WASHINGTON - Thousands of protesters circled the White House this afternoon to show their opposition to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project.

The demonstration is the latest in a series of White House protests aimed at convincing U.S. President Barack Obama to block the $7 billion project that would carry Alberta oilsands crude through six American states to Gulf Coast refineries.

The Obama administration is currently weighing whether to give the green light to the project.

The U.S. State Department is making the ruling because the pipeline crosses an international border, but the president has said the final decision will reflect his views and suggested he isn't swayed by the argument that the pipeline will create jobs.

"Folks in Nebraska, like all across the country, aren't going to say to themselves, 'We'll take a few thousand jobs if it means our kids are potentially drinking water that would damage their health,'" Mr. Obama said in an interview with an Omaha TV station.

"We don't want, for example, aquifers to be adversely affected. Folks in Nebraska obviously would be directly impacted."

Actors Mark Ruffalo and Margot Kidder were among the protesters who are expressing their fears about the environmental dangers the project could pose.

Another notable protester was Jody Williams, winner of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her work on banning landmines.

Ruffalo says he voted for Mr. Obama because he promised change and now is his chance to come through. A decision on the pipeline was supposed to be made by the end of the year, but the State Department suggested last week that it might defer the decision as they continue to assess whether Keystone XL is in the national interest of the United States.

Keystone XL has become a political hot potato for the Obama administration, especially since the release of emails that suggest a cozy relationship between State Department officials and TransCanada's chief lobbyist, Paul Elliott.

Elliott worked on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful presidential bid in 2008.

There have also been allegations that the State Department failed to do an impartial environmental assessment of Keystone XL by hiring an environmental consulting firm, Houston-based Cardno Entrix, recommended to it by TransCanada itself.

With a presidential election less than a year away, key Obama advisers are reportedly growing increasingly nervous about losing supporters if they approve Keystone XL.

The pipeline's opponents point to a series of recent spills along oil pipelines and argue the Keystone XL project is a disaster waiting to happen as it would carry millions of barrels a week of carbon-intensive oilsands crude through environmentally fragile areas of the U.S. Great Plains.

Proponents, meantime, say the pipeline will create thousands of much-needed jobs and help end American reliance on oil from volatile and sometime hostile OPEC regimes.

The project has not only become a symbol of the increasingly heated debate in the United States about the country's reliance on fossil fuels and a perceived reluctance to embrace renewable sources of energy, but also the distrust many Americans feel towards big corporations.

Pipeline opponents have said their anti-Keystone protests reflect larger scale public anger at corporate greed, pointing to the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.

"You can't occupy the White House, but you can surround it," Bill McKibben, a leading U.S. environmentalist and one of the protest's organizers, told a news conference last week.

Keystone XL has become a flashpoint for the environmental movement in the U.S. following last year's failed federal climate change legislation. More than 1,000 protesters were arrested this summer in two weeks of sit-ins outside the White House.

The Nebraska legislature, meantime, is in special session considering legislation that could force TransCanada to reroute the pipeline away from the Ogallala aquifer, a major source of drinking water for the region.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday stressed that ensuring equitable and sustainable management of natural resources is a key part of the work of the United Nations peacekeeping and peacebuilding missions in countries emerging from war, given the tendency of natural wealth to fuel conflict.

“Given their critical role in supporting countries emerging from conflict, United Nations peacekeeping operations are well placed to positively influence how the environment is protected and natural resources are managed,” Mr. Ban said in a message to mark the International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict.

Mr. Ban noted that since the Day was first declared 10 years ago, the UN had made important progress in understanding the complex relationship between war and the environment and the role that natural resources play in fuelling and financing instability and violence.

“From Sierra Leone to Timor-Leste, countries have been helped to mitigate the environmental risks to building peace and to harness the economic potential of using their natural resources sustainably,” the Secretary-General pointed out.

The environment, however, continues to be one of the casualties of warfare, even as demand for natural resources continues to grow to meet the needs of a rising global population.

Fragile nations, including those emerging from conflict, could face significant resource competition in the coming decades, a phenomenon that could be exacerbated by the predicted consequences of climate change on the availability of water and food, as well as sea-level rise and increasing population.

“As we mark this International Day, let us recognize the wide-ranging and long-term consequences of damaging the environment – both in peace and times of war.

“And let us reaffirm our commitment to the sustainable management of natural resources as a critical element of durable peace and security,” Mr. Ban emphasized.

METGASCO'S Lions Way pipeline could face scrutiny from the United Nations with the proposed route going through a World Heritage listed rainforest. The pipeline would take gas through the Border Ranges and the heritage listed Gondwana rainforests, if the route along the Mount Lindsay Highway is approved.

However, anti coal seam gas campaigner Leah Hobbs said she had been in contact with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage Centre Director Kishore Rao, who stated the route through a World Heritage area was of great concern .

"Mr Rao advised me that UNESCO knew nothing of the Lions Way pipeline proposal and he asked me to send information about the project so they can take the matter up with the Australian government," she said. Lock the Gate Ipswich spokeswoman Cassie McMahon said she was disappointed the Federal Government had not informed UNESCO of the development.

"Under the World Heritage Convention it is obliged to inform UNESCO about any activity which may impact on listed areas - obviously the planned pipeline would have an impact," she said.

Ms McMahon said the group had made the Prime Minister aware of the pipeline but was disappointed with her claims the pipeline was not a federal responsibility.

"The Ipswich Region of Lock the Gate presented a letter to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, via Mayor Paul Pisasale, at a breakfast during her visit to Ipswich in July.

"The Prime Minister stated that the Lions Way pipeline was a State Government responsibility, which it is not."

The Gondwana rainforests are the most extensive subtropical rainforests in the world and are clustered along the Queensland-NSW border. The Queensland and NSW sections of the rainforests were listed on the World Heritage list in 1986 and 1994 respectively.

The proposed pipeline will begin between Casino and Kyogle in NSW, run over the Border Ranges and through the Scenic Rim to the power station located at Swanbank outside of Ipswich. Metgasco did not return the QT's calls for comment.

Research Into CSG Must Not Become Academic 'Snouts In The Trough': Lock The Gate Media Release [3/11/11]

Research centres are lining up to get a piece of the pie in the form of research grants into coal seam gas but many of these are wholly or partially funded by the very industry they are supposed to be researching.

This money could become available if the Gillard government agrees to the demand by Independent MP, Tony Windsor, for substantial funding to be put into the impacts of the coal seam gas industry before the industry moves ahead.

Lock the Gate Alliance president Drew Hutton said many research centres had a fundamental conflict of interest on coal seam gas and should be disqualified from any of this funding.

Mr Hutton identified the CSIRO's Gisera project, a collaborative arrangement with the CSG company Origin, the University Of Queensland's Sustainable Minerals Institute, largely funded by the mining industry and the forthcoming UQ Coal Seam Gas Centre of Excellence, also funded by the industry, as examples of research centres whose findings on coal seam gas would undoubtedly be compromised.

"Academics are like everyone else. They pay the piper," Mr Hutton said.

"Applied research, especially when it addresses issues of risk, needs to be dispassionate.

"Industry, government and the community all benefit if this is the case but centres conducting research paid for by the company will merely constitute giving a veneer of academic credibility to public relations exercises.

"As a former academic who engaged in research I am appalled at the way a business model has been applied to university research over the last twenty years. This is inappropriate because research is only credible when it is independent and it is only independent when the researcher feels no pressure to give the funding source the results it wants.

"The same potential conflict of interest applies to environmental consultancies that do a large amount of work for the coal seam gas industry."

Mr Hutton called on the Federal Government to rule out giving research funding to any centres or consultancies that had a serious conflict of interest.

Noam Chomsky, American linguist, philosopher & activist [ABC - 6/11/11]

This week on Sunday Profile one of the world's greatest thinkers, Noam Chomsky. The 'father of modern linguistics' - and human rights campaigner - is this year's recipient of the Sydney Peace Prize. ...

 

FREE UNIVERSITY OF OCCUPIED BRISBANE - TOMORROW (Sunday) meet 12pm for 1pm start, MUSGRAVE PARK, West End:

THEME:

The Women's Movement in Australia and the Fight for Equal Pay. Featuring KATRINA BARBEN, veteran campaigner for women's rights; MARGARET GLEESON, leader in the ASU Equal Pay campaign, 2010 ASU Delegate of the Year & ACTU Highly Commended Delegate of the Year.

Come along for the people's university, get an update on the latest Occupy Brisbane news!

As police and the city council in Dunedin wrestle with the niceties of whether city bylaws take precedence over the Bill of Rights Act, encampments continue to spring up around the world under the common banner of "Occupy" and are now in 70 major cities and at almost 1000 sites worldwide.

Some criticism has concentrated on protesters' perceived double standards, charging them with enjoying the fruits of capitalism (because they wear clothes and shoes and eat food manufactured by global corporations) while presuming to deride it as unsustainable and corrupt.

"We all know now that no self-respecting Occupy Wall St protester would be caught dead without his or her hand-held device, preferably an Apple iPhone or iPad," wrote William Cohen, a former investment banker, and the author of Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World.

The profound cynicism that underlies that observation probably reveals more about the writer than the subject, but public opinion is more sympathetic. Surveys by major publications have shown support for the protests running at 2 to 1 in the US.

The greater danger that those clamouring for change face comes from powerful public figures who profess support but then make it heavily conditional. Former US President Bill Clinton provided the perfect example of that false friendship when he remarked that the protests were "on balance ... a positive thing", but added that the protesters "need to be for something specific, and not just against something because if you're just against something, someone else will fill the vacuum you create".

It's an idea that would have many New Zealanders nodding sagely. Deeply embedded in our national discourse is the idea that it is illegitimate to criticise without offering an alternative.

Yet it is not incumbent upon the protesters to redesign the world's economy and social organisation on the fly and while sitting in public parks. Indeed, the very idea that there can be a quick fix to the economic problems that beset the world should be vigorously resisted.

Presuming to suggest that the way we organise the creation and distribution of wealth is both corrupt and unjust does not carry with it an obligation to abjure frozen vegetables and health care.

The groundswell of opinion that is shaking the entire planet is not against the existence of capitalism but against the greed of those who pull its levers. In America, the after-tax income for the top one per cent of households has almost tripled since 1980.

The practitioners of the transactions that precipitated the global financial crisis inflicted damage on the lives and aspirations of ordinary Americans that outstripped the havoc wrought by the 9/11 bombers by several orders of magnitude, yet they were not hunted down and shot; they were bailed out by the taxpayers.

In this country, the picture is different only in degree. A UN report this week ranked us fifth in the world in our achievements in health, education and income. But in terms of income equality, we are 24th among the 34 OECD countries - barely a generation ago we were near the top.

This week our largest banking group reported a 25 per cent increase in profits and foodbanks reported empty shelves in the face of increased demand. The protesters gathered in parks and plazas around the world are giving voice to a widespread malaise that is no less valid for being inchoate.

But those on capitalism's upper floors - including politicians now on the campaign trail - would be foolish to believe that the push for change will ease up any time soon.

They need to engage in meaningful dialogue about the way the world turns.

Our resident volunteer signwriter, Rex put in quite a few last minute hours to prepare an amazing new sign for the Rally to Re-Occupy Sydney.

The sign is inspired by a cartoon that's been circulating, originally created by the artist Mark Hurwitt.

Dear Minister,

Gold Coast police have confirmed on ABC Local Radio that there was no truth to the child abduction alert stories which have been published relentlessly by News Ltd.'s 'Gold Coast Bulletin'.

http://blogs.abc.net.au/queensland/2011/11/police-confirm-no-truth-to-child-abductions.html?site=goldcoast&program=gold_coast_drive

Today [5/11/11] the 'Gold Coast Bulletin' are reporting that you have announced a "Child Safety Summit" next Wednesday.

There's nothing on the Queensland Government website about this.

Can you advise whether there is any truth to this and, if so, whether you made this decision in consultation with News Ltd.?

Regards,

A Gold Coast Citizen

Yesterday the New York Post--Rupert Murdoch's down-market tabloid, for those who are blessed to live beyond its circulation area--ran this front-page editorial demanding that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg shut down the Occupy Wall Street encampment to reclaim the city's "dignity" ...

Gov. Scott Walker Gets Checked, Mic Checked!

When Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker gave a speech at Chicago's Union League Club the morning of November 3, he had some unexpected guests.

Stand Up! Chicago and The Chicago Teachers Union

Glenn Greenwald In Conversation With David Talbot

Lawyer, author Glenn Greenwald spoke to David Talbot on the bias of coverage of Occupy Wall Street by elite journalists.

UN Agency Deplores Deadly Boat Sinking Off Indonesian Coast:

Media Release [4/11/11]

The United Nations refugee agency today called on the international community to cooperate more closely to deal with irregular migration after the deaths of at least nine people, apparently asylum-seekers trying to reach Australia, when their boat capsized off the coast of Indonesia.

The victims of Tuesday’s sinking included four children, and an unknown number of other passengers on the boat remain missing, according to Andrej Mahecic, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

He told reporters in Geneva that there were an estimated 60 to 100 people aboard the overloaded vessel, which sank in bad weather and rough seas off the coast of western Java. Indonesian naval forces have rescued 47 people so far.The incident underlines once again the desperate steps that people are willing to take in their search for protection or a better future.

The boat was bound for the Indonesia province of Nusa Tenggara Timur and then Australia, and the passengers included Iranian, Afghan and Pakistani nationals.

“The incident underlines once again the desperate steps that people are willing to take in their search for protection or a better future,” said Mr. Mahecic.

“It also adds urgency to UNHCR’s calls to the international community to cooperate more closely in addressing irregular migration and providing protection and solutions to refugees, thus averting the need for individuals to undertake such perilous journeys by boat.”

UNHCR, working with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), is providing medical assistance, food, clothes and psychological support to the survivors of the capsizing. The agency said it is also working with Indonesian authorities to determine whether any survivors will seek to claim asylum.

Occupy Nashville, Republican Students Find Common Ground

Everything happened just the way Occupy Nashville protesters said it would.

The group of young Republicans from Vanderbilt University marched up to the group of Occupy Nashville protesters sitting on the steps to Legislative Plaza on Thursday evening.

The small group of about 20 students was armed with signs and chanting.

The group was quickly drowned out by a roar of cheers and applause from the nearly 150 Occupy Nashville protesters. Some called out, “We love you” to the students as the two groups faced each other: the students standing at the foot of the stairs and the Occupy Nashville group sitting at the entrance to the plaza.

Chanting from the students, “We are the debt generation!” was quickly amplified as Occupy Nashville protesters started joining in. It wasn’t long after that the two groups combined. Many shook hands and broke into small discussion groups, intent upon hearing each other’s views.

“We were so pleased that they accepted our welcome,” said William Howell, 64, one of the Occupy Nashville protesters who was arrested during last week’s protests.

“I hope we continue to hear voices from that point of view. We have found that during our talks, we have a lot of the same interests.”

From the first moment Occupy Nashville protesters heard about the Vanderbilt students’ counterprotest, they had planned a warm welcome. Promises of cookies were made early on and actually carried out.

The Vanderbilt group showed up about 15 minutes into Occupy Nashville’s evening assembly.

Laura Wallace, 29, who has been with Occupy Nashville off and on since its first rally, said she it was wonderful to see the protesters from Vanderbilt.

“It’s amazing that these people can come and exercise their First Amendment rights,” she said. “I think this is a great first step in coming together as the 99 percent.”

As two Occupiers and Vanderbilt students engaged in friendly conversation nearby, Tyler Copus, 19, a freshman engineering major at Vanderbilt, calmly said he didn’t understand why the Occupy group was fixating on Wall Street and the state Capitol.

“I think they’re taking the wrong direction,” he said. “They need to be at the White House. I think it’s a completely unfounded movement.”

But Copus also thought it was great that the groups could come together.

“People should be able to express their views, even if they don’t agree with each other,” he said.

Alex Eichner, 18, a freshman secondary education major at Vanderbilt, agreed.

“I was pleasantly surprised tonight,” the New York native said. “I don’t think anyone should be able to look at any argument unless they see both sides first. Honestly, I don’t know what their goal is and I don’t think they know what their goal is, but everyone has the right to believe what they want and say how they feel. They’re out here doing that.”

Satire and confusion

The evening wasn’t entirely without confusion.

At first, everyone thought that Jake Fentress, 29, and his younger sister, Kristen Fentress, 22, both of White House, were with the Vanderbilt students. The pair arrived with the students and marched up to the steps and faced the Occupiers with the students, but after small group discussions broke out, it became clear that the siblings were protesting against the student protesters.

Jake held a sign that read “I got mine … That’s how Capitalism works.”

“We heard this was the day of opposition for the Occupy group, so we wanted to voice our position against it through satire,” Jake Fentress said.

His sister chimed in, “If you can’t see humor in something like this, then there’s something wrong.

“Our goal was to come out here and confuse everyone here.”

Release Of Report From The Senate Inquiry Into Commonwealth Funding And Administration Of Mental Health Services:

Australian Psychological Society [2/11/11]

The Senate Committee conducting the Inquiry delivered its final report on 1 November 2011. Overall the recommendations resulting from the Inquiry are very positive. The Better Access initiative was recognised as being a highly successful and effective program, which is something the APS has been promoting since its inception.

The key recommendations urge the Government to delay the introduction of the cuts to Better Access until adequate alternative programs are available, acknowledging that a large number of people will otherwise miss out on effective services. This supports the APS position. Of concern, last week the APS learnt from the Government that the funding allocated for the planned expansion of ATAPS to support people with severe mental illness has been redirected to Care Coordination services without any psychological treatment component, thereby removing this potential treatment alternative for people affected by the cuts.

The Senate Inquiry recommended that the Government consider putting in place an interim program under Medicare that would allow access to six additional sessions for Better Access consumers who meet tightened criteria based on the severity of their condition. The APS will argue, in the light of the change of funding to ATAPS alluded to above, that this recommendation should be considered as a long-term arrangement rather than an interim option.

In relation to the two-tiered Medicare rebate system, there was no recommendation to change the current arrangement. However, the recommendation was for the new Mental Health Commission to undertake ongoing monitoring of the two-tier rebate to ensure access to appropriate practitioners and workforce balance across the mental health sector.

The APS has continued its advocacy through the media and negotiations with the Federal Government since the release of the Senate Inquiry report. The APS has highlighted the dramatic impact of the cuts on many thousands of Australians with moderate to severe mental health problems who will be denied effective treatment under the changed arrangements.

A summary of the recommendations from the Inquiry which includes a link to the full report can be found here. [PDF]

The APS media release following the delivery of the Senate Inquiry report can be found here. [PDF]

Neil Gaiman, Gloria Steinem, And Other Writers Weigh in on Occupy Wall Street

Earlier this month, the writer Jeff Sharlet emailed novelist Salman Rushdie to suggest a petition for writers who support Occupy Wall Street. Rushdie loved the idea. So Sharlet enlisted the help of fellow journalist Kiera Feldman, plus the assistance of literary magazines n + 1 and Tin House. The website for Occupy Writers went live on October 13. At first a petition and list of signatories, the site soon began publishing: poems by Alice Walker, prose by Francine Prose, and more.

But why writers? Is there something specific about being a writer, rather than simply a citizen, that draws them to support the movement? I asked several of the prominent writers who’ve signed the petition this question over email.

“In truth, everything I do or see or think I do as a writer,” Neil Gaiman, author of The Sandman, responded. “But supporting Occupy Wall Street seems to me less about being a writer or a citizen, and more about being a human.” After “an enormous series of criminal acts,” Gaiman said, “nothing fundamental appears to have changed.” He also pointed me to a blog post about two recent jail sentences, and to a remark made by Francis Bacon: “Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.”

According to Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket (who, last week, published a widely shared list of observations concerning the movement), “Injustice makes for a great story but a bad world. As someone who writes stories and lives in the world, Occupy Wall Street is to be reckoned with on both fronts.”

Journalist and activist Gloria Steinem said the movement has particular resonance for storytellers and other artists “because individual expression—unique and part of the human community—is a measure of democracy. For millennia, we’ve been sitting around campfires telling our stories and making group decisions. That’s in our cellular memory from almost all of the time humans have been on earth. Occupy Wall Street could help get rid of dangerous hierarchies and light new campfires.”

The novelist Hari Kunzru made a less primeval case for the specific role of writers. “We live in a period when the ideology of finance capitalism is presented as common sense, and uses the language of freedom and human development to promote the agenda of the class that is now becoming known ... as ‘the one percent.’ It seems to me that this is mystification.” “As a writer,” he continued, “schooled in the slipperiness of language, I can help by exposing this ideological mystification, so that a more honest assessment can be made.”

Fellow novelist Jennifer Egan, who won the Pulitzer Prize in April for A Visit from the Goon Squad, said the movement engages her primarily “as a citizen—specifically, as a citizen who moved to San Francisco as a little kid in 1969. I have a vague memory of what social protest looked and felt like, and I’ve wondered ever since if—and when—a large group of Americans would become frustrated enough with unfairness at the top to interrupt their own lives and devote themselves to speaking out about it.”

That question of timing also occurred to former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins. “The only thing that surprises me about Occupy Wall Street,” he wrote, “is that it didn’t happen sooner.”

Occupy Vancouver protesters welcomed a familiar face to the encampment at the Vancouver Art Gallery on Saturday afternoon.

Hundreds of Vancouverites turned out to hear David Suzuki offer his thoughts and opinions on a topic larger than but intimately connected to protecting nature.

"For me," Suzuki said, "the Occupy movement is about oikos, the Greek word for household or domain. It's about defining our place in community, state, nation, biosphere.... Oikos is home. Ecology is the study of home. Economics is its management. But we elevate economy above ecology."

He concluded, "Let's put the eco back in economics."

Now in its sixth week, the Occupy movement has spread from the financial district of New York City around the globe, from Hong Kong to Madrid to Johannesburg. The movement shows no sign of weakening. ...

That's A Lot Of Australians Sitting In A Park!

Occupy Melbourne’s 9th General Assembly, Treasury Gardens

Melbourne City Council have issued Occupy Melbourne with a Notice to Comply demanding occupiers remove advertising material and temporary camping equipment from Treasury Gardens.

Council officers served the notice at around 9:00AM on 4th November 2011. The notice was issued under the Activities Local Law 2009 and prohibits “portable advertising signs” and camping in a public place in a “tent, caravan or any type of temporary or provisional form of accommodation.” When council officers returned to the site Occupy Melbourne claimed to be complying with council laws.

The notice stated that Occupy Melbourne must “remove from the Treasury Gardens all items, goods and equipment or other property or thing that you are responsible for.” Clarification was sought on the meaning of the term “thing” in the notice. Council officers responded that the term “thing” included tables, chairs, milk crates, signs that are not being held, signs laid down on the grass, tarps and sleeping bags.

Occupy Melbourne inquired as to why they were being treated differently to other individuals in the park but did not receive a reply. Ryan Tews from Occupy Melbourne Logistics reported that one of the officers informed the occupiers that “it’s got to go or it’s going to escalate.”

Councillor Cathy Oke from the City of Melbourne has called for an inquiry into the council’s decision.

Occupy Oakland: 1000s March as General Strike Shuts Down Port

In Oakland, thousands of protesters shut down the nation's fifth largest port on Wednesday as part of a general strike called by the Occupy Oakland movement. It was the first general strike called in the city since 1946. Much of the city was unaffected by the strike, however many business shut down and nearly 20 percent of the city's teachers did not report to work. While the strike was largely peaceful, tension escalated overnight. Police arrested at least three dozen people and repeatedly fired tear gas and other projectiles to break up late night protests. "As we demonstrate to the government of the city of Oakland that we do not assent to police violence, that we stand in defense of Scott Olsen and the memory of Oscar Grant, we do assent to community, to education, to free education, to health care, to free health care, to housing, to happiness, to justice, to creativity, to hope for the future," said longtime activist and academic Angela Davis. Democracy Now! correspondent John Hamilton filed this report from Oakland. ....

A newly discovered species of crab and freshwater shrimp, recently found in a small area next to a proposed bauxite mine site on Cape York, are set to be left unprotected by law as the Government today refused to fast-track its own commitment.

A motion by Australian Greens environment spokesperson Senator Larissa Waters to extend immediate threatened species status to newly discovered species under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act was defeated in the Senate this morning.

“Giving emergency protection to newly discovered species was one of the few bright spots in Government’s 2012 plans for reform to our national environment laws, but their refusal to bring forward this commitment completely undermines the concept of ‘emergency’,” Senator Waters said.

“These new and incredibly rare species of crab and freshwater shrimp on Cape York now remain unprotected, and could be sent to extinction before they even have a chance to be named.

“The Minister has not responded to my letter a month ago about my bill to fast-track emergency protection to newly discovered species which is before the Senate, but today’s vote on my motion indicates the Government’s likely position.

“The Government seems determined to stitch up a deal with the Coalition on the EPBC reforms, rolling out the red carpet for development and turning our environment into a ‘one stop shop’ for big business.

“Instead of watering down Australia’s environment laws in lock-step with the Coalition, the Government should act quickly to boost protection for threatened species before we lose them forever.”

Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR) – an international organization of psychologists and allies promoting social justice, human rights, peace, and environmental sustainability – expresses its strong support for the Occupy Wall Street and other Occupy movements that have spread to hundreds of cities and towns throughout the United States and the world. From a psychological perspective, this broad and growing movement can serve as a source of inspiration, hope, and unity for millions of citizens both angry and despairing about their own personal circumstances and the country’s social and economic future. These occupations have thus far not coalesced around specific demands. That is neither problematic nor cause for concern. They have already succeeded in highlighting the deep problems facing our society and illuminating possible ways to address them.

The protesters stand for the revival and renewed appreciation of genuine democracy. They remind us that democracy is about the active and daily involvement of all in decision-making, not solely voting every four years for leaders who promise to carry out “the people’s will.” They remind us that democracy is about everyone playing a meaningful role in shaping society’s future. They remind us that democracy is about the voices of people without wealth being as strong as those of the most wealthy. And they remind us that genuine democracy is not about corporations and powerbrokers operating unfettered to benefit the few at the expense of the many, as articulated in a recent PsySR statement against “corporate personhood” (see www.psysr.org/corporate-personhood).

As psychologists, we know that having an active role in shaping one’s life is an essential component of well-being. A major psychological contribution of the Occupy movement is its ability to galvanize the collective energy, creativity, skills, and perspectives of people across the social spectrum, tapping into the powerful renewable resource of genuine communities of collaboration and of resistance. The elements of self-organization that have rapidly emerged empower both individuals and groups and open a way out of social passivity and its psychological consequences, including fear, loneliness, greed, entitlement, psychic numbing, and violence.

The Occupiers have refused to accept the growing inequality that threatens the democracy and social fabric of our country. A newly released Executive Compensation Survey shows that company executives’ pay increased 20% from the prior year and the national ratio for CEO to worker pay was 325 to 1 – despite massive layoffs and scant hiring since the recession officially ended two years ago. Meanwhile, economic inequality in the United States is now at its highest level since at least the 1920s, and possibly ever. Research shows that extreme inequality in society is associated with a more problematic life for all – not just those living in poverty. More unequal societies have higher rates of severe emotional problems, infant mortality, and substance abuse. They also experience higher rates of violent crime, child abuse, and obesity. Relatedly, poverty increases the risk that children will struggle in school and adults will struggle with work, among other problems. These problems are not the fault of people living in poverty but are symptoms of a social structure that prevents citizens from truly altering that reality for tens of millions of Americans and billions around the world.

The Occupiers’ slogan “We are the 99%” indicates their desire and commitment to speak for and appeal to the vast majority who suffer from a political and economic system that is failing to serve the interests of that majority while showering fabulous wealth upon the most affluent 1%. The Occupy movement challenges the prevailing discourse driving economic and political decision-making, a discourse that has insisted on a scarcity of financial resources for those without work, adequate education, access to health care, and safe environmental conditions. It calls for the more equitable distribution of the world’s resources. The Occupy movement also provides an inspiring model of nonviolent action that highlights the problems in our society and provides a model for social change. Occupiers and their supporters have maintained their nonviolent commitment even in the face of provocation from sometimes brutal police officers, recognizing the humanity and commonality of interests shared with the police.

PsySR thus welcomes and supports the Occupy movements. We encourage our members, our professional colleagues, and all citizens to support occupations in all of our communities aimed at challenging a business-as-usual status quo that harms far too many of the nation’s citizens while only a few truly benefit.

With Occupy Wall Street (or #ows as it's affectionately called) in its second month, cities and towns around the globe now boast occupations of their own, camps of protesters shouting slogans in a diversity of languages.

With the glaring exception of Oakland, most of the protests have been met with a degree of amiability. Despite the snow in the northeast on Saturday and winter waiting in the wings, the occupiers are remaining calm and digging in their heels.

Many of the polls taken since the protests took root have shown that many Americans are sympathetic to the protests and even a quick visit to the encampments in New York showed how many travelers were easy to stop by the demonstrations and lend a hand or a buck.

Now the 99% can travel the world without leaving the protest:

We've mapped out 80 places where the socially-conscious traveler can get their occupy on as they travel.

Seeing the world's great sights while witnessing a new chapter in our collective history. Now that's priceless. ...

http://www.occupytogether.org/

Occupy Roma Street and Wall Street

Earlier this morning we got the latest on the movements of Occupy Brisbane. Overnight cameraman Eddie Norbido has been tracking the occupiers from King George Square. The movement started in New York with Occupy Wall Street. Brisbane composer Sean O'Boyle has visited Occupy Wall Street ...

At 350.org, we've been excited to explore the connections between the climate movement and the Occupy movement that continues to spread around the world. Today, we wanted to pass along a beautiful film from the crew at Seismologik.com on a unique way to connect food, direct action, and a fundamental new way of looking at the world around us. Here's their movie and description.

Meet the Guerrilla Gardeners. Students from Sterling College in Vermont came down to Occupy Wall Street and showed people how to plant and sow seeds anywhere where there is soil. In this short film, they demonstrate how easy it is to grow winter greens and beets right in the parks flower beds, and then speak earnestly and passionately about the importance of farming, and understanding where our food comes from.

Media Release [3/11/11]

A full house is expected at Bond University’s Cerum Theatre when retired High Court judge, the Honourable Michael Kirby AC CMG presents the inaugural Michael Jones Lecture on Friday, November 4.
The Michael Jones Lecture is an initiative of Bond University’s Centre for Law, Governance and Public Policy.

Michael Jones was a criminal defence lawyer who was active in the campaign against mandatory sentencing in the Northern Territory.

Professor Patrick Keyzer, Director of the Centre explained Justice Kirby was invited to deliver the lecture because of his long-standing involvement in human rights.

“Justice Michael Kirby is Australia’s most eminent jurist and advocate of human rights, and human rights are critically important in the criminal trial,” said Professor Keyzer.

“Justice Kirby’s lecture will explain why defence lawyers are so critical to the maintenance of the rule of law in Australia,” he said.

Justice Kirby has visited the Gold Coast campus on numerous occasions, most notably in 2007 when he was one of the first VIP visitors to tour Bond’s multi-million dollar Legal Skills Centre. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Bond University in 2009 and is currently serving as Bond’s Distinguished Judge in Residence.

The Michael Jones Lecture will be the highlight of a two-day visit where Justice Kirby will address the Bond community at a number of events.

Key activities during his stay include a presentation to Bond staff and students at The Kirby Dinner, the Law Lunch with staff, students and industry professionals, and a mooting masterclass with Bond’s international award-winning mooting teams.

“Bond Law’s students and staff are privileged to enjoy such a close association with the Honourable Michael Kirby,” said Faculty of Law Dean, Professor Geraldine Mackenzie.

“We are expecting a full house for the Michael Jones Lecture, with close to 500 in attendance, but we particularly appreciate that he will be spending quality one-on-one time with students at events like the Law Students Association afternoon tea and in the mooting masterclass.

“Having the opportunity to meet and learn from someone of his stature and international standing serves as a true inspiration for the next generation of legal professionals who hope to follow in his footsteps,” said Professor Mackenzie.

About Justice Michael Kirby

In a long and distinguished legal career spanning more than 50 years, Michael Kirby served on numerous national and international commissions and human rights organisations.

In 1983, he became the youngest person to be appointed as a judge of the Federal Court of Australia and was Australia’s longest serving High Court judge from 1996 until his retirement in 2009.

He received Australia’s highest civil honour when he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in 1991 and in the same year was awarded the Human Rights Medal.

The 2011 City of Sydney Peace Prize Lecture was delivered to a sold-out crowd at Sydney Town Hall on Wednesday 2nd November, by the 2011 Sydney Peace Prize Recipient, Prof Noam Chomsky.

Full text of Prof Chomsky’s lecture - Revolutionary Pacifism: Choices and Prospects ...

Image: Reuters

Teachers Federation President, Bob Lipscombe has said after today’s teacher stopwork meeting:

“This morning thousands of teachers across NSW overwhelmingly rejected the O’Farrell government’s proposed cut to the real incomes of teachers employed in public schools, TAFE colleges and other public sector areas."

“It is clear that over 99% of teachers have rejected the proposal which would put teacher incomes on a downward spiral. This is at the very time when the O’Farrell government needs to maintain professional and attractive salaries if it is to have any hope of ensuring that it is able to attract and retain the many thousands of new teachers who will be needed in the next few years to replace the retiring baby boomers."

“No parent will thank the O’Farrell government if it succeeds in making teaching such an unattractive proposition that it becomes impossible to ensure there is a properly qualified teacher in front of their child’s class."

“In addition to rejecting the O’Farrell government’s disgraceful salaries offer, teachers today have demanded the government immediately make a fair and reasonable offer on salaries and negotiate in good faith."

“Should the government not be prepared to act in good faith and should it not be prepared to negotiate a fair and reasonable salaries settlement, teachers at the meeting today have called on Federation to call a 24 hour stopwork on 29 November. If these meetings proceed, they will consider further industrial action at the beginning of the 2012 school and college year.”

Evicted from Queens Park - General Assembly 5pm today in King George Square, City

Police told Occupiers in Queens Park (who had gone there after Tuesday's eviction from Post Office Square) they had to leave, around 6am today.

We've been told that Occupiers are now at the Roma St watch-house, after about 20 people were taken away. The police report that most of them will be released without charge, although one has been charged with assaulting police. They will then head to King George Square, in the City. They'll hold a General Assembly at King George Square at 5pm today.

There will also be a rally this Saturday November 5 at Queens Park.

Veterans March, Liberty Square - Occupy Wall Street [2/11/11]

The military's here and they're on our side

Phil Airey: An Australian Reporting From The Land Of The Free

Occupy Chicago [2/11/11]

We #standwithoakland Image: @OccupyChicago

Whose Streets? Our Streets!

#Occupy Oakland [2/11/11] Image: @LucyKafanov

Stop Passing The Buck On Coal Seam Gas:

Queensland Greens Media [2/11/11]

Australian Greens spokesperson for mining Senator Larissa Waters today called for an end to the federal Government’s handballing of responsibility for risky coal seam gas (CSG) mining, and said it’s time to do the proper homework on the long-term impacts of CSG.

Senator Waters yesterday introduced a bill into the Senate that would allow the federal Government to consider the potentially irreversible impacts of CSG and other mining on water resources when assessing and approving mining activities.

“Australians are getting tired of the federal Government constantly dodging any responsibility for the damage CSG is and may be doing to our groundwater resources, our good agricultural land and our regional communities,” Senator Waters said.

“The federal Government is already responsible for regulating major mining activities that impact upon “matters of national environmental significance” – and it belies common sense that water currently isn’t one of these.

“Environment Minister Tony Burke is reportedly concerned my bill will retrospectively apply to existing leases, which is an embarrassing misunderstanding as it will not affect any approval given prior to the bill’s introduction.

“Likewise the shadow minister Greg Hunt has misconstrued the scope of my bill, which has no relationship with the proposed mining tax and hence presents no obstacle to the Coalition supporting my bill.

“Tony Windsor’s proposal to use some of the proposed mining tax revenue is one way of funding proper scientific research into the full impacts of CSG mining, but does not change the Greens’ support for the mining tax.

“We do however welcome Mr Windsor’s support for the Greens long-held position that there should be a moratorium on coal seam gas until its long term impacts on our environment and communities are understood.

“This morning Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said people should wait for the science – and he should take this sage advice himself. The federal government should not approve any further coal seam gas applications without a proper scientific understanding of the long term impacts of this industry.”

Around twenty police have blocked exits of Queen's Park where Occupy Brisbane has been overnight.

A Public Works spokesperson says their access has been revoked.

Anne O'Keeffe reports live from Queen's Park ...

This morning, after a request from The Department of Public Works (DPW) the Queensland Police Service has started negotiation with Occupy Brisbane to leave Queens Park.

Yesterday afternoon, DPW requested police assistance to move protestors from the square in George Street.

This morning, Occupy Brisbane protestors were told that they were required to leave the Park.
Shortly thereafter, police negotiators started talking with the protestors and requesting they obey the lawful direction to leave the area.

Officers from Brisbane Central District and the Public Safety Response Team are on scene to ensure Occupy Brisbane move safely and peacefully.

There may be some traffic disruption during this process, and commuters may wish to seek an alternate route to avoid the immediate vicinity.

Occupy has a point, let the public debate progress [ABC 3/1/11]

Tim Dunlop

I kind of wish those on the ostensible left who mock the Occupy protests in Australia would just shut up and demonstrate.

If you think the movement lacks the intellectual firepower that is necessary for you to take it seriously, why not address that directly by joining in and raising the standards rather than sniping from the sidelines? How else are you going to get the sort of political action you approve of?

Look, it's fine to point out that some of those involved are not the exactly the last best hope of democracy, but reducing the protest to a chance to distance yourself from its worst elements is silly. It's like people who dismiss social media as a waste a time because some use it to write about what they had for breakfast.

British academic Chris Bertram had it right when he said on Twitter the other day, "Not in the mood for sneering superiority from "intellectual" bloggers re occupy. They're changing the agenda, you didn't."

The other argument that needs to be ditched by critics of the Australian branch of Occupy is the one that says we aren't afflicted by the same social inequality as the US and therefore the demonstrations here have no resonance.

On the surface, this is true. Australia is much better off than the US, as figures like this reveal:

The 400 wealthiest Americans have a greater combined net worth than the bottom 150 million Americans.
The top 1 per cent of Americans possess more wealth than the entire bottom 90 per cent.

In the Bush expansion from 2002 to 2007, 65 per cent of economic gains went to the richest 1 per cent.

But you'd have to have your head in The Australian not to realise that our fairer income distribution and superior social safety net didn't come about by accident. We've got a more equal society because people have been willing to fight for it, strike for it, and to demonstrate in public.

More importantly, those hard-won gains have to be fought for on an ongoing basis. So, while some are sneering at the Occupy crowds on the basis that Australia is doing better than America, the corporate world and their apologists are working hard to take us in the American direction.

The action by Qantas management to ground their entire fleet and lock out their staff was just the latest illustration of business's lack of patience with a world that won't give them everything they want, and their willingness to do whatever it takes to get their own way.

It is part of broader campaign to put pressure on the Government and its industrial relation's policy, to make it even more employer-friendly than it already is. It's part of relentless campaign to delegitimise unions and industrial action.

Beyond that, we all know that the mining industry managed to neuter Labor's mining tax with a well-financed advertising campaign, and there are plenty of other examples of how the "1 per cent" are using the many public platforms available to them to push their agendas, whether it is James Packer and his gambling interests, Gerry Harvey and his campaign to place a GST on all online purchases, or the energy industry and their attempts to throttle carbon pricing.

Now you might say, well they have a democratic right to do all this, which is fine, but don't then turn around and cheer when the protesters are removed from public areas by police. The democratic-rights argument cuts both ways, and everyone gets to bring pressure to bear on governments whether they can afford a PR company, a Canberra lobbying firm, and prime-time advertising or not.

And let's not pretend demonstrators like the Occupy crowd get a fair shake in the media.

The media are predisposed to support the status quo and marginalise alternative voices like Occupy (and those lefties who mock the protests are playing to that predisposition). Ask yourself, for instance, how many times during the worker's industrial action at Qantas you saw the story framed as 'passengers disrupted by union action'. Now ask yourself how often you saw it framed as, 'management refuses to negotiate with unions over pay and conditions'.

Structural bias goes deeper than this. Margaret Simons made an interesting point the other day:

How do reporters find news? Mostly people tell them. It is as simple?—?and as complicated?—?as that.

So says Sally White's classic Australian journalism text book, Reporting in Australia, so good that it is still in use in many journalism courses....

But the complexity White describes is as relevant today as it was when she wrote. She nails the central modus operandi of journalists. They cultivate sources. They operate in the world of the unauthorised disclosure. And that is an essential game, but also an edgy one.

...Those who want to achieve political outcomes...must necessarily influence the media, which remains one of the most, if not THE most, powerful institution in society. In large part, the media determines the politically possible.

Simons is spot on, but think about the ramifications of that. If it is all about sources, which it is, who exactly do you think make up the majority of a journalist's sources? Protesters and their sympathisers?

Don't make me laugh. As James Boylan noted in the Columbia Review of Journalism back in 1991, "information, the raw material of news, usually turns out to be the peculiar property of those in power and their attendant experts and publicists... Political reporting, like other reporting, is defined largely by its sources."

How exactly, in such a world, are people with the concerns of the Occupy movement meant to get any sort of sustained media attention? There is a lot of truth in Roger Niles' recent comment in the Online Journalism Review that "Wherever you see a demonstration, journalism has failed".

But there is something else critics of Occupy get wrong, and it is a mistake common to the well-educated. It is the presumption that before you can involve yourself in public discussion, you must understand precisely what you are talking about.

This gets the idea of public debate completely the wrong way around, and conservative US writer Christopher Lasch explains the error best:

Let us begin with a simple proposition. What democracy requires is public debate, not information. Of course it needs information too, but the kind of information it needs can be generated only by vigorous popular debate. We do not know what we need to know until we ask the right questions, and we can identify the right questions only by subjecting our own ideas about the world to the test of public controversy. Information, usually seen as the precondition of debate, is better understood as its by-product. When we get into arguments that focus and fully engage our attention, we become avid seekers of relevant information. Otherwise we take in information passively—if we take it in at all.

Those involved in the Occupy movement mightn't understand every detail of the system they are protesting against, and they mightn't have a neat set of prescriptions about how to put things right, but they understand something fundamental about democratic debate that their well-educated critics don't: in the first instance, democracy requires debate, not information.

The point here is not to criticise experts and others with the intellectual heft to explain and analyse and plan. Far from it (though I wish they would stop sniping and go add their light to the sum of light).

No, the point I'm making is that the Occupy movement is happening in an environment where other forms of public discussion are so dominated by elites and special interests that occupying public space is just about the only option left to those who want to have alternative views heard.

Look again at those figures on US inequality. Do we really want to wait until things are that bad here before we push back?

Maybe one day our politicians will properly represent the views of all their constituents, and maybe one day the media will regularly look to sources beyond the corridors of power for their stories and opinions. There may even come a time when alternative media will come to rival the mainstream in its reach and influence and thus make it easier for different ideas to be discussed properly.

Until then, occupy.

Tim Dunlop writes regularly for The Drum and other publications. You can follow him on Twitter and at his blog, B-Sides.

In December 2010 Sweden issued two international warrants for Julian Assange’s arrest. He has been detained without charge since.

This is a guide to the events, investigations and court proceedings that are connected with Julian Assange’s extradition. This guide is the first to map out the legal aspects of the UK extradition cases, the controversies surrounding the Swedish investigation, and societal and political reactions in Sweden. The guide is an archive of information that is in the public domain.

The guide will be updated as the case progresses. Much of the material will be new to readers. All sources are indicated. The research has been commissioned by the Julian Assange Defence Fund’s (JADF) Committee to Defend Julian Assange.

Occupy Brisbane - It's Not A Place - It's A State Of Mind!

Independent MP for Lyne Robert Oakeshott today said the major political parties were failing Australia on migration policy, made worse by their reluctance to acknowledge the good work of previous governments on the same issue.

“In 2002, the Liberal Party’s Alexander Downer started the Bali Process, which deals with people smuggling, people trafficking and related trans-national crime in the Asia-Pacific. This work, involving 43 countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region, continues today under the Labor Party’s Chris Bowen, and is an important framework agreement for long-term, sustainable policy in our region,” Mr Oakeshott said.

“On this approach, both major parties should be congratulated for their efforts, and encouraged to work harder on migration and asylum strategies, including using the Bali Process principles to drive domestic policy.

“But it is this bipartisan, good, regional work that exposes the hypocrisy of the domestic debate.

“It is work that has developed a set of principles on border protection that has a humanitarian backbone, and it has been done via agreement and consensus across political party lines and across jurisdictions. It is there to be used in domestic law and this opportunity should be taken,” Mr Oakeshott said.

“Instead, when we get to a domestic debate, we see adversarial politics gone wrong in some sort of toughness test, rather than an integrity test.

“Currently, it is crisis policy based on political motives rather than the national interest, and more and more Australians are now seeing through the rubbish policy positions of both major parties of the past decade in the area of migration.

“Support for the Bali Process has come from many areas, including the leading business think tank Committee for Melbourne, and until political parties move to a position of promoting their own work in the Bali Process, they remove the ability of executive government to effectively implement long-term, sustainable strategies on migration and asylum,” Mr Oakeshott said.

There's Nothing Wrong, Everything's Fine ... Why Would Anyone:

 

@occupygoldcoast ???

www.occupygoldcoast.org

Facebook

And the first rule of development is ...... ? In April 2010, the "NDA" (Sea World Drive, Main Beach) was cleared of trees

Developer Brookfield Multiplex has advised the Government it would withdraw its proposal to redevelop land south of Sea World at the Gold Coast Spit.

Brookfield Multiplex had been selected as the short-listed proponent following a competitive expression of interest process to develop the five-hectare parcel of land owned by the State Government, known as the Northern Development Area.

Brookfield Multiplex formally withdrew their proposal on Monday afternoon.

Deputy Premier, Treasurer and Minister for State Development and Trade Andrew Fraser said the company had advised the government it was unable to meet the commercial requirements agreed to as part of the development process.

“Although disappointed by this news, we recognise that this parcel of land is an important asset to the Gold Coast community, and to the growth of the tourism industry,” Mr Fraser said.

“The Government will consider its options for the site’s future development and use, given the decision by Brookfield Multiplex to withdraw from the process.”

Expressions of Interest sought for Northern Gold Coast Spit site

The State Government has called for Expressions of Interest (EOIs) on a 5ha land parcel on the Gold Coast Spit, Minister for Infrastructure and Planning Stirling Hinchliffe announced today.

Mr Hinchliffe said the announcement marked the start of a competitive bidding process for the State-owned site located between Sea World and the Versace Hotel.

The site is part of the 8.2ha area previously known as the Northern Development Area (NDA) under the former Gold Coast Marine Development (GCMD).

The State Government previously sought to develop the area however bids received failed to meet State Government’s timeframes and objectives.

As a result the State ended the bidding process in June 2010. Since then a number of unsolicited proposals have been received and interested parties are now invited to formally submit applications as part of the EOI process.

“The Bligh Government is committed to delivering jobs and investment within the Gold Coast tourism industry,’’ Mr Hinchliffe said.

“A competitive bidding process will now begin with all interested parties encouraged to submit their ideas prior to the March 4 deadline.

“It is important however to emphasise that this project is not proposing any development east of Sea World Drive or at Doug Jennings Park.’’

Proponents have until 12pm Friday 4 March 2011 to submit their EOIs.

It is anticipated a decision will be made by mid 2011.

To receive the Expression of Interest Invitation email company name details and at least two contacts to: GCSDproject@dip.qld.gov.au

Development options for the remainder of the State-owned land, which formed the GCMD, are not part of the current EOI process and will be considered in the future.

That's Interesting

Does The Minister's Nostalgia Extend To The Natural Environment?

Minister for Main Roads, Fisheries and Marine Infrastructure Media Release [2/11/11]:

A proposal to recognise a pioneering Kalbar family by naming a local bridge in their honour will be open for community feedback from today.

Transport and Main Roads is proposing to officially name Moore’s Bridge over Warrill Creek on Kalbar Connection Road in recognition of the Moore family.

Main Roads Minister Craig Wallace said the department was keen to hear the community’s thoughts on the Moore’s Bridge name.

The timber bridge was originally built in 1936. It is believed a sign with Moore’s Bridge existed at that time, but was removed when it was rebuilt in 1952.

William Henry Moore and his family first moved to Kalbar more than 100 years ago to farm the land near the bridge.

His son, Walter Moore Snr, fought in World War I, and the family has since been heavily involved in the Kalbar community, including the local church and school.

Currently, nearly a dozen Moore families still live in Kalbar.

“Bridge naming is a wonderful way of celebrating individuals, groups or events that have been important to a community’s success or wellbeing,” Mr Wallace said.

“Ideally bridge names should reflect the values of the local community and if named after a family, that family should be respected members of the local community.”

Global pharmaceutical firm, Hospira, is now the only company supplying US execution chambers with the paralysis drug used in lethal injections. Pancuronium bromide is the second drug in the lethal injection ‘cocktail’ and serves to paralyse the prisoner before the lethal dose of potassium chloride is administered.

Israeli manufacturer, Teva, recently became the latest manufacturer to exit the execution drug trade, leaving Hospira solely responsible for the US supply of the drug.

According to expert anaesthesiologist, Dr. Mark Heath, Pancuronium bromide serves no medical purpose in the lethal injection procedure, but rather a ‘cosmetic’ purpose, serving to mask any possible suffering of the inmate. If not properly anesthetised by the first drug in the cocktail, a prisoner will be paralysed by the pancuronium bromide, unable to move, speak or even motion that something has gone wrong.

Dr. Heath attests ‘there is no dispute that the asphyxiation caused by pancuronium and the caustic burning sensation caused by potassium would be agonizing in the absence of adequate anesthesia’.

Earlier this month, legal action charity Reprieve wrote to Hospira to draw their attention to the issue. They offered to assist Hospira in creating a new distribution system which would allow the company to control who is able to use their product and for what purpose.

Reprieve recently worked successfully with Danish manufacturer Lundbeck to restrict the distribution of pentobarbital, a product which was also being used in executions. Lundbeck’s effective action means that US prisons are now blocked from buying their drugs for use in executions. Hospira, a company which has long stated its opposition to the use of its drugs in executions, could take similar steps to prevent such abuse. However, they have not replied to Reprieve’s letter and offer of assistance.

On average, it takes an anaesthesiologist 5,110 days’ training before he is fully qualified to administer anaesthesia in hospitals; prison wardens are given an average of 2.5 days’ training before they are deemed qualified to administer anaesthesia in lethal injection procedures. Little surprise that executions are so frequently ‘botched’.

If the first drug, the anaesthetic, is not properly administered, the prisoner remains conscious as the second and third drugs are injected, causing ‘agonizing pain’. The phenomenon has been likened to that of ‘anaesthesia awareness’ in surgery. Victims of anaesthesia awareness testify that the pain and terror is ‘cruel beyond description’.

Reprieve investigator Maya Foa said:

"Hospira’s silence on this issue is deeply disturbing. The potential for torture associated with this illegitimate use of their drugs is immense. Indeed, the American Veterinary Association has expressly condemned the use of paralytic agents in animal euthanasia. That prisoners are treated worse than animals by the state is scandalous; that healthcare provider Hospira should be complicit in this is nothing short of disgraceful."

Police evict Occupy Brisbane protesters
aap.com.au

Police have evicted dozens of Occupy Brisbane protesters after the city council said it wanted them out of a CBD park. Four were arrested but were later released without charge. The activists have vowed to stage another sit-in at Queens Park instead, as they continue a protest that is now in its 18th day.

Police moved into Post Office Square early on Wednesday, after a request from the Brisbane City Council. Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said it was his decision to push out the protesters, who've been camping in the square.

"It's a case of enough is enough. They've had their opportunity," Mr Quirk told ABC Radio.

"It's a public park and it's time to hand that park back to the people. It's as simple as that."

"I'm all for peaceful demonstration and all of that, but it's reached its time."

He said the council would be left with a bill of up to $30,000 to repair the damage the protesters had caused. Police said there were 80 to 100 protesters in the square when officers moved in about 4am (AEST). All have now left, with many marching down Queen Street, led by a bagpiper, chanting "We are the 99 per cent" and "This is what democracy looks like".

Mr Quirk said Queens Park was a state government park and it would be up to the government to decide if they should be moved on again. Police Superintendent Brett Schafferius said safety had been a concern.

"We had to take into account too the disruption to the businesses in the area which will start trading soon.

"If the people decide to move to Queens Park we will see what happens there and reassess the situation, we will continue to talk to the protesters throughout."

Demonstrators said police began erecting fences around the camp at 5am.

"They put up these cages around us like we were some kind of animal. It is not fair, the council have known they were going to do it for days and they could have given us a heads-up yesterday but they didn't," 23-year-old Greenpeace worker Ahmed Al-Qassam told AAP.

"People are angry, there are a lot of emotions, people have not slept for days to inform the public. They are filming us like we are criminals.

"But it is overwhelming how the general public have taken up this cause, we are for the people and for the future," he added.

Apprentice chef Dylan Smith, 19, from Highgate Hills in Brisbane, said the protest would move to different locations every time they were moved on.

"There are lots of parks in the city. We are willing to put everything on the line to help get the word out."

This morning, after a request from Brisbane City Council, the Queensland Police Service has started negotiation with Occupy Brisbane to leave Post Office Square.

Brisbane City Council requested police assistance to move protestors to allow for the regeneration of Post Office Square precinct. Consequently, early this morning, Brisbane City Council informed Occupy Brisbane that they were required to leave the Square.

Shortly thereafter, police negotiators started talking with the protestors and requesting they obey the lawful direction to leave the area. Assistance was provided to a number of people, who were referred to support agencies as a part of this process.

Officers from Brisbane Central District and the Public Safety Response Team are on scene to ensure Occupy Brisbane move safely and peacefully.

The decision to remove the protestors was taken after considerable consultation and planning to ensure safety for all participants, and minimal disruption for the public and businesses in the surrounding areas.

The public is requested to avoid the area while the protestors pack up and leave.

Once the protestors have cleared the area, the square will be closed off while the council undertakes maintenance on the site.

We had organised to send Breakfast reporter Anne O'Keeffe to Post Office Square this morning to meet with the last remaining Occupy movement in an Australian capital city.

Today, it seems that their run is over with police issuing a statement earlier this morning:

"This morning, after a request from Brisbane City Council, the Queensland Police Service has started negotiation with Occupy Brisbane to leave Post Office Square. Brisbane City Council requested police assistance to move protesters to allow for the regeneration of Post Office Square precinct".

Anne O'Keeffe reports from Post Office Square, Lance describes the scene from his hotel room overlooking the scene, and you'll hear from protesters, police and Brisbane Lord Mayor Cr Graham Quirk in this forty minute compilation from today's 612 ABC Brisbane Breakfast show ...

Yesterday, without much fanfare, Minister Burke announced that he would yet again delay the decision on whether to list the koala until 17th February 2012. I imagine he was hoping the Australian people and media will more interested in the Melbourne Cup – a famous horse race which runs today (the winner - Dunaden).

Minister Burke's press release:

Monday 31 October 2011

Decision date for koala threatened species listing extended

Federal Environment Minister, Tony Burke, today extended the due date for his decision on whether to add the koala to the list of nationally threatened species, following new information and the recommendations of the Senate inquiry.

Mr Burke’s decision was due at the end of October but he will now make his decision by 17 February 2012 to allow sufficient time to consider the new information and to seek further advice from the Threatened Species Scientific Committee in light of new population data.

'Significant new data was presented to the Senate inquiry in relation to koala populations in Australia’s north,' Mr Burke said.

'The Scientific Committee hasn’t had the opportunity to deal with this data. This provides the opportunity to keep the process moving'.

'The aim of the Senate inquiry was to fill some of the knowledge gaps and assess the threats to and management of koalas across the country.'

In September 2010, the scientific committee advised the Minister not to list the koala, due to insufficient data. In addition to the new findings in the Senate inquiry, new information has become available in the year since the Committee’s advice.

This includes evidence of more significant population declines than previously identified and more severe threats to the national koala population than those considered by the Committee, particularly in the koala’s northern range (Queensland and New South Wales).

'The results of this Senate inquiry have been valuable to inform this very important decision I have to make under national environment law,' said Mr Burke.

'I’m not going to rush such a crucial decision. There are ways of dealing with different Koala populations in different parts of the country'.

'I want the Committee to provide me with advice inside the new deadline.' ENDS

If I get out my crystal ball for 2012 what I can predict is:

1. that the Minister will announce the koala will be listed as Conservation Dependant under the EPBC Act – which sounds great, but means nothing, and puts us back where we started with Minister Garrett nearly two years ago.

2. that a Workshop of some sort will be held to 'evaluate for the first time the numbers of koalas in Australia', rather than accept and acknowledge AKF’s assessment and years of work.

3. that the Threatened Species Scientific Committee (TSSC) says it has not had enough time to evaluate the problem and needs more money for endless research which could take years. And worst of all...

4. that the Minister will announce the protection/listing of some small group of koalas and make it look like 'all is well' and ignore a national listing.

What the Minister has not said in his press release is that in the Senate Report, both his Committee and his Department were criticized strongly for not being thorough enough in their deliberations, and I know this to be true.

The words I have highlighted in red [italicised above] are the words that warn AKF that the Minister has, in fact, already made up his mind about what to do, and that is to appease the Victorian Government to not list the koala because it will upset logging interests in that State.

It is also interesting to note that the New South Wales State Minister has recently said that 'logging is good for koalas'.

I am also very concerned that Minister Burke is not going to accept AKF’s offer to help with mapping of koala habitat. I hear on good authority that within days of AKF sending that offer (see previous Diary), the Minister called a group together to discuss 'mapping'.

I wonder too whether this has something to do with my enquiry to the Minister’s Department about a 'mapping workshop' that should have been held in 2010 under the auspices of the National Koala Management Strategy. Who knows whether it was actually held, but I guess not; nothing else under that Strategy has happened except the shuffling of paper, and no leadership or action.

With the holiday season approaching us and on a happier note, the AKF was recently hosted by the Governor of Queensland to celebrate our 25th year anniversary.

Her Excellency Ms Penny Wensley hosted a diverse group of koala supporters and her speech will ring long in our ears.

She praised us for our incredible diligence and our commitment to the scientific process, and encouraged us to keep on with our endeavours into the future. We will, but as I write these words, I have completely lost faith in the 'political process'.

I can confidently assure you, that even after thousands of dollars of tax payer funds have been spent on the Senate Report, the Minister is actually not listening. He is choosing the bits out of the report that will allow business as usual.

We should all be outraged and we are.

Deborah

The absence of violence at the Occupy Brisbane protest has attracted supporters from other interstate sites and a strong following from the indigenous population.

With violence across many other Occupy sites around the world, the movement as a whole may have much to learn from Brisbane's attitude towards Police and local authorities.

Gold Coast City Council is urging residents to have their say on the future of the existing Gold Coast Hospital site at Southport.

The Queensland Government, in consultation with Council and the Southport Chamber of Commerce, is asking for community feedback on the approximately four-hectare site, which is currently home to the city’s major hospital and allied health services. ...

A bill to clarify the legal status of people smuggling has been introduced to the House of Representatives and passed with the support of the Coalition less than an hour later.

(Misrata, Libya) - If anyone is surprised by the apparent killing of Moammar Gadhafi while in the custody of militia members from the town of Misrata, they shouldn’t be.

More than 100 militia brigades from Misrata have been operating outside of any official military and civilian command since Tripoli fell in August. Members of these militias have engaged in torture, pursued suspected enemies far and wide, detained them and shot them in detention, Human Rights Watch has found. Members of these brigades have stated that the entire displaced population of one town, Tawergha, which they believe largely supported Gadhafi avidly, cannot return home.

As the war in Libya comes to an end, the pressing need for accountability and reconciliation is clear. The actions of the Misrata brigades are a gauge of how difficult that will be, and Misrata is not alone in its call for vengeance. In the far west, anti-Gadhafi militias from the Nafusa Mountains have looted and burned homes and schools of tribes that supported the deposed dictator. Anti-Gadhafi militias from Zuwara have looted property as they demanded compensation for damage they suffered during the war.

The apparent execution of 53 pro-Gadhafi supporters in a hotel in Sirte apparently under control of Misrata fighters is a bad omen. It is up to the National Transitional Council to rein in all the militias and quickly establish a functioning justice system. The NTC should take control of the many makeshift detention facilities, expedite the return of displaced Libyans, and ensure the investigation, trial and punishment of wrongdoers acting in the name of vengeance. That includes Gadhafi’s killers if the evidence showed crimes were committed. The NTC, and its foreign backers, have comprehensively failed to start setting up a justice system — even in Benghazi, where they have been in charge since the spring.

Clearly the NTC is up against the passions of a nasty war. Misrata withstood a two-month siege at the hands of Gadhafi’s forces with near-daily indiscriminate attacks that killed about 1,000 of its citizens. The town’s main boulevard, Tripoli Street, is in ruins. Facades of public buildings and private homes collapsed from tank fire and are charred inside and out. The pockmarks of bullet holes disfigure construction everywhere.

The fierce fight for Misrata has left a penetrating bitter aftertaste. Misratans say they detest anyone who backed Gadhafi. They are not welcome in Misrata, even if the city and its environs was their home for generations.

The Misrata militia is focusing its greatest wrath on Tawergha, a town of about 30,000 people just south of the city. Both Misratans and Tawerghas say residents there were enthusiastic Gadhafi supporters. Hundreds of erstwhile civilians in that town took up arms to fight for him. Misratans say Tawergha volunteers committed rapes and pillaged with gusto, though Misrata officials decline to produce evidence of the alleged rapes, saying family shame inhibits witnesses and victims from coming forward.

In any event, Misratan militia members are venting their anger on all Tawerghas, who are largely descendants of African slaves. Most fled their town as Misratan fighters advanced there between Aug. 10 and Aug. 12.

Witnesses and victims we interviewed provided credible accounts of Misratan militias shooting and wounding unarmed Tawerghas and torturing detainees, in a few cases to death. In Hun, about 250 miles south of Misrata, militias from Benghazi have taken it upon themselves to protect about 4,000 refugees. They say Misratans are hunting down Tawerghas.

One hospitalized Tawergha told Human Rights Watch how he was shot in the side and leg and abandoned to die near Hun: “They left us at the edge of the road, put a blanket over us and then started swearing, ‘You are dogs, hope you die.’”

Misrata militias, with the momentary compliance of local officials, insist that no Tawerghas should return to the area. Ibrahim Yusuf bin Ghashir, a representative of the NTC, said: “We think it would be better to relocate them somewhere else.” The allegations of rape, he added, “cannot be forgiven and it would be better to resettle them far away.”

This unforgiving campaign is not limited to Tawerghas. Many Misratans say that any tribe or group that supported Gadhafi — thousands of people — should not return to the city. The graffiti on tumble-down town walls express Misratans’ view: “(Expletive) No returnees.”

Human Rights Watch has interviewed refugees from Misrata who tried to return and were forbidden to enter the city without a permit from the local council. A Misrata militia member told the media that all pro-Gadhafi travelers are barred from the city.

As painful as the losses have been for Misrata and the rest of Libya, everyone who fought Gadhafi should remember what they were fighting for: an end to torture, to arbitrary detention, to pitting one tribe against another; for respect and equality among neighbors. Otherwise, the agony that preceded victory will breed vengeance, rancor and a divided new Libya — one that in disturbing ways may resemble the old.

Daniel Williams is a Senior Researcher at Human Rights Watch

Today, at the United Nations General Assembly, the UN’s expert on the right to health, Anand Grover, will present a ground-breaking report. The report exposes how states are putting women’s and girls’ lives and health at risk through criminal laws and other misguided legal restrictions that deny girls and women access to sexual and reproductive health information and services and the ability to make decisions about their sexual and reproductive lives.

The report concludes that restrictions on abortion and contraception, the criminalization of pregnant women’s conduct (such as making drug use when pregnant a criminal offence), as well as restrictions on access to information on sexual and reproductive health violate girls’ and women’s rights to sexual and reproductive health. This report supports earlier UN expert findings that such laws place states in breach of their international human rights obligations.

For almost eight years at Amnesty International I have worked to support research and campaigning on gender-related issues. I am in the middle of my first pregnancy just now. Being here at the UN to see this report being presented feels all the more poignant because of this. As I read the report, my thoughts turned to the girls and women all over the world whose experience of sexuality and reproduction is shaped by laws and policies that allow the state, and the people around them, to subject them to pressure, fear, intimidation, pain, suffering and punishment.

In Indonesia Amnesty International’s research has highlighted a number of legal provisions, including in the Criminal Code, which restrict access to sexual and reproductive rights, or have a chilling effect on the provision of sexual and reproductive health information and services. Some Indonesian activists expressed particular concerns about the new Pornography Law (No. 44/2008) which they said could prevent them from disseminating information on sex education free from the threat of criminalization. One activist told Amnesty International: “If people feel uncomfortable and think I am promoting sex, this can be a problem… it always depends on community leaders… if they are very fundamentalist then there is a high chance [we will be arrested].”

In 2008, draconian legal provisions came into force in Nicaragua which criminalize abortion in all circumstances. As one weary Nicaraguan doctor told an Amnesty International researcher: “Doctors’ hands are tied… we are anxious even about treating a miscarriage, for example.” The situation is so desperate that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights demanded that the Nicaraguan government provide medical treatment to “Amalia”, a young woman suffering advanced cancer. She had been denied the treatment she needed because the 2008 law criminalizes even unintentional harm to the foetus, a risk that her treatment for cancer entailed.

The UN expert’s recommendations echo calls made by international human rights bodies and public health experts. But most importantly, the report reflects the demands of girls and women and those active for the protection of their human rights. On 28 September, hundreds of Nicaraguans marched against the abortion ban. Two young girls held a banner saying “Motherhood: Only if I can and only if I am willing.” Amnesty International supports their demand. So does the Special Rapporteur in his report. Let’s hope more governments hear these voices, adhere to their international legal obligations and take the actions recommended in the report presented today!

The president of the Baltimore AFL-CIO, Ernie Grecco, along with twelve other union leaders wrote a letter to Mayor Rawlings-Blake urging the city to allow for the Occupy Baltimore encampment to continue. This comes just one day after the city declared the encampment illegal, threatening to evict the near one month protest.

Text of the Letter:

“Dear Mayor Rawlings-Blake:

We have been made aware of the city of Baltimore’s intention to close down the Occupy Baltimore site sometime in the next 24 hours. We write to express our firm opinion that nothing be done to close down the site and that instead, an agreement be arrived at which allows for the confrontation of a peaceful, non-violent demonstration.

The Occupy Baltimore protests have given expression to a widely shared belief that our economy and our politics are controlled by corporate interests to the detriment of the overwhelming majority of working people, including our members, their families and communities. We share this opinion and applaud the courage and sacrifice of the Occupy protesters. We believe these protesters should be commended for standing up for the 99% of us, not threatened with removal.

Cities across the country – from San Diego to Little Rock, Philadelphia and Washington DC – have worked with their local Occupy movements to find reasonable accommodations that everyone can live with. Surely, the city of Baltimore can find a solution that meets the concerns of city officials and departments while allowing the protestors to continue their democratic right to peaceful, non-violent protest.

The Occupy Baltimore activists have made a broad call for followers to converge on McKeldin Square in order to defend the occupation tonight. Rather than create a confrontation, we believe it would be wise for the city of Baltimore to act with restraint and responsibility. Rather than remove the protesters, we call upon the city to work with representatives of Occupy Baltimore to find a solution that can maintain the protest location and respect the rights of our citizens.

We look forward to your quick response.

Sincerely,

Ernie Grecco, President, Metro Baltimore Council AFL-CIO
Glen Middleton, Executive Director, AFSCME 67
Anthony Coates, AFSCME Local 647-67
Peggy Peacock, AFSCME Local 2202-67
Ms. Johnnie Phipps, AFSCME Local 558-67
Lorretta Johnson, Secretary-Treasurer, AFT
Mariette English, President, Baltimore Teachers Local 340
Brenda Clayburn, President, City Union of Balto Local 800
Steve Fugate, President, Fire Officers Local 964
Rick Hoffman, President, Fire Fighters Local 734
Jimmy Gittings, President, Public School Administrations and Supervisors Association Local 25
Rod Easter, President, Balto Building Trades Council
Bob Cherry, President, Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #3

http://PeoplePowerTV.com :: the voice of the people, was at day 1 of OCCUPY BRISBANE which started with 50 permanent occupiers and is increasing daily. Thanks to Brisbane police and local businesses for supporting this peaceful rEVOLution.

With more than five out of every seven people in the world lacking adequate social security, a high-level United Nations panel today called for guaranteeing basic income and services for all, not only as a means to ensure peace and stability but also to boost economic growth.

Measures providing income security and scaling up essential health services are affordable even in the poorest countries, costing as little as 1 to 2 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), although international support is needed for some low-income countries, with donors providing predictable multi-year financial aid, according to the panel’s report – Social Protection Floor for a Fair and Inclusive Globalization.

This floor would guarantee basic income in the form of social transfers in cash or kind, such as pensions, child benefits, employment guarantees and services for the unemployed and working poor, while providing universal access to essential affordable social services in health, water and sanitation, education, food, housing, and other services defined according to national priorities.

“This is a crucial report that comes at a critical time,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on receiving the report at UN Headquarters in New York from UN Women’s Executive Director Michelle Bachelet, chair of the Advisory Group convened by the UN International Labour Organization (ILO) in collaboration with the UN World Health Organization (WHO).

“People everywhere are anxious about the future, frustrated about the economy, and upset with political leaders. Achieving social protection for all is critical to building fairer, more inclusive and equitable societies.”

The report’s preliminary conclusions were presented to a ministerial meeting of the G-20 group of major industrialized and developing economies last month and won an immediate pledge by the group to support new measures aimed at extending social protection worldwide as a means of reducing poverty, stimulating economies and hedging against the impacts of economic crises.

The report calls on G-20 leaders at their summit in Cannes, France, next week to consider an “action plan” to implement such protection floors, whose specifics would be developed at the national level, through existing and new financing mechanisms. Some countries, such as El Salvador, Benin, Mozambique and Vietnam, could provide the floor for as little as 1 to 2 percent of GDP, it adds.

“Extending social protection is a ’win-win’ investment that pays off both in the short term, given its effects as macroeconomic stabilizer but also in the long term, due to the impacts on human development and productivity,” Ms. Bachelet said.

The social protection floor differs from the social safety net in that makes protection a full and permanent component of the development strategy for inclusive growth, going beyond the temporary ‘crisis management’ and ‘social relief’ synonymous with safety nets.

“Social protection floors are necessary, feasible and effective”, ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said.

“Cuts in social protection programmes as part of fiscal consolidation packages might weaken the recovery… By reaffirming their commitment to extend social protection, G-20 leaders can contribute to restore people’s confidence, which is a prerequisite to market confidence.”

According to the report, an estimated 5.1 billion people lack adequate social security or social protection worldwide, while just over 15 per cent of the jobless are receiving some form of unemployment benefits. Among possible measures to finance the floor, a background paper cited debt cancellation, revenues from natural resources, improved tax collection in developing countries, as well as a financial and currency transaction tax, debt swap mechanisms, solidarity levies on airline tickets, and steps to facilitate remittances.

“By addressing the structural causes of poverty and inequality in a context of accelerated demographic ageing process, these actions [establishing the floor] can contribute to enhance social cohesion, peace and stability, which in turn help to minimize social unrest,” the report says in its recommendations.

“They can also promote macroeconomic stability, as countries can rely on social protection to both act as an automatic stabilizer and provide foundations for a sustainable and inclusive globalization,” it adds, calling for a mechanism to ensure collaboration and coordination from different UN agencies.

At a later news conference Ms. Bachelet regretted the lack of progress since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948 called for social protection for all with adequate living standards, access to health and education, food and housing, and social security.

“In 2010, what’s the reality is that global GDP is 10 times larger than in 1950, an increase of 260 per cent per capita, so you could think, ‘OK we’re in a great possibility to really be able to achieve what the [Universal] Declaration of Human Rights has stated.’ [But] despite the six decades of strong economic growth… access to adequate social protections services and benefits remains a privileged offer to relatives few people.”

Questions In Writing

Radioactive Waste Management Facility (Question No. 688)

Mr Forrest [Nats, Mallee] asked the Minister for Resources and Energy, in writing, on 13 October 2011:

(1) Is the Proposed Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Facility, Northern Territory: Transport Assessment Report (Parsons Brinckerhoff Australia Pty Ltd and the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism, 13 March 2009) the most recent publication on this topic; if not, what is, and from where is it available.

(2) Can he confirm reports that his department has recommended that radioactive waste be transported from Sydney to a proposed Northern Territory waste management facility along highways through the Murray Valley, including Mildura; if so,

(a) why is the Murray Valley and Sturt Highway route through Mildura preferred over a more direct and quieter route from Sydney via Broken Hill and Peterborough in South Australia, and

(b) would he consider using rail transport instead.

Mr Martin Ferguson: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:

(1) The Parsons Brinckerhoff report commissioned in 2006 is the most recent publication on this topic.

(2) The Parsons Brinckerhoff report puts forward a range of possible transport options to potential Commonwealth radioactive waste management facility sites then under consideration by the Howard Government. The Department has made no recommendation on transport routes and is not in a position to do so given that a national radioactive waste management facility site has not yet been selected and the site subjected to regulatory assessment.

Question On Notice: Uranium Mining (Question No. 578)

Senator Ludlam asked the Minister representing the Minister for Trade, upon notice, on 4 April 2011:

With reference to uranium mining in Africa by Australian mining companies:

(1) Did any departmental officers attend the Indaba mining conference held in Cape Town in February 2011; if so, who attended and with what purpose and outcome.

(2) What further discussions or correspondence has the department had with representatives of the Australia-Africa Mining Industry Group or mining industry representatives in relation to possible partnerships between Australian mining companies operating in Africa and AusAID.

(3) What companies, bodies and officers have been involved in this discourse and with what outcomes.

(4) Can an outline be provided of the process for the sale of the Australian mining company Mantra Resources Limited to the Russian nuclear company ARMZ Uranium Holding Co.

(5) What role does the department play in any assessment or approval of such a sale.

(6) Has the department provided any advice to any party or agency, for example, the Foreign Investment Review Board, on this sale.

(7) (a) What government assessment, due diligence or approval is required in such a case; and (b) what are the mechanisms for realising this.

(8) Does the department expect or require Australian mining companies operating in Africa to abide by standards comparable to those that apply in Australia and to observe responsible international practice; if so, how is this expectation or requirement given effect.

(9) What is the department's position on the current situation of the Bannerman Resources Etango Project in Namibia, particularly in relation to the public comment period on the project being completed prior to the public release of the environmental and social impact assessment and the environmental and social management plan (both key environmental assessment documents).

Senator Conroy: The Minister for Trade has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question:

(1) Yes. The Mining Indaba conference was attended by Assistant Secretary, Africa Branch, and Director, Western Australia State Office, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, as well as the Heads of Mission of Australia's diplomatic missions in sub-Saharan Africa: High Commissioner, Abuja; High Commissioner, Accra; Ambassador, Harare; High Commissioner, Nairobi; High Commissioner, Port Louis; and High Commissioner, Pretoria. Also in attendance were Second Secretary, Australian High Commission, Accra; and Australian High Commission, Pretoria. DFAT officers participated in a number of events at the Indaba conference designed to promote the Australian mining sector and to facilitate its contacts with African governments and companies. The DFAT presence at Indaba helped to facilitate access to African government decision-makers for Australian businesses, demonstrate support for Australian commercial interests in Africa and enhance existing Government-to-Government linkages. All the DFAT staff listed above also participated in a consultative meeting between Australian Government agencies and the Australia Africa Mining Industry Group (AAMIG).

(2) As noted in response to question 1, DFAT chaired a consultative meeting between Australian Government agencies and the AAMIG, held in the margins of the Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town on 9 February 2011. The question of potential cooperation between Australian mining companies and AusAID in the area of corporate social responsibility in Africa, as well as in capacity building for African governments, was discussed at the meeting. This was the second such consultative meeting between AAMIG and Government agencies. The first meeting was held in the margins of the Africa DownUnder mining conference in Perth on 2 September 2009.

(3) Representatives of the following companies on the interim committee of AAMIG participated in the industry-government consultative meeting in Cape Town on 9 February: Adamus Resources, Anvil Mining, Chalice Gold, Middle Island Resources, Paydirt Media, Platinum Australia, Resolute Mining, Sundance Resources. Representatives of Curtin University and Unity Mining also attended the meeting. In addition to DFAT, government agencies participating in the Cape Town meeting were AusAID, Austrade, the Export Finance Insurance Corporation and the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. The DFAT officers participating were those listed in the answer to question 1 above. At the 9 February meeting, Government representatives advised that that co-funding of social responsibility programs of mining companies in Africa will not be a focus of the Government's mining-related development assistance to Africa. AAMIG was invited to provide input to government on the direction of future capacity building assistance to strengthen the governance of the resources sector, which is the focus of Australia's aid program in relation to extractive industries in Africa. AusAID is seeking to promote further consultation on how Australian stakeholders (Commonwealth and State government agencies, the mining industry, academia, non-government organisations) can work together to contribute towards improved mining governance; improved social responsibility in mining; and improved research and teaching capacity in selected countries

(4) This question should be referred to the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) which is responsible for examining proposals by foreign persons to invest in Australia and makes recommendations to the Treasurer on those subject to the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers ACT 1975 and Australia's foreign investment policy.

(5) The Treasury, as the Secretariat for FIRB, consults relevant agencies, including DFAT, to seek comment or information on the investment proposal in order to prepare advice for the Treasurer.

(6) DFAT provided advice to FIRB on 28 January 2011.

(7) This question should be referred to the FIRB.

(8) The Government expects Australian mining companies operating in Africa to abide by local laws and standards and to conduct themselves in accordance with internationally recognised standards for corporate social responsibility, including the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the OECD Risk Awareness Tool for Multinational Enterprises in Weak Governance Zones and the UN Global Compact. This expectation is conveyed through regular industry outreach in Australia (including seminars targeted at the mining industry) on "trading with integrity", to highlight Australian laws applying to Australian companies trading internationally (including laws prohibiting bribery of foreign public officials). The outreach activities also encourage companies to adopt best practice principles, including the OECD Guidelines. Offshore outreach activities on the expectations and obligations of Australian companies also occur. When providing assistance to Australian companies overseas, the Department reminds companies of their obligations to comply with local laws and Australian laws with extraterritorial effect. It also encourages Australian companies to seek legal advice in the jurisdiction in which it operates to help ensure companies properly observe the local laws.

(9) The Australian Government expects all Australian mining companies to comply with the relevant laws of foreign jurisdictions.

Less FIFO, More Rights For Workers And Communities:

CFMEU [31/10/11]

No-one can doubt that the mining boom is having an impact on all of us.

The high Aussie dollar is causing job losses in manufacturing. Employers are exploiting the opportunity to demand cuts to wages and conditions and the employment of more and more guest workers.

The jobs the big resource companies and governments promised would flow into Australian companies manufacturing plant equipment for the resource projects have not materialised.

The resource companies are going overseas for these products, sometimes because it’s cheaper, but more often because the overseas-owned resource companies insist on using overseas products.

Unions insist on a more long-term approach: with a share of resources profits being invested in the future of this country, and employment for local workers and training ahead of temporary visas and contracts for migrant workers.

Hand in hand with the resources boom has been the growth of fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) working arrangements.

The CFMEU accepts that FIFO – or bus-in, bus-out; drive-in, drive-out long distance commuting - may be a fact of life for some remote projects. But the Union is concerned at the growth in employer use of such arrangements, and, particularly, its impact on workers, their families and the communities involved.

The CFMEU believes that FIFO workers and their families should have the right to a decent lifestyle. The House of Representatives Select Committee on Regional Australia is currently holding an Inquiry into ‘Fly-in, Fly-out’ and ‘Drive-in, Drive-out’ Work Practices, to which the CFMEU Construction and Mining Divisions have made a joint submission.

Key recommendations from the CFMEU Submission include:

An Impact Assessment process – similar to Environment Impact Assessments – whereby corporations have to prove a particular workplace can only operate with a FIFO workforce and impact on local communities, particularly in terms of infrastructure and services, is addressed and remedied

A uniform set of standards for Worker Accommodation Villages, including provision for extreme weather conditions

Access to modern digital technology in all accommodation, including internet, to enhance family communication and employer provision of access to such technology for workers

Support for workers and families in stress because of FIFO arrangements

FIFO workers entitled to all workplace rights while on camp, including dispute resolution, OHS and access to assistance and advice from their union

Worker consultation on rosters, with particular attention to fatigue and family considerations

Travel time is part of working hours and from point of usual residence

Corporations using FIFO contribute to apprenticeships and training.

An estimated $174 billion in funds is already committed to build new resource projects in Australia – mostly LNG, iron ore and coal – with over $200 billion more in the pipeline long-term.

No one can know how long the boom will last, but there’s no excuse for not making it work for all Australians, rather than for a few greedy executives and shareholders.

Australian manufacturing should not be killed off by the strength of demand for resources. Investment in building and general infrastructure needs to continue to maintain standards across the economy.

The wealth from the boom must benefit all, into the future. Workers and their families must stand to gain by the boom, not see their rights and living standards eroded further.