Who won't be the 2009 Australian employer of the year? Senate witness allegedly threatened

In the Australian Senate Hansard for 9th September 2009:

PRESIDENT

(9.31 am)—The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee has raised a matter of privilege under standing order 81. The matter is set out in a report by the committee to the Senate, which recommends that the matter be referred to the Privileges Committee.

The issue relates to the treatment of a witness before the committee in the course of its inquiry into access to justice. After she gave her evidence, the witness received a written warning of disciplinary action from her employer. The committee pointed out to the employer that threatening a witness with action as a result of the witness's evidence constitutes interference with a witness and a possible contempt of the Senate. The employer subsequently withdrew the warning, but in correspondence with the committee appeared to reserve the right to discipline its employees in respect of evidence given to a Senate committee. The witness resigned from her employment and there is the possibility that she suffered loss of employment as a result of her evidence to the committee.

The Senate's privilege resolution No. 6, in paragraphs (10) and (11), declares that any interference with a witness, and any imposition of a penalty on a witness, in consequence of the witness's evidence, and any threat or attempt of such actions against a witness, may constitute a contempt of the Senate. Such treatment of a witness may also be a criminal offence under section 12 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987.

The Senate Privileges Committee has declared in its past reports that interference with and penalisation of witnesses are the most serious of all contempts, and the committee and the Senate have always regarded such actions as requiring rigorous investigation and firm remedial action. The committee has pointed out that actions which are otherwise lawful, such as the dismissal of an employee, may constitute contempts when taken against a witness in consequence of the witness's evidence.

The matter raised by the committee clearly meets the criteria I am required to consider. I therefore give precedence to a motion to refer the matter to the Privileges Committee. I table the letter from the committee. Other relevant documents are included in the committee's report.

A notice of motion may now be given.

NSW Royal National Park celebrates 130 years and still going strong in 2009

The heritage-listed coastal Royal National Park in Sutherland Shire, NSW celebrates its 130th birthday this year. It was established in 1879 and is the second oldest national park in the world after Yellowstone National Park in America which was created in 1872.
There are approximately 180 national parks in New South Wales and many of these are on the North Coast. Why don't you visit one this weekend?

List of all NSW National parks and links

Images from Creative Spirits and Wikimedia Commons

Honest as the day is long....

Are you having trouble deciding what is 'honest' and 'dishonest' behaviour?
Take the Honesty Lab online test!

11-year-old girl tells Sydney Morning Herald tipsters Phil Gould, Roy Masters and Greg Prichard to eat their hearts out

11-year-old Chloe Lawrence has won the Illawarra Mercury's Footy Tipping Comp this a year.

Chloe's tipping, which netted her 141 points for the season, was so convincing she would have easily beaten The Sydney Morning Herald tipsters Phil Gould, Roy Masters and Greg Prichard.

Last year Chloe's seven-year-old brother, Daniel Moro, was the paper's top tipster.

The Mercury reports that Chloe and Daniel, who both won $3000, left thousands of experienced adult tipsters and bona fide footy experts in their wake. Their success has stumped their mother, Amy Taylor. But, according to Chloe there is method to her choices.

She avoids the Roosters and the Sharks and otherwise opts for teams based largely on home ground advantage and sidelined stars.

"I say, 'Who's out? Who's not playing? Who's at home?"' Chloe said.

"I don't like the Roosters. If Manly or Storm are at home I'll pick them because I like them."

Chloe plans to spend some of her winnings on her first mobile phone and will also donate a portion of the money to the Cancer Council in memory of her grandfather, who succumbed to cancer in recent years.

The remainder will be placed in a savings account.

For the record, Chloe predicts a Sea Eagles versus Dragons grand final, with the latter to win by about six points.

pic from The Illawarra Mercury

Repco Rally - Grimditch objects and promises boycott!

We can have democracy or we can have the Repco Rally.

It has been interesting watching the posturing surrounding this event. It seems like an ideological battle, with those wishing to exploit winning the day.

The Rudd Government won the last election on a platform of addressing climate change as a mater of urgency. Much as we are still waiting for some leadership on this, the ideological link to this is clear. Much of the electorate expects a responsible leadership to perhaps do things like mandate sustainable development in regard to climate change, slowdown use of fossil fuels and be pro-active in the development sustainable alternatives. Naturally the electorate could easily expect State Labour Governments to identify with these worthy ideals. The big problem here is obvious. Governments don't get re-elected by promising and delivering less. It is not the nature of capitalist democracy.

The Repco (WRC) Rally came to the Northern Rivers after the Western Australian Government decided that it was not good value in regard to employment, tourism and their economic returns. It seems the "planet's not dying quick enough for us" lobby would have to find another sucker to host the Australian leg of the tour. Apart from the planet, what can you lose from economic activity.

Fortunately there was Mike Rayner the general manager of Tweed Shire was also the director of World Rally Australia, the body responsible for staging the Australian leg of the event. Before anyone could get to excited about conflict of interest or will of the people, the State Government deemed it a special event and legislated away any obstacles to it not occurring. The meaning we can take from this is , It's not corruption if you don't have to explain anything. The big claim of increased tourism is unlikely to be enough to match the tax payer contribution. The electorate is saddled with a planet killing ideology and the electorate can not even question if we can afford it and expect an answer.

There is not a petrol driven competition anywhere that is designed to encourage people to use cars less. I have not done a survey, I just look at the companies that think they will profit from sponsoring such events. From an environmental point of view there is no future in such events. The industry should get over it and think of something that helps. This is where climate change denial is at it's strongest and the state government has teamed up with this lobby. There is much information about the impacts of the rally at Can Do Better . It is a good compilation of stories surrounding the event.

The north coast region is a destination for people who want to live a non mainstream lifestyle . They have gone to a lot of trouble to make sure their lifestyle choices do not affect the general population. Indeed Lismore highlights alternative lifestyles as a tourist feature of the district. To have their lifestyles threatened in their own back yards and not give them a say, is asking for trouble. Lismore knows how to increase tourism. Just open a hemp bar in Nimbin and call it alternative. Despite being far off the beaten track Nimbin has become the premier tour bus destination for backpackers in the country. It is a staple of the Byron Bay and Lismore economy. All on the back of hemp and freedom. Tweed Shire would see more economic benefit from opening a couple of Hemp cafés than a car race.

Hemp tourism happens all year around and does not require fossil fuel sponsorship to occur. It does not threaten the environment. In fact the state government spends lots of our money on stopping this happening and it still happens anyway. This is at the heart of the ideological battle. The conservative imagination would like the district to be internationally renown for something apart from hemp. Anything really, even climate change denial.

The race organisers will be very lucky if a few rocks is the only trouble they get. It is only a matter of time before the sponsors of the event are targeted. Like the race protests anybody interfering with Repco's right to exploit, will be victimized. Repco has the freedom to have a race and exploit the market, the only freedom I have in this is to bitch about it here and to let Repco know I will not support them in the market, probably about once a week for the duration of the sponsorship. Ah, freedom and democracy there is nothing like it and I hope this is nothing like it.

So what are the advantages to the area for having this event, that the Western Australian Government could not see? It is a bit hard to tell as the special events legislation shrouds any possibility of accountability. However it can not shroud the stench of unaccountable snouts hiding their troughs for as long as they can and how ineffectual our system is in meeting our needs for the future.

The lack of accountability confines this government to an unelectable future. They do however have the credibility derived from John Della Bosca doing his fly up.

Grimditch

Tweed Region

Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents.Email ncvguestpeak at live dot com dot au to submit comment for consideration.

Lower Clarence man competes in ITU 2009 Triathlon World Championships

Credit: The Daily Examiner 27 July 2009

Ray Hunt of Yamba is pictured above demonstrating that retirement can be healthy, productive and just plain fun.

Ray will be competing between 9 -13 September 2009 on the Gold Coast, Queensland and the Lower Clarence Valley is barracking for their man as he swims, bikes and runs in the ITU Triathlon World Championships in both aquathlon and triathlon events.

Event schedule here.

Results of races will be posted after 7pm on the day at http://www.triathlon.org/

Update:

Full Aquathlon results

Ray finished the Aquathlon event on 9 September in 0:44.51 (with his first run coming in at 0:11:15, his swim at 0:20:30 and his second run at 0:13:05).

A mere 0:11.41 behind the elite athlete who took out first place.
Well done, Ray.

Further update:

Ray came fifth in his age group in the ITU 2009 Age Group Triathlon World Championships on 12 September, with an unofficial time of 2:30:56.

Just 0:9:31 behind the age group winner David Roadhouse (USA).

A sterling effort.

"Please sir, will you pay for this anti-ALP brochure". Now which MPs said that?

This week the Commonwealth Auditor General released a report on the Administration of Parliamentarians' Entitlements by the Department of Finance and Deregulation.

What this reveals is one long rort of the $100,000 MP printing allowance by the major political parties for campaign purposes and a very lackadaisical federal department which did not adequately police invoicing for this allowance.

Happy little pigs in mud abounded in the run up to the last federal election - what with at least $125,000 each to play with at the time.

A little snippet in the report reveals that four unnamed Liberal pollies put in invoices for printing brochures called "Labor can't manage money. You Pay for it", which failed to mention either their names or electorates and seem to have originally been labelled by these MPs as "anti ALP" material.

The report rated these as a real risk of being outside the printing guidelines.

Now Google shows there's a long list of possible suspects ranging from big players like Nick Minchin and Christopher Pyne through to tiddlers such as Michael Ferguson and perhaps Jamie Briggs.

An enjoyable hunt the pollie game for the truly bored and tired of life.

Forget genetic manipulation as the ultimate in useless innovation - look at food shape changing

Some orchardists in far-flung places obviously think that fruit needs a new look.
These pears have been shaped on the tree using plastic moulds during the growing period, while the watermelon became square by unknown means.
What on earth is happening to quality produce au naturel?
And as jaded appetites and ennui are obviously being catered for here - did anyone create a new shape for the 9th day of the 9th month of the 9th year of the 21st century?




Pics from U.K. Telegraph

Climate change largely irreversible for 1,000 years after excessive greenhouse emissions stop?

One of the distressing abstracts found online at the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America:

The severity of damaging human-induced climate change depends not only on the magnitude of the change but also on the potential for irreversibility. This paper shows that the climate change that takes place due to increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop. Following cessation of emissions, removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide decreases radiative forcing, but is largely compensated by slower loss of heat to the ocean, so that atmospheric temperatures do not drop significantly for at least 1,000 years. Among illustrative irreversible impacts that should be expected if atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase from current levels near 385 parts per million by volume (ppmv) to a peak of 450–600 ppmv over the coming century are irreversible dry-season rainfall reductions in several regions comparable to those of the “dust bowl” era and inexorable sea level rise. Thermal expansion of the warming ocean provides a conservative lower limit to irreversible global average sea level rise of at least 0.4–1.0 m if 21st century CO2 concentrations exceed 600 ppmv and 0.6–1.9 m for peak CO2 concentrations exceeding ≈1,000 ppmv. Additional contributions from glaciers and ice sheet contributions to future sea level rise are uncertain but may equal or exceed several meters over the next millennium or longer.

Full 2009 paper in PDF form here.

Political evolution NSW-style

I don't think anyone has missed the metamorphosis undergone in the media recently by one murder victim - from wealthy "property developer" to "loan shark and standover man" and worse.
But how many people have noticed that the person or persons allegedly named on that rumoured tape recording have now gone from the very vague "persons connected to NSW Labor" or somewhat vague "state government MPs" to the more specific "senior NSW politicians" or "NSW ministers"?
By yesterday the chatter mill had developed belt and braces, with bribed "senior NSW bureaucrat", "federal Labor politicians" and "police officer" thrown into the mix for good measure.
Seemingly without any print, radio or television journalists (or the NSW Opposition for that matter) having ever listened to this audio tape.
And I thought the local bowlo was good at gossip - the Aussie meeja leaves it for dead! One gossipy whiff and they're off like a Bondi tram.
Given the collective histories and conflicting stories of those non-journalists who have actually said that they heard the tape or knew details of the alleged recorded conversation; is it any wonder that I keep hearing the words 'hysterical beat-up' echoing in my head?

U.S. citizen and Islam convert Abdullah al-Kidd gets his day in court

U.S. President Barack Obama may wish it otherwise, but where government is slow or unwilling to address the former Bush administration's constitutional abuses then the courts are obviously prepared take on this challenge if people are willing to apply.
The quotes below are from a U.S. Court of Appeals opinion in Abdullah al-Kidd v John Ashcroft (former US Attorney General), filed 4th September 2009.

MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judge:

According to the allegations of his first amended complaint, Plaintiff-Appellee Abdullah al-Kidd (al-Kidd), a United States citizen and a married man with two children, was arrested at a Dulles International Airport ticket counter. He was handcuffed, taken to the airport's police substation, and interrogated. Over the next sixteen days, he was confined in high security cells lit twenty-four hours a day in Virginia, Oklahoma, and then Idaho, during which he was strip searched on multiple occasions. Each time he was transferred to a different facility, al-Kidd was handcuffed and shackled about his wrists, legs, and waist. He was eventually released from custody by court order, on the conditions that he live with his wife and in-laws in Nevada, limit his travel to Nevada and three other states, surrender his travel documents, regularly report to a probation officer, and consent to home visits throughout the period of supervision. By the time al-Kidd's confinement and supervision ended, fifteen months after his arrest, al-Kidd had been fired from his job as an employee of a government contractor because he was denied a security clearance due to his arrest, and had separated from his wife. He has been unable to obtain steady employment since his arrest. Al-Kidd was not arrested and detained because he had allegedly committed a crime. He alleges that he was arrested and confined because former United States Attorney General John Ashcroft (Ashcroft), subordinates operating under policies promulgated by Ashcroft, and others within the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), unlawfully used the federal material witness statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3144, to investigate or preemptively detain him. Ashcroft asserts that he is entitled to absolute and qualified immunity against al-Kidd's claims. We hold that on the facts pled Ashcroft is not protected by either form of immunity, and we affirm in part and reverse in part the decision of the district court. (my emphasis)

In its conclusion the court quoted Blackstone:

"To bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole kingdom. But confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to gaol, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten; is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government."

WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND 131-32 (1765)

Mischief's bad utterances cost him a date with Max

It seems the Northern Territory is the place to be if one wants to meet a talking feline.


After the news about Mischief the talkative cat broke another NT cat's owner declared that her cat Max was also a talking cat.

Mischief, who featured previously on this site, was all set to meet and have a chat with Max. Well, that's what Mischief's owner Robert "RJ" Duncan thought was on the cards.

However, Max's owner Mrs Snowball put a stop on any dalliance involving Mischief and Max.

The Northern Territory News reports that Mrs Snowball declined Mr Duncan's invitation because she doesn't want her cat picking up Mischief's bad habit of swearing.

According to Mrs Snowball, her cat Max can pronounce all her family members' names. Clever Max can even pronounce names with double syllables.

Sadly, there are no pics of Max - he's camera shy.

pic of Mischief from NT News

The staff of life: one man's dissent against his government

On 13 September 2009 (with little advance fanfare) it becomes mandatory to add folic acid to Australian wheat flour product at source, excepting organic flour.

An 110 year-old family run South Australian flour mill is firmly refusing to comply and on 28 August issued this letter to all its customers.

Which by an old 1960s yard stick means that civil war has broken out in Australia.

NSW public hospitals once more becoming thought of as a place you go to die?

When I was a nipper a hospital was considered a place you went to die.
By the time I became an adult hospitals had become places where you went to be treated and maybe if you were lucky, cured.
Now as I get even older and read the growing litany of medical errors, I begin to wonder if perceptions are swinging back again and we're once more becoming afraid of hospitals?
Take this old man left on a bedpan for so long in a public hospital that he had to have surgery for the ulcers this disgusting neglect created.
NSW Health Care Commission media releases over the last twelve months don't instill a lot of confidence either. Neither does the growing list of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists etc. who are either reprimanded, suspended or deregistered in this state.
If you want a real scare - just read this May 2009 Medical Journal of Australia article which looked at the chances of survival if a baby is born in a public hospital:
"After adjusting for the same maternal variables, serious adverse neonatal outcomes showed similar differences between the two hospital groups.
Term babies born in public hospitals were more likely to require high levels of resuscitation, to have an Apgar score < 7 at 5 minutes, and to require admission to a neonatal intensive care facility or special care nursery (Box 3).
Perinatal death was twice as likely for babies born in public hospitals.
Even using a composite for adverse perinatal outcome (patients with at least one adverse outcome), the unadjusted OR was 1.30 (95% CI, 1.28–1.33) for public hospital deliveries.
When the adverse perinatal outcomes were compared individually by method of birth, the differences between public and private hospital sectors persisted for all the adverse outcomes studied (data not shown).
For example, for spontaneous vaginal births, the rate of Apgar score < 7 at 5 minutes was 0.9% in the public group compared with 0.6% in the private group.
The differences for forceps deliveries (1.6% v 1.1%), ventouse deliveries (2.1% v 1.4%), and caesarean sections (1.3% v 0.5%) showed a similar pattern.
The rates of perinatal death were similarly lower in private hospitals for each method of birth: spontaneous vaginal birth (0.2% v 0.1%); forceps delivery (0.5% v 0.2%); ventouse delivery (0.2% v 0.1%); and caesarean section (0.3% v 0.1%)...
Conclusion: For women delivering a single baby at term in Australia, the prevalence of adverse perinatal outcomes is higher in public hospitals than in private hospitals."

So Prime Minister Rudd - when are you going to fix this appalling state of affairs?

The one liner doing the rounds in the Emerald City

Events in Macquarie Street - and elsewhere - last week
produced this gem:

"The NSW Government is like IKEA - one loose screw and the whole cabinet falls apart."

Thanks goes to The Fitz Files in The Sun Herald for that ripper!