NSW farmer challenged $2 billion overspend on poles & wires across the state and Grid Australia threatened to sue

 

The Farmer

 

Introduction

• The electricity industry is in crisis as massive over investment in the grid

has caused unsustainable price rises.

• This presentation will delineate 8 key themes that have shaped the

current crisis in the industry.

1. Price – an international and domestic perspective

2. The industries fanciful forecasts that have lead to massive overbuilding of

infrastructure for a demand that simply does not exist.

3. Gold Plating of the network.

4. A local example of flawed project justification. On a local level the problem

of self serving forecasting is magnified.

5. The industries fatally flawed regulatory framework.

6. Demand Management – a wasted opportunity.

7. The Myth of Peak Demand.

8. The Negative Feedback loop of falling demand.

Finally we will suggest some solutions to ameliorate the crisis.

[Excerpt from Submission to the Senate Enquiry on Electricity Prices, The Electricity Crisis How fanciful forecasts are stifling the Australian Economy. Author: Bruce Robertson – Deputy Chairman, The Manning Alliance]

 

Grid Australia states that External Impacts have been one of the key causes of Electricity price rises. They state:

“External impacts – the higher cost of borrowing after the GFC and the impact of high commodity prices has placed additional financial burdens on the cost of repairing and replacing essential network infrastructure; “

The government owned utilities effectively borrow at the government rate and make massive margins on the regulated return. Mr McIntyre, Chairman of Grid Australia should know this as he is also Managing Director of Transgrid the NSW Government owned Transmission provider. [Excerpt from Submission to the Senate Enquiry on Electricity Prices, Corrections to the Factual inaccuracies and Misleading and Deceptive Submission given by Grid Australia. Author: Bruce Robertson – Deputy Chairman, The Manning Alliance]

 

ABC 702 Radio James Valentine interview with Bruce Robertson:

Too much in investment in poles and wires.

Since 2008-2009 peak demand has actually been falling.

Average bill in a Country Energy NSW regional supply area has risen 154 per cent since 2005.

Government regulation of the industry is dramatically failing.

bruce-robertson-interview.mp3

 

Manning Alliance

 

1.    A STATEMENT FROM THE CHAIRMAN 15 November 2012

Dear Friends,

As you are aware Grid Australia, “the organisation which represents the owners of Australia’s $10 billion electricity transmission networks in the National Electricity Market (NEM), plus Western Australia” recently threatened to instigate litigation against Bruce Robertson for defamation, that is, comments that he made on the ...

ABC 702 program with James Valentine and for references that were made in the Manning Alliance’s submission to the Australian Senate Inquiry into Electricity Prices.

I have previously sent you copies of press clipping and all links.

Today, I am very pleased to announce that the Chairman of Grid Australia, Peter McIntyre (also the Managing Director of Transgrid), has sent an apology to Bruce Robertson wherein he has stated that there will be no legal action against Bruce.

This is wonderful news and a great relief to Bruce and the entire Robertson family and also the entire Manning Alliance Community; and it is a major win for People Power and the Freedom of Speech.

I want to advise you that, tomorrow; I shall, in my capacity as Chairman of the Manning Alliance, call on the NSW Government for an independent inquiry into this debacle. The deliberate bullying, harassment and intimidation of Bruce Robertson is unacceptable and Grid Australia and Mr McIntyre needs to be held to account. We cannot allow innocent civilians who wish to contribute to matters of national or public significance to be gagged and coerced. We live in a world dominated and controlled by mega corporations and multinational companies and this horrific persecution of Bruce Robertson is a clear example that we need to be vigilant and jealously guard our right to the freedom of speech.

I want to thank you all for your contribution, advice and support. All those letters and emails to the politicians and the media have definitely helped.

As I sit back in my comfortable chair, sip on my favourite beverage, and reflect; today has been a very good day! It was a day when might was proven not to be right, and a clear example has been set for us all that we should not be afraid to speak out, to stand up for our rights and not to tolerate nor accept mediocrity. Our lives are too short. The Manning Community has lost an entire year of our lives battling the Transgrid debacle. It is a year we will not recover!

We need to demand and expect high standards of performance from our corporations, from our governments and from all our politicians.

I have attached a copy of the story (below), which appeared online in the Sydney Morning Herald, this afternoon. It has some very interesting information. I have also attached a copy of the letter of apology from Mr McIntyre. I am reliably informed there should be a major article in the Sydney Morning Herald tomorrow morning.

Perhaps at a more convenient time we will be in a position to share with you the background to this entire fiasco, the power plays and the intrigue, but that’s a story for another day!

I want to particularly acknowledge yet again, the support from the Sydney Morning Herald, particularly from Michael West, our Federal Member, Robert Oakeshott, and the NSW MLC, Dr. John Kaye.

I also need to recognise the courage and conviction of Bruce Robertson and the steadfast support and advice that he has received from his wife Belinda and their three children Babbs, Celeste, Archie. They are truly a remarkable family.

Please celebrate this win. It is another win for our entire community! A win that will have national repercussions; that will reverberate throughout the boardrooms of Australia and through the corridors of political power.

The truth really has won out!

Kind Regards,

Peter Epov

[http://www.facebook.com/HighVoltageLinesManningAlliance]

 

The State per email from Grid Australia

 

Dear Mr Robertson,

 

I refer to the letter sent to you by Ashurst on 5 November 2012. I sincerely apologise if this correspondence caused you or your family concern in regard to pending legal action. I have instructed Ashurst that Grid Australia has no intention of taking legal action against you in regard to the matters referred to in that letter. As such, you should not consider yourself subject to any proceedings. Grid Australia is committed to constructive engagement with Government and the community about matters of energy policy. We stand by the information and the submissions made to the Senate Select Committee. In light of our obvious differences, I would appreciate the opportunity for Grid Australia to meet with you and discuss the matters raised in your submission to the Senate Enquiry. I recognise there has been a lot of passion in the debate, but I am hopeful that a more constructive engagement between us will assist in a more informed dialogue on these important issues.

Yours sincerely,

Peter McIntyre
Chairman
Grid Australia

[ http://www.smh.com.au/business/apology-letter-sent-to-bruce-robertson-20121115-29eeg.html#ixzz2CKBgpMWP]

Professor Parkinson alleges contemporary cover-up of child sexual abuse matters by the Catholic Church in Australia

 

Victorian Parliament Legislative Council

FAMILY AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

Inquiry into the handling of child abuse by religious and other organisations

Melbourne — 19 October 2012

 

Excerpts from evidence given by Professor Patrick Parkinson, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney:

 

I guess that brings me to the rift I had with the Catholic Church over these issues. When I was asked to review Towards Healing in 2009 and 2010, I came across some cases which worried me deeply with one religious order. They worried me deeply because they were cases which had all arisen since 1996, 1996 being the watershed because Towards Healing was published then, and it contains significant promises to the Australian people about how the church will respond to these things. One of the things it says is that those who have abused their power will not be given back the power that they earlier have abused. Even from what I had read — from the submissions and some documents which were given to me in the course of those submissions — I could see that there were priests who had never had the power taken away. Settlements had been made with victims, and they continued in ministry, in two cases in Samoa and in another case in Rome.

 

In the case of the man who went to Rome, in fairness, he has always denied the offences and the accuser died, but one of the issues, which I deal with at great length in my submission, is that the police wanted to interview him. At that stage Father Murdoch, who was the Provincial of the Salesians, did his best to bring that man back from Rome to face the police and asked him to face his accusers. The no. 2 leader in the worldwide Salesians, one of the largest orders in the world and one of the most powerful Church organisations in the world, said, ‘Why don’t we just move him to another province, another part of the world, where he will be out of reach of the police?’. You will see from Four Corners the letter in which Father Murdoch documents exactly that. That no. 2 man is now the Bishop of Ghent in Belgium.

 

I said, ‘This must be dealt with’. With Towards Healing the Catholic Church relied on my reputation, my independence and the work I have done to say, ‘Yes, we have got people other than Catholics who are involved in this’. A condition of that for me was that they had to deal with this. I recommended strongly that there should be a public inquiry. I recommended that the government of Victoria be invited to establish a public inquiry.

 

They were very, very anxious about that. We agreed that we would first refer those concerns to the Salesians. I wrote a five-page letter, which you are most welcome to have, in May 2009 setting out those concerns and saying, ‘My preference is for a public inquiry, but the first step is at least for the Salesians to give a response’.

 

There were lots of delays, but eventually Father Moloney, who was then the provincial of the Salesians, gave a very long response, an eight-page letter with 12 attachments, revealing all sorts of documents from his files. I said, ‘That satisfies me somewhat’, because I had been concerned that there may have been criminal offences committed by the leaders of the order, ‘but there still needs to be a public accounting for this’. Eventually we agreed that on the basis of the documents they provided I would write a report. It is now attached as an appendix to the submission.

 

The story from then is the story of a contemporary cover-up. The Salesians have been described by one of America’s leading experts as the most unrepentant and defiant order he has ever come across. Indeed on the issue of sexual abuse, I would absolutely endorse that. I would say they are not only unrepentant and defiant,

they are untruthful. The lies which were told, the cover-ups, the attempts made to suppress my report, were breathtaking. And Father Moloney, who is apparently a well-known theologian, was absolutely at the centre of that, telling untruths which were in my view completely slanderous. There was a campaign of vilification and misinformation. Take the journalist who exposed all of this in Samoa many years earlier: the rumours were spread that he had himself been convicted of sexual abuse. I have no idea what has been said about me, nor do I care. But my rift with the church on these issues was because at the end of the day they wanted to protect the Salesians and not protect children.

 

Is this ancient history? I would like to think it is largely so, and I want to say again how many people have made a real effort to cut this cancer out of the church, but I am afraid that the cover-ups go to the highest levels. At the end of the day I wrote to Archbishop Wilson, who was then the chair of the Catholic Bishops Conference, and said, ‘I’m going to go public on this unless you act’. Two months later he had not responded.

 

These are very serious issues. May I just say how we might go from here, how we can rebuild trust and give you at least a few ideas? First of all, I think there has to be a complete account of all offenders and alleged offenders against children. I think that somehow, in some way, we need to have all those names out — all the Father Fs,  all the Father Kleps, whether they are in Samoa, Rome, wherever they are, Father Klep being one of the men in Samoa…..

 

I think that there then needs to be the resignations of everybody responsible for the cover-ups. I think the church cannot recover from this crisis unless there is a clean slate and, for the people who have covered up, even if they thought they were doing the right thing at the time, getting them out of the church. I think they have to go, and some of them are still in positions of highest leadership in the church today. Then there should be independent audits of diocesan and religious institute responses in the future…..

 

Transcript of Professor Parkinson’s 2010 Professional Standards Review report.

What the Clarence Valley is telling the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Closure or Downsizing of Corrective Services NSW Facilities

 

Excerpts from submissions to the NSW Legislative Council Select Committee on the Closure or Downsizing of Corrective Services NSW Facilities.

 

Federal Electorate of Page:

 

I welcome the opportunity to condemn the New South Wales Coalition Government’s decision to downsize Grafton Gaol to a remand centre on Grafton Cup Day (July 12, 2012), axing 90 Corrective Services, Justice Health and TAFE jobs worth an estimated $10 million a year to the local economy….

The Liberal Premier of New South Wales Barry O’Farrell, his National Party Deputy Andrew Stoner and newly-elected Nationals State Member for Clarence Chris Gulaptis got everything wrong.

It was an absolute debacle -- the ideological rush to cut costs, I knew to be incorrect and was later confirmed by the revealing of the $1-billion budgetary mistake, the immediacy of it, refusing to consult with locals directly, and no plans put in place for the workers, their families, and the City of Grafton…..

I met on site at the picket, with local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, who were there protesting the jobs going and deeply worried for inmates, up to 70 per cent of them indigenous, being moved to Kempsey, Cessnock or other faraway gaols.

Despite what we know from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which recommended that inmates have regular contact with family members, there were no transition plans in place….

There are many cruel impacts caused by this callous treatment; TAFE teachers who were offered a redundancy but then told they cannot go into teaching elsewhere for 12 months under some State Government rules.

These rules could have been relaxed for them….

In the wash-up, my understanding is that 90 local jobs were lost and only five Corrective Services staff ended up transferring to Cessnock Gaol, where a new wing reportedly has remained vacant due to a lack of staff.

 

Westlawn Finance:

 

How will the closure or downsizing of Grafton Gaol affect local business and the

local economy of Grafton?

If we need to explain to the people we are submitting this to, we are all wasting our time.

 

Clarence Valley Council:

 

The terms of reference to the Committee highlight many of the questions Clarence Valley Council has also been asking. How could one of the largest, highest paying employers be taken away from our community without a full economic, social and

financial analysis, a Rural Impact Statement and without consultation?

Obviously the community as a whole agrees, given the extent of community outrage, and the week long blockade of the jail which is well documented in the media.

The loss of over 100 jobs has a huge impact in a regional area of high socio-economic disadvantage (the Clarence Valley ranks on the Relative Socio-Economic Disadvantage index near the bottom at 934 out of 2,000, compared to Sydney which

has indexes well over 1 ,000) and an average wage income only two thirds of the state average input/output modelling conducted by Council shows for every 1 person employed directly by Corrective Services in Grafton, another job was created

indirectly. Therefore the loss of 100 employees has a result of losing 200 jobs from the Clarence Valley economy….

In summary, the downsizing of the Grafton Correctional Centre had no consultation, no account of socio-economic impacts to an already disadvantaged community, no sympathy to impacts on corrective centre staff who in general will be forced to leave

Grafton for employment, and definitely no account of the important role this centre had for families of prisoners, who obviously have little or no financial ability to move with their loved ones.

 

Former Gaol Employee:

 

It could be, and has been argued, by this State Government, that Grafton Gaol has not ‘closed’ and therefore there have been no broken promises. However the reality is that Grafton Gaol no longer exists. It has been effectively closed. What has taken its place is a transient centre that houses approximately 80% less offenders, offering little more than a reception and processing function.

There are no visits, no buy-ups, no education, drug and alcohol counselling, psychology and mental health services, no industries where offenders can learn valuable work skills. The entire minimum security area has been ‘mothballed’ and locked down. The oldest wing has been emptied. All industry areas and education areas, classrooms and group rooms are abandoned. The administration block has also been closed.

Grafton Gaol is a shell of what it was. Emptied buildings, abandoned office equipment, idled resources, silent corridors and overgrown gardens. Only memories now fill the many voids.

 

Grafton & Lower Clarence Country Labor:

 

When Premier Barry O’Farrell visited Grafton on Jacaranda Thursday (November 3, 2011) in support of candidate Chris Gulaptis, he dismissed as ‘lies’ the PSA’s claims that Grafton Gaol had been slated to close by the Government.

“I can also give you an iron-clad guarantee that Grafton Gaol is not closing,” the Premier told The Daily Examiner.

Regardless of this assurance, when the axe came down seven months later, prison officers said it was inmates, not management, who first revealed they would be losing their jobs.

So much for consultation….

Tellingly, Nationals candidate for Clarence Chris Gulaptis declined to meet with any

of these workers to listen to their concerns about job security.

 

Corrective Services NSW, Retired Commissioned Officers Association:

 

I know that at the Grafton Correctional Centre that some of the Correctional Officers who lost their employment with the recent changes there, had transferred from Berrima and Parramatta Correctional Centres. These very same people had sold their homes after the closure of the Berrima and Parramatta Correctional Centres and moved their families to Grafton - only to lose their jobs at Grafton Correctional Centre a short time later. This is something that citizens in Australia in 2012 should not have to put up with. But what can most people do? Not much.

Because once the Government is moving in a certain direction, the impacts of policies such as prison closures on the lives of workers and their families appears to be of little consequence.

Doing something nice for your daughter

 

In an age where many male politicians are rampantly misogynist or homophobic and some religious male authority figures are unrepentant, predatory paedophiles, it is nice to be reminded that men can also be ordinary loving fathers to their children.

 

See Flip The Pronouns to learn how one dad turned his young daughter into a hero who rescued her little brother.

Tony Abbott gets laughed off the political stage

 

Australian Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott has finally become a genuine political joke.
 

Brisbane Times 15 November 2012:
 

At a dinner on Saturday, Mr Abbott reportedly described Mr Wyatt, who won the Perth seat of Hasluck at the 2010 election, as a good bloke but ''not a man of culture''.

Mr Wyatt, whose mother Mona was a member of the stolen generation, was unimpressed and he and Mr Abbott had words over the phone on Monday night.

But on Tuesday, Mr Abbott exacerbated tensions again with his push to poach Ms Anderson.

''I think it would be terrific if, as well as having an urban Aboriginal in our Parliament, we had an Aboriginal person from central Australia, an authentic representative of the ancient cultures of central Australia in the Parliament,'' he said.

 

This caused quite a few Australians to laugh at him.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Dog On the Moon at Crikey

@Utopiana and and @Ebswearspink appear to have kicked off a Twitter hashtag #itriedtobeauthenticbut.

@Utopiana is Celeste Liddle from Melbourne who describes herself as a black feminist.

@Ebswearspink is believed to be a young indigenous lawyer who came from the Byron Bay area.

 

Here is a sample:

 

Ebs ‏@Ebswearspink

#itriedtobeauthenticbut when someone asked me who my mob was I promptly denied having links to Italian gangsters

 

Celeste Liddle ‏@Utopiana

#Itriedtobeauthenticbut... someone yelled "Which way?" and I pulled out a GPS

 Retweeted by Ebs

 

Anita Heiss ‏@AnitaHeiss

#itriedtobeauthenticbut but I've thrown more parties than boomerangs!

 Retweeted by Ebs

Georgia MacGuire ‏@blackgin

#Itriedtobeauthenticbut my certificate of Aboriginality doesn't have Authentic Indigenous artefact written on it.

 Retweeted by Ebs

 

Ryan Griffen ‏@Ryan_Griffen

#itriedtobeauthenticbut a cab driver said I looked Italian and my English was too good.

 Retweeted by Ebs

 

Luke Pearson ‏@LukeLPearson

#Itriedtobeauthenticbut every year at Corroboree I just end up line-dancing by myself in a corner somewhere singing "Achy-Breaky heart"...

 Retweeted 72 times 

Photobombed by an Antarctic seal

Mission of Mermaids ‏@MissionMermaids

Even our sea creatures have a sense of humorhttp://fb.me/LHAoxsIV 

 

Black-necked Stalkers Twitchathon Report (part 1)

Well Twitchathon time is never dull and this year was no different.  One scratching a few days before the race as our scribe, Annette Harrison, became ill and a bushfire in the Gibraltar Range were the only apparent negative issues.  Everything else looked good.  There were birds everywhere and the weather was predicted to be cool, a relief from the sometimes oppressive dry heat typical of Sunday afternoons on Twitch weekends.  The team comprised Russell Jago, Gary Eggins and myself.  Gary took over the role as scribe but was a participating scribe, meaning he could call birds as well.  We only needed two members to call each species.  We had agreed to stay completely within the Clarence Valley this year which can be limiting.  Three-thirty saw us standing at a wetland near Grafton watching a Black-fronted Dotterel and two Comb-crested Jacanas.  Ten minutes before start time a male White-winged Triller lobbed into a flowering Silky Oak.  Russell was allocated to keep it in sight.  White-winged Trillers have been absent from the valley for a couple of years so we wanted this one on our list.  Four o’clock arrived and we called Black-fronted Dotterel and Comb-crested Jacana but the Triller had completely vanished.  By the time we left this wetland eighteen minutes later we had notched up 31 species.  A good start.  Wedge-tailed Eagle was seen next followed by Plumed Whistling-duck and Musk Lorikeet.  The Musk Lorikeet was a real bonus as they had been absent from the Clarence Valley for many months.  They had only returned the week before the Twitch.  At Eatonsville we added 6 species including Grey-crowned Babbler then back to the Gwydir Highway notching up Rainbow Bee-eater and Peaceful Dove on the way.   Between Eatonsville and the Gibraltar Range we added 23 species including Spangled Drongo, Little Lorikeet and Channel-billed Cuckoo.  Gibraltar Range was interesting with a shroud of smoke but surprisingly we heard Paradise Riflebird and Wompoo Fruit-Dove in an area that had been back burnt.  The back burn was in a rather moist area and was relatively cool and low so the damage to vegetation was limited.  A stop to confirm Brown Cuckoo-Dove also produced Green Catbird, Satin Bowerbird and White-headed Pigeon and others.  A toilet stop at a lookout added Bassian Thrush as two were at the entrance to the toilet block.   Our regular Rufous Scrub-bird did not disappoint and a Superb Lyrebird was foraging on the roadside nearby.  The Noisy Pitta also called on cue and after a few nervous minutes of waiting the two Glossy Black-Cockatoos turned up at their usual location.   We arrived at the Emu-wren site but the sun was setting and the cool weather meant that most birds had shut down for the night.  Despite this we ticked off Southern Emu-wren, Variegated Fairy-wren and New Holland Honeyeater.  As darkness fell we heard Australian Logrunner and shortly after a Southern Boobook was calling.  Nocturnal species are difficult to get but we were happy with Southern Boobook, Eastern Barn Owl, White-throated Nightjar, Australian Owlet-nightjar, Masked Owl, Bush Stone-curlew and Tawny Frogmouth as well as Eastern Koel and Latham’s Snipe.  By the time we went to bed at 1.30 am we had recorded 117 species.  To be continued.

Greg Clancy

Head Stalker

Black-necked Stalkers Twitchathon Team 

* GuestSpeak is a feature of North Coast Voices allowing Northern Rivers residents to make satirical or serious comment on issues that concern them. Posts of 250-300 words or less can be submitted to ncvguestspeak AT gmail.com.au for consideration.