Australia and New Zealand ask International Whaling Commission to curb Japan's 'scientific' whaling program

Southern Minke Whale and calf

International Whaling Commission (IWC):

The International Whaling Commission is an Inter-governmental Organisation whose purpose is the conservation of whales and the management of whaling.  The legal framework of the IWC is the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling.  This Convention was established in 1946, making it one of the first pieces of international environmental legislation.  All member countries of the IWC are signatories to this Convention.  The IWC has a current membership of 88 Governments from countries all over the world.

The Guardian, 21 October 2016:

Australia has thrown its weight behind a bid to outlaw large-scale commercial and so-called “scientific” whaling at a summit next week.

The International Whaling Commission meeting in Slovenia follows Japan’s recent slaughter of more than 300 minke whales, many of them pregnant, when they resumed so-called scientific whaling after a hiatus because the International Court of Justice ruled the hunts were not scientific and should cease.

Australia has put forward a resolution to the conference that would require Japan to get approval from the IWC for its “scientific” quotas.

Japan is also expected to again face criticism from other countries for its whaling in the Southern Ocean, in defiance of the court ruling….

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the global moratorium on commercial whaling and 70 years since the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling was made.

In 2008 the Australian federal court found Japanese whaling in the Australian Whale Sanctuary to be in breach of Australian law and Japanese whaling company Kyodo was fined $1m in 2015. Attempts to recover the money have so far failed.

Kitty Block, the vice-president of the Humane Society International, which was part of the Australian legal action, said: “Japan’s unilateral resumption of its so-called ‘scientific’ hunt in the Southern Ocean last year is a slap in the face not just for the International Whaling Commission but also for the rule of law, as the international court of justice clearly ruled Japan’s previous Antarctic ‘research’ program to be illegal.”……

The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 October 2016:

Japan last year partially withdrew from the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice at The Hague to prevent any further challenge on whaling, and issued new guidelines that Tokyo claims justify killing more than 4000 whales in the next decade.

Conservation groups are urging the Turnbull government to send a patrol vessel to the Southern Ocean in the coming months to monitor Japan's whaling fleet.

International Whaling Commission - Draft Motion on Improving the Review Process for Whaling Under Special P... by clarencegirl on Scribd

https://www.scribd.com/document/328369267/international-whaling-commission-draft-motion-on-improving-the-review-process-for-whaling-under-special-permit-pre

Quote of the Month

Rolling Stone Magazine, 14 October 2016

Political Meme of the Week

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cu14Cd-VIAEubGZ.jpg

Say No To Shark Nets and watch turtle release at Lighthouse Beach, Ballina at 10am Sunday 23 October 2016

Councillor Keith Williams

18 October at 12:28 · 

Shark nets are not the answer.

Fundamentally shark nets don't keep people safe and 80% of what they kill will be harmless to humans.

Proponents of shark nets will tell you that there have been no shark attacks at a netted beach in NSW since 1937. Wrong.

NSW Dept of Primary Industries report 27 attacks including one fatality at netted beaches.

Assoc Prof Laurie Laurenson of Deakin University studied 50 years of data from shark mitigation programs (culling and netting). He found no statistical difference in the rate of shark attack and the density of sharks in an area.

The only shark mitigation measure in the world that has proven to be 100% effective is the Shark Spotters program in Cape Town, South Africa. Eleven years and not a single attack, in a very popular beach area with an abundance of White Sharks.

Shark attack is an incredibly rare event. 6 people in a year across the entire planet died from sharks in 2015. Almost everything else you can think of kills more people. More people died taking selfies.

Over the years, I've done a fair number of media interviews. But I have experienced nothing even remotely close to the media feeding frenzy that follows a shark attack.

I was there the day Cooper Allen was bitten a few weeks ago. Even as he was carried down the beach toward the surf club it was clear he would be OK. But still, within an hour, every major news outlet in the country was on the beach, posting hourly updates, gathering enough footage to lead the evening news bulletin. Totally out of proportion to what had actually just occurred.

There is no doubt our community is spooked. There is a genuine fear among our surfers. I regularly hear, "but something must be done". I agree.

We cannot ignore the impact on our community, on the town's reputation, on our tourism and hospitality industries which contribute so much to our local economy.

But we need to look at what hasn't been done yet and what might actually work.

Surf clubs have applied for funding for watch towers. A basic that has still not been funded.

A trial of paid professional shark spotters at Byron Bay was discontinued after no ongoing funding.

The Shark Watch group formed locally with no assistance from Council or the State Government. Specifically designed to keep watch on our surfers from headlands using volunteers and drones, the group is still waiting to hear on a funding application for $50,000 to provide equipment and training.

Where are the shark alarms we were promised?
Where are the shark bite first aid kits?
Why do we have a funding program for innovative responses, but the one company that has developed an effective deterrent, Shark Shield, is getting no assistance from government to get their product to market?

All of these things are far more effective in preventing shark attack than nets. But still we wait.

Shark nets are a fishing device, not a barrier. The nets in NSW are 150m long, 6m high and are placed in water 10-12m deep. As a fishing device they 

have the highest by-catch rate of any technique available.

I've spent the last 9 years of my life trying to protect and save our local sea turtle population through Australian Seabird Rescue. All species of sea turtle are at risk of extinction. Everything I've done will be wasted if we introduce shark nets. Quite simply the nets will kill more turtles than we have been able to save.

The 60 bottlenose dolphins that make up the Richmond River pod face decimation, with DPI staff estimating that up to 20 could be killed in the first few months of shark nets.

These are some of the reasons why I'll be joining my colleagues from Seabird Rescue at Lighthouse Beach at 10am this Sunday (23/10).

We'll be releasing Kimba the green sea turtle after 3 months in care. Back to the ocean, where the sharks also live. But the greatest threat to Kimba isn't sharks. It's humans.

Please join us in saying no to shark nets.

* Image from Facebook

Clarence Valley councillors at work post 2016 local government election - everything old is back again

Clarence Valley Council considered Item 14.094/16 DA2016/0281 on 18 October 2016 – A Rotational Outdoor Free Range Piggery upon Lot 51 DP751382, 550 Tullymorgan Road, Lawrence .

The 161ha property at 550 Tullymorgan Road, circa April 2016:

[Images of the property which is currently listed for sale at realestate.com.au and was listed in The Daily Examiner in April 2016]

This current application by the Sisson Family Trust is for a 75 sow piggery producing up to 1,500 piglets each year.  A Council staff member is the landowner and presumably a potential beneficiary of the trust.

Bravo to Cr. Greg Clancy for pointing out during the debate the manifest deficiencies in both the applicant & council’s approach to this development application to date.

The site inspection for the purposes of environmental assessment completed on 23 July 2016 only lasting approx. 2 hours which were spent inspecting areas of the site by vehicle and allegedly on foot, including areas proposed for pig paddocks, areas within the 100m buffer to natural waterbodies and bushland in the northern part of the site where pig grazing is not proposed.

Cr. Peter Ellem agreed more rigour should be exercised in the area of environmental/
threatened species assessments. Cr. Andrew Baker urged further expert opinion on EP& A provisions pertaining to the development. 

The Grafton putsch left over from the last council term was gung-ho for approval forthwith and for cutting “red tape”.  In the process putsch member Cr. Lysault demonstrated his ignorance of animal husbandry and farming practices.

Disappointingly this development application received what some would still consider premature consent - with Mayor Jim Simmons, Deputy Mayor Jason Kingsley, Cr. Arthur Lysault, Cr. Richie Williamson  and, first-time councillor Debrah Novak, voting in favour of an application which by council's own admission contained not one contemporary, detailed on the ground flora & fauna field study.

Then there is the matter of the vote in the Chamber.

When the previous council considered this development application at the ordinary meeting of 9 August 2016 there were two declarations of interest by councillors:

By the 18 October ordinary meeting those declarations of interest had shrunk to none registered by Cr. Simmons and apparently downgraded to a Non-Significant Non Pecuniary interest on the part of Cr. Kingsley, allowing both to remain in the Chamber for consideration of and vote in relation to a larger piggery being established on land owned by a member of Clarence Valley Council staff.

In fact the participation of the Mayor and Deputy Mayor in this 5 to 3 vote allowed consent to be granted without further ado:

One would have thought that given the landowner is employed by council and both Crs. Simmons and Kingsley had previously declared an interest a mere ten weeks ago, as newly appointed mayor and deputy mayor they would have exercised an abundance of caution and again excused themselves from considering this item to avoid even a perception of potential bias in favour of the landowner.

Old habits are not necessarily good habits and I hope this newly-elected council will approach the matter of pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests with more diligence over the next four years.

Is "Yes, Minister" syndrome rampant in the Turnbull Government?

In the face of this……

The Guardian, 3 October 2016:

The Coalition, contrary to all perceptions, has been spending at an alarming rate. 

In 2012-13, the last full year of the previous Labor government, the ratio of government spending to GDP was 24.1%. 

In 2014-15, this had risen to 25.6% and, in 2015-16, it rose to 25.7% of GDP. 

The 1.6% of GDP blowout in spending between 2012-13 and 2015-16 is about $26bn and accounts for more than the blowout in the deficit from the time of the 2014 budget.

The deficit blowout fed into the level of government debt as it had to ramp up its borrowing to cover the ever growing shortfall.

Net government debt rose to $296.4bn at June 2016, up from $153bn in June 2013 just before the Coalition took power. 

As a share of GDP, net government debt has risen from 10% to 18%, just off the all-time high in the wake of the second world war. 

When the 2016 Myefo is released before year end, net government debt will be at a 60-year high and rising.

Gross government debt, according to the final budget outcome documents, rose to $420.4bn, or 25.5% of GDP, in June 2016. This is at the highest since 1971-72 when the Vietnam war effort was being funded.

And this......

The Australian Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee was informed on 19 October 2016 that all public health cost-cutting measures previously supported by the Turnbull Government are still being progressed as policy.

The Turnbull Government is doing this…..

The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 October 2016:

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spent an estimated $215,000 or more sending nearly two dozen senior bureaucrats from Canberra to Paris to attend an inhouse talkfest about ways to save money.

Fairfax Media can reveal the two day junket in September included business class return travel for all 23 DFAT officers.

They included John Philp, Australia's former ambassador to Afghanistan and current first assistant secretary of the consular and crisis management division and John Fisher, first assistant secretary of DFAT's corporate management division.

But the entourage, which was hosted for the two day conference by Australia's ambassador to France, Stephen Brady, included a departmental psychologist, a conduct and ethics manager, and a health and safety officer, according to a list of attendees obtained by Fairfax Media.

According to the Qantas website, the cheapest business class "saver" ticket to Paris costs $3800 one-way, indicating the group of 23 cost at least $175,000 in airfares alone for the 48-hour jaunt.

The group stayed at the four-star Mercure Paris Centre Eiffel Tower Hotel where standard rooms for mid-week business travellers start at $530 a night, according to booking websites…..

That figure does not include the as yet unknown cost of getting more than two dozen Europe-based diplomatic staff to Paris.

The conference, hosted at the Australian embassy just near the Eiffel Tower, was held to discuss a project known internally as "Redesign" and aimed at "streamlining work and improving efficiencies at posts in Europe", according to DFAT.

According to a source familiar with the September 7 to 9 conference, some Australian-based participants wondered why the conference could not have been held via a cheaper and perhaps more agile fashion like video conferencing…..