Tutt tutt Mr Ridd

Let’s look at the state of Australia and ask ourselves how the Greens are responsible for the Labor/Conservative mismanagement of this nation and the resultant stuff-ups:

- Largest polluter per capita on the planet
- Appalling health system
- Failing education system
- Continuing population growth
- Murray River – trashed
- Land salinity and soil degradation
- Threatened ecological communities and extinctions
- Suppression of vital health and environmental information (all governments)
- Sydney Harbour waters contaminated (dioxins)
- Lack of regulation on industrial pollution
- Government approval of industrial estates which encroach on established residential areas
- Crime and corruption in our halls of parliament
- Lack of decisive policies on climate change (particularly Howard’s government)

And so Mr Ridd, to alleviate all of the above pressures, you recommend turning this nation into a moon crater by digging up Australia to mine uranium. Have you perused the myriad of uranium tenements awaiting a green light – tenements which will make vast tracks of this land uninhabitable and which will obscenely gobble up our already depleted water resources?

Rather than cap carbon – reduce our carbon footprint, you recommend “business as usual” by procrastination - future sequestration of billions of tonnes of CO2 with unknown consequences.

Ah…..the free market – free for whom?

And the glass house Mr Ridd?

A very refreshing alternative point of view by Peter Ridd.

He succinctly observed that “The greens nowadays are less of an environmental movement and more of an extreme left wing conglomeration devoted primarily to social justice issues.”

I suggest that the Greens have been infiltrated by many more vested interests than just an “extreme left wing conglomeration.”
The social engineering influence of the Roman Catholic Church’s Peace and Social Justice Committee especially in relation to population and immigration growth, refugee and anti-globalization policies is clearly apparent.

It seems to me that The Greens are suffering from similar problems that afflicted the Australian Labor Party in the 1950’s where they were covertly white-anted by external pressure groups whose aim was to either capture the party or else use it as a megaphone for their own policies.

Today the naive say that The Greens democratically accommodate disparate points of view.
But do they?
Their avoidance of immigration and population growth debate with its attendant problems for water and land conservation and cost of housing,health and education speaks very loudly and ominously indeed.

I am cynical enough to believe that the exponential growth of The Greens vote has more to do with covert power politics than the awakening altruism of the Australian voter. The Greens are undergoing machinations, which could be parodied as a modern day Trojan Horse with disparate power groups in its belly striving for supremacy.

Dickie,
If Australia is and has been such an awful place to live in and if being an Australian is such an embarrassment for someone like yourself, when are you migrating overseas and which countries would you be happy to live in

Lev,

I agree with you that per capita consumption is equally important and that it is, by definition the product of these terms that is important. I want to make it quite clear that we must concentrate on both. My problem with both The Green Party, and most other green organizations is that they only concentrate on per capita consumption. I appreciate your point that you may not want to put an exact number on what you think Australia’s population growth should be but you say nothing about the clear need to reduce immigration on this you are silent, both in terms of your policies and your actions. I would like Bob Brown to stand up in parliament and argue for a reduction in the immigration quota just like he (correctly) argues that we must look at reducing per capita consumption.

All the fuss seems to have been on the population issue which is good because it is so important but where is The Green response to my accusation of hypocrisy on Aboriginal killing of endangered species, and the folly of some bio-fuels.

And finally, to those who accuse me and the AEF as being a front for the timber industry and other supposedly pro-growth right wing organizations, read my penultimate paragraph. Here I say that greens too often resort to questioning motives rather than arguing the point. So here we go again. As I have mentioned before on OLO, I am a minor academic from a small university somewhere north of the tropic with no financial interest in any industry save what my super fund might own. I ride my bike to work for environmental grounds and have been in the conservation movement from when I was a teenager. It just happens that I feel that the conservation movement, including The Green Party, has taken a wrong turn over the last decade.

Peter Ridd

Bernie Masters

Six generations of mine have inhabited these lands.

I have as much right as anyone to publicly object to the failed policies of successive governments in Australia and their impotence in correcting those failures.

Despite those failures, my ancestors have always had the capacity to look after themselves through work hard where they have never sought assistance from the public purse.

I have no intention of migrating anywhere, despite your attempts to gag me.

I reiterate, why criticise a Party which has never been in power and which can not take responsibility for the ethics-free system which now prevails?

Dickie,
The reason why I criticise the Greens is two-fold. First, on several occasions, they've helped put the ALP into power at state and federal level. Yet, in spite of this king-making power they hold, they've failed to truly represent green issues when Labor has been the government. As king makers, they have the ability to negotiate with the people to whom they've directed preferences in order to achieve some positive environmental outcomes, yet they've chosen not to negotiate.
Second, in spite of many of the items on your list of stuff-ups being serious and deserving urgent action, the Greens continue to focus on issues often unrelated or irrelevant to the environment. Even when John Howard handed them the opportunity to negotiate over the GST, the Greens chose to do nothing. So now we have a Greens-supported Labor government that wants to ban or tax plastic bags, while our biodiversity continues to be lost and decisions on climate change are left in the 'too hard' basket.
The bottom line is that the Greens have to take a considerable amount of responsibility for the state we're in. In my view, they prefer to have environmental catastrophes afflict us as a way of getting people to vote for them, rather than see serious action taken to resolve those disasters.