Live Science, 14 August 2018:
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Friday 31 August 2018
A reminder that the world has known about the negative effects on the atmosphere of burning coal for over 100 years
Live Science, 14 August 2018:
A newspaper clip
published Aug. 14, 1912, predicts that coal consumption would produce enough
carbon dioxide to warm the climate.
Credit: Fairfax Media/CC
BY-NC-SA 3.0 NZ
A note published in a
New Zealand paper 106 years ago today (Aug. 14) predicted the Earth's
temperature would rise because of 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide produced by
coal consumption.
"The effect may be
considerable in a few centuries," the article stated.
The clip was one of
several one-paragraph stories in the "Science Notes and News" section
of The
Rodney and Otamatea Times, published Wednesday, Aug. 14, 1912.
The paragraph seems to
have been originally printed in the March
1912 issue of Popular Mechanics as the caption for an image of a large
coal factory. The image goes with a story titled "Remarkable Weather of
1911: The Effect of the Combustion of Coal on the Climate — What Scientists
Predict for the Future," by Francis Molena. [Photographic
Proof of Climate Change: Time-Lapse Images of Retreating Glaciers]
Labels:
climate change,
history,
science
Thursday 12 July 2018
One for the history buffs out there
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), The NSW Aborigines Protection/Welfare Board 1883-1969 Map
Labels:
history,
Indigenous Australia,
New South Wales
Thursday 28 June 2018
So that champion of silvertails Malcolm Bligh Turnbull thinks mentioning his wealth in public is a form of class warfare?
“They want to attack me having
a quid…They want to attack me and Lucy for working hard, investing, having a
go, making money, paying plenty of tax, giving back to the
community." [Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, The
Guardian, 25 June 2018]
“The
honourable member has asked about my investments, which are set out in the
members' interests disclosure….. If honourable members opposite want to
start a politics-of-envy campaign about it, I don't think they'll be telling
people anything they don't know.”
[Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, Hansard, 25 June 2018]
“It has
embraced the politics of envy and class war”;
[Malcolm Bligh Turnbull speaking about the parliamentary Labor Party, Hansard, 25 June 2018]
[Malcolm Bligh Turnbull speaking about the parliamentary Labor Party, Hansard, 25 June 2018]
“He says I'm a snob." [Malcolm Bligh Turnbull speaking about
Labor leader Bill Shorten, Hansard,
19 June 2018]
I can’t speak
for anybody else. However I would gladly “attack” the vainglorious Malcolm Bligh Turnbull - not for being wealthy but on the basis that:
(i) during
his time practising law he was allegedly not above abusing the legal process, a judge
stating in 1984 that he “managed
effectively to poison the fountain of justice”;
(ii) he reportedly
made millions from the logging industry in the Solomon Islands in the early
1990s – when Hong Kong-listed Axiom
Forest Resources of which he was chair virtually clear-felled its holdings
and, whose logging practises were considered "amongst
the worst in the world";
(iii) he was
at the centre of Australia’s biggest corporate failure to date in 2001, as
chairman of investment bank Goldman Sachs Australia, and many
ordinary working class people lost everything while he
walked away virtually unscathed;
(iv) as Water
Minister in the Howard Government in 2007 he wanted to wreck
water sustainability in the Clarence River catchment area on the NSW Far North Coast in order to satisfy Liberal-Nationals supporters in the Murray-Darling Basin;
(v) as an independently wealthy federal minister in 2007 Malcolm Turnbull was submitting claims to the Dept. of Finance for $175 accommodation costs per night while in Canberra even though he was staying at an ACT residence owned by his wife and, until he was caught out in 2014 also submitted claims of $10 per night if his wife came to stay at his ACT penthouse;
(v) as an independently wealthy federal minister in 2007 Malcolm Turnbull was submitting claims to the Dept. of Finance for $175 accommodation costs per night while in Canberra even though he was staying at an ACT residence owned by his wife and, until he was caught out in 2014 also submitted claims of $10 per night if his wife came to stay at his ACT penthouse;
(vi) as chair and managing
director of Goldman Sachs Australia and
partner in New York-based Gold Sachs and Co. from 1998 to 2001, he helped lay some of the early building blocks for the Global Financial Crisis;
(vii) his political judgement was so poor that, after meeting then public servant and Liberal Party supporter Godwin Grech in private on or about 12 June 2009, he asserted to parliament on 22 June that a forged email was a true document in an effort to bring down the government of the day;
(vii) his political judgement was so poor that, after meeting then public servant and Liberal Party supporter Godwin Grech in private on or about 12 June 2009, he asserted to parliament on 22 June that a forged email was a true document in an effort to bring down the government of the day;
(viii) he and
his government opposed
any real wage increase for workers on the minimum wage in a submission to the Fair
Work Commission and went on to actively support a cut
to penalty rates – safe in the knowledge that their own parliamentary
salaries would increase at fairly regular intervals;
(ix) he resisted
the creation of the Banking and Finance Royal Commission and set up
terms of reference which sought to nobble that commission;
(x) as
Communication’s Minister and then Prime Minister he
deliberately wrecked Australia’s hope of having world-class Internet
connections;
(xi) he
continues to move forward with imposing a punitive
cashless welfare payment system on the majority of welfare recipients while also continuing the reduction of funding to vital social services;
and
(xii) his
first response to any challenge to his world view is to sneer at both the
questioner and the content of the question.
An more authentic telling of Malcolm Turnbull’s own ‘poor boy made good’ story
Malcolm Bligh Turnbull went to a public primary school at Vaucluse in Sydney’s affluent
Eastern Suburbs for about three years. During this period the family
income was in the vicinity of £8,700 to £9,700 a year – with his mother
earning four times the average female wage as a successful screenwriter.
Then from the
age of eight he went to Sydney Grammar School as a border during and after his parent’s
divorce proceedings. He received a scholarship for at least part of that time.
When Malcolm
was in Year 10, his father bought a luxurious three-bedroom apartment in Point
Piper. The apartment had extensive water views and cost Bruce Turnbull est. $36,000.
Before that both he and his father had lived in a flat belonging to his mother.
He graduated
from university during the years when undergraduate and post-graduate tertiary
education was free of course fees in Australia. All this is on the public
record.
Malcom Turnbull
purchased his first house while still a university undergraduate.
At age 23 he
bought a semi-detached house in inner-Sydney Newtown for almost $50,000 and at
age 25 he bought a Redfern terrace for $40,000. He bought his own first home as
a married man, for an undisclosed sum in Potts Point, after returning from his stint as a Rhodes schlor at Oxford University.
Malcolm
Turnbull inherited assets worth an est. $2 million from his hotel-broker
father before he turned 29 years of age according to one of his
biographers, Paddy Manning.
He went into a cleaning business with former NSW premier Neville Wran. After the sale of his co-founding interest in IT company Oze Email Ltd for a reported $60 million, he also founded a merchant bank
with Nicholas Whitlam, son of the former prime minister (both Packer and Larry
Adler gave their financial backing for a short time).
In 2008 BRW reportedly estimated Malcolm and Lucy's joint wealth as $133 million and, in 2010 he was included in the BRW Rich 200 list for the second year running for having a personal fortune of $186 million. He and his wife Lucy went on to greater wealth which was last jointly estimated to be in the vicinity of $200 million.
In 2008 BRW reportedly estimated Malcolm and Lucy's joint wealth as $133 million and, in 2010 he was included in the BRW Rich 200 list for the second year running for having a personal fortune of $186 million. He and his wife Lucy went on to greater wealth which was last jointly estimated to be in the vicinity of $200 million.
His
last Statement
of Registrable Interests lists a veritable slew of financial
investments and an expensive property portfolio shared between he and his wife.
Malcolm
Turnbull’s annual
salary as Australia Prime Minister places him in the Top 10 for world leaders and even the most conservative estimation of his total annual income places him in the top 5 per cent in this country.
In the second half of 2016 Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull made a political donation towards the Liberal Party federal election campaign of $1.75 million.
In the second half of 2016 Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull made a political donation towards the Liberal Party federal election campaign of $1.75 million.
It has been reported that Malcolm Turnbull and his wife give $550,000 annually to charity via the Turnbull Foundation - their "private ancillary fund" which apparently has a family corporation/s as trustee/s and appears to act as a tax minimisation scheme as the entire $550,000 is potentially 100 per cent tax deductible.
The personal income tax ‘cuts’ recently pass by the Australian Parliament will potentially benefit the Prime Minister, as will the
proposed company tax cuts as he owns or co-owns a number of active corporations.
I say potentially, because during the Panama Papers exposé it was revealed that Malcolm Turnbull is not adverse to availing himself of the advantages of international tax havens and likely already pays little tax on much of his financial interests.
Labels:
history,
Malcolm Bligh Turnbull,
Wealth
Thursday 14 June 2018
The journey towards a name change for Coutts Crossing begins.....
In November 1847 Clarence Valley grazier Thomas Coutts disgruntled by what he thought was a failure of local authority to act on his complaints, angry that his cattle herd had diminished over the space of eight years allegedly due to cattle theft and irritated at the size of his wages bill - all of which he blamed on local Aboriginal family groups living on 'his' property - decided to take action.
According to media reports at the time it soon became common knowledge that Coutts "had poisoned some aborigines" and this was eventually reported to the Commissioner of Crown Lands who, after visiting the group who had been given poisoned flour, hearing their account, arrested Thomas Coutts based on an affidavit sworn by one of his servants.
On the 17th January 1848, Thomas Coutts was committed for trial by Forster and Mylnes, local Justices of the Peace, on a charge of wilful murder, and was sent to Sydney for trial before the Supreme Court.…… On the 10 May the Attorney General decided not to proceed with the case due to lack of evidence and Coutts was discharged.
Stating; "there is not sufficient legal evidence to sustain the prosecution although I am sorry to say that the suspicion is very strong that the prisoner is not guiltless of the dreadful deed charged against him.....This is one of the many cases from which the defect of the present law, in excluding altogether the evidence of the Aboriginal natives, is apparent."
Stating; "there is not sufficient legal evidence to sustain the prosecution although I am sorry to say that the suspicion is very strong that the prisoner is not guiltless of the dreadful deed charged against him.....This is one of the many cases from which the defect of the present law, in excluding altogether the evidence of the Aboriginal natives, is apparent."
Coutts Crossing could
have two names and a memorial to the 23 Aboriginal people murdered by the man
the town is named after, following a meeting called to discuss proposals to
rename the village.
Prospects for a name
change for the village have gathered pace since Daily Examiner indigenous
columnist Janelle Brown’s article two weeks ago detailed how colonial settler
Thomas Coutts murdered 23 Aboriginal people with arsenic-laced flour he gave as
payment for work on his property at Kangaroo Creek in 1848.
Yesterday, about 40
people – indigenous and European – met at the Gurehlgam Centre in Grafton to
discuss the next steps in proposing a name change for the village. The meeting
did not produce formal resolutions, but the debate uncovered key areas to work
on.
These included a
proposal to include a traditional twin name for the village and to build a
memorial in the village for the victims of the atrocity.
“I didn’t know I would
get the amount of kick back from the article,” said Ms Brown, who led the
meeting.
“But it’s good. It’s
time to have these conversations and look at things like a name change for
Coutts Crossing.
“What happened at
Kangaroo Creek was a horrendous thing and not good for the Clarence Valley.
“It’s not good for a
town to be named after a mass murderer.”
She said research into
Gumbaynggir language revealed the original name for the area had been Daam
Miirlarl, which meant a special place for yams.
However, she was
reluctant to push this name as an alternative until there was further
discussion among indigenous people about it.
Coutts Crossing resident
Cr Greg Clancy said yesterday’s meeting was an initial step to move toward a
name change.
“It’s not something that
is going to happen next week,” he said.
Cr Clancy also made an
apology for the deputy mayor Jason Kingsley, who was also the council’s
delegate to the Aboriginal Consultative Committee. He said working through the
council committee could be the best way to bring the push for a name change to
the council.
Cr Clancy said the work
of local historian and environmentalist John Edwards left no doubt Thomas
Coutts murdered the 23 Gumbaynggir people with poisoned flour.
“In his book The
History of the Coutts Crossing and Nymboida Areas, the chapter on the Kangaroo
Creek massacre has all the transcripts from the court case,” he said.
“Its evidence is
conclusive, but the case could not go ahead because the court at the time could
not hear evidence from Aboriginal witnesses.”
The current owner of the
property on which the massacre occurred, John Maxwell, had nothing positive to
say about the original owner.
“What he did was cynical
beyond belief,” Mr Maxwell said. “To poison 6kg of flour and give it to people,
knowing they would take it home and kill a huge number more of their family, is
too terrible to consider.”….
Labels:
Australian society,
Clarence Valley,
crime,
history,
murder,
racism,
reconciliation
Tuesday 12 June 2018
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull supports an attempt by former prime ministers Howard and Abbott to impose an elitist world view
Here is public comment on and by the main characters in what looks remarkably like an ill-considered and rather crude attempt at a beer hall putsch against academic freedom.
With one of the eight Ramsey Centre directors, Tony Abbott, giving the game away when he revealed that half of the proposed four-person Partnership Management Committee had an expectation that this committee would directly set the Bachelor of Western Civilsation curriculum and hire academic staff.
An expectation which appears confirmed by a statemet attributed to the Ramsey Centre CEO that; “If we feel like it’s not going to go to appreciation of Western Civilization, then we can withdraw the funding.”
Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation vision statement:
Paul Ramsay was a
leading Australian businessman who was passionate about education and wished to
educate future generations in the traditions and practices of western
civilisation: its history, philosophy, literature, science, theology, music,
art and architecture.
He also wanted to create over time a cadre of
leaders – Australians whose awareness and appreciation of their country’s
Western heritage and values, of the challenges that have confronted leaders and
people, with that broad heritage in the past, would help guide their decision
making in the future.
The Ramsay Centre
Scholarships will provide students from across Australia the opportunity to
study western civilisation in this spirit at one of our partner universities.
Places will also be available within the BA degrees to non-scholarship holders. [my yellow highlighting]
The
ANU Observer,
8 March 2018:
ANU announced plans for
a $25,000 a year scholarship associated with a proposed Bachelor of Western
Civilization on Tuesday, subject to student consultation. The announcement
occurred at a forum for staff and student feedback, where more details of the
proposed program were given, though some students voiced concerns.
At $25,000, the
scholarship is the largest ever offered at ANU. It will be larger by just above
15% than the Tuckwell Scholarship, which is set at $21,700 for 2018.....
In a question at the
forum, one attendee quoted the CEO of the Ramsay Centre, Simon Haines, as
saying, “If we feel like it’s not going to go to appreciation of Western
Civilization, then we can withdraw the funding.” [my yellow highlighting]
Australian National University,
FAQ - Potential ANU-Ramsay
Centre for Western Civilisation Partnership, excerpts:
*The proposed program
comprises 16 core courses, typically taken over three years, with an additional
Honours year sequence open to outstanding students. Students may replace up to
4 of the 16 BWC courses with 4 courses of classical or modern European language
study. Students will be able to take the program alongside other disciplines
offered by the University and (in the case of double-degree students) other
degrees.
*The different courses
within the program consider books from a variety of genres or disciplines
(predominately works of literature, history, philosophy, religion, politics)
but also including architecture, art and music,
*The program will be
capped at 60 students consisting of up to 30 scholarship recipients in the
first year and up to 30 non-scholarship recipients. Up to 10 further
scholarships will be made available to students in the second year of the
degree.
*A distinct aspect of the
proposed program is the use of the ‘Socratic’ approach. The program aims to
create active learners engaged with primary texts in classes of no more than
six to eight students. These small-group discussions will be supplemented by a
series of panel-style discussions where academics from different perspectives
engage in discussion with each other and with students.
*Curriculum
recommendations will be made by the Partnership Management Committee
(consisting of two academic staff from the Ramsay Centre and two academics from
the ANU, one of whom is the Dean of CASS) and considered through the normal ANU
academic processes. [my yellow highlighting]
Liberal MP for Warringah Tony Abbott in Quadrant
Online, 24 May 2018:
“The key to
understanding the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation is that it’s not
merely about Western civilisation but in favour of it. The
fact that it is “for” the cultural inheritance of countries such as ours,
rather than just interested in it, makes it distinctive. The fact that respect
for our heritage has largely been absent for at least a generation in our
premier teaching and academic institutions makes the Ramsay Centre not just
timely but necessary. This is an important national project. It’s not every
day, after all, that such a big endowment is dedicated in perpetuity to raising
the tone of our civic conversation…..
A management committee
including the Ramsay CEO and also its academic director will make staffing and
curriculum decisions.” [my yellow highlighting]
Brisbane
Times, 7 June
2015:
Prime Minister Malcolm
Turnbull will personally intervene in the ANU's decision to pull out of a
controversial new degree in Western Civilisation, saying he wants to talk to
the university's vice-chancellor about it directly.
On Thursday, Mr Turnbull
became the latest Liberal politician to wade into the furore over the course,
which was to be funded by the John Howard-headed Ramsay Centre.
The Prime Minister said
he was "very surprised" by the ANU's decision last week to end six
months of negotiation with the centre and would be speaking to vice-chancellor
Brian Schmidt personally "to get his account of it".
"I find it very
hard to understand why that proposal from the Ramsay Foundation would not have
been accepted with enthusiasm," Mr Turnbull said….
[my yellow highlighting]
Professor Brian Schmidt AC, Vice-Chancellor and President, Australian
National University, writing in The
Sydney Morning Herald, 7 June 2018:
The
news came yesterday that Australian National University remains ranked by QS as
number one in Australia and in the top 25 universities in the world. It is a
global reputation we take seriously. One that is built on the basis of academic
autonomy and free academic inquiry.
ANU
has declined donations in the past and will again where we are unable to meet
the wishes of the donor within our normal practices. It is right that we
explore opportunities openly and in good faith, but it is also right that we
let prospective donors know when we cannot provide them with what they want.
Our
decision to end negotiations with the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilization
has attracted a great deal of interest. In this case, the prospective donor
sought a level of influence over our curriculum and staffing that went beyond
what any other donor has been granted, and was inconsistent with academic
autonomy.
This
would set a precedent that would completely undermine the integrity of the
University.
While
there has been plenty of noise from all ends about the merits of the study of
Western civilisation, the decision at our end has nothing to do with the
subject matter.
In
fact, the reason we entered into discussions and, no doubt, why we were of
interest to the donor, is our global reputation for scholarship and teaching
across the full breadth of the Western liberal tradition from classics, history
and literature to philosophy, art and music. We offer more than 150 courses in
western scholarship. It would take 18 years of study to complete all of those
courses.
The
opportunity to augment our teaching and research in these areas, along with a
generous scholarship program for students, was an attractive proposition for
ANU and we were grateful to the Ramsay Centre for considering ANU as a partner.
But
at the end of the day, the University operates on the same principles with all
donors, whatever their area of interest. Whether it is funding to support the
study of Persian language or the study of classics, the same principles apply.
The University retains full control of all curriculum and staffing decisions.
This actually gets to the crux of the issue here for us. In this case, the
donor sought a level of influence over our curriculum and staffing that went
beyond any existing arrangements we have.
[my yellow highlighting]
UPDATE
VC's
Update - our viewpoints on Ramsay, 25 June 218:
On 1 June The Australian National University
announced that it was withdrawing from negotiations to create a degree program
with the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation. We took our decision for no
other reason than the Centre's continued demands for control over the program
were inconsistent with the University's academic autonomy.
We anticipated attacks from some for even
contemplating introducing the degree, and from others for being anti-Western
civilisation. What we had less reason to expect was the protracted media
firestorm which has continued daily for nearly a month, in certain sections of
the press, with ANU constantly assaulted for capitulating to pressure from
those hostile to the Ramsay Centre, but without evidence or new information
being offered. Scrutiny from the press is crucial in western democracies in
holding public institutions to account - and universities should not escape it.
But does stating over and over again a false narrative make it true?
We have intentionally refrained from going into the
details of the University's negotiations with the Ramsay Centre, partly because
of our respect for what we had understood to be the confidentiality of those
negotiations, partly to allow the Centre clear air to rethink its position
after exploring options with other institutions, and partly because of our
unwillingness to personalise the arguments in the way that others have been all
too ready to do. But it has become obvious that we need now to further explain
our decision "in the public square".
If ANU had withdrawn from the program simply
because some people within our ranks were uncomfortable, for essentially
ideological reasons, with the very idea of it, we would deserve all the
criticism hurled at us. But that was absolutely not the case. There was,
and remains, strong support across the University for a major enhancement of
our teaching and research capacity in the area of Western civilisation studies.
We are attracted by the wide-ranging liberal arts courses taught in some
prominent American universities, and remain wholly willing to craft a similar
degree course here. Designed to convey understanding and respect for the great
Western intellectual and cultural traditions - albeit in our own way:
analytically rigorous, not triumphalist, and open to comparisons being drawn,
as appropriate, with other major intellectual and cultural traditions.
ANU has long been ranked number one in Australia in
humanities disciplines, and we already teach some 150 undergraduate subjects
addressing Western civilisation themes. The attractiveness of having major new
resources to advance them, is why an enormous amount of effort has been
invested by our staff in developing a very detailed proposal, including a draft
syllabus, in support of a Ramsay gift, and why negotiations for common ground
continued as long as they did.
So what went wrong? We withdrew from negotiations
because there were irreconcilable differences over the governance of the
proposed program, not its substance. We were willing to accept the Ramsay
Centre having a voice in curriculum design and staff appointments. But only a
voice, not a controlling influence. From the outset, however, the Centre has
been locked in to an extraordinarily prescriptive micro-management approach to
the proposed program, unprecedented in our experience, embodied in a draft
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) of some 30 pages with another 40 pages of
detailed annexures.
It has insisted on a partnership management
committee to oversee every aspect of the curriculum and its implementation -
with equal numbers from both the Ramsay Centre and ANU, meaning an effective
Ramsay veto.
It
has been unwilling to accept our own draft curriculum, and has refused to
accept our preferred name for the degree ('Western Civilisation Studies'). While
acknowledging that any curriculum would have to be endorsed by the ANU Academic
Board, it has made clear that to be acceptable to the Ramsay Centre it would
have to find favour with the joint management committee - with its
representatives being able to sit in the classes that we teach and undertake
"health checks" on the courses and the teachers.
It became clear that there are fundamental
differences in our respective conceptions of the role of a university.
The Centre has gone so far as to insist on the removal of "academic
freedom" as a shared objective for the program: this remains in the draft
MOU as an ANU objective, not a Ramsay one. For us academic freedom doesn't mean
freedom to underperform or to teach without regard to the disciplines or agreed
objectives of a particular syllabus. But it does mean appointment or retention
of staff on the basis of their demonstrated academic merit, not political or
ideological preference.
A continuing concern has been that the proposed
Ramsay funding is provided short-term, up for renewal in eight years. A
time-limited gift is not in itself problematic, but building a major program
involving the hiring of a dozen staff, and then being held hostage to its
continuation by a donor whose most senior and influential board members appear
to have manifestly different views to ours about university autonomy, is not a
happy position for any university to be in.
Ramsay
CEO Simon Haines, in an interview in last weekend's Fairfax Press (The Age, 23
June), has now at last engaged in a little circumspect distancing from the Tony
Abbott article in Quadrant,
which was very explicit about the controls envisaged. But that dissociation has
been a long time coming, and it remains to be seen whether there will in fact
be a change in the Ramsay board's position. In successive conversations
with the Centre, ANU sought public assurances that Ramsay's position had been
misstated, and that the University's autonomy in actually implementing agreed
objectives would be fully respected. But no reply we have received has
given us any cause to believe that the MOU, with all its over-reach, would be
fundamentally revised. In the result, it was simply impossible on our
side to believe that there was sufficient trust and confidence for the project
to proceed.
We withdrew from the negotiations for governance
reasons of this kind. Boiled down, the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation
simply did not trust the ANU to deliver a program acceptable to it, and
consequently asked for controls on the University's delivery of the degree that
ANU could not - and should not - agree to.
ANU, accepts gifts from individuals, foundations,
groups, entities, government agencies, and foreign governments. In no cases are
these gifts allowed to compromise the University's academic integrity, nor are
they allowed to impose on our academic freedom, or autonomy. Regarding
historical gifts surrounding our Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (CAIS),
Australia's leading academic capability in its area, let us be clear: if the
Ramsay Centre were to take the same approach to a gift to ANU as the donors to
CAIS, we could reach an agreement in less than 48 hours.
The University has never accepted gifts with such
restrictions as demanded by Ramsay, and under our watch as Chancellor and Vice
Chancellor we never will.
Let us offer this frank assessment as things stand
at the moment, as the Ramsay Centre seeks other partners: to succeed, either
they will have to change its approach and trust its partners to deliver a
program in Western Civilisation studies, or be limited to a university willing
to make concessions on academic autonomy. If the Ramsay Centre and its board
are prepared to understand and respect the autonomy of Australia's national
university, our door remains open.
Professor the Hon
Gareth Evans AC QC and Professor Brian Schmidt AC are Chancellor and
Vice-Chancellor, respectively, of The Australian National University.
Thursday 7 June 2018
CONSERVATION GROUP FOUNDED TO COMBAT PULP MILL CELEBRATES ITS HISTORY
"No Pump Mill" memorabilia - image supplied |
The Clarence Valley Conservation Coalition celebrated its “almost” thirty years of activity at a Re-Weavers’ Awards Dinner in Grafton on 1st June.
The
Re-Weavers Awards,
which are held annually on the Friday nearest to World Environment Day,
recognise the valuable contribution individuals and groups have made to
environmental protection over many years.
The
Clarence Valley Conservation Coalition was founded almost thirty years ago because
of a proposal for a chemical pulp mill in the Clarence Valley.
On
30th August 1988 The Daily Examiner’s front page headline
shouted: “$450m valley mill planned by Japanese”. Daishowa International had made an
in-principle decision to build a chemical pulp mill on the Clarence River near
Grafton. This, it was claimed, would create about 1200 direct and indirect jobs
in the region.
This fired up the
local community. Some community members welcomed the announcement,
claiming the mill would provide an enormous boost to the local economy.
But not everyone welcomed
it. Many feared the impact such a large
industrial development would have on the local environment – not just of the
Clarence Valley but of the whole North Coast because it was obvious that such a
large mill would be drawing its feedstock from across the region. Concerns included the amount of water this
mill would use, the decimation of the forests, the likelihood of poisonous
effluent being released into either the river or the ocean and air pollution.
On 19 September 1988 concerned people met in Grafton to discuss the
proposal and consider what action should be taken. This meeting resulted in the formation of the
Clarence Valley Conservation Coalition (CVCC).
Rosie
Richards became its President. She was
an ideal person for the job in many ways.
In the conservative Clarence community she was not publicly associated with
any of the recent or on-going conservation issues. While she was concerned
about environmental impacts, both short and long-term, and made no secret of
the fact, she did not look like a greenie – or the conservative view of what a
greenie looked like. Rosie was 56 years old.
She was a grandmother. Her background was not that of a stereotype greenie
either. She grew up in Pymble and in the early fifties was a member of the
Liberal Party Younger Set. Her other
life experiences included years as a farmer’s wife and the wife of a
professional fisherman. (Her husband
Geoff had been both.)
Rosie’s personality
also qualified her for this leadership role in the pulp mill campaign. She ran both the CVCC committee and general
meetings efficiently. She was calm,
sincere, friendly, articulate and very much “a lady” in old-fashioned
terms. But she was also determined and
possessed a “steel backbone”. This
“steel backbone” and her courage were very necessary in the campaign to obtain
information and disseminate it to the North Coast community.
Courage was
necessary to the campaigners because those promoting the benefits of Daishowa’s
plans attacked the CVCC, referring to its spokespersons as scaremongers and “a
benighted group who distort the facts.” Those in power locally and at the state
level weren’t in any hurry to provide
facts but they decried the efforts of community members who were trying to find
information on pulp mill operations.
However, this did not deter the CVCC.
It sought information on pulp mills and pulping processes from around
the world, asked questions of those in power and disseminated information to
the community.
Other
important campaigners included media spokesperson Martin Frohlich and Bruce
Tucker whose time in Gippsland had shown him what it was like to live near the
Maryvale Pulp Mill. Others who played vital roles were John Kelemec, Rob Lans,
Geoff Richards and Bill Noonan as well as core members of the Clarence Valley
Branch of the National Parks Association. These included Peter Morgan, Stan
Mussared, Celia Smith and Greg Clancy.
Public meetings were held in Grafton, Iluka, Maclean and Minnie Water as
well as in other North Coast towns. In
addition the group produced information sheets, issued many media releases,
participated in media interviews, distributed bumper stickers, circulated a
petition, met with politicians both in the local area and beyond, and wrote
letters to politicians and The Daily Examiner.
And there were many others who wrote letters of concern to the paper as
well as some who wrote supporting the proposal.
It was an amazing time as there was a deluge of letters to the Examiner.
There has been nothing like it since!!
One of my
memories is taking part in a Jacaranda procession, probably in 1989. We used Geoff Welham’s truck which was
decorated with eucalypt branches, and driven by Rob Lans with Bill Noonan
beside him. Others of us, wearing koala masks, were on the back. As we drove down Prince Street, Bill had his
ghetto blaster on full volume blaring out John Williamson singing “Rip, rip
woodchip.” I think we drowned out music of the marching bands.
Following
Daishowa’s announcement that it would not be proceeding with its pulp mill
proposal, CVCC President Rosie wrote to the Examiner (4 April 1990)
praising the efforts of the community in defeating the proposal:
“It has been an interesting nineteen months; a period
that has seen the resolve of north coast people come to the fore; we have seen
People Power used in a democratic way to say ‘No’ to something that we knew would harm our
existing industries and our air and water.
If it had not been for the people of the Clarence Valley and their
attendance at public meetings, their letters to politicians, to newspapers in
Tokyo and our own Daily Examiner, and their strong support of the Clarence
Valley Conservation Coalition, we may have had a huge polluting industrial
complex set down in our midst, without a whimper.”
People Power
did do the job – but Rosie Richards and the others on the Coalition Committee
played a very important part in organizing and channelling that people power.
The lessons
of history never seem to be learned. Those
campaigning to protect the environment from the greed of pillagers face the
same problem today.
What Rosie
wrote in a letter to The Daily Examiner in November 1990 still applies
today:
“It seems that every time we stop for breath another
issue crops up that summons us to speak up for common sense and common
interest. Most of us would much rather
be doing other things besides acting as watchdogs for what we see as poor
bureaucratic decisions and flawed advice to governments.”
In the same
letter she answered a criticism that conservationists were “greedy”:
“We speak out as we do because we believe that the
people of today’s and tomorrow’s Australia will not be well served by a country
whose finite resources have been exhausted by sectional interests that have
until now not had to make long term plans for the sustainability of their
industries.”
The pulp
mill campaign was significant both in the Clarence and further afield. It reinforced the message of the other earlier
environmental victory – the success of the Clarence Valley Branch of the
National Parks Association in campaigning to save the Washpool Rainforest. Both of these campaigns showed the state
government and local councils as well as the North Coast community in general
that there were people who were prepared to campaign strongly for effective
protection of the natural environment.
Friday 29 September 2017
Memo to Clarence Valley Council, NSW Police and Berejiklian Government: This is just not good enough
Sometime in the past a number of unrecorded burials occurred in the little coastal village of Iluka, NSW, est. population 1,728 people.
These historic burials were done with care and at least some were marked out by timber posts.
This is how much care Clarence Valley Council, NSW Police and the Berejiklian Coalition Government are displaying towards the newly discovered dead.
BEFORE AND AFTER PHOTOS OF FIRST UNKNOWN GRAVESITE IN ILUKA
BEFORE: First unmarked gravesite where Ground Penetrating Radar confirmed one burial with a 9/10 chance it was human remains.
AFTER: First unmarked gravesite after desecration by police. Vegetation flattened and posts have disappeared leaving no trace of grave.
* Photographs taken by Iluka resident
Labels:
Clarence Valley Council,
history,
police
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