Simon Copland

In an article titled “It’s tough at the top” last week BRW announced the list of the 200 wealthiest Australians. Miles ahead of everyone else was mining magnate Gina Rinehardt, who has amassed an impressive wealth of $27.17 billion.

Following the announcement many have been quick to debate the continued role Rinehardt plays in Australian politics, particularly given her often well-financed opposition to policies such as the carbon and mining tax.

Despite this however, few have gotten up and asked the question that I think is much more important than this; why on Earth does someone need so much wealth and why does our economic system allow for it?

When you look at the numbers of Rinehardt’s wealth, you can’t help but think how ridiculous it is. To put them in perspective Rinehardt is now earning approximately $600 per second and $51.7 million a day. That means that she earns more than the Australian weekly minimum wage every second (the minimum wage is $589.30).

When faced with those numbers many are quick to say that she, just everyone else on that list, deserves the wealth she has gotten. She has simply just done a very good job within our competitive capitalist system. She has played the system well and based on the rules we set out has “fairly” earned the money she has amassed.

In an ideal world, where resources are completely abundant, the argument may hold up. Yet, that is not the world we live in. Rinehardt is now sitting on this extreme wealth at a time when many others continue to be unable to afford the basics to even survive. Whilst a very few number of people earn more in a day than most could spend in a lifetime, many others have nothing to spend at all.

For many what this says is that Rinehardt, like many others, is simply greedy. Common criticisms of her are that she should give more to charity. She should take a leaf out of Bill Gates’ book and share her wealth around. In reality however, the problem is not that Rinehardt is greedy; it is that our economic system rewards greed.

Capitalism is based on the individual pursuit of profit before everything else. A profit based system is explained as the only way to ensure the efficient production of goods, which is seen as the major goal of our system. At an individual level this has resulted in much of the focus of our society is now around how to ‘get rich’. We define our success by how wealthy we are. Good jobs are determined by how much they pay. Magazines, newspapers and television shows celebrate the wealth of others and promote ways that people can reach that success. This is why we celebrate, not question, Rinehardt’s growing wealth.

The problem with this is that whilst capitalism may be good at allowing some people to become very wealthy, and it may be even better at creating cheaper products every year, there are many other social values that it lets down.

When reflecting on the rich 200 list you can see that the first basic one is the idea of everyone being able to have what they need to survive. Living in a world of limited resources, we only have so much to share around to an ever growing population. The existence of such wealth for some therefore occurs whilst others are missing out on having even the most basic needs. Whilst we celebrate the ‘success’ of wealthy people, we quickly forget about the many others that can’t even afford what is required to live.

Beyond this, individual value systems are now becoming very focused around increasing personal wealth rather than those such as friendship, family or community. Jobs and careers are no all about becoming wealthy, with the idea of doing good for society falling by the wayside. The extreme desire for continued material progress is trashing many of the environmental and social foundations that hold up our community.

The continued growth of Gina Rinehardt’s wealth is the epitome of what is wrong with our obsession with getting rich. Whilst Rinehardt earns more than she could ever possibly spend, many others continue to not be able to afford the basics they need to live.

Yet, the way to solve these problems is not necessarily to criticise Rinehardt for the way she has accumulated her wealth, or even because she doesn’t share much of it around. She has simply done a good job of playing by the rules of our economic system.

Instead we really need to start questioning the values of our economic system. Seeing someone be able to amass such wealth whilst others suffer impinges directly on my sense of what our society should value. Why are we valuing individual economic advantage instead on ensuring everyone has the resources that they need to survive? Why are we pursuing the continued push for growth instead of an economic system that works for the environmental and social needs of our community?

Rinehardt’s massive growth should ring alarm bells for anyone who values our society. Instead of celebrating her massive wealth we should be questioning why we think anyone deserves that.

“Whilst we know a great deal about where the tectonic plates have moved, we know little about the forces that contribute to these shifts,” says Giampiero Iaffaldano from the Research School of Earth Sciences. “These forces are responsible for deformation of the Earth’s crust, the rise of large mountain ranges and the seismic behaviour at plate margins, so it is of paramount importance to understand their magnitude.”

The theory of plate tectonics presented in the 1960s revolutionised Earth sciences. After the overturning of the ‘fixist’ position on the movement of the Earth’s crust (which stated that the Earth’s crust was ‘fixed’ in its current state), Earth scientists were able to soon begin explaining a diverse range of geological phenomena, including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and the creation of mountain ranges.

Plate tectonic theory says that the 100km thick outer shell of Earth, the lithosphere, is divided into pieces called tectonic plates. Plates move in different directions at speeds in the order of centimetres per year, comparable to the speed of fingernail growth in humans. At times these movements speed up and slow down, and often plates will jolt suddenly at their borders, creating geological events such as earthquakes.

Yet, despite what we know about the movement of the plates we still struggle to understand the forces behind these shifts. This is something that Iaffaldano is aiming to find out. “The forces that shift the plates are varied. Research shows that there are a number of factors that may lead to an increase or decrease in the movement of the Earth’s plates. It is a very complicated process.”

For example, looking at the border between the Nazca and South American plate shows that there are significant forces below the Earth’s crust, which are behind the shaping of the Earth’s plates. In this research Iaffaldano, working with colleagues from Italy and Germany, showed that there was a significant exchange of force between the two plates, which is what creates the strange curved nature of their boundary.

“We focused on a particular plate margin, one that exhibits an unusual curved shape. One can actually see it on a globe, in the shape of the Andes. This curvature holds information on the magnitude of forces acting upon tectonic plates, generating their motions,” Iaffaldano said. “Using simple laboratory experiments that mimic plate motions, we found that in order to create that peculiar curvature, the Nazca and its neighbour plate would have to have exchanged at least 20 per cent of the force driving their relative motion. This is a significant level of force exchanged.’’

“We still have a way to go. With more research, and more time, however, I am certain that we will soon be able to understand what it is that makes the plates move. This will have a huge impact on our understanding of geological events, such as earthquakes and mountain building,” Iaffaldano concluded.

Wednesday was a bad day for Indigenous rights in Queensland. In the early morning the Queensland police were sent in to evict the Aboriginal Tent Embassy that had set up in Musgrave Park. In doing so they arrested over 30 people.

Watching the news I really had to ask, since when was this the prerogative of our police? What happened to our freedom of assembly?

The freedom to protest, or freedom of assembly, has generally been considered one of the key tenets of modern democracy. Whilst there is not legislation enshrining freedom of assembly in Australian national law it is covered or assumed as parts of all state legislation. It is also part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which Australia is a signatory.

More important than these legal frameworks however, freedom of assembly is enshrined in our ideas of what makes up a democracy. For example, the freedom of assembly is outlined as one of the five ‘fundamental freedoms’ provided to Australians from the Department of Immigration. As their site says:

We are free to meet with other people in public or private places. We can meet in small or large groups for legal social or political purposes. Being able to protest and to demonstrate is an accepted form of free expression. Protestors must not be violent or break laws such as assaulting others or trespassing on private or public property. People can change governments in a peaceful way by elections and not by violence.

Despite this however, it is very rare that this freedom can be exercised in any meaningful way.

In the first place, the freedom of assembly is heavily restricted. For example, in Queensland, where the protests were broken up yesterday, it is heavily regulated by the Peaceful Assembly Act 1992. Under this act protestors must set times and places where they will assemble and must have this approved by a Police Commissioner. Often these rules are confusing and can be misinterpreted and if they are broken the full force of the law comes down on a protest.

Politicians are often more than happy to use these sorts of legislation as way to question the right of groups to actively participate in ongoing peaceful protest. As Queensland Premier Campbell Newman said in regards to the tent embassy:

I believe that the individuals who are protesting have had their, if you like, their day in the sun. It’s now time for them to do the right thing by people who enjoy those parks as well and move on.

In other words, the embassy has had their go and it is time for them to go away. This was similar to the reaction of Melbourne mayor Robert Doyle in relation to the Occupy Movement. What both Campbell and Doyle were saying was ‘we will give these protestors their freedom for a short period and only as long as they don’t annoy us too much’.

This treatment in law has translated to the way we react to protests in our community. As someone who has been to a few protests in my life I have seen the negative reactions people have to those who decide to get on to the streets. Even though we may support protest movements around the world such as those in the Arab Spring or Occupy Movement, once they begin to challenge the privilege many of us hold in Australia, we are quick to condemn them and tell people that they need to ‘get a job’. In some cases we are quick to take scenes of protests and call them ‘riots’, even if there is very little evidence of such an event happening.

Most disturbing however, is the amount of  resources we put in to crush protest movements. During the break up of the tent embassy it was reported that there were at least 200 police stationed around Musgrave Park. A quick search of police data in Queensland found that the Brisbane Central district has approximately 400 hired police officers. If we assume that a proportion of these police were not at work on Wednesday, we can quickly see that this number made up a significant proportion of the police force available in Brisbane that day (noting of course that police may have easily been deployed from other areas).

This is a pretty common trend. For example, at a protest I attended earlier this week against the proposed cuts to the ANU School of Music, police were stationed throughout the march (as if ANU Music students were going to start a riot). In other experiences I’ve had, I’ve seen police make mass arrests at the COP 15 protests in Denmark 2009 where there was very little to no violence to report.  In 2007, police spent weeks predicting a riot at a planned protest during APEC in a clear tactic to discourage people from attending. And of course last year, the Melbourne Occupy movement was brutally broken up by police for their ‘crime’ of camping in a public place.

In each of these occasions it was clear where the police priorities lie. They weren’t there to protect the democratic right to peaceful assembly. In fact very few people with power have are there to do that. Instead their interests lied in either protecting the wealthy few and their property or the power of the political elite.

When we talk about the freedom of assembly, it should really read ‘a right to free assembly, as long as this assembly is undertaken under strict regulation and does not actually challenge the power and wealth of the upper classes or political elite in any meaningful way’.

We do not actually have a freedom of assembly. Instead we have the idea that we can assemble, with the reality being that this assembly is designed, regulated and enforced to ensure that there are not real challenges to our political or economic systems.

Another gun tragedy in the United States.

In late February, African-American teenager Trayvon Martin was shot dead by George Zimmerman while walking home from the supermarket. 911 tapes from the incident revealed that Zimmerman had called the police to report that Martin was acting ‘suspiciously’ and was advised to avoid him – advice he ignored. Zimmerman was never charged after he claimed that he shot Martin in self defence.

The incident has sparked national outrage. Many have asked why Zimmerman was never charged for the shooting – police took Zimmerman’s self-defence account at face value. Others have seen this as a consequence of racial tensions in the US.

There is, however, one debate that this issue has not reignited – gun control. Very few have asked whether this might have been different had Zimmerman not been able to buy and carry a concealed weapon in Florida. This is a trend that we are seeing more in the United States. Following the 2011 Arizona shooting that claimed six lives and critically injured congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, commentators focused much of their energy on whether the hyper-polarised political environment was behind the incident rather than looking at the role of gun laws.

Gun control has been one of the hottest debates throughout US history. With the right to bear arms enshrined in the constitution, nowhere else have gun ‘rights’ been so important. Yet, in spite of the still very high levels of gun violence in the United States the gun control debate has quietened. Progressive leaders, particularly since the presidency of Barack Obama, have become ‘gun shy’.

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama advocated a number of gun control initiatives. He supported a permanent reinstatement of the Assault Weapons Ban, promised to remove requirements for the FBI to destroy records of gun owners’ background checks and supported a ban on clips that hold large volumes of ammunition. In office, he has done virtually nothing to see these policies instated. He even shelved one of his few reforms, requiring dealers to report bulk sales of high-powered semiautomatic rifles, prior to the mid-terms.

Just as importantly, Obama has failed to comment on gun control, even in the face of national tragedies. After both the shooting in Arizona and the death of Trayvon Martin, Obama failed to acknowledge the role of firearms, let alone propose greater gun control.

Obama’s silence has emboldened supporters of firearms. Under bills proposed by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, gun owners would be able to transport weapons across state borders without having to adhere to the licensing rules of the states they transport them too. This means that weapons could be acquired in lenient states such as Florida and transported to more stringent states such as New York or California without being subject to the same restrictions. When this legislation passed the House of Representatives in November, it had the support of 43 Democrats. There have been calls for Barack Obama to veto the bill, though he has not yet taken a position on it.

In all of this you can see a Democratic leadership that has become ‘gun shy’.

This reaction stems back from the gun control efforts of President Clinton. Throughout his Presidency Clinton implemented a number of gun control policies, including signing the ‘Brady Bill’ in 1993, which made it more difficult to purchase a handgun and the assault weapons ban in 1994. These changes saw significant pushback, particularly through campaigns by the National Rifle Association against southern and western congressional Democrats who were almost wiped out in the 1994 congressional elections.

Following the elections, Clinton continued his policies through the use of executive orders, but congressional action halted. Despite the Columbine Massacre in the late 90s re-igniting the issue, changes in the US Congress (the Assault Weapons Ban was allowed to expire in 2004), state legislators and even the Supreme Court have seen gun control efforts been taken even further backwards. Now, after years of polarised debate over guns, with the continued growth of the NRA and the increasingly partisan environment, gun control has become an issue that many Democrats see as too tough to touch. In the midst of the attacks on health care, the economy and climate change, guns are just another area that Democrats, and in particular Barack Obama cannot see being worth the battle.

The results of this are debates that are ignoring the reality of gun violence in the United States. With polls showing record lows in support for stricter gun control, gun reform is becoming much harder in country.

In the United States, gun law reform will always be hard. The silence of the Democratic leadership particularly the President however, is making it harder than it should be.

Published in the ANU ‘Environment and Sustainability Fenner Research Highlights’, 2011.

The growth of China’s cities is increasing wealth in the country, but it’s coming at a cost. The economic boom is forcing farmers to move aside and make room for city dwellers.

Professor Xuemei Bai is investigating the impact of China’s unprecedented rate of urbanisation on the agriculture sector, the economy and the environment. Using data from around 200 cities, Bai is examining how urban development and economic growth have changed over the past decade and the relationship between the two.

“Between 1997 and 2006 more than 12,000 km² of land was converted into high density urban areas in China,” says Bai. However, despite this rapid development there has been a long standing debate about whether urban growth causes economic growth. “In the study we conducted, we found that there is a strong positive relationship between urban expansion and the economic growth of China’s cities. There is a causality loop between the two:  urbanisation increases GDP, which then creates pressure to urbanise, and so on,” Bai explains.

Bai’s study also showed that most of the land used for urban expansion in China comes from agricultural areas. The ratio of arable land per capita in China is already below the world average, leading to concerns about food security. These concerns are multiplied as cities continue to expand.

“In recent years the Chinese government has started tightening its control on urban expansion in an attempt to reduce the loss of agricultural land across the country,” says Bai. “Our results show that such measures will negatively impact economic growth. In fact many cities are already facing financial difficulties due to restrictions on urban expansion.”

This leaves the Chinese government with some tough decisions. According to Bai, it will be difficult for China to limit urban expansion without sacrificing economic growth. “What is needed is better understanding of the complex interactions and drivers that link urban growth, economic growth and food security, as well as a more coordinated approach to urbanisation, land use and economic policies.

Bai continues to explore alternative pathways towards sustainable urban development in China and Asia.

For further information see: http://fennerschool.anu.edu.au/research

Published in the ANU ‘Environment and Sustainability Fenner Research Highlights’, 2011.

Bushfires are a natural part of the environment. They have a positive impact on many ecosystems, with plants having evolved to regenerate and reproduce around fire events. However, bushfires can also destroy homes and result in the loss of life. As human population density increases and extreme fire weather becomes more frequent, these threats will intensify in the future.

Dr Geoff Cary, who leads an international consortium of bushfire computer modellers, is looking at the impacts of fire around the world. Cary says that whilst studies show that weather conditions play the greatest role in the spread of fire, land management techniques, such as vegetation thinning and prescribed burning to reduce bushfire fuel loads, have the ability to save both homes and lives.

“Using computer fire simulations we’ve shown that the extent of bushfires adjacent to human populations can be reduced with targeted land management. We found that the most effective way to do this is by reducing bushfire fuel loads at the edge of fire prone areas, which is often where houses are built,” explains Cary.

These findings are reinforced by the research of Dr Phil Gibbons. Gibbons and his team are studying how different land management practices provided varying levels of protection to homes during the Black Saturday bushfires of 2009. “The Black Saturday bushfires were the most devastating fires in Australia’s history, destroying 2133 homes and resulting in 173 deaths.”

Gibbons’ team compared detailed before-and-after satellite images of more than 500 homes affected by the Black Saturday bushfires, a third of which were destroyed. “We found that clearing trees and shrubs within 40 metres of houses was the most effective form of fuel reduction to save homes,” Gibbons explained. “This was more than twice as effective as prescribed burning.”

Cary and Gibbons’ research has had immediate impact in government policy with the Victorian Premier stating that the findings would be considered for incorporation into future policy. “More than 70 per cent of the people who died in the Black Saturday bushfires died within or around their home,” Cary noted. “If we can develop policy that saves homes, we will be saving lives.”

For further information see: http://fennerschool.anu.edu.au/research

“ANU is very open in terms of the research that you want to do,” says Chris McKay. Before coming to ANU, Chris studied a Bachelor of Biotechnology at the University of Wollongong and spent a number of years in the public service. He is now studying his Master of Science Communication through the Australian Centre for the Public Awareness of Science.

“I got to a point after four years in the government where I decided I wanted to be a bit more targeted in my next phase. I didn’t want to go back into the lab, so when I found science communication at ANU it seemed like the perfect fit,” Chris explained. “It’s a coursework Masters, but as part of that there is a research project. I did my research project on how researchers at ANU, particularly in the sciences and environmental areas, were using Indigenous knowledge in their work.”

Chris found that scientists aren’t always engaging with Indigenous communities and it seems to depend on where they work. “Researchers working in the Northern Territory and remote regions were very heavily engaged with Indigenous communities,” he said. “Whereas down in the South East reserachers were less likely to have engaged with Indigenous people, and when they did there were other groups who were competing for attention.”

“It’s unfortunate because Indigenous groups are often the only ones who have knowledge about specific environments. For example, in the Coorong and Lower Lakes of South Australia, the Indigenous groups know how the environment operated before Europeans arrived. That sort of knowledge helps plan into the future because you know what is possible.”

“However, there are ways to do things better. The researchers with the strongest relationships with Indigenous groups had spent more time developing trust. This means spending long periods of time with people, getting to know them and taking it slow.”

It is this knowledge that Chris is now going to take into his new career. “I’ve got some work now with the CSIRO in communications. They were particularly interested because they wanted to have a greater Indigenous engagement in the work they do. So, that will be the future for a little while at least.”

“Forestry is always something I’ve been passionate about,” Martyn Ellis explains. “I did my first undergraduate degree in music at the University of Adelaide, but I have always thought that forestry was where I would end up in my career.”

After completing a degree in Adelaide, and getting some practical experience in the forest industry, Martyn is now completing a Bachelor of Science majoring in forestry.

“Before I came to ANU, I did research assistant work at CSIRO looking at bushfires, root systems soil degradation and seed collection. I’ve run my own business as a tree doctor and recently I spent a year in Papua New Guinea working on a number of community projects. However, I got a bit tired of being a tree doctor – the money was good but running your own business is tough. So, I thought I would come back to uni and get some more forestry experience.”

Now in his second year, Martyn is finding the being back at uni worthwhile.

“The degree has been really interesting so far. After a pretty general start in my first year I am now getting into some more intensive forestry courses, which is great. ANU is really nice and pretty student friendly. It’s a well set up campus and they’ve got a lot of environmentally stuff going on here.”

Martyn hopes that his degree will give him some more opportunities for a career in forestry.

“I’m looking at a cadetship in the Department of Environment at the moment. However, I think in the long run I want something a bit more practical – at least while I’ve still got my legs, back and knees working. Another option may be more international travel. There’s a chance my wife may get posted to Pretoria or Vientiane next year – so that would provide a great opportunity to do some sort of community forestry.”