'Steve' Gulaptis MP gets a chance to prove how effective his representation is for Clarence

The Nationals Glove Puppet for Clarence, ‘Steve’ Gulaptis has his first chance to prove his metal.

The former disgraced MP for Clarence, Steve Cansdell, promised air-conditioning for Yamba Public School on Angourie Road.

The school is approximately 5m above sea level and around 1.5 kilometres inland as the crow flies from the higher sheltering coastline.

Now the O’Farrell Coalition Government and Education Minister Andrew Piccoli has decided Summer cooling of class rooms (which can experience up to 30 degree plus indoor temperatures) is unnecessary because the Yamba Pilot Station on a sea promontory at around 27m above sea level gets a regular ‘breeze’.

So far all Gulaptis has done is bleat in The Tele – time to do more ‘Steve’!

Opposition Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey exposed

Peter Martin on 1 December 2011:

The two Perth accountants who costed the Coalition’s 2010 election policies breached professional standards and will be fined, a disciplinary tribunal has ruled.

The ruling is an embarrassment to the Coalition which claimed during the campaign the costing was “as good as you could get anywhere in the country, including in Treasury." In recent months it has threatened to use private accountants once again.

Geoffrey Phillip Kid and Cyrus Patell, both of the Perth office of WHK Horwath produced a one-page report for the Coalition two days before the election which Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey tendered as an audit, saying the pair had certified “in law that our numbers are accurate".

“If the fifth-biggest accounting firm in Australia signs off on our numbers it is a brave person to start saying there are accounting tricks,” he told ABC radio. “I tell you it is audited. This is an audited statement.’’

In fact the document was the result of a carefully-worded agreement between the accountants and the Coalition to produce work primarily "not of an audit nature".

An audit would examine the assumptions used by the Coalition and whether they were reasonable.

Kidd and Patell’s unpublished agreement with the Coalition explicity required them to make no inquires about “the reasonableness of otherwise of the assumptions used"...

A professional conduct tribunal established by the Institute of Chartered Accountants ruled in July that Kidd and Patel were liable to face disciplinary action because their one-page report failed to contain “a statement that the procedures performed do not constitute either an audit or a review” and so failed to properly describe the limited nature of the agreed upon procedures…

Read the rest here.

Something to ponder about the 2011-12 Federal Budget

An example of where the Australian Labor Party has lost its way.

The Punch and Jo Thornely on 2^nd December 2011:

“Wading through the bits of the 2011-2012 Budget that actually say actual things in actual English (that is, the bits that don’t say things like “continuing benefits to the bottom-line beyond the forward estimates”, which I assume means “um”) I was struck by some comparative numbers.

One of the numbers was $222 million, which has been earmarked to extend the National School Chaplaincy Program.

One of the other numbers was $53 million, put aside to improve access to public dental services, particularly for those with low incomes. In a (perhaps simplistic) summation, in financial terms the government is around four times more likely to give you access to divinity than dentistry. It will be easier to learn about Noah’s Ark than dental plaque.”

A few barefaced political untruths in November-December 2011

"...controlled burns, despite these problems over the recent couple of weeks, [are] absolutely essential."  WA Premier Colin Barnett in ABC News, 4 December 2011

The US said it was committed to making a success of the UN climate talks currently taking place in South Africa.  BBC News, 3 December 2011

He pledged to save small business $1 billion a year by cutting red tape.  Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott in Crikey, 2 December 2011

Mr Hockey said the Coalition would press ahead with its promise of tax cuts at the next election. The Australian,  2 December 2011

"It [the Murray Darling Basin Plan] is a Greens manifesto," Mr Chesson said. The Australian, 2 December 2011

Mr Gulaptis said his primary focus as Member for Clarence would be to see that the O'Farrell Government continues to deliver for the Clarence. The Northern Star, 29 November 2011

Christopher Pyne insisted there was a sacred and immutable Westminster principle that a Speaker must come from the government party... The Canberra Times, 27 November 2011

Because the Gillard Government is in so much debt some independent retiree superannuation is worthless Northern Rivers resident, 26 November 2011

Liberal backbencher Michael Pengilly has made more comment on his embarrassing tweet in which he called the Prime Minister "a real dog". He has blamed his slur against Julia Gillard on his lack of "digital dexterity". ABC News, 25 November 2011

Mr Cansdell says......"I didn't really appreciate the gravity of my decision then, and I didn't think much about it at all.  ABC Mid North Coast,  22 November 2011

Widely-held assumptions that climate change is responsible for an upsurge in extreme drought, flood and storm events are not supported by a landmark review of the science.  The Australian, 18 November 2011

In the United States, we’ll never forget how Australia invoked the ANZUS Treaty - for the first time ever - showing that our two nations stand as one. U.S. President Barack Obama in the Herald Sun, 17 November 2011

the police gave the same holding statement that has been issued for the past six weeks about ''investigations [into disgraced former Clarence MP Steve Cansdell are] ongoing''. The Age, 13 November 2011

"The Government has been borrowing around $135 million each and every day to pay its bills.”  Luke Hartsuyker Nationals MP for Cowper in The Northern Star,  9 November 2011

Church parties accept their responsibility when victims of abuse seek damages through legal proceedings and when liability or potential liability is clear. Cardinal George Pell in The Australian, 4 November 2011