Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

A large crowd gathered at the Campbell’s Creek community centre last Friday to mark the funeral of one of this community’s most distinguished leaders: Dja Dja Wurrung elder Uncle Brien Nelson, who died on June 28.

There is a good account of Uncle Brien’s life and achievements in the Bendigo Advertiser. It can be found here

Uncle Brien played an important part in the advisory panel setting up the Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park. He was a Park Ranger for many years, and had a profound understanding of the links between cultural and natural heritage.

At a ceremony to mark his appointment as honorary associate of Latrobe University in 2009, historian Gerry Gill described him as a ‘pre-eminent Aboriginal leader, who has made an extraordinary lifelong contribution to the recognition of indigenous culture and reconciliation.’ Uncle Brien’s response then was a characteristic mixture of eloquence and self effacement, including his summing up: ‘I never thought I’d be honoured by anything or anyone. I was happy just to be there.’  In 2017 he was too ill to attend a ceremony to mark his inclusion on the Victorian Aboriginal Honour Roll, but his daughter played a video in which he said, in the same spirit: ‘Thank you for taking the time to listen to a person’s dreams.’

Vale  Uncle Brien.

Here’s a brief follow up to our very modest victory over moronic TV advertising last week.

The Ad Standards community panel found that that the Suzuki ad depicted unsafe driving in a positive light: ‘the Panel considered that the depiction of the vehicle going over the large bump at a speed which caused its’ wheels to leave the road was a depiction which would constitute unsafe driving if it were to take place or a road or road related area.’

The company protested its innocence, but undertook to change its ad,  as follows: ‘While it was never our intention to portray any unsafe driving at any point during production of this TVC, we acknowledge the Panel’s findings and propose to edit both the 30 and 15 second TVCs to remove the scenes highlighted as depicting unsafe driving.’

Viewers of the telecast of the North Melbourne St Kilda AFL game yesterday afternoon will have seen the Suzuki ad. It had not been edited, and depicted the same qualities criticised by the panel. 

We’ve written to Ad standards asking them what the value of self regulation is, if it brings zero results.

FOBIF’s complaint to Ad standards, the body supervising the voluntary code of practice of the car industry, about Suzuki’s ridiculous ‘for fun’s sake’ TV commercial, has been upheld.

Suzuki went to great lengths to defend its commercial. Among other things the company noted that the commercial had no sex or violence or nudity. We weren’t sure of the relevance of these things. Maybe the company thinks that if it avoids them it can be as irresponsible as it likes.

‘For fun’s sake’: this embankment near the Railway Dam has been gouged out by drivers ‘playing’ at challenging the slope. A third track is not far away. Few 4W drivers behave like this, but advertising encourages those who do. The Ad Standards panel found that the Suzuki ad showed reckless driving, but apparently believes that driving off road in this manner is not environmentally damaging.

Suzuki has agreed to edit the commercial to remove the unacceptable elements. We haven’t seen the result, but since the thing has been running for weeks on TV and the internet, this is a very small victory for common sense.

And it’s a partial victory: the Ad Standards panel found that the ad showed ‘reckless driving’, but it refused to accept that driving like this along dirt tracks was ‘necessarily’ damaging to the environment. We wonder if the panel has seen many of these ads. It seems that we are not the first to complain on these grounds, but the panel believes that off road vehicles, driven correctly, can negotiate offroad terrain without damage. Perhaps: but in our view the vast majority of TV ads of this type show the cars plunging recklessly through creeks, beaches and bushland in a way guaranteed to cause damage.

We hope to pursue this theme later in the year. In the mean time, we recommend that readers have a go at lodging a complaint against the more offensive of the ads. It might alter the community panel’s view of what ‘community standards’ are on this matter.

A letter accompanying the judgment reads, among other things: ‘The Advertising Standards Community Panel reviewed this advertisement and considered your complaint at its recent meeting.

‘The Panel upheld your complaint, determining that the advertisement breached one or more of the advertiser codes administered by Ad Standards.’

The detailed case report of the panel follows:

Continue reading →

Mount Alexander Shire hosted a consultation with interested citizens last week to consider a management plan for the Botanical Gardens flora and fauna reserve. The plan would be implemented in tandem with the gardens conservation management plan, which was open for comments earlier this year.

Weed clearance works along the caravan park border, Castlemaine Botanical Gardens: works on the western side of the creek have significantly improved this area of the gardens.

The meeting revealed a wide area of agreement about the reserve: that is, that the work which has been proceeding steadily over recent years–clearing of weeds and restoration of riparian vegetation– is strongly supported in the community.

For many years enthusiasts have put in work on the west side of Barkers Creek in the gardens, removing Broom, staking out the sinister weeds which have appeared in recent times (Needlegrass being the most threatening)  and conducting surveys for the Eltham Copper Butterfly. The systematic approach by Council staff in this area in recent times has resulted in a significant boost in walker numbers; but the potential for this side of the gardens is high, and it’s to be hoped that the new plan will go a long way to realising that potential.