FOAD is not alone

"Under Schedule 7 to the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (BSA) ACMA must investigate complaints it receives from the public about suspected 'prohibited content.' " {Australian Communications amd Media Authority website}

A rumour is going round the Northern Rivers that Foad (the Melbourne blogger who tested ACMA's complaint system and got an anti-abortion web site added to the current black list) is not alone.
That those pen pushers at Censorship Central are receiving a number of complaints about Australian blogs linking to banned sites and that most of these complaints are not dinkum, but very tongue-in-cheek via anonymous email addresses.

Cartoon cops from Machine Gun Keyboard

One aspect of the Streisand Effect - Conroy now outranks Goebbels in Australia

A week in politics is certainly a long time as Australian Senator Stephen Conroy (Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) can now attest.

His name and silly antics over Sweden-based Wikileaks' publication of an alleged Australian Communications and Media Authortiy blacklist has seen Google Trends searches using the term "stephen conroy" outstrip searches based on the name "josef goebbels" or "paul joseph goebbels"

Give the intransigent senator another week and he might then outstrip searches using the better known version of the name of another popular propaganda minister, the Third Reich's Joseph Goebbels.














So intense has been the world-wide interest generated by those clumsy Rudd-Conroy moves against freedom of speech in Australia that the sheer volume of its site visitors swamped Wikileaks and it was virtually uncontactable for much of last week.

Are you walking around in sweat shop clothes?

The international charity Oxfam has released its March 2009 report concerning the clothing industry: Transparency Report II: Have Hong Kong Companies Improved Their Reporting On Labour Standards?

The report was produced by CSR Asia and is essentially positive in outlook. Noting increased company sensitivity to the need to be seen as socially responsible with sustainable manufacturing.

However, there is a long way to go before reasonable working conditions for clothing industry workers are achieved.

According to ABC News:
Oxfam is calling on Australian companies to publish the names and addresses of the factories where goods are made and monitor labour conditions.

Of those Hong Kong-based companies and subsidiaries studied Chickeeduck, Esprit, Giodorno, Blue Star Exchange, Blue Navy, Jeans West, Quicksilver Glorious Sun, PMTD, and Li & Fung produced clothing lines sold in Australia or manufactured for Australian clothing companies.

These companies scored between 0 and 33 out of 100 per cent on the Oxfam manufacturing industry report card, based on governance and risk management, code of conduct, stakeholder engagement, management, auditing and reporting.

Li & Fung reportedly manufactures garments for Australian companies Pacific Brands, Just Jeans and Myers.

Now would be a good time to look through your wardrobe and see just how much of an ethical purchaser you actually are.

Senator Conroy and Mr. Hyde

You've just gotta love that Senator Conroy, he is both a blogger's and journo's dream at the moment.
His thin secular veneer over a heart of Opus Dei (if Wikipedia is to be believed) turns this hapless pollie into a modern day version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The Age yesterday:
THE Government will begin trawling blog sites as part of a new media monitoring strategy, with documents singling out a website critical of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy for special mention.
Soon after Senator Conroy praised Singapore's Government for reducing monitoring of blogs, tender documents issued by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy reveal it is looking for a "comprehensive digital monitoring service for print and electronic media".
The department later attached a clarification confirming the term "electronic media" included "blogs such as Whirlpool".
Whirlpool, the only blog site mentioned, has criticised Senator Conroy's plans to filter internet content and his handling of the Government's $15 billion national broadband network. It is a community-run internet forum devoted to discussing broadband internet access.
Senator Conroy this month told a conference in Germany that it was a "really positive sign" that the Singaporean Government had given up monitoring blogs.
But the documents suggest the Australian Government is just about to start. Senator Conroy's spokesman said it was "only natural" that the tender include services for monitoring relevant blogs.
"Whirlpool is a long-established online platform for news and information covering a wide range of topics across the telecommunications sector," the spokesman said. "It and other websites provide valuable insight into the industries in which we work."

The Whirlpool discussion boards are of course already having fun at ol' Hyde's expense:

User #144693 968 posts iCE654 BAN CENSORSHIP! Whirlpool Enthusiast

NufffRespeKtZ writes... I wonder when Whirlpool will appear on their blacklist. Probably next week. I mean after all, WP links to a page that links to a page which links to a another page which links to a page with a link to dentist porn. A new term should be inserted into the Oxford dictionary; Dentist Porn A fictitious term which originated in Australia during the first decade of the 2000 millennium. It is used to refer to something that has been blocked/censored ridiculously and arbitrarily without explanation. Context example: A moderator deleted a post which didn't contain any breach of the rules. Oi, Mr moderator, you deleted dentist porn wtf!!?!?

herring anchor Reply to this post Send whim posted Saturday at 12:50 am

Statistics at twenty paces............

In The Far North Coaster last week, Nationals State MP for Ballina, Don Page, went into print crying out that the sky is falling in New South Wales and like lemmings people are abadoning this state.

The latest ABS population figures should be a cause of great concern for the NSW Labor Government, Shadow Minister for Small Business and Regulatory Reform, Don Page, said.
"The ABS figures showed that in excess of 22,000 people had fled NSW in the year to 30 September 2008 while Queensland increased their population by around the same figure," Mr Page, the Member for Ballina, said.
"The NSW Labor Government is doing nothing to stem the tide of people leaving the highest taxing and highest regulated State in Australia, which also has one of the highest unemployment rates.

Forgive me if I smile.
Mr. Page obviously took one look at a recent Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) media release and thought this was the entire story or at least the story he should run with to produce some political mileage.

He neglected to mention that despite interstate movement, the New South Wales population actually rose to 7 million people.
Which gave it the highest total population of any Australian state or territory (as of 30 September 2008) and that the state had experienced its highest growth rate since 2000-01.

He also neglected to point out that population numbers on the Northern Rivers have risen as well, with the Richmond-Tweed region having the highest 2006-07 NSW growth rate (outside of Sydney) at 1.3% which represents 3,000 or more people.

Perhaps his failure to mention the fact the Ballina local government area growth rate was up 1.7% and Coffs LGA up 1.4% was due to the fact that this was indeed an inconvenient number for his argument.

Indeed, the Member for Ballina was very silent on a number issues relating to population.
Like the fact that population movement in the period covered by the statistics was obviously affected by the mining booms in several states and the prolonged drought.
These were important enough factors for the ABS statisticians to mention, but seemingly strangely irrelevant to Mr. Page.

Don Page should ask himself this question.
At what point does selectively quoting population numbers morph into an effort to deceive?

No-one would deny that New South Wales is likely to feel the impact of the current economic downturn sooner and perhaps harder than those states which up to recently were experiencing a mining boom.
It doesn't take dodgy use of official statistics to bring that point home.

Across the ditch they refuse to make the same Internet censorship blunder as Rudd & Conroy

The NZ National Business Review Friday 20th March:

"Those nervously watching the chaos across the Tasman can breathe a sigh of relief.
"We have been following the internet filtering debate in Australia but have no plans to introduce something similar here," says Communications and IT minister Steven Joyce.
"The technology for internet filtering causes delays for all internet users. And unfortunately those who are determined to get around any filter will find a way to do so. Our view is that educating kids and parents about being safe on the internet is the best way of tackling the problem."
In October, Australian Communications and IT minister Stephen Conroy announced a $A42 million plan to make internet content filtering compulsory for all Australian internet service providers."

Who's crowing now? 2009 Queensland State Election results at a glance

Despite a 4.2% swing against Labor (provisional estimate), last night Queensland Premier Anna Bligh became the first Australian female state premier to win an election in her own right.
Her government looks to be returned with at least 50 seats in an 89 seat parliament.
This was definitely not the close election predicted by many political pundits.
Those members of her family who live on the NSW North Coast are celebrating I'm sure.

Winners and losers in the 21 March 2009 Queensland State Election.

Parties ahead on the primary vote on election night by number of seats won:

Australian Labor Party	ALP	50
LNP	LNP	35
Other Candidates		4

Final results by seat on election night:

Albert Algester Ashgrove Aspley Barron River Beaudesert Brisbane Central Broadwater Buderim Bulimba Bundaberg Bundamba Burdekin Burleigh Burnett

Cairns Callide Caloundra Capalaba Chatsworth Clayfield Cleveland Condamine Cook Coomera Currumbin Dalrymple Everton Ferny Grove Gaven

Gladstone Glass House Greenslopes Gregory Gympie Hervey Bay Hinchinbrook Inala Indooroopilly Ipswich Ipswich West Kallangur Kawana Keppel Lockyer

Logan Lytton Mackay Mansfield Maroochydore Maryborough Mermaid Beach Mirani Moggill Morayfield Mount Coot-tha Mount Isa Mount Ommaney Mudgeeraba Mulgrave

Mundingburra Murrumba Nanango Nicklin Noosa Nudgee Pine Rivers Pumicestone Redcliffe Redlands Rockhampton Sandgate South Brisbane Southern Downs Southport

Springwood Stafford Stretton Sunnybank Surfers Paradise Thuringowa Toowoomba North Toowoomba South Townsville Warrego Waterford Whitsunday Woodridge Yeerongpilly

Changing seats according to Antony Green.

Saffin calls Hartsuyker on his scaremongering but diplomatically ignores Williamson's dog whistles.

The Labor Member for Page, Janelle Saffin, quite rightly called the Nationals Member for Cowper on his scaremongering about the fate of regional airline services on the NSW North Coast.
In particular, services operating out of the Grafton airport and access to Sydney Airport.

She should have also taken a swipe at Nationals protégée, Clarence Valley Mayor and 2GF breakfast disc jockey, Richie Williamson, who dutifully echoed Hartsuyker in The Daily Examiner on 19 March:

This week Clarence Mayor Richie Williamson raised concerns that a recommendation from Sydney Airports Corporation Ltd to a Federal Government green paper on the future of Sydney Airport could force regional airlines to use Bankstown Airport.

His dog whistles in the local media are becoming a little too obvious - The Daily Examiner frontpage headline last Tuesday Mayor fights for Rex to stay was based on a superfluous piece of nonsense from the mayor as the Rex Airlines decision to continue services (around 60,000 seats per year since 2007) was made weeks ago and was well-known to the valley if not formally announced.

Here on the North Coast we expect to read that old chestnut about loss of air services whenever a local politician wants a few column inches.

Unfortunately for Mayor Williamson we are also very aware that levels of patronage for Grafton Airport (on which continuing services depend) have as much to do with lack of public transport to and from this airport as they have with timetables or ticket costs.
That public servants and business representatives arriving in the Clarence Valley are often astonished to find themselves stranded after landing, at an airport with no permanent taxi or hire car presence and no buses (taxis can of course be arranged through the flight hostess if you happen to be aware of these difficulties).
Clarence Valley Council has studiously avoided facing this ongoing problem as did the cluster of smaller councils it replaced.

It has not escaped local attention either that Sydney Airport Corporation Limited would love the chance of a limited congestion fix by re-routing regional airlines away from its airspace and so had taken the opportunity to express its view in a submission on the Aviation Green Paper.

However the fact remains that both the previous federal government and the Rudd Government through the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government gave commitments to ensure regional airline have access to Sydney Airport.

The currrent minster told the House in March 2008:

And the third objective of the current act is to guarantee access for operators of New South Wales regional services by establishing a ring fence around the slots held by regional operators to Sydney airport at the onset of the demand management regime.

The Sydney Airport Demand Management Amendment Act 2008 came into effect in January 2009.

It is interesting to note that for all Mayor Williamson's expressed concern, Clarence Valley Council appears to be one of those local government areas having an airport which did not bother to make an individual submission on the green paper.
Thereby ignoring an opportunity to lobby the minister and his department on behalf of residents' interests, unlike Ballina Shire Council which did take advantage of this opportunity.

Earth Hour, Saturday 28 March 2009 between 8.30-9.30pm

Remind the Rudd Government that it was elected to do something meaningful about the climate change impacts which are bearing down on Australia - turn off all your household lights as part of the global vote for Earth for one hour between 8.30-9.30pm on Saturday 28 March 2009.

Photograph found at Redbubble

He's cranky, his orange, he's a cartoon bear and he's got Canberra's number!

Ned the Bear on this week in Australian politics.

Another reason why the Rudd-Conroy attempt to censor the Australian Internet will fail - Aussie cartoonists!

Queensland State Election 21 March 2009: Virtual Tally Room and other live online links on the night

Queensland Electoral Commission links to Virtual Tally Room, candidate details etc.

ABC and Antony Green cover the 2009 Queensland Election - includes links to TV, radio, reporters' live blogs, as well as analysis of initial results as they come to hand.

Crikey is live chatting the election from 2pm this afternoon at Pineapple Party Time.

On hearing about the latest Conroy Internet censorship antic [insert date and name of folie de jour]

How are you going to vote at the next Federal election?

Byron Bay Bluesfest at Belongil Fields, 9 - 13 April 2009

The Bluesfest: the East Coast Blues and Roots Music festival is 20 years old and still going strong with its birthday bash on the 2009 Easter Long Weekend at Belongil Fields, Byron Bay.


A new stage has been added dedicated to indigenous artists and fully endorsed by the local Arakwal community.
Claiming this space this year will be artists such as Saltwater Band, Christine Anu, Dan Sultan, Marlene Cummins and Ngaiire.
They will be joining a spectacular festival line-up of over 100 artists across six stages.

2009 Playing Schedule.

More info here.

Digital Liberty Coalition anti-censorship march, Canberra 21 March 2009

March in March is an upbeat event to give people an opportunity stand up, be heard, and hold the government accountable for their plans of forcing mandatory censorship on a very unwilling public.

With a mix of live entertainment of bands and DJs, speakers from all sides of the political spectrum and other special guests, the day will be topped off with the annual Canberran Skyfire Festival, just for us ... okay, maybe not.
So whether it's the social activism, the free gigs, or the big bangs in a V for Vendetta-esque climax in prime position at the front gates of Parliament, come along!

This is YOUR opportunity to stand up, your TIME to say no to censorship, your chance TO BE HEARD!

Where and When?
1pm at Federation Mall, Canberra ACT on Saturday 21 March 2009

Exclusive Brethren take a political hit

This was sent out by The Greens late on Wednesday 18th March. Thought I might pass it on.

The so-called 'Exclusive Brethren clause' in the Fair Work Bill was knocked out by a 33-31 vote in the Senate tonight.

Moved by Greens Leader Bob Brown and supported by the Government and Senators Xenophon and Fielding, the long-held provision for Exclusive Brethren businessmen to refuse union entry to workplaces has been removed.

A large contingent of Exclusive Brethren elders left the Senate gallery after the vote.

Senator Brown thanked the Government and Senators Fielding and Xenophon saying parallel provisions privileging the sect which exist in all states except Victoria should also be removed.

I looked up Hansard and found that the senators who sided with the Exclusive Brethren were all from the Coalition - Abetz, Back, Barnett, Bernardi, Birmingham, Boswell, Boyce, Brandis, Bushby, Cash, Eggleston, Ferguson, Fierravanti-Wells, Fifield, Fisher, Heffernan, Humphries, Joyce, Kroger, Macdonald, Mason, McGauran, Minchin, Nash, Parry, Payne, Ronaldson, Ryan, Scullion, Troeth, Williams.

Mackie's Mate
Maclean, NSW

Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents. Email ncvguestpeak at live dot com dot au to submit comment for consideration.

The Big Joke Comedy Festival, Bangalow 26-29 March 2009

Poster from The Big Joke website

Bangalow is holding its third annual comedy festival at the A & I Hall between 9am to 6pm daily on the 26-29 March 2009.

Details of the comedy line up, times and ticket costs are here.

Come along and blow those global recession blues away!

Well that really pulled me up short........

Sitting at the bus stop minding my own business this week when my eye spied a piece of graffiti neatly written in black Texta.

Justify Your Existence

A command which certainly left me somewhat chastened because almost every reason I could dredge up was so patently self-serving!

Have a go yourself and see how you do.

Hey Google, you're banned! Wikileaks has published an alleged Australian Government URL blacklist

Prime Minister Rudd and Senator Conroy continue to pretend that they are still in control of the proposed national mandatory ISP-level filtering of the Australian Internet.

However, with Wikileaks publishing an alleged Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) blacklist from mid-2008 and new mirror sites becoming available (as Wikileaks sites and known mirrors become difficult to access due to congestion), it is apparent that they are beginning to get some small idea about what users of the Internet can accomplish when they put their minds to it.

Having read an online article, which linked an article, which linked an article et cetera, I finally found the hard information as it were and immediately collapsed in a gleeful heap - a Google group was on the list right near the top.
Not only that, the discussion group listed was mainly all about the technical difficulties associated with Mozilla/Sea Monkey/Firefox/Linux.

Now that's the worst sort of p#rn in the world. Shame, Google, shame!

Sharing the honours with Google, I also found a legal betting website, a consortium of design consultants, a site that comments on Internet culture and a very Internet savvy dental practice.
Other reports indicate that the list also contains a tour operator and a boarding kennel.

But the true laugh of the moment was this brief report:

The list was originally believed to be the ACMA blacklist, but Communications Minister Stephen Conroy issued a statement within the last hour or so which said it was not, despite having some URLs in common.

Conroy has also condemned the leaking of the list, threatening criminal prosecution to the person who originally made it public.

Which would mean that Conroy would be instigating prosecution based on a fake blacklist?

The lesson in all this for the Rudd Government is fairly straightforward. Although Australians are generally law-abiding and infrequently given to demonstrating social unrest, at heart we harbour an almost anarchic response to being told to obey for the sake of obeying (our betters).

What if you gave an Internet censorship party and nobody came?

What if you gave an Internet censorship party and nobody came?
This bad dream is coming true this month for Prime Minister Rudd and his Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

A lone Foad has belled the Australian Communications and Media Authority cat by making a 'complaint' which saw that body place an anti-abortion website page on its URL blacklist, issue a take down notice and threaten to fine a server host around $11,000 a day if it didn't immediately get one of its clients to remove the offending URL from a forum page.

Small problem though.
Partially obscured Wikipedia screenshots of the banned URL are on the web as I write and, using that meagre amount of information, major search engines in Australia and around the world not only still display this indexed site but the site can be opened, searched and the page reached. [please note that the anonymous researcher did not inhale when testing the suspect page status]

Oh, and until that single public servant (or small coffee klatch of public servants) decided to act on Foad's stand alone complaint no-one at North Coast Voices had any idea the site existed.

However, even if ACMA decides never to mention specific banned URLs when it replies to complainants, the complainant is likely to already know the exact Internet address because they made the complaint in the first place and I'm sure that twittering a friend or two will be almost irresistible.

As for placing certain Wikileaks pages on the ACMA blacklist - what do they say about horses and stable doors?
I swear that there would be many hundreds of home PCs across the country which have looked at those Wiki pages about overseas banned URLs and more than a couple of web surfers who have taken a screen shot for posterity. [and yes, before you ask, this was another case where our anonymous researcher successfully refused to inhale]

Can you hear the cynical laughter yet Messrs Rudd and Conroy?
Or is the sound of the ocean rushing in to drown your foolish policy too loud?

Update 21 March 2009:

Wikileaks issues its own legal threat:

Anti-censorship site Wikileaks has threatened Australian Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy with criminal prosecution if he attempts to discover the source of its leaked Australian Internet blacklist. Wikileaks says that under Swedish law it is a criminal offence to try to breach confidentiality agreements between the press and sources.
Senator Conroy yesterday issued a statement in response to the release of the Australian Internet censorship list by Wikileaks, saying that his department, "is investigating this matter and is considering a range of possible actions it may take including referral to the Australian Federal Police. Any Australian involved in making this content publicly available would be at serious risk of criminal prosecution."Describing Senator Conroy as the person "responsible for Australian Internet censorship", Jay Lim, the legal adviser of Wikileaks publisher Sunshine Press stated: "Under the Swedish Constitution's Press Freedom Act, the right of a confidential press source to anonymity is protected, and criminal penalties apply to anyone acting to breach that right. "Source documents are received in Sweden and published from Sweden so as to derive maximum benefit from this legal protection."Should the Senator or anyone else attempt to discover our source we will refer the matter to the Constitutional Police for prosecution, and if necessary, ask that the Senator and anyone else involved be extradited to face justice for breaching fundamental rights."

What Senators Conroy and Fielding (as well as Usher of the Black Rod Brien Hallett) don't want Parliament to see?

The Australian Protectionist Party (APP) has declared itself and states it will be applying for status as a registered political party.
A quick look at its website points to the possibility that this is yet another far-right group which would be fairly comfortable with everyone from Howard to Hanson and perhaps even the late, unlamented Oswald Moseley.

However, it appears on first glance to avoid defamation, sedition, hate speech or incitement to violence as defined by legislation.
So in a democratic society it would normally expect to be tolerated as political opinion or dissent, even swimming against the tide as it does with a platform opposing multiculturalism and political correctness.

Or would it?

According to ABC Radio National Background Briefing on 15 March 2009 this potential political party URL is on the Australian Parliament/Websense blacklist.

Also reported to be on the blacklist is E-evolution, an online news site for the gay community.

It seems that Australian MPs are such delicate flowers that they must be protected from news about a significant group of citizens in many electorates.

The Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy, has baldly stated that national mandatory ISP-level filtering will be installed (whether the majority of Australians want it or not).
He is also on record as including what he terms 'unwanted' and 'inappropriate' material in content which would be subject to mandatory filtering by secret blacklist.

His lack of transparency in relation to the introduction of national Internet censorship does not impress and, his attempt to 'blame' the larger ISPs for their non-inclusion in his live filtering test and his calls to have faith in government integrity are falling on deaf ears in this house because I'm old enough to remember the prolonged fall-out from political witch hunts in the decade after World War Two.

There is nothing that Senator Conroy has put forward so far which gives me any confidence that the Rudd Government (or subsequent federal governments) would resist turning mandatory censorship to their own political or socio-economic ends.

Conroy's Clean Feed [producer/presenter Wendy Carlisle]:

Listen Now - 15032009

Download Audio - 15032009

Tsar of all the oceans? Pull the other one, Bazza!

There's nothing the average Aussie hates more than a blow hard.
So former federal politician, and Hawke Government environment minister for around three years until 1987, Barry Cohen must have taken leave of his senses to call himself tsar of all the oceans when recalling those years.
The current Federal Environment Minister, Peter Garret must have also entered lala land to have appointed Bazza to the ersatz Pew Whaling Commission (when did the Pew Institute's barely concealed lobbying on behalf of whaling interests suddenly morph into a commission to rival the International Whaling Commission?)
The International Whaling Commission was formed under a United Nations convention and Australia became a member long before Bazza's time in the political limelight.
So I'm at a loss to see how much he would have personally mattered in putting the international commercial whaling moratorium in place when it was formally adopted in 1982; but he was still around when that bl**dy loophole was allowed to develop into commercial whaling by stealth and he sounds just the sort of bloke we don't need now.
And the result of the recent 3-day lovefest bears out the Rudd Government's folly, because Japan has outmaneuvered the anti-whaling nations and p#ss poor reps like Cohen who helped create the problem of 'scientific' whaling in the first place.

STOP the CELL OFF - NO PRISON$ FOR PROFIT$! Will Grafton gaol be sold off next?

The NSW Government is planning to privatise the state’s prisons.
While Minister Robertson claims there will only be two privatisations, the Department has other plans. At the recent Parliamentary Inquiry, Commissioner Ron Woodham said Grafton would be next.
Private Prisons mean more assaults on staff and inmates, lower paid and untrained staff and more escapes. Prisons should not be run for profit.

Stop the Cell Off!

Sign the petition here.

www.stopthecelloff.org.au

Those annoying targeted browser ads....and what to do about them

Find advertising a bit much in the real world?
Just can't stand it when it's in your face in cyberspace?
From this week the ads Google displays won't just pull from the search terms you're using. Google will also look at all the sites you've visited lately.
Rather not have those inevitable ads targeted to fit your browsing habits?
Here's how to opt out of Google's new intrusion.

While we're all busy swatting mosquitoes....

While we are busy swatting at summer's mosquitoes, fighting to keep ants out of the kitchen and frequently disabusing stray spiders of the idea that they own our living rooms, it is easy to overlook the fact that the number and types of insects, bees and butterflies found in urban gardens across much of the NSW North Coast appear to be falling away.

Prolonged droughts, land clearing and general loss of native habitat have a lot to do with the fact that some species are becoming rarer occupants of our gardens.

As we are all encouraged to make the garden a low-water collection of plantings we shouldn't forget that it is much better to hunt out suitable Australian natives or dry condition plants with high flower/pollen yields or other insect attracting natural assets.

Go to Aussie Bee for a few tips and to find out which of the 1,500 species of natives bees are in your area.
The ABC's Gardening Australia has fact sheets on native plants and biological controls.
The CSIRO also has a comprehensive data base on its National Insect Collection.
The National Botanic Gardens webpage on Growing Australian Natives is a good A-Z starting point for searching out plants, as is your local library.

So as summer ends - have another look at the garden, do a little research and make an attempt (no matter how small) to bring a little more life back into your yard.



Pictures are of the Blue Banded Bee which is no longer a frequent visitor to my own garden.

'Allo, 'allo is anybody home? A regional response to the Rudd Government ETS

I read this week that Labor's heartland is objecting to Rudders' emissions trading scheme because it would mean severe job loss in parts of regional Australia.
Hello? Is anybody home? Even a duffer like myself can figure out that regional Oz will also feel the direct effect of climate change more heavily than most, because metro-orientated governments right across the country will give less funding and less on the ground help when dwindling river flows, groundwater and soil salinity, coastal land loss, severe storm damage, bushfires, major widespread flooding and the rest take a huge toll on regions like the NSW North Coast.
It makes more sense for regions to take an economic hit now, in the hope of lessening the much harder hits that climate change will deal out in the future to local residents.
Come on, La Trobe, Gladstone, Newcastle and The Isa - suck it up and think of your grandkids!
After all, it's not all bad news - export quality black coal gets an easy ride under the ETS as far as I can tell.

Pink shirts and pig ignorance on the NSW North Coast

Click on image to enlarge

Sometimes it is hard to decide whether this The Daily Examiner journalist is simply obeying an editorial direction to create controversy at any price or if he actually is as developmentally delayed as his language suggests.

Like other ugly paper chauvinists in the media Graham Orams is careful to give himself what he obviously believes is a get-out-of-gaol-free ticket by telling the world that women deserve better, as he flaunts what he likes to refer to as my raw and unshakable masculinity (pause for readers to lift right hand and signal with little finger).

The opinion piece above appeared on page 11 in last Thursday's issue of this regional paper. Needless to say its editor is still Peter Chapman.

I had never heard of The Michael Duffy Files until.........

I'd never heard of The Michael Duffy Files (est. June 2008) until............
Tele journo Timmeh Blair decided to bag this little blog.
I probably wouldn't have metioned it either until I realised that Dorothy Parker had posted this succinct banner.


Game, set and match to Dorothy.

To be sure, to be sure - it's Paddy's Day

St. Patrick's Day and the only pot of gold any of us are likely to see.

Pic from Photobucket

Zussino strikes again!

More than a few readers of the free local newspaper, the Clarence Valley Review, were laughing on March 4 when they opened the paper and saw that Zussino had struck again with yet another letter to the editor under a false name.
This particular letter is now also out on the world wide web.

A week later one of Zussino's previous victims, The Daily Examiner, had the satisfaction of hearing that this pesky phantom's own complaint to the Press Council concerning that newspaper had been shot down in flames as not worthy of investigation.

Don Page speaks up for the Northern Rivers

It's a bit hard to have any respect for the Coalition these days, so it's easy to miss those times when a Nat does his best for the Northern Rivers.
Last week Don Page MP for Ballina rose to his feet and gave a serve over the dismal situation our health services are in.

"Mr DONALD PAGE (Ballina) [5.56 p.m.]: I outline my concerns about health services in the electorate of Ballina. I want to discuss the apparent doctor shortage at the Ballina, Byron Bay and Mullumbimby hospitals, and the loss of the mobile breast screening vans, which were visiting Ballina and Byron Bay. The media revealed this week that Ballina District Hospital is facing a doctor shortage, leading to the hospital reducing the number of patients it can accept. While I understand that the rosters have been filled for all shifts over the past 12 months, and are covered for March, it would seem that there simply are not enough doctors being rostered on.

Doctors are now very publicly complaining about their excessive workloads and the potential risks to patients. Byron Bay and Mullumbimby hospitals have also stated that they are in danger of not having enough doctors to provide emergency treatment to patients. Should this be the case patients are likely to be diverted to Tweed Heads, as all surrounding hospitals are facing similar doctor shortages. I am extremely concerned about this situation and implore the Minister for Health to urgently allocate the resources required to fix this potentially life-threatening situation. If the situation continues, and emergency patients are diverted from Ballina, Byron Bay or Mullumbimby to Tweed Heads, there will be very real risks to the wellbeing of patients."

Good one, Don! Though I notice you're not so proud of your time in government because there is nary a media release or speech from that time posted on your website.

Won't tell, na, na, na,na, na! says Garrett

Photograph from Google Images

The Age revealed this little tit bit last week as Japan pressures Australia to act against anti-whaling protestors:

Attempts by the Greens to obtain information on Japanese whaling gathered by the Australian patrol ship Oceanic Viking last year have been rejected.

The Environment Department has ruled that releasing images or data would "adversely affect the confidence Japan would have in our diplomatic efforts to achieve an end to 'scientific whaling' ".

Rather an interesting reason.

It would appear that Environment Minister Peter Garrett and his department are withholding information not because of something as important as national security or for operational reasons, but because the information and surveillance images would too graphically show just how 'unscientific' Japanese whaling in the Antarctic really is.

Bending over backwards would be a mild description of the Rudd Government's current attitude to Japanese demands.

Senator Conroy's Internet filtering gets another bad review

According to IT News last Thursday:

Cross "fighting terrorism" off the list of reasons Senator Stephen Conroy wants to introduce mandatory ISP-level Internet Filtering.

A new report penned by Tim Stevens and Dr Peter Neumann for the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) assesses the pros and cons of various types of Internet Filtering and finds them ineffective in the fight against terror.

"Most governments have focused on technical solutions, believing that removing or blocking radicalising material on the internet will solve the problem," the report states.

"Yet, this report shows that any strategy that relies on reducing the availability of content alone is bound to be crude, expensive and counterproductive."

The report went into some detail around the ineffective nature of most types of Internet Filtering.

IP filtering, in which the IP address of a questionable site is blocked, suffers from misfiring, the report said.

"Problems with this method of filtering arise because some web hosts - each with a single IP address - provide a variety of services or host many websites with different domain names, which means that all these acceptable services and sites will be blocked as well. While cheap and easy to implement, its propensity for 'over-blocking' makes IP filtering a very crude method of interdicting banned material."

In describing the role of the Internet, this report identifies what the Rudd Government (and government generally) probably fears most about cyberspace:

It has dramatically reduced the cost of communication, making the exchange and dissemination of information virtually free.

• It has enabled unlimited access to much of the world's knowledge and begun to organise it in systematic fashion.

• It has made it easier to find people and create networks among like-minded individuals, across great distances and beyond national borders.

Reporters Without Borders is also less than impressed with the Rudd-Conroy censorship plan and in its 12 March 2009 document Internet Enemies has placed Australia on the group's watch list.

Bilambil Public School - online since 1998

I have discovered yet another Northern Rivers primary school proudly online, as part of the Aussie School House - Schools on the Web ACCE project.

Bilambil Public School, established in 1898, has a great website and an impressive list of awards.

List of other participating schools can be found here.
Picture of Bilambil area, Northern NSW

Stephen Mayne out of the barrier and racing

More freedom for The Mayne Report from 9 March 2009.

"The 4-year non-compete agreement with Crikey expired on Monday so we're now able to write about politics and media, plus send emails to more than 500 people at a time and freelance material anywhere we like. However, the focus will still very much remain on delivering a strong weekly corporate governance newsletter and this latest edition has plenty of juicy material."

Go, Stevo!

Sandy Gandhi provides a good laugh

Australia’s most ‘Easterly Indian’, Sandy Gandhi of Byron Bay, was a highlight on Australia’s Got Talent recently.

Click here to watch Sandy.

Also read Far North Coaster's interview with Sandy here.

pic: Far North Coaster

Senator Michael Ronaldson - who?

Michael Ronaldson is a Liberal Party senator from Victoria and Shadow Minister of State.

I would call him the Hon. Michael Ronaldson except that he, along with his Coalition cronies, has acted most dishonourably of late in the Senate.

On Wednesday 11 March 2009 "Ronno" (as he supposedly likes to be called) helped the Coalition and Senator Fielding vote down the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill 2008 [2009].

This is a bill which would fulfil the Rudd Labor Government's election promise to bring back a lower limit for the reporting of political donations and, end the farce which saw the former Howard Government allow donors to make donation of up to $9,999 without those donations being publicly disclosed.
Consequently the number of disclosed donations to political parties started to fall away and confusion reigned.

Ronaldson in a remarkable piece of verbal contortion chortles that Labor has only itself to blame for the Coalition blocking this bill.
It won't be long before he adds the bill failure to the list of alleged broken Labor promises he constantly mentions on his own website.

I think that Senator Bob Brown's reply to the nonsense put forward by Ronaldson bears quoting here:

I listened carefully to Senator Ronaldson's plea that the legislation not be supported until we get comprehensive legislation into the parliament, but that is not the example that was set by the Howard government over the previous 12 years. In fact, piecemeal legislation which increased the ability of donors to the political system to be hidden and not identifiable was the order of the day. It is a good thing that we now have legislation that is reversing that order.

We look forward to consequent legislation in this parliament, and I hope that will be this year, to clean up the electoral processes in Australia, and that means quite massive and comprehensive changes to electoral laws.

For arts sake!

Deidre and Naoise by Julie Hutchings

Element by Kerrie Spiers

A LOL on the Liberal leadership.....

How Malcolm Turnbull's Friday 13 began?

Liberal Party leadership speculation

Just how many Friday 13ths can a koala bear?

Maud up the Street pointed out to me that today is the second of three Friday 13ths this year.

She tells me that there was only one in 2008 and two in both 2007 and 2006.

Poor Maud thinks it's a conspiracy to upset her delicate superstition balance that three have turned up in the one year.

Next year sees the return to only one Friday 13th, but little does she realise that 2015 and 2026 will also have three of these (un)lucky days.

A few more common superstitions here.

Picture: Google Images