WorkChoices may finally be on the way out and Australian Workplace Agreements dead and gone, but Liberal and Nationals MPs brought the House of Representatives to a state of near chaos yesterday when the Minister for Workplace Relations Julia Gillard put forward a motion asking that the House recognise the ills caused by WorkChoices and undertake that statutory individual employment agreements should never be reintroduced into Australian industrial relations law.
The Liberals Joe Hockey went ballistic and tried to shut the motion down. The Opposition then tried twice more in succession to gag debate of the motion.
Thwarted they tried a third time and then Uncle Joe unsuccessfully moved that the Deputy Speaker's ruling be dissented from.
On and on and round and round the arguments and divisions went, from 11.39am to 1.02pm, until Ms. Gillard's motion was finally voted in.
Immediately after that the Opposition Deputy Leader Julie Bishop rose to a make a motion praising WorkChoices and the whole uproar started again for another 21 minutes, as the Government retaliated by gagging this debate and forcing a vote.
Almost two hours of parliamentary mayhem, only lightened by the unconscious irony of former Howard Government minister Tony Abbott referring to another party's parliamentary tactics as "jackboot government" and Labor's Anthony Albanese losing patience and calling Hockey "fool".
Such a waste of taxpayers money.
News.com.au reported on aspects of the uproar yesterday.
Hansard records it all here.
Thursday, 20 March 2008
Those life-style nongs are at it again
I frequently have to wonder whether there is anything at all in the brainboxes of some who decide to purchase small parcels of rural land, for a life style change or a gamble on future rezoning.
These people are thick on the ground now on the NSW North Coast and a few like these misguided souls are objecting to payment of the Rural Lands Protection Board levy.
Yelling that this is a tax on seachangers they refuse to cough up for years on end.
Rarely do you find owners like these keeping their land in good heart. Often their plots are weed filled and sour, with no crop or stock in sight.
The half-hearted attempts at bush regeneration are often abandoned before completion.
I have little sympathy with their views. All I see is more agricultural land being removed from any meaningful productivity and court time being wasted.
Gimme, gimme folks one and all. They give genuine small-acreage farmers a bad name.
Wednesday, 19 March 2008
It's not easy being green: time for Australian governments to put their investments in order
This month the Australian Conservation Council released its 32 page report Responsible Public Investment in Australia.
3 RESPONSIBLE PUBLIC INVESTMENT IN AUSTRALIA
Few of the government funds interviewed for this report appeared to have linked ESG factors with their material influence on returns and the associated risks and opportunities in investment management.
This demonstrates a worrying disconnection between many public sector funds and industry best practice developments.
In many cases government asset managers lack the transparency of private sector asset managers in terms of their investment strategy and portfolio holdings.
However, a small number of asset managers were aware of ESG developments and reported
that the UN PRI was being considered at board level.
Government investments in the energy sector may be undermining stated environmental policy
objectives.
The investment practices of government funds have the potential to support or detract from government policy goals.
Most Australian jurisdictions, for example, have policies and laws that related to climate change and energy.
But investment priorities sometimes appear to undermine stated policy objectives.
The total investment of all State, Territory and Commonwealth funds in the listed energy sector is estimated as follows:
Industry: Holdings ($ million):
Nuclear/uranium $ 559
Fossil fuels $ 5,379
Renewable energy $ 126
There appear to be contradictions between these investment holdings and the stated policy goals of some States and Territories.
In particular:
• NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia all have significant holdings in uranium-related equities, despite legislative or political bans on uranium mining;
• All jurisdictions have very low holdings in the renewable energy sector, despite a stated strong commitment to renewable energy as a critical part of future energy generation; and
• All jurisdictions have significant exposures to fossil fuel industries, despite a range of policy commitments relating to the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The imbalance between investment in fossil fuels and renewable energy sources is striking, given the public commitment of all Australian governments to renewable energy.
The report also identifies the Commonwealth Futures Fund as not taking social, environmental and governance issues into consideration when making investment portfolio management decisions.
It's time for a whole of government approach to public investment. The Rudd Government needs to lead the way by example on this and then drag the states, kicking and screaming if necessary, into a green investment plan.
Five long years of war in Iraq - time to reflect on our sins
March 19 Blog Swarm logo.
Professor Gideon Polya from Australia writing on Iraq War death toll last year.
"As of September 2007: (a) the accrual cost of the Bush War on Terror stands at $2.5 trillion (as determined by US 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz) ; (b) there are 4 million Iraqi refugees; (c) the post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) total 1.1 million; (d) post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.5 million (a corrected estimate based on the latest UN data); (e) there were 1.7 million excess Iraqi deaths associated with the Western-imposed 1990-2003 Sanctions War; (f) there were 1.2 million under-5 year old infant deaths in the 1990-2003 Sanctions War; and (g) Coalition military deaths now total about 4,086 (see: http://icasualties.org/oif/ )."
Opinion Research Business (ORB) Iraq casualty survey media release January 2008.
ORB full survey data here.
Professor Gideon Polya from Australia writing on Iraq War death toll last year.
"As of September 2007: (a) the accrual cost of the Bush War on Terror stands at $2.5 trillion (as determined by US 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz) ; (b) there are 4 million Iraqi refugees; (c) the post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) total 1.1 million; (d) post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.5 million (a corrected estimate based on the latest UN data); (e) there were 1.7 million excess Iraqi deaths associated with the Western-imposed 1990-2003 Sanctions War; (f) there were 1.2 million under-5 year old infant deaths in the 1990-2003 Sanctions War; and (g) Coalition military deaths now total about 4,086 (see: http://icasualties.org/oif/ )."
Opinion Research Business (ORB) Iraq casualty survey media release January 2008.
ORB full survey data here.
Obama 08: Send me votes, lots of votes and a starry sky above
The race for Democratic nomination is so relentless one has to wonder if either Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama will have any energy left to contest John McCain for the Oval Office.
Here's Obama's latest email effort yesterday.
Dear [redacted],
When Michelle and I decided to enter this race more than a year ago, one of our hopes was to bring people back into the political process.
Like so many Americans, we'd been exhausted and frustrated by the slash-and-burn politics that had come to dominate our elections. Smallness and pettiness were the rule, not the exception. And it seemed like every day, more and more Americans were tuning out their democracy.
This election, we're seeing something different.
Nearly as many people have participated in the Democratic primary this year than in 2000 and 2004 combined. And there are still ten contests left to go.
As we enter the final stretch of elections, we have a unique opportunity to shape the outcome -- and the outcome of elections up and down the ballot this November.
The last day to register new voters in Pennsylvania is March 24th. In North Carolina and Indiana, it's in early April. And in West Virginia and Kentucky, the voter registration deadline is a little more than a month from today.
So today we're launching a national initiative to register an unprecedented number of voters in each of the upcoming states.
No matter where you live, you can help get people registered in the upcoming states. You can make phone calls from home, reach out to people you know in these states, or even sign up to travel to one of these states to be on the ground for this massive voter registration effort.
Learn more about what you can do to bring as many voters as possible into the political process:
Young voters have shaped this presidential primary like no other.
In Iowa, South Carolina, Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Mississippi, the youth vote has tripled since 2004. And in all other states it has reached record levels. And these young voters are breaking 2-to-1 Democratic.
Statistics show that if we can get young people to vote Democratic now, they are far more likely to vote regularly -- and vote for Democrats -- throughout their lives.
So by getting involved and helping to register voters, you're not just increasing the number of voters in this election. You're increasing the number of people who will be engaged Democratic voters for the rest of their lives.
Sign up to help bring More Voices into the Democratic primary today:
More than fifteen years ago, after I finished law school, I came back to Chicago and led a voter registration drive on the South Side.
For months, our passionate and hardworking volunteers pounded the pavement -- registering folks everywhere they could, from barber shops to grocery stores to apartment building lobbies to local fairs. One particularly enthusiastic woman -- who until then had never been involved in politics -- made it her personal goal to register 100 voters a day, and ultimately registered 3,000 new voters.
In the end, we made a real difference in Illinois. Our team registered more than 150,000 new voters, not only impacting local elections, but helping to shift the balance in state and national races as well. Illinois went from voting Republican in 1988 to Democratic in 1992.
That lesson has informed how we've run this campaign. And now we have an unbelievable opportunity to apply it on a massive scale.
When new or returning voters participate in the Democratic primary, they are far more likely to come back and participate in the general election.
That's not just good for presidential candidates; it's good for Democrats up and down the ticket. More engaged, committed Democratic voters in the primaries means more votes this November in all fifty states -- from competitive statewide races to state legislative and city council seats everywhere.
You can make a difference right now. Encourage someone to register in time to participate in the presidential race in their state.
Learn more and get involved here:
Thanks for all your hard work,
Barack
P.S. -- Here's an example of how you can get involved right now.
In Pennsylvania, Independent voters must register as Democrats by March 24th in order to vote in the primary. One supporter made calls this weekend and reached 10 Independent voters who wanted to vote for us -- four of whom needed information about how to register.
Our team has created an online tool that provides all the information you need to make calls from home.
Get started now:
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.
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
"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.
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