Mid North Coast Greens: Bellingen wakes to climate crisis

Mid North Coast Greens Media Release
August 19, 2013

Bellingen wakes to climate crisis march

Marchers chanted, “Wake Up! Act Now,” and “For the children! Act now,” as they marched through Bellingen and startled the café patrons and visitors to the Bellingen Jazz Festival on Sunday. Prior to the march, Greens NSW Upper House MP Dr John Kaye and Carol Vernon, Greens candidate for Cowper, addressed the crowd.

Mrs Vernon said: "The planet is running out of time to exit fossil fuels and take the pressure off the climate.

"Gas is an expensive and dangerous distraction.

Dr Kaye said: “"Both Labor and the Nationals are denying the Mid North Coast the benefits of a clean energy future and allowing the planet to move closer to climate disaster.

"There are tens of thousands of new Mid North Coast jobs waiting to be created in installation, maintenance, development, marketing and manufacture that will never happen unless both state and federal governments commit to 100 percent renewables.

Mrs Vernon said, "Come and march again in Coffs Harbour if you are concerned about the future of your children on a hotter Earth.”

"Come and march if you believe your children may need to live in an uncertain and dangerous future.

"David Shoebridge, Greens NSW MLC, will lead the march in Coffs Harbour. Those marching will assemble near the Coffs Harbour Jetty at 10.30 am to march at 11.00 am on Sunday, August 25.

Australian Federal Election 2013: Robopollster opens door for survey fraud?

A number of Lonergan polls have been conducted during the 2013 Australian Federal Election campaign.

Lonergan is a robopollster that has been conducting surveys for The Guardian Australia....

Using voice broadcasting and IVR (integrated voice recognition) technology and either random phone numbers or specific lists, Lonergan Research is able to rapidly call a large number of phone numbers and ask a number of pre-recorded questions. Recipients respond using their telephone keypad or by voice.

These polls seem to indicate that the Coalition is set to take a number of high profile seats, including the seats of Forde and Griffith in Queensland and Lindsay in New South Wales.

The Guardian Australia 16 August 2013:

A Guardian Lonergan poll taken in the seat Thursday night shows the Liberal sitting member Bert van Manen’s support soaring from the 44% he polled in 2010 to 56% in 2013. Beattie’s primary vote was a dismal 34%, three percentage points lower than the 37% achieved by Labor’s candidate Brett Raguse in 2010.

The Guardian Australia 16 August 2013:

Today Guardian Australia reports on an exclusive poll in the marginal seat of Lindsay, in Sydney's western suburbs. The startling results: the Liberal candidate, Fiona Scott, polled 60% of first preferences, a 17-point improvement over her 43.4% performance in 2010. The Labor incumbent (David Bradbury, the Assistant Treasurer) is looking at a 13-point decline on first preferences: 44.6% in 2010 to the poll's 32%.

The Guardian Australia 22 August 2013:

Kevin Rudd is trailing Liberal rival Bill Glasson in his apparently safe Brisbane seat of Griffith, in alarming news for Labor from the latest Guardian Lonergan poll.

Glasson, who is running an intensive local grassroots campaign, leads Rudd on a two-party preferred basis by 52% to 48%. The poll's margin of error is 4%, but its findings raise the possibility that without a big effort on his home turf, Rudd could become the third prime minister in Australian history to lose his seat, behind John Howard in 2007 and Stanley Bruce in 1929.

However, the polling has an allegedly exploitable flaw – the ability for any individual survey respondent to double dip.

UPDATE

Guardian Australia responds later that day:

Contrary to some comments on Twitter, we keep only one interview per household. We conduct an interview with whoever answers the phone. This methodology alone results in an oversampling of older respondents relative to younger respondents, as older respondents are more likely to answer the phone.

To correct this, at the end of the survey, we ask if there are any younger voters in the household. If there are, we conduct the survey with the younger respondent and discard the response from the older respondent.

This response merely confirms that any individual survey respondent can in the second round deliberately misrepresent their age in an effort to be counted twice in the survey (eg. at the press of a telephone button a sixty year-old man turns into a twenty-three year old woman) and while this may not be successful with regard to a household being counted twice, it would lead to some responses included in final data not actually belonging to the gender/age cohorts to which they are assigned - thus still skewing results. 

UPDATE 2

Federal Election 2013: NSW Far North and Mid North Coast registered voter numbers and candidates by electorate

http://www.aec.gov.au/elections/federal_elections/2010/files/nsw-results-map-2010.pdf

Number of registered voters on the NSW Far and Mid North Coast

Electorate      30 November 2010            31 July 2013           12 August 2013

Note: The New England electorate takes in part of the North Coast region

Total Enrolled Voters at 2010 Federal Election for comparison.

House of Representatives 7 September 2013 candidates by electorate.

This is what Tony Abbott thinks of Aboriginal women?

SBS World News 16 August 2013:

What was largely missed, however, was Mr Abbott’s description of Indigenous women when addressing the Garma Festival last weekend. Indigenous women were “cowering in their houses or their huts”, unempowered and fearful, and unable to participate in the decision-making processes that affected themselves, their families and communities. This foul potpourri of racism, paternalism and sexism has been completely ignored by the mainstream media, with the notable exception on Louise Taylor in The Guardian.

Tony Abbott's plan for Indigenous Australians is fatally flawed by Louise Taylor, 13 August 2013

Louise Taylor is an Aboriginal (Kamilaroi) woman and a barrister/solicitor practising in the Australian Capital Territory. Louise is the convenor of the Women's Legal Centre, an Indigenous Law Centre associate, and a member of the Law Council of Australia's Indigenous Legal Issues Committee. Her piece is written in a personal capacity

Looking back on the day Tony Abbott became the first federal minister to be ejected from the Australian Parliament in 40 years

House of Representatives Hansard 21 June 2000:

Mr ABBOTT—I am confident that the Job Network member in this case has acted quite properly, as has Centrelink. I agreed with the member for Dickson to keep the job seeker’s name and address confidential, and I have done so.

Mr Beazley—Sit him down.

Mr SPEAKER—Leader of the Opposition!

Mr ABBOTT—I have done exactly what I promised. You are a sanctimonious windbag.

Mr SPEAKER—The minister will resume his seat.

Mr ABBOTT—You are—

Mr SPEAKER—Minister!....

-the Minister for Employment Services will excuse himself from the House.

Mr Abbott—I was just going to join my friend.

Mr SPEAKER—Minister!

The member for Warringah then withdrew from the chamber.

Mr Albanese interjecting—

Mr SPEAKER—I beg your pardon, the member for Grayndler! The member for Grayndler will apologise.

Mr Albanese—I apologise, Mr Speaker.

Mr Latham—On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Just for clarification, have you suspended the minister under a standing order in your ruling?

Mr SPEAKER—I have indeed.

Mr Latham—Thank you.

Jack the Insider The Australian 25 June 2013:

Abbott did not excuse himself from the House directly. Enraged, the former Oxford boxing blue veered ominously towards the Opposition benches.

For a man who has been involved in the odd stink, albeit on the fields of sporting contest, it did look awful or at least potentially so. But Abbott didn’t get far. He presumably thought better of engaging in a physical confrontation with his political opponents and left the chamber under escort.

Tony Abbott had become the first Minister to be punted from the parliament in forty years.

Alan Ramsey The Sydney Morning Herald 24 June 2000:

House of Representatives Hansard 24 May 2012:

Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Leader of the House and Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) (15:10): We are not going to take lectures about parliamentary behaviour from this Leader of the Opposition, who is the only member of parliament to ever be thrown out of parliament for physically confronting a Vietnam vet with no legs, for marching across the chamber when he was out of control, to Graham Edwards. The Leader of the Opposition is not able to control his temper. He does not have the temperament to be the Prime Minister of this nation. He does not have the character to be Prime Minister of this nation.

Use Gmail - be afraid, very afraid

RT.com 13 August 2013:

"Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient's assistant opens the letter, people who use Web-based email today cannot be surprised if their emails are processed by the recipient's [email provider] in the course of delivery,” the motion reads in part. “Indeed, 'a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.’" 

Google Motion 061313