Update on the Inquiry into the impact of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in Regional Australia

From A Clarence Valley Protest on 11 December 2010:

Bravo, Clarence Environment Centre and Valley Watch!

To date there have been only eighty-seven submissions to the Australian Parliament House of Representatives Inquiry into the impact of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in Regional Australia.

Ever mindful of the reported remarks of various vested interests and those of the Inquiry's Chair, the Clarence Valley community responded.

Clarence Environment Centre (CEC) made one of the earliest submissions pointing out valid reasons why the Clarence River catchment was not for the raiding.
The complete CEC 33 page submission in PDF file can be viewed and downloaded here.

Valley Watch also made a succinct formal submission which is found here.

I have to say that these submissions were part of only a handful which attempted reasoned argument supported by data. Most submissions simply registered opposition to the Murray Darling Basin Plan on the basis of emotion and supposition.

Unfortunately it would appear that at least twenty-seven of the eighty-seven submissions supported the idea of investigating interbasin water transfers and/or new dams, although only four of these made specific mention of possible water diversion from the Clarence River and/or NSW coastal rivers generally.

What was evident in the bulk of these submissions is that many of those individuals who live in the Murray-Darling Basin would apparently rather kill off that river system entirely before they will concede one litre of the water entitlements they currently possess.

Possum and others all a-Twitter in December

A brief Twitter round-up of tweets which informed, confused or amused my tiny mind over the last 7 days or so.


Pollytics

Tim Wilson thinks that "Climate change treaty is a waste of energy" http://bit.ly/f8rv2R I know! Bet that shocked the shite out of you!

..such as principle component/factor analysis. Pair-wise based state-space distance is a polling noise sponge

If you understood a word of that - drink more, or go to bed

Dear Julia Gillard - protect Julian Assange or your fucked 3%. Signed - Mr Obvious

NewtonMark

Pfizer used dirty tricks to avoid compensation payout over meningitis drug clinical trials in Nigeria. http://arseh.at/2mc #cablegate


DarrylMason

The Celtic War Helmet Man http://tinyurl.com/2uyh5tn and other b&w images from Sydney's #Wikileaks rally http://tinyurl.com/2u3bbrn

Interesting that @KevinRuddMP looks more feisty, opinionated & less subservient to the Americans with every Australian #CableGate release.

Journalists might like to ask Clive Palmer & other mining magnates how many meetings they had with US diplomats before RuddCoup. #Wikileaks

LeslieCannold

The next time someone insists your taxes aren't paying for chaplains to evangelise in gov schools, send 'em here http://tinyurl.com/26swoxf

BernardKeane

better hope they don't come for you like you're urging them to come for your fellow media outlet, @TheEconomist

Jeff_Sparrow

Nice piece by @jayrosen_nyu on media shark-jumping http://bit.ly/f3qXOf

Is it dark enough to sleep?

Rally for Equal Pay at Lismore on 15 December 2010 - Noon

The Australian Services Union rallying call:

The ASU's Equal Pay Case is the most important case for the rights of women in the last 20 years.
We need the support of all ASU members to give women the equal pay they been denied up to now.
This case is about justice and equal rights. With your help we'll win...........

The fight for Equal Pay continues. In recent years the gap between the pay of men and women has actually increased. The ASU is currently running the first case of its kind under the Fair Work Act to argue equal pay for work of equal value.

This Wednesday, 15 December at midday, there will be rallies held across Australia to send the message it is time for equal pay. These rallies will be on the same day as submissions will be made in the case by those employer groups that have fought every pay increase for our sector. We need to make a noise and show them that Australians are willing to fight for Equal Pay

The Lismore rally will be held on the corner of Magellan and Carrington Streets. We encourage everyone to come out in support of Equal Pay. Our local Member of Parliament Janelle Saffin and our Mayor Jenny Dowell will both be speaking and there will be cupcakes.

Support your community. Support equal pay.

Many Australian journalists appear to think their work is below par

The recently released LIFE IN THE CLICKSTREAM: THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM (December 2010) makes some interesting observations concerning mainstream media.

Including this chart based on an Essential Media survey question asked of the profession: How do you rate the quality of Australian journalism compared with 5 years ago?

An assessment from within the profession which is harsher than that of readers when asked a similar question about news journalism:

Asked whether the quality of news journalism had improved or deteriorated over the past five years, 30 per cent of people said they thought it was better or much better, while 33 per cent thought it was worse or much worse.

Unsurprisingly Life in the Clickstream additionally observes that readers remain unwillingly to pay for news online and notes a disparity in how journalists and readers view the same profession:

Not surprisingly, journalists overwhelmingly believe that what they are doing provides a public good and that without their work, society would be worse off. Our survey of journalists found that 93 per cent agreed with that statement, 66 per cent of them strongly.
But when we asked the same question in a survey of the general public about their attitudes to journalism and their news consumption habits, only 63 per cent agreed, only 16 per cent saying they “strongly agree”. Some 8 per cent either “disagree” or “strongly disagree”.

The report also helps explains why APN newspapers on the NSW North Coast sometimes publish shocking bloopers when reporting on local identities and well-known Northern Rivers families:

Similarly, APN formed a centralised subbing unit known as Centro in late 2008, with subbing of their 14 daily papers in NSW and Queensland being centralised on the Sunshine Coast….

Local sub-editing based on local knowledge is apparently a thing of the past for this newspaper group.

* Media Alliance commissioned Essential Media to conduct two surveys. One was a public poll of attitudes towards journalism in Australia and examined how and why people access news, their levels of trust in various platforms and their willingness to pay for news content online.
The other survey was of journalist members of the Media Alliance and asked about working conditions, pay, levels of training and morale.
[LIFE IN THE CLICKSTREAM: THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM,Introduction,p4]