(Image: iCarly wiki)
Dear Potential Political Candidates,
Your cruelty towards asylum seekers makes me weep.
Your cruelty towards live animals and trade in their export makes me weep.
Your cruelty towards our first female prime minister makes me weep.
Inter alia, I wish to inform you that until such time as you can behave responsibly and humanely, I am no longer going to join in this farcial game where for one day every three years we play at being a democracy.
None of you shall have my vote.
Yours faithfully,
Sue (no-relation-to-tony) Abbott
(also posted on Freedom Cyclist)
(Image: Member for Hunter's messsage to the valley, YouTube)
Ohhh! PER-LEEZE...who are you kidding, Joel? - and on the subject of the Branxton freeway (which you raise in your feelgood film), rather than 'saving lives' it will only help finish off the Hunter Valley as a destination by encouraging motorists to whizz through the unsightly hole the Hunter has become - sigh.
Freeways and bypasses spell doom and gloom for country towns - and we all know it no matter who is delivering the warm and fuzzy spin.
We climbed to the top of Rossgole on Monday evening and sat on a rocky promontory surveying the surrounds as the 'night-before-the-full-moon' moon rose and took it's place in the sky.
The night was so beautiful, so calm, so cold, and sitting there with a bunch of us, sipping glasses of red and muching on crisps, it was almost possible to imagine that the twinkly lights in the distance were a cute little village and not Dartbrook mine, and that all was alright with our valley, and that the rest of the Hunter really wasn't being mined into oblivion as we watched from our peaceful but chilly observation point.
Sigh...if only that were really the case...
...but we know that it's not because 'air pollution' and 'lives being cut short' are the stuff of international news, and if 'China's reliance on coal reduces life expectancy by 5.5 years' then it's a good bet that it's probably the same here too despite current spin to the contrary...
...but still our politicians tell us to go forth and dig.
(Image: screen capture from The Guardian)
Breaking news from The Guardian...
...why do we have to play 'War Games' with the Americans? They're big, they're bullies, and given they don't give a shit about our environment - too too sad
(Photos: my view of 'Bayswater & Liddell Coal-fired Power Stations' from Scone train)
This is my home, this is my valley...
...this is the internationally acclaimed HUNTER VALLEY; the 'Newmarket' of Australia; the 'Bordeaux' of Australia...
...and this is what the 'Newmarket' & 'Bordeaux' of Australia looks like today - sadly.
It's a far cry from the verdant image of lush vineyards and picture-perfect horse studs that my address usually conjures in the minds of inquirers.
However this is my acutal reality - Coal-Fired Power Stations & Mines - and there's only going to be more...
...and not only for my Valley - it's happening everywhere - everyone wants a piece of Australia.
But
back to us in the Hunter, we are selling our children's inheritance as
fast as we can get it dug up & popped on ships.
Whatever happened to the notion of 'Intergenerational Equity' so nobly enshrined in the principle of 'Sustainable Development'?
We're
clearly not having a bar of it. Disappointingly it appears we'd much
rather 'post' our soul off to Asia, so we can get on with the business
of watching our souless flatscreens.
Yet by relinquishing our valley were losing our community.
Cash
flow is higher than ever but our committment to each other has
plummeted. The itinerant feel to my valley has made us edgy, and eroded
our sense of belonging. Everyday my home is being chipped away and all
my local council can do is to operate as 'bag-men' in order to
facilitate easy entry for mining 'carpet-baggers'.
What to do when politicians of all political persuasion 'Tiptoe Through The Tulips' with corporations of all corporate persuasions?
...think:
* Resources,
* Minining & Energy,
* Transport,
* Logistics,
* IT,
* Banking & Finance,
* Infrastructure & Telecommunications,
* Aus RAIL
...now:
1. Pick an industry, any industry...& then another one
(for example) Banks (ANZ) + Finance (Dow Jones)
----------------------------------------------------
2. Observe a 'core-partnership' claiming 'environmental' approval
(for example): Banks (ANZ) + Finance (Dow Jones) = leading corporate responsibility award
----------------------------------------------------
3. Scratch the surface (just a touch) - and what have we got?
(answer) Banks (ANZ) + Mines
----------------------------------------------------
4. Observe a 'core-partnership' without claim for 'environmental' approval
(answer): Banks (ANZ) + Mines = 'Greenwashing-spin'
----------------------------------------------------
Sigh!
What to do when governance & corporate-entities are so inextricably linked?
My home is doomed - my community is doomed - we no longer belong - I no longer belong
My valley is destroyed - I am destroyed.
(originally posted on Freedom Cyclist blog in April 2011, over 2 years ago, and today 'Matters Hunter Valley' have only got worse)
(Images: Australian Marine Conservation Society)
(Images: www.ecocitizenaustralia.com.au)
What will it take to kick our coal habit?
Can we stop this relentless march of coal mines that expands from the Hunter Valley to the Barrier Reef and beyond? In fact is anywhere in Australia safe from draglines and excavators?
Fast tracking development is wrong and the world has us on notice.
What is wrong with us?
...and is it already too late to save our reef?
