Mood:  quizzical

Picture: Noel Plumb at left being ejected from a logging industry event inside Federal Parliament November 2009

We noticed an unusually long abc talkback earlier this week by "Noel" from "Ryde" on the ABC Deborah Cameron Morning show.  He waxed lyrical about why ratepayers should pay their fair share for council services. Fair enough.

And he went on, and on, and on. Not so much talkback as open line, take as much air as you like. It was average sort of radio, neither good nor bad, but why so long?

This was the same Noel who waxed lyrical a week or so earlier about being a sailor on Sydney Harbour for 30 years in relation to concerns over the Barangaroo - Keating /Lendlease - monster. Fair enough only it went on and on. Very generous I thought. And we don't remember him sailing (?).

We do know Noel, a little too well, active in the conservation movement in NSW on and off since the mid 90ies. Here he is earlier this year out front of federal parliament again after haranguing the National Association of Forest Industries, photo taken by this writer, and sorry for the lack of red eye on the camera setting :

Noel previously ran for the Australian Democrats, has been a staffer for Ian Cohen MP of the Greens and we are not sure who he is affiliated with now.

He leads a small but active Sydney affinity group called Chipbusters relating to woodchipping in south east NSW also this last 6 months or so, especially the koala habitat there. We remain concerned that name is too similar to ChipStop organised by Harriet Swift based in Bega already of 10 years standing but she doesn't seem to mind.

Of significance in the upcoming election is that as we understand it Noel was part of a narrow local lobby, including Dr Judy Messer former chair of the Nature Conservation Council, and contrary to public transport activists across Sydney, that successfully prevented a rail bridge over Lane Cove River at Epping which arguably resulted in major delays and perhaps $1B in extra cost for the new Chatswood to Epping line. That blowout arguably prevented the line ever reaching Parramatta as well as a saga of noise and gradient problems.

Watkins can be very deferential to Plumb as we have observed, and we notice the former Deputy Premier was on abc segment Partyliners a week or so back complimenting Premier KKK, from his perch as CEO of Alzhiemers Australia. A silent machine to quote fixer Eric Roozendaal MP (ALP).

We emailed Noel and asked him his plans in the seat of Ryde, as well as some dorothy dixers, and we wait patiently for an answer, as follows:

Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 9:10 AM

Subject: Community media re Noel Plumb as state election candidate in Ryde?

Dear Noel,

Given your increased public profile recently including quite long soliliquy on abc 702 yesterday morning around 9.25 am, as caller from the public on local council issues in Sydney broadly, some questions for community media publication:

1. Are you intending to run as a candidate in the seat of Ryde now held by Liberal Victor Dominello?

2. Will you run as an independent, or Greens or Australian Democrats, or even pre-selection for the ALP given John Watkins has retired?

3. If as an independent, or minor party, what chances do you think you will have in influencing the final outcome in Ryde, and the state if it's a hung parliament scenario, with your preferences, including any relevant statistics from past elections?

4. Given your role as convenor of Chipbusters around forest conservation will preference negotiations include for instance policy promises on

(a) closure of the Eden Chipmill as promised by Bob Carr in the 1995 election?

(b) Similarly rejection of power generation using native forest feedstock?

(c) Protection of koala habitat on the NSW South Coast?

(d) Protection of all NSW forest identified for comprehensive, adequate, representative reserve system given barely 10% of Australia has forest land cover with rare quolls, gliders, owls, possums, frogs and other wildlife live in these landscapes?

(e) A ban outright of logging of any wet schlerophyll forest types as natural bushfire fuel management, which logging converts to dusty dry flammable regrowth?

Look forward to your response in due course.

Yours truly, Tom McLoughlin www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog tel. ....

[current readership 35,000 per month]

Posted by editor at 2:51 PM NZT

Updated: Friday, 26 March 2010 3:02 PM NZT

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Mood:  chatty

And we did gladly second election, more subtly, overlapping with the existence of SAM: By noting that ALP rival Burgmann was compromised by such as her own profile/tourism piece in New Matilda ezine by airbrushing the horror of North Korea's death camps; and also a tricky co-author colleague avoiding public hiring protocols at Addison Rd Community Centre. All matters of fair comment, and viral emails. The ALP got only one seat at the second outing against the Clover locomotive (partly due to ICAC Wollongong scandal too).

Clover is criticised by some as a career opportunist, says rival Cr Chris Harris of the Greens in a telephone conversation with SAM. Yet SAM's view like the owner editor of the City Hub, Lawrence Gibbons, has been: 'half of Clover as state MP doubling as mayor, is worth a whole Michael Lee' (referring to her ALP rival first election, former federal minister). Clover has credit as a community independent.

Indeed in the first election Larry Galbraith as organiser for Clover had us dressed up on town hall steps for the ABC tv camera as former Sydney City ALP Mayor Pat Hills MP of post war boom era as a precedent.

Today we have another contribution in relation to Mayor Clover Moore who says she signed a confidentiality agreement on radio this morning. This in effect restrains her from fully carrying out one of her duties under the Local Government Act 1993 in NSW in relation to the Barangaroo $5B development:

Mayor denies conflict of interest on Barangaroo MATTHEW MOORE AND JOSEPHINE TOVEY March 26, 2010

We know about these councillor duties because they came up in a comparative situation when this writer was ex officio co-director 1995-97 with about 16 other board members on Waverley Woollahra Process Plant Inc (aka Waterloo Incinerator owned by Waverley and Woollahra Councils). Ironic because we were elected onto Waverley Council Sept 1995 on a staunch platform opposing a $40M rebuild of the dioxin spewing monster, and to close it down. We represented the Greens as a pioneer into local government (though membership is now lapsed). We left most of the incinerator files with the 3 new Green councillors when we moved on to other projects, but we did find this from the EIS company Maunsel:

My quasi legal political response was to rapidly research the Local Government Act 1993 objectives and duties of councillors (in the offices of the Environmental Defenders Office actually). These statutary obligations include communicating with the ratepayers, informing the public, and leadership. These are balanced against other concerns like act in best interests of the council which is a subjective beast. 

Here is an extract of section 232 of the LG Act here with some highlighing:

What is the role of a councillor?

[section] 232 What is the role of a councillor?

 

(1) The role of a councillor is, as a member of the governing body of the council:

• to provide a civic leadership role in guiding the development of the community strategic plan for the area and to be responsible for monitoring the implementation of the council’s delivery program

......

(2) The role of a councillor is, as an elected person:

• to represent the interests of the residents and ratepayers

• to provide leadership and guidance to the community

• to facilitate communication between the community and the council.

The incinerator union delegate even came to our workplace at Friends of the Earth Sydney in high emotion that the workers were being shafted by "a mole". He was invited in and we talked about the open campaign against the facility, agreeing to disagree, and he talked about the work processing often disgusting waste of the Eastern Suburbs. He left unhappy but alot less angry. Perhaps he could see the writing on the wall and that we also were human beings.

Cr Norman Lee as an ex ALP indepedent was quite acidic at the special meeting early 1997 where this writer was meant to be the main course, roasted. He soon realised I was going to buck their interpretation of the legal obligations by relying on the LG Act provisions above as a community independent councillor. Even if it was arguable as a conflict of laws situation, it was sufficient political cover and they dropped their proposed reference to the Local Govt Dept. (As a footnote, we faced all this alone, with the Green Party local branch including such as Lee Rhiannon, Jeff Ash, councillors still to be elected all no where to be seen busy no doubt busy elsewhere.) The incinerator was closed by State Govt decision later in 1997.

Which brings us back to Clover on the Barangaroo 'Delivery' Authority, bound by confidentiality. As a community media person and high consumer of mass media we did note this last few months the apparent silence of the City Council leadership as the developers and govt, effectively represented by (self interested?) Paul Keating, were all over the Herald and the ABC radio. Silence of the Mayor as consent?? That was the unresolved question in our mind, and presumably in most of the general public's too. Obviously this concern has boiled over in the press today.

Now Clover says this morning on ABC radio she has been fighting the good fights behind the scenes and "reasonable people" will understand this. The jury is still out on how true that is. Cr Mallard (Lib) was impacting in his critique on abc radio that councillors in the broad have been kept in the dark by Mayor Clover over an historic upscale $5B redevelopment.

To paraphrase Cr Harris by phone earlier today regarding Clover's achievements so far at Barangaroo:

1. the light rail concession is not really integrated into city transport being more of a tourist detour Central to Circular Quay possibly along Sussex st. 'That's not integration' presumably referring to the junked metro.

2. the tri-generation sustainable power plan for the buildings are now virtually standard practice e.g. condition of consent on the CUB site due to Cr Harris and Michael Mobbs litigation, as well as in place for SHFA building at Workplace Six, so this is not a Mayoral achievement as such.

Now Clover similarly might wish to reconsider her duties under the Local Governmnent Act and whether that provides sufficient legal and or political cover to go much much harder on the Barangaroo developers, and in a much much more public way. And the question of silence in the past remains to be resolved. No doubt Mayor of Sydney CBD is a tough gig, as always.

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

We had enough of the 'paper avalanche' after 4 years as a mere independent councillor on a suburban munipality, and here is our parting leaflet personally delivered to 4,000 letterboxes late 1999 endorsing our successor Dominic Wykanak, who is still going strong in Bondi Ward:

Posted by editor at 10:53 AM NZT

Updated: Friday, 26 March 2010 12:29 PM NZT

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Mood:  special

Sadly we hear Mark has died of leukemia after a long illness. We only knew him as a hearty and hale forest campaigner working inside the system in the 1990ies, as much as practical, as indicated by extracts in this 1996 NSW Govt newsletter referring to Mark. But not pictured unfortunately.

This writer however can be seen top right hand corner of one image in the Govt PR glossy: Sceptical, overlooking as usual with caffeine in hand.

We wrote some words earlier today as befits the important place Mark played in NSW forest politics, and as a good hearted intelligent man:

Subject: [chipstop] vale Mark Blecher loved forests Re: [chipstop] .... very next day .... Re: [chipstop] Todays SMH page 3 re Save Koalas

Some thoughts about an important forest campaigner in the modern history of NSW, feel free to repoduce:

Mark Blecher as respected local teacher and as leader and public face of South East Forest Alliance in the region, in Bega was the NGO rock upon which the Carr Govt relied for it's conservation forest policy having regional credibility for southern half of NSW from about 1994 all the way to 2000 or so. In the north Dailan Pugh/John Corkill played that same real politik role via leadership of NEFA.

In the city Jeff Angel was the SEFA authority figure for the Carr conservation forest policy, (first as junior co director to Milo Dunphy then sole director of TEC) but only because Mark Blecher was in alliance at the regional level for SEFA providing democratic credibility to small TEC, Jeff leveraging off that utilising TEC go between Fiona McCrossin (previous housemate up here) sister of more famous Julie. This suited Carr to offset the much bigger and more hard line Wilderness Society forest reform policy.

In this sense Mark played a critical role in NSW forest politics. On a personal level he was always very dignified and intelligent and indeed very diplomatic. I would hazard a guess that he was appalled as Dailan Pugh and others were subsequently at the way the high hopes of the Carr Govt tended to unravel by say 1998 -1999 when the luke warm promise to Ian Cohen, later MP, in the lead up to the 1995 election to close the Eden chipmill failed to materialise.

One can speculate that failure to privatise the multi billion energy sector in 1997 had a significant role in Carr's settings resulting in barely half the forest recommended for protection being saved, as borne out by official RACAC maps of the time since published by the writer. Carr talks often of the 300 parks he created but not the broader reality. Rather the industry achieved 20 year logging RFA resource security - even in koala habitat - and the new as distinct from existing National Parks are significantly smaller than the logging areas - all on public heritage land.

One can see a refusal to be duped again in the current Redgum compromise and controversy.

The privatisation of energy agenda 1997, again 2007, failed not least from a broad democratic view about corrupt corporations in the USA like Enron. In that sense everything is connnected.

Mark loved forests. And harmony in his local community. I can't help thinking his illness and death is a metaphor for irreconciliable differences of the public and the government over the Eden chipmill  May he rest in peace. God bless him - his part in our struggle is over.

Condolences to his family and close friends.

Yours truly, Tom McLoughlin.

Posted by editor at 1:48 PM NZT

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Mood:  cool

We have decided not to take down the 2 year old story but simply add the relevant apology by News Ltd to Ms Tania Evers, Barrister. Not least because Ms Evers has advised us our stories are fine with her, and we already published the official News Ltd apology here:

Sunday, 14 February 2010

High class barrister Tania Evers wins defamation case against News Ltd?
Mood:  not sure
Topic: legal

at

http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog/1990805/high-class-barrister-tania-evers-wins-defamation-case-against-news-ltd/

On re-reading the story in 2008 invited to take down we do think there is a broader interest in where the infamous blowtorch by The Terror has failed to achieve it's grim purpose of reputational destruction. Indeed Ms Evers appears to us be made of forged steel:

Thursday, 17 April 2008

Sydney Daily Telegraph lead story frozen out by tv big media peers as dodgy?
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: big media

 

A fairly incredible white knuckle ride in the 'back story' to this report here:

Wednesday, 16 April 2008

Civil rights lawyer Evers gets the News Ltd blowtorch but is it a beat up?
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: legal

According to our media monitoring yesterday the Sydney Daily Telegraph story applying it's (in)famous (melo)dramatic blowtorch on a pillar of society hit a brick wall of incredulity. Did the story ramp up through the day and onto the nightly tv news bulletins? Were peers in the relatively bigger TV news sector of the Big Media willing to back the trashing of a legal professional's reputation? Put themselves in the line of fire of a defamation action on the strength of the journalism of Janet Fife-Yeomans, and editor David Penberthy?

No, no, and no, they declined. What's  more the ABC TV prime time news sunk the slipper in to the SDT agenda with another legal angle altogether, which might be sobering discipline on both the Tele and the "popular authoritarianism" of the NSW Govt [to borrow a phrase of Quentin Dempster].

In summary as best we could tell:

- all the tv nightly news ABC and commercials stood off the story. So did the current affairs and 7.30 Report;

- what was most profound was the lead ABC 7pm flagship tv news led with an incredible repudiation of the Daily Telegraph agenda by

(a) ignoring the story totally, and

(b) running as no. 1 lead a related story about lack of safety/resources at Newcastle Family Court precincts - which is NSW AG Hatzistergos's ministerial responsibility and VERY embarrassing.

The Telegraph runs a smallish story today Thursday 17 April 08 well into the paper, no picture, cleaning up loose ends,  as if by way of belated 'balance' sourcing the instructing solicitor. Only it's way not proportionate or contemporaneous with the damage of their front page story against the barrister the day before. This might only mitigate fertile defamation action for the day before.

The blowtorch story against the harried barrister is virtually all over next day: It's not many people who survive the Telegraph blowtorch in such good shape. It's usually a one way street like John Brogden, others before, others no doubt in the future.  

We are impressed. Like James Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life the civil rights lawyer Tania Evers obviously has got alot of social capital goodwill out there, including from such as this writer for her pro bono support of a disabled volunteer/friend of ours, at least within reasonable limits.

We can't comment on the facts of the legal case in the screaming front page headline because we don't know them well, and as a lawyer we are bound like everyone else by the court gag order. But we do note with a great deal of irony this other story running yesterday about the bad, sad fact of sexualised children being given implanted contraception in Qld:

Contraceptives allegedly implanted in Aboriginal girls

The World Today, ABC - Wednesday, 16 April , 2008  12:20:00 Reporter: Annie Guest

[with this concluding extract following]

ANNIE GUEST: But how do you decide whether they are making an informed decision about having sex given that they are needing to have this contraceptive implant? Perhaps it would indicate that they’re not making fully informed decisions?

MATTHEW BOWDEN: Because of guardianship laws. They would not be able to make that decision independently.

ANNIE GUEST: An anti-child abuse campaigner says she's shocked to hear young girls are being implanted with contraceptives, but the executive director of Bravehearts, Hetty Johnston, says she also gives the practice qualified support.

HETTY JOHNSTON: It has to have some sort of tattered support. It’s horrifying to think that those words are even coming out of my mouth but the last thing we want is 12-year-olds pregnant. But look, it could only be with education, it needs to get … we need to get some education into these communities.

LISA MILLAR: Hetty Johnston from Bravehearts ending that report from Annie Guest. 

We simply add that one reason things end up in court is because the facts are contested, and sometimes related to social situations quite out of the experience of normal reasonable people, which the courts and legal professionals are then given the frightening job of wrestling with into a framework of justice and truth - it's a hard job to be respected not trashed.

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

Postscript from mid February 2010

Posted by editor at 1:23 PM NZT

Updated: Tuesday, 23 March 2010 2:08 PM NZT

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Mood:  chatty

Author’s general introductory note   

This is not a well packaged story. It’s a contemporaneous traverse of the Sunday television free to air political talkies indicating the agenda of Establishment interests: Better to know ones rivals and allies in Big Politics and Big Media. Perhaps the greatest utility is the headline synthesis above of the 3 or 4 shows followed in this session.

For actual transcripts and/or video feeds go to the programme web sites quoted including Riley Diary on 7. And note transcripts don’t really give you the image content value.

Other sources of pollie talkies on Sunday include SkyNews paytv Sunday Agenda, Radio National Monica Attard Sunday Profile show. And of course Sunday night shows SBS Dateline, Sixty Minutes and now Sunday Tonight on 7.  

Media backgrounders.  

- Paddy Manning 1st ever reference to glorious, sublime "''first tool'' jump-cut in the opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey" in a serious business story about Gunns Ltd and Forest Stewardship Council accreditation. A scene guaranteed to snatch the breath of any science graduate and many others.

- Astute analysis of Rudd Govt spin machine on nuke waste issues for Australia by Stephanie Peatling some weeks ago now here Rudd buries nuclear waste at bottom of bin February 28, 2010 . That story amongst others encouraged us to post last week a formerly confidential legal document with redactions about the famous Jabiluka protest victory in 1997-1998 similarly about indigenous and nuclear issues.

- We perceive the Tony Abbott pandering to conservative frictions over "Welcome to country" ceremonies hosted by the Indigenous as a deeper question of contested sovereignty from the invading British 200 years ago. Or to put it another way Tony's long known monarchism back to Mother England. Indeed when writing our honours legal thesis A Legal Foundation for Aboriginal Land Rights in 1989 we noted that Australia was of all colonies regarded as "sui generis" or one of a kind - neither conquered/treaty by orthodox military declaration of war, nor empty land simply annexed and "settled". Indeed our feeling racism allowed a creeping process of criminal violence effectively condoned but officially repudiated by the UK Colonial Office and British Govt in the first 150 years of Australia. It is too easy to view history with today's glasses, not least Irish convicts starved out of their land (while UKoverlords ran a net food export) with a million dead, and others shipped to Australia for a lethal competition with Aborigines. Which all makes the visit by the black president Barak Obama delayed to mid year so symbolic again.

- Coalition want it both ways on the whaling issue: Lambasting the Govt on lack of legal action so far against the Japanese, while deploring any damage to the trading relationship. As if the Coalition leadership cared about these intelligent mammals and the cruel slaughter.

- ASIO have another staff advert in Sunday Telegraph as questions of quality control in young service are aired. One wonders if ASIO are vindictive about refugees who refuse to collaborate in spying for them as argued by Mamdoub Habib. Another cute story about MP Lee Rhiannon with dodgy errors on her ASIO file as daughter of a prominent communist.

- Is Fairfax 'writing against the federal ALP' as The Australian is oft accused? How esle to explain burying the lead on the Peter Costello sledge of Abbott's parental leave economics to the bottom of an even page number on the SNH broadsheet when normally proud as punch on the main opninon page?

- Imre Salusinsky has written regularly on redgum forests controversy there in the conservative The Australian, Murdoch press. But as far as we can see not once mentioning that the logging of public land by private corporate interests has effectively been illegal for 31 years since passage of the Environmental Planning Act 1979. No EIS, no development approval, eventually exposed last year in the Land & Environment Court. Funny how conservative go soft and gooey on law and order depending on their logger friendly constitutency. Imre refers to this illegal political fix as permitting "firewood collection" like it was camp fire stuff while actually old growth logging of publicly owned natural heritage.

- Interesting to see Paul Gibson MP being embarrassed as member for Blacktown living on the Central Coast, currently not registered to vote in Sunday Telegraph today.

- Noel Pearson in The Australian counter intutively spits the dummy at his political ally Tony Abbott in support of welcome to country ceremonies. As commented here on SAM we feel the subtext is deeper questions of sovereignty never surrendered, never agreed. This calls up Abbott’s loyal monarchism to mother England where he was a student. It also calls up Pearson on the guest list to meet black president POTUS this year (?) as an Indigenous jurist with in the ALP choreography. 

10 Meet the Press:  8- 8-30 am 

2 minor state election results, ALP in SA holds on, Tas hung 10:10:5.  Redmond in SA is not conceding yet based on postals [often do slant conservative]. Footage of Question Time Abbott sledging Rudd on health “fake, phoney” diatribe.  Minister Emerson on Small Business is guest with footage of his weak vaudeville in QT. Press roundup re elections and Sydney property.

Cross to SAust journo in bright yellow. Emerson looks somewhat preened. Discusses “seamless national economy” deregulation. Humour out take St Pats celebration Rudd and Abbott. Panel is Van Onselen and M Grattan of News Ltd and Fairfax.

Q’s on federal implications of state elections, health package, leadership,  out take Keating and Costello as grouchy muppets cartoon. Senator Xenophon on SA result, health sign up. Scientology inquiry matter for the police? Says growing momentum.

Independents in other states for senate? Not trying. What about a Green Senate. Says Bob Brown and Co are measured, expects to hold balance of power.

Meet The Press - Watch Political Video Online - Channel TEN.

Riley Diary 7, from 8.40am 

http://www.seven.com.au/sunrise/weekend   

9 Sunday newshour Laurie Oakes interview 8.44 am 

LO with Lindsay Tanner Finance Minister. Moderate competent style on range of issues.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/oakes

Insiders 2: 9- 10am

State election round up. Long interview with Nick McKim for Tas Greens who is a straight younger version of Bob Brown. Breaking through the credibility gap with a 21% vote. Guarantee never block on supply. Yes , ‘all 3 parties in balance of power’.

Discussion of SAust result and Rann lacking reality or grace even anger in speech. Interview with federal Eric Abetz MP with some snide and cheap claims, and a howler on Tas result suggesting Peter Garrett MP (ALP) [on insulation troubles] shows what Greens Government would be like. Abetz indicates his blind bias?

Vox pop comic MPs and ex MPs. Panel on Abbott – did quite well in Parliament. General chat. Tony Burke speech footage about trust of Abbott [re Peter Spencer self harm speech]. Personal attack on Abbott in parliament.

Talking Pics amusing as usual especially David Rowe eyebrows on Rudd now, Gillard comment as a natural. St Pats day footage. Stutchbury does a soliloquy ‘we were right’ on range of news political stories [ignoring the pathetic barracking on the opinion pages]

http://www.abc.net.au/insiders

Inside Business with Alan Kohler  .

Evan Thorley on electric cars agenda – we know how the movie ends petrol is going up, battery prices are going down. Gunns downgrade lack of director disclosure requirements amounting to reverse insider trading. Senate vote on Telstra NBN split (?) extended 7 weeks to May 2010 sitting.

Refer http://www.abc.net.au/insidebusiness/ 

Posted by editor at 12:24 PM NZT

Updated: Sunday, 21 March 2010 12:26 PM NZT

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Mood:  quizzical

Those hip folks at the Australian Liberal Party have emailed humble SAM community news blog about the Labor "lie" in the headline. It's something to do with how to characterise cancellation of funds budgeted in forward estimates, distinct from actual expenditure which rose says Big Tony. 

Should SAM publish Mr Abbott? We published a particularly embarrassing story about Abbott's aggressive student days recently, so it's probably a balancer.  And depending on if it's news and adds to the big media angle on things. Doesn't mean we endorse him. We promise not to parrot the guy, just as we have only reproduced Barry OFarrell's first unsolicited email here.

On the other hand we sort of 'agree' with Big Tony's concern over 'welcome to country' being problematic, as well as the right wing chorus line in Big Media (!) ......because it is about creeping recognition of Aboriginal sovereignty by regular Aussies, deeper than native title, much much longer lived than the relatively brief rein of the British Empire of a few hundred years. Which is all good, bring on Aboriginal sovereignty!

Yes folks that's a rhetorical "agree" in order to disagree - you see like Barak Obama as POTUS we believe the future is coffee coloured and folks, it's okay, don't stress. It's a natural progression in an increasingly hot world as we note the 2 stitches in our chest from a potential skin cancer removed earlier today. If only we did have more of that protective melanin.

Posted by editor at 7:54 PM NZT

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Mood:  energetic

From waking up on a bullant nest, willy willy through the kitchen tent, meeting the cream of idealistic Australian youth, hearing Jeff Buckley for the first time over the radio sadly drowned the day before. We slaved over a legal data base of 400 arrestees or so in the Environment Centre of Northern Territory in Darwin before flying back to duties as a single Green Party councillor at Waverley Council in Sydney. All in the suffocating real politik of the Country Party conservative NT govt. The Waverley ALP Mayor Paul Pearce, now MP, commended our hard work in open council as "brave" and for that we were gratified.

Other kudos came from middle class activists rotting in a Jabiru gaol cell who "loved" the work we did, providing a shield against the harshness of the legal system there until NT Legal Aid got their act together. (McLoughlin is gaelic for shield apparently.) And there were further loose ends back in Sydney due to a s*xual assault complaint by a protester (at the lower end of the scale) against an unidentified security officer (police or mine staff was never resolved).

Now as we hear in 2010 about a controversial uranium dump at Muckaty Station in the NT, and U mine proposed near Alice Springs, and 4th U mine at Honeymoon in South Australia, we think this document is of public interest, as well as nostalgia value. We have redacted (in the legal jargon) the identifying surnames except for the most public of figures like former MP Jo Vallentine.

Suffice to say many of these folks are now serious professionals in Australian society and no doubt hold similar beliefs today and God bless them for that. Now this reader needs more of that goodwill too as we contemplate re-commencing a legal career after an at times bruising phase in the green ngo sector under the heel of a cunning and often cruel, dishonest ALP Govt in place for 15 years in NSW.

The handwritten labels indicating "db" were an accounting device in the  transfer of 118 names and details here into a much bigger computer database of 400 plus arrestees built up by this writer in the next 2 frenetic weeks.)

Posted by editor at 10:38 AM NZT

Updated: Thursday, 18 March 2010 7:27 PM NZT

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Mood:  loud

Note our early story based on a personal interview in the family home below. We rang and spoke to Peter's father and have located Peter in general terms off on another of his adventures doing aid work actually.

We noticed this picture on the web too:

Monday, 8 January 2007

Why did student activist now minister Tony Abbott punch Peter Woof?
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: election Oz 2007

[...]

The editor had an interesting interview recently with long time qualified high school teacher here in NSW, and Canada, Peter Woof, a long time supporter of environmental causes.

He tells an interesting story from his parents lounge room in Killara  (a pretty exclusive north shore suburb of Sydney):

In 1978 25 year old Woof stood up to student politician, now federal government health minister, Tony Abbott who he says was allegedly caught doing unethical or perhaps illegal things like changing the locks on the student union offices and other things.

Woof says Abbott, a well known boxing enthusiast now if not then, punched Woof in the face. Woof was a 24 year old technician employed at Sydney University.

The date can be corroborrated by reference to civil assault suit documentation against Abbott presumably created for Woof in the Glebe local court at the time. Woof represented himself but was totally out muscled financially, he says, by 'half a dozen' barristers and lawyers who turned up at the preliminary hearing turning the civil suit into a high risk of huge legal costs against the alleged assault victim Woof.

Woof assumes these expensive lawyers taking a student activist dispute to another level were paid for by Abbott's 'rich father'. (It also suggests a serious fear of a  blossoming conservative political career almost destroyed at birth.)

This legal bullying tactic arguably at the expense of justice has the echo of the vexatious legal suit by Gunns Ltd bullying of Tasmanian environmentalists in the last few years.

Woof withdrew the civil suit he says under financial duress.

Peter Woof is a very experienced and qualifed person. He has an engineering degree. He is a qualified radio operator and mechanic who ws driving an LPG 4 cyllinder sedan in the early 1980's years before LPG was so popular. He owns his own house.

Woof is no shrinking violet. He is a friend and colleague of anti pirate whaler Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd fame.  Woof has participated in environmental protests including conviction for entirely peaceful protests against a nuclear warship in Sydney Harbour and the docking of a rainforest timber ship in the 1980ies and 90ies. During this period in 1986 Woof held down a high school teaching job in Bombala, a well known 'Timber Town' in NSW.

The Canadian teaching accreditation authority are aware of this lively history and have endorsed Woof's employment as a talented and committed non prosletising high school teacher. He is flying out today to continue his teaching job in remote Saskatchewan Canada

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provinces_and_territories_of_Canada

Woof notes that global warming has massively contracted the viability of traditional 'winter roads' (over frozen swamp and bog) in remote Saskatchewan, such that only one month mid January to mid February is now safe for high volume road transport during winter. This is too small a window he says to properly provision remote areas prefacing a depopulation of large swathes of North America in the future.

Peter Woof can be contacted by email on:

[pwoof dot bigpond dot net dot au]

Woof whose eyesight is suffering long sightedness in middle older age is no longer able to do much close work but obviously has some very interesting tales to tell still in his career of environmental advocacy back to the Franklin River blockades and earlier.

The alleged assault by Tony Abbott was openly discussed at a recent reunion of the Sydney Bushwalkers Club in 2006 and there are likely to be several sources to corroborate this version of student activist history of the 1970's here in Sydney.

One such witness in the 1970's approached Woof (attending with his elderly parents) at the dinner and said words to the effect of "It's a pity Peter you didn't knock Tony Abott's block off when you had the chance."

Obviously the student politics back then was very willing. Woof's social companion who made this comment unprompted is now a senior executive with a NSW Govt agency (details held by the editor).

Posted by editor at 9:51 AM NZT

Updated: Friday, 13 July 2012 9:03 AM NZT

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Mood:  quizzical

Every few years we have a public debate about preservation of the Snowy Mountain Parks due to wild horse populations. Just like feral camels damage the landscape.

We have been involved in this debate since the early 1990ies when 3 state MPs Smith, Schultz and Cochrane made it their mission to attack the NSW Wilderness Act 1987. The Act passed with bipartisan support but these rednecks believed in logging of public lands, high impact recreation and opposed anything proposed by the green movement. Our job was state organiser with the Wilderness Society at the time.

We caught via excellent local detective work of regional environmentalists Cochrane & Co misleading the Fahey Coalition Cabinet with a diagram showing townships and air strips in so called proposed sterilised wilderness areas. Not that we were in Cabinet, but sharp eyed Tumut residents took a photo of a diagram on local tv news and noted the false map boundaries and briefed us on the alarmist sham. We had a nick name for the land use sleaze "Horse Rorts" (a play on words of the infamous federal Minister Ros Kelly "Sports Rorts" scandal).

Cochrane MP in particular has been associated with horse riding commercial tourism interests in Kosciuszko National Park ever since.

We have kept the above cartoon and letter that ran in the News Ltd paper The Australian  from15 years ago because it tells another side of the colonial story, when you remove the white arm band view of history.

That is that most horseman in the bush were Aboriginal blokes on low or no wages, and they weren't in the moutains but the plains. Second that "in the ranges horses had a very limited role" and the pioneers mostly walked. This puts a whole different view on the legendary fiction of the poem called The Man From Snowy River.

Horses, it appears, were never an integral part of the Australian Mountain heritage, they are a modern popular construct of film and literature not real history.

Posted by editor at 9:06 AM NZT

Updated: Tuesday, 16 March 2010 9:14 AM NZT

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