A LETTER FROM AN AUSTRALIAN FARMER

For over 18 months - in conjunction with others in 3 states and under the guidance of Constitutional lawyers, I have been researching our land ownership rights. What is becoming clear to us, is that the NSW and QLD state govts in particular, and including so-called democratic govts all around the world are in the process of removing firstly our land ownership rights and secondly our personal rights.

The threats of global warming have been an absolute boon to this long-term plan, allowing the greenies to whip up such fear in the community that the community then literally begs the govt to make laws to protect us from this threat. Hence, farmers (of whom I am one) are blamed for much of the development of warming and are being forced by laws and courts which were outlawed in Britain in the 1600's! to stand aside under duress while their land ownership rights - also supported via the Magna Carta, the 1688 Bill of Rights and onto our Constitution - are eroded and removed.

We Australians must learn our rights, speak them out and stand up for the cornerstone of our country. If you are interested in the issue of land ownership and our rights this site may inform you. http://www.websiteezy.com/Envirofarm/ We are currently preparing for 7 High Court cases asking the judiciary to clarify our rights and other relevant issues.

I do not believe in the threat that we are told global warming offers, but I do think that the changes people are making in their lives due to these GW threats are probably beneficial long term, but to force people to do so through rules and regulations is against everything every freedom fighter over the centuries stood for and against our basic Constitutional laws. Laws which were set in place by Godly men and are being removed by unGodly ones. We as average citizens cannot break the laws of our land without punishment, why then the guardians of those laws - our politicians and law makers?





Federal Leftists get on school standards bandwagon



The cartoon above refers to the fact that the new Federal Labor party policy is very similar to the policy of Australia's Federal conservatives. The main difference apears to be that the Left will not put much backbone into it

Kevin Rudd has pledged to introduce a back-to-basics national curriculum in maths, science, English and history within three years of winning office. In a move aimed at seizing the initiative on the national curriculum debate after years of discussion, the Labor leader said it should be "concise, in plain English and understandable to both parents and teachers".

And in a challenge to teachers' unions, Mr Rudd said union leaders would not be offered a place on the National Curriculum Board that a Labor government would establish to develop consistent national curriculums from kindergarten to Year 12.

The new benchmarks would include a recommended reading list of Australian literature and classics, which the Opposition confirmed last night would include Shakespeare. Younger maths students would be required to understand multiplication and fractions, and senior history students would have to demonstrate a systematic understanding of Australian history.

"Australia has been talking for years about the need for a national curriculum," Mr Rudd said yesterday. "A national curriculum will mean that a student moving between Western Australia, Queensland, NSW and Victoria will not be disadvantaged." Labor predicted the plan could be achieved in consultation with the states. It immediately won qualified support from Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, but the NSW Government remained sceptical about the value of a national curriculum, even under a federal ALP government.

Labor's plan would also include a new discussion to boost languages in schools, echoing the elevation of "language other than English" program in the Queensland Goss government during the 1990s, when Mr Rudd was director-general of the Department of Premier and Cabinet. The program, introduced in 1991, had set an ambitious target to have all Queensland students studying a second language by 2000.

A veteran of battles with the teachers' union in Queensland during his years as a public servant and more recently during the debate over the state's controversial Studies of Society and the Environment, Mr Rudd said there was no place for unions on the curriculum board. "We will not have representation from the unions," he said. "This is a professional curriculum body with representation from the states and territories and curriculum experts from the non-government sector as well."

Mr Rudd's show of determination to resist union pressure on education came as the Government sought to paint him as weak on industrial relations. A succession of government ministers demanded Labor reveal whether it would keep small business exempt from unfair dismissal laws after Labor frontbencher Craig Emerson hinted on Tuesday night that Labor would give the sector special treatment. Dr Emerson's comments at a meeting of small business people caused jitters among some Labor MPs and unionists, who are demanding Labor give all workers the same treatment, regardless of the size of their employer.

In parliament, Education Minister Julie Bishop accused Mr Rudd of plagiarising the term "education revolution" from [disgraced] former Labor leader Mark Latham. "Naughty boy! You stole that idea, didn't you?" she said, later adding: "You will have to go to the naughty corner, won't you?"

Ms Bishop said the suggestion that a national system could be achieved through co-operation with the states was "politically naive" and signalled she would introduce her own plan for a national curriculum by using the threat of funding to force action.

Labor was also on the attack over early childhood education in parliament, seizing on secret cabinet submissions revealing the Prime Minister had recommended action in 2003 but failed to deliver.

Mr Beattie yesterday backed the plan to develop a national curriculum, but only if standards were lifted. "We don't want to lose the edge that we have, but if it means lifting the national standard up to Queensland standards then we would support that," he said.

NSW Education Minister Carmel Tebbutt welcomed the more consultative approach adopted by Mr Rudd and Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith, but said NSW would not accept a national curriculum simply for the sake of uniformity. "I remain concerned that any move to a national curriculum could result in an undermining of our standards," she said.

The chairwoman of the Australian Council of Deans of Education, Sue Willis, said progress towards a national curriculum framework was continually being derailed by short-term policy bursts that failed to provide any consistency over the long term. Victorian Education Minister John Lenders said he was confident that Mr Rudd's proposal would "lift standards rather than dumbing down standards to the lowest common denominator". "Ms Bishop's approach has been aggressive and confrontational," Mr Lenders said.

NSW Teachers Federation president Maree O'Halloran said it was essential for teachers to be involved in any national curriculum. "The people who actually develop and deliver the curriculum and understand the needs of students and teachers are the people in our classrooms currently," Ms O'Halloran said.

The announcements build on Labor's policy to invest $450 million to provide four-year-olds with 15 hours a week of high-quality early childhood education and provide $111 million to encourage students to study maths and science at university.

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More on police corruption in Victoria

Police union fingered

Victoria's police corruption watchdog has launched an inquiry into the force's disciplinary system after releasing a report accusing the police union of obstructing attempts to root out rotten officers for more than acentury.

The report on historic patterns of corruption within the force said the Police Association had nurtured a "them and us" culture that encouraged officers to "develop improper associations and protect corrupt officers". Office of Police Integrity director George Brouwer said the association needed to decide whether to act for the vast majority of honest officers or "throw all its weight and effort behind protecting or supporting people who have serious question marks about them".

Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon said the association's role in protecting its members' interests at times "may have hindered" attempts to fight corruption in the force.

The report sparked an angry reaction from the association, with secretary Paul Mullett describing its findings as "scaremongering", "ill-based" and "fundamentally flawed".

Announcing the inquiry, Mr Brouwer said there were a lot of weaknesses in the internal disciplinary system, including processes that could be manipulated by corrupt police to delay proceedings against them. The report outlines the association's role as a "militant group with significant political clout" in objecting to inquiries and fighting anti-corruption reforms stretching back more than 100 years. It said the use of the association's $14 million legal fighting fund had led to police accused of corruption receiving substantial financial support from the union.

Speaking after the opening session of a two-day national round table on police corruption hosted by the OPI, Mr Brouwer said the association was "one of the factors that has complicated issues" for the chief commissioner in cleaning up the force. "The association can play a very important constructive role in order to produce and support an ethical force. It can also play a negative role," he said.

Ms Nixon denied that her position as chief commissioner had been undermined by a secret pre-election deal negotiated directly between the Bracks Government and the association. While acknowledging that Queensland's Fitzgerald inquiry had recommended such negotiations should not be conducted behind the back of a police commissioner, Ms Nixon said she should not have been included in the talks. "That was a negotiation between a political party and a lobby group," she said. "I don't think my position has been undermined. I'm the police commissioner and I have a contract until 2009. I haven't had an undermined position."

Ms Nixon said she hoped the inquiry would lead to changes that made the disciplinary system more effective and overcame delays in dealing with officers who were guilty of corruption or misconduct.

Senior Sergeant Mullett denied that the association had hindered attempts to clean up Victoria Police, saying it was "totally opposed to corruption" and had only been defending the rights of its members. He accused Mr Brouwer and Ms Nixon of "working hand-in-glove" to undermine public confidence in rank-and-file police by attacks on the association. He said that not giving the association a chance to respond to matters raised in the report before it was tabled in parliament yesterday had been a denial of natural justice.

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Environmentalism: More facts, less evangelism needed

Comment by columnist Janet Albrechtsen

The timing is perfect. Al Gore wins an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth. If Rolling Stone is right, Gore will soon be running for president with his “save the world” message. Then, next month, Nicholas Stern, author of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, will be in Australia preaching the same message. His visit will be the 21st-century version of a Billy Graham crusade, complete with demands that we come to Jesus. Sinners - those sceptics of the Stern gospel on global warming - will be urged to repent. Many of them, overcome by emotion and group hysteria, will do so. And if the eco-evangelists could arrange it, there would be television cameras to capture images of new believers swooning into their saviour’s arms.

Even for those of us who realise the human psyche is drawn to emotional claims of doom and gloom, it’s easy to fall for the hype. Catch a few glimpses of the Christmas bush fires, the drought, Gore looking like an ageing Superman impersonator predicting cities being swamped and headlines that Bondi beach is under threat. Add more headlines about the ostensible consensus among experts that humans are causing catastrophic global warming. Employees soon start to question the big companies they work for because, these days, big is synonymous with bad. The big bosses start embracing global warming so they look lean and clean in a competitive marketplace for goods, services and employees. People start calling on governments to do something. Governments then get drawn into the whirlwind of global warming, overreacting on the basis of emotion, not fact.

Before Stern arrives, it’s time to visit the other camps on climate change. Those who are sceptical of the degree and dangers of warming predicted by Stern and co. Those who point out there are benefits to global warming. And those who warn against regulatory overreach. Relegated to economic and scientific journals, the serious rebuttals of Stern rarely get a mention.

Instead, the sceptics of the global warming orthodoxy are the deniers. But when The Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman recently wrote: “Let’s just say that global-warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers”, it unveiled the emotion and zealotry driving this debate. In fact, it’s not a debate at all. If it were, we might see a headline along the lines of “Experts sink Stern” because that is precisely what a group of eminent scientists and economists did late last year.

The Stern Review: A Dual Critique in the December edition of World Economics debunked Stern’s claim that “much of the debate over the attribution of climate change has now been settled”. It warned that Stern’s exaggerated predictions depend on a selective and biased treatment of scientific sources and evidence. Stern’s review is classic come-to-Jesus stuff for those searching for a utopian, post-carbon world. No cost-benefit analysis of global warming. No careful prodding of uncertain studies. Just end-of-the-world scenarios. And the saviour is Stern’s prescription of hiked-up carbon taxes.

Stern points to emissions driving global temperatures to dangerous levels. The critique of Stern points out that the rate of warming during the late 20th century was similar to an earlier natural warming period between 1905 and 1940, a period preceding industrial-driven greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the recent warming, according to these scientists, was of less magnitude than earlier millennial warmings during the medieval, Roman and Minoan warm periods. And a rapid rise in CO2 emissions for the two decades after 1940 was accompanied by a fall in temperature. That’s right: cooler temperatures.

In fact, scientists such as Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, and Bob Carter from James Cook University point to the real possibility of global cooling should the sun revert to the lazier position associated with the Little Ice Age. The Russian Academy of Science has issued similar warnings.

Stern predicts a global population of 15 billion by 2100. More people means more suffering. Yet, according to the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, there is only a 2.5 per cent probability that world population will exceed 14.4billion by 2100.

Fewer people means less suffering, but that doesn’t suit Stern’s exaggerated claims. Stern’s executive summary points to anywhere from 15 per cent to 50 per cent of species facing risks of extinction if temperatures rise by even 2C. The critique points out that higher CO2 emissions will boost plant growth, promoting biodiversity that may assist ecosystems, something Stern ignores. The scientists conclude that Stern’s assessment, based on studies that are “fraught with uncertainties”, presents a “worse-than-worst scenario, based on a naive and one-sided appeal to literature”.

Stern’s most glaring omission is the human ability to adapt to changes. Apparently climates change but humans do not. Stern’s black predictions of declining agricultural yields and global hunger - “250 million to 550 million additional people may be at risk” - are based on studies that ignore human ingenuity: people developing new technologies, planting new crops, choosing different animal breeds and so on. As the critique points out, estimating “the impacts of climate change decades from now is tantamount to estimating today’s level of hunger (and agricultural production) based on technology of 50 years ago”.

Technology has transformed the world because people adapt. Ignoring such a basic feature of human history and progress tells you much about the lack of rigour behind the evangelists who preach the global warming message.

But wait, there’s more. The critique reveals that Stern relies on information from groups that have an “explicit policy of refusing to allow external examination” of their data. They point to the Climatic Research Unit, whose data feeds into global temperature predictions used by Stern. Phil Jones from the CRU has said: “Why should I make the data available to you when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?”

The so-called consensus on global warming is a manufactured one built by those whose careers depend on acceptance of climate change fundamentalism. And the peer-review process means drawing peers from the same global warming orthodoxy milieu as the authors. But brace yourself for more preaching. Stern’s visit will be followed by Earth Hour, supported by the City of Sydney, the NSW Government and an array of businesses, when Sydneysiders will be asked to turn off their lights for one hour. Then a surge of electricity will be needed when the Save Our Selves from climate change 24-hour concert hits Sydney later this year. When we get more facts and less gimmicks, there will be a real debate on global warming. Until then, governments should tread carefully.

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