“Yes, the audit is harsh in some of its detail, but it could have gone much further if it wasn’t so heavily constrained by its scope," say the Victorian National Parks Association, adding that, “It’s like a doctor giving you a check-up but failing to report that you have a missing hand." Candobetter Ed: Well, what else would be expect of a Victorian Government biodiversity audit, when high-rise developers have overtaken the state government? The bastards don't even want us to retain 1% of our grasslands, whilst they already have 90% of the nation's wealth!
Below is an extract from The Economist whose editor bears the unlikely name of Zanny. Yes, I know it is naughty of me to point out that Zany is often associated with the bizarre, weird, peculiar, odd, and perhaps avant-garde. But its also a fitting description of her introductory comments on the US economy.
Australian Parliament, which sits next week from Monday 6 September, must be made, finally, to debate Julian Assange's fate. At the weekly vigil for Julian Assange outside Melbourne's Flinders Street Station in the evening of last Friday 26 August, James Sinnamon explained how, if Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to end its imprisonment of Julian Assange, he would almost certainly comply without delay, and Julian Assange would
The deletion of the comment quoted below in this notification is perhaps the most odious of all those made under this article today, all done without any clearly discernible reason but with quite evident rhyme. The comment below asks you to show respect for these commentators who have suffered deletion of their genuine and reasonable comment by providing an open advice as to the basis of that consistent disbursement of negative action.
The unavoidable message from your early closure of comments, following directly upon the posting of the request for your reasoned advice, is that you do not have respect for your reader and commenters. It also clearly demonstrates your publication’s covert imposition of a controlled narrative rather than being the relatively free arena for informed adult conversation that your promotion pretends you to be.
As I’ve already made mention of, as the repetitive and unexplained evidence mounted, your pretence and hypocrisy as an intellectual forum is comical; sadly, bleakly, disturbingly so, but comical nonetheless.
With some good fortune the cumulative load of Covid19 distress will be the death of your horridly sneaky and cynical enterprise. Hopefully, well-meaning staff will then find some useful jobs in which to sustain themselves within a wider community in need of real re-construction that is free of the property development, migration agency and associated Empire roles that your sponsors pursue ahead of real education, with the active assistance of this mouthpiece.
Kindest regards
Greg Wood
On 14 Apr 2020, at 4:51 pm, The Conversation wrote:
The Conversation
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Hello Greg,
Your comment on ‘Why is it so hard to stop COVID-19 misinformation spreading on social media?’ has been removed.
There are several reasons why this may have occurred:
Your comment may have breached our community standards. For example it may have been a personal attack, or you might not have used your real name.
Your comment may have been entirely blameless but part of a thread that was removed because another comment had to be removed.
It might have been removed for another editorial reason, for example to avoid repetition or keep the conversation on topic.
For practical reasons we reserve the right to remove any comment and all decisions must be final, but please don’t take it personally.
If you’re playing by the rules it’s unlikely to happen again, so feel free to continue to post new comments and engage in polite and respectful discussion.
For your reference, the removed comment was:
Moderators have removed an entirely rational and reasonable comment by Duncan Mouat. The pattern of deletions is now profuse and appears to be quite consistent in its objection and purpose. Given the repetition and evidently convergent aim of these deletions, can the moderators please provide a clear statement regarding the exact standard(s) these posts are deemed to have offended.
I propose that due respect for your readers and contributors requires nothing less. We should not be left guessing what the editors’ position is on these matters wherein no insult or off-topic commentary has occurred.
Please understand that these deletions resonate especially loudly within a discussion that essentially reflects upon intent censorship.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says the mechanisms it uses to monitor the performance of various countries in relation to their handling of the coronavirus epidemic do not show any cover-up by the Iranian government with regard to Iran’s virus crisis.
Speaking in a televised interview with the CNBC news channel on Monday, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the organization, said the WHO’s fact-checking mechanisms have not found any concrete proof that Iran had been covering up the severity of the epidemic.
Asked about the media hype revolving around Iran and accusing the country of covering up the severity of the new coronavirus epidemic, the WHO chief said, “I wouldn’t frame any country without any reason or without having any fact.”
“There are reports that come from the media… but this is the WHO, you know, this is a technical organization and should check the facts. We cannot say what journalists say,” he added.
“I say if we followed journalists’ reports, whether it’s well done or not, then where we end.”
He concluded by saying, “That’s why we have our own mechanism and from our own mechanism we haven’t seen that, but if we see, then of course we should address it.”
The virus that emerged in the central city of Wuhan in China's Hubei Province late last year has so far claimed more than 3,000 lives worldwide.
In Iran, it has claimed 66 lives and infected 1,501 others, 291 of whom have recovered.
Iranian medical officials have assured that the country will contain the outbreak, noting that the condition of most of the patients diagnosed with the virus has improved.
The country has mobilized all its resources to confront the disease, with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and Iran’s Army being the latest to join the campaign Sunday.
Iran has, meanwhile, announced the closure of schools and universities throughout the upcoming days, and health centers have been tasked with distributing protective items, such as facemasks, among the public.
The coronavirus, known as COVID-19, is an illness characterized by fever and coughing and in serious cases causes shortness of breath or pneumonia.
Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:
A recent interview of the Prime Minister by Leigh Sales in the 7.30 Report on Tuesday 29 January 2019 provided a good illustration of the lack of understanding of economics by ABC journos or their deliberate and calculated rejection of some simple truths. John Coulter has written to Leigh Sales as follows.
Dear Leigh,
Last evening in your interview with the Prime Minister you raised the issue of government debt. You suggested to Morrison that he was not really such a good economic manager because government 'debt' had increased on his watch and you allowed the PM to go on and claim that he had to pay back the debt that Labor had created. This part of the interview was initiated by you and predicated on the undesirability of government debt.
What you should have asked Morrison, 'to whom is government debt owed' for it is actually owed to itself and is not a matter of concern as long as certain conditions are met. You may then have gone on and asked whether 'if the government does achieve a surplus is this not likely to lead to an economic downturn?' A government surplus means that the government is taking more from the economy and there is less for private investment.
Nearly all the ABC interviewers are firmly embedded in the existing economic paradigm which regards endless growth of GDP as both desirable and necessary whereas it is one of the fundamental drivers of our environmental degradation and not actually leading to improvements in human welfare.
With best wishes,
John Coulter, former leader, Australian Democrats
Transcript of the actual interview
Economic experts have warned the Government faces a challenge in meeting its new jobs target if it restricts migration, and even if it does deliver on its pledge, Australians may not be the ones to benefit.
It follows a similar pledge by Tony Abbott prior to the 2013 election to create 1 million jobs by 2018.
Peter McDonald, Emeritus Professor of Demography at ANU’s Crawford School of Public Policy, said it was an “achievable” target and that a recent projection of labour market demand by Victoria University had already earmarked a similar level of demand.
But he also noted migration was the largest contributor to the growth in employment numbers in Australia since 2013, ahead of the growing trend for older Australians to stay in work.
The permanent migration program was reduced from around 190,000 to just above 160,000 in the past two years.
Mr Morrison revealed last year it’s likely the intake would remain at this new, lower level.
Deloitte Access Economics partner Chris Richardson said his firm forecasted that, at this stage, jobs growth would fall short of the Government’s 2023 target.
“You get, basically, growth in jobs pretty much anyway — over time, there are more Australians, that typically means more jobs, but it does get more complicated than that,” Mr Richardson said.
“An ageing population means more people are retiring, that makes it harder.
“The migration debate — if it means winding back the number of migrants — that also makes it harder.”
The Department of Jobs’ Employment Outlook, released last year, projects employment to increase by 886,100 over the five years to May 2023.
Mr Richardson said the ratio of new skilled adult migrants to jobs growth was “pretty much one to one”, despite community concerns over migration fuelled by “barbecue logic”.
“People think, ‘well if migrants arrive, surely they’re taking jobs and if other things are equal, that means less jobs for everyone else’,” he said.
“If somebody puts up a hand to take a job — a migrant, a married woman, a Martian — they get the job, they earn the income, spend the income, then create the next job.”
Professor McDonald said if the Government restricted permanent migration, the employees needed by Australian businesses would not come from the ranks of the local unemployed.
“If labour demand is strong, and permanent migration is not filling the demand, then it will come from temporary migration or New Zealanders,” he said.
A reduction in immigration, he argues, would not necessarily lead to more jobs for Australians.
Dear 7.30.
The statements being made by politicians and commentators re the size and growth of the population/immigration intake are (deliberately) ignorant, seriously uninformed or deliberately politically biased. And the coverage of this issue by your program and ABC journalists more generally also lack quality research, lack of 'joining the dots', failure to question unfounded claims by the above and, in some cases, unquestioned acceptance and repeat of demonstrably untrue statements.
Please consider the following demonstrable facts and follow the inevitable conclusion.
Infrastructure, including, schools, hospitals, police stations, utilities for water and electricity, roads etc. do not last forever. It's estimated that across the broad sweep of all infrastructure, infrastructure has a life of ~50 years. Thus 2% of the total capital value of all infrastructure must be spent every year just to maintain but not to improve infrastructure for the existing population.
Recently, largely due to high immigration intakes, our population has been growing at 1.6% pa. Not long ago the rate was as high as 2%. But at 1.6% this means that 3.6% of the total capital value of all infrastructure must be spent each and every year just to maintain the level of service; that is an 80% increase in the cost of infrastructure just to maintain the same level of service.
This cost is not only ignored when it is claimed that high immigration is economically beneficial, the error is massively compounded and used to mislead by the way in which GDP is used as the criterion of economic benefit. The additional cost of the required 80% increase in infrastructure is added to GDP not subtracted. This is a function of the way GDP is calculated. It adds together all the dollars spent on goods and services whether the 'goods' are 'goods' or 'bads'. This money spent on expanding infrastructure cannot be spent on other things to improve real welfare for the existing population. Everyone seems to agree that the infrastructure required by the deliberately expanded population (through the Federal Government's immigration policy) should be built before the new intake arrives. Witness the very loud and universal applause on your QandA program when this point was made. Thus the burden falls on the existing population one way or another. If the infrastructure is not built before the new intake arrives, existing citizens suffer a decline in service, if it is built before the new intake arrives it is the existing citizens who pick up the cost. This is consistent with several Productivity Commission reports that it is not the existing population that benefits but the migrants.
Nor does the dishonesty over claimed economic benefits of high immigration stop there. As populations increase and cities expand most ordinary citizens bear increased costs: car maintenance, travel distances, petrol etc. These are real costs borne by these citizens but they add, yes add to GDP. It is this failure of GDP to measure, but to be used by many, including ABC journalists, to be a surrogate measure of quality of life that is used to mislead.
Another related matter poorly presented by the ABC. The Premier of S.A. is calling for an increase in migration to South Australia, again claiming economic benefit, yet at the same time hospital services have broken down badly: ambulances are banking up at emergency departments (ramping) and nurses and doctors are bitterly complaining about inadequate facilities to serve their patients. There are 4,794 public hospital beds in South Australia. If our population is to grow by 1.6% per year we would need an additional 77 beds this year and an exponentially increasing number in following years as populations became larger. Against this 77 extra beds the Marshall Government has pointed with some pride at reopening 20 beds in the old Repat Hospital. The hospital problem is clearly related to the issue of high population growth rate but journalists are not making the connection.
This is not in any way to blame migrants for these problems. It is the Federal Government that is responsible for the migration program, not the migrants. Nor is the above any reflection on the composition, religious background, sex or sexual orientation of migrants. This is simply about numbers and the failure of most media including the ABC and your program to do some simple maths and join the dots.
Yours sincerely,
John Coulter
We had an A grade example of the type of parallel universe Australia’s mainstream media has descended into late last week. A completely false story given prominence in the national media by The Australian, which was then picked up by various other Rupert Murdoch papers, but which sadly even made it beyond that – all without a single shred of fact, and all without anybody thinking to check, or even think about, the main line of the story being reported.
Better still it shows just how easy it may be to get a view into the public domain and have it picked up, with a mobile number, and a basic website splashing about a few logos, to create a Potemkin public ‘movement’. And from there we can get a sighter into the sort of desperado vested interests who’d go there to try and stoke public opinion.
The story began with the following piece which was plastered front-and-centre of The Australian on Thursday night:
Business and unions in rare alliance for Big Australia
Let’s start with the headline and the glossy of Sally McManus underneath. Any half-baked sentient thinker looking at that would assume that there has been some sort of major agreement signed by the Unions and Business on the subject of immigration.
Anybody remotely familiar with Simon Benson and his work can tell you he is a long term lackey for Rupert Murdoch’s Australian operations and has bounced around the Sydney Telegraph as a political codpiece, honing his act, before shifting to mission control last year.
The article is, in fact, highlighted as an ‘exclusive’ by the The Australian. So you would ordinarily think that for something being touted as such they would want to really nail their facts. Presumably Benson had some sort of information basis on which to write the story, and you would have thought that someone somewhere would have checked out something going into the The Australian proclaimed as ‘exclusive’.
Even more, if it is an ‘exclusive’ – did absolutely nobody at the Murdoch press think for a moment, ‘This is a major public announcement, and the idea of public announcements is to ensure the public knows, and if any organisation is making public announcements then it is in their interest to get it out as many media channels as they can. Why are we running this piece as an ‘exclusive’? Why isnt Fairfax, the broadcast channels and the ABC getting this as well? ‘
Alas, it appears we have two strikes from the ‘journalists’, ‘opinion leaders’, and ‘editorial processes’ at The Australian…….. (but it gets a whole heap better):
Big business has joined forces with the ACTU in an unprecedented compact to back a Big Australia, calling on the federal government to maintain current levels of permanent migration amid calls for the rate to be cut.
A stark statement to open the onslaught. A one sentence paragraph which is simply and utterly false – so false it is almost refreshing to see it as stark as it is for the plain and unadorned rubbish it represents.
There is no evidence anywhere to support it apart from an advertisement placed into The Australian on Friday (which we will get to).
There is not the faintest skerrick of evidence anywhere that the ACTU and its President Sally McManus have joined forces with big business on anything to do with immigration. There is no indication anywhere in their public pronouncements that the ACTU and its President Sally McManus have proclaimed, signed agreement to, funded or done anything to promote, a ‘compact’ promoting permanent immigration at its current levels, or any expansion or reduction of permanent migration levels.
The historic coalition of peak unions, employer groups and the ethnic lobby will release a united policy document today warning of the economic and social consequences of dropping the annual migration rate.
Well Friday came and went, and now the weekend too – and not a sign of any policy document uniting the ethnic lobby, big business and the unions came from anywhere.
The ACTU’s involvement comes as it embarks on a high-profile campaign to rein in employers’ access to temporary foreign workers.
Now for sure the ACTU has run a high profile campaign against temporary employees. And for sure the ACTU did on Thursday release, ‘Five-point plan to address unemployment and end exploitation of temporary visa workers’. But absolutely nowhere in that presser does the ACTU mention anything about any ‘compact’ with anyone on immigration numbers, and the need to maintain a high permanent level of immigration.
The first migration document of its kind in the nation’s history calls for the current goal of an annual intake of 190,000 to be retained, with long-term levels set proportionally to the population.
Now the bullshit quotient goes up a notch right here. Think about that paragraph for a second. No caveats on why we need an additional 190k per annum, no relating it to how the economy is going, no historical reference – and certainly no mention that the 190k figure itself is a massive historical ramp up on a long term average of about 75k per annum. And then, before you get past that there is a fine sliver of the choicest grade 24 carat bullshit right at the back half of that sentence – ‘with long-term levels set proportionately to the population’.
Think about that for a moment. Our 190k isnt an ideal, it is a starting point and it keeps going up every year “proportionately to the population”. If 0.76% of 25 million brings us to 190k in the first year, in ten years time that same 0.76% will bring us more than 204k.
And no mention of employment outcomes, wages, land usage and degradation therein, consumption, whether or not that makes any form of economic sense, and no mention of who we bring in, or what skills they bring, or what they are expected to provide. Just 190k plus in – every year as far as the eye can see. And we are expected to believe the ACTU has signed up to this with business and the ethnic lobby – without discussing it with Unions under its aegis, with their members, without a debate in the public domain.
The accord will see the ACTU and United Voice, one of the most influential unions in the country, sign a National Compact on Permanent Migration with the peak employer body, the Australian Industry Group.
But on the day of the announcement neither the ACTU or United Voice have any mention of signing a compact with the Australian Industry Group on the subject of immigration numbers. The AIG has a reference to it on Saturday – on the front of its web site.
If you click on that link we end up at a very strange website headed National Compact on Permanent Migration with a number of logos splashed about to make it look well supported. These include
Migration Council Australia
Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU)
Australian Industry Group (AIG)
Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS)
Welcome to Australia
Settlement Council of Australia
Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia (FECCA)
United Voice (better known once as the LHMU or the Liquor Hospitality Miscellaneous Union)
Now at this point aspiring journalists would once have been asking themselves ‘What do these organisations have to say about the compact they have signed?’ and maybe even ‘What are they telling their stakeholders about why signing the compact is a good thing or not?’ I say ‘once’ because it often isn’t the case anymore, and the focus these days is being able to copy and paste a media announcement, or parts therein, into a piece being written, and just assuming that because there are logos and because there are links then it is all legit.
As a hat tip to the old timers I thought I would check out these organisations and what they have to say about the ‘compact’.
The Migration Council Australia – has no mention of any ‘compact’ or any tie in with the AIG or the ACTU or ACOSS on the subject of permanent immigration numbers. Their #the-economic-impact-of-migration-2015" target="_blank" rel="noopener">policy area makes no mention of it either.
The ACTU – has no mention of any ‘compact’ or any tie in with the AIG or ACOSS or migrant organisations on the subject of permanent immigration numbers. Their media section makes no mention of it either, apart from the Thursday press release on the subject of temporary visa employees.
ACOSS – has no mention of any ‘compact’ or any tie in with the AIG or ACTU or migrant organisations on the subject of permanent immigration numbers. Their news section makes no mention of any compact on immigration numbers.
Welcome to Australia – has no mention of any ‘compact’ or any tie in with the AIG, ACOSS or ACTU or migrant organisations on the subject of permanent immigration numbers. They have no news or press release or policy section referring to immigration numbers in any way.
The Settlement Council of Australia – has no mention of any ‘compact’ or any tie in with the AIG, ACOSS or ACTU or migrant organisations on the subject of permanent immigration numbers. They have no news or press release or policy section referring to immigration numbers in any way.
United Voice – has no mention of any compact or tie in with ACOSS, AIG, the ACTU or migrant organisations on the need to maintain a permanent immigration volume. Their news and media section makes no reference to any compact, or any consultation with members on immigration numbers.
So that currently leaves us with a website linked to by the Australian Industry Group, and referred to in a presser by FECCA as the substance of the compact which provided the basis for the ‘exclusive’ story being touted by The Australian on Friday. At the bottom of the page is a mobile phone number – 0499 991 098 – which if you ring gets to a voice message saying in a female voice to leave a message and someone will get back to you.
If you type that number into google however, you soon end up with this result – http://fni.org.au/author/fniadmin/ – for whatever the Friendly Nation Initiative involves. The only thing we need concern ourselves with here is that the contact number – 0499 991 098 – is the same one in play for the ‘Compact’ web page and refers to a media contact by the name of Alexander…..*drumroll*…….Willox. And he happens to be a Policy Officer at the Migration Council of Australia according to the Australian Institute of International Affairs.
So this tells us that our compact domain has been registered by some gent by the name of Scott Mills on behalf of the Migration Council of Australia. Scott could easily be a cleric or IT guy of some low level sort, and all he has done is the registering of the domain name, with the costs incurred not necessarily borne by him. As anybody with a domain name can tell you they aren’t hard or expensive to establish, and even that someone could establish a website on behalf of someone, without being connected to it whatsoever. For example I could go to a domain provider and register the domain www.utterbullshit.com on behalf of the Australian Prime Minister, and nobody at the domain provider will check to see if I actually do have anything to do with him.
But before we go there lets take a look at the Migration Council of Australia. In particular lets go to the Board, where amidst a sea of corporate players the very first name to greet the eye is Innes Willox.
Now at this point the lay reader thinking about contemporary Australia, as opposed to the journalist hurriedly trying to cut and paste an ‘exclusive’ together, may think to themselves our Innes is a man about town, for yea verily he is also the main honcho of the AIG, isnt he:
So from all this we can assume that Innes has his hands all over whatever is unfolding with any ‘compact’ and he likes his immigration numbers up, and he doesn’t mind a lot of bullshit, and he will have contacts in just the right places to be able to create a weird population ponzi website, is the father of the boy with the phone number listed – who just happens to be a Policy officer with the Migration Council of Australia, then link to such a website, and be able to get someone to whip up an article giving it just a whiff of public airing.
That stench you can smell, isn’t something on your shoes.
From there, it is worth going back to take a look at the ‘compact’ because you could reasonably assume that if the ‘journalists’ in Murdoch Press overlooked the above, then the actual compact may not have withstood much examination either.
And so it is. The National Compact on Permanent Migration is an ineptly written a document. From Australia’s immigration taking place as a program in the first half of the first sentence to being a scheme at the end. To a rushed set of exhortations unadorned by any logical or rationale that might easily have been thrown together in a liquid lunch (or thrown up afterward) to a weird collection of principles of which the only remotely measurable one is a need to keep permanent immigration numbers up – presumably where they are at around 190k per annum, though it doesn’t actually say that.
We affirm that Australia’s permanent migration program is essential to Australian society and our economy and do not support any reduction to the scheme.
Our permanent migration program has been central to Australia’s economic and social development and will be critical to Australia’s future as a productive and globally integrated economy and society.
Australia is a country based on multicultural values where migrants enjoy the equality of opportunity to participate and benefit from Australia’s social, economic and political life. As our economic opportunities in the Asia Pacific continue to advance and our population ages, Australia will need migrants to bring skills and youth to complement and develop our domestic workforce and to help to grow the national income needed to support our high standard of living.
We support the current planning levels for the permanent migration program and encourage future programs to maintain a level proportional to the population.
Migrants bring relationships, knowledge, skills and social capital that ensure Australia’s economy is well placed to trade and invest with the countries of our region and beyond. Many Australians in turn live and work in other countries during their lives. In this century, our people to people ties will drive our competitive edge and spread the benefits of our multicultural values.
The successful settlement of millions of people ranks among Australia’s greatest achievements as a nation. As a result, approximately one in four of Australia’s population today was born overseas and half of all Australians have at least one parent born overseas.
Migration is a two-way street that has helped Australia forge ties to every continent, country and culture. It has made our society more cosmopolitan and our thinking more open and dynamic.
Migration nourishes our cultural and linguistic diversity and is one of our greatest strengths in the contemporary globalised world. Our humanitarian program is an important reflection of our values and adds strength to the character of our nation.
We must plan for our success as a nation by supporting settlement services and programs that foster a sense of belonging, encourage social cohesion and enable economic participation.
We must ensure that all those who come are provided with the same rights and opportunities so that our values of equality and a fair go are maintained.
We agree that the following principles should form the foundation of Australia’s migration policy:
We affirm that Australia’s permanent migration program is essential to Australian society and economy and do not support any reduction to the scheme.
The permanent migration program should be set within a national strategy for well managed population growth that provides the community with the education and training, infrastructure, housing and other services needed to support growth and social cohesion.
Australia’s permanent migration program must be evidence-based and calibrated to meet Australia’s national interests taking account of the role migration plays across all our economic levers. Migration, along with education, training, retraining and a strong system of social supports is part of our long-term economic strategy.
Australia’s migration program must be selective but non-discriminatory in terms of ethnicity, national origin, class, religion, gender or sexual orientation.
All migrants have a right to live and pursue economic opportunities in an Australia free of racism, discrimination and exploitation.
Migrants must be given every opportunity to contribute and fully participate in all aspects of Australian life, supported by access to services that assist their capacity to build the skills and knowledge needed to chart their own future.
English language is recognised as critical to participation, both in the workplace and in the broader Australian community, and migrants should have access to free services to develop their English language skills where needed.
The temporary skilled migration program should be limited to instances of genuine skill shortages which are based on evidence–based assessments of the need for specific occupations in the labour market. Where temporary visa workers are necessary we must ensure a robust regime to monitor and enforce compliance with protections incorporated in the program for preventing exploitation of overseas workers and guarding against the undercutting of local wages and conditions as well as holding those who abuse the labour rights of workers accountable.
Encouraging and facilitating permanent settlement has been a key part of Australia’s migration framework and migrants should have a pathway available to seek permanent residency and citizenship.
The confidence of the Australian community in an effective migration program, with appropriate safeguards, is paramount to its success and is contingent on strong and bi-partisan political leadership.
We agree that the following principles should form the foundation of Australia’s migration policy:
Continuing to promote the importance of permanent migration to Australia’s sustainable economic and social development to the wider community.
Supporting efforts to make the migration experience positive for migrants and for the Australian community, free of discrimination and exploitation.
Promoting migration as a stand-alone portfolio function.
Around this utter tripe, Simon Benson crafted his exclusive. Imagine the scene if you will. Innes pops over to Simon’s desk and asks if he could write something on some utter bullshit he is conjuring up and Simon does not miss a beat.
Meanwhile Simon is not a man to question bullshit, Simon is a man to spread it around…….
But the unified stance is designed as a circuit-breaker to the increasingly heated immigration debate, which the signatories believe has become toxic, xenophobic and at risk of ignoring the economic benefits that underpin skilled migration.
The document, spearheaded by the Migration Council, signals the first time unions and employer groups have reached general agreement on temporary skilled migration but based on stricter policing of the program.
We can assume the unified stance has in no way pared the marginal propensity to bullshit, with the document signaling nothing more than the desperate straits the population ponzi lobby is now descending into to get traction in a world where everyone can now see Australian immigration has been run too hard for far too long. Of course, that is before we get to the not insignificant matter of there being no indication at all that any unions have signed up to the compact.
Simon (and Innes?) obviously decided a chart would help things along about here and threw up this one which did at least identify the ramp up in immigration numbers post 2006.
But even there it doesn’t really do justice to the insane level at which Australia has been running immigration numbers over the last last 12 years. Here is an accurate depiction of that:
Simon then works the Union angle some more……
ACTU secretary Sally McManus told The Australian the country had a history of permanent migration for “most of the 20th century”.
“That system was predicated on civic inclusion as an Australian ideal; the idea that if you lived and worked in Australia, paid taxes and abided by the law, you should also get a say in the content of those laws, as well as the chance at full participation in our social, economic and political life,” she said.
There isn’t anything to doubt about Sally McManus having said anything there. But there’s a lot to ask about how it relates to the ACTU signing up for a ‘compact’ upholding a level of 190k per annum immigration.
The issue has divided government ranks, with cabinet ministers publicly at odds with each other over whether the annual intake should be reduced as first proposed by former prime minister Tony Abbott.
Simon is obviously a master craftsman who knows well to weave some factuality into your bullshit narrative so that the reader can feel that something rings true. If we assume that the Prime Minister and Treasurer bullshitted the public about whether Home Minister Peter Dutton took any form of proposal to reduce immigration numbers by even a small volume, then we can assume that there has been some tension on the subject.
The business-unions compact follows the release of a report by Treasury and the Department of Home Affairs that backed a Big Australia and revealed that permanent annual migration was forecast to add 1 per cent to GDP growth each year for the next 30 years.
Well, we still haven’t seen any trace of the union side of the compact apart from a photo of Sally McManus so we could easily start that sentence with the ‘business-tooth fairy compact…..’ but our craftsman has some more fact in the narrative. Treasury has recently put out a report backing a big Australia which has been comprehensively debunked, dismantled, chewed, laughed at, snorted on and facesat at Macrobusiness.
Signatories to the compact — announced today in an advertisement in The Australian — include the Migration Council of Australia, the Australian Council of Social Service, the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia, the Settlement Council of Australia and migration lobby group Welcome to Australia.
Simon has at least got the names right (he is obviously a senior Murdoch ‘journalist’) but he missed the small fact that there is no sign of anyone signing anything. There arent any signatures on the compact site, and not a scintilla of evidence anybody on the union side of of the compact is even aware of it.
It will also involve the Business Council of Australia in what the compact’s signatories claim is a “historic” agreement between business and the trade unions for the economic good of the country.
One wonders if the BCA actually knows of it yet. There is nothing on their website to suggest they do, and they certainly haven’t put out any pressers on the subject.
The 10-point policy document sets out critical elements of the migration program including English language skills, evidence-based skill needs, national interest and selectivity at the same time as being non-discriminatory.
“This historic national compact brings together civil society, business and our union movement in shared tripartite commitment to migration as part of Australia’s future,” the document says. “We affirm that Australia’s permanent migration program is essential to Australian society and our economy and do not support any reduction to the scheme.”
The compact, as can be seen above, is nothing more than a collection of motherhood statements in abysmal English.
The government has argued that the 190,000 intake was a rigid target set by the former Labor government that was based on the “quantity rather than quality” of migrants.
The Coalition reset the target to a “goal” that has been allowed to reduce to an expected 160,000 this year.
This is the blame apportionment line, but seemingly takes us towards a reduced number of immigrants arriving this year anyway, despite the compact ostensibly calling for no reduction. Did Simon or Innes read what they were writing, or were they a tad under the weather by this stage?
Former Business Council of Australia head and current Migration Council of Australia board member Tony Shepherd said the compact was without precedent.
“I welcome this compact and congratulate the signatories,” Mr Shepherd said. “Immigration is the cornerstone of our incredible post-war development. It remains vital to our prosperity and security given our ageing and small population.”
All of a sudden we are back with the BCA and another business gargoyle who is gracing the board luncheons of the Migration Council. He too is talking about signatories despite nobody having seen any sign of anybody signing anything , but he does lay in with two other oft exhorted placebo rationales for higher immigration which have been debunked more times than anyone would care to think about with ageing and small populations.
The AiGroup, representing 60,000 businesses, said it was critical that the migration program retained the confidence of the public. “The benefits of migration are felt across every sector of the Australian economy and the skills migrants bring are vital to the development of future industries,” AiGroup chief executive Innes Willox said.
“Migration has helped Australia maintain our long record of uninterrupted growth and has assisted us in building our national infrastructure and skills base. It is important that we come to a consensus that migration is a key part of Australia’s future prosperity.”
Innes works himself into the story with a few comments. Innes is probably part of the world which has seen Australia shed economic diversity and sell out Australian employers with Free Trade Agreements. Could he tell us why we need more immigrants if all we do is spread around the wealth from mining operations?
Carla Wilshire, the chief executive of the Migration Council who drove the agreement, said migration was one of Australia’s greatest strengths.
“Migration has been central to our nation-building story and the national compact creates a platform to build consensus around the importance of migration to Australia’s future,” she said.
All of a sudden we slip a new character in at the end – another Innes flunky from the Migration Council. She is described as ‘driving’ the agreement, rather than a compact, which leads us to wonder if she was taking dictation at lunch with Simon and Innes.
The peak union body recognised the need for a temporary skilled migration program on the condition that it was based on a robust compliance regime, restricted to genuine shortages and used “evidence-based” assessment of specific occupations.
Yesterday the union issued its own briefing paper demanding more stringent labour market testing for temporary workers claiming there was an over-reliance in some regions.
Surreally the piece concludes with reference to the one thing the ACTU has clearly stated this week – to the effect that temporary employment visas have been abused.
So there it is.
It’s a compact, it’s an agreement, it’s been signed and it involves business, unions, immigration bodies and ethnic councils and social service providers, and it argues for maintaining a high level of permanent immigration – just that it consists of nothing but a web page with some logos, and three quarters of the organisations behind the logos have not even mentioned any agreement or compact.
Maybe The Australian would like to verify whoever paid for the advertisement which appeared in The Australian on Friday and their connection with the Migration Council of Australia? And maybe the Migration Council of Australia may want to clarify with a statement that whoever has paid for that advertisement has been duly authorised to expend monies on its behalf, and that it considers the advertising of the ‘compact’ an efficient use if its resources?
That of course is before we look at Rupert Murdoch’s world and ask ourselves if his minions write ‘exclusive’ pieces based on advertising connected with its own opinion writers, touting websites which are closely connected with that writer.
It has Innes Willox’s fingers all over it. And it stinks.
There is a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Syria and the "western" media ignore it. On December 22 al-Qaeda aligned Takfiris in the Wadi Barada valley shut down the main water supply for the Syrian capital Damascus. Since then the city and some 5-6 million living in and around it have to survive on emergency water distributions by the Syrian government. That is barely enough for people to drink - no washing, no showers and no water dependent production is possible. Article originally published at Moon of Alabama. Sources of pictures and enlargements also available there.
This shut down is part of a wider, seemingly coordinated strategy to deprive all government held areas of utility supplies. Two days ago the Islamic State shut down a major water intake for Aleppo from the Euphrates. High voltage electricity masts on lines feeding Damascus have been destroyed and repair teams, unlike before, denied access. Gas supplies to parts of Damascus are also cut. A similar tactic was used by the Zionist terrorists of the Haganah who in 1947/48 poisoned and blew up the water mains and oil pipelines to Palestinian Haifa.
Wadi Barada is a river valley some 10 miles west of Damascus at the mountain range between Lebanon and Syria. It has been in the hands of local insurgents since 2012. The area was since loosely surrounded by Syrian government forces and their allies from Hizbullah.
Two springs in the area provide the water for Damascus which is treated locally and then pumped through pipelines into the city's distribution network. Since the early 1990s there is a low level conflict over the water diversion of the Barada river valley to the ever growing Damascus. The drought over the last years has intensified the problems. Local agriculture of the water rich valley had to cut back for lack of water as this was pumped into the city. But many families from the valley moved themselves into the city or have relatives living there.
The local rebels had kept the water running for the city. Al-Qaeda aligned groups have been in the area for some time. A propaganda video distributed by them and taken in the area showed (pic) the choreographed mass execution of Syrian government soldiers.
After the eastern part of the city of Aleppo was liberated by Syrian government forces, the local rebels and inhabitants in the Barada river valley were willing to reconcile with the Syrian government. But the al-Qaeda Takfiris disagreed and took over. The area is since under full al-Qaeda control and thereby outside of the recent ceasefire agreement.
On December 22 the water supply to Damascus was suddenly contaminated with diesel fuel and no longer consumable. A day later Syrian government forces started an operation to regain the area and to reconstitute the water supplies.
Photos and a video on social media (since inaccessible but I saw them when they appeared) showed the water treatment facility rigged with explosives. On Dec 27th the facility was blown up and partly destroyed.
Suddenly new organized "civil" media operations of, allegedly, locals in the area spread misinformation to "western" media. "There are 100,000 civilians under siege in Wadi Barada!" In reality the whole area once had, according to the last peacetime census, some 20,000 inhabitants. The White Helmets propaganda organization now also claims to be in the area. "The government had bombed the water treatment facility," the propaganda groups claimed.
That is a. not plausible and b. inconsistent with the pictures of the destroyed facility. These show a collapse of the main support booms of the roof but no shrapnel impact at all. A bomb breaking through the roof and exploding would surely have left pocket marks all over the place. The damage, in my judgement, occurred from well designed, controlled explosions inside the facility.
Some insurgents posted pictures of themselves proudly standing within the destroyed facility and making victory signs.
There is more such cheer-leading by insurgents on social media. Why when they claim that the government bombed the place?
On December 29 the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs issued an alarm about the water crisis:
The United Nations is alarmed that four million inhabitants in Damascus and surrounding areas have been cut off from the main water supply since 22 December. Two primary sources of drinking water- Wadi Barada and Ain-el-Fijah-which provide clean and safe water for 70 percent of the population in and around Damascus are not functioning, due to deliberate targeting resulting in the damaged infrastructure.
One of the two springs, Al-Feejeh, has now been retaken by the Syrian army. 1,300 civilians from Ain AlFeejeh, the nearby town with the treatment facility, have fled to the government held areas and were taken in by the Syrian Red Cross. The other spring and the treatment facility are still in Takfiri hands. The government has said that it will need some ten days to repair the system after the Syrian army has gained control of the facilities. That will still take some time.
Western media have hardly taken notice of the water crisis in Damascus and their coverage seems to actively avoid it. A search for Barada on the Washington Post website brings up one original piece from December 30 about the freshly negotiated ceasefire. The 6th paragraph says:
Airstrikes pounded opposition-held villages and towns in the strategically-important Barada Valley outside Damascus, activists said, prompting rebels to threaten to withdraw their compliance with a nationwide truce brokered by Russia and Turkey last week.
Then follow 16 paragraphs on other issues. Only at the very end of the piece comes this (mis-)information:
The Barada Valley is the primary source of water for the capital and its surrounding region. The government assault has coincided with a severe water shortage in Damascus since Dec. 22. Images from the valley’s Media Center indicate its Ain al-Fijeh spring and water processing facility have been destroyed in airstrikes. The government says rebels spoiled the water source with diesel fuel, forcing it to cut supplies to the capital.
On December 29 a piece by main WaPo anti-Syria propagandist Liz Sly did not mention the water crisis or the Barada valley at all.
The New York Times links a Reuters pieces about the UN alarm about the water crisis. But I find nothing in its own reporting that even mentions the water crisis. One piece on December 31 refers shortly to attacks on Wadi Baradi by government forces at its very end.
A Guardian search for Barada only comes up with a piece from today mixed from agency reports. The headlines say "Hundreds of Syrians flee as Assad's forces bomb Barada valley rebels". The piece itself says that they flee to the government side. In it the Syrian Observatory (MI-6) operation in Britain confirms that al-Qaeda rules the area which "Civil society organisations on the ground" deny. Only the very last of the 12 paragraph piece mentions the capital:
The Barada valley is the primary source of water for the capital and its surrounding region. The government assault has coincided with a severe water shortage in Damascus since 22 December. The government says rebels spoiled the water source with diesel fuel, forcing it to cut supplies to the capital.
Surely a few people "fleeing" (to the government side) "as Assad's forces bombs" are way more important than 5 million people in Damascus without access to water. That the treatment facility is destroyed seems also unimportant.
All the above papers have been extremely concerned about every scratch to any propaganda pimp who had claimed to be in then rebel held east-Aleppo. They now show no concern at all for 5 million Syrians in Damascus who have been without water for 10 days and will likely be so for the rest of the month.
Posted by b on January 2, 2017 at 02:42 PM | Permalink
Two videos: Day after day, they are discovering piles and piles of food, heating gasoline, medical equipment, and weapons in east Aleppo that are enough for hundreds of thousands to stay alive for years, coming from Turkey, Qatar, the US, and Saudi. Yet, they were stocking them and leave the civilians to starve, to keep the lies on the Syrian government and blame it for all the starving of the people.
These piles of wheat might be enough to feed all Syria!
and this is a short clip from Reuters, however I didn't find the original source.
A quick skim of the bill reveals “Title V—Matters relating to foreign countries”, whose Section 501 calls for the government to “counter active measures by Russia to exert covert influence … carried out in coordination with, or at the behest of, political leaders or the security services of the Russian Federation and the role of the Russian Federation has been hidden or not acknowledged publicly.”
The section lists the following definitions of media manipulation:
Establishment or funding of a front group.
Covert broadcasting.
Media manipulation.
Disinformation and forgeries.
Funding agents of influence.
Incitement and offensive counterintelligence.
Assassinations.
Terrorist acts.
As ActivistPost correctly notes, it is easy to see how this law, if passed by the Senate and signed by the president, could be used to target, threaten, or eliminate so-called “fake news” websites, a list which has been used to arbitrarily define any website, or blog, that does not share the mainstream media’s proclivity to serve as the Public Relations arm of a given administration.
The momentum has shifted in Aleppo this week as the Syrian Army begin to advance, steadily driving out Western and Gulf-backed terrorist fighters under the command of Al Nusra Front – from their occupied enclaves in Eastern Aleppo. These images and videos will never see the light of day in the corporate media editing rooms because they expose their almost six year narrative on Syria as one of the most criminal propaganda projects ever deployed against a sovereign nation, its people, its state and its national army. This article was first published at http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/11/29/aleppo-updates-tears-hugs-and-smiles-the-relief-of-escaping-imprisonment-in-east-aleppo/ on November 29, 2016.
The prolonged dehumanization of the majority of the Syrian people, the exploitation of their children as cynical props to further the NATO & Gulf state geo-political objectives in the region, the overt and covert endorsement of NATO State-proxy terrorism, the tacit endorsement of economic terrorism via the illegal US/EU sanctions against Syria, all amount to crimes against Humanity and the Syrian people.
The #FakeNews “regime change” cohorts are seeing their pyramid of lies being dismantled stone by stone, by the very people they have been claiming to “protect” for almost six years.
The linked video shows the reactions of civilians, fleeing their four year imprisonment in East Aleppo, subjugated by various militant factions, funded by NATO states and led by Nusra Front aka Al Qaeda. The first woman, collapses into tears, as she reaches the journalist. These touching moments will be sullied by the corporate media reporting and accounting of events, as they desperately try to resuscitate their expiring Aleppo chronicles.
“They are saying God bless the army and they send their greetings to the army. They also said that there was no food and water where they were in eastern Aleppo between terrorist groups , they also said that terrorists treated them very bad and that the army helped them get out to safe areas. They also showed very big happiness seeing the interviewer who is a very famous war reporter in Syrian for Syrian official TV.”
The following images were taken of the fleeing civilians in the last 24 hours.
“Today, more civilians exited terrorists held areas, and reached to Hanano & Al-Sakhour which are under the control of the SAA in Aleppo.”
Sarah Abdallah, analyst and commentator, notes the following:
“Syrian Arab Army’s remarkable east Aleppo advancement continues:
Four more districts freed today, including the pivotal region of Sakhour. In the last 48 hours alone, 12 east Aleppo districts have been liberated. From one area to the next, the “moderate” terrorists are melting down. Most important news today though is the SAA’s recapture of the Suleiman al-Halabi Water Pumping Station. The Aleppo water crisis is over! Since 2012, Turkish-backed “jihadists” have withheld water from Aleppo’s residents as a means of blackmailing them into supporting the “revolution”. This has led to unprecedented levels of sickness and malnourishment. But now, the SAA has restored water to more than one million people as it moves ever-closer to freeing Aleppo entirely.
21st Century Wire will continue to post brief but informative updates as we receive them from known and verified sources on the ground in Aleppo and across Syria or the region.
Zahran Alloush, the leader and founder of Jaish al Islam Alloush, an extremist Salafi group supported by Saudi Arabia, was killed by an airstrike whilst attending a meeting with other armed Syrian groups on Friday. The group's ideology is similar to that of ISIS, and they have planned to overthrow the secular Syrian government and replace it with an Islamic dictatorship. Bizarrely, SBS, an Australian television station has reported on Alloush as if he were a leader of one of the key opposition groups who ‘would negotiate with the Syrian government’ next month.
Following the UN negotiated settlement in Yarmouk yesterday, there was a report on Australia’s SBS World News which presented the whole situation from the opposition’s point of view.
This is nothing new – SBS is in lock-step with AL Jazeera, and frequently uses its video and commentary in reports on Syria.
However in this report, which talked about the transporting of the jihadists by bus to Raqqa, and other aspects of the settlement that affected the people who couldn’t accept the liberation of Yarmouk on Syria’s terms, there was something else which turned it into devious propaganda.
While the commentary was only about Yarmouk, and what allegedly had happened there before, the video was suddenly scenes of white helmets and bomb sites and hospital treatment which didn’t look like Yarmouk at all. And to
confirm what they actually were, a logo was visible on the screen. You can see it in the collage of screen shots I attach, and it reads ‘Sarmin’. Interestingly this logo also features the ‘Shehada’ in black and white, which is variously the
flag of Jabhat al Nusra and apparently also of Jaish al Islam. Coincidentally today, following the assassination of Zahran Alloush in Ghouta by the Syrian army, SBS has this report which features a photo of the leader of Jaish al Islam – Alloush, sitting between two such flags:
Also coincidentally, we could say, in today’s Melbourne Age, there is an article from the New York Times which is a story about an IS commander who ‘spent his adult years in Sarmin’ – Hassan Aboud. It is claimed that he is now a key IS commander who was involved in the attack and seizure of Palmyra last year, but previously was with the ‘Dawood brigade’ in Sarmin, a brigade we are told which fought to stop the Syrian army targeting civilians there!
Sarmin of course is where the widely discredited reports of a ‘chemical attack’ killing three children and two grandparents took place back in March, just as the Army of Conquest – Jaish al Fatah was launching its surge into Syria which has done so much damage, and which the Russians are helping the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) to fight and destroy even now.
As for Alloush, the SBS report makes him out to be someone who was a leader of one of the key opposition groups who 'would negotiate with the Syrian government next month. This is a total Saudi fantasy, made irrelevant by last week's UNSC resolution. SBS also claims that Alloush was responsible for preventing IS from coming into Douma, or Ghouta and yet again suggesting that Russia and Syria are somehow helping IS by targeting the other 'moderate' terrorist groups.
It’s about time someone told the Saudis the news about the UN agreement, and SBS needs to stop listening to them and start reporting the truth.
Video and transcript inside. Second in series. First one, on Bashar al-Assad, is here.The third one is here.Australian cartoonist, Bruce Petty, & Dr Jeremy Salt, Middle East scholar and former journalist discuss news reporting on the Middle-East: Do we live with false assumptions? Bruce Petty and Dr Salt knew each other when they both worked for Australian newspapers and Bruce asks Jeremy for his recollections about mistakes in reporting on the Middle East. Jeremy Salt is the author of The Unmaking of the Middle East. A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands, (University of California Press, 2008). Until recently, Dr Salt was based in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, where he ran courses in the history of the modern Middle East, in politics and in politics, propaganda and the media.
BRUCE PETTY: Ah well, Jeremy we should talk about where news comes from, whether it ever gets corrected, do we live with false assumptions? We both worked for The Age, we probably contributed to some … I certainly did as a cartoonist, contributed to some misunderstanding, or very sloppy history and analysis, because that’s what cartoonists do, fine tricks in the thing. You wrote about important subjects [JS: and edited], and edited. Do you recall some terrible errors we made in reporting the Middle-East?
JEREMY SALT: Well, I’ll tell you what, well, just apart from the Middle-East, I mean, I think cartoonists in a way it’s direct – you do the cartoon, you draw it, you give it to the picture editor or whatever, it goes to the newspaper. But news is an artefact, it’s fashioned, shaped, honed, it passes from one hand to the other, like the first step is: Who selects the news? The second step is: Who edits the news? The third step is: What they leave in, what they take out, OK? And so forth and so on – that’s a process. So what the person reads in the newspapers or sees on television is quite different from the raw material. And we both know the quantity of news that comes here to the daily newspaper or to a television station is enormous. The pictures as well, you know, so what they actually pick from that is a fraction of the total, you know, and that depends on the inclination, the temperament of the person who’s doing the choosing, alright? So the whole process is very contingent on a whole lot of things so when people look at a newspaper they don’t actually see what is behind it this immense three-dimensional world, alright. It really is like a beehive with lots of people labouring to produce this object called ‘news’.
BP: So it’s a sort of space problem in a way because you could analyse the moment, the moment that we’re discussing, which has come through from a correspondent or a consulate [Yes] but then somebody’s got to say, What are the origins of this puzzle that we’re looking at?
JS: Yeah, and someone’s got to make choices about, particularly on the editorial desk or subs’ desks, what you’re actually going to write, what you’re going to include. And I can remember I worked on The Age foreign desk and we’d get bundles of stuff in, we’d get a breaking story, you’d get a kind of a series of updates, leads, from morning to afternoon, OK? And you’d go through the file and you’d pick up what you thought were most important, and then you’d go through what you were getting from your own correspondent and often there’d be huge gaps, alright? Now if you tacked on what you’d got from the agency file to what the correspondent’s writing, you mightn’t like it, alright? It doesn’t fit into what he thinks the new situation is and you know, the editor might not like that. I mean I’ve been in that situation where Graham Perkin picked me up and said, I’ve had this message from so-and-so – I won’t tell you who it is – he went through this long letter, single spaced typed from one of our esteemed correspondents, single-spaced typing on three pages, and he says this and he says this, and he says this, and he says this, and he says, here I think we’ve got a left-wing saboteur on the subs’ desk.
BP: So, we’re going to lose readers if your piece goes in without …
JS: Well no, you, you’re going to get into trouble. [Oh OK, yeah.] If you tamper with the news like that, if you’re trying to present what you think – and of course your own judgement is just as suspect as anyone else’s – but if you try to present what … a balanced view, it might go against policy, it might go against the view of the correspondent, it can go against a whole lot of things. And you can get into trouble. You can get into strife over it.
BP: So obviously, a small magazine, not looking for great circulation will give you a better version of an incident or a situation than a big broadsheet with [inaudible] circulation.
JS: Probably, probably a small magazine has hundreds of people to write for it. They’re not going to pay. You know, if you don’t get your money, that’s fine. You’ve got to accept what you … [BP: Just write for a few people …] Yeah, but the newspapers have a line. Generally speaking they’ve got a line and there’s a whole lot of things that I’ve written for newspapers that have never seen the light of day, and this goes back many, many, many decades. And I think the reason would be that my view of the Middle-East, which is the area I do, is radical – in their view – or extreme. I had this experience with, actually, The Australian. I had a friend there and I wrote a piece on the peace process, so-called, all process, no peace. And this is about 1995, two years after it started, and I wrote a piece and sent it to The Australian. And occasionally I did, even though I don’t like The Australian. I’m sorry Bruce, I know it was your home for a while … and um, the person I sent it to, was on the Foreign Desk. He rang me and said, ‘We’re not going to run this’. He said, ‘I ran it past so-and-so’ and I said, ‘What did he say?’ ’Well, so-and-so said …’ and he stopped and I said ‘Said what, that I’m an extremist?’ and he said, ‘Yes, not to put too fine a point on it’. And so-and-so told me to tell you, that they will never run you on the Middle-East. Right? Right?
BP: So the Cold War was still operating.
JS: Well, we know The Australian’s editorial line is rightwing, OK? Sure, but even you know, mainstream papers like The Age or the SMH on certain issues are very conservative, on the Middle-East, most definitely.
JS: What I was writing in 1995 was that the so-called peace process between Israel and Palestine was finished, two years after [it began]. For me obviously, it was a waste of time, and that’s what they were not prepared to run. Of course, ten years later everyone’s saying it’s a joke, you know. But you know, extremists from their point of view.
JS: Bruce, did you ever have a cartoon rejected?
BP: Oh, not on political grounds and not international grounds, but ones that they didn’t like were anything corporate [OK, right] because they do our advertising [of course], we can’t live without them. So you don’t name anybody, you know you can do it in a general sense that they’re all, you know, pretty devious, but you can’t say, ‘Thisguy is a crook’.
Mark Allen from Population Permaculture and Planning locks horns so to speak with West Australian Planning Professor, Professor Newman, over Melbourne's apartment proliferation, in discussion on the Conversation website relating traffic congestion to GDP rather than to population growth, and where the professor has suggested that increasing low cost, low quality, high density appartments would solve housing unaffordability. (If you wish to contribute on The Conversation site, please hit 'newest' on the 'Comments' section to read the latest dialogue at: https://theconversation.com/dont-panic-traffic-congestion-is-not-coming-for-our-cities-45154)
In a post in Mark Allen and Peter Newman's ongoing discussion Peter Newman has written that he believes that housing in-affordability created by urban consolidation can be solved "by building more high density housing at lower cost." He goes on to say that:
"Many people, perhaps you are one, prevent this as they only want to see high quality high density housing. They have been very successful at stopping high rise in Melbourne especially. This means the rich are moving in and the poor out."
So, does Professor Newman mean that if we build cheap low quality high-rise, we will solve all of our social inequity problems?
Mark Allen (Population, Permaculture and Planning) responded:
Very little of the massively overpriced high density in Melbourne is of high quality. Ironically the very few cases that I have seen of affordable housing have appeared at least, to be better quality, possibly because the architects had more to prove in terms of persuading planners and the community that affordable housing would not "detract" from the neighbourhood. If the standards of high density development in Melbourne were to be reduced any more, we would literally be building slums. Please do not assume that the high prices in Melbourne's apartment market translates into higher quality development. Property developers are using the urban consolidation mantra as an excuse to build high density, mainly for the overseas market and property investors. It is a build 'em quick, sell 'em high mentality. There is absolutely zero incentive for developers to market high density to people on lower incomes here in Melbourne and the investors that are being marketed to do not want prices to be brought down by cheaper units being built. Therefore I have learnt that urban consolidation can only work if a major component is, like you suggest, "social housing". I have also come to the conclusion that higher density development should not be constructed to such a scale that the character, heritage value and green spaces of our inner suburbs are adversely effected. I believe that greater emphasis should be placed on constructing European style medium-density town housing in the middle suburbs where many of the houses built in the 50's and 60's are coming to the end of their lives. There also needs to be a greater emphasis on increasing densities on the urban fringe by building TOD urban villages rather than low density suburbs (admittedly without the public transport but at least there would be an economic reason for it to come, even if it means waiting a few years). Finally we cannot ignore the issue of population growth. There needs to be an open and honest debate about how quickly our population should grow and whether slowing it would allow us time to plan more effectively as opposed to trying to keep up with accommodating ever increasing numbers. To promote urban consolidation as a magic bullet solution without looking at the wider context can therefore I believe, lead to really bad planning outcomes as is happening here in Melbourne.
Thank you for the article Peter. I am concerned however that Australian cities do face an increased congestion problem. Here in Melbourne the population is increasing by around 100,000 a year. In fact our infrastructure will need to be doubled in the next 30-40 years. The government's solution is to house this growth by means of urban consolidation, in this case large amounts of apartments close to railway lines. The idea is that people will use existing infrastructure; utilise the train or tram on their doorstep and car usage will be greatly reduced. The reality is sadly a bit more complex. Every new apartment is provided with a parking space for at least one car and many people utilise that space because while having a train on your doorstep is handy for some trips, it does not cover all of them by any means. So by building transport orientated development we are increasing car- usage in the inner suburbs and ironically as the focus is on creating origins rather than destinations along the public transport network, (i.e apartments rather than facilities and places of recreation etc) more and more car journeys are going to be needed as businesses and places of leisure are displaced by apartment building.
Its not what happens. If you build up densities around stations the main thing that happens is that people use local services much more as well as the transit system. The whole area becomes more walkable and less car dependent. Transit services go up and more local economic activity comes to the area. The cars are mostly left at home and eventually some households get rid of them altogether. It would be much better to have fewer parking spaces available from the start but that is often driven by fearful councillors not wanting people to park on the street.
Its 'not what happens' in theory but there is a growing body of research to show that this is what is happening here in Melbourne. The high price of real estate is such that many of the services currently available in transport nodes are being displaced by residential development to the extent that walkability is being lost. I agree that nevertheless people living in apartments in the inner suburbs will and are making far less journeys by car than those in the outer suburbs, but when you take into account the large numbers of people living in these transport orientated developments, you are looking at an overall increase in congestion by the sheer increase in the volume of people. This is despite the fact that per capita car-use is decreasing. I am not against urban consolidation as long as it is not dictated to, as it is at present, by the market. There has to be a component of affordable housing in the mix or else the construction of new apartments only goes to gentrify the areas in which they are constructed. This forces people on lower incomes to the urban fringes where car use is almost essential. Also, 95% of new apartments constructed in Melbourne are one bedroomed and therefore aimed at a narrow demographic which puts additional pressure on the urban fringe for those people who want to start families etc. Unfortunately I believe that the "increased densities around stations" mantra is being exploited by developers (etc) precisely because it is too simplistic and that it hasn't been subjected to enough scrutiny. I recommend that you strike up conversation with Professor Peter Buxton from RMIT in order to learn more about Melbourne's urban consolidation woes. Thank you for your insights.
Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University
I am not talking theory I am telling you what we have measured happening. I am aware of the discussions in Melbourne and the fear of density being generated. I dont see anywhere that those fears have actually led to what you fear.
Professor Kevin O'Connor from Melbourne university recently made a damning assessment of the way urban consolidation is being carried out in Melbourne, citing the Docklands as a prime example. This follows in the footsteps of a similar assessment by Professor Peter Buxton. I am not talking about my fears here. I am basing my assessment on what academics in the field such as yourself, are saying. I understand that your claims are based upon measurements but the parameters are changing all of the time as the apartment boom continues to accelerate. Of course those parameters also vary massively from city to city.
By coincidence, this article was published on the Domain website today: Low-income renters are being forced to Melbourne's outskirts with areas that were once affordable now out of reach.
Low-income renters forced further to the outskirts of Melbourne
"The biggest drops in rental affordability over the past five years in Greater Melbourne were in the east and south-east; in the Mornington Peninsula, Frankston, Latrobe and the Yarra Ranges municipalities, according to the Department of Health and Human Services rental data.
Melton, Casey and Greater Dandenong – areas traditionally seen as some of Melbourne's most affordable – also recorded a significant decline compared to the rest of Melbourne.
The analysis echoes a similar finding in 2013, which showed Frankston, Greater Dandenong and Casey registered the greatest decline.
The data from the DHHS March Rental Report shows that the majority of Greater Melbourne's 32 municipalities had less than 60 affordable rentals".
Because the apartment boom in Melbourne is aimed at people in the higher income bracket without any thought for affordable housing, suburban sprawl is accelerating. It is a massive oversimplification to say that increasing densities in the inner suburbs stops suburban sprawl. If it is developer driven, it increases it.
The issue of affordability in TODs or redevelopment in general is a universal one. You can address it by requiring a certain proportion of social housing or by building more high density housing at lower cost. Many people, perhaps you are one, prevent this as they only want to see high quality high density housing. They have been very successful at stopping high rise in Melbourne especially. This means the rich are moving in and the poor out. It does mean that the rich are driving less, and this is why we are seeing peak car, but our cities are becoming less equitable due to the anti-high rise movement.
Very little of the massively overpriced high density in Melbourne is of high quality. Ironically the very few cases that I have seen of affordable housing have appeared at least, to be better quality, possibly because the architects had more to prove in terms of persuading planners and the community that affordable housing would not "detract" from the neighbourhood. If the standards of high density development in Melbourne were to be reduced any more, we would literally be building slums. Please do not assume that the high prices in Melbourne's apartment market translates into higher quality development. Property developers are using the urban consolidation mantra as an excuse to build high density, mainly for the overseas market and property investors. It is a build 'em quick, sell 'em high mentality. There is absolutely zero incentive for developers to market high density to people on lower incomes here in Melbourne and the investors that are being marketed to do not want prices to be brought down by cheaper units being built. Therefore I have learnt that urban consolidation can only work if a major component is, like you suggest, "social housing". I have also come to the conclusion that higher density development should not be constructed to such a scale that the character, heritage value and green spaces of our inner suburbs are adversely effected. I believe that greater emphasis should be placed on constructing European style medium-density town housing in the middle suburbs where many of the houses built in the 50's and 60's are coming to the end of their lives. There also needs to be a greater emphasis on increasing densities on the urban fringe by building TOD urban villages rather than low density suburbs (admittedly without the public transport but at least there would be an economic reason for it to come, even if it means waiting a few years). Finally we cannot ignore the issue of population growth. There needs to be an open and honest debate about how quickly our population should grow and whether slowing it would allow us time to plan more effectively as opposed to trying to keep up with accommodating ever increasing numbers. To promote urban consolidation as a magic bullet solution without looking at the wider context can therefore I believe, lead to really bad planning outcomes as is happening here in Melbourne.
The Fairfax media sank to a new low recently in pushing its in-house pro-population bias (in The Age) by publishing commentary on this crucial issue from the Australian Population Institute.
Unfortunately, the article, ‘We should look to the west as our population swells’, by Jane Nathan, 16 July 2015, highlights the way in which the left-liberal establishment in Australia, including Fairfax, now sings from the same song sheet as free-market growth maniacs. While it may be claimed that the population-boosting rant presented in this article is the opinion of the Australian Population Institute and not Fairfax, Fairfax, of course, can exercise considerable bias in its selection of opinion piece commentary. It has a broad menu of pro-population vested interests to choose from. It is worth mentioning that material presented as commentary or opinion does not have to stand up to any serious standard of factual accuracy or rationality in the eyes of the Australian Press Council. Commentary, therefore, provides an opportunity to push an in-house view to extremes without being very accountable about it. Fairfax may respond that ‘balance’ will be struck over the longer-term with the subsequent publication of opposing views. Just when this may occur or whether subsequent opinion would directly address the inaccuracies and bias of commentary like this within a reasonable time frame remains unclear.
The opinion piece presents a one-dimensional account of booming population growth in the western suburbs of Melbourne, with no recognition, let alone discussion, of the potential short or long-term damage that rapid population growth may cause. It is unadulterated propaganda. Without any consideration of such challenges, the core message of the commentary is simple: rapid population growth is manageable and beneficial; the suburb of Sunshine in Melbourne’s west is an example to be emulated everywhere; and such rapid population growth is compatible with the creation and maintenance of thriving harmonious communities.
In advocating this mind-numbingly superficial view, a number of spurious assumptions are made. It is stated that the tertiary-educated population of Sunshine has increased from 21 to 50 per cent, and the number of women working has increased markedly. What are we to make of such claims in relation to the issue of population growth? The implication is that rapid population growth has the effect of spreading wealth around – that population growth has lifted Sunshine up from being a down trodden working class area to one of higher social status. The reality is that Sunshine remains one of the most socio-economically disadvantaged areas within metropolitan Melbourne. The 2011 Census showed that Sunshine remained in the bottom decile in the Australian Bureau of Statistics Index of Socio-Economic Disadvantage.
The implied linkages are logically flawed and factually feeble. Levels of tertiary education have risen across the board over time and would likely have risen in Sunshine to some degree, despite its low socio-economic status, in the absence of population growth. As to the number of working women in Sunshine, the growth is presented in terms of raw numbers and not rates. The cited numerical growth in employed women is likely to be a simple reflection of overall population growth and not improved labour market access for women in Sunshine. In any case, historically, the workforce participation rates of disadvantaged women in poor areas have often been high – out of necessity. The question should be -- what proportion of women in Sunshine has access to decent jobs? No matter how this question may be answered, the links to population growth remain tenuous.
Reference is made to the provision of new infrastructure in Sunshine, to serve the burgeoning population. The suggestion is that without population growth, we would not have such wonderful new infrastructure. Again, there is a worrying absence of balance and objectivity in this claim. It is widely accepted that rapid population growth in Australia, and particularly in Australia’s capital cities, has created a situation of chronic infrastructure shortfall in many essential areas. In this context, to simply say that some infrastructure has been provided in Sunshine, without any assessment of the remaining shortfall, and of the social and economic consequences of such a shortfall, is bewildering. The public deserves a much better standard of public commentary than this.
Just how misinformed the Australian Population Institute is may be gleaned from its website, where it is claimed that current levels of population growth will take Australia to between 25 and 27 million people by 2050, which it maintains is far too little. Where have these people been for the past decade! Current mid-range population projections from the Australian Bureau of Statistics point to around 37.6 million people by that year. That is roughly the equivalent of an additional three cities the size of Melbourne in a time frame of 25 years.
It may not be surprising that someone, somewhere, may hold such a silly, ill-informed view. But, that it should be shouted from the rooftops by Fairfax deserves greater scrutiny. “Centre-left”? Not likely. This is Fairfax at its hypocritical best and music to the ears of the growth maniacs who are constantly at the doors of our political leaders demanding ever greater levels of population growth to keep the gravy train of dumb growth rolling along. Don’t let Fairfax’s preoccupation with asylum seekers, human rights and political corruption fool you. On basic issues of the economy and economic democracy, Fairfax is far to the right of centre.
Contrary to the Fairfax’s in house view, population is not a politically neutral issue, whereby population growth may be reasonably advocated by either the left or right of the political spectrum. Unquestioning advocacy of population growth by ‘left’ intellectuals reflects an historic capitulation to the deregulatory, free-market right. This is particularly so in Australia where, because of decades of economic short-sightedness, the only way to keep Gross Domestic Product growth rates high in the absence of a mining boom is population growth and city building (given the serious structural impoverishment of the Australian economy – we sell dirt and a little agriculture to the world in return for elaborately transformed goods). In reality, the Australian economy’s reliance upon population growth is a form of crisis management, from which particular sectoral interests parasitically and disproportionately benefit (e.g. housing, banking and retail). For these sectors, any correction of the structural imbalance in the Australian economy would be perceived as a dire threat.
Reliance upon population growth is dumb growth writ large and Fairfax’s faux humanitarianism helps the free-market right along its way.
Big Australia, or big anywhere, is a contentious issue. The population ponzi scheme is a concept the public appear to find noxious. There's no votes in packing more sardines into the Australia can. Aware of this, sniveling politicians have often schemed a way to get the public to focus on their rhetoric and ignore their government's ever increasing immigration numbers. [This incisive and witty article has been republished with permission from How To Shut Down An Immigration Debate at the Idiot Tax site.]
Take war monger and lying rodent, John Howard. During his time in office, Howard more than doubled the immigration intake. Hilariously, immigration also pumped from those Sandrockistan countries that truly agitate 58 year old disability pensioners, bereft of hope, who while away their days ranting on Larry Pickering's blog. The exact group who continued to vote Howard into power because he told them, "we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come."
Every country does have the right to decide the
composition, the manner, and the timing of the flow of people. And
that’s something the Australian people support… One of the reasons why it is so important to maintain that policy is
that the more people think our borders are being controlled, the more
supportive they are in the long-term of higher levels of immigration. Australia needs a high level of immigration. I’m a high immigration
man. I practiced that in Government. And one of the ways that you
maintain public support for that is to communicate to the Australian
people a capacity to control our borders and decide who and what people
and when they come to this country.
In hindsight it was clear from the immigration increase during Howard's reign that he was a high immigration man and he practiced that in government. He just made sure he didn't explicitly mention it to anyone at the time. In fact, his words in 2014 revealed the bait and switch he cunningly employed. Use language that implies you have an intention to do one thing, while you do the complete opposite. Maybe one day, five years later, stuck in another traffic jam commuting from their overpriced outer-suburban hovel, a voter might begin to wonder.
All credit to Howard though. The guy ain't a moron. You don't actually speak about this stuff. You tell the plebs one thing that kinda has to do with immigration, when they think you're on the same page, you then get on with executing the actual plan. Notice the real acceleration in immigration numbers after Johnny told us in 2001 he'd be deciding who was welcome in Australia - everyone he could fit! Rank amateur, Kevin Rudd, actually articulated his belief in a big Australia. He was soon executed by his party after the Labor focus groups went ballistic at the idea. This is why political parties tiptoe around the issue - because for various reasons, people hate the idea of high immigration. And because they hate it, they're continually denied a voice in the debate.
The cloaked love of immigration on the right comes down to currying favour with their rent seeking paymasters. It's the cheapest and easiest sugar hit for business there is. What's better than more people if you're in a volume business like banking, real estate development or supermarkets? Then there's that added bonus of wage suppression. And don't forget temporary visas that you can use with your buddies to attract malleable labour from less fortunate countries, all while continuing your campaign of terror against the unemployed - that is until your buddies completely balls it up.
(Costa) in the most bizarre revelation, admits they have a potential
employee list of over 1500 and were still sorting them because their admin
team couldn't cope, yet the day previous they'd been squealing to
multiple media organisations they couldn't get workers and people should
be calling them for jobs.
Despite our right-wing reptilian overlords clear love of massive immigration, they've found themselves in the enviable position of rarely having to defend it when in office. How is it that a politically dangerous issue that continues to do exactly what the electorate doesn't want, escapes scrutiny? Maybe because if you genuinely want to get the debate on immigration started, there's often a toxic booby-trap waiting. Would like explain who really benefits and who loses? Wondering about infrastructure, increasing debt loads to acquire basic shelter, wage suppression or environmental degradation? Someone will be waiting somewhere with the racial road-spikes to blow out your tyres.
While on the trail of Michael Pascoe's dubious market calls during the financial crisis, I came across the constant drum beating he did on John Howard's population boom when writing for Crikey. Pascoe was unencumbered highlighting 457 visas and exploitation, while reminding readers about the booming population intake. It probably helped neither he nor Crikey were fans of the rodent government. Maybe it was an issue they would have never previously concerned themselves with? But did it become fair game with the Liberals potentially on the ropes?
19 March 2007, You say migration, we say unlimited cheap labor
The employer lobby is barracking for and pushing the Andrews submission
along as well as campaigning for an unlimited supply of cheap labour by
having sub-section 457 visas minimum wages conditions removed, leaving
the guest workers to the vagaries of WorkChoices.
Mar 21 2007, Guest worker truckies – think Melbourne’s taxi industry on 18 wheels at 110km/h
But the TWU is concerned about more devious and less safe methods.
Its researchers have corresponded with a Chinese labor recruitment firm
which has advised it can supply truck drivers here on section 442
trainee rates of $13.47 an hour. The claim is that the trainee visas are
good for three months, after which you try for 457s or just ship in
another load of cheap drivers. If you’ve ever driven on China’s roads and watched the trucks at play, you’ll know that is a frightening suggestion.
17 May 2007, 300,000 migrants next year -- but keep it to yourself
John Howard won’t be campaigning as Australia’s greatest champion of
immigration and multiculturalism despite overseeing the importation of
nearly 300,000 people in the 2006-07 financial year. Such irony. Instead, the Government is downplaying migration numbers.
13 June 2007,Gittins chimes in on the big immigration secret
With the benefits of time and space, Gittins fleshes
out the numbers a touch, but I still find the missing total curious.
There’s also a saying among journalists that you lead with your best
punch – you certainly don’t leave it out altogether. It’s only a guess, but I suspect gentle souls like Gittins might be a little concerned about the consequences. Tell the hoi polloi
300,000 migrants are turning up next year and it rather quickly leads
to talk of no-white-faces-on-the-tram-anymore,
too-many-Muslims-cause-all-the-trouble and
print-out-the-article-and-confront-your-MP.
2 July 2007, As you sit in your traffic jam, Immigration Dept plays numbers down
From Brisbane to Perth and all major centres in between, Australian
cities are groaning under inadequate infrastructure, choked roads,
unaffordable housing, failing public transport... But amidst it all, the Immigration Department continues to play down the real numbers driving the surge... Then there’s the elephant in the lounge room ?—?sub-section 457 “guest
workers” and their dependents. Canberra might pretend they don’t count,
but they are on four-year visas and must be housed and travel like
everyone else.
28 August 2007, A tale of two 457s – and 100,000 this year looks conservative
Even if the growth rate slows to 15% this year, we’ll break the
100,000 mark and the gross annual immigration number of 300,000 Crikey
first suggested in May starts to look conservative. The message coming from employers certainly doesn’t sound like any
sort of slowdown. The call is to increase the spread of occupations
covered by 457s, extending the downgrading that’s already underway from
what was meant to be a purely “skilled” worker category.
29 August 2007, Andrews defends the indefensible on 457s – so nothing new really
Crucial skills shortages in a number of areas means the idea of a
flexible and fast temporary visa system has considerable merit, but the
badly-administered and demonstrably slip-shod 457 scheme presently run
by Kevin Andrews doesn’t. And there are broader issues yet to be debated about the impact of
300,000 migrants this year on the labor market and economy, the role
such an unprecedented intake will play in keeping down inflation by
keeping down wages. Don’t expect Kevin Andrews to make a worthwhile
contribution or that either major political party to want to hear about
it before the election.
Kevin the conservative Catholic believes it is “morally inappropriate”
for people on temporary visas to be allowed to work in the s-x industry,
so while it’s acceptable for foreigners on student and working holiday
visas to be exploited as lowly-paid kitchen hands and fruit pickers,
they are now banned from removing their clothes for money.
Apart from a couple more, that's the majority of Pascoe's work on the issue. At this point he slowed up as Labor was elected. Maybe he was waiting to see what came from Rudd and Labor, or maybe with the job done and with the rodent eviscerated, it was time to move on. That was until the next year at least when he picked up on more dubious visa categories to further split and obscure immigration rates from being an overall figure.
2 July, 2008, After 475 visa comes 485 – just don't call it immigration
The 485 visa initiative looks like a useful tool for helping ease
Australia’s skills shortage and chronic under-investment in education,
but along with the 475 “guest worker” visa, it’s another way of fudging
gross immigration numbers. We were being conservative when we were the first to suggest
Australia was looking at gross immigration of some 300,000 this
financial year. The official government numbers don’t count New
Zealanders, 475, 476 or 485 visa holders?—?though they all have to live,
eat, drink and travel while they’re here.
Later in the month Pascoe went with almost final contribution to highlighting the hush hush around immigration and the impact 457s were having on wages. If you haven't read any of the others apart my copypasta work, read the following one.
Jul 23, 2008, 10,000 457s a month keeping down inflation — and wages
It was arguably Pascoe's most benign work since he honed in on immigration and 457s. Yet in a piece for Crikey, now unavailable online, it provoked some frothing from former Democrat Senator, Andrew Bartlett. Bartlett, who you might best remember as the guy who, after a Canberra drunken bender, dragged his screaming two-year old to an apology press conference to jazz up his family image, found Pascoe's article a little Hanson-ish.
Firstly, he gives a run to the "migrants will stop Australia meeting our
greenhouse targets" line which is the latest favourite from the
minority Hansonite wing of the environment movement.
Pascoe barely even mentioned this, but it was enough for Bartlett to veer into social justice 101 - we know what you're really thinking! Concerned about the environment and meeting greenhouse targets? Have the hide to bring immigration into it- RAYCISS! Bartlett's argument was all carbon emissions are created equal.
Now, if ever there was a global, as opposed to just local, environmental
issue, it is greenhouse emissions. I have yet to see a single piece of
scientific data suggesting carbon generated by migrants to Australia is
more damaging than carbon generated if they had stayed in their home
country
Maybe I'm a dummy, but at a basic level if an immigrant had a short distance to travel to employment in his own country, wouldn't he have lower carbon emissions than if he was stuck out in the arse end of Western Sydney driving through congestion for an hour each way to make it to work in Australia? Alternatively, if the government had bothered to prepare and plan for his arrival, well maybe his carbon emissions could be equal or even lower. Bartlett really chewed it up for his next Pascoe slap.
Pascoe gives it away with
his comment that there are "good mechanics from third-world nations"
happy to come here and work. Quite why it is a bad thing that we have
good mechanics coming from "third world nations" isn’t made clear, but I
guess the one thing that has changed since the same arguments were run
in the "Australia for the white man" days of the 19th (and 20th) century
is that people have learned not to be quite so blatant.
Yeah, Pascoe really gave it away. He mentioned the third world and Bartlett took a glee header into writing a response that didn't even deserve to be published, let alone read. And Bartlett's implication is clear - "we're dealing with educated racists now, they know we're onto them so we need to read between the lines." The question is, did this affect Pascoe? After stepping off for a month, he returned with the following.
18 August 2008, Guestworkers and the return of the Kanaka
In 2008 as we again recruit farm laborers from the South Seas, it is of course going to be different, with the blessing of international aid agencies,
promoted as a win-win by the governments of Australia and the South
Pacific nations, with unions promising to monitor pay and conditions and
a farm lobby overjoyed that its persistent campaigning for access to
compliant unskilled guest workers has finally succeeded.
After accusations of between the lines racism, Pascoe was found back positioning himself as a man concerned about migrant workers, something I
don't doubt he is, but see what happens when you're wedged as a racist. You're forced into all sorts of mealy-mouthed clarifications, lest you
be thought of as a bigot. Though that didn't stop PR maestro, Bartlett, who you'll note had rode his trusty steed back into the debate and was flailing about in the comment section, parroting the words you'd expect from a government minister who was announcing or defending a guest worker program - opportunity & safeguards.
He also seriously asked why Pascoe hadn't called for the end of working holiday programs, that brought in over 100k people each year, to help the unemployed. I guess Andrew forgot those are reciprocal, where a similar number will exit the country as come in.
Soon after this, Pascoe shuffled off to Fairfax and on a semi regular basis he continued to highlight the fudging of immigration figures so they could be sliced, diced and manipulated away from highlighting gross totals. Pascoe was never anti immigration, at worst during his Crikey time he was an unenthused grump who wanted transparency and a light shone on the more exploitative visa aspects. Though in more recent years when writing for Sydney Morning Domain, he's shifted to enthusiastic cheersquad member and he's started spitting out the lingo straight from the "I'm too lazy to argue this one" book - "xenophobic", "dog whistle" etc etc, which when coming from the rent seeking business community is often cloak for "we need the money, we're too lazy and stupid to increase productivity, so please shut up!"
With Pascoe never being anti-immigration, nor racist, Bartlett's over the top sensitivity, and the widespread sensitivity of people like him, make immigration and population debates dangerous places to be. These people also serve as useful idiots by attempting to kill off debate like a first year loud mouth arts student. While that happens the right can continue with their blanket condemnation of anyone on the dole as
a bludger, despite the clear lack of jobs. At the same time, they'll disenfranchise those people by unlatching the gate to all sorts of wage supressing immigration and visa options
at the behest of their paymasters.
Take this farce for example, in Tasmania, Costa had 1500 applicants for fruit picking on its books, but spent time howling to the media it couldn't get workers. We later found out many of the local applicants on Costa's list had never been called back and Costa's admin team, despite calling for new applications, hadn't made it through those who'd applied six months earlier.
A horticulture lobby group says Australians are too precious and unwilling to work outside in tough conditions. Voice for Horticulture said that was why it was backing plans to allow
more foreign workers to come to Australia for seasonal jobs. The Federal Government yesterday announced it would allow an extra 1,000 people from the Pacific and Timor Leste to participate in its seasonal worker program.
The political mainstream and business want a cage fight between poor people, be they Australian or otherwise. They'll use it as entertainment to get hard, before they employ the eventual winner
at rock bottom rates to suck their dick. It's not even a racism argument. The true turn-on ain't who's doing the sucking, it's how cheap they can get the sucking done for. It's just business. So it should be no shock the right would happily toss 10% of the overall immigration intake - the most visible, being asylum seekers - under the bus to convince the electorate to ignore the other 90% who really aren't planned for in any meaningful way - except in the saliva glands of bankers, supermarket chiefs and real estate developers. It's still cash money, bitches!
Is this truly a false dichotomy? Are both sides in
on the same scam? The efficient elimination of population and immigration discussion makes you wonder. Image being a down on your luck serf. Your
standards of living and opportunity are eroded by the business side of politics to help their paymasters,
while the other social justice side cunningly slides in and hammers you if you raise
any objections that reference competition. It's a sinister movement that continually grabs and castrates dissent. And because we can't admit immigration happens and the population increases, we never properly plan for accommodating growth.
That's OK. Because anyone of real significance (those truly influencing this stuff) don't inhabit the same living spaces as the rest of us. They
have someone to ferry them about and do the menial tasks that involve
interacting with society, while they focus on other things. Hence the
complete lack of care or interest in why the average peon is aggravated. They're never at street level to understand the dystopia they're creating.
And their inevitable destination is a country retreat or spacious low
density suburb. A greater population means more to skim off the top.
As the Ukrainian army launches a new attack on the Donetsk Peoples' Republic, claiming to have retaken Donetsk Airport from 'separatist' forces, the justification for such an attack has once again become a subject for discussion. While the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says the new offensive is aimed at 're-uniting' Ukraine, and Western media believe this both to be a reasonable objective and the real one, the actual situation is entirely different...
Much of the perversion of truth on the true nature of the Ukrainian government and the nature of the 'Eastern rebellion' can be put down to the success of the 'False Flag' attack on MH17 - carried out by the Ukrainian air force with as yet unverified assistance from Western intelligence agencies. This tragic state of affairs is thanks to the skill of the propaganda campaign conducted primarily by the US and its close allies, but facilitated by the Western media apparatus. It is tragic because the simplest of investigations of the crash site and wreckage of the plane would have readily demonstrated who was responsible; not only was clear physical evidence of the damage visible, and reported and photographed by some early observers, but forensic analysis would have found traces of the bullets that so clearly perforated the cockpit.
Given this background, the appearance of an article in the Fairfax press by veteran correspondent Paul McGeough describing his visits to the crash site with partner Kate Geraghty should have been cause for optimism; that this renowned 'investigative journalist' seemed uninterested in identifying the criminals responsible for killing so many people and instead focused on collecting sunflower seeds in 'Cockpit village' was cause for exasperation!
I sent the letter below to McGeough, in addition to Jonathan Green who interviewed him on the ABC. It also went to ABC Consumer Affairs, and the editors of the Australian National Review, and the editors of English Pravda.
Dear Paul,
While I admire your desire to give the relatives of victims of the MH17 atrocity something to fill the void left by the loss of their loved ones, I was astonished that your intense focus allowed you to both reveal and overlook crucial evidence that would provide something far more substantial to those relatives.
For those of us who paid no attention to the wild claims made in Western media following the downing of MH17, and made their own judgements based on evidence available, there was little evidence more convincing that photographs of the cockpit of the aircraft showing severe damage from artillery of some kind. For the benefit of the other recipients of this email I copy below your description in the Fairfax press of your visit to ‘Cockpit village’ – the very place where that vital fragment was observed and photographed:
“We headed out of the city before dawn. On a highway strewn with the smouldering wreckage of vehicles destroyed in the previous night's fighting, some with bodies still lying in or near them, we threaded our way through rebel checkpoints, back to what we had dubbed "the cockpit village".
This was Rassypnoe, a hamlet in which locals watched in awe as MH17's nose cone smashed into a field of shoulder-high sunflowers, just metres from buildings on the village's western flank.
When we visited the village in the last week of July, Eugene Lukovkin, a 30-year-old separatist gunman, gave us a graphic account of the crash – "bodies falling like bullets"; the nose section making a muffled sound, "like it landed in a swamp".
Recalling that he had been disposing of his grandmother's trash, Lukovkin told me: "The plane headed towards me. I could see the smoke as it fell to pieces – it had been missiled. One section was coming at me and the rest of it seemed to keep going. I dumped the rubbish cart and started running; others were running too – we think maybe some of the falling people are alive.
"There were lots of bodies – dead." Pointing to the left side of the cockpit, he says: "This is where one of the pilots was – I knew he was in charge because he had stars on his shoulder."
When we returned at dawn on our last day, none of the locals were to be seen. We drove to the field in which the buckled cockpit lay and quietly went to work – chopping enough sunflower heads to fill a big suitcase that we had bought at the market for this purpose. No one came to ask what we were doing.
Thirty minutes later we were back on the road, driving north to the Ukrainian government-controlled city of Kharkiv, from where we caught a commercial flight to the capital Kiev.
While there is little doubt outside the sphere of influence of the Western corporate media that a Ukrainian fighter jet shot down MH17 using both an air to air missile and 30mm cannon fire, the necessary evidence to establish this fact has clearly not been sought by the Dutch investigators, or their findings are being suppressed. Of particular interest here is the report from the ‘separatist gunman’ that he had seen the pilots body in the cockpit wreckage.
In the accepted scenario of the crash, endorsed by the blank black box recording, the pilots were the prime and initial target of the aerial attack; not only are there multiple penetrations of this part of the aircraft, and relatively few elsewhere, but the cockpit came down separated from the main fuselage by some distance.
Examining the high quality photograph of the left side of the cockpit, one can see evenly spaced holes as from strafing, but from bullets fired at the other side of the cockpit – the holes are quite obviously made by objects emerging from inside as the outer layer of the double skin is peeled outward, while the holes in the inner skin are perfectly round and the size of the 30 mm bullets. In the version of your article above there is also a photograph taken by Kate Geraghty of ‘a pilot’s seat’. A forensic analysis on both the seat and the pilot’s body would surely show evidence of perforations by the tungsten shells used by the SU25 and presumed responsible for the damage.
World peace depends on truthful and careful reporting now
Some people may believe that discussion of exactly how MH17 came down is becoming academic, as we lurch from one dangerous crisis to the next. But unlike discussion of the causes of the First World War – so apparently topical at the moment – this is anything but academic. Already the framing of Russia as not just involved but even as responsible for the atrocity has ‘facilitated’ NATO’s expansion eastwards, and enabled the Kiev coup leaders to pursue their corrupt agenda with European approval and assistance. And given that it is now clear ‘cui bono’ as a result of this attack, we must confront the stark possibility that MH17 was an act of state terrorism in which our own governments may have been complicit.
There are already very many commentators, experts and authorities who have come to this conclusion, not simply based on the evidence that MH17 was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter jet – which is considerable – but because of the complete lack of evidence offered by Western agencies and governments for their contention that ‘Russian backed separatists’ shot it down with a BUK surface to air missile. Only days after the attack, Russian authorities appealed to the US to release satellite pictures from a new satellite they apparently had directly over Ukraine at the time of the crash. This information has been repeatedly requested by Moscow but with no response. It is not possible to conclude other than that such information would be incriminating both to Kiev and the US – if it showed a BUK missile launch by the Separatists as it surely would then we would have seen such information immediately.
Russia Today has just released a second documentary on the attack – ‘Reflections on MH17’, ( http://rtd.rt.com/films/reflections-on-mh17film/) which focuses on the extraordinary failure of Dutch and Ukrainian authorities to properly investigate the causes of the accident, while observing that conclusions on what weapon was responsible could be easily made with some simple laboratory analyses. It could not be said that such an investigation would ‘bring closure’ to the relatives of MH17 victims, but exposing the real culprits would do a lot more for the victims and potential victims of NATO’s aggressive policies in Europe. These criminals who would happily sacrifice a few hundred truly innocent civilians as part of their strategic game cannot be allowed to escape justice, and the wrath of their own citizens.
I must just acknowledge the welcome new perspective brought to the Australian media by the Australian National Review – to whom I am also copying this letter. To my knowledge this is the only mention in our print press of the ‘real story’ of MH17, – but I await its serious discussion from our national broadcaster.
On the 13th of May Environment Minister Greg Hunt purportedly answered a simple question about Australia's dangerous and undemocratic population growth put to him by Kelvin Thomson. Minister Hunt's response should be a source of great concern for all Australians. It shows no respect for the very serious consequence to democracy or the environment of continuous population growth. The response is cavalier and disrespectful to Australians who have major and justifiable concerns on this matter. Below we quote the short dialogue in Hansard, and then we publish two observant comments about the Minister's failure to take the question seriously.
House of Representatives Question No.0101
"Mr Thomson asked the Minister for the Environment, in writing on 13 May 2014:
Is he aware that past and current open ended population growth policy creates the inevitable prospect of imposing continual infrastructure projects on the public, each one more invasive and destructive of the social and natural environments?"
Mr Hunt's reply was a monument to obfuscation and unreality, surpassing anything you have seen on Yes Minister:
"Mr Hunt: The answer to the Honourable Member's question is as follows:
Setting a fixed population target can mask the complexities of the issue. For example, there are many aspects of population change in Australia, such as changes in fertility rates that cannot be accurately predicted or directly controlled.
The Australian Government has in place a range of commitments to infrastructure, services, jobs and the environment which will provide for Australia's currently growing population including a commitment to better plan for and sequence infrastructure development across Australia, and to develop a White Paper on the development of Northern Australia. These policies will support environmentally, socially and economically responsible growth and cultivate resilient, productive and fair communities."
Quark: "Not an environment minister's bootlace"
Candobetter's Quark's analysis of the logic involved was breathtaking:
Quark wrote: "Mr Hunt is making something sound more complex than it is.
It's as though Kelvin Thomson had asked if Mr Hunt was aware that if you add 5 to 6 you get 11 and Mr Hunt had answered that it is more complex than that because 2 and 3 make 5 and 2 multiplied by 3 makes 6 and 11 can be reached by adding 1 to 10, 2 to 9, 3 to 8 etc.
It also sounds as though endless infrastructure for Mr Hunt is a good thing
Mr. Hunt is not an environment minister’s bootlace.
I wonder what would emerge if Kelvin asked the same question over and over in different ways to try to corner the little ponce.
Jack Roach: "We should be very worried"
Jack Roach of Boroondara Residents Action Group (BRAG) wrote, in response:
"It is no wonder that Australia is headed for a massive jump in the rate of our population growth with woolly thinking like the Minister for the Environment’s attached reply to a question on our population growth. Our population is set to double within the next 30 to 35 years because we have no clear immigration policies. There is no set annual immigration intake and visas are issued with no limit as to numbers. (And most are issued by licensed agents not by the immigration department – where is the control?)
When a senior Minister says that “setting a fixed population growth target can mask the complexities of the issue” (refer attached reply to a question asked in Parliament on May 13) we should be very worried. He is falling back on the politician’s ploy of trying to confuse the issue by talking about “fertility changes that cannot be predicted”. That is not the concern, it is the number of new migrants that is the issue. The numbers just keep on increasing very year. In the late nineties and early 2000’s our immigration numbers were around to 70,000 to 80,000 but these have steadily but surely increased to 250,000 now and there is no indication that there will be any curbs in this increasing trend. In addition we also have in our country over a million long stay visa holders who put further pressure on our infrastructure. By a well understood visa swapping process they extend their stay and many eventually gain permanent residency.
And who pays for all this new infrastructure required to cope with this growth? Certainly not the new arrivals to this country, it is you the taxpayer that foots the bill. Who benefits from this massive population growth. The productivity Commission has issued a statement that it is not the existing general population, the main beneficiaries are the new arrivals themselves and, of course, the development industry.
Kevin Rudd’s BIG AUSTRALIA was a con but it is still being pushed by many of today’s politicians and the growthists. The time has come for an Australia- wide debate on our lack of any real immigration policy and the increasing rate of our population growth. What we need from now on is a properly planned rational and sustainable migration policy.
Send a copy of this [...] to your local state and federal politicians and demand a debate on this issue before it is too late."
Why is Melbourne's population projected to skyrocket, all of a sudden? What is driving this? Why are people confused between refugees and economic immigration. Why can't we communicate and organise in order to bring the government into line? Why do our governments ignore the people?
#transcript" id="transcript">Taking back the talking stick
"The talking stick, also called a speaker's staff is an instrument of aboriginal democracy used by many tribes. It may be passed around a group or used only by leaders as a symbol of their authority and right to speak in public. In a tribal council circle, a talking stick is passed around from member to member allowing only the person holding the stick to speak. This enables all those present at a council meeting to be heard, especially those who may be shy; consensus can force the stick to move along to assure that the "long winded" don't dominate the discussion; and the person holding the stick may allow others to interject. "[1] An open mike is the same kind of thing. This talk is about how elites have got control of the talking stick and how to get it back.
Speech for Must Melbourne keep growing? by Sheila Newman June 14, 2014
The question is does Melbourne have to keep growing? My response is that it is not a natural inbuilt requirement that populations constantly increase in size. Many developed and undeveloped countries and regions are not growing like Australia. Pacific islanders had stable populations for about 60,000 years. Although most industrialised countries ballooned with industrialization and access to cheap fossil fuel, many reset their population growth downwards after the game-changing 1973 oil shock. But countries that inherited the British land-tenure and political system – the United States, Australia, Canada – did not reset; they borrowed to continue population growth and expansion. Secondly, there is no economic imperative to keep population growing, as is being done, via high immigration. Plenty of countries survive well with small stable populations.
So why is Melbourne’s population projected to skyrocket? Unfortunately, the problem is that population increase is being engineered by sociological forces that are responding to focused benefits from the very things that cause suffering to the rest of us and damage the natural world. By this I mean that, via high immigration policies, powerful people in various business groups are successfully enacting pro-growth ideologies. All that the counter-growth movement is really asking is for the growth lobby to desist and allow our population to evolve naturally and democratically. We are not the population controllers; they are.
These pro-growth forces are highly organized, very determined, and very wealthy. They own and control most of the assets and resources, including the mass media and, arguably, large parts of Australia’s parliaments. The rest of us are relatively disorganised and poor because of this political system which concentrates land, resources and power in fewer and fewer hands.
Some traditional avenues of resistance exist, although all are compromised in this system. One new one is present – the Internet. The traditional options are:
power in public institutions and utilities;
power of employment connections;
power of family communication;
power of local government;
Power in public institutions and utilities: Historically, even though our system placed much power in private hands, in the 19th and 20th centuries we built up public institutions that safeguarded citizens’ rights to affordable water and food, electricity, housing, education, reliable employment, regulated banking. Most of these public institutions that protected our rights have since been privatised and taken beyond our influence.
Power of employment connections: Unions once brought together workers with common cause to preserve financial and other easily identifiable benefits, but the supportive industrial relations and law institutions have largely been dismantled and Australian workforces are now dispersed and temporary.
Power of family communication: One of the problems of population growth and infrastructure expansion is that it means that planners constantly insert new people and groups and buildings and roads and activities among us, interfering with established human networks. Family communication is also an uphill battle with TV, Facebook, school, commuting to work, and if you are one of many isolated Australians going from one rental to the next, couch surfing or sleeping rough. Ironically, wealthy families and clans that stick together, like the Dennis Family Corporation, the Murdochs, the Packers and the Winsors, rule the world. As more Australians become unemployed and cannot afford housing, the upside is that they will default back to family, clan and locality and communicate with neighbours on issues of mutual convenience and grow food and trade at the same level. Direct power at local level, accessed by well-networked families and clans together with neighbours is probably the most effective way to counteract the growth lobby on the ground and decisions by unrepresentative distant central governments. Women seem to lead most of the coordinated actions against overdevelopment and overpopulation in Melbourne, heading democratic planning groups, public land defence groups, ecological and wildlife protection groups, contributing to alternative media, attending parliament and organising demonstrations. They are our great strength. Their political engagement is under-reported in the mainstream media as you would expect.
Power of local government: Most people believe that immigration is entirely managed by the Federal Government, but it is at the level of local government that population control actually starts. Local Government traditionally controls building permits to control population numbers by limiting subdivisions and land clearing. This mechanism gave Australians direct control over the size of their communities. State governments in Australia have been removing this very important local government power over decades, with local government amalgamations, administrative control and laws reducing local power. Local power is the most direct and potentially useful form of democracy, more likely to unite people with a stake in the same bit of the real world.
State Government: In Australia the states have the power over land-use and water sources and the ability and responsibility to signal when infrastructure is close to capacity. They have largely taken over immigration policy decisions from the Federal government by calling themselves regions in need of migration and setting up websites and industries to market housing, business investment, and citizenship to prospective economic immigrants all over the world. All the states do this, but in Victoria the website is www.liveinvictoria.vic.gov.au . Obviously this website needs to come down.
The National Government makes decisions to support wars and sets policies for humanitarian and economic immigration. The public messaging system has erroneously convinced many people that most immigrants are ‘refugees’, using the issue as a wedge tactic to prevent people speaking out on numbers. At the same time, the media fails to critically examine the fact that many of our refugees and asylum seekers come from the places where we are engaged with NATO in what are arguably illegal resource wars. The Australian public is given no say in whether we support such wars.
The pro-growth forces control the mass media – that is, the public messaging system, which seems largely to control election choices and politicians’ policies. The effect is that, although the majority of Australians do not want population growth or its impacts, their opinion is not clearly reported and they are not aware of each other. Most of the Australian media and much overseas media are owned by Packer, Fairfax and particularly the Murdoch corporations which have vested interests in massive population growth, most obviously in their property dot coms (realestate.com.au and domain.com.au) , which sell Australian land and housing all over the world in a market that is enhanced by the promise of continuous population growth. CNN, the BBC, Al Jazeera, the ABC and SBS and generally all mainstream Anglophone press share biases and syndicate reports.
The Internet: So, how do we overcome a commercially compromised and unresponsive public messaging system that repetitively purveys this propaganda, making us believe it is both irresistible and true? By going around it and creating media that is far more relevant to most people, on the principle that real news is of real interest and that people, although schooled to passively absorb anointed opinion, if they wake up, don’t want to go to sleep again.
The traditional media relies a lot on distant authorities and events, which we cannot verify or affect. The alternative media can convey news from people on the ground, almost anywhere in the world.
The traditional media creates ‘stars’ and elevates as ‘authorities’ people who continually tell us that we must have growth. It is hard to get the attention of family, neighbours, colleagues and friends to our divergent point of view because they are conditioned to give more respect to mass media stars and opinions than to direct communication and experience.
The alternative media can identify our own real heroes and authorities – like the many women in Melbourne who head up groups to fight overpopulation and its impacts us. We can use the internet to do this, as many grass-roots organisations and BRICS countries now do.
The traditional media syndicates news and feature articles. We should do the same by republishing each other’s work on our various websites, by reciprocal interviewing and by inviting each other to speak at events, thus raising our mutual profiles and amplifying our impact collectively. Whilst it is often helpful to get a ‘mainstream’ celebrity to speak at an event, try to put some of your own on the stage as well, so that they will become known in their own right. Present them as ‘experts’. This is what the Property Council of Australia and APop do.
The Candobetter.net website, where I write and edit, promotes population activists and their activities where the mainstream press ignores them, preferring paid spokespeople from big business who tout growth. Our articles get thousands and tens of thousands of reads over time. One recent article got 12,000 reads in 3 weeks. We are actually a website for reform in democracy, environment, population, land use planning and energy policy.
Publishing on Candobetter.net is a lot surer than writing letters to the Editor at the Age, or the Herald Sun, or the Australian or the Fin Review. Try it some time.
Publishing on Candobetter.net is a lot surer than writing letters to the Editor at the Age, or the Herald Sun, or the Australian or the Fin Review. Try it some time.
Ideally Candobetter.net would like to be one of the alternative sites that together will replace the mainstream media middleman with more direct and diverse analysis and reports from the field.
Instead of just reacting to mainstream disinformation, population writers and activists can access direct sources of information. Hansard is a superb direct source of politics, laws and news providing great speeches, hilarious examples and insights into our parties and politicians. Scientific sources include the CSIRO Futures program which produced the Australian Resources Atlas project and the report, Future Dilemmas. The State of the Environment Report Australia 2011 is still a good guide, and is pessimistic about population impacts even though its population projections of 100,000 net migration vastly underestimate our current population trajectory. The State of the environment reports [for]Victoria are increasingly politicized, so that the conclusions of the 2010 one did not make sense in the light of its content. The most recent one, for 2014, lacks comparability with the 2010 one, which defeats an important objective of these reports. ABS projections are a very necessary source of important information and part of public education. They rely, however, on past trends and on getting good information. They do not or cannot predict or allow for changes of policy or influence of lobby groups, except in general terms of higher or lower projections. You Tube is another direct source of information, and of course there are independent blogs and videos all over the web. As well as this, instead of just hearing the NATO line, try getting the other side from RT (Russia Today) which has great interviews, documentaries, and news and war coverage. Some other well-known alternatives are Press TV, Global Research, Voltaire Net, PaulCraigRoberts.org, the Land Destroyer Report and the Syrian Arab Newsagency (SANA). If you speak another language you can search foreign amazon sites for books with different perspectives then order them without the usual publisher restrictions via eBay.
Resource Depletion: Sustaining growth depends on fuel. For a while there it looked like people were beginning to wake up to the finitude of petroleum and the difficulty in replacing it, but recently there has been a desperate con-job called US shale oil independence. This petroleum energy renaissance can be shown to be a wild exaggeration and has been reported as such by Bloomberg in "Dream of US Oil independence slams against shale costs." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-27/dream-of-u-s-oil-independence-slams-against-shale-costs.html, which costs shale oil production at $1.50 for every $1.00 produced.[2]
It is really important for activists to get their heads around this because, if people believe that – first gas, now coal seam gas and shale oil – will keep business as usual, they will not resist unsustainable population growth as hard as they must.
[2] "Just a few of the roadblocks: Independent producers will spend $1.50 drilling this year for every dollar they get back." And, "Shale output drops faster than production from conventional methods. It will take 2,500 new wells a year just to sustain output of 1 million barrels a day in North Dakota's Bakken shale, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency. Iraq could do the same with 60." http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-27/dream-of-u-s-oil-independence-slams-against-shale-costs.html.
Videos of KELVIN THOMSON and all panel speakers have been added to this article. Open mic part now published here too. Today, June 14, 2014, a packed hall with people standing at the back in the Hawthorn Arts Centre voted for a national plebiscite to ask the people what size population they wanted. The forum interacted with a panel of four speakers: Kelvin Thomson, MP for Wills; Sheila Newman, Evolutionary Sociologist and Candobetter.net editor and writer; Clifford Hayes, former Bayside Council Mayor and planning activist; and William Bourke, Leader of the Sustainable Population Party. There was a queue for the open microphone and the meeting closed later than expected. All motions passed with an overwhelming show of hands.
Packed meeting in Hawthorn backs vote on Victoria’s population
We will probably replace this film with another from another angle which recorded the size of the audience, the applause and the show of hand on the motions. In the meantime this gives the content of the Open Microphone session.
The Hawthorn Arts Centre was the venue for a large public meeting today asking the question “Must Melbourne keep growing?” Speakers, Hon. Kelvin Thomson MP, Ms. Sheila Newman, evolutionary sociologist, Mr. Clifford Hayes, former Bayside mayor and Planning activist and Mr. William Bourke president of “ Sustainable Population Party” all addressed the meeting with the ultimate message that Melbourne does not have to keep growing. The audience was given the floor for the open mic second hour of the program and took full advantage of this. The meeting voted unanimously for the federal government to hold a national vote on Australia’s population aiming to stabilise by 2040:
''That, on the basis of State of the Environment reports and in the interests of democracy, the meeting calls on the federal government to hold a national vote on population at or before the next federal election, with a proposal to allow Australia to stabilise its population by 2040. A working group will be formed by concerned citizens in order to draft an appropriate question."
Meeting voted for Gov to have scientific conference re long-term sustainable population
Additionally the meeting voted unanimously for the Victorian Government to convene a scientifically based conference to establish the long term sustainable population for the state, on a motion proposed by Ms Julianne Bell, of Protectors of Public Land:
"That this meeting calls on the Victorian government to convene a scientifically based Victorian conference on what constitutes a long term environmentally sustainable population for Victoria, with reference to the Victorian State of the environment reports of 2008 and 2013 indicating environmental damage from current population levels."
According to the President of Sustainable Population Australia’s Victorian and Tasmanian branch, Ms. Jill Quirk, ”The first resolution is to give the Australian people the right to determine their own quality of life and quality of the environment for the present and future. The second is asking the government to undertake its absolute responsibility and to stop the reckless, irreversible destruction caused by needless rapid population growth and over development happening now.”
Saturday June 14th at 2.00pm Hawthorn Arts Centre, 360 Burwood Rd Hawthorn, Chandelier Room (Melways 45 D10)
Public forum with Kelvin Thomson, William Burke, Sheila Newman, Clifford Hayes and numerous community groups. Sustainable Population Australia & Victoria First are hosting a panel discussion and open mike on Melbourne's population future. The event will be filmed to use as a document to show how Melbourne people feel about overpopulation. "Melbourne's population growth is treated by the media, by governments and by planners as though it is inevitable, giving the impression that the fate of Melbourne is to be a city of 7 to 8 million by mid-century. What the public seldom hears is that Melbourne's huge growth rate is not inevitable, nor that growth of the population does not magically stop at mid-century unless changes to existing trends are made. If present growth rates continued, Melbourne would be a city of about 20 million by the end of the century. The truth is that Melbourne's future could be largely in our own hands. This meeting is a chance for the people of Melbourne to question the ideology that "Melbourne must keep growing"" (Jill Quirk, President SPA Vic & Tas)."Melbourne has been growing by 200 people a day, 1,500 a week and 75,000 each year for some time now. The latest projections are that this rapid growth will escalate still further. But Melbournians are not asked whether this is what we really want for our city." (Kelvin Thomson, President, Victoria First)
Panel
Federal MP and President of Victoria First, Hon. Kelvin Thomson;
Clifford Hayes, former Bayside Mayor
Planning activist, Sheila Newman, population author and editor of candobetter.net
William Bourke, President of Sustainable Population Party.
Please come and have your say!
Contact: Jill Quirk, President, Sustainable Population Australia,VicTas branch
vic [ AT ] population.org.au ph. 0409742927 or Julianne Bell, Secretary, Victoria
First jbell5 [ AT ] bigpond.com ph. 0408022408
Despite clear evidence available to any internet user as eye-witness film of pro-Kiev radical junta supporters (called the 'Kiev Government' by western press) setting Odessa’s Trade Union headquarters ablaze after they had blocked the exit, and beating up people who managed to get out, and shooting at the people from the anti-government tent camp who barricaded themselves inside the building, most Western mainstream media is pretending they do not know what actually happened in this Western-backed atrocity. Are they counting on our misplaced respect for mainstream media authority to make us close our eyes? [Candobetter editor's note: Thank you to an alert reader who pointed out the artist's careless mistake in mistaking the Swedish flag for the Ukraine flag, in the illustration. This has been rectified.]
Look at the film below, which is footage of the event. It is really easy to see that people are hurling molotov cocktails and hanging about doing nothing to save the people whom they have barricaded inside the building to which they have set fire. The building has been peacefully occupied by anti-junta people for days, so there is no doubt as to who was targeting whom. The burning remains of a tent they torched outside are also visible. There have also been remarks that police failed to attend when called.
Today's Australian Associate Press (AAP) articles as interpreted by the Fairfax Press and Murdoch organs which own AAP seem to be actively covering up this war-crime. Is it the editors at AAP and the Fairfax Press who are doing the covering up or is this the way that the journalist authors, Michel Moutot and Max Delany, actually reported things in their syndicated article, "Fresh attacks on Odessa police headquarters"?[1]
Here is an extract:
'Thousands of pro-Russian protesters have attacked Odessa's police headquarters just days after deadly clashes and a fire there killed dozens of their comrades in what Kiev claimed was a Russian plot to "destroy Ukraine".
Candobetter.net criticism: The vague reference to 'deadly clashes': 'Clash' implies a meeting of equal forces and begs the question of a wholesale atrocity committed by organised forces. Yes, the attack on the union building happened after fights between football-match attenders, but it was much more than street fighting). "Fire there killed dozens of their comrades" allows the confused reader to think that the people fighting for democracy against the junta actually set fire to their own. Use of 'comrades' is probably a gratuitously inflammatory term given the extreme corporate nature of AAP, although the term is current in Ukraine. The uncritical reporting that "Kiev claimed [it] was a Russian plot to destroy Ukraine" fails to reveal that NATO forces are effectively trying to isolate Russia, which is thus at risk of having supplies of food and fuels cut off if they succeed. This is like chaining a bear with its back to the wall and setting some mad dogs on it. What do we expect the bear to do?
AAP's reporting bias here is particularly flagrant in the light that other western media have at least reported what Blind Freddy would say was too obvious to deny:
The Washington Post in "Ukraine suffers deadliest day in months; 34 killed in Odessa" [2] has reported that
"Asked who had thrown the molotov cocktails, pro-Ukrainian activist Diana Berg said, “Our people — but now they are helping them to escape the building.”
The Washington Post also gives more balanced detail of events, reporting that,
"Friday evening, a pro-Ukrainian mob attacked a camp where the pro-Russian supporters had pitched tents, forcing them to flee to a nearby government building, a witness said. The mob then threw gasoline bombs into the building. Police said 31 people were killed when they choked on smoke or jumped out of windows.
In contrast, the AAP sourced article seems soaked in bias:
'The unrest in the southern port city on Sunday threatened a new front in the Ukrainian government's battle against pro-Moscow militants, with an expanded military operation under way in the east against gunmen holding more than a dozen towns.
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Russia was executing a plan "to destroy Ukraine and its statehood".'
The article elevates the leader of the Kiev junta into a respectful authority by referring to him only as Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, never mentioning how he gained his position from a violent coup that caused the elected PM to flee and ask Russia for help and which keeps disorder through the use of Nazis.
Frightening Nazi marchers in Kiev
(In a separate article I will be putting up this full length documentary on the Nazi militia in Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8-RyOaFwcEw)
'Unrest' is a weasle-word for what is happening in Ukraine. Using the term 'Ukranian government' without qualifications as to its illegitimate origins, and then applying the term 'militants' and gunmen to the ordinary citizens who are asserting their democratic rights against real live Nazis is inexplicable except if AAP intends somehow to benefit from this coup. The 'pro-Russian' adjective is also probably inaccurate for these people, who may not necessarily be pro-Russian, but are against fascism. The Washington Post's use of the term 'mob' for the junta activists is better chosen. Why can't the AAP use the anti-junta civilians term for the brave citizens they have chosen to defend their towns as 'self-defence forces' ?
Why occupy the Union building?
What were pro-democracy, anti-junta people doing holed up in the Union building in Odessa? In many towns in Ukraine ordinary people have taken over government buildings in order to fight what is an obvious foreign-backed, Neo-Nazi facilitated coup.
Ukraine, especially in the East, is highly industrialised and unionised. This is a reason for their being well-informed and for their solidarity. They are workers and the union headquarters are the most obvious place for working people to demonstrate their position vis a vis a junta. The union buildings are also a good symbolic choice to demonstrate as citizens defending their rights rather than as a military force.
Spending the weekend worrying about how our 'leaders' are dragging us into terrible wars? How can we combat this? By showing what is really happening in Ukraine. Unarmed residents of the Ukraine city of Kramatorsk came out to defend their 'self-defense forces' when these were herded by Kiev junta manned tanks into a small cluster in the central square. Elderly people, men and women were present, expressing their rage and disgust at these NATO-backed armed destroyers of democracy. After the hideous behaviour of Kiev-friendly thugs on Friday, could anyone still approve of the Australian government backing Kiev's unelected government? Only if they only watch the shamefully biased reporting by NATO-sympathising mainstream media such as the ABC and SBS and Fox version of these events.
'Defiant of the armed vehicles and sniper rifles pointed at them, residents were filmed approaching the troops to have their say.
“Fascists! Fascists!” the locals chanted, casting insults on the troops and the Kiev government.
Kiev authorities are commonly referred to as the “fascist junta” in the east of the country, because of their takeover of power in February and the government's alliance with nationalists – including the notorious Right Sector radical group.
“What kind of law and order are you bringing here?! We are the f*****g residents of the Donetsk Region, not you!” one man shouted.
Many of the soldiers interviewed by RT stringer Graham Phillips revealed they had come from western Ukrainian
regions, including Lvov and Ivano-Frankovsk. Kiev has been apparently relying on regional and ethnic differences in Ukraine while launching the military action, as a large part of eastern Ukrainian armed forces and police have been unwilling “to fire at our own people.”
The crowd in Kramatorsk grew even angrier as one of the Ukrainian APCs rammed a road sign, bringing it down.
“Get back to Kiev! You are not welcome here! Get out! It is our land!” residents shouted.
The troops could then be seen suddenly mounting the APCs and leaving the area. The crowd rushed to chase them, shouting “Donbass! Donbass! Glory to Donbass!”.
See also:About Ukraine for links to current articles.
Video inside: I am absolutely sickened by Australian, US and other pro-NATO reports of what is going on in Ukraine. Friday 2 May 2014, right-wing Kiev junta supporters set fire to the Odessa Trade Union building, then lay in wait, 'like wolves' to beat up anyone who escaped. Day after day footage has been available for anyone who wants to see what is really going on, from ordinary people, unarmed, trying to stop tanks with their bodies. They are filming with mobile phones as they struggle, trying to show the world that they are peacefully protesting, yet pro-NATO media hardly show this. I hereby include a link to the Russian media reporting on the Odessa massacre today. If a third world war begins in this region, I think it is 'our' side that will be to blame. First in line for blame will be Australian, US and similar careerist reporters who shamelessly comply with news-doctoring the information that Australians and other NATO-aligned countries receive about Odessa and the surrounding region, which includes Syria. Candobetter.net formed largely to attempt to provide a voice for those whose voice is dismissed by the commercial and government media in Australia and elsewhere.
Someone recently asked, what has candobetter.net got to do with foreign affairs and what is our expertise? We are a website for reform in democracy, environment, population, land use planning and energy policy This issue fits in under population and energy resources, as well as democracy. Under population, this kind of event creates refugees and Ukraine is about to become part of the entire refugee-asylum-seeker diaspora from around the East and middle East, due to the warmongering of pro-NATO politicians. Under democracy, it is clear that NATO is against referendums and is misleading the world about how people in Ukraine feel about the junta in Kiev. Yes, J-U-N-T-A. Under energy resources, this region is the site of massive piped transports of oil and gas from the Caspian Sea and surrounding areas to Germany, Britain and China. That is what NATO is messing around with. Russia has to defend its position here because if it allows NATO-et al to take over Ukraine (which most of the people there do not want) then it will have allowed NATO forces to isolate it, preparatory to seizing oil and gas in the region in order to dominate energy production and providing another jump-off spot to predate Middle Eastern resources. For more on this see my detailed article, "Why are we warmongering in the Ukraine and nearby?" My qualifications for analysing events in this region are as below, but I am also in discussion with other people who have complementary qualifications in political history.
Background to opinion
Sheila Newman's research thesis for environmental sociology, "The Growth lobby in Australia and its Absence in France" (pdf - 100,000 words plus) , was about differences in the way that Australia and France adapted their population, housing and environmental policies after the first oil shock. It contains an historical comparison of pre-oil shock oil-economics in both countries. Later she was co-editor for the first edition of Andrew McKillop and Sheila Newman, The Final Energy Crisis, Pluto Press, UK, 2006; and sole editor for Sheila Newman (Ed. and Author), The Final Energy Crisis, 2nd Edition, Pluto Press, UK, 2008, which is a collection of her work plus scientific articles by nine scientists in disciplines ranging from particle physics through agriculture to environmental science and one economist. In 2013 she published, Demography, Territory, Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations, Countershock Press, 2013. [Paperback and Kindle.] The second in the Demography Territory Law series: Demography Territory Law 2: Land-tenure and the origins of Capitalism in Britain, is due for publication by June or July 2014 and asks whether the confluence of coal and iron in Britain caused its massive population growth, assisted it, or followed on from it, whether capitalism was inevitable and why it happened in Britain rather than elsewhere in Europe.
This letter, which expresses concern about the dominance among the power elite of one religion in Australia, was not published by the Age. We publish it here for your information. Comments and discussion welcome.
I trust you will publish this letter in order to provide a countervailing view to those which dominate the media on this subject.
‘Gospel truth, Catholics come to power’ (Sunday Age 20/4) should raise concerns with the majority of Australians who are not Roman Catholic. The disproportionate numbers is not just the luck of the draw on the ballot paper, but has been carefully planned by the Vatican to subvert the Australian government and to have their right wing policies implemented. How demeaning to read that Abbot, Turnbull and Hockey all grovelled to a Jesuit priest to help determine which one of them would lead the Liberal Parity.
The same process is occurring in the ALP. Bill Shorten consulted a Jesuit priest before deciding to support Kevin Rudd instead of Julia Gillard for PM. Indeed, all parliamentary parties now have Roman Catholic leaders, as well as the Office of the Governor General and Attorney General, dominating the affairs of this country. The public policy impact of having so many Catholic ministers rolling out their antediluvian policies and attitudes is clear. The rush to sell off Medibank for ideological reasons and the destruction of other government assets, many being handed over to religious organisations to run on behalf of government speaks volumes about the dominating anti-socialist view of a government whose view is synchronised with the Vatican.
For decades the Catholic Church has committed unspeakable crimes against our youth, and has been able to conceal these crimes because of the lack of action from Catholic dominated parliaments. It took an atheist female PM to shine a great big light into that dark corner. The ALP found it necessary in the 1950s to purge Catholics from the Party. It is now time for the Coalition to clean out their Augean stables.
Update 7/12/22: See also 
Australian Parliament, which sits next week from Monday 6 September, must be made, finally, to debate Julian Assange's fate. At the weekly vigil for Julian Assange outside Melbourne's Flinders Street Station in the evening of last Friday 26 August, James Sinnamon explained how, if Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to end its imprisonment of Julian Assange, he would almost certainly comply without delay, and Julian Assange would 
Dear Censorial Overseers
The World Health Organization (WHO) says the mechanisms it uses to monitor the performance of various countries in relation to their handling of the coronavirus epidemic do not show any cover-up by the Iranian government with regard to Iran’s virus crisis.
A recent interview of the Prime Minister by Leigh Sales in the 7.30 Report on Tuesday 29 January 2019 provided a good illustration of the lack of understanding of economics by ABC journos or their deliberate and calculated rejection of some simple truths. John Coulter has written to Leigh Sales as follows. 
Dear 7.30.
We had an A grade example of the type of parallel universe Australia’s mainstream media has descended into late last week. A completely false story given prominence in the national media by The Australian, which was then picked up by various other Rupert Murdoch papers, but which sadly even made it beyond that – all without a single shred of fact, and all without anybody thinking to check, or even think about, the main line of the story being reported.
There is a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Syria and the "western" media ignore it. On December 22 al-Qaeda aligned Takfiris in the Wadi Barada valley shut down the main water supply for the Syrian capital Damascus. Since then the city and some 5-6 million living in and around it have to survive on emergency water distributions by the Syrian government. That is barely enough for people to drink - no washing, no showers and no water dependent production is possible. Article originally published at 
This shut down is part of a wider, seemingly coordinated strategy to deprive all government held areas of utility supplies. Two days ago the Islamic State shut down a major water intake for Aleppo from the Euphrates. High voltage electricity masts on lines feeding Damascus have been destroyed and repair teams, unlike before, denied access. Gas supplies to parts of Damascus 
Two videos: Day after day, they are discovering piles and piles of food, heating gasoline, medical equipment, and weapons in east Aleppo that are enough for hundreds of thousands to stay alive for years, coming from Turkey, Qatar, the US, and Saudi. Yet, they were stocking them and leave the civilians to starve, to keep the lies on the Syrian government and blame it for all the starving of the people.
The momentum has shifted in Aleppo this week as the Syrian Army begin to advance, steadily driving out Western and Gulf-backed terrorist fighters under the command of Al Nusra Front – from their occupied enclaves in Eastern Aleppo. These images and videos will never see the light of day in the corporate media editing rooms because they expose their almost six year narrative on Syria as one of the most criminal propaganda projects ever deployed against a sovereign nation, its people, its state and its national army. This article was first published at 
Zahran Alloush, the leader and founder of Jaish al Islam Alloush, an extremist Salafi group supported by Saudi Arabia, was killed by an airstrike whilst attending a meeting with other armed Syrian groups on Friday. The group's ideology is similar to that of ISIS, and they have planned to overthrow the secular Syrian government and replace it with an Islamic dictatorship. Bizarrely, SBS, an Australian television station has reported on Alloush as if he were a leader of one of the key opposition groups who ‘would negotiate with the Syrian government’ next month.
Video and transcript inside. Second in series. 
Mark Allen from Population Permaculture and Planning locks horns so to speak with West Australian Planning Professor, Professor Newman, over Melbourne's apartment proliferation, in discussion on the Conversation website relating traffic congestion to GDP rather than to population growth, and where the professor has suggested that increasing low cost, low quality, high density appartments would solve housing unaffordability. (If you wish to contribute on The Conversation site, please hit 'newest' on the 'Comments' section to read the latest dialogue at: 
Big Australia, or big anywhere, is a contentious issue. The population ponzi scheme is a concept the public appear to find noxious. There's no votes in packing more sardines into the Australia can. Aware of this, sniveling politicians have often schemed a way to get the public to focus on their rhetoric and ignore their government's ever increasing immigration numbers. [This incisive and witty article has been republished with permission from 
Take war monger and lying rodent, John Howard. During his time in office, Howard more than doubled the immigration intake. Hilariously, immigration also pumped from those Sandrockistan countries that truly agitate 58 year old disability pensioners, bereft of hope, who while away their days ranting on Larry Pickering's blog. The exact group who continued to vote Howard into power because he told them, "we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come."
As the Ukrainian army launches a new attack on the Donetsk Peoples' Republic, claiming to have retaken Donetsk Airport from 'separatist' forces, the justification for such an attack has once again become a subject for discussion. While the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says the new offensive is aimed at 're-uniting' Ukraine, and Western media believe this both to be a reasonable objective and the real one, the actual situation is entirely different...
On the 13th of May Environment Minister Greg Hunt purportedly answered a simple question about Australia's dangerous and undemocratic population growth put to him by Kelvin Thomson. Minister Hunt's response should be a source of great concern for all Australians. It shows no respect for the very serious consequence to democracy or the environment of continuous population growth. The response is cavalier and disrespectful to Australians who have major and justifiable concerns on this matter. Below we quote the short dialogue in Hansard, and then we publish two observant comments about the Minister's failure to take the question seriously.
Why is Melbourne's population projected to skyrocket, all of a sudden? What is driving this? Why are people confused between refugees and economic immigration. Why can't we communicate and organise in order to bring the government into line? Why do our governments ignore the people?
Videos of KELVIN THOMSON and all panel speakers have been added to this article. Open mic part now published here too. Today, June 14, 2014, a packed hall with people standing at the back in the Hawthorn Arts Centre voted for a national plebiscite to ask the people what size population they wanted. The forum interacted with a panel of four speakers: Kelvin Thomson, MP for Wills; Sheila Newman, Evolutionary Sociologist and Candobetter.net editor and writer; Clifford Hayes, former Bayside Council Mayor and planning activist; and William Bourke, Leader of the Sustainable Population Party. There was a queue for the open microphone and the meeting closed later than expected. All motions passed with an overwhelming show of hands.
Despite clear evidence available to any internet user as eye-witness film of pro-Kiev radical junta supporters (called the 'Kiev Government' by western press) setting Odessa’s Trade Union headquarters ablaze after they had blocked the exit, and beating up people who managed to get out, and shooting at the people from the anti-government tent camp who barricaded themselves inside the building, most Western mainstream media is pretending they do not know what actually happened in this Western-backed atrocity. Are they counting on our misplaced respect for mainstream media authority to make us close our eyes? [Candobetter editor's note: Thank you to an alert reader who pointed out the artist's careless mistake in mistaking the Swedish flag for the Ukraine flag, in the illustration. This has been rectified.]
Spending the weekend worrying about how our 'leaders' are dragging us into terrible wars? How can we combat this? By showing what is really happening in Ukraine. Unarmed residents of the Ukraine city of Kramatorsk came out to defend their 'self-defense forces' when these were herded by Kiev junta manned tanks into a small cluster in the central square. Elderly people, men and women were present, expressing their rage and disgust at these NATO-backed armed destroyers of democracy. After the hideous behaviour of Kiev-friendly thugs on Friday, could anyone still approve of the Australian government backing Kiev's unelected government? Only if they only watch the shamefully biased reporting by NATO-sympathising mainstream media such as the ABC and SBS and Fox version of these events.
Video inside: I am absolutely sickened by Australian, US and other pro-NATO reports of what is going on in Ukraine. Friday 2 May 2014, right-wing Kiev junta supporters set fire to the Odessa Trade Union building, then lay in wait, 'like wolves' to beat up anyone who escaped. Day after day footage has been available for anyone who wants to see what is really going on, from ordinary people, unarmed, trying to stop tanks with their bodies. They are filming with mobile phones as they struggle, trying to show the world that they are peacefully protesting, yet pro-NATO media hardly show this. I hereby include a link to the Russian media reporting on the Odessa massacre today. If a third world war begins in this region, I think it is 'our' side that will be to blame. First in line for blame will be Australian, US and similar careerist reporters who shamelessly comply with news-doctoring the information that Australians and other NATO-aligned countries receive about Odessa and the surrounding region, which includes Syria. Candobetter.net formed largely to attempt to provide a voice for those whose voice is dismissed by the commercial and government media in Australia and elsewhere.
This letter, which expresses concern about the dominance among the power elite of one religion in Australia, was not published by the Age. We publish it here for your information. Comments and discussion welcome.
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