Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Roger Rankin Crook on December 13, 2011 at 8:13pm

Colin,

I applaud. Give me time to think, please?

R

Permalink Reply by Ray Jamieson on December 13, 2011 at 11:12pm

They are still there Colin, however, it doesn't serve the purpose of the puppet masters to publicize them!  When people think that it's not OK to think for themselves, they become pliable victims and take whatever crap is dished out to them.  That leaves it up to the rest of us to kick up a stink about it when we see it happening and push them forward off our own bat!

Not easy, its a very lonely trip, but ultimately satisfying.  If only to stick it up the Gillard's and Brown's of this world who would play puppet master if they could.

Cheers,

Ray Jamieson

Permalink Reply by Roger Rankin Crook on December 14, 2011 at 6:33am

It's a complicated question you raise, Colin. It is one that occupies my musings when I see a sign, or read something in a paper, or hear it on television/radio. Some thing which says to me, 'Well if they don't know that now, they never will.' Like a sign on our local beach which says. 'Swimming in the surf can be dangerous.'

It happens all the time on farming radio. Most rural journalists are agriculturally inexperienced and they regularly, at least in WA, move on to another position so they don't become experienced. So many are learning about agriculture on the job. Many are not from a rural background. Some if not all these days will have a qualification in say 'Media Studies.'

So what is interesting to them, new to them, is part of every day life for the majority of farmers. Particularly considering the average age of farmers now being close to sixty.

So it is not unusual to get a story on say, drenching sheep, and when there is a need to drench sheep. Very often the advice is given by a Dept of Agriculture expert. Now considering that most sheep keepers are say 50+, so they will have been keeping sheep for at least 30 years, if they need to be told at this stage of their life when to drench their sheep, they must be in their dotage, or stupid or both. Neither of which is true. Yet, the story gets to air and in my view is a waste of air time.

Last year we had a breathless young lass telling us how exciting it was to be riding in a modern self steer harvester. Obviously she had never been there before and was finding it a 'life changing' experience. Her audience were, in the main, either harvesting or carting grain and feeling the stress of the make or break period in their year. I reckon the interest level was about zero.

Now all that may seem quite innocuous in itself and just me grumbling. But then there are other subtle changes in programme emphasis. These journalists are the products of, have been conditioned by, those who have taught them. Many have brought with them to the country the opinions and in many cases prejudices from the urban 'we know best' or even worse from urban academia, 'We know what is best for you and the world.'

Now I have just used rural broadcasting as an example. But if you take the same rationale through other areas of the civil service, and we have pages on this site complaining about Departments of the Environment around the country for instance, we now have a bureaucratic juggernaut and a media who believe they know best. They know what is best not only for the country but for mankind.

It would be easy to lay the blame for all of this at the feet of the Left, but it would not be entirely unfair either. The history of Australia in the last forty years seems to have been when the Right has been in power in Canberra the Left has dominated the politics in the States, and vice versa.

Each successive government, in spite of what they promise, seldom if ever repeal legislation they have opposed when not in government, especially when it comes to environmental issues, because the urban vote of environmental issues and so what affects agriculture, is crucial to electoral success.

There is a school of thought which goes something like this.

In the sixties the Left Intelligentsia (their definition) campaigned against the Viet Nam War.

When that went away they turned their attention to the re-writing of Australian history. Invasion, genocide all that stuff. It took Windschuttle and Blainey to try and put the record straight. It cost Blainey his job.

Whatever they said and did caused a great deal of damage and division in the country. From personal experience I know that the conditions under which many of our aboriginal people now live are as bad or worse than they were forty years ago. Levels of literacy are worse.

So now they, the self righteous Left have moved on. We have them manifested in the Greens in parliament and firmly ensconced in almost every area of the bureaucracy in every State.

What fascinates me as someone who has lived in this country for close to fifty years is what attracted me in the beginning was the freedom of thought, the practical no-nonsense approach to life, in some ways the larrikin attitude, the lack of controls which I suppose means small government. Remember I left a Labour goverment in the UK that was all about social change and Nationalisation.

The son of a friend of mine, a young engineer, worked for three years in the UK and then came back to Australia about 12 months ago to a good job. He has just left Australia again to return to the UK. Reasons? Just too hard he says, to many controls, too many rules and he is comparing the UK to Australia.

Goodness me!

Permalink Reply by Roger Rankin Crook on December 14, 2011 at 7:14pm

Alan,

Your PS is an interesting point. Many of the people on the ABC these days are the products of the education system of twenty or so years ago. Many went to university in the days when the lurch to the Left was and I think to some extent still is, prevalent in tertiary education. So they were schooled by the 'Children of Aquarius' and educated by Left leaning academia.

We see it all the time. Gough Whitlam is a saint in the eyes of many. John Kerr is the devil incarnate, still.

Labor has changed. Rudd said he was a fiscal conservative. Gillard said never. They both abrogated the basic tenets of Labor culture and philosophy to gain power. Just as Blair did in England. He said at one time that the person he most admired was 'Handbag' Maggie. Now Martin Ferguson is proposing that state governments sell their power stations and he mentioned the N word which the ABC later deleted!

Differentiation between the Left and the Right is forbidden in the strategy meetings of both sides of politics methinks. It all very well to say no! But that begs the question, 'well what then?'

To answer Colin's question. There are great inventions still coming through in spite of everything. Australian scientists still punch above their weight when it comes to science and especially the Nobel Prize.

It's just that we don't seem, as a community, to have the capacity to both celebrate success and have the ability to demand that our governments formulate a long-term plan for this country which reflects what sort of place we want to leave for future generations.

Maybe that is the difference between us and the Chinese and Indians? I get the distinct feeling their leaders know where they are going. Not just in their lifetime, they are laying the building blocks for the future.

The same thing happened in this country, look at Melbourne and Adelaide, our forefathers had vision and they planned for it. There were great industries emerging and they were catered for. Then something happened.

The speed of change overtook us and we have been found wanting. There is no business plan for Australia Ltd.

We have lost the intestinal fortitude to demand there be no more curbs to our freedom and choice of what we do. Have we become too soft? Do we always look for someone to blame?

There is a debate, I hope that is what it is, going on on the Rob Messenger blog site (!) For those with political ambitions it, obviously, has some vote garnering potential. But I just hope that freedom of expression is maintained, otherwise we here on JG will fall into the trap of allowing that which we are vehemently against, the curbing of freedom of expression, to be imposed.

Know what I mean?

Roger.

PS. Still a good topic, Colin.

R.

Permalink Reply by Rae Billett on December 15, 2011 at 8:59am

Where are the great scientific breakthroughs now?

 

Colin I think they are blinded by environmentalism and political correctness. Free thought is vanishing. Too many rules and hoops to jump through and free thought is considered inappropriate. People MUST think about what they are told. 

 

I made a comment long ago, "Where have all the dreamers and thinkers gone?" Those people who had the ideas about making this country sustainable even in the dry regions - it can be done. The people who had the visions about infrastructure? All put on the back burner by government bureaucracies and inept politicians.  

 

Real science technology is not encouraged.It is now all post-modern science. Do it on a computer or don't do it at all.

 

 

Permalink Reply by Roger Rankin Crook on December 15, 2011 at 9:11am

Col, you wrote:

Farmers and Agronomists used to be lauded for increasing production, now we are told we are 'raping the land'!

It's interesting there is now irrefutable evidence that agricultural productivity in Australia is decreasing in direct proportion to the reduction in R & D.

R

Permalink Reply by Colin J Ely on December 15, 2011 at 2:27pm

Roger

When I worked at the Keith Turnbull Research Institute, we had an English scientist working there. He told us of a research station in England that had grown a crop of wheat from a paddock every year for a hundred years. He said that no-one was doing that sort of long term research anymore!

Roger Rankin Crook said:

Col, you wrote:

Farmers and Agronomists used to be lauded for increasing production, now we are told we are 'raping the land'!

It's interesting there is now irrefutable evidence that agricultural productivity in Australia is decreasing in direct proportion to the reduction in R & D.

R

Permalink Reply by Roger Rankin Crook on December 15, 2011 at 2:41pm

That plot is still going, Colin, or it was a few years ago. It is at Rothamstead Research Station. I have a copy of a book called 'The Soil' by Sir A D Hall dated 1923, it is the ninth edition the first being in 1903. The plot had been in place some time, even then.

Many farmers in WA have given up mixed farming and now just crop, canola, lupins, cereals rotation.

The biggest problems are diseases that come without a pasture break and the cost price squeeze, terms of trade if you like.

R.