Tasmania: Artists work to save Tarkine

A group of 70 artists have spent their Easter break exploring a remote part of north-west Tasmania and creating works they hope will lead to the area's protection.

Known as the Tarkine region, it includes the second largest cool temperate rainforest in the world, Aboriginal heritage sites and a windswept coastline.

But protection of the region is highly contentious, and is opposed by the Federal and Tasmanian governments because forestry logging coupes, mines and mineral exploration leases cover the bulk of its territory.

Time lapse photographer Daniel Johnson travelled from Victoria to what is known as the Edge of the World, a rugged coastal area with big swell and surging kelp near the Arthur River.

"I'm out here to time lapse the scene change, with the light and crazy waves and the time of day into night; the moon tonight which is a blood moon," he said.

"I think it should be protected because it's pretty amazing.

"I've never seen tea tree forest like this before, and all the rock formations."

Bruny Island musician Julius Schwing has been composing music inspired by the Tarkine's natural sounds.

"The material I've been writing here; I've basically been like a novelist taking sketches, taking small ideas which I'll take home and develop," he said.

Who wouldn't love them? Just that ageless timeless sedimentary process that you can see eroded away, it's the bones of the landscape and it makes me feel very connected here.

Printmaker Deb Wace

"I see them as quite minimal music; very constant, primal, ancient music that's a cross between sound-scapes but still melodic.

"For instance, there's a lot of low-end rumble from the waves, so I instantly think low-end rumble.

"And there's wind, so that's kind of a high end frequency, so you've already got two extremes."

Schwing felt the power of those winds when a gust of 50 knots threw his guitar against the rocks and damaged it.

"At the time I sat there for a solid five to 10 minutes, head in hands," he said.

"But then I did a whole bunch of improvisations with it as it was, and I thought 'Oh well, I'll say the Tarkine retuned it'."

Printmaker Deb Wace was inspired by the jagged lines carved into rock formations at Sarah Anne Rocks.

"Who wouldn't love them? Just that ageless timeless sedimentary process that you can see eroded away, it's the bones of the landscape and it makes me feel very connected here," she said.

"[I feel] very much a part of it and I'm trying to express what I feel artistically."

National park push rejected by Federal and state governments

The works created by the artists will be shown at exhibitions in Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart under the banner Tarkine in Motion, and there are plans for a one-hour documentary film.

The project was sponsored by the Bob Brown Foundation at a cost of over $10,000, and aims to garner support for the Tarkine to become a 450,000-hectare national park.

Campaign manager at the Bob Brown Foundation, Jenny Weber, said that the area "runs from the Pieman River in the south to further than the Arthur River up the coast for the extraordinary natural and indigenous heritage we have in the Tarkine".

"It also runs out to through to the Savage River," she said.

"The Tarkine has the largest tract of cool temperate rainforest in Australia.

"There are significant tracts of wilderness quality and extraordinary coastlines."

Carmichael coal battle is everyone's fight

The Wangan and Jagalingou people’s battle with big coal at Carmichael will test both our commitment to native title and our national values

The Wangan and Jagalingou Family Council have launched their online campaign to stop Adani on GetUp's grassroots campaigning platform CommunityRun. Already, over 75,000 Australians have signed their petition, making it one of the largest and fastest growing campaigns ever on CommunityRun. To watch Adrian's incredible campaign video, learn more about the fight and join the campaign, click here: www.communityrun.org/p/stopadani 

The Wangan and Jagalingou people’s rejection of the Indigenous land use agreement with Adani for land designated for the Carmichael coal mine in the Galilee Basin will put our national values to the test. The decision is simple – a choice between preserving our history, our land and our environment or giving in to the interests of big coal and gas. 

Although this is a major test case of Australia’s commitment to the principles set out in the Native Title legislation, it is definitely not the first instance of Indigenous communities fighting against the encroachment of fossil fuels on their culture and territories across the world.

In saying no to Adani, the Wangan and Jagalingou have sewn their fight into the growing global tapestry of first nations people standing up to fossil fuel expansion. Like the Athabasca Chipewyan battling the tar sands of Alberta, the Achuar Indians fighting oil and gas in the Amazon and the Ogoni and Ijaw’s fight against Shell in the Niger Delta, they are going head to head with some of the world’s richest and most destructive companies, to defend their land, their cultures, and in turn the planet as we know it. Essentially, they are taking on a battle which we should all be involved in.

Closer to home, we have seen the Gomeroi people of NSW stand side by side with farmers, celebrities and environmentalists to oppose the controversial Maules Creek mine which would destroy a number of their sacred sites. Similarly, in 2013, the Western Australian Goolarabooloo people fought off plans to build one of the largest gas plants in Australia at James Price Point. 

As this resistance movement grows, so too does its legal legitimacy. In 2007, the UN general assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, granting traditional owners legal recourse to contest their land being used without their “free, prior and informed consent” – a right that companies like Adani would rather ignore.

Within days of the Wangan and Jagalingou rejecting Carmichael, Adani mounted a legal challenge to rid themselves of the obligation to secure traditional owner consent to mine their lands. This is a true vindication of the fossil fuel industry’s contempt for playing by the rules, let alone international human rights law.

This fight is deeply personal, deeply place-based yet, at the same time, deeply global. It is about the protection of Indigenous people’s cultural landscapes – lands imbued with values and traditions built up over millennia. But it’s also about the right of companies to plunder the earth for a profit. Their fight is everyone’s fight.

The climate impact of fossil fuel expansion is something I speak of regularly. Fossil fuel companies intend to burn five times more carbon than the planet can safely handle, condemning us all to a miserable future. But whilst we still have some (albeit diminishing) time to fight back the climate impacts, the impacts for traditional owners, upon whose land these extractive agendas are being inflicted, are far more immediate and tangible. No amount of compensation can replace the historic and cultural value of the lands and artefacts destroyed to make way for new coal mines. 

In the words of Adrian Burragubba, representative of the Wangan people:

This is the starting point of life. We consider this as our place of where we come from, our dreaming. If this mine proceeds, it will destroy every connection there is with our ancestors and our laws and customs.

Indigenous peoples should not have to fight this alone. It behoves non-Indigenous people everywhere to stand up and fight too – to be the allies that our ancestors weren’t, to recognise that the climate fight is ultimately a fight about justice and that neither can be won by ignoring either. 

“I never thought I would see the day that we would come together. Relationships are changing, stereotypes are disappearing, there’s more respect for one another,” said Geraldine Thomas-Flurer of the Yinka Dene Alliance fighting the Northern Gateway Pipeline in British Columbia. This fight for indigenous rights could just be the greatest line of defense we have in the battle for climate justice. This fight is everyone’s fight.

ACTU: Take action to protect penalty rates before the Easter break.

Take Action to Protect Penalty Rate before the Easter Break

As you open your Easter eggs this Sunday, spare a thought for Mark at the Cadbury factory who has been doing grueling shift work to make them for you:

“Over the last 30 years I have worked on Christmas day at least 10 times. I usually work over Easter and I have lost count of the number of birthday celebrations I have missed”.

Mark and millions of workers like him – from nurses to shop attendants - will be working all hours to make our Easter. They deserve their penalty rates and our thanks.

Yet employer groups and the Federal Government seem more determined than ever to scrap them.

The Abbott Government could put a stop to this and protect penalty rates for all workers now and into the future. Demand they act. Add your voice to the call to Save Our Weekends.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called for almost 2 million workers on awards to lose their penalty rates altogether. That would mean a savage pay cut for some of Australia’s lowest paid workers. It would also rip billions out of the economy, hurting the very small businesses they claim they are helping.

And the government is trying to change the law to make it easier for bosses to force workers to give up penalty rates under individual contracts.

“If I lost my penalty rates we’d have to sell the house. We couldn’t afford to keep living here,” says Mark.

But that’s not going to happen. Not if ordinary workers speak up. Sign the petition calling on the Federal Government to take action to Save Our Weekends. 

Unions have fought for and won penalty rates. This government wants to build an underclass of working poor. But with your help we can build a better future.

We wish you all a happy and safe Easter.

In unity,

Dave and Ged
Australian Unions Team
http://www.australianunions.org.au/

Unions NSW: Election Results

From Mark Lennon Secretary Unions NSW

Now that the dust has largely settled on the state election, it's clear the Coalition will form the next NSW government. Although we didn't quite get across the line on Saturday, we can confidently say we gave our all to try to stop a Baird Liberal Government from winning re-election, so I want to thank you for all you did this election.

Thank you for every conversation you had with your workmates, in your communities and with your family. Every time you shared information online or on the phone, knocked on doors or made a donation. What you did made a difference:

• Together, we knocked on more than 27,000 doors and had thousands of conversations with voters about privatisation, as well as protecting our jobs, rights and services.
• Together, we raised thousands of dollars to take our message to the streets with a giant mobile billboard  in the final few days of the campaign!
• Together, we won in 14 of the 18  seats we campaigned in and have strengthened our supporter network throughout the state — online and on the ground!

And just as importantly, what you did laid the groundwork for the fight ahead.

There is only one thing to do when faced with a challenge — face it head-on — and that’s what we’ll be doing. We will not waste a day. We will put our energy into preparing and organising for the fight ahead.

Our movement is made for these moments: history has shown that when we’re faced with a threat to our rights at work, we’re at our best. We know how to come together as one, united movement while taking advantage of our wonderful strength and diversity to confront any challenge.

When a Coalition Government took on the wharfies — we organised and won. When they introduced WorkChoices — we organised and won. Generations of union members before us have faced even bigger challenges and what did they do? They organised and won.

For more than 200 years, no election and no government has ever been stronger than (or outlasted) our movement. We stand for good jobs, living wages, strong rights and quality public services and we're not going to stop now. One election will never eclipse the two centuries in which we've fought to make the idea of a fair go for all a reality... and despite the election result, our struggle — fighting the good fight — continues.

In Union,

Mark Lennon
Secretary
Unions NSW

Drop unfair plan to lower pension indexation, reform super and pension assets test instead

Wednesday April 1, 2015

 
The Australian Council of Social Service today issued a call to the Federal Parliament to reject the plan to lower the Indexation of pensions that would severely impact all pensioners, and instead focus on eligibility for the part-pension and reforming the unfair retirement incomes system, including superannuation tax concessions.
 
“The decision to reduce the Indexation of pensions in the last Budget came as a great surprise to most of us, especially to pensioners. It would effectively lead to people on pensions, including older people, sole parents, and people with disabilities, falling behind community living standards,” said ACOSS CEO Dr Cassandra Goldie.
 
“We know these groups are already struggling to get by on a daily basis and if this measure goes ahead, they would lose as much as $80 per week over the next 10 years based on modelling by the National Commission of Audit.
 
“This would be a massive cut to the income of some of the most vulnerable people in our community, who simply could not afford to absorb it. The last thing we should be doing is reducing indexation of payments for pensioners down to the inadequate indexation which is still in place for people struggling to survive on Allowances, including young people on Youth Allowance (just $30 a day) and unemployed people on Newstart (just $37 a day). Two thirds of people on Newstart and Youth Allowance have been on these payments for over a year.

“Indexation to wages should be maintained for older people but also for sole parents and people with disability who already experience high levels of income poverty. Indexation for all basic income support payments –both Pensions and Allowances – should be linked to wages if they are to be enough for people to live with some dignity.

“We urge the government, opposition parties and crossbenchers to work together on alternative solutions to ensure the sustainability of retirement incomes system into the future. This must include reform to better target the Age Pension to those who need it and to superannuation tax concessions as part of the tax review.
 
“ACOSS has put forward sound and fair recommendations to this end, including reducing the current threshold that allows couples with as much as $1.1 million dollars in assets on top of the family home to qualify for a Part Pension.
 
“We also support the Government’s move to abolish the Seniors Supplement, which is available to people who are not eligible for the Aged Pension because they are in a much better financial position than most.

“The Supplement extends to older people who are disqualified from the Age Pension due to the assets test – which means for example, it would go to couples with assets in excess of $1 million apart from the family home. By excluding superannuation income from the income test for existing recipients, it also extends to people with significant superannuation incomes.

"A couple could have a million dollars in a superannuation fund paying them an income of $100,000 a year in addition to their assets and still receive the supplement.

"We strongly support the need for an adequate safety net system to ensure that people are supported when they fall into hard times. However, this supplement of $858 each year for singles and $1,295 for couples, simply cannot be justified," Dr Goldie said.