If a petrol commissioner can't deliver lower fuel prices, what will the inquiry into grocery prices bring?

The Rudd Government's brief look into fuel prices led to the creation of a petrol commissioner and adoption of the Fuel Watch policy.
While being able to go online to find the cheapest at bowser petrol price nearest to you may go a small way to allowing consumer choice, it does nothing to actually bring costs down for an
extended period of time in what is supposedly a competitive market.
National implementation of this monitoring scheme may be difficult to achieve, and once the novelty wears off voter dissatisfaction is bound to resurface.

So what hope does Rudd's inquiry into grocery prices have when the ACCC's Graeme Samuel confesses himself at a loss to find any competitive edge between Coles, Woolworths and Metcash.
Although it has to be said that the degree of investigative fervour does not appear to be high, given that quite a bit of information received appears to be based on submissions and industry response seems almost casual to the outside observer.
There has been very little to show of Samuel's statement;
"We have the power to subpoena documents from parties who can assist us with inquiry, to subpoena witnesses to appear before us, because we will be conducting public hearings around Australia to obtain evidence from witnesses, that evidence will be given under oath.For the most part, it will be public, but in some cases, it may need to be confidential. So we have very, very extensive powers."
I'm afraid the National Farmers Federation may have hit the nail on the head when it called this inquiry a toothless tiger.

Kevin Rudd's early penchant for calling inquiries may quickly come back and bite his rear, if solid recommendations leading to realistic solutions are not forthcoming.
I very much fear that the result of the grocery inquiry will be an exhortation a la Wayne Swan for people to "shop around".

Regrets? I've had so few: John Winston Howard

If I were still prime minister, we wouldn't be withdrawing from Iraq says former Australian Prime Minister John Howard in a The Sydney Morning Herald article. 

 

Howard went on to say of his decision to unlawfully invade Iraq in the face of considerable opposition from the Australian people; "It was hard; very, very, very hard. It was very much my decision." It was a decision influenced "partly by the fact I had been in America at the time of the [September 11] attack and because of what terrorism represented".

 

John Howard is stuck with an eternal defence (no matter how simplistic or revisionist) of his decision to go to war because complaints to The Hague just won't go away.

ICCACTION ha reportedly sought a "legal brief" that it intends to forward to the court.

 

ICCACTION brief of May 2008 is here.

A perennial Australian favourite: let's beat up on welfare recipients

There is one thing a wide section of the Australian community can be depended on to display - a deep and abiding prejudice against any form of difference and an intolerance of people on the dole.
For some reason many think prejudice is acceptable when sent by email, as was this montage/photograph with the legend: Support the system that supports me. Centrelink.
This piece managed to capture at least one spiteful myth about welfare recipients; that they are all bludgers on the make.
When are these e-mail idiots going to grow up?

Agriculture Minister Tony Burke flunks Media Presentation 101

Like a lemming over the proverbial cliff, Federal Agricultural Minister Tony Burke went to the defence of his leader Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on the weekend.

"VOTERS don't want Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to slow down, a senior minister says.
Mr Rudd has been urged to ease his workaholic ways or face a political backlash from exhausted public servants.
Medical experts have also warned that Mr Rudd could be putting his own health and that of his staff at risk by expecting them to work long and demanding hours."

Poor Tony is flunking tips on media presentation and aligning himself with a the very un-Labor position that 'bosses' can ask for an unreasonable level of work hours per day or an unreasonable range of hours (with or without overtime) simply because they are the boss.

The Agriculture Minister would do well to remember that Australia's disgust with the arrogant and unreasonable expectations of employers under WorkChoices was a large factor in last year's 'regime change'.
He should be very careful when treading on voter toes in this way. Especially when his leader has taken to publicly preening himself for being a hard boss.

"The Northern Rivers Echo": Rudi Maxwell editorial that speaks to the female experience

The Northern Rivers Echo latest editorial giving a good example of why North Coast women don't admire the monosyllabic. Congratulations to its author.

Poetic justice for colourful language

Poets are brave.
To bare your emotions and stories in a poem is to take a real risk.
I went to the Live Poets at the Rous Hotel last week, headlined by Echo reviewer Geraldine Bigelow and former Echo reviewer Christine Strelan.
What brave and amazing women.
Performing your poetry in front of an audience of your peers takes guts. Telling a personal story in verse takes creativity, imagination, precise timing, thought and hard work.
And these women do it with humour too.
Poetry can inspire and, at its best, it makes you think.
I’m a great admirer of language and its many different forms of expression. And I’m totally in awe of anyone fearless enough to put their personal stories up for discussion and criticism.
In stark contrast to the poetry readings of the night, prior to entering I was standing outside the pub with a female colleague when a ute full of young men drove past.
One of them leaned out the window and yelled “sl*t”, to which my response obviously should have been, “why thank you, young man, that’s the most flattering comment I’ve ever heard, would you please pull your car over to the side of the road so my associate and I can jump in the back of your charming vehicle and take it in turns to have s*x with all of you?”
Why do young men, particularly in groups, think it is acceptable to behave aggressively to strangers?
Apart from the basic rudeness, it’s the lack of imagination that’s so extraordinary. Don’t these children watch South Park or read Paul Keating’s opinion pieces in The Sydney Morning Herald? Haven’t they been following Stuart Littlemore QC’s defence of Mercedes Corby and attack on Jodie Power?
Even ridiculous radio shock jocks manage to be originally insulting occasionally (mainly when they mix up their cliches and mangle their metaphors into clumsy combinations that not only insult their intended subject but are also an affront to language itself) so it can’t be beyond even the most ill-informed, bundy-and-coke-in-a-can swilling, roo-r**ting misogynist. What these boys need is to hear some original language. They should go and listen to some poets and find some inspiration.
And the next time I hear a voice yelling out of a car window I hope it has more to express than a single word denigrating women.
Ignorant, small-appendaged, loud-mouthed, pack-minded, devolved, prisoner-or-alcohol-abuse-problem-in-waiting bores who wouldn’t know how to hold up their end of a conversation with a Shakespearian monologue. D**kheads. [edited to placate the filters]

Penny Wong earns her salary in the face of boys club opposition

With so much Federal Labor promise threatening to turn into ashes, it is heartening to see The Australian report the following last Friday:

TENSIONS are emerging between major greenhouse emitters and Climate Minister Penny Wong after a number of hostile meetings before the release of the Government's green paper on emissions trading in July.
Senator Wong has told small groups of chief executives from major power and other energy-intensive companies that the Rudd Government's election promise of a renewable energy target was "not negotiable".
One of these meetings in Melbourne last Tuesday completely broke down, with Senator Wong reportedly furious at the way she was being treated by the eight business leaders present, telling them "you wouldn't treat (former Treasurer) Peter Costello the way you are treating me".
Those present at the meetings, described by a spokesman for Senator Wong as "frank and robust," included Rio Tinto Australia managing director Stephen Creese, International Power executive director Tony Concannon, Alumina Limited chief executive John Marlay and senior executives from Exxon Mobil, CSR and BHP Billiton.
Big business and economists are growing concerned about the Government's refusal to budge on its 20 per cent renewable energy target by 2020 on top of an emissions trading scheme.

Senator Wong appears to have the spine her leader sometimes fails to publicly show when faced with those multinational bully boys.
If it's any consolation for the senator; these captains of industry would have treated her with even more contempt if she had knuckled under and won't ever respect her for any stand she takes (even if it favours them) because she is after all, shock and horror, a female.

A couple of tips for Federal Labor MPs on media presentation

Whenever I take a guernsey at newspaper photos or watch a doorstop interview on the teev, it's not just the human subject of the column or news clip I notice.
I always look carefully at those others behind or beside who have been captured by the digital moment.
In the case of the interviewed pollie, these 'extras' are often there to show support.

Now the gloss is well and truly coming off the Prime Minister's image, it might be wise for Labor MPs to pick their media exposure with some care lest they find themselves tarnished by Kev's inability to hide his increasingly self-righteous and self-satisfied stance.
So here's a rough guideline.

• If Rudders is expressing his nation's condolences for a natural disaster or death of a respected statesman - stand steadfastly beside him. Likewise if he is making a commitment to a UN treaty or donating a large sum to international relief efforts.
• If he is talking about 2020 summit outcomes, clean coal, fuel or privatisation of state assets - try to be busy somewhere else in the building or discover an urgent message on your mobile and move out of camera range.
• If Rudders is giving his opinion on photographic art, troop entertainers, binge drinking teenagers or what long hours he works - run like hell and hope that you make it back into your electorate before anyone notices that you have gone.
• If he makes any statement about a possible change to the Constitution - quietly retire to your parliamentary office and 'confidentially' leak a dissenting view.

Otherwise voters may begin to think that you too are turning into a smug smart ar**e and decide that you need to be taken down a peg or two.