It's past the July 1 witching hour and Whyalla still lives!

Whyalla webcams as the midnight hour comes and passes without life in this steel town being extinguished by the 1 July 2012 introduction of a national price on carbon.

Click in images to enlarge

Update:

Post-Armageddon x 8 Hours 22 minutes and the sun is out in Whyalla!

Fairfax Manoeuvrings: Whose over-inflated sense of entitlement is operating here?

According to that Clayton’s journalist Andrew Bolt; THE hysteria over billionaire Gina Rinehart is not just funny. Have you ever seen so many hypocrites, wasters and self-servers pretending to be principled?.... We hear instead a lot of people with an outsized sense of entitlement, presuming a right to have property they do not own be run to suit them and their interests.

A statement which makes me wonder whose sense of entitlement has led to Ms. Rinehart’s demand for three board seats and a degree of editorial control.

It would seem that her personal sense of entitlement is based on the immense wealth she garners from family mining interests which makes her the country’s richest person.

However, it is less clear what she actually contributes to either the common good or national life.

According to Australian Tax Office Taxation Statistics 2009-10 there were 5,395 individuals, 4,285 companies, 518 partnerships and 931 trusts involved in the mining industry.

The mining industry had a combined tax liability in that financial year of a mere $4,168 million on a total assessable income of $139,593 million. Companies in this sector represented 6.3 per cent of the tax liabilities of all corporations operating in Australia.

To put that into perspective, in 2009-10 manufacturing companies had a tax liability of $23,235 million on a total assessable income of $265,687 million. Companies in this sector represented 12 per cent of the tax liabilities of all corporations operating in Australia.

Even our Northern Rivers retailers belong to a national industry group which has a taxation burden which is more than double that of the mining sector.

Finally, in the 2009-10 financial year 3,138 out of the 4,285 companies in the mining industry paid no tax at all.

So the mining industry remains the national industry sector with the highest percentage of tax exempt companies. A feat it manages due to the high number of tax deductions, rebates, concessions, exemptions, offsets etc. available to mining interests – including tax deductions available on any state royalties payable.

Whilst, as ever, the vast majority of taxation being paid to the Commonwealth still comes from the pockets of salary and wage earners.

Well B*gger Me Dead! It's the 1st of July 2012 and the sky hasn't fallen

The sun rose this morning to the melodic sound of a Northern Rivers dawn chorus, so I’m dedicating this to Tony Chicken Little Abbott who told me my world would end when the Australian Government put a price on carbon and introduced a mineral resource tax today.

This one’s for you mate!

http://youtu.be/-iYBIsLFbKo

Thanks to Clarencegirl for help with posting probs on this one!

Nationals' Kevin Hogan to have second tilt at Labor's Janelle Saffin at next federal election

A Twitter entry today appears to indicate that the NSW North Coast Nationals are so sure the Page electorate is in their pocket that they are again willing to run Kevin Hogan against sitting Labor MP Janelle Saffin.

Because he was so forgettable last time he stood for election and has never taken any interest in the electorate since then, many local voters may find they have little memory of him.

So here is a short reprise:

After getting Federal Nationals pre-selection unopposed in 2009 Kevin Hogan took keeping a low profile to ridiculous length.

This is about as good as it got when it came to his on a steep learning curve campaigning.

Hogan was (and probably still is) in denial about an ongoing Coalition commitment to dam and divert certain North Coast rivers.

He supports the coal seam gas industry and particularly Metgasgo, whose operations in the Casino district have led to fines concerning water management documentation and orders for improperly disposing of contaminated wastewater and for badly constructed ‘holding’ ponds.

Hogan allowed his National Party supporters free rein to post abusive and sexist remarks on his Facebook campaign page.

Like his fearless leaders, he appears to consider the truth to be a highly flexible commodity and even makes false claims about his election campaign giveaways.

During the 2010 federal election campaign, Hogan accepted ‘help’ from a paid staffer of a sitting NSW Nationals MP – then denied all knowledge when this breach of the rules became known.

Was so cavalier about election campaign rules and conventions that he thumbed his nose both online and in print.

Sexism: It's a European Commission thing!

http://youtu.be/g032MPrSjFA

"speak their language to get their attention"

Taking my breath away

Yamba food store launches Red Granny Smith Apples

Yamba, the Number 1 town in Australia, can lay claim to yet another first.

One of its food stores advertised in a free local newspaper this week that it has Granny Smith apples on special. But, wait for it ... the apples are very special ... they're red Granny Smiths. At just 99 cents a kg they have to be the steal of the week.

Has Clive really decided to go for Tony's jugular or is it a political feint?

ABC Radio on the 27^th June 2012:

"If a person decides they want to be a lobbyist they shouldn't be head of a political party or on the executive of a political party which could influence government policy," he says.

He says he is raising the issue as a representative of the Queensland LNP.

"This was raised at the state council of the LNP and it was passed," says the mining boss.

Clive Palmer says he was surprised by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's reaction to the idea.

"I was puzzled that anyone could be so violently opposed to transparency in government," says Clive Palmer.

“I was shocked by it," he says.”

Anyone else catch a whiff of week-old mullet?

Just as Tones Teh Terrible comes a little closer to hard questions about the level of his own involvement in what looks more and more like a conspiracy to bring down the Independent Speaker of the House of Reps, up jumps mining magnate Clive with a private confrontation concerning paid lobbyists he's happy to talk to the media about.

Yeah, pull the other one fellas.