Abbott in the Twitterverse

‎
Frank_Tireur‎: Tony Abbott saying there's "something fishy about the numbers" makes me think he might've made Barnaby the Finance Minister again.
Twitter

trvllngjwllr: Every time i hear or see Tony Abbott, i want to punch him in the face #irrationallyangry
Mobile Web

people_skills: Everything Tony Abbott & the Liberal Party does and says is wrong. #myliberal
Web

jtousis: Why is Tony Abbott getting around in a school uniform today?
Twitter for iPhone

WebsterSmoggule: Follow me on boats, Abbott tells PM http://bit.ly/aitz7o #alot
twitterfeed

‎	zackster‎: Tony Abbott asking the government to explain economics to him, no surprise there .... apparently there's more just than adding 'BIG NEW' +no Twitter

gregfoletta: @p4ts Tony Abbott: no matter what you do, you're still Tony Abbott. That's gotta suck.
TweetDeck

ingovetoday: Yeah right Tony they're the victims of the agreement not you. "Abbott claims bosses bludgeoned into pact" http://bit.ly/btkH0C #miningtax
TweetDeck

MikeJohnsonMP

Has Tony Abbott blown the election with his Opposition to the Mining Tax, now that the Industry itself is satisfied at the new deal? #FB
mobile web

"So what": the face of not-so-good governance on the NSW North Coast

Last weekend a copy of Clarence Valley Council's June 2010 Budget Submissions Summary was doing the digital rounds much to the enjoyment of local cynics.
Of particular note was this answer to one concern raised about the fact that after 6 years council still had not reconciled a $1.2 million deficit brought into the amalgamation process by Grafton City Council: "So what".
But what really had locals opened mouthed was this answer to concerns about lack of transparency and accountability:
"As the 'senior administrator' who recommended that CCRT funding be used for lifesaving services, I (Rob Donges) have taken responsibility for including Iluka and will take responsibility should a higher authority determine that this funding arrangement is grossly negligent or some such thing."
That last line comes after a previous entry which goes:
"LPMA representatives have verbally raised concerns as to the funding of this service from CCRT and staff have provided our reasoning. Nothing more has been heard. If the Authority were to formally advise that the funding is inappropriate, we would recommend it be funded elsewhere i.e. General Fund."
The merry cynics are now laying bets that the Land and Property Mangement Authority won't be amused when it learns that its attempt to informally manage the problem of past misallocations of what could be hundreds of thousands of dollars in Clarence Coast Reserve Trust funds has been seen as something council staff can brush aside - especially as it was a resident's complaint which first brought the matter to light and council management has been very careful not to consult with the NSW Department of Lands itself just in case it wasn't left with anymore wriggle room.
Clarence Coast Reserve Trust Budget 2010/11

Shame on you all! When election promises go south

Image of O'Farrell and Cansdell from Steve Cansdell MP's Clarence Chronicles, June 20120

From Clarence Valley Review letters to the editor on 30 June 2010:

Expecting a lot

Ed,
In response to the article "Don't expect too much from Coalition, says Nats Chair" (CVR 23/6/10) I believe the electorate is expecting a lot.
If the Coalition Party does not and probably never intended to complete the Pacific Highway upgrade by 2016 then I say to those politicians, including the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Barry O'Farrell shame on you for exploiting those families who have roadside memorials to their deceased family members along the Pacific Highway.
I recall the many photographs which included Mr Cansdell taken beside these memorials in the printed media and on television trying to extract sympathy votes from the electorate.
I say shame on you all. Are there no politicians today with any dignity and fortitude in standing up for what they believe in without having to toe a party line?
The Coalition Party are backing away from every key commitment espoused by Mr Steve Cansdell against the present basket case State Government.
The electorate are not fools, it is the same old ploy used by all political parties when an election is imminent that any incoming Government will have a "very bare cupboard".
Is there no one out there who has dignity, honesty, shows respect for others and have a desire to help every member of the Community by becoming an Independent member?
If so, please step forward, we need you.

Lyne Dobson, Waterview Heights

Northern Rivers resident gets the last laugh on local tip charges

According to one NSW North Coast mayor:
"The State Government’s waste and environment levy is $20.40 a tonne to dump rubbish at the tip – charged on top of the council’s fees.
This amount is set to rise each financial year for the next five years until it reaches a capped price of $70 a tonne.......additional costs could not be absorbed into the current council budget, so they would have to be added to the waste levy in rates."
According to one NSW North Coast resident:
"After finding out what I had to pay to take my home e-waste and other items to the nearest council operated tip, I sent all of it over the border instead with a Queenslander returning home. Cost? It's free at that particular tip destination, so it was nothing, nil, nada, zero, zilch."
He also says he has no intention of voting for the Keneally Government because of the way it continues to milk regional New South Wales.

Pic at Google Images

Those sidebar polls are back again

I've just been reminded that North Coast Voices ran a series of sidebar polls in the lead-up to the 2007 Australian federal election.

So today we have posted the first for election year 2010 - on the subject of Tony Abbott and campaign promises.

Eyes right and join in the fun. Poll results will be published in posts at a later date.

The second poll planned will be on the topic of Julia Gillard.

Clarence Ahead invites climate change adaptation expert to speak at Yamba, 6 July 2010

At 6.30pm on Tuesday 6 July 2010 Professor Garry Willgoose is giving a talk on "Climate change, its consequences, and us" at the Yamba Bowling & Recreation Club by invitation of Clarence Ahead .

Admission is $30.00 and includes two course meal, tea or coffee. Bar service will be available. Further information can be had from Des Plunkett Ph: (02) 66. 433044.

Dr. Willgoose is an ARC Australian Professorial Fellow from the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment at the School of Engineering, University of Newcastle, with expertise in the areas of hydrology; climatology; water resources; ecohydrology; erosion; climate change adaptation; mine rehabilitation; mine closure; mine environment; mining; uranium; nuclear waste disposal.

Rather amusingly I was alerted to this Clarence Ahead initiative by an obvious climate change denier writing in one of the NSW North Coast newspapers.

The letter writer appears to believe that the academic, who in September last year was reported to have said that more frequent heatwaves will present big problems in regional areas.....the biggest impact [of climate change] will be on health, water and local government works programs, will probably support the denialist position.

This should make for an interesting exchange during any question and answer segment on the night.

Photograph from University of Newcastle website

Whales can be grandmothers too

Pilot Whales from Sea Fijii Travel

It is no secret that the pro-whaling lobby likes to characterize all cetaceans as 'fish'.
The Swedish Wire reported last month that:

Kristjan Loftsson, Iceland's millionaire whaling king, doesn't really see the difference: "whales are just another fish," he said at a crunch meeting of the International Whaling Commission.....If they [whales] are so intelligent, why don't they stay outside of Iceland's territorial waters?"

However, the fact that whales are social mammals often living in close kinship groups is well-known and research continues into why this is so.

According to Victoria Gill at BBC News on Friday 2 July 2010:

Scientists have discovered an evolutionary reason why humans and whales both have grandmothers.
As post-menopausal females age, the researchers say, they become increasingly interested and helpful in rearing their "grandchildren".
This could help explain why female great apes and toothed whales (cetaceans) have lifespans that extend long beyond their reproductive years.

To celebrate a summer of Royal Society science festivities, all Royal Society journal content is free to access until 30 July 2010, so the full research article by Rufus A. Johnstone and Michael A. Cant The evolution of menopause in cetaceans and humans: the role of demography can be downloaded as a PDF file:

Human females stop reproducing long before they die. Among other mammals, only pilot and killer whales exhibit a comparable period of post-reproductive life. The grandmother hypothesis suggests that kin selection can favour post-reproductive survival when older females help their relatives to reproduce. But although there is an evidence that grandmothers can provide such assistance, it is puzzling why menopause should have evolved only among the great apes and toothed whales. We have previously suggested
(Cant & Johnstone 2008 Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 5332–5336 (doi:10.1073/pnas.0711911105)) that relatedness asymmetries owing to female-biased dispersal in ancestral humans would have favoured younger females in reproductive competition with older females, predisposing our species to the evolution of menopause. But this argument appears inapplicable to menopausal cetaceans, which exhibit philopatry of both sexes combined with extra-group mating. Here, we derive general formulae for 'kinship dynamics', the agerelated changes in local relatedness that occur in long-lived social organisms as a consequence of dispersal and mortality. We show that the very different social structures of great apes and menopausal whales both give rise to an increase in local relatedness with female age, favouring late-life helping. Our analysis can therefore help to explain why, of all long-lived, social mammals, it is specifically among the great apes and toothed whales that menopause and post-reproductive helping have evolved.....

Our analysis thus implies that females of most social mammalian species will experience a decline in local relatedness with age, but that the two unusual and very different social arrangements that characterize menopausal species (respectively, female-biased dispersal and local mating in ancestral humans, and philopatry of both sexes combined with extra-group mating in pilot and resident killer whales) both give rise to an increase in local relatedness with female age. This build-up of local relatedness over the reproductive lifespan of a female means that the great apes and toothed whales, by contrast with most mammals, are predisposed to the evolution of reproductive restraint and altruistic helping behaviour later rather than earlier in life. The value of an explicit focus on kinship dynamics is that it reveals the underlying similarity between the ape and whale cases, which would otherwise be obscured by the differences in their social structure....

The expected benefits of ceasing reproduction in order to selectively assist close kin will thus increase with age in the ape and whale cases because younger females are less likely than are older females to have close relatives in the group—there is little value to sacrificing the possibility of direct reproduction to become a helper at an age when there are likely to be few or no kin present to help.

A vote for Gillard or Abbott is still a vote for Internet censorship in Australia?

According to the Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy as reported by ZNet:

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has reiterated the government's support for its mandatory internet filter policy after the change in Prime Minister and has slammed proposed amendments by Senator Kate Lundy that would allow Australians to opt in or out of the technology...... "We have got an election commitment to deliver," Conroy told journalists in a doorstop interview in Sydney this afternoon. "Just because [Greens Senator] Scott Ludlam says it's been shelved, doesn't mean it's true."

Because there has been leadership change and Australia has a new prime minister in Julia Gillard there is no reason to suppose that the intention to impose Internet censorship is off the government's political agenda. Even if Gillard herself has been remarkably reticent in the face of this contentious issue.

While arch-conservative and professional 1950s-style Catholic, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, should have alarm bells ringing with his view that the nation should have a new way of ensuring that proper community standards are applied to the media, all media, including new media.

Both Federal Labor and the Coalition would be prepared to dump on Internet users in an effort to secure support of the 'Christian' bloc at the 2010 federal election. The first preference polling numbers are still too close to do otherwise.

How sweet it is watching Howard bark his shins

How sweet it is watching former Oz prime minister John Howard bark his shins against the reality of his personal and political reputation.

L'l Johnnie wonders aloud about the unfairness of being refused the vice presidency of the International Cricket Council - he doesn't for the life of him understand why he has been rejected.

"The 70-year-old said yesterday the most "disappointing" aspect of the decision was that he was given no explanation for the knockback."

Gar'n John!

Even in your own country you have a dodgy reputation as a closet racist.

And remember this from 2003? "Prime Minister John Howard was yesterday censured by the Senate for misleading the public in his justification for sending Australia to war with Iraq. It was only the fourth time in more than three decades a sitting prime minister has been censured and the second in Mr Howard's seven-and-a-half years in office."

Some of your fellow countrymen even laid complaints at The Hague alleging that you're a war criminal {first was by a Melbourne-based academic and in 2008 by a group}.

Besides which mate - you're a fair dinkum pie chucker.

Cartoon displayed at Google Images

Telstra's telephonic logic

 

During the telephone outage that hit the Clarence Valley last week I used my mobile phone to contact the faults number and report the problem.

 

When I finally got to talk to a human I gave them my mobile number and warned them that since reception on that phone is intermittent the conversation could be cut off at any point.

They suggested that I could use a computer to fault register; not very convenient when the only connection you have is dial-up.

 

I managed to report the fault but half way through confirming my identity the phone cut out. Since they did not ring back I thought that the fault was registered.

 

It was mid-day the next day before the landline worked and it surprised me to find a message on the phone that I reported faulty asking me to call back so Telstra could confirm the fault report.

 

All this made me question the intelligence of people who work for Telstra.

I think I may invest in some homing pigeons - much less complicated, more reliable and if the worst happens at least I can make pigeon pie.

Gillard sucks all the air out of the political debate and Abbott panics.....

One of the most amusing things to observe over the last week has been how Julia Gillard becoming Australia's first female prime minister sucked all the air out of the political debate and left Opposition Leader Tony Abbott beached az 'n' gasping.
Desperate for some positive air time poor Tones has had to resort to an outright gimmick and then tweet about it in case some missed his silly stunt with old bathers and a bonfire on the Matt & Jo Show:
TonyAbbottMHR Burning speedos with Matt and Jo in Melbourne this morning. http://twitpic.com/215vt

















However even panic driven stunts fall flat:

ern_malleyscrub

Yes, but won't people ask why you're not in them while they're burning?

But the best bit has to be the camera jockey caught in frame - snapping away at a pair of flaming budgie smugglers. Yep, sophisticated political coverage at its best!

At last! A reason why Territorians see so many UFOs?

On any day you can go to The Northern Territory News online and this is a slice of what you'll bring up from the archives concerning Unidentified Flying Objects:

Cops investigate NT UFO invasion Northern Territory News ...

27 May 2010 ... A FULL-SCALE alien invasion of the Northern Territory has begun.

"But highly-qualified UFO-ologists said they believed the bright lights were space ships on a pre-attack scouting mission.
Darwin-based UFO expert Alan Ferguson said the flares were obviously aliens. "This all sounds like UFO activity," he said."

http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2010/05/27/150751_ntnews.html

So are Territorians the darlings of the intergalactic set or is something else at work here?
Well, at last we have an answer - the area around News Ltd's most northern Oz newspaper headquarters in Darwin is affected by gravity to a different degree than most of the nation.
A few little brains reacting to a difference in pressure perhaps? ;-D



Pic from BBC

Original BBC article here

NAIDOC Week in Yamba

NAIDOC WEEK IN YAMBA

Monday 5 July (10am-3pm)

Treelands Drive Community Centre, Yamba

10am “Official Opening” MC Trevor Kapeen (Yaegl Man)
10.15am “Flag Raising” Mrs. Veronica Pearce, Aunty Boona (Yaegl Elder)
10.30am “Welcome to Country” Mrs. Lillian Williams, Aunty Lil (Yaegl Elder)
11am Welcome to Country Dancers (Lenny Anderson)
11.20am History of NAIDOC & Aboriginal Medical Service Grafton Speakers Jordan Walker and Talarna Gardiner (Year 12 Students Maclean High)
11.30am (Trevor) “Thank you to Dignitaries in Attendance” and Apologies
11.40am Lunch Announcement Trevor
11.45am-12.45pm Services Information Share
1pm-2pm Lunch
2pm-3pm Entertainment Jerry Byers local entertainment country & western as well as Andrew Hegedus from Grafton

Wednesday 7 July (9am-3pm)

Family and Children’s Day (Children aged 0-10 years) at Angourie Sports Field – Angourie Road, Yamba

* jumping castle
* pony rides
* Indigenous games
* farmyard Nursery Animals
* age Races
* face Painting
* boomerang design
* story telling
* BBQ lunch
* light entertainment after lunch “The Maclean Mob”

Friday 9 July (9am-3pm)

Yamba Youth Fun Day (young people aged 11yrs-18yrs), Raymond Laurie Sports Centre off Angourie Road, Yamba

* hip-hop workshops
* boxing workshops
* Indigenous games (Balund A Boys)
* jewelry making
* soft ball
* basketball
* table tennis
* boomerang design
* BBQ lunch
* girls Rugby league exhibition game
* basket weaving

Terry Randall Memorial Golf Day (Maclean Golf Club) – All Welcome

Friday Evening

Women’s Karaoke Yamba Bowling Club, 7pm-10pm hosted by Eileen McLeay

More information:
Norma Collins at Birrigan Gargle Local Aboriginal Land Council on 6646 1664, or Grace Clague at Clarence Valley Council 6645 0014 or email grace.clague @ clarence.nsw.gov.au

More information and to reserve a place:
Contact Norma Collins at Birrigan Gargle Local Aboriginal Land Council on 6646 1664, or Grace Clague at Clarence Valley Council 6645 0014 or email grace.clague @ clarence.nsw.gov.au

Bl**dy Typical Pollie or The Nats At Play

Rumour round the water cart is that now McDonalds has its Yamba development consent safely tucked under the arm, the North Coast Nationals are looking to create a little mischief by encouraging locals to bombard the NSW Minister for Local Government with letters complaining about Clarence Valley Council's conduct.

Of course the sitting federal and state Nats MPs were very careful to keep a low profile while there was actually a chance to send Maccas packing when the development application was first being considered (in fact I heard that Hartsuyker outright refused to get involved) and they're obviously not telling anyone that the real way to go is a formal complaint to the department head cc'd to the minister.
And pollies wonder why they're considered lower than a snake's belly!

Coral snake gif found at Google Images

Julia Gillard: time for a little context....

Ever since the news broke that Kevin Rudd had been removed as prime minister by the parliamentary wing of the Australian Labor Party there has been noise about him being the only PM to be deposed in a first term without being able to 'go to the people' and, about Julia Gillard rolling a first term leader, not being elected by the people, being unmarried, having no children, being a migrant. As well as constant chatter about how 'unique' this is.

Of course Abbott, Bishop, Joyce and the entire Coalition chorus are attempting to hammer many of these points as political negatives.

However, an Australian prime minister is always elected by the party not the people. Further to that - with the exception of her gender - little else is unique about Gillard. Or unique about Rudd for that matter.

According to the Australian Prime Ministers Centre at Old Parliament House of our twenty-seven prime ministers:

..... most have only served one term......

Indeed it seems that, if I have the count correct, at least 17 of the 27 Australian prime ministers to date were installed by their respective parties in periods between federal elections. So Gillard replacing Rudd is almost a mundane experience in an historical context.

A potted history garnered from the Internet shows that:
Bruce became Australia's first prime minister without a general election being called.
Page became prime minister due to the death of a sitting leader and so he too never faced a general election as leader to get there. He gave way to Menzies who became prime minister without facing the people as head of the party (although he did stand for election as leader of the opposition the second time around).
Forde took the same route as Page.
Deakin, Watson,Reid, Barton, Fisher, Hughes, Menzies all resigned rather than be pushed by either their party or the House.
McEwan came to the prime ministership on the death of Holt. He was unmarried during his brief term as prime minister and also childless. He gave way to Gorton without a general election being called.
When it came to party room coups - Bruce rolled Hughes in Billy's incarnation as a conservative, McMahon rolled Gorton (à la Gillard and Rudd but with more blood on the carpets) and Keating rolled Hawke, to become prime ministers without going to the electorate for ersatz approval.
Neither Watson, Reid, Page, Fadden, Forde or McEwen went to a general election while holding the office of prime minister. McMahon's government lost the only time he went to the polls as PM.
Of the many who did not last long heading a federal government, the record for brevity must go to Forde who gave way to Chifley after eight days.
Whitlam was unique in that he was removed by the Governor-General using the reserve powers of the Crown.

Oh, and by the way - a total of six prime ministers have been born overseas. One of our most well-known prime ministers William 'Billy' Hughes was born in Wales just like the 27th Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

** My apologies for this post seeming to appear and disappear in the early hours - a sudden power shortage left me with an unedited version out there in cyberspace which the software decided to publish. The text is now corrected.

Australian Federal Election 2010: the iffy seats confirmed

The Australian Electoral Commission has kindly listed the status of all 150 House of Representatives seats across the country which will be contested in this year's federal election in a handy PDF file:

How is status defined?

Seat status is based on the two-party preferred vote count (TPP). The two-party preferred vote

refers to the number of votes received by the Labor and Coalition candidates after a full distribution

of preferences.

The AEC classifies seats using the following business rules: when a party receives less than

56 per cent of the vote the seat is classified as ‘marginal’ (M); between 56-60 per cent it is

classified as ‘fairly safe’ (FS) and more than 60 per cent is classified ‘safe’ (S).

In New South Wales 48 seats will be on the ballot and 16 of these are currently held by very slim margins (post 2009 redistribution) and another 7 are only classified as fairly safe.

The marginal seats are Bennelong, Calare, Cowper, Dobell, Eden-Monaro, Gilmore, Greenway, Hughes, Hume, Macarthur, Macquarie, North Sydney, Page, Paterson, Robertson, and Wentworth.

Five of these marginal seats are held by the Coalition and seven by Labor. Two are on the NSW North Coast - Page held by Labor MP Janelle Saffin and Cowper held by National Party MP Luke Hartsuyker.

The fact that marginal and fairly safe seats make up almost half of all NSW seats will make for an interesting and possibly brutal federal election campaign in this state.

Dear Red: an open letter to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard

Dear Red,

I voted for Labor at the last federal election:
1. To get rid of Howard and his rightwing gang of idiots - PASS
2. In the belief that Labor would address climate change - FAIL
3. Hoping that pensioners would get a fairer go - PASS
4. Sure that public hospitals, community health services and dental care for the poor would improve - FAIL, CONDITIONAL PASS, FAIL
5. Confident that a Labor Government would get rid of those stupid sedition laws and be fairer to asylum seekers arriving unannounced by boat - FAIL, CONDITIONAL PASS
6. Certain that the Australian Labor Party would not become so right wing that it would introduce a national identity data base on the sly or try to censor free speech on the Internet - FAIL, FAIL
7. Knowing that Labor would do it's best to save the whales - PASS
8. Wishing that a Labor Government would stand up to big business bullies and self-righteous religious leaders - FAIL and FAIL again.
As you can see my hopes & dreams are largely unmet.
I'm not a happy camper.
What are you going to do for those like me who felt betrayed by the Rudd Government and are of two minds about where you fit in the great policy scheme of things?
Do our votes matter more to you than they did to Rudd?

Maudie's Ex
Yamba

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.

Make the biotech industry part of the Australian federal election debate in 2010

With little likelihood of the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council handing on its final report of the Review of Food Labelling Law and Policy before the federal election this year, I imagine that the biotech industry in Australia is feeling confident that it will not come under real scrutiny during the election campaign.

Because this is an important issue which already sees genetically modified foods (such as certain potato varieties) capable of being sold to the general public without any requirement that it be labelled such, it is important that all candidates standing for a federal seat in 2010 be asked to state their position on the labelling of genetically modified of produce/products/ingredients/foods and the makeup of any future review committee.

How members of the new parliament view issues surrounding genetic modification will be reflected in how they vote on any proposed changes to food labelling law. The forthcoming election campaign is one more chance for Australian consumers to get their own points of view across to those wishing to represent them.

This is what the ANZFRC review website has to say about the one member of the Independent Review Panel with a glaring conflict of interest as Executive Director of the Australian Oilseeds Federation briefed to promote GM technology:

Nicholas Clive Goddard Mr Nick Goddard is a communications and marketing professional with over 25 years experience in the food industry. He has solid track record in bringing new and innovative food products to market, and in doing so has developed a good understanding of the challenges and opportunities the existing food labelling laws present to both businesses and consumers. Mr. Goddard has a Bachelor of Commerce and an MBA, and brings a pragmatic business and solutions oriented approach to the Panel. He is currently Executive Director of an agri-food industry association.
(Conflict of Interest declaration (PDF 190 KB))



















The final report of the Review Committee will be provided to the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council in December 2010 and to COAG in early 2011.
The review process began in late 2009.

The reactions are coming thick and fast to Gillard's ascension

The reactions are coming thick and fast to Julia Gillard's elevation to the position of Australia's Prime Minister.
Predictably many are focussed on gender, marital status, religion, family and hair colour while some think of the political impications for one Anthony Abbott.
Running the gamut from the pig ignorant and inaccurate Red Barren tag (turning up in The Punch comments section slinging off at her childless state in fairly obvious code) and the wilfully mischevious though to the witty and acute.
Here's a scatter of these in no particular order:

Cartoon by Bill Leak

‎
zineshop‎: Just realized Julia Gillard is our first PM that doesn't have children. Cool. Thanks 4 filling me in Rachel Musings of an Inappropriate Woman‎ - tumblr.com
‎
thewetmale‎: @jason_a_w Oh, Gillard looks like a cat with a new mouse. #aus2010 has the potential to be very, very entertaining. - Twitter

Gillard said through a spokeswoman that she was a "non-practising Baptist" and "not religious". And you know the best thing? Australians (apart from the loony fringe - like Fagsnadh and Stephen Fielding) will not give a damn. {Google Groups}

By the looks of Facebook, Aussie rangas are taking great pride in one of their own grabbing the top job. So imagine how I’m feeling. As an unmarried, childless heathen it looks like someone who reflects my personal values has finally become Prime Minister. {Carrie Miller writing in The Punch on 28th June 2010}

* This last letter by Tom McIndoe is actually incorrect in saying that Gillard is the first "unmarried" prime minister. It's more correct to say 'never married' perhaps. John McEwan during his very short term as prime minister between 19th December 1967 to 10th January 1968 did not have a wife (he was widowed in February 1967 and remarried in mid-1968) and he was also officially childless at the time.{Thanks to Clarencegirl for pointing that out.}