Markets & Justice

Markets & Justice
Freely operating markets yield a just outcome?

White Australia Has A Black History

White Australia Has A Black History

Wednesday 29 April 2015

Vatican and U.N. team up on climate change against skeptics

Say good-bye to doomed and ancient trees at Buangor - come to the art convergence this Sunday

FROM THE WHAM FACEBOOK SITE:
Say your goodbyes to these beautiful old redgums who've been living in the Middle Creek area long before it had that name - 200-400 years previously, at least. Say goodbye to the young trees too. There aren't too many growing on adjacent farmland. NONE of these trees are protected. 
Not by the ‪#‎AndrewsGvt‬.
Not by anyone who has the power to protect them. 

Say goodbye.

AN INVITATION
Noticed any roads authorities vandalising ancient habitat trees
on the Western Highway lately? 
Come to Buangor on the 3 May - Sunday - 10am to 3pm 
and help record the treasures we are losing. 

Bring all your own materials, picnic, chair, etc. 
(NB - good toilets at Beaufort!) 
The enormous environmental damage being inflicted upon us all 
is to save a TOTAL OF 2 WHOLE MINUTES of travel time 
between Beaufort and Ararat! 
For more details contact as per poster or via WHAM on Facebook

Numbers to phone for more information:
0408 545 229
0400 713 175

Could you also bring Yellow Ribbons
to tie around the trees
As a symbol of our care for them
Please know, we are being positive about saving these trees
for future generations


Tuesday 28 April 2015

Pope Francis takes aim at capitalism as "a new tyranny"

Pope Francis has taken aim at capitalism as "a new tyranny" and is urging world leaders to step up their efforts against poverty and inequality, saying "thou shall not kill" the economy. Francis calls on rich people to share their wealth.

The existing financial system that fuels the unequal distribution of wealth and violence must be changed, the Pope warned.

"How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?" Pope Francis asked an audience at the Vatican.

The global economic crisis, which has gripped much of Europe and America, has the Pope asking how countries can function, or realize their full economic potential, if they are weighed down by the debts of capitalism.

 “A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules,” the 84-page document, known as an apostolic exhortation, said.

"To all this we can add widespread corruption and self-serving tax evasion, which has taken on worldwide dimensions. The thirst for power and possessions knows no limits", the pope’s document says.

He goes on to explain that in this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which has become the only rule we live by.
For more please read here

Monday 27 April 2015

Advocacy at St Pauls monthly meeting to-night at 7pm. See details below

Advocacy at St Pauls monthly meeting to-night at 7pm. 
If you are interested in campaigning for social and environmental justice
you are most welcome. 
We meet in the Vestry Room which is at the back of St Paul's. 
Come down St Paul's Way and park in the car park at the back of the church.

Thursday 23 April 2015

... and when you finish with stuff, what do you do with it?

Reposted with permission from The Gleaner: What does your shopping list look like? Whether its clothes or groceries or furniture and furnishings, the motto should be Consider Disposition before Acquisition.  

In short, as we make a decision to purchase we should be considering what to do with all the stuff we acquire after we have finished with it?

What do we really need?

On the shopping list on the left, all that is necessary is the fruit and vegetables.  And as for that category, there can be a great deal of culling if we grow our own.

I am a renter and so have my limitations with gardening. Almost all of it is done in pots - and I have a wide definition of what is a pot.  Irrespective of size or what it is made of, it is surprising what can be a pot. In my yard, I have the sort of pots one buys at Bunnings, old saucepans and pots, a watering can, pallets lined with weed matting, storage jars, storage crates, a Woolworths shopping basket, and there are the pots I 'acquire' - from others' throw aways  mostly.

I love a good forage among my herbs and veges in preparation for the evening meal.  And I don't stop at what is in the pots.  You see, I take an interest in edible weeds - particularly dock and plantain.

And if I have fruit and vegetable waste?  That's easy - a no brainer, in fact.  Things like onion peels and citrus skins and crushed eggshells go in the compost (and I add, through the compost's life span, stuff like lime and blood and bone to my compost). The other stuff - the vegetable peels, skins, cores etc - go into my busy farm of red wriggler worms who convert the stuff into worm poo and worm juice which goes back to the garden.

This way my food waste becomes beneficial
and part of an on-going cycle of life and death.



Wednesday 22 April 2015

National Volunteer Week 2015 - and clearing the catchment with the Leigh Catchment Group on the Yarrowee

High Tea on the Yarrowee - Saturday 16th May

High Tea on the Yarrowee


National Volunteer Week - Working Bee
Saturday 16th May, 2015
Yarrowee River
Hummfray Street, South (footbridge), Mount Pleasant
1:00 - 3:30pm
 

More than 6 million Australian volunteers give happiness to others each year. And research says that that those volunteers are happier as a result. So this National Volunteer Week (11-17 May 2015), help us make Australia the happiest place on earth, by giving as much of your time as you can. Give Happy. Live Happy.
To celebrate the Leigh Catchment Group will be holding a working bee on the Yarrowee River. We will be doing some maintenance on a planting completed in 2014 and preparing some ground for planting in June 2015. All volunteers will be rewarded with 'High Tea on the Yarrowee' . This will include scones with jam and cream, tea, coffee and bush tea for those who would like to try something different.
BYO: Gloves and sturdy footwear
We will meet at the footbridge on Hummfray Street, South, Mt Pleasant (near the Prest Street bridge).
For a map of our meeting site click here

For further information contact:
Kate Constance
Mobile: 0409 585 998
Phone: 5341 2364
e-mail: katelcg@iinet.net.au


For further information on the benefits of volunteering click here
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Tuesday 21 April 2015

Religious literacy - much needed insight in dealing with and writing about world affairs

Originally posted on Beside The Creek. Re-posted here with permission.

What is Religious Literacy?

Get the gist of what Religious Literacy is all about
by exploring Lapidomedia.

LAPIDO MEANS TO SPEAK UP in the Acholi dialect of Northern Uganda.  Religiously literate media work helped to end a war there between 2003-5.  We were founded by journalists to advocate for greater awareness of the faith dimension in policy, governance, and conflict in the UK and abroad.
Many news stories do not make sense - whether to journalists or policy makers who feed off what they report - without understanding religion. Lapido Media is an internationally networked, British-based philanthro-media charity, founded in 2005, that seeks to increase understanding among journalists and opinion formers of the way religion shapes world affairs. 
It’s called religious literacy.  We run media briefingspublish research and essays and work with journalists around the world.  Our stringers practise on our website the kind of religiously literate journalism we wish to see, going deeper to the sources of social motivations, and providing a resource for other journalists.  And we work with civil society groups on campaigns and media strategy to improve the flow and quality of stories with a religion dimension. 

Lapido Media e-newsletter - View email in browser | Forward to a friend
THE DAWKINS EFFECT ON RELIGIOUS DEBATE – AN APPRAISAL
HAVE New Atheism and Richard Dawkins contributed to or hindered our understanding of modern faith?

Read more here>>
EGYPT EXPORTS INTERFAITH 'BRIDGE'
AS IRAN comes in from the cold, Iranian-born artist highlighted among 47 Middle Eastern works coming to London.

Read more here>>
TOP PICKS FROM OUR WORLD MEDIA WATCH
AS the 100th Armenian genocide anniversary approaches, initial delight in Turkey's AKP government among Christians sours amidst rising sectarianism (Al-Monitor). Meanwhile, the World Bank gets religion as its president declares 'we have to have the partnership of religious leaders' to end extreme poverty (Washington Post). Finally, to mark Holocaust Day last week, the story of a Muslim country–the only European nation to boast a larger Jewish population than it had before the war (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). 

Wednesday 15 April 2015

#BringBackOurGirls one year on. Please pray for their return.

At St Paul's, our Parish Priest - Father Constantine - is Nigerian.
At St Paul's we have had quiet vigils, lit many candles.
We long for all the girls to come home, to be restored to their families.
Pray with us.


The abduction that catapulted Boko Haram into the global limelight was just the tip of almost six years of carnage from a group seeking to impose a caliphate on Africa’s largest and religiously mixed nation. Countless other families have been left adrift in a limbo of uncertainty. 

According to Amnesty International, 
2,000 women and girls have been abducted since the start of 2014. 

But as historic elections this month ushered in a new Nigerian government, many hope for a break from a past administration often shrouded in secrecy and public blunders in its dealings with the sect. A key challenge for the incoming government of Muhammadu Buhari, a former dictator who crushed a similar religious sect during the 1980s, will be how it handles Boko Haram. 

From The Guardian - please read more here
#BringBackOurGirls for the sake of all girls, everywhere
Bring Back Our Girls on Facebook



Home > Discover > Blog > May 2014 > #BringBackOurGirls for the sake of all girls, everywhere

#BringBackOurGirls for the sake of all girls, everywhere

- See more at: http://www.unicef.org.au/Discover/unicef-australia-blog/May-2014/BringBackOurGirls.aspx?gclid=CjwKEAjw9bKpBRD-geiF8OHz4EcSJACO4O7TiH4h2uW3d2Gs1GKoqhpogeqw_LOc7CPB9uEcXxHMpRoCYZ_w_wcB#sthash.qry0nbFw.dpuf

Home > Discover > Blog > May 2014 > #BringBackOurGirls for the sake of all girls, everywhere

#BringBackOurGirls for the sake of all girls, everywhere

- See more at: http://www.unicef.org.au/Discover/unicef-australia-blog/May-2014/BringBackOurGirls.aspx?gclid=CjwKEAjw9bKpBRD-geiF8OHz4EcSJACO4O7TiH4h2uW3d2Gs1GKoqhpogeqw_LOc7CPB9uEcXxHMpRoCYZ_w_wcB#sthash.qry0nbFw.dpuf

#AustralianAid down the tubes while the rich are getting richer

It's OECD-official. #AustralianAid is at it's lowest levels. Unimpressed? Join http://t.co/CEcVwDzErG pic.twitter.com/M4RpjEaYDe
— Australian Aid (@campaignforaid) April 9, 2015

Tuesday 14 April 2015

Whistleblowers? The Australian Govt has legislated so hard people can't draw breath let alone whistle.

The Australian Border Force Bill currently before the Senate carries a mandatory 2 year jail term for Department of Immigration and Border Protection public servants who become whistleblowers.
Why would we need such a law except to cover up human rights abuses by the Australian Government towards refugees.
We are disgusted. How about you?
The ASRC has made rigorous written submissions against this bill to the Senate Committee reviewing it.

PLEASE DO YOUR BIT TO STOP THE FORCED REMOVAL OF ABORIGINAL PEOPLE FROM THEIR HOMELANDS


The text below is from www.concernedaustralians.com.au.

Will You Help to Prevent a Crisis? 

The Commonwealth’s commitment to Homelands and Outstations was surely sealed by the 1967 Referendum. How can it be then that the federal government can consider abandoning their long-held responsibilities by cutting essential funding to these especially vulnerable areas? 

What is clear is that the Commonwealth knows full well that the consequences of the cuts will fall with brute force onto Aboriginal communities least able to defend themselves. Such behaviour is contemptible. 

It is quite clear that state governments do not have the resources 
to simply replace Federal funding.

Mr. Barnett in Western Australia has responded by indicating that he will close up to 150 remote Aboriginal communities by simply cutting off their essential services – water, power etc. Arrangements with the South Australia government are still to be determined but at this stage the outstations fear their fate will be similar to those in the West. 

The results of such actions are perhaps too great to contemplate, just as there is no real attempt to understand the cultural implications of moving people from their traditional homelands. 

What does closure mean? 

The relationship between Aboriginal peoples and their lands is acknowledged but little understood. The connection to land is the embodiment of Aboriginal cultural identity. It totally embraces a sense of belonging without which there is a life long sense of grieving and loss. 

It is only on your own land that you have rights – once you move these rights are lost and you become simply a squatter on somebody else’s land. Forced removals in the past have proved devastating and costly, not only to the communities themselves but also to the surrounding communities responsible for resettlement. Nearly all outback Aboriginal communities are under-resourced, have inadequate infrastructure and are grappling with social problems. 

To burden these communities further is unthinkable. Such action would place Australia in conflict with international law. "...forced evictions are ... incompatible with the requirements of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and could only be justified in the most exceptional circumstances...." UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, General Comment No.4, (1991) 

Pope Francis warns Australia of socio-economic disaster when he states, “severing the ties of Aboriginal people from their land and thus their culture, spirituality and very foundation of their being, is unethical, immoral, un-Christian and heartless.” 

We strongly believe that the Federal funding decision should be reversed. 
For this we need your urgent help. 

Can you either send letters or telephone Tony Abbott and Nigel Scullion and tell them that it would be totally unacceptable for funding to Remote Communities to be cut. The Uniting Church, guided by Congress and local synods, opposes the closure of communities and forced removals. Many of the points they have made are included in the list below as a help for those who wish to write letters. Contact details of the Prime Minister and the Minister for Indigenous Affairs are also below.  

Points for Letters –Writers Opposing Remote Community Closures: 
(you may like to focus your letter on one or more of the below points) 

• The unconscionable failure of the Federal Government to maintain its responsibility for the safety and future of Aboriginal Peoples from Outstations/Homelands.
• To close communities will create a wave of dispossession denying people the ability to stay in touch with their land and their culture. 
• There has been no attempt by government to understand what such forced community closures and movement of people means for people’s social, mental, spiritual and physical life. 
• There has been no consultation with Aboriginal people or the organisations which represent them regarding alternative solutions, and 
• The movement of so many people would put enormous pressure on the communities they go to – housing, education, health facilities, and community relationships. Nothing has been done to plan for and deal with such impacts. 

Hon. Tony Abbott: 
Parliament House, 
PO Box 6022, 
Canberra ACT 2600 
Tel: (02) 6277 7700 
Electoral Office: 
PO Box 450, Manly, NSW, 2095 
Telephone: (02) 9977 6411 

Hon. Nigel Scullion: 
Parliament House, 
PO Box 6100, 
Canberra, ACT 2600 
Tel: (02) 6277 7780,  
Electoral Office: 
Unit 1, 229 McMillans Road, 
Jingili, NT 0810 
Telephone: (08) 8948 3555 

Telephone Calls to Oppose Remote Community Closures: 
If you decide to telephone your concern to the offices of Mr Abbott and Mr Scullion please give your name and address while leaving a message stating your strong objections to these funding cuts that will lead to the closure of homelands/outstations. Demand that the decision is reversed. If you have the energy, please do also inform your Local Member of your concerns.  

Monday 13 April 2015

Thursday 9 April 2015

Food, Food, Glorious Food - but is it Australian, do we have food security, or are a lot of us eating rubbish?


Fair Food - The Trailer from The Field Institute on Vimeo.


Anybody curious about our food system in Australia and the issues impacting it must see Fair Food the documentary. 
Screening this Saturday at midday 
at the Rural Lifestyle Expo 
at the Ballarat Showgrounds. 
http://www.ballaratfood.com/…/ballarat-fair-food-screening-…

Posted by Ballarat Food on Tuesday, 7 April 2015

Wednesday 8 April 2015

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE : SHINE BRIGHT CANDLELIGHT VIGIL: THE COSTS AND CAUSES

For anyone in or around Melbourne on the 6th of May, 
please go along to Federation Square for a candlelight vigil 
being held by Victoria's statewide DV Crisis Line. 

They're doing fantastic work in Victoria 
speaking up for the need for specialist women's services 
and against violence against women. 
They're even speaking up about their considerable concerns 
about what's been happening to women's refuges north of the border in NSW. 
They definitely deserve support.

Pondering peace

Do we have answers to these questions?
Do we even consider these questions?
Is peace merely the absence of war or something more?

The governments of the world spend a lot of our money
on preparations for war.
Do the governments of the world spend a lot of money
on preparations for peace?

In short, where is our investment in peace?
Or do we prefer investments in standing armies 
and their weapons and equipment?

Do we prefer to invest in that which titillates us -
consumption of retail goods, entertainment, sport?

Perhaps, the beginning of peace is to invest in
people, planet, other species -
the things that creation began with.

Tuesday 7 April 2015

The First Australians - begin at the beginning with the material below


We have seen comments and received messages from people who want to know more about the real history of Australia - The...
Posted by Sovereign Union on Sunday, 5 April 2015

The Carmichael Mine - Bimblebox, the Great Barrier Reef, Wetlands and water ... all are in the firing line

Carmichael Coal Mine

Community group Land Services of Coast and Country launched legal proceedings in September against Adani’s Carmichael Coal Mine in the Queensland Land Court on the grounds of climate change, groundwater impacts and protection of the threatened Black-throated Finch.

The proposed Adani Carmichael underground and open-cut mine, railway and port project includes building Australia’s largest thermal coal mine in the Galilee Basin in Central Queensland. It will be linked by a purpose built 388km rail line to a new terminal at Abbot Point Port adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef near Bowen. It will export to India 60 million tonnes of coal each year over its estimated life of 60 to 90 years.

The Carmichael coal mine will open up the currently untouched Galilee Basin coal reserve. It will impact on the threatened ecological community at Doongmabulla Springs and the million year old groundwater resources that are the life blood of surrounding farmers. It will also significantly impact threatened species including one of only two nationally important populations of the endangered Black-throated Finch (pictured).
The hearing of the mining lease applications and objections 
is listed for five weeks commencing on Monday, 30 March 2015.
For information visit EDO Queensland.

Neighbouring the Galilee Basin is Bimblebox Nature Refuge 

Tarkine in Motion - Happening. Right. Now. So is the Western Highway Duplication in Victoria. Destruction abounds. Habitat destroyed.





The above action is scheduled for the Tarkine in Tasmania.

Meanwhile along the Western Highway,
ancient river red gums and much vegetation and habitat
is being destroyed by Vic Roads
as the duplication of the Western Highway progresses.

The Western Highway is Australia's second busiest highway.
It is the major road route from Melbourne to Adelaide.
It is second only to the Hume Highway
which is the major road route between Melbourne and Sydney.

The main vehicle for protest and airing angst is on Facebook.
WHAM

WHAM is planning to imitate the Bob Brown Foundation's
Tarkine event with one of its own.
Here are the details from Helen Lewers.
Please diarise and plan to attend.
Bob Brown has organised an artist's convergence for the now threatened Tarkine in Tas - and WHAM is going to have one too at Buangor on the weekend of 2-3 May, 2015. Please come with your cameras, sketch pads, paints and pencils, to record what may very well be soon lost to us, to local fauna and to successive generations of people and animals.

Traditional Owners speak out against Adani's Carmichael Mine in the Galilee Basin of Queensland

"If the Carmichael mine proceeds it will tear the heart out of our country. It will pollute and drain billions of litres of groundwater, and obliterate important spring systems. It will potentially wipe out threatened and endangered species. It will literally leave a huge black hole of monumental proportions in our homelands. These effects are irreversible. Our land will be disappeared." 

- Adrian Burragubba, Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owner

This is one of the bravest things we've seen. 

The Traditional Owners of Queensland's Galilee Basin - the Wangan and Jagalingou people - have made the courageous decision to stop Adani building a giant coal mine on their ancestral lands. 

The Wangan and Jagalingou Family Council have launched their online campaign to stop Adani on GetUp's grassroots campaigning platform CommunityRun. Already, over 75,000 Australians have signed their petition, making it one of the largest and fastest growing campaigns ever on CommunityRun. To watch Adrian's incredible campaign video, learn more about the fight and join the campaign, click here: www.communityrun.org/p/stopadani 

You can read the original email from Wangan and Jagalingou spokesperson Adrian Burragubba below. 

----- 



My name is Adrian Burragubba, and I'm a proud Traditional Owner of Wangan and Jagalingou country in central Queensland. You might know the area better as the Galilee Basin, where Adani wants to build one of the biggest coal mines in the world. 

My people have formally rejected an Indigenous Land Use Agreement with Adani to build the Carmichael coal mine on our land. I'm asking you and all people to join us in our fight. 

We are gravely concerned about Adani and the Queensland Government's desperate attempts to open up the Carmichael mine on Wangan and Jagalingou country. Our traditional lands are an interconnected and living whole; a vital cultural landscape. It is central to us as a People, and to the maintenance of our identity, laws and consequent rights. 

If the Carmichael mine proceeds it will tear the heart out of our country. The scale of this mine means it would have devastating impacts on our native title, ancestral lands and waters, our totemic plants and animals, and our environmental and cultural heritage. 

It will pollute and drain billions of litres of groundwater, and obliterate important spring systems. It will potentially wipe out threatened and endangered species. It will literally leave a huge black hole of monumental proportions in our homelands. These effects are irreversible. Our land will be "disappeared". 

I'm asking you to stand with my people as we fight Adani. Please sign our petition here:https://www.communityrun.org/p/stopadani 

The direct impacts won't be limited to our lands – they would have cascading effects on the neighbouring lands and waters of other Traditional Owners and other landholders in the region. The mine would unleash a mass of carbon into the atmosphere and propel dangerous global warming. 

At no time have we, the Wangan and Jagalingou people given our free, prior and informed consent to the Queensland Government or Adani for the development of the Carmichael mine. But only days after we rejected Adani's Indigenous Land Use Agreement, the company took aggressive legal action to override our decision. 

Adani wants to release themselves from the obligation to secure our agreement to mine our land. If they are successful in their legal ploy, they will also be able to seek the compulsory acquisition of our Native Title on our traditional lands. 

Adani is using its huge wealth and legal power against us while pretending to support our interests. We object in the strongest terms to their aggressive action to override us. We will not accept 'shut up money' so the mine can go ahead. 

We know our battle is a hard one. It is not just the multi-billion dollar might of Adani that my people are up against. Both the former LNP Queensland Government and Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt approved Adani's mine through the regulatory process. 

As first peoples, we will defend our rights as traditional custodians, protect our ancestral land and cultural health, and maintain our interests in and on our country. We will protect our land for the benefit of our people, the wider Australian community, and all of us who will be affected by the consequences of global warming. 

When we say No, we mean No. It's time Adani learned. 

Thank you for listening to my story and hearing our call. Please join us: https://www.communityrun.org/p/stopadani 

Adrian Burragubba, on behalf of the Wangan and Jagalingou people. 

PS - CommunityRun is a site hosted by GetUp where anyone, like me, can start their own campaign. Your details haven't been shared with anyone else. 


GetUp is an independent, not-for-profit community campaigning group. We use new technology to empower Australians to have their say on important national issues. We receive no political party or government funding, and every campaign we run is entirely supported by voluntary donations. If you'd like to contribute to help fund GetUp's work, please donate now! To unsubscribe from GetUp, please click here.
Our team acknowledges that we meet and work on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We wish to pay respect to their Elders - past, present and future - and acknowledge the important role all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to play within Australia and the GetUp community.
Authorised by Sam Mclean, Level 2, 104 Commonwealth Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010.