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Brumby's desal plant was part of a madman's solution for his 'Big Melbourne' brainsnap.

The company that built the desal plant at Wonthaggi for Brumby, has suffered financially ever since.
Leighton Holdings was profit greedy, ignorant of social impacts, ignorant of environmental impacts and just plain dumb to listen to Brumby and commit hundreds of millions in an extravagance that was unnecessary anyway.

The following article from a week ago shows how dumb Leighton's really was:

Leighton faces further pain

by Philip Wen, 16 July 2011, The Age...

LEIGHTON Holdings may have put its boardroom drama aside for now, but concerns of more profit downgrades have emerged before the embattled contracting company's full-year results next month.

A string of delays and cost blowouts at some of its key projects, including Brisbane's Airport Link and the Victorian desalination plant project, culminated in a $1.1 billion pre-tax write-down and a $757 million capital raising in April.

But analysts warn there remains significant risk of up to $400 million in further downgrades to come, casting doubt on the company's net profit guidance of between $600 million and $650 million for this financial year.

An analyst at Goldman Sachs, Chris Savage, said the construction of the desalination plant has continued to be delayed by wet weather, which could lower earnings on the project by ''anywhere up to $200 million'' - wiping out the wafer-thin $6 million profit the company currently expects. The project was originally forecast to make $288 million. (Brumby numbers were they?)

Craig Wong-Pan, a Deutsche Bank analyst, said industrial relations disputes at the project added even more risk of further cost blowouts. Industrial action erupted after Leighton subsidiary Thiess was caught spying on staff late last year. A more recent four-day strike is said to have cost Thiess up to $5 million a day. The project has also made headlines for a lucrative wages deal struck by the Victorian branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union.

Wages at the plant are as much as 40 per cent higher than equivalent projects in other states, even prompting Premier Ted Baillieu to voice ''significant concern'' over the project's rising costs.

Both analysts also warned of further downgrades at Leighton's struggling Middle Eastern joint venture Al-Habtoor

Despite Leighton having written down more than half of the value of its 45 per cent stake since 2007, Mr Wong-Pan said the venture's $525 million carrying value was still ''aggressive'' given poor cash flow and trouble in recovering payments from debtors.

Leighton had been destabilised by a takeover row over its German parent Hochtief by Spanish construction giant ACS, as well as persistent rumours suggesting long-serving former chief executive Wal King would make a shock return to Leighton's board. Mr King last month ruled out such a return.

Shares in Leighton closed at $20.86 yesterday, down more than 40 per cent since October.

(Reference: http://www.theage.com.au/business/leighton-faces-further-pain-20110715-1hhzq.html)

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Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia

According to the Department of Sustainability and Environment, the forest being logged contains critically endangered Leadbeaters Possum, rainforest of state significance and Mountain Ash tree. "Save Sylvia (creek)" was launched in order to protect a beautiful piece of unburnt Old Growth forest just 500 metres from Wirra Willa. A popular tourist destination and old rainforest. It's yet another unburnt forest being chopped for Australian papers REFLEX copy paper. There are ferns in the understorey that could be as old as from the 13th century AD. These towering ferns are 8-10 metres tall and occur alongside the endangered Tree Geebung and old Mountain Pepper. How could this be in any sense "sustainable"? They can't grow back within even centuries! Acting Premier: Ms Asher or call her and let her know what you think: [email protected] 03 9596 9680 Preliminary studies have found the forests meet Leadbeaters Habitat Zone. Victoria is under the control of big business interests and corporations that are undermining the interests of the public, and democratic processes. Common sense and enlightened environmental knowledge and understanding should be the priority in these times, yet we still have State governments vandalizing our heritage and pushing species further to extinction.

It's hard for me to understand how the UK Parliament could have turned on Murdoch in this way. Surely it is largely composed of members almost hand-picked by Murdoch? For decades it has seemed that Murdoch has been able to pick and choose governments in countries all over the world and have whichever Government was in power implement policies to his liking. A recent example was the way Murdoch was able to get the 'Labor' Government of Tony Blair, elected in 1997, to implement precisely the dry Thatcherite "free market" policies of its Conservative predecessor.

I remember reading in 1997 a curious editorial in The Australian newspaper which proclaimed that the election of the Blair Labor Government was an endorsement by British voters of years of "free market" rule by Blair's Conservative predecessors. That would certainly have been news to British voters who voted Labor for, amongst other reasons, its promise to keep the railways in public ownership. Blair didn't keep that promise and, in general, continued with his predecessor's "free market" 'reforms'.

Blair also enlisted the UK's support in a number of wars started by the US. These included the so-called "War on Terror," for which the false-flag terrorist attack of 9/11 was used as a pretext, and the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, based on the claim known by Blair to be lie that Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction.

The Australian's editorial was presumably Murdoch's way of telling the Australian Business establishment that he had the new UK 'Labor' Government in its pocket. The record of the Blair Government since then bears out Murdoch's 1997 pronouncement.

How the the tables have turned on Murdoch, only 14 years later and only 5 years after the departure of his glove-puppet, Tony Blair from office in 2006.

Prominently displayed in the current issue of the Australian 'socialist' magazine links.org.au is a piece celebrating the 30th anniversary of the mass protests against the New Zealand tour of the South African white-only Springbok Rugby Union team. At the time our televisions were full of images of radical students confronting lines of New Zealand police as well as spectacular actions on the football stadeums themselves to embarass the Springboks and the New Zealand Rugby Union board.

The protest helped further isolate the white-supremacist South African government leading to its downfall in 1993, and replacement with today's multi-party South African government. This was definitely an advancement for humanity, but according to Chapter 10 Democracy born in chains (pp194-217) of Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine of 2007 brought mixed blessings brought to black, coloured and white South Africans by the government committed to 'free market' reforms.

So what of the effects of the protests in New Zealand itself and the South Pacific?

Political theory, espoused by 'Marxist' organisations such as the Socialist Workers Party of Australia as the producers of links.org.au were then known, holds that radical protests will inevitably radicalise broader layers of society and make more likely the transition from capitalism to socialism and a more just and rational society. Yet in New Zealand, precisely the reverse happened in subsequent years. To be sure, the protests led to the downfall of the Conservative Government of Robert Muldoon, but if, anything, the replacement 'Labour' Government of David Lange was economically far to the right. The Wikipedia article on Davide Lange describes his government's record:

Upon coming to office, Lange's government uncovered a skyrocketing public debt, ostensibly the result of Muldoon's policy of government regulation of the economy, including a wage- and price-freeze and regulation of the exchange rate. Such economic conditions prompted Lange to remark: "We ended up being run very similarly to a Polish shipyard".^[3] Lange and Minister of Finance Roger Douglas engaged in a rapid programme of deregulation and public-asset sales, which brought criticism from many people in Labour's traditional support-base. The Labour Party also lost support from many elderly people by introducing a superannuation surcharge after having promised not to reduce superannuation.

Commentators coined the term Rogernomics for these policies, drawing connections with Reaganomics and with Thatcherism. After the Lange administration's first term (1984–1987), significant divisions started to form in the Labour parliamentary caucus, with Lange becoming uncomfortable with the extent of the reforms, while Douglas and Richard Prebble wanted to push on.

The Shock Doctrine could have also used a chapter on the Lange' Government. A question that could have been addressed was what was done during those years by all those who had protested so fiercely for social justice during 1981? Did they lose their voices as Lange was privatising the wealth the belonged to them or were they co-opted into working for Lange and the vested interests they served?

Another question that could have been addressed is whether other means to protest against the Springbok tour could have been found? Clearly the violent confrontations between radical protestors and police were not good publicity for Muldoon, The New Zealand Rugby board and the Apartheid regime of South Africa, but supposing the anti-Apartheid protestors had found less confrontational ways to get their message out? In all likelihood, I suspect participation in the protests would have been greater and larger numbers of New Zealanders would have gained a political education and have been less willing to tolerate the Rogernomics that was imposed upon them in subsequent years.

My curiosity for a reason for the near total silence, if not outright support for the war against Libya by virtually all of the 'Marxist' left in Australia and elsewhere led me to do online research about what these groups are doing, or not doing, these days, that is when they are not baiting opponents of immigration as 'racist', stacking meetings of other organisations such as Prosper Australia or the Tasmanian Unemployed Union's nut shop as they did in 1984.

I discovered links.org.au a "journal of socialist renewal". I hope to be able to learn, from its pages, how socialism in Australia, a country for which socialism has always, in recent decades, surely been a viable political program, ever faltered and needed 'renewing'.

Immigration lets the hoards in. The States are forced to cope with the social and economic congestion, burden, and stresses and Australian environmental degradation. There is nothing complex about the problem. The root cause is federal immigration policy allowing and inviting hoards of foreigners to pressure Australia's resources. The problem is the Australian government, be it Gillard, Rudd or Abbott is encouraging the influx and so degrading Australia's landscape, society and economy. If enough of the hoards arrive and breed, the problems of the third world will become Australia's. Shifting breeders just shifts the human problem, but it doesn't solve it. Human containment and sterilisation is the only ethical solution. Unethical solutions exist and will become options while ignorant people remain ignorant. War, genocide and famine are some of those other options from history that keep repeating themselves due to recurring selective ignorance. Tigerquoll Suggan Buggan Snowy River Region Victoria 3885 Australia

Welfare benefits are incredibly hard and restricted for Australian citizens to get. People without assets are at an advantage. However, for some people coming from third-world countries, it can mean a great difference. Recently there was a revelation that many refugees were sending funds home to their families overseas. For Africans, it was not unusual to send up to 20 per cent of their weekly incomes to families. The average amount was $200 a month and each refugee was supporting about five people back home. Taxpayers are actually supporting not only refugees but their families - such were the generous amounts being given them! Swinburne University migration expert Dr Katharine Betts said she was astonished by the scale of the payments leaving Australia. "It might be a concern that taxpayers' money was being channelled in this direction," she said. Some refugees sending welfare payments abroad

Of course what is referred to as 'growth' is nothing of the sort. If the size of the cake could somehow increase, that would be a good thing.

But it can't, unless an asteroid containing vast quantities of fossil fuel and metals were to strike the earth and not do too much damage. But, of course that won't happen.

The other way we could 'grow' for a while at least would be to expand human civilization into space with space colonisation and be able to exploit the resources of the moon, the asteroids and other planets, but until either were to ever happen, the size of the cake we have to share amongst us and the other life forms on this earth remains the same.

As population increases, there are more and more people to share it amongst, so the standard of living can only become worse. That the elites are not able to prosper except by making all of humanity poorer on average and the poorest vastly poorer shows just how worthless they have become.

... In the early eighties I had an argument with a builder who was all for population growth (because, amongst other things, it would make things cheaper if there were more people to circulate goods and money). I said that it wouldn't work.. it would just make things harder to get and reduce the value of people generally (human resources - a term not widely used back then - to my mind, this term inferred that people were de-humanised.. simply a commodity). Anyway - no one wanted to listen to me and this forum was not available then - but I haven't changed my mind; human fodder is what we are - for the wealthy - who have a (sociopathic?) knack for exploitation - is all that stands between a poor man and a rich one. Ok, maybe a bit simplictic - but I'm on the right track, I'm sure.

I wrote a book and published it a couple of years ago in 2009 about smoking and pollution. I've now given up smoking myself, and may cannibalise my own book for an update. The upshot was that people cause pollution - which in a round about way, I think Dick Smith is saying, in his book, Population Crisis - which Sheila Newman discusses here on Can Do Better. I think Dick will need to sell around 12,000,000 copies in Australia - assuming that every person of child bearing age is interested in keeping the population (and thereby, pollution) down. Not if one's hormones have anything to do with it! ... Eh??? It is neither the heart nor the head which rules.. it's hormones ! . Well, Dick (excuse the double entendre here ... I'm referring to Mr Smith) what've you got to say to that? Dick invites someone under 30 to come up with a solution to population explosion ( I think I saw this written amidst the blurb?). That's like telling a ball not to roll down the hill, isn't it? But Dick's right ~ button up your pants, cross your legs, folks and think of England! Perhaps there's a refugee boat heading somewhere with more available room now that... oh well.. you never know ~ perhaps we underestimate our young. Keeping themselves is hard enough - God knows, they're too self centred to want to keep anyone else... there's hope yet! Fingers crossed (and legs) that the Population Explosion is merely the figment of some old wowser's angst.

Please see the comment again. It links to a pdf file. It was more about me not copying the address properly. Try: Northern Territory Pastoral Industry is not sustainable

This article from the Cairns post makes me sick to my stomach...The human race is becoming more and more depraved as time goes by...What is wrong with the human race / parasite..The scourge of our earth needs to be cleaned up big time before every non human animal is wiped off its face...This is horrific and now a daily occurance...These parasites who did this to these beautiful animals should be euthanased.. EIGHT teenagers have been caught hunting and killing wild wallabies during cruel attacks with spears in bushland near homes at White Rock. Residents tipped off police after seeing large groups of distressed wallabies scattering through properties near Giffin Rd. They told police the animals were being speared, hog-tied and tortured by a gang of teenagers that had set up a hideout in the bushland and regularly hunted in the area. The youths, aged 13-15, have each been charged with animal cruelty after officers searched the area and found two spears. A White Rock resident, who asked not to be named, said the community had been aware of the attacks for months. But the frequency of animal cruelty complaints to police in the area has increased during the June school holidays. "We end up with enormous amounts of wallabies flying through where we’re living because they’ve been startled down where they’re grazing in the big open area," the resident said. "Since we’ve found out what’s happening down there, we vigilantly check what’s going on every couple of days – all the local residents have been going down there to check." RSPCA officers searched the area without finding any distressed animals, but people from neighbouring properties have found tortured wallaby carcasses. "Last week, we went for a decent walk through the area and there were quite a few carcasses," the resident said. Other residents in the area said the animals were being speared and hog-tied by the youths. Acting Sen-Sgt Tony Anderson said five of the teenagers were charged after a police search on Friday and the other charges were laid after further investigations this week

The Financial Times newspaper has reported that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy, the former coloniser of Libya "has voiced serious doubts about the success of the NATO mission over Libya , saying he had been against the operation from the outset.he had been against the operation from the outset." "Mr Berlusconi said he felt forced to go along with the mission despite his doubts because of political pressures inside Italy. “'I was against this measure,' Mr Berlusconi said at a book presentation in Rome. 'I had my hands tied by the vote of the parliament of my country. But I was against – and I am against – this intervention which will end in a way that no one knows.'" However Italy is still allowing its territory to be used for NATO air strikes against Libya. Berlosconi's reason for his personal prior silence and effective acquisition to the unprovoked war against the Libyan nation including the 1,000,000 (or 1,700,000 reported in Mathaba) of its 7,000,000 population who demonstrated in support of Colonel Ghaddafi on 7 July, hardly seems compelling, but his preparedness to speak out now may be an indication an indication that the strength of the Libyan people's defiance of NATO may have been more than the US/NATO warmongers had bargained for.

As one of the few countries of the world with an active immigration program, there is an expectation that Australia allocate places for refugees as well as migrants. Countries that have ratified the Refugee Convention are obliged to protect refugees that are on their territory, in accordance with its terms. The convention was approved at a special United Nations conference on 28 July 1951. It entered into force on 22 April 1954. It was initially limited to protecting European refugees after World War II1967 Protocol removed the geographical and time limits, expanding the Convention's scope well after World War 2's displacement of peoples. While the Convention-based asylum system may have operated well enough until the end of the Cold War, it was not designed with today's mass refugee outflows or migratory movements in mind. While a number of African countries (including Angola, Mozambique, Liberia, Zambia) are signatories, it has always been obvious that the Convention is of limited use for dealing with the refugee situation in Africa. Already Africa's population growth is unsustainable. In 1984 Latin American countries adopted the 'Cartagena Declaration' which incorporates a similarly broad refugee definition. For countries like China or Cambodia being a signatory state amounts to permitting asylum applicants to remain in their countries while determinations regarding resettlement needs are made by the UNHCR. Regardless of their Convention status, or whether the Convention even registers in their scheme of priorities, it is the poorer countries of the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe that are carrying the bulk of the world's refugee burden. Mandatory detention of illegal arrivals has made routine, if sometimes difficult and controversial, the removal of boat people (the most high profile asylum seekers) refused refugee status. In other countries, only a minority of failed asylum seekers actually ever leave, voluntarily or otherwise. Some of the countries hosting the most refugees include countries like Pakistan, Syria, Jordan, Iran, and Guinea. Approximately 70% of the world refugee population is in Africa and the Middle East. There are many countries that have signed the convention between the Middle East and Australia! Global overpopulation is prohibiting resettlement. Australia's high immigration intake, high human rights standards and generous Centrelink benefits, make us an ideal target for asylum seekers. We can't be the release-valve for humanity's overpopulation and poverty woes, certainly not while we have a heavy economic immigration rate.

Minister Karl Hampton, Minister for Natural Resources in the Northern Territory Government is quoted as saying. “The Territory Government believes in protecting the environment and the pastoral industry and that’s why we have developed landmark legislation to achieve this goal.” It would appear as if the Minister is unaware of the ongoing ecocatastrophe and the impossibility of protecting the environment and the pastoral industry simultaneously. The Minister is also not aware that the grazing of beef cattle in Central and Northern Australia was identified as ecologically un-sustainable in the 1996 national State of the Environment report. The pastoral occupation of the lands had drastic consequences for the Aboriginal people and their traditional economy. The new fire management regime imposed on the land by the pastoralists blocked the recruitment of new individuals to the mid-stratum and the upper-stratum of the forests and woodlands, Grazing and trampling by cattle and other introduced stock animals wrecked the lower-stratum. Frequent burning has stopped the nutrient recycling systems in the soil from working well and nutrients are being lost from the system. Many trees are sterile or nearly so because they are malnourished due to the nutrient recycling failure. Land clearing has catastrophic consequences but they decided to ignore that fact. Large scale land clearing for agriculture and pastoralism in the Northern Territory should be stopped. The Pastoral Land Act of 1992 makes it very clear that the pastoral use of land must be sustainable. The industry has been exporting nutrient elements in stock for more than 100 years without making any attempt to replace them with fertiliser. This is a serious matter. This is theft pure and simple. (The safely of gm crops cannot be assured either). This theft inevitably weakens the ecosystems and sabotages the natural essential element recycling systems. It inevitably reduces the nett primary productivity of the ecosystems. The fire regimes imposed by the industry have also caused a loss of nutrients to the atmosphere. Soil compaction, trampling and grazing have also damaged the soil and the hydrology, and blocked the recruitment of new trees. In many places it seems that run-off of rain water has increased by a factor of 10, so that the infiltration of water into the soil ( and to some extend down to the underground water supply) has been reduced to one tenth of what it was. Central Australia holds the Guinesses Book of Records, record for the most mammal extinctions on the planet in modern time. Cattle did not co-evolve with the Australian biota and its ecosystems in antiquity. Inevitably they are parasitic grit in the machinery of our ecosystem. How could it be otherwise ? There is a grave conflict between the fire regimes required to conserve biological diversity (and ecological integrity) and the fire regimes that suit the pastoralists. Inadequate and unsatisfactory fire management seems to be an inevitable side effect of the pastoral occupation of the land. We should cut our ecological losses and shut the industry down now. The industry is not ecologically sustainable, and it is not economically viable. It is an anachronism in modern Australia. The fact that cattle stations in Northern Australia have been un-profitable for the last 5 years or so has recently been reported by the ABC. What we should be doing is working out how to replace the fire management role of the industry and organise appropriate compensation for the lessees when the industry is closed down. Read more on The pastoral industry in the Northern Territory is ecologically unsustainable "Flogging a dead horse" is a horrible expression, but the live export exposure of gross mis-managment, secrecy and hiding of sadistic abuse of animals should be the sign of just how unsustainable and unethical the NT pastoral grazing industry really is.

"The old Federal Democratic Republic is dying"

Is the US turning into a National Security State?

Army colonel, former Chief of Staff for Colin Powell and Bush-Cheney administration insider, Lawrence Wilkerson says "yes."

"This is crazy. This was what we do today. We do war. The old Federal Republic is dying."

Embedded interview with Lawrence Wilkerson, A former Republican military man sees the light with comments originally posted to BrassCheck TV at http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/war-is-a-racket/they-love-war.html  Embedded video also on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/v/FDjiGln8O6w?version=3&amp&rel=0.

VicForests?... more like Viking Foresters! - raping, pillaging, and plundering - an apt stereotype for those marauding barbarians arriving in their helmeted hordes to pillage their way through native forests. Tigerquoll Suggan Buggan Snowy River Region Victoria 3885 Australia

There will be a $30 million bailout made to struggling farmers. The government is cautious about resuming the trade until it can assure animal welfare standards. Producers and farmers cannot rely on gross animal cruelty for their livelihoods. How could they not be aware of the atrocities happening to the cattle they bred? Don't they have any morals, ethics or compassion? We need Wikileaks and groups like Animals Australia to expose the government and industry corruption in high places. The slashing deaths of millions of animals is horrific and shameful for Australia. These farmers should be held accountable, and not be pushing for the resumption of such on obscene industry. No amount of profits and income can be based on animal abuse. For nearly 30 years animal activists have witnessed tragedies and cruelty because of the live export trade. There is a long list of other disasters over the past 25 years, for example: 1980 – Farid Fares – abandoned on fire 160km off the SA coast; 40,605 sheep died. 1996 – Uniceb - abandoned on fire off coast of Africa; 67,488 sheep died. 1999 – Kalymnian Express – 300 cattle died or were put down after ship met a cyclone. 2003 – Como Express - 5,581 sheep (around 10% of its cargo) died. Some improvements were made, but the industry is inherently risky and animal welfare can't be assured. Now, the extent of the cover-up and evil is exposed, many - and some innocent people - will suffer. Ultimately, it's us, the taxpayers, who will have to bail-out the farmers for something most people have been against for years! Dark and cruel secrets and corruption aren't good for business, and exposure makes many people vulnerable. New Zealand banned live exports years ago when the safety of their animals couldn't be assured, so why is it taking Australia so long to learn?

THE head of the meat industry has joined animal welfare groups in opposing the religious slaughter of sheep while they are conscious, amid calls to ban the ''unnecessary and unconscionable'' practice in Australia. Outrage grows on ritual killing - The Age Most sheep remained conscious for up to 20 seconds after their throats were cut. Religion should inspire higher moral and ethical standards, and compassion for other living beings. There is nothing to be gained by prolonging the suffering of animals being slaughtered - nothing useful at all. It's all about dogma, rituals and scriptural interpretation of ancient creed. Rabbi Mordechai Gutnick is out of depth by calling for humane animal treatment as "anti-Semitism". This is clouding the issue, and manipulating what has been the terrible treatment of the Jewish people. However, there are parallels. The confinement of animals in factory farms and the mass slaughter of animals for our increasingly meat-based diets inflicts horrific cruelty and abuse on sentient creatures. Violence towards animals overflows into society - and it not surprising that we have increasing crime and violence towards each other. "Diversity" should not include more animal suffering and abuse, and what "god" really enjoys allowing pain to be inflicted on His creatures? Animals have rights too, and our animal welfare standards and laws in Australia make stunning mandatory. Religious "rights" should not over-ride animal rights. Religion is no excuse for animal cruelty, and it should not obfuscate the laws or transparency on how animals are treated. Suffering achieves nothing but enforces ritualistic human dominance. Times have changed, and so should we. Pain and bleeding and stress in animals is detrimental and cruel, and using religion to support it is about avoiding scrutiny and accountability. Meat is not an essential food item, and there is a lot of evidence to support the healthy aspects of vegetarian/vegan diets - and it saves lives!

Due to global population blowouts, top quality agricultural land has never been more valuable. Government-backed foreign companies have begun buying up farmland around the world, with Australia’s vast tracts of top quality primary production land a prime target. Our land is becoming international territory. For example, Qatar-based Hassad Foods has been a major player in the big local farmland buy-up. The company has invested more than $60 million in prime Australian sheep grazing land in the past year, with more properties in the company’s sights. The secretive deal includes five homesteads around Willaura and Dunkeld, near Ararat, and is believed to be one of the largest acquisitions of Victorian pastoral land in recent history. Foreign government-backed and private companies from the Middle East, China and the US continue to buy into Australian agriculture - parasitically to secure land for their swollen population numbers. Australia's foolish open-door policy needs to be made accountable to scrutiny. Australia is easy-picking due to our government willing to sell off our assets to the highest bidder. The Middle East agricultural company is poised to snap up 8500ha of Western District land in a $35 million deal. Hassad’s burgeoning portfolio also includes 6800 hectares of sheep grazing land in Canowindra in New South Wales. Our sovereignty is being sold - our birthright is vanishing due to our generous globalized government. Last week Hassad were poised to snap up a further 8500 hectares of land in Victoria’s western district in a deal worth $35 million?—?about 20% above market price. Filthy lucre - money - can buy out our own food security and we are still be become a "big Australia"! While our Lucky Country has faded away due to poor leadership and population growth, at least we could hold on to our heritage - and the heritage of our indigenous and Colonial fore-bearers. Losing our own land is allowing a parasite infection to invade our inner-most being, our soul, our very being. It makes you wonder what the Anzacs fought and died for - only to have foreigners buy and control land under the Australian flag! It's invasion by stealth. Qatar’s economy boom, a result of its plentiful supplies of natural gas, has led to large-scale immigration of Western expats hoping to benefit from the country’s growing economy. Farah Ahmed Hersi, senior economist at Masraf al Rayan said: "We believe Qatar's population will continue to grow at an steady base of 5.3 per year, as there are still plenty of untapped resources in the country, including some energy-related resources that would fuel growth in the foreseeable future and serve as a magnet for expatriates.” Obviously their food-growing resources don't match their energy and economic resources, so they must import 90% of their food! This means searching out land to secure their food security in the future. Few people feel any connection with Australia now, and the patriotism of the past is fast fading. This is a betrayal of the interests of all Australians, now and in the future. With "big Australia" inevitable, how is our own food security going to be ensured? We should be investing in food for the coming famine, due to land degradation and global overpopulation. Food could be come the next resource boom, and it will be lost due to our own population size, urban sprawl of lush arable land, and lack of farming land. We could be struggling to feed ourselves, and at the mercy of these new owners! Why is Australia's ownership being dismantled and dispersed? It just lack of respect for our sovereignty and our heritage. Qatar land grab angers bush Arab buy up in Western District

Population activists who have contributed letters to the Age calling for reductions in population growth in Australia recently received letters of a threatening tone where the sender (using a false address) implied that they should be concerned that he/she knew their addresses. The police have been contacted in these cases.

Australian cattle exported to Indonesia will be not required to be stunned, under guidelines put forward by Federal Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig. Stunning should be mandatory, and by sending more cattle to Indonesia without this requirement, the horrific cruelty will continue. Our government is under tremendous pressure to return to live exports, due to NT graziers' livelihoods being at stake. We and they have all assumed that this industry, endorsed by our Government, was a bona fide and well controlled one, not with animals abandoned in a country with no standards or laws regarding treatment or care. Basing economies on false assumptions means that they flourish, only to be dashed by media and animal activists' revelations. The exposure has revealed not only the atrocities and horrific deaths inflicted by over 6 million cattle in the last 10 years, but government and industry corruption and ineptitude. Depending on public ignorance and silence does not make good industry practice, especially when families are involved and costs are high.

This article makes several highly contentious statements as fact without supplying documentation, so I would expect some of our readers to raise a number of objections on those grounds. However the article is published for the obvious merits in its advocation of relocalisation and steps towards this. Some of its statements about aboriginal employment in the live export industry are common sense. It won't please those among our readers who want all meat consumption to cease.

People who admire the camel for its remarkable adaptations, and then again those who also see it as a form of transport - indeed a major part of such an economy - to replace petroleum (in a futuristic nomadic culture for Australia) won't be impressed at any idea that reduces this animal to its value as meat alone. Advocating the use of camels for meat runs the risk of entrenching the camel further since it would acquire industrial value and similar industrial lobby strength as cattle and sheep. However the camel, even if it is a damaging eater, has virtuously padded rather than hoofed feet

The article also won't please ecologists who would see buffalo as highly destructive to the northern territory environment, although, in the buffalo's defense, its hoof has been described as wider and bigger than that of other cattle in proportion to its size and therefore less compacting to the environment. Another argument is that the buffalo has existed in wetlands in northern Australia for 150 years and the harm attributed to it needs to be taken in the context of the many other causes of damage to the wetlands.

I cite from "The Water Buffalo: New Prospects for an Underutilized Animal," where you will find more on the buffalo and the environment.

"Soil Compaction

Water buffaloes have larger hooves than cattle of comparable size and thus they compact the soil less. But buffaloes often live in damp, boggy areas where their feet may compact soft soils. Also, buffaloes are creatures of habit and, when able, they set up fixed points for drinking, feeding, defecating, wallowing, and sleeping. Between the points they wear sharply defined trails in the vegetation and soil.

Wallowing

Possibly the water buffalo's greatest environmental limitation is its propensity to build wallows. In hot climates every buffalo will wallow at some time during the heat of the day if water is available. When they can, buffaloes will make their own wallows, enlarging a mud puddle by rolling in it or even using their heads to flip water out of a drinking trough and muddying the ground nearby.

The pasture in the immediate area of the wallow is usually damaged by trampling and waterholes may become fouled, but buffaloes return to the same wallow day after day and do not build new ones indiscriminately. Thus, the muddied area is not a large proportion of the location in which they graze unless a large number of animals are confined in a small space(At Gainesville, Florida (possibly because of its subtropical but not hot climate), a herd of 52 buffaloes concentrated in a one-hectare field did not attempt to build a wallow at all. - Information supplied by H. Popenoe.) . In addition, man-made wallows can be dug at safe sites and the animals will use them. The problem of wallowing is therefore not generally a serious one." Source:
http://www.cd3wd.com/cd3wd_40/lstock/001/CattlGen/Wat-Buffalo/B1723_13.HTM

This is an amazing piece of news commentary because it reports so very frankly on how people in the US don't want the war and also how people in Libya don't want it. It also illustrates the war with realistic footage of injuries that are its consequence. RT Media have a lot of interesting reports on You Tube. Here is another about protests in Latin America at US training schools that have produced violent officials, where reporters were arrested, apparently for filming the protests. http://www.youtube.com/embed/1LyU0z_WpCU

Rahul Sadly they won't do anything to protect these beautiful birds, because they don't care about our beautiful wildlife ... If it doesn't involve money and growth they are not interested ... It's very sad ...

The Northern Territory coroner has declared a cattle station in the territory a restricted area after finding that a 17-year-old boy who worked there died of suspected arsenic poisoning. The teenager may have been exposed to the arsenic through groundwater or from treated timber. The tests are inconclusive as yet. It appears that authorities may have ignored recommendations for bore water testing in the Northern Territory. There's arsenic poisoning of at least eight cattle station residents. A report identifies the area surrounding Mount Bundy Station as being at high risk of arsenic concentrations above Australian drinking water guidelines. Up to 60 people, including a dozen residents, were advised on Saturday night that they would have to leave the station. The NT coroner has declared Mt Bundy Station, on the banks of the Adelaide River, a restricted area and has asked all residents and visitors to leave. The source of the arsenic was "unknown". According to Dr Gavin Mudd from Monash university: Basically the exposure of a lot of what used to be effectively crystalline rock that wasn't very leechable, by mining it, by blasting it and crushing it whether it becomes the tailings after say gold processing or the waste rock that is associated with say an open cut mine, that allows more water and oxygen and so on to get into that rock and help accelerate the chemistry of leeching the arsenic out of that rock. ABC

Whose numbers are out of control? Who is overgrazing? Who is moonscaping? Who is poisoning Earth's environment? Who destroys forests killing everything in their path ? Who is endangering all the endangered species in the world ? The kangaroo killers need a reality check and a good mirror on their own species.

On the ABC Radio news I heard that Foreign Minister and former 'Labor' Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had taken sides in the civil war now ravaging Libya by recognising the Transitional Council and not the administration of Muammar Gaddafi as the legitimate government of Libya. However, the Sydney Morning Herald reported the same day:

The federal government will continue to recognise the Gaddafi-appointed Libyan ambassador to Australia despite declaring it considers the rebels to be the country's legitimate representatives.

The Murdoch press, which stridently supported the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, which has so far cost many hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, has endorsed Rudd's recognition of the Transitional Council asthe Government of Libya (if not his continuing to recognise the Libyan ambasador) in the article, Rudd takes the lead on Libya:

RESCUING Libya's people from the ravages of the Gaddafi regime is one of the great moral challenges of our times, and Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd's success in placing Australia in the forefront of countries doing something tangible about it deserves bipartisan support. ...

Aboriginal elders and rival politicians have urged Premier Ted Baillieu to reconsider his decision to drop at official events the mandatory acknowledgment of traditional land custodians. Australian's indigenous peoples are not convenient to recognise any more for their traditional land and their culture. They are to melt away while our land continues to be occupied and consumed by developments, farms and population growth. Australia's history apparently is not relevant and wanted any more. We are to be remodeled as a modern, generic nation and our history forgotten. Federal member for Wills Kelvin Thomson said the acknowledgment showed Australians came from a number of traditions. Australia of the past is under threat, our indigenous and Colonial history, and so is the Lucky Country we once knew! With the fragmentation of society due to ongoing immigration, it is only the older people and baby-boomers who remember Australia patriotically. Indigenous peoples are a reminder of the real Australia, our heritage, and our pre-Colonial past, and are now just another part of our multicultural minority groups. The thrust to generalise Australia in line with Asia, especially China, means that Australia is to be globalised as part of a conglomerate of nations with tied economic dependencies. The ongoing hatred of kangaroos and the massacre in Canberra, despite the science supporting their contribution to grasslands and ecology, is also evidence of the generalisation of Australia. There is little connection with traditional Australia. Australia is being disemboweled and stripped of assets and identity to make way for China's growth. Are Aborigines, along with wildlife, not welcome here?