Category: Australia

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In our Noosa garden

Banana garden
Most mornings we take the black cat for its beloved walk around the property, inspecting the gardens with their native shrubs, birds and dam, overflowing still from the recent rains.

Soon the bananas will be ripe enough to pick and hang in the shed – if the birds don’t find them first.

Sago plants are ready for their roots to be harvested, soaked and turned into tapioca or roasted or diced for curries, accompanied by crushed edible ginger.

Ginger flower

An elegant heliconia flower which has lasted for a couple of weeks still pleases with its voluptous curves and delicate colours.

Our splendid pink surprise grevillea is flowering in profusion near the dam. It is difficult to grasp that in one month, our shire will no longer exist … the merging of Noosa into the Sunshine Coast super council is imminent, despite the most vocal local protest in the history of Australia since the Eureka Stockade.

The latest outrage is that Noosa is to be given ‘iconic’ status, and any development or other decisions regarding its future will come directly from Brisbane. How’s that for representative democracy? we had better local representative government under Joh Bjelke Petersen (shudder), As one commentator has put it, centralised power and decision-making is the antithesis of democracy. Our community is disheartened – the decisions made far away may soon smash the cohesion which has sustained our environment and restrained at the shire boundaries the nauseating high density developments to the south.

Pink Surprise Grevillea

Our current Noosa mayor, Bob Abbott, may win Sunshine Coast super council leadership from development hungry Joe Natoli, yet even so, what happens after the next State election if Labor loses? and in the interim, what development pressures will Labor face? what of Terry Mackenroth, one of the architects of the amalgamation who sat on the supposedly independent committee, and who is a director of developer Devine Homes? what sort of sway do the building unions whose workers want jobs at any cost to the environment have with the Labor money men?

Still, it’s not over till it’s over and we must continue our protest as long as we are able. The survival of our community’s special preserving relationship with its treasured indigenous plants and animals depends upon it. We live here and we must protect our surroundings from those who care only for money, their development cronies and pandering to their future customers from the southern states – with a consequent increased demand for health and other community services which are currently horrendously inadequate.

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Oz says no to cluster bombs

Despite the lack of attendance by the usual major human rights abusing nations including the United States, China, India, Pakistan, Russia and of course habitual, brazen, unapologetic user of the disgraceful anti-civilian weapons, Israel, Australia has signed the Wellington Declaration banning the use of cluster bombs.

82 countries signed the declaration which affirmed a ban on the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of the bombs, and called for a framework to care for survivors of cluster munitions.

Australia was accused of trying to water down the declaration to appease the United Stupids, yet an Australian delegation head, Caroline Millar, claimed they would have liked to have gone further.

Outstanding concerns Australia hoped to have addressed in Dublin included restrictions on defence forces working with allies such as the USA, which had not signed up.

Other matters included defining what a cluster bomb is, and how to deal with stockpiles used for testing and training purposes, she said.

Now that wouldn’t have happened under the US fawning leadership of little Johnny Rodent! Once again and very sensibly, Australia is taking prominence internationally against weapons of idiocy pushed like drugs by the most powerful, hateful industry lobby in the world.

Thus, no longer need we term our country Whorestralia … it’s back to good ole Oz. Not so with the uber state, who remain the United Stupids.

With typical disregard for the welfare of people of other countries and cossetting of their own and Israhell, the United Stupids expressed their ongoing repulsive commitment to cluster munitions, seeing them as useful for military purposes.

With armaments being a primary Stupids export and the Stupids exporting more weaponry than any other nation with rapid exports growth under the cover of the delusional ‘War on Terror’, any limitation on military production would naturally shoot their already corrupt and sagging economy in the foot. In desperation the US Reserve lowers interest rates, and ours goes up. Who pays for the maintenance of US environmentally destructive, greedy living standards and culture of selling death? everyone else in the world.

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With love from a sorry lot

The absence of joy and applause from the Opposition (how pleasant it is to write Opposition meaning the Liebs at last) following Kevvie’s very pleasant healing speech of apology to the Stolen Generation was striking.

With manners we have come to expect of ignorance and mean-heartedness, several notable rightwing twits boycotted the event including Wilson Tuckey, Don Randall, Alby Schultz, Dennis Jensen, and Sophie Mirabella.

Questioned in Parliament later over two of Rudd’s staffers turning their backs on Brendan Nelson during his inadequate, typically miserly and patronising speech wherein he attempted vainly to absolve the government from responsibility for the Stolen Generation, Kevvie insisted the staffers apologise. Why apologise for shunning a bigot with a track record like Nelson’s (recall his woeful attempts at improving Aboriginal health when he was Health Minister)? So Kevve can insist on a sorry from everyone – he has a boat to keep afloat.

For the record, we here are sorry … very sorry and look to the day when an apology is extended for the seizing of Australia and the specious imperial Terra Nullius justification. Let the healing begin and we all live with the land sustainably in peace.

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Sorry day tomorrow

It’s been a long time coming, yet finally the big word that caught in little Johnny’s throat may ameloriate some of the hurt inflicted on Australian indigenous people tomorrow and allow healing for some members of the Stolen Generation.

Kevvie wants to get his speech just right, with good reason – firstly to say it right, without inflicting guilt on everyone, and secondly to avoid any loopholes, and a flurry of personal financial compensation claims which might clog up the federal courts. Due to 200 years of exploitation, things won’t change overnight – but more government money for health, education and policing will go a long way toward creating a better future for aboriginals generally. Can the positive aspects of a tribal culture which treasured living at one with the environment be rescued at this late juncture after years of patronisation, scorn and neglect?