Abbott approves the dredging of the Great Barrier Reef

Soon a massively destructive coal port will be built just 50 km north of the magnificent Whitsunday Islands. The port expansion was approved by the Abbott Liberal National government on Wednesday 11 December, and it will become one of the world’s largest coal ports.

The coal export facility is ironically located on Abbot Point. The construction of this port will involve dredging 3 million cubic metres of seabed. The dredge spoil will be dumped into the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.

To give you an idea of the scale of this dredging, if all of the spoil was put into dump trucks, there would be 150,000 of them lined up bumper to bumper from Brisbane to Melbourne.

http://www.zgeek.com/abbott-approves-the-dredging-of-the-great-barrier-reef/

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/southern-crossroads/2013/dec/15/great-barrier-reef-destruction-abbot-point-greg-hunt

http://fightforthereef.org.au/

Steve Irwins Dad

Well, so much for that ... wonder of the natural world.

It's like he just doesn't give a fuck and now selling out to every evil corporation that has been held in check for the last decade.
on everything, this does even make economic sense because we already make so much thru tourism on the Reef.

 

THE biggest backers in putting Tony Abbott and his Treasurer Joe Hockey into power were big corporations ~ particularly the mining and gas companies, big financiers, the alcohol and tobacco industries, and the Murdoch-controlled News Corporation...

THE Australian Liberal Party has ALWAYS seen itself as the party for big business, so naturally enough the "workers", the battlers and the poor are inevitably considered as "the enemy" ~ And NOW it's time for the Oz Tories to screw over the Aussie citizenry while repaying their corporate backers for that pre-election support, sponsorship and propaganda..

WHILE hitting the bottom half of the country with reduced government services, probable freezes to welfare payments, and the inevitable rises in indirect taxes and levies.

And so it begins...    

Good God, blasted philistine. Selling everything, just like our lot then.

The struggle continues. Love Daddy.

What's all the fuss about darlings as I have invested several million into the coal port and stand to make millions more? Which is good.Yes.
Really,all this hysteria about a few silly kippers and mackerel as making money is the important thing and not a few rocks and seaguls.Yes.

£BILLION£ wrote:What's all the fuss about darlings as I have invested several million into the coal port and stand to make millions more? Which is good.Yes.
Really,all this hysteria about a few silly kippers and mackerel as making money is the important thing and not a few rocks and seaguls.Yes.

Haha...If you can't make sense, argue a false equivalency. At least it's entertaining.

PS...I love kippers.   

You know what would be awesome? A party that stood for the interests of small businesses. For one, they're nearly as vulnerable as individuals themselves, and for another, they basically make the world economy go 'round.

They could stand for things like common-sense regulatory reform that would help small businesses when they find themselves trying to comply with a rule that really only large businesses can afford to comply with. Maybe champion the idea of mandatory employment contracts, which can effectively mitigate so many employer-employee conflicts.

Most of the small-business owners I've ever known have not been the slaves to profit that their corporate counterparts are. I knew video store owners who were passionate about promoting foreign and independent films, for example, or newspaper owners who really wanted to send reporters out to cover city councils and play watchdog. They're usually motivated both by the desire to make money and to make a difference.

£BILLION£ wrote:
What's all the fuss about darlings as I have invested several million into the coal port and stand to make millions more? Which is good.Yes.
Really,all this hysteria about a few silly kippers and mackerel as making money is the important thing and not a few rocks and seaguls.Yes.

  

APART from "not having two brass pennies to rub together.." to your name, Stephanie...

HAVE you ever been out away from under your rock in your dank and dark little corner of the world ?

 ::lightsab:: 

Ben_Reilly wrote:You know what would be awesome? A party that stood for the interests of small businesses. For one, they're nearly as vulnerable as individuals themselves, and for another, they basically make the world economy go 'round.

They could stand for things like common-sense regulatory reform that would help small businesses when they find themselves trying to comply with a rule that really only large businesses can afford to comply with. Maybe champion the idea of mandatory employment contracts, which can effectively mitigate so many employer-employee conflicts.

Most of the small-business owners I've ever known have not been the slaves to profit that their corporate counterparts are. I knew video store owners who were passionate about promoting foreign and independent films, for example, or newspaper owners who really wanted to send reporters out to cover city councils and play watchdog. They're usually motivated both by the desire to make money and to make a difference.

That's the best idea I have heard in ages. So many small businesses get into it in the first place because it's something they are passionate about.

Ben_Reilly wrote:You know what would be awesome? A party that stood for the interests of small businesses. For one, they're nearly as vulnerable as individuals themselves, and for another, they basically make the world economy go 'round.

They could stand for things like common-sense regulatory reform that would help small businesses when they find themselves trying to comply with a rule that really only large businesses can afford to comply with..............

.........................

  

I too have long championed the notion and ideals of a truly representational - small business oriented - human rights and community respecting - environmentally 'sound' left-leaning (that's left as in "liberal" minded to you Yanks, "socialist democrats" to the Internationalists, the Brit's and the Euro' crowd ~ and not the erroneous misunderstood "commie" term as is all-too-often used in the US..) political party, that could operate without the expectations of corporate sponsors and their slimy industry 'lobbyists'...

A "centre-left" party based on proper voter representation, recognition of the importance of both "small businesses" (where those businesses employing less than 25 'full time equivalent' ("FTE") workers, including the self-employed "sole traders", are usually responsible for employing around 60 --> 67% of a nations total workforce ~ whereas "big business" (those companies employing over 150 or 250 FTE workers, depending on the country..) often employs less than 15% of many countries workforces ~ way out-of-whack with the influence that they wield with the incumbent governments..), AND at the same time still looking after the rights of individual workers, the poor and dispossessed, their local communities, and the environment at large..

IMPORTANT issues that are often deliberately ignored as 'too hard', or worse still 'unimportant' or 'irrelevant', by single issue parties that refuse to pull their thick heads out of their collective backsides, often "hijacked" by single-minded bullies - and as an inevitable result will normally wilt and die within the space of a couple of elections.   

One caveat: the problem with small business is co-option. If it becomes too much of a good thing, big business will want in.

Did you know that Bechtel still registers as a small business to reap the advantages? Look at how big Bechtel really is in fact:

https://www.google.com/#q=bechtel&tbm=nws