Nats Kevin Hogan sets the record straight

 

Nationals candidate for Page Kevin Hogan appears to think that the Australian Rudd-Gillard Government has not delivered worthwhile funding to the NSW North Coast.

"Despite being one of the highest spending governments in our history, Labor hasn't managed to fund the projects that would have really improved our lives here on the North Coast."  he states.

 

Silly me! How could I be so wrong? Here I was thinking that the North Coast was doing rather well out of that Labor Government in Canberra.

 

Particularly in the Page electorate with this federal funding: $2.6M for a Grafton sports complex; "$597,000 for eight ready-to-go community infrastructure projects in the Clarence Valley"; $149,727 to help address local teenage binge drinking; "$19.7M upgrade to Grafton Base Hospital operating theatres and emergency department" currently underway; $1.3M in new housing completed and "more than $1 million for repairs and maintenance to 336 social housing units"; $105,000 for Clarence Valley Council tourism project and at least $9.4M for local infrastructure [The Daily Examiner 19.06.10, 27.02.10, 20.02.10, 29.01.10, 11.12.09, 17.10.09, 01.09.09].

 

After reading other local newspapers, I was also under the impression that the North Coast Area Health Service has received federal funding for public hospital and community health programs/projects right across the region and school halls and classrooms were going up in many a primary or highschool in the five shires courtesy of federal stimulus money.

 

I'm only sorry that the library has no local newspaper records from January 2008 to July 2009 so that I could further explore my complete lack of understanding.

 

Here in the Northern Rivers we are all so lucky to have someone like Kevin to set us straight by giving the 'real' facts of the matter and, reminding us that life is not "really improved" by the type and scale of funding I've listed here.

 

Will he next set us straight about Federal Labor's increase in fortnightly pension payments for single pensioners and state that this was really bad for their general wellbeing?

2010 Election Campaign Day 17 - Wot's on Abbott's mind

Wordle of Abbott's speech to the Sydney Institute 27th July this year

Once more around the park with Tony Abbott as he channels John Howard and George Pell.

"Laurie Oakes: They say people change their minds, but you change yours a lot for someone who wants to be Prime Minister. I mean, now, you're talking about changing the paid parental leave scheme again and you haven't held that position through you the election campaign?
Tony Abbott: Labor can't have it both ways. On the one hand, they can't say that I'm an old-fashioned ogre, and on the other hand, say that I change my mind too much.
Oakes: Do we want a Prime Minister who changes his mind all the time? And you can't believe what he says because he's a weather vain?
Abbott: As I said, I'll leave all of this to the public to judge. I mean, on the one hand, you've got the Labor Party saying that I'm desperately old-fashioned and reactionary and on the other hand you've got the Labor Party saying that I change my mind all the time so I think the Labor Party needs to...
Oakes: It's not the Labor Party saying it, I'm saying it.
Abbott: I think that Labor needs to get its story straight, Laurie.
Oakes: You know that I'm not spouting Labor Party lines. This is fact, I'm quoting you, not the Labor Party." {Televised interview Channel 9 Aug 1st, 2020}

"I want to caution people against expecting enormous dollars" {Jul 29th, 2010 Sydney Morning Herald speaking about Coalition's aged care policy}

"I certainly get women, but obviously I've got some marketing to do." {Jul 27th, 2010 swissinfo.ch}

"Ladies and gentlemen, my life is full of strong women. I have a wife, Margie, who is an independently minded career woman. I have three sisters. I have three powerful young women - they are my daughters...."{Jul 24th, 2010 Sydney Morning Herald}

"The immigration program should focus on immigrants who will make a contribution to our country and who are likely to be proud of their new nationality."{Jul 24th, 2010 Sydney Morning Herald}

“We'll stop the boats.” {Jul 20th, 2010 http://www.tonyabbott.com.au/}

"I say that interest rates will always be lower under a coalition government because spending will always be less under a coalition government." {Jul 19th, 2010 Sydney Morning Herald}

"I can't give an absolute guarantee about every single aspect of workplace relations. Obviously I can't say that there will never ever ever for 100 or 1000 years time be any change..." {Jul 18th, 2010 NEWS.com.au}

"We are ready to govern." {Jul 16th, 2010 Vancouver Sun}

"Don't forget that I'm a 52-year-old bloke from a fairly traditional background." {Jul 5th, 2010 Melbourne Community Voice}

"I probably feel a bit threatened" {March 8th, 2010 news.com.au reply when asked about his view of homosexuality}

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has confirmed that the Coalition is considering a scheme which could deny the dole to people under 30. {April 21st, 2010 ABC News}

"it is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving and don’t give it to someone lightly, that is what I would say.” {Jan 27th, 2020 Australian Women's Weekly on the subject of virginity}

''Many pensioners are doing it tough, but $35 a week increase is an enormous hit on the revenue. We're talking here about possibly $6 billion a year. The economic circumstances of Australia are much different now than they were 12 months ago.'' {Feb 19th, 2009 ABC "PM"}

"religious faith is not some kind of contaminant to be driven out of our public life" {Feb 15th, 2006 House of Representatives in Open Australia}

''Mr. Speaker, we have a bizarre double standard in this country where someone who kills a pregnant woman's baby is guilty of murder but a woman who aborts an unborn baby is simply exercising choice'' {Feb 15th, 2006 House of Representativesin Open Australia}

Oops, fly's undone!

Came back from fishing to find that one of my drafts has sneaked its way into today's posts.
Now removed. Sorry all!

Incontinent Victorians and other southerners brown off one Northern Rivers cane farmer

From The Daily Examiner letters to the editor on 27 July 2010:

Browned off

IF you'll excuse my language, I write to say that I am sick of the s**t and the p*ss. No, I don't refer to the election.
I refer to the travellers through our region - almost exclusively Victorians in my observation - who think it reasonable to come onto my property to take a pee and a poop. I am sick of the toilet paper along the side of the road, the disposable nappies and the doggie doo.
I am sick of people pulling onto a cane pad 150 metres off the highway, down a gravel country road, hidden behind large cane, within sight of a single farmhouse, without a public notice anywhere evident, who think it is reasonable to say: "Oh, we didn't realise this was private property."
Apparently you and your dogs can take a crap on any piece of public property in Victoria.
Ferry Park, Maclean, is five minutes one way from my place and within half-an-hour drive in the other direction you will have come through Grafton, South Grafton, Ulmarra, Brushgrove and Tyndale village.
I believe there is a website now which lists public conveniences all over the country.
Is there an epidemic of incontinence from Victoria?
Then of course there are the decent people who call in to ask if they might have a closer look at a piece of sugar cane - mostly southern New South Welshmen,South Australians and Tasmanians.
Happy to oblige and put on a bit of an act with the old fashioned cane knife.
I get four or five a year, but I imagine there are more who just pull up somewhere out of sight and steal a bit.
Because, yes, it is theft, and it is trespass, and it is public indecency.
My front paddock is no more open to public utility than their balcony or driveway at home - unless it could be considered an invitation, a mutual exchange of convenience when next we travel south - is the garden state facing a compost shortage?
So I have started a log, if you'll again pardon the pun, of the rego numbers of the dumpers and slashers, the overnighters and the light-fingered.

JAMES MOLONEY
Tyndale

Are whaling nations slaughtering cetacean friends?

Young Humpack Whale in waters off the Clarence Coast July 2010

Photograph in the Clarence Valley Review

It is known that Japan's whaling fleet kills lactating female whales and their young in the Southern Ocean, but is this slaughter doing even more damage to cetacean social bonds?

Humpback whales form lasting bonds, the first baleen whales known to do so.

Individual female humpbacks reunite each summer to feed and swim alongside one another in the Gulf of St Lawrence, off Canada, scientists have found.

Toothed whales, such as sperm whales, associate with one another, but larger baleen whales, which filter their food, have been thought less social.

The finding raises the possibility that commercial whaling may have broken apart social groups of whales.....

The longest recorded friendships lasted six years, and always occurred between similar-aged females, and never between females and males. (BBC NEWS )

Mayne gets down and dirty in Senate seat fight

Senate hopeful Stephen Mayne was emailing this about last Tuesday:

"The gaming watchdog will investigate the presence of two teens on the gaming floor of an Altona North hotel part-owned by Liberal Senator Julia McGauran, after a complaint by rival Senate candidate Stephen Mayne.

Mr Mayne, an independent, said that two 15-year old girls in the gaming area at The Millers Inn last week. Senator McGauran is a part-owner of the pub, at which punters lost more than $12 million last financial year.

A spokesman for anti-gambling independent Senator Nick Xenophon, cited as a witness, said the girls were on the gaming floor for 10 minutes. Senator McGauran said it was 2.5 minutes."

2010 Election Campaign Day 16 - Political advertising

Can you find any legible authorisation on this official National Party campaign pic gracing candidate Kevin Hogan's Facebook page?
























Nup, didn't think so.