As devoted readers of Barneyarns would know I like to stir the pot, so have been dissappointed by the lack of comeback to my stick poking letters to the editor:
Asylum seeker deterrents a way to persecute the desperate
Lachlan Barnes writes: Re. "'Genuine' refugees?" (yesterday). Is Tamas Calderwood suggesting that comfortable, cashed-up foreigners under no fear of persecution at home are posing as refugees? That people would decide to risk everything and embark on a dangerous journey in the remote hope they will reach Australia? Leaving so much behind and risking everything else so they can try and start all over again, alone, on the bottom rung of social advantage, but not because they are legitimate refugees but to go up to the next tax bracket?
The asylum seeker debate should be about discussing what to do with desperate people seeking refuge in Australia by arriving unannounced in numbers that we can easily absorb into our society. We do need to ensure any policy takes into account the best interest of Australia and what message our response will send. But somehow the debate has been hijacked and the starting point (in many minds) is what should happen with illegal arrivals, with dubious motives, rocking up in numbers that are threat to our way of life. This is a nonsense but has taken root to the extent that both major parties are now debating just how draconian we can make the deterrent.
How can we have shifted the goal posts so far that a debate about people seeking asylum now centres on how to send a big enough warning to stop other desperate people attempting to find refuge in Australia?
If you believe we should make it extremely tough on asylum seekers and ensure a clear message of deterrence is sent, at least have the moral fortitude to be honest with yourself and admit the policy is aimed at the persecution of the desperate.
‘Genuine’ refugees?
Tamas Calderwood writes: Re: ”Why most of us want the boats to stop” (yesterday). Your editorial attributes the majority opinion on boats to a “misinformation campaign”. However, perhaps Crikey isn’t as clued up as the public on this issue. Your credulous acceptance that being “stamped [as a] refugee” automatically makes you a genuine refugee is obviously rejected by a majority of Australians. The questions is, why? My guess: when 80% of these “refugees” destroy their documents to conceal their identities after paying $5000-$10,000 to people smugglers for an illegal passage to Australia, they lose the benefit of the doubt.
Lachlan Barnes writes: Re. "The so-called world food shortage" (yesterday). Just to make John Richardson despair some more, I was interested, maybe even excited, by the Tassie data project.
I am sorry I did not see it as being born out of "profound ignorance". I was smart enough to work out the "Saving the world headline" might have over cooked it a bit, but I thought absolute truth in headlines would not get many eye balls on articles, e.g. "World Bank invests in micro climate data collection project".
I couldn't see how the technology was going to hasten the destruction of productive areas. In fact, I thought the information the technology would provide might allow producers to avoid unwittingly mining their properties' potential by over-production or conversely impacting the environment (and bank balance) through over application of inputs. I also didn't see a situation where developing this technology would add to current system costs -- I though it would either pay for itself or wouldn't be adopted.
I must have missed the claim in the original article where it said we currently have a global food deficiency. I thought the problem being explored was the pressures of climate change, arable land going out of production and population growth combining to cause food shortage problems in the future. Even if that were not the case I thought exploring more efficient ways to do business was rarely a bad investment.
I thought we could supply food to any point on the globe now, but the problem was finding the right motivational drivers to make it happen. I thought it was producers making more money growing fodder for animals and the poor not being able to afford to compete in the marketplace for what we are willing pay to waste that meant food sources did not end up where they were needed.
I thought the project might not save the world, but it was a positive project; however, apparently improving supply chains is the only valid world-saving idea.
John Richardson writes: Re. "How a Tasmanian data project could save the world" (December 19). It’s hard not to despair at the profound ignorance that continues to fuel the commonly held but erroneous belief that the world is suffering from an acute food shortage, when the absolute opposite is the case.
Instead of lauding well-meaning but misguided programs like the Sense-T Project in Tasmania, which aim to increase agricultural productivity but which ultimately succeed in only quickening the rate at which the quality of our pastures are depleted while adding more unnecessary cost to the supply chain, Paddy Manning and the World Bank would do better to recognise that the real challenge in feeding the world’s population lies not in growing more food, but in building more effective supply chain solutions.
In its latest report published in September of this year, the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation estimated that one-third of current world food production is wasted, costing the global economy more than US$800 billion annually.
Instead of parking more ambulances at the bottom of the cliff, surely it’s time to build a fence at the top?
How a Tasmanian data project could save the world
New Australian-made sensor technology could have the potential to maximise food production around the world.
It’s the challenge: getting food enough for 9 billion people, from less land and water, and in a hotter climate. The World Bank is excited about the potential of a Tasmanian trial, dubbed the Sense-T project, to help farmers boost productivity by installing a network of solar-powered, wireless sensors providing real-time, open data on micro-climate variables like temperature, humidity and soil moisture.
Information from the Australian-made sensors — typically, some 35 above-ground and 15 below-ground sensors will suffice to cover 130 hectares — will be analysed using big data technology pioneered by Sydney-based SIRCA, originally the Securities Institute Research Centre of Asia-Pacific.
SIRCA is an Australian success story that manages the world’s biggest repository of financial data, taking in 2 million pieces of data per second from 300 stock exchanges globally. SIRCA sells data to major financial traders and the likes of Thomson Reuters, and funnels the revenue back into research.
Now SIRCA and Sense-T — a $43 million partnership between the University of Tasmania, CSIRO, the Tasmanian government and IBM — are looking at applying the big data technology to agriculture, eHealth and logistics.
In agriculture, SIRCA’s data analysis techniques could help farmers combine detailed historical, spatial and real-time data from their own property with Bureau of Meteorology and other data to not only improve crop yields, but also manage disease, prepare for frost, and verify provenance — increasingly important to marketing produce. The network of sensors also has applications in bushfire prevention and aquaculture such as oyster farming.
Sense-T director Ros Harvey (pictured below) says the breakthrough comes from the sensors made by Melbourne firm Grey Innovation, which can be installed at a tenth of the cost of previous technology. She is coy about the cost to farmers but says older technology used as a comparator on a viticulture crop cost about $50,000 to obtain triangulated data from three weather stations.
Eye of the tiger
Lachlan Barnes writes: Re. "Tigers don't change their stripes, even behind bars" (Thursday). I have several points to raise about the Des Bellamey article. Nobody was surprised or outraged by the tiger attack. Nobody on seeing a tiger in the flesh, even when they are performing tricks in an enclosure, thinks they are harmless. Zoos and other animal handling facilities have worked tirelessly in Australia to reduce stress and anxiety on animals. All animal handlers acknowledge the fact large animals even non-predators may attack or even seriously harm them in play. It was, in fact in play that the attack referred to in the article occurred -- if it was a genuine attempt to attack the trainer would have been killed instantly. Bellamy even managed to contend that the tiger attacked both because of the stress of captivity and as a natural instinct, perhaps separating this contradiction by at least one line may have made it less obvious.
Anthropomorphising the actions of one killer whale viewed in one unbalanced film as an argument to remove all animals from captivity is a curious line of reasoning. I could go on because literally every sentence contained an error or overstatement. A person doing a dangerous job was injured, that job has a large focus on conservation, and for some reason PETA went on the attack.
Seeing animals in the flesh and developing captive breeding programs undoubtedly raise awareness of endangered species and in a small way help to practically conserve species. Bellamy seems to hate the idea of people making any money from animals, even when it has a basis in conservation, and Bellamy is instead pinning all conservation hopes on a miraculous turn-around in habitat destruction.
I'm not surprised by the views expressed by the special projects co-ordinator of PETA -- it is a fringe organisations whose extreme views are well-documented. That PETA's simplistic, extreme and sensationalist views continue to be reported by respected media outlets does surprise me.
Tigers don’t change their stripes, even behind bars
PETA special projects co-ordinator Des Bellamy says that the blame for captive animal attacks lies squarely with those who cage them.
When a tiger mauled a handler at Australia Zoo this week, people were surprised and outraged. But tigers are apex predators and have few natural enemies, other than man — or woman. The Australia Zoo attack was just the latest in a long list of such incidents around the world — why are we so surprised when captive creatures act like, well, wild animals?
Keeping tigers in zoo cages gives people the warped idea that these animals are little more than cuddly kitties. But captivity does not extinguish all the genetic drives that tigers are meant to follow. Attacks by captive big cats on people — which occur with staggering regularity — illustrate the profound level of stress, anxiety and agitation these animals experience every day of their lives. Zoos cannot tame tigers, and captivity is a living hell for them. In captivity, they cannot engage in any of the activities that give their lives meaning. Is it any wonder that tigers seize opportunities to make their frustration and rage known?
No animal can thrive in such an artificial and stressful environment. The movie Blackfish tells the story of Tilikum, an orca torn from his family in the wild and imprisoned in a concrete bathtub at SeaWorld, where he made headlines after killing a trainer in 2010, after 30 years of captivity. The cynicism that condemns such magnificent animals to a life of misery is only matched by the greed evident in ordering employees to “perform” with clearly dangerous predators.
Perhaps Hugh Lofting, author of the iconic The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, said it best: “If I had my way … there wouldn’t be a single lion or tiger in captivity anywhere in the world. They never take to it. They’re never happy. They never settle down. They are always thinking of the big countries they have left behind … what are they given … a bare cage with iron bars; an ugly piece of dead meat thrust to them once a day, and a crowd of fools to come and stare at them with open mouths!”
Tigers are in trouble in the wild, but why would anyone take their plight seriously when they see them performing in silly shows, posing for photos and jammed into zoo cages? These displays give the public the idea — overtly or not — that tigers are doing just fine. Unless habitat protection is taken seriously, coupled with aggressive action to stop poaching and canned hunting, all the zoos in the world won’t save this species.
Big cats living their lives on the African plains also need protection. “Trophy” (oh, what a ghastly term) killer Melissa Bachman gleefully posed with a menagerie of her victims recently, including a gorgeous adult male lion. Her ear-to-ear smile incited rage around the world from people who cannot comprehend how anyone could feel joy, much less pride, from deliberately snuffing out a life. But that’s little consolation to the dead lion and other animals living in constant danger of being blasted to bits with scopes, infrared sights and high-calibre weaponry.
Why can’t we just leave animals alone? Well into the 21st century, when presumably we’ve learned something about being civilised, why do we think we have the right to force animals to live behind bars for our fleeting diversion? What arrogance allows us to believe that we can go into their homes, stalk and kill them, and then brag about it by posing next to their lifeless bodies? Humans don’t own the planet, but we certainly act like we do.
More and more people have come to recognize that today’s zoos are little different from the days when circuses caged albino and hunchback human beings alongside pumas and primates for the public’s amusement. Both should be equally unthinkable today.
Lachlan Barnes writes: Re. "Barnaby Joyce and the infuriating success of Australian agriculture" (yesterday). Bernard Keane seemed happy to whack the xenophobic label on Barnaby Joyce and then on that backward, small-minded, minority known as rural folk. Small-minded thinking takes root when failing to grasp the reasoning behind the actions, struggles and perspectives of another group, then assuming they have acted from stupidity or fear; just read colonists' accounts of natives.
Barnaby Joyce may well be a small-minded isolationist, but based on this article I can't be sure if he is or Keane is being rural-ist. Keane’s free-market ideology is OK, but when he made a claim of xenophobia then spread the label to all rural Australia that was, well, rural-ist.
Keane’s line of thinking almost stumbled on why rural voters don't believe that companies whose profits minutely improve GDP but take people and money from the region is a benefit to them, but he stopped short. Is it surprising growers fear the company that handles the bulk of our export grain no longer lives or dies on the success of Australian growers but becomes a tentacle of a large conglomerate? Driven a Ford lately?
*I do see the irony of labelling Bernard Keane without knowing his perspective, sorry.
Barnaby Joyce and the infuriating success of Australian agriculture
The opposition of Barnaby Joyce and the Nationals to the sale of Graincorp reflects a deep-seated frustration at the success of Australian agriculture.
How much economic damage will Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce be allowed to inflict during the course of this government? If successful, the efforts of the Nationals, led by Joyce, to block the sale of GrainCorp to Archer Daniels Midland will send a clear signal to foreign investors: Australia is closed for business if you fall on the wrong side of the government’s political calculus. Australia already has one of the most restrictive agricultural investment regimes in the developed world — the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ranks us 10th in terms of restrictions on foreign direct investment in agriculture, ahead of most of Europe and the United States, countries not exactly known for their commitment to free trade in agriculture. That’s one reason why the overall level of foreign investment in Australian agriculture is so low: 1% of Australian agricultural businesses are foreign-owned or part-foreign-owned, and they hold less than 12% of Australian agricultural land — and around half of that is held by companies that are majority Australian-owned. Joyce has long railed against foreign investment in mining and agriculture — indeed, foreign investment full stop. He was forced out of the opposition finance portfolio in 2010 after making a series of howlers about a looming Australian debt default, including conflating government and private foreign debt into a single “gross foreign debt” figure of over a trillion dollars that he said would bring on a biblical-sounding “day of reckoning”. For Joyce, it seems, borrowing from foreigners is always bad, no matter what the circumstances. So where should investment come from if we cut off foreign investment? Easy: taxpayers. That was Joyce’s alternative last year to allowing a Chinese-led consortium to acquire Cubbie Station, a failed confection of water licences whose interests Joyce has reflexively supported during his entire time in politics. He wanted the government to purchase the property and break it into smaller lots. What is it with the Nationals and foreign investment?
“Short of the development of technology that enables foreign owners to pick up Australian farms and fly them offshore, the only ‘food security’ policy needed is a free market.”
Xenophobia has been a recurring phenomenon in rural politics over the decades. The anti-Semitic League of Rights, which struggled for control of the Country Party in the 1970s, was intensely hostile to foreign investment. So too was One Nation, a primarily regional entity. And it was the Coalition that brought to an end Australia’s post-war open-door policy on foreign investment, with the Gorton and McMahon governments establishing foreign investment and ownership restrictions; the Whitlam government took that economic nationalism further after 1972, and it has never been substantially wound back except via selective free trade agreements. But the Nationals have been growing ever more hostile to foreign investment in agriculture in recent years, and the reason lies in the success of that industry. Success? Why, yes — agriculture has been one of the most successful industries in Australia in recent decades. The Productivity Commission notes that in the 40 years to 2004, total agricultural output has doubled in real terms. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in the 30 years up to 2011, our agricultural exports grew by 5% a year, nearly quadrupling in value. Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences data shows that even during the appalling drought of the 2000s, we were still exporting significantly more agricultural products than in the 1990s. And this has been achieved while the industry has dramatically shrunk its workforce, mostly over the last decade. In 2001, the agricultural workforce stood at over 440,000; in August this year it was just over 300,000. That is, labour productivity has increased massively in the agriculture sector. And the average size of farms has increased significantly as well, further improving productivity. Deregulation has also helped, and has caused investment, including foreign investment, to lift in agribusiness companies, drawn by ever-increasing export levels. Much of that is bad news for the Nationals, because it means smaller rural workforces and further pressure on regional demographics, with people moving to larger regional centres and cities. There’s a reason why Joyce wanted not merely to use taxpayers’ money to buy up Cubbie but to split it up — the Nationals prefer smaller family farming over commercial farming. In attacking foreign investment in agriculture and agribusiness companies, the Nationals are targeting the symptoms of a “problem” rather than the cause — and that problem is the growth and success of Australian agriculture as a deregulated industry. This is also why the Nationals have fastened on “food security” as a reason for opposing foreign investment. “Food security” in the Australian context is an absurdity: short of the development of technology that enables foreign owners to pick up Australian farms and fly them offshore, the only “food security” policy needed is a free market. But for Joyce, the very existence of a free market for agriculture is a problem, because Australia is in danger, he claims, of becoming a “net food importer”. This myth also peddled by independent Mp Bob Katter and is easily debunked, but it is the basis for this “food security” nonsense that the Nationals, the Greens and even the previous government like to go on about. The challenge for Treasurer Joe Hockey is to see off this noxious, deeply damaging xenophobia and approve the Archer Daniels Midland bid — and not approve it with conditions that prevent it from proceeding, which you sense some in government see as a solution to the dilemma. The delay in approval of the bid was bad enough, and merely puts off a key moment in the history of this government. If the Nationals win, they will be emboldened to prosecute a deeply damaging agenda of economic obscurantism. All power to Hockey in his fight against them.
