http://www.dfat.gov.au/tradematters/index.html
This infographic (on 2012 foreign trade) looks fairly problematic to me. We export mainly raw materials, and import oil and processed materials. That’s costly and inefficient: inevitable we’ll always lose on that balance.
Images for Australia and QLD copied as DFAT doesn’t use URLs that will persist when the next edition comes out…
The Coalition’s broadband policy slogan states that they will “Complete the current NBN cheaper and faster.” This simply isn’t true.
See http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2013/02/21/3695094.htm for the full story.
Asylum Seeker Attempts Suicide On Nauru (New Matilda)
An Iranian asylum seeker attempted suicide two days ago on Nauru, reportedly after being told of long waits for processing under the Gillard Government’s “no advantage” rule.
Nauru Asylum Seekers Protest Delays (New Matilda)
More than 200 asylum seekers on Nauru held a three-hour peaceful protest meeting yesterday calling on the Gillard Government to close down the camp and start immediately processing asylum seeker applications.
Dear Government & Minister Bowen – given your successful attempt at simulating the Howard government’s “Pacific Solution” is now yielding the expected identical results of misery and despair, will you now please cease destroying people’s lives as well as wasting our time and money in this endeavour and instead return Australia to behave in a decent humanitarian way?
It was not really up to you to provide a practical demonstration of how Tony Abbott’s ideas on asylum seeks are nonsensical and dangerous.
People seek asylum in Australia because their home country is not safe. These people deserve care and protection. Detaining them for years, reducing them to mental wrecks, is senseless. The human cost and the loss to our society is huge. Even if a humane process were to inadvertantly let in some “non genuine” applicants, the net balance would still be far on the positive side.
If you are actually worried about “the boats” which as we know only make up a tiny fraction of the total influx of asylum seekers, and more specifically get rid of the people smuggling related to this, then let’s have Australia pick up asylum seekers from various countries in the region. Either by plane or ship – even a fancy cruise ship would be more economical than Nauru or other off-shore processing.
Phosphorus is, while being essential to farming crops and an essential nutrient for humans (and other animals!), a relatively scarce resource – and it’s running out. Australian soil is particularly poor in phosphorus anyway, but the “running out” story is essentially global – it might just happen faster to Australia.
Two Australian researchers (Dr Dana Cordell & Prof Stuart White of the University of Technology, Sydney) won the 2012 Eureka environmental research prize for their work in this area. See the Conserving Life’s Building Block article.
See also the Wikipedia entry on Peak Phosphorus, with links to other resources. It correctly identifies that current large scale agriculture practises with artificial fertilisers is a big contributor to the problem – we actually know for a fact that that’s not the only thing where that method of farming is a problem. This use of fertiliser is known to only increase production for a short period, but then it really drops off. So it’s not a sane approach anyway.
My family sources its fruit & veg via Food Connect, which sources from Organic farmers in a 3-hour drive radius around Brisbane. There is also a Food Connect operation in Sydney, and other similar business elsewhere. In addition to this we started a veggie patch of our own again at the new house, which is also fun! Once we’re done with renovations we’ll get a few chooks also – right now we just have a worm farm and compost, which works fine for producing great crops.
Based on past performance, I’m going to put the sad prediction here that in response to phosphorus depletion, Australia will import even more foods from Asia and elsewhere. After all, that’d be a net import of phosphorus, therefore avoiding the immediate problem. It’s not really a solution, it would destroy local capacity and capabilities even further, and that doesn’t even address the (IMHO) important issue of “food sovereignty”.
Australia can and should be capable of feeding itself. If we don’t, we’re going to be in deep trouble in the long-run. It’s fine to import and export, but we should be able to feed ourselves if necessary.
Bid to ban cigarettes for anyone born after 2000. Interesting initiative in Tasmania, may go to all of Australia given that this comes less than a week after the High Court rules in favour of the “plain packaging” legislation. There is now good momentum for the “end game of tobacco”.