eHealth - when "We told you so" gives no satisfaction

First it was privacy concerns which headed the list of reasons why the proposed eHealth scheme could be one of the worst ideas Federal Labor has come up with in the last one hundred years – now it seems the very wheels are thought to be falling off the national database wagon and it may even be dangerous to patient health.

The Australian 6 February 2012:

THE private corporation established by the federal and state governments to roll out the proposed electronic health records system has been savaged by the software industry and privacy advocates.

Both the Medical Software Industry Association (MSIA) and the Australian Privacy Foundation have told a Senate inquiry hearing in Canberra that personally controlled e-health records should not go live on July 1 as planned.

MSIA president Jon Hughes says industry has lost confidence in the ability of the National eHealth Transition Authority (NEHTA) to deliver the program.

"There is evidence of a lack of probity, ineffective governance and an inability to deliver targeted programs," he told the inquiry.

"The program risks falling into disuse from the very first day of live operation."

Industry argues the federal health department has not provided the support needed to maintain the e-health records in the longer-term………

Dr McCauley told the committee if data was reformatted as envisaged it could create havoc when it came to listing medications on e-health records because the so-called Australian medicine terminology still had serious issues.

"That medication list (on records) is going to become a major mish-mash of sources of information from different people in different places describing the medication using different names and it's going to be extremely confusing."

Senate Community Affairs Committees Inquiry into Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records Bill 2011 and one related bill

MSIA has repeatedly asked for the information contained in the comprehensive safety report that NeHTA has stated was performed prior to the Health Identifier service going live. This has not been made available. The results of a recent FOI request to DoHA by The Australian, demonstrated that DoHA does not have such a report. The recently discovered design flaws suggest that the safety report, if completed, was not sufficiently comprehensive.
[Medical Software Industry Association submission (PDF 438KB)]

A brief history of the debate on North Coast Voices:

Friday, 17 April 2009  So you want to look through my medical records?

Wednesday, 10 June 2009  Federal Labor and Health Minister Roxon crossing a bridge too far

Thursday, 28 January 2010  e-Health: something's rotten in the State of Kevin

Sunday, 7 March 2010  And these are the people Rudd & Co intend to trust with access to a national database containing all your sensitive personal information?

Monday, 15 March 2010  Who's guarding the guards guarding your personal information?

            Thursday, 14 April 2011  PCEHR opt-in provision expected to allay privacy concerns. Pull the other one!

Her Maj sez ta in 2012

From the bowels of Buck House, The Queen's Diamond Jubilee message:

Today, as I mark 60 years as your Queen, I am writing to thank you for the wonderful support and encouragement that you have given to me and Prince Philip over these years and to tell you how deeply moved we have been to receive so many kind messages about the Diamond Jubilee.

In this special year, as I dedicate myself anew to your service, I hope we will all be reminded of the power of togetherness and the convening strength of family, friendship and good neighbourliness, examples of which I have been fortunate to see throughout my reign and which my family and I look forward to seeing in many forms as we travel throughout the United Kingdom and the wider Commonwealth.

I hope also that this Jubilee year will be a time to give thanks for the great advances that have been made since 1952 and to look forward to the future with clear head and warm heart as we join together in our celebrations.

I send my sincere good wishes to you all.

ELIZABETH R.

Where should Clarence Valley tourism funding go?

One Lower Clarence ratepayer objects to Clarence Valley Council's attempts to reposition Grafton as a tourist hub - a ‘River City’ destination.

Clarence Valley Review, 1 February 2012
Click on image to enlarge

Howzat! Tones gets caught out

Which one is Tony?

Tony Abbott displays his lack of spine in 2012.

TRANSCRIPT OF THE HON. TONY ABBOTT MHR DOORSTOP INTERVIEW SYDNEY:

“TONY ABBOTT: This has been a truly shambolic start to the year by the Gillard government. ……We have the Anthony Albanese plagiarism incident.”

Herald Sun 2^nd February 2012:

“OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott has been swept up in his own embarrassing claim of political plagiarism, appearing to have borrowed from speeches of two US Presidents and a US shock jock in his address to the National Press Club on Tuesday.

A week after Labor Minister Anthony Albanese was lampooned for plagiarising a fictional Hollywood president, played by Michael Douglas, in his speech to the Press Club, Mr Abbott appeared to have gone a step further and taken liberties with the work of real presidents.

Claiming his speech was all his own work, and not the labours of his staff, when asked if he thought it was a good speech, Mr Abbott replied: "Well I wrote it, so I hope so." Not exactly, it appears….”

Read the rest here and compare it with his speech here.

Jellyfish mosaic from Google Images pics

Australian east coast flooding in pictures, January-February 2012

From Queensland through to News South Wales and Victoria -  La Niña flood waters were a problem to overcome.

Snapshots of Mitchell, Wee Waa, Moree, Belligen, Canungra Creek, Charleville, Coffs Harbour, Charlton and Lawrence........................

Photographs from ABC News files, SBS News, The Australian, The Age, and Goggle Images.

It's Armageddon! cries Nats Senator Fiona Nash

Poor Fi Nash – 2012 is overwhelming her early and she’s so fearful for her job all of us living in regional New South Wales.

Regional Australians are fed up
THE year 2012 has just started and already the Labor Government's agenda will impact on regional communities.
The government again flagged its intention to try to means-test the private health insurance rebate, putting more pressure on the already stretched public health system in regional areas.
Volunteers will be subject to unreasonable work, health and safety laws.
Small business is drowning in red tape, and a leaked report proposes regional airlines at Sydney Airport be moved out to Bankstown.
The agriculture sector faces proposed water cuts in the Murray Darling Basin, increasing foreign ownership of prime land and assets, cuts to live animal export permits to Indonesia, and a worrying shortage of graduates and skilled workforce.
The manufacturing and retail sectors are struggling and jobs are going in regional areas.
All of this is made worse by a carbon tax that starts in July and mounting government debt.
Regional Australians are fed up with being treated like second-class citizens.
The Nationals will fight on their behalf for a fair go.
Senator Fiona Nash
The Nationals Senator for NSW

The year is also addling her brain, as in this letter to The Daily Examiner published on 3^rd February shows she doesn’t realize that:

·         in-patients with private health cover are already being treated in regional public hospitals

·         proposed national harmonized health and safety laws which will codify existing common and compilate state law only apply to volunteer organizations which actually employ people and all volunteers have a right to be safe

·         dog whistles about small business red tape and Sydney Airport have been blown so frequently that the sound is barely noticed these days

·         few people have any sympathy for a live cattle industry which took its eye off the ball and allowed animal cruelty to become matter of course

·         regional manufacturing and retail sectors were in decline on the Lib-Nats watch as well as under Labor - ditto for skills shortages and increased foreign ownership of agricultural land

·         in crude terms Australia’s national ‘bank balance’ is still much larger than its debts, some of that debt is state government borrowings on which the federal government acts as guarantor, most of the foreign debt on the books is borrowings by the private sector, and the whole pile was at times much higher under the Howard Government than it is now

·         most of us want to see something done about slowing climate change and protecting the Murray-Darling Basin

Ochre Health's Grafton GP Super Clinic raises questions about equity and access

Here is a thumbnail sketch of general practioner medical services in Australia:

Australian Government expenditure on general practitioners in Australia was $6.4 billion, or $287 per person, in 2010-11. Australian Government expenditure on the PBS was around $7.3 billion, or $326 per person, in 2010-11. Total expenditure by all governments on community and public health was around $7.9 billion in 2009-10. [http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/114847/11-government-services-2012-factsheet-chapter11.pdf]

Nationally, there were around 2.1 million GP-type presentations to public hospital emergency departments in 2010-11…..

GP-type presentations to emergency departments are presentations for conditions that could be appropriately managed in the primary and community health sector

(Van Konkelenberg, Esterman and Van Konkelenberg 2003). One of several factors contributing to GP-type presentations at emergency departments is perceived or actual lack of access to GP services……

GP visits that are bulk billed do not require patients to pay part of the cost of the visit, while GP visits that are not bulk billed do…..

Reduced competition for patients can also reduce bulk billing rates……

Deferring or not visiting a GP can result in poorer health. Nationally, in 2010, 8.7 per cent of respondents reported that they delayed or did not visit a GP in the previous 12 months because of cost. [Australian Productivity Commission, Report on Government Services 2012]

Here is one example of how it is working on the NSW North Coast:

The Grafton GP Super Clinic will offer the community a compliment of general practitioners, practice nurses, physiotherapy, audiology, podiatry, chronic disease care managers and dietitians. The GP Super Clinic will also bring together visiting specialists and other allied health professionals to meet the needs of the local community.

With a specific focus on chronic and complex disease management, our team uses a single shared electronic medical record system and takes a team-based approach to healthcare. The GP Super Clinic aims to develop a health partnership with each and every patient, ensuring that we work in a preventative mode to reduce the chance of patients developing complex or chronic preventable illness. [Ochre Health website]

Grafton Super Clinic stated over the telephone on 2 February 2012 that bulk billing is not the norm for the clinic.

Ochre Health needs to respond to the questions raised in the letter below and, explain why it should continue to charge low-income individuals/families for basic consultations on everything from earache to influenza - given that the federal government paid in excess of $5 million to build this particular super clinic and set up the private medical practice in order to offer bulk billed services for concession card holders, children under 16 and patients with chronic conditions and complex care needs under Enhanced Primary Care Medicare item numbers, with a view to taking the burden of non-urgent free health care delivery off the sholders of public hospital Accident and Emergency departments.

GP Super Clinic

I WOULD like to see the Examiner do a story on the GP Super Clinic in Grafton.
The super clinic was built and paid for by the government to reduce the strain on the public hospital system by giving patients somewhere else to go.
However, due to the greedy nature of doctors in Grafton, of course, this is the only GP Super Clinic that does not bulk bill its patients.
Thus, the people still go and sit in the waiting room at the hospital for up to three and four hours at a time just to see a doctor.
You can go and see a doctor and be bulk-billed by Medicare in any other city in Australia, except Grafton.
This is what is known as price fixing and it is illegal in Australia. Yet, no-one seems to want to do anything about it.
The money promised to the City of Grafton by the Australian Government was to build a GP Super Clinic for all the people of the area to use and alleviate the pressure on the over-strained hospital system.
However, the greed of doctors in this area has ruined what should have been a great thing for Grafton. We should shame these doctors into running our super clinic properly and to bulk bill patients, like every other super clinic in Australia.

KEN HINTON

Grafton

[Letter to the editor in The Daily Examiner Feb 2012]

Federal Labor accuses NSW O'Farrell Government of attacking foster and grandparent carers

In October 2011 I posted that In NSW 24,000 children may be in care by 2013 and, pointed to reports that the O’Farrell Coalition Government was attempting to squeeze foster parents with children sixteen years of age and over and, cost-shift more of the financial responsibility for these children onto natural parents and the Commonwealth.

Now JENNY MACKLIN, Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Minister for Disability Reform, and

JULIE COLLINS, Minister for Community Services Minister for Indigenous Employment and Economic Development, Minister for the Status of Women, are taking the NSW government to task in this 2 February 2012 media release.

Liberals attacking foster and grandparent carers in NSW

The O’Farrell Government has shown the Liberals’ true colours when it comes to dealing with families and vulnerable people.

The New South Wales Liberals have slashed $213 a fortnight from the already stretched budgets of foster carers of teenagers aged 16 and over.

The Minister for Families, Jenny Macklin, and the Minister for Community Services, Julie Collins, today called on the NSW Government to reinstate these payments to foster carers of older teenagers.

This is an attack on carers, who not only open up their homes to young people in need, but give their time, energy and financial assistance to help them have a better life.

The Liberals cuts come at the same time as the Gillard Labor Government has boosted family payments by up to $4,200 a year for teenagers aged 16 to 19 in school or training.

Only a Labor Government understands the pressures on families and carers who feel the pinch on their household budget every week.

We recognise that it doesn’t get cheaper to raise children as they get older.

That’s why we’ve ensured that eligible foster carers can receive the boost to the Family Tax Benefit, to make sure they’ve got room in their budget to give the teenagers they are caring for the best chance at a great future.

But the Liberals are putting this at risk. Foster care families will go backwards under the O’Farrell Government’s slash and burn policy making.

This attack on foster carers follows the threat from NSW Minister for Community Services, Pru Goward, to grandparent and other kinship carers that they must apply for child support from the child’s parents.

The Child Support Scheme is an Australian Government initiative to ensure children from separated families are supported by both their parents.

The NSW Liberals’ policy to ‘require’ grandparent carers to apply for child support is misleading and is not consistent with the Australian Government’s policy.

It is unnecessarily putting pressure on the sometimes strained relationships between grandparent carers and the child’s parents.

Although the option is available for relative carers in NSW to apply for child support, the Australian Government does not require or compel carers to do so.

The Australian Government also does not support changes to the Child Support Scheme proposed by the NSW Liberals to open up child support arrangements to foster carers.

These are just more cost-cutting exercises from Pru Goward, who is feeling the heavy hand of Barry O’Farrell on her department’s budget bottom line.

We do not support these ‘policies’. We understand that it is not always in the child’s best interests for grandparent carers or foster carers to apply for child support. 

A Labor Government will always act in the best interests of children.

Date: 2 February 2012

Tweet of the Week

 

R_Chirgwin R_Chirgwin

Love it - a story about a planet 22 light years away with the obligatory Google map in the sidebar, showing Washington.

The Group of Sixteen is not a ringing endorsement of the anti-climate change position

On 27 January 2012 The Wall Street Journal ran an opinion piece titled No Need to Panic About Global Warming. WSJ editor stated that this was signed by the 16 scientists listed at the end of the article.

To assess this opinion one needs to look closer at these signatories than just the name and job descriptions they supplied:

Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris and former politician – so beloved by his fellow scientists that 400 in climate-related fields signed a letter objecting to his statements.

J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting – apparently has a BA in Applies Science, a BS in industrial engineering and is a Professor of Marketing mostly teaching in university business schools.

Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University – an MD with degrees in chemistry famous for creating the heart attack mouse which makes him an obvious candidate to comment on climate-related disciplines in which he is not qualified.

Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society – and retired from ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company.

Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences – as well as former President of Exxon Research and Engineering from 1977 to 1986 and amateur gem hunter.

William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton  - Chairman of conservative think tank the George C. Marshall Institute and former U.S. Federal Government on matters of defence and other technical issues.

Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K. – an engineer teaching in the electrical engineering division with eight publications to his name.

William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology – apparently unpublished in peer reviewed science journals on the subject of climate change and a member of the Lavoisier Group which is something of an astroturfing organization.

Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MI – according to DeSmogBlog  Lindzen has published work with the conservative think-tank, the Cato Institute. The Cato Institute has received $125,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998. In his 1995 article, "The Heat Is On," Ross Gelbspan notes that Lindzen charged oil and coal organizations $2,500 per day for his consulting service.

James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University – on the Board of Directors of ChemFab Inc which had commercial ties to the U.S. Military.

Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences - his industrial consulting included the research laboratory of GTE and Shell Technology Ventures, and is presently a partner in GothamOrient LLC which states that We leverage our deep industry connections, decades of collective in-country experience in Asia, and relationships in the government and financing sectors to most quickly and effectively open markets on behalf of our clients.

Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne – into conspiracy theories.

Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator –  a Cold War II warrior whom I always found to be an arrogant and opinionated Ugly American Abroad on the few times I ran into him, so it probably is no surprise to find him on this list.

Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem – see his blog and decide yourself.

Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service – quite a dummy spit when he left the service after an erratic time as director.

Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva – a member of the Pontifiical  Academy of Sciences at the Vatican.

Antarctic Pine Island Glacier Crack precusor to 900 sq. km iceberg

Pine Island Glacier

In mid-October 2011, NASA scientists working in Antarctica discovered a massive crack across the Pine Island Glacier, a major ice stream that drains the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Extending for 19 miles (30 kilometers), the crack was 260 feet (80 meters) wide and 195 feet (60 meters) deep. Eventually, the crack will extend all the way across the glacier, and calve a giant iceberg that will cover about 350 square miles (900 square kilometers). This image from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NAS's Terra spacecraft was acquired Nov. 13, 2011, and covers an area of 27 by 32 miles (44 by 52 kilometers), and is located near 74.9 degrees south latitude, 101.1 degrees west longitude.

Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

If you're a NSW pensioner with less than $500 in the bank, then Barry O'Farrell intends to blindside you

Gawd, this is rich! Bazza’s chief political b#tch, Pru Goward has just announced that people who would normally be eligible for a set of cheap ‘n’ nasty free spectacles won’t be able to replace lost or broken specs or fill new optical prescriptions between 10^th  February to 30^th June 2012.

Why don’t cha just get in your chauffeured limo and mow a few of the poor down, Bazza?

It would probably cost less than the public hospital stays due to falls over the next four months.

Bazza’s remuneration package is over $350k and Goward’s is over $270k a year – most of the people they are dudding would be very lucky to receive $20-22k over the same twelve months.

Lower than a snakes’s belly – that’s what O’Farrell and his cronies are.

Pics Bazza 'n' Teh B#tch were found at Granny Herald and Sky News

Mining Law Workshop Dundurrabin Community Centre, February 11th 2012 at 1.30pm

MINING LAW WORKSHOP

Dundurrabin Community Centre at 1.30pm
on February 11, 2012  

Sue Higgenson, senior solicitor from the Environmental Defenders  Office, is coming to talk with our community about mining law.

This is an open  invitation to the whole community to address everyone's concerns regarding the  legal side of mining and our rights within the community and for our private  landholdings.

Take this opportunity to  understand what could happen if mining proceeds in our community.

Environmental Defenders Office:
  A  community legal centre specialising in public interest environmental  law

  Mission:  promote the public interest and improve environmental outcomes through the  informed use of the law

  Functions
  Legal  Advice and Representation

  Policy  and Law Reform

  Community  Education

  Scientific  and Technical Advice

Please bring a something to share to have with a  cuppa.

Local Mining Exploration
Anchor  Resources have been doing exploratory drilling at Dundurrabin for gold and  copper.

As  reported on Anchor Resources website, (http://www.anchorresources.com/) the  Tyringham prospect is identified as a Reduced Intrusion- Related Gold System (RIRGS) and deposits of this type include multi-million ounce gold mines such as Fort-Knox, Pogo and Donlin Creek (Alsaska) and Kidston Australia.

Further information on proposed mining can be found at Dorrigo Environment Watch.

What Tony Abbott promises if you make him Prime Minister of Australia

Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott spoke at the National Press Club on 31 January 2012 and imparted his vision for Australia should the Coalition win the 2013 federal election.

After a predictable attack on the Gillard Government (which according to him has completely failed to appreciate the iron law of economics that no country has ever taxed its way to prosperity) he swung into a pitch redolent with the perfume of American Tea Party politics in that television viewers were treated to the prospect of smaller government, lower taxes and greater freedom and, of course, stopping the boats.

A golden future was apparently only as far away as a light at the end of the tunnel, because in the Coalition we're patriots.

Decoding this patriotic light was rather revealing.

To get to this future Abbott was promising not to promise Medicare-funded universal dental care or a national disability insurance.

He also assured voters that any tax cuts pledge made today was at least four years down the road before it came into effect. Around 2017 if these cuts happened at all – because implementation apparently requires the projected 2012-13 budget deficit to all but disappear and, the precise timing and the precise quantum is something that we will announce in good time.

He told his audience that he would also impose an est. $2.7 billion per annum new tax on the business sector in order to change the paid parental leave scheme legislated by Federal Labor.**

Abbott revealed  that under any government led by him there would be cuts to unspecified federal services, programs and funding, as well as increased privatisation of service delivery. Apparently he intends to cut somewhere in the vicinity of $12 billion a year off the budget bottom line this way, while at the same time committing to new spending around $10 billion each financial year.**

This new $10 billion supplied by taxpayers is going towards Abbott’s emissions reduction fund - which will be paid to business for what they are already doing without any additional government subsidy.

He made it clear that as prime minister he would support persons and families having aspiration (especially those privately educating their children), at the same time make life difficult for those with mental illness or physical incapacity if they happen to be parked on the disability pension.Tough love for the young who take the dole is also favoured.

Abbott ended this strange but predictable ramble with: People should be in public life for the right reasons. Mine are to serve our country, to stand up for the things I believe in, to do the right thing by my fellow Australians as best I can, to build a nation that will inspire us more and to lead a government that will disappoint us less.

His own speech and, the question and answer period which followed, indicates that he is already failing these lofty personal aims.

** Tony Abbott did not dispute these figures offered to him in the question and answer period.

Photograph from The Sydney Morning Herald.

U.S. Presidential Election 2012: Rude Music sues Newt 2012 Inc & American Conservative Union for copyright infringement

U.S. District Court filing of 30^th January 2012

Republican presidential candidate hopeful Newt Gingrich has found himself in hot water and his campaign machine before the courts for unauthorised use of the song Eye of the Tiger.

YouTube quickly ditched those Gingrich campaign video clips which contained the song.

A first: seat-belted bus to run on a local school route in the Coffs Harbour area

High school students travelling by bus between Glenreagh and Coffs Harbour will now have the added protection of seat belts.

The Coffs Coast Advocate reported that Sawtell Coaches, which operates a fleet of school buses in the Coffs area has purchased a new bus fitted with seat-belts, GPS tracking, an electronic tacograph and surveillance cameras.

The manager of Sawtell Coaches, Darren Williams, said the company had made a commercial, possibly controversial, decision given the NSW Government's Bus Safety Review had not yet been completed.

"We made the decision because we knew this service was on the government's lists of dangerous rural bus routes," Mr Williams said.
"We will be monitoring students' behaviour very closely and taking a hard line with any who do not comply with the instructions to wear the seat belts.
"Students who are moving around will be given three warnings and then be told 'to take a holiday from the bus'."

Valla parent Jan Gill, who has been campaigning for more safety on school buses, said the new bus was a welcome initiative.
 "We all hope this marks the beginning of a new trend with other bus companies, especially those that travel on the highway," Ms Gill said

Ms Gill's letter to the editor of The Coffs Advocate is below:

Belts on buses

I commend Darren Williams, manager of Sawtell Coaches, for buying a new, safe bus fitted with seatbelts for a school bus route identified as high risk.

This highly responsible and community-minded initiative is greatly appreciated by parents, who would like to see all school buses travelling on dangerous routes upgraded so they suit the conditions.

The horrific crash at Urunga earlier this month and the heavy rain we are now experiencing highlight the risks faced by those who live and travel in this region, particularly on the Pacific Hwy.

I would like to see Busways management take the same approach Mr Williams has taken to keep children safe.

Busways has several school buses travelling south of Urunga on the highway.

It's time they replaced the school buses that have low-backed unpadded seats, with vehicles that have safety features fit for our conditions, including seatbelts.

Jan Gill, Valla Beach

Source: The Coffs Coast Advocate 

Don't laugh - we are Christians!

Teaching the overly sensitive Mr. Smith about the Streisand Effect....

The Telegraph on 31 January 2012:

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has confirmed to news.com.au that it is investigating a satirical interview by comedians John Clarke and Brian Dawe, which went to air at the end of ABC's 7.30 program on October 27 last year.

ABC has stood by the program and dismissed the investigation as "routine".

Perth school teacher Simon Smith told news.com.au he complained to ABC and the broadcasting watchdog after he saw the skit last year.

He objected to its portrayal of Christians.

"You can clearly see that they are vilifying Christians as insensitive, callous and uncaring with clear inferences to the Opposition front bench and Tony Abbott, many who are Catholics," he claimed.

"I just sat there for a minute and I thought, they've really overstepped the mark”.

The Canberra Problem and "Dr Saulways-Wright"
Originally aired on ABC TV's 7.30: 27/10/2011

http://youtu.be/_SOipK0rRec

Quote of the Week - Political Catchphrases

“with 'pro-life' perhaps the most offensive of all. Is anyone out there 'pro-death'? Can anyone be rustled up who is 'anti-life'?”

{The Loon Pond on 30th^th January 2012}

Australia Day in South Korea

Chalk up another success for a Yamba export.

No, Yamba prawns were not on the menu when the Australia Chamber of Commerce celebrated Australia National Day at the Grand Ambassador hotel in Gangnam, southern Seoul, on Friday.

But, another Yamba product, in the shape of Wayne Golding, whom The Korea Herald described as ""an Australian culinary wizard", prepared the feast. Golding is executive chef at the Grand Ambassador.

Golding told The Korea Herald that he wanted everyone to feel that they were eating a traditional Australia Day meal.

Participants were greeted with a Down Under theme as cabanas decorated one side of the room and Aussie favorites like fish and chips and meat pies were served. No day marking the country’s birthday would be complete without a good old fashion Aussie barbeque.

Paul Matthews provided this review of Golding for 10mag.com :

When I step into The King’s Premium Live Buffet at the Grand Ambassador Hotel, I’m overwhelmed. Confronted by mountains of seafood, roast ducks and a walk-in dessert cabinet, I want to dig in straight away. But I resist, since the main attraction here is Australian Executive Chef Wayne Golding, who has transformed this thirty-five-year old restaurant into something extraordinary.

Hailing from the small town of Yamba in New South Wales, Golding started out in his father’s footsteps as a fisherman. He worked nights on the boats and studied during the day. After flirtations with carpentry, metal fabrication and architecture, he turned to the kitchen, rising up the ranks at a breakneck pace. From Yamba, he went to Sydney, then onto Dubai and Hanoi, before he found himself at the Paradise Hotel in Busan and his Korean career really began. He has been living here for the past seven years and has been working at the Grand Ambassador since 2009.

He is committed to making King’s the best buffet in the country, and he is bringing some exciting new ideas to the dining table. At King’s, everything is “live,” meaning that instead of lukewarm trays filled with congealed sauces, you can expect your food freshly cooked to order in front of your eyes. He has assembled a crack team of chefs to assist him, including a Chinese station complete with a dim sum expert, a roast meats master and a wok specialist. He has also ensured that seafood fans can get oysters all year round and that all the produce at King’s is the freshest it can be.

It wasn’t always that easy to source exotic fresh ingredients in Korea, and Chef Golding remembers when he used to have to scour the department stores in order to source the best products available. However, his job is a little easier now and he has even managed get a supply of fresh shrimp for the restaurant. As a fisherman’s son, he knows that there’s a big difference in taste between fresh and frozen.

The King’s Premium Live Buffet is in good hands with this Yamba boy, who knows the importance of “live” food and treats his customers to one of the best hotel buffets in Seoul.

Credits: The Korea Herald and 10mag.com

Member for Clarence says, "I didn't lie"

Chris Gulaptis, the Member for Clarence, says a group claiming he'd said the O'Farrell Government had set aside $300 million for a new Grafton bridge either misunderstood what he was saying or didn't understand the budgetary process.

"If they think I have lied to them I apologise for that, but I certainly didn't lie to them," he said. [Daily Examiner, 31/1/12]

Seems the message sent from the mouth of the MP and the message that arrived at the ears of members of the group was not one and the same thing. Who do you believe?

Read today's Daily Examiner report here.

By a modest margin Australian electorate wants Gillard Government to run full term

The Essential Report 30 January 2012:

This report summarises the results of a weekly omnibus conducted by Essential Research with data provided by Your Source.
The survey was conducted online between the 25th and 29th January 2012 and is based on 1,033 respondents.

Click on table to enlarge

The big fella explained with a little help from trick cycling

Found at comicsreporter.com