For some reason, The Australian newspaper has been running story after story raising fears about long-standing plans to purify and recycle water back into Brisbane’s dams. It looked bizarre enough a week ago, but we're now reaching the two week mark with no sign of a let up. The headlines have been a disgrace - from "Flush then drink in the sunshine state" two weeks ago, to today's ...
If you're in Brisbane this Saturday morning, you can lend support to the campaign against the Traveston Dam by farewelling marathon kayaker Steve Posselt as he heads off on another journey to spread the message. He's leaving around 12 noon from the boat ramp at West End on Riverside Drive, between Jane and Boundary Streets. Last time he paddled from Brisbane up to the site of the dam, ...
Interesting piece on the Forbes website detailing the huge amounts of water being taken from Chinese farmers by the central government to provide for the Beijing Olympics. (found thru James5)
It was over three weeks ago that I wrote about Steve Posselt’s kayaking crusade to highlight the stupidity of the planned Traveston Dam on the Mary River. On April 12th, he started his month long journey kayaking up the Brisbane River, down the Mary River and back down to Brisbane. He’s now paddling his way back down the coast, having reached Noosa on the weekend and now heading into ...
I went to a boat ramp in inner-city West End this morning to help support kayaker (and water engineer) Steve Posselt as he started a month long journey aimed at drawing attention to the stupidity of the Queensland Labor government’s Traveston Dam. His journey is called “Don’t Murray the Mary” – a call not to knowingly stuff up the Mary River as we have the River Murray. Stevehas previoulsy taken his kayak ...
I visited Maryborough, Bundaberg and Gympie today, travelling around in a small twin engine plane and driving the last part from Gympie back to Brisbane, getting back home about 11pm. I spoke mainly about water issues (as well as about the specific importance of the Queensland Senate contest, which not surprisingly I do everywhere I go). As seems to often happen when I'm campaigning on water, it rained almost ...
I’ve lived all my life in south-east Queensland, and it’s fair to say that sometimes Queenslanders can be very parochial. We grab onto all sorts of things to try to show how Queenslanders are special, especially if it makes us look better than the ‘southerners’. Parochialism isn’t unique to Queensland of course, but we can certainly lay it on thick sometimes. But occasionally I have to wonder ...
The public hearings are being held for the Senate Committee inquiry into water supplies in south-east Queensland, which is focused particularly on the proposed Traveston Dam on the Mary River just south of Gympie. There is a fairly full program of witnesses on both days.
Those of us who suspected the federal government's grand Murray-Darling basin rescue plan was policy on the run had our suspicions confirmed in Senate Estimates hearings last night, when the government's Senate Leader, Nick Minchin, confirmed that the $10 billion package did not go to Cabinet for approval before it was announced. Further evidence provided this morning indicates that the Department of Finance was informed about the ...
I am pleased that Coalition Senators have agreed there should be a Senate Inquiry into the proposed Traveston Dam. I am even more pleased that the terms of reference for the Inquiry will require other options for water supply and demand to be considered. It will provide a chance for more of the facts to come out in the open, for the public to have more of a ...
I seek to make this blog strongly independent and non-partisan as much as possible, so seeing my previous post had a grumpy dig at some federal Liberals, I thought I would balance the scales here by having a rant about the continued cowardly foolishness of the Labor Premiers in refusing to adopt the use of purified recycled water. In some ways this is worse, as my criticism ...
Amazing news in today's Sunday Mail that Premiers Beattie & Bligh are about to announce they are scrapping the plebiscite planned for March 17th and proceeding with the recycling of water into the drinking supply of Brisbane and surrounding areas.
You know the water crisis has got really serious when The Courier-Mail runs a piece which starts with the suggestion that "we must ban beer and Coke and stop eating beef."
In amongst the stories of genuine distress from many rural areas in Australia, the debate is emerging again of how far should we go to keep farmers on the land. The widespread acceptance that climate change is a reality which may be exacerbating current and future droughts adds an extra layer to the debate. Agriculture Minister, Peter McGuaran, has said the government is "going to fight to save ...
Last Saturday I launched a petition to encourage people living in South East Queensland to express their support for fully reusing wastewater. It has been made clear time and again that most political leaders at state and local level generally do not have the courage to bring in full water recycling because they are too scared of a community backlash. So the more people in the South-East Qld ...
As mentioned in my previous post, I attended a rally in Gympie on Wednesday night against the Qld Labor government's planned mega-dam on the Mary River (usually known as the Traveston Dam or the Traveston Crossing Dam, although sometimes also the Mary River Dam or Mary Valley Dam). The turnout at the hall at the Gympie Showgrounds was very impressive.
The people facing the flooding of their communities by the Beattie Government's mega-dam on the Mary River are certainly not giving up. There is a rally being held tonight at the Show Pavillion in Gympie from 6.30 pm, which I am going along to. It sounds obvious, but it is still an important point to make - the most essential part in winning a campaign against bad government decisions is ...
If comments by Federal Environment Minister, Ian Campbell in today's papers are anything to go by, he will need some convincing to use his powers under the EPBC Act to stop the planned mega-dam on the Mary River. The Minister can also approve a project under conditions that could be portrayed as mitigating the impacts on relevant matters such as endangered species and world heritage values of ...
The announcement that the Queensland government is now planning to build a new dam at Wyaralong rather than Rathdowney is a good example of the importance of community campaigning, and not giving up in the face of government pressure. It is big win for a local community that has been very seriously under threat, and a tribute to the work of many who refused to give up ...
Rathdowney is a small town sitting right next to the place where a dam is planned to be built by the Queensland government. It is one of two dams Peter Beattie announced without warning back in April to create the appearance that he was acting decisively to 'fix' South-East Queensland's water crisis. The other site is at Traveston, on the Mary River, not too far south ...
Next,
Every Monday morning during my radio show on community radio 4ZzZ FM, I chat with Peter Black, a constitutional lawyer, follower of social and political issues and obsessive user of social media. I don’t normally put links to those chats on this blog, but given that our talk this morning was all about the federal election, I thought it was worth putting a link to it on this occasion. You can have a listen to it by clicking on this link.
(0)Given I am now running as a Greens candidate, I suppose it is no surprise that I am indicating my agreement with a comment that Bob Brown made today. But I would also say that it isn’t any secret that I haven’t agreed with every public comment that Bob has made, and I would agree with the following comment about the schoolyard level nonsense regarding another possible leaders debate even if it had been made by Steve Fielding:
“What we’re seeing now between the two leaders is an absolute farce and people everywhere are rolling their eyes at Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard not having the maturity to get together to agree to the series of debates which would have enlightened the electorate,“It is a joke and a sad reflection on the optic and image driven nature of political media coverage in Australia. A couple of weeks ago, there was a three way debate at the National Press Club on important ICT issues such as internet filtering, broadband and wider communications policy. More... (6)
A couple of years ago I wrote a blog post about mountaintop mining in the USA. All mining has some impact, but the sheer destructiveness of this type of mining is astonishing – and that’s before you take into account the greenhouse impact of the coal. This article in the New York Times details the potential impact of a similar project in West Virginia. The significance of this proposal is that there is the possibility it may be stopped, or seriously curtailed, by the Obama administration, which would be a signal of a positive shift on this issue.
(2)Following are links to a couple of recent radio interviews I’ve done, plus an online one
More... (1)As I noted in my previous post, this week’s Newspoll saw the Greens register 16% support – the highest that party has ever achieved, comparable to the Democrats best Newspoll result of 17% back in 1990. History suggests it is unlikely that this peak will be maintained right through to election day (or even the next Newspoll) but it is part of a continuing trend of solid Greens results. I’ve written a piece expanding on this, and how the party might approach the challenges ahead, at The Drum/Unleashed on the ABC’s site – which you can read by clicking on this link.
(0)Contention over Queensland’s Wild Rivers legislation has been bubbling along for quite a while now. Unfortunately, as with many issues which become polarised, each “side” is focused on defending their position, which has meant that some important underlying issues are not getting the attention they deserve. I’ve just had a piece on this topic published at The Drum on the ABC’s website. It’s fairly long, so they published it in two parts – the first part is at this link and the second part is at this one. I should emphasise that the article reflects my personal views, and is not a formal view of the Greens, nor of ANTaR Queensland, who I am also involved with.
(18)Hip hop fans in Brisbane might be interested in tuning in to my radio show on 4ZZZ FM this Monday morning around 7:30am. I’ll be talking with the Gold Coast based duo Choose Mics, who are launching their debut full length album Beggars Can’t Be Choosers at the Step Inn in the Valley this coming Friday night as part of what will be a big night for fans of hip-hop/rap/urban sounds, with Brisbane’s The Optimen also launching their second album “The Out of Money Experience” as part of the same event. Even though there is a steady stream of musical offerings in Brisbane, a double album launch of this magnitude doesn’t come along every day of the week, so I’ll dedicate a half hour or so to exploring not just the words and sounds of Choose Mics, but getting a broader overview from them of the hip hop related scenes locally and nationally.
More... (2)Disclaimer: The inclusion of a blog or website in this list should not be taken as an endorsement of its contents by me.
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