Get Up show their mettle post election, take a stand on Tas pulp mill saga
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: ecology

[Repost direct email from Get Up dated 13th Dec 07 timed at 3.23pm and again at 6.24 pm to our inbox. Crikey.com.au are reporting an inside tip that the ANZ are against financing the project (?). Could it really be true?]

Dear friends,

Right now, in a skyscraper in Melbourne the fate of the Gunns pulp mill in Tasmania's Tamar Valley is being decided by ANZ bank executives - and with your help we can make sure ANZ makes the right decision at their AGM next Tuesday and beyond.

The ANZ bank is considering financing Gunns' controversial pulp mill this week. Despite having the short-sighted approval of the new Labor Government, without a financial backer the project simply can't go ahead. Banks aren't answerable to the voters but they do listen when customers, shareholders and the public put their reputation at risk.

Our contacts inside the ANZ have told us that the ANZ decision-makers like the new head of the ANZ Mr Smith are actively listening and now this is the time to add your voice. Can you send a message to Mr Smith, to encourage him to do the right thing and not finance the Gunns pulp mill?

www.getup.org.au/campaign/TellMrSmith

Public pressure has been proven to make large corporations act more ethically, for fear of tarnishing the company's reputation and customer backlash - that's why ANZ is feverishly considering the implications before they approve the mill's finance. Let's leave them with no doubt that bankrolling this environmentally disastrous development would be equally disastrous for them.

Your email to Mr Smith at ANZ could save the equivalent of 2.3 million cars being taken off the road each year. 25,000 of you have already written submissions to the government inquiry, but whereas our politicians were too worried about losing votes, your email to ANZ will help make financing this project risky business:

www.getup.org.au/campaign/TellMrSmith

The Government has so far failed us on the pulp mill, by refusing to listen to the tens of thousands of Australians outraged by this ill-conceived development - the ANZ can't afford to be as foolish. This could be our urgent last chance to stop the pulp mill - the ANZ AGM is next Tuesday, and we want every executive to enter that meeting knowing Australia does not want them to become a climate villain.

Thanks for being a part of the solution,
The GetUp team

PS - Both the new Climate Change Minister Penny Wong and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Al Gore are taking your climate concerns direct to Bali! GetUp met with Penny Wong on her way to the climate negotiations to give her the 96,000-signature climate petition. Read our Blog!

NSW power sale: Will public sector unions officially shift to The Greens?
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: nsw govt
     

Picture: Is Michael Costa considering a career with Macquarie Bank after politics like Bob Carr, and will the Bank participate in the privatisation feeding frenzy?    

 

We hear on the ABC radio news hourly bulletin at 1 pm 14 Dec 07 via Treasurer Costa that the power privatisation decision of the Iemma Govt is "final". This is the same Costa who it might be said has never faced the people for election in his own personal capacity having come up through the union ranks to a cosy spot in the Upper House ticket to get his parliamentary pension.

 

There has even been talk Costa is keen to retire before the next election, even by 2009:

The big if: is Premier ready to cut and run? - National - smh.com.au

That is, even as the ranks of opponents move against the sell off gather steam as here reported yesterday

Forces gather against power privatisation - National - smh.com.au

and today

Builders to fight power privatisation | The Australian

Costa patronisingly tells the unions they have no role in this because it's "final".

Time will tell. The pro public sector unions have some serious decisions to make about where the ALP, their party, are coming from.

Meanwhile the Green Party are going as fast as they can to campaign against the sell off of the huge public assets:

Greens launch "Public Power" campaign to stop electricity sale

Media Release: 13 December 2007

Greens NSW MP John Kaye today unveiled his party's posters, badges, web site and other materials as part of their campaign to stop the NSW government's privatisation of the electricity industry.

Dr Kaye said: "Premier Morris Iemma has badly underestimated community opposition to electricity industry privatisation.

"We will be working along side unions and community groups to turn that opposition into action.

"It is not too late to stop the privatisation of the electricity retailers and the long term lease of the generators.

"The Iemma government is trying to use the holiday season to get away with this unpopular move. No doubt they are hoping that voters will be distracted by celebrations with family, friends and colleagues.

"The Greens will be putting up posters and distributing fliers to remind Christmas shoppers that while they are celebrating, Premier Iemma and his Treasurer Michael Costa will be busy selling off their electricity industry.

"Today we are also launching our website, john.greens.org.au/privatisation, that equips visitors with the arguments against privatisation and allows them to send a click-and-protest anti-privatisation message to Premier Iemma.

"Last weekend the State Conference of the Greens NSW voted to establish a No Privatisation Working Group. The level of outrage within the membership stems not only from the greenhouse impacts of the sell-off but also the loss of jobs and the damage to consumers.

"We want Labor party leaders to know how angry the community is.

"The Federal Coalition was swept aside by the Your Rights at Work campaign.

"The Iemma government should be very afraid that the determined combination of community power and organisation does not send them to the same fate as John Howard's administration," Dr Kaye said.

Visit the Greens anti-privatisation campaign at: john.greens.org.au/privatisation

For more information: John Kaye 0407 195 455

In our local area we wonder whether the ALP members of parliament are too well off and comfortable to really know what little people want anymore. For instance what is Federal Infrastructure Minister Albanese's attitude to the sell off, from the Left of the party? He's very quiet just as he is very quiet about the massive expansion of Port Botany impacts on his seat of Grayndler.

'millionaire representative MP for Grayndler.'

'Forgotten where he's from'.

'Lost touch with poor people'.

'Doesn't know what it feels like anymore for the little people'.

'In it for himself'.

Sydney University maintain 6 month access ban on SAM community media post federal election
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: independent media

 

We recently corresponded with the senior folks at Sydney University as follows, and refer especially the part in bold near the end. Photos are all from the great pro education rally 2nd May 2007 Sydney University front lawns and down Broadway meeting other campus groups and into the CBD. One image is a rally organiser Corinne Grant formerly of the Glasshouse abc tv show. There was very little mainstream Big Media coverage of the event, as expected, hence our attendance:

............................

 

I have submitted to your general counsel an estimate of my legal time/costs in seeking to have what we say is a wrongful termination of licence reversed, and unresponsiveness for a good 6 months in the critical pre federal election period. I press that modest estimate with the University (eg a gratuity/no admission of wrongdoing on your part), to cover my time and effort. In this way I would be willing to withdraw my complaint to the NSW Ombudsman for the perceived legal injury and embarrassment caused in the course of our community media work, as well as the approximately 6 hours now of legal time drafting and settling correspondence about this issue.

Led Zeppelin reunion concert on YouTube: Viewer numbers flying along
Mood:  special
Topic: world

The excited flush of the tv news announcers last night on most channels seemed to indicate it was a great show. And when you see the skyrocketing viewer numbers on YouTube and the quality of the soundtrack for these old guys, you just have to shake your head at their impressive command of the art form. And it was a charity show too apparently. Really beaut.

The setlist from their December 10th reunion show in London is as follows:

"Good Times Bad Times"
"Ramble On" (live debut)
"Black Dog"
"In My Time of Dying"
"For Your Life" (live debut)
"Trampled Under Foot"
"Nobody's Fault But Mine"
"No Quarter"
"Since I've Been Loving You"
"Dazed And Confused"
"Stairway To Heaven"
"The Song Remains The Same"
"Misty Mountain Hop"
"Kashmir"
Encore:
"Whole Lotta Love"
"Rock And Roll"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Latest news from Bali climate change conference ... not
Mood:  blue
Topic: globalWarming

 

Sydney Magazine 'most influential list' howler #2
Mood:  d'oh
Topic: big media

        Homebush Bay, Sydney Harbour has a grim legacy
       Image from this cute website.

 

Appropo the Sydney Magazine in your Sydney Morning Herald today: Our mother said a good aspect of our personality is that we never hold grudges or get jealous. Well maybe, but certainly our long memory is not so flexible.

We have already briefed Tim King of The Wilderness Society about the spin re the 'influential' role of Keith Muir's Colong Foundation 'support' for The Wilderness Act in our article on the howler #1. So bogus and deceptive.

Here we go again because, even allowing for natural envy, we can't wait to brief Greenpeace this morning on the "environment" section on page 44 which somehow transforms the real legacy of Greenpeace's Karla Bell behind the Green Olympics concept into Jeff Angel of Total Environment Centre. We presume this was  'guided' by Jeff's ex employee on the reference panel James Woodford. For instance the article asserts:

"Angel was instrumental in the Sydney Olympics being the first green games"

This is not true and we wonder if it may also be a deliberate lie. The truth about Angel? Well we regard him as not much better than a grifter with his begging bowl to the Carr ALP 1995-2005 including over Sydney Olympics.

What a cracking story lies behind first the Coalition and then ALP Govt sleaze desperate to do over the pioneering role of Greenpeace as distinct from Angel and his trusty Green Games Watch 2000. GGW was funded by the federal govt to avoid a scandal in their IOC bid documents from way back in '93. How embarrassing.

Read it all here:

Sydney Harbour’s dioxin time bomb reflects an Olympic sized missed opportunity 

By Tom McLoughlin, principal ecology action sydney 26th January 2006 (Australia Day usually celebrated here on Sydney Harbour)

Here is an extract:

Perhaps the nadir for relations between the NSW/Federal government sponsored bid and local green groups excluding Greenpeace, was the verbal report internal to the green movement around 1993 that the covert bid documents FRAUDULENTLY asserted two groups, Total Environment Centre and NSW Nature Conservation Council endorsed the bid. This was an outright lie which aggrieved the respective groups, and was never denied by any of the parties, despite publication such as this article ‘The Olympic greenwash’ by noted expert environmental writer Jim Green in Green Left Weekly p12 10/2/1999 quoting this writer. It was hushed up assisted by the fact the bid documents were kept secret as much as possible.

 Rather than risk a public backlash from the pro Olympic bid media boosting, these two aggrieved green groups who felt pimped to the IOC decided with their allies to take another tack: To extract their financial pound of flesh. They didn’t go public attacking the almost certainly breach of s.52 of the Trade Practices Act for misleading and deceptive conduct, rather through Jeff Angel in particular, they brokered govt grants for a employment honey pot for these green groups called Green Games Watch 2000. This had the added attraction to government of a tamer version of the really financially independent and rather scary Greenpeace. [who pioneered the bid and did the real discipline on green preparations].

In other words firstly Angel didn't promote the Green Games bid in '93, secondly he only got involved to exploit a Govt/business fraud to leverage some soft funding for a qango of his, and thirdly he effectively undercut the hard political discipline by Greenpeace on the local SOCOG (eg the failure to really solve the dioxin in the Harbour problem) with light green interference on Greenpeace's world famous PR machine.

...........................

When we looked further at the images in the Sydney Magazine we asked ourselves why would an ngo rep want to be pictured with company like this? One of the influential characters (at right below) is one Simon Smith deputy director general, Climate and Environment Protection Group. Sounds like a non govt organisation. But actually it's a NSW Govt Department grey man as here in a previous cloud seeding experiment with our nature. Now he's in charge of the very corrupt notion of "biobanking" which is all about appeasing developers.

Of even greater irony perhaps is that one section of the newspaper contradicts the merit of bio banking suggesting the left hand doesn't know the right hand in today's edition of the Herald: The letter of the day is by Tim Cadman a long time ngo figure who has drifted off into academia, and who refers to exactly this sleazy biobanking concept in his strong letter. To quote:

In 2000, in a report commissioned by the not-for-profit sector, I demonstrated how a number of Tasmanian forestry investment companies - including the state's pulp mill proponent, Gunns Ltd - were clearing old-growth forests and rainforests to establish carbon offset plantations. Some of these schemes still exist. In other schemes, consumers are being offered free energy-saving light bulbs without being told that the company intends to trade in, and profit from, any national emissions reduction program that might be developed in the future. Indeed, so popular has this "market-based" model become that the NSW Government is offering land developers access to sensitive environmental areas in exchange for offsetting this development by protecting land elsewhere. [bold added]

This is the bio banking plan Simon Smith is implicitly lauded for in the Sydney Magazine. That is destroying what's left in the name of the environment. Spare us please. This sophistry is nauseous. Cadman exposes it all quite well:

 

Exec Officer NSW Conservation Council '92-97 dishes the dirt on today's anti green CFMEU
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: aust govt

 

Woodchips

Log and chip stockpiles at the Eden chipmill

Truck unloader

Squirrel glider

Endangered tiger quoll

 

Sid Walker was the executive officer of the NSW Nature Conservation Council in NSW during the tumultuous 1992-1997 period which saw the political leadership of NSW Govt change twice Greiner to Fahey, Fahey to Carr, when Sid retired to the Aussie north probably exhausted like most of us.

Here he relates his experience of the logger union, within the super CFMEU union, in the halls of Canberra's Parliament House and other experiences of those pulling the ALP strings, and likely will again. Those who don't learn from history? Over to the inimitable Sid Walker:

Monday, November 19, 2007

Union heavies who scare me

CairnsBlog contributing writer Sid Walker, tells us his thoughts about the Unions... hold on for the ride.

Like many Australians, I have a soft spot for Julia Gillard.

Unfortunately, some of her ex-boyfriends scare me.

Michael O’Connor, for example, has been a pro-woodchipping, anti-environmentalist heavy in the CFMEU for many years. He’s played no small part in delivering the atrociously high levels of native forest logging that still persist in Australia – most notoriously in Tasmania.

The CFMEU, since its inception, has been a serious drag on the ALP’s environment policy. I don't doubt there are many fine people in this very large union, even among its national leadership - but a coterie controlling timber industry policy have consistently white-anted Labor’s ability to develop progressive policy over native forests. O’Connor is one of them. The union has a lot to answer in other environmental policy areas too, including climate change.

Because practically the entire world now accepts we are in dire straights over climate change, extremist environmental reactionaries seem to have lost some of their grip over Labor's climate change policy. Thank God for that! Even so, Labor’s schizophrenia over the future of the coal industry signifies the CFMEU’s continuing malign influence.

Labor’s policy on the fate of native forests in the southern states, on the other hand, is an area where ‘CFMEU Rules OK!’ is a fitting summary of the state of play.

Large-scale logging of native forests still occurs in NSW, Victoria - and worst of all in terms of scale, in Tasmania. Blame for this does not attach solely to the CFMEU. But I have little doubt the union would happily accept credit for this, which it sees as an ‘achievement’. The union leaders involved are so one-eyed they truly consider the continuing assault on native forests an achievement. When I last heard their smug greenwash, they called it ‘sustainable harvesting’ or some such thing.

I don’t often feel in imminent danger of physical assault, but once upon a time – sometime in the previous century - I met a certain CFMEU heavy in the corridors of Parliament House Canberra and told him he cozied up to the bosses over the native forest issue.

The offended apparatchik indicated with body language that comments like that merit what Londoners call a ‘bunch of fives’, but I'm glad to say he remained a gentleman and restrained himself. Well trained by Julia, perhaps? Anyhow, I’m glad I didn’t cop a knuckle sandwich, but would gladly repeat the remark if the opportunity ever arises again. I have more grounds for believing it now than at the time. The truth can be painful, but sometimes it needs to be ventilated.

The number of workers employed in the Australian native forest timber industry hasn’t amounted to much for decades – not since the general demise of the native forest sawlog industry due to generations of gross over-cutting. The residue of this destructive industry could be closed down and the workforce generously compensated and/or found suitable alternative employment. It is a very affordable option – and has been since the 1980s if not before. Relatively few unionized workers would be affected. In spite of all this - and showing blithe contempt for massive community campaigns over native forests in the last quarter century - short-sighted union bosses clung to an industry model that has proved highly profitable for a very small number of companies, but grossly detrimental to the environment and the overall public good.

Far North Queensland is a place where we can truly say “been there, done that!”.

We had a native forest logging industry here too, until a generation ago. Who now mourns its loss? “Of course we don’t log our native forests”, we smilingly tell tourists, especially envious visitors from the south.

Instead of forging links with conservationists, who've always supported generous compensation arrangements and alternative employment options, including jobs centered around truly sustainable wood growing - a clique in the CFMEU took the strategic decision, years ago, to cozy up to the (biggest of) bosses and support their ugly and rapacious plans for broadscale logging of native forests, mainly for low-value woodchips. The currently proposed major pulpmill in Tasmania, of course, would yet further entrench native forest destruction.

In that beleaguered little island, the union’s stranglehold over ALP forest policy (along with the direct influence of Gunns itself) has generated a morbid two-party consensus which permits continuing environmental pillage on a vast scale.

It sucks. Bigtime!

Gillard’s previous leader - Mark Latham - had a much better take on forest policy than her current boss or one or two of her old flames, for that matter.

It was rebellion from CFMEU heavies that fatally undermined Latham's chances in the 2004 election.

Pundits and 'insiders' quickly pinned the blame on Latham and his ‘risky’ policies - and spun the election away from Labor's grasp in the last couple of weeks of the campaign. There is, however, an alternative view. This is that a few union hacks (with plenty of help from the media itself) recklessly played havoc with Latham's credibility. Shows of disunity on the Labor side during election campaigns are usually subject to retribution. What occurred in the final weeks of the 2004 election was a huge breach of party discipline. But with the demise of Latham’s leadership after the election, it went unpunished.

Discipline during Rudd’s campaign has been tighter. But would these CFMEU hard cases have pulled the same stunt on Rudd, had he committed Labor to stronger forest protection or promised to review the deeply unpopular pulpmill proposal?

We won’t know. Clearly, Rudd had no enthusiasm for a repeat experiment. In this, he may have been influenced, in part, by Julia Gillard.

Contrary to conformist insider opinion, Mark Latham's forest initiative for Tasmania was a major step in the right direction and for the public interest. The fact that Labor lost the 2004 election - and the spin most pundits have since applied when explaining the defeat - means Australia's forest policy to this day remains in a pre-civilized era, at least in the southern States. It's a great shame – literally – and an issue that won't go away.

The 2004 CFMEU betrayal leaves a very bad after-taste. Interestingly, in late January 2006 Glen Milne wrote an article in the Australian, which is commented upon here and here. I can’t find Milne’s original via Google. It may have disappeared from the web – or perhaps The Australian never published it online.

These two must-read articles refer to shenanigans prior to the 2004 election by O’Connor and co so treasonous – from a traditional Labor perspective - that the mind reels.

The role of the media itself also raises eyebrows - or would in a society where media watch meant more than a 15 minute weekly TV program. Larvatus Prodeo reports there was a subsequent letter to the Australian, that commented:

• IF Glenn Milne knew all about the underhand deals going on in Tasmania before the last election (”PM out of the woods”, 30/1), he had a duty as a journalist to report this important information to The Australian ’s readers before the election, not wait until the Liberal minister for forestry Ian MacDonald got the sack. It seems he has let his loyalty overcome his journalistic principles.
  

Spot on! Some ‘reporter’! No wonder he thrives somewhere near the epicenter of the Evil Empire of Oz.

I have general sympathies for unions and respect their many achievements on behalf of workers, but cringe when I see the Coalition’s ads warning of the consequences of union power if the ALP wins office throughout the continent.

I know at least one case where it rings true.

Trouble is, in that particular case, John Howard is on the same lousy side as the ‘union heavies’ he excoriates.

Does Maxine really get it? Bennelong victory is less about her and more about the voter.
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: aust govt

Picture: Maxine Mckew with the "mobile lunar park" tv smile according to cartoonist Warren on the last ABC Insiders for the year, on Sunday 8th Dec.

There was Maxine at the official declaration of the poll on the tv news bulletins last night. All of them. And on front of the Daily Telegraph today and page 2 of the SMH. We explained our inspired observations of the compelling vision on the tv last night to our local press provider (grabbing our newspapers like others take drugs);

McKew was very deferential and actually nervous about the awesome 30 year career of ex PM Howard. He was gracious but also clearly in pain, ill at ease, and didn't want to be there. But he made himself do it. He's got courage to be sure which is in fact how he got to the top.

But her nerves are a problem to us because it shows she doesn't really believe in why she won. Because it is indeed  extraordinary for the Australian public to vote out a sitting PM in his own seat: All that free media profile and benefits of incumbency for the PM. If publicity is votes,which in an election it definitely is, a sitting PM should be unassailable. But he lost all the same. And the answer to that question provides the platform for the victor to proceed in a sensible way.

Australians in Bennelong voted Howard out for VERY GOOD reasons: He took us to a disastrous war in Iraq. He helped turn the NSW Liberal Party into the default 'white supremacist party' tearing at our social fabric. He's been disastrous for the environment.

I did alot of electioneering in Bennelong in 2004 and I know that electorate fairly well. It's very conservative. I worked for Not Happy John and I believe we 'unrusted' the voters from Howard. They still voted for him but they were getting very iffy. For instance in 2004 we reinforced Canada (an excellent parallel to our middle order status) didn't join the Coalition of the Willing in Iraq, so why did Australia go in lock step with W Bush? Andrew Wilkie for the Greens was important in the unrusting too: He got a good vote as a defence and intelligence expert.

And the ALP come in and harvest the lot in the 2007 election and we get nothing (eyes rolling, much sniggering all round). [In fact votes for Lindsay Peters for the Greens, with preferences delivering victory to McKew, means $2 per vote to that party which $1,000s will have a very big multiplier boost for the micro party used to doing more with less.]

And it's a problem because McKew's anxiety in the presence of such a genuinely historical figure as Howard yesterday means she doesn't understand (at least yet) it's more about us than about her, talented as she is. Rather she can afford to have confidence in the sound electoral basis  for the removal of Howard from his own seat. It's not about her so much [depending on just how slick her campaigning secrets prove to be in the Good Weekend press], it's about the electorate's good judgment. That's a foundation stone she can build on without fear of the ex PM.

And she needs to respect that choice as much as Howard, in effect to not respect Howard very much at all on big ticket issues of our time: Iraq, Climate, Social inclusion.

Picture: The 'great woman behind every great man' aphorism gets a reworking in this publicity pic off the ALP site: There's a great man behind every great woman? Bob Hogg former federal secretary of the ALP in 1993 during the unexpected victory of Paul Keating in that federal election.

 

MOSOP Protests Against Shell in Nigeria
Mood:  sharp
Topic: human rights
 

Picture from the SAM file:  Ken Saro-wiwa, martyr killed by the state in Nigeria, prominent human rights campaigner for MOSOP against Shell Oil.

Nigeria: Environment - MOSOP Protests Against Shell

(Lagos)

11 December 2007
Posted to the web 11 December 2007

Ahamefula Ogbu
Port Harcourt

The Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) yesterday blocked the entrance of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) in Port Harcourt in protest of what they called human and Environmental rights abuses of their people by Shell.

The protest which saw about 250 Ogonis protesting in front of the oil giant coincided with the celebration of the United Nations Human Rights Day where they vowed that Shell was not going to return back to Ogoniland.

The march which was led by the Information Officer of MOSOP, Mr. Bia-ara Kpalap who said that they had no alternative than to make public the negative impact that SPDC has visited on their people.

He said that since Shell entered Ogoni land, they have lost human and natural resources, adding that they were tired of living without peace which was why they had asked the federal government to give the wells in Ogoni to another company.

There was almost a breakdown of law and order when a Shell staff who had removed his name tag came out to where the police were dialoguing with the Ogonis and asked them to use tear gas on the protesters.

This angered the youths who said they have always usedpeaceful means of making their grievances known. Theyinsisted that they would go into the Shell compoundand meet with the Managing Director.The police however pleaded with them to select fiverepresentatives who will go inside and meet with theofficer in-charge of their facilities in Ogonilandwhich MOSOP turned down.Kpalap dismissed the peace and reconciliation effortsof the Reverend Father Mathew Hassan Kukah Committee, saying he became partisan in the matter and startedrelating to shell without recourse to them on the matters of common interest.

He also dismissed the remediation effort by UnitedNations Environmental Agency (UNEP) as it was beingcarried out secretly without the knowledge of the Ogonis which he said smeared the effort. "We are using December 10th, International Human Rights Day, to associate our call for justice with thepending 60th anniversary of the Universal Declarationof Human Rights. The United Nations has longrecognised the injustices in Ogoni and the Niger Delta as a whole. We are calling on the UN and the international community to recognise that abuses arecontinuing and that injustices in the name of oil production must end now.

"We associate ourselves with all those opposing gasflaring, which has been a curse on the Niger Delta for 50 years. It has damaged our environment daily, andnow it is contributing to climate change whichthreatens all of Africa.

"We cannot accept that oil companies can tell theinternational community and the public that they are concerned about climate change and then ask for anextension of gas flaring in the Niger Delta. It ishypocrisy beyond words."Our stance is also informed by reports, endorsed by our own President, which say that agriculture, whichis the lifeblood of our communities, will inevitablybe impacted by climate change", they charged.

Foolish Fairfax 100 most influential list? The Keith Muir case study
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: big media

              

 

 

We hear via 702 abc radio just now the Sydney Magazine is posting a '100 most influential in Sydney' list.

One "quiet achiever" apparently is Keith Muir.

Uh oh. We feel a degree of jealousy but mostly mirth at the preposterous nature of the self referential list.

Here is Keith's Colong Foundation website here. The opening lines in the About Colong section are:

"The Colong Foundation, the successor to Myles Dunphy’s National Parks and Primitive Areas Council, is Australia’s longest-serving community advocate for wilderness. Its proposal for a Wilderness Act was accepted in 1989. " [bold added]

As will be seen this is not really true.

There is no doubt Keith is a toiler and if the world is controlled by people who turn up every day as we expect it is, then perhaps Keith is a justifiable entry. But all the same we don't think so.

If being a trusted member of the unofficial ALP wing of the green movement (more below) is influential then again we say Keith's listing is probably justified. But again we don't think so and not for simply bitchy jealousy, but because:

in real politik terms compromise deals with trusties resulting in genuine conservation on the ground, only follows effective damaging opposition to the ALP Govt via genuine usually embarrassing and inconvenient grassroots campaigning..

The public get to see the front man the govt are willing to stand on the public stage with as 'the moderate', which almost by definition is not the people who forced them to the negotiation at the expense of some other preferred expedient direction. Such is the true nature of change politics. The people at the coal face are usually far too embarrassing to be seen with or admit defeat. The trusty is always being wheeled out in preference.

We say the real source momentum arises from genuinely financially independent groups such as The Wilderness Society at their best. Or Greenpeace. And increasingly the Green Party.  Or numerous resident action groups. At times it has also come from Colong but their modus operandi is to play what we know as "chess" with the political capital created by others. As Jeff Angel does too for TEC as close affiliate of Colong. That is, as derivative players and dependents. It's not these mid and top level 'greenocrat' ngo  'vaccuum cleaners' who created the dynamic for change.

That being said we enjoyed our bushwalk with Keith in 1995 down the remoted section of the Tuross River like Aussie actors in our own Deliverance via the remote western Badja side of Deua Wilderness (NSW South Coast).  The random rock crashing into the deep pool opposite camp was a memorable moment as was the floating of packs from one watery run to the next. Alot of fun in those younger days. We even worked on his Red Index for a while but found it too vague and tedious.

The first clue to the genuine Keith Muir story at least as we know it is The Wilderness Act was legislated in 1987 not 1989 as asserted in the quote above as you can see here in the consolidated statutes of NSW . We have a copy of it on our shelf too.

Indeed we have spoken to as we understand  the real green movement history, the two main architects in the NGO movement of The Wilderness Act NSW in person, who at the time worked for the friendly and far more fiesty rival green group The Wilderness Society. Margaret Robertson (sister of the well known Peter Robertson) who was visiting from WA, and Randall King then based in Sydney. We were the NSW Campaign Coordinator of TWS 93-94 at the time.

We distinctly remember Margaret volunteering these sobering words to the effect of:

'Colong support The Wilderness Act now? That's good because they were against us pushing for the legislation.'

[Why?]

'Because they were worried it would create a backlash amongst the redneck elements in politics.'

This all rings true. In fact the redneck backlash came as feared but not in the late 80ies with Hawke still PM, and the ALP keen to embarrass the Greiner Liberal Coalition Govt. This was when the green was still a winner of elections 87 and 90 for the federal ALP too and redneck groups like Timber Communities Australia and the Shooters Party didn't exist to speak of (an echo of the USA so called 'wise use' anti green movement). The backlash came in the early 90ies.

To be fair it was a logical concern of Colong too, but we tend to suspect it was mostly about being patronising and condescending to the younger newer TWS compared to the infamously known 'old boys at Colong', who truth to tell were intimidated by the evolution of the green movement beyond their aristocratic male reach. This is what Keith Muir still represents today, as does Colong and TEC to some degree - the old boys school. Compared to say The Green Party actually mixing it with the big parties in Parliament.

(Suffice to say its the necessity of the Green Party to discipline the self serving and corrupt in the ALP that we much prefer as a path forward to ecological sustainability in society - because they have such financial independence, even when watering down their green in Green with minority populism.)

One needs to keep in mind that TWS at that time 1986-7 had a stupdendous double carousel slide show set to ethereal music like the new inspired Clannard etc showing the best natural wilderness heritage the state had to offer. Most people including NSW Parliamentarians and throughout rural and urban NSW had never seen it's like. We reconstructed the dusty old show with our limited technical expertise in the back room of the TWS office James Lane just off Sussex St (yes that street) 13 years ago (1994) and got a sense of the real power of the audio visual. This was the basis of their pioneering roadshow of 1986-7.

There is no doubt in this writer's mind it was the TWS that championed and gained the public support for The Wilderness Act. Not Colong. And for this we feel Colong did get their nose out of joint. After all Milo Dunphy (a personal friend till his death in 1997) and his understudy Keith (seen as clumsy and gawky in this period) was till then pre eminent in NSW but only until 1982 or so with TWS and the winning Franklin Dam campaign of 1983-4, with a franchise of their organisation spreading nationally including to Sydney.

Now we see a revisionist history of Colong's credentials as has been the case a good 10 years now. We have raised this directly with Keith Muir before but he insists on keeping it on his website, as he must to claim some historical credibility. If they were supporters, or "suggested" The Wilderness Act it sure is news to this writer.

And a damned disrespect to the sisters in the environment movement like Margaret Robertson, and for this reason worth exposing because just as Julia Gillard is acting PM today, the green movement on the statistics is about 65-70% female in active numbers.

We understand that Keith came to his environmental research work after employment with a uranium mining business of some kind up in the Northern Territory decades ago. We don't hold that against him, in 1990 we worked for the no.10 corporate law firm in Sydney until we also got very disillusioned with that world view.

But how has Keith Muir managed to present as such an achiever none the less? Well it comes from turning up every day in his stolid determined way, to be respected no doubt, but also crucially for being a satellite of Jeff Angel's operation ie folded into the Total Environment Centre. (The 2ic at Colong was Jeff's field worker in the south east forests campaign of the 90ies, Fiona McCrossin, sister of media figure Julie. And also this writers ex housemate. )

TEC and Colong are invariably located in the same building on the same floor whether the Rocks, or Kent St CBD or wherever. Jeff at the TEC is the 'go to' person to cut deals with then Carr led ALP 1995-2005 - in a quid pro quo for grants and access and PR as long as TEC pulled the rug from truly financially independent critics like said TWS and Greenpeace.

The whole knowing history of the South East Forests campaign of the 80ies and 90ies is replete with this tension of the Carr ALP working through the Angel side of the TEC to maintain native forest logging - and why Carr got away with maintaining a disastrous Eden woodchip mill destroying East Gippsland and chunks of NSW, in breach of his 1995 election promise to close the monster by the year 2000. In 2002 Angel was writing unedited in Fairfax's Sydney Morning Herald that Carr was the 'greenest premier in the history of Australia'.

Fine praise and quite deceptive appraisal of the true record of Bob Carr (compare   Carr alp dodges 1999-2003 ,      Carr dodges 95-99) or the political alliance Angel had compromised himself with, not least cyanide mining like Lake Cowal to ease Bob Carr's economic credentials when the politics got too tough:

Lake Cowal Scandal in Central NSW, proposed cyanide leaching for gold, pit as deep as Centrepoint Tower is high. Globally on average 79 tonnes of waste is produced for every ounce of gold. More info and links here

All this being said, there is no denying that Colong's specialty is the bushland surrounding Sydney. This we do concede. But on the other hand we can't help believing most (certainly not all) of these areas were protected in National Park a long time ago. Hence Colong in some ways has been over egging the protection of national park as "World Heritage" a  bit like the cliche of a new layer of protection for Sydney Opera House, a favourite mostly meaningless additional appellation with no discernible change in management while other areas do indeed get trashed. That's the deadly real game of environmental politics and hyperbole in Sydney and NSW.

How misdirected must the Sydney Magazine publishers feel to know their quiet achiever is more quiet than they quite realise? Or maybe it's all part of the plan?

There is another angle to Keith's acclamation which almost certainly leads to the door of James Woodford, ex TEC staffer, then enviro journo for Fairfax, and well versed in this Carr ALP patronage and access machine. James got hitched to a State Forest logger PR merchant which spouse then pushed on to Sydney Catchment Authority with it seems stories back to James in the Fairfax press proper. Very cosy. Was James the referee for Keith to the Sydney Magazine? We imagine so. It's all so predictable.