LIFE ON PLANET EARTH

Life on planet Earth, as a whole rather than our sentimental journey, has always been a joke to me. From some of the biggest cities, where I have avoided spending much time, to some of the most uninhabited country, where I spent most of my ‘working’ life, I don’t think I’ve had a friend not ask ‘What are you laughing about now?’

Not for one moment of adult life, or before Neil Armstrong took that step, would I have given that part of Earth I cherish most, any chance of surviving this civilisation. Might not please anyone else, but it suits my approach. Never been to a political speech, public protest, threatened, bothered having an argument, nobody has raised their voice in anger at me since my last day at Wodonga High School 38 years ago and vice-versa.

Don’t know much about northern Australia, the shoreline, sea or other countries. Biodiversity in our north did not suffer so much from what totalled the biggest land clearing of any country last century (most of it done with the knowledge of an even worse consequence, soil salinity); the reduction of natural water flows; the removal of water from those systems for people, irrigation, industry, stock etc; subsequent increase in evaporation, especially in drier years; rabbits; foxes; European Carp; feral birds etc. Then there’s the overlaps: weeds, hard-hoofed animals, cats, more feral fish, camels etc.

Coast to coast south of the Tropic of Capricorn, virtually our only saviour of respectability was the Great Dividing Range. It did not escape some of the aforementioned, along with logging, mining, highways and tracks, powerlines, pipelines, even ski resorts. I wish those well who are offended by others seeking to continue niggling away at it.

Federal politics does its bit to make Australian society a joke upon the Earth. John Howard must have blinked at the leopards’ spots when he formed his first ministry and Ian Causley became Minister for the Environment. I thought, ‘No, our local turkey would never vote for Thanksgiving’.

For years the environment took a back seat and told not to look out the windows, heard Mr Causley no longer the man representing the environment of the land, thought the PM was doing it at morning playtime every month or so. I mean, being the Environment Minister in a Coalition Govt. must be the cushiest job in the country, reckon I could do it while standing in the dole queue. And after standing in one of them every two weeks for twenty years, I could have given the environment more thought than the entire Coalition since inception.

But when Japan announced another whaling season, up stood, knock me down with a feather, the leader of the National Party. Now, I reckon that if a Japanese whaler were to come and knock on my door, I could escort him around this country showing him things that Australians from rich to poor are doing in greed, arrogance to desperation to our part of the Earth, and send him home proud to be a Japanese whaler. Geographically, the Coalition Govt. has the political whim of over 80% of what he’d see.

So we sent a failure of delegations, funny ‘bout that, over to clean up this act of our largest trading partner. They flew over ships laden with brown coal, iron ore, natural gas, wheat, rice, meat, others coming back with cars, computers, electrical goods, they name it. All propelled on by ‘free trade’ and ‘open tourism’. But don’t put any embargo on them, that costs money and material possessions. What’s a few Minke steaks between friends in high places?

So the hungry country from the north decides to let us know where we stand in the Great Southern Ocean by adding another 50 Humpbacks to their scientific menu. Another jumps up: ‘Hang on, I’m about to inherit a navy’, quite forgetting two questions, ‘Does Japan have one of them and do they cost anything?’ I might just sit down with sake and a kangaroo steak.

Meanwhile, back at the Capital Ranch, politics had got too much for the leader of the N.P. Can’t have been the staggering portfolio, must be the company he keeps. Do we have a ‘Ministry for Retiring Politicians’, or does that come under the jurisdictition of the very busy ‘Ministry for Exorbitant Handouts, Jobs for the Boys and Girls, Avoidance and Other Lifetime Evasion Schemes’?

Somebody finds another river taking water wastefully out to sea and decides that would be a good diversion. Howard and Causley jump on his cart, even a Labor man climbs out of his bed of sunny coals and falls in their lap. But wait, even I recognise this somebody. He’s the one with the orchestra conductor’s baton and the seemingly less important simple five point plan to save life on Earth, complete with any number of nuclear reactors and an undiscovered science. I was sure he waved that stick over forests for a split second. Must’a been a waive I saw.

I’ve heard of people with a dual personality, but it’s always a disorder. Even the Clarence Valley Health Service could diagnose this guy’s problems. Does he shout, ‘Dam!’ and jump up and race around the table yelling, ‘Now listen to me you Minister for Natural Resources you, this is the Minister for the Environment speaking to you now and I’d like to give you a piece of my mind?’

I couldn’t think of two ministries further apart yet each so big across this vast land. This guy either sleeps on one job while he’s doing the other, or he’s got insomnia real bad. Next you’ll try and tell me he got the job as Minister for the Environment with the qualifications of a merchant banker. I’ll just settle for the beer and a geisha girl thanks.

How Australia is run is not my fault, caring or suffering. I certainly don’t want to see the likes of Hawke, Keating or any other PM and Treasurer we’ve had in the last forty years again. Would never have let a National Party MP anywhere near the environment and after the last twelve years, wouldn’t let a Coalition MP anywhere near the Earth.

I would only hope that the teenagers of today when reaching my age, can also laugh at their ‘stately values’, say it’s not their fault, they don’t care and never suffered.

Rob McFarland

Pillar Valley