Marine Wonderland: Lismore Regional Gallery exhibition open until 5 September 2009

Dailan Pugh

Resting Wobbegong 2007

oil on canvas

One of the art works on display at the Marine Wonderland exhibition at Lismore Regional Gallery, 131 Molesworth Street, Lismore NSW, open Tuesday to Saturday 10am - 4pm and Thursday 10am - 6pm. Admission Free

I turn my back for five minutes and look what happens!

I don't know - take off on hols leaving blogging behind and look what happens.

Between 24th and 26th July Truffles Turnbull broke his own Australian Liberal Leader of the Opposition record for unpopularity.

Not only does he trail Kevin Rudd as preferred prime minister by 50 percentage points, he also has 50% of those polled dissatisfied with his performance compared to only 26% dissatisfied with Rudders.

And a sparse 34% in the survey say that they will vote for the party he heads.

Turnbull only has to fall another 10 points and he will beat Brendan Nelson's all-time Newspoll low as "Better PM".

With Tony Abbott talking about a return to WorkChoices (Mark 2) should the Coalition regain Government and helpfully suggesting that the retirement age should be raised even further to 70 years of age, it's almost a certainty that Truffles will slide further in voter estimation.

Click on The Australian image to enlarge

Water Security Hall of Shame for South Australian would be water raiders

In A Clarence Valley Protest this morning:

South Australian LGA Water Security Hall of Shame

It isn't only Alexandrina Council in South Australia which doesn't seem to understand that it would be environmental vandalism of the worst sort to attempt to cure a desperate lack of water security in one inland catchment area ie., the Murray Darling Basin, by placing a relatively healthy coastal catchment at risk by diverting part of its freshwater flow which sustains both a growing population base, significant primary industry and a large, productive estuary system and wetlands.

There are other local governments which appear to be hitching their star to an impossible dream with clearly no understanding of either geography or hydrology, particularly when it comes to Coorong District Council's idea that damming the headwaters of the Clarence River would actually result in high water volumes comparable to the Snowy Mountain Scheme.

In the Clarence Valley locals are well aware that these headwaters are often so sparse that it is almost possible to leap the flow in a single bound.

What is also most noticeable is that these councils are all singing from the same song sheet.

Here is the beginning of the 2009 Water Security Hall of Shame:

Victor Harbour Council:

16. MOTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Moved: Cr P Chigwidden Seconded: Cr P Lewis

That Council forward a letter to the Secretary of the Murray Darling Association (MDA) Region 6 Committee in support of the following recommendations:

1. That the MDA Conference expresses its dismay at the outcome of the deliberations regarding the final results of the inter-government agreement on the governance of the Basin andcalls upon the Federal Government to intervene and take overthe governance arrangements and to create a truly independent Murray Darling Basin Authority; and

2. That the MDA Conference call for the Federal Government to re-examine the question of the Clarence River Diversion Studyrelative to water flows through the Murray Darling System.

CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY

Mid Murray Council :

Region 6 - Murray Darling Association:

11120/2 Cr Bormann moved that Council support Region 6 of the Murray Darling Association in putting forward the Notice of Motion to its National Conference calling for the Federal Government to re-examine the question of the Clarence River Diversion Study, relative to water flows through the Murray Darling River System.

Seconded Cr Burgess.

CARRIED

Coorong District Council:

Councillor Wright moves;

"That The Coorong District Council, through Region 6 of the Murray Darling Association, request that the new Murray Darling Basin Authority ask the Federal Government to re-examine the Clarence River Diversion Proposal relative to water flows through the Murray Darling River System.

Cr. Peter Wright

Process

The request would proceed via a Notice of Motion to be presented at the 2009 Annual General Meeting of the Murray Darling Association.

Explanation

This proposed diversion of the Clarence River was first discussed in the 1930's. More recently, the Fraser Liberal Government allocated $4 million to fund a feasibility study into the scheme. This was subsequently discontinued by the Hawke Labor Government.

The proposal, if feasible, would involve the construction of a head water dam on the Clarence River, with a 22km tunnel under the Gibralta Ranges in Northern NSW. This tunnel would emerge on the Murray Darling Basin side of the Ranges and feed into the Beardy River, then the McIntyre River and ultimately, into the Basin. The Gibralta Ranges are situated in one of the highest rainfall areas in Australia. The Clarence River is like most east coast rivers in that it is very short, with a high volume discharge into the sea during high volume events.

Benefits of the scheme include:

• The capacity of the dams would have a storage ability approaching that of the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

• The capacity of head water storage would provide flood control to the Clarence Valley.

• The diversion would only require 24% of the total maximum storage volume to provide similar volumes of water to the Basin as the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

• No pumping of water is required – the entire scheme would be gravity-fed.

• The generation of hydroelectricity is another major benefit.

This Notice of Motion is not a request to build the scheme, but to revisit it in the context of recent climatic events and over-allocations in the Murray Darling Basin.

Cr. Peter Wright

NOTICE OF MOTION

081/09

Moved Cr. Wright Sec. Cr. Bland that The Coorong District Council, through Region 6 of the Murray Darling Association, request that the new Murray Darling Basin Authority ask theFederal Government to re-examine the Clarence River Diversion Proposal relative to water flows through the Murray Darling River System.

CARRIED

Council of the Rural City of Murray Bridge:

804 MOTIONS ON NOTICE

804.1 CR BOB ENGLAND – REGION 6 MDA – CLARENCE RIVER DIVERSION STUDY (SF316)

I, Councillor Bob England having complied with the requirements of Regulation 13 of the Local Government (Procedures at Meetings) Regulations 2000, hereby give Notice of the following motion to be submitted at the meeting of the Council of theRural City of Murray Bridge to be held on 14 April, 2009 at 7 pm.

I will move:

That Rural City of Murray Bridge note that Region 6 of the Murray Darling Association intends moving a resolution along the following lines at the September AGM of the MDA:

That Region 6 calls on the Murray Darling Association to urge the Federal Government to re-examine the Clarence River Diversion.

Cr England moved

That Rural City of Murray Bridge note that Region 6 of the Murray Darling Association intends moving a resolution along the following lines at the September AGM of the MDA:

That Region 6 calls on the Murray Darling Association to urge the Federal Government to re-examine the Clarence River Diversion Study relative to water flows through the Murray Darling River system.

Seconded by Cr Schubert and CARRIED

There aren't any jobs on a dead planet**

By the time Kevin Rudd had closed comment on the inaugural Focus on Climate Change post at PM's Blog last week there were 939 published comments listed.

This was a fairly respectable response given that all participants had to register, comment was moderated and, comment publication was restricted to business hours which meant that there was limited debate on opinions put forward.

This week it appears that the Prime Minister via his second post wants a very brief snapshot of the nation's reaction to the NHHC report on health care reform, because there are less than four full days allotted for comment.

By 12.45pm on Tuesday 28 July 2009 there were a mere 20 comments on his health post, which worked out at only 1.1 comments per hour since that post went online.

Oh, and by the way, the Prime Minster's second post is erroneously tagged as a health blog when in fact it is a post on the PM's Blog - a mildly annoying little error.

** Line from a comment on Australian Prime Minister's first post on his new official blog.

Update:

no_filter_YambaPM's Blog a fail with only 97 comments on his health reform post? Or too early to tell? http://bit.ly/2K2Hzbless than 5 seconds ago from web

Monotremes: Looking for love in all the wrong places

Photograph from Deography

It's Echidna (Spiny Anteater) breeding season once more and those cute little spiny monotremes are on the move across the NSW North Coast.
Because echidna trains and lone animals sometimes wander across roads or into urban areas, please take care when driving on local roads and be mindful that it may be an amorous anteater which has your dog barking to get out at night and not someone you need to see off the property.
Echidas move suprisingly quickly so there is no need to interfere with any trek across your garden.

Confronting an animal will only cause it to dig-in and raise its spines.

Those pesky water raiders are after Clarence River catchment fresh water again

From A Clarence Valley Protest today:

Alexandrina Council water raiders refuse to take resounding "No" for an answer

Given that the Clarence Valley has firmly said no to any Clarence River catchment freshwater diversion scheme it is surprising to find that some people cannot abide having their will crossed.

ITEM 36 ELECTED MEMBERS REPORTS
36.1 Clarence River Diversion Study - Cr Tuckwell
File Ref: 9.24.1
Officer: Councillor Frank Tuckwell

REPORT
A proposed submission to the 2009 National Conference of the Murray Darling Association to be held in the Playford Council area, SA in September 2009.

The Process
The Murray Darling Association (Region 6) at their February meeting passed a resolution requesting its five member Council's support for placing a Notice of Motion in reference to the Clarence River Diversion Study on the AGM of the National Conference to be held at Playford in September. It is important that all member Councils respond before April 30 to allow the Region 6 Board to prepare a full submission to the MDA Federal Board meeting in May. This will allow any redrafting that may be required to be done to be completed and returned to the Federal Board by June.

The Proposal
As this Council has led and supported this proposal for the past two years, once again we have the opportunity to lead the call for a Clarence River Diversion Study to be placed before the Federal Government by the National Conference of the Murray Darling Association. The MDA has for almost thirty years pressed for a complete scientific, environmental and engineering study for this proposal. The concept has been called for from within the Basin by its communities since the 1930's and it gained support of the Fraser Government who put $4M on its estimates to do the study. However they were succeeded by the Hawke Government who had other important priorities, so the proposal lapsed Now more than ever it is important that this proposal be put into the political field again. The worst drought the Basin has lived through has ironically seen massive flooding on almost all of the east coast rivers just scores of kilometres across the Great Divide from the dry Basin.
There are many calls for pipelines and other schemes to provide large scale water diversion to the lower sections of the continent, but the MDA has been both consistent and persistent in pursuing the Clarence River Study. Once again the MDA stresses that in calling for the study that this is not a question of whether the Diversion shall or shall not be built, but that as a matter of urgency this important study should be carried out to determine which case is proven.

RECOMMENDATION
That the Alexandrina Council supports Region 6 of the Murray Darling Association in putting forward the Notice of Motion to its National Conference calling for the Federal Government to re-examine the question of the Clarence River Diversion Study, relative to water flows through the Murray Darling River System.

See: Council_Agenda_6th_April_2009.pdf

U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues highlights exploitative natural resource development still an issue

In May 2009 the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues welcomed Australia's belated endorsement of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

One of the aims of that declaration is; The free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples must be obtained before investments are made on projects affecting their lands, territories and resources and before such projects are brought into indigenous lands and territories.

However, from reading the forum's Report on the eighth session, it is obvious that concerns remain about how nations access natural resources or create infrastructure on land or territories owned by indigenous peoples.

The Permanent Forum has paid particular attention to the significant increase in the infrastructure budget of the World Bank, from $15 billion to $45 billion in 2009, for the primary economies of developing States. The implications of this development in relation to the respect and protection of indigenous peoples' rights have to be clearly understood, and the imperative of getting the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples affected by infrastructure projects has to be guaranteed. The Forum also urges the World Bank to provide additional operational budget to manage this large increase in infrastructure spending. The Permanent Forum reiterates its previous recommendations that the World Bank revise its operational safeguard policies to be consistent with the provisions of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Amnesty International (Australia) sending butterflies to Rudd in support of justice for WW2 'comfort women'

Amnesty International (Australia) is running a campaign in support of the rights of World War Two comfort women and invites people to create and send a butterfly to the Prime Minister:

In the year 2009, you'd think governments would have well and truly faced the atrocities of World War II. Yet up to 200,000 women who were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers have still not received an adequate apology - let alone compensation - from the Japan Government.

Their chosen symbol of hope is the butterfly.
We're going to cover the web in beautiful butterflies in the run up to August 15th - the anniversary of WWII's end - to highlight this hidden tragedy.

Each butterfly will represent a message to the Australian PM to pass a motion urging the Japan Government to recognise and compensate survivors. In all this time, Australia is one of the few Allied countries that hasn't stood up and called the Japanese Government to account.

Monsanto thinks there is something 'magical' about GM pollination of non-GM crops.....

There is no doubt about it, Monsanto & Co employees are a scary group when they start to blog.

Earlier this month in a post titled I am Monsanto one of these happy clappy souls decided to pose a rather sarcastic hypothetical question; Did you know that pollen from our genetically-modified crops will magically migrate into another farmer's field and contaminate his crop?

Apparently (if one is a Monsanto employee) the well-known natural processes known as pollen drift and cross fertilisation are not within the bounds of our world - for GM traits to be found in non-GM crops or GM plants to be discovered in non-GM fields then something otherworldly has to have occurred.

This will come as a complete surprise to biologists and agronomists:

Managing "Pollen Drift" to Minimize Contamination of Non-GMO Corn, AGF-153

Gene flow through pollen drift: a scientific perspective

Pollen drift and the bystanding farmer: harmonising patent law and common law on the technological frontier

However Monsanto employees are not finished with spin on the company blog Monsanto according to Monsanto.

In another post called Agent Orange and Monsanto the case is made for a benign and patriotic Monsanto participating in deliberate dioxin contamination on a large scale because; The U.S. government, under the Defense Production Act, directed seven companies – including Monsanto, which was then primarily a chemical company – to manufacture the material.

Yes, the President made me do it appears to be the argument here.

A government contract defence that U.S. courts have not apparently fully supported, as there was a 1984 case in which in has been reported that Judge Weinstein encouraged settlement and eventually directed Monsanto to pay over a large percentage of an $180 million out of court settlement in favour of American veterans.

However, in a classic look-here-not-there manoeuvre Monsanto directs our attention to the unsuccessful 2004 litigation by Vietnamese veterans in which it was also a co-defendant.

All the while remaining silent on the fact that sales of Agent Orange and Lasso were basically what kept Monsanto's agricultural chemical division in the black during the 1960s and the Viet Nam War.

Now I have been wondering of late why it is that Monsanto employees are so cavalier with how they use available fact and historical record.

I refuse to believe that their obvious youth (in comparison to North Coast Voices authors) is a significant factor because older people do not have a monopoly on commonsense or knowledge.

So I am left with the possibility that Monsanto's corporate culture is so intense that employees are totally indoctrinated by the end of their first year with the firm and thereafter are incapable of recognising that Monsanto & Co hasn't been a uniformly ethical company from its inception up to the more recent past.

Graphic from arizona.edu

UPDATE:

In June 2009 the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an appeal by the Secretary of the Dept of Agriculture et al (including Monsanto Company as Defendant-intervenor-Appellant) and upheld a lower court injunction against the USDA's deregulation determination re GMO perennial alfalfa.

Geertson Seed Farms et al had sought relief from the US courts, in part on the grounds that there was a need to wait until there had been sufficient investigation of the potential for pollen drift and cross-pollination.

FactCheck highlights disappointing Obama health care spin

As one of the many millions of outsiders looking in on American society it is hard to argue against a much needed reform of the U.S. health care system.

As often as I complain about the failings of Australia's universal hospital/health care system, I am always grateful for its existence when I compare it to somewhere like America.

One has to wish President Obama well in his effort to expand health insurance so that it acts more like an albeit very limited safety net for U.S. citizens.

However, on 22 July 2009 Obama put his position on the current health debate at a press conference in much the same way he has conducted his part in debate on many other issues and FactCheck has again caught him out:

President Obama tried to sell his health care overhaul in prime time, mangling some facts in the process. He also strained to make the job sound easier to pay for than experts predict.

• Obama promised once again that a health care overhaul "will be paid for." But congressional budget experts say the bills they've seen so far would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit over the next decade.
  
• He said the plan "that I put forward" would cover at least 97 percent of all Americans. Actually, the plan he campaigned on would cover far less than that, and only one of the bills now being considered in Congress would do that.
  
• He said the "average American family is paying thousands" as part of their premiums to cover uncompensated care for the uninsured, implying that expanded coverage will slash insurance costs. But the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation puts the cost per family figure at $200.
• Obama claimed his budget "reduced federal spending over the next 10 years by $2.2 trillion" compared with where it was headed before. Not true. Even figures from his own budget experts don't support that. The Congressional Budget Office projects a $2.7 trillion increase, not a $2.2 trillion cut.
  
• The president said that the United States spends $6,000 more on average than other countries on health care. Actually, U.S. per capita spending is about $2,500 more than the next highest-spending country. Obama's figure was a White House-calculated per-family estimate.

Full FactCheck article Facts vs. Obama

President Obama's remarks at an Ohio 'town hall' meeting concerning proposed health care reform, 23 July 2009.
DemConWatch: pre-delivery transcript and video of President Obama's speech on proposed health care reform, Press Conference, 22 July 2009.
US President Obama's Q&A with reporters: Press Conference 22 July 2009
President Obama's Weekly Address: Health Care Reform Cannot Wait, 18 July 2009.

Byron Bay Writers Festival, 7-9 August 2009

The Byron Bay Writers Festival (established in 1997) is coming around again from Friday 7 August through to Sunday 9 August 2009.

The festival kicks off with Friday's poetry competition and progresses though a packed weekend,

with everyone from Tom Keneally, Roy Masters, Peter Singer, Geoffrey Robinson, David Williamson, Anne Summers, Kerry O'Brien, Bob Ellis, Wendy Harmer, Rachel Perkins, though to author and blogger Irfan Yusuf taking part.

Full festival program can be found here.

Can't get to see your G.P. for a month? Worried about that long wait at accident and emergency? Been on an elective surgery list for a year?

Can't get to see your G.P. for a month? Worried about that long wait at hospital accident and emergency? Overwhelmed by the thought of a day-long trip to see a specialist? Upset by the fact that a family member is hundreds or thousands of kilometres away receiving in-patient treatment? Concerned that you won't survive a life-threatening disease because poorer health outcomes sometimes correlate with life in the regions? Indignant that you can get elective surgery within two months if you have the money to pay but are on a waiting list for twelve months if you are poor? Think your local district hospital won't be there at the end of the year if this area health service cost cutting keeps up?

Well these are pretty common worries for many Australians living in rural and regional areas. But never fear - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is out there clutching his copy of A healthier future for all Australians - Final Report June 2009.

The National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission may say that; The health of our people is critical to our national economy, our national security and, arguably, our national identity. Our own health and the health of our families are key determinants of our wellbeing. Health is one of the most important issues for the Australian people, and it is an issue upon which they rightly expect strong leadership from governments.

However don't expect significant federal-state consultation on the report's recommendations before the next federal election.

The Liberals and Nationals won't add anything constructive to consideration of the public health service as they don't want timely consultation because it will take away an election campaign stick that it can use to beat the Rudd Government about the head and, Labor won't be rushing forward either because it will be easier to continue promising golden health reform in the lead-up to polling day than it will be to defend leaks about inevitable federal-state consultation hiccups.

As for those medieval guild relics, the 'gentlemen's' unions covering general practitioners and medical specialists - well they won't be doing more than blowing obstructive hot air until someone promises them that there will be a larger user pays component favouring their pockets in any national health system.

So. Can't get to see your G.P. for a month? Worried about that long wait at hospital accident and emergency? Overwhelmed by the thought of a day-long trip to see a specialist? Upset by the fact that a family member is hundreds or thousands of kilometres away receiving in-patient treatment? Concerned that you won't survive a life-threatening disease because poorer health outcomes sometimes correlate with life in the regions?Indignant that you can get elective surgery within two months if you have the money to pay but are on a waiting list for twelve months if you are poor? Think your local district hospital won't be there at the end of the year if this area health service cost cutting keeps up? Get used to it and hope that you survive until that shining day when Kevin Rudd finally 'fixes' the public health system.

A healthier future for all Australians - Final Report June 2009:

Executive Summary

Recommendations

First Dog and Ned the Bear with a few home truths about the Moon and Mars...

Sometimes when the mainstream media is in full flight commemorative flight as it was last week over the 40th anniversary of the U.S. landing on the Moon, one can sometimes feel out of sync with supposed public sentiment when thoughts and memories don't appear to coincide with mass recollection.

However, in this instance all those not in lock step were rescued by First Dog on the Moon and Ned the Bear.

Click on images to enlarge

Thank the gods for Australian cartoonists.

Cartoons from First Dog at Crikey and Ned the Bear

Regional arts - what do you want to see happen in your area? Survey

Regional Arts Australia is conducting a survey this month:

What do you want for the arts in your community?

Do you want more creative and artistic opportunities in your local community? How can the arts play a stronger role in your region? Regional Arts Australia encourages you, your colleagues and friends to help shape the creative future of regional communities as part of a national survey. The survey results will be combined with the outcomes from a series of public consultations to find out what communities really want and to help regional Arts Australia determine its future directions. Click HERE to take the survey.

End-of-life decision-making: a disturbing observation by the NSW Ombudsman

Click image to enlarge

Excerpt from NSW Ombudsman March 2008 submission to the Special Commission of Inquiry into Acute Care Services in NSW Hospitals.