November 17 2008
More Tarkine road opposition
Michelle Paine Mercury
Tourism Council chief executive officer Daniel Hanna said the road was not necessary. “We don’t support the full loop road. We certainly support that part of the proposal that seals existing roads,” Mr Hanna said. “The new road won’t drive more visitors or extra expenditure. The money would be better spent in developing new visitor experiences, such as [Forestry Tasmania’s] Phantom Valley."Tarkine tourism operators said this week the drive would destroy the values visitors came for. Read more here
It’s all lies
Telstra’s Basslink response
It’s all lies: Here
Quote of the week
Thomas Jefferson 1802
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
Dodger Rudd
Catherine Case A look back: Rudd dodges hard questions at a Community cabinet. ( Here )
WITH the Community Cabinet due to take place in the city of Launceston where I live, I thought what better opportunity to ask a question of the Prime Minister about the government’s obsessive focus on economic growth and their apparent blindness to the realities of ecological limits?
Read more here …
An Open Letter to Premier Bartlett, PM Rudd
Environment Tasmania MR
As you may be aware, environment groups in Tasmania have united recently to propose a solution to the ongoing Tasmanian forest debate. We are writing to ask you to sign on to an open letter (the text of which is attached and below) of support for this important proposal. We will be publishing this open letter to Premier Bartlett and Prime Minister Rudd in a full page advertisment in the Mercury newspaper as soon as possible. We will also be using this open letter in an ongoing campaign to collect as many signatures as possible.
Read more here …
GE: Threat to fertility
Genetically-engineered food: potential threat to fertility
Study shows that genetically engineered maize affects reproductive health in mice. 11 November 2008
Vienna, Austria — A study published today by the Austrian government identified serious health threats of genetically engineered (GE) crops. In one of the very few long-term feeding studies ever conducted with GE crops, the fertility of mice fed with GE maize was found to be severely impaired, with fewer offspring being produced than by mice fed on natural crops. Considering the severity of the potential threat to human health and reproduction, Greenpeace is demanding a recall of all GE food and crops from the market, worldwide. Read more here
The return of the Osprey
Bob Holderness Rodham ABC: Ockham’s Razor
Fortunately there are folk like Bob Holderness-Roddam, who lives in Tasmania, who are willing to go to the most unlikely lengths to save these magnificent creatures. Here’s his story.
Read more here …
Kirby: Term limits, TV and Tasmanians
Justice Michael Kirby How to fix the High Court: Term limits, TV and Tasmanians
Media reportage of High Court decisions is truly abysmal. Unless there is something bizarre, entertaining, humorous or allegedly shocking in a decision, it is typically not reported. There is a need to lift the media game in Australia. The High Court could explore the engagement of a highly skilled court communicator for television and radio. The cases in the High Court are important. They concern values upon which there can sometimes be acute differences. Such questions should be reported and placed before the citizenry for their knowledge, judgment and, if so decided, legislative correction.
Read more here …
Operation Mushashi begins!
via Jon Sumby
$10 entry - 2 pm til late
Skate ramp
Front Bar Rebel Music DJs featuring;
Mylestone (Broken Panda), Johnny Hooves and MC Deziak (Melb), JPS (Melb), BTC, Ham, Dom and more.
Bands;
myblackson, Powerchild, Hairy Man, the b-circuit and more.
www.seashepherd.org - Defend, conserve, protect
Campaigner wins pesticide victory
BBC Online
A campaigner has won a legal victory in a long-running battle with the government over the use of pesticides. Read more here
Tough sledding ahead
Christopher Laird
But, getting back to the issue of economic depression and the USD. The whole point here is that the world economic engine is grinding to a halt and there is no way to stop it. The US Fed and other central banks have found out they cannot reflate the world economies this time, like they did after 2001 and 911 and the Tech bubble. This time reflation efforts are failing. Things are slowing down too fast this time, and that is combined with the imploding credit markets in every nation of the world.
Read more here …
A letter from Ohio
Tamara Sands Zanesville, Ohio, United States of America
So, I implore you to continue researching the decision your administration is charged with governing with all eyes, ears and conscious minds open when considering Gunn’s continued efforts to site this mill. The decision your administration is faced with has far reaching impacts for not only the local community, whose residents will live with that decision day in-day out both aesthetically, economically and health wise, but the global marketplace that will feel the effects long term from the contamination of the world’s oceans and its inhabitants. The world has enough pollution contaminating our seas effecting the viability of fisheries and world health without adding more to the load.
Read more here …
Download: ABA 16
A Better Australia
The fight about climate change and some ideas of how to protect from the financial crisis. Last week’s main stories hot linked and usefully organised. The ‘liquidity trap’ for our social systems. Problems with Rudd’s car plan and an excellent article on why Melbourne’s transport system is collapsing. A wrap up on the financial crisis by accurate forecaster Nouriel Roubini.
Download: ABA_16.pdf
Dear Brother Obama
Alice Walker
We are the ones we have been waiting for.
Read more here …
Cop a dose of Harden Up
Michael Pascoe
This is a country so spoilt that it’s importing a couple of thousand South Sea Islanders on temporary visas to harvest its crops. Despite having nearly half a million officially unemployed people, we can barely be bothered feeding ourselves. Read more here
Media bias?
Max Chugg
Pro-aboriginal bias in the media has become a serious threat to democracy in this state, involving, as it does, a restriction on freedom of speech. For example, “The Examiner” posted a letter from Trudy Maluga but would not publish my response:
Read more here …
November 15 2008
Tomorrow: Upper Florentine …
Upper Florentine Forest Community Information Day
Sunday November 16th. Join knowledgeable people in a friendly atmosphere and learn about the Upper Florentine Forest. Starting 11am, meet 21 km west of Maydena on Gordon River/ Lake Pedder Rd. We welcome photographers , bird watchers,botanists, bushwalkers and all others interested. BYO picnic lunch and sturdy footwear,binoculars and camera. Bring friends- children welcome.”
See the beautiful timber
George Harris
ON THURSDAY David Llewellyn, the Minister for Energy and Resources, (which includes Forestry), declared the official launch of the Chain of Custody system for Fine Timbers Tasmania inc. at the Henry Jones Art Hotel. This is also the venue for the Tasmanian Wood Design Biennial Acquisitive Exhibition, which was officially opened by the Premier, David Bartlett, at 6.30 pm yesterday evening. The Premier announced the successful designers and their pieces of work which were acquired for the Collection, including the Premier’s Prize. Hurry to see this exhibition, it is only on in Hobart for three days! After this it heads to Launceston, the home of the Collection …
Read more here …
Lennon in the firing line
Michael Stedman Mercury
FORMER premier Paul Lennon will appear before a Legislative Council committee on Monday. … Premier David Bartlett has been highly critical of the committee, accusing it of straying from its core terms of reference to delve into the pulp mill debate and airing smear and innuendo. … But committee chairman Paul Harriss said he would not be deterred by the Government. “One of our terms of reference is the appointment of a magistrate last year and the public allegation that Simon Cooper was to be moved out of RPDC because of grief he caused in the pulp mill assessment,” Mr Harriss said. … Meanwhile, former deputy premier Steve Kons continued to come under fire for his brief apology on Thursday night for suggesting former Supreme Court judge Christopher Wright was “only interested in money” while head of the pulp mill assessment panel. … Greens leader Nick McKim MP called it the least gracious apology he had ever seen. … Mr Bartlett would not comment on Mr Kons’ future but said he admired him for apologising. … Mr Wright said he had not yet decided whether to seek a right of reply as allowed under the Legislative Council standing orders. “Although what Mr Kons said was not much of an apology—it was more significant as an acknowledgement that what he said was baseless,” Mr Wright said. Read more here
Ralphs Bay vision revealed
Sue Neales Mercury
Save Ralphs Bay acting president Jane Macdonald said the key issue was that Walker Corporation was trying to build a giant housing estate in the middle of a publicly owned bay which was a conservation area and important habitat for migratory water birds. “We were told right from the start that these people always put up something outrageous—like 800 homes—as an ambit claim and then pretend they are listening to community concerns when they water it down to what they really wanted all along,” Ms Macdonald said. “What we are seeing here is Walker Corporation showing a breathtaking inability to understand our fundamental objections and using architectural drawings and spin to confuse the more naive people in our community that they are compromising.” Ms Morris said most of the concerns and questions from the general public had focused on how the development would look, how it would be constructed, how the canals would flush and the impact on traffic, public access and local views. Read more here
November 14 2008
It just gets worse and worse …
Examiner Friday
But in offering his apology to Parliament last night, Mr Kons also took a swipe at the committee investigating the so-called “shreddergate” saga. Mr Kons conceded his comments about Mr Wright were inappropriate. “I made inappropriate comments, I apologise and I withdraw my comments,” he said. But he accused the select committee, which is investigating the non-appointment of former acting RPDC head Simon Cooper as a magistrate, of engaging in a fishing exercise. Mr Kons said the committee asked a number of questions about the proposed pulp mill that he felt were outside the committee’s terms of reference. In a parting shot, Mr Kons said he was awaiting what he described as the ground- breaking report from the greatest minds the Legislative Council had on offer. Read more here
Dr Warwick Raverty
It just gets worse and worse doesn’t it? Here we have the former Burnie grocer and Attorney General, a man twice exposed as lying - once by the Greens on the floor of Parliament and once by Michael Stedman and I for lying about the reasons that I had been forced to resign from the RPDC on the steps of the same Parliament on 4th January 2007 - claiming that one of the most highly respected men in Tasmania was fiddling his expenses. What a joke! Konsy now adds cowardice and absolute stupidity to his long list of personality defects. Remember that letter of apology that you sent to me in January 2007 Konsy? The groveling letter where you apologised for any damage done to my reputation by your ‘mistake’ (aka lies).
John
This is the Politics of Labor. The Politics of arrogance. The Politics of looking after mates.
John Biggs
And it seems the present government. If David Bartlett wants us to believe that his government is “clever and kind”, he’d better loudly and publicly condemn such thuggery immediately it occurs and not, grim-faced, step around it as he seems to be doing now over Kons’ latest show of cowardly bully-boy tactics.
Read more, COMMENT here
It’s pathetic
Garry Stannus
I’m finding it hard to know what is real anymore. This constant lying from the govt, an opposition that can’t really help because they would have done much the same thing, the Green opposition who should form the next government and an electorate which has not yet had the guts to break out of its Bill or Ben voting pattern. Tweedledum or Tweedledee. It’s pathetic. We’ve seen it for years. At the national level too, of course. Read more here, Comment here
The basic truth
JB
I have just brought into this discussion but I have to admit that I agree with James Crotty (10//11/08 at 8:16pm) when he condensed the whole thing back to basics for me: when will: “… a government realise and put into effect the difference between good governance and staying in power[?]” This is a very basic concept. Do politicians / public servants/ the general public have any idea what good governance is? What it means? Read more, comment here
DPP: Ignored
ABC Online
Tasmania’s Director of Public Prosecutions has accused the government of ignoring his recommendation to appoint at least one deputy to his department. Read more here
November 13 2008
Barack Obama is Irish!
Climate change and Tasmania
Jon Sumby
Climate Change and Tasmania: Our Place in the Global Solution
17 November, 6pm for 6.30 start. RSVP not required.
Stanley Burbury Lecture Theatre, Sandy Bay UTAS campus.
Read more here …
Independent review of the EPBC
Jon Sumby
On the 31st of October the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts (Peter Garrett) commissioned an independent review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), the Australian Government’s central piece of environmental legislation. Section 522A of the EPBC Act requires it to be reviewed every 10 years from its commencement.
Read more here …
Whaling on the whalers
Jennifer Vogel Mother Jones: The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s Paul Watson talks about taking a bullet from the Japanese, why Greenpeace activists are the “Avon ladies of the environmental movement,” and Whale Wars, his new series on Animal Planet.
Anyway, that’s one of the reasons they called us pirates. And when I think back to it, it’s appropriate because back in the 17th century, when piracy was out of control in the Caribbean, it wasn’t the British or the Spanish navy that brought it under control. Piracy was shut down by Henry Morgan, a pirate. If you want to stop pirates, you need pirates to do it. So we look upon ourselves as pirates of passion in pursuit of pirates of profit.
Read more here …
Costly for Tasmania
Christine Milne
Senator Milne said “Premier Bartlett’s ignorance is matched only by his crassness and crudity in dismissing world-leading scientific research on our forest carbon stores.
Read more here …
Legacy: Torture President
Legacy: Torture President
How will the 43rd President of the United States be remembered? Chances are as The Torture President.
From: Adbusters 81
Read more here …
From an inch to a mile
Download Orford Occasional: From_an_inch_to_a_mile.pdf
TINA vents…
typingisnotactivism
Michael Duffy is a moron … Read more here
Dear Mr Wiener
Jim Cox responds to Sven Wiener
Read more here …
Boom Boom
John Rozentals http://www.ozbabyboomers.com.au/
Good morning. Here’s a listing of some of the latest material on the Oz Baby Boomers site …
Read more here …
November 12 2008
Forget it!
Mark
Kons pulps judge
Michael Stedman Mercury
STEVE Kons has accused former judge Christopher Wright of using his role as pulp mill assessor as a “money-making exercise”. The former deputy premier and attorney-general made his scathing attack on Mr Wright under parliamentary privilege. Mr Kons started the day by criticising the committee inquiring into senior government appointments, saying it had been used to discredit individuals and ruin reputations. But Mr Kons later unleashed an unprompted attack on Mr Wright, who was brought in to head the pulp mill assessment process after the resignation of Julian Green early last year. Mr Kons said Mr Wright was “not interested in the job” and treated it as a “money-making exercise”. … He said Mr Kons’ version of events was plainly wrong because he did not resign from his post. “I was working hard up to the very minute Gunns pulled out,” Mr Wright said. He only threatened to resign after he said he felt “pressured” and “leaned on” by former Premier Paul Lennon to speed up the assessment process. … Committee chairman Paul Harriss said he was surprised by Mr Kons’ comments. “He is entitled to have his view,” Mr Harriss said. “He has known he was under protection of privilege and chosen to use that forum to be very critical of Christopher Wright, but at the same time accusing others of using parliamentary privilege to raise matters of significance.” Read more here
Kons defends memory lapse
ABC Online
Earlier, Mr Kons, has denied telling his driver the pulp mill was going to be approved by the end of May last year. The driver Mike Hawkes told the same committee last month that he took Mr Kons to see the Mr Lennon at his heritage property. Mr Hawkes says Mr Kons told him Mr Lennon had said the mill would be approved by May. A few months later Gunns withdrew the pulp mill from the independent planning process and Mr Lennon introduced fast track assessment legislation. He says he went to see Mr Lennon’s house because he is interested in heritage architecture. He says the pair had a few beers and talked about what was going on in the world. Mr Kons says he is not calling Mr Hawkes a liar, just refuting he told him Mr Lennon had said the pulp mill would be approved by May. Read more here
And,
Kons: Decision to dump Cooper mine
Cooper tells of pressure
Mercury
Top lawyer reveals all
Prince calls for rainforest bills
Prince calls for rainforest bills
Prince Charles has called for rich countries to pay an annual “utility bill” for the benefits given to the world by its rainforests. From: BBC Scotland Read the article here:
EU: Better protection against pesticides
Dr Alison Bleaney
The European Parliament’s environment committee adopted a report on pesticides by German Green MEP Hiltrud Breyer. “The European parliament environment committee has today supported higher standards for protection of human health and the environment. Its vote will lead to a more innovative and competitive European chemical industry in the field of pesticides,” she said. The committee has set a strong negotiating position for upcoming discussions with Council and the European Commission by strengthening the cut-off criteria. Read more here
Dr Bleaney’s comment: Note the need to protect human health and bees. No bees means major problems with food production. Tasmania (and Australia) needs to take note of why these changes have occurred and in the face of strong opposition from the chemical industries.
November 11 2008
Bartlett steady, Hodgman slides
Read for yourself: Here
Sue Neales Mercury
DAVID Bartlett is enjoying an extended honeymoon with voters, the latest political opinion survey says. The Liberal Party is in trouble, with voter support for leader Will Hodgman crashing 10 per cent in six months since Mr Bartlett’s rise to power. Yesterday’s EMRS voter poll showed support for Labor steady at 30 per cent of the electorate, the same as three months ago. Read more here
Lines in the sand, when broken …
Background: Lennon: My mistakes
Lukas
Peter Henning
Bartlett himself has before him in the next two weeks one of the most significant opportunities ever presented to a Tasmanian Premier in the whole period since the island changed its name from Van Diemen’s Land in 1856. He can stand up for the vision he has espoused for a diverse and more sophisticated social and economic environment, and try to earn a real place as a Tasmanian benefactor, or he can capitulate. Capitulation will almost certainly ensure his political oblivion, and will do nothing to diminish social division, environmental degradation and economic uncertainty. At the national level, if Rudd joins the pulp mill to his list of PPPs he will not be able to hide from the special scorn reserved for true-believers who betray their political principles. For Rudd has been openly scathing of “unrestrained market capitalism which sweeps all before it”, and most recently has labeled the practice of corporate executives receiving huge bonuses even while their companies are being assisted by subsidies and direct public grants, as “extreme capitalism” at its worst.
Read more here …
Outdated, prejudiced
Background:
Last Friday the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry released a report written by Professor Sinclair Davidson, Professor of Economics at RMIT University, and Julive Novak, a Fellow of the Institute of Public Affairs, on the Tasmanian economy. For those of you who haven’t seen the full report, here it is:
Download: Tasmania_-_An_Imperative_for_Reform_(TCCI_Oct_2008).pdf
Saul Eslake
The Davidson-Novak Report reflects outdated assumptions and prejudices about Tasmania …
Download this critique:
Merc_op-ed_on_Davidson-Novak_Nov_2008.pdf
Download letter from Davidson, Novak to Saul Eslake:
Davidson-Novak_letter_to_SE_5_Nov_2008.pdf
Download letter to Davidson, Novak:
Davidson__Novak_8_Nov_2008.pdf
Digital catch-up
Digital Tasmania
Hobart, TAS, 10 November 2008 – Digital Tasmania welcomes today’s announcement of an agreement between Aurora and Basslink, allowing for the commercial activation of the Basslink fibre optic cable over 3 years since it was installed.
Read more here …
The kind of despair
Jane Rankin-Reid
Wes makes a point well worth considering. Is there any connection between the kind of despair young people experience in growing up in small towns like Devonport with the intense feeling that the local establishment, ie the Devonport Lions Club, aldermen and state parliamentarians like Brenton Best are totally ignoring their interests in authentic contemporary cultural ideas and experiences? It’s a classic example of how disconnected from Tasmanian reality these officials have become. I challenge Brenton Best, the Department of Tourism and the State government’s spin meisters to present a qualified independently assessed appraisal of the costs and artistic merit of the Spirit of the Sea before another penny of public money is spent on this obstinate exercise in mediocrity. Read more. Comment here
Nothing happens in a vacuum…
James Crotty
The rot that was festered by previous governments of both complexions lingers. Advisers infest the governance of the state. Decisions are media driven. And so even our police lack the independence from government, or as Mr Ellis says, enjoy such an unhealthy symbiotic relationship with the Minister, to be relied upon. Mr Hanna, I agree. Nothing happens in a vacuum. It just seems so to the ill informed, and unfortunately, that is us. Read more, Comment here
November 10 2008
Why, Mr Lennon?
Dr Warwick Raverty
If matters are all strictly according to what Lennon has said in the Examiner today, why did the ALP and Libs combine to block Lennon and Gay being called and sworn before the LC public appointments enquiry?
John Hayward
Another vintage piece of Lennon was his unsubstatiated claim that Mike Hawkes’ brave testimony was perjury. It was notable that he implied Mr Hawkes should have “stuck to driving”, i.e. kept his mouth shut, yet clumsy show of the thuggishness that has dominated his public life. Lennon deserves one last political encore - in a fully empowered ICAC or Royal Commission into years of massive kleptocracy. Read more, Comment here
The Ruddler
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Karl
Tasmania, situation normal
Nostradamus
If the Bartlett government thinks certain issues will go away, they are gravely mistaken (and yes, that includes the railways, an area in which Sturgo has shown he is the next thing to useless). The issue of the pulp mill, not just the legislative aspect, appears to touch just about anyone you care to name. Everybody has a view and the government certainly is not popular on the handling of that particular matter among others. Personally, I would be concerned about the precedent of bringing people before the bar of the House on many issues, while my more acquisitive self would like the peanut and soft drink franchise, together with the right to set a fee for entrance. However, under the Westminster system Parliament is sovereign, it is not a court of law and any unlawful acts should be dealt with accordingly. Not often that I agree with the eponymous legal scribe but on this occasion, he has a point.
Read more here …
We run over them all the time
Garry Stannus
THERE is a certain driving culture out there. This bird was in the way. No, I didn’t hit it, I was overtaken by the one who did. I didn’t arrange the poor thing in the way you see it. The ute went past me, in a hurry. It was a deserted road between Cressy and Liffey. By the time I got there it was lying just as you see it.
Read more here …
Collapse presents a rare opportunity
Mike Bolan This article is based on a submission that I made directly to Minister John Faulkner after the Community Cabinet. He promised a full response and I will report on that when possible.
In Tasmania our government has encapsulated unfairness and injustice within the system by creating a two tier system that favours one industry and allows that industry to judge whether taxpayer complaints are justified. This creates an insecure and unpredictable business and social environment that fuel division and conflict.
Read more here …
