Is this bus travelling to the left or the right?

Can't make up your mind?

Look carefully at the picture again.

Still don't know?

Pre-schoolers all over Australia were shown this picture and asked the same question.

90% of the pre-schooler's gave this answer...


"The bus is travelling to the right."

The pre-schoolers were then asked, "Why do you think the bus is travelling to the right?"

They answered, "Because you can't see the door to get on the bus."


How do you feel now?

Source: Unknown

Are we rolling with the economic punches or just running scared?

While Federal Labor, Liberals and Nationals are all still arguing about what degree of gloominess is appropriate for discussing the Australian economy and the global financial crisis, it appears that average Australians may have made up their minds.

Although the Melbourne Institute announced that "The median expected inflation rate, reported in the Melbourne Institute Survey of Consumer Inflationary Expectations, fell to 2.3 per cent in February from 2.7 per cent in January", it also released news that the "The Westpac–Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment fell by 4.6% in February from 89.9 in January to 85.8 in February".

Seems no matter how much money the Rudd Government throws at the situation or how the Reserve Bank acts on interest rates, we're all determined to expect the worst for this year if not the next.

I suspect that many would feel a lot more cheerful if those with personal or corporate agendas didn't use a megaphone to label the current global financial crisis as the Great Recession, which is a self-fulfilling prophesy if ever I heard one.

Northern Rivers move to tackle climate change co-operatively

This month sixteen Northern Rivers organisations attempt to take the first steps in a regional response to climate change through the Northern Rivers Climate Change Collaboration (NR3C).

The aim of this group is to help create organisational and community leadership, mobilise resources to tackle this big regional issue, as well as accelerate innovation.

Draft Northern Rivers Climate Change Collaboration Agreement here.

One has to applaud an effort which will need real commitment to survive and grow, for it will often fly in the face of local business/land developer short-term interests (and in some cases local government indifference to implementing its goals on the ground).

G'arn! Saffin asks a Dorothy Dixer on importing bananas

The Labor MP for Page Janelle Saffin rose to her feet last Tuesday for one of those discreditable parliamentary traditions - the Dorothy Dixer at Question Time .
"My question is directed to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Will the minister please update the House on the domestic and international response to the policy determination regarding the importation of bananas from the Philippines?"
This was wasted effort on the part of an MP who usually does her best for the Northern Rivers region.
Let's hope that in the future she will refrain from this nonsense and only rise to from her seat with legitimate questions.
As for me, despite Ms. Saffin's attempt to support her minister, I won't be buying imported bananas no matter how cheap or numerous they get.

The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme 2009 bills before the Australian Parliament [transcripts]

Not since someone convinced the late Billy McMahon that trying to sound like a quavering, falsetto Winston Churchill was a good idea has a politician sounded as false as Kevin Rudd did when uttering his political sh#tstorm comment.

Or so I thought until I heard the Federal Minister for Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong, on ABC TV Four Corners on Monday night trying to explain the government position on a national carbon emissions trading scheme or as government likes it to be known, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

With remarkable gravitas this politician is wrecking not only the Murray-Darling Basin with her lack of political steel, but is now condemning Australia to repeat the mistakes of others by giving away too many free carbon credits and setting emissions caps too low.

And for what? Why to ensure the comfortable profitability of the big national and multinational companies operating across Australia.

This is what a Senate estimates committee meeting was told on 23 February 2009:
Mr Comley -Senator Milne, the issue here is actually that the ET policy has explicitly two objectives, which is laid out in the policy position, and that is to reduce the likelihood of carbon leakage but also to provide transitional support to these industries. If you only had one of those objectives and it was purely a carbon leakage objective, then, other things being equal, you would have less generous assistance than is provided under the policy. But just to illustrate an example of why that last limb is there, you could have a situation of industry of someone who is undertaking quite a lot of capital investment, they then are faced with a carbon price which they may not have anticipated-some may have; some may not have had-and it may be that they do not change location at all. When you look at studies of carbon leakage all you observe is if that firm moves, but there could potentially be, with no assistance, a significant change in profitability. So the policy is a balance of the pure carbon leakage argument with a transitional argument, which is not uncommon to policies such as tariff reforms where you do not change them overnight. So it is the balance of those two that led into the ET policy.......

Mr Comley-I think the argument that industry is only raising the carbon leakage argument is not the experience I have had in consultations. It is both the carbon leakage and the question of the level of profitability for particular firms.

The Rudd Government through the Department of Climate Change has invited comment on its legislation. If you don't want to see the major polluters laughing all the way to the bank as they do the least emissions reduction possible while increasing price to the consumer at every opportunity, this may be your last chance.

• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 (878 KB)
• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 (1.28 MB)
• Commentary (1.62 MB)

• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009 (196 KB)
• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009 (640 KB)
• Commentary (552 KB)

• The draft Australian Climate Change Regulatory Authority Bill 2009 (83.6 KB)
• The draft Australian Climate Change Regulatory Authority Bill 2009 (283 KB)
• Commentary (213 KB)

• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges – General) Bill 2009 (23.8 KB)
• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges – General) Bill 2009 (118 KB)
• Commentary (73 KB)

• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges – Excise) Bill 2009 (23.4 KB)
• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges – Excise) Bill 2009 (118 KB)
• Commentary (72.5 KB)

• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges – Customs) Bill 2009 (23.4 KB)
• The draft Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (Charges – Customs) Bill 2009 (118 KB)
• Commentary (74.5 KB)

How to make a submission here.

So controlling of your right to make a submission is the Prime Minister and Ms. Wong that they have supplied a 2-page template to be used in making a submission.

International Monetary Fund rains on the Coaltion's parade and other Turnbull woes

Peter Martin said it first and said it best in his post Stop laughing:

This is serious
So says the IMF, consigning the Australian Opposition's proposed recovery program to the dustbin of "neat idea, but..."
Australia's Treasury isn't keen on some of the Opposition's claims either

The International Monetary Fund has given the Australian Government the green light to spend even more to fight recession, taking a swipe at the alternative of tax cuts proposed by the Opposition, declaring its effects "not so dramatic".

In a detailed analysis released in Washington overnight IMF staff find that direct government investment of the kind included in the Rudd government's stimulus packages can boost the economy by as much as $3 for every $1 spent.

By contrast income tax cuts of the kind proposed by the Opposition would boost the economy by just 30 cents for each $1 spent.

Which didn't say much for Malcolm Turnbull's chances of having the Australian electorate take his economic policies seriously either.

Then Crikey's Bernard Keene came forth with a dissection of Turnbull's interview style which exposed a little more political Archilles heel:

Turnbull does a lot of nuance. His economic message on the stimulus packages -- support for the first package then criticising its impact, opposition to the second package but support for a smaller package of tax cuts and infrastructure investment in the event the Senate blocked it -- has more nuance than, well, Nuanced Jack McNuance, winner of this year's Mr Nuance competition.

Malcolm Turnbull and his alternative government hardly fared any better in the mainstream media, with his latest essay in The Weekend Australian pointing to the Prime Minister's so-called hypocrisy and snidely congratulating Rudd and Rein on their wealth (while conveniently ignoring his own wealth generated from the same economic free-for-all climate) thudding dully onto the ground without an iota of critical acclaim and little impact in the latest Newspoll which sees him trailing Kevin Rudd by a massive 40 points as preferred prime minister.

To make matters worse for the Member for Wentworth, former federal treasurer Peter Costello is also reported to have a two to one advantage over him when it comes to who Australians might prefer as prime minister and:

On the question of who would make the better Liberal leader, Mr Costello heads Mr Turnbull by 45 to 38 per cent, according to the latest Newspoll survey conducted exclusively for The Australian last weekend.

The Piping Shrike points to another facet of the Rudd-Turnbull contest for hearts and minds:

The main problem with Turnbull’s response is that while it is largely correct on the past, it has nothing to say about what needs to be done now.

But this still doesn't fully explain why is he faring so badly when his principal opponent is a prime minister (with all the charisma of a box of Wheet Bix) saddled with the global financial crisis and half-baked climate change policy?

Is it only the fact that the coalition Turnbull fronts is still in disarray after its morale shaking electoral defeat in 2007?
Or is it the fact that Malcolm always comes across as a man who plots his policy positions as the after dinner port is past around and is only playing at being a politician while he waits for the next 'great opportunity' to come along?