Category: News

Origin Energy, the largest energy retailer in Australia, is actively blocking renewable energy, a new report finds. The report, “Strangling Renewables: Origin Energy’s campaign against renewable energy” produced by 100% Renewable, a community campaign for clean energy, and Greenpeace Australia Pacific, inspects Origin’s energy dominance and the company’s quest to strangle renewables as part of its strategy to prolong the dominance of gas and fossil fuels.

“Two and a half million Australians have installed rooftop solar and are taking power generation into their own hands. These families are producing clean energy and, at the same time, reducing their bills. The renewable and solar revolution is here but Origin is clearly threatened by this,” Lindsay Soutar, National Director of 100% Renewable , says.

“To shore up its strategy of expanding investment in gas and fossil fuels, Origin is responding the only way it knows –by leading an industry campaign to undermine renewables in our community.”

“As this report shows, Origin is strangling renewable energy in a number of ways, including running a smear campaign against the renewable energy target, which sets Australia’s goal for the amount of our energy produced by renewables, and using misleading public statements to manipulate the general public and politicians alike,” Ms Soutar says.

“Origin’s Managing Director, Grant King, has repeatedly said the renewable energy target is a primary driver of increased energy costs. But, that is inaccurate, with the main cause of price rises – at over 70% – due to over investment in poles and wires.”

“Origin has also underinvested in its own renewable energy portfolio and is blocking other clean energy developers projects from going forward, using its market power to keep renewables on the sidelines,” Ben Pearson, Head of Program at Greenpeace Australia, says.

The report shows that Origin has invested heavily in gas projects, including developing new LNG projects and gas generating plants, and also generates 75% of its profit through its retail arm – but increasingly these are threatened by the emergence of cheaper, cleaner wind and solar.

“In truth, renewables are working. As this report shows, renewables are reducing energy bills and producing clean energy in an efficient way. Not only that, but wind power is lowering wholesale power prices. And other countries are surpassing us with more ambitious renewable energy goals,” Ms Soutar says.

“What Origin is failing to recognise is that Australians overwhelmingly support renewable energy. Survey after survey finds that 70-80% of families want more renewables, not less. At this time we need to be increasing our ambition, not falling behind.”

“Origin’s short-sighted strategy of investing in dying technology and attempting to strangle new ones may be their plan now, but Origin needs to be careful as they risk consumers walking away as they learn about what they are up to.”

With a review of Australia’s Renewable Energy Target scheduled to occur early next year, 100% Renewable and Greenpeace will be continuing to expose Origin’s efforts to undermine the target and ensure the federal government aims higher in its renewable energy goals.

Michael Shuman is an advocate of local business and a community economist.

He was in Brisbane this week to give a talk called Delicious Development that covered the reasons why local business is good for community and society as a whole.

He opposes some basic tenets of traditional economic development beginning his talk by saying the worst thing you can do for your local economy is spend money to attract and retain outside companies to invest locally. His talk sets out to prove that money is much better spent investing in local business.

Two of the stand out messages from the talk:

1/ The localization movement in the USA has shifted from a straightforward consumer movement to influence investment and other infrastructure issues.

2/ Despite the huge subsidies, tax breaks and other corporate welfare provided by governments to the big end of town, small business has maintained its share of revenue, employment and profit steadily over the last century and a half.

Most Westenders appreciate the value of a diverse ecosystem of small independent businesses. We know that every dollar spent in a locally owned business stays in the community two to four times longer than a dollar spent in a national or international company. We also know that locally owned businesses support the local community in a robust and direct way.

These facts are familiar to us from our personal experience and it is reassuring to see that hundreds of studies across North America reaffirm this. What has also emerged from those studies is that the resilience of communities with diverse small businesses is much stronger: they are better equipped to deal with major change, such as external shifts in the economy. They are also more coherent: people are less alienated, better connected and less likely to fall through the cracks.

These advantages lead to indirect benefits to the economy, primarily through lower welfare costs but also  through lower crime rates.

Mr Shuman’s focus was largely on food. The globalization of food is one of the major challenges of our time, leading to reduced quality, poor nutrition, lower prices for growers and an increasing dependency on international infrastructure to maintain food supplies.

The indirect benefits of a healthy, resilient, local food supply extend to better health and nutrition and deepen the relationships in a community significantly.

On the flip-side, the collapse of food sovereignty is of major concern to growers, regional leaders and advocates of economic sustainability worried about the increasing cost of energy and transport and its impact on our lifestyle.

“Given the relatively high weight to price ratio of food, it is one of the most price sensitive goods as transport costs increase,” Shuman pointed out.

Of similar significance to his graph showing the resilience of small business in the face of government favouritism of corporations is his breakdown of food costs.

Over the last century the farmer’s share of the food dollar has fallen from around 40% to around 10%. The cost of packaging, transport, refrigeration and storage has risen from 30% to almost 70%. It is that cost that is being consumed by corporations and which is also most vulnerable to rising energy costs. It is that variable and vulnerable cost which leaves us all exposed to the collapse of our food supply networks.

While many small business owners are not overtly worried by the globalization of the economy, or particularly focused on food. The raft of statistics showing the benefit of local business in creating robust stable economies reinforces their instinctive preference for entrepreneurship. It should also make us all extremely wary of the attempts by government chambers of commerce and industry associations representing corporate interests to take over our small business lobby groups and local chambers of commerce.

Delicious Development was organised by local businesses, Food Connect and Energising Communities (the founders all live in West End) Michael Shuman is a fellow of the Post Carbon Institute and a founder of BALLE (Be a localist) http://bealocalist.org/

One of the most frightening aspects of the Luring RapeBait email that hit the news on October 9^th is the entrenched positions it has exposed.

The instructions for getting sex by alcohol and aggressive dancing offended all sensitive, caring people and anyone with a college age daughter. It also caused an equal and opposite reaction from some men totally bewildered as to what all the fuss was about.

“Besides the fratty language this is just ordinary instructions for being a good host: find a lonely girl, get her a drink and show her a good time” wrote one, possibly disingenuous, defender of the dick.

It is fairly easy to get a reading on this furore with whatever slant you want. Liberal humanist press like ivillage expresses straightforward outrage http://www.ivillage.com/fraternity-boy-sends-creepy-luring-rapebait-email-bros/4-a-549083, a more thoughtful treatment is available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/08/georgia-tech-frat-email-rapebait_n_4063101.html

And you can get a bit closer to the action at http://totalfratmove.com/%CE%A6kt-member-from-georgia-tech-sends-rapiest-email-ever/

Keep looking and you can find sites where the vast majority of the comments back the boys and their “dismay” at “feminazi dominance”.

Watching my local boy bush turkey hound his target female into sexual submission over days of high-speed chasing up and down trees, rubbish piles and tangled undergrowth I cannot help but observe that there is some truth to the frat brat claims that it is quite “natural” for young animals to push the boundaries of “decency” or “civilised behaviour” in the search for sexual satisfaction.

The point that they miss is that we came out of the trees well over ten million years ago and began building cities about ten thousand years ago. While we still have a ‘lizard brain’ and animal instincts, we have also evolved a range of civilized behaviours and emotional responses, such as romance, that are an important part of our social fabric.

That being said, there is nothing wrong with mutual exploration of the darker side of our sexuality, or engaging in a little ‘rough trade’ if that’s what we feel we need. Even dolphins and elephants with their complex neural cortex and social structures are not always the most romantic of lovers.

The point missed by the misguided lads defending their date-rape mentality is that while this behaviour is not ‘evil’ it is not ‘normal’. For the advancement of humanity, the freedom of women and the well-being of society, young people need to develop the social skills around romance, consensual sex and the ability to separate the thrill of seduction from the blood lust of conquest.

Even from a completely hedonistic, self-centred point of view, those occasions where sex is the most bestial and the least refined rarely make it into the best-bonks-I-ever-had list. More importantly, unless you deny the equality of women, sexual conquest is not a victimless crime.

The logic of the lop-sided view of sexual behaviour as represented by the frat brats defending the rapebait email this month is studied in detail in the 2009 article “Rapists who don’t think they’re rapists”. http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2009/11/12/rapists-who-dont-think-theyre-rapists/

Given the central role of the television show Game of Thrones in our culture’s view of power and sexuality it is worth requoting the character Daario, “The gods gave men two gifts to entertain ourselves before we die—the thrill of fucking a woman who wants to be fucked; the thrill of killing a man who wants to kill you.”

It still puts women in the passive role but at least it gets the mutual nature of the desire the right way round.

The accidental rapists in our midst have completely missed out on this fundamental piece of evolution and need re-education quickly.

I have a suggestion for harnessing the power of the Internet to facilitate this re-education and reverse its role in promoting rape-culture but that will have to wait for another day.

A sovereignty concert at Musgrave Park commemorated the 1982 concert on the same ground at the Commonwealth Games which established the Sovereignty movement in the minds of the people of West End and South Brisbane.

Teila performed in memory of her Dad (Ross Watson) along with Rod, Andrew Paine, Marley, the Bim Bimbis (Trevor and Graeme) supporting Ian Curr and Phil Monsour. Harpist Bart performed on the closing day after the Sovereignty talks on G20. MC, Boe Knows; Marley & Phil on sound; Tony Mockeridge (Three Miles from Texas), Phil Monsour and Jumping Fences for the sound and lights all contributed to make the event a great success.

People are welcome to participate and help organise this event and other fundraising activities like it. There will be a fundraiser at Kurilpa Hall in November (date to be announced) to pay Wayne (Coco) Wharton’s fine for his defending the Sacred Fire and to contribute towards the Tent Embassy food program.

Contacts:  Boe Spearim 0424610492 and Eliza 0421472465

This and other issues are discussed at tent embassy meetings on Wednesdays 6pm

All are welcome to the sacred fire at 121 Cordelia Street West End on Wednesdays!

Black Fella – White Fella

Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox and Alfonso Cuaron, the director of the recently released film Gravity starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, share a secret. Both believe in a multiverse as opposed to a universe it seems.

In Cosmic Address, launched on Friday at New Farm’s Graydon Gallery, Kathryn juggles a spectrum of cosmic phenomena from time travel, super-earths, spacecraft, undiscovered horizons to post-apocalyptic calamities. Her collection of works, Eternity’s Breath and Galactic Horizons and Beyond for instance reflect her bold mythic vision and playfulness at times in an effective, simplified and colourful palette.

About the context for the show she explains,  “Since the race to fly to to the moon began in 1957, humans have been littering the cosmos with debris which is harmful to Earth. Home and identity should not be confined to countries, nations or continents. By opening up notions of landscape that includes Space we not only see our planet differently we open up new perspectives of ourselves. And then perhaps humanity can unite in sustaining our planet.”

Kathryn paints because art is the air she breathes; a way of life essential to her identity. “I have fun painting, I love doing it.”

A passionate devotee of cosmology she may be, but she is also down to earth. As a curatorial assistant with the National Gallery in Canberra, her colleagues said, “she was a breeze to work with” and she presents as fun, determined, uber-organised and abuzz with challenging ideas.

Her working day begins with social media activities like updating and distributing her popular blog Art@Brimblecombe-Fox which has attracted much interest from international and national scientists as well as musicians, writers, dancers and philosophers. Administrative chores involve media campaigns, liaising with galleries, processing competition entries and sales.

If life doesn’t intrude, the artist spends between four to six hours in her studio. When starting a painting there’s no “pre-conceived notion” but she does have a general idea of what she wants to create.

“When I present a show”- the artist has had 35 solo and group exhibitions to date- “they are rewarding because I take stock of what I’ve done. Making art is solitary. I love having conversations with people and considering other viewpoints. As soon as people walk in the door, I can tell if they are the stayers or goers.”

After so much discussion about moon, star and solar realms I ask if there is a worldly possession she would love to own.  And yes her material dream is to own a white Mercedes-Benz GLA. “The design is superb and it would ferry my paintings around.”
Cosmic Address: until the 27 October at Graydon Gallery, 29 Merthyr Rd, New Farm.

The Yellow Jersey Bike Shop has landed in Woollongabba, joining the highest density of cyclists in Queensland from Ipswich where it was awarded Australian bicycle retailer of the year last year. Opening last month in Stanley St, the shop caters for all road, mountain, triathlon, womens’, fitness and kids’ cycling needs for every budget.

Onwer Troy Dobson aims for a family atmosphere that engender’s customer loyalty and creates a cycling hub for the inner-south. With competitors Bike Hub catering for serious cyclists just a stone throw’s away on Annerley Rd and Planet Cycles in the same suburb they will have to earn the priviledge. Long established Cycle Revolution in Montague Rd services the West End market putting together standard bikes from off the shelf and second hand components.

The new premises have had customers referring to it as the “Ferrari store for bikes”, partly due to the refurbished Austin vintage car on shop floor and supported by the generally sleek design and open layout.

A dedicated workshop facility with qualified mechanics is available for all servicing and repairs. Olympic cycling gold medallist, Ryan Bayley OAM has been with Yellow Jersey in Ipswich for over 5 years and brings that expertise to the  Woolloongabba workshop and sales team.