Iemma and Costa determined to give Spivs Inc [NSW] and Developers Unlimited mates a good deal on power privatisation?

With the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption replete with investigative files prima facie linking political donations with favourable actions taken by the NSW Government, one has to wonder whether last weekend's decision by an intransigent Morris Iemma and a 'tired and emotional' Michael Costa to defy Labor Party policy and the electorate, by forging ahead with plans to privatise state-owned power assets, indicates that some big business mates are already preparing to carve up those assets.

The recently created Alliance for NSW Future, whose sole purpose is to promote electricity privatisation, has member organisations which represent many corporations on NSW Labor's donor list.

Morris Iemma has presided over a government which is less than transparent over its dealings with political donors and he appears to have lost the confidence of a majority of voters.
Michael Costa has turned every portfolio he ever held into a public relations disaster and as Treasurer demonstrated this week why it might be unwise for such a mercurial and aggressive personality to continue to hold this ministry.

The Labor Party and Labor MPs need to ask themselves if they can afford to indulge a prima donna Premier who cannot eradicate a perception of corruption and a Treasurer whose emotional balance and judgement is now in question.

Caroline Kennedy backs Obama to the hilt

The Obama for America campaign team emails are coming thick and fast.

Yesterday's email sees Caroline Kennedy calling her father's mantle down on the senator from Illinios.

Though whether the name of a modern day political rogue and womaniser helps in his voter registration and volunteer drives is debatable from an outside perspective.

 

The email.

 

My father called on Americans to ask what they could do for their country.

Those who answered his call built a movement that transformed our country and brought out the best in our national character.

Barack Obama has followed in that tradition -- dedicating himself to public service as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago and then as a state and U.S. Senator.

Now, Barack is calling on a new generation of leaders to get involved and help transform this country.

The Obama Organizing Fellowship is designed not just to help win this election, but to strengthen our democracy by training dedicated volunteers in communities across the country.

Answer the call. Ask what you can do -- for this movement, for our democracy, and for this country.

Apply to be an Obama Organizing Fellow today:

http://my.barackobama.com/fellows

Fellows will participate in an intensive and rewarding training program focused on the basic organizing principles at the heart of Barack's campaign.

Then, in June, they will be assigned to a community where they will receive a minimum of six weeks of real world organizing experience that will have a concrete impact on this election.

Organizing is about more than winning votes. It's an opportunity to help people realize the power they have to change their communities, and this country, from the bottom up.

Barack's experience on the South Side of Chicago transformed his life, and he wants to share that experience with you.

The application deadline is Thursday, May 15th, so apply now to be an Obama Organizing Fellow:

http://my.barackobama.com/fellows

Thank you,

Caroline Kennedy

P.S. -- If you cannot make the commitment required to be an Obama Organizing Fellow, I hope you will pass this message along to someone you know who might be interested.

Now is the time for the party to sack Iemma and Costa

Enough is enough. When both Morris Iemma and Michael Costa publicly stated that they will proceed with their plan to privatise NSW electricity supplies, they not only went against the vote of Labor's state conference and undertakings to relevant unions they also went against the majority opinion of voters.

If the Australian Labor Party wants to see votes in the ballot box in March 2011 it needs to expel both of these arrogant men from the party.

If Sussex Street does not move swiftly to do so it will only encourage Kevin Rudd (who unforgivably supports Iemma in this) to walk all over the states next time he gets a similar stupid idea. 

Nelson discovers infant equality but ignores the obvious tag line

It's hard to take a bloke seriously when his idea of tonsured elegance runs to a limp ferret prone on the pate.

Brendan Nelson made it even harder on Friday when he fronted the cameras to support non-means testing of the $5,000 baby bonus and repeatedly told us that "all babies are [created] equal".

Didn't he stop to think that in front of thousands of tellies people would be roaring with laughter and chanting back at him; "but some parents are more equal than others".

The poor man obviously forgot that during high school Animal Farm was required reading for the tail-end of baby boomer generation.

Premier Iemma is orpheus rocker!

Contemptuous of Labor Party policy, ignoring public opinion, along with his attack dog Costa reported to have threatened ministerial staffers with the sack if they voted against power industry privatisation at this weekend's state conference, defying the 702-strong conference vote against his policy and saying he will privatise anyway - Morris Iemma is showing himself to be less and less a Labor Premier of New South Wales and more and more an arrogant dictator supported by big business and the multinationals.
Orpheus rocker? You bet mate!


NSW Planning Minister Sartor - fair dinkum or fraud?

The Daily Telegraph yesterday reported yet another political donation made to the NSW Planning Minister during the years development proposals by the donors were under consideration.

"The Mariner donation is among contributions of $106,097 that 26 donors say they gave Mr Sartor, on forms where they are asked to name the recipient in their official declarations to the NSW Election Funding Authority.
This does not match Mr Sartor's individual candidate return to the authority, in which he said he received $1800 for the 2007 election from four donors, none of them named companies."

Frank Sartor denies any of the money went to him or his election campaign. [Porcine aerobatics were observed in the skies over Sydney]

NSW North Coast braces itself for another hit as food prices continue to rise

According to FN Arena yesterday food prices rose by 1.7% in March, which was the biggest monthly rise in almost five years.

With the slowdown in consumer spending barely holding inflation in check and with that election promise millstone, tax cuts, just a few months away and likely to keep the inflation genie from ever getting back in the bottle this year; NSW North Coast fixed-income retirees and pensioners are beginning to worry that the second half of 2008 will see food poverty established in many households.

Memories of the Great Depression are still strong amongst the older folk and some are asking what went so wrong that a prosperous country like Australia should have again developed such a divide between the haves and havenots over the last 12 years.

Stories are also being told of less than a dozen ordinary unprocessed food items costing more than $50 at local supermarkets, and weekly shopping bills being 40-50% higher than three years ago.

Fifty dollars is around one-fifth of the total weekly income of many living in the Northern Rivers region.

A cynical George Bush advances US interests in the face of global food shortages

Two days ago US President George Bush announced increased food aid to assist with a global food shortage, partly caused by increased dedication of land to biofuel crops world-wide and in America $5 billion annually in domestic subsidies for bio-fuel production.

 

THE PRESIDENT:  In recent weeks, many have expressed concern about the significant increase in global food prices.  And I share this concern.  In some of the world's poorest nations, rising prices can mean the difference between getting a daily meal and going without food.

To address this problem, two weeks ago my administration announced that about $200 million in emergency food aid would be made available through a program at the Agriculture Department called the Emerson Trust.  But that's just the beginning of our efforts.  I think more needs to be done, and so today I am calling on Congress to provide an additional $770 million to support food aid and development programs.  Together, this amounts to nearly $1 billion in new funds to bolster global food security.  And with other food security assistance programs already in place, we're now projecting to spend nearly -- that we will spend nearly $5 billion in 2008 and 2009 to fight global hunger.

 

However this aid appears to come with an US export promotion component, increased pressure to allow US free trade across the globe, a push for abolition of tariffs and wider acceptance of GMO technology and crops.

 

The Emerson Trust of course deals only in US commodities, so that most of the extra $200 million will not boost the domestic economies of struggling countries but will flow back to benefit American agriculture.

As the trust also appears to use commodity releases to compensate for food crop shortages in the US, it would seem that its own large food bank may contribute to the global problem in the first place.

 

The US Government Accountability Office was critical in 2007 of the wasteful nature of the US food aid program and the fact that non-government organisations receiving American grain act as grain traders in poorer countries and sell-on the scarce resource to fund their own programs.

Over the past four years at least $500 million worth of food aid has been sold-on in this way.