Clarence Valley Council gets one decision right and another so very, very wrong

Maclean protestors with Nikki Holmes in the foreground.

Picture: The Daily Examiner

Reported in The Daily Examiner on Wednesday:

RESIDENTS of Maclean will wake up this morning sure of two things. The Maclean carpark is not for sale and the debate is finally over.

After months of heated debate within the community, at last night's council meeting councillors Tiley, Hughes, Dinham, Comben and Howe voted down the rescission motion that called for the carpark debate to be re-opened.

Their actions have effectively closed the door on any plans the council had to sell or lease the carpark to developers for the construction of a full sized supermarket on the site.

“I just think democracy prevailed,” Bruce Apps of Maclean said following the decision.

Another Maclean resident at the meeting, Jean Everson was also pleased with the result.

“I'm very thankful that our local councillors stuck to their word from the November meeting,” Mrs Everson said.

“We're third generation in Maclean and we don't want public land sold in this town.”

Unfortunately Clarence Valley Council also voted to continue with the urban development of natural flood storage land at West Yamba vulnerable to innundation and bushfire, when it endorsed the latest West Yamba Local Environmental Plan.

This move by councillors is not surprising given the estimated $7.3 million involvement of Billabong owner Gordon Merchant and the relentless political pressure brought to bear by local developers in the Mitchell family.

When Yamba feels the full effect of less adjoining land to absorb flood water, when more people may need to evacuate over a single narrow bridge due to adverse weather events or bushfire due to climate change, the names Merchant and Mitchell will be mud amongst residents.

Followed by the names of all those councillors and council staff who continued to push this development in the face of known risks.

Unfortunately, under the leadership of Nationals protégée Mayor Richie Williamson, this council thinks that throwing one sop to the Lower Clarence offsets the environmental and social vandalism it is advocating for West Yamba.
Even former mayor Ian Tiley appears to have lost his way in relation to the big picture.

No level of government in Australia is taking the potential impact of climate change (on the 7 kilometre-wide coastal edge of the continent) seriously.
The posturing and prevarication is bordering on a lack of care for coastal communities.

Who's to blame for all that hot air?

Every so often the teev features an advert advising us all to eat less meat in the name of combating global warming. Go Veg! it exhorts.
It appears that cows are being blamed for releasing enormous amounts of methane into the atmosphere.
Indeed one Andy Thorpe "an economist at the University of Portsmouth, found a herd of 200 cows can produce annual emissions of methane roughly equivalent in energy terms to driving a family car more than 100,000 miles (180,000km) on more than four gallons (21,400 litres) of petrol."
Fair enough, but what about the average bloke and blokette?
How many times do we all pass the wind around each day and how much nitrogen, carbon dioxide and methane does this represent?

This is what population numbers looked like on Monday:
World 6,762,457,963
16:20 GMT (EST+5) Feb 23, 2009
Multiply this total by a factor of at least 10-14 'incidents' per day per person and that's a lot of hot air rising.
And what about all those sewerage treatment plants and sanitary landfill sites - how much methane do they produce globally?
I'm betting that cows are getting a run for their money from humans in the personal greenhouse gas stakes.
So I won't be giving Bessie a kick next time I pass her grazing paddock.
As for that irritating advert - meat is a luxury for most of the world anyway and I can hardly eat less than I do already.

A hole in Conroy's censorship net?

The Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, attended a Senate estimates committee hearing last Monday 23 February 2009.

Quite rightly much has been made of his continuing refusal to rule out censoring legal but 'unwanted' content if the Rudd Government's national mandatory ISP-level Internet filtering scheme is implemented.

However, there is another little gem in Monday's transcript of the Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts: Estimates which indicates that Conroy's proposed vastly expanded blacklist may be vulnerable at the outset:

Senator MINCHIN—I do not mean any criticism by this, because I think it is beyond your control, but there is another issue that I want to raise with you. It has been drawn to my attention that primarily because in answering this complaint by email you obviously referred to the site in question, which is understandable, the complainant, as I understand it, made the address of that site widely available via the publication of your email. Are you concerned that that is a significant flaw in your very worthy and, I think, comprehensive endeavours to ensure that the blacklist itself is not published or made available more widely than is absolutely necessary?

Ms O'Loughlin—That is a difficult question. In general, we were disappointed that that was distributed further, but we do not have the capacity to stop a complainant from making their complaint public.

Senator MINCHIN—But do you acknowledge that this is potentially a major hole in the security of the contents of the blacklist?

Ms O'Loughlin—In many respects, our main concern is the totality of the blacklist. That is something that we are distributing and we can make sure that there are appropriate security provisions in place for it. I think it is difficult for us then to take a step further and require complainants to keep their complaints to themselves. They know the consequences of the listing. We are disappointed by it, but it is difficult for us to do much more than encourage people not to distribute those things much further.

Senator Conroy—Just to clarify: this is the existing blacklist under the existing law that was in place for most of the period of the former government. It is the existing blacklist and the existing law that we are having a discussion about.

Senator MINCHIN—Yes, I accept that, Minister. I also accept that, if there is a loophole here, it has existed for some time, but perhaps it is just now being exploited. So is not an offence in any way, under any law or regulation, for anybody to publish a site, a page or whatever it is that has been blacklisted as a result of a complaint made.

It is evident that Senator Conroy will have to broaden his censorship net to make it unlawful for correspondence with the Australian Communications and Media Authority to be published, if he doesn't want any part of his precious blacklist to be leaked.
It appears likely that that he is be considering this option.

There is no end to the stupidity flowing from the Rudd-Conroy Great Firewall of Australia.

Twittering the Internet censorship protest continues

The Fake Stephen Conroy was still enjoying the banter last week.

stephenconroy Got science boffins looking into The Secret; apparently thinking about kiddie p#rn (and bicycles) can manifest kiddie p#rn (and bicycles). about 11 hours ago from twitterrific

jonseymour @stephenconroy does that make you a manifestation of someone's worst nightmare? about 11 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to stephenconroy

Pic from Agmates.com and apologies to Jon for the # edit. The Administrator made me do it!

And here comes Hartsuyker trailing in the rear....

Since he was turfed from the government benches along with his Coalition mates in 2007, Nationals MP for Cowper Luke Hartsuyker has suddenly discovered the lives of ordinary Northern Rivers folk.
Surprise, surprise; this month he's noticed that single pensioners are doing it tough and has to tell the world about it.
Pity about the timing - his media release (and its beaut go at rewriting a little slice of history) lost much of its punch once Tony Abbott opened his mouth.
Luke now looks less like a self-styled local hero and more like the meat in the sandwich, as mainstream media records the difference of opinion between Truffles and the Mad Monk.
ABC Mid North Coast Radio News this week:
"The federal Member for Cowper, Luke Hartsuyker, says the Nationals remain committed to raising the single aged pension.
Opposition families spokesman Tony Abbott appeared to be pulling away from supporting a payment increase after telling 2GB radio that the increase was not viable.
Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull then issued a statement calling on the Government to raise the pension.
Mr Hartsuyker says the change would bring Australia into line with key OECD countries.
"The Nationals are absolutely committed to raising the single aged pension by $30," he said.
"We have a situation where single aged pensioners are doing it particularly tough. It's important that they receive a pension that is around two-thirds of the married rate.
"In many countries around the world that is the status that exists. It is vitally important we support our single aged pensioners."

A Hartsuyker staffer also sent out a media release which was passed on to me this week by Clarencegirl.
It seems Luke is also hot under the collar over the coming redistribution of federal electorates in NSW which will see one seat go.
He's called on "North Coast residents to oppose any plan to reduce the number of Federal seats which exist in regional New South Wales".
As no North Coast electorates are affected by this redistribution, what little electoral gerrymander or two are we being asked to help create elsewhere?
He says he wants a Sydney seat to disappear - presumably one held by Labor's Murphy or Plibersek.
Or could his plea be a move to protect a couple of Lib MPs in Gilmore and Macarthur?

Pauline Plant of Yamba - finalist for NSW Woman of the Year

Pauline Plant, the creator of the Yamba Breast Cancer Support Group and Breast awareness program, is one of 10 finalists for the NSW Woman of the Year Award.

Earlier this year Mrs Plant was announced as the 2009 Clarence Valley Citizen of the Year.

The finalists for the Woman of the Year Award were chosen from 87 nominations with the winner to be announced on International Women's Day on March 5.

The other nominees are:

Layne Beachley - former world champion surfer

Cheryl Koenig - author

Patricia Johnson - State Emergency Service volunteer

Rozita Leoni - Eastern Sydney community worker

Wendy McCarthy - former University of Canberra chancellor

Jan Savage - Cancer Care Western NSW fundraising coordinator

Sue Ismiel - philanthropist

Rhonda French - a Wiradjuri woman, who voluntarily promotes positive health, education and cultural programs

Ana Tiwary - Vice-president of Women in Film and Television

Pic from The Daily Examiner

Dolphins at play, Iluka NSW

Photographs by Mike Litzow displayed at his blog

Once In A Lifetime.

The adventures of Mike, Alisa and young Elias on the sailboat Pelagic.