Why Clarence Valley businesses are giving Telstra the flick

A Grafton business owner has provided ample evidence of why local businesses are leaving Telstra (which is closing its Grafton call centre) in droves.

Daily Examiner (22/10/2010)

I have a business in Grafton that I will soon be relocating to different premises, but still in Grafton.

Over the past week I have made three separate attempts to notify Telstra that we are moving and will need to have our services relocated.

I originally notified them and gave them the new address, which is a current business premises in Prince Street.

The person from the call centre (not in Grafton) said they could not verify the address in their system and said someone would call me back later that day.

No-one did.

I called again the next day, they still couldn't work out where the address was and assured me they would call me back.

Still no-one called back.

So on my third attempt and after 15 minutes of the usual recorded messages telling me how important my call was, I finally got through to a customer support person who was fantastic.

She was from the call centre in Grafton.

Her name was Cheryl.

In no time at all she had verified the address, booked the relocation of the service, and gave extra useful advice.

What a pity Telstra is going to lose helpful staff like Cheryl and we will all be forced to tolerate the generic incompetence that is so often the benchmark of large call centres either in southern cities or offshore, where staff appear to have scant knowledge of regional issues (such as reality of ADSL speeds) and little empathy towards customers.

So, well done Cheryl, but Telstra, I can fully understand why local businesses are moving away from your services in droves.

BONNIE CAPELL,

Grafton.

Source: The Daily Examiner

Do you need the services of a Justice of the Peace?

Finding a Justice of the Peace can at times be a bit of a problem.

The NSW Department of Justice and Attorney General has a very handy online site that provides a Register of JPs.

JPs on the register are volunteers so, understandably, they may not be available at short notice or at all times of the day.

Click here to find a JP in your local area or submit a name and check if someone is a JP.

NSW Irrigators Council proves that tweeting doesn't improve intelligence

nswirrigators

If the MDBA's new #basinplan study involves WWF lobbyists "Wentworth Group", it should and will be rejected. #agchatoz 7:23 PM Oct 17th via Twitter for iPhone

How sad it is to see the Murray Darling Basin water security debate reduced to such a mean, pointless and rather inaccurate characterization.

This is what the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists states about itself:

MEMBERS - Dr Neil Byron, Mr Peter Cosier, Prof Tim Flannery, Prof Quentin Grafton, Dr Ronnie Harding, Prof David Karoly, Prof Hugh Possingham FAA, Mr Robert Purves AM, Dr Denis Saunders AM, Prof Bruce Thom AM FIAG FTSE, Dr John Williams, Prof Mike Young FASSA,
FORMER MEMBERS Prof Peter Cullen AO FTSE, Ms Leith Boully FAIC, Prof David Lindenmayer FAA

The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists is an independent group comprising leading Australian environmental, economists, scientists and business leaders with conservation interests.

The Wentworth Group has three core objectives:

1.Driving innovation in the management of Australia’s land, water and marine resources;
2.Engage business, community and political leaders in a dialogue to find and implement solutions to the challenge of environmental stewardship facing the future of Australian society;
3.Building capacity by mentoring and supporting young scientists, lawyers and economists to develop their skills and understanding of public policy.
Background
Since coming together in November 2002, the Wentworth Group has been the catalyst for a series of ground breaking land and water reforms across Australia.

The Wentworth Group’s first statement, Blueprint for a Living Continent, set out what it believed were the key changes that needed to be made to deliver a sustainable future for our continent and its people. They emphasised the need to:

•Clarify water property rights and the obligations associated with those rights to give farmers some certainty and to enable water to be recovered for the environment.
•Restore environmental flows to stressed rivers, such as the River Murray and its tributaries.
•Immediately end broadscale landclearing of remnant native vegetation and assist rural communities with adjustment. This provides fundamental benefits to water quality, prevention of salinity, prevention of soil loss and conservation of biodiversity.
•Pay farmers for environmental services (clean water, fresh air, healthy soils). Where we expect farmers to maintain land in a certain way that is above their duty of care, we should pay them to provide those services on behalf of the rest of Australia.
•Incorporate into the cost of food, fibre and water the hidden subsidies currently borne by the environment, to assist farmers to farm sustainably and profitably in this country.........

In 2008 the Wentworth Group with other scientists put forward an Interim Basin Plan as a model for excelerating water reform across the Muray-Darling Basin in a senate submission: 'The urgent provision of water to the Coroong and Lower Lakes'.

The Wentworth Group remains committed to using its combined experience, interdisciplinary expertise and shared values to work with others to improve the long term management and conservation of the Australian landscape.

Funding
The Wentworth Group exists thanks to the generous support of the Purves Environmental Fund.

Purvis Environmental Fund according to itself and Source Watch.

Some campaign slogans never die.........

This is the 2007 campaign slogan used in the Clarence Valley in the fight to stop the Howard-Turnbull-Vaile attempt to raid this catchment's fresh water.

What a pity that less than three years later this slogan is just as relevant, as once more the water raiders seek the ear of Federal Government touting the idea that the Clarence River should be dammed and diverted.

Of course the 2007 water raiders behind the Howard-Turnbull-Vaile push never really went away and their political sock puppets continued to agitate for more water over those years.

Never one to waste an opportunity 'independent' representative for Murray Darling Basin irrigators/farmers,Tony Windsor, has been beating the drum on interbasin water transfers whenever he found an opening.

This is Windsor on Thursday, 18 September 2008 at 3:16 pm according to Open Australia:

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent)
My question is to the Prime Minister and relates to comments made by the Prime Minister, senior ministers and scientists that a major part of the Murray-Darling crisis is caused by climate change. Could the Prime Minister quantify how many gigalitres of lost inflows in the Murray-Darling system are caused by climate change? Given Professor Garnaut’s admission that his recommendations of five or 10 per cent emission reduction targets by 2020 will not alleviate the Murray-Darling crisis, would the Prime Minister initiate a cost-benefit analysis of potential intercatchment transfers of water to cancel out the climate change components of the reduction in inflows?

As one can see, Windsor takes the basic MDB irrigator positions as he tries for a new way to sing the old refrain:

• less water in the system is always someone else's fault - this time it's climate change.
• the answer to river system decline is not to reduce the chronic over-allocation of Basin water resources - it's to take someone else's water.

Since then the Independent Member for New England has extended the 'not our fault' argument and, this was Mr. Windsor on 14 October 2010 explaining to the world that (most uniquely among humans) Basin irrigators don't contribute to man-made climate change:

Mr Windsor said the MDBA should not allow water to be taken away from irrigators on account of climate change, because they were not responsible for the problem.

No wonder Clarence Valley residents are brushing off that slogan and again saying loudly and clearly...........

NOT A DROP!

A case of duelling beef exports

It seems the Nats just can’t let go of the idea that there is bovine mileage in pursuing Page MP Janelle Saffin over her suggestion that chilled beef exports should be encouraged over live cattle exports.
It doesn't take expert knowledge to understand that jobs and humane animal handling would win hands here on the NSW North Coast.

“Nationals Member for Lismore Thomas George says Janelle Saffin's bid to ban live exports demonstrates her disconnection with the constituents of the Page electorate and clearly is supporting Greens policy. Ms Saffin, Federal Member for Page, plans to raise a notice of motion to debate the live animal export issue in Parliament next week.

Mr George, a former stock and station agent, founding member of Beef Week and director of the Northern Cooperative Meat Company, said in all his years working in the cattle industry, he had never been approached with complaints from anyone about the trade.

"How could the Member for an area that boasts a strong beef industry put forward such a motion?" he questioned.”

This is our Janelle in reply via a media release which followed hot on the heels of Ol' Tom's effort:

Federal Member for Page, Janelle Saffin has hit back at State Member for Lismore, Thomas George on the issue of live exports.

Ms Saffin is calling for an increase in chilled beef exports and the phasing out of live exports.

She said contrary to her State Parliamentary colleague’s claim, she has indeed been dealing with locals in the beef industry on this issue.

“Experience as a stock and station agent does not make him the only spokesman about industry policy, nor the ultimate expert.

“I do recognise his experience in rural matters, but I am not without experience either.

“What I am paying attention to is the need to strengthen our local job base, and not argue the case for exporters in this case of live exports, who do nothing for our local economy, except threaten future trade out of our region.

“I am for building jobs, not exporting them.

“I also note that the Member for Lismore said that he has not been approached by constituents on this matter, well I have.

“When I addressed hundreds of meat processing workers in my seat of Page, many of whom live in the State seat of Lismore, they cheered when I said I would raise the matter of phasing out of live exports in Parliament,” Ms Saffin said.

“There are others in the industry who have encouraged me as well, on the basis that live exports export jobs.”

Saffin sends a message to the Two Tonys -Not A Drop!

From A Clarence Valley Protest on 19 October 2010:

A Message to the Two Tonys - Not A Drop!

The Federal Labor Member for Page Janelle Saffin taking the Clarence Valley's message to Water Minister Tony Burke and New England Independent Tony Windsor on 18 October 2010, according to the Commonwealth Hansard:

Page Electorate: Clarence River
Ms SAFFIN (Page) (10.57 am)—I have a message on behalf of my community in Page that I want to give to the parliament and everybody who is going to be involved in the Murray-Darling Basin plan and debate. The message from my community, which is home to the Clarence River—and a lot of people seem to be talking about wanting to get their hands on it and are looking at it for diversion—is this: not a drop. Right across my electorate thousands of cars have that on their bumper stickers: not a drop. In effect it is saying hands off the Clarence River.
The idea that the Clarence River can be diverted is one of those issues that have been around for quite some time.
Everybody has raised this issue at different times. In particular, there was some engineering plan that it could be done. My message to the two Tonys is: not one drop will be taken out of the Clarence River. I have also been told, and I do not want to verbal the honourable member for Kennedy, that on the member’s website he talks about those not in favour of looking at some sort of diversion as being political pygmies. While I am not going to comment about my size and whether that is correct, I would say to the honourable member that the people in the Clarence Valley and in Page are certainly not political pygmies. The catchment area of the Clarence River falls within 100 kilometres of the New South Wales coastal strip. Our industries are fishing—we have a huge commercial fishing industry—and agriculture, and the economy is heavily underpinned by that commercial fishing. There is also forestry and tourism. It is all worth a lot to us. This debate is one of those debates that come up every now and then. Engineering wise, we can do anything—we can do marvels—but in terms of the environment and also the viability of the Clarence it would be a disaster. They can look all they like but—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. Peter Slipper)—Order! In accordance with standing order 193, the time for members’ constituency statements has expired.

The nature of poverty on the NSW North Coast in 2010

The Salvation Army commissioned Roy Morgan Research to conduct a CATIBus national telephone survey which formed the basis of the recently released Perception of Poverty: An Insight into the Nature and Impact of Poverty in Australia. This report can be downloaded as a PDF file here.

ABC News 18 October 2010:

The Salvation Army says that many families in the Northern Rivers are living below the poverty line. A report released today by The Salvation Army says that low income earners are now known as the "working poor".

A new report released by The Salvation Army called "Perceptions of Poverty" shows there are 2 million Australians living in poverty. Doug Barber is the Northern Region Community support coordinator for The Salvation Army. He says that on the north coast many low income families are living below the poverty line and they are seeing a greater call for people seeking material aid through neighbourhood centres, The Salvation Army and other centres."That is a trend that has been reported to us in the past 3 years, so pre-dated financial crisis. [There is an] increasing number of families and older people, the type of people who wouldn't normally have access to support services, coming for assistance", he said.Mr Barber says that some of the factors contributing to people living in poverty on the north coast are long term unemployment, intergenerational unemployment and high housing costs.
"The housing costs here are relatively high relative to income that essentially keeps people in poverty. People are trapped in a cycle of low income and essentially having to commit a large proportion of their income to maintaining a roof over their heads", Mr Barber said. Nationally the report said that there are 80,000 new clients for the Salvation Army last year and are part of the new working poor, people who have full time jobs but just can not make ends meet. The Salvation Army says housing and rental costs in the Northern Rivers are extremely high and people are paying between $300 and $450 per week in rent and their income across a fortnight is around $1000-$1200 per fortnight and people are struggling to make ends meet.......