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.
Showing posts with label right wing rat bags. Show all posts
Showing posts with label right wing rat bags. Show all posts
On the morning of Thursday 15 August 78 year-old radio shockjock and climate change denier Alan Jones opened his mouth on air and inappropriately vented concerning New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. After previously calling her "duplicitous", "gormless", "a clown", "a joke" and "lightweight" he expanded his criticism that morning. According to Channel 10, Jone's exact words were "“Here she is preaching on global warming and saying that we’ve got to do something about climate change...I just wonder whether Scott Morrison is going to be fully briefed to shove a sock down her throat." At first Jones refused to backdown from this statement and, misrepresented what he had actually said. As has happened in the past when Jones was being very self-indulgent, insulting, verbally violent or inciting riot, some advertisers began to to re-consider their support of his breakfast program. A personal apology was issued late on Friday 16 August 2019. Then, having only just signed a new contract with Jones last May, Macquarie Media Limited and 2GB Radio flogged Alan Jones with this very limp lettuce:
The Queensland farm
lobby AgForce has deleted more than a decade worth of data from a government
program that aims to improve water quality in the Great Barrier
Reef, in response to state government moves to introduce new reef
protection laws.
In recent months,
AgForce and others had campaigned against the imposition of new reef protection
regulations, which set sediment “load limits” in reef catchments and impose new
standards on farmers.
The proposed new laws,
which have been introduced to state parliament, also include a provision to
allow the environment minister to obtain data from agricultural groups……
The Queensland environment
minister, Leeanne Enoch, told the Courier-Mail the decision flushed “so much
work and the taxpayer dollars that have been supporting it out to sea”.
“AgForce often claims that they are true environmentalists but this decision is
not the action of a group that wants to protect the environment,” she said.
The Queensland audit
office last year found that the success of the best management practices
program could not be properly measured because the agricultural groups that
receive government funding would not provide data on whether producers had
actually improved their practices.
“This detailed
information is currently held by the industry groups,” the report said.
“Despite this work being funded by government, the information is not provided
to government due to privacy concerns from the industry.
“These data restrictions mean government does not have full visibility of the
progress made and cannot measure the degree of practice change or assess the
value achieved from its investment of public funds.
“This means that the
reported proportion of lands managed using best management practice systems
could be overstated.”
Barnaby
Joyce has been forced to issue a grovelling apology to Channel 7 staff who
copped his wrath during an expletive-laden backstage tantrum.
It
has been revealed the former deputy prime minister was in a foul mood on the
night of the New South Wales election, during which he sat on the network’s
broadcast panel.
Viewers
criticised his aggressive attitude on screen, including his treatment of a female
Labor senator, but it paled in comparison to his antics in the green room.
The Australiannewspaper today reports Mr Joyce has apologised for
his “behaviour and demeanour” off screen after details were leaked by insiders.
It’s
understood the former leader of the National Party — who resigned his position
last year after it was revealed his mistress and staffer Vicki Campion was
pregnant with his child — was furious about how brief his appearance was
scheduled to be.
“There
were four-letter words aplenty when Joyce first arrived on set and saw his
schedule for the night,” The Australian reported.
An
unnamed insider told the newspaper: “He had the sh*ts supreme about whether he
should even be there.”
A
network source told news.com.au word of Mr Joyce’s behaviour had begun to
spread last week, and it was only a matter of time before it leaked.
The
firebrand politician’s beef was that he was due to appear on screen for just 10
minutes, despite having flown from his home in Armidale.
He
was accompanied by his partner, Ms Campion — he broke off his marriage just
prior to the scandal erupting — and their toddler.
“I
saw the schedule on the (green room) wall,” Mr Joyce told the newspaper. “Then
I saw the closest human being, and I told them what I thought.”
He
apologised for his conduct and said he was tired. After the tantrum, Mr Joyce
was used for the live coverage broadcast for more than two hours.
On
election night, he was criticised by viewers for his rude treatment of
Labor Senator Jenny McAllister, including talking over her.
“I
am surprised that you’d not put water on the list of concerns,” Ms McAllister
said about the National Party’s poor electoral performance in the state’s west.
“You’ve
got these western NSW seats with massive fish kill and a very active
conversation …” she continued before being cut off.
“That
was because of the Greens … you can’t take water to the south, not have it come
to the north and not expect something to die in the middle. It’s the bleeding
obvious,” Mr Joyce said as his fellow panellist tried to get her point across.
“I
think the proposition that’s been put is that there’s been complete
mismanagement of the water system”, she said, before being again interrupted.
“May
I finish my remarks?” Senator McAllister said — a comment met by a shrug from
Mr Joyce.
She
did continue, barely finishing her sentence before Mr Joyce had his say.
Pauline Hanson's One Nation (PHON) political party currently only has two members in the Australian Parliament and they sit in the Senate. PHON wants to hold the balance of power in the Australian Parliament after the May 2019 federal election. In order to gain the required seats in the House of Representatives, in September 2018 the party was secretly promising to subvert Australia's gun laws in an attempt to gain millions from the powerful US gun lobby to assist its federal election campaign.
A
three-year Al Jazeera investigation into the U.S. gun lobby has uncovered an
effort by an Australian political party to seek millions of dollars in
political funding while offering to soften strict, anti-gun laws in Australia.
Al
Jazeera’s Investigative Unit used concealed cameras to track ‘Pauline Hanson’s
One Nation’, a right-wing, anti-immigration party, as representatives travelled
to Washington, D.C. to hold meetings with the National Rifle Association and
other lobby groups, as well as the energy giant Koch Industries.
One
Nation’s Chief of Staff James Ashby was accompanied on the U.S. visit by Steve
Dickson, the party’s leader in the Australian state of Queensland and a
candidate in upcoming Australian elections. Ashby and Dickson were recorded
seeking up to $US20 million for their election war chest while promising to
soften laws, put in place following a massacre in Australia in 1996.
The
strict Australian gun laws have often been condemned by the NRA.
Al
Jazeera approached all the groups and individuals featured in this programme.
After meetings with the US gun lobby Ashby and Dickson met with a representative of the Koch Brothers.Charles G. KochandDavid H. Koch, are the billionaire co-owners of Koch Industries - one of the largest privately-held
companies in the world - who are known to support far-right political parties, movements and policies. Despite there being a federal legislated ban on foreign political donations since November 2018 the Al Jazeera video footage clearly shows that just weeks after this ban was put in place Pauline Hanson and One Nation were still considering seeking support from the US gun lobby and the Koch Brothers.
Having been publicly exposed One Nation now denies it had any intention of watering down national gun laws. However, it is clear from the Al Jazeera video that One Nation was promising to open doors for the National Rifle Association with the aim of assisting that exact purpose, because it believed that any significant increase in One Nation representation in the Australian Parliament after the next federal election meant it would have the government "by the balls". The video also reveals that it was canvassing the possibility of concealing any funding it might receive from the US gun lobby by arranging for the NRA to create and pay for a social media campaign for One Nation's benefit in the lead up to the May 2019 federal election, as well as using the Koch Brothers' network of companies to hide the source of any donations they might make.
Prior to these revelations Australian Prime Minister and Liberal MP Scott Morrison had refused to rule out the Liberal Party preferencing Pauline Hanson's One Nation ahead of The Greens and Labor at the federal election. He partially walked back from this position and announced that the Coalition will be placing PHON below Labor on how-to-vote cards in all states and territories except Queensland. However he would not commit to putting PHON last. So it is looking as though One Nation may possibly get a third member into the Senate. WARNING TO QUEENSLAND VOTERS
Pauline
Hanson’s One Nation Queensland official and Senate candidate in 2019 Steve Dickson has a dream voters should
be aware of:
“I’m going to be in one
of those drug dealing mansions on the beach. I’ll hire it for a month. The ones
that are 25 rooms and the chef and everything. We’ll drink and shoot the s**t [out]
of everything down the water. Machine guns and everything. That’s my dream….And
we can protect ourselves just in case” [Steve
Dickson in How to Sell a Massacre Part
2, You Tube 27 March 2019]
Note: According to The Guardian on 7 March 2018 Australian gun lobby groups spent more than $500,000 helping minor right wing parties, including One Nation, win seats in the Queensland state election in 2017. According to ABC News on 27 March 2019 the Australian gun lobby has donated $1.7 million to political parties since 2011 and now per capita spends as much on political donations and campaigns as the US National Rifle Association (NRA).
According to The Sydney Morning Herald on 27 March 2019 the number of firearms in Australia is
dramatically higher than before the Port Arthur massacre that killed 35 people,
raising fears the gun lobby’s efforts to relax national restrictions are
bearing fruit. Pre-Port Arthur in 1996 there were est. 3.2 million firearms in
Australia, the post-Port Arthur gun buyback under theAustralian
National Firearms Agreement saw that number reduced to est, 2.5
million but by 2017 firearms held in the private hands had risen to 3.6 million.
Gun ownership
per capita has fallen reportedly since the Port Arthur massacre, with gun
number increases since 1997 reflecting the fact that multiple guns are now being
held by individuals. The highest numbers of gun owners appear to be in rural/regional northern
and central NSW. Grafton and environs is an area with 7,930 registered guns, spread across the collections of 2,043 owners, with
one individual owning 91 registered firearms according to The Daily Examiner on 12 April 2016.
Despite the
rise in gun possession since 1997 the number
of homicide incidents involving a firearm decreased by 57 percent between
1989-90 and 2013-14. Firearms were used in 13 percent of homicide incidents
(n=32) in 2013-14. In 1989-90 it was 24 percent (n=75) of incidents,
according to Crime
Statistics Australia.
These quotes below give an indication of what Pauline Hanson's One Nation political party (PHON) believes and acts upon.
Given the chance,
Pauline Hanson's One Nation will initiate a referendum to amend this race based
section of the Constitution. …We must rid ourselves of Native Title and just as
laws are made by and for the people so can they be amended…. Under One Nation
policy the issue of Aboriginality would no longer exist as benefits by virtue
of race would no longer exist. [Pauline Hanson,Longreach Speech,
11 September 1988]
I and most Australians
want our immigration policy radically reviewed and that of multiculturalism
abolished. I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. [Pauline
Hanson, First Speech in Australian Parliament,excerpt, 1996]
The indigenous
population is experiencing boom growth in Australia. One only has to be
recognised as an Aboriginal community to be accepted as an Aboriginal.
Identifying as an Aboriginal has definite financial advantages, as
Aboriginality allows them to claim a share of the booty of the native title
scam as well as various other publicly funded perks not available to other
Australians. [Pauline
Hanson, Hansard, 2 June 1998]
Pauline Hanson has
compared Islam to a disease Australians need to vaccinate themselves against…..
"Let me put it in this analogy - we have a disease, we vaccinate ourselves against
it," she said on Friday.[The
Sydney Morning Herald, 24 March 2017]
The number of Muslims in
Australia doubled in the decade from 2006 to 2016 through immigration and the high
numbers of children born to Muslim families. If we do not draw a line
in the sand against immigration from Islamic countries, the influence of
Muslims in this country will continue to grow and Australia will continue down
the path of Islamisation.[Pauline
Hanson, Hansard,
17 August 2017]
Mark Latham could
be forced to pay out more than $100,000 in legal costs and damages after
agreeing to settle defamation proceedings brought against him by the ABC
journalist Osman Faruqi. Faruqi, a former politics editor of pop culture site
Junkee and a former Greens candidate, launched his libel action last year after
the former leader of the Labor party accused him of “aiding and
abetting Islamic terrorism” and fostering “anti-white racism in Australia”. The
comments were made across Latham’s Outsiders webpage, YouTube, the Rebel Media
webpage and a post on Facebook.[The
Guardian, 26 November 2018]
Outlaw the new Left-wing
discrimination against men, boys, Christians and white people… [Pauline
Hanson’s One Nation, 10 Point Plan,
March 2019]
We’re not even allowed
to own guns in Australia for the self-protection of women….It’s insane. We’ve
been importing all these Muslims into Australia….Some really dangerous people. They are just breaking into people's homes with baseball bats and killing people. Basically, stealing everything they own. Gangs. Our county's going into chaos. [Pauline
Hanson’s One Nation Qld party official Steve
Dickson, YouTube, 26 March 2019]
Because there is little hard information and, what exists is not readily available, it is notoriously difficult - if not impossible - to work out the number of people who hold xenophobic or racist world views in any given population. However, the NSW Legislative Council election on 23 March 2019 does open a window on that part of the Northern Rivers population who are 18 years of age and older and registered to vote in state elections. The window exists because although no candidate
from the far right, nationalist, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation stood for election to the
NSW Legislative Assembly (Lower House) in the four Northern Rivers state
electorates, PHON
had 17 candidates standing for election in the NSW Legislative Assembly (Upper
House). State-wide PHON had received 220,847 votes or 5.93% of all 3.72 million Upper
House ballots recorded as of 22:58 pm on 26 March 2019. [See:https://vtr.elections.nsw.gov.au/home]
So how did the Northern Rivers region fare in relation to the state percentage of voters who
were willing to support xenophobic and racist ideology only eight days after an
Australian was arrested for a murderous terrorist attack on worshippers in two
mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand?
In the Ballina electorate 1,713 voters
cast their first preference for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in the NSW
Legislative Council – 3.66% of all Upper House ballots cast in that
electorate.
While the Clarenceelectorate saw 3.441 voters
cast their first preference for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in the NSW
Legislative Council – 8.94% of all Upper Houseballots cast in that
electorate.
And in the Lismore electorate 2,556 voters
cast their first preference for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in the NSW
Legislative Council – 5.69% of all Upper Houseballots cast in that
electorate.
At the same time in the Tweed electorate 1,933 voters
cast their first preference for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation in the NSW
Legislative Council – 6.76% of all Upper Houseballots cast in that
electorate.
These figures appear to support the contention that there is a sub-population in the Northern Rivers region which is markedly ethnocentric and willing to vote for an openly racist political party. This willingness has helped to elect former federal MP Mark William Latham as One Nation's first member of the NSW Parliament. He sits for a maximum term of eight years in the Upper House which will provide him with the protection of parliamentary privilege for some if not all of his frequently divisive nationalistic ideological statements.
Given that in past years a number of academic papers discussing the geography of racism have identified "Northern" NSW, the "North Coast", "Mid-North Coast" and "Richmond-Tweed" as having a relatively high number of markers for ethnocentrism and/or racism, one has to wonder if this current support for an openly racist political party represents more than just the ongoing existence of xenophobia and racism in Northern Rivers communities - that perhaps it might represent a widening acceptance and further entrenchment of such attitudes across the valleys.
Google, Facebook, and
Microsoft have publicly acknowledged the dangers of global warming, but last
week they all sponsored a conference that promoted climate change
denial to young libertarians.
All three tech companies
were sponsors of LibertyCon,
the annual convention of the libertarian group Students for Liberty, which took
place in Washington, DC. Google was a platinum sponsor, ponying up $25,000, and
Facebook and Microsoft each contributed $10,000 as gold sponsors. The donations
put the tech companies in the top tier of the event’s backers. But the
donations also put the firms in company with some of the event’s other
sponsors, which included three groups known for their work attacking climate
change science and trying to undermine efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
Among the most notable
was the CO2 Coalition, a group founded in 2015 to spread
the “good news” about a greenhouse gas whose increase in the atmosphere is
linked to potentially catastrophic climate change. The coalition is funded by conservative foundations that have backed other climate
change denial efforts. These include the Mercer Family Foundation, which
in recent years has donated hundreds of thousands of
dollars to
right-wing think tanks engaged in climate change denialism, and the
Charles Koch Institute, the charitable arm of one of the brothers behind Koch
Industries, the oil and gas behemoth.
In the LibertyCon
exhibit hall, the CO2 Coalition handed out brochures that said its goal is to
“explain how our lives and our planet Earth will be improved by additional
atmospheric carbon dioxide.” One brochure claimed that “more carbon
dioxide will help everyone, including future generations of our families” and
that the “recent increase in CO2 levels has had a measurable, positive effect
on plant life,” apparently because the greenhouse gas will make plants grow
faster.
In a Saturday
presentation, Caleb Rossiter, a retired statistics professor and a
member of the coalition, gave a presentation titled “Let’s Talk About Not
Talking: Should There Be ‘No Debate’ that Industrial Carbon Dioxide is Causing
Climate Catastrophe?” In his presentation, Rossiter told the assembled students
that the impact of climate change on weather patterns has been vastly
exaggerated. “There has been no increase in storms, in intensity or frequency,”
he said. “The data don’t show a worrisome trend.”
He insisted that when he
hears the news that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are rising, “I’m
cheering!” That’s because, he said, carbon dioxide “is a fertilizer” that has
made Africa greener and increased food production there, reducing human misery.
Rossiter also claimed
that carbon dioxide emissions correlate with wealth and that the greenhouse gas
“improves life expectancy” because poor countries that start burning fossil
fuels have a more consistent power supply and can then clean up their water.
“I’m happy when carbon dioxide is up, because it means poverty is down,” he
declared.
“I come not to bury your
carbon but to praise it,” he concluded.....
Apparently Australia's interim prime minister, Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison has a prepared 'battle' plan for the May 2019. * Ministers need to portray gravitas and confidence. *Don't let backbench MPs open their mouths without a central office minder. *Give prepared statements and don't answer journalists questions about said statements. *Freeze out mainstream news outlets other than News Corp, Sky News, 2GB Radio and its Macquarie Media stablemates. * Stay on message and repeat, repeat, repeat - Liberal Good, Labor Bad! * Praise Supreme Leader Scott Morrison. The Plan...........
As those who lived
through two world wars die out, taking with them real memories of past
atrocities, the world is back on a path to self-destruction, a leading
authority on torture has warned.
Human rights are
facing a “worrying backlash” from a global community that has failed to “learn
the lesson” of the past.
Speaking exclusively to
the Guardian, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer,
said the global community had become “complacent” in the face of injustice
because the world no longer understood why human rights should be protected or
what the world would look like without them.
“I don’t think it’s a
coincidence that 70 years after world war two, when the last witnesses of past
atrocities are dying away, we start to see human rights being questioned on a
broad scale,” said Melzer, a Swiss law professor who assumed the UN post in
2016.
“The generation that had
the answer is almost gone. They left behind the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights for us, but it is as if its message is no longer understood, and it
looks like we will have to learn the same lesson the hard way again.”
Melzer’s comments mark
the 70th anniversary of the declaration in a week when world
leaders are in an uproar over global migration flows, with numerous
countries backing out of a UN compact in Marrakech seeking to make migration a
universal right.
Melzer pointed to the
grave human rights violations occurring in key migration routes as proof that
the global community now considers human rights a “luxury” instead of a right….
The first major
dismantling of human rights began after 9/11, said Melzer, who worked for the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) at the time. He said that the
“global war on terror” saw the use of torture increasingly tolerated in public
opinion as well as in mainstream entertainment….
The global erosion of
human rights is just
one crisis among many, said Melzer, from migration and the environment to
financial instability, energy, poverty and cyber security. Rather than provide
solutions to these problems, however, world leaders are instead “promoting
regressive policies focused on national interests and decrying human rights as
a threat to national sovereignty and security”.
Melzer added: “We must
understand that, in a world full of globalised challenges, human rights are the
very basis for our safety, stability and prosperity, and that any significant
erosion of these rights will cause the collapse of our modern civilisation.
i360 sits on the
bleeding edge of technology, delivering innovative products and services
through the strategic use of data, software and analytics. Bringing together
this unique set of data science, marketing and analytical capabilities, i360
drives innovation and results for our customers in both the political and
commercial spaces…..Using predictive
modeling and state-of-the-art grassroots tools, i360 helps candidates and issue
advocacy organizations target the right individuals with a strategy guaranteed
to make an impact whether at the local, state or national level. [https://www.i-360.com]
It’s no
secret that the Liberal Party of
Australia has contracted the services of data miner and political
micro-targeting analyst i360,
a conservative-aligned platform funded by hard right US billionaire brothers Charles
and David Koch.
i360’s services were used in this year’s South
Australian state electionand it is rumoured these services will be available to Liberal
Party sitting MPs during the 2019 federal election campaign.
It’s no
accident that interim Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison (who
had a Kiwi grandfather and a mother who was a New Zealand citizen by descent)
has suddenly turned himself into a virulent ‘ocker’ - complete with an Aussie beer or
meat pie in hand, thumbs forever standing to attention when cameras begin to
click, spewing forth g’days and fair dinkums ad nauseum while sporting a cheap Australian flag lapel pin on his
business suit jacket. Togged out in hi-vis vests whenever possible. Wearing a veritable parade
of caps for less formal media moments as a "good bloke' and nicking the moniker “ScoMo” from
other Facebook users for his own public relations purposes. No recognition of his own multicultural background for Scott Morrison - it might offend the One Nation supporters he is so obviously wooing!
One has to
suspect he is personally getting a calculated makeover by a professional
image manager. If the image advice is coming from Finkelstein and Kunkelthey are definitely not earning their salaries.
The problem
for Morrison is that he has been a federal MP since 2007 and was a Cabinet
Minister from September 2013 until he became prime minister in August this year, so his underlying character is widely known to the national electorate.
A man without a genuine empathetic bone in his body; single-mindedly ambitious, self-righteous, arrogant, prevaricating, unwilling to accept responsibility for the consequences of his ministerial decisions, a shameless dog whistler and, a victim blamer from way back who believes that political or business success and/or personal wealth are visible manifestations of God's approval of the individual and consequently lacking success and wealth indicates moral failure. His track record as Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (18.9.13 to 23.12.14), Minister for Social Services (23.12.14 to 21.9.15) and Treasurer (21.9.15 to 26.08.2018) precludes him from ever being considered a good bloke.
So it was
inevitable that the artifice of his new persona would be mocked……
He didn’t want the job,
it was handed to him – just ask him. But now that the mantle of greatness has
been thrust upon him, Scott Morrison,
ScoMo to you thanks, is going to take that mantle, put a surf cap from Mick
Fanning’s mum on it and serve it meat and three veg. Fair dinkum. He’s the
nation’s daggy dad and, just in case you weren’t aware of it, he’s going to
stone the flamin’ crows and show you just how ridgy-didge he is. Below are some
memorable quotes. But who said them? Our 30th prime minister, or an Australian
icon?
Top of Form
1. "That’s why you keep backing it in. If
something is working well, you should back it in. And that’s what we are doing
here."
Scott
Morrison
Alf
Stewart from Home and Away
2. "The right is
constantly procreating while the left is grooming a dead dog."
Scott
Morrison
Cleaver
Greene from Rake
3. "No wonder the
country’s in a mess."
Scott
Morrison
Ted
Bullpitt from Kingswood Country
4."We’ve got a
future CEO of the farm down here, I reckon. He’s pretty keen on the ice
cream."
Scott
Morrison
Bill
Heslop from Muriel's Wedding
5. "This is me
doing what I do – I’m out, I’m listening, I’m hearing and I’m doing."
Scott
Morrison
Kenny
Smyth from Kenny
6. "It’s a simple
rule: pants first, shoes second. That always usually works for me."
Scott
Morrison
Alvin
Purple from the movie of the same name
7. "Feels good to
be on the road again. Feels like a drug. Not an illegal drug, a good
drug."
Scott
Morrison
Russell
Coight from All Aussie Adventures
8. "Mate, I think
I’ll take you down to Canberra and let you give the boys a bit of a
rev-up."
Scott
Morrison
Barry
McKenzie from The Adventures of Barry McKenzie
9. "People don’t
hassle me. It’s always very friendly anywhere in the world."
Scott
Morrison
Paul
Hogan
10. "Lily and I had
a great time yesterday doing the hot lap with Mark Skaife and coming down it
was a bit like doing the Wild Mouse."
Scott
Morrison
Steve
Irwin
11. "And yeah, fair
dinkum, we should be supporting Australian businesses."
North Coast Voices no longer allows the Facebook Button sited at the end of each blog post to activate when it is clicked on by a reader.
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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
[Adopted and proclaimed by United Nations General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948]
Hi! My name is Boy. I'm a male bi-coloured tabby cat. Ever since I discovered that Malcolm Turnbull's dogs were allowed to blog, I have been pestering Clarencegirl to allow me a small space on North Coast Voices.
A false flag musing: I have noticed one particular voice on Facebook which is Pollyanna-positive on the subject of the Port of Yamba becoming a designated cruise ship destination. What this gentleman doesn’t disclose is that, as a principal of Middle Star Pty Ltd, he could be thought to have a potential pecuniary interest due to the fact that this corporation (which has had an office in Grafton since 2012) provides consultancy services and tourismbusiness development services.
A religion & local government musing: On 11 October 2017 Clarence Valley Council has the Church of Jesus Christ Development Fund Inc in Sutherland Local Court No. 6 for a small claims hearing. It would appear that there may be a little issue in rendering unto Caesar. On 19 September 2017 an ordained minister of a religion (which was named by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in relation to 40 instances of historical child sexual abuse on the NSW North Coast) read the Opening Prayer at Council’s ordinary monthly meeting. Earlier in the year an ordained minister (from a church network alleged to have supported an overseas orphanage closed because of child abuse claims in 2013) read the Opening Prayer and an ordained minister (belonging to yet another church network accused of ignoring child sexual abuse in the US and racism in South Africa) read the Opening Prayer at yet another ordinary monthly meeting. Nice one councillors - you are covering yourselves with glory!
An investigative musing: Newcastle Herald, 12 August 2017: The state’s corruption watchdog has been asked to investigate the finances of the Awabakal Aboriginal Local Land Council, less than 12 months after the troubled organisation was placed into administration by the state government. The Newcastle Herald understands accounting firm PKF Lawler made the decision to refer the land council to the Independent Commission Against Corruption after discovering a number of irregularities during an audit of its financial statements.The results of the audit were recently presented to a meeting of Awabakal members. Administrator Terry Lawler did not respond when contacted by the Herald and a PKF Lawler spokesperson said it was unable to comment on the matter. Given the intricate web of company relationships that existed with at least one former board member it is not outside the realms of possibility that, if ICAC accepts this referral, then United Land Councils Limited (registered New Zealand) and United First Peoples Syndications Pty Ltd(registered Australia) might be interviewed. North Coast Voices readers will remember that on 15 August 2015 representatives of these two companied gave evidence before NSW Legislative Council General Purpose Standing Committee No. 6 INQUIRY INTO CROWN LAND. This evidence included advocating for a Yamba mega port.
A Nationals musing: Word around the traps is that NSW Nats MP for Clarence Chris Gulaptis has been talking up the notion of cruise ships visiting the Clarence River estuary. Fair dinkum! That man can be guaranteed to run with any bad idea put to him. I'm sure one or more cruise ships moored in the main navigation channel on a regular basis for one, two or three days is something other regular river users will really welcome. *pause for appreciation of irony* The draft of the smallest of the smaller cruise vessels is 3 metres and it would only stay safely afloat in that channel. Even the Yamba-Iluka ferry has been known to get momentarily stuck in silt/sand from time to time in Yamba Bay and even a very small cruise ship wouldn't be able to safely enter and exit Iluka Bay. You can bet your bottom dollar operators of cruise lines would soon be calling for dredging at the approach to the river mouth - and you know how well that goes down with the local residents.
A local councils musing: Which Northern Rivers council is on a low-key NSW Office of Local Government watch list courtesy of feet dragging by a past general manager?
A serial pest musing: I'm sure the Clarence Valley was thrilled to find that a well-known fantasist is active once again in the wee small hours of the morning treading a well-worn path of accusations involving police, local business owners and others.
An investigative musing: Which NSW North Coast council is batting to have the longest running code of conduct complaint investigation on record?
A which bank? musing: Despite a net profit last year of $9,227 million the Commonwealth Bank still insists on paying below Centrelink deeming rates interest on money held in Pensioner Security Accounts. One local wag says he’s waiting for the first bill from the bank charging him for the privilege of keeping his pension dollars at that bank.
A Daily Examiner musing: Just when you thought this newspaper could sink no lower under News Corp management, it continues to give column space to Andrew Bolt.
A thought to ponder musing: In case of bushfire or flood - do you have an emergency evacuation plan for the family pet?
An adoption musing: Every week on the NSW North Coast a number of cats and dogs find themselves without a home. If you want to do your bit and give one bundle of joy a new family, contact Happy Paws on 0419 404 766 or your local council pound.
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