I had a number of comments on YES, VIRGINIA ; THERE IS A PLAN regarding the
World Bank sizing up Queensland Heritage areas for a debt for equity swap.
Some said that I was mistaken and others said that I should have included
the source. To satify both objections I provide the original MEDIA RELEASE
23/5/00 - OVERSEAS DEBT FOR NATURAL HERITAGE SWAP OFFICIAL.
For futher details contact Senator Len Harris,
Senator for Queensland,
Phone (07) 3202 2300 or Fax (07) 3202 2199,
His secretary is : Bronwyn Boag <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Kerry Spencer-Salt B.E., LL.B (Hons)
The National Watchman
Australian Community Organisation
P.O. Box 136, Surry Hills NSW 2010
Phone : (02) 9360 0610
E-Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Website : www.rockroll.com.au/watchman
=========== ONE NATION PRESS RELEASE =========
OVERSEAS DEBT FOR NATURAL HERITAGE SWAP OFFICIAL
The cat is out of the world heritage bag – here comes the World Bank’s debt
swap for our so-called world heritage areas. These vast tracts of North
Queensland are in the process of being officially valued by none other than
the chairman of the Wet Tropics Management Authority, Tor Hundloe in
conjunction with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Also an economist, Mr Hundloe published his comments in the Courier Mail in
April giving yet the strongest signs of the World Bank utilising our
natural resources to help pay off our staggering $200 billion overseas debt.
Entry fees are being proposed for visitors to areas defined as World
Heritage or of high conservation and cultural heritage value.
Mr Hundloe said the World Bank has prepared a report entitled ‘Expanding
the Measure of Wealth’ analysing the dollar value of agricultural land,
pastoral land, forests, national parks, metals and minerals, coal, oil and
natural gas. All of these commodities represent the basis of Australia’s
natural wealth.
About 15 years ago, when former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke supported
the listing of huge tracts of North Queensland as ‘World Heritage’,
political and economic commentators proffered the notion of a debt for
equity swap with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
At a Gladstone media conference in 1987 Mr Hawke quickly downplayed these
suggestions. Nonetheless Hawke’s intentions have come home to roost and we
now will begin to pay for the Hawke and Keating Government’s largesse.
Yet worse to come, according to Mr Hundloe’s frankness, is a similar
valuation of cultural heritage being undertaken by another team of
ecologists and economists in which he also is involved.
Putting dollar values on cultural heritage, he wrote, was more banal than
valuing nature.
“Yet we are genuinely less wealthy, in both dollar and spiritual terms,
without our cultural heritage.”
Mr Hundloe continued: “Working out these dollar estimates is one thing. How
to get the money to sustain the values is another."
“We, the public, as farmers, miners, industrialists, tourist operators,
workers and consumers have to start thinking of nature’s goods and services
as something we all own - and have a collective responsibility to pay for
their repair and maintenance.”
The introduction of the Queensland Government’s new Cultural Heritage Bill
would most likely be “purely coincidental” if one was to ask the Premier,
Mr Beattie.
Labor’s Bill provides for fines of $3750 for farmers or miners or anyone
else for that matter who may stumble upon an aboriginal art site or any
artefact on freehold or leasehold land and not report its existence and
location to the department.
This Bill has been widely condemned by landholders and aborigines alike.
The former because it removes the last remaining right of secure tenure
placing it in the hands of a ‘dispute tribunal’ and the latter because the
Bill doesn’t immediately hand over ownership of private land to aboriginal
groups.
Ten years ago former Queensland corruption inquiry head, Tony Fitzgerald
was appointed as head of an inquiry into the future use of Fraser Island.
For nearly a century responsible logging and mining practices had kept the
local economy afloat providing quality building timber and high -value
minerals from sand mining. This harvesting of natural resources had left
the island’s ecology and economy in such good shape it was readily accepted
as a world heritage area.
These commodities are now being imported at great cost to ordinary
Australians. Hundloe was involved in the controversial listing, at the
time preparing a valuation of the island’s natural resources. Today he
confirms it was listed because of its “large dollar value as a protected
area.”
World Bank intervention in management and debt-collection of Australian
assets should sound the alarm bells for farmers and miners alike. The inn
- keeper has come for the room key. Ends.
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