Gillard sucks all the air out of the political debate and Abbott panics.....

One of the most amusing things to observe over the last week has been how Julia Gillard becoming Australia's first female prime minister sucked all the air out of the political debate and left Opposition Leader Tony Abbott beached az 'n' gasping.
Desperate for some positive air time poor Tones has had to resort to an outright gimmick and then tweet about it in case some missed his silly stunt with old bathers and a bonfire on the Matt & Jo Show:
TonyAbbottMHR Burning speedos with Matt and Jo in Melbourne this morning. http://twitpic.com/215vt

















However even panic driven stunts fall flat:

ern_malleyscrub

Yes, but won't people ask why you're not in them while they're burning?

But the best bit has to be the camera jockey caught in frame - snapping away at a pair of flaming budgie smugglers. Yep, sophisticated political coverage at its best!

At last! A reason why Territorians see so many UFOs?

On any day you can go to The Northern Territory News online and this is a slice of what you'll bring up from the archives concerning Unidentified Flying Objects:

Cops investigate NT UFO invasion Northern Territory News ...

27 May 2010 ... A FULL-SCALE alien invasion of the Northern Territory has begun.

"But highly-qualified UFO-ologists said they believed the bright lights were space ships on a pre-attack scouting mission.
Darwin-based UFO expert Alan Ferguson said the flares were obviously aliens. "This all sounds like UFO activity," he said."

http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2010/05/27/150751_ntnews.html

So are Territorians the darlings of the intergalactic set or is something else at work here?
Well, at last we have an answer - the area around News Ltd's most northern Oz newspaper headquarters in Darwin is affected by gravity to a different degree than most of the nation.
A few little brains reacting to a difference in pressure perhaps? ;-D



Pic from BBC

Original BBC article here

NAIDOC Week in Yamba

NAIDOC WEEK IN YAMBA

Monday 5 July (10am-3pm)

Treelands Drive Community Centre, Yamba

10am “Official Opening” MC Trevor Kapeen (Yaegl Man)
10.15am “Flag Raising” Mrs. Veronica Pearce, Aunty Boona (Yaegl Elder)
10.30am “Welcome to Country” Mrs. Lillian Williams, Aunty Lil (Yaegl Elder)
11am Welcome to Country Dancers (Lenny Anderson)
11.20am History of NAIDOC & Aboriginal Medical Service Grafton Speakers Jordan Walker and Talarna Gardiner (Year 12 Students Maclean High)
11.30am (Trevor) “Thank you to Dignitaries in Attendance” and Apologies
11.40am Lunch Announcement Trevor
11.45am-12.45pm Services Information Share
1pm-2pm Lunch
2pm-3pm Entertainment Jerry Byers local entertainment country & western as well as Andrew Hegedus from Grafton

Wednesday 7 July (9am-3pm)

Family and Children’s Day (Children aged 0-10 years) at Angourie Sports Field – Angourie Road, Yamba

* jumping castle
* pony rides
* Indigenous games
* farmyard Nursery Animals
* age Races
* face Painting
* boomerang design
* story telling
* BBQ lunch
* light entertainment after lunch “The Maclean Mob”

Friday 9 July (9am-3pm)

Yamba Youth Fun Day (young people aged 11yrs-18yrs), Raymond Laurie Sports Centre off Angourie Road, Yamba

* hip-hop workshops
* boxing workshops
* Indigenous games (Balund A Boys)
* jewelry making
* soft ball
* basketball
* table tennis
* boomerang design
* BBQ lunch
* girls Rugby league exhibition game
* basket weaving

Terry Randall Memorial Golf Day (Maclean Golf Club) – All Welcome

Friday Evening

Women’s Karaoke Yamba Bowling Club, 7pm-10pm hosted by Eileen McLeay

More information:
Norma Collins at Birrigan Gargle Local Aboriginal Land Council on 6646 1664, or Grace Clague at Clarence Valley Council 6645 0014 or email grace.clague @ clarence.nsw.gov.au

More information and to reserve a place:
Contact Norma Collins at Birrigan Gargle Local Aboriginal Land Council on 6646 1664, or Grace Clague at Clarence Valley Council 6645 0014 or email grace.clague @ clarence.nsw.gov.au

Bl**dy Typical Pollie or The Nats At Play

Rumour round the water cart is that now McDonalds has its Yamba development consent safely tucked under the arm, the North Coast Nationals are looking to create a little mischief by encouraging locals to bombard the NSW Minister for Local Government with letters complaining about Clarence Valley Council's conduct.

Of course the sitting federal and state Nats MPs were very careful to keep a low profile while there was actually a chance to send Maccas packing when the development application was first being considered (in fact I heard that Hartsuyker outright refused to get involved) and they're obviously not telling anyone that the real way to go is a formal complaint to the department head cc'd to the minister.
And pollies wonder why they're considered lower than a snake's belly!

Coral snake gif found at Google Images

Julia Gillard: time for a little context....

Ever since the news broke that Kevin Rudd had been removed as prime minister by the parliamentary wing of the Australian Labor Party there has been noise about him being the only PM to be deposed in a first term without being able to 'go to the people' and, about Julia Gillard rolling a first term leader, not being elected by the people, being unmarried, having no children, being a migrant. As well as constant chatter about how 'unique' this is.

Of course Abbott, Bishop, Joyce and the entire Coalition chorus are attempting to hammer many of these points as political negatives.

However, an Australian prime minister is always elected by the party not the people. Further to that - with the exception of her gender - little else is unique about Gillard. Or unique about Rudd for that matter.

According to the Australian Prime Ministers Centre at Old Parliament House of our twenty-seven prime ministers:

..... most have only served one term......

Indeed it seems that, if I have the count correct, at least 17 of the 27 Australian prime ministers to date were installed by their respective parties in periods between federal elections. So Gillard replacing Rudd is almost a mundane experience in an historical context.

A potted history garnered from the Internet shows that:
Bruce became Australia's first prime minister without a general election being called.
Page became prime minister due to the death of a sitting leader and so he too never faced a general election as leader to get there. He gave way to Menzies who became prime minister without facing the people as head of the party (although he did stand for election as leader of the opposition the second time around).
Forde took the same route as Page.
Deakin, Watson,Reid, Barton, Fisher, Hughes, Menzies all resigned rather than be pushed by either their party or the House.
McEwan came to the prime ministership on the death of Holt. He was unmarried during his brief term as prime minister and also childless. He gave way to Gorton without a general election being called.
When it came to party room coups - Bruce rolled Hughes in Billy's incarnation as a conservative, McMahon rolled Gorton (à la Gillard and Rudd but with more blood on the carpets) and Keating rolled Hawke, to become prime ministers without going to the electorate for ersatz approval.
Neither Watson, Reid, Page, Fadden, Forde or McEwen went to a general election while holding the office of prime minister. McMahon's government lost the only time he went to the polls as PM.
Of the many who did not last long heading a federal government, the record for brevity must go to Forde who gave way to Chifley after eight days.
Whitlam was unique in that he was removed by the Governor-General using the reserve powers of the Crown.

Oh, and by the way - a total of six prime ministers have been born overseas. One of our most well-known prime ministers William 'Billy' Hughes was born in Wales just like the 27th Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

** My apologies for this post seeming to appear and disappear in the early hours - a sudden power shortage left me with an unedited version out there in cyberspace which the software decided to publish. The text is now corrected.

Australian Federal Election 2010: the iffy seats confirmed

The Australian Electoral Commission has kindly listed the status of all 150 House of Representatives seats across the country which will be contested in this year's federal election in a handy PDF file:

How is status defined?

Seat status is based on the two-party preferred vote count (TPP). The two-party preferred vote

refers to the number of votes received by the Labor and Coalition candidates after a full distribution

of preferences.

The AEC classifies seats using the following business rules: when a party receives less than

56 per cent of the vote the seat is classified as ‘marginal’ (M); between 56-60 per cent it is

classified as ‘fairly safe’ (FS) and more than 60 per cent is classified ‘safe’ (S).

In New South Wales 48 seats will be on the ballot and 16 of these are currently held by very slim margins (post 2009 redistribution) and another 7 are only classified as fairly safe.

The marginal seats are Bennelong, Calare, Cowper, Dobell, Eden-Monaro, Gilmore, Greenway, Hughes, Hume, Macarthur, Macquarie, North Sydney, Page, Paterson, Robertson, and Wentworth.

Five of these marginal seats are held by the Coalition and seven by Labor. Two are on the NSW North Coast - Page held by Labor MP Janelle Saffin and Cowper held by National Party MP Luke Hartsuyker.

The fact that marginal and fairly safe seats make up almost half of all NSW seats will make for an interesting and possibly brutal federal election campaign in this state.

Dear Red: an open letter to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard

Dear Red,

I voted for Labor at the last federal election:
1. To get rid of Howard and his rightwing gang of idiots - PASS
2. In the belief that Labor would address climate change - FAIL
3. Hoping that pensioners would get a fairer go - PASS
4. Sure that public hospitals, community health services and dental care for the poor would improve - FAIL, CONDITIONAL PASS, FAIL
5. Confident that a Labor Government would get rid of those stupid sedition laws and be fairer to asylum seekers arriving unannounced by boat - FAIL, CONDITIONAL PASS
6. Certain that the Australian Labor Party would not become so right wing that it would introduce a national identity data base on the sly or try to censor free speech on the Internet - FAIL, FAIL
7. Knowing that Labor would do it's best to save the whales - PASS
8. Wishing that a Labor Government would stand up to big business bullies and self-righteous religious leaders - FAIL and FAIL again.
As you can see my hopes & dreams are largely unmet.
I'm not a happy camper.
What are you going to do for those like me who felt betrayed by the Rudd Government and are of two minds about where you fit in the great policy scheme of things?
Do our votes matter more to you than they did to Rudd?

Maudie's Ex
Yamba

Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents. Email ncvguestpeak at live dot com dot au to submit comment for consideration.