

This blog is open to any who wish to comment on Australian society, the state of the environment or political shenanigans at Federal, State and Local Government level.
Heart Foundation NSW chief executive Tony Thirlwell said smoking was the single biggest cause of heart disease and cancer.
"These measures are a major step forward in protecting young people from the harmful effects of cigarette smoke," he said on Wednesday.
Putting tobacco products out of sight in shops was the most important measure in the package, which also includes a ban on buying cigarettes using shopper loyalty points, Mr Thirlwell said.
"Cigarette packets and displays are powerful forms of tobacco advertising and significantly influence the uptake of smoking among young people," he said in a statement.
"Tobacco kills 15,000 Australians every year and worryingly, nine out of ten smokers start when they are children."
Quit also welcomed the proposed measures, saying other states should follow suit.
Quit executive director Fiona Sharkie said it was important the NSW government had proposed a total ban on the display of cigarettes, rather than leaving room for some displays.
Under the measures, large stores will have six months and smaller shops a year to put tobacco products out of sight.
"You'd be naive to think these tobacco displays in shops are anything other than showy advertisements for a product that will eventually kill half of long-term users," Ms Sharkie said in a statement.
"They are the first thing most people see when going into a shop, usually near ordinary items like newspapers, bread and lollies.
"This gives the false impression that these products are harmless."
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) NSW said taking tobacco products off display would be a powerful disincentive to children.
President Brian Morton said the association also welcomed the ban on smoking in cars with children.
"The confined space of a car means young lungs can inhale high concentrations of tobacco smoke," he said.
"We hope the other states and territories which have not already done so will follow with similar laws."
The laws are expected to be introduced in the spring session when parliament returns from recess.
Leader of the Federal Opposition, Brendan Nelson, has briskly taken 20 steps back (one for each of the last twenty years) when announcing his 'new' climate change policy.
Yesterday the Herald Sun reported:
"BRENDAN Nelson has foreshadowed a tougher line on emissions trading that hinges on action by big polluters including China and India.
Announcing the policy shift, Dr Nelson said Australia must move ahead with an emissions trading scheme, but insisted that it "must be informed by what the major emitters throughout the world choose to do". He said Australia must "methodically and responsibly" implement its scheme with a price on carbon. "Australia must act with the rest of the world, but not be so far in front of the major emitters that we risk Australian jobs and we don't do anything for our environment," he said this afternoon. Coalition sources told The Australian Online earlier that hardliners in the shadow ministry were claiming a victory after today's meeting and claim the "big shift" was from frontbenchers Malcolm Turnbull and Greg Hunt."
However, it seems the troops are still wedded to Howard's tardy timetable for an emissions trading scheme and didn't take to Nelson's even tardier conditional scheme.
In another ratchet to leadership tensions, the Libs are once more floating the idea of nuclear power.
Is Deputy Leader Julie Bishop deliberately seeking to undermine Nelson's earlier anti-nuclear stance or is this an issue she just doesn't want to let go of.
Either way the Opposition has absolutely no way of pushing such an unpopular idea onto the Australian people.
Who'd have thought that those right-wing goose steppers who created fear when in government would turn out to be as amusing as a barrel of monkeys once in opposition.
Doris and Gladys O'Grady
who lived between
1894 and 1994.
Images from Grafton Regional Gallery
Peter Martin in his blog yesterday pointed out a flaw in the proposed national emissions trading scheme which makes many uneasy.
This monumental elephant turned up in Australia's living room because the Rudd Government is like it's predecessor in many respects - it also appears to think that Australia is solely big business and industry.
When in fact the major polluters are frequently multinationals operating under multiple flags, to whom no-one owes a living least of all the Australian citizen, voter and taxpayer.
This column is about the coal-fired power industry, but it could have been about the asbestos industry, or the tobacco industry.
Never once on the countless occasions that Australian governments have restricted the sale of tobacco have they felt compelled to compensate the manufacturers for ''significant reductions in their profitability''.
Why would they? The cigarette manufacturers knew what was coming (and had decided to invest anyway) and were blessed with rusted-on customers.
But there was another more important reason why our governments didn't offer ''compensation'' to the industry they were trying to cripple.
To do it would have been to accept that the existing tobacco manufacturers had continuing ''rights'' that the government had to buy out in order to proceed.
It would have helped create a precedent that would have undermined the right of Australia's parliaments to act as they saw fit.
It would have undermined our sovereignty as voters...
The Government's independent climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, saw the danger clearly in his interim report delivered earlier this year.
As he put it, ''There is no tradition in Australia for compensating capital for losses associated with economic reforms.''
Photograph from Culinary in the Desert Country.
Original picture found at Google Images
Bishop Anthony Fisher making a mockery of the pain and suffering experienced by sexual abuse victims and their families.
In the Herald Sun yesterday.
"NATURAL disasters killed at least 150,000 people in the first half of this year, more than in the whole of 2004 when south-east Asia was struck by a tsunami, a top insurer said today.
The figures came from German re-insurance group Munich Re which warned that the pattern this year fitted a trend of worsening weather-driven catastrophes, and the company called for increased efforts to fight climate change.
Specialists at the German group recorded about 400 natural catastrophes in the first half of 2008, with overall losses so far estimated at $US50 billion ($52.48 billion).
In 2007, a total of 960 disasters caused about $US82 billion in damage, of which $US30 billion was covered by insurance."
Perhaps Nelson, Turnbull and Co. might like to think on this, as they baulk at beginning to implement solutions.
With most of the Australian population living within seven kilometres of the coastline and therefore in some of the most vulnerable areas of the country, there is no more time for these politicians to play petty games.
Well, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Green Paper (full report) is out.
Excerpt:
Mechanics of a cap and trade emissions trading scheme
Step 1: Significant emitters of greenhouse gases need to acquire a ‘carbon pollution permit’ for every tonne of greenhouse gas that they emit.
Step 2: The quantity of emissions produced by firms will be monitored and audited.
Step 3: At the end of each year, each liable firm would need to surrender a ‘carbon pollution permit’ for every tonne of emissions that they produced in that year. The number of ‘carbon pollution permits’ issued by the Government in each year will be limited to the total carbon cap for the Australian economy.
Step 4: Firms compete to purchase the number of ‘carbon pollution permits’ that they require. Firms that value carbon permits most highly will be prepared to pay most for them, either at auction, or on a secondary trading market. For other firms it will be cheaper to reduce emissions than to buy ‘permits’.
Certain categories of firms might receive some ‘permits’ for free, as a transitional
assistance measure. These firms could use these or sell them.
What can one say about this?
It is looking increasingly likely that this reduction scheme will be riddled by free permits and high levels of get-out-of-gaol-free pollution allowances for certain industries.
The only way the Rudd Government will avoid committing many of the same errors as Europe (when it first approached a mandatory scheme) is if the Australian electorate makes its views known and, signals an unwillingness to tolerate up to 20 per cent of permits being given away for free or exporting industries being allowed up to 90 per cent of their emissions to be exempt from the scheme.
See The Australian article yesterday.
The Federal Minister for Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong, states that submissions on the Green Paper will be accepted.
Organise a group of friends and lodge a submission before the 10 December 2008 deadline.
Submissions can be forwarded to: emissions trading@climate change.gov.au or
Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Green Paper Submission
Department of Climate Change
GPO Box 854
Canberra ACT 2601
Download the full report - Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Green Paper
Image found at Globeandmail.com
Myself, I think that the team's sense of humour has flown out the window. Perhaps they should stick to the incessant fund raising that they do so well.
Anyone for a fridge magnet?