Finally, the light begins to dawn.......

The New York Times 16 December 2011:

The National Institutes of Health on Thursday suspended all new grants for biomedical and behavioral research on chimpanzees and accepted the first uniform criteria for assessing the necessity of such research. Those guidelines require that the research be necessary for human health, and that there be no other way to accomplish it.

In making the announcement, Dr. Francis S. Collins, the director of the N.I.H., said that chimps, as the closest human relatives, deserve “special consideration and respect” and that the agency was accepting the recommendations released earlier in the day by an expert committee of the Institute of Medicine, which concluded that most research on chimpanzees was unnecessary.

One of the reasons why Japan thumbs its nose at Australia and continues to slaughter whales in the Southern Ocean?

A Japanese ship injures a whale with its first harpoon.

 It took three harpoon attempts to kill the mammal.

Photograph: Kate Davidson/EPA/Corbis,

The Guardian UK December 14, 2011

Perhaps this is the answer to the puzzle of why, in the face of ongoing Australian opposition, the Government of Japan (under the guise of research) continues to needlessly kill whales in Antarctica for a dwindling domestic whale meat market – it thinks it owns us.

According to the Australian Parliament’s About the House Magazine in December 2011:

Japan [is] ranked as Australia’s third largest source of merchandise imports in 2010 (after China and the United States), worth $18.2 billion. The automotive sector dominates this trade, with Australia constituting the third-biggest market for new passenger motor vehicles manufactured in Japan.

The economic relationship between Australia and Japan is not only about trade. Japan has been Australia’s third largest foreign investor for many years (after the United States and the United Kingdom). The total stock of Japanese investment in Australia at the end of 2010 was $117.6 billion, almost twice as large as that of China (including Hong Kong). When both trade and investment are included – and taking account of both the depth and breadth of that investment, which has been critical to the development of Australia’s most important industries – Japan could still be considered to be Australia’s most important economic partner overall.

Japanese demand for Australia’s resources – and the accompanying investment – has contributed enormously to the development of Australia’s mining industry. In the area of agriculture, over 40 per cent of ‘Aussie beef’ imported into Japan comes from Japanese-owned farms in Australia. Kirin Holdings now owns Australia’s largest dairy company, as well as some of Australia’s largest beer producers. In the field of manufacturing, Toyota not only exports passenger vehicles to Australia, but – through its in-country production facilities – is also the largest producer of these vehicles in Australia. Furthermore, Japanese investment is increasingly targeted at using Australia as a springboard into the emerging economies of Asia. Japanese investment has been remarkable for its breadth, continuity and steady expansion over time, regardless of fluctuations in the global economic situation.

Australians can noticeably alter this scenario if enough individuals refuse to purchase goods imported from Japan or goods produced by Japanese–owned companies operating in this country, for as long as Japan acts as an inhumane environmental vandal in the Southern Ocean.



Has Clarence Valley Council brought a pup?

Two conflicting sides to the same story reported by newspapers from two different stables.

Clarence Valley Council’s new general manager Scott Greensill (left) defends himself in The Daily Examiner on 15^th December 2011:

“Scott Greensill said he had nothing to fear from a Supreme Court judgment handed down on Friday in a case involving his former employer, Singleton Council.

Mr Greensill said although the judgement went against the council there were no adverse findings against him.

"At the end of the day it is something that I've moved on from," he said.

"At all times I acted in good faith and on legal advice. I'm confident I handled the matter professionally."

Mr Greensill said the Singleton Council had a lot of "issues" and he was happy to have left them behind.”

Other side of the coin over at The Singleton Argus on 13th December 2011:

“Judge Schmidt’s findings were also critical of Mr Greensill, pointing out he “certainly acted inconsistently” with the council’s code of conduct by delegating “all responsibilities” in the Nichols matter to assets manager Gary Thomson yet continuing to still work on the case.
After his delegation, Mr Greensill twice sought and received advice from Mr McKelvey and wrote a memo for Mr Thomson which brought Mr Smith’s report on Cr Nichols to the full council.
While Mr Greensill, as general manager, may give advice or make recommendations to the council he did not have authority to direct councillors in the performance of their duties, Judge Schmidt accepted.
Mr Greensill could not forbid councillors from speaking with the Jones’, his advice could be rejected and did not bind councillors.”

As the full judgement is published in The Singleton Argus as Nichols v Singleton Council [2011] NSWSC 1517 Hearing Date(s): 22 August 2011, 23 August 2011, 24 August 2011 Decision Date: 9 December 2011 Jurisdiction: Common Law - Administrative Law Before: Schmidt J you can make up your own minds about Mr. Greensill’s role in the Singleton saga.

Pic from The Daily Examiner

“The Tribunal is conscious that the cost of the Parliament and of federal parliamentarians is borne by the taxpayer” ROFLOL

"The Tribunal is conscious that the cost of the Parliament and of federal parliamentarians is borne by the taxpayer", sez the so-called independent Remuneration Tribunal as it gives Australian federal politicians a free ride on the gravy train this week – with more pay increases to come by the looks of it.

According to Granny Herald; "Tribunal president John Conde told reporters in Sydney the prime minister's new salary would be $481,000 - up from $367,000."  Reading the actual report shows that in reality current senators and MPs are also giving up almost nothing to place their political snouts in this overflowing feed trough and future parliamentarians will lose very little - while if they get so much as an ego bruise during Question Time it is recommended that worker's compensation should be available to the wounded.

Here are some quotes:

"The Tribunal intends to determine parliamentary base salary of $185,000."

"The Tribunal has accepted electorate allowance as a business expense payment and intends to maintain it in its current form."

"The base electorate allowance is now $32,000 per annum, distributed to members and senators monthly…..

Members do not have to seek approval for how they expend the electorate allowance, nor do they have to acquit the expenditure of their allowance to the Chamber Departments which pay it."

"Manager of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives, at 27.5% additional salary;

 Shadow Cabinet minister, at 25.0% additional salary;

 Shadow minister outside shadow Cabinet, at 20.0% additional salary."

"The Tribunal recommends that overseas travel provisions for the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Leaders of minor parties be enhanced."

"In preparing this recommendation I am mindful that Backbench Members of Parliament who are either a Chair or Deputy Chair of a substantive Committee of the Parliament, receive additional remuneration for the fulfilment of that obligation, that Officers of the Parliament also receive additional remuneration as do Ministers of the Crown and the Prime Minister.

This report has not focused on those allowances or the established relativities between a Backbench Member of Parliament and office holders within the Parliament, which I understand will be the subject of further enquiry by the Tribunal."

'Suse me – have to leave the room to chunder!

Telstra fails to inform bundled account customers in writing of major privacy breach

This is the full text of the only correspondence from Telstra and BigPond sent on 13 December 2011 to a ‘bundled account’ customer whose name, address, phone number and account password/s may have been amongst the hundreds of thousands potentially publicly available on the Internet for an unspecified period.

See any mention of the breach or of this customer’s possible vulnerability to hacking/identity theft and advice on how to protect their account?

No, I didn’t either.

As you're aware some of our online services were unavailable from late Friday 9th to late Saturday 10th December due to an earlier internal systems issue.

I want to sincerely apologise for any inconvenience you may have experienced this weekend because of the disruption.

Services are now back up again for the majority of our customers, and your BigPond services should be working as normal.

The decision to temporarily reduce access to these services was not taken lightly and I know that our actions resulted in a poor online experience for you and was a source of frustration.

So if you have any technical difficulties after logging into your BigPond email account please see our online help, visit us on CrowdSupport or just call us on 133 933. We’re here to help any time.

Once again, I apologise for the disruption to your service and thank you for your patience.

Best regards,

Peter Jamieson
Executive Director, Customer Service