Duckforcover - are photographers and artists, Daisy and Nick, living on farm on the coastal fringe of Northern New South Wales Australia along with their Staffie dog named Lenny Bruce.
Saturday, 2 April 2011
Tell the dope.......
One of the better posters
featuring Oppostion Leader
Tony Lies R Me Abbott.
I'm not sure where this poster was originally posted but a chapeau flourish to its creator.
Friday, 1 April 2011
Voters who say 'A plague on all your houses!'
Both the Labor Government and the Federal Opposition should take note of the Australian Electoral Commission’s report on the 2010 general election which resulted in the formation of a minority government because the national ballot produced no clear winner.
According to this report there has been a marked increase in ballot papers which represent a form of protest or unwillingness to support any political party or candidate, along with an apparent rise in the donkey vote.
* The 2010 House of Representatives election saw a substantial increase in the proportion of blank ballots (from 20.0 per cent of all informal ballots at the 2007 House of Representatives election to 28.9 per cent in 2010), with smaller increases in the proportions of ballots with ticks and crosses (from 9.9 per cent to 11.8 per cent) and scribbles, slogans or other protest vote marks (from 14.2 per cent to 16.9 per cent). The proportion of number ‘1’ only ballots decreased slightly (from 30.1 per cent of all informal ballots in 2007 to 27.8 per cent in 2010), while there was a more substantial decrease in the proportion of ballots with non-sequential numbering (from 17.9 per cent to 9.2 per cent).
* While more than a quarter of all informal votes cast in each state and territory were blank, blank ballots still comprise less than two (1.60) per cent of all votes cast. The highest proportions of blank ballots were cast by voters in Tasmania (34.1 per cent of all informal ballots) and South Australia (32.4 per cent). These also recorded the highest proportions of blank ballots for the 2007 House of Representatives election (29.3 and 26.9 per cent, respectively).
* Nationally, the rate of blank ballots doubled between the 2007 and 2010 House of Representatives elections, from 0.79 per cent of all votes cast in 2007 to 1.60 per cent of all votes cast in 2010. The states with the highest rates of blank ballots were New South Wales (1.84 per cent of all votes cast) and South Australia (1.77 per cent), while the lowest rates of blank ballots were cast by voters in the Australian Capital Territory (1.39 percent of all votes cast) and Tasmania (1.38 per cent).
* This was also the first federal election since informal ballot paper surveys began where the proportion of blank ballots was higher than the proportion of number '1' only ballots.
* As it is not possible to determine the true intent of voters casting informal ballots, the following analysis refers to assumed unintentional and assumed intentional informality. ■ Ballot papers with incomplete numbering, non-sequential numbering, ticks and crosses and those where the voter had been identified are assumed to be unintentionally informal. In other words, it is assumed that all voters completing ballot papers in these categories intended to cast a formal vote. ■ All other informal ballots (including blank ballots and those with scribbles, slogans or other protest vote marks) are assumed to be intentionally informal. In other words, it is assumed that all voters casting ballots papers in these categories intended to vote informally.
* The highest proportions of assumed unintentionally informal votes were cast by voters in New South Wales (58.8 per cent of all informal ballots) and the Northern Territory (54.8 per cent). The highest proportions of assumed intentionally informal ballots were cast by voters in Tasmania (64.7 per cent of all informal ballots) and Victoria (57.5 per cent). As shown in Figure 3 and Table 10 on the following page, the rate of assumed unintentional informal voting increased from 2.47 per cent of all votes cast in the 2007 House of Representatives election to 2.85 per cent of all votes cast in the 2010 House of Representatives election.
Own It! National Youth Week, 1-10 April 2011
National Youth Week 2011 begins across Australia today and fun events are scheduled: Mid-North Coast events calendar here. Northern Region events here. Richmond Tweed events here.
Page MP Janelle Saffin is encouraging young people across the region to showcase their talents during National Youth Week, which kicks off today with the theme “Own It!"
“Young musicians, writers, photographers, film makers and graphic designers have until April 17 to enter in the National Talent Competition categories – Rock IT, Write IT, SnapIT, Shoot IT and Design IT,” Ms Saffin said.
“There will be a number of events held all over our region – many of them run by young people for young people- including the art expo in Kyogle, street festival in Ballina, film festival in Grafton and skate competition in Lismore.
“National Youth Week gives local young people of a great chance to display the unique and creative talent our part of the world is famous for.”
“People can get involved by taking part in events, entering one of the many competitions and putting forward their views. “This is a great opportunity for our youth to get out there and own Youth Week in our region,” Ms Saffin said. National Youth Week is a joint initiative of the Australian, State and Territory and Local governments and has run annually since 2000. This year, highlights of the national launch tomorrow (Saturday April 2) will be streamed live on the National Youth Week Young Members’ Facebook page. Information about National Youth Week events and competitions is available at http://www.youthweek.nsw.gov.au/ [Saffin media release 31.03.11]
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Letter writer with thousands of names strikes again!
AKA, the Clarence Valley's serial writer of letters to editors, has struck again.
As reported on this site on Monday, in an item titled 'A word of caution for newspaper letters editors' there's a correspondent who regularly uses aliases when corresponding with newspapers.
AKA (also known as) has had a letter published in today's Daily Examiner. Sadly, the paper didn't take the advice provided on Monday and check the writer's bona fides.
To make matters worse, today's letter is the same one published by the Northern Star on Monday, give or take a few commas, apostrophes and altered paragraphing.
Today's letter is a little bit longer than Monday's, suggesting a number of possible scenarios.
Did the Star cut the letter's tale/tail?
Or did AKA, who has a penchant for using the old cc and bcc tactic when emailing, actually submit two letters that were virtually the same but the one to the Examiner was a few paragraphs longer?
Here's today's letter in the Examiner.
Abbott gets caught out manipulating a quote again
Crikey’s Jeremy Sear tells it like it is………………………
And now Tony Abbott misrepresents Flannery; will the media call him on it?
Further to the shameless and idiotic noisemaking of the trollumnists on which we commented yesterday, it now seems that the unpopular Liberal leader Tony Abbott is now outright misrepresenting Flannery’s remarks in Parliament:But yesterday, as the role of the carbon tax in Labor’s massive loss in the NSW election dominated federal political exchanges, Mr Abbott quoted Professor Flannery as he ridiculed the tax as “the ultimate millenium bug”. “It will not make a difference for 1000 years,” the Opposition Leader told parliament. “So this is a government which is proposing to put at risk our manufacturing industry, to penalise struggling families, to make a tough situation worse for millions of households right around Australia. And for what? To make not a scrap of difference to the environment any time in the next 1000 years.”
What Flannery actually said:
If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years. "Not going to drop" is clearly not the same as "make not a scrap of difference". Nor is "several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years" the same as “not… any time in the next 1000 years”.
We’re talking about a system in which the temperature is increasing. The best we can hope for in the shorter term is to slow that increase down, maybe if we’re lucky stop it completely. The more countries that act, the better our chances, and the quicker we’ll reduce the damage. That Flannery thinks there’s a prospect of actually reducing the levels back to the levels of today, or pre-industrial levels, is very reassuring – but the time-scale he talks about is nothing to do with when there’d first be a difference between acting and not acting.
Even if it’ll take a long time to return the system to the earlier levels (and I’m glad to hear that that’s even possible), the immediate challenge is to reduce the increase. That’s what the proposed action is supposed to achieve, and that’s what we’re debating.
So Abbott’s misrepresentation of Flannery’s remark is not only dishonest, it also indicates that he hasn’t the faintest idea what his opponents are actually talking about……….
To recap. During the radio interview in question (audio here) Flannery made it very clear that the world would not immediately commence to cool if the international community was collectively addressing climate change because a) the system is already overburdened by CO2, b) it will take somewhere between 100 to 1,000 years for enough greenhouse gas absorption to occur which would noticeably lower temperature and, c) that no global action on climate change would inevitably lead to a continuous increase in the average temperature of the planet.
Can a man who has absolutely no relationship with the concept of truth be seriously considered the alternative prime minister?
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