(We) can do better

Dr Graeme Pearman's speech on "Climate Change Issues" is now available.

Independence of Queensland Liberal National Party Government Fraser Is. Dingo management policy review has been questioned by the SFID. Why is previous management involved in review of its own record? SFID believes there are a number of high-profile and more suitable ecologists in Australia with experience more directly relevant to dingo conservation who could and should have been recruited to the policy review. The history of dingo management on Fraser Island has been disgraceful.

Queensland Environment Minister Andrew Powell naive choice of Dingo review team

The Save the Fraser Island Dingo Incorporation (SFID) today expressed bewilderment and concern in its strong belief that the recently elected Queensland LNP government’s initiative to conduct a genuinely independent review of the failed Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy already seems to have been compromised.

SFID has lobbied for years for an independent review of the current dingo management policy, which has been an ongoing disgrace and international embarrassment under the previous Bligh Labor government.

SFID’s concern relates to the engagement of two expert advisors to the dingo policy review process, who SFID strongly believes cannot be reasonably considered to be at ‘arms length’ in evaluating the current policy.

Contrary to the public commitment of the Queensland Minister for the Environment, the Hon. Andrew Powell, that the policy review would be rigorous and independent, the consultancy firm, EcoSure, hired by the Queensland government to conduct the review, engaged Dr Lee Allen as a keynote speaker for a public workshop, held at Maryborough on Friday 5 October as part of the review process.

Why is previous management leading review of its own record?

By no reasonable, commonly-accepted standard could Dr Allen be considered an independent participant. He has been acknowledged and thanked on several occasions during the term of the Beattie/Bligh Labor governments for his contribution to the Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy or for input into research conducted as part of that strategy.

While not questioning Dr Allen’s expertise, his engagement as a keynote speaker at the public workshop, SFID believes, is a contradiction of the Minister’s commitment to a thoroughly independent review process. This belief is underscored by the fact that Dr Allen’s comments to the public workshop could be easily interpreted as an endorsement of the current policy, and thereby potentially influencing attendees whose opinions the workshop was designed to take into account.

Father-son team structure seems too subjective

It is also of concern that Dr Lee Allen’s son, Ben Allen, an expert in dingo ecology, has been engaged by EcoSure, to participate in the Fraser Island Dingo Management review. Again, there is no question concerning Ben Allen’s professional competency. The objection, rather, is that he would be in a potentially conflictual position in evaluating material gathered at the October 5th review workshop, and written submissions to the review, if involved in drafting EcoSure’s report to the Minister. If Ben Allen were to be involved in this part of the policy review, he would be charged with evaluating submission material critical of the current policy, and research conducted under the auspices of the current policy, that his own father has been associated with. Regardless of qualifications and experience, anyone in such circumstances could be placed in a position of conflict of interest. EcoSure should simply not have engaged someone with the possibility of being placed in a position of conflict of interest.

The consultancy firm, EcoSure, ought also be aware that Dr Lee Allen and Ben Allen have recently jointly published contentious material in a professional journal on the state dingo conservation research in Australia, which makes it clear that their views are substantially similar. It is of significant concern that the careers of Dr Lee Allen and Ben Allen have, we believe, been more focused upon dingo control than dingo conservation. This issue is central to the integrity of the review because one major criticism of the current Fraser Island dingo management policy is that it is being implemented as a de facto dingo control policy, rather than a conservation policy.

Review lacks diverse scientific representation

SFID believes there are a number of high-profile and more suitable ecologists in Australia with experience more directly relevant to dingo conservation who could and should have been recruited to the policy review, with experience more directly relevant to dingo conservation. If a more diverse range of expert opinion had been brought to bear upon the review process, the outcome could have been enriched. The current review process potentially represents a missed opportunity.

SFID calls upon the Minister and the Chair of the Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy Review Steering Committee, Professor Possingham, to intervene to ensure that review submission material is evaluated objectively and that the Minister’s public commitment to a genuinely independent policy review process is upheld.

Source: Media release from Save the Fraser Island Dingo (Inc.), October 25, 2012

Effectiveness of Compliance Activities:
Departments of Primary Industries and Sustainability and Environment

Victorian Auditor General's Report October 2012

In a report released 24th October, Auditor General Des Pearson said DSE's compliance standards were worse than DPI but neither were adequate. He said neither department could be sure its compliance activities contributed to protecting natural resources, primary industries and the environment as the legislation intended.

Neither DPI nor DSE has a comprehensive whole-of-organisation, risk-based approach to managing their compliance responsibilities. They have not clearly identified how compliance activities contribute to achieving legislative objectives and corporate outcomes, how they measure success, or how they monitor and report compliance performance.

The departments of Primary Industries (DPI) and Sustainability and Environment (DSE) are responsible for sustainably managing the state’s environment, primary industries and natural resources. This includes managing compliance for such diverse sectors as fisheries, agriculture, mining, parks, forests and biodiversity protection. Without controls, unsustainable use can contribute to the loss of high-value species, ecosystems and industries, such as whales, red gum forests and the abalone fishing industry. In other words, “business as usual” is not an option as biodiversity will be eradicated and the State sterilised of ecological “services” needed for our (growing) population.

Issues arising from state environment laws being broken could include illegal logging, illegal duck hunting, inconsistent rabbit control, and introduction of pest species, among numerous others, the Auditor-General's report says.

Our State's emblem, the Leadbeaters Possum, is deliberately being driven to extinction by logging in state old-growth forests. There's no protection for endangered species or control of threatening processes causing it.

Noncompliance can contribute to the loss of high-value species, ecosystems and industries. For other species and systems, the cumulative impacts of environmental crime are incremental and less obvious. Obvious, yes, because we can't sustain any life on a dead landscape!

Wild licences and Permits

The Auditor-General recommends that The Department of Sustainability and Environment should:

strengthen its management of wildlife and plant licences and permits by:
• upgrading the wildlife and plant licence and permit systems without further delay
• requiring staff to record all relevant information in the systems, such as licensee inspections and interviews, and periodically reviewing how they use the systems
• accurately recording the number of licences, permits and authorisations it issues, and making this information publicly available
• reviewing its policy on using licence conditions and sanctions as a response to noncompliance.

Greens Leader Greg Barber wanted a report from DSE about Authority to Control Wildlife (ATCW). The DSE responded that there is "no central electronic management system that allows for such searches”. Also, relevant officers have advices that individual documents are not scanned, and the report would mean scanning for 4 pages from 8500 pages across 5 regions. The photocopying charges would be over $1,700.00 and 566 hours or 16 working weeks to examine files and to copy and collate relevant materials for his FOI request! Hardly efficient or transparent filing systems or record control for accountability!

Authority to Control Wildlife permits issued under cloak of secrecy

Authority to Control wildlife permits have been liberally distributed to land-holders without proper assessment and non-lethal alternatives. The quality and consistency of DSE’s processes for issuing wildlife and plant licences and permits varies greatly. It is difficult to measure the consequences of this because DSE does not monitor them adequately. DSE’s wildlife licensing is managed by a central licensing team, using a central licensing database. While the process is only partially documented, the small team knows the system well and works cohesively.

In contrast, plant and wildlife permits and authorisations for killing wildlife are issued by compliance staff across the five regions. This creates significant potential for inconsistency and until recently, there has been little guidance for them on how to address this. DSE introduced a flora permits policy in June 2012, providing regions with comprehensive and detailed .

The report exposes that there is very little programmed compliance monitoring of licences, permits or authorities to control wildlife .

Unsustainable industries

Industries such as agriculture, coal mining and forestry are important to Victoria’s economy, providing jobs and producing food, electricity and other commodities for local use and export. Other sectors such as recreational fishing and state parks have significant social value. All of these require controls, or regulations, to manage them sustainably so that our environment, economy and social values are protected.

Without controls, unsustainable use can contribute to the loss of high-value species, ecosystems and industries, such as whales, red gum forests and the abalone fishing industry. For other species and systems, the cumulative impacts of noncompliance are incremental and less obvious. In other words, precedents that fail to manage or control species and ecosystems get propagated down the line of control and the impacts balloon over time.

The departments of Primary Industries (DPI) and Sustainability and Environment (DSE) do not have the whole-of-department, risk-based compliance frameworks needed to secure balanced and effective actions across their compliance responsibilities. Both are now strengthening their approaches, particularly DPI.

The report recommends that the Department of Sustainability and Environment should improve its regional compliance planning and strengthen its management of wildlife and plant licences and permits.

Conclusion
Neither DPI nor DSE has a comprehensive whole-of-organisation, risk-based approach to managing their compliance responsibilities. They have not clearly identified how compliance activities contribute to achieving legislative objectives and corporate outcomes, how they measure success, or how they monitor and report compliance performance.

Download the report

NEW POPULATION BOOK HOLDS SOLUTIONS TO HABITAT DEPLETION: Sheila Newman has just published new theory in a new book, Demography, Territory & Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations (see link). Two chapters are on multi-species demography, the rest apply the theory to non-industrial societies and the author comes up with a completely new test for the collapse model of Easter Island, which will stun those who thought they knew all about it. Forensic biologist, Hans Brunner writes of it: "This book takes us to a completely new paradigm in multiple species population science. It shows how little we understand, and how much we need to know, of the sexual reactions when closed colonies with an orderly reproduction system are destroyed, be it people or animals."

Limiting baby bonus payments to each woman’s first two children would mean that the majority of people with two or fewer children would not be subsidising those who choose to have larger families. It would also conservatively save over $2 billion in direct costs to taxpayers every year, not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars in infrastructure for each new person. William Bourke speaks up about the changes to the Australian baby bonus. The Stable Population Party has been formally registered with the Australian Electoral Commission since 2010 and its website is www.populationparty.org.au

Way back in the Howard Government dark ages, Treasurer Peter Costello got all the population figures wrong, famously claiming that immigration was the only thing keeping Australia's population growing, although at the time it was growing all by itself, as it continues to do. Only Mr Bracks, the then premier of Victoria, got it even more wrong, claiming that deaths outnumbered births in Victoria. (The opposite was true.) Then Kevin Rudd scared us all with his 'vision' of a much bigger Australia. Julia Gillard was elected in part by votes reflecting approval of her indicating that she did not think that a big Australia was such a great thing. In his ignorance, Peter Costello introduced the "Baby Bonus" an anachronistic device more usually associated with Hitler, Petain and CeauCescu. Since then we have continued to see higher and higher immigration and the continuance of the baby bonus. Now there are signs that Federal Labor may be taking its foot off the population growth accelerator.

SPP welcomes Labor's baby bonus reductions

The federally registered Stable Population Party (SPP)welcomes Labor’s reductions in the baby bonus from $5,000 to $3,000 for second and subsequent children, saving the nation $500 million per year, but believes the government should go further.

The community party is campaigning to stabilise Australia's population as soon as practicably possible, aiming for a population of around 23-26 million through to 2050, as well as providing leadership and support to other nations to help stabilise global population via a ‘domino effect’.

Continuous growth not a happy option

William Bourke, Founder and President of SPP explains:

“We live in a finite world and can’t grow forever. The sooner we adjust to a stable population, the easier it will be to manage growing scarcity of finite, non-renewable resources. Quality of life and intergenerational equity through the sustainable use of energy, food and water resources is our priority.”

The Stable Population Party agrees with a reduction in baby bonus payments, but proposes that governments should take this budget and finite resource-saving measure further. They advocate a broader strategy to encourage ‘replacement-size’ families. They urge government to limit both the baby bonus and paid parental leave to each woman's first two children. In addition, this law would apply only to births occurring more than nine months after it was passed.

“This policy would send out a much needed message that ‘replacement-size’ families are in the best interests of society as a whole in Australia, where continuing population growth is contributing to increasing housing shortages and planning pressures, traffic and transport congestion, energy and water security issues and unwanted carbon emissions. "

SPP say it is important that people understand that they, as a community party, do support families and freedom of choice on family size. They do not support, however, governments providing financial incentives to have large families.

They remind us that a stable population will ease cost of living pressures on families, including housing, water prices, energy prices and road tolls that are all driven up by population growth.

Save 2 billion a year and tons of infrastructure

“Limiting these payments to each woman’s first two children would also mean that the majority of people with two or fewer children would not be subsidising those who choose to have larger families. Finally, it would conservatively save over $2 billion in direct costs to taxpayers every year, not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars in infrastructure for each new person."

“If we’re serious about sustainable living and fiscal responsibility, a sustainable Australia starts with a stable population,” said Mr. Bourke.

ENDS
Contact: William Bourke, President | E: [email protected] | P: 02 9906 6720 / 0448 620 525
Stable Population Party policies represent our core values in action, being: Sustainable Living, Egalitarian Democracy, Fiscal Responsibility, Global Citizenship and Productive Innovation.

Sad story of 3 brothers, 2 killed, one is running for his life

.

A dingo From the K'Gari Butchulla camp called "Inky "is running for his life. QPWS targets three dingo brothers for ‘crimes’ they ‘supposedly’ committed and they have been coded for destruction. Visit Youtube news story on this dingo for a news report:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypA2oeiO8Rs&list=UUdyUpJ3MnEdPLQnOuxMfAsg&index=6&feature=plcp

(Pic from Ch 7 Sunshine Coast QLD News)

Two have already been destroyed, one at the K'Gari camp site shot, where Inky was shot along with his brother who died. “Inky" survived but ran off with a bullet wound in his neck, developed an infected ear, is still running/ hiding terrified of the rangers. Another dingo Inky’s brother, ‘Byron’ known to be harmless, from Cathedral Beach was darted and given a lethal injection. This dingo was destroyed by QPWS on 4th Oct. 2012 before a public forum with the newly appointed FIDMS Ecosure on 5th Oct. This leaves "Inky” who, after his brother was shot at the K'Gari camp, ran off to join his other brother Byron at Cathedral beach. He is now being hunted by a trapper brought in by QPWS to trap and kill this terrified dingo.

An online vote poll asks ‘Should dingoes that attack tourists on Fraser Island be destroyed?’ It stands at 91% No and only 8% Yes- nearly 100% angry NO’s of community response. QPWS, Regional Manager Fraser Island, Ross Belcher admitted on ABC radio that this dingo and his brother, who were both killed, did not bite anyone. Why were these dingoes deemed dangerous and aggressive? They were future breeding dingoes, important to sustain another generation, but were given a death sentence based on an obscure report, and coded.

Those issuing death sentences do not understand dingo play behaviour; they behave like human male teenagers- boisterous. No more dingoes should die; there must be a complete moratorium on killing dingoes until Ecosure publish their peer reviewed FDIMS management strategy, which won't be until Feb next year. For decades, the fight to protect the F.I. Dingoes, has done little to improve the chances of these dingoes surviving for future generations. "Inky" and his brothers committed the crime of a code C..." a dingo was lying down 20 metres from a fisherman!! Other "crimes" the dingo commits, assume the dingo ‘knows the rules’: ‘loitering’ at visitor sites, stealing or ‘soliciting’ food, following people closely, generally associating with human presence’.

The QPWS term of ‘habituating’ is a ‘dingo committed crime’ Marie-Louise Sarjeant. P.A. Jennifer Parkhurst.

Notes leading up to the hunt for Inky

‘Our Fraser Island Dingoes need protection and honesty from Government which is not being provided’ AWPC Australian Wildlife Protection, President.

Hon. Steve Dickson. M.P. National Parks, Recreation, Sport & Racing…have under a current policy, the decision to authorise a “humane “destruction of a dingo that hasn’t bitten anyone. They state that ‘Issues for dingo’ destruction are because QPWS deemed it has committed a “code crime” of “habituation”. Specific details have not been given as to why Inky has to be destroyed.
(Ross Belcher from the QPWS: people were not harmed, but r it is extremely concerning dingo has not been caught)

QPWS have enlisted a paid shooter /trapper to the Island, setting a terrible precedence to bring in a person, who is effectively a pest control officer and a dingo exterminator. This is not acceptable in a Heritage Listed National Park, where fauna is supposedly protected. Dingoes on Fraser Island have learnt Rangers mean death or pain and avoid them, recognise their vehicles. Previous contentious FIDMS even states in the old management strategy, that a history of incidents and photos required and only as a last resort is the animal to be destroyed"

ABC Net news;” Trapper hunts rogue Fraser is dingo”: By Frances Adcock. 11th Oct 2012, saying that, “Up to 40 rangers are still looking for a dingo.” There are only 49 rangers there, so why waste time and money to chase down a dingo that is not a threat to anyone?

Indigenous people have signed Statutory Declarations to declare that Inky is not dangerous.

A comment written to Ross Belcher, Regional Manager Fraser Island on the Fraser Coast Chronicle:

“The dingo is allegedly a "natural feature" of the Island, interference with which is punishable by very serious fines and even, in some circumstances, imprisonment. So how then, Mr Belcher, can you justify either Rangers or a paid Shooters coming on to the Island and taking such action? Will the shooter be the subject of legal proceedings for “interference”? Will you be the subject of conspiracy to commit such a crime given your enlistment of the paid shooter?" (Marilyn Nuske Lawyer).

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Contacts to write to protest about the destruction of Inky:
[email protected] or [email protected] Ph 07 32248113
DERM dingo ranger. [email protected]
Ross Belcher Regional Manager FI: ph: 4121 1800. E:[email protected]
UNESCO: [email protected]
Mr. Young Hun JUNG UNESCO: [email protected] Please write or call to save Inky

The Australian Wildlife Protection Council has taken unprecedented steps towards preparing a case for negligence against the Victorian Government and the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) for failing to protect Victorian Wildlife and failing to assign official 'Threatened Status' to species under threat. The Victorian Auditor General in 2009 warned that the Victorian government had failed to uphold their charter to fully implement the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 but the Government has since done nothing about this. There is at present no effective protection for wildlife in Victoria. The Department of Sustainability has declined into a kind of rubber stamp office-front for shooting licenses with an agenda mostly outsourced to corporate interests for massive urbanisation of the state.

Australian Wildlife Protection Council
September 16, 2012

Part One

A Case for Negligence by the Victorian Government and the Department of Sustainability and Environment, (DSE) for failing to protect Victorian wildlife. DSE fails to assign official "Threatened Status" to species under threat.

Former Executive Director Dr Ian Miles arranged for DSE Adrian Moorrees, Project Manager, Actions for Biodiversity Conservation (ABC), Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Division to demonstrate to AWPC the DSE Actions Biodiversity Conservation (ABC) Data Base system.

”DSE uses an inadequate Victoria-wide definition of ‘threatened’ which means that local populations can be extinguished without sounding the alarm so long as some numbers remain for the whole state; pockets where animals appear numerous, due to fragmented populations trapped in small areas, are not assigned official “threatened” status. Little effective tab is kept of numbers. More and more native species simply vanish!”
Sheila Newman Land- Use Planner and Environment Sociologist

The Victorian Government and DSE fail to uphold their charter to fully implement the Flora and Fauna (FFG) Act 1988. An important requirement under the FFG Act is the development of a ‘Flora and Fauna Strategy’ (Biodiversity Strategy). The former Government committed to renewing the Biodiversity Strategy and released a draft for public comment in June 2010. The Baillieu Government indicates that they have no plans to revive it.

The 2009 Auditor Generals’ Report revealed that “As a general rule the processes and measures available to conserve and protect flora and fauna have been abandoned by DSE because of their perceived complexity and difficulty of administering the provisions.” Lack of resources was cited as the reason for poor implementation of the FFG Act. As a result of this failure to uphold their charter, many of the legal measures to protect flora and fauna have never been implemented. The Auditor General’s Report was damming; the FFG Act no longer provides an effective framework for the protection of flora and fauna.

• DSE has not implemented 2009 recommendations made by the Victorian Auditor General
• DSE has failed to improve the ‘threatened species list
• The Victorian Government has failed to provide adequate resources to implement critical work.
• DSE has not published a compliance monitoring and enforcement policy
• DSE has not promoted transparency, accountability by identifying key information about
implementation.
• DSE has not provided annual reports containing statements of implementation of flora and fauna conservation and management of their objectives.
• Victoria’s Biodiversity Strategy is significantly out of date.
• The Biodiversity Strategy was not approved before the change in Government and there is no set time frame for the strategies release and DSE have removed it from their web site.
• There is no indication that the Victoria Government is moving to adopt the existing draft or develop a new strategy.
Human population growth is causing environmental changes and coupled with climatic weather changes should make the implementation of the FFG Act a priority by any Victorian Government. Ignoring the significance of these events and failure By DSE and the present Victorian Government to take precautionary measures will result in the total destruction of our flora and fauna.

The Victorian Government and DSE are also guilty of negligence pertaining to the management and issuing of Authority to Control Wildlife Permits (ATCW). They have also shown a decided bias and are selective when nominating Committees set up for wildlife management. The Scientific Advisory Committee was established under Section 8 of the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988.

A new panel was appointed in March 2012 to oversee wildlife control and to assess applications to control wildlife which are of significant community interest. The panel consists of:

University of Melbourne - there are questions about ‘ethical practices’ within the zoology department
Bureau of Animal Welfare (DPI) - has a vested interest in domestic stock and little interest in wildlife
Zoos Victoria - the main objective of zoos is for captive breeding programs for endangered animals
RSPCA - has little interest in native animals with their emphasis being on domestic pets

There is no representation on this panel by independent persons or wildlife groups.
Pernicious (meaning destructive, very harmful) evasion can be applied to both examples used here.

The following Motion was moved at the Australian Wildlife Protection Council 2012 AGM:

Ciewen Hickey
I move
(a) that the Australian Wildlife Protection Council Inc 2012 AGM challenges the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) and the Victorian Government for negligence regarding their compliance with the DSE Fact sheet 1 – Issuing of Authority to Control Wildlife (ATCW)Permits. DSE is responsible for the management of Victorian wildlife and it is in this area that DSE has shown negligence in their statutory responsibility. Australian native animals belong to the Crown and the DSE has a Duty of Care to protect them and the habitat they need to survive. The DSE is bound by Rules and Regulations set by the Victorian Government, which is voted into power by the people and for the people. They are given a Mandate to manage State affairs on behalf of the people –
and I further move

(b) that the Australian Wildlife Protection Council Inc challenges the DSE and the Victorian Government for failing to implement provisions of the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 to protect wildlife. Concern about threatened waterbirds being shot by game shooters, leaving wounded, maimed unprotected threatened species, makes a mockery of the "guarantee".

Freedom of Information (FOI) obtained by the Victorian Greens Party DSE Authority to Control Wildlife Permits (ATCW) can be viewed at:

http://vicmps.greens.org.au/content/authority-control-wildlife-permits-issued-under-cloak-secrecy

ATCW Permits Summary (Statewide) 2011
Species Permits Max No
Australia fur seal 2 110
Australian magpie 17 340
Australian magpie lark 3 22
Australian raven 75 2326
Australian shelduck 11 205
Australian white ibis 2 50
Black kite 2 40
Black swan 1 10
Black faced cuckoo-shrike 3 25
Black tailed native hen 6 170
Cape barren geese 2 302
Common brushtail possum 5 126
Common ringtail possum 1 5
Common wombat 134 1612
Crimsom Rosella 19 525
Dingo 1 10
Eastern brown snake 3 42
Eastern Grey Kangaroo 793 29152
Eastern Rosella 5 90
Emu 37 538
Galah 29 1275
Great cormorant 2 22
Grey butcherbird 2 30
Grey teal 3 140
Grey-headed flying fox 1 1000
Laughing Kookaburra 3 30
Little black cormorant 2 22
Little Corella 37 2457
Little Pied cormorant 2 22
Little Raven 7 195
Long billed corella 15 1160
Mallee Ringneck 3 15
Maned duck 94 3393
Masked lapwing 7 185
Musk Lorrikeet 39 2430
Noisy Friarbird 12 365
Pacific Black Duck 8 358
Pacific Heron 1 2
Pied Carrawong 22 640
Purple Swamphen 3 25
Rainbow Lorrikeet 20 910
Red Wattlebird 10 295
Red necked Wallaby 13 213
Satin Bowerbird 5 85
Silver Gull 38 10140
Silver Eye 13 380
Sulphur Crested Cockatoo 28 1098
Swamp Wallaby 128 2239
Tiger Snake 1 10
Welcome Swallow 2 11
Western Grey Kangaroo 56 1162
Yellow-tailed black-cockatoo 1 30
Background What is an ATCW Permit? An ATCW is a permit issued by DSE which allows the killing of native animals.
• Who can obtain an ATCW?
• Anyone can obtain an ATCW.
• What cost is involved to an applicant for an ATCW?
• There is absolutely no cost to the applicant but the cost to the Victorian tax payer is approximately $275 per application.
• If this cost were applied to each application it would drastically cut the number of ATCW’s issued.
What DSE say in their ‘Managing Wildlife’ – Fact sheet 1

A landowner or manager identifies a conflict with wildlife on their land which cannot be resolved by non- lethal techniques.
DSE do not give any education to landholder with regard to non-lethal methods unless a landowner specifically asks for help. Education about wildlife should be a priority with DSE and it is not.

The applicant completes the form by specifying the wildlife species causing the problem, number of individuals involved, non-lethal methods used, the proposed control method (scare only or destroy) and submits the application to DSE.

DSE take the word of landholders about the number of animals causing problems. Landholders are not required to validate either numbers of problem animals or the perceived damage.

In most cases, a DSE Officer inspects the property to determine the validity of the application.

In most cases this does not occur. By their own admission DSE do not have enough Officers to carry out inspections to validate claims made by landholders or undertake any follow-up monitoring. When a DSE Officer does go to a property to make an inspection, there is no requirement that numbers of animals sighted be validated by either photographs or video. In the case of macropods, when a DSE Officer sights and counts the number of ‘pest animals’ the number counted will be more than doubled as it is presumed that if they see 100, there will be 250 in the area, because there are those which they can’t see hiding in woodland.
How are ATCW applications assessed?

All ATCW applications are considered on a case by case basis and generally involve an on-ground inspection of the problem (unless the issuing Officer has firsthand knowledge of the property)

On ground inspections are extremely rare due to the lack of DSE Officers available to undertake inspections. Firsthand knowledge usually means a permit has been issued before but no inspection is carried out to confirm that the problem remains.

ATCW’s are only issued where there is a demonstrable need to control numbers and following consideration of: Severity of the problem, other measures available to control the problem, past management of the problem.

The ATCW system provides a structured and controlled way of responding to problems in a humane and sustainable manner. Without this system, it is likely that people experiencing damage would take matters into their own hands.

The ACTW system does not provide a structured and controlled way of responding to perceived problems and the very act of killing animals is neither ethical nor humane.

How is animal welfare insured?

All authorisations include strict conditions to ensure that animals are controlled in a humane manner. An ATCW does not confer any right to use poison and does not absolve the holder of any legal obligation under any other legislation, including the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1986.

The strict conditions mentioned here consist of the type of gun which is to be used, the type of bullet and a diagram of where a shot should be placed in the case of Macropods and Wombats.

Animals which are not cleanly shot and are injured are not chased up by the landholder or the agent and put out of their misery; they are left to die agonising deaths which sometimes takes days. There is no ‘Prevention of Cruelty’.

DSE do not have any methods in place where records are kept of how many animals were actually killed, how many were injured and not found. There is no requirement by DSE for the holder of an ATCW to report these figures which means the permit holder could kill less than the permit allows or more likely, many more than the permit allows. It could be a bottomless pit.

There is also no requirement in the case of Macropods and Wombats to find any young at foot and no requirement for any in-pouch young to be humanly killed.

DSE do not have any system in place by which they test the competency of the person who is to do the shooting. The only requirement when applying for an ATCW is a current gun license number so anyone with a current license can shoot wildlife no matter how inexperienced.

Are ATCW’s Monitored?

DSE staff randomly inspects a number of ATCW’s each year.

Destruction of protected wildlife without an appropriate authorisation, or breaching the conditions of an ATCW is a serious offence and will most likely result in prosecution. There are penalties of more than $5,000 for illegally destroying protected wildlife and or up to 6 months imprisonment.

Given the lack of DSE Officers, it is reasonable to conclude that ‘random inspections’ are not carried out and there is no available evidence that any of the mentioned penalties have ever been applied.
It is also interesting to note that DSE does not have a central electronic document management system that allows for searches of ATCW’s when a request is made under Freedom of Information. There are only two DSE Officers with knowledge and understanding of the documents whereabouts who are able to assist the FOI unit. It would appear that all documents relating to the issuing of ATCW’s are kept at the regional office where they were issued. This appears to indicate, that in the eyes of DSE, the killing of Victorian wildlife is not important enough to keep centralised records.

Areas where negligence of duty are occurring

• DSE by their own admission do not have enough Officers to undertake all their duties which are outlined in their ‘Fact Sheet 1 – Authority To Control Wildlife’
• There is no system in place to prevent cruelty to animals killed under an ATCW.
• There is no system in place by which counting of ‘pest animals’ can be validated.
• There is no system in place which requires the holder of an ATCW to report and validate the number of animals killed.
• There is no system in place where the firearm competency of the applicant is tested.
• If DSE cannot comply with their own regulations with regard to the issuing of ATCW’s then they should cease issuing them until such time as they can competently oversee, monitor, validate and justify the issuing of these permits.

Parliament of Victoria

Parliament makes laws and holds the Government to account for its policies, actions and spending. Among the functions of the Parliament are;

• Representing the people
• Holding the Government to account for its policies and actions
Under the Victorian Constitution (Parliamentary Reform) Act 2003 Act number 2/2003 Part 2 – Amendment of the Constitution Act 1975
Page 12 – 16A ‘the principal of government mandate’
(b) The Government’s general mandate – to govern for and behalf of the people of Victoria

Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) Overview:

DSE believes they assist in delivering the governments vision to position Victoria as a world leader in sustainability; the department employs 2,700 staff, working in 90 different locations across the state, with annual funding of around $1 billion.

Department of Sustainability and Environment Liability in Negligence Mark Aronson November 2009
According to ‘Public Administration Act 2004

Government activities are usually judged by the ‘ordinary’ law of negligence, and one can often find good reasons for the exceptions. It is submitted, however, that it is never a good reason to deny a duty of care simply because the defendant is the Government, or because it is a statutory authority, or because it has statutory powers or statutory duties.

Perhaps, therefore a better approach would be to stop asking what special rules should apply to Government or even to Governmental actions. It might be better to focus more directly on the judicial role in a negligence case and ask what factors might be considered too difficult for the courts or inappropriate for their resolution according to a negligence standard, regardless of whether the defendant is a Government body or its action a Governmental function...it is difficult to understand what possessed the parliaments to grant Government entities generic permissions to be careless, or careless to a degree not permissible to their private sector analogues.

Ref. Government Liabilities in Negligence – Mark Aronson November 2009 ‘Public Administration Act 2004

7 Public sector values
(a) Responsiveness
(ii) providing high quality services to the Victorian community; and
(iii) identifying and promoting best practice;

(b) Integrity
(v) striving to earn and sustain public trust of a high level;

3 Objects
(ii) provides effective, efficient and integrated service delivery;
(iii) is accountable for its performance.

Public Administration Act 2004 – Section 7

Public sector values
(1) The following are some of the public sector values –
(a) Responsiveness – public officials should demonstrate responsiveness by -
(ii) providing high quality services to the Victorian Community; and
(iii) identifying and promoting best practice;

(b) integrity – public officials should demonstrate integrity by -
(v) striving to earn and sustain public trust at a high level

Part 2

Failures of the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988

The Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 (the Act) is the primary Victorian legislation providing for conservation of threatened species and ecological communities. Since the Act was passed in 1988, 653 plant and animal species, communities and threatening processes have been listed.

The primary aim of the FFG Act is to guarantee that all taxa of Victoria’s flora and fauna can survive, flourish and retain their potential for evolutionary development in the wild, and to ensure that the genetic diversity of flora and fauna is maintained.

The full range of ‘management processes’ and ‘conservation and control measures’ available in the Act has not been used. Various management processes and conservation and control measures available to conserve and protect flora and fauna are not being used, largely because of their perceived complexity and the difficulty of administering these provisions.

The gap between listed items and items with action statements continues to widen.

The lack of baseline data and outcome or output performance measures means it is not possible to conclude whether the Act has achieved its primary objectives.

The available data, which is patchy, indicates that it has not.

Administration of the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 Recommendations by the Attorney General – 2009

The department should:

-review the internal timeframes it sets for listing, against the resources it applies and the processes it adopts, to confirm they are realistic

The only critical habitat determination made was subsequently revoked at the time of his report; and no interim conservation orders have been issued.[3]

Action statements are the primary tools in the Act being used to protect and conserve threatened flora and fauna. However, the effort directed to listing threatened species and processes has not been matched by effort to develop action statements, to monitor the implementation of actions, or assess their effectiveness.

The Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act requires Action Statements to be completed for each listing. An Action Statement sets out management prescriptions to protect endangered species. An Action Statement must be completed 'as soon as possible' after listing.

-continue to build its knowledge-base on threatened species, causes of their decline and how best to mitigate threats to them; and expedite the transfer of information held on manual files to the ABC system formalise its collaboration on conservation activity with the Federal Government and seek a joint agreement to eliminate duplication in the listing process (Recommendation 4.1).

The department should:

-assess the resources it applies to developing, monitoring and reviewing action statements and establish a prioritised action plan to address the backlog of listed items with no action statements

Proper utilization of the conservation measures available in the present FFG Act would make a real difference to biodiversity conservation in Victoria.

The action statements must set out what has been done to conserve and manage that taxon or community or process and what is intended to be done and may include information on what needs to be done.

The failure to complete Action Statements renders the RFA (Regional Forest Agreement) Reserve System inadequate for the protection of endangered species due to lack of information and management strategies.

The CAR (Comprehensive Adequate Representative) reserve system on paper is meant to protect all biodiversity values in the Otways from logging practices based on best scientific information. However if the impact logging has on other forest values is not done then decreased levels of protection are what occur. [1]

An analysis by lawyers at the Environment Defenders Office (EDO) found that of 599 threatened plant and animal species listed under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, only 270 have an action statement to manage their conservation as legally required.[2]

Brendan Sydes, Chief Executive Officer and lawyer at the EDO found that Action Statements have still not been prepared for 374 of the 675 species, communities and processes listed under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, despite the clear legal obligation to do so. In the past year, only one draft statement has been released. “At this rate, it will take the Government decades to fulfil their obligations,” said Mr Sydes. [3]

-review the efficacy of conservation and protection tools available under the Act

Imposition of yet another environmental impact assessment option, such as the Environmental Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, through the state significant planning process adds to the confusion and complexity, and should be resisted. In the view of the EDO, the lack of political and Departmental will to fully implement and enforce the FFG Act, combined with a lack of resources provided to DSE for implementation of the Act has resulted in its weak implementation. [4]

The Native forest timber industry is exempt from complying with legislation which is in place to protect flora species listed in the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988.

The existence of this Order for exemption is an admission that logging practices in State Forest threaten and destroy listed flora in the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988.[5]

East Gippsland is now a refuge for many of Eastern Victoria’s rare and threatened forest species. To be responsible and responsive about reversing the decline in number and populations of threatened species, the zoning system must now strongly favour protection of their remaining habitat.

Under the FFG Act, action statements are required to set out "what has to be done to conserve and manage (a threatened) taxon or community." The action statements contain short-term, interim, objectives and actions as well as longer term objectives and actions to ensure the species return to a secure conservation status. To the extent that re-zoning will result in the longer term actions and objectives of the action statements for the relevant species not being implemented and achieved, the re-zoning could result in a failure to meet legal obligations that arise under the FFG Act.

For the Powerful Owl, the long term objective of the FFG action statement is:

“...to increase population numbers in potentially suitable areas, where owls are now scarce by maintaining and restoring habitat for species across all land tenures to return it to a secure conservation status in the wild.”

Changes to the zoning are inconsistent with the long term objective of this statement. [6]

The Wildlife Act and the FFG Act should be at least partially amalgamated so that the FFG Act includes prohibitions on taking or destroying all listed flora and fauna.

Victoria’s Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 has objectives to ensure “Victoria’s native flora and fauna can survive, flourish, and retain their potential for evolutionary development”. Now the integrity of this Act is under threat. Perversely DSE’s Code of Practice argues that deliberate burning of bushland and forest habitat will help Victoria’s native flora and fauna to survive, flourish, and retain their potential for evolutionary development. No document exists to zoologically prove that native fauna will suffer such negative consequences if it does not have a bushfire range through its habitat. As a result, the Code of Practice implies that bushfire is ok for all Victorian bushland and forests – DSE conveniently convinces itself that the urgent moral imperative for DSE to suppress bushfires is extinguished. So now it lights more fires than it puts out. The ability for forest fauna to recover is therefore being hampered by further prescribed burning, and recovery is also hampered by reduced fecundity caused by a decade of drought, and for the owls, low prey population densities.’ [7]

-assess whether the listing process is the most effective and efficient means of protecting species and communities

The Spot-Tailed Quoll is now classified as 'Vulnerable' under the Commonwealth Endangered Species Protection Act 1995, and has recently been reclassified to 'Endangered' under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act. When the Quoll was first listed for protection under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act (nomination 146), logging practices that cause habitat fragmentation were cited as a major threat.

The first Tiger Quoll Action Statement has no prescriptions to protect Quolls from logging practices despite the primary Quoll habitat being within forest available for logging. The failure to recognise the potential for forestry operations in State Forest to create fragmentation is a serious issue.[8]

The deliberate inaction and disregard of the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act by the government, coupled with an assumption that no one would ever have the funds to take them to court, proved to be not enough to protect the historical over-logging operations of the hooligan industry. [9]

Offences for the protection of fauna – there are no provisions for the protection of listed fauna. Offences in relation to fauna are contained in a separate piece of legislation, namely, the Wildlife Act 1975 (Vic). [10]

The offences in the FFG Act should apply to all listed species, not just flora and fish. The defence available to owners and lessees of private land should be removed. The FFG Act should also prohibit the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of habitat of listed species. Or at the very least, the FFG Act should prohibit the destruction of the "residence" of a listed species (e.g. the hollow, nest, or other dwelling place), similar to the new Canadian legislation, the Species At Risk Act 2002.

Currently there are exemptions under the FFG Act for logging, in the form of the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act (Forest Produce Harvesting) Order 1988. These exemptions should be removed. [11]

Sambar Deer are confusingly listed as 'environmentally threatening' under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, yet protected as a game species under the Wildlife Act. That makes no sense, and has led to gross inaction on a rapidly escalating problem. [12]

A number of species listed under Victoria’s Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act (FFG Act) and browsed by Sambar were recognised by Victoria’s Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC 2007) as threatened by Sambar.

The Mountain Ash forests of the Central Highlands are home to several threatened and endangered species, for example, the endangered Leadbeater’s Possum, which is Victoria’s faunal emblem. Endemic to the Yarra tributaries, the population of the Leadbeater’s Possum is currently in decline as a result of inadequate habitat.

T he protective provisions of the FFG Act are excluded where logging is conducted in areas containing flora listed as threatened under the FFG Act. The Flora and Fauna Guarantee (Forest Produce Harvesting) Order 1998 authorises the taking of protected flora from State forests, where such taking is the result of logging. However, a similar exclusion in areas of threatened
Fauna does not exist. Therefore, the protection afforded by the FFG Act remains intact and applies to logging operations conducted in the threatened species habitat in the Yarra tributaries. [13]

Recommendations:

Logging in habitat areas must be listed as a potentially threatening process under The Act.

Logging management must be reviewed in order to develop sustainable rates of logging, if logging is to continue. (ibid)

VicForests won on their contest that they can log FFG recognised habitat for the endangered Leadbeater's Possum - Victoria's faunal emblem. This has meant the survival of the species cannot be 'guaranteed' under the FFG Act. [14]

The proposed variation to the Code of Practice for Timber Production 2007 will allow the Secretary of the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) to override a Flora and Fauna Guarantee Action Statement (Action Statement) for any given forest coupe. In other words, it empowers the Secretary to clear threatened species habitat that would otherwise have been protected.

This effectively takes the only readily enforceable part of the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 (Vic) (FFG Act) and allows the Secretary to make it unenforceable. [15]

-develop a suite of output efficiency and outcome effectiveness measures to monitor and assess its conservation efforts (Recommendation 5.1).

The impacts of climate change, fire, weed and feral animals and logging, coupled with changing demographics and community attitudes to forest management, all point to the need for a major, independent assessment and overhaul of current logging arrangements.
(Australian Conservation Foundation - East Gippsland)

DSE has provided no evidence to suggest that any comprehensive surveys have taken place to ensure that the species are being adequately monitored and protected as per legislative requirements in their action statements and the FFG Act.

In June of this year, 10 of the 11 staff who make up the south-west biodiversity team will not have their contracts renewed, with similar cuts expected in other regions of the State. Many species of flora and fauna in south-west Victoria are on the brink of extinction and require urgent proactive management. The government’s dismissal of threatened species officers will ensure that next to nothing is being done to save these species, thus totally ignoring its legal requirements under the Victorian Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 and the Federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. [16]

The implications of this move are alarming. Less DSE officers and staff will further compromise the effectiveness of the enormous and important task of protection biodiversity.

Urban sprawl is eating into natural areas and green wedges, and impacting on some of the most endangered habitats and species in Victoria. A significant population of the Southern Brown Bandicoot (Isoodon obesulus obesulus), a nationally threatened species, still persists in south-eastern Melbourne in the cities of Casey and Cardinia. The Southern Brown Bandicoot is listed as ‘endangered’ under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999. In Victoria, Southern Brown Bandicoots are listed as ‘threatened’ under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act. [17]

About 5000ha of Victoria's last remaining grassland habitats will be cleared in the growth corridors, approximately 2600ha of grassland will be retained in the urban growth areas and the rest will be offset into two large 15,000ha grassland reserves outside the growth areas.

In a world of finite resources with unchecked economic and population growth, some form of overshoot and collapse is inevitable.

Victoria could bear the brunt of a climate change front that would see almost a third of animal species wiped out in less than 60 years.

By 2070, Victoria could be rendered unrecognisable as the continent heats up and rainfall patterns change, according to a drastic new report by the CSIRO. Victorian animal species already threatened by climate change include the mountain pygmy possum, the helmeted honeyeater, and pink-tailed legless lizard.

One of the report's authors, Dr Michael Dunlop said ecosystems such as the eucalyptus forests to Melbourne's north could disappear and snowfall in Victoria's alpine regions become more sparse, and the Mallee become increasingly thirsty. It's easy to blame climate change as if it were indistinct from human actions, and with loss and degradation of habitats, compromising management of flora and fauna, and loosening policies that protect native animals, will likely cause their demise. [18]

Of the 91 species of non-marine mammals known to have inhabited Victoria since European settlement, 19 are now extinct in the state, and five of these are now totally extinct. Many other species survive with much diminished populations. For example, the native grassland complexes of lowland Victoria are now among the most endangered ecological communities in Australia, there being less than 2% left of the pre-1750 area of thousands of square kilometres. [19]

While there is legislation to protect native vegetation, or their offsets, it's assumed that wildlife will adapt to smaller, degraded and diminishing habitats.

State of the Environment 2011 (SoE 2011)
Independent report to the Australian Government Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities

Human population growth is a potential cause of environmental change worldwide, including Australia, even without considering the impact of changes on living standards or resource use per capita. The largest factor influencing population growth over the past decade has been net overseas migration rather than natural increase, although less so than over previous decades. Direct impact are the extension of the urban growth boundary, land clearing for agriculture, feral animals, proposed invasion of green wedges for developments – and also in national parks.

18 species are listed as extinct

The Advisory List of Threatened Vertebrate Fauna lists 41 extant species compared with 34 listed under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988. [20]

The perception that kangaroos are a renewable resource, coupled with the labelling of these native animals as pests, has resulted in the largest slaughter of land-based wildlife on the planet.

In the past 20 years, 90 million kangaroos and wallabies have been lawfully killed for commercial purposes. Kangaroos are often found with missing limbs or jaws or suffering from gaping wounds due to the difficulty of the shot. The writer concludes:”It is irresponsible to commercialise the hunting of kangaroos, given these serious concerns of contamination and animal cruelty”.[21]
Although kangaroo and wallabies are not considered endangered or threatened, there is a moral dimension of protecting wildlife from profits, and being cruelly plundered. All wildlife should be protected from commercial activities.

( [1]Otway Ranges Environmental Network – West RFA reserve system
http://www.oren.org.au/issues/forestmanag/rfa/rfacar.htm)

([2]The Age – Threatened species still missing out May 9 2012)

([3]Report finds Victorian Government ignoring key environmental laws- EDO online http://www.edovic.org.au/media-release/report-finds-victorian-government-ignoring-key-environmental-laws 5 July 2012)

([4] VCEC Inquiry into Victoria’s Regulatory Framework Issues Paper prepared by
Environment Defenders Office (Victoria) Ltd 24 September 2010)
([5]Otway Ranges environment Network – The Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act )http://www.oren.org.au/issues/forestmanag/ffgact.htm
([6]Australian Conservation Foundation Environment East Gippsland - Gippsland Environment Group - The Wilderness Society Victoria - Victorian National Parks Association Submission to East Gippsland Forest Management Zone Amendments September 2010 )
([7]The Habitat Advocate A HABITAT CONSERVATION WEBSITE ‘State Arson’, ‘State Logging’ wiping out owls
http://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/?tag=flora-and-fauna-guarantee-act)
([8] Environment East Gippsland - Baillieu to protect loggers above threatened species
http://www.eastgippsland.net.au/?q=node/587)
([9] ibid)
([10] REVIEW OF THE FLORA AND FAUNA GUARANTEE ACT 1988 (VIC) Lawyers for Forests Nov 2002)
[11] ibid
([12] Victorian National Parks Association – Feral horses and deer in the Alps)
([13] LOGGING IN MELBOURNE’S WATER CATCHMENTS: the yarra tributaries: HANNAH NICHOLS Monash University Victorian Parliamentary Internship Report June 2008)
([14] http://www.myenvironment.net.au/index.php/me/Work/Legal/Save-Sylvia-Appeal/What-it-s-all-about)
([15] EDO - EDO Briefing Paper Forestry Code changes endanger threatened species 30 Nov 2011)
([16] The backwards spiral continues - Baillieu Government axes threatened species officers http://www.iffa.org.au/backwards-spiral-continues-baillieu-government-axes-threatened-species-officersIndigenous Flora and Fauna Association)
[17] VPNA: Submission guide - threatened species and urban sprawl
http://vnpa.org.au/page/nature-conservation/take-action/submission-guide-_-threatened-species-and-urban-sprawl
([18] http://www.news.com.au/national/climate-change-could-see-a-third-of-victorias-animal-species-extinct-in-60-years/story-fndo4cq1-1226476070373)
([19] http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/conservation-and-environment/biodiversity/victorias-biodiversity-strategy-1997/sustaining-our-living-wealth/the-challenge-today)
[20] SOE report 2011- http://www.environment.gov.au/soe/2011/report/biodiversity/2-4-plant-and-animal-species.html
[21]Victoria's cull plan bad for health: roos and ours- http://www.smh.com.au/environment/animals/victorias-cull-plan-bad-for-health-roos-and-ours-20120918-263lq.html#ixzz26oBkQDkf

Respectfully Submitted by the Australian Wildlife Protection Council Inc

September 24, 2012

Maryland Wilson

President

Case of DSE Negligence compiled by Members of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council Inc:

Maryland Wilson - President
Vivienne Ortega - Vice President
Ciewen (Val) Hickey - Research
Rheya Linden - Research
Sheila Newman - Sociological Land Use Planner

How did stealing from the public to enrich the private sector become a norm in Australia and why do some religions give it moral credence? This is a reminder of the existence of an important, publicly available article about the rise of right-wing so-called 'think tanks' in Australia since the mid 1970s and their recent tendency to combine forces with the religious right. Here, from another source and angle, are arguments that reinforce candobetter's message about the problems Australia has with the growth lobby and its merchants.

Manufacturing right-wing consent

An article by Marcus Smith and Peter Marden (2008): "Conservative Think Tanks and Public Politics," Australian journal of Political Science, 43:4, 699-717 describes how so-called 'think tanks' rose with the funding of private industry players who found in them a way to influence public perception to confuse business and commercial interest as "synonymous with public values". A hallmark of the language used for this was the notion of 'commonsense'. The authors identify a 'fact/value dichotomy' to push a 'logic of economic growth'.

They don't give this example but, "Jobs are more important than trees," immediately came to my mind as a slogan mindlessly repeated at election times.

The authors identify a 'pivotal shift' around 1980 when Sir Robert Crichton-Brown[1] led a political campaign to make business more pro-active in policy making processes and public debate, apparently with the aim of bolstering a privileged minority. Significantly preceding this campaign were visits to Australia in 1975 and 1976 of ultra-economic rationalists, Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek. (See more about Friedman and the Chicago School in Naomi Klein's once in a century book, Shock Doctrine.) The result has been,

"a mutually supportive network of market fundamentalists and vested interests that is committed to undermining any opposition."

Mass media the corporate messenger

Smith and Marden write:

"Our concern derives more from the discursive force of think-tank commentary received and appropriated as 'expert opinion' by a media too lazy to apply rigorous critical analysis and a public interested but unable to access alternative views."

The success of the right-wing movement in influencing the media and politics is the result of

"unrivalled access to financial, intellectual and political resources; the availability of technologies that make wholesale manipulation of public opinion possible and which are used with almost negligible transparency or accountability; and, effectively, the anonymity of many participants mean this activity not only has the capacity to undermine any notion of a democratic politics, but is, in fact, the very intention."

The paper gives the example of the IPA's 'great Australian Dream project' as one where an alliance of interests was formed and operated in public debate in the Australian political context to popularise the notion that housing unaffordability was almost solely the result of irrational planning regulations stopping the release of land. The authors chronicle how Federal Treasurer Costello in August 2006 introduced into Parliament The Tragedy of Planning: Losing the great Australian Dream", a report about housing affordability, compiled by the IPA's Alan Moran, without anyone being made aware that the project was chaired by Bob Day, a former Housing Industry of Australia (HIA) president. They describe how these ideas were taken up and promoted far and wide in the mainstream press and by the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL), whom Day had addressed. They also note links to a web site in the USA called Demographia, which is run by Wendell Cox, who also has links to the IPA.

Smith and Marden criticise the rationale of unfair planning regulations preventing release of land because they feel that the issue of interest rates should have been included as the 'overwhelming reason' why young Australian families were finding it increasingly difficult to afford a home." They add,

"There is not enough space here to analyse in detail the position of the IPA with regard to the housing issue; however, what is clearly evident in the language used is the unwavering faith in free market values coupled with an appeal to conservative family values, all the while serving vested interests in the housing construction industry, which has supported the efforts of the IPA. ...focusing simply on planning regulations as the sole cause of the increase in house prices and the obvious solution being to 'remove the burden of red tape'. The argument is designed to conceal more than reveal, relying on jingoistic labels, such as the 'Banana Brigade' (build-absolutely-nothing-anywhere-near-anything) and the 'Consolidati' (urban-consolidation-culturists), which serve all too conveniently as scapegoats who are accused of protecting property investments at the expense of young families seeking a first home. The reality is that the issues surrounding the built environment are far more complex, with powerful vested political and economic interests seeking to control the debate."

Since they wrote this article, of course, there has been an absolute avalanche of special favours from government to the property development and growth lobby.

Candobetter.net would say that the overwhelming reason for high housing prices is that population growth causes an inflationary demand. High interest rates are just the icing on the cake for profiteers who hold Australians to ransome. Neither Smith and Marden nor the IPA seem to consider impacts on the natural environment or population policy. Andrew Norton's "Lone Classical Liberal" blog has some correspondence from a different angle, attacking Smith and Marden for getting the Australian dream wrong, claiming that Australians love failing to see that people "prefer, according to surveys, detached houses to flats." Other correspondence on the same blog also attacks universities for producing low quality arguments.

Perhaps because of its age, this excellent paper lacks a quantity of concrete examples of profiteering through the manufacture of consent, when examples in real life seem to abound. If we at candobetter.net did not have many pages of such examples, including links to The Growth lobby and its Absence we might find the story of this paper hard to believe. Instead, we find it corroborative and suppose that the reason the authors don't give many examples, but maintain their argument in the general and philosophical relates to the date of the research, prior to its publication, in 2008. At that time the scam of population growth was barely mentioned publicly. Nonetheless the article fills in some blanks. It is very well written, effective and provides fascinating documentation of associations between groups of people via their shared values and ideas.

Of loafs and fishes

The authors point at the link between religion and the growth lobby in the Alan Moran/Bob Day Australian Dream example. They then discuss the rise of the religious right in the United States and recently in Australia, finding a synergy between the religious right and the political right.

The adoption of 'Prayer Breakfasts' by Australian politicians from both major parties is one example of the surreptitious inclusion of religious sentiment into mainstream politics. ... The evidence of a transference to Australia of politico-religious values that are commonly associated with the political landscape of the USA is a major influence informing the emerging neoconservatism."

I was also bothered by the sudden introduction of Prayer Breakfasts as well as, earlier, the rise of pronatalism influenced by Christian groups, cropping up like the undead DLP, for instance with Kim Beasley, like father like son. (See "Pronatalist policies in Australia 1945-2000.") For this reason it has been a relief to have a childless unmarried atheist for Prime Minister, (Julia Gillard), even if experience tells me that branding can be deceptive, but then I tell myself that she must have something real going for her because the mainstream press hate her so.

So, what's the deal with religion and fascism?

"In attacking the notion of the state as benevolent, much of the critique recasts the state as an intrusive secular institution interfering in the relationship between the individual and God. A restoration of Christian ethics that are framed in natural law enshrined in Holy Scripture, shifts the emphasis of the state from provider to disciplinarian; the enforcer of the authority of the word of God and protector of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Within this framework, market fundamentalists and neoconservatives have identified a common interest that has enabled the formation of alliances between powerful corporate interests and right-wing conservatives and fostered a far more cohesive and influential political network."

NOTES

Sir Robert Crichton-Brown is a patron of Sydney University's Medical School Foundation, who give his biography thus:

Sir Robert Crichton-Brown KCMG CBE TD

Sir Robert joined the Lumley Group in 1938 in London. After war time service in Iceland, France, India and Burma from 1939 to 1945, he rejoined the Group, holding positions in Sydney from 1947 as Director, Managing Director and Chairman; remaining as a Director until 2003. He was Chairman of Rothmans of Pall Mall (Aust) Limited from 1981 to 1985 and Executive Chairman Rothmans International from 1985 to 1988. He also held positions as Director and Chairman of a range of commercial companies including the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney. Sir Robert was President of the Institute of Directors of Australia from 1967 to 1980, Honorary Federal Treasurer of the Liberal Party of Australia from 1973 to 1985, a Director of Royal Prince Alfred Hospital from 1970 to 1984. He worked with a number of community organisations including the Salvation Army, the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, the National Scout Association and the Girl Guides Association of Australia. Sir Robert was a member of Australia’s winning Admiral’s Cup Team in the UK (Balandra) in 1967 and in 1970 winner of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race (Pacha).

Sir Robert Crichton-Brown is an Honorary Governor and a Founding Member of the Medical Foundation. He held positions as Honorary Treasurer, and President from 1962 to 1987. Sir Robert was appointed an Honorary Fellow of the University of Sydney in 1987 and is an Honorary Life Governor of the Australian Postgraduate Federation in Medicine.

Joe Toscano is running for Lord Mayor of Melbourne. Toscano is highly educated in political history and economic systems. He is one of the few doctors in Australia who still makes home visits. His ideas and values empower people at local level first and look at quality of life and democracy. Whilst it is true that a Mayor of Melbourne cannot create a peoples' bank, nonetheless, they can raise the idea seriously in some big forums. Listen to Joe on 3CR where he broadcasts weekly. Joe is also publicising a Meeting at 11am near the 8 hour monument, where Australian Anarchists will begin a walk to Human Rights Square, corner of Collins and Swanston (formerly City Square), to reclaim it as public space (because it has been corporatised). From MIDDAY THIS SATURDAY 20th October, as part of a world event known as "Global Noise" there will also be public banging of pots and pans in Human Rights Square.

Note that current Mayoral incumbent, Robert Doyle, is poorly perceived internationally for his decision to call the police on Australian activists when they occupied Melbourne's City Square, which is public space that has been corporatised. Joe Toscano is all about giving power back to people on a local level and has led the popular renaming of City Square as Human Rights Square. Doyle is also the only one of nine Melbourne Mayoral candidates who has not disclosed the amount or source of his funds. A developer who remains unnamed was described by the Age as perceiving that donations to Doyle's campaign could be rewarded with access by developers to the town hall.

Here is what Joe Toscano has to say about a Peoples' Bank

I, like many other Australians, am becoming sick and tired of hearing the Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan telling Australians to change banks every time the privately owned banking cartel refuses to pass on the Reserve Bank’s interest rate cuts. There is nothing more pathetic than one of the most powerful people in government telling Australians he and the government can't do anything in the face of the privately owned banks’ unconscionable behaviour.

Over 100 years ago, in 1911, a Labor government, faced with the predatory behaviour of privately owned banks who acted as if their only responsibility was to their major shareholders, set up the Commonwealth Bank to ensure Australians had the option of banking with a government owned bank as well as privately owned banks. In the 1980’s the Hawke/Keating Labor government, seduced by the privatisation, deregulation, corporatisation, globalisation juggernaut, privatised the Commonwealth Bank removing the only effective brake on preventing the privately owned banks forming a self-serving cartel.

The solution to the privately owned banks unconscionable behaviour is simple. The Gillard led Labor government needs to take a leaf out of the book of the 1911 Labor government and set up a new government owned bank. Faced with some real competition in the market place by a bank that is government guaranteed, it wouldn’t take long for the privately owned banking cartel that currently dominates the financial sector in Australia to disintegrate. This time, unlike in 1911, the people of Australia should be given the opportunity to incorporate the ownership of the new government owned bank in the Australian Constitution so next time the government of the day decides to privatise the people’s bank, it would have to hold a referendum to decide if the owners – the Australian people – want to sell their bank. Considering the palpable anger among the Australian people about the banks’ predatory behaviour, if the Gillard led Labor government had the courage to set up a new people’s bank, it’s re-election in 2013 would be assured.

Local government is the building block of a democratic society

Anarchism is all about relocalisation and face to face democracy. It is not about disorder and competition.

Toscano writes:

In Australia local government is a creature of state government. Local government has no constitutional protections. State governments can dismiss and do dismiss local governments on a whim. In this country power is being increasingly concentrated in the hands of a Federal government that derives its power from its ability to tax. In an anarchist society local government at both the community and workplace level is the sole level of government.

Community councils based on geographical boundaries and workplace councils based on the type of work done, not specific trades, exercise power in an anarchist society. Community and workplace councils form federations to co-ordinate activities at a local, regional and national level. Community and workplace councils make decisions through direct democratic processes. The people involved in a decision make that decision and appoint or elect delegates to co-ordinate decisions at a local, regional and national level.

The ability to freely participate in the decision making process is at the heart of anarchist decision making processes. Whether people choose to participate or leave the work to “somebody” else will ultimately determine the success or failure of a system based on direct democratic principles. We don’t need several layers of government to rule us. We don’t need to hand over power to
representatives. In order to create a secure, stable, viable society we need processes in place that harness the collective wisdom of the people and use the common wealth for the common good.

UPDATED Oct 18 Inside is list of names of people running for local councils in Victoria who are members of groups affiliated with Planning Backlash. The list was compiled by Mary Drost, convenor of Planning Backlash, who says it represents 14 councils and it the total she has so far.

This list of names of people running for council who are members of groups affiliated with Planning Backlash. It has been compiled by Mary Drost, who says that there could be more, but those are the ones she has received to date. Mary Drost is the convenor of Planning Backlash, an umbrella group of people from groups trying to get more democracy about planning in local government. At least some of these candidates will have an awareness of overpopulation. Clifford Hayes is also a candidate for Sustainable Population Party of Australia.

Mary Drost writes, "The number of Planning Backlash friendly candidates has now reached 50 in 20 councils. This list is of those who are members of resident groups concerned about the bad development that we are having forced on us. Party politics do not come into it and we certainly hope that those who do get into council listen to the residents who put them there and not to any party policy."

(The comments below about possum-friendliness are not the views of Planning Backlash but of wildlife friendly readers of candobetter.)

Updated list from 18 October 2012 (twice)

Clifford Hayes - Bayside

Michael Norris - Bayside South Ward

Tony Michael - Boroondara Cotham Ward

Jane Addis - Boroondara Maling Ward

Ian Quick - Boroondara Lynden Ward

Catherine Manning - Cardinia

Lynette Keleher - Casey - River Gum Ward

Craig Walters - Darebin - Cazaly Ward

Don Dunstan - Glen Eira - Rosstown Ward

Cheryl Forge - Glen Eira - Camden Ward

Frankston Penalluriack - Glen Eira - Camden Ward

Trevor Dance - Hume City - Jacksons Creek Ward

Rosemary West - Kingston Central Ward

Trevor Shewan - Kingston

Anthony Searle - Knox Baird Ward

Stephen O’Brien - Manningham Koonung Ward http://coherence.com.au/curlew/elections/

Jennifer Yang - Manningham Koonung Ward

Magdi Khalil - Manningham Koonung Ward

Ed O’Flynn - Manningham Heidi Ward

Paul McLeish - Manningham Mullum Mullum Ward

Dot Haynes - Manningham

Brian Whitefield - Macedon Ranges Shire South Ward

Jackie Watts - Melbourne Carlton Residents

Kevin Chamberlain - Melbourne Nth & West Melb Residents

Michael Kennedy - Melbourne Eastenders

Michele Anderson - Melbourne Docklands

Susan O’Brien - Melbourne Southbank

Chan Cheah - Monash Mulgrave Ward http://vote4chan.wordpress.com/

Des Olin - Monash Mulgrave Ward

Damian Lobo - Monash Glen Waverley Ward

Martin Forster - Moreland South Ward http://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/martin.forster.1422

Dr Derham Groves - Moreland South Ward

Leigh Eustace - Mornington Peninsula - Briars Ward

Peter Holloway - Mornington Peninsula - Seawinds Ward

Heidi Duell - Mornington Peninsula - Nepean Ward

Craig Thomson - Mornington Peninsula - Seawinds Ward

Neale Adams - Mornington Peninsula - Red Hill Ward

David Gibb - Mornington Peninsula - Seawinds Ward

Warwick Leeson - Nilumbik - Sugarloaf Ward

Serge Thomann - Port Phillip (Some complaints that he has done nothing for possums in Catani Gardens and they wish that he would - candobetter.net ed.)

Jane Touzeau - Port Phillip

Peter de Groot - Port Phillip Sandridge Ward

Richard Roberts - Port Phillip Emerald Hill

Catherine Sharples - Port Phillip Albert Park

Ann Birrell - Port Phillip Albert Park

Vanessa Huxley - Port Phillip Carlisle

Mary Gallic - Port Phillip Junction

Matthew Knight - Stonnington

Niall Baird - Whitehorse

Amanda Stone - Yarra Langridge Ward

Addition: Video of Pearman's lecture. Port Phillip Conservation Council contains a freakishly well-informed collection of environmental activists and is an entertaining and instructive organisation to attend ordinary meetings at. On 22 October, however, they have an additional drawcard in Dr Graeme Pearman who was for a long time a CSIRO insider.

Internationally renowned climate scientist and former Chief of CSIRO’s Atmospheric Research, Dr. Graeme Pearman is guest speaker at Port Phillip Conservation Council Inc. Annual General Meeting
7.30 PM
Monday 22nd October

Long Beach Place Chelsea Community Centre
15 Chelsea Rd. Chelsea

(Melways Map 97 B1)
All Welcome.

Port Phillip Conservation Council Inc have asked Dr. Pearman to speak on what to expect locally and globally at various temperature scenarios; tipping points; how the insurance industry might deal with climate change; and how the climate science community has dealt with the challenges of getting its message heard.

Dr. Pearman’s speech will precede the AGM and guests are invited to remain for the AGM and supper.

[Sheila Newman recommends this organisation for the striking expertise of its lay members - well worth joining, contributing to and learning from. - Ed.]

Inquiries: Jenny Warfe Jenny Warfe
Ph. 0405 825769

Web: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~phillip/welcome.htm or Google Port Phillip Conservation Council.

Kangaroo may become a commercial Victorian venture

John Kelly, executive officer of the Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia, is a persistent predator of kangaroos, for profits from their meat and skins, and is honing in on his prey.

Australia's kangaroo meat industry could soon expand into Victoria, which is the only state that does not allow the commercial harvest of kangaroos. The idea was bandied around in the 1980s, and again in 2002, but due to intensive agriculture and land clearing, the plan was shelved due to insufficient kangaroo numbers.

The Victorian government is looking at what regulatory changes would be needed to turn the "culling" of kangaroos into a commercial harvest. Up to 30,000 kangaroo carcasses are "wasted" because they are killed by farmers, due to liberal interpretation of what "pest" impacts are, and the easy gain of the DSE Authority to Control Wildlife permits.

Conveniently, this comes as the kangaroo meat industry hopes to reopen its biggest traditional market for roo meat - Russia - a country that sensibly banned the imports due to hygiene concerns.

This is an introduction to commercial killing by stealth, and kangaroos are meant to obligingly increase their breeding rates, size, range, joey survival rates, to help Victoria's ailing economy, give us more meat choices, and inflate the size of Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia's bank account. It's cruel, predatory, un-Australian and unsustainable.

There needs to be an inquiry to why so many permits to "control" (ie kill) wildlife are liberally distributed to land-holders by the DSE.

Sign the PETITION

Sign the PETITION

(Article by Sheila Newman and Tony Boys.) Burma, now known as Myanmar, nationalised its oil and gas industries after a long history of foreign exploitation. Now the new government seems to be making friends with globalists and, Australian-style, setting up to sell their resources for what looks like the final gasp of the growth/industrial economy. Comments from Tony Boys, regional specialist, on how the locals may fare.

Article by Sheila Newman and Tony Boys.

Burmah/Myanmar oil and gas exploration history

In the second world war the Japanese invaded Burma (now called Myanmar) in part to gain access to its oil reserves and remained there until 1944, when they were defeated.

Scotland originating Burmah Oil Company was the sole oil company to operate in Burma until 1901, with the entry of Standard Oil.

In 1963 Burmah nationalised its petroleum industry, creating the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). The company was the sole operator for oil and gas exploration, production and transmission, with a 1,900km onshore pipeline grid. A French energy group, Total S.A. partnered MOGE in the Yadana natural gas pipeline, along with Chevron Corporation, a US-based company and PTT, a Thai state-owned oil and gas company. (Source Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanma_Oil_and_Gas_Enterprise.)

Foreign exploration and development corporations are eyeing Myanmar's precious minerals with a view to moving in for the kill. Industry advocates are pressing for "more open investment rules" in line with other middle-income Asian nations. Myanmar is located close to China and India with their scarily boundless appetites for raw materials, so the corporate race is on to dig it all up as fast as possible to 'kickstart' China and the rest of the world from their real-time economic doldrums and put them back on some buried sunlight time.

The international mining industry, not too fond of paying its way, is portraying Myanmar as more attractive than Australia and Indonesia since those countries enacted new taxes on mining. In the mean time Australia and the United states recently modified economic sanctions against Myanmar perhaps because its new government looks somewhat more democratic, with Aung San Suu Kyi now in parliament or possibly because the new government is talking about opening up to foreign investment and human rights have never posed much of a problem there.

What ever is happening, it doesn't look like this 'democracy' will be much better for Myanmar than what has happened in the past, just corporate rather than national, and, really, capitalist rather than democratic perhaps.

GlobalData, a UK-based business research company, in a press release, "Myanmar - An emerging natural resources powerhouse," (8 October 2012) say that the government has

"expressed interest in joining the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global standard for increasing transparency in the extractive sector. According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the mining sector’s contribution to Myanmar’s GDP has increased from MMK15 billion ($2.3 billion) in 2000 to MMK367 billion ($56.2 billion) in 2010 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 37.6%. Myanmar holds minerals such as lead, zinc, silver, chromium, copper, gold, and precious gems.

The country also has several major oil and gas fields, but a lack of technology and low participation from foreign oil companies has left most of its hydrocarbon reserves unexploited. However, May 2012 saw the Ministry of Energy announce that foreign oil companies will be allowed to make upstream investments in 23 offshore oil and gas blocks in the country.

Myanmar holds proven oil and gas reserves of 2.1 billion barrels (bbl) and 25 trillion cubic feet (tcf) respectively as of April 2011. Additionally, the country’s energy ministry estimates its domestic shale oil reserves to be around 3.3 million barrels (MMbbl). FDI in Myanmar’s oil and gas industry stood at about $13.8 billion for 2011–2012, representing almost 31% of the country’s GDP. However, the country must become a more investor-friendly nation to attract bigger international investments, and develop its fossil fuel production."

To put this in perspective, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) ranks Myanmar at 70th in the world with estimated proven reserves of 0.05 billion (250,000,000) barrels of oil per day and 37th with estimated proven reserves of gas of 10 trillion cubic feet. World oil usage is currently around 25,000,000,000 barrels per year. There is no way of verifying the real accuracy of these estimates because the data is mostly commercially sourced and used to justify commercial exploration where it might not otherwise be undertaken. Press releases are notoriously prone to exaggerate for impact.

What does this really mean for Myanmar?

"Industrial growth in Myanmar could potentially benefit every strata of society, promoting employment opportunities and economic development ... states a new report by natural resources experts GlobalData."

Commercial press releases are also always inclined to make industrial growth and extraction sound great for the people in a country where it occurs. The reality is that corporate scale mining, agriculture and construction always take land out of traditional hands which are rarely compensated. Self-sufficient people thus displaced are expected to train and fit into a new extractive and contractual economy, which erases their place in the world and expects them to pay rent where once they owned productive land.

Japan-based Tony Boys has written extensively about local tribal people in this area of the world, where he has travelled with musicians and studied the languages. (Read more and see photos of agricultural cycle and hill people's rich lives here.) He comments:

"Clearly this is going to mean more disruption for the Karen and other nationality people - the Kachin are also mentioned - since they are the ones who live in the mountains, where most of the mining is going to take place (but not oil and gas, which seems to be offshore).

The GlobalData press release describes Myanmar's environment as requiring

"protection from policy makers, who must control excessive felling of trees, the proper treatment of mining waste and water systems, and illegal mining. Mining without using proper safeguards can also put miners’ safety at risk, and harmful mining practices have been observed at gold mines in the states of Kachin and Karen, and in copper mines in Northern Myanmar."

If there is renewed logging then there will most probably be a government push to get indigenous peoples (IPs) totally out of the forest, not to simply prevent them from carrying out swidden farming (this was the main story in Thailand, but the Karen and other IPs managed to prevent the worst from happening - physical relocation - though some villages were forcibly relocated in the 80s.) That sort of thing is very likely to happen in Maynmar. There are plenty of Karen in Myanmar living in the flatlands, so the government is likely to just shrug their shoulders and say 'better for them in the flatlands than in the hills, where life is tough and where the hill people are destroying the forests anyway...'.

Although tin is not mentioned, I have seen a few places where Karen villages are associated with tin resources in N. Thailand. When the mining company moves in to mine the resources (generally just stripping off the surface) I suppose they have permission from the (local) government to do so, but the villagers are told absolutely nothing. They are even told lies about what is being mined or being done - it's so bad that I had to figure out what had been mined in one village about 15 years after it happened because NO ONE in the village knew what it was!! It took me a while to realize it was tin (and I had seen similar situations in two other places). There did not seem to be any serious health effects and so on, and the area was small (might have been a failure, actually) so good for them, but if there is gold found near a village, that will really mean the end. Mountains of tailings and arsenic is used in the process, I believe, so no one wants to be living near that! (There's a gold-mining area I've visited in NZ, just on the southern end of the Coromandel Peninsula - the locals were very angry. There were also gold prospectors wandering the hills all over the peninsula - the locals were on the watch out for them and sometimes even threatened them at gunpoint if they were on anyone's land. You can imagine what the situation is likely to be in Myanmar...)

If it were Aung San Suu Kyi totally in charge, maybe not so bad. I think the IPs can trust her. But she is not in charge, and even if she were, mining is likely to take place. The country has to develop, doesn't it? Do we have any alternative development scenarios in Myanmar? Not to my knowledge. So they're stuck with selling their resources for what looks like the final gasp of the growth/industrial economy.

Unfortunately, not a few people (IPs) are going to have their lives very badly disrupted by this. It's very, very sad. So is Fukushima, so is Koodankulam and everywhere where big money is imposing it's dangerous and dirty technology on the ordinary, powerless people." (Tony Boys).

Here is yet another example of why big business and governments want more population growth - they can always milk it for money while you and I pay for it. With the right press, this can even appear helpful, although it's really just the opposite. "To reduce congestion, imagine the government charged by the kilometre," says David Hensher of the University of Sydney. "The hip pocket must be where road pricing reform commences. The call for a congestion charge is getting louder and more frequent in many countries, as major metropolitan areas experience increasing levels…" Growth doesn't pay for itself - you do.

Roads to hell paved with bad ideas presented as good intentions

"To reduce congestion, imagine the government charged by the kilometre," says David Hensher of the University of Sydney. "The hip pocket must be where road pricing reform commences. The call for a congestion charge is getting louder and more frequent in many countries, as major metropolitan areas experience increasing levels…"

Mark O'Connor writes that this strikes him as a an ingenious idea that might make good financial sense, but not much sense in other ways.

Why can't Australia have stable cities like other people?

It's still a way of palliating (for a time) rather than solving the underlying problem. Why can't we have stable cities, like Europe does, rather than ones that are forever outgrowing their roads? and their parks, sewers, power and water infrastructures, water supplies,and perhaps even in time their food supplies? Why is Australia growing at more than three times the average for advanced countries, paying baby bonuses to encourage more births, and pushing up immigration again despite Gillard's promise to get us off the Big Australia path?

There seems to be no limit to the deterioration in our quality of life that our leaders, and some planners will propose, sooner than concede there must be limits to population growth.

Here are some of the things we are regularly asked to give up

Urban green space

Houses with gardens

Affordable houses

The right to drink water that has not come from a sewer

Koalas

Abundant and varied birdlife

Land on which to run a pet

Land on which to have a clothes line

Affordable meat.

Roads without traffic jams

The last three city plans...

The chance for Australian school leavers to be trained and to find jobs

Resource security

A city that would not have to be quickly surrendered in war if its main highways for food-trucks were cut by missile strike. (e.g. Sydney)

Power-security

Freedom from the risks of nuclear power.

Continuing public ownership of profitable utilities and public lands

And now it seems we must add:

Freedom to drive without a mileage toll.

“There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits to the human capacity for intelligence, imagination, and wonder.”
- U.S. President Ronald Reagan

In 1972, Club of Rome produced a famous report “The Limits to Growth”.

It presented some challenging scenarios for global sustainability, based on a system dynamics computer model to simulate the interactions of five global economic subsystems, namely: population, food production, industrial production, pollution, and consumption of non-renewable natural resources.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the study was attacked, demonized, and ridiculed in all possible ways. With the apparent end of the oil crisis, in the late 1980s, the ensuing general wave of optimism consigned the Limits study to the dustbin of "wrong" scientific ideas.

It gave three scenarios, namely,
(a) standard run – the business as usual growth that simply ignores the negative effects on the five variables,

(b) comprehensive technology – response by world systems in terms new and low-waste technology evenly penetrating into the whole world and

(c) steady state – response by world systems in terms of new economic price-mechanisms that takes into account the environmental costs and thereby limits the growth rate within an equilibrium.

Common experience shows that world is moving along scenario (a) that is standard run.

A new study from the CSIRO examines the then ground-breaking modelling used for the book, which forecasts a global ecological and economic collapse coming up in the middle of the 21st Century, and finds the forecasts to be on-track.

The analysis shows that 30 years of historical data compares favorably with key features of a business-as-usual scenario called the “standard run” scenario, which results in collapse of the global system midway through the 21st Century.

A Comparison of the Limits to Growth with Thirty Years of Reality"- Graham Turner

Recently, New Scientist magazine ran an article marking forty years since the publication of The Limits to Growth. The piece both echoes and cites earlier positive re-appraisals of Limits to Growth by Graham Turner.

In 2011 Ugo Bardi analyzed the ‘The Limits to Growth’, its methods and historical reception and concluded that The warnings that we received in 1972 … are becoming increasingly more worrisome as reality seems to be following closely the curves that the … scenario had generated.

Australia

It's assumed that Australia is a vast, empty continent with huge unclaimed resources for a big population, and that there are no limits. However, we have the highest rate of mammal extinctions in the modern world, since European settlement.

The loss of endemic species is indicative of the destruction of ecosystems and land clearing/degradation.

Australia has only a small amount of arable land, and thin "green" strips on the East and West coasts. The rest is semi-arid desert. We are a small nation in a big landscape, and our population is being driven far too high. Nothing can be achieved by having 50 million in preference to 23 million. On the contrary, it will compromise our long-term survival and sustainability into the future of resource declines.

Our levels of production and consumption are far too high. We can only achieve them because we few in rich countries are grabbing most of the resources produced and therefore depriving most of the world's people of a fair share, and because we are depleting stocks faster than they can regenerate.

Turner compared real-world data from 1970 to 2000 with the business-as-usual scenario. He found the predictions nearly matched the facts. There is a very clear warning bell being rung here, he says. We are not on a sustainable trajectory.

John Stuart Mill economist, philosophiser

More than 150 years ago John Stuart Mill wrote that in advanced capitalist countries it is necessary to establish, what he called, a stationary state of the economy in order to limit unnecessary growth.

He said that this is to prevent excessive urbanization and overcrowding, to stop the environment being damaged, and to avoid material prosperity being overvalued. No one listened to him or heeded his warnings. We could have saved ourselves and the Planet so much grief.

With 43,560 square feet per acre, by the year 2970 there will be only one square foot of land per person.  Everywhere.  On the entire planet. Endless growth in human population is impossible.  It is also a dangerous, stupid, and irresponsible concept.  Nothing in nature supports the mythical idea that healthy things always multiply and grow. In fact, in the natural order of Nature, it’s quite the opposite. There is nothing in Nature to support a precedent for endless, perpetual, growth.

Stagnating economies

The United States, Europe, and Japan, remain caught in a condition of slow growth, high unemployment, and financial instability, with new economic tremors appearing all the time and the effects spreading globally. The continuing stability of China is now also in question.

Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, gave a speech in Washington in September 2011 in which she stated that the world economy has entered a dangerous new phase of the crisis…. Overall, global growth is continuing, but slowing down, taking the form of an anemic and bumpy recovery.

Somehow, we have come to think the whole purpose of the economy is to grow, yet growth is not a goal or purpose. The pursuit of endless growth is suicidal.
David Suzuki

Herman Daly, one of the founders of the field of ecological economics and a leading critic of neoclassical growth theory, defines a steady state economy as:
An economy with constant stocks of people and artifacts, maintained at some desired, sufficient levels by low rates of maintenance ‘throughput’, that is, by the lowest feasible flows of matter and energy from the first stage of production to the last stage of consumption.

Daly, Herman. 1991. Steady-State Economics, 2nd edition. Island Press, Washington, DC. p.17.

The chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne recently warned UK that a further
£10 billion needs to be shaved from the amount paid out in welfare benefits. Greece is predicting its economy will shrink for a sixth consecutive year. French business confidence fell last month, suggesting Europe’s second-largest economy shrank in the third quarter for the first time in more than two years, the Bank of France said. The Czech and Hungarian economies will keep shrinking in 2013 as the euro region, which buys most of their exports, sinks deeper into a recession, Capital Economics Ltd. said.

“Limits to Growth” addressed an important question: Is the world in overshoot and if yes, will the landing be soft or will it be hard?

Global GDP will grow, but much slower than generally expected because of slow productivity growth in mature economies, and lack of take-off in the 186 poorer countries.

Global GDP will peak after 2052, and investment share of the GDP will grow as society is gradually forced to handle issues of depletion, pollution, biodiversity decline, climate change and inequity, slowing growth in consumption growth will slow, with  fall in disposable income in some places.

Australia's trade deficit has blown out to more than $2 billion. July's deficit has almost trebled from the original $556 million result to $1.53 billion, while June's deficit has been revised down again to nearly $800 million as iron ore and coal prices plummeted. We can't tandem our economic growth with China as their growth can't be sustained.

Climate change and scarcity

The polar icecaps are one of the vital regulators of global climate. If the ice disappears, the absorption of far more solar radiation accelerates ocean warming, with increasing risk of large-scale release of carbon dioxide and methane from melting permafrost. This in turn may initiate irreversible runaway warming.
Energy, food and water security are also poised on a knife-edge in both the developed and developing worlds. Many privately agree that climate change needs far more urgent action that we are seeing, but few are prepared to speak out for fear of derailing “business-as-usual”. This is a fundamental failure of governance – they have a responsibility to objectively assess the critical risks to which their companies are exposed, and take action to ensure these risks are adequately managed.

Climate Change – Emergency Leadership Needed Now

To suggest moving away for economic growth is considered blasphemy in the “church” that worships the “god” of eternal growth – the deity of Cornucopia!
Urban planning should be about preparedness for a time of scarcity, of managing limited resources and securing food, water and land revitalizing, with replanting and repairing of damaged ecosystems.

Richard Heinberg Post Carbon Institute

Unfortunately the idea that growth has limits is still a minority view. When Resources Minister Martin Ferguson told ABC that “the resources boom is over,” he was uttering an unwelcome truth. Unless the nation changes course, Australia is set to suffer the fate of all resource “boom towns.”

Here’s the situation in schematic. As economies in America and Europe stagnate due to high oil prices and too much debt, China’s exports to those countries dry up. Which means China needs less iron ore and coal from Australia.

Richard Heinberg post growth economy

We lost 40 years that could have been used to prepare for what we are seeing happening today in the world's economy but, perhaps, it is not too late to do something to reduce the impact of the crisis.

The end of growth need not be the end for humanity, according to Richard Heinberg. There will be life after GDP growth, and if we adapt wisely it doesn’t imply misery. Indeed, if we focus on improving quality of life and protecting the environment rather than aiming to increase quantity of consumption, we could all be happier even as our economy downsizes to fit nature’s limits. But a gentle landing is unlikely absent intelligent policy and hard work. (something not coming from our present growth-obsessed Western governments).

Sir Isacc Newton

Sir Isaac Newton, Britain's greatest scientist, analyzed the Bible, which he believed contained God's secret laws of the universe. He concluded that the end of the world will happen on or after the year 2060. He believed the Apocalypse would come in 2060 – exactly 1,260 years after the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire, according to a recently published letter. But he confidently stated in the letter that the Bible proved the world would end in 2060, adding: It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner.

Senator Bob Carr

There has got to be a better way than simply parroting 'we need a population of 50 million'. We must consider the degradation of the Australian land and the limitation of our water supplies – I refer to the Murray-Darling. The example of Adelaide, it's isolation, should drive home the point that we have not got a population-carrying capacity like that of the North American continent. We are more like North Africa: a narrow, fertile coastal strip and an arid or semi-arid -inland. Any idea of 50 million for Australia means a complete urbanisation of the east coast, because a grand ramping-up of the population would not result in an increase in the population of inland centres.
Citification or urbanisation of the east coast is not an attractive prospect. ...The Australian public does not want it.
Speech to the Australian Industry Group National Forum, 6 March 2000
(Bob Carr: Reflection of a Public Man – Thoughtlines).

It seems we have to disastrously hit the brick wall of limits to growth before they realise the impossibility of endless growth. Economic growth is not in our interests if consumption, extinctions, destruction and pollution all add to climate change and planetary depletions, making lives for the Earth's inhabitants worse through hunger and poverty – or even worse!

Take Action:

Sustainable Population Australia is conducting a PETITION to be presented to the House of Representatives. The goal is to collect one hundred thousand signatures of people who agree with the need for parliament to take action on population.

The CASSE (Centre for the Advancement of a Steady State Economy) position sets the record straight on the conflict between economic growth and environmental protection. Climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution are just three powerful examples. The CASSE position calls for a desirable solution – a steady state economy with stabilized population and consumption – beginning in the wealthiest nations and not with extremist tactics. Join the likes of E. O. Wilson, Jane Goodall, and David Suzuki; fill in the information below to sign the position and support a healthy, sustainable economy.

CASSE PETITION

Can you have a memory if you don’t have a brain? The question has been answered with the discovery that brainless slime moulds use excreted chemicals as a memory system. The finding by University of Sydney researchers is strong support for the theory that the first step toward the evolution of memory was the use of feedback from chemicals.

“We have shown for the first time that a single-celled organism with no brain uses an external spatial memory to navigate through a complex environment,” said Christopher Reid from the University’s School of Biological Sciences.

The research, led by Reid, with colleagues from the School and a colleague from Toulouse University, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal on 9 October.

“Our discovery is evidence of how the memory of multi-cellular organisms may have evolved – by using external chemical trails in the environment before the development of internal memory systems,” said Reid.

“Results from insect studies, for example ants leaving pheromone trails, have already challenged the assumption that navigation requires learning or a sophisticated spatial awareness. We’ve now gone one better and shown that even an organism without a nervous system can navigate a complex environment, with the help of externalized memory.”

The research method was inspired by robots designed to respond only to feedback from their immediate environment to navigate obstacles and avoid becoming trapped. This ‘reactive navigation’ method allows robots to navigate without a programmed map or the ability to build one and slime moulds use the same process.

The researchers used a classic test of independent navigational ability, commonly used in robotics, requiring the slime mould to navigate its way out of a U-shaped barrier.

As the slime mould (Physarum polycephalum) moves it leaves behind a thick mat of non-living, translucent, extracellular slime.

When it is foraging the slime mould avoids areas that it has already ‘slimed’ suggesting it can sense extracellular slime upon contact and will recognise and avoid areas it has already explored.

“This shows it is using a form of external spatial memory to more efficiently explore its environment,” said Reid.

“We then upped the ante for the slime moulds by challenging them with the U-shaped trap problem to test their navigational ability in a more complex situation than foraging. We found that, as we had predicted, its success was greatly dependent on being able to apply its external spatial memory to navigate its way out of the trap.”

In simple environments the use of externalized spatial memory is not necessary for effective navigation but in more complex situations it significantly enhances the organism’s chance of success, just as it does for robots using reactive navigation.

You can download a pdf with a full article about the experiments here.
A video is also available, showing the slime finding its way around the obstacle, on the website at Sydney University.

Links for action to help animals added end of page on 23 October Despite pouring rain, perhaps 1000 people attended the Anti Live Export Rally on the steps of Melbourne Parliament on Saturday 6 October 2012. One observer said it was the biggest rally she had ever attended. Among those who addressed the crowd was Animals Australia campaign director Lyn White, whose risk-taking to expose international abuse of sheep and cattle makes her one of the bravest people in the world. Another speaker in the crowd was Kelvin Thomson Labor MP, who also shows more daring than his parliamentary colleagues in this matter and for having campaigned against overpopulation in Australia and elsewhere.

Another observer described the massive gathering in front of parliament House Spring Street.

"Soon after I arrived the crowd spilled onto the road and the rally continued for about one hour with the crowd fully occupying Exhibition Street opposite Parliament House. There was chanting from the crowd led from the front -'No ban, no vote, get the animals off the boat,'"

As the speakers began, the skys opened and up came the umbrellas. Glenys Oogjes of Animals Australia introduced Lyn White of Animals Australia. Lyn who has brought the attention of the public to the atrocious treatment of animals exported from Australia gave an impassioned and determined speech saying that we will win on this issue.

Thomson highlights Dept Primary Industry conflict of interest

This interview with Kelvin Thomson was broadcast on October 3, 2012.

Kelvin Thomson was forceful in his opposition to live animal exports. He highlighted a conflict of interests with the department of Primary Industry overseeing animal welfare and advocated that a separate animal welfare department be created. He also advocated that abattoirs be set up in Australia for export meat – slaughter and processing - and that the live export trade should be phased out all together.

Adam Bandt the member for Melbourne was also warmly welcomed by the crowd.

It seems remarkable, but true, that Australians will do more politically to demonstrate how much the treatment of animals matters to them than on any other perennial matter. It is obvious that politicians and the commercial press wish this fact would go away and hope it will if they ignore it. Parliament seems dominated by small-minded bean-counting meanies whose decisions repeatedly indicate an absence of empathy to a degree more usually associated with psychopaths. Australians, classically disorganised by the colonial practice of divide and conquer and the associated structural chaos of constant urban adjustment to continual population growth, still manage to get together for domestic animals. Let us hope that this capacity to organise will spread to protect indigenous fauna and their habitat. There is no doubt that Australians also care enormously about indigenous animals, but somehow they are not yet able to reach these peaks of social impact.

Some ways you can help the animals

Download an action pack from Animals Australia

Here is where you can download leaflets.

Here is where you can go to write a sample letter and send it on-line. http://www.banliveexport.com/1/#takeAction"

More ways to help animals:

• Find additional Live Export - Indefensible campaign tools including sample letters here!
• Join Animal Australia's volunteer network and get active locally!
• Request a free action pack to get you started.
• Learn how to effectively speak up for animals.
• Support our vital work! Become a member of Animals Australia.

Sustainable Population Australia takes the State of the Environment report 2008 as a warning of the unsustainable path that Victoria is on as the government recklessly engineers its population at a rate about twice the level it would naturally be at present. This state government and its predecessors have actively encouraged population growth through the artificial means of seeking increasing numbers of migrants from overseas to settle in Victoria, using the website "Liveinvictoria.com.au".

This submission represents the overall position of Sustainable Population Australia whose Aims and Objectives are:

- To contribute to the public awareness of the limits to Australian population growth from ecological, social and economic viewpoints.
- To promote awareness that the survival of an ecologically sustainable population depends in the long-term on its renewable resource base.
- To promote policies that will lead to the stabilisation, and then to reduction, of Australia’s population by encouraging low fertility and low migration.
- To promote urban and rural life-styles and practices that are in harmony with the realities of the Australian environment, its resource base and its biodiversity.
- To advocate low immigration rates while rejecting any selection of immigrants based on race.
- To promote policies that will lead to stabilisation, and then reduction, of global population.

There are severe constraints on the population growth patterns for the future in Australia including in the relatively environmentally hospitable state of Victoria. Sustainable Population Australia takes the State of the Environment report 2008 as a warning of the unsustainable path that Victoria is on as the government recklessly engineers its population at a rate about twice the level it would naturally be at present. This state government and its predecessors have actively encouraged population growth through the artificial means of seeking increasing numbers of migrants from overseas to settle in Victoria, using the website http://www.liveinvictoria.com.au. As we know most of those who come to Victoria gravitate to Melbourne. The State’s capital suffers from severely worsening traffic problems, demanding costly solutions, and ongoing pressure to accommodate more and more people such that agricultural land and areas of nature on the city’s fringes are constantly sacrificed. In the established areas of Melbourne and, to a lesser extent, in the regions, greater density of living is imposed on residents who are distraught to see their surroundings changed rapidly before their very eyes and to their great disadvantage.

Planning assumes change

The concept of ‘planning’ in Victoria assumes change. Most changes in building and infrastructure are driven by population growth, especially the building of more houses and roads. Planning without growth would be about improving the way things work for a given population in the face of changes over a longer time scale not associated with growth, especially those over which humans have less immediate control such as climate change. The sole objective, however, of planning today is to accommodate population growth with scant attention to residents' amenity and services.

It is clear that due to the changes to Melbourne in the last few years, residents have been aggrieved by the loss of livability of Melbourne, despite commercially defined indexes to the contrary. This loss includes loss of amenity – light space and quiet, loss of parkland, increased traffic congestion, and diminished Green Wedges. It also impacts on our democracy as authoritarian planning laws are pushed through parliament by development-sympathetic governments against widespread public objection. The schedules of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) have abounded with planning problems where private citizens have had to devote time, money and energy into trying to preserve their amenity or to mitigate damages impinging on them from potential developments. This type of (often futile) activity does not increase the quality of life for people; quite the opposite, in fact. It is a significant negative for them.

Residents are facing enormous loss under the now proposed planning changes. If changes are implemented, many of their cases will simply not be heard as residents lose their appeal rights. Furthermore they will not be warned about changes made in their immediate neighbourhoods. Whilst this may expedite change and create ‘certainty’ for developers, it creates helplessness and constant uncertainty for residents. People can accommodate moderate change if it is slow, but just not knowing what changes are going to occur in their neighborhoods yet to watch it happen at a rapid rate is truly unsettling. People are depressed and traumatized for a variety of associated reasons.

Planning is for the future

.
Since planning is mainly about the future the following questions should be asked in considering the proposed changes.

What path does this set us on?

Is it the path of greater livability in the sense of increasing access to nature and green spaces, with secure homes and land and quality of life? Does it have an end point? What is the likely outcome of this plan? In the already established areas of Melbourne, if we understand this correctly, proposed zones are as follows, with 3 different approaches to development applied

1. Residential growth zone
2. General Residential Zone
3. Neighbourhood Residential Zone

Where you happen to live and therefore your future or fate relies on which regime is applied to your area. As this will be a council decision it introduces a further note of uncertainty.

Putting the effect on the individual aside, the aim seems to be largely to break down barriers to change, to maximize and expedite development. Of concern is the removal of the imperative to make planning application for certain developments in certain areas. This means that they will become “as of right” and will include the extension of commercial activities into residential areas.

The aggregate effect, it seems, would be more activity and congestion and more noise, especially in areas with increasing mixed use.

Increasing densification in residential areas means diminished amenity. This might be more tolerable if the city of Melbourne were not simultaneously bulging through its previous urban growth boundary thus rapidly changing the landscape on the fringes of the city. Densification necessarily means reduction of open space especially private gardens. This reduces habitat for urban wild life, much of which is essential to our well being whether we have any conscious affection for it or not! (e.g. presence of micro bats acting as a natural and indigenous control over mosquitoes.) Loss of open space and vegetation in the established areas cities also increases Urban Heat Island Effect. This means that, even without climate change our urban areas will necessarily get hotter as vegetation is reduced and hard surfaces and masses increased. The inexorable loss of open space for children to play no doubt contributes to the much publicized childhood obesity epidemic.

No matter what measures are taken for the provision of infrastructure and services such as public transport, hospitals and schools, there is no way of catching up with these even for the existing population while there is continual extra need for the addition population built into the planning scheme.

The proposed changes to the planning scheme are more accommodating of extra population and extra activity around population centres. It is the accommodation of population that ensures that population in a given area will grow. There is no end to this process and no end envisaged in the proposed plans. This is irresponsible and negligent, considering the impacts of overpopulation are well-known. With increased densification and outward growth, quality of life in population centres, particularly in Melbourne must deteriorate.

Where does this end? It would seem that the process set in place by the proposed changes will lead ever more rapidly to increasingly overpopulated centres built to the requirements of developers, who have the economic motive of forcing more people into less space and show no signs of self-restraint.

A city such as Athens should serve as a warning to those who determine the future of Melbourne – This city grew very fast in the 1970s with high rise springing up like mushrooms bringing a 3rd world quality to the once modest sized beautiful city. It’s not too late for Melbourne. Let’s not do it!

Rural areas especially on the fringes of Melbourne

The most troubling aspect of the zoning changes is that the zones allow industry in areas where this would have been prohibited previously. The Green Wedges, set aside as the lungs of growing Melbourne 40 years ago, would no longer be safe to any degree. Once again the main concern is that there is no end to the process that these changes set up. If it were a finite number of developments and then a cap, the people of Melbourne would have some certainty that their environment will continue to be to some extent livable. But the current proposal does not mean such certainty. Instead it sets up a process whereby the Green Wedges are progressively degraded by development, thus facilitating more intensive development in the future. In effect, it ultimately annihilates them. In the shorter term this change facilitates a land-trading climate conducive to land speculation. Some will make windfall profits as land switches from rural to commercial. This will benefit the few who can take part in this game but ultimately through the rising cost of land will be detrimental to the rest of the population. It is not in the interest of the common good and quality of life for all of us.

What planning needs to be

Real Planning should take into account the physical reality of our time and place in history. It is almost without doubt that the world has passed Peak Oil production and is certainly beyond peak per capita oil production. Oil has lubricated our lives, fed us and transported us for as long as any of us can remember. As per capita production declines over the coming decades, at our peril we will build out our precious back yards and Green Wedges, extend our urban growth boundary and increase car dependency with urban settlement in previously rural areas. Our survival depends on us not doing this. The flip side of the Peak Oil coin is Climate Change and the need to limit Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Stabilising population and building in local self sufficiency and sustainable public transport is essential to this.

Figure 3, ‘World total oil per capita 1960-2011’ suggests that, where once oil came from oil wells, now, to keep up with human population growth we supplement well-oil with all kinds of other stuff, whilst still presenting it as the same old stuff. If we still relied just on crude and lease condensates from oil fields, where trends are shown by the lowest and oldest line in the graph, we would be considerably poorer in total oil supply than we seem to be. Early definitions for total world oil (see EIA Crude and lease condensate from 1960-2011) only counted crude oil and lease condensate. Coinciding with the decline in easy oil availability as it became necessary to look harder and deeper for oil, the definition of oil started to include other sources obtained away from petroleum fields. The BP definition above counts crude oil, shale oil, oil sands and NGLs (the liquid content of natural gas where this is recovered separately). The EIA definition for Crude, condensate and most other liquids from 1970-2009 comprises natural gas plant liquids, and ‘other liquids’, defined as, “Biodiesel, ethanol, liquids produced from coal and oil shale, non-oil inputs to methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), Orimulsion, and other hydrocarbons.” That’s a lot of new sources, all of them requiring more energy to extract than that required to harness the traditional ‘gusher’ close to the surface, now a rare phenomenon. (Excerpt from forthcoming book, Lost Tribes, by Sheila Newman..)

Victoria needs to work within the real constraints that face us for the survival of those who are too young to take part in this submission exercise today and for their children. Changes to the Planning code need to be made with this consideration uppermost.

Wrong way- Go back-

Population restraint is about planning at the local level.
Victoria must plan to achieve a stable population not too far beyond the middle of this century to avoid a severely compromised future. This is possible and planning for it needs to start now.
The issue of zone reform is critical and the changes envisaged are so extensive in scope I would advocate that the state government set up a parliamentary enquiry to address it in detail to ensure the best possible outcome for the people of Victoria.

NOTES

The so-called “Global Livability Report” ranks Melbourne high, but it also ranks Hong Kong and Vancouver high – both of the concrete nightmares where development trumps democracy, nature and access to natural amenity. http://www.eiu.com/site_info.asp?info_name=The_Global_Liveability_Report
The 'livability index' report comes from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which is part of a group associated with the Anglo-centric Economist magazine. People in Hong Kong rent cages stacked one on top of the other in rooms in concrete high rises. There are protests about the abrogation of public land and the ever increasing intensity of development. The EIU put overcrowded concrete Vancouver and Melbourne equal at the head of its list in 2002. Clearly this list is a list about concrete spaces and developers' anti-human values and the Economist’s unwise promotion of economic growth and globalisation. The award is used as a manufactured consensus thing promoted by big business for big business and against relocalisation, human scale and natural surroundings. In other words it is corporate propaganda. About the Economist group:
"From its beginnings in 1843, when The Economist newspaper was founded by a Scottish hat manufacturer to further the cause of free trade" ... http://www.economistgroup.com/what_we_do/our_history.html"
"Many of the issues facing the world have an international if not global dimension. The Economist brand family is ideally positioned to be the commentator, interpreter and forecaster of the phenomenon of globalisation as it gathers in pace and impact." [In other words, a propaganda outfit that actually has some deluded ordinary subscribers.] http://www.economistgroup.com/what_we_do/our_brands/the_economist_brand_family/index.html

Jill Quirk:
President: Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian and Tasmanian branch)
Postal address P.O. Box 240
West Heidelberg 3081
[email protected]
0409742927

The contest is international. This year it will focus on the human-ocean connection. The Marine Photobank is seeking images depicting human impacts on the ocean, its inhabitants and its resources, both restorative and destructive. First prize is a voyage for two aboard the National Geographic Endeavor to the Galapagos Islands with Lindblad Expeditions. There is also a second and third prize.

This awfully unsettling photograph by Terri Goss of a shark with a permanent hook in situ was the winner of last year's competition.

Conservation Photo contest launched to inspire Ocean Protection

SeaWeb’s Marine Photobank Partners with Lindblad Expeditions for Fifth Anniversary Contest to Shine Spotlight on Ocean Conservation through Photography

October 1, 2012 marked the launch of the fifth annual Ocean in Focus Conservation Photography Contest by SeaWeb’s Marine Photobank program. The goal of the contest is to inspire photographers, from hobby photographers to professional photographers, to care about the ocean and focus their lens on the true positive and negative human impacts on the marine environment.

The contest this year will focus on the human-ocean connection. The Marine Photobank is seeking images depicting human impacts on the ocean, its inhabitants and its resources, both restorative and destructive. The Ocean In Focus photo contest launches October 1, 2012 and will accept photos at www.marinephotobank.com through January 31, 2013 11:59pm U.S. Eastern Time. Finalists will be chosen based on the photo submissions and will be eligible to compete in the first grand prize photo essay competition for a chance to win an expedition to the Galapagos Islands courtesy of Lindblad Expeditions.

“This inspiring photo contest has generated remarkably compelling images from photographers all around the world,” said Dawn M. Martin, President of SeaWeb. “To celebrate the fifth year of the contest, we want to turn the lens back on to the photographers and the rich, motivating stories they tell with their photographs. The newly incorporated photo essay component will capture these stories and more-fully tell the tale of their encounters with the ocean.”

Following a review from a panel of judges representing the photography, ocean conservation and responsible travel communities, finalists will be announced in February 2013. Finalists will then be invited to submit 3-4 images for a photo essay of 400-600 words. The same panel of judges will judge the photo essays and the winner will receive recognition as SeaWeb’s Photographer Of The Year.

Finalists will take home a copy of renowned marine scientist, Callum Robert’s, recently released book, The Ocean of Life. One finalist, selected for the best overall image, will also receive a Solio Q-Cells solar charger for charging your devices in the field with the power of the sun. The grand prize package, awarded to the Photographer Of The Year, is a voyage for two aboard the National Geographic Endeavor to the Galapagos Islands courtesy of Lindblad Expeditions.

“We want to hear the stories behind these incredible images and give our contributing photographers a voice and an opportunity to tell others about the truths they have witnessed in the ocean,” said Devin Harvey, Manager of the Marine Photobank.

The photo contest launch coincides with the 2011 Ocean in Focus contest winner, Terry Goss’, voyage to the Galapagos Islands aboard the National Geographic Endeavor with Lindblad Expeditions. Goss received the grand prize in 2011 for his stunning underwater photograph of a blue shark with a rusted hook protruding from its lower jaw. The shark may not have been the intended target of the longline, demonstrating the sometimes-unavoidable impact of humans on ocean wildlife. Goss’ photo was shot with a Nikon D300, with a Nikkor 10.5mm fisheye lens inside an Aquatica housing, using two Sea & Sea YS90 strobes. Follow Goss’ travels through the Galapagos Islands through SeaWeb’s twitter account: www.twitter.com/SeaWeb_Org.

“It’s a true honor and an amazing opportunity to yet again be partnering with the Lindblad Expeditions team on this effort. Their expertise and passion to share stories from around the world is what, in the end, will save our ocean” said Martin.

The Marine Photobank inspires photographers to actively engage in ocean issues by capturing photographs of our ocean ecosystem. By turning their lenses in a different direction—one that informs and inspires positive action, photographers can help conserve marine species and their environments. Beautiful ocean photography has the power to inspire awe and raise awareness, but truly impactful photography will shine a light on the dark truths of human impact to the ocean and has the power to affect change. Many challenges lie ahead for the ocean and it will take even more dedication to turn the tide on our changing seas. This is the role photographers can play.

For dates and details on submitting photos, and other rules and regulations, visit www.marinephotobank.com. Find more information about the contest on Facebook: www.facebook.com/marinephotobank and through SeaWeb’s twitter account: www.twitter.com/SeaWeb_org. Use the official hash tag of the contest: #MPBphotocontest.

Lindblad Expeditions, specialists in expedition travel, voyages the world in alliance with National Geographic to inspire travelers to explore and care about the planet. Their renowned expedition team includes a Lindblad-National Geographic certified photo instructor on every voyage to help guests bring their skills to the next level. Join them on hikes, Zodiac rides, or on deck during a thrilling wildlife encounter. Swim and snorkel with sea lions, penguins and sea turtles. Discover nature in its purest form on one of the most significant travel experiences of your life. www.expeditions.com

The Marine Photobank, a project of SeaWeb, encourages ocean conservation by collecting and providing compelling, high quality marine photos, images and graphics at no cost for noncommercial use as well as for media use under special terms. The Marine Photobank aims to illuminate pressing marine issues and human impacts on the ocean through imagery. www.marinephotobank.org. Follow us at facebook.com/MarinePhotobank.

SeaWeb is the only international, nonprofit organization exclusively using the science of communications to fundamentally shift the way people interact with the ocean. To accomplish this important goal, SeaWeb convenes forums where economic, policy, social and environmental interests converge to improve ocean health. We transform knowledge into action by shining a spotlight on workable, science-based solutions to the most serious threats facing the ocean, such as climate change, pollution and depletion of marine life. We work collaboratively with targeted sectors to encourage market solutions, policies and behaviors that result in a healthy, thriving ocean. By informing and empowering diverse ocean voices and conservation champions, SeaWeb is creating a culture of ocean conservation. For more information, visit: www.seaweb.org, or follow us on Twitter: email and Facebook: SeaWeb_org.

Today, Wednesday 3 October, Dr Joe Toscano and Dr Jean Ely launched a colourful campaign against a backdrop of Spring flowers outside Melbourne Town Hall. (Video-link below) They made the point that the other 8 candidates campaign as if Melbourne were a business proposition and neglect the 40 per cent of votes that come from non-business people in a uniquely skewed electoral system where some businesses get two or three votes. This vast electorate includes Carlton, North Carlton, Flemington, Kensington, South Melbourne, East Melbourne, Docklands, Parts of South Yarra and West Melbourne. Most public housing is located there but there are many homeless. There are a lot of children but public schools are rare.

Taking the public seriously

Dr Joseph Toscano began the launch by stating that this is a serious campaign for the Lord Mayor Election and the theme is, "Putting Public First."

He said that other candidates talk about running Melbourne as a business, but Melbourne is a community. It is a community of over 200,000 people, with 102,000 on the electoral role. It includes the CBD, Carlton, North Carlton, Flemington, Kensington, South Melbourne, East Melbourne, Docklands, Parts of South Yarra and West Melbourne.

The election should not be about running a business. It should be an election about people, about cities, about how people collectively and individually resolve the problems of having so many people in such a small area - four million in this city.

"We are standing to promote, protect and extend public housing and public schools in the city of Melbourne," said Dr Toscano.

And, "Listening to this election you forget that most of the public housing estates are in the city of Melbourne: North Carlton, Carlton, Flemington, West Melbourne, Kensington. Thousands of people living in public housing."

"So we think that it's fundamental that we look after people through public housing and public schools. What we have seen over the last 30 years is a revolution which has devalued and privatised public housing, public schools and public health."

Ten per cent city revenue to Seed-fund Local Collectives and Cooperatives for secure and satisfying employment

"The second thing is that we are not interested in running the city of Melbourne as a corporate focused city. We want to see the development of an alternative economic system based on cooperatives and collectives, which provide secure, sustainable employment and goods and services for the people of Melbourne. We are not interested in the people having part-time, poorly paid work. We want people to be self-sufficient, to work for themselves, and share the wealth which they create. We would like 10 per cent of the city's revenue to be diverted to provide seed funding to set up collectives and cooperatives, to set up a alternative economic system based on the satisfaction of real, not manufactured, human needs."

Because you do not need billions of dollars to survive, live or prosper. What you need is secure, safe, sustainable employment.

If you go to a bank and say you want to set up a food collective or a carpenters' collective or a plumbers' collective you will find that nothing happens. So 10 per cent of the city's revenue redirected to set up an alternative economic system.

Double rates on multi-million dollar Melbourne properties

Thirdly, some of the richest people and corporations live in the city of Melbourne. Everyone else is talking about reducing rates. We want to double rates for properties worth more than $10m and we want to quarantine the money raised to tackle the perennial problem of homelessness in Melbourne which is swept under the carpet on a year by year basis. We want to use the money to assist the 40 per cent of people who live in the city of Melbourne, who rely on social security benefits to survive.

Monument to honour indigenous people executed in Melbourne

Fourthly, since the last election Dr Ely and myself have been fighting - along with hundreds of other people - for the establishment of a significant monument for Tunnaminnerwait and Maulboyheenner, two indigenous freedom fighters who were executed on the corner of Bowan and Franklin Streets on the 20th of January 1842. Not just as some hsitorical monument, but as a gathering place for indigenous and non-indigenous Australians to learn about the city's unwritten history and to become involved in the struggle to finish the unfinished business that exists between indigenous and non-indigenous Australia. We se this as a tangible way of actually promoting that struggle of kick-starting the stalled reconciliation struggle. We would like to see the whole area with grass, get a monument there, where peple can go and talk and learn about the history.

Re-name City Square "Human Rights Square"

Lastly, want to see City Square renamed "Human Rights Square" to acknowledge the forceful eviction of Occupy Melbourne by police after getting the nod by Premier Baillieu and the Lord Mayor Doyle from that place for peacefully raising the idea that wealth and power should be redistributed.

Obviously we have many other ideas, but these are the five major ones.

Now, why are we standing? Very simply because this statement will be sent to every elector on the Melbourne electoral role, courtesy of the Australian Election Commission, where people can also read the stuff the other candidates put up like, "we want more parking, more or fewer roads ...."

Because we face difficult times, especially young people, because we are moving from a time of relative abundance to scarcity, as Greenhouse increases, human activity increases, as finite resources are used to manufacture goods we do not need to increase company profits and economy is dominated by economically based on the creation of ever more profits irrespective of social and environmental costs, we find that we need radical solutions.

Call to work around the corporate media by using social media

It is very interesting that apart from the local and community media, there is no media here today, despite the fact that we sent over 1000 emails and even some letters.

You are not going to get the government-gelded ABC or the corporate-owned media talking about a public campaign of putting public first. It is unattractive in a corporate dominated world. For us to get any traction we need people here to go to our website at www.anarchistmedia.org, to download the material, send it to your friends, use it for bloggling and in the social media sphere to promote the campaign.

Our statement cannot be beaten. It is a black caviar statement. It is miles ahead of what you will see elsewhere.

Inter-candidate debates ahead

Over the next three weeks I will be debating my colleagues about these issues, but we have two options - we come last out of nine candidates or we come fourth or fifth or third with your assistance on the social media to show people that there is support for ideas, not personalities.

Dr Ely on public housing and public schooling

Dr Ely spoke on the issues of Public Housing and Public Education. She said that there is a lot of homelessness in the electorate, adding that Mayor Doyle had been very quick to take a photo-opportunity with the homeless but that he had actually done nothing about them. She said that Joe and she were determined to give them a voice. She also wanted to encourage people to put more and more pressure on the state government to restore public schools which had been closed under Premier Jeff Kennett. She mentioned that West Melbourne school had been given to the Salvation Army by Jeff Kennett in 1993. "We want it back," she stated. There are children in this city who need government schools."

"That's why we want to campaign to raise rates on properties worth more than 10m," said Dr Toscano.

Dr Ely concluded by saying, "We are the future. We will have to leave the others to wander off into the past. The Fourth Estate is now on the ropes. The Fifth Estate is the Social Media."

Dr Toscano will be debating other candidates (with the exception of the current Lord Mayor, Mr Doyle, who apparently does not debate other candidates) at the Wheeler Centre on 16th of October between 6.15 and 7.30pm.

Melbourne Council's unusual voting system

The City of Melbourne has a very odd voting system where some businesses have two or three votes and it is slanted 60/40 in terms of business votes in relation to residents' votes. It is the only place in Australia where people have multiple voting legally. This system was created was to ensure that somebody from the business community would be Lord Mayor. This is also the only mayoral election where the mayor is elected by the people. In every other city the mayor is appointed by the councillors. The Melbourne system was designed to give the mayor a bit more power than other mayors to promote business interests.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports the highest population growth rate since 2009. An 18 per cent increase in annual net overseas migration to 197,200 is responsible for the rise. Australia is entering a period of uncertainty for which we will be better prepared if we do not have to support ever more people - native born or immigrants. -- Sustainable Population Australia (SPA)

Australia's population growth getting out of control

The latest figures that show Australia’s growth rate has risen to 1.5 per cent are alarming, according to Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports this is the highest growth rate since 2009. An 18 per cent increase in annual net overseas migration to 197,200 is responsible for the rise.

SPA National Vice-President, Dr John Coulter, says, irrespective of what Prime Minister Gillard once said, we are indeed hurtling down the track towards a big population.

Socially, environmentally and economically beyond the pale

“If we continue with a 1.5 per cent national growth rate, Australia will have doubled its population to 45 million by 2060,” says Dr Coulter. “This is totally untenable in environmental, social and economic terms.

“We are facing the twin challenges of climate change and peak conventional oil,” he says. “The latter will mean a possible doubling in oil prices by the end of the decade which will have grave implications for the economy.”

Dr Coulter says the current resources boom will not last and Australia will not be able to support even the present population, never mind a larger one.

Petroleum depletion, massive economic debt and climate change make three scary horsemen

“The US author Richard Heinberg is currently touring Australia. He warns that the end of economic growth is imminent because of the energy crisis, the debt bubble and climate change. If there is no economic growth, we certainly cannot support a growing population.

“Climate change is particularly worrying because we appear to be heading for a rise in temperature of at least 3.5o C which will wipe out much of Australian agriculture.

Dr Coulter said that Australia is entering a period of uncertainty for which we will be better prepared if we do not have to support ever more people, be they migrants or native-born.

Further information: John Coulter 08 8388 2153

Source: Press Release from SPA, www.population.org.au, 28 September 2012

NEW POPULATION BOOK: Sheila Newman has just published new theory in a new book, Demography, Territory & Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations (see link). Two chapters are on multi-species demography, the rest apply the theory to non-industrial societies and the author comes up with a completely new test for the collapse model of Easter Island, which will stun those who thought they knew all about it. Forensic biologist, Hans Brunner writes of it: "This book takes us to a completely new paradigm in multiple species population science. It shows how little we understand, and how much we need to know, of the sexual reactions when closed colonies with an orderly reproduction system are destroyed, be it people or animals."

__._,_.___

In her submission to the Victorian State Department of Planning and Community Services, Julianne Bell, Secretary of Protectors of Public Lands, quoting Professor Michael Buxton of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) shows how the proposed changes to Victoria's urban planning laws will destroy the quality of life and sustainability of Melbourne.

Submission to Department of Planning and Community Services (DPCS) on Victoria's New Planning Zones

Introduction: I am writing on behalf of Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc., a coalition of 80 community, environmental and heritage groups dedicated to protecting and maintaining sites of environmental and heritage significance.

Here is a statement made by Professor Michael Buxton of RMIT covering the significance and the impact on Melbourne of the new zone proposals. He gave permission for me to quote him. I am then making a suggestion as to the need for a Parliamentary Inquiry by the Standing Committee on the Environment and Planning in order for there to be proper consultation with the public.

Significance of Review of Planning Zones: The Victorian government's proposed new planning zones are the most radical review of planning schemes in the history of Victorian planning. They will lead to fundamental changes in the way Melbourne operates, change the fabric of the city and its hinterland, and remove an extensive range of existing citizen rights. Every citizen will be affected.

The new zone proposals will:

• Replace the three existing residential zones with three new residential zones
• Replace the Business 1, 2 and 5 zones with a new Commercial 1 zone, and the Business 3 and 4 zones with a new Commercial 2 zone
• Extensively alter the Green Wedge zone, rural Conservation zone, Green Wedge A zone, Farming zone, Rural Activity zone and Rural Living zone
• Change the existing Mixed Use zone, Township zone and Low Density Residential zone
• Change the existing Industrial 1, 2 and 3 zones.

The government recently released the report of the Advisory Committee into the Victorian planning system and its response to this report. Neither this report nor the government response advocated the changes to zones now proposed. No other justification or strategic context has been provided for the radical changes to the statutory planning system. Clearly, the government worked extensively on its changes to zones in a secret parallel process while the public was diverted to a public process which proposed only moderate change.

Impact of New Planning Zones: The major impacts will be the introduction of extensive commercial uses into residential areas, the destruction of Melbourne's traditional strip retail centres, the dispersal of commercial activities to car based areas resulting in serious metropolitan wide traffic congestion, the de-facto removal of the urban growth boundary and the extension of a large number of urban related uses into green wedges. Resident rights of notification and objection will be seriously curtailed with many new uses allowed in these new zones without the need for permits.

In particular, the zones will:

• merge residential and commercial uses across urban zones, with an extension of commercial uses into residential areas and little difference between commercial and some industrial zones
• increase the price of commercial and rural land through the encouraging of land speculation
• lead to the growth of large numbers of out-of-centre car based commercial/retail developments including accommodation which will end the current functions of many strip retail centres and lead to substantial car use and increase road congestion across Melbourne
• increase the height of commercial/retail and mixed use developments.

The new zones constitute a largely deregulated land use planning system drawing from the reports and lobbying of market oriented bodies and development groups and growth focused government agencies. These zones, in effect, constitute unfair competition by attempting to allow a wide range of uses in many locations. Existing strip retail centres, for example, will have to compete against new retail development built on much cheaper land far from public transport; land traditionally used for agriculture and rural pursuits will become locations for urban related commercial development and accommodation facilities in unfair competition against higher priced urban land. The principle of unregulated markets also takes no account of their public economic, social and environmental impacts, for example, the impacts on congestion of dispersed commercial development and the associated costs in delays and road construction and maintenance.

The application of the zones and the use of schedules will be subject to ministerial approval. Councils may not be allowed to select zones they regard as appropriate to land in their municipalities.

The use of overlays and structure plans may not significantly reduce the impact of the zones. For example, the Heritage Overlay is increasingly ineffective in preventing development even under current zones, and the effects of structure plans depend on the content and the nature of their incorporation into planning schemes.

Melbourne will not be the same city if these new zones are approved even in a modified form.

Failure of the State Government to Consult Victorians Properly on New Planning Zones:

Here is my comment. This complex set of proposals concerning the new planning zones was sprung upon the public which was given only a month to comment. As commented above it appeared that the public was seriously misled as ..."Clearly, the government worked extensively on its changes to zones in a secret parallel process while the public was diverted to a public process which proposed only moderate change." A number of Councils held planning forums at which planning officers attempted to enlighten the public re detail of the changes. The public encountered difficulties when attempting to make submissions by the deadline last Friday when the DPCS computer crashed. The Planning Minister then gave the public an extension for a week. Our submissions will be referred to a small committee hand picked by the Minister. Members of the Committee cannot be said to be independent.

It is extraordinary that the Planning Minister did not refer the review which is of such great significance to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Environment and Planning. This has not had an inquiry for the past month or so. Public submissions (to this Standing Committee) are put on the Parliamentary website and presentations to the Committee recorded in Hansard. As far as I am aware most members of the public regard this process as open and transparent where people are given a "fair go". Even if members of Parliament are split on Party lines they can write a group dissenting report. Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc recommends that a proper Parliamentary Inquiry be held into the new planning zones.

Julianne Bell
Secretary Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.
PO Box 197
Parkville 3052

Mobile: 0408 022408

Email: jbell5 [ AT ] bigpond.com

One of the finalists in the 2012 Voiceless Writing prize from Professor Steve Garlick is a poignant true story expressing intimate moments between humans and our native kangaroo. The story gives extraordinary insights that enrich our understanding of animals who are too often ignored and give us cause for hope when treated with respect and compassion. While the story is not included in the final Voiceless Anthology we think it is of significant merit to include it here in its entirety. You can read Voiceless' top ten stories at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009CM65XI/ref=cm_sw_su_dp ...... it's only $1.81. Let us know what YOU think.

The Lucky Ones

(Of all the holes in the human heart, perhaps none is bigger than the space once occupied by our connections to wild things and the rhythms of nature…our self-imposed exile from our original network of natural relationships is civilisation’s most disorienting misstep.
Carl Safina
Song for the Blue Ocean and Voyage of the Turtle

The last rays of sun filter across the low grey-green hills and through the tops of the long yellow grass as Rosemary and I reach our destination deep into a large private wildlife sanctuary. There are thousands of acres here. It is not an easy place to get to, but that is one of the attractions for the wildlife that have made this place their home away from destructive humans and their motor vehicles, dogs and guns.

This is the place where for many years we have translocated and released into the wild hundreds of kangaroos that we have helped recover from serious injury and illness or the loss of their mother. We come to this place to monitor the progress of these gentle, affectionate and nurturing creatures. They are strong and resilient in their own sometimes harsh environment, but they are fragile and vulnerable in the human world. These animals have many of the qualities we might wish humans would have so as to ensure that all creatures can co-exist in a better world. Like responsible parents we want to make sure that they are adjusting from the pampered life of our wildlife recovery centre to their new home in the wild, where they need to fend for themselves.

This is also the place to which we come from time to time to renew ourselves, to spend time with the kangaroo friends we have grown to admire over the months and years they have been recovering in our care. We have treated, nursed and encouraged them, marvelled at their determination, watched their growing confidence, and celebrated their success. The response from these animals is our reward for the long hours of attention we have given them, the disappointment when things do not work out, the large personal expense, and the negativity and disregard of a human society which seems never to have the time or the interest to understand the remarkable qualities and world of these iconic creatures. These visits lift our spirits and give us impetus to keep going with the hundreds of severely injured and sick kangaroos that come to us for help every year. The world of these animals plays on our mind in contradistinction to a dissatisfying and insensitive human society into which we feel shoehorned and institutionally controlled.

Rosemary calls out a number of times in a loud voice, “hey bubbie, dubbies”. After just a few minutes, away into the distance little heads can be seen popping up above the long grass and are silhouetted against the fading light. “Hey bubbie dubbies, hey bubbie dubbies”, Rosemary calls out again. For the kangaroo the words themselves are not important, it’s the sound of the voice that makes the difference for them. The hearing of these animals is amazingly acute and their navigation skills are extraordinary.

Hearing is the main sense of the kangaroo. Their long ears rotate 360 degrees independently of each other like antennae to pick up and decode every sound with extraordinary accuracy. Their very life depends on their judgement and reactions based on this sense. It is only when they get close that their sense of smell takes on added importance. We must be at least two kilometres away. Despite these wild animals being very wary of humans, they quickly and confidently recognise Rosemary’s voice and soon make their way towards us, stopping now and then to call out in their distinctive chatter-cough as if to say, “I hear you, I’ll be there shortly, so don’t leave yet”.

By now a dark yellow full moon is beginning to emerge above the horizon and a gentle breeze from the east brings a crispness that reminds us that autumn is on the way. Within thirty minutes a mob of thirty one kangaroos has bounded and skipped its way to our special meeting place. Rosemary recognises and welcomes each and every one by name, even though some have been released to the wild for more than four years and their physique has changed. Each has a distinctive manner and personality that is recognisable to the trained eye if you take a close interest in them. The wise words of the fox in de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince seem appropriate:

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye” (de Saint-Exupery 1991: 68).

Some of our visitors want to rub noses as they did when in our care, a few want to embrace with firm hugs, and some just want to lie at our feet and have their necks scratched. Some of the females we raised now have infants of their own. But their mothers have taught their little ones well to be wary of humans; they are instructed to wait some 20 or 30 metres away while mum has her special time with those who cared and took an interest in her when she was injured or orphaned and needed help. These thirty one visiting kangaroos are just a small fraction of the hundreds of severely injured kangaroos we have rehabilitated, translocated and released to the wild over the past twelve years. We have, with the assistance of our veterinarian, mended their bones and their wounds and hopefully through the care we have given even mended their hearts. Sometimes when these kangaroos visit us in the wild they are accompanied by other wild kangaroos – their new mob. These other wild kangaroos stand at what they consider a safe distance and watch the odd behaviour of their animal friends as they closely interact with a genus of which they would normally be afraid.

These animals have excellent memories for what is important. They would not come to any other person. But they have come to visit us because they remember the kindness and care they received when they needed it most. We gave them a second chance.

On such a night there is something ethereal about being in intimate company with a mob of large wild animals. It is a privilege that cannot be bought with money and it costs little more than a large dose of kindness and compassion. It is hard to reconcile that anyone could be cruel to such heart-warming and graceful creatures… but they are. Indeed, the gentle kangaroo is the victim of the largest land-based wildlife slaughter by humans on the planet, employing some of the most brutal means imaginable. This is an unenviable record for a country to have and we, in the presence of these same unique animals, are tormented that we are part of this human world.

Rosemary rattles off the names of our visitors. First to arrive is Blanket and her infant BB. We named Blanket because like many small children she had a security blanket to comfort her when in our care. Some small joeys suck their grooming claw (just like a thumb), some suck their toes, some their tails and some suck their bags for security. Next to arrive is the ever-friendly Skippy who had a severe fracture of the pelvis when he came to our recovery centre, but with lots of rest and some physiotherapy made a full recovery. Skippy acts as a big brother to many of the other released joeys. Even now long after his release he arrives at the release site from what seems like nowhere when we translocate a new group of joeys. He then visits often to communicate with the new arrivals and they find great comfort in his presence.

At the last translocation of an initial seven joeys to the release enclosure, Rosemary slept under the stars to keep the joeys company. Jordan, a very sensitive joey, spent several hours lying next to Rosemary before she gained enough confidence to explore the new environment with her friends. All the while Skippy was just nearby munching on grass, keeping Rosemary company and acting as her minder. Rosemary says she always feels safe and never feels lonely when the kangaroos are with her, even in this isolated location.

Tish follows soon after Skippy. She came to us with severe malnutrition and the veterinarian did not think she would recover, but she has confounded everyone with her success. She still sucks her toe when she feels safe and relaxed. Maddie, her joey Macca, and Macca’s friends Betty, Joe and Bawley are the next to arrive. Maddie and Macca were in care with us together and we had the privilege of seeing Macca develop from a small frightened at-heel joey. Maddie had to have her toe amputated following a dog attack, while little Macca had to have two teeth removed due to an infection caused by a grass seed. What an extraordinary mother Maddie was. At our recovery centre she nurtured Betty, Joe and Bawley as well as her own Macca.

Bawley was brought to us with severe myopathy and after some intense treatment recovered well. Joe recovered from wire fence entanglement injuries and became a devoted friend to little Betty who was a miracle joey. She came to us as a small joey after having to leave her mother’s pouch early because her mother was injured. Betty was suffering from malnourishment, hypothermia, aspiration pneumonia, myopathy, fox attack wounds to the head and face and a laceration to the foot from a dog attack. Betty is always calm even in adversity and other gentle joeys like Joe are drawn to her. Joe would often be seen standing next to Betty sucking her ear.

Phoebe arrives with her close friend Chloe and they both have small joeys in their pouches. They were raised together and are inseparable and while Phoebe is quiet and confident, Chloe is shy and nervous. Phoebe had a fractured tail, fractured tibia and a traumatic cataract in one eye and Chloe was orphaned. Others to follow include Tara, who was orphaned; Bonnie who recovered from pneumonia and hypothermia; Malcolm who had fence wire entanglement injuries; and Donnie who had recovered from having barbed fencing wire embedded in the skin of his abdomen. Malcolm was always one of Rosemary’s favourites, a gentle and affectionate joey who loved chasing and playing with the smaller joeys.

Every one of these kangaroos has a harrowing story to tell about what had befallen them before they arrived at our recovery centre. There is no ambulance service or hospital for these creatures. We have been able to construct a narrative for each of them and it only increases our respect for these stoic creatures and our disdain for human disregard. For these once injured animals a picture does not account for the words that can be said and the emotion that can be felt about their ordeal. Every animal is an individual with its own life story and each has a different personality. Many humans would crumble if they had to endure what these kangaroos have been through.

The only way you will deeply know kangaroos is if you understand their everyday emotions – happiness, shyness, distress, fear, anger, nurturing, nervousness, inquisitiveness, and playfulness. You can only identify these emotions if you have a relational ethic of care of the ‘being-for’ kind with them over a long period. ‘Being-for’ relationships are about unconditional giving, with no expectation of reciprocity. The insights gained through such relationships with a kangaroo enable non-verbal communication between wild animal and human. Once you master communication with a wild animal so many things become clear. To believe you know a kangaroo without this personal insight is fraudulent. There is something profoundly disturbing about scientists and other humans claiming to know wildlife only through their disingenuous tinkering and experimentation, through the lens of a camera, or through media coverage designed more for entertainment than enlightenment.

But we have come to this meeting with our special friends for one other reason. We have come to apologise for being human and to gain some solace in their company from a self-interested and cruel human world. Like an out-of-control grand panjandrum, this human world shows no bounds to its ingenuity in finding even more grotesque ways, based on even more flaccid argument, to make a misery of the lives of innocent non-human animals of all kinds and in all situations – farm, wild, companion, introduced, and used for entertainment. The cruelty and disregard of humans toward animals torments us and every day of our lives we are confronted by the reality of it everywhere we turn. In return for our support for these animals we in turn also receive abuse from members of the human world.

We empathise with Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello (‘The Lives of Animals’, 2001). Sometimes giving up on human society and adopting the life of a recluse vegan seems attractive. At other times there is a determination to confront the human disregard toward animals head on, with the hope that a few attitudes might change for the better. Unable to become reclusive in a world that constantly nags at you, wants you and then disregards you, periods of depression result – but this is the lot of those at the coalface of animal cruelty, who fight for justice for creatures whose voice is unheard.

At the butt-end of our torment are neoliberal politicians exhibiting Faustian principles; those pillaging farmers who have cleared and poisoned the soil and treated the animals in their care and other animals they come across with diabolical disregard; unethical scientists who tinker with and experiment on these animals for their own ends; and the self-interested who simply do not want to know about animal misery. These people prefer to have a life that is desensitised to the plight of others, rather than be embarrassed by what they eat and wear. These people turn away from the inconvenience of assisting an animal quietly whimpering in distress. They all earn our derision.

The air has turned noticeably chilly as we sit amongst the kangaroos. It is this chill and the shiver it creates that reminds us that at this same time, less than one hour away, an episode in extreme brutality is being played out against the same gentle animals by insensitive humans with SUVs, blinding spotlights and high-powered guns, contracted by the very people meant to be protecting our country. You can be certain that the government which has employed these contractors has not sought any due diligence, probity or professional indemnity evidence and it is highly unlikely there was any competitive tendering, as the rest of us might expect if the normal rules of transparency and accountability apply in contracting for government services in a free, fair and democratic society.

Our representations and legal challenges in opposing this act of gross indecency against a gentle and inoffensive resident of this land for 16 million years are met with nothing but neo-con politics and later proven false statements. It seems impossible to escape those politicians and their insensitive brand of politics. Their attitude is always bad for animals. Seven thousand innocent, free-living individuals are massacred based on the lies of politicians, the actions of a few bureaucrats more concerned about their next promotion than animal suffering, and a single ‘local’ scientist whose simplistic work can but give the field of ecology a bad reputation. None will know these animals as we do on this night in their company and few, if any, are interested in finding out. Killing, except to end pain and suffering, is the act of the unconnected human. Such a scene is like the 1995 Srebrenica massacres – thinking and feeling beings herded, cornered and slaughtered. We feel their terror before they feel the bullets that extinguish their innocent lives.

Having sat through every day of the Tribunal hearing of the Majura kangaroo killing and read the transcript of the decision, one can only be shocked at the low level of concern for animal life and the poor evidence the Court was prepared to accept in allowing the governments involved to carry out their programme of slaughter. Two questionable actions underpinned their decision.

The first was that photographs were accepted as the cornerstone of evidence of apparent kangaroo overgrazing – the prime reason given for the need to slaughter them. No evidence of causality was ever provided to this Tribunal and nor was it asked for - only photographic evidence of association. They said in paragraph 111 of the transcript of the hearing: "We accept that the photos are not representative of the MTA [military training area] as a whole, but they do demonstrate the existence of substantial damage caused by kangaroos to significant areas of the MTA." To rely on a photo without other relevant and comprehensive data and analysis is bad science. As scientists we know photos can never be a substitute for the full scientific analysis that demonstrates causality. This is tantamount to saying that because 99 per cent of people who develop bowel cancer drink coffee, then coffee must cause bowel cancer! Based on good science, the Tribunal’s statement connecting photographs with causality is just plain wrong.

The second action of the Tribunal was accepting the evidence of a scientist with no peer-reviewed research record, simply because he was ‘local’, whilst ignoring the contrary evidence of ‘outside’ scientists with internationally recognised knowledge and experience in kangaroo ecology. Statements that purport to be science that are not peer scrutinised must remain only opinion.
It is hard to imagine the sheer terror and panic the Majura kangaroos experienced this night; infants losing their mothers and being trampled in the pandemonium, others suffering great pain from inaccurate shots from the so-called ‘expert marksmen’, some suffering fractures and other injuries in the chaos, conscious pouch-bound infant joeys clubbed to death, beheaded or buried alive with their dead mothers, and vulnerable at-heel offspring left to be predated on.

Where was the politician who gave the orders to carry out the Majura murder this night? My vision is of him sitting down to a dinner of beef, lamb, chicken, or some other dead farm animal who had been through the same misery. Maybe he is having some ‘quality’ time with his family, as the children of other mammals are subjected to agony and terror before losing their lives. There is no quiet dinner for them on this night. And we, just one hour away, are in the company of the same creatures he is having murdered – not as intruders into a much gentler world, but as guests with lost souls seeking some meaning to being human from those who are not. There is little to find emotionally satisfying in this human world when exposed to the world of non-human animals.

How odd it is that some humans are slaughtering gentle kangaroos inhumanely with apparent complete indifference, while we humans not far away seek some guidance in life from the same creatures. How can an animal so frightened and distrustful of humans be so willing to share its world with us? How can two worlds be so different? We are so tormented by the illogicality of being a human animal in a world that is so mean spirited and brutal, while being temporarily accepted into a world of another animal species that is the target of human brutality, but in which the values of sharing, gentleness, and nurturing are commonplace. It leaves us with no answer.

Above the entrance to Australia’s Parliament House sits the nation’s coat of arms, the distinctly Australian kangaroo and emu. Every day politicians walk beneath this coat of arms, no doubt full of self-importance and conceit in the belief that they are making lofty decisions of meaning and significance for the nation and all its inhabitants. Most of these politicians would not take a second glance at this coat of arms, let alone stop to muse as to why these animals are an important symbol of what ought to be a moral platform upon which to build a nation. In fact, many of these same politicians have been directly complicit in the brutality toward these animals - a brutality that reflects post-colonial attitudes of taking what you can from the land while it is still available to take and a nasty interpretation of neoliberal economics that puts ‘the self’ and not ‘the other’ at the centre of importance.

This self-centred interpretation of a free market economy was not the one intended by Adam Smith. For Smith, the ‘invisible hand’ would only distribute the benefits of private enterprise more widely throughout society if there were some moral basis to it predicated on fairness. He reckoned humans had a ‘natural sympathy’ in seeing others benefit from their labour. This is not the neoliberal ‘free market’ economics we see everywhere around us today. Instead there is a culture of not wanting others to benefit from the labour of more capable individuals. The ‘natural sympathy’ of humans spoken about by Adam Smith is today regarded as a ‘free-rider’ effect, where the free-riders are despised. Unfortunately, we have allowed society to adopt the uncaring position: There is no compassion where there is a lack of capability. What chance do non-human animals have when vulnerable humans in our society are thought of in this way? Animal capability is not given any thought in this dialectic.

The kangaroo’s place on the Australian coat of arms and as a symbol in many other fields of endeavour is not only because it is uniquely Australian, but because it portrays a sense of survival in the sixteen million years it has lived in this fragile land, and because it reflects speed, strength and gracefulness. For those of us who know these animals well it also reflects deeper qualities than the simple biophysical. For us the kangaroo demonstrates a gentle and nurturing demeanour toward others and towards the land they have resided in for so long. These are characteristics that are important in creating a sustainable planet for all.

One year earlier, these same politicians were complicit in another brutal programme of kangaroo killing. In what has become known as the Belconnen Mother’s Day massacre, 514 free-living kangaroos were slaughtered to make way for yet another uninspiring ‘project-built’ housing estate. The significant feature of this gruesome event was that it was carried out within sight of the coat of arms and flag of Australia’s national Parliament House. Non-lethal alternatives were made available to the politicians, but their self-interest would not allow them to comprehend such ethical approaches that might help another species apparently less capable then them. Watching this traumatic event, not as some cruelty-loving voyeur but as someone with intense sadness and anger, it is hard to reconcile that we, in the company of such gentle, honest and nurturing creatures this night, are of the same species as the individuals employed to carry out these horrendous deeds and an overzealous police force whose numbers exceeded the quiet protestors on those fateful days. So deep is the cronyism between the government and the police that quiet and peaceful protestors face the maximum charge when arrested. Fortunately the court system sees the nonsense, lists no charges and imposes no fines, despite government lawyers seeking to have the charges increased with maximum fine.

My thoughts go to other events of extreme animal cruelty against the kangaroo initiated by governments across this country that deepen our torment toward those who unfeelingly contribute to a burgeoning world of animal cruelty. There is something morally very wrong when humans who have not sought to better themselves, or contribute to a better nation, are supported by governments in brutally killing thousands of kangaroos for a most unethical, unsustainable and uneconomic industry that makes private gain for a few from the misery of the native animals who belong to all of us. It is hard for caring people to imagine that their elected governments would stoop to such base practices, always in the name of money and supposed jobs, not for once realising that an immoral society provides no basis for a strong economy.

“Follow the money” was the famous one-liner used by the Deep Throat reporters on the trail of those behind the Watergate break-in as portrayed in the movie All the President’s Men. What is happening to animals in this country at the hands of politicians, their bureaucrats, ‘chosen’ scientists, consultants, farmers and the grubby end of business has the same ugly smell about it. That government in this country should support the commercial kangaroo killing industry as a crude way of making money and winning rural electorate votes smacks of cold-hearted and valueless politics that make Faust look like a junior league player. Nothing stacks up to support the continuance of the commercial kangaroo killing industry. Next to the Statue of Liberty, the kangaroo is one of the most recognised global icons and, along with other Australian wildlife, is a significant tourism booster that contributes many times more in national revenue than any commercial killing programme. The commercial killing of kangaroos fails all the tests of economics, human health, animal welfare, and environmental sustainability criteria.

How is it that some farmers who have drenched the earth with chemicals, clear-felled and overgrazed the landscape, and over-used scarce water supplies in a fragile land, and have an appalling record of animal welfare, have the temerity to blame kangaroos for environmental damage and loss in productivity?

This soft-footed animal has been an integral and important element in our landscape for sixteen million years. More to the point how is it that governments are persuaded by the lobbying of such unreliable witnesses? There is no factual evidence to support a case that kangaroos have a negative impact on productivity, as the farming lobby claims. Indeed, there is more scientific evidence that kangaroos have a beneficial impact on soil quality. Farmers have been one of the main agents in brutality towards kangaroos. Other animals also suffer at their hands. Such practices as sow pig stalls, caged chickens, mulesing of lambs, separating weaning calves from their mothers, and the live export trade cause farm animals extreme fear and suffering. That governments can continue to turn a blind eye to the barbaric treatment of animals, despite the overwhelming graphic evidence presented to them, is a serious indictment of their moral standing.

Human exceptionalism has got environmental sustainability completely wrong and it is time that we sought new knowledge about this from those creatures whose life has been inextricably connected to the land for millennia. Educated humans have created the global environmental mess we are in today. The argument that there is no limit to human creativity and knowledge and that this will save the planet from environmental catastrophe needs to be weighed against the notion of wisdom, since humans are, generally, a narcissistic, self-indulgent and sometimes brutal and destructive species. Their creativity and new knowledge does not always accord with a common planetary good and what a fair-minded society might expect.

This raises the question of what kind of education and learning is needed by humans to allow knowledge, innovation and creativity to wrestle effectively with the challenging and fundamental global problem of environmental sustainability. It also raises the interesting thought of the knowledge non-humans might share with humans in our learning about environmental sustainability - just as we, tormented in the presence of the kangaroos this night, seek their guidance on the important qualities of what being human could mean for a better world.

The kangaroo is an ideal creature from whom to learn about environmental sustainability. The social and gentle nature of kangaroos, their ability to range over large areas of the landscape, their vulnerability in limiting environments, and the overtness in the expression of their emotions makes them particularly suited, as wild animals, for humans to learn from about environmental integrity. A ‘new way of knowing’ about sustainability is required that seeks to learn directly from wildlife through their emotional states, as individuals and in their social groups, through a ‘being-for’ relational ethic of care. Based on this ethic, we can incorporate recent research on affective neuroscience in mammals to provide the building blocks for identifying and interpreting emotion markers in various contexts, including in the wild environment.

This approach to knowing about environmental sustainability seeks to go beyond learning superficially about animal biophysics and biota from obtuse, human, scientific experimentation and simple observation. Introducing learning into the mix of an encounter with a wild animal, underpinned by an ethic of care and a means of non-verbal communication, raises interesting implications that not only highlight the shallowness of common approaches to conservation, ecology and green politics, but also of utilitarian ethics.
Much of today’s conservation, ecology, green politics and animal welfare agenda have contributed to an increased dualism between humans and wildlife. Unfortunately, as a result, a collective, objectified, quantitative, non-relational approach to animal ‘science’ has taken precedence over the lives of individual animals, their emotions and their personalities and of how our relations with them can yield new information and learning through transformative encounters.

When it comes to wildlife, conservation and green politics rely on analysis of animal numbers in the form of a collective biota, viewing animals only as objects that respond physically to environmental stimuli, rather than as live subjects with cognition, emotion and individual personalities. If the conservationist assesses that there are ‘too many’ wild animals of a particular species in a particular environment a programme of killing is usually advocated and if ‘too few’, a programme of captive breeding is advocated. Such narrow quantitative determinism ensures that we make little real progress in our broader knowledge and learning of sustainability, because it assumes humans have all the answers and all the world’s environmental problems can be ‘managed’ and even solved by experimentation on animals by human scientists rather than by learning from them through relational transformation.
The animal rights agenda is also not always helpful in our learning about environmental sustainability from wildlife because it is built around moral and ethical concepts, value utility, and degrees of consciousness. Being in the presence of these animals and learning from them on this night, on their terms, suggests that the use of these concepts is an abstraction from the realism of a direct and prolonged meaningful relational encounter between a human and an animal. It might be argued that the animal rights and animal welfare philosophies rely too little on actual transformational connections with animals and too much on conceptual obliqueness.

On this occasion however we have come to these animals not only to renew a friendship and to learn about questions of environmental sustainability, but with a problem, as if travelling to Delphi to visit the Oracle, for dealing with a human torment – a torment that afflicts many right-minded caring humans. Why should we allow ourselves to be tormented and bullied by lesser beings – insensitive humans who practise brutality and disregard? In many ways they are lesser beings than those non-humans in our presence.

Whether it is the homeless, the disabled, the aged, the abused, or a fragile creature such as an infant kangaroo, wombat, magpie, lamb, chicken, calf or lizard, a better society is one in which a gentle hand is extended to all beings to give a second chance, when there is kindness and respect, when suffering is relieved and when hope and opportunity are supported to flourish. If there is no heart and no soul in this place and economic rationalism and complacency are the order of the day, society is diminished and unattractive. Where there is no recognition and responsibility toward otherness, the future will be uncertain and our cathedrals will continue to be the shopping malls, sports stadiums, plasma televisions and virtual reality, as short-term palliatives for our community’s bleakness and search for moral and ethical meaning.

It is now very late, almost midnight. Chronological time has raced along, but time for us has stood still. There has been a mass of overlapping and conflicting emotions while we have been in the presence of these wild kangaroos and we have not yet managed to logically untangle it. Perhaps it cannot be done. There has to be more to do than just wring our hands and yell out our quiet complaints to the animal abusers and the governments that facilitate animal cruelty. These animals cannot escape the harsh realities of a world made unsafe by humans by recourse to the pills, alcohol and virtual reality of the television and internet on which humans increasingly rely. These animals take it as it comes without complaint. Unlike Elizabeth Costello we cannot leave our torment unresolved – we owe it to the animals in our presence this night, to all the injured animals we rehabilitate for a second chance at life, and to all the animals suffering abuse and distress who have no voice and no money to capture attention .

Many politicians only know one language – they have been seduced by the ‘Faust factor’ and will do anything to be re-elected – to stay in power. They will respond to the loudest voice and the most money; so those with no voice and no money can hope for nothing. There is a need for a political party that appreciates that living beings of all kinds have lives of meaning in their own right and recognises that the policies and practices of governments should not put money ahead of lives, and power and ignorance ahead of understanding. The short-sighted nastiness of much of government today does not value animals for who they are, or cherish the remarkable worlds they seek to remain a part of. Government policy needs to embrace the two interconnected principles of wellbeing and capability. Wellbeing is based on fairness, so that animals can enjoy their rightful place on this Earth and be able to go about their normal lives without cruelty being inflicted on them by humans. Capability is based on the contribution of animals to our companionship, to our wonderment and joy, to our knowledge of other beings and to enhancing the sustainability of the landscape and seascape for all. It is also about an animal’s ability to nurture its young, to play, to be inquisitive, to make its home, and to grow old.

Our time in the presence of these wild animals this night comes to an abrupt and seemingly unsatisfactory end when a phone call from an animal rescuer informs us that a small injured kangaroo joey is being brought to us for help. We have to go and it is always hard to say goodbye. Seeing these animals flourishing in their own environment, but still maintaining a connection with us as a genus they ordinarily recoil from, has temporarily replenished our souls and we return again to the human world that does not want to leave you alone and does not satisfy.

When we meet the rescuer we find a very small female joey with an open fracture of the lower leg and a fractured tail as well as other wounds caused by a motor vehicle accident. Her mother is dead. She is also dehydrated, having been fully exposed near a busy road for many hours. Thousands of motorists must have passed this little injured joey without stopping to care or help. We call her Sylvie.

Even though it is well past midnight we call our dedicated wildlife veterinarian and explain the situation. Following his advice, Sylvie has pain relief, antibiotics and is rehydrated. Her wounds are cleaned and her fractures are reduced and splinted. She then has a warm bottle of formula and sleeps peacefully in a cosy bag. Over the following months Sylvie does well and grows into as strong a kangaroo as any. She is one of the lucky kangaroos who has survived severe trauma. Our way of relieving our torment in a human world is to give wild creatures such as Sylvie a second chance so that we might enjoy her company in the wild in the future, as we have done this night with the other lucky ones.*

* Read Sylvie's story of rehabilitation at http://candobetter.net/node/1937

Afterword:
In 2009 the author established the Animal Justice Party of Australia (AJP) which was registered as an official political party by the Australian Electoral Commission in March 2011. He was foundation president of the AJP in 2009-2012. This is Australia’s first and only political party with the specific goal of achieving better wellbeing and capability realisation for all Australia’s animals through the parliamentary system (see www.animaljusticeparty.org).

References:
Coetzee, J. M. 2001. The Lives of Animals, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.
De Saint-Exupery, A. 1991. The Little Prince, Mammoth Press, London.
Safina, C. 1997. Song for the Blue Ocean: Encounters Along the World’s Coasts and Beneath the Seas, Henry Holt, New York.
Safina, C. 2007. Voyage of the Turtle: In pursuit of the Earth’s Last Dinosaur, Henry Holt, New York.

Author Background
Steve Garlick is an Adjunct Professor in Sustainable Regions at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia, and a Conjoint Professor in Urban and Regional studies at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. He has previously held professorial positions at Southern Cross University, Swinburne University of Technology and the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia. Steve is a spatial economist specializing in regional and community development and human capital, and also an applied ethicist, particularly specializing in animal ethics and animal studies.

Dr. Garlick is the immediate past Vice-President (2007-09) of the Australian Universities Community Engagement Alliance (AUCEA), and an inaugural fellow of that organization. He is a Board Member of the Pascal International Observatory, a Board Member of the Australian Government’s Innovative Regions initiative, a listed expert for the Talloires Education for Sustainable Development network, an advisor to the OECD on higher education and regional development, and founding president of the Animal Justice Party of Australia. He has been involved in international evaluation projects in higher education and regional development in Denmark, Sweden (three projects), Norway, Netherlands and Canada. In 2009 Steve was internationally recognized with the World Shining Compassion Award by the international Ching Hai organization and in 2010 was awarded the annual environment award by the Australian Wildlife Protection Council.

In his spare time, with his wife, Steve runs a recovery centre for severely injured wildlife particularly specializing in macropods and wombats.

Steve is a contributor to the upcoming book, Sustainability Frontiers: Essays from the Edges of Sustainability Education and a participant in an upcoming project on animals, ethics and education.

"This is the statement that will be posted to over 100,000 electors by the Victorian Electoral Commission during the Melbourne City Council Election. It encapsulates our political program for the City of Melbourne. Use it as a template for your political struggles, pass it on to all and sundry. Alternatives exist, we need to express them." Dr. Joseph Toscano and Dr. Jean Ely launch a campaign about running the city of Melbourne as a community, instead of as a money making 'business' opportunity for those who take and do not give.Campaign launch midday Wednesday 3rd October, cnr Collins & Swanston St, Melbourne."Let’s not forget that of the 100,000 people on the electoral roll, the majority live in Docklands, Parkville, Flemington, North Melbourne, West Melbourne, South Melbourne, Southbank, Kensington, part of South Yarra, East Melbourne, Carlton and North Melbourne, not the CBD."

Action Box Put Public First

We are standing to promote, protect and extend public housing and public schools in the City of Melbourne.

We want 10% of the City’s revenue to be set aside to provide seeding funding to establish an alternative economic system based on co-operatives and collectives that provides local residents with secure sustainable employment that provides sustainable goods and services to the community.

We will fight to double Council Rates on properties worth more than ten million dollars to provide services for the homeless and residents of Melbourne who rely on social security benefits to survive. We want a significant monument erected at the corner of Franklin and Bowen St to honour the indigenous freedom fighters Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner who were executed on the 20th January 1842 for daring to resist white colonisation.

We will rename City Square Human Rights Square to commemorate the forceful removal of peaceful Occupy Melbourne protesters from City Square in 2012.

Radical changes need to be made to ensure as a city and a community we are in the best position to deal with the four horsemen of an impending 21st century apocalypse: Increasing population growth; increasing greenhouse emissions due to human activity; rapidly diminishing finite resources, and the domination of the world economy by an economic system based on the creation of ever increasing profits irrespective of the human social and environmental costs have created conditions requiring radical change.

Dr. Joseph Toscano – Dr. Jean Ely.
Web Anarchist Media
Email [email protected]
Mobile 0439 395 489

The above is is the statement that will be posted to over 100,000 electors by the Victorian Electoral Commission during the Melbourne City Council Election. It encapsulates our political program for the City of Melbourne. Use it as a template for your political struggles, pass it on to all and sundry. Alternatives exist, we need to express them.

Join us Midday Wednesday 34d October for the launch of the Put Public First Melbourne City Council Mayoral Election Campang outside Melbourne Town Hall, Corner of Collins & Swanston St, Melbourne.

Dr. Joseph Toscano and Dr. Jean Ely,[1] sickened by the possibility the Melbourne City Council elections were going to be a conservative fifty shades of blue affair, have thrown their hat into the rink to raise a few radical ideas during the Melbourne Mayoral and Council election campaign. While everybody else talks about running the city as a business, we talk about running the city as a community. Let’s not forget that of the 100,000 people on the electoral roll, the majority live in Docklands, Parkville, Flemington, North Melbourne, West Melbourne, South Melbourne, Southbank, Kensington, part of South Yarra, East Melbourne, Carlton and North Melbourne, not the CBD.

While everybody else talks about cutting rates, we talk about doubling rates for properties over ten million dollars and using the money raised to tackle homelessness and poverty in the City of Melbourne.

While everybody else ignores public housing and public schools, we put public first pledging to make the public not the private sphere our number one priority. While everybody else is trying to ignore the way Occupy Melbourne was violently evicted by the Victoria Police after being given the nod by the Lord Mayor, we want to rename City Square Human Rights Square and use City Square as a focus for political and social activity, not commercial activities. While everyone else ignores the original inhabitants, we want to see a major monument erected to Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner, two indigenous freedom fighters who were executed at the corner of Bowen and Franklin St on the 20th January 1842 for resisting white colonisation. We want the area where the monument is erected to act as a focal point to help address the unfinished business that still exists between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians 224 years after colonisation began.

Join us, help us launch a Melbourne City Council Mayoral and Council election campaign that will put the cat among the conservative pigeons that stand against everything we stand for.

Joseph Toscano/ Libertarian Workers For A Self-Managed Society.

NOTES

[1] Dr. Jean Ely is a founding member of the Defence of Government Schools movement (DoGS) and is a regular presenter on 3CR's Public Education program. She is the author of Reality and Rhetoric: An Alternative History of Australian Education. She delivered the Lionel Murphy Lecture on October 26th 2000 at the Nindi Dana Quaranook centre in Morwell.

Planning Backlash Inc, a coalition of 250 resident groups across city, coast and country, is astonished at the complexity of the proposals for major changes to Melbourne and her Green Wedges and the limited time to understand it and make submissions. Coalition members are disappointed that there has been no thought given by Government to run public sessions to explain the changes. As a result the vast majority of people don’t know what is happening and have been given no opportunity to find out.

SUBMISSION TO PROPOSED CHANGES IN PLANNING LAWS

21st September 2012

INTRODUCTION
I am Mary Drost Convenor of PLANNING BACKLASH INC a coalition of 250 resident groups across city, coast and country.
We are astonished at the complexity of the proposals and the limited time to understand it and make submissions. We are disappointed that there has been no thought given by Government to run public sessions to explain the changes. As a result the vast majority of people don’t know what is happening and have been given no opportunity to find out.

Many people are not in a position to have access to internet and this is such a complex document it takes great skill to understand it all.

These proposed changes are very good for the suburban residential areas but there needs better understanding of Rural and Green Wedge areas and the Commercial Zones should be more clearly thought out.
TO RESPOND TO THE SECTIONS IN THE PROPOSALS
1. SUBURBS - Residential
Commercial
2. GREEN WEDGES
3. RURAL ZONES
4. THE FARMING ZONE
5. INDUSTRIAL
6. TOWNSHIPS

1. SUBURBAN - RESIDENTIAL
We agree with the Zones as finally we can have the protection against inappropriate development that we have been wanting since Melbourne 2030 was brought in and forced onto us in spite of our objections. The Residential Zones are excellent and we thank the Minister of Planning for his courage bringing these in, no doubt against the wishes of the DPCD.
However there are a number of points needing amendment and the Minister has agreed to a number these amendments during our meeting on the 10th September. Our agreement to the whole zone concept is dependent on these amendments, because if these are kept in, they would negate the advantages.

LIST OF AMENDMENTS THAT WE REQUEST

The Minister will scrap the ‘within 100 m’ of a commercial zone to prevent commercial creep into residential zones. This can in effect double the business area and has unwanted implications.

The Activity Centres will be Principal and Major also Central, and must have fixed boundaries, and not extending out 400 m.

Neighbourhood Activity Centres will be just local shopping strips.

There will be no population targets.

There will be no reduction in residents right to object and appeal.

Maximum heights must apply to all buildings in the zone.

The only uses not requiring permits in residential zones will be those not requiring permits now. Everything else requires a permit and residents retain the right to object. Current prohibitions must be retained and no dilution of present conditions. Rather, enhance the zones to provide the tools to enable the protection of neighbourhood character.

The Council working with residents can say where and how big the residential zones will be and the Minister will approve and the DPCD will not interfere.

If the Council wants mandatory heights the Minister will give it and the DPCD will not interfere.

We do not agree with office and shops as of right in the RGZ or the GRZ.

We do not agree with food and drink premises as of right in RGZ.

We do not agree with medical centres as of right in RGZ, GRZ or NRZ.

We do not agree with place of worship as of right in any residential zones

We do not agree with changes in size of land where houses can be built without a permit.

We do not agree with 9 mts building heights in NRZ areas as these areas are predominantly one and two storey houses.

Council must retain the current permit requirements under Res 1 and be retained in all residential zones.

Neighbourhood character must be considered and this could mean in areas of predominantly single story detached housing, rescode is varied to suit neighbourhood character, allowing prohibition of boundary to boundary houses

Height limits must apply to all buildings and not just residential.

We request Peer Review as promised by the Minister

SUBURBAN - COMMERCIAL

WE RECOMMEND THAT THESE COMMERCIAL ZONES ALL BE PUT ON HOLD UNTIL IT IS THOUGHT THROUGH PROPERLY AND PROPER CONSULTATION WITH COUNCILS AND COMMUNITY TAKES PLACE. Commercial is not likes as it is pushing high density housing.

IN BRIEF, however:

There must be permits to locate any offices in commercial zones, so that council can direct offices to suitable areas.

* Essential to have permits to locate gaming venues or taverns in Activity Centres

Must have permits to locate cinemas or shops or small supermarkets in enterprise corridors or any other areas.

Third party rights must be retained.

There must be strict height controls.

RURAL, FARMING, INDUSTRIAL AND GREEN WEDGE ZONES

2. GREEN WEDGES
We do not agree with the Green Wedges being encroached on, unless the Green Wedges Coalition agrees to any parts being taken out. We would suggest that if any part has to come out for some urgent reason that it be replaced somewhere else.
We do not agree with the proposed developments in the Green Wedges, such as new as of right uses especially rural industry and rural store. Nor should previously prohibited uses become discretionary such as abattoir, medical centre, place of assembly, sawmill, service station. These being discretionary will add to VCAT and council work and will significantly change the intended character of the Green Wedges.

There should be much further community consultation before any changes are brought in. Much more time is needed.
We have suggested to the Minister that instead, he do all possible to turn the Wedges into a Green Belt as there is around London and has development further out (providing it is not on good farming land) and that fast trains run out to new areas so that people can commute as they do into London.

In addition we recommend that the Minister takes immediate steps to protect the other Green strips running across Melbourne – the waterways. These are constantly threatened by development along their edges and these waterways should be protected and be Green Ribbons in Melbourne, with no building allowed near their edges so that they have natural growth along their length for future generations to enjoy.

We understand that Ted Baillieu agreed to the plan to create a Capital City Yarra Park and this should be done without delay before any more destruction by developers is allowed by VCAT.

3. RURAL ZONES
The changes in these zones have not been strategically justified.

We object strongly to the changes of prohibited to discretionary use and discretionary to as of right use. This will result in uncontrolled buildings and works and this should not be allowed. These include schools and service stations . Changes to the Section 173 agreements is opposed.

Rural Activities Zone

We oppose change to as of right for bed and breakfast occupation, primary produce sales, rural industry and rural stores – these must be controlled by the responsible authority.

We oppose the change to discretionary use for abattoir, accommodation other than dwelling, retail premises, sawmill and warehouse.

Rural Conservation Zone

We oppose the changes from prohibited into section 2 needing a permit, such as accommodation other than dwelling and dependent persons unit, animal boarding, agriculture freezing and cool storage changes, landscape garden supplies, leisure and recreation and primary and secondary schools, changes to requirements for restaurants

Rural Living Zone

We oppose the reduction in the minimum lot size for a dwelling from 8 hectares to 2 hectares. This zone is for rural residential way of life and this change would spoil that.

4. THE FARMING ZONE

We do not support the change from discretionary to as of right for primary produce sales, rural industry or rural store, increase of bed and breakfast from 6 to 10.

We do not support the change from prohibited to discretionary of abattoir, industry, landscape garden supplies, market, sawmill, trade supplies, warehouse.

This zone should protect natural resources

5. INDUSTRIAL

What is proposed raises serious questions and this should be looked into more carefully before being introduced as it has drastic implications. We suggest independent studies should be undertaken before proceeding.

6. TOWNSHIP ZONE

Basically there are improvements in this zone but we do not agree with Medical Centres or expanded Places of Worship being without permit.

However the Low Density Residential Zone, which is usually unsewered and lacking in services and in water catchment areas, will be worse off - we object to changes re Medical Centres and Takeaway Food Premises. Nor do we agree with the land subdivision to 2,000 sqm because of the effect it would have on Macedon, Kyneton, Gisborne etc. and possibly others in other areas.

ADDITIONAL ZONE SUGGESTED - WORLD HERITAGE ZONE

It would ensure the ongoing protection of this precious part of Melbourne to create its own zone with its own protective measures to both the Exhibition Building and surrounding garden.

CONCLUSION

We believe there is great merit in the proposed Residential Zones providing our amendments are carried through.

The other zones need a lot of more study and consultation.

Much of what has been proposed will permanently damage what makes Melbourne such a desirable city.

The push to keep the economy going by this means is very short sighted and does not work in the long run.

There is a lack of strategic justification and no statement re the economic and social impacts of the reforms.
There is a lack of information concerning transitioning to the new zones, resourcing, current planning applications and VCAT appeals.

At the moment there exists on the outskirts of Melbourne several years of supply of land owned by developers ready for development and in addition several years supply of land inside Melbourne. It is poor judgement to spread even further and destroy so much good farming land when there is no need. Maybe in the near future a Federal Government will put a hold on this excessive immigration that is spoiling our city. It is time to be clever and copy the Dutch who are going in for super high tech to keep the economy high while keeping a stable population.

FINALLY
I request to speak to the Panel when the Review committee runs public hearings.
Mary Drost
Convenor
Planning Backlash Inc
[Name and phone number excised by Candobetter editor]
28 SEPTEMBER 2012

Report on Richard Heinberg's tour of Australia, Melbourne talk: We should remember that the economy is a subset of the environment and that 'not sustainable' does not mean 'insufficiently eco-groovy'. Heinberg pointed to Australia's growing reliance on petroleum and its decreasing production and suggested that the policy of growing our population needs a profound rethink. Some strange and interesting responses from the audience. And a standing ovation for Australian MP Kelvin Thomson, who was chairing Heinberg's session. Not to mention Jenny Warfe - a terrific new Vice President for SPA Victoria and Tasmanian Branch.

Energy, Debt, Climate Change, Overpopulation

(The following is based on notes taken from Richard Heinberg's excellent talk and does not purport to be verbatim.)

Plentiful energy in the early 20th Century caused a 'problem' of overproduction. Consumers did not have the income to keep up. Tactics to overcome this structural resistance included advertising, planned obsolescence, fashion (bringing out new models), and, most of all, credit (i.e. debt.)

Credit is a key factor producing economic growth. Delinking money from precious metals helped this along because money could be created with little restraint.

Heinberg identifies the 1980s as a turning point and cites Robert F. Gordon, "Is US Economic Growth over?" (NBER Working Paper No. 18315, August 2012.) Gordon writes that there have been three periods of technological engineering leading to industrial growth:

1. Coal, steampower
2. Oil and electrification early 20th century
3. Computers, internet, cell phones etc.

The third phase does not generate as much economic growth as previous technological changes.

Globalisation, debt and economic growth

Globalisation has posed a problem for growth because, by internationalising wage competition, it drives wages, and therefore purchasing capacity, downwards. In the US, says Heinberg, the average wage is at levels of 1973.

More debt has been used as a strategy to get low income earners to purchase more consumables and to sure up economic growth.

Debt is now growing three times faster than GDP.

The Financialisation of the Economy

This financialisation of the economy has meant expansion of the Financial Industry. The Industry hs gained political power and the ability to influence profound changes in financial legislation.

But, says Heinberg, with the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) we reached the limits to debt.

Problems with current political-economic system

Lack of redundancy makes the system fragile. Heinberg talks about how ridiculous it is to make countries into specialist economies, evoking the danger of reliance on trading for most vital resources.

Like most peak-oilers he advocates relocalisation. The reasons are many but one of the main ones is the energy cost of transport. Our current land-use planning relies on us using cars. The only way to avoid reliance on cars (which will become too expensive to run as petroleum runs down) will be to redesign, default back to land-use that makes it possible to walk or cycle to town centers, and to grow and distribute most food and materials locally. At the moment the system discourages local initiatives to supplement or supply food and materials.

We need to stop using the GDP as a measure of production because it privileges any activity that makes money, without heed to the harm it might do.

We should encourage alternative currencies, worker ownership, and population stabilisation.

Australia's growing population problems - what do we think we are doing!

Heinberg gave Australia's population problems quite a lot of attention, focusing on our declining oil production and our growing consumption of fuels, asking is it really sensible to contemplate the signs of a long future financial decline and still grow the population by importing more and more people?

On Energy and Climate

We need low energy transportation, low energy buildings, low energy agriculture and renewable energy sources. Of course no-one should expect to have anything like the current level of economic activity based on these.

We should remember that the economy is a subset of the environment and that 'not sustainable' does not mean 'insufficiently eco-groovy'.

What's not peak

Community, satisfaction with honest work well done, intergenerational solidarity, artistry, beauty of built environment, happiness, healthy environment, cooperation.

Audience Response

As one familiar with peak resources and population discussions from way back, I was not too surprised by some of the questions, however I learn something each time.

Iceland and middle class attitudes

I asked Heinberg if he thought it would be a good idea to talk about how Iceland has refused to pay its GFC 'debt' and is pursuing 200 bankers on criminal charges. I added that people could benefit from realising that most of the countries in Continental Europe do not suffer from the same rapid population growth as Australia and other Anglophone economies.

Richard said that Iceland was a shining example and its economy, released from debt, had rebounded.

At this a young man behind me gave his spirited opinion that it was not so impressive to go from zero to zero. He seemed not to consider the importance of a people being freed from debt, but that might be explained by the fact that he identified himself as employed in the Financial Industry. He described himself as having only recently escaped a life of despair on a country farm for his employment in Melbourne. Remarking that there was far more community spirit in the country than in Melbourne, he nonetheless warned somewhat contemptuously that that most of this middle-class audience would experience a rude awakening from their romantic ideas about self-sufficiency if they chose to return to the land.

Clearly the importance of our economic reliance of fossil fuels - notably petroleum - simply had not sunk in at all. He seemed to think that the whole talk was about some kind of philosophical attitude, rather than a forewarning on survival in hard times to come.

Richard Heinberg's reply was that relocalisation and self-sufficiency wasn't about 'choice'. It was about dealing with an unavoidable situation. He said that his own father had been raised on a subsistence farm but had managed to get to the city and become the first in the family to get a university education. Richard added that he and his wife lived on a large block in a city where they had numerous fruit and nut trees and hens, and that, although it was sometimes hard work, they had more fun now than they had ever had.

What I learned from this exchange was that one psychological way of not dealing with finite resources is to assume that they are somehow discretionary. Though how a farm-boy could fail to appreciate the importance of petroleum defeats me, unless this young man is an indicator of how modern schools, even in rural areas, teach within paradigms separate from rural reality.

Goldcoast Climate change refugees

Another young man, closer to the front of the audience, whilst acknowledging that population poses a problem in Australia asked, "But what should Australia do about climate change refugees from poor countries? Don't we have an obligation to take some? How many should we take?

This view seemed to me to indicate that the person asking the question had somehow assumed that peak oil, global warming and financial implosion would only affect the 'third world'. Hence his question was, given the need to limit Australia's population size, what should our position be on climate change refugees? The picture was painted of millions seeking entry to our safe and prosperous shores.

I would have liked to asked him why he seemed to assume that Australia's economy will somehow not implode with the rest of the world's and that our own population will not be affected by sea-level rise, given that most of our populations live in coastal cities. We have seen what several feet rise in river levels did for the Brisbane CBD during the floods in 2011. Well, the Brisbane River opens onto the sea, which means, if there is a rise in sea levels, the CBD is likely to be inundated. As for the Gold Coast; those hundreds of skyscrapers lining the beach are completely vulnerable to permanent deluge. Their location is a testimony to shortsightedness and opportunistic investment overseen by negligent councils and state governments.

Sydney Harbour will have its valleys inundated. Port Philip Bay and Hastings (enclosing the Mornington Peninsula where developers are planning to build many new suburbs, a new railway, tollways and to massively increase cargo traffic), are doomed to lose many buildings. Likewise for Perth (on the Swan River), Darwin on the sea, Adelaide, and so many other towns and cities.

The same can be said, in metaphor, for our economy. Look at how Campbell Newman, the new Queensland Premier, has used recent floods as an excuse to sell off more assets and close down jobs!

Standing ovation for Kelvin Thomson

Throughout this talk I was impressed with the organisation of the event by SPA members and Vice President of SPA Victoria and Tasmania, Jenny Warfe (of Blue Wedges fame)'s presence. Her introductions of the event and the speakers set an excellent tone for the evening. Kelvin Thomson MP formally introduced Richard Heinberg, but he did not overshadow the main speaker.

Some questions later targeted Thomson's knowledge of local population policy problems. He answered some, but mostly deferred to Heinberg. Unusual for an Australian politician in such an event, the audience gave Kelvin a standing ovation and a number of people spoke of how grateful they were to him for representing Australians' democratic opinion on high immigration numbers, overpopulation and overdevelopment. Richard Heinberg, naturally received very strong applause and was obviously greatly appreciated.

The Significance of this event and the way forward for the Counter-Growth Lobby

This event, which took place at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne, was unusually well attended for a counter-growth lobby population and resources lecture in Australia. The speaker, Richard Heinberg, has received far more coverage than any other non-Cornucopian population and resources speaker that I remember, apart from Tim Flannery perhaps. Sustainable Population Australia members in each state who set up his speaker tour deserve credit. Although Jill Quirk, the Victorian and Tasmanian President was unable to attend due to unforseeable events, her work in organising the branch response was vital.

The only criticism one can make is that more Australian speakers should be on this particular counter-growth lecture circuit and SPA has a number of good ones in its branches that it simply fails to promote, year after year, despite being the peak body in this field. SPA has symptoms of clique and cringe syndrome. If SPA only recycles the same national leaders and will not promote locals to prominence in speaker events and as spokespersons, its message will always be eclipsed by the mainstream and property development media, which are constantly anointing their own talking heads, with effect, despite little concern for quality. In fact raising the profile of good activists, no matter how humble, is one of the Candobetter.net's most important activities.

The Centre for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE) and the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) were also involved in supporting this event.

This article was meant to appear yesterday but, owing to a bug in Acrobat that freezes the screen whenever I try to read an acrobat article, I had to reboot and lost everything I wrote yesterday.

The Japanese often refer to their nuclear power plants (NPPs) as apartments without toilets. This is due to the complete lack of planning by the power companies and the government regarding the disposal of spent nuclear fuel. As Japan gears up to restart its NPPs in the near future, the spent fuel pools are beginning to look more and more like flushless toilets...

Earlier this year, the Japanese government announced that it would formulate a national energy plan for 2030 that would include the percentage of nuclear power in the energy mix at that time, and put forward three options 0%, 15%, and 20-25%. (e.g. see my Japan’s Energy “Options” ) The government appeared to favour the 15% option (existing NPPs minus those over 40 years old in 2030), but public opinion came down heavily (70-80%) in favour of the “zero option” (which some mistakenly assumed meant an immediate nuclear phaseout).

When the government’s Energy and Environment Conference conclusion was announced last week we all did a double-take because they said they had chosen the “zero option” but have left the door open to a final nuclear phaseout sometime in the 2050s (maybe – since the fate of NPPs now under construction and planned is not yet certain and existing NPPs may still get up to 20-year extensions on their 40-year “lifetimes.” However, it also looks likely that Uranium resources will be scarce by the 2030s, so world nuclear power may all be winding down by that time anyway.). However, the people are not fooled, and respect for politicians has reached an all-time rock-bottom low. We were all astounded again when even this so-called “zero option” was ferociously opposed by Japan’s business circles, leading to failure to produce a cabinet decision endorsing the decision of the Energy and Environment Conference (itself consisting of cabinet members) that had come up with the “zero option” conclusion.

So, although the government makes sweet (and effectively meaningless) promises about the safe operation of the NPPs that are now undoubtedly going to be restarted, the one story it and the power companies do not like to mention (though all anti-nuke campaigns do) is what’s happening in the spent fuel pools at each of the NPPs.

Of the 57 fuel pools (50 reactors now; a few reactors share spent fuel pools and then each NPP has a common fuel pool - see “Japan SPF data.pdf” attached to this article.) 35 will run out of space for spent fuel in under 5 years. 14 have between 5 and 9 years to go and the remaining 8 have 7 between 10 and 14 years and one (in Hokkaido) has 28 years to go. Have a guess which NPP has the least remaining space available in its SFPs… It’s TEPCO’s F#1 Units 5 & 6 and their common pool, which each have only 0.7 years of remaining space!! (TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa#7 has only 0.2 years remaining!) There’s no way those reactors can start again till large amounts of spent nuclear fuel are removed, BUT the priority on the F#1 site is Unit 4, and that is reckoned (by Arnie Gundersen in his interview with Dr Helen Caldicott – Downloadable mp3) to take till 2015-2016!!

Of course, the power companies could remove the spent fuel assemblies (a ton each, according to Arnie Gundersen) and eventually place them in dry casks, but that costs money. Dry casks also are not the “final solution.” In the past, the next step was reprocessing and then reuse of the Uranium and Plutonium gained to generate more electricity (or for use in nuclear weapons). However Japan is now mulling over whether or not to forego the “nuclear cycle” – i.e. to give up on reprocessing (which it has never been able to run), and simply move to final disposal of the waste. Kingston (Japan’s Nuclear Village, Jeff Kingston ) correctly points out that this may be the “beginning of the end of nuclear power in Japan,” since once the lie of the “nuclear cycle” is revealed it will become clear that nuclear wastes cannot be recycled ad infinitum (they never could) but must eventually be somehow flushed out of the system (i.e. the environment we live in).

Some of the nuclear waste is currently stored at the site of the reprocessing facility at Rokkasho Village, in the north of Honshu – Aomori Prefecture. There is a “mid-term” storage facility there, (and one or two under construction) but the locals are saying, “If you’re not going to reprocess, then we don’t want the waste stored here (unto eternity). Please remove it.” But to where? Assuming another “mid-term” storage facility could be built (more mega-bucks), that is still not the final solution for the spent nuclear waste.

[More details at Rolling Update 3 on the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster - see entries for April 23 (Japan's Spent Nuclear Fuel and the Shimokita Peninsula) and April 30 (Nuclear Power Isn’t Cheap!), and Japan’s Establishment Grasping At Straws To Keep Nuclear Status Quo]

As you may know, no one has the final solution for spent nuclear waste. The US has apparently abandoned Yucca Mountain. The Finns have built Onkalo (see the movie Into Eternity, where the designers scratch their collective heads and declare themselves unsure whether it’s OK or not), the Swedes are building a facility UNDER the Baltic Sea (see Sweden's final spent nuclear fuel repository at Forsmark NPP), the French, for all their claims of having “conquered” the nuclear cycle (while the reprocessing plant at Le Havre vies for first place as Europe’s most polluting facility with the UK’s Sellafield), are storing waste nuclear fuel in Siberia (Arnie Gundersen in the interview mentioned above). Japan has “plans” to construct a final repository for its nuclear waste and has come up with three candidate areas (in the north, would you believe? Tokyo Newspaper, 2012/9/18) but this is not being taken very seriously given the active seismic nature of the real estate.

As you can see, the yummy nuclear tale is quickly turning extremely yuccy. Our generation, the one that has lived from just after WWII to now, has “enjoyed” the dubious fruits of nuclear power and nuclear weapons, as well as consuming the lion’s share of fossil fuels, and is now in the process of contaminating the planet with nuclear waste for the next thousand generations. How will these future generations judge us? They will HATE us (if there is anyone around, because infertility may make humanity extinct – See Busby on the Jerusalem sperm-count study: No more births in Israel by 2020*), just as we now totally condemn the actions of the “nuclear village” and their hangers-on. There may be a general election in Japan this autumn. It will be interesting to see if the Japanese people will wake up to the notion that it is not a good idea to have their future determined by politicians and business people who are largely science-illiterate and who have apparently swallowed hook, line and sinker, the lies and half-truths about “safe” nuclear power and radiation fed to them by their nuclear village pals.

* Here’s a recent follow-up to the Jerusalem sperm count study that suggests Israeli men may be effectively infertile by 2030. Please note that the study does not mention radiation or Uranium as the cause (or one of the causes) of the fertility decline. In the Youtube video above, however, Chris Busby claims that it is the Uranium used in weapons (not only depleted Uranium, apparently) during the wars in the Middle East over the last two decades that is causing at least part of the problem.

A French university study on long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and Roundup tolerant maize reports alarming results. Multiple mammary tumours and huge increase in death rate in 200 rats over two-year study. French government taking study very seriously. Scientist leading the study reports persecution by GM industry advocates. The study abstract has been published at the end of this article. These new findings threaten business as usual reliance on GM products by population growth lobby.

French long-term study: rats nourished with GM foods over a period of two years show massive increase in tumours.

The study was: "Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize," published in Food and Chemical Toxicology, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637. The authors were Gilles-Eric Séralini, Emilie Claira, Robin Mesnagea, Steeve Gressa, Nicolas Defargea, Manuela Malatestab, Didier Hennequinc, Joël Spiroux de Vendômois, involving Caen University Institute of Biology and the University of Verona Department of Neurological, Neuropsychological, Morhphological and Motor Sciences. The study abstract has been published at the end of this article.

The French study, widely reported on French radio and television yesterday, fed 200 rats genetically modified foods for two years - the life-time of a rat. Apparently this is one of few or perhaps the only study over such a long period, where most studies on rats only go for about three months.

Multiple mammary tumours and huge increase in death rate

In females after 13 months there were multiple mammary tumours. The report on Journal televise France2 showed a female rat with three huge tumours occupying about one quarter of her total body weight. In males after the same period, there were liver and kidney tumours or abnormalities.

The results are said to have shocked the scientists conducting the study. They appear to show unequivocally that consumption of a lot of genetically modified food has major impacts on foetal and adult health for rats, so why not for humans? There increases in cancers and deaths were huge.

Journalistic coverage shows a field of genetically modified sweet corn with a commentary, "Is this corn a poison? The results of a study say that it is."

France will push in Europe for much stricter controls over permissions to the GM industry

In France, since 2008, a moratorium prevents the cultivation of genetically modified foods, but does not prevent importing them in products used to nourish food animals and for use in pastries and other products. The French government appears to be taking the risks very seriously. The French Health and Saftey Office has been delegated to report on the matter. French Greens have demanded urgent action and the French Minister of Agriculture, Stéphane Le Foll, says he will take the study up with the European union for much stricter appraisal and control of genetically modified industry activities.

Gloves off

A Monsanto spokesperson has said that it is too early to comment on the study results, which are as yet not well known.

Eric Seralini, the scientist heading the experiment said that they had pushed further than previous experiments testing the impact of a genetically modified food and pesticide. He is described as living in comparative isolation and conducting his work in comparative isolation and having been subjected to a lot of pressure - criticism and restrictions on funding - from the GM lobby, which is very very influential and wealthy.

The two year study now has to be reproduced to show that it is truly valid and this will (naturally) take at least two more years. The scientist who headed the study was known for his scepticism about the safety of genetically modified foods, which means that he was independent of the GM lobby, but also that the GM lobby will probably try to accuse him of bias. The GM lobby has multi-billions of dollars riding on discrediting the results of Seralini's work.

Abstract for the Roundup rat study mortality

"Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize."

"The health effects of a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize (from 11% in the diet), cultivated with or without Roundup, and Roundup alone (from 0.1 ppb in water), were studied 2 years in rats. In females, all treated groups died 2–3 times more than controls, and more rapidly. This difference was visible in 3 male groups fed GMOs. All results were hormone and sex dependent, and the pathological profiles were comparable. Females developed large mammary tumors almost always more often than and before controls, the pituitary was the second most disabled organ; the sex hormonal balance was modified by GMO and Roundup treatments. In treated males, liver congestions and necrosis were 2.5–5.5 times higher. This pathology was confirmed by optic and transmission electron microscopy. Marked and severe kidney nephropathies were also generally 1.3–2.3 greater. Males presented 4 times more large palpable tumors than controls which occurred up to 600 days earlier. Biochemistry data confirmed very significant kidney chronic deficiencies; for all treatments and both sexes, 76% of the altered parameters were kidney related. These results can be explained by the non linear endocrine-disrupting effects of Roundup, but also by the overexpression of the transgene in the GMO and its metabolic consequences.

Highlights

-A Roundup-tolerant maize and Roundup provoked chronic hormone and sex dependent pathologies.
- Female mortality was 2–3 times increased mostly due to large mammary tumors and disabled pituitary.
- Males had liver congestions, necrosis, severe kidney nephropathies and large palpable tumors.
- This may be due to an endocrine disruption linked to Roundup and a new metabolism due to the transgene.
- GMOs and formulated pesticides must be evaluated by long term studies to measure toxic effects.."

Kelvin Thomson MP will be chairing Richard Heinberg's talk about his book, The End of Growth 7.30pm. on Saturday 22 September 2012 at The Wheeler Centre, 176 Little Lonsdale Street. Heinberg is a well-known peak oil blogger and writer who delivers an entertaining and stimulating message on the serious subject of resource depletion which Australian governments and development and financial planners at all levels simply cannot cope with. At a time when Australia continues to back military intervention in the oil-rich Middle East, Richard's talk is especially topical. As well as that, it is the reality we all must deal with. So go along and then take the message back to your state and federal political representative and your growth-obsessed local council.

Let's hear it for the End of Growth

Senior Fellow at America’s Post Carbon Institute, Richard Heinberg, will be in Melbourne on Saturday 22 September as part of his national speaking tour on how to shape the economy of the future.

Mr Heinberg, who has written extensively on peak oil, will speak to his latest book “The End of Growth”.

“Economies cannot grow forever, even if they are based on renewable energy. We must adjust to the fact that our own civilisation has reached limits with regard to population, water, soil, raw materials, and energy,” said Mr Heinberg.

Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) is hosting his national tour, and in Melbourne they are joined by The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and the Centre for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE). The evening will be chaired by Kelvin Thomson MP, Federal Member for Wills and well known campaigner on population issues.

Good to see that Kelvin Thomson, one of very few politicians in this country who seems to 'get it' is chairing. Well done Jill Quirk, Jenny Warfe and Vivian Ortega for getting this up in Melbourne!

Victorian/Tasmanian branch president of SPA, Jill Quirk, said it was an opportune time for Richard Heinberg to visit Melbourne.

“Melbourne’s population is growing at an alarming rate,” said Ms Quirk. “Urban growth boundaries are being extended to cope with it and green wedges violated. More and more resources are required to provide infrastructure for all the extra people yet governments are unwilling to provide them.”

Before arriving in Melbourne, Mr Heinberg will have spoken to meetings in Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast, Sydney and Canberra. After Melbourne, his speaking tour will move to Adelaide and Perth and finish at the Sydney Festival of Dangerous Ideas.

Details of the Melbourne event:

The End of Growth: Peak Oil and the Economy of the Future

7.30 pm Saturday 22 September

The Wheeler Centre, 176 Little Lonsdale Street

Chaired by Kelvin Thomson MP

$5 entry at the door. RSVP and inquiries: Jenny Warfe via Email Jenny Warfe via SPAVic

(This article also looks at related population, immigration and democracy issues in the West.) A film, Innocence of Muslims has been released of which parts available on you-tube portray the founder of Islam in a bad personal and political light, to say the least. A strong theme depicts Muslims as aggressively anti-Christian. Apparently largely as a response to this film, there have been widespread riots by Muslims against foreign embassies, particularly US embassies, including riots in Sydney on 15 September 2012, with police injured. Meanwhile warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are together launching a military exercise in the Straits of Hormuz, in response to threats to close it off. There is plenty of reason for Muslims to be angry with and frightened by the West apart from that film. And maybe Westerners should hold their own governments to greater account if we are to avoid World War Three.

In this youtube film Syrian Girl Partisan puts forward a thoughtful hypothesis surrounding the timing of the release of the anti-Islamic film.

A Wikipedia article, although incomplete and ongoing, shows that authorship of the film Innocence of Muslims, remains extremely cloudy and confused.[1] Jewish sources have denied involvement but some aggressive marketing of the film by US Christian militants seems well documented.[1]

The President of the United States has apologised to Islam for the film. In Australia some politicians have come out saying that riots by Muslims in response to the film have exposed a 'downside' of multiculturalism, but they seem mute on the contradictions between fighting oil wars in Islamic countries and causing displacement that creates refugees and immigrants seeking homes here. I have received correspondence highlighting that the ability to express views in art and media is preferable to expressing those views via war and that non-censorship is a Western value worth defending. I agree. Reacting to a Muslim demonstrator's sign calling for beheading of critics of Islam, Australian MP, Kelvin Thomson, made a speech in parliament declaring that Australians, including those of migrant origin, are expected to uphold all laws in this country, even those they disagree with. He meant laws against inciting violence.

Muslim reactions

Despite the rightfulness of the need to uphold the law and avoid violence, I can understand why some Muslims are very insulted. Australians are poorly educated in history, or more might be aware of the context of current military interventions and a history of western interference beginning with colonial takeovers in the late 19th century and the fostering of worse and worse governments by British, US, French and other colonial and corporate forces. All countries become basket cases after colonisation, some sooner rather than later. Australia is on the way. In the mean time, making 'the enemy' look ridiculous dehumanises them and makes it easier for them to dehumanise Westerners. Dehumanising by both sides makes war seem excusable, even irresistable, to each side.

Although I have heard the argument that Christians do not riot violently in the street every time a work comes out making fun of Christianity (Life of Brian, Piss Christ etc), I think that maybe they would if Muslims rolled into Western states in tanks, put us under curfew, told us how to run our countries and went about privatising our government oil companies. In fact, what the foreign Christian-and secular-backed western governments are doing to the Islamic countries is a hell of a lot nastier than rioting in the streets. [2]

The film is a symbol - not the main game

Because of these realities, I am reluctant to publish articles that unilaterally mock Muslims who reacted furiously to the film in question, without also mocking the hypocrisy of non-Muslim regimes which create refugees in one place and take them in for safety in another, whilst pushing commercial interests as if they were democracy. There is more to this than a film. The film is just a symbol, but wars are actually in progress and people in the Middle East are terrified, as we all should be. I also don't think it achieves anything for ants to stir up other ants' nests with a stick, especially when Russia and China are the traditional lords of the region and the angry ants are sitting on most of the world's remaining oil reserves.

How did we get to here in Australia and where is the anti-war movement when you need them?

On discussion pages attached to recent SBS programs about the conditions that create asylum seekers, (Re "Go back to where you came from" - what about the NON-asylum seekers?)" someone observed that we have very strong pro-asylum seeker and pro-refugee protests in Australia these days, but almost none against the wars we are participating in, even though those wars coincide with exoduses of people claiming persecution. The comment pointed out that significant refugee streams from such situations consist of people who worked with the invading armies, noting that, in the asylum seeker film, one man stated that he had fought on our side: "I helped you," and presented this as an argument for his being accepted as an asylum seeker. The comment thus raised a number of controversial issues not often discussed in Australia and seems to have been removed.

Wars and invasions present citizens or inhabitants in the embattled and invaded country with invidious 'choices' which notably include fighting the invaders or working for them. See Greg Muttitt's Fuel on the fire, Bodley Head, London, 2011, for a brilliant history of oil and politics in Iraq. In a country where most of the population usually have not agreed to have their government taken over by foreigners, anyone apparently working willingly with the invaders, whether or not the invaders see themselves as peace-makers, risks being identified by their compatriots as collaborators with the enemy.[3] For this reason alone a person working with foreigners will incur the wrath of their compatriots. Since 'our' armies [i.e. allies of Australia] and interventions are currently always purportedly in support of minority dissidents and revolutionary armies, perhaps anyone who can show they fought on Australia's side tends to have a well-founded fear of persecution.

We never address these illogicalities, these contradictions in our asylum seeker and refugee discussions, where at least some of the people seeking asylum here may be considered heroes by Australians but traitors by their own countrymen. What sort of responsibility do we have for nationals who took positions as salaried workers or occasional assistants for foreign officials in an occupation? Is it not more likely that people who are already on the outer in their own country will take their chances with the occupying army? In a country where food and shelter are luxuries, working for the occupying forces may be the only way of surviving at any particular time, and resisting those forces may verge on suicidal. It may also be necessary to work with the occupying forces in order to save what is left of the country, even though the occupying forces initiated the destruction. This situation is again described superbly in Greg Muttitt's Fuel on the fire, mentioned above.

Refugees from Algerian and Vietnamese wars

When Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, brought in Vietnamese refugees, many of these favoured the right wing government and fought against the nationalist wars in Vietnam. Years later the Vietnamese war is largely seen as a war for independence from colonial rule by the French, the Japanese, the British, the French again, then the United States. The Communist Party at the time was probably the largest of several political parties involved in the resistance. This observation should not be taken to label all Australians of Vietnamese origin here as right-wing, but the inference cannot be avoided that people who sided with Australia's allies during the war in Vietnam were not on the side that ultimately won in a war where Australia's participation is now widely seen as unjust.[3]

In the Algerian wars of independence against France the Harkis is the term given to those Algerians (mostly muslims) who were working for, either covertly or overtly, the French colonial government and who had an interest in defending that status quo. After the French withdrew - nearly one million of them, many who had been born and bred in Algeria going to live in France - the Harkis faced reprisals from their countrymen, who saw them as traitors. Many Harkis sought asylum in France, but the French government avoided what was seen by many as a responsibility to look after these people.

Where do militant religious sects fit in?

Where do militant religious sects, like the Taliban, or the less 'extreme' Hezbollah fit in? There are two ways that such sects serve a practical need. One is that they provide a cover for political action, organisation and resistance in countries where overt political meetings attract execution (both from national governments and from occupying forces). Another reason is that, in countries disorganised by war and occupation, they often retain some organising capability to meet local needs for food distribution, care for the sick, distribution of inheritances, care of orphans and widows. They also provide work, food and shelter. Some alternatives may present in the form of foreign aid organisations, including non-Muslim religious missionaries as well as the Red Cross or other non-sectarian samaritans. Seeking help from these non-local or alternative organisations may also carry the stigma of perceived collaboration with enemies, outsiders or poorly viewed minorities, and generally weakening local or national solidarity. Therefore seeking help from local organisations is likely to be safer. In Muslim countries, Western economic cultural practices which include banks that lend money with interest, buying, selling and consuming alcohol and incorporation of national assets and resources for private profit all run counter to religious and social philosophy. Siding with forces that market these practices is to accept the unacceptable and undermine your peoples' economic interests. Muslims share these values with many Westerners who do not, however, have the support of their social and religious communities or the local organisation to help them fight these economic ills.

Australia's silent anti-war movement, vocal pro-immigration lobby - what's the connection?

As well as Australia having a lot of protest about the need to take in asylum seekers and refugees, but little or no recent protest against involvement in wars in their countries of origin, Australia also lacks concerted protest against an undemocratic and unwanted policy of high immigration. Part of the reason for this is probably that high immigration is dishonestly marketed by government and commercial growth lobbyists as if it consisted largely of refugees and asylum seekers, although the vast majority of immigrants to Australia are wealthy economic migrants. You would think that this situation should still lead to protests against our involvement in unjust wars, but somehow it does not. One explanation could be that our mass media wants to promote both war and mass migration and therefore suppresses publication of contrary views, giving us the false impression that no-one cares about the other side.

Divide, conquer and grow

Another reason that protest is muted seems to be the doctrine of multiculturalism. This ideology is used covertly to engineer massive population growth by growing populations of different ethnic identities, at the same time dividing and conquering democratic input about high immigration. When people protest about the increase in immigration numbers causing inflation, and pressure on the environment and services, they are accused of attacking the ethnicity of those immigrants. Australian and state governments generally side-step the numbers issue and divert talk to how they welcome people from different ethnicities and races, implying that complaints about high immigration are really only about shifts in Australia's cultural center of gravity. In fact the official encouragement of multiple separate ethnic communities in Australia is obviously a source of concern to Australians of all origins. It seems that most people have a sense that after "Divide" comes "Conquer," and Australians feel they are being divided and losing their standard of living, quality of life and security. Housing inflation causing new levels of debt and homelessness is the most obvious example of the cost of population growth.

Look out for the enemy

Along with "Divide and Conquer" there is the policy of "Look out for the enemy". The enemy at the moment is identified as Islam. Since 9-11 the presentation of this old traditional enemy of Europe as an imminent threat has been ramped up to fever pitch and offered as a reason to enter Islamic countries - even where they were secular states - and endlessly seek weapons of mass destruction even after it has been shown there were none. At home in the Anglophone and other European states, harsh new anti-democratic policies have been brought in to counter threats of Islamic terrorism, making it possible to accuse people of terrorism without giving public proof. The wars for 'democracy' in the Middle East are eroding democracy in the West. At the same time new streams of Islamic immigrants (and refugees) have been welcomed to the very states making war on their homes.

Saudi Arabia - curiously part of the Western club

One Islamic state stands out for its exemption from foreign intervention and its collusion with the allies against its Islamic neighbours. That is Saudi Arabia. Saudi royal family members are legion. Jet-setting globe-trotters, they are members of an international power elite, founded on oil-wells. At the same time they are among the most repressive governments in the world, with astounding records of human rights abuse and slavery, crowned by their nation-wide enchattlement of women. These representatives of Islam seem to be the only Middle Eastern Islamic government friends of European governments and immune to revolution or NATO intervention.

Confusion from West to East

Should we be surprised that there is now confusion all round, with many Westerners convinced that Islam is out to destroy their way of life, and many Muslims convinced that Westernism is out to destroy their way of life? If you look at what is happening in the world today, the evidence seems to be weighted in favour of the Muslim perception, with a history going back to the 19th century. It is hard to say that Islam is persecuting the West when Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya lie in pieces after foreign 'intervention' and warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are together launching a military exercise in the Straits of Hormuz as I write.

In this context, riots in response to the release of a film, Innocence of Muslims, that seems extremely inflammatory and insulting to Islam and its popularisation by US Christian militants, seem predictable. I have not seen most of the film, but I have seen several minutes on you-tube and I can see what the Muslims are angry about. It may well be that the film makes justifiable criticisms of Islamic culture and beliefs, but, as Jon Faine recently said, "Why poke a stick in an anthill?" Under such circumstances, the launch of Innocence of Muslims looks suspiciously like a politically detonating device, so I am glad that Obama has apologised.

Real political pressures created by high immigration and wars to fuel big populations

The fact remains that, in Australia, as in Canada, the United States and Britain, high immigration and overseas wars are creating political pressures. The power and commercial elites responsible for the high immigration that is depriving incumbent populations of their rights are the same people who are pushing in the Middle East for control of oil production and infrastructure roll-out so as to be able to grow corporate profits and continue their population growth and economic 'growth' agendas at home. Although democracy is a word so often brandished in the Middle East by Western forces, what is more often meant is capitalism, imposed by force, incurring many deaths. Iraq is a sad example of this - see Oil on the Fire and The Shock Doctrine and Saving the Baghdad Zoo: A True Story of Hope and Heroes. Libya's atomization through foreign intervention, purportedly to bring democracy, is a more recent example of the same kind of activity. We are now watching on the world theatre, with our bags of pop-corn, the purported democratization forces gather in the Bay of Hormuz, ready to 'reform'.

Grass roots democracy on the internet - not so easy to keep us in the dark now

But the internet has broadened the information we can get about wars now. Syrians who don't like the war there are managing to get its own side out to the world. Syrian Girl Partisan is a notable example, and she has broadened her commentary and explanations now to include an interpretation of what happened in Libya on "US Ambassador Lynched like Gaddafi And Youtube Censors." as well as the later film linked a the top of this article.

Several Egyptian demonstrators have confessed that they were paid to protest about the Innocence of Muslims near the US Embassy in Cairo, the Middle East News Agency cites Prime Minister Hesham Kandil as saying. (Source: RT News Anti-US riots grip Muslim world," http://rt.com/news/anti-american-protests-live-updates-053/

Former Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney

On 16 September 2012, in an email, Former US Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney wrote:

"U.S. bombs continue to fall in Somalia, Pakistan, Yemen, and now it is reported that the US drones are flying all over Libya and are bombing from Benghazi to Tripoli. Reports from Libya today are that foreign oil companies have evacuated their employees and stopped operations and that U.S. troops are in various parts of the country.

Tragedy continues to unfold in Libya. [...]"

McKinney: Questions on killings in Libya

"Every loss of life is tragic and that is why I oppose the current US policy of killing. The US is currently regularly killing people in Asia and in Africa. Taken to its extreme, the Obama Administration even claims authority to kill US citizens on US soil!

The unfolding situation in Libya is troubling, not only for the bloodletting and carnage that is taking place, but also because of the murkiness that surrounds the events themselves. I have several observations and a few questions:

1. The scenario of an anti-Islamic hate film triggering a protest that leads to violence replicates the events that took place in the initial uprising in Benghazi in early 2011. At that time, the annual protest in Benghazi against the anti-Islamic Danish cartoons was taking place. The march was infiltrated by persons with an agenda, who used the event as an opportunity to seize military equipment from the Jamahiriya government and use it against the Libyan population. If it is known that Muslim protest on the streets can be touched off by attacking the Qur'an, then once again parties with another agenda can spark then infiltrate that protest and use it as cover. It worked before to launch an entire chain of events in Libya, why not again? The reports on who created and financed the film are very muddled.

2. Today, the Libyan/Al Qaeda/US/NATO/Israel government is bombing Sabha and the black Libyan Toubu people who constitute a stronghold of the vibrant Libyan resistance. Interestingly, no R2P is being invoked to do so here, but could this be covertly directed against the Green Resistance (self-described as well financed and ready to fight to the last bullet, the last man, the last dollar)?

3. A video is available of the 12 September attack on the US convoy that killed 2 US citizens and injured 14, indicating Day Two of an uprising/action.

4. There are photos published today of US special ops forces landing in Libya. If true, is this to counter the Green Resistance, or springboard into Egypt if need be, or worse? Foreign troops are in Libya already securing oil platforms. What might this have to do with Iran? Libyan oil was theorized to ensure oil to Europe in the case of a shutoff from Iran. Does this have anything to do with the impending Netanyahu visit to the US?"

NOTES

[1] Excerpt from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_of_Muslims" describes known history of film production.
"Production

The cast and crew have publicly stated that they were deceived about the purpose and content of the film. In a statement obtained by CNN, the film's 80 cast and crew members disavowed the film, saying: "The entire cast and crew are extremely upset and feel taken advantage of by the producer. We are 100% not behind this film and were grossly misled about its intent and purpose." It further explained, "We are shocked by the drastic re-writes of the script and lies that were told to all involved. We are deeply saddened by the tragedies that have occurred." Cindy Lee Garcia, who played the mother of Muhammad's bride-to-be, said the script was for a movie about life in Egypt 2,000 years ago, called Desert Warrior (and possibly also Desert Storm), and that the character "Muhammad" was referred to as "Master George" on set. According to Garcia, "Bacile" claimed to be an Israeli real estate mogul. Later, however, he told her he was Egyptian and she heard him speaking in Arabic with other men on set. Garcia stated it makes her "sick" that she was involved in the film and that she is considering legal action against "Bacile." Sarah Abdurrahman, a producer for WNYC's On the Media program, watched the trailer and concluded that all of the religious references were overdubbed after filming.[30] The independent film was directed by a person first identified in casting calls as Alan Roberts, whose original cut did not include references to Muhammad or Islam.

In September 2012, "Sam Bacile" was initially described as a 56-year-old (52-year-old according to the Wall Street Journal) real estate developer from Israel who spoke by phone with the Associated Press. Israeli authorities found no sign of him being an Israeli citizen, and there was no indication of a 'Sam Bacile' around 50 years old living in California, having a real estate license or participating in Hollywood filmmaking. Though "Bacile" claimed the film had been made for $5 million from more than 100 Jewish donors, Hollywood Reporter described the film's appearance as unprofessional, bringing this claim into doubt. According to a man who identified himself to the Wall Street Journal as Bacile, the film was produced to call attention to what he called the "hypocrisies" of Islam.[40] After further reports suggested that Bacile was neither Israeli nor Jewish, Rabbi Abraham Cooper condemned initial reports that Bacile was Jewish and the movie was financed by "100 Jewish donors," saying that whoever told this to the Associated Press committed a blood libel and said that the media did not thoroughly research this claim. Cooper said that to "catapult what might be a nonexistent Jewish element could lead to violence against Jews," and called on the media to learn from this incident, while investigating who exactly created the film.

Later, "Sam Bacile" was identified as Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a Coptic Christian immigrant from Egypt living in Cerritos, California, near Los Angeles. In 2010, Nakoula, who had served prison time on a 1990s conviction for manufacturing methamphetamine, pleaded no contest to bank fraud and was sentenced to 21 months in prison; he was released on probation from prison in June 2011. Authorities said Nakoula told the police that he had written the movie's script while in prison and, together with his son, Abanob Basseley, raised between $50,000 and $60,000 from his wife's family in Egypt to finance the film. According to CNN, the FBI contacted him because of the potential for threats, but he is not under investigation by the FBI. However, federal officials are investigating whether Nakoula violated the terms of his probation, which barred him from using the Internet for five years. According to The Smoking Gun, Nakoula had planned to produce the film as early as May 2009, when he first took out ads for crew members. However, he was arrested on the bank fraud charges a month later; after his arrest, Nakoula cooperated with prosecution to obtain a reduced sentence.

American non-profit Media for Christ obtained film permits to shoot the movie in August 2011, and Nakoula provided his home as a set and paid the actors, according to government officials and those involved in the production. Media for Christ president Joseph Nassralla Abdelmasih reportedly went into hiding after the violent response to the film.

Steve Klein, a Vietnam veteran who has been active in opposing Islam and has been associated with paramilitary style "hate groups" at his church according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, was asked by Nakoula to be the spokesman for the film. The movie's self-identified consultant, Klein reportedly told Nakoula: "You're going to be the next Theo van Gogh." Klein later told journalist Jeffrey Goldberg that "Bacile" is not a real person and is neither Israeli nor Jewish, as has been reported, and that the name is a pseudonym for about 15 Copts and Evangelical Christians from Syria, Turkey, Pakistan and Egypt; Goldberg questioned the reliability of Klein. Klein rejected any blame for the violent reaction to the movie, saying, "Do I feel guilty that these people were incited? Guess what? I didn't incite them. They're pre-incited, they're pre-programmed to do this."
Release

The film's screening as "Innocence of Bn Laden" was advertised in the "Arab World newspaper" during the months of both May and June. The ad cost $300 to run three times in the paper and was paid by an individual identified only as "Joseph". The ads were noted by the Anti-Defamation League. The Islamic affairs director stated: "When we saw the advertisement in the paper, we were interested in knowing if it was some kind of pro-jihadist movie." Brian Donnelly, a guide for a Los Angeles based tour of famous crime scenes, noticed the poster advertising at the Vine Theatre. "I didn't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing. We didn't know what it was about because we can't read Arabic. The earlier version of the film was screened once at the Vine Theatre in Hollywood California of June 23, 2012 to an audience of only ten people. The film had no subtitles and was presented in English. An employee of the theatre stated: “The film we screened was titled ‘The Innocence of Bin Laden’,” and added that it was a “small viewing.”

A second screening was planned for June 30, 2012. A local Hollywood blogger, John Walsh attended a June 29 Los Angeles City Council meeting where he raised his concerns about the film's screening. “There is an alarming event occurring in Hollywood on Saturday,” he stated. “A group has rented the Vine Street theater to show a video entitled ‘Innocence of Bin Laden.’ We have no idea what this group is.” The blog site reported that the June 30 screening had been canceled. A Current TV producer photographed the poster while it was being displayed at the theatre as advertising to later discuss on the program "The Young Turks." According to one attendee, "the acting was of the worst caliber," and he "had no inkling that that movie was anti-Islamic and did not recall the movie referencing the prophet Mohammad," but he did not see the whole film.

It was reported on September 14, 2012, that a planned screening by a Hindu organization in Toronto will be coupled with "snippets from other movies that are offensive to Christians and Hindus." Because of security concerns no public venue has been willing to show the film; it will be shown in private for a small audience of 200 people. Siobhán Dowling of the The Guardian reported that "a far-right Islamophobic group in Germany", The Pro Deutschland Citizens' Movement, has uploaded the trailer on their own website and wants to show the entire film but authorities are attempting to prevent it.

Two clips were posted on YouTube on July 1 (13'02", title "The Real Life of Muhammad", comment "Part of the movie, "Life of Muhammad"..... ????? ?? ???? ???? ????") and 2nd (13'50", title "Muhammad Movie Trailer", comment "????? ??????? ??????") by user "sam bacile". By September, the film had been dubbed into Arabic and was brought to the attention of the Arabic-speaking world by Coptic blogger Morris Sadek, whose Egyptian citizenship had been revoked for promoting calls for an attack on Egypt. A two-minute excerpt dubbed in Arabic was broadcast on September 8 by Sheikh Khalad Abdalla[65] on Al-Nas, an Egyptian television station, On September 11, "Sam Bacile" YouTube account commented in Egyptian Arabic on a video from Al-Nahar TV uploaded 2 days earlier "??????? ?? ???? ?????? 100%" which means: "Idiots, this is an American film 100%".

The film was supported by pastor Terry Jones, whose burning of copies of the Quran previously led to deadly riots around the world. On September 11, 2012, Jones said that he planned to show a 13-minute trailer that night at his church the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida. Jones said in a statement that "it is an American production, not designed to attack Muslims but to show the destructive ideology of Islam. The movie further reveals in a satirical fashion the life of Muhammad."

[2] I realise that our governments are currently privatising our resources, encouraging overpopulation and making harsh laws, but so far the Australian government has not taken up arms against citizens, nor have the foreign corporate entities that have taken over Australian resources and assets - yet.

[3] An unusual source documenting the problems of survival in an occupied capital it the remarkable book by Babylon's Ark by authors Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence
"Most of the Iraqi zoo staff who walked to and from work braved a daily gauntlet of bullets, looters, and murderous fedayeen [see definition end paragraph] keen to slit the throats of anyone associating with foreigners. Despite being senior-ranking veterinarians, Dr. Adel and Dr. Husham also trekked the hazardous miles from their homes, taking the same chances as the humblest laborer. We never knew who would pitch up each morning, and we never blamed those who deemed it too dangerous to make it that day." Anthony, Lawrence; Spence, Graham (2007-03-06). Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo (Kindle Locations 1932-1936). Macmillan. Kindle Edition. " "Fedayeen": The Fedayeen was first created by an Iranian from Qom named Hassan-i-Sabbah, who held the main headquarters in Alamut-- modern day Qazvin, Iran. Fedayeen are any of various groups of people known to be volunteers, not connected to an organized government or military, in the Near East. They are usually deployed for a cause where the government has been viewed as failed or non-existent. They are associated with the role of resistance against occupation or tyranny. The name "fedayeen" is used to refer to armed struggle against any form of enslavement with actions based on resistance." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedayeen

[3] There is also a view that under the Fraser government they were encouraged to weaken the Australian union movement, notably the Australian Postal and Telecommunications Union in Victoria.