Abbott's 2020 predictions......

In Chapter 7 of his 2009 book Battlelines Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott predicts that by 2020:

A) Australia will still have one of the world's strongest economies....

B) our partnership with America will still be the foundation of our security....

C) We will still be a 'crowned republic'.....

D) We will be more cosmopolitan than ever but perhaps less multicultural....

E) Some progress will have been made towards 'closing the gap' between Aboriginal and other Australians' standards of living.....

F) Families won't break up anymore often....

G) there will have been bigger fires, more extensive floods, more ferocious storms because records are always being broken....

H) sea levels will be much the same, desert boundaries will not have changed much, and technology, rather than economic self-denial, will be starting to cut down atmospheric pollution.

Thankfully, Abbott doesn't predict that he'll be leading a Coalition government in Canberra at the start of that decade.

Obama resigns overnight!

from White Rabbit Cult

David and Goliath. Yamba versus McDonald's

On Tuesday 30 March 2010 a community meeting was called at Yamba to discuss opposition to multinational McDonald's move to establish a 24 hour drive-through food franchise in that coastal town.

The meeting was well attended and the crowd spilled out of the space and onto the street.

Yamba Chamber of Commerce, Valley Watch and Coast Care all spoke out against the McDonald's development application, as did local residents and some small business owners.

A number of Clarence Valley shire councillors attended the meeting and it was obvious that they had already started to receive emails lobbying against the fast food giant's plans.

The meeting convenor invited anyone who supported having a McDonald's in Yamba to the microphone to put forward their views. No-one came forward.

Some background:

The NSW Food Authority keeps what is popularly known as a name and shame file.

In 2009 no Yamba restaurant, cafe or small take-away food business was listed on this file.
However the multinational fast food company McDonald's was mentioned six times.Three times under management by franchise operators and another three times under its own Australian management.

Penalties were issued for Mcdonald's at Armidale, Lithgow, Penrith, Randwick (twice) and Ultimo.

Examples of official findings regarding these outlets:

• Fail to take all practicable measures to eradicate and prevent the harbourage of pests - live cockroaches observed on the premises
  
• Fail to maintain the food premises to the required standard of cleanliness
  
• Fail to take all practicable measures to eradicate and prevent the harbourage of pests - live cockroaches observed in the food preparation area
  
• Fail to take all practicable measures to eradicate and prevent the harbourage of pests - Customer complaint of fly found in burger. Several flies found in food preparation area

While elsewhere in Australia in April 2009 at 3am; McFilthy - you want gastro with that?

Graphic from NO to McDonalds in YAMBA at Facebook

Third world medicine on the NSW North Coast?

Premier Keneally needs to shift her focus from early electioneering and seriously address funding and service delivery failures in NSW North Coast public hospitals.

This report in The Northern Star last week is yet another pitiful example of how this region is being short-changed by the Keneally Government's management of NSW Health:

AN ELDERLY man suffering from asbestosis had to call Triple-0 from his hospital bed in Lismore Base to get help from a nurse.
Eighty-seven-year old World War II veteran Kevin Park called the emergency number after night shift failed to hear the brass bell he was given as a replacement to the electronic call system at the hospital, which is still not operational.
Yesterday a still angry Mr Park said after ringing the bell for 45 minutes, 'desperate times demanded desperate action'.
"This is like the Third World. We are being treated like dogs."
Patients in Lismore Base's surgical ward were issued with brass bells four weeks ago after both the emergency and nurse call systems failed.
North Coast Area Health last night offered the air force veteran from Iluka an apology 'for any distress that may have been caused to Mr Park and his family'.

The Hamburgler fights back against Yamba?

Yamba went public in the media last week about its opposition to the McDonald's Restaurants move to establish one of its fast food outlets in Treelands Drive.

A Facebook page was also created called NO to McDonalds in Yamba.

Shortly thereafter another Facebook page sprang up, YES to McDonalds in Yamba (snapshot above). This page looks suspiciously like it was created by the multinational food franchise, its publicists or a company employee or two - perhaps even their family members.

It has all the hallmarks; links to the official company website and multiple promos for McDonald's goods and activities.

However, like the Hamburgler, the page hides behind a mask and doesn't openly declare its creator's identity.

Update:

Just after the above post was published the YES to McDonalds in Yamba page posted this:

Noticed something so fun today, some people think this site (page) has been setup by McDonald's Australia......

I am a local who has lived in Townsend, Yamba and Maclean for plenty of years. I have family up and down the Clarence Valley and my Parents have been local residents for 13+ years.

So NO this isn't a corporate site. It's a personal FAN site which is pointing out all the POSITIVES!

The jury's still out on this claim.

Whaling: Japan doesn't have an exclusive right to claim cultural connection in southern waters

The Government of Japan and Japanese whalers have repeatedly made extravagant claims that they have the right to kill whales for their meat based on what is called a cultural tradition of eating whale meat.

Here in Australia a vital part of our society, tribal groups and traditional land owners on the coast, arguably have older and probably stronger cultural ties to whales.

Whale Dreaming © Y. Bundle 2007 This work arose from a dream Yaraan received. It is about the Whale Dreaming songline connected to Keerray Woorroong Country along the coast near Warrnambool. In her dream the Old People told Yaraan the story of the Southern Right Whale and their journey to our waters to give birth to their young. They told her the secret of the whales and the knowledge they bring. This work tells their story.

On gurrawul, the whale, according to the Yuin people of south eastern Australia:

MAX DULUMUNMUN HARRISON: We have our three markings which are so important - spiritual, physical and mental. That they must have the markings to participate in this particular kind of whale dreaming ceremony. The whales were elders once that walked the land and the whales then got permission to go out into gadu, the ocean, to look after the food and the medicines that are all out there in the ocean, because they're the fellas then, that we must respect. And, of course, every time that a whales beaches itself, to come in, it's regurgitating the law. And that is so important. If the law is not regurgitated, then our mob will roam this country aimlessly without culture. And for the eastern seaboard people, that's something I am trying to keep alive so that they can stand up and talk about culture. So that they can participate in a simple ceremony of respecting the whale that's out there in gadu, the ocean.

Federal Election 2010: so you like the idea of local hospital boards?

The Federal Coalition and their leader, Tony Abbott, may not have revealed much in the way of a national health policy for Australia to date, but the mantra they are all chanting as they move about electorates is local hospital boards.

So how does Opposition Leader Abbott see these boards functioning in a health system he describes (in his latest book Battlelines) as not needing "fundamental restructuring or gargantuan amounts of additional funding"?

Well, he sees these "hospital boards with clout" - apparently run by medical professionals, probably unqualified but prominent local business people and some community representatives - having an ability to vary public hospital staff wages in a two-tiered system if necessary (with newer staff being paid less as a budget-saving measure) and an ability "to contract out hospital management to a private operator" as another budget measure.

Possibilities which would more than likely horrify communities on the North Coast and in other NSW rural and regional areas.

Elsewhere Abbott claims; Boards would appoint hospital CEOs and, with the CEO, manage hospital budgets. Government would appoint boards and set hospitals’ funding levels but wouldn’t be able to cut funding when hospitals raise money from private patients or fundraising.

All in all, this sounds like a recipe for health service delivery disaster in the public sector.