Nelson's 'headland' speech obviously written on the rocks below

Well, I have to say Brendan Nelson's speech to the National Press Club yesterday was really something.

He invoked the ghost of Ming and called on the political corpse of Howard to pick up its bed and walk, as he uttered the mother of all redundant speeches.

Nothing new in it or the subsequent Q&A. In fact he went so far as to promise that there would be no change from the status quo.

The whole thing was just a reworking of Liberal Party broad motherhood statements with a dash of the (by now obligatory) half-repudiation of former policies. 

The right's usual anti-Islamic rhetoric tossed in to spice the mix and a verbal dump on indigenous Aussies for good measure.

Little Brennie going on to garnish the whole with a sudden discovery of the very issues which have troubled this country for the last eleven years, and an earnest pledge to do-something-about-it.

A short blast on a dog whistle to establish his credentials as leader of the morals police.

Then throwing in a tear jerker or two to let us know that he has a heart after all.

Barefaced hypocrisy at its best.

The Age today labelled the 'vision' speech as "rose water" and "gobbledegook".

Myself, watching the entire speech on ABC 1 fair made me want to chunder.

"Big Screen" film festival coming to Yamba 4-6 April 2008

The Australian Film Commission's 2008 Big Screen film festival is on its way to Yamba.

The festival runs between Friday 4 April and Sunday 6 April 2008, with screenings at both Yamba cinemas.

 

Highlights of this year's festival include:

• Meet Wendy Hughes, the star of Careful He Might Hear You and Return to Eden at the NSW premiere of her new film, The View From Greenhaven Drive
• A fantastic double bill with My Brilliant Career and The Man Who Sued God
• Fabulous free school screenings, including Dr Plonk and The Caterpillar Wish
• Our Town and short films by local Indigenous filmmakers
• A special family screening of Elephant Tales

Out Town is of special interest to the Clarence Valley as it is "A spirited film by young locals about the importance of the Clarence River to their lives and to their Indigenous culture. When the government proposes a dam, how do they feel?"

There is a free showing of this film at Yamba's Treelands Drive Cinema on Sunday 6 April at 5.15pm.

 

Phone (02) 6646.3430 or (02) 66.4656 for festival details.

Gillard wipes the floor with Bishop during Workplace Relations debate

The Monday 17 March 2008 Hansard record of Julia Gillard's response to Julie Bishop during the second reading of the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward With Fairness) Bill 2008.

 

"I am advised by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that she has nearly finished her remarks. If that is the case we will hear again from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and then do what the Australian people want us to do, which is to pass the bill which they voted for. In relation to the last representations and silly statements by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition—no doubt she will stand at the dispatch box and make another series of silly statements which I will leave unanswered—the Howard government never produced any economic modelling of Work Choices. I will not stand here as a member of the Rudd Labor government and be lectured by the current opposition on the question of the production of economic modelling. Indeed, her request for it is the height of hypocrisy. For the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to describe her proposal in her speech on the second reading as something that has been satisfied through the Senate inquiry process is a cover-up of the fact that she has clearly been rolled by her party room again. She tried to achieve yet another extension of Australian workplace agreements, because she believes in Work Choices—she believes in AWAs that can rip people off. She put that position to the party room, she got rolled and she clearly got rolled again on the amendment. I will give the Deputy Leader of the Opposition this: at least she knows what she believes in and she is prepared to stand up for it. I have to give the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that. I can understand her high state of anger with her colleagues whom she described in the media as having 'gone to water'. I can understand that. She at least knows what she believes in. She believes in Work Choices and she always will. But this government was elected to deliver something different. It is this bill. We are seeking passage of it through the House of Representatives today. We will receive the Senate inquiry report. We always supported there being a Senate inquiry with a proper time frame. We will consider what the Senate inquiry report says. But having had that consideration I can see no reason why this bill cannot pass the parliament this week so we can end forever the spectre that Australians walk into their workplaces to be confronted by an Australian workplace agreement that takes away an award condition from them without any, or any proper, compensation. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition can carry on about nominal expiry dates and time periods for agreements, but what she and the Liberal Party know is this: the only thing that ensured the end of Australian workplace agreements that can rip conditions away was the election of the Rudd Labor government. We would never have got to this point had the Howard government been re-elected. She will dismiss it—she will carry on about nominal expiry dates—but the Deputy Leader of the Opposition must concede that next week when this bill is proclaimed there will never again be an Australian worker who walks into their workplace fearful that that is the day when an Australian workplace agreement gets shoved into their hands that takes away an award condition for no proper compensation or perhaps no compensation at all. I think that is a truly historic step. The Rudd Labor government believes it to be a truly historic step. It is what the Australian people voted for when they repudiated Work Choices and the party of Work Choices—the Liberal Party."

 

It would have been interesting to read Ms. Gillard's response to what Malcolm Turnbull might have had to say during the second reading, but he appears to have been steadfastly silent during the debate. Did he even bother to turn up?

John Howard's political love child lives!

Just when I think that we've finally seen the back of that ultra right-wing warrior, John W Howard, something crops up to remind me that his political love children are still sitting on the Opposition benches of Federal Parliament.

 

Showing a hint that Australia may yet be bludgeoned by the dying gasps of Howard's cultural vendetta against everything except a blinkered, timeline view of history and rampant ethnocentric 

nationalism, little Brennie Nelson put this out in the media: "The concept of "defence of the realm" should be expanded beyond border control and fighter planes to embrace "defence of values". Dr Nelson wants to initiate what could be a politically volatile public discussion about what Australians stand for beyond universal values."

 

Oi, Brenn old china, didn't you notice the disruptive racist and xenophobic drivel which welled to the surface when Howard tried his hand at "defence of values"? 

Have you ever stopped for a minute to consider that ordinary Aussies might have been defending their personal and universal values when they kicked your mob out of government last November?

Or were you knee-deep in the jungle juice when you thought up the little bewdy above. 

 

 

Wearin' the green on 17 March 2008

Shamrock photograph from www.thegardenhelper.com

North Coast Voices wishes everyone a great St. Patrick's Day.
Go n-éirí an bóthar leat Go raibh an ghaoth go brách ag do chúl Go lonraí an ghrian go te ar d'aghaidh Go dtite an bháisteach go mín ar do pháirceanna Agus go mbuailimid le chéile arís, Go gcoinní Dia i mbos A láimhe thú.

Is Mister Splashy Pants now safe from Japan's whaling fleet?

With Japan admitting that this year's annual Antarctic whale hunt will probably yield poorer results due to hunt disruption and domestic sushi franchises and supermarkets indicating a reluctance to sell whale meat due to dwindling demand; will whales like Mister Splashy Pants be safe from future hunts or will he remain vulnerable because the Institute of Cetacean Research again inserts Humpback whales in next year's planned kill quota.

The Institute is obviously not backing down on its 'right' to conduct so-called scientific whaling and has quite a little PR war underway with no less than 25 media releases posted on its webpage so far this year.

Photograph of Splashy from http://www.greenpeace.org/

Ice on skids - a glacier meltdown graph

Glaciers are making the news again in the Australian media.

"Since 1980, glaciers have thinned by about 11.5 metres in a retreat blamed by the UN Climate Panel mainly on human use of fossil fuels. The thaw could disrupt everything from farming -- millions of people in Asia depend on seasonal melt water from the Himalayas -- and power generation to winter sports. The thaw could also raise world sea levels. UNEP said glaciers were among the clearest indicators of global warming. "There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine. The glaciers are perhaps among those making the most noise," said Achim Steiner, head of UNEP."

The World Glacier Monitoring Service has this visual representation of glacier ice net balance which brings home just how fast this melt is occurring.