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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.

  • Tas governor explains why he chose LABOR

    Tas governor explains why he chose Labor

    By Patrick Caruana, AAP April 9, 2010, 5:44 pm

     

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    Tasmanian Governor Peter Underwood did not believe the Liberals could form a stable government when he decided on Thursday that Labor should retain government following the March 20 election’s split result.

    Mr Underwood on Thursday invited Premier David Bartlett to test his numbers in the state’s lower house, after the poll delivered 10 seats to both Labor and the Liberals, and five to the Greens.

    The decision was a surprise.

    Mr Bartlett on Wednesday had advised the governor to accept his election campaign promise that he would resign as premier in the event of a tie if the Liberals emerged with the greatest overall vote.

    On Thursday, the Tasmanian Greens decided to back a minority Labor government.

    The governor on Friday released his reasons for allowing Mr Bartlett the chance to secure the confidence of the lower house.

    “I came to the conclusion that (Liberal leader Will) Hodgman was not in a position to form a stable government,” Mr Underwood said in a statement.

    “Consequently, I was obliged to send for Mr Bartlett.

    “I … told him that as he was still the holder of my commission to form a government and the premier of the state, he had a constitutional obligation to form a government.”

    Mr Hodgman said Mr Bartlett had recanted on a promise to allow him the first opportunity to try to form government and had doctored a document he gave to Mr Underwood detailing a pledge not to move a no-confidence motion against any Liberal minority government.

    “From what I understand, Mr Bartlett or his office has provided an incomplete transcript which excludes that most important and significant commitment that in my view should have been provided to His Excellency,” Mr Hodgman told reporters in Hobart on Friday.

    Mr Bartlett maintains he never made that promise, saying he had only given the promise to advise Mr Underwood to allow Mr Hodgman the first chance to form government because the Liberal Party secured more primary votes.

    “I kept my commitment to the Tasmanian people that in the event of a 10-10 result, with the Liberals receiving more of the overall popular vote, I would give the Liberals, via my advice to His Excellency, the first opportunity to form government,” Mr Bartlett said.

    But Mr Underwood said it was not for Mr Bartlett to decide who should govern.

    “The commissioning of a person to form a government is entirely the governor’s prerogative and it is not within the gift of any political leader to hand over,” Mr Underwood said.

    “The total number of votes received by the elected members of a political party is constitutionally irrelevant.”

    Mr Bartlett on Friday also denied doing a deal with the Greens, saying he hadn’t had talks with the party since “well before” election night.

    “It was as much a shock to me yesterday as it was to anyone that (Greens leader) Nick McKim made that move,” he told ABC Radio.

     

  • Starving to slow death in hospital- family claims grandad ignored

     

    Stricken grandfather Max Miller went without food for eight days after the nasal tube providing him with life-giving sustenance failed last Tuesday while he was being treated at Royal North Shore Hospital.

    The retired advertising executive, 83, broke his neck in a fall on March 19 and complications with his injury last week prevented a new tube being reinserted. The only option was for a different feeding passage, known as a PEG tube, to be inserted directly into his stomach.

    But Mr Miller was told he would have to wait because it was Easter and there was no one around to do it.

    It was only after his daughter Prue Miller contacted The Daily Telegraph in desperation yesterday that her father finally made it to the front of the queue and got the procedure.

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    “The doctor said on Thursday they would place him on the acute list to get him a PEG line but five days later there was still nothing done,” Ms Miller said.

    “He was just disappearing before our eyes and he was so terrified. He kept saying to me ‘I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die’.”

    Ms Miller said she “begged and begged” for staff to do something.

    “They told me it was up to the radiology department but the radiology department said that they were too busy,” she said.

    “The system has become so appalling that people are dying simply because there is no one around to do what is needed.”

    A spokeswoman for Royal North Shore Hospital said Mr Miller was still receiving fluids, electrolytes and glucose via an intravenous drip after his feeding tube failed.

    She said his operation to have the PEG tube inserted was rescheduled “due to more serious cases taking priority”.

    “The hospital believes that the appropriate care and treatment has been and is being provided,” she said.

     

    Mr Miller’s case emerged just three days after The Daily Telegraph reported that 87-year-old World War II veteran Kevin Park called triple-0 from his hospital bed in Lismore because he could not get help from nursing staff.

    It also coincided with nurses at Bathurst Base Hospital threatening industrial action because of “horrendous and unacceptable” work pressures.

    NSW Nurses Association general secretary Brett Holmes said the hospital’s surgical ward was funded for 12 beds but had up to 18 patients over the weekend, while the medical ward had to care for an extra five patients beyond its capacity.

     

    32 comments on this story

  • Farm pesticides linked to skin cancer

    Farm pesticides linked to skin cancer

    Ecologist

    7th April, 2010

    Large-scale study highlights agricultural chemicals as a possible risk factor behind rising rates of melanoma in the US

    Repeated exposure to pesticides can increase the risk of developing skin cancer, according to research conducted on farm workers in the US.

    The study looked at more than 55,000 pesticide sprayers working in Iowa and North Carolina and asked them to detail their exposure to 50 pesticides. Using that data researchers were able to compare their cancer rates with their use of certain pesticides.

    Six chemicals in all, including two fungicides (Benomyl and Maneb/mancozeb) and two insecticides (Carbaryl and methyl/ethyl parathion) were found to double the risk of developing skin cancer with repeated exposure of more than 50 lifetime days.

    Sun exposure

    The researchers, led by Professor Leslie Dennis from the University of Iowa, admitted their study was limited by being unable to control for sun exposure.

    ‘Sun exposure, perhaps the strongest risk factor for melanoma, is difficult to capture via questionnaire. Since farmers spend a great deal of time in the sun, we cannot rule out the possibility that these pesticides-specific results are driven by sun exposure.’

    However, they concluded that agricultural chemicals should now be considered as a risk factor.

    ‘Most of the previous melanoma literature has focused on [personal] factors and sun exposure, but our study suggests more research is needed on chemicals and other environmental factors that may increase the risk of cutaneous [skin] melanoma,’ they said.

    A study published by the EU Parliament in 2008 found increased cancer rates among children of farm workers and children living on farms.

    Nick Mole, from the Pesticides Action Network-UK (PAN), said he hoped the current UK consultation on pesticide use, which ends on May 4th, would bring in greater protection for farm workers, including restrictions on re-entering sprayed areas and greater use of non-chemical alternatives.

    Useful links
    Full study: ‘Pesticide Use and Cutaneous Melanoma in Pesticide  Applicators in the Agricultural Heath Study’, published in the Environmental Health Perspectives journal

  • Kevin Rudd’s bn health and hospital funding favours labor seats,

     

    The HHF is one of the three “nation-building” funds established by the Rudd government for long-term reforms and to support jobs and economic activity. The funds have played central roles in Labor’s two economic stimulus packages and last year’s budget.

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    Health Minister Nicola Roxon has the final say on which projects receive HHF money – she issues the guidelines for funding evaluation, proposals are assessed by an independent advisory board of experts that she appoints and those projects that meet the conditions go to her for ultimate approval. Not all screened proposals that qualify receive HHF funding.

    Many of the fund projects were deemed “shovel-ready” or have been boosted by state government contributions. They include a new rehabilitation unit at the Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth, the Parkville Comprehensive Cancer Centre in Melbourne, the Health and Medical Research Institute in Adelaide, an expansion of Townsville Hospital and the Lifehouse Cancer Centre in Sydney.

    Taking into account last year’s electoral redistributions in Queensland and NSW, which notionally handed five seats from the Liberal to Labor, including Herbert (Townsville) and Greenway (western Sydney), Labor’s share of the HHF pie rises to 83 per cent – or $5 to the government-held electorates for every $1 going to non-Labor seats.

    The HHF figures are in line with the skewed outlays of the government’s $275 million GP Super Clinics program, under which Labor electorates are receiving 80 per cent of the funds to construct the new one-stop medical centres.

    Based on the House of Representatives, where Labor holds 83 of 150 seats, a reasonable share of health funds for its electorates would be 55 per cent.

    The Rudd government has chosen to green-light HHF projects located in ultra-marginal Labor seats such as Solomon in Darwin, Bass in Tasmania and Hasluck in Perth, and in winnable Coalition electorates such as Herbert, Greenway and Hughes in southern Sydney.

    Health policy is shaping up as a key election issue, with Labor’s reform plan proposing majority funding from the commonwealth (by taking one-third of GST funds) and improved local management of hospitals.

    On April 19 in Canberra, the Prime Minister will seek an agreement on his health reforms when he hosts premiers and chief ministers at the Council of Australian Governments meeting.

    Breaking down HHF projects by state, Western Australia (which has 10 per cent of the population) has been handsomely rewarded, gaining an 18 per cent share.

    Victoria, Tasmania and the territories have received funding in excess of their per capita expectations.

    Queensland and South Australia have won funds in line with their size.

    But NSW, long seen as a poorly managed jurisdiction, particularly in containing health costs, has been severely penalised in the HHF process.

    Although the state has 32.5 per cent of the population, it has received only 16.8 per cent of the HHF’s investments.

    Announcing the Building Australia Fund, Education Investment Fund and HHF in his May 2008 budget speech, Wayne Swan lamented the short-sightedness of national budgets.

    “For too long, our national budgets have focused on the next election, not the big challenge facing our country in the next decade and beyond,” the Treasurer said.

    At the time, the federal opposition called the three new investment vehicles, with planned seed capital of $41bn, “slush funds” to be used by Labor to pursue short-term political ends.

    According to its guiding principles, the HHF is geared to investments in major projects that will meet health reform targets as well as strategic stakes that will lead to improvements in “efficiency, access or outcomes of health care”.

    The Health Minister ultimately approves funding for projects that have passed screening by an advisory panel of experts appointed by the minister.

    The HHF advisory board is chaired by private equity figure Bill Ferris, chairman of the Garvan Institute for Medical Research and a former chairman of Austrade.

    Other advisory board members include KPMG partner Patricia Faulkner, Health and Ageing departmental secretary Jane Halton, infrastructure executive Bruce Warner and public health academics Stephen Leeder, John Wakerman and Cindy Shannon.

    In the 2009-10 budget, Health Minister Nicola Roxon announced $3.2bn in new spending from the HHF to upgrade hospital facilities, improve cancer treatment and to promote so-called “translational research” from the laboratory bench to bedside care.

    Most of the money has gone to specific projects, although $532m for a network of regional cancer centres has yet to be allocated.

    And $120m has been provided to BreastScreen Australia for a national mammography program.

    23 comments on this story

  • Kristina Keneally won’t back the emergency wowsers

     

    Well over half of readers surveyed also supported the suggested new laws, with 55.6 per cent of 800 online poll respondents backing them.

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    “If the Government – and the Opposition – refuse to stand up to the hotel lobby, they will be responsible for any alcohol-related attacks on emergency service workers that occur within the hours we are talking about,” Mr Weber said.

    “If the Premier really thinks we are wowsers, I invite her to spend a night with her frontline workforce and see what is really going on in this state when she is asleep.”

    Ms Keneally said the majority of drinkers enjoyed themselves responsibly and she had no intention of turning NSW into a “dull and boring” or “wowser” state.

    “People come to Sydney to go out at night and have a good time and the overwhelming majority do so safely and responsibly,” she said.

    The Premier’s views were at odds with local councils, who point to the success of bans in Newcastle.

     

    “Why not consider extending it to other larger metropolitan cities,” said Local Government Association president Genia McCaffery.

    Wollongong Radio Cabs chairman Allan Meti said he also supported the proposed zrestrictions.

    The Australian Hotels Association described the call as “naive”. AHA chief executive Sally Fielke said: “What about the wider issues of drugs, the availability of cheap takeaway alcohol and the appalling behaviour of a few individuals.”

    ClubsNSW said its venues should also be exempt.

     

  • White farmers ‘ being wioed out’

     

    Death has stalked South Africa’s white farmers for years. The number murdered since the end of apartheid in 1994 has passed 3,000.

    In neighbouring Zimbabwe, a campaign of intimidation that began in 2000 has driven more than 4,000 commercial farmers off their land, but has left fewer than two dozen dead.

    The vulnerability felt by South Africa’s 40,000 remaining white farmers intensified earlier this month when Julius Malema, head of the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) youth league, opened a public rally by singing Dubula Ibhunu, or Shoot the Boer, an apartheid-era anthem, that was banned by the high court last week.

    Malema’s timing could hardly have been worse. Last weekend in the remote farming community of Colenso, in KwaZulu-Natal, Nigel Ralfe, 71, a dairy farmer, and his wife Lynette, 64, were gunned down as they milked their cows. He was critically injured; she died.

    That same day a 46-year-old Afrikaner was shot through his bedroom window as he slept at his farm near Potchefstroom. A few days later a 61-year-old was stabbed to death in his bed at a farm in Limpopo.

    The resurrection of Dubula Ibhunu, defended by senior ANC officials as little more then a sentimental old struggle song, has been greeted with alarm by Tom Stokes, of the opposition Democratic Alliance. He said the ANC’s continued association with the call to kill Boers could not be justified.

    “Any argument by the ANC that this song is merely a preservation of struggle literature rings hollow in the face of farming families who have lost wives, mothers and grandmothers,” he added.

    He was supported by Anton Alberts of the right-wing Freedom Front Plus party: “Malema’s comments are creating an atmosphere that is conducive to those who want to commit murder. He’s an accessory to the wiping out of farmers in South Africa.”

    Rossouw Cillier, Pieter’s brother, bristled as he pointed to the bullet holes in the panelled kitchen of the farmhouse near Ceres in the Western Cape. “They shot him through the fridge from the back door — the bullets came straight through here, into his heart. He never had a chance,” he said.

    A successful apple and pear grower, he believes his community is living on borrowed time: “More white farmers have been killed than British soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yes, we are at war here.”

    His brother’s farmhouse is now shuttered and empty. “I can’t spend time here. We’ll have to sell. This farm has been in our family for generations but it must go. Who’ll manage it? The children will never come back here. They held their own father as he died in front of them. Will they ever get over that?”

    As we walked across the orchard, fruit destined for the shelves of Tesco and Sainsbury’s in the UK was still being picked. A tractor passed a 10ft cross erected in honour of the murdered farmer.

    “It lights up at night,” Rossouw said. “My brother was a religious man. It’s all that’s left of him here.”

    Across South Africa many farmers feel endangered. In Northern Province a tribute has been created beneath an enormous sign with the stark Afrikaans word “plaasmoorde” — farm killings. Thousands of white wooden crosses have been planted across a mountainside, one for each fallen farmer.

    Recently the government’s department of rural development has been airing proposals to nationalise productive farmland as a “national asset”. Critics claim it is designed to deflect criticism from the ruling ANC’s failures.

    “It’s a lot easier talking about nationalising farms than building decent houses, making clean water come out of taps or honouring promises to redistribute farm plots to millions of landless poor,” said a spokesman for AgriSA, the farmers’ union.

    On the outskirts of Ceres there are few groceries in the township store — tins of pilchards, baked beans, some dried biscuits. A group of teenage boys sit on the burnt-out remains of a Ford Escort. This is where Cillier’s killers gathered, in a shebeen, a drinking club, where they fortified themselves with cheap hooch before they set off to rob him. They escaped with nothing.

    According to Rossouw Cillier the most telling detail is that his brother was unarmed when they attacked. “If we brandish a weapon, we’ll go to prison, not them. What did they gain from this murder? It was an act as pointless as their lives.”