Is Gulaptis a real friend of public education or does he sing from O'Farrell's song sheet?

In TV ads promoting Chris Gulaptis as the Nationals candidate for Clarence Mr Gulaptis is seen standing near public schools. He sent his children to public schools and is quick to remind the electorate that he was the president of the Maclean High School Parents & Citizens Association.  

Mr Gulaptis should read Dick McDermott's letter to the editor of The Coffs Coast Advocate (see below) and then come out and tell the Clarence electorate where he really stands in relation to public education in November 2011.

Schools sold out

I've been a teacher for 38 years. I retire next year. I never believed I would see the day any State Government, be it Labor or conservative, would stoop to a level so low that they would hold their teachers to ransom rather than negotiate a new award which would allow wages to keep pace with inflation.

From January 1, 2012, public school teachers' salaries will be reduced annually unless they agree to measures that would relieve the government of the responsibility to fully fund the learning conditions of pupils in public schools.

Incidentally, there are no such conditions placed on teachers in private schools

What the latest O'Farrell legislation amounts to is asking the state's teachers, those who deliver the service, to finance the very service they are providing.

What the O'Farrell Government, of which local member Andrew Fraser is a member, is clearly doing is attempting to run down public education, the only education open to those most in need.

One in two people with children in public schools must have actually voted for Mr Fraser in the last election never having been told this was his agenda.

The O'Farrell Government is masking its deceit, attempting to hide this abrogation of responsibility by cloaking it in terms of what they call local autonomy.

By kidding parents that giving local school communities the choice to run their public schools the way they want, the government is slyly absolving itself of the responsibility to run our public schools the way they should be run.

This local autonomy push is a great "con" perpetrated by politicised bureaucrats and those who would be.

Don't fall for it mums and dads; it is yet another case of a national asset being flogged off or driven into the ground in the name of privatisation, but this time it will directly affect your kids.

Please see through the spin, join with teachers and resist.

Dick McDermott

Source: Letters, Coffs Coast Advocate, 5/11/11

Is the Coalition's own polling beginning to worry O'Farrell in the lead up to the Clarence by-election?

The Federal seat of Page and the state seat of Clarence sit squarely in the middle of NSW Nationals country.

In Australian electoral history Labor has only won Page at four general elections and Clarence at three elections – one a by-election.

In 2007 the Nationals Chris Gulaptis stood in Nationals safe federal seat of Page which had been held by the Ian Causley for six years until his retirement – and lost it with a -7.83% swing against him.

In October 2011 the Nationals once again picked Gulaptis to stand in the Nationals safe state seat of Clarence held by Steve Cansdell for eight years until his resignation in September 2011. In March this year Cansdell had been re-elected with a +19.8% swing towards the Nationals.

Since Gulaptis’ most recent nomination a number of Clarence Valley residents tell me they have been phone polled twice by ReachTEL, the North Coast Nationals favoured opinion pollster.

Co-incidentally the Nationals have twice gone public with statements such as these:

· "I predict a swing against us which is why Chris will have to shake as many hands as possible and knock on as many doors as possible to secure his role as a member of government that will be in for at least two terms," Mr Stoner said.

· Describing Mr Gulaptis' chances in the by-election, Mr O'Farrell said Clarence was "an absolutely tough seat". But he said the coalition had a good candidate in Mr Gulaptis to retain Clarence. "I sat in state parliament when a Labor member of parliament represented solidly this seat. "We take nothing for granted, in politics 51% is a win, I'll settle for 51%."

Gulapatis himself has been reduced to a racing analogy:

"A [ballot] draw's a draw, everybody is in the same boat," he said. "It's a big field, it's a wet track and we will see what happens at the end of the day."

One could be forgiven for thinking that the polling results sitting on Barry O’Farrell and Andrew Stoner’s desks in Sydney are not favorable to their candidate and that the Nationals are looking at losing quite a few percentage points off their very comfortable 31.4% tpp margin in this seat - something NSW Labor would not let them forget in a hurry.

When and where to meet The Greens candidate, Janet Cavanaugh, during the 2011 Clarence by-election campaign

Photo of Janet Cavanaugh from Google Images

The Greens Janet Cavanaugh is a candidate in the 19^th November 2011 Clarence by-election.

Here are some of the places you can say hello to her:

Tuesday 8th November:  4.45 pm at the Lower Clarence Teachers’ Association meeting, Maclean RSL, River Street Maclean.

Wednesday 9th November: Clarence Greens campaign office in the Casino Centre Arcade, Walker St Casino in afternoon;  5.30pm at the Casino RSM, Canterbury Street Casino,  when the Casino Chamber of Commerce and Industry is holding a meeting to which they've invited by-election candidates.

Saturday 12th November: Maclean Monthly Markets, Centenary Drive Maclean in morning; 1.30pm at the Clarence Valley Women's Inc. AGM at the Country Women’s Association Rooms, River Street Maclean.

Monday 14th November: In Grafton with John Kaye MP.

6pm at the Meet the Candidates Forum, Yamba Bowling Club, Wooli Street Yamba.

Wednesday 16th November:  6pm at the Meet the Candidates Forum, South Grafton Ex-Servicemen's Club, Wharf Street South Grafton. 

Camac tries to wrap her political gaffe around The Cross of Ages

Bethany of The Cross would've been wiser to leave her gaffe to sink to the bottom of the bowl. Instead she went to The Daily Examiner Editor:

In his story on Monday, Mr Deefholts quoted Ms Camac as saying if displaced abattoir workers did not want a job in Casino and preferred to "sit around and whinge" they could do that.

"If they want to get off their bums and get a new job they can do that," she was quoted as saying.

Ms Camac said that as the abattoir's human resources manager she had been caring for employees for the past two years.

"I continue to be concerned for their employment and their future opportunities for continued employment," she said yesterday.

"But even more importantly, as a Christian candidate, care for people and their families is absolutely central to my whole way of life.

"As a Christian I stand to defend the rights of the underprivileged and those who have been treated unfairly as evidenced clearly by my volunteer work in India and other places.

"I now find myself at the centre of public accusations of un-Christian behaviour by Grant Courtney, the leader of the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union, based on an entirely false report by Mr Deefholts, accusing me of doing this as a 'cheap political stunt'. This has got to stop…..

Mr Deefholts yesterday stood by his original report.

He said that, realising her comments were potentially inflammatory, he had repeated her comments back to her and asked if they were accurate.

"I was surprised she said it, which is why I read it back to her," he said.”

If she keeps this up the only vote Camac is likely to get from the Clarence Valley is the donkey vote.

A pictorial guide to why the 99% in America is so angry

On 2 November the UN 2011 Human Development Report,  which covers 187 countries, was released. It showed that Australia continues to rank second only to Norway on the global human development index with regard to equality within society, after adjustments were made for internal inequalities in health, education and income.

It shares equal first place with Italy when calculating life expectancy for those born in 2011 and, comes in third after Sweden and Norway in the overall life satisfaction category - a

placing it shares with a number of other countries.

On the issue of gender inequality Australia ranks at eighteen.

However, in the United States of America it is another story all together, with is ranking across the same indices resulting in an overall ranking of twenty-three.

From Business Insider this series of historical graphs demonstrates this level of inequality:

In fact, income inequality has gotten so extreme here that the US now ranks 93rd in the world in "income equality." China's ahead of us. So is India. So is Iran.

Wages as a percentage of the U.S. economy

What will Hapless Gulaptis do?

The Federal Government and COAG committed to a course of action in February 2011 which resulted in the National Health Reform Agreement. The NSW Government at the time was led by Labor’s K-K- Keneally.

This agreement sees NSW receive federal health funding under the National Partnership Agreement on Improving Public Hospital Services. Specifically this state will get $526 million in New Subacute Beds Guarantee Funding from 2010-11 to 2013-4.

Because there is a byelection in the Clarence electorate and the Nats candidate Chris Gulaptis got caught out telling funding pork pies, the O’Farrell Government’s Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health Melinda Pavey fronted the media instead to announce that the new subacute beds planned for Maclean District Hospital were part of the Nats grand plan for the Clarence Valley.

I wait in breathless anticipation for Chris to break loose from his minders, tunnel under the media fence and announce to the world that in fact those extra 14 hospital beds planned for Maclean were due to his good offices – after all he’s already claimed credit on behalf of the Nats for a private bequest to Maclean Hospital!

Clarence Valley Council - matured or over ripe?

The Daily Examiner letter to the editor 3 November 2011:

A mature council

THE Clarence Valley Council's recently appointed GM, Scott Greensill, reportedly claimed "the council was now maturing past amalgamation" (DEX, October 27). Well, just how much has our forced amalgamated council matured?
At the council's general meeting on September 13, the staff's recommendation to councillors seeking federal funding for a $7m extension to the Grafton Gallery was prepared (in part) by none other than the Grafton Gallery's director, Jude McBean (item 12.167/11). That privilege included "waiving development assessment and construction fees" of $40,692 as well as "identifying a potential $4.13m which could accrue from developer (contributions) over the next 20 years". But no mention was made that the developer's contributions plan showed Grafton's projected population growth to 2021 was only 494 and zero to 2031, thereby contributing little S94 revenues.
In contrast, at the same meeting, council staff recommended to councillors the "waiving of hire fees of $150 for the cost of council's events trailer" for Iluka's Family Festival to raise money to build a sports shed for Iluka (item 12-168/11). Yet the developer's contributions plan shows Iluka's projected population growth of 642 to 2021 and 627 to 2031, thereby generating far more S94 funds than Grafton, as well as experiencing significant pressures on its existing infrastructures.
It must be a niggle in the guts for Iluka's volunteers to work their butts off to raise community funds, but not be given the privileged opportunity to prepare their own recommendations to a mature forced amalgamated Clarence Valley Council.

RAY HUNT
Yamba.