[From 2011 - I will update with suggestions to set up well-resourced processing centres at strategic places in Asia]
Subject: A message from the PM to Refugee Advocacy groups
A ‘satirical’ message from Julia Gillard to all
refugee advocacy groups
Today I am announcing a draft policy on asylum seekers and refugees that represents a new,
more humane and enlightened paradigm in my government’s approach to this issue
that will see the rapid phasing out of off-shore processing and long-term detention, and I am calling
for all asylum seeker/refugee advocacy groups to respond with their
suggestions, advice and constructive criticisms.
In the future, any man, woman or child arriving on our shores by boat or
by airplane, seeking safety from a serious threat, whether that be from state
oppression, war or climate catastrophe, will be expediently processed in vastly
upgraded onshore facilities.
All those found to meet the very strict requirements for refugee status,
who are genuinely escaping identified serious threats of harm, will be
integrated into society through a range of re-settlement options. Where there
is family support, people can move directly into a community. Where there is no such social support already
in place, people will be offered a choice of a suburban, regional or rural
CERES-based permaculture village farms situated near a volunteer town who
agrees to host the new settlement that will eventually integrate into and
enhance their local community.
Refugees who accept this option will be expected to sign a 5-year
contract with the government, committing to an 8-hour day, 5-day week of work
and study. (Correspondence courses can be tailored to individual needs).
Penalties for breaking the contract will apply.
All those found not to meet refugee status, and who wish to appeal the
decision, will be held for a short duration in an on-shore facility while their
appeal is being expedited – if it fails, they will be returned to their country
of origin.
My government also acknowledges and regrets the damage our Detention
Centre on Christmas Island has caused to the unique and sometimes critically
endangered wildlife (in particular the giant crab) and for the sewage pollution
of pristine coastline. The centre will be closed down for long-term detention
and will be used simply as a transfer station.
15th September,
2011
Excerpt from: http://worldatpolarity.blogspot.com - SUBMISSION
to HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES INQUIRY INTO BIODIVERSITY ...
….SUPPORT
PERMACULTURE - The self-supporting P/C Villages that I have long been
promoting with a blueprint to establish, in particular to give unemployed
people and refugees an option for their future, dovetails nicely into
biodiversity restoration, as do all permaculture endeavours. These settlements
can be set up in degraded ex-farm land that no-one wants to take responsibility
for to rehabilitate back to biodiverse edible landscapes. (Includes earth
building, free-range livestock, tri-generation power, aquaponics and hydroponic
components to provide on-site fresh daily harvesting of supplements). After
just a few years of learning (and teaching us…) and establishing
self-sufficiency, people will be in a position to incorporate a nursery and
revegetation program for endangered plant species for their district – there
will be multiple benefits; obviously for refugees who might otherwise be held
in detention, socially to invigorate the local communities, to given the
unemployed honest, rewarding work, to help increase populations of endangered
plants and animals and as ‘bush tucker’ supplements to everyone’s diet –
obviously the Aboriginal Land Custodians of that country will be intimately
involved in on-going advice and management. If their traditional land
management regimes were re-established, biodiversity would stabilise and
flourish, as it had been for millennia before colonisation.
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Open Letter to Julia Gillard re the current refugee crisis
There's a lot of degraded ex-farmland in Australia, thousands of
kilometres of country that no-one wants to take responsibility for to
rehabilitate back to productive use, either for growing food or for wildlife
habitat in areas where ecosystems are endangered.
One of the many options your government has in dealing with unauthorised
arrivals, either by air or by sea, is to process them as quickly as possible on
the mainland, and settle genuine refugees in permaculture villages of around
1000, perhaps fenced and gated communities on a few hundred acres of unused
land relatively close to towns.
Many refugees, especially from Asia, already have skills in food
growing, and any permaculturalist worth their salt (Josh Byrnes of Gardening
Australia being just one leading expert in the field) could draw you up a plan
whereby the newest Australians can build their own earth-insulated homes (I
myself have had plans drawn up to ABA standards for a 5 bedroom coursed adobe
dwelling that can be owner-built and furnished for under $100,000) and become
mostly self-sufficient in their own food requirements, within five years, at
which time they will be integrating well and contributing to the local
community.
P/c models adapted to local conditions could be rolled out across rural,
regional and remote communities all over Australia, especially Aboriginal ones
in dire need of basic shelter and food, so that they can become self-reliant to
a large degree; endangered plants and
wildlife will also benefit as p/c
integrates with bush tucker and the restoration of habitat.
Permaculture settlement models have been tried and tested for decades,
evolving with the latest technologies and enhanced with Indigenous wisdom, and
have been proven to work exceptionally well; this is evidenced by the expanding
number of successful ones in Australia and around the world. It would cost FAR
less than off-shore detention and sending desperate souls to a living hell in a
remote Malaysian prison for the rest of their lives.
If the government continues with its current asylum-seeker regime, when
alternatives such as this are eminently viable, the UN criminal courts will
have no option but to prosecute you for your cruelty and inhumanity towards
some of the most traumatised and disadvantaged people on Earth. I personally
believe it exposes a depraved mind that would choose such cruel fates for
people seeking asylum, and those who continue with it should be treated by
psychologists. .
August, 2011
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*CERES - Centre for Education and Research in
Environmental Strategies, is an award winning, not-for-profit, environment and
education centre and urban farm located by the Merri Creek in East Brunswick,
Melbourne.
Built on a decommissioned municipal tip that was
once a landfill and wasteland, today CERES is a thriving, vibrant community.
Over 300,000 people visit CERES each year. Many more connect with us through
our innovative program taking sustainable education directly to schools across
the State.
CERES is recognised as an international leader in
community and environmental practice. CERES Organic Farm, Market, Shop, Co-ops
and Café and Permaculture and Bushfood Nursery are unique social enterprises
that offer new solutions and ways to combat climate change.
Community groups such as the Bike Shed, Community
Gardens and Chook Group that call CERES home are also vital to CERES culture.
All waste and water on the site is recycled and
much of the site is powered by renewable energy such as wind and solar.
CERES is now working towards making the site
completely carbon neutral by 2012.
CERES is a model for a possible future where
innovation, sustainability, equity and connectedness are valued. Both as a
place and a community, CERES is striving to create a new way of being.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Havana, the whole city grows vegetables, fruits
& herbs in every conceivable space, raised-gardens spring up wherever and
whenever an opportunity arises – nature
abhors a vacuum – everyone benefits. We need similar social-sharing
structures and mindsets. And we need to go on a ‘war’ footing, as below,
to prepare ourselves for extreme weather events and the vicissitudes of a
speedily changing climate.
Dig for Victory
- THE GARDEN PLOT THAT BEAT
HITLER
Thursday
August 11, 2011
By Jane
Warren
IN 1939, Britain’s back gardens became the front
line. With German U-Boats posing an increasing threat to food imports, the
Ministry of Agriculture launched a bold campaign with an inspired slogan: Dig
for Victory.
All able citizens were encouraged to take up their
gardening tools and turn every square foot of fertile soil into a food-growing
factory. Demand led to grass verges, railway embankments and even public parks
becoming vegetable plots.
At the peak of the campaign, a million tons of
home-grown produce were harvested, and the modern allotment movement was born.
Today the slogan “dig for victory” is inextricably
associated with such similar wartime rallying cries as our “finest hour”, that
echo from the days when Britain stood alone against Hitler. Yet, surprisingly,
the credit for coining this enduring saying of self-sufficiency belongs to an
unlikely source: the then young left-wing firebrand Michael Foot.
It was he who, in the days after war was declared,
made a horticultural call to arms with a 1939 newspaper article that insisted:
“Britain must learn to dig… not only must we dig in the cities, every spare
half acre from the Shetlands to the Scillies must feel the shear of the
spade…Turn up each square foot of turf. Root out bulbs and plant potatoes.
Spend your Sunday afternoon with a hoe instead of in the hammock…”
Six days later he wrote: “The order… must be rammed
home: Dig for Victory”.
Foot’s words, like the striking posters that were
soon produced to motivate the masses, proved galvanising. The classic image
remains the black and white photo of a boot on a shovel as it slices into the
ground. It could hardly be accused of subtlety, but Daniel Smith, the author of
a fascinating book on the Dig for Victory campaign, believes “there is perhaps
no more famous advertising image produced by any British government”.
The effect of all this self-sufficiency propaganda
was remarkable. On 19 March 1941, a woman by the name of Joan Strange updated
her personal diary (which was later published). “Help! I’ve not written this
old diary for nearly a week,” she wrote. “It’s the allotment’s fault! The
weather has been so good that I’ve gone up most evenings and get too tired
digging to write the diary.”
The authorities hoped the campaign would help the
country avoid food shortages while boosting levels of nutrition and morale.
Through their efforts, the Diggers would harvest a million tons of produce per
year at the campaign’s peak.
The government reported that in 1942 over half of
all households were growing at least some of their own veg. Men, women and
children of all ages pooled their efforts. The pleasure in success was only
heightened by the physical dangers under which growers laboured. Herbert Brush
of Forest Hill reported in his diary on October 26, 1940 on the impact of a
German bombing raid: “I went round to look at the allotment, but it was a case
of looking for the allotment. All my potatoes and cabbages have vanished.”
On street corners in every major town there were
“pig bins” into which citizens were encouraged to deposit their food scraps for
pig feed; all this from a nation that, before the war, looked abroad for its
food.
The nation had quickly come to terms with the
deprivations the war brought. They donated their pots, pans and garden railings
to be turned into aircraft; they recycled paper for rifle cartridges and maps,
and even saved animal bones to be made into explosives. It was said that at
Buckingham Palace, the Queen herself had lines painted around the baths to
ensure that the household didn’t use too much hot water. But a cold bath is one
thing, a permanently rumbling belly quite another. “You’d go home after a Sunday
on the allotment and you’d feel really good,” says Gwen Wild, who lived through
the period. “There is no better feeling in the world. Dig for Victory was the
nub of our existence then. It was our fight. It was the only way we could
fight.”
Where one acre of grazing pasture could support
enough animals to provide meat for one or maybe two people, the same area could
produce enough wheat to satisfy 20 people or enough potatoes for double that.
And where 230,000 had taken up shovels in anger by mid-April 1940, the figure
was 541,000 a year later.
In March 1942, allotment holders and private
gardeners were estimated to be producing between £10million [£275million today]
and £15million [£412million today] worth of vegetables. Figures showed that out
of all those families who formerly grew only flowers, only 20 per cent were now
not growing vegetables. And nearly 40 per cent were devoting three-quarters or
more of their garden space to vegetable cultivation.
By the time of a relaunch of Dig for Victory in
February 1943, it was estimated that some four million families now grew their
own vegetables. According to government statistics, plots covered more than
140,000 acres.
“But the story is not one best understood through
statistics,” points out author Daniel Smith. “It comes instead through the
ordinary men, women and children who laboured in their gardens and allotment
plots, creating its narrative with their sweat and toil.”
As the Daily Express put it on August 7, 1942:
“What really counts is the enthusiasm and effort of the gardener, the constant
digging, hoeing, weeding, raking – the things which require labour and command
interest. They induce in the gardener a feeling that he is working to a
worthwhile end, making a valuable contribution in voluntary work towards
winning the war.”
The Dig for Victory campaign was but a small part
of the story of the Second World War. It lacked the obvious heroism of the
Battle of Britain, the drama of D-Day, or the joy of VE Day. But it proved just
as vital in the effort that helped us ultimately win that war.
(Synchronistically, the day after I sent this off,
Bush Telegraph had a report on the WWII Victory Gardens - I didn’t realise
Australia had got into the ‘dig for victory’ campaign as well - that will make
it so much easier for people to relate to and to adopt.)
-------------------------------------
There was a report on TV
recently about Cuba being the greenest & most sustainable developing
country in the world - they've developed that way because they had to, but now
they're leading the world in self-sufficiency, sustainability and organic
permaculture. They have a high life expectancy and a high literacy rate -
Castro introduced eco-friendly measures such as stainless steel pressure
cookers, fluorescent lightbulbs, etc YEARS before the rest of the world. The
American woman reporter said how this man and his family recycled everything,
saved their plastic bags and used them another 30 times, and put low energy
lightbulbs in along with other sustainable lifestyle measures - a voice over
said how the country may become wealthier economically - then at the end said:
"...still, he does look forward to the day he can throw the trash bag out
with the trash." Typical Americans ... they just don't get it.
Even if that family were wealthy its obvious they would stay environmentally
friendly - as if people only do it to save money (although happily sustainable
living achieves that as well as keeping the environment healthy.)
(One
of 80 Fact Sheets on Permaculture on Gardening Australia's website alone - the
wealth of knowledge on p/c available on the internet is just phenomenal)
Dear
CERES – I found out about your paradigm-shifting, political game-changing
enterprise in 2004 and have been intending to contact you ever since – one of
my sons is actually living on your doorstep but still hasn’t managed to visit.
At last I’m now in a position to go ahead with a business plan for a Community
p/c garden for Murgon, based almost entirely on your blueprint. I’m submitting
it to various philanthropic organisations & individuals and government
departments for funding.
Alternatively,
Julia Gillard could be issuing with a ‘Show Cause’ to Julia Gillard’s
government (as to why they should not process asylum
seekers and refugees on the mainland in permaculture village model settlements,
which will also act as a ‘work for dole’ opportunity for unemployed people. It
can be found online at present, within the Biodiversity Submission
at www.worldatpolarity.blogspot.com
CERES
- Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies, is an award
winning, not-for-profit, environment and education centre and urban farm
located by the Merri Creek in East Brunswick, Melbourne.
Built on a decommissioned municipal tip that was once
a landfill and wasteland, (same history as currently in Havana... on the Tropic
of Cancer, SBS? google) today CERES is a thriving, vibrant
community. Over 300,000 people visit CERES each year. Many more connect with us
through our innovative program taking sustainable education directly to schools
across the State.
CERES is recognised as an international leader in
community and environmental practice. CERES Organic Farm, Market, Shop, Co-ops
and Café and Permaculture and Bushfood Nursery are unique social enterprises
that offer new solutions and ways to combat climate change.
Community groups such as the Bike Shed, Community
Gardens and Chook Group that call CERES home are also vital to CERES culture.
All waste and water on the site is recycled and much
of the site is powered by renewable energy such as wind and solar.
CERES is now working towards making the site
completely carbon neutral by 2012.
CERES is a model for a possible future where
innovation, sustainability, equity and connectedness are valued. Both as a
place and a community, CERES is striving to create a new way of being.
CERES has over 140 employees
who are mostly part time. To obtain more information on CERES philosophy and
management structure please go the the About CERES section
Across the organisation we also have approximately 400 people providing their
time and expertise as volunteers. Volunteers contribute to the key CERES
enterprises such as Honey Lane and Harding Street Market Gardens, CERES site
maintenance crews and behind the scenes through admin work. The CERES seed
propogation program is also a popular hub for volunteers and the fruits of
volunteers labour can be seen all over the site as well as in the Market
Gardens and at our Permaculture and Bushfood nursery.
Many people decide to commit a regular amount of
time to CERES such as a day or half day a week. For others they will be
inspired by a particular project such as our Kingfisher and Harvest festival
and volunteer only for the life of the project.
Whatever way you find your way to the CERES
community be it through employment or volunteering your contribution is greatly
appreciated.
[A friend ‘in the know’ told me that we’re
passed tipping point on global warming and that mass extinctions are inevitable
- up to 90% of life on Earth could collapse, and it will be catastrophic, not a
gradual event – its already happening fast in the oceans.]
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