IT’S TIME FOR THE RIGHT SORT OF CHANGE: IS THIS THE BEGINNING?

Water Act Inquiry: As Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Water, Senator Barnaby Joyce has announced that with the help of fellow Senators Fielding and Xenophon a “Water Act inquiry” has been established. The purpose is to “investigate whether it does provide an equal balance between economic, social and environmental factors”.

Senator Joyce said, “It was clear from when the Guide to the proposed Basin Plan was released last October that it was based on a process which took care of the environment first and counted the bodies later. Since then, the former Chair of the MDBA, Mike Taylor, constitutional law expert Professor George Williams and Professor Judith Sloan all agree that the environment takes primacy under the Water Act 2007.

“It is contemptuous in the extreme for elected politicians to ignore the reasonable demands of their constituents for answers. Both Labor and the Coalition have promised a triple-bottom line that is an equal balance between economic, social and environmental factors. The Labor Party’s refusal to even look at whether the Act provides this questions their seriousness to a triple-bottom line commitment. I have been calling for a Parliamentary inquiry into the Water Act for three months.

At the start of this debate Minister Crean stated: That guide [the Guide to the proposed Basin Plan] was limited because the terms of reference it got in the very first instance … didn't allow for sufficient consideration of what's referred to as the socio-economic consequences; in short hand the human cost.*

It is quite amazing then that 3 months on the Labor Party is one of the last holdouts against the need to look into the Act. What explains this amazing reversal? It might have less to do with the Act and more do with the need to protect their alliance with the Greens.

I wrote to Mr Windsor on the 28 October 2011 suggesting that his inquiry look into the Water Act. I have yet to receive a response. The fact the Mr Windsor has spent the last couple of months saying that he didn’t vote for the Act but won’t investigate whether the Act should be changed defies any sense. How do we reconcile the statement the Act is not worth voting for but, at the same time, the Act is worth defending to the death? What is absolutely amazing is the option-in, option-out approach to transparency that the Greens have.

Now’s your chance to get involved fellow Australian: The Senate inquiry now provides an opportunity for everyone involved in the Murray-Darling Basin reform, and the legal minds with the expertise, to provide practical solutions to improve the Act and insulate it against court challenge.
Senator Joyce continued: “I encourage everyone to get involved in making a real difference in delivering outcomes that protect Australians’ access to cheap, affordable food, maintains the family farm for generations and guarantees the health of our environment.”
The inquiry will report by 11 May 2011. More Information-Matthew Canavan 0458 709433

* Simon Crean, ABC AM, 15 October 2010

Senator Joyce At Giving of Notices - Business of the Senate Notice of Motion Committee Reference - Senator Joyce, Mr President I give notice that on the next day of sitting, I shall move—
(1) That the following matter be referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee for inquiry and report by Wednesday 11 May 2011:
The provisions of the Water Act 2007 (the Act), with particular regard to the direction it provides for the development of a Basin Plan, including:
(a) any ambiguities or constraints in the Act which would prevent a Basin Plan from being developed on an equally weighted consideration of economic, social and environmental factors;
(b) the differences in legal interpretations of the Act;
(c) the constitutional power of the Commonwealth to legislate in the area of water;
(d) the role of relevant international agreements and the effect of those on the parts of the Act which direct the Basin Plan to give effect to those agreements, and their effect on the Act more generally; (emphasis added…ed)
(e) any amendments that would be required to ensure that economic, social and environmental factors are given equally weighted consideration in developing the Basin Plan; and
(f) any other related matter.

(2) In conducting its enquiry, the Committee should consult those with particular legal expertise in the area of water.  

NEW COMMON GROUND? RATHER, THE SAME OLD STORY

by Brian Simpson
Leading US Jewish intellectual Amitai Etzioni, published “New Common Ground: A New America, A New World” (Potomac Books, Washington DC, 2009) after the election of B. Hussein Obama. Essentially the book advances the post-racial view of America, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand – the once white world.

Immigration and increased intermarriage, he sees as ending the once great racial divide. I was not convinced and the word “Islam” does not appear in the index and the discussions of Muslims and terrorism are brief and superficial. Thus “the United States has turned Iraq into a recruitment and training ground for terrorists”. (p.88) Noam Chomsky and the rest of the American left would agree. Atzioni’s communitarianism is supposed to offer an alternative to liberalism, but it’s hard to see how.

While welcoming the multicultural, multiracial fate of America, Atzioni has a chapter “Should Israel be a Jewish State?”(pp.82-84), where he opposes multiculturalising Israel. Indeed he defends the rabbinical regime in Israel on communitarianism grounds: “nations, even those as large as the United States or China, have some of the attributes of communities: bonds of affinity, a core of shared values, history and identity. If transformed into neutral states, such nations would lose the nurturing roles communities play in peoples’ lives”. (p.83) Agreed – but this argument also knocks down the multiculturalising, multiracial ideology as applied to Anglo-Saxon society and culture.

Atzioni should recognise the implications of his own words: “One cannot go whole hog in the service of the sensibilities of various minorities without undermining the essential sense of community. Trying to either assimilate minorities by eradicating their separate cultures, or to wash out the national ethos by eradicating their shred culture, will only heighten conflicts and tensions”. (p.84)  

‘THE LAW’ AND THE SUICIDE OF THE WEST

by Ian Wilson LL.B.
I have thumbed through a large collection of newspaper articles dealing with the refugee issue. Our High Court, in its typical fashion, has ruled that asylum seekers have the right to challenge procedural aspects of the cases in the court. This is expected to generate a flood of new cases and already two magistrates have been appointed to deal with the coming deluge.

This basically means that most people held in detention centres will get their day in court, and thus entry to Australia. Certainly a small number won’t, but the courts tend to be pro-asylum seeker as this is the status quo now.

Law today in my opinion is largely dominated by the ideology of political correctness and cases decided on the basis of political values. I, for one, am increasingly disenchanted with “the law”. The law never transcends the society it administers by legal rules. It will always be the slave of the power elites. The law, like the universities, is fallen and is speeding the suicide of the West!  

HONEY-BEE COLLAPSE THREATENS FOOD SECURITY

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Daily Telegraph, 6 Feb 2011.
The bee crisis has been treated as a niche concern until now, but as the UN's index of food prices hits an all time-high, it is becoming urgent to know whether the plight of the honey bee risks further exhausting our food security.
Between 80pc and 90pc of animal pollination of crops comes from domesticated honey bees Almost a third of global farm output depends on animal pollination, largely by honey bees. These foods provide 35pc of our calories, most of our minerals, vitamins, and anti-oxidants, and the foundations of gastronomy. Yet the bees are dying – or being killed – at a disturbing pace. The story of "colony collapse disorder" (CCD) is already well-known to readers of The Daily Telegraph.

Some keep hives at home and have experienced this mystery plague, and doubtless have strong views on whether it is caused by parasites, or a virus, or use of pesticides that play havoc with the nervous system of young bees, or a synergy of destructive forces coming together. The reservoir of bees is dwindling to the point where ratios are dangerously out of kilter, with the US reaching the "most extreme" imbalance. Pollinated crop output has quadrupled since 1961, yet bee colonies have halved. The bee-per-hectare count has fallen nearly 90pc.

“Farmers have managed to produce with relatively fewer bee colonies up to this point, and there is no evidence of agricultural yields being affected. The question is how much further this situation can be stretched," said the report. Germany, France and Italy have banned some pesticides, especially neonicotinoids (as in tobacco) that harm the memories of bees.

British bee-keepers call for urgent review: The British Beekeepers' Association has called for an "urgent review" of these chemicals, fearing we may lose all our bees within a decade if we are not careful. US beekeepers have made similar pleas. The US agriculture department's Bee Research Laboratory has found evidence that even low levels of these pesticides reduce the resistance of bees to fungal pathogens. Leaked documents from the Environmental Protection Agency confirm that clothianidin used on corn seed is "highly toxic", may pose a "long-term risk" to bees, and that previous tests were flawed.

IT’S HARD TO SWALLOW FOOD RULES THAT TREAT US LIKE MUSHROOMS

Sydney Morning Herald columnist Elizabeth Farrelly has written an excellent article on the Big Farm and Big Pharma push to shove their GM foods and “food science” products down our throats. Read it here:

At the same time West Australian farmers are fighting for their right not to have neighbour’s GM crops contaminate theirs. Mr. Steve Marsh has circulated an update on his battle resulting from GM contamination of his crops:
“I would like to thank you all very much for all the support and help we have received since the announcement of the GM contamination of our farm late last year. It has been overwhelming. Sue and I are very grateful, for both the moral and financial support.
While I cannot comment on the legal case directly I can tell you that my neighbour has now appointed himself a lawyer and my lawyers are preparing the case for court. I expect this to be a long and costly affair but this is an important fight for farmers, both Organic and Conventional, who do not wish to grow GM intentionally or otherwise. It is also very important that people get to know the truth about genetically engineered seeds and how this technology will affect all of us one way or the other. There are some links to this information on the www.nasaa-wa.com.au website.”

The website states: “Organic farmer in Western Australia, Steve Marsh has had GM Canola blown onto his property from a neighbouring farm and is now contaminated. His organic certification has been suspended, putting his livelihood and whole harvest in limbo. Fortunately he had taken precautions to declare his property GM free and had gone to the expense of setting up signs and getting legal advise so he should be able to take legal action against the GM Farmer.

The WA Ag Department has now confirmed the contamination and Monsanto has stated that it will support the GM farmer if Steve takes legal action. The purpose of this page it to allow people to donate to a “war chest” to help Steve fight for compensation.”

Steve Marsh continues: “We are fighting for choice. The government and the biotech industry should not be imposing this technology on all of us if we do not want it. People must have a choice if they do not wish to eat or grow GM products. Non GM Farmers need to be protected and consumers need to know what they are purchasing via food labelling.

Terry Redman WA Agriculture Minister: There has been a lot of media attention in the last month. Mr Terry Redman, the WA agriculture minister has stated that the government will not change the regulation to protect non-GM farmers from GM canola contamination (ABC Country Hour 27-1-11) so I would urge all of you to write to him directly and your local members of parliament, asking him to review this decision. Non-GM farmers need protection and the right of redress if their property is contaminated.
His email address is Terry.Redman@mp.wa.gov.au and you may also wish to write to his boss,
Colin Barnett Premier.Barnett@dpc.wa.gov.au
Dave can send you a full list of WA state parliament members email address.

The Pastoral and Graziers Association spokesperson - John Snook - stated on the 28th January 2011 that "GM Canola is not a contaminate and that NASAA (and other organic standards) should be lowered to allow a .09% contamination threshold". He facially suggested that I should sue NASAA for the loss of my certification! You can hear and comment on this interview at the ABC Bush telegraph website.

Also the leader of Kojunup shire council - Jill Mathwin advised on the ABC Country hour on the 26th January 2011 that she expected the council to be faced with an extra $20,000 clean up bill per year to deal with roadside contamination. If you live in the country you may wish to write to your own shire council, ask them what their plans are and budget is for GM clean up and where they expect to raise the extra money.
You can find information about shire councils at this link.  

NOZICK, PHILOSOPHICAL RATIONALITY AND THE HOLOCAUST

by Chris Knight
I recently read “The Examined Life: Philosophical Meditations”, by leading Jewish US philosopher Robert Nozick. The book contains essays on the big philosophical questions such as the nature of wisdom, life and death, and also the Holocaust. The Holocaust is defined thus: “The murder of two thirds of European Jewry during the Second World War as part of the determined attempt to annihilate it completely” (p.236).

This is a standard definition. Nozick then goes on to describe the Holocaust methodology which involved “bestial cruelty” by the Germans such as “the forcible herding of people into synagogues then set on fire to burn them alive there, dousing gasoline on men in prayer shawls and then burning them” (p.236).

Nozick does mention the gas chamber in one passing sentence on page 237 of the essay and this is surprising as I expected a more lengthy treatment. I have found no scholarly evidence of a systematic plan by the Nazis to kill Jews in Synagogues (but this is not to say that it did not occur, I simply don’t have any evidence of it from my search).
One would have thought that Nozick would have put his case better by discussing the gas chambers and concentration camps in the same, if not more, detail he discusses other events. Yet he does not. He goes on to say that the philosophical significance of the Holocaust is “an event like the Fall in the way traditional Christianity conceived it, something that radically and drastically alters the situation and status of humanity” (pp. 237 – 238).

Nozick then says: “It now would not be a special tragedy if mankind ended, if the human species were destroyed in atomic warfare or the earth passed through some cloud that made it impossible for the species to continue reproducing itself” (p.238).

Nozick does not wish this on humanity or even believes that humanity deserves this fate. He says by way of explanation: “What I mean is that earlier, it would have constituted an additional tragedy, one beyond that to the individual people involved, if human history and the human species had ended, but now that history and that species have become stained, its loss would now be of no special loss above and beyond the losses to the individuals involved. Humanity has lost its claim to continue” (p.238).

The Weird logic here seems to be:
(1) the Holocaust of the Jews was caused by the Germans (who like “a relative shaming a family…have shamed us all”);
(2) therefore the Germans “have ruined all our reputations, not as individuals – they have ruined the reputation of the human family. Although we are not all responsible for what those who acted and stood by did, we are all stained” (p.238).

Nozick is logically committed to saying that Jews, along with everyone else are “stained”. But how does this follow from his own logic which, we assume, has Jews as victims? Why should Jews be regarded as “stained”? Why should say, Australian Aborigines be regarded as “stained”? Further, suppose another Holocaust of the Jews occurred – and I am no anti-Semitic or Holocaust denier – wouldn’t this also be a special tragedy? Of course it would be a tragedy!

Nozick concludes that after the Holocaust, it is no longer the case that Jesus can take up the sufferings of all humanity – now we must all take the sufferings of others upon ourselves: “Christians could think that this is a new era that more truly continues and embodies the Christian message; Jews could see others now truly weep over a suffering so momentous and so monstrously inflicted that everyone now must be different henceforth. The holocaust has thrust the issue of redemption before us anew, except now redemption must come from ourselves, humanity as a whole” (p.241).

There is no argument given for this new account of atonement. It is difficult to see how redemption is possible; Mozick in concluding his essay compares the Holocaust’s distortions to that of a black hole, which twists even space and time. No matter can escape. Hence humanity, by his logic must be damned – and that includes people with black skin in Africa who know nothing about the Holocaust.

This outline shows the logical absurdity of Nozick’s paper. Of course, no refutation of his position has, or is likely to appear in the standard philosophy journals. Perhaps the last word should be given to the Jewish-American Secretary of State under Presidents Nixon and Ford, Henry Kissinger, 1973 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1995.
But in 1973 Kissinger said: “The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern”. Perhaps Professor Nozick could discuss that quotable quote?  

MONEY IS NOTHING BUT A TICKET SYSTEM

Excerpted from Major Douglas' testimony to the Agricultural Committee of the Alberta Legislature, 1934:
“Money is nothing whatever but a ticket system which has nothing whatever to do with all these abstract descriptions of it, such as a medium of exchange, or a storehouse of values or any of these other things. It is a ticket system and nothing else. What the result of perverting and manipulating the ticket system may come to be in such a way as it seems to acquire these attributes, but if you will bear in mind money is nothing but a ticket system you will save yourself a great deal of trouble by stripping your mind of preconceptions...

Now the question is that since that system up to a certain point works, what is the basis on which these additional receipts are issued? There is no question at all, none whatever, that the basis on which those receipts are issued is the general wealth of the community, and they are issues of receipts, or demands if you like, for payment by the general community, of real wealth, which demands only have value because of the existence of this real wealth...

Q. Mr. ROSS: Take the farmer. His wealth is, to a large extent, in this province, wheat?
A. From his point of view, wheat is nothing whatever except something for which he exchanges purchasing power. He doesn't grow, from his point of view, any wealth at all. From the world's point of view he does, but, from his point of view, if he is left with the whole of his wheat on hand, he has no wealth.

Q. In other words, if the exchange possibility for his wheat for other things remains constant? That is what you are aiming at?
A. No. We are looking at the problem from a diametrically different point of view. The point of view that I have is that the function of money is no longer that of a medium of exchange.

Q. I agree with you in that entirely, that money is simply the means of transferring real wealth from one person to another.
A. No; that is exactly what it is not.

Q. You state it is like a ticket on the railway that enables you to get transportation from one place to another. I will take that view, that money is a means of transfer for that transportation.
A. That is not the correct interpretation of money. The only correct one is, I believe, that all wealth at the present time is produced by synthetic purposes: that the wheat that the farmer grows does not produce any wealth at all; that the manufacturer of motor cars does not produce any wealth at all. Those things only become wealth by reason of the fact that somebody else produces roads, and somebody else bakes the farmer's wheat, and a number of such things.
So it is impossible to say that anyone, at the present time, produces wealth, except considered in the light of what everybody else is doing at the present time. Under those conditions, wealth is a central pool into which everybody is contributing, and the proper function of money is not to interchange between those separate producers of wealth, but to give the general community, by whom the wealth is produced, the necessary power to draw from the central pool of wealth...” (emphasis added…ed)  

Take time to look at: “Black Magic of the Money Cult” here …

“Financial Credit Versus Real Credit” here…

LETTER TO MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT: The 'NOWFUND'

Member for McMillan, Honourable Member, Mr Russell Broadbent.
Dear Mr Broadbent,
The financial cost in restoring that which is lost throughout the Commonwealth of Australia due to Floods, Fire and Cyclones and related problems is a massive financial sum. NO tax or levy can possibly compensate. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is NOT the answer.

There is a better way.
1. Firstly, terminate all foreign aid, ... reports are circulating that the Federal Govt paid out something of the order of $2000 million in foreign aid including $500 million for Islamic schools in Indonesia (How bizarre and anti-Christian!!) in 2010.
The Herald Sun, today the 8th Feb 2011, reports only a miserable $16 million has been available for floods/cyclones of recent weeks. This perversion with supporting overseas peoples to our detriment must cease immediately and all AID attention applied to affected Aussie's now. A Herald Sun report earlier this month wrote about people in King Lake who lost everything, still have received no financial assistance after 2 years since Black Saturday, Feb 7th '09!!!

2. HANSARD, NOVEMBER 12, 1941contained a budget speech by Senator Darcey where he reveals the 1937 ROYAL COMMISSION INTO FINANCE FINDINGS which includes the statement "The Commonwealth can make money available to governments and to others free of charge..." The Federal Constitution in Section 51 concurs with this. You need to study Senator Darcey's speech and the Constitution.

3. This opens the door to a NOWFUND of $50 billion dollars, for example, that is set aside for disasters that are common in Australia that can be made available within a fortnight to all affected peoples via simple mechanisms. Such money can flow with the same fluency and volume as the excess water has, and individuals can freely leverage and reconstruct themselves as they choose.

4. If point 3 is not done, ... who is going to FUND the next Disaster????

So Mr Broadbent, I want to read in HANSARD that you got up and spoke and acted on this in a similar capacity to Mr Darcey in 1941. Anything less would be letting down everyone in McMillan and the rest of the country. As a public servant, you truly can serve the public by embracing and acting on the first three points.

Now that you are in Parliament, this week, let the McMillan people hear from you according to the above, now!!
Abraham Lincoln, also said, " The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government but it is the governments greatest creative opportunity". Awaiting your reply.
Kind Regards, Steve Lloyd Drouin Victoria 3818

Steve has done his bit – what about you doing yours?