The Emperor’s New Clothes

The Emperor’s New Clothes is an old fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen about an Emperor who is deceived by two swindlers who pretend to dress him in the finest suit of clothes, while providing him with no clothing at all. They get away with this by saying the ‘fabric’ is invisible to anyone unfit for his position or ‘hopelessly stupid’. The Emperor falls for this, as do his advisers, and he parades naked down the street. The townsfolk, not wishing to appear stupid either, say nothing. Finally the nonsense is exposed by a child in the crowd who yells out “The Emperor has no clothes”.

I was reminded of this story when I read that 14 year old Bindi Irwin, daughter of the late “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin, had an essay she had been asked to write for US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s e-journal drastically edited before it was to be published.

Why the censorship? Well Bindi was asked to write 1000 words on why she had chosen to devote her life’s work to wildlife conservation. The article was to be part of Secretary Clinton’s Endangered Species Initiative. Bindi wrote her 1000 words mostly about global overpopulation. It came back with the parts about population edited out.

Pity. Because if we genuinely want to help the world’s endangered species, we need to tackle the rapid population growth which has seen the world’s population more than treble from 2 billion to 7 billion in the last hundred years. An Endangered Species Initiative which won’t talk about population is an Emperor wearing no clothes. And it took a 14 year old to point it out.

Martin Luther King Jnr Day

Monday, the 21st of January was Martin Luther King Day, an American national holiday where Americans celebrated his towering contribution to his country, and the rest of the world paused to reflect on his legacy.

Commemorative events for the Martin Luther King Junior Day slid seamlessly into celebrations of the swearing-in Monday of the nation's first black president, Barack Obama, for his second term, with many Americans moved by the reminder of how far the country has come since the 1960s. At the ceremonial inauguration, Obama took the oath on a Bible once owned by King. He called it "a great privilege."

It is worth remembering that Martin Luther King Junior grasped with great clarity that one of the key driving causes of global poverty and misery is overpopulation.

In 1966 he said, “There is no human circumstance more tragic than the persisting existence of a harmful condition for which a remedy is readily available. Family planning, to relate population to world resources, is possible, practical and necessary. Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is solvable by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of billions who are its victims.”

We need to heed Martin Luther King’s prescient view from 1966 and heading down a road by which more people will starve, not less, more people will die from water-borne diseases, and more people will die in wars caused by conflict over access to scarce resources.

Animal Cruelty in Indonesia

I am writing to the Indonesian Government about the photographs of cows in East Java being hoisted by a crane using ropes tied to their necks.

I am concerned to read comments by Indonesian Veterinary Association Chairwoman Wiwiek Bagya that animal welfare laws in effect since 2009 do not work because they do not actually lay out what punishment people should face for animal cruelty.

Clearly there was a great outcry in the Australian community following the 2011 revelations of cruelty to Australian animals in Indonesian abattoirs. For the Australian community to have genuine confidence that exported animals will not be mistreated, we need a sense that we are on the same page as people in other countries on the question of animal welfare. These photographs will not give Australians that sense. I hope the Indonesian Government will take action in this case. I hope it will demonstrate, by its enforcement of laws against animal cruelty, that it shares with Australians a real commitment to animal welfare.  

US Fiscal Cliff

Friday 4^th January 2012/ac

US Fiscal Cliff

The US fiscal cliff has been avoided, but the fundamental problems are alive and well. The US Budget continues to go deeper and deeper into unsustainable debt, and US society has a depressing level of real poverty and inequality.

As of November 2012 an astonishing 47.7 million Americans were receiving taxpayer funded food stamps. One in four American children is on food stamps, and it is projected that half of all American children will be on food stamps at least once before they turn 18.

The US Census Bureau says the number of Americans living in poverty increased to a record high of 49.7 million last year- an increase of about 6 million in just the past 4 years.

Remarkably, instead of prioritising finding jobs and opportunities for Americans of all backgrounds who are living in poverty, the US Congress imports 100,000 migrants into the US every 30 days- over 1 million a year. It is a recipe for ongoing misery, poverty, and a massive infrastructure- driven national debt which continues to be a burden to both the US and the global economy.

Kelvin Thomson MP

Federal Labor Member for Wills

Response to My Letter on Gun Law Reform from Washington State US Senator Patty Murray

United States Senator Patty Murray has responded to my letter urging the US to adopt Australia's gun laws :

"Thank you for writing me regarding the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.  It was good to hear from you.

 

As a mother, grandmother, and former preschool teacher I was shocked by the tragedy that unfolded in Newtown.  My thoughts and prayers go out to the families and loved ones of the victims whose loss is difficult to comprehend.  

Unfortunately, this horrific tragedy was another in a long line of gun violence episodes that have ranged from places like Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Aurora to coffee shops in Lakewood to the corner of South Byron Street and McClintock Ave South in Seattle.  These episodes have plagued our cities, our schools, and our shared sense of security.  This cannot go on.  As a society we need to come together to begin a real conversation on all the factors contributing to those horrific instances of gun violence, but we also need to take specific action to bolster our current gun safety laws.

 

There is no question that we can and should limit access to the assault style weapons of war that are on our streets and that are too often being used to kill innocent people indiscriminately. I have repeatedly voted for an assault weapons ban and will do so again as soon as we can get a bill to the Senate floor. 

 

But preventing tragedies like the one in Newtown will take more than just common-sense gun policies and enforcement. It will also take a renewed commitment to understanding and dealing with the root causes that lead isolated individuals to carry out these atrocities.  At this moment, everything needs to be on the table for scrutiny. 

 

Our nation is at a crossroads moment, and we must take the path that protects future generations from re-living these gun violence tragedies over and over again.  It will take the courage of people with opposing views but a common purpose sitting down with one another and agreeing that the status quo is unacceptable.

 

Please be assured I will keep your views in mind as I work with my colleagues and please feel free to share with me your ideas on how to address this crisis. Thank you for contacting me, and please do not hesitate to contact me again".

US Should Look at Australia's Gun Laws

This is a letter I have written to members of the United States Congress urging them to adopt Australia’s gun laws:

“As a Member of the Australian Parliament I am writing to urge you to adopt Australia’s gun laws in the United States.

I am aware of the risk of advice from outsiders being unwelcome, but feel compelled to write all the same because

1. We cannot sit idly by and just allow senseless and avoidable deaths, in this case including 20 small children, to go on, and

2. Australia’s experience is crystal clear and I believe the United States can benefit from it.

After 35 people, including small children, were killed in the Australian island State of Tasmania in April, 1996, the Australian Police Ministers Council agreed to a national plan for the regulation of firearms.  The Plan is known as the National Firearms Agreement and its terms include:

•Banning military style automatic and semi-automatic firearms;

•Limiting the availability of non-military style semi-automatic rifles and shotguns to primary producers, professional vermin exterminators, and a limited class of clay target firearm users;

•Introducing registration for all firearms, including longarms;

•Grouping firearms into 5 broad licensing categories;

•Requiring all licence applicants to establish a genuine reason for firearms ownership;

•Requiring all licence applicants other than those applying for category A firearms to establish that they have a special need for the particular category of firearm;

•Requiring that permits be acquired for every new firearm purchase, with the issue of a permit to be subject to a waiting period of at least 28 days to enable appropriate checks to be made;

•Stricter storage requirements for all firearms; and

•Requiring all sales to be conducted by or through licensed firearms dealers.

Since these laws were enacted in 1996 Australia has not had a repeat of the massacres we had before they came into effect.

The number of gun deaths in all categories – homicides, suicides, and accidental shootings – has declined dramatically since 1996, and thousands of Australian lives have been saved as a result.

I implore you to look at our experience.  As the number of guns in Australia reduced, so too did gun violence.   It is simply not true that owning a gun makes you safer.  The fact that Adam Lanza’s mother was killed with a weapon she owned is all too familiar.

More weapons in homes and schools = more killing.

Those families who have lost a loved one are in our hearts and thoughts at this time. But please let this not be yet again condolences and prayers and hand-wringing – let this be the time when something real was accomplished.

There are plenty of problems in our world which are beyond the power of legislators to do much about.  This is not one of them”.

Treatment of Cattle in Israel Abbatoir

The treatment of these cattle was described as sadistic, and appalling, not by me, not by animal welfare activists, but by industry and government representatives.

They were right about that. They were not right, however, in suggesting the footage and the response represent the system in action.

We don’t know about this mistreatment due to the work of industry appointed auditors. We know about it due to the footage obtained by an Israeli journalist working undercover.

Indeed the best the Elders auditor could come up with when they inspected the abbatoir was that one of the gates was rusty and too noisy! I said last year when these arrangements were being put in place that it should be animal welfare groups like Animals Australia or the RSPCA doing this work. The industry ignored that call, so I’ll repeat it.

If the live animal export industry expects the public to have any confidence in it, it needs to contract representatives of animal welfare groups to carry out audits and inspections of overseas abbatoirs.

I congratulate the Israeli journalist on his work in bringing this mistreatment to the attention of the public.