Not Happy Barry - No Hunting in National Parks

When I am not chasing Orchids to photograph, I am campaigning against the prospect of accidentally being shot in a local National Park.

There was a No Hunting in National Parks Rally held in Bowral today. Great weather helped with the roll up, and our appreciation of the speakers.

• Clr JIM CLARK        Welcome to all; Welcome to Country and to introduce Peter Moran.
• PETER MORAN   Greens Candidate for Throsby, to MC the event.  
• DAVID SHOEBRIDGE  MLC. Greens spokesperson on the Environment.
• STEVE CASLICK (Public Service Association)
• TONY HILL, President, National Parks Association and member of South Coast Regional Advisory Board of NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service.
• DENIS WILSON, Australasian Native Orchid Society, and Robertson resident.
• MARK SELMES, from Mt Rae Forest, near Taralga, speaking on behalf of Goulburn Field Naturalists.

Photos from the Rally are visible at my Facebook Album. This is a public album, you do not need to be a Member of Facebook to view them.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151916461589829.1073741832.809229828&type=1&l=ed0cd9d5a9

Photo of me explaining why I am at risk
when crouching down in the undergrowth
photographing tiny Orchids.
(Photo by Andrew Lambkin)

my friend Caroline, from Bowral.

Mark Selmes from Mt Rae Forest
speaking on behalf of Goulburn Field Naturalists

An imaginative Wombat
expressing its view about the prospect of
Hunting in National Parks.

A walk (climb) down to Fairy Bower

Regular readers will recall that I had a Hip Replacement Operation on 1 December 2011 (I am indebted to Greg for pointing out that I originally wrote 2012) Silly me - the Hip was not installed by Dr Who!

Yesterday I celebrated by walking 1.2 Km (horizontal distance) and 180 metres vertically (altitude) to go 600 metres from the Fairy Bower car park to the top of the Falls, and a further 600 metres, to negotiate the seriously steep access track to the bottom of the Fairy Bower falls. This is part of the Morton National Park, accessed via Bundanoon, NSW. 

Of course, I had to do this both down and up (the distances and height of the climb therefore has to be doubled). My hip came through fine (remarkably well, in fact) but my thigh muscles are sore from the unfamiliar exertion. But rest and good a soak in an Epsom Salts bath will help ease that.

There were two well placed chairs on the way up. I was not too proud to take a "Nanna rest". I needed it, and was glad that NPWS had bothered to position these seats in strategic rest points.

If you have "Google Earth", try opening this "Placemark" link to Fairy Bower Falls, Morton National Park, Bundanoon, NSW.

My trusty walking stick proved invaluable, especially on the old, steep and slippery old cut rock steps.

I am often amazed at the human effort which is evident in these tracks and steps being sometimes cut into the rock faces, and in other cases, cut rocks being positioned as steps sitting in place, often dug into sandy soil, or deep leaf litter, on 45 degree slopes. No photos of these were taken, as I was too tired and too busy hanging on, as I stepped carefully down or climbed back up.

The more modern style of pressed metal platforms, are wonderful, but presumably they are massively expensive, as sometimes they must be lifted into place by helicopters. All credit to the engineers of the NPWS and to the pilots, for that work.

While there is a track which take you to the bottom, there is no way I was going that far.

Bottom of the falls will do thanks.

View across the Bundanoon Creek valley (and a glimpse of the ravine at the bottom)

Looking up to Fairy Bower Falls - top section.

Fairy Bower Falls - lower section

On the way back up to the top I decided to take a few images (to give me a reason to rest), and to enjoy the beauty of the Fairy Bower walk.

One of the metal walkways below a sheer rock wall.

 From one of the steel walkways I was able to get this view up a wall of rock, covered with these amazing orange crustose lichens. I have seen them before, but never as fine a display as this. The site was a sheltered angle of the rock face, seldom in full sunlight. And obviously, it is in a moist gully, with high rainfall.

Wonderful red crustose lichens on sheltered side of sandstone rocks

Female Lyrebird seen track near the Fairy Bower car park

Cropped view of female Lyrebird.

A wonderful rock beside the Fairy Bower track back to the carpark

My friend and fellow Orchid enthusiast Alan Stephenson was with myself and some others on the trek to the bottom of the Fairy Bower Falls. Alan has shared with me several photos which I meant to take - but was too nervous (on the way down), and too tired on the way back up.

Above the Fairy Bower Falls, the track takes you over the tiny creek. Obviously there is a local tradition of making tiny little "water wheels" using sticks and stiff leaves. These have been positioned into little groves cut in the rock, in a "water race" which has apparently also been cut into the rock, to provide a steadily flowing stream of water, even at times of low flow in the creek. It works just fine.

I was really captured by the thought that this is a local tradition to manufacture these little "engines" (as "toys"). They are doing no "work", other than spinning round, to amuse us. But what a simple demonstration of how a water wheel can work.

Three natural "water wheels" made with sticks and leaves.

You can see the grooves where more of these "toys" have been placed before.

Alan, being Alan, also sent me a few images of Chiloglottis seminuda which he found on part of the walk which I bailed out from doing. A nice specimen too, although I am surprised that it was growing in such a wet forest.

Chiloglottis seminuda - photo courtesy of Alan Stephenson

I am hardly going to claim to be a "bushwalker", but I have been bragging about this walk all day. No only was the "achievement" very satisfying, the location was great, and a wonderful bit of wet forest under the falls, and nice sandstone forest above.

Australia Day outing (and BBQ)

Yes, I went to an Australia Day Barbeque *** yesterday. It was not my idea. Nor was I persuaded by the Australia Day Council advertising, I assure you.
No, I was invited by friends!
It was a private Barbie - at the house of two friends of mine, John and Toni, in Bundanoon.

As a preamble, I was invited to go for a swim with John at the Bundanoon Creek swimming hole, off Meryla Road. Although I had no intention of stripping down, nor of getting wet.I was happy to go along, to check out this location (which I had heard about, but never visited). And a very pretty spot it was. It is in a deep valley (not yet a Gorge) in the Sandstone plateau, between Meryla Pass and Bundanoon village. It is formed by a dam on Bundanoon Creek.
The water was deep, ideal for swimming (on a moderately hot afternoon). It would be unbelievably cold on a cool day, owing to the deep gully location.

This is a view from Bundanoon, looking south, to Wombat Hill - the point of a very long promontory - overlooking the Shoalhaven River Valley. Bundanoon Creek runs down in the valley between my location and the cliffs. The swimming hole is well tucked in the upper valley, further back to the left.

Google Earth image of Meryla Road and the Bundanoon Creek Reservoir.

The swimming pool is accessed just north
of the Fire Trail going off to the bottom-right.
There is a parking area, and a track down to the Creek.
This is some 300 metres beyond the second bridge on Meryla Road.
Click to enlarge the image.
The dammed edge of the water is visible on the far left of the image.
The swimming point is way around to the right.Here are the boys doing their stuff.

John using the fixed rope to climb out of the water, up to the tree.
The trick is to bring the swinging rope, the one with the handle, with you.
That's the one you swing back out over the water with.
Holding on to rope with the handle.
Pull back to tension the rope, and jump off the rock.Swinging outAfter going past the low point, one lets go.Magnus shows how to do it properly.
A neat tuck up of the legs, to start the swing out.At the low point, Mag starts to tuck his legs up,
and pulls his body upwards to achieve a reverse somersault.
Mag got much further out and higher than John.
Lena and I decided that going swimming was not quite right.
But she was hot., even though she was right beside the water.
Schnauzers don't "do" water sports.
I momentarily dunked her in the cool water
(her body but not her head)
by hanging on to her collar,
so that she did not get scared.
Schnauzer's eyebrows close down over their eyes when they get wet.
She would have been temporarily blinded if I had dropped her in the pool.
That's not funny for the dog - so I made sure not to do that.

Thanks to John and Toni for suggesting a nice afternoon excursion,
and for their hospitality with the Barbeque.
A very nice day was enjoyed.

***
Shock Horror.
"Spellchecker" want me to spell it "barbecue".
I refuse.
Wikipedia records my preferred spelling is an optional variant.
Just as well.

Much Ado about “Bundy On Tap”

I have received the following report on the public meeting at Bundanoon from Virginia Falk who had been asked to offer the "Welcome to Country" at the Bundanoon on Tap meeting.

If I might be permitted a word of explanation to her commentary below, it is quite apparent that Virginia was asked to provide a purely symbolic "Welcome to Country", thus ignoring the fact that she is well qualified (in every sense) to speak authoritatively on the importance of water to the entire community.

Trouble is, Bundanoon did not want to hear anything from her other than a few "nice" words of welcome.

Following that Meeting, Virginia sent me the following report which I am honoured to publish.

Denis Wilson

Robertson NSW

---

Much Ado about “Bundy On Tap”

Our little village of Bundanoon created a media frenzy when community were to decide whether to ban water bottles or not. Contrary to the impression created by some media journalists, who were not present at the meeting, community residents attended with open-minds and were orderly during their attendance. However, many Bundanoon residents left the meeting in an angry mood.

Protests on environmental issues tend to carry some remnant of the unkempt hair, daggy t-shirt and shorts image, where "Greenie" activists study political science or philosophy. Wrong impressions were created by the Media. The Bundanoon Green Movement fell across various social categories, from business owners, retirees and young families and Indigenous. Hardly the rabid stereotype of Greenie, chaining themselves to bulldozers in Eucalypt forests or kayaking ‘con placard’ down the Franklin. So what was the monumental fuss?

Several committee representatives met with me prior to the Bundy On Tap community meeting, the invitation was put to me to address the Indigenous issues to water on the environment that haunted the Indigenous Environmental Movement. After four years of doctoral research on this topic there were more points to address than time frames allowed.

The Green message was restricted to banning of water bottles.

Debate was not wanted on the untenable level of water extraction; the social colonial witch-hunt on swamps over generations; or the lack of research commitment to a la “Peter Andrews hydrology” of restoring endemic Indigenous environments through alternative methodology. Words such as Climate Change were few.

The Government “Silo” approach to Indigenous policy on the effects of environmental sustainability is always focussed on grant-cycle riparian planting, redundant environmental tertiary certificates that have no pathways for Indigenous peoples and where terminated Indigenous government projects and organisations often ‘top-up’ consolidated government revenue. Every Indigenous Australian that has gathered to government conferences in hope of career networking or grandstanding personal opinion, the conference ‘junkies come away with Indigenous logos upon pencils, embossed t-shirts and numerous meaningless fact sheets.

This dark view of an Indigenous world is not a “Harry Potter-like” screenplay of good versus evil, it is by the slick use of captivating animation and the use of fantasy genre to deliver complex narration in memento of ‘useless things’. Bottled water themes when singled out from complex environmental subject matter are fantastic ventures into Enviro-space that deny an Indigenous existence in Australian Conservation and Climate Change fora. Attempting to forge the purist Green message while disabling Indigenous academic and community participation in research, debate and knowledge transference - is meaningless waffle. This is what came out from Bundanoon's experiment.

The official tally on the Bundy on Tap vote was 354 for a ban on bottled water, with 2 against, one of which was a representative of a city Water business. During the “Do Something” PowerPoint presentation, the representative progressed the down-side of plastic containers. Attempts by community members to inform the “peoples” debate were “cut-off” in midstream.

I was the only speaker who was timed by a gong after several minutes. Funny how this experience was more in keeping with a stint on a local talent show than in evidence-based discussion. The Shepherd’s Hook would have been less painful and less embarrassing.

Through the evening the presentation emphasised the pollution factor to plastic bottles, not the entire still and sparkling water business practice that should expose Australia’s well-documented over-extraction of groundwater and the significance of water holes, springs and the existence of Indigenous heritage sites to these water systems.

In recent water research, I was commissioned by government to develop an Indigenous water policy in Western Australia. The request for a “reserved water allocation” met with political stone-walling. The status quo for consumptive water being politically lobbied by a range of water interest groups is the Australian model. Indigenous ‘first occupant’ status is considered tantamount to sedition. Un-Australian?

After a media frenzy of putting “Bundanoon Village” on cyber-space for posterity, the media aftermath felt like the Melbourne and Sydney Water Summits, where water conferences are run by industry and government. The Indigenous environmental concerns were under the radar, uninvited and received no media coverage.

Radio and television interviews for “Bundy banned water bottles” were saturated by reporting in ‘stock Greenie’ questions and answers. The silence on Indigenous water issues was apparent. This social mistreatment for discrete numeric minorities is core business in Australia. There is a rhetoric argument in lines such as, “The Lucky Country” or “if we lived in an emerging market economy without human rights you would be in prison now for your opinion”. I would rather be bored by reruns of polluting plastic bottles.

Social commentary talk shows in Australia are full of Indigenous media personalities that operate out of their generalist area and media hosts still employ well-worn “Aborigines vs Us” material that is facile and ineffective. On 20 July 2009, on a non-commercial channel this question and answer “Stanner” format was deployed from a journalist enquiring on the “political sufferings” of Indigenous peoples and the guest did not flinch to the stereotype question format. That is, Australian ‘sofa-sitters’ solving the “Aboriginal Problem”, as quoted by Stanner in his essay. This inane chatter raises the same fate for Indigenous environmental concerns in Australia.

For other Indigenous peoples who share a common conscience and contribute to the collective knowledge in water and its use, the ‘conference t-shirt’ appeals now more than superficial programming. Perhaps even the commercial channels would be turned from a series titled, “Two men, a tinny and a slab of bottled water”.

During the Garma “Indigenous Water Conference” 2008 the Indigenous attendees were in consensus that ‘water is sacred’. Following these intense discussions on how Indigenous peoples will be engaged in their respective communities in water management and decision-making, inclusive on the interface of environmental policy, the government attendees and university representatives and Western Scientists were ‘stumm’. Like the Bundy Bottled Water event, the message was about creating more opportunities for non-Indigenous parties to direct and inform the water research debate, through more Commonwealth paid ‘cut and paste’ style reporting. Over the past week just count how many informed, Indigenous researchers on water issues were interviewed by the media. Times up. There is no need to count.

When the Human Rights Commission requested a contribution to the current Native Title Report 2008 I was enthusiastic that this would broaden the environmental concerns of Indigenous Australian’s to the rest of the Australian community. Not so. The current HREOC report has substance and progressive material than previous years, where a chapter on Indigenous water has not even raised a media eye-brow. The chapter on water in the recent “Indigenous Australians and the Law” (2nd edition) and other contributions in this book informs the state of Indigenous Affairs by many Indigenous authors. However, this didn’t create the media frenzy that “banning bottled water” did across the Global stage. Last weeks broadsheets ran the Intervention and similar expose, not water rights. Again the mix of abuse, petrol sniffing and income quarantine conflates the underlying issues that don’t sell news.

Climbing Uluru did attract the “One Australia” melting pot fanatics and the genuine protesters to address the racial insensitivity to Indigenous cultural landscapes that were ancestrally formed not “discovered”, as some naturalist theorists and contributors affirm. Genesis and other world beliefs are sacred, why are Indigenous beliefs “myths”. Any takers?

The entire “bottled water debate” has missed the proverbial boat to England. Where water is defined as a ‘natural resource’, any policy will fail. For instance, where land and water have now been separated under Commonwealth and State legislation in Australia to affect a market enterprise and property interest, the Indigenous and informed Environmental lobbyist has been cut loose. The commodification of water devalues the communal significance of water. Australian has now legislated private rights to water as the norm. Funny how Australia believes it has sufficient human rights protection. The right to water is an international article at law. Read through Australia’s legislation, it’s absent.

I remember a number of years ago, driving around NSW and making enquiries on the level of interest from Real Estates to the Commonwealth ‘new’ unbundled water rights. Local people would say that they had calls from ‘out-of-towners’ wanting to buy their water licences for sums of money that was unprecedented to modest rural owners. Today, the water price has risen well above the ‘cockies’ ability to buy back into the market. For Indigenous landowners wanting water, the words, the "horse has bolted and left the stadium" are ringing true. Indigenous peoples in Australian have an allocation after everyone else gets their newly packaged ‘bottled water’.

The Indigenous Land Corporation, as told to me, has held onto water licences that have not been restored to Indigenous landholders. The Indigenous ‘bushies’ should have staged a ban on water in their rural and remote communities and infused this debate with the ‘real’ policy issues. Perhaps “Do Something” could hire out some reps to create a new media frenzy “coming to a town near you”. No fellow Australians, “gammon”. Meaning ‘just kidding’.

Water is not just a natural resource, a commodity or a consumer product. It is sacred. We just haven’t been allowed to debate the facts and figures. That’s democracy.

Virginia Falk

Bundanoon, NSW.

Solicitor
LLM LLB Grad.Dip.Legal Prac. BA(Hons) BVocEd

Bundanoon to drink "Hypocrisy in a Bottle"

This Bundanoon story has opened up a whole can of worms.
I wrote in my Blog report of the meeting:

• However, I am unclear why the organisers specifically restricted the motion to "still water (only)". The logic behind that distinction eludes me. It smacks of a private deal having been arranged on the side, to not campaign against carbonated mineral waters. If so, it is doubly ironic in view of the supposed concern about the "carbon footprint" of bottled water. Surely "carbonated waters" are doubly undesirable?

Those words were unfortunately prophetic. It has subsequently been confirmed that the Bottled Water industry has arranged to sell huge quantities of sparking mineral water in glass bottles to the shops and hotel in Bundanoon. It should be named "Hypocrisy in a Bottle".

How does this outcome help the Environment?

• Water will still be extracted from the Aquifers of Australia - possibly including Bundanoon's own.
• Glass bottles are even heavier to transport - thus requiring more fossil fuel to transport it around.
• The only benefit is that glass bottles do not float in oceans. That is at best a marginal improvement not an "Environmental Coup".

I have sent the following to The Editor, Daily Telegraph.

• With reference to the Daily Telegraph story: NSW town of Bundanoon votes to ban bottled water (9 July 2009), Unfortunately, the people of Bundanoon were kept in the dark about the real agenda of the public meeting.
• The whole event was a publicity stunt - NOT an environmental coup as we were told it would be.
• I have thought long and hard about what I have written here.
• As a resident of the Southern Highlands, I anticipate not ever being welcome in Bundanoon again. It is simply that I hate to see an entire village being "taken for a ride" by slick publicists and campaigners. And that is what I fear has happened. They may have "put Bundanoon on the world map" - but for zero environmental benefit.

• The reasons for Bundanoon's opposition to Bottled Water have little or nothing to do with carbon footprints and everything to do with opposing a local water bottling plant in the heart of the Village. But that point has been overlooked - that leaving open the question: "Quite why water is being singled out is unclear". (Daily Telegraph Editorial 9 July 2009 - "Tapping a rich vein of lunacy".). Bundanoon has been made to be a laughing stock, in the national press - a subject of public ridicule.
• Bundanoon's citizens deserve better - from the organisers of this meeting.
• Unfortunately, Wednesday's meeting was prevented from discussing an approval by the local Council (on that same afternoon) of a water bottling facility in the village.
• So, Bundanoon may well end up being the first village to declare a moratorium on sale of bottled water, while having a bottled water facility approved to be developed right in the heart of the Village. Yet a full hall of people was prevented from discussing whether or not they agree with Council's approval of the latest Norlex proposal.
• Rather than lose control of the public meeting, (and their own perceived opportunity to be "famous"), the organisers denied the assembled concerned residents of Bundanoon an opportunity to consider the decision made earlier in the day by Council to approve the latest DA by the Norlex company for a water bottling facility.

Patrick - of the Bundy on Tap Committee

• The real issue is the Norlex proposal to build a bottled water processing facility in Bundanoon. The facts of the case were raised on no less than 4 separate occasions by members of the public. Each speaker was abruptly told their comments were "out of order" - to the disbelief of most of the assembled citizens of Bundanoon.
• Consequently, the Daily Telegraph's Editorial was able to easily ridicule the Bundanoon community's concern about carbon footprint of bottled water. The meeting was not about that at all.
• The "Bundy on Tap" committee had a great slogan, but they have been too smart by half in trying to "spin the bottle" story to suit their own purposes.
• The 356 people who attended the meeting tonight were there because of the 3 year campaign to "Don't bore Bundanoon", not because of the carbon footprint issue.
• The people of Bundanoon deserve better - from the organisers of Wednesday's meeting. Unfortunately, it was because of the poor judgement of the meeting organisers, attempting to deny what everybody in Bundanoon knows - that the real issue of concern is "Don't Bore Bundanoon".
• As a result, Bundanoon may well end up being the only town in Australia where sale of bottled water has been rejected by the public, while the Council is facilitating construction of a Water bottling plant in the heart of the village. If so, then the people of Bundanoon must surely regret the lost opportunity of tonight's meeting.
• Peter Falk's call to "march on Council", while perhaps a touch rhetorical, was probably the most sensible comment of the evening.

As I write, the banning of Bottled Water is being ridiculed on Richard Glover's ABC Afternoon program. Bundanoon has even been compared to Springfield (on "The Simpsons"). (ABC Radio 702 at 5:55pm Friday).

Bundanoon votes to boycott Bottled Water

The meeting was Chaired by Huw Kingston, of the "Bundy on Tap" Committee.

Huw Kingston

The Welcome to Country was given by Dr Virginia Falk, a Bundanoon resident, on behalf of the Dharawal and Gundangara peoples of the Southern Highlands region. Dr Falk has recently completed her PhD and spoke about an Aboriginal perspective on water issues. Her concluding remarks were: "Water has a spiritual and cultural integrity of its own".

Jon Dee then showed a 60 Minutes program originally shown in April 2009, on bottled water. (Transcript available here.)This DVD showed how ludicrously expensive boutique bottle water is, thanks to extravagant marketing strategies. The highest cost quoted was for "Cloud Juice" from King Island in Tasmania, which is exported to fancy European restaurants where it is sold for as much as $27 per bottle.

Jon then ran though a PowerPoint presentation showing how plastic is creating enormous problems for the environment.
We were told it takes 200 ml of oil to create, and transport 1 litre of water in a plastic bottle. (In the 60 Minutes report that was simplified down to "it takes 200 ml of oil to make a plastic bottle", but that is not accurate.)

Apparently most of the plastic used to make bottles is imported.

Australians spend half a billion Dollars on bottled water every year.

When questions were called, Geoff Parker from the Australasian Bottle Water Institute Inc spoke. He wondered why Bundanoon, a tourist oriented village would be restricting the freedom of choice of potential visitors to the town (by denying them the freedom to drink their favourite bottled waters).

In response, Jon Dee took him apart (quite vehemently), by pointing out that the Bottled Water Industry (which Geoff represents) was denying freedom of choice to the people of Bundanoon by proposing to build a bottled water plant here, that the people opposed. (Loud applause).

Then the Chairman, Huw Kingston, called on the vote (in the middle of the debate), to allow the media representatives to file their stories. (Now that's a revolutionary approach to democracy in action, folks).

Official tally: 354 for; and 2 against - the Bottled Water guy and one other person who had a concern about diabetics.
I did not fully understand this man's point, as he was not allowed to properly explain his concerns, because they were deemed "not relevant to the point of the meeting". Another victim of a bulldozer response by the Chairman.

***** ***** ***** *****

So, what is the outcome? Bundanoon has proclaimed itself to be "Australia's first Bottled-water-free Village". In my opinion, I think it is a good thing to do. I support that decision.

However, I am unclear why the organisers specifically restricted the motion to "still water (only)". The logic behind that distinction eludes me. It smacks of a private deal having been arranged on the side, to not campaign against carbonated mineral waters. If so, it is doubly ironic in view of the supposed concern about the "carbon footprint" of bottled water. Surely "carbonated waters" are doubly undesirable?

Back to the meeting: At a packed Hall on Wednesday evening, 8 July some 354 people in favour of proclaiming themselves "bottled-water-free". Two people voted against, one of whom was a representative of the Australasian Bottled Water Institute Inc. That's pretty conclusive evidence of the feeling of the meeting against Bottled Water.What is not clear - from that statistic, nor from the Press Statements put out by the organisers of the meeting, after the event was why people were voting the way they did.

The Hall filling up - before the meeting.

The Press reports the organisers of the meeting as claiming: "The voluntary ban has been triggered by concerns about the carbon footprint associated with bottling and transporting the water".

That is what they would like you to think - for it fits Jon Dee's politically correct image as a "nice" environmental campaigner. Jon is renowned as someone who likes to "work with business" to improve the outcomes. He demonstrated that approach at the meeting, with constant exposure of his sponsor's logos.The outcome of this campaign will be closely monitored, you can rest assured.

Back to the claim about what the people of Bundanoon were actually demonstrating their support for last night. What chance do you think you would have to persuade 356 people to turn up to a village hall to campaign against carbon footprint of bottled water? I shall leave you to ponder that question. Let me simply suggest you would get about 35 people, (on a good night) - not 365!

To me, it is self-evident that the reason so many people turned up at the meeting was the long-running battle against the establishment of a Norlex (company) water bottling plant within the village.

Norlex has been opposed vehemently in the village by the "Don't Bore Bundanoon" campaign. At one time, nearly every house in Bundanoon had a "Don't Bore Bundanoon" placard on a stick stuck in their front lawn. That campaign has been going since early 2007.

What the mainstream Media will not tell you is that the Norlex company was granted approval to develop a factory facility in Anzac Pde, Bundanoon - just hours before this meeting was held.

Not only will the mainstream Media not tell you. The meeting organisers tried to prevent that message getting out - to the assembled people of Bundanoon. Clearly they were afraid they would lose control of the meeting.

The fact of Council's earlier vote on the Norlex DA was reported to the meeting, by Mr Peter Falk, and later by Ian Scandrett, and Adrian Shafer, and a lady whose name I do not know. Each of these persons had their comments ruled "out of order", and discussion quickly moved on towards a very narrowly pre-determined outcome.

Supposedly we were not allowed to discuss this because the Norlex company is appealing a disputed Development Application in the land and Environment Court. How could that prevent us from discussing the other Norlex DA application? It does not make sense - other than the organisers of the meeting were terrified they would lose control of the meeting - and they had stage-managed everything so carefully (so far). Huw Kingston had a look of blind panic in his eyes when Peter Falk made his statement and Huw was positively rude in the way he shut Peter up. and denied Adrian the right to speak about Council's decision.

That fact of the Council's decision was surely relevant, as Council had just approved it on that very afternoon. And that decision by Council could not have been "sub judice" as there is not case in dispute - Norlex had already won that case! So why were these people prevented from speaking about this issue?

The answer lies hidden below a load of feel good rhetoric, and self-authorised press releases put out by the organisers of the meeting. Fair enough - they did the work. They are entitled to feed the media. I just object to the Spin that they put on the story.

This is Bundanoon's own version of "Spin the Bottle". They were basking in their own vision of glory.

To believe that the assembled people of Bundanoon were protesting a carbon footprint of bottled water is a self-serving (wet) dream of the promoters of this meeting.
Trust me, I know the people of Bundanoon.
They were at the meeting because they thought they could do something to try to stop Norlex. Nothing more, nothing less. Forget talk of carbon footprints. This was about saving Bundanoon.

But by putting out the sanitised, non-controversial press statement which they obviously gave to the Telegraph reporter allowed the Editor of the Daily Tele to state: "Quite why water is being singled out is unclear."

It is not unclear to the people of Bundanoon. So one would have to rate the Press Statement issued after the meeting as an abject failure - if it did not make the real reasons for the public vote clear.

If the discussion on the night had been about the real issues facing Bundanoon, including the threat to their aquifer, and hence their local springs, creeks and waterfalls, then that facile question could not have been used to undermine the valiant effort of the people of Bundanoon.
As it is the Daily Tele laughed the people of Bundanoon out of court, killed the story and moved the debate to other more trivial "news".

The irony is that now the people of Bundanoon may end up being the only town in Australia with both a ban on bottled water sales in the village, AND a bottled water processing facility on Anzac Parade, right in the heart of the village.

That will be a Pyrrhic victory if ever there is one.

Jon Dee took great delight in showing this slide, pointing out that this word is "Evian" spelled backwards. But the joke backfired. To me it seems more appropriate as a caption for the people of Bundanoon, whose best intentions were hijacked - on the night.

"By whom?" - you might ask.

In my opinion, there was only one winner on the night - Dr Jon Dee.