Ex-Ministers get the begging bowl out

What a joke. Yesterday The Australian let us all know that ex-Howard Government ministers were having a little difficulty adjusting to lower pay as ordinary MPs.

The Liberals Tony Abbott apparently "has taken a $90,000 pay cut on the $200,000-plus salary he earned as federal health minister. With three daughters and a mortgage to pay in Sydney, it's blown a sizeable hole in the finances."

An annual MP's salary of $127,600 plus electoral allowance, mailing allowance, living away from home allowance and some travel expenses.

My heart bleeds for you, mate. Try living on less than $20,000 a year like a good many other Australians, then go crying to the media. I might have some sympathy then.

Japanese whaling fleet's false advertising

Photograph of MV Yushin Maru, a 1,025 tonnage whale catching vessel in Japan's whaling fleet, showing the large spurious signage "RESEARCH".

With both protest vessels returning to port, Japan's whalers are now free to resume the whale kill.

"Greenpeace claimed its actions had saved more than 100 whales by effectively rendering the rest of the Japanese fleet impotent. "Without the factory ship, the remaining hunter vessels have been unable to operate, bringing the entire whaling programme to a halt," it said.
It estimated that the whalers needed to catch about nine minke whales a day, and an endangered fin whale every other day, to meet its quota of 835 minkes and 50 fins by the time the hunt ends in mid-April.
Though commercial whaling was banned in 1986 Japan is permitted to conduct annual culls for what it describes as cetacean research.
The campaigners' exit from the southern ocean whale sanctuary will allow Japan's six-vessel fleet to resume the cull within days.
The Oceanic Viking, an Australian coastguard ship that was dispatched to collect evidence for a possible legal challenge to the annual slaughter, is still tracking the fleet but will not attempt to frustrate the whalers."
Guardian Unlimited yesterday:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jan/29/whaling.conservation

Exactly who did the Northern Rivers Area Health Service consult with before deciding on 'surge' beds?

The NSW North Coast Area Health Service took the region by surprise this week when it announced that it would be withholding some hospital beds from normal use and instituting a policy of 'treatment in the home'.

 

No mention was made of how such home treatment would be implemented by community nursing already stretched by the North Coast's increasing population and changing demographics.

Nor was there any indication of whether it was expected that local GPs and their practice nurses would play a part. Which given the limited number of bulk-billing medical practices in certain areas, would involve patients in additional costs.

 

No consultation with local communities was advertised. I'm left wondering exactly which chronically ill patients the NCAHS chief allegedly consulted with, and whether those consulted happen to fall within a socio-economic band which allows them greater facility to draw on other home assistance which would make home treatment an attractive personal option.

Certainly the frail-aged pensioners of my acquaintance, with no family living close by, would not be clamouring to receive home treatment during episodes of illness normally requiring hospital admission.

It is distressing to see North Coast residents short-changed in this way.

 

According to ABC News yesterday.

"The nurses' association is meeting the North Coast Area Health Service executive this afternoon over a plan to slash bed and nurse numbers across New South Wales north coast hospitals.

The plan would see more than 80 beds at 14 north coast public hospitals converted into 'surge' beds for seriously ill patients at times of high demand.

Less ill patients would be treated at home or at outpatient clinics.

Union organiser Susan Pearce says the initiative was to have come into play today, but is on hold because health management failed to consult nurses.

"We're just amazed that they would seek to introduce such a change today without any consultation with our members whatsoever. It doesn't set us off on a good track for discussion about this particular issue," she said.

The chief executive of the North Coast Area Health Service, Chris Crawford, is defending the surge-bed plan.

He says the strategy is the result of consultations held with medical staff and chronically ill patients.

"Particularly patients have given us feedback that they'd prefer to be treated in their homes if they could be in a familiar environment rather than having to go to hospital," he said.

But the chairman of the Port Macquarie Base Hospital medical staff council says the move has taken it by surprise.

Dr Steven Begbie says it has been working with the area health executive to try and solve the bed crisis at Port Macquarie Base Hospital.

"There is a vision to increase the footprint of the hospital so that we can have more beds, an increase in services, and yet this plan comes out of left field as an option that reduces the beds in our hospital on a day-to-day basis," he said."

Exit polls: Obama campaign sends another email to Oz

Well, I should give the Barack Obama campaign team their due for persistence, and report yesterday's email content on the Democrat presidential nominee from Illinios.

 

"Here are a few details about our victory in South Carolina. According to the official results and CNN exit polls, Barack won:

• 55% of the total vote, more than twice as many votes as any other candidate
• 57% of voters who had never voted in a primary
• 66% of voters who had never voted before at all
• Every type of community -- urban, suburban, and rural
• 58% of voters between ages 18 and 64
• 67% of voters between ages 18 and 29

The clear lesson from South Carolina is that voters are ready to bring this country together and solve the problems that matter to ordinary Americans."

 

Although the political system and stats are not exactly comparable, I get the feeling that Senator Obama is starting to poll in a similar fashion to Kevin Rudd in 2007.

The Liberal Party of Australia now a dying duck

Listening to the Liberal Party's new leader Brendan Nelson on ABC News Radio yesterday, I heard a man's fumbling attempt to use pop psychology to feebly defend his rejection of a Commonwealth Government formal apology to the Stolen Generation.

A big mistake. A huge mistake. A monumental mistake.

Nelson and his party are welded to the past, cannot reconnect with ordinary Australians and are fast dwindling into insignificance.

Even a leadership challenge will not save these political troglodytes. Dying ducks one and all.

hen house thoughts

I was over in the hen house talking to the chooks as I cleaned the roosts and nest boxes.

There were only a few still in the yard the rest were out chasing grasshoppers.

The gang of five were planning their next attack on my vegie garden, I saw a couple head of to the house verandas where they sit on the chairs and listen to the radio (they prefer ABC Classics Radio).

I hope I remembered to shut the house doors. If not they will be inside on the lounge or in the kitchen checking out the compost bucket.

The hens with me in the roosts were the tribal elders; if they were human they would have received the telegram from the Queen years ago. These girls don't travel very far from their home now, they are quite dignified in their movements no flapping and squawking for these old birds.

I babbled on about global warming, explaining to them that if the worst case scenario came to pass we will be sitting on beach front property with large areas of the Clarence Valley water logged and what that would mean for the people who live there.

They listened politely adding a few muted clucks while inspecting my cleaning efforts, then got busy arranging the new nest bedding.

As I walked back to the house I thought that the hens had the right idea, it is no use worrying about what you can't change.

You do what you can and clean up your local chook yard and pressure those in power to take their share of responsibility, all the while remembering the way you decide to live your life has a direct impact on our environment and therefore the planet.

Let's all eat whale!

The Japan Whaling Association newsletter Isana features a whale recipe page.

The latest issue recommends a whale pot dish.

Like much of the newsletter's contents, the recipe page begins with a little crude propaganda.

 

"Boiled "une" (whale ventral grooves) and "mizuna" (a green vegetable) with a little salt and whale meat sashimi with a lot of grated ginger are two of the regular menus at my home. In Kokura, Kita-Kyushu, western Japan, where I live, whales are popular food. Although I sometimes sigh over the high prices of whale meat after the commercial whaling moratorium was enforced, it is still readily available at stores. In my neighborhood, there are many fish shops that deal in whale meat. In the Tanga Market in downtown Kokura, there are two stores specializing in whale meat. Up until quite recently, there were whale-specialized stores in every market in Kita-Kyushu, and they were thriving. Why are there so many people who like whale meat in northern Kyushu?"

Isana December 2007 issue:

http://www.whaling.jp/english/isana/no34_02.html