What Senators Conroy and Fielding (as well as Usher of the Black Rod Brien Hallett) don't want Parliament to see?

The Australian Protectionist Party (APP) has declared itself and states it will be applying for status as a registered political party.
A quick look at its website points to the possibility that this is yet another far-right group which would be fairly comfortable with everyone from Howard to Hanson and perhaps even the late, unlamented Oswald Moseley.

However, it appears on first glance to avoid defamation, sedition, hate speech or incitement to violence as defined by legislation.
So in a democratic society it would normally expect to be tolerated as political opinion or dissent, even swimming against the tide as it does with a platform opposing multiculturalism and political correctness.

Or would it?

According to ABC Radio National Background Briefing on 15 March 2009 this potential political party URL is on the Australian Parliament/Websense blacklist.

Also reported to be on the blacklist is E-evolution, an online news site for the gay community.

It seems that Australian MPs are such delicate flowers that they must be protected from news about a significant group of citizens in many electorates.

The Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy, has baldly stated that national mandatory ISP-level filtering will be installed (whether the majority of Australians want it or not).
He is also on record as including what he terms 'unwanted' and 'inappropriate' material in content which would be subject to mandatory filtering by secret blacklist.

His lack of transparency in relation to the introduction of national Internet censorship does not impress and, his attempt to 'blame' the larger ISPs for their non-inclusion in his live filtering test and his calls to have faith in government integrity are falling on deaf ears in this house because I'm old enough to remember the prolonged fall-out from political witch hunts in the decade after World War Two.

There is nothing that Senator Conroy has put forward so far which gives me any confidence that the Rudd Government (or subsequent federal governments) would resist turning mandatory censorship to their own political or socio-economic ends.

Conroy's Clean Feed [producer/presenter Wendy Carlisle]:

Listen Now - 15032009

Download Audio - 15032009

Tsar of all the oceans? Pull the other one, Bazza!

There's nothing the average Aussie hates more than a blow hard.
So former federal politician, and Hawke Government environment minister for around three years until 1987, Barry Cohen must have taken leave of his senses to call himself tsar of all the oceans when recalling those years.
The current Federal Environment Minister, Peter Garret must have also entered lala land to have appointed Bazza to the ersatz Pew Whaling Commission (when did the Pew Institute's barely concealed lobbying on behalf of whaling interests suddenly morph into a commission to rival the International Whaling Commission?)
The International Whaling Commission was formed under a United Nations convention and Australia became a member long before Bazza's time in the political limelight.
So I'm at a loss to see how much he would have personally mattered in putting the international commercial whaling moratorium in place when it was formally adopted in 1982; but he was still around when that bl**dy loophole was allowed to develop into commercial whaling by stealth and he sounds just the sort of bloke we don't need now.
And the result of the recent 3-day lovefest bears out the Rudd Government's folly, because Japan has outmaneuvered the anti-whaling nations and p#ss poor reps like Cohen who helped create the problem of 'scientific' whaling in the first place.

STOP the CELL OFF - NO PRISON$ FOR PROFIT$! Will Grafton gaol be sold off next?

The NSW Government is planning to privatise the state’s prisons.
While Minister Robertson claims there will only be two privatisations, the Department has other plans. At the recent Parliamentary Inquiry, Commissioner Ron Woodham said Grafton would be next.
Private Prisons mean more assaults on staff and inmates, lower paid and untrained staff and more escapes. Prisons should not be run for profit.

Stop the Cell Off!

Sign the petition here.

www.stopthecelloff.org.au

Those annoying targeted browser ads....and what to do about them

Find advertising a bit much in the real world?
Just can't stand it when it's in your face in cyberspace?
From this week the ads Google displays won't just pull from the search terms you're using. Google will also look at all the sites you've visited lately.
Rather not have those inevitable ads targeted to fit your browsing habits?
Here's how to opt out of Google's new intrusion.

While we're all busy swatting mosquitoes....

While we are busy swatting at summer's mosquitoes, fighting to keep ants out of the kitchen and frequently disabusing stray spiders of the idea that they own our living rooms, it is easy to overlook the fact that the number and types of insects, bees and butterflies found in urban gardens across much of the NSW North Coast appear to be falling away.

Prolonged droughts, land clearing and general loss of native habitat have a lot to do with the fact that some species are becoming rarer occupants of our gardens.

As we are all encouraged to make the garden a low-water collection of plantings we shouldn't forget that it is much better to hunt out suitable Australian natives or dry condition plants with high flower/pollen yields or other insect attracting natural assets.

Go to Aussie Bee for a few tips and to find out which of the 1,500 species of natives bees are in your area.
The ABC's Gardening Australia has fact sheets on native plants and biological controls.
The CSIRO also has a comprehensive data base on its National Insect Collection.
The National Botanic Gardens webpage on Growing Australian Natives is a good A-Z starting point for searching out plants, as is your local library.

So as summer ends - have another look at the garden, do a little research and make an attempt (no matter how small) to bring a little more life back into your yard.



Pictures are of the Blue Banded Bee which is no longer a frequent visitor to my own garden.

'Allo, 'allo is anybody home? A regional response to the Rudd Government ETS

I read this week that Labor's heartland is objecting to Rudders' emissions trading scheme because it would mean severe job loss in parts of regional Australia.
Hello? Is anybody home? Even a duffer like myself can figure out that regional Oz will also feel the direct effect of climate change more heavily than most, because metro-orientated governments right across the country will give less funding and less on the ground help when dwindling river flows, groundwater and soil salinity, coastal land loss, severe storm damage, bushfires, major widespread flooding and the rest take a huge toll on regions like the NSW North Coast.
It makes more sense for regions to take an economic hit now, in the hope of lessening the much harder hits that climate change will deal out in the future to local residents.
Come on, La Trobe, Gladstone, Newcastle and The Isa - suck it up and think of your grandkids!
After all, it's not all bad news - export quality black coal gets an easy ride under the ETS as far as I can tell.

Pink shirts and pig ignorance on the NSW North Coast

Click on image to enlarge

Sometimes it is hard to decide whether this The Daily Examiner journalist is simply obeying an editorial direction to create controversy at any price or if he actually is as developmentally delayed as his language suggests.

Like other ugly paper chauvinists in the media Graham Orams is careful to give himself what he obviously believes is a get-out-of-gaol-free ticket by telling the world that women deserve better, as he flaunts what he likes to refer to as my raw and unshakable masculinity (pause for readers to lift right hand and signal with little finger).

The opinion piece above appeared on page 11 in last Thursday's issue of this regional paper. Needless to say its editor is still Peter Chapman.