Are we rolling with the economic punches or just running scared?

While Federal Labor, Liberals and Nationals are all still arguing about what degree of gloominess is appropriate for discussing the Australian economy and the global financial crisis, it appears that average Australians may have made up their minds.

Although the Melbourne Institute announced that "The median expected inflation rate, reported in the Melbourne Institute Survey of Consumer Inflationary Expectations, fell to 2.3 per cent in February from 2.7 per cent in January", it also released news that the "The Westpac–Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment fell by 4.6% in February from 89.9 in January to 85.8 in February".

Seems no matter how much money the Rudd Government throws at the situation or how the Reserve Bank acts on interest rates, we're all determined to expect the worst for this year if not the next.

I suspect that many would feel a lot more cheerful if those with personal or corporate agendas didn't use a megaphone to label the current global financial crisis as the Great Recession, which is a self-fulfilling prophesy if ever I heard one.

Northern Rivers move to tackle climate change co-operatively

This month sixteen Northern Rivers organisations attempt to take the first steps in a regional response to climate change through the Northern Rivers Climate Change Collaboration (NR3C).

The aim of this group is to help create organisational and community leadership, mobilise resources to tackle this big regional issue, as well as accelerate innovation.

Draft Northern Rivers Climate Change Collaboration Agreement here.

One has to applaud an effort which will need real commitment to survive and grow, for it will often fly in the face of local business/land developer short-term interests (and in some cases local government indifference to implementing its goals on the ground).

G'arn! Saffin asks a Dorothy Dixer on importing bananas

The Labor MP for Page Janelle Saffin rose to her feet last Tuesday for one of those discreditable parliamentary traditions - the Dorothy Dixer at Question Time .
"My question is directed to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Will the minister please update the House on the domestic and international response to the policy determination regarding the importation of bananas from the Philippines?"
This was wasted effort on the part of an MP who usually does her best for the Northern Rivers region.
Let's hope that in the future she will refrain from this nonsense and only rise to from her seat with legitimate questions.
As for me, despite Ms. Saffin's attempt to support her minister, I won't be buying imported bananas no matter how cheap or numerous they get.

The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme 2009 bills before the Australian Parliament [transcripts]

Not since someone convinced the late Billy McMahon that trying to sound like a quavering, falsetto Winston Churchill was a good idea has a politician sounded as false as Kevin Rudd did when uttering his political sh#tstorm comment.

Or so I thought until I heard the Federal Minister for Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong, on ABC TV Four Corners on Monday night trying to explain the government position on a national carbon emissions trading scheme or as government likes it to be known, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

With remarkable gravitas this politician is wrecking not only the Murray-Darling Basin with her lack of political steel, but is now condemning Australia to repeat the mistakes of others by giving away too many free carbon credits and setting emissions caps too low.

And for what? Why to ensure the comfortable profitability of the big national and multinational companies operating across Australia.

This is what a Senate estimates committee meeting was told on 23 February 2009:
Mr Comley -Senator Milne, the issue here is actually that the ET policy has explicitly two objectives, which is laid out in the policy position, and that is to reduce the likelihood of carbon leakage but also to provide transitional support to these industries. If you only had one of those objectives and it was purely a carbon leakage objective, then, other things being equal, you would have less generous assistance than is provided under the policy. But just to illustrate an example of why that last limb is there, you could have a situation of industry of someone who is undertaking quite a lot of capital investment, they then are faced with a carbon price which they may not have anticipated-some may have; some may not have had-and it may be that they do not change location at all. When you look at studies of carbon leakage all you observe is if that firm moves, but there could potentially be, with no assistance, a significant change in profitability. So the policy is a balance of the pure carbon leakage argument with a transitional argument, which is not uncommon to policies such as tariff reforms where you do not change them overnight. So it is the balance of those two that led into the ET policy.......

Mr Comley-I think the argument that industry is only raising the carbon leakage argument is not the experience I have had in consultations. It is both the carbon leakage and the question of the level of profitability for particular firms.

The Rudd Government through the Department of Climate Change has invited comment on its legislation. If you don't want to see the major polluters laughing all the way to the bank as they do the least emissions reduction possible while increasing price to the consumer at every opportunity, this may be your last chance.

• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 (878 KB)
• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 (1.28 MB)
• Commentary (1.62 MB)

• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009 (196 KB)
• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009 (640 KB)
• Commentary (552 KB)

• The draft Australian Climate Change Regulatory Authority Bill 2009 (83.6 KB)
• The draft Australian Climate Change Regulatory Authority Bill 2009 (283 KB)
• Commentary (213 KB)

• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges – General) Bill 2009 (23.8 KB)
• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges – General) Bill 2009 (118 KB)
• Commentary (73 KB)

• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges – Excise) Bill 2009 (23.4 KB)
• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges – Excise) Bill 2009 (118 KB)
• Commentary (72.5 KB)

• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges – Customs) Bill 2009 (23.4 KB)
• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges – Customs) Bill 2009 (118 KB)
• Commentary (74.5 KB)

How to make a submission here.

So controlling of your right to make a submission is the Prime Minister and Ms. Wong that they have supplied a 2-page template to be used in making a submission.

International Monetary Fund rains on the Coaltion's parade and other Turnbull woes

Peter Martin said it first and said it best in his post Stop laughing:

This is serious
So says the IMF, consigning the Australian Opposition's proposed recovery program to the dustbin of "neat idea, but..."
Australia's Treasury isn't keen on some of the Opposition's claims either

The International Monetary Fund has given the Australian Government the green light to spend even more to fight recession, taking a swipe at the alternative of tax cuts proposed by the Opposition, declaring its effects "not so dramatic".

In a detailed analysis released in Washington overnight IMF staff find that direct government investment of the kind included in the Rudd government's stimulus packages can boost the economy by as much as $3 for every $1 spent.

By contrast income tax cuts of the kind proposed by the Opposition would boost the economy by just 30 cents for each $1 spent.

Which didn't say much for Malcolm Turnbull's chances of having the Australian electorate take his economic policies seriously either.

Then Crikey's Bernard Keene came forth with a dissection of Turnbull's interview style which exposed a little more political Archilles heel:

Turnbull does a lot of nuance. His economic message on the stimulus packages -- support for the first package then criticising its impact, opposition to the second package but support for a smaller package of tax cuts and infrastructure investment in the event the Senate blocked it -- has more nuance than, well, Nuanced Jack McNuance, winner of this year's Mr Nuance competition.

Malcolm Turnbull and his alternative government hardly fared any better in the mainstream media, with his latest essay in The Weekend Australian pointing to the Prime Minister's so-called hypocrisy and snidely congratulating Rudd and Rein on their wealth (while conveniently ignoring his own wealth generated from the same economic free-for-all climate) thudding dully onto the ground without an iota of critical acclaim and little impact in the latest Newspoll which sees him trailing Kevin Rudd by a massive 40 points as preferred prime minister.

To make matters worse for the Member for Wentworth, former federal treasurer Peter Costello is also reported to have a two to one advantage over him when it comes to who Australians might prefer as prime minister and:

On the question of who would make the better Liberal leader, Mr Costello heads Mr Turnbull by 45 to 38 per cent, according to the latest Newspoll survey conducted exclusively for The Australian last weekend.

The Piping Shrike points to another facet of the Rudd-Turnbull contest for hearts and minds:

The main problem with Turnbull’s response is that while it is largely correct on the past, it has nothing to say about what needs to be done now.

But this still doesn't fully explain why is he faring so badly when his principal opponent is a prime minister (with all the charisma of a box of Wheet Bix) saddled with the global financial crisis and half-baked climate change policy?

Is it only the fact that the coalition Turnbull fronts is still in disarray after its morale shaking electoral defeat in 2007?
Or is it the fact that Malcolm always comes across as a man who plots his policy positions as the after dinner port is past around and is only playing at being a politician while he waits for the next 'great opportunity' to come along?

Monsanto hits the digit at 33,333

Last Wednesday Monsanto Inc out of St. Louis became the 33,333rd visitor to the North Coast Voices blog.

To celebrate here is the list of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) being trialled across Australia by the major biotech companies or the CSIRO:

Canola
Indian mustard
Grapevines
Cotton
Maize
Papaya
Pineapple
Wheat
Barley
Sugarcane
Perennial Ryegrass
Tall Fescue
White Clover
Torenia.

The list is getting longer, isn't it?
You can do a local government area search here to see if GMOs have reached your backyard yet.

Northern Rivers artist made 2009 Archibald Prize finals

Angus McDonald, Beyond, portrait of Zoe MacDonnell, 2009

Lennox Head artist Angus McDonald made the short-list for the Archibald Prize this year, which was eventually won by Guy Maestri for his portrait of Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu

Angus has had a busy year so far as he was also short-listed for the 2009 Monalto Sculpture Prize.

The Libs 2009: not sleeping - dreaming

Federal Coalition shadow minister for indigenous affairs Tony Mad Monk Abbott denies that he fell asleep and missed five parliamentary divisions because he had drunk too much at dinner on 12 February 2009.
I believe him. I'm sure he was just daydreaming of the return of 'King' Howard.
But just in case, here's a small reminder of a few things which didn't shake the world during that unofficial nap time:
Fighting in south Dafur was reported to have displaced 30,000
The ICC announced that no arrest warrant had been issued yet for President Al Bashir of Sudan
The International Criminal Court in The Hague was reported to be examining a demand by the Palestinian Authority to investigate possible war crimes during Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip
Shoulder pads made a fashion comeback in the U.K. and
The UK Tele ran a photo of Michelle Obama kissing Abraham Lincoln.
Oh, and of course, the Australian Parliament went about the important business of that day which Abbott was elected to participate in.

Pic from www.nma.gov.au

NSW Attorney-General Hatzistergos blunders into a political farce

While everyone is supposedly thundering for the convicted individual's blood, the NSW Attorney-General is managing to make himself a small target over his announcement of the suppression order that wasn't.

A resident on the NSW North Coast was found guilty of sexual assault on a minor and, was give a two-year suspended sentence with a two-year good behaviour bond.
In line with the judge's directions any details which would identify the victim were suppressed and could not be reported in the media.

Then the Attorney-General John Hatzistergos inserted himself into the debate about this sentencing.
On 4 March 2009 he stated in a radio interview with ABC North Coast Mornings (the politically convenient line) that the entire judgment was suppressed and so he couldn't discuss the judge's reasons for the sentence.
At least one member of his staff contacted a local Northern Rivers newspaper saying that any mention of the defendant in the court case was suppressed and it was in breach of an order.

Both the Attorney-General and his staffer were of course wrong.

So what was the outcome of the Attorney-General's attempt to distance himself from the somewhat heated debate over Judge Chris Geraghty's swan song?

Why on 6 March The Sydney Morning Herald's Richard Ackland, in a sincere effort to explain the sentence, released details of the assault which were otherwise unpublished in the area in which the victim lives.
The same day Andrew Bolt in his The Daily Telegraph blog allowed himself another free kick for his boring colour bias.
Then on 7 March The Daily Examiner gave the most left-handed compliment to the defendant's barrister, David Imlah, by implying that possibly guilty people would be lining up for his services.

Well done, Mr. Hatzistergos - you turned a tragic set of circumstances into political farce and probably made the situation worse for one little child.

Just for the record.........NO CLEAN FEED!

************

McGauchie's definitely not in the brass razoo stakes

"Telstra's multi-millionaire chairman has hit back at the "hysterical" public outrage over executive pay, defending corporate Australia against the growing "bosses are bastards" mentality.

Donald McGauchie - who approved a multi-million dollar golden handshake for Telstra's soon-to-depart chief executive Sol Trujillo - said the outcry of "us versus them" in response to job cuts is helping no one, as companies do all that they can to protect their employees and shareholders.

McGauchie, who was paid $602,500 last year for his role as chairman, owns nearly $500,000 worth of Telstra shares. Last year he attended nine board meetings - earning $66,000 per meeting.

Including his fees for board roles at James Hardie Industries and Nufarm, he earned a total of nearly $900,000 last year as a non-executive director."

Well that's nice work if you can get it.

I specially like the fact that Donald G. McGauchie AO (former National Farmers Federation president) was on the board of James Hardie Industries Ltd where his director compensation for 2008 was a lordly $189,192.00.

Was that before or after James Hardie tried to bilk asbestos victims? Oh, it went way back to during!

And is he the same McGauchie that SourceWatch claims tried to break the maritime unions, was once lauded by Li'l Johnnie Howard as an heroic figure for that same union busting and is still on the board of the Reserve Bank of Australia. [Sing Amen]

Why just last week McGauchie warned of tough economic times ahead - just not for him.

**Donald McGauchie's board affiliations according to Business Week.

I'm rather surprised to find Kevin Bacon missing from this list........

Maud up the Street reckons the well-connected Donald's probably a member of The Australian Club in The Big Smoke, but I'm betting on The Melbourne Club further south myself.

Queensland election: will the LNP re-introduce duck and quail shooting?

Brisbane's Westender reports: Rumours abound that Queensland's pro-hunting lobby has persuaded the LNP to re-introduce duck and quail shooting if it wins government after March 21.

The LNP has not been forthcoming to organisations like Birds Queensland about its intentions and the Greens are concerned that the LNP will attempt to sneak into government without releasing policies like its approach to hunting native animals.

Greens MP Ronan Lee, who led the original move to ban duck and quail hunting, said the LNP should immediately dispel these rumours by stating publicly the laws against duck and quail hunting will not be altered.

"There is a widespread feeling in the community that these practices are cruel and inappropriate and Mr Springborg should be prepared to clarify his policy," Mr Lee said.

pic Westender

Harmony Day in Grafton, 27 March 2009

GRAFTON MIGRANT WOMENS GROUP

HARMONY DAY 2009

12PM - 1.30PM FRIDAY 27 MARCH

MARKET SQUARE, GRAFTON

PERFORMANCES
LOCAL SERVICE INFORMATION STALLS
$2.00 LUNCH - Satays + plain rice or Noodle dish or Fruit salad.

Clarence Valley Council will provide 2 small marquees, tables and chairs to be shared by local service providers. Other information stands are welcome. Please RSVP by 20 March 2009. Community Development Officer Tim Shearman Ph:66450232 or tim.shearman@clarence.nsw.gov.au

A Special Kind Of Vision: contemporary indigenous art on the NSW North Coast

On 5 March Arts Northern Rivers and the Retrospect Galleries hosted the launch of a full-colour book showcasing contemporary indigenous art titled A Special Kind Of Vision.

An exhibition of the same name is running at the gallery featuring the work of:
Albert Digby Moran / Alison Williams / Bevan Skinner / Brenda Webb / Frances Belle Parker / Garth Lena / Gilbert Laurie / Graeme Walker / Jacqui Williams / Joanne Lapic / Karla Dickens / Kim Healey / Lelarnie O’Sullivan / Les Evans / Lewis Walker / Lexie Donovan / Mark Deamon Noter-Browning / Michael Philp / Noel (Charlie) Caldwell / Oral Roberts / Penny Evans / Peter Robinson / Priscilla Sutor Anderson / Robert Appo / Timothy Ives.

Where: Retrospect Galleries, 52 Jonson Street, Byron Bay

When: Opening 6pm Friday March 6, exhibition runs till Thursday March 26

Time: Open 7 days, 10am to 6pm

More info: (02) 6680 8825 or www.retrospectgalleries.com

Painting is Alison Williams' Belonging from Arts Northern Rivers e-news

Copies of the book are available at Arts Northern Rivers and Retrospect Galleries for RRP $38.50

The Prim Minister and Senator Conjob go sensoring

With their national broadband plans languishing (will there or won't there be an announcement on Friday 13th) and the Great Firewall of Australia still not legitimately live trialled, I was amazed to see the Prime Minster's monkey Senator Conroy announce his burning desire not to produce "dumb projects":
THE federal Government is considering mandating that all major new infrastructure projects such as bridges, roads and railways have smart sensors built into them to monitor maintenance and help prevent disasters like the Minnesota bridge collapse.
Minnesota bridge collapse?
Yeah that's a big bridge. In America.
But most of our bridges are smaller ones dotted over the country and maintained by local government on shoestring budgets.
Will the Rudd Government's grand smart sensor implant hype plan actually come with increased funding for local councils so that they can boost the rate of upgrading and why isn't any of this proposed smart technology going into aging infrastructure like the 7,000-odd wooden bridges in NSW many of which are on the North Coast?
Surely the most vulnerable of bridges deserve the highest level of monitoring.