Kevin 747 packs his travel bag - again!

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stepped into another jet plane on the weekend and flew out of the country.
I'm beginning to lose count of how many overseas trips Our Kev has made since the federal election of November 2007.
Is this the 14th, 15th or 16th taxpayer-funded jaunt?

Here on the NSW North Coast we are struggling with high fuels costs without a real choice to use public transport, rent increases in a housing pool which is not growing to keep up with demand, spiralling grocery prices in areas with some of the lowest wages and highest unemployment in Australia, a crumbling health system with a truly laughable public dental service, inadequate pensions of all sorts which see recipients going without life's essentials and many self-funded retirees taking a big hit from the global financial crisis.

Kev old cobber, I'm not impressed - you're putting on pork and we're getting skinnier.

Somehow that just doesn't seem right in the lucky country.......

Uh oh...

I put Kev on the plane 24 hours ahead of his departure time. Sorry for the confusion.

A selection of NSW Northern Rivers art

Untitled landscape by John Turton

Untitled seascape by Spuddy

Untitled bird study by Christine Willcocks

These Northern Rivers artists displayed at

Total Travel

Sidesplitting quote from the Nationals' chief nong

The Daily Examiner in true tabloid style ran a front page yesterday on the 'war' over bats going on at Maclean.

State Nationals MP for Clarence, Steve Cansdell, drew a bellow of laughter from me at breakfast when I read that he had said: "war will be declared on this Federal Government" and "A major confrontation will occur and I will be in the centre of it - I have to be".

Trust our resident political nong.
As yet there are no bats in any number in the immediate vicinity of Maclean High School.
With the extinction of the adjoining rainforest patch in which flying foxes previously roosted, they may not come back as a highly visible presence for generations.
Yet here he is - ready to get out the batmobile and confront Canberra at the head of his 'troops'.

All this huffing and puffing because the precautionary dispersal licence applied for is apparently going through the usual channels whenever such an application concerns a listed vulnerable species.

Bucket rating awarded to APN media for giving Stevo's hysteria column inches:

Batty politics

The Clarence Valley township of Maclean has a front row seat as the Labor MP for Page and the Nationals MP for Cowper play duelling banjos to the tune of bats awa' wi ye.

On September 8th The Daily Examiner told the world:

On Thursday, The Daily Examiner reported that an application by Clarence Valley Council and the New South Wales Department of Education for a licence to disperse bats from a rainforest reserve near Maclean High School and an area known as 'the gully' had hit a stumbling block.
The applicants were advised by the Federal Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts that it considered disturbing bats as a 'controlled action' which required a lengthy and time-consuming environmental impact statement (EIS)....
They are concerned about delays in approval for the licence that they've had in past years to disperse the bats so they won't settle in the school area," Ms Saffin said.
"This is a matter for the state and federal environment departments and I don't see why the previous licensing arrangements can't continue.
"I have agreed to raise the issue with Environment Minister Peter Garrett on behalf of the school community and I'm aware that timing is an issue on this matter."

On September 19th ABC North Coast broadcast this:

The federal Member for Cowper, Luke Hartsuyker, has taken the issue of the bats at Maclean to the federal stage.
In a speech to the Parliament this week, Mr Hartsuyker criticised the federal Environment Department for not approving the granting of a licence to remove the bats from bush near the Maclean High School.
Mr Hartsuyker says the New South Wales Department of Environment and Climate Change referred the matter to the Commonwealth.
He says the federal Environment Department wants a report prepared before making a decision.
"There's no justification in stopping those bats from moving on, there is a precedent for this and the people of Maclean, the students and staff of the school are certainly demanding of a safe place to go to school and certainly a good educational environment," he said.

No-one seems to be going to bat for the vulnerable Grey-headed Flying Fox except the Federal Dept. of the Environment.
It will be interesting to see if Minister Peter Garrett listens to his department or the political banjos.