And this is a biotech company FSANZ takes at its word......

On of the most disturbing facts about methodology employed by Food Standards Australia New Zealand when it 'investigates' new food products or genetically modified food/food additives, is that it takes the so-called research offered in support of produce/product safety at face value when it is presented by biotech multinationals such as Monsanto & Company.

It is almost as though FSANZ is completely blind to a corporate history of environmental damage, deceit and avoidance of responsibility that is the trademark of this multinational.

Apparently choosing to believe that biotech industries miraculously operate differently once they establish themselves in Australia.

This is posted on the Environment Agency U.K. concerning what The Guardian U.K. called in 2007 one of the most contaminated places in Britain:

Between 1965-70 Brofiscin quarry was used as a disposal site for industrial and chemical waste.
The wastes included toxic substances such as solvents, heavy metals, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs.......

We have completed our extensive enquiries to identify those we consider should be held responsible under the contaminated land laws and be held liable for the cost of remediating Brofiscin Quarry. We are at an advanced stage in our consultations with BP, Veolia and Monsanto to provide them with the opportunity to help remediate the land on a voluntary basis. We expect to make further progress on this matter in the next few months. If this approach is unsuccessful, we have the power to carry out the work needed ourselves and recover our costs. The three companies have been identified under the legislation as inheriting the liabilities of companies who were associated with depositing wastes at the quarry.

This is not the only site used by Monsanto which has problems with PCB or other toxic contamination - the company doesn't mind polluting its home country, wrecking the health of its own workers, generally running roughshod over the interest of countries in which it operates and, if the Ecologist is to be believed is not above bullying witnesses to its bad corporate behaviour.

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.

The cheque really was in the mail

A Yamba resident fought the law and won on Tuesday when he managed to get his fine for driving his unregistered ute overturned.
Documents tendered to the court proved Mr Y (name changed) had paid his green slip, pink slip and posted a cheque to the RTA with his rego papers on May 31, 2010.
After posting the letter thinking he had renewed his registration, Mr Y flew from Ballina to Bathurst on June 1, to visit his sick mother, and returned on June 8.
When he got home, although he had not received his registration papers from the RTA, Mr Y presumed it had been paid and began moving green waste to the tip in his ute.
Police conducting random breath tests on Yamba Road stopped Mr Y at noon on June 11.
When he passed the breath test, police noticed the vehicle’s registration had expired on June 2.
When police questioned Mr Y about the expired registration he replied: “I posted it to the RTA.”
It turns out the mail was stuck in transit for more than a week at Maclean Post Office, not reaching the RTA until Mr Yintervened.
After checking with his bank, which confirmed his cheque hadn’t been presented, Mr Y phoned Maclean Post Office staff, who said they had his letter.
But they hadn’t put it with the shared mail for the council chambers.
After a 45-minute phone call to the RTA customer service hotline pleading to be transferred to the Maclean RTA, Mr Y finally spoke with a Maclean staff member, agreeing to pick up the letter in their lunch hour and process the payment.
Mr Y hand-delivered it to Yamba police station at 5.45pm that day, thinking the matter was over
That was until he found a $506 infringement notice on his doorstep a couple of days later, which he challenged in court.
The Magistrate found Mr Y had done everything he could to pay the registration and dismissed the infringement notice under Section 10 of the Crimes Act.

Source: The Daily Examiner, 19/2/11

Don't look for openess and transparency from the HoR Standing Committee on Regional Australia

After the selective (and still incomplete) publication of submissions ahead of rather hurried interim findings being presented to the Federal Water Minister when there are at least seven more days of evidence still to hear, the House Standing Committee on Regional Australia is beginning to look less like a body conducting a genuine inquiry and more like an example of parliamentary match fixing.

So on a day when the Inquiry into the impact of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in Regional Australia only had a NSW state minister and various senior public servants on its official witness list for a public hearing held in Canberra, it was hardly surprising to find this statement appearing in the transcript not once but twice:

Evidence was then taken in private but later resumed in public—

Says it all really…………..

Japan's ICR accuses Australia of encouraging "eco-terrorism" as activists force its fleet to leave Antarctica

Minke Wales in Antarctic waters

MEDIA RELEASE

18 February 2011

JARPA II research vessels to return home

Today, after careful consideration to the situation in the Antarctic and consultation with the Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR), the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan announced withdrawal of the research activities based on the Second Phase of Japan’s Whale Research Program under Special Permit in the Antarctic (JARPAII) for this season, in order to avoid any injury or threat to life of the crew members and property of the fleet caused by the continued illegal attacks and sabotage by Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS).

JARPAII is a perfectly legal activity carried out under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW). The ICR strongly condemns the SSCS and its continued dangerous and violent actions against Japan’s whale research vessels in the Antarctic.

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) has condemned SSCS’s tactics against Japan’s whale research vessels. In 2008 the IWC member countries adopted by consensus a statement which calls on Sea Shepherd “to refrain from dangerous actions that jeopardize safety at sea” regardless of different positions of countries on whaling.

This issue is not about whaling, but about the safety and violent activities at Sea.

The Dutch and Australian Governments could not stop violent activities of the SSCS while they register SSCS vessels under their flags.

Also today, the Australian and New Zealand Governments officially welcomed the decision by the Government of Japan to withdraw the JARPAII research vessels for this season without condemning the extremely dangerous activities of the SSCS.

In this regard, the ICR cannot help deeming with regret that these countries are encouraging so-called “eco-terrorism”, by their actions of condoning illegal activities of the SSCS and of welcoming the results of such activities.

Once more again we request that Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands behave earnestly and according to their obligations as members of the international society and fulfill their duties under international law to deal with the SSCS criminal actions in a strict and objective manner.

The start and finish of 'charity' according to Hartsuyker

The Federal Member for Cowper and Shadow Spokesperson for the Dog Whistle on the NSW North Coast forgets that old saying that although charity begins at home it should not end there and that Australia has international humanitarian obligations as well as domestic commitments:

THE Gillard Government is refusing to support university students from regional areas whilst doling out millions of dollars to keep asylum seekers in hotels and motels, The Nationals federal member for Cowper's Luke Hartsuyker said today. Mr Hartsuyker was commenting on media reports the Government is forking out $2.5 million a month to house 500 asylum seekers and that an extra $290 million will be required this year to fund Labor’s failed border protection policy. “The Gillard Labor Government simply has the wrong priorities,” Mr Hartsuyker said. [Stock and Land,15 February 2011]

With the Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott now heading a coalition which appears to be fast redefining itself as anti-immigration and anti-Muslim, it is hardly surprising to find Hartsuyker seeking media attention by parroting yet another dubious version of Abbott's "With so many schools destroyed or damaged in Australia we do think that charity begins at home".

This week:

• Michelle Grattan's analysis of the current state of play in the Coalition
  
• Federal Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Chris Bowen's speech to the Sydney Institute on immigration and multiculturalism and the Liberal Party

Another call for Morrison to go

A sentiment with which it would be hard to disagree, from the pen of The Daily Examiner Editor David Bancroft on 18 February 2011:

Morrison simply must go

You would have to go a long way to find a lower political act than that demonstrated by, of all people, the federal opposition spokesman on immigration, Scott Morrison.

First, the honourable member, if that is what he can be called, bemoaned the fact the government was spending taxpayers' money on sending some of the survivors of the Christmas Island boat tragedy to the funeral of many of those who died.

Such compassion.

He has since apologised, not for what he said, but for the timing.

We have now heard he floated the idea of using community concern about Muslims as a political tool.

So, what was the idea? Whip up hatred and distrust for a few votes?

This is exactly what causes division in the community, exactly the type of behaviour that would drive disenfranchised Muslims or other minority groups into the arms of extremists.

We don't need that, Mr Morrison.

We need, wherever possible, to encourage and promote unity.

Thankfully some of the cooler heads in the Liberal Party have prevailed and his suggestion never got to see the light of day.

But for the opposition spokesman to even suggest anti- Muslim sentiment should be used as a political tool, demonstrates he is not fit to hold the position. There are some extreme right wing views starting to surface in the party.

Hopefully there still remains enough with the belief systems on which the party was founded and named, liberalism, to keep them forever in check.

So, what happened to Perle Pty Limited and why is it suddenly on the political radar?

Snapshot of Perle Pty Ltd website

Here is a corporation (apparently owned by one Norman Herfurth and Graham Keeping through their own individual companies) which has been in existence since 1997, was expecting an annual turnover in 2010 of approximately $35 million, had ongoing contracts to build social housing for the NSW Government and private schools for the Catholic Church and boasted this substantial client list on its own website:

AMP Capital, Australian Museum, Australia Post, BNP Paribas, Bovis Lend Lease, City of Sydney, CMC Markets, Collex / Veolia Water, Incorp Interior Designs, Jones Lang LaSalle, Macquarie University, Memo Corporation, Mintel International, Racing NSW, Railcorp, Reserve Hotels, Rice Daubney, Roads & Traffic Authority (RTA), Roberts Weaver Group, Savills, Sydney Ferries Corporation, Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, Sydney Opera House Trust, TransGrid, University of Technology, University of Western Sydney, Virgin Mobile and Visa International

So why did Perle Pty Limited operating as Perle Construction Management suddenly go into voluntary liquidation with a list of around 500 creditors (some on the NSW North Coast) and, why is Federal Nationals Luke Hartsuyker attempting to link the Federal Government’s Stimulus Package with the downfall of this company and subcontractors current financial problems when elsewhere creditors appear more stoic?

Perhaps the answer to the first part of this question lies in the fact that this company appears to be more experienced in refurbishing/refitting existing structures rather than building from-the-ground-up, may have been over-ambitious in applying for new construction contracts as well as having a penchant for luxury cars and allegedly pretending all was well in order to receive progress payments from the NSW Dept of Housing and, the second part is easily explained by the Federal Opposition’s desire to use everything and anything it can to beat the Gillard Government about the head and the willingness of local tradies to be used as political tools by the deeply cynical Member for Cowper.

If any one government is to blame for this debacle the finger should be firmly pointing towards the NSW Keneally Government which lurches from one mismanagement disaster to another and a state public service which has been out to lunch for years.

While the real losers in this matter are creditors both large and small, as well as those on the North Coast sometimes desperately waiting for affordable rental accommodation.