On fracking
John Kotsopoulos writes: Re. “Are Victoria and NSW really going to be forced to start fracking?” (Monday)
I am astonished that Commonwealth Grants Commission should even contemplate incentivising damaging policy by ignoring the potential health, environmental, economic and social costs of fracking for coal seam gas.
The lessons of recent history in the banking sector cannot be ignored. The unconscionable behaviour that is now widely condemned was encouraged or at least tolerated because it generated revenues, profits and bonuses with no regard to the law or social consequences.
Far from “locking up gas reserves” Victoria, as I understand, is spending $40 million plus investigating possible sources of conventional gas reserves. This is a much more sensible, and dare I say it conservative, approach than one that encourages the open slather use of fracking for gas exploration with its myriad risks.
On Catalonian independance
Desmond Graham writes: Re. “Catalan independence referendum turns violent as police storm voting stations“(Monday)
Spain would do well to adopt our commonwealth structure with the Basques and the Catalonia — then it may become the leading country again in that part of Europe. France is white-anted as a culture and barely holding together. No one listens to France, no matter how much they pout and strut because economically it has been hollowed out by successive governments.
The Spanish Commonwealth would again become the driver of European civilisation as it was in the expansion of Europe from 1599 onwards.
Was Spain really, quote: “the driver of European civilisation as it was in the expansion of Europe from 1599 onwards”? The Dutch were fighting their 80-year war against their Spanish Inquisition overlords at the time and had already established the first independent European republic since Athenian times (which unfortunately degraded into a monarchy after 1813). They were beginning to dominate European trade to the Far East, built the world’s first multinational company in the form of the Dutch East India Company — with public shares held by all and sundry (including home maids) — and the first internationally accepted mint with a Dutch guilder backed unconditionally by the government.
(Mind you, they were just as happy to sell wood, weapons and uniforms to the Spaniards they were fighting. They were traders after all and ruled world trade for quite a while after gaining official independence from Spain in 1648.)
Spain itself is a country forged in conquest more than most others in Europe, and it was under serious challenge from competitors even in 1599. It will indeed be interesting to see how the current centre in Madrid handles this.
Rob