Electricity privatisation: NSW Speaker opposes it

The Member for Northern Tablelands and Speaker in the NSW Legislative Assembly, Richard Torbay, has put his cards about the privatisation of electricity on the table.

The Armidale Express reports Torbay said, "I am still opposed to the electricity privatisation and have not heard any arguments to convince me otherwise.

“Short term it will inevitably lead to loss of jobs and poorer services in country areas. But in long term the policy of selling off public assets may be seen as short sighted.

“The debate we should be having is the lack of government investment in public infrastructure over a long period and whether the people would be better served through reversing this position.”

Torbay said the power privatisation debate debased political standards in NSW and both the government and opposition had misled the people.

Although Torbay gave both the Government and Opposition serves for the position they have taken on the power issue, he made a stinging attack on National Party MPs.

According to Torbay, the Nationals had publicly opposed the sell off and told their constituents they were against it, but caved in at the last minute and fell in line with their Coalition partners.

“It’s like dairy deregulation and firearms legislation. The Nationals say one thing in the electorate and then go back to Parliament and vote against it,” he said.

With all its duck shoving, manoeuvring, number crunching and backflipping it has been an exercise in sheer hypocrisy and the worst I’ve seen since entering Parliament,” he said.

“The vital component missing in this debate has been the interests of the people.

“They have been misinformed and misled from start to finish.

“Although it looks as if we have a done deal on the privatisation, very few people in regional NSW have any idea of how it would impact on them or whether it is a sound long term decision. That is the debate we should have had.”

Mr Torbay said the Labor government went to the 2007 election with a commitment not to privatise the state’s public electricity assets and despite internal divisions now seemed set to push it through.

After sitting on the fence throughout the debate, the Liberals and Nationals had given their support this week based on conditions that were simply a face saving device to mask growing political division within the parties.

The Bush Wedding - doin' it big, Texan style

In marrying 30-year old Henry Hager, Jenna Bush, the daughter of US President George Bush, didn't do things in half measures.

Today's Sydney Morning Herald reports (courtesy of The Washington Post) the happy couple had 30 attendants included Jenna's twin sister, Barbara, who as bridesmaid wore a long "moonstone blue" silk gown; 14 other young women in short chiffon dresses, by the designer Lela Rose; Mr Hager's older brother, Jack, who was best man; and 14 ushers.

Did you get that?

Yep, you read it right. The happy couple had thirty, t-h-i-r-t-y, 30, 3-0, attendants!

How would you feel if you were one of Henry or Jenna's buddies/pals and you didn't get a place in their First XXX.

P _ ssed off, one would imagine.

The world's oceans are becoming fish poor

On the NSW North Coast we can all be proud of the fact that local commercial fishing fleets have begun to take onboard the idea of sustainability and the need to better manage how they harvest wild fish stocks.

Even if one day of keeping an eye on recreational fishers is likely to make the blood run cold with apprehension for future river estuary fish numbers.

 

Nationally, overfishing by both groups remains an issue.

Nineteen of the twenty-eight fish categories that are managed by the Commonwealth are still overfished and two more are close to being overfished.

 

With fish meat being an established part of the global diet, human population numbers and known fish numbers are showing a disturbing scenario.

 

In The Observer on Sunday.

 

Is anyone not aware that wild fish are in deep trouble? That three-quarters of commercially caught species are over-exploited or exploited to their maximum? Do they not know that industrial fishing is so inefficient that a third of the catch, some 32 million tonnes a year, is thrown away? For every ocean prawn you eat, fish weighing 10-20 times as much have been thrown overboard. These figures all come from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which also claims that, of all the world's natural resources, fish are being depleted the fastest. With even the most abundant commercial species, we eat smaller and smaller fish every year - we eat the babies before they can breed.

Callum Roberts, professor of marine conservation at York University, predicts that by 2050 we will only be able to meet the fish protein needs of half the world population: all that will be left for the unlucky half may be, as he puts it, 'jellyfish and slime'. Ninety years of industrial-scale exploitation of fish has, he and most scientists agree, led to 'ecological meltdown'. Whole biological food chains have been destroyed.

 

Australian Bureau of Rural Sciences Fisheries Status Report 2006 here.

Australian Marine Conservation Society Sustainable Seafood Guide here.

A blog the Liberals don't want the world to read - opps, way too late for that!

It seems the Victorian Liberal Party is objecting to a website highly critical of Ted Baillieu, which allegedly happens to be the brainchild of certain headquarters staff.
The site Ted Baillieu Must Go: because he stands for nothing...falls for everything can now only be viewed by invitation.

Below is a copy of an 11 February 2008 post, from a front page which is still retrievable here courtesy of Alpine Opinion.
The bane of all would-be censors, Google cached posts are here, here,and here.
The blog authors have contact listed as byebyeredted@gmail.com.
Why not congratulate them for once again showing the nation just how united the Liberal Party of Australia actually is.

They’re coming to get you Ted:

There is a simple rule in conservative politics; if it’s in the Age it’s probably bullshit. Nowhere is this rule more relevant than when it applies to the internal machinations of the Liberal Party. Most liberals and conservatives understand this and give the contemptible, socialist rag a wide berth; that is, except for Ted Baillieu, Petro Georgiou and that epitome of treachery John Malcolm Fraser. If fact, you only have to pick up a copy of the Age to see the latest Liberal Party communiqué from Ted Baillieu’s office usually under his pseudonym, Paul Austin.

What Ted doesn’t understand is that the Age is not on his side. It is what we in business would call strategic objective misalignment. They simply want a different outcome to that of the Liberal Party – specifically the retention of the Labor state government. For the Age the battle grounds are drawn internally within the ALP. How do they, the leftist editors of the Age, exert influence over the dominant conservative Labor Unity faction within the party? How do they bring about their socialist utopia while undermining both a conservative state government and nullify the threat of an effective Liberal Party?

For the answer, again just pick up the Age.

Paul Austin’s latest contribution Baillieu scores a much-needed coup is a prime example of the Age strengthening the enemy of its enemy. By propping up an inept and gullible leader like Ted the Age can minimize the threat of someone electable taking the reins.

We here at hewhostandsfornothing know that the only coup needed is a coup d'état.

The coalition agreement is a positive step, we acknowledge that, but it is the minimum expected of a man who would be Premier of Victoria. Far from strengthening his position the coalition arrangement will damage Baillieu. By placing him and Ryan in the spotlight together the high performing National leader will by contrast highlight Baillieu’s inadequacy for office. The conservative forces of the old country party will not long stay silent, nor will they let anything get in the way of their primary goal - government.

The take away message for you Teddy is that the Nationals joined up with the Liberal Party not Ted Baillieu. Remember the nuance in Ryan’s statement ‘we are two independent parties coming together to defeat Labor and govern in Coalition’, it is telling.

But don’t worry I am sure they will give you 100% support, until the moment you are replaced.

Posted by Liberal Insider at 7:30 PM 2 comments Links to this post