Selling and Tolling Existing Roads Just Stupid

The idea of selling and tolling existing roads is one of the stupidest ideas I have ever heard, and could only come from people completely out of touch with the lives of ordinary Australians and Victorians.

Ordinary Victorians are feeling serious cost of living pressures. How does being required to pay each time we drive on roads we can presently travel on for free make us better off? It makes us worse off. Selling off existing roads to private companies and putting tolls on them will make those private companies wealthy, but it will be at the expense of ordinary motorists.

The reason Melbourne and other capital cities have traffic congestion is because our population growth is too fast, and we should tackle that by cutting migration back to the levels we used to have in the 1980s and 1990s.

Improved public transport is a superior answer to traffic congestion than building more freeways, but seriously, what is the point of building a freeway and then discouraging people from using it by sticking a toll on it?

It is a stupid idea and governments at both State and Federal level should reject it.

The State Government Should Act to Compensate Firefighters

In the wake of revelations of the use of cancer-causing chemicals at the major fire training facility at Fiskville, it is time for the Baillieu Government to bring state legislation into line with federal law, accepting the occupational risks of cancer in firefighting.

The Senate had an inquiry last year into the link between the occupation of firefighting and occupational cancer. It was an extensive inquiry that called evidence from international experts, and visited a number of fire stations, including the CFA station at Geelong, and concluded there is a direct link between the occupation of firefighting and the incidence of cancers as a result of that exposure over a period of time.

The Senate report's recommendations were unanimously accepted by Federal Parliament and by all political parties, with a recommendation they be replicated in various state jurisdictions. The Fiskville scandal makes clear that now is the right time to align state law, as a remedy has already been identified as to how to deal with the link between occupational cancer and firefighting through legislation - it's a simple amendment to the current worker's compensation act. The work's already been done - all the Baillieu Government needs to do is replicate what's been done on a Federal level.

Peter Marshall from the United Firefighter’s Union points out the clear division that has now resulted between the way 'Federal' firefighters are treated when reporting with cancer, and where Victoria’s thousands of CFA firefighters find themselves. This needs to be urgently rectified by the Baillieu Government by bringing Victoria into line with Federal law.

TREATIES COMMITTEE CONCERNS ABOUT ACTA BACKED BY EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

The concerns about the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) raised by the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties in a unanimous report to Parliament last week have been reinforced by an overwhelming vote last night by the European Parliament to reject the Treaty.

The vote - 478 against, only 39 in favour, with 165 abstentions - is likely to be a fatal blow to the European Union's participation in a treaty it helped to negotiate. The European Parliament has responded to concerns that ACTA would limit Internet freedom and to street protests about this issue in Europe with concerns that the agreement would have permitted private companies to spy on the activities of Internet users.

The vote effectively ends the treaty’s ratification in the 22 member states that signed the agreement, since individual member states cannot join ACTA once the EU officially rejects it. The concerns expressed by the Treaties Committee have been reinforced by this vote, and it would be appropriate for the Government to put ratifying ACTA on the back burner and undertake the work recommended by the Committee.

In Australia the Treaties Committee has recommended that ACTA not be ratified by Australia until the Treaties Committee has received and considered an independent and transparent assessment of ACTA's economic and social benefits and costs, until the Australian Law Reform Commission has reported on its Inquiry into Copyright and the Digital Economy, and the Australian Government has issued notices clarifying some of the terms of the agreement.

In Australia a significant area of concern was the potential impact of ACTA on generic medicines. The pharmaceutical manufacturer Alphafarm, for example, has advised me that ACTA as drafted could have delayed access by Australians to "quality, safe, efficacious and affordable generic medicines" in Queensland, and that they view the Committee's recommendations as a win for Australians and for the sustainability of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

The Treaties Committee also recommended that Australia should have regard to ACTA's ratification status in the European Union and the United States of America, given their importance in the world economy. Given the overwhelming vote of the European Parliament, it is clear that the Committee's unanimous report is on the wavelength of European public opinion, and almost certainly global public opinion.

Rail not Road - East West Tunnel is wrong priority

On July 1 the carbon price was introduced. The whole point of doing this is to reduce our carbon emissions. One of the greatest challenges facing the 21^st century is the challenge of climate change. We cannot tackle climate change by building more roads. By all means let us build transport infrastructure- let’s be a nation of builders- but let it be public transport infrastructure. We cannot build our way out of congestion. We have been trying it for years and it does not work.

The cost of this project was said two years ago to be $10 billion. Now it is said to be $5 billion, with the Tony Abbott proposed contribution of $1.5 billion. You know what will happen - motorists will have to pay tolls to use it. But whatever the amount of public money involved, the East West Tunnel is the wrong priority. This money should go towards public transport in Melbourne - building a railway line to Doncaster along the Eastern Freeway, building a rail link to Monash University, improving the inner network capacity to take more frequent rail services.

This will not help traffic congestion in Melbourne. For years we have been told that one more freeway would solve Melbourne’s traffic congestion problems. I supported City Link, I supported East Link, I supported the Metropolitan Ring Road, I supported the Craigieburn By-pass. But it never works. As many studies around the world have shown, freeways generate new traffic and new trips.

So it would be better to put public money into public transport. This will do more to help traffic congestion, more to contain carbon emissions, and more to help people who don’t drive cars, for example younger people, older people and people with disabilities.

World's Biggest Marine Reserves Network

I welcome yesterday’s announcement by the Australian Government of the world’s largest network of marine reserves which will ensure protection of Australia’s most precious ocean environments.

The inclusion in the Coral Sea network of Osprey and Shark Reef is something I lobbied for and spoke about in the Parliament. I have attached a copy of this speech for your information. Protection of these iconic reefs in the Coral Sea Marine Reserve is important for both marine turtles and large ocean predators.

http://www.kelvinthomson.com.au/Editor/assets/speeches_2012/120521%20adj%20speech-coral%20sea%20marine%20reserve.pdf

The new marine reserves take the overall size of the Commonwealth marine reserves network to 3.1 million square kilometres, by far the largest representative network of marine protected areas in the world.

Together the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and the Coral Sea Commonwealth marine reserve will become the largest adjoining marine protected area in the world, covering 1.3 million square kilometres.

Melbourne’s Quality of Life Under Siege

The Baillieu Government is displaying a disregard for Melbourne’s quality of life by both unveiling plans to extend Melbourne’s urban boundary and allowing Government-owned businesses to sell off public land.

It will be the fourth time the boundary has been shifted since 2002, and makes a joke of claims that all that high rise we are allowing will save us from urban sprawl. We are getting both high rise and urban sprawl!

Urban sprawl gives us more communities isolated from reliable transport services and highly car dependant, as well as clogged, congested inner suburb streets, and leaves new communities without adequate facilities.

Urban sprawl eats into the Green Wedges – areas set aside by the Victorian Government in 1967 to be forever protected from development. How ironic that it was a visionary Liberal Party Premier, Dick Hamer, who established the Green Wedges.

We need to retain Green Wedges as permanent wedges between growth corridors, not as potential urban land supply that is bulldozed as soon as there is a demand for it. The fact that new suburbs are being announced to house another 100,000 people shows that our migrant worker programs are bringing people to Melbourne rather than to the Pilbara.

The Baillieu Government has also failed to deliver a pre-election promise to establish a State Register of Significant Public Land and to require Ministers to spell out to Parliament why any public land is to be sold off. This promise needs to be honoured!

A current example is public land close to Kororoit Ceek in Sunshine, prized by local residents for over three decades as a place of community recreation, that is now targeted for development.

It should be retained as open space, as should other similar public open space, which allows people to breathe and find refuge close at hand from hectic urban life.

Breaches of Animal Welfare Export Standards

In my view 37 breaches is way too many and the two exporters should have their licences suspended or even cancelled.

The Department Deputy Secretary said if further animal welfare breaches occur they would face the possible loss of their export licence, but you have to wonder how many chances they get. When the trade was resumed last year after being suspended, the Government said the industry was on notice, so I think the public would expect that any exporters now found to be treating animals inhumanely would be run out of the industry.

Even more worrying for me than the question of penalty is the fact that it wasn’t industry self-regulation that brought these breaches to light, it was Animals Australia- Lyn White and her little video camera. You have to wonder whether we are really seeing the tip of the iceberg.

I think the only way we are going to ensure our animals are not being mistreated is to insist on mandatory stunning- that all animals are stunned before being killed. I further think we should be supporting proposals for the establishment of abattoirs in northern Australia, such as the Australian Agricultural Company proposal for Livingstone Valley south of Darwin, and transitioning away from live exports and into domestic processing, which is better for both animal welfare and for Australian jobs.