'Steve' Gulaptis MP, fifth columnist?

Surfing the web I came across this little pearl from the mouth of the then Maclean Shire Mayor, now the NSW North Coast’s very own MP for Page, ‘Steve’ Gulaptis – which leads me to wonder if he joined the O’Farrell Coalition Government just so that he could help eradicate it?

ABC North Coast Radio live interview on 11th May 2002

Coal seam gas miners won't be putting any presents under the Chrissie tree

Royalties paid by coal seam gas miners in NSW are next to nothing so, as Janet Cavanaugh writes in today's Daily Examiner, don't hold your breath waiting for funds from those sources to amount to anything worth talking about.

Don't expect it any time soon
For those expecting Metgasco's royalties to fund the Pacific Highway upgrade, the second Grafton bridge or a 24-hour police station in Casino (DEX, December 17 "CSG could co-exist: Metgasco") - don't expect it any time soon.
The NSW Government's assistance to encourage the industry includes a five-year holiday on paying royalties for each and every well, and then discounted royalties for a further five years. In contrast, coal seam gas royalties in Queensland are a flat 10% each year.
Peak production of wells often occurs in the first few years of a well's life, with production dropping off significantly after that. In 2010, the total paid to the NSW Government in coal seam gas royalties was only $462,000.
Does Metgasco seriously think this can fund anything more than a fraction of the bureaucracy which is meant to regulate the industry?
Janet Cavanaugh, Whiporie

Source: Letters, The Daily Examiner, 22/12/11

Don't laugh, this is a true story

A 10-years-old sheep on a farm on the Isle of Wight has been fitted with false teeth. The plastic teeth were fitted last week and in seven days the sheep put on 20lb.

That gem appeared in today's Daily Examiner but it wasn't a recent news item. It happened 50 years ago. Regular Examiner readers appreciate the work of Chris Nield who compiles "Backward Glances: Extracts from The Daily Examiner 50 years ago today".

In other 'old' news reported in the Examiner today:

* Sir Earle Christmas Page, former Australian Prime Minister died in Sydney to-day. Lady Page and close relatives were at his bedside constantly as he fought for his life. [Well, truth be known, Sir Earle died on 20 December.]

Footnote: The Australian Dictionary of Biography states that Sir Earle's first wife, Ethel, predeceased him. Ethel died in 1958 and on 20 July 1959 Sir Earle married his secretary Jean Thomas at St Paul's Cathedral. Sir Earle fought his last election in December 1961. Suffering from cancer, he hardly appeared in the electorate and died in Sydney on 20 December, not knowing that he had lost his seat after forty-two year.

Before you get too comfortable.......

From Monash University’s Indigenous Human Rights and History Vol 1(1) [Occasional Papers Series Editors: Lynette Russell, Melissa Castan] comes Genocide in Australia: By Accident or Design? by Colin Tatz – giving us all something to think about as 2011 ends:

There was no pendulum before the 1970s. That there was no desire, let alone a need, to look was partly because Australians regard themselves as quintessential democrats and decent colonists, ‘genuinely benevolent’ as Hancock would say, convinced that Australian-ness [by birth or even by naturalisation] is a natural immunity to bad or homicidal, let alone genocidal, behaviour. When Australia reluctantly ratified the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (hereafter, Genocide Convention or GC)3 in June 1949, a bipartisan parliament was aghast that Australia should be associated with a Genocide Convention Bill. Liberal MP Archie Cameron declared that ‘no one in his right senses believes that the Commonwealth of Australia will be called before the bar of public opinion, if there is such a thing, and asked to answer for any of the things which are enumerated in this convention.’ Labor MP Leslie Haylen was adamant that ‘the horrible crime of genocide is unthinkable in Australia … that we detest all forms of genocide and desire to remove them arises from the fact that we are a moral people. The fact that we have a clean record allows us to take such an attitude...’ (Hansard 1949: 1871–6).

Their indignation and belief in an unblemished record notwithstanding, Australia’s behaviour is now before the bar of public opinion and inevitably on the international conference table; it is increasingly illustrated in museums and film documentaries; it is taught in a small but growing number of university courses and in most high school syllabuses; and published in newspapers, books, annotated bibliographies, genocide studies journals and websites abroad and at home. The Australian case now appears in anthologies like Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views.4 Genocide in Australia is now thinkable and thought about — here and abroad.

That the Aboriginal experience doesn’t look like, sound like or feel like Auschwitz is a quite proper conclusion — but genocide is not restricted to that heinous chapter of the twentieth century. Despite the many differences between the Australian and other cases, the evidence on the destruction of Aboriginal societies is strong enough to fall clearly within the scope of the crime defined in international law……..

Jaysus Wept! Are we never to have a break from the Nomadic Noman?

Apparently Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott cannot stand the thought of ordinary Aussies having a Tony-free media over the Christmas break.
Read this and weep:
"Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is still in the office. He will stop for Christmas Day in Sydney with his family, but keep working in the week leading up to New Year's Eve."
What on earth is he going to tour, open or opine over for heaven's sake - some poor sod's assessment of presents given or received?
The man's clearly unbalanced, if the only time he'll give his family is one lousy day of the most important holidays of the year just so that he can keep his bluidy name in print.