"Only the Liberal Party will protect the amenity and character of our neighbourhoods and rural hinterland," says Russell Joseph, Liberal Candidate for Nepean. We don't often publish statements from the major parties, but this is the first one we know of that looks at protecting the Mornington Peninsula. The Peninsula is an incredibly biodiverse part of South-Eastern Australia, hardly explored to date in terms of paleontology, rapidly losing its native fauna and flora. The undeniable fact that governments since Jeff Kennett have promoted destructive population growth here makes any policy to protect it extremely important. We will publish statements from any other political party that has a plan to protect the Mornington Peninsula from overpopulation.
Student activist Joe Hockey protesting the imposition of student fees in 1987
(Article includes 2 versions of the Youtube video of different lengths.)
Recommend watching the video footage linked to below. Apologies if you have already seen it.
It shows our eminent treasurer leading student protests in 1987 against the imposition of an annual fee upon tertiary students that was quite small relative to the burden being proposed in the current budget.
John Dawkins1 the then Labor Minister for education who first imposed tertiary student fees
The Federal Parliament of Australia, a country which, in the 1960's participated in the devastating war against Vietnam and in the illegal wars against Iraq in 1991 and 2003 and which is now participating in the ongoing war against Afghanistan, yesterday passed legislation to undermine international laws to eradicate cluster bombs. The Governing Labor Party and the Opposition Liberal/National Coalition united to support the bill. This was a betrayal of Australian international obligations, Australian Greens spokesperson Assisting on Defence Senator Scott Ludlam said yesterday after the Government's cluster munitions bill passed the Senate.
Opposition Treasurer Joe Hockey, on Lateline, warned the public that the Coalition would be looking closely at ''the whole range of entitlements'' - that is, welfare benefits. Hockey said, ''We need to compare ourselves with our Asian neighbours where entitlements programs of the state are far less than they are in Australia.''
Is the "Asian Century" is about downgrading our lifestyles to those of the third-world standards of their teaming and overpopulated cities?
"Mr Rudd should set aside his ego and self interest in spruiking a ‘big Australia’, simply to make himself a ‘bigger diplomatic deal’ and focus on the national interest of tackling the challenges presented by a population explosion on settling and supporting an extra 13 million people in the coming decades in a sustainable way." (Bruce Bilson, Federal Member for Dunkley) But why is Mr Bilson still supporting an extra 13 million if he knows it is against the will of Australian citizens? A case of the opposition having its cake from the developer lobby whilst making the ALP pay the price? The ALP deserves all the stick it gets on this, but the people deserve far better than the ALP or a Marie-Antoinette Liberal party policy. We need new political parties and independent representatives.
Shadow Minister for Planning Matthew Guy will today ask the Parliament’s all-powerful Finance and Public Administration Committee to call the Planning Minister and the Growth Areas Authority (GAA) to appear before it to urgently explain the proposed Growth Areas Infrastructure Contribution (GAIC) that will have damaging effects on Victorian families. See related articles.
Melbourne is groaning with population overload but the leader of the alternative state government will not hear from party members asking for a sensible population approach.
Before the promised debate on electricity privatisation was abruptly ended by a severely embarrassed NSW Labor Govenment, state Upper House Liberal leader Michael Gallacher and state Upper House Nationals leader Duncan Gay tore the credibility of Treasurer Michael Costa and his Government to shreds.
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