More climate solutions needed
It's encouraging to see construction of a new wind farm in Kiata commence. The project will deliver investment in the region while cutting emissions that cause climate change.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
With the latest science showing alarming melting of the polar icecaps (that will have flow on implications for the western districts), it's clear that more needs to be done to protect Victorian communities from climate change impacts, such as increasing droughts, bushfires, storms and heatwaves.
Given the Abbott/Turnbull government's failure to tackle climate change requires leadership at the state level.
The Andrews government has already strengthened the Victorian Climate Change Act in 2017. It can build on this foundation stone by investing in climate change solutions in the upcoming state budget. A greater effort is required to prevent climate change from getting worse and building community resilience to the impacts that are now locked in.
All political parties need to take climate change seriously. The Matthew Guy opposition damaged its credibility on this front by voting against the Climate Change Act. A commitment to review its climate policies in 2017 and release them publicly by the year's is a first step to gain trust on the issue. Will the member for Ripon Louise Staley support these simple steps?
Leigh Ewbank
Act on Climate coordinator, Friends of the Earth
Where's the evidence?
I would like to join Ron Fischer in asking the question, "where is the evidence of climate change?”
GWM Water and other agencies used the claim of climate change to justify the expenditure for pipelining the Wimmera all those years ago.
It would now seem that this pipeline was not needed to the degree claimed at all.
I challenge GWM Water and their mates to answer Ron Fischer's question.
Oliver Guthrie
Ballarat
Call for action on youth detention
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews must end the abuse of children and young people, including children being held in solitary confinement in cells with no toilets.
The abuse was revealed in a report by the Commission for Children and Young People into the use of isolation, separation and lock downs of children in Victoria’s youth detention centres.
The report highlights disturbing practices at Victoria’s Parksville and Malmsbury youth detention centres and at Barwon adult prison.
The harrowing findings describe ‘children and young people enclosed alone between four walls with limited access to fresh air, human interaction, stimulation, psychological support and, in some circumstances, basic sanitation.’
The report finds that isolation, separation and lockdown of children are increasingly being used, sometimes for 24 hours or more.
Isolation for more than 22 hours without meaningful human contact is solitary confinement and is absolutely prohibited for children under international law.
This report’s findings about conditions of isolation are horrific, with some isolated children forced to relieve themselves in rooms that have no toilets.
The parallels with what occurred at Don Dale are striking. People across the country and the world have been shocked at the abuses of children in Don Dale - and yet the Andrews’ Government has not learned from the horrors there.
At the same time as the Northern Territory Royal Commission is airing sickening allegations of systemic abuse in that youth justice system, Premier Andrews is taking Victoria down the same dark path.