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Posted by
Kelsey

Happy Australia Day week! We’re pink across our noses from celebrations – hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did. Here’s a sneak peek at what we’re reading this week. Want to be a part of it? Email us your news of the week – discuss@getup.org.au.

Sweeping rubbish under the rug? Just because you can't see it, it doesn't mean it isn't there.

Sweeping rubbish under the rug: just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

The latest on the protests at Parliament House: marches continue to the tune of “always has been, always will be, Aboriginal land”.

The Queensland State Election has been announced for March 24. The coal seam gas debate is only going to heat up in the lead-up – check out our write up of the local stories from blockades and protests.

Did you hear? Same-sex couples who have married overseas will be able to receive ‘no impediment’ certificates. Also this week, Guy Pearce and Jimmy Barnes came out in support of marriage equality.

Fact or fiction? Voters become more conservative as they grow older. Discovery News says it’s nothing but a stereotype.

At 27, Jessie Taylor is a human rights lawyer and a foster mum of a 14 year-old refugee. Legend? Yes.

Here’s an innovation out of that seeks to help solve social problems around waste, obesity and homelessness — go halfsies on your mealsize and 90% of your meal proceeds go towards fighting against hunger.

If you’re keeping one eye on political scene in the US, you might like these State of the Union house party photos and daily cartoons from the New Yorker.

“Stop the pity and unlock the potential”: NGOs working on poverty in developing countries are changing tact — showing solutions is proving more effective than publicising the problem.

Just when you thought you’d seen it all, here’s a whole new kind of protest in Russia.

And if you’ve enjoyed (or endured) the dulcet tones of the tennis shrieks over the last few weeks, you might be interested in this.

Have you got a local story, a suggestion or a great article you’d like to share? Email us: discuss@getup.org.au.

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27th January 2012

Local stories: the coal seam gas campaign heats up

Posted by
Kelsey

This summer, the coal seam gas mining debate in Australia has heated up. Traditionally conservative farmers have turned to direct action to make their point heard, and and mining companies have had no choice but to listen up.

Kerry blockade

A farmer at the Kerry Blockade

This time last year, had you heard about coal seam gas mining? Once a topic of relative obscurity for those who had chanced upon US documentary Gasland, the debate is now raging in Australia’s heartland. Traditionally conversative farmers have turned into activists. Landowners have turned into campaigners. Local action groups are springing up, getting informed, writing letters, organising forums and protests, and now, staging blockades to limit mining companies’ access to properties. Tempered conversations have turned serious, with locals and energy companies at odds over what occurs on and under the ground.

On Saturday, a 10-day blockade in Kerry, SE Queensland, ended after Arrow Energy removed its drill rig from the site. The blockade saw 15 people arrested, hundreds of attendees, and people from across QLD and NSW travelling to join the Scenic Rim locals.

What did protestors want? Independent water testing prior to coal seam gas development in the area. Innes Larkin from Keep the Scenic Rim Scenic said, “we’re calling on Arrow Energy to adopt a precautionary principle and postpone these activities until the baseline readings are done. We also want the company to commit to independent assessment of our water supplies and public ownership of the results.”

Similar – and successful – blockades were held late last year in Gloucester, NSW, and were borne of the same demand: independent water studies are urgently needed to ensure coal seam gas exploration and development are safe and don’t impact on groundwater resources. Independent testing doesn’t seem like too much to ask – in the Liverpool Plains, energy company Santos pulled out of their mining plans and agreed to wait until a study of the Namoi water catchment had been completed.

Unfortunately, other areas haven’t been so lucky.

Let’s make one thing clear – these blockades are often peaceful. While some individuals desperate to stop drilling take risks by climbing on the 5 metre high rigs, mostly these blockades are a group of locals with camping chairs and signs. The Kerry blockade campsite on a neighbouring private property even had face-painting and a sandbox to keep kids amused.

Gas companies claim they consult with the communities surrounding gas developments. Yet, communication and dispute resolution between energy companies and locals is problematic at best, and antagonistic at worst. In Kerry, cooperations failed when Arrow Energy insisted any meeting between locals and the energy company had to occur in Beaudesert, which would see protestors having to leave the blockade site.

Calls for more regulation on coal seam gas mining are only gaining momentum as more communities are affected. There was a huge show of wider community support for Kerry blockade by “local and interstate supporters from the Rock Valley, Kyogle, Nimbin, Tara and Brisbane”. Some of these communities have been locally affected – others haven’t. What’s clear is that the concerns about coal seam gas mining resonate for more than just the landowners and their local interests. The issue is no longer personal – it’s national.

With the Queensland State Election coming up, the issue will only become more contentious. State LNP leader Campbell Newman commented on the issue saying that an LNP state government would not allow CSG mining in the Scenic Rim – highlighting one of the key questions in the issue, whether there are areas that should be considered absolutely ‘no go’ areas for mining.

What happens next? Let us know what you think.

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23rd January 2012

Pokies update: We will continue the fight

Posted by
Kelsey

Minutes ago the Prime Minister announced a back-down on poker machine reform. Even though enough politicians were prepared to support the Productivity Commission’s recommendations to slow down machines to $1 maximum bets, the Prime Minister chose the weakest of all options on the table – deferring action to beyond the next election.

Today’s announcement is a far cry from the meaningful reforms that were recommended by the independent Productivity Commission, based on 11 years of research and is an insult to the millions of Australian families who were counting on genuine reform. But it’s crucial that we don’t lose heart. 
 
We need to keep in mind why we’re fighting for reforms in the first place; for the people, not the politics. People like Clelia who lost her son in law to poker machine addiction and Ilona whose elderly mother lost her entire retirement savings to the pokies – despite her mother having dementia and poker machine operators doing nothing to help. We owe it to the families of those who’ve lost loved ones to the scourge of this industry not to lose hope because there are still reforms to be won and we must fight for them until we win.
 
We’ve already accomplished so much in a battle that has us pitted against the deep pockets of a poker machine industry that isn’t afraid to fight dirty and pervert the facts. We’ve built a powerful movement for poker machine reform, the likes of which Australia has never seen. We’ve helped set up a new coalition of organisations that serve and represent almost three million people and we’ve sparked thousands of conversations across the country which have catapulted poker machine reform on to the front pages. Together, through newspaper and TV ads, our direct mail campaign and a huge petition, we made sure politicians could not escape the stories of the impact that poker machine addiction has on Australian families. 

And we’ve achieved real and measurable milestones. ATM daily withdrawal limits at poker machine venues will now be capped at $250 and all new machines will have to be mandatory pre-commitment compatible. Best of all, as one poker machine venue operator admitted on Sydney radio this week, the national conversation that has been sparked by those in support of reform has already led gamblers to turn away from dangerous, high loss machines.
 
Together we can harness our disappointment and use it to fuel our movement and make it stronger. The Stop the Loss coalition, of which GetUp is a founding member, launched yesterday and represents an unprecedented joining together of community, religious and consumer groups from around the country. The coalition is committed to continuing the fight for meaningful reform.
   
Thank you for your passion and commitment over the first stage of our campaign to win genuine poker machine reform. This next phase will require patience and heart but we’re confident we will prevail – people powered movements always do. We’ll keep in touch about the next steps and will update you on coalition efforts along the way. 

Thanks for standing strong, 

Erin, for the GetUp team

P.S. To take further action on this issue and join the Stop the Loss campaign, you can visit http://www.stoptheloss.org.au

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21st January 2012

On GetUp members’ minds: SOPA and PIPA

Posted by
Kelsey

In amidst all the rush and bustle about pokies (if you haven’t already, check out www.StopTheLoss.org.au), plenty of GetUp members have already been in touch to let us know how strongly they feel about the Piracy Acts in the US. Here’s a quick round-up of some great newsgrabs, infographics and international campaigns about SOPA, PIPA and all things censorship related.


(image via flavorwire)

An infographic to keep it all simple.

New Online Organising’s take:SOPA and PIPA won’t stop online piracy, but they will have a chilling effect on the ability of organisers to engage others online.

The Avaaz campaign to Save the Internet – more than 2 million signees already.

The Guardian makes like Guinness World Records and calls it the blackout the largest online protest in the history of the internet.

Should streaming be a felony? Should we be arresting people who host a website like MegaUpload? If this horrifies you, join the campaigns at demandprogress.org/
.

Organisers share their battle plans on The Daily Beast.

McSweeney’s lets us in on (satirical) lifelines with a day’s worth of facts to survive a Wikipedia blackout.

And finally, in the spirit of censorship – intentional or otherwise – check out these iconic error messages.

What do you think? Do SOPA and PIPA make your blood boil? Any other great links that we may have missed?

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20th January 2012

Campaign update: Stop the Loss – the national community coalition

Posted by
Kelsey

Update: Minutes ago, an unprecedented community coalition launched a campaign to push for poker machine reform.

The Stop the Loss Coalition, of which GetUp is a founding member, is a community campaign bringing together religious, civil society and consumer groups to counter Clubs Australia’s aggressively misleading $40 million anti-reform campaign.

Politicians are deciding their next steps right now. That’s why we need to come together and raise an additional $50,000 so we’ll be able to start the distribution of one million letters direct to voters this weekend. This is our chance to turn the same tactic that Clubs Australia has been using on its head. Can you donate $15, $25 or $50 right now to take on the pokie profiteers and fight for real reform?


This may be our last chance to achieve reform that will save lives, and stop tragedies like the one GetUp member Clelia Koch’s family experienced. Clelia’s original email from Monday is below.


Thanks for fighting back.


Erin, for the GetUp team

—— ORIGINAL EMAIL ——

Dear friends,

It’s a tough time of year for my family. My beloved son-in-law, who was addicted to pokies, hung himself on Australia Day in 2008, leaving behind twins aged four years, as well as a six-year old daughter. His addiction to poker machines had taken most of his wages for years and he had borrowed heavily from loan sharks to cover up his heavy losses. We had no idea. When I speak to people about my family tragedy, most try to comfort me by saying they also know of marriage breakdowns and the loss of homes as a result of mortgage payments being secretly diverted into pokies. But this doesn’t comfort me. It breaks my heart.

After thinking the government was finally going to do something real to help problem gamblers, today I’m hearing some very distressing news. The Prime Minister is considering caving in to the powerful hotels lobby, by trying to get away with ‘voluntary pre-commitment’ instead. That would mean gamblers choosing whether to set a limit on how much they’ll spend in one go. Speaking from experience I can tell you that there’s nothing voluntary about addiction, and while this policy may be more politically convenient, it won’t do anybody any good.

Can you join me and click here to donate to GetUp’s campaign in defence of real reform? There’s a newspaper ad blitz ready to go tomorrow if we all chip in today.

They say pokie machines are the ‘crack cocaine’ of gambling because they’re designed to be so addictive. For someone like my son-in-law, their effect can be devastating. These machines can swallow more than $1000 hour, and Australia has more of them than any other country on earth. No wonder gamblers in Australia lose $12 billion this way every year.

Meanwhile, experts will tell you that voluntary pre-commitment, the cop-out the Government are considering right now, has been studied for years. Studies by three state governments and the Productivity Commission all found the same thing: it will absolutely fail because it won’t help the people who need it most, which is exactly why the clubs are willing to allow it. As someone who has seen problem gambling and its devastating effects up close, I agree with the experts that the best real-world solution is to limit gamblers’ ability to lose so much in one sitting. The vast majority of recreational gamblers won’t be affected at all – but for those who do need help, limiting bets to $1 or capping total losses at $120 an hour per machine (instead of $1000!) will save jobs, homes, families and even lives.

Can you join me in putting a message in the papers tomorrow: we won’t buy this phoney reform. Problem gamblers and the families who love them need real help now.

https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/pokies-reform/voluntary-pre-commitment/stop-the-loss

Thank you for allowing me to share my story with you. It is my most sincere hope that together, we will prevent other families from experiencing the pain that my family must endure every day.

Clelia Koch
GetUp member

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20th January 2012