Should people be free to bushwalk unprepared?

A Victorian bushwalker in NSW has been fined on charges of “lack of planning or preparation”. The 29-year-old man, name unknown, went off on a long walk last Saturday  in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. He was leaving from Newnes and heading east across the rugged Wollemi National Park to Colo Heights. He carried a kilo of potatoes and an unknown quantity of naan bread which he estimated would last him three days.

He told friends who dropped him off he would meet them at the other end on Wednesday at 3pm. When he didn’t rendezvous at the appointed time, his friends alerted authorities who mounted a search and rescue operation. With the help of two helicopters, they found him just four hours later on the track. The first helicopter spotted him and the second winched him out of the Wolgan Valley. According to Police, the man had suffered a minor ankle injury and declined treatment. Police took him to Katoomba station for questioning before giving him a $500 infringement notice.

None of the media covering the story stated why this was an offence (they were all too obsessed with the spuds and naan) but they did quote NSW Police Force Rescue commander Brenton Charlton who said the route through remote terrain was extremely difficult to complete safely and had taken much longer than estimated. "Getting the basics right with trekking is so easy - all people have to do is notify the police or other responsible person of their trip intention and carry a personal locator beacon," Charlton said. "Making use of available technology, together with some commonsense trip preparation, could mean the difference between life or death."

Whatever about that quantity of food being sufficient for three days,  it is clear the man was underprepared. Though some people on that bushwalk forum said the walk was possible in three days, even a modicum of research would have uncovered it was likely to take much longer. According to this site devoted to walks at Newnes, the track to Upper Colo is listed as a very hard grade walk that takes seven days. The walk “ is for experienced and well prepared walkers only! Country traversed is rugged and there are no tracks beyond Annie Rowan Creek.” Its advice is “Check with your local bushwalking club before attempting this one.”

Clearly the Victorian did not take this into account. But should that be an offence? And should all bushwalkers be forced to take a “personal locator beam”?  PLBs are distress radio beacons which transmit location information about individuals directly to Search and Rescue forces letting them know that the owner is in grave and imminent danger. They retail on Gumtree for around $225 second hand though Blue Mountains police apparently do give them out for free. When Briton Jamie Neale was found alive after being missing in 2009 for 12 nights, Blue Mountains police superintendent Tony McWhirter told media they have free PLB for bushwalkers so they can locate them. However since then, the law has changed.

The NSW police media release (which was the basis for all media stories - no journalist did original research) did state why the fine was activated. It was issued under the National Parks and Wildlife Regulations of 2009 for engaging "in activity that risks the safety of self/others". The relevant clause is 22(1)(d) which reads “Sporting, recreational and other activities
(1) A person must not in a park:
(d) engage in any activity or recreational pursuit that involves risking the safety of the person or the safety of other persons or damaging the environment.
Maximum penalty: 30 penalty units.”

As a contributor to a NSW buskwalk forum said, the fine was troubling. “Guy sounds like an idiot", said colinm, “but I don't see that it necessarily warrants a fine. Since he's a Victorian, I bet he doesn't contest the charge, so is a bit of a soft target.” So should bushwalkers be forced to be prepared or should anyone have the right to go out and do what they want? Was it necessary for an expensive search and rescue operation to be mounted when the man was just four hours late? And what equipment should be compulsory on any trip? These angles were not covered by media. In their efforts to make the trekker look like a fool, the naan bread proved more alluring than the nanny state.

To CSG or not to CSG, that is the question for NSW

New South Wales is finally grappling with issues in its burgeoning coal seam gas industry that Queensland has had to deal with for several years. As early as 2008 Lucas Energy described NSW as “full of opportunity” for CSG companies. But the State was slow to catch on. Currently, gas makes up 10% of the NSW energy mix and more than 90% of that gas is imported from other states. But that is rapidly changing as companies attempt to exploit its rich resources to feed the Asian and local gas market. The State Government has approved exploration wells and extraction projects in Gunnedah, the Hunter Valley and Sydney’s southwest and applications are in place for the Illawarra and Gloucester. But as the industry flexes its muscles, it is beginning to run into some stern resistance.

The Greens’ Jeremy Buckingham has introduced a private member’s bill in the NSW Upper House which proposes a 12 month moratorium on “the granting of exploration licences for, and the production of, coal seam gas; and for other purposes”. It also wants an end to mining in the Sydney area.

NSW Labor has done a 180 degree turn in opposition and now supports Buckingham’s moratorium. Labor leader John Robertson announced a new policy this week of supporting a moratorium on coal seam gas licences, the issuing of extraction licenses and applications to expand existing operations. Robertson said the Government should not be allowing CSG extraction to proceed until a water-tight regulatory framework is in place based on “independent scientific research and conclusive evidence”.

Their party comrades north of the Tweed are still in Government but face opinion polls of 39-61 and are likely to lose next year’s election. With three major projects approved, the incoming Queensland LNP are unlikely to change their mind and support the ongoing moratorium calls from farm and environmental groups. And a NSW moratorium won’t succeed without the support of the NSW Liberal Government. The voters may be uneasy about CSG, but the new NSW Government is looking enviously at Queensland’s royalties.

When NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell was elected in March, he immediately announced a 60-day moratorium on CSG exploration licences citing concerns about the contamination of prime agricultural land. When that expired, NSW Resources and Energy Minister Chris Hartcher imposed further regulations on the industry including banning the BTEX chemicals banned by Queensland, a continued moratorium until the end of the year on fracking, the need for water licences, a ban on evaporation ponds and new public consultation guidelines. Hartcher continues to tiptoe around the issue. He said it was important the inquiry heard all views, including that of industry. "Everybody's interests need to be looked at and considered including those of landholders, the industry and the government,” he said.

But the Libs have constituted an Upper House Inquiry conducting statewide public hearings on August 5. It was tasked to “inquire into and report on the environmental, health, economic and social impacts of coal seam gas activities” and also examines CSG’s role in “meeting the future energy needs of NSW”. Its report is due on April 6, 2012.

Local government officials are telling the Inquiry they are unhappy with the industry. Lismore City Mayor Jennifer Dowell told the Inquiry her council was opposed to CSG developments. Dowell cited issues such as produced water, evaporation ponds, irrigation groundwater contamination, methane leakage, loss of prime agricultural land, landholder agreements and social impacts. At the same hearing Ballina Mayor and presidential of the regional group, Phillip Silver agreed with Lismore but recognised an inconsistency in that resolution; “Similar to climate change, fluoridation and other scientific matters there probably never will be a unanimous scientific view,” Silver said.

It is the proposed exploration well in the inner Sydney suburb of St Peters that is been particularly controversial because it is close to residential properties and the well would penetrate an aquifer. Dart Energy hold a Petroleum Exploration Licence for the Sydney Basin covering 2385 km2 of the Sydney Basin from Gosford on the Central Coast to Coalcliff south of Sydney. Sydney Mayor Clover Moore says they want a halt to the issuing of exploration licences. Sydney’s submission argues that aquifers and groundwater systems could be significantly impacted. "Gas can help us transition to a greener future, but that can't happen unless the environmental safeguards are in place," Moore said. "Gas is not greener if we destroy our farmlands to get there."

Major industry player Santos fronted the Inquiry on Thursday. They have been producing CSG in Queensland since 1995. Not surprisingly their submission is in favour of coal seam gas mining. They said the practice was safe and environmentally sustainable. Of importance is the fact Santos have bought NSW leading player Eastern Gas for just under $1 billion which builds on Santos’ existing interests in the Gunnedah Basin. Eastern Star Gas Limited's Narrabri Power Project supplies gas from the 11.3 PJ Proved and Probable gas reserves at the Coonarah Gas Field, (12 km west of Narrabri), to the Wilga Park Power Station under a 10 year agreement with Country Energy.

The word is that Santos needs NSW gas to meet their first train commitments in 2014-2015. Santos vice president for eastern Australia James Baulderstone told the hearing on Thursday Santos's acquisition of Eastern Star made it the principal CSG exploration and ultimately production business in NSW. Baulderstone said Santos have withdrawn the controversial 270km Mullaley pipeline from Narrabri to the Wellington power station.

However he argued strongly against issuing a moratorium on CSG exploration until more scientific data is available, as CSG opponents have requested. "Let's be frank, many of those that oppose our industry know that stopping exploration now will stop the long-term development of the industry in NSW," Baulderstone said. "Ongoing exploration activity provides the additional scientific data and knowledge of the geology and water resource that everyone agrees is needed." Barry O'Farrell will have to decide come April, if as is likely, the Government doesn't support the private member's bill.

Mandatory detention at Trial Bay Jail, South West Rocks

South West Rocks in mid-Northern NSW is one of the most beautiful spots on the east coast of Australia but its beauty hides a dark history. 5km to the east of the town lies Laggers Point. It was here in the 19th century authorities wanted to build a breakwater at a logical point half way between Port Stephens and Moreton Bay. It was not to be a new port, as locals might have wished, but just a handy sheltering point for ships caught in storms.

In 1861 the NSW parliament, fresh from the horrors of the convict era, wanted to usher in a more enlightened form of incarceration for its prisoners. Two good ideas came together with the building of the Laggers Point breakwater by convict labour. A new prison built in 1877-1878 of exceptionally hard local granite was constructed at what would be called Trial Bay.

Prisoners were not to be sequestered away in their cells but would be employed by Public Works to build the breakwater. By all accounts it was a success at improving prisoner morale (though would end up back in the justice system after completing their sentence. Several prisoners near the end of their sentences were allowed to become “licence holders” allowed to leave the prison on occasion and able to collect weeks.

But Trial Bay was less successful as an engineering project. The dual control between prison officers and public works officers led to friction and the prevailing sea conditions meant that after 10 years only one seventh of the breakwater had been built. Washaways and washbacks in storms were a particular problem constantly eating in to existing work. In 1893 a large storm caused a new opening of the Macleay river at South West Rocks and silting up the old mouth further north at Grassy Head. This contributed to the growing irrelevancy of the project.

Authorities pressed on until 1901 though with no great success. By then events had overtaken the project with improvements in shipbuilding meaning they were less prone to sinking in storms and there was no longer a need for a safe haven at South West Rocks. In 1903, the NSW Government decided to close Trial Bay jail. The experiment was over.

The prison lay abandoned until 1914. When war broke out, the Federal Government passed the War Precautions Act which created a new class of illegal and enemy aliens who were to be detained indefinitely. These included naturalised citizens and those whose fathers and grandfathers were subjects of a country “at war with the King”. Over 6,000 people were rounded up including German merchant seamen in Australia or some other colony when war broke out. It also included German families, many Jewish, who had settled in Australia and had no love for the Kaiser’s regime.

They were to be sent to an Australian ‘zivil lager’ for the duration of the war. The vast majority were held at Holsworthy Barracks in western Sydney but some were held in Berrima, in southwest NSW while Trial Bay was also re-opened in 1915. Those sent here would be the “upper 500”, citizens of “higher social status” who would be kept away from the rifffaff. This did not mean an easy ride for the detainees. The first batch took 24 hours to get from Sydney to Jerseyville by car and then a forced three hour march for the final 8km to Trial Bay. When they got there, they found their luggage had been looted.

But the inmates made the most of conditions. There were chess, boxing and bowling clubs. There were two choral societies and there was a theatre club with ornate designs and costumes made by inmates. Theatre club president Max Herz was also one of Australia’s foremost child physicians and was the highly competent camp doctor. Interned life was also made more bearable with the terrific weather of the region meaning the coast was centre of most activities year-round with fishing and a café on the beach. There was a carpenter’s shop, chair factory and even a newspaper publisher.

The inmates stayed at South West Rocks for three years. They erected a monument overlooking the jail to commemorate the five lives lost during their incarceration (three drowned, two died of TB after leaving the prison). In 1918 with the war nearing its end, authorities decided to shut down the jail and moved the 500 back to Holsworthy. There was to be no happy ending for the detainees Most were refused permission to stay in Australia, dividing families.Only 306 out of 5,600 were allowed to remain in the country. Worse still in 1919 as authorities prepared to repatriate the thousands to Germany, Spanish Flu devastated the camp killing hundreds.

Meanwhile Trial Bay remained unloved and neglected. The German monument was vandalised and the cairn knocked over in 1919 when local heard about desecration of Australian war graves overseas. In 1922 the local council held an auction to sell off the roof and other valuable components.

It was until after World War II that this important part of Australian history began to be cherished. A local history heritage group worked with the Kempsey Shire Council to restore the cairn and the prison itself. Finally in 1991 the site was declared on the register of National Estate and the Public Works took it over, just as they did 100 years earlier. This time however, as a museum rather than a prison.

NSW Labor finally deliver something on schedule: its own execution

As expected for almost four years, the Liberals have regained power in NSW for the first time since 1995. It was a victory made almost a day after the last election four years ago when it was clear the state had enough of Labor but weren’t quite ready to trust the other lot.

Labor were always going to lose today, as long as the opposition leader didn’t have any sexual peccadilloes to be exposed. NSW’s incoming premier Barry O’Farrell has no such skeletons in his closet, and was quite content to stay in that closet while Labor quietly and quickly destroyed itself. Premier Maurice Iemma survived the 2007 election not because he was any good – he was useless – but because the well-liked John Brogden couldn’t control his tongue. His successor Peter Debnam was inept in the election campaign.

Barry O’Farrell was deputy leader under Brogden and favourite to replace him. Debnam outmanoeuvred him in 2005 but fell on his own sword after the 2007 election. O’Farrell is typical Irish stock, conservative, canny and pragmatic to a fault. He knew that to win the 2011 election he simply had to not put a foot wrong. This meant keeping dancing engagements to a minimum and letting Labor hang itself with the help of a favourable media.

Under O’Farrell the Liberals quickly established a lead in the polls. Iemma quit barely a year after winning and his replacement Nathan Rees was quickly seen as a dead man walking. Leading the state during the GFC didn’t help as revenues shrunk and three by-elections resulted in massive defeat for the party. But Rees had even less gravitas than Iemma and both were compared unfavourably to party hero Bob Carr. Some critics wanted to fast-forward to the next election and criticised the state’s mandatory four year terms. As Antony Green pointed out, this was nonsense. The Rees government would have been highly unlikely to call an election until the last possible date because opinion polls indicate it couldn't win.

But what the fixed term did do was to mark 26 March 2011 on the long term calendar as a day of retribution. Whoever was Labor leader on that day would pay for 16 years of apparent ineptitude. NSW ranks last in state economies. Given that it remains the state with the biggest population and Australia’s biggest and only international city, it rankled with status-conscious locals.

Despite the fact NSW unemployment is now falling the damage was done. Kristina Kenealy was drafted in to replace the increasingly exposed Rees. Her enthusiasm and American glamour made her personally popular but she was unable to stop the inevitable blood bath today. The result was as expected with O’Farrell’s coalition expected to win 68 seats to Labor’s 22. It is a defeat the scale of which is likely to keep it out of power for 12 to 16 years.

While Labor retreats to nurse its wounds, O’Farrell will now have to step out of the shadows. As David Marr said in 2009 O'Farrell was determined but cautious. "He commits no blunders." Marr also called him one of the most capable apparatchiks the party has produced in a generation. In 1992 he defeated Tony Abbott to become State Director of NSW Liberals. Long content to be a backroom boy he told people “when I lose weight and the beard, then you'll know I'm after the Liberal leadership.” In 2001 the beard went and he started weight loss programs two years later as Brogden’s deputy.

Marr notes how O’Farrell’s failure to step up to replace Brogden in 2005 “haunts his career”. As he celebrates being the first Liberal leader of NSW in over 17 years, perhaps now he can forget his old nightmares. The serious question remains however, can he help NSW forget its?

Twitter and politics: The Penrith Debate points to the future

Among the 1,200 tweets with the #penrithdebate tag, the most retweeted comment of the day came not from a politician but from a journalist who has long been familiar with the medium: Joe Hildebrand. Hildebrand used the conventions of his craft to turn the debate into an ironic news headline “EXCLUSIVE: TWITTER DEBATE CONFUSED, NONSENSICAL AND UNPRODUCTIVE; PERFECT REPRESENTATION OF NSW POLITICS” At least 41 others liked Hildebrand’s contribution enough to send it on to their followers too (photo: ABC)

The joke was funny because it used the metaphor of the Twitter debate standing in for the entire panoply of governance in NSW. But if true, Hildebrand as a Sydney based News Limited reporter, is part of the problem. As one observer noted, “Twitter is too short, and with a lot of people tweeting to participate in the debate means that information just flies by without being properly looked and picked apart”. Yet journalists and other truth finders can easily pick through the bones of the debate after the fact.

The Penrith Debate was an exchange of ideas between NSW three political leaders using Twitter as the communication channel for 30 minutes ahead of a state by-election in Penrith on the weekend. Under the moderation of TV journalist Kevin Wilde, the leaders Premier Kristina Keneally, the Liberals' Barry O’Farrell and the Greens' Lee Rhiannon would use the 140-character format to debate ideas, issues and policies. Keneally made grandiose claims about the possibilities: “Twitter flattens democratic debate. Enlivens democracy. A great tool for discussion, info exchange.”

All of this is true after a fashion, but Twitter does not make for great theatre. Because of the tool’s shortcomings with multi-pronged conversation, the debate became more geek gimmickry than any flush of oratory. Tech and social commentator Stilgherrian picked up on this calling it “confusing and pointless” and said Twitter was “completely the wrong medium for a debate.” Stilgherrian made the point that following the three Twitter streams was almost like watching three TV stations. Yet he also said a filtered stream of the hashtag limited to the participants was available on the day.

Twitter may be flawed but we forget it is just one piece of the communication puzzle. Keneally used her iphone to make her Tweets while Rhiannon used Tweetdeck. Others used a bewildering array of tools that sit on top of Twitter to make their points. The stream is being tamed as people find uses for the vast amount of data it consumes. And the debate, though badly executed, contained the germ of an old and timeless ideal: public accountability.

Among the masters of public accountability are the Dutch and they held several Twitter debates a couple of weeks ago in the lead-up to national elections. The Netherlands went further than NSW with three party leaders, two ministers and three other MPs taking part. The commentary from Dutch-based John Tyler at HagueGuy showed there was a massive audience for this kind of interaction regardless of how chaotic the rapid fire exchanges got. While it was easy to get confused, the debates have added a vast amount of information for the likes of the HagueGuy and Hildebrand to work with when critiquing politicians.

It is too easy to overlook just how exciting this kind of interactivity is. Working at its best, the Twitterati operates like synapses, a hivemind that is capable of massive thought and concerted action despite its 140 character limits, inherent anarchy, spamming, non sequiturs and juvenile humour. The creative boundary of briefness means complex words and sentences are pared down to their absolute essentials and often chiselled into remarkably dense thought. Admittedly we didn't see much of that today but there will be other opportunities.

More of these debates will be conducted in the trust economy of social media. Politicians will have to learn a new skill: how to become adept at ceding control. Twitter debates (or whatever social media format might follow) won’t decide the election, but with the right tools and the right filters, they can add to the general wellbeing of the body politic by getting tight messages out to a wide and engaged audience.

Greens participant Lee Rhiannon was in no doubt the debate was a success. “There would have been more people following this debate on line than would fit into many local town halls,” she wrote. “I am not saying they should replace public meetings but there is a place for online debates in the political landscape and we should encourage its development.”

While the debate format suited the Greens as it did not exclude them, Rhiannon is right – we should encourage their development. But we should not get too carried away; Rhiannon and the rest did what politicians do in any other debate on any other media. They spoke to their own themes and ignored pointed replies. It is politics, after all. It is up to us to go through the entrails to make sense of it.

Byron and beyond: A northern NSW photoessay

An hour and a bit's drive south of Brisbane lies the Laser lighthouse. The lighthouse is on the border between Queensland and NSW on the tip of Point Danger in Tweed Heads, NSW just a stone's throw up the hill from Coolangatta, Qld. The Captain Cook Memorial lighthouse was the first of its kind commissioned in those go-ahead development days of 1971. But the laser technology was unsuccessful and it returned to using more conventional mirrors four years later.
















This is the mouth of the Tweed river just south of the lighthouse. The Tweed is not quite on the border but in most people's mind is the definitive line where Cockroaches end and Canetoading begins. The river begins out of the massive caldera of Mt Warning which blew its enormous stack 23 million years ago.













Another 80km or so south is Byron Bay. The population is supposedly 5,600 but the tourist traffic makes it seem a lot busier than that. A long-time Aboriginal settlement, Captain Cook gave it its decidedly English name in 1770 when he found safe anchorage at what he called Cape Byron. This Byron was John Byron a fellow English sailor who had circumnavigated the world. He was the grandfather of the more famous poet Lord Byron.  















 Today Byron is a compulsory stop on the backpacker route north from Sydney. Most people come for the beachlife and the renowned surf. 
















Byron's most prominent feature is the white lighthouse built in 1901 at the most easternly point on the Australian mainland.

















Captain Cook also named Julian Rocks in a later voyage in 1776. He named the two main peaks for his nephew Juan and niece Julia. They are the remnants of an ancient volcanic eruption more than 20 million years ago. They were established as a marine reserve in 1982 after 10 years of lobbying. The Rocks are one of Australia's top dive spots and a marine reserve providing shelter and food for more than 500 tropical and temperate fish species.

















 This precariously placed fisherman is hoping some of Julian Rocks marine life has strayed close to the mainland.

















Cape Byron Lighthouse was built in 1901 (year of Australian federation) out of prefabricated concrete blocks in the style of New South Wales colonial architect James Barnet, by Barnet's successor, Charles Harding. The 8-ton optical lens was made by the French company, Societe des Establishment, Henry Lepante, Paris and contains 760 pieces of highly polished prismatic glass. The light is Australia's most powerful.

















 The beautiful Tallow beach lies due south of Cape Byron facing eastwards into the endless Pacific.

















This is the view looking back northwards to Cape Byron from a mostly deserted Tallow Beach.

















About 20kms further south is Lennox Head. This is the view to the township and Seven Mile Beach from Pat Morton lookout south of town.

















This is the view south of Pat Morton looking towards Skennars Head.

















This is Lennox Headland from the town of Lennox Head. It was formed from the same eruption (or one of them) 20 million years ago that carved out Mt Warning.

















Enjoying the view of the Richmond River as it empties into the ocean at Ballina (just south of Lennox).

















Town Hall, Ballina, Seat of Ballina Shire council. I used to think that Ballina (with the stress on Bal'-lina) was named after the County Mayo town of Ballina (with the stress on Ballin-ah') but apparently it is an Aboriginal word meaning "place of many oysters" and the Irish settlers in the area were happy with the dual meaning.




















A view of Mt Warning itself from the Murwillumbah-Nerang back road. Because of its height and proximity to Byron, Mt Warning gets the first light on mainland Australia. Cook named this too in 1770 as a "remarkable sharp-peaked mountain lying inland" that alerted him to the dangerous reefs near Fingal Head.
















Lamington National Park on the Queensland-NSW border
















The border post on the lightly-used Murwillumbah-Nerang back road.

Daylight saving: A modest proposal

Time was that the time only mattered locally. Once upon a time, it didn’t matter that Zurich was a few minutes behind Milan because nothing happened in Zurich that needed to be synchronised exactly in Milan. But the advent of the railway and the telegraph changed all that. Suddenly it made sense for Zurich and Milan to be on the same time. (photo by Glutnix)

As the dominant power of the era, Britain was first to realise the benefit of a single national time. The country adopted Greenwich Mean Time in 1847 and it was set in concrete once the railways adopted it a year later. Their convention was adopted by the world in the International Meridian Conference of 1884. Its governance is still remarkably extant. Australia did not exist as a political entity at the time was represented by Britain to ensure the sun never went down on its empire.

But because Australia did exist as a reality, it is mentioned in the 1884 conference notes. It noted the 150th, 135th, and 120th meridians of east longitude which were “admirably located for governing” represented the eastern, central, and western divisions of that continent. With admirable simplicity, it recommended Eastern Australia to be 10 hours ahead of the motherland. (The time in the West is not specified).

But that simplicity is not what exists today. Overnight, a partial delivery of daylight saving has seen Australia transform itself into a blancmange of time zones and all-round national stupidity. As I write this now it is 8:38pm here in Queensland, it is 9:38pm in NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT. It is 8:08pm in Darwin, It is 9:08pm in Adelaide. It is 6:38pm in Perth. It is a mess everywhere.

This is an indictment of how we manage time as a nation. How much of the growing national conversation is wiped out because of these inconsistencies? How much business?

This is not a Daylight Savings argument, this is about consistency across the region. Even in winter, Adelaide and Darwin are still a somewhat pointless half hour out of synch.

So here is my modest proposal, a modification of the 1884 argument: All states and territories (except WA) should go on the one time zone, the one now used by Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Hobart.

This would mean all of Eastern Australia would have the same time. Given that time zones are based around populations as much as geography, it makes sense that the standard time should be that of NSW and Victoria, still Australia’s two biggest states.

If this were the case, Eastern Australia would now be on Australian Eastern Summer Time (AEST). As I write this the time would now be 10:10pm here in Queensland 10:10pm in NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT, 10:10pm in Darwin and 10:10pm in Adelaide. A situation everyone would find it easy to remember and manage.

The southern states and territories should have no problem dealing with my proposal as their times don’t change.

The proposal would be far harder for SA which would jump another half hour and NT which would jump by 90 minutes in summer. It is certainly a difficult proposal for them given their position in the centre of the country. But it might not be impossible to sell. Many in urban areas may appreciate the extra half hour daylight saving all year round. More might agree that 30 minutes is a small price to pay for synchronisation with the East Coast. The NT might need further convincing but should not stop the proposal by themselves.

Queensland is more problematic. It would be unaffected in winter but would pick up an hour of daylight saving in summer. The state is currently split down the middle on this issue and Anna Bligh will not hold a referendum on the issue because she knows she cannot control the outcome. If the issue could be re-shaped as one of national interest, it may be less divisive. If South Australia which is further west could be convinced to say yes then there is no reason for Queensland to reject it.

Time should be a federal matter and Queensland should not be allowed to make a decision of this importance on its own. Australia should be making the decision not the states because the problem of time zones affects the country as a whole, not just the states. It is an economic problem of communicating across the nation in real time. And it will only get worse.

I will admit here and now to this being a personal preference based on my own location.

The South-East of Queensland is a peculiarly anomalous zone of timekeeping. Brisbane is the most easterly city in Australia but lags an hour behind Sydney and Melbourne for six months. The fact that even Adelaide is half hour ahead of Brisbane for that period is completely absurd as a casual glance at a map will confirm.

Hopefully in a hundred years or so, this lack of standardisation will look as idiotic as the lack of common gauge rail system. China is bigger than Australia but has just one time zone. The curvature of the earth imposes limits but I expect the pressure of global 24 x 7 communication will only inspire further consolidation.

Synchonising Eastern Australia would be a good start.

Spinning the Garrett Parrot: NSW Government and News Ltd are exaggerating job losses

The NSW and Victoria National Parks Associations (NPA) say that claims of large job losses in the NSW logging industry are unfounded. Both the NSW Government and News Ltd media have been running hard against Federal Government environment minister Peter Garrett for his stop work decision in NSW Murray wetlands which are the home of the threatened green leek parrot. Their argument is that a thousand jobs are at risk. However NSW NPA cites documents prepared for Forests NSW which show there are at most 120 direct jobs in the River Red Gum logging industry. “[NSW Primary Industry] Minister Macdonald has exaggerated the issue by an order of magnitude" say the NPA.

News Limited media outlets have also used the parrot to undermine the federal government’s claim it is serious about saving Australian jobs. The furore has led to the ludicrous headlines such as “parrot endangers jobs”. The Sydney Daily Telegraph launched its jackboots into the discussion on Monday with an editorial that called the government’s position “sheer lunacy”. It said concerns about the impact of logging in the area are well documented and a “dramatic stopwork” would put a thousand people out of work.

However, besides the exaggeration about the numbers, News Ltd is also ignoring the fact the logging is illegal. The NPA says the NSW government agency Forests NSW is flouting the law. “This is an extraordinary case of the NSW Government itself being caught red-handed, illegally logging our internationally significant Red Gum wetlands,” said NPA spokesperson Georgina Woods. She applauded Garrett for “preventing illegal logging of internationally significant River Red Gum wetlands in south-western NSW”.

Peter Garrett has been cautious in response, well aware of the inflammatory power of the media. He said the issue was the potential for logging to impact on wetlands of international importance.. He said the issue was the subject of discussion between the Commonwealth and the NSW government. Garrett says he expects these discussions to conclude by the end of the month and afterwards logging would still able to go ahead in a large part of the forest. “It was an important question of balance” he said. “Protecting habitat and internationally listed wetlands, with the need to protect jobs in the region.”

However Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt was keen to paint the government’s delaying action as “overkill”. Local Liberal federal member for the NSW seat of Farrer, Sussan Ley, brought the matter up in Question Time yesterday. Ley insists that loggers on the ground have been told a stop work order exists ready to be activated by the end of the month. She asked Garrett would he reverse the decision given that the parrot is not endangered but 1000 jobs in her electorate were.

Garrett replied that his department had not issued a stop work order for the NSW Central Murray State Forests area. He said he had spoken to the NSW Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald and asked him to hurry up consideration of the matter. Garrett reminded Ley there was national environment legislation (The EPBC Act introduced by the Howard Government) that affected the logging and Australia is subject to international agreements for the protection of biodiversity.

And the wetlands are extremely important from a biodiversity perspective. The NSW Central Murray State Forests and the Ramsar wetlands in Victoria (Barmah and Gunbower forests) form the largest complex of tree-dominated floodplain wetlands in southern Australia. Inside the forests lives the green leek parrot, more commonly known as the “superb parrot” (polytelis swainsonlii). Although not officially endangered, it is considered a threatened species with just a few thousand birds left in the wild. They face dangers from landclearing, loss of hollows, and lack of regeneration of woodland habitat. It also faces competition from the introduced common myna bird.

Because of the parrots vulnerability, it is the subject of a Victorian government “action statement”. The problem that although parrot nest trees with hollows are typically large and old (and therefore of low commercial timber value), adjacent trees are often subject to logging. There is also no similar plan in NSW. The cross-border area is home to the Yorta Yorta people who don’t recognise the difference between the states. Yorta Yorta Nation spokesperson, Neville Atkinson, said he hoped the Red Gum forests would be protected on both sides of the river. "We want to see the whole area managed to protect its environmental values and our heritage,” he said. “We want to ensure that the knowledge of our people, acquired over untold generations, is applied in any future management of the area.

Premier Dilemma: Whither Morris Iemma?

A week out from his 47th birthday, NSW Premier Morris Iemma announced his intention to fight on as leader saying he is listening to the criticism which is “sending him a clear message to work harder”. Many in politics and the media have interpreted these criticisms (both in poor opinion polls and from factions within the ruling party) as a sign that Iemma cannot “take a trick” and should quit. The calls come in the wake of criticism after a string of recent scandals. These included his disgraceful “annoyance laws” for World Youth Day (laws the Catholic Church says it didn’t ask for), his senior Minister John Della Bosca’s resignation for his role in the Iguanagate farce, a Labor MP’s involvement in a Wollongong bribery scandal and the revolt by trade unions over Iemma’s plans for privatisation of the electricity retail sector.

But writing in the Australian yesterday (unfortunately article not online), Imre Salusinszky poured cold water on the arguments that Iemma is on his way out. He said his party enemies lacked the numbers to replace him and the Sydney media outlets which have predicted his demise have been writing the same exclusives since December last year. Salusinszky may not be totally neutral observer, he wrote a feature article on Iemma for the Weekend Australian in early 2007. Crikey have commented on the strangeness of a “fevered anti-communist and hard right ideologue from Quadrant” supporting Iemma, himself the son of a Communist.

Iemma’s father Giuseppe was a member of the Communist Party in the tough southern province of Reggio Calabria, in the boot heel of Italy. The Iemmas owned a patch of land outside Martone in the hills of Calabria. But poverty forced Giuseppe and his wife Maria to emigrate to Sydney in 1960. They faced this new and strange environment among friends; they shared a house with five other newly arrived Italian families on an estate in Glebe. Morris Iemma was born a year later. The Iemma family moved to Sydney’s Beverly Hills (which thirty years earlier changed its name from the dumpy Dumbleton to match the California suburb where movie stars lived).

The life of the Iemma family was typical for what Anglo Australians called “wogs” in the 1960s and 70s. Both Giuseppe and Maria worked long hours going from job to job in metal foundries, blanket factories and clothing sweatshops. Morris Iemma remembers how his mother’s fingers were bent from years of working in sweatshops. I poked my head inside some of those clothing factories, one in Sussex Street - they were terrible places,” he remembered. “My mother's neck and hands, knees. Her fingers are all bent, ganglions.”

Giuseppe’s political passion seeped into his son and Morris was active in Young Labor by the time he turned 16. Iemma studied economics and majored in industrial relations and politics at the University of Sydney. He took the traditional Labor route to power first with a bank union, then worked for federal ALP senator and factional powerbroker Graham Richardson for five years. Under his tutelage young Morris learned all about the backroom deal and how to use political opportunism.

In the 1991 election Iemma ran for the marginal seat of Hurstville against a Liberal sitting member. Then a shy 29 year old, he ran a on a campaign of “a local who listens”. He asked Labor leader Bob Carr to come out and make only one promise: to reopen the estate's Housing Commission office, closed by Liberal Premier. Iemma won the seat but Nick Greiner retained government. He retained the seat as Labor swept to power in 1995. When Hurstville was abolished in 1999, Bob Carr rewarded Iemma with the nearby safe seat of Lakemba. That same year Iemma was promoted to the outer ministry. His rose through Public Works and then the Sport portfolio. However he was catapulted out of obscurity in 2003 and when Carr appointed him Health Secretary.

When Carr unexpectedly resigned in 2005, the mantle was expected to fall on planning Minister Craig Knowles. There was also deputy leader and treasurer Andrew Refshauge, however he, like Carr, had decided his time was up. When Knowles was convicted of a drink-driving offence Iemma was suddenly the favourite. After Carr anointed him, unpopular Police Minister Carl Scully resigned from the race. Iemma, the last man standing, was unanimously appointed Premier. With two years before he would face the people, Iemma took over as Labor were on the nose, politically. Iemma tried to distance himself from the Carr legacy and was assisted by an incompetent Liberal opposition who put forward a succession of weak leaders. The apparently electable John Brogden nosedived after making a racist remark about Bob Carr’s Malaysian wife and attempted suicide.

Labor almost committed political suicide of its own as Iemma survived the series of scandals before the election. Ports Minister Joe Tripodi was accused of profiting from public land and not disclosing his shareholdings. Carl Scully was sacked as Police Minister after misleading the parliament over the Cronulla Riots. Then there was the Milton Orkopoulos fallout. Iemma sacked the former Aboriginal affairs Minister after he was accused of 30 child sex and drug charges. There were claims senior party officials knew about Orkopoulos but said nothing. Meanwhile, safe Labor seat MP Steven Chaytor was forced to resign after being convicted of assaulting his girlfriend. Parliamentary secretary Tony Stewart resigned after a drink-driving offence and a Minister Kerry Hickey admitted to speeding offences.

Yet the Coalition was unable to turn these fiascos into political capital for itself. New leader Peter Debnam was from the hard right of the party and too focussed on ‘laura norder’ to the detriment of all other issues. When he allowed himself to be photographed in Speedos, he was ridiculed by the media while the people winced at his dick-togs. The same people did give him a three percent swing against the Government, but he needed eight. Iemma had won and was at the peak of his career; finally, he was an elected Premier. In his victory speech he cautioned for humility and gratitude. “Tonight we have been given another chance,” he said. “ The mandate is to get back to work, keep your promises and get services we rely on moving in the right direction”.

But March 2007 was Iemma’s high-water mark. It was all downhill from the election. The biggest issue he faced was a stark divide between his “green” and “brown” ministers. The Green wing (led by Phil Koperberg) was worried about the health of the planet but the brown wing (Michael Costa, Tony Kelly and Ian MacDonald) was more worried the health of the Government which depended on the state’s rich lode of brown coal. Costa went on record accusing the federal Government of Chicken Little politics on global warming, Costa was also behind Iemma’s decision to privatise the retail end of electricity industry attracted by the multi-billion dollar revenues earned by Victoria and Queensland’s privatisation programs. But those plans have now attracted the ire of the union movement who concerned by redundancies have threatened to derail the program,

In other words, very little has changed in the last few years. Iemma’s government has lurched from crisis to crisis. But there is change on the Opposition side. Barry O’Farrell is the best Liberal party leader of the last ten years, though that is not really saying much. ABC pollster Antony Green noted after the last election that the Coalition was better placed to win in 2011 than the overall result indicated. The lesson from 2007 was that no matter how unhappy the electorate was with an incumbent government, voters are reluctant to change unless they are reasonably confident it is for the better. The Liberals are still a fractious mob stacked by the hard right, but recent opinion polls suggest O’Farrell has finally given them a sniff of electability. Labor cannot rely on another Morris minor miracle.

Githabul land claim

After a decade of legal negotiation, an Aboriginal group and the state of New South Wales are about to sign off on a massive native title deal. The Githabul people have negotiated an Indigenous Land Use Agreement which will cover a 6,000 square kilometre area in the northeast of the state near Mount Lindsay. The Githabul will gain joint managerial control of World Heritage Listed national parks and control over future development on the land. It is the biggest native title deal in NSW and will create jobs for the 250 Githabul, as well as giving them the right to traditional activities in the forests, including hunting protected native animals.

The land claim is not yet fully complete. The Githabul lands straddle the state border between NSW and Queensland and negotiations are continuing with the Queensland Government. The claim will be extremely significant for native title as it is the first one to cross state borders. But Queensland is holding out saying they are still examining the claim. The Australian newspaper did a front page feature on the Githabul land claim on Wednesday. In their story they focussed on the disappointment of the Aboriginal people’s failure to secure the 15% of their land in Queensland and thus the peak of Mount Lindsay itself. They quoted Queensland Acting Premier Anna Bligh who said the Government was waiting for more information from the claimants. The Githabul claim that the Queensland government are dragging their heels.

Furthermore the Australian claims the Queensland Government has failed to act because of a rival claim from the Yugambeh people who live near the Gold Coast. Then they quote a Yugambeh spokesman Wesley Aird who says there is no overlap between the claims. Aird said "All our information was that the NSW claim was going really well, but the Queensland side was dragging the chain, and that's typical of their dealings with indigenous people." ALP president Warren Mundine is also chief executive of the NSW Native Title Services group, which funded the claim. He said that if the Queensland Government could approve the claim it would set a precedent for other cross-border situations, such as those around the Mildura area of northwest Victoria. He hopes a deal can be hammered out before the end of 2007.

The NSW decision is the latest in along round of land rights negotiations that stretch back to the Mabo decision of 1992. In that case, the Australian High Court rejected the doctrine of terra nullius, the idea that the continent belonged to no one when the British arrived in 1788. Native title now describes the rights and interests of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in land and waters, according to their traditional laws and customs that are recognised under Australian law. The law was further refined by the Wik decision which recognised that native title could co-exist with pastoral leases though pastoral rights would prevail.

The Noongar people of Perth in Western Australia won another landmark case in September 2006. The Federal Court judge found the Noongar people had proved their claim to more than 6,000 sq km of land in WA including the state capital, Perth. It was the first time a metropolitan area was ruled to belong to indigenous people. Alarmists in the white community expressed concern that public access to urban open spaces and national parks could be at risk. However the Noongar did not claim any freehold or leasehold land and instead are entitled to whatever lands are left over in Perth, which is very little indeed.

The National Native Title Tribunal was set up to examine these claims on an Australia-wide basis. They adjudicate on three types of applications. A claimant application asks for a determination that native title exists in a particular area. A non-claimant application is made by someone who does not claim to have native title but who seeks a determination that native title exists in that area. The third type is compensation application which is made by those seeking compensation for loss or damage to their native title.

The Githabul made a claimant application for their lands on both sides of the state border. They call the rainforest their supermarket. Once the deal is signed, the Githabul will no longer risk being prosecuted and fined for hunting turtles and echidnas in the rainforest. Trevor Close, who led the Githabul claim, said it was lodged because "our boys were sick of being pulled up for doing what they had always done". He continued, "We are all people of the rainforest. It is a supermarket of food."