Greens

The driving force behind the Protectors of Public Lands, Julianne Bell, passed away on Friday January 27 this year. Julianne was an indefatigable and tireless campaigner for the protection of Melbourne’s public open spaces. She was most well-known as the defender of Royal Park against any and all who would seek to diminish it for their own purposes, and she told me that she was most proud of her role in stopping the East-West Link, a Freeway which would carve up Royal Park in an outrageous act of environmental vandalism. She was the driving force behind this organisation and used it to defend public open spaces far and wide from all manner of threats – the Carlton Gardens, the Catani Gardens, the Exhibition Gardens, the Rogers Memorial Reserve and many others too numerous to mention – no public open space was too far away or too small to merit her attention.

Julianne worked closely with me on the problems caused by Rapid Population growth for the world in general and for Melbourne in particular. She understood that it is people, it is us, who are responsible for environmental damage, and was prepared to cut through the vanity that prevents many of us from acknowledging this. She had worked in the Immigration Department, and told me a number of times about the propensity for migration agents to tell fibs on applications, and the trouble an understaffed Department had in verifying claims and uncovering rorts.

Julianne was not always easy to work with, and she was very hard line. I did think when she was telling me about the evils of the Flower Show in the Exhibition Gardens that perhaps she could lighten up! But she grasped, better I think than anyone else I have ever met, that our public open spaces are constantly in danger from people or organisations or businesses who want to use them for a private benefit, at the cost of the value of the open space asset itself.

She understood and loved the heritage of Marvellous Melbourne, the legacy of beautiful parks and open spaces which Melbourne’s founders bequeathed us, and she was relentless in her defence of them. If Julianne had not been standing guard over them these past decades, they might well look rather different, and Melbourne might well have been on its way to becoming a soulless concrete jungle, like so many other cities around the world.

Over the years various Premiers and Lord Mayors have basked in reflected glory as Melbourne was declared the World’s Most Liveable City. But this title owes, in my view, a fair bit more to Julianne’s work than to theirs. If we are to keep that honour, we will need people to draw inspiration from Julianne, take over her life’s work, and themselves become Protectors of Public Lands.
After Julianne’s death Rose Iser suggested there be a memorial to her in Royal Park. I said I agree. But not too big. Julianne would not approve. I am very pleased that the City of Melbourne has got this right, in its acknowledgment of her at Walmsley House.

The evidence about the physical and mental health benefits of public open space and exposure to nature continues to mount. A study led by The University of Queensland and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions suggests people might need a minimum dose of nature. The research concludes that people who visit parks for 30 minutes or more each week are much less likely to have high blood pressure or poor mental health than those who don’t.

Researcher Dr. Danielle Shanahan says, “if everyone visited their local parks for half an hour each week there would be 7% fewer cases of depression and 9% fewer cases of high blood pressure”. ”Our children especially benefit from spending more time outdoors. Kids who grow up experiencing natural environments may benefit developmentally and have a heightened awareness as adults than those who don’t”.

The United States Natural Academy of Sciences did a study, reported in February this year, which found that increased urbanisation closely correlates with increased instances of depression and other mental illness. Given this correlation I am astonished that we continue to build high rise towers and continue to encourage people to live in large cities, where traffic congestion, cheek by jowl living and fierce competition for jobs and advancement make us less satisfied and more stressed.

Until our civic leaders and planners come to their senses about this, the Study suggests there is something people can do to help their mental health and wellbeing. They say that getting outdoors and bushwalking, disconnecting from technology and reconnecting with nature, can help. The research indicates that bushwalking can reduce mental fatigue and improve problem solving. Exposing children with ADHD to green outdoor activities reduced their ADHD symptoms significantly. The results suggest that nature exposure can benefit anyone who has a difficult time paying attention or exhibits compulsive behaviour.

Researchers from the University of British Colombia have found memory benefits for women over 70 coming from aerobic exercise. And the Natural Academy of Science researchers found people walking in nature had decreased obsessive or negative thoughts, by a significant margin, whereas people who walked in an urban environment did not. They concluded that bushwalking can lead people away from the negative thoughts that can lead to depression and anxiety.

So we shouldn’t just hang on to our public open space and vegetation for the birds and plants and animals – we should do ourselves a favour and hang on to it for ourselves.

I can’t speak to you about these matters without saying how disappointed I am with the failure of the modern left in politics around the world and environmental groups in particular to come to grips with the real drivers of our twenty-first century failure to successfully tackle inequality and environmental degradation.

The Australian Conservation Foundation has been particularly disappointing. The October edition of their Magazine Habitat sought to do some big picture thinking, with an extensive article titled “The 10 drivers damaging our living world”. It listed what it called “Persistent Human Population Growth” at number 7. While at least it got a mention, the ACF quickly moves on, and there is no action by the ACF to do anything about it.

In fact, rapid population growth is the Number 1 driver of damage to our environment. The article cites as Number 1 “The dominant view of Free Markets, Individualism and Technological Progress”. No doubt this is a real problem, but why is this view dominant in the first place? A key driver of its political success is that around the world the left and environment groups espouse open borders and refuse to talk about population, leaving a massive political vacuum into which populist right figures like Donald Trump. Nigel Farrage, Marine Le Pen etc march. In Queensland at present One Nation is outpolling the Greens.

Coming in at Number 2 in the article is “Undervaluing Nature, including as a result of the increasing disconnection from Nature”. Once again, this is a real problem, but why is it a problem? The answer is increasing urbanisation, and the left and environment groups do little to speak out against increasing urbanisation. Indeed they often support increasing densification – dual occupancies, multi-unit developments, and high rise - claiming, incorrectly, that this is a more efficient and environmentally appropriate way to live.

Coming in at Number 3 in the article is “The Endless Pursuit of Economic Growth through Unrestrained Free Markets”. Again, I agree that this is real problem. But the only reason we really need economic growth is on account of our rapid population growth. If we have population growth, we must have economic growth otherwise we’ll all be manifestly poorer. But if we had a more stable population we could maintain our prosperity without being fixated on economic growth. This is how things used to work, and work they did.

And Number 9 on the list of drivers is “Governments and Market Institutions that Ignore Environmental Degradation”. Once again, true enough. But governments presiding over rapidly growing populations spend most of their time and energy dealing with the problems this creates. It’s all about infrastructure. The present State Government is going hard on the level crossing removal program (which by the way Rosemary West from Green Wedges tells me could damage the Edithvale Wetlands) and on things like the City Link Widening Project. There is a crowding out effect. They don’t have much time to put into saving the Orange-Bellied Parrot. In a stable population Governments would have much more capacity to tackle environmental degradation.

In my view, until the left in general and environmental groups in particular are prepared to call a spade a spade, and stop indulging themselves and the rest of us in this vanity that we have about ourselves as a species – the problem couldn’t possibly be us – then protecting our public lands and open spaces will continue to be a battle.

Now I realise at this point I am in real danger of depressing the crap out of you, and having you go home spend the rest of the year watching TV, instead of inspiring you to get out there and do something. But Julianne Bell did take on, fight and win battles, and I will mention to you two that are going on right now that can be won, and need to be won.

The first is in Fawkner, part of my former electorate of Wills, where VicRoads is the owner of land adjacent to the Merri Creek. For many years they wanted to build a Freeway through there, but strong community campaigns and excellent leadership by their political representatives at the time prevented that.

Now VicRoads want to sell a significant parcel of that land, and Moreland Council is not prepared to pay the price they are asking. This land, as part of the Merri Creek valley, has real environmental and open space value, and should not be sold off for housing. I can assure you that if it were in Balwyn or Camberwell and proposed to be sold off all hell would break loose. Fawkner residents should not be treated as second class citizens, and the land should remain as public open space. Indeed it is adjacent to the former NuFarm Factory, which used to make the chemicals used in Agent Orange. Any housing development on this site will involve dubious clearances from planning and environmental authorities.

I have seen this kind of issue many times over the years, and been involved in the successful resolution of a number of them. It involves the State Government body substantially reducing the money it is seeking, and stop trying to make a financial windfall, and the Council being willing to pay a reduced amount, so that honour is satisfied all round. But it requires a lot of effort to get to this point. Fawkner Residents Association leader Joe Perri is doing a great job trying to prevent this selloff, and I hope some people will be willing to support him in protecting these public lands. His phone number is 0412 112 545, and his email is [email protected]

Of course Julianne Bell knew that our public lands not only need to be protected against people who want to sell them off, but also against those who would appropriate them for a private benefit. This is the issue on the beaches between Port Fairy and Warrnambool, where commercial horse trainers have been licenced to use the beaches of the Belfast Coastal Reserve. This is prime habitat for the endangered Hooded Plover. I find it remarkable that Governments can put a great deal of effort into protecting the Hooded Plover, then undo it all by allowing throughbred racehorses to charge up and down the beach!

The horses churn up the sand, disturb the chicks and adult nesting birds, crush eggs and damage protective fencing. They also risk the safety and enjoyment of joggers, swimmers, surfers, anglers, birdwatchers and other beachgoers. Horses are for courses, not for beaches. The campaign to stop beaches being turned into racetracks is being run by the Victorian National Parks Association, phone 9347 5188 or email [email protected], and by the Belfast Coastal Reserve Action Group, email [email protected] One of their key people is Killarney resident Shane Howard, lead singer of the Goanna Band.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this afternoon. Julianne Bell would be delighted to see you here carrying on this incredibly important work.

Emails and the web are full of messages from the faux-left about how they underestimated how much of the West's population had sympathy for racist, bigoted, sexist, homophobic and islamophobic ideas espoused by Trump and his ilk. That's what they pretend is behind what is actually the rejection of loss of sovereignty, loss of citizens' rights, through globalism and open borders. Here are two examples, both from organisations influenced by Soros money: The Australian Greens and GetUp. And what is their message? Send us more money! That's really what they are about.

From Adam Bandt of the Greens, "Shellshocked":

"Trump won. I feel shell-shocked.

It is devastating that his fear and hate prevailed. Hatred and division are flourishing in countries around the world -- Brexit, Donald Trump and Pauline Hanson and One Nation here at home. And Trump's election means we have a harder fight ahead for genuine global action on climate change. Now more than ever we need strong voices of inclusion and love in our public debates. Now more than ever we need to be sharing our positive vision for a more caring and sustainable society. Help us stay in the fight for a better world for everyone, regardless of their race, religion, gender, sexuality or anything else. Help us keep standing up for what matters.

Please contribute what you can to our fighting fund:

Help build our fighting fund [Editor's emphasis. Links removed.]

Together we won't let fear and hate take hold here in Australia.

Adam" [2]

From GetUp: "Fear and uncertainty"

Donald Trump has just declared victory and will become the next president of the United States. We're entering a time of fear and uncertainty that can only be countered by hope and connection. [...] Already GetUp members have chipped in for critical research to understand and counter this trend -- including those who are turning to One Nation or other extreme groups for answers. If you feel the need to do something right now to respond to a Trump victory, you can join them by CHIPPING IN HERE [link excised]. [Editor's emphasis.]
[...]
Paul, for the GetUp Team [3]

GetUp and the Greens' expressed concern about refugees and about global warming is belied by their striking lack of concern about the wars that the neocons styling themselves as liberals in the outgoing US Government have increasingly engaged in burning and polluting the planet with. Without taking war into consideration, their pleas for intervention are like a kind of Greek chorus on climate change and refugees in a fatalistic tragedy.

Why would you give these organisations more to keep on doing what they have been doing?

Trump and Roe vs Wade

Regarding pro- choice matters, I am glad that any Roe vs Wade decision will fall back to the individual states,[1] as Trump attempted unsuccessfully to emphasise in the second debate.

Draining the swamp

Will Trump actually be able to carry out his intentions such as 'draining the swamp' and pulling back from military interventions in the face of the remaining bulwark of neocons in various institutions including Congress on both Democrat and Republican side? If he is sincere, then the ability he has shown by winning the election to speak directly to people and motivate them, which his enemies are not able to do, may help him achieve more than most in his position.

Although the mainstream press totally failed to predict Trump's win, people still take their opinions from it

A friend received an email from a colleague reiterating how terrible Trump is but expressing surprise that the speech he gave on winning the presidency seemed out of character, because it wasn't as crazy as most of his pronouncments as reported in the mainstream press. This woman had never actually listened to a Trump speech. Although there are many only a keystroke away from her fingertips, she preferred to make her judgement by what she had read in the mainstream press and seen on TV. It's the same story with Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad and Asma al-Assad. And before that, Gaddafi. The critics of the governments that Hillary Clinton and Obama antagonised don't actually inform themselves by listening to the many interviews directly available on you tube; they just act on a take-home message of hate from the western press, which supports those nice-sounding warmongers.

Why did people vote for Trump? Because the left has become too divisive, too corporatised and wasn't fighting globalisation. Because the Greens, GetUp, Moveon.org (which is behind the organised riots in the US post Trumps election) are financed by Soros, who is a globalist. They don't stand for what they say they stand for.

NOTES

[1]
"First of all, Roe v. Wade did not legalize abortion. Before Roe, abortion on demand was already legal in several states, while it was available under restricted circumstances in many others, and all states recognized an exception to save the life of the mother. Abortion statutes gradually became liberalized in more states as social attitudes changed.#fn2" id="r2">[2] Roe short-circuited this development#fn3" id="r3">[3] by radically restricting the states’ right to regulate abortion, and effectively mandating abortion on demand for the first two trimesters. Overturning Roe would not make abortion illegal anywhere, but it would allow each state to decide for itself under what circumstances abortion is permissible. A legislative solution prevails in nearly all democratic nations, most of which have achieved a compromise reflecting the values of a pluralistic society." (Source: http://www.arcaneknowledge.org/histpoli/roe.htm)

"Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of abortion. It was decided simultaneously with a companion case, Doe v. Bolton. The Court ruled 7–2 that a right to privacy under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment extended to a woman's decision to have an abortion, but that this right must be balanced against the state's two legitimate interests in regulating abortions: protecting women's health and protecting the potentiality of human life.[1] Arguing that these state interests became stronger over the course of a pregnancy, the Court resolved this balancing test by tying state regulation of abortion to the third trimester of pregnancy.

Later, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Court rejected Roe's trimester framework while affirming its central holding that a woman has a right to abortion until fetal viability.[2] The Roe decision defined "viable" as "potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid."[3] Justices in Casey acknowledged that viability may occur at 23 or 24 weeks, or sometimes even earlier, in light of medical advances.[4]

In disallowing many state and federal restrictions on abortion in the United States,[5][6] Roe v. Wade prompted a national debate that continues today about issues including whether, and to what extent, abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, what methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication, and what the role should be of religious and moral views in the political sphere. Roe v. Wade reshaped national politics, dividing much of the United States into pro-choice and pro-life camps, while activating grassroots movements on both sides." (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade

[2] "Trump won. I feel shell-shocked.

It is devastating that his fear and hate prevailed. Hatred and division are flourishing in countries around the world -- Brexit, Donald Trump and Pauline Hanson and One Nation here at home. And Trump's election means we have a harder fight ahead for genuine global action on climate change. Now more than ever we need strong voices of inclusion and love in our public debates. Now more than ever we need to be sharing our positive vision for a more caring and sustainable society. Help us stay in the fight for a better world for everyone, regardless of their race, religion, gender, sexuality or anything else. Help us keep standing up for what matters.

Please contribute what you can to our fighting fund:

Help build our fighting fund [Editor's emphasis. Links removed.]

Together we won't let fear and hate take hold here in Australia.

Adam"

[3]

From GetUp:

Donald Trump has just declared victory and will become the next president of the United States. We're entering a time of fear and uncertainty that can only be countered by hope and connection. Brexit, Trump, and on our own shores, the resurgence of One Nation. There's a growing nexus between economic disadvantage and racially motivated resentment that is overwhelming all political expectations. People see great wealth amassed around them in big corporations and billionaire's pockets, while they're increasingly locked out of education, opportunity and meaningful work. Many of them are demonised for their own disadvantage. Many families struggle with two jobs, only to fall short of making ends meet. Many are angry, resentful and ready to lash out at a political system they feel has deserted them. There has been an abject failure of progressives both here and abroad to understand this, let alone counter it. And when right-wing demagogues tap this pulsing vein of resentment, we've mocked it as an ignorant fringe or dismissed it as isolated extremism. We can't make that mistake any longer. Already GetUp members have chipped in for critical research to understand and counter this trend -- including those who are turning to One Nation or other extreme groups for answers. If you feel the need to do something right now to respond to a Trump victory, you can join them by CHIPPING IN HERE [link excised]. [Editor's emphasis.]

But that's not the only thing to take away from today. There will be Americans, including progressives, waking up in the morning who didn't step up, who didn't make that call or knock on that door -- or who didn't even vote. Just as there were British people who left it to others to decide the fate of their union with Europe, and their own lives. There's a lesson in that: Decisions are made by those who show up.

Over the years, GetUp members have shown up together, hoped together and fought together to turn those shared hopes into a lived reality for our families and communities. This is a moment for us to recommit to each other -- to keep the surging tide of right-wing extremism from taking over our politics, our culture and our country. Everything from signing a petition, to calling your MP, is an act of hope and daring. And today, you can step up to do even more, whether it's volunteering your time or joining a local action group. It's an act of faith that there will be hundreds of thousands more standing with you. And that acting together, we'll be the ones to overwhelm all political expectations.

Together we need to do all we can do,
Paul, for the GetUp Team

"The door to Australia is closing" says Nick McKim of the Australian Greens. Many people reading this might be alarmed, wondering how their relatives overseas can visit them in future. But no, this heading is misleading. It is only the little door at which asylum seekers arriving by boat appear. The big door to Australia is still wide open for others.

"The Door to Australia is closing. Breaking: Early yesterday Malcolm Turnbull stood in front of the press and announced new policy that would impose a lifetime ban for asylum seekers coming to Australia by boat. Senator Hanson immediately stated her full support. We have less than a week to prevent this heinous policy from being implemented by convincing Labor and the cross-bench to oppose it – but we need you to stand with us."

Thus Nick McKim of The Greens communicated with his friends and members of the Greens Party in Australia.

McKim refers to the latest draconian proposed policy from the Federal Government. I suspect this announcement is in advance of a further increase in Australia's very large economic migration numbers of which the Australian public appear to be unaware. This was John Howard’s ploy when he virtually doubled the NON- refugee immigration program during his term as Prime Minister. Paraphrasing Howard's own words, he figured that the Australian public would accept high immigration if they believed that the borders of the country were secure. A hard line on asylum seekers, and intense interest and reporting by the media sent Howard's message unmediated straight to the Australian people. Measured debate on immigration and population, even by environmentalists for whom population is critical, was well and truly highjacked by the asylum seeker issue.

This highjacked debate has been an ongoing thorn in the side of environmental scientists and other concerned people. It has captured the energies of activists for well over over a decade. Those involved in refugee activism are on the whole socially aware and politically engaged people who might have otherwise concerned themselves with the effects of population pressures on democracy and their own environments.

Asylum seekers used as wedge politics

Australia has reached the stage now where those who put the asylum seeker issue as first priority will hardly engage with those who are environment and population focused. Successive governments have made rational discussion about Australia’s population all but impossible by driving this cruel wedge right through the rest of us. Educated discourse both in the private and public domains has been strangled. The Australian public has been manipulated by government and the press. The victims of these narrowly defined polemics are the asylum seekers and the Australian public whose freedom of speech and determination of their future have been stolen.

The major parties sustain this confusion to their audiences whilst maintaining the hard line on asylum seekers arriving by boat. The Australian Greens who do take up the asylum seeker issue, in opposition to the other two major parties, have done nothing to help educate the Australian people. They should have told the Australian public how it is being duped and that, far from the door to Australia closing, only a small door is being slammed shut, whilst huge gates have been thrust wide open, admitting completely unprecedented numbers into the country.

The population is growing so fast that net overseas migration (the total numbers arriving minus the total numbers leaving) is now making up more than half of Australia’s population growth! (See graph, "Components of population growth Australia 1990-2015").

Do you know what the economic migration numbers are?

On ABC’s Q and A 17th October 2016, One of the panelists, lawyer and asylum seeker advocate Shen Narayanasamy “exposed” the deception that our politicians and media perpetuate, a clever blurring of the issues of immigration in total and the virtually insignificant numbers of unfortunate people who arrive by boat, seeking asylum but who make up 90% of the national discourse on immigration. She revealed that 800,000 overseas visa holders enter Australia every year, a figure (including visas issued under categories such as family reunion, skilled workers, a special eligibility category, student visas, 457 temporary workers visas and 417 working holiday visas) that totally dwarfs the figures for Australia's humanitarian intake and the numbers of asylum seekers arriving by boat . Ms. Narayanasamy said “.... I think there is an alternative because when you understand that we take 800,000 people a year and we have done so since Prime Minister John Howard, the highest intake in history, it’s because we know it turbo-charges our economy and contributes to our society.” 1 Of course the number was not news to those who take an interest and research the facts, but it was important that this person revealed this stark fact to the poorly informed general public on a popular television program .

While 1,469 once 'boat people', now mostly meeting the criteria of refugees, have awaited their fate on Manus Island and and Nauru , approximately 800,000 other kinds of immigrants arrive in Australia each year in the form of hairdressing, business, and other students, investors, families, 457 workers, bakers, cooks, labourers, mines workers, backpackers, foreign doctors, nurses, accountants, town planners, sundry religious leaders, millionaires, billionaires, with few questions asked. Most would pay far less for their passage than any asylum seekers arriving clandestinely by boat, with or without real or fake passports. Around 12,000 humanitarian applicants are admitted each year.

Eight hundred thousand (800,000) is almost one fifth (1/5th) of fast growing Melbourne's current population, whilst the total number of asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru equates more to the population of a couple of small villages villages https://www.humanrights.gov.au/immigration-detention-statistics

That is how totally out of proportion the narrative is Australia.

It makes you wonder why the Greens don't simply encourage asylum-seekers to obtain false passports and apply to become foreign students in Australia and buy air tickets. It would be so much cheaper and far less life-threatening. No-one would probably notice since we already have many people who have overstayed their visas in Australia. We also encourage many who have obtained a qualification in this country to convert to permanent immigrant whilst onshore. Australia has so many overseas immigrants now that they contribute around sixty per cent of our total population growth.

Why aren't the Greens talking about these logistical problems?

The Australian Greens' exclusive focus on asylum seekers is just too convenient for the Liberal and Labor parties, because it keeps the public eye away from the explosion of immigration that is negatively affecting every aspect of our quality of life and cost of living, with the possible exception of variety in restaurants, for those who can afford them. Around 200,000 permanent immigrants and an uncapped number of temporary entrants (in the realm of 600,000 per annum) are overwhelming Australia's capacity to provide infrastructure, to protect our urban environment and it is devastating our natural environment. Dwindling numbers and extinctions of Australian native animals are the collateral damage of habitat lost to ever advancing additional freeways, tollways, and new suburbs. One cannot help but notice that the similarity between the approximate number of temporary migrants in Australia at any one time and the numbers for fluctuating local unemployment.

Desensitisation of the Australian public

For years professional population growth marketers and governments have worked to desensitise the Australian public to large numbers. For instance, I used to tell people that Melbourne would be 6 million by mid- century and people would tell me that I was exaggerating . Now they tell me it will be 7 million as though that is just normal. And the other day I read in the Financial Review that we are heading for 8 million!

Ms. Narayanasamy was of the opinion that we are coping so well with all these immigrants, whom she believes are 'turbo-charging' our economy, that we should take in even more. The reality is that the discipline of economics is so narrow that it is completely inadequate to frame the actual problem.

Erosion of democracy

How is it that someone living in Melbourne cannot be aware of the problems this high immigration is causing us? Democracy is being overturned simply to accommodate this influx and the rest of us badly. In Melbourne, an important example of how destructive this is for democracy is the greatly protested (but little reported and little investigated) changes to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT's) planning appeals rules. See articles re public dismay about VCAT changes. VCAT was created to provide the Victorian public with free access to appeal decisions on planning. It was intended that no-one would need a barrister to represent them at VCAT and that any resident might raise a planning objection. The rules have now changed, whereby it costs a fortune just to lodge a planning objection and community groups don't dare to attend the tribunal without a barrister. Even so, the rights of appeal have been constricted to superficialities. Local government no longer has the power to decide the size of its population by restricting subdivisions and refusing building permits. The state has taken over and the state is in the business of population growth and property development, encouraging people to migrate to Victoria, collecting the stamp duty from continuous housing construction to accommodate them, and passing laws to stop Victorians from protecting their quality of life by resisting over-development.

Other states seem to operate similarly.

What about the natural environment and natural resources and amenity?

Many believe that a population of 24 million is quite small for a continent as large but Australia is a very infertile, dry continent with erratic rainfall, unique, fragile ecosystems and a low human “carrying capacity”. We are pushing our environment beyond its limits, expecting it behave like places many times more fertile, such as Europe. It will never be Europe. We should love it for what it is. This worked for the original human custodians who lived here sustainably for a proven nearly 50 thousand years.

The Victorian State of the Environment Reports 2008 and 2013 showed that Victoria’s fragile environment, especially around our coasts and waterways is deteriorating through population pressure and it is clear from this that continued high population growth is environmentally irresponsible. Ultimately we humans depend on that environment. It does not look as though the next report due in 2018 is likely to show any improvements with an anticipated half a million added to Australia's population.

Victoria has an expensive desalination plant which will for the first time be put to use this summer even after very good winter rain as, according the Premier Daniel Andrews, the dams are not at a level to sustain the current population in Melbourne. The desal plant, estimated to cost taxpayers $20 billion was constructed over multiple objections. In another blow to democracy, the community group,Your Water Your Say, was bankrupted by court-costs and had to abandon its fight.

With such rapid and continuing population growth, ever more land is taken up by housing for the additional population. Established houses and gardens are being destroyed to accommodate more people and precious farm land on Melbourne's fringes is given over to housing development.

City traffic in Melbourne is now so bad that one always re considers a trip across town by car even outside peak times.

The demand for housing is so fierce that un-affordable housing is constantly featured in our media with the blame shifted to peripheral issues such as negative gearing or "empty nesters" preferring to remain in the family home rather than downsizing. (Negative gearing in property is really only a consequence of the level of population growth feeding demand. If the prices of houses were not constantly rising it would be pointless to purchase and negatively gear! See "Are the Greens on the right track with respect to negative gearing?")

Local politics and media are saturated with arguments over new roads and railway crossings, building projects to densify our suburbs, loss of trees, and pressure on both private and public land.

No end point

The prospect of ever more disruptive projects to cater for socially engineered rapid population growth is economically motivated. It benefits the few, dis-advantages the many and has absolutely no existential purpose or end point.

Footnote
1. https://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-what-are-the-real-numbers-on-refugees-and-other-migrants-coming-to-australia-66912

Greens Councillors Amanda Stone, Sam Gaylard and Misha Coleman voted together with Councillors Stephen Jolly and Jackie Fristacky to give the go ahead to run a cycle path through a natural reserve. Trees will be felled. This was not a foregone result, since the decision was carried only by one in a 5:4 vote. The Greens obviously had a choice, but seem to have chosen to put transport ahead of nature in a very overcrowded area with little access to natural surroundings. This lack of interest in protecting the natural world and our access to it from overdevelopment seems to be an increasing feature of the Greens, particularly to the North of the Yarra.

Julianne Bell reports on this matter in a letter to Protectors of Public Land and includes the submission made by PPLVic to the council, which has been published with small adaptations, below. The pictures of the trees that will go were also provided by Ms Bell. (Intro to this article by Editor: candobetter.net)

Greens Councillors Vote to Destroy Rushall Reserve - Unique Parkland in North Fitzroy - for Commuter Cycle Path

At a meeting on Tuesday last 2 August 2016 Yarra Council considered the cycle path project proposed to be constructed through Rushall Reserve and along the escarpment next to the railway line. Debate on this controversial project, opposed by many from the North Fitzroy community plus parks and community groups such as PPL VIC, was reported to have raged until around 1 am the next morning.

To their eternal shame Greens Councillors Amanda Stone, Sam Gaylard and Misha Coleman voted together with Councillors Stephen Jolly and Jackie Fristacky to give the go ahead to this project. The vote by Councillors was 5 in favour 4 against. (Councillors Roberto Colanzi, Simon Huggins, Geoff Barbour and Phillip Vlahogiannis voted against approval of the project.)

Construction of this project will spell destruction of the Reserve as it will alienate about half the parkland and necessitate clearfelling of trees - 38 have been identified not just the 12 cited by staff. These are said to be the habitat of the critically endangered Swift Parrot. (See attached photos of trees on the escarpment along the existing goat track including the large River Red Gum which Council staff consider "might be able to be saved".) Apart from Boroondara, Yarra has less parkland per capita of any municipality in Melbourne so can ill afford to lose more.

Batman-Woiwurrung Treaty Signing Site on the Merri Creek

Also of great concern is the impact of the cycle path of the Batman-Woiwurrung Treaty Signing Site on the Merri Creek.

Consultants report they cannot find aboriginal artifacts (surprise!surprise!). This was the only known treaty signed in Australia between white settlers and the Aboriginal population. It is extraordinary that the City of Yarra has never moved to establish the site as one of national significance.

See below the submission made by Fiona Bell for PPL VIC at the Council meeting. (Same surname as mine but not related.) Note our campaign opposing the commuter cycle path through Rushall Reserve continues as does our advocacy for heritage protection for the Batman-Woiwurrung Treaty Signing Site on the Merri Creek.

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

Mobile 0408022408

Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.: Submission to City of Yarra Re Rushall Reserve Proposed Shared Bicycle Path

Council Meeting Item 11.1, Tuesday 2nd August 2016

I am making a submission on the "Shared Bike Path'' through Rushall Reserve (referred to as "the project") on behalf of Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc., a coalition of 80 groups dedicated to protecting and maintaining sites of environmental and heritage significance. I am qualified additionally to speak on the subject as I am a resident/ratepayer of the City of Yarra, a member of the City of Yarra Heritage Advisory Committee and a cyclist. Julianne Bell Secretary of PPL VIC sends her apologies for this evening.
I wish to make the following points.

I believe that NO cycle path should go through the Rushall Reserve, which is presently a cul de sac reserve surrounded by cycle paths.

The Council officers' report has established that there is a significant recent addition to the project plan not revealed before to the community. I quote from the report under "Feedback of Path Design" section. "It is highlighted that further recent feedback from asset owners, in particular City West Water in May 2016, means that any path adjacent to the rail embankment in the reserve (at one particular point) need to be located a further 2.5 m to 3.0 m further east (i.e.into the reserve) than is shown on the plan in Table 3 below. This is further outlined in paragraphs 30 to 36 below.)”

In view of this significant change to the design to the plan for the project, and the fact that the cycle path will intrude further east into the Reserve taking over more precious parkland, PPL VIC is advocating council defer any decision concerning the project in order for the community to digest the changes.

We are of the view that the project should be deferred for hearing at a future Council meeting.

Should Council be so ill advised as to proceed to consider the project tonight and make a decision, here are our arguments opposing the project. These have been raised before in our submissions:

1. There has been no assessment of the value to the community in terms of a recreation facility, only the profit to cyclists.
2. There has been no assessment of the environmental impact with clearance of native vegetation and the heat island effect of asphalting over parkland (should this proceed).
3. No consideration has been given to the fact that the Reserve including the Heritage Zone on the escarpment is the habitat of the critically endangered Swift Parrot, Lathamus discolor. A major factor for the demise of this bird is reduction of vegetation, especially eucalypts, as it is primarily a nectar feeder.
4. The cycle path is billed as a recreational cycle path but there is a network of nearby cycle paths which serve North Fitzroy residents. It is clearly a commuter cycle path and will serve residents of municipalities across Melbourne not only locals. To quote Justin Hanrahan of Council staff at a recent meeting on 16 June 2016 with PPL VIC that that a major purpose of the project is "to shave off a little travel time for bike users on the trail." It seems clear, therefore, that the proposed cycle path should be categorised as a commuter cycle path. It is designed to save commuter cyclists time in transit, although this would be only a very few minutes.
5. There is no data collection of likely users and of users of existing trails to justify the extraordinary proposed expenditure of $600,000.
6. The Cultural Heritage Management Plan is unsatisfactory. There is no real acknowledgement that the Batman Woiwurrung Treaty Signing Site is the only site in Australia where white settlers signed a treaty with the native population. The whole of Rushall Reserve and Merri Creek within the Reserve should be declared a national heritage zone not a transit route.

Signed: Fiona Bell

Fiona Bell

See also: Issues that should be decided at the 29 November Victorian State elections (14/10/14).

On 18 November, the Melbourne Age reported in Greens campaigning hard on East West Link in Melbourne inner-city seats:

Ellen Sandell, Greens Melbourne candidate

"The Victorian Greens have pledged to continue to campaign against the East West Link in marginal seats despite Labor promising to scrap the project if elected. As the Greens aim to win a balance of power in the upcoming state election, Victorian Greens leader Greg Barber said the party was campaigning fiercely about the East West Link in a number of inner-city marginal seats. ... "In the hotly contested seat of Melbourne, Greens candidate Ellen Sandell criticised the opposition's stance on the East West Link.

Ms. Sandell reminded voters that the East-West Link was Labor's position in the first place and criticised Labor for effectively 'outsourcing' the decision to the courts rather than committing itself to scrap East-West Link

The Greens are contesting all 128 seats of both houses of the Victorian Parliament._{#fnGrVic1" id="txtGrVic1">1}

A shortcoming of this campaign and, indeed, the campaigns by many community groups opposed to road transport is that it fails to question why so many Victorians need to commute such long distances in the first place._{#fnGrVic2" id="txtGrVic2">2}

Greens' failure to address population growth imposed by both major parties

A more serious shortcoming is the complete failure to even address, let alone oppose, the Victorian government's program to increase Victoria's population by by several million by encouraging large numbers of overseas workers to move to Victoria. This is exemplified by its infamous Live in Victoria web-site. This will surely cause social and ecological catastrophe in Victoria if not stopped. Those who stand to gain by destroying Victoria's livability, are a small minority of Victorians – property speculators, land developers and sweat-shop factory owners.

Why the Greens, a reputedly pro-environment party, has nothing to say about this would mystify many.

Voters, not party officials, should allocate preferences

The report concludes:

"Mr Barber was tight lipped about preference deals and said the Greens would 'cross that bridge when we come to it'."

This may mean that the Victorian upper house ballot still uses the anti-democratic system used in federal Senate elections. With this system, if a voter chooses not to allocate preferences in the way officials have decided he/she is obliged to number every square. As only a minority of voters put themselves through this amount of trouble, the preferential component of the upper house vote, which decides how a substantial proportion of members are elected, is in the hands of party officials and not voters.

Possibly Mr Barber was just referring to "how-to vote" cards for the lower house. Whilst this is not as bad as the system has been for the upper house, it is a fallacy accepted by many voters that if they want to vote for a particular part, then they are obliged to follow all the preferences on that party's "How to vote card".

It would be of concern if either of the above less-than-democratic aspects of Victoria's voting system were acceptable to Mr Barber.

Footnote[s]

Media release from Northen Greens, 17 Oct 14
See also: Issues that should be decided at the 29 November Victorian State elections (14/10/14) on candobetter.net.

Federal and NT Greens have come out in opposition to the CLP's agenda of selling public assets like Power and Water Corporation, the Darwin Port Authority and the Territory Insurance Office. "Let's call a spade a spade. This plan is all about balancing the books today by selling assets which belong to the people and which make it possible for us to manage costs in the future," said NT Greens candidate for Casuarina Dr Michael Connard. "This is a short-sighted move. What happens when the NT has no public assets left to sell?"

"The aftermath of the Katherine flood illustrated how a government insurance agency can be a real force for good as TIO raised the standards on how claims were paid out and the commercial insurance companies had to improve their game in response," said Dr Connard.

"This was a direct result of TIO's priorities as a public service rather than a profit making enterprise.

"It is also very hard to see how separating and privatising the power system can possibly result in lower power charges in the NT when it has failed to do so in places with significantly smaller networks."

The Greens federal spokesperson for Transport and Infrastructure, Senator Janet Rice said, "Public assets should remain in public hands unless there is a very compelling case to sell them,"

The Greens have strongly opposed the Abbott government's privatisation agenda, which is threatening to create a toll road slush fund for big cities like Melbourne and Sydney at the expense of revenue-generating state and territory assets.

"Selling off publicly-owned assets could trigger job losses across the country, while lining the pockets of Tony Abbott's private sector mates.

"The government should be serving communities, but instead their backward-looking agenda is dividing them."

"The CLP agenda is about preparing a menu of public assets that Adam Giles can offer up to Country Liberal Party donors," said Dr Connard.

"The Territory Government should not even be thinking about selling off public assets and the Greens will fight this move all the way."

Media contact:

Dr Michael Connard

0438 734 784 | michael.connard [ AT ] nt.greens.org.au

The South Australian Greens have given their first preferences at next Saturday’s 15th March state election to the Stop Population Growth Now party.

In an enlightened move for the Greens, the party in SA is actually acknowledging the strong and obvious link between living standards, environmental conservation and climate change – something that shouldn't be so obscure for the rest of the party with an environmental focus!

Mark Parnell MLC is the current sitting Greens member in the Legislative Council, and supports the protection of the environment and everyone's right to live in a just, humane and healthy world. Policies dominated by the vested interests of property developers, and corporations that feed of population growth, are contrary to these aims.

The South Australian Greens’ policy also appears at odds with that of the federal Greens, which states that “an Australian population policy must consider the geographical distribution of human settlements rather than just concentrate upon population size”.

The Australian: Greens preference fringe group pushing zero population growth This article is "premium content" behind a Murdoch media paywall. If asked to pay or provide personal details to view this diatribe, we recommend you don't. - Ed

The “geographical distribution” of our human settlements is largely in our coastal cities, our “green belt”, fringing the world's driest continent. Avoiding the population size in the debate has been characteristic of the Green's population policy – which is more an apology rather than something they can actually implement.

The SA Greens say “part of reducing our ecological footprint requires reducing the rate of population growth”. While the Greens, and most other “green” groups, concentrate on the footprints of individuals, and living sustainably, they ignore the absolute overall growth in the number of feet! It's a convenient diversion, and intellectual dishonesty to stay politically correct.

“The Greens will aim to stabilise South Australia’s population within a generation,” is a policy platform says. Thanks to years of high growth rates, slowing down the momentum takes time, but at least there should be a stable population if we start now, with this generation. We owe it to future generations that the nation, the planet, we hand down to them is largely intact, and there is room for move for innovation, quality lifestyles, conservation and existing ecosystems, - and that they are not crushed by the greed of this generation's pro-growthists!

Mark Parnell, an upper house MP and leader of the Greens in South Australia, said “zero population growth on this planet is absolutely inevitable”. However, the ABS reveals that South Australia's fertility levels are below the other states, at 1.89, compared to other States of over 2.0 in Tasmania.

The desired “growth” will be from net overseas immigration levels, running at 60% of our population growth nationally, not from the number of children being born. It's artificial growth, socially engineered by Federal and State governments.

The SA Green's population policy says that: South Australia, even with its relatively small population, has a disproportionately large ecological footprint. In fact, if everyone in the world were to live like us, we would need more than three planet Earths to provide us with the all the resources we consume and deal with all the waste we produce....In South Australia, both the number of people and the per-person consumption are increasing, intensifying our unsustainable impact. Improvements in technology may help reduce our impact, but we also need to stabilise our population and deal with overconsumption and waste.

We need a new approach to prosperity that challenges the underlying assumptions of growth and consumption.

Parnell recognises that his policy on population are at odds with the Greens at national level. Stabilising our popualtion needs to be a national target, and a good start is at State level.
Once land is subdivided, planning laws are made maleable and flexible, and “growth” becomes ingrained into the culture and texture of the economy, it becomes inevitable.

SPGN

The executive of the SPGN is comprised of former members of the Australian Democrats, scientists, accountants and IT professionals. With the demise of the Democrats, they have morphed in to a millennial ‘save the earth’ party. The SPNG’s aim is to “Reduce Australia's rate of population growth to zero as rapidly as possible. If the resulting stable population is still environmentally unsustainable then work to reduce the size of the population until we achieve environmental sustainability.”

For too long, our nation's demographic patterns causing record-breaking rates of growth have been artificially manipulated, without public debate, and democratic reference.

How Stop Population Growth Now will seek to implement its zero population growth policy:
1.Reduce immigration. Australia's present very high rate of immigration has been foisted on the Australian public without any chance to vote on this issue. -
2.Strongly discourage  families of more than 2 children, whilst continuing to welcome 1 or 2 child families. “We do not favour any coercive strategies for family planning such as the Chinese one-child policy but we do not believe that couples should be encouraged or rewarded to have families of more than 2 children through baby bonuses or other benefits”.

The so-called “population control” agenda has been corrupted by the mainsteam media to assert that the party will malignantly “control” the number of children families will be allowed to have. It's hardly any vision of humans being invasive vermin like rats, ravaging the Earth! Most of our population growth is due to government immigration policies, (running at 60% of our population growth) to propagate the housing industry, and not based on Australia's fragile landscape of increasingly hostile weather patterns, declining living standards, ecological damage from urban expansion, rising fuel prices and declining jobs.

The Federal Parliament of Australia, a country which, in the 1960's participated in the devastating war against Vietnam and in the illegal wars against Iraq in 1991 and 2003 and which is now participating in the ongoing war against Afghanistan, yesterday passed legislation to undermine international laws to eradicate cluster bombs. The Governing Labor Party and the Opposition Liberal/National Coalition united to support the bill. This was a betrayal of Australian international obligations, Australian Greens spokesperson Assisting on Defence Senator Scott Ludlam said yesterday after the Government's cluster munitions bill passed the Senate.

This article has been adapted from a media release by Greens Senator Scott Ludlam. See also: Australia poised to pass dubious law to implement cluster bomb ban in stopclustermunitions.org, Australian responsibility: cluster bomb carnage in Iraq of 3 March 2011 by Chris Doran in Online Opinion, Senate considers new cluster bomb laws in the SMH of 20 August 2012, Senate passes ban on cluster munitions (a misleading title) in The Australian of 21 August 2012.

This article has been adapted from a media release by Greens Senator Scott Ludlam.See also: Australia poised to pass dubious law to implement cluster bomb ban in stopclustermunitions.org, Australian responsibility: cluster bomb carnage in Iraq of 3 March 2011 by Chris Doran in Online Opinion, Senate considers new cluster bomb laws in the SMH of 20 August 2012, Senate passes ban on cluster munitions (a misleading title) in The Australian of 21 August 2012.

The Federal Parliament of Australia, a country which, in the 1960's participated in the devastating war against Vietnam and in the illegal wars against Iraq in 1991 and 2003 and which is now participating in the ongoing war against Afghanistan, yesterday passed legislation to undermine international laws to eradicate cluster bombs.

The Governing Labor Party and the Opposition Liberal/National Coalition united to support the bill. This was a betrayal of Australian international obligations, Australian Greens spokesperson Assisting on Defence Senator Scott Ludlam said yesterday after the Government's cluster munitions bill passed the Senate.

Survivor Soraj Ghulam Habib outside the Australian
Senate in Canberra last year. Photo credit: CMC

Greens spokesperson assisting on Defence Senator Scott Ludlam said the bill "ignores the urgent pleadings of the medical and humanitarian communities and completely fails to meet our obligations under the international Convention outlawing cluster bombs".

"Sub-munitions from cluster bombs that do not explode on impact remain a threat for decades - 98% of the victims of these are civilians. These monstrous weapons have no legitimate role to play under any circumstances.

Vietnamese cluster bomb victims
Nguyen Thi Cuc	Li Van Thang Ho Van Ly

"This law allows Australian forces to store, transport, and assist in the use of cluster bombs. Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic said this law could 'allow Australian military personnel to load and aim the gun, so long as they did not pull the trigger'. It also fails to outlaw indirect investment in companies producing cluster munitions.

"The Government advised me in the Senate last night that storing and transporting cluster munitions for other countries is not their policy. If it's not their policy, why is it allowed by the legislation? Why not close the loophole?"

Senator Ludlam tabled leaked diplomatic cables - published by WikiLeaks and used in Fairfax media reports in May 2011 - showing the Government, at the behest of the United States, lobbied to undermine the Convention to allow the very same flaws now entrenched in Australian domestic law.

"Despite the denials, leaks revealed that the Government lobbied countries to water-down the Convention on eradicating cluster munitions. That shameful misadventure failed, and as a result our country is a signatory to an unequivocal agreement aimed at eliminating cluster munitions from the face of the Earth: There is no grey area and there are no excuses - yet tonight the Government and the Opposition have shown no backbone and no honour."

Media Contact: Giovanni Torre - 0417 174 302

"Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Bob Brown are in a position to change the political, social and cultural landscape in Australia once and for all. They find themselves in the unique position of having the community support they need to stop the parliamentary puppet masters dictating parliamentary policy. They find themselves in the position to uproot the few stunted perennials that blight political, social and cultural debate in this community and let a thousand flowers bloom by passing parliamentary legislation that forces media monopolies to limit their media holdings to 10% of the privately owned media outlets in a community. They are also in a position to pass parliamentary legislation that alters the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s guidelines so that a variety of opinions, not just the major political parties’ opinions, are brought to the fore in Australia in the publicly funded media sphere." Joe Toscano Anarchist Age Weekly, Number 940, 18th July – 24th July 2011 So, what's stopping them from doing the right thing by Australia?"Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Bob Brown are in a position to change the political, social and cultural landscape in Australia once and for all. They find themselves in the unique position of having the community support they need to stop the parliamentary puppet masters dictating parliamentary policy. They find themselves in the position to uproot the few stunted perennials that blight political, social and cultural debate in this community and let a thousand flowers bloom by passing parliamentary legislation that forces media monopolies to limit their media holdings to 10% of the privately owned media outlets in a community. They are also in a position to pass parliamentary legislation that alters the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s guidelines so that a variety of opinions, not just the major political parties’ opinions, are brought to the fore in Australia in the publicly funded media sphere." Joe Toscano Anarchist Age Weekly, Number 940, 18th July – 24th July 2011 So, what's stopping them from doing the right thing by Australia?

Ed. Sheila Newman: This article is based on my transcription from Joe Toscano's seminal podcast about the Australian media and government, to which I have added headings. I have removed some 'you knows' and small repetitions and elisions for clarity. Any mistakes in transcription are my own. You can listen to the original by podcast anytime. It is actually an hour long. The transcribed part is just the media inquiry part.

Power, Wealth, Parliament and the Mass Media - Joe Toscano:

"It's about power and wealth. What's the point in having all the power in the world if you don't have the wealth to make the decisions you've made a reality? And that's what we have in a parliamentary democracy. We go through the ritual every four years to elect representatives to make decisions fo us. Unfortunately what the representatives can and cannot do is determined by the parliamentary puppetmasters. That's all sections of society that owns the means of production, distribution, communication and exchange.

Now it's quite interesting how the Gillard government, facing oblivion at the next election by media sharks who are tearing pieces off its lifeless carcass, can continue wallowing in its own blood until what little credibility it enjoys is completely gone. Or it can bite back.

And those regular listeners in the Anarchist World this week will know that for some time I have been pushing the idea of holding a Royal Commission into the role the Murdoch Empire plays in this country. A royal commission into how the Murdoch media empire actually subverts the will of the people by subverting parliament.

Proposed Inquiry: What Gillard wants and what the Greens want

And I have noticed that now that Ms Gillard's little tête a tête with the Murdoch senior editors has kind of come asunder that she is once again looking at the possibility of holding a media inquiry - a general, nice, little, media inquiry that looks at privacy issues. Yes, you may as well pack it up, put it back in the drawer and forget about it.

Now I notice that, obviously the Greens, who have been one of the major victims of the Murdoch monopoly in this country - I mean, before every election we have huge headlines about the drug addicts running the Greens - how they'are going to subvert the country. You know, it just goes on day in day out. They [the Greens] would like something a little bit wider. They would like a media inquiry into the ownership.

Are newspapers growing too irrelevant to pose much of a threat?

Now people say to me, "Why worry about newspapers, Joe, they're irrelevant."

I'm afraid they're not. Newspapers are not irrelevant in this country. And when you've got some major capital cities with only one
newspaper, and that's a Murdoch newspaper, and you've got other capital cities where you've got two newspapers, it's not irrelevant.

Because, although there may be a decreasing number of people actually reading newspapers, there are more people reading the same papers on the Net. And, more importantly, what newspapers do is they actually set the political agenda for the day. Because, if you think television and radio set the political agenda, they don't.

Television and radio are very, very, very understaffed pieces of technology and they take their running every day from what's printed in the newspapers that morning. And if you want to know what's going to be on you local radio stations that morning or television station that day and that evening, just pick up a newspaper and you will see that, as far as political commentary is concerned, and social and cultural commentary is concerned, that 95% of commentary that occurs on television and radio is directly purloined from the major issues raised by newspapers, and the same major issues are then aised in parliament at the state and federal level. So newspapers still play, although there may be fewer people actually buying the oadsheets and the tabloids, it still plays a significant role in setting the social and political agenda in this country.

So, faced with that dilemma, when one player owns 70% of the newspapers, you can actually see the significant impact it actually has on peoples' thinking and the way issues are approached. And the thing about the Murdoch empire is, as far as I'm concerned, is it's a cancer on civil society. Because it is so huge, all-encompassing, all-powerful. And anybody who thinks holding an inquiry into privacy issues in the media, or even holding a parliamentary inquiry, into media ownership in this country is going to break the back of this monster, they should think again.

We need a royal commission

What we need, and what the Liberal and the Labor Party and the cross-benchers and the Greens should be discussing and negotiating on, is holding a royal commission into the impact that the Murdoch empire has on debate, has on discussion, has on political decisions in this country. Now, you'll see over the next few weeks, the media crying about the fact[2] that there's some Clayton's media inquiry's been set up into privacy issues in the media.

Well, the reality is they're the first ones who jump up and down about holding inquiries into this and into that. I mean, it's about time
the fourth estate [3] was dissected and we had the opportunity to ensure that a thousand voices are able to be heard in this country. Not the same, stunted, old, pathetic arguments, which we hear day in and day out, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Arguments, you know, which support capitalism as the be-all and end-all of economic activity. Activities which media outlets, which actually promote division within this country, which act as a cheer squad for that small section of society that owns the means of production, distribution, exchange and communication, which continues to act as the parliamentary puppetmasters in this country.

I mean, facing political oblivion if the government continues to square dance with the parliamentary puppetmasters, it is time that they turned off the music, isn't it? Isn't it time that they turned off the music and launched a direct legislative assault on the corporate world?

Corporate world really unpopular with Australians

If there is one group that's more unpopular than the Gillard government, it's the corporate world. Australians are beginning to realise the abysmal state of public health, public education, is due to the domination of the economy by a shrinking number of powerful corporations.

Any government, any political movement that is willing to wrest power back from the parliamentary puppetmasters, especially one that currently has a snowflake's chance in hell of being reelected, if it continues on its current political projectory, will earn the respect of an electorate that is becoming increasingly tired of seeing its institutions and its children's future sacrificed on Mammon's altar. And that's what it's about. That's the bottom line that we all forget! That's what the fourth estate is about! It's about creating profits built on other peoples' suffering. It's about creating ever-increasing profits, irrespective of the human, social and environmental costs.

And when you have the fourth estate singing the praises of the corporate world because they are owned by the very same people that dominate economic and political activity in this country, you begin to realise why there is such a lack of debate in this country about any issue, except the very superficial issues that have no bearing on the power of that small section of society that owns the means of production, distribution, exchange and communication is able to exercise.

Obviously we have 'stop presses' and 'exposees' on things which are of little importance to most people, but when it comes to actually looking at the foundations of the society, when it comes to actually questioning the assumptions this society is based on, when it comes to the idea of tackling the major problems that we face as individuals, and as communities within this country, well then, there is no debate, there is no discussion, and those people who put their heads above the parapet and attempt to raise issues that go beyond issues that are currently broached, find themselves being shunned, or worse still, being lampooned, or, worse still, being branded as 'un-Australian', 'terrorists'.

Let's create the momentum to break down the media plutocracy

So, media inquries ... forget about an inquiry!

Let's have a royal commission. Let's watch them squirm. Let's see what happens. Let's create the momentum to break down the media monopolies that exist in this country, whether they'are Murdoch or Fairfax or any other media monopoly that exists in this country. Let's break them down. Let's have legislation passed through parliament that ensures that no one group of people, or an individual, can own more than 10% of the media outlets in one city. And then, maybe we will see those thousand flowers bloom in that stony garden that needs to be fertilised by a range of ideas.

Now, let's move on to the ABC. Because, we've concentrated on the media today, and the reason I've concentrated on the media is very simple, because the thing about living in a technologically savvy society is everybody is exposed to the same set of opinions minute by minute by minute by minute by minute. And we're told in this country that we have the private corporations running the media, well the government gelded the ABC.

The ABC has become a commercial clone

And people say to me, "Well, Joe, what are you complaining about? I mean, forget about it. The ABC gives us an alternative viewpoint."

The ABC is there to do these things but people have forgotten what happened to the ABC during the Howard era, what happened to the ABC during the Hawke/Keating era. They've forgotten that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has basically become a commercial clone.

Obviously there are a number of programs which continue to exist - not for very long - which provide alanced analysis. But as far as the majority of the information, debate, analysis programs which occur in the government-gelded ABC you find that most of them you can actually find in the commercial setting.

Now, I know this is old news, but you may find it a bit interesting, because I want to draw an analogy here. I remember in 1999 when I had a weekly spot on ABC local radio that examined the week's news from a radical perspective, it didn't take long for the presenter to be asked to get a conservative voice on the half-hour segment. Within two months of one of the most conservative politicians in this country, the former Senator Julia McGorren had been appointed to cross swords with your's truly. The segment, and the presenter, who conducted an overnight show on-air for the ABC for over a decade was also taken off-air. This is during the Howard era. She was never offered an on-air position again and continues to work in the dungeons of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation because she wasn't on a short-term contract.

Lucky her!

Australia's Arts Community

It's no surprise that the Arts community now finds itself in the very same position. The Hoard Government succeeded in destroying the independence of the ABC by ensuring senior managers were appointed that reflected its world view. And the Howard Government openly stacked the ABC Board with some of the most conservative and reactionary figures in Australia, including Mr Windshuttle.

These changes transformed the ABC from a source that provided independent information analysis to an entertainment-focused organisation that needs to focus on ratings. It's all about entertainment. If we want entertainment, there are a million areas we can look for entertainment.

Why did Rudd and Gillard leave Howard's appointees in place?

The Gillard and Rudd Government found themselves in a difficult position because they left all of Howard's appointments in their jobs when elected. They left them all. And that's the tragedy of the 2007 Rudd victory, that all the senior bureaucrats, whether it's the department of immigration and refugees as we are seeing now, whether it was the taxation department, whether it was Human Services, whether it was the ABC. Everyone of those political appointments which were made during the decade that Howard was in powe were left in positions of authority. Left in positions of authority!

So, instead of cleaning out the ABC's Augean stable, they left everything in place. It's one thing having your hands on the levers of
government, it's another thing being forced to use the coordinates of a bureaucracy appointed y Howard and his cronies to steer the ship.

And that's the dilemma! Although the government may have a different agenda, as fa as the senior political appointments that were made by the Howard Regime, they continue to set the coordinates that determine government policy. It's no accident the Gillard Government is faced with a neverending litany of disasters, despite overseeing the 'best economy in the western capitalist world'. I mean, leaving your political enemies in positions of power when you own a position to exercise power is a recipe for disaster. And this is what we've seen in the ABC - although the government changed, senior political appointments, both on the board and the managerial area, didn't change. They continued to push the conservative reactionary agenda. And what we are seeing is even the arts programs are now coming under the axe. We are seeing the ABC lose what little independence it has.

Hardly any local content produced by the ABC

No wonder the ABC has been transformed into a commercial clone that has put people on short-term contracts, turned the ABC into an entertainment-focused organisation that actually relies on outside contracts to provide content - even local content. There is hardly any local content being produced at the ABC. It is produced by privately-owned outside companies that are given contracts to provide content.

And the few ABC in-house programs that have managed to survive over the past two decades are now on the chopping block, because the ABC has been transformed into a paper tiger, into an entertainment-focused organisation that Removes from its programming line-up any program that doesn't meet its board and managers' one-dimensional conservative social and political agenda. And that's the key.

So if you have a private corporate media which acts as a cheer-squad for its owners, promoting corporatisation, deregulation,
globalisation, the corporate sector, and you have a government-gelded ABC, where do people obtain independent analysis and information?

Not everybody has the time to spend hours and hours and hours surfing the net. People like their information in little packages. And what we find is the same, seedy, reactionaries continue to dominate the political agenda in this country - to dominate the social agenda in this country, to dominate the cultural agenda in this country - while the rest of us are expected, you know, to gratefully accept the crumbs that are occasionally pushed our way to stop people from protesting about what's actually happening, not only within the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, but within a corporate-controlled media network which sets the political, social and cultural agenda in this country."

NOTES

[1] Joe Toscano speaks for the Anarchist society and each week, on his show at 3CR he demystifies anarchist principles with this useful definition: "Anarchist society is a voluntary non-hierarchical society which is ased on political and social structures which are based on direct democratic principles. The people involved in decision strong>make that decision and then elect or appoint delegates to coordinate decisions at local, regional and national levels of society. Wealth is held in common and used for the common good."

[2]See, for instance, what passes for intellectual commentary in the Australian Financial Review (owned by Fairfax)in the editorial for the weekend of 17-18 December 2011. The editorial suggests that the basis of the inquiry is exclusively political with the Greens and the Government trying to neutralise criticism. "Any attempt to rein in freedom of the press should be vigorously resisted. Politicians have many avenues to redress perceived bias, not least through Parliament, the wider media and websites. Instead the government would have been far wiser to invest its limited political energy and capital in an inquiry into the much more pressing national economic issue of lagging productivity." Yes, well, if we tried to have an inquiry into how Australia's production is kept uncompetitive on the world market due to the cost of land, as boosted by the Murdoch and Fairfax owned property dot coms and their media-generated mass immigration fueled-demand, those papers would use every weapon they had to suppress, distort and punish debate. They suppress, distort and punish all other debates except the most destructive and puerile. That is why we need to break the media monopoly, so that we can actually have a free media rather than a corporatised commercial media which promotes its own investments against the common interest.

For a good example of suppressing, distorting and punishing debate, see ABC's Media Watch Episode 31, 12 September 2011. Media Watch generally goes after rabbits when it could take down elephants (metaphorically speaking) but this episode was very relevant to central problems of media interference, for corporate commercial reasons, in public debate:

Here is the transcript of Episode 31, 12 September 2011

Biting the hand that feeds

Over in the commercial media, times are tough. Especially in newspapers.

Here's an excerpt from an email sent out by a News Ltd executive in Western Australia.

"Last Sunday we published an article in our real estate section that failed Journalism 101 ... As the Managing Director of The Sunday Times I unreservedly apologise for the article.

— Jason Scott, Managing Director, The Sunday Times, 24th August, 2011"

Goodness! The managing director, no less - it's usually the editor who worries about editorial content. Managing directors of newspapers worry about money. And usually, that means advertisers.

And to whom was this grovel addressed to?

"To our valued real estate clients

— Jason Scott, Managing Director, The Sunday Times, 24th August, 2011"

That's right. Real estate agents. Who, thanks to those endless house for sale ads, account for a sizeable chunk of the Sunday Times's revenue ...

Not to mention what they contribute to realestate.com.au, by far the leading property website in Australia, which is 60% owned by News Ltd.

So what was this abysmal journalism that Mr Scott was apologising for? It was a double-page spread in the Sunday Times's

"Weekend Property

— Sunday Times Weekend, Property, 21-27 August, 2011"

"Home Alone

It can cost more than $20,000 to sell your home through a real estate agent. We speak to two vendors who decided to go it alone.

— Sunday Times Weekend, Property, 21-27 August, 2011"

No! Without an agent? And look at them ... They're positively beaming ...

"Being able to talk directly with the buyers ensured queries could be answered quickly and efficiently

— Sunday Times Weekend, Property, 21-27 August, 2011"

"We saved about $17,000 and put in about 19 hours work in five weeks.

— Sunday Times Weekend, Property, 21-27 August, 2011"

Well, you can imagine how the Sunday Times's 'valued real estate clients' reacted to that piece.

Actually, you don't have to imagine it, because we can show you.

It was kicked off by investment property specialist Mark Hay, with an email addressed to pretty much every real estate agent west of the Nullarbor. It was, as they say, heavy with irony ...

"Fellow Colleagues,
For those of you who use the Murdoch-backed Sunday Times you will have no doubt noted the huge push they gave us as agents in their wonderful article on page four and five this weekend!

— Mark Hay, Investment property specialist, 23rd August, 2011"

Mr Hay didn't mess about.

"Can I encourage you to boycott the paper in light of this, or better still this is a perfect reason why we as agents should build our own web site to challenge realestate.com.au and the others who keep putting the squeeze on us. Anyone interested?

— Mark Hay, Investment property specialist, 23rd August, 2011"

Lots of people were ...

"I am interested in a change from this

David Whiteman
Ray White

— David Whiteman, Ray White, 24th August, 2011"

"It is heartening to see ... the discussion around creating a new industry owned and controlled website.

Geoff Baldwin
RE/MAX W.A.

— Geoff Baldwin, RE/MAX WA, 25th August, 2011"

"The Davey Group would be behind a move to advertise through REIWA.com only.

Andrew Davey

— Andrew Davey, Davey Group, 24th August, 2011"

Mark Hay was over the moon ...

"Wow, the response has been overwhelming! ... By far the huge majority confirm we should crank up REIWA ...

— Mark Hay, Investment property specialist, 24th August, 2011"

REIWA is the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia, which has long had its own property ad website ...

"Feature Properties for sale

— reiwa.com.au"

And has recently teamed up with the Sunday Times's rival, The West Australian, to produce

"WestRealEstate.com.au

— WestRealEstate.com.au"

The West is spruiking its new website for all its worth ...

"WestReal Estate

This exciting new site is offering vendors a free listing when their agent is a current REIWA subscriber ...

— The West Australian, 25th August, 2011"

No wonder the Managing Director of the Sunday Times was freaking out at the thought of all those 'valued real estate clients' jumping ship. Hence his crawling email ...

"I give you my personal guarantee that The Sunday Times will work hard to restore our relationship to the mutual good health and prosperity that we have achieved together over many years.

— Jason Scott, Managing Director, 24th August, 2011"

The problem was, wrote Jason Scott, that the Home Alone piece was unbalanced, because it ...

"... did not contain any response from agents or real estate industry groups and nor did it look at vendors who had tried to sell their houses privately who had then appointed an agent and got the right result.

— Jason Scott, Managing Director, 24th August, 2011"

Well, that's true. And it was a bit of a puff job for one particular do-it-yourself consultancy.

But some of the offended agents weren't going to be fobbed off with a private apology.

Glenn Buckley of Think Pink Realty - yes, that's its name - wrote back to Mr Scott, in a nice pink font ...

"Your apology is noted. However, what is clearly required here is a full rebuttle (sic) in this weeks issue of your newspaper...

— Glenn Buckley, Think Pink Realty, 24th August, 2011"

Well, he didn't get that. But what he did get, in that Sunday's Weekend Property, was a full, double page puff job for real estate agents ...

"Agent wanted

Why are agents worth the money? Following last week's article on private selling, we look at the other side ...

— Sunday Times, Weekend Property, 28th August, 2011"

Three happy clients, and no fewer than seven deeply sincere real estate agents. And why was that published, we asked the acting editor ... well, naturally,

"To balance the one-sided feature that appeared on August 21.

— Bill Rule, Deputy Editor, Sunday Times, 2nd September, 2011"

Balance. The essence of sound journalism. No mention of that other principle of newspaper management: safeguarding editorial from advertiser pressure.

[3]The term, "the fourth estate refers to the media and mass media. It comes from the French Revolution, where the first estate was the nobles, the second estate was the clergy and the third estate was the common people.

Australia's rising emissions

Australia is on course to miss the bipartisan target of a 5% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020.

The emissions for the 12 months to December 2010 are 0.5%
higher than the previous 12 months , according to figures released 18th April. An increase in emissions was offset by a drop in electricity demand due to lower temperatures, the flooding of Queensland coal mines and greater use of hydro-electric power due to greater rainfall.

These temporary offsets disguise the fact that it means national emissions of over 570 million tonnes per annum in 2020, well above the target of about 530 million tonnes.

Australia's annual emissions rose to 543 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent as at December last year, up from 500 million tonnes in 2000, meaning the nation is already nearly 70 million tonnes over its 2020 target.

Based on even the highest population growth projections, the 2020 target will still make Australia one of the world’s most carbon-intensive economy, producing more than 20 tonnes of CO2 per person - ahead of the likes of the United States, Canada - even Saudia Arabia.

Population growth out of control

Melbourne University reproduction expert Roger Short argues that Australia's population growth – apparently increasing by one person every two minutes - is out of control, and in a paper to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, recommended that the Copenhagen conference 2009 acknowledge the importance of population as a key driver of climate change.  It didn't happen!

While Australians are supposed to be reducing greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time our government is pushing for high rise developments and population growth.

High density housing advocates say planning policies must compel higher density in order to save energy and cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and to accommodate population growth.  However studies using a diversity of methods demonstrate the converse. The Australian Conservation Foundation Consumption Atlas calculation of  greenhouse gas emissions shows that those living in high-density areas they are greater than for those living in low-density areas, and that with increasing density and loss of open green areas , our cities are becoming hotter and less sustainable.

High-rise developments mean that residents are much more reliant on non-renewable energy and have higher per capita greenhouse gas emissions than those in lower single houses with gardens, solar energy, recycling, trees and shade, and water tanks.

ACF Consuming Australia, the main findings

Climate change will affect the availability and cost of reliable food, water and energy supplies. It will threaten remaining natural ecosystems and biodiversity and increase storm intensity and the likelihood of both wildfire and heat-related deaths.

Population growth not "projected" but "targeted"

The Third Intergenerational Report's "projection" (or "targeted") is that Australia's population is likely to reach 35.9 million by 2050.

The people of Australia should be consulted, and respected and be the first priority of government . They should  not be manipulated by the economic interests of the business elite and (the) academics entrenched in the economics of constant growth.

Population growth can't be ignored in the context of anthropogenic climate change.

Braking the rise in Earth's population would be a major help in the fight against global warming, according to an unprecedented UN report published in 2009 . It draws a link between demographic pressure and climate change. Population growth is among the factors influencing total emissions in industrialised as well as developing countries, it says.

Government posturing on climate change

Our growing population and relatively emissions-intensive economy means that we will have higher adjustments costs than many other developed countries to reach ostensibly similar goals. Our government's posturing on climate change and ghg emissions is purely rhetoric while we in Australia continue to boost our population. How can we be taken seriously, internationally, with such discriminatory attitudes – that we can continue to grow our population and economy but other nations must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and "save" the planet?

Emission reduction in Australia must occur in a context of rapid population and economic growth. If Australia’s population reaches 35.9 million by 2050, a 60 per cent decline in total emissions by this date will require a cut in per capita emissions from 28.8 tonnes per head in the year 2000 to 6.1 tonnes per head in 2050.

Strong ghg emissions in growing nations

In developed countries with relatively high rates of population growth, including Australia, Canada and the United States, total greenhouse gas emissions have increased strongly by comparison with countries with low rates of population growth (notably in Western Europe).

(Population growth and sustainability, by Dr Bob Birrell, Monash University}
 
According to modelling, the growth in greenhouse emissions of 221 million tonnes to 774 million tonnes in a business-as-usual case (or 184 million tonnes) was attributable to the six million population growth – compared to 2000 level of 19.2 million but with the GDP reaching projected levels at 2020. Thus population growth was responsible for 83 per cent of the overall growth in greenhouse emissions between 2000 and 2020 under the business-as-usual case.

The carbon footprint of farming will become larger over the next 40 years as we feed a rapidly growing world population. With an additional three billion people in the world by 2050, producers will face a unique challenge. To feed the world, farming emissions must rise

The link between population size and carbon emissions can't be ignored when reporting anthropogenic climate change. They are irrevocably linked to our numbers, economy and lifestyles.

Australia is one of the top nations for per capita greenhouse gas emissions. Our population growth rate is the largest in the developed world. Each person added adapts our lifestyles and add to our total output. Australia has a limited "carrying capacity" due to poor regular water supplies, poor and arid soils, vast deserts, limited arable soils, and sensitive biodiversity that has evolved slowly. The "canaries in the mine" - our wildlife - are being pushed to the edge of extinction at a global rate. What ever we do individually to recycle reduce and re-use is being negated by undemocratic governments who are relying on property development and population growth to keep our growth-based economy ticking. It's unsustainable.

Australia an "embarrassment" Senator Sarah Hanson-Young

Australia is an 'embarrassment' on climate change, says Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young.

Many other countries have already put a price on carbon and introduced realistic pollution reduction targets.  And while they are spending significant public and private dollars firming up investment in the technologies and energy sources for the future, Australia is still locked in a debate over whether big polluters should even pay for their pollution. We are also still locked into the retro "populate or perish" economic growth ideology!

The Greens have no population policy. It's all based on vague possibilities and limitations, flexible and ambiguous statements and non-quantitative slogans. They even want to create another category of refugees under "climate change" so they can be resettled in Australia! Surely anthropogenic climate change - and all the environmental issues they say they want action on - can't be fulfilled if the elephant in the room of population growth/size is ignored.

Europe has population stability, not an economy based on growth! They can actually spend money on implementing climate change technologies, and plan ahead, not just try and keep up with infrastructure "shortages" and shortfalls. Contradictory policies will keep the Greens out of office.

Our MPs are indeed in a position to change the climate of debate in government circles , towards a culture of stabilisation rather than businesses-as-usual promotion and acceptance of environmentally damaging unending population growth.

The Canadian federal election cries out for an alternative to BAU growthism. It cries out for a party which would present a coherent and distinctive alternative to the system of economic growth. Canadians need a place on the ballot where they can mark an "X" beside "no more growth". In fact they need an opportunity for vote for "de-growth". But the Green Party of Canada is not providing them with that opportunity or alternative. Instead, what they are providing is meaningless rhetoric and platitudes. Shall we lend credence to their approach by voting for them? Shall we allow them to say that they have our support for their direction? Shall we allow them to say, after receiving our vote, that they have a mandate to push for hyper immigration and a foreign aid policy that would continue to promote global overpopulation? I say no. I say that casting a vote can sometimes be worse than spoiling a ballot. There are many things one can do to promote change that voting in a sham election. Writing, petitioning, demonstrating and educating the grassroots come to mind.

The Canadian federal election is upon us and the Green Party claims to offer a "significantly different approach to governance" (see below). Really? Let's take a look:

1. "Growth is fine--as long as it doesn't foreclose future options". What kind of growth doesn't? What kind of growth does not involve the consumption of non-renewable resources? Growth in knowledge? Human brains need energy and sustenance. More humans need more resources, no matter what they do. Doesn't knowledge involve capital investments? Computers? Printers? Books? Classrooms? Laboratories? Lab equipment? Or is this knowledge to be imparted by ESP? Can we have science without technology? And if not, what technology does not require material inputs? Are MRI machines, electric cars and solar panels to be made out of thin air? How can the metals and minerals required for such technology be extracted without "plundering the earth”?

2. "We can have nutritious food forever---so long as we look after the soil" Food for how many people? 7 billion? Without fossil fuel inputs? If soil requires 15 years to regenerate naturally, then how many people could be fed? Do the math. 1/16 of 7 billion is what? Does the Green Party have a plan to shrink the human population down to fit that soil capacity? Do they have any plan that involves the "P" in the IPAT equation? Do they even know what the IPAT equation is?

3. "We could have a well fed, comfortably housed, well educated, healthy and employed population, without plundering the earth" Again, the Green don't tell us how many people could be "well fed, comfortably housed, well educated, healthy and employed" using the resources that are affordably accessible---and for how long.

4."Political parties of every stripe are mesmerized by the mantra to grow, grow, grow---every party, that is, except the Green Party". The Green Party does not believe in growth? Hmm. How would Canada NOT grow when it adds 350,000 people to its number each year? How does the Green Party intend to put an end to growth by advocating an immigration level 25% higher than it is now (285,000 per year)? How does it propose to end growth in a world that sees 80 million additional humans each year? Are they telling us that we can have population growth without economic growth? Will those extra people not demand resources? Where will the material to build "comfortable" houses for those extra people come from? Will no energy will be expended in providing it? Where will the resources for education and health care for those extra people come from? Will people in Greendom be disembodied spirits without a footprint?

What the Green Party offers is shallow trendy rhetoric without substance. Long on kumbaya and short on logic and math.

Some lament the federal court decision upholding the media's right to exclude them from the televised national debate. I would too---if indeed they really did offer "a significantly different approach to governance". But the truth is, the only thing truly "Green" about this party is its name.

Nonetheless, I am told that I have no other choice--as if voting for one faction in a one-party state is morally mandatory. Wrong. I can register my disgust with this sham democracy by returning my ballot unmarked to the electoral officer. And you can do the same. Imagine a million spoiled ballots. Now that would send them a message.

Tim Murray
April 5, 2011
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Green "Vision" message:
Greetings:

Once again Canada is looking for direction and once again Greens
across the country are trying to explain that there is a real and
important change in our circumstances that requires a significantly
different approach to governance. I've tried to capture the key point
here. Of note is that by referring to the underlying issue of having
reached a physical maturity as societies (ie. our activities fill our
planet), our message of change needn't be blocked due the spin that
has brought so many to deny issues like climate change.

If this is of any use, feel free to use it in whole or in part, as is,
or edited in any way that suits your purposes. No attribution
necessary.

Wishing you strength and inspiration for the weeks ahead.

Yours, Mike N.
(Mike Nickerson, http://www.SustainWellBeing.net)
================================

Our changing times require a new approach.

Change is essential, not because food and fuel prices are rising
faster than we can afford, tho for many this is true. We need the new
approach because our governments are dedicated to an economic model
that seeks to expand regardless of the impacts that expansion has on
our planet and on the other peoples with whom we share it.

Food, fuel, forests, fish, fresh water, soil fertility - even the
ability of the environment to absorb our waste - are all being
stretched. Yet, political parties of all stripes are mesmerized with
the outdated mantra to grow, grow and grow.

Every party, that is, except the Green Party.

The Green Party was founded because the others wouldn't take planetary
limits seriously. Growth is fine, as long as it doesn't foreclose
future options. We can grow nutritious food forever - if we look
after the soil. Shelters can be developed to capture sunshine and
cool themselves without requiring large amounts of energy. Education
and preventative health care are essentially boundless because they
are composed mostly of the unlimited resources: knowledge and good
will. All these steps will require that people work at them.

We could have a well fed, comfortably housed, well educate, healthy
and employed population, without plundering the Earth, if that was the
goal of our society. It is the goal of the Green Party and we are
inviting Canadians to take the step with us toward a sustainable future.

The human family has been expanding the volume of our activities for
thousands of years. Now that we are stretching the Earth's limits,
rather than expanding consumption and waste, it's time to adopt a
mature approach and to focus more on creating a sustainable future.

Join with us to build a future that our children can look forward to.

Fear of 'boat-people' coming in massive numbers will continue to be stoked by the Murdoch and Fairfax media and tv and radio. Some people will therefore continue to fear the Greens as agents of the 'boat-people' bogeyman. Others will fear them as politicians who would see their countrymen dispossessed by a strange and unaccountable rhetoric.

Vivienne Ortega's article, "No human being is illegal?" draws our attention to one of the great political mysteries of our time.

Political dissonance

The views expressed in the Greens' policy for "Immigration and Refugees," are quite extreme. If successful they would actually give substance to the grotesque threat that the media have cultivated of endless hoards of 'illegals' overrunning the country. Real 'Greens' scratch their heads and seek ideological or mystical explanations for the persistant coexistence of such policies with ordinary member expectations, but maybe they should look for more practical reasons for this enduring internal dissonance.

Some writers on candobetter.net think that the Greens and the Socialist Alliance are pretend parties, designed to confuse the electorate. Even a pretend party, however, needs an income.

Why do unpopular policies survive?

There is an old political method for working out why unpopular policies survive despite costly impacts. Look for focused benefits and diffuse costs. The people who benefit financially from population growth in Australia are well organised to keep it going, whereas the rest of us, who pay for it, lack the support of the press or the banks which are in favour of this jugganaut for inhuman reasons of profit. Using this logic and method, we can reasonably infer that if unpopular policies survive within the consensus community of the Greens, it is because they benefit some people in the Greens enough to make their time there very worthwhile.

If you look at them in that light, the Greens' unrealistic and extreme immigration and refugee policies bear the hallmarks of a strategy to attract finances from the growth lobby to the party.

Where else can you read views on immigration as extreme as this? You can read them in the writings of flag-bearers for property development.

How do corporate take-overs happen?

In fact it sounds like the growth lobby may have already taken the Greens party leadership over. It would not be difficult. It would start with bullies from socialist alliances, earth-sharers and dodgy refugee action coalitions moving in on the finances.

Indeed, we hear of this.

Later signs could be where architects, planners, and solicitors start to hold leadership positions.

In the face of this kind of anti-democratic extremism, bullying, naive posturing and studied nuttiness, reasonable people who want to preserve the environment and democracy will leave the Greens, which seems to be what the Greens want. This doesn't mean that the Greens started out like this; it's how they have become.

This exodus of bona-fide members has happened to the decimated ALP already, and probably to the Liberals as well. Toothless political parties make it easy for the corporates to run our political system.

There have been many attempts by many members of the Greens to get a rational population policy over the past two decades. Pseudo-left forces in the Greens have however suppressed these democratic attempts quite savagely and continue to do so.

I repeat that these views bear the hallmarks of a bid for corporate funding from the growth lobby. Yes, folks, I don't think this is about refugees or asylum seekers. I think it is about money and advantage from the growth lobby. Why? Because the growth lobby will be the beneficiary and democracy will be the victim.

Ironically these policies don't benefit refugees and asylum-seekers

Policies which focus exclusively on benefits to non-citizens don't make sense in a democracy. They don't benefit citizens.
The asylum seekers themselves also won't benefit because of the predictable reaction which the designers of the policy
must be aware of and which, I would argue, some of them actually courted.

The newsmedia will orchestrate a public perception that the "Green threat" of being "overrun by asylum seekers" can only be combatted by increasing "skilled migration"!

Fear of 'boat-people' coming in massive numbers will continue to be stoked by the Murdoch and Fairfax media and tv and radio. Some people will therefore continue to fear the Greens as agents of the 'boat-people' bogeyman. Others will fear them as politicians who would see their countrymen dispossessed by a strange and unaccountable rhetoric.

Children overboard

Cast your mind back to the time of the Children Overboard. (Mr Howard's time.) So-called Greens raised the alarm that asylum seekers were being discriminated against. This cry was taken up by the newsmedia, which conducted a campaign of community polarisation, so creating two largely fictitious extremes. The community was presented with the idea of an uncontrolled hoard of people from god-knows-where streaming in through our coastline demanding economic support versus a moderate stream of highly educated willing workers selected by skilled bureaucrats for the exclusive benefit of our economy.

In reality it was the numbers of legal immigrants that were out of our control and being ramped higher and higher by forces that benefited financially from this influx. It was the presence of huge numbers of legal immigrants, not that of asylum-seekers that was
pushing up the costs of land, power, water and education. The government was inviting them through advertisements in every state.

These quite viciously false pictures drove wedges between Australians, making the issue of immigration and the consequence of population growth so inflammatory that people were afraid to speak of it.

And the "Greens" cooperated with Murdoch et al by hammering in the wedges.

Who benefits?

Now, did asylum seekers and refugees benefit from this growth-lobby orchestrated electoral division and conquest?

Nauru. Christmas Island.

A situation had been engineered or a crisis had been created, probably with the planned objective of moving our sea-borders further out whilst artificially boosting demand for property and resources by importing masses of wealthy legal immigrants. Mission
successful.

Does it quack like a duck?

The concept of a Green government is a beautiful one that I personally long for. But that doesn't mean that a Party that calls itself Green has any intention of living up to that concept. Look at the evidence.

Does it look, feel, sound, smell and taste like environmentalism or democracy?

They say that patriotism is the refuge of a scoundrel. Well, these days Green seems to cloak some very mealy-mouthed growth lobbyists who are probably laughing all the way to the bank.

We need to turn away from the official political parties and their masters in the mainstream media. We need to look for our similarities, not our differences, and to eschew wedge politics. We should identify and embrace our grass-roots community activists and begin to recognise our own heros by the relevance of their actions to democracy and environmental wholeness. And we should
loudly point out those professional politicians and NGOs whose actions actually undermine our democratic voices, our shelter and our natural ammenity, for all their soothing, slimy slogans.

Greens member of the NSW Legislative Council, John Kaye, has previously stood up against privatisation of that state's electricity and we have published some speeches to that effect by him here at candobetter.net. Major newspapers carried quotes about his opposition and we publish here what he says on his website. I would like to take this opportunity to remind people that James Sinnamon, the owner of candobetter.net isa fierce opponent of privatisation and had intended to run as a candidate in the seat of Brisbane in the 2010 Federal Election on this issue. Unfortunately he was hospitalised for months after a terrible collision between his bicycle and a 4WD and so he never ran in an election where, ironically, he just might have won against the usual odds. We will write about this one day.

"The NSW Government's $5.3 billion electricity sell-off was a "mad dash for cash" carried out with "appalling" timing, says a former director of a state-owned energy company. Overall the deal netted the state government $5.3 billion, an amount heavily criticised for being poor value by the state opposition."

Editor: The above sentence comes from an article published in the Australian here: "Chaos hits $5.3bn NSW power sell-off as directors on two boards quit in protest " therefore we cannot publish it in total on candobetter.net.

It goes on to say that the NSW Greens are going to "introduce legislation in the next parliament to return the electricity industry to public ownership and stop future governments selling assets without the approval of both houses of parliament, Greens MP John Kaye announced on Saturday 5th Feb.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8206806/nsw-greens-vow-to-reverse-electricity-sale

John Kaye presents a good example which the Victorian and Queensland Greens probably won't follow

Wish the Victorian Greens and the Queensland Greens would stand up on their hindlegs over privatisation as well.

We have previously carried a few speeches by John Kaye on this issue.

Here is what John Kaye has published on his website:

Welcome to the website of Greens NSW MP John Kaye

It's not too late to reverse the sell-off

The Keneally government has walked away from the mess they have created leaving NSW with a dysfunctional electricity industry.

The unsustainable mix of private gentraders at some power stations and public control at others can only be resolved by reversing the original sale.

The collapse of the second wave of sell-offs will make it easier to bring all of the state's coal-fired generators back under public control.

Take action! 

Send an email message to be sent to members of the NSW Legislative Council ('Upper House') to voice your opposition to the Treasurer's power sell-off and to call for the sale to be reversed.

Overpopulation conjures up many images. Most typically, one thinks of traffic gridlock or bulldozers ripping up forests or farmland to make way for more housing developments. But these images fail to impress the green wing of the Growth-Management Industry, the so-called "environmentalists" of the "progressive" coalition of feminists, eco-socialists, soft-greens and human rights advocates. For them there are always "solutions" that obviate the need to face the elephant in the room. Public transport, smart growth, green technology and good green living habits will do the trick. The trouble is, they won't. It is all a delusion. Numbers matter--the social justice agenda cannot defeat the laws of physics. And the best metaphor to make that point remains Garrett Hardin's sinking lifeboat.

Bulldozers or Traffic Jams---What Better Symbolizes Runaway Population Growth?

After the website for Immigration Watch Canada was recently re-designed, I was asked if I could think of a more appropriate image to adorn its mast ---a more plaintiff illustration of the negative ecological consequences of mass immigration to Canada. Initially, I was persuaded that a picture of ten lanes of gridlocked traffic leading out of Toronto would make our point quite eloquently. But then I faltered. On second thought, I said, a picture of a new housing development being constructed on farmland would prove more poignant. I added that given the impact of hyper-immigration, the bulldozer should replace the beaver and the maple leaf as our national symbols. But then, once again, I had second thoughts. Why?

The Soft Green Party Line

For as predictable as frost in winter, Fem-Green-Left environmentalists can be counted upon to reflexively retort with their standard objection. It goes something like this:"Gridlock is not a function of overpopulation but wrong-headed transportation policy. With disincentives for driving cars and extensive public transit in place, we could move people efficiently and economically without environmental impacts. And urban sprawl is not a function of overpopulation either. With strict land-use policy, we could house people within compact urban growth boundaries and preserve greenfield acreage. In both cases, our per capita energy consumption could be dramatically reduced. There is unexploited brownfield acreage in our cities that could be the site of energy-efficient low-rise infill housing that would reduce commuting by placing people close to their workplaces."

Betsy Hartmann A Leading Exponent of Population-Denialism

None better regurgitate this party-line more quintessentially than the Queen of Smear, Betsy Hartmann of Hampshire College, author of the infamous "Greening of Hate", which attempted to discredit the ecological case against mass immigration by accusing those who make it of fronting for a sinister racist, nativist and xenophobic agenda. She showcased this fallacious reasoning in her attack on Chris Hedges for arguing that we are "breeding ourselves to extinction." ("Rebuttal to Chris Hedges-- Stop the Tired Overpopulation Hysteria", Alternet March 14/2009)

"The population controllers also have blinders on their eyes when they attribute the cutting down of forests, the polluting of water supplies, and the extinction of species to too many poor people, rather than the unchecked power of large corporations to monopolize resources and ravage the land. Missing from the picture is the question of technological choice: for example, reducing the population of automobiles and investing in public transport worldwide would do much more to curtail climate change than imposing limits on family size."

Again resorting to standard green-left script, Hartmann cited the United States as the worst offender of industrialized countries who, with only 20% of the world's population, have contributed 80% of the carbon dioxide that has accumulated in the atmosphere. Instead of recognizing that as a good argument for curbing immigration and reproduction in America, she proposed that Malthusian environmentalists drop their apocalyptic act and "get down to the gritty green work of making effective and equitable environment and climate policy." By “histrionic fear-mongering” that “pointed the finger at population growth”, Malthusians would have us "alienate the Global South" and "shirk" our responsibility to find practical solutions like carbon capping, energy-saving retrofitting of existing buildings, investing in alternative energy, public transport and lifestyle changes.

Climate-Change Obsession Serves The Globalist Vision

It must be understood that for this generation and genre of “environmentalism”, atmospheric pollution is the only metric of environmental degradation that deserves much attention. The virtue of climate-change obsession is that in its call for “global” solutions that must demand “global cooperation”, the open-borders mentality finds its most convenient friend. The impertinent demand of “nativists” to protect their nation’s environment from unfettered trans-national migration can then be framed as the wrong-headed belief that the environment can be “nationalized”. Gone is the foundational injunction of environmentalism to “act locally”. Passion for what is closest to hearth and home is alien to the rootless cosmopolitan greens, who see such attachment as a parochial bond that succours a “fortress” mentality. We have no right to a “national” culture or a national environment. Thus the corporate agenda finds cover in the Trojan Horse of Green Globalism--- the world without borders they both seek.

Reducing Per Capita Consumption And Waste To What End?

This "tired" soft-green cant provokes the obvious questions. Questions like "What good would come from 'alternative energy and public transport' and 'energy-saving retrofitting of existing buildings' if there are more people consuming resources and more buildings being built than ever before due to population growth? What if you succeeded in getting everyone out their cars and into public transit while population growth continues, would not the amount of resource consumption and pollution still increase? Even if you could cut per capita consumption in half---which would be a death sentence for a great majority of people in the world and bring severe destitution to most citizens even in the developed world---what net benefit would accrue if the population doubled? Should we forfeit a sustainable future for the sake of not alienating the corrupt leaders of the "Global South"? If our very survival as a species is contingent on aggressive family planning measures in developing countries and the cessation of mass migration of the global poor to the industrialized north, should we defer to etiquette and the diplomacy of silence? If was a firefighter who saw smoke coming out of your attic, should I avoid pounding on your door or bursting in to loudly demand your evacuation for fear of alienating you? And how do you think I would feel about an environmentalist who smelled the smoke but preferred to "get down to the gritty green work" of polishing the wood furniture, admonishing me for "histrionic fear-mongering" and “shirking” my responsibility to look for effective solutions?

Elementary Physics Obviously Not A Course Requirement At Social Justice University

Showing pictures of gridlock and urban sprawl to the snake-oil salesmen of green delusions will not register because they are congenitally incapable of understanding the physics of bailing water out of a leaky boat. It is quite simple. If you don't bail out a volume of water equivalent to the volume of water that is pouring into your vessel, you are going to go for a swim, and then you are going to regret that you welcomed so many passengers on board, and that you accused those who had warned against your reckless hospitality of racism, nativism and xenophobia.

Overloading a lifeboat to satisfy the dictates of an ideologically fashioned concept of social or "environmental justice" is not only perverse and suicidal, it supremely arrogant. For there is no greater testament to human hubris and conceit than the assertion that a moral law of our making trumps a law of biophysics and the species-imperative to survive. Hartmann and the “progressive” coalition of feminists, “eco-Marxists” and soft-green growth-managers consistently fail to understand that there can be no equality, justice, reproductive or human 'rights' in world without humans.

Perhaps then, the best image to illustrate this stark truth is not a traffic jam or a shiny new subdivision atop farm acreage, but an overturned lifeboat surrounded by passengers floating face-down. The lifeboat can be Canada or the United States or any one of a hundred nations. Or it can be Planet Earth, capsized when too many passengers shifted to the more affluent starboard side to find the “justice” which Betsy Hartmann and the ideologues of delusional egalitarianism claimed was their due. It is called “slosh dynamics” and it involves a concept referred to as “the centre of gravity”, but that is another one of those laws of physics that they obviously don’t teach in Political Correctness 101, Womens’ Studies or at Hampshire College.

Tim Murray
November 19, 2010

How is this for a coherent ideology: We can protect farmland and wildlife habitat by building zoning fences around our cities which are bursting from the mass immigration which we support. But we cannot and should not build a fence around our nation to protect farmland and wildlife habitat from that same immigrant-driven population growth. We should also densify our cities to lower per capita energy costs, but disperse people to populate our hinterlands at the same time. And we must oppose the corporate agenda of lowering barriers to trans-national movement of goods, but support the corporate agenda of promoting the unfettered trans-national movement of cheap labour. Welcome to the world of the Green-Left. Watermelon Globalists who wear a green coat to disguise a misguided and antique vision of a borderless world. A perverse globalism that markets itself as international solidarity.

It is curious that in the immigration debate---whenever such a debate is permitted to occur------the Green-Left Globalists switch horses in mid-stream.

Within the confines of our national borders, they tell us that what is decisive is not how many people we can accommodate, but where they are situated. The classic mantra is "It is not whether we grow, but how we grow". We can double or triple or quadruple our numbers so long as we steer the population to urban centres, and pack them like sardines in a can to lower their per capita energy consumption and keep greenfield acreage untouched, along with ecologically significant nature reserves. Apart from the fallacy of low-energy urban living, and the political improbabilities of wresting land-use decisions from developer-controlled city councils and regional parliaments, this argument is incongruent with their stance on immigration. At that level of discussion, they tell us that it doesn't matter where people live on this planet, it is only their numbers which should be of concern. Moving people around from country to country, or excluding them from doing so does not address the problem. It is like the proverbial futility of moving deck chairs on the Titanic, they argue. Immigration policy, in their imagination, is not a population policy. Besides, building fences won't keep the global population tsunami from sweeping over us, nor will it keep out global warming. In other words, fences inside our borders are a solution to runaway population growth driven by hyper-immigration, but fences aroundour borders are no solution to runaway global population. Confusing, isn't it?

Now get ready to be more confused. Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May, who argues for an immigration quota 25% larger than the Harper government's (already rivalling Australia as the highest per capita intake in the world), has pushed the traditional green line that "smart growth" planning can confine our growing population within ecologically benign urban boundaries. But when faced with complaints that our major cities are already strained beyond liveability by incoming migrants--- the great majority from abroad--- she has called for their dispersal to rural localities, despite the fact that people have left these regions for compelling economic reasons. So now we have a Green Party that tells us that we should squeeze tighter in urban centres, and relocate to the empty hinterland at the same time.

The Green message is now clear. Fences work, but they don't work. Cram into the cities, but settle outside of them. And if you don't like our principles---just wait---we will find other ones for you.

If that is not enough contradiction for you, then along comes the climate-obsessed Eco-Marxists. They oppose the free and unfettered passage of goods across national borders because they oppose the corporate agenda. But they support the free and unfettered passage of people across national border because they support the corporate agenda of smashing the indigenous labour force with cheap imported slave labour. Except that they call their globalism "international solidarity" with migrant workers. Native-born workers and native culture are expendable. And their idea of fighting climate change is to shift people from nations with low GHG emissions to nations of very high GHG emissions, and then look for a technological fix. Go figure.

Tim Murray
October 09, 2010

You might wonder why city staff in towns like Campbell River, Courtenay, and Nanaimo, BC or 500 other localities across the land are threatened with disciplinary action if they leak information about the hidden pro-growth agendas of their "employers"--the mayors and town councillors. Well, here is the context. Regional planners, under the direction of their political overlords---the proxies of developers----are trying to shove tens of thousands more people into the North Vancouver Island region. And they don't want people get wind of it, or at least to grasp the full implications of their devious plans. Sound familiar? It should. What is transpiring here is transpiring across Canada and the continent of North America--and elsewhere. New subdivisions are sprouting up all over the map in place of greenbelts, woodlands and marshes and the people have little say in the matter.

Fake environmentalists facilitate growth whilst pretending to 'manage' growth

The most frustrating thing about this development is that fake environmentalists are able to pose as the peoples' champions in resisting this imposition. But their issue is not with population growth, which they contend is inevitable, but with "sprawl"---even though at least half of sprawl is driven by population growth and not by poor land-use planning (cf. "Outsmarting Smart Growth" by Kolankiewicz, Beck and Camarotta). They want to 'manage' growth and steer it away from farmland, while packing the unending stream of newcomers into tighter and denser lots alongside existing residents, who are encouraged to surrender their living space in the interests of food security and the environment. Thus people are presented with a false antithesis. Either accept growth with sprawl or so-called 'smart' growth without it. The local NDP, Greens and environmentalists tell people that population growth is something not in their jurisdiction, that immigration (or child benefits) policy is a federal matter and that nothing can prevent inter-provincial migration as guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In other words, growth out of their hands. Yet which political parties receive top marks from the Sierra Club? The federal Greens and the federal NDP. And what is their immigration policy? To increase the absurdly high immigration intake quota of the Harper Government by 25%, while matching or besting its pro-natalist programs.

Guilt and the Outdoor Living Channel

This is the pretend-game that enviromental NGOs play. Either population growth is not controllable, or even if it is, they have nothing to do with it--- and in any case, it has little bearing on environmental degradation, whether farmland or species loss, or GHG emissions. "It's not whether we grow", they argue, "but how we grow". Sprawl can be cured by good planning. Just squeeze tighter in the sardine can so that incoming migrants can snuggle up to you. And above all, feel guilty about having extra space in the backyard for your son to play in or a nature trail at the end of your block to take your dog. If it is nature that you want, well, you can get that on the Outdoor Living Channel, can't you?

Fight growth, not the symptoms of growth

Let me confess that whether it is the white-flight "Freedom 55s" from Alberta or California, or people from across the world, I've never felt lonely enough to want them living under my nose, and neither do most of us who chose our 'low-density" lifestyle. Some may call that selfish, I call it a human right. Is it my demand for space that is unreasonable, or the demand that I accept as reasonable a human population level that is 250% higher now than when I was born? Why are we being forced to accept population growth? One principal reason. Population growth is thought to be a necessary agent of economic growth, our Great God. The myth that continued economic growth is necessary, desirable, inevitable or even possible remains our major stumbling block, the first domino of misconceptions that must fall before we can reclaim any semblance of the quality of life that we once enjoyed. We are in a foot race with Mother Nature. If we don't stop growth, she will stop us. Time is almost up. Don't let the Pied Pipers of Fake Environmentalism lead you down a futile path. Fight growth, not the symptoms of growth.

Tim Murray

Jacob Saulwick, in "Libs back Greens call for inquiry into 'big Australia'",
March 16, 2010 Sydney Morning Herald, writes,

'The Greens leader, Bob Brown, said yesterday that the inquiry would hold hearings in every capital city, asking whether Australia had the environmental, housing and transport capacity to meet a predicted increase in population to 36 million by mid-century.
''We don't have the infrastructure to deal with 21 million people at the moment - for example, public transport and water infrastructure - let alone the estimated 35 million people by mid-century,'' Senator Brown said.'
[...]
'The opposition immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, said the opposition would work with the Greens on the proposed inquiry.
''Australians want to be heard on this issue,'' he said. ''I think Australians are very frustrated by a prime minister who just signs us up to a 36 million population and they don't have any say about it.''
The capacity of state and local governments to provide services for their growing constituencies needed to be examined, he said.
''All of these issues require some very careful analysis to know what our migration intake should be.''
The Greens will move a motion in the Senate in May calling for the inquiry to be set up.'

Dick Smith, however, has suggested that what is needed is a proper risk study, ie. a study which shows what the risks are at various population numbers (milestones) and growth. .... "It could show that with 36 million in 2050 what our risks are and what the chance of those risks of occurring are. Anything like that can be more objective, and allow people then to work out what they think an optimum number may be."

High Rise does not solve population growth problems: State of Australian Cities Report

High rise is often touted as a panacea for population growth energy costs, but the State of Australian Cities Report, which has just been released, shows this is yet another furphy produced by the growth lobby.

The State of Australian Cities Report 2010 has been released, to assist the Australian Government, in cooperation with state, territory and local government, and in partnership with the community and industry, to improve Australian urban policies.

The report is designed to redress an information deficiency about economic, environmental, social and demographic changes, and to reveal trends and provide a platform of knowledge for the development and implementation of future urban policies.

The report found that the past outward urban expansion has meant a greater distance between residential and employment areas with a resultant greater use of cars, higher transport costs, more vulnerability to oil price rises and the loss of agricultural land or habitat. More recently, however, the pattern of growth has seen an increasing proportion of population growth accommodated in existing inner and middle suburban areas, most notably in Sydney.

The level of car dependency in Australian cities has increased at a faster rate than population growth, creating traffic congestion problems as infrastructure and public transport have failed to keep pace with population growth.

Other key findings include:

* Australian cities rank highly on an international comparison, particularly on indices that measure quality of life and global connectivity, and measures related to the social condition of people.There is evidence to suggest that Australian cities suffer with respect to infrastructure. Of concern is the evidence that suggests a decline in international relative performance and perception in the past five years.
* Water restrictions in major cities across the nation saw total consumption by households fall by 7 per cent between 200001 and 200405 despite population growth over the period.
* Residential energy use accounted for approximately 7 per cent of total energy consumption in 200708, but grew at a high rate (2.2 per cent) relative to other sectors over the period. This growth is attributed to population increase, higher ownership of appliances and IT equipment per household, and increases in the average size of homes. Standby power was the greatest contributor to average annual growth in household energy use over the period 198990 to 200607.
* Transport emissions are one of the strongest sources of emissions growth in Australia. Strong growth in emissions from the transport sector is expected to continue, with direct CO2 equivalent emissions projected to increase 22.6 per cent over the period 2007 to 2020 (or around 1.58 per cent a year).
* Climate change is affecting rainfall patterns. Since 1950 much of eastern Australia and the far southwest, where our largest cities are located and the majority of the population lives, have experienced an annual decline of up to 50 mm in rainfall per decade affecting both the availability and quality of water supplies across urban areas.
* Levels of the key pollutants of lead, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide in the largest capital cities have decreased significantly over a ten-year period. However, particulate air pollution and ozone levels have remained at or above national air quality standard levels over the period and showed no evidence of decline.
* While national recycling rates have increased, total waste generation has also continued to increaseby around 31 per cent from 200203 to 200607 (4 years), exceeding the rate of population growth of 5.6 per cent over the period.
* When both direct and indirect environmental impacts are taken into account, higher [per capita?] environmental impacts at the household level are associated with higher incomes and smaller household sizes. Therefore, despite the opportunities for efficiency and reduced environmental impacts offered by more compact forms of urban living, inner city households of capital cities, followed by the inner suburban areas, feature the highest consumption of water use, energy use and ecological footprints even when reduced car use is taken into account.

. . .

. . .

Environmentalists might expect Green MLC Greg Barber, to back another environmentalist, Kelvin Thomson, rather than supply quotes that could make him out unfairly to be racist. Wedge Politics we don't need from Mr Barber MLC who represents the Northern Metropolitan Region of Melbourne in the Legislative Council at State level, which Kelvin Thomson represents in the Lower House at the Federal level. What's going on? Are the Greens for real?

Population and Environment and the Greens

Over the years I have had conversations with people about the riddles in the Greens' strangely contradictory environmental policies and their mysterious priorities. Yet there is something of the hearty gym mistress and the scout master about them that inspires us, Charlie-Brown-like, to trust them again and again at the polls. We think, they must mean well, or that they are better than the rest, or ...

Lassie come home

Recently someone said to me that maybe they are just out there to confuse us. Are they, he suggested, really working with the Libs and Labs and Big Media, as a kind of border collie, to keep us sheep from straying too far from the farm? The dog looks friendly and competent. It's cute. We tend to trust it because it doesn't actually own the farm. But it works for the farmer.

During the past two weeks my uncertainty has been overtaken by a feeling of déjà vu.

Wedge Politics we don't need; Mr Barber plays the race-card

Firstly, I read an article in the [growthist] Melbourne Times (Fairfax media), "Welcome to Australia - Now that's enough," by Bianca Hall, (Wed.3 Feb, 2010, p.4.).

The logic of this article is amazingly contrived and reads like an excuse to cite Greg Barber of the Greens apparently slurring the motives of Kelvin Thomson's 'Population Reform' as racist in a most unfair way:

'Mr Thomson argues net overseas migration should be dramatically cut from 2007-08 rate of 213, 461 to 70,000 migrants. To slow down the birth rate, Mr Thomson would cut family tax benefits to new recipients who had more than two children and redirect the money to education and workplace training.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows fertility rates are higher for Australian women born in largely Muslim countries, including Turkey and northern African countries. Almost 30 per cent of people in Mr Thomson' electorate were born in non-English-speaking countries.

State Greens MP Greg Barber said the plan threatened to target Muslim families.

"Whether Kelvin understands it or not his policy selectively targets predominantly Muslim people and punishes them for having that third child," Mr Barber said. "We know what gets birth rates down - the empowerment of women, with contraception, access to education and participation in the workforce."'

Frankly I was gobsmacked and furious. You might expect the developers to try something like this, or the Libs, but a Green? You never know, however, when there is a logical explanation, so I decided to write to Mr Barber himself and ask for it. I sent the following on 24-2-2010:

"#LetterToGregBarber" id="LetterToGregBarber">Dear Greg,

I must congratulate you on your statements in parliament about water reproduced here about bulk water entitlements as well as on your stand against disempowering councils.

I have been a little shocked however to read you as quoted in the article I have reproduced below from the Melbourne Times.
It looks like the worst kind of wedge politics.

1. I would like to know whether you were correctly cited in this article.
2. [name withheld] tells me that you may have been cited out of context - if so, could you explain a little please?

3. This is what the article makes you look as if you are doing, in my opinion:

- trying to knock out ALP competition
- or doing the ALP a favour by playing the race card against someone who is leading the battle for the environment and democracy against overdevelopment, overpopulation, by tagging them with an unfair race-card where the (extremely corrupt and unfair) ALP may not dare to do so itself
- playing to a voting sector which is identifyable as muslim
- stimatising muslims specifically as overly productive of children, uneducated etc
- playing wedge politics
- maybe preparing a seat in the Labor party for yourself

I hope to hear that none of this is true and that you are instead cooperating as much as possible with Mr Thomson, who has shown great courage and leadership.
By the same token, if there is something unfair going on between the two of you and you were reacting, I am sympathetic to an explanation there.
I am trying not to make judgements without full inquiry.
I know how fraught politics and environmental movements are with this kind of thing.

Yours for reform in democracy, environment, population, land use planning and energy policy,

Sheila Newman"

Strange silence from Mr Barber

I never received a reply from Mr Barber, although I spoke to a person at his office several times and exchanged emails with that person, and was led to assume I would at any moment receive a reply. (See #comment-4310">below for a very brief response to another voter.) I made it very clear that I was dead serious in seeking an explanation and also that I was absolutely furious that someone was apparently trying to pull the racist card to shut up Australia's perhaps single most courageous, ethical, effective and environmentally literate politician - an ALP long-stayer who was standing up for democracy, despite his party. I said that I would write an article on the subject and so it was important for him to defend himself.

Save the Bush Rally on 24 February

The same morning I wrote to Mr Barber, I travelled to the Save the Bush Rally which took place on the steps of Melbourne Parliament. It was here that I finally lost patience with the Greens.

Speakers included Sue Pennicuick, Greens MLC, Rosemary West, of the Green Wedges, Colin Long, Greens Upper House Candidate, Damon Anderson, of Coomoora Reserve, and Gillian Collins, of the Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve. (Were all of them prospective candidates?) All made speeches about how development was being pushed through by Mr Brumby's government and how this was threatening bushland and how the Greens would provide more public transport.

Complicit Silence on how Overdevelopment has been politically contrived

No scheduled speaker mentioned why more roads or public transport are necessary. The silence on how their necessity had been politically contrived was absolutely deafening. The Greens' failure to expose how the Government is driving the overpopulation it is using as an excuse to force undemocratic development only protects this gigantic dystopic rort.

Sadly, not one Green said anything to the effect of, "We will expose this dishonesty and try to stop the overpopulation of Melbourne."

I know that Gillian Collins and Rosemary West are fully aware of the population growth corporate connection. Yet only one woman, Mara from Banyule, even mentioned that the bush is threatened by population growth. All the honour of the day for honesty and relevance goes to her. She was not even on the written Agenda. She should have been writing it.

The 'green' silence from the rest of them on the government elephant-in-the-room push for overpopulation seemed nothing short of shameful cowardice or cynical complicity. The population cat is well out of the bag, yet it seems that the Greens, of all parties, want to stuff it back in again - at the peril of our wildlife and democracy.

Why? What have they got to gain by protecting the bad guys?

I was furious that I had travelled from an outer suburb and ruined my day for more profitable pursuits only to hear a line-up of wanna-be-politicians using a captive audience to monger motherhood statements which would mostly sit happily on the billboards of new estates and the websites of corporate water-speculators. Many of those assembled in support of the speakers were battle-scarred environmental fighters who remained quiet while the glorified clichés were trotted out for the television cameras. Some dedicated naturalists and ecologists held banners and filmed the event, all of them waiting for some leadership.

They got nothing.

A trial of patience; an abuse of supporters' time

When Sue Pennicuick self-congratulatingly asked the crowd who they were going to vote for (meaning the Greens), an angry spectator called out, "Kelvin Thomson!" There was a murmur of approval from the long-suffering audience.

When Sue Pennicuick self-congratulatingly asked the crowd who they were going to vote for (meaning the Greens), an angry spectator called out, "Kelvin Thomson!"

Another spectator handed round stickers with "Say No to Melbourne at 5 Million" and someone else was distributing leaflets exposing the identities of organisations that push population growth, which included numerous developers and the Victorian Government with its site, "www.liveinmelbourne.com.au". The audience gratefully accepted the leaflets.

There was no-one else there, apart from the speakers, who wanted to keep the lid on the scandal of the population-growth lobby and the government's role in it. A brilliant opportunity was lost to educate the press on the steps and the pedestrians watching from the other side of Spring Street about why the government is corrupt and how the government pushes population in cahoots with the developers, then makes laws to force Victorians to accommodate the interests of this group. (See the Brumby government's links with the Property Council of Australia and the Live in Victoria Government website to attract immigrants at "Living in a Destruction Zone" and Minister Justin Madden's increasingly barefaced attempts to overturn any democratic restraint on the government's development despotism.)

Political corruption in Australia

I rode home on the same train as one of the wildlife activists. On that train there was also a man who had just published a dictionary of Australian political terms. He was a born and bred ALP member and I asked him if he had ever heard of Labor Resources or Labor Holdings. He hadn't. I told him about them. It seemed to me that a faint glint of horror animated his misty eyes for a moment, but he quickly suppressed it.

"They all do it", he replied, like a long-suffering adult on the antics of teenagers. I half expected him to add, "But they will grow out of it."

Yes, all the parties do it. "It" is the use of holding companies for donations which are then declared as coming from the holding companies rather than from their many corporate donors. This is a problem but it is the amount and the kind of assets that the ALP holds at state and Federal level plus their political power and their demonstrated abuse of it which is frightening even to the Liberal-National Party.

I tried to describe how the scale of the corrupt system was beyond any before and now grotesquely magnified by the ALP's dominance over every parliament in Australia. "They are nothing like the Labor Party is supposed to be anymore," I added.

"Oh, but they're better than the alternative," he intoned, reciting his true believer catechism, with a smug smile.

"It's like a religion," said the onlooking wildlife activist. "They are brainwashed from birth."

Politics as religion

She is right. For many people, politics is the same as a religion. You just don't question the church that you were born to: Labor or Liberal: each is better than the alternative.

Or, if you're a bit rebellious, there is the alternative alternative religion - The Greens.

But it seems to me now that they are all different brands selling the same thing. They are all selling overpopulation to the masses, but each of them is selling a different brand. The Labor Party is selling overpopulation as economic growth. The Liberals would be selling it this way but they cannot out-do the ALP at the moment. The Greens are selling overpopulation as Public Transport and the Socialist Alliance is selling it as bicycles. But they are all trying to sell it to us. Like Mr Madden and Mr Brumby and Mr Rudd, they aren't really interested in democracy and what we, the electorate think. They are all seeking niches within the territory defined by the corporate growth lobby.

Mainstream Media role in our loss of democracy

For many years now the extent of this collusion has been kept safely away from public knowledge by the commercial and the public media in Australia. Indeed it looks to me as if the commercial media - notably the Murdoch media, but including the Fairfax media - have been able to shape the policies and and promote the people who have come to form our useless political parties and the corrupt ideology of material progress.

The structure of print, television and radio media has permitted ownership in a few hands which have dominated public information and allowed the entrenchment of corporate interests over democratic rights. For me it is frankly impossible now to see the difference between the Government and the commercial Property, Banking and Media groups (all interchangeable themselves), especially with Stephen Mayne's uncovering of Labor Party investments cultivated with Wayne Swann and Kevin Rudd working for Wayne Goss whilst in opposition in Queensland. Yes, Mayne's investigations were published in the mainstream, but the mainstream doesn't connect the big dots and it won't effectively publicise any alternative parties or changes to the system which might combat the rot.

The situation is like the one in the 16th century, where the Holy Roman Empire had evolved from the Roman Empire and controlled kings, public ideology and institutions. The situation seemed utterly hopeless until the rise of a new technology - printing.

Who will fight the Evil Empire again?

In the 16th century Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses to the Church door at Wittenburg. Soon copies were printed and spread all over Germany.

Unfortunately, with the discovery of technologies for smelting iron directly with coal, new kinds of institutions arose - those of capitalist corporations. The corporations built towns and re-organised people as anonymous cogs, with loyalty to employers overwhelming loyalty to family and friends, isolated from any true community or personal independence. Gradually the corporations were able to dominate human institutions all over again, under the ideology of 'Progress', (See for instance, "Courier-Mail beats up on public for complaining about cost of 'progress'"), ironically taken from protestant values.

Things may be changing again, however. Today the 'common people' - as long as they can read and write and have access to computers - may be able to take back power from the Dark Towers (to use Tolkien's ever-useful terminology for the rise of corporate control) via a new technology - and that is the Internet.

It seems however that we should not rely on the Greens to challenge the dark commercial hegemony of the overpopulation and development lobby.

If Australians cannot place their faith in the Greens, recently some real dissidents have arrived and posted something new on the church doors of the Internet: Kelvin Thomson - a brave leader in waiting for the Labor Party or for a new party or a man who may lose ALP-preselection for his courage and hence could eventually run for the Senate on Mr Barber's turf; the Stable Population Party, the New Australia Party, and the Animal Justice Party.

I will be happy to be shown to be wrong and anyone who feels misrepresented by this article is very welcome to post an article in reply or to comment. I am happy to publish any response from Greg Barber. I will be more than happy to eat every word of criticism here of Greens and speakers at the rally if only I receive an explanation. Candobetter.org is a free press and we welcome true debate.

See also: Greens support Madden's Bad Law VC 71 in black week for Victoria, Australia of 11 Oct 10, "Tasmanian Greens and the terror of coalitions" of 24 Mar 10 on Online Opinion and related discussion forum.

Population

"Population - Mr Rudd – When do we stop?"

The quotes in the teaser were from a press release by Bob Brown on 18 September 2009.

Ed. The Speech below was made yesterday. Unfortunately, the Greens are having problems with a small, noisy, nasty minority - in Victoria at least (and rumour has it that pressure comes from South Australia) - which is preventing the majority from placing restrictions on numbers of immigrants. This minority has infiltrated all political movements and knows how to frighten people into shutting up. However, they should not be frightened, because they will have the support of the majority of good people.

From Matters of Public Importance speech Senator Brown made yesterday (28 Oct 09):

In the last few days we have had the Prime Minister talking up the prospect of an Australia in which 35 million people live. We are at 23 million now. We were some seven million when I arrived on the planet. You would not remember that, Madam Acting Deputy President Carol Brown! But we have to ask the logical question of Prime Minister Rudd: ‘Name the final point. What is the ultimate carrying capacity of Australia if you say that growth is dependent on population increase ad infinitum?’ The logic of that is that there is no end point, that we not only continue to cram people into this giant country with very limited carrying capacity but we continue to cram our fellow human beings, all of whom aspire to life and happiness as much as we do, onto a planet which cannot bear it.

I will read from the National Geographic’s EarthPulse: State of the Earth 2010 document, which says it is a collectors’ edition—and I wonder if that says something about the future as well. It says:

Scientists and policymakers have warned that environmental degradation and global climate change could cause massive displacement of populations some day. For millions of our fellow humans, driven from their homes by melting permafrost, increased coastal flooding, or desertification of once arable land, that day has arrived.

Hard numbers are elusive, but an estimated 25 million people are environmental “refugees” (officially, that word is reserved for those fleeing armed conflict). By 2050, that number could jump to 200 million. Climate change is projected to increase aridity in already dry areas, and to spur more extreme rainfall and flooding events such as one that displaced more than two million people in the Indian state of Bihar in 2008. Perhaps most alarming, even modest sea-level rise will wash away the homes and fertile fields of millions more.

On the next page, it goes to ‘Forced Migration, Hotspots of Global Change, Bangladesh’. There is a picture of three women up to the top of their shoulders in water. The woman at the front has a floating metal vessel in front of her. Obviously they are appealing to the photographer and whoever is behind the photographer for some form of sustenance in a neighbourhood where, if you are going to stay there, you will be up to your shoulders in water because of the flood. It says this about Bangladesh:

Low-lying Bangladesh foretells the future of climate refugees. Because roughly half of the country lies less than ten meters (33 ft) above sea level, it has been flooded more frequently as glacial melt in the Himalaya has risen. Tropical cyclone activity is also likely to rise in the near future, swelling the Padma (Ganges), Jamuna (Brahmaputra), and Meghna Rivers, which all lie within the country’s borders. Climate refugees already account for more than a third of recent migrants to Dhaka, the capital. Nearly 80 per cent of the nation’s legal disputes are over land erosion triggered by storms.

I watched on television just the other night as people hastily pulled down their corrugated iron shelters in Bangladesh as the banks collapsed on a river and eroded 100 metres across the fields upon which the people depended, to swallow their houses. The people hastily collapsed their houses to at least take away the building materials.

We are in a world that is in very great human-induced trouble. «Population» is part of that. When I came onto the planet, in 1944, there were 2.5 billion people. There are now 6.8 billion people, a tripling almost. By mid-century, when youngsters now will be in their middle age, it is projected there will be nine billion to 11 billion people—more likely 11 billion if you read this National Geographic special, which is currently on the bookshelves. Add this to that. At the front of the book it says:

Together we consume 1.4 Earths’ worth of resources per year.

In other words, we are burrowing away at the bounty which we need to survive. We will need 3.1 more planets if we are all to survive by mid-century on the average British level of consumption, which is below ours. That cannot happen, and we have to have the wit and wisdom to find a way to share better, to work with each other, to reduce consumption and to reduce «population growth. I hope the Prime Minister has got a lot of thinking occurring on that, because Australia is charged with being a leader, not at the back, when it comes to dealing with the issue of how we human beings are going to live peaceably with the planet instead of off it.

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.

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.

Carbon Sequestration bill up for consideration

According to the Australian Greens, Rudd Government legislation setting up a regulatory framework for carbon capture and storage, vaunted as a 'world first', fails to deal with the biggest regulatory issue the industry faces. They state that, if carbon dioxide leaks, who will carry liability will become a problem without a solution in the legislation proposed.

Australian Greens Senator Christine Milne has made additional comments to the Senate Inquiry Report into the Bill tabled today. It sets out the Greens position that the taxpayer must not be saddled with the risk while coal companies walk away with the profits.

Senator Milne said "Who will carry the liability if and when stored carbon leaks? The Government apparently thinks this question doesn't need to be answered, but it is quite obvious that that approach would leave everybody - supporters and opponents of goesequestration alike - in limbo."

She said that Prime Minister Rudd would have to be prepared for some tough questions on liability. In her opinion, the world would not be coming to Australia for advice about carbon sequestration if it squibs on the biggest question.

"The Greens will work hard to ensure that the coal multinationals do not get away with privatising their massive profits and socialising their risk with geosequestration."

Companies should post bond to cover future liability

Senator Milne stated that "My additional comments to this report set out a proposal under which companies seeking to bury carbon dioxide would post a bond to cover their future liability in case the climate-changing gas leaks after the company moves on."

She said, "That would be a reasonable and responsible approach to take, ensuring that those seeking to make profits also carry the risk.

"While the Coalition predictably wants the taxpayer to carry the can for coal corporations, the Government, inexplicably, thinks it is OK to leave the liability question unanswered. I am committed to working with the Government on amendments to make sure ordinary Australians don't end up hurt by the short-sighted greed of the coal sector."

Australia should be a global solar hub

The senator said that a sensible plan for the future would see Australia pitched as a global solar hub, taking advantage of our world's best solar scientists. There should be a forward-thinking strategy to help coal communities move into a green-collar future.

"Instead, Mr Rudd is deepening Australia's economic vulnerability by locking us into a risky, unproven technofix that is already being leapfrogged by the truly clean renewable energy and energy efficiency alternatives."

(A technofix is a technical solution for a systemic problem which may or may not work and therefore should not be relied upon.)

Source: Greens Press release, Canberra, Tuesday, 23 September 2008
Contact: Tim Hollo on 0437 587 562

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