Monday, October 31, 2005
Boondall Wetlands
Since its adoption, more than 1,280 wetlands have been designated for inclusion in the List of Wetlands of International Importance, covering 110 million hectares, larger than the surface area of France, Germany, and Switzerland combined. There are now 136 contracting nations.
Over time, the “Ramsar Convention” (NB, Ramsar is not an acronym, so it is never the RAMSAR Convention) has broadened its scope to cover all aspects of wetland conservation and wise use, recognising them as important for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services for human communities.
The Boondall Wetlands is 1,000 hectares of Ramsar listed wetland on north Brisbane’s Moreton Bay coast. Protected habitat includes tidal flats, mangroves, salt marshes, open forest bushland and paper bark marshland. Ratepayers’ money, from Brisbane City Council’s Bushland Preservation Levy was spent on securing the site, always under threat from encroaching development.
Apart from a motorway carving through it, there is no vehicular access. You enter on foot, bike or boat. Boondall Wetlands features a great ‘Canoe Trail’ (ie ‘creeks’), up and down the lengths of Nundah, Nudgee and Cabbage Tree Creeks.
Having borrowed a kayak from Richard (via the scout den) we spent Sunday afternoon drifting up and paddling down the creek system (with, and then against, the tide). Drifting is a great way to get close the amazing bird life that inhabits the mangrove shores in the sanctuary (if you can keep the kids quiet enough for long enough). Everywhere there are herons, cormorants, darters, kingfishers and tawny frogmouths. Often the herons would be wading on the bottom, up to their neck, spending most of their time with their heads under water.
It was also refreshing to see ibis in their natural habitat. Colloquially, in SEQ these rather exotic looking things are known as Dump Birds, due to their successful adaptation to living on landfill sites and pecking around the park bins in Brisbane. Normally, this ecological niche is filled by rats. On the wetlands they still use their long beak for extracting crabs and worms from the mud, rather the discarded food from rubbish bins.
Sadly, the camera ran out of batteries.
The wetlands are also home to a variety of Brisbane’s nocturnal marsupial wildlife. A late evening, into the night canoe trip (with a powerful spot-lamp) would be most rewarding.
The maps below, show Boondall Wetlands in relation to Brisbane and the route we took on Sunday. (Click on thumbnail to open larger image (courtesy of Google Earth)
Sunday, October 30, 2005
John Howard: for or against the death penalty?
The Australian government, as an opponent of capital punishment, is obliged to do all it can to ensure that the death sentence is not carried out.
Nguyen was caught red handed at Singapore Airport with 450g of heroin strapped to his body. He cooperated fully with the police and has even helped out the Australian Federal Police with inquiries that led to an arrest in this country. None of this seems to have helped his case and summary execution is due to be carried out. In Singapore, trafficking heroin carries a mandatory penalty. Nguyen has therefore been denied any opportunity to demonstrate to the judge why he should not be killed.
I am no fan of Foreign Minister Alexander Downer; however, his public pronouncements, stating Australia’s and his own condemnation of capital punishment have been genuine, loud and heartfelt.
In contrast, our Prime Minister’s attitude is evasive and dismissive. So far, John Howard has not made a personal plea to the President of Singapore for a reprieve from execution. While this may not save Nguyen, a plea from leader to leader would posses great gravitas.
This suggests to me that Howard is not quite the opponent of the death penalty we should expect from the leader of the Australian government. "People have to understand that when you go to another country and commit a crime against the laws of that country, you are punished according to the laws of that country," he has said.
Howard’s backbench colleague, Wilson Tuckey, a West Australian Liberal MP at least spelled it out, when he refused to sign a petition to save Nguyen. He said executing [him] is no worse than the danger Nguyen put Australians in when he tried to smuggle heroin into the country.
It is still a huge step from Tuckey’s statement and Howard’s sentiment to re-instating the death penalty in Australia, but the more our leaders comments drift to the far-right, the shorter that step becomes.
See also
Riding out the storm
Level 3 restrictions were just a week away from imposition, before some early summer rain in the last two weeks rescued us from the 30% dam capacity trigger point.
Significantly, much of this rain has fallen from fleeting storm cells, rather than bands of showers. As a result, rainfall is short and sharp and also very localised. One suburb or one catchment could cop a bucket load; a neighbouring area could be passed by. So the age-old whinge from water engineers “its not all falling in the catchments” remains half-true.
Brisbane secures its water from one huge dam and two other smaller dams out to the west – Wivenhoe, Somerset and North Pine. Wivenhoe and Somerset lie in the same catchment area. As a proportion of the region, this catchment represents only a small proportion. Surely, the answer lies in decentralising water harvesting, so that each house, neighbourhood and suburb captures its own supply.
Wivenhoe et al, in the short to medium term, would no doubt continue to provide the bulk of the supply, but as localised catchment penetrates further, these giant storage dams would become merely suppliers of last resort.
The introduction of level 2 water restrictions (when the dams hit 35%) brought on a huge community response. Theoretically, even with level 2 restrictions, a resident could still throw as much water on their garden as they could possible ever want to pay for, provided they do it on alternate days and between 7pm and 7am. But the recent introduction of tightening restrictions has been accompanied by a massive publicity campaign to ‘watch every drop’.
Residents are now using water more smartly and using less of it. Ironically, the community has been so successful in reducing their consumption that the Lord Mayor of Brisbane has flagged there are budgetary implications for BCC – residents are not using enough! Consumption is at 75% of the target usage.
For most reasonable people, many of the initiatives and tips being dished out by the water authorities must seem ludicrously obvious. I find it astonishing that residents must be told to turn the tap off when brushing teeth, not to use water to blow the leaves off their concrete driveways or not to water their lawn in the middle of the day. But Brisbane residents are at last receiving a crash-course in sensibility. People living on the driest continent on the planet cannot continue to be the highest per capita users of water.
The highly localised and variable nature of the rainfall and the success of the level 2 restrictions both suggest that the current water supply paradigm is ludicrously outdated and wholly unsustainable.
Why take the chance that water will fall in one (albeit large-ish) catchment, 60 kilometres from where people need it? Why not hedge your bets and instead rely on localised storm water harvesting, implementing a redundancy system?
First, capture water at domestic level, then at a community level and then only finally rely on regional, inefficient system as a last resort. Payment for water would be subsequently graded – that which you capture would be free, that captured locally, paid locally and the supplier of last resort, paid to centralised water distributors.
Secondly, if and when dam levels ever recover, why lift the water restrictions at all? The recent publicity drive has forced people to reconcile themselves with smarter use of water; no one has suffered; apart from a few extra mozzie bites.
The benefits are obvious:
Security of water supply would be improved, when the harvesting of storm water is decentralised to all parts of the region, rather than rely on rainfall in just one catchment.
Water quality in the creek systems would be improved, if run-off into the creeks is regulated by localised storm water catchments. Instead of experiencing an empty-full-empty cycle, wreaking havoc on creek ecosystems, they would experience longer periods of median flow.
Economies would be achieved through delaying (and probably even offsetting) implementation of additional major infrastructure to meet a rising demand on the reticulated system. Additionally, wiser use in the home reduces the rates of grey and black water flowing into sewerage systems, thus delaying implementation of additional water treatment infrastructure.
System efficiencies would be achieved through a shorter reticulated system. Currently 30% of water taken from the dams for delivery to homes is lost to seepage, over its 60km journey to your tap.
Responsive water systems would make settlements more ‘population proof’. If SEQ is to accept another million people over the next 20 years it makes sense to link the level of water harvesting to the number of people reliant on the supply. Where water is captured in the community – or even within the curtilage – this link is retained.
It sometimes takes a (near-) crisis to get people thinking about the limitations of current models of delivery, surely now is the time for imaginative thinking on this issue. For too long, just building ‘more big infrastructure’ has dominated public policy.
See also:
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Spinning a line on sharks
Minister for Primary Industries and Fisheries Gordon Nuttall said today that "the total number of sharks caught in shark nets and drumlines off 87 beaches [in Queensland] increased by 20 per cent to 630 last financial year."
There have been some absolute monsters snared, including:
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Not-so-intelligent Trojan Horse
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This move has been prompted by reports from the opening salvos in a high profile court case in Pennsylvania, USA, brought by parents against a school board in Dover. The parents of 20 children are demanding that ID be scrubbed from the school curriculum. They claim that it is merely Christian instruction masquerading as science and therefore unconstitutional, as it breaches the concept of the separation of church and state.
The school board, dominated by good church-going folk, voted last year to include ID in school science classes, claiming that it is valid scientific theory and an equal alternative explanation to the theory of evolution.
Worryingly, our current federal Education Minister, Dr Brendan Nelson, recently flirted with the Australian Christian Right by suggesting he too was not averse to ID entering the school science labs of this country, if that's what parents wanted. Nelson's foray into pseudo-science is of grave concern, given the current administration's affinity to all things American and Christian. Two Australian organisations, 'Focus on the Family' and the 'Campus Crusade for Christ', are wanting to distribute a DVD about intelligent design to every school in Australia.
While the Dover court case will only settle the argument in just the one schools district, the implications are much broader. It is not difficult to imagine that victory for the fundamentalist Christians in Dover would see ID rolled out across the entire south of the USA. And from there, who knows?
The 70,000 scientists argue that if ID could be defined as 'science', the demarcation criteria defining what is and what is not valid scientific theory would have to be sufficiently liberal so as to include astrology and palmistry.
No reasonable person can claim that ID is not creationism by another name. But for those that doubt that ID is not a Trojan Horse for the Christian Right, you can have it spelled out for you - in blunt pretty terms - by reading this.
Alternatively, you can send your child to a denominational school where s/he can receive instruction in your chosen dogma.
Either way, in Queensland curriculums are set at the school level within a conceptual framework of philosophies of teaching. The moment I get a whiff of ID being taught at Nundah State School I shall be withdrawing my children.
Again, ID has sparked huge debate on Online Opinion, with another huge raft of comments underlining a general misunderstanding by ID proponents of exactly what are the demarcation criteria of science are and just how evolution is thought to work. (Emphasis should be on 'thought to work', as, while science most certainly always attempts to further understand and explain the natural world, a proponent of any scientific theory would never contend that they are the harbingers of any final truth but merely the best understanding that we have, until someone can demonstrate otherwise.)
See also:
Friday, October 21, 2005
Sydney tunnels: Sale now on!
The tunnel – a public-private-partnership (PPP) – has got off to an inauspicious start. In the first two weeks of operation, patronage has been at about a third of the 90,000 vehicles originally expected to use it each day.
Sydneysiders are unimpressed by the cost of the toll and have chosen to boycott en masse.
Operators hope that the three-week toll holiday will encourage motorists to get used to using it and that when the sale ends consumers will display the solidarity of scattering rabbits and capitulate into using it.
But the motorists’ unease has prompted serious questioning of the deal between the State Government and the operators, which underpins the tunnel. And the more information that is unearthed, the more squalid the deal appears to be, unless you are neither the government or the tunnel operator.
In NSW (actually, in Australia) such PPP deals remain commercial and cabinet in confidence, unlike similar PPPs in the USA and NZ. The details of the deal will never become public knowledge.
However, the NSW’s Auditor General is one that has been allowed to view and comment, but only on the executive summary.
In the summary, the $97m paid by Cross City Tunnels to the NSW government is described as an “upfront payment” made “in return for the RTA (Road Traffic Authority) granting it the right to undertake the project”.
The NSW Auditor General – nearly lost for words – called it “just a tax”.
But the RTA’s financial immediate interest in the tunnel does not end there. The NSW government stands to make more money, if more cars use the tunnel. If targets are beaten by 10%, the RTA receives 10c per extra dollar. If patronage is 50% above forecast, they will receiver half the extra revenue.
This might not be such a bad thing. Financial returns on toll roads have generally represented a good deal for operators, what’s wrong with a public authority skimming a little bit off as a kind of extra road tax on excess motorists?
Besides, with operators forced into a pre-Christmas sale, you might think it doubtful that the forecast patronage will be reached anytime soon.
But with the tantalising prospect of extra profit, everyone – apart from the Sydney motorists and residents – is a winner. The deal summary alluded to a series of surface road closures, to help the operators and the NSW government ‘encourage’ motorists to stump up and drive-through the tunnels. So the NSW government not only has the incentive to generate more traffic, but even has the levers to manipulate that outcome.
The details of these closures are, of course, secret, but few doubt that they will be heavily leveraged to restrict travel choice and to guarantee that the tunnel will become a low risk enterprise to its private sector operators and perhaps line the RTA’s pockets a little bit too.
But who cares what goes on in Sydney?
Sydney’s tunnel woes has major implications for Brisbane Lord Mayor’s own plans to tunnel Brisbane, also using a PPP.
Already there are rumours that the winning bidders will demand provision in the final deal to close surface road space to reduce their financial risk. But most concerning are allegations that the final deal will make the people of Brisbane liable to pay compensation to the operators if cross-river public transport is improved. Either way, the secrecy that will surround the details of the deal mean that we won’t find out.
It is touted as a public-private-partnership. That it is. But it is a public-private-partnership against the people of Brisbane, regardless of whether you are a car driver or public transport user.
At best, TransApex is nothing more than an ill-thought out sop to easy drive-through politics, when a better and more integrated and sustainable transport policy would have been better. At worst, it will ensure that Brisbane's “road system [becomes] less of a network and more a funnel to improve the commercial viability of the project”.
(Quote for Rod Sims, of Port Jackson Partners.)
See also
Thursday, October 20, 2005
A royal celebration...
Apparently they have had a baby. (Boy or girl?)
They are so happy in Tasmania – as the Princess once came from there once – that they are giving away some booties to all children born on the same day, as the happy couple once bought a similar pair, or something.
Forgive me for my vagueness. But I really couldn’t give a stuff.
But this raises an interesting conundrum. If I really didn’t care, I wouldn’t have taken the time out to write this, nor read the reports about such joyous news. The media’s defence - that they are just printing something that even your average run-of-the-mill republican wants to hear – holds.
So the truth is, I do care. I do care that people find this sort of news interesting. In fact, I find it pretty disturbing that people don’t find this kind of fawning deference insulting. Does nobody understand what the concept of Monarchy is saying about them? Are they happy to be labelled as inferior, second class subjects?
Call me a sanctimonious bore with a chip on the shoulder, but I reckon I would have made a great royal, if only I had been born into the right family.
But therein lies the problem…….
Links:
The Manchurian Candidate
In the 2005 remake, the placeman is an American Gulf War hero and only son of a famous Capitol Hill dynasty who mysteriously saves his platoon from an ambush. Our Manchurian Candidate is micro-chipped and - using his war hero status - is manoeuvred towards the highest office of State, where his mind and policies can be manipulated to do the bidding of big business.
The Gold Coast City Council may not exert the same level of political power as the current ‘Chairman of the Board’ of the ‘Office of the President of the United States of America’, but its decisions nevertheless still have significant pecuniary interest.
40 years ago, the Gold Coast did not exist; it was just a collection of beach shacks. Now it is a sprawling extravaganza of high rise apartments backed by canal-side McMansions and Australia’s 6th largest city. Its prosperity has been founded solely on property and lifestyle. There are no smoke stacks or manufacturing plants behind Surfers Paradise beach.
But to build a whole new lifetsyle city, with all the associated golf courses, casinos, canal developments, themeparks, roads, shops, restaurants and more shops in just four decades, you need a well-oiled planning regime and very few pesky regulations.
In Gold Coast City Council, there is not one Manchurian Candidate, but several “like-minded” Councillors, bankrolled by the shady ‘Commonsense Trust Fund’ – a property developer contribution scheme.
The Council is facing inquiry by the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) into allegations that voters were mislead into believing they were electing independent candidates, rather than a pro-development caucus, owned by the trust fund.
The current Deputy Mayor, Cr Power, is already knee-deep. E-mails subpoenaed from property developer Brian Ray (now dead) have shed light on the rationale behind the fund.
To another prospective contributor, Ray wrote “Mate, I’m just chasing you up to see whether you’re prepared to provide assistance to this camp to get some sensible members into Gold Coast City Council.”
Deputy Mayor Cr Power and another councillor, Cr Robbins (also now dead), were co-signatories for the release of electoral funds for use by appropriate selected candidates, who were, in their words, “worthy of election”.
In another e-mail, this time to the investment bank Macquarie Bank, Ray declared he wanted to “mount a campaign to win various wards for a caucus of like-minded members with whom we can negotiate in a similar way to the outcome achieved in the last Tweed Shire election.”
Tweed Shire Council was summarily dismissed by the NSW government after an inquiry concluded that a group of developers had set out to buy control of the council.
The distribution of campaign donations via a trust fund removed the Councillors one step far enough away from their donors when it came to declaring interests and excusing themselves from decision making.
Cr Pforr, who received $46,564.69 in funds – all but $550 coming from the property developers or from the Common Sense fund – said he felt “quite comfortable” with voting on a range of planning and property matters – unless it was connected with the Hope Island developer, who had individually contributed $10K.
Whatever the CMC concludes, the Gold Coast City Council is compromised. Its Machurian Candidates have been exposed. Residents are poorly served by planning policy subject to nothing but cursory scrutiny by politicians who are nothing but imposters, serving business, not the people.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Enraged and amused: Bright Eyes
Maybe it will always be a Kiwi's lot in life, to have to put up with sheepish jokes. But now having to accept a similar relationship with rabbits will be tough...
But, what exactly is a 'Companion Rabbit?'
Is this political correctness gone mad, so the cliche goes?
Or is a Companion Rabbit one you maybe take out to the movies (Wallace and Grommit perhaps), then take to dinner, then for a drink, a bit of dancing later, then back to your place for a coffee, then maybe suggest its too late now to call a cab.... and would it like to stay over?!!???!?!
Monday, October 17, 2005
Sport Sport Sport
Even more embarrassing was that the Kiwis were missing two stars of the NRL – Sonny-Bill Williams and Benji Marshall.
It took 18 points conceded to finally wake up the Kangaroos, but after that it all seemed like plain sailing – the power and class of Johns, Lockyer, Gasnier and Tate were showing. By the time they got in the sheds at half time, it was 18-18.
Sadly, someone must have given them hot chocolate instead of pro-sports isotonic super-energy re-hydration liquid as they all seemed ready for bed in the second half. After looking dominant – but not capitalising on it - the Kiwis must have thought “if they’re not interested in winning, then we will.” and then subsequently cut the Kangaroos to pieces.
Worryingly, the Kiwis won so convincingly that a Kangaroos win in NZ next week seems the least likely result.
Thank goodness the cricket’s going our way.
The ICC World XI may not feature the best of the world’s bowlers – Muralitharan aside – but it does boast the most excellent batting line-up. When you have a team at 7-for and Shaun Pollock is walking to the crease, you know you’ve got your work cut out. But that’s only when you have dismissed Lara, Dravid, Smith, Sangakara et al. (There are no mid-order ‘bunnies’ like Bell in this team, though where is Trescothick?)
It is ironic then that the batting has so far failed them, so far.
Not surprisingly, there has been a chasm of difference between the intensity levels of the Australians and the World XI. While one team is smarting and out to prove something, following its Ashes defeat, the other team thinks its on some sort of Spring holiday.
The World XI has great class available, but surely it also has an obligation to the cricketing public to display more metal. Hopefully, their demolition of Australia’s middle order in the second innings is the beginning of sort kind of competition.
Friday, October 14, 2005
There was an Englishman, Irishman and a Scotsman....
Those old jokes, which begin “There was an Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman…” are just that, old jokes. But I guess the Norman Tebbits of the world truly did believe that they were robust, valid social commentary.
The study asked more than 40,000 adults from 49 differing cultures about how they view members of their own cultures; how neurotic, how extraverted, open, agreeable etc. It then compared the results with the participants’ assessments of their own personalities and those of other specified people they observed.
The Swiss, for example, thought they were 'closed to new ideas'. English people assumed they were ‘stoic’ and the Americans believed they were 'pushy'. Presumably, the French thought they were rude and arrogant, the Italians lazy and romantic, the Welsh insignificant and the Scots mean and dour….. Oh.... culturally stereotyping people again….
However, the study revealled these people were anything but their stereotype.
Australians view themselves as ‘battlers’, who know how to work hard and play hard. They see themselves as classless and irreverent, casual, with a ‘no worries’ (or now, using the American import, ‘too easy’) attitude to life. What you see is what you get, come over anytime and take us as you find us. They also all live in the country.
Dame Edna began to explode this cultural myth back in the 60s. Humphries’ suburban goddess was an image obsessive, the Hyacinth Bucket of her generation.
But still the rough diamond stereotype remained, reinforced by Crocodile Dundee and – oh – Crocodile Dundee 2. And was there a Croc Dundee 3 as well?
Sylvania Waters followed and the lampoon of ‘real’ Australia reached its acme with Cath and Kim. Finally we find the real Australia: totally preoccupied with how they are perceived, wedded to suburbia, obsessed with the ‘lifestyle’ package sold to them by the seamless marketing machine of conspicuous consumption. They are over-worked, over-stressed and please, don’t go around their house uninvited – it might be a mess and not emanate the ambience they wish to project.
But then maybe that’s just me, culturally stereotyping again……
But before we assign generalities to the dustbin of eugenic history, the New Scientist did maintain that many gender stereotypes do bear scrutiny; women are often warmer and men commonly more assertive. Women also can’t read maps, understand the concept of time zones or throw properly.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
CATT the mouse
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Smart State Shopping State
Our progress was blocked by marauding shoppers, still sat behind the wheel, but so desperate to save $10 on a pair of designer jeans they were willing to sit in their cars for an hour to do so.
No 1. Airport Drive is home to ‘Direct Factory Outlet’ (DFS) is a 24,000m2 discount retail store, recently opened adjacent to the sole arterial route to Brisbane Airport. Its brisk trade (“beyond all our expectations”) has been transported in solely by car – there is no other way to get there. It has generated more congestion on what is already one of Queensland’s most over-stretched sections of its road network.
The congestion has meant passengers have missed flights, air quality has deteriorated and car accidents have increased. All this, for a cheap pair of jeans.
But that’s just the beginning. This new out of town retail centre promises to suck nearby suburban centres dry, drive us further down a path of car dependency and fuel our meaningless over-consumption in pointless goods. Still, all for a cheap pair of jeans.
The site’s owners, the Brisbane Airport Corporation (BAC) , successfully applied to the Federal Minister for approval to develop major retail at the airport. Using reserve Ministerial powers allowed for deciding on ‘essential’ matters, the federal government agreed to the proposal in a ‘tick and flick’ exercise.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
easypc training goes live
We have stumped up a fair bit of cash to get in the Yellow Pages; and the ad looks great - and it is pretty prominent too. There will also be some classified ads in the local newspapers over the next few weeks which should drum up some business before Christmas.
But it seems impossible to gauge how successful advertising will be. A lot seems to rest on gut feeling – how you personally see the ad and whether you would expect to see this kind of advertising in this type of publication.
We also need to come up with some strategies to drive internet traffic to the site. Google have a decent referral service, which costs you per click-through they generate, but search engine optimisation seems hit and miss.
It is rumoured that Google’s ranking algorithms give a lot of weight to the number of external links into your site, as well as the usual content indexing and meta tags.
This appears to make it difficult for establishing business to get up there towards the top.
Not only must they wait until their own pages are crawled and indexed, but you also rely on external pages with the links to be crawled and indexed again. To rank highly on Google, you need a pretty aggressive marketing campaign.
Anyway, here’s one link for Google to count:
Anyone else wishing to see easypctraining pushed up the Google rankings, please feel free to link also.
Friday, October 07, 2005
CoMSEQ comes a-cropper
He and his cronies in the Council of Mayors South East Queensland (“CoMSEQ”, though we’re not supposed to use the acronym) have been found out.
Brisbane’s [only] major daily paper, the Courier-Mail, has published a highly critical article and ran editorial on CoMSEQ’s total neglect of public transport in its transport policy objectives.
I’ll admit, there’s a little history here: CoMSEQ is the organisation that replaced SEQROC, the South East Queensland Regional Organisation of Councils. On SEQROC’s demise, I was out of job.
CoMSEQ endeavoured to become a more politically focussed advocacy organisation, concentrating on winning concessions and funding from government. Their strap line, “Representing one in seven Australians,” shows that CoMSEQ is willing to take their fight all the way to Canberra.
On the other hand, its predecessor, SEQROC, was more operationally focussed, busily fostering links and partnerships between councils and government and getting creative in the un-sexy parts of government administration, like public and environmental health, integrated transport and development assessment. But SEQROC also had its successes on the grander stage: the organisation was the main driver in forcing the State government to get to grips with the regional planning agenda.
CoMSEQ’s tactic is to extend their influence through an aggressive media strategy. Normally media-shy in nature, the Mayors of SEQ were encouraged to get the message out there.
But it has all back-fired, as the Courier-Mail went after them in a big way:
“What are our mayors thinking?” the editorial barracked. “It demonstrates that the new Southeast Queensland Council of Mayors is off to a bad start as a replacement for the Southeast Queensland Regional Organisation of Councils.”
“It is running up a flag for governing suburbs-for-cars, without necessarily focusing on people,” the Courier-Mail said.
What has aggravated the Lord Mayor most is that parts of the article have certainly been leaked, as both the minutes are kept secret and only the Mayors and selected guests attend the meetings. The solidarity that CoMSEQ promised has imploded.
Old colleagues from the SEQROC office have speculated about who has put the proverbial cat amongst blind horse’s nine tails and have come up with three suspect heroes…..who shall remain anonymous.
But in my opinion, CoMSEQ deserves all it gets, and not just because I agree with the CM’s position on public transport. If CoMSEQ wants a front-foot media and political strategy, it’s going to have to accept the scrutiny that goes with the territory. It is public money they spend, after all.
My one big criticism of the original SEQROC was its poor mechanisms for public accountability, but few things were ‘secret’ and in the final analysis the public interest was always upheld by the dead hand of well-meaning and dedicated bureaucracy. The operational nature of the business almost never had a political perspective.
CoMSEQ on the other hand, claims to represent one in seven Australians, but it lacks any public or media oversight of proceedings. Scrutiny has been effectively locked out. The mayors arrogantly assume they could carve out good and representative policy in the vacuum of their own cosy private club. But they are wrong and they have been found out.
http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16817287%255E3102,00.html
http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16813340%255E13360,00.html
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Bush and Howard put climate change on back-burner
Bush outlined his plan as a ‘road-map’ to peace – essentially a series of confidence building measures, eventually leading to negotiations towards a two-state model for Palestine-Israel.
Of course it was a sop, and no sooner had the Coalition of America charged through Iraq than the ‘Road Map’ (now capitalised) was allowed to fade into the background and Israel and Palestine could continue deliberations at their own snail’s pace. America had secured its immediate foreign policy goals – it had mostly neutralised opposition to the war and Israel could continue the occupation on its own terms, not the UN’s.
It is now with a strange sense of deja-vu that I read that the US and Australia are now slowly withdrawing their enthusiasm for the Asia-Pacific Climate Pact.
The climate pact was the US’s and Australia’s answer to their climate change dilemma: a non-binding, coal and technology-based fix for global warming, which allows their state-subsidised hydrocarbon energy industry to continue business-as-usual. At the same time, it would even enable their high value added sector to sell technology to Asia to prevent those nations becoming the high polluters we already are.
The pact served its purpose – it bought the two biggest global polluters a little bit of credibility at a crucial time. The G8 leaders were meeting, the Kyoto Protocol was coming into force and Kyoto’s successor’s terms of reference were being negotiated. Bush and Howard could now look like they were doing something.
Officially, the inaugural meeting of the climate pact, due to take place in Adelaide in November, has merely been ‘postponed’, but observers note that not one jot of work has been completed towards getting any pact up and running. The new date of January has only been unofficially put forward and has not been confirmed by the Howard government.
A cooling of support for this half-baked pact was expected. But perhaps more worrying is the rumour that Tony Blair – in the past a keen advocate of UN enforced emissions reduction targets - is himself cooling on the idea of a Kyoto successor. Instead he has signalled he is more supportive of such a technology-based, voluntary system as that floated and subsequently forgotten by the US, Australia, China and Japan.
Blair’s apparent championing of voluntary achievement seem ironic, given that his administration has been obsessive in driving performance-related standards regimes throughout the public sector. You worry that if Blair is turned, Kyoto will whither away.
See also:
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Brisbane doesn't quite qualify
Cities generate 75% of all greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from the building, heating, cooling, servicing and finally the demolishing of the built environment. This is a poor record, as cities account for less than half of humanity. But conversely, cities are often better prepared to tackle their own profligacy. They have the knowledge, cohesiveness and, under the right leadership, the drive, to move towards a more ecologically sustainable future.
The Summit will bring together the varied and innovative strategies that different cities around the world are implementing to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Learning from each other should increase the rate of adoption of such practices.
Highlights include:
Google the planet
But the real power of it lies in using the over-lays.
If you want to find which hotel is nearest the Pyramids of Giza and next to golf course, just punch in the details and you even get to see the size of the swimming pool!
At the moment, the detailed satellite coverage covers only of a few heavily populated areas of the planet – probably 0.5% of the land surface, but then it is always going to be ‘work-in-progress’. Some of the best imagery will come in the near future when open space areas and natural features are plugged-in in detail, if Google can find a way to make money from it.
Here is our house. (Though the five bushes in the front garden, either side of the path have now been cut down. I reckon it was taken at around 7.30am, in the summer, as the milk van is outside our neighbour’s house and the sun is quite high in the sky.)
Spooky....
But FOX-News not impressed....
Not surprisingly, FOX-News has been a little more cautious in welcoming such technology. But then FOX-News couldn’t print a story about mating Pandas, without raising the spectre of terrorism and the potential threat to the American security caused by humping zoo animals.
FOX-News suggested, “some are questioning whether Google Earth also provides terrorists with readily accessible data that they can use to attack the United States or other countries, particularly when users can zoom in from space level to street level.”
Who those ‘some’ people are, is not made explicit at the top of the article. This is a commonly used rhetorical device, which often allows ‘impartial’ media channels – like FOX News - to subtly introduce their own editorial bias, without good evidence supporting such a view. Indeed, ‘some people say’ that FOX-News’s strap line shouldn’t be “Fair and Balanced”, but the more folksy “Some people say….”.
Only later in the article does it become clear who those ‘some’ people are. It is not the Pentagon, nor is it Homeland Security. In fact, no US department, nor the President considers Google Earth to be a security risk.
But one who does is (Retired) Marine Lt. Col. Bill Cowan, a FOX-News ‘military analyst’. He suggests that "These imagery products [that are] available on the Web, or commercially, are a tool without question that can be used by terrorists or insurgents."
Another who worries about Google Earth is Steve Emerson, a ‘terrorism analyst’ from “The Investigative Project”, a right wing, somewhat conspiratorial, ‘think tank’. Steve thinks “If a terrorist doesn't have to leave the confines of his sanctuary and can remotely view the entire infrastructure, vulnerability points, access points of a sensitive place that he wants to bomb — wow, his job has already been made 90 percent easier."
So one of the ‘some’ who question Google Earth’s applications is one of FOX News’s own staff and the other is a weirdo from a paranoid institution. Some people might say they don’t really offer a Fair and Balanced assessment.
Fear is an easy thing to perpetuate, and few organisations can do as insidiously as FOX-News.
Bunch of zealots!
Arguably, peak-oil may never be out of the news again. The recent crude price spike, driven by two hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico shortening supply, demonstrate just how little slack exists in today’s oil market 1.
Few argue that demand for crude will continue to increase, despite developed economies consuming it more efficiently (per person and per dollar of GDP) than ever before. Growing population negates any efficiencies in the USA and India’s and China’s burgeoning economies and aspiring citizens continue to drive new demand for energy. In the last 10 years, oil demand grew by 20%. The world’s economies now consume 31 billion barrels of oil each year.
But supply remains the big question mark. Investment in exploration is tumbling whilst investment in new kinds of extraction technology is rising, indicating that oil companies are redoubling their efforts to tap already discovered fields. A few prominent oil forecasters - Simmons, Heinberg et al - are predicting that non-Saudi oil is virtually at peak and even Saudi oil production capacity maybe heavily over estimated. Royal Dutch-Shell estimates there is plenty of gas in the tank yet – about 20 years til maximum ‘production’ - but even it admits Hubbert’s Peak2 is not simply a theoretical construct.
For government and business peak-oil remains a risk-management issue, rather than an impending reality. If you believe peak-oil is here right now, and you invest millions of dollars in alternative business models, and you are wrong, your competitive and political edge is blown out the water. But a business with a more benign view of peak-oil could hold back on mitigating rising energy prices - and be spared - if the market and the political climate has been generally slow to react. But while the prospects of peak-oil may yet be hotly contested, the implications of rapidly inflating oil prices are enormous.
Brisbane City Council’s Civic Cabinet recently considered a discussion paper on peak-oil3. BCC, much like any other organisation, could be severely impacted by rising oil prices. It would have huge implications for asset management and policy, not only in the direct cost of its operations, but also on the city’s politics and long range land-use and transport policy.
Not surprisingly, the Lord Mayor labelled the author and the report’s sources ‘zealots’ and ordered an immediate shut down of all internal investigative work into peak-oil and, for good measure, into that other extremist green socialist conspiracy, climate change.
The Lord Mayor, the Honourable Campbell Newman, has invested much political capital in getting five road tunnels built under the city over the next 20 years. His ambition is solve Brisbane’s congestion issues through a massive road building program. The last thing he needs is some bureaucrat suggesting reasons why $4.7bn would be better spent on – say – public transport or supporting local communities.
Peak-oil, like most things ‘environmental’, is an issue that contemporary political institutions have great difficulty in dealing with. But in this case it’s not long-term nature of the issue which creates the disjuncture - for if you believe Heinberg peak-oil is here now – but the nature of democratic decision making. No voter wants to be told the party’s over4.
Car drivers, whilst not a well-organised political interest group, remain a numerically influential voting block. Give them roads and they will love you for it. This is how representative democracies work.
But if you dare tell them they must have less of something – like less personalised, independent, comfortable and affordable travel – they’ll crucify you. People like to read bad news, not vote for it.
For a business, failure to acknowledging peak-oil doesn’t make it go away. But in politics it does. Whilst a business must consider its long-term sustainability, a politician struggles to see beyond the next crisis, or at best, the next election.
That Brisbane’s tunnels will be initially owned and operated by the private sector, in a public-private partnership, offers some hope. However, the successful private consortium will have so many built-in hedges that the burden of a financial failure of the tunnels – from peak-oil reducing traffic – will ultimately rest with people of Brisbane.
But Campbell Newman knows he will be long gone by then.
Notes
Monday, October 03, 2005
NRL Grand Final and video referee
Both teams are renowned for their exhilirating football and their enterprising manner. Even ‘Grand Final’ mode didn’t cramp their style too much; any game featuring Matt Sing, Matt Bowen, Scott Prince and Benji Marshall on the same pitch is going to be a thriller.
The final score seems a run away result, but the Wests-Tigers scored and converted with the final play of the game; just taking it away from the North Queensland right at the death.
It was also a night of technology inspired refereeing. Tim Mander is probably the best in the business, but even he had to enlist the help of the video-ref twice to adjudicate on tries. Both times, his deference was justified: firstly to rule on the subtlest of obstructions to rule out a North Queensland try, and secondly to rule on a grounding for Wests-Tigers. It was an excellent example of where video technology can bolster adjudication and achieve its goal: getting the right decision made.
Most consistent?
The North Queensland versus Wests-Tigers match program was made possible by the NRL competition rules, which blend the traditional league ladder followed with an elimination system to decide the winner from the top eight finishers.
Over the entire season, the two best teams had been Parramatta and St George-Illawara; they finished 1st and 2nd respectively. But both these teams were beaten on the night in the semi-finals - by North Queensland and Wests-Tigers.
Such a system has its merits and its drawbacks. On the down side, the most consistent team in the season doesn’t win the Premiership. Although coming top of the ladder paves an easier route to the Grand Final (ie either of the top four finishers can still loose a game and still get through), it still comes down to deciding the entire season by a performance in 80 mins.
But on a positive note, the NRL can generate some exciting FA Cup-like Grand Finals, much like this year. To win the Premiership, a team needs to relatively consistent, but also able to produce the goods on the day, when it counts: in a final. Last week, North Queensland thrashed Parramatta 29-0, so no team that takes the Premiership is a bad team.
With the English soccer Premiership looking like all one way traffic and attendances down, maybe its time for a shake up over there.
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Holiday snaps, phase 3
http://www.geocities.com/buckwells_du7/holiday.htm
That's it.
Boondall Wetlands
Posted by Living with Matilda at 2:58 PM
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On 2 February 1971, the first modern inter-governmental convention on conservation and sustainability was signed in Ramsar, Iran. The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as Waterfowl Habitat was an important historical marker, creating a framework for the protection of the dwindling wetland habitats, at the time under rapacious assault from urban coastal development.Since its adoption, more than 1,280 wetlands have been designated for inclusion in the List of Wetlands of International Importance, covering 110 million hectares, larger than the surface area of France, Germany, and Switzerland combined. There are now 136 contracting nations.
Over time, the “Ramsar Convention” (NB, Ramsar is not an acronym, so it is never the RAMSAR Convention) has broadened its scope to cover all aspects of wetland conservation and wise use, recognising them as important for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services for human communities.
The Boondall Wetlands is 1,000 hectares of Ramsar listed wetland on north Brisbane’s Moreton Bay coast. Protected habitat includes tidal flats, mangroves, salt marshes, open forest bushland and paper bark marshland. Ratepayers’ money, from Brisbane City Council’s Bushland Preservation Levy was spent on securing the site, always under threat from encroaching development.
Apart from a motorway carving through it, there is no vehicular access. You enter on foot, bike or boat. Boondall Wetlands features a great ‘Canoe Trail’ (ie ‘creeks’), up and down the lengths of Nundah, Nudgee and Cabbage Tree Creeks.
Having borrowed a kayak from Richard (via the scout den) we spent Sunday afternoon drifting up and paddling down the creek system (with, and then against, the tide). Drifting is a great way to get close the amazing bird life that inhabits the mangrove shores in the sanctuary (if you can keep the kids quiet enough for long enough). Everywhere there are herons, cormorants, darters, kingfishers and tawny frogmouths. Often the herons would be wading on the bottom, up to their neck, spending most of their time with their heads under water.
It was also refreshing to see ibis in their natural habitat. Colloquially, in SEQ these rather exotic looking things are known as Dump Birds, due to their successful adaptation to living on landfill sites and pecking around the park bins in Brisbane. Normally, this ecological niche is filled by rats. On the wetlands they still use their long beak for extracting crabs and worms from the mud, rather the discarded food from rubbish bins.
Sadly, the camera ran out of batteries.
The wetlands are also home to a variety of Brisbane’s nocturnal marsupial wildlife. A late evening, into the night canoe trip (with a powerful spot-lamp) would be most rewarding.
The maps below, show Boondall Wetlands in relation to Brisbane and the route we took on Sunday. (Click on thumbnail to open larger image (courtesy of Google Earth)
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Sunday, October 30, 2005
John Howard: for or against the death penalty?
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A young Australian man, Tuong Van Nguyen, faces death by hanging within weeks, after final pleas for clemency have been unsuccessful.The Australian government, as an opponent of capital punishment, is obliged to do all it can to ensure that the death sentence is not carried out.
Nguyen was caught red handed at Singapore Airport with 450g of heroin strapped to his body. He cooperated fully with the police and has even helped out the Australian Federal Police with inquiries that led to an arrest in this country. None of this seems to have helped his case and summary execution is due to be carried out. In Singapore, trafficking heroin carries a mandatory penalty. Nguyen has therefore been denied any opportunity to demonstrate to the judge why he should not be killed.
I am no fan of Foreign Minister Alexander Downer; however, his public pronouncements, stating Australia’s and his own condemnation of capital punishment have been genuine, loud and heartfelt.
In contrast, our Prime Minister’s attitude is evasive and dismissive. So far, John Howard has not made a personal plea to the President of Singapore for a reprieve from execution. While this may not save Nguyen, a plea from leader to leader would posses great gravitas.
This suggests to me that Howard is not quite the opponent of the death penalty we should expect from the leader of the Australian government. "People have to understand that when you go to another country and commit a crime against the laws of that country, you are punished according to the laws of that country," he has said.
Howard’s backbench colleague, Wilson Tuckey, a West Australian Liberal MP at least spelled it out, when he refused to sign a petition to save Nguyen. He said executing [him] is no worse than the danger Nguyen put Australians in when he tried to smuggle heroin into the country.
It is still a huge step from Tuckey’s statement and Howard’s sentiment to re-instating the death penalty in Australia, but the more our leaders comments drift to the far-right, the shorter that step becomes.
See also
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Riding out the storm
Posted by Living with Matilda at 7:44 AM
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Brisbane and South East Queensland appear to have ridden out the latest water crisis. A dry summer in 2004-05 and little substantive rain throughout the winter, coupled with Brisbane residents’ traditional profligate use of water, had seen dam levels plummet.Level 3 restrictions were just a week away from imposition, before some early summer rain in the last two weeks rescued us from the 30% dam capacity trigger point.
Significantly, much of this rain has fallen from fleeting storm cells, rather than bands of showers. As a result, rainfall is short and sharp and also very localised. One suburb or one catchment could cop a bucket load; a neighbouring area could be passed by. So the age-old whinge from water engineers “its not all falling in the catchments” remains half-true.
Brisbane secures its water from one huge dam and two other smaller dams out to the west – Wivenhoe, Somerset and North Pine. Wivenhoe and Somerset lie in the same catchment area. As a proportion of the region, this catchment represents only a small proportion. Surely, the answer lies in decentralising water harvesting, so that each house, neighbourhood and suburb captures its own supply.
Wivenhoe et al, in the short to medium term, would no doubt continue to provide the bulk of the supply, but as localised catchment penetrates further, these giant storage dams would become merely suppliers of last resort.
The introduction of level 2 water restrictions (when the dams hit 35%) brought on a huge community response. Theoretically, even with level 2 restrictions, a resident could still throw as much water on their garden as they could possible ever want to pay for, provided they do it on alternate days and between 7pm and 7am. But the recent introduction of tightening restrictions has been accompanied by a massive publicity campaign to ‘watch every drop’.
Residents are now using water more smartly and using less of it. Ironically, the community has been so successful in reducing their consumption that the Lord Mayor of Brisbane has flagged there are budgetary implications for BCC – residents are not using enough! Consumption is at 75% of the target usage.
For most reasonable people, many of the initiatives and tips being dished out by the water authorities must seem ludicrously obvious. I find it astonishing that residents must be told to turn the tap off when brushing teeth, not to use water to blow the leaves off their concrete driveways or not to water their lawn in the middle of the day. But Brisbane residents are at last receiving a crash-course in sensibility. People living on the driest continent on the planet cannot continue to be the highest per capita users of water.
The highly localised and variable nature of the rainfall and the success of the level 2 restrictions both suggest that the current water supply paradigm is ludicrously outdated and wholly unsustainable.
Why take the chance that water will fall in one (albeit large-ish) catchment, 60 kilometres from where people need it? Why not hedge your bets and instead rely on localised storm water harvesting, implementing a redundancy system?
First, capture water at domestic level, then at a community level and then only finally rely on regional, inefficient system as a last resort. Payment for water would be subsequently graded – that which you capture would be free, that captured locally, paid locally and the supplier of last resort, paid to centralised water distributors.
Secondly, if and when dam levels ever recover, why lift the water restrictions at all? The recent publicity drive has forced people to reconcile themselves with smarter use of water; no one has suffered; apart from a few extra mozzie bites.
The benefits are obvious:
Security of water supply would be improved, when the harvesting of storm water is decentralised to all parts of the region, rather than rely on rainfall in just one catchment.
Water quality in the creek systems would be improved, if run-off into the creeks is regulated by localised storm water catchments. Instead of experiencing an empty-full-empty cycle, wreaking havoc on creek ecosystems, they would experience longer periods of median flow.
Economies would be achieved through delaying (and probably even offsetting) implementation of additional major infrastructure to meet a rising demand on the reticulated system. Additionally, wiser use in the home reduces the rates of grey and black water flowing into sewerage systems, thus delaying implementation of additional water treatment infrastructure.
System efficiencies would be achieved through a shorter reticulated system. Currently 30% of water taken from the dams for delivery to homes is lost to seepage, over its 60km journey to your tap.
Responsive water systems would make settlements more ‘population proof’. If SEQ is to accept another million people over the next 20 years it makes sense to link the level of water harvesting to the number of people reliant on the supply. Where water is captured in the community – or even within the curtilage – this link is retained.
It sometimes takes a (near-) crisis to get people thinking about the limitations of current models of delivery, surely now is the time for imaginative thinking on this issue. For too long, just building ‘more big infrastructure’ has dominated public policy.
See also:
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Saturday, October 29, 2005
Spinning a line on sharks
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http://statements.cabinet.qld.gov.au/cgi-bin/display-statement.pl?id=9205&db=mediaMinister for Primary Industries and Fisheries Gordon Nuttall said today that "the total number of sharks caught in shark nets and drumlines off 87 beaches [in Queensland] increased by 20 per cent to 630 last financial year."
There have been some absolute monsters snared, including:
- 5.2m Tiger and 4m Dusky Whaler off Rainbow Beach
- 4.7m Tiger off Mackay
- 4.6m Tiger off North Stradbroke Island
- 3.8m Tiger off Bribie Island
Queensland has been netting beaches since 1962. In that time there has not been a single fatal attack on a protected beach.
Also, since 1992, 27 Humpback Whale have become entangled and just 4 of these have died. Queensland has a dedicated ‘marine mammal hotline’ and several dedicated teams to free trapped mammals.
But whether you agree with netting beaches to protect humans from being eaten or not (and there is strong arguments for doing so, hell, I’ve swam off Mackay, Bribie and North Stradbroke) there is something insidious in using of political terminology that describes such killing as "ecologically responsible".
In the press release Gordon Nuttall went on to say "the Shark Safety Program methods are currently the world's best practice and the most ecologically responsible, providing the best swimmer protection for the least incidental bycatch of non-target species."
Killing 630 sharks (about 25,000 since 1962) is not ecologically responsible. Political spin cannot hide the fact that this is not a "win-win situation"; that most favoured by politicians.
It is a straightforward zero-sum game: sharks or people. Simple as that.
So something a little more humble and much, much less spin, is surely more appropriate.
"630 sharks have been killed off Queensland’s beaches in an ongoing operation to protect human life."
"The Queensland government regrets that this is cost of protecting recreational swimmers, but it firmly believes that its is price worth paying from human safety."
"A significant number of potential dangerous animals have been trapped and disposed off."
Etc…etc…
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Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Not-so-intelligent Trojan Horse
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The semi-intelligent Trojan Horse - 70,000 Australian scientists have signed an open letter, insisting that intelligent design (ID) should not be taught as part of the school science curricular in Australia. (For a comprehensive description of ID, see hereThis move has been prompted by reports from the opening salvos in a high profile court case in Pennsylvania, USA, brought by parents against a school board in Dover. The parents of 20 children are demanding that ID be scrubbed from the school curriculum. They claim that it is merely Christian instruction masquerading as science and therefore unconstitutional, as it breaches the concept of the separation of church and state.
The school board, dominated by good church-going folk, voted last year to include ID in school science classes, claiming that it is valid scientific theory and an equal alternative explanation to the theory of evolution.
Worryingly, our current federal Education Minister, Dr Brendan Nelson, recently flirted with the Australian Christian Right by suggesting he too was not averse to ID entering the school science labs of this country, if that's what parents wanted. Nelson's foray into pseudo-science is of grave concern, given the current administration's affinity to all things American and Christian. Two Australian organisations, 'Focus on the Family' and the 'Campus Crusade for Christ', are wanting to distribute a DVD about intelligent design to every school in Australia.
While the Dover court case will only settle the argument in just the one schools district, the implications are much broader. It is not difficult to imagine that victory for the fundamentalist Christians in Dover would see ID rolled out across the entire south of the USA. And from there, who knows?
The 70,000 scientists argue that if ID could be defined as 'science', the demarcation criteria defining what is and what is not valid scientific theory would have to be sufficiently liberal so as to include astrology and palmistry.
No reasonable person can claim that ID is not creationism by another name. But for those that doubt that ID is not a Trojan Horse for the Christian Right, you can have it spelled out for you - in blunt pretty terms - by reading this
EXTRACT:Currently, State schools in Queensland have religious education at Primary and Junior level, funded by donations and taught by volunteers. As a parent you can opt your child out and can them supervised doing something more useful, like staring out of a window at the wonder of nature or reading a book (about dinosaurs and evolution perhaps?). Sadly there are no classes that deal with ethics and philosophy from a non-religious standpoint.
By accomplishing this goal the ultimate goal as stated by the Centre for Science and Culture is the "overthrow of materialism and its damning cultural legacies" and reinstate "The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God," and thereby "renew" American culture to reflect conservative Christian values.
Alternatively, you can send your child to a denominational school where s/he can receive instruction in your chosen dogma.
Either way, in Queensland curriculums are set at the school level within a conceptual framework of philosophies of teaching. The moment I get a whiff of ID being taught at Nundah State School I shall be withdrawing my children.
Again, ID has sparked huge debate on Online Opinion, with another huge raft of comments underlining a general misunderstanding by ID proponents of exactly what are the demarcation criteria of science are and just how evolution is thought to work. (Emphasis should be on 'thought to work', as, while science most certainly always attempts to further understand and explain the natural world, a proponent of any scientific theory would never contend that they are the harbingers of any final truth but merely the best understanding that we have, until someone can demonstrate otherwise.)
See also:
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Friday, October 21, 2005
Sydney tunnels: Sale now on!
Posted by Living with Matilda at 3:33 PM
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A pre-Christmas sale is on in Sydney: for three weeks only, motorists can use the newly opened Cross City Tunnel for free, nada, rein, a saving of $3.50!The tunnel – a public-private-partnership (PPP) – has got off to an inauspicious start. In the first two weeks of operation, patronage has been at about a third of the 90,000 vehicles originally expected to use it each day.
Sydneysiders are unimpressed by the cost of the toll and have chosen to boycott en masse.
Operators hope that the three-week toll holiday will encourage motorists to get used to using it and that when the sale ends consumers will display the solidarity of scattering rabbits and capitulate into using it.
But the motorists’ unease has prompted serious questioning of the deal between the State Government and the operators, which underpins the tunnel. And the more information that is unearthed, the more squalid the deal appears to be, unless you are neither the government or the tunnel operator.
In NSW (actually, in Australia) such PPP deals remain commercial and cabinet in confidence, unlike similar PPPs in the USA and NZ. The details of the deal will never become public knowledge.
However, the NSW’s Auditor General is one that has been allowed to view and comment, but only on the executive summary.
In the summary, the $97m paid by Cross City Tunnels to the NSW government is described as an “upfront payment” made “in return for the RTA (Road Traffic Authority) granting it the right to undertake the project”.
The NSW Auditor General – nearly lost for words – called it “just a tax”.
But the RTA’s financial immediate interest in the tunnel does not end there. The NSW government stands to make more money, if more cars use the tunnel. If targets are beaten by 10%, the RTA receives 10c per extra dollar. If patronage is 50% above forecast, they will receiver half the extra revenue.
This might not be such a bad thing. Financial returns on toll roads have generally represented a good deal for operators, what’s wrong with a public authority skimming a little bit off as a kind of extra road tax on excess motorists?
Besides, with operators forced into a pre-Christmas sale, you might think it doubtful that the forecast patronage will be reached anytime soon.
But with the tantalising prospect of extra profit, everyone – apart from the Sydney motorists and residents – is a winner. The deal summary alluded to a series of surface road closures, to help the operators and the NSW government ‘encourage’ motorists to stump up and drive-through the tunnels. So the NSW government not only has the incentive to generate more traffic, but even has the levers to manipulate that outcome.
The details of these closures are, of course, secret, but few doubt that they will be heavily leveraged to restrict travel choice and to guarantee that the tunnel will become a low risk enterprise to its private sector operators and perhaps line the RTA’s pockets a little bit too.
But who cares what goes on in Sydney?
Sydney’s tunnel woes has major implications for Brisbane Lord Mayor’s own plans to tunnel Brisbane, also using a PPP.
Already there are rumours that the winning bidders will demand provision in the final deal to close surface road space to reduce their financial risk. But most concerning are allegations that the final deal will make the people of Brisbane liable to pay compensation to the operators if cross-river public transport is improved. Either way, the secrecy that will surround the details of the deal mean that we won’t find out.
It is touted as a public-private-partnership. That it is. But it is a public-private-partnership against the people of Brisbane, regardless of whether you are a car driver or public transport user.
At best, TransApex is nothing more than an ill-thought out sop to easy drive-through politics, when a better and more integrated and sustainable transport policy would have been better. At worst, it will ensure that Brisbane's “road system [becomes] less of a network and more a funnel to improve the commercial viability of the project”.
(Quote for Rod Sims, of Port Jackson Partners.)
See also
- CATT the mouse
- Bunch of zealots
- Peak oil does not point to tunnels
- Tunnels? No thanks
- Reclaiming the streets
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Thursday, October 20, 2005
A royal celebration...
Posted by Living with Matilda at 5:18 PM
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The Australian media are once again fawning over Princess Thingy and Crown Prince – you know, that Danish bloke..... or was he Finnish?Apparently they have had a baby. (Boy or girl?)
They are so happy in Tasmania – as the Princess once came from there once – that they are giving away some booties to all children born on the same day, as the happy couple once bought a similar pair, or something.
Forgive me for my vagueness. But I really couldn’t give a stuff.
But this raises an interesting conundrum. If I really didn’t care, I wouldn’t have taken the time out to write this, nor read the reports about such joyous news. The media’s defence - that they are just printing something that even your average run-of-the-mill republican wants to hear – holds.
So the truth is, I do care. I do care that people find this sort of news interesting. In fact, I find it pretty disturbing that people don’t find this kind of fawning deference insulting. Does nobody understand what the concept of Monarchy is saying about them? Are they happy to be labelled as inferior, second class subjects?
Call me a sanctimonious bore with a chip on the shoulder, but I reckon I would have made a great royal, if only I had been born into the right family.
But therein lies the problem…….
Links:
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The Manchurian Candidate
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The Manchurian Candidate is a placeman – in the ownership of a shady and hyper-wealth business organisation and levered into a position of political power.In the 2005 remake, the placeman is an American Gulf War hero and only son of a famous Capitol Hill dynasty who mysteriously saves his platoon from an ambush. Our Manchurian Candidate is micro-chipped and - using his war hero status - is manoeuvred towards the highest office of State, where his mind and policies can be manipulated to do the bidding of big business.
The Gold Coast City Council may not exert the same level of political power as the current ‘Chairman of the Board’ of the ‘Office of the President of the United States of America’, but its decisions nevertheless still have significant pecuniary interest.
40 years ago, the Gold Coast did not exist; it was just a collection of beach shacks. Now it is a sprawling extravaganza of high rise apartments backed by canal-side McMansions and Australia’s 6th largest city. Its prosperity has been founded solely on property and lifestyle. There are no smoke stacks or manufacturing plants behind Surfers Paradise beach.
But to build a whole new lifetsyle city, with all the associated golf courses, casinos, canal developments, themeparks, roads, shops, restaurants and more shops in just four decades, you need a well-oiled planning regime and very few pesky regulations.
In Gold Coast City Council, there is not one Manchurian Candidate, but several “like-minded” Councillors, bankrolled by the shady ‘Commonsense Trust Fund’ – a property developer contribution scheme.
The Council is facing inquiry by the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) into allegations that voters were mislead into believing they were electing independent candidates, rather than a pro-development caucus, owned by the trust fund.
The current Deputy Mayor, Cr Power, is already knee-deep. E-mails subpoenaed from property developer Brian Ray (now dead) have shed light on the rationale behind the fund.
To another prospective contributor, Ray wrote “Mate, I’m just chasing you up to see whether you’re prepared to provide assistance to this camp to get some sensible members into Gold Coast City Council.”
Deputy Mayor Cr Power and another councillor, Cr Robbins (also now dead), were co-signatories for the release of electoral funds for use by appropriate selected candidates, who were, in their words, “worthy of election”.
In another e-mail, this time to the investment bank Macquarie Bank, Ray declared he wanted to “mount a campaign to win various wards for a caucus of like-minded members with whom we can negotiate in a similar way to the outcome achieved in the last Tweed Shire election.”
Tweed Shire Council was summarily dismissed by the NSW government after an inquiry concluded that a group of developers had set out to buy control of the council.
The distribution of campaign donations via a trust fund removed the Councillors one step far enough away from their donors when it came to declaring interests and excusing themselves from decision making.
Cr Pforr, who received $46,564.69 in funds – all but $550 coming from the property developers or from the Common Sense fund – said he felt “quite comfortable” with voting on a range of planning and property matters – unless it was connected with the Hope Island developer, who had individually contributed $10K.
Whatever the CMC concludes, the Gold Coast City Council is compromised. Its Machurian Candidates have been exposed. Residents are poorly served by planning policy subject to nothing but cursory scrutiny by politicians who are nothing but imposters, serving business, not the people.
Posted by Living with Matilda at 1:10 PM
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Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Enraged and amused: Bright Eyes
Posted by Living with Matilda at 7:19 AM
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Enraged and amused: Bright EyesMaybe it will always be a Kiwi's lot in life, to have to put up with sheepish jokes. But now having to accept a similar relationship with rabbits will be tough...
But, what exactly is a 'Companion Rabbit?'
Is this political correctness gone mad, so the cliche goes?
Or is a Companion Rabbit one you maybe take out to the movies (Wallace and Grommit perhaps), then take to dinner, then for a drink, a bit of dancing later, then back to your place for a coffee, then maybe suggest its too late now to call a cab.... and would it like to stay over?!!???!?!
Posted by Living with Matilda at 7:19 AM
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Monday, October 17, 2005
Sport Sport Sport
Posted by Living with Matilda at 9:11 AM
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Australia can’t seem to win a rugby match of any description at the moment. After the Wallabies crashed to 4 defeats out of 4 in the Union Tri-Nations, the mighty – almost unbeatable – Kangaroos displayed such a lack of urgency they allowed the Kiwis to put one over them; the first time in Sydney for 46 years.Even more embarrassing was that the Kiwis were missing two stars of the NRL – Sonny-Bill Williams and Benji Marshall.
It took 18 points conceded to finally wake up the Kangaroos, but after that it all seemed like plain sailing – the power and class of Johns, Lockyer, Gasnier and Tate were showing. By the time they got in the sheds at half time, it was 18-18.
Sadly, someone must have given them hot chocolate instead of pro-sports isotonic super-energy re-hydration liquid as they all seemed ready for bed in the second half. After looking dominant – but not capitalising on it - the Kiwis must have thought “if they’re not interested in winning, then we will.” and then subsequently cut the Kangaroos to pieces.
Worryingly, the Kiwis won so convincingly that a Kangaroos win in NZ next week seems the least likely result.
Thank goodness the cricket’s going our way.
The ICC World XI may not feature the best of the world’s bowlers – Muralitharan aside – but it does boast the most excellent batting line-up. When you have a team at 7-for and Shaun Pollock is walking to the crease, you know you’ve got your work cut out. But that’s only when you have dismissed Lara, Dravid, Smith, Sangakara et al. (There are no mid-order ‘bunnies’ like Bell in this team, though where is Trescothick?)
It is ironic then that the batting has so far failed them, so far.
Not surprisingly, there has been a chasm of difference between the intensity levels of the Australians and the World XI. While one team is smarting and out to prove something, following its Ashes defeat, the other team thinks its on some sort of Spring holiday.
The World XI has great class available, but surely it also has an obligation to the cricketing public to display more metal. Hopefully, their demolition of Australia’s middle order in the second innings is the beginning of sort kind of competition.
Posted by Living with Matilda at 9:11 AM
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Friday, October 14, 2005
There was an Englishman, Irishman and a Scotsman....
Posted by Living with Matilda at 10:18 PM
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Studies by the international group at the US National Institute of Health have shown that cultural stereotyping does not stand up to scrutiny. Not big news you might think, but still it is nice when the social sciences affirm the bleeding obvious.Those old jokes, which begin “There was an Englishman, Irishman and Scotsman…” are just that, old jokes. But I guess the Norman Tebbits of the world truly did believe that they were robust, valid social commentary.
The study asked more than 40,000 adults from 49 differing cultures about how they view members of their own cultures; how neurotic, how extraverted, open, agreeable etc. It then compared the results with the participants’ assessments of their own personalities and those of other specified people they observed.
The Swiss, for example, thought they were 'closed to new ideas'. English people assumed they were ‘stoic’ and the Americans believed they were 'pushy'. Presumably, the French thought they were rude and arrogant, the Italians lazy and romantic, the Welsh insignificant and the Scots mean and dour….. Oh.... culturally stereotyping people again….
However, the study revealled these people were anything but their stereotype.
Australians view themselves as ‘battlers’, who know how to work hard and play hard. They see themselves as classless and irreverent, casual, with a ‘no worries’ (or now, using the American import, ‘too easy’) attitude to life. What you see is what you get, come over anytime and take us as you find us. They also all live in the country.
Dame Edna began to explode this cultural myth back in the 60s. Humphries’ suburban goddess was an image obsessive, the Hyacinth Bucket of her generation.
But still the rough diamond stereotype remained, reinforced by Crocodile Dundee and – oh – Crocodile Dundee 2. And was there a Croc Dundee 3 as well?
Sylvania Waters followed and the lampoon of ‘real’ Australia reached its acme with Cath and Kim. Finally we find the real Australia: totally preoccupied with how they are perceived, wedded to suburbia, obsessed with the ‘lifestyle’ package sold to them by the seamless marketing machine of conspicuous consumption. They are over-worked, over-stressed and please, don’t go around their house uninvited – it might be a mess and not emanate the ambience they wish to project.
But then maybe that’s just me, culturally stereotyping again……
But before we assign generalities to the dustbin of eugenic history, the New Scientist did maintain that many gender stereotypes do bear scrutiny; women are often warmer and men commonly more assertive. Women also can’t read maps, understand the concept of time zones or throw properly.
Posted by Living with Matilda at 10:18 PM
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Thursday, October 13, 2005
CATT the mouse
Posted by Living with Matilda at 6:10 PM
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Communities Against the Tunnels (CATT) has an uphill struggle to slow down, and eventually halt, the construction of the Lord Mayor’s tunnels across Brisbane: TransApex.
What we do know is….
- Information and education works. When residents are presented with complex issues, are given time to understand the context and assess the trade-offs and are then asked for their open-ended opinions, rarely do they reach the conclusion that simply building more roads is the answer. Brisbane City Council’s recent CityShape Conference
- Many residents remain ignorant of the impacts of the routes of the tunnels, the siting of the exits, the implications for local traffic and the potential air quality and noise issues associated with building and operating the tunnels.
- Many residents continue to feel ‘helpless’ about the ‘inevitability’ of construction, concerned there seems to be no voice speaking out against the tunnels. The consultation process conducted by BCC – whilst glossy and informative – presented no ‘no-tunnels’ option.
- Alliances must be built with the shared goal of ‘no-tunnels’. Many community associations, local groups and political bodies are opposed to TransApex. Alliances can be used to access like-minded constituents, utilise diverse media channels and reinforce the core message through different group’s own narratives.
- TransApex is not just about tunnels. Though the battles will be fought over tunnels, the real debate should be over the strategic direction that Brisbane takes. The city could be likened to a ship navigating the oceans; the choice of direction now could point us towards becoming a more livable city, with a thoroughly modern transit system and revitalised neighbourhoods. The wrong bearing - a different choice - extrapolated 25 years ahead, could lead us to a very different future, with dilapidated suburbs, archaic public transport and utterly bankrupt.
- Economic, demographic, social and cultural trends consistently provide evidence that sinking billions of dollars into tunnels is not the solution. Issues ranging from peak-oil, an aging population (fewer drivers), a rediscovery of place making in urban villages and personal re-evaluations of the opportunity cost of leisure (“down-shifting”) all present alternative, less car-dependent futures; even near-futures. Sydney’s current tunnel woes will also continue to generate controversy over the viability of such an investment.
- The 2004 Council election was not a mandate for TransApex. Despite the rhetoric at the time, Newman’s victory cannot be seen as the first and last step of the political process to sign-off TransApex, yet it appears this is the case. At the time, it was likely the long-entrenched Labor administration would fall. A Labor defeat could only have resulted in Newman being returned as Lord Mayor. TransApex has been implemented by default.
But alas….
- Information and education is desperately slow to disseminate. For example, the CityShape Conference reached a grand total of 155 residents, out of Brisbane’s 957,000 (all right, not all of them are voters). CATT maybe reaches another hundred. These numbers are insignificant.
- The clock is ticking. Tenders from the two invited bidders for NSBT are requested by early December. Digging is projected to start ‘in 2006’. Airport Link is in the ($21m) detailed feasibility study stage. And when it gets to the crunch….
- When you’re laying in front of bulldozers, it’s too late. When opponents to the tunnels start laying in the mud, they become ‘protestors’, ‘demonstrators’ or simply ‘NIMBYs’; painted by the media in a very different light. Public opinion can very quickly be turned against such ‘environmental extremists’ who are wasting public money and not going through ‘appropriate democratic channels’ to achieve their goal.
- Alliances can pull in many directions. It is essential that such a loose association does not get bogged down in subtle differences over policy in non-tunnel arenas. A non-tunnels future must always bind them.
- Citizen-consumers are generally apathetic. People are conservative in their consumer and lifestyle choices and are ambivalent about the slow erosion of their quality of life. Furthermore, a big block of voters are car drivers and thus quite content to see tunnels built, jobs created and congestion temporarily shifted elsewhere. Many will vote as such, despite publicly maintaining contrary views. Sadly, often people’s world-view is shaped by how they perceive the next two or three years of their lives only.
- Pursuing a ‘tunnels referendum’ would be a strategic mistake. [This is not CATT policy.] Though at face value, a Brisbane-wide referendum on the tunnels would seem appealing, there are too many associated risks. The timing of any poll would be at the discretion of BCC and defeat would utterly entrench the TransApex scheme in future city planning.
Therefore….
- Communication needs to be ramped up… and quickly. Names, addresses and emails should be collected and residents communicated with. And those people who agree to become part of the network should receive something in return – a newsletter, information or new research. Opponents to the tunnels need to feel part of a community of interest, not isolated and helpless in their homes, whingeing at the television.
- All media contact should be fresh and present new and relevant information. This is not an election, where the same ‘message’ should be thrashed out ad nauseam. The mounting evidence that supports an alternative future, should be presented in an evolving, coherent narrative. Today, for example, the latest debacle with Sydney’s tolled tunnel (no one is using it) has direct relevance to the viability of TransApex. But media contact can also make connections backwards, demonstrating trends: petrol pump prices were big news three weeks ago, when prices reached $1.30 per litre, up from $0.80 one year ago. Yet today, petrol prices remain in the $1.20-25 mark. Consumers could benefit from being reminded.
- The tunnels should be opposed as a matter of transport policy. Residents’ concern over their loss of amenity caused by the tunnels is quite legitimate, but will never be enough. Such concern can be easily dismissed by tunnel proponents as being of narrow self-interest. (As if that’s a bad thing, when we are conditioned to believe ‘self-interest’ should govern society.) Presenting a different, more sustainable, more accessible and more viable future, should be the cental theme running through the no-tunnels message.
However….
- Media channels are becoming more receptive to a no-tunnels view. The Courier-Mail has begun to publish more critical analysis of transport policy and TransApex, even printing two lead editorials (one submitted, one internal), questioning Newman’s policy. It seems that since the CM picked up the regional planning agenda, many journalists have embarked on learning curves themselves, discovering that ever-more infrastructure provision is not always the answer.
- The world-wide-web is the perfect tool for raising awareness and disseminating information. Newsgroups, websites, blogs, emails, SMS, RSS, all provide avenues to improve communication and let residents who are opposed to the tunnels know that there is a group representing their interests.
- There is a vast resource of skilled, committed and intelligent people dedicated to stopping TransApex.
- Sheer numbers of people will be sufficient to close down this whole tunnel idea. Already more people voted against Campbell Newman than for him. Voters – adequately motivated – can prevent Brisbane from making an enormous and but entirely foreseen error of judgement.
Posted by Living with Matilda at 6:10 PM
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Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Smart State Shopping State
Posted by Living with Matilda at 10:42 PM
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Brisbane taxi rides are mostly charge by distance, not duration. This thought kept me calm as we shuffled through a gruelling queue of shuffling SUVs on Airport Drive. We were trying to reach the domestic terminal for our holiday getaway.Our progress was blocked by marauding shoppers, still sat behind the wheel, but so desperate to save $10 on a pair of designer jeans they were willing to sit in their cars for an hour to do so.
No 1. Airport Drive is home to ‘Direct Factory Outlet’ (DFS) is a 24,000m2 discount retail store, recently opened adjacent to the sole arterial route to Brisbane Airport. Its brisk trade (“beyond all our expectations”) has been transported in solely by car – there is no other way to get there. It has generated more congestion on what is already one of Queensland’s most over-stretched sections of its road network.
The congestion has meant passengers have missed flights, air quality has deteriorated and car accidents have increased. All this, for a cheap pair of jeans.
But that’s just the beginning. This new out of town retail centre promises to suck nearby suburban centres dry, drive us further down a path of car dependency and fuel our meaningless over-consumption in pointless goods. Still, all for a cheap pair of jeans.
The site’s owners, the Brisbane Airport Corporation (BAC) , successfully applied to the Federal Minister for approval to develop major retail at the airport. Using reserve Ministerial powers allowed for deciding on ‘essential’ matters, the federal government agreed to the proposal in a ‘tick and flick’ exercise.
The previous (Labor) administration of Brisbane City Council (BCC) has fought long and hard to oppose big box retail development at the airport. The Council’s BAC board member opposed the development at corporate level, but inevitably the case went to court. BCC incurred tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees arguing its case. Council’s counsel maintained that:
- the ‘essential’ powers exercised by the Minister should not have extended to adjudicating on shopping developments and hence the regulatory process has been unreasonable;
- transport, water and sewage infrastructure to the site were wholly inadequate and require greater developer contribution;
- the 1998 precinct masterplan did not include retail proposals;
- any retail outlet at No.1 Airport Drive would serve Brisbane residents in general and not – as BAC argued – merely airport shoppers. As such, the out of town location was inappropriate for such a development and did not fulfil any sequential tests, usually applied to such applications.
For 3 ½ years the development was held up. However, when the Brisbane residents voted for Campbell Newman in 2004, they decided that driving through traffic jams to buy cheap jeans was more important. Newman declared he would drop BCC opposition to the development, suggesting what’s good for business is what’s good for Brisbane. But is a DFO at Airport Drive good for either business or Brisbane? I doubt it.
Brisbane Airport is a big part of the ‘Australia TradeCoast’ (ATC)
ATC’s vision is to “transform Brisbane’s ports precinct into a major global trade and industry hub on the East Coast of Australia”. This vision is founded on the area’s competitive advantage, in being at the heart of the central/east coast Australian transport network and adjacent to a numerous and well-educated workforce.
The ATC dovetails nicely with the Queensland government’s own Smart State strategy
So how does “stack-em-high, sell ‘em cheap” retail fit into this inventive, groovy, modern economy?
Does DFO support business or technological innovation? No, allowing major retailers (Coles-Myer) to draw business vitality out of nearby suburbs, stifles local entrepreneurs and small business creation.
Does DFO support regional economic sustainability? No, it merely demands a low pay, low skill work force to work the tills. The profits are not retained in the local economy, but benefit Coles-Myer shareholders in Sydney and Melbourne.
Does DFO support sustainable development? Err, well of course not. The retail development generates greater pollution and greater congestion through greater demand for transport.
Is DFO a 'Smart' development? Unequivocally not; retail development at No.1 Airport Drive – well outside the urban framework - goes against the grain of all contemporary thinking in urban management; the relocation of services in suburban centres and in ‘places’. The 18,000 extra vehicular trips generated daily squeezes through one of the busiest sections of Queensland’s highway networks. Not only is this stretch at capacity, it is also of considerable strategic importance for regional traffic flow, connecting the airport to the city and the only major north-south Brisbane bypass. Major highway upgrades are still many years away, but even then, building more road space is no way to fight congestion.
But perhaps most tragically, the local traffic management appears to have been ‘designed’ by a gibbering imbecile – forcing two of the three main streams of inwards traffic to cut across the third, within a 500m section of road.
And lastly, a major retail development does not support the strategic goals of either the Smart State or the Australia TradeCoast. It reflects merely lowest common denominator thinking in strategic planning.
So why did our Lord Mayor drop BCC opposition to the proposal?
Because he is smart – at least in a political sense. If you build the people shops and roads, they will love you for it. No.1 Airport Drive follows Newman’s theme for Brisbane: Ghostly suburban centres, congested roads and poisonous air. Forget being bold, visionary or imaginative – if in doubt – go shopping!
Posted by Living with Matilda at 10:42 PM
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Tuesday, October 11, 2005
easypc training goes live
Posted by Living with Matilda at 3:51 PM
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We have now launched version 1 of the website for Penny’s new business venture: easypc training – a software training enterprise.We have stumped up a fair bit of cash to get in the Yellow Pages; and the ad looks great - and it is pretty prominent too. There will also be some classified ads in the local newspapers over the next few weeks which should drum up some business before Christmas.
But it seems impossible to gauge how successful advertising will be. A lot seems to rest on gut feeling – how you personally see the ad and whether you would expect to see this kind of advertising in this type of publication.
We also need to come up with some strategies to drive internet traffic to the site. Google have a decent referral service, which costs you per click-through they generate, but search engine optimisation seems hit and miss.
It is rumoured that Google’s ranking algorithms give a lot of weight to the number of external links into your site, as well as the usual content indexing and meta tags.
This appears to make it difficult for establishing business to get up there towards the top.
Not only must they wait until their own pages are crawled and indexed, but you also rely on external pages with the links to be crawled and indexed again. To rank highly on Google, you need a pretty aggressive marketing campaign.
Anyway, here’s one link for Google to count:
| http://www.easypctraining.com.au |  |
Anyone else wishing to see easypctraining pushed up the Google rankings, please feel free to link also.
Posted by Living with Matilda at 3:51 PM
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Friday, October 07, 2005
CoMSEQ comes a-cropper
Posted by Living with Matilda at 10:39 PM
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The Lord Mayor is fuming this morning.He and his cronies in the Council of Mayors South East Queensland (“CoMSEQ”, though we’re not supposed to use the acronym) have been found out.
Brisbane’s [only] major daily paper, the Courier-Mail, has published a highly critical article and ran editorial on CoMSEQ’s total neglect of public transport in its transport policy objectives.
I’ll admit, there’s a little history here: CoMSEQ is the organisation that replaced SEQROC, the South East Queensland Regional Organisation of Councils. On SEQROC’s demise, I was out of job.
CoMSEQ endeavoured to become a more politically focussed advocacy organisation, concentrating on winning concessions and funding from government. Their strap line, “Representing one in seven Australians,” shows that CoMSEQ is willing to take their fight all the way to Canberra.
On the other hand, its predecessor, SEQROC, was more operationally focussed, busily fostering links and partnerships between councils and government and getting creative in the un-sexy parts of government administration, like public and environmental health, integrated transport and development assessment. But SEQROC also had its successes on the grander stage: the organisation was the main driver in forcing the State government to get to grips with the regional planning agenda.
CoMSEQ’s tactic is to extend their influence through an aggressive media strategy. Normally media-shy in nature, the Mayors of SEQ were encouraged to get the message out there.
But it has all back-fired, as the Courier-Mail went after them in a big way:
“What are our mayors thinking?” the editorial barracked. “It demonstrates that the new Southeast Queensland Council of Mayors is off to a bad start as a replacement for the Southeast Queensland Regional Organisation of Councils.”
“It is running up a flag for governing suburbs-for-cars, without necessarily focusing on people,” the Courier-Mail said.
What has aggravated the Lord Mayor most is that parts of the article have certainly been leaked, as both the minutes are kept secret and only the Mayors and selected guests attend the meetings. The solidarity that CoMSEQ promised has imploded.
Old colleagues from the SEQROC office have speculated about who has put the proverbial cat amongst blind horse’s nine tails and have come up with three suspect heroes…..who shall remain anonymous.
But in my opinion, CoMSEQ deserves all it gets, and not just because I agree with the CM’s position on public transport. If CoMSEQ wants a front-foot media and political strategy, it’s going to have to accept the scrutiny that goes with the territory. It is public money they spend, after all.
My one big criticism of the original SEQROC was its poor mechanisms for public accountability, but few things were ‘secret’ and in the final analysis the public interest was always upheld by the dead hand of well-meaning and dedicated bureaucracy. The operational nature of the business almost never had a political perspective.
CoMSEQ on the other hand, claims to represent one in seven Australians, but it lacks any public or media oversight of proceedings. Scrutiny has been effectively locked out. The mayors arrogantly assume they could carve out good and representative policy in the vacuum of their own cosy private club. But they are wrong and they have been found out.
http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16817287%255E3102,00.html
http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16813340%255E13360,00.html
Posted by Living with Matilda at 10:39 PM
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Thursday, October 06, 2005
Bush and Howard put climate change on back-burner
Posted by Living with Matilda at 9:10 PM
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When Messers Bush and Blair were first egging each other to go into Iraq nearly 4 years ago, as a concession to the lesser nations of the world the US said it would finally get Israel serious about upholding the numerous Security Council resolutions held against it.Bush outlined his plan as a ‘road-map’ to peace – essentially a series of confidence building measures, eventually leading to negotiations towards a two-state model for Palestine-Israel.
Of course it was a sop, and no sooner had the Coalition of America charged through Iraq than the ‘Road Map’ (now capitalised) was allowed to fade into the background and Israel and Palestine could continue deliberations at their own snail’s pace. America had secured its immediate foreign policy goals – it had mostly neutralised opposition to the war and Israel could continue the occupation on its own terms, not the UN’s.
It is now with a strange sense of deja-vu that I read that the US and Australia are now slowly withdrawing their enthusiasm for the Asia-Pacific Climate Pact.
The climate pact was the US’s and Australia’s answer to their climate change dilemma: a non-binding, coal and technology-based fix for global warming, which allows their state-subsidised hydrocarbon energy industry to continue business-as-usual. At the same time, it would even enable their high value added sector to sell technology to Asia to prevent those nations becoming the high polluters we already are.
The pact served its purpose – it bought the two biggest global polluters a little bit of credibility at a crucial time. The G8 leaders were meeting, the Kyoto Protocol was coming into force and Kyoto’s successor’s terms of reference were being negotiated. Bush and Howard could now look like they were doing something.
Officially, the inaugural meeting of the climate pact, due to take place in Adelaide in November, has merely been ‘postponed’, but observers note that not one jot of work has been completed towards getting any pact up and running. The new date of January has only been unofficially put forward and has not been confirmed by the Howard government.
A cooling of support for this half-baked pact was expected. But perhaps more worrying is the rumour that Tony Blair – in the past a keen advocate of UN enforced emissions reduction targets - is himself cooling on the idea of a Kyoto successor. Instead he has signalled he is more supportive of such a technology-based, voluntary system as that floated and subsequently forgotten by the US, Australia, China and Japan.
Blair’s apparent championing of voluntary achievement seem ironic, given that his administration has been obsessive in driving performance-related standards regimes throughout the public sector. You worry that if Blair is turned, Kyoto will whither away.
See also:
- Brisbane doesn't quite qualify
- Are these people the first global warming refugees?
- Always a talking point
- Show your colours, Bob
- Renegades will undermine Kyoto process
Posted by Living with Matilda at 9:10 PM
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Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Brisbane doesn't quite qualify
Posted by Living with Matilda at 11:24 PM
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Despite flying delegates in from all around the globe - instead of perhaps using video-conferencing equipment - Red Ken [Livingstone]’s jolly, the “World Cities Leadership Climate Change Summit”, seems worthy enough.Cities generate 75% of all greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from the building, heating, cooling, servicing and finally the demolishing of the built environment. This is a poor record, as cities account for less than half of humanity. But conversely, cities are often better prepared to tackle their own profligacy. They have the knowledge, cohesiveness and, under the right leadership, the drive, to move towards a more ecologically sustainable future.
The Summit will bring together the varied and innovative strategies that different cities around the world are implementing to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Learning from each other should increase the rate of adoption of such practices.
Highlights include:
- Berlin, where 75% of all new buildings have photo-voltaic systems installed
- Mexico City, which aims to replace 80,000 gas-guzzling taxis with low emission vehicles by 2006
- Copenhagen, which has achieved a 35% cycling journey-to-work mode share
- Singapore (which inspired London), which has innovative road and congestion tolling
- Toronto, where the cold waters of Lake Ontario are used to cool office buildings in the hot summers and
- Honolulu, where any number of sustainable strategies could be used as examples
Regrettably, our Lord Mayor, Campbell Newman, has not been invited to the World Cities Leadership Climate Change Summit. Despite some bold investment in greenhouse gas mitigation by the previous administration - by way of the South East Busway, current city policy is aimed at boosting emissions through encouraging more car driving.
It appears Brisbane City Council’s staff “Walk to Work Day” this Friday, was not quite enough to qualify Brisbane for an invite to the summit. Actually, it is doubtful the initiative will discouragee a single car journey, as group walks have been organised from Toowong, Fortitude Valley and South Bank – all suburbs on the train line through the city.
No, instead, our Lord Mayor is off to Chongquig in China, on the Greater Brisbane China Mayoral Mission, to help boost trade in useless bamboo lifetstyle objects and cheap home furnishings.
Posted by Living with Matilda at 11:24 PM
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Google the planet
Posted by Living with Matilda at 9:03 AM
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Google-Earth must be the coolest web tool ever. You could waste hours just mucking around with it; it’s heaven for map-junkies like me.But the real power of it lies in using the over-lays.
If you want to find which hotel is nearest the Pyramids of Giza and next to golf course, just punch in the details and you even get to see the size of the swimming pool!
At the moment, the detailed satellite coverage covers only of a few heavily populated areas of the planet – probably 0.5% of the land surface, but then it is always going to be ‘work-in-progress’. Some of the best imagery will come in the near future when open space areas and natural features are plugged-in in detail, if Google can find a way to make money from it.
Here is our house. (Though the five bushes in the front garden, either side of the path have now been cut down. I reckon it was taken at around 7.30am, in the summer, as the milk van is outside our neighbour’s house and the sun is quite high in the sky.)Spooky....
But FOX-News not impressed....
Not surprisingly, FOX-News has been a little more cautious in welcoming such technology. But then FOX-News couldn’t print a story about mating Pandas, without raising the spectre of terrorism and the potential threat to the American security caused by humping zoo animals.
FOX-News suggested, “some are questioning whether Google Earth also provides terrorists with readily accessible data that they can use to attack the United States or other countries, particularly when users can zoom in from space level to street level.”
Who those ‘some’ people are, is not made explicit at the top of the article. This is a commonly used rhetorical device, which often allows ‘impartial’ media channels – like FOX News - to subtly introduce their own editorial bias, without good evidence supporting such a view. Indeed, ‘some people say’ that FOX-News’s strap line shouldn’t be “Fair and Balanced”, but the more folksy “Some people say….”.Only later in the article does it become clear who those ‘some’ people are. It is not the Pentagon, nor is it Homeland Security. In fact, no US department, nor the President considers Google Earth to be a security risk.
But one who does is (Retired) Marine Lt. Col. Bill Cowan, a FOX-News ‘military analyst’. He suggests that "These imagery products [that are] available on the Web, or commercially, are a tool without question that can be used by terrorists or insurgents."
Another who worries about Google Earth is Steve Emerson, a ‘terrorism analyst’ from “The Investigative Project”, a right wing, somewhat conspiratorial, ‘think tank’. Steve thinks “If a terrorist doesn't have to leave the confines of his sanctuary and can remotely view the entire infrastructure, vulnerability points, access points of a sensitive place that he wants to bomb — wow, his job has already been made 90 percent easier."
So one of the ‘some’ who question Google Earth’s applications is one of FOX News’s own staff and the other is a weirdo from a paranoid institution. Some people might say they don’t really offer a Fair and Balanced assessment.
Fear is an easy thing to perpetuate, and few organisations can do as insidiously as FOX-News.
Posted by Living with Matilda at 9:03 AM
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Bunch of zealots!
Posted by Living with Matilda at 8:54 AM
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Crude oil is not ‘produced’, it is ‘extracted’.Arguably, peak-oil may never be out of the news again. The recent crude price spike, driven by two hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico shortening supply, demonstrate just how little slack exists in today’s oil market 1.
Few argue that demand for crude will continue to increase, despite developed economies consuming it more efficiently (per person and per dollar of GDP) than ever before. Growing population negates any efficiencies in the USA and India’s and China’s burgeoning economies and aspiring citizens continue to drive new demand for energy. In the last 10 years, oil demand grew by 20%. The world’s economies now consume 31 billion barrels of oil each year.
But supply remains the big question mark. Investment in exploration is tumbling whilst investment in new kinds of extraction technology is rising, indicating that oil companies are redoubling their efforts to tap already discovered fields. A few prominent oil forecasters - Simmons, Heinberg et al - are predicting that non-Saudi oil is virtually at peak and even Saudi oil production capacity maybe heavily over estimated. Royal Dutch-Shell estimates there is plenty of gas in the tank yet – about 20 years til maximum ‘production’ - but even it admits Hubbert’s Peak2 is not simply a theoretical construct.
For government and business peak-oil remains a risk-management issue, rather than an impending reality. If you believe peak-oil is here right now, and you invest millions of dollars in alternative business models, and you are wrong, your competitive and political edge is blown out the water. But a business with a more benign view of peak-oil could hold back on mitigating rising energy prices - and be spared - if the market and the political climate has been generally slow to react. But while the prospects of peak-oil may yet be hotly contested, the implications of rapidly inflating oil prices are enormous.
Brisbane City Council’s Civic Cabinet recently considered a discussion paper on peak-oil3. BCC, much like any other organisation, could be severely impacted by rising oil prices. It would have huge implications for asset management and policy, not only in the direct cost of its operations, but also on the city’s politics and long range land-use and transport policy.
Not surprisingly, the Lord Mayor labelled the author and the report’s sources ‘zealots’ and ordered an immediate shut down of all internal investigative work into peak-oil and, for good measure, into that other extremist green socialist conspiracy, climate change.
The Lord Mayor, the Honourable Campbell Newman, has invested much political capital in getting five road tunnels built under the city over the next 20 years. His ambition is solve Brisbane’s congestion issues through a massive road building program. The last thing he needs is some bureaucrat suggesting reasons why $4.7bn would be better spent on – say – public transport or supporting local communities.
Peak-oil, like most things ‘environmental’, is an issue that contemporary political institutions have great difficulty in dealing with. But in this case it’s not long-term nature of the issue which creates the disjuncture - for if you believe Heinberg peak-oil is here now – but the nature of democratic decision making. No voter wants to be told the party’s over4.
Car drivers, whilst not a well-organised political interest group, remain a numerically influential voting block. Give them roads and they will love you for it. This is how representative democracies work.
But if you dare tell them they must have less of something – like less personalised, independent, comfortable and affordable travel – they’ll crucify you. People like to read bad news, not vote for it.
For a business, failure to acknowledging peak-oil doesn’t make it go away. But in politics it does. Whilst a business must consider its long-term sustainability, a politician struggles to see beyond the next crisis, or at best, the next election.
That Brisbane’s tunnels will be initially owned and operated by the private sector, in a public-private partnership, offers some hope. However, the successful private consortium will have so many built-in hedges that the burden of a financial failure of the tunnels – from peak-oil reducing traffic – will ultimately rest with people of Brisbane.
But Campbell Newman knows he will be long gone by then.
Notes
- The latest figures by the US energy intelligence administration shows that global demand is now exceeding supply. In the first quarter of 2005, the world consumed 84.38 million barrels a day but supply was at just 84.12 million. (The shortfall is made up by the release of strategic reserves.)
- Edward King-Hubbert is the now infamous geologist that put forward the theory that oil wells and by extension, global oil extraction, rises to a peak, before flattening out and tailing off to exhaustion. His theory has been proven time and again.
- "Future energy and peak oil", Discussion Paper, 2 September 2005.
- "The Party’s Over" was the title of a 2003 book on peak-oil and its implications by Richard Heinburg.
Posted by Living with Matilda at 8:54 AM
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Monday, October 03, 2005
NRL Grand Final and video referee
Posted by Living with Matilda at 8:52 PM
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The NRL season closed with a cracking Grand Final on Sunday night. Alas, the Townsville based North Queensland Cowboys were beaten by Sydney’s Wests-Tigers 30-16.Both teams are renowned for their exhilirating football and their enterprising manner. Even ‘Grand Final’ mode didn’t cramp their style too much; any game featuring Matt Sing, Matt Bowen, Scott Prince and Benji Marshall on the same pitch is going to be a thriller.
The final score seems a run away result, but the Wests-Tigers scored and converted with the final play of the game; just taking it away from the North Queensland right at the death.
It was also a night of technology inspired refereeing. Tim Mander is probably the best in the business, but even he had to enlist the help of the video-ref twice to adjudicate on tries. Both times, his deference was justified: firstly to rule on the subtlest of obstructions to rule out a North Queensland try, and secondly to rule on a grounding for Wests-Tigers. It was an excellent example of where video technology can bolster adjudication and achieve its goal: getting the right decision made.
Most consistent?
The North Queensland versus Wests-Tigers match program was made possible by the NRL competition rules, which blend the traditional league ladder followed with an elimination system to decide the winner from the top eight finishers.
Over the entire season, the two best teams had been Parramatta and St George-Illawara; they finished 1st and 2nd respectively. But both these teams were beaten on the night in the semi-finals - by North Queensland and Wests-Tigers.
Such a system has its merits and its drawbacks. On the down side, the most consistent team in the season doesn’t win the Premiership. Although coming top of the ladder paves an easier route to the Grand Final (ie either of the top four finishers can still loose a game and still get through), it still comes down to deciding the entire season by a performance in 80 mins.
But on a positive note, the NRL can generate some exciting FA Cup-like Grand Finals, much like this year. To win the Premiership, a team needs to relatively consistent, but also able to produce the goods on the day, when it counts: in a final. Last week, North Queensland thrashed Parramatta 29-0, so no team that takes the Premiership is a bad team.
With the English soccer Premiership looking like all one way traffic and attendances down, maybe its time for a shake up over there.
Posted by Living with Matilda at 8:52 PM
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Sunday, October 02, 2005
Holiday snaps, phase 3
Posted by Living with Matilda at 1:31 PM
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Phase 2 of our recent holiday snaps (Lennox Head) can be found here:http://www.geocities.com/buckwells_du7/holiday.htm
That's it.
Posted by Living with Matilda at 1:31 PM
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| I am employed by Brisbane City Council. All views expressed in this blog are my own and in no way reflect the views of my employer. |
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