Before anyone gets too excited about the Lyne and Mayo by-elections

So far it's been a little quiet on the Lyne (NSW) and Mayo (SA) fronts, which are tootling towards their respective federal by-elections without much comment.

Still that's bound to change once the election campaigns get started, though just how excited the rest of the country should get about the votes of a grand total of 185,534 people if they all bother to turn up at the polling booths on the 6th September 2008.

Just 10 months past the 2007 federal election, I for one am not particularly interested as I presume the status quo will prevail.

However, last week Poll Bludger mustered some enthusiasm.

"The September 6 by-elections for Mayo and Lyne initially loomed as fizzers, with Labor showing no inclination post-Gippsland to test the waters in unwinnable seats. They have instead respectively emerged as mildly and enormously interesting, thanks to the entry of non-major party players. In Mayo, housing tycoon Bob Day will bring a cashed-up campaign to bear against the Liberals as the candidate of Family First, having failed to win Liberal preselection for Mayo after unsuccessfully contesting Makin last year. Day would nonetheless have to be considered a long shot against Liberal candidate Jamie Briggs, but it’s a very different story in Lyne where independent state MP Rob Oakeshott has been rated the “clear favourite” by Antony Green. Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reports that Nationals polling puts his approval rating in the electorate at over 70 per cent, and says the party is concerned Labor will “direct resources to Mr Oakeshott’s campaign”."

Malcolm Turnbull overstates the case re the former Howard Government's attitude to pensioners

It's a sad fact of life that when politicians speak of pensioners they automatically refer to only one section of the community - older people who have retired.
They know there are other types of pensioners, but they usually choose to ignore them as inconvenient little distractions.

So when the Liberals Malcolm Turnbull said last Monday; "We've been standing up and fighting for pensioners and retirees in opposition as we did in government," he definitely didn't mean those on a Disability Support Pension.
The former Howard Government was remarkable for treating disability pensioners like lepers and repeatedly denying them the Utilities Allowance and the one-off cash bonuses given out in the wake of federal budgets from 2006.

Sadly, Kevin Rudd was also none too keen on giving disability pensioners the one-off bonus, but at least he and Cabinet did extend the utility allowance to include this group.

It will be interesting to watch how the Rudd Government tries to cut disability pensioners out of the full measure of whatever increase in pensions or allowances is finally recommended by the Pension Review committee in February 2009.

It's almost bound to happen this way, because the group is not that large when compared with retirees, isn't a forceful lobby and contains some of the most vulnerable and socially isolated individuals in our society, those with a psychiatric disability.

This strange form of political myopia and unthinking discrimination reflects less on these pensioners and more on how our politicians see Australian society through a prism of their own self-satisfaction.

Right now Prime Minister Rudd and Community Services Minister Macklin are not covering themselves with glory by urging a go slow on implementing any interim change to pensions generally while waiting for the final Pension Review report.

In the meantime, many of those in the Northern Rivers on Disability Support Pensions struggle to meet the costs of basic food, shelter, clothing, transport and medical care in a regional area which has few viable support systems available to them.

"A discussion paper prepared by Jeff Harmer, head of the Families Department, and released yesterday, shows the singles rate of only 60% of the combined couple rate is lower than the 62.9% average for the major Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. The Australian proportion is behind Belgium, the US, Britain, New Zealand, Austria, Canada and Ireland."

Full August 2008 Pension Review Background Paper

More bad news on NSW North Coast koala numbers

It seems every time one turns around these days one hears of land either being illegally cleared or cleared for approved development but also 'accidentally' being cleared of known koala habitat trees.

The situation appears to be dire in the Clarence Valley with population numbers in the vicinity of the Shannon Creek Dam site falling from an estimated 140-240 koalas to between 4-12 animals, the Ashby colony now only around 30-50 and Woombah koalas near local extinction according to Valley Watch environmental group [The Daily Examiner,Grafton,12 August 2008,p.1]

The Northern Rivers koala (phascolarctos cinereus) is now listed as a vulnerable species within New South Wales.

Sick or injured koalas also find their way into trees on the fringes of ever encroaching urban areas or are found by the roadside.

The Friends of the Koala which has been fighting to conserve Koalas and their habitat in the Northern Rivers of NSW has a 24 hour koala rescue and care service operating out of the Lismore area on PH: 6622 1233 and W.I.R.E.S can be contacted in Clarence Valley on PH: 6643.4055 and Northern Rivers on PH: 6628.1898.

These two worthy groups are always on the lookout for volunteers and are very grateful for donations.

The next time you decide that you would like to treat yourself to an espresso or cafe latte with a piece of cake - give the money to a wildlife group instead.

Photo from Friends of the Koala website.

The IOC sold the world an Olympic lemon

The 2008 Olympics can never be called the 'best ever' for any of its events or features.
Beijing smog so thick that you often can't see the surrounding streets, fake televised fireworks, empty seats in stadiums, no-one allowed to attend the outdoor events, oppressive state security, tickets priced beyond the means of ordinary Chinese citizens.
Day 6 and nobody in my house is even bothering to turn on the t.v. anymore.

Channel 7 and SBS wasted their money buying broadcasting rights.
Those fat cats on the International Olympic Committee should be ashamed of themselves.
Even the 1936 Berlin Games were better managed!

Graphic found at U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

Update:

Chinese Government ordered featured child performance faked.

Everyone acting too late for the Lower Murray to survive

Isn't it marvellous. After decades of warnings and years of inaction, suddenly the move is on to save the lower sections of the Murray River system.

It's almost laughable that independent Senator Nick Xenaphon is reported in The Age as calling on people power to save the Coorong and Lower Lakes.

Speaking at a protest meeting yesterday in the Murray River town of Goolwa, where about 2000 people observed a minute's silence for a river system dying from the bottom up, Senator Xenophon challenged federal Water Minister Penny Wong's recent assertion that no extra water could be found upstream to save the lakes.
"I say, Penny, look harder," Senator Xenophon said. He urged the rally, held in Alexander Downer's former seat of Mayo — which will be contested by Liberal Jamie Briggs at a federal byelection on September 6 — to use "people power" and public pressure to force the Federal Government to act.....
"Why should we sacrifice Storm Boy country so that big business can grow crops in the driest continent on earth?" Senator Xenophon said. "Why have we abandoned our international obligations to the lower lakes so that managed investment schemes can fatten the wallets of well-heeled city investors who couldn't find the Coorong on a map?"

Where was Nick Xenaphon and those 2,000 over the last six years? Probably still supporting the overallocation of water resources in their own state and local government areas.
Most were almost certainly not camping at the doors of then prime minister John Howard and then federal environment minister Malcolm Turnbull asking for them to act and act now.

Unfortunately for communities on the Lower Murray and the nation as a whole, the Murray Darling Basin Commission is correct when it states that water released from northern basin storage points would not make it down the length of the river system as far as the Lower Lakes in any appreciable volume.

It is of no use whatsoever to blame this state of affairs on the current Rudd Government, which has been in power for only nine and a half months.

The entire nation spent too much time heeding the expedient words of politicians of all persuasions, allowing the rapacious agendas of irrigators to hold sway and giving too much credence to climate change naysayers.

We have all killed the Murray Darling river system in its historical form.

It is now only a myth we can recount to our great-grandchildren.

So you think you can run a council.........

There are nine elected shire councillor positions on Clarence Valley Council.
The line up of candidates for the Clarence Valley local government election next month now stands at eleven according to the NSW Electoral Commission last night.

CHALLACOMBE Jeremy
COMBEN Patrick (Independent)
HOWE Craig (Independent)
HUGHES Sue (Independent)
KRISTOFFERSEN Kurt (Independent)
PEARCE Dennis (Independent)
PHILBROOK Don (Independent)
SIMMONS Jim (Independent) - current councillor
TILEY Ian (Independent) - current mayor
TOMS Karen (Independent)
WILLIAMSON Richie (Independent) - current councillor

Nominations close at noon on Wednesday 13 August for the 13 September 2008 election, but the unproven, very eager Kurt Kristoffersen has been first cab off the rank with a campaign leaflet which turned up in local letter boxes this week.

Small problem for Mr. Kristoffersen though - his leaflet appears to breach the legislated requirements for formal authorisation of election material.

Even if he squeaks through on just a post box address (outside of the suburb where he lives), a mobile telephone number and a Hotmail email address for himself as candidate - there is absolutely no printer's name and physical address anywhere on the leaflet in question.

Click on images to enlarge

Apparently a local tried to give him the hint about this problem, but he insisted that all was proper and correct.
Don't like his chances if someone complains to the NSW Electoral Commissioner.

Mr. Kristoffersen gets 8 marks deducted for failing to read the relevant legislation, 1 mark off for not proofreading his work to avoid an unnecessary misspelling, another mark off for promising to freeze rate revenues if elected to a cash strapped regional council and, 1 mark awarded to him for a photograph which demonstrates that he at least knows how to use hair gel.

Leaving this candidate with 1 out of 10.

UPDATE:

Further candidates listed this morning, bringing the field up to fourteen:

BLOOMER Liza(Independent)

CLAGUE Grace

MAHER Maurie

Australian Law Reform Commission deserves a medal

You've got to admire the guts shown by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC).

With the Rudd Government still dragging its heels on implementing the very moderate reforms to sedition laws recommended by the commission two years ago and within a week of the Iemma Government giving NSW Police carte blanche to bug our phones and read our emails without first getting a warrant; the ALRC presents its report "For Your Information: Australian Privacy Law and Practice".

I'll be blowed if I know why it hopes that pollies will be bothered to even read the executive summary, public servants be moved to do anything but buttress their 'right' to supadupa unsafe data bases or business curtail that endless quest for more and more information it can crunch into digital form and on sell - but I appreciate the incurable optimism displayed.

I almost feel like yelling G'arn The Weis!

Here is the Executive Summary if you feel like a read.

Here and here are press articles.