Kevin Rudd

Julian Assange, the courageous innovative publisher of Wikileaks, who told the world the truth about US army torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib has been found by the united Nations to have been illegally held in indefinite detention since he was granted asylum by Ecuador in August 2012, due to the British and Swedish governments complicity with the United States. Now Australia has lost this citizen of global courage and action in defence of human rights, to Ecuador, which has just recently granted him citizenship. See "Julian Assange granted Ecuadorian citizenship to provide 'another layer of protection'".

The whole Assange case could have been resolved years ago, had the Swedish government given Assange a guarantee that he would not be extradited to the United States, should he go to Sweden to face charges (now dropped) of rape. The fact that no such undertaking was made by the Swedish government (supposedly neutral, but in reality an ally of the United States) clearly demonstrates that the charges of rape were no more than a ploy to arrest Assange and deliver him to the United States deep state.

Throughout this long detention and shameful denial of Julian Assange's human rights, Australian parliament has received letters and petitions asking for the government to help Julian Assange, as an Australian citizen and Victorian resident. To our knowledge, only Greens MPs, notably Scott Ludlum, and, at least once, Adam Bandt, have spoken up on the subject, especially in relation to Bills restricting Australian freedoms and expanding state surveillance. Prime Ministers Rudd and Gillard have been passive in their responses to questions about Assange's welfare, with Gillard actually making the public error of saying that Wikileaks was illegal. Basically no Australian government has stood up for Assange, even though they have occasionally protested that he has received the same rights as any Australian citizen. This has been denied by Assange and his mother. See, "Fed Govt defends its consular assistance to Assange," at http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2012/s3515562.htm. [See note for why we haven't actively linked to this ABC site.[1]] Most tellingly, the fact that the Australian government never denounced Assange as a criminal shows that they must have known he was not guilty of the charges against him. See our excerpts below from Hansard.

Hansard Documentation of how Australia handled Assange's detention and threats to his safety

...............................................................................................................................................................

Julie Bishop, Monday, 19 June 2017, responding to letter: Page: 6766,

"Dear Mr Vasta

Thank you for your letter of 20 March 2017 regarding the petition (PN0054) submitted by the Concerned Citizens of Australia to the Standing Committee on Petitions.

The petition refers to Opinion No.54/2015 of the UN Working Group on

Arbitrary Detention adopted on 4 December 2015, in which it considered that Mr Julian Assange was arbitrarily detained by the Governments of Sweden and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In that opinion, the Working Group expressed the view that Mr Assange is 'entitled to his freedom of movement and to compensation'. The petition requests that the House of Representatives do all within its power to end Julian Assange's detention.

I received legal advice on the implications of the findings of the Working Group in February 2016. It is important for the Standing Committee on Petitions to appreciate that the Working Group's opinion is directed at the United Kingdom and Sweden; not Australia. Australia cannot intervene in the legal processes of another country, just as we would not countenance other states intervening in Australian legal processes. I also note that the opinions of the Working Group are not legally binding on states.

Mr Assange has been afforded due process by authorities in the United Kingdom, and has avoided lawful arrest by choosing to remain in the Ecuadorian Embassy. Mr Assange will need to address his situation through legal processes in the United Kingdom and Sweden, with the assistance of his legal advisers.

However, the Australian Government stands ready to provide Mr Assange with the same consular assistance it would give to any other Australian in these circumstances should he request it, in accordance with the Consular Services Charter. I enclose a copy for the Standing Committee's consideration.

I trust this information is of assistance.

Yours sincerely

from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ms Bishop." Monday, 19 June 2017

Page: 6766, House of Representatives, Parliament of Australia.

Senator Ludlam, West Australia, 4 July 2011

"Under existing law, the collection of foreign intelligence is confined to the collection of intelligence concerning the activities of foreign governments, organisa­tions they control or foreign political organisations for the purpose of the defence of Australia or the conduct of international affairs. That is how ASIO have been doing the work that they have been doing in tracking al-Qaeda and tracking terrorist organisations that are much closer to home operating in our neighbourhood. They have these powers. They use them extensively. It is the sole justification that has been given to us for why their staffing and their budget quadrupled in the last decade. It is precisely because they have the range of powers that they need to track non-state actors who mean Australians harm or mean to pursue violent political activities in other countries. They have the powers that they need. When we asked what exactly this was all about, nobody was able to tell us.

What it does do is that it permits ASIO much wider scope to investigate the activities of Australians who are overseas and who do not necessarily pose a threat but perhaps do have implications for foreign relations, such as Julian Assange and other people working in the WikiLeaks organisation. WikiLeaks and Mr Assange obviously have implications for Australia's foreign relations. Things falling out of the document drop were on the front page of every newspaper in the country day after day after day six months ago, and even now those shock waves continue to reverberate through the diplomatic community. So there is no way that you can say that there are no implications there for Australia's foreign relations. But should that entity be spied on by ASIO? Should our clandestine Cold War era spy agency be tracking down Mr Assange, maybe his family if they travel abroad, people working for that organisation, journalists, or people he is talking to or that that organisation is involved with? It appears that the reason that this bill has been known as the 'WikiLeaks amendment' in the Attorney's department is that that is precisely what is intended. The committee simply did not address that issue, and neither did the officer at the table when we asked during the inquiry. This is one example of how a person or organisation outside Australia, combined with the notion of Australia's foreign relations, very considerably expands the scope of ASIO's activities. Australians working overseas for firms that are major rivals to key Australian industries would also be covered. They would be caught by the economic wellbeing argument. If the government has a counterargument to this, it would be delightful to hear it." Senator Ludlam, West Australia, 4 July 2011, BILLS - Intelligence Services Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 - Second Reading,

Senator Ludlam, Petitions Wikileaks, 9 February 2011

"To the Honourable President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled:

The Petition of the undersigned shows:

1. That Mr Julian Assange is an Australian Citizen.

2. That on 2nd December 2010 the Prime Minister stated that the publishing of certain information on the Wikileaks website by Mr Assange was “An Illegal thing to do”.

3. That the Attorney-General of Australia has stated that he has considered the cancellation of the Australian Passport held by Mr Assange.

4. United States Politician, Ms Sarah Palin, has called for Mr Assange to be “hunted down”.

5. Mr Tom Flanagan, Senior Advisor to the Canadian Prime Minister has, on public television, called for Mr Assange’s assassination.

Your petitioner requests that the Senate:

1. Call upon the Prime Minister to explain to the Senate the basis for her allegation against a fellow Australian citizen that he is a criminal.

2. Call upon the Attorney-General to state to the Senate whether he received any request for the cancellation of Mr Assange’s Australian Passport pursuant to the Australian Passports Act.

3. Call upon the Minister for Foreign Affairs to summon the Ambassador for from the United States of America to Australia and demarche condemning the comments of Ms Patin. [sic - meant Palin.]

4. Call upon the Minister for Foreign Affairs to summon the Canadian High Commissioner to Australia and demarche condemning the comments of Mr Flanagan.

5. Call upon the Governor-General of Australia to provide such protection and assistance to Mr Assange as to which he may stand in need. "

Senator Ludlam, Petitions Wikileaks, 9 February 2011,

Senator Ludlam, West Australia, 3 March, 2014

"I wonder whether the Attorney-General might rise to the occasion, as it were, and provide us with some information as to why he will not back up on the public record, neither here in this chamber nor even at an estimates committee last week, how he is able to accuse Mr Edward Snowden the whistleblower of being a traitor when he has been neither charged nor convicted of any crime in the United States, when senior US administration figures have been careful not to use that phrase and when he cannot prove or show any evidence whatsoever that Australians have been put in harm's way? Similar claims were put about publisher Julian Assange when the WikiLeaks documents were first put into the public domain. And unless Senator Brandis is about to prove me wrong, we are about to see debate in here closed down." Senator Ludlam, West Australia, 3 March, 2014, National Security - Order for the Production of Documents,

Senator Ludlam, W.A. Australian Greens, 7 February, 2017

"We let Australian citizen Julian Assange and his courageous colleagues hang out to dry for disclosing war crimes in Iraq and more conventional crimes revealed in the state department cables. When the United States government says jump, then, if we are lucky, our Intelligence and Security Committee will do a rapid bipartisan inquiry into how high. But inevitably, we jump." Senator Ludlam, W.A. Australian Greens, 7 February, 2017, "ADJOURNMENT - Australia-United States Relationship,"

Michael Danby, MP, Melbourne Ports, 1 December 2014, Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill, (No.1) 2014

"I want to end with this discordant note. It is not surprising to see the Greens political party lead the charge against this proposed legislation. In my view, the Greens seem to have an automatic Pavlovian kind of reaction to undermining the intelligence capabilities of our country. People like the Greens political party's Senator Ludlam have publicly supported self-appointed protectors of privacy and trust—stalwarts of moral standing like Julian Assange. Of course, the Greens' backing of Julian Assange and his ideological stablemate Edward Snowden has not exposed a single piece of evidence of the abuse of privacy or citizens' rights in authoritarian countries like Russia. Mr. Assange, the Greens' hero, used to host a program on the Russian disinformation network RT. To give you a flavour for his content and his policies, his first interview gave an armchair ride to Hezbollah's feared terrorist leader, Sheikh Hussein Nasrallah.

Indeed, it is delicious irony that the Greens' other hero, Edward Snowden, preaches excessive oversight and accountability but chooses to reside in Russia, of all places. He destroyed his credibility when popping up on Russian TV a few months ago to give another soft-serve Dorothy Dixer to the new Russian tsar, Vladimir Putin. Perhaps the Greens believe Russia is actually a bastion of human rights. Certainly, Senator Rhiannon used to believe that. I am honoured with the fact that Senator Ludlum has put a fatwa on the Greens speaking to me because I pointed out Senator Rhiannon's political similarity to the wife of the Romanian dictator, Elena Ceausescu. But the main point I make about her is she has never dissociated herself from her membership and participation in the pro-Soviet Communist political party in Australia. It was a seamless transition to the Greens.

Of course, the serious people in this parliament can smirk about Snowden's choice of patrons and about Assange's presence on RT. But it is hard to believe that here, in this House, we have parliamentarians that oppose legislation and seek to foil the efforts of our Defence forces and cooperation with our security services overseas. It occurs to me that the Greens political party ought to be more concerned about people losing their heads than about the people holding the swords. We had the appeasers in the 1930s. Eighty years later we have the Greens." Michael Danby, MP, Melbourne Ports, 1 December 2014, Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill, (No.1) 2014,

See also, Greg Barns, "Now is the time for Australia to finally stick up for Julian Assange," The Drum, 12 May, 2015. :

Prime Minister Gillard responds to question from Adam Bandt, MP, Greens in House of Representatives, Australian Parliament, Questions without Notice, 13 May 2015:

"Mr BANDT (Melbourne) (14:34): My question is to the Prime Minister. Senior figures in the United States have called for Julian Assange to be hunted down and in the US courts he may face the death penalty. Has the government sought an assurance from the United States that he will not be prosecuted. What steps has the government taken, or will the government take, to prevent Julian Assange being taken to the United States? Will the government put the interests of Washington ahead of the liberty of an Australian citizen and the freedom of the press?"

"Ms GILLARD (Lalor—Prime Minister) (14:35): I thank the member for Melbourne for his question. I know that he is raising an issue that is on the minds of many Australians as result of the recent news about the decision in the UK on the extradition matter involving Mr Assange. Can I assure the House of the following: the Australian government is providing full consular assistance to Mr Assange, as it does for all Australian citizens. I am advised that Australian consular officials visited Mr Assange on a number of occasions during his period of detention in London and raised several matters of concern with prison authorities on his behalf. Australian consular officials have attended all of Mr Assange's court appearances, including yesterday's hearing.

Since Mr Assange was released on bail, Australian officials have repeatedly conveyed offers of consular assistance through his lawyers, with whom they were most recently in contact yesterday. Swedish authorities have confirmed that any legal action against Mr Assange will be conducted in accordance with due process. As the Minister for Foreign Affairs has said today, at this stage we do not have any advice from the United States that there is an indictment against Mr Assange or that the United States has decided to seek his extradition. If at any stage in the future Mr Assange faces legal proceedings from the United States we would, for Mr Assange—as we would for any other Australian citizen—seek assurances from the United States in relation to due process. The Australian government cannot interfere in the judicial processes of other countries, but of course we will continue to closely monitor proceedings against Mr Assange and continue to provide full consular assistance to him." 13 May, 2015,

See also: "Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been left floundering after she labelled the actions of the WikiLeaks 'illegal', but couldn't say how" (24 February 2015) | SBS

Mr Rudd responding to a letter re Assange, 4 July 2011

Dear Mr Murphy,

I refer to your letter of 16 March 2011. regarding a petition about Mr Julian Assange, submitted for the consideration of the Standing Committee on Petitions. I note the Committee's referral under Standing Order 209(b) of items 3 and 4 of the petition. My response follows.

Item 3 called upon me to summon the Ambassador for the United States of America to Australia and demarche him condemning the comments of American politician Ms Sarah Palin on Mr Assange. Item 4 called upon me to summon the Canadian High Commissioner to Australia and demarche him condemning the comments of Mr Tom Flanagan, former Senior Advisor to the Canadian Prime Minister, on Mr Assange.

The Australian Government deplores and condemns all calls to violence against any Aus­tralian citizen wherever and by whomever they are made. However, neither of the individuals in the petition cited are holders of public office in their respective countries so it would not be app­ropriate to demarche their governments through their diplomatic representatives on statements they are reported to have made. Both the United States of America and Canada have laws protecting the rights of individuals against threats to their person. under which any concerns about these reported statements could be pursued.

I trust this information will be of assistance to the Committee in its consideration of the petition. from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Rudd, 4 July 2011

NOTES

[1] The reason we have not linked to the Assange article on the ABC is because the ABC does not have an SSL certificate for this article. That means that if we link to it, oversensitive browsers will say that candobetter.net is linking to unsafe links. SSL certificates are security certificates. Just because the ABC does not have an SSL certificate, it does not mean the site isn't safe; it just means that it hasn't paid its protection money to issuers of SSL certificates. But your browser may tell you that it is unsafe - so we don't actively link.

See also: Mark Latham, who opposed "Your Rights at Work" campaign and supported Howard in 2007, says Albanese shouldn't be Labor leader of 9 Oct 2013; Labor Leadership Contenders' Views on East West Link - Albo opposes it! of 6 Oct 2013.

Update, 28 Nov 2013: No mention was made of Syria by Albanese, Shorten or the audience in the leadership debate of 24 September. (Whilst this could have been because of time constraints, it seems a surprising omission.)
On 20 April, 2013, Anthony Albanese, a candidate for the national leadership of the Labor Party by membership ballot,₁ expressed ₂ his support for Syria₃. This is contrary to how much of the senior leadership of the Labor Party has acted. ₄ For two and a half years they supported the United States as Syria has tried to defend itself against invasion by proxy terrorists armed, paid for and supplied by the United States. This war has, so far, since March 2011, cost 100,000 lives.

Although Labor is no longer in Government following its defeat at the elections of 7 September 2013, Anthony Albanese's support for Syria is a welcome change to the collusion of senior members of the previous Labor Government with the United States in its war against Libya and the proxy terrorist war Syria. Kevin Rudd, as "roving" Australia Foreign Minister in the Middle East in March 2011, colluded with the United States to help create the international environment that enabled the U.S and its NATO allies to bomb and invade Libya in 2012. Since then, both Kevin Rudd and former Foreign Minister Bob Carr have colluded to help facilitate the terrorist war against Syria by the United States.

The above video is cause to hope that Labor may to return to its past tradition of opposing unjust wars as exemplified by the withdrawal of Australia from the Vietnam War by the newly elected Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in December 1972. Had Labor as a whole so vocally opposed the war against Syria, the level of the political discussion during the election campaign would have been raised and the outcome of the 7 September elections may well have been different.

Footnote[s]

1. ↑ Nominations for the ballot of Labor Party members for the National leadership closed on 20 September, according to an ABC report.

2. ↑ The included Youtube broadcast was embedded in the Crikey article of 2  2013 by Andrew Crook, Support for Syrian missile strike could test Labor unity.

3. ↑ As appears to be mandatory, Anthony Albanese also expressed his support for 'multi-culturalism'. Whilst Syria can rightly be held up as an example of different cultures living in harmony alongside each other for centuries, most notably, between Christians and Muslims, the same cannot be said for Australia, where multiculturalism has been used since the 1970's as a smokescreen to enable governments to impose high immigration.

As a consequence, native Australian workers have had their working conditions reduced or have been replaced altogether. The most infamous example is Section 457 visas by which employers are able to import workers with the supposed skills they claim to need in preference to properly training their own workforce, with on-the-job training or apprenticeships. 'Temporary' backpacker workers are employed in industries such as fruit-picking where that work was once available to low-skilled native workers or university students on summer vacation.

An equivalent process has occurred in the United Kingdom as documented by Tony Gosling in Labour's surrender monkeys dare not criticize Britain's conscript economy of 16 August 2013 in Russia Today.

Another effect of high immigration, welcomed by by landlords and property speculators, is to ensure a scarcity of housing stock, thus driving up the prices that can be demanded of tenants and home-buyers.

4. ↑ how this was dealt with in the Federal Labor Parliamentary Caucus, would be very interesting to know, as much of Bob Carr's most explicit and determined encouragement of U.S. military aggression against Syria followed Anthony Albanese's speech.

Perhaps Bob Carr's sudden resignation from the Senate is not such a mystery given the failure of President Obama, John Kerry, himself, Kevin Rudd and their international allies to win international diplomatic support for their war plans.

Sadly, Kevin Rudd has not resigned from Parliament and it can't be completely ruled out that he will again attempt to contest the national leadership. However, Bob Carr has vanished completely from public view. Nothing more has been posted to his web-site Thoughtlines with Bob Carr since 2 Sep 2013.

It’s been a saga with revolving doors,
First Kevin 07 with all his flaws
Then out as PM in election 2013
But there was another PM in between!

Here’s how it played out: what does it mean?

was it real ?

has it really been?

Kev said he wanted “Big Australia”

Put wool in ceilings and all that paraphernalia

The polls went down,

He wore a frown,

We survived the fallout from the USA property bubble

But it seemed our government was in trouble

To most of us it was as a bolt

The day that Gillard called a “Halt”!

A tap on the shoulder “It’s all over”

A ballot for leader? No. It would be a walkover.

A tight election barely suited

A minority government with help recruited

That's how a woman first came to power,

She had no reason to shrink and cower

But her reign was fraught;

with fashionistas she fought ,

Gillard was not the media’s darling,

Unmarried, atheistic but in reality charming

The press despised her

Were very unkind to her

every slip exposed,

she was goaded, teased

and soapie parodied

Every victory, achievement excluded,

Hard work covered, and buried,

By a press hell bent on virtual asphyxiation.

The deposed PM in retaliation,

treating parliament a bit like recreation

danced and twirled, a constant distraction

bathing in the press reaction

When the media king said “off with her head”

from that point on her leadership was dead,

Rudd who stuck just like molasses

was back to perform for the receptive masses,

The result of this absurd confection

Was for Kev to lead Labor to another election !

BUT Alas for Labor, Kev’s not Rupert’s favorite,

And Abbot’s recipe goes down like chocolate

He’s the new PM, the one we expected,

an ex- priest, a catholic he’s so well connected !

Andrew Holden, Age Editor-in-chief

The Age newspaper, owned by Fairfax Media limited, reported on 4 September that Roger Corbett, ₄ chairman of Fairfax Media said that Julia Gillard should have remained Prime Minister in preference to the "discredited" Kevin Rudd.

Mr Corbett said, "His colleagues sacked [Kevin Rudd] because they judged him to be incapable as Prime Minister."

The article continued:

'Referring to the damaging cabinet leaks that so badly derailed Ms Gillard's 2010 election campaign, Mr Corbett said: "[Mr Rudd], it's alleged, was active against the government during the elections. May be true, may not be.

'"I think that had a terrible effect upon Labor."

'The leaks led to a collapse in Labor's vote, which led to a hung parliament and forced Labor to enter into coalition with the Greens to form power. The Labor-Greens alliance has been a "very limiting factor" in the past three years, Mr Corbett said.

'And while this was going on, Mr Rudd himself had "destabilised" the Gillard government behind the scenes.'

Mr Corbett also praised Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. "[Mr Abbott's] a very sincere, nice type of human being, and I think he'll be very dedicated, focused in the job," he said.

Tony Abbott, whom Roger Corbett considers "a very sincere, nice type of human being", with less three days before polling begins and 10 hours before the pre-election media news blackout began at midnight on Wednesday, had still not released the costings for his policies, ₁ plans to sack 7,000 Federal public servants. He also plans to give approval to the horrifically destructive East West Link project. ₂

Candobetter and a number of other credible commentators can only agree with Roger Corbett's praise for Julia Gillard (if not with his praise for Tony Abbott).

June 2013: The now 'discredited' Kevin Rudd ousts Julia Gillard in Age-orchestrated putsch

But didn't the same Fairfax Age newspaper of 22 June 2013, editorialise "For the sake of the nation, Ms Gillard should stand aside"? :

"It is time for Julia Gillard to stand aside as leader of the federal parliamentary Labor Party, as Prime Minister of Australia, so that vigorous, policy-driven democratic debate can flourish once again. Ms Gillard should do so in the interests of the Labor Party, in the interests of the nation and, most importantly, in the interests of democracy. The Age's overriding concern is that, under Ms Gillard's leadership, the Labor Party's message about its future policies and vision for Australia is not getting through to the electorate. Our fear is that if there is no change in Labor leadership before the September 14 election, voters will be denied a proper contest of ideas and policies - and that would be a travesty for the democratic process.

"The Age does not advocate this lightly. We do so with all respect to Ms Gillard, ..."

Editor-in-Chief Andrew Holden, who wrote the editorial, also appeared in a short broadcast video (2:33) on the same page. He made the curious claim, with no supporting evidence. that it is necessary for Julia Gillard to stand aside "so that vigorous, policy-driven democratic debate can flourish once again."

Evidently, Andrew Holden does not wish for the debate to embrace the support given by Foreign Minister Senator Bob Carr and the Age newspaper to the United States' proxy terrorist war against Syria, which has cost, according to one estimate reported ₃ in the Age, 100,000 Syrian lives since March 2011.

Why the Age newspaper itself could not have enabled the debate it claimed to have wanted, without meddling in the internal politics of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Caucus, was not explained.

The above argument was repeated in different guises:

"... [We are saying] Ms Gillard should stand aside ... because she has been unable to lift the party out of a desperately difficult political position. ...

"A big majority of the electorate appears to have stopped listening to Ms Gillard. Voters have been so distracted by internal and external speculation about Labor's leadership that efforts by the Prime Minister and her ministers to enunciate a narrative, a strategic vision, for the nation's future beyond this year have failed. ..."

Much of the editorial, in contrast to the self-fulfilling prophetic value judgements above, provided compelling reasons why Gillard should have remained Prime Minister and not been cast aside for Kevin Rudd :

'We ... [recognise] that in the three years she has occupied the office of Prime Minister - most of it under the vexing circumstances of a hung Parliament - Labor has implemented landmark reforms ...

'The polls in mid-2010 had indicated Labor was in danger of losing an election under Mr Rudd, and inside the party there was concern about his increasingly autocratic style. Ms Gillard said she challenged "because I believed that a good government was losing its way … I love this country, and I was not going to sit idly by and watch an incoming opposition cut education, cut health and smash rights at work". ...'

As Age Editor-in-chief Andrew Holden had demanded, Julia Gillard was subsequently ousted on 26 June and replaced by Kevin Rudd, but the promised improvement in Labor's approval rating never eventuated.

Age readers still to be given explanation

The Age is entitled to change its views, and is even entitled to promote views which may, through the course of events, prove to be mistaken. However, the public is entitled to be informed that what Roger Corbett said less than 3 days before the forthcoming Federal election is contrary to what the Age said on 22 June and why.

Unless this explanation is forthcoming, voters are entitled to assume that Roger Corbett's statements, ostensibly in support of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, so late in the election campaign, are no more than a ploy to harm Labor's electoral prospects.

Update, 8:36AM, Thur 5 Sep: Hockey to give costings today

The Age reports, "Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey will unveil the Coalition's election costings on Thursday, leaving voters just hours to digest the numbers while also refusing to say when the budget would be back in the black under his management."

As noted in the Australian Financial Review :

"The timing of the Coalition's costings announcement comes after the electronic media blackout starting at midnight on Wednesday, which applies to all election campaigns. Labor will not be allowed to broadcast any television or radio commercials attacking cuts that may be contained in the documents." (emphasis added)

A poll in the Age article Hockey's 11th-hour costings asked "Should the Coalition have given voters more time to digest its costings?". The results of 5188 votes taken at 9:05AM were:

Yes: 69%

No: 27%

Not sure: 4%

Footnote[s]

1. ↑ The Herald Sun reported at 12:46PM on Wednesday, 4 September 2013, "The federal coalition is releasing its final policies on Wednesday (today) and will reveal its full costings 'very, very soon', Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says." Voters won't have sufficient time to digest the information and understand how it will affect them before they cast their vote on Saturday. (See also: Update of 9:10AM, Thursday 5 September, above.)

2. ↑ The construction of the East West Link would require the destruction of much of what remains of Melbourne's iconic Royal Park as well as many surrounding homes and will make Melbourne commuters even more dependent on private vehicles than they already are. It is not possible for the broader public to see the business case for the East West Link and compare it with the known business case for additional public transport because of "commercial in confidence" provisions in the East West Link contract.

3. ↑ As shown in Media Lies Used to Provide a Pretext for Another "Humanitarian War": Protest in Syria: Who Counts the Dead? of 25 Nov 2011 by Julie Lévesque in Global Research, the Western news media may have been exaggerating the number of dead for its own propaganda purposes. But, surely those opposed to war need to be able to accurately convey to the public, how many have been killed as a result of the support provided to the terrorists by Western nations? Nowhere on Global research could I find this figure. It certainly was not included in Professor Michel Chossudovsy's otherwise excellent Online interactive I-book Syria: NATO's Next "Humanitarian" War? of 11 Feb 2012. Given that death toll of the Iraq wars since 1990 is certainly at least many hundreds of thousands and, according to one estimate could be a many as 3,300,000, including 750,000 children, the figure of 100,000 dead may not be such a great exaggeration, after all. Certainly should Barack Obama and John Kerry achieve their goals, the eventual death toll will be much higher than 100,000.

4. ↑ Roger Corbett subsequently admitted he was a member of the Liberal Party.

War criminals and serial liars, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, and their Australian accomplices, Prime Minster Kevin Rudd and Foreign Minister Bob Carr

This coming Saturday 7 September, most Australians will be forced to make the unpalatable choice between, on the one hand, the Opposition Liberal Party and the ruling Labor Party. The Liberal Party is resolved to destroy 7,000 public service jobs, remove the right of trade unions to enter workplaces and give the Green light to destructive and horrifically expensive projects such as the East-West Link and the Phillip Island industrialisation project. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, as well as promoting rampant population growth and section 457 visas has, on the international stage, facilitated military aggression against Libya in 2011 and has done his utmost to repeat the exercise with Syria. Fortunately for Syria and the rest of the world, President Obama's war plans against Syria have been defeated by international and domestic opposition as described in the included article of 30 Aug 2013 by Paul Craig Roberts. It is vital, if peace and democracy are to survive that Kevin Rudd, Bob Carr and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott be held to account for their support for the U.S. Government's criminal actions.

Editorial comment

In recent days world public opinion prevented war criminals and serial liars, U.S. President Barack Obama, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and French 'socialist' President François Hollande from launching a war against Syria on the pretext of the laughable allegation that the Syrian Government had killed between 300 and 1,400 of its citizens with poison gas. Whilst evidence supporting that claim was non-existent, a body of evidence that implicated the U.S.-sponsored anti-government terrorists was growing day by day. In site of the lack of evidence and the sheer implausibility of the allegation that the Syrian Government, which even NATO admits, enjoys the support of 70% of Syrians, would attempt to murder its citizens, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Foreign Minister Bob Carr were quick to give their strident support to President Barack Obama against Syria.

Fortunately, world public opinion, which had already been twice deceived by similar lying allegations against Iraq, saw through these lies and opposed the war. Opinion polls in the U.S. showed only 11% supported war. In the U.K., in response to overwhelming public opposition, the U.K. Parliament voted to not participate in the planned war. Over the following days, Francois François Hollande also decided not to participate in the planned war. left on his own and faced with overwhelming domestic opposition, President Barack Obama has decided to delay the war until after he has put his case to the U.S. Congress.

The likelihood that the 'evidence' that Obama and Kerry say they are going to present will stand up to the vast amount of evidence to the contrary is close to nil.

America Totally Discredited

Paul Craig Roberts, 30 August 2013

A foolish President Obama and moronic Secretary of State Kerry have handed the United States government its worst diplomatic defeat in history and destroyed the credibility of the Office of the President, the Department of State, and the entire executive branch. All are exposed as a collection of third-rate liars.

Intoxicated with hubris from past successful lies and deceptions used to destroy Iraq and Libya, Obama thought the US "superpower," the "exceptional" and "indispensable" country, could pull it off again, this time in Syria.

But the rest of the world has learned to avoid Washington's rush to war when there is no evidence. A foolish Obama was pushed far out on the limb by an incompetent and untrustworthy National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, and the pack of neoconservatives that support her, and the British Parliament cut the limb off.

What kind of fool would put himself in that vulnerable position?

Now Obama stands alone, isolated, trying to back away from his threat to attack without authorization from anyone--not from the UN, not from NATO, not from Congress who he ignored--a sovereign country. Under the Nuremberg Standard military aggression is a war crime. Washington has until now got away with its war crimes by cloaking them in UN or NATO approval. Despite these "approvals," they remain war crimes.

But his National Security Advisor and the neocon warmongers are telling him that he must prove that he is a Real Man who can stand alone and commit war crimes all by himself without orchestrated cover from the UN or NATO or a cowardly US Congress. It is up to Obama, they insist, to establish for all time that the President of the United States is above all law. He, and he alone is the "decider," the Caesar, who determines what is permissible. The Caesar of the "sole superpower" must now assert his authority over all law or Washington's hegemony over the world is lost.

As I noted in an earlier column today, if Obama goes it alone, he will be harassed for the rest of his life as a war criminal who dares not leave the US. Indeed, a looming economic collapse could so alter the power and attitude of the United States that Obama could find himself brought to justice for his war crimes.

Regardless, the United States government has lost its credibility throughout the world and will never regain it, unless the Bush and Obama regimes are arrested and put on trial for their war crimes.

Obama's destruction of US credibility goes far beyond diplomacy. It is likely that this autumn or winter, and almost certainly in 2014, the US will face severe economic crisis.

The long-term abuse of the US dollar's reserve currency role by the Federal Reserve and US Treasury, the never-ending issuance of new debt and printing of dollars to finance it, the focus of US economic policy on bailing out the "banks too big to fail" regardless of the adverse impact on domestic and world economies and holders of US Treasury debt, the awaiting political crisis of the unresolved deficit and debt ceiling limit that will greet Congress' return to Washington in September, collapsing job opportunities and a sinking economy all together present the government in Washington with a crisis that is too large for the available intelligence, knowledge, and courage to master.

When the proverbial hits the fan, the incompetent and corrupt Federal Reserve and the incompetent and corrupt US Treasury will have no more credibility than Obama and John Kerry.

The rest of the world--especially Washington's bullied NATO puppet states ₁ --will take great delight in the discomfort of "the world's sole superpower" that has been running on hubris ever since the Soviet collapse.

The world is not going to bail out Washington, now universally hated, with currency swaps, more loans, and foreign aid. Americans are going to pay heavily for their negligence, their inattention, their unconcern, and their ignorant belief that nothing can go wrong for them and that anything that does is temporary.

Two decades of jobs offshoring has left the US with a third world labor force employed in lowly paid domestic nontradable services, a workforce comparable to India's of 40 years ago. Already the "world's sole superpower" is afflicted with a large percentage of its population dependent on government welfare for survival. As the economy closes down, the government's ability to meet the rising demands of survival diminishes. The rich will demand that the poor be sacrificed in the interest of the rich. And the political parties will comply.

Is this the reason that Homeland Security, a Nazi Gestapo institution, now has a large and growing para-military force equipped with tanks, drones, and billions of rounds of ammunition?

How long will it be before American citizens are shot down in their streets by "their" government as occurs frequently in Washington's close allies in Egypt, Turkey, Bahrain?

Americans have neglected the requirements of liberty. Americans are so patriotic and so gullible that all the government has to do is to wrap itself in the flag, and the people, or too many of them, believe whatever lie the government tells. And the gullible people will defend the government's lie to their death, indeed, to the death of the entire world.

If Americans keep believing the government's lies, they have no future. If truth be known, Americans have already lost a livable future. The neocons' "American Century" is over before it begun.

Update: I have heard from educated and aware friends that the presstitute media on the evening news are beating the drums for war. This shows what paid whores the US media is and their total disconnect from reality. Anyone who wastes their time on the US media is a brainwashed idiot, a danger to humanity.

Update 8:52 PM August 30: Is the White House idiot going to be a victim of his own careless presidential appointments?

Does he have no one to tell him how to escape the dilemma his moronic Secretary of State and National Security Advisor have put him in? Someone needs to tell the WH Fool that he must say that he accepts the conclusion of the world

community that there is not sufficient evidence for launching a military attack on Syria and killing even more people

than were killed in the alleged, but unproven, chemical attack, and that he awaits further and better evidence.

God help the moron and the unfortunate country that the fool represents.

Appendix: Updates↑

Why have were updates included in the first place? Why were they moved out of the teaser and into this appendix?. I was motivated to include so many updates, because I knew it was not possible to publish enough material, whether original or reposted, to inform readers about the Syrian conflict. One alternative was to link directly to news about Syria from the front page. However, this became unwieldy due to the large number of news items. As an alternative, visitors our now advised which are the most prominent web-sites carrying truthful news about the Syrian conflict on the main front page.

Another goal was to show visitors links to deceitful mainstream media (other) web pages about Syria, so that they could be compared to the other articles, which are supported by evidence and logic (informative). The sites that lie about Syria include ABC News, the Age, SBS News, the Sydney Morning Herald and Rupert Murdoch's Australian (behind a paywall). - GT

Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, informant for the US embassy since the 1970's

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who colluded in the invasion of Libya by calling for a "no-fly" zone

Breaking news : (30 August, 11:30AM GMT+10) UK Parliament votes against war

(Originally posted: Mon, 26 Aug 2013, 01:20:28 +1000) See also: Syria 'Chemical Weapons' Crisis: Live Updates on RT, Appendix 1: Links to factual reporting on Syria, Appendix 2: Mainstream media war propaganda.

Unlike Syria, Australia has participated in several unjust wars since the end of the Second World War.₁ As a result of two of those wars, 1,300,000 Iraqis, fled to Syria. The illegal wars, in which Australia participated include: The Korean War,₂ the Vietnam War, the Gulf War of 1991, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In its "demographics" section The Wikipedia Syria article, states:

According to the World Refugee Survey 2008, published by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Syria hosted a population of refugees and asylum seekers number approximately 1,852,300. The vast majority of this population was from Iraq (1,300,000), but sizeable populations from the former Palestine (543,400) and Somalia (5,200) also lived in the country.[106]

So, as a result of the illegal wars against Iraq in which Australia participated in 1991 and 2003 and the sanctions in which Australia also participated, which even denied medicine to critically ill Iraqi children and food to starving Iraqi children, 1,300,000 Iraqis fled to Syria, where they have since been cared for.

By rights, Syria should have received aid from Australia to help it cope with a problem of Australia's making.

Instead, Bob Carr, who claims to have opposed the wars against Iraq, found a convenient excuse to side with the world's bullies against Syria.

In May 2012, on the pretext of the unproven allegation that the Syrian Government had massacred 108 unarmed civilians at Houla, 'Labor' Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr expelled the Syrian ambassador and tightened existing sanctions against Syria.

Appendix 1: Factual reporting on Syria ↑

Regarding allegations that government had killed its citizens with chemical weapons

The links below do not include links to articles on Global Research (http://globalresearch.ca). At around 10:00PM (GMT +10) on 27 Aug 2013, the web browser showed the message "Error establishing a database connection" every time I tried to view a page on that site.

Lying about Syria, and the lying liars who lie about the lying ₃ of 25 Aug 2013 by David Swanson, Moallem: We Dare Anyone to Reveal Evidence that Damascus Used Chemical Weapons of 27 Aug 2013 in Almanar News, Sarin Gas : a new propaganda campaign against Syria of  Aug 2013 Voltaire Network, Strike on Syria serves Israel interests: Syrian FM of 27 Aug 2013 on PressTV, of 27 Aug 2013 on The Voice of Russia,
Congress Should Veto Obama's War of 27 Aug 2013 by Patrick J. Buchananan on antiwar.com , Information Minister : US has no evidence on Syria's use of chemical weapons (SANA) of 27 Aug 2013.

Other aspects of the Syrian conflict

Syria opposition handed Western powers lists of targets for strike of 27 Aug 2013 in The Voice of Russia, Aleppo Christians Fear Iraq-Style
Ethnic Cleansing of 26 Aug 2013 on Almonitor of  Aug 2013.

Appendix 2: Mainstream media war propaganda ↑

To understand the stories listed below, first read Lying about Syria, and the lying liars who lie about the lying ₃ of 25 Aug 2013 by David Swanson (also linked to above).
Mainstream media war propaganda: UN to inspect site of alleged Syrian chemical weapons attack, US say it's too late (includes embedded interview with Lisa Millar) of 26 Aug 2013 on ABC News, Obama's Guns of August of 24 Aug 2013 in Slate, Baird, counterparts express 'outrage' over alleged chemical attacks in Syria of 26 Aug 2013 on CTV, Air, missile strikes on Syria considered by US, UK of 26 Aug 2013 in Rupert Murdoch's Australian (possibly behind a paywall), Kevin Rudd's Syria briefing 'could have been by phone' of 26 Aug 2013 also in Murdoch's Australian, DFAT urges 64 Australians to leave Syria of 25 Aug 2013 in Murdoch's Sydney daily Telegraph, Australia to use UN role to push for Syria solution: Kevin Rudd of 25 Aug 2013, Syria to allow UN to inspect 'chemical weapons' site of 25 Aug 2013 in the BBC, Cameron and Obama warn of 'serious response' to Syria attack of 25 Aug 2013 also on the BBC, Caution needed in considering intervention in Syria ₄ of 26 Aug 2103 on ABC TV's Lateline, Carr says West could act on Syria without UN as US, allies gear up for probable military strike of 28 Aug 2013 and embedded video,
US intelligence to justify looming missile strike against Syria of 28 Aug 2013, 10 Simple points to help you understand the Syria conflict ₅ of 28 Aug 2013, Kevin Rudd talking to 'global leaders' on Syria, suggests he may attend G20 of 28 Aug 2013 in the Australian (includes another video of Bob Carr again making the lying claim that "evidence [is] accumult[ing].").

Footnotes

1. ↑ Contrary to some misguided "left-wing" narratives of the Second World War, the fight by the Western allies, the Soviet Union and other allies against German Nazism, Italian Fascism and Japanese colonialism was one in which all the people of the world have a vital stake, as Oliver Stone has shown in the TV series "The Untold History of the United States" (2012) and book of the same name. For all the flaws of the Allied nations, humanity is greatly indebted to them. Had the Allies lost, a new and more terrible of barbarism would have begun.

2. ↑ Whilst the Korean war can be technically viewed as the defence of 'South' Korea against aggression from 'North' Korea, in reality, it was an extension of the national war of liberation against the brutal regime of former Japanese collaborators, which had been imposed on 'South' Korea by U.S. occupiers in 1945. From 1945 until 1950, a guerrilla war had been fought against the southern regime.

3. ↑ This otherwise insightful and informative story is flawed by the following words: "5. Both sides in Syria have used horrible weapons and committed horrible atrocities. ...". In conducting a war against ruthless insurgents who use unarmed civilians as human shields and who conceal conceals themselves inside their residences, the Syrian Army has bombarded these residences and undoubtedly caused death and injury. However, in conducting an armed struggle to ensure that the terrorist killers do no triumph the Syrian Army would have little other choice. David Swanson seems to have been influenced by the false "far-left" opinion that every government (except for a truly "revolutionary socialist" of the old Leninist-Trotskyist paradigm) must necessarily be corrupt. However, it appears that a number of notable historical figures who have risen to the top are indeed well-meaning and courageous individuals. One obvious example is the late President Kennedy. President Bashar al-Assad may be of a similar mould. Certainly I have yet to see any evidence that he is corrupt.

4. ↑ On the surface, Bob Carr appears fair, calm and rational in this interview by Lateline presenter Emma Alberici. However, as this interview only likely to be viewed by a very small minority of the public who take the time to watch Lateline and would be overshadowed by news of the strident beating of the drums of war by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and John Kerry, Bob Carr's apparent urging of caution would have negligible impact, particularly given that Bob Carr has repeated the lies about Syria and has not made the effort to question them.

5. ↑ The 'points' are anything but simple. Includes some token pretences at being objective and not biased, for example: "5. And pretty soon, bad guys on both sides are killing civilians…".

On 7 March 2013, Kevin Rudd was a lead speaker at a pro-population growth meeting held by the "Urban Development Institute of Australia", which is a property developer body that lobbies continually for higher immigration to grow Australia's population. Now Mr Rudd is our Prime Minister, but he still sounds as if he is working for a bunch of property developers.

It's sustainable if you say it is

"I believe in a sustainable Australia," Mr Rudd said. "If you've got the sustainability settings right, on land use, on water use and on infrastructure provision, then of course the country can grow, so I believe in a sustainable Australia."Source: http://www.theage.com.au/national/rudd-poll-bounce-boosts-labor-20130628-2p366.html#ixzz2XYX4kOhx

Rudd and Murdoch: one setting only

Mr. Rudd is in favour of a Big Australia. I believe (after much reading on the subject) that it will be unsustainable and will put our population in real peril. Australia is a desert continent with very poor soils. Because of fossil fuels we have been able to produce more food than ever before from this continent, but this will come to an end. 2 reasons 1. fossil fuels are finite and there are strong indications that global oil production has already peaked 2. Unless scientists are wrong about GGEs and climate change, we must stop using Fossil Fuels or we won’t have an environment as we know it.

Population policy under Julia Gillard

Mr. Rudd is glib and fanciful in what he says. Julia made a good start when she said she was in favour of a “sustainable Australia” rather than a “Big Australia” but then the whole issue was buried in Tony Burke’s report which recommended population be regionalized – thus sweeping the problem of population numbers into another realm and the government went on to preside over a huge migration program which is more than our natural increase and thus more than double our population growth rate.

Rudd’s intention to continue “ Big Australia” is contained in the quote “ then of course the country can grow”.

Population growth doesn't pay for itself: we do

A sign that our existence in Melbourne is going down hill is that Victorians are already paying more and more for water because of the desalination plant which would not have been necessary had the government not anticipated high population growth and that Melbourne will be a megalopolis. I can see a time when people won’t be able to pay for the water they need.

WA uses almost exclusively desalinated water and ground water. This is a recipe for collapse. Perth has the highest population growth rate of any capital city and comparable to many 3rd world countries.

The Victorian State of the environment Report 2008 showed that all environmental indicators in Victoria were declining because of human activity and population pressures. Since then the population has kept on growing. I understand all reports from other states have shown the same.

A national tragedy

We are already in environmental decline. The country is so delicate, so immensely biodiverse and intricate but since the European invasion we have been stomping all over it with hob nail boots.

What really drove the so-called leadership crisis in the Federal Government, which has gone on for about three years? Tonight, as Julia Gillard steps down, who really benefits, and how?

Tonight many of us have been watching, with some horror, the latest awful changes in the Federal Government.

So, what was the policy agenda that supposedly drove Rudd's challenge to Gillard? In fact, no policies were mentioned, as many media commentators have just acknowledged.

There may, however, have been a barely iterated agenda - that of the mainstream press - to have an earlier election.

How would that advantage the power elites? Well, in these days where real debate is possible on the internet, a long election lead-up might just have led to some real democracy - obviously the last thing that the corporate press, which also leads the ABC, want.

Julia Gillard just showed herself to be as capable a leader as any male politician I have seen in over a decade of federal politics.

“Mr. Rudd needs to be severely questioned on the title of his talk but the context makes this unlikely. Were he speaking in parliament or the public realm he might be questioned but his speech on Thursday will be heard at a forum of an industry known for its bias to high population growth with no practical or logical end point.” (Jill Quirk, President, SPAVicTas)

“The Urban Development Institute of Australia congress being held in Melbourne this week is a blatant exercise in talking up Melbourne’s and indeed Australia’s population for the benefit of developers rather than for the current residents,” says Jill Quirk, President of Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian and Tasmanian branch).

“In a return to the past (the year 2010) ex PM Kevin “Big Australia” Rudd, will be the keynote speaker on Thursday March 7th. His topic will be “Population growth for a stronger economy”. He would do better to find out how Melbourne residents actually feel about more population growth. Melbourne is presently groaning under the planning and environmental implications of being capital of the state with the highest numerical population increase of any in Australia, with no relief in sight.”

Miss Quirk said, “Mr. Rudd needs to be severely questioned on the title of his talk but the context makes this unlikely. Were he speaking in parliament or the public realm he might be questioned but his speech on Thursday will be heard at a forum of an industry known for its bias to high population growth with no practical or logical end point.”

President Quirk added, “Population growth is placing strong pressures on our environment and on planning. Economically it is causing reduced housing affordability and a huge need for upgrading, replacing and building infrastructure and services. It is clear that Victoria is already not keeping up with these increasing needs in the vital areas of schools, hospitals and fire and ambulance services.

Endless and high population growth is not inevitable and with the reality of an energy and resource constrained future, responsible leaders would be planning for a stable population and a steady state economy as soon as practicable. SPA hopes these issues will be raised effectively but the program and industry bias of the conference gives little hope of this.”

Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull like many other politicians seem to think of themselves as ideas men. Do we really need politicians with 'ideas' or are they a liability?

On Monday night’s Q and A on ABC1 TV, guests Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull, from the comfort of their respective non party leadership positions (and in Kevin Rudd’s case basking in the imagined glory of the way he would now be leading the country had it not been for the 2010 leadership coup) quipped and bantered between themselves throughout the show.

Especially not big population ideas

Their harmonious good humour finally evoked the question from an audience member as to whether they had considered jointly forming a new political party, to which they both agreed that they had not. Kevin Rudd even surpassed himself in wit saying that they would not be able to agree on the leadership (of such a party)! During the program I heard one of them say that he had “a few good ideas” as did the other (giving the other due credit ) In other words they are a pair of mutually self proclaimed “ideas people”. I hate to think what those ideas are and am 100% certain that they would involve a huge population for Australia. Both men are on record as advocating this.

I suppose whichever of Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee said that they of had "ideas” thought that the idea of their ideas would be enticing to the audience.

But do we really need politicians to have ideas?

It always seems to be the materialization of someone’s big idea that clashes with the needs and wants of others and with nature. Politicians should be in the business of appreciating what we have and trying to withstand assaults on it rather than contributing their own ideas to its transformation along with the myriad developer and big business ideas that we are assailed with.

Megalomaniac dreaming

Two megalomaniacs dreaming up an Australia which is nothing like the Australia we live in is not what Australia needs. The best tools for a politician are a set of guiding principles and a philosophy.

Politicians with ideas just make more work for the rest of us. We have to correct them, modify them, try to premept them and pay for their projects whether we like them or not. We have to interrupt our own lives to try to avert the disasters their ideas can become.

Overactive children

It is a bit like cleaning up after a very imaginative and active child has been in the house all morning playing in the kitchen cupboards. The unfortunate difference with politicians who have ideas and want to make their mark is that the results are more costly. We have far more difficulty controlling them and we can’t lock them in their rooms when they make a mess.

Ideas are great for those in creative fields. If an artist has an idea and chooses to put it on paper or canvas, that’s fine whether I like the idea or not. Unless I am forced to hang the picture in my house it doesn’t affect me. A friend’s ideas expressed in very bad poetry are OK unless he asks to read them aloud to me. It’s when you get into the materialization of large scale ideas such as buildings, roads, bridges and other engineering works as well as large populations that the sensitivities of the rest of us collide with the ideas person.

I’ve convinced myself. We do not need politicians with ideas. We actually need them not to have ideas, and for them to take expert independent advice for their decisions. Apart from this I would appreciate it if they could keep things running smoothly in the background so that I can get on with my life.

If Gillard is not a rehash of the hollow Rudd, who hoodwinked us into the false hope of the 2007 pork barrelling and spun that hollow 2020 Summit; Gillard's absence of maxims and deadlines for Australia's population/immigration targets only confirms voters ought to realistically presume more of the same.

Tony only wants to stop the boats. He is quite happy for the other 99% arriving by plane to keep coming.

Ordinary voters need to detox from this election bender. Only the political parties, their advertisers and their media allies stand to benefit. Like the pubs and clubs that own the pokies, they control the outcome and the punters lose.

Voters need to stop hoping things will improve under either LibLab party. After 21st August, we won't enter a new era. It will be more of the same. The media phasing will run to formula. First they'll flog reality TV labelled as 'Decision 2010', then there'll be celebration and paralysis by analysis, followed by a month of new government honeymoon hope, before inevitable criticism returns and the eggs start flying again. [I wish that bloke waiting in the Canberra café had been a better shot!]

If only voters for once would accept that after the election things do not improve either way. If voters vote non-LibLab for genuine change, there is a slither of hope that voters may get what they wish for - 'change'.

But who else is out there? With such a political vacuum, why are there so few choices, so few alternatives, so few leaders? The LibLab's have their oliogarchic system sown up with their donated millions providing campaign supremacy, their safe seats, their gerrymanders, the electoral system's prejudice against newcomers and small players, and the mainstream media bias allowing only the LibLabs their time in the sun.

So we cop the same old LibLab pendulous crap. In living memory is has been Holt > Gorton >McMahon> Whitlam > Fraser > Hawke > Keating > Howard > Rudd > Gillard... All LibLab. All like tired re-runs of M*A*S*H* once the ratings finish.

Two weeks out from a federal election and the range and depth and vision on the two major parties - the LibLabs is woefully simplistic and shortsighted.

Both Lib Lab economic rationalist factions are selfishly limited to an 'ends justifies the means' approach purely to get elected. Both are indulging in election-term economics, lobbying marginal seats, pork barreling the swinging voter and trying to differentiate themselves from each other. Neither are relevant to the future governance of Australia.
They are not about the many departmental portfolios they take responsibility for. They are simplistically about two personalities - Tony and Julia.

Tony thinks it is simply about 'ending the waste, repaying the debt, stopping the big new taxes and stopping the boats'. [Tony Abbott website, 28th July 2010].

Julia thinks it is simply about 'moving Australia forward', and motherhood statements like 'securing our future with responsible economic management', 'delivering fairness for working families', an education revolution, and 'tackling climate change' (somehow). [Labor Platform].

It's dumbing down the issues as if the Australian electorate is a crowd watching a football match.

Have a read:

Australian Liberal Party policies

Australian Labor Party 'agenda'

These policies are on the fly, tokenistic pork-barrelling for media sound grabs. They lack robust research and are reactionary. They are outputs of overpaid consultants advising the major parties to focus only on the key 'push-button' re-election issues. They are only about getting re-elected and getting the pollsters to push them a few percentage points ahead of the other.

The offerings are hollow. The LibLabs are short-sighted simpletons. They reveal the lack of ideological vision once characteristic an inspiring of politics over 30 years ago. One has to return to the Whitlam era to recall ideological vision in Australian politics. These days the LibLabs have created a political vacuum in Australia.

No wonder many Australians just tune out. We've heard it all before. We've seen the promises become conveniently forgotten and dishonoured. We've seen successive LibLabs grow on the nose four years down the track.

Where are the long term strategic visions, direction and investment plans for this great nation?

Where's the badly needed long term investment into the big picture issues?

Here are some of Australia's big picture issues that demand longterm political vision:

* TRANSPORT: Public transport infrastructure - a national fast rail network for both freight and passengers;

* ENERGY: Transition strategy into clean and renewable energy;

* POLLUTION: Carrot and stick strategies to reduce pollution particularly in industry and private transport. (climate change and greenhouse gas emissions pare just fancy words or 'pollution');

* DOMESTIC INDUSTRY: Strengthen Australia's domestic industries to restore international competitiveness, stem the flow of industrial entrepreneurship and investment offshore and to curb the unfair market controls by big business over small business;

* EDUCATION: Vocational education (TAFE) aligned to industry needs for the next 20 years, where industry is made to financial contribute and play a key role, to realign the local skills shortage epidemic;

* Public schools to bring the educational standards up to private school standards so as to address the Dickensian class inequity across Australian schools;

* University funding so Australian universities are not beholded to international student fees for their financial survival;

* HEALTH: New major hospitals to fill the chronic bed shortages in all capital cities, and nationalise health with training and infrastructure to stay one step ahead of demand, and to address the inequity of rural health.

* INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS: Fair financial compensation for the stolen generations and the stolen wages to redress the 20th Century government treatment of Aborigines as slaves;

* Strategies and resources to address the indigenous inequity of access to essential public services and to address the shortcomings in life expectancy and living standards

* Constitutional recognition of the prior occupation and sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their rights and obligations as owners and custodians
and to self determination, political representation and equity in developing and implementing public policies, programs and services that affect them. (Refer The Greens policy)

* SUSTAINABLE AND ACCOUNTABLE IMMIGRATION: Not a population policy, but a sustainable immigration policy - one that is accountable to the full social costs (costs of living, public infrastructure supply, homelessness and unemployment), one that is aligned to our Australian value system, one that is accountable to the full environmental costs, and one that is accountable to the complete immigration lifecycle - where new arrivals become self-sufficient and integrated into the broader community;

* ENVIRONMENT: Strategies for sustainable crop selection, sustainable agricultural practices (irrigation, fertilizer, land clearing, salinity, runoff), Murray-Darling irrigation buy back and local community transition support, new national parks, sustainable forestry that makes the AFS certification a national minimal standard, sustainable fishing initiatives.

* THE ARTS: Arts and culture policy to provide opportunities and encouragement of Australian home-grown talent

* DEFENCE: A defence policy that is wholly about defence of Australia aligned to the interests of our immediate regional security and peace in the Oceania region, not the current offence policy that is wrongly aligned to the militarist interests of the United States - Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan.

* EMERGENCY SERVICES: Overhaul underfunded volunteer emergency services national-wide (ambulance, fire and those dealing with bushfire emergencies, storm emergencies, and other natural disaster emergencies) to give Australians a 21st Century chance of survival and recovery

* POVERTY: Addressing the causes of Australia's growing underclass - homelessness, unemployment, record incarceration and recidivism, those affected by mental health issues and substance abuse, family breakdown and domestic violence;

* ELECTORAL CONTRACT: An electoral contract to make electoral promises accountable to the people

I am sure there are others.

At least the Greens offer alternatives, but they have many shortcomings with their policies too, such as where is the economic case to show that The Greens could run the economy?
This uncertainty is why the Greens don't get a leg in.

A vote for any other party offers the hope of change.
A vote for Lib or Lab, promises more of the same crap.

'A people who are sheep get a government of wolves.'

"Inevitably when a Prime Minister or a Government says or does something there is a political analysis – Why are they doing this? What are they up to? While this is pretty much unavoidable, I think the explanation here is a pretty simple conjunction of the Prime Minister’s own convictions with the views of the vast majority of Australians." (Kelvin Thomson)

Received today from Kelvin Thomson's office were these remarks about the new P.M's opinions on population policy, plus Kelvin's earlier remarks on population at P.M. Rudd's 2050 summit.

"And finally, to yesterday’s dramatic announcement by Prime Minister Gillard that she does not support what has become known as a big Australia – a population of 36 or even 40 million by 2050.

Inevitably when a Prime Minister or a Government says or does something there is a political analysis – Why are they doing this? What are they up to? While this is pretty much unavoidable, I think the explanation here is a pretty simple conjunction of the Prime Minister’s own convictions with the views of the vast majority of Australians.

I have been very anxious to ensure that the debate we have to have about population did not descend into the gutter with allegations of racism and the like, and I have been very pleased that it has not. I have been very clear about my own position on such matters – I have no designs on the non-discriminatory migration policy, I support an increase in our refugee intake, and I support an increase in Australia’s overseas aid to the world’s poorest people to meet the United Nations target of 0.7% of Gross National Income.

I have worked very hard to stay out of the debate concerning refugee and asylum seeker policies during the past year, because the number of people involved is just a fraction of Australia’s migration intake and it should not derail the larger debate. There are some people who want to talk incessantly about boat people and say nothing about the skyrocketing of visas in the skilled migration category, for overseas students who have been able to stay on indefinitely, and the temporary entry visas.

So I will enter the debate about refugee and asylum seekers today to make two points only. The tail has been wagging the dog; we should focus on the debate on the total migration program, not a small component of it. Secondly, I believe there is a large reservoir of goodwill and compassion within the Australian community towards asylum seekers, but one of the things that drains that reservoir of goodwill is the difficulties people experience – cost of living pressures, housing affordability, loss of open space, traffic congestion – caused by migration-fuelled population growth. If we get that under control, then we will find that reservoir of goodwill replenishing itself, and find the policy questions surrounding asylum seekers less emotive and fraught than they are at present.

So I am really pleased by the announcement by the Prime Minister that she intends to take a new direction in population policy, and to chart a course away from growth towards sustainability.

It shows the Prime Minister is on the wavelength of ordinary Australians. 70% of Australians don’t want our population to reach 36 million. When Treasury released its projections of a 36 million population for Australia in September last year, I said this would be too many, and I called for a national debate on this issue.

We have been having this debate. Australians have expressed their concern about the impact of rising population on our food and water supplies, on housing affordability, on traffic congestion, on the quality of life in our cities, on our carbon emissions and on our endangered wildlife.

The Prime Minister has recognized this concern, and I am very encouraged by what this means for the kind of Australia we are going to leave as a legacy for future generations of Australians."

Preceding the above in the original communication via email were the following remarks:

The Inaugural Population Australia 2050 Summit –

Conclusion by Kelvin Thomson, MHR for Wills

I want to conclude my remarks this afternoon by commenting on three areas – the population threat to Australia’s unique wildlife, the issue of urban sprawl, and yesterday’s dramatic announcement by Prime Minister Gillard.

First, the population threat to Australia’s unique wildlife. Eight years ago the signatories to the Convention on Biodiversity, including Australia, made a bold and ambitious commitment to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. We are now in 2010. It is the International Year of Biodiversity. But the rate at which are species are declining shows no sign of slowing down. Let me observe here in Sydney that the greatest bird declines have occurred in the temperate south-eastern regions of Australia, which is of course where most population growth has occurred. A lot of birds are mobile and nomadic, and the destruction of habitat for housing, agriculture, roads, mining and other infrastructure to support an expanding population is destructive of their prospects.

Species like the Swift Parrot and the Regent Honeyeater are now nationally endangered. These birds are highly mobile nectar feeders. The Regent Honeyeater range and numbers have contracted greatly as a result of loss, fragmentation and degradation of habitat, with old trees dying in paddocks and the clearing of native vegetation robbing them of crucial links in the nomadic chain.

If we look at the beaches, we find a species like the Hooded Plover taking a battering due to urban sprawl along our coastlines. People’s intensive use of beaches means the Hooded Plover eggs get stepped on, or fry in the sun when adult birds are drawn away from the nest when disturbed by people or their dogs. Hooded Plovers have almost disappeared from New South Wales.

But it’s not just rare species under the pump. Some of Australia’s best known wildlife – Kookaburras, Emus, Koalas, Lyrebirds, and Platypus – are also taking big hits to their numbers, declining by 30%, or even 50 and 60%, in significant parts of their former range. It would be a disgrace if we were to allow our iconic wildlife to disappear from view in our watch.

Second, urban sprawl. I am more familiar with Melbourne than I am with Sydney, but I suspect the issues at stake are likely to be similar. Recently the Victorian Government, unfortunately with Opposition support, moved to expand Melbourne’s Urban Growth Boundary, paving the way for another 24,000 hectares of urban sprawl for Melbourne. I believe this is a mistake.

Melbourne is becoming an obese, hardened-artery parody of its former self. Extending the Urban Growth Boundary is like a man rapidly gaining weight who thinks he can solve the problem by loosening his belt.

Expanding the Urban Growth Boundary has five strikes:

1. It allows the destruction of nearly 7,000 hectares of volcanic plains grassland, and nearly 1,000 hectares of grassy woodland. Since European settlement over 95% of Victoria’s original native grassland has been destroyed. We should be protecting the less than 5% we still have.

2. The 284,000 households projected in this expansion will, at the present rate of car possession, add another 400,000 cars to Melbourne, many of them trying to get to and from the CBD each day to work. We already have 2 million cars in Melbourne and massive traffic congestion, which urban sprawl will only worsen.

3. The cost of meeting the infrastructure needs of these new suburbs is massive, and new schools, public transport, health services and the rest come at the cost of meeting the needs of existing communities, such as providing a High School for Coburg.

4. Extending the Urban Growth Boundary represents a further breach into Melbourne’s promised Green Wedges. In 2002 Melbourne 2030 went into areas such as Epping North which had previously been set aside as Green Wedges. It promised the non-urban area outside the Urban Growth Boundary would be better protected. In 2005 the Urban Growth Boundary was again extended, removing 11,500 hectares from Green Wedges. This was said to be enough for the next 25 years. Apparently not. Green Wedges should be permanent wedges between growth corridors, not potential urban land supply that is bulldozed as soon as there is a demand for it.

5. Expanding the Urban Growth Boundary contradicts the Melbourne 2030 Plan. Melbourne 2030 was justified in the name of stopping urban sprawl. It hasn’t. Suburbs continue to march out onto the horizon. Property developers are having their cake and eating it too. We’re growing both upwards and outwards.

Five years ago Melbourne’s population was increasing at 55,000 per annum. Now it is increasing at the rate of 110,000 per annum. We are on the way to five million, then six million, then seven million. In my view this will not give us a better Melbourne than the one we have now, it will give us a poorer one.

Kelvin Thomson MP

Now that people have finally accepted that gender is and should be irrelevant in politics (at least in civilised societies like Australia) we can get down to the agenda and actions of Acting PM Gillard's new leadership team.

Sensibly new Acting PM Gillard is distinguishing herself from the unpopular agenda priorities and Rudd's unsuccessful arrogant autocratic style. Gillard's professed consultative style and modest tone signal a quick decisive break from Ruddism. Though still early days since Gillard Coup Date 24th June 2010, just four days ago; Gillard has been lightning quick to announce 'refocusing', 'new directions', 'new focal points', 'new initiatives' and 'shutting down some issues' [Digital Journal]...almost as if it has been planned for some time, perhaps?
What was Labor Right up to and for how long?

De-Rudding seems to be a fast way to work the pollsters to gain quick public relations wins, necessary for any new replacement PM. Rudd's major policy defeats most obviously have been his Mining Super Tax impost, his 'Howard-esk' rejection of asylum seekers and his backdown from his Emissions Trading Scheme. Rudd had many election promises and then he had his 2020 Summit with even more obligations.

The Rudd era is over, so what of all Rudd Labor's election promises?
Where is the electorate at now in its expectations of government?

Gillard has quickly withdrawn the government ads supporting the tax, but has not rejected the tax nor its 40% rate. On the ETS and asylum seekers Gillard remains silent so far.

But good leaders must first get their leadership team in order. Today that happened. Minimal reshuffle, steady as she goes and few changes which reflect internal promotions to senior capable people, sparked by the need to fill Gillard's previous role in the crucial Education portfolio. Simon Crean is a safe choice and if an election is in the air, no need to unsettle the team in the short term pre-election.

Now what about Gillard fulfilling Rudd's electoral promises? These comprise Labor's electoral moral contract and on such basis Labor has an electoral mandate. But if all the electoral promises have gone with Rudd, then Gillard has no electoral mandate.

Gillard's approach of 'coordinated media releases' sounds good for public communication of Government. Headlines need substance otherwise it won't be long before electoral cynicism emerges.

But Gillard's personal credibility is undermined by the fact that she has been Rudd's deputy and part of Rudd's 'gang of four' and so presumed by most to be complicit in Rudd's choice of government priorities, agenda and decision making, and at all times loyal and supportive. Gillard's credibility is also undermined by that fact she back-stabbed the elected leader through the factional influence of the Labor Right, which we know is backed by massive financial donations from unions, developers and big business.

Acting PM Gillard is not an elected representative of the people of Australia outside the safe Labor seat of Lalor in Melbourne's outer south-western suburbs; that is until she calls a general election. These days Lalor, encompassing outer urban centres of Melton, Altona, Werribee and Hoppers Crossing is in the grip of Melbourne's urban sprawl, with any 1970s 'green belt' notion bought out by housing property developers and their ilk.

So on what issues and promises did Rudd Labor win the last election and so comprise unfinished obligations to the Australian electorate? These are what Labor is accountable to the electorate to deliver, but when?

On 27th June, Gillard publicly rejected Rudd's 'Big Australia' quest by maximising population growth. So what has Gillard actually said?

"Australia should not hurtle down the track towards a big population," she told Fairfax. "I don't support the idea of a big Australia with arbitrary targets of, say, a 40 million-strong Australia or a 36 million-strong Australia. We need to stop, take a breath and develop policies for a sustainable Australia. I support a population that our environment, our water, our soil, our roads and freeways, our busses, our trains and our services can sustain."

But Ms Gillard says that does not mean putting a stop to immigration all together. "I don't want business to be held back because they couldn't find the right workers," she said. "That's why skilled migration is so important. But also I don't want areas of Australia with 25 per cent youth unemployment because there are no jobs."
[Gillard shuts door on 'big Australia', ABC 27-6-10.]

Is Gillard playing more politics and having a bet each way - sustainable immigration without denying businesses ready workers? But then what is the Education Revolution all about? Addressing Australia's 25% youth unemployment? Matching workplace skill demand with local vocational education for Australians?

But renaming Tony Burke from Minister for Population to Minister for Sustainable Population is hollow.

Meanwhile how much developer donations are flowing from members and sympathisers of the powerful Urban Taskforce Australia, which consistently lobbies on a national scale for a larger population for Australia. The disingenuous spin touted to government is that a larger population "increases the tax base to fund improvements to infrastructure and welfare services." Can Gillard see through this developer self-centred profit propaganda?

If Gillard is to be credible on curbing Australia's population growth without harming its economy, the tests for the Gillard Government are:

1. End the Baby Bonus

2. End the Subclass 457 – Business (Long Stay) Visa Scheme

3. Restrict all work visas to Employer Nomination Scheme Occupation List (ENSOL), which requires each applicant to be nominated by an Australian employer to fill a position in an occupation that appears in the ENSOL and for the applicant to demonstrate that they have the necessary skills (including conversational English skills).

4. Match vocational training of local Australians to industry demand cycles and focus on the under 25s, and lower-socio-economic groups including Australia's indigenous and rural communities. This would be a real education revolution for Australia.

Bring on a general election!

A common line of argument from those who favor population growth in Australia is that it's all a matter of optimism versus pessimism, and that environmentalists are much too negative. But there are situations where optimism would be better named meglomania.

Picture adapted from William Blake's Nebukadnezar

Last words of the Dodo

Weren’t, “I would rather be an optimist than a pessimist,” the famous last words of the dodo bird?"[1]

In Rudd welcomes 'big Australia'
Rudd talked about being optimistic about Australia's growing population, which he is encouraging in the face of growing democratic panic as the public feel the adverse consequences.

Because of this new parties are forming with policies to stop population growth in Australia.

A common line of argument from those who favor growth, such as economist Glenn Withers, is that it's all a matter of optimism versus pessimism, and that environmentalists are much too negative.

Ex-journalist, now Labor politician, Maxine McKew, recently told the Australian Q & A television show that, since we would all rather be optimists than pessimists, she was going to take the optimistic view on Australia's carrying capacity and on the livability of larger cities, and that to her mind ended the argument.

Optimism or meglomania

Too bad if people in Australia cannot afford water and heating or shelter - let's all remain optimists! What a negligent attitude from a person responsible for the conditions which may lead to starvation and exposure for so many.

"Doomsayers have always been wrong" say the cheerleaders of the growth lobby. Mark O'Connor identifies this attitude as coming from their vast ignorance of human history, and compares their glibness with the glibness of the Chaldeans telling Nebuchadnezzar "O King, live forever" (Book of Daniel, 3.9).

Nebuchadnezzar was an infrastructure and growth obsessed King who believed that his kingdom of bricks and mortar, and their financial foundations, would be eternal. Like Australia's Prime Minister and State Premiers, he thought he had the solutions to everything and that anyone who disagreed was not worth listening to. In the Bible, the political opposition was symbolised as a new religion, whose prosyletisers Nebuchadnezzar put down by various brutal means. The fact that an organised political opposition had formed is indicative that Nebuchadnezzar's wealth and power were based on disempowering his constituents. His key advisors learned to tell him what he wanted to hear or face the consequences. The king had dreams that were interpreted as warning him that his kingdom would crumble as would others that followed. His response was to built a huge gold statue of himself at public expense.

But Nebuchadnezzar's grandiosity was exposed for the madness it was. He was driven out of his own city and spent seven years living like a wild animal. [Ed. Apologies to wild animals who seem to lead blameless lives in reality, especially compared to politicians.]

Mark O'Connor says that one thing experience has taught him is not to trust anyone who seeks to reduce complex factual issues to optimism versus pessimism.

Hope, fear and propaganda

Vlad Stoikovich, who was recently on a population 'debate' on SBS's Insight program writes,

"Population boosters often paint the population debate as being one of HOPE verses FEAR. They, being on the side of hope, see themselves as visionaries with an unshakeable confidence in the creativity of mankind. On the side of fear, they group together -

“the villains”: NIMBYs, bigots, scaremongers and conservationists, people resistant to and fearful of change, pessimists whose innate distrust of mankind is their greatest failing.

To present the case for and against in such a light is clearly just another case of moral manipulation, an attempt by boosters with vested interests to hold the moral high ground at the expense of reasoned, logical debate. So in the interest of fairness let’s reverse their proposition and assume that boosters are on the side of FEAR and population stabilisers the side of HOPE.

Could such an argument be valid?

We only have to analyse booster arguments to deduce what it is they FEAR:

* Boosters FEAR that we cannot maintain economic growth without population growth.
* Boosters FEAR that the personal stake they have in controlling capital, land and business wealth will not be maximized.
* Boosters FEAR that we will not be able to support an aging population.
* Boosters FEAR that we will revert into a bigoted, Anglo-centric fortress Australia, which breeds suspicion and hatred of those different from us.
* Boosters FEAR strategic/military weakness and invasion from foreign powers.

So what do stabilisers HOPE for?

* We HOPE for a world in which our children can enjoy the same abundant natural environment and species that we enjoy today.
* We HOPE for an economic model which takes into account the full environmental, social and cultural impacts of our choices.
* We HOPE for an Australia whose growth is based on doing things smarter, more productively and in a way which gives all Australians the opportunity to participate and prosper.
* And the list goes on!

Boosters believe in the boundless ingenuity of humanity, they put their faith in the great scientists and machines of tomorrow, that will enable us to consume and grow without limits. But ingenuity comes in many forms and it should be recognized that before every great leap of science comes an even greater leap of philosophy . Perhaps the ingenuity they so crave is not to be found in their grand technological visions of tomorrow, but in the simple philosophical shifts now happening right under their noses."

NOTES

[1] Remark made by Robert Jameson on [email protected] on 07/06/2010 13:23

Democratic Presumptions

As Australians we pride ourselves with the presumption we live in a democracy, benefiting from the universally accepted principles of 'equality and freedom'.

We are supposed to have a "government of the people, by the people, for the people" [Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865], where our Constitution underscores basic personal and political rights, fair and free elections, and independent courts of law.

Every individual Australian and social group is supposed to have a guarantee of basic human rights. We are supposed to have a separation of powers between the institutions of the state - government [executive power], parliament [legislative power] and Courts of Law [judicative power].

We are supposed to have the freedom of opinion, speech, press and mass media, religious freedom, one person - one vote, and our governments are supposed to exercise good governance in public interest and free of corruption.

Failings of Representative Democracy

In Australia, we are denied direct democracy ('people power'). Why?
Is our political system intended to benefit of the dominant political parties and the interests of their corporate financiers, or the people of Australia?

Why are Australians forced into accepting this lesser standard of 'representative democracy simply due to British commonwealth heritage'?

Elected representatives of the people are supposed to make decisions that represent the wishes of the people, but they don't. Typically in the run up to elections, the political parties nominate their favourite (compliant) candidate and then spend the vast us of money they get from wealthy financiers attached with guarantees of payments in kind (i.e. bribes).

These party brown nosed candidates promise all sorts of things to the electorate which they have targeted from the same funds to pay for professional electorate research. Thee same funds to pay for clever targeted campaigning. Of course the dominant parties get voted in. Independent candidates don't have a democratic chance except once in a blue moon if they have financial resources behind them.

But Australia is not America. Most Australians would disagree that wealth needs to be a condition of entering parliament in order to represent the people. Yet this has become the reality of Australia's electoral process. The two dominant political parties, Labor and Liberal continue to be recipients of obscene levels of financial donations received as inducement for political favours in kind. Such systemic practice is no different to the infamous corruption of nations to Australia's north. It is corruption no less.

Former Prime Minister Ben Chifley, the son of a blacksmith and a train engine driver from Bathurst wouldn't stand a chance in 21st Century Australian millionaire sponsored politics. Yet perhaps like no other Australian prime minister, Chifley remains regarded as one of Australia’s most respected Prime Ministers. Chifley maintained his connections with his electorate at Bathurst until the end of his life. He was born and raised in Bathurst. He held represented the people of the Macquarie Electorate (including Bathurst) throughout his political life. He is buried in Bathurst. Chifley was a true democratic representative of his electorate and he extended this philosophy to his prime ministership of Australia during our uncertain and impoverished post WWII period.

Australia's 'parliamentary democracy' remains a British model adopted over a hundred years ago. It perpetuates an undemocratic dominant two party system allowing the slimmest of majorities control the country, but this is not representing the people.

Australian voters only get an opportunity to choose their representatives once every four years. They base their vote on the promises by their local representative on delivering what most of the people want of their government or the next four years.

But between elections, aside from protests by the Opposition parties and the media screaming to hold the elected representatives accountable for their election promises, voters are denied any say.

Australia's Illiberal Democracy

Australia has a narrower definition of full democracy. It has become less tolerant, less encouraging of real political reform and social progress and less respectful of civil liberties.
Although elections across Australia are conducted fairly, candidate pre-selection and branch stacking is undemocratic, voters are excluded from government agendas, denied any say into party policies, denied any say in drafting legislation, denied any say in constructing government budget priorities. Party politics is where the real political power lies in Australian politics, but this is not democracy.

Our so-called elected representatives keep letting us down. Look at Howard and Rudd! Look at Garrett or Costello! These lot are controlled by their own political party agenda, and Party discipline comes before the wishes of a member of parliament's electorate. Our legislative voting is along party lines, not according to the say of local electoral seats these 'representatives' are supposed to represent.

If every parliamentary lower house and upper house vote was allowed a conscience vote, secret ballot and a vote that represented the wajority wishes of an MP's electorate we perhaps would have genuine democracy, but this doesn't happen. Look what the 'party' did to Liberal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull when he exercised a conscience vote against Liberal Party policy supporting the government on the Emissions Trading Scheme.
Party gagging policy is more than undemocratic; it is Politburo.

Capable leaders of principle in Australia such as Malcolm Turnbull, Bob Carr, Neville Wran, Andrew Refshauge, Craig Knowles, Laurie Brereton, Petro Georgiou and Graham West are discouraged and discarded by Australia's unprincipled party politics. Any wonder why Australian politics lacks capable leaders. Leaders get more respect in the corporate sector.

Australia has effectively an 'illiberal democracy' - one in which, although elections take place, voters are excluded from the political agenda of party politics, denied any say into party policies, denied any say in drafting legislation, denied any say in constructing government budget priorities. Party politics is where the real political power lies in Australian politics.

In fact we have an illiberal democracy, in which, although elections take place, citizens are cut off from knowledge about the activities of those who exercise real power because of the lack of direct democratic power by the people.

Australia's dominant two political parties are right-wing - economically liberal and socially conservative. Liberal and Labor are almost indistinguishable in political and social philosophies. They are merely 'Lib-Lab' factions of the same philosophical oligarchy.

Australia's mainstream media are not independent. They are dominated by Murdoch's News Ltd and Fairfax - a similar oligarchy with allegiances to the two dominant political parties. They shape public thinking to the agenda of the major political parties and deliberately omit publishing news and issues not aligned with the interested of these two parties.

Australian are denied a bill of rights or human rights act. The dominant parties argue that rights are already well protected in Australia in the Constitution, the Courts and by our parliamentary processes an freedoms. But Australian law does not recognise universal human rights in Australia. Look at the treatment of asylum seekers and anyone suspected of being a terrorist by ASIO or anyone suspected of being a member of a 'bikie' gang in South Australia. Such people can be detained without charge by police just like they are in dictatorships.

Most Australians are denied fair access to our legal system because of its prohibitive cost. Parliamentary laws are increasingly made to give absolute discretion to the minister of the day, who make party political decisions. Development planning and environmental legislation are current examples at both federal and state levels. There may well be separation of powers between the government and the courts, but increasing legislation is being drafted to remove the discretionary powers of the judiciary - again especially in relation to development planning and environmental legislation.

We are supposed to have the freedom of opinion, speech, press and mass media, yet the Australian Communications and Media Authority controls and regulates broadcasting, radio communications and telecommunications and Internet content standards. Currently, the current federal Labor Government is proposing to implement pervasive Internet filtering legislation which will censor all online content.

Australian governments do not exercise good governance. They waste countless billions of public moneys (Rudd's failed insulation scheme, Defence spending wastage, school building programme associated with Rudd's Education Revolution).

And Australian governments have recurring history of corruption.

The abuse of privilege and parliamentary code of conduct by NSW Labor's MP in Penrith, Karen Paluzzano and Minister Ian MacDonald do not send a positive message to the electorate that NSW Labor can be trusted.

Australian Political Reform

What is needed is political reform in Australia. This has many dimensions. The first step is that Australians need to translate their dissatisfaction with the dominant parties, their frustration with the political process, their dis-empowerment by being in 'safe seats', their disillusionment with repeated broken election promises into calls for political reform.

Enough is enough!

Sir Winston Churchill may well have famously said, "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried", but British style constitutional democracy has evolved since the Magna Carta. Why stop evolving it?

Electoral Mandate Imperative
We need a overriding 'electoral mandate' enshrined in the Australian Constitution.

Although Australian elections are not rigged like in Nigeria or Sri Lanka, Australia has a history of gerrymandering, of branch stacking, and a system of party pre-selection for representative candidates.

Preselection of political party candidates for Australian electoral seats at both state and federal level, are appointed typically by a selection committee with a political party which sets rules and conditions for candidates to ensure the agenda of the party is perpetuated. It is a party within a party - a faction. It perpetuates its own party power and influence by choosing who it lets in.

The people of the electorate have no say in the process. In many cases even the rank and file party membership has no say in the process. In 2003, the factional Right in NSW Labor 'installed' Tanya Gadiel, a staffer in Police Minister Michael Costa's office, as Labor's candidate for the 'safe' Labor electoral seat of Parramatta. The electorate were denied a say. Even the rank and file membership of Labor's Parramatta branch were denied a say. The popular former Mayor of Parramatta, David Borger, was cast aside because he belonged to Labor's left faction. Preselection perpetuates political factionalism. It ignores merit and favours cronyism. It is undemocratic.

Political party 'safe seats' practically guarantee power retention by one of the dominant political parties. The federal seat of Kingsford Smith in southern Sydney has long been a safe Labor seat. It was held by Labor's former Deputy Prime Minister Lionel Bowen between 1969-90. Bowen handed over the keys to Laurie Brereton who was a prominent cabinet minister in Keating Ministry. Before retiring in 2004, Labor engineered the local numbers to allow Peter Garret to win pre-selection,who has become Labor's federal environment minister.

Australia's sense of electoral mandate has been eroded by governments not being legally held to account when they break their electoral promises.

Just what do elections entrust governments to do? What are the parameters of that trust?
What happens when those parameters are exceeded mid-term or simply ignored?
At present, nothing! This is undemocratic and unacceptable.

Former Prime Minister John Howard's distinction between 'core and non-core promises' were unacceptable. The concept of a politician at election time making non-core promises is to mislead the electorate. Similarly, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's claim that only his scripted remarks can be taken as "gospel truth" but "in the heat of discussion you go a little bit further", also unacceptable.

Australians have a right to expect and rely on the promises and undertakings made by politicians. Australians have a right to expect their elected representatives will rightfully represent them in parliament, will listen to their needs, be ethical, respect Australian values, exercise their delegated power with due diligence and appropriate governance.

Politicians and political parties have a moral contract with the people when making electoral promises. That moral contract needs to be enshrined in law. Broken promises and exceeding promised parameters constitute a breach of electoral contract and this needs to start triggering re-elections.

The Red Kangaroo and Emu that support the shield are the official animal emblems of the nation. They owe this recognition to the fact that they are native Australian fauna (found only on this continent).

...and then we go and massacre them.

The 2008 Belconnen Massacre - lest we forget

We are reminded of the brutal belconnen massacre of 500 kangaroos yesterday two years ago on 19th May 2008, followed shortly afterwards with another 4000 or so kangaroos massacred at the Majura Army training area. "Kevin Rudd or Environment Minister Peter Garrett declined to stop the killings. It was supported by the RSPCA's Micheal Linke." ['Two years since the shameful Belconnen slaughter in Canberra']

Then around this time last year Australia's Defence Minister, Joel Fitzgibbon MP, approved a similar kangaroo massacre at the same place on Saturday, 9th May 2009. [Fitzgibbon's Massacre - 9th May 2009]

These wildlife massacres reflect a prevaling backward colonial attitude by our government towards native animals. Native animals were regarded as vermin by early colonists. This attitude prevails.

Labor's Big Ecological Lie

At the time, outright propaganda lies were told by government officials and politicians that the kangaroos were starving and the kangaroos threatening native grassland and three threatened species on the site, the striped legless lizards, golden sun moths and Ginninderra peppercress. Read More

Such propaganda is right out of Joseph Goebbles "Big Lie" technique based on the principle that a lie, if audacious enough and repeated enough times, will be believed by the masses. Goebbles' propaganda attacks on the Jewish population culminated in the Kristallnacht assault of 1938, an open and unrestrained pogrom unleashed by the Nazis all across Germany, in which scores of synagogues were burned and hundreds of Jews were assaulted and murdered. [Source]

The truth at Belconnen is that the government wanted new housing estates to go up where the kangaroos lived, so they slaughtered the kangaroos. Simple and brutal as that.

The Truth about the 2008 Belconnen Massacre

Colonist Australia - a history of slaughtering native Australians

The truth across all of Australia through its colonial history right up to recent times, is the government wanted the land where Aborigines lived, so they slaughtered the Aborigines. Simple and brutal as that. Today's 21st century official slaughter of Australian native animals is no different to the official slaughter of Australian native people by European colonists, who treated Aboriginal people as vermin.

The following massacres are shocking testament. Such truths of Australian history remains excluded from the Australian school curriculum. Such truths of Australian ecological present remain excluded from the Australian school curriculum.

[List_of_massacres_of_Indigenous_Australians]

1790 Botany Bay Genocide In December, Governor Arthur Phillip issued an order for "a party...of two captains, two subalterns and forty privates, with a proper number of non-commissioned officers from the garrison...to bring in six of those natives who reside near the head of Botany Bay; or, if that number shall be found impracticable, to put that number to death".

1824 Bathurst Massacre Following the killing of seven Europeans by Aboriginal people around Bathurst, New South Wales, martial law was declared and many Aboriginal people were killed.

1828 Cape Grim Massacre On 10th February in the North west of Van Diemen's Land, now known as Tasmania, four shepherds with musket guns ambushed over 30 Tasmanian Aborigines from the Pennemukeer band from Cape Grim, killing 30 and throwing their bodies over a 60 metre cliff into the sea.

1830 Fremantle Punishment Raid The first official 'punishment raid' on Aboriginal people in Western Australia, led by Captain Irwin took place in May 1830. A detachment of soldiers led by Irwin attacked an Aboriginal encampment north of Fremantle in the belief that it contained men who had 'broken into and plundered the house of a man called Paton' and killed some poultry. Paton had called together a number of settlers who, armed with muskets, set after the Aborigines and came upon them not far from the home. 'The tall savage who appeared the Chief showed unequivocal gestures of defiance and contempt' and was accordingly shot. Irwin stated, "This daring and hostile conduct of the natives induced me to seize the opportunity to make them sensible to our superiority, by showing how severely we could retaliate their aggression." In actions that followed over the next few days, more Aborigines were killed and wounded.

1833-34 Convincing Ground Massacre of Gunditjmara On the shore near Portland, Victoria was one of the largest recorded massacres in Victoria. Whalers and the local Kilcarer Gunditjmara people disputed rights to a beached whale carcass.

1834: Battle of Pinjarra In Pinjarra Western Australia, official records state 14 Aboriginal people were killed, but other accounts put the figure much higher.

1838 Myall Creek Massacre 10 June: 28 people killed at Myall Creek near Inverell, New South Wales. This was the first Aboriginal massacre for which European settlers were successfully convicted. Several colonists had previously been found not guilty by juries despite the weight of evidence and one colonist found guilty had been pardoned when his case was referred to Britain for sentencing. Eleven men were charged with murder but were initially acquitted by a jury. On the orders of the Governor, a new trial was held using the same evidence and seven of the eleven men were found guilty of the murder of one Aboriginal child and hanged. The successful prosecutions resulted in pacts of silence becoming a common practice to avoid sufficient evidence becoming available for future prosecutions. Many large scale massacres were to go unpunished due to this practice.

1838 Waterloo Creek Massacre A Sydney mounted police detachment attacked an encampment of Kamilaroi people at a place called Waterloo Creek in remote bushland.

1838 Faithfull Massacre Benalla -In April of that year a party of some 18 men, in the employ of George Faithful and William Faithfull, were searching out new land to the south of Wangaratta. Then, in the vicinity of, or possibly on, the present townsite of Benalla, it is alleged that a large number of Aborigines attacked the party's camp. At least one Koori and somewhere between eight and thirteen Europeans died in what became known as the Faithfull Massacre. Local reprisals lasted a number of years, resulting in the deaths of up to 100 Aborigines. The reason for the attack is unclear although some sources claim that the men took shots at local Aborigines and generally provoked them.[15] It also seems they were camping on a hunting ground

Additional murders of these people occurred at Warangaratta on the Ovens River, at Murchison (led by the native police under Dana and in the company of the young Edward Curr, who could not bring himself to discuss what he witnessed there other than to say he took issue with the official reports) Other incidents were recorded Mitchelton and Toolamba.

This "hunting ground" would have been a ceremonial ground probably called a 'Kangaroo ground'. Hunting grounds were all over so not something that would instigate an attack. The colonial government decided to "open up" the lands south of Yass after the Faithful Massacre and bring them under British rule. This was as much to try and protect the Aboriginal people from reprisals as to open up new lands for the colonists. The Aboriginal people were (supposedly) protected under British law.

1839 Campaspe Plains Massacre At Campaspe Creek, Central Victoria in May-June saw the genocidal slaughter of the Daung Wurrung and Dja Dja Wurrung people.

Mid 1839 Murdering Gully Massacre Near Camperdown, Victoria saw the genocidal "wiping out" of the Tarnbeere Gundidj clan of the Djargurd Wurrung people.

1830s—1840s Wiradjuri Wars Clashes between European settlers and Wiradjuri were very violent, particularly around the Murrumbidgee. The loss of fishing grounds and significant sites and the killing of Aboriginal people was retaliated through attacks with spears on cattle and stockmen. In the 1850s there were still corroborees around Mudgee but there were fewer clashes. Known ceremony continued at the Murrumbidgee into the 1890s. European settlement had taken hold and the Aboriginal population was in temporary decline.

1865 The La Grange Expedition was a search expedition carried out in the vicinity of La Grange Bay in the Kimberley region of Western Australia led by Maitland Brown that led to the death of up to 20 Aboriginal people. The expedition has been celebrated with the Explorers' Monument in Fremantle, Western Australia.

1868 Flying Foam Massacre - Dampier Archipelago, Western Australia. Following the killing of two police and two settlers by local Yaburara people, two parties of settlers from the Roebourne area, led by prominent pastoralists Alexander McRae and John Withnell, killed an unknown number of Yaburara. Estimates of the number of dead range from 20 to 150.

1874 Barrow Creek Massacre - February (NT): Mounted Constable Samuel Gason arrived at Barrow Creek and a police station was opened. Eight days later a group of Kaytetye men attacked the station, either in retaliation for treatment of Kaytetye women, the closing off of their only water source, or both. Two white men were killed and one wounded. Samuel Gason mounted a large police hunt against the Kaytetye resulting in the killing of many Aboriginal men, women and children - some say up to 90. Skull Creek takes its name from the bleached bones found there long after.

1876 Goulbolba Hill Massacre In Central Queensland thre was a large massacre involving men, women and children. This was the result of settlers pushing Aboriginal people out of their hunting grounds and the Aboriginals being forced to hunt livestock for food. A party of Native Police was sent to "disperse" this group of Aboriginals. This led to the deaths of over 200 Aboriginal people including all the women and children.

1880s-90s Florida Station Massacre In Arnhem Land a series of skirmishes and "wars" between Yolngu and whites occurred. There were several reported massacres at Florida Station. Richard Trudgen also writes of several massacres in this area, including an incident where Yolngu were fed poisoned horsemeat after they killed and ate some cattle (under their law, it was their land and they had an inalienable right to eat animals on their land). Many people died as a result of that incident. Trudgen also talks of a massacre ten years later after some Yolngu took a small amount of barbed wire from a huge roll to build fishing spears. Men, women and children were chased by mounted police and men from the Eastern and African Cold Storage Company and shot.

1884 Battle Mountain Massacre 200 Kalkadoon people killed near Mount Isa, Queensland after a Chinese shepherd had been murdered.

1887 Halls Creek Genocides In the Kimberly, colonist Mary Durack suggests there was a conspiracy of silence about the massacres of Djara, Konejandi and Walmadjari peoples about attacks on Aborigines by white gold-miners, Aboriginal reprisals and consequent massacres at this time. John Durack was speared, which led to a local massacre in the Kimberley.

1890 Speewah Massacre In Queensland early settler, John Atherton, took revenge on the Djabugay by sending in native troopers to avenge the killing of a bullock. Other unconfirmed reports of similar atrocities occurred locally.

1890-1920 'The Killing Times' - East Kimberleys: About half of the Kimberley Aboriginal people massacred as a result of a number of reprisals for cattle spearing, and payback killings of European settlers.

1906-7 Canning Stock Route Massacre : an unrecorded number of Aboriginal men and women were raped and massacred when Mardu people were captured and tortured to serve as 'guides' and reveal the sources of water in the area after being 'run down' by men on horseback, restrained by heavy chains 24 hours a day, and tied to trees at night. In retaliation for this treatment, plus the party's interference with traditional wells, and the theft of cultural artefacts, Aborigines destroyed some of Canning's wells, and stole from and occasionally killed white travellers. A Royal Commission in 1908, exonerated Canning, after an appearance by Kimberley Explorer and Lord Mayor of Perth, Alexander Forrest claimed that all explorers had acted in such a fashion.

1915 Mistake Creek Masacre Seven Kija people were alleged to have been killed by men under the control of a Constable Rhatigan, at Mistake Creek, East Kimberley. The massacre is supposed to be in reprisal for allegedly killing Rhatigan's cow, however the cow is claimed to have been found alive after the massacre had already taken place. Rhatigan was arrested for wilful murder apparently due to the fact that the killers were riding horses which belonged to him, but the charges were dropped, for lack of evidence that he was personally involved.

1918 Bentinck Island Massacre In 1918 part of the Mornington Island group, Bentinck Island was home to the Kaiadilt clan of just over 100 people. In 1911 a man by the name of McKenzie (other names unknown) was given a government lease for nearby Sweers Island that also covered the eastern portion of the much larger Bentinck Island. Arriving on Bentinck with an Aboriginal woman and a flock of sheep, he built a hut near the Kurumbali estuary. Although the Kaiadilt avoided contact and refrained from approaching McKenzie's property he is alleged to have often explored the island, shooting any males he found while raping the women.

In 1918 McKenzie organised a hunt with an unknown number of settlers from the mainland and beginning from the northern tip of the island herded the Indigenous inhabitants to the beach on its southern shore. The majority of the Kaiadilt fled into the sea where those that were not shot from the shore drowned. Those that tried to escape along the beach were hunted down and shot with the exception of a small number who reached nearby mangroves where the settlers horses could not follow. Several young women were raped on the beach, then held prisoner in McKenzie's hut for three days before being released.

1924 Bedford Downs Massacre a group of Kija or Gija men were jailed for spearing a bullock. On release from jail they had to walk the 200 kilometres back to Bedford Downs, where they were set to work to cut the wood that was later used to burn their bodies. Once the work was finished they were fed Strychnine, and the bodies were burned.

1926 Forrest River Massacre In the East Kimberleys in May 1926, Fred Hay, a pastoralist, was speared and killed by an Aboriginal man, Lumbia. A police patrol led by Constables James St Jack and Denis Regan left Wyndham on June 1, to hunt for the killer, and in the first week of July, Lumbia, the accused man, was brought into Wyndham. In the months that followed rumours circulated of a massacre by the police party. The Rev. Ernest Gribble of Forrest River Mission (later Oombulgurri) alleged that 30 people had been killed by the police party. A Royal Commission, conducted by G. T. Wood sent an evidence-gathering party and heard evidence regarding Gribble's allegations. The Royal Commission found that 11 people had been massacred and the bodies burned.

1928 Coniston Massacre - A WW1 veteran shot 32 Aborigines at Coniston in the Northern Territory after a white dingo trapper and station owner were attacked by Aborigines.

Lest we forget.

Republished here to give background to Sheila Newman's remarks in her debate with Steve Bracks on the Jon Faine show 19-4-2010. You can comment on Jon Faine's "Population Forum" about the debate here and you can listen to the podcast here. The sector in Australia that has the most costly dependency ratio must be the property sector, since it costs all Australians an enormous and unreasonable amount just to cover the cost of land for housing, business and agriculture. Most of the very high costs involved are completely unnecessary, except in the eyes of greedy developers and their hangers-on

Mr Salt, wrong again

Yesterday (4 Feb, 2010) the Australian had Bernard Salt raising the alarm about the dependency ratio (again). But the man is hopelessly misinformed. Elderly people are not the big problem. And children (who are more dependent and for longer and who outnumber elderly people) are not the problem either.

The sector in Australia that has the most costly dependency ratio must be the property sector, since it costs all Australians an enormous and unreasonable amount just to cover the cost of land for housing, business and agriculture. Most of the very high costs involved are completely unnecessary, except in the eyes of greedy developers and their hangers-on. The only reason that the costs are so high is that the industry wants it that way and our state and federal governments are in cahoots with it.

The housing industry is making life in Australia miserable

Australians pay these monstrous costs first and must deduct them from their disposable income. These unnecessary costs affect the amount of hours we must work and how hard we must work and whether we can afford to take holidays. They affect our health and happiness. The high prices affect the cost of doing business, of manufacturing, of storage, garaging etc. When these costs are inflated they take away from other economic and social obligations, which are to provide education, hospitals, child support and retirement funding in the form of pensions and superannuation. Yes, even for self-funded retirees, the cost of doing business is inflated by the cost of land and is deducted as a variety of costs from any profits which devolve to shareholders.

Australia's inflated land-costs

Australia's inflated land-costs mean that small business has had increasing difficulty surviving and that for an increasing number of Australians, survival itself - in terms of accessing shelter and having enough money left over for food and clothing - has become difficult and sometimes impossible. For more Australians each year, transport to get to work or education to train for employment, are luxuries. Yet all this could be changed if property development and housing were no longer considered as private profits but as public expenses and the factors that contribute to their inflation were adjusted accordingly. These factors are those which drive up demand. Demand is affected by births, deaths and immigration and, to a lesser extent, by household size, location and position, which may all be to some extent discretionary.

What drives the high cost of land in Australia?

The most noticeable adjustable drivers of demand are overseas and interstate immigration. Interstate immigration can be dealt with by adjusting building permits at local levels. Overseas immigration can be dealt with by State Governments ceasing advertising for new immigrants and by National Government revising immigration quotas downwards. For maximum reduction of costs, land and housing availability should be exactly equal to demand.

In a steady state society, houses would become available as people died, with some overlap, at very little cost.

It is Australia's housing industry which is responsible for elderly people being scapegoated instead of honoured and supported to enjoy the long and happy lives that we should all be able to look forward to.

ABS data

"For most Australians, whether buying or renting their home, the provision of adequate housing for themselves and their families involves substantial ongoing expenditure throughout much of their lives. Housing costs are often the largest regular expenses to be met from a household's current income.

The housing costs measure compiled from the Survey of Income and Housing is defined as the sum of:

* rent payments,
* rates payments (general and water), and
* mortgage or unsecured loan payments, if the initial purpose was primarily to buy, add or alter the dwelling."
Source: 1301.0 - Year Book Australia, 2008

It is always very difficult to get information from public sources on how the cost of land affects the cost of living in Australia because the Australian Bureau of Statistics refuses to treat land as a 'commodity' and our cost of living measure, the consumer price index, only factors in the cost of 'commodities' - other things you buy.

This kind of information is about the best we can get from the ABS (see below). It doesn't tell us very much. Most of the information is in the private sector and costs a lot to see.

It also doesn't tell us how much people who have businesses pay for rent and buildings on top of the money they pay for their own housing.

The ABS doesn't admit that land is like a commodity in Australia

Yet land is treated like a commodity in Australia, and we know for sure that for many of us it is our greatest burden:

“The development of stock mortgages and wool and crop liens in Australia represented legal ingenuity in that on traditional analysis, a property transfer was taking place with respect to something which would only come into existence in the future – the crop or wool to be grown.

In Australia land was not in itself a source of power but an asset capable of producing wealth. Improvements, particularly fencing, represented a high proportion of the value of real estate and borrowings on the land seem to have been greater than in England. It is thus argued that land in Australia was always viewed as a commodity, see Davidson and Wells, “The Land, the Law and The State: Colonial Australia 1788-1890” (1982) 2 Law in Context 89 AND Whalan, D., The Torrens System in Australia p.98.” Source: Adrian J Bradbrook, Susan V MacCallum, Anthony P Moore, Australian Property Law, LBC Information services, 1996, p.1.103:

Is the Property Development industry becoming an embarassment to its members?

Mr Salt recently argued that the property sector was being too timid. He implied that they had become somewhat embarrassed by bloggers highlighting the industry's reasons for promoting high immigration. He urged them to weigh into public debate and wondered why usually high profile growth lobbyists were acting like such wall-flowers.

"... I must say the “growth vs no growth” issue is ascendant and is likely to remain so during 2010. What disappointed me about this debate was the lack of supporting comment emanating from the property industry. No-one that I could see was out there putting the case for growth.

And I suspect the reason is that “big (property) business” doesn’t want to draw attention to itself on a contentious public issue. There seems to me to be almost a timidity in property individuals getting involved in public debate about growth. The logic seems to be don’t rock the boat."

Who would want to admit they are in this industry?

Well, maybe, the property industry is becoming a little more self-aware and less inclined to shoot from the mouth. Perhaps some of the younger people in the industry are becoming ashamed of the role the industry plays in creating and increasing poverty and inequality. Perhaps some of the young planners and builders aren't too keen on trashing the countryside. Maybe when young property developers, engineers, planners and developers you go to parties these days, their mouths go dry and they blush when some nice girl or bloke asks them what they do for a living.

I mean, what do you say? "I make my money out of unaffordable housing." "My boss is a land-speculator." "I serve the land-lords of the world." "We're in the business of overpopulation. It's good for our profits." "Oh, your mother protested on the steps of parliament last week?" "You hate people who bulldoze trees?" "Um, you think we cause most of the carbon gas increases in Australia?" "Well, I didn't choose to have small animals flee at my approach." "Gee, I might be responsible for people dying of thirst in a few decades, and I'm already responsible for animals dying of starvation, but hey, it's a job."

"The only way to offset the impact of the baby bust next decade is to grow the tax base through immigration. That’s why we need a big Australia, at least in the short term. And, make no mistake, this trajectory is good news for the property industry," writes Bernard Salt.

Well, no, Bernard. There is another way and it involves downsizing the property development industry so that we can afford what any normal functioning society can expect to provide for its children and elderly.

I look forward to some intelligent and responsible leadership from those young people who are currently embarrassed by their industry.

Anticipating the counter-argument

Basic economics requires profit to be made from land so that society can have publicly available infrastructure. Land commodifiers and speculators use the need for a profit margin to justify the buying and selling of land at unreasonable prices and for government and business conspiring to inflate those prices. But, when the costs of land are so high that they make business impossible, the time has come to say good-bye to the private housing and development industries.

NOTES

First published here 2/6/2010 but republished to give background to my remarks on Jon Faine Show - 19-4-2010

Rudd's penchant for a 'big Australia' is behind his absurd record immigration policy. Population growth and congestion is out of control and is the common denominator driving up Australian land prices, electricity, water, inflation, consumer demand, interest rates, and consequently the costs of living of ordinary Australians.

Our state and federal public infrastructure cannot cope - roads, public transport, health, education, housing, you name it!

Our state and federal public infrastructure cannot cope.
The cost of living for ordinary Australians is becoming desperate!

BIGGER ELECTRICITY BILLS

Today, Origin Energy chief executive, Grant King, warned the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia in Sydney that Electricity prices across Australia were likely to triple over the next 10 years.
He blamed the combination of the federal government's mandatory renewable-energy targets, energy policy uncertainty, higher electricity transmission and distribution costs, and higher fuel costs would drive the increase.

King attributed the rise in electricity demand to booming sales in energy-inefficient flat-screen televisions and air-conditioners. ['Energy prices to triple', The Australian April 14, 2010] This is clearly a consequence of new housing development driven by population growth laregley fueld by record immigration. And the growth lobby like the Urban Taskforce are lapping up the new cash!

Last month, that dodgy NSW Government euphemism 'The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART)' approved electricity price rises of up to 64% over the next three years, with "those living outside the main cities will bear the brunt of the increases."

'Country Energy, which provides all of rural NSW customers with their electricity, has been allowed to raise its prices by the steepest amount, with an increase of $918 if the scheme is introduced; otherwise, the rise will be $601.

'Overall, Energy Australia customers will see prices rise by a total of 46 per cent, for Integral Energy 60 per cent, and for Country Energy 64 per cent.

Welfare groups have warned that the price rises will force many low-income households into ''energy poverty'', and they will not be able to afford to pay their bills.'

[Brisbane Courier Mail, 'Households to feel pinch as price of power soars', 19th March 2010]

BIGGER WATER RATES

Across Australia, water rates are on the rise as each capital city spends big on desalination plants to cope with their swelling populations.

Last April (2009) it was reported by the Essential Services Commission that Melbourne households faced water price hikes of up to 84% over five years. The key drivers were claimed to be the global economy (standard excuse) as well as government not keeping water infrastructure up to demand and so deferring infrastructure works for years. [The Age (Melb), 21 Apr 2009]

Just two days ago, (12th April 2010), with Melbourne's extravagant new desal plant blowing out to cost a whopping $5.7 billion, Melbourne's water prices will further escalate to pay the bill and because of the extravagant dependency of desalination for electricity, which is also going up in price.

'Over the past five years the price of electricity has increased 13 per cent a year in Victoria - and in NSW prices have risen 28 per cent a year in each of the past two years.'

['Water plans drift behind a veil of secrecy', The Age April 12, 2010]

BIGGER HOUSING PRICES

In 2009 Australian capital city house prices rose by 12.1%. Meanwhile Australia's homeless stands at 16,000. Key drivers for house prices surging are the government’s first-home owners’ grant boost.
['Web alert - warning on 'crazy' house prices', Sydney Morning Herald, 16th February 2010]

Other drivers are the inflow of new immigrants seeking accommodation and foreign nationals permitted to invest in Australia's residential housing market.

BIGGER MORTAGE INTEREST RATES

Last December, interest rates were predicted to rise 1% during 2010. But the drivers were the surge of capital projects in the next few years and China growth.
['Business, brace for 1% rise in interest rates in 2010', Sydney Moring Herald, 24th December 2009]

This month, all the banks followed the Reserve Bank in raising their mortgage rates by 25 basis points, making this the 5th interest rate rise since October and has pushed up mortgage costs by a total of almost $250 a month.

Treasurer Swan said the rise was “a painful reminder” the economy was improving. How out of touch is Swan?

Economists warned there could be at least one more rate rise before the end of the year.

['CBA, ANZ, Westpac follow as Reserve Bank raises official cash rate to 4.25%', Herald Sun , 6th April 2010]

BIGGER GROCERIES BILLS

It was confirmed just last November that Australians "are paying the fastest-rising food prices of any major developed nation. The cost of feeding a family has shot up more than 40 per cent this decade, new OECD figures reveal.

Experts say the explanation for our pricey produce and soaring staples is not drought, currency movements or transport costs. University of NSW associate professor Frank Zumbo said comparing costs over 10 years eliminated such variables and exposed our "cosy" supermarket duopoly as the main reason.

[Daily Telegraph, 'Australia has fastest-rising food prices of any major developed nation', 9th November 2009]

BIGGER MEAT PRICES

Wholesale butcher Kevin Masterton says the days of expensive cuts at cheap prices are over for Australian meat lovers. He's predicted Australian meat prices will never be the same again.

"Everyone is predicting Lamb will be the first Australian meat that is unaffordable. Some of the predictions I've seen is that lamb racks and cutlets will be one hundred dollars a kilo by the middle of this decade," Kevin said.

And it's all because we've been spoiled for choice. The drought has forced farmers' hands - they've had to off-load cattle to stay afloat. "They see that they are going to make more money on the cattle so they hold onto them for longer. There is also quite a bit of export, the economy has started to turn so there is less cattle in the market," Kevin said.

And it's a similar story when it comes to lamb. There's been a nine per cent jump in retail sales and a 10 per cent rise in national expenditure on the meat.

And this year the nation's sheep flock is forecast to hit its lowest point since 1905. "And we have got massive exports to the middle east, so if you take those factors into account they've had a pretty detrimental impact on the stock," Kevin said.

"Lamb has probably had the most spectacular increase - we are probably talking four to five dollars a kilo for the lamb cuts."

['Meat prices on the rise', Today Tonight, 3rd March 2010]

So there is not enough capacity in our meat livestock industry to cope with demand, hence meat prices are going up.

BIGGER PETROL COSTS

"Crude oil prices have surged to 18-month highs on the weekend and have swept petrol prices higher.
Oil prices could go to $US95 a barrel, warns analysts. Domestically, a litre of unleaded petrol costs $1.29, up 0.3 cents.

'Oil, which has been trading at between $US75 and $US85 a barrel for months, now appears to be in a new range that could go up to $95, according to oil trader and analyst Stephen Schork.'

[Perth Sunday Times, 'Petrol prices set to rise, 6th April, 2010]

The trend suggests that Australian petrol prices could be nudging $2 a litre in two years time and this time it will stay there in line with international prices. Ain't globalisation and free trade great for locals!

BIGGER POORER AUSTRALIA

The compounding cost of living for ordinary Australians is becoming desperate!
What the economic data doesn't report is the social consequences - like the growing depression, family breakdowns, homelessness, substance abuse, suicides and domestic violence.
The long term impacts on children are devastating for not only the children but the future society they become adults in.

More people into less space driving up living costs, only delivers a poorer Australia.

The drivers of these costs must be addressed as a national priority.
The BIG elephant in the room is starkly Rudd's immigration out of control!
Rudd's red herring Population Minister is just that, an election red herring.

Rampant Rudd and his immigration wrath must be stopped!

Today Treasurer Wayne Swan has tried to justify another rise in interest rates by claiming in true polly-speak that such an impost is a sign of a stronger Australian economy. Swan’s growth fettish belies the LibLab's stale 20th Century baby-boomer ideology. Last month Swan's fettish for strong economic growth and strong population growth for Australia was reaffirmed at the Population Summit in Brisbane held 30th March 2010.

But Swan's growth fettish and consequential rising costs of living do not augur well for most Australians with mortgages.

Swan on the issue of Australia’s current record population growth claims:

“a population cap would compound, not solve, the growth challenges Australia faces.”

“Capping growth over the next 40 years at 0.8 per cent instead of the 1.2 per cent projected would wipe 17 per cent off the nation's gross domestic product by 2050.”

“Restricting population growth in fast-growing southeast Queensland would result in regional product on a per capita basis dropping by 5 per cent.”

“Australia faced a steep decline in workforce participation due to ageing, which would hit growth and government revenue while dramatically pushing up health spending. Boosting productivity would be critical in coping with the ageing trend.”

Swan premised that economic and population growth can only be good for Australia and the task is for Australia to learn how to "grow smarter".

But Swan only sees the economic data yet has no broader social plan. Swan promises to protect national living standards and environmental sustainability, without saying how he can do this.

This is on the back of Prime Minister Rudd infamous October 2009 pronoucement:

"I actually believe in a big Australia I make no apology for that. I actually think it's good news that our population is growing."

It made Australians reel in fear.

On uttering that dire portent, Rudd cast the demise of Australian lifestyle, inviting hoards of legalised arrivals. And neither Rudd nor Swan offers any plans for coping with this enlarged population – no plans for sustainability, infrastructure and maintaining the Australian quality of life. Both are blinkered to the narrow economic interpretations and have lost sight of the social and environmental consequences of high population growth. Rudd’s response on the run is:

"That is why we're taking a leading position on climate change but also the long-term sustainability of the Murray-Darling and the proper provision of water supplies for the future. "This Government is building for the future - we call it nation-building for the future.”

What crap. Some future. Interests rates have just gone up again and are set to continue only exacerbating house unaffordability, the cost of living and degrading Australian living standards. Australian cities have run out of potable water, so billions in taxes are going into desalination plants. Utility charges are going up. Energy Australia is set to raise electricity prices by 60% over the next three years in order to fund Sydney’s massive electricity infrastructure to catch up with the growing urban sprawl. Roads are congested in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney. Public transport is old and overloaded.

Swan's and Rudd’s Hong Kong vision for Australia does a not sit well with most Australians. Neither Labor or Liberal have no mandate to impose a growth fettish on Australians. Most Australians already feel that our environment can not cope with a larger population. Treasury’s projection of a population of 35 million by 2050 is obscene.

Back in October 2009, even Federal Treasury head Ken Henry expressed concern that Australia would not be able to sustain a predicted 60 per cent growth in population over the next four decades.

Prosperity is not aggregate GDP figures. It is maintaining and improving the quality of life and standard of living per capita. Swan being a numbers man hasn’t worked out how to measure that so he ignores it. Rudd’s Labor Government has run out of ideas and ideology relevant to Australians.

Rudd’s initiating the role of Minister for Population this month doesn’t change his 'Big Australia' vision, but just wastes more taxpayer money to find a way to justify and spread the 35 million. hardly a priority, population features in Mr Burke's mixed bucked portfolio of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. his only mandate is to deliver some population strategy in 12 months, after the election. Clearly, this is purely electioneering appeasement to disaffected Labor voters. Rudd has responded tokenly to Greens leader, Senator Bob Brown’s proposal for a Senate inquiry into Australia's population. Rudd's population minister appointment effectively hijacks what ought to be an independent review process.

And NSW Labor puppet, Premier Keneally expectedly tows the Labor line: ''I believe Sydney can grow and can grow sustainably, economically and environmentally...Cities can either grow or they can shrink. Shrinking is not an option for Sydney.'' While NSW Liberal planning spokesman, Brad Hazzard, ducked the migration issue saying it was being discussed in the community as Sydney became more crowded.

The Liberal-National Coalition are little different in their ideological response. They listen to Howard’s old Productivity Commission which strangely enough advocates for more productivity and with that more population. The Opposition wants an independent specialist body to inquire into future policies dealing with Australia's population growth – just like the Productivity Commission. Otherwise these listen to self-serving growth fettish extremists the Urban Taskforce.

Not surprisingly, Urban Taskforce chief executive Aaron Gadiel argues for no cap on immigration and says:

"One of the reasons that we don't have the infrastructure that we all want and expect is that in many cases our population in our urban centres is just not large enough," he said. "The larger the population, the more the Government is getting the tax revenue in and has the labour force available to build up the infrastructure."

More people, more urban development, more profits for Urban Taskforce members.

Swan argues that countering pressures of immigration can be addressed by Rudd Labor Government’s education revolution, health reform, welfare reform and the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. How so? Population fueled mainly by immigration drives pressures on water scarcity, urban planning and infrastructure. Population growth is pushing up interest rates, making housing even more unaffordable for Australians. Swan makes no mention of addressing the direct cost of immigration – employment opportunities, housing affordability, cost of living, congestion, inadequate hospital beds, inadequate child care places, utility costs up – electricity set to rise by 60 % in NSW.

"We're determined to make sure that this government and subsequent governments stay dedicated to that task...if it doesn't, we'll all be poorer and we won't necessarily be socially cohesive or environmentally sustainable."

What a vague uncommitted statement!

Australia's Big Picture

According to former NSW Premier Bob Carr, I think we've got to recognise that our cities don't get better economically or in terms of liveability if we force feed population growth into them with this surging level of immigration, that when it comes to skills shortages for example, any new trades person brought into this country to fill a skills shortage also brings dependants. Nor does high immigration solve the problem of an aging population We've got to look at nurturing workers to stay in the workforce longer.

Australian businesman, Dick Smith, says Australia should cut population by slashing immigration and encouraging women to have only two babies. Mr Smith said Australia did not have enough water or food to support millions more people. It was crazy that seawater was being desalinated for drinking water to supply a booming population. "I feel they're going to spend most of their time working out how we can cope with 36 million, rather than looking at whether we really want 36 million."

But currently the facts are that Australia’s population growth rate (September 2009) according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics is 2.1%. The preliminary estimated resident population (ERP) of Australia at 30 September 2009 was 22,066,000 persons. This was an increase of 451,900 persons (2.1%) since 30 September 2008 and 110,400 persons since 30 June 2009.

Compounding at 2.1%, Australia’s population will not be 35 million by 2050, but 35 million by 2030, less than a generation away. [Refer table below]

Sep-08 21,614,100
Sep-09 22,066,000
Sep-10 22,529,000
Sep-11 23,002,000
Sep-12 23,485,000
Sep-13 23,978,000
Sep-14 24,482,000
Sep-15 24,996,000
Sep-16 25,521,000
Sep-17 26,057,000
Sep-18 26,604,000
Sep-19 27,163,000
Sep-20 27,733,000
Sep-21 28,315,000
Sep-22 28,910,000
Sep-23 29,517,000
Sep-24 30,137,000
Sep-25 30,770,000
Sep-26 31,416,000
Sep-27 32,076,000
Sep-28 32,750,000
Sep-29 33,438,000
Sep-30 34,140,000
Sep-31 34,859,000
Sep-32 35,591,000
Sep-33 36,338,000
Sep-34 37,101,000
Sep-35 37,880,000
Sep-36 38,675,000
Sep-37 39,487,000
Sep-38 40,316,000
Sep-39 41,163,000
Sep-40 42,027,000
Sep-41 42,910,000
Sep-42 43,811,000
Sep-43 44,731,000
Sep-44 45,670,000
Sep-45 46,629,000
Sep-46 47,608,000
Sep-47 48,608,000
Sep-48 49,629,000
Sep-49 50,671,000
Sep-50 51,735,000

MESSAGES:

This Rudd-Swan trend for Australia is:

1. 35 million by 2030, not by 2050
2. 50 million by 2050!
3. A million per year (1/4 of Melbourne every year)

Lib/Lab politics have run out of ideology relevant for Australia in the 21st Century. Both are stagnated in 20th Century ideals of economic rationalism, economic growth and globalisation. Neither have workable long term answers to Australia’s entrenched triple bottom line (TBL) dilemmas.

Three simple and effective decisions to stem Australia’s population blowout and give Australia room to explore capacity ready options are:

1. End the Baby Bonus

2. End the Subclass 457 – Business (Long Stay) Visa Scheme

3. Restrict all work visas to Employer Nomination Scheme Occupation List (ENSOL), which requires each applicant to be nominated by an Australian employer to fill a position in an occupation that appears in the ENSOL and for the applicant to demonstrate that they have the necessary skills (including conversational English skills).

But, if economic growth and population growth are causing unacceptable social costs, then what is the alternative?

Clive Hamilton in his 2003 book Growth Fetish argues that our politicans and media are smitten with growth and have an obsession with economic growth (growth fetishism) and the marketing society lie at the heart of our social ills. For decades our political leaders and opinion makers have touted higher incomes as the way to a better future. Economic growth means better lives for us all.

Hamilton points out that 'despite many years of sustained economic growth and increased personal incomes Australia has large social divisions and we don’t seem to be any happier. Economic growth and the marketing society have corrupted our social priorities and political structures, and have created a profound sense of alienation among young and old. lies at the heart of our current political, social and environmental ills - and offers a thought-provoking alternative.’

=======================================================

References:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/23/2721924.htm

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/wayne-swan-goes-for-growth-in-population-debate/story-e6frgczf-1225847691025

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/cap-no-solution-to-australias-population-challenge-swan-20100330-r994.html

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/cut-population-now-by-slashing-immigration-and-encouraging-women-to-have-only-two-babies-dick-smith/story-e6frf7l6-1225823124407

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/04/2863763.htm

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/connectasia/stories/201004/s2866051.htm

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/wayne-swan-down-on-growth-for-its-own-sake/story-e6frg6nf-1225825707741

http://www.familyassist.gov.au/Payments/familyassistance/baby_bonus/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.clivehamilton.net.au/cms/index.php?page=growth_fetish

http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/skilled-workers/sbs/how-the-visa-works.htm

Wayne Swann obfuscates

According to recent reports Wayne Swan ..."can't bring (him)self to agree with those who think we can solve all our problems by putting a freeze on national
population growth”. No Wayne, we certainly can't solve all our problems by reducing runaway population growth, but it sure would go a long way toward easing house prices, shortening hospital queues, preserving the environment and cutting our carbon footprints.

Who is this ‘We’?

A great many Australians these days would really like to know who exactly Mr Swan is referring to when he talks about "we" solving “our” problems. Is it the "working families" struggling in the outer suburbs to pay off hefty mortgages on second-rate housing stock on the fringes of our cities - or is it the vested corporate interests at the big end of town which possess an insatiable appetite for more growth, more markets and more people? Whose problems are you trying to solve Mr Swan?

Political addiction to population growth

The gap between the policies of the Liberal/Labor (Liboral?) party elites - that are politically addicted to massive population growth and mass-immigration - and the wishes of the electorate has never been greater. It’s a bipartisan problem. Tony Abbott has been whipping up mass hysteria about boat people lately, trying to make it an election issue. He's going to "close the borders" screamed the Herald Sun last week. But on the broader topic of mass-immigration, like the P.M. and Wayne Swan, Mr Abbot has also nailed his colours to the mast as a "big Australia" man whose "instinct" is to bring in "as many people as possible".

Who benefits and who loses by population growth?

Cheerleaders for the growthist lobby in the media have been doing their level best to scare the bejesus out of the public by raving on about retiring baby boomers and even raising the prospect of an armed invasion should we dare to consider putting the brakes on. The problem is no-one seems to have any real insight into where all this growth is heading for our country as well as the thorny question of who benefits and who loses from it? Who gets the profits and who gets to pay? How does the average citizen benefit when GDP per capita declines through massive population growth? Exactly what are the long-term implications for the environment and the famed liveability of our cities of this new "mega-trend"?

Rudd like a deer caught in headlights on population numbers

Despite the creation of a new population ministry, Labor has not had a great deal to say on these questions so far other than "growth is good". Mr Rudd hasn't even had an opinion this year. He appeared like a deer caught in the headlights recently when Kerry O’Brien confronted him on the 7:30 report - which is a bit strange considering that he "made no apology" last year for his support for “a big Australia”.

These questions are being ignored by our leaders other than a very vague undertaking to perhaps grow somewhat “differently" than before - presumably by stacking people 50 stories up in ugly high rises or transforming our urban areas into Los Angeles-style megalopolises with double-decker freeways and ghettoes of haves (those who bought houses before the great population explosion) and the less-fortunate have-nots that didn’t.

Some commentators in the media are suggesting that Rudd has "gone cold" on a big Australia this year. But what is far more likely is that he is simply being a very clever politician – like his predecessor John Howard - and is saying nothing publicly. Behind closed doors, however, he and his minions are champing at the bit to raise the volume as high as they can get way with without provoking too great a backlash from so-called working families whose marginal seats Labor took back from “Howard’s battlers” at the last election.

Expect Spin

To keep population growth ticking along at 2.1% per annum and maintaining a docile and electorate Rudd will try to do what politicians do best - bombard us with a mountain of meaningless words on things like the "programmatic specificity" of his new population ministry - but without of course actually doing anything.

One thing is certain, if the present growth trajectory is going to be maintained by Canberra indefinitely, the volume of complaints rising from the public is going to grow incredibly loud. When it takes the average person more than a lifetime to pay off a mortgage on an average house and when commuters have to spend half their lives stuck on clogged freeways or dysfunctional public transport systems, the politicians that continue to push growthist polices are going to eventually pay a heavy price at the ballot box.

Stable Population Party of Australia - a new alternative

Let's hope the newly formed Stable Population Party of Australia can capture many of the votes of the people that are most badly impacted by our government’s mad growth-at–all-costs agenda. We desperately need to lobby and apply pressure on our elected leaders to change their current policies. This is going to require constant media campaigns to get the public's attention as well as a small army of committed activists to get the message out.

Growth Lobby vs The People

The public needs to be made aware that there is an alternative to growth for growth's sake and that there is an alternative to the "Liboral Party” and their bipartisan and undemocratic policies which are failing to maintain a sustainable population. Make no mistake; the growth lobby is a formidable opponent with enormous financial resources on its side as well as the backing of both major parties and large sectors of the media. Only a very vigorous and determined grass-roots campaign the likes of which we haven’t seen before in Australia is going to have any chance at success at slowing down this juggernaut.

NOTES

7 April title was changed to better reflect newsworthy content

Note: This article encompasses and replaces a brief article "Krazy Kevin Rudd video by Cyrius01" by Sheila Newman of 7 May 09. Please find embedded video within this article and brief introductory article below.

In 1996, the incoming Howard Government, 'discovered' a massive budgetary black hole left by the outgoing Keating Government. They claimed and claimed to have no choice but to impose slash-and-burn budgets and asset fire sales. The excuse of the cupboard left bare or crippling debt, supposedly taking all choice out of the hands of incoming Governments, forms part of a tired and recurring pattern in Australian history. Recently, Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey has seized upon the debt created by the Rudd Government's incompetently managed 'stimulus program' -- all supposedly to 'stimulate' Australia's moribund economy, dependent upon immigration-driven property speculation, digging holes in the ground and changing the hotel beds of foreign guests -- as an excuse to resurrect his dream of privatising Medibank Private and wielding the budgetary axe. Is history about to repeat itself, yet again?

Many had high hopes in the Rudd Government. We hoped that the stranglehold of "free market" economic dogma over Australian public policy would be relaxed, for effective action to halt global warming, for action to fix Australia's dying Murray Darling basin, action against the illegal killing of whales, etc. These hopes have been dashed. On top of that, the Rudd Government has maintained and increased the Howard Government's already record high rate of immigration. Mandatory Internet filtering, which would give governments the power to censor at will any web-site it considers at threat, could become law. Consequently the Federal Coalition that seemed totally discredited not long ago could be the Government again before the end of the year.

Rudd and Swan crow about how their 'stimulus program' supposedly saved Australia from the worst ravages of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) by giving us back some of our own money to buy plasma TV's and throwing away more of our money on mismanaged government programs such as the domestic solar insulation scheme, but all they really did was buy us a small amount of time whilst avoiding confronting the problem at its source.

And to buy that small amount of time, they have taken away from us a range of choices that we might otherwise have had.

When Queensland Premier Bligh announced the $15 billion fire sale in May 2009 and the Federal Government said they had no spare money to help Queensland out of its financial difficulties.

The Rudd Government's fiscal recklessness has
provided Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey with an
excuse to resurect his dream of the Howard
Government years to privatise Medibank Private.

Last Sunday, Joe Hockey on ABC Television's "The Insiders" brazenly told the audience of his plans to impose government spending cuts and his resurrected plans to privatise Medibank Private.

So, almost a year after we were showered with our Federal Government's apparent generosity, we learn that we are going to be sent the bill, after all. Wouldn't we rather have had that choice put to us before all our money was thrown away?

The evidence from "The Latham Diaries" shows Mark Latham's 2004 federal election campaign was undermined by many within the Labor Party, including Kevin Rudd, himself. Apparently many within the Labor Party regarded three more years of misrule by John Howard to be preferable to Mark Latham becoming Prime Minister.

So, would it be that much of a leap to imagine that Kevin Rudd, himself, would not be that personally concerned about whether or not his own Government survives? Many former members of Labor Governments seem to easily find lucrative careers and with his Chinese language skills, Kevin Rudd would surely find little difficulty offering his services to Chinese investors intent on buying up Australian minerals, real estate, farms and publicly owned assets.

Whether the Rudd Government survives or is thrown out, it seems as if the Australian public are being set up, yet again, to be punished for decisions in which they took no part, unless we stop them.

James Sinnamon
Brisbane Independent
for Truth, Democracy,
the Environment and
Economic Justice
Australian Federal Elections, 2010

Appendix: Original article of 7 May 09 by Sheila Newman

See embedded video above or view it on YouTube.

Article teaser

Cyrius01 is a brilliant Australian political movie maker with a raw sense of humor who uses satire and - anything that comes to hand really. Take a look at his latest on Rudd and the growth economy to restore your sense of balance in this mad murdochian world.

Krazy Kevin Rudd responds to the Global Financial Crisis

Cyrius01 writes, "After studying all the options, Kevin Rudd has responded to the Global Financial Crisis in the absolute best, most perfect way possible. Go for Growth! By splurging every last cent of tax payers money on property developers and banks, we will have a huge infrastructure that working families can pay off over the next few generations. The most important thing is to restore the economy to exactly the same as it was before the crash - so that we can all borrow more and more money and consume more and more stuff. Growth Growth Growth!"

There are many more videos by Cyrius01 on his channel on you-tube. For a while I thought that his creativity muse had disappeared with the departure of John Howard, but I was wrong, thank heavens.

Appendix: excerpt from interview with Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey

This interview is from the ABC Television's "The Insiders" of Sunday 7 March 2010.

Joe Hockey: ... And he said the best way to put downward pressure on inflation is to pare back on the Commonwealth budget. And if you do that that will take upward pressure off interest rates. Kevin Rudd said that.

Chris Uhlmann: Well given then that both sides of politics agree on that theory where would you cut spending?

Joe Hockey: Well firstly we would have spent $20 billion to $25 billion less on the stimulus package. Everyone seems to forget that. That was a substantial decision from our perspective.

Secondly we would pay off the debt faster and the starting point would be to privatise Medibank Private to that you can get $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion of proceeds and use those proceeds to get rid of some of the debt.

The faster we pay off the debt Chris the better our economy is positioned for the demanding needs to fund our growth into the future.

Chris Uhlmann: But selling Medibank alone doesn't get you there. What savings would you make to the Commonwealth Government budget?

Joe Hockey: Well we will outline all of those before the election. But I've already given you two great detailed examples of how we would have done it differently.

Chris Uhlmann: Do you think that it's enough to keep saying that the Government should cut and then never specify where those cuts should come?

Chris Uhlmann: Well we will do that when we have an opportunity to be in government.

I think this mob doesn't know how to control spending. They've had blow-outs on Medicare, blow-outs on the PBS, blow-outs on computers in schools, blow-outs on school halls.

They've had blow-outs on solar panels. They've proven themselves incompetent in running a pink batt insulation program.

How can you trust them with the entire health system of the nation?

Chris Uhlmann: Well let's look at some of programs. Would you cut back on the school spending?

Joe Hockey: Well we will have a good look at all areas of expenditure Chris, all areas.

Chris Uhlmann: So you might cut back on the school spending?

Joe Hockey: Well you know if you're in government you have to have the courage to make difficult decisions that are in the national interest.

And this mob have no courage, no policy courage at all.

(End of Interview.)

Article by Kellie Tranter Originally published on Online Opinion on 11 Feb 10. The related forum is here.

Here's the rub: America is at war against people it doesn't know, because they don't appear much on TV. Before it has properly identified or even begun to comprehend the nature of its enemy, the US government has, in a rush of publicity and embarrassing rhetoric, cobbled together an "international coalition against terror", mobilised its army, its air force, its navy and its media, and committed them to battle.

The trouble is that once America goes off to war, it can't very well return without having fought one. If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose sight of why it's being fought in the first place. Arundhati Roy, The Guardian, September 29, 2001.

No thinking person can read, hear or watch the evidence being unearthed at the Chilcot Inquiry into the legality of the Iraq war without also questioning the legality of the war in Afghanistan.

Governments say they keep no official or unofficial body counts but unofficial reports suggest that as many as 1.3 million Iraqis have been killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq. How many people have been killed in Afghanistan? How many of the people killed in either country were actually combatants or terrorists?

In 2008 Prime Minister Rudd delivered an address at the Australian War Memorial CEW Bean Foundation dinner about why we are involved in Afghanistan, what we are trying to achieve and how we are trying to achieve it.

He spoke of the "... need for a more stable Afghanistan ... one that supports security rather than offers succour to those who seek to undermine it ... will make for a more secure world ... a goal endorsed by the United Nations Security Council". The UN Security Council may endorse that specific goal, but tell us, Mr Rudd, did the Security Council actually sanction the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001?

According to Marjorie Cohn, the immediate past president of the National Lawyers Guild and a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law:

The U.N. Charter provides that all member states must settle their international disputes by peaceful means, and no nation can use military force except in self-defense or when authorized by the Security Council. After the 9/11 attacks, the Council passed two resolutions, neither of which authorized the use of military force in Afghanistan. Resolutions 1368 and 1373 condemned the September 11 attacks, and ordered the freezing of assets; the criminalizing of terrorist activity; the prevention of the commission of and support for terrorist attacks; the taking of necessary steps to prevent the commission of terrorist activity, including the sharing of information; and urged ratification and enforcement of the international conventions against terrorism.

The invasion of Afghanistan was not legitimate self-defense under article 51 of the Charter because the attacks on September 11 were criminal attacks, not "armed attacks" by another country. Afghanistan did not attack the United States. In fact, 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, there was not an imminent threat of an armed attack on the United States after September 11, or Bush would not have waited three weeks before initiating his October 2001 bombing campaign. The necessity for self-defense must be "instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation." This classic principle of self-defense in international law has been affirmed by the Nuremberg Tribunal and the U.N. General Assembly.

Is she right Mr Rudd?

Ian Hamilton QC ... has challenged the Lord Advocate to prosecute him for publishing remarks encouraging officers engaged in the Afghan campaign to disobey their immediate superiors due to the illegality of the war there.

Ian Hamilton QC, winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Law Awards of Scotland, seems to think so. He has challenged the Lord Advocate to prosecute him for publishing remarks encouraging officers engaged in the Afghan campaign to disobey their immediate superiors due to the illegality of the war there.

To encourage such conduct is in itself a crime. Hamilton argues that Scottish politicians should be calling for this action, but fear of prosecution is preventing them from doing so. He has therefore challenged the Lord Advocate to prosecute him, and says that in order to succeed it would be necessary to prove the Afghan war is legal. He asserts that it is not.

And he's not alone. The National Lawyers Guild International Committee is preparing a White Paper that will delineate the legal arguments against the War in Afghanistan and Dr Myra Williamson Lecturer of Law at the University of Waikato, New Zealand has released a book seeking to challenge "received wisdom" on the legality of the action against Afghanistan.

Numerous other papers, like those by Angus Martyn, Director, Law and Bills Digest, ("The Right of Self-Defence under International Law-the Response to the Terrorist Attacks of 11 September") and Peter Rowe, Professor of Law, Lancaster University Law School, ("Response to Terror: the new ‘war'"), also raise more questions than answers.

Logically these questions surrounding the war in Afghanistan require the government to satisfy us, as citizens in whose names this war is being waged, about the legality of the war. But that would require careful scrutiny of the issue and public debate about it, so you can bet our government won't be encouraging any debate. Governments don't seem to like that sort of thing.

An example is the recent dropping of the desertion charge against Lance Corporal Joe Glenton. He was a prominent speaker at anti-war rallies. Glenton had planned to defend the desertion charge by calling an expert on international law to challenge the overall validity of the Afghan conflict. John Tipple, Glenton's legal case worker, said he believed military prosecutors had backed down to avoid a high-profile trial centred on such an issue, particularly at a time when the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war was hearing from Tony Blair.

Prime Minister Rudd also said in his address:

... Under the Taliban, the people of Afghanistan lived in an environment of oppression and extreme poverty with the constant threat of violence. This was a period where the basic needs of Afghans were left ignored - indeed people's lives went backwards - amid the pursuit of violent ideology. It was an ideology that bred hatred. It was an ideology that brutalised women.

This brings to mind a quote from Pat Schroeder: "When men talk about defense, they always claim to be protecting women and children, but they never ask the women and children what they think."

Has Mr Rudd spoken to any representatives from the Revolutionary Association of the Women Afghanistan, the oldest political and social organisation of Afghan women that has been struggling for peace, freedom, democracy and women's rights in fundamentalism-blighted Afghanistan since 1977? Is he aware of their outrage about President Karzai backing a law governing Shia family relations that effectively legalised marital rape and allowed for women to effectively be imprisoned in their homes? Or of that organisation's claims that the UN is concerned that the number of violent incidents against women had risen to their highest level since the fall of the Taliban? Or of their calls for coalition forces to withdraw their troops?

Mr Rudd was also at pains to point out that:

... Working with our partners in Afghanistan, we show that we are committed to doing our fair share to tackle international security challenges as an engaged middle power and as a real partner in our alliance with the United States. We are a regional power with both regional and global interests. It is right for us to play a role in meeting global security challenges. We do not just talk about security co-operation. We are also prepared to do our fair share of the work. It is dangerous work and it is hard work, and our diggers' lives are on the line every day. It is part of being a real ally of the United States. It is part of being an active member of the United Nations. It is part of contributing to a stable international order - and not just being a passive observer of events.

This self-aggrandising rhetoric is a simplistic emotional and jingoistic appeal that obviates any questions of legal or moral validity. It's exactly the same sort of rhetoric as that which dragged conscripted young Australians to their deaths in Vietnam 40 years ago, when Australia's presence again was intended to lend legitimacy to an illegitimate US invasion.

But on hearing such fine words from our PM one would assume that a country of such moral rectitude would only work with allies who follow the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and customary international law in terms of regulating military operations in an attempt to protect civilians from the devastation of war. Yet we heard late last year that the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court is gathering information about possible war crimes committed by NATO soldiers and insurgents in Afghanistan.

In a time when our governments cry poor in answer to calls for funding to tackle things like homelessness and improve our medical and social services, the war in Afghanistan is budgeted to cost us $1.2 billion in 2009-10. There is no "budget" of the lives of young Australians that have been and inevitably will be lost over the same period, and each of them is a tragic loss. But what about the death toll of unnamed and uncounted civilians which continues to soar and objectively is an even greater tragedy?

Every journalist in the country, and indeed every concerned citizen, should be asking the Rudd Government for straight answers to the questions whether the UN Security Council authorised the invasion of Afghanistan, whether or not the war is legal under international law, ...

Every journalist in the country, and indeed every concerned citizen, should be asking the Rudd Government for straight answers to the questions whether the UN Security Council authorised the invasion of Afghanistan, whether or not the war is legal under international law, and exactly how many civilians have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001.

Other articles by Kellie Tranter include The thirst keeps growing in NSW of 19 Jan 10, Show them (and us) the money! of 8 Dec 09 about the idiocy of the Rudd Government's CPRS, Government, water and an arranged marriage of 2 Dec 09, Big Australia of 30 Oct 09, which asks how Rudd plans to ensure our the food and water security of 35 million Australians, Political stupidity and hydrocommerce madness of 20 May 09.
See also: Why Prime Minister Kevin Rudd should take another look at the "image of the twin towers coming down" of 30 Dec 09.

Kevin Rudd has expressed his desire for a "big Australia", contrary to public interests, without an independent scientific assessment of our "carrying capacity", and without any population plan or policy.

Australia is already a "big" nation. We have vast sunburnt plains, ancient rocky ranges, rugged coastlines that spread across the horizon, sparkling and pristine beaches, the envy of the world. We have the greatest Barrier Reef, and our biodiversity is one of the richest in the world with many flora and fauna species unique to Australia.

Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth. Its interior has one of the lowest rainfalls in the world and about three-quarters of the land is arid or semi-arid.

Marsupials and monotremes (eg, kangaroos and platypus) are amongst the most well known endemic species. Although 70 species of marsupial occur in South America, Australia has the largest number in the world, with about 144 species.

Australia has the highest biodiversity of seagrasses in the world with 30 of the 58 species existing worldwide present in our marine environment. Australia has the largest uranium deposits in the world, with about 40 per cent of the planet's recoverable uranium resources. Deposits in the NT alone are thought be worth $12 billion. Australia has the largest identified reserves of bauxite, lead, nickel, tantalum, mineral sands, zinc and uranium.

(photo: old growth forest Brown Mountain Victoria)

The tallest reliably documented tree ever measured was the Thorpdale Tree, a Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) growing at Thorpdale in Victoria, Australia. The tree was measured at 112.8m (370 feet) standing and 114.3m (375 feet) on the ground after it was felled in 1884.

In 1995, an extraordinary Huon pine tree was found in Tasmania, Australia. What was thought to be many trees covering 2.5 acres, appeared to be just one tree - a very old tree. Some media reports claimed it could be 30,000 to 40,000 years old, one of the world's oldest trees!

Australia has the greatest risk of bushfires in the world.

In contrast to the "big" things to be proud of, a report by British risk analysis company Maplecroft has found that Australia has overtaken the United States as the world's largest polluter and is now leading the world in per capita emissions of CO2, topping a list of 185 countries!

Our wealth is in our natural heritage, not on numbers of people. What will make a few privileged people wealthy will impoverish our land and the majority of our people. We are not a colony or a territory but a sovereign nation that we need to protect, be proud of and cherish. We don't need more people to have a "big Australia"!

With the global population projected to reach 9 billion by 2050, there are now calls to rein in the growth to save the planet.

Deliberate population growth is all about greed and consumerism and a failure to appreciate what is naturally "big" about Australia.

The callous and evil slaughter and rape of ethnic Tamils last May by the Sinhalese armed forces in Sri Lanka compares with the Indonesian mass murder of East Timorese in the Indonesian Invasion of 1975 and again in the 1991 Dili Massacre.

WHITLAM'S WILLFUL BLINDNESS TO EAST TIMOR GENOCIDE

In September 1974, in central Java, Australia's Prime Minister Gough Whitlam told Indonesia's President Suharto that East Timor was “too small to be independent”. EAST TIMOR: The Indonesian-Australian invasion

"On 7 December 1975, Indonesia invaded East Timor involving a naval bombardment of Dili, seaborne troops, paratroopers. On December 10, a second invasion resulted in the capture the town off Baucau followed shortly after by up to 15,000 troops landing at Liquisa and Maubara. By April 1976 Indonesia had some 35,000 soldiers in East Timor. Indonesian Foreign Minister Adam Malik later on suggested that the number of East Timorese killed in the first two years of the occupation was "50,000 people or perhaps 80,000".

At the start of the occupation, FRETILIN radio sent the following broadcast: "The Indonesian forces are killing indiscriminately. Women and children are being shot in the streets. We are all going to be killed.... This is an appeal for international help. Please do something to stop this invasion." One Timorese refugee told later of "rape [and] cold-blooded assassinations of women and children and Chinese shop owners".[15] Dili's bishop at the time, Martinho da Costa Lopes, said later: "The soldiers who landed started killing everyone they could find. There were many dead bodies in the streets — all we could see were the soldiers killing, killing, killing."

SOURCE: George Washington Univerity

All Australian governments, Liberal and Labor, have been and remain complicit in their willful blindness of East Timor.

RUDD'S WILLFUL BLINDNESS TO TAMIL GENOCIDE

A generation later, Prime Minister Rudd betrayed the Tamils when in October 2008 Rudd sided with the Sinhalese regime and formally declared Sri lanka's separatist Tamil Tigers a terrorist group, and so sat back while the dogs of war were unleashed on the Tamils.

Since coming to power in November 2007, Rudd has had a chance to review Australia' s foreign policy created under the previous Howard Government. Instead, Rudd has blindly followed Howard's support for the US supporting the Sri Lankan Sinhalese civil conflict against the Tamils, dismissed and illegitimised as terrorists. Rudd has stood by human rights abuses against Tamils in Sri Lanka despite Australia being a regional neighbour of Sri Lanka and an influential joint member nation of the Commonwealth. The Sri Lankan government has for the past four years been slaughtering ethnic Tamils as part of a deliberate strategy of genocide.

Back in October 2008, Dr John Whitehall a Queensland-based pediatrician with recent direct experience in Sri Lanka reported of the "great human tragedy" unfolding in Sri Lanka.

"The silence of Western media and government has emboldened the majority Sinhalese to embark on a renewed campaign to dispossess and kill the Tamil people.

The Tamil-controlled north-east of Sri Lanka thunders "day and night" under bombardment from the forces of the Sinhalese government in Sri Lanka's capital Colombo as they attempt to destroy Tamil autonomy.

Against this backdrop, "a great human tragedy" is also "exploding", according to Fr James Pathinathan of St Theresa's Church in Kilinochchi, the administrative capital of the de facto government of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

From the eye of the storm, Fr Pathinathan, who is also president of the local Justice and Peace Commission, reports that "deaths, injuries, displacements and attendant misery pervade the lives of innocent Tamil civilians... and the draconian economic embargo imposed slyly... has become a monstrous obstacle in giving relief and solace to the 170,000 persons recently displaced".

The Sri Lankan Government's economic embargo, involving the closure of roads and ports of access for food, medicines, and fuel for an already destitute population, has conventional arsenal, cluster bombs and white phosphorus bombs.

End Western complicity in war crimes
The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Sweden tried to get into Colombo to discuss the humanitarian disaster with the GoSL. The Swedish foreign minister could not even get a visa to enter the country. The other two got there and returned saying that they had “tried very hard” but achieved nothing.

In the face of increasing international concern at the civilian casualties, the Tamil Tigers declared a unilateral cease-fire. The GoSL refused to reciprocate saying that the offer was a "joke".

On May 21, 2008 Sri Lanka was tossed out of the UN Human Rights Council on account of its outrageous human rights record.

However, little or none of this is mentioned in the Australian media. Australians have a right to ask why.

The Australian Government has failed to act in condemning a serious abuse of human rights by a country with which it shares an ocean.

Commercial and geo-political considerations are clearly more important than humanitarian ones, however serious. Indeed, in giving "aid" to the Rajapaksa government in the middle of its killing spree against the Tamils, the Rudd government has been in political solidarity with the Rajapaksa's military mission.

This is simply not acceptable, and damages the image of Australia by its failure to condemn a murderous regime that h

It is easy to see how Tamils believe that the Sinhalese are bent on wiping them out. In 1948, Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) gained independence from the British. Not long after, in 1956, the Sri Lankan parliament passed a Sinhala Only Act. This relegated Tamils to the status of second-class citizenry.

It also exposed them to the repeated violence that culminated in the disgraceful race riots in 1983 when Sinhala mobs guided by voting-lists set out to destroy Tamil homes and even antiquities such as the library in Jaffna.

Sinhalese forces themselves invaded Jaffna and subjected the local population to barbaric treatment.

They were even prepared to murder journalists in their bid to intimidate the Tamil press. Every day, Tamils in non-combat areas "disappeared", having been taken away in the backs of notorious white vans.

Underlying this conflict lies deep racist sentiment. I personally have been astonished by the number of educated Sinhalese who boast of an "Aryan" heritage, compared to the "Dravidian" origin of Tamils. The former implies some northern origin from lighter-skinned and educated forebears; the latter implies an origin in the jungles of India. This antagonism is fuelled by fundamentalist Buddhist proclamations that ancient texts identify "foreign devils" who should be expelled.

Military destruction

This racism is supported in practice by the Marxist-Leninists of the People's Liberation Front (JVP) which holds 40 of the 225 seats in parliament and is part of the government coalition. Proclaiming Lenin's doctrines of central dictatorship by the vanguard of the proletariat, it has vigorously urged military destruction of Tamil hopes for autonomy.

As bombs have begun to fall on the town of Kilinochchi, causing the population to flee, Fr Pathinathan has declared that "the call of the hour is urgent" and pleads for "the people of goodwill all over the world" to "protect the people of Wanni [north-east Sri Lanka] who are threatened with death and destruction and dehumanisation".

But few people seem interested. With the Tamil homelands cut off more effectively than Biafra in the Nigerian civil war, who wants to see pictures of starving children?"
[SOURCE: SRI LANKA: Plight of persecuted Tamils worsens, by Dr John Whitehall, News Weekly, 25-Oct-08]

International Pen on 10 Sep 2008 reported in an article ['SRI LANKA: Tamil journalists detained] the detention and alleged torture of Tamil journalists V. Jasikaran and J. S. Tissainayagam, whom by then had been held by the Sri Lankan government in Colombo for six months under terrorist legislation, apparently for their critical writings.

According to International PEN's information, on 6 March 2008 V. Jasikaran, a Tamil journalist, owner of the E-Kwality printing works and reporter for the news website Outreach Sri Lanka (http://outreachsl.com/en/), was arrested with his wife V. Valamathy, by the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) in Colombo. The following day, on 7 March, Tamil journalist for the Sunday Times newspaper and editor of Outreach Sri Lanka, Jayaprakash Sittampalam Tissainayagam, was also arrested by the TID, following a visit he made to the offices of the TID requesting information about the detention of his colleague.

Initial reports suggested that V. Jasikaran and J. S. Tissanayagam were accused of receiving money from the Tamil Tiger rebel group; however it is widely believed that the two men are targeted for their reporting and analysis on the ongoing conflict between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) in the northern part of the country.

According to Amnesty International, ‘The Emergency Regulations, issued by the President, introduce broad-based and vaguely-defined "terrorism" offenses, which have been used to silence critical journalists and generally suppress freedom of expression in Sri Lanka.'

J.S. Tissainayagam was held under renewable 90-day detention orders for five months before being charged on 25 August 2008 as follows: 1) offences under the Prevention of Terrorism Act: in respect to printing, publishing, and distribution of the magazine North Eastern Monthly, between 1 June 2006 to 1 June 2007; 2) offences under the Prevention of Terrorism Act in respect of bringing the government into disrepute by the publication of articles in said magazine; and 3) the violation of Emergency Regulations by aiding and abetting terrorist organisations through the raising of money for said magazine. It is said that North Eastern Magazine was known to be a pro-Tamil English-language publication that closed down over a year ago. It was not considered to be pro-LTTE. His trial is due to start on 18 September 2008.

On 19 March, J. S. Tissainayagam filed a complaint before the Supreme Court, claiming that since his arrest he had been tortured, suffered discrimination because of his ethnicity and denied equal protection under the law.

Fellow Tamil journalist V. Jasikaran has also reported being subject to torture since his arrest. On 23 June, V. Jasikaran stated in court that he had been assaulted by members of the TID and the police during his detention."

Around this time the Sri Lankan foreign minister Rohitha Bogollagama visited Australia requesting Australia to join countries such as Britain and the United States in taking the step against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Rudd Government received requests from the Sri Lankan Government to formally declare the separatist Tamil Tigers a terrorist group. ' Australia urged to list Tamil Tigers as terrorists' [AFP/Reuters, 13-Oct-08].

Rudd obliged, ignoring the worsening persecution of the Tamil population by the Sinhalese government.

In a statement by Dr Brian Senewiratne (MD, FRCP, FRACP) 7 May 2009 entitled 'Genocide of Tamils and atrocities in Sri Lanka while Australia looks on'

"Last week the Sinhalese-dominated Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) succeeded in its immediate aim of ending the armed resistance of the Tamil people, who live in the North and East of the country. "Bloodbath on the beach" was how the United Nations described the battle and we are yet to see the full extent of this major humanitarian catastrophe.

The GoSL of Mahendra Rajapaksa claims it has triumphed in a "war on terrorism". What it has really been doing is fighting the Tamil people to force them to accept Sri Lanka as a Sinhala-Buddhist nation. It is about the alliance between the religious fundamentalists and the state chauvinists who together, with the backing of key Western countries - have been able to deny the Tamils their rights. According to international law expert Professor Francis Boyle of the University of Illinois, the Europeans and the United States gave the green light to Rajapaksa to go ahead and destroy the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and their homeland.

There had been progress on a negotiated settlement between the GoSL and the LTTE, and even discussion about a federal structure for Sri Lanka, but Rajapaksa terminated the talks and the ceasefire and resumed the fighting, and now the world is witness to the dreadful consequences.

...It is a genocide when a war against 10% of the population over three decades culminates in the death of 10,000 people in a few months, about 100,000 in the last 32 years. It is genocide when governments try to wipe out a people's political voice and drive half a population into the diaspora.

Sri Lanka's Tamils are now facing genocide or internment in concentration camps that masquerade as "refugee camps". The Tamil civilians were supposedly "liberated" from the Tamil Tigers by the GoSL. But if they are liberated people, why keep them behind barbed-wire fences, and why are international observers, including the media and humanitarian workers, prevented from visiting these camps?

There are 154,000 Tamil civilians, some in tents, others under trees, in 24 camps, behind barbed-wire fences. The tents are for five people, but house between seven and 21. Living conditions are appalling, with deliberate starvation and the denial of adequate medical help.

The women and girls are raped by the Armed Forces, pregnant women are aborted and some even sterilised. The GoSL would deny all this. Can foreign observers check these allegations? No they may not. Why? Because it is an "internal affair". We beg to differ.

There are some 120,000 Tamil civilians left in the government "safe zone", which has been regularly bombed by its armed forces. Even hospitals have not been spared. The defence secretary, the president’s brother, in an interview with British media, said that bombing of hospitals is "acceptable". This contravenes the first and fourth sections of the Geneva Convention, signed and ratified by the GoSL.

The GoSL expelled all humanitarian workers and agencies, including UN agencies, from the conflict zone so that genocide could be done without witnesses. This has not been done in any other country in the world.

More than 6000 Tamil civilians have been slaughtered in just the past four months. Last week, the only obstetrician in the area was gunned down by the Armed Forces. Why? Genocide.

Kfir jets, bombers, multi-barrel rocket launchers and helicopter gunships have been used by the GoSL dropping, in addition to conventional arsenal, cluster bombs and white phosphorus bombs.

End Western complicity in war crimes
The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Sweden tried to get into Colombo to discuss the humanitarian disaster with the GoSL. The Swedish foreign minister could not even get a visa to enter the country. The other two got there and returned saying that they had “tried very hard” but achieved nothing.

In the face of increasing international concern at the civilian casualties, the Tamil Tigers declared a unilateral cease-fire. The GoSL refused to reciprocate saying that the offer was a "joke".

On May 21, 2008 Sri Lanka was tossed out of the UN Human Rights Council on account of its outrageous human rights record.

However, little or none of this is mentioned in the Australian media. Australians have a right to ask why.

The Australian Government has failed to act in condemning a serious abuse of human rights by a country with which it shares an ocean.

Commercial and geo-political considerations are clearly more important than humanitarian ones, however serious. Indeed, in giving "aid" to the Rajapaksa government in the middle of its killing spree against the Tamils, the Rudd government has been in political solidarity with the Rajapaksa's military mission.

This is simply not acceptable, and damages the image of Australia by its failure to condemn a murderous regime that has the temerity to call itself a "government", and for failing to institute sanctions on Sri Lanka until the killing stops.

The Australian Government and the Australian media have a serious case to answer for their silence and indifference towards a horrendous genocide. This must stop. The Australian government has a duty - not only to Tamil Australians, but to all those with a conscience - to make every effort to assist now. This must include:

Demanding that the Sri Lankan government be tried before the International Criminal Court for war crimes. This was a war conducted away from any international scrutiny. This massacre was largely hidden. But there has been enough independent information to know that the Rajapaksa government has committed war crimes.
Pressuring the Rajapaksa government to allow Tamils the right to decide where they live, including settling in Australia if they wish.
Ending all aid and support to the Rajapaksa government while it continues its genocidal policy against Sri Lanka's Tamil people."

How similar to the Indonesians treatment for East Timorese? Just like the Indonesians, the Sri Lankans justify banning international monitoring on the basis that it is an 'Internal affair".

Tamils in Sri Lanka have been subject to ethnic discrimination by successive Sri Lankan governments since Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948. Successive Australian governments have done nothing to acknowledge the right of ethnic Tamils to self-determination or to encourage a non-violent political solution.

'Silence is the voice of complicity'

(Click for Sideshow - WARNING! Images may disturb.)

During an interview with the US Public Broadcasting show NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on 26 March 2009₁, after having acknowledged that Australia's commitment to the war in Afghanistan was becoming increasingly unpopular, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd justified that commitment:

But the bottom line is this: [Afghanistan is] the right place to be.

When you think about Afghanistan, think about this. I cannot remove from my mind the image of the twin towers coming down. We are there because terrorists, operating out of the safe haven of Afghanistan, caused that to happen. They also, having been trained in Afghanistan, were responsible for murdering nearly a hundred Australians in Bali a year later.

We have therefore a combined responsibility to do whatever we can to make sure Afghanistan does not become a safe haven for terrorism again. It's going to be tough, it's going to be hard, and it's going to be difficult and dangerous.

If Kevin Rudd "cannot remove from [his] mind the image of the twin towers coming down," then perhaps it's time he took another look at those images in order to learn what really happened on 11 September 2001. He may then come to understand why not one single person with a proven link to September 11 has been captured in over 8 years of military occupation of the supposed "safe haven" out of which he insists those attacks were launched.

There is abundant evidence to be found on the Internet that conclusively proves that the 'collapses' of three tall buildings at the World Trade Centre, one of which, World Trade Center Building 7, was not even struck by an aircraft, were, in fact. controlled demolitions. Much of this evidence can be found on the web-site of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth or sites linked to from there.

Amongst the latest is a video "Cutter Charges at Work in the North Tower of the World Trade Center" produced David Chandler a member of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth and Graeme MacQueen, Carolyn Chandler and Tony Szamboti, which is also embedded below.

Two videos, which captured different views of the 'collapse' have been combined to show clear evidence that a violent ejection of debris, observed at one of the corners of the North Tower as it was being engulfed by a much larger violent cloud of debris, had severed the two combined corner 14" supporting box columns at that point. The top of the remaining unsevered part of those columns was shortly after observed briefly above the swirling cloud before it began to descend at free fall speed. (For more information, see Appendix 1 and Appendix 2 as well as the video itself.

Kevin Rudd should ask himself how Al Quaeda, operating out of Afghanistan, could have gained the access to the North Tower, which would have been necessary to plant the charges. If he thinks this unlikely, then he should support the demand of made by the current 985 professionally qualified members of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth for a new investigation into the collapses of the Twin Towers and World Trade Center Building 7 on 11 September 2001.

Article, including embedded video, has been adapted from material found in story "Cutter Charges in the North Tower of the World Trade Center" of 26 Dec 09 on 911blogger.com. See also: ae911truth.org, "WTC7 in Freefall", "'WTC7: NIST Admits Freefall' ...The Movie", parts 1, 2,3.

Appendix 1:David Chandler's introduction to this video

This project began with an email from Graeme MacQueen to me describing an explosion on the NW corner of WTC1. I started looking for other such explosions and found a prominent one right at the initiation point on the 98th floor. I further noticed a corner column sticking up after the roofline had fallen past. The top of the surviving column matched the height of the corner ejection moments before. This seemed to be the event that cut the column. The column hovered and swayed for several seconds then precipitously dropped. I wondered if Graeme's explosion was the one that triggered the drop. I found a way to synchronize the videos and then was able to verify that Graeme's "puff" occurred exactly at the moment of drop of the column.

The main significant points I see in this observation are:

1. The building is doing more than just blowing smoke out the windows. The puffs we see are part of the cause of the collapse.
2. We are seeing charges that can cut through the steel corners of the buildings
3. We are seeing a specific 14" column cut by explosives in two places: one to set it loose, and one to cause it to drop.
4. The two explosions occur in a time-delayed sequence, indicative of demolition

(Tony Szamboti and my wife, Carolyn, also made observations that contributed toward this video. All are acknowledged in a credits screen before the closing logo.)

Appendix 2: Key images from video

The quality of these images is poor. When viewed in motion within the video embedded above, the features described are easier to see.

Figure 1: Violent ejuction of plume emerging from corner which can be seen as slightly lighter coloured region on top of black cloud on the right side, roughly one third way into the image from the bottom.

Figure 2: Close up of violent ejection seen in Figure 1.

Figure 3: Photo taken from inside corner of the North Tower, during construction showing 14" box columms and connecting steel.

Figure 4: Close up of outside of corner of the North Tower.

Figure 5: Box column with top severed suspended and teetering over to the right.

Figure 6: From second video: sequence of violent ejections of debris lower down on same corner, at point in time which coincides with commencement of free fall of the column above in the process of being severed.

Figure 7: Event on first video which matches event on second video: The last moment at which light can be seen on the tip of the severed section of column in free fall. This made it possible for the two videos to be synchronised.

Footnotes

1. ↑ It's not completely clear that the interview of Prime Minister Keving Rudd occurred on that date. The source of this a report "Rudd backs Afghan war in talks with US leaders" of 26 March  09 on ABC Radio's The World Today.

Australia is copping an annual record 383,000 net migration as of last year. Why? Historically, this is tantamount to foreign invasion by stealth. In any preceding deacde in Australia's history, this number would be publicly considered an 'immigration invasion'. That it is not funded with proportionate government infrastructure to secure and maintain Australian living standards (aka home affordability, the idealised 1/4 acre block achieved by our parents, 2-3 kids able to attend affordable childcare, schools followed by affordable tertiary education, time with the children.

Wake up! Middle Australia and its ideal of a comfortable disposable income, low costs, spare time, paid overtime has gone. It has all gone since business was given cheaper options of overseas contract labour who knew nothing about unions and our legacy of fighting for workers rights, and since Australia's immigration tsumani forced an escalation in domestic demand.

Problem is Governments keep listening to their economic performance druids so as to pacify a media brainwashed in economic-or-bust theory. Perhaps as ancient Pagans listened to their druids, we are captive of the same aura.

Kevin Rudd and his Labor Party and the Liberal Party are conditioned to following modern day economic druids to guide them on national economic policy, but also to guide them on national social policy and national environmental policy. This is even though their druids have no knowledge, training or omnipresent guidance in social or environmental issues.

Makes one wonder!

Australians are being pacified and re-educated into believing misleading justifications like economic growth, addressing skills shortages, multi-culturalism, being a world citizen, etc.

Pacification is the final stage of any invasion and we're copping that when all criticism gets morally put down as 'racist'. But race has nothing into do with it. The problem is the sheer numbers, not whether they're from Suffolk or Timbuktu.

Emigration poster 1948: ‘Australia, land of tomorrow’, Joe Greenberg. Courtesy Museum Victoria


Australia's post-WWII notion of 'populate or perish' was a falsehood promoted by PM John Curtin's man Arthur Caldwell, fearing Australia's vulnerability to invasion from the north in the wake of how close the Japanese got in 1942. Our government no longer uses the justification 'populate or perish'; it's been long tried, debated and dismissed as nonsense.

But Rudd's Mass Immigration is nonsensical. He is fuelling domestic demand on the one hand and yet supposedly leading the international charge to cut greenhouse emissions on the other side of the world. Is this two-faced, dumb or is there an ulterior motive? Look at all the stress increasing population is putting on urban infrastructure and resources in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane - where all most of the migrants chose to stay! There is an absence of demographic planning to spread the populatiion demand burden. Rudd is accelerating urban sprawl in these cities, repeating California's Dust Bowl Migration of the 1930s which caused the massive urban sprawl in Los Angeles. We have also adopted the US 20th Century car-centric urban design model. Rudd has a 20th Century US mindset and prima facie condemning Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane to a Hong Kong vision.

A consequence of this invasion is the emergence of ghetto cultures. Assimiliating Immigration (sporadic, small scale) works when a few from many different nationalities integrate, then after a few generations they assimilate into the mainstream culture. New Australians learn the language, acclimatise, get accustomed to Australian mores and values. We witnessed this gradually, progressively over decades with the Greek and Italians, then the Vietnamese, and we are midway through with the Lebanese. Each of these people in many cases were fleeeing poverty, like the initial British colonists a hundred years before them. They were seeking a new life and oppogC?M?>??d?V???e?_?|?6hey keenly acculturate, adapt, blend in, intermix and become accepted as Australians. This is how immigration should work to maximise the benefits to both settler and host country and to minimise the problems...again to both settler and host country.

Muslim immigrants demanding minarets in Switzerland. Courtesy The Economist, 3rd Dec 2009, 'Return of the nativists'

But the 'Rudd Gates' policy of Mass Unsustainable Immigration is churning such a mass influx of new arrivals in such a short time. The social outcomes have been ignored is a desperate attempt to maximise the perceived faster economic benefits. New arrivals are abandoned at the airport arrivals gates to fend for themselves. With so many arriving so quickly, there is no time for them to properly assimilate into Australian society, culture and way of life.

Through no fault of their own, new immigrants without a sense or compulsion of assimilation retreat to their own group and end up forming ghettos of different cultures, quite emotionally detached from the Australian mainstream. How is this good for the host country, Australia, and indeed for the new arrivals themselves? This government abandonment helps no-one - the locals, nor the new arrivals. Immigration without active integration is flagrant social neglect and abuse on a national scale to all involved.

Mass unsustainable immigration over a short time has been shown to cause a deculturation of the prevaling society's values, cultures and ways of life. On only has to look at the social outcome and costs of the mass influx of Turkish immigrants in Germany, or the recent mass influx of Middle Eastern muslims into Switzerland or closer to home at the 2005 Cronulla Riots.

Mass immigration without integration unnecessarily hightens the risk of fuelling social friction and antagonism on both sides. It breeds nationalism and in the worst cases, racism and racist violence. And it is all because governments naively manage complex societies with an economic hat on, wanting to boost its economic performance figures.

But immigration without integration and assimilation is effectively a decultural invasion, that threatens the identity of the imcumbent culture. Look at what a Koel does: >em>"The Common Koel is a brood parasite, that is, it lays its eggs in the nests of other bird species. Common hosts are the Red Wattlebird, Anthochaera carnunculata, friarbirds, the Magpie-lark, Grallina cyanoleuca, and figbirds. A single egg is laid in the host's nest and once hatched the chick forces the other eggs and hatchlings out of the nest." [SOURCE: http://birdsinbackyards.net/bird/54]

Common Koel, male. Photo: N Fifer ©

So what are 'Australian Values'?

Australians need to start debating what it means to be Australian, what values we treasure, and which aspects of our way of life we are prepared to compromise and which ones we are not. Then we need to look at what is happening to those values and way of life and start addressing their erosion.

If we don't and just sit back, 'she won't be right'. Those values will have eroded and have become relegated to history, under our watch. When 383,000 from overseas are rocking up every year, their sheer numbers unchecked will inevitably reshape Australia.

What is Immigration Policy accountable for?

Government immigration policy needs to be held accountable to immigrants and to the consequential impacts that immigration brings to Australia and to Australians. It has become clear that it is unacceptable to all parties that immigration policy stops at the International Arrivals Gate, that it ignores the special needs of immigrants, ignores integration and assimilation, ignores the costs to accommodate this direct increase in demand, ignores the consequential costs on Australia. Assimilation takes time and generations.

Public and private infrastructure and resources are proportionally consumed for every additional person added to Australia (be it by birth or immigration) - housing, roads, schools, public transport, hospitals, childcare, fuel, groceries, and every human consumption need and want. Marginal planning for immigration that stops at the International Arrivals Gates and hand balls the triple bottom line problems to under-resourced State government budgets is irresponsible. It is no different to allowing cheap import dumping into Australian markets and sending local industry broke.

This is not an argument for protectionism. It is an argument about the lack of accountability of Australia's current immigration policy for the economic, social and environmental consequences it is causing. Immigrants deserve protecting and nurturing more than most and it takes decades to assimilate. Look how long it took the Greeks and Italians post-WWII to assimilate. My estimate it took two generations and it wasn't until the 1970s until the Australia-Italian mixed culture was embraced by the mainstream, even then there must have been a lot of trauma in the intergenerational acculturation process.

Are we really 'sorry' for marginalising some of Australia's society?

What is appalling is the continued marginalisation of Australia's traditional people from the mix. If Australia's way of life and values embraced aspects of that of Aboriginal peoples, like in some way the Maori in New Zealand have shaped Kiwi culture - (look at the All Blacks Haka), then as a society Australia may not have as much need now to reverse its environmental damage.

Rudd-gazing

Mass immigration is indeed the elephant in the room. For Rudd to ignore this, the dominant driver of consumption, and to spend time on trading green house gas emissions is to negligently navel gaze as if pre-occupied in Sudoku on one of the Titanic deck chairs. 'Rudd-gazing' has become the greatest eroder of Australian way of life.

Interactions between microbes and human hosts can range from a benign, even symbiotic collaboration to a competition that may turn fatal — resulting in death of the host, the microbe or both.  What could seem benign could be a threat to existing host cultures.

Rome Scenario:

British Military strategist Rear Admiral Chris Parry pointed to the mass migration which disaster in the Third World could unleash. "The diaspora issue is one of my biggest current concerns," he said. "Globalisation makes assimilation seem redundant and old-fashioned due to the Internet and communications..."  Europe, including Britain, could be undermined by large immigrant groups with little allegiance to their host countries — a "reverse colonisation" as Parry described it.

Parry stressed that these mass population movements could lead to the “Rome scenario” – a reference to the collapse of the western Roman empire in the 4th and 5th centuries under repeated blows from groups such as Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Suevi, Huns and Vandals surging over its borders.
"In my view," concluded historian Peter Heather, "it is impossible to escape the fact that the western Empire broke up because too many outside groups established themselves on its territories." In the end, the Roman Empire, built by controlled immigration, perished under an onslaught of uncontrollable barbarian migration.

Rear Admiral Parry went on to say he was not labelling any particular group as threatening stability , but observed that there were already more than 70 diaspora groups in Britain.

More white families are moving from London to the regions while many immigrants arrive in the capital from overseas, the think-tank
Migrationwatch says.

The change in 10 years has been "extraordinarily rapid'', with 606,000 more people moving out of London than arrived from elsewhere in the country. In the same period, a net 726,000 immigrants arrived in the capital.

The recent referendum in Switzerland that saw 57.5 per cent of the population voting to ban the construction of minarets.  This is extreme tolerance considering Christians in many Muslim-background countries are being evacuated, persecuted and even martyred for refusing to conform.

Denmark now has a law preventing citizens under the age of 24 from securing residence rights for their foreign spouses. In September this year, the Flemish city of Antwerp joined France in banning the headscarf in schools.  This is hardly "ethnic cleansing" or persecution but a protection of the host's skyline, religions and cultural identity.

Weapon of “racism”:

The weapon of choice for the political elite, against any members of the indigenous population who show dissent against loss of their homeland, is the charge of 'racism'.  The pursuance of 'racism' as the ultimate taboo is the means to a political end. This is about changing the face of a nation.

The best estimate of the First Fleet, that we celebrate on Australia Day, is 1373 people.  Today the numbers of permanent and long-term migrants arriving in Australia to more than 500,000 a year. 

A 50 year 'visionary' migration plan for Australia is being developed to take into consideration such things as climate change, water availability, security and labour demands.  There is nothing about preserving our identity, or assimilation, wildlife, or the greater challenges of climate change and the higher costs of living with more people here. 

It is all so easy to come to Australia and apply to stay here.  Students can do "post graduate" studies without having completed their first degree.  Students numbers who successfully apply to live here are a hidden number.

Ad hoc population growth is colonisation:

Immigration Minister Chris Evans may have branded Mr Andrews as hypocritical in saying that our intake of migrants to Australia is too high when the Howard government welcomed more than 1 million migrants during its tenure.  ( Andrews call for debate on slashing immigration, )
However, Kevin Rudd has increased the number of permanent and long-term migrants arriving in Australia to more than 500,000 a year!  John Howard was Prime Minster from 1996 to 2007, and this means his government's increase happened over more than eleven years!

Australia is already under stress from population. We are losing Ramsar wetlands, record numbers of native species, even flagship species, our coastlines are under threat from oceans rising, the Great Barrier Reef, the Murray Darling food bowl and our rivers are being choked by dams and drying. The projections for Australia’s climate make it clear that farmers and other Australians should be prepared for a hotter, drier future. Higher temperatures, less rainfall, and extreme events will affect water availability, water and soil quality, fire risk, loss of wildlife and the proliferation of pests and weeds. Despite the warnings, food producing fertile land, is under threat from urban sprawl.

Ad hoc population growth, without a population policy or scientific assessment of our carrying capacity, is reckless and potentially disastrous!

In fact 'immigration',  at Australia's rate of half a million new people a year,  is an incorrect description for a process that is, to all intents and purpose, that of colonization.