(We) can do better

Economists are predicting that Australia will be the world's biggest exporter of LNG by 2018, overtaking Qatar's production. Instead of being able to enjoy prosperity and the economic benefits, consumers and manufacturing industries will be held hostage to the multi-national mining giants' demands.

Gas producers in the eastern states were once devoted to supplying domestic buyers, but now they are now chasing export dollars. Until very recently, gas extracted in Australia stayed in Australia. Because our nation has abundant natural gas reserves, it meant our gas prices have stayed low by global standards. 

The loss of insulated prices will mean we are forced to compete with buyers across Asia who prepared to pay top prices.

A definition of National Sovereignty:
National sovereignty is the exclusive right of a government, or of its people (as in a democracy), or an individual (as in a monarchy) to exercise supreme authority over itself. In the current international system, the nation-state is the highest level of government. This article explores several different examples of how respect for national sovereignty occurs by various means in other countries, but not in Australia.

This article forms the basis of a brochure, attached for download and printing, prepared by Roland Johnson for the Victorian and Tasmanian Branch of Sustainable Population Australia.

‘The modern plague of over population is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is …universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and the education of the billions of people who are its victims’. [1]
Photo: Martin Luther King, 1966 (revered symbol of human rights)

Two weeks ago fire 40 km north east of Perth burnt for 10 days and blazed through some 7,000 hectares of land, burning homes - far too many to count, or for that matter, to contemplate. It impacted on countless species and would have burnt millions of individuals, all of whom, like us, are categorised biologically under the heading Kingdom of Animalia. But that's not how the newspapers reported it...

This very widely and deeply researched article talks about the role of Australian native animals in protecting forests from fire and reviews the evidence for prescribed burns, criticising Bill Gammage's research on a number of grounds and noting misconceptions about Aboriginal fire management. "Research by the CSIRO published since 1994 has shown that there is a group of around 1000 species of moths called oecophorids whose caterpillars occur at densities of up to 400 per square metre and eat dead leaf litter. These insects are killed by fire and take some years to come back - leaving the bush accumulating leaf litter. With frequent fires they can be lost. Termites consume vast amounts of dead timber Australia wide and in long unburned forests they are particularly dense with huge mounds in southern Australia too but their role in fuel reduction remains unstudied! Cockroaches and a wide range of beetle species and their larvae do the same. Recent research has identified Lyrebirds and Mallee Fowl as playing key roles in fuel reduction, composting litter and twigs in vast amounts reducing fuel loads by tonnes by per year per bird. All these insects, birds and animals that reduce fuel loads are diminished or lost to fire. Fungi are known to be major consumers of dead timber - but their role in fuel reduction is yet to be researched and the role of wallabies, wombats and especially potoroos in distributing fungi, though it is obviously significant, remains unstudied.

This exhibition is part of a movement asking for no foreign intervention in Syria. Australia backs foreign intervention in Syria, which means we subsidise the provision of weapons for the overthrow of a democratically elected government which most Syrians want to keep. Here is an extract from the article inside: “We have a well in our house, and since there’s no water—because the ‘rebels’ broke the pipes—my father was giving water to neighbours. He was in his house when a sniper entered the garden and shot him, killed him. Those ‘rebels’ don’t represent the Syrian people. Syrian soldiers aren’t fighting against normal people, they’re fighting against people equipped with the most advanced weapons and trained just to come to Syria. They destroy our homes, churches, mosques. But what makes me happy, our people, because they love Syria so much, decided not to leave. Even my dad, he knew he lived in a very dangerous area, but he decided not to leave, and he paid for it with his life.” This article by Eva Bartlett is republished from her blog at https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2015/01/22/aleppo-photographer-brings-syrian-reality-to-the-united-nations/ (Broken link fixed. - Ed, 1:53pm 24/1/14)

The New Zealand Defence Force early in Janurary surprised a third unlicensed fishing boat, far south-east of Tasmania, illegally poaching toothfish - the ocean's "white gold".   The New Zealand government so far has intercepted three ships with their offshore patrol ship, HMNZS Wellington, in cooperation with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.  
(image: head of Patagonian Toothfish)
This summer is Sea Shepherd’s 11th Southern Ocean Defence Campaign and the first to target toothfish fishing operators in the waters of Antarctica. Patagonian toothfish, a species of cod icefish, can grow up to 10 kilograms in weight and are a highly prized eating fish.

Previously published (22/1/2015) on JohnQuiggin.com.

Ernst and Young, leading consultants to the Queensland government have released a report claiming that electricity costs would be lower under privatisation. Although the report was commissioned by private infrastructure lobby group Infrastructure Partners Australia, it's just a rehash of the same line EY have been pushing for years in similar reports commissioned by pro-privatisation governments. The central claim is that electricity prices have risen more in Queensland and NSW, under corporatisation than in Victoria and SA, under privatisation. What they don't tell you is that this merely offsets increases imposed in the leadup to privatisation, with the result that retail prices are much the same in all four states, and far higher than when the process of market reform (supposedly to reduce prices through competition) began in the 1990s.

Originally published on PaulCraigRoberts.org. Article has also been republished (20 Jan 2015) on Global Research.

Today (January 19) is Martin Luther King Day, a national holiday. King was an American civil rights leader who was assassinated 47 years ago on April 4, 1968, at the age of 39. James Earl Ray was blamed for the murder. Initially, Ray admitted the murder, apparently under advice from his attorney in order to avoid the death penalty, but Ray soon withdrew his confession and unsuccessfully sought a jury trail. Documents of the official investigation remain secret until the year 2027.

I recently received a partisan political joke. Although it was funny, the punch line was about one side of politics being innumerate idiots (and, by implication, the other not). This inspired me to argue that it is the collective innumeracy of all politicians that we need to address; not assignment of blame to one side of politics as if that will solve a problem that all the major political parties collaborate to cause. One example: No shortage of foreign cars in Australia..............

This article was originally published on Fightback!news on 31 December 2014. See also: Feeling of 'solid Western support' behind Kiev's renewed assault on Donbass on RT. For more news on the fight by the people of of Donbass against the Kiev regime, read other Fightback! articles on Ukraine or visit the #Donbass Twitter page. Article also includes 2 embedded videos: Ukraine: Helping rebuild homes (7/1/15) (2:57) and Donbass under fire: Separatists (27/12/14) (58:12)

After the U.S.-backed fascist coup in Kiev, Ukraine in February 2014, the people of Donbass rebelled for independence from Ukraine. A popular anti-fascist resistance quickly emerged. The breakaway state of Novorossiya, or New Russia, was formed and Kiev sent in troops and tanks to crush the people's resistance. Civil war gripped the country. Now, almost a year later, while the resistance soldiers on, a humanitarian disaster perpetuated by the Kiev government's war of aggression has struck the citizens of Donbass. International Students Aid to Donbass, based in Wroclaw, Poland, is one of many aid groups springing up across the world in solidarity with the ongoing resistance and the victimized people of Eastern Ukraine.

Sanela Bajrasambasic, ICRC (Red Cross) delegate appeals for aid to help Donbass residents rebuild homes bombed by Kiev regime (see embedded video)

As the Ukrainian army launches a new attack on the Donetsk Peoples' Republic, claiming to have retaken Donetsk Airport from 'separatist' forces, the justification for such an attack has once again become a subject for discussion. While the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says the new offensive is aimed at 're-uniting' Ukraine, and Western media believe this both to be a reasonable objective and the real one, the actual situation is entirely different...

Inside you may view the execution of a so far nameless woman in a town in Idlib province, Syria, which was taken over by 'rebels' about one year ago. She pleads to see her children before she is executed, but to no avail. She is told to kneel, while a bunch of unpleasant looking and frighteningly stupid and arrogant-sounding men discuss matters loudly - for minutes on end - before she is suddenly dispatched. Obviously this is not an isolated act, but we ask women to make themselves aware of this act of political brutality against all of us and to unite against US/NATO foreign intervention in Syria, which is making it much harder for the Bashar al-Assad Government (which does not execute women for adultery) to combat these evil forces. The overwhelming message from Syrian people is please stop foreign intervention in Syria. Please let the Syrian army fight these 'rebels'. See Friends of Syria and Australians for Mussahala (Reconciliation) in Syria, and Socrates and Syria.

Lada Ray reports that Russia will stop transporting gas to Europe via Ukraine and redirect it through Turkey. She also describes Ukraine activities leading up to renewed war on East Ukraine, with the US, France and Poland having agreed to supply advanced arms to Ukraine. In addition, two ships, one from Australia and one from Canada docked in the Odessa port in the past week to two. Each was full of winter uniforms for the Ukraine army. The following article is from Lada Ray's English language blog at https://futuristrendcast.wordpress.com/2015/01/15/confirmed-russia-to-stop-transit-of-gas-to-europe-through-ukraine/

Back in 1986 after the joints on the Challenger Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) leaked, causing a catastrophic explosion, a Presidential Inquiry found that both the contractor supplying the equipment (Morton Thiokol) and NASA had failed to act on the advice of engineering experts working for Morton Thiokol. Damages were paid to the families of the 7 dead astronauts and NASA suffered a major setback.

In an almost perfectly analogous scenario, the ABC is launching Australia on an extreme population growth trajectory when all the scientific and economic evidence supports grounding this "population rocket" until due diligence can confirm whether it should be cleared for take-off.

Jane Stillwater holds the Edward Snowdon, Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange signs up. Is it necessary to explain that this sign is to be read in context of the "Je suis Charlie/I am Charlie" (Hebdo) signs currently being held in their tens of thousands around the world in a celebration of the illusion of free speech and a free press in Western countries? Or the connection with reporting on war conspiracies? Ms Stillwater was one of a small group of United States citizens who took the responsibility of going to the most recent Syrian presidential elections. The group members later spoke at the United Nations about how well the elections (which resoundingly returned Bashar al-Assad) were conducted. See http://candobetter.net/node/3888 This information, however, was not taken up by the mass media. Jane Stillwater's blog is at http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/blog-post.html

Video inside: For those of you who can't remember how all this terrorism got started. Although we also have to keep in mind the longer history of colonialism and petroleum-hunting in the Middle East, which goes back to the 19th century and involves the descendants of the same national and corporate players.

This article argues that you could probably get away with some nasty cartoons in a truly free press because such a press would freely report all sides to a dispute and not leave whole regions and classes of people with no expression in an international argument mediatized by the very same bunch of pillaging and plundering power elites, corporate and government, who profit from their silence. The article also wonders (but does not profess to know) whether the cold blooded assassinations at Charlie Hebdo were really an act of Islamic terrorism, or another false flag, on the principle of cui bono.

I was inspired to write this short article after reading evolutionary sociologist Sheila Newman's multi-species population work on cooperative breeding and incest avoidance in Demography, Territory, Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Population, Countershock Press, 2013, chapters 3 and 4. Newman gives theory plus examples of self-controlled populations in variety of species. My primary observation of dingo breeding habits in their native habitat supports this theory and is supported by it.

See also: Help Save Koalas From Extinction! (9/1/2014) on the Australian Wildlife Protection web site.

With the destruction of yet another juvenile dingo on Fraser Island, the Australian Wildlife Protection Council (AWPC) and the National Dingo Preservation and Recovery Program (NDPRP) today issued a joint criticism of the Queensland Government for its continuing mismanagement of the Fraser Island dingo population.

The juvenile male dingo was destroyed by Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service staff this week after it allegedly stalked tourists near Eli Creek on the Island and nipped an 11 year old child.

It is believed that up until two weeks post election 457 visa workers from Spain and their families were still arriving to work on East West Link. However the latest news is that the Authority behind the East West Link is being disbanded by the Andrews Government. There are, however, still many issues left over from the Napthine Government and East West Link that need to be carefully monitored in the area of environment, democracy and heritage.

A new temporary entry visa for skilled migrants, without any of the safeguards of labour market testing and English language requirements, would be a betrayal of Australian workers.

Unemployment has risen to 6.3 per cent. Over 775,000 Australians are out of work. The total number of hours worked in Australia in November actually fell by 0.3 per cent. Youth unemployment is at a 15 year high of 13.8%. In the northwest of Melbourne it is 17.2%, up from 13.1% in 2013. Originally published on Kelvin Thomson's website at http://kelvinthomson.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/local-workers-sold-out.html

See also: Greek 'political blackmail' of EU won't work anymore, says top Merkel party member (1/1/15) on PressTV, Austerity Measures in Greece and the Eurozone. Repealing “Flawed Economic Policies” (31/12/14) by William Black on Global Research, Angela Merkel hails Greece austerity measures (9/10/12) on PressTV.

Neoliberal Policies in Greece. Liberating the Country from the Grip of its Creditors

Previously published on Global Research (2/1/15).

Editorial introduction: The savage cutbacks of social services and government employment demanded of the newly elected left-wing Greek SYRIZA government by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is barely an order of magnitude less brutal than the civil war inflicted upon the Greek people in 1944 by the British and former Nazi collaborators. Given the support given to neo-Nazis by the same vested interests served by the IMF barely 1,000km away in Ukraine, what guarantee can there be that the Greek people will be any less brutalised than they were in 1944?

As has been shown elsewhere_{, 1} it was not for lack of courage and steadfastness that the Greek people were defeated after 1944. There is every reason to hope that, in 2014, the Greek people will be able to stand up to the New World Order Tyranny of the IMF.

However, a complicating factor is mass immigration, which in Greece and many other countries, destroys the quality of life of the working and middle classes. Unfortunately, in Greece, the most outspoken opponents of mass immigration are the modern day ideological bedfellows of the Nazi collaborators of the late 1940s.

Did the U.S. and the Saudis Conspire to Push Down Oil Prices? Article by Mike Whitney, republished with permission from Counterpunch.

Subject: The 1789 Revolution and Fertility in France. This work is of great interest because it contradicts what we are constantly told by the growth lobby, the ABC, SBS, and the Murdoch and Fairfax Press. In clear historical terms the findings in this article, long accepted in France, contradict the so-called demographic transition, which says that populations reproduce to the maximum until they have completed industrialisation. France arrived at a steady state of population subsequent to the French Revolution and industrialisation had nothing to do with it. In my opinion the author's excellent historical demography is interpreted within a flawed paradigm, which is the notion of social and material progress as a some kind of chronologically programmed biological evolution for humans. Leaving that aside, this article is a rich resource which has, as far as I can see, been neglected since its publication by mainstream Anglophone demographic ‘theory’, presumably because it undermines the notion of overpopulation being inevitable and shows that a free people can run its own affairs without some overarching authority of centralised church or government. I translated this article because I could find no previous translations, although the author went to live in the United States where he was well known and wrote the piece (in French) from there. I could see its importance because the relationship between the revolution, population dynamics and localised self-government is the subject of my upcoming third book in the Demography, Territory Law series, which will be called: Land-tenure and the origins of democracy in France.

The following is to be posted to Facebook.

A number of articles published on GR put views which would be contentious, even amongst most supporters of GR. As President Kennedy (JFK) would have agreed, this is, in fact, a sign of the worth of GR. ₃

On occasions different articles on GR have been mutually contradictory. On such occasions, public discussion would help resolve these contradictions.

The Abbott government's $111 million budget cut to the CSIRO will mean job losses for 489 researchers and support staff by mid-next year. It's a lobotomy of Australia's intellect, and a savage pruning of our nation's ability to be a developed, knowledge-based economy. First the Abbott government removed the title of science minister (the first time it has occurred in 80 years) and folds it into the portfolio of Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane,

See also: Pope Francis condemns human trafficking, slavery in New Year address (2/1/14) on RT.

No to an economy of exclusion: 53. Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape."