Stoush in Liberal MP's electoral office

Alex Hawke (Liberal), the Federal Member for Mitchell, allowed his electoral office to be used as the venue for a meeting of Young Liberals.

Do other groups, say the local Greens, also get to hold their get-togethers in the office?

NSW police dismissed as a media stunt an attempt to drag them into the internal faction wars of the Liberal Party (ABC News).

The Herald reported that Hawke, who was described as a megalomaniac by a Liberal source , was desperate to shut down potential threats to his position in the party.

Hawke called police to his Castle Hill office in Sydney's northwest around 6pm on Wednesday after he said a mob had stormed into a meeting of the Baulkham Hills and Hills Young Liberals branches.

A Liberal source said the people standing outside were aspiring new Young Liberals and that Hawke barred them because he realised he didn't have the numbers inside to reject their applications.

The source said Hawke was reluctant to let the branches grow because new members, who may be aligned with his inter-factional enemy and former boss NSW upper house Liberal MP David Clarke, could end up threatening his position.

"It's all about a power struggle between himself and David Clarke," the source said.

"He sees David as the old school, and he wants to be the person down in Canberra that calls all the shots, and he doesn't want anyone to get in his way."

Fellow Liberal Party member and radio announcer Gareth McCray dubbed Hawke a "young upstart" following the fracas, which his two children were caught up in.

McCray said his daughter Laura, 20, and son Jacob, 18, had recently joined the Young Liberals and were trying to attend their first branch meeting.

"Alex Hawke had denied them access ... and one or two of his heavies were standing at the door preventing these people from coming in at all.

"Obviously, there was some sort of factional issue that Alex was paranoid about.

"For him to ask no more members to come in, clearly there must have been something going on that I wasn't aware of that had to do with the different factions within the Liberal Party - I'm assuming."

McCray denied the confrontation had been about to descend into a brawl.

"There was no reason to ring the police, because there was an orderly assemblage of 20 members trying to get into a meeting.

"There was no shouting or carrying on at all."

McCray said the incident had left him so incensed that he was thinking about renouncing his Liberal Party membership.

"After last night's fiasco with this young upstart, who I thought six months ago had some potential, I'm quite prepared to tear my membership up if the Liberal Party is not prepared to take some sort of disciplinary action against this man," McCray said.

Hawke wants an investigation too, but of a different kind.

He's asked the party's state director, Mark Neeham, to inquire into Liberal Party members who were present and their behaviour.

"(And) it is my hope that those persons who orchestrated the events of last night are dealt with swiftly by the Liberal Party and authorities," he said.

A police spokesman said a number of people were spoken to by police at the scene but no arrests were made.

No further action will be taken by police at this stage.

Sources: ABC News and The Sydney Morning Herald

Blog Action Day on Climate Change, 15 October 2009

Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be the largest-ever social change event on the web. One day. One issue. Thousands of voices. [http://www.blogactionday.org/]

Take a single day out of your usual blogging schedule and focus it on an important issue - CLIMATE CHANGE.

You can register your blog here.

Malcolm Who??

I've become used to not thinking much about that phantom of Australian politics, the Nationals Federal Leader, Warren Truss.

Recently I've also become rather comfortable with the notion that I don't have to consider another political fading star - the Liberals Federal Leader Malcolm Turnbull.

His economic credibility is shot, his environmental credibility never existed and he apparently has little political credibility left within his own parliamentary party.

If Oz is lucky last Thursday's hilarious gasping for oxygen utterance, along the lines of I'll only lead a party which follows me, and Friday morning's snarly comment about Coalition smart-ars*s, were probably the final occasions on which he really mattered to anyone except his own loving family.

So who is it exactly who's leading the Federal Coalition now?

Cartoon from Laberal

Bushfire smoke signals need for the NSW North Coast to be vigilant this summer

Wise words from The Daily Examiner editor
29 September 2009
Click image to enlarge

This week there were at least 10 separate fires burning at some stage on the NSW North Coast.

Current NSW fire danger information and total fire bans at the NSW Rural Fire Service.
Current NSW fire incidents

Lowdown on the Joint Regional Planning Committee for the NSW North Coast

John Pitt writing in New Matilda on 30 September 2009 sounds a warning bell that all Northern Rivers residents should heed when it comes to the Rees Government approach to local development:

But there's more. In July, Planning Minister Kristina Keneally created Joint Regional Planning Panels (get the Orwellian touch?). The JRPP are, according to Keneally, "the next step in building Australia's best planning system", and "another clear step in taking the politics out of the planning process".

Alarm bells should start to ring when phrases like "taking the politics out of..." drop easily from the lips of a minister. Regardless, the JRPP do nothing of the sort.

These panels, there are five of them, act like hit squads to determine "development proposals with a value between $10 million-$100 million, sub-divisions of more than 250 lots and specialist development proposals, such as eco-tourism, with a value in excess of $5 million".

Each has five members, of which three are appointed by Keneally, the two others nominated by a council. (The three state appointees are permanent, the other two rotating depending on which shire is under review.)

So, how "non-political" are they? As an illustration take the panel that covers the area where I live: the Northern Region from Tweed Heads in the north to Port Macquarie in the south, Liverpool Plains and Moree Plains in the west.

The three state appointees are: Garry West (chair), Pamela Westing and John Griffin. West is no stranger to Macquarie Street. He sat in the NSW Parliament for 20 years as a National Party MP until 1996, running a swag of departments including Tourism, Lands and Forests, Police and Emergency Services.

Westing is a former general manager of Byron Shire. After five years at Byron, her application for a two-year extension to her contract was refused by councillors in 2008. She now runs her own town planning and business management consultancy.

Griffin is a former general manager of the Tweed Shire Council — hardly a political virgin given the scandals over development applications and alleged but never prosecuted links between some councillors and developers in that shire. What is remarkable about Griffin's appointment is that he was rejected as the local member by the council he ran for 15 years, only to pop up again as Keneally's appointee.

Jobs for the boys and girls, while residents living in areas where major developments are proposed will find it even harder to make their voices heard.

Memo to the Australian Coal Industry - I want information not self-seeking propaganda

At the beginning of September 2009 the World Climate Conference-3 released a statement which began:

In the 21st Century, the peoples of the world are facing multi-faceted challenges of climate variability and climate change, which requires wise and well-informed decision making at every level from households, communities, countries and regions, to international fora, including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Those decisions will require, directly or indirectly, access to the best possible climate science and information and effective application of this information through climate services.

By the end of the month David Hollier at New Matilda alerts us to the fact that:

This week an ad campaign designed by Lawrence and paid for by the Australian Coal Association (ACA) will go live in Australian homes, attempting to convince voters in key marginal and mining seats that Labor's emission trading scheme threatens the economy in general and their jobs and communities in particular. This from the same man who helped voters believe that by installing Rudd and getting Kyoto ratified they might actually have the power to drag Australia into the 21st century and do something useful on climate change.

As far as I'm concerned the big multinational polluting industries in Australia have already negotiated a sweetheart deal with the Rudd Government in relation to the proposed national emissions trading scheme.

For one of these industries to attempt to gouge further concessions from government, with an implied threat to do its best to derail regional support for government policy, is a very low commercial tactic which may rebound on polluting industries as a whole.

Like most Australians I prefer verifiable information over blatant propaganda and feel good sites like New Gen Coal or the Association's latest and frankly misleading Cut Emissions Not Jobs.

At this last website, an industry already cutting jobs and overheads though new technology is predicting Armageddon if the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is introduced:

It is projected this new tax will result in 16 mines closing prematurely. It will cut thousands of jobs in the coal industry.
For every direct coal job lost it’s estimated that at least two more jobs will go with them – mainly in regional towns. Shopkeepers, small businesses, council workers – everyone could be affected.
Unemployment in some regional areas will rise even more. Property prices could be impacted. Many families will have to move away to find new lives and employment.

Well, Messrs. Hillman and Lawrence - I live in one of those electorates you intend to target and I just don't believe this over-the-top doom saying.

In fact not even the Minerals Council of Australia believes your nonsense because on 1 September 2009 it forecast continued prosperity for the coal industry in Boom forecast for coal output.

ACA Executive Director Ralph Hillman (below) now joins my personal climate change shame file:

Photograph from New Gen Coal

Gawd 'elp us! It's the draft from hell

This week the United Nations released its draft document for the UNFCCC Framework Convention on Climate Change.

A quick glance shows that the only wording fully agreed on is the date at the top of the cover page and the Introduction.

One hundred and eighty-one pages of at times incomprehensible double-speak, as the working group battles to finalise this document in time for December's Copenhagen Summit.

Over at The Guardian they have been trying to cobble together some sense out of all that alphabetical confusion and we're all invited to join in.

This is one of those clauses:

30. [[A subset of] [NAMAs by developing country Parties [shall be][are actions] [Depending on the nature of NAMAs by developing country Parties, they may be] supported and enabled by technology, financing and capacity-building in accordance with Articles 4.3 and 4.7 of the Convention and undertaken in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner.] [Supported and enabled NAMAs [and][as well as] the support for NAMAs [have been already progressed based on unilateral efforts as well as being] [shall] be undertaken in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner. [The extent of mitigation actions undertaken by developing countries will depend on [negative cost measures and] the effective provision of financial, [and] technological and capacity-building support by developed country Parties.]]

Don't that just ring your bell!

Unfortunately, what is clear is that the world is way behind schedule in responding to climate change and that as you and I enter old age some of the worst effects will probably be coming down on our grey heads.

Graphic found at Google Images