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Category: Sustainable Settlement and Agriculture

The Generator is founded on the simple premise that we should leave the world in better condition than we found it. The news items in this category outline the attempts people have made to do this. They are mainly concerned with our food supply and settlement patterns. The impact that the human race has on the planet.

  • GREENS ANNOUNCE FEDERAL CANDIDATE FOR RICHMOND

    THE OWNER OF THIS WEBSITE GIOVANNI (JOE) EBONO OF
    MULLUMBIMBY IS THE ENDORSED GREENS CANDIDATE FOR
    THE SEAT OF RICHMO0ND.

    WE ALL WISH HIM LUCK IN THE ELECTION, WHICH MAY BE VERY
    SOON. I HAVE BEEN POSTING “THE GENERATOR’ SINCE 21.4.09
    AND WILL CONTINUE AS LONG AS JOE WISHES.

    NEVILLE GILLMORE.

    GREENS ANNOUNCE FEDERAL CANDIDATE FOR RICHMOND

    NSW Greens MP and lead Senate candidate Lee Rhiannon will join local
    Greens members today (Sunday) at 11am in the Mullumbimby Civic Hall to
    announce local publisher  Joe Ebono as the Greens candidate for the
    federal seat of Richmond.

    “The Greens have a large support base in northeast NSW, including on
    Tweed and Byron Councils, and Joe is an excellent candidate to
    represent them,” Ms Rhiannon said.

    “Aged care, overdevelopment, employment and a sustainable future are
    key issues concerning people living in northeast NSW.

    “Joe provides a strong voice on the issues that most concern residents
    in the area,” Ms Rhiannon said.

    “Joe Ebono is a publisher, broadcaster and performer who previously
    stood as the Greens candidate in Richmond in 2007. Founder of the
    Ebono Institute, he is the publisher and editor of a number of books
    about sustainable living and The Generator, a news service and radio
    show.

    “It is a great privilege to be the Greens candidate for Richmond,” Mr
    Ebono said.

    “I plan to improve on the Greens’ strong showing in 2007, and provide
    local residents a real alternative to Justine Elliot and her Labor
    government.

    “Unlike the old parties, the Greens understand that aged care is about
    more than bed numbers. Aged care is about maintaining links with the
    community.

    “Community consultation is at the core of Greens policies and
    initiatives to build a sustainable future for an energy challenged
    world.

    “Greens policies and values get a lot of traction in Northeast NSW
    where issues such as unemployment, rampant development and protecting
    the environment are very important to people.

    “I will be campaigning hard for a sustainable future for the northeast
    NSW,” Mr Ebono said.

    For more information:
    Joe Ebono – 0402 779 375; richmond@greens.org.au
    Greens MP and NSW Senate candidate Lee Rhiannon – 0427 861 568
    —
    Another message from the Greens Media mailing list.

    Too many messages? Don’t unsubscribe – try switching to a daily digest.
    You can unsubscribe or change your subscription settings here:
    <http://lists.greens.org.au/mailman/options/media>
    Or send an email to <media-unsubscribe@lists.greens.org.au>

  • Rudd whacked but Abbott now bleeding

     

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    Gillard also has a teflon quality. Nothing sticks. She showed that at her first news conference as PM when she admitted a share of responsibility for Rudd Government mistakes and then effortlessly distanced herself from them.

    With Rudd’s loss of credibility (it was “dissolving like an aspirin”, according to one plotter), Labor had just about lost hope of getting a message out. Now, the mining tax row is defused and a new leader can expect the microphone to herself for a few weeks. Voters who’d stopped listening to Rudd are tuning in to hear Gillard.

    What happened to Rudd was brutal. He may not have deserved it. But it has turned the game back to Labor.

    When Abbott was up against a PM whose approval rating was plummeting, his own unpopularity did not matter a lot. It certainly matters now.

    Something else that matters is the problem Abbott has with some women because of conservative social views he expressed in his “Captain Catholic” past.

    Liberals, of course, deny there is such a problem, but their own sensitivity shows they know better. In Parliament on Tuesday, for example, Health Minister Nicola Roxon spoke of services put in place to help young couples deciding whether to start a family.

    These things, she said, had not been available when Abbott was Health Minister because he had “let his personal views get in the way of good policy”.

    That caused Liberal Kevin Andrews, himself a conservative Catholic and close friend of Abbott, to rise – shouting and waving his arms – to protest about “this foul sectarian attack”.

    More revealing, perhaps, was a recent incident during an Abbott media conference in Victoria with Sarah Henderson, Liberal candidate for Corangamite.

    Asked whether her views on abortion were consistent with Abbott’s, Henderson opened her mouth to answer but Abbott cut her off.

    “Everyone is entitled to a personal view and we have a lot of personal views in the community and inside political parties,” Abbott said. Sure. But that does not mean candidates should not be questioned about their personal views.

    Anyone who thinks abortion is not a political issue should look at its prominence in US politics.

    The real reason Abbott gagged former TV presenter Henderson is that he knew about opinions she had expressed in a 2004 newspaper column.

    “I vehemently disagree with Tony Abbott’s views on abortion,” she wrote, also blasting Abbott’s “naive” belief that the morning-after pill was “encouraging rampant sexual activity in young people”.

    So, while Abbott was effective against Rudd, he is not exactly tailor-made to run against Gillard.

    Changing leaders again is not an option, but it is more important than ever that Abbott keeps his natural aggression and his social conservatism well hidden.

    A shocked and shattered Rudd, meanwhile, will take a long time to come to terms with what his party has done.

    On a cold assessment, it might have been necessary. As I wrote last week, Labor under Rudd was probably cactus in the election. The right wing heavies who organised the Gillard coup had the same view.

    And Rudd did himself no favours. “His internal behaviour in the end was stuff no one could cop,” one told me. “He was friendless.”

    Just the same, in a speech to caucus after accepting that he lacked the numbers to contest a ballot, Rudd made a powerful point: necessary reform was often unpopular.

    If factions were going to move against leaders who dipped in polls, it would be a strong disincentive to reformist government.

    It’s all water under the bridge, though. And the manner of Rudd’s dispatch provides another possible positive for Labor.

    When the chance came, the ambitious Gillard did not hesitate to plant the knife in Rudd’s back. Any sexists who thought a woman might not be tough enough for the job of PM can rest easy.

    Laurie Oakes is political editor for the Nine Network. His column appears every Saturday in The Daily Telegraph

  • Two new polls give Gillard winning lead

    Two new polls give Gillard winning lead

    AAP June 26, 2010, 5:54 am

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    Two new polls have given Julia Gillard’s government an election-winning lead.

    A Galaxy poll published in News Ltd newspapers on Saturday shows Ms Gillard’s ascension to the top job has lifted Labor’s primary vote to 41 per cent – up four percentage points since the May budget, while Labor now holds a 52-48 lead over the Coalition on a two-party preferred basis.

    The poll also found more voters (58 per cent) believe Ms Gillard would make the better prime minister, with 32 per cent supporting Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.

    The poll found Ms Gillard is considered twice as trustworthy as Mr Abbott, and is a stronger leader and a better listener.

    But two-thirds of those polled believe Ms Gillard shares responsibility with deposed prime minister Kevin Rudd for the federal government’s failing.

    Galaxy polled more than 800 people around Australia.

    Meanwhile, a Nielsen poll published in Fairfax newspapers on Saturday shows Labor’s two-party preferred approval rating has jumped eight percentage points in the three weeks since the last Nielsen poll, giving it a substantial 55-45 lead over the Coalition.

    The Greens’ approval rating fell by seven points to eight per cent.

    Fifty-six per cent of those polled approve of Ms Gillard as Labor leader, while her rating as preferred prime minister, at 55 per cent, is up six points on Mr Rudd’s rating three weeks ago.

    Mr Abbott’s rating as preferred prime minister is down five points to 34 per cent.

    Nielsen polled 993 voters on Thursday night, just after Ms Gillard assumed the leadership from Mr Rudd.

     

  • Why Gillard is no Kristina Keneally

     

    The Rudd Government has certainly run into some trouble over the mining tax, the scrapping of the ETS and the botched insulation scheme, but more significantly it has hit the skids due to the personal style of Kevin Rudd himself.

    You don’t get a much bigger step away from the leadership of Kevin Rudd than appointing Australia’s first female, single, atheist Prime Minister.

    She’s a superior communicator to Rudd, and has a better chance of beating Tony Abbott, a fact that was written across the Opposition Leader’s slightly panicked face all day yesterday.

    You only have to look at how NSW Labor went in the Penrith by-election last weekend to see how well Keneally’s going with voters. Labor’s looking at ending up with a barely a cricket team in the NSW parliament, and there’s nothing the photogenic Keneally can do to stop it.

    Next. Keneally was forced to espouse her now famous “I’m no body’s puppet…” after her own predecessor Nathan Rees accused her of being just that. She was installed by NSW factional heavyweights Joe Tripodi and Eddy Obeid. The next day she sang their praises to the Daily Telegraph.

    Tony Abbott was quick to level a similar accusation at Gillard yesterday, constantly referring to “the Labor powerbrokers who installed her”.

    Gillard brushed it off with two sharp responses. The first was in her press conference when she said:

    This isn’t my first day in the parliamentary building, I’ve been here since 1998, and I would defy anyone to analyse my parliamentary career and find that I have done anything but made up my own mind.

    Then in an interview with Kerry O’Brien on the 7.30 Report she emphatically denied doing any deals to promote the men, such as Bill Shorten and Mark Arbib, who had delivered her the numbers for victory.

    When Keneally was asked the same thing in a press conference she made reference to something she’d done as an eight-year-old.

    The new Prime Minister took the job on her own terms. The powerbrokers who “installed” her did so only after expending vast energy to convince her to knife her boss, and pictures of Gillard on Wednesday night leaving Kevin Rudd’s office showed a complete absence of relish in her demeanour.

    Not that Gillard would ever say something so insubstantial as “I’m nobody’s puppet, I’m nobody’s girl”, but if she did, at least it would be true.

    Keneally’s ascension to the Premiership was not a win for women. But the swearing in yesterday of our first female Prime Minister is absolutely something to be celebrated, because no matter who came to her with the numbers, Gillard got there by her own effort

  • With Rudd gone, Libs are on a loser

     

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    Lindsay Tanner’s planned retirement is a major blow. If Gillard stumbles, my prediction stumbles with her. She needs a good start to move on from the chaos of recent days.

    Judging by her first speech as PM and her first question time performance, Gillard has what it takes to make Abbott look shrill when he attacks her.

    Abbott’s poor personal ratings might not have mattered when the prime minister was more unpopular. But if voters give Gillard a chance, such a honeymoon will turn attention back on to Abbott. That will flow on to attention to his policies, his team, and whether the Liberals have learnt the lessons of Howard’s defeat. Voters don’t like to admit they were wrong and that is what they would be doing by ousting Labor after just one term.

    With Rudd at the helm voters were seriously considering it; with Gillard they might decide to give Australia’s first female PM the time she needs to succeed or fail on her own terms.

    Abbott wants to remind voters that it is the same failed government with a different leader. That argument only works if voters agree that Labor has been a failure. Yes they have had their problems, major problems, including with policy delivery.

    But the three biggest problems with Rudd’s first term were his autocratic style, his sudden unpopularity and his unwillingness to consult.

    All three are now gone, so watch out Tony Abbott, I say.

    106 comments on this story

  • New ocean’ will split Africa”

     

    “Parts of Afar are below sea level and the ocean, the sea is only cut off by about a 20-metre block of land in Eritrea,” he said.

    “Eventually this will rift apart, the sea will flood in and will start to create a new ocean, and eventually the Somalia plate will drift off and we’ll have a smaller Africa and a very big island which floats out into the Indian Ocean.”

    – BBC

    Tags: science-and-technology, geography, geology, ethiopia