Surprise, surprise! Those water raiders are back in 2012 and wanting a bite of the Clarence River Catchment Area

The second submission publicly listed by the NSW Legislative Council Standing Committee on Economic Development’s Inquiry into the Adequacy of Water Storages in NSW is rather predictably a re-submission of a 1984 plan to divert up to twenty-two
per cent, or over one million megalitres annually, of freshwater from the Clarence River catchment and send it into the Murray-Darling Basin river system.

Submission number three urges consideration of additional water storage on NSW coastal rivers, identifying the Clarence River by name.

While the NSW Farmers Association mentioned in its submission a supposed ability
to recapture water from east coast rivers and, many other submissions made ambit
claims for increasing the number of dams and augmentation of existing dams.

Just as predictably, at least one accepted submission opposing water diversion from the Clarence River catchment is not publicly listed by an inquiry committee dominated by political parties not known to be sympathetic to the Clarence Valley in a ratio of four to two.

Which makes one wonder just how many other submissions saying no to Clarence River water diversion have been received, but not published, by this standing committee.

US Presidential Election Campaign 2012: Barack goes trawling for the campaign dollar

On the face of it Barack Obama is reduced to asking for peanut-sized contributions from the party faithful as he battles to retain the US presidency.
Barack Obama‏@BarackObama

If you're on Team Obama-Biden, pitch in $5 now:
http://OFA.BO/T36fzu #Forward2012
And hawking stickers for 5 bucks a piece to top up the war chest.

A strategy which seems to be working looking at this campaign funding breakdown over at Open Secrets.

No terminal at Straddie - Save the Spit

Queensland Premier "Thick Soup" Campbell and gung-ho developers associated with a proposed cruise ship terminal on the Gold Coast are very much out of tune with the views of the comunity.

The Save Our Spit Alliance (SOSA), a not-for profit community alliance of Gold Coasters committed to preserving the Gold Coast Spit & the Broadwater both now and for future generations, is campaigning strongly in opposition to the red-necks who are following in the foot steps of a white shoe brigade of an earlier generation. SOSA is 100% run by volunteers for thhe community. See videos about saving the spit on SOSA's Youtube channel here.

EMAIL the Premier, the local LNP MPs, Mayor Tate and Gold Coast City Councillors to let them know what you think. Here are their e addresses, which can be copied and pasted.

thepremier@premiers.qld.gov.au; southport@parliament.qld.gov.au; broadwater@parliament.qld.gov.au; surfers.paradise@parliament.qld.gov.au; mayor@goldcoast.qld.gov.au; division1@goldcoast.qld.gov.au; division2@goldcoast.qld.gov.au; division3@goldcoast.qld.gov.au; division4@goldcoast.qld.gov.au; division5@goldcoast.qld.gov.au; gbrown@goldcoast.qld.gov.au; division7@goldcoast.qld.gov.au; division8@goldcoast.qld.gov.au; division9@goldcoast.qld.gov.au; division10@goldcoast.qld.gov.au; division11@goldcoast.qld.gov.au; division12@goldcoast.qld.gov.au; division13@goldcoast.qld.gov.au; division14@goldcoast.qld.gov.au;

The main "colourful characters" in this sad and sordid tale are named below. Click on them and email them directly:

Premier Campbell Newman (LNP)

Southport MP Rob Molhoek (LNP)

Broadwater Verity Barton (LNP)

Surfers Paradise John-Paul Langbroek (LNP)

Mayor Councillor Tom Tate and Deputy Mayor Councillor Donna Gates

The other Gold Coast City Councillors are:
William Owen-Jones,
Cameron Caldwell, 
Margaret Grummitt,
Tracey Gilmore,
Dawn Crichlow OAM,
A. J. D. (Lex) Bell OAM, LLM,
Robert La Castra,
Glenn Tozer,
Paul Taylor,
Jan Grew GAICD, MFT (Bond),
Greg Betts,
Daphne McDonald
Chris Robbins.

Update:

Peter Phelps MLC retires from Twitter - sideswiped by #destroythejoint fallout and protesting vigorously

 

That notorious National Party troll Peter Phelps MLC finally has to confine himself to irritating fellow members of the NSW Upper House and, at least temporarily, retire from Twitter.

Phelps has a long history of tweets which distort reality, as can be seen here.

I doubt that may will miss his presence and even fewer notice his absence.

The Sydney Morning Herald 2 September 2012:

Then NSW Liberal MP Peter Phelps tweeted a paean of praise to Bungendore Station by calling it "small but perfectly formed. Like (The Sydney Morning Herald journalist) @ Jo Tovey".

On a normal week, this may have passed with little more than a roll of the eyes, but such was the pitch of shame men with brains had reached by this point, he was quietly convinced by his brothers to retreat from Twitter altogether. It's an oestrogen jungle out there in cyberspace, after all.

Another blogger:

"Prolific Twitterer Peter Phelps MLC has pulled his account, presumably after one outrageous Tweet too many. Phelps was reprimanded by Premier Barry O'Farrell in December for telling a Blue Mountains human rights lawyer to 'go f... yourself, commie'. He denied he was forced to stop tweeting. 'I offended someone and didn't even realise I was doing it. At that point, I realised it was time to get out.'" (All tweeted out, Sunday Telegraph, 2/9/12)

NSW Hansard 5 September 2012:

THE HON. DR PETER PHELPS TWITTER ACCOUNT

Page: 54

The Hon. Dr PETER PHELPS [7.35 p.m.]: Senator Robert Ray was famous for saying, "A lie uncorrected takes on the patina of truth." In that vein I comment on an article by Jane Caro in last Sunday's Sun-Herald in which she states, "... he was quietly convinced by his brothers to retreat from Twitter altogether". That statement is completely and utterly false. My decision to terminate my Twitter account was mine and mine alone. I am particularly aggrieved by the fact that Ms Caro made no attempt, despite the fact that my telephone number and email address are readily available, to verify that assertion. That stands in contradistinction to a real journalist such as Barclay Crawford from the Sunday Telegraph, who did contact me and I was able to put on the record the true state of affairs. It is an unfortunate situation. I use this opportunity to correct the record. I terminated my Twitter account entirely of my own volition. I look forward to the correction in next Sunday's edition of the Sun-Herald.

[Time for debate expired.]

Question—That this House do now adjourn—put and resolved in the affirmative.

Motion agreed to.

The House adjourned at 7.37 p.m. until Wednesday 5 September 2012 at 11.00 a.m.

NSWEC Local Government Elections 2012 Virtual Tally Room

The NSW Electoral Commission promises a Virtual Tally Room tonight as the intital ballot counts in the 2012 local government elections begin.

All totals for Mayor, Councillor, Referendum and Poll ballot papers will be posted progressively on election night on this website.
Check count figures will be updated progressively on the website on the days after Election day.
The final distribution of preferences for Mayor and Councillor, and the final results for Referendums and Polls, will be progressively placed on the website in the week after Election day.

A link should become visible here by 6.30pm on 8 September 2012.

ABC News online cover of the election results with Antony Green begins here at 6pm.

Echonet Daily given a tardy mark from the Australian Press Council

From the Australian Press Council concerning the NSW North Coast’s Echonet Daily:

Document Type:

Complaints

Outcome:

Adjudications

Date:

17 Jul 2012

The Australian Press Council has considered a complaint about an article headed, "'Rogue' mansion now up for sale" on the front page of the news website, echonetdaily, on 31 January 2012. The article reported that a property which had been controversially approved for redevelopment was now to be sold rather than to be occupied by the owner, Kay Johnston, who obtained the approval.
Kay Johnston complained that the article was inaccurate and unfair because the property was not for sale and was bought for her to live there, not for speculative purposes. She said that the publication made no effort to contact her or her agents before printing the material. She also complained that the publication’s response to her request for a correction and apology was inadequate, too slow and insufficiently prominent.
The publication responded that the article was based on material supplied to it by a residents group and published in good faith. It said that there should have been no adverse affect on the property owner as she was not named in the article. Its delay in publishing the clarification was attributed to checking the facts with the real estate agents whose "for sale" sign was near the property but actually related to a neighbouring house.
The Press Council has concluded that the publication did not take reasonable steps to ensure that the initial report was accurate and that the incorrect implication of speculative motivations was very harmful to the owner. Given the previous controversy, the publication should have called the owner or the agent of the property to check the claim, especially as it had been made by a residents group. Accordingly, the complaint about the article is upheld on the grounds of inaccuracy and unfairness.
The Council has also concluded that there was an undue delay of eleven days between the publication being told of the error and the correction appearing. This delay exacerbated the unfairness of the original article. When published, the brevity of the "clarification" and the title’s lack of clarity about the subject matter meant that it was an inadequate remedy, especially as it was not accompanied by an apology for the egregious error. Accordingly, the complaint about the promptness, prominence and adequacy of the response is upheld.
In light of the careless nature of the initial error, and the publication’s highly unsatisfactory response when the error was pointed out, the Council has also decided to issue a censure to the publication.

Relevant Council Standards (not required to be published):
This adjudication applies the Council’s General Principle 1: “Publications should take reasonable steps to ensure reports are accurate, fair and balanced. They should not deliberately mislead or misinform readers either by omission or commission”; and General Principle 2: "Where it is established that a serious inaccuracy has been published, a publication should promptly correct the error, giving the correction due prominence".

New recruits at Arts Northern Rivers

RANSW welcomes Arts Northern Rivers new recruits

This August saw Arts Northern Rivers recruit two new staff members. Visual artist, musician and composer Anthony Walker has been appointed to the role of Indigenous Arts Development Officer. He is a much awarded artist with vast arts experience in gallery management, curating and teaching. As a Yiman/Gurrend Gurreng man, Anthony is committed to social justice for all Indigenous Australians. Rachel Bending is the newly appointed Communications and Arts Development Officer. A designer trained at the Glasgow School of Art, Rachel also gained qualifications in financial management, event management marketing and permaculture. Ten years ago, she established her own award winning Eco textile design label. Both Anthony and Rachel will begin their positions this September.