Dowell, George and Saffin call for Telstra to invest in digital infrastructure for Lismore

Lismore Mayor Cr Jenny Dowell, Federal Member for Page Janelle Saffin and State Member for Lismore Thomas George with copies of the community petition outside Telstra’s Goonellabah Call Centre

Bipartisan call for Telstra to invest in digital infrastructure for Lismore

PAGE MP Janelle Saffin, Lismore MP Thomas George and Lismore Mayor Cr Jenny Dowell have called on Telstra to make a $3.4-million investment in digital infrastructure to compensate for closing its Goonellabah Call Centre later next month.

In a bipartisan front last Friday, the local politicians met with Telstra executives Peter Jamieson and Sue Passmore at the call centre to put forward a package of proposed initiatives and to hand over a community petition, signed by almost 6000 local residents, condemning the imminent retrenchment of 116 staff.

“First and foremost, our concerns remain very much with the affected staff and their families, and we were able to meet with staff to check on their welfare and to see whether they needed further assistance with redundancy, transfer or searching for alternative employment,” the politicians said in a joint statement.

“The call centre has been operating for 20 years and the economic impact of its closure is the direct loss of 116 local jobs, amounting to $3.4 million in salaries annually, and a flow-on impact to a further 290 local people’s jobs and incomes, amounting to about $11.9 million annually,” they said.

“Our proposal requests that Telstra CEO David Thodey and his corporation invest an additional year’s worth of salaries ($3.4 million) in a partnership with Lismore City Council to retrain affected workers, build new digital infrastructure to double or better broadband access speeds, and improve local businesses use of broadband.

“We are also asking Telstra to leave the call centre’s internal infrastructure intact to reduce any start-up costs should Lismore Council be able to attract another business to the purpose-built location.”

Ms Saffin, Mr George and Cr Dowell pointed to a recent council-funded study by the Digital Economy Group which found that the Gold Coast had far higher ratios of fixed and mobile broadband infrastructure than Lismore per head of population and by land area.

“As a regional area, we are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters – major floods, storms and bushfires -- relying on critical infrastructure to co-ordinate emergency services responses and keep people in contact during times of crisis,” they said.

“With so few towers in Lismore per head of population, the existing towers become congested easily and this is a matter of public safety and concern. We need to build community resilience wherever we can.”

Mr Thodey and his management team have been given two weeks (by Friday, October 5) to respond as to whether they will support the Lismore community with a digital infrastructure investment package.

Monday, September 24, 2012. Media Contact: Peter Ellem 0437 303 875.

Lismore City Council Digital Infrastructure Assessment Report - September 2012

What did Nationals candidate Kevin Hogan do?

This announcement was published online in The Daily Telegraph on the morning of 14 September 2012:

TONY Abbott has vowed to take $2 billion earmarked by the Gillard government for Sydney's doomed Epping to Parramatta rail project and use it to fund the completion of the Pacific Highway. 

By breakfast on the 15 September a number of other media outlets ran with this same story, coupling Nationals Leader Warren Truss' name with that of Liberal Leader Abbott.

There was a rather odd alternative view to the two Coalition leaders' public statements, in that the NSW Legislative Assembly Hansard on 18 September 2012 records Nationals MP Chris Gulaptis praising a Nationals candidate at the next federal election, Kevin Hogan:

The Nationals candidate, paid his own way to Canberra to meet with the Federal Nationals to convince them to prioritise the funding for the Pacific Highway duplication. That is the sort of commitment you want from a local member.

Gulaptis further defined this supposed altruism by telling the Coastal Views (21 September) that Hogan and other candidates had flown to Canberra the week before at their own expense in order to convince the Federal Nationals of the need for a new funding arrangement.

If this was indeed the case, then the absence of any mention of Kevin Hogan and friends during Nationals Leader Warren Truss’ previously prepared 15 September keynote speech to the Nationals Federal Conference in Canberra was noticeable.

As late as 20 September Truss was still not publicly crediting Hogan with any role concerning the promised Pacific Highway funding, either to the party faithful or APN readers.

Indeed, the last time I can recall Warren Truss personally associating Hogan's name with a specific road funding announcement was during Hogan's failed attempt to gain Page during the 2010 federal election - and that $10 million election promise concerned Bangalow Road.

The official silence concerning Hogan's supposed intervention was hardly surprising to those living outside of the forced hothouse of National Party politics; given the party conference was probably the main reason Hogan was in Canberra that week as it commenced on the Thursday- Friday.

After all he was a delegate to this conference at which no specific resolutions regarding Pacific Highway funding were made.

As for any sighting of this particular Nationals candidate in the corridors of power? Well, some of the conference program was held in the Nationals Party Room and various committee rooms at Parliament House.

When one looks at the timeline, the assertion that Hogan saved the day falls somewhat short  and exposes Chris Gulaptis' statement to the NSW Parliament as a blatant attempt to gild the lily to such a degree that he might be suspected by the uncharitable of deliberately misleading the Legislative Assembly. 

Now Mr. Gulaptis may think it acceptable to collude in political fibs told to voters in his electorate when it comes to the matter of jobs to replace those lost when he and his colleagues closed Grafton Gaol. However, it may be very unwise of him to treat the NSW Parliament in the same contemptuous manner - it is a political animal known to have very sharp teeth.

Is this the Stoner-George-Page-Gulaptis foot in the door to open all NSW North Coast national parks to hunters?

ABC News 19 September 2012:

The future of state government-owned land at Grafton is about to come under scrutiny, at a hearing on October 5.

An Upper House inquiry into public land management includes state forest and national parks is underway, and will hear local concerns next month.

Clarence MP Chris Gulaptis said one of the issues under consideration is feral animal management.

He said public comment is being sought on topics including fire hazards, public access and land acquisition.

How not to conduct yourself as a newly elected shire councillor with mayoral ambitions

Opinion article by The Daily Examiner Editor, Jenna Cairney, 22 September 2012:

Divided council will fail

THERE are some interesting rumblings coming from council quarters and I'd love to be a fly on the wall at this weekend's induction training weekend, which new councillor Andrew Baker this week publicly said he wouldn't attend because it was at a private resort.
I hate to be a fence-sitter but I am trying to reserve judgment on the issue. I'm sure Mr Baker won't mind me referring to him as a rogue councillor.
On one hand, I admire someone who challenges, questions and defies. But I tend to agree with letter writer Greg Clancy today when he says a successful council must work as a team.
The truth is, regardless of whether his cause is noble or not, Mr Baker needs to get the other councillors to vote with him.
Word is, council is planning to hire a media officer in coming months, which should make life interesting for us.
Speaking of media officers, I think if councillor candidate Jane Beeby has any intention of running again in four years, she may be wise to hire one (see Thumbs Up Thumbs Down).
Joke or no joke, publicly bagging Grafton on Facebook made me very defensive and someone who sees us as "fat, sick and nearly dead" is not someone I want representing us on council.
As we have all learned in recent months, the only way for the Valley to survive and prosper is to stick together and take a bit of pride in ourselves and what we can achieve.
Here at The Daily Examiner it's become a mantra. Don't miss Monday's paper for a great story by Kate Matthews about what can be achieved when we take a united stand.

The politically pugnacious property developer and recently elected Cr. Andrew Baker has apparently decided who his enemies are, even before his first Clarence Valley Council ordinary monthly meeting, if this Letter to the Editor in The Daily Examiner on 24 September 2012 is any indication:

Response to editorial

HELLO Jenna,
What an interesting page 14 you have in your paper of Saturday 22nd September last.
Are you suggesting I should join "the team" in the way you joined the $8000 State Government-sponsored weekend away in Sydney recently? That $8000 has sure prevented any more bites at that hand.
Your page does many things to draw attention to opinions of me and a couple of failed candidates.
You give failed candidate Clancy free reign to show his true self in his presumption to lecture me on how I should conduct myself in public life. Now that is news when the failure seeks to teach the successful. With your encouragement, that's really precious!
Perhaps most disgraceful of all is your use of a prominent article where you seemingly advise all councillors to now think as one mind. You just don't say which one mind we should use? Or did you mean the mind of Guru Greg? In giving your advice you just repeat the worthless advice of failed candidate Clancy - yet you completely ignore the hopes expressed on the same page by the highly-respected, long-time community leader Des Plunkett.
The following facts are available to all of us:
Of the 28,647 formal first preference votes, 11,899 voters (41.5%) did not want any previous councillors returned.
Five of the previous six councillors received a combined total of just 7,515 (26.23%) of the vote.
3,075 voters (10.73%) gave their vote to me (more than 40% of the combined votes of those 5).
1,275 (4.45%) voted for Greg Clancy. He was not elected.
You might further note Clancy admitted to a comprehensive election campaign.
I had no paid advertising, no leaflets, no posters, flyers, letterbox drops, or polling place meet and greet. I did no door knocking or anything else really. I started independent, finished independent-and-alone, and will remain so. I am non-factional, unaligned and am not beholden to anyone.
So you publish the diatribe of a failed candidate telling me where I have gone wrong. Well, Greg now has four years to cry into his glass of organic vinegar.
Perhaps before you next repeat the advice of failed candidate Clancy on how others should conduct themselves in public life, you might avoid the appearance you too have sucked on that glass of vinegar. It just seems your eyes have misted over to the truth of the election outcome.
I accept you have the editorial benefit of giving a malicious spray whenever you feel so moved. Can I suggest you avoid doing it directly into the wind?
Please be clear. I did not ever offer to climb on board the council bus to nowhere. The bus I have witnessed for four years. I would prefer to walk by myself to somewhere than have a jolly time riding to nowhere, thanks.
And please, please, never think I will be encouraged onto the bus by a weekend of indulgence at ratepayers', or taxpayers' expense. MY soul ain't for sale.
I certainly do understand the team mentality thing that some naive people hold up as the answer to every institutional prayer.
This is still apparently the forlorn hope of a team that has trained hard for four years to perfect mediocrity. Of course they will say "let's try it for one more year to see if, by some miracle, a different result occurs". I don't subscribe to the theory that repeating one year of mediocre performance three more times will produce anything better than a wasted four years.
In the meantime, the 73% of voters that didn't want ANY of the five incumbent councillors will be left to wonder how your recycling of advice from a failed candidate can help this Clarence Valley? Please tell them.
Now to the good news.
Your announcement that council has decided to employ a media officer creates another low point in council decision making. This major policy-decision-by-media-release, before all councillors have even heard about it, let alone agreed to it, is a monumental insult to those councillors who thought they would receive some respect when it came to decision making. I didn't naively expect that respect, by the way.
Maybe all our decisions will be made for us by media release?
Of course, and it's clearly too late now, had I been asked if I agreed to this new policy of having a media officer employed in a new position, I would have suggested to my colleagues that we try truth-in-government to see how that feels. And it would have saved the money. Looks like I won't get that opportunity?
Please feel free to encourage my views anytime you like.

Andrew Baker

Clarence Valley councillor

Editor's note: In reference to the trip to Sydney for the Country Expo, I (Jenna Cairney) drove to Sydney to help promote the Valley in my own time. The fuel and my accommodation was paid for by The Daily Examiner.

On the basis of the Editor’s note alone this round goes to The Daily Examiner in the face of Baker’s needless penned aggression.

One has to suspect that Cr. Baker may be trying to cow the local media into not reporting any further on his financial difficulties and the forthcoming fire sale by appointed receivers of ten of his companies'  properties.

Want to tell Chris Gulaptis MP how strongly you feel about keeping coal seam gas exploration & mining out of the Page electorate?

Then gather outside his electoral office at 10.30-11am 2 pm tomorrow Tuesday 25 September 2012, when likeminded residents will be holding a peaceful protest at 11 Prince Street, Grafton, NSW. Opposite Clarence Valley Council’s main building.

Oops! Uncle Joe spoke too soon

Australian Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey on the 19^th September 2012 at 2.17pm, presumably waving a report he hadn't read and relying on something he watched on the tube or heard on the radio as he chomped his morning cornflakes:

“I seek to table the report of S&P that says Australia is heading for a $20 billion deficit this year,“

ABC News on 20^th September at 6.44am:

“Global ratings agency Standard and Poor's has moved to correct an earlier statement it made about the Federal Government's prospects of returning to surplus.

An S&P analyst originally told the ABC the agency was predicting a budget deficit of up to $25 billion this year.

But S&P now says the analyst was referring to old figures from the last financial year.

It says the Federal Government remains on track to deliver the predicted modest surplus in 2012-13.

The agency says given the current forecasts the surplus is likely to be about $1 billion.”

26th Annual Australian National Goanna Pulling Championships, Wooli NSW, September 30 2012



The 26th annual Australian National Goanna Pulling Championships will start at 9am on Sunday September 30 at the Wooli Sports Ground.

Competition takes place on Goanna Mountain where men and women compete for the honor of Australian Champion in their respective categories. Winners receive the Yearly Championship belt and a cash prize and the Australian "Open" Champion has his/her name engraved on the perpetual shield.

Join in the fun with categories for every age and big prizemoney up for grabs. There will also be age and novelty races for all to participate in. Watch the Wood Choppers skill and expertise, and our four legged friends in the Grafton Dog Obedience Club demonstrations. Enjoy the BBQ food and drinks or have a refreshing ale at the beer tent. Whip Cracking demonstrations will also return. There will be something to entertain all ages, from Old McDonald's Farm and amusement rides for the children, to a huge variety of market stalls for the bargain hunters.

This is sure to be an event not to be missed. See you there!

For more information go to: http://www.goannapulling.com.au/main.html