All bow down before The Great God TAbbott

When you recover from the desire to shout aloud with laughter, reflect on the overweening conceit contained in this error laden sentence delivered to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia by the current Federal Opposition Leader:

As health minister, I strengthened the cost-effectiveness tests that helped to drive increased life expectancy of more than two years over the course of the government’s term.

Oh, if only longevity was that simple!

Here is the Australian Bureau of Statistics view of life expectancy:

Since the late 1800s, life expectancy for Australian boys and girls has increased by over 30 years. During 1881-1890, the average life expectancy of a newborn boy was 47.2 years and that of a newborn girl 50.8 years. By 2007-2009, average life expectancy had risen to 79.3 years for newborn boys and 83.9 years for newborn girls.
Over the past 125 years there have been changes in what Australians have died of, and the age at which they have died. Up until 1932, infectious and parasitic diseases caused at least 10% of all deaths each year, with death rates from these diseases highest among the very young and very old. Improvements in living conditions in the early 20th century, such as better water supplies, sewerage systems, food quality and health education, led to overall lower death rates and longer life expectancy at all ages.
During the 20th century, degenerative diseases such as heart disease, stroke and cancer replaced infectious and parasitic diseases as the main cause of death of older people.  Not only had infection control measures improved in medical facilities, but public awareness of the value of preventative actions such as hand washing had grown. Increases in life expectancy at all ages in the second half of the 20th century have been attributed to improving social conditions and advances in medical technology such as mass immunisation and antibiotics.
The past two decades have seen further increases in life expectancy. These increases have been partly due to lower infant mortality, fewer young people dying in motor vehicle accidents, and fewer older men dying from heart disease. The reduction in deaths from heart disease has been linked to medical advances and behavioural changes such as improvements in diet and less smoking.

As one can see, with or without The Great God TAbbott, Australian life expectancy at birth has been steadily rising for the last two hundred years.

The entire Abbott address is here.

Two guinea pigs walk into a Queensland bar and create polling heaven

Logging onto The Internetz to see how Oz pollie polling is going this morning? That’s so old school!

Now this is a poll…..

Hartsuyker attempts to deceive Parliament

This is the Nationals Federal MP for Cowper, Luke Hartsuyker, according to his own media release on 25 August  2011:

Federal MP Luke Hartsuyker tonight (Thursday) has told the Federal Member for Lyne Rob Oakeshott that it’s not too late for him to change his position on the carbon tax and start reflecting the views of his electorate.

During a speech in the House of Representatives, Mr Hartsuyker said a poll which appeared in the local newspaper – the Port Paper - confirmed Mr Oakeshott was ignoring the views of his electorate. “We come to this place to represent our electorates. We come to reflect the hopes and aspirations of the people from our communities, and a member of this House occupies their seat at the pleasure of the voters in their electorate,” Mr Hartsuyker told the Parliament.

“A member who acts contrary to the wishes of their electorate will ultimately be judged at the ballot box. Today's headline in the Port Paper, 'Oakeshott support plummets', says it all. We see in today's paper a reflection of what everybody on the North Coast knows. The people of Lyne know that they have been abandoned by their local member. The people of Lyne know—and I will use their words—that they have been betrayed. The people of Lyne know that they have a representative in this House voting against their interests.

As Clarrie Rivers posted last week, the Port Paper appears to be a front for the Nationals.

When Hartsuyker rose to his feet in the House of Representatives and told Parliament The people of Lyne know—and I will use their words—that they have been betrayed he was knowingly directly quoting a Port Paper article written by the editor who is a National Party member and former staffer of three Nationals MPs (including Hartsuyker until May this year).

An article Port Paper displays online at a domain address registered by yet another Nationals staffer.

Hartsuyker would have also known that the survey commissioned by Port Paper and conducted across the Federal electorate of Lyne on Tuesday night (23rd August) used fully automated voice broadcast to contact the 448 respondents. Even right-wing journalist Andrew Bolt hedges his bets on this polling technology.

One has to wonder why Hartsuyker has such little regard for the Australian Parliament that he would attempt to deceive it in this manner.

Teh Rabbit continues to demonstrate an inability to place matters in the proper historical context

The Whitlam Government was dismissed in 1975. Gough Whitlam himself retired in 1978. The Greens did not get elected to the Australian Federal Parliament until 1993. Bob Brown first entered the Tasmanian House of Assembly for Denison in 1983 and later the Senate in 1996.

Yet Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott commits this impossible historical comparison in August 2011:

“You know, it’s often been said that the Gillard Government is the worst since Gough Whitlam. Well, I think that’s very unfair to Gough Whitlam who didn’t lack idealism and who never sold the soul of the Labor Party to Senator Bob Brown and the Greens.”

What is a whale worth to Australian coastal communities?

Humpback Whale off Sydney, Australia, in 2011

from The Sydney Morning Herald

Government of Japan subsidised whale hunting in the Antarctic runs at a loss and has done so for years. Even after meat collected on this allegedly scientific hunt is sold on to Japanese retailers for an estimated 6 billion yen ($64.5 million) a year, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper on January 23 2010 .

Australian coastal communities have been watching the annual whale migration since people first began to collect on the shoreline. Over the last twenty years this whale migration has begun to play a significant part in many local economies.

As the 2011 IFAW Valuing wales for International Whale Day: Final Report  points out:

What’s a whale worth to Hervey Bay?

Data collected by O'Connor et al (2009) valued direct ticket revenues from whale watching in Hervey Bay at $5.9 million in 20081.

Indirect expenditure associated with whale watching was estimated at $7.0 million, giving a total of $12.9 million.

From these figures and the above population estimates, we calculated present value per whale of AUD $97,000.

What’s a whale worth to Warrnambool?

Data collected by O'Connor et al (2009) found that total expenditure by whale watching tourists was $2.6 million in 20082.

From this total revenue figure and the local population we estimated the following on average present value per whale of AUD $1,259,000.

This value is significantly larger than the values in Hervey Bay and Broome because revenue from whale watching in Warrnambool is high and the population is very small by comparison to the other two regions.

What’s a whale worth to Broome?

O'Connor et al (2009) found direct ticket revenues from whale watching around Broome were $169,000 in 2008.

Indirect expenditure associated with whale watching was estimated at $244,000 giving a total of $413,0003.

From these figures and the above population estimates, we estimated average present value per whale at AUD $32,000.

Pollies living in glass houses begin to hear the sound of smashing glass

When Aussie pollies on The Speaker's left get all holier than thou, this is what sometimes happens.......................

In The Canberra Times last Wednesday:

“The Canberra Liberals were producing invitations to a $950-a-head party fundraiser when they were caught misusing public printing resources last month.

And The Canberra Times can reveal that the breach of parliamentary code of conduct only came to light after one of the flyers advertising the exclusive event was left on a photocopier.

Liberals' Leader Zed Seselja, who apologised last week to the Assembly over the incident, repeated yesterday that the breach had been an honest mistake by a junior staff member who had just begun working at the Assembly.

The flyer that was being produced was an invitation from Mr Seselja to the party faithful to ''an exclusive and intimate'' dinner with NSW Minister for Resources and Energy Chris Hartcher.

Supporters could choose to donate $550, $750 or $950 to attend the event at the up-market Boat House restaurant on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin on July 21.

Under political donations rules, payments to political parties of less than $1000 do not have to be disclosed to authorities.

Last month the Liberal Party paid back $10,000 it had claimed from a government fund set up to help volunteer groups look after the city's poor and needy through the global financial crisis.

In the wake of the latest incident, the Speaker of the Assembly Shane Rattenbury was forced to issue a warning to 11 non-executive Assembly members last week reminding them of their obligations concerning the use of public funds.”

Update on the National Party's very friendly Port Macquarie newspaper

Comments flowing from National Party sources about the independence of  The Port Paper don't stack up.
Although the paper parades with the banner "Your 100% locally owned and totally independent newspaper" some very elementary investigations reveal that the paper's website is owned and administered by Rob Nardella, who (like the paper's editor Sharon Davidson) has serious form in The Nationals' camp.

 Nardella, a former councillor on Port Macquarie Council, is now a policy adviser for NSW Nationals leader Andrew Stoner. 

The information Nardella provided when setting up the domain portpaper.com reveals he's not real strong in Australian geography. He located Port Macquarie in the Australian Capital Territory!


PS Stoner has a few problems of his own on his plate. Stoner had a prominent member of the local branch of the National Party fast-track his solar bonus scheme application. Read a report in today's edition of a Sydney newspaper about that scandal here.