Does Malcolm Turnbull have any credibility left?

Image from ABC TV 7.30 Report

According to Peter Martin writing on his blog today:

WAYNE Swan and Kevin Rudd have received a ringing endorsement of their $20 billion series of "cash splashes" as new evidence points to a four month-long shopping shopping spree unmatched in the developed world.

Retail sales figures for March point to a jump of 2.2 per cent in seasonally-adjusted spending, more than offsetting a dive of 2 per cent in February.

Since the first stimulus payout in December Australian retail spending has climbed an extraordinary 4.5 per cent, a result unmatched in the United States in which spending slumped 2.5 per cent, New Zealand in which spending slumped 1.7 per cent, and Canada and Japan in which spending slumped 3.1 per cent.

Only in the United Kingdom among other developed countries did spending increase in those four months and that was by 1.6 per cent, less than half of the Australian boost...

Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Turnbull's smug and misleading contribution on ABC TV 7.30 Report last night in which he:

a) called Kerry O'Brien a liar

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, Kerry, I don't think - you clearly haven't read the speech or ...

KERRY O'BRIEN: I did. And I watched most of it.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well I don't think you have.

b) went on to deny any effectiveness of the cash payments in the first Rudd Government stimulus package

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Kerry, there are no - Kerry, there is nobody - nobody has contended that anything more than 20 per cent of the December cash splash was spent. So 80 per cent was saved. The more that is saved, the less impact it has. It was only a week or so, wasn't it, that the International Monetary Fund's chief economist made the point that cash splashes are not effective because in times like this they tend to be saved? That's exactly what I said last December.

KERRY O'BRIEN: The Reserve Bank Board governor said as recently as yesterday, "The stance of monetary policy together with the substantial fiscal initiatives will provide support to domestic demand over the period ahead." By "fiscal initiatives supporting domestic demand" he's obviously referring to Mr Rudd's stimulus package?

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, Kerry, you can say that.

KERRY O'BRIEN: No, no, I'm not saying it. The Reserve Bank governor said it.

c) then managed the biggest porkie of the interview

MALCOLM TURNBULL: Yeah, Kerry, if I was Prime Minister today ...

KERRY O'BRIEN: Yes.

MALCOLM TURNBULL: ... more Australians would be employed, the economy would be stronger and general debt levels would be lower. And that is because we would not have spent money so recklessly and so ineffectively, so debt levels would be lower; we would not have talked up inflation and interest rates in 2008, so the economy would be stronger; and it follows, therefore, there would be more people in work and government revenues would be higher.

As ordinary workers and small business find it increasingly difficult to obtain credit, which bureaucrats still have those government credit cards?

MORE than 100,000 federal bureaucrats have been issued taxpayer-funded credit cards, posing a growing accountability nightmare for the Rudd Government ......A recent Auditor-General's report highlighted more than 268 instances of fraud or misuse of Government credit cards said Adelaide Now on 27 March 2009.

After coming to office the Rudd Government issued 240 new credit cards in the Foreign Affairs and Trade portfolio alone.

Heaven knows how many there are in the Department of Human Services, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission - all of which were audited according to the ANAO 2007-08 annual report.

As for other federal portfolios and state government departments................

Australian Defence White Paper 2009 - having a bob each way

The community consultation report preceding the Defence White Paper 2009 had this summary of the Australian-United States Alliance:
The Panel found that there is general public acceptance that the US Alliance is critical to Australia's security and that the assistance of the US would be necessary to defend Australia against a direct attack by a major power.
There is also an increasing appreciation of the high- end capability benefits that Australia derives from this relationship.
A number of people commented that, although Australian governments have made relatively limited ADF contributions to Coalition operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Australia would be expected to make a much larger contribution to any high intensity conflict in the Asia Pacific region and continue to take the principal role in our immediate region.
Various individuals and groups opposed certain aspects of the Alliance, particularly: Australia's support for the US-led invasion of Iraq; Australia's association, through our Joint Facilities at Pine Gap, with the US Missile Defence program; the increasing financial burden of maintaining interoperability with high end US capabilities; and that ADF acquisition of high end capabilities was seen to be indicative of Australia's intent to continue to support high intensity, US led, conflicts.
Some also hold the view that Australia's support of certain US policies such as the war in Iraq and missile defence has diminished Australia's international reputation and, in the views of some people, made it a target of terrorism.
These observations should be contrasted with the views expressed by a large majority of Australians of the continuing value of the Australian / US relationship. ²

As a society we continue to have a bob each way on the subject of Teh United States of Big Bullies and Rapacious Spivs.

Key findings in the community consultation phase are here and final version of the white paper Defending Australia in the Asia-Pacific Century: Force 2030 is here
The final version holds few surprises and continues to see the United States as our saviour in times of trouble while broadly committing to the usual uncritical support of US foreign policy.

Like the Americans our defence force types are looking to create a cyber warfare capability, but my personal favourite is this wee bawbee which ticks off on many Howard-era dog whistles:
1.10 We have also seen the more evident emergence over the past decade of new areas of risk, such as cyber warfare, space warfare and the remote possibility that weapons of mass destruction (WMD) might be borne directly to Australia by long-range ballistic missiles launched short of a nuclear war - more of a risk during the Cold War - or by terrorist groups that might seek access to such destructive weapons.

And the irony of this statement does not go unnoticed given that the Rudd Government has this week deferred the proposed national emission trading scheme:
4.63 The main effort against such developments will of course need to be undertaken through coordinated international climate change mitigation and economic assistance strategies,and concerted international action to assure energy supply and distribution, which will need to be at the forefront of Australia's policy responses.

15th World of Women Film Festival, Grafton Friday 8 May and Yamba 8-9 May 2009

The WOW Film Festival will be screening at Grafton on Friday May 8 and in Yamba Friday and Saturday May 8-9. This stimulating and challenging selection of films is an eclectic mix of drama and comedy.........

The World of Women (WOW) Film Festival is a short film festival that promotes and awards the talents of women directors, producers, writers, editors and cinematographers in the Australian film industry and in Oceania. It is a unique festival that offers emerging and established filmmakers the opportunity to screen short works giving a thematic perspective of 'seeing the world through the eyes of women'. Clarence Valley audiences will see films featuring well known actors (such as Alex Dimitrades, David Gulpilil, Catherine McClements, Diane Craig and Gary Macdonald) and be surprised by new talent who will enthrall the audience with compelling performances. [Clarence Valley Council]

Festival tickets cost $25 or $10 per session. The festival opens at 6.45pm Friday with wine and cheese, followed by the first session at 7.15pm at Treelands Drive Cinema, Yamba, featuring River of No Return and other shorts.
No Reservations is screening with short films at the evening session on Saturday, which starts with wine and cheese at 7pm for a 7.30pm start.

Clarence Valley's own Lyn Hope will have three short films, Bed, Legal Speed and Tricia's Time, shown at the Yamba Saturday May 9 evening session.

Lyn describes Bed as "somewhere between experimental art, documentary and voyeurism" that should resonate with anyone who has ever shared a bed with a dog.

Contact Yamba Cinema PH: (02) 6646.9656 or 6646.3430 for bookings.
For details of Grafton session PH: (02) 6641.1603 TAFE NSW, Grafton Campus, Clarence St, Grafton.

Pathetic NSW Government response to West Yamba concerns

This question was asked by Sylvia Hale MLC of the NSW Minister for Planning Kristina Keneally on 26 March 2009 (session 54-1) and printed in Questions & Answers Paper No. 92.

West Yamba LEP

1. Given the Mid North Coast Regional Strategy has identified West Yamba as a low lying area, are there major development constraints in the face of climate change impacts, specifically flooding and inundation, in West Yamba?
   
2. Will consideration be given to the latest climate science and sea level rise predictions when assessing the draft West Yamba LEP Amendment based on new data contained in the Government's Draft Sea Level Rise Policy Statement and coming out of the Copenhagen conference?
   
3. Clarence Valley Council has determined that residential development can be safely achieved by filling the West Yamba floodplain to half a metre above their projections of the 2090 maximum flood level, basing its calculations for safe floor levels on the 2007 International Panel on Climate Change predictions of less than 59cm. However, new predictions by scientists meeting in Copenhagen in 2009 estimate sea level will rise to double the level of the 2007 predictions. Should the Department and councils such as Clarence Valley Council therefore be revising their estimates of sea level rise and therefore the West Yamba LEP?

It took just on five weeks for this pathetic reply to come back on 29 April 2009 and to be printed in a Questions & Answers Paper on 5 May 2009.

Answer—

1. The Mid North Coast Regional Strategy identifies West Yamba as a site that requires issues to be resolved prior to rezoning. The Strategy requires that the issue of flooding needs to be resolved to determine the future development potential of the site.
   
2. –3.The draft Local Environmental Plan (LEP) will be reviewed against the Government's draft Sea Level Rise policy and the floodplain studies undertaken by Council.

Not good enough Minister Keneally, just not good enough.

In light of the problems highlighted in How serious is local government about protecting against climate change impacts? Not very it seems, if it is Clarence Valley Council, later in Is Clarence Valley Council being honest with NSW Planning Minister Keneally over proposed West Yamba development? and the letters you have received from concerned individuals/community groups, this answer was insulting to Yamba residents in its brevity and obfuscation.

This is the road in and out of Yamba, Minister Keneally.

Are you getting the picture yet?

Photograph from Google Images

Blame it on Twitter........

The weird and wonderful things that Twitter throws up and over:

Georgia candidate for governor in favour of secession, creationism, pro-life policies. Oh, and s#x with mules. http://is.gd/w73i

2009 CIA OSC translation of secret Israeli database shows full extent of illegal settlements http://tinyurl.com/wlisrael

www.toiletmap.gov.au really was an idea that had to cross its legs until the advent of pervasive mobile IP.

Chinese censorship keywords, policies leaked http://tinyurl.com/wlchina

We are expecting God to release a statement..... http://tinyurl.com/cajulr

Latest Treasurer's Note from Wayne Swan http://cli.gs/stimulusplan - Have you signed up to stimulus plan updates yet? #KevinPM Team

Man who slept with gun shoots self http://is.gd/wCej

Hacker ransoms eight million patient records http://tinyurl.com/wlransom

Still smarting over Herald Sun's comments on my tweets...[KevinRuddPM]

You realize Kate Ellis is a woman, right? Her MP vote only counts 1/2. [Fake Stephen Conroy]

Xenophobic Media Jumps on Swine Flu - The Right is Right? - Mexico Does Not Exist and Pigs Will Fly http://is.gd/woAE

A very personal reaction to Rudd's promise to deliver a more effective emissions trading scheme by deferral and tweak

Let me now go to the question of targets. On the question of targets the Australian Government remains committed to reducing carbon pollution by five per cent against 2000 levels by 2020, regardless of action taken internationally.
Secondly, we also retain our commitment to reduce emissions by up to 15 per cent of 2000 levels by 2020 in the context of a global agreement that falls short of the 450 parts per million outcome but satisfies criteria already specified in the White Paper.
Thirdly, we now commit to reduce carbon pollution by 25 per cent by 2000 levels by 2020 if the world agrees to an ambitious global deal to stabilise levels of CO2 equivalent in the atmosphere by at least 450 parts per million by 2050. This of course, 450 parts per million outcome, is an outcome consistent with Australia having the prospect of saving the Barrier Reef.
Furthermore, if this happened, that is if we did achieve that significant and ambitious and comprehensive global outcome around 450 parts per million, the Government has further committed to realising five per cent of that 25 per cent – up to five per cent of that 25 per cent – by the Government purchasing international credits including investment in the protection of international forests.

The Prime Minister's full statement on 4 May 2009

Stephen Conroy: when a name is all

If your name is Stephen Conroy these are some of your anagrams:

Yon torn speech
Censor thy peon
Thence soon pry
Try snoop hence
Thence nosy pro
Hence p0rn toys
Censor the pony
Retches on pony
Phony crone set
The p0rn coneys
Hence p0rno sty
Potency nosher
Chosen entropy

If your title is Senator Stephen Conroy this is your unfortunate fate:

A hot teensy p0rn censor
Entrenches a snoopy rot

NASA looks at Antarctic ice

Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

The Wilkins Ice Shelf, on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, experienced multiple disintegration events in 2008. By the beginning of 2009, a narrow ice bridge was all that remained to connect the ice shelf to ice fragments fringing nearby Charcot Island. That bridge gave way in early April 2009. Days after the ice bridge rupture, on April 12, 2009, the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA's Terra satellite took this image of the southern base of the ice bridge, where it connected with the remnant ice shelf. Although the ice bridge has played a role in stabilizing the ice fragments in the region, its rupture doesn't guarantee the ice will immediately move away. [NASA Image of the Day]

*Update*

The Independent reports that The first icebergs started to break away on Friday [April 24], and since then some 270 square miles (700 square kilometers) of ice have dropped into the sea, according to the satellite data and Laravatus Prodeo has more satellite images of the disintergrating ice.

en Passant on the money

Leonie gets right to the point when faced with a piece of post-Howard revisionism:

Crap Corner - Colonel Costello (1st Howard Regiment, ret'd)

Remember Peter Costello?

He's the guy who didn't spend nearly enough on infrastructure during his 11 years as Treasurer.

He's the guy who slashed spending on hospitals and schools but had billions for defence, ASIO and other unproductive sectors of society.

He's the guy who pissed the resources boom revenue up against the tailings.

The Colonel Blimp of Australian politics put on his old battle gear this Anzac Day and went 'over the top'.

His stormed the lines of the Conservative Rudd Labour Government......

Best blog quote of the month from Hexy

Hexy of Hexpletive guestposting over at Hoyden about Town about Andrew Bolt's nasty views in Andrew Bolt, Wajin-looking Koori, Aboriginality, and comments full of lies:

Oh, that's just magic. If Andrew Bolt can point to one single "full-blood Aborigine" with whom he has discussed this matter and who expressed that sentiment, I'll eat my hat. No, even more extreme… I'll f*ck Andrew Bolt...........

The only people who have ever expressed disbelief of my Aboriginality based on my skin tone have been over-privileged white f*ckwits who feel entitled to decide who does and does not get to claim membership of a demographic they themselves have no connection at all to. [letter substitutions to avoid those *#@ filters]

Hexy you are a joy to read.

Photo from Crikey

Obama changes his tune once again

It seems that Barack Obama has discovered the delights of former Australian prime minister John Howard's approach to core and non-core promises.

The latest to surface is in relation to the Freedom of Choice Act. It appears that once you're president then any pretence that you really believe in a woman's right to chose, in relation to pregnancy termination, flies out the window.

Here is FactCheck on the subject:

Is Obama shying away from the Freedom of Choice Act?
When CNN correspondent Ed Henry asked the president about his current thinking on FOCA at last night's White House press conference, Obama used very different language than he did during the campaign.
In 2008, as we noted in our Ask FactCheck item on FOCA, Obama told a Planned Parenthood audience: "The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. Now that's the first thing I'd do."
Last night, Obama specifically altered that statement. "Now, the Freedom of Choice Act is not my highest legislative priority," he said. "I believe that women should have the right to choose, but I think that the most important thing we can do to tamp down some of the anger surrounding this issue is to focus on those areas that we can agree on," such as reducing unwanted pregnancies.

Tim Fisher lives!

After costing taxpayers about $1 million a year to establish the first resident Australian ambassador to the Holy See, His Excellency Timmeh Fisher is almost but not quite earning his keep.
What's on the Tube tells us that; "Former deputy Prime Minister and now Australia's ambassador to the Vatican Tim Fisher said that charges have be[en] laid against the two members of the Chaser team on April 28 for breaching the no-fly zone regulations. Mr Fisher confirmed that they were detained by Italian authorities and questioned for eight hours before being released. Morrow today said on ABC radio, "I'm not sure whether charges have been laid yet but we certainly did spend a fair bit of time chewing the fat with the Italian constabulary"."
Apart from turning up at an English language Italian mass for bushfire victims in February, this is the first time I've heard a peep out of the ambassador since his appointment took effect at the beginning of this year.

Update:
Apparently Timmeh is not too good with spoken Italian, because ABC News says "On Friday, Australia's resident ambassador to the Vatican, Tim Fischer, incorrectly said charges had been laid." and The Chaser team say "We've since heard from Tim Fischer that we've been charged, but from an Italian lawyer that we haven't. We're backing the lawyer".

Northern Rivers artist explores the nasty side of Monsanto

Monsanto

Lyn Hope

original, unframed, abstract political work, revealing Monsanto’s nasty side

Displayed at Arthouse Australia

Evidence of spiders doesn't mean the house isn't clean

In Australia our urban population is mainly spread along a hundred kilometre wide coastal fringe, predominately on the eastern and southern sides of the continent.

Our preferred housing is often in areas which were developed for the first time in the last 10 to 50 years, often on recently cleared land.

This means that there are many houses which are built close to remnant bushland, open space, rural land or national park and therefore close to native species of plant, animal, reptile, insect et cetera. In such areas it would be hard to find a house without a resident spider or two.

So when did it become a sign of uncleanliness to house the odd spider?

The answer is easy - when you have pest inspection services to sell.

According to the Herald-Sun on Thursday:

Archicentre which conducts pre-purchase inspections on behalf of potential homebuyers found many homeowners who had little understanding of the need to keep their homes clean and well-maintained had no one but themselves to blame.

The figures show:
TRACES of rats or mice in 46 per cent of homes.
SPIDERS in 58 per cent of homes.
COCKROACHES in 15 per cent of homes.
POSSUMS in 13 per cent of homes and
SILVERFISH in 5 per cent of homes.
TERMITES were found in 12 per cent of homes.

Shame on you, Archicentre.

Living in a town built on reclaimed marsh and sand as I do, Daddy Long Legs and Tarantulas under the eaves (along with frogs and lizards at ground level) are the first line of defence against all those mosquitos, sandflies, midges and other flying biters that can make life a misery.

Daddy Long Legs from Google Images