Wednesday, 20 March 2019

Estimated 100,000 attended School Strike For Climate rallies across Australia on 15 March 2019


 
@TheNewDailyAU
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Tuesday, 19 March 2019

Knitting Nannas from across NSW took their protest to Sydney on International Women's Day



United to Protect Our Water

101 Knitting Nannas from around NSW converged on Parliament House in Sydney on International Women’s Day (March 8) to protest about water mismanagement and the lack of effective government action to protect river and groundwater health. The theme of the protest was “No Water no Life”.

The Nannas came from Loops (local Nanna groups) in the Northern Rivers, Grafton, Coonabarabran, Dubbo, Midcoast, New England-North West, Central Coast, Gloucester, Hunter Valley, Illawarra, and Sydney.

The Nannas have long been very concerned about unwanted water impacts around NSW – issues which have been raised with elected representatives over a number of years.

 · These include impacts on urban water catchments from coal mines - the Wallarah 2 mine on the Central Coast and the Hume mine in the Southern Highlands as well as the long-wall mining in the Illawarra which leads to massive water loss into mines.

 · The North West of the state is also impacted by coal mines which use vast amounts of water – Whitehaven’s Maules Creek mine and the proposed Vickery mine.

 · Then there’s the threat to groundwater from Santos’ gasfield in the Pilliga State Forest. This project is slated to extract 35 billion litres of groundwater – most of it in the first five years.

 · But the most dramatic impact is the most recent – the Darling fish kills - the result of years of mismanagement and favouring of irrigators over the health of the river system.

The Nannas assembled in Martin Place where they donned their specially made t-shirts bearing a picture of a Nanna declaring “The Water Needs You” (in the spirit of the Lord Kitchener First World War recruiting poster) and their yellow, red and black suffragette-style sashes emblazoned with “No Water No Life”. 

 After a group photo under the big banner (“United to Protect Our Water”), the Nannas walked to Parliament House and ranged themselves along the fenceline.  There they used their sashes to tie on to the iron railing of the fence in the manner of the suffragettes.

The brightly-dressed Nannas with their banners and their singing and chanting attracted a great deal of attention from pedestrians and those driving along busy Macquarie Street. A highlight of the street performance was the powerful rendition by Nanna Purl Stockinstitch of her poem about the death of farmer George Bender who was hounded by a CSG company in Queensland.  The Nannas hoped that the pollies in our parliament heard and took note of the effect the unconventional gas industry has had - and continues to have - on the lives of communities in gasfields.

Various politicians met with the Nannas on the footpath and were presented with their “knagging list” - the Nannas’ demands for action.

While the theme of the protest focused on the major problems with rivers and water, the Nannas demands were much broader. They included a call for immediate climate action, transition to 100% renewables, a state-wide ban on gas extraction (including in the Pilliga), proper protection of Aboriginal sacred sites and revocation of the draconian anti-protest laws brought in by the current NSW Government. 

The Knitting Nannas Against Gas and Greed are hopeful that all of the state political parties will accept their calls for effective action on these important matters. It should be noted that the Nannas, who are very concerned about the protection of the land and water for future generations, are non-party political and have a policy of annoying all politicians equally – something we aim to continue doing!

            - Leonie Blain
               Grafton Loop of the Knitting Nannas Against Gas & Greed


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Monday, 18 March 2019

Even as it devours itself the Morrison Coalition Government is determined to impose its warped 1950s ideology on women and girls


On 8 March 2019 the United Nations Human Rights Council of which Australia is a member began its general debate on the promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development.

On that day the Australian Human Rights Law Centre said that the [UN] High Commissioner highlighted the importance of the right to social security and of recognising the value of unpaid care work in addressing women’s inequality.  Yet the Australian Government was steadily undermining its social security system and making life harder for many women.  Currently it was imposing its punitive ParentsNext programme on single mothers accessing social security.

And Mexico and Finland, speaking on behalf of a group of countries, stated that human rights bodies’ remedies must fulfil the rights of victims, and include adequate, effective and prompt reparation.  Women and girls in humanitarian settings were particularly vulnerable to human rights violations such as sexual and gender based violence, human trafficking and forced abortions. 

After a motion was put forward in relation to Mexico and Finland’s concerns 57 countries including the United Kingdom signed the subsequent statement.

According to SBS News on 11 March 2019  the motion broadly called for greater accountability for human rights violations against women and girls and the statement proposed greater implementation of 'policies and legislation that respect women and girls' right to bodily autonomy'. This included guaranteed universal protection of women's sexual and reproductive health, comprehensive sexuality education and access to safe abortion.

Australia refused to be a signatory to this official UN statement.

BuzzFeed was given to understand by a departmental spokesperson that the Australian delegation, coordinated by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, did not join the statement because it called for access to safe abortion without referencing that this access should be consistent with the law.

Why was reference to existing law so important to Australia?

The highlighted section in the Human Rights Law Centre news release below gives the answer.

The Morrison Government - dominated as it is by middle-aged far-right men - refuses to open the door to debate on decriminalising abortion in the last three states which still retain a prohibition of abortion in their criminal codes.

Apparently Scott Morrison is averse to any debate on this issue, as in his own high-handed, paternalistic words “I don’t think it is good for our country”.

Human Rights Law Centre, Morrison Government missing in action at UN on International Women's Day, 9 March 2019:

The Morrison Government has failed to sign on to an International Women’s Day statement at the United Nations calling for access to safe abortions, comprehensive sexuality education and sexual reproductive health.

As recently as last week, in a speech to the UN Human Rights Council, the Australian Foreign Minister, Marise Payne, said the number one guiding principle for the Government's time on the Council was "gender equality". Yet when 57 countries came together on International Women's Day to support a motion proposed by Finland and Mexico, the Morrison Government chose not to back it.

Edwina MacDonald, a Legal Director at the Human Rights Law Centre, who is attending the session in Geneva, said it was extremely disappointing to see the Australian Government once again fail to live up to its promises at the UN.

“Being able to make choices about our own bodies and access reproductive health are absolutely essential to achieving gender equality. No government can truly support gender equality and human rights without supporting access to safe abortions and reproductive rights," said Ms MacDonald.

In Australia, abortion is still in the criminal statute books in New South Wales, South Australia and Western Australia. This is a recognised form of sex discrimination in international human rights law. The criminalisation of abortion harms women by making it harder to access safe and compassionate reproductive healthcare.

"The Morrison Government holds a really important role on the Human Rights Council, it should be using its voice at the UN to stand up for the rights of women all around the world. Instead we get hollow words here in Geneva and a failure to lift its game back home. It's so disappointing," said Ms MacDonald.

Australia was elected for a three-year term on the UN Human Rights Council in October 2017.  [my yellow highlighting]
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Sunday, 17 March 2019

Australia's paranoid, xenophobic, racist, bigoted, rage-filled and profoundly ignorant underbelly exposed in an horrific white supremacist terrorist attack on two New Zealand mosques


Australian-born and raised Brenton Harrison Tarrant aged 28 years who is alleged to have murdered forty-eight fifty worshippers during a white supremacist terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand on Friday 15 March 2019, appeared in Christchurch District Court on 16 March.
Note the right-handed US-style 'white power' sign being made by the prisoner 
Image: Al Jazeera
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An increasingly desperate Australian Liberal Prime Minister on the faux election campaign trail in March 2017


Shorter version of most of the dire warnings Australian Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison has been yelling at Australian voters as he faces the prospect of a 51st negative Newspoll in April.
Meme supplied
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Rate of land clearing in the Orara Valley causes community concern


Orara Valley NSW: Image from Trip Advisor

The Daily Examiner, 13 March 2019, p.4:

Communities across the Orara Valley have expressed outrage at the loss of mature trees in their neighbourhood.

Fed up with tongoing clearing, a community meeting has been organised for 3.30pm this Sunday at Nana Glen Community Hall.

Posts on a number of Facebook pages including the Glenreagh Community page reflect the growing anger at the seemingly unregulated clearing taking place to make way for intensive agriculture.

Tania and Gerry O’Connor live nearby a stand of blackbutts recently taken down north of Nana Glen and are concerned at how rapidly and irreversibly the landscape of the valley is changing.

“The local council does not seem to be keeping up with the fast-paced changes. It is sad to see 100-year-old trees bulldozed. When the first trees were cut across the road we contacted council who informed us there was nothing they could do,” they said.

They contacted the Environmental Protection Agency which stated that due to the zoning, the clearing was legal.

“We are not against farming, we know we live in a rural community but the system of checks and balances seems to be outdated or non-existent.”.....

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Saturday, 16 March 2019

Tweet of the Week



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