Show and tell in Federal Parliament?

Will the flood gates open in Australia's Federal Parliament today when Belinda Neal, the Member for Robertson, is expected to be in Parliament for the first time since the Iguanas nightclub incident?

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a spokesman for Federal Opposition leader Brendan Nelson said, "We expect Mr Rudd to call on Belinda Neal to go into the chamber and explain what happened."

According to the Herald, Nelson is set to exploit the MP-behaving-badly issue and press Mr Rudd to require Ms Neal to explain to Parliament her side of the story over the fracas with staff at the Gosford nightclub.

Comment:
MPs behaving badly? Brendan Nelson should be very careful. His side of the House has more than its fair share of MPs whose unacceptable behaviour could be highlighted.

Fight for the right of your community to have a say in local development - go to www.keepitlocal.org.au and have your say

It's time to step up and support the push for a NSW Upper House inquiry into Frank Sartor's draconian, pro-developer changes to the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act.

Go to www.keepitlocal.org.au and follow the links to its email page.

To make it easy the Local Government and Shires Association has produced a template email letter.

The need for an inquiry into the 200 pages of changes to planning laws will be debated in the Upper House tomorrow, Tuesday 17 June 2008.

 

Click here for the LGSA Preliminary response to the changes. 

Click here to see how your community will be affected.

 

ABC News reports:

 

A parliamentary committee has raised serious concerns about the proposed New South Wales planning laws.

The cross-party committee, which included four Labor politicians, found 20 problems with the new bills, including that they could provide Planning Minister Frank Sartor and the planning commissions with oppressive power.

It also found the laws could compromise people's rights and liberties, and remove procedural fairness.

Local Government Association president Genia McCaffrey says the findings vindicate her call for an Upper House inquiry into the bills.

"We've been saying this is going to remove the rights of people to protect their homes," she said.

"The parliamentary inquiry is confirming exactly what we're saying when it says they're concerned that the rights of local residents will be seriously under threat."

 

More on the subject from The Northern Rivers Echo here and The Byron Shire Echo here.

US08: political attitude in the race for the White House

Bumper stickers available online from what appears to be a pro-McCain website Fredstates.com .

Moving from the bitter to the politically sugar-laden. Click onto Cats for Obama

An ongoing difficulty for a less than rational world

Jonathon Mahler in Week in Review examines "Why This Court Keeps Rebuking This President".

“The most important thing we do is not doing,” Justice Louis D. Brandeis once said of the Supreme Court’s abiding humility, its overwhelming preference to allow the people, through their elected representatives, to govern themselves.---
And never is the court more reluctant to act than when faced with a challenge to the president during wartime.---
So it is extraordinary that during the Bush administration’s seven years, nearly all of them a time of war that began on Sept. 11, 2001, the court has been prompted to push back four times. Last week’s decision in Boumediene v. Bush, in which the court ruled that prisoners at Guantánamo Bay have a right to challenge their detentions in the federal courts, marks only the most recent rebuke."

This presents a somewhat reassuring view of America and seems to support the pious hope of justice prevailing.
However, for the international community which has watched George Dubbya circumvent the US Courts time and time again, the difference in response from both presidential candidates leaves an uncomfortable notion that the fate of human rights in America is still very much up in the air.

"Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama have both long advocated closing the Guantánamo detention center but have disagreed on the rights of prisoners there.
Mr. McCain said here Thursday morning that he had not had time to read the decision but that “it obviously concerns me,” adding, “These are unlawful combatants; they’re not American citizens.”
Mr. McCain said he thought “we should pay attention” to the dissent by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., which argued that the steps established by the administration and Congress in creating review tribunals run by the military were more than sufficiently generous as a way for detainees to challenge their status.
Still, the senator said, “it is a decision the Supreme Court has made, and now we need to move forward.”
Mr. Obama issued a statement calling the decision “a rejection of the Bush administration’s attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantánamo” that he said was “yet another failed policy supported by John McCain.”
“This is an important step,” he said of the ruling, “toward re-establishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus. Our courts have employed habeas corpus with rigor and fairness for more than two centuries, and we must continue to do so as we defend the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy.”

So, the butler did do it

WARNING

Some readers may find the following news report offensive.

********

The Australian newspaper's breaking news reports that the former royal butler Paul Burrell boasted to relatives about having secret sex trysts with Princess Diana.

In a sensational newspaper interview published in Britain today, Burrell's brother-in-law Ron Cosgrove revealed how the butler told him in 1993 about how he had bedded the princess while he worked for her at Kensington Palace.

Mr Cosgrove also claimed that Mr Burrell had told him he had accidentally seen the Queen naked and that after Diana's death Mr Burrell asked relatives to hide three bin bags filled with clothes, jewellery and mementos belonging to her.

The 61-year-old furniture dealer said Mr Burrell met him at a Cheshire pub in 1993 and told him that he had been having a sexual relationship with Diana.

"He said they did it in the bedroom, the bath, everywhere,'' Cosgrove told The News of the World.

"He claimed Diana liked to be domineering.

"Paul told me that he'd get a call from Diana in the middle of the night specifically to have sex with her. He said she was very sexually demanding - `a bit xxxxing kinky' were his words - and if you worked for the princess you worked for her 24/7.

"I told him if it was true I was disgusted with him because he was married to my sister and cheating on her with another woman.

"But he didn't see that as a problem. He just replied, `Yes, but it IS the princess.' I was dumbfounded. I couldn't believe what he was telling me.''

Mr Cosgrove said Mr Burrell had also claimed to have seen the Queen naked after chasing a royal corgi into her bedroom at Buckingham Palace.

"He barged in to grab the dog and was greeted by the Queen who was standing there with no clothes on,'' Mr Cosgrove said.

"Her only concern was that the dog would not get its muddy paws on her bedsheets.''

Mr Burrell also was accused by Mr Cosgrove of hiding bag loads of Diana's belongings in an attic and garden shed after her death in a Paris car crash in August 1997.

Mr Cosgrove said Mr Burrell ordered a relative to take three sealed bags from Kensington Palace and "keep them safe and out of the way''.

"The relative later told me Mr Burrell had said there was royal memorabilia in them, like dresses and hats,'' he said.

Mr Burrell was charged in 2001 with stealing 342 items belonging to Diana and her sons Prince William and Prince Harry.

But his trial collapsed after the Queen said she recalled Mr Burrell telling her he had kept some of Diana's belongings for safe-keeping.

Unforeseen consequences for indigenous communities from Howard/Rudd NT Intervention?

ABC News reports:
The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) says there has been an increase in racial discrimination in communities since the Commonwealth Intervention was launched last year.
NAAJA and Central Australian legal group CAALAS has handed a submission to a Senate Committee Inquiry into the effectiveness of the Commonwealth intervention.
The submission described the intervention legislation and policies as inherently discriminative and says they have produced "unforseen consequences" on the ground.

Full June 2008 21 page joint submission by the NNAJA and CAALAS here.

Excerpt:
A typical example is the comment by a particular community that the "white cops are going over board" and are treating the community members as though "we’re criminals". The community members stated the problem was with the new recruits, rather than with the older police, and gave the following examples of their concerns:
· As soon as some people are seen drinking, all of the houses in the community are searched.
· Police are searching the houses without even explaining what they’re doing or finding out who owns the house or who lives in the house.
· Police have been conducting searches on houses in the community when they are in the community looking for someone on a warrant or a summons.
· When conducting searches, police have been breaking sacred items that are used for ceremonies because the police view these items only as weapons.
· Female police have been looking at sacred objects that women are not allowed to see. This is being reported back to communities, making problems for the community members in relation to witchcraft.
· Aboriginal women and their bags are being searched by male police officers.
· There have been a lot of instances in which unopened alcohol has been destroyed by the police outside the boundary of the community.
· At the local bus-stop, Aboriginal people’s bags are searched purely because they’re Aboriginal.
· Police know that taxis and mini buses are bringing alcohol into the community but taxi drivers and mini bus drivers are not being caught by the police nor having their vehicles confiscated.
· Intoxicated people are being taken into protective custody while sitting on the verandahs of their house.
· Police are refusing to give their rank number when they’re asked.

Senate Select Committee on Regional and Remote Indigenous Communities
There have been 29 submissions received here. Including submissions from Amnesty International, Rio Tinto and the Minerals Council of Australia.

Last word on Belinda Neal?

THERE should be at least one change for the third State of Origin match - Belinda Neal in the front row.

ANTHONY McMAHON
Chatsworth Island*

*Letter to the Editor in yesterday's The Daily Examiner, Grafton