Port Phillip Bay

Melbourne is situated within a bay Called Port Phillip Bay . It has become a place where Melbournians swim, fish and play water sports. The Yarra river runs into the bay and when Melbourne was being established in the latter part of the 19th century a port was established on the river and fed by ships coming through Port Phillip bay. It has been described as a 19th or twentieth century port, but not suitable for the 21st century and beyond.

There are alternative places that could serve Melbourne and Victoria as a deep-water port. One being Western Port bay which is a deep water bay. Which is literally just around the corner. [See Port Phillip Bay link above] It has towns along the foreshore that could be developed into port cities. In fact a proposal to make Hastings a port was floated back in the 1960s.

As it is, we are just about to embark on a billion dollar dredging exercise, to create a deep water shipping channel for the new generation container ships. Even with a number of environmental impact studies and Federal Government approval, there is a ground swell of opposition.

The Premier [Mr Brumby] supports the recommendations, but I think he is missing the point. That being, that Port Phillip bay is used in a very different way to a century ago. The people of Melbourne don't want their bay side polluted by dredging up a 100 years of toxic waste and sludge. Even the main users of the Port of Melbourne [shipping companies] are not unanimous in their support for the billion dollar dredging.

I think, yet again, it is a case of the experts told them so, so therefore we will do as they say.

There are many ways to skin a cat, and putting a deep water port in a deep water bay may be the best way to go. As long as we insist on using heavy rail to cart the containers to distribution points around Victoria it should work well.

So honk your ships horn if you think we should send a message to Mr Brumby.

Oh and by the way, I have read that our former Federal treasurer Peter Costello, who jumped after the last general election. Has been offered an eight figure annual income to work for the Macquarie bank. I wonder, if his often kind support for their take over plans has anything to do with that. A bit like the former Premier of NSW Bob Carr getting a decent wedge from Mac Bank when he retired from politics.
Woof.

Back on your Bike

A new year and at last I'm climbing out of my holiday/xmas/hot summer hibernation.

Over the xmas hols the state government here in Victoria decided to ban Bicycles on trains during the morning rush hour period. This is despite the relevant transport minister being supposedly in favour of bikes as a means of transport.
Of late the public transport system is being used more, due in part to a hike in petrol costs and also the greater awareness of Global warming. This has meant that the railway carriages have been full in the mornings as commuters get to work. Some travellers want to use public transport in conjunction with their bikes. So here is the rub, busy train, person gets on with bike, potential for conflict.
The transport minister had a couple of options, one was to restrict the carrying of bikes on trains. The other was to make arrangements for an extra carriage during the morning rush hour to accommodate the extra patronage, including people with bikes.
He chose the first, I don't know why, perhaps cause the government no longer run the railways and their contracts with the private operator is locked into so many carriages. Who knows? All I can say is there will be many more commuters with their varying needs in the not so distant future. The government should look forward with enlightenment not put their collective head in the sand and behave like they have.
Woof.

Water in Victoria

Below is an Article from The Age newspaper today outlining the problem with the current water plan.

Woof.

Utilities are wasting our precious water

ACCORDING to conventional wisdom, Victoria's government-owned or regulated institutions are frantically conserving water for a growing economy in a record drought.

The canard concludes that we need a $3.1 billion desalination plant.

In reality, Victorians are saving lots of water but the responsible utilities waste it faster.

The desalination plant is intended to serve Melbourne but its Wonthaggi location demands an extraordinary 85-kilometre pumping system to deliver the water.

The plant will consume enough electricity to run a town and produce an estimated 1 million tonnes of atmospheric carbon each year. It will be greenwashed by robbing every iota of wind energy now produced in Victoria.

The desalination plant is designed to produce 150 gigalitres — 150 billion litres — of drinking water each year. It will extract about 400 gigalitres of sea water and return about 250 gigalitres in a plume of concentrated brine. Each day the plant will also produce about three semi-trailer loads of contaminated salt for burial.

Consumers will foot the bill, but the plant's public institutional proponents are not compelled to reciprocate with innovation or accountability. Discarded water volumes could potentially double planned water augmentation without going near a desalination plant.

For example, 116 gigalitres of drinking water is used to cool Latrobe Valley electricity generators each year, when sea water or air coolers could provide alternative solutions.

The Melbourne Water Corporation sends almost 300 gigalitres of partially treated waste water into Bass Strait each year even though the water could be recycled for Melbourne's industry belts. Discarding this treated water is akin to sending all of Melbourne's bottles, cans, papers and cardboard to landfill instead of recycling them.

It is thinking that belongs to the era when the Yarra was a sewer and the Maribyrnong River flowed red beyond the meatworks.

In Melbourne, rainfall run-off is channelled straight into the Yarra and Port Phillip Bay, wasting more than 200 gigalitres each year.

Melbourne's water retailers rigorously enforce household water restrictions, yet the water companies themselves are losing nearly 50 gigalitres of drinking water each year. Last year, Yarra Valley Water lost about 22 gigalitres but still advertises itself in a monopoly market.

In Bendigo, the state education office recently wasted 2½ million litres of water from a leaking pipe. This equalled nearly 10% of daily water consumption for Bendigo and surrounding townships.

Meanwhile, ordinary consumers shower with buckets while their gardens wilt and water prices rise.

An elderly Sydney gardener is alleged to have been killed recently in the first case of "water rage". Shocking, but hardly surprising, because the tension is all being focused on consumers.

Some influential water industry leaders are now predicting that the proposed desalination plant and the new Goulburn Valley pipeline will leave Melbourne awash with expensive drinking water.

Even Victoria's utilities regulator has flagged the potential glut. The Essential Services Commission recently questioned a proposal to introduce a "fourth tier" pricing escalation, saying "such a strong disincentive to use water may be questioned".

The desalination plant will be built as a public-private partnership and its owners will pay about a third more interest on their loans compared with government borrowings. The cost of operation and investment return could reach $500 million a year, in a contract that would typically bind taxpayers for 30 years or more.

Such contracts usually operate on a take-or-pay basis. The owners might even demand compensation if water consumption is reduced by government strategies, and this will see new and spurious justifications for buying water.

Desalination costs will rise as arid nations compete for expertise, and as Victoria fights a bidding war with the oil kingdoms of the Middle East. Foreign water corporations will be drooling at the prospect.

The desalination decision was made by former State Government leaders apparently seduced by big spending rather than big thinking around demand management.

Ironically, Australians are highly amenable to the cultural shifts demanded by the climate crisis. A recent Lowy Institute survey showed that 92% of Australians want to see the climate change tackled seriously and almost 70% of Australians are accepting of the necessary investment. If provided with knowledge rather than propaganda, Victorians are capable of embracing a strategy that better captures rainfall, reduces squandering by utilities and provides industry with an option to use recycled water.

In the interim, Victorians should take a leisurely drive to Wonthaggi and prepare for the delight of a lifetime as they crest the gentle hill at Kilcunda. Here, the drab grazing land gives way to a seascape that is simply glorious. From 2009 that scene will be violated by bulldozers building a de facto carbon factory.

It is an ecological blasphemy that will plague us for a lifetime.

Tony Cutcliffe is a director of policy forum and consultancy The Eureka Project.

Economists

Economists have a lot to answer for. Over the past decade here in Australia, our governments of both persuasions have tried to sell off everything that was owned by the people. They have also encouraged the population 'To Go For Growth' As the Liberal party ran as one of it's election slogans said.

The answer to the economists dream is to have a bigger population, consuming more products, while travelling as many kilometres as humanly possible on or in whatever carbon guzzling machine is most appropriate.

Now as we are being told by scientist from around the world in one large collective voice we have to become green and lean. Buy local is the new slogan, we have known this for ever and a day. Not economists they have asked us to buy global. Allow Brazilian farmers to sell us their orange juice, no matter that it puts our farmers out of business, if they can't compete then they shouldn't be in the market place.

In fact the whole emphasis has been to consume more of just about everything, except maybe water and that is because we have had a drought for 10 years. I'm sure it was the economists that told the state governments that it didn't matter that they would have to double the price of water, building a desalination plant [the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere] was an economic miracle. Because governments tend to believe 'Experts' and 'Experts' have said build it.

We need to clean out this current mob of economists and money men. They will be the ruination of us all. Even Carbon is worth trading in. Don't for a minute think it will make an once of difference to our carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It will become another piece of paper to trade and make wealthy financiers wealthier.

I wonder which economist told the airlines of the world it makes economic sense to fly twice as many flights around the world some at such low costs per passenger it wouldn't even cover the pilots drinks tab. I read recently that a flight from Australia to Europe is equal in carbon consumption to an average Australian household for two and half years.

Scientist will finally win these debates about carbon and renewable energy. But not before a handful of economists will cost as billions in lost opportunities to be Lean and Green.
Woof.

Goodbye and Good Riddance

Goodbye Mr Howard and your right wing politics. As I had predicted and hoped for John Howard's government were decidedly beaten in the weekends election.
The reason I could see it coming was that the outer suburbs of our major cities where Howard had been elected at each previous election over the last 11 years, had turned against him. The voters out there are Mums and Dads with Mortgages and by and large employed in small to medium size businesses. The work place laws introduced by Howard were not popular, so they deserted him. Two other factors may of helped the Labor cause. John Howard was very slow in accepting Climate change and that is a big worry for many people now, and they don't want an old fart with all the privileges of high office telling them it is better to give tax cuts to millionaires than put money into alternative energy creation.
Howard along with his treasurer Peter Costello, have managed to waste 10 years of economic good times. They lauded their achievements but didn't plough the surpluses they so happily took through consumption taxes back into longer term policy. That is why I say good riddance. I hope the Liberal party learns from this drubbing and thinks about the future of this world next time they are elected and not some stupid right wing agenda to feather the nest of aspirational greedy millionaires.
Best of luck to Kevin Rudd
Woof

Cricket and Polls

Cricket and Opinion Polls, two things I could say who gives a flying fig about at this very moment.

We have had two test matches this summer, Australia versus Sri Lanka, the first ended in a massive defeat to Sri Lanka and likewise the second even if the end score looks closer, the Aussie declared at some unlikely score of 2 for 210 in their second innings. What is the point of having these test matches. Australia I think is the only nation that has this incredible appetite for winning at cricket. I know other nations like India [touring here this summer] and Pakistan, West Indies etc. all have 'Proud Traditions', but none of them have this military type approach to winning.

So what happens, we have these one sided test series that leave a lot of cricket fans and potential cricket fans, with boring days of cricket with no suspense what so ever. Even the commentators have become geriatrics, maybe because, no younger guys want the gig. I have no idea what to do about it except to turn off the coverage which I have done for a number of years now.

Opinion polls the panacea of the masses. Feed them another opinion poll, get the electorate excited, this age long election is being held together by endless polls. No matter, that they all say the same thing [A win to Labor] a small deviation here or there, up a percentage point for 'preferred prime minister' down a point in two party preferred swing. Hey cut it out there are too many variables to know exactly what you are talking about and you only tell us the sexy bits.
Time to put away the papers and turn off the news flashes we need an election free zone. And did you know that in the long and short of it all, neither side have the answers they are by and large reacting to things out of their control with the illusion of being in the driving seat making all the right decisions. They couldn't lie straight in bed, god bless them, dear born agains that they are.
Woof.

John Howards Time in Office

Have a look at this article from The AGE by Ross McMullin. It outlines the deceit and lies that have surrounded John Howard's time in Office.
Woof

Spend

The two major parties in this election are promising billions of dollars in hand outs, much of which is aimed at buying a vote. However the biggest vote buying, 'spend' came in the first week of the election. The 32 billion dollar tax relief proposed by Mr Howard. I have already commented on how I find that intolerable. I have thought some more about it in the light of election promises, and just the way elections can focus the mind.
The main thing we need to be doing over the next 10 years is to reduce greenhouse gases by making our world less dependent on fossil fuels. We need to make, solar, wind, tides, etc our main source of energy. We need our reliance on petrol/diesel cars to end. And an added thing we need to do here in Australia is find ways of supplying safe water in a what has become a much drier continent.
We want our politicians to consult with the public to work together to find solutions. Not to tell us that with expert advise they have found the one and only solution and we have to live with it. There are often many ways to skin a cat and we need to debate some of them. The Howard government has promoted a get rich approach to lifestyle and it is going to come home to bite us all in the arse. It has made us complacent and encouraged us to bury our heads in the sand over climate change and the future. Up until a year ago you would hardly of thought that we had a crises of this magnitude looming. I put a lot of that down to John Howard and his approach to leadership. If you look back over his 11 years it has all been about running surpluses and giving tax relief to the wealthy. He has done this by selling the crown jewels, spreading the tax base, [GST] and cutting services. No forethought what so ever, just that wealth creation, will in some way magic it's way into all the households. I don't think.
Some of the advisers are economists, they seem to think the only way to get things done is to make it attractive financially, for enough, for them to initiate change. Driven by profit, well it only works to a certain extent. As shown by big business. They stop being inventive and look purely for profit.
We need our politicians to commit to changing the way we do business in Australia, get rid of the status quo and find green ways of seeing our future.
Very soon now it will be the people speaking up not the lobbyists for big business. People will demand their councils provide the correct infrastructure to sustain our consumption. It will be people who say, 'forget the tax cut give us a break on installing and running alternative hot water services and solar panels.
Why these issues are barely being questioned in this election, says heaps for the current way of doing business as a government. Get elected and then rule by executive power. And only listen to the lobbyists from big business or political donors. Enough is enough let the people be heard.
Woof.

Climate change, An Election. Denial.

It's all here in an article from Kenneth Davidson in The Age. If we don't get our head out of the sand as far as global warming and Politicians start telling the truth about what we need to do to adapt then we are fooling ourselves and depriving future generations.
Have a read of THIS
Woof.

Melbourne recycle your water

The local council at Swan Hill has passed a motion asking the Premier of Victoria to make Melbourne recycle it's water, then it wouldn't have to take water from the Swan Hill area.
Here is the article. And reproduced below. I have been saying this for a few years now.

Woof.

Call for recycling instead of pipeline

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Royce Millar
October 30, 2007

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MELBOURNE should recycle its water rather than piping fresh water over the Dividing Range from the drought-stricken communities along the Goulburn River.

That is the view of Swan Hill's council. This week it will ask the Municipal Association of Victoria's state conference to back its call for the State Government to invest in recycling for Melbourne instead of building the north-south, or Sugarloaf, pipeline.

The Swan Hill motion notes that water recycling works well overseas and that purification technology is advanced and "could offer long-term solutions" to Melbourne's burgeoning water demands.

It also doubts the Brumby Government's guarantee to limit the volume of water diverted from the Goulburn to Melbourne to 75 gigalitres a year. "Unfortunately, political history demonstrates such guarantees have a limited life," it says.

The council's motion is likely to get wide rural backing but it is not clear whether it will secure the metropolitan support necessary for success at the association's meeting.

Senior local government figures are understood to be anxious that a successful resolution could embarrass the Brumby Government.

Municipal association president Dick Gross could not be contacted yesterday.

Some Melbourne councillors have already backed the Swan Hill campaign. Moonee Valley Mayor and Greens member Ben Opie said he supported the motion because much more needed to be done to boost levels of water re-use and harvesting in Melbourne.

Cr Opie said local councils were introducing recycling and other water measures but projects were limited.

"Local government budgets don't stretch far enough," he said.

Swan Hill Mayor Gary Norton said his council supported irrigation upgrades to reduce water seepage and evaporation "but we don't like the trade-off", meaning the pipeline.

He said it was not clear whether he would have the numbers to get his motion up on Friday. "But win or lose, we've got the message out there," Cr Norton said.

The State Government backed the pipeline as part of a two-pronged, $4.9 billion water strategy announced this year that also includes the controversial desalination plant at Williamsons Beach, near Wonthaggi.

Under the pipeline plan, up to 450 billion litres of water would be saved through a $2 billion upgrade of the 80-year-old Goulburn irrigation system, including the lining of open channels and installation of automated channel control.

Melbourne would receive 75 gigalitres of the water and the remainder would be shared between the environment and agriculture. The water would be piped 70 kilometres from the Goulburn River, near Yea, to Sugarloaf Reservoir, north-east of Melbourne.