Author: Geoff Ebbs

Campbell Newman claims to be reluctantly in his suppot for his Attorney General’s current attack on the fundamental principles of law, but the raft of legislative change being rammed through parliament is better described as enthusiastic.

Solicitors from the West-End based Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) crossed the river last night to bring the Sustainable Engineers chapter of Engineers Australia in Spring Hill up to date on the implications of the unwinding of thirty years law in the so called reduction in “green tape”.

EDO chairwoman Michelle Malone addressed the incredible paradigm shifts in fundamental legal principles that are taking place as grass roots movements form mechanisms to overcome the global attack on the environmental protection laws.

Senior solicitor Jo Bragg focused on the harsh reality of the incredible roll back of environmental protection that is currently taking place in Queensland.

Despite their regular work as environmental engineers and passion for the environment, many of the engineers in attendance had no idea of the scale of the legal battles taking place in and about the legal framework.

The recent Westender article http://westender.com.au/coal-water-battle-comes-to-west-end/ about the Alpha Coal court case that pits a community group against the might of Hancock Coal is one example of the Environmental Defender’s work and the problems we face.

That mine site will cover 65,000 hectares of the Galilee Basin (next to Clive Palmer’s China First coal mine) and the pits themselves will cover 20,000 hectares. Stradbroke Island is 17,000 hectares in size so we are talking about a series of holes in the ground larger than that enormous island.

The community group is opposing it on the ground that the mining company cannot dig a hole that size without impacting on the water table on which the local community depends (not to mention the environment that supports them and their livelihood.)

One of the changes which the Newman government is pushing through parliament right now is the removal of the rights of people and community groups to bring cases like this to court. What is not widely understood is that, generally speaking, people or community groups do not have the right to prosecute alleged criminals for breaches of the law. The EDO has fought hard to include such rights in recent environmental laws.

The Queensland Government is tearing up 13 pieces of environmental legislation and replacing the Sustainable Development Act with the Queensland Planning for Economic Development Act. This is one aspect of the government’s campaign against Green tape.

As part of these changes the minister for planning will have the final say on a whole range of rulings with the Environmental Protection Authority reduced to an advisory capacity.

Jo Bragg has clocked up an incredible 20 years at the Environmental Defender’s Office, and points out that limited as these laws have been, it is the hard work of thousands of volunteers in hundreds of community groups that have achieved those results.

“We simply need to ramp up the fight,” she said.

Michelle Maloney took a more philosophical approach explaining the underpinnings of the movements by local communities around the world to take the development of law into their own hands and reverse the onus of proof.

She fronts Earthlaws.org.au which highlights the efforts of CELDF in the USA and other groups around the world who are simply asserting their right to a healthy environment and are finding ways to challenge any organization that endangers that.

As many people have found out the hard way, the legal framework essentially protects property and the rights of property owners. Since corporations claimed the same rights as human individuals in the late nineteenth century (after a concerted campaign over many decades – well documented in Ted Nash’s Corporate Gangs of America) they have regularly asserted their right to trade without interference as protection from regulation that attempts to restrict their activity.

Underpinning these shifts in the legal focus is a philosophical movement that challenges the central role of humanity in most social, philosophical and religious frameworks. This is a view that underpins movements as diverse as Deep Ecology, Sea Shepherd and most indigenous cultures and differentiates them from our hierarchical, growth driven view of the world.

She referred to the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, the agreement between the Crown and the Whanganui River in NZ and the recognition of the Rights of Nature in the 2008 constitution in Ecuador as outgrowths of this movement that are setting legal precedents.

Michelle cited philosopher Thomas Berry as a major inspiration for many of the proponents of this movement. She recommends his book Great World as the easiest and most powerful introduction to this world view.

From a legal point of view the shift is from a anthropocentric view of the world to what is generally called earth jurisprudence.  She has synthesized the major shifts into five categories.

1. Subject human laws to “higher” laws that refer to the source of our creation (science, religion, …)
2. Replace the notion of nature as a commodity with the idea that there is a community of interconnected subjects with legal rights. (legally a “subject” has the right to representation)
3. Give nature (animals, rivers, trees) similar rights to humans, and those currently claimed by corporations.
4. Replace pro-growth economic and political systems with those that recognise and respect natural limits.
5. Replace legal definitions that exclude (or dismiss) cultural diversity/indigenous values with a democracy that encourages diversity.

The range of reactions from the engineers present reflect the gulf between this view and the status quo, but also the power they have to generate enthusiasm and new ideas.

Westender will watch with interest

At a most unusual Annual General Meeting last night, West End Traders Association elected a new committee without a chairperson/president. Paul Hey, elected unopposed as vice-president, will be the interim head of the Association.

Peter Marinelli, president of the Association for the last two decades, was initially nominated but withheld his acceptance of that nomination until an extraordinary general meeting to be held on 14th November.

These decidedly unusual circumstances were brought about after a number of new businesspeople – including local identity and president of the West End Community Association, Darren Godwell – attended the meeting with the intention of joining the Association and voting at the AGM.

Darren was nominated for the position of president but unsuccessfully, as he was deemed not to be a financial member of the Association.

(The most recent meeting, in August, had advised those present that they could join, vote and nominate on the night of the AGM. At last night’s meeting, however, it was considered that this would be in breach of the Associations Incorporations Act.)

Peter Marinelli generously withheld his nomination so that new members have time to join, vote and nominate prior to the extraordinary general meeting to be held for that purpose.

Many long term members expressed disappointment and dismay at the process, and fervently hope that the extraordinary annual general meeting is less extraordinary than the ordinary Annual General Meeting.

Those same members, however, also expressed their sincere appreciation at the influx of new membership, and looked forward to new, more dynamic West End Traders Association.

Declaration of interest: Westender has had a long commercial relationship with Peter Marinelli through Swiss Gourmet Deli and has been a longstanding supporters and associate of West End Traders Association and the West End Community Association, Including serving as a committee member on the WETA.

The Queensland Treasurer Tim Nicholls will fill local businesses in on the plans of the Newman government over breakfast on Thursday November 7th at The Loft here in West End.

As well as the blueprint for the future the treasurer will be trumpeting the acheivements of the government’s year and a half in office. He has identified the following topics:

• What the Newman Government has done to facilitate and increase business opportunities;
• Reduction of red tape;
• How else costs have been cut;
• What else the government has done to turn the economy around

Most members of the SW Chamber and affiliated bodies, the West End Trader’s Association, the Philippine Australia Chamber of Commerce and The Hong Kong Australia Business Association will be focused on the government’s plans for the next three years.

The breakfast kicks off at 7am on the 7th of November at The Loft, 100 Boundary St West End. Tickets are available through the SW Chamber website www,chamber,org.

Other articles on the SW Chamber can be found in the Business section

of Westender.

Pro Musica Singers and the Counterpoint Vocal Ensemble present two concerts next month, singing about creatures of the feathered variety.

Pro Musica Singers is celebrating 61 years in the local community. A local community choir which has contributed to the cultural and artistic life of Brisbane, and West End in particular, since the 1950s, Pro Musica Singers specialise in Renaissance, Baroque, Classical and Contemporary music.

Founded in 1952 as a madrigal group, they practised at lunchtime in the Music Department in George Street, Brisbane, and then followed the Department to the St Lucia campus of the University of Queensland, later moving to West End in Brisbane as an independent community choir

The concerts on 10th and 17th of November will be held in collaboration with Counterpoint Vocal Ensemble and is inspired by the works of Byrd, Gibbons, Stanford and Grandage, and other composers who have written about our feathered friends.

Tickets will be available at the door, or may be pre-purchased through trybooking.com

Holy Cross Heritage Hall
28 Chalk Street, Wooloowin
3pm Sunday 10 November 2013
Enquiries: Phone 0424 376 468

St Francis of Assisi Church
59 Dornoch Terrace, West End
3pm Sunday 17 November 2013
Enquiries: Phone 3366 3474

Cost: $20 adults, school-age children free. Afternoon tea included in ticket price.

More information about his energetic, vibrant and caring community of singers is available at their website – promusicasingers.com

Scott McDonald is a partner in McGarry’s, treasurer of the South West Chamber of Commerce, an advocate of tax reform and a farm boy in the big smoke who still gets a wistful look in his eye when he talks about the land.

Westender spoke to Scott about the challenges facing business today as seen through the eyes of a chartered accountant and business adviser – that’s how McGarry’s formally describe themselves. We started with an overview of the firm itself.

McGarry’s is a small partnership, not terribly interested in becoming a big one.  The partners do not want the organisational challenge that comes with more than a dozen people. The firm has plenty of business, mostly small to medium enterprises, with the median around the $10,000,000 per annum mark and no client reaching much beyond $100,000,000 per annum.

Their preferred clients, though, are dynamic, growing organisations.

“It’s not only more interesting, there is actually a lot of satisfaction in helping someone build something up.”

Scott joined McGarry’s from Price Waterhouse Coopers, where he was just another employee in a big corporation. He did not want the challenges of a single partner consultancy – “it can be a bit lonely” – mostly because he values the input and balance of expertise that colleagues can offer.

McGarry’s deals mostly with organisations employing ten or more people. There are similar challenges, though, to many smaller companies.

“The lack of resources means that there is not always sufficient expertise to deal with complex issues.  It is hard for the owner to step back from the business and work ‘on the business not in the business’.”

Scott knows this is not as easy as it sounds. As an accountant and financial adviser, he understands all too keenly that bringing that expertise in-house adds overheads which eat into the bottom line. He observes that every business is different but it is always difficult for the owner to step back from the hands on process of making money and invest the time into planning strategically.

One of the satisfying things about seeing his clients grow is observing the economies of scale kicking in. He notes that external requirements, such as compliance with regulations, handling tax and so on are much easier in larger companies.

When I push him in why McGarry’s has chosen to stay small, he notes that success does not depend on growth, but growth does provide some interesting accounting challenges.

“That’s the stuff that is fun to do,” he says with a twinkle in his clear blue eyes.

Scott is one of the many business operators you can meet at the South West Chamber of Commerce. (www.chamber.org.au  – I know, it’s a great URL, isn’t it?) and Westender plans to work closely with the Chamber to deliver the resources that business needs.

If you have a business story that might be of interest to other Westender business readers leave a comment below or contact me directly on info@westender.com.au

Queensland Minister for the Yarts, Ian Walker, told balletophiles at the Brisbane City Hall on Monday night (See Queensland Ballet 2014 story) that one of the surprises of becoming responsible for the Yarts has been drinking Chablis, eating oysters and seeing Ballet at that crowning jewel of Queensland culture, the Ekka.

“The Ekka sure has changed since I was a kid,” he quipped to a ripple of laughter from an empathetic audience.

Now, Westender actively promotes the art of being genuine and open as a fundamental starting point for success in business, public life. (See last week’s John Buchanan story)   There is no point in belittling Ian Walker for growing up like most Queenslanders with the great outdoors and the rugby as the main cultural reference points, and European culture as a distant and vague ancenstral memory.

What is important, though, that those of us in the Arts, art administration or public life, recognize and deal with the natural tension between the highbrow arts that largely survive thanks to taxpayer funding and the interests of the broader populace.

Chair or the Sydney Opera House Trust, Kim Williams rips into Mark Latham as a prime example of a  proud philistine in the lead article of October’s The Monthly.

He quotes Latham, “Classical music, opera and ballet are insufferably boring. But that’s how the elites like it, safe in the knowledge that people below their station in society are unlikely to join them in the jewellery-rattling rows of the Opera House.”

Then Williams tears him apart, describing the worship of ignorance as  “similar in nature to creationism, with its willful sacrifice of science on the altar of personal opinion or triumphant, absolutist ‘belief’. It demeans the nation. Enough.”

Other commentators have made similar observations about the attacks on academics as being an elite, while billionaire miners are somehow seen to be “ordinary Australians”.

What is ordinary, or  ‘normal’, is constructed in the media in much the same way as the enemy is constructed as less than human. When artists, musicians, dancers, single parents, gays, unemployed, disabled, academics and university graduates are all vilified as being something other than ‘normal’, we are left with a fairly small part of society that is supposedly unwilling to put up with the rest of us.

The trick used by the media and politicians is to claim that we are all normal except for <today’s target group>. That way, the fact that there is no ‘normal’ is never called into question.

What was really interesting at the Brisbane City Hall on Monday night is that there were lots of families, including quite a few that I know who live here in 4101, who had dressed in everything from their formal best to their favourite tutu, to find out what the Queensland ballet is going to do in 2014.

Queensland ballet director, Lee CunXin, has brought all the elegance and refinement of being Mao’s last dancer together with his great down to earth love of the people to create a program of popular classics that will bring the people to ballet. Nutcracker as a regular Christmas treat will create a tradition of ballet going that has a long term impact. The world premiere of a new production of Copelia and the Australasian premiere of Sir Kenneth McKillon’s Romeo and Juliette will build bridges between “ordinary” people and “highbrow” culture.

Let’s hope that Yarts minister, Ian Walker’s refreshing naivette and honesty about his lack of exposure to European culture segues into a genuine appreciation of the wonder of learning rather than a nasty put down of the higher things in life.

As the 16^th of 19 ministers listed on the Queensland cabinet’s web page http://www.cabinet.qld.gov.au/ministers.aspx, with a portfolio that covers “science policy, strategy and investment, digital economy, chief scientist, innovation policy, strategy and programs, research and development coordination and planning, international collaborations, administration of Crown copyright and intellectual property, government information and communication services and delivery, archives, Smart Services Queensland, Queensland Shared Services, and Arts Queensland”,   the Yarts are clearly not too high on the governent’s agenda.

It is up to all of us to make sure the government understands that we, the people, love Art and want it in our faces as much as possible.