Occupy Policing: a report into the effects & legality of the eviction from City Square

Here's the official perspective, Networkers!

The events surrounding Occupy Melbourne

have brought you

OCCUPY POLICING:

A report into the effects and legality of the eviction of

Occupy Melbourne from City Square on 21 October 2011.

Further links:

Occupy Melbourne on Facebook

Occupy Melbourne on Twitter

Occupy Melbourne on Wikipedia

Occupy Melbourne on You Tube

Protestors arrested as chaos descends on CBD

The Victorian Climate Action Calendar

Picture from here

relates to Bullet No. 2

From Monique de Cortis, the Victorian Climate Action Calendar

Dear all,

Attached is The Victorian Climate Action Calendar covering events between 19 Oct and 28 Nov 2012, and below:

·       WHAT IS BIODIVERSITY AND WHY DOES IT MATTER? CSIRO Blog

·        400 NEW SPECIES ADDED TO THE IUCN RED LIST OF SPECIES AT RISK OF EXTINCTION

·        BIOSECURITY BILL 2012 - Protecting Australia from invasive species - Submissions closing 24 October 

·       INTERACTIVE MAP OF GLOBAL CLIMATE ACTION

Regards, Monique

THE IUCN RED LIST OF SPECIES AT RISK OF EXTINCTION   http://www.iucnredlist.org/  is widely recognized as the most comprehensive, objective global approach for evaluating the conservation status of plant and animal species. At the recent global conference at which 70 environment ministers met, more than 400 plants and animals were added to the list.

EXPLAINER: WHAT IS BIODIVERSITY AND WHY DOES IT MATTER? - CSIRO Blog

All of us need to breathe, drink and eat. These are all benefits that are fundamentally provided by biodiversity. Biodiversity collectively describes the vast array of approximately 9 million unique living organisms (including Homo sapiens) that inhabit the earth, together with the interactions amongst them. The concept includes every species of bacteria, virus, plant, fungi, and animal, as well as the diversity of genetic material within each species. It also encompasses the diverse ecosystems the species make up and the ongoing evolutionary processes that keep them functioning and adapting. Find out why we can’t get by without it, why biodiversity is in decline, and what we can do about it. http://csironewsblog.com/tag/climate-change/

 

BIOSECURITY BILL 2012 - protecting Australia from invasive species - Submissions closing 24 October 

Soon one of Australia's most important environmental laws, Biosecurity Bill 2012, will be introduced into Parliament, but important changes are needed to ensure it protects our natural world from invasive species.  Submissions are due by Wednesday, October 24, so make sure you have your say, much is at stake. A website for submissions on the ISC website -http://www.invasives.org.au/page.php?nameIdentifier=biosecuritybill2012 and on that page you will also find a print friendly submission guide - http://www.invasives.org.au/documents/file/subguide_Biosecurity_Bill_2012.pdf

INTERACTIVE MAP OF GLOBAL CLIMATE ACTION – a little less conversation, a little more action

The Climate Institute has developed the Climate Action Map to provide an overview of action taking place around the world. http://globalclimateactionmap.climateinstitute.com.au/#/criteria

The VCAC 20 Oct - 28 Nov 2012.doc 468K   View   Download

Now it's all about Peak Food. Come to the People's Food Plan Public Forum

Picture from here

You've heard of Peak Oil and, perhaps, Peak Water. Now find out more about Peak Food. Please read the article embedded below.  Then, if you live in or near Melbourne, please come to the People's Food Plan Public Forum and Conversation next Sunday afternoon.  More details here. Find out more about the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance here.

Diagram from here 

Links relating to  Peak Food

Food Security

Peak Food - famine in The West by 2025?
Peak Food is near
The World Bank: 
Severe droughts drive food prices higher, threatening the poor
Resource crunch: why many things cost much more
Responding to Peak Oil, Peak Food, and Peak Population
Peak Oil=Peak Food=Peak People
Peak Food and Urban Agriculture

Bill Gammage - a great Australian showing us how me might become truly Australian

Picture above is from here. Please read the review.

I am reading the winner of the Victorian Premier's Award for non-fiction. A much awarded book! It has generated many awards including the Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History.

If you read nothing else this year, please read this. Bill Gammage says that, until we understand this country, we can't truly call ourselves Australians. Bill is a historian - but not only. He knows his plants, Australia's vegetation. In recent years, more has come to light on life and land before white settlement. The Australians before 1788 managed this continent in a unique way - a way of which we need to take note. 

Bill points out the connection of land management to The Dreaming, the belief system of the first Australians.

Australia to-day is a an increasingly secular society.  The New Atheism has provided an invigorating element to Aussie secularism. My view is that we cannot bring the fullest knowledge of our environment into view while ignoring the environmental spirituality which existed and continues to exist for Aboriginal Australians and the environmental spirituality which is part and parcel of the world's great religions.  

Just as the Australian landscape described by Gammage and managed so brilliantly by the pre-1788 inhabitants is layer upon layer - so is human knowledge and spirituality across the globe.  It is layer upon layer - science, human impact, other species, human usage, spirituality, design, human management. 

I first got this book from my local public library. The hard copy. It is a long time since I have seen a more beautiful book. The size, the layout, the font, and - above all - the most magnificent colour plates an instance of which is above. I have bought the book for myself - but, as an OAP, could only afford the paperback. But it has the lovely colour plates. Become truly Australian. Begin to understand by reading The Biggest Estate on Earth.

Professor Henry Reynolds who wrote the Foreword to the book

with the author of The Biggest Estate on Earth, Bill Gammage.

Photo has been edited by Miss Eagle. It came from here. 

Lastly, I want to thank Bill Gammage - 

for helping us to know ourselves and our land.

Find more videos regarding Bill Gammage here

~~~~

ABC broadcast

Bill Gammage, author of The Biggest Estate on Earth, historicises the notion of terra nullius, the land rights movement and Mabo, on the 20th anniversary of that landmark High Court decision.

Report on Vic Premier's award - The Australian

Review - John Clare in The Sydney Morning Herald

Review - James Boyce in The Monthly
Bill Gammage's comments - Tracker
Australia's original landscape gardeners - The Global Mail

A tale of two troglodytes: how Julia called time and changed the game!

This blog is a participant in Blog Action Day 2012.

The theme is the Power of We -

which I believe the women of Australia

have demonstrated in support

of our first female prime minister, Julia Gillard,

and in support of reasonable civil discourse.

This is quite a story.

This post is Part 1.

I expect to follow up this afternoon with Part 2.

This wordcloud has come from  Turn Left 2013

I will leave it to a feminist PhD candidate to collect every last thread of this story.  Collecting the most recent and prominent threads has been enough.  Below please find a list of mainstream media links relating to Julia Gillard's speech last Tuesday 9 October 2012.  Among these links both the video and the transcript of the speech are available.

I believe a number of factors led to the speech of 9 October.

Firstly, the ongoing vileness day after day, week after week by conservative forces and the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott.  Please go here to see some of the images used against Julia Gillard.  Many women face sexism and misogyny every day and have to let it go by with dignity - so it has been believed.  There is no doubt that Julia let it go by with dignity - but we do suspect she may have mentally rehearsed what she would actually say given the opportunity.

Secondly, she faced the Canberra Press Gallery to answer challenges which had been going on for a long time regarding events in her earlier life. Julia stood there taking every question the gallery asked and answering in detail.  My view is that if they had stayed there until midnight, she would have kept up her strong demeanour and kept answering their questions.  As it turned out, the gallery ran out of questions after 55 minutes.  But it was a tour deforce with Julia remaining composed, answering lucidly, and even giving some interchange.

Thirdly, what doesn't break me makes me stronger. Unfortunately for the conservative opposition, the Liberal National Party Coalition, they have continued their hardline and vile tactics for over two years. Australia has a 'hung' parliament with the government holding on by a thread with support of a mixed bag of independents and teeny-tiny parties. For Julia and her manager of government business, Anthony Albanese, some days it must feel like herding cats.  Every day that parliament sits, the Labor government is only a vote or two or three away from defeat.  Yet Labor has not toppled as the Opposition expected ... and day by day their frustration, their hatred, their violent language has become more putrid.

So while some believe that Julia Gillard remains the Prime Minister of Australia by luck and with the help of petulant independents, her misogyny and sexism speech proves beyond doubt that this is a strong woman with a sound intellect who is competent, competitive, and determined.  This is what electrified and transfixed Australia - and, as it turned out, the world - last Tuesday.

Now we see and hear a mystified mainstream media trying to play catch up.  They focus on what led to the speech - matters surrounding the now resigned Speaker of the House of Representatives.  They say they had to give context to their reporting.  I have yet to hear any of our senior and serious journalists acknowledging that a number of narratives can co-exist and run concurrently, each with their own context.

The context of the eruption of social media was that a significant number of Australians - perhaps the majority - and possibly a majority of women were fed up.  We have been fed up with the negativity of the opposition.  We have been fed up with the vileness and violence of their language which has poisoned public discourse in Australia.  We want good government.  We don't want either our economy or our nation talked down to glorify the negative agenda of the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott.  Over and over with spontaneity since last Tuesday Australians have said "Enough is Enough".  I am not sure whether we have to wait a little longer to declare Julia's speech cathartic, a national release, rejoicing, breathing out at last.  We will wait to see if that is really the case.

But last Tuesday was significant.  I believe that the women of Australia reached a new milestone then.  Our drooping shoulders could now be lifted and braced. The misogyny and sexism and ridicule and diminution of women would now be fought with dignity and strength.  Men who share the values of Abbott and Jones will have to either shut up or justify themselves, their words, their actions.  Game on! Thank Julia!

For a distinguished review of the vile things
that have been visited upon Julia Gillard
please go to Anne Summers site - The Looking Glass.
Please note Anne's warning: there is a vanilla version,
then there is the R rated version, and then the pictures.
~~~~~~~~~

Here are a few blogs to give you a flavour
of the mood among women in The Land of Oz

boeufblogginon

Turn Left 2012

Blue Milk

Cafe Whispers

I realise that these blogs are only a minute representation

of the blogosphere on this topic.

Please, Networkers, feel free to send me

the name and URL of your favourites for inclusion.

A tardis trip to legislating sex discrimination in Australia ... lest we forget

Picture from here

I would like to take Networkers on a trip down memory lane. 

With all this bleating from the Liberal National Party who appear to be deaf and ignorant in respect to sexism, let me put you in a tardis and take you back to 1984. 

Australia had ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). One of the obligations on a nation in ratifying a UN convention is that the there will be domestic legislation passed to give effect to the convention. Thus it was that the Hawke Government legislated and passed the Sex Discrimination Act 1984.

Perhaps, you may be saying, oh well that's all very ho hum. Well it wasn't. The forces of conservatism, sexism and ignorance rose up to fight this abomination. Conservative churches like the Assemblies of God were to the fore. (We hadn't heard much if anything about Brian and Bobbie Houston and Hillsong at that stage! And there was no Jim Wallace and the Australian Christian Lobby!) 

Rosemary Fenton as Miss Australia 1960

from here

And then there was the National Party. This was the year that Ian Sinclair became leader of the National Party. Ian was married to Rosemary Fenton a very lovely former Miss Australia. This was not connected to Miss Australia contests to-day. This was a major fundraiser for cerebal palsy organisations around the country. Then they were known as Spastic Centres. (I know this is a history lesson from another time and space!) 

The Nationals were dead against the SDA and who did they trot out to prosecute the case? None other than Rosemary (Fenton) Sinclair. How demeaning! A beautiful, intelligent woman pressed into service against sex discrimination! These are just some of my memories. 

The Destroy the Joint campaign against Alan Jones with the cream on the cake of Julia Gillard's attack in Parliament on misogyny and sexism, in my view, has achieved a new milestone for women. 

It has become clear in the reporting that there are still some men who just don't get it. But women do - except for those who live in mortal fear of Labor and The Greens. So it's onward and upward from here.

We have been given a very strong vaulting horse 

from which we can face the world 

with heads held high and arms out there flying!

Baillieu government allows VicForests to log Toolangi rainforest that survived the bushfires

Picture from here

Local residents and volunteer conservationists have this morning stopped logging operations in a stand of rain-forest that should be protected from logging.

Arrests are expected.

In August government logging agency VicForests was taken to court for logging rain-forest. One of the conditions of the out-of-court settlement was that they train officers to properly identify rain-forest, and not log any more rain-forest.

Yet rain-forest logging has been discovered on Yellowdindi Road, near Toolangi.

“A new scientific survey, mapping the logged rain-forest in this location, has been submitted to the Department of Sustainability and Environment. So far, they have failed to step in and stop the logging,” says local Toolangi resident, Kerryn Blackshaw.

Residents have made repeated requests for the logging to stop immediately.

“Today we’ll be stepping in where this government is failing to, and draw attention to this significant logging breach.”

“You can see where the bush was razed from the bush-fires all around this forest. This rain-forest gully escaped the fires.”

“You can see how close the bushfires came, and to think there’s a refuge, a rain-forest place, that they’re now logging, it’s just devastating,” says Ms Blackshaw.

“It is appalling that the Baillieu government is allowing rain-forests that escaped the 2009 fires to be logged for wood-chips”, concludes Ms Blackshaw.

*For media comment: 

Kerryn Blackshaw 

**0431 702 673*

For your further attention please go to:

Central Highlands Action Group Facebook site

Ethical paper

Toolangi Forest Education Centre

Peace, reconciliation and non-violence in Syria? An impossible dream or can a middle way be found?

International Christian Peace Movement

Syria in Flames?

Prospects for Reconciliation

Following its successful public forum on Syria

Pax Christi Victoria warmly invites you to

An evening with Mother Agnes Mariam

Representative of the “Mussalaha” Reconciliation Initiative,

Spokesperson for the Catholic Media Centre of the

Diocese of Homs, Hama and Yabroud, Syria

Thursday 4 October 2012, 6 p.m.-8.15 p.m.

At ‘Kildara’ – rear of 39 Stanhope St Malvern

(close to Glenferrie Rd and High Street Malvern tramlines)

 Click to enlarge

Will begin with a light meal and refreshments

RSVP  Rita Camilleri 9379 3889 or ritac@paxchristi.org.au  by October 1^st

This is important for catering purposes.

A donation of $5 would be appreciated

Ban Live Export National Rally - all capitals - this Saturday October 6 12 Noon

Join us in Melbourne this Saturday Oct 6  12PM Parliament House  If you care about animals and want to see them protected from cruelty, then please join us this Saturday as we rally side-by-side, right across the country, for an end to live export. As you read this, more than 10,000 Australian sheep await an uncertain fate in Pakistan. They have witnessed half their companions slaughtered in the most brutal ways — clubbed, stabbed and buried alive. Every day that passes, more and more animals are put at risk of extreme cruelty and abuse. Despite assurances from the Australian Government that cruelty in the live export trade would be addressed, animals continue to be neglected,brutalised, and have their throats cut while fully conscious. Tragedy after tragedy reveals that animals exported live will always be at risk. And yet, they continue to be sent. This sends the appalling message to the rest of the world that Australia accepts animal cruelty. The animals are depending on us — we must urgently let politicians know that caring Australians will not vote for political parties that support live export. This is your chance to join with others at a family-friendly event to rally for a kinder future for animals. I sincerely hope you can join us, Lyn White Campaign Director P.S. I realise that Saturday 6th October is short notice for a national rally. But I'm sure you'll agree that the latest shocking abuse of animals in the live export trade warrants a rapid response on a national scale. The Animals Australia team is pulling out all stops to create an event that our politicians won't be able to ignore. Unavoidably, this has meant that the launch of Make it Possible has been delayed one week. I'll keep you updated as our campaigns progress. All welcome! Hear from Animals Australia Investigator Lyn White, leading politicians; mass petition signing; campaign activities; family-friendly. 37 O'Connell St, North Melbourne Victoria 3051, Australia

Write to Ted & his Tearaways re TAFE cuts - here's the contact details

Sarah Bardsley posted in Save Our TAFE Community Action Group - Gippsland Sarah Bardsley 2 October 15:25 If you haven't already, why not tap out an email or pen a letter to your local member/s and the Premier, to let them know how you feel about the TAFE Cuts. Please spread the word and remember - Your voice counts Ted Baillieu Premier office #: (03) 9651 5000 Electoral office #: (03) 9882 4088 Email Address ted.baillieu@parliament.vic.gov.au Peter Hall State office #: (03) 9637 3300 Electoral office #: (03) 51 747066 For electorate matters email: peter.hall@parliament.vic.gov.au For ministerial matters email: peter.hall@minstaff.vic.gov.au Peter Ryan http://www.peterryan.com.au/contact-us Phone: 5144 1987 Electorate Office: 54B Cunninghame Street, SALE 3850 Tim Bull Email: tim.bull@parliament.vic.gov.au Mail: PO Box 1278, Bairnsdale, Victoria, 3875. Electorate Office: 143 Main Street, Bairnsdale, Victoria, 3875. Phone: (03) 5152 3491 Tell them how you feel about the TAFE CUTS www.peterryan.com.au

Baillieu Bungles in Ballarat - stonewalling on TAFEs translates to false assumptions and arrogance

THE CAMPAIGN TO SAVE BALLARAT'S TAFE

FROM DESTRUCTION AT THE HANDS OF

THE BAILLIEU GOVERNMENT CONTINUES.

The Premier was greeted by campaigners for TAFE BALLARAT when he attended a business breakfast at Alexandra's on Lydiard Street this morning.

Baillieu's Breakfast

Protesters outside Alexandra's on Lydiard

where 75 guests were expected -

but less than that number was observed in attendance

Some of those in attendance (collage)

Ballarat Student want’s apology 

from arrogant, out of touch Premier

Ballarat Student Ann Healey was one of the SAVE TAFE protestors who got up very early this morning to meet Premier Baillieu as he arrived in Ballarat to speak at the Ballarat BisNet Breakfast at the Alexandria on Lydiard Street.

The quiet and peaceful protest was to highlight, once again, the damage TAFE cuts are doing to Ballarat’s social and economic future and provide the Premier with an opportunity to stop for just a few moments and talk about his motivations for slashing VET and TAFE.

After saying a friendly good morning to the other attendees as they headed upstairs to hear from the Premier about his vision for the state, the Premier arrived.

Ann in a very friendly manner extended her hand to Mr Baillieu, wishing him a good morning and asked if he would like to talk about the TAFE cuts for a few moments before heading upstairs.

Instead of a jovial response or a good morning in reply, the arrogant and out of touch Premier pocketed his hands and displayed his lack of understanding and any sort of decency or manners by accusing her of being an “electorate officer,”  then arrogantly sweeping past with a smug grin at his own misplaced and inappropriate joke.

The Premier's misdirected joke however was at his own expense as Ann is a student and now wants an apology from the out of touch Premier who accused her of being nothing more than a political operative, denying and belittling her voice and her passion to save TAFE and tertiary education so others can have the opportunities she has had.

 

Ann does not belong to a political party and has never worked as an ‘electorate officer,’ but as a student is only too aware about what these cuts mean.

Once again the Premier is failing to recognise the issues affecting TAFE and unwilling to even spend a moment speaking about them with those affected.

The sheer arrogance of the Premier was on display this morning to the protestors, some media and guests who were arriving.

Yet another smug one liner that is becoming the hallmark of an out of touch Premier with no ideas.

Mr Baillieu obviously thinks that the large movement of SAVE TAFE protestors across country Victoria is nothing more than an orchestrated politically motivated movement that is all about him.  

He could not be more wrong, the movement is growing, it’s concerns shared with groups like AIG, VFF, the TAFE Association and VECCI who are only too aware of the damage these cuts will do to the future of skills and opportunities in the state.

When asked at the Breakfast upstairs what his vision for the state was, the Premier, unlike his quick quip at Ann was left struggling to articulate any passion or conviction.

Once again the need for the Victorian community to speak out against these cuts is highlighted, we cannot all possibility be electoral officers can we?

Ballarat SAVE TAFE Committee

For further information please contact

Brett Edgington

Secretary – Ballarat SAVE TAFE Committee

0412 152 567

iamtheedge@live.com.au

University of Ballarat VET and TAFE Cuts

·       43 Courses cut

·       3 schools cut – from 7 to 4

·       Approximately 100 jobs from teachers and support staff lost

·       2200 student places per year less

·       $20 million dollars a year cut from University of Ballarat’s Budget

·    Fee increases in remaining courses of up to 600% to cover the loss of “Full Service Provider Funding”

·      The Brewery Complex Building sold to School of Mines in 1994 to facilitate TAFE growth, closed to TAFE and leased out

·       Plans to consolidate land titles to start leasing and selling of more campus space – potential for TAFE city presence to become only the Trade Training Centre and new Skills Centre

JOIN THE FIGHT FOR TAFES

KEEP IN TOUCH WITH THE CAMPAIGN

ACROSS VICTORIA

TAFE4ALL

Ballarat SAVE TAFE Campaign

Campaign against the TAFE cuts (CATS)

Save Our TAFE Community Action Group - Gippsland

TAFE Cuts Ballarat

 [ I am sure there are other protest sites about

regarding TAFE.  If you wish your site to be added

please email me at misseaglesnetwork(at)gmail(dot)com ]