Brumby

'On the trail of the gunman from Snowy River' is the bleeding heart front page story in the Sydney Morning Herald by Fair fax journalist, Yuko Narushima, today (9th January 2010) about some poacher(s) slaughtering brumbies. It is a sick sad tale and one hopes the poachers will be caught and dealt with as soon as possible.

But if Fairfax's front page story on brumbies were actually about the daily comparable slaughter of kangaroos, perhaps his article may then read along these lines...

“Today’s successful disallowance motion in Parliament highlights the overwhelming opposition to the Government’s attempts to loot water from food producers and the environment because it has failed to plan for Melbourne’s future water needs,” Mr Ryan, Liberal Nationals Coalition.

HELLLPPPP!
The news just in is that the Brown Mountain decision will be made in a week or so and the loggers will go in immediately afterwards! Brumby is not planning to protect it! Be there Tomorrow at 10.30am on the steps of Parliament House Victoria. We want everyone who can come along - young and old. The more old growth we cut down the more drying of the land, reduced rainfall, increased temperatures and risk of more and hotter bushfires. Bushfires dominate in managed and thinned forest, not in old growth! Logging Brown Forest will cause more bad bushfires in Victoria. Campervan, 4WDS and cars needed. Contact 0413927044

Melbourne:"It is alarming that so many big projects have been permitted by the Victorian State Government through a planning process that does not include an ability to make submissions or lodge appeals." National Trust are mounting a major campaign to persuade the State Government Planning Minister Justin Madden to stop destroying Melbourne's heritage for the sake of allowing developers to build what they want where they want it.
Join With National Trust in their Save Our City campaign.

What do children, bandicoots, Melbourne's Green Wedges and the Garden of Eden have in common? This poignant submission to a developer-dominated government about a children and bandicoots' garden goes right back to the garden of Eden, retold again and again, this time in Uno's garden and a garden with 'protected' bandicoots near Clyde, Victoria, on the edge of the Green Wedge.

You tube video inside of Michael Hocking's speech about the GAIC tax which Planning Minister Madden wants to inflict on the people who live in the Green Wedges which he wants to rezone for urban development.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens was passed in France in 1789 and people all over the world since have based their social standards on these rights. Serfdom was repealed and it was declared That Property is an inviolable and inalienable right and That the natural rights of man are liberty, property, safety and resistance against oppression.

In Australia, however, these rights are increasingly in doubt. On 27 August a case in Seymour Magistrates Court will examine right of property owners against the state: Brumby Government against two Yea landowners. Rights to enter freehold land prior to acquisition under Land Acquisition and Compensation Act.

Another success for the urban democracy and environment movement. The day after the "Restore Residents Rights" rally at parliament house on June 10, which was attended by about 600 people, Victoria's upper house rejected changes to the Planning and Environment Act that would have introduced Development Assessment Committees [DACs] to the State.

The Victorian Premier Brumby's Royal Commission into the January-February 2009 bushfires is a mere incident review. If Victoria is to be protected from firestorms in future, it should undertake a root cause analysis, including the numerous past investigations into bushfires, with a view to achieving a cultural shift in rural fire fighting methods, resourcing and emergency management and into ecology management, housing approvals in bushfire prone areas, building design in bushfire prone areas, in bush arson criminology and into serious resourcing of rural fire management.

Full steam ahead. Vast increase in population and infrastructure. Vast decrease in democracy. There is no plan B. Minister Pallas assured the audience they would secure the necessary environmental approvals/considerations. The EES is not a yes or no process. International migration levels never seen before...address future labour force. Long term drivers - migration. Health infrastructure needed - maternity wards. Taxpayers to bail-out developers to continue even more malignant growth. Hastings doomed according to plan.

"I have issued correspondence to the Victorian Ombudsman since the issue of his report outlining a further 22 issues which I believe his investigation should have included. In other words the recent investigation was narrowly focused and did not serve to present the full breadth of the allegations of irregular/corrupt practices." Marilyn Canet - Brimbank scandal witness

"Today I grieve for the erosion of democracy in local government under this Labor government which refuses to stamp out corruption ..." Mrs Powell, Member for Shepparton

"[T]his bill will enable the government, without any further recourse to the Parliament, to declare an area to be a growth area. Following on from that will be the liability of citizens to pay this increased levy" [$95,000 per hectare on land zoned from rural]. Mr Clark MP spoke of the "extraordinary price" of Victorian Labor's Planning Legislative Amendment Bill "in terms of intrusion on local communities, the diminution of the capacity of local communities to have a say in their own destiny, and the undermining of the role of local government councillors." "The bill, whichever way you look at it, is badly flawed. It attacks principles of democracy, of devolution and decentralisation. It attacks principles of accountability to Parliament by government for revenue raising. It is bad in all of those respects, and it is opposed by the coalition."

Premier Brumby has announced his intention to bulldoze the Peninsula Link Freeway through the centre of Frankston’s 220 hectare Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve. He pre-empted the “Independent” Panel report reviewing the South and Eastern Integrated Transport Authority’s Environment Effect Statement thus wasting $5m of taxpayers money and thousands of hours of submitters time. There is now a dedicated website and a concerted effort by local activists to overturn this decision. See also: "Why wildlife and Devilbend Reserve need more protection"
"Grave loss of native fauna on the Mornington Peninsula"
"SEITA tollway using old data on oil prices"

Do Melbourne residents have the option of refusing to pay higher water charges? - No.
Did Melbourne residents have the right to refuse population growth in their area? - No.
The State has purposefully engineered a situation where organisations beyond electoral control have gained control over water delivery and the state has purposefully increased demand for water by forcibly increasing population. This is the essence of corporate government. Out of reach of democracy.

Biodiversity richness, inherited as part of the natural wealth of this country, is being sacrificed on the altar of short-term economic benefits. Brumby's government should step down and a caretaker administrator take over until State elections.