Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

winston wrote:He's the minister of the Environment, Water Heritage and the Arts. Quite a change of vocation eh?

The Hon. Peter Garrett AM MP. http://www.environment.gov.au/

i was secretary of solid state in the nixon administration

Here is an appreciative audience!

I'm a big Midnight Oil fan first and foremost, growing up with their music and appreciating their uncompromising stance on protecting our enviroment. The band's surprise performance outside the Exxon builidng in NYC on the back of a flatbed truck was incredible and it sent a strong message about conservation versus big business at the time. You might recall this protest performance followed the Exxon Valdez's destruction of the prisine Prine William Sound environment. Thousands and thousands of tons of crude oil spilled into Prince William Sound in 1989. As an Aussie, I was proud of this band's "take no prisoners" approach and admired how they stood up for such important causes.

Now here we are, nearly twenty years later and the Victorian State Government is undertaking massive multi-million dollar dredging works to deepen the shipping channel here in Port Phillip Bay. If successful, this work is supposed to allow supertankers into our port.

The city of Melbourne is situated on this beautiful bay and the majority of our population lives, works and plays on it's beaches and waters. Many of us are very concerned about the enviromental damage the dredging will cause to the bay, as toxins and pollutants which have been buried for 100 years are brought up. Many people believe the economic benefits will be far outweighted by the risk of major enviromental damage.

Who do you reckon gave Federal approval for the dredging works to commence?

That's right, Mr Peter Garrett himself. Well done, Minister Garrett.

Those of us still in the rock'n'roll business call this "selling out".

I think I'll round up Aitch, Greg, Ron, Frank, Joe and Shane, rent ourselves a flatbed truck, stack all of our amps and guitars on the back and park out the front of Garrett's office. Then we'll unleash our Rickenbackers with the jangle-knobs turned up to eleven. Hey, that's not a bad idea! "Hello.....Hertz?.....I'd like to rent the biggest truck you've got!"

Here's what the dredging looks like:-
I shall now step down from my soapbox (temporarily)

I'm with ya all the way, Trotty!! We need to write an appropriate song for the occasion, though..........

How about 'Fish Are Gurgling"??

Improper dredging is a really great way to kill a coral reef and just about anything else that likes clear water. Go get 'em!

Here ya' go Trotty!

Top stuff, Jeff. The video clip you've posted is from the very concert I was referring to and demonstrates the hypocritical position Mr Garrett has placed himself in.

Aitch, you'll be pleased to know that Robyn was so proud of my stance, and my suggestion to stage a guerilla performance, that she's fired off a letter to Minister Garrett today demanding a written response to his sell-out! I'll give some thought to penning the official protest song. Y'know, if we actually carried out such a show in front of his office we'd be 100% guaranteed of getting TV coverage. Then all of our US friends could watch us on the telly as we get arrested! Will you guys mind posting bail?

Ted, it's great to have you back here, mate!

Count me in Darren Can we do King Of The Mountain ????

I've got to get arrested at least once before I die.

Garrett is the latest in the celebrity politician category: there have been a few on both sides of the fence and one even defeated the sitting Prime Minister at the last election.

I have little time for politicians of any colour, to me they all have "Hypocrite" stamped on their forehead.

Garrett has always been outspoken on matters of the environment and aboriginal rights, amongst other things, and most people expected that to continue in government. Unfortunately his best chance to be effective was to join a major political party but once you do that you must toe the party line. I suspect he was under orders to allow dredging in Port Phillip Bay, which in my opinion and that of many others will ruin the bay. Remember, some years ago he stood for the senate under the banner of the Nuclear Disarmament Party and never got a look in. Time will tell, but I am not expecting any miracles.

I gotta go listen to 20000 watt RSL and remember the good ol' days.

rick_ovic wrote: ... demonstrates the hypocritical position Mr Garrett has placed himself in...

Peter has had many hurdles to jump over in his life, not least of which was watching his mother die in a house fire whilst he stood helpless (though he tried to save her several times and injured himself in doing so).

I'd cut him a little slack right now whilst he gears up and takes on, and settles in, the portfolio that was handed him a month ago AND the promises and commitments of the previous minister in the previous Federal government.

Further, the rubbish that the Yarra washes into the bay each and every day is by far worse than the dredging of it. Only my opinion of course, you understand.

You know Manuel, it's funny how your input on the forum is often couched in terms like "......it's only my opinion, of course".

I'm well aware of Peter Garrett's story, having read a couple of biographies about him and Midnight Oil, and I'm aware of the sad events surrounding his mother's death many years ago. In fact, it happened years before he got up on the back of the truck in NYC protesting against Exxon's actions. He seemed to be coping well enough to tackle James Hardie's asbestos disaster and countless other genuine causes. He championed these things and showed real leadership in doing so. His mother's death never stopped him from fighting any of these battles.

Let's be clear here. Peter Garrett is no shrinking violet. He's been involved in the political game in many different roles. He is no newcomer to the pressures of political life. If he needs to have "a little slack cut" while he settles in, he doesn't deserve the position. In fact, perhaps he should have made NO decision about dredging Port Philip Bay UNTIL he had "settled" in. He ought to hang his head in shame. If he had any real guts, he would have stood up for what he believes in, even if it went against the "party line".

By the way Manuel, the previous Federal government made no promise and no commitment whatsoever to approve the dredging project. It was the State Labor Goverment here who instigated the whole thing, which couldn't proceed until it got approval from the Federal Government. Funny how the change in Federal Goverment brought about such swift approval for the dredging!

Let me join the dots for you on the Yarra issue. For a hundred years pollutants, poisons and industrial waste flowed down the Yarra into the bay. Over the past twenty years significant work has been undertaken to reduce these contaminants through the introduction and enforcement of enviromental laws, rehabilitation of waterways, the removal of industrial plant along the riverbanks and public education. The water quality has improved significantly. Contaminants which once flowed freely into the Bay have settled deep into the sea bed sediment, where they no longer pose a risk to animal and plant life. The Bay and the Yarra have been recovering from mankind's previous mistakes.

So now we're going to have all of this muck being purposefully stirred up, dug out and redeposited elsewhere in the Bay, just so the shipping channel can be two metres deeper. Great. Smart idea. A round of applause please to those genuises who have given it the green light.

Didn't the previous Federal Goverment build a railway line from Darwin to Adelaide so that double decker freight trains could carry shipping containers rapidly from the deep sea Port of Darwin to Adelaide and then west to Perth or the East Coast, at a lower cost and faster transit time than it took for the supertanker to sail around to Melbourne?

Manuel, I'm not a one-eyed parochial Victorian - I was born in South Australia. I've also lived in Sydney and I loved sailing on it's harbour. I don't care which side of politics did or didn't do things. I'm not a tree-hugging Greenie and I'm not against business small or large. Any sensible person who takes the time to understand the facts pertaining to this project should reach the same conclusion. There's no doubt I'm passionate about this issue, as are my kids aged 8 and 11. They learned about it at their local school and from our family dinner discussions. The perceived economic benefits of the channel deepening project are simply outweighed by the cost of the project itself and the risk to the entire Bay environment.

Please, feel welcome to enter the debate, but take the time to educate yourself on the facts first. Then you won't need to say "just my opinion, of course".

Well put, Trotty...... all of it!

The Yarra is nothing like it was.... even as late as five years ago. Over my lifetime the water quality in the bay has improved markedly also. I remember when I was a child we would go to the beach at Edithvale, Aspendale and Mordialloc and the water was often brown from the effluent running into the bay via the creeks - most notably the Mordialloc creek. Even as far down the bay as Sorrento and Portsea you couldn't see the bottom in five feet of water. Now you can stand in five feet of water and see the grain in your toenails!

When I think of all the **** that will be released back into the water via the dredging..............

The bay was the victim of uncontrolled scallop dredging for many years and since it was stopped the weed that the marine wildlife need so much has finally begun to grow again. The dredging will do more than just compromise that regrowth!

As I said, Trotty, I'm in! We won't be arrested....... certainly there will be a parking ticket for the truck and there may be a fine for noise pollution but that's about it, I reckon!!

Of course it is my opinion, and there is no need for me to couch anything on this subject.

Firstly, the bay is a port. Right or wrong that is what it is - a port. It is a port that has given Victoria its economic life blood since the 1850's. Certainly Melbourne would not be what it is without it, nor will it continue to be if it loses the ability to compete.

Secondly, application to dredge the port was made in 2002 to the then Federal government, as any major projects such as this in Australia need to be signed off by it. The inability to make timely decisions on contentious issues is a hallmark of some political parties - but I will leave that one alone for now.

Thirdly, this is a problem of competing demands. Inhabitants around the bay (due to development) that enjoy it, not the least for its leisure activities, are often unaware that it is in fact a very busy port that was there long before they were born. Naturally in these situations, competing demands arise and it is always difficult to strike the right balance, but you have to be aware of why it is what it is.

Fourthly, these same inhabitants inadvertently help to pollute the bay - simply because they are there. As late as last week people were complaining that the Yarra needs to be much cleaner. It is full of muck - the rubbish is a real problem, especially after the rains. But it isn't just the Yarra that spills tonnes of rubbish into the bay - it's also the creeks, rivulets and inlets that act as collectors for the stormwater (and the rubbish in it) from those towns and suburbs around the bay that house those same people that will, of course, complain about the dredging of the bay. In fact this bay is the most densely populated catchment in Australia - and it is a shallow, very shallow indeed, body of water.

Fifthly, the sediment and rubbish that is washed into the bay in large part due to human activities, dictates that the bay be dredged - especially the inlet into it otherwise it will eventually become a dead body of water. This is a real problem, as Phillip Bay is a very shallow body of water - at most it's approximately 25 metres deep at its deepest point, being no more than only 8 to 10 metres in depth for almost half of it's surface area. It's almost a lake ...

If people think that tourism or the ability to see their toes in 1.5 metres of water is going to keep them in the manner they are accustomed to, well then they should move to Strahan on the Macquarie Harbour in Tasmania (although I'm quite sure that being able to see their toes in the water at 1.5 metres in depth could constitute a problem as the turbidity of the water due to runoff of indigenous button grass is quite severe).

Just my opinion of course, although it's difficult to put it anymore direct than that.

I think this is called "Thread Drift" isn't it ???

It seems these days that the "Economy" comes first no matter what, with the environment and social "well being" a distant second.

The ridiculous part about all this dredging is that the Government etc tell us that shipping costs will increase if larger vessels cannot access the port, which will lead to higher prices for all imported items. We are then told, in order to recover the cost of dredging, $AUS 1Billion, that an additional levy will be placed on each container landed, which will obviously lead to higher costs for the consumer. So ultimately we are no better off and our beautiful bay will take many years to recover.

Manuel, Port Phillip Bay was actually a Bay long before it became a busy port.

I could go on but did anyone figure out which bass it actually was?????

rick_ovic wrote:I was born in South Australia.

South Australia
by the Pogues

In South Australia I was born
Heave away, Haul away
In South Australia 'round Cape Horn
We're bound for South Australia

Haul away your rolling king
Heave away, Haul away
Haul away oh hear me sing
We're bound for South Australia

As I walked out one morning fair
Heave away, Haul away
'Twas there I met Miss Nancy Blair
We're bound for South Australia

There's just one thing that's on my mind
Heave away, Haul away
That's leaving Nancy Blair behind
We're bound for South Australia

And as we wallop round Cape Horn
Heave away, Haul away
You'll wish to God you've never been born
We're bound for South Australia

longboard_ric wrote:I think this is called "Thread Drift" isn't it ???

Peter Garret did that spaz dancing thing on stage.

That was cool.