august2006

Greens candidate for Bulimba, Mr Howard Nielsen says that in the face of extreme water restrictions in South East Queensland, the Labor government should be campaigning against a proposed golf course and housing development at the Minnippi Wetlands in Bulimba.

“With Bulimba voters having to bucket water to their gardens, there should be a 'no go' decision for the water-sucking proposal,” said Mr Nielsen.

The golf course and housing development would be constructed on 125 hectares on the west side of Bulimba Creek, which is currently used for recreation and is a habitat for the local squirrel glider population.

When asked for his position on the proposed development at Minnippi, the Labor member for Bulimba, Mr Pat Purcell said, “The Minnippi Wetlands are solely under the control of the Brisbane City Council and as such your question should be directed to Lord Mayor Campbell Newman.”

The Minnippi Wetlands has been owned by the Brisbane City Council since its resumption in 1967, but the State Government, through the Office of the Co-ordinator General, has the power to stop the development.

If elected, Mr Nielsen said that as an individual member, he would have to persuade the rest of the house and would “advocate strongly for the development to not go ahead.”

A Sunday afternoon [27/08/06] blaze at Smorgan's Steel Recycling at Lytton sent huge plumes of dark grey smoke across the Brisbane CBD. The Queensland Fire and Rescue Service and Police rushed to the scene, along with many fascinated locals - including Mr Whippy. One couple had their camping chairs set up for a spectacular sunset - all that was missing was a cold bottle of wine. According to ABC News, there are no concerns for Brisbane residents' health or safety. Is that glass half full?

“Queensland is like a beautiful girl with lots of money. But stupid. For some reason she just loves to open her purse and bare her big pink arse to the world and say 'Fuck me over, please' to all comers. And trust me, the fuckers come running.”

While the EKKA was in full swing the weekend before last [12-13 August], Sydneysiders were treated to the inaugural '@Work & Play - Queensland on Show' jobs and lifestyle exhibition at Sydney Olympic Park. According to a spokesman from the Deputy Premier's Office, the Queensland Government spent $500,000 on the three day event, which was attended by 1000s of keen guests from around New South Wales. The entry charge was $12.50 (free for children) and if you brought along a promotional card, you could get one ticket free.

'Work & Play Queensland on Show' featured 220 exhibitor stands, 40 local/regional information sites and a seminar program that included presentations given by Ergon Energy, Macarthur Coal, Leighton Contractors, the Department of Public Works, Department of Corrective Services, Queensland Health and Queensland Tourism. Holiday prizes were also up for grabs.

In a press release Deputy Premier Anna Bligh (who appeared at the exhibition with Premier Peter Beattie) said that regional Queensland has jobs in health, mining, engineering, manufacturing, tourism, hospitality and much more. “We do not hide from the fact that Queensland is facing a time of great economic growth and that we are experiencing shortages of skilled labour and it is no secret that this is impacting on public and private sectors,” she said.

When asked whether Queensland has the infrastructure to cope with the 1000s of New South Welshmen expected to flock over the border, the spokesperson from the Deputy Premier's office referred me to the $66 billion investment the Beattie government has made to the South East Queensland Infrastructure plan. The updated plan, which was released in May, incorporates road and public transport projects, social and community infrastructure, water infrastructure and energy networks. Copies of the 2006 – 2026 South East Queensland Infrastructure plan are available from www.oum.qld.gov.au.

Dr Death, Palm Island, dams, cruise ship terminals at the Spit and demoralised teachers and nurses aside, Queensland's not a bad place to live. At least you can still swear when your train is late without getting a $400 fine – I think.

For more information on '@ Work & Play – Queensland On Show', see www.workliveplay.qld.gov.au

A forum on illegal organ harvesting in China held at Brisbane's City Hall on Tuesday evening [22/08/06], revealed that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, The Honourable Neil Andrew, MP declined to acknowledge the Vice President of the European Parliament and a former Canadian Cabinet Minister.

Mr Edward McMillan-Scott, Vice President of the European Parliament and Mr David Kilgour, Former Canadian Cabinet Minister have been travelling around Australia to create an awareness of Kilgour and David Matas's recently published report into allegations of organ harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China.

The Chair of Tuesday night's panel said that on their visit to Parliament House, the Speaker declined to acknowledge their presence in the gallery. Fellow panel member, Senator Andrew Bartlett said the guests were acknowledged in the Senate, but the Australian Parliament are apprehensive about being seen to be giving excessive support to human rights issues. He went on to cite the example of the Dalai Lama being refused permission to speak at the Great Hall. “Democracy should not be party political,” said Senator Bartlett.

Referring to this non-recognition in the House of Representatives, Senator Bartlett also said, “We are lucky, we have democracy, yet our democracy is a lot more fragile than people think.”

The Australian Government's 1999 Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) may save the Mary Valley and Wyaralong. The Act sets out to protect areas of national environmental significance and species of threatened Australian flora and fauna. Under the Act, any developments that are likely to impact on the environment must be assessed by the Australian Government.

A media release from Senator Ian Campbell, Minister for the Environment and Heritage, states that detailed proposals for both dams have yet to be received by the Australian Government.

“Once the referrals have been received, they will be given careful consideration as to the potential for the dams to have a significant impact on any of those environment matters protected under federal environment law, including nationally listed threatened species such as the Queensland Lungfish, Mary River Tortoise, and the Mary River Cod; endangered ecological communities; and Ramsar wetlands of international importance,” said Senator Campbell.

In 1983, Tasmanian's Franklin River was saved when the High Court found that the Commonwealth Government had the power to stop the Franklin dam.

On the 6th August, 1945, the United States bombed Hiroshima killing 80,000 people within hours. That's about the four times the number of people who took part in the annual Bridge to Brisbane race last Sunday.

On Sunday afternoon, when all the runners and walkers were massaging their sore bits and revelling in the glory of it all, about one hundred Brisbaneites turned out to commemorate Hiroshima Day in Queens Park. The Quakers, who have held a silent peace vigil in King George Square on the first Friday of every month since the invasion of Iraq, were present. As were the combined unions choir and some well-known Brisbane activists who spoke out against uranium mining and called for world peace.

I wondered if the lady doing power laps in the Casino Towers pool (visible from the park), or the loud lads playing ad hoc footy (that every now and then encroached upon the rally) pondered the significance of the day? And I hope 'Tash', the brave, and footsure, peace loving doggie, got home OK!

Gore Goes Global And Gives Good Graphs

Brisbane City Smog: Lunchtime, 25 August, 2006

Former US Vice President, Al Gore wants us to acknowledge a harsh reality - humankind has entered an “era of consequences”. As he travels around the world evoking his brand of environmental enlightenment, Gore (not to be confused with Gore Vidal, the prolific US novelist and intellectual, who regularly commented on issues such as US Imperialism) is kind of like a Yankee Doodle Gorbachev - a former world leader with a chip on his shoulder and an environmental message to convey.

Gore presents the thesis that planet earth is the midst of a climate crisis in a hyper-scholarly format, sans interpreter, and on celluloid in 'An Inconvenient Truth'. His magnetic matinee-idol looks and dazzling array of wizz bang graphs, humourous cartoons and scientific data should charm the most blinkered soul and ruffle our collective consciousness.

Directed by David Guggenheim, 'An Inconvenient Truth' weaves between a number of parallel journeys. Gore travelling here and there while he works upon his laptop (by the way, Gore is on the Board of Apple Computer), a catalogue of personal reminiscences such as his childhood on the family tobacco farm, and his recollection of conversations with fellow environmentalists and scientists such as Carl Sagan.

From the devastation of Hurricane Katrina to the melting polar ice-caps, 'An Inconvenient Truth' illustrates how the earth's weather patterns have been irrevocably altered since the industrial age began. Yet despite these terrible truths and Gore's prescription to remedy the situation, there's an eerie absence of any reference to the role of US military aggression or to his stance on nuclear energy. And though his family stopped farming tobacco following the cancer death of Gore's elder sister Nancy, they owned shares in Occidental (Oxy) until six years ago when his father's estate was closed.

Gore says that international interest in protecting the environment crystallized when the first images of our lonely little planet were beamed back to earth from Apollo 13. Whether 'An Inconvenient Truth' can inform public opinion about global warming, and rejuvenate our jaded environmental awareness remains to be seen. In any case, it's excellent publicity if all that speculation turns out to be true, and an inconvenient truth turns into a convenient segue to a 2008 US Presidential campaign!

A current exhibition at the Queensland Museum celebrates the fragility and natural beauty of the world's wildlife and environment, captured in breathtaking detail by some of the world's most talented wildlife photographers. The 2005 Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition features exhilarating photographs from the world's largest and most prestigious wildlife photography competition.

The two Australian images included in the exhibition are Tom Putt's 'Ancient Snow Gum', which was taken in the alpine forest at Charlotte's Pass, New South Wales and Julian Smith's 'Bogong Swarm' taken in an unidentified “dusty Australian town”.

The 2005 Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition runs from 19 August until the end of October at Queensland Museum, South Bank. Entry is free. The Museum is open daily from 9.30am until 5pm. Telephone (07) 3840 7555 or visit www.southbank.qm.qld.gov.au.

If you've wandered along Melbourne Street, South Brisbane in the past three weeks, you would have noticed Brisbane artist Hiromi Tango living and creating within the front windows of Raw Space Galleries.

Inspired by gifts she has received since arriving in Australia in 1998, the eclectic, and intensely personal installation contains an array of fascinating artefacts - invitations, wine bottles and intricate sketches. Small cardboard tags reveal Hiromi's thoughts and ideas, and provide a medium for her to convey messages to onlookers and passersby. Even a medical certificate granting a few days sick leave has been incorporated in the alluring ephemera.

On a visit last weekend, Hiromi indicated she was feeling better and that her project concludes on 25 August.

A recently released documentary 'Star Wars Weapons In Iraq' ('Guerre Stellari In Iraq') examines the horrifying effects of a new breed of experimental weapons being tested in Iraq. Created by Maurizio Torrealta, News Editor for the Italian Television Network, RAI, and co-producer of 'Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre', the documentary incorporates chilling accounts and interviews with witnesses, doctors, former members of the US military and human rights experts.

The opening sequence features an interview between US Filmmaker Patrick Dillon and Majid Al Gehezali, First Violinist in the Baghdad City Orchestra, who witnessed a battle for the Baghdad airport and reported he had seen three dead passengers of a car afterwards:

"There wasn't any bullet. I saw their teeth, just the teeth, and they had no eyes, all of them, there was nothing on their bodies."

Former Pentagon analyst, and now Washington Post journalist William Arkin confirms the revolutionary change from kinetic to energy weapons such as Long Range Acoustic Devices (Sonic Blaster), Active Denial System (known as the Pain Ray) and Tactical High Energy Lasers (Laser Dazzlers):

"For thousands of years, the way in which you have killed someone is you have hit them with a sword, a sphere, an arrow, a bullet, a bomb. It's kinetic, you're killing them by hitting them. And now, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you have a completely new physical principle being applied in killing people, in which they don't know that they're being killed because their skin and body is being heated by high power microwaves or they are being hit by a laser that would have an instantaneous effect."

In 2004, the US military website www.defensetech.org reported that a Humvee-mounted ADS prototype was expected to be ready by the end of the year, with budget decisions made in 2005. The site describes how some of these weapons work. For example, the Active Denial System (Pain Ray) works by firing electro-magnetic waves that penetrate just a 64th of an inch beneath the skin, creating a burning sensation that makes people run the other way.

Another documentary, 'Baghdad ER', which was recently aired throughout the US on HBO, chronicles two months at the 86th Combat Support Hospital. According to the website: www.warincontext.org, the US military were initially keen for this heroic portrayal of the medical staff, and their success at achieving 90% survival rate, to be aired. But enthusiasm has significantly diminished with the realization that the documentary clearly illustrates the grim reality of war.

Further information regarding 'Star Wars Weapons In Iraq' can be accessed on the RAI news website: www.rainews24.it

The 1960s, six storey CWA building, Ruth Fairfax House at 83 Gregory Terrace is currently being demolished. The building was named after Ruth Fairfax (1878 - 1948), founder of the CWA and its first Queensland President. The site will be redeveloped as a six storey residential complex. At the turn of the century, this was the site of Drake's House and home to the Federalist James George Drake. In the 1960s, a certain young student was known to scale the fire escape late at night in order to sneak in and visit his girlfriend!

It appears that the other CWA property 'The Lodge' on Boundary Street, is also set to be demolished. The CWA sold it last year for an undisclosed sum. At the time, The Branch President said they were forced to sell the property because of the prohibitive cost of compliance with government regulations. 'The Lodge' provided accommodation for many international students. About two years ago, locals were often entertained late into the night by a shy chanteuse who would dance and sing to the latest top 40 hits at her window.

For more information about these two buildings and CWA cookery contests see: www.qcwa.org.au/cookery.htm

Evanescant artwork is evident on the windows and walls of 'The Lodge' if you look beyond the scaffolding - hope the old peach tree out the front isn't knocked over too.

Speaking of Gregory Terrace, the former Churches of Christ accommodation at 363 Gregory Terrace was demolished late last year and the adjoining house at 50 Kinross Street was relocated. A spokesperson from Churches of Christ Care said the cost of meeting the legislative fire safety standards was a major factor in the decision to remove the properties. The spokesperson also said that the Building Approval for a new complex, would also provide low cost accommodation.

Construction of the Brisbane Girls Grammar School's six-storey Creative Learning Centre on the southwest corner of the Gregory Terrace campus, has begun. As part of the development, the old caretaker's cottage, pool, auditorium and existing art centre were demolished.

Not many people are aware that metrology is the science or systems of measures. Who cares? You would care if you spent three minutes in a cab and the meter said $42.35, or if three sausages on the local butcher's scales seem to weigh three kilos. The very un-sexy public service of ensuring that commercial weights and measures do not cheat is what metrology is about.

It is not oxymoronic that a capitalist free market economy has standards. A kilo for you must be a kilo for me. You may be amazed to think that some people are dishonest and a trustworthy monitor could be required to make sure that we all get a pound for a pound. But sadly it is true. Metrology House, in Water Street near Boundary Street, is where this trust is placed in Queensland. Shame the f#$!%g clock on the front of the dodgy 1980s building hasn't worked pretty much from day dot.

Fountains are intrinsic to a city's overall look and provide restful places for people to perch for a bit. Although no longer functioning, Brisbane City's oldest surviving fountain is the Walter Hill Fountain in the City Botanic Gardens. This fountain was designed by Colonial Architect Charles Tiffin and built in 1867. The Eagle Street or Mooney Memorial Fountain was erected in the late 1870s and the sympathetic modern drinking mouthpieces (not unlike those found in schoolyard drinking troughs) were added in 1988.

The King George Square fountain was officially opened in 1975 and up until late last year, received the traditional annual dose of suds and colour at the end of the academic year. The large, rectangular fountain on the other side of the square provided a nighttime sanctuary for duckies and is now a 'waterwise' garden.

Other fountains such as the ill-fated Jubilee Fountain or Captain Cook Fountain, located within the Brisbane River at the front of the Queensland Cultural Centre, have also fared poorly. The Jubilee Fountain was launched by Queen Elizabeth II in 1977 on her visit to Australia and after only a decade of continuous failure, was decommissioned in 1988.

In the last couple of years, the fountain at the 'Gateway to Brisbane' was demolished and last May, the glass dining table and chairs fountain, 'On This Auspicious Occasion' at the top of the Queen Street Mall fountain was dismantled.

City shoppers who park on the hill and toddle down Albert Street will have recently noticed a big fence around the Suncorp Plaza or SGIO fountain. This fountain is over 30 years old and was a pleasant place to wait for your beloved on a balmy evening, as the City Hall bangs out five-o'clock! The rushing water formed in patterns and the lights within the fountain changed colours. This watery landmark is undergoing changes as part of the Suncorp Plaza refurbishment. A spokesperson from Cordukes, responsible for work on the fountain advised that "it will be reconfigurated in a horseshoe shape, so that an access ramp to the Albert Street Methodist Church can be constructed."

Fifty years ago Katharine Hepburn travelled to our big old country town with Robert Helpmann and the Old Vic Theatre Company as part of an Australian theatre tour. During Hepburn's visit, she compared Brisbane to New Orleans. She was enamoured with the Bellevue (where she stayed) and being a renaissance woman, she painted it. Her painting sold at a 2004 New York auction for $47,000!

In the 1920s the people of New Orleans enacted pioneering preservation legislation to protect the French Quarter.

Here's an anonymous contribution by one of the great, great grandsons of Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy:

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Spring Hill Progress Association produced a newsletter 'The Spring Hill Times'. In the April 1990 issue, Peter Beattie said:

"It would be remiss of me if I did not mention the city's heritage, a large part of which is situated within the electorate of Brisbane Central. I look forward to my colleague Pat Comben, the Minister for Environment and Heritage, introducing heritage legislation in the near future to ensure that there are no more demolitions of heritage buildings such as the Bellevue Hotel, Cloudland the Commonwealth Bank Building in Queen Street."

Since the implementation of the 1992 Heritage Legislation, Brisbane has lost The Shingle Inn, Festival Hall, the old Metro Goldwyn Mayer Offices in Elizabeth Street, the Wallace Bishop building, De Groens and Prouds building, Ascot Chambers, Hesketh House and the Milton Tennis Centre. Even the fate of our cute little ferries is uncertain. And it's not just in Brisbane, a drive beyond the city limits reveals other precious buildings are gradually being lost - such as the recent demolition of the Railway Hotel in Beaudesert, to make way for Woolworths. The future of the Hornibrook Bridge at Shorncliffe and the House of Bottles at Tewantin, also looks precarious.

And whatever happened to the George Street Festival, LIVID and iconic charity events such as Spring Hill Fair and the Kangaroo Point Jazz Festival?