This map is to give more detail for an article about the intention by the Labor Government to sell off the South East Outfall, which is a very large piece of public land that would create a perfect wildlife corridor as a complement to those fragments currently on private land, which also need to be joined. The map may stretch across print on this page, but the article associated with the map is at /node/5454
I found what struck me personally as egregious growthist propaganda dressed up as an academic research article on The Conversation, yesterday: "Blaming immigrants for unemployment, lower wages and high house prices is too simplistic." [February 23, 2018 11.26am AEDT]. The article was headed up by professor of economics, Robert Breunig from the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, and co-authored by Mark Fabian, Postgraduate student, Australian National University. Professor Breunig disclosed that he receives funding from the Productivity Commission, which I think is a leopard with continuously changing arrangement of spots according to whatever political background it needs to blend into for survival. Leith van Onselen's debate with Migration Council's CEO Carla Wilshire of the on the ABC’s National Wrapdocumented here, seems to illustrate this, but for all I know the professor and his student actually believe what they write.
Criticising ex-PM Tony Abbott's extremely belated calls for reducing Australia's immigration-fed overpopulation problems, Breunig and Fabian write, “But migrants also bring capital, investing in houses, appliances, businesses, education and many other things. This increases economic activity and the number of jobs available.” It sounds like they are describing molecules in a heated gas.
Increasing economic activity increases impact on our environment and politically disempowers us. Massive population growth in this country is removing our choices of what we can buy with money, whilst inflating the cost of the reduced amenity and shelter that population growth is causing. That's impoverishing. Just on the business side, the cost of premises and paying wages so that employees can afford housing makes Australian businesses globally uncompetitive and provides an explanation for their mysteriously high rate of failure.
I am going to talk about how changes to laws and standards as to how our natural environment and urban spaces are treated and our rights within them are taking place without any meaningful public discussion or empowerment in order to allow growth to proceed.
Breunig and Fabian's article completely ignores the beautiful non-human environment we have in Australia, the green bits of which are being cut up into biogeographical islands, then paved over, subdivided and sold for ever higher monetary value. I suspect this failure to engage with nature is because its writers currently live in a bubble and simply don’t know or care about wildlife or green spaces or have compartmentalised this reality. So they are writing without my values or those of many other Australians or the values that attracted many immigrants.
Although there are laws for the protection of wildlife in this country, they are simply not applied. This is one reason that population growth can continue, for the recently beefed up Prevention of Cruelty Act 1986, the Fauna and Flora Guarantee Act 1988 and the Catchment and Land Protection Act 1994 would otherwise prevent the big business and government agenda for a big human population and infrastructure expansion.
I am, however, acutely aware, because I am involved personally, of how various authorities and contractors are expecting local wildlife carers and rescuers to clean up the huge callous mess and damage to flesh and blood that they are causing. Carers and rescuers are paying for artifical nests, feeding, nursing and medicating so many injured and displaced animals. Then those carers have to find some other place to release them, as habitat is destroyed all around them, whilst people like the authors of this article I am commenting on are claiming that the only problem about housing is failure to release land. We on this side of reality are fighting to stop the ‘release’ of land to bitumen and profit for a few in the growth lobby. (I am also qualified to talk about the growth lobby because I was the first person to write about it in Australia in a 2002 thesis - The Growth lobby in Australia and its Absence in France - which compared our system to the French one, which latter costs population growth as a cost to the public purse.)
Here are some examples of the callous vandalism that is taking place as we speak:
I live in Victoria and currently VicRoads and Melbourne Water are removing an extraordinary number of trees. For the expansion of the Melbourne metro rail project (which aims to cater for our artificially stimulated population growth) I have been informed that around 800 trees are being removed from urban Melbourne. Most of these are large mature trees, which have provided shade and enjoyment to people, and habitat for Australian wildlife, including birds and mammals. The public has not been consulted in any meaningful way about this. The St Kilda Road Avenue that leads to the war memorial and the botanic gardens, has been vandalised for this purpose. This avenue is a feature of Melbourne not unlike the Champs Elysees of Paris. To vandalise this is equivalent to a resounding slap across the face by Melbourne Planners of citizens who grew up here. Many find it shocking and distressing as a recent protest shows. /node/5413
But it is not just rail changes that are destroying wildlife habitat. Melbourne Roads have recently changed their policy on roadside and median strip vegetation, with absolutely devastating results for local climate, ammenity and habitat: /node/5304
Then Melbourne water is now treating small local retardant basins as major dams, under the ANCOLD guidelines. Why are small retarding basins being treated as major dams? Because our 60% immigration fueled population growth has caused urban densification and the proliferation of hard surfaces. Although this was predicted by residents with foresight in many VCAT battles, these hard surfaces now carry the threat of major floods, so the small retarding basins that were adequate for many decades, now are deemed in need of reinforcement to bring them up to major dam status!
What has this got to do with trees and wildlife habitat and human amenity, you ask?
These new ANCOLD guidelines require the removal of all trees from ‘batters’ or dam banks. Since previous thinking caused the planting of trees because trees stabilise earth-forms, this ‘new’ thinking requires the removal of another huge quantity of mature trees, denuding much parkland throughout Victoria. Can you blame me if I suspect this is also to suit private developers and people who want land ‘released’ [from the commons and nature]?
The implications of these ANCOLD guidelines (which are now an Australian standard that is threatening green spaces all over the green bits surrounding this 70% hot desert and rangeland island) are staggering for the green wedges that follow Victoria’s rivers and creeks, their canopies cooling our environment through transpirational heat exchange, lowering water tables through the same transpiration, providing habitat for our wildlife and a green commons for our human spirits. Melbourne Water is in charge of more than 200 such basins. It pretends to follow guidelines to protect the displaced wildlife but in fact it does not have plans in place for their survival and reestablishment. It invites people to ‘revegetate’ what it has devastated, but our wildlife cannot wait for 25 yrs while trees grow to maturity, or 100 yrs plus until natural hollows occur. And the cheek of Melbourne Water to invite the people for whom its works have diminished their natural ammenity to replant such areas and not be paid! Insults added to injury. If you want to read more about this scandal, and its impact on wildlife, community and democracy, have a look at /node/5401 and https://awpc.org.au/awpc-to-melbourne-water-response-on-tree-removal-lee-st-retardant-basin/. Furthermore, there is a rumour that the Federal government is planning to make work like tree-planting mandatory for environmental organisations to qualify as tax-deductible. Slave labour for public works damage! And when every government leads with the plaintive cry of "Jobs!" This is where the labour is required.
And it doesn’t stop there. Big money in densifying rural areas is impeding the passage of kangaroos to their feeding grounds, with the usual myth [See https://awpc.org.au/roo-scientists-admit-industry-stimulates-roo-population-growth-whilst-calling-roos-pests/ ] that there are ‘too many’ - a hollow farce familiar to the wildlife carers who must deal with the injuries that come from ‘gentlemen farmers’ taking potshots with permission from the ever generous and poorly overseen permissions to cull issued by DWELP: https://awpc.org.au/awpc-speak-out-against-the-culling-of-kangaroos-in-cape-schanck/.
And then there are there is the devastation caused by freeways and tollways created to ‘solve’ the congestion problems created by overpopulation. Money given to Parks Victoria by Peninsula Link for predator proof fences around scarce bandicoot habitat has been diverted to another program far from the original area, consolidating the damage that wildlife campaigners thought they might have mitigated in this place.
Of course the public think that Parks Victoria is looking after animals in the parks it manages for ‘healthy people’, but we cannot rely on Parks Victoria. See /node/2376 and /node/2377.
And the examples I give here are actually taking place at the mouth of the Mornington Peninsula Biosphere - scheduled for densification, of course. Shame!
It is not the big-name conservation organisations but the hands on volunteers in organisations like AWPC (whose articles I have used as examples) that are doing the hard yards in this vicious losing battle against a delusional ideology fueled by speculative money that wants to increase human population despite our population being bigger by an order of magnitude than it has ever been for the bulk of its history. Does economics totally lack a sense of proportion or irony? The King Midas myth and the magic pudding pale against the science of modern economics which seems so similar to 17th century economics and official religion.
The notions put forward in the article I am commenting on simply stagger me in their unreal, coldly irrational model of the world we live in, biological human values, and what passes in The Conversation for research and analysis. Unfortunately these are the dominant models and values that are then acted on by governments and their contractors, in a great tragedy for this beautiful and fragile land that gives us all life.
Animals are losing their trees in droves. The cause is population growth. There is a new tree removing policy for all dams and retarding basins in Victoria, treating small retarding basins as if they were big dams, and treating trees as problems, where previously they were considered desirable. See inside for locations. This policy applies in other states as well. VicRoads is also suddenly removing trees en-masse from roadsides and median strips! None of these policies gives adequate consideration to wildlife habitat or cruelty impacts. There is no overall coordinating policy for Australia to ensure the preservation of wildlife and wildlife corridors at local, state and national levels, nor to avoid heat-island creation and local climate change, or citizen despair. With constant clearing for new suburbs and roads all over habitable Australia, tree removal by governments and contractors is reaching the level of a national civil emergency.
The reason for this change of policy around retarding basins is that we have become so overpopulated, due to wilful government policy, that flooding has become a problem.
"When a natural catchment is progressively urbanised, the stormwater runoff characteristics of that catchment change accordingly.The runoff response becomes quicker and larger as the introduction of urban features (eg paved streets, tiled roofs, concrete driveways) reduces the capacity of the catchment to store and retard stormwater flow." (Norman Himsley, "A guiding hand for flood retarding basins," ANCOLD.)
Trees are blamed, when previously they were planted to keep the water table low, stabilise landforms, and suck up floodwater. If there has been a scientific review of the literature regarding the pros and cons of trees on dams, it has escaped me. For this reason, I am very leery of the new policy. ANCOLD is the source of the new guidelines, but you have to pay over $100 to access them, since Melbourne Water is using a private publication.
Victoria's population growth - at around 2.4% is one of the fastest in the world, with a doubling time of under 30 years. Australia's growth at 1.6% is the fastest of OECD countries. No wonder Victoria is now using the ANCOLD rules for *large dams* in order to manage small local retarding basins. These basins were adequate when they were made, before Jeff Kennett, Steve Bracks, and their successors, decided to rapidly grow Victoria's population. (See /node/5262 and /node/5268. In Victoria, where Melbourne Water manages about 224 retarding basins, there has been a sudden onslaught of mass tree removal with very limited 'community consultation' and absolutely no viable plans for affected wildlife. In this article I have named some affected retarding basins. If you put them together you can see how this de-treeing policy will impact all Melbourne's green wedges and wildlife corridors. How can anyone pretend that we can preserve Victoria's wildlife and our pleasant green spaces if this population tsunami is allowed to go ahead?
Glen Valley retarding basin - no info here.
https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/glen-valley-retarding-basin-upgrade
https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/masons-road-retarding-basin-upgrade No information here. Just takes you to a Melbourne water search engine.
https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/navan-park-retarding-basin-upgrade No mention of removal of trees.
A community bulletin was issued in November 2017. https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/ryans-road-retarding-basin-upgrade
https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/sasses-avenue-retarding-basin-upgrade
"Vegetation removal from the wetland; this will be replaced with plants that will improve the natural treatment of stormwater" 
https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/troups-creek-west-wetland-upgrade
Undated community bulletin indicating works would have started on Monday 22 January 3pm – 4pm.
https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/yarraman-creek-retarding-basin-upgrade
Christmas Hills land-sale. Melbourne water selling off public land previously earmarked for the Watsons Creek Storage Reservoir, which it says it no longer needs. There was some 'community consultation', but this land is going to be turned into a suburb.
https://yoursay.melbournewater.com.au/christmas-hills-land-sale
RECENT PAST WORKSThompsons Road retarding basin, Lawson Poole Reserve in Cranbourne. Trees were removed. https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/thompsons-road-retarding-basin-upgrade
Trees have been removed. There is a community information bulletin here: https://www.melbournewater.com.au/files/Communitybulletin-EastBurwood-May2017.pdf The following link leads nowhere useful: https://www.melbournewater.com.au/what-we-are-doing/works-and-projects-near-me/all-projects/east-burwood-retarding-basin-upgrade
Several more if you do a search for Melbourne Water and retarding basins.
AWPC writes that only two of its questions were answered satisfactorily. It asks Melbourne Water what happens to the wildlife after the clearing? “The AWPC, wildlife rescuers and shelters regularly experience the fallout of such projects. Consultants and wildlife handlers are contracted at a premium price, only to hand over displaced, orphaned and injured wildlife to either vets or local wildlife shelters who are then expected to deal with these sentinel beings at their own cost. Quite frankly this is unacceptable and needs to stop, which is why the AWPC ask you the following questions once again.” Inside, full correspondence to date.
Craig Thomson
President, Australian Wildlife Protection Council
502 Waterfall Gully Road, Rosebud 3939
[email protected]
0474 651 292
Mark Lawrence
Melbourne Water Project Manager
990 La Trobe Street Docklands VIC 3008
PO Box 4342 Melbourne VIC 3001
[email protected]
Dear Mr. Lawrence,
Re: your response to my email sent 23/1/2018 about the ‘Lee St Retarding Basin Upgrades’
Overall, it was a very disappointing response, especially as most of your answers are already available on your community information sheet. Only two questions were answered satisfactorily; were you confirmed that you have forwarded my query about the sale of Melbourne Water land to the relevant department and the dates of the pre-fauna survey. We have spent a great deal of time putting these questions to you because of the lack of information provided by Melbourne Water to concerned members of the community.
Is Melbourne Water concerned about genuine community consultation and being transparent to the community to whom they provide an essential service? The Australian Wildlife Protection Council (AWPC) will be putting in a Freedom of Information request for the documents you have not supplied, including the ecological/fauna reports, however we will also complain to the concerned ministers, local councilors and community members about Melbourne Water’s lack of openness and communication. We believe you are scaring the community to justify these works whilst refusing to be transparent about the true risks. This is highlighted in your reply, by the following text, coupled with the fact that you are asking us to then submit an FOI for proof of this.
“Failure of the embankment would have a significant impact on a number of properties in the area.”
As you have identified, we are particularly concerned about the impacts on wildlife with the removal of vegetation; of the fifteen questions we sent to you eight are about wildlife. We ask Melbourne Water what happens to the wildlife after the clearing? The AWPC, wildlife rescuers and shelters regularly experience the fallout of these projects. Consultants and wildlife handlers are contracted at a premium price, only to hand over displaced, orphaned and injured wildlife to either vets or local wildlife shelters who are then expected to deal with these sentinel beings at their own cost. Quite frankly this is unacceptable and needs to stop, which is why the AWPC ask you the following questions once again:
1. Which wildlife rescue groups, wildlife shelters and vets have been contacted to look after or treat any injured wildlife?
2. Do local wildlife shelters have the capacity to look after injured wildlife during this busy time of the year?
3. What arrangements have been made to financially compensate these groups?
4. What measures have been taken to install nest boxes or other artificial habitat for displaced wildlife? (Please note that installation of nest boxes needs to be carefully planned in advance so as to enable wildlife to be bonded to new nests before re-release).
5. Do the contracted ‘wildlife handlers’ have appropriate wildlife handling experience as well as knowledge of the legislation about the re-location of wildlife.
6. Do the ‘wildlife handlers’ possess the appropriate permits to have protected wildlife relocated within a safe distance from their habitat loss or will animals be euthanased?
If Melbourne Water maintain, “Protection of wildlife is of great importance to Melbourne Water and we have committed to implement the handler’s recommendations” does Melbourne Water also commit to answering our questions for the ongoing protection of wildlife who will be effected by this project?
We can only assume, from your response, that the only community engagement so far planned by Melbourne Water, is to provide wood from the felled trees to various groups to make furniture. Yet, the community groups who will be most effected like environmental groups, wildlife rescuers, wildlife carers and shelters have not been included in this process what so at all!
To indicate that you are only going to plant 30 canopy trees within Frankston, in a place yet to be identified, does not seem to be fair compensation for the loss to the local environment. How did Melbourne Water come to this conclusion? Are these trees to be planted by community volunteers or are there to be separate plantings by contractors? The AWPC has identified a number of suitable sites close by, owned by Melbourne Water for these plantings.
We look forward to your reply and answers to our questions and we at the AWPC are happy to consult with Melbourne Water and/or your ecologist consultants to work on a better plan, communication and management for the future of this project.
Yours sincerely,
Craig Thomson
President, Australian Wildlife Protection Council
LETTER TO PRESIDENT CRAIG THOMSON FROM MARK LAWRENCED, MELBOURNE WATER PROJECT MANAGER
Mr Craig Thomson
President
Australian Wildlife Protection Council Inc.
[email protected]
Dear Mr Thomson
Thank you for your email enquiry regarding safety upgrade works at the Lee Street Retarding
Basin in Frankston.
We understand that you are concerned with the planned tree removal at the site and the
impact this may have on wildlife and their habitat.
Under Melbourne Water’s Statement of Obligations (2015) issued by the Minister for Water, we
are required to assess all existing retarding basins against the Australian National Committee
of Large Dams (ANCOLD) Guidelines. An assessment of the Lee Street Retarding Basin against
these guidelines identified that the site does not comply and safety upgrade works are required
to continue to reduce flood risk for the local community.
To ensure Lee Street Retarding Basin continues to operate safely and comply with the ANCOLD
guidelines, trees and vegetation on the length of the embankment will need to be removed as
part of the works. We have worked hard to ensure that we only remove trees that will affect
the integrity of the retarding basin and have committed to planting trees at other locations in
the Frankston City Council area.
The ANCOLD guidelines are publically available and a copy can be purchased online from
ANCOLD at their website: www.ancold.org.au The guidelines do not specifically mention trees
on retarding basin embankments. They provide guidance on how to assess risk on dams and
dam-like structures.
In the past, it was common practice to have trees on retarding basin embankments. However,
as international understanding of dam engineering has improved it has become evident that
trees significantly weaken embankments and increase the risk of failure in a high rainfall
event. Failure of the embankment would have a significant impact on a number of properties in
the area.
In 2015, Melbourne Water received independent specialist advice that trees on retarding basin
embankments increase the chance that the embankment may fail in the event of a large rain
event. The chance is increased due to:
“internal erosion and displacement of soil – tree roots create erosion pathways
through the embankment which are worsened when the tree dies and its
decaying roots leave voids through the embankment;
“trees uprooting and taking part of the embankment with them; and
“water speeding up around tree trunks and causing faster erosion.
As part of the works, the embankment must also be hardened to operate safely and this can’t
be done without the trees being removed.
We understand the importance of trees to the local community and have committed to
mitigating the impact of removing the embankment trees by:
“planting 30 canopy trees elsewhere in the Frankston City Council area;
“using the cut-down logs to provide a woodland habitat for wildlife at Lee Street
Retarding Basin; and
“recycling the cut down logs to make furniture that will be donated to Frankston
City Council.
A reinstatement plan has been developed in adherence to Frankston City Council’s Local Law
22 permit requirements and we will implement it in the coming months. In addition to the
reinstatement plan, wood from the trees at the site will be utilised by a local community group
and the community will also have an opportunity to participate in a planting day in Frankston
in coming months.
As part of the planning for the project, Melbourne Water engaged specialists to complete a
flora and fauna assessment and arborist assessment as part of Council’s requirements under
Local Law 22.
In your email you asked us to provide you with the arborist report and water depth and flood
modelling records. We ask you to request these under the Freedom of Information Act 1982
(Vic) to make an FOI request, please visit our website and use the online FOI application:
www.melbournewater.com.au Our FOI Officer, Michael Keough, is available to assist with your
application if required. Michael can be contacted on 9679 6821 or at
[email protected]
In addition to the flora and fauna assessment we have engaged a wildlife handler who will
manage and implement the wildlife management practices prior to and during the tree removal
activity. Protection of wildlife is of great importance to Melbourne Water and we have
committed to implement the handler’s recommendations including:
“undertaking a pre-construction visual inspection and assessment at Lee Street retarding
basin. This was completed on 29 January 2018 and found no EPBC Act-listed threatened
ecological communities or FFG Act-listed threatened flora communities present within the
Lee St study site.
“marking trees that have possible habitat to ensure that they are removed appropriately.
“confirming the species as listed in the flora and fauna assessment
“remaining onsite during the tree removal works to check and safely move fauna prior to
tree removal.
The wildlife handler we have engaged is a qualified ecologist and zoologist with 25 years’
experience.
The EPA guidelines referred to are in relation to hours of work. Work for this project will be
carried out in line with EPA guidelines between 7am and 6pm Monday to Friday and 7am and
1pm on Saturdays.
Your email included concern at the sale of Melbourne Water land in the Frankston area and the
potential loss of biodiversity. We have passed this on to our Property Team who will respond to
you direct.
Once again, thank you for your email.
Yours sincerely,
Mark Lawrence
Melbourne Water Project Manager
ORIGINAL LETTER FROM CRAIG THOMSON TO MELBOURNE WATER ABOUT REMOVING TREES FROM LEE ST RETARDANT BASIN
Letter from Craig Thomson, President AWPC
Dated 23 January 2017.
Subject: Lee st Retarding Basin Frankston
Addressed to: [email protected] (Biodiversity Officer at Frankston Council), [email protected] (Minister for Police and Water) [email protected] (email address for Melbourne Water retardant basin upgrades).
The Australian Wildlife Protection Council understands and recognise the needs to protect our communities from potential danger. We are also aware that the removal of vegetation has an impact on wildlife species. In fact it is a guarantee that wildlife will be killed during works that clear vegetation. As such we expect that every possible measure is undertaken to see if in fact clearing is necessary and if so that appropriate actions are taken and that local wildlife shelters are not left too pick up the pieces of poor planning.
We have received concern from the local community members that the threat of flooding to the local community at the Lee St retarding basin has not deemed a risk in the past and believe the proposed clearance of vegetation is excessive and will have significant impact on fauna as well as other issues, particularly of erosion and dust as well. So the Australian Wildlife Protection Council would greatly appreciate if you could answer the following questions;
-What pre-fauna surveys have been carried out and when?
-What species have been identified on site?
-What are the actions have been put into place for fauna pre, during and post construction activities for fauna?
-Which wildlife rescue groups, wildlife shelters and vets have been contacted to look after or treat any injured wildlife?
-What arrangements have been made to financially compensate these groups?
-Do local wildlife shelters have the capacity to look after injured wildlife, as they could be attending to heat stress events or bushfire effected wildlife?
-What measures have been taken to install nest boxes or other artificial habitat for displaced wildlife?
-Do they have appropriate wildlife handling permits as well as permits to have protected wildlife euthanised if injured or unable to relocate wildlife in a safe distance from their habitat loss?
-What community groups have they contacted to work with as stated in their community information sheet? [Ref: ] “We understand the importance of trees to the local community and are committed to working closely with council, residents and community groups to develop an appropriate plan for reinstatement of trees else where in the area” in the information document provided for this project https://www.melbournewater.com.au/files/2018-01/Communitybulletin-LeeStreet.pdf
-Where are other trees being planted, what species are to be planted and how many?
-Are offsets being provided?
-Is there an arborist report of the trees health?
-Can records of water depth be provided for the Lee St retarding basin to show threat of flooding to neighbouring properties over the years of its existence?
-Can modelling or records be provided of local flooding for once in a 40+ year storm event?
-What are the EPA regulations you are keeping to with to for this project?
-Can you provide a copy of the ANCOLD guidelines?
The Australian Wildlife Protection Council also has the understanding that you are in the process of selling off land on McClelland Dve to Ambulance Victoria for an ambulance station and another permit application has been made by Log Cabin Caravan Park. In fact we believe that all land owned by Melbourne Water from Skye Rd to Frankston/Cranbourne Rd is being considered surplus land by Melbourne Water. So it appears there are several sites across the Frankston city council municipality owned by Melbourne Water that poses a potential loss of biodiversity.
So the final question we have to you is what is Melbourne Water’s commitment to biodiversity in Frankston?
4th October 2010
Jan Beer, Plug The Pipe spokesperson and environmental activist in opposition to North-South Pipeline, is taking legal action against Government Agency Melbourne Water for alleged infringements of her right to privacy over a 2 year period.
Mrs Beer was photographed, video-taped and followed whilst the pipeline was being constructed. The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal heard this morning that over 100 documents exist detailing the monitoring of Ms Beer by Melbourne Water.
“At no time during this period was I informed who the people collecting my information were employed by, why they were collection my information, and what it would be used for" says Mrs Beer.
“I felt harassed, persecuted and along with other opponents of the pipeline have been branded a “quasi-terrorist” by a Minister of the Victorian Government. In fact I feel as though I have been treated like a dangerous terrorist that needed to be silenced” said Mrs Beer “ It is like living under a dictatorship, rather than a democracy, where people have the right to peacefully protest.”
A Memorandum of Understanding is in place for the North-South Pipeline, similar to that for the Desalination Plant, between Melbourne Water and the Victorian Police. It is possible that the information collected on Ms Beer has been transferred to other parties pursuant to the MoU.
“The sheer volume of information collected on my client is astounding” said Elizabeth McKinnon, solicitor at the Environment Defenders Office. “At issue in the proceedings is whether Melbourne Water attempted to comply with the Information Privacy Act in relation to the management of protest activity at the site”.
The next hearing in this matter will take place in February 2011.
The original case for Labor's controversial $1 billion food bowl upgrade was rejected by state cabinet because the government's promised water savings could not be achieved for the price tag of $1 billion, it has been revealed. Premier John Brumby has continued to tell Victorians that the savings could be made, despite not having any proof that they were achievable.
Already the project has identified 650 of the system's 6300 kilometres of channels for rationalisation, or downsizing.
Farmers claim millions of dollars of taxpayer funds are being wasted through the installation of unnecessary meters and other irrigation infrastructure on properties that have no use for them.
(cotton seeds being fed to cattle due to drought - source: wikimedia commons)
In April 2009, the Premier told Parliament: It has always been the basis of this project that there would be at least 225 gigalitres of water savings.
According to Plug the Pipe, the truth of the matter is that the pipeline has provided a mere 16.7 billion litres. That translates to a piddling 1% of Melbourne’s current water supply. So far it has only delivered 22% of the proposed 75 Gigalitres water and with only 139 days left available for pumping, the absolute maximum that can now be delivered is 58 billion litres.
To add injury to insult, the desalination plant costs rise to $5.1 billion, and $200 million a year to run. Average annual water bills soon to be $3000!
Farmers have slammed an independent report that says Murrumbidgee and Murray irrigators should make big sacrifices to help revive the Murray-Darling Basin. The cut would drain at least $2.7 billion out of the basin's economy, however the scientists say the pain would not be shared equally across the basin's 18 catchments. In most catchments, the required reduction is less than 10%.
However, in two catchments - the Murray and Murrumbidgee - the reductions are significantly greater, in the order of 39% and 65% respectively.
The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists' report proposes that the Murrumbidgee and Murray regions have their water caps cut by 65 and 39 per cent respectively.
The Wentworth group recommend to restore environmental flows:
1 Restore and maintain all major rivers and flood plains in the Murray-Darling Basin in a healthy condition; 2 Manage the Coorong and Lower Lakes as a healthy functioning river estuary; and 3 Improve or maintain the health of wetlands of national and international significance.
In late 2006 the ongoing drought in the Murray-Darling Basin combined with a lack of action on the implementation of the National Water Initiative highlighted the need for a clear statement on the reality of Australia's water predicament. According to the group, We built our modern Australian economy in a period of much higher rainfall and we assumed that it would keep on raining. But it hasn’t.
(Wentworth-Marray darling rivers source: wikimedia commons)
Scientists for the Murray Darling Basin Authority say the cost of saving the river's health will be a $2.7 billion drop in profits from communities throughout the basin - a drop of 26¢ for every dollar in the Murrumbidgee catchment and 12¢ for Murray communities.
The Murray-Darling is a floodplain river system. However, the Basin is under enormous stress as a result of past water-allocation decisions, prolonged drought, natural climate variability and emerging climate change. A lack of water and the absence of natural flooding are having a significant impact on many key environmental assets - rivers, streams, wetlands, forests, floodplains and billabongs.
The Living Murray program was established in 2002 in response to evidence showing the declining health of the River Murray system. It is a partnership of the Australian, NSW, Victorian, South Australian and ACT governments. The River Murray is currently experiencing its lowest in-flows on record and periods of drought need to be considered in delivering The Living Murray program.
We face a real risk that the ecosystems supporting the river system will collapse, undermining the businesses and communities that depend on it.
The best-available science suggests there is a substantial risk that a working river will not be in a healthy state when key system level attributes of the flow regime are reduced below two-thirds of their natural level. It selected water from the least profitable activities in each catchment so that the required volume of environmental water could be obtained at the lowest economic cost.
The Australian Conservation Foundation estimates as much as 90 per cent of all floodplain wetlands in the Murray Darling Basin having been lost or severely degraded. The agricultural economy of the Murray-Darling Basin earns $9 billion a year in export income. Without the Murray-Darling Basin wetlands and rivers, the great productive base of our agricultural bread basket would not exist.
To achieve a level of two-thirds natural flow in all the catchments of the Basin the environment’s share of the existing Cap on diversions would need to be increased by approximately 4,400GL. This represents a reduction of approximately 40% of the current Cap on diversions.
Dairy farmers need constant rain to ensure regular milk production. It is dairy and their fodder crops that have been consuming most of our irrigation water. Australia’s milk production is enormous, and with good prices available overseas, much of it is exported. About 600 litres is used to produce a litre of milk. The Murray-Darling food bowl has been upholding our economy for a long time.
President of the NSW Irrigators Council Col Thomson said the report should be disregarded because there would be some areas that probably almost cease to exist. So easy just to dismiss wetland, river systems and a life-support system?
Water storages supplying Melbourne are 32.7 per cent full compared with 26.3 per cent at the same time last year, meaning dams are holding an extra 126 billion litres. However, water restrictions have been eased!
When the drought was at its worst a pipeline was conceived to bring water from the State's North to Melbourne but recent wet weather, continuing water restrictions and the revelation the city has enough water for two years without rain has some questioning the project.
The protest group, Plug the Pipe has been most vocal in opposing the project. It says people, particularly farmers in the North of the State, are having their water rights taken away in favour of Melbourne's gardens. Someone should be pointing out how we have been forced to build a $5 billion desalination plant because we forgot about water. In Melbourne's population explosion, the Brumby government forgot about water so they've had to make the north-south pipeline over the hills to steal water from the bush!
It is all about politics, not logic or caution. We cannot be addressing climate change and water shortages while we are heavily dependent on unsustainable dairy industries and exports. However, it seems that producing food is a minor industry compared to the building industries and property development, supported by swelling numbers of city people who obviously pay more taxes and contribute more to the economy!
Energy and Agriculture Top Resource Panel's Priority List for Sustainable 21st Century is a new and hard-hitting report concludes that dramatically reforming, re-thinking and redesigning two sectors-energy and agriculture-could generate significant environmental, social and economic returns. The report prepared by the International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management, have reviewed all the available science and conclude that two broad areas are currently having a disproportionately high impact on people and the planet's life support systems-these are energy in the form of fossil fuels and agriculture,
especially the raising of livestock for meat and dairy products.
Agricultural goods, particularly products from animals, which are fed more than half of all world crops. Agricultural production accounts for 70% of the global freshwater consumption and 38% of the total land use. Food production accounts for 19% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions and 60% of the phosphorus and nitrogen pollution and 30% of toxic pollution in Europe;
This is a very informative wrap up of the problems - political, economic, production and environmental - of the desalination plant that the Victorian Government is forcing on Victorians.
We hear the history of Labor Party promises about how they would deal with water scarcity and of how they have 'backflipped' on their promises.
We hear how the local protesters took the matter to court, lost, and how the government pursued them for costs.
We hear how the cost of water has already doubled and will keep rising.
We hear how the government has denied that the area where the desal plant is to go is a whale habitat, when it clearly is.
The government preference for poorly costed, big-scale corporate engineering 'solutions' versus multi-objective sustainable local or individual ways of getting water is discussed.
And so on.
Very educational, excellent program.
Eagle's Nest in Bunurong Marine Park between Cape Paterson and Wonthaggi, South Gippsland, Victoria
Fresh water dam capacity is a known determinant of a dependent population's capacity. Once dam levels drop below critical levels, water demand has clearly exceeded supply. So logically, rationally, naturally, excessive demand ought to be tempered and curtailed. This is what rationally follows in macroeconomics, like when Australia's Reserve Bank increases interest rates to dampen excess demand. It doesn't suggest we import more.
But governments think they can spin their own reality and now employ communication consultants to evangelise a 'can do' positivism mantra - irrespective of potentially adverse social and ecological consequences. Who considers the impacts of those judgments and decisions on local families and local ecology?
In Melbourne's case, the Brumby Government seems deeply headlong into some artificial life support to perpeatuate Melbourne's population growth. Where's the rationale?
Otherwise, blind unguided, not though through support of Federal mass-immigration pressures the need for 'desalination' as magic pudding panacea for a tide to which the government has set no high water mark - bit risk these days?.
It's Greenspan's 'irrational exuberance' infesting population growth by Brumby's kneejerk, shortsighted and downright undemocratic Victorian Government. But it has nothing to do with central banking in a democratic society, but everything to do with worshipping some growth divinity, and in the process prepared to sacrifice important ecology and Wonthaggi rural amenity values. Is this Brumby's 'pagan-inspired' sprawl infesting Melbourne's still rural outer fringe?
The Brumby Government's unelaborated growth fetish appears too narrowly focused on the supply end of the problem, yet strangely it denies and ignores the obvious root cause and driver of the growth problem - excessive demand. The prime cause of that increasing demand is our federal government's exuberance to maximise immigration.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics "at June 2008 there were an estimated 3.9 million people residing in the Melbourne ('Statistical Division'), an increase of 74,600 people or 2.0% since June 2007. Melbourne SD experienced the largest growth of all Australian capital city SDs for the year to June 2008. Melbourne SD accounted for 81% of Victoria's population growth between June 2007 and June 2008, and was home to 73% of Victoria's population."
The largest growth areas are on the new 'sprawlskirts' of Melbourne at the local government areas of Wyndham, Casey, Melton, Whittlesea and Hume. The fastest growth areas are Wyndham, Melton, Cardinia, and Whittlesea, plus with the increasing highrise in the central Melbourne itself.
The prime driver of urban population growth is immigration, current peaking into Australia at 400,000 net this year. That is two new Geelongs every year! Illogically, federal and state governments are hell bent on maximising this immigration and so exacerbating the demand problem.
By resorting to water supply from desalination, which has been shown to extravagant in terms of borrowing costs, in its massive continuous energy demand, and in its wastefulness (byproducts of salts, chemicals and organic sludge), the Brumby government is effectively acknowledging that Melbourne's population is outstripping water resource capacity. Melbourne is simply living beyond its means.
Every time we push the natural boundary of what this country can naturally sustain, we damage it and lower our living standards by allowing more people to exploit the same natural resources - land, water, energy, etc. It's as if our politicians compare us to Hong Kong and have a Hong Kong vision for Australians. Well then they can bloody well go and live in Hong Kong on their credit cards, as long as we don't have to fund them.
It's time that triple bottom line scorecard reporting was applied to measure and reward government performance, rather than locked in the spin government PR. Australia's ecological health and Australians' living standards need to be measured and factored into political performance in quarterly results. What's the benefit in economic growth numbers like say 100,000 new dwellings approved for the quarter, when the Thomson Dam keeps reducing its water capacity and the state is debt burdened with an additional $3 billion to fund a 'desal' plant at Wonthaggi?
And we need to question this 'greater good' utilitarian mindset. At Wonthaggi, the Bunurong Marine Park and Coastal Reserve and Wonthaggi's rural community seem sacrificable for the 'greater' Melbourne? To exploit locals for a greater good is morally wrong. And where is that 'greater' obese Melbourne to end in 50 years time?
This is indeed 'so wrong'. Brumby is doggedly locked in an extravagant and immensely damaging 1950s mindset.
Snowy River Lessons
This $3.5 billion desal plant (pre-blowout estimate) is comparable to the Snowy River Scheme commenced in post-WWII 1949. This growth inspired scheme cost $1.16 billion (possibly $7 billion in today's money) to add resource capacity for a growing post-war population. But in the process, the Snowy Scheme tragically castrated the Snowy's wildness and its legend to a trickle. "The creation of the huge Eucumbene, Jindabyne, Blowering and Jounama reservoirs resulted in the flooding of thousands of hectares of land. Two whole towns, Adaminaby and Jindabyne, and numerous farms and homesteads were inundated. Thousands of years of Aboriginal history were also lost beneath the waters. Both Adaminaby and Jindabyne were rebuilt nearby as new towns that were heralded as modern and comfortable. People were compensated by the Authority for their losses and relocated."
SOURCE: Powerhousemuseum.com
The Snowy Scheme did employ hundreds at the time, but destroyed the Snowy, Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers and the way of life of hundreds of established pastoral families that for generations had livelihoods dependant upon these vital flowing rivers.
Fifty years later, a repeat of the Victorian government growth driven 'irrational exuberance' now imposes its undemocratic will on the rural Wonthaggi community and its surrounding natural environment. It is so again an obese Melbourne can exceed its capacity and become even morbidly obese. This is nothing but a government infatuated growth disorder akin to 'bulemic sprawl'.
And Brumby has no ultimate vision as to where this is all leading. He will be Parliamentary pensioned off by that time and he won't care.
Topher (Chris Field ) gives both barrels to John Brumby and Tim Holding's very CLEVER North - South pipeline. "We have an un-elected premier building a pipeline we voted against which takes water from people who dont have any and pipes it to a city that has other ways of getting more water cheaper."
Hello,
Plugger here. Our group ‘Plug the Pipe’ is the agri-environmental group trying to stop the north south pipeline. This pipeline will remove water from the Murray River and rural communities and pump it to Melbourne in a time of extreme crisis. The North South Pipeline will connect a further 4 million people to the Murray. Every non labor political party is opposed to is construction. Independent Nick Xenophon, the Coalition and the Greens have been most supportive of our cause. It is probably a story in itself to have this sort of unity about such a contentious issue.
A young film maker from Melbourne (Christopher Field ) has taken it upon himself to research and produce a YouTube video highlighting our cause from a rural perspective. The video is funny, clever and hard hitting. If you enjoy this clip, then please pass it on.
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