Exclusive Brethren fleece the public purse

The Sydney Morning Herald (11/2/2008) reports that a secret review by the federal Education Department reveals how the Exclusive Brethren and other organisations that have been identified as receiving an already too-generous share of government funding are exploiting a loophole to claim even more money from taxpayers - simply by building more campuses.

The report shows the Exclusive Brethren to be the "biggest winner" in this rort by establishing 16 campuses around NSW.

The MET School at Meadowbank, run by the Brethren, is an example of what the Education Department sees as schools getting an unfair advantage. The MET School is the parent school for the other 15 campuses. Only one of these, at Kellyville, is within 50 kilometres of the parent school. One, Lavington, is 600 kilometres away in Albury. If they were called new schools, they would not qualify for the same generous funding. But as "campuses", they keep it.

The department is critical of the "inequities" being entrenched because these schools, under a deal struck with the Howard government, have had their funding maintained at the same level as before the SES system was introduced in 2001.

The overfunding has cost taxpayers more than $2 billion over four years and, according to the review, will cost $2.7 billion over the next four-year funding cycle, starting next year.

Despite having previously criticised the Funding Maintained system as unfair, the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, locked Labor into keeping it before the federal election.

The Department of Education's internal review of the funding for private schools was commissioned by the Howard government and completed last year.

The Rudd Government refused to release it to the Herald under a freedom of information request. The leaked report recommends dealing with the extra funding by gradually taking money away from many schools until they receive their correct entitlement.

When John Howard was Prime Minister he had meetings with senior members of the Brethren. Why? Perhaps the sect, which does not allow its followers to vote, but has been linked to funding and advertising campaigns supporting the Liberal Party was getting a few tips on the rort directly from the horse's mouth.

Read the Herald's report at:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/loophole-keeps-schools-in-clover/2008/02/10/1202578600919.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

NRMA making limited ex-gratia payments to some policyholders affected by NSW North Coast flooding

According to The Northern Star the "NRMA announced it would make ex-gratia payments to about 40 policy-holders whose homes were damaged in the flood, but were not eligible for an insurance payout because the company, like most others, did not cover flood.

NSW claims manager William Reilly said the payment would be the same as if the homes were covered for flood damage. However, that did not mean NRMA covered floods."

 

This is welcome news, but many other people are still waiting for resolution of claims lodged with other insurance companies.

Page MP Janelle Saffin praised the NRMA and invited "People with outstanding flood insurance problems can contact me on 6621 9909."

 

Finally, a local member who actually cares.

Barack dances in a policy vacumn to the tune of money, money, money

Watching the US race for presidential nomination, it is fascinating to observe the almost complete lack of stated policy or real political goals. 

To an outsider it seems that both Democrat and Republican candidates view dollars to be as important as delegates.

According to the Obama for America team its fundraising had produced US$7,596,326 between 5th and 7th February.

American politics is certainly a moneyed sport.

 

Here's the latest fundraising e-mail from the Obama camp yesterday.

"We just learned that we won all three contests today -- in Louisiana, Nebraska, and Washington State.

We've now won 18 out of 28 states, with New Mexico still in the balance.

What's more, we also estimate that we at least doubled our delegate lead today.

Our momentum is strong, but another round of tough contests is about to begin.

Tomorrow, Democrats will caucus in Maine. And on Tuesday, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia will have their turn.

To win, we need to bring as many people into the process as possible. We're pushing towards 500,000 donors this year by March 4th, when Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont vote.

Now is the time to make your first online donation of $25 -- if you do, it will be matched by another supporter, doubling your impact:

https://donate.barackobama.com/match

This race is still extremely close, and we need your support to remain competitive.

Thank you for making this possible.

Barack"

Frank Sartor tries to finally kill-off local government

The Northern Rivers Echo reported last Thursday on Sartor's mad plan to completely control major regional development from Sydney or locally through his little mates club.
This plan now includes the Minister taking complete control of all developer contribution funds normally held by councils.
It is obvious that the Iemma Government has a death wish.

"Under proposed reforms of the state's planning laws, the planning minister can agree to a 20-storey high-rise building in the middle of Lismore or Ballina and the local council would have absolutely no say.

That is just one of the alarming scenarios facing all mayors on the Northern Rivers – and throughout the state – which sparked a crisis meeting in Sydney recently attended by over 100 mayors including those from Lismore, Ballina, Richmond Valley and Kyogle.

Late last year Mr Sartor announced the proposed changes, which are designed to reduce processing times of development applications, and introduce a new system for approving development applications. It also decreases the amount of money big developers have to contribute to local government by up to 40 per cent.

The mayors fear that local council decision-making will be affected and the reduction in developer contributions (called Section 94 funds) could make community facilities such as new pools and playgrounds unaffordable.

Kyogle mayor Ernie Bennett, the president of the Northern Rivers Regional Organisation of Councils (NOROC), said the changes would undermine local democracy by taking many of the checks and balances out of the planning system.......

"The package of changes gives more power to unelected planning panels and private certifiers, and sets a target of allowing up to half of all new development to be approved by private certifiers using a 'one size fits all' checklist," Cr Bennett said. "That will be a significant change and will put the future character of our communities at risk."

Cr Bennett said the NSW Government's plan to slash developer contributions posed a great threat to small regional communities who relied on those funds to build vital social facilities."

Whale meat market stagnates in Japan but still it hunts in the Southern Ocean

Asahi.com reported the following yesterday.

"Japan's research whaling has long been criticized from around the world as commercial whaling in disguise. Now, research whaling faces a domestic blow--stagnant sales of whale meat."

It went on to say that despite an increase in whale kill numbers and the amount of whale meat supplied to the domestic market jumping by 30% between 2005-2006, the Japanese Government sponsored Institute for Cetacean Research (ICR) had to reduce it's wholesale whale meat price by 20%.

The Institute now appears to be seriously in debt to the Government.

 

The Japan Times online also featured an article yesterday condemning the current practice of killing whale calves and lactating females. 

 

While the European Union, never happy with Japan's 2008 whale kill quota increase, has now called for a unified stance on whaling.

 

The current state of play is that the population of Japan is not regularly eating whale meat even with a price decrease and lethal 'scientific' research is not financially viable in its own right.

So why does Japan continue its annual lethal research in the Southern Ocean, when non-lethal methodology is likely to cost less and be just as effective?

Why does the Japanese Government continue to allow and subsidise a whale hunt which is not paying its way and reimbursing grants given to ICR ?

If whale meat is not enjoying high sales for domestic human consumption, where is this whale meat going? Is it being stockpiled or is it being converted into pet food?

Estimates of the annual worth of the whale meat industry show that someone's making an end product profit, but who?

Australia and the rest of the world deserve an answer from the Government of Japan.

Two Australians go to court to censor Google but dynamic Internet beats them

Two South Yarra real estate agents, from the firm Castran Gilbert, are suing Google for the removal of allegedly defamatory material (concerning that firm's agent dealings with a single disabled person) shown on the results page when using an ordinary Google search.

Google Inc. has since denied public access via it's search engine to the primary material/article.

 

Until these men went to court I had never heard of any person connected with this court case.

However my curiosity was piqued. I found that typing one name into the search box and three mouse clicks yielded a result. I was able to read the entire original article from a secondary source.

 

Thus proving that i) the real estate agents have unnecessarily highlighted the alleged defamation they want suppressed and ii) the Internet is so large and dynamic that it is almost impossible to remove any information once it is posted.

 

I guess the last laugh belongs to the original article's author.

Land

I had reason the other day to pull out the land title deeds for the family farm. It is a Torrens title, a very common form of land deed in Australia. It contains such things as the address and a description of the land in the form of lot/ section/plan.
On looking out my window I reflected on how little of what was written on that piece of paper was actually related to what I was seeing before me, and decided that it is an artificial construct that relates to our society rather than the land itself.
My grandson had excitedly told me that dinosaurs had walked here, I couldn't argue with that.
This got me to thinking about ownership in our society. How could anyone claim definitive ownership of land or any object that was there before they were a twinkle in their father's and mother's eyes, and will be there generations after they have gone.
Perhaps in the light of what we are finding our about the planet, life systems, greenhouse problems etc, we should re-think our language and our use of it.
I think stewardship might be a better word and concept suited to our times. This has rights attached to it as well as responsibilities.
I for one am aiming to hand this small plot on to future generations with the best biodiversity of native flora and fauna I can and still be economically viable. I am amazed at the number of people who believe that the society they live in and its economy have nothing to do with the environment that supports them. Who don't understand that if that fails so do they. Perhaps I should spend less time on the tractor, it gives you too much time to think.