North Coast Voices

Saturday, 7 April 2012

Did the NSW Attorney-General tell the truth to the NSW Parliament? O'Farrell and Fraser need to answer questions about Cansdell Affair

The burning questions raised by this media report; Did the NSW Attorney-General tell the truth to the NSW Parliament about the Cansdell statutory declaration? Did Cansdell not sign the back of the original infringement notice he received or was a second false stat dec created in 2011 for presentation to NSW Police?

The Daily Examiner 7 April 2012:

THE woman who took the fall for disgraced MP Steve Cansdell has revealed details of the statutory declaration she signed to prevent the former member for Clarence from losing his licence over a speeding fine in 2005.
On Thursday, Kath Palmer told The Daily Examiner the statutory declaration she signed was on the back of a NSW speeding infringement notice.
Inquiries to the Office of State Revenue yesterday confirmed all NSW infringement notices were printed with NSW statutory declarations on the back.
But this information is at odds with what NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith revealed when he passed the matter on to the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecution (DPP) on March 7.
"The office of the NSW DPP has advised me that Mr Cansdell signed a Commonwealth Statutory Declaration and therefore it's not expected that any state charge will be brought," he told the NSW Parliament during question time……

Fracking chemicals may be making you ill, but even your doctor will be forbidden to tell you precisely how or why in Pennsylvania USA

In February this year House Bill No. 1950 was passed into law by the Pennsylvania General Assembly. In effect this new law states that if chemicals released in the coal seam gas mining process make you ill, then in certain circumstances your doctor can make a written request to discover the details of those chemicals from the mining company involved.

However he is not allowed to tell anyone about those chemicals – even if you are the affected patient according to the public health and environmental community.

(11) If a health professional determines that a medical emergency exists and the specific identity and amount of any chemicals claimed to be a trade secret or confidential proprietary information are necessary for emergency treatment, the vendor, service provider or operator shall immediately disclose the information to the health professional upon a verbal acknowledgment by the health professional that the information may not be used for purposes other than the health needs asserted and that the health professional shall maintain the information as confidential. The vendor, service provider or operator may request, and the health professional shall provide upon request, a written statement of need and a confidentiality agreement from the health professional as soon as circumstances permit, in conformance with regulations promulgated under this chapter. [my red bolding]

As Walter Tsou, president of the Philadelphia chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, put it, "What is the big secret here that they're unwilling to tell people, unless they know that if people found out what's really in these chemicals, they would be outraged?"

One wonders how doctors in Australia would fare if they made similar requests of coal seam gas exploration and mining companies operating in this country.

Art on the wing over Northern NSW

Katherine Castle Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos

Tanya Walker jabirus

Elizabeth Starkey Albert's Lyrebird

Noel Caldwell Boobook, 2007

Three tales of the same Tweed River

“The Tweed Shire council have funded a report on boat wake and river bank erosion. The report is very misleading, inaccurate and BIAS towards boat wake. The report does not comment about how the natural environment and human kind has an effect on the river banks or even the recent floods on the Tweed!
There is a group called TRAC (Tweed River Awareness Committee) and they have uploaded a website for YOU to have your say to all of the Tweed Shire Councillors! WE NEED to have our say because we are up against a minority group that have do not have anything better to do then voice up and complain!” howled rubberjohnny. Rather strangely ignoring the fact that this study did take the natural environment into account and definitely looked at flood impact.

Over at tweedriverusers.org an unknown voice was getting all shouty about sneaky bans being just around the corner for Tweed boaties. Mr. Unknown seemed to believe that just because a river erosion study on the NSW South Coast did not identify wave action generated by boats as a problem this applied as a natural law to all Aussie rivers.

Apparently this Tweed River ban will be capable of blinding and strangling water skiers as well – if this pic is to be believed.

Of course Tweed Council is doing little to douse the conspiratorial flames, because the Mayor foolishly tried to play down the fact that recommendations in the Impact of Wake on Tweed River Bank Erosion Study did contain Supplementary Bank Enhancement Measures which listed “Vessel management to restrict boat wake waves” and that council “has oversighted the preparation and implementation of detailed management plans for specific sections of the river and specific issues eg. bank erosion” according to NSW Roads & Maritime Services.

Turn it up, fellas! Any fool can see power boats won't be banned from the river - they'll just have to keep to a 'below hoon' speed and maybe stop towing water skiers in particularly vulberable areas.

Friday, 6 April 2012

More New England madness.........

From A Clarence Valley Protest on 27 March 2012:

Those New England vandals have reared their heads again

Goodwood Island in the Clarence River estuary
Click on Google Earth image to enlarge

Former President of the New South Wales Farmers Association, member of the federal Ministerial Advisory Council on Regional Australia, current Inverell Shire Mayor and Chair of Regional Development Australia: Northern Inland NSW Mal Peters, along with fellow RDANI committee members Les Parsons, Heather Ranclaud, Neil Argent, Scott McLachlan, Ray Tait, Matt Patterson, Jane Kreis, Melanie Dowell, Sue Price, Ian Lobsey, and Anita Taylor (in company with Inverell councillor David C. Jones) have turned their greedy eyes towards the Clarence Valley.

With a view to wrecking not only the Clarence River below Harwood Bridge, but a good part of the Valley as well.

It seems these individuals are promoting the idea of creating a Moree to Iluka-Yamba rail line running into a bulk shipping/coal terminal probably situated on Goodwood Island after deep water dredging a channel from the river mouth and, in 2010-11 formed plans to ask for an estimated $1 million to conduct a feasibility study.

Mayor Peters apparently lobbied for this idea at the inaugural meeting of the Regional Australia Advisory Council in Melbourne in mid-2011.

However, Clarence Valley residents only became widely aware of this scheme when The Daily Examiner published an article on 5 March 2012, along with this diagram:

Click on image to enlarge

As has come to be expected from industry groups and local government over the Great Dividing Range, there is little to no consideration of the environmental, cultural, economic and social costs this scheme would impose on coastal communities.

The photograph below shows the infrastructure of one typical Australian coal terminal.

Unfortunately this is exactly the type of crudely executed vandalism which would appeal to the develop to death, mining at any cost heart of the new NSW Nationals Member for Clarence Chris Gulaptis.
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See A very shortsighted view
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Quote of the Week

“Australia has been tagged the “dumb blonde” of the world. It’s attractive, but shallow – a kind of Pacific Paris Hilton, “living every day as if it’s your birthday” from inherited, unearned resource riches.”
{Makemycitywork.com on 1^st March 2012}

Thursday, 5 April 2012

A trip down memory lane for that grand denier Tony Abbott

http://youtu.be/e5jtiJPlv4Y

Melbourne and Monash university academics help Journal of Medical Ethics create the perfect storm

Ethics debates often go where angels fear to tread in order to define the range of moral dilemmas and this appears to be one sensitive example.

Abstract

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

Full article After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? at the Journal of Medical Ethics (JME) on February 23, 2012.

Responses to this JME article published online:

My opinion on controversial paper published about infanticide

Manuel Menes

J Med Ethics published online March 28, 2012

[Full text]

Response to After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?

Philip Dawson

J Med Ethics published online March 27, 2012

[Full text]

Singering from the same hymn sheet... [CORRECTED VERSION]

Matthew J Wilson

J Med Ethics published online March 27, 2012

[Full text]

Six propositions on end-of-life decisions in neonatology

Sofia Moratti

J Med Ethics published online March 26, 2012

[Full text]

After- birth abortion and infanticide: the controversy lingers on

Robert Kar Ngai Yuen

J Med Ethics published online March 26, 2012

[Full text]

Re:After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? An Answer

Elvira Parravicini,

Federica Fromm, Giuseppe Paterlini, Patrizia Vergani

J Med Ethics published online March 19, 2012

[Full text]

A human being's right to live is a moral axiom

Agata Mizerska

J Med Ethics published online March 16, 2012

[Full text]

Re:Awkward Truths Should Make People Re-evaluate Routine Practice

Coral D Carmichael

J Med Ethics published online March 16, 2012

[Full text]

After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? An Answer

Dina Nerozzi

J Med Ethics published online March 16, 2012

[Full text]

Re:A response to 'After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?

Maria Gabriella Gatti