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sharpTopic: indigenous
This article in the Weekend Australian, Noel Pearson
The ideal equilibrium | The Australian Your Say Blog
should have read - John Howard’s 1996 betrayal of “practical reconciliation” $40M broken election promise for Cape York Land Use Agreement (CYLUA). Because those are the seeds of the desperation that Pearson is complaining about but refuses to acknowledge in his article:
Here is the reference for that broken 1996 election promise, compounded again in 1998 with another broken pre election media release promise of Minister Robert Hill
$40 Million in Federal Funding for Cape York Plan Media Release 16 ...
The money was never paid to jump start employment in the Cape and the CYLUA became a dead letter despite 1996 promises to support it prior to the Howard election ousting Paul Keating. The Wilderness Society corroborates this real history of Noel Pearson's new friends amongst the conservatives:
The Wilderness Society - Cape York and Robert Hill's folly
Noel Pearson of Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership
appears to have become the catspaw of Big Capital through the pages of the anti green, big coal The Australian. Maybe he is getting worried that his compromise with the Howard Govt are about to run out of time come the next federal election.
Noel Pearson makes egregious slurs in his column this weekend. A slur that must not go unanswered. Nor should his airbrushing of the Howard Govt’s wicked failures in regards to implementation of the Cape York Land Use Agreement of 1996.
First the slur
“Few tears are shed when thousands die and billions suffer. It may be the underlying psychology of extreme Western environmentalism is that mass depopulation from disease and starvation would be an ecological benefit.”
But who exactly, specifically holds these views in Australia, Mr Pearson? The truth is the sensitivity to the rights of the environment springs from the same respect for all life and Indigenous People and culture.
I want to know if Pearson is accusing this writer of such. Specifically. If he is I will be looking at a defamation action.
In all of his article this weekend he omits in the most sleazy way the history under Howard that he lauds including achievement via one Greg Sargent of The Wilderness Society who tragically died of skin cancer some years ago, and can't speak for himself.
The context of the weasly Pearson article above such as disgusting editorial here and accompanying articles by “environment reporter” Matthew Warren here
and here
Green means go for show | Science & nature | The Australian
tells its all.
Warren is the anti climate change green writer from the Coal Lobby that puts mafia in the phrase 'greenhouse mafia'. What will sea rise do to the Cape or the wetlands I wonder? And let's not forget Warren's pro uranium mining position for his paper, after the weapons testing in the jungles up there on the Cape decades ago. Here is the referencing ABC TV Documentaries: Fortress Australia
(We are advised that film by Peter Butt refers to a simulated nuclear test in the Iron Range National Park around 1972, and the local police sergeant died of a mysterious illness 10 months later.)
So we feel Pearson is indeed being positioned as the catspaw of big capital against independent and committed green movement which includes the The Wilderness Society, not beholden to any political party, unlike WWF to the Coalition, or ACF to the Labor Party, both big business in alliance setting.
It is all so pathetically transparent and immoral as the smear by Waren of Kevin Rudd’s Prius presumably chosen not only for greenhouse claims, but also for it's low particulate pollution impact, in urban areas at least as important an environmental agenda, and probably recyclables. These latter criteria are totally airbrushed in that article same edition of the paper. Typical. Toyota no doubt make other claims about their environmental performance that can be debated but at least they are pitching.
Why no mention of the Howard betrayal of “practical reconciliation” with the broken election promise of $40M to implement a pro cattle and agri industry model in that CYLUA? There was plenty of industry agenda within that CYLUA under Farley, Sergeant and Jacko.
That’s Pearson’s political bias and pandering to the current Howard govt, as charged by Mick Dodson in the Fairfax Press 2 weeks ago: Favoured leaders slated as government 'pets' - National - smh.com.au
I personally find the slur above an outrageous smear, and a disgusting wild exageration. Only weeks ago I was doing legal checking to reinforce Sam Watson’s interview on the Palm Island Death in Custody scandal for broadcast here on Ch31 Sydney, the same Sam Watson who features on the same page as Warren’s sleaze piece:
Symbol clash at Palm cop's trial | The Nation | The Australian
In 1989 I completed my honours thesis: A legal foundation for Aboriginal Land Rights at ANU Law School virtually predicting the Mabo no.2 High Court decision in favour of native title rights, that launched Noel Pearson’s public profile. And I've kept faith with that 15 years since.
So the evil ultra violence inflicted on the Aboriginal people, which has precious little to do with the environment movement and who have been horrified by these historic wrongs, have taken their course with Pearson seeking revenge against the white people who love(d) him and love the Aboriginal culture possibly the most from our side of a wide gulf.
Isn’t it always the way, that you hurt the people who love you most simply because they are closest on the political spectrum. That’s another form of victim mentality, and shame. Stop taking your pain out on the greens Noel. It's not right. And it's not fair.
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Postscript #1 Monday 11th June 2007
What appears to be happening with Noel Pearson from the recent Australian Story Cry Me a River is that he is getting fat and middle aged, tired and jaundiced. He says as much that he 'is sick of this struggle' and wants a normal life. But the hard, profound truth from one who knows, is in a vocation regarding huge historical issues like social and land justice for Indigenous the world over, and environmental destruction by Big Capital the struggle is NEVER over.
It's not a timeline based on one person's life cycle or what life stage they have arrived at.
Later on yesterday after our angry repudiation of Pearson's generic smear we read this below at the heart of Pearson's media and industry allies at The Australian same edition page 40 9-10 June 2007 - shale oil extremism, as an indicator how these guys just don't get climate change imperatives AT ALL let alone sustainable development:
With oil on the skids, US hails shale
The diagram shows to quote
"In the high desert near Rifle, Colorado, rods 600m underground to heat the shale to 370 degrees Celsius, the tempereature at which Teflon melts. The heat will be applied for the next four years to convert the hydrocarbons ....into high quality crude ....
"The old technique required them to dig the equivalent of the Panama Canal every month", said former Colorado governor Richard Lamm, whose tenure from 1975 to 1987 included the last attempt to extract oil from shale. "This new approach is a much more sane process, but that's all relative," Lamm says. "They're doing this in an immensely fragile area where wagon ruts from the Oregon Trail in the 1840's are still visible. It doesn't excite me because I think they're about to indelibly change our state."
And this shale is not some boutique aspiration, as the lead in says:
"Colorado and Utah have as much oil as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Venezeula, Nigeria, Kuwait, Libya, Angola, Algeria, Indonesia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates combined."
and later
"If we waited a few million years, all this stuff would turn to oil" Rand's Bartis says. "Some people don't want to wait that long."
You can't get a better warning about extreme capitalism to the custodians of a 40,000 year old Aboriginal culture than that on Cape York. And there is shale oil in Qld too The Stuart shale oil project: will it be Beattie's Ningaloo or his ... , but if not shale oil someother extreme developer agenda. And if Pearson thinks he can ride that kind of bucking monster into a tame pony he is living an illusion. Big Capital is not like that and not interested a jot in respecting the human and environmental values of the Cape. It's all about big money and power. And vulnerability of middle aged men.
Postscript #2
Part A
The Australian declined to publish my submission last night on their comments page to the story above:
This is what we wrote this morning, as well as copying the above to the Pearson's Cape York Insitute by email, and notice the challenge to the Murdoch press to publish this below or be exposed for censorship:
at 10.35 am 11th June 2005
It was John Howard and his minister Robert Hill who refused to support the pro economic development Cape York Land Use Agreement with greens and pastoralists as promised at both the 1996 and 1998 election.
Howard's regime destroyed that living treaty causing Pearson's cries of desperation now. And now he seems to be doing Howard's work as a wedge and a catspaw, as pointed out by Mick Dodson in the Fairfax press, as described on my blog.
Prove it isn't so, if you can, Noel Pearson in the lead up to this federal election. I am copying this to my blog to see if The Australian has the guts to publish it.
Unlike the censoring of my submission of last night ... tsk tsk, democracy of the blog, but only as far as you can control it?
www.sydneyalternativemedia.com
..................
Part B
Senate Inquiry called for as $40 million Cape York Natural Heritage Trust Plan Flounders
Conservation groups have today called for a Senate Inquiry into the failure of the Federal Government to deliver on the Prime Ministers pre-election promise to protect Cape York Peninsula.
To support their call, conservation groups released a review of the $40 million Cape York Natural Heritage Trust Plan, which shows that of $12 million promised for expanding and enhancing protected areas, only 1 % has been allocated.
"In 1996, the Prime Minister promised to ensure that Cape York Peninsula's 'high conservation areas are fully protected'. Yet seven years later, only $140 000 of the committed $12 million has been spent on this," said Australian Conservation Foundation Executive Director, Don Henry.
"Given the outstanding conservation values of Cape York Peninsula, it is deeply concerning that so little Commonwealth funding has been put into promises to protect high value conservation areas."
"A Senate Inquiry should ask what has happened to the Prime Minister's promise and where's the money?" said Mr Henry.
The Wilderness Society's National Campaign Director, Alec Marr said, "The review does show that $7 million of a promised $8 million has been spent on indigenous people's land management, which we strongly support."
Mr. Marr said "The groups are calling for a reformed Cape York Natural Heritage Trust Plan, focussing on:
- A strong voluntary property acquisition strategy for areas of high conservation value;
- Substantially increased funds for National Park and protected areas management;
- Recurrent funding for Indigenous Land and Sea Management Centres and other Indigenous conservation initiatives; and
- A Peninsula-wide conservation plan, including a weeds and feral animal strategy;
- Support for the development of ecologically sustainable industries."
"The recent Commonwealth Biodiversity Assessment highlighted the Cape as a critical sanctuary for Australian mammals and birds and the importance of conservation action. Yet the Prime Minister's $12 million promise is missing in inaction", concluded Mr Marr.
To view a full copy of the submission, visit www.wilderness.org.au/capeyorknhtreview.pdf
For further information contact:
Don Henry, Executive Director Australian Conservation Foundation: 0418 501 395
Alec Marr, National Campaign Director, the Wilderness Society: 0417 229670
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