NSW Electoral Commission changes its mind and Page electorate loses voter numbers

From a 23 October 2009 Australian Electoral Commission media release:

The augmented Electoral Commission for New South Wales today announced the outcome of the deliberations on the boundaries and names of the 48 federal electoral divisions in New South Wales, in accordance with a requirement of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918.
The presiding member of the augmented Electoral Commission for New South Wales, the Hon. Peter Heerey QC, said that it had adopted the proposal of the Redistribution Committee for New South Wales, published on 7 August 2009, with some changes.
The augmented Electoral Commission considers that its proposal is not significantly different from that proposed by the Redistribution Committee. Therefore, a further objection period and further hearing are not required.
The formal determination of the boundaries and names of the electoral divisions will be gazetted on 22 December 2009.

This means that the NSW North Coast Page electorate currently held by Federal Labor MP, Janelle Saffin, will shrink back from its originally proposed new boundaries.

The Poll Bludger gives more details in the post Redraw redrawn.

Click on map to enlarge

Conservatives for Climate and Environment Inc. comes out with a strong name change

These are the current opening lines on the Conservatives for Climate and Environment Inc website:

If you believe in ...

> acting without delay on climate change,

> supporting a strong enterprising economy,

> protecting the environment,

> responsible small 'l' liberal values,

then your support now will make all the difference!

Conservatives for Climate and Environment is a federally registered political party formed in early 2007 by concerned people from around Australia, frustrated by the lack of voting options for economic conservatives who value the environment, take climate change seriously, and take a responsible approach to social issues.

A nuclear energy industry was only one part of its rather sparse four-part policy.
This week the Australian Electoral Commission published a name change request for the Conservatives for Climate and Environment political party to Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy Australia Incorporated.

Is this a major shift in emphasis for the party, Mr. Evill?

Remember when we were told that Aussie workers needed to prepare for a life of increased leisure?

Sometime in the 1980s when industrial relations reform and multi-skilling the workforce were on Australia's national agenda we were all warned that even semi-skilled workers needed to prepare themselves for a future with a four-day week and lots more leisure.
Aussie workers were not just going forward to a universal 38 hour week - it was going to be one of only 32 hours in some golden future which was just around the affluent corner.
This month we're told; According to the ACTU, a quarter of employees work 40 hours a week, 11 per cent work up to 48 and 13 per cent work 50 or more.
That's 49% of the workforce who were well and truly sold a pup.
Pollies and big business will tell you anything when they're trying it on, won't they?

When we let senators out to play overseas strange things can happen.........

Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi is being a bad, bad, boy by blantantly misrepresenting the Rudd Government stance on its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) emissions trading bill if reporting on 23 October 2009 by The Washington Independent is true:

Cory Barnardi, a Liberal Party senator from South Australia, is in Washington for meetings with some stateside conservative groups. (The Liberal Party in that country is the conservative opposition to the ruling Australian Labor Party.)
I talked with him briefly and asked about the impact of the House vote on cap-and-trade legislation back in Australia.
The prospects for a climate bill had stalled out, but then the U.S. House moved on cap-and-trade and the ball began rolling again.
"It's a problem," said Bernardi. The Labor Party's principles on climate change, he explained, call for a vote if and after the United States passes its own bill. There is a movement afoot to change that, he said, but it's not changed yet.
And if the U.S. Senate passed a climate change bill? "That would make things more difficult." [my bolding]

For all the flack that will come Cory 'lose with the truth' Bernardi's way, he didn't even get his name consistently spelt correctly over those nine short lines.

Just for the benefit of American readers - the Australian Federal Labor Government is trying very hard to get its climate change bill creating an emissions trading scheme (aka cap-and-trade) passed into law before the beginning of December 2009 and had its re-introduced CPRS bill read a second time in the House of Representatives on 22 October 2009.

It has consistently refused to tie the carriage of this bill to anything other than domestic considerations and a desire to have legislation in place before the COP15 climate change conference being held in Copenhagen at the end of the year.

Here is the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change on his feet in the Australian Parliament:

I would like to address at the outset some of the major arguments of those who oppose action on climate change.
It is sometimes said that because Australia is responsible for a small proportion of global greenhouse gas emissions, we should not be 'acting ahead of the rest of the world' by unilaterally committing to reduce our emissions—that this would impose costs on Australia without solving the global warming problem.
We are not acting ahead of the rest of the world—in fact 27 EU countries, the US, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and Korea all have, or are developing, cap-and-trade systems.
And there is no need to wait until after Copenhagen as there is nothing in the Bill which makes its passage contingent on Copenhagen outcomes.

A consistent government position of which Senator Bernardi is well aware, but obviously one that he was determined not to convey to readers of The Washington Independent.

A big thanks all round to the Firies and all who battled recent North Coast bush fires

First from the Labor MP for Page, Janelle Saffin in the House of Representatives on 19 October 2009, courtesy of Open Australia:

I would like to pay tribute in this House to firefighters from four agencies who have been working overtime to control bushfires in my federal electorate of Page, and the neighbouring electorates of Cowper and Richmond, since late last week. It is hard not to mention neighbouring electorates because the firefighters and the fires do not know the boundaries; they have been working over them all. Tragically, a retained Kingscliff fire brigade firefighter, Andrew 'Packy' Turnbull, died after battling a grass fire at Fingal Head last Friday night. Mr Turnbull leaves behind five children and two stepchildren. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and many friends in the Tweed shire.

Firefighting crews from New South Wales Rural Fire Service, National Parks and Wildlife Service, Forest New South Wales and New South Wales Fire Brigades have been working long shifts to battle the Centre Road fire near Brooms Head village on the Clarence Coast. I pay tribute to Superintendent David Cook, manager of Far North Coast team New South Wales Rural Fire Service. Last Thursday night this fight came very close to the popular Brooms Head Caravan Park, and now has burnt out 10,000 hectares of Yuraygir National Park towards Clarence Peak, a local landmark in the area. Residents at 'the Broom', Wooloweyah, where my adviser lives, Angourie, Sandon, Minnie Water, Wooli, Diggers Camp and Pillar Valley were on high alert over the weekend, but a massive effort by firefighters on the ground and from the air was helped by favourable winds and cooler temperatures. The danger is far from over as little rain has fallen. (Time expired)

Then from a longtime Brooms Head resident this letter to the editor in The Daily Examiner on 20 October 2009:

Thanks firies

As a Brooms Head resident I would like to express appreciation for the magnificent work of the local Clarence Valley and outside brigades in saving the village from what appeared to be likely destruction - particularly on Wednesday afternoon and night last week.
The fire was bearing down on the village, fanned by an appalling hot north-west wind. A terrible situation.
Without the selfless work of the brigades, through the afternoon and right through the night many houses would have been lost.
Then, having saved the Brooms Head village, they continued to work for days to stop the fire spreading north to Wooloweyah and Angourie, as it certainly would have done.
Many thanks indeed.

PAUL WITZIG,
Brooms Head.

Finally, from the good folk at Gurranang and Banyabba in the 23 October issue of the same newspaper:

Bushfires

THE residents of Gurranang and Banyabba, being around 35km north of Grafton on the Summer-land Way, would like to publicly thank members of the local Rural Fire Service and the State Forests for their courage and valuable assistance in the bushfire last Wednesday.
Most of us had a fire truck at our homes to help us defend our homes, where unpredictable and high winds quickly spread the fire throughout the area.
The volunteers in the Rural Fire Service deserve the full support of the community and hopefully many more will join up to maintain this priceless service.
Thanks once again.

BEV PATTENDEN,
BanYabba.

Monsanto: St. Lois we have a problem

Despite its market dominance Monsanto & Co. is continuing to show financial loss according to the St. Lois Business Journal this month:

Monsanto Co. reported Wednesday a wider fourth-quarter loss on charges from recent layoffs and the sale of its sunflower operations. Monsanto lost $233 million in the quarter ended Aug. 31, compared with a loss of $172 million a year earlier. Results reflected restructuring charges that included the costs of staff reductions, streamlining brands, and office and facility consolidations. Monsanto recently cut 1,800 jobs, including 300 in St. Louis.

Monsanto's woes do not stop there however, because there is growing unease among government regulators around the world who suspect that anti-competitive practices abound in the global seed industry, not least in the multinational's home country America.

Here are the opening paragraphs of 23 October 2009 of The American Antitrust Institute white paper discussing the issue Transgenic Seed Platforms:
Competition Between a Rock and a Hard Place?:

With the widespread adoption by farmers of corn, cotton, and soybean seed containing transgenic technology, the U.S. seed industry has changed rapidly in the past twenty years. The largest changes include the creation of strongholds of patented technology and the gradual elimination of the numerous regional independent seed companies through consolidation. Resulting increases in concentration in affected markets has been driven largely by the industry’s dominant firm, Monsanto.

A threshold question to consider is whether Monsanto has exercised its market power to foreclose rivals from market access, harming competition and thereby slowing the pace of innovation and adversely affecting prices, quality, and choice for farmers and consumers of seed products. If the answer to this question is yes, remedying the intractable competitive situation that prevails in the transgenic seed industry may require antitrust enforcement, legislative relief, or both. The problem highlights both the importance of competition policy and the security and diversity of a key agricultural sector.

White Paper PDF download here.

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

The Twitterverse on the Coalition's CPRS emissions trading scheme bill amendments

The Twitterverse is underwhelmed by Malcolm Turnbull's proposed amendments to the Rudd Government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009.

no_filter_Yamba Coalitions ETS amendments - NO, NO, NO, NO and NOoooo! http://bit.ly/4oWFm2 2 minutes ago from web

Toowacka:

Coalition want to give $10billion CPRS compo to coal industry - that's over $600,000 per job

about 8 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet

Treasury modelling for CPRS projects emissions from electricity sector will double by 2050 - http://bit.ly/3axGGQ (expand) (page 60)

about 9 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet

"Never in the history of Aust public finance has so much been given without public policy purpose, by so many to so few" - Garnaut RE: CPRS

about 16 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet

reenymal: Polluters rejoice as CPRS returns: Science, economics and ... http://bit.ly/meZVT (expand)

1 day ago from twitterfeed · Reply · View Tweet

BraveNewClimate: Investors demand end to handouts and criticised amendments to the emissions trading scheme (face it, it's useless): http://bit.ly/2LiE63 (expand)

2 days ago from web · Reply · View Tweet

A race to the bottom as the "Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme" goes from useless to a farce: http://bit.ly/3uSDmH 3 days ago from web

sustainablogger: RT @climateinstitut Coalition's proposed amendments 2 the CPRS will slug households with additional $ to fund polluters http://bit.ly/2VDk3z (expand)

3 days ago from web · Reply · View Tweet

AusConservation: All but 3 of Coalition ETS amendments would blunt the impact, incr cost to other taxpayers and incr actual emissions http://bit.ly/26tr7b (expand)

4 days ago from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet

A triumph of ego over substance: Steve Fielding once again demonstrates why he's such a lightweigt politician

It would appear that Family First's one and only federal senator, Steve 'I'm an engineer so I know about stuff' Fielding, is feeling slighted by the Australian public broadcaster, if his recent Senate estimates committee questions to the ABC's managing director are any indication.

A triumph of ego over substance and a waste of time at taxpayers expense:

Could you give us a handle on biases in The 7.30 Report, just generally? Are there some sorts of guidelines about keeping an eye on it?.........

Do you have any monitoring of the range of viewpoints by political parties that have actually been on The 7.30 Report?......

There are three parties sitting in the crossbenches with equal weighting and I thought those views would be interesting to hear on The 7.30 Report. I cannot recall the last time that Family First appeared on The 7.30 Report. I am just wondering: is something going on there?.......

But the Labor Party has been on there a lot, which is fine, and so has the Liberal Party and so have the Nationals and so have the others.

But not it seems Family First's favourite bottle imitator, to his obvious chagrin.

Photograph of Senator Fielding as a bottle from The Sydney Morning Herald

The incredible beauty of small things

Tiny red fungus at Chatswood (NSW) by cskk

One of a series of photographs Most Beautiful Mushrooms

A rare endangered Australian fungus from the Lane Cove (NSW) area

Ron's photo of Mycena from the Cairns (Qld) region

Best online media headlines of the week that's past

The Vatican finally gets its revenge on Henry VIII
A Brisbane Times article on the Catholic Church further relaxing its criteria for admission of Anglican clergy and parishioners into Teh Church of Rome.

Australians all let us react, says right
WA Today piece by Richard Ackland on asylum seeks.

Driver loses licence after 45mins
News.com.au tells the world about an 18 year-old caught out less than a hour after passing his driving test.

Giant seagull appears behind Nine newsreader Peter Hitchener
News.com.au again, this time proving that a picture is worth yada, yada, yada....

















Poll: Fewer believe in global warming
MSNBC and Ali Weinberg giving the big polluting multinationals some cheerful news at breakfast.

'Day after tomorrow' map shows consequences of climate change
The U.K. Telegraph also tackles the climate change subject by announcing a Science Museum map showing Great Britain can expect sea level rise, drought, heat wave and food shortages if global temperatures continue to trend upwards.

Obama makes a hero of Fox News
Kansas City Star lets us know that the U.S. President is a miracle worker.

First Dog On The Moon Presents: How To Deny Climate Change! An illustrated Typography of the Denialist's Journey

First Dog on the Moon at Crikey takes on Andrew Bolt and climate change denialism on 16 October 2009:

Click on
flow chart
to enlarge

A cry from the heart......

From the Koori Mail online:

Ms Macklin, we deserve better

AS D-Day steadily approaches for the Indigenous community of Yarrabah, a large number of our people are facing uncertain times. The hope for the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) scheme to be extended past 1 July has been lost, with Federal Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin rejecting the local leaders' plea, and putting what she thinks will work in place. She has rejected another proposal by the local leaders to extend CDEP, once again acting bull-headed towards our people and Indigenous Affairs. These brash and foolish decisions which have been made by government ministers over the last decade who have handled Indigenous Affairs did not help us move forward one bit. Minister Macklin's latest decision is also going to backfire and fail miserably unless she becomes more proactive towards the community in Yarrabah, instead of bureaucrats dictating from their flashy offices in Brisbane. They're still sending their feedback drones or mules into the community meetings to do their dirty work. Shame on the ministers and the Government. Five hundred people will lose their jobs and their families will be left to live off the dole. So much for our 'highly skilled' labourers and qualified tradesmen who have also proved themselves working in the mainstream. It is a shame we have been given this to live and abide by in our beautiful home in a year where Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he would start closing the 18-year life-expectancy gap between non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians. This neglect has been with us Yarrabah folks since the old missionary days of 1892. Our people are totally sick of it. We wonder why we still die younger than expected. These new changes have no respect for our cultural identity, making us into dole-bludgers and draining our confidence instead of giving our residents hope of being employed in their home town. Ms Macklin, if you really care about Indigenous Affairs and your fellow Australians in far north Queensland, I urge you to visit us in Yarrabah to meet the residents to find a better outcome, because the one you settled on is not good enough. We are not all useless. We are Australians too, the real Australians. We deserve much better. ... BRAD HIGGINS Yarrabah, North Queensland

Everything old is new again - bulldog fascisti in 2009?

U.K. Map of BNP members from The Guardian

The British National Party (BNP) has long been regarded with suspicion in certain quarters and characterized with some justification as a fascist slash racist political party.

It's party membership list has been repeatedly leaked and published by Wikileaks, mainstream media and blogosphere.

On 19th of October 2009 The Guardian newspaper published a membership map by U.K. electorate, based on demographics which would've made ol' Ossie Mosley proud.

The following day the BNP published this legal threat:

“Furthermore, any media using that list for any purpose whatsoever, be it interpretation, analysis or interview purposes, is in clear breach of the Data Protection Act and we will not hesitate to institute legal action against them” .

Meanwhile protesters jumped the barricades to protest against the BNP leader appearing on a BBC television Q&A-style program, The Guardian is asking if all this publicity is actually going to boost acceptance of this political party and Skepticlawyer is discussing how society deals with the politics of hatred and exclusion.

We live in interesting times......................