“I may be becoming a Marxist as I age,
with class power becoming only too obvious,
even if the classes are defnined {sic} less by money
and more by political and and {sic} institutional power.”
Andrew Bolt – Sunday, December 11, 11 (07:54 am)
Tuesday 13 December 2011
Monday 12 December 2011
Sometimes the young make my heart sing - Part Five
"Get It Done":
Urging Climate Justice,
Youth Delegate Anjali Appadurai
Youth Delegate Anjali Appadurai
Mic-Checks UN COP 17 Summit
The United Nations Climate Change Conference, Durban 2011, brings together representatives of the world's governments, international organizations and civil society. The discussions will seek to advance, in a balanced fashion, the implementation of the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol, as well as the Bali Action Plan, agreed at COP 13 in 2007, and the Cancun Agreements, reached at COP 16 last December.
The Sydney Morning Herald 11 December 2011 - 7:14PM
A United Nations climate conference has reached a hard-fought agreement on a far-reaching program meant to set a new course for the global fight against climate change.
The 194-party conference agreed to start negotiations on a new accord that would ensure that countries will be legally bound to carry out any pledges they make. It would take effect by 2020 at the latest.
The deal doesn't explicitly compel any nation to take on emissions targets, although most emerging economies have volunteered to curb the growth of their emissions.
Currently, only industrial countries have legally binding emissions targets under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Those commitments expire next year, but they will be extended for at least another five years under the accord adopted on Sunday - a key demand by developing countries seeking to preserve the only existing treaty regulating carbon emissions.
The proposed Durban Platform offered answers to problems which for years have bedevilled negotiations on global warming.
Controversial issues include sharing the responsibility for controlling carbon emissions and helping the world's poorest and most climate-vulnerable nations cope with changing forces of nature.
The US was a reluctant supporter, concerned about agreeing to join an international climate system that was expected to be opposed in Congress....
Environmentalists criticised the package - as did many developing countries in the debate - for failing to address what they called the most urgent issue, to move faster and deeper in cutting carbon emissions.
"The good news is we avoided a train wreck," said Alden Meyer, recalling predictions a few days ago of a likely failure. "The bad news is that we did very little here to affect the emissions curve."
Scientists say that unless those emissions - chiefly carbon dioxide from power generation and industry - level out and reverse within a few years, the earth will be set on a possibly irreversible path of rising temperatures that lead to ever greater climate catastrophes.
Sunday's breakthrough capped 13 days of hectic negotiations that ran a day and a half over schedule.
Nalliah's prayer organisation applies to become a political party
The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 November 2011
An early Christmas present for all those political tragics with a sense of humour.
On 6 December 2011 the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) sent out notification that it has advertised the following applications for party registration: Australian Christians and Rise Up Australia.
Catch the Fire Ministries' prophesying pastor Daniel Chelvendran Nalliah, (along with John Excell Shanasy, John Gerard Crock, Chandi Kroone, Estelle Mary O' Brien, Dennis Arthur Cecil O'Brien, Lynette Ann Hannie, Alexander Cornell Stewart, Wendy Ann Crook, Gary Timothy Hannie, Hendrik Bayly Kroone, Susan Margaret Shanasy) has decided that Rise Up Australia Ltd should become a political party, blessed with five hundred and fifty full members and an unnamed number of lesser affiliate members.
• To maintain and promote our Christian heritage, culture and institutions as the foundations of a free, socially cohesive and democratic Australia - Keep Australia Australian.
• To retain, maintain and promote our national sovereignty.
• To uphold the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia with its Preamble which affirms that this nation is "humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God".
• To acknowledge that our inalienable civil rights came to us through the Westminster system of government which recognises the ancient statues such as the Ten Commandments, The Magna Carta and the 1688 Bill of Rights as a primary source for our freedoms and responsibilities.
• To retain our current national flag as the one for which our brave service men and women have fought and died.
• To restore honesty, integrity, honour and courtesy within the Parliament and to encourage accountability of elected representatives.
• To keep the size of government to the minimum, with the least possible intrusion in private lives while maintaining adequate social services, and discouraging political
correctness and unnecessary supervision of private life.
• To simplify and reduce taxation to allow the aspirations of hard working individuals, families and businesses to flourish.
• To create and promote social and economic conditions under which people are free to pursue prosperity and individual freedom within a just and peaceful society.
• To restore and reinvigorate our national manufacturing base.
• To maintain freedom of speech.
• To maintain freedom of religion.
• To uphold the institution of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
• To uphold the traditional family unit as a man, woman and children, as the building block of a stable and healthy society.
• To promote compassionate treatment and acceptance of genuine refugees, and to discourage the arrival of illegal immigrants.
• To be responsible stewards of our environment, balancing the needs of food security, protection of fragile areas and industry.
• To support the sovereign nation of Israel with Jerusalem as its undivided religious capital.
Aims and objectives which [ahem] fit in so well with 2009 Ernie Award Winner and former Family First party member Pastor Nalliah’s known views on the desirability of God’s wrath being visited on the followers of Islam, women, gays, naughty school children, bushfire and flood victims, multicultural societies or anyone else who doesn’t agree with his very narrow world view.
Nalliah is apparently eyeing off a seat in the Australian Senate at the next federal election.
Nalliah is apparently eyeing off a seat in the Australian Senate at the next federal election.
Sunday 11 December 2011
From the Carmelites - a cry from the heart as they face a mining juggernaut
Property Observer November 25, 2011:
Carmelite nuns have little faith in AGL Energy maintaining the rural tranquillity of Scenic Hills.
The Catholic religious order is concerned the “supportive environment for prayer would be lost with the noise of construction and operation of gas wells nearby and heavy vehicle traffic on local roads”.
“AGL plans to locate up to six gas wells on the Serbian Orthodox property next door to us,” writes Sister Jocelyn Kramer.
The nuns settled in the region more than 20 years ago after the region was made an environmental protection (scenic) zone in 1974. The zoning specifically prohibits extractive industries and mines.
“In contravention of the zoning, AGL Energy Ltd (AGL) has applied to the NSW Minister for Planning to put up to 72 coal seam gas (CSG) wells across Campbelltown's Scenic Hills from Mount Annan to Denham Court,” she wrote.
The nuns are concerned about damage to historic area. They raise its important Aboriginal history and its “rich colonialist heritage”.
They are also concerned about damage to Upper Canal, part of Sydney’s water catchment area, and possible damage to Mount Annan Botanic Garden’s plants and animals.
“The sheer audacity of this proposal epitomises the problem residents have with AGL's plans for the Scenic Hills.”
“If the NSW Minister for Planning approves AGL's proposal for CSG mining in the Scenic Hills, much of its beauty and tranquillity will be lost forever.”
The group asks that no new licenses are approved until there has been extensive research on the impact of coal seam gas and associated practises and that research has been made publicly available.
“As a religious community, we recognise that economic development is necessary and we welcome research and development into renewable energy sources,” Kramer writes……
The Order of Discalced Carmelites, which includes these nuns, made a Submission to the Upper House Inquiry into Coal Seam Gas in September this year which stated:
For us Carmelites, a small and poor religious community our present situation is that our needs and hopes have not been heard. It feels like we are collateral damage. Our very viability and the viability of this heritage landscape is threatened by a 'blue chip' company determined to exploit the resources under our land. We do not have the resources to mount an advertising campaign as AGL has done in recent days. Our appeal to this committee of the Legislative Council is for justice. There are many things more important than money- among them there is a sacred land where people come for healing and refreshment, a connection with nature, our Aboriginal heritage and the colonial history of our state.
Will the O'Farrell Government heed this plea from the heart or will Big Business prevail?
The Plibersek Industrial Relations Philosophy - I own you body and soul
The not-for-profit workforce
It was estimated that 5.2 million Australian volunteered in 2007 (ABS 2007b). Of these, 4.6 million were estimated to volunteer with the NFP sector. Around two-thirds of these volunteer with NFPs that do not have employees. The volunteer workforce was estimated in the ABS satellite accounts to provide over $14.6 billion of unpaid labour in 2006-07.
The theme of the 10th anniversary of the International Year of the Volunteer is ‘Inspire the Volunteer in You’. Pierre, your work as an Australian Youth Ambassador for Development and your fundraising for Habitat for Humanity has certainly inspired many here today.
Thank you for asking me to be with you today to help launch the Australian Volunteers for International Development Program.
Australians are a generous and compassionate people. In 2006, over 5 million people – that’s more than one-in-three adult Australians – volunteered for an estimated 700,000 not-for-profit and non-government organisations.
[Minister for Human Services and Minister for Social Inclusion Tanya Plibersek, Transcript: Launch of the Australian Volunteers for International Development, 2011]
LAST week, Tanya Plibersek challenged Australian governments and businesses to create a stronger and more sustainable volunteering sector. This week, 37,000 employees in her department were told that if they wished to engage in volunteering activities in the future, they would have to get their manager's permission first…..
For the first time, unpaid weekend volunteer work will come under the scrutiny of departmental supervisors, and public sector employees must get approval before undertaking such work. Employees must apply for a renewal of that approval every 12 months and will also be subject to a ''regular review'' of their activities.
The new policy also requires public servants to tell the department if the nature of their volunteering duties within a charitable or not-for-profit organisation changes during the 12-month period.
Ms. Plibersek denies any input into this new policy, however the minister of the day sets the tone for such changes to occur.
She personally, the department she heads and government generally need to recognise that their workers are neither serfs, indentured servants nor outright slaves – they do not own them body and soul.
An employer has a right to direct an employee for the period of each day which represents the agreed work day – not one jot more than that. Traditionally this broke each day of the working week down into Eight hours labour, Eight hours recreation, Eight hours rest.
The sort of skewed thinking which demands 24/7 allegiance to the wishes of an employer more properly belongs to the likes of the Liberal and National parties not the Australian Labor Party.
Ms.Plibersek needs to remember to which political party she actually belongs, as does the Prime Minister under whose leadership this attitude towards public servants has obviously been allowed to flourish.
Cartoon from ClipartOf
"There's a better way to help problem gamblers."
And any better way doesn't involve Fr. Chris Riley who admits to his charity receiving millions from the Australian clubs industry and that certainty means statements made by him on the subject as loaded down with pecuniary interest.Last week CathNews reported:
"Father Chris Riley, the latest face in the clubs' campaign to block pokies reform, accepted $50,000 for a youth centre operated by his charity from Len Ainsworth, the founder of Australia's largest gaming machine company, Aristocrat Leisure, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
Father Riley's charity, Youth Off The Streets, also appears to have a longstanding connection with the Ainsworths - Mr Ainsworth's daughter-in-law, Anna Ainsworth, has been on the board of the charity since 2002 and was its chairwoman from 2008 until early this year.
Like many charities, Youth Off The Streets also receives funding made available by clubs - $122,325 in 2011............
The Catholic Social Services Australia executive director, Paul O'Callaghan, said Father Riley's stance was disappointing given the evidence that showed counselling alone was not enough to deal with problem gambling.
According to The Australian, Youth Off the Streets has received more than $3.5 million, nearly a decade up to 2009, from hundreds of clubs in NSW.
"Youth Off the Streets and ClubsNSW have worked in partnership for nearly a decade," Fr Chris Riley reportedly wrote in a 2009 submission to a Productivity Commission's inquiry into gambling reforms."
A bad move from a man who is shamelessly trying to parley his dog collar into dollars.
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