If you're a NSW pensioner with less than $500 in the bank, then Barry O'Farrell intends to blindside you

Gawd, this is rich! Bazza’s chief political b#tch, Pru Goward has just announced that people who would normally be eligible for a set of cheap ‘n’ nasty free spectacles won’t be able to replace lost or broken specs or fill new optical prescriptions between 10^th  February to 30^th June 2012.

Why don’t cha just get in your chauffeured limo and mow a few of the poor down, Bazza?

It would probably cost less than the public hospital stays due to falls over the next four months.

Bazza’s remuneration package is over $350k and Goward’s is over $270k a year – most of the people they are dudding would be very lucky to receive $20-22k over the same twelve months.

Lower than a snakes’s belly – that’s what O’Farrell and his cronies are.

Pics Bazza 'n' Teh B#tch were found at Granny Herald and Sky News

Mining Law Workshop Dundurrabin Community Centre, February 11th 2012 at 1.30pm

MINING LAW WORKSHOP

Dundurrabin Community Centre at 1.30pm
on February 11, 2012  

Sue Higgenson, senior solicitor from the Environmental Defenders  Office, is coming to talk with our community about mining law.

This is an open  invitation to the whole community to address everyone's concerns regarding the  legal side of mining and our rights within the community and for our private  landholdings.

Take this opportunity to  understand what could happen if mining proceeds in our community.

Environmental Defenders Office:
  A  community legal centre specialising in public interest environmental  law

  Mission:  promote the public interest and improve environmental outcomes through the  informed use of the law

  Functions
  Legal  Advice and Representation

  Policy  and Law Reform

  Community  Education

  Scientific  and Technical Advice

Please bring a something to share to have with a  cuppa.

Local Mining Exploration
Anchor  Resources have been doing exploratory drilling at Dundurrabin for gold and  copper.

As  reported on Anchor Resources website, (http://www.anchorresources.com/) the  Tyringham prospect is identified as a Reduced Intrusion- Related Gold System (RIRGS) and deposits of this type include multi-million ounce gold mines such as Fort-Knox, Pogo and Donlin Creek (Alsaska) and Kidston Australia.

Further information on proposed mining can be found at Dorrigo Environment Watch.

What Tony Abbott promises if you make him Prime Minister of Australia

Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott spoke at the National Press Club on 31 January 2012 and imparted his vision for Australia should the Coalition win the 2013 federal election.

After a predictable attack on the Gillard Government (which according to him has completely failed to appreciate the iron law of economics that no country has ever taxed its way to prosperity) he swung into a pitch redolent with the perfume of American Tea Party politics in that television viewers were treated to the prospect of smaller government, lower taxes and greater freedom and, of course, stopping the boats.

A golden future was apparently only as far away as a light at the end of the tunnel, because in the Coalition we're patriots.

Decoding this patriotic light was rather revealing.

To get to this future Abbott was promising not to promise Medicare-funded universal dental care or a national disability insurance.

He also assured voters that any tax cuts pledge made today was at least four years down the road before it came into effect. Around 2017 if these cuts happened at all – because implementation apparently requires the projected 2012-13 budget deficit to all but disappear and, the precise timing and the precise quantum is something that we will announce in good time.

He told his audience that he would also impose an est. $2.7 billion per annum new tax on the business sector in order to change the paid parental leave scheme legislated by Federal Labor.**

Abbott revealed  that under any government led by him there would be cuts to unspecified federal services, programs and funding, as well as increased privatisation of service delivery. Apparently he intends to cut somewhere in the vicinity of $12 billion a year off the budget bottom line this way, while at the same time committing to new spending around $10 billion each financial year.**

This new $10 billion supplied by taxpayers is going towards Abbott’s emissions reduction fund - which will be paid to business for what they are already doing without any additional government subsidy.

He made it clear that as prime minister he would support persons and families having aspiration (especially those privately educating their children), at the same time make life difficult for those with mental illness or physical incapacity if they happen to be parked on the disability pension.Tough love for the young who take the dole is also favoured.

Abbott ended this strange but predictable ramble with: People should be in public life for the right reasons. Mine are to serve our country, to stand up for the things I believe in, to do the right thing by my fellow Australians as best I can, to build a nation that will inspire us more and to lead a government that will disappoint us less.

His own speech and, the question and answer period which followed, indicates that he is already failing these lofty personal aims.

** Tony Abbott did not dispute these figures offered to him in the question and answer period.

Photograph from The Sydney Morning Herald.

U.S. Presidential Election 2012: Rude Music sues Newt 2012 Inc & American Conservative Union for copyright infringement

U.S. District Court filing of 30^th January 2012

Republican presidential candidate hopeful Newt Gingrich has found himself in hot water and his campaign machine before the courts for unauthorised use of the song Eye of the Tiger.

YouTube quickly ditched those Gingrich campaign video clips which contained the song.

A first: seat-belted bus to run on a local school route in the Coffs Harbour area

High school students travelling by bus between Glenreagh and Coffs Harbour will now have the added protection of seat belts.

The Coffs Coast Advocate reported that Sawtell Coaches, which operates a fleet of school buses in the Coffs area has purchased a new bus fitted with seat-belts, GPS tracking, an electronic tacograph and surveillance cameras.

The manager of Sawtell Coaches, Darren Williams, said the company had made a commercial, possibly controversial, decision given the NSW Government's Bus Safety Review had not yet been completed.

"We made the decision because we knew this service was on the government's lists of dangerous rural bus routes," Mr Williams said.
"We will be monitoring students' behaviour very closely and taking a hard line with any who do not comply with the instructions to wear the seat belts.
"Students who are moving around will be given three warnings and then be told 'to take a holiday from the bus'."

Valla parent Jan Gill, who has been campaigning for more safety on school buses, said the new bus was a welcome initiative.
 "We all hope this marks the beginning of a new trend with other bus companies, especially those that travel on the highway," Ms Gill said

Ms Gill's letter to the editor of The Coffs Advocate is below:

Belts on buses

I commend Darren Williams, manager of Sawtell Coaches, for buying a new, safe bus fitted with seatbelts for a school bus route identified as high risk.

This highly responsible and community-minded initiative is greatly appreciated by parents, who would like to see all school buses travelling on dangerous routes upgraded so they suit the conditions.

The horrific crash at Urunga earlier this month and the heavy rain we are now experiencing highlight the risks faced by those who live and travel in this region, particularly on the Pacific Hwy.

I would like to see Busways management take the same approach Mr Williams has taken to keep children safe.

Busways has several school buses travelling south of Urunga on the highway.

It's time they replaced the school buses that have low-backed unpadded seats, with vehicles that have safety features fit for our conditions, including seatbelts.

Jan Gill, Valla Beach

Source: The Coffs Coast Advocate 

Don't laugh - we are Christians!

Teaching the overly sensitive Mr. Smith about the Streisand Effect....

The Telegraph on 31 January 2012:

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has confirmed to news.com.au that it is investigating a satirical interview by comedians John Clarke and Brian Dawe, which went to air at the end of ABC's 7.30 program on October 27 last year.

ABC has stood by the program and dismissed the investigation as "routine".

Perth school teacher Simon Smith told news.com.au he complained to ABC and the broadcasting watchdog after he saw the skit last year.

He objected to its portrayal of Christians.

"You can clearly see that they are vilifying Christians as insensitive, callous and uncaring with clear inferences to the Opposition front bench and Tony Abbott, many who are Catholics," he claimed.

"I just sat there for a minute and I thought, they've really overstepped the mark”.

The Canberra Problem and "Dr Saulways-Wright"
Originally aired on ABC TV's 7.30: 27/10/2011

http://youtu.be/_SOipK0rRec

Quote of the Week - Political Catchphrases

“with 'pro-life' perhaps the most offensive of all. Is anyone out there 'pro-death'? Can anyone be rustled up who is 'anti-life'?”

{The Loon Pond on 30th^th January 2012}