"The world is a better place this morning."

As the sun rose over Australia this Sunday morning, the Long Dark Night of the Soul was ended. "The world is a better place this morning," said the Climate Change Coalition candidate for the electorate of Parkes in western and far western New South Wales, Michael Kiely.

"I'm astounded!" he said on seeing the results on Saturday night. Mr Kiely attracted 660+ votes (with 72% of the vote counted). Nationally - with 72% of the vote counted - the Climate Change Coalition's 7 House of Representatives candidates attracted a total of 7,358 votes (or an average of 1,000 each). When asked about the worse than average performance of his campaign in Parkes, the Candidate pointed to the intense conservatism of the electorate and the high concentration of climate sceptics in the bush. "Just to introduce yourself as from a party with the word 'climate' in its name is to invite derision," he said.

"Don't underestimate our contribution: we made sure climate change was on the agenda for all parties - we made sure the ALP and the Greens stayed on message, for fear of giving us any oxygen. It was almost impossible to get media interest for the CCC. And this is, perversely, a measure of our success."

[Nicki Schmidt worked tirelessly all Election Day, swimming against the Ruddslide Tsunami.]

"I am proud to have contributed to a swing of 15% against the National Party because it has served the people of this electorate so poorly, despite their loyalty," said the Candidate. Thanking his booth workers in Mudgee, Dubbo, Coonabarabran, Moree, Parkes and Gunnedah, he said: "We were swept way by the Ruddslide. It was clear when only around 1 in 10 voters took a How To Vote flyer. They charged into those polling booths and they knew who they were after."

The Climate was the winner last night.

"Australia will now ratify the Protocol. It will no longer give President Bush moral coverage for his immoral actions on Climate Change," he said. "We can get up off our knees and face the world with pride now that the Axis of Evil between Australia and the United States is over."

The Candidate - who spent the first 5 weeks of the 6 week campaign organising the recent Carbon Farming Expo & Conference in Mudgee last week - shot an email off to Peter Garrett as the Government crashed. It said: "Congratulations! Now to work.... I believe we have a solution to gaining the cooperation of farmers to transform agriculture to regenerate the farmland ecology. It is enclosed: Carbon Farming. Change without conflict. When can we make a presentation to you?"

The Candidate with Spicers Creek grazier and carbon farmer Tom Green, who also did a full day on his feet for the cause.



"There are 660 good souls (and more) in the Parkes Electorate who care about climate change. If I could build an ark I would make room for all of them. God bless you."



We helped push the Nats to the brink: our preferences flowed to Labor and the Greens.



Vote for the "Good Looking" Ticket.



The Friday before the election we were in the local press in three separate publications. Blanket coverage! No wonder people were looking at me funny while I was in the supermarket."


This political action vehicle contains quotations from the Coalition, including "Where will the Polar Bears live?" It was parked in a prime spot outside the polling station at Mudgee High School.







Dr Karl is quoted on the "Environment Cab" which is a Mudgee feature.



IN MEMORIAM: JOHN HOWARD'S AUSTRALIA

John Howard set out to transform Australia, to remould our society from what he calls ‘the old order’ to what he describes as ‘the new order’. Unions are part of the old order. In John Howard’s Australia, workers are isolated from the support of their coworkers and left to fend for themselves in negotiations with management.

In John Howard’s Australia, every one can have a job, but they need two jobs because wages are too low to pay the mortgage or tollways

In John Howard’s Australia, every home can have a plasma screen television, but not hospital services worthy of a civilised society.

In John Howard’s Australia, we declare a national emergency and send the Army in to stop the Aboriginals abusing their children, but they don’t find much evidence of it.

In John Howard’s Australia the Prime Minister defends Pauline Hanson’s right to make racist remarks and dark-skinned people from the Middle East are locked away in concentration camps in the middle of the desert for up to 7 years – including children – but no white people. Then we express surprise at the Cronulla riots – “race riots” – the ultimate outcome of John Howard’s ‘dog whistling’. Moslem women are spat upon in the streets.

In John Howard’s Australia, the Minister For Immigration demonises one community (Sudanese), accusing them of being violent, lawless and incapable of living peacefully in a civilised society. He neglects to mention that these legitimate migrants from a war-torn African nation were dumped here without support and left to fend for themselves.

In John Howard’s Australia, neighbours are encouraged to spy on each other and report any suspicious activity to security forces. Our banking and telephone activity records are trawled by secret police for evidence that we are terrorists.

In John Howard’s Australia we ban books that the Attorney General believes are likely to encourage terrorism. He defines terrorism. Anyone critical of the Government’s foreign policy could qualify as a terrorist or one encouraging terrorism.

In John Howard’s Australia, the Prime Minister does publicity for a company set up to build nuclear power plants, despite the fact that the majority of citizens are against nuclear power.

In John Howard’s Australia, young people show no respect for authority, but what example have they had? The Prime Minister introduced to our children the concept of the ‘non-core promise’. He explained the lie of ‘keep interest rates at record lows’ by saying he only told the lie for 2 days. He told some very public lies – like ‘they threw their children overboard’ and “Saddam has weapons of mass destruction”.

In John Howard’s Australia, country people are left without decent mobile phone coverage and third world Internet access, even though the nation owned the biggest telecommunications company in the market. With the compliance of the National Party – the true blue defenders of country peoples’ rights – the Government sold Telstra, using another lie: that country people would not be left behind.

In John Howard’s Australia, government scientists are gagged when their findings about global warming contradict government policy. Reports were rewritten or not released.

In John Howard’s Australia, we can see the countryside disintegrating under the weight of a freak drought, but refuse to call it Climate Change. When we finally admit that it might be Climate Change, we refuse to do anything serious to curtail emissions because the coal miners and energy companies might suffer a reduction in profits.

In John Howard’s Australia, a $35billion tax cut to bribe voters is more important than reducing our greenhouse emissions by 30% by 2030 – which would cost the same amount.

In John Howard’s Australia, everyone is better off, but no one feels better off. Youth suicide is at a record high. Rural males are killing themselves in record numbers. Mothers are murdering their children.

How can there be such despair in our booming economy?

There was something wrong in John Howard’s Australia.

Climate candidate sends out SOS

PRESS RELEASE

MICHAEL KIELY
CANDIDATE PARKES
CLIMATE CHANGE COALITION

Michael Kiely, the Climate Change Coalition candidate for the seat of Parkes in next Saturday’s election, is sending up a flare for help. He has only this week to campaign and needs to recruit polling place helpers.

“I’ve been too busy fighting Climate Change to run a conventional campaign,” says Michael Kiely, organiser of the Carbon Farming Expo & Conference last Friday and Saturday in Mudgee. It attracted close to 400 delegates from every state of Australia and New Zealand. Scientists and ‘carbon farmers’ told the audience that soil can play a dramatic part in the battle to stop rising world temperatures.

“There are 5.5 billion hectares of soil controlled by farmers around the globe. If they were able to sequester an average of one tonne of carbon per hectare, they could soak up the entire annual emissions of the world,” says Mr Kiely.

The Kiely Family have been campaigning for more than 2 years to have farmers rewarded for growing soil carbon. Michael is standing for the Climate Change Coalition to put the issue at the top of the agenda.

“I couldn’t have run the world’s first carbon farming conference to bring the top scientists and farmers together while pushing a political barrow. It would have risked disrupting the conference,” says Mr Kiely.

“As it was, we invited my chief opponent Mark Coulton of the Nationals to address the conference to prove we weren’t a political front. And I did not announce my candidature until the end of the conference. This puts me and the Climate Change Coalition party at a disadvantage. But the conference was a great success.””

The Conference heard of three programs for trading soil carbon credits and two programs for selling “carboncredited” wool and other produce.

The delegates voted unanimously for the Government to provide $10 million for more research in soil carbon and for every farmer to have their soil carbon tests done for free to encourage them to join the ‘carbon farming’ movement and start absorbing more CO2.

The Climate Change Coalition was founded by Patrice Newell who is a candidate for the Senate in NSW.

For more information, call 02 6374 0329

Vote1climate.blogspot.com
www.climatechangecoalition.com.au

Healthcare

Voters of Parkes Electorate: You people amaze me. As our healthcare system heads towards Third World standards in country towns, I say to the voters “You deserve what you get.” In the past 11 years, healthcare services have declined dramatically in Australia. The Liberal Party and the National Party - who are promising to spend up big on healthcare - are the same people who took it away in the first place. Astonishing! What a hide! John Howard must think we have lost our memories. He breaks the Ninth Commandment: “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” But we cannot blame John Howard for being a liar. That’s his nature. But you must take responsibility for the situation. You voted for him and the Nationals who have supported him and collaborated in the attack on healthcare in the bush. And you’ll do it again. Madness!

Coal mining and climate change

Voters of Parkes Electorate: The Government and the ALP want to keep digging coal out of the ground and selling it to the Chinese who are building a new coal-fired power station every 5 days and pumping trillions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. The majority of genuine climate scientists in the world – not the handful of right wing crackpots who deny Climate Change is man-made – say CO2 is causing the droughts, floods, cyclones, and other natural disasters. The world is hitting itself on the head with a hammer and complaining about its headache. Get used to it. Australia is like a junkie drug pusher, addicted to the money from coal, knowing it is killing people and destroying lives, but to addled to stop. Who is responsible? You are. You voted for them. You deserve what you get. You must take responsibility for the situation.

Country Roads

Voters of Parkes Electorate: The Government has provided you with the roads you complain about. Narrow, dangerous roads that kill people. Roads that are pummelled everyday by massive trucks, B-Doubles and bigger, that cause millions of dollars damage. Roads that could be made safer and better if we made greater use of rail systems. What could the major parties do with the $34 billion they are using to bribe you to vote for them? You’ll have your pockets stuffed with money and your house stuffed with plasma screen tv sets, but risk death every time you drive on the roads. More kids will die. Who is responsible for this situation? You are. You voted for the Government that has been in control of your roads for 11 years. Stop complaining. You deserve what you get. You must take responsibility for the situation. Use your vote!

Water needs of Parkes electorate

The Cudgegong River flows through our property at Goolma. It is sad to watch it declining and realise that we had been warned about Climate Change in the early 1990s. But I can say there is hope. You can’t predict new ideas and innovations. For instance, “Carbon Farming” methods can capture more rainfall in rootmass of pastures and crops, protecting the soil against increased temperatures and allowing the plants to make better use of the reduced rainfall. Farmers, graziers and others interested can attend the world’s first Carbon Farming Expo & Conference on 16th-17th November, 2007 at AREC in Mudgee. Carbon Farming also captures and stores CO2. With 450 million hectares of agricultural land in Australia and 5 billion in the world, we only need farmers to capture and store half a tonne of CO2/hectare to completely wipe out the CO2 problem. But as farmers capture and hold more water in their soils, there will be less runoff. So we need recycling and reuse facilities in all ‘town water supply’ areas.

Infrastructure is the source of inequality

The provision of infrastructure is the greatest source of inequality in Australia today. Access to basic services should be a citizen’s right. If city people are as concerned about people in the country as they say, they shouldn’t mind funding the following projects:

1. Road transport: A tunnel or freeway through the Blue Mountains to give greater access give a major boost to tourism to the greater west.

2. Rail transport: High speed rail systems will reduce road maintenance costs and increase road safety.

3. Mobile phone coverage: this can be a life or death issue. Access to telephone services should be a fundamental right.

4. Internet access: broadband access should be a birthright. The world does business online, is educated online, meets and connects with important people online, accesses government services online.

5. Health services: We need high quality centres of excellence “hubs” fed by super-high speed air transport to bring the best standards of health care to regional people.

6. Energy: Local generation of energy from renewable sources like windfarms and solar energy installations. Encourage innovations such as algae farms for carbon sequestration and biofuel and fertiliser production.

7. Water: “Carbon Farming” methods will capture more rainfall in rootmass of pastures and crops, so there will be less runoff. So we need recycling and reuse facilities in all ‘town water supply’ areas.

Work Choices is Boss vs Workers all over again

Work Choices proves that the Howard Government are still stuck emotionally and mentally in 1950’s, when there was the old war between the bosses and the workers. When one side won, the other lost. But the world of business in the 21st century is a different planet. But even old Henry Ford could teach John Howard a thing or two about industrial relations. Henry paid his factory workers 10% more than his competitor car makers in Detroit. He saw that his mass-manufactured cars would need a mass market of ordinary workers. And wages were too low to let workers buy his cars . So he forced his competitors to pay more by creating a competitive market for workers.

I believe in the free market for everything: products, services, and labour. I am a small businessperson and employer (a woolgrower) and I know how unfair the system used to feel as a employer. My previous business employed more than 50 people. We always paid top rates, and have done for 20 years. We looked after our employees. But a business cannot afford to pay too much for labour because you become uncompetitive and go broke.

But I am an Australian and I believe in a fair go for all. Employers deserve a fair go and employees deserve a fair go. I believe we need flexibility in employment conditions, but we don’t need to reduce the living standards of employees to sweatshop levels in order to compete. Henry Ford knew the wealth of everyone is important. After all, Australia is called a “Commonwealth”. All who put their shoulder to the wheel should share in the rewards.

This will be the first Climate Change federal election.

Climate Change is not simply an issue. It is THE issue. It endangers our way of life, our very existence as a community.

The people of Parkes electorate have been living with the first Climate Change natural disaster to strike a developed country for close to a decade. Climate Change is strangling our rivers and crushing agriculture.

The Howard Government has blocked action on climate change, to protect their mates in mining and energy. I say this to those who deny Climate Change: If I am wrong, the worst that can happen is a world economic recession. We’ve survived several of those before. But if you are wrong, the worst that can happen is the destruction of civil society and the breakdown of law and order, like New Orleans after Cyclone Katrina. So, are you willing to risk the lives of your children and grandchildren?

I believe all politics is personal first, local second, and national last. At a personal level, we must ask ourselves the Climate Change Question: “How should I live my life?” We must choose.

As a farm family, we are adapting to new practices to make the most of whatever rain falls and protect the soils that sustain us. Every business must choose.

As a community we must choose. Will we take half measures and hope it will blow over? Or will we get serious and make the changes necessary?

Agriculture and Climate Change

I believe farmers have got guts. They stare despair down every day. They get knocked down and they get up again. They take more risks than city-based businesses. They take on the climate, everyday.

Farmers are treated unjustly. The community expects them to work as unpaid environmental officers, but it refuses to pay a decent price for their produce.

They must have the right to make choices about managing their land to be economically sustainable. The real farmer does not want to destroy the natural resource base that they rely on to make a living. If Governments want woody weeds to cover pasture or croplands, the landholder must be compensated. A city-based business that had its profitability severely impacted by government policies would have every television channel championing their cause. Farmers who are working as environmental managers should be rewarded with stewardship payments.

I believe government scientists and advisers should live and work on a working property (or have done so) to understand the reality of farming. Research based on unrealistic methodologies creates bad science and leads to bad conclusions and bad decisions. The science of climate change is about to change the way every primary producer can manage their property. If that science is based on unrealistic methodologies, rural communities will be dealt another blow. The science of methane emissions is a good example.

I believe that land managers deserve the right to trade carbon credits based on the soil carbon they can grow with changed land management. The science of soil carbon has been misinterpreted and misused, to the farmers’ disadvantage. We want a fair go.

Climate Change and National Security

Anyone who understood the dangers ahead from Climate Change would despair that any of our political leaders can prepare the nation for the shocks we can expect. And what are they?

Recently Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty singled out climate change as the top security issue of the century. "We could see a catastrophic decline in the availability of fresh water. Crops could fail, disease could be rampant, and flooding might be so frequent that people en masse would be on the move. Even if only some and not all of this occurs, climate change is going to be the security issue of the 21st century. It's not difficult to see the policing implications that might arise in the not-too-distant future."

How does a nation of 18million withstand invasion by millions of people trying to survive? Climate Change is about National Security. We must prepare for it as we would prepare for war.

My urgent priorities as Member For Parkes would be:

1. Audit all services for disaster response capability in unprecedented extreme weather events. How do we respond to a disaster like the Newcastle floods if it was multiplied across the state or accompanied by several other disasters in other locations? Do we have the emergency services infrastructure we will need in the new era of Climate Change?

2. Prepare local communities for weather events that cause loss of access to essential services. Will people who think food comes out of a supermarket be able to provide for themselves if we have a breakdown of transportation and distribution systems after a natural disaster like Cyclone Katrina?

3. Encourage local production and distribution of energy and food products. Aim for self sufficiency in essential services.

Do you feel like a 2nd class citizen?

The people of the Parkes electorate are treated like second class citizens by both sides of politics. The two major parties assume we are poor relations. The quality of life out here is disintegrating as services shrink. … City people wouldn’t stand for it. But country people put up with it. And they can’t blame anyone but themselves.

There’s an old saying: “People get the politicians they deserve.” That’s because they vote for them. There’s another old saying: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.” The majority of people in the bush vote for the same old Party. And so they get what they always got: declining living standards, shrinking services...

Every National Party politician I have met has been a decent, likeable person. I’d vote for them myself. But… “Remember Telstra”. The Nationals voted with the Howard Government to sell off the telephone company that you and I owned… that used to give country people subsidised services. Black Jack McEwen would never have stood for it. He had guts. Don’t vote for the politicians who took Telstra away. Shock them. You get no respect when you let them roll over you.

The Climate Change Coalition is not a city-based party. It was founded by people like you, who live in regional Australia. Our founder Patrice Newell and I are both primary producers.

Some new thinking on water

How about some new thinking on water? Fact One: We haven’t lost any water on Earth. It can’t escape. We’ve got the same amount in the world today as we did in the good old days. It’s just moved spomewhere else. So we’ve got the option of moving to where there is a lot of it, or paying billions to bring it to us. Fact Two: If water was money, we would have thousands of experts studying it and whole television shows devoted to it. Well, water is more precious than money. Government still thinks money is more important. Fact Three: We have enough water to do the things we want. We just don’t use it well. For instance, we flush our toilets and water our plants with fresh, sweet drinking water. Fact Four: We also have enough water for agriculture, if we change our ways. Peter Andrews discovered the secret: slow the water down in the landscape and give it time to do its work with plants. Carbon Farmers also slow the water down by giving the rain some rootmass to soak into out in the paddock instead of presenting it with bare earth, so that it runs off rapidly, carrying the soil with it. Fact Five: A farm that captures and uses water can create a ‘microclimate’ that is cooler and attract more rainfall. Fact Six: A prize of $500m should be offered for the inventor who solves our water problems. Read more: vote1climate@blogspot.com

Candidate says he won’t work hard for Parkes

Michael Kiely, the Climate Change Coalition candidate for the seat says he won’t “work hard” for the Electorate.

“John Anderson said he ‘worked hard’ for the Electorate. John Cobb says he is ‘working hard’. MPs say they work hard. But what does it get the voters?”

“Dudded on Telstra, on broadband Internet connection, on the single wheat desk, on rural health services. If that’s ‘working hard’, then I intend to be a bludger. I don’t think the electorate could survive another term of ‘hard work,’” he says.

Mr Kiely says our political system turns voters into passive consumers. “All we do is vote once very three years and we have the services of a person who will ‘work hard’ for us. We outsource our political responsibilities and that’s why they get away with things like the Telstra.”

Mr Kiely is involved in climate change planning for agriculture through the Carbon Coalition. He is not getting around the electorate yet is because he is on the team organising the world’s first Carbon Farming Expo & Conference on 16th-17th November in Mudgee.

“It is a grassroots movement, started by scientists and farmers in the central west. We are aiming for 500 attendees and have attracted sponsorship from big names like the NAB, Landmark, Country Energy and Holistic Management International. It’s about adjusting to climate change and slowing it down,” he says.

“I see my job as helping people help themselves.”

……..

More information, 6374 0329

Vote1climate.blogspot.com
www.carbonfarming.net.au