A Few days was not a long time to "GO FISHING", but the break from 18 hour days was great - NO FISH - but a few refreshments and no bloody computers.

Well Mr Iemma is back in and we must congratulate him on that, where we saw the public funds in the tens of millions of dollars being used and lets not forget "Oil Can Harry" Mark Kaiser, being his chief of staff, and disgraced Queensland politician as an "Election Fraudster", it was a difficult team to defeat.

We did note that the GREEN's again failed and from the loads of email and stool pigeons it would seem that we helped, as we did in Victoria.

Back to work it is with politics on the back burner and a new SOS-NEWS attack force for the people.

Some funny emails have arrived where one person thought we were emailing how to make ICE in our powerpoint slideshow on drugs and the Greens. Another thought we expected the independents to take government and that was why I went fishing. The sad part of all this is that these lateral thinkers are allowed to vote - "maybe that was what went wrong"?

There was one from a lady who had some information on Mike Kiaser for us but unfortunately it was scrambled - could you please send that again.

Editor

Following announcement of the Prime Ministers National Water Plan and his proposal to take over management of water from the States, we have seen - after some initial posturing - State and Territory leaders (Victoria excepted) backing the proposal. By what rationale did they arrive at such a decision? They certainly didn't have a mandate, never having taken the proposal to the electorate ( the NSW Premier having signed off well before the recent State election). The takeover is also clearly contrary to section 100 of the Australian Constitution, which states "The Commonwealth shall not, by any law or regulation of trade or commerce, abridge the right of a State or residents therein to the reasonable use of the waters of rivers for conservation or irrigation."

The issue should thus be the subject of a referendum at the forthcoming Federal election, however, as there is no such proposal, it appears that all levels of Government are prepared to ignore the Constitution whenever it is politically expedient.

In implementing the Plan the Prime Minister initially rejected the formation of an independent organisation - the so called Reserve Bank model - but has since agreed to the formation of an independent Commission headed by industry experts. The challenge will be to ensure that the Commission is truly independent and not subject to the influence or veto of ministers and that Commissioners have appropriate experience and do not have vested interests.  We need many more details of the Plan, and of the Commission, its structure and membership than have been forthcoming to date.

Turning to Snowy Hydro Ltd and the future operation and management of the Snowy Mountains Scheme under the Plan.

The Minister for Environment and Water Resources, Malcolm Turnbull, has stated that Snowy Hydro is a separate issue and is not included in the Plan as it is a combined electricity and water entity and not overly significant in the overall picture -which of course reflects the Governments position - such a position is neither logical or tenable.

The Snowy Scheme's water resource is managed by Snowy Hydro according to conditions of a 75 year Water Licence.  The licence is weighted towards the use of the Scheme's water for electricity production and derivative trading within the National Electricity Market and as such has the potential to sub-optimise use of the Snowy Scheme's water resource for irrigation, the environment and communities in the name of electricity production and trading. Whilst this situation may have been acceptable in the past (although I doubt that it ever was) it is not acceptable going forward when every drop of water will be precious.

Whilst Snowy Hydro's electricity production is insignificant (about 4% of the National Electricity Market) the Snowy Scheme's water resource is certainly not insignificant as it represents up to 33% and 60% of the flow in the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers, respectively, in drought years. Also, the Australian Alps are likely to be proven to be the only viable location on mainland Australia, for cloud seeding and the Snowy Scheme is ideally located to collect and store water from cloud seeding operations.

Thus, in order to achieve optimum water utilization within the Murray-Darling Basin, the management of the Snowy Scheme's water resource MUST be included in the National Water plan and be under the control of the independent Water Commission.

It is time that the Snowy Scheme was managed as a water entity in the National interest - the purpose for which it was built and financed by the Australian people - not as a profit motivated electricity derivative trading business. It is now up to the Commonwealth Government to ensure that such an outcome is achieved.

Finally, whilst there are many details of the Plan yet to emerge I believe that there are two issues of particular significance and concern, these being; ownership of the nations water resource and how that water will be traded.

With respect to ownership. It is imperative that ownership of water remain in public hands for the benefit of all Australians now and in the future. We cannot afford to have our scarcest and most precious natural resource -that is essential to all life and that underpin's the economy - in the hands of and/or controlled by Corporations nor any profit driven enterprise.

Also, a national water trading scheme must be very carefully structured to prevent water allocations ending up in the hands of those with the deepest pockets to the detriment of the economies and social fabric of local communities and/or to the environment.

The National Water Plan has a long way to go before the electorate can be reasonably comfortable that this vital resource, water, will be adequately protected and effectively and efficiently managed for the benefit of all of us.

Max Talbot
Cooma

It doesn’t matter that a person’s academic credits are in an entirely different area of research as this good doctors bio depicts, just as long as it has the gullible public’s attention and makes them feel academically inferior. A man that studies population and urban research is being touted here as a dingo expert and having vastly superior knowledge on the wild dog/dingo than all the farmers that have spent a life time combating this feral scourge.

The Bracks government has to be applauded for taking a pro-active stance against the dreaded marauding wild dog and as soon as does, the greens trot out this city centric polly-waffle and attempt to gain credibility by using the voice box of a Monash mouth piece.

The good thing about the Greens is that they have one train line and keep stoking the boiler with the same diatribe, just changing the voice box. For all of you out there that have the balls to stand in the face of their venomous ranting's, you’ll see they really are poor misguided sods who retreat to their city dwelling and supermarket food quite quickly if they are faced with determined, powerful, steadfast competition.

Simply, every time one opens its mouth, open yours wider and louder. It is illegal to drown them, but drowning them out does the same job.

Go to it Victoria and if after you have received your bounties for killing the wild dog scourge and you have any of the carcass left, dispose of it by delivering it your closest Greenie for resurrection.

Dr Ernest Healy
As for the good doctor labelling the farmers extremists, pleeeeease!!!! Look in the mirror and see who is calling the kettle black. If the farmer used the tactics of the greens, the farmers would be labeled terrorists and charged by our very own Home Land security.

Brumbyy (with2Y's)





Death of the dingo?

NEWS.com.au - March 29, 2007 12:00am

A DINGO conservation group has labelled Victoria's $50 bounty for wild dogs an act of environmental vandalism that will push the animal to extinction.

Hunters will get $50 per dingo and $10 per fox under a $1 million government bounty scheme to eliminate them from bushfire-ravaged areas.

But Dingo CARE network secretary Dr Ernest Healy today said wild dogs included pure dingoes, which were an endangered native species in Victoria.

"The Victoria Labor government has recklessly embarked on a line of action that will push remaining pure and near-pure dingo populations to extinction," he said.

Dr Healy described the bounty as a politically opportunist move designed to appease extremist farmers.

It followed recent bids to re-introduce aerial baiting on public land with the 1080 super toxin, despite the government being repeatedly told of the threatened status of dingoes in Victoria, he said.

Dr Healy added that recent research showed dingoes helped preserve threatened small marsupials from foxes and feral cats.

He said the decision to introduce a bounty should be reversed.



Dr Ernest Healy
Tel: +61 3 990 52963
Fax: +61 3 990 52993
Email: Ernest.Healy@arts.monash.edu.au
Room W10151 10th Floor
Building 11 (Menzies) Clayton Campus
Dr Ernest Healy is a Research Fellow in the Centre for Population and Urban Research.


Biography

Dr Healy completed PhD in Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Monash University 1997. His thesis was an analysis of the relationship between Australian economic, foreign affairs, immigration and multicultural policies under successive federal Labor governments 1983 – 1996.

He also holds a Dip Art and Design 1976; Dip Ed, 1978; BA 1986; Bed 1987 (La Trobe); BA Hons 1989.

Research Dr Healy has contributed to the Centre’s research in a number of areas. He is a co-author of a recent study into the consequences of ethnic concentrations on voting outcomes in Melbourne and Sydney and was a key researcher for the AHURI-funded project ‘Housing and Community in the Compact City’. Ernest’s recent research has focused upon housing market-labour market links in Melbourne, migrant settlement, labour-market change and work force ageing.

Publications

Birrell, B. & Healy, E. (2005) ‘ Baby boomer affluence – myth or reality?’ , Just Policy, no. 37, September 2005

Birrell, B., O’Connor, K., Rapson, V. and Healy, E. (2005) Melbourne 2030 – Planning rhetoric versus urban reality, Melbourne, Monash University ePress

Birrell, B., Healy, E. & Allan, L. (2005) ‘ Labor’s shrinking constituency’, People and Place, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 50-67

O’Connor, K. and Healy, E., ‘Rethinking Suburban Development in Australia: A Melbourne Case Study’, special issue of ‘European Planning Studies’, Vol.12, Issue 1, p. 27, Jan 2004

Wulff, M., Healy E. and Reynolds, M. (2004), ‘Why don’t small households live in small dwellings? – disentangling a planning dilemma’, People and Place, vol. 12 no. 1, pp. 58-70

Birrell, B. and Healy, E. (2003) ‘Migration and the housing affordability crisis’, People and Place, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 43-55

Healy, E. and Birrell, B. (2003) ‘Metropolis divided: the dynamic of spatial inequality and migrant settlement in Sydney’, People and Place, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 65-85

SOS-NEWS will be published on Monday and Friday weekly and I thank you for your overwhelming support to get the information government and their masters do not want you the people to have access to.

Our team of volunteer investigators has expanded as has the whistleblowers where we see the leaks of information streaming in.

Mal Davies (Editor)