It can't be all bad if Tim Blair dislikes it

Poor Tim Blair of do-you-know-the-truth-or-do-you-read-the-Telegraph fame.

Almost everything that even hints at being slightly green or mentions the possibility of climate change seems to turn this journalist markedly dyspeptic.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he was also a green legume anorexic as a child. :)

Popped on to his 'personal' blog early last night and around a third of the posts on his home page contained a dig at Earth Hour in one form or another.

With Earth Hour likely to occur again next year and climate change just as likely to be remain a topic of discussion, perhaps Tim will have to consider breaking out the Mylanta.

Here's laughing at you, kid.

 

Look who's going to Rudd's 2020 summit

Take a gander at this piece on Kevin Rudd's Australia 2020 summit coming to a comic strip near you this April.

I'm sorry, Kev, but you don't really expect me to take your bit of fluff seriously do you?

First it was Canberra and now wannabe talkfests are springing up everywhere.

So help me - there's even one scheduled for the Clarence Valley. A real piece of busy business allowing government and council staff (along with non-government agency employees and local business operators) to justify their existence. 

The whole national box and dice has all the hallmarks of a camel in the making.

Larvatus Prodeo pointed out some of the problems weeks ago.

Whales of the NSW North Coast in pictures

A slideshow of whale photographs can be found at the North Coast's Southern Cross University Whale Research Centre website here.

This image shows a whale breaching off Byron Bay.

Whale song from ABC's Whale Dreams.

Obama team lashes out: Clinton will "do and say anything" McCain wants "100 years of war"

With the racial attitudes issue muddying waters in the US presidential nomination race, Barack Obama now refocusses attention on his opposition to the war in Iraq.

Pity that this much publicised opposition didn't include voting in the US Senate to starve George W's war machine.

 

Here is the latest email from the Obama camp, with its usual bottom line request for more money.

 

Senator Clinton and Senator McCain are reading from the same political playbook as they attack Barack on foreign policy.

They have both criticized Barack's commitment to act against top al Qaeda terrorists if others can't or won't act.

And they have both dismissed his call for renewed diplomacy as naïve while mistakenly standing behind George Bush's policy of non-engagement that just isn't working.

But most of all -- after five years of overwhelming evidence that we are less safe, less able to shape events abroad, and more divided at home -- Senator Clinton and Senator McCain are failing to address the consequences of a war they both supported that should have never been authorized and never been waged.

We need a leader who had the judgment to oppose this war before it began and who has a clear plan to end it.

But Barack is facing a two-front battle against Senator Clinton and Senator McCain. Make a donation of $25 to support this campaign today:

https://donate.barackobama.com/twofronts

We knew at the beginning of this campaign that we'd be up against the full force of the conventional thinking that grips Washington.

But no one could have imagined it would go on this long, or that we'd have to fight this battle on two fronts at the same time.

Senator Clinton's campaign, with her chances of winning dwindling and our delegate lead even larger than it was before her so-called comeback on March 4th, has adopted a "kitchen-sink" strategy to throw everything they can at us. Her campaign has made it clear they will do and say anything to win this nomination.

Senator McCain, now the presumptive Republican nominee, is already running his general election campaign. He's so eager to justify another 100 years of war in Iraq and drum up conflict with Iran that he and his campaign have been making sloppy and woefully false assertions about links between Iran and al Qaeda in Iraq.

We've got to take on both Senator Clinton and Senator McCain at the same time.

Your support now is more important than ever -- please make a donation of $25:

https://donate.barackobama.com/twofronts

Yesterday, Barack laid out a clear plan to make America more secure and end the war in Iraq.

Today, he laid out the economic costs of the war that Senator Clinton and Senator McCain supported.

In both speeches -- and in his speech on race in America earlier this week -- Barack Obama demonstrated that he is the candidate with the courage and judgment to tackle the challenges we face.

The choice Americans have in this election is clear -- and your support right now sends a message to those who support the status quo that it is time for a new kind of leadership.

Please do what you can to help fight this two-front battle for change:

https://donate.barackobama.com/twofronts

Thank you,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

Libs have more hide than Jessie the Elephant

Yesterday The Daily Telegraph let the world know that Brendan Nelson, Julie Bishop, Joe Hockey, Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott and friends would like more money please.

The parliamentary salary scale for Opposition MPs was fine by them when they held the more financially lucrative government benches, but now they don't they want more money for shadow ministers who currently receive the base salary of about $127,060 per annum plus $30,000 in electoral allowances.

With Nelson as Opposition Leader getting a total package of around $262,00 a year and Bishop as Deputy Leader getting an extra $73,000.

These lord high poobahs just cannot get their heads around the fact that they are now the plebs of the Australian Parliament. Their greed and arrogance appear to know no bounds.

With many on the NSW North Coast scratching to find their next meal, keep a roof over their heads and afford medical treatment, whining Libs will find little sympathy hereabouts. 

Oi, Tony - if your wants were weeds you'd have a paddock full!

Read my lips, Mr. Rudd. I will never vote Labor if you continue down this path

For over a decade the former Howard Government ignored this country's own democratic heritage, international law and UN conventions; as it sought ways to quash many of the historic human and legal rights of Australian citizens, turn the safety net welfare system into a form of alms giving dependant on a whim of the government of the day, commence the transformation of public infrastructure/services delivery into 'user pays', and convert a significant part of government pensions, benefits and allowances into a non-cash component.

 

It was easy to turn away from the Liberal Party and the Nationals when faced with this concerted effort to destroy what was left of the ideal of an egalitarian society and the notion of a fair go.

 

Now barely four months after the federal election which saw it installed, the Rudd Government continues to support most of the legislation and regulations which the Howard Government created as its preferred vehicle for the destruction of our civil liberties and the idea of a fair go.

 

We still see racist law operating, habeas corpus remains missing in action for some criminal charges, draconian sedition laws chill dissent, judgemental and punitive attitudes to the poor still flourish within government policy, and there is a continuing push to transform certain pensions, benefits and allowances into a modern version of food stamps under the guise of income 'management'. 

 

The Northern Territory intervention clearly demonstrated that this current push to replace a percentage of welfare cash payments with vouchers or cards has nothing to do with the cited reason of protecting children in dysfunctional home situations. Because income management there was immediately applied across the board in designated indigenous communities and involved people without children, family commitments or any form of addictive/anti-social behaviour.

 

This push originally started as a possible method to control and restrict the lives of welfare recipients in an effort to disguise the fact that the former government was intending to dismantle the welfare system overtime and the Rudd Government allows the push to continue for very similar reasons.

 

Like the Howard Government before it, this Federal Labor Government is first targeting groups which society has always felt comfortable about negatively labelling before it inevitably widens its 18th century net and goes after the unemployed and those with a disability. 

 

Sadly, modern Labor governments right across Australia are turning out to be nothing more than a collection of self-righteous suits eager to assume the position in front of neo-con think tanks, big business and professional god-botherers. Always happy to demonise the weak and vulnerable if doing so pleases these politically powerful sectors. Seeing nothing wrong with the diminished autonomy, discrimination, humiliation and financial loss that ensues.

 

So read my lips Mr. Rudd. If you continue down this path towards establishing debit cards for any or all 'welfare' recipients, I will not be voting for a Labor candidate at any future election.

What's more, I will treat Labor as I treat the Coalition and make sure that my ballot is likely to be exhausted long before my preferences could flow on to its candidate.

 

Therefore, although the Labor MP for Page may be a genuine and hard-working local member she will never see my vote.

No Labor candidate for the NSW Clarence electorate will ever get my vote in the future. Nor will any Clarence Valley local government candidate identified as a member of the Labor Party.

The ball is now in your court, Prime Minister.

Breaking news: Pensioners in financial stress

Australian pensioners will wake to the news today that their politicians have arrived at the ground breaking conclusion that pensioners don't live on easy street.

An Australian Senate committee report has highlighted that those who rely on the pension as their sole income are among those most in financial stress.

The committee's findings come as no surprise to those who struggle to subsist on the meagre pension, particularly single pensioners.

For some perverse reason, politicians, bureaucrats and other assorted bean counters have long figured that single pensioners have overheads that are significantly less than those of their married counterparts.

Even the most cursory examination of pensioners' expenditure records readily reveals that, for want of a better term, 'economies of scale' are had when couples live under the one roof and contribute towards their shared overheads such as rent and utilities.

Single pensioners face the same costs as couples. One doesn't have to be an Albert Einstein to understand that a more equitable approach to pensioner payments is long overdue.

That the committee has reported its findings and recommended an overhaul of pensions is commendable, but for something to be done about it, well that's another thing completely different.

Pensioners can expect to have to wait in their queue for some time. They would be well advised to not hold their breath while waiting for an appropriate course of action that would improve their lot to be implemented.

Heaven forbid, but some fiscal nerds are likely to respond that married pensioners are too well paid and call for their pensions to be cut, bringing them in line with their single counterparts. Too silly for words? Don't be too sure of that!

In part, The Sydney Morning Herald (March 21) reports:

Older single women tend to have missed out on compulsory superannuation and must rely on a pension that is low by English-speaking countries' standards.

They receive a pension of $546.80 a fortnight, compared with the $913.60 for couples, even though many fixed costs such as rates, rents and bills vary little between singles and couples.

The meagre payment meant pensioners were often reduced to relying on donations of food from friends and even, according to one inquiry witness, to "raiding dumpsters to retrieve bread, fruit, vegetables … and sometimes meat" discarded by grocery chains. Others told the inquiry of going to bed early to cut heating bills, and forgoing social visits to or from friends because of transport and meal costs.

The committee agreed to a bipartisan verdict acknowledging pensions had increased in real terms in the past decade. But after hundreds of submissions the committee said the comparatively widespread prosperity "obscures the fact that the distribution of wealth among many older Australians is unbalanced".

Many Australians, particularly those on low, fixed incomes with little discretionary spending capacity, were vulnerable to living cost rises. They were disproportionately affected by increases in essential goods and services: food, rent, petrol, utilities and health care. Growing medical and pharmaceutical costs and the lack of affordable dental services were disturbing.

"These older Australians do not enjoy a decent quality of life," the committee said.

The committee's call for a rethink on the level of the pension and the way it is calculated triggered a chorus of calls from seniors groups for the single pension to be lifted from the current 60 per cent to at least two-thirds of the couple rate.

The chief executive of National Seniors Australia, Michael O'Neill, said the findings "confirm what every pensioner knows: living on a pension has become almost impossible unless you have additional income".

The Government late yesterday signalled that it would consider lifting the single pension.

Read the report in The Sydney Morning Herald here.

The Easter Bunny in Australia

This weekend the Easter Bunny will begin his dawn journey across Australia laden with a limitless basket of chocolate eggs.

If you listen carefully, you may hear him cry as he tops a hill close by - Don't shoot!

OECD politely tells Australia it can do better for the environment

The 2007 OECD Environmental Performance Reviews: Australia is now available.

 

"Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett says the Government will act on the report's findings.

"Our response to this report will be genuinely whole-of-Government," he said.

"We know environment issues don't rest with one or two portfolios and that these issues don't stop at borders either, it's a whole-of-planet challenge and it requires a whole-of-Government response."

As Peter Garrett is new to the ministry only time will tell if he has any ability to live up to his words.

Hopefully before then he will learn that the environmental picture is larger and more complex than the issue of plastic bags.

 

Some of the main conclusions and recommendations of the OECD review suggest that Australia might be falling behind in effectively addressing:

transport sector emissions, air pollution control monitoring, fine particle pollution, urban growth pressure, use of market-based instruments to advance ecologically sustainable development, exit assistance for business/industry to protect environmental integrity, water scarcity, energy sector net greenhouse gas emissions, agency data collection, monitoring and reporting, integration of traditional owners into whole-of-government policy on natural resource management, equity for all Australian stakeholders, public consultation mechanisms, environmental impact training for business operators, integration of environmental objectives into government procurement and operation policies.

Joe Hockey loses his cool, again and again and again...

WorkChoices may finally be on the way out and Australian Workplace Agreements dead and gone, but Liberal and Nationals MPs brought the House of Representatives to a state of near chaos yesterday when the Minister for Workplace Relations Julia Gillard put forward a motion asking that the House recognise the ills caused by WorkChoices and undertake that statutory individual employment agreements should never be reintroduced into Australian industrial relations law.

The Liberals Joe Hockey went ballistic and tried to shut the motion down. The Opposition then tried twice more in succession to gag debate of the motion.
Thwarted they tried a third time and then Uncle Joe unsuccessfully moved that the Deputy Speaker's ruling be dissented from.

On and on and round and round the arguments and divisions went, from 11.39am to 1.02pm, until Ms. Gillard's motion was finally voted in.

Immediately after that the Opposition Deputy Leader Julie Bishop rose to a make a motion praising WorkChoices and the whole uproar started again for another 21 minutes, as the Government retaliated by gagging this debate and forcing a vote.

Almost two hours of parliamentary mayhem, only lightened by the unconscious irony of former Howard Government minister Tony Abbott referring to another party's parliamentary tactics as "jackboot government" and Labor's Anthony Albanese losing patience and calling Hockey "fool".
Such a waste of taxpayers money.

News.com.au reported on aspects of the uproar yesterday.
Hansard records it all here.

Those life-style nongs are at it again

I frequently have to wonder whether there is anything at all in the brainboxes of some who decide to purchase small parcels of rural land, for a life style change or a gamble on future rezoning.

These people are thick on the ground now on the NSW North Coast and a few like these misguided souls are objecting to payment of the Rural Lands Protection Board levy.

Yelling that this is a tax on seachangers they refuse to cough up for years on end.

Rarely do you find owners like these keeping their land in good heart. Often their plots are weed filled and sour, with no crop or stock in sight.

The half-hearted attempts at bush regeneration are often abandoned before completion. 

I have little sympathy with their views. All I see is more agricultural land being removed from any meaningful productivity and court time being wasted.

Gimme, gimme folks one and all. They give genuine small-acreage farmers a bad name.

It's not easy being green: time for Australian governments to put their investments in order

This month the Australian Conservation Council released its 32 page report Responsible Public Investment in Australia.

 

3 RESPONSIBLE PUBLIC INVESTMENT IN AUSTRALIA

Few of the government funds interviewed for this report appeared to have linked ESG factors with their material influence on returns and the associated risks and opportunities in investment management.

This demonstrates a worrying disconnection between many public sector funds and industry best practice developments.

In many cases government asset managers lack the transparency of private sector asset managers in terms of their investment strategy and portfolio holdings.

However, a small number of asset managers were aware of ESG developments and reported

that the UN PRI was being considered at board level.

Government investments in the energy sector may be undermining stated environmental policy

objectives.

The investment practices of government funds have the potential to support or detract from government policy goals.

Most Australian jurisdictions, for example, have policies and laws that related to climate change and energy.

But investment priorities sometimes appear to undermine stated policy objectives.

The total investment of all State, Territory and Commonwealth funds in the listed energy sector is estimated as follows:

Industry: Holdings ($ million):

Nuclear/uranium $ 559

Fossil fuels $ 5,379

Renewable energy $ 126

There appear to be contradictions between these investment holdings and the stated policy goals of some States and Territories.

In particular:

• NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia all have significant holdings in uranium-related equities, despite legislative or political bans on uranium mining;

• All jurisdictions have very low holdings in the renewable energy sector, despite a stated strong commitment to renewable energy as a critical part of future energy generation; and

• All jurisdictions have significant exposures to fossil fuel industries, despite a range of policy commitments relating to the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The imbalance between investment in fossil fuels and renewable energy sources is striking, given the public commitment of all Australian governments to renewable energy.

 

The report also identifies the Commonwealth Futures Fund as not taking social, environmental and governance issues into consideration when making investment portfolio management decisions.

 

It's time for a whole of government approach to public investment. The Rudd Government needs to lead the way by example on this and then drag the states, kicking and screaming if necessary, into a green investment plan.

Five long years of war in Iraq - time to reflect on our sins

March 19 Blog Swarm logo.

Professor Gideon Polya from Australia writing on Iraq War death toll last year.

"As of September 2007: (a) the accrual cost of the Bush War on Terror stands at $2.5 trillion (as determined by US 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz) ; (b) there are 4 million Iraqi refugees; (c) the post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) total 1.1 million; (d) post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.5 million (a corrected estimate based on the latest UN data); (e) there were 1.7 million excess Iraqi deaths associated with the Western-imposed 1990-2003 Sanctions War; (f) there were 1.2 million under-5 year old infant deaths in the 1990-2003 Sanctions War; and (g) Coalition military deaths now total about 4,086 (see: http://icasualties.org/oif/ )."

Opinion Research Business (ORB) Iraq casualty survey media release January 2008.
ORB full survey data here.

Obama 08: Send me votes, lots of votes and a starry sky above

The race for Democratic nomination is so relentless one has to wonder if either Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama will have any energy left to contest John McCain for the Oval Office.

 

Here's Obama's latest email effort yesterday.

 

Dear [redacted],

When Michelle and I decided to enter this race more than a year ago, one of our hopes was to bring people back into the political process.

Like so many Americans, we'd been exhausted and frustrated by the slash-and-burn politics that had come to dominate our elections. Smallness and pettiness were the rule, not the exception. And it seemed like every day, more and more Americans were tuning out their democracy.

This election, we're seeing something different.

Nearly as many people have participated in the Democratic primary this year than in 2000 and 2004 combined. And there are still ten contests left to go.

As we enter the final stretch of elections, we have a unique opportunity to shape the outcome -- and the outcome of elections up and down the ballot this November.

The last day to register new voters in Pennsylvania is March 24th. In North Carolina and Indiana, it's in early April. And in West Virginia and Kentucky, the voter registration deadline is a little more than a month from today.

So today we're launching a national initiative to register an unprecedented number of voters in each of the upcoming states.

No matter where you live, you can help get people registered in the upcoming states. You can make phone calls from home, reach out to people you know in these states, or even sign up to travel to one of these states to be on the ground for this massive voter registration effort.

Learn more about what you can do to bring as many voters as possible into the political process:

http://my.barackobama.com/morevoices

Young voters have shaped this presidential primary like no other.

In Iowa, South Carolina, Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Mississippi, the youth vote has tripled since 2004. And in all other states it has reached record levels. And these young voters are breaking 2-to-1 Democratic.

Statistics show that if we can get young people to vote Democratic now, they are far more likely to vote regularly -- and vote for Democrats -- throughout their lives.

So by getting involved and helping to register voters, you're not just increasing the number of voters in this election. You're increasing the number of people who will be engaged Democratic voters for the rest of their lives.

Sign up to help bring More Voices into the Democratic primary today:

http://my.barackobama.com/morevoices

More than fifteen years ago, after I finished law school, I came back to Chicago and led a voter registration drive on the South Side.

For months, our passionate and hardworking volunteers pounded the pavement -- registering folks everywhere they could, from barber shops to grocery stores to apartment building lobbies to local fairs. One particularly enthusiastic woman -- who until then had never been involved in politics -- made it her personal goal to register 100 voters a day, and ultimately registered 3,000 new voters.

In the end, we made a real difference in Illinois. Our team registered more than 150,000 new voters, not only impacting local elections, but helping to shift the balance in state and national races as well. Illinois went from voting Republican in 1988 to Democratic in 1992.

That lesson has informed how we've run this campaign. And now we have an unbelievable opportunity to apply it on a massive scale.

When new or returning voters participate in the Democratic primary, they are far more likely to come back and participate in the general election.

That's not just good for presidential candidates; it's good for Democrats up and down the ticket. More engaged, committed Democratic voters in the primaries means more votes this November in all fifty states -- from competitive statewide races to state legislative and city council seats everywhere.

You can make a difference right now. Encourage someone to register in time to participate in the presidential race in their state.

Learn more and get involved here:

http://my.barackobama.com/morevoices

Thanks for all your hard work,

Barack

P.S. -- Here's an example of how you can get involved right now.

In Pennsylvania, Independent voters must register as Democrats by March 24th in order to vote in the primary. One supporter made calls this weekend and reached 10 Independent voters who wanted to vote for us -- four of whom needed information about how to register.

Our team has created an online tool that provides all the information you need to make calls from home.

Get started now:

http://my.barackobama.com/callpa

Nelson's 'headland' speech obviously written on the rocks below

Well, I have to say Brendan Nelson's speech to the National Press Club yesterday was really something.

He invoked the ghost of Ming and called on the political corpse of Howard to pick up its bed and walk, as he uttered the mother of all redundant speeches.

Nothing new in it or the subsequent Q&A. In fact he went so far as to promise that there would be no change from the status quo.

The whole thing was just a reworking of Liberal Party broad motherhood statements with a dash of the (by now obligatory) half-repudiation of former policies. 

The right's usual anti-Islamic rhetoric tossed in to spice the mix and a verbal dump on indigenous Aussies for good measure.

Little Brennie going on to garnish the whole with a sudden discovery of the very issues which have troubled this country for the last eleven years, and an earnest pledge to do-something-about-it.

A short blast on a dog whistle to establish his credentials as leader of the morals police.

Then throwing in a tear jerker or two to let us know that he has a heart after all.

Barefaced hypocrisy at its best.

The Age today labelled the 'vision' speech as "rose water" and "gobbledegook".

Myself, watching the entire speech on ABC 1 fair made me want to chunder.

"Big Screen" film festival coming to Yamba 4-6 April 2008

The Australian Film Commission's 2008 Big Screen film festival is on its way to Yamba.

The festival runs between Friday 4 April and Sunday 6 April 2008, with screenings at both Yamba cinemas.

 

Highlights of this year's festival include:

• Meet Wendy Hughes, the star of Careful He Might Hear You and Return to Eden at the NSW premiere of her new film, The View From Greenhaven Drive
• A fantastic double bill with My Brilliant Career and The Man Who Sued God
• Fabulous free school screenings, including Dr Plonk and The Caterpillar Wish
• Our Town and short films by local Indigenous filmmakers
• A special family screening of Elephant Tales

Out Town is of special interest to the Clarence Valley as it is "A spirited film by young locals about the importance of the Clarence River to their lives and to their Indigenous culture. When the government proposes a dam, how do they feel?"

There is a free showing of this film at Yamba's Treelands Drive Cinema on Sunday 6 April at 5.15pm.

 

Phone (02) 6646.3430 or (02) 66.4656 for festival details.

Gillard wipes the floor with Bishop during Workplace Relations debate

The Monday 17 March 2008 Hansard record of Julia Gillard's response to Julie Bishop during the second reading of the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward With Fairness) Bill 2008.

 

"I am advised by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that she has nearly finished her remarks. If that is the case we will hear again from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and then do what the Australian people want us to do, which is to pass the bill which they voted for. In relation to the last representations and silly statements by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition—no doubt she will stand at the dispatch box and make another series of silly statements which I will leave unanswered—the Howard government never produced any economic modelling of Work Choices. I will not stand here as a member of the Rudd Labor government and be lectured by the current opposition on the question of the production of economic modelling. Indeed, her request for it is the height of hypocrisy. For the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to describe her proposal in her speech on the second reading as something that has been satisfied through the Senate inquiry process is a cover-up of the fact that she has clearly been rolled by her party room again. She tried to achieve yet another extension of Australian workplace agreements, because she believes in Work Choices—she believes in AWAs that can rip people off. She put that position to the party room, she got rolled and she clearly got rolled again on the amendment. I will give the Deputy Leader of the Opposition this: at least she knows what she believes in and she is prepared to stand up for it. I have to give the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that. I can understand her high state of anger with her colleagues whom she described in the media as having 'gone to water'. I can understand that. She at least knows what she believes in. She believes in Work Choices and she always will. But this government was elected to deliver something different. It is this bill. We are seeking passage of it through the House of Representatives today. We will receive the Senate inquiry report. We always supported there being a Senate inquiry with a proper time frame. We will consider what the Senate inquiry report says. But having had that consideration I can see no reason why this bill cannot pass the parliament this week so we can end forever the spectre that Australians walk into their workplaces to be confronted by an Australian workplace agreement that takes away an award condition from them without any, or any proper, compensation. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition can carry on about nominal expiry dates and time periods for agreements, but what she and the Liberal Party know is this: the only thing that ensured the end of Australian workplace agreements that can rip conditions away was the election of the Rudd Labor government. We would never have got to this point had the Howard government been re-elected. She will dismiss it—she will carry on about nominal expiry dates—but the Deputy Leader of the Opposition must concede that next week when this bill is proclaimed there will never again be an Australian worker who walks into their workplace fearful that that is the day when an Australian workplace agreement gets shoved into their hands that takes away an award condition for no proper compensation or perhaps no compensation at all. I think that is a truly historic step. The Rudd Labor government believes it to be a truly historic step. It is what the Australian people voted for when they repudiated Work Choices and the party of Work Choices—the Liberal Party."

 

It would have been interesting to read Ms. Gillard's response to what Malcolm Turnbull might have had to say during the second reading, but he appears to have been steadfastly silent during the debate. Did he even bother to turn up?

John Howard's political love child lives!

Just when I think that we've finally seen the back of that ultra right-wing warrior, John W Howard, something crops up to remind me that his political love children are still sitting on the Opposition benches of Federal Parliament.

 

Showing a hint that Australia may yet be bludgeoned by the dying gasps of Howard's cultural vendetta against everything except a blinkered, timeline view of history and rampant ethnocentric 

nationalism, little Brennie Nelson put this out in the media: "The concept of "defence of the realm" should be expanded beyond border control and fighter planes to embrace "defence of values". Dr Nelson wants to initiate what could be a politically volatile public discussion about what Australians stand for beyond universal values."

 

Oi, Brenn old china, didn't you notice the disruptive racist and xenophobic drivel which welled to the surface when Howard tried his hand at "defence of values"? 

Have you ever stopped for a minute to consider that ordinary Aussies might have been defending their personal and universal values when they kicked your mob out of government last November?

Or were you knee-deep in the jungle juice when you thought up the little bewdy above. 

 

 

Wearin' the green on 17 March 2008

Shamrock photograph from www.thegardenhelper.com

North Coast Voices wishes everyone a great St. Patrick's Day.
Go n-éirí an bóthar leat Go raibh an ghaoth go brách ag do chúl Go lonraí an ghrian go te ar d'aghaidh Go dtite an bháisteach go mín ar do pháirceanna Agus go mbuailimid le chéile arís, Go gcoinní Dia i mbos A láimhe thú.

Is Mister Splashy Pants now safe from Japan's whaling fleet?

With Japan admitting that this year's annual Antarctic whale hunt will probably yield poorer results due to hunt disruption and domestic sushi franchises and supermarkets indicating a reluctance to sell whale meat due to dwindling demand; will whales like Mister Splashy Pants be safe from future hunts or will he remain vulnerable because the Institute of Cetacean Research again inserts Humpback whales in next year's planned kill quota.

The Institute is obviously not backing down on its 'right' to conduct so-called scientific whaling and has quite a little PR war underway with no less than 25 media releases posted on its webpage so far this year.

Photograph of Splashy from http://www.greenpeace.org/

Ice on skids - a glacier meltdown graph

Glaciers are making the news again in the Australian media.

"Since 1980, glaciers have thinned by about 11.5 metres in a retreat blamed by the UN Climate Panel mainly on human use of fossil fuels. The thaw could disrupt everything from farming -- millions of people in Asia depend on seasonal melt water from the Himalayas -- and power generation to winter sports. The thaw could also raise world sea levels. UNEP said glaciers were among the clearest indicators of global warming. "There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine. The glaciers are perhaps among those making the most noise," said Achim Steiner, head of UNEP."

The World Glacier Monitoring Service has this visual representation of glacier ice net balance which brings home just how fast this melt is occurring.

Have Rusty, Jojo and Mellie finally deserted Malcolm Turnbull?

Malcolm Turnbull's personal blog is no longer posting entries from his family pets.
In fact Rusty the Red Cattle Dog, along with Jojo and Mellie the Maltese Silkies, has been totally silent since the 24 November 2007 federal election.
Have the pets left home for greener pastures?
Or does this present failure to place the pooch in front of a keyboard mean that Mal was under less pressure and better organised when he was a Minister of the Crown, Federal Cabinet member and local MP?
Is being the Coalition Shadow Treasurer turning out to be a task akin to mountain climbing right now?
Perhaps his very public spits at the Speaker during Question Time actually take hours in the planning and he has no time left over from making political mischief.
As the dogs often wrote about events in Mal's electorate, I have to wonder if he is attending many functions there these days.
Indeed the master of self-promotion has very few Wentworth events listed on his blog's electorate news page.

'Safe' GMO crops: one election promise Kevin 08 will run away from?

Instead of running to the media and spinning yet another ineffective attempt to use national advertising in a campaign to scare teenagers away from binge drinking, the Rudd Government should be forsaking the temptation to treat public policy as mere media moments and start quietly beavering away across all the issues that face Australia in 2008.

 

The genetically modified crop debate is one of those contentious issues which need to be resolved forthwith. The first genetically modified canola crop is due to go into the ground sometime this year.

 

Reported in ABC News yesterday.

 

"It is now legal to plant genetically modified (GM) canola in much of Australia, but a large group of concerned scientists, nutritionists and doctors is trying to convince the Federal Government to stop the seeds from ever being sown.

About 700 people have signed a letter to the Prime Minister, reminding him of Labor's election statement that safe and beneficial standards for GM products must be established beyond reasonable doubt."

According to The Age on the same day.

"The new federal campaign is being led by wealthy Adelaide businessman Peter Fenwick, who has urged Labor to maintain its pre-election stance on genetic engineering.

Yesterday, Mr Fenwick said he believed Mr Burke was "relatively uninformed" about the risks associated with GM, and had been "captured by his department".

Mr Rudd has been urged to:

■ Stop the release of any GM crops until he has met scientific experts to hear the latest evidence.

■ Order an immediate product safety recall on all GM crops, GM foods and GM animal feed, and ban their importation into Australia.

■ Overhaul the regulatory bodies with responsibility for policing the industry, and override the states that have lifted their GM bans.

Groups involved in the campaign include the Public Health Association of Australia, the Australian Milk Producers of Australia, Biological Farmers of Australia, a think tank associated with the Catholic Church, plus a host of organic and biodynamic food companies including Pureharvest."

Janelle Saffin MP gets a tick of approval from Crikey and Daily Examiner awards Steve Cansdell MP a thumbs down

This last week has been a study in contrasts between Federal Labor and State Nationals here on the NSW North Coast.

 

Richard Farmer in Crikey  last Thursday gave the Federal Member for Page a well-deserved tick of approval.

"Janelle Saffin, Labor, Page. A former member of the Legislative Council in the New South Wales parliament. She lived and worked in Timor Leste from 2004 to 2007 as Dr Jose Ramos Horta's senior political adviser. Spoke against the use of so many chemicals most of which used for food production "were not made for such use and are not necessary". Forceful and competent speaker. 7 out of 10."

 

While The Daily Examiner yesterday aired a claim that Nationals State Member for Clarence, Steve Cansdell, has been a lazy boy.

"TAMWORTH independent MP Peter Draper has accused State Member for Clarence Steve Cansdell of not pulling his weight in parliament.

Mr Draper analysed the performance of MPs in 2007 and found that Mr Cansdell was one of 12 Coalition members who did not pose a query during any of last year's question times."

 

Ballina MP Don Page and Lismore MP Thomas George are also mentioned as having failed to ask a question in the last twelve months.

 

And the Coalition wonders why it does not hold government anywhere in Australia at present.

It would do well to remember that regional voters reward hard work not complacency.

Further skirmishes in the Swamp Foxglove War

What with Clarence Valley Council on a Eurocentric vision trip which has it intent on chemically clearing around park specimen trees, urban weed-spraying at the drop of a hat, pulling out mature native bushes in the mistaken belief that these were introduced species and mowing sedge plants down so that only a matter of inches remain around the edge of some bodies of water, it takes a brave soul like Greg Clancy to keep at council over the matter of the threatened Swamp Foxglove.
Well done, Greg for highlighting the battle.

The Daily Examiner reports on the battle to save this little flower.

"According to Coutts Crossing ecologist, Greg Clancy, the plant only grows in a few spots in NSW and one of its most prolific patches is in the Coutts Crossing Cemetery.
But that could change if something is not done to protect it from vandals.
Mr Clancy said a car had run roughshod over the foxgloves just as they were flowering, breaking stems and destroying the surrounding environment.
Although Mr Clancy could not prove the damage was deliberate, he had no doubt the plants had been the target.
He said some Coutts Crossing residents were upset when Clarence Valley Council built a fence to protect the foxgloves as they believed the area contained old graves and should not be fenced off.
As a result, council removed the fence a year ago. But Mr Clancy said council had a duty of care to protect the foxglove which was listed as endangered and the fence should be reinstated.
"Before they fenced it off we had a couple of plants here, but when they fenced it off and stopped mowing it we got over 120 plants that came up through the grass," he said.
A week after the fence was removed Mr Clancy found the swamp foxgloves slashed to the ground by vandals."
Photograph at www.environment.nsw.gov.au

US08: let's get real about the odds

You can't switch onto radio, television or the internet these days without getting the latest on the 2008 race for Democratic nomination in the national election to decide the next US President.

What is fascinating is all the space given to the prospect of Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Hussein Obama being voted into the White House.

In a country which still appears firmly convinced that God is a white Christian American male in heavenly robes carrying an M16, does either a woman or an African-American really stand a chance?

Does anyone actually think America is now mature enough to vote for someone other than an aging Anglo-Saxon male? Just asking.

  

Memo to Malcolm Turnbull, Coalition Shadow Treasurer

Dear Malcolm,

Did your father never explain the problems with telling tall stories, whoppers, pork pies? Or the dangers of uttering fibs, stretching the truth, gilding the lily, colouring the facts - in other words, lying.

I'm sure he must have. Pity that paternal lesson appears to be forgotten.

This week you displayed a monumental lapse in both common sense and political acumen when you insisted that Treasury had given specific advice to the Rudd Government to recommend a dollar amount in any submission concerning the minimum wage case currently before the Fair Pay Commission.

You were exposed as misleading the Australian people on this issue, yet you still went on to give a number of interviews in which you continued to spread the canard and cast aspersions on the Treasury Secretary when he publicly denied your claims.

Your argument became so feeble with repetition that you expanded the fibbing with this.

"He said his proof was that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had not denied it when he put it to him in question time this week.

"He declined to contradict me. He did not correct me. If I was so wrong, why didn't he correct me on Wednesday? You have to ask yourself,'' Mr Turnbull said."

Now Mal, that wasn't just untruthful it was downright dumb. A great many people heard Question Time last Wednesday, including yours truly, and we all can check the exact wording online.

Mate, it's time your enlistment papers were stamped snarler and you were sent back from the political trenches.

Hooroo,

Pete

Libs Deputy Leader Julie Bishop comes a cropper coast-to-coast

The Liberal Party's second-in-command Julie Bishop is looking quite lemon lipped these days during Question Time in the Australian Parliament.

She is rarely winning a trick when she takes on her Labor counterpart, Deputy-Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

The latest upset for Ms. Bishop was when she rose to her feet at 2.07pm yesterday and called for the release of a government report showing that jobs would be lost if WorkChoices legislation was changed by the Rudd Government.

This allowed Ms.Gillard to point out in reply that the report Julie Bishop was asking for was actually one commissioned, received and then not released by the former Howard Government.

The report of course not modelling the Rudd Government changes to WorkChoices as these were apparently not in existence when this report was written.

Hansard records that Julia Gillard also stated that Ms. Bishop was knowingly misleading the House.

This less than shining moment for Julie Bishop was shown on national television, radio and parliament podcast.

It seems it was the Liberals who did not really understand.

Contemporary Northern Rivers artists - a visual feast

Sharon Muir of Mullumbimby from her Shields series.
Noel Hart blown glass work Modest Parrot.
Garth Lena of Fingal Heads "Three brothers"

When blogs begin to breed like rabbits in the night

Being a novice blogger who views the world-wide web as something akin to 'magik' (don't ask - it's a generational thing), it didn't take long before I was overwhelmed by the number of Australian blogs out there in hyperspace.

It almost seemed that, whenever I turned my PC off for the day, blogs of all varieties began to multiply inside the idle monitor while I slept.

I tried keeping a list of sites I liked, but was often diverted by the strange and obscure and lost my way in an evergrowing blog maze.

So it was some relief to find these two compilation sites. Kwoff which posts what interests readers with an immediacy I like, and Club Troppo's The Missing Link Daily which has a fine eye for the interesting or quirky comment and can deliver an email version.

Think I'll ditch that printed list from now on and check these sites first.

Otherwise I'll have to lay a couple of steel-jawed traps on my desk each night to keep those blog bunnies under control.

The 'compassionate' Coalition in action

Here is Tony Abbott at his hypocritical best .

"The Federal Opposition condemned any move by the Rudd Government to scrap bonus payments to seniors.
Opposition families and community services spokesman Tony Abbott today said the seniors' payments had helped more than two million pensioners last year and should be preserved.
"The Howard government thought this was an important way of allowing less well-off people to share in our economic prosperity. This was the social dividend of the economic boom,'' he said.
This year's budget surplus was predicted to be huge, he said, and it was only fair that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd give something back.
"This year, there's going to be an even bigger budget surplus - $20 billion - and yet the Rudd Government is not going to give carers bonuses and now it's not going to give seniors bonuses either,'' Mr Abbott said.
"Kevin Rudd criticised John Howard as being mean and tricky, but as soon as he gets his hands on the levers of power he starts taking things away from the most vulnerable people in society.
"Kevin Rudd has been parading his Christian virtue, yet he's taking away from the most vulnerable that little bit extra the government was giving as some way of sharing in the good times.'' 

Sounds good doesn't it. Tony wants the seniors bonus payment preserved.

Which begs the question as to why the former Howard Government only implemented this payment as a one-off bonus.

First grabbing the initial give-away money from the Dept. of Employment and Workplace Relations budget and then failing to confirm it in any forward estimates. 
As evidenced by the DEWR Supplementary Additional Estimates Statements 2006-07.

 

Tony also sounds quite good when he rails against the abolition of the carers bonus.

Which calls up a recollection of the May 2007 second reading of the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-08. This reading had former Treasurer Peter Costello admitting (of the now increased bonuses) that "Both the seniors and the carers bonuses will be paid by 30 June 2007."

So, in fact neither type of $500 bonus was included in the last Howard Government budget.

Ergo, it was never going to happen in 2008 for there was no budget allocation.

So much for the suddenly 'compassionate' Tony Abbott and friends.

 

Now the Coalition is howling about these bonuses and insisting that these remain even though they had apparently ceased to exist on the Howard Government books.

A "bonus" is never a payment on solid ground anyway and to repeatedly attack the Rudd Government, when it had signalled that it was considering translating these lapsed payments into permanent Centrelink benefits/allowances, was foolish in the extreme.

The resultant panic among the elderly in response to the Coalition's half-truths now means we have a situation where these bonuses continue as a one-off to be delivered at the whim of the government of the day, and who do we have to thank for this uncertainty.

Why, Tony Abbott and friends.

"Mean and tricky" - I think that appellation now applies to Mr. Abbott.

No political experience required to help Obama win Pennsylvania

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama rides victorious from Mississippi and heads for Pennsylvania.
Here is the latest e-mail from the Obama for America team.

"Dear [redacted],
My name is Jeremy Bird, and I'm the Field Director for the Obama campaign in Pennsylvania.
Barack has won twice as many states, more delegates, and more votes than Senator Clinton. But the Democratic race is still very close, and the Pennsylvania primary is the biggest remaining contest.
The primary is still six weeks away, but another important deadline is coming up soon. Anyone who wants to vote for Barack in Pennsylvania must be registered as a Democrat by Monday, March 24th.
Supporters from all across the country are coming to Pennsylvania in the next two weeks to help register voters. Help build our movement and our party by joining us.
Sign up to come to Pennsylvania to register voters before March 24th:
http://my.barackobama.com/CometoPA
If one thing is clear from this campaign, it's that every vote and every delegate matters.
Here in Pennsylvania, hundreds of thousands of unregistered voters are ready to support Barack -- but we have only two weeks to reach out to them all.
That's why people from all over the country are traveling to Pennsylvania to make sure every potential Obama supporter is registered and eligible to vote in the primary on April 22nd.
No prior political experience is required. Sign up to grow this movement and bring thousands of new people into the political process.
Join us in Pennsylvania to register voters and support Barack:
http://my.barackobama.com/CometoPA
All across the country, we've seen people getting involved in politics for the first time or returning to politics after years of frustration.
I hope you'll come to Pennsylvania and keep this momentum going.
Thank you,
Jeremy
Jeremy Bird
Pennsylvania Field Director
Obama for America"

Update:
Highlights from this morning's e-mail.
"When we won Iowa, the Clinton campaign said it's not the number of states you win, it's "a contest for delegates."
When we won a significant lead in delegates, they said it's really about which states you win.
When we won South Carolina, they discounted the votes of African-Americans.
When we won predominantly white, rural states like Idaho, Utah, and Nebraska, they said those didn't count because they won't be competitive in the general election.
When we won in Washington State, Wisconsin, and Missouri -- general election battlegrounds where polls show Barack is a stronger candidate against John McCain -- the Clinton campaign attacked those voters as "latte-sipping" elitists. And now that we've won more than twice as many states, the Clinton spin is that only certain states really count.
But the facts are clear.
For all their attempts to discount, distract, and distort, we have won more delegates, more states, and more votes.
Meanwhile, more than half of the votes that Senator Clinton has won so far have come from just five states. And in four of these five states, polls show that Barack would be a stronger general election candidate against McCain than Clinton.
We're ready to take on John McCain.---
As the number of remaining delegates dwindles, Hillary Clinton's path to the nomination seems less and less plausible.
Now that Mississippi is behind us, we move on to the next ten contests. The Clinton campaign would like to focus your attention only on Pennsylvania -- a state in which they have already declared that they are "unbeatable."
But Pennsylvania is only one of those 10 remaining contests, each important in terms of allocating delegates and ultimately deciding who our nominee will be.---
The key to victory is not who wins the states that the Clinton campaign thinks are important. The key to victory is realizing that every vote and every voter matters.
Throughout this entire process, the Clinton campaign has cherry-picked states, diminished caucuses, and moved the goal posts to create a shifting, twisted rationale for why they should win the nomination despite winning fewer primaries, fewer states, fewer delegates, and fewer votes.
We must stand up to the same-old Washington politics. Barack has won twice as many states, large and small, in every region of the country -- many by landslide margins.---"

Pension Bonus: Don't forget disability pensioners live on God's earth too

 

MEDIA RELEASE

12 March 2008

 

Pension bonus:

Don't forget disability pensioners live on God's earth too

 

"CPSA welcomes Treasurer Wayne Swans reassurance that pensioners and carers will receive their additional payments, but calls on the Government to extend the pension bonus to disability pensioners to help them cope with the cost of disability", said CPSA Policy Coordinator Paul Versteege.

 

"Ninety per cent of disability pensioners cannot work and most have no additional income.

 

"What disability pensioners as a rule do have are large bills for disability equipment and medical consultations.

 

"Disability pensioners deserve not to be left in the lurch. They, too, live on God's earth."

 

Contact: 

Paul Versteege

Policy Coordinator

Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association (CPSA)

Level 9, 28 Foveaux Street, Surry Hills  NSW  2010

Phone 02 9281 3588

Mob 0410 612 182

Fax 02 9281 9716

The Member for La Trobe will be sent somewhere....(Quesion Time aside by the Speaker)

Parliament resumed sitting this week and right away the noise level coming from the Opposition benches was high, with enough decibels generated to stop the Speaker of the House of Reps from hearing the reply from a minister having the floor during Question Time yesterday.

Still, no matter how boorish the Coalition pollies became, there was no stopping the Deputy-Prime Minister from dropping this little gem into Hansard concerning the Howard Government attempt to address the national skills shortage by training more manicurists.

Ms GILLARD—I thank the member for her question.

This nation does face a skills crisis which is adding

to inflationary pressures. We have been warned

about it, and the former government was warned about

it by the RBA on 20 occasions. I know that in this

place there are members opposite who simply do not

understand the dimensions of this crisis. I refer them to

the words of Suncorp Chairman and Tabcorp Director,

John Story, who is also the Chairman of the Australian

Institute of Company Directors, who delivered this

damning assessment of the former government's approach

to skills shortages:

We should have been addressing infrastructure issues. We

should have been addressing skills shortages five years ago. I

mean, we talked about it. These issues were discussed

around board tables like this for the past 10 years, and the

chickens are coming home to roost and there is no short-term

fix.

That is a message from business about the dimension

of skills shortages. Whilst business is delivering this

message, members opposite live in denial. We have

had the shadow minister for training saying that skills

shortages were 'just a matter of where we are in the

business cycle'—a denial that there is even a skills

crisis. And the shadow Treasurer has been quoted as

saying:

The truth is ... Australia does not have a chronic skills

shortage ...

This is the opposition in denial about their legacy and

in denial about a contemporary problem facing the

Australian community and its economy. Today's Grant

Thornton survey shows that 58 per cent of the businesses

surveyed identified skills shortages as the biggest

constraint to their growth. Whilst the former minister

for vocational education and training may not

have done much about it, at least he was prepared to

acknowledge that there was a skills crisis when he said:

We have got a problem with skills shortage. I mean, we

knew it was coming, but it has arrived with force and, you

know, it is only going to get worse.

How were these skills shortages created? If we look at

where the former government put investment in skills

development, we see some remarkable things. We saw

$3 million invested in the provision of training and

qualifications in nail technology. Mr Speaker, you

might well think to yourself: 'That's good. Hammering

nails into wood, building things—skills shortages in

the construction industry—$3 million into skills training

for nail technology.' You might be thinking that

that is a good thing. It is not those sorts of nails that we

are talking about. We are talking about fingernails. We

are talking about $3 million being invested in skills

training so that people can have manicures—a file and

paint; a set of acrylics. That is what the former government

invested in: $3 million in nail technology.

Mr Rudd—Really?

Ms GILLARD—Really, Prime Minister. I accept

that the Leader of the Opposition is a man of the world

and he probably understands the merit of a manicure.

He probably particularly understands the merit of a

manicure in a party room that is beset by claws that are

unsheathed and out. But I would ask the Leader of the

Opposition and those that sit on the opposition front

benches: when in government, how did they come to

the conclusion that with skills shortages besetting the

Australian economy the most important thing we

needed was 1,232 more Australians qualified to provide

manicures and 700 more Australians qualified to

apply make-up and cosmetics—a total cost of $3 million

for the manicures and $1.5 million for the makeup

and cosmetics? This was their investment in training.

Whilst the mining sector and the construction sector

were calling out for skilled workers, you might not

have been able to get a house built but you could always

go down to the beauty parlour and make yourself

feel better about it. That was their contribution to training

in this nation—hardly meeting the needs of working

families, who need the real skills shortages in this

economy fixed. I am not denigrating the occupations of

providing manicures and providing make-up services

—

Opposition members interjecting—

The SPEAKER—Order! The Deputy Prime Minister

has the call.