mood: now a little peeved.state i'm in: ok, eyelids getting heavy.tune: diana ross "upside down".and now for why the government has pissed me off over the last week.
so many people take the attitude 'me and my kids will be ok' when having to deal with the thought of voting back into power the current government. that is a slack and arrogant attitude and pisses me off. why? because re-election of the current government will really affect some people, and it may effect these people in a quite harmful way. it may not be 'you and your kids', but i'm sure you would appreciate it if others stuck up for your interests and not just turned a blind eye.
here's some of the 'at risk' groups that need help:
1. it's rabbit season! having been almost wiped out of pastoral regions of southern and central australia, the pesky feral rabbit is making a resurgence. myxoma virus was introduced in the 1950s in an effort to control rabbit numbers with great success. following the development of resistance of the rabbits to the virus, calicivirus was introduced in the 1990s, funded publicly (under the previous government via the CSIRO) and by NGOs. once again, the effect was devastating, and rabbits became a rare site on farms and bushland in the southern and central inland parts of the continent in the late 1990s.
however, and in spite of great success, funding was cut and the program monitoring the results of the biological control of rabbits was axed, well before was deemed appropriate timing by those involved. less than 10 years later, resistance is emerging to calicivirus, and rabbit numbers are beginning to rise.
now pastoralists, with the assistance of scientists, lobbyists, and unionists, are having to return to the battelfield, funded only by their own organisations, to try and rectify the problem once again, a problem that could have been managed quite successfully had appropriate funding been forthcoming.
the environmental stakes are high, and the livelihoods of many pastoralists are at risk, as the rabbits recommence destroying the land with warrens, and the vegetation on it. unfortunately, they're on their own this time.
2. in 2003, the house of representatives standing committee on family and community affairs inquired into drug abuse and produced a report that was in keeping with the history of drug policy of the federal liberal party. it called for the abandonment of harm-reduction as the principal objective of the national drug strategy. the committee wanted prevention and abstinence-based treatment to be the focus of government policy.
subsequently, penalties have been increased for drug offences, funding has been increased for drug law enforcement, the federal government has run prevention campaigns based on dramatised scenes of the dangers associated with drug use, and money has been directed to abstinence-based treatment services. programs aimed at harm-reduction have remained critically underfunded.
a recent report by the committee has declared "prohibition, while theoretically a logical and properly intentioned strategy, is not effective". it goes on to add "the current national approach to illicit drugs - supply reduction, demand reduction and harm reduction - will achieve greater outcomes if a better balance between these approaches can be reached". it recommends restoring funding to harm-reduction programs
basically, it supports a firm belief of mine, that drugs are a health problem first, and a legal problem second.
once the centrepiece of drug control strategies in this country, harm-reduction programs, such as needle exchanges, the addition of thiamine to bread in order to counter the neurologic effects of excessive alcohol, and methadone clinics, have proven remarkably effective, especially in western europe where they have been embraced wholeheartedly. one might also bear to mind the pivotal role harm-reduction played in the mid-1980s in stimmying the spread of HIV in the community, most notably through work with intravenous drug users.
so far the federal government, most vocally bronwyn bishop and john howard, have rejected the advice of the new report, and declared that they 'do not believe in harm-reduction' and that current policy will stay. in my opinion, a very short-sighted approach, and obviously pandering to the easy-to-muster fears of the electorate of drug pushers and users. this is socially irresponsible. shame on the government, once again turning a blind eye to parts of the community that need assistance, but do not register on the radar of the mainstream community.
fingers crossed the voting public will turn a blind eye on how-to-vote cards tinted liberal blue, not on those in need, at the next election.
