Greens candidate for Griffith, Geoff Ebbs, told ZZZs EcoRadio today why he thinks climate change has not been on the agenda for this election but why he still thinks there is value in .the political process.
There are two sound files here.
Hear Geoff talking about the politics of climate change and vested interests.
Hear Geoff talking about how we can tackle the real politik of those vested interests.
Economist and scientist Dr Tan Sri Lin See-Yan (Dr Lin) examines the economic impacts of the long term shrinkage of the world population.
European countries, Australia, Taiwan and Japan for many years have been relying on immigration to maintain their population, China will stop growing by 2030 and India by 2050. Dr Lin busts many population myths and examines the economic impact of demographics.
Prepare to be surprised.
One unexpected fact brought to light in the article is that the USA is alone among the world’s major nations in having increased its fertility rate in recent years. Where as all the other developed nations have had declining birth rates for decades and have not replaced their population since the seventies or eighties, the USA reversed this trend in the eighties and now has a birth rate higher than its death rate.
If this continues, Dr Lin argues, this means that it will have a significant economic advantage in the second half of this century.
The Federal Circuit Court has dismissed criminal contempt charges against a former union official over his involvement in the community protest staged during last year’s long-running children’s hospital project strike in Brisbane.
In front of a packed court room, Federal Magistrate Michael Burnett rejected all 18 charges against former MUA organiser Bob Carnegie, for which he could have been jailed if found guilty.
He originally faced 54 counts of criminal contempt, but 36 were dismissed during hearings in February.
The charges were brought by Abigroup, the principal contractor on the site and part of the Lend Lease group. It alleged Carnegie breached September court orders it had secured in his support for the nine-week project stopwork.
Community protests, which unions are careful to avoid direct links to, have developed as a means to support striking workers but avoid anti-picketing laws.
Companies have typically been reluctant to target individuals allegedly involved.
The Queensland Government filed an application to intervene if Carnegie was found guilty and the matter progressed to the next phase.
Carnegie in a statement this afternoon welcomed the result and thanked his legal team and his fellow workers for their support.
It’s certainly been a tough time, but the support of workers and the community has made it easier, he said.
BLF state secretary David Hanna also welcomed the ruling.
Slater Gordon national head of industrial law, Marcus Clayton, who represented Carnegie, said the court had accepted that the order he was charged with breaching was not clear and unambiguous.
It has long been a fundamental legal principle that you can’t be found guilty of contempt of a court order if the order isn’t clear, he said.
Bob has been through a lot and we are very pleased for Bob.
Clayton said an application would be made for an order that Abigroup pay Carnegie’s substantial legal costs.
A spokesperson for Abigroup said the company respected the court’s decision.
Abigroup and its contractors secured FWA (now FWC) orders in August last year, which they backed up with court injunctions, against industrial action at the site.
Senior Deputy President Peter Richards in September in orders later upheld by a full bench banned the CFMEU and CEPU, their officers and delegates, plus their members who are employees of Abigroup subcontractors at the site, from engaging in any industrial action. He also ordered the unions not to organise or encourage it.
Abigroup launched separate proceedings against the unions over the matter.
The children’s hospital strike began as a dispute with a subcontractor over benefits but was engulfed in the claim for site rates for contractors that the construction unions were pursuing from other builders during bargaining.
Abigroup at the time still had some two years to run on its Queensland construction sector deal.
In an attempt to clean up Brisbane’s waterways, the Brisbane City Council has introduced a water filtration system called ‘Daylighting’.Under the system, urban space is redeveloped and restored to its natural origins by means of ripping up streets, footpaths and stormwater drains. Daylighting uses natural barriers such as rocks and vegetation to block pollutants from entering the water system.
Brisbane lord mayor Graham Quirk said daylighting systems have been installed at Greenslopes, Holland Park and Ferny Grove as part it’s $2 million dollar creek filtration program. Quirk expects the initiative to decrease pollution by up to 80 per cent.
“These systems act much like a kidney for the waterways and having them within local parks and green spaces are all part of our plan to be proactive in maintaining clean waterways,” he said.
Australia’s Councils of Social Service (ACOSS) has challenged Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to put homelessness back at the top of the federal election campaign agenda and halve the rate of homelessness by 2020.
ACOSS’ Fernando de Freitos says that more than 100,000 Australians are homeless each night.
In 2008 the Federal government under Prime Minister Rudd committed to halve this number. Federal and state governments’ have agreed fund a Partnership Agreement on Housing and Homelessness, until 30 June next year.
“A long-term approach is critical if we are to truly tackle homelessness and provide safe and secure homes for all Australians,” Mr de Freitos says.
Environmental Activist Group Stop Brisbane Coal Trains has today criticised the findings of an Air Pollution Monitoring Study released on Monday by the Queensland Resources Council.
Group Spokesperson and former Environmental Engineer John Gordon says, ‘This monitoring program has been a complete sham from the start,’
The group is calling for a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the truly bizarre state of affairs that has allowed the Coal Industry to conduct it’s own air monitoring program using Government scientists.
Mr Gordon says the Senate Inquiry hearing in Brisbane where his group gave evidence found that ‘air pollution standards are nebulous to the point of useless.’