(We) can do better

Fair Water Use (Australia) has released documents which call for and define the terms of a declaration of a State of Emergency (pdf, 67K) and the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry (pdf, 69K) into the management and governance of the Murray-Darling Basin.

See also: National Water Commission: No plan - no future for Murray-Darling.

Twelve months after the Brumby Government announced plans to build a massive privately operated desalination plant in the midst of the Bass Coast community, the environmental assessments have been released. Now the public, who stand to have their quality of life destroyed by this project, have all of five weeks to, in their own time and at their own expense, review the 1600 page report, produced by lavishly paid consultants, for which they are expected to pay $250 a copy.

Originally published on www.yourwateryoursay.org on 20 Aug 08.

Melbourne is groaning with population overload but the leader of the alternative state government will not hear from party members asking for a sensible population approach.

See also: Blame it on Labor, not migration: Baillieu by Paul Austin in the Melbourne Age of 25 Aug 08, City of 8 million 'unliveable' by Cameron Houston and Royce Millar in the Age of 5 Sep 08

After the documented loss of 4,152 US servicemen and 90,000 Iraqi civillians killed in the Iraq War and a cost to the US budget, so far, of US$574 billion, Republican Presidential nominee John McCain reveals that he knows how "to get Osama bin Laden". So, why didn't Republican Senator John McCain pass on that knowledge to the Republican Bush administration earlier?

See also: McCain says knows how to capture bin Laden (Reuters India, 4 Sep 08)

As a result of reporting rules NSW voters voting at local government elections on 14 September won't know until February next year which corporate donors are bankrolling which candidates.

Naomi Klein responds to recent attacks upon her work by the 'free market' think-tanks whose insidious subversion of democracy in the service of their corporate benefactors was lucidly exposed in her book The Shock Doctrine published one year ago.

Original article at www.naomiklein.org/articles/2008/09/response-attacks.

See also: Online Opinion discussions in which The Shock Doctrine is discussed: NSW power without pride and Winning the war in Iraq.

Two of the articles to which Naomi Klein's article is in response to are The Klein Doctrine - The Rise of Disaster Polemics (663K PDF file here) published by The Cato Institute on 14 May and Dead Left by Jonathan Chait published in The New Republic of 30 July 08

Does Zimbabwe's record under the rule of dictator Robert Mugabe mean that progressive liberals in the West were wrong to support anti-colonial struggles such as that of the ZANU-PF against the white minority regime of the then named Rhodesia in the 1970's and 1980's? How much of Zimbabwe's predicament today are due to the legacy of its colonial past and the ongoing effects of Globalisation and how much is due to Mugabe's misrule? To what extent does population growth compound the problem?

This forum began as my response to a comment made by Marisa in the discussion arising from her article Immigration in Italy: love it, hate it of 25 Jul 08.

ABC Radio National's By Design program of 30 August ran a story which seemed to depict the growth of the 'self-storage' industry as somehow positive. The fact that so many of us can no longer store our accumulated possessions where we live and must, resort, resort to paying to rent space to store them is yet another indicator of our declining standard of living.

The continuing loss of tens of thousands of animals every year in horrific circumstances confirm one of the conclusions reached in two major inquiries into the trade - that the trade by its very nature had animal welfare implications. The incidents listed in this article demonstrate that the trade can never be made humane.

This article also published on WebDiary with the permission of Animals Australia.
See also: Why Australia's trade in live animal exports is world's WORST practice of 18 Jun 08, Live Exports – Another 36,408 animals dead on ships yet the trade goes on of 28 Aug 08 on WebDiary.

Demand that former protest singer and former President of the Australian Conservation Society Peter Garrett use his ministerial powers to prevent the tripling of Australia's coal exports by 2030 and prevent the destruction of Shoalwater Bay.

Gunns of Australia's controversial plans to build a huge pulp mill to make disposable consumer items largely from clearfelling ancients forests is close to failing, let us together make a final decisive push to warn off potential investors and environmental approvals and achieve its permanent withdrawal.

See also: Wielangta Forest is about to be logged to make paper in Japan.

Take action now, Discuss this alert.

Whilst John Corboy, co-convenor of the misnamed Foodbowl Unlimited held out hopes 12 months ago that Australia may stand to gain from the impending collapse of China's and India's irrigated agricultural sectors, our fate may be little different should we fail to stand up to the corporate interests who gain from the over-extraction of water from the Murray-Darling system.

See also Fair Water Use media releases. For information on a related topic, see articles about the threatened privatisation of NSW's electricity assets.

Thursday 9th August readers of the Italian papers were awakening to wonderful news: the crisis of the empty cradles is coming to an end, at least in the industrial areas of Lombardia, north/west of Italy.

NSW Greens leader John Kaye defends Opposition leader Barry O'Farrell. O'Farrell and the NSW Opposition are now under concerted attack by the corporate sector and their newsmedia for having blocked Treasurer Costa's privatisation legislation in accord with the wishes of over 80% of the NSW public last Thursday.

See also: Iemma dodges his own $42 billion debt bomb (SMH, 1 Sep) by Barry O'Farrell, Mike Baird should make his move now - Online Opinion forum discussion about pro-privatisation state Liberal MP Mike Baird, now the darling of the corporate newsmedia.

What you can do: Join FaceBook site Support Clean Energy NOT Privatisation of NSW Electricity run by NSW Liberal MLA Peter Debnam. Peter Debnam's statement on privatisation can be found here and is also appended to this article.

Rainforest Action Network (ran.org) greenwashes destruction of half of Ontario, Canada's boreal forests; despite lack of any detail regarding vague promised protections, and without scientific findings that doing so is ecologically sufficient.

Originally published on 28 Aug 08 on forests.org.

US Democrat Barrack Obama and Canadian Social Democrat Jack Layton are just two different kinds of ventriloquists' doll, and the voice we hear through their lips is paid for by Wall Street. It's not what they say; it's who pays them that matters.

Why the over-exploitation of krill from Antarctic waters threaten global warming as well as the health of the endangered Minke whale.

The United Services Union has called its members working in call centres of Energy Australia, Integral Energy and Country Energy off the job in protest against Premier Morris Iemma's 'plan B sell-off' announced late on Thursday.

See also: Iemma unethical, says ALP backbencher, Torbay urged to fire up in power debate

After an expensive recall of Parliament to debate privatisation bills which NSW Treasurer Costa claimed to be "the most important pieces of economic reform contemplated in this State in a generation," debate was cut short after less than 3 hours. The perseverative Costa came back however with lesser plans to privatise the retail arm of NSW's electricity assets without scrutiny by the NSW Parliament.

Contents: Power retail sell-off plan punishes households and environment, Costa, Iemma must resign over back-door sale move, Costa's cowardly retreat from stunt gone wrong, speech by Dr John Kaye, speech by Sylvia Hale.

See also: NSW electricity privatisation can be stopped!

Before the promised debate on electricity privatisation was abruptly ended by a severely embarrassed NSW Labor Govenment, state Upper House Opposition leader Michael Gallacher tore the credibility of Treasurer Michael Costa and his Government to shreds.

See also: Open letter to NSW state Opposition members urging a vote against electricity privatisation of 28 Aug 08, Open letter to NSW Labor parliamentary caucus members to urging a vote against electricity privatisation of 27 Aug 08

AWPC launches first-ever "Kangaroo Tourism map" to help overseas tourists and those many Australians who would love to observe different kinds of kangaroos in the wild rather than kill them for cash

Enviro Minister Peter Garrett confirms his department refuses Senator Milne's request for release of CSIRO report relating to Gunns’ Pulp Mill project, but that's not all that people are complaining about

During an interview with CNN's Lou Dobbs, Robert Engelman of Worldwatch Institute (www.worldwatch.org), whilst acknowledging the threat posed to the future of the U.S. and our planet by overpopulation, understated the contribution to it by immigration, both illegal and legal.

NSW Premier Morris Iemma has seized upon a limited and deficient Auditor-General's report (pdf, 354K) as grounds to proceed with electricity privatisation and plans to rush through the legislation next week.

However, the sale has been consistently and overwhelmingly opposed by the NSW public and unions, and can be stopped.

One impact of Georgia's nose-thumbing Russia has been for the US and Europe to take a step backwards, away from it. This leaves Georgia, not only vulnerable to a Russian take-over, but it also frees Georgia to succumb to Russia.

See also: Russia Never Wanted a War by Mihkail Gorbachev in New York Times of 19 Aug 08 for a view critical of Georgia's role in the conflict.

The Business Council of Australia represents the corporate lobby groups that have overtaken the process of democracy in Australia and which have raised the cost of land, water, food and housing. If they go off-shore Australians will be better off.

Britain is severely overpopulated. “In an era of growing food and energy shortages, population growth of this magnitude is simply storing up trouble for the future. "

A map of the earth's sunniest locations reveals that Australia is truly a sunburnt country, with plenty of solar energy to spare.
But despite this natural advantage and some cutting edge research being done by researchers at the University of NSW, the investment that could establish Australia’s ‘solar energy empire’ is sadly lacking.
In the words of Professor Julius Sumner-Miller.. why is it so?

Mark O'Connor: "Deteriorating circumstances caused by rampant growth are presented as virtues. Expect 40% less water by 2020, citizen, so that newcomers and expanding industries can have more."

Ageist ABC baby-boomer bashing - incites blame against older people for housing crisis.

See also: Brisbane's housing unaffordability crisis spun by ABC to promote property lobby interests of 23 Jun 08