Competitor Number 41 please return to the finish line - your party needs you!

Abbott's posed pre-race photograph

Australian Leader of the Opposition and self-styled fitness template, Tony Abbott, was competitor Number 41 in a field of 1,529 to 1,540 others entered in the Ironman Australia Triathlon on Sunday 28 March 2010 at Port Macquarie.

Fifty-three year old Abbott ranked 1,425 (div.pos. 120) in the 2.4 mile swim, 1213 (div. pos. 91) in the 112 mile bike ride and, 1170 (div. pos. 83) in the 26.2 mile run leg of the triathlon - subject to adjustment.

Despite his obvious enthusiasm for the chase perhaps he really should stick with his day job. Because it really was a chase - he was still manfully pedalling through the last stages of the bike leg while the front runners were three-quarters of the way through the final run stage of the event and his own run was still dragging on long after the leading pack had passed the finish line.

It may seem a hard position to take when viewing an event with a big field over a long course, one which saw some participants fail to finish the run before the triathlon results were called.

However this is a middle-aged politician with a history of using his bare chest and crotch physical fitness to pimp for votes and, much older men on the NSW North Coast competing for pleasure in similar events in the past managed to officially finish with very respectable times under their belts.

After all, when it comes down to the crunch, most people want to see economic, environmental and social policy rather than hairy pecs in an election year.

Here is Tony's official race record.

The McGrath Foundation public relations misstep

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. However in an election year charities should be more than a little wary about what those words might be saying if manipulative politicians are involved.

Shoulders back and best foot forward, as Opposition Leader Tony Abbott uses the McGrath Foundation to relentlessly promote himself in March 2010.

Image found at Brisbane Times

What the tax man saw....

While we wait to find out exactly what is in the Henry Tax Review, the Australian Taxation Office has published its latest statistics which are in a nutshell:

For the 2007–08 income year:

• 14.8 million returns were lodged, an increase of 6.7% from 2006–07
• 12,640,767 individuals lodged tax returns
• individual returns represented 85.2% of all returns lodged
• the proportion of individuals lodging returns using e–tax increased to 17.7%
• $7.7 billion in tax bonus payments were paid to 8.8 million individuals based on their 2007–08 tax return.
• 79.5% of individuals were salary and wage earners
• 13.7% of companies were in the rental, hiring and real estate services industry
• 25.9% of partnerships were in the agriculture, forestry and fishing industry
• 17.8% of trusts were in the rental, hiring and real estate services industry
• trusts experienced the largest growth in the number of returns lodged, with an increase of 8.3% from 2006–07
• individuals accounted for 19.6% of total income, 62.5% of taxable income and 64.4% of net tax
• companies accounted for 76.1% of total income, 26.7% of taxable income and 30.6% of net tax
• super funds accounted for 4.3% of total income, 10.7% of taxable income and 5.0% of net tax
• transfers providing assistance to families and individuals (excluding the one-off tax bonus payment) totalled more than $2.4 billion, a 2.1% decrease from 2006–07.

For the 2008–09 financial year:

• 2.6% fewer fringe benefits tax returns were lodged than in 2007–08
• fringe benefits tax collections totalled $3.4 billion, a decrease of 1.3% from 2007–08
• GST liabilities were $41.5 billion, a decrease of less than 1% from 2007–08
• excise liabilities were $24.3 billion, an increase of 3.1% from 2007–08 liabilities
• liabilities from the wine equalisation tax were $729 million, a 13.2% increase from 2007–08
• luxury car tax liabilities were $376 million, a decrease of 15.9% from 2007–08
• PAYG withholding liabilities were $116.9 billion, an increase of 2.0% from 2007–08
• PAYG instalments were $65.1 billion, a decrease of 7.4% from 2007–08
• During the 2008–09 financial year there were 410,318 self-managed super funds, with a total of 772,300 members.

For those completely spellbound by figures, the complete document and chapter downloads can be found here.

This blog can no longer be seen in China. Can yours?

In January 2010 Open Net Initiative reported that more than half a billion Internet users are being filtered worldwide:

So, just how many people are censored online around the world? We have estimated a number based on the number of Internet users that reside in countries which practice substantial filtering--in terms of the number of sites and/or type of content blocked. The number we have come up with is 563,018,414, or approximately 32% of all Internet users.

This is the international censorship club Prime Minister Rudd and Communications Minister Conroy want Australia to join?

Because North Coast Voices is hosted by Google's Blogger.com and, Google is currently in dispute with the Chinese Government, it appears that we may be blocked by government censors in China.
Although we only had occasional visitors from mainland China it is still disappointing to find that we appear to be inaccessible now.

Google reports via its Mainland China service availability site:

This page offers a summary of Google service accessibility from within mainland China. The status is determined at the level of the service and may not reflect individual experiences. Unless otherwise noted, this status information applies to consumer services as well as services for organizations using Google.

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society (Harvard University) Herdict states that:

• China has 10,212 reports of inaccessible sites (1,550 are unique)
• China has 5,478 reports of accessible sites (1,822 are unique)
• China is ranked 1 in number of reports.

Currently listed as predominately inaccessible in that country are Internet websites such as Scribd, The Huffington Post, BBC and the search engine Bing, along with Twitter and email services Gmail and Hotmail.

Herdict graph of Blogger access in China

In January 2010 Open Net Initiative reported on Chinese search engines; Foreign visitors to Baidu are not exempt from the blocking: If a search contains blocked phrases, Baidu will lock the user out of the search engine for five minutes. A search for the term Google returns normal results, while a search for the URL of the Google blog brings about a lockout (warning: you will actually be barred from Baidu for five minutes). The same scenario occurred when searching on QQ, Sogou, and Yahoo.cn.

A Saturday saunter through Northern Rivers art

Karyn Fendley
Cradle Mountain
2008

Matthew Farrell Alchemical Bottle Allegria 5,6,&9, 2009

Liz Deckers
Project Oh Dolly (5)
2007




From the Arts Northern Rivers-Visual Arts Network

Vale Patricia Wrightson

Patricia Wrightson author and long-time Clarence Valley resident died this month.

From American Library Association Connect :

Patricia Wrightson, who died this week aged 88, was one of the first children's writers to use Australian places and idioms in her novels. [Many of her works draw on Australian mythology.] Born in the northern NSW town of Lismore, Wrightson's first books were published in the 1950's, and she continued writing until ill health forced her retirement in the late 1990's.

In 1999, the NSW Premier's literary awards honoured Ms Wrightson by naming their children's literary prize after her. Minister for the Arts, Virginia Judge, yesterday acclaimed Ms Wrightson as an "Australian literary great". (As reported in The Australian, March 25, 12:00 am.)

Ms. Wrightson was one of Australia's best known children's authors. She worked as assistant editor of School Magazine from 1964-1970 and became editor in 1970 until 1975. Her first children's book The Crooked Snake, written in 1955 won the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year 1956. With a writing career of nearly fifty years, Ms. Wrightson won that award again for The Nargun and The Stars (1973), The Ice is Coming (1977), A Little Fear (1983). High commendations were awarded for The Bunyip Hole (1958), The Feather Star (1962), I Own the Racecourse! (1968) which was also the CBCA Book of the year in 1969, An Older Kind of Magic (1972), Behind the Wind (1981), Balyet (1989) was shortlisted for Older Readers 1990, The Sugar-gum Tree (1991) was shortlisted for Younger Readers in 1992, Rattler's Place (1997) was named an Honour Book for Younger Readers in 1998.

Ms. Wrightson received the Dromkeen Medal in 1984, the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1986 and delivered the annual Arbuthnot Lecture in 1985.

In a 1991 Horn Book Magazine article, Wrightson describes the roots of writing:

"The necessary, natural struggle to tell a story is always new, but the roots were there already: hiding in yourself, planted by your inheritance to be discovered through need. They were deep and strong... the roots of writing are deeper than you think. "Deeper Than you Think." by: Wrightson, Patricia, Horn Book Magazine, Vol. 67, Issue 2.

Photograph from The National Library of Australia

Australian federal election 2010: a garden trowel analysis of Teh Worms

Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott with the Channel 7 polygraph 'worm'

Apparently many Federal Coalition MPs and associated political hacks just can't believe that their favourite verbal street brawler might just turn out to be the one politician in 2010 that most of Australia secretly loves to hate.

To the last person the Coalition has forgotten the considerable negative baggage Tony Abbott has acquired over the years and haven't factored in the possibility of a quiet desire to 'pay back' this man for years of arrogant, sneering, judgmental and plain offensive statements made about various sections of Australian society.

Indeed, since 1994 Abbott's cast his net so wide that it would be hard to find an extended family with a single member he has not offended at one time or another.

Rather than face this possibility right now, Liberal Party director Brian Loughnane simply launched himself into the stratosphere obviously hoping to meet up with Major Tom:

Today Tony Abbott clearly established himself as an alternate Prime Minister. He showed the people of Australia he was up to the job. The Prime Minister just waffled.

Assorted Coalition sympathizers have decided that they are more than a little suspicious of those Channel 9 and Channel 7 Leaders' Debate audience response 'worms' - maybe it's all a bit of a conspiracy or even a really big one.

Journalist Adam Carroll writing in The Daily Examiner on Wednesday 24 March 2010 is also a trifle uneasy:

SO, what to make of yesterday's debate between Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the man who wants his job, Tony Abbott?
If Channel Nine's worm is to be believed, the Prime Minister romped it in.
The worm, or the people controlling it at least, didn't appear to like what Mr Abbott had to say about health, the area for which he was responsible for a time in the Howard government.
The result - the worm had Mr Rudd winning 71-29 - should be viewed with a deal of scepticism. There's no way Mr Rudd won the debate by that margin, if indeed he won it at all.
Either the room was unintentionally stacked with rusted on Labor supporters, or the 'wormers' had preconceived views about Mr Abbott.
Whatever the reason, the worm plunged through the floor each time it was the Opposition Leader's turn to speak. Sometimes it headed south even before he opened his mouth.
The worm is an unnecessary distraction and should be retired for future debates.
It was disappointing Mr Rudd did not use the debate to reveal more detail about his proposed changes to the health system.
Perhaps he should have been pressed a tad harder on that front.
It was also evident the Coalition will need to undertake some serious policy work in areas like health if it is to land any blows on the Rudd Government.
Vague as he might have been about Labor's health plan, Mr Rudd at least appears to be speaking to people in a way the Coalition is not on this important topic. His message is clear: 'I'm willing to do something to improve the system'.
Mr Abbott is unlikely to make any significant policy announcements until much closer to the election. That's not unusual.
However, his tendency to try and score cheap political points fell flat each and every time yesterday, a sign people want to hear constructive debate about issues such as health, free of negativity. And in an election year, this can only be a good thing. Let's hope both sides of politics heed the message.

Go to Possum Comitiatus over at Pollytics for a discussion on the merits of the two methods used to track responses during this debate:

Channel Nine's worm used market research firm Ekas to source their actual participants. Ekas runs a large online panel from which self-identified undecided voters were selected to man the worm handsets – with each participant getting paid $50 to attend the shindig. The actual audience response technology however was provided by a different company, IML Australia.

Channel 7 on the other hand used Roy Morgan to not only source participants, but to provide the Roy Morgan Reactor technology to do the audience response tracking. The people selected by Morgan to participate were a cross-section of all voters (not just Undecideds that Channel Nine used) that approximately reflected the current state of voting intentions. These folks too were paid $50 to participate.

First Dog on the Moon from Crikey refuses to take the matter seriously and was at his rollicking best in this absurd cartoon last Wednesday: