Bundarrah Days

It's still only September and already one man has been killed by bushfire and six houses destroyed.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20470275-6...

You'd hope State Government's are starting to get the message about fuel build-up in the bush but even if they are you can bet it will only be in water catchments and areas where property and livestock are at risk.

Remote areas of national parks will continue to burn with a consequent loss of biodiversity until green influence on environmental policies is stopped.

This summer is shaping up as one of the worst fire seasons in our history.

"Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone........."

ALL those who love the Bogong High Plains and the surrounding region had better get up there and say their goodbyes.

A new $230 million power plant is to be built on The Bogongs involving a tunnel under Pretty Valley. Rock and other waste materials from the project will be used in the reconstruction of The Bogong High Plains Road.

The project is being undertaken by AGL, Australian Gas Light. Meanwhile a new $500 million development on nearby Mt Hotham and the continued expansion of Falls Creek and Dinner Plain Village is continuing to destroy the remote area values of the Bogongs.

Where is the outrage from environmentalists? Haven't heard a word of protest from The Greens or the Victorian National Parks Association about this. Could it be that to their mind The Bogongs were saved for posterity when the Mountain Cattlemen were booted?

This power station isn't needed. It will only ever be on stream during peak periods.

It's been said before and history will agree that the High Plains were better off when Mountain Cattlemen and Aborigines were the only visitors.

This is tragic news and a disaster for the alpine environment. Is there no end to the hypocrisy of the Bracks Government and its green allies?

"Pave paradise, put up a parking lot ....With a pink hotel, a boutique and a swingin' hot spot" at the nearest ski resort...a new power station and a series of signs telling us how fragile the alpine environment is.

THE bushfire season has started in Victoria about six to eight weeks early.

An ominous sign for Melbourne was a blaze yesterday at Healesville bordering its water catchment.

The Bracks Government can't claim it wasn't warned. Country people and nature itself have been screaming warnings for years now and public land managers have not listened.

We are losing more and more biodiversity on public land through pseudo-scientific green inspired management philosophies which result in the destruction of the forests we supposedly want to protect.

It's almost as if some influential figures are courting an environmental disaster to further their green objectives. They are counting on their ability to put a spin on the causes of such a disaster and place the blame on those who predicted it.

MORE shots were fired today in the battle for the high country.

Parks Victoria has received a letter from our solicitors advising of our intention to graze our Bogong high plains runs area this summer and requesting an acknowledgment of our right to do so according to the conditions of our licence.

In the absence of any acknowledgment plus an an undertaking not to interfere with our activities an injunction will be sought in the Victorian Supreme Court.

We'll let you know the response when we receive it.

Meanwhile, now might be as good a time as any to listen to our fighting song, Down The Track. Click below.

It’s going to be a shock for irrelevant old yesterday’s men like Clive Hamilton when they finally realise that they occupy no place of importance in the emerging Australia.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/death-becomes-an-excuse-to-savage-elites/2006/09/07/1157222262395.html

Australians are not fools and arrogant “love to be seen as intellectuals” such as Hamilton can thank the God of tolerance for giving Aussies the liberal serving of patience that enabled them to put up with academic drongos like himself and Germaine Greer for so long.

Hamilton said in regard to national grief at the loss of Steve Irwin:

“It makes one wonder what our country has come to when an accomplished author (John Birmingham) can compare a slapstick TV celebrity to one of America’s greatest presidents. It’s the new face of the cultural cringe - we canonise anybody who makes it in the US or Britain no matter how lowbrow the performer.”

Lowbrow performer or not that comment aimed at Steve Irwin has raised eyebrows around the country. Do we still want to fund "think tanks" like Hamilton's Australia Institute merely to allow a bevy of bumptious academics to engage in pointless social discourse? I think it's becoming increasingly obvious that we don't.

Hamilton's comment is plainly wrong, of course. It wasn’t Steve Irwin’s popularity overseas that endeared him to us. It was the fact that he was one of us, the fact that he epitomised almost everything Australians would like to see themselves as.

Steve was as large as life, self reliant, good humoured, courageous, generous and direct and although, like all of us, he doubtless had his faults his personal ledger was weighted to the positive.

What galls people like Hamilton and the sour old battleaxe, Greer, is that while Steve was not an academic he won worldwide respect and renown amongst the world’s foremost wildlife experts.

What a shock. It’s possible for a man to learn and achieve and move the world without the benefit of a chair in the lecture room.

Hamilton is more concerned by the fact that Steve Irwin taught as much as he entertained and that people learned from him.

That was his cardinal sin. He threatened the power base of the so-called academic "elites" who covet the ability to shape public opinion and formulate policy. Elite be damned. Pedestrian at best.

While people like Hamilton are at pains to point out that animals can think for themselves and decide their own destinies, they seem to be under the misapprehension that Australians need people like them to think for us. And they want to be paid for it.

Forget the Bastille - let's storm the ivory tower and demolish it.