Political Cartoon Of The Month

@davpope cartoons can be purchased via Scratch! Media

Meme of the Week

Thanks to Clarrie Rivers for passing on the meme

Quote of the Week

…a Palestinian child has tragically been killed every three days for the past 14 years. That bears repeating, since such deaths are rarely, if ever, given any attention in America: Palestinian parents have had to bury a child every three days for the past 14 years. [Daily Kos 5 July 2014]

Abbott Government's conniving falls apart in the Senate

The Abbott Government’s attempts to take advantage of the inexperience of newly-elected senators saw its bills repealing the carbon price mechanism and associated measures rejected by the Senate on 10 July 2014, culminating in this vote:

The PRESIDENT (12:21): The committee has considered the Clean Energy Legislation (Carbon Tax Repeal) Bill 2013 [No. 2] and has disagreed to the bills. The question now is that the report of the committee be adopted…..

The question is that the report of the committee, disagreeing to all of the bills, be adopted.

Senate divided. [12:23]

(The President—Senator Parry)

Ayes ...................... 37

Noes ...................... 35

Majority ................. 2

Not ten minutes later, this came to pass……

The Sydney Morning Herald 11 July 2014:

The Coalition is reaping what it sowed. It has repeatedly treated the Parliament with contempt in its effort to neuter parts of Labor's financial advice laws before they had full force on July 1.

Rather than put changes before the Parliament as an amendment to Labor's act, it introduced them by regulation when the Parliament wasn't sitting. It was aware of legal advice from Arnold Bloch Leibler that they would not survive a challenge in the High Court. Regulations are meant to assist the implementation of acts, not to nullify them.

Labor alleges that Treasury sent a copy of the regulations to the Senate tabling office on July 1 and then attempted to withdraw them, saying it didn't want them tabled until the last possible date, next Tuesday, July 15. What is not tabled cannot be disallowed.

Directed by a vote of the Senate to table the regulations immediately, the Minister, Mathias Cormann, refused. Cynics suggest he was trying to delay the process long enough to get through to the five-week parliamentary break and then accuse the Senate of creating uncertainty when it tried to exercise its rights.

Then Labor's Senator Sam Dastyari pulled a stunt, one worthy of Cormann himself.

He read from the regulations and had a Labor senator demand that he table the document he was reading from.

In the confusion the motion passed with the help of the Greens and a handful of independents. On Monday Labor will give notice of a motion to strike the regulations down. If it succeeds, consumers will be protected in the way Parliament originally intended. It will have got around the workaround.

Twitter: @1petermartin

What on earth did Clarence Valley Council management tell the NSW Division of Local Government?

This is what the NSW Division of Local Government stated about Code Of Conduct complaints reporting:

From December 2013, councils will be required to report statistics on code of conduct complaints about councillors and the General Manager and the cost of dealing with complaints. This information is to be reported to both the council and the Division.

The numbers of code of conduct complaints received by a council about its councillors or the General Manager is often an indicator of the internal health of the organisation. Code of conduct complaints are often symptomatic of political infighting or interpersonal conflict.

This is an important accountability mechanism providing communities with an insight into whether the governing body of their council is being distracted by infighting and how much public money is being spent to deal with this. It also provides the Division with a broad overview of how councils are applying their codes of conduct which may inform future reviews of the Model Code framework.

This information in relation to each council will be made publicly available annually from early 2014.

These snapshots are excerpts the statistical information covering the 2012-13 reporting period which was supplied to Clarence Valley councillors by the General Manager on 12 and 19 November 2013:

And this appears to be what Council management told the NSW Division of Local Government and it published in its 30 June 2014 Comparative Information on NSW Local Government 2012/13

report:

Now it is public knowledge that that the information supplied to councillors on 12 & 19 November 2013 was incorrect, because on the 10 & 24 June 2014 the General Manager told councillors that:

The statistical document for submission to the Office of Local Government however had some clerical errors in it….

The statistical document was forwarded as required to the Office of Local Government.

The Office of Local Government has not yet published the collective statistics for NSW.

The Office of Local Government has been advised of the errors and an amended statistical return has been provided.

Council has been advised by the Office of Local Government that the correct statistical information has been now included in their records.

The Office of Local Government in the near future is expected to publish the collective statistics for Code of Conduct complaints which will include the correct statistics for Clarence Valley

Council.

This may leave the reader as puzzled as I – for the Code of Conduct complaints have gone from two complaints with one investigated and action taken to two complaints investigated requiring action and the cost has risen from $14,900 to $19,900. While the false statistical report of 12 and 19 November 2013 (which implied that disciplinary action had been taken against a councillor) apparently still stands on the official record.

What on earth did Clarence Valley Council management actually tell the NSW Division of Local Government?

Metgasco asked for the world in a Notice to Produce in Metgasco Ltd v Minister for Resources & Energy [2014]

Coal seam/tight gas exploration and mining company Metgasco Ltd (whose PEL16 license was suspended in May 2014) asked for the world in a Notice to Produce.

A notice which the NSW Supreme Court classified as a premature and set aside, with the company ordered to pay the NSW Minister for Resources & Energy’s costs.

Excerpt from Metgasco Ltd v Minister for Resources & Energy [2014] NSWSC 908, Hearing Date 4 July 2014 – Decision Date 9 July 2014:

27 In the light of my determination that the Notice to Produce is premature I consider that it would still be open to stand over the Notice to Produce and the Defendant' Motion to set it aside until such time as the amended pleadings are finalised and the evidence is complete. However, that is unlikely to be finalised in a way that would enable me to continue to hear the Notice of Motion on a part-heard basis. Further, the filing of amended pleadings and the serving of the evidence on both sides may well change the basis upon which documents need to be, or are, sought by the Notice to Produce. The better course, it seems to me, is to set aside the Notice to Produce but without precluding the Plaintiff from serving a further Notice to Produce if so advised at a later appropriate time.

28 The Defendant has been successful on its Motion. The Plaintiff ought not to have pursued a defence of the Notice to Produce when it sought to amend its Summons to include the further decision, even if it was justified in doing so earlier. The Plaintiff should pay the costs of the Motion.