Monday, 11 August 2008

Man, 27, dies near finish of City to Surf, The Australian, 11 August, 2008.

Man, 27, dies near finish of City to Surf

Stapleton, John. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 11 Aug 2008: 19.
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An ambulance spokeswoman said the man, from Darlinghurst in central Sydney, went into cardiac arrest and collapsed on the street. Paramedics and medical teams were unable to revive him and he died at the scene.
This year, organisers introduced ChampionChip technology to the event, which involves a computer chip being threaded into each each runner's shoe laces. The chip is then electronically started as the runner goes across the starting line and finishes as they cross the finish. Yesterday's race was claimed as the biggest chipped race in the world to date.
A 27-YEAR-OLD man died within 200m of the Bondi finish line of the City to Surf fun run in Sydney yesterday.
An ambulance spokeswoman said the man, from Darlinghurst in central Sydney, went into cardiac arrest and collapsed on the street. Paramedics and medical teams were unable to revive him and he died at the scene.
The man was the first registered runner to die since 1995, although an unregistered runner died in 2000.
The tragedy occurred about 11am as thousands of runners streamed past.
The death put a dampener on the otherwise successful event, which has become a Sydney institution since it began in 1971, and this year raised about $1million for charity.
A record 70,000 people entered the 14km race, which begins in the CBD and snakes through the eastern suburbs to Bondi Beach.
This year, organisers introduced ChampionChip technology to the event, which involves a computer chip being threaded into each each runner's shoe laces. The chip is then electronically started as the runner goes across the starting line and finishes as they cross the finish. Yesterday's race was claimed as the biggest chipped race in the world to date.
An ambulance spokeswoman said that, apart from the death, the only injuries were minor, such as sprained ankles, grazes and mild dehydration.
"In ambulance terms, it was a fairly quiet event," she said.
Canberra public servant Martin Dent, 29, who ran in the 2006 Commonwealth Games, won the event in a time of 41min 12sec. He was the first Australian since 1997 to win the event.
The Olympics kept top athletes from Africa from making it to Sydney, giving locals a chance.
The fastest woman was a 19-year-old Australian student from the University of Florida, Rebecca Lowe, with a time of 47min 18sec.
Credit: John Stapleton
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Saturday, 9 August 2008

Once-mighty Darling drying up The Australian 9 August 2008

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/once-mighty-darling-drying-up/story-e6frg6n6-1111117147701

Once-mighty Darling drying up

  • JOHN STAPLETON AND ASA WAHLQUIST
  • AUGUST 09, 2008 12:00AM
THE Darling River is flowing no more, with the iconic waterway reduced in places to a series of interlinked pools.
Around Wilcannia, in far-western NSW, a combination of drought and upstream irrigation have brought the river to a standstill.
Neville Crisp, 76, used to water ski on the river during the 1940s and 50s. Now he is angry about the state of the river and says that the only solution is additional environmental flows.
"The Government has known about the problem since the 1980s," Mr Crisp said. "The river is a mess, it is a national disgrace. They blame global warming and everything else, but they do nothing.
"We haven't had floods since the 1970s, not a decent one. I am angry about this river and what has happened to it. It was a beautiful river and now it is a hazard."
Mr Crisp's wife, Betty, says their house on the edge of the Darling was a wonderful place to bring up children. "They would swing ropes into the river, go canoeing, fishing, catch yabbies," she said. "This was a magic place. Now there's nothing. When the kids come back with their kids, they don't catch anything."
The Darling has stopped flowing before; it didn't flow for 350 consecutive days during the intense drought of 2006 and 2007.
Local grazier Mark Etheridge, who is also president of the Australian Flood Plain Association, blames the level of extraction from the river for its poor health.
"This is quite a natural stoppage, this is one of the events where there is a lack of rain," he said.
"But with the advent of irrigation on this river, we are amplifying the drought. These are the worst conditions I have ever seen."
Mr Etheridge said stations upstream were taking out hundred of billions of litres. "Ecologically, it is doing a lot of damage within the flood plains, billabongs, creeks and flood runs."
He said successive governments had handed out too many licences from the 1960s to the 80s with no thought to the grazing industries down stream. "They allocated more water than it is possible to take out of the system," he said.
The CSIRO found 39 per cent of the flow in the Barwon-Darling was being taken out.
Across the Murray-Darling Basin, on average, 56 per cent of available water is being taken out, which the CSIRO described as an extremely high level of development.
The Australian Conservation Foundation wants the federal Government to purchase six big irrigation properties on the Darling system: Cubbie Station and Balandool in Queensland, Colly Farms on the NSW Gwydir River, Toorale and Darling Farms on the Darling near Bourke and Tandou on the Darling below Menindee.
The ACF estimates the purchase could cost up to $600 million, and return 400 gigalitres, or 400 billion litres, to the river.
The Murray-Darling Basin Commission said up to 80 per cent of the water released from the northern rivers would be lost in transmission, and not make it to the lower lakes at the mouth of the Murray.
It estimates the lower lakes need at least 1050GL, allowing for evaporation of between 750 and 950GL.
Cubbie Station's John Grabbe refuses to comment on whether the property is for sale, but he is happy to talk about his wheat crop.
"We have 15,000 hectares of irrigated wheat in, that looks absolutely magnificent. We often get tagged as just being a cotton operation - well, we are not.
"This year, we have grown sorghum, sunflowers, wheat. We will be growing some cotton at the end of the year, and it is highly likely we will grow some soybeans during summer," Mr Grabbe said.
It is a similar story on the big irrigation properties in the Darling system. "The demand for food is driving prices up, so it makes these other crops look quite attractive," Mr Grabbe said. "I believe our future is very bright."



Republished here:

http://www.news.com.au/news/once-mighty-darling-drying-up/news-story/3e8eb593054f499a6ca9c51d49ec21f8

Once-mighty Darling drying up

OCTOBER 1, 20097:57PM
John Stapleton and Asa WahlquistNews Corp Australia Network
THE Darling River is flowing no more, with the iconic waterway reduced in places to a series of interlinked pools.
Around Wilcannia, in far-western NSW, a combination of drought and upstream irrigation have brought the river to a standstill.
Neville Crisp, 76, used to water ski on the river during the 1940s and 50s. Now he is angry about the state of the river and says that the only solution is additional environmental flows.
"The Government has known about the problem since the 1980s," Mr Crisp said. "The river is a mess, it is a national disgrace. They blame global warming and everything else, but they do nothing.
"We haven't had floods since the 1970s, not a decent one. I am angry about this river and what has happened to it. It was a beautiful river and now it is a hazard."
Mr Crisp's wife, Betty, says their house on the edge of the Darling was a wonderful place to bring up children. "They would swing ropes into the river, go canoeing, fishing, catch yabbies," she said. "This was a magic place. Now there's nothing. When the kids come back with their kids, they don't catch anything."
The Darling has stopped flowing before; it didn't flow for 350 consecutive days during the intense drought of 2006 and 2007.
Local grazier Mark Etheridge, who is also president of the Australian Flood Plain Association, blames the level of extraction from the river for its poor health.
"This is quite a natural stoppage, this is one of the events where there is a lack of rain," he said.
"But with the advent of irrigation on this river, we are amplifying the drought. These are the worst conditions I have ever seen."
Mr Etheridge said stations upstream were taking out hundred of billions of litres. "Ecologically, it is doing a lot of damage within the flood plains, billabongs, creeks and flood runs."
He said successive governments had handed out too many licences from the 1960s to the 80s with no thought to the grazing industries down stream. "They allocated more water than it is possible to take out of the system," he said.
The CSIRO found 39 per cent of the flow in the Barwon-Darling was being taken out.
Across the Murray-Darling Basin, on average, 56 per cent of available water is being taken out, which the CSIRO described as an extremely high level of development.
The Australian Conservation Foundation wants the federal Government to purchase six big irrigation properties on the Darling system: Cubbie Station and Balandool in Queensland, Colly Farms on the NSW Gwydir River, Toorale and Darling Farms on the Darling near Bourke and Tandou on the Darling below Menindee.
The ACF estimates the purchase could cost up to $600 million, and return 400 gigalitres, or 400 billion litres, to the river.
The Murray-Darling Basin Commission said up to 80 per cent of the water released from the northern rivers would be lost in transmission, and not make it to the lower lakes at the mouth of the Murray.
It estimates the lower lakes need at least 1050GL, allowing for evaporation of between 750 and 950GL.
Cubbie Station's John Grabbe refuses to comment on whether the property is for sale, but he is happy to talk about his wheat crop.
"We have 15,000 hectares of irrigated wheat in, that looks absolutely magnificent. We often get tagged as just being a cotton operation - well, we are not.
"This year, we have grown sorghum, sunflowers, wheat. We will be growing some cotton at the end of the year, and it is highly likely we will grow some soybeans during summer," Mr Grabbe said.
It is a similar story on the big irrigation properties in the Darling system. "The demand for food is driving prices up, so it makes these other crops look quite attractive," Mr Grabbe said. "I believe our future is very bright."
Send your Murray-Darling pictures to online@theaustralian.com.au
Originally published as Once-mighty Darling drying up
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Thursday, 7 August 2008

Payments cut as costs for children peak, The Australian, 7 August, 2008. Picture Simon Dallinger.

Centrelink will not pay youth allowance and FBT Part B simultaneously. "We were told we weren't entitled to Youth Allowance because of my husband's income," Ms [David Quinn] said. "This is the children's most expensive time. Socially they are wanting to do things, and my daughter is doing extra education. She is coming into an age when she is learning to drive. It is just huge, all the expenses. Then they cut the payments. What happens between yesterday and today? ... Bewildering is a good word."
"Because it is all lumped together, it is very difficult to know what you are eligible for in terms of each individual child," Ms Quinn said. "There is no detail and it is left to you to work out. You don't know what you're getting for which kid."
Ms Quinn said the the lost income meant "we don't take holidays, singing and music lessons have gone out the window and there are ongoing sacrifices which impact on all the children".

FAMILIES
FOR the Quinns and tens of thousands of other families with children on the cusp of turning 16, the shock of their kids becoming young adults is made worse by a complicated benefits system that leaves them financially worse off when the cost of raising them is peaking.
David Quinn, 47, works in a plastics factory in Wodonga in rural Victoria, while his wife Heather, 41, home-schools their four children.
In February last year the Quinns had a combined income of about $64,000. They were entitled to Family Tax Benefit Part A, which is designed to offset the costs of raising children, and Part B, largely paid to single parents and families with one main source of income.
Under these rules, the Quinns received $482.94 fortnightly for their four children.
The day their daughter Melinda turned 16, the payments dropped to $350.98.
"We basically lost $130 a fortnight just like that," Ms Quinn said.
"We got a letter from Centrelink telling us that our benefit had been scaled back."
Ms Quinn rang Centrelink to enquire why the payment had dropped; she was told that was how the system worked.
As the Government's Tax Review records, when a child turns 16 the maximum rate of FTB PartA falls substantially but youth allowance only becomes available for some families. Almost all low- to middle-income families lose some income and are faced with a bewildering choice as to which payment to receive.
Centrelink will not pay youth allowance and FBT Part B simultaneously. "We were told we weren't entitled to Youth Allowance because of my husband's income," Ms Quinn said. "This is the children's most expensive time. Socially they are wanting to do things, and my daughter is doing extra education. She is coming into an age when she is learning to drive. It is just huge, all the expenses. Then they cut the payments. What happens between yesterday and today? ... Bewildering is a good word."
Thousands of families struggle to make sense of the family assistance scheme. They do complex sums to determine whether they are better off if they claim youth allowance or continue with the family payments, for which income thresholds apply.
"Because it is all lumped together, it is very difficult to know what you are eligible for in terms of each individual child," Ms Quinn said. "There is no detail and it is left to you to work out. You don't know what you're getting for which kid."
The Quinns say they sorely miss the $130, and next year, when their son Jeremy turns 16, they face further losses.
Ms Quinn said the the lost income meant "we don't take holidays, singing and music lessons have gone out the window and there are ongoing sacrifices which impact on all the children".
She said the system was outdated and failed to consider that children were staying in school longer. "The payment should continue until you finish your Year 12 study. There is no reason why it should suddenly terminate at 16," she said.
----- RISE AND FALL -----
History of tax reform
1901 On federation, the states hand exclusive rights to the commonwealth to impose customs duties and excise, and share their power to levy taxes
1910 Land tax on unimproved values is introduced and the commonwealth provides for financial assistance to the states
1914 Death duties are imposed
1915 Personal income tax and a tax on dividends is introduced
1930 A 2.5 per cent sales tax is brought in
1942 Income tax is collected on a uniform basis and the commonwealth uses grants to the states to replace revenue from their own forgone taxes
1944 The commonwealth recruits employers to help introduce a pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) tax system for wage and salary earners and sets up a provisional tax system for non-wages and salary income
1952 Land tax is abolished in favour of the states
1971 Responsibility of payroll tax is passed to states
1979 Death and gift duties are abolished
1983 A prescribed payments system is introduced to cover contractors in certain industries, such as building and construction
1984 Medicare levy is introduced
1986 Commonwealth brings in capital gains tax and fringe benefits tax
1999-2000 A 10 per cent goods and services tax is introduced and this replaces various taxes, including sales tax
2006 Commonwealth repeals 68 redundant tax acts and amends other acts
2008 The Rudd Government commissions a comprehensive review of Australia's tax system
--- Some graph/s accompanying this article cannot be reproduced in plain-text format - please see the PDF of the page for details ---
Credit: Lex Hall, John Stapleton
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Monday, 4 August 2008

Eat-local movement provides shot in the arm for struggling farmers, The Australian, 4 August, 2008.

Eat-local movement provides shot in the arm for struggling farmers

Stapleton, John. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 04 Aug 2008: 31.
Some British supermarkets have taken to labelling the food miles on their products and "eat local" campaigns have become controversial fashion statements in themselves. Debate now rages in various quarters, for example, on whether the carbon footprint of locally produced food is higher or lower than imported produce. The book that started it all, The One Hundred Mile Diet, by the movement's founders, Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon, has just been published in Australia. It explores the Canadian couple's often humorous exploits and the lengths they went to in order to source all their food in a defined range.
"From the farmer's point of view, it was about more direct market channels and therefore keeping more of the profits," he says. "From the consumers' end it was about picking something fresh and being able to lay your eyes on the producer and ask questions about how they produce it -- all of the stories that go with food production, the agriculture stuff.
"Local farmers are up against the central markets; the big supermarkets that fix the prices," she says. "If they can go to the farmers' market or deal directly with the public at the farm gate it gives them a chance to educate the public and to make a decent living. People, even the most unaware people, are aware of food miles today. They want to know where their food is made and how it is made."

Full Text

Farm gate sales offer an alternative to the buying power of supermarkets
THE Kurrajong Hills in the Hawkesbury River valley on the northwest fringe of Sydney have changed forever. Once a picturesque nook of derelict orchards and run-down market gardens barely surviving as property developers circled, it is now booming as slow-food and eat-local movements take hold.
Consumers are now aware of terms such as food miles and 100-mile diets.
The Richmond-Windsor area in which Kurrajong lies, originally called Sydney's breadbasket and now commonly known as Sydney's food bowl, was established by governor Lachlan Macquarie in the late 1700s. It suffered through much of the last century from the rising costs of farming and intense competition from supermarkets. A traditional way of life was dying.
Not any more.
It is a story repeated around the country: farms that were poverty stricken only a few years ago are now booming as tourist buses and four-wheel drives pull up in front, full of people willing to pay well for fruit picked directly from the trees behind.
Farmer John Maguire, 71, has been a leader in the transformation to direct selling to the public. Twenty years ago his orchard was facing bankruptcy. Every year, going through the "soulless" experience of selling into Sydney's major fruit and vegetable market at Flemington, his financial situation went backwards.
Now his orchard is planted with a wide variety of fruits and the cafe and shop at the front of his property are rarely empty.
His family's love of the property, Enniskillen Orchard, with its views across the rich flood plains of the Hawkesbury, spurred Maguire to fight for its survival.
Meetings Maguire used to attend were the forerunner of the now successful Hawkesbury Harvest -- a group of restaurants, farmers, tour operators and bed and breakfast businesses. Among other projects the group runs the Harvest Trail, a recommended route that encourages Sydneysiders and international tourists to explore an idyllic rural enclave on Sydney's edge.
Farmers' markets, popping up all around the country, are also part of the phenomenon.
Maguire says the eat local trend is a result of urbanisation. "People are starting to wake up to the fact that humankind does not live by cemented land alone and that food doesn't just come off a supermarket shelf," he says.
"Part of this is that it is an experience. A lot of young children walk into our place and the experience is pretty well foreign to them. They have no concept of where fruit comes from and what is entailed in growing it."
The eat local phenomenon, backed up by the US 100-mile diet craze and increasing concern about food miles, are more than just an anti-globalisation political statement about supporting individual farmers over corporate chain stores, or even a dilettante's preference for fruit that has not spent months in cold storage.
Some British supermarkets have taken to labelling the food miles on their products and "eat local" campaigns have become controversial fashion statements in themselves. Debate now rages in various quarters, for example, on whether the carbon footprint of locally produced food is higher or lower than imported produce. The book that started it all, The One Hundred Mile Diet, by the movement's founders, Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon, has just been published in Australia. It explores the Canadian couple's often humorous exploits and the lengths they went to in order to source all their food in a defined range.
Their cravings for items such as chocolate and coffee proved impossible to satisfy, but with food items in North America typically travelling more than 1500 miles from farm to plate the idea has spread to many communities in North America and is taking hold in Australia.
Supporters say the diet offers a way for individuals to reduce their carbon footprint and do their bit to save the planet from global warming.
Ian Knowd, from the School of Social Sciences at the University of Western Sydney, one of the founding members of Hawkesbury Harvest, says he was originally interested in the possibility of tourism saving dying farms on the urban fringe.
It has dovetailed neatly with the public's growing concerns about lifestyle diseases and the effect of their own consumerism -- with an almost spiritual movement to connect with the land.
"From the farmer's point of view, it was about more direct market channels and therefore keeping more of the profits," he says. "From the consumers' end it was about picking something fresh and being able to lay your eyes on the producer and ask questions about how they produce it -- all of the stories that go with food production, the agriculture stuff.
"Hawkesbury Harvest is about rebuilding the local food economy and networks. People were saying that with urbanisation these farms couldn't produce viably any more. It is very difficult for small farms to survive in the current market.
"Fortunately there is a growing awareness among consumers about health and nutrition issues of food and their concerns about what the central food system does to food.
"Harvest is exploiting this food consciousness trend, which is why the new farmers' markets are emerging."
Ian Ryall, Canberra's Convivium Leader for the Slow Food Movement, says involvement with local producers and understanding the origins of food is integral to the increasingly popular movement. It began in Italy in the 1980s as a reaction to the fast food culture.
"Slow food helps people rediscover the joy of eating and the importance of caring about where their food comes from," he says. "We encourage the use of local and regional products that are good, clean and fair. We believe in making connections with the growers and producers, understanding the enthusiasm and passion they bring to growing their product and how that translates into the quality of the product."
Hawkesbury Harvest food and wine co-ordinator Carol Layton says creating a connection between the community and growers through events such as farmers' markets, conviviums and the farm gate trail helps growers stay solvent.
"Local farmers are up against the central markets; the big supermarkets that fix the prices," she says. "If they can go to the farmers' market or deal directly with the public at the farm gate it gives them a chance to educate the public and to make a decent living. People, even the most unaware people, are aware of food miles today. They want to know where their food is made and how it is made."
Credit: John Stapleton
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Saturday, 2 August 2008

Fish farming turns into a goldmine for former farmer, Weekend Australian, 2 August, 2008.

Fish farming turns into a goldmine for former farmer

Stapleton, John. Weekend Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 02 Aug 2008: 7.
"The great thing is Murray cod are a freshwater fish which taste much like saltwater fish, have brilliant white flesh and flake easily, " Mr [Rob Bartley] said. "They are Australia's biggest freshwater fish, they grow more than a kilogram every year and you can farm them at high density.
The Bartley farm operates on a floodwater harvesting licence from the Condamine River, the same licence cotton irrigators use to replenish their dams. But unlike cotton farmers, their water is constantly recycled by filtering it through wetlands. "We are not a large water user. The only water we lose is from evaporation," Mr Bartley said.
"Asian, European and American markets are hungry for quality seafood," National Aquaculture Council chairman Craig Foster said. "Wild-catch fisheries are increasingly depleted, particularly in Europe and Asia, at the same time as demand for seafood continues to grow."

Full Text

A TOTAL of $300,000 a hectare -- that's how much Rob Bartley hopes to be making off the fish ponds on his Queensland farm within the next two years.
In just six years he has becomethe largest Murray cod farmer in Australia -- and, therefore, the world -- and is reaping the benefits of soaring demand for the fish, which are fetching $20 a kilogram wholesale at Sydney Fish Markets.
The Bartley family ran cattle and have grown cotton on the Darling Downs in Queensland since the early 1900s. But father-of-four Mr Bartley, 37, has defied family tradition and is now more used to wading through water than sitting on a tractor.
Nine years ago, keen to diversify and worried about the future of dry land farming, Mr Bartley went with his father, Keith, to Australia's first national aquaculture conference. Much has changed in the interim, with the family becoming pioneers in a rapidly evolving industry.
A great surprise has been the success of Murray cod, an unlikely prospect for domestication.
Once the most popular eating fish in the country, with thousands of tonnes being pulled from Australia's inland rivers each year, it is now endangered.
Excited by what they saw at their first conference, the Bartleys bought a grazing property 300km west of Brisbane, adjacent to the Condamine River.
"The great thing is Murray cod are a freshwater fish which taste much like saltwater fish, have brilliant white flesh and flake easily, " Mr Bartley said. "They are Australia's biggest freshwater fish, they grow more than a kilogram every year and you can farm them at high density.
"They are an ambush predator by nature. They eat almost anything, including each other. They sit on the bottom and only move if they see food in the water. When you jump into the raceways, you almost trip over them. They want you to move. They think they're the boss."
The Bartley farm operates on a floodwater harvesting licence from the Condamine River, the same licence cotton irrigators use to replenish their dams. But unlike cotton farmers, their water is constantly recycled by filtering it through wetlands. "We are not a large water user. The only water we lose is from evaporation," Mr Bartley said.
Organisers of the third Australasian international aquaculture conference, to be held in Brisbane next week, claim the $800 million aquaculture industry will double within seven years.
"Asian, European and American markets are hungry for quality seafood," National Aquaculture Council chairman Craig Foster said. "Wild-catch fisheries are increasingly depleted, particularly in Europe and Asia, at the same time as demand for seafood continues to grow."
World renowned fish expert Nigel Preston, from the CSIRO, said aquaculture was at the same stage as agriculture several hundred years ago, with wild stocks being domesticated and selectively bred. While past predictions about the industry's rosy future were never realised, contemporary concerns over water, climate and food shortages meant aquaculture's time had arrived.
"The industry is about to undergo a renaissance," he said.
"The research is now in, thehard work and expense devoted to ensuring high-quality environmental management has been done."
Credit: John StapletonA
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