Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts

Monday 14 November 2022

NSW KOALA CONFERENCE - THE VANISHING: Science, Koala Carers and Politicians

 

Koala Conference- The Vanishing
29 October 2022
Group photograph
IMAGE: supplied













The growing community concern about the plight of koalas in NSW and the lack of effective government action to protect them led to an important koala conference being held in Coffs Harbour on Saturday October 29. The conference was organised by former MLC Catherine Cusack, and conservation organisations - NSW Nature Conservation Council (NCC), National Parks Association of NSW (NPA), the North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).


The conference title - “The Vanishing” - highlighted the fact that koalas in this state are sliding towards extinction – an outcome which was a finding in the NSW Legislative Council’s comprehensive 2019-2020 inquiry “Koala Populations and Habitat in NSW”.


Conference Convener Catherine Cusack said, “Our koala populations have been devastated by drought, fire and disease. They are clinging on in fragments of habitat that continues to be reduced by housing development, poorly located infrastructure, logging and land clearing.”


The conference was attended in person by 180 people from around the state with a further 180 or so listening online.


Speakers included local first nations’ representatives (Gumbaynggirr), scientists, representatives from leading conservation groups, local campaigners from koala risk hotspots and state politicians.


Early in the proceedings three scientists provided information on results of their koala research.


Dr Steve Philips, an internationally recognised expert on koalas, who has been involved with their conservation for more than 40 years, discussed the decline in koala numbers in a range of areas he has studied. In these areas this decline occurred over a 30-year time frame and at the same rate in each area. Changing the species’ conservation status did not arrest the decline. He also discussed koalas preferred feed trees and pointed out that if these are taken from the landscape koalas will not exist in those areas. Dr Philips believes that doubling the current koala population by 2050 – a plan of the current NSW Government – is not feasible and will not happen. However, he emphasised that we have the knowledge to bring about a recovery.


Ecologist Dr Kara Youngentob is particularly interested in how plant nutritional qualities and other environmental factors influence the distribution and abundance of leaf eating animals like koalas. Her research has shown that there are differences in nutritional values of trees even of the same species and koalas will be more abundant where the nutritional value is higher. Koalas prefer big tree forests which remain cooler than regrowth forests. This has implications for their survival as climate change impacts grow.


Professor Mark Krockenberger who has worked on diseases of koalas for the last 25 years – particularly on cryptococcosis and chlamydiosis stated that disease drives population decline. He gave the example of the decline in numbers on the Liverpool Plains where Chlamydia is rampant and a major problem with that disease is that it causes infertility.


Koala carers and campaigners reported on their local situations and highlighted the continuing decline in koala numbers in their areas. They included Josie O’Connell (Bega Shire), Patricia Durman (South West Sydney), Sue Ashton (Port Macquarie), Robert Frend (Gunnedah), Lorraine Vass (Northern Rivers) and Paula Flack (Coffs region).


Important contributions were also made by key conservationists - Dailan Pugh (NEFA), Gary Dunnett (NPA), Dr Stuart Blanch (WWF) – as well as Cerin Loane (Environmental Defenders Office) and Dr Sally Townley (Deputy Mayor of Coffs Harbour).


Given the widespread view that there is a need for effective political action, the speeches by the politicians were of considerable interest.


Penny Sharpe MLC, Labor’s Shadow Environment Minister, spoke of the former Labor Government’s record on the creation of national parks and their native vegetation legislation. Unsurprisingly she was very critical of the current government’s policy. Sharpe condemned its failure to take action on the Natural Resources Commission report recommending changes to operations in State Forests which were hit hard by the 2019-2020 bushfires. She also said the Government’s latest koala strategy would oversee further decline in koalas rather than being a plan to stabilise NSW populations. On a more positive note, she stated that that the report from the Legislative Council koala inquiry provided many good suggestions and that if Labor won government, she promised they would act as quickly as possible to implement a recovery plan.


James Griffin MP, Liberal Member for Manly, Minister for the Environment, was the second politician to address the gathering. Predictably his address claimed that his Government’s actions would see an improvement in koala numbers.


Cate Faehrmann MLC (Greens) spoke about the importance of the koala inquiry which she chaired. She believes the money the Government has announced for their koala plan would be much better being directed to saving koala habitat which is a major driver of the species’ decline. Faehrmann supports phasing out logging in public native forests and wants the koala inquiry recommendations to be used to put pressure on candidates in the State Election in March.


The final political speaker was former Liberal MLC Catherine Cusack who was another member of the Legislative Council committee which conducted the koala inquiry. As a North Coast resident, she understands only too well how koalas are under threat in this region. She spoke about her experience as a member of the current NSW Government in trying to get effective action to protect them from extinction. Along with many others concerned about koala survival, she was hopeful that her government would respond well to the koala inquiry recommendations. 


Initially the Inquiry prediction that koalas in NSW were heading for extinction by 2050, put the Government under pressure to improve koala protection. However, the Nationals, the Liberals’ coalition partners, jibbed at placing restrictions on rural landholders and the so-called “Koala Wars” began. Leading players were former Nationals leader John Barilaro and local North Coast Nationals MPs including Member for Clarence, Chris Gulaptis. After initially standing up to the Nationals’ demands, the Government caved in and weakened the legislation. Cusack suspects this was the result of a deal between the coalition partners where the Liberals weakened their legislation in exchange for the Nationals’ acceptance of the Liberals’ climate legislation plans.


Cusack now believes that individual action by politicians will not bring change and what is required is collective action by citizens. If this collective action is large enough, it will force politicians to act much more effectively. The Coffs Harbour conference was held as a way of galvanising this collective citizen reaction in the lead up to the state election on March 3rd, 2023.


As current government action will not save koalas from extinction in NSW by 2050 and, as we have the knowledge to bring about a recovery, the galvanising of community action before the state election is vitally important.


Leonie Blain

Northern Rivers



Tuesday 25 October 2022

Ministers and Members of the NSW Perrottert Coalition Government abandoning ship at March 2023 state election:


And the list is getting longer the closer New South Wales comes to the March 2023 state election.......


Perrottet Government ministers and backbenchers who have announced they will resign at the March 2023 NSW state election


  • Minister for InfrastructureMinister for Cities, Minister for Active Transport & MLA for Pittwater Rob Stokes – in parliament 16 years;


  • Speaker of the House & MLA for Davidson Jonathan O'Dea – in parliament 16 years;


  • Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government, Minister for Small Business, Minister for Fair Trading & MLA for Ryde Victor Dominello – in parliament almost 14.6 years;


  • Minister for Corrections, Minister for Veterans, Minister for Western Sydney & MLA for Parramatta Geoffrey Lee – in parliament 12 years;


  • Transport Minister David Elliott – in parliament 12 years;


  • Lib MLA for South Coast Shelly Hancock – in parliament 20 years;


  • Lib MLA for for Riverstone Kevin Conolly – in parliament 12 years;


  • Lib MLA for Vaucluse Gabrielle Upton – in parliament 12 years;


  • Nats MLA for Clarence Chris Gulaptis – in parliament 12 years;


  • Nats MLA for Myall Lakes Stephen Bromhead – in parliament 12 years;


  • Nats MLA for Oxley Melinda Pavey – in parliament 8 years.


Minister for Health & MLA for Wakehurst Brad Hazzard is rumoured to be considering retirement. Hazzard has been in parliament since March 1991. Retirement confirmed by reports in mainstream media later on morning of 25 October.


Earlier this year Lib MLC Catherine Cusack resigned on a matter of principle after 19 years in parliament and Lib MLC Don Harwin resigned for unstated reasons after 23 years in parliament.


Monday 30 May 2022

Meet the brand new Northern Rivers Member of the NSW Legislative Council, Sue Higginson



 Echo, 27 May 2022:


As a brand new MLC, Sue Higginson’s first week in the NSW Upper House has been huge but she says it’s a taste of things to come.


Higginson was sworn in on May 12 and made her First Speech on Tuesday last week. Two days later, she voted after the Upper House spent 10 hours debating amendments to the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill, before a final vote of support 23 to 15. ‘I came in at the very end, basically, but my vote helped and supported and counted for voluntary assisted dying becoming law in New South Wales.’…..


Our endangered furry buddy 

A precious tree faerie. Photo Tree Faerie.

Higginson believes that the recent classification of the status of koalas to endangered will add leverage in the fight to save forests. ‘It has to. Having our national icon listed as endangered – only a step away from extinction – the science is on the table and the evidence is there. There is the legal acknowledgement that we are at the end of the road for koalas.


If we don’t pull out all the stops and do everything we can, we know what that means. We have to protect koalas where they live and their habitat right now. Part of that is our public native forests. And we’re still logging the crap out of them. We’ve got to stop.’……..












Sue Higginson MLC at Lismore’s Trees Not Bombs Community Recovery Café. ‘I’ve got five years. I’m a mature woman – I’m a mature woman on fire and I’ve got nothing to lose. I’ve got a five year plan.’ Photo Tree Faerie.


Now that she has taken her seat in the New South Wales Upper House she will be there for five years and Higginson is on a mission. ‘I’ve got five years. I’m a mature woman – I’m a mature woman on fire and I’ve got nothing to lose. I’ve got a five year plan and that plan is about improving action on climate and it is to protect our native forests once and for all. It’s to try to stop the absurdity of the extinction crisis and to level up the playing field in this inequality crisis that we experience, and all the things that that means.


And of course, fundamentally, it’s New South Wales’ turn to start working on First Nations justice properly,’ she said.


Seriously – truth, treaty and voice – we need to do that at the New South Wales level, and we need to do that at the Commonwealth level. That’s massive for me.’  


Read the full article here.



Sue Higginson’s official biography at https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/members/Pages/Member-details.aspx?pk=2268


Sue is an environmental law expert and has practiced as a public interest environmental lawyer. She is the former Principal Solicitor and CEO of the Environmental Defenders Office, Australia's leading public interest environmental law centre.


Sue has been responsible for high profile environmental litigation in Australia. She has represented communities challenging mining giants, proponents of environmentally harmful development and holding Governments to account for the environment. She has delivered environmental legal services to rural, remote and regional communities and First Nations communities across NSW.


Sue has operated her own legal practice where in addition to her environmental legal practice, she assisted environmental protestors who came into contact with the criminal justice system as a result of their activities to protect the environment. She has represented hundreds of people in relation to forestry, mining and coal seam gas and climate change protests in courts across Australia.


Sue has lectured and taught environmental law in universities across NSW. She holds a Bachelor of Laws, with First Class Honours and was awarded the University Medal upon graduation.


Sue has sat on a number of Boards of not for profit charitable environmental organisations in Australia where she advised on governance and compliance.


Sue is a farmer, she grows dry land rice, and other crops, with her partner on their farm on the Richmond Floodplain in the Northern Rivers. Central to her farming practice is biodiversity management and conservation. Her farm is home to koalas, where she has planted thousands of trees to try to secure their future.


Ms. Higginson's term of service in the NSW Upper House expires on 5 March 2027, when hopefully she will consider standing for re-election.


Friday 22 April 2022

Dr. Scott Burchill on the subject of "Problems in Australian Journalism" - a timely reminder in the middle of this 2022 federal election campaign

 


Dr. Scott Burchill, ABC Breakfast Show, 19 April 2022
SNAPSHOT IMAGE: ABC News 
















From the pen of Dr. Scott Burchill, Honorary Fellow, Faculty of Arts and Education, School of Humanities & Social Science, Deakin University, at https://iranalyst.medium.com/problems-in-australian-journalism-c79573279462, 18 April 2022:



Problems in Australian Journalism

(updated and expanded)


Whether we are being directed to a news story by an editor or an algorithm, the task of filtering the dross from the insightful remains the most important challenge for those who ‘consume’ political information.

This is a much more important concern than perennial angst about concentrated media ownership in Australia, or whether a Royal Commission should be held into News Corporation.


Despite new media platforms provided by revolutionary advances in information technology, the structural problems facing political journalists who create the ‘content’ of these stories are mostly the same today as they were in the past.


Here are four which help to shape our views about the world outside Australia, followed by those shone into high relief by the election campaign in Australia.


Missing Context


Too many journalists have a limited capacity for critical thinking because of an impoverished historical knowledge, and therefore cannot place real time announcements and actions by governments and their opponents in any philosophical or historical context for their audiences.


This is partly the fault of journalism courses at universities, which should provide post-graduate training rather than undergraduate degrees. Journalism is not an academic discipline nor an apprenticeship, and should be seen as a skill set built on top of foundational knowledge in the humanities and social sciences.


The veracity of sources should always be tested. For example, journalists should be very sceptical of “intelligence leaks” which cannot be verified, but which sound authoritative only because they are confidential or constitute confirmation bias. Open-source material is more reliable.


Everyone who faithfully reported the phony WMD pretext for the 2003 war against Iraq should have had the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin “incident” uppermost in their minds before giving Western governments the benefit of their doubts again. How many journalists covering the lead up to the 2003 war had even heard of it? Governments lie and deceive all the time, especially about their wars. Google ‘curveball’.


The new “China” scare, including exaggerated and preposterous claims about China’s military intentions in the region, reflects a paucity of knowledge about earlier bouts of Sinophobia in the West, and would be very different discussion if the Cold War and modern Chinese history were better understood. Those following events over the last three years who have no sense of déjà vu just haven’t done their homework. A good antidote is James Peck’s Washington’s China.


The same applies to Russia’s illegal attack on Ukraine. The starting point for understanding this war, especially its timing, is NATO’s eastward expansion into Europe since the implosion of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the role of the US in Ukraine since 2016. At the risk of stating the obvious, the challenge for journalists is to provide context for a better understanding of the causes of the war, not joining with governments to play the blame game. Unfortunately, how the attack on Ukraine has been covered in the Western media is strikingly similar to the way the 9/11 attacks were presented in their aftermath: context-free.


By the time a political claim is exposed as fraudulent, the media circus has moved on from ‘old news’ to another ‘new’ issue with an equally brief shelf life. This is because news and information have become disposable commodities to be consumed like fruit and vegetables. This is how capitalism treats information.


Flak and distractions are often taken at face value, uncritically reported thanks to a remarkable level of political naivety and quiescence across the Fourth Estate. Given almost everything is now searchable and recorded for posterity, there are no excuses for the success of diversionary tactics regularly undertaken by governments at the insistence of their spin doctors.


Obvious questions about policies are just not posed.


Why is this being announced now and in this way?


Which questions do the government not want asked of it?


Why is the media being steered in this direction — away from what?


What is the political motive behind this decision: who wins and who loses?


Often misconstrued as adversarial, critical journalism should be based on a comprehensive knowledge of the subject in question and a well-founded suspicion of those with power and wealth.


Overton Windows & False Balances


Journalists should continuously ask themselves: what is considered the permissible range of opinion on this subject and why is it circumscribed in the way that it has been? The Overton Window, as it is called, should be opened as widely as possible, otherwise key aspects of a topic will be misunderstood or ignored entirely.


It is always easier to repeat and recycle familiar nostrums and orthodoxies than to challenge them: the former requires no elaboration or any examples, while the latter takes time to explain and will confuse and confound pre-existing assumptions.


Alternative accounts must confront the tyranny of concision, which reduces detailed and complex narratives to sound-bytes and photo ops. If newspaper analysis cannot be reduced to 800 words, they must find another home where ‘long-form’ journalism is still practiced.


How does narrowing the spectrum of legitimate opinion work in practice? Here are some examples.


The discussion of politically-motivated violence, for example, presupposes that the West is always the innocent victim of terrorism but never its perpetrator. This is demonstrably untrue, but it sets the tone of the discussion to look at what is done to us rather than by us.


Why are the Pentagon’s remote controlled drone attacks on innocent civilians in Afghanistan, Syria or Yemen portrayed as self-defence when they constitute a textbook definition of terrorism? Why is there so little interest in the role of the US spy base which Australia hosts at Pine Gap in targeting people for assassination by the United States?


Why are the occupied people of Gaza not entitled to self-defence against Israel’s state terrorism when it periodically bombs them with US-made aircraft and munitions, acts which have turned the small strip of densely populated blockaded land into a living hell without safe drinking water? Why are incidents in a one-sided occupation described as “clashes”, implying some equality of power?


Why is Iran described as a rogue state which sponsors terrorism in the Middle East when its scientists and officials are routinely murdered by Mossad agents and US drones?


Given the preoccupation with Russia’s crimes in Ukraine, why can the US and Israel regularly bomb Syria without any media discussion of these violations of that country’s sovereignty? Who gave Washington the right to grant the Golan Heights, Syrian territory under international law, to Israel?


The short answer to these and many similar questions is that we judge our own actions, and those of our friends and allies, by a different set of ethical standards to the ones we apply to designated enemies. Our foreign policy is hypocritical and unprincipled, though such a view is considered “dissident”.


The very opposite should apply. As Noam Chomsky explains the basis of moral consequentialism:


People are responsible for the anticipated consequences of their choice of action (or inaction), a responsibility that extends to the policy choices of one’s own state to the extent that the political community allows a degree of influence over policy formation.


Responsibility is enhanced by privilege, by the opportunity to act with relative impunity and a degree of effectiveness.


For profession of high principles to be taken seriously, the principles must first and foremost be applied to oneself, not only to official enemies or those designated as unworthy in the prevailing political culture.


Our own behaviour, and the actions of friends and allies, should be scrutinised first. That’s where we have moral responsibility and some influence, however small. We have almost no influence on governments with which we have strained relations. It is the citizens of those states who bear responsibility for the actions of their governments, though in many cases dissent is more perilous than anything we might face: no doubt Julian Assange would demur here about the suggestion of “might”.


This is less ‘whataboutism’ and more to do with barracking for the West and supporting its interests by reinforcing existing narratives which remain unchallenged. One cost of this is the loss of our own credibility in advocating universal human rights. Another, significantly more important, is greater human suffering.


Legitimate concerns should be expressed about Beijing’s treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and restrictions imposed on Hong Kong and in the South China Sea, but there is very little we can do to influence decisions taken by a government we are distancing ourself from. Given China is our most important trading partner and the West must engage with Beijing if climate change is to be seriously addressed, this approach is counter-productive.


As a fellow member of the Quad and the so called ‘club of democracies’ we have much more influence over India, but Western leaders remain mute about Narendra Modi’s Hindu extremism, especially his appalling policies in Kashmir. This is because, with few exceptions such as Brian Toohey, they aren’t asked questions by the media who have easy access to them. The Morrison Government does not want to be asked about Modi’s outrages and a supine media class is happy to oblige.


The demonisation of Vladimir Putin and all things Russian, is a very different story. It goes without challenge, context or a consideration of the logical consequences of widening the cleavage between Moscow and the West.


Riyadh’s atrocities in Yemen leading to a cholera epidemic, Jakarta’s brutal 50 year repression in West Papua and Morocco’s illegal occupation of the Western Sahara should be higher priorities because the West is complicit in these crimes with arms sales and diplomatic protection offered to the culprits. Again, there is silence from the media, and therefore governments are not held to account for their actions.


It’s a simple truism that concerns about human rights violations are universally expressed and applied or they are not principles at all.


Russian “election meddling” is a preoccupation of governments in the North America and Western Europe, while promiscuous US interventions in the politics of countries around the world, including the overthrow of legitimate democratic governments, attracts little if any media interest at all.


Compare China’s behaviour towards Taiwan, whose sovereign control the West acknowledges, with US behaviour towards Cuba or its “meddling” in Ukraine on Russia’s border. Or Israel’s colonisation of the West Bank. Which of these violates international law and the ‘rules-based global order’ we hear the West boasts about?


Why would anyone with a knowledge of the overthrow of the Mossadegh government in 1953 by the US and UK be surprised by Iran’s hostility to the West? Journalists should not think that history is as conveniently forgotten in these countries as it is here.


There are not always two sides to every story, with a ‘balanced’ position to be found at the ‘sensible centre’. When it comes to immunology, environmental science or the holocaust, to take only three examples, there is no range of legitimate opinion. Seeking the centre is not about being even-handed, it’s a claim that there is always a range of legitimate opinion on most subjects and safe harbour should centre on compromise: don’t pick sides. This is dangerous nonsense.


Stenography


Many journalists are too dependent on drip feeds from political elites, ranging from the unedited stenography of government ‘messaging’ to ‘exclusives’ — beating competitors to a story. Authorised leaks from incontinent MPs may be welcomed by the ideologically aligned, but they almost always come with conditions attached — usually favourable media coverage. Editors are largely to blame for this by privileging exclusivity and ‘insiderism’ over detailed analysis. It is never the role of the media to be the propaganda arm of political parties or governments.


There is nothing wrong with commentators cheering for their political team, as they openly do in Murdoch media and increasing in Nine newspapers. No-one should approach the op ed pages expecting balance or fair analysis. But when front page reporting becomes indistinguishable from government talking points, the audience is being short changed.


Too many journalists, as opposed to commentators, see nothing wrong with partisan advocacy as their job focus. In doing so they not only debase the profession, but more importantly they do their readers, listeners and viewers a grave disservice by denying them the capacity to evaluate alternative policies.


Stenography is fatal to the credibility of any journalist. If you want to be an ideologue and work for a politician and a cause, join their staff formally.


It is also boring and repetitious. According to the late international politics expert Fred Halliday, the term corkscrew journalism originated in the film The Philadelphia Story directed by George Cukor in 1940. Halliday defined it as “instant comment, bereft of research or originality, leading to a cycle of equally vacuous, staged, polemics between columnists who have been saying the same thing for the past decade, or more.” Ring any bells?


Professional Ethics


Philosophically and professionally, too many journalists have a poor understanding of their role in holding the powerful to account and how to represent their audiences. They fail to see the difference between being liked and being respected. Many want to be players and insiders, forgetting that their function is to ask the questions that their readers, listeners and viewers want posed. First and foremost, journalists are conduits for their audiences, not celebrities.


Some are willing hostages to opinion management and the public relations techniques of media minders. However, if they are to perform their roles properly, they must remain at arms-length from the subjects of their inquiries.


It’s not that difficult. They should avoid being schmoozed by drinks at The Lodge, and say no to junkets and being duchessed around the Middle East on the dime of local lobby groups acting for a foreign state. If a foreign state lobby awards a journalist a prize for their reporting, they have been fatally comprised.


Politicians and their staff are not friends to cultivate, no matter how hard they try to flatter or invite a journalist into the inner sanctums of power. Success should be measured by the enemies made amongst the powerful. The shakers and movers are always looking to co-opt the sympathetic and impressionable. After all, the overwhelming majority of leaks come from politicians not whistleblowers.


Interviewers should learn how to control verbal exchanges with media trained politicians by anticipating their tactics and working around them. They should press hard without being personal, highlighting contradictory and inconsistent remarks over time.


Gotcha’ moments such as Anthony Albanese’s stats “gaffe” might be tempting for journalists seeking a headline, but like fast food they are not very satisfying to information consumers. Leadership contests and elections attract subscriptions and clicks. They are headlines designed to sell audiences to advertisers, but they are usually poor substitutes for the hard slog of detailed, substantive research.


Too many journalists are comfortable with ‘personified politics’ rather than the evaluation of policies. They rigidly focus on leaders, personalities and the election race when they could easily forget the ephemeral gimmicks and photo ops which spin doctors want to see on the nightly news. Their focus should be on policies, both what is openly presented and what is deliberately concealed or omitted. Politics is a lot more than third rate entertainment for ugly people.


Journalists and editors do face significant challenges. The death of a thousand funding cuts to the leading public broadcaster, and the implied threat of future reductions linked to unfavourable political coverage, induces ABC management and journalists to be less critical of the government of the day, especially hostile and suspicious LNP governments. Consequently, they position themselves in the “sensible centre” which is actually the conservative right, and become increasing indistinguishable from their privately-owned competitors.


Technical competence is emphasised and privileged at the expense of intellectual knowledge, background preparation and professional skill. Mouse clicks, page views and social media feedback now structure the delivery of news content and analysis.


One consequence of this during an election campaign is a shrinking insular media bubble, where dubious opinion polls, headlines, partisan barracking, ‘who won the week?’ and the daily agenda repeat themselves in an endless and co-ordinated loop. The underlying assumption is that the horse race will be decided inside the bubble, not outside where the great unwashed are starved of serious policy discussion and evaluation. That is why insider status is so highly valued by journalists: they can be players, not just observers. On the odd occasion when policy analysis leaks outside the bubble, it is invariably refracted through the question of how this will influence the vote rather than whether the policy might be good or bad for the country. This amounts to professional misconduct.


Calls for a Royal Commission into News Corporation assume there are problems with the media in Australia that can only be uncovered through an investigation by the Crown. Yet there is probably very little that isn’t already well known.


Anti-competitive practices are there for everyone to see. The alignment of business interests with right wing opinion and calls for the privatisation of the ABC are neither new nor subtle. The concentration of media ownership is hardly secret, but at a time when private media owners struggle to build viable business models, greater diversity in the mainstream isn’t coming any time soon. Besides, thanks to the internet there are more sources of information available to the curious today than at any time in history. They are often superior to the mainstream.


If journalists were more diligent and professional, and information consumers developed better filtering mechanisms, most of these problems would disappear.



An earlier version of this article was published at Pearls & Irritations on 8 January 2022.

Dr Scott Burchill taught International Relations at Deakin University for 30 years


Wednesday 16 February 2022

Rous County Council's authoritarian members will ride forth at 9:30 am this morning armed with what can only be described as an anti-democracy revenge motion


Channon Gorge, site of proposed Dunoon Dam.
Photo David Lowe.
Image: Echo, 10 December 2020














It took a long hard campaign on the part of the Widjabul Wia-bal People and the people of Lismore to protect the area known as Channon Gorge and the river which runs though it - rich in cultural heritage as important today as it was thousands of years ago, high in environment values and biodiversity.


However, even when Rous County Council voted to take the proposed Dunoon Dam out of future planning in late 2020, it was obvious that the 'build it it and enough water will fall from the sky' brigade, along with those who appear to take umbrage at the thought of any Aboriginal landscapes escaping destruction, would be returning for another chance to submerge the Channon Gorge.


So the struggle continues and the Widjabul Wia-bal People are not backing down when it comes to protecting the land their ancestors also protected. On 11 February 2022, at their invitation, two members of the NSW Legislative Council met with their representatives at Channon Gorge.


Water Northern Rivers, retrieved from the website 15 February 2022:


Water Northern Rivers Alliance1


Our region is at a critical point


The current challenge for the Rous region (Ballina, Byron, Lismore and Richmond Valley council areas) is to create a drought-resilient water system without destroying cultural heritage and irreplaceable ecology.

In the face of climate change and projected population growth, the Northern Rivers has become an important testing ground for modern water supply options.


Rous County Council’s revised Integrated Water Catchment Management Plan (revised IWCM 2021) meets the challenge. It is investigating and moving forward with diverse options, instead of the White Elephant Dunoon Dam.


Recent council elections resulted in a new Rous County Councillors being appointed. The new make is predominantly pro-dam, so the time ahead is crucial.


Channon Gorge
Photo David Lowe
Image: Echo, 17 December 2020













Echo, 14 February 2022:


Just when we thought we’d seen the last of the Dunoon Dam, over a year after it was scrapped in 2020, a Rous councillor is moving a motion to put it back on the table.


The 2021 LGA elections saw the Dunoon Dam used as a platform for swaying votes on December 4, often the choice of ‘toilet water’ or the dam the only possibilities offered by candidates.


Now that this term of local government has begun, Ballina, Lismore and Richmond Valley Council have seen pro-dam councillors elected to the Rous Country Council which is made up of eight councillors – two from each of the constituent councils of Ballina, Byron, Lismore and Richmond Valley.


With the swearing-in of this term’s representatives, councils chose Councillors Sharon Cadwallader and Rod Bruem for Ballina, Councillors Michael Lyon and Sarah Ndiaye for Byron, Councillors Andrew Gordon and Big Rob for Lismore and Councillors Robert Mustow and Sandra Humphrys for Richmond Valley.


Ballina’s new Mayor Sharon Cadwallader has been nothing if not desperate to see the dam approved and has gone to extraordinary lengths to see it become a reality.


Ms Cadwallader has been voted on to Rous and she joins at least five other dam supporters on the Council.


Apart from the Byron representation, this group of Councillors have been clear about their support of the dam….


One of the results of this gaggle of duly elected environmental vandals gaining what appears to be a strong foothold on Rous County Council, is the motion set out below authored by a Lismore City councillor with the legal name of Big Rob.2, 3 And I have a strong suspicion that this particular motion was not presented (for formal agreement) to a full sitting of councillors on Lismore City Council – the particular local government Cr, Big Rob is legally obliged to represent at Rous County Council meetings.


Rous County Council, Ordinary meeting business paper, Wednesday, 16 February 2022:


Notice of Motion

Council Meeting 16 February 2022

Subject: Dunoon Dam


I hereby move:

That Council:


1. Adopt Revision 7 of the Integrated Water Cycle Management (IWCM) Strategy (Attachment 1) and update Revision 7 of the IWCM to reflect the inclusion of Dunoon dam investigations as part of the Future Water Project 2060


2. Approve the completion of detailed cultural heritage and biodiversity assessments associated with the proposed Dunoon dam in consultation with relevant Traditional Custodians.


3. Defer implementing the resolution associated with the proposed Dunoon dam, resolved by Council at its meeting of 16 December 2020 (resolution [61/20] Item 2), until after Stage 3 options have been determined (Attachment 2)


4. Utilise existing budget allocations for Dunoon dam land management to progress the actions in Item 2.


Signed: Councillor Big Rob

Date: 19 January 2022


The meeting at which this motion will be considered today can be accessed by the wider New South Wales & Northern Rivers general public:


Rous County Council meeting 16 February 2022
Public access, 9.30am – 10.00am:
Zoom link.
Council meeting from 10.00am:
 Zoom link.


A public meeting is being held before the start of Rous County Council proceedings:



NOTE:


1. Water Northern Rivers, retrieved 15 February 2022, excerpts:


Ecological impacts of Dunoon Dam site – cannot be offset

  • Internationally significant ecological remnants are our responsibility

  • Only 1% of our region’s Big Scrub rainforest remains. 6.7% is in the proposed dam site & would be destroyed or fragmented.

  • These rainforests are part of the Endangered Ecological Community Lowland Rainforest of the NSW North Coast and Sydney Basin Bioregions.

  • Water Gums and Grey Myrtles in The Channon Gorge are the largest on record.

  • Loss of flora species is cumulative, relentless and ultimately terminal. 

  • 52 ha of critical koala habitat and corridors would be destroyed.

  • Extinction already seriously threatens multiple species including the iconic platypus.

Why Dunoon Dam would NOT HELP with DROUGHT RESILIENCE


  • A second dam would only receive water from the catchment above Rocky Creek Dam when it overspills. But Rocky Creek Dam currently has no provision for overflow and is full only 30% of the time, so a new dam may take years to fill. (Rous does not measure water flows over the spillway).

  • Dunoon Dam is 3.5 x the size of Rocky Creek Dam, but has half the catchment size.

  • In drought, when overall rainfall decreases, the runoff decreases even more drastically.

  • Dunoon Dam’s relatively catchment would deliver very little in a drought.


  • Multi-year droughts, predicted with climate change, mean that after a 4.5 year drought we’d have TWO empty dams.  


2. Big Rob Archives – The Echo at https://www.echo.net.au/tag/big-rob/


3. Cr. Big Rob Archives – The Echo at https://www.echo.net.au/tag/cr-big-rob/