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.
Monday, November 12, 2007
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
Saturday, November 3, 2007
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
“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
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