Malcolm Turnbull (1954):
I regret to say, that a number of the state Labor governments have, over the years, set priorities and renewable targets that are extremely aggressive, extremely unrealistic, and have paid little or no attention to energy security. …
Tony Wood [Director, Energy Program, Grattan Institute]:
The policy that drove the 40% of electricity in South Australia coming from wind was actually a federal government policy introduced originally when John Howard was Prime Minister under a Coalition government for the Renewable Energy Target. …
[Industry then capitalised on the renewable energy target by building wind farms in the state with the most wind, that is, South Australia.]
So I would say that if you wanted to place blame on anybody for undertaking an aggressive renewable energy target and not thinking through the consequences, that blame could just as easily be laid, if not more so, at the foot of the federal government than the state government.
(System Black, 6 November 2016)
Contents
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
Background Briefing
- How an ADHD diagnosis was the start of Natalia’s life unravelling, 17 November 2023.
- The Whistleblower who brought down Australia's Dr Death, 20 October 2023.
- The Whistleblower who captured the nation — and the man who unmasked her as a fraud, 13 October 2023.
- False Witness, 16 June 2023.
- The little-known religious code ruling many major public hospitals, 1 December 2022.
- Has the age of AI already begun?, 24 November 2022.
- Under the Eye of Iran, 4 November 2022.
- The hidden terror that's splitting people's identities, 14 November 2021.
- Unmasking Monsters, 11 July 2021.
- Hotel Corona: How the pandemic could fix homelessness, 26 April 2020.
- From Bias to Brutality: How Australia is failing minority groups, 5 May 2019.
- Doxxed: Exposing the terrifying new frontier in online abuse, 24 February 2019.
- Haircuts and Hate: The rise of Australia's alt-right, 14 October 2018.
- The Talented Mr Daly: The story of a businessman, 150 investors, and a $20 million opportunity, 26 August 2018.
- Betting the farm, 2 October 2016.
- The inconvenient scientists, 29 May 2016.
- De-radicalization and the ‘authentic voices’ of reason, 29 March 2015.
- Left in harm's way, 8 March 2015.
Proposed cuts to Community Legal Services cancelled on 26th March 2015. - The search for the clean coal holy grail, 20 July 2014.
Paddy Manning: Business Editor, Crikey. - Epidemic of ink, 3 November 2013.
- Deep sea riches could spark Pacific mining boom, 20 October 2013.
- The narrowing of politics, 29 September 2013.
- A literacy deficit, 22 September 2013.
- Curse of the Frankenfoods, 15 September 2013.
Jessa Latona: anti-GM activist.
Mark Lynas: Environmentalist.ABC TV newsreader:
Ian Walker:
Greenpeace protestors have broken into a CSIRO experimental farm in Canberra and destroyed a crop of genetically modified wheat.
Activists wearing hazmat suits and equipped with brush cutters scaled several fences to enter the premises. …
They also filmed themselves, and later posted a video on the web.
Jessa Latona:
Well, we got up very early and we went into the field trial.
We had full hazmat precautions, and we stopped the GM wheat trial.
Ian Walker:
The action trashed two years research work for the CSIRO scientists, and it cost Greenpeace $280,000 in reparations.
They appeared to badly misjudge public sentiment.
Even the more alternate online media commentary was wildly negative.
And since then, Greenpeace has stopped actively campaigning on the GM foods issue in Australia.
Their chief campaigner has left.
Jessa Latona, though, still works for Greenpeace, and has no regrets.
Jessa Latona:
This trial was testing the commercial viability of the GM wheat.
CSIRO was working with biotech companies who are going to make a lot of money from these new strains.
Ian Walker:
CSIRO counters that the trial was strictly for R&D and that they were nowhere near the commercialisation phase.
They were assessing the health benefits and comparing GM with non-GM strains of what they call 'high amylase' wheat, designed to help people with bowel problems and diabetes. …
Jessa Latona:
I live by science, I'm a huge fan of what the CSIRO does in many areas, and particularly on climate change and … but I believe that not all science is equal. …
Mark Lynas:
{[Today,] close to 800 million people go to bed hungry each night.}
According to the latest projections … we are looking at a global [food] demand increase of well over 100% by mid-century. …
Land conversion is a large source of greenhouse gases, and perhaps the greatest source of biodiversity loss.
This is [why improving crop yields (intensification)] is essential — we have to grow more on limited land in order to save the rainforests and remaining natural habitats from the plough. …
[Thanks] to supposedly environmental campaigns spread from affluent countries [biotechnology] has been made prohibitively expensive to all but the very biggest corporations.
It now costs tens of millions to get a crop through the regulatory systems in different countries.
[It now] costs $139 million to move from discovering a new crop trait to full commercialisation, so open-source or public sector biotech really does not stand a chance.
{Around the … world the regulatory delay has increased [from 3.7 to 5.5 years over the last 13 years.}
[The irony here is] that the anti-biotech campaigners complain about GM crops only being marketed by big corporations when this is a situation they have done more than anyone to help bring about. …
[By comparison, organic farming] is much less productive, with up to 40-50% lower yields in terms of land area. …
Recent research … at Rockefeller University looked at how much extra farmland Indian farmers would have had to cultivate today using the technologies of 1961 to get today’s overall yield.
The answer is 65 million hectares, an area the size of France.
In China, maize farmers spared 120 million hectares, an area twice the size of France, thanks to modern technologies getting higher yields.
On a global scale, between 1961 and 2010 the area farmed grew by only 12%, whilst kilocalories per person rose from 2200 to 2800.
So even with three billion more people, everyone still had more to eat thanks to a production increase of 300% in the same period.
So how much land worldwide was spared in the process thanks to these dramatic yield improvements, for which chemical inputs played a crucial role?
The answer is 3 billion hectares, or the equivalent of two South Americas.
There would have been no Amazon rainforest left today without this improvement in yields.
Nor would there be any tigers in India or orang utans in Indonesia. …
[There] are many very natural and organic ways to face illness and early death, as the debacle with Germany’s organic beansprouts proved in 2011.
This was a public health catastrophe [caused by E-coli —] probably from animal manure infected organic beansprout seeds imported from Egypt.
In total 53 people died and 3,500 suffered serious kidney failure [— more casualties than were caused by the Chernobyl nuclear accident.]
And why were these consumers choosing organic?
Because they thought it was safer and healthier …
Over a decade and a half with three trillion GM meals eaten there has never been a single substantiated case of harm.
You are more likely to get hit by an asteroid than you are to get hurt by eating GM food. …
The risk today is not that anyone will be harmed by GM food, but that millions will be harmed by not having enough food [due to the aesthetic preferences of a] vocal minority … in rich countries …
Would you like to know more? - Asylum seekers: drowning on our watch, 1 September 2013.
- Ageing on the edge, 18 August 2013.
- The family trap, 11 August 2013.
- No advantage, 9 June 2013.
