(We) can do better

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has unleashed on the revised Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement (dubbed “TPP11”), which will reportedly allow employers unfettered access to ‘skilled’ migrant workers from member nations. From The Guardian:

The revived Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal will allow at least six countries to access temporary skills shortage work visas without first testing the Australian market, unions have said.

According to the unions’ peak body, the Australian government has confirmed in consultations that employers will be able to hire workers from Canada, Mexico, Chile, Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam in 435 occupations without first advertising jobs to Australians.

The consultation from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade appears to confirm for the first time that the text of the new TPP11, negotiated after Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement, will lower Australian barriers to skilled migrants…

The ACTU president, Ged Kearney, said the deal would mean that migrant workers could be brought in as nurses, engineers, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, bricklayers, tilers, mechanics and chefs.

“Clearly the only allegiance the Turnbull government values is to employers,” she said, accusing it of putting big business ahead of “the rights of workers and the national interest of Australia”.

“There has been no analysis of how this will affect local employment, nor have there been any safeguards proposed to protect these vulnerable workers.

“This agreement would be a disaster for Australia and we call on the Turnbull government to immediately cease negotiations until they have proved that the deal will not come at the cost of massively increased exploitation and unemployment”…

This is pathetic by the Turnbull Government. The recent Senate Report, entitled A National Disgrace: The Exploitation of Temporary Work Visa Holders, explicitly recommended stringent labour market testing of all temporary ‘skilled’ workers to ensure that employers employ locals first wherever possible:

Recommendation 7: The committee recommends that the replacement of local workers by 457 visa workers be specifically prohibited.

Recommendation 8: The committee recommends that the current exemptions on labour market testing for ANZSCO skill levels 1 and 2 be removed.

Recommendation 9: The committee recommends that the Migration Regulations be amended to specify that labour market testing applies to all positions nominated by approved sponsors under labour agreements and Designated Area Migration Agreements.

Immigration should never be included in trade agreements. Immigration is covered in Australia’s ‘Migration Programme’, and there is little sense in negotiating away control of our sovereign borders other nations – and in the process diluting Australian wages and working conditions – for slightly improved market access.

Trade agreements should be for trade and nothing else.

[email protected] Article first published at https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/12/tpp-2-0-open-immigration-floodgates/

"We cannot hide the fact that the European left has a clear agenda. They are supportive to migration. They actually import future leftist voters to Europe hiding behind humanism. It is an old trick but I do not understand why we have to accept it. They consider registration and protection of borders bureaucratic, nationalist and against human rights. They have a dream about the politically constructed world society without religious traditions, without borders, without nations. They attack core values of our European identity: family, nation, subsidiarity and responsibility. [...] We have a heartfelt compassion for the people who left their homes. They are victims of the bad governance of their own countries. They are victims of bad international political decisions. And they are victims of our bad European policy as well which raises expectations that are impossible to be fulfilled. They are obviously victims of the human traffickers. But considering them victims must not turn ourselves into being victims. Just because we do not consider them enemies we must not act against ourselves. Our moral responsibility is to give back these people their homes and their countries. It can’t be our objective to provide them with a new European life. Right to human dignity and security are basic rights. But neither the German, Austrian nor the Hungarian way of life is a basic right of all people on the Earth. " (Speech of Viktor Orbán at the EPP Congress in Madrid, on the 22nd of October in 2015 - more than ever, relevant today.)

You can find more recent speeches and transcripts here:

Video Transcript below:

Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen, President, dear Delegates,

I would like to congratulate to Partido Popular and to the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy for the outstanding performance of their government. Today I would like to speak about the migration crisis. This issue will determine the future of our political family. We are in a deep trouble. The migration crisis is able to destabilize governments, countries and the whole European continent. We need a strong and clear-cut answer, timetable and action plan of EPP. The Hungarian delegates welcome the resolution of the congress, declaring that the Spanish approach is the right one.

Dear Friends,

The danger we have been facing demands open and honest speech. First of all, dear Friends, what we have been facing is not a refugee crisis. This is a migratory movement composed of economic migrants, refugees and also foreign fighters. This is an uncontrolled and unregulated process. I would like to remind you that free choice of a host country is not included in the international law. I also want to underline that there is an unlimited source of supply of people, after Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Africa is now also on the move. The dimension and the volume of the danger is well above our expectations.

Dear Colleagues,

This is the right time to make clear the nature and the dimension of our moral responsibility. We are Christian democrats so the issue of moral responsibility must also be put high into consideration. We have a heartfelt compassion for the people who left their homes. They are victims of the bad governance of their own countries. They are victims of bad international political decisions. And they are victims of our bad European policy as well which raises expectations that are impossible to be fulfilled. They are obviously victims of the human traffickers. But considering them victims must not turn ourselves into being victims. Just because we do not consider them enemies we must not act against ourselves. Our moral responsibility is to give back these people their homes and their countries. It can’t be our objective to provide them with a new European life. Right to human dignity and security are basic rights. But neither the German, Austrian nor the Hungarian way of life is a basic right of all people on the Earth. It is only a right of those ones who have contributed to it. Europe is not able to accept everyone who wants a better life. We have to help them to get back their own lives with dignity and we have to send them back to their own countries.

Dear Colleagues,

Let me draw your kind attention to the fact that European Christian democratic approach doesn’t tolerate any anti-Muslim policy. Muslim faith which we honor and respect is not responsible for the root causes of this mass migratory movement.

Dear Delegates,

We cannot avoid speaking about the quality of our democracies. Does it comply with the freedom of information and speech that medias usually show women and children while seventy percent of the migrants are young men and they look like an army? How could it happen that our people’s feel that their opinion is not being put into consideration? And we have to address the question whether our people want what has been happening. Did we get authorization from them to allow millions of migrants to enter our continent? Did we get authorization not to comply with the Schengen regulations for months? No, distinguished Delegates, we did not. And it is not a convincing argument any more that what we have been doing is because of emergency. I believe we have to gather all our courage, we have to throw away PC-ness and we should launch a big debate. We have to discuss our own intentions regarding our own continent without hypocrisy and pharisaism. What do we think about our civilization heritage? Can the change of cultural pattern forced externally? Do we accept parallel societies? Or we defend our tolerant and rule of law based way of life we have lived so far?

Dear Delegates,

Europe is currently rich and weak. This is the most possibly dangerous mixture. We seem not to be able to overcome our challenges on our own. Turkey is an important strategic partner. But if based on the lack of our own power we expect the solution from them that will make us exposed. This is the current situation of Europe. If we do not want that we have to protect our borders. If we are unable to do so at Greece which is the Eastern gate of the Balkans and the first line of defence than we have to do it at the Western gate of the Balkans at Hungary and Slovenia.

Dear Friends,

We cannot hide the fact that the European left has a clear agenda. They are supportive to migration. They actually import future leftist voters to Europe hiding behind humanism. It is an old trick but I do not understand why we have to accept it. They consider registration and protection of borders bureaucratic, nationalist and against human rights. They have a dream about the politically constructed world society without religious traditions, without borders, without nations. They attack core values of our European identity: family, nation, subsidiarity and responsibility.

Dear Friends,

We are EPP. Our behavior should not be determined by the opinion of our rivals. We are a strong and great party. The stronger the attack, the stronger we need to fight back. We need to be ready to fight for our principles. We have to be innovative as well. In the rise of the new crises, the old ways do not work anymore. We need courage and new experiments, even if not every idea we try succeeds, but it should not stop us from trying. And we should not attack those who are trying. I thank for our President and for sister parties who defended us, Hungarians in the difficult times when we offered new solutions.

Dear Friends,

We are the European People’s Party – Partie Populaire, Volkspartei, Partido Popular, Party of the People – our responsibility is towards the people. Listen to the people. Let’s be determined, let’s defend Europe. Do not let the leftist mess up and reconstruct Europe! And do not let them oust the soul of Europe! Do not let liberals and socialists take away Europe from the people!

Thank you very much for your attention.

U.S. imperialism’s deteriorating position in the Middle East was confirmed on Jan. 17, by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s bold assertion for U.S. plans in Syria. The arrogant statement was followed, within hours, by almost immediate backpedaling.

Tillerson’s talk at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University confirmed that the only hope of maintaining U.S. domination is another desperate attempt to close all borders and dismember the entire region. But the latest plan has also created a rupture in NATO, the oldest and largest U.S.-commanded military alliance. [Article first published on Global Research at https://www.globalresearch.ca/war-in-syria-the-us-a-wounded-predator-spreads-chaos-in-middle-east/5627212]

Meanwhile, Turkish planes bombed 100 positions in Syria of U.S.-backed Kurdish YPG forces (the Kurdish acronym for People’s Protection Units) on Jan. 21.

As the war in Syria stretches into the seventh year, Tillerson grandly announced the U.S. military will remain in Syria indefinitely. The newest U.S. plan is to create and train a military border force of 30,000 soldiers. The Secretary of State also arrogantly restated the U.S. demand that has met with failure for seven years: the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the overthrow of the Syrian Arab Republic government.

This was not the first mention of new U.S. plans there. General Joseph Votel, commander of U.S. Central Command, said on Dec. 24 that a training program was being established for Kurdish and Arab fighters to become a permanent U.S. occupying force in Syria. Votel declared, “What we don’t want to do is leave a mess.” (us.pressfrom.com, Dec. 24)

In fact, U.S. long-term plans are to permanently divide Syria and Iraq and expand their imperialist “mess” into Iran.

Since Jan. 14, news reports around the world reported U.S. plans to create a new “border force” in Syria on the borders of Turkey and Iraq. This U.S. plan would separate the oil-rich northern region from the rest of Syria, create a mini-state and close the borders.

Washington said it would help Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of militias in northern and eastern Syria led by Kurdish YPG militias, to set up a new 30,000-strong border force.

A flurry of other U.S. statements drew out this plan more explicitly.

The coalition’s Public Affairs Office said: “The base of the new force is essentially a realignment of approximately 15,000 members of the SDF to a new mission in the Border Security Force as their actions against ISIS [the Islamic State group, IS] draw to a close.” (Reuters, Jan. 14)

Before the announcement of a new U.S. plan to occupy and divide the region, numerous commentators described an unprecedented development with the defeat of IS – open borders among Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. The whole region has been divided since the 1991 U.S. war to recolonize and divide Iraq.

Turkey immediately slammed this new plan of a permanent U.S. occupation through an alliance with YPG Kurdish forces in Syria. Turkey warned of military action against the U.S.-armed and -protected YPG forces.

In the face of Turkey’s fierce opposition, Tillerson claimed, “That entire situation has been misportrayed, misdescribed, some people misspoke. We are not creating a border security force at all.” (aljazeera, Jan. 18)

The Kurdish Nation

Turkey’s great fear is that a “border force” of U.S.-armed Kurdish militias will siphon off advanced U.S.-supplied weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles, to Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) forces in Turkey.

Although there are 1.5 to 2 million Kurds in Syria, there are almost 20 million nationally oppressed Kurds in Turkey. Making up 20 percent of population, they are the majority population in southern Turkey, bordering northern Syria, Iraq and Iran.

For decades the Pentagon has armed Turkey and aided in the brutal repression of the Kurds, who resisted under the leadership of the PKK.

But imperialism sees an opportunity to use the smaller Kurdish population in Syria, where they are 5 percent to 8 percent of the Syrian population, as a way to divide Syria. The Kurds in Syria are under the leadership of the Democratic Union Party (PYD); their armed units are the YPG. These are the main units of the U.S.-armed Syrian Democratic Forces.

U.S. imperialism used a similar scenario to impose a division on Iraq. This is imperialism’s divide-and-rule strategy for the entire region. Using the Kurds’ national aspirations for a temporary U.S. military or political advantage, and then cynically dropping them, dates back to Henry Kissinger.

The Kurds are a historically oppressed nation with a distinct language and culture, numbering over 30 million people. They are the largest nation without a state. They live in the underdeveloped, mountainous region spanning four countries: southern Turkey and northern Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Some 72 Turkish jets bombed U.S.-backed Kurdish militias in Syria on Jan. 21. The Turkish news agency Anadolu reported that jets bombed more than 100 targets, including an air base, in the first day of air operations against YPG militias. The operation targeted YPG barracks, shelters, positions, weapons, vehicles and equipment.

Each U.S. maneuver has created greater destruction, but the U.S. has been unable to consolidate its position in the region or gain stable allies.

U.S. divide-and-destroy tactics

Since 2011 the U.S. has covertly armed a whole series of conflicting militias and mercenaries.

With a wink and a nod from U.S. forces in the region, which were arming numerous extremist militias, Saudi Arabia and Turkey armed the fanatical IS army. This became an excuse for open U.S. bombing of Syrian infrastructure.

The U.S. military command pulled 19 other NATO and Gulf countries into the war in Syria. This military onslaught was totally uninvited by the Syrian government.

The Syrian government appealed to Iran, Russia and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon to aid them in defeating IS and the Pentagon-funded militias and mercenaries. This forced Washington to change tactics, but not its objective -- the recolonization of the region.

U.S.-imposed sanctions against Iraq and then Syria were an effort to destroy all forms of normal economic exchange and to shut down all commercial and social life. The U.S. occupation of Iraq divided the country into walled-off mini-states with checkpoints and inspections. All borders were closed. U.S. intervention in Syria was designed to do the same thing.

U.S. wars in the region have displaced more than 10 million people and decimated the region. They have created animosity and suspicion on every side, divided the corrupt and a brutal feudal Gulf state regime aligned with imperialism, and are now dividing the oldest U.S. military alliance -- NATO.

But after seven years of war and 15 years of sanctions, U.S. imperialism has still not succeeded in destroying the sovereign government of the Syrian Arab Republic.

About Sara Flounders: Sara Flounders is an American political writer who has been active in anti-war organizing since the 1960s. Flounders sits on the board of directors for the International Anti-imperialist Coordinating Committee, is founder and an organizer with United National Antiwar Coalition, and is Secretary of the National Board of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms.

Alan Hood is a Flood Researcher. Melbourne Water owns this Retarding Basin and their maintenance contractor, John Holland - KBR Joint Venture intend removing trees and various works in "late January" - any day now. This could be an attempt to cater for increased suburban stormwater runoff without increasing the capacity of the chain of retarding basins. Although prepared for dams which would normally be at least 10 to 15 m high, ANCOLD guidelines can also be used to assist with decisions on smaller dams, particularly where such dams create potential loss of life or significant damage. The attached Planning map shows Special Building Overlays (SBO) for Frankston; the identify areas likely to be flooded. If the Lee St Retarding Basin batters are at least 10 to 15 metres high, there might be some justification for removing the trees, but see more inside this article. [Introduction written by candobetter.net editor.]

Melbourne Water owns this Retarding Basin, and their maintenance contractor John Holland – KBR Joint Venture intend removing trees and various works in “late January” – any day now.

The trees around this Retarding Basin are a critical Koala corridor, and other native species live in and use them.

So, there is a conflict but the advice from John Holland and Melbourne Water appears to be too little, too late; the last community information session took place on January 22.

John Holland are using ANCOLD guidelines for removing these trees www.ancold.org.au

See full-size map here.

The Australian National Committee on Large Dams says: “ANCOLD guidelines are applicable for water or tailings dams with potential to cause loss of life or significant environmental or physical damage through operation or failure.

Although prepared for dams which would normally be at least 10 to 15 m high, ANCOLD guidelines can also be used to assist with decisions on smaller dams, particularly where a dam or series of dams creates potential loss of life or significant damage.

A Retarding Basin is not a permanent dam; it is one of the riskier methods of flood control, which seems to have become popular in Melbourne. In theory, when there is a heavy rainfall event, water rushes into the uphill end of the dam, and a small outlet at the lower end allows a much smaller amount of water to flow out. During this process the water level in the basin rises, and the hope is that the stormwater flow will stop before the basin overflows and send water cascading down the valley at full strength anyway.

If the Lee St Retarding Basin batters are at least 10 to 15 metres high, there might be some justification for removing the trees, however:

• Certain types of tree roots can bind certain types of soil
• If a retarding basin further up the chain overflows, the whole chain goes down like a pack of cards
• action looks like an attempt to cater for increased suburban stormwater runoff without increasing the capacity of the chain of retarding basins.
• It also looks like an opportunity for a grass only site to reduce the cost of maintenance
• An alternative corridor for the Koalas needs to be found, perhaps by delaying the removal of Koala-critical trees.

Unless John Holland – KBR Joint Venture has carried out engineering calculations for each of the retarding basins in the chain, and found deficiencies, and has addressed the points outlined above, they haven’t really addressed the safety issue or the wildlife issue.

Simply quoting the ANCOLD guidelines, which are for bigger, permanent, dams is not an excuse to avoid engineering calculations.

Attachment S4235

This Planning map shows Special Building Overlays (SBO) for Frankston; the identify areas likely to be flooded.

The history of Australia as a nation has been brutal to the humans who lived here first, to the animals and birds, and brutal to the landscape. Australia needs a day to stop and reflect on what has been done, where we are now and where we are going. We cannot fix the problem by continuing to do the same thing that caused it. Current discussion about Australia Day focuses on the way colonisation affected and continues to affect the aboriginal population. In addition to the injustices and atrocities, Australian Aborigines have been, and continue to be, overwhelmed by sheer numbers from elsewhere. The non-Aboriginal population born here is now being overwhelmed in the same way. The fast growing population as a whole has ongoing devastating environmental impacts on this land. It has social impacts too, as it enriches a very few members of the growth lobby, while the rest pay for population growth.

In the run-up to Jan 26th, the anniversary of the arrival of the "First Fleet" into Port Jackson from Botany Bay under the command of Commodore Arthur Phillip (who had brought them from Portsmouth some 8 months earlier ) there has been much discussion regarding the appropriateness of this date as Australia's national day of celebration. It is not the day that Australia became a nation, it's not the day that the British first landed on the continent. It was the day the British flag was raised at Sydney Cove, a day that marks the beginning of massive colonisation from Britain to the Pacific Island of Australia.

The colonisation begun then is a fait accompli. It is irreversible. The hapless convicts who were brought to Australia have made themselves part of the place.Their descendants cannot go back and live in Britain as their forbears are too far removed to give them any rights of abode.

The sequelae of the Port Jackson landing amounts to an ongoing, unceasing chain of migration from not only Britain but other parts of the world, unceremoniously taking over the land of the previous human custodians

Importations of exotic animals on the scale of multi giant cruise ships have also followed - horses, deer, foxes, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs camels, dogs , cats all loaded onto the finely balanced and well adapted fauna of the continent. They now live here in their millions.These animals are by no means ideally suited to Australian soils and climate . Foxes were released so that the English gentry could resume one of their bloody pleasures,- fox hunting. Goats and deer have escaped into the wild making tracks throughout the fragile landscape with their hard hooves. Camels and horses were brought in as workers and as transport as there was no equivalent native animal. -indigenous (or exotic ) birds were brought in despite a resident cornucopia of marvellous native and migratory birds.

The vegetation of the continent took and still takes a tremendous beating. The state of Victoria has lost most of its forest cover. Grasslands are being swamped with housing to the west of Melbourne. Exotic plants have been introduced and have taken over as weeds. The biosphere of the continent of Australia- the most diverse on Earth at the time of European arrival is only a shadow of its former glory. Now we are watching the remainder of it disappear.

The humans who inhabited the continent of Australia for the previous 60,000 years in varying degrees of density from coast to coast and across the desert had learned to exist within the constraints of the land. On arrival, the first explorers and settlers found people leading their lives in what appeared to harmony with nature. The land was abundant with wildlife. The people were self sufficient. They were not waiting with baited breath for some sort of salvation through invasion. Following "our" arrival their lives would never be the same again. They were rounded up and killed or displaced at the convenience of the invaders. Until 1967 they were considered under the constitution as part of the Australian fauna. They now have status, land rights and even their own TV stations but I can see their relatively newly found voices being drowned out by the noise of the competing multicultural groups within Australia. It seems that these groups are not so much interested in hearing one another but in being heard. What space in their agendas will the be afforded the First People of Australia?

The groups of audience comprised families and groups of friends, the usual multi -cultural mix of English-speaking Australians and other ethnic groups. The Chinese-speaking group in front of us paid little attention to the singer's music and even less to his introductory narratives. What relevance would it have to them? Indeed, what relevance could it have for the Manchester-accented couple to our right who were commenting on real-estate-ads on their phones? I could just hear Archie over the barking dogs, the clatter of camp furniture prematurely packed up, and the loud good-byes as people parted company, while Archie continued to sing on the stage. I struggled to see Archie as our neighbours in front stood up for a long chat before leaving, obstructing even our view of the singer.

Where does this leave us with respect to Australia Day? The history of Australia as a nation has been brutal to the humans who lived here first, to the animals and birds, and brutal to the landscape. Australia needs a day to stop and reflect on what has been done, where we are now and where we are going. We cannot fix the problem by continuing to do the same thing that caused it. Current discussion about Australia Day focuses on the way colonisation affected and continues to affect the aboriginal population. In addition to the injustices and atrocities, Australian Aborigines have been, and continue to be, overwhelmed by sheer numbers from elsewhere. The non-Aboriginal population born here is now being overwhelmed in the same way. The fast growing population as a whole has ongoing devastating environmental impacts on this land. It has social impacts too, as it enriches a very few members of the growth lobby, while the rest pay for population growth.

We cannot alter our course without reflection. Yet we must change our course and soon. I suggest we keep the date, January 26th, as a marker of the beginning of immense, irreversible change. But let's be grown-up about it! Rather than seeing it as a day of celebration and beer, let's see it as a day of reflection and re-assessment of our situation and our direction.

If we could look at things more objectively, historically, critically and realistically, then all parts of our society could participate in trying to set the right course, one which will be the best possible for all on board. Make it a day to reflect on where we are going, because if there is a brick wall in the way,and we do not change direction, we will certainly crash into it. A lot of damage has been done and we need to salvage what we can. Changing the date of Australia Day achieves little in this respect. Let's take the old Australia Day to a new level and try to get the public thinking about the next 230 years as well as the 230 years since that landing at Port Jackson!

The Australian Wildlife Protection Council has written a letter to Melbourne Water, David Fairbridge, Frankston, and Lisa Neville, the Victorian Minister for the Environment, about a plans to remove mature trees from a wildlife corridor on the batters of a retardant basin in Frankston. They have received concern from the local community members that the threat of flooding to the local community at the Lee St retarding basin has not deemed a risk in the past and believe the proposed clearance of vegetation is excessive and will have significant impact on fauna as well as other issues, particularly of erosion and dust as well. They ask Melbourne Water a number of questoins and note that they expect that every possible measure will be undertaken to see if in fact clearing is necessary and if so that appropriate actions are taken and that local wildlife shelters are not left too pick up the pieces of poor planning.

Letter from Craig Thomson, President Australian Wildlife Protection Council, (AWPC)
Dated 23 January 2017.

Subject: Lee st Retarding Basin Frankston

Addressed to: [email protected] (biodiversity officer at Frankston Council), [email protected] (Minister for Police and Water) [email protected] (email address for Melbourne Water retardant basin upgrades).

The Australian Wildlife Protection Council understands and recognise the needs to protect our communities from potential danger. We are also aware that the removal of vegetation has an impact on wildlife species. In fact it is a guarantee that wildlife will be killed during works that clear vegetation. As such we expect that every possible measure is undertaken to see if in fact clearing is necessary and if so that appropriate actions are taken and that local wildlife shelters are not left too pick up the pieces of poor planning.

We have received concern from the local community members that the threat of flooding to the local community at the Lee St retarding basin has not deemed a risk in the past and believe the proposed clearance of vegetation is excessive and will have significant impact on fauna as well as other issues, particularly of erosion and dust as well. So the Australian Wildlife Protection Council would greatly appreciate if you could answer the following questions;

-What pre-fauna surveys have been carried out and when?

-What species have been identified on site?

-What are the actions have been put into place for fauna pre, during and post construction activities for fauna?

-Which wildlife rescue groups, wildlife shelters and vets have been contacted to look after or treat any injured wildlife?

-What arrangements have been made to financially compensate these groups?

-Do local wildlife shelters have the capacity to look after injured wildlife, as they could be attending to heat stress events or bushfire effected wildlife?

-What measures have been taken to install nest boxes or other artificial habitat for displaced wildlife?

-Do they have appropriate wildlife handling permits as well as permits to have protected wildlife euthanised if injured or unable to relocate wildlife in a safe distance from their habitat loss?

-What community groups have they contacted to work with as stated in their community information sheet? [Ref: ] “We understand the importance of trees to the local community and are committed to working closely with council, residents and community groups to develop an appropriate plan for reinstatement of trees else where in the area” in the information document provided for this project https://www.melbournewater.com.au/files/2018-01/Communitybulletin-LeeStreet.pdf

-Where are other trees being planted, what species are to be planted and how many?

-Are offsets being provided?

-Is there an arborist report of the trees health?

-Can records of water depth be provided for the Lee St retarding basin to show threat of flooding to neighbouring properties over the years of its existence?

-Can modelling or records be provided of local flooding for once in a 40+ year storm event?

-What are the EPA regulations you are keeping to with to for this project?

-Can you provide a copy of the ANCOLD guidelines?

The Australian Wildlife Protection Council also has the understanding that you are in the process of selling off land on McClelland Dve to Ambulance Victoria for an ambulance station and another permit application has been made by Log Cabin Caravan Park. In fact we believe that all land owned by Melbourne Water from Skye Rd to Frankston/Cranbourne Rd is being considered surplus land by Melbourne Water. So it appears there are several sites across the Frankston city council municipality owned by Melbourne Water that poses a potential loss of biodiversity.

So the final question we have to you is what is Melbourne Water’s commitment to biodiversity in Frankston?

All the news today is about Turkey attacking Afrin, a Kurdish governed city in northern Syria and threatening another Kurdish run city named Manbj. This is a very dangerous situation and another devastating assault on the Syrian people who have already suffered so much from a war that that was started by foreign manipulation and fed by foreign fighters, foreign weapons and foreign cash. The war should have ended by now and be winding down, but Syria’s enemies are persistent and cunning. We should not forget, however, that the foremost enemy of Syria, the strongest, most powerful country, the managing force in this war to destroy Syria is the United States […A Brief Analysis] Article first published 20 January 2018 at https://unac.papillonweb.net/2018/01/20/increasing-us-aggression-in-syria-leads-to-chaos/

Syrian Internal Security Forces are sworn in during their graduation ceremony, at Ain Issa desert base, in Raqqa province, northeast Syria, Thursday, July 20, 2017. Some 250 residents of Syria’s Raqqa province are the latest batch to graduate from a brief U.S-training course that is preparing an internal security force to hold and secure areas as they are captured from Islamic State militants. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla) MintPress, 10/17

US Occupation Forces

The United States has announced that the US is preparing a ‘border force’ of 30,000 fighters to “keep the peace in Syria”.    The plan is for these forces to have the US backed, Kurdish led forces of the SDF (Syrian Defense Forces) at their core, and will occupy nearly a third of sovereign Syrian territory.   This region is not the traditional Kurdish homeland in Syria, but rather the area east of the Euphrates that the SDF was able to occupy with US assistance while the Syrian Arab Army and their allies were busy liberating the rest of Syrian including the more densely populated regions in the west, reintegrating neighborhoods, towns and villages one by one, demining and removing dangerous remnants of the war while providing whatever services and resources they could to local civilians.

According to a report in Bloomberg,  US Secretary of State Tillerson said that the US is not into ‘nation building’ but they will assist with rebuilding Syria AFTER Assad is gone.   In any case, Syrians will wait a long time for any constructive US aid.  So far, the US has done little or nothing to assist with recovering Mosul or Raqqa, not even demining, and certainly nothing that would encourage the return of the civilian population.

The Kurdish forces, originally allied with the Syrian Government, were independent enough to operate on their own with government provision of arms and other resources when they were adopted and offered an independent state by the United States.   The YPG fighting forces emerged from a small sliver of land on the Turkish border  inhabited by several ancient Christian sects, Arabs and Turkomen, indigenous Kurds and Kurdish immigrants who have been arriving in waves throughout the 20th century, escaping pogroms targeting Kurds in Turkey.   The recent immigrants from the 1980s, affiliated with the PKK, a Kurdish resistance organization in Turkey, form the nucleus of the YPG.   Since  the Syrian war began they have been increasingly dominating the other residents of their region, and they now they have spread well beyond it to occupy Raqqa and other cities in a largely Arab region.

US Proxies on the Move

Today the US backed SDF  centers around the Kurdish YPG, but also includes local tribal leaders who want to keep control of their own territories and ISIS members rescued from previous war zones by the US for future use.   According to an article on the World Socialist Organization website, the US has about 2,000 forces in Syria though I have heard estimates as high as 5,000.  They currently claim  to have 230 men in training.   US actions in Syria are spreading chaos and risking a wider regional war – or worse. According to the WSW:

[Turkish President] Erdogan condemned US support for the YPG, declaring on the weekend: “The US sent 4,900 trucks of weapons in Syria. We know this. This is not what allies do.” At a rally yesterday he reiterated his determination to “vanquish” the Kurdish militia. “We have finished our preparations,” he said. “The operation can start any time.” Erdogan accused the US of “creating a terror army on our border,” adding: “What we have to do is nip this terror army in the bud.”

The Syrian government denounced the planned pro-US border force as a “blatant assault” on the country’s sovereignty. The state-run news agency, SANA, cited a foreign ministry spokesperson as insisting that the army was determined to thwart the US “conspiracy, end the presence of the US, its agents and tools in Syria, establish full control over the entire Syria territory and preserve the country’s sovereignty.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday accused the US of seeking to split up Syria, saying it “does not want to keep Syria as a state in its current borders.” Washington was helping “the Syrian Democratic Forces to set up some border security zones.”

An investigation by a couple of Russian journalists has been published on Sputnik reports that the US has a training camp for jihadists near al Tanf, a primary border crossing between Syria and Iraq.   They claim that there are as many as 1,500 fighters there including SDF, New Syrian Army (perhaps represented by the Free Syria Army leaders in Washington last week) and over 200 ISIS fighters.    These men are on the payroll.   Another 5,000 potential fighters reside in nearby Rukban refugee camp which is cut off from all outside access including the United Nations and other NGOS.   Syrian and Russian forces are bombed if they approach the area.   Civilians in Rukban and the US controlled territories are in a desperate situation.   They are lacking the basic necessities while members of criminal gangs control the wells and sell water at inflated prices.    Restless fighters rob  local homes and attack trucks passing on the highway.

It must be noted that the United States has invested not a penny in rebuilding any part of Syria.  Secretary of State Tillerson has said that we will assist rebuilding AFTER Assad has left.     Since this is unlikely to occur, this responsibility will not fall on them in the foreseeable future.    The Arab population of Raqqa has been driven from the city to local refugee camps, and some into the government controlled areas of Syria.  Meanwhile, Syrians living in territories under the control of US forces and US proxies remain in the rubble of the war just as Palestinians in Gaza live in the rubble of the communities that Israel has destroyed.

Fox News has reported that the Free Syrian Army (FSA) members have been in Washington this week meeting with US officials. These are the same ‘moderates’ who have consistently fought side by side with ISIS and al Qaeda from the beginning of the war, and who could not be separated from those organizations to create functioning deconfliction zones.   The article says these FSA leaders claim to have 60,000 fighters.  This is absurd given that they didn’t have that many fighters before they lost the war, and according the investigative report below, they had only a couple of checkpoints in the remaining center of Syrian Opposition, which is controlled by al Qaeda (under various names) and an extremist group called Ahrar al Sham.

One of these FSA leaders in Washington is quoted as saying “Iran and Assad contributed to the creation of Al Qaeda and other extremist groups,” another absurdity since we know that the United States created Al Qaeda in the 80s to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, while Turkey, Qatar, Saudia Arabia and their US backers are responsible for transporting these foreign fighters into Syria as well as training the FSA forces. Today, Syria is terrorized by fighters from Saudi Arabia, Libya, Tunisia, and Iraq, Uighers from China, Chechens from Russia, rebellious youth from France, Germany, UK, USA and other western countries, and around the globe.  In fact, it’s big news when somebody takes out one of our own.

Syria for Syrians

The Syrian Government, after recovering Deir Ezzor, long under siege by ISIS, and clearing the Baghdad Damascus road across the border with Iraq, has turned it’s attention to Idlib province.    A strategy of restoring control to urban areas, towns and villages through reconciliation programs has been effective in freeing up the army to move from one area to another, and it has saved many lives.   Although the western media has focused on the use of siege to induce surrender in reconciliation areas, the program is more robust than that.

Areas under the control of Al Qaeda or criminal gangs affiliated with one militant organization or another are not well provisioned even in the best cases because the fighters keep the majority of supplies for themselves and govern through force.   The reconciliation programs attempt to create back channels to deliver resources to the civilian population.  By empowering the civilian population they can convince them to stand against the occupying forces.   The final resolution is negotiated for an end where as many civilians as possible will be protected; where Syrian citizens fighting against the government are given an opportunity to restore their citizenship.  Concessions are made. In some areas, sharia courts continue under the governance of local fundamentalists.   Those who might otherwise fight to the death are given an opportunity to leave.

Idlib

Those who chose to leave are allowed a personal firearm and bused with the families to Idlib province on the Turkish border.       Today, as the Syrian state moves to liberate Idlib,  the situation there is dire.   The province is completely under the control of al Qaeda forces (under various names) and flooded with foreign fighters.  The following is a video produced about a year ago by Jenan Mousa, a roving reporter for Al Aan TV, a pan Arab TV station in out of Dubai.

The reconciliation program will work in Idlib, and has been ongoing for some time. It is clear the civilians there have many unmet needs. The recent change of face implemented by al Nusra/Hayit Tahir al Sham seems superficial and clearly an initiative to influence western backers and not for the benefit of the locals.   The one difference from other reconciliation plans is that there will be no buses to an Al Qaeda haven.   Instead, extremists and mercenaries with families and those who do not want to die in Syria will be driven back across the Turkish border to their training camps and refuges where President Erdogan and the Turkish people will have to deal with the consequences of his folly  just as the people of Pakistan continue to deal with the consequences of Zia al Haq’s collaboration with US plans to build an army of fanatics to fight the soviets in Afghanistan.

Erdogan’s Dilemma

At the moment, Turkish President Erdogan is far more concerned about the Kurdish forces being trained by the US to occupy land in Syria that he once coveted for Turkish occupation.   He is quite beside himself over the US empowerment of Kurdish militias affiliated with the Turkish PKK in Syria.  The Turkish army has begun an attack on the largely Kurdish city of Afrin in northern Syria, and Erdogan has stated that once he has ‘liberated’ Afrin (from the US backed Kurdish forces) he will move on to occupy Manbj, another city in the original Kurdish region of Syria.       The YPG Kurds of the US backed SDF  are followers of a Abdullah Ocalan, a Turkish dissident currently residing in a high security Turkish prison.   The Turkish state has been persecuting the Kurdish people and fighting Kurdish rebellions within its borders since it’s inception.  At that time, an angry and disappointed Kurdish population found themselves denied a promised state in an area (Turkey) where they represented nearly a third of the population, unlike Syria, where Kurds, including recent immigrants, represent less that a tenth of the population.

Increasingly at odds with the US government, and engaged through Russian diplomacy in a tenuous detente with his erstwhile victims in Syria, Turkish President Erdogan is an easy target.  Turkey is the largest military power in the region, with a history of western alliances, and as the war has wound down he has been increasingly isolated and under threat.   They lost and he is holding the bag.  This is not to say that his own bad choices didn’t bring him to this place, but it certainly makes him a dangerous force in the Syrian conflict.   Denied the fruits of his support for the international attack on Syria, he is also faced with the reinforcement of an archetypal enemy of the Turkish state.   His reaction to the latter problem may well give him at least some of the rewards that providing services for the anti-Syrian forces did not.

US officials should have seen this coming.  Well, of course, they did see it coming.  What we are seeing here is politically a Turkish civil war being played out on Syrian territory at the expense of the Syrian people.   Two Turkish forces are fighting for control of northern Syria, one enabled by US backing.  If you look at US objectives, this situation is surely advantageous.   Even as the Syrian forces and their allies move in to clear out the last holdout of Al Qaeda and the other Turkish proxies, Turkey is moving in to occupy Syrian towns and villages along the border in areas where the US can’t hold them.

How convenient is that for US objectives, which include the breakup and destruction of the Syrian state.  In his rage and frustration, Erdogan continues or support the needs of US military strategists who do not really have the forces to hold the large  swathe of Syria they have announced their intention to occupy.   Yesterday, Tillerson again softened his line.   But he well knows that at this point, it doesn’t matter what he says.  He is blowing wind, talking to the press and the people of the United States.   There has been no significant diplomatic engagement with Turkey since Trump came in to office.   Meanwhile, the diplomatic initiative of the Russians has been disrupted and a loose cannon is pivoting out of control on the northern border of Syria.

US Policy in Syria

The US policy of destruction and devastation is clear in Syria as in Libya and Iraq, Afghanistan and even Yugoslavia.   They really only need enough land to put their regional military bases.    Destruction jand chaos are the goal.   Destruction by ISIS, by Al Qaeda/Al Nusra/…/Hayat Tahir,  by Turkey, by the Kurds, by the French and British, by our own forces, it really doesn’t matter.    It’s all the same to US strategists.   Blaming Russia, blaming Muslims, blaming the Turks blaming Iran, blaming Assad – its a ll a pretext for the destruction of an ancient land and culture, of a society that is at the root of our own culture.   This policy has not changed one iota since the beginning of the war fueled  by Libyan fighters with US weapons in the south and Turkish trained proxies armed and funded by the Saudi Arabia and Qatar in in the north.

We need to stand up and set aside our confusion NOW.   The US role and that of the Kurdish militias in Syria has no upside.   It is a bold initiative to create chaos and destruction in Syria and to continue the war that was started by the United States and its allies to crush the independent sovereign Republic of Syria.

Hands Off Syria!  Hands off the Middle East! 

Stand up today against the vicious policy of destruction adopted by the US government!

Melbourne Water is about to de-tree Frankston koala corridor by removing mature trees from banks of a huge park with a water retarding basin in it at Lee Street Frankston 3199. They are claiming that the trees are 'destabilising' the banks. But of course the trees are holding the banks together and keeping the water-table down. Who is accountable for these kinds of decisions that are based on what sound like lies that make no sense? Frankston Council is apparently going along with this. It seems totally insane and anti-life and nature. Inside is a video alerting us to the details.

This is a link to a facebook video: https://www.facebook.com/Michellekoalasaver/videos/1831105523600205/.

The person speaking in the video is Michele Thomas, of Animalia, who is a well-respected wildlife carer, who knows what she is talking about regarding koalas. See "Animalia's Michelle Thomas gives koala mouth to mouth in night rescue".

Mad tree removal excuses

This tree removal with barmy excuses seems to be a new trend. Recently they machine-ripped out trees all along the sides and median strips of a shady Mornington Peninsula highway, one of few relatively pleasant highways to travel on, due to the shade and green. See http://candobetter.net/node/5304. The reasons given were that cars might run into them and that they were for eliminating all risks. (Not risks of depression leading to suicide in those who were revolted and felt powerless, of course.) AWPC managed to stop them from ripping them out quite so fast, but the kept on with a different machine at a different pace and they paid for a few possum boxes (not enough for all the possums and other wildlife that were and continue to be displaced.)

The overpopulation link

We know that trees are being ripped out for more houses and more roads to squeeze in the invited economic immigrants that make up over 60% of population growth in Australia. This is obvious with the road widening in Hoddle Street and in the destruction of Melbourne's equivalent of Paris's Champs Elysees - St Kilda Road - the latter for underground rail extensions.

Knowing how the impacts of population growth have caused the de-treeing of Hoddle Street and St Kilda Road makes you wonder if the freeway de-treeing on the way to Dromana is really to allow more lanes to go in and if removal of trees from the retardant basin at Lee Street is really to permit houses or access routes there. It is like an engineering conspiracy against nature. And, of course, in the short term, there is money in it for the tree rippers and machine operators. What a sick sick society we have become in about 200 short years.

VicRoads recently closed down Hoddle Street for a week to work on streamlining the corridor. The project is expected to continue for the rest of 2018.

"Streamlining" in this case is a euphemism for increasing the capacity of Hoddle Street for higher volumes of vehicle traffic every day. Whilst dedicated bus lanes are part of the project the Andrews government intends that the overwhelming future growth in traffic movements will be passenger cars.

The project was previously under serious consideration by the Brumby Labor government which lost office in 2010. It was sidelined by the incoming Baillieu government which, at least initially, sensibly "parked" the project with a view to, at last, building a rail line to Doncaster Hill instead. That did not materialise in the wake of an inadequate analysis that contemplated a rail line from Melbourne CBD, not to the major passenger destination of Doncaster Hill, but to the "Park and Ride" at the intersection of the Eastern Freeway and Doncaster Road in Doncaster.

The fact is that increasing road capacity at the expense of public transport, as the Hoddle Street streamlining project does, is far less space efficient than increased public transport capacity. One fully loaded train carries about as many people as one freeway lane occupied by passenger vehicles in a whole hour. The successor Napthine government's favourite, if critically flawed infrastructure project, the proposed East West Link, would have sacrificed significant open space, including much of the priceless parkland of Royal Park for a "spaghetti junction" with the Tullamarine Freeway in Parkville.

Importantly, it would have also absorbed the median strip on the Eastern Freeway between Hoddle Street and Bulleen Road for additional vehicle lanes. As this space has for years been earmarked for a rail line to Doncaster it would have dealt a severe, if not terminal, blow to the promise of an acceptable public transport service for residents of Melbourne's north eastern suburbs who have no tram or train services.

As we head into this 2018 election year we have a deep obligation to put a stop to this freeway madness and the serial sidelining of public transport by the major parties. There is no sign yet, though, that they have heard the message. If the status quo were to be maintained we also face the future threat of further "streamlining" of Punt Road to the south of the current Hoddle Street project. Existing residential properties in South Yarra would be the victims of that exercise, if it were to see the light of day.

In addition to resurrecting the discredited East West Link project, the coalition also wishes to build the so-called North East Link from Greensborough to the Eastern Freeway. The Labor government, if re-elected, would also build the North East Link as well as the West Gate Tunnel, a cosy deal which it hatched with toll road operator Transurban but did not declare in their election campaigning in 2014. The West Gate Tunnel is proposed instead of the adequate public transport desperately needed by western suburbs residents who the Andrews government claims to serve.

As part of the North East Link project the Victorian government proposes to add seven extra lanes to the Eastern Freeway between Bulleen Road and Springvale Road. The North East Link Authority, the government body established by the Andrews government to "spin" the project to the public has so far been mum on how this is to work. However, one thing is certain: Substantial public parkland would be lost, including much of the Koonung Creek Reserve. This Reserve, even in its current condition is a remnant of the extensive open space in the valley that was lost to the Eastern Freeway when it was opened in 1977 and then progressively extended eastward. Now they want more of it. The Reserve would be reduced to a "buffer zone" between the bloated Eastern Freeway and ever closer residential areas along the Eastern Freeway from Bulleen to Nunawading.

For its part, the West Gate Tunnel would feed more motor car traffic from the western suburbs into the inner suburbs and the Melbourne CBD in much the same way as the government's Hoddle Street "streamlining" project and the East West Link, if it were to materialise, will feed more traffic into inner suburbs and the CBD from the north and the east.
All in all the Victorian government seems set on filling up Melbourne CBD with cars every day in the same manner as the trainless Melbourne Airport.

Although the US presence in Syria is illegal, the US is talking about putting more troops there, presumably to fire up a war that the Russians and the Syrians have almost succeeded in extinguishing. Erdoğan has accused the US of planning to form 'terror army' in Syria: 'Our mission is to strangle it before it’s even born’, said the Turkish president of 30,000-strong force aimed at dividing and conquering Syria by promoting a Kurdish separist movement. In this edition of The Debate, Press TV has conducted an interview with Hafsa Kara-Mustapha, a journalist and political commentator from London, and Wafik Moustafa, the chairman of Conservative Arab Network, from London, to discuss the United States' plans to station 30,000 militants on the Syrian borders with Turkey and Iraq. This videoed debate was first published on Iranian Press tv on Tue Jan 16, 2018 at http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/01/16/549062/Washingtons-deployment-plan-in-Syria

If the embedding function below does not show, click here to watch the program on press tv directly.

Wildlife rescuer and carer, Rebecca Koller, has observed an unprecedented number of Spectacled flying fox casualties in a traditional breeding site located near a new hotel construction in Cairnes. The spectacled flying fox is a threatened species.[1] Despite many attempts to get the Australian government to investigate and or intervene, the government has failed to get back to her. This is even though the problem has received extensive publicity and the species is about to have its threatened status upgraded from vulnerable to endangered. The source of this article is correspondence between Ms Koller and The Australian Wildlife Protection Council.

On Wed, 3 Jan 2018 at 11:51 AM, Rebecca Koller wrote to Craig Thomson, the president of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council (AWPC), asking for his advice and or assistance based on his knowledge of our government and wildlife protection.

Ms Koller is a flying fox carer from Far North Queensland and the Wildlife advisor of the Cairns Flying Fox advisory board.

Here is the website she posts to: https://www.ouranimalsourearth.com/

She has been documenting the Spectacled flying fox deaths and orphans at the Cairns Library flying fox colony. Despite numerous attempts, she had received no communication from the Australian federal government regarding her requests for it to intervene or investigate the unprecedented number of pups from this breeding season found dead or orphaned.

The camp referred to carries about 4000 flying foxes. Ms Koller says that this is a huge reduction on previous seasons. Since September 15th 2017, there were 898 flying foxes dead or orphaned from this one camp, compared with 366 last season. In her opinion and that of other wildlife carers, the increased casualties are attributable to the construction work directly across from the roost trees.

Listen to a really informative ABC FM interview with Rebecca Koller on the flying foxes:

Wildlife carer observations deserve respect; they are often all we have

The Cairns Library Colony flying fox camp is considered federally of national significance. Ms Koller has been documenting both orphans and deaths . See the record of deaths and orphans for this season and the previous one. (Females spectacled flying foxes give birth to one young per year, in the October to December period. Juveniles are nursed for over five months and, on weaning, congregate in nursery trees in the colony.)

This record of casualties in the colony has been criticised as only "anecdotal and observatory" by a spokesperson for the company, who says there is no history for comparison. Candobetter.net would say that careful observations from wildlife carers, who know the history of the colony and can point to photographs of corpses and to the animals in their care, cannot and should not be dismissed so easily. If this is the only source of a count on this species, then it is precious and deserves respect. We note that official counts do not monitor the Cairns breeding colonies, which is convenient for the massive development going on there, but needs urgently to be remedied.

The construction company began building what will be a multimillion dollar hotel development just prior to the birthing season. Ms Koller describes, as the only new factors in this birthing season from the previous one, the clearing of trees once occupied by the flying foxes, the presence of equipment such as pile drivers, and multiple cranes, with arms swinging directly over the roost trees. She says she has written to EHP, the threatened species commissioner, the media, and raised the subject in council meetings on numerous occasions but to no avail.

Greater protection needs to be afforded to the animals due to their decline as a species, their importance as a keystone species and the significance of this particular maternity camp.

Where to make Go Fund Me contributions to the Spectacled flying foxes in Cairns

Ms Koller has over 50 orphans in her care and had to arrange the transport of 100 orphans to the Australian Bat Clinic in Brisbane, because there were simply not enough carers in her area to cope with the number of flying foxes orphaned this season. Ms Koller crowd funded money to help support carers’ costs to care for these animals. See the wonderful baby bat pictures at https://www.gofundme.com/4m5qayg. Although she raised just over $10,000, all of this has already been used up for necessary supplies. There are still three to four unfunded months remaining before carers can begin to release the flying foxes they have raised. In addition, the birthing season has not yet ended and rescuers are still finding dead and orphaned on a daily basis.

Ms Koller met with the ecologist conducting the monitoring for the construction company and has been keeping him abreast of the bat casualty totals this year compared to the previous year.

Flying Foxes, Government, wildlife carers and wildlife protection on the ground

Craig Thomson, President of Australian Wildlife Protection Council (AWPC), congratulated Ms Koller on her actions to date and commented,

”The information to be found about this flying fox species, is a perfect example of both federal and state governments appearing to do the right thing by undertaking steps to improve protection. Such protection is, unfortunately, rarely if ever enacted or carried out on the ground, leading to the species’ existence being threatened further.”

“This is highlighted with the Spectacled flying fox species being listed as vulnerable in 2002 and a more recent public consultation seeking recommendations for its conservation status at the end of 2016.

“It would be interesting to know if the Spectacled flying fox conservation status is to be upgraded from this process or whether it was part of the work that the officer Rebecca Koller has had correspondence with, stating that "federal and state governments were working to have the same conservation status for the species".

Disingenous governments

Mr Thomson added,

“It seems disingenuous to me that the federal and state governments and agencies have been making statements such as "This spectacled flying-fox has been subject to appreciable research, monitoring and management over the last 20 years. It is a high priority species under Queensland’s “Back on Track program." See the following link http://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/pages/0e526f41-7db6-4e21-b2a2-8aa9b2b45352/files/consultation-document-pteropus-conspicillatus.pdf. It appears, despite this, that licenses can still be obtained for lethal control. Furthermore, attempts by carers and advocates like Rebecca Koller, to raise welfare concerns about these flying foxes are met with complacency and threats. Yet, they are still being called upon to rescue, rehabilitate and release them back to the wild.”

"Fortunately there is a recovery plan for the species and it is internationally protected and recognised, as such this is where we need to focus for the best outcomes. Below is a list of the 8 recovery objectives, if we are able to find proof that these objectives are not being met. It could be possible to proceed legal action."

Recovery Objectives for the Spectacled Flying Fox

Recovery Objective 1: Research practicable and cost effective flying fox deterrent systems for commercial fruit growers.
Recovery Objective 2: Identify and protect native foraging habitat critical to the survival of the spectacled flying fox.
Recovery Objective 3: Accurately assess the short and long term population size and population trends of the spectacled flying-fox.
Recovery Objective 4: Improve the public perception of the spectacled flying-fox and the standard of information available to guide recovery.
Recovery Objective 5: Increase knowledge of P conspicillatus roosting
requirements and protect important camps.
Recovery Objective 6: Improve understanding of incidence of tick paralysis and actions to minimise paralysis mortality in flying foxes.
Recovery Objective 7: Implement strategies to reduce incidence of electrocution and entanglement of P. conspicillatus.
Recovery Objective 8 Investigate the causes of birth abnormalities such as cleft palate syndrome.

Spectacled Flying Fox threatened status nominated for upgrading from Vulnerable to Endangered

SFF have been nominated under the Commonwealth threatened species legislation for up-listing from Vulnerable to Endangered.

Qld government (Labor 2015) promised to match Commonwealth threatened species listing for SFF, so when they move up the EPBC list, they should also move up the Qld thretened species listing from Vulnerable to Endangered. The Minister (Commonwealth) is expected to announce his decision on uplisting on 18 February. nomination has been considered by the TSSC and the Minister is expected to make his decision on 18 February. It has been a long wait.

International obligations for the Spectacled flying fox under CITES

The international obligations are as follows: "The spectacled flying fox is listed under Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Populations of the spectacled flying fox are recognised as values of the Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Area and therefore under the protection of World Heritage Convention". In this regard we can always contact both CITES and the World Heritage Convention to embarrass the government's into action. The same could be said of the hotel development who is currently claiming that values of Queensland Wet Tropics World heritage area is damaging their business. While making a point of this, it would be a great opportunity to advocate for the Spectacled bats ecological and economical services. The link below is the recovery plan for the species which has both the objectives and international matters.

http://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/99449a95-4a42-4a68-8735-303408b8470f/files/pteropus-conspicillatus-recovery-plan.pdf

NOTES

[1] The spectacled flying fox was listed as a threatened species under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act of 1991. They were considered vulnerable due to a significant decline in numbers as a result of loss of their prime feeding habitat and secluded camp sites.

People are speaking out! A host of women in the entertainment industry have come out with a range of complaints about male colleagues, complaints which hark back many years. It has been a cascade of allegations and the sense one gets of the emotions of these women is as a type of catharsis They demand to be treated with respect in the workplace. The "Me Too" campaign has managed to organise and galvanise women in protest against named powerful figures in Hollywood and elsewhere in the entertainment industry in countries like Australia. Impassioned speeches were made at the Golden Globe Awards, notably by television identity Oprah Winfrey. (The media infers from Oprah's short speech that she may now run for President of the United States!) The issue of sexual harassment in the workplace in the entertainment industry has erupted since accusations in 2017 against movie mogul, Harvey Weinstein, and now his name appears to be mud. Craig McLoughlin in Australia, who played Dr. Blake in a dreary TV series called, The Dr. Blake Mysteries has been suspended in the latest series in the making. He will no longer be playing the main role in the current production of Godspell due to complaints by his female colleagues. There is a righteous indignation and outpouring of emotion from women affected. It's out in the open. The men named all deny wrongdoing. Presumably efforts will be made to get to the truth.

On January 9th the first same sex marriages in Australia not requiring a waiver took place. The LGBTQI community has been victorious in having their relationships given the same status as traditional marriages. They have triumphed over prejudice and the celebrations and the volume of apparently pent up demand for marriage gives a sense of societal progress occurring in quantum leaps, or so it would appear from media reporting.

The space given in the media to members of special designated ethinic communities also creates a sense that the more that complaints and achievements are aired, the more progress is occurring. A recent example is of representatives of the Sudanese community speaking on episodes of crime and the needs of that community, all gives me a sort of illusion of progress, but towards what?

All the while, as we view our cities, our country, our communities on the screen in our living rooms, and see the women, the LGBTQI communities, the members of various immigrant groups, the message to us is of progress, as though there was no tolerance or even any experience of these differences before. We feel we are making every effort towards a better, more vibrant, more diverse, society. We are having some successes and some failures but all the while making progress as people speak out.

But how are we viewed by those in control? Probably we are seen as mere pawns, possibly knights and bishops, in their big board game. The large unseen hands of the power elite remove the autonomy of all groups, even those who feel in control of their lives. These hands don't differentiate between LGBTQI members, women, seniors, the Lithuanian, or the Sudanese communities, except in terms of getting their attention.

Toll road builders are not concerned with community specific values, they just want them to own a car and pass under their gantries on the toll roads. Furniture warehouses will hope that newly marrieds from any group will buy all the paraphernalia that furnishes a house, whether it be in a newly built apartment or a hastily flung together suburban dream, rammed up next to its neighbour, in the outer west of Melbourne. The housing construction lobby does not care whose money pays for the overpriced floor space in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth or any other growing town, that purchasers hope will bring them within striking distance of the source of income to make the mortgage repayments. The banks don't care who makes those repayments. It's all the same to their bottom line.

Their aim is to put all of us to use, get us working, consuming, driving, borrowing, building. They want an increasing income stream from all of us, no matter who we are, and in increasing numbers.

We are being sorted and sold off by a ubiquitous but invisible oppressor that knows and dictates what we want and where we have to go.

Julian Assange, the courageous innovative publisher of Wikileaks, who told the world the truth about US army torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib has been found by the united Nations to have been illegally held in indefinite detention since he was granted asylum by Ecuador in August 2012, due to the British and Swedish governments complicity with the United States. Now Australia has lost this citizen of global courage and action in defence of human rights, to Ecuador, which has just recently granted him citizenship. See "Julian Assange granted Ecuadorian citizenship to provide 'another layer of protection'".

The whole Assange case could have been resolved years ago, had the Swedish government given Assange a guarantee that he would not be extradited to the United States, should he go to Sweden to face charges (now dropped) of rape. The fact that no such undertaking was made by the Swedish government (supposedly neutral, but in reality an ally of the United States) clearly demonstrates that the charges of rape were no more than a ploy to arrest Assange and deliver him to the United States deep state.

Throughout this long detention and shameful denial of Julian Assange's human rights, Australian parliament has received letters and petitions asking for the government to help Julian Assange, as an Australian citizen and Victorian resident. To our knowledge, only Greens MPs, notably Scott Ludlum, and, at least once, Adam Bandt, have spoken up on the subject, especially in relation to Bills restricting Australian freedoms and expanding state surveillance. Prime Ministers Rudd and Gillard have been passive in their responses to questions about Assange's welfare, with Gillard actually making the public error of saying that Wikileaks was illegal. Basically no Australian government has stood up for Assange, even though they have occasionally protested that he has received the same rights as any Australian citizen. This has been denied by Assange and his mother. See, "Fed Govt defends its consular assistance to Assange," at http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2012/s3515562.htm. [See note for why we haven't actively linked to this ABC site.[1]] Most tellingly, the fact that the Australian government never denounced Assange as a criminal shows that they must have known he was not guilty of the charges against him. See our excerpts below from Hansard.

Hansard Documentation of how Australia handled Assange's detention and threats to his safety

...............................................................................................................................................................

Julie Bishop, Monday, 19 June 2017, responding to letter: Page: 6766,

"Dear Mr Vasta

Thank you for your letter of 20 March 2017 regarding the petition (PN0054) submitted by the Concerned Citizens of Australia to the Standing Committee on Petitions.

The petition refers to Opinion No.54/2015 of the UN Working Group on

Arbitrary Detention adopted on 4 December 2015, in which it considered that Mr Julian Assange was arbitrarily detained by the Governments of Sweden and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In that opinion, the Working Group expressed the view that Mr Assange is 'entitled to his freedom of movement and to compensation'. The petition requests that the House of Representatives do all within its power to end Julian Assange's detention.

I received legal advice on the implications of the findings of the Working Group in February 2016. It is important for the Standing Committee on Petitions to appreciate that the Working Group's opinion is directed at the United Kingdom and Sweden; not Australia. Australia cannot intervene in the legal processes of another country, just as we would not countenance other states intervening in Australian legal processes. I also note that the opinions of the Working Group are not legally binding on states.

Mr Assange has been afforded due process by authorities in the United Kingdom, and has avoided lawful arrest by choosing to remain in the Ecuadorian Embassy. Mr Assange will need to address his situation through legal processes in the United Kingdom and Sweden, with the assistance of his legal advisers.

However, the Australian Government stands ready to provide Mr Assange with the same consular assistance it would give to any other Australian in these circumstances should he request it, in accordance with the Consular Services Charter. I enclose a copy for the Standing Committee's consideration.

I trust this information is of assistance.

Yours sincerely

from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ms Bishop." Monday, 19 June 2017

Page: 6766, House of Representatives, Parliament of Australia.

Senator Ludlam, West Australia, 4 July 2011

"Under existing law, the collection of foreign intelligence is confined to the collection of intelligence concerning the activities of foreign governments, organisa­tions they control or foreign political organisations for the purpose of the defence of Australia or the conduct of international affairs. That is how ASIO have been doing the work that they have been doing in tracking al-Qaeda and tracking terrorist organisations that are much closer to home operating in our neighbourhood. They have these powers. They use them extensively. It is the sole justification that has been given to us for why their staffing and their budget quadrupled in the last decade. It is precisely because they have the range of powers that they need to track non-state actors who mean Australians harm or mean to pursue violent political activities in other countries. They have the powers that they need. When we asked what exactly this was all about, nobody was able to tell us.

What it does do is that it permits ASIO much wider scope to investigate the activities of Australians who are overseas and who do not necessarily pose a threat but perhaps do have implications for foreign relations, such as Julian Assange and other people working in the WikiLeaks organisation. WikiLeaks and Mr Assange obviously have implications for Australia's foreign relations. Things falling out of the document drop were on the front page of every newspaper in the country day after day after day six months ago, and even now those shock waves continue to reverberate through the diplomatic community. So there is no way that you can say that there are no implications there for Australia's foreign relations. But should that entity be spied on by ASIO? Should our clandestine Cold War era spy agency be tracking down Mr Assange, maybe his family if they travel abroad, people working for that organisation, journalists, or people he is talking to or that that organisation is involved with? It appears that the reason that this bill has been known as the 'WikiLeaks amendment' in the Attorney's department is that that is precisely what is intended. The committee simply did not address that issue, and neither did the officer at the table when we asked during the inquiry. This is one example of how a person or organisation outside Australia, combined with the notion of Australia's foreign relations, very considerably expands the scope of ASIO's activities. Australians working overseas for firms that are major rivals to key Australian industries would also be covered. They would be caught by the economic wellbeing argument. If the government has a counterargument to this, it would be delightful to hear it." Senator Ludlam, West Australia, 4 July 2011, BILLS - Intelligence Services Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 - Second Reading,

Senator Ludlam, Petitions Wikileaks, 9 February 2011

"To the Honourable President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled:

The Petition of the undersigned shows:

1. That Mr Julian Assange is an Australian Citizen.

2. That on 2nd December 2010 the Prime Minister stated that the publishing of certain information on the Wikileaks website by Mr Assange was “An Illegal thing to do”.

3. That the Attorney-General of Australia has stated that he has considered the cancellation of the Australian Passport held by Mr Assange.

4. United States Politician, Ms Sarah Palin, has called for Mr Assange to be “hunted down”.

5. Mr Tom Flanagan, Senior Advisor to the Canadian Prime Minister has, on public television, called for Mr Assange’s assassination.

Your petitioner requests that the Senate:

1. Call upon the Prime Minister to explain to the Senate the basis for her allegation against a fellow Australian citizen that he is a criminal.

2. Call upon the Attorney-General to state to the Senate whether he received any request for the cancellation of Mr Assange’s Australian Passport pursuant to the Australian Passports Act.

3. Call upon the Minister for Foreign Affairs to summon the Ambassador for from the United States of America to Australia and demarche condemning the comments of Ms Patin. [sic - meant Palin.]

4. Call upon the Minister for Foreign Affairs to summon the Canadian High Commissioner to Australia and demarche condemning the comments of Mr Flanagan.

5. Call upon the Governor-General of Australia to provide such protection and assistance to Mr Assange as to which he may stand in need. "

Senator Ludlam, Petitions Wikileaks, 9 February 2011,

Senator Ludlam, West Australia, 3 March, 2014

"I wonder whether the Attorney-General might rise to the occasion, as it were, and provide us with some information as to why he will not back up on the public record, neither here in this chamber nor even at an estimates committee last week, how he is able to accuse Mr Edward Snowden the whistleblower of being a traitor when he has been neither charged nor convicted of any crime in the United States, when senior US administration figures have been careful not to use that phrase and when he cannot prove or show any evidence whatsoever that Australians have been put in harm's way? Similar claims were put about publisher Julian Assange when the WikiLeaks documents were first put into the public domain. And unless Senator Brandis is about to prove me wrong, we are about to see debate in here closed down." Senator Ludlam, West Australia, 3 March, 2014, National Security - Order for the Production of Documents,

Senator Ludlam, W.A. Australian Greens, 7 February, 2017

"We let Australian citizen Julian Assange and his courageous colleagues hang out to dry for disclosing war crimes in Iraq and more conventional crimes revealed in the state department cables. When the United States government says jump, then, if we are lucky, our Intelligence and Security Committee will do a rapid bipartisan inquiry into how high. But inevitably, we jump." Senator Ludlam, W.A. Australian Greens, 7 February, 2017, "ADJOURNMENT - Australia-United States Relationship,"

Michael Danby, MP, Melbourne Ports, 1 December 2014, Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill, (No.1) 2014

"I want to end with this discordant note. It is not surprising to see the Greens political party lead the charge against this proposed legislation. In my view, the Greens seem to have an automatic Pavlovian kind of reaction to undermining the intelligence capabilities of our country. People like the Greens political party's Senator Ludlam have publicly supported self-appointed protectors of privacy and trust—stalwarts of moral standing like Julian Assange. Of course, the Greens' backing of Julian Assange and his ideological stablemate Edward Snowden has not exposed a single piece of evidence of the abuse of privacy or citizens' rights in authoritarian countries like Russia. Mr. Assange, the Greens' hero, used to host a program on the Russian disinformation network RT. To give you a flavour for his content and his policies, his first interview gave an armchair ride to Hezbollah's feared terrorist leader, Sheikh Hussein Nasrallah.

Indeed, it is delicious irony that the Greens' other hero, Edward Snowden, preaches excessive oversight and accountability but chooses to reside in Russia, of all places. He destroyed his credibility when popping up on Russian TV a few months ago to give another soft-serve Dorothy Dixer to the new Russian tsar, Vladimir Putin. Perhaps the Greens believe Russia is actually a bastion of human rights. Certainly, Senator Rhiannon used to believe that. I am honoured with the fact that Senator Ludlum has put a fatwa on the Greens speaking to me because I pointed out Senator Rhiannon's political similarity to the wife of the Romanian dictator, Elena Ceausescu. But the main point I make about her is she has never dissociated herself from her membership and participation in the pro-Soviet Communist political party in Australia. It was a seamless transition to the Greens.

Of course, the serious people in this parliament can smirk about Snowden's choice of patrons and about Assange's presence on RT. But it is hard to believe that here, in this House, we have parliamentarians that oppose legislation and seek to foil the efforts of our Defence forces and cooperation with our security services overseas. It occurs to me that the Greens political party ought to be more concerned about people losing their heads than about the people holding the swords. We had the appeasers in the 1930s. Eighty years later we have the Greens." Michael Danby, MP, Melbourne Ports, 1 December 2014, Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill, (No.1) 2014,

See also, Greg Barns, "Now is the time for Australia to finally stick up for Julian Assange," The Drum, 12 May, 2015. :

Prime Minister Gillard responds to question from Adam Bandt, MP, Greens in House of Representatives, Australian Parliament, Questions without Notice, 13 May 2015:

"Mr BANDT (Melbourne) (14:34): My question is to the Prime Minister. Senior figures in the United States have called for Julian Assange to be hunted down and in the US courts he may face the death penalty. Has the government sought an assurance from the United States that he will not be prosecuted. What steps has the government taken, or will the government take, to prevent Julian Assange being taken to the United States? Will the government put the interests of Washington ahead of the liberty of an Australian citizen and the freedom of the press?"

"Ms GILLARD (Lalor—Prime Minister) (14:35): I thank the member for Melbourne for his question. I know that he is raising an issue that is on the minds of many Australians as result of the recent news about the decision in the UK on the extradition matter involving Mr Assange. Can I assure the House of the following: the Australian government is providing full consular assistance to Mr Assange, as it does for all Australian citizens. I am advised that Australian consular officials visited Mr Assange on a number of occasions during his period of detention in London and raised several matters of concern with prison authorities on his behalf. Australian consular officials have attended all of Mr Assange's court appearances, including yesterday's hearing.

Since Mr Assange was released on bail, Australian officials have repeatedly conveyed offers of consular assistance through his lawyers, with whom they were most recently in contact yesterday. Swedish authorities have confirmed that any legal action against Mr Assange will be conducted in accordance with due process. As the Minister for Foreign Affairs has said today, at this stage we do not have any advice from the United States that there is an indictment against Mr Assange or that the United States has decided to seek his extradition. If at any stage in the future Mr Assange faces legal proceedings from the United States we would, for Mr Assange—as we would for any other Australian citizen—seek assurances from the United States in relation to due process. The Australian government cannot interfere in the judicial processes of other countries, but of course we will continue to closely monitor proceedings against Mr Assange and continue to provide full consular assistance to him." 13 May, 2015,

See also: "Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been left floundering after she labelled the actions of the WikiLeaks 'illegal', but couldn't say how" (24 February 2015) | SBS

Mr Rudd responding to a letter re Assange, 4 July 2011

Dear Mr Murphy,

I refer to your letter of 16 March 2011. regarding a petition about Mr Julian Assange, submitted for the consideration of the Standing Committee on Petitions. I note the Committee's referral under Standing Order 209(b) of items 3 and 4 of the petition. My response follows.

Item 3 called upon me to summon the Ambassador for the United States of America to Australia and demarche him condemning the comments of American politician Ms Sarah Palin on Mr Assange. Item 4 called upon me to summon the Canadian High Commissioner to Australia and demarche him condemning the comments of Mr Tom Flanagan, former Senior Advisor to the Canadian Prime Minister, on Mr Assange.

The Australian Government deplores and condemns all calls to violence against any Aus­tralian citizen wherever and by whomever they are made. However, neither of the individuals in the petition cited are holders of public office in their respective countries so it would not be app­ropriate to demarche their governments through their diplomatic representatives on statements they are reported to have made. Both the United States of America and Canada have laws protecting the rights of individuals against threats to their person. under which any concerns about these reported statements could be pursued.

I trust this information will be of assistance to the Committee in its consideration of the petition. from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Rudd, 4 July 2011

NOTES

[1] The reason we have not linked to the Assange article on the ABC is because the ABC does not have an SSL certificate for this article. That means that if we link to it, oversensitive browsers will say that candobetter.net is linking to unsafe links. SSL certificates are security certificates. Just because the ABC does not have an SSL certificate, it does not mean the site isn't safe; it just means that it hasn't paid its protection money to issuers of SSL certificates. But your browser may tell you that it is unsafe - so we don't actively link.

Bob Couch and Michael Roberts will be contesting the Legislative Council on behalf of Stop Population Growth Now at the March election. Their website is at www.stoppopulationgrowthnow.com.

Bob Couch and Michael_Roberts will nominate for the Legislative Council for the March 2018 SA election.

The Stop Population Growth now Party calls on more members to nominate for the next SA election.
Contact Bob Couch, Convenor on 0488 071 799 in the first instance.

Registration

The party is now officially registered as a political party in South Australia. Donations to our party are tax deductible up to $1500 per annum).

Membership

More members are needed to formally register as a federal political party. Please join up, and/or encourage others to join. Membership (Associate) is now free.
You can find an application from at the website.

Remember, the existing parties will ignore your wish for stopping population growth until they are not getting your vote.
We will give you an alternative.

The #metoo campaign gives the impression that women go through life suffering constant sexual advances and harassment. I obviously have no experience of this (nb: I have experienced similar, but not as a woman) but what I can confidently assert is that many men go through life suffering constant physical violence, or threats of violence.

My life was plagued by violence - and from the experience of friends I feel I am not unique in this regard. I experienced violence at home, going to scouts (where my collar bone was broken and I was also 'dacked'), at high school, at parties (where I have been 'coward punched' in the back of the head) walking out of a pub, where I was attacked by the bouncers employed there (but subsequently saved by intervening under-cover police). And these are just the acts of actual violence, the threats of violence were even more common eg: walking to primary school, going to do my paper round, waiting for the bus at high school, often in pubs where I have been threatened etc. This does not include the threat of being conscripted to go and execute violence on other young men in other countries, a possibility which caused me much consternation when I was around 18 years old.

Anyway as I say, I am not alone. I have seen friends attacked, strangers attacked, etc. None of which has ever been reported to police. I have seen an uncle return from war, a war which he had no choice but to participate in. I was also deprived of one grandfather due to the after effects of war. In all these ways violence influences and affects us.

Now men are the most common victims of violence - and as I suggest above, I suspect the actual violence is way under reported. So why is there is no #metoo for violence? And what good would come from it? I think looking at the issue of violence highlights some related issues in regard to women's #metoo campaign.

Let's say men start a #metoo campaign for violence. It simply confirms what everyone already knows - that violence is a problem in our society. Lets say we start calling for men to stop this violence - what can change? Men are both the most common victims of violence and the most common perpetrators. Are they to start a campaign complaining that they are oppressed by themselves? Is it that the patriarchal system - which men apparently collectively control - has failed them? Is it that they are systematically oppressed, and have been for centuries?

Now even if we accept any of these statements as true - what can men do about it? It is not as though you can reason with the perpetrators; violence, and sexually related crimes are by definition, crimes of passion, they emminate not from the head, but some perversion of the heart. The best we can do is have laws against both sets of crimes that attempt to prevent them (and we do), but probably mostly laws simply remove the perpetrators from society for a while, before they are released unreformed.

Take for example the recent incident of an attack on a man in a pub, who was brutally bashed - there is no rationality here, even the laws have no deterrent effect, and it seems no amount of education and campaigning against violence is going to prevent such people from doing what they do, if their evil inclinations suddenly take hold of them.

So what can be done? It is not as though any of these problems are new, they appear in films and also literature going back centuries (eg: the factory supervisor in Les Miserables tries to sexually exploit women workers). These are not just modern issues, but timeless human issues. The problem I suspect is much deeper and needs much more work than an awareness campaign like #metoo - not to say that awareness does not have its place. Perhaps it comes down to how we are raising children as parents and a community; perhaps - in part - it comes from the institutions we put them through (i.e schools, clubs, etc) and the influences they are exposed to (eg: online pornography etc). Whatever the causes, it appears that many people are coming into adulthood damaged in some way. If we are serious about addressing our social problems, I personally feel that this is where we need to look and that the problem is far too deep and complex to be solved with a hashtag campaign and victim's stories, rather it seems a solution will require much work by both women and men, working together as a united and caring community.

Hoddle Street is a very long road in Melbourne, Victoria. Congestion in Melbourne is reaching ludicrous and unforgivable proportions. The treelined part of Hoddle Street is apparently being sacrificed without public consultation for the no-win race of government-engineered population growth.

Ian Hundley, of Protectors of Public Lands,Victoria took these photos yesterday of the before an after tree removal for lane widening in Hoddle street Melbourne. He wrote:

"I checked out the Hoddle Street capacity road works today. See photos taken from the Vere Steet footbridge (near Collingwood Town Hall) to the south which shows trees retained and to the north which shows where trees have been removed from the median. Also one of the signs which declares this is a project to connect communities. We must try to contain the mirth on that one - if they pull it off it will be the first traffic sewer to have brought communities together."

The sign Ian refers to reads, "Streamlining Hoddle Street-Connecting our communities." How completely facile! It must have been coined on a morning tea break without realisation that "streamlining " in this case means de-tree lining!

All this destruction is to help accommodate the additional 100,000 cars each year in Melbourne. The only way to widen a long established street like Hoddle Street is to either knock down houses and appropriate land or remove anything not absolutely necessary, that won't cost the government money, and for which the voices of complaint, from the avian inhabitants and the long-suffering public will not be heard.

I did not hear any public announcement of the removal of these trees. They are just gone. What difference will the additional traffic and the absence of the trees make in the immediate area to the noise levels and the temperature? So much of the local environment in Melbourne is being ripped apart to make way for population growth that if residents can't mitigate any of the damage it will just lead to feelings of hopelessness and despair. This plays into the hands of the growth manic state government and the various lobby groups feeding from growth.

Jill Quirk is the Secretary for Protectors of Public Lands, Victoria and was the long-time president of the SPAVICTas Branch of Sustainable Population Australia.

Leading real estate rent-seeker, the Property Council of Australia (PCA), is pushing for another idiotic policy “solution” to fix Australia’s housing affordability woes: offering a government-backed low deposit home loan scheme.

From The Australian:

"A government-backed low-­deposit home loan scheme could help address housing affordability by getting more buyers into the market and adding to the housing stock, according to the Property Council of Australia…

The PCA highlighted the Keystart program in Western Australia, where buyers can purchase a home with a 2 per cent deposit in Perth and up to 7 per cent in regional areas without paying lender’s mortgage insurance…

PCA chief of policy Glenn Byres said the program had been “useful in helping to drive supply” and had helped buyers who would otherwise be locked out.

“The big challenge right now is the deposit gap and people having to save sufficiently to meet the deposit requirements of ­lenders,” Mr Byres told The Australian…

BIS Oxford Economics senior manager for residential property Angie Zigomanis said any rollout of such a scheme might encourage some borrowers to buy better properties than they could otherwise afford, which could drive up prices for more affordable homes…

Digital Finance Analytics principal Martin North… echoed concerns about pressure on pricing, saying that when similar programs had been introduced around the world “it tends to lift property prices higher”.

Earth to PCA: you don’t “fix” housing affordability by sucking sub-prime buyers into the market and raising demand. You fix it by implementing policies that lower demand and boost supply. You know, things like:

• Normalising Australia’s immigration program by returning the permanent intake back to the level that existed before John Howard ramped-up it up in the early-2000s – i.e. below 100,000 from over 200,000 currently [reduces demand];
• Undertaking tax reforms like unwinding negative gearing and the CGT discount [reduces speculative demand];
• Tightening rules and enforcement on foreign ownership [reduces foreign demand];
• Extending anti-money laundering rules to real estate gatekeepers [reduces foreign demand]; and
• Providing the states with incentive payments to:
• undertake land-use and planning reforms, as well as provide housing-related infrastructure [boosts supply];
• swap stamp duties for land taxes [boosts effective supply]; and
• reform rental tenancy laws to give greater security of tenure [reduces demand for home ownership and reduces rental turnover].

As usual, the PCA is using the fig leaf of “housing affordability” to lobby for government subsidies to the housing sector. This shameless self-interest should be resisted on all fronts.

[email protected]

Article first published by Unconventional Economist in Australian Property at 8:33 am on January 12, 2018 by Leith van Onselen at https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/01/another-idiotic-housing-affordability-solution-emerges/

St Kilda Road and Hoddle Street widening to accommodate larger volumes of road traffic in Melbourne means bulldozing hundreds of beautiful, mature trees, cultivated in a time when people appreciated the importance of natural shade and beauty. This vandalism is caused by willful promotion of overpopulation by the Victorian State government. Furtively supported by an equally venal Opposition, invited economic mass immigration-caused population growth marches on like an invasion preceded by bulldozers, jack hammers and all manner of violence towards our environment and display of might by state governments. Australia grew by over half a million people between July 2016 and July 2017, although natural increase actually declined, almost certainly due to rising costs affecting Australia's fertility opportunity.[1]

Swamped by the numbers

Excuse me, but it seems that Pauline Hanson was right, at least on the numbers: We are being 'swamped' - at a rate of Overseas immigrants 63.0 : Australian citizens and residents 36.8 - by the numbers - wherever they come from. These latest growth figures were due 63% to overseas immigration; only 36.8% from natural increase between July 2016 and July 2017. (See the latest ABS graph and details below.) It doesn't matter where they come from; the point is that accommodating these numbers is overwhelming our native animal habitat, our infrastructure, our social organisation, our legal and planning system (which is changing to remove public consultation over expansion and which simply does not enforce wildlife protection laws) and our democracy - because government is more interested in feathering the pockets of the growth lobby than serving the electorate, keeping housing prices down, providing education to young people and helping local business.

We are also being swamped by hype

The cause of the growth is Australian state governments' constant invitations to overseas immigrants to come and settle here, greatly magnified by internet reach since the late 1990s. Immigration marketing is typified by the illustration we have labelled "Immigration Hype", which depicts a young couple with a baby in a leafy suburb. The reality, of course, is that both young couples with babies and leafy suburbs are declining - due to incredibly high rates of immigration. Although population growth is the number one subject on radio, TV and print media, it is promoted slickly as 'vibrant', 'booming', 'bonanza', 'housing investment opportunity', and the constant citizen and resident protests [See /taxonomy/term/582 and /taxonomy/term/1193] are hardly ever even reported outside https://candobetter.net, thus many Australians feel alone in the midst of this onslaught.

Our governments don't listen to us, but they have even stopped talking normally to us. Instead they repetitively sloganize us about how 'livable' our cities are, like crass advertisers, backed solidly by the growth lobby mouthpiece of the mainstream press and the ABC. The latest boast that they are making is that Australia's population growth will move our economy up to 11th largest economy in the world. It's about as impressive as listening to teenagers boast about how much they can drink; we know it's going to end in a mess.

Plummeting standards of living and quality of life and environment

Our standards of living and quality of life are all plummeting, so we can only fear the future that our unrepresentative governments are socially engineering us towards. We have been a net-importer of petroleum for years. Our land is 30% hot desert and 40% non-arable rangeland. Our major inland river basin has been in ecological strife for more than a century and we are told that climate change will reduce rainfall. We face life-threatening increases in temperature and we are expanding into bigger and bigger heat-islands, called cities. Our non-consensual population increase policy will turn this land into a Mars. This land was wrested from a population that inhabited it sustainably for 60,000 years! And this is progress? Not!

Australians wary of having children in view of such poor economic outlook

Whilst immigration rates have gone up yet again, over the July 2016-2017 period, Australia's natural increase has actually declined. This decline can be explained by Virginia Abernethy's theory of the Fertility Opportunity,[1] where people see that the future looks dim, so they choose not to have children. This is surely the feeling young people must have as immigrants crowd in by the hundreds of thousands in an economic environment of ongoing deterioration in an already declining quality and standard of living for all but a tiny elite. See http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/living-standards-in-decline-as-real-wage-growth-stagnates/news-story/a95f1b82064fd39e919deec3fd0a9a91

International comparison chart from the Australian Bureau of Statistics

For the 12 months ended 30 June 2017, Australia's population growth rate of 1.6% was above that of the world at 1.1%. Australia is growing at a faster rate than every selected country except for Papua New Guinea (2.1%). The Philippines and Singapore were the next fastest growing countries (both at 1.5%) followed by Malaysia (1.4%) and South Africa (1.3%).

According to figures from the United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs, Australia's population ranked 53rd highest in the world in 2017 and is projected to rank 56th by 2050. By 2050, India is projected to have displaced China as the most populous country with 1.7 billion people compared with 1.4 billion in China.

POPULATION, GROWTH RATE AND RANK (a)(b), Summary
	ESTIMATED RESIDENT POPULATION			PROJECTED POPULATION	RANK
	2016	2017	Growth Rate	2050	2017	2050
Selected Countries	million	million	%	million	no.	no.
Australia	24	25	1.6	38	53	56
Canada	36	37	0.9	45	38	46
China (excl. SARs and Taiwan)	1 404	1 410	0.4	1 364	1	2
France	65	65	0.4	71	22	28
Greece	11	11	-0.2	10	82	98
Hong Kong (SAR of China)	7	7	0.8	8	104	111
India	1 324	1 339	1.1	1 659	2	1
Indonesia	261	264	1.1	322	4	5
Italy	59	59	-0.1	55	23	36
Japan	128	127	-0.2	109	11	17
Korea (South)	51	51	0.4	50	27	41
Malaysia	32	32	1.4	42	45	50
New Zealand	5	5	1.0	6	125	126
Papua New Guinea	8	8	2.1	14	101	86
Philippines	103	105	1.5	151	13	13
Singapore	6	6	1.5	7	115	120
South Africa	56	57	1.3	73	25	27
Sweden	10	10	0.7	12	89	93
United Kingdom	66	66	0.6	75	21	26
United States of America	322	324	0.7	390	3	4
Viet Nam	95	96	1.0	115	15	16
World	7 467	7 550	1.1	9 772	. .	. .
. . not applicable
(a) Selected countries include major OECD countries, the world's most populous countries, Australia's closest neighbours and trading partners.
(b) Selected country and world estimates and projections for 2016/2017 and 2050 are from United Nations World Population Prospects: The 2017 Revision (medium variant projections).
Source: Australian estimates - this issue of Australian Demographic Statistics (cat. no. 3101.0); Australian projections; Series B in Population Projections, Australia, 2012 (base) to 2101 (cat. no. 3222.0). Selected country and world estimates and projections - United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2017). World Population Prospects: the 2017 Revision, custom data acquired via website (medium variant projections).

Your reference for the graphs and quotations from the Australian Bureau of Statistics is: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/Latestproducts/3101.0Main%20Features2Jun%202017?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3101.0&issue=Jun%202017&num=&view=: Annual Population Change, Year ending 30 June 2017.

NOTES

The Fertility Opportunity Theory: "The causal relationship between perceived opportunity and desired family size is described as the fertility opportunity hypothesis. The fertility opportunity hypothesis accounts for either rising or falling fertility rates.

Absolute level of poverty or affluence is not the primary factor driving decisions and action. Motivation derives from perception. Perceptions arise relative to past experiences or by comparison with a reference group. Thus, the fertility opportunity hypothesis applies in hunter-gatherer societies, agrarian societies, and both developing and industrialized countries. The belief that resources are ample, or not, develops against a specific society’s baseline expectations.

Whereas some demographers still write as though modernization and prosperity are necessary preconditions for smaller family size, the fertility opportunity hypothesis documents a nearly opposite dynamic. People in all types of societies work to limit births when they perceive that resources are shrinking, margins are smaller, and competition has stiffened." Cited from Virginia Abernethy, "Fossil Fuel Energy and Fertility Rates," Vanderbilt University, 2004. https://media.eurekalert.org/aaasnewsroom/2004/2Abernethy-FossilFuel-Paper.doc

(Article by Sally Pepper.) On New Year's Day, January 1st 2018, as I surfaced around 10.00 a.m, I heard on the news that power prices and tolls on roads around Melbourne will both increase and, that this year many Victorians will experience additional economic hardship. My immediate defensive thought was, "Well I don't use tollroads and I guess I can be more frugal with my use of gas and electricity."

But on reflection, this is, in a way, beside the point. Such thinking does not ward off forever the effects of these increases. Many people rely on toll roads to get to work each day. The fact that I don't use them only puts me at a slight advantage to those who need to use them. It is not in any way to my benefit though that other people are being disadvantaged in their daily struggle to feed their families and pay the mortgage. It is also beside the point as these increases are,unfortunately, only part of a progression. Tolls will go on increasing, as will power prices. Beside this, there will be more toll roads until I won't be able to avoid them. I also will be caught in their web. I can delay the impact but I can't avoid it.

Where are we headed? Not only I will be caught but so will many others who hitherto have felt untouched by the imposed hardships on those less fortunate. There will be a cascade of those affected. The tentacles of the owners of toll roads and power companies will eventually have most of us in their grip. After all, this is all about maintaining that ratio of the 1% as opposed to the 99% . Remember the "Occupy Movement"?

Precipice complacency

Many people I know count themselves lucky, comparing themselves with those who are not as well off. They do not see themselves as affected by the rising inequality in Australia. This "glass half full" attitude is so much more socially approved of than mine, which compares my lot with both what it used to be and also what it could have been were it not for the 1%. To me "glass half full" attitude is a sort of misplaced Pollianna-ism and given what I believe from the trend I observe it is really a sort of "precipice complacency."

It seems that all will be taken from those who don't own the means to extract from the majority. Those about to lose are those who now feel secure, even somewhat wealthy: those with superannuation, who have finally paid off their houses and look forward to a carefree retirement. Neither will things get easier for their overworked adult children, in turn trying give their children the best start they can in life. They all appear unaware, unsuspecting, that things will be taken from them by the system that once gave to them. In one lifetime - theirs - the "accumulation phase" will be over and the outgoings will be larger than the income. Most of us will be financially and time stressed. Our children will be hungry for work. Or just hungry.

Our society is as a collection of frogs being slowly warmed to boiling point by a few big frogs who've got control of the frypan. We had better take the pan off them before the bubbles start to rise.

These are photos of horses on a property on Moorooduc Hwy, Mt Eliza, in Victoria, Australia. People have expressed concern at the condition of these horses, which looks dire, and the paddock, where there appears to be no grass at all - only dirt. One horse photographed has gross leg deformities, although this could be a birth defect. The person who took the photos says that the RSPCA has informed them that they are working with the owners. The photographer has expressed alarm at how long this is taking and fears that the delay will doom these horses. Barrie Tapp of Animal Cruelty Hotline has passed this information on to candobetter.net because it needs public attention. Please let your local member of parliament know. Animal cruelty hotline is Freecall 1800751770

Inspector Tapp writes, "And these are registered thoroughbred broodmares! We at Animal Cruelty Hotline reported this to Racing Victoria Ltd and was told 'it was being monitored' but later, when I questioned them further, they told me the owner was 'deregistered'."

It then became the responsibility of the RSPCA.

Mr Tapp adds, "I have vented my disgust and opinion of the condition of these horses and informed RSPCA that, 'just because they have a bale of hay thrown out it MUST be proper and sufficient feed not just a maintenance diet as these horses are too far gone and in my opinion they must be removed to better conditions.' RSPCA told me that some were on a body score of 2. I say rubbish emaciated body score of 0. And to say that they are 'working with the owners' is also rubbish. If that’s the case then it is not working at all as this has been reported many times and still the horses have NOT improved.

Hooray, hooray, it's New Year's Day
wish we could go out and play
but every place we want to go,
is packed with cars, it's such a blow!
100 thousand more each year
makes it very, very hard to steer
and all those bikes an extra trouble
I'd rather live inside a bubble.

Police patrolled the city centre
In case of evil wishing to enter
The crowds were there to see the sight
Of fireworks both big and bright
Their lives are mostly dull and drab
They'll drink too much then catch a cab
They hope that at the stroke of twelve
Their lives will change and their very selves.

The New's Year's "magic" in the sky,
Might weave a spell and bye and bye
A change will come to lives hum drum,
A freedom that will not come undone,
So dreams from childhood will recur,
And cause a thrilling, hopeful stir,
That motivates and brings a change
To not submit, but to re- arrange

A new approach to reducing bulging tummy fats has shown promise in laboratory trials. It combines a new way to deliver drugs, via a micro-needle patch, with drugs that are known to turn energy-storing white fat into energy-burning brown fat. This innovative approach developed by scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) reduced weight gain in mice on a high fat diet and their fat mass by more than 30 per cent over four weeks. This is good news for fat mice, but fat humans will need to wait until human trials start.

NR Banner - Prof Chen Peng (left) holding the drug-laden microneedle fat burning patch with Asst Prof Xu Chenjie - Copy.JPG

A new approach to reducing bulging tummy fats has shown promise in laboratory trials.

This article reports on the following scientific report: Aung Than, Ke Liang, Shaohai Xu, Lei Sun, Hongwei Duan, Fengna Xi, Chenjie Xu, Peng Chen. Transdermal Delivery of Anti-Obesity Compounds to Subcutaneous Adipose Tissue with Polymeric Microneedle Patches. Small Methods, 2017; 1 (11): 1700269 DOI: 10.1002/smtd.201700269 to be found at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smtd.201700269/abstract.

"Excess white adipose tissue (WAT), or obesity, is the leading cause of many diseases. Combating obesity is, however, challenging due to the fact that laboratory-proven anti-obesity compounds lose effectiveness or/and cause severe side-effects while being delivered via conventional routes. Here, a new strategy is reported using disposable transdermal patches equipped with detachable polymeric microneedle (MN) arrays for painless and bloodless drug delivery to subcutaneous WAT. In contrast to the current methods to reduce energy intake, MN-patches are used to deliver anti-obesity compounds to increase energy expenditure by transforming calorie-storing white fat into calorie-burning brown fat. Specifically, prominent WAT browning and reduction effects are demonstrated by β3-adrenoceptor agonist and thyroid hormone T3 transdermally delivered from rapidly dissolving MNs on mice. Furthermore, using a diet-induced obese mouse model, it is shown that β3-adrenoceptor agonist released by slowly dissolving MNs can effectively promote WAT browning and suppress gaining of body fat and weight, without the need of daily administration. Such an MN approach can achieve a much lower effective dose as compared to systemic administration and enables long-term home-based treatment."

The new type of skin patch contains hundreds of micro-needles, each thinner than a human hair, which are loaded with the drug Beta-3 adrenergic receptor agonist or another drug called thyroid hormone T3 triiodothyronine.

When the patch is pressed into the skin for about two minutes, these micro-needles become embedded in the skin and detach from the patch, which can then be removed.

As the needles degrade, the drug molecules then slowly diffuse to the energy-storing white fat underneath the skin layer, turning them into energy-burning brown fats.

Brown fats are found in babies and they help to keep the baby warm by burning energy. As humans grow older, the amount of brown fats lessens and is replaced with visceral white fats.

Published in the journal Small Methods recently by NTU Professor Chen Peng and Assistant Professor Xu Chenjie, this approach could help to address the worldwide obesity problem without resorting to surgical operations or oral medication which could require large dosages and could have serious side effects.

“With the embedded microneedles in the skin of the mice, the surrounding fats started browning in five days, which helped to increase the energy expenditure of the mice, leading to a reduction in body fat gain,” said Asst Prof Xu, who focuses on research in drug delivery systems.

“The amount of drugs we used in the patch is much less than those used in oral medication or an injected dose. This lowers the drug ingredient costs while our slow-release design minimises its side effects,” said Asst Prof Xu.

Obesity which results from an excessive accumulation of fat is a major health risk factor for various diseases, including heart disease, stroke and type-2 diabetes. The World Health Organisation estimates that 1.9 billion adults in the world are overweight in 2016 with 650 million of them being obese.

“What we aim to develop is a painless patch that everyone could use easily, is unobtrusive and yet affordable,” said Prof Chen, a biotechnology expert who researches on obesity. “Most importantly, our solution aims to use a person’s own body fats to burn more energy, which is a natural process in babies.”

Under the two scientists’ guidance at NTU’s School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, research fellow Dr Aung Than conducted experiments which showed that the patch could suppress weight gain in mice that were fed a high fat diet and reduce their fat mass by over 30 per cent, over a period of four weeks.

The treated mice also had significantly lower blood cholesterol and fatty acids levels compared to the untreated mice.

Being able to deliver the drug directly to the site of action is a major reason why it is less likely to have side effects than orally delivered medication.

The team estimates that their prototype patch had a material cost of about S$5 (US$3.50) to make, which contains beta-3 adrenergic receptor agonist combined with Hyaluronic acid, a substance naturally found in the human body and commonly used in products like skin moisturisers.

Beta-3 adrenergic receptor agonist is a drug approved by the Federal Drug Administration of the United States and is used to treat overactive bladders, while T3 triiodothyronine is a thyroid hormone commonly used for medication for an underactive thyroid gland.

Both have been shown in other research studies to be able to turn white fats brown, but their use in reducing weight gain is hampered by potentially serious side-effects and drug accumulation in non-targeted tissues if conventional drug delivery routes were used, such as through oral intake.

NTU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine Associate Professor Melvin Leow, who was not affiliated with this study, said it is exciting to be able to tackle obesity via the browning of white fat, and the results were promising.

“These data should encourage Phase I Clinical studies in humans to translate these basic science findings to the bedside, with the hope that these microneedle patches may be developed into an established cost-effective modality for the prevention or treatment of obesity in the near future,” added Assoc Prof Leow, an endocrinologist.

Since the publication of the paper, the team has received keen interest from biotechnology companies and is looking to partner clinician scientists to further their research.

Source: From a press release dated
Published on: 28-Dec-2017 and issued by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Luci Ellis, Assistant Governor of the Reserve Bank (Economic), is very pro immigration. Some have wondered whether she may be making the running on this question behind the scenes more than is Philip Lowe, the Governor. Recent migrants may be somewhat more likely to hold degree-level qualifications than locals but this does not mean that their professional qualifications are well suited to the Australian labour market. (We should also ask ourselves, what is it about the Australian education system that makes Australians less likely than some immigrant streams to hold degree-level qualifications?)

She bases her position on migrants being younger on average than locals and better qualified than locals. See https://www.rba..gov.au/speeches/2017/sp-ag-2017-11-15.html

In recent years migrants may, overall, be more likely to hold degree-level qualifications than locals but this does not mean that they have professional qualifications that are well suited to the Australian labour market.

See Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy, "The Impact of Recent Immigration on the Australian Workforce," Centre for Population and Urban Research, Monash University, Melbourne, February 2013 (especially pp. 10-11). This is online at https://tapri.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/birrell-healy-feb-2013.pdf.

They find that of Australian-born graduates aged 25-34 at the 2011 census, 11% had managerial positions, 58% had professional positions and 9% were not employed. (The remainder were spread across a number of other occupations including sales, drivers, labourers etc.)

Of English-speaking background-born (ESB) graduates aged 25-34 who had arrived between 2006 and 2011, 12% had managerial positions, 53% professional positions and 12% were not employed. So they were able to use their skills almost as readily as the Australian-born graduates.

But of non-English-speaking background-born (NESB) graduates aged 25-34 who had arrived between 2006 and 2011, only 4% had managerial positions, 26% had professional positions and 31% were not employed. The remainder were spread across a range of occupations including sales, drivers, labourers etc.

And NESB-born people dominate the migrant intake. For example, of the total of 201,926 overseas–born graduates aged 25-34 in 2011, and who had arrived between 2006 and 2011, 79% were NESB-born.

Thus bringing in people with paper qualifications does not necessarily mean that they are readily employable in highly skilled jobs. Whatever the source of their bias on the matter, perhaps the RBA should look at the data a little more closely.

Australian Dick Smith, techie, environmentalist who founded National Geographic, and millionaire, has recently attempted to educate Australians about the wealthy population growth lobby in their country, which benefits from Australia's rapid immigration-fueled population growth whilst the rest of us pay the cost. To do this, he has run his own expensive campaing, including taking out expensive ads in newspapers. Among other things, Smith has decribed Australia's public media, the ABC, as biased in its failure to fairly report the costs of population growth. We on candobetter.net cannot help but be impressed at his community spirit. Are Dick Smith’s ads having an effect on population reporting further afield? Maybe. Here's an example of what we hope may be a new trend in truthful reporting on the matter by the ABC.

Usual ABC ideology

As everyone knows, migrants don’t take jobs they make jobs. Migrants provide employers with welcome additional labour, but somehow the usual laws of supply and demand do not apply here.

This increased supply of labour never reduces the value of labour. It never harms the negotiating position of workers seeking better wages and conditions, or their chance of getting a job. Only a nasty rather “racist” person could doubt these self-evident truths, which seem to be well known to all ABC journalists—or maybe it is simply a well known fact that you won’t survive in the ABC news area if you question these assumptions. Yet perhaps some of the ABC’s business reporters are getting tired of keeping up this pretence.

Is a chink of light creeping by the ABC censors after all?

On 22 December 2017 the ABC’s business reporter Carrington Clarke nonchalantly filed a piece titled, Australian wages stall, as immigration soars.

How can such heresy be allowed?

According to Clarke, the 1,000 extra people being added to our population every day doesn't necessarily make life any better for the people who live in the country and arguably, makes it a lot worse.

This are more people competing for jobs and housing, pushing down wages and pushing up property prices. Australia's population growth is extraordinarily high when compared to our global peers, at 1.6 per cent per year. This is more than double the rate of the US, nearly three times the rate of the UK, and four times the rate of France.
On current projections, Australia will hit 38 million people by 2050.

This high rate of population growth is driven mostly by high immigration. Net migration was 245,400 people over the past 12 months — which was a 27.1 per cent increase over the year before.
That's more than the total population of Hobart in new migrants coming to the country in a single year.

Huge supply of imported workers add to Australia's high unemployment rate

This is also a huge additional supply of workers (although a proportion would be children or the elderly). The simple economic rule of supply and demand means these new workers effectively lower the price of labour, which means lower wages.

(On that last statement, see Clarke’s article 2 days earlier http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-19/high-immigration-masks-australian-economic-decline/8193628 with its subsections “Population growth distorting housing, labour markets”, and “Bigger pie, but more mouths eating from it”. Clarke quotes “Gareth Aird, Senior Economist at the Commonwealth Bank” saying “if you had a lower immigration rate at a time where there is spare capacity in the labour market that's not a bad thing.” Clarke concludes:

"The reason why many people feel that they haven't benefitted from the Australia's long stretch of economic expansion, is quite simply because they haven't. Their pay packets haven't gotten bigger while the costs of essential goods like shelter have risen. High migration makes it nearly impossible for Australia to fall into recession. The economy keeps getting bigger just because there are more people operating in it. It's great for business, because it keeps wages low and there's more people to buy stuff from them. It's great for governments because it means economic growth looks better than it otherwise would. But it isn't necessarily good for ordinary workers."

Now back to Clarke’s 22/12/2017 article. He continues:

"Australia is not currently anywhere near full employment. At 5.4 per cent unemployment, Australia is well above the US which is sitting at 4.1 per cent and the UK at 4.2 per cent.
There are currently 707,000 unemployed Australians. These are people currently looking for work. But that's only part of the story as there are currently about 1.1 million Australians who are 'underemployed'. These are people who are currently working (perhaps as little as one hour a week) but want to work more hours. So the number of Australians currently looking for more work is 1.8 million.

There is still a huge amount of 'slack' in the labour market which is keeping people from getting a decent pay rise. Companies are much less likely to offer big pay rises to workers if they know there's a big supply of other workers who are desperate for a job or more hours. . . . [The resulting ] economic 'growth' hasn't made a sizeable difference to the amount of Australians unemployed and has left us with the worst wages growth since the 1960s.

Companies are benefiting from this huge increase in workers and consumers. New migrants buy more things, which helps keep the tills ringing. And new migrants also mean more potential workers, which keeps wages down. This can be seen in the most recent profit figures, with companies experiencing a 27 per cent increase in profits in a year while workers received less than 2 per cent in wage increases. With 1.8 million people out of work or looking for more hours and 250,000 new migrants moving to the country each year, there's very little incentive for bosses to give workers a big rise.

Which is why, despite '1,000 new jobs a day', workers are getting a raw deal."

Every day, ordinary men and women, climb into the driver’s seat of machines capable of high speeds where a collision with each other, an obstacle, or a living thing, can cause serious injury or death. These people, when they start their engines, could be feeling calm, stressed, angry, sad, or confused. The extent of these feelings may or may not be sufficient to impair their ability to drive safely to their destination. Even if their feelings are sufficient to affect their driving, most times they will be lucky enough not to encounter any problem and will live to drive another day. The same applies to the extent to which they may be under the influence of alcohol or drugs. The viability of our cities, commerce, societies, relies on the trust that people behind the steering wheels of motor vehicles will behave themselves, will not endanger others, and they that they will not use the full potential of the engines they control.

With the best of intentions there will still be collisions most of which we term “accidents”. Most people do not want to incur damage to their vehicles do not want to be injured, themselves and do not want to injure others. In the best of all possible worlds we respect and value our fellow citizens and their property. We are not used to thinking in terms of our fellow citizens being in charge of a weapon that could be used to do us deliberate harm. As long as I have lived in Melbourne we have trusted that, although moving cars can kill us, that they will not be deliberately aimed towards us.

What social capital was it that we had and hopefully still to an extent remains that gave us the complete confidence to know that we could trust our fellow citizens to stop at pedestrian crossings to let us cross the road , that the cars on the road would not suddenly steer towards the footpath?

It is clear that the powers that be believe that things have changed as they are not treating the two episodes in one year of deliberate carnage in the centre of Melbourne as chance or one-off events. Their immediate response after the January event to was to install bollards. An expert on the ABC in recent days suggested raised footpaths at the first floor level as in Hong Kong. Another suggestion was to ban cars in the CBD of Melbourne. Obviously more of this is expected.

So what is it that has brought about this change in the level of alert in Melbourne, a level which takes the city from the comfortable and ordinary to being some sort of target?

Firstly let’s look at Melbourne as part of the country in which it is situated - Australia. Melbourne has had two bad events in one year - 2017. In Sydney a man held people hostage in the Lindt Café in 2014. As a result, three people died,including the perpetrator. So Melbourne is are not alone.

Comparing the Melbourne of 2017 to the Melbourne of 1987 - 30 years ago - what is different?

In 1988 we had emerged from the war in Vietnam, which had resulted in a wave of refugees from that country. There was a procedure for settling new arrivals: They were provided with hostel accommodation and free English classes on arrival. Australia’s population was then sixteen and a half million (16.5m). Corporatization and deregulation of the economy had not really taken hold. Jobs were fairly secure. In that year Prime Minister Bob Hawke gave his famous speech, swearing that, “By 1990, no child will live in poverty.” 1987 was the year the film Wall Street was released with its famous speech, "Greed is good.” In Melbourne you could still buy a decent house within striking distance of the city for under $100,000.

Fast forward to 2017: Australia has been at war in the Middle East, against Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Our governments have developed draconian policies and practices regarding the fallout from these ongoing conflicts, the most famous being the way we deal with asylum-seekers who try to arrive by boat. Any policy attempted has proven extremely divisive within our society.

The treatment of refugees selected from camps and settled in Australia has deteriorated. They do not receive the attention and care afforded the Vietnamese and others arriving in Australia in the 1980s. They are thrust into Australia's cut-throat job, housing and rental market with little preparation, although some of them come from quite different cultures or have grown up in the dog-eat-dog world of international refugee camps.

Australia’s population today in 2017 is teetering towards 25 million. That is 9.5m more than in 1987 and this additional population is being squeezed mainly into the two largest cities in Australia: Melbourne and Sydney.

Many government authorities have been corporatized or privatized, leaving people at the mercy of corporate greed and the profit imperative. Bob Hawke’s 'promise' that no child will live in poverty now looks just ridiculous, with ever increasing polarization of wealth in Australia. Job security has vanished and home-buyers are now expected to gamble on the unforeseeable, borrowing to buy a house but with no guarantees that they will be able to hold on to it.

Demand, supply and finances are now at a crisis point, and Australians are being urged to lower their expectations to aiming for a long-term rental apartment. The ultimate evidence of the housing crisis can be seen in Melbourne CBD and suburban streets with people, young and old, sitting on the pavements begging, holding cardboard notices that they are trying to collect enough money for a night’s accommodation. To buy a house within range of the CBD where you might work will set you back $1 million at least.

These are just some of the differences in our society that have come about over the last 30 years. Conditions have deteriorated and problems have become intractable: symptoms of what appears to be a systemic malaise.

Mental health issues have been mentioned in both car rampage instances and this is another area which does not cope as well as it used to. It is a system that operates from crisis to crisis against a background of housing and job insecurity. The states have sold off to private property developers the green, treed, public estates that were once reserved for the mentally ill. People with psychiatric problems are now given short-term beds in crowded add-ons to public general hospitals, with views of endless carparks, impermanent staff too busy to talk to them, and a 'therapeutic' drug regime with awful side-effects. If their problem involves drugs and alcohol, most will only receive short-term dry-outs and respite, before being plunged back into the poor-man's alternative world of ICE, burglaries, alcohol, prostitution and violence.

Refugees and other immigrants from the Middle East must today wonder how they can respect a country that supports continuous violent racist intervention overseas, whilst preaching multiculturalism at home.

Which of these aspects of our society explains the very different situation in which we now find ourselves? Maybe there are others I have not mentioned , but as a machine, our society is running poorly. Where there is the greatest stress, things will break down and people will be hurt - badly.

Our leaders need to look far more deeply into the Australia they are in the process of engineering, deliberately decreasing grass-roots input. Bollards, car-less areas in the city, and raised footpaths, just will not cut it, in my opinion. The problem will simply emerge anywhere else that it can, like a liquid under pressure. The time has come to reinvest in some social capital and to take advice from the whole community. Our politicians are simply not qualified or competent to operate without proper advice – and it shows.

"The proposed “Smart Planning” must not proceed in its current form. The Group does not support fast tracking development, weakening permit or planning triggers or referral requirements, or permit exemptions, or the removal of appeal rights." Inside find Port Campbell Community Group Inc's submission to the Victorian Planning Provisions Discussion Paper.

Port Campbell Community Group Inc. A0051688U
Submission to DELWP’s “Smart Planning” November 2017

In the interests of balancing the present and future interests of all Victorians (g) that “Smart Planning’s” so-called “Key Benefits” must better align with the P&E Act’s Objectives which requires all development (f) to foremost meet (a), (b), (c) and (d):
(a) to provide for the fair, orderly, economic and sustainable use, and development of land;
(b) to provide for the protection of natural and man-made resources and the maintenance of ecological processes and genetic diversity;
(c) to secure a pleasant, efficient and safe working, living and recreational environment for all Victorians and visitors to Victoria;
(d) to conserve and enhance those buildings, areas or other places which are of scientific, aesthetic, architectural or historical interest, or otherwise of special cultural value;
(e) to protect public utilities and other assets and enable the orderly provision and co‑ordination of public utilities and other facilities for the benefit of the community;
(f) to facilitate development in accordance with the objectives set out in paragraphs (a), (b), (c), (d) and (e);
(g) to balance the present and future interests of all Victorians.

Community Expertise

Community members and groups are crucial for their local knowledge and expertise which, if listened to, would save the State and public millions of dollars in wasted time and energy considering flawed planning proposals.
The Group has taken part in in many planning consultations – see Appendix A.

Four instances of poor planning decisions are listed below, some current:

The Southern Ocean Beach House
A major motel, retail development and excavation within meters of major caverns on Port Campbell’s fragile limestone headland cliffs.
The University of New South Wales Law Journal published a special edition on ‘Rethinking Climate Change and the Law’. A history of the Port Campbell Southern Ocean Beach House saga is part of this edition. It was launched by the Honourable Justice Brian Preston, Chief Judge of the NSW Land and Environment Court. An important part of the articles is an emphasis on community expertise and involvement in decision-making. See article attached and at: https://www.unswlawjournal.unsw.edu.au/.

The Shipwreck Coast Master Plan
There was extensive community consultation, but it seems the community was not heard. The proposed projected viewing platform at the 12 Apostles appears to be high risk. It is situated above an area where there has been a major recent cliff collapse – image below. Local knowledge, and geotechnical knowledge, would say this is high risk. This is just one of the problems with the Shipwreck Coast Master Plan, because community expertise has been ignored.

12 Apostles Cliff collapse August 2011

Montarosa proposal on Princetown Flood Plain
We must ask why this proposal was permitted by Council, as the risks are obvious. We must also ask why the proposal received a $650,000 federal government grant; State Government appears to have encouraged Corangamite Shire Council to approve the development.

The proposal is an 18 room residential ‘eco’-lodge, 20 cabins elevated on stilts, a restaurant, café, shop, briefing facilities, office, function rooms, 2 swimming pools/day spa, lookout tower, cycling and walking trails, boardwalks, a boat shed and jetty pontoon/boat ramp for pleasure activities. There is an estimated 278 car parks, 5 bus parks, and 480 visitors. Council notes the development will require Crown Land “to create road access and walking tracks”.

The flood plain presents an unacceptable risk to the low-lying development, and the development presents an unacceptable risk to a non-resilient, fragile estuary environment which contains endangered and threatened species including Latham’s Snipe, Australasian Bitten, Southern Brown Bandicoot and Australian Grayling. The site adjoins the Great Otway National Park.

There will be major road and earthworks. Council notes that the 1 km long flood prone access road must be widened and raised to 2.1 metres AHD, but raising the road will create a barrier directing flood waters elsewhere which is unlikely to be resolved by culverts. The single-lane access bridge will need to be upgraded. Council notes: “The site is susceptible to flooding. The proposed buildings are located just outside or on the fringe of the 1% AEP floodplain. The finished floor levels of all buildings will be required to be no lower than 3.5 metres AHD which the application details will be achieved by placing buildings on stumps…”
The Great Ocean Road Region Landscape Assessment Study lists the area as of State significance with a landscape objective: “To protect the valley floor from development” and “Potential Threats: Development on valley floor (unlikely)”, recognising it is unlikely a development would be put on the flood plain. The Victorian Coastal Strategy states to avoid development in low lying areas. Part of the area has an Environmental Significance Overlay “for the protection of watercourses, water bodies, and wetlands”.

There are serious concerns regarding the leeching potential of the sewer and waste water system and potential for catastrophe in floods. The submission recognises the likely presence of acid sulphate soil.

Ten sites were rezoned on the Corangamite Shire coast for large tourism projects. None of these sites have been developed as yet, and none would have these risks.

Decision-makers must take into account the effects of climate change and the precautionary principle: the combined effects of rising seas, storm surge, extreme rainfall events, and flooding. But now the community has withdrawn from VCAT, who is going to make this decision? Council does not have the expertise.

The State government must investigate and insist on an independent Coastal Hazard Vulnerability Assessment and a full and inclusive public Environmental Effects Statement to assess the potential for flooding risk, and risk to the public.

Princetown Flood Plain. X marks site of proposed development with road linkages into and between the sites. Note the road into the area is flooded, and this was solely due to storm surge. A more extreme event would occur with a high rainfall event in conjunction with storm surge.
Original Photo: Corangamite Catchment Management Authority

1 Hennessy Street Port Campbell residential development
The height imposes on the public domain, overlooking a state and nationally significant headland’s walking trail. Any development is required to be a height of the vegetation and fit neighbourhood character. VCAT and Council ignored the community’s concerns and consequently failed to meet planning requirements.

1 Hennessy St does not fit neighbourhood character, nor does it meet the height guides, and it overlooks national and state listed heritage headland and walking trail. View from heritage listed Beacon Steps lookout.

Consultants

The only ones winning at the moment appear to be consultants who may conduct consultation but do not seem to listen to expert community advice. It is costing rate payers and tax payers billions.

Better Education for Planning Officers

The latest Corangamite Shire Amendment (C45) 2017 – changes to the MSS – demonstrated that planners do not understand the difference between Objectives and Strategies. Planning was advised by the Panel to rewrite them. The Panel members also noted the amendment could become irrelevant if Smart Planning proceeds. A lot of time and money had been spent on a document which could be irrelevant. Not smart planning.

VCAT

There needs to be a full review of VCAT’s inconsistencies and poor performances in decision-making which undermine the planning process.

Summary

For the benefit of Victoria there must not be weakened permit or planning triggers or referral requirements, or permit exemptions, or the removal of appeal rights.
Without real community input, the government will make many more mistakes which will cost the State billions.
Marion Manifold
Secretary on behalf of
Port Campbell Community Group Inc. A0051688U

APPENDIX A

• Shifts in Victorian climate law and policy and the planning system: Intersected views from the field and academy. Brad Jessup and Marion Manifold. UNSW publications, 2016
• Commonwealth Government’s Draft Referral Guidelines for the Southern Brown Bandicoot and the EPBC Act, 2015
• Western Regional Coastal Plan Draft, 2015 – provided submission and photos
• Corangamite Shire Draft Environment & Sustainability Strategy 2014-2019
• Victorian National Parks Association with Bioregional Profile Coastal Paper, 2014
• Amendment C36 for Heritage Overlay on Port Campbell headland, 2014. (Planning panel recommended this be implemented).
• Shipwreck Coast Master Plan, 2013-2015
• The Arts Bridge: Bridging Art, Community and the Coastal Environment, Regional Arts Victoria, 2013
• Drafted the South West Threatened Species Recovery Program which aims to provide a plan of action to recover threatened species in South West Victoria including liaising with Parks Victoria, Landcare, Conservation Ecology Centre Cape Otway and the Otway Community Conservation Network, 2013.
• Victorian Coastal Strategy Draft, 2013
• Port of Port Campbell Safety & Environment Management Plan, 2013
• Parliamentary Inquiry into Heritage Tourism and Ecotourism in Victoria, 2013
• Co-ordinated the Environment Defenders Office to assist writing and present a submission on Amendment C30 which has resulted in improved environmental outcomes, 2013.
• Corangamite Shire’s Port Campbell and Coast Amendment C28, 2013
• Corangamite Shire’s Port Campbell and Coast Amendment C29, 2012.
• The effectiveness of threatened species and ecological communities’ protection in Australia, 2012
• Plan to rehabilitate the remnant Great Ocean Road on Port Campbell headland to increase habitat for endangered species including Southern Brown Bandicoot, 2014
• Port Campbell Headland Management and Landscape Plan including Biodiversity Action Plan, 2012
• Port Campbell Headland Walking Track – Coastcare and Council Submission, 2013
• DSE Review of Land Stability at Sturgess Point, Port Campbell, 2011
• EPBC Act 1999 Draft Referral Guidelines for Southern Brown Bandicoot (eastern), Isoodon obesulus obesulus, 2011
• Review of Victorian Planning Provisions and Planning Scheme, 2011
• National Trust ‘State’ listing for the Port Campbell headland, 2008
• Parliamentary Inquiry into Use and Development of Public Land, Port Campbell Headland, 2008
• Heritage Victoria – Port Campbell Headland submission, 2008
• Victorian Coastal Strategy Draft, 2008
• Corangamite Shire Environmental Strategy, 2007
• VCAT submissions including organising expert witness reports 2003-2011
• Federal Government – Meeting the Challenge of Coastal Growth. Discussion Paper, May 2006
• Corangamite Shire’s Port Campbell and Coast Amendment C13, 2002
• Wannon Water / Parks Victoria panel to consider sewage options for the 12 Apostles
• Marion Manifold. High-risk coastal resort on flood plain. Park Watch. Victorian National Parks Association. September. 2017.
• Marion Manifold. The Port Campbell Coast: Paradise Lost. Park Watch. Victorian National Parks Association. June 2014. Pp.12-13.
• Marion Manifold. Port Campbell: Developments on a Fragile Coast. Park Watch. Victorian National Parks Association. December 2014. Pp.18-19.
• Marion Manifold. Port Campbell headland still at risk. Park Watch. Victorian National Parks Association. September 2009. P.23.
• Marion Manifold. At risk – Port Campbell headland and national park. Park Watch. Victorian National Parks Association. March 2009. Pp.12-13

Chief of Staff to former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Peta Credlin, is the latest to question Australia’s mass immigration program, which flooded NSW (read Sydney) and VIC (read Melbourne) with a record 185,500 net overseas migrants (combined) in the year to June, further crush-loading our two biggest cities. This article was first published on Macrobusiness at https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/12/peta-credlin-give-us-national-debate-vote-australias-population/ on December 15 2017.

By Leith van Onselen

Chief of Staff to former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Peta Credlin, is the latest to question Australia’s mass immigration program, which flooded NSW (read Sydney) and VIC (read Melbourne) with a record 185,500 net overseas migrants (combined) in the year to June, further crush-loading our two biggest cities:

Last night, Ms Credlin delivered a detailed monologue on Sky News calling for immigration levels to be normalised back to their historical average, as well as demanding that our federal politicians give Australians a national debate and vote on Australia’s future population size.

While the whole video is well worth watching, here’s a few key quotes:

Overcrowded streets, busy roads, nowhere to park, over development, unaffordable housing, cramped schools, and in the words of many locals, far too many highrises. These were the concerns raised today [in Bennelong], and they are all code for population growth…

What I can say with absolute certainty is that we didn’t come along any ‘Big Australia’ advocates in Bennelong today…

Having spent 16 years on campaign trails, like today, I wasn’t surprised. Population is often raised because the majority of Australians live in the capital cities, and the congestion and development issues that come with population growth are a big concern…

Should we keep taking immigrants?’ is not the question.

Instead it’s ‘how many immigrants should we take?

What’s the optimum population size for Australia?

I know I speak for many people when I say this is the conversation they want to see their leaders having, the nation having, rather than being shouted down as racists or worse…

Isn’t it about time we had a national conversation about how big we want our population in the future and put in place immigration levels to deliver it, rather than pretending this issue doesn’t exist?..

We need to take a pause in Australia’s immigration intake so that we can settle those here now into affordable housing and secure jobs, and let the infrastructure that is being built catch-up.

Well said. It’s important to note at this time that net overseas migration (NOM) into Australia was 245,500 in the year to June 2017, which is more than triple the historical average of 73,000 NOM since Federation:

Clearly, immigration levels need to be drastically reduced, starting with Australia’s permanent migrant program, which is running at 2.5 times turn-of-the century levels and is even higher than at the peak of the mining boom:

There is no economic or social rationale for such high immigration levels, especially given the overwhelming majority of migrants are flooding our two biggest and most crowded cities, and more than 90% are non-humanitarian (hence we are stripping developing nations of their ‘skilled’ human resources).

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A Crest-tailed Mulgara, a small carnivorous marsupial known only from fossilised bone fragments and presumed extinct in NSW for more than century, has been discovered in Sturt National Park north-west of Tibooburra.

A team from the UNSW Sydney Wild Deserts project made the unexpected discovery during recent scientific monitoring.

UNSW scientist and Wild Deserts ecologist Dr Rebecca West, said it was particularly exciting to find a Crest-tailed Mulgara alive for the first time in NSW.

“The Crest-tailed Mulgara was once widely distributed across sandy desert environments in inland Australia, but declined due to the effects of rabbits, cats and foxes.
“The species weighs around 150 grams and has pale blonde fur and a thick tail with a distinctive black crest,” Dr West said.

"The discovery comes at a great time," said UNSW scientist and Wild Deserts project co-ordinator Reece Pedler.

“Next year we are due to begin introduced predator and rabbit eradication from a large area, which will no doubt help the Mulgara,” Mr Pedler said.

“The Wild Deserts project is contributing to the NSW Government’s Saving our Species conservation program (SOS),” said National Parks and wildlife Service area manager Jaymie Norris. “The aim of this project is to return mammal species not seen in their natural habitat for over 90 years in Sturt National Park. “Rabbits, cats and foxes will be eradicated from two 20-square-kilometre fenced exclosures in Sturt National Park, before locally extinct mammals are reintroduced."

"Reintroduced native mammal species will include greater bilby, burrowing bettong, western quoll and western barred bandicoot,” Mr Norris said.

The Wild Deserts project is a partnership between UNSW and Ecological Horizons, in collaboration with Taronga Conservation Society Australia. Wild Deserts has been contracted by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage to restore and promote desert ecosystems in Sturt National Park. Previous work in South Australia by Wild Deserts team members suggests that the Crest-tailed Mulgara has been recovering in numbers and expanding its range. Reduced rabbit populations during the last 20 years due to release of rabbit calicivirus is thought to have benefited the species by leading to increases in ground cover. Reductions in populations of introduced predators such as cats and foxes has also increased the numbers of small rodents for Mulgara to prey on. In recent years, Crest-tailed Mulgara have expanded their distribution in the Strzelecki Desert over the border in South Australia.

Propaganda is how they got people to go along with the so called 'revolution' in the first place.

What if armed men came to town and the cable TV news stations broadcast that there is a revolution and if you want a place in the new society you have to join now? What if you were poor and living in the ghetto when the announcement arrived and they told you that this was your chance to participate in the government and to become empowered in society? Then, armed checkpoints were set up everywhere, some operated by local people who might be armed and trigger happy, but at least they recognize you; others by strangers who are part of the national army, and they aren't in a good mood. Both sides believe that some of their members have been killed by the other for no good reason and they are angry. You weren't at the protests so you don't really know what happened. You've seen some very polarized 'news' on TV. and a call to battle. What do you do now?

[In North America]I have been introduced to a refugee family from Daraa. They are a young couple with three children between four and eight years old. They are having a hard time here for a number of reasons. They weren't really ready to be in a context with no family support. Mohammed, the husband, is deaf and, so far as I can tell, none of their relatives were killed. Wishan said that religious extremists are haram. She likes to listen to recordings of a man chanting the Quran, but she doesn't wear a hijab. She said that is a small thing in the eyes of Allah. I am pretty sure they were not directly involved in the war or the events that lead to the outbreak in 2011. She complained that her brother had been hassled at checkpoints, but he is alive and well in Europe somewhere at present. Most of the family is still in Daraa.

Wishan showed me photos of her destroyed home in a block of bombed out houses. But she also showed me a photo of the bruised and bloated corpse of an adolescent boy with what looked to be a 22 caliber bullet wound in the area of his heart. Her English isn't good but I think she was trying to tell me that was one of the boys who wrote anti-Assad graffiti and were abused by the government at the beginning of the war. The first thing I thought when I saw the picture is that I'm sure lots of boys have died in this war but there is no evidence in a naked corpse of who shot him, when, where, or why. I also thought that there is a whole world of Internet propaganda out there targeting Syrian civilians in the Arabic language news from the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia.

Its funny how stories spiral out in different directions. The government fired the governor responsible and sent a delegation to chill things out. According to our sources, they didn't come up with any hard information, which makes sense because if people had already got their kids back they might not want to risk any more attention to them. A year ago, Al Jazeera ran an article that focuses on one of the boys supposedly abducted and tortured by the government in Daraa. It was called "The boy who started the Syrian revolution". The article didn't specify the fate of any other boys involved though they noted that several were originally arrested, like maybe three or four. It seems to imply that they were released. This boy, however, is identified as currently a member of the Free Syrian Army and shown sitting at a low table before a laptop computer. An image tailored to liberal western tastes.

But this civilian refugee from the area is still carrying around a horrific photo of a boy she believes to be one of the boys who were tortured and killed by the Syrian government at the beginning of the war. This event has reduced her life to chaos. The eight year old said that he wants to go to Syria and fight against Assad when he grows up. When I told him the war is pretty much over, he was incredulous. I suggested he can go and help rebuild.

It's all very sad. Every war leaves the seeds of another war. And the propaganda is more toxic to those directly affected by the war in every way.

I am still working with Wishan and her family. Mohammed is a carpenter from a relatively well off family. They have gone from being respected members of a community to being beggars here. I am going to give some carpenter work to Mohammed and see if he can get a start building and selling furniture here. I'm thinking that over time we can become friends. Right now they are frightened and rather desperate but hopefully they can become more self sufficient.

I asked about Daraa today and Wishan said that things are calm there but very expensive to live. It is one of the cities where a reconciliation program has been negotiated by the government. There are local people controlling some basic services and running a Sharia court while the government controls the outside parameters and provides power, clean water, salaries for government employees and whatever aid they can. Of course there is little money for rebuilding at this point and Daraa was kind of a working class city to begin with.

The family of a child with appendicitis is in Daraa where they had to pay $500 for his surgery. Apparently medical services there are scarce and costly. He received his surgery in time to survive but he is now partly paralyzed. I don't know if it is from the toxins that must have been released into his abdomen when his appendix ruptured or something went wrong in the surgery. Perhaps the paralysis will improve with time. We can only hope.

This week, congress failed to renew the CHIPS program that has for provided health care for 2 generations of children in families living below the poverty level. They were busy passing a monstrous military budget and a tax bill that provides 'relief' for corporate behemoths already on the government dole. Meanwhile Wishan and Mohammed's children remain at risk due to lack of medical care here in the land of plenty. I think they kind of understand this but they are too desperate to consider it. There is no turning back for them.

War is terrible thing regardless of which side you are on. The physical war kills people and destroys resources while the propaganda war is waged to divide people against their neighbors and fuel hatreds. Refugees come to the United States, or Europe, or to Turkey, all countries who have fed the war with weapons and propaganda, countries that have profited, or at least hoped to profit, from the war that has beggared a relatively stable nation and disrupted an ancient culture built on religious and ethnic diversity. Unfortunately, refugees who come to the US from US engineered war zones face continued poverty, isolation and confusion.

About Judith Bello: Judith is a member of Administrative Committee at United National Antiwar Coalition, the Middle East Task Force at Fellowship of Reconciliation and Webmaster at Upstate Coaltion to Ground the Drones and End the Wars. She lives in New York and has visited Syria on anti-war projects.

Check out the advertising: “Divide and Conquer Unsurpassed Development Opportunity.” Tootgarook Swamp on the Mornington Peninsula is under widespread threat from developers. They need your help. 92 Elizabeth Ave, Caple Sound, is for sale for 'environmentally friendly' residential development (a contradiction in terms). Environmentalists suggest that this might be the least developable block on the entire Mornington Peninsula, due to flooding risks alone. Meanwhile, the site's biodiversity values are incredible and that’s without even considering the site's implemented VCAT order for illegal clearance, P2706/2016. The site's values and species need your help to step forward and make a stand for biodiversity on the Southern Peninsula. The site serves as critical habitat for one federally listed wetland bird, and is also utilised by many migratory and state listed species. Please write to your Councillor, you State and Federal Members requesting that this site be acquired by purchase and protected forever. Please share this message with those who care about Tootgarook Swamp and the Peninsulas biodiversity.

Subject: Tootgarook Swamp - 92 Elizabeth Avenue Caple Sound.

Dear Mayor, Councillors, and Officers and members of other agencies,

I have been made aware that 92 Elizabeth Avenue in Capel Sound has been placed on the market.
https://www.realestate.com.au/property-residential+land-vic-capel+sound-201982702

I would humbly like to request that Mornington Peninsula Shire acquires the site. There are some very strong reasons for this to occur.
I would like to think that the Mornington Peninsula Shire could and would seek/have support of other agencies in this matter.

This site is probably the most significant parcel in the Tootgarook Swamp.
Reasons for acquisition of this site;

The site only has recorded 106 bird species, which represents the most significant number of birds of any one site in the Tootgarook Swamp.

The site has limited development potential due to the adjacent former unlined landfill. (VCAT mentioned that any development would need extremely close coordination with Shire due to ground water pollution from the former landfill).

Approximately 85-90% of the site gets inundated.

The site still has an unimplemented and incomplete VCAT order of P2706/2016 amended from an outstanding 2011 order. (This amendment was done with great community and Shire effort and cost).

The site itself is critical habitat even within the greater wetland for the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC ) -listed Australasian Bittern and several other EPBC migratory species such as the Latham's Snipe, Sharp Tailed Sandpiper, Common Greenshank, Marsh Sandpiper and Eastern Great Egret which utilise the swamp.

The land is also important habitat for a number of State significant Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act (FFG) -listed species such as Australasian Shoveler, Ballion’s Crake, Eastern Cattle Egret, Freckled Duck, Intermediate Egret, Little Egret, Lewin’s Rail and Swamp Skink. This is not to mention the numerous list of other native species that occupy the site as well.

All Ecological Vegetation Class (EVCs) within the site are state-listed endangered.

The site consolidates Shire owned land of the former landfill (Truemans road) and Sanctuary Park bushland reserve.

It abuts private Covenanted habitat of Boneo Park adding to greater protection of biodiversity on the Peninsula.
It helps the Shire achieve the Tootgarook Management Plan.

I leave you with the conclusion (paragraph 238) from the VCAT case P2704/2015. These remarks were made for the GRZ1 OF the site, representing approximately 14 acres of the 75 acres of the site.

"For reasons that we have explained, we find that the proposed subdivision fails to achieve an acceptable balance between policy and planning provision seeking to address the biodiversity values of the wetland environment located on the site and those that support residential development. We find that the development as proposed will have detrimental impacts on the ecology of the broader Tootgarook Swamp wetland and consequently in biodiversity values that the scheme seeks to avoid. The benefits arising from the residential development, including flood mitigation and the provision of additional housing, are not sufficient to outweigh these impacts. Accordingly, we have decided to affirm the decision of the responsible authority and direct that no permit be granted."

The above information has been edited by candobetter.net for presentation purposes and the guts of it was provided by Cameron Brown, President of Save Tootgarook Swamp: www.savetootgarookswamp.org. Facebook page for Save Tootgarook Swamp

His phone number is 0409 936 577

Donations to Save Tootgarook Swamp may be made as below:

Account Name: Save Tootgarook Swamp
Financial Institution: Commonwealth Bank of Australia
BSB: 06 3540
Account Number: 1058 2313