North Coast Voices

Saturday, 7 April 2012

Art on the wing over Northern NSW

Katherine Castle Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos

Tanya Walker jabirus

Elizabeth Starkey Albert's Lyrebird

Noel Caldwell Boobook, 2007

Three tales of the same Tweed River

“The Tweed Shire council have funded a report on boat wake and river bank erosion. The report is very misleading, inaccurate and BIAS towards boat wake. The report does not comment about how the natural environment and human kind has an effect on the river banks or even the recent floods on the Tweed!
There is a group called TRAC (Tweed River Awareness Committee) and they have uploaded a website for YOU to have your say to all of the Tweed Shire Councillors! WE NEED to have our say because we are up against a minority group that have do not have anything better to do then voice up and complain!” howled rubberjohnny. Rather strangely ignoring the fact that this study did take the natural environment into account and definitely looked at flood impact.

Over at tweedriverusers.org an unknown voice was getting all shouty about sneaky bans being just around the corner for Tweed boaties. Mr. Unknown seemed to believe that just because a river erosion study on the NSW South Coast did not identify wave action generated by boats as a problem this applied as a natural law to all Aussie rivers.

Apparently this Tweed River ban will be capable of blinding and strangling water skiers as well – if this pic is to be believed.

Of course Tweed Council is doing little to douse the conspiratorial flames, because the Mayor foolishly tried to play down the fact that recommendations in the Impact of Wake on Tweed River Bank Erosion Study did contain Supplementary Bank Enhancement Measures which listed “Vessel management to restrict boat wake waves” and that council “has oversighted the preparation and implementation of detailed management plans for specific sections of the river and specific issues eg. bank erosion” according to NSW Roads & Maritime Services.

Turn it up, fellas! Any fool can see power boats won't be banned from the river - they'll just have to keep to a 'below hoon' speed and maybe stop towing water skiers in particularly vulberable areas.

Friday, 6 April 2012

More New England madness.........

From A Clarence Valley Protest on 27 March 2012:

Those New England vandals have reared their heads again

Goodwood Island in the Clarence River estuary
Click on Google Earth image to enlarge

Former President of the New South Wales Farmers Association, member of the federal Ministerial Advisory Council on Regional Australia, current Inverell Shire Mayor and Chair of Regional Development Australia: Northern Inland NSW Mal Peters, along with fellow RDANI committee members Les Parsons, Heather Ranclaud, Neil Argent, Scott McLachlan, Ray Tait, Matt Patterson, Jane Kreis, Melanie Dowell, Sue Price, Ian Lobsey, and Anita Taylor (in company with Inverell councillor David C. Jones) have turned their greedy eyes towards the Clarence Valley.

With a view to wrecking not only the Clarence River below Harwood Bridge, but a good part of the Valley as well.

It seems these individuals are promoting the idea of creating a Moree to Iluka-Yamba rail line running into a bulk shipping/coal terminal probably situated on Goodwood Island after deep water dredging a channel from the river mouth and, in 2010-11 formed plans to ask for an estimated $1 million to conduct a feasibility study.

Mayor Peters apparently lobbied for this idea at the inaugural meeting of the Regional Australia Advisory Council in Melbourne in mid-2011.

However, Clarence Valley residents only became widely aware of this scheme when The Daily Examiner published an article on 5 March 2012, along with this diagram:

Click on image to enlarge

As has come to be expected from industry groups and local government over the Great Dividing Range, there is little to no consideration of the environmental, cultural, economic and social costs this scheme would impose on coastal communities.

The photograph below shows the infrastructure of one typical Australian coal terminal.

Unfortunately this is exactly the type of crudely executed vandalism which would appeal to the develop to death, mining at any cost heart of the new NSW Nationals Member for Clarence Chris Gulaptis.
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See A very shortsighted view
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Quote of the Week

“Australia has been tagged the “dumb blonde” of the world. It’s attractive, but shallow – a kind of Pacific Paris Hilton, “living every day as if it’s your birthday” from inherited, unearned resource riches.”
{Makemycitywork.com on 1^st March 2012}

Thursday, 5 April 2012

A trip down memory lane for that grand denier Tony Abbott

http://youtu.be/e5jtiJPlv4Y

Melbourne and Monash university academics help Journal of Medical Ethics create the perfect storm

Ethics debates often go where angels fear to tread in order to define the range of moral dilemmas and this appears to be one sensitive example.

Abstract

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

Full article After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? at the Journal of Medical Ethics (JME) on February 23, 2012.

Responses to this JME article published online:

My opinion on controversial paper published about infanticide

Manuel Menes

J Med Ethics published online March 28, 2012

[Full text]

Response to After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?

Philip Dawson

J Med Ethics published online March 27, 2012

[Full text]

Singering from the same hymn sheet... [CORRECTED VERSION]

Matthew J Wilson

J Med Ethics published online March 27, 2012

[Full text]

Six propositions on end-of-life decisions in neonatology

Sofia Moratti

J Med Ethics published online March 26, 2012

[Full text]

After- birth abortion and infanticide: the controversy lingers on

Robert Kar Ngai Yuen

J Med Ethics published online March 26, 2012

[Full text]

Re:After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? An Answer

Elvira Parravicini,

Federica Fromm, Giuseppe Paterlini, Patrizia Vergani

J Med Ethics published online March 19, 2012

[Full text]

A human being's right to live is a moral axiom

Agata Mizerska

J Med Ethics published online March 16, 2012

[Full text]

Re:Awkward Truths Should Make People Re-evaluate Routine Practice

Coral D Carmichael

J Med Ethics published online March 16, 2012

[Full text]

After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? An Answer

Dina Nerozzi

J Med Ethics published online March 16, 2012

[Full text]

Re:A response to 'After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?

Maria Gabriella Gatti