We face a climate crisis and something needs to change. The world’s resources are finite, as is the amount of destruction humans can do to this planet if we are to survive. As such, there is a debate in the environment movement about whether or not curbing population is an essential part of the solution.
Analysis
In the state that claims to have the greenest energy on the Australian mainland, South Australia’s climate camp will confront two of the country’s dirtiest power stations. The Northern and Playford B plants, fuelled by cheap but low-grade brown coal, are just outside Port Augusta, a four-hour drive north of Adelaide.
Aboriginal elders and families from Ampilatwatja have set up a permanent protest camp outside their government-controlled community in protest against policies that have neglected their needs and desires.
Five Filipino workers holding 457 visas, who were employed at a Fletcher International abattoir near Albany, were made redundant and given 10 weeks’ entitlement pay on June 2.
Former Queensland Labor cabinet minister Gordon Nuttall was sentenced to seven years jail on July 17. He was found guilty of corruptly receiving secret payments from two Queensland businessmen.
To win the battle to stop climate change, climate activists in Queensland have an important part to play. The Queensland ALP government is a strong backer of Australia’s biggest polluters.
Construction giant John Holland was the first employer to lodge an application with Labor’s new Fair Work Australia industrial umpire. It asked FWA to rule on which union has coverage at its controversial West Gate Bridge site in Melbourne.
If the rhetoric of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission’s report on Australia’s health system is taken at face value, health care in Australia will get an impressive overhaul courtesy of the federal government.
Australian Coal Association (ACA) executive director Ralph Hillman believes the industry doesn’t want special treatment from the Rudd Labor government. It just wants the same “fair treatment” given to other big polluters under the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).
Canice Lynch was sacked from his job at the West Gate Bridge strengthening project on July 24. Lynch was the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) shop steward at the site.
More than 200 council workers and their supporters joined sacked council workers Mick Van Beek and Peter Anderson in Johnston Park, Geelong on the morning of July 28.
The following article was submitted by Jane Addison as part of an ongoing debate around population and climate change. Addison is a member of Sustainable Population Australia. The article is written in a personal capacity.
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