Wednesday, November 2, 2011 NEWCASTLE HERALD 11

OPINION&ANALYSIS

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ONLINE poll

VOTE NOW

TODAY’S QUESTION

Will yesterday’s interest

rate cut encourage you to

spend more in the shops?

YESTERDAY’S RESULT

How much of the state’s

electricity industry should

the government sell?

Just the generators

(power stations) 4.7%

Generators and networks

(poles and wires) 11%

No more, we’ve lost

enough already 84.3%

TOTAL VOTES 318

No privatisationTHE O’Farrell government willdecide by Christmas whether tosell the rest of the state’selectricity industry, includingHunter power stations,following the recommendationsof an inquiry into the sector’sfuture. Most onlinecommentators did not agreewith privatisation.

Privatisation of the electricitynetwork is a joke. The networkmakes $1.7 billion each year inincome and the sell-off willgenerate a one-off payment ofapproximately $7 billion. It’s notworth it! The Victorians privatisedtheir network and look whathappened. The company thatbought it was not obliged tomaintain the infrastructure, andwas partly implicated in the BlackSaturday bushfires.

Flossy

The one big advantage ofprivatising electricity supplies isthat it will prevent incompetent,uninformed politicians frominterfering in something they don’tunderstand.

JB

How about a different approach –the government keeps theinfrastructure and privatise theretailers. Lease the infrastructureto the retailers and legislate apercentage for maintenance, thencontract out the maintenance.Less tax on the people, morecompetitive retail electricity andgovernment doing it’s meant to do,that is provide services.

Johno

Get ready for power costs to tripleas companies squeeze every lastcent out of consumers to keepshareholders happy. If they do sellit off then we need the money forour assets spent here.

stumeister

If they want to reflect the publicinterest then keep them. We aresick of our assets being sold off!When everything has been soldand the money is gone, where willthe money come from to replacethe lost income from our sold-offutilities and assets?

Crazyivan

Species tragedies ashumans blitz sharks

TERROR: Change human behaviour at the beach instead of slaughtering animals in their own habitat.

The sea’s most fearedpredators are prey, writesElissa Sursara.

Elissa Sursara is a conservationist,documentary filmmaker andenvironmental writer.

HUMANS are responsible for theslaughter of more than 100 millionsharks a year, while sharks haveaccounted for fewer than 500 fatalattacks on humans since the 1500s –quite a contradiction to their role as‘‘rogue man-eaters’’ in some media.

And while authorities talk abouthunting endangered white sharksthought responsible for a series ofattacks on bathers, conservationistspose an important question: arehumans the real predator?

Despite acknowledging the watersare ‘‘the sharks’ domain’’, WestAustralian Premier Colin Barnettpushed ahead with a decision to baitdrum lines along the south-westerntourist strip in an attempt to attractand persecute white sharks – despitetheir legal protection.

Ignorant of, or disregardingattempts from, marine biologists andconservationists to prove thatrevenge expeditions and sharkculling will do little to ameliorateshark attacks on bathers who swimin dangerous conditions, authoritieshave justified the decision to huntthe endangered species, claiming itis the only way to keep swimmerssafe.

But how real is the threat of ashark attack?

Falsely considered a major threatto humans, sharks are responsiblefor fewer deaths every year thanfalling pianos. In Western Australia,home of the recent anti-shark lobby,there have been fewer than 20 sharkattacks since the 1930s, and with anaverage of four fatal shark attacks ayear in Australian waters, it’s clearsharks have a reputation they cannotlive up to.

But it hasn’t stopped thesensationalism.

Some media and Hollywood filmsdepict sharks as mindless eatingmachines that seek out humansalong coastlines.

In reality, statistics offer a lessexciting truth.

Shark attack figures range fromzero to four a year in Australia, withsharks fatally injuring 52 people incases of mistaken identity in the pastfive decades.

What will happen if we lose them?

There’s no denying the loss of alife is a tragedy, but the loss of aspecies is an even greater disaster.With sharks representing the largestgroup of threatened marine specieson the International Union forConservation of Nature (IUCN) RedList, the decision to purposefullyreduce their populations is aconcerning play of cards for thehealth of marine life.

Like swimming in a pool with abroken filter, so too is a sea withoutsharks. Sharks are more far morevaluable to the ocean than humanbeings.

The lives of other marine speciesdepend wholly on the existence ofapex predators, and because sharksare vital to oceanic survival,reducing their numbers will havedisastrous affects on the delicatemarine ecosystems they regulate.

Top predators likethe sharkinfluence underwatercommunitystructure in anirreplaceable way:they manage healthyecosystems byfeeding on animalsthat exist

beneath them inthe pelagic foodweb andpick off sickand weakindividuals with potential to spreaddisease.

Thishierarchyoccursnaturallytohelpmaintainthebalanceofasensitivemarineecosystem.Withoutapexpredators, therearenosuperiorhunterstolimitpopulationsofpreyandregulatetheoccurrenceofothermarinespecies,andwithoutsharks,there’saworryingpotential forunbridledpredationanddestructionofthedelicatemarinehabitat.

Put simply: the loss of sharks is aloss of sea structure. Smaller specieswill dominate the habitat, over-feeding on important species andvegetation, putting incrediblepressure on the sustainability of analready collapsing ecosystem.

They may be bigger and strongerthan us, but we don’t need a death-squad to live safely with sharks.

In a marine ecosystem, speciesthat fear shark predation are knownto cautiously alter their habitat usein order to live harmoniously with

superior hunters, and with nine outof 10 fatal shark attacks occurring inconditions known to attractpredators, staying aware of theswimming conditions more likely toinvolve them will drastically reducethe chances of a close encounter.

Rather than enact unethical cullson animals within their ownterritory, bathers can adjust theirbeach activity in order to reduce thechance of encountering a shark.

Measures such as avoidingunpatrolled beaches and resistingthe urge to swim far offshore or atdusk and night, and making an effortto swim with two or more bathersaway from deep channels, rivermouths and fishing spots, providehuman beings with the opportunityto safely enjoy the sea – on theshark’s terms.

Sceptics’ faith is wholly with the facts

Glen Coulton is a member of HunterSceptics Inc.

Religious organisationshave a responsibility torespect the evidence,writes Glen Coulton.

LAST month, in a statement onbehalf of the Churches MediaAssociation, Bruce Robertsoncriticised ‘‘secular minority groups’’,and we believe that Hunter ScepticsInc is one of the groups referred to.

We wish to respond to somecriticisms. But, first, who are we?

Sceptics organisations throughoutthe world sound alarm bells whenpeople cannot produce evidence tosupport claims.

We challenge those who claimexpertise in such things as fairies,gods, miracle cures, alternativetherapies and paranormal powers toprove what they claim. We remind

those making the claims that faithalone proves nothing. Proof needsevidence. Our motto is: ‘‘Seek theevidence.’’

Mr Robertson wrote that freedomof religion was under attack inAustralia, but provided no evidenceof this. We believe there is not asingle Australian being preventedfrom worshipping the god of hischoice in the manner of his choice.

We agree with him that there is ashifting world view about thecredibility of religious belief, butnot because religion is beingattacked. Religious belief isdeclining in most advancedcountries, we believe, because theirbetter educated citizens have morefaith in evidence-basedexplanations of science than in thewell-intentioned guesses of ancientwriters about the origin andfunctioning of our world.

Public schools are meant to be

secular. Mr Robertson defended therecent donation by local churches ofa classroom to a public school byinsisting that there were no stringsattached. But he then welcomed theimproved access to students theclassroom would give the churches.

Mr Robertson wrote thatsecularism was anti-religion. Wedisagree. Secularism is a system ofgovernment in which church andstate – God and Caesar – agree tomind their own business. The statedoes not meddle in how churchesmanage their affairs and thechurches do not meddle in how thegovernment runs the country.

Secular systems of governmentgive the best possible guarantee offreedom of religion. In countrieswhere there is no democraticseparation of church and state – nosecularism – it is too easy for oneparticular religion to become allpowerful and persecute other,

‘‘wrong’’ religions. There are plentyof examples in the world today.

Like Mr Roberston, we love thegreat sense of freedom thatAustralians enjoy. But weunderstand that Australia’s freedomowes much to our success in keepingchurch and state separate.

We guarantee never to attack hisfreedom to believe and worship ashe likes. We would even adopt hisbeliefs if he could producecompelling evidence of their truth.

But we deplore his attempts todeprive anyone, especially childrenand governments, of the freedom toact in accordance with the truthsthat evidence demonstrates ratherthan the convictions his faithdemands.