Letter to Premier Mike Rann

Dear Premier Rann,

As always, I don't expect a reply to this email, but I know many will read it and consider its worth or lack of significance.
Due to the now very obvious permanent climate change we in Adelaide and SA live in, (surely you no longer call it a drought) can you consider a compensation for those who choose to live in this climate?
I am not talking about money, but lifestyle. We do not wish to live in a desert.

You have already proven that you have little understanding of the value of trees in our semi arid city. Your government has sponsored the axing of what is now thousands of trees in the name of 'progress'.

You have not mentioned any watering regime program to allow those trees you choose to escape “the axe of progress”, from dying of thirst.

Your occasional mantra of “new plantings” to replace those mature trees that have been felled in your governments name, is so hollow. You know that they can never survive our increasingly harsh climate without water.
You have also said we can't water our gardens except on proclaimed days of your choosing. If it is cool and wet, we can water. If it is hot and dry we can only water when you allow us to do so.

You ignore the realities of our climate and yet you wish us to accept a population increase of 50% as being good.

Are we all to continue capturing water in buckets in our showers? Are you going to tell prospective new residents that if they choose to come and live here, that's way you are expected to live in Adelaide?

Are we forever going to have to keep our gardens green with grey water from our washing machines and buckets from the shower?

Surely it is the expectation of any person living in a first world country, to expect of their government, the three basics, a reliable supply of Electricity - Gas and Water

I for one, ask you to consider that if we, a city of over 1 million people, and in your dreams a city of over 1.6 million people are to live in anything that resembles the comfort and pleasure of a green city, then you and your government, as our elected representatives, had better consider how you are going to keep us from the desert sands. Crunch time is coming, and the residents are revolting.

Senators for South Australia

I find it almost amusing to regularly read letters in The Advertiser from South Australians, suggesting that Senators Penny Wong and Nick Minchin etc. should 'come over to Adelaide" to see what it's like living in a heatwave and not being able to keep our gardens alive due to water restrictions.
Well, guess what, these Senators do live here. They are Senators for South Australia. Yep!
Here is the full list of SA Senators who under our constitution, are elected to represent the needs of South Australia.

Readers can make up your own mind which ones really go in to bat for SA.

Cory Bernardi;
Simon Bermingham;
Don Farrell;
Allen Ferguson;
Mary Jo Fisher;
Sarah Hansen-Young;
Annette Hurley;
Anne McEwan;
Nick Minchin;
Penny Wong;
Dana Wortley;
Nick Xenophon.

What have they been doing to urge government to plan for our growing water needs without these third world conditions we now have to accept.
Enough said! .................. I think you understand my point.

Adelaide's early heat wave

Adelaide is experiencing a record early heatwave. This sort of weather typically is in February-March, summertime. But things have changed and here we are, still in Spring and having a real run of above 35C weather.

The rains have stopped and the gardens are drying and dying. And Rann & Co continue to rape our city with their government sponsored felling of trees everywhere.

Today is the third day above 35'c and plenty more to come.

Adelaide Forecast

summary	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon
	Sunny	Sunny	Sunny	Sunny	Mostly sunny	Mostly cloudy	Mostly sunny
maximum	38°C	39°C	39°C	39°C	34°C	29°C	28°C
minimum	24°C	25°C	25°C	23°C	22°C	18°C	15°C

Crows have new guernsey design

Wow, the Adelaide Crows have a new guernsey to wear on their away games.

Not sure I like it much at all.
But ADELAIDE Crows chief executive Steven Trigg is urging supporters to be patient with the new away guernsey, saying research suggests it will grow on people.
Research yeah!

Well let's hope so. He wouldn't want another Kraft-Up where some young advertising executive came up with the bright idea for their new cheesy spread be called iSnack.
Well, what a dud that was. The community just did not like the new image, and Kraft soon woke up that it was a no-goer and pulled the name fast.

Best of luck Crows!

Councillor Anne Moran wants to be Lord Mayor of Adelaide (click here)

Perhaps Councillor Anne Moran who wants to run for the office of Adelaide Lord Mayor "because she is a woman" might consider having some substantial policies as well?
Women certainly make up 50% of the population, but that alone does not give them entrée to high office.
I read with interest your Q&A bid for Lord Mayor at the next ACC elections (City North Messenger).

You are to be congratulated that next May you will be the longest serving female councillor in the history of the ACC.
But surely the fact that you are a woman and that "it's time for a woman" are not sufficient credentials alone to be Lord Mayor of Adelaide?
I have no problems should you seek, and be successful in achieving your goals, but sound policies should be the reason to be elected, not gender.
You mentioned "service to our residents" as your main reason for running. No mention at all, or apparent acknowledgement that the ACC is actually the hub for the entire metropolitan area, and decisions made by council affect the Greater Adelaide region, not just the area between the Terraces and North Adelaide.
Yet those outside North Adelaide have no vote at all even though it is "their city".
The Adelaide City Council is not yours to own. Yet for decades, it seems that is the feeling amongst most councillors.

The Adelaide City Council would surely have to be one of the most undemocratic councils in Australia. A few hundred people, mostly living in North Adelaide, control a capital city with little apparent acknowledgement that the privileged few are in fact, acting on behalf or over 1 million people.

Soylent Green

Perhaps PM Rudd should drag out the old book or the 1973 movie (still available on DVD) of Soylent Green.

Either that,or allow all the people who want to come here to OZ and he will achieve his 35 million BIG AUSTRALIA before the next election!
Anyone want a bottle of potable water? Just look on e-Bay for the best offer.

35 million people and no water (click here)

How can our politicians and the Prime Minister seriously consider that a "Big Australia" is desirable.
Even Kevin Rudd in question time agreed that we are one of the driest and hottest continents on earth.
Already there are severe water restrictions in many of our cities and we only have a population of 22 million.
How can we possibly support 35 million people without further reducing our standard of living and even risk not having the ability to grow enough food to feed ourselves.
Irrigation should surely not be the way, the rivers are already dying and creating "water wars."
The Lower Lakes in South Australia at the mouth of the Murray River, are becoming toxic battery acid as they dry out. People interstate would be shocked to see the state of the Lower Murray.
If our Prime Minister is serious about population growth, and he genuinely seems excited about that prospect, he had better tell us all where the water is coming from. Or are we to expect even more severe water restrictions and lowering of our standard of living.

How long is a piece of string? click here

Often we are told by our state government and its leader Mike Rann (Premier) that we are on the cusp of a mining boon, or is it boom?
Anyway, I wonder if a "cusp" is the same length as a piece of string!

Wikepedia describe the length of a piece of string as 'Really long' and as a matter of fact, conclude that its Twice the length from the middle to the end.
Or you can simply click the header to find how long is a piece of string.

But frankly I think it is the same length as a mining cusp.

Jessica Watson blog (click here)

Anyone interested to follow the round the world solo voyage of Jessica Watson, can do so by copying this link http://www.youngestround.blogspot.com/ or clicking the header above.
What a brave adventuress girl she is.
Bon Voyage!

Death on Lower Lakes (click here)

From Adelaide's Independent Weekly, Editor Hendrik Gout:-

It’s dawn, and the yellow sun is drowning in Lake Albert’s murk. A dozen men, mostly in battered but very serviceable aluminium dinghies, are setting off from Meningie. Their mission, which they have chosen to accept, is to kill as many fish as possible.

This is the government’s best answer to the worst human-caused change the Murray basin has ever seen.

Lake Albert, near the mouth of the once-Mighty Murray, is drying. Soon parts of the lake will be a wind-blown paddock.

It will be an enormous paddock, because Lake Albert is still so large that it’s not always possible to see the far shore..............

........... The government’s answer is to kill the fish before the fish die. The environment department is now paying fishermen to hunt carp and other species, usually with nets, and turn the catch into lobster bait.

......... There are incongruities in environmental politics the world over, but few so intriguing as the last lapping of the last water from what once were Australia’s mightiest lakes.
Click Header for full text.

Penny Wong is a South Australian senator

I enjoy reading the Letters to the Editor in our newspapers.
Today in The Advertiser, a contributor from a suburb near where I live, wrote about our recent good rains, a rarity these days, and our overflowing reservoirs with millions of litres of water flowing out to the Gulf.
She made mention of federal water resources minister Senator Penny Wong. The contributor suggested that Penny Wong visit Adelaide to see for herself the waste of precious water and the lack of government action (as opposed to spin) to save this water.
Well dear contributor to The Advertiser, Senator Penny Wong not only should visit, she actually LIVES in our fair city. Yes Penny is a Senator for South Australia. But you would never know it would you.
Her electoral office is actually at 81 Carrington Street in the city of Adelaide.
There is another Senator, namely Nick Xenophon. I doubt anyone in South Australia would have any trouble identifying him as a champion for the needs of South Australia.
Australia’s constitution, in setting up The Senate as the States’ house is being continually abused by governments of the day, by appointing some Senators to ministerial positions. This action subsequently denies them the opportunity for which they were elected, to represent the people of the State that elected them.
How many people are aware that Senator Penny Wong is a Senator for South Australia?
I think I know the answer, very very few!

Is there anybody else out there? Indeed yes there is! (click here)

Mike Rann loves trees - he promised an 'urban forest' before the last election - but not when they're in the way of development, especially when the developer has already donated to the ALP.

Anne Moran loves Anne Moran, bugger trees. Her appearance on ABC Stateline 9-10-09 mourning the Botanic Park massacre was farcical. Adelaide City Council has lost hundreds of significant trees by sheer neglect ("setting an example on water conservation") and has cut down dozens of others to oblige promoters renting the city's parks.

I watched ACC officials and Fringe management peg out string around a 100-year-old Monterey pine in Rundle Park: next day I saw it cut down to create space for a beer tent. Three magnificent silver birches in Victoria Square were axed to enlarge the Tour Down Under carpark.
A dozen trees in Rymill Park disappeared overnight (with flowerbeds planted over their stumps by morning) for the Horse Trials (although designing the course around the trees was part of the contract).
Two street trees near Adelaide Oval were cut down to give motorists a blurred view of the Bradman statue (Bradman, a keen gardener, would have been mortified).
ACC allowed Botanic Gardens management to axe six majestic grey gums in the old RAH carpark to make way for a 'health garden'. The bastardry and hypocrisy are nauseating.
Anne Moran and the ACC Development Assessment Panel refused permission to chop down the Aleppo pines outside the Zoo because they knew it would go straight to the Development Assessment Commission, Rann's rubber stamp.
Not one member of the DAP visited the site before or after - or they'd have seen that 15, not six trees as approved, were destroyed, and the reasons given for their removal were totally spurious.
I can't get Tim Llloyd, so-called 'heritage' writer for The Advertiser, to report one word of this.
The common response is, "Oh, but we've planted x-thousand new trees" - i.e,seedlings. So they have. They never come back to water them, and all die - but there they are in the annual report, 'x-thousand new trees'.
By permission: Trevor Farrant - Hackney