Australia’s food security is threatened less by the drought than by long-term falling farm profits. Patrick J. Byrne reports. Around the year 2000, Queensland University of Technology economist, Dr Mark McGovern, presented to farmer forums figures showing the declining value of net farm production, i.e., the total sum of all the profits of Australian farmers.…
The Commonwealth future fund should take a $20 billion stake in Rio Tinto mining to protect Australia’s independence from Beijing’s strategy of controlling key world mineral supplies and pulling Australia into China’s orbit, writes Patrick J. Byrne. Australia is currently borrowing $500 million per week from Beijing. If the worsening economic crisis causes Australia to…
The Queensland Government, rather than building new dams for flood mitigation and irrigation, has declared most of its northern rivers out of bounds for commercial use. Patrick J. Byrne reports. Burdekin Dam in flood (February 2009) While the Federal Government is embarking on a national infrastructure program, nothing is being spent on Australia’s vast northern…
The green lobby’s tactics to virtually halt fuel-reduction measures in Australian forests, around homes and along roadways, are eerily similar to tactics employed by the powerful tobacco lobby. Patrick J. Byrne reports. This photo, taken of the hills to the west of the Myrtleford-Beechworth Road, north-eastern Victoria, shows the value of fuel reduction. The hills…
