Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Opinion

Campaigning for National Parks is Against Australian’s Bush Ethos: Part 1, Buying Back Tooralee

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THERE has been much written about Australia’s national character emerging from a bush ethos: the idea that a specifically Australian outlook emerged first amongst workers in the Australian outback.  Banjo Paterson, perhaps more than any other writer, created and defined this cultural heritage.  His story about the shearer and his sheep (the jumbuck) remains our most popular national song, ‘Waltzing Matilda’.  I grew up on ‘The Man from Snowy River’; a poem about a courageous young horseman who out-rides wild brumbies in the High Country.  

But few Australians now have anything much to do with the bush.  They mostly live in cities, don’t know how to ride a horse and go to the beach for their holidays.  They just singing about sheep at sporting events and read poems about mighty rivers and like the idea of saving the outback.  And so it seems every new Australia government makes saving the Murray River part of their platform. 

The previous Howard government was going to save the Murray from salinity – and achieved this through the construction of salt interception schemes and catchment wide drainage plans all administered by the Murray Darling Basin Commission.     

The new Rudd Government wants to save the Murray from climate change.   This is a much more ambitious undertaking than saving the Murray from salt.  

As part of this campaign the new government has new legislation, The Water Amendment Bill 2008, and it is currently being debated in federal parliament with its second reading beginning last week.   A centre piece of the new legislation is the creation of a ‘The Murray Darling Basin Authority’.   This new institution is claimed to be needed because the existing Murray Darling Basin Commission doesn’t have enough control over the states, but in reality the new organisation, like the old, will still be subject to state politics.  In short, nothing much will change, but it keeps the politicians in politics.   

Politician and new Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, plans to relieve the claimed climate change problem by buying up farms; most recently through the purchase of a 91,000 hectare property called Tooralee near Burke in NSW.  Tooralee currently grows maize, cotton and beef cattle but following the federal government takeover will be converted to national park.  

Internet campaigners ‘GetUp’ helped get the Rudd-government elected, and have recently joined ‘the fray’ on Murray River issues claiming to provide an opportunity for Australians “to keep the rivers flowing” and save “Australia’s food bowl” through a few mouse-clicks.   But this new campaign is particularly deceptive as Penny Wong’s policies will actually close-down agriculture in the Murray-Darling Basin i.e. empty the food bowl!  Indeed the federal government has something like $3.6 billion to buyback farms like Tooralee.
Furthermore, as some farmers explained on ABC’s TV’s Four Corners program on Tuesday night, you can’t buy back rivers, not even with billions of dollars, because water allocations are just air space until it rains.   

But hey, modern Australia’s are now a mostly soft and gullible lot and likely to support this campaign which is essentially a campaign in support of more politics and big government and against bushies because they now know no better.   But none of this makes senses in the context of our heritage which was about being practical and a part of the bush – the floods and the droughts and the climate change.

Beyond Burke, May 2005. Photograph by Jennifer Marohasy

Peter Costello on the Kyoto Protocol and the Australian Greens

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For nearly twelve years Australia was ruled by a Coalition government with John Howard as Prime Minister and Peter Costello the Treasurer.    After their defeat in the election just last November, Mr Costello decided to write his memoirs.

He said at the Quadrant Dinner that I attended tonight in Sydney, and it is written in the beginning of his now published memoirs,

“In Australia the writers of contemporary politics come overwhelmingly from a left or ‘progressive’ perspective.  In their accounts Labor usually emerges as the hero and the Liberal Party as the villain.  Because some will try to make this the story of the nearly twelve years of the Howard-led Coalition Government I want to record what actually happened – to describe the achievements as well as to acknowledge the failures.”

Indeed I gather ABC journalist and Labor friend, Fran Kelly, has been involved in the construction of a soon to be released ABC Television series on ‘The Howard’ years.

But back to the new book: I purchased a copy this evening and, after getting it autographed, turned to the index to see what I could find under ‘climate change’ and to my surprise the two words are not there, nor global warming.  The index, under ‘g’, does though include ‘globalisation’, ‘GST’, ‘gun lobby’ and ‘General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade’.  So, I looked for Kyoto, found it, and duly turned to page 302.  Mr Costello writes that,

“Cabinet had discussed the idea of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol many times, ever since it was negotiated in 1997.  Robert Hill had done a sterling job at the Conference in negotiating a target for Australia that frankly looked impossible at the outset.  At the time I was surprised that, after investing so much effort in getting such a good outcome, we did not ratify it.  The reason was that the protocol, by leaving out huge emitters in the developing world, was going to have little impact on global climate change.  The protocol was flawed by the fact that it covered only the developed world.”

I wrote in a piece published in the IPA Review earlier this year that John Howard would be remembered as the Prime Minister who did not ratify Kyoto, but perhaps Mr Costello has things more in perspective in his Memoirs and that in the scheme of things, history will not remember ‘climate change’ and ‘Kyoto’ as counting for much.

Interestingly tonight Mr Costello said that he was “most proud” of Chapter 11, which is about indigenous Australia includes issues of reconciliation, the integration of indigenous Australians into the “economic mainstream”, and the Northern Territory intervention.

Indeed the index includes a long list of aboriginal related topics, but under ‘a’ another issue of much interest to me is missing, ‘agriculture’.

Mr Costello was the Treasurer for most of the last 13 years, and much of his memoir is about economic issues and perhaps not surprisingly it is in this context, in particular the introduction of the GST, that he makes mention of the Australian Greens.    He is scathing.  He writes,

“The name of the Greens Party leads people to think that it is principally an environmental party.  In fact, it has economic, tax and international relations policies on the far left of politics that it holds just as dear.”

It was clear from the talk this evening that Mr Costello believes the primary job of government is to manage the economy and that with economic prosperity comes an opportunity to do more for the environment.    In contrast, many environmentalists would argue that economic prosperity inevitably brings unnecessary environmental destruction.

If you want to find out what an insider thought about the Howard-years, I suggest you grab a copy of ‘The Costello Memoirs’ (Melbourne University Press, 2008).     And if you want to know what Mr Costello thought about key environmental issues – reading between the lines it would seem not very much.

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For my short perspective on the twelve years of coalition government you can read ‘John Howard Environmentalist’, IPA Review, January 2008,  http://www.ipa.org.au/publications/931/john-howard-environmentalist

How to Save the Red Gum Forests: A Note to Mr Kelvin Thomson MP

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Kelvin Thomson is the federal member for Wills, representing inner-city northern Melbourne.   He was the Shadow Attorney-General in early 2007 when it was discovered that he had provided a notorious Melbourne gangster, Tony Mokbel, with a personal reference describing him as a “responsible, caring husband and father”.   Mr Thomson subsequently resigned from the front bench, but he still has trouble telling good from bad. 

Last Tuesday in federal parliament as part of debate on the Water Amendment Bill 2008, Mr Thomson described me as an anti-environmentalist and made much of my opposition to the creation of another 100,000 hectares of National Park along the Murray River.   He suggested that converting state forest to national park would be a very significant nature conservation outcome for the Murray River which I opposed.  

In reality converting state forest to national park is not going to address the current key issue for the forests which is provision of adequate environment flows in an efficient manner.  Furthermore, by ‘locking-up’ the forests and banning current management practices the forests may become less, rather than more, resilient.  

I do oppose the continual ‘locking-up’ of ever more forest principally on the basis that those in metropolitan Australia, in places like inner-city Melbourne, like the idea of national parks.  

Many city people have a romantic notion of wilderness – an idea that wilderness is a place where people do not go.   In reality the beauty of many wild places is a consequence of careful management by people.  Indeed the red gum forests of the central Murray Valley, the forests that Mr Thomson would like to see ‘locked-up’, are only about 6,000 years old following a geological uplifting that changed the course of the Murray River.  They have always been managed, first by indigenous Australians and more recently by the wood cutters and cattlemen who now live there. 

In July this year I launched the 152-page ‘Conservation and Community Plan’ for the Red Gum forests at the Victorian Parliament House.   This plan is about protecting the Red Gum forests not leaving their survival to fate.   The plan developed by 25 community groups under the guidance of foresters Mark Poynter and Barry Dexter proposes the creation of a public land tenure known as RAMSAR Reserve with management to integrate the principles of multiple-use with environmental care.   Current government policies and plans relating to timber production, cattle grazing, and recreational activities would be retained in RAMSAR Reserves in accordance with zoning that takes account of prevailing values and conditions.   

The community plan proposes that funding for more on-ground resources be obtained from revenue generated by these commercial uses of the forest such as timber production, grazing, firewood collection and bee keeping.   

The Alliance of community groups supports more environmental flows for the forests and the plan explains how to achieve the more efficient delivery of this water through the use of water regulators that already exist in many of the forests. 

In short, Mr Thomson misrepresents me when he suggested in federal parliament last week that I do not care about the Red Gum forests.   I care deeply about these forests and I recognise that their preservation is dependent on appropriate management regimes, not the romantic notion of wilderness implicit in the speech by Mr Thomson that falsely assumes less people equals more trees.    

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Additional Reading:

While the Murray River is flowing despite the drought, many of its tributaries are drying up: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/2007/11/murray-river-tributary-reduced-to-billabongs/ 

After a fire in the Barmah forest:    https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/2007/11/after-the-%e2%80%98top-island%e2%80%99-fire-in-the-barmah-red-gum-forest/

Some forests can be ‘drought proofed’ through thinning: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/2007/11/thinning-red-gum-forests-at-koondrook/ 

You can read my speech at the launch of the community plan here:  https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/2008/08/a-new-plan-for-the-red-gums-of-northern-victoria/

Enjoying the Murray River, surrounded by River Red gums, just upstream of Barham, October 2007.  Photograph taken by Jennifer Marohasy.

How Melbourne’s Climate Has Changed: A reply to Dr David Jones (Part 2)

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IT is generally believed that there has been a decline in rainfall across Australia and that as a consequence cities like Melbourne must suffer severe water restrictions.   Indeed if you live in Melbourne you must get prior written approval to fill a swimming pool, there are strict rules explaining how and when you can water your garden, and it is illegal to wash to your car with a garden hose.

In Melbourne reducing water demand and ensuring the efficient use of water is now government policy and the public is continually reminded of this imperative. 

Melbourne’s broadsheet, The Age, recently published an opinion piece entitled ‘Our hot, dry future’ by David Jones, head of climate analysis at the Bureau of Meteorology.  The piece reinforced the popular belief that there has been a long term decline in rainfall as a consequence of climate change.  Dr Jones wrote:

“We also know that over the past 11 years Melbourne’s rainfall has been about 20% below the long-term average, and that south-east Australia as a whole has now missed out on more than a year’s worth of its normal rainfall over the duration of the event. The run-off into Melbourne’s dams has been 40% below average over this drought period compared with the longer term, while regional areas have fared even worse. And the drought hasn’t ended.”  

Total rainfall for the major water-harvesting catchments feeding Melbourne is archived on a weekly basis at the Melbourne water website  as well as total dam storage levels back to September and August 1998, respectively.   My assistant at the Institute of Public Affairs, Nichole Hoskin, asked the Water Commission if we could have this information in an excel format for ease of manipulation, but a Mark Kartasumitra, explained we would have to make-do with what was at the website.   So Nichole extracted the individual weekly values for rainfall and water storage from their archives and entered these values into a spread sheet and then plotted a chart for rainfall, shown below, and also a chart for water storage. 

There has been a steady decline in the amount of water in Melbourne’s dams since 1998, but the chart of total catchment rainfall shows no such decline.   Indeed rainfall over the last decade appears to have been fairly steady. 

When Dr Jones writes that rainfall has been 20% below the long-term average I wonder what time frame he uses by way of comparison?   When Dr Jones writes that runoff has been 40% below average it is interesting to again ponder time frames and also what changes in land management in the catchment may have contributed to the reduction.  Indeed the available data suggests that dam levels have fallen significantly even though there has been reasonable rain.

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Part 1 of ‘How Melbourne’s Climate Has Changed: A reply to Dr David Jones’ was published on October 14th, 2008, and can be read here.