democracy

photos of Bob Brown by Jill Quirk

Vic Government not doing its job for Brown Mountain

Today Bob Brown decried the situation on Brown Mountain, where amateurs are having to do work which is the responsibility of the government, in discovering and documenting endangered wildlife at Brown Mountain.

Brumby Government doing bidding of big end of town

He said that the Brumby Government is failing the people of Victoria by doing the bidding of the big end of town, and not what is in the best interests of most Victorians.

Brown answers questions on population policy for Australia

Towards the end of his press conference, Bob was asked a few questions about population policy and numbers in Australia.

He pointed out very emphatically that the Greens are the only political party with an environmentally based population policy, and that a population policy is needed for Australia.

He fielded questions about humanitarian aspects of immigration and refugees knowledgeably and honestly, pointing out that business migration was the larger component of the immigration program, and that people with money are more welcomed by the government than refugees.

He was asked how many people he feels that Australia can support. His response was to throw the question back at the interviewer.

He illustrated the combined impact of population numbers and lifestyle on our environment by saying that if living standards were to be at Australian levels, we would need four earths - and we do not have four - we only have one.

Brown appeared comfortable and confident with this topic.

Greater glider, illustration by John Gould

Media Release

We have received this information from a media release dated today, Wed 28th January 2009, on the occasion of a media conference with Senator Bob Brown on the Environment, East Gippsland, held at Treasury Gardens, outside 4 Treasury Place, Melbourne.

Call for immediate halt to logging

Environment East Gippsland has called for an immediate halt to logging at Brown Mountain, following the discovery of endangered species in the controversial area on the Australia Day weekend. They have obtained legal advice that the area should be set aside from logging.

The discovery of threatened species in the controversial area of Brown Mountain in East Gippsland will now have to be confirmed by Government biologists this week. Under threat of arrest, volunteers carried out wildlife surveys in the old growth forests.

Both professional and amateur surveyors discovered the presence of the threatened Orbost Spiny Crayfish, the endangered Sooty and Powerful owls and a large population of Greater Gliders.

“The place is literally teaming with endangered species.” said Jill Redwood from Environment East Gippsland.

“The government and logging industry knows it is one of the most diverse and wildlife rich sites remaining unprotected, but refused to identify these animals before they started cutting down their habitat. We had to prove it.”

Legal advice

“Our legal advice is that the Minister has the power to halt logging while confirmation surveys are carried out. However, we have had no assurances from government that logging will cease meanwhile - destroying giant old owl and glider nesting trees every day that it continues.”

“The great tragedy with the crayfish is that VicForests have already bulldozed very close to its rainforest creek edge destroying much of the buffer zone needed to protect it’s habitat.”

Government should cease arresting environmentalists and halt logging

“Before more threatened forest wildlife is destroyed the government must cease logging and cease arresting people for trying to protect these critical habitats.”

For comment: Jill Redwood – 5154 0145

See also: "Bob Brown: Threatened animal find must stop Brown Mountain logging, "Sue Pennicuik: Heartbreak at Brown Mountain", "Sue Pennicuik: Logging on Brown Mountain is state sanctioned vandalism", "Brown Mountain Rape".

A Re-Classification of Devilbend is critical to preventing the total demise of wildlife on the Mornington Peninsula: designation change from a ‘Natural Features Reserve’, to a ‘Nature Conservation Reserve’. Interconnecting wildlife corridors, through private land, minimum 200 metres in width and the rigorous preservation and restoration of Devilbend as a central core Reserve are essential.

Re-Classification of Devilbend is critical

by Maryland Wilson, President of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council

[Editor:See Background to this Campaign at the bottom of this article for the wider politics and land-use planning history]

A Re-Classification of Devilbend is critical to preventing the total demise of wildlife on the Mornington Peninsula. A designation change from a ‘Natural Features Reserve’, under Section 4 (1)(m) (and Part 3 of the Fifth Schedule) of the Crown Land Reserves Act 1978 to Devilbend as a ‘Nature Conservation Reserve’ under Section 4(1)(0) (and Part 1 of the Fifth Schedule)of the same Act, is absolutely critical if we are to save remaining native species on the Mornington Peninsula. Interconnecting wildlife corridors, through private land, minimum 200 metres in width and the rigorous preservation and restoration of Devilbend as a central core Reserve are essential to reserve the area for ‘the propagation or management of wildlife or the preservation of habitat'

Precautionary principle

The precautionary principle: “We must act together to prevent impacts, particularly where there is potential for serious or irreversible damage to occur. A lack of scientific certainty or information should not delay these actions., towards working towards restoration as an intact haven for wildlife.” Parks’ Guiding Principles Appendix 1 Devilbend Reserve Community Workshop, 22.11.07 P5 Sect. 3

Population dispersal needs

Genetic dispersal and variation is the genetic key to survival of species. The prime reason why re-Classification of Devilbend as central core habitat link for wildlife corridors is critical. It is to prevent genetic drift so species have genetic diversity /variability dispersal through wildlife corridors, to ensure their survival. Native species are trapped in isolated, fragmented areas of habitat, and populations without interconnecting habitat in which to move, breed and live, eventually implode and die-out, causing local extinction.

Holistic approach needed

A holistic approach is needed to manage Devilbend Reserve as a necessary tool of management to save rapidly declining species from certain demise if we do not heed their vulnerable state, now subject to drought and climate change. With roads and railways proposed, dredging on both sides of the peninsula, massive population growth and industrial development, inappropriate recreational users of Devilbend, birds and animals are threatened. Devilbend is not monitored to a degree sufficient to prevent illegal activities already occurring, let alone on a scale proposed in the Draft Mgt Plan 2008.

Current management failing

The Mc Phail Report slates Victoria for failing to protect native species, clearing more land than any other state in Australia. The critique of Victorian bureaucrats impacts directly on the importance of Devilbend as core nucleus habitat, on the Mornington Peninsula, which must be preserved as a sanctuary.

An AWPC Devilbend leaflet produced with Malcolm Legg ecologist and Glenn Ehmke of Birds Australia reveals our strong conservation concern for the future survival of wildlife:

“When wildlife is lost from a landscape/region, the number of species decline and local extinctions result. Extinction however, is a process, not an event, and the time scale over which species loss occurs is highly variable and species-specific. Therefore, despite the fact that major changes are in many cases yet to be fully manifested. This “time-lag” between landscape change and species loss is termed “termed “species relaxation” or “extinction debt”.

A number of studies both overseas and in Australia where landscape modification is very recent (-200 years) have identified extinction debt as a significant concern for biodiversity conservation in highly modified landscapes. Even in the absence of further direct loss and fragmentation of habitat, degradation of habitats will continue as weed invasions, dieback, edge effects and other processes impact isolated remnants, and isolated populations will continue to suffer the effects of genetic drift, inbreeding and susceptibility to chance events. Thus, the local populations of some species may be expected to decline to extinction over time. This is reflected in the large number of threatened and declining species in the region today.”

Devilbend as a wildlife sanctuary

It behoves government to pay more respectful attention to expertise and public opinion the Devilbend Foundation and AWPC bring to this inquiry. Government's job is to adapt to our demands, not to impose the demands of developers and big business on us or the rest of the people and creatures on the peninsula. Our very strong opposition to developing Devibend as a playground for recreational users, with all the negative ecological impacts on native birds and animals continues to be ignored by Parks.

Kangaroo Management in Devilbend and the Mornington Peninsula

Existing habitat in parks and reserves on the Peninsula is not good kangaroo habitat- Kevin Street, retired Wildlife and Fisheries officer

• the role of Devilbend as core nucleus habitat - Devilbend could support a significant kangaroo population but seems so sparsely populated, due to unfriendly fencing, hunting in years past by leasees and others.
If we are to sustain significant kangaroo numbers on the Peninsula then we need to come up with a management plan that may include such things as:

• habitat improvement in existing reserves and parks
establishment of important wildlife corridors linking Devilbend to Greens Bush, Arthur’s Seat, etc so that range animals like kangaroos can have freedom of movement for genetic dispersal
• Grazing leases are incompatible to conserving and protecting biodiversity
• Natural regeneration approach focusing on highest quality areas to start
• Identify wildlife corridors in reserve and linking outside

Ecologist Hans Brunner wrote:

“The total disappearance of the Southern Brown Bandicoot on the Peninsula is a classical example of the Government’s ignorance. There were thousands and now there are none left. We always get politely steam rolled. It is most disheartening.”

Background to this campaign

(Candobetter editor's note)

Mornington Peninsula, south of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, where Devilbend is located, is a biodiversity hotspot and, until Premier Jeff Kennett came to power in 1999, it was a rural area.

Because of that government and the following Bracks and Brumby governments' undemocratic pro-development agendas, it was re-termed part of 'Greater Melbourne'. This was meant to make it incapable of resisting a massive development program, which to date includes mass movement of people to many new suburbs, talk of a second city to Melbourne, and a 400 ha industrial development at Hastings.

In the mean time a toll-way is scheduled to splice the Peninsula from North to South, cutting through and affecting major remaining habitat.
Arguably it is these kinds of expansionary activities, requiring huge amounts of fuel and materials and funded on debt, which have brought the world economy to a skidding halt.

At the same time, bizarrely, the area became a UNESCO 'biosphere', but ecological activists who worked to have it declared a biosphere were successfully dissuaded from commenting on government plans to massively ncrease population on the Peninsula, even though it was obvious to 'Blind Freddy' that this would destroy unprotected grasslands and the fauna habitats. The carrot and stick approach was used.

And Devilbend, until recently a reservoir, now decommissioned, only narrowly escaped becoming a housing estate. An unsuitable compromise was instead unilaterally inflicted by the Bracks Government, in a sort of activities theme park, with little or no effective sanctuary for our terribly ill-treated Peninsula wildlife. All big animals are on the wane - notably kangaroos and koalas. We must have a fauna protection and promotion policy.

Maryland Wilson, of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council, has the key to this in her promotion of Wildlife Corridors.
Editor

Those who care about Brown Mountain are not all high in the giant trees, these protesters at ground level are on the same side as the tree dwellers and are horrified about the destruction of this magical place.

The Star

But, right now, everyone is relying on this little guy:, the Endangered Orbost Spiny Cray (Euastacus diversus), who, if the law is respected, has a right to a buffer-zone of 100 m on either side of the creek he lives in.

Let's imagine, for a moment, how different the public debate would be today if it had been unions that had caused the current economic turmoil.

In other words, try to imagine a scenario in which union leaders - not financial managers - were the ones whose reckless behaviour had driven a number of Wall Street firms into bankruptcy and in the process triggered a worldwide recession.

Needless to say, it's hard to imagine a labour leader being appointed to oversee a bailout of unions the way former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson was put in charge of supervising the $700 billion bailout of his former Wall Street colleagues.

My point is simply to note how odd it is that the financial community has emerged so unscathed, despite its central role in the collapse that has brought havoc to the world economy.

Of course, not all members of the financial community were involved in Wall Street's wildly irresponsible practices of bundling mortgages into securities and trading credit default swaps. But the financial community as a whole, on both sides of the border, certainly pushed hard to put in place an agenda of small government, in which financial markets largely regulated themselves and citizens (particularly high-income investors) would be spared the burden of paying much tax.

The agenda advanced much further in the U.S., but had an impact in Canada, particularly on the tax front.

One would think that those who pushed this agenda so enthusiastically would, at the very least, be a tad embarrassed today.

But so influential are those in the financial elite - and their hangers-on in think-tanks and economics departments - that they continue to appear on our TV screens, confidently providing us with economic advice, as if they'd played no role whatsoever in shaping our economic system for the past quarter century.

Of course, we're told there's been a major change in their thinking, in that many of them are now willing to accept large deficits in today's federal budget, in the name of stimulating the economy.

While this does seem like a sharp departure from the deficit hysteria of the 1990s, a closer look reveals the change may not be that significant.

In fact, financial types have always accepted deficits - when they liked the cause. Hence their lack of protest over George W. Bush's enormous deficits, which were caused by his large tax cuts for the rich and his extravagant foreign wars.

What they don't like is governments going into deficit to help ordinary citizens - either by creating jobs or providing much unemployment relief.

So the Canadian financial community has been urging that the stimulus package consist mostly of income tax cuts - even though direct government spending would provide much more stimulus and do more to help the neediest.

If the Harper government follows the financial community's advice, we will simply move further along with the small government revolution launched by Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s.

Of course, tax cuts are not the same as financial deregulation. But they are twin prongs of a bundled package aimed at reducing the power of government to operate in the public interest.

Surely it's time to rethink this resistance to government acting as an agent of the common good.

And maybe it's time for a little humility on the part of a financial elite that long has enjoyed such deference while turning out to be so spectacularly inept.

Also published on www.informationclearinghouse.info. Original article by Linda McQuaig published in the Toronto Star on 27 Jan 09.

Original article by Sherwood Ross published as "Move to End 'Internet Neutrality': Blow to Bloggers. 'Ten Pin Strike against Political Freedom'" on www.globalresearch.ca on 26 Jan 09.

If the cable and phone companies that transmit Internet data are allowed to charge higher rates to some producers for faster service the result will be "a ten pin strike against political freedom," a prominent legal authority warns.

That's because the change will enable the wealthy to "quickly take over the high speed transmissions (for their trash commercial content) just as they completely monopolize radio and TV, and just as their incredibly greedy profit-seeking has had a very deleterious effect on print journalism," writes Lawrence Velvel, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover.

Velvel's plea for "internet neutrality" comes in his new book "An Enemy of The People," subtitled "The Unending Battle Against Conventional Wisdom(Doukathsan)." Essentially, he writes, the proposed change is an "attempt by the wealthy to make the internet into yet another repository of their power".

Under the new scheme sought by transmission firms, Velvel writes, "large companies would pay more, no doubt a lot more, in order to have their messages, videos, audios, and any other content transmitted rapidly. The rest of us peasants, who could not afford to have our content move fast, would pay less and have it move more slowly."

"One can be sure that the average guy with something he wants to say will be relegated to lower speed transmissions," Velvel writes. "Blogdom, and the use of the internet by average people for political purposes, will likely be as good as dead."

According to Save The Internet.com(STI), "The nation's largest telephone and cable companies ---including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner---want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won't load at all."

"What we have here," Velvel explained, "is a bunch of unregenerate capitalists, who think that nothing else is important except trying to make as much as they can conceivably get away with. As with the oil companies and the investments banks, huge profit margins and scores of millions annually for their chairmen and CEOs isn't enough for them. They want more. Always more. Nothing else matters to them. The pipes (transmission) companies are no different."

Velvel pointed out, "The average guy can't be published in a newspaper, and cannot afford the money to pay to be on radio or television. His voice is limited. The great benefit of the internet, the reason it bade fair to be the new version of the poor man's printing press (which is what picketing and marching were once called), is that it gave everyone a chance to have his or her say in a way that was immediately available to anyone who found it or knew of it and wanted to read it."

"That is why tens of millions of blogs sprang up," Velvel continued, "with (at least) many thousands of them being on political subjects, and with blogdom sometimes having major political impacts."

Others besides Velvel have also commented on efforts to destroy net neutrality. As a consequence of a 2005 decision by the Bush Federal Communications Commission, Internet Neutrality, "the foundation of the free and open internet---was put in jeopardy," STI says. "Now cable and phone company lobbyists are pushing to block legislation that would reinstate Net Neutrality."

"Without Net Neutrality, startups and entrepreneurs will be muscled out of the marketplace by big corporations that pay for a top spot on the Web," STI says.

"If Congress turns the Internet over to the telephone and cable giants, everyone who uses the Internet will be affected," STI continues. "Connecting to your office could take longer if you don't purchase your carrier's preferred applications. Sending family photos and videos could slow to a crawl. Web pages you always use for online banking, access to health care information, planning a trip, or communicating with friends and family could fall victim to pay-for-speed schemes."

STI warned the consequences of abandoning Internet Neutrality would be "devastating." "Innovation would be stifled, competition limited, and access to information restricted. Choice and the free market would be sacrificed to the interests of a few corporate executives."

For interviews with Dean Velvel, contact Sherwood Ross at sherwoodr1 [ AT ] yahoo.com. Email Dean Velvel at velvel [ AT ] mslaw.edu

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Why is it that the Australian government, and other governments, principally in the anglophone world, deliberately encourage population growth when common sense and intuition, not to mention the hard evidence, tell us that a larger population cannot possibly be in the interests of the current inhabitants of this country or of the rest of the planet?

Republished on Eye on Immigration and Online Opinion (in a slightly abridged form) together with forum discussion.

See also: "Bligh Government tramples on community rights to impose over-development" of 11 Jun 08, "Redland City to pay with increased water charges for population growth" of 19 May 08, "More chickens of population growth come home to roost in Queensland" of 14 May 08, "About immigration" of 14 May 08, "Shared accommodation a necessity and no longer a choice for many in Brisbane" of 30 Apr 08, "How to end the Queensland economy's addiction to population growth?" of 26 Apr 08, "The Australian laments outcome of Queensland local government elections" of 30 Mar 08, "The Courier Mail beats the drum for more Queensland population growth" of 30 Mar 08, "Rent gouging threatens Brisbane inner city retail community" of 8 Mar 08,
Sheila Newman's 2002 Master's Thesis: "The Growth Lobby and its Absence : The Relationship between the Property Development and Housing Industries and Immigration Policy in Australia and France" downloadable from here, in individual chapters plus five appendices and here, the whole main thesis.

Why is it that the Australian government, and other governments, principally in the anglophone world, deliberately encourage population growth when common sense and intuition, not to mention the hard evidence, tell us that a larger population cannot possibly be in the interests of the current inhabitants of this country or of the rest of the planet?

We are long past the point where adding extra numbers in any way increases the synergy of the inhabitants of this country. Consequently any additional population growth must necessarily make each and every one of us poorer on average as the per capita access to natural resources necessarily decreases in proportion to the increase of the numbers of people.

However, it gets even worse than that, because of the dis-economies of scale inherent in large populations. An obvious example is that Australians are paying extra water rates to finance costly water desalination and sewage recycling plants required to provide water for additional people.

Had we stabilised our population, this would have been totally unnecessary. We could all have been adequately supplied by our existing less unnatural and less technologically complex water infrastructure.

Similar points could be made about transport, electricity, health, education and other services.

To cope with increasing numbers, it is necessary to destroy ever greater tracts of native bushland, to abuse our topsoil and waterways, and to unsustainably dig up ever more of our finite endowment of mineral wealth.

Three and a half decades of extreme 'free market' economic policies have further compounded these problems. These policies hinder governments from making use of what economies of scale are possible. They prevent effective planning in the interests of all members of society. Obvious examples include the huge inefficiencies of the private property market and the shambolic state of Australian urban planning, a result of the dismantling of Whitlam's Department of Urban and Regional Development (DURD) by Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser in the late 1970's.

In some ways it may be the case that immigration does indeed enable the transfer of wealth into, as well as out, of Australia:

• The purchase of a home by wealthy or middle class immigrants as a means of buying Australian citizenship, which is effectively a transfer of wealth from the source country into Australia;
• The poaching of skilled workers, often trained at the expense of taxpayers of other countries, including of poor third world countries - a practice, for which the Queensland Bligh Government has become infamous;
• The selling of Australian university degrees and vocational training, which has notoriously become yet another means of purchasing Australian citizenship_#main-fn1">1.

Little, if any of this wealth trickles down to ordinary Australians and whatever benefit they do gain is more than negated by the loss of previously available educational, training and employment opportunities, and consequent housing inflation (also discussed below). Even if it can be shown that Australia, as a whole, gains, rather than loses wealth through immigration, that wealth will most likely evaporate within this generation_#main-fn2">2.

In any case, on a global scale such wealth transfer is a zero-sum game, at best.

All things considered, it seems far more likely that we are not only becoming more impoverished, but we are becoming even more impoverished than we might expect to be if we had simply divided the existing wealth amongst larger numbers of people!

In a perverse way, it seems to me that this may have actually made it harder, rather than easier, to argue the case against population growth and immigration.

Whilst I can't know for certain if this was true for others, I will try to summarise some of the ways that this fed into my own conscious and sub-conscious thought processes and caused me to avoid questioning our high immigration policies for many decades.

My own intuition caused me to conclude that, if, somehow, immigration made us worse off on the whole, it would surely be harder, rather than easier, for any group to gain from immigration. Therefore, when faced with the strident assertions from all the seemingly credible authorities that immigration was economically beneficial, I found it easier to deny my own gut instincts and not to make the considerable investment of emotion and time necessary to question this pervasive message. Instead, I just quietly hoped that the advocates of immigration, who promised me a more prosperous, vibrant, interesting and sophisticated society, were right.

Alternatively, on occasions when the economic arguments did not seem to quite ring true to me, then the only other likely plausible motive would have been an underlying altruism of an enlightened elite more willing, than the ordinary, backward, redneck, xenophobic masses, to share the wealth of this country with others less fortunate than ourselves.

However, the conclusive evidence, after many decades of this social engineering, is that Australia has, instead, become a poorer and more dependant country as consequence and this has not been brought about because Australia's elites are self-sacrificing and altruistic.

Contrary to what I expected, a small group has, paradoxically, not lost, but rather gained from this chaos and suffering, at our expense. That group is the growth lobby. First identified and described in detail in Australia by Sheila Newman in "The Growth lobby and its absence" (2002) and Growth lobby thesis without appendices.[1], it is really a group of land speculators and landlords operating in an organised way on a corporate level.

Land speculators and landlords openly welcome the way that growing demand increases the price of vital resources over which they have acquired a monopoly. They profit from commodifying and then controlling access to resources and services which include water, land, power, housing, roads, food production and transport, which each one of us needs in order to live a dignified life, or even simply to live.

As one consequence, in Brisbane at the start of 2009, even previously well-off professionals are being impoverished by insatiably greedy landlords, who exploit these circumstances to increase rents at every possible opportunity. A surveyor, who lives near me (who acknowledges that his own work entails the destruction of bushland to build new housing developments to cope with population growth), told me how he was unable to travel back to Germany this year for his holidays, because of being personally affected by recent rent increases.

The growth lobby also includes property developers, financiers, building companies and suppliers of building materials. There are also others that gain from population growth through high immigration, such as immigration lawyers, employment agencies and cheapskate employers.

Whilst these activities may provide a facade of economic prosperity, none are capable of increasing the underlying ability of this society to provide for its own needs.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh in April 2006, then Deputy Premier, ludicrously defended population growth on the grounds that it was necessary to keep people in the construction industry employed_#main-fn3">3.

How could Premier Bligh, supposedly an intelligent person, have failed to ask herself the obvious question: How are those additional people then to be employed? Must we build yet more houses to keep them employed and import yet more people to Australia in order to provide a demand for those houses?

At some point such 'growth' has to end and Queenslanders must be able to find gainful employment by meeting the needs of other Queenslanders instead of

future inhabitants.

The longer Australians put off stabilising our population and establishing a steady state economy, the worse will be our circumstances.

But the growth lobby wants this situation to continue indefinitely. To ensure that the forced march to dystopia continues, the growth lobby pours funds into the coffers of Australia's major political parties, including Anna Bligh's Labor Party. It creates obligation and dependency in our political parties and governments. In turn, our governments endlessly facilitate the real-estate economy, in the face of every democratic objection, merely to keep themselves in Government.

If we are to hope for any kind of a decent future for ourselves and our children, these corrupt arrangements must be brought to an end and the power of the growth lobby must be broken.

The above article has been expanded upon the original version, published on 24 January - JS, 26 Jan 08

Republished on Eye on Immigration and Online Opinion (in a slightly abridged form) together with forum discussion.

See also: "Bligh Government tramples on community rights to impose over-development" of 11 Jun 08, "Redland City to pay with increased water charges for population growth" of 19 May 08, "More chickens of population growth come home to roost in Queensland" of 14 May 08, "About immigration" of 14 May 08, "Shared accommodation a necessity and no longer a choice for many in Brisbane" of 30 Apr 08, "How to end the Queensland economy's addiction to population growth?" of 26 Apr 08, "The Australian laments outcome of Queensland local government elections" of 30 Mar 08, "The Courier Mail beats the drum for more Queensland population growth" of 30 Mar 08, "Rent gouging threatens Brisbane inner city retail community" of 8 Mar 08,
Sheila Newman's 2002 Master's Thesis: "The Growth Lobby and its Absence : The Relationship between the Property Development and Housing Industries and Immigration Policy in Australia and France" downloadable from here.

Footnotes

[1] Sheila Newman's theory on the Growth Lobby: "The Growth Lobby and its Absence :The Relationship between the
Property Development and Housing Industries and Immigration Policy in Australia and France", Masters by Research, 2002: downloadable from here, in individual chapters plus five appendices and here, the whole main thesis. UPDATE: See also more recent publications including three books by Sheila Newman here. http://candobetter.net/node/1882

#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. #main-txt1">↑ See ABC Radio National Background Briefing program "Paying to be permanent" of 17 Aug 08.

#main-fn2" id="main-fn2">2. #main-txt2">↑ As Sheila Newman put in "Expanded Australia" in the June 2006 edition of the Sustainable Population Australia newsletter:

"For these unimaginative and exploitative reasons, we are losing access to bushland, water, good soil, beaches and pleasant lifestyle for everyone, in favour of an 'economy' built on land speculation, class division, middlemen, and with a complete absence of recognition that we are trashing the last great Pacific paradise in return for money that will evaporate within this generation, leaving us a poor and overpopulated island, similar to all the other Pacific islands that have become victims of colonisation since the 18th Century."

#main-fn3" id="main-fn3">3. #main-txt3">↑ "Qld govt rejects population cap" in the Age of 22 April 2007. (A similar story was published in the Courier Mail around the same, but the URL is unknown.)

"As a nurse, I was in contact with the ill and the infirm. I knew something about the health and disease of bodies, but for a long time, I was baffled at the tremendous personal problems of life, of marriage, of living, and of just being. Here indeed was a challenge to “build beyond thyself.” Where was I to begin? I found the answer at every door. [...]

For these beliefs I was denounced, arrested, I was in and out of police courts and higher courts, and indictments hung over my life for several years. But nothing could alter my beliefs. Because I saw these as truths, I stubbornly stuck to my convictions."
See also: "Progress ideology, colonial racism, right to life and family planning"
Image source was http://www.nwhm.org/ProgressiveEra/birthcontrol.html

Only in 1965 did the practice of contraception become legal between married couples in the United States, through a 1965 Supreme Court decision, Griswold v. Connecticut. Only a few months later, on September 6, 1966, Margaret Sanger, a nurse, and the founder of the US birth control movement, died at the age of 86.

(See bottom of article for details of summer internships at the Margaret Sanger institute.)

Margaret Sanger's 1953 speech about standing up to the authorities to defend her convictions

This I believe, first of all: that all our basic convictions must be tested and transmuted in the crucible of experience–and sometimes, the more bitter the experience, the more valid the purified belief.

As a child, one of a large family, I learned that the thing I did best was the thing I liked to do. This realization of doing and getting results was what I have later called an awakening consciousness.

There is an old Indian proverb which has inspired me in the work of my adult life. “Build thou beyond thyself, but first be sure that thou, thyself, be strong and healthy in body and mind.” To build, to work, to plan to do something, not for yourself, not for your own benefit, but “beyond thyself”–and when this idea permeates the mind, you begin to think in terms of a future. I began to think of a world beyond myself when I first took an interest in nursing the sick.

As a nurse

As a nurse, I was in contact with the ill and the infirm. I knew something about the health and disease of bodies, but for a long time, I was baffled at the tremendous personal problems of life, of marriage, of living, and of just being. Here indeed was a challenge to “build beyond thyself.” Where was I to begin? I found the answer at every door. For I began to believe there was something I could do toward increasing an understanding of these basic human problems. To build beyond myself, I must tap all inner resources of stamina and courage, of resolution within myself. I was prepared to face opposition, even ridicule, denunciation. But I had also to prepare myself, in defense of these unpopular beliefs, I had to prepare myself to face courts and even prisons. But I resolved to stand up, alone if necessary, against all the entrenched forces which opposed me.

Supported by patients; harassed by authorities

I started my battle some forty years ago. The women and mothers whom I wanted to help, also wanted to help me; they, too, wanted to build beyond the self, in creating healthy children and bringing them up in life to be happy and useful citizens. I believed it was my duty to place motherhood on a higher level than enslavement and accident. I was convinced we must care about people; we must reach out to help them in their despair.

For these beliefs I was denounced, arrested, I was in and out of police courts and higher courts, and indictments hung over my life for several years. But nothing could alter my beliefs. Because I saw these as truths, I stubbornly stuck to my convictions.

Something had to be done

No matter what it may cost in health, in misunderstanding, in sacrifice, something had to be done, and I felt that I was called by the force of circumstances to do it. Because of my philosophy and my work, my life has been enriched and full. My interests have expanded from local conditions and needs, to a world horizon, where peace on earth may be achieved when children are wanted before they are conceived. A new conciousness will take place, a new race will be born to bring peace on earth. This belief has withstood the crucible of my life’s joyous struggle. It remains my basic belief today.

This I believe–at the end, as at the beginning of my long crusade for the future of the human race.

From a speech made by Margaret Sanger, a population activist, in November 1953, known as "This I believe".
The original electronic source is at http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/news/this_i_believe.html

Listen to an

mp3 recording of Margaret Sanger's November 1953 broadcast

on Edward R. Murrow's This I Believe radio program, provided to the Sanger Project by the National Public Radio. The text of the speech below comes from Margaret Sanger's Papers at the Library of Congress (130:620). Several earlier drafts of the speech appear on the Sanger microfilm, but this version is the closest to the one spoken by Sanger.

Summer Internships at the Margaret Sanger Papers Project in New York

Contact: Cathy Moran Hajo [mailto:cathy.hajo[AT]nyu.edu] Sent: Fri 16/01/2009 15:54 Subject: Summer Internships at the Margaret Sanger Papers Project in New York The Margaret Sanger Papers Project is pleased to announce its summer internship program for 2009. We seek applications from graduate or advanced undergraduate students to work with the editorial staff at the Project's offices in New York City. This is a wonderful opportunity for students to become proficient in primary and secondary research, and the process of editing historical documents for publication. Interns can apply for internships working with the book or digital edition.

BOOK INTERNSHIP: Interns will be working on Volume IV of the Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, covering the years 1920-1966 and focusing on her efforts to create a global birth control movement. Interns will work under the supervision of editors on specific topics, tracing people, places, events and issues covered in the documents. The research will be used to produce annotation and introductory material for the volume. Research will be conducted in the Project's offices, using the comprehensive microfilm edition and other primary sources, as well as at local libraries and with resources available on the Internet.

DIGITAL INTERNSHIP: We have two digital projects available for interns this summer.
1) We are preparing a digital edition on Margaret Sanger's 1922 trip to Japan for the Women and Social Movements web collection. Interns will transcribe, encode, and conduct research for essays and interpretation on the documents for this small collection.

2) We are also continuing work on our digital edition of Sanger's speeches and articles, focusing on texts written by Margaret Sanger in the 1930s.

Interns will be proofread the texts, add XML encoding, and draft subject index entries for the documents. Interns will conduct research as needed to verify dates, titles, and publication information, or to identify the names of people, organizations and books mentioned in the documents.

More information and application information can be located on our website, at:
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/aboutmspp/internships.html The deadline for applications is March 1, 2009.

Cathy Moran Hajo, Ph.D.
Associate Editor/Assistant Director The Margaret Sanger Papers Project Department of History, New York University
53 Washington Square South New York, NY 10012 (212) 998-8666 (212) 995-4017 (fax)
[email protected] Visit our website at: http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger

Photo source: http://nativenotes.net/tag/black-family/

January 19 is Martin Luther King day. It has been my tradition to trot out one of his most unknown speeches. Circulate it widely, please. I was a teenager when he appeared on so many talk shows. Apart from his captivating and stirring speeches, his calm reason and supreme intelligence---on so many issues---still impresses me. He was a giant. And he was more literate than Obama on the ecological facts of life, obviously. But then, so many more were in the late sixties too. See also this article about the 1999 civil trial which found that the US Government conspired in King's assassination.

Family Planning — A Special and Urgent Concern

by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (May 1966)

Recently, the press has been filled with reports of sightings of flying saucers. While we need not give credence to these stories, they allow our imagination to speculate on how visitors from outer space would judge us. I am afraid they would be stupefied at our conduct. They would observe that for death planning we spend billions to create engines and strategies for war. They would also observe that we spend millions to prevent death by disease and other causes. Finally they would observe that we spend paltry sums for population planning, even though its spontaneous growth is an urgent threat to life on our planet. Our visitors from outer space could be forgiven if they reported home that our planet is inhabited by a race of insane men whose future is bleak and uncertain.

There is no human circumstance more tragic than the persisting existence of a harmful condition for which a remedy is readily available. Family planning, to relate population to world resources, is possible, practical and necessary. Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess.

What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victims.

UPDATE DEC 2012: If you would like to know more about population science and human political history, Sheila Newman has just published an amazing new theory in a new book, Demography, Territory & Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations (see link). Forensic biologist, Hans Brunner writes of it: "This book takes us to a completely new paradigm in multiple species population science. It shows how little we understand, and how much we need to know, of the sexual reactions when closed colonies with an orderly reproduction system are destroyed, be it people or animals." Two chapters are on multi-species demography, the rest apply the theory to non-industrial societies and the author comes up with a completely new test for the collapse model of Easter Island, which will stun those who thought they knew all about it.

Please see Planned Parenthood's page in which Martin Luther King's acceptance speech was published. (The link previously given here is broken. - Ed)

Who is liable for the damage done to our society by despotically created 'Authorities'?

In its statement of its values, the representatives of this new horror, the 'Growth Area Authority' state that "we" act "with honesty and openess, are publicly accountable for our actions and are respected for our high quality advice, expertise and impartial decision making."

It is as if the 'value statement' were capable of actually changing the reality. Statements, however, are only words. How can any of us hold the authority to its words? We know that those words will be minced up to suit the values of the authority; not to protect our values.

The Board contains no ecologists, wildlife activists, nurses or doctors, local agriculturalists or permaculturalists, ethicists, civilly concerned social scientists or community activists. It only represents big business.

This board will act to enforce growthism

The problem is that this board can only act in one direction - for overpopulation and inflation linked to scarcity of all resources and against Victorians' human rights for self-government and to maintain a democratic society.

The 'Authority' talks of its 'vision and values', which include 'promoting employment opportunities' and 'foster[ing] the development of communities'. We are going to hear a lot more about 'jobs' because this is the 'carrot' which will be used to cover up the protests against the sticks which such an authority must condone.

"Fostering" community

We will hear more about 'fostering community' too. That won't change the fact that every new development destroys and fragments communities and that local governments have been dismantled and government planning departments have been all but contracted holus-bolus out to corporations of developers, to satisfy Kennett's, Bracks's and now Brumby's growth addiction. This is how our system of democracy has been destroyed by growth. 'Fostering community' will boil down to building new suburbs, importing new people, and sidelining the real communities.

Folks, we are being herded by people who think that they are better than the rest of us because they have managed to seize power from us and call themselves our government. But for nearly two decades now, liberal and labor have had increasingly similar policies and have refused to give the voting public details of differences in policies. Articles at Propaganda Watch, show how the mainstream press and even the ABC have supported this decline in democracy.

Hollow, faulty financial system overwhelms democracy

When it gets down to it, the Victorian government is not governing for voters; it is acting for, financing or defending and supporting developers - financers and builders of new suburbs and infrastructure. Bankers, engineers, construction corporations, acting through the medium of planners - who have recently exploded in numbers, like economics grads and 'financial advisors'. These corporations have made their wealth from high immigration driving up the cost of land and creating an infrastructure boom. This is the system which has brought the Western world to its knees and our government, like the US government, is now a captive of that system.

We must break through. We need to talk about what is happening and reach a consensus to resist this malignant force.

No-one willingly gave the Victorian government this power to hand over our taxes and power to development and finance corporations; they have taken it.

The faces of authority

The following people are the public face of this 'Authority' - the 'Board'. They are in the development business. They are not in the business of government or democracy; they will function to minimise any remaining vestigial opportunities for citizens of Victoria to stand up against the bulldozer of development which is destroying our democracy, our safety and our quality of life.

Their names are public property, listed at the Growth Area Authority site.

Chaired by Chris Banks AM, other board members are Felix Blatt, Frank King, Di Fleming, Ann Keddie and Ian Munro.

The Board reports to the Minister for Planning under the Planning and Environment (Growth Areas Authority) Act 2006.
- Chris Banks AM Chairman.
Chris Banks AM brings a developer's perspective after many years in the housing industry as Chief Executive Officer at Delfin and AV Jennings.

Felix Blatt is the Chief Advisor Project Management for Rio Tinto and has extensive experience managing greenfield engineering projects.

Frank King.
As a former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Treasury and Finance, Frank King is a member of the audit committees for the Departments of Treasury and Finance, Sustainability and Environment and Justice.

Ann Keddie.
With extensive experience within the industry, Ann Keddie is a Director of Ann Keddie Architects. She is also a sessional member of VCAT and a member of the Priority Development Panel and Planning Panels Victoria.

Di Fleming.
Di Fleming is a former Victorian Telstra Businesswoman of the Year, associate professor in Digital Design at RMIT University and director of lab.3000. She steered lab.3000's evolution to become the state's first Centre of Excellence in Digital Design.

Ian Munro.
Ian Munro PSM, is a consultant for the Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development (DIIRD) after formerly holding the position of Deputy Secretary and CEO, Invest Assist for DIIRD.

Source: http://heykidscomics.com/

The big question

Are these people liable for the impact of their decisions to promote infrastructure for population growth? If not, who is?

The title of this article was originally "Courier Mail manipulates reporting of water recycling to demand early election" - JS, 12 mar 08

Murdoch cartoon source - http://peoplesgeography.com/2006/11/

Contents: #Why">Why the sudden need for an early election in Queensland?, #Misreporting">Courier Mail's misreporting of water recycling issue, #Disagrees">Even the Australian sides with the 'uninformed agitators' against the Courier Mail, #NoAberration">Courier Mail's misreporting of water recycling no aberration, #Putsch">Courier Mail seeks electoral putsch in Queensland, #NSW">The Australian's attempt to manipulate the NSW Parliament, #What">What can be done?.

#Why" id="Why">Why the sudden need for an early election in Queensland?

The Courier Mail's editorial "Time to put an end to early poll speculation" of 29 December 2008 stepped up its campaign to pressure Queensland_#main-fn1">1 Premier Anna Bligh into calling an early election date in either February or March against earlier commitments to serve her full term. She made this promise on 20 March this year_#main-fn2">2. The editorial essentially re-states what was written by assistant editor Craig Johnstone on 4 December in the "Viewpoint" article "Early election".

So, what's changed since 20 March? Why the sudden urgent need for both the Courier Mail and Premier Anna Bligh to suddenly reverse their previous stances against early elections?

As the editorial argued "... the Government's behaviour, particularly in the latter half of the year, showed that its political horizon was growing closer and closer."

Anyone expecting that the Courier Mail was objecting to Anna Bligh's goals, announced earlier this year, to triple the already massive level of Queensland's coal exports by 2030 or that it would demand that she take effective measures to protect Queensland's natural environment, were to be soon disappointed. The editorial continued:

"Moves such as the ban slapped on shale oil mining in the Whitsundays and the scrapping of North Bank were early signs that the Government was finessing its policy stances to put itself into the best position to attract Greens preferences."

If, indeed, that was Premier Bligh's motivation, then one would have at least expected the Courier Mail to concede that that was a good thing in regard to the North Bank project, a self-evidently mad plan by Anna Bligh to extend an ugly concrete pontoon half-way across the busy and scenic Brisbane River to allow massive high-rise apartment blocks above the northern half of the Brisbane River adjacent to the Central Business District,. After many months of public outcry and a total lack of public support from any credible architect or town planning professional, the plans were scrapped late in 2008.

#Misreporting" id="Misreporting">Courier Mail's misreporting of water recycling issue

Whilst the editorial writer seemed prepared to grudgingly tolerate those decisions, more recent policy reversals by Bligh went beyond the pale:

"But the decision to indefinitely hold off adding purified recycled water into southeast Queensland's drinking supplies, thereby ensuring the $2.5 billion Western Corridor Recycled Water Scheme would not be used for the purpose for which it was built, gave the game away as far as the Government's thinking was concerned.

"That Ms Bligh would back down to a few uninformed agitators on the fringe of political debate in Queensland showed that the Government was more concerned about the next opinion poll than the next policy challenge."

Craig Johnstone's article also complained of Anna Bligh's "sudden conversion to the environmental well-being of the Mary River Valley". Most probably that example was omitted from the editorial because it would have been judged too difficult to also portray the entire Mary Valley community and other opponents of the Queensland Government's planned environmentally reckless Traveston dam as "uninformed agitators".

In fact, the 'uninformed agitators' opposed to water recycling won the overwhelming support of the Toowoomba Community at a referendum held in September 2006. Initially Toowoomba Mayor Di Thorley attempted to impose water recycling without any community consultation, but agreed to the referendum when put on the spot at a public meeting. After that referendum was defeated, the then Premier Peter Beattie promised to hold a poll throughout all of South East Queensland, in early 2007. He intended that the outcome of this poll be used to over-rule the expressed wishes of the Toowoomba community, but subsequently abandoned the promised poll claiming that the then severe water crisis had tied the Government's hands.

Snow Manners, one of the Courier Mail's 'uninformed agitators', at a public meeting attended by 250 people on Saturday 15 November, put the case against recycling and described the campaign he helped to lead against water recycling in 2006.

Contrary to what Peter Beattie claimed at the time, no other community in the world uses recycled water in the way that it was proposed to be used in Toowoomba. In Singapore, recycled water must be fed into houses through separate pipes and in Britain only the shire of Essex has recycled water, and that is intended to be used only in times of drought_#main-fn3">3. A document released under Freedom of Information laws revealed that when talking amongst themselves, water recycling proponents referred to Toowoomba as a "living laboratory" contrary to Beattie's assertions.

Mr. Manners also pointed out that water recycling was ready to be introduced by 1996, but the proponents of recycling delayed the introduction, judging that they could only succeed in overcoming community objections during a perceived severe water crisis.

Other 'uninformed agitators', although not specifically targeted on this occasion, included anti-water-fluoridation campaigners Merilyn Haines, Dr. Doug Everingham, former Health Minister in the Whitlam Government and Dr. Andrew Harms, past President of the South Australian Branch of the Australian Dental Association. Both Doug Everingham and Andrew Harms were previously active proponents for fluoridation.

Merilyn Haine's sister suffered inexplicably from dermatitis when she moved to Townsville, a North Queensland city which has fluoridated water and inexplicably recovered whenever she left Townsville for any length of time. Merilyn Haines, who describes herself as normally pro-Labor, will be standing against Premier Anna Bligh as an independent campaigner as a result of Bligh's decision to impose fluoridated water on Queensland.

#Disagrees" id="Disagrees">Even the Australian sides with the 'uninformed agitators' against the Courier Mail

Many of the Courier Mail's readers may be surprised to learn that the national daily newspaper the Australian also owned by Rupert Murdoch, in fact sided with the 'uninformed agitators', if equivocally. The editorial "Far from Armageddon" cited warnings from two senior Australian National University academics that the Australian had reported in previous days (see below) about the dangers that recycled water posed to public health that the Bligh Government had not taken account of. This, together with the fact that the dams of South East Queensland had filled again meant that there was no longer an urgent need for recycling. Whilst the editorial saw a role for recycled water in industry and did not rule out the drinking of recycled water in future, the editorial concluded "The Bligh Government would be wise to hasten slowly."

This otherwise reasoned and balanced editorial was marred by its support for the environmentally reckless Traveston Dam. Nevertheless, it would appear that even the Australian disagrees, on this occasion, with the Courier Mail's view that Queenslanders have been poorly served by a Government which has too much regard for the views of Queenslanders.

Some of the reporting upon which the Australian's editorial was based was:

"Recycled sewage 'will have bugs', Queensland Government warned"

"(Australian National University emeritus) Professor Troy said the safety of recycled water had not been proved in any long-term epidemiological studies.

"It will not be possible to remove all biologically active waste molecules from the system," Professor Troy said.

"The probability is that something like 8 per cent of these impurities will get through, and that is assuming the system is working properly."

"Professor Troy said residents with allergies would be particularly at risk of infection. 'What's happening here is that the authorities are playing Russian roulette with the health of the population,' he said.

"It is a scandal that former premier Peter Beattie promised the people of southeast Queensland a say in a plebiscite and then backed away from that promise.

...

"Professor Troy said the 'hugely expensive' recycled water project was unnecessary and a waste of public money.

" 'This is all being driven by a technological obsession that big engineering projects offer the only solutions to water shortages,' he said." (the Australian, 29 Oct 08)

"Disease expert warns on recycled sewage"

"ONE of Australia's leading infectious disease experts has claimed technology does not exist to prevent recycled sewage from contaminating the water supply of 2.6 million residents in southeast Queensland.

...

"Professor Collignon said viruses that could contaminate the water supply ranged from bugs that caused gastroenteritis to potentially fatal infections leading to encephalitis and heart disease.

"Test results for hazardous bacteria such as E.coli would not be available to authorities for at least a day, he said. "By the time the results come back, the water is already in the reservoir." (the Australian - 30 Oct 08)

"Health chief out of loop on recycling""

"THE bureaucrat charged with safeguarding the health of Queenslanders was not called on to approve the adding of recycled sewage to the drinking water of the state's southeast.

"The Bligh Government left Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young out of the approval loop on the Western Corridor Recycled Water Project.

"Instead, the scheme was given a health clearance by the Office of the Water Supply Regulator, an arm of the state Department of Natural Resources and Water.

"The revelation came as Dr Young's department admitted it did not know how much hospital waste would be recycled.

"Queensland Health said yesterday it was now helping to conduct research to find out how much hospital waste would be in the 60 megalitres of treated sewage a day pumped into Brisbane's main storage, the Wivenhoe Dam, from February. ..." (the Australian, 4 Nov 08)

Other stories of concerns about water recycling published in the Australian included: "Queensland Premier Anna Bligh tells water plan critics she will drink recycled sewage", 31 Oct 08; "Support wavers for use of recycled sewage water", 1 Nov 08

None of this reporting reached the pages of the Courier Mail_#main-fn4">4, even though the issue would have been even more relevant to its readers than to the readership of the Australian. Only on 20 November, when the Queensland Government had decided to defer recycling did it make it to the pages of the Courier Mail in the story "Recycled water plan may be postponed, says John Bradley" by Patrick Lion. Interestingly only two out of the seven readers' comments to that article were in support of recycling. Four opposed it outright, whilst one other said that the question should be put to a referendum.

#NoAberration" id="NoAberration">Courier Mail's misreporting of water recycling no aberration

The Courier Mail's treatment of objections to water recycling is far from an aberration. On virtually every major
controversy in recent years in which powerful vested interests stood to gain in the face of strong community objections regarding costs to ordinary citizens, the environment or democracy, the Courier Mail has come down on the side of the former:

• The Suncorp Stadium, which has scarred the skyline of the inner north of Brisbane and forced locals to endure parking restrictions and be periodically overwhelmed by crowds attending large sporting and entertainment events, was built at the cost of tens of millions of dollars at a time when former Premier Peter Beattie complained that he didn't have sufficient funds to act against tree clearing in outback Queensland.
• The planned cruise ship terminal on Southport's Spit, fortunately defeated by a concerted community campaign
• Road, tunnel and bridge building projects which are criss-crossing Brisbane. These are necessitating the requisition of hundreds of dwellings and destruction of open spaces. They include: the North South Bypass Tunnel, the Hale Street Bridge, the Northern Link, the Airport Link and various other major roads;
• Former Premier Peter Beattie's forced local amalgamations enacted at the behest of the Property Council of Australia against overwhelming opposition from those whose councils were to be forcibly amalgamated;
• The privatisation of Telstra opposed by 70% of the Australian public when the Senate past the legislation in September 2005;
• The Howard Government's "Work Choices" which stripped workers of many of their entitlements and protection from unfair dismissal. This was never put to the electorate in the 2004 election and was roundly rejected in the 2007 election.

#Putsch" id="Putsch">The Courier Mail seeks electoral putsch in Queensland

The Courier Mail editorial continued:

"After more than a decade of Labor in power, this is not where the Bligh Government should be. Certainly, it is an uncomfortable place from which to forge hard policy decisions. At the start of a year likely to contain some of the toughest economic challenges that governments have had to deal with for decades, Queenslanders need the state in sure, confident hands. During her time as treasurer and infrastructure minister, Ms Bligh cultivated a reputation for putting policy ahead of short-term politics.

...

"But the overall impression is of a tired, timid government feeling its way, not a good look when the state needs firm leadership to steer it through uncertain economic times.

"All of this suggests Queensland will be well served if, when Ms Bligh returns from leave next month, she calls an election for either February or March. With a grim outlook on jobs and investment staring it in the face, the state does not need a government flitting from one decision to the next as it constantly calculates its electoral chances."

However, judging from the well-founded backdown of the "tired, timid (state) government" on the issue of water recycling (if not water fluoridation), Queensland appears to have been far better served by that government, for all of its serious flaws, than it is likely to be if it ends up in what the Courier Mail considers "sure, confident hands."

#NSW" id="NSW">The Australian's attempt to manipulate the NSW Parliament

To add weight to its case for an earlier election Craig Johnstone's earlier article the editorial cited the example of the Rees Labor Government in NSW:

"The idea that governments should always run their full term has been blown out of the water by the performance of the Rees Government in New South Wales."

This opinion appears to derived from the Australian newspaper, which extensively covered and, indeed, stridently attempted to influence the political developments in NSW under Premier Nathan Rees and his predecessor Morris Iemma.

Unlike its reporting of the issue of water recycling, the Australian's coverage of NSW politics was most unbalanced.

In August 2008 NSW Parliament was recalled at a cost of $500,000 because Treasurer Michael Costa and Premier Morris Iemma saw an opportunity to rush through their privatisation legislation, a cause the Australian newspaper had stridently championed since November 2007. However, when the Liberal/National Opposition announced its intention to join with the Greens, Independents and a minority of the Labor caucus in voting against the legislation, Michael Costa failed to put the bill.

Whilst this was not what was expected of the Liberal and National Parties who on most occasions in recent years have supported privatisation, it was in accord with the principles of democracy and accountability. As many as 86% of the NSW public opposed privatisation at the time. Iemma and Costa had undertaken not to privatise before the 2007 elections, privatisation had been roundly rejected by the NSW electors when the Liberal Party had campaigned on the policy in 1999 and the NSW Labor Party Conference in May 2007 voted 702 to 104 against privatisation. In short, the NSW Government had no mandate, by any stretch of the imagination, to privatise.

For the crime of voting in accord with the will of the people of NSW, the state Opposition were damned by the Australian on that day and at every possible opportunity since.

As a consequence of their failed privatisation bid, Iemma and Costa were, unsurprisingly, deposed from their respective ministerial posts by the NSW state Labor Caucus. For the Australian, the failure of the NSW Labor Parliamentary caucus to stand by leaders, which in the Australian's view had exhibited such strength of character for having defied the will of the people of NSW, the Labor Party and the trade union movement, was also unforgivable. This was bizarrely held by the Australian as reason why the NSW Labor Government did not deserve to serve a full term. In the Australian's view only a Government that is truly prepared to ride roughshod overall public opposition is worthy of retaining power.

#Prognosis" id="Prognosis">The prognosis for Queensland if the Courier Mail gets its way

The treatment of the NSW public by the Australian as well as the past treatment of the Queensland public by the Courier Mail should warn Queenslanders about what to expect if Anna Bligh accedes to its demands to call an early election.

With the election out of the way and the expected deepening of the financial and economic crisis, we can expect the Courier Mail to similarly demand of whatever Government is in office, whether Labor or Coalition, the implementation of its pro-corporate agenda: the resumption of plans to introduce water recycling as well as the construction of the Traveston and other dams, the slashing of state government services and the further raising charges, freezes on public sector recruitment or even outright retrenchments. Above all, we can expect the Courier Mail to push for further privatisation.

In recent years, the Queensland Labor Government has privatised the retail arms of its publicly owned gas and electricity suppliers, the Golden Casket lottery, the Dalrymple Bay coal loader, the State Government Insurance Office (SGIO - now known as SunCorp Brisbane Airport, the Mackay Airport). The Government never obtained any popular mandate for any of these privatisations. The full privatisation of the already partially privatised SGIO was directly against a 1998 election commitment of former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie. On top of that the practice of building ever greater numbers of bridges, roads and tunnels through Public Private Partnerships is effectively no different to privatisation.

Queensland Rail, which has already been split up and corporatised and water infrastructure are two of the most obvious candidates for privatisation.

What the Courier Mail is calling for is effectively an electoral putsch. An early election would make it harder for supporters of minor parties such as the Greens and community grass roots independents to raise their concerns before the wider Queensland. This will make it harder for them to win seats of even to gain significant electoral support. For its part, judging by its coverage of previous elections the Courier Mail will not be making any effort to put such policies before the public.

Of course, this won't prevent the Courier Mail from subsequently claiming that the Government had a mandate to enact these policies, just as it absurdly did in regard to the forced Council amalgamations of 2007 as one example. With the next elections three years away, it would take an extremely determined mass movement to stop these policies from becoming reality.

#What" id="What">What can be done?

Expose Courier Mail's blatant manipulation of democratic processes

The first thing to be done is to show up the Courier Mail's push for an early election for what it is -- a blatant attempt to manipulate Queensland's democratic processes to serve what appears to be its own narrow sectional corporate agenda at our expense. We must demand of our elected leaders to not hold early elections at the whim of the Courier Mail, nor for that matter, for their own electoral advantage.

The first thing to be done is to show up the Courier Mail's push for an early election for what it is -- a blatant attempt to manipulate Queensland's democratic processes to serve what appear to be its own narrow sectional corporate agenda at our expense. We must demand of our elected leaders to not hold early elections at the whim of the Courier Mail, nor for that matter, for their own electoral advantage.

One way or another the ability of newspapers such as the Courier Mail, beholden to a single overseas proprietor to manipulate our political processes must be ended.

Laws which strictly limit the number of media outlets that any one individual or corporation can control must be reintroduced and those with excessive ownership of Australian newsmedia such as Rupert Murdoch must be made to divest much of their ownership.

Furthermore, genuine alternatives to newsmedia which only pushes corporate interests must be established. A good start would be to re-establish the ABC as a truly independant broadcaster. As such it should be required to report objectively, to effectively and fearlessly scrutinise our business and political leaders and to report all sides of the debates on matter of public importance such as water recycling, water fluoridation, population growth, immigration, housing unaffordability, the environment, etc. As it is, the ABC differs little from the Murdoch newsmedia on most of these issues.

Government sponsored independent daily newspaper alternatives to the corporate newsmedias could be established along the same lines as an independant ABC.

Community groups or anyone with a different perspective to offer should be given access to the these government-sponsored media or they should be assisted to set up their own.

If this were done, we would stand a much greater chance of being able to elect political representatives who will properly represent us.

Demand that politicians put all their major policies to the electorate

Contact all candidates in your electorate and ask them where they stand on these issues, particularly privatisation. Demand that they either put these policies to their electors during the course of the forthcoming elections or undertake not to enact those policies until they have obtained a mandate through a referendum.

Demand direct democracy

Too many policies, harmful to our interests, have been enacted in recent years, because the public opposition to those policies has not been reflected in the vote in Parliament. Ordinary citizens must have the right to both put forward legislative proposals or oppose legislation emanating from their elected representatives as referendum questions.

Oppose four year Parliamentary terms!

The Courier Mail is correct, even if for the wrong reasons, in its new-found opposition to four year state parliamentary terms. When there are no other checks and balances to prevent our elected politicians doing whatever they like regardless of what they said at election time, even three years is too long. If any proposal to extend the term of the Queensland Parliament is put, it must be voted down.

Stand for Parliament

Either seek pre-selection from a minor party which supports democratic pro-environmental anti-corporate policies or stand as an independent. If another candidate with similar policies stands make sure you recommend that those voting for you give him/her your preferences or even consider standing aside in order to help that candidate.

Support democratic pro-environmental anti-corporate candidates

Actively support any candidate who stands on a democratic pro-environmental anti-corporate platform. One such candidate, is Merilyn Haines, who, as mentioned above, will be standing against Premier Anna Bligh. You can consider distributing leaflets, handing out how-to-vote cards, writing letters to the paper, calling talk-back radio, posting comments to online forums including this site, writing articles and publishing them on the web, including here, or even establishing your own blog.

Whatever profile is gained from such a campaign can only better position the campaigner against the likely anti-democratic agenda that will follow the elections even if the candidates don't succeed in winning office.

See also: "Reclaim Our Democracy: Boycott Murdoch" (after) 6 June 08 in the Spring Hill Voice, the Spring Hill Voice's Media Page (including a promotion of this article), "Media contempt for facts in NSW electricity privatisation debate" of 18 Sep 08.

#Footnotes" id="Footnotes">Footnotes

#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. #main-fn1-txt">↑ . Queensland is a State of Australia located in the North East.

#main-fn2" id="main-fn2">2. #main-fn2-txt">↑ . On 20 October she made another commitment, but only not to go to the polls until 2009. The headline of the ABC story was "No early election: Bligh", whilst the headline of the Brisbane News story of 23 October was.

#main-fn3" id="main-fn3">3. #main-fn3-txt">↑ To that brief list should be added Windhoek capital of the arid African nation of Namibia. The Australian article "Disease expert warns on recycled sewage" of 30 Oct 08 reported:

"(Australian National University microbiologist) Professor (Peter) Collignon rejected claims by the Queensland Government that the project was comparable with recycled water schemes overseas.

"Singapore, one of the examples often cited by Queensland, had a "very different" system, he said. Waste water was pumped through a pipeline separate from Singapore's reticulated system - unlike in southeast Queensland - and accounted for less than 1 per cent of the city state's dam capacity.

"Professor Collignon said the Namibian capital of Windhoek, located in a desert, had the only comparable system.

"'Brisbane has many times the rainfall of Windhoek,' he said. 'There's no need for Brisbane to be putting sewage into drinking water. There is nowhere else in the world where a large population is being forced to accept a situation where 10 or 25per cent of their drinking water is recycled sewage.'"

#main-fn4" id="main-fn4">4. #main-fn4-txt">↑ I can't rule out the possibility that there may have been other reports, but I can't definitely recall having noticed them, even though I scan through the Courier Mail looking for such stories almost very day. A google news search with term "recycled water site:news.com.au" (omit quotes) won't show up any other articles from the period 29 Oct-4 Nov either.

This article was first posted as a comment to an article by Tim Murray, but I decide to turn it into my own blog entry after it was pointed out that the size of this comment caused Tim's article to be dwarfed.

Tim Murray, in his excellent article "Is the home-building industry the prime mover of our ecological ruin?" of 31 December 2008 wrote:

"The former Premier of New South Wales, Bob Carr, once offered Australia a choice. It could sustain jobs and economic security by using its brains, by being a smart economy, by adding value to the products it produces and by transforming manufacturing. Or it could continue to be a 'lazy Australia' that depends on job growth simply by driving up population numbers and depending on the growth you get by building homes and shopping malls. And that is indeed what is it has done, adding a third to its population in less than three decades."

These words point to the essence of the problem.

Population growth is an 'easy' way for those, who have guided this country's destiny for at least the last three decades, to enrich itself. But, the evidence, not to mention, common sense and basic intuition, tells us from the point of view of this society as whole, we can only become poorer and not richer as a result. Firstly, the access of each one of us to our natural resources must necessarily be reduced on average, and secondly, although, less intuitively obvious, increasing population size, once an optimum population size has been passed, creates dis-economies, rather than economies of scale. It costs more per head of population as our cities become more packed, to build and maintain the infrastructure necessary to provide, transport, water, electricity, health care, education and other essential services. However, paradoxically, as we become poorer an average and as we steal ever more wealth from future generations, a small elite become wealthier.

The way to become wealthier as Carr implied was to build up a manufacturing and science base using the talent we already have within our shores. This indeed happened, when Australian had a population of only 7 million between the First and Second World Wars. Although not a well understood fact Australia, as a result became largely self-sufficient and, through the strength of its manufacturing base able to sustain a navy and air force and an army with eight fully-equipped divisions by July 1942, was able to deter the Japanese from persuing their plans to invading Australia in March 1942, even before their defeat by US forces at the Battle of the Coral Sea. This country was a world leader in technology. This is the thesis of Andrew Ross's "Armed and Ready - the industrial development and Defence of Australia 1900-1945" of 1995. Although largely ignored since 1995, it has yet to be challenged bay any comparable work. This was the subject of a discussion on Online Opinion and I made use of it in an article "The myth of the Howard Government's Defence Competence" of 21 November 2007.

Had Australia maintained that technological lead, I believe that we would have been a more prosperous nation as well as a more equitable and democratic nation and we would have stood a greater chance of achieving sustainable technological base. However it seems that it appears that it suited an elite within our society which has come to guide our destiny to throw all that away in order to be able to enrich itself at the expense of the rest of us and this process continues today.

Notwithstanding Bob Carr's very apt comments, I just cannot accept that he was ever sincere. Of course, he always sounds sincere, but his actions, and even his words, on other occasions belie these words.

Listen to Bob Carr's moving words, at an ABC sponsored public 'forum' on 18 September 2008, about how we were all warned as far back as the 1970's about the perils of global warming and then ask yourself how a man with this knowledge could have then been responsible for the massive expansion in NSW open cut coal mining which is not only helping to fuel global warming, but also destroying NSW's own environment.

Although this was supposed to be a 'forum', in the typical style of Bob Carr who, throughout his career has avoided critical scrutiny even more determinedly than the fabled Count Dracula avoided sunlight, limited question time to 10 minutes.

However, the written comments at the end of the page give an overwhelmingly damning verdict of his legacy. Here are some:

"Bob Carr should have done a lot more reading when he was in office -- reading the reports about the shocking state of the health, education, transport and infrastructure of NSW. Then perhaps he would've done something about it. Or perhaps he would have arranged a succession plan when he vamoosed out of politics before it came crashing down.

"Or perhaps he should've spent less time reading job offers from banks with connections to road-building firms.

"Bob Carr has always had pretensions of gravitas, but we don't have to prop up his delusions.
We are paying for his superannuated retirement, so could we give no public air time to his irrelevant ponderings -- his actions mean that his mental meanderings have no credibility."

This drew a defence:

I don't find Carr enormously stimulating, but you clearly don't have anything coherent against him - apart from his unsatisfactory chin. Harold Bloom - he of the Western Canon - paid tribute to Bob Carr as the only senior politician whom he respected as an intellectual: www.podcastdirectory.com/podshows/2890398.

... which, in turn drew a further response:

"I'm not searching for deep intellectualism in my politicians. If I were, Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott would rank well ahead of Bob Carr on sheer intelligence (although I know intelligence is not the same as intellect). I would say Harold Bloom didn't get around enough if he really thought Bob Carr was the only senior politician whom he regarded as an intellectual, or maybe he never met Edward Kennedy, Sir Edward Heath, Enoch Powell or dare I say it, Edward Whitlam _#main-fn1">1 (what is it with Edwards?).

"You are being disingenuous when you say we complain only of Mr Carr's chin. We are complaining about his sale of public assets, his close relationship with businesses that profitted under his government, and the general ineptitude of his government."

Further comments:

"... Then was the disgraceful Workers Compensation Reform. Instead of making those who caused the problem pay he made the workers and community pay. ...We do not deserve these indecent preaching pratts but we have them."

"The collective disdain toward Carr in this blog gives me a glimmer of hope in humanity. There are actually people out there who are switched on to just how ridiculous this country has become. Our governments consist of individuals that could be considered criminals by any rational court."

"Give me a break. 'Human Decency' would demand an apology from this 'retired', at great public expense, ex-professional politician that never had real job or a degree from the university of life and probably the worse leader ever of this state, to the long suffering taxpayers and people of theONCE great State of NSW, for what he and his party have done to us. He should have the "Human Decency" to apologize. Tsk, Tsk ..."

"This is the man who recently gave his full moral support to Morris Iemma's and Michael Costa's attempt to privatise their electricity assets of NSW in spite of the fact that Iemma had ruled that out prior to the 2007 elections and in spite of the fact that 79%-86% of NSW residents opposed privatisation - all quietly forgotten, at least, that is what he no doubt hopes.

"It is most strange how Carr seems so much more passionate about events in other times and the politics of other lands than he ever was about the political and events in the time and place, where as state Premier and potential federal Labor leader and, hence, potential Prime Minister, he could have made a lasting and positive impact on Australian and, possibly, world history. Of course, it is a matter of record that he did not and his administration will be remembered as one of the most inept, secretive and anti-democratic in the history of this county.

"I wonder if Bob Carr has ever contemplates how figures like himself are likely to be viewed in future times by people trying to understand this age through the fictional and non-fictional works of our time." - James Sinnamon

"It is sad indeed that Australian political life is so reduced that Bob Carr passes as 'interesting' and an 'intellectual'. In general Australian politicians lag about 20 to 30 years behind informed opinion on matters outside of their field of interest - personal power and privilege."

"Bob didn't show much human decency when he sold off Prince Henry Hospital, when before he was elected he promised he would save it.

"Long term illnesses, such as aids, mental illness and long term heart recovery, just to name a few, had this beautiful position on the coast to recover in. But he sold it off under the pretence of changing the laws to protect coastal lands, which actually just gave him the power to do what he wanted.

"Medical teams were disgusted and sad, because they knew they would never have such great teams and means for recovery again.

"Where is the decency in that? So I guess we have answered the question."

"Demonstrably, Mr Carr must have only a theoretical interest in human decency.
Practically, he squattered the housing boom in NSW during the 10 years that he was Premier with the result of infrastructure breakdowns, health meltdown, etc of essential services.

"Pity that a well read man such as Bob Carr only make sounds which practically signify nothing in what he did.

"There are basic flaws in a political system that rewards such hypocrisy."

"He is giving himself credibility but NSW knows bob the builder of tolls and tolled tunnels and fire sales of Acer Arena lowest bid wins and Sydney Showground foxy giveaways

"We get to pay the pension indexed to their former self served salaries... in addition to an office with staff a minder and a travel expense free ride....

"Parasites never leave the host until the host is totally consumed.

"If they have obviously stitched up a consultancy job in the private sector with prior intimacy ... then the perks should be suspended until they are needy.

"It would be 'humanely decent' if they gave up the perks until they are retired at 65 with a pension closer to the average wage and fund their own office and staff and carr transport.

"Take the Ted Mack pledge not to drain our Treasury for the purpose of supporting the people not the servants of the people... Ted was decent, nobody else has the decency he walked the talk and left no toll for his life's work."

"Bob carr.

"Decency?

"Why this man isn't in gaol is unfathomable.

"I notice that the very bank who owns the toll roads in sydney is now his employer.

"If this man is a letter of letters then the best place he should be writing his comments and memoirs should be behind a locked door. It is people like Bob Carr who have become a gnawing cancer in society, from their actions they encourage more illegal activity, thus throwing Australian society into the depths of the developing world. ..."

I could write pages more about Bob Carr's many other crimes against the environment, democracy, accountability and social justice. Whilst his environmental accomplishments were substantial in his early years, particularly his massive extension of NSW's National Parks, I think those accomplishments and all his fine words about population control should more properly be regarded as 'bait' to cause people environmentalists to forgive him for a massive slew of other pro-business and anti-environmental policies. To get an idea how 'bait and switch' is used , view Barrie Zwicker's deconstruction of the phony US dissident Noam Chomsky in the YouTube broadcast "The Shame of Noam Chomsky and the Left gatekeepers". I think Carr is a kind of fake-Malthusian variant of Noam Chomsky.

Footnotes

#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. #main-fn1-txt">↑ Edward Gough Whitlam is more widely known as 'Gough Whitlam'. Bob Carr has repeatedly spurned the legacy of Gough Whitlam, but had Gough's Government retained power, he would have prevented the population growth that Carr claimed to be against. Furthermore the Department of Urban Planning (or something with a similar name) which was abolished by Malcolm Fraser would have constrained the damage that developers were able to cause to our cities. For all of his flaws Gough Whitlam is an intellectual giant in comparison to Carr as the poster pointed out. Moreover, unlike the do-nothing government of Bob Carr, Gough's Government implemented far greater number worthwhile reforms (although most have been, sadly, subsequently dismantled).

Invest in growth but go live on another planet

I have friends with money who occasionally discuss with me how they should invest it, because I write about land-speculation and resource depletion, railing against population growth, in absolute contrast to their professional investment advisers. I tell them they should invest it in all the things they are morally against. The old adage that 'money is the root of all evil' can also be switched around: "Evil is the root of all money." They should buy land in the path of environmentally destructive, overpopulation-facilitating, new roads and railways. They should invest in coal, uranium, agribusiness, and they should invest in water. Then they should leave this planet and collect their dividends from somewhere safe.

About fifteen years ago I published an article in the Weekly Times (which was buried on about page 70) about how continued population growth in my state (Victoria, Australia) would lead to water scarcity and cause the city to draw water from the country. I was right then and I am right now: it is going to get worse. Seeing the fulfilment of my prophesy has taught me a lot about the economic and social system most of us reading and writing in English live within. It seems to be no different from the political systems which have brought official third world countries down, despite what we are constantly told by the media and mainstream environment groups about being rich 'first world' citizens living in a democracy. Not a natural capitalist or even endowed with much spare cash, I have never been able to bring myself to invest in my country's downfall, or I might have bought shares in water, as well as in property development, coal and uranium.

Permaculture

I did, however, invest in permaculture. With the help of a friend who was doing a permaculture course, I planted an orchard and began cultivating a vegetable garden, the better to survive the financial crash which we both thought anyone with remotely sparking synapses should be able to see coming. (That was in 2003 or 2004).

A few years later, the confluence of the rising tide of population and declining rainfall was used by the Victorian government as an excuse to raise the price of water and drastically reduce its supply to suburban homes. "We've all got to get used to the reality that the climate is drying and the population is growing", the government said, as if the pressure of population had nothing to do with their invitations to come to Victoria and their redesignation of every part of the state as a region in need of immigration.

Vale Victoria the "Garden State"

Before 1992 Victoria was called, "The Garden State". This term was actually embossed on licence plates. Then came the shock merchants. First a conservative (Liberal) government dominated both houses of parliament, led by Mr Jeff Kennett. It rammed through severe changes to land-use planning, removing many rights from citizens about what could be done to the state and their neighborhood and amalgamating and renaming local boundaries in a confusing way.

Kennett tried to boost population numbers but only succeeded in stemming the flow to Queensland, a state then known for its cheap land. But he literally paved the way for overpopulation by normalising the removal of democratic barriers to intensification of development. After Kennett, in 1999, a Labor Government dominated Victoria, led by Mr Bracks, a Catholic.

Mr Bracks out-did the conservatives, teaming up with a slew of developers and engineers and the mainstream media (which sells real-estate all over the planet and funds life-style and home-improvement programs on t.v.) to transform Victoria into a kind of single-industry real-estate economy. Like a kind of smiling, evil genius, he actually convinced Victorians that their population was falling, instilling a fear that perhaps they were all going to go extinct, yet, at the same time, convincing them that Victoria needed more houses for the growing population. Bracks and his side-kick, Mr Thwaites, having started off a population-juggernaut, suddenly jumped ship and left the State in charge of their back-seat driver, the Treasurer, Mr Brumby.

Brumby racheted up Victoria's population growth to extremes it had never reached before, giving rise to this arcane remark by Ms Danielle Green in Parliament on 16 April 2008:

"(...) it is now expected that the population growth predicted in 2001 is actually going to be here in 2020 rather than in 2030. (...) - it is like 1 million people coming around to your place next Sunday and expecting a sausage at a barbecue."

From being able to water whenever you felt like it, now - because of the 'big barbecue' the government had scheduled without consulting the rest of us - you could only water twice a week between the hours of 6 am and 8am. This is the time when nine to fivers are on their way to work and shift-workers are sleeping. At the same time we hit mid-summer with scorching heat that turned leaves to crisps and caused the native trees to drop their branches. Along the Murray Darling River system, our major food-basin, ancient red-gums that had survived European settlement until then, were giving up the ghost.

Water hysteria

Victorians became obsessed with water. Australians became obsessed with water. Not only was water restricted, but you had to 'invest in' - hell, you had to buy - new trigger-devices so you could turn your hose on and off like a gun, whilst you held it, or run the risk of arrest. I bought a couple that were supposed to fit any diameter hose, only to find that they didn't fit my hose. Taking them back to the store would have cost me a fortune in petroleum (the price of which was also rocketing up) so I worried instead.

I had a very small metal tank (pictured at the top of this article), but every time it rained I gathered the water in baths and buckets, with the sense that my life-blood was slipping down the drain. It was never enough. Fruit fell off the trees before it ripened and it was all I could do to stop the trees themselves from dying. How I hated the government and idiotic Victorians who prattled on stupidly about 'saving water' instead of running out of town the contemptuous and well-paid 'economists' and politicians who were preparing Victorians for the idea that they should pay up to 5% of their incomes for water in the future because of Victoria's population growth.

The logistics and hygiene of water conservation and use were confusing and tiresome. If one 'saved' water by brushing one's teeth using a glass of water instead of running the tap, should one then pour the rest of the water glass onto the tomatoes or should one use it to rinse the sink. If you took a quick shower and saved the water at the base of the shower, how long could you leave it until you used it? Could you use it on the vegetables? One could spend hours in the hard-ware shop choosing ribbed hoses to connect to the washing-machine and laundry drain-pipes, only to find that the joints would leak under the house. "It's all guess-work," the shop-assistant said, shrugging her shoulders.

Tension in the suburbs

Tension rose in the suburbs. We were reported to the police for 'wasting' water after someone turned our front garden hose on for a prank. This happened twice, until my nervous mother disconnected the hose and hid it. A friend’s wife picked him up from day surgery and, as they entered their driveway, he pointed to a neighbour who was hosing her four-wheel drive down in the street, and complained somewhat groggily of how he himself was unable to keep their garden alive. His wife then went up to the neighbour and accused her of water-profligacy, and not only that, on her use of a SUV in a time of imminent petroleum depletion. The two neighbours dueled verbally on the footpath and things have never been the same between them again. In another case a man succumbed to a heart attack after he was attacked by a passer-by for hosing his garden (with tank water as it turned out.)

The money required to purchase and install a large tank was a huge outlay for me. I kept the radio turned off in order to avoid the government's incessant dishonest moralising about "Saving water for future generations" when I knew that it was touting for immigrants simply to boost the price of water and land, and scheming to divert water to agribusiness.

My new tank

Eventually, however, I 'invested' in a large tank. I had intended to install it myself but discovered, to my consternation, that it would not fit in the place I had meant for it to go, which had a down-pipe in situ. I thought about the problem for months, and how I might connect it to other down-pipes, but the problem overwhelmed me, so I thought I would have to call a plumber. Only because of the construction down-turn, was I able to get one to come. I was amazed and impressed by the comparative grandeur of the system he designed. First he tilted the gutters on my large tin roof so that all the water converged at a single point. He then connected that point to a pipe that went down into the ground, then up into the rotund plastic reservoir perched picturesquely under the loquat tree. He then ran another pipe out of the big tank, underground, then up again to the little tank, which would take the overflow. It crossed my mind that a series of short pipes between the tanks would have used less material and not have required three men to dig pits, but I was too glad to see the plumber to argue with him.

The joy of capitalism

I was riveted by my new water-wealth. Suddenly I was experiencing capitalism at its rawest. Shakespeare's 'gentle rain that falls, unstrained', [Portia's speech inThe Merchant of Venice, in case you had forgotten] had triumphed until then, but, now that I owned the means of production, this suddenly changed. I could collect the stuff in vast quantities. If the drought continued long enough, I could sell glasses of it to passers-by as they struggled up the hill in the heat. Water became a source of fascination. I found contemplation of the habits of piped water fascinating; the fact that it will run up-hill so reliably, as long as it starts higher than the final destination seemed magical. I couldn't wait for it to rain to prove this to myself. Luckily we soon had an exceptional downpour and the big tank half-filled up in one afternoon. It rained for several days after that. I spent a lot of time tapping the big tank to work out how much water was in it. I felt that soon I would hear water coursing down the out-pipe to my little tank. Each time it rained, I pressed my ear to the out-pipe where it surged up like a serpent from the ground, awaiting a percussive modulation as the water flowed through it to the metallic tank and splashed to meet the somber mosquito nurseries within. The big tank seemed bottomless; there was no overflow. I began to wondered about blockages and air pressure.

The Woes of capitalism

Then, one awful night, I heard a new sound like a massive waterfall outside the bathroom. The rain was smashing down on the garden and forks of lightening alternated with deafening thunderclaps in a kind of infernal disco. I raced out in my pyjamas with a torch. Water was gushing out of the tank like a volcano, roaring down the side, forming a river in the front garden which was flowing under the house. I grabbed a ladder and climbed up the side of the tank to peer into the fountain, with the locat tree clawing at my head and face, and mosquitoes dining off my ankles and arms. The tank was full to overflowing. More aghast than anything that I was losing all this water, I ran about in the rain looking for bits of hose and gutter to use to divert the fountain from the big tank into the hole in the top of the little tank, but nothing worked, and the fury of the storm eventually chased me back inside.

The torrential downpour continued over several days. The plumber came after it stopped. The sand at the base of the tank had eroded and the tank was leaning over to the left. The plumber diagnosed the problem in the fact that the height of the outlet pipe exceeded the height of the inlet pipe. I tried not to even think about the oddness of a plumber making such a mistake. The only thing to do was to drill a new hole and insert the outlet pipe lower down. If I allowed him to empty the tank (all 2,500 L) he would be able to straighten it, but not before. But I knew that if I emptied the big tank we would immediately enter a drought. There was no danger of the tank rolling down the hill and killing anyone. I suffered at the idea that, due to its angle, the big tank's capacity would be diminished by an amount approximately equal to the capacity of the little tank, around 500 L.

Downturn: Reservoir capacity reduction

As a water capitalist, I had been counting on having at my disposal about 3000 L. I despaired at the idea of being reduced to only 2500 L. It was like Scrooge McDuck being told that his millions would stagnate, devoid of interest due to a mistake on the part of the bank, which would cost him more to rectify than it was worth.

The irony is, of course, that I will not earn any money from this water I have supposedly invested in. I paid, all up, somewhere in the region of $2,500 to connect the new tank. I will be paying more for water. I will not be selling from my garden for a profit; it isn't big enough. I only want to be able to supplement my diet in times of hardship, or, if necessary, trade with neigbours. The only people who will ever make a profit out of my water are the tank manufacturers, salespeople, those who transported it, the pvc pipe manufactuers (Mr Pratt, the pipe-manufacturer who helped the Victorian government to market the piping of water all over the State) and the plumber. When I planted my orchard there was no problem with using tap water. Now, simply to keep the trees alive, I had to get a tank. Even the water I have saved, I once would have had for free.

Corporate trolls under bridges and farmers walking off the land

One of the greatest evils of this age is speculation on water and its privatisation. It reminds me of the early kingdoms, which were not tidy little territorial blocks, but rather positionally advantaged perches and fortresses at crucial passes. Perhaps one of the first positional advantages exercised was when a tribe upstream diverted water to exert pressure for favours from a tribe downstream.

Such is the situation of the water capitalist, who buys up water then speculates on it, taking it above the purchasing power of most ordinary farmers. And the infrastructure merchant, who pipes the water, adds to the insult to injury by charging farmers fifty and a hundred thousand for the pipes and pumps to bring the water onto their land. No farmer can farm without water. At this point the capitalist offers the farmers money for their land, which is cheap since it has no water and they have no bargaining power. PlugThePipe farmers are in this dire situation and the Victorian Government is in public private partnership with the corporate group who are taking the incumbent farmers' water from them.

Your garden may be all that stands between you and starvation as we enter permanent economic contraction

In all seriousness, the situation of the suburban gardener who cannot get enough water to keep his plants alive, is of great importance in these times of financial hardship. We need to slow down the economy to cope with petroleum depletion and so as to avoid increasing greenhouse gas production. People who once relied on income from full-time jobs can no longer count on this. The corporations and firms engineered the situation where people became absolutely dependent on their providing work for wages. They encouraged policies that ended in us giving up food-gardens and they pushed to commodify water. They urged governments to increase population so that the price of land for housing they invested in would rise exponentially.

Big Business and Government must return water to citizens

Now, at the very least, the world of business that so transformed our democracy, owes workers land for food-gardens. Huge changes in land-use planning will be needed to restore the capacity for the bulk of the population to supplement their survival by growing food. Big business and government should resile from promoting population policies which further increase demand for land and water.

It has now been raining solidly for two days. This afternoon I went for a walk in the rain in the bush for two hours and got thoroughly soaked. On the way back I passed three well-dressed suburban children who were running back and forth outside their home filling a variety of receptacles from the stormwater flowing in the gutter. It will be good practice for when they grow up and have to carry water for kilometers from the water-merchants. Or perhaps they will become water merchants themselves and no-one will any longer remember that time when water was almost free – as indeed, were we. (Big sigh)

Oh, come on! We've got to fight this harder!

Tuesday, 16 December 2008

Developer reveals last minute meeting with Planning Minister and Council bastardry condemns Western Sydney Woodland at ADI Site.

These sites and sounds files reveal just how important and beautiful this site is. Anyone should be able to see that not to preserve it is to defile traditional Australian values as well as environmental integrity.

Residents shocked as their democracy trashed for development

Concerned residents sat in amazement last night as Penrith Council voted to condemn hundreds of hectares of Cumberland Plain Woodland which NSW Scientists claim is verging on extinction. Council voted 14/15 to enter into a Planning Agreement with developer Delfin Lend Lease to build 3500 houses and clear approx 300 ha of Cumberland Plain Woodland from the ADI Site.

Penrith Council had recently exhibited Delfins Western and Central Precinct Plans as well as the Planning Agreement. Concurrently the Planning Minister had exhibited amendments to the zoning plan for the ADI site allowing the public to call for radical changes to the development.

Councillors were urged by residents that addressed the meeting to defer their decision to enter into the Planning Agreement if they did not understand fully what it is they were voting on and in any case until after the Planning Minister publicly made her final determination and after Councillors had assessed and adopted the Precinct Plans.

Delfin urges Councillors to dismiss views of residents

Arthur Ilias, Delfin Project Manager, addressed the meeting and urged Councillors to dismiss the views of residents urging the protection of more of the site. He went on to claim a meeting occurred that day with Kristina Keneally the Planning Minister and that she assured Delfin that the NSW Government would not amend the zoning plan to protect any more of the site.

Residents Action Group ADI alleges undeclared vested interest

According to Geoff Brown, spokesman for the Residents' Action group, "Several Councillors who supported Delfin Lend Lease, including the Mayor, failed to declare a pecuniary interest. Council Officers presented a clearly misleading email to Councilors prior to the meeting from Peter Goth, a Dept of Planning bureaucrat, claiming the Planning Minister had limited authority to rezone and protect more bushland. Council officers also led councilors to believe there would be further community consultation on the Agreement and that there was also the spurious claim by Planners that the NSW Government may at any time put restrictions on how Councils can collect and use developer levies and therefore the need to rush and lock in this decision."

Brown claims that "The 6 Liberal Councillors who supported the developer voted in contradiction to NSW Liberal policy which since 2003 has been to seek a 100 ha reduction in Delfins housing development."

In his opinion, “This was one of the worst, most undemocratic decisions of all time. These Councillors had no idea what they were supporting and clearly wanted it that way."

Councillor Kevin Crameri alone stood up for Woodlands

"Only one councillor, Independent Kevin Crameri, voted against it. Crameri declared a 'non-pecuniary interest' in that he lived near the proposed development. Prior to the vote he stood up and peppered the council officers with questions on detail, eliciting very confusing responses."

Brown says Council appeared confused

Geoff Brown, who addressed Council for the Residents Action Group, states that these responses seemed to him to indicate that the Councillors had not gone into the matter seriously. On the morning after the Council meeting he said that it had appeared to him that the council were all confused.

"They showed no concern that in allowing the clearing of hundreds of hectares of endangered Cumberland Plain Woodland that they were pushing it towards extinction. They seemed to have no concern with locking ratepayers into a deal with a developer before they had even debated and adopted the Precinct Plans. They had no concern for the fact the Planning Minister had yet to make a final determination on public submissions calling for more of the site to be protected.”

Mayor is himself a real-estate agent for the region and other councillors have pecuniary links

Brown gave his opinion that, “Jim Aitken the Independent Mayor, who heads the massive Jim Aitken and Partners Real Estate group, should not have voted as he will eventually make money from this development approval." He added, "I think that, arguably, Greg Davies the Labor Clr should have declared a pecuniary interest as he is employed by Diane Beamer the Member for Mulgoa and Delfin have financially supported the re-election campaign of Diane Beamer. The evidence for this is available from NSW electoral office. We intend to explore this dodgy approval process further. This is yet another sorry chapter in this planning debacle.”

Residents Action Group will seek urgent clarification from Planning Minister, Kristina Keneally

“These Councillors did their parties a great political disservice and this may play itself out at the NSW Election. We will seek urgent clarification from the Planning Minister about her position as she told the Sydney media only a week ago she was considering protecting more of the site,” said Brown.

Further Comment Geoff Brown 0431 222602
Source Media Release and interview with Geoff Brown
ADI Residents Action Group

In 2001 I made predictions about Australia's current predicament, at the end of a statistical appendix on population and energy for Australia and France (pdf 2.8M). Throughout my thesis I discussed these looming problems and their drivers. It seems appropriate to cite the short predictions from the appendix here, because Australian governments constantly pretend that no-one could see what was coming. The people who formed government from the 80s to now should be held formally responsible.

[Written in 2001]
"Australia's recent history is a strong indicator that population growth is likely to remain rapid or accelerate in the next half century. Between 1946 and 2001, Australia's population grew by 11,849,099 persons, or by 157.58%. From 1946 to 1974 it grew by 85.76%. From 1974 to 2001 it grew by 38.65%. Between the year of the French base projections, 1990 and 2001 Australia's population has grown by approximately 12.8% from 17,169,800 to 19,368,345 or an average of 1.6% per annum. Australia's growth, up to 1966 was affected by baby boom high fertility and high net migration. Although fertility declined rapidly after this, the high immigration continued. With increasing longevity this means that the population has continued to expand rapidly. We can assume that most of the Australian baby boomers will die between 2027 and 2051. If high immigration continues, however, the population will have continued to expand and will require more intense land-use, more infrastructure, and more technology to maintain its economy, even with similar per capita footprints. With exponentially expanding drylands salinity and other forms of desertification, plus massively degraded waterways, together with micro-climate changes brought about by local vegetation removal (without considering the possibility of macro-global climate changes) it is difficult to see how such a large population will survive without severe declines in quality of life, standard of living, health and longevity. As well as other bio-diversity die-off, the chances seem high for considerable human die-off due to the effect of desertification on the economy and environment. Petroleum based energy shortages are likely both to increase poverty and misery as cheap fuel becomes much less accessible to ordinary citizens. Pollution is likely to increase as coal and other lower grade fuels are substituted, since Australia has not invested in alternative energy sources. Poor design of built and transport infrastructure will add to the difficulty in reducing and satisfying energy demand for both personal and economic use."

On the other hand, under a different system:

"France's recent history is a strong indicator that population growth is unlikely to accelerate in the next half century. Between 1946 and 2001, France's population grew by 18,914,482 persons, or by 47.13 %. From 1946 to 1974 (28 years) it grew by 25.4%. From 1974 to 2001 (27 years) it grew by 17.32%. Between the year of the base population for these projections, 1990, and 2001 France's population has grown by 2,462,713 people or approximately 4.35%, or and average of 0.39% per annum from 56,577,000 in 1990 to 59,039,713. France's growth up to 1974 was affected by both the high fertility of the baby boom and high immigration. After 1974 the contribution of both these factors declined sharply. Increased longevity means that the population remains large, although its base is reducing. If we consider that the Baby Boom went from 1947 to about 1966, and assume longevity of between 80 and 85 years, then between 2027 and 2051 the baby boomer generation will die off. With no other changes this will leave the French population several millions smaller. Since France, like most Western European countries is under considerable environmental stress due to the intensity of land use required by its economy, a smaller population even with similar per capita footprints would lessen this stress and the long-term need for greater infrastructure and technology for the maintenance of the population and its economy. If, as seems likely, petroleum based fuels become rarer and more expensive, France is ahead of a lot of other countries, including Australia, in the spatial organisation, planning and technology for transport and other built infrastructure mediating economic and personal fuel needs. It currently has access to alternative fuel sources and technologies and potentially to others."

Today (8 September 2008) Premier John Brumby unveiled his ominous Victorian Transport Plan in a briefing at Federation Square before an audience of transport heavies.

The Plan no longer includes, however, the proposal encoded in Recommendation 4 of Sir Rod Eddington’s Investing in transport - East West Link Needs Assessment of March 2008.

This proposal, which lies at the very core of his Review, read “Planning work should commence on the staged construction of a new 18 kilometre cross-city road connection, extending from the western suburbs to the Eastern Freeway.”

Concerned people in Melbourne understand that this “cross city road connection" referred to road-tunnels planned for inner Melbourne, to transect Royal and Holland Parks and the Newell Wetlands; and to traverse Sunshine and Footscray in the Western suburbs along elevated roadways.

The East West Tunnel has done a disappearing act

To the citizens of Melbourne's great relief, the East West Tunnel has done a disappearing act!

Rod Quantock, Actor and Activist, and Deputy Convenor of the Royal Park Protection Group Inc. (RPPG) stated that his group interpreted the deletion of the East West road tunnel and freeway from the Brumby Victorian Transport Plan, as "a win for commonsense and the common people."

Quantock described how the groundswell of opposition has grown from June and July this year. It was around that time that councils in the path of road tunnels and toll-ways - Brimbank, Melbourne, Moonee Valley and Yarra Councils - voted unanimously “No Tunnels,” in the face of massive community outrage.

Grass-roots opposition and the dramatic decline of the Labor vote

Convenor Quantock said that there was a general feeling that:

"Grass roots opposition, the dramatic decline of the Labor vote in recent local government elections and the threat to sitting State and Federal Labor Members of Parliament may well have helped persuade the Government against including Sir Rod’s tunnels and freeways in today’s Transport Plan.”

Julianne Bell, Convenor of Royal Park Protection Group (RPPG), told how RPPG has been at the forefront of opposition to destruction of our parks, our local neighbourhoods and heritage streetscapes by the retrograde, ill-conceived transport plans of the Brumby Government.

The long war for democracy and public space is ongoing

Ms Bell stated,

"We have campaigned for 10 years against the expansion of the Eastern Freeway through Royal Park and, during this year, against the onslaught of the Eddington road tunnels. We are grateful that Royal Park, with its open bushland and wetlands, has seen a reprieve from what could have been almost fatal destruction at the hands of bulldozer drivers working on the tunnels.

"The Zoo animals can breathe easy now that a tunnel won’t be constructed next to their home. The State Netball and Hockey Centre can rest assured that games won’t be disturbed by the blasting next door in underground tunnels."

She warned, however, that no-one can afford to relax for long in the current frantic climate of incessant construction. Miss Bell explained:

"The Brumby Government continues to pay lip service to the philosophy of sustainability but appears intent on destroying the urban environment with incremental expansion of roads."

Patrick White, [the great Australian novelist, and author of Voss], sagely observed in 1972 when addressing a rally in Centennial Park, Sydney:

“Parkland is valuable and greedy eyes see the money in it. So you must always be on the alert. Hang onto your breathing spaces in this developing and already over congested city. Protect your parks from the pressure of political concrete.”

Julianne Bell says that RPPG will continue to campaign for sustainable public transport and will be eternally vigilant about proposals by any Government, no matter what colour or persuasion, to build more freeways or tollways through inner Melbourne.

For more information, contact Rod Quantock on 0438862079 & Julianne Bell on 0408022408

What are State of the Environment (SoE) reports?

State of the Environment reports (SoE) www.ces.vic.gov.au/CES/... are made on two levels: state and national. The National Reports are made on the following themes: Atmosphere, Biodiversity, Coasts and oceans, Human settlements, Inland waters, Land, Natural and cultural heritage, Australian Antarctic Territory.

The last published State of the Environment Australia Report was in 2006.

Most Australian states have prepared full SoE reports since the early 1990s, but Victoria has only just published her first, in 2008. Any previous reports were minor and had little or no comparability with the standard and methods that full SoE reports are expected to have.
Unfortunately, this report has a very poor standard. It isn't really a report; it is a policy document, which cites other reports, second or third hand ones.

Legal status

Since 1999, Australian Government legislation mandates the preparation and tabling of the national state of the environment report in Parliament through the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (section 516B)

1. The Minister must cause a report on the environment in the Australian jurisdiction to be prepared in accordance with the regulations (if any) every 5 years. The first report must be prepared by 31 December 2001.
2. The report must deal with the matters prescribed by the regulations.
3. The Minister must cause a copy of the report to be laid before each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the day on which he or she receives the report.

States and territories

[This para newly inserted on 10 December 2008] These reports are not made under the same legislation as the Commonwealth SoE Reports and their comparability is moot. Under the Australian Constitution the States have control over many aspects of the Environment, particularly with regard to land and water. It is not clear what, if anything, might be done where Commonwealth and State Reports and recommendations contradict each other.

Most State and Territory governments prepare state of the environment reports on a regular basis, and it is a legislative requirement in New South Wales, ACT, Tasmania, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia. In New South Wales local governments are legislated to prepare regular SoE reports.

The first ever real Victorian State of the Environment Report (2008) is finally out.

The dead give-away that this isn't a serious ecological report is that it treats us as 'consumers' instead of citizens. [Citizens contribute fully to their country; consumers just hand over cash and go away and shut up].

It contains informed statements which make Victorian economic growth policies look stupid and dangerous to public safety. Unfortunately this report, pretending to be critical, sets objectives which often look as if they would be impossible to coordinate (although some might be achieved briefly through combinations of strong propaganda and force) and which are mutually contradictory. This was probably the result of having a committee which could not really reach agreement between scientific reality and economic ideology, so what we get is a cognitively dissonant mix. My heart goes out to the sincere participants in this compilation.

Most of those whose backgrounds have been made available to the public in the document (you have to click the links) are economics, business or management. Trish Caswell used to be the ACF President, and when she was, she was very vigilant to ensure that population policy was kept off the agenda. I would call her an industrial relations person. There is a dairy irrigator, a council CEO. A primary industry veteran. These people are billed as having knowledge of sustainability, but, most would not have scientific knowledge of ecological systems. I think we are again victim to the Victorian government's idea that 'sustainability' is an economic concept. Can this really pass muster under the EPBC Act? It doesn't have to.

You can read the credentials of the reference group here.

Co-Chairs: Dan Atkins,Kate Vinot,
Members: Alex Arbuthnot, Cheryl Batagol, Dr Sarah Bekessy, Patricia Caswell, Catherine Dale, Russell Higgins, Gillian Sparkes, Mick Murphy, Terry Walshe, Rob Gell, Kelly O'Shannassy

Sarah Beckersley is the only one who inspires confidence in me as an ecologically educated person, however there are three in the unhighlighted list who I don't know.

It is actually pretty amazing that a committee with such obvious business bias and apparently poor aggregate biophysical science background has been allowed to put forth such a report. The report is full of cliches and lacks the profound knowledge of the 2001 State of the Environment Report. We can see why.

The Report, such as it is:

The trick is to go to the end first, but I'll start at the beginning here.

A good beginning:

The Victorian State of the Environment Report 2008 says that:

The future cannot be an extension of the past

Australia’s total material requirements are increasing and are more than twice that of other OECD countries.

Victoria's population growth is a major driver of environmental degradation.

Population growth, settlement and consumption patterns, and climate change are the key drivers of environmental degradation in Victoria.

"Population growth and settlements Victoria’s population growth, increasing affluence and the expansion of our cities and towns, have contributed to unsustainable levels of resource consumption and waste production. This has direct environmental impacts through changes in land use, from conservation and agriculture to cities and towns. To supply our cities and towns, we harvest water for residential and manufacturing purposes, change river flows, discharge wastes to land and sea, remove native vegetation and send damaging gases into the atmosphere."

"Lifestyle factors, such as the demand for larger homes and the rising cost of city living, are increasing the demand for development on Melbourne’s edges. These areas are poorly serviced by public transport due to low urban density and a focus on motor vehicle dominated urban design rather than transport systems which have the least environment impact, and which reduce our vulnerability to future economic shocks."

"Changing social patterns have led to a reduction in the number of people per household. At the same time there has been an increase in the size of houses which are often poorly designed for the local climate with low thermal and water efficiencies.These trends, combined with a growing population means we need more houses than ever before. This drives demand for household furniture and appliances, as well as heating and cooling and has led to an increase in the consumption of raw materials, water and energy."

"Victoria is largely banking on carbon capture and storage to deliver major reductions in our State’s emissions. Reliance on a technology that may not be ready until 2030 or later risks emissions continuing to rise for some time."

"Business as usual isn’t going to work."

"We must take strong action, not just make further aspirational policy commitments."

Yes, they must - only, unfortunately, they don't.

"The last assessment of river health in 2004 found that only one fifth of major rivers and tributaries in Victoria were in good or excellent condition. In 2008 nine out of ten Victorian basins in the Murray Darling Basin were found to be very poor health."

"The plants and animals which depend on our inland waters also indicate the health of rivers and wetlands."

"Unfortunately the news is not good. 21 fish species, 11 frog species and 29 species of waterbirds are threatened, and only 14% of riverside vegetation along major rivers and streams in Victoria was found to be in good condition, with most being patchy and interspersed with weeds."

"Wetlands are also very important for environmental health, but no statewide study of the extent of our wetlands has been undertaken since 1994.At that time, more than a third of our naturally occurring wetland area had already been lost and over 90% of the wetlands on private land had vanished – often drained for agriculture or housing developments. In August 2008, groundwater levels in half of the most highly developed or potentially stressed groundwater areas were the lowest on record."

"Water management in Victoria is rapidly increasing in sophistication and accountability, and Victoria is recognised for its leadership in water management."

That remark about leadership in water management and others about Victoria's Water Our Future are a dead giveaway that the Vic Government had influenced the report, if only in the language - you can tell by the empty cliches. In fact, one of the 'reference group' is Cheryl Batagol, currently the Chair of Melbourne Water.

(Personally I don't recognise Victoria as a leader in water management; I think it's a leader in water propaganda. PlugThePipe and PipeRightInc and FairWaterUse would agree, I think.)

"However, the degraded state of many of our rivers shows that the way we manage our water resources has not secured the health of our inland waters."

"Millions of dollars are being spent on efficiency and securing supply, but the impact of climate change means that water allocated to the environment may not be enough to secure environmental health. Sharing water between competing uses ultimately involves social and therefore political choices. To date, the environment has been the loser. Difficult decisions must be made as water availability declines and pressures on our environment increase. Many inland waters are in poor condition and in the context of ongoing drought and climate change, their future health is uncertain."

But these ...um... policy-writers are prepared to keep on growing our population and infrastructure! Have they no shame???

"Victoria is Australia’s most cleared and most densely populated State. More than half of our land has already been cleared and we are continuing to lose native vegetation at a rate of some 4,000 ha per year, mostly from endangered grasslands. Our State has the highest proportion (48%) of sub-bioregions in Australia in poor condition, with four out of Australia’s five most cleared bioregions found in western Victoria."

"Land clearing for cities, towns and farmland has contributed to a biodiversity crisis in Victoria. Most of our high quality native vegetation is found on Victoria’s public land in National and State parks and forests."

"Native vegetation remnants on private land are often small, patchy, isolated and degraded by human activities."

The next two paragraphs are really important, but, read through the report... and you cannot imagine the lot in charge of Victoria ever doing anything for flora and fauna except packaging it up for food until it is extinct. Effective laws would prevent that.

"Laws and policies for managing our natural environment have been developed over many years but need to be reformed. Victoria is committed to a joined-up approach to catchment, land and biodiversity management. Current management arrangements are complex and involve all levels of government, as well as public and private land managers. This has resulted in an extensive and complex range of regulations and legal requirements for land managers, and variable compliance and enforcement."

"Reform is needed to simplify environmental legislation and to align the environmental objectives of all levels of government to drive improvements in environmental condition.
The Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 is failing to meet its stated objectives and needs to be reviewed to address Victoria’s natural environments and their vulnerabilities to climate change. It also needs an adequate long-term allocation of resources to ensure effective achievement of its objectives."

BUT... The report wusses out. It almost says we cannot go on increasing our population but it doesn't. This means, to my well-honed senses for bull-dust and bowing to pressure, that the Victorian population is about to be subjected to severe price rises and subjugation in order to allow continued population growth, and so as to protect the elites from an impact on their profits as much as possible.

I predict that this report will be used to ram through new planning policies which will totally remove Victorians' ability to affect how development proceeds. It will be used to remove most of our rights to control our local environments. It is appalling that Victoria, having finally produced a 'state of the environment report' seems to have sunk to a point of exploiting the opportunity for the aims of some ego-bound, terribly rich developers and their planning and political friends who are trying to maintain profit in the face of world economic crash - and the hell with the rest of us.

"PART 5 Living well within our Environment Key findings • The wellbeing of Victorians is ultimately dependent upon the health of the natural environment. The ecosystem services upon which we depend have been, and under business-as-usual scenarios will continue to be, compromised."

BUT ... the main quality of business as usual in Victoria is "Growth" and the architects of this report won't even go near that one. In fact the section on growth of population and consumption is the only section with no recommendations. It contains a blank box for recommendations. How coy!

"• Social and economic systems are vulnerable; as a result, so is human wellbeing. Urgent and fundamental changes are needed and government must provide transparent, exemplary leadership."

Hard to see how the leadership of a government that persists in importing more and more people could ever be exemplary. This report is so 'sophisticated', it is hard to believe that the authors would recognise transparency.

"• Vulnerabilities are partly the inadvertent by-product of increasing efficiency, reducing the capacity of Victoria to adapt to looming sustainability challenges. Current vulnerabilities include the dependence on brown coal and petroleum and, globally, the ability to supply food under conditions of expected climate change and global population growth."

Actually, they do counsel the government to reconsider its food export ambitions, which is very ominous seeing as they refrain from counseling the government to reconsider its people importing ambitions.

"WR10 The Victorian Government should carefully consider its food and fibre export target of $12 billion in light of external economic factors, current knowledge regarding current and future water availability, river health implications, and potential to achieve higher levels of irrigated production through improved water use efficiency."

• Victorians have proven talented and innovative, and, with government support, they are well equipped to deal with the challenges of moving into a post-carbon economy. Victorian industries want strong leadership and certainty from government as they adapt to this future.

There it is again, that 'challenge' word. And the 'leadership and certainty' wanted from the government by industry... That's engineers and property developers lobby jargon. It means, "Make sure those 'customers' of yours tow the line, Mr Brumby."

• While it is essential to ensure that future development is within sustainable limits, Victorian society is unsustainable now. Refocusing on current patterns is necessary and possible through use of the term ecologically sustainable use (ESU). ESU is applied in this discussion to make the point that present uses affect the state of the environment as much as do growth and change.

Sounds so reasonable, doesn't it. If only the expectations of growth were not there and the subcurrent of awful coercion and absolute uncompromise, which gives away the insane agenda.

• ESU becomes a reality when decoupling (a separation between an indicator of wellbeing and an indicator of environmental pressure) is demonstrated. Relative decoupling has commenced in many sectors, but ESU will only be realised when absolute decoupling is achieved.

I.e. The 'consumers' will learn to be happy with less and we will be happy as long as there are more and more consumers, living with less and less. And, um... let's just drop that 'citizen' word forever, eh?

• Resilience is so fundamental to sustainability as to be almost invisible. Essential ecosystem services and liveability, valued by all Victorians, can only be maintained when resilience – the ability to adapt to system shocks – is re-established within ecological systems and in society.

The writer of the Summary did admit that he had not sought consensus. So what I hear here are the sane words of a biologically literate on the panel, coupled with the ideological demands of the economically ... um...sophisticated ... on the panel. The same cognitive dissonance clangs in the two statements below:

"• In the context of the scale of the challenge, environmental governance is disparate and inconsistent. The current nature of environmental challenges means that governance must become strategic and future-focused. The technique of strategic environmental assessment should be used to address the long-term and wider implications of planning and policy."

"Technology has a significant role to play in reducing environmental pressures. However, due to associated inherent risks such as the rebound effect and the paradox of efficiency, technology alone must not be seen as a ‘silver bullet’. The environment doesn’t care
how efficient our technologies are if overall pressures continue to increase."

Although it flags population growth as a major driver, and talks about the importance of biodiversity, as a long-suffering Victorian, I was looking out for any comments which accept continued population growth, increasing density as an environment saver as an excuse for growth... I was on the look-out for anything that sounds like the Engineering or housing lobby.

And I found it - right at the end:

"Growing together"... (uggh)

"Recommendations LW1 The Victorian Government develop and use a single robust and clearly defined vision of an environmentally sustainable Victoria, incorporating environmentally sustainable use of natural resources, and use this to develop an update to Growing Victoria Together."

These guys are incorrigible! Sounds like something out of Bananas in pyjamas.

"LW2 The Victorian Government should ensure that the value of ecosystem services is factored into economic decision-making, as water and climate are starting to become. Agencies should become as adept at valuing and accounting for ecosystem services as they are economic and social services."

"LW3 The Victorian Government develops Growing Victoria Together to monitor and report on holistic wellbeing using consistent, valid and statistically verified sustainability indicators that, as a set, comprehensively cover each of the environmental, social and economic values of importance to Victorians."

Yep. Unfortunately, your usual market hype. They hope to overwhelm us with cliches until we go into a trance and simply follow their orders quietly.

"LW5 When considering ecologically sustainable development, the Victorian Government should take into account the present and short-term (as well as longer term) impacts of the development process and use all available development opportunities to achieve reductions in absolute environmental pressures."

Okay, so, how are they going to do that without stopping population growth? One way: they raise prices for every vital resource so that they can make a lot more money out of a huge population of people paying most of their incomes for food, water, housing, heating and transport. Democracy will be cancelled, of course. But they will be taking care of that in the ... um... education section.

LW6 That decoupling of wellbeing from environmental pressures should be a major policy objective of the Victorian Government. Targeted policy, as well as public education programs, should be introduced to reduce the dependence of economic wellbeing on high consumption and its attributed environmental pressures.

"LW7 That the Victorian Government comprehensively integrates decoupling, its stages and importance, into all Victorian Government decision-making at the strategic level."

"LW8 That the Victorian Government, generally, employs better data collection, monitoring and reporting regimes, with a stress on long-term, consistent data sets."

"LW9 That the Victorian Government, wherever possible, prevent the perpetuation of shifting baselines, particularly in regard to natural systems for which the crossing of thresholds are known and would constitute ecosystem collapse."

"LW10 That the Victorian Government factors in likely compounding pressures such as the expected effects of climate change when setting targets for ecological restoration."

"LW12 The Victorian Government should develop and monitor indices of social resilience, measuring all its elements (for example, innovation, diversity, distributed systems and the ability to embrace change)".

Note the jargon: 'embrace change'; 'diversity'. Diversity, the way the government means it, is not an element of social resilience; it is an element of disconnecting networks so that populations are easier to manage, more passive, disempowered and quietly - they hope - dysfunctional.

LW21 That the Victorian Government continues to investigate and implement market-based instruments to achieve positive environmental outcomes using prices set to account for the full value of ecosystem services. Any interventions should be by way of budget allocation and not through the creation of market distortions."

So, you can see in these exerpts, sane interspersed with greedy and insane. The 'leadership' in this report is about a small self-identified elite who think of the rest of us as children - oh, pardon - 'customers', with very few rights to be cajoled and coerced to serve them.

This is ecological reporting on an intellectual par with management in "Are you being served?".

Now you know why the corporate press took it seriously - it's made to order for them and their mates.

The report is available as a collection of pdf documents directly or indirectly linked to from www.ces.vic.gov.au/CES/...

Some of the pdf components are: Part 1: Introduction (564MB), Part 2: Driving Forces (1.1MB), #10;The summary of the report is available as a <a href=" http:="">Summary (2.5MB).

Good reading and please send comments and article!

Editor's comment 10 December 2008: Changes were made to this document today to correct the date of the last State of the Environment Report Australia, from 2001 to 2006 and to make clearer the lack of relationship between the State and the Commonwealth reports. After the question, "Can this really pass muster under the EPBC Act?", the comment, "It doesn't have to," was also inserted.

It is as if the people who managed to get into Victoria's Parliament don't realise that the Electorate can read transcripts of everything they say and do. On 2 December bi-election neophyte, Ms Kairouz, feeds the Premier the questions and Brumby makes fools of all of us:

SOURCE: http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/downloadhansard/pdf/Assembly/Jul-Dec%202008/Assembly%20Jul-Dec%202008%20Daily%202%20December%202008.pdf
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Tuesday, 2 December 2008 ASSEMBLY PROOF 3

Picture: Mr Brumby & Ms Kairouz, who narrowly beat Les Twentyman (Independent) in a bi-election in June 2008]

Population: growth Ms KAIROUZ (Kororoit)

- I refer to the government's commitment to making Victoria the best place to live, work and raise a family, and I ask: could the Premier inform the house of how the government is planning for Victoria's future, with Melbourne expected to reach a population of more than 5 million people by 2036?

Mr Brumby's rhetoric on Victoria's population predicament

Mr BRUMBY (Premier) - I thank the member for Kororoit for her question. As we all know, Melbourne is renowned for its livability and affordability. We are now in the midst of a population boom, which is the largest in the state's history. It is a population boom that is larger than the population growth of the postwar years and larger than the gold rush years of the 1850s.

By the way, just today - totally coincidentally - the ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) released its June 2008 population growth figures. They show Victoria's growth over the last year at 1.8 per cent. The national growth rate was at 1.7 per cent.

Of course it is a huge contrast with the figures of some years ago. We recall the figures of the 1990s, when Victoria was losing population in vast numbers to other states.

This morning, with the Minister for Planning, I released Melbourne @ 5 million - a planning update that delivers on our commitment to prepare the longer term plans for Melbourne. The population data we released today in Victoria shows that Victoria will grow by
2.3 million people between now and 2036, with something like 1.8 million extra people expected to be living in Melbourne. The policy released today refines the key directions of Melbourne 2030 to ensure that we can accommodate an additional 600 000 dwellings in Melbourne over the next 20 years.

Because our population is ageing, because the baby boomers are ageing, the rate of new dwelling construction and approval will grow at a faster rate than the rate of population growth. Our record in terms of livability and affordability was confirmed again yesterday. The Real Estate Institute of Victoria survey of housing affordability showed again, I am proud to say it, that Victoria is the most affordable capital city on the eastern seaboard for those who are looking to buy a home.

That comes as no surprise when you consider the generous assistance packages that we have on offer to first home buyers in Victoria. It comes as no surprise when you think of the off-the-plan duty concessions we provide; and when you think of the pensioner stamp duty concessions, which are the most generous in Australia.

There are a number of features of Melbourne @ 5 million. Firstly, through Melbourne @ 5 million we move from a single node city to a multicentred city, so there will be central activity districts in Box Hill, Broadmeadows, Dandenong, Footscray, Frankston and Ringwood.

We will also be promoting very strongly three major employment corridors across Melbourne. We are also preparing a development strategy for the Werribee employment precinct to unlock employment in the west.

The second feature is the review of the city's urban growth boundary over the next nine months. That is to accommodate 134 000 of the 600 000 new homes outside the current UGB. Thirdly, there are the native grassland reserves, where we are working with the federal government to establish two reserves near the Wyndham growth area. This will be a significant improvement on the practices which have been in place in the past.

We are also ensuring that we have the right infrastructure for our communities, with significant investment occurring in the areas of health, education and, course soon to be announced, transport.

The previously announced state infrastructure contribution has been significantly reformed and modified as part of this announcement for new land brought inside the UGB as proposed today for inclusion in 2009. We will pay a contribution of $95 000 a hectare, reflecting the windfall that occurs from the rezoning of that land and bringing it in from the UGB; and secondly, for land that was bought within the UGB in 2005, that charge remains at $80 000 a hectare, the same as was announced at that time.

I am pleased to say in terms of housing affordability that the government has decided to remove the contribution for land that was already within the UGB in 2005, and that will save something like $546 million in costs for more than 60 000 new homes that will be built within the existing UGB boundary. At a time when affordability is so important, notwithstanding that Melbourne is the most affordable capital city on the eastern seaboard, this is a very positive initiative.

Finally, the funds raised through the infrastructure contribution will average around $60 million a year, of which $30 million will be directed to state infrastructure in those areas, and of the remaining amount, the bulk will be devoted to a new growth areas development fund from which councils in the growth areas will be able to apply for funding for infrastructure projects in a way that is very similar to the Regional Infrastructure Development Fund.

This package today is all about affordability, livability and sustainability. It confirms our city and our state as the best place to live, and it will of course be reinforced next year when we release our regional statement, the preparation of which is being overseen by the Minister for Regional and Rural Development, the member

Public Transport

Public transport: government performance Mr MULDER (Polwarth) — My question is to the Premier. Given that the Premier has previously blamed the problems in public transport infrastructure on Jeff Kennett, John Howard, population growth, petrol prices, Connex and now the Rudd government, at what stage does the Premier actually take responsibility for the public transport chaos in Victoria?

Mr Brumby's ripost on Public Transport

Mr BRUMBY (Premier) — I thank the honourable member for his question, and I am proud to say that our public transport system in Victoria is carrying more passengers than it ever has in its history — by a long way. Our rail system alone is handling 201 million passenger movements this year. That is the highest number of movements in the history of our state. It is more than in the post-war migration years and considerably more than in any recent decade. We are carrying that number of passengers because we have made investments in the system. Before the end of the year we will be announcing further investments so that we cater for the strong growth that is occurring in our public transport system.

The honourable member who asked the question referred to a former Premier from the 1990s. Our system today is carrying well over twice the number of passengers that it was carrying in the 1990s, and we are doing it because we have made investments in the system and because we have strong population growth and a strong economy.

Just in the last year — since 30 July 2007, when I became Premier — we have purchased 50 new V/Locity carriages and committed to the $501 million north-east revitalisation project with the Rudd government, which is the biggest rail project in country Victoria in decades. Also, we have launched the new timetable with over 633 extra train services a week. We have rolled out the early bird scheme. We have purchased eight extra new metro trains, which brings the total order to 18.

We have opened the new electrified line to Craigieburn; with new stations at Roxburgh Park and Craigieburn, Tuesday, 11 November 2008 ASSEMBLY 4459 and we have added new services at Craigieburn. We have rolled out new bus routes between North Melbourne station and Grattan Street and the Royal Melbourne Hospital. We have upgraded the St Kilda Road tramway.

In the 2008–09 budget we announced a $794 million infrastructure boost to improve public transport. There was $275 million for improvements at Laverton, Westall and Craigieburn; $3 million to upgrade Prahran and Windsor stations; $10.4 million for design works for the extension of the Epping line to South Morang; $32 million for around 1700 new car parking spaces at 10 stations and the upgrading of Noble Park station to premium status; plus $14.7 million to expand bus and coach services to South Gippsland and the Bass Coast; $254 million for the maintenance of country rail lines; and $64 million to boost the NightRider service.

All these things represent the most significant investment we have had in public transport in this state.

What we are endeavouring to do is turn what has been a low-volume suburban system into a modern metro system. We will — — Honourable members interjecting.

The SPEAKER — Order! The opposition will cooperate!
Mr BRUMBY — As I have indicated on numerous occasions, before the end of the year we will respond to the Eddington report with the Victorian transport plan, and that will put in place the framework for the further long-term growth of our system. It will provide short-term, medium-term and long-term measures and create in Melbourne and across the state a transport system which is the best in Australia.

Today Jill Quirk, President of Sustainable Population Victoria, deplored the Victorian government's irresponsible growth policies.

The Victorian Government plans to extend Melbourne's growth boundaries, benefit major property developers whose profits may well have fallen with the global economic crash, as speculation on housing met with predictable limits.

Brumby pushing people envelope to breaking point

But the Brumby government is again pushing the envelope by pushing the boundaries of common sense and democracy to keep the illusion of profitable growth going.

As Mervac, Delfin Lend Lease, MAB Corporation, the Dennis family and Villawood queue up to a development-mad Premier for dispensations from only recently extended boundaries,[1] Victorians are reeling at their government's extremism, the Labor Party's supine acceptance of a dictator at the helm, and the tragic impact on our social and natural environment.

Victoria is running out of water. Public transport is stressed beyond any prior experience. Sparse and disconnected native flora and fauna reserves and bitterly defended "Green Wedges" of open space are being criss-crossed and dissected with a rash of extremely expensive multi-lane toll-ways and housing estates. Although population growth is out of control, along with transport and water, the Premier's way of dealing with these terrible problems -- which his government caused and continues to make worse -- when they are raised in Parliament, is to reconstruct them as if they were great triumphs, simply steam-rolling every objection.[2]

Road-makers part of the problem

The spread of housing depends on the rolling out of roads. Railways aren't quite so popular because you cannot just keep adding to them in order to supply new suburbs. With roads it is a lot easier. Nonetheless, Peter Newman is famous for pushing new railways, the better to connect them with light rail and new roads - and more houses and more people.

Huge corporate developers stand to gain from Melbourne people's distress

Pointing to headlines in the Age, Ms Quirk said, "Look who's happy about the extension of the urban growth boundary-BIG-NAME property speculators!" They were celebrating yesterday, with the proposed stretching of Melbourne's city limits, which brings despair to the actual electorate. The stretching is, according to the Royce Millar article, "set to deliver windfalls of many millions to some of Australia's largest developers". Shaking her head in disbelief, Ms Quirk quoted the title:"Property giants pop cork over city stretch."

Ms Quirk reminds us that, "In case anyone had not noticed who is likely to benefit for population growth while the average person is struggling to cram himself into the morning train to get to work- it's the big end of town who do not have to catch peak hour trains! Neither do these people have to worry about the cost of water as it inevitably becomes a scarce and expensive commodity into the future."

Government catering to anti-social forces

President Quirk says, "The property developers are self serving and the government is reprehensible in catering to their greed by pushing for greater and greater population growth. They thumb their noses at the rest of us and treat wildlife whose habitat gets destroyed with total disdain."

"Melbourne will never be better than it is today as it is on a rapid downhill journey to greater overpopulation with no end in sight and the loss of all amenities that made it a unique liveable city."

To contact Ms Quirk email the author of this article.

[1]http://www.theage.com.au/national/property-giants-pop-cork-over-city-stretch-20081202-6psg.html?page=2
Property giants pop cork over city stretch - article by Royce Millar, December 3, 2008
[2]http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/downloadhansard/pdf/Assembly/Jul-Dec%202008/Assembly%20Jul-Dec%202008%20Daily%202%20December%202008.pdf
Questions without notice, Tuesday, 2 December 2008 ASSEMBLY PROOF 3, "Population Growth".

Translated from an old cartoon by Pessin from Le Monde

For years Australians have had their elections run by a commercial media over which they have less and less control. That media also decided what the public got to hear and what it didn't. With the invention of the Internet, although the commercial media is still very strong, for the first time in human history, everyone in the world who is not part of a totalitarian State, like China, Burma, Saudi Arabia or India, for instance, has the possibility of finding out real news, real politics, of creating politics, of reporting politics, and of championing truth and justice.

This web site (candobetter.org) exists to report politics and promote political ideas and actors who the mainstream press would never report - like the Greens raising concerns about population growth in Parliament, or how there are real reasons to worry that Australia's natural resources departments aren't doing their job to protect Australian animals.

We exist to expose where politics profit big business at the expense of democracy.

We exist because the editors and writers think this kind of website is essential. You may not like it, but at least you can have a look and choose not to come here again.

But, obviously a lot of what goes up on candobetter.org also gets up politicians' noses. These new proposals to have a secret list of 'undesirable' internet sites, which might have nothing to do with sex or crime, scare us.

The reason should be obvious. If a government can have a secret list of 'undesirable' netsites, we might be on it, yet no-one would ever know. We would have no defense and our readers would have no defense. It would be just like having nothing but the Murdoch, Fairfax and CNN media to rely on again.

And maybe something like that is behind this idea of Internet censorship. I would like to know who will benefit from this, especially since, apart from controlling access to media, the proposal seems almost certain to fail in its stated objectives of controlling crime, for technical reasons which Senator Ludlam begins to explore in Detailed Questions to Conroy on Government's Big Brother Internet proposal.

The Big Brother Internet proposal will probably fail in controlling crime, but it could make it easier for you and me to look at the sites government wants us to watch, and instill fear in us so that we won't stray away from those government-friendly big-business benefiting URLs. The old commercial media chains and the big telecommunications providers are dying to be able to 'offer' services where you and I will pay a certain amount to watch their choice of the internet, but, if we want to look somewhere else - and it could just be at internet in another language from another provider - we will have to pay extra and maybe our browsers just won't find what we want.

Having the Australian Government put the fear of ... um... God ... into us about casually surfing the net without a Big Provider's toolbar guiding our journey, could be all it takes to send Australia's much bossed-around "Mums and Dads" scurrying back to the Big Name providers, to avoid being arrested for inadvertantly opening one of those netsites on the Secret list.

Yes, the internet isn't just about truth and justice. It is also possible to use the Internet to communicate evil, to spy and to lie. Yes, it is possible to steal over the internet and it is possible to make money through marketing pornography resulting from sex-slavery, child-exploitation and terminal violence.

But the problem of pornography and exploitation doesn't explain why the Government wants to be able to peer over your shoulder, tell you what you may or may not view, and make your internet provider enforce this, or else.

We already can access Internet filters for children and adults.
We already have laws to deal with pornography. The police already have powers to investigate crimes. They can already seize material and take you away to prison if you are engaged in downloading child-pornography. So what is this "Mandatory Internet Filter" really for?

#WhatYouCanDo" id="WhatYouCanDo">What you can do

Attend protests against Mandatory Internet Filtering in your capital city on Saturday 13 December. The following list has been provided by wearechange.org.au:

Melbourne: 12pm-5pm, State Library

Brisbane: 11am-3pm,Brisbane Square

Sydney: 11am-4pm, Town Hall
Check www.nocensorship.info forums for Sydney updates

Adelaide: 12pm - 4pm, Parliament

Hobart: 11am - 1.30pm, Parliament Lawns

Contact your Federal Parliamentary representatives and let them know where you stand on this issue. If they indicate that they will be voting against the legislations, give them your heartfelt congratulations. If they indicate that they intend to support censorship, then demand an explanation. In particular, demand answers to questions such as those put by Greens Senator Scott Ludlum.

Lists are to be found on the Parliamentary website:
   Members of the House of Reps are listed by name, electorate, party and state.
   Senators are listed by name, party and state.

http://www.getup.org.au/blogs/view.php?id=1560

Sign the GetUp on-line petition. So far, 74,304 have signed.

Participate in Online Forums such as on Getup Filtering at Odds with Broadband Revolution by Colin Jacobs
Online Opinion: Clive Hamilton the Net Nanny, Winning the war against Internet censorship, internet censorship.

Visit web-sites with current information about the campaign against Internet censorship including: www.stopthecleanfeed.com, wearechange.org.au, Electronic Frontiers Australia.

(lire la version française)

"Soon all men will be brothers"

We are told that we are in a time of globalisation. Soon all men will be brothers. The Internationale will be the new human race. The sin of Babel is forgiven. The sole language of tomorrow, English, is the chosen one. Already borders no longer protect the bad guys: all the virtuous are united against bin Laden, the butchers of Bosnia are tried in Holland, Interpol hunts burglars. Like Capital, the Proletariat will soon have no country either. The most marvelous thing is that this prodigious work was all done whilst we were sleeping; in the most natural way, apparently; without any special effort.

But then the alarm clock goes off and we open our eyes to a completely different reality.

Walls

Migratory patterns thousands of years old, as vital to human ecology as marine currents are to the life of oceans, have been criminalised. We try to make escape from the human reserves of Africa as difficult and as dangerous as moving from one neighborhood to another in Berlin once was. Sailing northwards, fear of the police, within sight of the Rock of Gibraltar, can pull you to your death. In this street, they have been at war forever with hereditary enemies on the opposite footpath. Europe is, of course, in process of unification, but little Belgium is no longer able to maintain peace between her Flemish and Walloon populations. Sporting matches open with processions of flags and screamed national anthems reminiscent of incitement of hysteria before big military bloodbaths. Indeed, how many peoples have known nothing but war for decades?

So… Are we living in a period dominated by globalisation or by the persistence or even the exacerbation of bellicose sanctification of flags and borders?

The Seven plagues of globalisation

Clearly, we are currently at an early stage of globalisation where only the seven plagues are globalised: globalization of mafias, commerce, financial robbery, man's exploitation of man, subordination of women, ransacking of natural resources and planetary poisoning… Against this background, the economic game is based on the simplest kind of rule: work travels to wherever it costs less. Your wages are not too terrible, you have reasonable social benefits, your government really tries to provide effective public education, health, transport, nature conservation services, DANGER, unemployment awaits! In the countries known as democracies, many people have understood this and have elected governments which are most likely to overturn social progress achieved over a century, and to feign a response to ecological emergencies, without taking the radical measures necessary. The day that British workers return to 19th century conditions, England will once again be the workshop of the world. It’s the law of competition, one of those famous incontrovertible ‘economic laws’.

Utopias

Here and there, however, a few utopians resist this suicidal course.

A utopian is someone who believes that humanity can and must use intelligence to guide his destiny, rather than laws - laws which, since the death of God, are no longer divine - but called ‘natural’ to hide the fact that, in reality, they only exist to protect the interests of the powerful.

Well, as it happens, here are some reflections that globalisation has inspired in one such utopian.

Globalisation is a formidable process which should be intensified.

It is true that competition profits peoples which have the most skillful workers, the most inventive engineers, the rarest minerals, soils and climates specially favourable for particular crops …

But, when the success of a product comes from its low price and that is due to meagre salaries, work done by children or prisoners, at the cost of public health services, education, transport, and to lack of respect towards natural environments, we should say, “We don’t want that money!” and send it back.

We don't want that money

It is relatively easy to work out how much of the cost of a product has been cut through lack of ecological and social policies. Industries which have their products manufactured in places where the costs are smallest, know very well how to do this. They know the value of that “economic and social differential” which causes them to knock on one door rather than another. The price of imported products would then be increased by a sum proportional to that differential, to compensate for the unhealthy basis of their cheapness. No customs taxes, which profit importing countries, would be involved, since the money obtained would be entirely reimbursed to the exporting countries. “We don’t want that money!” It would be up to the exporting countries then, whether they used this money to better the social condition of their population and to preserve their environment, or to add a few diamonds to the crowns of their oligarchies.

According to another – perjorative – meaning, the term ‘utopia’ refers to an absurd, impossible dream. Recent events have shown that nothing could better illustrate that notion of an aberrant utopia than a belief in progress based on the continuing unrestricted freedom of those who have taken all the worlds wealth for themselves.

Francis Ronsin
(Translated by Sheila Newman)

Francis Ronsin was Professor, Department of Contemporary History, at the Université de Bourgogne (Dijon). He has published several books and numerous articles that focus on the relationship between political struggles and private life: La Grève des ventres - Propagande néo-malthusienne et baisse de la natalité en France 19ème-20ème siècles (Aubier, Paris, 1980); Le Contrat sentimental - Débats sur le mariage, l'amour, le divorce, de l'Ancien Régime à la Restauration (Aubier, Paris, 1990) ; Les Divorciaires - Affrontements politiques et conceptions du mariage dans la France du XIXème siècle. (Aubier, Paris, 1992); Le Sexe apprivoisé -Jeanne Humbert et la lutte pour le contrôle des naissances (La Découverte, Paris, 1990) ; and La population de la France de 1789 à nos jours. Données démographiques et affrontements idéologiques (Le Seuil, Paris, 1997); La Guerre et l’oseille (Syllepse, Paris, 2003). He is also the principal organizer of the international research seminar Socialism and Sexuality.

Rights of partial or full reproduction of this article are forbidden without permission from Francis Ronsin.

CTAG Rally 26/10/2008 “Sustainable Public Transport - No Road Tunnels or Freeways” From a photo by Cory Baudman

Melbourne Campaign Opposing Road Tunnels

The frenetic pace of events held since mid September concerning Melbourne’s Transport system indicates community support for improved public transport and opposition to new freeways/road tunnels. Events include:

Wednesday 24 September:

State wide Freight Conference attended by Royal Park Protection Group (RPPG) and Protectors of Public Lands Victoria (PPLVIC) representatives at which RPPG asked a question of Victorian Minister Tim Pallas re the wisdom of spending $9 billion on road tunnels instead of rail freight.

Zoo animals' conditions compromised for sporting events, now threatened by tunnels

Wednesday 5 November 2008: RPPG Representatives Met Melbourne Zoo Director:

Julianne Bell and Dr Barry Clark met Dr Jenny Grey, Director of Melbourne Zoo, to warn of the threat to the Zoo animals if the proposals to construct a tunnel next to the Zoo in Royal Park proceed as planned in the Eddington Review and to request that she make representations to her Minister. Barry also raised our continuing concern about the adverse impact on Zoo animals of the effects of light at night. Two thirds of the Zoo is illuminated at night by light spill from the State Netball and Hockey Centre hockey fields light towers. Bell raised the issue of the new inappropriate supermarket-style carpark at the Zoo’s north entrance. It was opposed and lost by RPPG at VCAT.

Saturday 15 November 2008: Walk Against Warming: Numbers of anti tunnel/pro public transport campaigners took part in the Annual Walk against Warming, a protest against climate change and need for action. YCAT and RPPG attended with “No Tunnels" banners and placards. It was disappointing that we were not warned that the Myers Christmas parade had blocked off most of the city and many did not get to the event.

Tuesday 18 November 2008: Meet the Candidates for Melbourne Council Election: The North and West Melbourne Association held a meet the candidates’ forum which gave us the opportunity to quiz them on their position re Eddington’s road tunnels. All except Robert Doyle’s team were unequivocally opposed to the tunnel. In view of the fact that Lord Mayor John So sacked virtually all the Parks and Gardens staff as a cost saving measure, I asked would candidates guarantee that proper staffing levels be restored to save our parks?

Final Battle Looms in War over Road Tunnels and Freeways through Melbourne

Royal Park Protection Group Inc. (RPPG) has joined other disaffected community groups to form CTAG - the Coalition of Transport Action Groups. These include (in addition to RPPG): Brimbank Transport Action Group, Flemington Association, Frankston Bypass Group, Kensington Association, No Freeways 4 West Footscray, South Morang Rail Alliance, Sunshine Residents and Ratepayers Association and Yarra Campaign against the Tunnel (YCAT). Meeting regularly at Trades Hall, they are coordinating action against Eddington’s road tunnels and freeways/tollways and are demanding sustainable public transport.

Their first action was to organise a rally held under The Clocks at Flinders Street Station on Sunday 26 October 2008 with the theme "Sustainable Public Transport – No more Road Tunnels or Freeways”. The rally was a great success with more than 600 attending. Among a great diversity of participants were many young people. TV coverage was good.

Daniel Bowen, President of the PTUA, was an impressive keynote speaker. He told how Victoria’s public transport system urgently needs reform and more funding.

Julianne Bell spoke for RPPG and read out messages of support from about 25 groups from Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. (See YCAT website for reports and photos.)

After the ralley CTAG met and reviewed objectives. The following “pledge” was renewed:

“That this meeting reaffirms that CTAG supports sustainable, equitable and accessible public transport and remains opposed to the proposals under the Eddington Report for construction of road tunnels and elevated tollways in Melbourne. Additionally, we consider that there should be no negotiations entered into with the State or Federal Governments over the Eddington project.”

Premier Brumby says he will unveil the Melbourne Transport Plan in mid December 2008 (it was to be November.)

Incredibly, in the face of community opposition and despite the financial downturn and uncertainty of federal funding, the State Government may press ahead with the Eddington tunnel projects.

Quotable Quote:

Mr Peter Mc Mullin, a Lord Mayoral candidate in the Melbourne Council election, when answering a Herald Sun online question as to whether he opposed The Tunnel said :… “if the state government's response to the Eddington Report is to accept the recommendation regarding the tunnel, I will vigorously protect JJ Holland Park from being a staging ground or exit point. Parks like JJ Holland Park are an indispensable community asset and must be protected at all costs. If there has to be an exit in that area, I would advocate for it to be via Paddy's Brickworks in Kensington Rd.” This is all news to “Paddy” who doesn’t know that a tunnel might be coming through his brickworks! Watch our lips Mr Mc Mullin and Council candidates - NO TUNNELS!

The following article has been adapted from an article which was published in Gympie Life on 30 Sep 08.

Secret State Land Deal

The Queensland State Govt. is preparing to gift $100 million worth of public beach land to private developer.

Is the public purse now underwriting land developer risk in Queensland?

Recently released Freedom of Information (FOI) files reveal that senior State Government Departments are working behind the scenes to give hundreds of hectares of prime ocean-front public lands to a Rainbow Beach developer.

Additionally, the FOI documents — copies of internal State Government reports — indicate that some Departments support transferring the land 'pre-approved' for development. This means the local Council and local community would not only miss out on the value of the land, they would also have no say in what is developed on it.

Public land north of Rainbow Beach along Inskip Peninsula has very high recreational and economic value. The deal underway would give large areas of this precious public asset to Rainbow Shores Pty Ltd in return for the private corporation's leasehold interest in the low-lying, 200 hectare Rainbow Shores Stage 2 development lease.

The lessee has an active Development Application (DA) seeking approval for a 6,500 population suburban subdivision upon this lease. This DA appears highly unlikely to be approved due to rapidly changing social and environmental factors, including climate change and rapidly accelerating beach erosion.

Informed Rainbow Beach residents say this lack of eligibility for development makes the Stage 2 lease commercially worthless.

However, FOI documents clearly show Government agencies have managed to calculate Stage 2 land value at $100m. They have assumed the lessee's DA is already approved (which it isn't and most likely won't be); they have then totalled the net retail value of the thousands of urban allotments proposed in the DA, which do not exist and aren't approved.

This flawed calculation means the Government is now inclined to give away one hundred million dollars' worth of developable public land in exchange for land that cannot be developed.

The FOI papers call this transfer a 'like for like' exchange. Very clearly it isn't.

The error stems directly from Departmental assumptions about the Stage 2 lease entitlements that are either grossly mistaken or collusive with the developer. The lease clearly places the onus on the lessee to acquire all necessary approvals and permits. These are not acquirable under current policy and knowledge. This is the developer's problem, not the State's.

However State Agency involved in the deal are dumbly parroting the lessee's claims the lease was originally granted in recompense for surrender of mineral sand leases, and thus entails an obligation from the State. This is historical nonsense. The mineral leases were rendered unprofitable by the Fraser Government's cancellation of mineral sand export licenses. The Bjelke Petersen regime consequently granted Development Leases to the affected mining companies. This was more a corrupt act of favouritism to party supporters than it was compensation for anything of real value.

This aberration of fact and logic is only able to continue due to the covert and absolutely unaccountable nature of the process now underway. If it results in a land transfer of the type and scale indicated in the FOI documents it will be a terrible loss.

The list of areas drafted for possible 'swap' is extensive and includes allotments which residents say are vitally important to the balanced development of the seaside town into the future. This surrender would deliver nearly all future Rainbow Beach development potential to one private interest. This would lead to development forms that destroy the last seaside village remaining in SE Queensland, removing a unique social and environmental recreation option from all SE Queensland. residents.

Local residents ask: Why does the Government process exclude the concerns and knowledge of the local Rainbow Beach community? Why are the poor calculations being kept from public scrutiny?

Why does the Government pander to the lessee's claims but ignore the public interest?

In an effort to silence residents with difficult questions, Western Australia's Cockburn Council routinely limits question time and threatens residents who defy these limits with AU$1,000 fines. The Mayor, Stephen Lee, is now on extended leave after the Crime Commission had found him guilty of misconduct for having accepted an undeclared election campaign donation of AU$43,000 from the Singapore-controlled developer Australand, which wanted to build the controversial Port Coogee Marina.

See also: Postscript: Cockburn Councillors threaten to use ratepayer funds to sue residents, Appendix: Cockburn Community advertisement of 18 Nov 08

The article below, by Mary Jenkins secretary of the Spearwood Residents Association, who stood as an independent candidate in the recent state elections, appeared in the Cockburn Herald on or before 18 Nov 08.

The Cockburn Gazette, in its story, "Protestors Blasted" of 18 November, reported that 100 people with placards had protested at the council meeting and police had been called in to control the residents. The Mayor of Cockburn, Stephen Lee, is now on extended leave after the Crime Commission had found him guilty of misconduct for having accepted an undeclared election campaign donation of AU$43,000 from the Singapore-controlled developer Australand, which wanted to build the controversial Port Coogee Marina.

---

This article, by Mary Jenkins secretary of the Spearwood Residents Association, who stood as an independent candidate in the recent state elections, appeared in recently in a Western Australian newspaper.

I was secretary of the West Ward community Association in 1985. I always had good relationships with three mayors and the Commissioners who ran council in 1999. Things changed when Stephen Lee became mayor especially since his second term when he began to silence anyone who asked question he did not want to answer.

What infuriated people that attended council meetings in the last few years were how the public were treated with contempt and their questions dismissed. Who is to say that a different council would have done things much better and at considerably less cost to ratepayers? The complete cost has not yet been realised!

How many council general meetings have the people who gave unquestionably support to the mayor, attended? Anyone who attends council meetings regularly, because they are interested in community affairs and process, will be aware of the rapid decline. Councillors could have halted the decline if they had requested further question time at any meeting. They did not once over-rule mayor Lee. Hence the community reaction and threatened with $1,000 fine if they spoke up for further time to ask questions or demanded answers to new planning developments, is to be expected from a vibrant community.

As secretary of the Spearwood Community Association and a member of Concerned Citizens for Good Governance I would like to make it clear that the administration of our council is not the issue of conflict. The administrators are professional people doing a good job under difficult circumstances. They have always listened to and attended our Association meetings, unlike our ward councillors today.

Many of the people who object to the mayor and councillors process have lived in Cockburn for over 60 years. Some have also been councillors themselves and have never experienced what is happening today! Three of our X mayors are also disturbed at the present state of Cockburn Council.

In fact this is having economic consequences both inside and outside Cockburn. Cockburn is no longer considered a property positive place to live in the future according to the Real Estate editor of the Sunday Times (2 Nov 08). Cockburn did not even get a mention. Seems once again the investment and drive is North of the river! So is the transport system!

Could this be because Cockburn has always been a safe union faction ALP seat? Our local member Fran Logan has never lived in Cockburn. In fact the last two state ALP union faction members - Norm Marlbourgh and Bill Thomas - never lived here either! Not one of them ever spoke up for a good coastal train service that would develop Cockburn as a tourist place. Instead industry has been given a free hand to pollute the air we breathe. It is only since the community lobbied for deep sewerage that it is happening at last. Our ALP member and present council ignored this until a State election was imminent this year.

Spearwood Association endorsed the petition to the Minister and rejected Stephen Lee's 3 months leave on full pay at their October meeting. Who is to say 3 month will resolve Lee's problem, hardly likely given McCusker is about to resign and it took Julian Grill a year? What then? Another 3 months in January when there is no general council meeting? How long will this go on for we ask the Minister?

Many of the protesters are people who take an interest in local affairs and planning. They like living in Cockburn. They hope one day Cockburn will return to a democratic council where the community voice is listened to. The alternative is for WEST Ward to become part of Fremantle. Then a proper coastal development can take place without the conflict that exists today between both Fremantle and Cockburn councils. Traffic problems will not be ignored through the region, cycle ways and pedestrian paths will be restored on the coast as part of Fremantle tourism.

Whatever the future holds things will need to change from the present situation. The next council general meeting is on November 13th. Can we expect police on horseback, security with dogs and ten police and plain-clothes detectives present? Is this the way to run a local council meeting where most protesters are over 50, some as old at 80, and just doing what is their right in a democratic country? Come along and support people power.

Mary Jenkins 3 November 2008. Mary ran as an independent candidate in the September State election.

#LegalThreats" id="LegalThreats">Postscript: Cockburn Councillors threaten to use ratepayer funds to sue residents

The Cockburn Herald of Saturday 22 November reported in its story "Councillors legal threat against rowdy ratepayers":

"Acting Cockburn Mayor Kevin Allen wants to sue his constituents for being mean to him at recent council meetings.

"He says he is tired of having abuse hurled at him by rowdy members of Citizens for Good Governance and describes their comments as defamatory, appalling and childish.

"'They are not good people -- they are anarchists,' he said."

Councillor Allen said that he was seeking legal advice.

Councillor is acting Mayor whilst Mayor Stephen Lee is on fully paid leave whilst appealing against five counts of misconduct by the Crime and Corruption Commission for having accepted an undeclared AU$43,000 donation from Australand during the last Council election campaign.

Another Councillor Carol Reeves-Folkes said that she would also be seeking legal advice. She stated that she "will throw everything and everything at people who continue to disrupt the meeting," whilst Helen Atrill and Julie Baker felt that they hadn't been defamed and other councillors did not return calls.

The Cockburn Herald report continued:

"Citizens for Good Governance convener Robyn Scherr said her group had been unfairly targeted.

"'The Council is lashing out because they feel threatened,' she said.

"'We are still calling for the council to be sacked and if the minister can't sack the council, then he should resign.'"

#CockburnCommunityAdvertisment" id="CockburnCommunityAdvertisment">Appendix: Cockburn Community advertisement of 18 Nov 08

The following is the full text from the advertisement which appeared in the Cockburn City Herald of 18 Nov 08 together with some of the scanned image.

COCKBURN
COUNCIL
HAS FAILED

The community wanted Council to demand Mayor Stephen Lee to resign. They should have stripped the "Misconduct Mayor" of his exorbitant pay! But without debate, councillors quickly voted to use our money to give Mr Lee a paid holiday! By acting as a team in support of the disgraced Mayor they've condemned themselves as well.

$20,000 on PR spin
$20,000 for the Mayor's holiday
$20,000 more holidays in January?

Justice Delayed
Justice Denied!

WE NEED
YOUR HELP
TO TAKE BACK CONTROL
OF YOUR COUNCIL

This was only the first shot in the war on unsustainable growth.

Australians and the world now have on record where their so-called leaders stand on this question. The 'nay group' carries the names of the people Australians may hold responsible for thirst, starvation and slavery, if the future continues to unfold according to their plan to continue population growth.

S.A. Senator Minchin about-face

In passing I note that the elderly Liberal Senator Minchin, South Australia, failed to support this motion. Minchin made his maiden speech congratulating ex-NSW leader, Bob Carr, on his ostentatious (and curiously ineffective) stance against population growth.

Young South Australian Senators, Xenophon & Hanson-Young vote for the population motion

However, Independent, Nick Xenophon, did support the motion.

And so did the youngest member of Federal Parliament in Australia's history, Sarah Hanson-Young, also in South Australia.

Now South Australians have a real choice in the Federal Senate!

West Australian based Greens Rachel Siewert and Scott Ludlum also supported the motion.

And so did Christine Milne, who represents Tasmania in the Senate. (She is informed on peak oil and other energy issues and has some good discussions on her site.)

Pressure for growth comes mainly from the property & infrastructure development lobby

I have been studying this political problem of obdurate growthism and the pressure for growth from the infrastructure development lobby now for years. It is a threat to our democracy. I will be watching with great interest from now on. I can only urge those six senators who showed the ability to think for themselves and to strongly represent Australia's welfare not to give up. The mass media is pro-growth because it is really part of the corporate sector, so the senators won't derive benefit there for their courage. In fact the only source of support they may find is in the broad Australian population. The Greens seem to be the only ones attuned to the cries of warning from people in Australia who can see things getting so bad so quickly as we place more and more pressure on this fragile country's natural resources, wildlife and trees, democracy and social structure. It is good to see that they have managed to shake themselves loose from whatever was holding them back from confronting the issue of population in previous years.

Details below:

http://www.aph.gov.au/HANSARD/senate/dailys/ds131108.pdf

Senate Hansard November 13th 2008 p.3.

WHITE PAPER ON GLOBAL POPULATION
Senator BOB BROWN (Tasmania—Leader of the Australian Greens) (9.37 am)—I move:
That the Senate calls on the Government to develop a white paper on population during this period of government which takes into account:

(a) projections of a global population of between 9 to 10 billion people by 2050;
(b) the inability of the Earth to provide for 9 to 10 billion people if average resource consumption is to be at
current levels in Australia;
(c) climate change;
(d) Australia’s inability to host exponential population growth; and
(e) the wellbeing of future generations and life on Earth.

Question put.

The Senate divided. [9.41 am]
(The President—Senator the Hon. JJ Hogg)

Motion defeated 6 to 47

(The President—Senator the Hon. JJ Hogg)

Ayes………… 6
Noes………… 47
Majority……… 41

AYES

Brown, B.J.
Hanson-Young, S.C.
Ludlam, S.
Milne, C.
Siewert, R.
* Xenophon, N.

NOES

Adams, J. Bernardi, C.
Bilyk, C.L. Boswell, R.L.D.
Boyce, S. Brandis, G.H.
Brown, C.L. Cameron, D.N.
Cash, M.C. Colbeck, R.
Collins, J. Conroy, S.M.
Coonan, H.L. Cormann, M.H.P.
Crossin, P.M. Eggleston, A.
Farrell, D.E. Feeney, D.
Ferguson, A.B. Fielding, S.
Fierravanti-Wells, C. Fifield, M.P.
Fisher, M.J. Forshaw, M.G.
Furner, M.L. Hogg, J.J.
Humphries, G. Hurley, A.
Hutchins, S.P. Ludwig, J.W.
Lundy, K.A. Macdonald, I.
Marshall, G. McEwen, A.
McGauran, J.J.J. McLucas, J.E.
Minchin, N.H. Moore, C.
Nash, F. Parry, S. *
Polley, H. Pratt, L.C.
Stephens, U. Sterle, G.
Williams, J.R. Wong, P.
Wortley, D.
* denotes teller
Question negatived.

Story by Catherine Case:
With the Community Cabinet due to take place in the city of Launceston where I live, I thought what better opportunity to ask a question of the Prime Minister about the government's obsessive focus on economic growth and their apparent blindness to the realities of ecological limits? I also wanted to try and ascertain whether they had any long term plan whatsoever to deal with projected population growth in Australia. Would they even acknowledge it as an issue? No one in the mainstream media ever asks these questions, the paradigm of "perpetual growth" goes unchallenged. It seems so blindingly obvious to me that endless growth is an impossibility. Why isn't someone - anyone - in the government facing up to reality?

Launceston community cabinet

On Wednesday 5 November 2008, I attended the community cabinet at Launceston, where I got to ask a question I had prepared in front of 400 people. Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, looked at me with total disdain and completely avoided (and in the most patronizing way) answering my question, which was:

Relentless focus on growth

"For me one of the most disappointing aspects of the Labor government has been the relentless focus and almost obsession with "growing the economy". It's as if every member has sworn to repeat this mantra as often and as loudly as possible on every occasion, as we've already heard here tonight.
Isn't about time that we stopped pretending that mindlessly chasing unending economic growth is even remotely compatible with sustainability?

Population numbers

Because underlying this whole issue is the unspeakable and forbidden P word - POPULATION

The Australian Bureau of Statistics recently projected that Australia's population could increase to 42 million people in a little over 40 years with Melbourne and Sydney both reaching nearly 7 million people each.

Is that sensible, desirable or sustainable?

Australia is in bad shape already

Aren't we as a country already seriously struggling with water supply, energy independence, food production, depleted fisheries, overloaded infrastructure and severe environmental degradation?
When will the government show real leadership on this issue and start to address the elephant in the living room that is population?

When will the government take the brave step of articulating a national population policy - one that recognizes REALITY and dispenses with the cozy fantasy that is the economic mirage of never-ending population growth?

Will this government have the courage to articulate a policy that, as recommended in a recent CSIRO publication, aims to stabilize the population of Australia to 25-27 million people by 2050?

And if not, why not?"

Prime minister Rudd responds obliquely

First off Rudd said that he and his government wouldn't apologize for wanting every "able bodied" person to have employment… the importance of strong economy, jobs etc.

Then he rattled off something about buying back water entitlements. Some more guff about signing the Kyoto Protocol. Some other far-fetched rhetoric about "sustainable development".

He said how important it is for Australians to address climate change and how the government is doing just that.

The only thing that even got close to addressing the question was something about immigration rates and how the government adjusted those in accordance with economic conditions. And Rudd cursorily mentioned "natural" population increase as if the government had no hand in promoting and encouraging it and was powerless to do anything about it.

And even though I'd addressed the question to him and the Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett, Rudd quickly pointed at the next person in the audience with their hand up and didn't pass the mike on to Peter Garrett, even though he did with all the other questions to various ministers.

He struck me as a shifty, slippery piece of work. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But I would have liked to heard Garrett's response, and I hope to follow up on this.

General problems with conduct of the Community Forum

As well as the frustration of having the Prime Minister fudge my question, I found the way the community forum was conducted disappointing. At the beginning of the forum, which was already running about 20 minutes behind, after numerous welcomes and thank you's, everyone had to listen to Rudd for about another 15 minutes telling us about all the wonderful election promises that he has kept - in some detail mind you - and all the wonderful things still to come.

Yet the Prime Minister and his entourage were supposed to be there to listen to US! It was like an election speech, anyone would think the guy is still trying to get elected. Even his ministers were looking uncomfortable and bored. I let one of his advisors know in no uncertain terms that I thought it was rude and inappropriate that he went on so much. It was pretty obvious the whole thing is a PR exercise pure and simple.

By the way, I did get quite a bit of applause after my question, so lots of people were in agreement.

Follow-up with Peter Garrett

Peter Garrett just happened to be making an announcement right next to where I work yesterday. I was able to bail him up after he'd finished his official stuff and after he had spent some time placating pulp mill protesters with his reassuring words of how diligently he would be assessing the project against the extremely narrow commonwealth guidelines and how after all, It was Malcolm Turnbull who had approved it - not him! I had heard this before. At least he made the effort to go and talk to them which I have to give him credit for....

It was quite funny because the protesters have taken well known songs and changed the words to become pulp mill protest songs and halfway through Garrett's speech they started singing them very
loudly, practically drowning him out.

Anyway, I got round to saying to Garrett that I was the person who had asked the question the night before about population and that I had been disappointed that he didn't get a chance to answer it.

"Well," he said, "I'm in complete agreement with the Prime Minister."

Population was not a problem!! It was more important to address issues like environmental impacts and other things.

"But" I said, "Surely you have to take population into account, it's a major factor?" Did he really think that Australia having 42 million people was a good idea given the already existing environmental problems?

My recollection is that he said that he was not going to "talk numbers", that it was "not about the numbers". He reminded me that he had been President of the ACF for a number of years, arguing that this had acquainted him well about population as an issue, but it's not "the problem".

He disagreed with my "opinion" about population.

I said, "Well it's not just my 'opinion'; what about the CSIRO? They're recommending that this be addressed."

My impression was that he totally dismissed this point, and that he walked away from me, still pronouncing what sounded to me like platitudes about consumption, sustainable industries, etc etc.

Oh well....

My next thing is to fill in the form that they gave out at the forum and send it to him with some more specific questions. I want to see what he says when he has to put something in writing.

Too many unanswered questions on net censorship

Media Release by Scott Ludlum, Greens Senator for Western Australia, 11 November 2008

The Australian Greens have warned there are too many unanswered questions about the government's internet filtering plan, as the government calls for Internet Service Providers to participate in its trial.

"We still don't know how this filter would sift through the billions of websites on the internet in search of the 'unwanted' material referred to in question time today by Minister Conroy," said the Greens Communications Spokesperson, Senator Scott Ludlam.

Last month at Senate Estimates, Senator Ludlam queried the focus of the filter and in particular, whether similar schemes have been implemented overseas. The Senator queried the issue again today to establish why the Government had compared Australia's proposed mandatory system with a number of other countries where net filtering is not mandatory. Again the Minister failed to answer the question directly.

"Unfortunately, the Minister did not respond to my question. He still hasn't explained why the proposed mandatory filter is being compared to optional filters operating overseas. It's like comparing apples to oranges. It doesn't advance the debate in any way."

"The internet has not traditionally been the focus of censorship in democratic countries, and the online community has been tenacious in its pursuit of straight answers from the Minister. I'll be doing what I can to get those answers on the record so we know what we're dealing with," concluded Senator Ludlam.

For more information or media enquiries please call Robert Simms on 0417 174 302

Robert Simms
Media Adviser to
Senator Scott Ludlam
Australian Greens Senator for Western Australia

Sitting weeks: Tel: 02 6277 3467 | Fax: 02 6277 5821
S1.36, Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600

Non-Sitting weeks: Tel: 02 6277 3566 | Fax: 02 6277 3185
SG111, Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600

Mobile: 0417 174 302

www.scottludlam.org.au

See also: "Filtering out the fury: how government tried to gag web censor critics" in the SMH of 24 Oct 08, #more-217">"Filtering Pilot and ACMA Blacklist - Not just 'illegal' material" on Electronic Frontiers Australia on 15 Nov 08, "Net censorship plan backlash" in the Age of 11 Nov 08, YouTube broadcast of Senator Scott Ludlum questioning Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy about the planned censorship, "Winning the war against Internet censorship" by David Jackmanson on Online Opinion of 17 Nov 08, Online Opinion Forum "What's happening about the internet censor?" of 13 Nov 08, "Australia Joins China In Censoring The Internet" on TechCrunch of 30 Dec 07, www.scottludlam.org.au

Below is a list of people in the Planning Backlash network running for council. Lots more information at the Marvellous Melbourne site.

Note: Apparently someone out there doesn't like the tag, "activist" and has requested that I use "resident group member candidate". Tags are a problem, I agree. But you have to get a message over quickly in a headline. And we do need Activists - that is, people who think for themselves and start things going - to get over the terrible hurdles which have been placed in front of democracy and local empowerment and the right to self-government.

Election day is the last Saturday in November. Voting starts about the 10th November.
A number of councils now have postal voting only and the ballot papers are being sent out the 11 12 and 13 of November. They are due back by the last Saturday in November.

Candidates for council from groups in the Planning Backlash network

Bayside Council

Clifford Hayes currently a Councillor & P.B. Working Group member
Michael Norris Southern Ward (1) BlackRock & Sandringham
Darrell Reid Southern Ward (2)

Boroondara Council

Tony Michael Bellevue Ward Willsmere Park Kew,
www.fowpkb.org Friends of Willesmere Park and Kew Billabong
Justin McKernan Solway Ward Noise Abatement Action Group
For Booroondarra Council Elections there is also a new site with evaluations:http://brag.asn.au/bragmoodle10/course/view.php?id=2

Cardinia Council

Catherine Manning Port Ward

Casey Council

Lynette Keleher Casey City River Gum Ward
John Rickard Casey City Mayfield Ward

Corangamite Council (Port Campbell)

Marion Manifold Central Ward

Darebin Council

Darren Lewin-Hill Rucker Ward
www.lewin-hill.net/darebino8

Frankston Council

Glen Aitken North West Ward Currently a Councillor & P.B Working Group member
Jim Kerin North West Ward - Seaford, Frankston Nth, Karringal
Robert Thurley South West Ward

Glen Eira Council

Helen Whiteside currently a Councillor
Cheryl Forge Camden Ward

Kingston Council

Stephen Calvert-Smith Central Ward
Rosemary West Central Ward currently a Councillor
Caroline O’Donnell South Ward
Greg Alabaster North Ward currently a Councillor

Manningham Council

Rosa Miot Koonung Ward
Ivan Reid Koonung Ward www.bettermanningham.com
Warren Welsh Koonung Ward, currently a Councillor & P.B. Working Group member

Maribyrnong Council

Janis Rossiter Currently a Councillor & P.B.Working Group member

Melbourne City Council

Gary Morgan for Lord Mayor
Michael Kennedy for Deputy Lord Mayor
Michele Anderson
Jackie Watts
Margaret Wood
www.corba_melbourne.com

Mitchell Council

Brian Mahwinney Kilmore

Macedon Ranges

(See: www.mrra.asn.au for comprehensive ratings all candidates.)
Neil Manning
Brian Whitefield
www.mrra.asn.au

See also: "East Ward: Is Morabito The Missing Man?" of 16 Nov 08 - the Macedon Ranges Residents Association warns voters of one candidate's undeclared links with the sham residents' association, the MRRS, "Undermining local democracy: Macedon Ranges: Pork Barelling and other forms of Influence" of 17 Jul 08.

Monash Council

Matthew Billmann Oakleigh Ward
monashliveability.wordpress.com

Mornington Peninsula Council

Leigh Eustace Mt Eliza Ward
Peter Holloway Kangerong Ward

Nillumbik Council

Belinda Clarkson
Brian Murray Blue Lake Ward Greensborough

Port Phillip Council

Serge Thomann Catani Ward
David Carter Carlisle Ward
Anna Griffiths Junction Ward
Jane Touzeau Point Ormond Ward
Richard Roberts Sandridge Ward
Frank O’Connor Emerald Ward
www.unchainportphillip.com

Queenscliffe Council

Names coming - try looking them up at one of the activist election sites listed above.

Stonnington Council

Ken Davis East Ward
Mathew Knight East Ward

Werribee Council

John Menegazzo Iramoo Ward

Yarra Council

Amanda Stone Yarra City Langridge Ward
Ian Quick Yarra City Melba Ward - current President SOS