Friday, September 20, 2013

Rape, Pillage, Plunder...

... like there's no tomorrow:

"Resource giants will be told to step up their spending on mammoth new projects or risk losing their rights to tap the deposits, under an Abbott government plan to accelerate investment and kill off fears of an end to the [mining] boom. The incoming government aims to use its power over the vast gas deposits to bring forward up to $180 billion in new investment, sending a blunt message to companies to develop rather than hoard the nation's resources... Incoming industry minister Ian Macfarlane told The Australian that companies should extract 'every molecule' of gas to boost exports and supply the domestic market... 'I want to put the industry on notice that if the deposits are able to be developed they've got to be developed,' he said... 'We've got to make sure that every molecule of gas that can come out of the ground does so'." (Use it or lose it, miners warned, David Crowe, The Australian, 18/9/13)

And who better than Ian 'Chainsaw' Macfarlane to deliver these glad tidings of great joy? Hey, and where better than in 'Dirty Digger' Murdoch's Australian to read about them?

Typically, all you get from bloody Fairfax is wild conspiracy theories from sniveling Green extremists like David Suzuki,* who singles out our great nation's wealth generators for special opprobrium, delegitimising them in the process and practically calling for them to be wiped off the map:

"I would have thought Australia would be leading the world in developing a new economy because climate change is going to devastate Australia. Instead, mining magnates are manipulating the debate in Australia just like they are doing elsewhere. Like the tobacco industry before them, they have known for years that climate change is happening and that burning fossil fuels is the heart of it. But to maximise their profits they have continued to sow misunderstanding and confusion, funding the sceptics to perpetrate the myth that global warming is junk science." (Ditch the carbon tax at your nation's peril, Mt Abbott - you're dooming future generations, Sydney Morning Herald, 18/9/13)

[*Parenthetically, speaking of visitors to these shores, how is it that David Suzuki can find his way into the opinion pages of the self-styled "Independent. Always." Fairfax press, but not those who defend the human rights of Palestinians, such as UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and professor of international law at Princeton University, Richard Falk?]

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