In 2011 Wikileaks remembers the John Winston Howard legacy regarding Fiji

The people of Fiji living under the dictatorship of Frank Bainimarama will be less than impressed with this one paragraph in a 2006 U.S. diplomatic cable - released by Wikileaks on 28th April 2011 - reminding everyone of then Australian Prime Minister John Howard's lack of spine on the morning of the day of that military coup in Fiji:
"¶2. (SBU) Prime Minister Howard told the press December 5 that Fijian Prime Minister Qarase had telephoned him that morning to request Australian military intervention to prevent a coup by Fijian military commander, Commodore Frank Bainimarama. Howard said he had declined the request because it was "not in Australia's national interest" to intervene, adding that he could not countenance Australian and Fijian troops fighting one another on the streets of Suva."
Apparently Howard was willing to charge into other countries when the request came from the U.S. Government, but not when he received an urgent call from a near-neighbour.
Mrs. Bucket will also be unimpressed to see that history is resurfacing from under her constant attempt to turn her hubbie into the greatest thing since sliced bread.
For those who are interested Discombobulated Bubu and Intelligentsiya are still blogging in resistance from Fiji.

Clarence House ban ensures rolling antipodean satire by the Chaser team

The promotional clip



and two of the final no-access-to-the-wedding clips





No wonder Prince Charles issued a ban on using footage of the Windsor-Middleton wedding “in any drama, comedy, satirical or similar entertainment program or content” - The Chaser team's fame had gone before it and someone at the BBC had likely seen the promo and insisted the letter of the broadcasting rights contract be observed.

Still, Clarence House was naive to hope that the matter would end there with no prospect of raw, biting or even downright silly satire surfacing in response and, now the ABC is running the complete clip set on iView for the next twelve days.

Tell an average Australian "No" in an upper-class English accent and the rest is very predictable.

It's International Workers Solidarity Day!

It’s May Day and I’ll have a flower in my cap and be singing Solidarity forever, For the union makes us strong when I go out on the river later – thus giving a nod to fiery Beltane and workers' rights. The fish will be impressed. :-)
Elsewhere the Maritime Union of Australia is keeping up the side for worker solidarity and you can find march details on its website.

Found the flag fluttering at Google Images

OMG! Even Google went crazy

Even Google in Australia went ape
over the marriage of William to Kate

Anony-mice

Yamba

* GuestSpeak is a feature of North Coast Voices allowing Northern Rivers residents to make satirical or serious comment on issues that concern them. Posts of 250-300 words or less can be submitted to ncvguestspeak AT gmail.com.au for consideration.

The strange logic residing between Tony Abbott's ears

Consumer Price Index figure for the March 2011 quarter have been released this week and they show a rise of 3.3% through the year to the March quarter 2011, compared with a rise of 2.7% through the year to the December quarter 2010. A change of 0.6% compared to last year.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics; The most significant price rises this quarter were for automotive fuel (+8.8%), vegetables (+16.0%), deposit and loan facilities (+4.6%), fruit (+14.5%) and pharmaceuticals (+12.5%).

This is Tony Abbott on Wednesday 27 April 2011 courtesy of his own website:

The latest CPI figures show that families are under considerable pressure. I think that it just makes it all the more urgent that the Government reign back its own spending because families under pressure obviously don’t need the kind of interest rate pressure which the Government’s spending spree is contributing to. The other point that ought to be made is that, why make a bad situation worse with a carbon tax and a mining tax? This is a government which is adding to the cost of living pressure on families, particularly with its carbon tax…….
I think that if you look behind the headline statistic you see that one of the big impacts has been fuel, one of the other big impacts has been power. Now, fuel and power haven’t been impacted by the floods and the cyclones. Fuel and power prices will be impacted by the Government’s carbon tax and that’s why I think it’s so important that the people understand that this carbon tax is toxic, this carbon tax will make cost of living pressures worse and what we want from government is sensible decisions, not decisions that make a bad situation worse

Er, run that by me again? Forget that floods and cyclones have resulted in expensive fruit and vegetables across the board or that pharmaceuticals have risen yet again. It is rising interest rates, fuel and power costs that have really pushed up the latest CPI figures according to Tony’s calculations. And those last two categories? Well, domestic economic reality that has seen electricity costs rise inexorably for years or those international market forces driving the price of a barrel of oil are not part of the Abbott equation - these current rises have no structural cause he can see and any future rise will be all the fault of a carbon price mechanism that hasn’t even been introduced to the Australian Parliament as a bill yet.

One of the most offensive aspects of the Leader of the Opposition’s political character is the fact that he obviously thinks the average voter is so stupid that any old lie told often enough will get him into The Lodge by 2013.

One of the reasons why mature Australian native trees in your garden and no dogs in the yard lead to unique moments

Plant a koala-friendly tree today

Advance Australia the Plastic

I was having a yarn with a local shopkeeper the other day when he remarked that most of his over-the-counter sales involved plastic.
I was rather surprised, being addicted to the feel of a roll of readies myself, but it was an observation borne out by the Australian Crime Commission’s latest report this year:

“Card transactions have continued to increase substantially over the past decade.
For example, during that period credit card transactions have increased from 42.8 million to 118.8 million per month.
Australians spend A$17.8 billion per month on credit cards and A$11.3 billion per month on EFTPOS transactions, and they withdraw A$12.4 billion per month from ATMs……
More than 657 000 cases of card fraud on Australian issued credit and debit cards were reported in Australia during 2009.
The value of credit card fraud was estimated at 57.15 cents per $1000 transacted in 2009. The value of debit card fraud during that year was estimated at 9.43 cents per $1000 transacted.”