. The Committee considers therefore, it would be beneficial if the Auditor-General's Office updated its research with relevant information on food security from 2010 and 2011 prior to scopint this audit to consider more recent research on issues surrounding food security." (PAEC)

The Victorian Auditor General responds on page 60 by noting the PAEC's comments and undertakes to consider food security in the audit research and scoping. Here the Auditor General also agrees, "As advised in the conduct of its annual planning function, VAGO will continue to, consider issues such as population growth and its impact on current and future service delivery and public sector activity."

NOTES

Source of material in this article: http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/reports_and_publications/annual_plan.aspx

[1] "1.3 Amendments to the Audit Act 1994,"http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/reports_and_publications/annual_plan.aspx, p.3.

[2] "The former government sought to consolidate accountability arrangements for public bodies under one Act. The Public Finance and Accountability Bill 2009 was introduced into Parliament in December 2009, however, the Bill lapsed without being passed through the Upper House when Parliament was prorogued in October 2010. Any further progress on these reforms will be dependent upon the new government’s priorities." http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/reports_and_publications/annual_plan.aspx ,p1.

[3] http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/reports_and_publications/annual_plan.aspx, p.4.

Here is some documentation for the 18 May 2011 PAEC discussion on Energy and Resources by the way: Hansard proof report - not for quoting - http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/committees/paec/2011-12_Budget_Estimates/Presentations/Energy_and_Resources_presentation.pdf/Energy_and_Resources_presentation.pdf

From the point of view of many humans, the term "natural disaster" is a convenient scapegoat because it allow a person (or a whole nation) to blame nature for their own poor planning. From Natural News. Originally republished on this site here amongst comments relating to the Queensland floods.

From the point of view of many humans, the term "natural disaster" is a convenient scapegoat because it allow a person (or a whole nation) to blame nature for their own poor planning.

From Natural News. Originally republished on this site here amongst comments relating to the Queensland floods.

When a volcano blows and causes widespread destruction beyond what anyone could have reasonably foreseen -- such as Mt St Helens in the 1980's -- that's a legitimate natural disaster. But getting wiped out by a flood because you built your house right in the flood path of a local river is not a natural disaster.

Rebuilding the low-lying regions of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina is a perfect example of mankind just begging to be hit with yet another "natural disaster." It doesn't take a genius to figure out that some time in the next 50 years, a category five hurricane is going to strike New Orleans yet again and reclaim the very same regions that technically belong under water as part of the Gulf of Mexico.

Another example is when people build their homes in a giant forest, surrounded by trees, and then they seem surprised when those trees catch on fire and burn their homes to the ground. Did they really think that trees never burn? Most fires are caused by people, and thinning of forests by logging and developments, and more people, means more chances of fires.

Most "natural" disasters are actually caused by poor human planning. The cattle rancher who buys 500 acres of forest and then clear-cuts the trees to make room for cattle grazing (Brazil, anyone?) doesn't usually consider the fact that they have now removed the rainfall / water buffer zone that protected their lands from floods and erosion.

Not all floods are the fault of the people affected by them, of course. There are huge floods happening right now in Brisbane. In that case, it means the victims of the floods in Brisbane are suffering through no fault of their own but rather as a result of some destructive global influences on the planet's weather systems.

Just watch in amazement over the next twelve months as many Australians rebuild homes right back in the same exact locations devastated by this flood. It's not a characteristic of good planning.

Watch in amazement over the next twelve months as many Australians rebuild homes right back in the same exact locations devastated by this flood. It's not a characteristic of good planning.

What "natural disasters" are coming next due to poor human planning?

• It won't be too long before our food crops suffer a genetic pollution disaster due to the widespread use of GMOs.
• The massive life extinction event occurring right now on our planet will ultimately be traced largely to the mass chemical contamination of the world with pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals, food additives and synthetic chemicals in consumer products.
• The next great dust bowl will strike within twenty years as abused, over-farmed soils continue to erode, transforming many food-producing regions of the world into food deserts
• The global use of fossil water -- especially in India -- will soon meet a geologic limit, causing widespread drought and desertification.
• The massive loss of food pollinators will accelerate, ultimately leading to emergency shortages of pollinators and a detrimental impact on the global food supply.

Humans continue to blame Nature (or God) instead of looking at the real source of these problems: Ignorant "scientific" progress and boundless human expansion!

The upshot is that many "natural disasters" are really only disasters from the point of view of people who don't respect nature in the first place.

While people have confidence that Technology and scientific advancements will solve the world's problems - energy, famine, water shortages, overpopulation, overconsumption, climate change - in reality, little has been achieved to alleviate true natural disasters. The powers of Nature can't be halted or harnessed, and true natural disasters will continue due to our planet's dynamic nature.

With population growth, more people will be forced to live in the extremities of our world, and the changes taking place to it's environments will ensure that lack of planning and environmental illiteracy will cause more so-called mass "natural disasters".

Read more on the web site.

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In and around Brisbane (population approximately 911,000), the worst flooding this century occurred during the Australia Day holiday weekend (25-29 January 1974). At least 6,700 homes were partially or totally flooded in the Brisbane metropolitan area and floodwaters entered the gardens of about 6,000 other houses.

A snapshot of the planning strategy for Brisbane to deal with massive population growth expected (ie planned, socially engineered) over the next 20 years shows high-rise development spreading to the outer suburbs, with concentrations of towers around transport nodes.

Queensland needs to build more than 900,000 new houses and units in the next 21 years to meet projected (targeted) population growth. Our "ageing population" threat needs to be addressed by more people!

This growth is expected to continue. The Queensland Government’s South East Queensland Regional Plan requires Brisbane to accommodate an additional 145,000 dwellings by 2026.

Be it a sustainable Australia, capping migration, or turning back the boats, population is one of the issues that was discussed during the Federal Election campaign. Brisbane's Lord Mayor Campbell Newman is critical of the debate so far and has a different approach to population and growth. Using his city of Brisbane as an example, he says growth has made it a far better place than it was 20 years ago and if the challenges of congestion and infrastructure were addressed, the national conversation would be different.

Human and economic needs can collide. "Better place to live" is subjective, depending on values being held.

The best way to avoid natural disasters is to learn to live in greater harmony with the nature world, respecting its natural cycles of "destruction" which are actually crucial to life on Earth.

Please see nimby's comment. - Editor

See also: Forum discussion - Water policy after the flood, Crowded Flood-path: Lockyer-Valley, Wivenhoe Dam and Brisbane, Queensland, Australia 2011, Cost of Queensland floods made worse by government policy on land-use planning and population by Sheila Newman, Council rates system destroys urban rainforest and community in Brisbane by Geoffrey Taylor.

Congratulations Jill Redwood, leader of Environment East Gippsland! In a landmark decision today, the Supreme Court has found that the government has a responsibility to look for and protect endangered wildlife before logging in the contentious Brown Mountain forests of East Gippsland. “This judgment has implications for all native forests that are set to be destroyed by logging,” said EEG spokesperson Jill Redwood. “If we hadn’t sued VicForests, Brown Mountain would have been illegally logged by now. And Brown Mountain is just one area. The government is logging publicly owned forests every day without endangered species surveys.”
EEG Website for more updates
To find out more about the history of this battle, which has demanded so much courage and committment from people like Jill Redwood and those who fight with her, see the section: Brown Mountain in Candobetter

Landmark decision enforces law to defend animals and trees

In a landmark decision today, the Supreme Court has found that the government has a responsibility to look for and protect endangered wildlife before logging in the contentious Brown Mountain forests of East Gippsland.

“This judgment has implications for all native forests that are set to be destroyed by logging,” said EEG spokesperson Jill Redwood.

Decision shows the battle was just and necessary

“If we hadn’t sued VicForests, Brown Mountain would have been illegally logged by now. And Brown Mountain is just one area. The government is logging publicly owned forests every day without endangered species surveys.”

“We are calling on the government to respect the judgment by stopping logging in native forests that may contain rare wildlife, until the full implications of this judgment are examined.”

“VicForests, the Government-owned logging monopoly, has a legal responsibility to protect endangered wildlife. They can’t just go in and log blindfolded.”

“Victorians have always known native forest logging is immoral, uneconomic, unaccountable, unsustainable and unpopular. Today we’ve proved that where endangered species are present, or likely to be present, it’s potentially illegal as well”.

Will the Victorian Government try to defy the courts as well as the law now?

“This extraordinary court case isn’t just about protecting Brown Mountain’s rich and ancient ark of rare wildlife; it’s about forcing the government to abide by its laws as anyone else would”, said Ms Redwood.

“This represents a win for the state’s rare forest dependent wildlife. It’s also a win for all Australians who are concerned about the environment.”

Next danger may be Government attempt to change laws to suit itself

Environment groups are now concerned that the government may attempt to alter the laws to allow the destruction of endangered species habitat, as happened in Tasmania in 2008.

“The government must now honour the law, not alter it”, said Ms Redwood.

Forest supporters will gather at Victorian parliament tomorrow at 1pm, to ask the Environment Minister, Shadow Environment Minister and Greens for their response to the judgment.

For comment:

Jill Redwood – EEG Convenor

Liz Ingham – EEG Secretary -
Vanessa Bleyer – solicitor for EEG –

For those who follow the stock exchange, building materials share values are the key to the boom and bust cycle of Australian (and similar systems) property, infrastructure and construction booms. When building materials values go down we know that overall market demand decline has settled in. It means that the developers and engineers have reduced their forward orders for bricks and mortar. At the same time Australian state governments have been told to reduce their own little-known immigrant-sponsorship programs.

ALP Investments

Are business forecasts another key to Julia Gillard's apparent sea-change in population policy and Rudd's disappearance?
The ALP doesn't rely on mere donations from developers; it has its own huge investments in finance, insurance, mining, development and property, which act as a barometer for the benefits of growth. Could ALP investments and other big business now be warning the Labor Government that construction will no longer be able to soak up immigrants? Sure, pumping up population pumps up demand, but only if there is money to invest. Problem is that the money seems to be drying up.

Boral pulling up sticks

Building materials giant, Boral, long a veteran investor in Australian population growth and an early vocal member of the 20th century Australian population growth lobby, is downsizing some of its Australian and US operations and heading north, presumably scavenging the last inertias of scale in the post-colonial malignant growth of China, India and South East Asian regions.[1]

The Australian Financial Review reported that Boral made a $49 million loss before interest and taxation in the first half of 2010.[1]

The most tasteless era of ostentatious spending on multi-management layers wining and dining big projects and buyers since the one preceding the Great Depression may be on its last legs. The US housing market has gone phutt. The Australian market will follow.

And Boral shares, running at around $10 in 2006, are now about half that.

"Deutsche Bank believes that although Boral's Australian construction materials arm has been one of its strongest-performing divisions, with earnings before interest and taxation up 12 per cent to $107 million in the first half, it could easily cut some $14 million in costs by eliminating several layers of management." [1]

This will be a relief for less exalted workers and managers in the sector. Survival is possible in such industries if they follow the post 1970s oil-shock European model of maintaining infrastructure and housing stock instead of investing in population and construction growth. However, there won't be room for wedding-cake management tiers.

States told to cut their 'secret' immigration programs

Another sign of terminal decline in bricks and mortar bubbles is the new Federal Government's request to the states to cut back their semi-secret immigration programs, including the 176 visas.[2] The states control land and derive income from its sale, notably through stamp duty. To generate land and housing sales they have been engineering population growth, in tandem with property developers and financiers. The associated state-sponsored immigration programs seem to have started in Victoria and are the most excessive there. Introduced by the Kennett government, one of their ploys was to make a low profile category of 'regional immigration' (once designed to assist low-population rural areas by facilitating skilled immigration and loosening definitions of family reunion) into one that applied everywhere, designating dense urban areas as in need of immigration. Long and short-term immigration in numbers previously unimagined has generated a demand for housing and jobs in construction. The same immigration probably supplies many of those non-English speaking construction-workers one sees moving like ants on roadways and tragically moon-scaped once green patches in Australian suburbs, carrying out orders at which most locals would bawk, if in control of the process.

State government spokespeople, including growth-corridor spruikers, have repeatedly claimed that immigration numbers were outside of their control, yet the states advertised aggressively for immigrants. See these articles, for instance: "Premier Bligh pretends Queenslanders cannot cap population growth although 60% want to" and "Melbourne 2008, Life in a destruction zone" and "Julianne Bell delivers resolutions to Planning Minister Madden in late impromptu meeting."

Yet the State Premiers continue to try to mislead the public on this, even subsequent to Gillard's new policies:

"We can't control who comes over our state borders, but the federal government can control who comes into Australia," (Anna Bligh) [3]

Tragically and wastefully the tendency of state governments to deny reality may see green wedges rezoned and destroyed even at this stage of construction detumescence by parliamentary rogues. See for instance, http://candobetter.org/node/2058 and http://candobetter.org/node/2067 Yet it may all be for nothing; those wedges might be sold at a financial loss in the end.

Women in power

We may gauge the panic of big business to the idea of a real debate on population through its mainstream media mouthpieces' hopeful perseveration with tying that rusty and irrelevant old racist can to the idea of sustainable population and Julia Gillard, reflected for instance, in this glowing chestnut where Gillard's red hair provides a cliched motif:

"Who can forget the last redhead to talk tough on immigration and protecting Australian values?

and "This isn't just about talking to voters in western Sydney but also in Queensland, which gave rise to Hansonism. Maintaining seats there is shaping as a major challenge in the federal election."[4]

The comments above evoke the medieval European stigmatisation of red-heads, not to mention witch-hunting. Starting with the new Primeminister, women in Australia may be in for an interesting time as the boys start fighting over the scraps, in the property sector and government.

Notes

[1] Jeremy Wiggins, "Boral set to offload dead wood," Australian Financial Review, 28 June, 2010, page 1.
[2] Sophie Morris, "States' visas blunt skills thrust: Migration," Australian Financial Review, 28 June, 2010, page 8.
[3] Marcus Priest, "Values, being sustainable are the keys: Population,"Australian Financial Review, 28 June, 2010, page 8.
[4]Marcus Priest, "Lurching to the right on boat people: Comment," Australian Financial Review, page 8.

Schapelle Corby was falsely convicted by the corrupt Indonesian judicial system for the ludicrous crime of having smuggled Marijuhana worth $35,000 in Australia to a country in which it would have been worth $5,000. Having been cynically abandoned by the successive Howard and Rudd Governments, she is now to be transferred away from the life-sustaining support she now receives from her sister Mercedes, a resident of Bali, to a prison in Java.

The following is taken from a promotion for 1 April issue of Woman's Day.

There are new fears for her life with a top secret plan to transfer her from her Bali jail to a remote prison in Java, reports Corby biographer Kathryn Bonella. The nightmare Schapelle Corby has been fearing for the past five years is now a reality, as a secret document outlining her transfer to a new faraway prison has been leaked exclusively to Woman's Day.

The document, from the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights, confirms Schapelle’s worst fears that she will be taken away from her lifeline of family and friends and forced to move to a remote East Javanese jail.

"Hereby ordering the Head of Kerobokan Detention Centre, Denpasar, Bali, to carry out the transfer of the convict in the name of Sceppele (sic) Corby … to be transferred to Women’s Detention Centre in Malang, East Java. The order becomes effective from the date the transfer is signed."

For the full story, including Mercedes Corby's exclusive interview with Woman's Day and the impact this move will have on Schapelle's unstable state, see this week's Woman's Day, on sale April 1, 2010.

Your Say: Do you think this move is necessary? Will this move destroy Schapelle? Share your thoughts below.

Editorial Comment: I wasn't able on my Firefox browser to find where to post my thoughts, although I did vote. Currently 5283 or 69% of the respondents want Schapelle to be brought home and 2337 or 31% think that she should remain in Indonesia. It the Australian newsmedia reported the evidence of Schapelle's innocence, the figure would be much higher still. The Woman's Day story appears to be an unusually sympathetic treatment of Schapelle by the Australian newsmedia. The treatment has otherwise been shameful.

What you can do: Vote for Schapelle to be returned home to Australia in an online Women's Day poll.

See also: freeschapelle.com.au and forum, Women for Schapelle on Facebook, A selective capacity for human compassion? of 24 Feb 10.

Article originally published as "Resistance Growing to Ecologically Devastating Chinese Mining Invasion of Madang, Papua New Guinea" on rainforestportal.org o 1 Apr 10. What you can do: e-mail China Metallurgical Construction Corporation to let them know of your objection to their invasion of Madang.

Article originally published as "Resistance Growing to Ecologically Devastating Chinese Mining Invasion of Madang, Papua New Guinea" on rainforestportal.org o 1 Apr 10.

The Ramu mine's 134 km long pipeline which ultimately dumps
waste directly on the seabed is easily prone to damage from
landslides or sabotage. Local peoples are protesting the
potential damage to their land, seas and way of life. (link)

Chinese government owned China Metallurgical Construction (MCC) Corp. efforts to establish the massively destructive Ramu Nickel mine in Madang Province, Papua New Guinea -- the largest investment in metal exploration and mining by the Chinese outside of China -- is in serious jeopardy. Local landowners are initiating court cases and protests to demand the mine be stopped. The nearly completed Ramu project will mine nickel and cobalt ore at Kurumbukari -- which is located in the foothills of the Bismarck Ranges approximately 75km south west of the provincial capital of Madang. Topsoil will be scraped off a mountainous area and then the nickel-bearing soil will be mixed with water and the slurry sent down a 135 km pipeline through heavy rainforests to an ore refinery and treatment plant at pristine Basamuk Bay on the Bismarck Sea.  The ore will then be shipped to China, and the waste -- some 100 million tons over 20 years-- dumped directly into the sea.

The Ramu Mine's waste tailings will poison fish stocks and cause extreme ecological destruction of the seabed. Although the mining company describes the tailings disposal as "deep sea", tailings will be dumped at a depth of only 150 metres. Tailings will not be covered or otherwise secured -- rather they will simply be pumped out of the end of a pipeline and allowed to spread freely through spectacular Astrolabe Bay. Almost certainly the tailings will not remain where they are placed, and will spread widely in one of the last intact tuna fisheries globally. With work on the overland pipeline completed, the Chinese are now planning a series of underwater explosions to blast a way through coral reefs for the undersea section of the pipe.

Despite competing and still unresolved communal land right claims, the Kurumbukari people at the mine site have been devastated by their forced removal from their ancestral lands by police operating on behalf of MCC. People all along the project are extremely anxious about the ecological and social impact of the mine in their area, and the blatant corruption. They worry the mine will devastate the Ramu river, that the shoddy pipeline will leak - devastating rainforests and communities, and that the seabed tailings disposal will destroy their abundant marine resources. Local peoples feel impotent in the face of the ruthless indifference of the Chinese to PNG law, and the corruption of the national and local politicians who are lining their own pockets at the expense of Madang landowners.

MCC - managed by the local subsidiary Ramu Nico - was about to start blasting coral reefs to allow the laying of the tailings pipeline, when a court decision last week - on a case brought by local landowners - granted a temporary injunction stopping pipeline construction and work on the mine's seabed tailings disposal system. During court proceedings hundreds of landowners and local people protested peacefully outside the court house by holding placards showing their dismay, and were not intimidated by a heavy police presence. Representative signs read "Madang not China". "No Blasting, No dumping", and "Where is Justice?". Many countries have banned the dumping of mine waste in the sea, but Wari Iamo -- the deeply corrupted Secretary of the Department of Environment and Conservation -- has deemed it okay in Papua New Guinea.  MCC is to return to court in Madang on April 12.

The entire project has been mismanaged, marked by shoddy construction; and disregard for local rights, life, and marine and rainforest ecology. Recently a devastating fire at the mine site caused the destruction of the kitchen as plastic pipes that were used to feed diesel fuel to the kitchen melted. Sexually transmitted diseases are rampant as Chinese workers have forced prostitution and even rape upon local women. Construction work has already destroyed local drinking water supplies. Lack of drainage and retaining walls along the shoddy pipeline have already caused large landslips and blockage of the only highway into the province. The pipeline is extremely vulnerable to sabotage by disgruntled local peoples.

Papua New Guinea is not a brutal communist dictatorship, but a liberal democracy where free speech and human rights are respected and enshrined constitutionally. China's rising influence in PNG threatens the country's freedom of religion, speech and land rights. The mine was conceived in the capital Port Moresby and is being forced upon local peoples without prior and informed consent. It has been alleged in local media that MCC recently provided USD 10 million to the government of Michael Somare to defend itself against a vote of no confidence, and additional huge bribes have routinely been made previously throughout the approval and construction processes. A leading Papua New Guinea geologist says the Ramu Nickel mine has been massively undervalued -- that it was sold to the Chinese for just 5% of its true value, and is worth $US34 billion and not $US1.7 billion This is another example of the "broad daylight rape" and exploitation of Papua New Guinea's resources -- already evident in Madang with grossly inappropriate foreign owned, industrial tuna and timber projects. Chinese mining investment in Madang against local wishes can only be described as an invasion of sovereign peoples, and will be resisted at all costs.

What you can do: e-mail China Metallurgical Construction Corporation to let them know of your objection to their invasion of Madang.