Australia's water future explained?

Graphic taken from An Atlas of the Global Water Cycle

Click on image to enlarge

Australian National University E Press has published an online version of An Atlas of the Global Water Cycle.

This atlas seeks to bring together all the IPCC AR4 Climate Models for comparison and states:

We used the above-noted data to compile maps for the globe and for Australia showing precipitation, evaporation and their difference (i.e., runoff) for the historic period (1970-1999) and for the future (2070-2099). Each set of maps is accompanied by tables that summarise the precipitation, evaporation and their difference, by continent, and then by latitude that is further split into land and ocean components. The tables also summarise the differences between simulations of historic (1970-1999) and future (2070-2099) precipitation, evaporation and their difference.

While these maps and graphs are of some academic interest, there is no certainty as to which model is likely to accurately model rainfall patterns for the next 100 years across the Australian continent.

So average laypersons using this atlas are unlikely to be any the wiser when it comes to deciding on the probable level of future water security in the area in which they live, work or run a business.

Oh, Tweety Pie! Wot haz u dun?

Apparently business bots are alive 'n well and watching Twitter for unfavourable mentions.

A timely warning from ComputerWorld:
"A Chicago-area woman is being sued for $US50,000 by her landlord over a critical Tweet, the Chicago Sun-Times reported today. The landlord is quoted as describing itself as a "sue first and ask questions later kind of an organization." The tweet in question appeared to go to fewer than 20 friends of the sender.
Listen people, you can get sued for Tweets the same as you can get sued over something you post to a Web site or blog. You may think you are only tweeting to friends, but unless you select "Protect My Tweets" on your Twitter "account" page your tweets are both public and searchable. Facebook isn't safe, either.
Companies are already using bots to mind their Twitter reputations, alerting them when their companies are mentioned in Twitter conversation. Thus, it was only a matter of time before the lawyers showed up."

And other litigation ruffling Twitter's feathers is also alive and annoying in the good ol' US of A.

Another report from Computer World:
TechRadium, a provider of mass notification and emergency alert systems to school districts, municipal governments, the U.S. military and other organizations, has filed a lawsuit charging Twitter with patent infringement........
The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, seeks among other things unspecified damages, recovery of attorneys' fees and a permanent injunction against Twitter.

The patents Twitter is allegedly infringing are patent number 7,130,389, granted in October 2006 for a "digital notification and response system"; patent number 7,496,183, granted in February 2009 for a "method for providing digital notification"; and patent number 7,519,165, granted in April 2009 for a "method for providing digital notification and receiving responses."

This litigation will be interesting 'cause Twitter was started in March 2006 and TechRadium only had its first patent granted in October 2006.

Cartoon from Flickr
Snapshot from Twitter
Patent image from Free Patents Online

The plural possessive which sinks Malcolm Turnbull

Image from The Australian

In an effort to extricate himself from a political debacle of his own making Liberal Party Leader Malcolm Turnbull released a series of emails over the last few days.
What is very telling in the email above is the use by disgraced public servant Gordon Grech of the term "we".
It points to longer contact than Turnbull admits to when it comes to details of the OzCar project and a comfortable relationship between both parties to the correspondence.
Big Mal claims he was duped, but this "we" clearly shows that he was already in a Conspiracy of the Willing.

Neither Turnbull or Senator Abetz are seen as credible in their protestations of innocence since Grech was exposed as a probable long-term Coalition mole within Treasury.

Time for both to do their party a favour and resign?

Otherwise Utegate will be a monkey on the party's back right through to the next federal election.

Pic from dumville

Hallam speaks out against latest push to raid Clarence River catchment water

From A Clarence Valley Protest this week:

Jack Hallam comes out with a fighting "No" to new Clarence water diversion proposal

Former NSW Labor Minister for Agriculture & Fisheries and current Uki resident Jack Hallam (who started his career as a Riverina rice farmer) has come out strongly against the latest push to divert Clarence River catchment water, according to ABC News today:

But a former state agriculture and fisheries minister says the proposal would be a total disaster.Jack Hallam, who served on the front bench for the Wran Government, rang ABC Local Radio today after hearing of the latest campaign by the Murray Darling Association.Mr Hallam says floodwaters play a key role in maintaining one of the coast's most important fisheries."Flood is a good thing," Mr Hallam said."We are concerned about the damage of floods very often because of extremely bad planning 30 and 40 years ago, but if you don't have these events you don't have the fish spawn," he said."The fish, the prawn fishery, other major fisheries are totally dependent on these flood events," Mr Hallam said."It (the diversion plan) would be an absolute total disaster," he said.

Well said, Jack.

Photograph from the Tweed Shire Echo

Australian Communications Minister prepares to rig results of Internet filtering trial?

Hello? The Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and his department contracted with Enex TestLab to undertake a live pilot of national ISP-level Internet filtering and prepare a report to government.

Now this week IT News reports that:

Senator Conroy has committed to the public release of a report based on the data gleaned from the Federal Government's trial of ISP-level internet filtering.

"The Government has committed to publicly release the trial report prepared by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy on the results of the live pilot trial," a spokesman for the Communications Minister told iTnews.

The report will be prepared internally by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) and based on data collected by Enex TestLab during the trial it has conducted with nine Australian internet service providers (ISPs).

Does Senator Conroy really imagine that no-one will harbour dark suspicions that the first draft of the report Enex presented did not meet his expectations and fear he is now preparing to spin the data?

If the content is good enough, people will pay says News Digital Media

If the content is good enough, people will pay says News Digital Media's Richard Freudenstein in a guest post over at mUmBRELLA.
Short reply, Dick - bollocks!

Northern Rivers EDO public meeting on Transgrid proposal for new high-voltage transmission lines, Tenterfield 6pm 7 August 2009

The Environmental Defender's Office Northern Rivers is providing legal and other advice to the Upper Dumaresq Action Group on the TransGrid proposal to build new high-voltage transmission lines between Bonshaw, Tenterfield and Lismore.

The EDO is holding a public meeting THIS FRIDAY to

· give a different perspective on the justification for the project

· inform affected residents about their rights

· address community concerns

School Hall

Tenterfield High School

High St, Tenterfield

Friday 7 August

5.45 for 6 pm sharp start – 7.30 pm

For more information, please call Mark Byrne at the EDO Northern Rivers

on 1300 369 791 or Lyn Lacey on 67375477

Possum Comitatus does June 2009 Australian labor force statistics by region

Map showing changes in unemployment rate by region since the 2007 election

Click map to enlarge

1. Where the derived unemployment rate has actually reduced since the last election (yes, as surprising as it might sound, such places do exist!). We'll represent these regions with a cross-hatch.

2. Where the unemployment rate has increased by between zero and 3% since the last election. We'll represent these areas with vertical horizontal lines (Ha! Sorry about that…)

3. Where the unemployment rate has increased by more than 3% since the last election. We'll represent these areas as vertical lines.

Once again Possum shines a light on statistics and gives an easily digestible representation of the growing mountain of numbers which now come our way thanks to the cyber highway.

This year the NSW North Coast continues showing an positive picture when it comes to falling unemployment rates.

The Tweed-Richmond & Mid North Coast showed a regional unemployment rate of 7.1% for the May quarter - a fall of 1.1% on the same quarter in 2008 and a regional rate of 6.3% for the June quarter 2009.

However, it must be remembered that this region starts from a chronically high rate compared to the New South Wales average and as people become discouraged by a lack of local employment prospects the workforce participation rate continues to be relatively low.

Kevin 07 re-election gig gossip

PS News had this little snippet of gossip:

"PS-sssst...!
Ad hocked!
Even geniuses have their day – at least in the advertising industry.
Accomplished adman Neil Lawrence must be wondering what it takes to keep a service contract after being overlooked by the Australian Labor Party for its next big re-election gig.
You see, Neil was the whizz-kid who ran the vote-winning “Kevin 07” campaign that so endeared our then-plucky PM-wannabe (and former Public Servant) K. Rudd into the election winning Prime Ministerial seat of power. Spurned by Labor, Mr Lawrence is now free to make his way into the Coalition camp to pay back the favour and put his undoubted talents to work for them. Could that be a “Welcome Malcolm” slogan I see bubbling up?"

Update:
Seems that public service gossip is not all it's cracked up to be.
Apparently Neil withdrew from the fray rather than got the push.

Neverending UteGate Saga: transcript of the Auditor General's report

Sometimes it feels like Utegate just won't die.

What with Malcolm Turnbull allowing ABC TV's Australian Story to remain behind the scenes with him as that fake smoking gun email blew up in his face and his prior dealings with a public servant increasingly exposed as something very like a political conspiracy.

The Federal Leader of the Opposition's Utegate 'scandal' is looking very like an old wreck in the back paddock.

At least the Auditor General's report, Representations to the Department of the Treasury in Relation to Motor Dealer Financing Assistance, is finally out and concludes in part:

15. Concerning the issue of whether preferential treatment was given to Mr Grant's case, the Treasurer spoke briefly with Mr Grant, at the request of the Member for Oxley. Treasury was aware that the dealer was acquainted with the Prime Minister, but there is no evidence that the Prime Minister was aware of the representation, or that the Treasurer or his Office applied any pressure on Treasury to give this dealer more or better assistance than others.

16. Some attention has also focused on three progress reports in relation to the Ipswich Central Motors/John Grant Motors representation that were sent to the Treasurer's home facsimile. The available evidence is that the Treasurer had raised concerns that this representation indicated that delays in operationalising the SPV was having an adverse effect on motor dealers. The first report was provided at the initiative of the Departmental Liaison Officer in the Treasurer's Office so as to provide some reassurance to the Treasurer that, notwithstanding the delay with operationalising the SPV, viable dealers were still able to receive assistance. The second and third reports were provided at the initiative of Treasury, by using the 'Reply to All' function within the email system10, noting that the Treasurer was not in Brisbane when the second report was sent. Following the third report, as the Treasurer was not seeking ongoing updates on the status of this particular representation, the Treasurer's Office sought to indicate to Treasury that reports should not be sent to the Treasurer's home facsimile. No further updates were provided to the Treasurer in respect to the Ipswich Central Motors/John Grant Motors representation.

17. The approach taken to assist Ipswich Central Motors/John Grant Motors was proposed by Mr Grech and, when initial attempts to assist the dealer were unsuccessful, no further assistance was offered by Treasury, or sought by the dealer either from Treasury or Ministers. The dealer has since made arrangements for ongoing wholesale floorplan finance from other sources without further departmental assistance.

All 120 pages of the report can be found here.

Photograph by muffin51 at Photobucket

Jules takes a lighthearted look at the Murray Darling Association's obsession with Clarence water

Jules Faber cartoon in The Daily Examiner, 3 August 2009, page 10

The Daily Examiner deputy editor and journalist David Bancroft has a serious look at the latest push by southern water raiders in a Page One article: FRESH BID FOR VALLEY WATER: Western councils seek dam, diversion tunnel on Clarence.

In August 2009 the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination meets in Geneva - where to now Australia?

From a 30 July 2009 media release:

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination will hold its seventy-fifth session at the Palais Wilson in Geneva from 3 to 28 August 2009 to review anti-discrimination efforts undertaken by the Governments of Peru, United Arab Emirates, Poland, China, Greece, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Chile, Chad, the Philippines and Ethiopia.

These countries are among the 173 States parties to the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination. The 18-member Committee, the first body created by the United Nations to review actions by States to fulfil obligations under a specific human rights treaty, examines reports submitted periodically by States parties on efforts to comply with the Convention. Government representatives generally present the report, discuss its contents with Committee members, and answer questions. In addition, the Committee will consider a number of situations under its Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedure.

During the course of the four-week session, the Committee will continue its consideration of a draft general recommendation on special measures (i.e. measures to secure adequate advancement of certain racial or ethnic groups or individuals to ensure their equal enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms; sometimes known as "affirmative action"). It will examine individual communications of violations of the Convention (in closed session), and consider follow-up information submitted by States parties in relation to the observations and recommendations of the Committee. In accordance with a decision taken at its seventy-third session, the Committee will also consider matters related to the Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council. In addition, it will discuss possible follow up to the Durban Review Conference (held in Geneva in April 2009).

There was a request for urgent action lodged with this Committee in January 2009 concerning the actions taken under Commonwealth Northern Territory Emergency Response (Intervention) legislation.

As the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination had handed down a determination in 2005 expressing concern over the lack any entrenched guarantee against racial discrimination in this country, in 2008 requested that Australia comply with its outstanding reporting obligations and, in May 2009 the UN Special Rapporteur's Report on Mission to Australia appeared to still be expressing concerns over matters covered by the Intervention and indigenous standards of living generally, it can hardly be impressed with the continuing suspension of the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act in order to enforce income management and acquisition of leasehold rights over certain indigenous lands.

Subsequent to that urgent request it has been reported by The National Indigenous Times on 23 July 2009 that:

On February 25, 2009 the Australian Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva met with the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) to assure the Committee that the Australian Government was taking the steps to comply with its human rights obligations under international law.
According to the letter sent to the Ambassador by CERD on 13 March 2009, the Australian Mission had assured the Committee that the government was undertaking consultations with the Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory to reinstate, and provide consistency with, the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA).
CERD has asked the government to report again by July 31 2009 on the progress being made by the government in redesigning service delivery in consultation with the communities.

However, on March 25, 2009 the Minister received advice from the department that consultations with communities should be managed to meet pre-determined government outcomes.

All in all CERD's closed sessions should be interesting to say the least, as it does not appear that in 2009 the Rudd Government intends to fully comply with its undertakings under the UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination nor those set out in the recently endorsed UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and therefore might be considered in breach of its obligations.

As in May 2009 another UN body the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights also called on Australia to lift its game in relation to the rights of indigenous Australians, one has to wonder what on earth the Rudd Government thinks it is doing post-Apology.

Transcript of UN COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS 42TH SESSION AUSTRALIA, 4TH REPORT 5 AND 6 MAY 2009

Cyberspace: so little time, so much to do!

Graphic at News.com.au

Sometimes opening an online news page should come with a health warning for trivia collectors and wannabe record breakers.
News.com.au has just proclaimed the Internet is so big that "If you spent just one minute reading every website in existence, you’d be kept busy for 31,000 years. Without any sleep."
Which will be a real challenge for Australia's "16,926,015 internet users".
And an even bigger pile of bedtime reading for the Minister for Censorship, Stevie Conroy!

Position Vacant August 2009: Editor, The Daily Examiner, Grafton NSW

The Daily Examiner, 1 August 2009

Ben Eltham takes aim right between the eyes of a pop demographer

It is no secret that here at North Coast Voices some of the bloggers haven't much time for relentless self-promoter Bernard Salt's demographic pontificating.

In the past we looked at his pronouncements in The weird world of Bernard Salt and Bernard Salt says Angourie is dead: Angourie villagers and visitors fall about laughing.

However it took Ben Eltham over at Larvatus Prodeo to finally take a blunt scalpel to this pop demographer in a post titled Bernard Salt: pop demographer.

Apparently Bernard's last foray into urban growth areas was more than poor Ben could take and he decided that a demographer's mounted head would look good hanging over the fireplace.

Eltham has issued this invitation over at LP:

Salt's final two paragraphs barely deserve discussion. Attacking that venerable straw man, the "urban elites", plays well with Murdoch journalists eager to file some supporting "expert opinion" in their copy, but this particular assertion is completely unsupported by any data. And as for "this satellite existence" being the "new Australia", the last time I checked, outer-suburban housing development has been going on in Australia for at least a century.

Got any more fallacies and outrageous generalisations from Bernard Salt? Post them here, and we'll attempt to exert at least some scrutiny of Australia's most-quoted and least accurate "demographer."

Photpgraph from www.bernardsalt.com.au

Just a little question, Kev. Whatever happened to the Pacific Climate Change Alliance?

In July 2007 Federal Labor announced a plan for International Development Assistance and Climate Change.
In November 2007 it won government.
So Prime Minister, what is the state of play concerning the Pacific Climate Change Alliance?
With Oxfam Australia and the Australia Institute releasing a report stating that up to 75 million people are likely to be on the move in the Asia-Pacific due to climate change over the next 41 years, the fate of the promised alliance is more than a trifling concern.
Many of the areas where climate change refugees will be first forced out are within easy sailing of Australia.
It's also hard to run away from the distinct possibility that a lack of food, water and land security will destabilise our region and that armed conflict will occur if land pressure intensifies.
The Pacific Island Forum Leaders Meeting begins in Cairns this week, so perhaps I won't be the only one asking this question.

Want to find out what population displacement might feel like, Kev?
Then keep f**a**ing about just like the former tenant of The Lodge.

Talking about effluent in the Big Dry.....

Every few years it seems that somebody wants to turn one or another New South Wales coastal river inland against the wishes of the majority of coastal dwellers.
Well, for about 40 years there has also been an alternative idea doing the rounds under the radar so to speak - pumping treated effluent via a pipeline through the Great Dividing Range into the Murray and Darling river network.
So that this now almost potable water goes inland rather than into coastal rivers and the ocean.

Lower Clarence River resident

Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents. Email ncvguestpeak at live dot com dot au to submit comment for consideration.

Boy the Wonder Cat receives the ultimate Nigerian phishing scam?

This rather amusing email turned up in Boy the Wonder Cat's email inbox recently:

Good day,
This programme is awarded for all victims who were previously scammed by the internet fraudsters ,
The Financial Commitee of the UN-HABITAT Programme have deposited your Settlement Check Parcel of $500,000.00 USD with Reference Number UN013-0156/UPS-UN-HABITAT to the United Parcel Service of Nigeria(UPS)
You are to contact the United Parcel Service of Nigeria (UPS) with
your details for more information.
CONTACT:
E-mail:ups_deliveryunits02@live.com
Tel: +234-7060-516-059
Accept Our regards.
Pathangery Latha
UN-HABITAT Senior Information Officer
PLEASE REPLY TO:ups_deliveryunits02@live.com

Show me the money Mr. Crawford says NSW Industrial Relations Commission

The NSW Industrial Relations Commission has temporarily short-armed the North Coast Area Health Service's drive to shed another 300 jobs.
Chief Executive Officer Chris Crawford has been asked to show proof of current savings and outline savings anticipated by further staffing cuts.
Fractured fairytales coming up!

Editor made use of internet sources, but he forgot to thank them

The front page of today's Daily Examiner carries a report written by its editor, Peter Chapman, about the disqualification of a jockey whose urine sample tested positive to a banned substance.

Racing NSW stewards disqualified the hoop for 12 months on the basis of an analyst's finding of an opioid in a sample taken from the jockey after he completed trackwork in July.

According to Chapman, "the test revealed traces of the prohibited drug, Buprenorphine, in his system".

No, Peter, stewards did not reveal to the public just what the jock's sample contained.

Chapman proceeded to provide readers with the duck's guts about Buprenorphine.

Although it made for interesting reading, Chapman didn't say that the information provided about the substance was lifted from any one of a number of sources on the internet. And, of course, he didn't acknowledge the source/s.

Even more interesting, was what Chapman (with all his editing skills) elected to leave out about the substance's adverse effects.

In addition to the effects stated, the source/s Chapman 'borrowed' from also stated that the substance had the potential to affect a chap's love making.

Thanks, Peter, for sparing the readers those details!

Read Chapman's piece in The Daily Examiner's here.

Australia can now participate in Kyoto international carbon trading according to Minister for Climate Change and Water

The Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong this week announced that Australia's emissions trading registry has been issued with Australia's Kyoto units for the 2008-2012 Kyoto Protocol period.
The Secretariat to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has confirmed Australia's units, or Assigned Amount Units, for the 2008-2012 commitment period, were 2,957,579,143 tonnes of CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions.
This is equivalent to 108 per cent of 1990-level emissions. Senator Wong said the issuing of the Kyoto units meant Australia could now participate in international emissions trading under the Kyoto Protocol.
The Kyoto Protocol allows for countries to create and acquire Kyoto units from other countries via three mechanisms and use those units to meet their targets.
The registry, which will be administered initially by the Department of Climate Change, will track and record all Australian trade in Kyoto units.
[Queensland Farmers Federation Weekly Bulletin,31 July 2009]

Marine Wonderland: Lismore Regional Gallery exhibition open until 5 September 2009

Dailan Pugh

Resting Wobbegong 2007

oil on canvas

One of the art works on display at the Marine Wonderland exhibition at Lismore Regional Gallery, 131 Molesworth Street, Lismore NSW, open Tuesday to Saturday 10am - 4pm and Thursday 10am - 6pm. Admission Free

I turn my back for five minutes and look what happens!

I don't know - take off on hols leaving blogging behind and look what happens.

Between 24th and 26th July Truffles Turnbull broke his own Australian Liberal Leader of the Opposition record for unpopularity.

Not only does he trail Kevin Rudd as preferred prime minister by 50 percentage points, he also has 50% of those polled dissatisfied with his performance compared to only 26% dissatisfied with Rudders.

And a sparse 34% in the survey say that they will vote for the party he heads.

Turnbull only has to fall another 10 points and he will beat Brendan Nelson's all-time Newspoll low as "Better PM".

With Tony Abbott talking about a return to WorkChoices (Mark 2) should the Coalition regain Government and helpfully suggesting that the retirement age should be raised even further to 70 years of age, it's almost a certainty that Truffles will slide further in voter estimation.

Click on The Australian image to enlarge

Water Security Hall of Shame for South Australian would be water raiders

In A Clarence Valley Protest this morning:

South Australian LGA Water Security Hall of Shame

It isn't only Alexandrina Council in South Australia which doesn't seem to understand that it would be environmental vandalism of the worst sort to attempt to cure a desperate lack of water security in one inland catchment area ie., the Murray Darling Basin, by placing a relatively healthy coastal catchment at risk by diverting part of its freshwater flow which sustains both a growing population base, significant primary industry and a large, productive estuary system and wetlands.

There are other local governments which appear to be hitching their star to an impossible dream with clearly no understanding of either geography or hydrology, particularly when it comes to Coorong District Council's idea that damming the headwaters of the Clarence River would actually result in high water volumes comparable to the Snowy Mountain Scheme.

In the Clarence Valley locals are well aware that these headwaters are often so sparse that it is almost possible to leap the flow in a single bound.

What is also most noticeable is that these councils are all singing from the same song sheet.

Here is the beginning of the 2009 Water Security Hall of Shame:

Victor Harbour Council:

16. MOTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Moved: Cr P Chigwidden Seconded: Cr P Lewis

That Council forward a letter to the Secretary of the Murray Darling Association (MDA) Region 6 Committee in support of the following recommendations:

1. That the MDA Conference expresses its dismay at the outcome of the deliberations regarding the final results of the inter-government agreement on the governance of the Basin andcalls upon the Federal Government to intervene and take overthe governance arrangements and to create a truly independent Murray Darling Basin Authority; and

2. That the MDA Conference call for the Federal Government to re-examine the question of the Clarence River Diversion Studyrelative to water flows through the Murray Darling System.

CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY

Mid Murray Council :

Region 6 - Murray Darling Association:

11120/2 Cr Bormann moved that Council support Region 6 of the Murray Darling Association in putting forward the Notice of Motion to its National Conference calling for the Federal Government to re-examine the question of the Clarence River Diversion Study, relative to water flows through the Murray Darling River System.

Seconded Cr Burgess.

CARRIED

Coorong District Council:

Councillor Wright moves;

"That The Coorong District Council, through Region 6 of the Murray Darling Association, request that the new Murray Darling Basin Authority ask the Federal Government to re-examine the Clarence River Diversion Proposal relative to water flows through the Murray Darling River System.

Cr. Peter Wright

Process

The request would proceed via a Notice of Motion to be presented at the 2009 Annual General Meeting of the Murray Darling Association.

Explanation

This proposed diversion of the Clarence River was first discussed in the 1930's. More recently, the Fraser Liberal Government allocated $4 million to fund a feasibility study into the scheme. This was subsequently discontinued by the Hawke Labor Government.

The proposal, if feasible, would involve the construction of a head water dam on the Clarence River, with a 22km tunnel under the Gibralta Ranges in Northern NSW. This tunnel would emerge on the Murray Darling Basin side of the Ranges and feed into the Beardy River, then the McIntyre River and ultimately, into the Basin. The Gibralta Ranges are situated in one of the highest rainfall areas in Australia. The Clarence River is like most east coast rivers in that it is very short, with a high volume discharge into the sea during high volume events.

Benefits of the scheme include:

• The capacity of the dams would have a storage ability approaching that of the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

• The capacity of head water storage would provide flood control to the Clarence Valley.

• The diversion would only require 24% of the total maximum storage volume to provide similar volumes of water to the Basin as the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

• No pumping of water is required – the entire scheme would be gravity-fed.

• The generation of hydroelectricity is another major benefit.

This Notice of Motion is not a request to build the scheme, but to revisit it in the context of recent climatic events and over-allocations in the Murray Darling Basin.

Cr. Peter Wright

NOTICE OF MOTION

081/09

Moved Cr. Wright Sec. Cr. Bland that The Coorong District Council, through Region 6 of the Murray Darling Association, request that the new Murray Darling Basin Authority ask theFederal Government to re-examine the Clarence River Diversion Proposal relative to water flows through the Murray Darling River System.

CARRIED

Council of the Rural City of Murray Bridge:

804 MOTIONS ON NOTICE

804.1 CR BOB ENGLAND – REGION 6 MDA – CLARENCE RIVER DIVERSION STUDY (SF316)

I, Councillor Bob England having complied with the requirements of Regulation 13 of the Local Government (Procedures at Meetings) Regulations 2000, hereby give Notice of the following motion to be submitted at the meeting of the Council of theRural City of Murray Bridge to be held on 14 April, 2009 at 7 pm.

I will move:

That Rural City of Murray Bridge note that Region 6 of the Murray Darling Association intends moving a resolution along the following lines at the September AGM of the MDA:

That Region 6 calls on the Murray Darling Association to urge the Federal Government to re-examine the Clarence River Diversion.

Cr England moved

That Rural City of Murray Bridge note that Region 6 of the Murray Darling Association intends moving a resolution along the following lines at the September AGM of the MDA:

That Region 6 calls on the Murray Darling Association to urge the Federal Government to re-examine the Clarence River Diversion Study relative to water flows through the Murray Darling River system.

Seconded by Cr Schubert and CARRIED

There aren't any jobs on a dead planet**

By the time Kevin Rudd had closed comment on the inaugural Focus on Climate Change post at PM's Blog last week there were 939 published comments listed.

This was a fairly respectable response given that all participants had to register, comment was moderated and, comment publication was restricted to business hours which meant that there was limited debate on opinions put forward.

This week it appears that the Prime Minister via his second post wants a very brief snapshot of the nation's reaction to the NHHC report on health care reform, because there are less than four full days allotted for comment.

By 12.45pm on Tuesday 28 July 2009 there were a mere 20 comments on his health post, which worked out at only 1.1 comments per hour since that post went online.

Oh, and by the way, the Prime Minster's second post is erroneously tagged as a health blog when in fact it is a post on the PM's Blog - a mildly annoying little error.

** Line from a comment on Australian Prime Minister's first post on his new official blog.

Update:

no_filter_YambaPM's Blog a fail with only 97 comments on his health reform post? Or too early to tell? http://bit.ly/2K2Hzbless than 5 seconds ago from web

Monotremes: Looking for love in all the wrong places

Photograph from Deography

It's Echidna (Spiny Anteater) breeding season once more and those cute little spiny monotremes are on the move across the NSW North Coast.
Because echidna trains and lone animals sometimes wander across roads or into urban areas, please take care when driving on local roads and be mindful that it may be an amorous anteater which has your dog barking to get out at night and not someone you need to see off the property.
Echidas move suprisingly quickly so there is no need to interfere with any trek across your garden.

Confronting an animal will only cause it to dig-in and raise its spines.

Those pesky water raiders are after Clarence River catchment fresh water again

From A Clarence Valley Protest today:

Alexandrina Council water raiders refuse to take resounding "No" for an answer

Given that the Clarence Valley has firmly said no to any Clarence River catchment freshwater diversion scheme it is surprising to find that some people cannot abide having their will crossed.

ITEM 36 ELECTED MEMBERS REPORTS
36.1 Clarence River Diversion Study - Cr Tuckwell
File Ref: 9.24.1
Officer: Councillor Frank Tuckwell

REPORT
A proposed submission to the 2009 National Conference of the Murray Darling Association to be held in the Playford Council area, SA in September 2009.

The Process
The Murray Darling Association (Region 6) at their February meeting passed a resolution requesting its five member Council's support for placing a Notice of Motion in reference to the Clarence River Diversion Study on the AGM of the National Conference to be held at Playford in September. It is important that all member Councils respond before April 30 to allow the Region 6 Board to prepare a full submission to the MDA Federal Board meeting in May. This will allow any redrafting that may be required to be done to be completed and returned to the Federal Board by June.

The Proposal
As this Council has led and supported this proposal for the past two years, once again we have the opportunity to lead the call for a Clarence River Diversion Study to be placed before the Federal Government by the National Conference of the Murray Darling Association. The MDA has for almost thirty years pressed for a complete scientific, environmental and engineering study for this proposal. The concept has been called for from within the Basin by its communities since the 1930's and it gained support of the Fraser Government who put $4M on its estimates to do the study. However they were succeeded by the Hawke Government who had other important priorities, so the proposal lapsed Now more than ever it is important that this proposal be put into the political field again. The worst drought the Basin has lived through has ironically seen massive flooding on almost all of the east coast rivers just scores of kilometres across the Great Divide from the dry Basin.
There are many calls for pipelines and other schemes to provide large scale water diversion to the lower sections of the continent, but the MDA has been both consistent and persistent in pursuing the Clarence River Study. Once again the MDA stresses that in calling for the study that this is not a question of whether the Diversion shall or shall not be built, but that as a matter of urgency this important study should be carried out to determine which case is proven.

RECOMMENDATION
That the Alexandrina Council supports Region 6 of the Murray Darling Association in putting forward the Notice of Motion to its National Conference calling for the Federal Government to re-examine the question of the Clarence River Diversion Study, relative to water flows through the Murray Darling River System.

See: Council_Agenda_6th_April_2009.pdf

U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues highlights exploitative natural resource development still an issue

In May 2009 the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues welcomed Australia's belated endorsement of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

One of the aims of that declaration is; The free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples must be obtained before investments are made on projects affecting their lands, territories and resources and before such projects are brought into indigenous lands and territories.

However, from reading the forum's Report on the eighth session, it is obvious that concerns remain about how nations access natural resources or create infrastructure on land or territories owned by indigenous peoples.

The Permanent Forum has paid particular attention to the significant increase in the infrastructure budget of the World Bank, from $15 billion to $45 billion in 2009, for the primary economies of developing States. The implications of this development in relation to the respect and protection of indigenous peoples' rights have to be clearly understood, and the imperative of getting the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples affected by infrastructure projects has to be guaranteed. The Forum also urges the World Bank to provide additional operational budget to manage this large increase in infrastructure spending. The Permanent Forum reiterates its previous recommendations that the World Bank revise its operational safeguard policies to be consistent with the provisions of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Amnesty International (Australia) sending butterflies to Rudd in support of justice for WW2 'comfort women'

Amnesty International (Australia) is running a campaign in support of the rights of World War Two comfort women and invites people to create and send a butterfly to the Prime Minister:

In the year 2009, you'd think governments would have well and truly faced the atrocities of World War II. Yet up to 200,000 women who were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers have still not received an adequate apology - let alone compensation - from the Japan Government.

Their chosen symbol of hope is the butterfly.
We're going to cover the web in beautiful butterflies in the run up to August 15th - the anniversary of WWII's end - to highlight this hidden tragedy.

Each butterfly will represent a message to the Australian PM to pass a motion urging the Japan Government to recognise and compensate survivors. In all this time, Australia is one of the few Allied countries that hasn't stood up and called the Japanese Government to account.