Australian Government

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will appear at the opening public hearing today for an Australian parliamentary inquiry looking at the merits of expanding the membership of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. The CPTPP agreement signed in 2018 is a trade bloc of 11 countries that includes Australia and is an export market of 500 million consumers worth nearly $14 trillion.

Update: Full Report now attached inside this article."[...]There is an insufficient amount of publicly available information about agreements under negotiation, and independently sourced economic analyses of their likely benefits are not mandatory. In relation to the TPP, this has fuelled media speculation on the content of the agreement when certainty based on fact is required. It is unsatisfactory for complex trade agreements, which are years in the making, to be negotiated in secret and subject to stakeholder and parliamentary scrutiny for a few short months with no realistic capacity for text to be changed, and then for implementation of the legislation to be rushed through parliament unamended. This comes very close to making a mockery of the process and of parliament's involvement." (Alex Gallacher, SA, Australian Labor Party, Senate debates, Thursday, 25 June 2015, Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee; Report [1])

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

The government's repeal of the "carbon tax" won't make climate change go away! it’s a political decision, not one based on science, or a rational reaction to any new empirical evidence contrary to its existence.

Denial of climate science is one that’s based on the assumption that you can believe it or not! We don’t doubt the findings of other scientific results, or discoveries.

To be unemployed is to not have a job.
In the traditionally accepted sense, a real job is a permanent full-time job.

Democratic Presumptions

As Australians we pride ourselves with the presumption we live in a democracy, benefiting from the universally accepted principles of 'equality and freedom'.

Dear lovers of Planet Earth, animals, nature, peace and justice