Mick Keogh from The Australian Farm Institute had a piece published in yesterday's Australian Financial Review titled 'Getting a balanced perspective on salinity'. It reiterated what some scientists have been saying since late last year, that they got it wrong with their salt predictions.
Keogh wrote:
Conduct an internet search using the terms "salinity" and "17 million hectares" and you can access almost 500 references explaining that Australia could have 17 million hectares of salinised land by the year 2050. Websites providing this information range from the ABC and the CSIRO, to Parliaments, the BBC, the Australian Academy of Sciences, major Australian and international media groups, educational organisations, environmental groups and even sites containing speeches by the Prime Minister and the Governor General.
With such an impressive list of organisations, anyone from school children through to senior policymakers could feel comfortable that the figure is credible, and represents an authoritative estimate of the potential scale of the dryland salinity problem in Australia.
Unfortunately, the comfort is ill-founded.Increasingly, researchers are concluding that many of the assumptions and much of the data used in generating this estimate were wrong, or should not have been used. There are suggestions, for example, that some State salinity assessments used to calculate the national estimate overstate the current extent of salinity by factors of between three and seven times, let alone the projected future extent. Several of the state reports had no reliable data to base estimates on, and many made assumptions about future groundwater levels
Good idea Neil
Interesting point, David (detribe). The actual preamble of the American Declaration of Independence lists all the fundamental failures of the Crown as the justification for their total secession. But on my reading, none of them pose anywhere as serious a threat to the rights and liberties of persons, as the fundamental failures of the existing State governments.
And the americans dumped the crown altogether to form a new nation. All we need is a new state within the existing commonwealth. Hardly a rash or excessive respose, especially as nearly all the key players at federation anticipated the need for new states and included express provision for their formation.
I hope everybody watched the repeat on Australian Story tonight
I tried to cooment earlier but was rejected automatically.
This all seems like the situation that caused the American reovolution. The colonies chafing at the injustices of the distant, ignorant Crown.
So Ian, let us call in support from the numerous representative organisations that have battled against environmental impropriety and lobby the Federal Government on a united front to legislate for compliance with the IGAE.
I would expect very strong support from a number of local groups and would take very great pleasure requesting the support of groups that are funded and identify as environmental organistaions/foundations.
Perhaps Jennifer could discuss the matter with the interim committee of the AEF, perhaps as a major theme for the upcoming national conference in Brisbane in May.
Oh, and Neil, I would have agreed with your post on the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment right up to a few weeks ago.
On the 7th December I finally received a reply from Federal Minister for the Environment, The Hon Ian Campbell, to a request for information on the actual status of the IGAE, and the nature of any compliance provisions. This was in respect of the core requirements for "thorough examination of the issues", and "cost effective measures" that are "not disproportionate" to the nature of the threat. The "precautionary principle" is subordinate to these principles.
And the Minister confirmed that this "agreement" is nothing more than a crock of the proverbial. He wrote, "As such the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment is not a legally enforceable document and does not have any compliance programme".
So we have an "agreement" signed by each state Premier and the PM (Keating) that outlined the principles under which environmental measures are to be applied but they are not binding on anyone. They are all free to breach those principles, and all have done so, whenever it is expedient for them to do so.
So the only way that will ensure that environmental measures comply with these absolutely essential principles is for them to be placed in a State or Federal Constitution. And the chances of this being added to any existing, urban dominated, constitution is zero. The only recourse for farmers seeking the simplest protection of these basic legal principles is to write their own constitution for their own state. Anything less is window dressing for the gullible.
We have also had confirmation that the vegetation Codes under the Qld Vegleg do not even constitute a statutory instrument under the Legislative Standards Act and so, are not subject to any of the community's standards for drafting regulations that respect the rights and liberties of persons. The only reason any government would deliberately avoid those obligations is if they had a deliberate intention to deny those rights and liberties to certain persons.
This is inexcusable. There is no room for a negotiated middle ground with scum like that, nor any possible future.
See the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment at http://www.austlii.edu.au and the Legislative Standards Act at http://www.legislation.qld.gov.au
Ian I'm reading you loud and clear. You want some retribution and serious justice first. I was trying to ask you if you any views of another policy for tree management which underpins most of the issues I would have thought. But if we're not at that point I'll desist !
And Phil, I don't think you got the point. Talk of a way forward is premature. Beattie & Carr et al have made the bed and the community that elected them must be given all the time it takes to repent at leisure. They won't be allowed to simply flick the channel on this one because innocent people have been put under extraordinary stress. They have died of stress related causes, they have taken their own lives, they have been, and still are, being persecuted. They are still dying of medical negligence while volunteers are called out at 3am to deliver an unrelated community service that is already funded by a tax. So don't imagine for a moment that the resonance of this won't still be around in 30 years.
And that goes for the Liberals as well. They were more than happy to fall in behind the "turning Qld into wasteland" crap and slipped so easily into repeating anything bad about their supposed partners. And they would do it again tomorrow.
This goes far beyond simply changing a few faces. It isn't getting mad, its getting even.