Australia

The Centre for Population and Urban Research (CPUR) has recently released a major new report on immigration and on Australia's alleged need for labour. It shows that there is no real problem with supplying labour for the Resources Boom -- even if you accept the government's assumption that we need to export our resources as fast as possible.

(For the view that we don't and shouldn't see
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/29145 --but the CPUR report shows that even if we did, there isn't a problem.)

Authored by B. Birrell, E. Healy, K. Betts and T. F. Smith, it's called
"Immigration and the Resources Boom Mark 2."

It says that the government's immigration decisions in the 2011-12 budget show that the PM has walked away from her implied promise to stop Australia "hurtling down a track to a 36 million or a 40 million population," (interview with Leigh Sales, Lateline 28/6/2010).

Among its explosive findings:

There is no real labour shortage. Half of current Net Overseas Migration (NOM) would still produce 1 to 1.7 million extra workers by 2025.

A Skills Australia/Access Economics study that the government relies on, which appeared to show that we would need high migration to provide enough workers, was circular. It assumed a much higher population, such as only high immigration would produce, and then deduced that we need high immigration to provide that population's workforce!

The government has given in to the vested interest of big business.

As Dr Katharine Betts, Sociologist, puts it,

"The Gillard Government has yielded to the demands of the business lobby for a big Australia of 36 million plus by 2051.

This decision was also influenced by the level of aggregate growth in GDP that the government wants to achieve. The government is not managing the economy to increase the people's welfare; rather it is increasing the number of people in order to boost an arbitrary measure of aggregate economic growth.

Projected increases in per capita GDP are miniscule. They will in no way compensate citizens for increased congestion, inflated costs of housing and loss of amenity.

The report also shows that arguments about the the need to import immigrant skills to fuel the resources boom are weak to the point of falsehood. It demonstrates that it would be possible to halve annual net overseas migration from 180,000 to 90,000 with no adverse effects on export-oriented industries."

Here is the Executive Summary:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Contending pressures

Two contending pressures have shaped the Australian Government’s population policy. One reflects employers’ desire to sustain a rapidly growing workforce and a high rate of population growth so as to maximise aggregate economic growth. They want to maintain net overseas migration (NOM) at 180,000 per year or above. The other is urban sustainability. This reflects voters’ concern about the implications for their quality of life if NOM should continue at 180,000 or above. They fear ever-growing congestion, loss of urban amenity and dwindling housing affordability
.
The Australian Government’s decisions on the immigration program were detailed at the time of the 2011–12 Budget announcements. These show that the employers’ concerns have prevailed. As a result, NOM is likely to track at 180,000 or higher into the medium term and the population will grow to 36 million or more by 2051. If this happens, the ‘Big Australia’ that politicians promised to avert at the 2010 election will be unavoidable.

Why do the government and employer groups want continued high migration?

The case for higher migration partly rests on estimates of the number of skilled workers that employers require. The most widely quoted source on the scale of this need has been prepared by the government’s workforce advisory body, Skills Australia. It concludes that, Australia will need an extra 2.4 million skilled workers by 2015 and an extra 5.2 million by 2025. Such enormous numbers cannot be achieved without very high net migration.

However, these forecasts were determined by the assumptions that the econometric modellers (Access Economics) were required to work with. These included that NOM would grow from 220,000 in 2010 to 250,000 by 2025 and that Australia’s aggregate GDP would grow at nearly four per cent per annum over the period to 2025.

These extreme assumptions meant that there would have to be rapid workforce growth. Moreover, Access Economics assumed that productivity growth would be very high, and that this would result in a more skills-intensive economy. This meant that new entrants to the workforce were assumed to be more skilled than in the past. In other words, the Skills Australia projections are based on a circular argument, grounded on the assumptions fed into the model used by Access Economics.

Sustaining aggregate economic growth

The Australian Government’s immigration policy is also influenced by the level of aggregate economic growth that the government wishes to achieve. Currently, this is 3.25 per cent per year. This target requires NOM to be around 180,000. Though this is little known, the government is explicitly setting its immigration program so as to achieve pre-set targets for aggregate economic growth.

This policy is strongly supported by business interests. What matters for their bottom line is the number of workers and consumers in Australia. The higher these numbers, the more rapidly their businesses will grow. This is why there has been a scare campaign by lobbyists that Australia’s workforce growth will dry up in the absence of high migration.

For instance, Bernard Salt claims that 2011 is a watershed year. After 2011 the number of people entering the working ages will fall below the numbers exiting them. This claim is wrong. Even with zero NOM, we would have to wait until 2042 before the numbers entering the ages 15 to 24 fall below the numbers exiting the 55 to 64 age group.

We provide two workforce projections, both based on a NOM of 90,000 per annum. These indicate that, contrary to this scare campaign, there is likely to be substantial growth in the Australian workforce in the medium term even with NOM at half its present levels.

The first assumes that current workforce participation rates by age and sex will remain unchanged and the second that these will increase to match those achieved in Sweden by 2005. In the first scenario, Australia’s workforce grows quite strongly by 950,000 between 2010 and 2025 and in the second by 1,700,000 over the same period.

Per capita productivity will not be lower if aggregate economic growth slows.

Our workforce projections confirm that, with NOM at 90,000 per annum, workforce growth will be well below what it would be with 180,000 NOM. However, it is not the case, as is often argued, that Australia needs high NOM to offset an inevitable decline in per capita economic growth as the baby boomers retire. When this cohort, now aged 55 to 64, leaves the labour market, Australia’s labour-force participation rate will fall and thus per capita economic growth will decline as well. However, recent research by McDonald and Temple and by the Treasury shows that this decline is only marginally affected by the size of NOM. Australia’s per capita economic growth will be determined not by the level of immigration but by the extent to which residents participate in the workforce and by how productively they are employed.

Could NOM of 90,000 deliver the skills needed by the resources industries?

The key finding is that NOM at this lower level could satisfy the skill needs of the resources industries. Most of Australia’s current migration intake has little to do with the skills needed by these industries. ABS final figures for NOM show that when NOM peaked at 315,690 in 2008, 203,820 or 65 per cent derived from temporary-visa holders —students, temporary workers (457-visa holders), working holiday makers and visitors. Apart from the 457-visa holders, most of these migrants work as casuals in metropolitan semi-skilled jobs. And, most 457s are employed in service industries by metropolitan-based employers. Concessions granted by successive Australian governments have opened up pathways to permanent entry visas for all these temporaries. This encourages them to stay on in Australia and thus generate a continuing surplus of arrivals over departures in the NOM counts of temporary visa holders.

The great majority of permanent-entry visas in recent years have also been issued to persons working in metropolitan areas.
There have been major changes to the rules governing both temporary and permanent entry access to visas. We examine whether these new rules have produced an outcome better targeted to the needs of the resource industries. The conclusion is that further reforms need to be adopted.

Permanent migration

The analysis is based on a review of each of the three categories of visas for economic migrants: the points-tested, state-sponsorship, and employer-sponsored visa subclasses.

The share of the skilled visa program allocated to the points-tested visas has been reduced and priority is to be given to applicants with good English and skilled work experience. These visas have been heavily used by former overseas students. A result of the changes is that the number of visas issued to former overseas students will fall sharply, thus largely removing the incentive to study in Australia as a pathway to gaining permanent residence. However unpublished statistics show that tens of thousands of former overseas students will benefit from the transitional arrangements in place. Applications for permanent residence from these students will crowd out better qualified applicants for several years.

The state-sponsored visa subclasses have also been reformed in ways that will improve the English language proficiency and skill level of the migrants sponsored, but not the targeting of skills needed in the resource industries. Moreover, the legacy of past policies remains, notably the propensity of some states to use this visa category to pursue population building objectives. Reflecting this legacy, South Australia and Victoria retain an undeservedly high share of the visas to be allocated. For 2010–11, South Australia has been allocated 4,900 visas of the 23,000 visas available and Victoria 4,500, almost as many as Western Australia (6,000) and far more than Queensland (2,990).

The Labor Government is giving the employer-sponsored visa subclasses priority and these visas have seen the most growth in numbers. They also offer the greatest potential for cut backs. This category gives no priority to jobs crucial to the resource industries, and its policies for assessing credentials and testing English-language abilities are weak. They are far less stringent than those applying to the points-tested and state-sponsored visa subclasses.

A smaller, better-targeted permanent migration program could provide for much of the skill needs of the resource industries. There is also ample scope to tighten the rules governing the length of stay of temporary visa holders and to reduce their current large contribution to NOM. If these reforms were implemented, it would not be difficult to achieve a NOM of 90,000 per annum.

Temporary-entry migration and the construction needs of the resource industries

There will be a high demand for temporary workers in the construction (or start-up) phase of the mineral boom Mark 2. This demand should be satisfied, at least in part, by an increase in the number of workers recruited on temporary-entry 457 visas. This is appropriate as long as local workers are not excluded and as long as the extra temporary workers really are temporary.

A new scheme is to be introduced, the Enterprise Migration Agreements, to allow resource projects of at least $2 billion to recruit 457-visa holders on concessional terms, including the right to recruit semi-skilled construction industry workers. The government intends to allow all of these extra 457-visa holders to be eligible for permanent residence if they can find an employer to sponsor them. This could have serious social repercussions if Australia has to absorb large numbers of semi-skilled construction workers in the post-mineral boom Mark 2 era.

The government asserts that these temporarily recruited workers will ‘only be a temporary solution’. But recent history belies this assertion. In 2005, the government liberalised access to the permanent-entry employer-sponsorship visa subclasses for 457-visa holders. Currently, nearly half of them eventually gain permanent residence visas, and the great majority of those sponsored by employers are former 457-visa holders. The result is that the 457-visa program is becoming a pathway to permanent residence, rather than a temporary solution to Australia’s skill shortages.

The downside of population-induced economic growth

Most migrants locate in the Eastern metropolises, where they are the main contributor to the current city-building and people-servicing boom. The result of this influx is competition for scarce skills, particularly in the construction industries, and for public funds as these cities clamour for subsidies for their infrastructure and public services.

Victoria is a clear example. Thirty-six per cent of all job growth in Australia between March 2009 and March 2011 occurred in Victoria, yet Victoria’s share of Australia’s population is only 25 per cent. Most of this job growth was in Melbourne, where it was largely driven by growth in the construction and people-servicing industries. Links between this growth and the nation’s resources industries were minimal.

Australia risks wasting the fiscal dividend from the resources boom in this city-building process. With more modest population growth, this dividend could be far better spent on investment in education and the development of knowledge-intensive industries.

An unusual thing about Dick Smith's book, "Population Crisis," is that it is written by a wealthy man who points out the failings of rich people. He says that most rich people give nothing away and describes them as very selfish. "Our economic system comes equipped with only one forward gear: foot to the floor growth. The poor want to be rich, and the rich want to be richer. It's an endless treadmill, and none of our leaders appears to know how to get off." Also inside article: Win $1m if you are under 30 by solving the population puzzle.

Dick Smith's book, Population Crisis reminds me of the proverb that "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven," except that here we are talking about the kingdom of Earth.

The fascinating thing is that the camel may just fit through the eye of that needle in Smith's remarkable attempt to save the earth despite his millionaire wealth.

Books like Tolkien's Lord of the Rings are full of rich and powerful noble creatures standing up for truth and justice and the good of the earth in political systems that rely on the kindness and enlightenment of the powerful and their concern for lesser beings, like hobbits. The reality, however, is quite different, particularly in our global capitalist world, where rich people own or invest in corporations which perpetrate global injustices and manipulate public opinion against democracy and against our own nurturing planet.

Nazis and the business lobby - Déjà vu?

Smith looks into the future and sees a looming darkness which no good citizen can ignore, but he recognises that the fight against the vested interests of the growth lobby will not be easy.

"I'm not so idealistic as to believe the necessary changes will come quickly, or that the arguments over climate change will end soon. It seems to me that we are like the generation that existed in the late 1930s in Great Britain. Some predicted that there would be a catastrophe if Hitler was allowed to keep breaking treaties. Others - particularly the business community - said that it was unlikely anything would eventuate and that 'business as usual' was the way to go. That error alone resulted in more than 60 million people being killed. If we make a similar error now, the lives lost and related trauma could be far higher."

A risk taker

Australians with ecological bones and a sense of danger can only hope that Dick Smith's intervention on the subject of population numbers, democracy and ecological impact in Australia will survive the deadening blanket of growthist propaganda, even though Dick Smith himself has predicted that the Murdoch press will destroy him for coming out against population growth in Australia.

His unexpected success with other hard problems caused by powerful forces, offers some hope, however.

Smith's ability to remain an independent thinker and so surprise, straddle and surmount the political wedges created by the mainstream media and the political parties between terrorism, refugee rights and population numbers, makes him stand out in stature above high profile groups and individuals on both sides. It makes his ability and leadership so much more powerful.

When amorphous notions of terrorism and Afghanistan stigmatised David Hicks as untouchable for many, discarding prisoners of war conventions, Dick Smith funded Hicks's civilian defense in Guantánamo Bay - not, Smith precises, because he actually agreed with Hicks's politics, but so that Hicks could get a fair trial.

Smith also became involved in helping to extract hostages in Somalia and with refugee-asylum seeker Peter Qasim. Qasim was detained for nearly seven years by the Australian department of immigration due in part to inconsistencies in his story which others have explained as caused by his dispensing with an interpreter in the mistaken belief that his English was adequate for him to conduct his own defense. The main reason that he was kept imprisoned, rather than deported, was that he was stateless - and therefore had nowhere to go. After Dick Smith's intervention and with pressure from a small group of parliamentarians, Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone invited Peter to apply for a new class of bridging visa that would allow him to live in the community while his situation was resolved. On 16 July 2005, the visa was granted.

Now Smith has written a book about population numbers in Australia. Smith makes an effort to get on top of this wide and difficult subject in a readable book that addresses the growing and reasonable concerns of both the poor and the aspirational classes of Australia and asks those who benefit from their growing insecurity to reconsider.

"Our economic system comes equipped with only one forward gear: foot to the floor growth. The poor want to be rich, and the rich want to be richer. It's an endless treadmill, and none of our leaders appears to know how to get off."

Smith wants Australians to realise how they cannot rely on the mainstream press to inform them on population politics and gives the example of the Murdoch Press.

He says that he knows politicians are afraid of being attacked by the Murdoch media, but that should not stop them from speaking out against population growth. Despite his own (probably well-founded) belief that the Murdoch media will retaliate and destroy him for criticising growth, Smith actually took out a full page advertisement in the Australian telling Australians of the Murdoch media's investment in population growth.

It is indeed a major irony of Australia's predicament that it has a system that forces all major communications through a biased commercial press which inevitably drowns out any single original initiative with its own ubiquitous and repetitious propaganda.

The Electronics Wizard

Dick Smith also downplays his intelligence and qualifications. On Margaret Throsby's show on the ABC on 21 June 2011, he said that his only formal qualification was the Baden Powell Scout award.

Smith's intelligence is however uncontestably demonstrated by the fact that at age 38 he had the good sense, self-confidence and self-control to sell the business that made him a millionaire so that he could enjoy his life. That's a bit like Golem (continuing the Tolkein metaphor) ditching the magic ring before it saps his strength.

He writes:

"I was a relatively young man when I sold my Dick Smith Electronics business. When I could no longer see all the weekly figures in one quick look, I felt it was growing too large. [...] For me it seemed the right time to sell the business to Woolworths. They have built it into a billion-dollar business, and many people have told me I was crazy to sell such a growing concern, but I haven't regretted it for a moment. It was the best thing I ever did, because it allowed me to have the freedom to do worthwhile things - to go adventuring, fly around the world and enjoy my life. "(p.129)

That's the kind of intelligence that can see through growthism. It seems that it is rare in the rich.

He goes on:

"I have successful friends, some of them billionaires, and they often say to me that they wish they could do what I did and get out before the business takes over their lives. I tell them they can, but they just shake their heads as if to say, 'Dick, you don't understand. There are all these pressures that make it impossible to just walk away.' Like most of us, rich or poor, they are trapped inside the delusion that we must forever keep growing."

Maybe the Baden Powell Scout award deserves to be taken more seriously. Smith described to Margaret Throsby how being a cub, then a scout, then a rover was formative. The scout movement allowed him "to be an individual, to organise himself, and get into risk taking."

Smith's parents went through bad luck and poverty. At one stage, Smith's father took to his bed for 12 months causing his mother to go out and get a job for the very first time in her life, in a hat factory. Somehow Smith has missed out on that common rich man's delusion that he deserves to be rich because he is special. He sees himself as having drawn good results in life's lottery, but he has demonstrably retained a feeling of solidarity with ordinary Australians.

Wilberforce Million Dollar Prize to a young person who can solve the population puzzle

An example of this fellow-feeling is Smith's Wilberforce Award.
The Wilberforce award is designed to give a one million dollar prize to anyone under 30 who can impress Dick by becoming famous through his or her ability to show leadership in communicating an alternative to our population and consumption growth-obsessed economy.

How the few that benefit financially from growth do it

I can think of one other thing I would have included in the book, had I been Dick Smith. I would have given a detailed account of how, for some very rich people with control over assets, population growth improves the chances of making money. As Smith implies, what makes the rich richer past what he refers to as the "sweet point" tends to make ordinary people poorer. (The "sweet point" is where the cost of growth is less than the gains to be made from it.) I would have liked to have read more detail on how population growth helped Smith make his fortune. It is important to educate Australians on the how and why of this, so that they can see where the corporate growth spruikers are coming from and what they may have to gain from population growth. It would also educate Australians about how difficult having a few people and corporations controlling most of the assets and means of production in this country and elsewhere makes it for everyone else.

A follow-up book?

One senses that Smith tried to keep things simple in this book. Perhaps he could write another book, to follow up, giving some details on how growth economics and population growth work in favour of the rich and against the rest?

This article argues that Australian Refugee Activism has been used to divert the public eye from attacks on Australian democracy and away from questioning the very wars that cause refugees. If we judge this political movement by its outcomes, then the Australian "refugee rights" activism has been worse than a total failure for all but a very few international refugees, specifically those who arrive clandestinely on boats.

See also: UN's outdated Refugee Convention - an immigration smoke-screen

A defense might be raised by refugee activists that the absence of serious discussion of the causative issues is the product of biased mainstream media reporting. A look at the blogs strongly associated with the movement, however, reveals that they also fail to seriously confront the causes. See for example socialist-alliance.org and directaction.org.au and greenleft.org.au

The writer contends that Australians and the rest of the world have had to put up with very poor coverage and discussion of the events described below which have given rise to huge numbers of refugees:

* The Hawke 'Labour' Government's support for the 1991 war against Iraq, based upon fraudulent pretexts including the "incubator babies" lie and the set-up of Saddam Hussein by then US Amabassador to Iraq April Glaspie.

This war and the 2003 wars which followed it produced many Iraqi refugees and continue to do so. The focus of refugee activists helped to disorientate Australians politically because it concentrated on only a few landed asylum-seekers rather than protesting against the causes, which lay in war. This probably made it easier for government to wage these wars.

* The Howard Government's re-election in 2001 in spite of broken 1998 election promises, its failed attempt to break the Maritime Union of Australia in 1998 using mercenary strikebreakers and the imposition of its regressive and unpopular Goods and Services tax (GST).

Howard's re-election in the face of all these handicaps was only made possible because of the political disorientation caused by the Tampa 'boat people' incident of 2001, combined with 'refugee rights' activism.

Here is how it happened: When the election was approaching there were a lot of things the Government had done since its election in 1998 that the Australian public should have been thinking critically about. Instead, everything preceding was sort of swept away with the blow-up over the Tampa incident just before the election. This focus on one event allowed the media to ignore many other issues which would have done the Howard government a huge amount of damage if canvassed in the election.

* The Howard Government's support for and participation in the invasion of Afghanistan based on the fraud of the September 11 false flag terrorist attack.

This illegal invasion has cost the lives of 27 Australians and of considerably more Afghanis so far. It has also helped increase to record levels Afghan production of opium, which the overthrown Taliban regime had tried to stop.

Press coverage of the activities of refugee activists distracted people from the really important issues of the time, which included the fraudulent use of the false-flag terrorist attack of September 11 to start the Afghanistan war. The upshot was a whole nation of people turned into a basket case, of which many could qualify as refugees.

* The Howard Government's support for, and participation in, the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The main pretext for the invasion, the claim that Iraq was attempting to build nuclear weapons has been shown to be a lie. The truth about the WMD lie can be found in the Hollywood movie Fair Game which concludes with live footage of former CIA agent Valerie Plame, (played by Naomi Watts in the movie), testifying to US congress about the WMD lie. Howard's election in 2001 was helped by press diversion onto refugee activism.

The same thing happened again in 2004 when the press should have been drawing public attention to the WMD and Iraq invasion fiasco and international debacle, which itself has also produced many refugees, quite a few of whom have arrived on Australian shores.

* The re-election of the Howard Government in 2004 with outright Senate and House of Representatives majorities, in spite of the most massive anti-war demonstrations since the 1960's demonstrations against the Vietnam war, prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

This re-election left the Howard Government free to pursue its participation in the Iraq war and to pursue other regressive domestic policies. The ongoing issue of refugee and asylum-seeker procedures, as represented by refugee activists, continued chronically to hold the front pages, again dwarfing a major world conflict and creator of many refugees.

* The 'Labor' governments of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard continue the Howard Government's Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

This is an ongoing consequence of the Australian media's failure to adequately question the rationales of these wars, whilst continuing to feature refugee activism day after day.

* The current 'Labor' Government of Julia Gillard further fanning the flames of civil war in Libya by, at one point, recognising the US/NATO backed National Transitional Council as the legitimate government of Libya.

Australian procedures for dealing with asylum seekers continue to overshadow the necessary public debate and press coverage of our poorly justified recognition of and support for the dubious representatives of the National Transitional Council.

Over the period that 'refugee rights' activists have been able repeatedly to reach large sections of Australian public opinion with their message, the Australian Government has succeeded in helping its US, UK and other allies inflict unprecedented harm in the world, causing the world population of refugees to rise by many millions.

It is not the intention of this article to disparage the cause of individual refugees or the good work of people who help them. The author wonders, however, why the refugee action movement has so little to say about the wars that give rise to much of its existence. Why is it so uncritical and apparently disengaged in regard to the wider political issues that produce refugees?

This article explores why Australians are so frustrated with the lack of deep thinkers and serious policy makers in our political establishment. It asks why politicians only discuss peripheral issues and never seriously address homelessness. It comments on some recent flagrantly anti-democratic political acts, including the way LNP leadership has been hired out to Cambell Newman in Queensland. In the spirit of relocalisation, it offers some insights into local power in China.

One only need browse through recent events in Australian politics (Federal and State) over the last few months to understand why Australians are so frustrated with the lack of deep thinkers and serious policy makers in our political establishment.

In normal times, with a booming world economy, despite widespread incompetency in political leadership, Australia, blessed by its natural resources, has been able to flow along with the world trend of economic prosperity. Therefore the issue of political incompetency within our current system of government has not been sufficiently alarming to affect the livelihood of the average person on the streets. For example, Australia can simply ride on the wave of the Chinese boom, to go by these examples: "China the focus of our fortunes" (WA Today, 27 Dec 2010) and "Good year ahead for investors, depending on China" (The Australian, 29 Dec 2010)

Global connections; global problems

The world, however, has become so inter-connected that some problems are beyond our control. An event taking place in one part of the world can negatively impact upon the rest of the world. One such event was the global financial crisis ignited by the United States in 2008, which impacted in the subsequent global inflation. This global crisis was due partly to the then US President Bush’s and now Obama’s administration so-called ‘Quantitative Easing Monetary Policy.’ Plainly speaking, this is a money printing policy. This policy caused the world to be flooded with hot money and a depreciating US dollar. (Money Market, 25 Oct 2010 - "Is the US. Federal Reserve Setting the Stage for Hyperinflation?"

There are of course many other international factors that resulted in inflation beyond our control. These include:

1) The US administration's irresponsible policy in the sudden converting of 35 per cent of US corn into biofuel without taking into consideration the immediate impact to the rest of the world due to:

a) US exports accounting for about 60 per cent of the world's corn supply, hence a sudden shortage in supply of 35% of corn from US into the market caused the price to go up.

b) Many livestock farmers use corn to feed their livestock. Hence, inflation on meat and meat related products as well.

As a result, the Independent UK (23 march 2011) reported a complaint by Nestlé boss with a heading: "Biofuel policy is causing starvation, says Nestlé boss".

2) The recent mass protests across the Middle East and North Africa have also got to do with inflation in food price and daily necessities. The political turmoil in the oil rich regions fuels inflation across the world on another front with a surge in oil price, which affects the cost of transport, electricity and everything else.

3) Other factors also cause inflation, such as the appreciation of Chinese currency and labour cost. Corporate greed is also a key reason.

While the Treasurer claims credit on economic figures, can you find any politician commenting on the following topics?

Whilst our politician, Treasurer Wayne Swan, was quick to claim credit for the latest unemployment figures (Herald Sun, 10 April 2011 - "'Australia's jobless rate envy of world,' Treasurer Wayne Swan says", no politician (from government, opposition, minor parties or independents) seemed to want to comment on any of the following sets of figures over the last few months:

1) One in five Australians struggling with debt repayments," (Herald Sun, 7 April 2011)
2) "Shock rise in mortgage default cases," (News Limited, 28 March 2011)
3) "Australians raid superannuation to avoid home loss – it is as bad as it gets," (The Australian, 9 April 2011)

4) "Private rental too much for many families" (The Age, 29 March 2011)
5) "Going up and up - living costs outstrip the CPI, latest figures reveal," (Daily Telegraph, 15 Feb 2011)
6) "Rise in middle-class bankrupts," (WA Today, 24 May 2010)
7) "Health insurance hike double inflation rate," (News Limited, 25 Feb 2011)

8) "Construction sector shrinks again as federal stimulus winds up," (Construction News, 7 Dec 2010)
9) "Australians crippled by tax burden," (News Limited, 7 Mar 2011) where the tax office raises the following issues: “Documents show 4.3 million individual taxpayers have "not yet lodged" a tax return for 2008-09 - a staggering 26 per cent increase on 3.4 million in the previous year” and “About 700,000 taxpayers entered into special repayment plans with the Tax Office in 2009-10 - an increase of 32 per in four years.”

Homelessness in Australia

The reality on the ground is that, instead of having 105,000 homeless across the country during the "2006 ABS counting," the latest figure reported 4 years later by the ABC (30 April 2010) has become "1 in 100 homeless in past year." That is, the number of homeless in Australia has being more than doubled within 3 years since the last count in 2006. The problem is so serious that, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, “as many as 80 per cent of new applications for temporary housing by couples with children cannot be met on a daily basis.” The report also indicated that “of the total new requests for housing, 62 per cent of people were turned away, a rate stable with previous years”. (Brisbane Times, 22 July 2010 - "Homeless families are being turned away’."

Any solutions and policies announcement by our political ‘Elites’?

From their complete silence in response to these news items, it would appear that none of our politicians have a solution or have any understanding of the actual causes of the problems. Otherwise, based on our political culture, somebody would have jumped in front of the media to give themselves some free publicity.

In a time of massive poverty and suffering, this is what our politicians do:

1) One of our independent MPs who holds the balance of power in the minority government - Andrew Wilkie - threatened to bring down the Gillard government over pokey game reform. (Herald Sun, 30 March 2011 - "Wilkie threatens PM over pokie reform." Andrew has won a seat in Tasmania with a tiny margin by campaigning against pokey games. It seems that the issue of pokey reform seems to have taken up most, if not all of his time since he got into the federal parliament 8 months ago.

2) Our former Prime Minister and now Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd appears to be still bitter over being dumped by his comrades months before the last election. He has been acting as a lone ranger against his own party with virtually no or little contact with Prime Minister Julie Gillard and other cabinet ministers.

Immediately after his dumping as Prime Minister, he began to make use of his previous status and “upsetting Labor insiders by holding high-level talks in the US (and the UN) even though he is now just a backbencher” (News Limited, 16 July 2010 - "Kevin Rudd's one-man show haunts Julia Gillard." He then is suspected of having gone further to leak information about his secret deal with the Gillard government the night before his dumping to ensure that he would be given a senior position in the new Labor cabinet if Labor win the upcoming election. ( WA Today, 16 July 2010- "Rudd's political ghost haunts Gillard." [Note: there were only 4 people in the secret meeting. Although Kevin Rudd never admitted that he was the one who leaked the secret deal, nearly everyone in the media is pointing at him].

When in the position of Foreign Minister in the newly elected Gillard’s government, Rudd used tax payer money to jet around 20 countries in just 100 days, apparently trying to get himself a high level United Nation position. This has some Labor MPs wondering: "Just what the hell is Kevin up to?"(The Daily Telegraph, 23 Dec 2010 - "Kevin Rudd's eye on UN hot seat." [Note: this is published under opinion].

While eyeing United Nation jobs, Kevin Rudd again tried to position himself as the next Prime Minister by continuing to disclose secret cabinet meetings to explain to the Australian public that his decision to dump certain policies prior to the election was a result of pressure from members of his own Cabinet. (News Limited, 6 April 2011 - "I'm not shutting up about my time as Prime Minister, says Kevin Rudd."

It has also been reported that, Kevin Rudd has “quietly launched himself on a one-man campaign trail, visiting electorates across the nation,” and “introducing himself to strangers, "Hi mate, Kevin. What's your name ?" (News Limited, 10 April 2011 - "Hi, I'm Kevin Rudd and I'm here to help."

Apparently, over the last few months, as a cabinet minister under the Australian Tax Payer’s payroll, Kevin Rudd has been working for himself, with no or little communication with the Prime Minister.

3) In a hung parliament with few seats short, Gillard’s government cannot survive with any single member of her coalition partners or members of her own party swinging their support against her. Therefore, her government can do nothing about the behaviour of her foreign minister beside creating her own “malicious leaks designed to discredit the former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.” (The Australian, 15 Feb 2011 - "Kevin Rudd backlash rattles cabinet."

In order to maintain her grip on power, Prime Minister Gillard reportedly offers Independent MP, Andrew Wilkie “more one-on-one prime ministerial contact than is enjoyed by most ministers and mandarins”. (WA Today, 27 Nov 2010 - "Gillard's grip on power."

The Gillard’s government is busily dealing with the Greens as well on policy direction to stay in power as she broke her own election promise on the issue of Carbon Tax. (See Herald Sun, 25 March 2011 - "Julia Gillard's carbon policy a desperate measure." When the public form a perception that it is the Greens who formulated Labor policy, Julie Gillard again repositioned herself by publicly claiming that her coalition partners, “[the] Greens don't share Australian values” (Adelaide Now, 1 April 2011) and then criticised the Greens as “Extremists” (Herald Sun, 7 April 2011).

Within the last few months since Labor came into power, there is more news of politicking within the party, with coalition partners and with the opposition party than any actual policy initiative being announced.

4) The opposition is not doing any better. For instance, they have embroiled themselves in a number of poll driven racial issues, such as the asylum seekers issue, with a decades old slogan “Stop the boats,” and migrant-bashing such as in "Morrison sees votes in anti-Muslim strategy," (Brisbane Times, 17 Feb 2011). They offer no policy to assist Australians who are struggling with the cost of living. On the contrary, there are a number of policies to chop ofests across the Middle East and most disadvantage people in Australian society. Some examples: "Libs to cut incentives for poorer university students," (The Australian, 19 Aug 2010), "Tony Abbott calls for welfare crackdown", (The Telegraph, 31 march 2011)

5) Meanwhile, in NSW state politics, Liberal leader Barry O’Farrell managed to win a landslide victory without having to produce any detailed policies (Inside, 18 March 2011).

6) And, in Queensland, after years of political infighting with consistently poor poll rating, the LNP has decided to change their leader again. This time, they invited an outsider a person without a seat in the State Parliament - the Lord Mayor of Brisbane City Council, Campbell Newman, to be their leader for the position of Premier in the coming election.

This is in part because, during the recent floods in Brisbane, Campbell Newman, as Mayor of the city, has received exposure on national television every day for weeks and is now a familiar household name. This situation apparently prompted former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to "describe the circumstances of Campbell Newman's foray into state politics as 'weird'" (Courier mail, 23 March 2011).

Mr. Newman, while still officially the Mayor of Brisbane, and as somebody who have just entered state party politics suddenly in circumstances described as “weird” decided to give a fresh start to the LNP by simply binning all existing policies formulated by his predecessors. (Brisbane Times, 29 March 2011 - "All current LNP policies 'null and void': Newman declares new beginning,". Apparently, he has binned those policies without spending any time analysing and understanding wider issues and problems relating to the State of Queensland and the LNP.

The only thing that interests our politicians

As demonstrated from the above 6 examples, the only thing that interest our politicians is to stay in power. Election promises may be brushed aside. Existing policies can be binned overnight by a new leader who has charm but little experience in party leadership and state politics; politicians embroil themselves in race base politics because they believe it is a vote winner; cabinet minister can use tax payer money to run his personal agendas without having to consult the Prime Minister; an independent MP winning a seat with just a tiny margin, holding the balance of power in a minority government, may take up more prime ministerial time than ministers over a single issue “pokie reform”.

Individualism seems to rule the day. Who is going to serve the interest of the people and the nation?

Meanwhile, as a record number of Australians suffer poverty and homelessness, our Members of Parliament busily increase their personal wealth by being the top lodgers of dodgy tax claims on the one hand (News Limited, 17 March 2011 - "Australian MPs top lodgers of dodgy tax claims, ATO investigation reveals"), and boosting their own pay rises by the thousands of dollars just few month ago, on the other. (Adelaide Now, 18 Nov 2010)

Democracy Needs Reform

The world is getting more and more complex in the 21st century. Can any Tom, Dick or Harry on the street understand the complexity of the modern age? Will they have the knowledge, expertise, skills and ethical values to serve the very people that voted them into the Parliament? How long can we afford to have second, third or ninth rated people in the Parliament doing nothing right for us?

At a time of economic uncertainty, rising international conflict, and global inflation with increasing pressure on the cost of living, voters become so irrational that they simply wanted a quick fix on every problem they face. The popularity of governments is on a roller coaster. The life span of a government may become shorter and shorter. As a result, opponent parties are able to win election in landslide without having to put forward any detailed policy.

The charm of politicians has become more important than the substance of their policies. Will such a trend lead to political process where fewer and fewer deep thinkers will be able to make their way into Parliament?

Democracy is great! But should we begin to ask ourselves the following questions:

Is democracy in the current form known to the US, Australia and other English-speaking nations the best for the survival of mankind?
Is there room for improvement?
What is the purpose of democracy if people we have voted in fail to serve the interests of the very people that voted for them?
How long can we afford to have politicians not doing anything right for us?

Will the current form of western democracy eventually result in mass poverty and humanitarian disaster?

In this time of economic uncertainty, in the US, people are also increasingly conscious of the quality of their politicians. The Washington Post recently carried a report, "2012 Republican presidential candidates all have flaws," (30 Jan 2011). A survey by NBC News/Wall Street Journal (March 2010) indicated that the Congress enjoy only 17% of approval rating from the American public.

In the UK, the 2010 election also resulted in a hung parliament, with all three major parties failing “to disclose to the voters the scale of tax rises and public sector cuts required to tackle the financial crisis.” The outcome of this election has been labeled “No Choice Democracy.”

Other systems exist and China's, with which I am familiar, has been very much misunderstood by the Western World due to the disinformation of the mainstream Western Media. (I will try to find time to write an article on democracy with Chinese characteristics some time in the future.)

In the meantime, this article in the Guardian (19 January 2011) under the heading, "China's tentative steps towards democracy," may interest you. The article ended by quoting a statement made by Daniel Bell, a Canadian-born professor of political theory at Tsinghua University in Beijing, who says China may be groping toward "a political model that works better than western-style democracy".

For the sake of humanity and the welfare of the Western Public, should we forgo our cold war mentality against China and begin to look objectively into the positive aspects of the Chinese Communist Party and their progressive political ideology and methodology?

Written on 12 April 2011

Copyright © 2009 - 2011 Outcast Journalist - Chua, Wei Ling

You hear people like Rob Adams and Marcus Spiller saying there is nothing you can do about population growth in Victoria and Australia. Wrong. For a start the government should cancel the Live in Victoria website that invites people to come to Victoria and which explains how to get a visa. There is one in every state (Qld, NSW, the ACT, Tasmania[1], SA, WA, NT). They should all be pulled off the web.

Results of Melbourne population poll, added to this article on 16 April 2011.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/citys-population-explosion-20110331-1cng1.html

Having been involved with trying to save Melbourne from overdevelopment for many years, numerous conservation and environment activists are convinced that no government can manage the speed and magnitude of growth.

It's bleeding obvious.

So tell them at The Age. Comment and vote via the link supplied to a poll in The Age today. And stop buying property. That only lines bankers' and developers' pockets and gives them more power over politicians. The Age is not Melbourne's 'better' newspaper, it's just a a huge international property developer and financier. So is the Australian, with www.realestate.com.au. That's the real news. Sadly it's a long time since there was much real news in those papers.

Then tell the Feds that we want to reduce Melbourne's population so stop importing so many immigrants. For years now Victorian Premiers have been demanding more immigrants of the federal government in order to please big business. Make our leaders care about democracy.

Nothing is inevitable unless you let it be so.

The Victorian Coalition has admitted that funds don't exist to finance the infrastructure needed to stuff all these new people in with a giant shoehorn - so why do we want even more people?

The answer is that we don't want them; the property developer and financier-run government does.

Tell those parasites to get the infrastructure fixed and then ask us again and listen to the answer.

Global capital exploits overpopulation so we must regulate global capital to get democracy.

Simon Kuznets who, devised the GDP in the
early 1930's for US President Roosevelt for a
purpose almost entirely different to what it has
since been used for.

Bandicoot's otherwise excellent article What is Australia's population "carrying capacity"? suffers from one minor flaw. Of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which economists have insisted upon using to tell us how our prosperity has increased, Bandicoot writes:

Also, GDP per capita is a better measure of the economic well-being of a country than total GDP, as it takes into account population size – very populous countries may have very large overall GDP, but when divided by population size the resultant GDP per capita figure will give a much clearer indication of the country’s comparable wealth.

Of course it is plainly ridiculous to use Gross Domestic Product and not per capita GDP as a measure of prosperity, particularly, prosperity economists dishonestly claim to be the result of population growth.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) graph at:

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/Lookup/1383.0.55.001Main+Features132009

... makes even per capita GDP figures, and not just Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures, look good. According to this, per capita GDP "went up from $41,000 to $51,000 in real (chain volume) terms, an annual average increase of 2.2%."

So, either Bandicoot is wrong about population growth reducing per capita GDP (whilst allowing gross GDP to grow) or there is something badly flawed about the GDP, even when used on a per capita basis.

In fact, the GDP has been used and is being used by the ABS and most orthodox Australian economists in a way different from what its originator Simon Kuznets intended. In his very first report to the US Congress in 1934, he wrote:

...the welfare of a nation can, therefore, scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income..._#main-fn1">1

One of the things wrong with the way that the GDP is used by the ABS and orthodox economists is that it doesn't accurately measure many increases in the cost of living. Many it ignores completely.

30 or 40 years ago one car per family would have been adequate. Today, the same family needs two or three cars in order to be able to travel around to all the places they could once get to in plenty of time in one car, on foot, on bicycle or on public transport.

So, a family which earns enough to buy two cars today looks substantially wealthier in per capita GDP terms than a family of 30 or 40 years ago who could afford only one car, but in real quality of life terms, I would argue that they are not and any family which could afford to buy one car, but which could not afford a second car, would, in real quality of life terms, be poorer.

Much car parking which used to be free is no longer so. Our local shopping mall charges a minimum of $1 for less than one hour's parking up to a maximum of $10 per day. Parking charges in CBDs of major cities such as Brisbane are vastly more extortionate, being of the order $50 in order to park your car just long enough to see a movie.

There are a large number of additional things on which people need to spend money, which they didn't have to 30 or 40 years ago.

The most obvious is shelter. Real housing costs, the massive increases of which have impoverished broad layers of previously prosperous Australians, cannot possibly have been accurately taken into account in the above GDP figures.

Those no longer able to afford secure shelter must also bear a range of costs caused by substandard accommodation or frequent changes of abode, which I doubt that economist/propagandists take into account: time and money spent searching for new accommodation, time and money spent changing residence, rent or bond money that one is often forced to forego as a result of residence change, loss of possessions that can't be fitted into or transported to a new residence, having to secure your possessions against incompatible people you may have to share a roof with.

How much more income is consumed in buying alarms, stronger padlocks, deadlocks, etc? How much more needs to be spent on insurance of household items against theft?

How about mobile phones and the Internet? Whilst I think these are good things on the whole, it is not good that so many must have these things and pay for them in order to go about life and work.

I think that if all the increases in costs of living, including costs that we didn't have to meet in the past, and all the losses in quality of life were taken into account by the GDP, I think it would show a massive decline in average income instead of the claimed $10,000 annual increase, and that is not even taking into account our non-renewable natural capital, which is being destroyed at an increased rate.

So, it appears that even the per-capita GDP figures are being fraudulently used to cover up a massive decline in our standard of living caused by our politicians in the service of Australia's wealthy elite. This fraud must be brought to the attention of ordinary Australians. Any economist or any other public figure who uses this fraud to justify they way they are running the country must be judged accordingly.

See also: Living standards and our material prosperity of 6 Sep 07 and comments, What is Australia's population "carrying capacity"? of 31 Dec 10.

Footnotes

#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. #main-fn1-txt">back I first learnt of this, from memory, on page 6 of Australian author Geoff Davies' Economia, published in 2003.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada has happened upon the John Howard confidence trick. In the shell game of electoral politics, it is important to get the audience to focus on the pea marked "bogus refugees" rather than the one marked "unsustainable immigration". That way corporations get the policy they paid for. The growth of the cheap labour pool and legions of new consumers. We clap our hands at the crackdown, and are none the wiser for it.

I seem to recall that Australia's one-man wrecking crew (lest we forget) John Howard, successfully exploited public anger over incoming boat-loads of refugees by making a show of his hardline crackdown, then using that stance as a screen to jack up immigration levels to stratospheric heights. Right? Well it seems that the Stephen Harper government is taking the same tack. Use the refugee issue as a decoy and a lightening rod so that an even higher number of migrants can be waived through the airport. This is not about curbing immigration to more sustainable levels, levels that would permit cultural integration and ecological recuperation from the two-decade demographic assault Canada has suffered since 1990. It is about quelling growing public anger so that it does not threaten the great unquestioned project of unsustainable economic growth, which all major parties wrongly believe is dependent on population growth.

It is not just Canada's refugee system that is out of control. Immigration is out of control. Making scapegoats out of phoney refugees and the slime who smuggle them takes the heat off an immigration policy based on economic folly and cynical political empire-building. And the Prime Minister knows it. He wants more immigration, not less. And if the opposition parties, who share his mad dream, were smart, they would accede to his inadequate bill, because it appeases misplaced public wrath. Canadians could then be given the false assurance that everything is now "under control", when in fact immigrant-driven population growth will be more out-of-control than ever. While I support the government's half-measures---as far as they go---- I wonder if by applying a band-aid we might forget that we need major surgery. We need to stabilize and reduce our population, and to accomplish that, we could double or triple the intake of legitimate refugees while slashing the immigration quota to modest and reasonable totals. Cleaning up the refugee mess is not sufficient.

Harper's comments, recorded in this news report, "Human smuggling threatens Canada support for immigration: PM"
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/101020/canada/canada_srilanka_politics_refugee_immigration, makes his motives clear.

"A failure to act and act strongly (against human smugglers) will inevitably lead to a massive collapse in public support for our immigration system.... Not only do we have relatively speaking the largest immigration program in the world; not only do we have the most generous system of sanctuary for refugees in the world -- we also have a level of public support for immigration that is unparalleled elsewhere in the world," Harper said. "And that must continue, because our economy will need even more immigrants." The strong new laws will provide incentives for would-be immigrants to enter the country through "legitmate channels".

Tim Murray
October 22/ 2010

Background stories: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Tories+take+refugee+fraudsters+smugglers/3706309/story.html
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/Laws+turn+tide+refugees/3709436/story.html

Editor's note: The full original title by Wei Ling Chua of www.outcastjournalist.com was "Democracy needs reform - Australia, China and USA: A Tale of three Natural Disasters." As discussed below, an inference that could be made is that Australian and US "democracy" should be "reformed" to be like the Chinese dictatorship. This we emphatically reject. The article, whilst rightly showing up the scandalous failure of the Australian and American governments to deal with catastrophic natural disasters on their respective territories, paints China's response to a natural disaster on its territory in a comparatively positive light. Whilst the article is backed by quotes of sources, seemingly independent of the Chinese Government, we should bear in mind that China does not allow a free and independent news service to operate on its territory. For all the serious flaws and limitations of the newsmedia in Australia and the United States, their relative independence from their respective governments is why the scandalous mishandling of those countries' natural disasters have seen the light of day. If there were any similar mishandling by the Chinese Government, it is not hard to see how such news could have been suppressed. A consequence of this style of argument, if unintended, is a conclusion that Australia and the United States would be better governed if they had the Chinese system of government. So, we at candobetter are reluctant to unreservedly endorse the author's implicitly favourable judgement of the Chinese Government. Some syntactical and stylistic details show that English is not the writer's first language, but we haven't made many changes, since the language is effective.

August 2010 marked the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, USA (29 August 2005). I am reminded of the second anniversary of the Earthquake in Sichuan, China (12 May 2008) three months ago, and of the first anniversary of the Black Saturday (Bush fire) in Victoria, earlier this year in Australia (7 February 2009).

The similarity of these three events is that they were natural disasters with many deaths and many more left homeless. However, for those who lost their home in these large scale natural disasters, which government do you think did more and cared more for their citizens in need? The so-called “autocratic” regime in Beijing, China or the so-called “democratic” and “human right” governments in USA and Australia?

Scale of property damage and human cost in three natural disasters:

- Australia: Black Saturday (Bush fire) in Victoria 2009:

The fires killed 173 people, injured 414 with 7,562 people displaced. The list of damage to property are as follows:

· 450,000 ha (1,100,000 acres) burnt

· Over 3,500 structures destroyed, including 2,029+ houses, 59 commercial properties (shops, pubs, service stations, golf clubs, etc), 12 community buildings (including 2 police stations, 3 schools, 3 churches, 1 fire station), 399 machinery sheds, 729 other farm buildings, 363 hay sheds, 19 dairies, 26 woolsheds.

To learn more: Wikipedia.

- USA: Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans 2005

The flood killed 1,464 people, and an approximately 200,000 people were evacuated from the Gulf Coast Region to Texas, Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C. Of the more than 400,000 residents who lived in New Orleans prior to Katrina, approximately 350,000 lived in areas that were damaged by the storm.

Again, please click on Wikipedia, and Amnesty International to learn more.

- China: Sichuan earthquake in 2008:

Approximately 15 million people lived in the quake affected area. More than 90,000 people in total were dead or missing in the earthquake and 374,176 injured. The quake left at least 5 million people without housing. The area affected by earthquakes exceeding liedu VI totals 440,442 km2, occupying an oval 936 km long and 596 km wide, spanning three provinces and one autonomous region.

Again, to learn more, click on Wikipedia.

Which governments do you think do more and care more for their citizens in need?

Editorial comment: The implicit conclusion of the following text is that the Chinese Government cares more for its citizens in need. This depends upon accepting the premise that all important news of the Chinese Government's handling of the event in question has been reported. As we have commented earlier, there are good reasons to fear that this may not have happened.

- Australian government

Out of the above three named natural disasters, Australia suffered the least in term of the scale and human cost of the disaster. Besides damages to a total of 3,500 structures including 2,029 + houses, the basic infrastructure such as road and other transport system were fully in tact. However, at the first anniversary of the disaster, let’s examine the governments performance during and after the disaster:

The disaster begin on 7 Feb 2009, the then Prime Minister ‘Rudd activates disaster plan’ (Brisbane Time, 9 Feb 2009) and announced a “$10 million in federal and Victorian government funds to help victims and emergency workers.”

Two days later, Mr Rudd told Parliament: "Hear this from the Government and the Parliament of the nation. Together we will rebuild each of these communities — brick by brick, school by school, community hall by community hall." (Brisbane Time, 11 Feb 2009 - ‘We'll rebuild: Rudd’)

However, he then begin to play politics with the well being of the disaster victims by “linking government relief for Victoria's bushfire victims to its $42 billion economic stimulus package,” (Canberra Times, 11 Feb 2009 - ‘Opposition blasts bushfire, stimulus 'link'.)

Our media begin to compare Australia handling of the Victoria’s Bushfires with the American during the Hurricane Katrina in 2005. This is how the contributing editor of the Age, Russell Skelton wrote: “Where the Bush administration dithered for 48 hours after hurricane Katrina, leaving the flooded city of New Orleans without help, in Victoria, government and non-government agencies such as the Red Cross were on the ground from first light. Within days a reconstruction authority was set up along with a royal commission.” (The Age, 31 March 2009 - Out of the fire)

As usual in this country, the words of the politicians always sound louder than action. The actual outcome to the victims of the fires was: ‘Australia, Survivors of Victorian bushfires receive minimal compensation’ (wsws.org, 28 April 2009). One should note that: “More than 2020 homes were destroyed in the “Black Saturday” fires; 700 or just under a third of these had no insurance. Nevertheless, Victorian fire survivors have only received token government support. Small farmers unable to prove that over 51 percent of their income is derived from their properties will receive nothing from the official public bushfire appeal fund.”

Despite the fact that: “Victorian Labor Premier John Brumby has granted a one-off $50,000 grant for owner-occupiers whose homes were destroyed and the possibility of an additional $40,000 for some victims, subject to government approval” The arrangement was : “according to the premier, $35,000 of this amount can be used for building expenses and the remaining $15,000 for restoration of home contents. Those with homes partially destroyed by the fires and those who were renting will receive $15,000. The state government is charging survivors who have been forced into temporary accommodation a “maintenance” fee of up to $100 per week “.

The reality was: “These paltry grants will not even cover the cost of repairs, let alone fully replace homes and contents. They amount to a fraction of the cost of a home in the fire affected areas.” (Full report by wsws.org)

14 months on, our Reconstruction Authority which was set up within days of the bush fire seems to have done a “great” job? Frankly speaking, as someone who read dozen of Australian Newspapers every day, I have no idea what our “Reconstruction Authority” done so far for the bushfire victims? This was how the Herald Sun reported on the 4 April 2010 (without mentioning the Reconstruction Authority) - ‘Slow and steady but no promise of winning race’. The reality on the ground after one year are:

“HUNDREDS of people in the worst-affected zones are committing to rebuild after Black Saturday,” “But progress is patchy in some areas, and statistics reinforce that it will be many years before the destruction is close to being repaired.”

“Just under 300 rebuilding permits have been issued for houses, sheds and commercial properties in Marysville and the surrounding triangle,” “Locals believe as few as 50 houses are actually being rebuilt in Marysville while many permits are probably for sheds.”

“In the Kinglake Ranges, taking in Kinglake, Pheasant Creek and Toolangi, 361 building permits have been sought. There were 505 properties destroyed there on February 7.” and again: “There were 117 permits sought for Flowerdale and its sister hamlet, Hazeldene, compared with the 225 properties destroyed.”

The progress for reconstruction has been very slow, part of the reason mentioned by Herald Sun report was: “with the rebuilding process arduous for many - particularly those who lost family or can't decide whether to face the risk of any disaster.”

However, I believe that among those 700 who were not insured, there must be people who do not have the financial ability to rebuilt but not mentioned by the media. The major reason for the “slow in progress” is actually due to bureaucratic red tape. I read a report about this aspect of the delay in building approval few months back, but unable to find back the link. However, one of the NSW’s local council has this statement in their website under the title: Rebuilding after a bush fire pointing out that: “When bushfire events do occur, Council’s ability to help in terms of the approval process is limited because State planning and building laws continue to apply as they would in normal circumstances, and Council is not at liberty to alter or ignore them.”

15 months on, a Royal Commission of Inquiry set up more than a year ago to investigate into the Victoria’s Bush Fire has the following finding:

“The tragically high death toll was caused by grossly inadequate emergency services, lack of fire warnings and the absence of any centralised evacuation plan.” The individual homeowners were left to decide by themselves whether they should “stay or go”. (WSWS, 28 May 2009 - ‘Australian bushfire royal commission: Survivors expose “stay or go” policy’)

The enquiry also find that: “None of those in command showed any real leadership” (News Limited, 28 May 2010 - ‘Black Saturday - Leaders faltered as Victoria burned’). The situation were:

“VICTORIA'S police minister and the state's three most senior police officers were all absent from the emergency nerve centre when most of the deaths occurred on Black Saturday” (Herald Sun, 7 May 2010).

“The uncoordinated and chaotic division of responsibilities and functions of senior police and emergency services leadership points to the negligence of the state government of Premier John Brumby. It made no serious attempt to establish clear lines of command and communication inside the IECC prior to the devastating fires.” (WSWS, 17 May 2010 - ‘Australia: Government culpability in 2009 Victorian bushfires’)

As for the Federal Government, beside making some grand statements and posting for photo opportunities with the media at the beginning of the Bushfires and on its anniversary seems to disappear from the radar screen throughout the very slow rebuilding process. At the anniversary this year, the state government of Victoria was left alone to defend the delays in rebuilding including the rebuilding of schools in the bushfire-hit towns of Marysville and Strathewen (Herald Sun, 7 Feb 2010 - ‘Brumby defends bushfire rebuilding delays’)

- US government

Comparing to the Bush administration, Australian media did has the right to feel good about ourselves.

President Bush has been warned on the eve of Hurricane Katrina that New Orleans' flood defences could be overcome” and “the risk to evacuees in the Superdome. However, “Mr Bush does not ask any questions as the situation is outlined to him.” (BBC, 2 March 2006 - ‘Video shows Bush Katrina warning’) That is, no action being taken by the President to do anything to the anticipated disaster.

During the disaster, a well research website in the US with links to its sources showing photos of the President enjoying himself - “playing Guitar While New Orleans Drowned”.

The research also show that: “Vice President Dick Cheney continued to enjoy his vacation in Jackson Hole, Wyoming during the whole debacle,” while “Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice bought $3000 worth of shoes at the exclusive NYC boutique Ferragamo.”

“Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert called for the bulldozing of New Orleans, saying that it didn't make sense to spend the money to rebuild the city; he also initially refused to call a special session of Congress to appropriate emergency relief funds for the Gulf Coast, saying that FEMA was handling the situation perfectly well. Hastert capitulated to pressure from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to allow the vote, then tried to take credit for the funding.”

At the 4th anniversary of the disaster last year, reality on the ground of New Orleans indicated that, not much being done by the US government to rebuilt the flood affected areas. Amnesty International released a report with title: ‘The Facts: The Right to Return—Rebuilding the Gulf through the Framework of International Human Right.’ indicated that:

“Despite the passage of almost four years, thousands of those internally displaced as a result of Hurricane Katrina who want to return to New Orleans are unable to do so.”

“More than 14,000 families living in metropolitan New Orleans are still receiving Disaster Housing Assistance Program (DHAP) vouchers which help them pay rent. These vouchers come with an expiration date, which was recently changed from March 2009 to September 2009. Only approximately 7,500 of these families may be eligible for Housing Choice vouchers, which gives them access to Section 8 housing. Once the DHAP vouchers expire, the remaining families face potential homelessness. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) acknowledges that at least 4,000 of those who do not qualify for Section 8 housing will have difficulty finding affordable housing.”

The report further explained the situation: “After Katrina, the federal government placed tens of thousands of families in trailers which were meant to provide temporary shelter. Today, there are approximately 3,400 families still living in trailers in Louisiana and Mississippi, 760 of which are in New Orleans. After being told that they would be evicted if they did not vacate their trailers by May 30, 2009, the trailer residents will now be given the option to purchase their trailers for $5 or less. Many of the FEMA trailers contain levels of formaldehyde, a carcinogenic toxin, which are 75 times the recommended maximum for U.S. workers. The federal government has indicated that trailers with elevated levels of formaldehyde will not be available for purchase. As a result, only 1,160 of the trailers currently being used qualify for purchase by these IDPs. HUD has not yet provided a clear indication of how it will supply the remaining trailers.”

Here is the full Amnesty International Report in 2009

The mainstream cooperate media in US were basically silence on the problem in New Orleans. This is how AlterNet, an independent website reported the situation on 10 September 2009: ‘How Corporate Media Are Washing Away Katrina From America's Mind’.

This year, on the March 2010, a blogger by the name of Douglas Brown has this personal account of what he watched first hand in New Orleans: “This week, I drove to New Orleans as part of a Mission Trip to help rebuild homes that were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. After five years, there are still literally thousands of people who are still homeless or living in trailers that FEMA provided in 2005. Most of these people are people who have little or no income, have lost family, often the main income earner, are elderly, widowed or disabled. There is no funding that these people can get to rebuild. They have nowhere to go, and in the richest nation in the world, the shame we saw when the poor were left behind when Katrina hit is still here, albeit not on National TV, since it is not a current story anymore.”

For your info, a US federal judge ruled in November 2009 that the Army Corps of Engineers' failure to properly maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding in Hurricane Katrina in 2005. (Brisbane Time, 20 Nov 2010 - ‘Corps' negligence caused Katrina flooding’).

- Chinese Government

Editorial comment: See comment above under the heading "Which governments do you think do more and care more for their citizens in need?"

Sharply contrary to the performance of the Australia and US’s governments during a major natural disaster, Chinese leadership responded to the 2008 earthquake in a professional manner characterised by its high efficiency and comprehensiveness:

The military formed the key elements in the rescue process and its response to the earthquake was rapid with “the first Chinese military rescue team reportedly headed for the disaster area within 14 minutes after the strong earthquake began” (Hoover Institute Research: China Leadership Monitor - 2008 No 25 - ‘The Chinese Military’s Earthquake Response Leadership Team’).

The research also find that within days, “China’s armed forces dispatched more than 100,000 soldiers and armed police to help with rescue operations in earthquake-hit areas, dividing their units into three geographical rescue zones.”

“Military transport aircraft and helicopters had made 1,069 flights during the first week of operations, supplemented by 92 military trains and about 110,000 military vehicles, cranes, rubber boats, portable communication devices, and power generators. The military units had pulled 21,566 people both dead and alive from the debris, treated 34,051 injured people and transferred 205,370 people to safety”.

“115 medical teams were sent to the disaster zone, and quilts, food, medicine, and tents weighing 780,000 tons were distributed. The armed forces also airdropped 307 tons of relief supplies and repaired 557 kilometers of damaged roads.”

There are 9 working groups involved in the rescue mission:

“Emergency Management and Relief Provision Group, Masses’ Livelihood Group, Seismic Monitoring Group, Sanitation and Epidemic Prevention Group, Propaganda Group, Production Restoration Group, Safeguarding Infrastructure and Post-Disaster Reconstruction Group, Water Resources Group, and the Public Order Group.”

The Times (14 May 2008 - ‘China Races to Save Quake Victims’) also has this account of the military involvement in the rescue mission:

“On the streets of Dujiangyan the rescue troops are ubiquitous. Military vehicles are lined up, and People's Armed Police and People's Liberation Army soldiers, kitted out in crisp, matching green camouflage, are battling rain and rubble as they try to reach trapped survivors and control emotional crowds.”

The response from the top leadership in Beijing were also sweep and decisive. This is how Wikipedia described the rescue effort:

“President Hu Jintao announced that the disaster response would be rapid. Just 90 minutes after the earthquake, Premier Wen Jiabao, who has an academic background in geomechanics, flew to the earthquake area to oversee the rescue work. Soon afterward, China's Health Ministry said that it had sent ten emergency medical teams to Wenchuan County in southwest China's Sichuan Province. On the same day, China's Chengdu Military Area Command dispatched 50,000 troops and armed police to help with disaster relief work in Wenchuan County.”

Not long after the quake, the Chinese government begin to announce an eight-year reconstruction plan, which targets 2008-2010 for immediate recovery and 2011-2015 for long-term economic reconstruction. (International labour Organisation, 12 Oct 2009)

Within 16 months of the massive earthquake, Premier Wen Jiabao already re-visited the quake zone 8 times (This is the report of his 8th visit by the Hong Kong’s media, Ifeng news, 27 Sept 2009 in Chinese language).

A year later, China government released a report in regards to the progress of the rebuilding effort covering a wide range of issues and statistics including the reconstruction of schools, hospitals and residential building; the variety of assistance given to the farmer who lost their land, people who lost their home, old people who lost their children, children who lost their parents and people who became handicap; and the issue with employment, etc. (Detail in Ifeng News in Chinese language, 7 May 2009).

The Time’s journalist, Austin Ramzy has a personal account of the quake zone after 6 months as follows (The Time, 19 January 2010) :

“I went back to Sichuan six months after the catastrophe and was amazed at the speed of physical and economic recovery. In Dujiangyan, the largest city in the quake zone, the rubble and tent cities had disappeared. The jumble of debris was replaced by piles of new bricks, lumber and other construction materials. There was a building boom across the region, and dozens of temporary villages were erected to house the 5 million people who were rendered homeless by the quake. The prefab housing was made out of blue aluminum siding lined with Styrofoam insulation. It had concrete floors and was arranged in neat rows in flat spots at the bases of the mountains. Conditions weren't luxurious, but the camps were clean and the housing dry and fairly warm.”

“I found no evidence of homelessness, though there were reports of people in the mountains who refused to spend their rebuilding funds and chose to remain in tents.”

“In 2008 the government said it would spend $176 billion on reconstruction by 2011. (The total recovery cost is estimated at $250 billion.) As of last June it had already spent more than $50 billion. Some of the expenses have been shouldered by other parts of China. Twenty provinces have set aside 1% of fiscal revenues for two years to help rebuild Sichuan.”

In fact, the kind of care the Chinese government extended to its citizens in needs has gone beyond financial aids and the reconstruction of buildings and infrastructures, their care for the people has extended to areas such as: “paid for group weddings and plan to hold a matchmaking fair.” (The Guardian, 11 May 2009 - A year on from the Chinese earthquake, love flourishes amid ruins of Sichuan)

In fact, the center of the quake begin from a village where the Tibetan’s live, and what the Australian media did not tell us, is how China assisted their minority to rebuilt their lives. I will have a special article on this issue at an appropriate time with the title: “Minority Policy—China Vs. Australia”.

Editorial comment: The above is not a definition of democracy. Although democratic governments are more likely to listen to and care for citizens in need, there is no reason, in principle, why undemocratic governments, such as the Chinese Government can't do the same on occasions.

Purpose of this article

The purpose of writing this article is to use actual examples of how the three governments (US, Australia and China) handled a major natural disaster to demonstrate one fundamental truth: That is, the world has yet to find a perfect political system. All forms of government have their strengths and weaknesses. For the sake of humanity, countries should learn from each other's successful experience to improve.

Unfortunately, in Australia, despite the fact that we have daily news about China, our media failed to tell the Australian public of the massive human rights achievement China made to the more than 5 million people who lost their home in the 2008 Earthquake.]

Conclusion: Democracy Needs Reform

Editorial comment: Yes, 'democracy' such as it exists in the USA and Australia is in bad need of reform, but it needs to e reformed to make it truly open and accountable. To, instead, 'reform' 'democracy' in the way that the author seems to be imply that it should be is only likely to make the consequences of any future natural disasters in either of those two countries even worse.

Theoretically, democracy is supposed to bring about caring leaderships with the assumption of “from the people, by the people and for the people”. In practice, this may not be the case as the above three examples demonstrated. Why?

Have we become complacent and obsessed with Winston Churchill's assessment of democracy in 1947?

“Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

Is there any room for improvement? For examples, I believe it is fair to ask the following questions:

1) Has our current form of democratic process produced leaders with the right attitude, mindset and ability to care for people in need?

2) If not, what should we do to overcome those system deficiencies?

3) Would it be a good idea to introduce the element of socialist philosophy into our democratic process? How?

4) Should we regard the inability of a government to care for their citizens in need as a human rights issue?

The 2009 International Monetary Fund (IMF) report rank China 98 (USD3,678) out of 180 countries based on its per capital GDP, Australia ranked 11 (USD45,587) and USA 9 (USD46,381). However, why did China out-perform the two much richer countries in terms of caring for their citizens in need?

If democracy is defined as government ‘listening and caring for their citizens in need’, I believe, China has no doubt achieved this goal. How?

I will continue to write a series of articles using the heading ‘Democracy Needs Reform’ before moving into the area of analysing the solutions. Unfortunately, I was banned by the Australian Media as an accredited Journalist from enjoying my membership due to my political view, so I reckon, most Australians would have to be happy with The Age contributing editor assessment that: “Australia is better than USA.”

However, my up coming article, ‘Democracy Needs Reform—Australia Voters Facing a Basket of Rotten Apples’ may provide some insight into why both Australia and US’s governments failed to care for their people in needs during the Bush Fires in Victoria and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Editorial comment: The above is true of Australia and the US, but, even if the Chinese Government handled its natural disaster better than did those two 'democracies' handle theirs, not a good enough reason to 'reform' their systems of government to be like the even less democratic Chinese system.

Written by www.outcastjournalist.com

Authorities are bracing in northern Australia for an influx of protesters representing Gouldian finch societies and breeders throughout the globe. Police fear a repeat of last years bloodbath when Mitchell hopping mouse advocates protested against further degradation of the marsupials habitat in South Australia.

Lovers of the popular aviary finch are incensed at the inaction of Australian governments in protecting what little habitat remains for the endangered bird. Gouldian finch societies from Australia, the USA, South Africa and many European countries have banded together to raise awareness of the damage that pastoral activities and modern fire regimes are doing to the birds habitat.

Australian Gouldian Finch Society spokesperson Terry Anderson has made an emotional plee to the Australian public to help fight for the remaining Gouldian finch habitat:

“There are only 2500 of these beautiful birds left in the wild…. All Australians have a responsibility to prevent this species from becoming extinct in its natural environment and we are here to remind them of that responsibility”

Police in Katherine, NT are expecting hundreds of protestors and are expected to use a zero tolerance policy after similar protests in South Australia last year resulted in 15 arrests and several police officers injured. Sgt Mackey of NT police states:

“Whilst the 2009 confrontations with South Australian police were instigated by breeders and owners of Mitchell’s hopping mice fighting for habitat protection… we must anticipate that the Gouldian Finch people are capable of the same emotionally driven violence that have made the hopping mouse advocates a household name”

Wildlife advocacy groups and other critics of Gouldian finch breeders claim that dwindling finch numbers are due in no small part to the aviary trade and poaching continues to be a problem as demand for the finch increases. Furthermore they claim that breeding of the finch involves colour and behaviour selection that does not mimic wild Gouldian finch populations. Terry Anderson refutes these claims:

“They’re just nit picking. If the Gouldian becomes extinct in the wild, we are the ones they will come running to”

Outspoken supporter of keeping native animals as pets Prof Mike Archer was (unusually) unavailable for comment.

Fair Water Use (Australia)

Media Release
6th September 2010

Italy has national referendum on water privatisation

Recent legislation to privatise water services in Italy has met with staunch public resistance and a well-organised national campaign, resulting in the tabling of a petition of around 1.5 million signatures from citizens opposed to this legislation - three times as many as are required to call a referendum on the issue.

Paris: Water back in public hands

Paolo Carsetti of the Forum Italiano dei Movimenti per l'Acqua has pointed out that even the City of Paris has removed control of water supply from the private sector, "when Paris had been the heart of the empire of water multinationals such as Suez and Veolia."

Australia: Privatisation by stealth is occurring

Citing the Australian activities of these and other off-shore companies such as Olam International, Summit Global, the Guinness-Peat Group and Water Asset Management, Ian Douglas, national coordinator of public water rights and environmental advocacy group, Fair Water Use, indicated today, "Unlike the Italian scenario, in Australia the process of water privatisation has been one of stealth; the vast majority of Australians are unaware that, as a direct result of the so-called 'water-reform' policies of successive state and federal governments, Australia is handing control of its water resources, and the uses to which our water is put, to private entities whose only interest is maximising the financial returns of their shareholders."

Vital to keep public spotlight on what is happening

"Having dragged the issue into the open, Fair Water Use will do all possible to ensure that it remains in the public arena and will continue its campaign to let the people of Australia decide their water future: not inept administrations or self-serving speculators", he continued.

Demand democracy

 Dr Douglas concluded, "The Italian public will now have the opportunity to voice its opinion on water privatisation via national plebiscite: Australians deserve the right to do the same".

Authorised by:

Ginny Brown

Media Coordinator
media [AT] fairwateruse.com.au

Fair Water Use (Australia)

+61 (0)8 8398 0812 / (0)4 1602 2178

PO Box 384, Balhannah, South Australia 5242

www.fairwateruse.com.au

Into Oblivion Report

See full article at:-
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/20-years-left-mammals-plunge-into-extinction-20100901-14nmz.html

Very sad that all of these species that have evolved over millions of years surviving bush fires, ice ages, rising sea levels and hunters and in a few short decades will be gone forever. In the Kimberleys there isn't even the threat of development and roads as we have around the coastal areas.

The report quotes the researcher John Woinarsky as saying ''Twenty years ago we would go out and it would be a bonanza of native animals. Now we hardly catch anything - it's silent.''

What are Governments Doing about This Situation?

Governments are well aware that we have the world's worst record for species extinction and 2010 is the Year of Biodiversity yet what is changing? Not a lot.

On the 4th September 2010 I attended a lecture by Shane Ruming of Dept. Environment, Climate Change and Water in the Tweed Shire council building. He presented an impressive slide show outlining the Biodiversity Management Plan for the Border Ranges and Northern Rivers. The purpose of this plan is to conserve the rainforest and its species (see http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/publications/recovery/border-ranges/ ) The emphasis was on removing invasive weeds to help the native species survive. But will they? DECCW did not address roadkill reduction methods nor the need to curtail domesticated cats and dogs from roaming. For that you have to go to another Plan.

Tweed Council is not doing enough to address roadkill or cats and dogs that are abandoned and left to fend for themselves in the bush. A friend of mine reported 30-40 cats abandoned on a property yet council refused to act. Another neighbour of hers is breeding dingoes with German Shepherds and letting them run in the bush and council again refuses to do anything about this individual.

In an attempt to control the devastating impact on native animals by feral dogs, council is laying 1080 baits on council land and landholders are delivered 1080 baits free on request. Is 1080 good for the environment? Hardly. This poison is banned in almost every country of the world except Australia and New Zealand and virtually outlawed in the US since 1972, 1080 should be outlawed in Australia, not only for its cruelty but also because we simply do not know what might be the long term effects of continually pouring substantial amounts of this poison into the environment.
.
Nor is it a humane death for the animals unfortunate enough to consume it (lace monitors, bandicoots, birds). In fact it is extremely inhumane with animals taking many days to die painfully (see http://www.wlpa.org/1080_poison.htm )

Then there is the question of trail bikes - in spite of numerous complaints some of the audience noted that no fines were given to neighbours driving these environmentally destructive and stress-inducing vehicles.

DECCW was generous enough to have a stack of free books each with a CD in the back. The acknowledgement page credits hundreds of people for contributing to the plan so it must have cost quite a bit of money to produce.

The detail and complexity of analysis in this plan backed by many pages of references was impressive and staggering to any layman.

However, being a simpleton I decided to raise my hand and ask one question:

'I appreciate you have actions that you are taking, but can you explain in practical terms exactly WHAT is DECCW doing to implement this Plan?

After more mumbo jumbo skirting around the issue and generally evading what I thought was a clear question, he asked me if that answered my question to which I replied with an utterly puzzled and shocked expression on my face while shaking my head. At that point the whole room burst into hands waving in the air with more questions in a similar vein. Within minutes the speaker realised he was way out of his depth and utterly lost. Perhaps he was not warned that the local residents in this, the most biodiverse parts of NSW if not Australia, were extremely passionate about protecting their environment and frustrated at the lack of local council and government support.

Just last year we barely survived a World Championship Rally tearing through our National Parks, World Heritage areas where endangered species and vulnerable koalas were trying to breed in peace.

And earlier this year the boxing gloves were out once again to try and stop our local council putting a dam in Byrrill Creek where 45 threatened and endangered species' homes would be destroyed. We are still waiting for the decision on this one.

Another battle we have been fighting is trying to stop a major development on the coast providing homes for 80,000 people in the largest remaining koala colony in Tweed Shire. This proposed development has no provision for overpasses, underpasses or exclusion fences on the proposed six-lane freeways to protect any koalas trying to connect to other areas of their territory. It would permit residents to own dogs and plans to build a golf course in the area where the koalas are supposed to live (as if carcinogenic, neurotoxic sprays on the grass are going to help them survive much longer).

In the last year we have seen four historic trees all over 100 years old felled by council, some of them healthy trees, some of them damaged by council workers. Recently a 116 fig tree at Chinderah Tavern has become the subject of another potential tree felling due to a very heavy cactus growing on one of the branches and causing it to fall. A national champion tree arborist examined the tree and said it is perfectly healthy and did a sit in when the chain saws arrived last week which drew media exposure and more protesters. Meanwhile the tavern proprietors claim it is unhealthy and must get the hench. And so the fight goes on.

We are tired, very tired and burned out. Every week there is Landcare and replanting trees, endless meetings for No Rally Group, Wildlife Carers, Environment and Greens groups, Team Koala, Water Options Group, fund-raising groups and Community Voice to develop new candidates for the next council elections on top of submissions to write for plans on public exhibition, speeches to write to present to council at community access, attending council meetings every month and writing letters to the Editor of local newspapers. Oh and did I mention we are not paid for our efforts?

So it would have been good to hear Mr Ruming say that our good government Department of Environment was going to use funds to actually DO something to help our biodiversity.

Finally, Mr Ruming confessed that DECCW was in fact not planning to implement this plan and that it was up to local groups, individual citizens

(yes, us exhausted, overworked, ageing, unpaid residents!)

to put pressure on councils to apply for funding to actually do something. It wouldn't be so bad if councils and governments actually listened to us but the sad fact is they rarely do. The result is that all of this drags on for so long and meanwhile .... day by day ... our species become extinct.

It seems to me, and I could be wrong, that since DECCW has the funding shouldn't THEY be doing the actions instead of passing the buck to councils, other government departments and ultimately us, the unpaid plebs?

Enlisting Tweed Shire Council

In another desperate attempt to get some action from Tweed council on the 5th August I wrote to the Biodiversity officer. Following is my letter:-

It was very helpful for me to talk to you the other week and again my apologies for taking so much of your precious time.

You said you were open to any ideas of how TSC could help biodiversity, and I appreciate your sincerity. So here are some ideas:-

1. As you know many animals are killed on the road. I realise it's not physically possible to put underpasses on existing roads but overpasses should be possible. For example on Kyogle Rd past Uki there is a great deal of roadworks going on with bush on either side where wildlife would inhabit. Are there going to be any overpasses included in roadworks there? These may be outside your domain i.e. transport authority so please let me know if so and who to contact. Simple animal crossings could be constructed of roap configured as a ladder as possums, bandicoots and koalas would traverse that. This is something that would not cost very much money and could be implemented widely without too much disruption to traffic.

See *http://velocity.ansto.gov.au/velocity/ans0011/article_02.asp*

2. Purchase a building to be used as a wildlife hospital and pay specialist wildlife vets and staff to work there 24/7. At present carers have to drive to Currumbin which is costing a lot in petrol and stressing out the injured animal unnecessarily. Yes this would cost a lot but didn't TSC receive a large biodiversity grant? It appears most of the funding is being used on bush regen and control of Indian Myna birds. TSC is spending millions of dollars on other programs, why not wildlife? It is worth a lot to the shire due to our ecotourism industry which is growing, but not if we lose them all due to roadkill!

3. Supplement wildlife carers for any costs incurred in rehabilitating injured animals (food, veterinary fees, medications, petrol, equipment). I realise this has never been done before but since many carers are on a pension they often sacrifice their own food requirements to look after the animals or buy a cheap type of food that is not good for the animal instead of buying the best food for them. Alternately, carers work full-time which limits their ability to care for wildlife. I have come across injured wildlife at midnight only to find that no carers wanted to help as they had to get up early to go to work.

4. The other problem is dogs, not just feral dogs but also dogs owned by people who let them run wherever they want on their property in the bush, especially at night. Could there be signs along rural roads as to what the fine is should people be found to let their dogs roam? This would serve as a perpetual education for locals. A better solution for people with dogs (and cats) would be to have dog and cat runs where the animal could run around in an area and be in the elements day and night if they chose to be or come into a sheltered area such as a house. These runs could be constructed of recycled materials by people working for the 'dole.' If runs weren't so expensive I am sure more people would have them as they want their animal to be happy and safe versus being locked up all the time.

5. It's good you are having more road signs urging people to slow down at dawn and dusk in order to avoid hitting wildlife. As I mentioned, many people are unaware of the possible presence of joeys in marsupials' pouches and if they were better educated more people might stop to check. Could there be an ongoing education of the community via Tweed Link?

That is just a few ideas for now. Please let me know if you think any of these are feasible.

Five weeks passed and no reply. The officer was at the DECCW lecture I described above so I said hello and he apologised for not answering, explaining that he passed my email around to other officers for comment. Apparently they nixed the idea of rope overpasses for koalas claiming they didn't work. I pointed out that they do work for possums and other animals however. His comment "Ah but possums aren't a threatened species."

That is exactly the attitude that is causing 'sleeper species' (today's common species that become tomorrow's extinct species - coined to by Dan Ramp, ecologist from University of N.S.W.). The most common animal I see killed on the roads is bandicoot, followed by possums and snakes. Even wallabies are seen more and more rarely as threats from habitat loss, cars, packs of feral dogs and stress take their toll.

This same officer responded to a question from the audience about logging that was supposedly happening in koala territory, Reserve Creek, Round Mountain. Whether it is or not, his response mystified me - "Logging is the least of my worries when it comes to koalas".

Hello, koalas live in trees, trees being felled often with them in it with no attempt made to remove them first, killing them. Funny, I thought ecologists agreed that habitat loss (which would include tree felling) is the #1 threat to koalas? With less than 200 koalas estimated to be left in the shire shouldn't we be doing everything possible to save every single one?

While we can say that every tree counts, every animal counts too, whether it is threatened or not because a vibrant and healthy ecosystem depends on having as many players as possible. The more native animals, the more manure (the good kind, not nitrogen loaded cow manure) for the soil. The better the soil, the more plants. The more plants, the more oxygen. The more oxygen, the better environment for humans to live in. Additionally, the more fauna the fewer insects which would raze our crops and make our lives miserable, forcing us to use carcinogenic chemicals that in the end kill us too.

Summary

If there was real community engagement on the part of DECCW or Tweed Shire Council, they would be coming to us and asking us, the people on the ground, what are the issues and how can we find solutions instead of spending possibly millions of dollars on elaborate power point presentations, publications, CDs and websites. Then our wildlife MIGHT have a chance. All that money could instead be put to immediate use with constructive results or better yet, paid to locals who have invested hundreds of hours compiling reports UNPAID for their services.

The gross inequity of this (distribution of funds being given only to those employed by government while expecting citizens do much of the work) is abuse of democracy of the worst kind. Further insult is heaped on top of that because while governments have the funds to implement actions and the ability to make laws that are necessary to protect our environment, they refuse to do so effectively and thus we are forced to watch with broken hearts our dying native species.

What a travesty.

One of our CanDoBetter commenters, 'RichB', has highlighted the site Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. This is a visionary site! The movement seems to have gone to some considered endeavour to explore the issues. I like the question toward the bottom of the site:

'What will the world be like when our population starts getting smaller?'

As more globally-aware people begin to question the 20th Century 'growth-only' tenet, alternative ideals such a 'Low Population Planet', deserve to be considered and debated. But where to start?

One practical moral campaign that would immediately start curbing the out-of-control human birth explosion would be to lobby against the funding requests of charities supporting countries that have high birth rates. Now before readers jump to questionning the morality of this, this is not to stop funding emergency life support needs, but to make non-life-support funding conditional on recipient self-change.

These are some dominant charities in this field.

* UNICEF

* World Vision
* Feed the Children

* Save the Children

* Food4Africa

While it would be callous to allow people to die from hunger and malnutrition, the charity donation system seems to only perpetuate welfare subsistence and not address overpopulation poverty in undeveloped countries. For time immemorial, the starving of Africa and India have been dumped on our television screens to make us feel guilty.

Why has the problem not been resolved since television was invented and before?
The starving message has become a cliché to the point that it has become a permanent human condition. This is unacceptable. The charity system needs overhaul.

Charities need to be held accountable for fixing the problem not perpetuating it.
Donations need to be channelled through independent organisations that require conditional offerings. Donations can end up anywhere and do, like in arms purchases. The charity donations must stop and be replaced with:

1. Physical shipments of emergency food, shelter and medical supplies

2. Conditional relief funding linked to population control measures - family planning and birth control measures should be advocated - female education, contraception, changing cultural traditions of excess children (more than 2), and UNHCR funded free and professional male vasectomies. Perhaps even a free dwelling could be offered to male heads of families that undertake vasectomy and have only two children. Think of this as an incentive in impoverished countries!

On issues of fundamental cultural change, financial carrots seem more effective and ethical than punitive sticks.

Until then those donating should boycott charities until donations are conditional on and accountable for birth control.

As for wealthy developed nations with high birth rates, they have the financial means to address their own population excesses. Any country over 3% annual growth rate is irresponsible and so a target priority.

According to Nation Master website, the top 20 highest ranked developed countries by population growth rate are:

We should refer to them as the G20 - 'The Greedy 20'.

Rank Country Growth Rate (2008)
1 Maldives: 5.566%
2 United Arab Emirates: 3.833%
69 Saudi Arabia: 1.954%
81 Malaysia: 1.742%
82 Israel: 1.713%
107 Bahrain: 1.337%
114 Australia: 1.221%
116 Luxembourg: 1.188%
124 Ireland: 1.133%
131 New Zealand: 0.971%
137 United States: 0.883%
139 Canada: 0.83%
140 South Africa: 0.828%
144 Iceland: 0.783%
151 Liechtenstein: 0.713%
153 Thailand: 0.64%
154 China: 0.629%
156 France: 0.574%
160 Hong Kong: 0.532%
165 Netherlands: 0.436%

These wealthy countries extravagantly impose a selfish disproportionate burden on the planet's capacity. They have wealth capacity and as global citizens and members of the UN, have an obligation to pay a Greedy Population Levy to fund underdeveloped countries in controlling their excess population growth. The wealthy with an excess problem need to be supporting the poor with am excess problem, because the poor do not have the means to do it themselves. Let's make it means tested and charge say 0.01% of each countries GDP.

As for those poor displaced peoples caused by civil unrest and arms conflict, why does not the UN with the support of developed nations impose a 10% levy on each item of weaponry sold globally, so that the revenue is channelled to allow the UNHCR manage humanitarian and peace-keeping operations for the civilians affected?

International arms sales is the world's largest and richest discretionary industry. It can easily afford such a levy.

A case in point is the plight of millions of Yemeni refugees having fled civil conflict and currently starving in al-Mazraq camp, Yemen:

'Millions of Yemenis starving as donors fail to meet pledges, says UN'

• £70m needed this year and next to feed poor and hungry
• Traditional donors, including Britain, have yet to offer aid

Canadians respond to Australian Mischaracterization of Canada

LTE editor, Sydney Morning Herald

Re: "Canadians have successfully managed a similar swelling in population numbers", by Josephine Tovey (SMH June 29/2010)

It would come as a surprise to most Canadians that we have coped well with the addition of 13 million consumers since 1970. Yet with trans-oceanic vision, Professor Peter MacDonald, sounding less like a demographer and more like a growth-obsessive economist with rose-coloured glasses, confidently asserts that to be the case. In fact it is not.

At least three government-funded studies---Report number 25 from the Science Council of Canada, a 1990 report from the Privy Council and the damning Healey report of 1997----all documented the devastation wrought by population growth on our arable land and ecosystems. Our largest cities are bursting at the seams with congestion, smog, overloaded infrastructure and unaffordable real estate. Built-up development pressures have overwhelmed urban boundaries and claimed 20% of our best farmland for housing to accommodate a largely foreign-born demand. According to Ontario Farmlands Trust, Ontario alone lost some 600,000 acres of prime farmland in the decade following 1996.

Strict land use planning is typically touted as the panacea for this runaway population growth, but smart growth strategies have been a proven failure. The reality is, as York University Professor Robert MacDermid established in his report on municipal campaign financing in 2009, civic election campaigns are essentially bankrolled by corporate money, most of it from the same developers responsible for the cascading sprawl. The local planning department is, for all intents and purposes, a branch plant of the real estate industry. No wonder that the folks who underwrite home purchases, like the CEO of our goliath Royal Bank of Canada, Gordon Nixon, have lobbied for an immigration quota 50% higher than its current stratospheric level. More homebuyers, more profits. And the ecological costs can be expiated by discreet donations to high profile environmental NGOs like Nature Conservancy Canada or the David Suzuki Foundation, which naturally, have nothing to say about the negative environmental impact of mass immigration nor about the morality of accepting corporate donations.

Tovey and MacDonald have it dead wrong. In Canada we have not managed growth. Growth has managed us.

Tim Murray
VP Biodiversity First
Quathiaski Cove, BC
Canada V0P 1N0

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Re "Canada's Experience" dated June 29, 2010:

Josephine Tovey claims that Canada is some kind of success story for having gone from a population of 21 million in 1970 to 35 million today. She is roughly correct in saying that Canada's population has grown, but she and demographer Peter McDonald should be very careful about saying that any country's population increase (Canada's or Australia's in particular) should be characterized as a "sucess story".

Canada and Australia are similar in some respects: both are large areas of land, but Nature has imposed severe limitations on them. Both have huge desert areas : Canada's is in its north ; Australia's is in its Interior. In addition to desert, remember that almost 40% of Canada is north of the 60th Parallel and has to deal with extreme cold and 8 to 10 month long winters. Remember also that Canada, in contrast to Australia, has a river system in its Interior and that that system, in part, has enabled Canada to support its population increase.

The question Ms. Tovey should ask is this : Why should any country have a larger population? Canadians who have lived in southern British Columbia and Southern Ontario, the areas of Canada that have experienced high population growth, will tell you that those places have not been "improved" by bringing in more people. In fact, they are "full". In support of that claim, Ontario's Environment Commissioner has stated that Southern Ontario does not have the water to support the planned population increase there and that its river systems cannot handle the wastes from that population.

Ms. Tovey should note that in 1976, Canada's federal government asked The Science Council of Canada, Canada's most eminent scientists, to make recommendations about an optimum population for Canada and how Canada could best use its land base and its resources for itself and for its role in the world. That group stated that Canada had to discard two myths about itself One was that its large land base meant that it could take unlimited numbers of people. To help end that misconception, it recommended that Canada restrict immigration and stabilize its population at roughly what it is now. The other myth was that Canada had infinite resources. To assist in ending that myth, it produced rsearch to show that Canada had a finite resource supply and that it should take measures to protect those resources, particularly its farm land. It recommended that since there were few food-exporting countries in a world with an increasing population, Canada should concentrate on becoming a major food exporter.

Since then, Canada's real estate and immigration industries have convinced our federal government to ignore much of what The Science Council recommended. As a result, Canada has lost huge amounts of the country's best farmland in southern Ontario to immigration-driven housing development.

One event precipitated that loss. Canada's Progressive Conservative Party began an immigration intake policy of 240,000 in 1990, contrary to the advice they had been given that immigration produced alomost no economic benefits and that it would not solve aging population issues. As senseless and incredible as it may sound, Canada's Immigration Minister in 1990 stated she was raising immigration levels (which were around 85,000 when her gov't took office) in order that the Progressive Conservative Party could compete with its rival, the Liberal Party, for the immigrant vote. Even more incredibly, that policy has been virtually institutionalized and all of Canada's federal political parties now support it. Over 5 million immigrants have entered Canada since then. They are responsible for around 70% of Canada's population increase.

In other words, Canada has regularized population insanity. Contrary to what demographer Peter McDonald says, Canada is falling into "a big heap". Canada's immigrant visible minority has become the proverbial tail that wags the dog. Immigrant advocacy groups and their converts parade around the country evangelizing for the Religion of Diversity. The reality is that according to one academic, immigration has become a huge economic drag of over $20 Billion a year. According to many others, immigration-driven population growth is transforming many areas of Canada into a virtual social and environmental disaster-in-progress.

If Australia thinks Canada is a "success story" to imitate, then go ahead. See you in the asylum !!

Dan Murray
Immigration Watch Canada
www.immigrationwatchcanada.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Josephine Tovey's June 29th article leaves readers with the impression that
Canada has successfully "managed" the addition of 14 million people during
the last 40 years, the implication being that Australians need not worry
about their own population ballooning out to 36 million if, per Peter
MacDonald, they manage it properly. Ms. Tovey does not seem to have
consulted anyone about the cost of this rampant population growth.

A report released in March by the Toronto Board of Trade said that the
estimated round-trip commutes in that city now average 80 minutes, longer
than commutes in London, New York, and Los Angeles, and cost Canada more
than $5 billion a year. Gridlock also afflicts Canada's other large cities,
many of which are unable to maintain the infrastructure to keep up with
growth and suffer a decreasing environmental quality. The Ontario Medical
Association estimates that there are close to 6000 premature deaths and
17,000 hospital admissions in Ontario each year caused by smog. Canada's
growing cities are devouring not only the greenspace that makes them
liveable but the agricultural land that feeds them. According to a 2005
Statistics Canada publication, about one-half of Canada's urbanized land
sits on dependable agricultural land, and some 14,300 square kilometres of
dependable agricultural land have been converted to urban uses.

What about water? A 1991 advisory document to the Privy Council of Canada
says: "Canada is endowed with vast water resources, but with 90 percent of
its population concentrated within a band up to 100 miles of the USA border,
water resources in these areas are already being utilized to their fullest.
Polluted water has become an everyday concern." Most newcomers to Canada
come from countries with much lower per capita energy consumption levels and
consequently substantially increase their greenhouse gas production in their
new country (not to mention their consumption of other resources). Canada's
rapidly growing population has prevented it from meeting any of its targets
for greenhouse gas reduction. Population growth and development has also
taken a tremendous toll on Canada's ecosystems. The number of endangered
species in Canada, as elsewhere in the world, goes up each year. Of the 428
species of birds that regularly breed in Canada, 60 are in danger of
extinction. As the collapse of its cod fishery has shown, Canada's resources
are not inexhaustible.

And what of the much vaunted economic benefits that population growth has
allegedly brought Canada? Economist Herb Grubel calculated that recent
immigrants cost the Canadian government about $18 billion (Canadian dollars)
more in services than they pay in taxes each year. According to Statistics
Canada census data from 2006, the median earnings of Canadians (in
inflation-adjusted 2005 dollars) increased by a negligible 0.1% between 1980
and 2005, while the earnings of the poorest fifth actually fell by a
sizeable 20%. But the "doors wide open" immigration policy, initiated in
1990, that has ramped up Canada's population growth in recent decades has
brought economic benefits to some. The 2006 StatsCan census data shows that
the real earnings of the richest fifth of Canadians increased by 16%. Among
those, one can be sure, would be developers who profit from building houses
and bankers who profit from the mortgages, some business interests
benefiting from cheap labour, as well as the "immigration industry."
Politicians seek both to please corporate interests and gain the votes of
newcomers by maintaining mass immigration, come boom or recession. Given
that those who benefit from growth also tend to be the ones who own the
media, it is perhaps not surprising that the costs of immigration have
received so little coverage in the Canadian media.

Canada is a land rich in resources, which has enabled it delay paying the
price for its wasteful pursuit of growth. That does not make it a good
manager. Canada should not be seen as a "growth-managing" role model for
Australia. On the contrary, by virtue of the fact that Australia is having a
public discussion about growth, it is a role model for Canada, where the
media still spout the corporate party line that growth is good and more is
better.

Madeline Weld
President, Population Institute of Canada
www.populationinstituteofcanada.ca
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Original article:
Sydney Morning Herald
June 29, 2010

Canadians have successfully managed a similar swelling in population numbers. Josephine Tovey explains five things Australia must do to cope with an extra 14 million people.

How does a Western country used to low-density living, with an abundance of space but little arable land, create liveable cities while undergoing a population explosion from about 20 million people to 36 million in 40 years?

That is the conundrum now vexing Australia. But Canada has undergone that change in the last 40 years and it is one that experts in population and urban planning say Australia could handle too, if the growth is well managed.

''Canada didn't fall in a big heap because its population went from 22 to 35 million,'' Professor Peter McDonald, director of the Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, said.

Its population has grown from about 21 million people in 1970 to almost 35 million today - roughly the same rate of growth projected by federal Treasury between now and 2050 for Australia.

Coping with such growth comes down to long-term planning and attention to key areas, Professor McDonald said. These include creating mass transit systems for expanding cities, providing housing where it is needed, addressing environmental needs like water, food and energy, and directing infrastructure into smaller towns that can share the population growth.

Canada's population is spread across a lot of medium-sized cities -more than 33 have a population above 100,000, but only one, Toronto, has a population of more than 5 million.

Public transport
''One of the problems people have with higher densities is that it does produce more traffic and parking problems,'' said urban planner Dr Garry Glazebrook. ''It will, unless we shift some of our travel out of cars.''

Housing
Providing affordable housing will require a mix of high- and medium-density infill, as well as new homes on greenfield sites. ''There will be a strong demand for medium- and high-density housing,'' said Professor Peter McDonald, particularly from migrants.

Water
Better water savings measures, such as low water use toilets and showers, are needed, says Grant Leslie, the manager of the Water Services Association of Australia. Desalination plants, new dams and water recycling plants were also part of the solution, he said.

Energy
Homes and businesses will need to become smarter with their energy use. ''Many areas of our economy use much less energy … that's a matter of replacing more of our fossil energy sources with renewable sources,'' said demographer, Professor Graeme Hugo.

Redistribution
Targeting infrastructure at rural and coastal communities that can sustain high employment is important in managing growth around the country, said Professor McDonald. ''The important thing is investing in smaller places you think are going to be successful.''
http://www.smh.com.au/national/canadas-experience-20100628-zf9r.html

Fri 7 May 2010

By Frosty Wooldridge

You may join the discussion and debate around the world on overpopulation!

Australia heats up by the day as it overpopulates itself into demographic consequences that grow irreversible and unsolvable. No rational country wants to follow in the footsteps of China, India, Bangladesh or Mexico. But the USA, Canada, Great Britain and Australia follow in the same tracks!

After having cycled the entire perimeter of Australia, I can tell you firsthand that it contains 96 percent desert. It lacks carrying capacity for the 21 million living there today. Yet, Kevin Rudd and other ‘growthist’ continue to immigrate Australia into a demographic nightmare. What few understand but must come to terms with: the third world grows by 77 million people net gain annually. No matter how many flee those countries to first world countries, the line never ends, and in fact, grows beyond solving. At some point soon, as Roy Beck of www.NumbersUSA.com said, “Human beings must live where they are planted and change their societies for the better where they were born.”

Thankfully, more and more Australians speak up. This past year, they launched Population Speak-outs. Tim Murray in Canada along with Madeline Weld work for the same speak-outs:www.immigrationwatchcanada.org. In this country, Bill Ryerson at www.populationmedia.org and Dave Paxson at www.worldpopulationbalance.org give you the power to make your voices heard. In California see

In Australia PublicPopForum; in Great Britain www.optimumpopulation.org ; and dozens of other sites accessed at www.frostywooldridge.com.

“The debate on population growth in Australia is really taking off,” said Tim Murray. “Thanks to the efforts of grass roots activists like Sheila Newman, Jill Quirk, James Sinnammon, Mary Drost, Mark O'Connor and several others, luminaries in academia and politics have been able to step forward and make the case to stabilize and reverse runaway growth. Finally the media, most especially ABC radio, has to acknowledge the groundswell and open doors. One must envy the array of talent available to the population stabilization movement in Australia, and marvel at their progress. They are showing us the way. Take a look at this: candobetter.org/node/1995.
Lesson: We can make it happen here too. But it takes a lot of spade work and persistence.”

“The raging monster upon the land is population growth. In its presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical construct. To say, as many do, that the difficulties of nations are not due to people but to poor ideology and land-use management is sophistic.”

If you have further questions, please ask at my personal email:frostyw[AT]juno.com

If any of us, no matter what our race, creed or color might be, refuse to engage our U.S. Congress as we have not for 30 years as to the population/immigration equation—our children will find themselves living in a terribly degraded America where the American Dream will be described by the history books as a ‘fleeting fantasy’ from the era of 1950 to 2010.

These are several of the top organizations where you can take collective action to change the course of American history as well as in Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. Take collective action at
www.numbersusa.com ; www.fairus.org ; www.capsweb.org ; www.thesocialcontract.com ; www.populationmedia.org ; www.worldpopulationbalance.org ; www.populationconnection.org ; www.quinacrine.com ; www.familyplanning.org/ , www.skil.org ; www.growthbusters.com  ; www.populationpress.org ; www.thinkpopulation.org ; www.carryingcapacity.org ;  www.balance.org  ; www.controlgrowth.org ;  in Canada www.immigrationwatchcanada.org ; in Australia www.population.org.au and [email protected] ; in Great Britain www.optimumpopulation.org ; and dozens of other sites accessed at www.frostywooldridge.com.

At www.numbers.com"> download “Immigration by the Numbers” by Roy Beck for a succinct look at our future and how to change course.

Must see DVD: “Blind Spot” , This movie illustrates America’s future without oil, water and other resources to keep this civilization functioning. It’s a brilliant educational movie! www.blindspotdoc.com

Must see:

Rapid Population Decline, seven minute video by Dr. Jack Alpert

Must see and funny:  www.growthbusters.org ; www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXSTrW_dARc
Dave Gardner’s Polar Bear in Bedroom: growthbusters.org/2010/03/save-the-polar-bear-in-your-bedroom ; Dave Gardner, President, Citizen-Powered Media ; Producing the Documentary, GROWTH BUSTERS; presents Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity, Join the cause at www .growthbusters.org ;760 Wycliffe Drive, Colorado Springs, CO  80906  USA; +1 719-576-5565

Check out this link with Wooldridge on bicycle and Lester Brown and panel discussion

Tomorrow's America project.

Producer: GEORGE A. COLBURN

DC: 202-258-4887

Email: [email protected]

Link to more discussions on America’s predicament.

More information

Source: Australians Launch Population Speak Outs

On ABC TV Jan 28th 7.30 report the Australian PM appears to have backtracked on the idea of a "Big Australia" for which he said previously that he would make "no apology"

Are stages of governmental and media spin and treatment of forced population growth akin to the stages of grief-predictable and identifiable?

See also: "Rudd facing a Queensland backlash" by Bill Hoffman in the Sunshine Coast Daily of 30 Jan 10, "Rudd cools on a 'big Australia'" in the Age of 29 Jan 10, "Rudd on a 'big Australia'" on the 7.30 Report of 28 Jan 10, "Future Australians could face starvation: Dick Smith" on ABC online of 25 Jan 10, "Population debate needed: opposition" in the Mackay Daily Mercury of 25 Jan 10 (also published in the Shepparton News), "Poll shows Australians do not share rudd's vision for 'Big Australia'" of 10 Nov 09 by Bruce Billson MP, (former) Shadow Minister for Sustainable Development and Cities, "Population to now hit 35 million by 2049" in the Australian of 18 Sep 09.

On ABC TV Jan 28th 7.30 report the Australian PM appears to have backtracked on the idea of a "Big Australia" for which he said previously that he would make "no apology".

Are stages of governmental and media spin and treatment of forced population growth akin to the stages of grief-predictable and identifiable?

1. Most of us would be familiar with the 5 stages of GRIEF:
2. Denial (this isn't happening to me!)
3. Anger (why is this happening to me?)
4. Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...)
5. Depression (I don't care anymore)
6. Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes)

With respect to Population growth in Australia , media and government spin goes through stages too but there are twice as many of them as there are for GRIEF ! One could identify them as follows:

1. Denial-Newspaper articles and politicians talking about our population plummeting - whilst all time it climbs -( during this stage maybe 10 years ago whilst driving past a new outer suburban housing estate my innocent passenger exclaimed "but where all the people coming from?"
2. Propaganda and indoctrination - Peter Costello a prime example talking up the population and encouraging a higher birth rate - a sickening article in the Herald Sun last Friday harked back to PC 5 years ago holding 6 babies with a look of glee -reunited with 4 of them the day before, another photo and of course "no apology" in the Rudd-ian sense of the expression.
3. Recognition - Pollie rhetoric and media speak is as though amazed and surprised (after the population supposedly being in "free fall) that the population is in fact rising but no acknowledgement that this has anything to do with government policies or advertising.
4. Convincing - the public that much of what they have always held dear to them about Australia- its democratic processes , its relatively egalitarian and relaxed way of life, has to change to make way for a socially engineered higher population and overcrowding.
5. "Consultation" with the public who is having great difficulty keeping up with changes in the environment and way of life- This stage involves meetings , forums, butcher's paper and submissions to government Green Papers as the long suffering public does the work of government- trying to find the best solutions and the least damaging ways of adjusting to at least twice the rate of population growth we would otherwise have- with no guarantee, no matter how much of citizens precious time and brain power is taken up with these processes that any heed will be taken.
6. Concealment and denial of any part governments play in the cause of the problems that beset our daily lives because of rapid population growth.
7. Garnering expert opinion to support what governments are doing - pushing population growth.
8. Embracing what's happening and what the next generation will have to deal with as though it has some abstract hidden benefit ("I'm in favour of a Big Australia" Kevin Rudd).
9. Underplaying it at a dose just less than lethal (Kevin Rudd says 35 million by 2050 but if the current rate of growth continues it will be nearer to 50 million) to prepare Australian for what will be even worse.
10. Backtracking and backpedaling when it is clear that one has gone too far in force feeding this issue to an unwilling public and in the face of warnings from independent experts. (Kevin Rudd on 7.30 report).

When we reach 50 million and head on to 100 million possibly 35 years later, if the environment has not already totally collapsed we can then collectively go through the 5 stages of grief of the loss of what could have been a beautiful country to live in for both people and wild life.

See also: "Rudd facing a Queensland backlash" by Bill Hoffman in the Sunshine Coast Daily of 30 Jan 10, "Rudd cools on a 'big Australia'" in the Age of 29 Jan 10, "Rudd on a 'big Australia'" on the 7.30 Report of 28 Jan 10, "Future Australians could face starvation: Dick Smith" on ABC online of 25 Jan 10, "Population debate needed: opposition" in the Mackay Daily Mercury of 25 Jan 10 (also published in the Shepparton News), "Poll shows Australians do not share rudd's vision for 'Big Australia'" of 10 Nov 09 by Bruce Billson MP, (former) Shadow Minister for Sustainable Development and Cities, "Population to now hit 35 million by 2049" in the Australian of 18 Sep 09.

Originally published as "Community must ask who bears the cost of progress" by Dr Mark Copland of the in the Tooowoomba Chronicle of 5 Jan 10 (URL of article unkown).

This story first appeared, along with the koala photograph, in the Toowoomba Chronicle on 5 January 2010.
Story written by Dr Mark Copland

Acland - a town on death row

Late last year I took a short drive and visited the town of Acland. It was a haunting visit. Like a town on death row -- or a community on life support -- except they've already started ripping the drips and sensors from the veins before the patient is even dead. The Acland story is like the Australian movie "The Castle" -- except this one doesn't have a happy ending. It left me full of uncomfortable questions -- with far too few answers.

As people we are good at opening things. We bring in the politicians, the brass bands, the plaques and all enjoy a very civilized morning tea as we bask in the warm glow of progress. One of the many questions sitting with me as I left Acland was, "How do you close a town?" How do you honour the memories, the lives lived, the countless hours of voluntary community building given by loving citizens? It's a bit embarrassing and so we mumble something about progress once again and then just move on.

Environmental Impact Statement farce

In this process, mining companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on expert consultants who create very large documents telling us why the mine must go ahead. There is barely even the illusion of independence. The average citizen with no resources is given a few weeks to respond. The question is not will the mine go ahead -- but how can the mine go ahead?

I met one of the last men standing in Acland. Glen Beutel. Glen isn't ready to move on. And I don't blame him. Us Aussies love the glorious defeat -- Gallipoli, Ned Kelly etc. And Glen is in this tradition. By staying - he is shining a light on the farce that passes as the Environmental Impact Statement process. In this process, mining companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on expert consultants who create very large documents telling us why the mine must go ahead. There is barely even the illusion of independence. The average citizen with no resources is given a few weeks to respond. The question is not will the mine go ahead -- but how can the mine go ahead? The key word for the proponent is mitigation - how to respond to government regulations and possible community complaints. And the company gets its money's worth. If you read one of these things you would almost believe that the local environment will be enhanced with an open cut coal mine, which if all goes to plan will eventually engulf the town that once was Acland.

Koalas in Acland

I met somebody else on the road to Acland. The guy in the picture above. Last Summer our hearts went out to image of the koala burnt in the Victorian bushfires. In 1995 furry friends like this one helped to bring down the Goss government as proposed roads in South East Queensland were believed to be destroying koala habitat. And while there are even fresh water tortoises that call Acland home -- there won't be a Mary Valley Turtle to bring a halt to things a la Traveston Dam. I wonder if finding this bloke and his friends a new home is part of the planned expansion of the Acland mine. No doubt the plan will be buried somewhere in the Environmental Impact Statement.

Acland like Pandora in Avatar - Who pays for 'progress'?

A few nights ago I sat with my 3D glasses on watching the blockbuster movie Avatar. The plot is thin -- but familiar -- a colonizing power wishes to remove some Indigenous people to rip a precious mineral out of the ground. It's Hollywood where the good guys win and the baddie gets his just desserts. All the while I was watching it I had Glen Beutel and my Koala friend sitting somewhere on my shoulder. One of the serious questions that Avatar leaves the viewer with -- "Is it always necessary and right to take things out of the ground, and use them -- just because they are there?" I am sure when the Acland mine was first proposed there was never any mention of closing down a town. For me the sadness is not just the passing of the town -- but the way that it has been done. As a region we must ask the question, "What price progress -- and who will bear the cost?"

See also: Also from the Toowoomba Chronicle: "Our region could be one big hole" of 16 Nov 09 by Madeleine Logan, "Removal trucks spell last rites for Acland" of 10 Oct 09 by Madeleine Logan, "Coal mine nightmare" of 12 Nov 09 by Madeleine Logan, "Facebook keeps residents on line" of 9 Nov 09 by Madeleine Logan, "Friends take heart from senators' visit" of 30 Sep 09 by Roseanne Schefe, "Jones labels Acland's decline as 'sickening'" of 30 Jan 09 by Madeleine Logan about Sydney radio personality Alan Jones' feelings about the threatened destruction of his home town, "$200m mine deal sparks water war" of 16 Nov 07 by Sue Searle, "Acland producing the cleanest coal" of 22 Mar 07 by Greg Berghofer, "Couple join exodus as Acland 'closes down'" of 2 Mar 06 by Sarah Vogler; Web site of the New Hope coal company: www.newhopecoal.com.au (including environmental impact statements, newsletters and assorted other pro-coal-mining propaganda); Friends of Felton web sites: www.fof.org.au, www.friendsoffelton.blogspot.com.

What you can do

Sign e-petition calling for resignation of Queensland Government. For futher information, please read "Why Queenslanders must demand new state elections" of 8 Jan 10.

Film: Writer and environmentalist, Mark O'Connor says that this is the first time since the mid 1990s that the ABC has interviewed someone from Sustainable Population Australia for the environmental view on population problems in Australia. I can't wait for them to interview someone from Candobetter.org. In the mean time:
See also poll in The Age: "Suburban sprawl: Is a pause in extending Melbourne's boundary a good thing?" (Obviously the answer is "Yes").

The poll is obviously a response to public fury about DACS. In the Age today (Tuesday 5 January 2010) "Rethink on Outer Suburban Expansion" carries the news that Minister Madden appears to have done a backflip on the Extension of the Urban Growth Boundary. Don't hold your breath though: he will still try to build upwards and more densely, which is also unacceptable. Basically the government and developer induced growth must stop altogether.

Back to last night's ABC news

As numerous articles on candobetter.org attest, the ABC usually presents the population numbers in Australia in a biased way, which gives big business members of the growth lobby a free kick and assists the continuing decline of democracy in Australia as governments dispense with consultation and dance the growth lobby tune. Indeed, the amount of real-estate and property growth investment people frequently invited to speak on the ABC makes it look as if someone in the know is pushing growth via the ABC, perhaps taking advantage of the usual presenters not realising the vested interest of their interviewees.

On this interview, ANU demographer, Graeme Hugo appears. This makes a nice change from the usual ANU Demography talking head, Peter McDonald, who always talks up population growth, often in association with Australian ATSE, the Multicultural Foundation, the Scanlon Foundation. Hugo is usually good on the need to brake our population growth for environmental reasons. Here he talks about us 'needing to replace the aging population', but adds that in the long-term he expects immigration to be cut back for environmental reasons. I've heard him speak much more strongly against population growth.

We have yet to hear anyone official showing concern about democracy and forced population growth except the amazing Victorian environmentalist MP, Kelvin Thomson, who was not interviewed by the ABC news. Kelvin Thomson is standing up for democracy and the environement and kindness to our indigenous fauna, in a one-man crusade completely counter the Lebensraum-for-developers-uber al-ALP-culture. See more here. Thomson is a Federal MP in a Victorian electorate that is densely populated with old and new immigrants and they give him plenty of support!

(Scroll down for information from writers in Australia, Canada, USA to date. More input welcome)

Solar Power - photovoltaics - in France

In France, as in Australia, many people have installed solar panels in order to benefit from selling electricity they generate but do not use back to the grid. In France they sell it back to Electricité de France (EDF). The number of professionals who supply electricity back to the grid in France is increasing.[1]

In the photograph of a rural landscape we can see the equivalent of 300 football fields has been dedicated to photovoltaic surfaces.
Workers add 4,500 daily.

The photovoltaic-center is huge, on a non-human scale.

When it is finished it will be the biggest site in Europe. It is 300 hectares (ha) in area and is expected to produce 76 megawats (MW) once completed, which would supply the consumption of something around 40,000 citizens.

(Ed. We are not told by France2 whether this is average French per capita, or average French private household. Obviously, by taking such factors as industry and food transport into account, consumption per capita would far exceed consumption per capita per household. Also, in Australia electricity and fuel consumption per capita or per capita per household are greater than in France. Per capita, this is because Australian food and other goods travel further than in France and, per capita per household, it is because we have very poor building insulation and design (deterioriating as we speak and many new suburbs replace vegetated areas with eaveless, tarmack-surrounded, uninsulated boxes.)

This year part of this new photovoltaic center will use 'tracking' technology whereby the panels can turn themselves to follow the sun. This is expected to increase electricity production by between 20 and 30 per cent.

France has 30 times less photovoltaic stock than Germany

France's 175 MW of public stock of photovoltaic panels was multiplied by three in one year, but remains 30 times less than the German stock.

Yves Bruno Civel, General Director of the Observatory of Renewable Energyies, commented, "If France tried to catch up with Germany by making giant photovoltaic installations, it would run into limitations eventually due to competition for ground space, which is already intense, between those who want more land to expand cities and roads [2]and those who want it for biofuels and food."

Tariffs for grid-feed

Photovoltaic panels are not only found in vast fields. More and more are found on house roofs. Individuals sell all their production to EDF. They get 60c per kilowatt and can buy back electricity for only 10c a kilowatt.

Erwan Tesson, Director of Arkensol Society says this isn't the only benefit. You get money back on income tax, which, for the average family in France, would amount to 8000 Euros.

Retirement income

Frederic Borrot, a farmer in Gironde says, "It's better than life insurance. The return over 20 years is 10-12 per cent."

With 200 square meters of photovoltaic panels on his outbuildings a farmer can pay back his loan. Borrot's aim is to prepare for the future.

"To have additional revenue and for my retirement, because today farmers haven't got much of a retirement income - far from it. With this one can expect a monthly return of 1,500 Euros.

But future profits may not be guaranteed

The possibility that the rates the EDF currently pays may be revised downwards is causing some anxiety - especially for professionals.

In France 34,000 projects are in a queue for connection.

Australia

From Bill Parker, Editor of Australian Solar Energy Society's on-line magazine

The PV industry in OZ is dominated by installers. There is no longer any pull through that builds a real industry with the departure of BP Solar. Their factory is now in the hands of a nuclear company and the only other organisation is Spark Solar in Canberra.

The "industry" is hardly stable and has to react to the mismanagement in Canberra - the investment is not there and the
players are scratching at the edges. Australia has failed and failed to get to grips with an industrial development policy that creates stability and certainty. The knee jerk operates. There is no sound thinking, and any of the sound thinkers who were left are now gone.

The country needs a uniform GROSS fee in tariff, like France, to create the proper settings for a sunrise industry. It MUST be enshrined in legislation nationally otherwise we are just talking greenwash and hot air. On a bigger scale, there is a simple mechanism that would assist - a bit like the completion guarantee for a film. Indemnify the companies that would build bigger solar plants. The money is out there.

Frankly, Australia is not even in the race anymore and to even contemplate that K. Rudd would change that is wishful thinking only.

Bill Parker

Ontario, Canada

Don Chisholm writes:

In Ontario Canada, our provincial gov has take a lead in promoting "green" energy. Last May they passed the Ontario Energy Act.

Its Feed In Tarrif (FIT) program provides easier access to the grid by large produces, and long term contracts for wind and solar developers, with prices significantly higher than current fossil fuel costs, today.

I live in an island county on the eastern end of Lake Ontario, with excellent wind potential. However, a very strong well-financed NIMBY lobby has, to date, prevented wind-farm developers from becoming established here. I'm co-chair of a local group called, the County Sustainability Group, and we have written an essay to rebut the NIMBYists, and to elaborate on why their disinformation holds appeals to many in the general public. You can see this essay
here.

At the home owner level, the FIT provides great incentive for rooftop or backyard wind or solar, up to 10 kw. For example, it gives a 20 year contract for solar energy paying about 6 times the home owners cost from energy from the grid. Buy low, sell high – it should work! ROInvestment should be over 10%/year, significantly better than money invested anywhere else these days. I have recently had a contract proposal accepted and am currently working on getting a 10kw system system in place.

Of interest might be the Ontario hourly energy that provides our grid.
Details here
The CANDO reactor chug along providing almost half of our energy with the other large contributor hydro, especially the Beck generators at Niagara Falls.

Don Chisholm (watching the snow fall at -15c,)

New York, USA

Sir Edmund the Green writes:

I just had a 2.08 KW solar PV system installed on a shed i built for the purpose in New York State.
We qualified for a New York State rebate of $4. per watt (this has since been lowered to $2.50 per watt.)

We were required to use a "professional" installer approved by NYSERDA (NY Energy Authority) to receive the rebate.

Between a labor charge of $2,000 for about 40 hours of work, and hidden mark-ups of about $5 - 6 K, the entire rebate went to the installer, who made out like a bandit. We could have purchased the materials, (10 Sharp panels, 216's rather than the 208's we got , a Sunnyboy SMA3000 US inverter, and a rail mounting system) in the competitive marketplace from a supplier like Solar Electric Supply in California, for LESS than we paid after the rebate!

The rebate system as it currently exists in NY is a rip off, basically a welfare program for approved installers, and does little or nothing to encourage more people to go Solar.

Most of the work of installing a PV system involves knowing how to operate a ladder, and basic electricity. The rebate system needs to be re-oriented towards allowing the do it yourselfer to take advantage of it, and the greed of professional installers needs to be capped. Of course, as in any electrical project, there must be rigorous safety inspection.

But as marginal as the financial payback is for photovoltaic, the current rebate system is a killer for anyone but the true solar fanatic.

sir edmund the green

In general, cut down

From Dave Kimble, North Queensland, Australia
[Referring to report on France]:

76 MW is the peak power of the installed panels under full summer midday sun.
Most of the time the panels will produce a lot less than that.
Customers actually consume energy, not power.
In Queensland the average household uses at an average rate of 21 KW.h per day.
But they don't use it at a continuous rate of ( 21 / 24 ) KW, nor at the rate at which the solar panels supply it (mostly around midday).
So the solar farm must be connected into an electrical grid that has sufficient generating capacity of other kinds to be able to match supply to demand.

While it is important to know the peak power, so that electrical equipment can be sized to cater for full load, what is also important is the KW.h produced each hour over the day and over days at different times of year.

In France an average day for a 1 KW panel might produce 4.5 KW.h ( that's a guess - search for "insolation" ).
If each household uses 21 KW.h per day then 76 MW is equivalent to 3,619 households, so that 40,000 citizens looks wrong - more like 14,000 .

As well as being weaker in winter, when the sun is lower in the sky, and the days are shorter, there is also the interruption of clouds. As solar becomes a larger proportion of the national energy mix, the "matching" capacity must get larger to cover for the cloudy days and cloudy hours.

Coal and nuclear cannot do this matching capacity job because they are very slow to change their output.
Wind can't do it either, because it also is variable.
Hydro is good, but good locations are few and far between.
Gas is OK, but it is wasteful to keep it "ready to go" - it might be economically OK because the grid controller will pay highly for matching capacity, but it is poor from the GW viewpoint to have gas running at night and gas spinning in reserve during the day.

And the solution is ...
there is no good solution.
Cut down.

Dave Kimble

Candobetter invites people to describe their experiences in different places.

Articles are also welcome.

NOTES

[1] Source of pictures and much of report: France2, (tv news) 1 Jan 2010

[2] Note that France is not intentionally growing its population, which is projected to fall after the deaths of the 'baby-boomer' bubble, over a period extending between around 2010 and 2060. Only the English-speaking polities are currently afflicted by their property development magnates with a populate and perish democratic opposition mentality. See more on The Growth Lobby

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.

Jill Quirk, of the Victorian Branch of Sustainable Population Australia, did a cracking job on this meeting that has given people another opportunity to hear and talk with Kelvin Thomson, Federal MP. Wills, Victoria. It would be a good start if all the other SPA branches in Australia also invited Kelvin to enlighten their cities and regions.

Why do I make such a fuss of Jill's part in this? Well, without people like Jill, persevering on population politics in Victoria - for years now - we would be in an even worse position vis a vis the tsunami the growth lobby wants to unleash. Credit, of course, has also been given to Julianne Bell, of Protectors of Public Lands and Royal Park Protection Group who convened an earlier speaker-meeting with Thomson. We should also be aware of Mary Drost, of Planning Backlash, and a number of other activists, such as Christine Pruneau of MRRA and Maryland Wilson of AWPC - almost all of them women - in Victoria - who have chosen not to remain silent and, self-funded, have stood up to be counted on population matters.

Kelvin Thomson's speech has been recorded in six parts on You-tube by film-maker, Andrew Melville Smith: see below

Part 1

Kelvin Thomson

There is no doubt that if anyone can save Australia's democracy, environment and quality of life, it may be Kelvin Thomson. It is such a relief to hear someone speak up clearly over the constant dull roar of the growth merchants, from our Prime Minister, through every Australian state premier and treasurer, and all the bankers and property developers.

It seems that nearly everyone in big business has become completely craven, and, like King Midas, fascinated by gold, deaf to every birdsong. Official Australian values seem to have become as crass as those of the Egyptian pyramid commissioners, who wanted to take it all with them, and had their slaves killed so they would join them in death.

Yes, many Australians feel as if they are being enslaved by the growth lobby.

It would be wonderful if other politicians began to see through the growth merchants and got behind Kelvin. That would change Australia's outlook from one of anxiety to hope.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4 - Questions and discussion

Part 5 - More discussion

Part 6 - More discussion and closure

What a coup for long-time environment and democracy activist, Julianne Bell! Last night in Melbourne at the AGM of the Royal Park Protection Group, federal ALP Member for Wills, Hon Kelvin Thomson announced and detailed his 14 point plan for population reform, which is reproduced at the end of this article.

The plan was well received by an audience composed of the Royal Park Protection Group [RPPG] members of members of other Victorian community groups.

Questions from the audience indicated a high degree of engagement with the topic both on the local and global level.

Lifelong concern for Australia's native animals

After delivering his plan , Kelvin Thomson spoke of his lifelong interest in Australia's unique native fauna, and his concern that it can very easily be extinguished mainly through through loss of habitat and that our compassion should extend to living creatures other than humans. He said that many small species will disappear and not even be noticed by most people however be a loss to bio-diversity all the same.

Thomson also referred to the more iconic example of the koala whose perilous survival has been most recently in the news. He pointed out that there are only as many koalas remaining in the wild as there are additional humans in Australia every few weeks!

Kelvin Thomson expressed his concern that Australians need to leave our continent in as good condition as it was when we found it.

A motion at the end of the meeting was passed unanimously and in support of Kelvin's position which also called for a population summit.

Royal Park Protection Group an appropriate host

It was very appropriate that RPPG host this ground-breaking speech because RPPG was formed to defend 20 ha of Royal Park, in the heart of Melbourne, from being sold off by the Bracks government to Australand (Singapore majority owned) developers for a housing estate which was advertised worldwide to prospective immigrants. After this extraordinary gift of the peoples' land, the Bracks government even gave Australand $80m of tax payers money, purportedly in exchange for 10 days use of the land for the Commonwealth Games. Unable to win against the might of corporations and government, and with little help from Victorian unions, RPPG members went on to form Protectors of Public Land (Vic) and have now led Victorians in organising against the destruction of democracy and public land for commercial interests profiting from politically engineered population growth.

Where to from here? Population Reform - Political Challenges!

Kelvin Thomson will be the guest speaker at a Public meeting run by
Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian branch)
on Sunday November 29th at 3.00pm.
Topic: Population reform- Political challenges
At: Meeting Room 1 North Melbourne Library 66 Errol St. North Melbourne.

All welcome.
Enquiries to jillq[AT]optusnet.com.au

THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE TO RUNAWAY POPULATION

- KELVIN THOMSON’S 14 POINT PLAN FOR POPULATION REFORM

Tonight I am releasing for discussion a 14 point plan for population reform.

The first 11 points go to how we can stabilise Australia’s population.

1. Stabilise Australia’s population at 26 million by cutting the net overseas migration program to 70,000 per annum.

2. Cut the skilled migration program to 25,000 per annum.

3. Hold the family reunion program at 50,000 per annum.

4. Increase the refugee program from 13,750 to 20,000 per annum.

5. Alter the refugee criteria to include provision for genuine climate refugees.

6. The revised number of annual permanent arrivals from these programs would be 95,000 - 50,000 family reunion plus 25,000 skilled plus 20,000 refugees. Two more factors need to be considered: the number of people departing permanently from Australia, and the number of people arriving permanently from New Zealand. To reach a net overseas annual migration target of 70,000, the number of automatic places available for New Zealanders needs to be restricted to the number of departures from Australia over and above 25,000. The Trans Tasman Travel Arrangement would be renegotiated to achieve this, splitting available places for New Zealanders equally between skilled migrants and family reunion, and allowing New Zealanders to also apply and compete with other applicants under these normal migration programs.

7. Reduce temporary migration to Australia by restricting sub-class 457 temporary entry visas to medical and health related and professional engineering occupations.

8. Require overseas students to return to their country of origin and complete a two-year cooling off period before being eligible to apply for permanent residence.

9. Abolish the Baby Bonus.

10. Restrict Large Family Supplement and Family Tax Benefit A for third and subsequent children to those presently receiving them.

11. Dedicate the savings from abolishing the Baby Bonus and reduced expenditure on Family Payments for third and subsequent children towards increased investment in domestic skills and training through Universities and TAFEs.

The final three points go to how we can play a role in helping stabilise global population.

12. Increase Australia’s aid to meet the United Nations target of 0.7% of Gross National Income with money saved by abolishing Fringe Benefits Tax concessions for company cars, and greater use of off-the-shelf purchases in defence equipment purchases.

13. Use more of Australia’s aid budget for educating girls and women, and for better access to family planning and maternal child health, and advocate in the United Nations and international fora for other countries to do likewise.

14. Put overpopulation on the Agenda for the Copenhagen Climate Change talks.

How have I arrived at this plan?

STABILISE THE WORLD’S POPULATION

I have set out the reasons why I believe the world’s projected population levels are too high and unsustainable – global warming, food crisis, water shortages, housing affordability, overcrowded cities, transport congestion, fisheries collapse, species extinctions, increasing prices, waste, war and terrorism – in detail in a speech to Parliament on 17 August. [Candobetter.net Editor: This link is broken, but the contents are reproduced below. The broken link was http://www.kelvinthomson.com.au/speeches.php.]

If we are going to achieve this outcome, everyone has a role to play. Every country has both the right and the duty to stabilise its own population at a level compatible with its own resources and environment. In equity terms, this is an easier issue to deal with than carbon emissions, where the poorer countries have a legitimate anger that the wealthy countries have had all the fun; wrecked the neighbourhood, and the police have been called in to shut the party down just as poorer countries were starting to arrive.

The equitable approach is for each country to pull its own weight and stabilise its own numbers. Countries should not be asked to do more, or less, than this.

The two most promising ways of achieving population stability around the world are educating girls and women, and the provision of better health services, particularly reproductive health services. These two measures lower the fertility rate. According to the World Vision chief executive Tim Costello, for every extra year a girl stays in school, her fertility decreases. “She has fewer children and more optimism and power”, says Tim Costello. Professor Roger Short says that removing the barriers that separate women from the knowledge and technologies they need to manage the size of their family will cause family size to fall, even in poor, illiterate communities. He says conversely, as a result of lost attention to family planning since the 1990s, the population projection for several countries in 2050 has been raised, e.g. Kenya, up from 54 million to 83 million.

There are four things Australia can do to promote this international responsibility. First, in international fora such as the United Nations,
we should promote population stabilisation, better education for girls and women, and improved health services.

Second, we should increase our overseas aid program to meet the United Nations target of 0.7% of Gross National Income. This would involve an increase of $350 million in 2010-11 and a bit over $1 billion in 2011-12. The Government is committed to returning the Budget to surplus, so clearly such an increase would involve finding savings from elsewhere in the Budget – the money has to come from somewhere. One option which has merit in my view is scrapping the $1.5 billion fringe benefit tax concession for company cars, a subsidy from taxpayers which has been criticized by the Australian Conservation Foundation and other groups as damaging to the environment. Another is to trim fat from the defence budget by buying off-the-shelf military equipment rather than engaging in incredibly expensive modification. For example the Air Warfare Destroyer project cost double the initial estimate of $3.5 to $4.5 billion, to be $7.5 billion. So too did the Amphibious Vessel project, initially estimated at $1.5 to $2 billion, and finishing at $3 billion.

This additional money could be channelled into three critical areas – improving education levels, improving health outcomes and reproductive health services, including contraception, and developing renewable energy-based economies which have a path to prosperity that is not linked to increasing greenhouse emissions.

Third, we should put the issue of population stabilisation on the Agenda for the Copenhagen Climate Change talks. Al Gore has listed population increase as one of the three key drivers of climate change, and he is right. It is hard to see how any serious carbon reduction targets can be met while the world’s population continues to escalate. Until we address the issue of population, we are fighting global warming with at least one arm tied behind our back. Whilst it is unreasonable to ask developing countries to remain impoverished, it is not unreasonable to ask them to adopt a goal of population stabilisation.

Fourth, we can lead by example, and stabilise our own population.

STABILISE AUSTRALIA’S POPULATION

The reasons why I believe Australia’s population needs to be stabilised are also set out in detail in my speech to Parliament on 17 August, which can be accessed at [candobetter.net editor: Link no longer functional, due to Kelvin's retirement"http://www.kelvinthomson.com.au/speeches.php">http://www.kelvinthomson.com.au/speeches.php.]

Population is a function of birth rates, death rates, and migration rates. I am in favour of everyone living as long as possible. That leaves the migration rate and the birth/fertility rate.

Australian population increase over time is set out in the following graph:

MIGRATION RATE

Population policy cannot be a long-term side effect of ad-hoc immigration practice (Barry Jones Report, 1994). Immigration policy should be based on population policy.

Australia’s population has been skyrocketing in recent years, and the principal reason for this is the dramatic increase in our migration rate. This increase is due to the record high levels of Australia’s permanent entry program in recent years and to a surplus of long-term temporary arrivals, notably students and workers, over departures.

The increased migration rate has made all the previous projections about our population quite inaccurate understatements. Australia is now officially projected to have 35 million people by 2049. Just 2 years ago the Intergenerational Report predicted we would have 28 million.

Previous predictions and projections about Australia’s population have been gross underestimates. Back in 1984 the World Bank’s population projection for the year 2100 was 21 million. We reached that in 2007! A decade ago, forecasters were predicting we would not hit the 22 million mark until 2040. We’re there already!

The idea that the population is going to take care of itself is just wrong. Not only does it never happen, population is now a runaway train.

To bring the train back under control we need to return to a net overseas migration number more in keeping with previous practice. Net overseas migration in 2007-08 was 213,461. I believe this should be reduced to 70,000. If we cut net overseas migration to 70,000, and the fertility rate was maintained at 1.8, according to Professor Bob Birrell, of Monash University’s Centre for Urban and Social Research, the population would reach 26 million by the year 2050 and stabilize at about this level for the rest of the century.

The age profile of the population would also remain relatively constant.

A net overseas migration figure of 70,000 is not unachievable or without precedent. There were several years in the 1980s when the net overseas migration figure was in the 70,000s, or less. There were three years in the 1990s when the net overseas migration figure was less than 70,000. As recently as 1998 the net overseas migration figure was less than 80,000. In 1994 the Australian Academy of Science advised the Federal Government that it would be prudent to keep net migration below 50,000.

A net overseas migration rate of 70,000 is not inconsistent with Australia’s obligation to be a compassionate international citizen, nor is it inconsistent with a humanitarian approach to allowing family reunion for present Australian citizens. The present number of refugees and asylum seekers taken by Australia is 13,750. It has been at the 12,000 – 13,000 level for many years. It could be increased to 20,000, an increase of over 45%, within the context of a large cut to the overall migration program.

If we increase the refugee program we would also be better prepared for the possibility of climate refugees. There is a distinct prospect that in future low lying islands in the Pacific will be rendered uninhabitable by sea level rise and storm surges. I think our refugee criteria should be altered to enable us to accept people from the Pacific Islands provided they can demonstrate that their former homes are genuinely uninhabitable as a consequence of climate change, and provided that Australia is not being used as an overflow by countries which have failed to address their own population capacity and allowed themselves to become overpopulated.

Nor is a generous family reunion program inconsistent with population stabilisation. The family reunion program stood at 49,870 in 2007-08 and 56,366 in 2008-09. A figure of 50,000 could be retained.

What is incompatible with population reform is our skilled migration program. In 1995-96 it was 24,100. It had risen to 114,777 by 2008-09 – four to five times what it used to be. It should be cut back to 25,000.

To those who object that we need these workers, I ask, why is it that the catch cry for just about every Government project, and every private sector project, is that it will provide jobs for our workforce. If we are already short of workers, why do we need to find them these jobs? Why is it that 100,000 young Australians aged between 15-24 dropped out of the labour force last year?

Ambit claims about the need for a vastly increased workforce or an imminent lack of labour, also underpin much of the ageing population scare (See Overloading Australia, pp 98 ff).

And workforce participation by older Australians is rising, not falling, and could rise further. For 2008-09 average participation in the workforce was 81 per cent for 50-54 year olds, 69 per cent for 55-59 year olds and 49 per cent for 60-64 year olds. These participation rates have gone up during the last decade. Further improvement is possible. Why have our Disability Support Pension numbers risen? Its annual growth rate in the last 10 years has been 3.16 per cent, and it continues to rise despite Government efforts to reduce it. Skilled migration also undermines the need for a concerted effort to lift aboriginal employment.

Employers who claim they will need a huge labour force in the future usually mean that they would like a large pool of job seekers to select from, to suppress wages. In reality no managing director will employ more staff than necessary. Automation and robotisation are often preferred.

To those who say, these workers are needed for the skills they bring to Australia, I disagree. Only a minority of Non-English Speaking Background migrants use professional qualifications in the work they find once admitted to Australia. This applies to former overseas students and those with qualifications from overseas. And bringing in 3485 cooks and 1082 hairdressers under skilled program visas in 2007-08 is an indictment of our own education and training system. The present arrangement is suppressing market signals that would improve our education and training system. We have become addicted to skilled migration. It is time we broke the habit.

Our Universities and TAFES have had their funding slashed and have been told to make ends meet by bringing in overseas students. It would be better if young Australians who are presently missing out on a place at a University or TAFE were given a place. 18,500 eligible applicants missed out on a university place this year, up from 12,600 last year. Professor Bob Birrell says that the real number of students missing out may be much larger. He says eligible applications amount to 227,000, compared with actual acceptances of 161,000- a difference of more than 66,000. The proportion of resident young people enrolled in higher education is relatively low by European standards. This reflects the period since 1996 when there has been very little increase in the number of domestic subsidized places. There should be a large increase in domestic enrolments in higher education so we can match the demands of the job market, where at least half of net job growth requires degree credentials. This requires an increase in funding, and the money has to come from somewhere.

This is where the birth rate issue comes in.

FERTILITY RATE

Australia’s fertility rate has moved between 2004 and 2007 from 1.76 to 1.93 children per women. This does not mean that births are less than deaths. Births per year in Australia are twice deaths, and have been so for many years.

In 2004 the Howard Government introduced the ‘baby bonus’ to encourage women to have more children. This payment is contradictory to the objective of stabilising Australia’s population. Furthermore if it has any effect, it encourages women to have children for the wrong reasons. Children should be loved and wanted, not seen as a potential source of income. If it has no effect, it is a waste of taxpayers’ money which could be better used elsewhere. Its present cost to the revenue is $1.4 billion in 2009-10.

Recently the total fertility rate has been increasing. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the Australian total fertility rate was 1.93 babies per woman (2007), up from 1.81 in 2006 and the highest since 1981.

I have no problem with ongoing Family Payments for the first and second child, but payments for third and subsequent children fly in the face of efforts to achieve population stabilisation.

The Large Family Supplement is paid for the third and each subsequent child at a little over $280 per annum. Its cost to revenue in 2009-10 is estimated at $208 million. It should be phased out – while it would be unfair to remove this payment from those presently receiving it, it should be grandfathered, and third and subsequent children born from now on would not be eligible for it.

The Family Payments Budget for 2009-10 is $17.4 billion. It is one of the Federal Government’s largest and most complex expenditure programs.

The STINMOD micro simulation model produced by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM) indicates that around 375,000 children are third or subsequent children.

Assuming that the distribution of rates of payment for these children is similar to that for Family Tax Benefit A recipients generally, it can be assumed that about 33% would be on the maximum rate, about 30% on less than maximum rate but more than base rate, about 30% on base rate, and about 7% on less than base rate.

Using 2009 rates for 0-12 year olds adjusted up a little to take account of higher rates for 13 – 15 years, the cost is estimated to be approximately $1.3 billion in 2009-10.

As with Large Family Supplement, I would propose that Family Tax Benefit A for third and subsequent children be restricted to those presently receiving it.

The combined savings from cutting out the Baby Bonus, Large Family Supplement, and Family Tax Benefit A for third and subsequent children would be approximately $1.4 billion plus $200 million plus $1.3 billion, ie nearly $3 billion.

While this saving would not all become available immediately, it is very significant and could greatly boost the levels of university and vocational education in Australia. It could be used to boost the number of places being offered by Universities so that eligible students do not miss out on a place, it could be used to boost funding for TAFE, and used to boost funding for apprenticeships.

The Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education said we could achieve a demand driven entitlement system for domestic higher education students, where public funding will be provided for each undergraduate student eligible for a university place, at a cost of $1,130 million over 4 years. The Budget Papers have allowed $491 million from 2009-10 to 2012-13 towards this objective. Finding the extra $639 million and funding the extra places would be money well spent.

In relation to the TAFE sector the Australian Education Union has called for increased funding to meet projected needs in vocational education and training of $1,125 million. Key areas for spending include:

• Projected growth in enrolments, the economy’s anticipated need for higher level qualifications, investment in retraining the workforce and strategies to engage those in society who are under or un-employed.

• Workforce transition and renewal and professional development.

• Building and technology improvements.

• Student services and support programs.

I would also like to put money into reducing HECS debts, which I think are too high, and into increasing payments to apprentices and Youth Allowance, which I think are too low. I acknowledge, however, that these are expensive items, so improvements in these areas would be subject to getting in the full $3 billion in family payments savings, and therefore would be some time off. I think it needs to be, regrettably, a second order priority to creating the extra places for young people, and some not so young people, who are presently neither studying or working.

TEMPORARY VISAS

Temporary entry permits have skyrocketed in Australia. In 1995-96 they were 3.1 million. By 2007-08 they had reached 4.2 million.

This number is made up of:

• 110,570 subclass 457 visas;
• 278,180 student visas;
• 3,808,610 other visa classes.

There are no caps on student visas, 457 visas, or Working Holiday visas. Nor are there caps on numbers taking up bridging visas or 485 visas after completing courses here.

It is said that this doesn’t matter because the temporary residents all return to their country of origin. This is not true. At least half of former overseas students are staying on either by gaining permanent residence visas or temporary bridging or 485 visas. Maybe around a third of 457 visa holders gain permanent residence, mainly via Employment Nomination visas. Furthermore, while they are here, they add to Australia’s population pressures.

In 2008, on average nearly one million temporary residents, including tourists, were here at any one time.

Temporary entry work visas are a tool for undermining the wages and conditions of Australian workers, and a recipe for exploiting overseas ones.

The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union has uncovered dreadful examples of the use of sham contractors who are underpaid or not paid at all, and threatened with deportation if they complain or seek to enforce their rights. Subclass 457 work visas have no worthwhile role to play, except in very limited situations. They should be restricted to areas of clear need, that is to say the medical and health related and professional engineering occupations. If we really are short of workers, how come political and business leaders are forever promoting proposals with the catchcry, “jobs, jobs, jobs?”

Overseas students should be required to return to their country of origin once they have completed their course. They should be subject to a 2 year cooling off period before being eligible to apply for permanent residence in Australia. Since the Howard Government changed the rules in 2001 to allow students to apply for permanent residence, onshore, overseas student numbers have skyrocketed from 204,000 to over 467,000 in just seven years. Rorts and scams have crept into the program and damaged Australia’s international education reputation. Decoupling the link with permanent residence will put the focus back on education where it belongs, restore Australia’s international education reputation, and probably also reduce temporary entry numbers.

NEW ZEALAND

At present we also have uncapped migration from New Zealand. The number of New Zealand citizens stating that they are settling permanently in Australia has increased from 16,364 in 2002-03 to 34,491 in 2007-08 and 47,780 in 2008-09. About 7,000 of the 34,491 were third country migrants who have migrated to New Zealand, then got citizenship, then come to Australia. This open-ended, uncapped program makes it impossible for Australia or New Zealand to implement a population policy and it needs to be reformed.

The Trans Tasman Travel Arrangement with New Zealand would need to be re-negotiated to do away with the open door. The present arrangement has no formal legal status. In any event, we need to stabilise population globally. Hence getting other countries such as New Zealand to address their population capacity, rather than simply acting as an overflow for surplus population, is important.

What we should do is monitor annual departures, and renegotiate the Trans Tasman Travel Arrangement with New Zealand to close off automatic entry for New Zealanders, while allowing the places made available by annual departures from Australia above 25,000 to be filled by New Zealanders, splitting available places equally between skilled migrants and family reunion. Otherwise New Zealanders would be eligible to come to Australia under the normal programs, applying and being assessed in the same way as everyone else.

This would give Australia control over our net migration number which we presently don’t have. We can set a target for permanent skilled migrants, family reunion, and refugees, but we have no idea how many people are going to come in from New Zealand, and no idea how many people are going to leave Australia. These numbers are too important to be left to chance, and we should set a net target figure. The approach I have adopted is based on a net overseas migration target figure of 70,000: 95,000 in from skilled, family reunion and refugee categories, expecting at least 25,000 to leave, and allowing New Zealanders to fill the places made available through this process. The number of departures in recent years has been far higher than 25,000, and even when permanent arrivals numbered around 90,000 it was still well above 25,000.

CONCLUSION

In combination these measures would do great things for Australia. First and foremost they would stop us wrecking our environment. Second they would get us to focus on higher education and training for young Australians. They would open up job opportunities for younger and older workers who are presently missing out. They would help us meet carbon reduction targets. They would make housing more affordable. They would put a halt to the creeping inflation and price rises for food, water, and energy. They would address the declining quality of life in our cities, the traffic congestion and the disappearing backyards and open spaces. They would enable us to be compassionate, decent international citizens, taking more refugees and lifting our overseas aid. Above all else they would discharge our obligation to pass on to our children and grandchildren a world, and an Australian way of life, in as good a condition as the one our parents and grandparents gave us.

Figures from The Magic Puddingby Norman Lindsay

A Victorian citizens rally cry and lament

People of Australia we’re in trouble to our nuts, it’s five to bloody midnight-no ifs or bloody buts
Its’ time for damned austerity with water, power and perks. So leave the bloody car at home and walk to work you jerks!

People of Orstralia now the water’s all run out. Some blame global warming and some the bloody drought
And some say it’s a bastard but everybody will when they get the bloody info that water’s twice the bill.

The same goes for electric that we get from bloody coal, it’s looking for sequestrum like a rabbit down a hole.
Yet we’ve got bloody solar for ten thousand times our needs and governments do nothing by thought or word or deed.

Fellas of Australia, sheilas, blokes and mates, you’ll go bloody nowhere if you retain the bloody states !
Define the bloody regions, get rid of lines on maps and focus on efficiency in government perhaps.

Females of Australia this is not the knell of doom, but you can’t legitimise your place through your bloody womb.
We all should be more tolerant of lesbians and queens but keep a bloody eye out for the pioneering genes.

Let’s educate our youngsters so they can get the skills to pay the bloody taxes, P.P.P.'s and other bills,
We're behind in infrastructure, schools, hospitals and trains, but the Government's planned nothing, they've got no bloody brains!

Sure, we are girt by sea and girt by c02 and girt by bloody methane to put into the brew.
We're girt by politicians who won't de bloody bate that overpopulation will be our terminal fate
We've species loss, degraded soils and environmental squalor, and bloody blind self serving bastards in it for a dollar!
They want Melbourne at 7 million and Oz at 35 a ridiculous bloody trajectory that Aussie can't survive.

Now Oz has got a statesman who runs the bloody show with 2020 vision and Chinese lingo, don’t you know?
And the sheila there who helps him is as smart as bloody paint and just like bloody Ablett, she’s never where the ball ain't.

But we’ve got bloody Brumby, by default you’d have to say and by default the bloody desal and dredging of the Bay.
But he’ll be Jeffed like Kennett and bloody Howard too. And I’ll be there to wave goodbye. It’s bloody overdue.
People of Orstralia, when the bugle sounds the call, don’t just bloody stand there like you’ve lost a bloody ball.
Heave and strain and struggle with all your bloody might and hope to hell your efforts will bring us to the light.

We must be multipartite on education and health, indigenous affairs and immigration so it’s not approached by stealth.
Let’s get a national anthem that sounds less like a dirge and get a new republic while the folks have got the urge
And get a proper flag as on Eureka’s noble knoll, not a quasi bloody mish mash of colonial control.

And so I ask my Aussie mates before they place their bets to consider the integrity of the “PATH OF NO REGRETS”
Get rid of self indulgence that used to be the way and save old bloody Aussie and the planet I dare say.

By Walter Grahame
For and on behalf of Arthur Cartwright a.k.a J.N. Button

A typical member of the growth lobby, for several years now, Bernard Salt, of KPMG, he has been in the business of boosting population growth in Australia, with the idea that people with the same values as him can make a lot of money out of it. Now he is coming out of the closet and telling us that all this population growth means we have to go nuclear. Unfortunately, I don't think he knows what he is talking about.

According to my calculations, if Bernard Salt is allowed to continue to take the stage, and garners support from state governments and the Federal government, along with others of his ilk and values - that means that Australia is up S--- Creek without a paddle and we are headed straight for the rapids - with no lifeboats and carrying far too many passengers, with more coming on all the time. See below on the logistics of power supply and the costs of setting up nuclear.

See more and related articles here Ziggy Switkowski, Population Numbers and Nuclear in the Australian and Nuclear Fission and the future for Fast Breeder Reactors

Australia and Peak Oil: The North Korea route or the Cuba Route?

Short term to 2050

In theory there should be two choices available for Australia in the short term: the ‘Cuba route’ and Nuclear Power (the Growth lobby route) to deal with decline in fossil fuels and the problem of global warming.

The Cuba route: After the fall of the iron curtain, cheap soviet oil was no longer available for North Korea or for Cuba, so both had to lear to live without much fossil fuel. Korea went the industrial agriculture and nuclear power route. Cuba went the relocalisation and permaculture route. Guess which polity did the best? I'll give you a hint: it wasn't North Korea.

You will find all the references for this article in Chapter 20, "France and Australia After Oil," in Sheila Newman, (Ed.) The Final Energy Crisis, 2nd Edition, Pluto Press, UK, 2008. In the same book you can read more in Antony Boy's articles about North Korea and also about Japan's options for the future without cheap and abundant oil.

The Cuba option

The biggest problem for Cuba was and remains transport. Bicycles can only do so much. Servicing a population and infrastructure shaped by oil but without that oil is fraught with difficulty. Cuba had relied on importing food, agricultural fertilizers, and petroleum for road transport. Relocalisation of institutions as well as food production was the main solution. People in the cities were assisted to produce their own food and state farms were turned into small leaseholds and cooperatives. Permaculture techniques and draft animals replaced fossil-fuel based fertilizers and petroleum for farm machines and transport. Cuba is now self-sufficient and Cubans purchase 80 per cent of their food at local markets. Throughout and still, the state remained a vigilant welfare provider, attending particularly to health and education, with an unusually high ratio of doctors per capita.

The key to the Cuban solution was land redistribution, which was possible within Cuba’s system. This alternative is not going to be easily available in Australia because of the land-use planning and housing system, which makes relocalisation very difficult. That is a pity because many see this alternative as a desirable way of profiting from adversity by reducing centralization and aggregation of land, energy resources and utilities, and strengthening democracy, independent and collective economic and social participation.

The North Korean option for Australia

The Nuclear route is the opposite way. It implies total electrification, synthesising, using complex technology, the pattern of settlement and transport which arose from exploitation of the natural endowment of petroleum. It requires massive investment, and in Australia’s case, the investment sought is likely to be private. This implies ongoing loss by citizens of control over the country’s energy systems and all that flows from that – the future of work, the state of the environment, natural amenity. It implies the reshaping of Australian society by corporations with profit alone in mind, for the benefit of a small dominant asset-rich class, with the electorate a mere captive market.

In Cuba the energy supplies and materials which permitted centralized power were suddenly withdrawn and Cuba lacks the mineral resources to attract capital intensive investment. This situation surely facilitated local reorganization. In uranium-rich Australia, an opposite structuring is more likely. Because government policy favours commercial investment over public investment, nuclear facilities would tend to consolidate corporate power and its relationship with national and state government. Australia’s Anglophone mainstream media derives largely from syndicated US sources and these cultural mediators not only do not support communism or socialism, but they do not support dirigisme or relocalisation either.

In the space of a few years long-established Australian government anti-nuclear power policy reversed under Mr Howard, in spite of public disapproval. Mr Rudd is similarly surrounded by nuclear power fans in the form of the Growth Lobby. See also"Ziggy Switkowski, Population Numbers and Nuclear in the Australian", and
"Scanlon report underpins threat to Australian democracy". Bernard Salt is right there in among them.

I do not expect Mr Rudd to maintain any opposition to nuclear power in this country for long.

Nuclear is seen as an investment opportunity which will provide employment, international importance, and new industries. Rationales offered to the public are the [manufactured] imperative to provide power for projected (politically engineered) population growth and the desirability of off-setting greenhouse gas contributions from coal-fired electricity and coal exports. (Australia is the world’s largest coal exporter.) Australian planning is dominated by what the corporate sector wants. There are many indications that public sector scientists are expected to support private, corporate research and development rather than leading with public research responding to public need, which might result in moderation rather than accelerated consumption.

According to the ABARE, in the financial year 2005-6 Australia’s total primary energy consumption was 5640.7 petajoules (PJ) , growing at an average of 2.2 per cent or about 120 PJ per annum over the past 20 years. No-one is seriously suggesting replacing all this with nuclear. The suggested figure is more like 25 power plants in the next 15 years supplying one third of Australia’s (doubled) electricity demand. But many people believe that nuclear will actually take care of the problem of fossil-fuel depletion, permitting business as usual.

To do so would theoretically take 225.6 thousand MWe nuclear power plants each supplying 25PJ, plus an average of 4.8 new nuclear plants per year to supply annual growth in consumption. Each plant’s initial cost would be around $USD2 billion, in an economy currently valued by the World Bank at $US768 billion, but heavily indebted and privatised.

Of that 5640.7PJ primary energy, around 55 per cent comes from petroleum (35 per cent) and gas (19 per cent). To rely on nuclear to replace this by powering an electric car or hydrogen road transport system is a further absurdity. In addition to the 225.6 imagined nuclear power plants, more would be required to supply electricity to plug-in electric cars and to split water into hydrogen to carry more electricity to fuel the creation of new infrastructure to manufacture and service hydrogen-carrying electric vehicles, requiring more electricity (obviously).

Each 1000 MWe nuclear power plant would itself require around 1.3PJ per annum or 52PJ over a 40 yr life-time according to the Australian Uranium Association.

The government is counting on coal and gas to fill the initial gaps in petroleum supply, but coal is being exported so fast and the world is using it up so quickly with the gas peak already looming, that nuclear will presumably be called upon to supplement coal, gas and oil as well. Perhaps the government is desperately trying to attract nuclear development money by enlarging its population base and intensifying its other extractive industries, in a plan where uranium mining is, of course, a keystone. None of the above calculations factor in the amount of new energy required to build the cities around the plants – to supply and service the infrastructure required for the projected population growth, which is used to lure investment.

In a totally electrified economy, attempting to preserve something like the current consumer-goods based economy, the most likely option is to produce hydrogen electrically and also use it as an electricity carrier, to fuel electric cars and trucks. This implies a vast increase in the need for electricity and a complete renovation of road transport support infrastructure as well as vehicle design and manufacture. The corporations will demand profits from any new ventures. How are the Australian people going to pay for this? What are they going to need to give up for this? In Australia’s ‘trickle-down economy’ who is going to be left out? At the very peak of oil production, public priorities have shifted so far in favour of private enterprise that the Australian government is not capable of providing affordable housing for its constituents.

In the meantime the VAMPIRE index (Vulnerability Assessment for Mortgages, Petrol, Interest Rate Expenditure) is rising. The people at the high end of the VAMPIRE index are those locked into bloating mortgages in remote suburbs with little or no public transport, captive to rising gasoline prices for cars without which they cannot get to work, get their children to school, or get to shops to buy food.

Such hostages to sprawl are most in need of the Cuban route, but Australia’s systemic inability to plan and adapt infrastructures, industry and national resource use to radically changing conditions is perhaps its biggest problem.

Planning departments and tribunals palliate a bewildered electorate with superficial choice between styles, but, whilst allowing endless sprawl on the city-edges, continue to ram through intensified developments in the cities; to purposefully overshoot water resources and transport infrastructure in response to the growth lobby’s insatiable demand for big projects at public expense. These take the form of desalination plants, sewerage recycling plants, complex road-tunnels and expressways and, biggest of all, geological restructuring of seaports to accommodate giant container-ships for anticipated quadrupling in trade. With chilling disregard for the consequences, Australian lobby groups of planners, developers, builders and financiers have successfully campaigned for government led policies to increase population growth and energy demand.

An Australian monument to prominent members of the Growth Lobby

Mr Salt and Mr Peter McDonald (another growthist demographer), the members of the Scanlon Foundation, AATSE, the Multicultural Foundation, the Property Council of Australia, Australia 2020, APop, and a host of other persons, such as Mr Pratt (deceased), Mr Lowy, Mr Bracks, Mr Kennett, Mr Brumby, Mr Rudd, Mr Swann, and politicians in opposition who failed to stand up to this tyranny should have their names carved in stone in a public place so that the people of Australia will know who is responsible as our survival margins decline.

Tired of waiting?

Fair Water Use is urging supporters to participate in its national campaign, which in-part calls for the declaration of a State of Emergency with respect to the Murray-Darling Basin and for the Commonwealth to assume control of its management via a truly independent and appropriately empowered national authority.

The Federal Government has the constitutional powers to do so.

We are hopeful that, should Mr Rudd receive sufficient numbers of post-bags full of letters demanding that he move on this issue, even if he cannot grasp the scale of the crisis, he will at least understand that it would be a sound political decision.

Please take a moment to print off and sign the letter to the PM which can be downloaded at http://www.fairwateruse.com.au/images/stories/pdfs/the%20hon%20kevin%20rudd%20mp.pdf, or via our home page, and post or fax (02-6273-4100) it to Canberra.

Steve Garlick, a professor in regional economics, and his wife, Rosemary, who is a general practitioner, spend a lot of their time going out to get injured Australian native animals and bring them back to their property. There they undertake comprehensive rehabilitation. They house the animals for a time and then release them.

Most of the animals - even the wombats - are pretty peaceful characters, but Denton Wombat was an exceptional character and this is a marvellous story. Don't let it prejudice you against wombats though! Read more about wombats here.

Not your typical wombat

Denton was never your typical wombat. Named because of all the dental work to fix a fractured jaw when his mother was killed by a motor vehicle, he was happiest sleeping in a red backpack. Initially this was alright but as he continued to grow this soon became impractical. ‘Attack’ was his mode of operation with anything that moved and several of us have the scars on our legs to prove it. He would get up on his hind legs and bring his teeth down into your flesh. He was impossible to outrun and he would knock our in-care kangaroo joeys over like nine pins given half a chance.

Denton takes the initiative

After being in care for 18 months and with spring in the air, Denton, now at 25kgs, had decided it was time to venture into the big bad outside world. We weren’t quite ready for this, we ordinarily release in-care orphaned wombats at around 30kgs and we had not yet found a suitable safe release area for him to go to where the conditions were right. But he was determined. Late one Saturday night he decided it was time to go. He found a weak spot in the corrugated iron wall of his enclosure, worked away at it and eventually clambered out.

Once the escape was discovered a full search was mobilised. After three days of looking there was a report of him being seen in a neighbour’s laundry. With reinforcements, sedation and a thick blanket a wrestling match ensued in the laundry with clothing being spread to the four winds. He was not a happy boy being captured and returned to his enclosure, which in the interim had been suitably reinforced with more iron, metal star pickets and huge boulders to prevent a recurrence of the escape.

Second escapade

Despite the repairs to the enclosure after a couple of days Denton escaped a second time discarding the iron, the pickets and the boulders like confetti. When a wombat makes his mind to go there is no changing it! Signs were put up "Missing Wombat (not friendly)" with the contact phone number. During the Sunday apart from searching for Denton we found several promising, hopefully unoccupied, burrows for him at his new release site. We stuffed the burrow entrances with newspaper to test whether the burrows were indeed still unoccupied after several days. Wombats can have up to six burrows spread around to use as escape hatches when needed.

Sightings of Denton

Various sightings of Denton were reported by neighbours on the Sunday but we always seemed to be 10 minutes behind him when we got there. One neighbour thought they had a burglar when all the shoes on their veranda went flying in all directions during the night. Convinced of their burglar theory they installed a closed circuit TV security system! I told them that it was highly unlikely a burglar would upset the orderly nature of their shoes and that it was more likely to be Denton. Another neighbour said he heard things being thrown around in his shed and when he went to investigate the wombat chased him around his house and then waddled down his driveway.

The search continued on Monday in all drain culverts and other likely wombat resting places. Per chance I thought I would look in our own drain culvert and fortunately there he was. By now it was getting dark and rain was threatening. I had a blanket in the car but no sedative. How would I get him by myself? Surprisingly he responded to my calling and he eventually emerged from the culvert. I threw the blanket over him and held him down - 25kg of writhing muscle. What to do now? With no sedation I wrapped him in the blanket and bundled him into the car and headed some distance up the hill to home. I left the car to get the sedation and because it was now quite dark left the engine running with the lights on. Not a good idea.

Denton at the wheel!

By now Denton had got himself out of the blanket and when I got back with the sedative he was pressing on the car's accelerator and the engine was revving loudly. While the gear was in neutral and the hand brake on it would have been easy for him to knock the gear shift into gear and set the car in motion. I could just imagine the car careering down the hill with Denton at the wheel! How would I explain that to the insurance people? Fortunately he didn't. Turning the engine off I didn't count on him leaning on the car horn continuously despite now being sedated. In fact he fell asleep leaning on the car horn. Fixing this up I let him sleep for a couple of hours until Rosemary arrived home to assist.

Options

Options. We could take him immediately to the release site however it was now quite late, he was too sedated, it was raining and we were still not sure the burrows we had identified were in fact unoccupied. So we decided to put him in one of our other, more secure, wombat enclosures for the night, but we would have to move the occupants (Osh and Gosh) out of their enclosure temporarily. This we did and Osh and Gosh obliged.

By this time Denton, despite being sedated, had made his way to the rear of the wagon so we took the opportunity of driving him to the now freed up more secure enclosure. Taking food into the enclosure for him, I fell into the newly dug trench for the next wombat enclosure we are building and got my foot stuck and couldn't get out. Meanwhile it was now pouring with rain and Denton was getting agitated in the car.

After some time we got Denton into the enclosure with a bag of fresh grass and got to bed ourselves at around 3.00am.

Property inspection

Next day we began plans to move Denton to the release site. When we entered his enclosure he dutifully came out, again in an angry mood (see picture at top of article). Another wrestling match ensued until we bundled him into the cage and the car for the 30 min trip to his new home. No dogs, no humans, good digging, water and other wombats. We positioned the cage near the entry to the burrow and opened the gate. We had expected Denton to just wander into the burrow and go to sleep. Not Denton. Never think you understand wombat behaviour. He went to the entrance of the burrow and came away and did this several times. He then chased Rosemary and I away and, as we watched from the safety of the car, he began to mark his territory in the usual way.

Still not convinced he would make the burrow his new home I tried to coax him into it by moving near to it. Denton thought this a great game and proceeded to chase me around and around the burrow until I was able to escape back to the safety of the car.

We will check on him over the next few days and give you some update reports and, hopefully some pictures in his new surroundings.

In the letter included below on 2 Sep 09 to the Melbourne Age, Mark O'Connor, author of "Overloading Australia" noted. that contrary to his earlier claims that immigration had been "slashed", Immigration Minister Chris Evans has recently admitted we have "an unprecedented, unplanned migration wave". In 2008 he claimed net immigration was half what the Bureau of Statistics had said it was. Whether this is through design or incompetence, Evans is clearly serving vested interests at the expense of ordinary Australians and, accordingly, should resign. (Note: two other letters published in the Melbourne Age on the same day are also included)

It's no business for big business

SENATOR Chris Evans' claim that immigration should be the nation's labour agency, meaning a continued high intake of migrants, especially younger, skilled workers, is absurd ("Migration rules set for revamp", The Age, 31/8).

The Australian population should be our normal source of workforce. Decisions about who comes to Australia should not be left to employers. Big employers have a long history of making bizarre ambit claims about the numbers they propose to employ. Often the real aim is to create a surplus of job seekers and thus bully governments into giving the go-ahead for short-sighted projects to create jobs.

The liveability crisis should be a higher priority than importing "skilled and willing" (read "temporarily more docile") workers from elsewhere.

Senator Evans bizarrely claims that his "attempts to have a more sophisticated debate about the topic have totally failed". What efforts?

The book Overloading Australia documents him claiming in May 2008 that net immigration was less than half what the Bureau of Statistics says it was. Recently he claimed immigration had been "slashed", when it was soaring. Now he admits we have "an unprecedented, unplanned migration wave". He should resign and be replaced by a minister who serves the Australian electorate, not vested interests.

Mark O'Connor, co-author, Overloading Australia, Lyneham, ACT

It's time to debate, people

I AGREE that it is "time for a reality check on immigration policy" (Editorial, 1/9). I would go further and say it is time for a national population policy. Tim Flannery, in his Australia Day address in 2002, indicated that a population policy was vital for Australia to have an environmentally sustainable future.

He said the way to achieve such a policy was for the nation to engage in a truthful, vigorous debate, together with a government inquiry charged with setting an optimum population target. Once the target had been decided we should determine our immigration policy in light of it. This, Flannery believed, would take most of the hysteria out of the immigration debate.

In my view, the bipartisanship way the major parties have kept immigration policy debate out of the public arena is an affront to democracy. I believe an appropriate forum for debating a population policy would also act as a prophylactic in keeping irrational ideologies out of the debate.

Questions about the boom

THE boom in immigration, resulting from the wholesale granting of permanent residency to international students on the basis of skill credentials obtained here, is at last being reviewed.

The demographic distortion from this influx may have resulted in increased unemployment and disaffection among migrant and native young people.

Any net benefit from the ''education industry's ''export'' earnings might not withstand examination, with the money cycle involving repayment of loans from Australian earnings, plus huge long-term costs to Australia. Issues include the diversion of educational resources to service this trade and the downgrading of the perceived value of Australian qualifications.

Excerpts from Age article Migration rules set for revamp

"Australia's immigration policy is set for an overhaul amid concerns that it is failing to meet the nation's long-term needs, with a record influx of more than 600,000 temporary residents adding to the strain of a growing population.

"...

"New figures to be released today show that Australia's official migration program recorded an intake of 171,318 permanent migrants in 2008-09.

"When the 13,500 refugees and the 47,780 New Zealanders who settled permanently in Australia are included, the migration program saw 232,598 people arriving in the past year, a 12.8 per cent leap from the previous year's record high of 219,098 people.

"But according to figures obtained by The Age, a further 657,124 temporary migrants with the right to work arrived in Australia during the past year. The 11 per cent surge in temporary migrants was fuelled by big increases in foreign students (up 15 per cent to 320,368) and working holiday visas (up 22 per cent to 154,148).

"...

The surge in temporary migrants with a right to work has created an unprecedented, unplanned migration wave. Senator Evans said Australia needed a rational immigration debate, beyond the hysteria about the few hundred boat people who arrive each year.

"...

"Decisions about who came to Australia would be increasingly left to employers ..."

See also: Overloading Australia - new book about Australia's overpopulation problem of 23 Jul 09 by Sheila Newman, Review by sociologist, Katharine Betts of Overloading Australia of 8 Apr 09, "Migration rules set for revamp" in the Age of 31 Aug 09, Want job, will travel in the Age of 31 Aug 09, Workforce ripe for the picking by John Sutton, national secretary of the CFMEU in the Sydney Morning Herald of 31 Aug 09.

Injunction to prevent suffering to native animals fails in Australian World Heritage National Park

Councillor Katie Milne of Tweed Shire Council, NSW, failed in her attempt to prevent the staging of a 3 day long international car rally through Tweed and Kyogle Shire national parks, state forests, World Heritage areas, nature conservation areas, major koala colonies, core koala habitats and habitat where over 12 nationally-threatened species live. In September 2008, the Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett dubbed the area as the ‘Green Cauldron’, one of 8 national iconic landscapes.

On 27th August, 2009, in Milne v. Rally Australia Pty Ltd, Federal Court Justice Stone was assigned to hear the case in Sydney for 3 hours. The Judge had only just received the last of the reports an hour before the hearing and admitted she had not had time to read all the material.

Fastest case in the history of Tweed Shire?

“It was the fastest case in the history of Tweed Shire. The Judge was able to somehow determine the case in about 10 mins flat after we began," commented Cr Milne. "We didn’t even have a chance for all the issues to be heard. The rally has assigned 600 police for 5 days including training, but they couldn’t even assign a Judge for a proper full day trial to hear all the evidence."

She said, "We knew we were gone when the Judge said, 'Times up, you’ve got one more issue you can raise’.'"

"We had barely started. We had only just got past our argument when the judge dismissed both our ecologists’ reports."

Ecological expertise wasted

Ecologist Dr Stephen Ambrose was there to present his report which challenged Repco's assertion that there would be no significant impact on any nationally-listed threatened species. Dr Ambrose had presented a 12 page resume of his qualifications, his published papers, committees he had chaired and court cases he was involved with. He had supplied a huge dossier of issues including a comparative study and a raft of arguments refuting Dr Phillip’s methodology and many assumptions made. For instance, he claimed that there is a higher probability of mortality as animals actually frequent roadside verges.

Councillor Milne said it was frustrating that he had been available as a witness but the court wouldn’t interview him.

"Dr Ambrose was the key ecologist in the V8 Homebush Supercar case. He is a bird specialist and familiar with the problems a rally is likely to cause. There is a population 35-45 Black Breasted Button Quails near the Mebbin locality Byrill Creek stage of the rally route and it is believed that the loss of one or disruption to their breeding cycle could be fatal to the viability of the entire population."

She added that another ecologist, Mr Mark Graham, who also presented a damning report "had extensive and specific local experience of the area, having coincidently carried out a 3 month ground survey of the endangered Giant Barred Frogs on the Byrill Creek route. The spray of dust can settle on their eggs and larvae and totally destroy their breeding cycle."

Arcane-seeming technicalities defeated community’s try for justice

“The Judge said we had not presented the argument in the manner required by the Courts. It was our ecologist’s case that this was not possible. She made no attempt to ascertain the validity of the arguments with Dr Ambrose. The whole crux of the ecological case was not even argued. It was absolutely appalling” said Cr Milne.

She went on to say that Repco Rally Australia had employed Dr Stephen Phillips (Biolink Pty Ltd) to conduct an ecological report on the impacts on species living on the rally route in autumn. As a result many species that were not visible at that time were visible in spring, breeding season for many species. Had Dr Phillips found any significant impacts to any of the nationally-listed threatened species, the matter would need to be referred to the Minister for the Environment for assessment as these are matters of national environmental significance.

"In the first report released by Repco in April 2009, Dr Phillips actually did recommend that the rally be referred to Minister Peter Garrett. However Repco claimed in the Court that this was a mistaken release of a draft document. Dr Phillips was not in court to confirm or deny this." Cr Milne said that regardless of whether the document was a draft or not, Dr Phillips had actually stated that the rally should be referred to Minister Garrett up until July and therefore the community had believed this would happen. While Dr Phillips may have changed his mind in his July report, it shows that the matter was in contention and that a precautionary approach should have been taken. The matter of referral to the Minister should have been debated by the ecologists but never was. "It feels like we haven't even had a proper hearing and it feels extremely unjust," said Cr Milne.

Late timing issue a non-sequitur and not our fault

Cr Milne said “The late timing of filing for this injunction was being used as if it was something we were responsible for. The fact that the community has been asking the Environment Minister Garrett to make a decision on this right from the start, and that the Minister had failed to do so, did not seem to worry the Judge at all. Nor did the fact that the community was misled up until July by the Repco report and that a Development Application was also promised up until July, seem to worry the Judge.”

"When were we supposed to take an injunction?" she wondered. "We only had between July and August after the special legislation Motor Sports Bill 2009 was brought into force. The community have done everything in their power to seek a legal outcome including commissioning not one, but two, ecological reports. Minister Garrett has joined with the State government and local Council to ignore this community and this World Heritage environment completely."

She said, "Rally Australia's claims that 'this is going to be the most environmental friendly rally in the world' is a joke. How can this rally be 'environmentally friendly' when it needed to bypass State environmental laws to be held? Many of our environmental laws have had to be extinguished to force this otherwise illegal event through. This race will set a new environmental standard but it’s an absolutely appalling one, one that allows such extreme sports races to run between World heritage corridors and through National Parks and Conservation areas."

Non-profit organization well-provided for in legal counsel

Repco Rally had five lawyers present in court at a cost of $40,000 in three days. “They won on legal technicalities, not on issues”, said Councillor Milne. She added that she was surprised that a non profit organisation could afford such representation. "They have threatened that they will vigorously pursue costs. The costs order case is going to be rushed through as well, in less than a week for this Wednesday", she concluded.

This rally is intended to become a bi-annual event until 2027.

Not a good look for the Fédération internationale de l'automobile

These political and environmental impacts must also be doing great harm to La Fédération Internationale de l'automobile and the road safety and green reputation it promotes on its pages:

"Formula for the Environment: As the governing body of motor sport and the representative of more than 100 million consumers worldwide, the FIA has been actively putting the environment on the top of its dual agendas. Formula for the environment outlines the FIA’s environmental efforts, from proposals for global emission benchmarks by policy makers to forward thinking environmentally relevant initiatives in motor sport such as the introduction of energy recovery systems in Formula One, highlighting what the FIA is doing to reduce the impact of motoring on the environment." Source: http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mobility/policy/Pages/FIAPolicyCentre.aspx

Residents of the community are reportedly devastated.

One has written to candobetter: I am so sad!! Today I drove on most of the rally routes and saw so many beautiful animals, right by the road. Many kangaroos mostly, wedgetail eagles, low-flying little birds, lots of snakes, very sad looking cows and sheep and horses all looking at me as if to say 'please save me, take me away from here' .... the grief is so deep inside me right now....I am utterly inconsolable."

The making of a new law to disempower environmental laws and local government powers in order to hold the rally means that democracy has been extinguished in Tweed Shire. Environmental damage and loss of democracy always seem to go together. This is surely a matter which should concern judges all over the land.

How to make donations to court costs

Something just as bad could easily happen to a place you love, now that it has happened in Tweed Shire. Downsizing democracy is a pernicious trend in Australia. Australians need to fight these trends as hard as they can and prevent communities from being destroyed by financial costs. Perhaps there will be an appeal. People can make donations towards the $40,000 court costs. It has been suggested that if 200 people can donate $200 each the shire will be able to pay.

Bank details are:
No Rally Group
BSB 062 580
A/C 10275161
Commonwealth Bank

See also: Repco Rally route - the calm before the storm of 26 Aug 09, URGENT! Contact Peter Garrett re Injunction to stop Repco Rally of 29 Aug 09.