Twitterverse in 2013: Kath doesn't heart Mark the MP

Kath Crosby on her blog Begin Rant:

Mark Coulton had no right what so ever to tell me to go call my father if I didn’t like that the entire executive of the Warialda Branch of the National Party were members of his family. Was I stirring by alerting the Inverell Times to the situation? Yes, but I wasn’t the idiot who tweeted it in the first place – that was his daughter – and I wasn’t the idiot who didn’t make sure there was some diversity on the executive – that would be him.

Desperate to stem the downward trend to its share value Metgasco sneaks into the media 2,000km away from its coal seam gas tenements

 

Coal seam gas company Metgasco Limited on 4 April 2013 trying to talk itself up on Page 51 of The Advertiser in Adelaide, approximately 2,000km away from its NSW exploration tenements:

 

COAL seam gas miner Metgasco says it has been asked to consider gas projects outside New South Wales after new government regulations led to it suspending its operations in the state.

A day after CSG player Dart Energy announced it would suspend its NSW operations and sack 70 per cent of its staff, Metgasco chief executive Peter Henderson said his company is receiving invitations to invest in projects in other parts of Australia and overseas.

 

This company’s 5.5 cent share price at close of Australian Stock Exchange trading on 5 April 2013 does not support Henderson’s hype:

Remember when the Australian coal seam gas industry admitted it would contaminate aquifers?

The Sydney Morning Herald 3 August 2011:

THE coal seam gas industry has conceded that extraction will inevitably contaminate aquifers.

The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association told a fiery public meeting in Sydney that good management could minimise the risks of water contamination, but never eliminate them.

''Drilling will, to varying degrees, impact on adjoining aquifers,'' said the spokesman, Ross Dunn. ''The extent of impact and whether the impact can be managed is the question.''

The face of a future discerning voter?

wondog1 BillB

A young girl watching Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott

Champagne corks are popping all over the Clarence Valley today!

The Daily Examiner 5 April 2013:
 
Rob Donges will end 16 years of local government work before June 30....
 
assets manager George Kriflick...has tendered his resignation.....

Cause and effect Abbott-style?

CAUSE?

Democracy4Sale:

Donations to the state branch of the Liberal Party by tobacco companies totalled $588,796 between 2007-2010.

Donations to the Federal Liberal Party by tobacco companies totalled $959,140 between 1998-2008.

EFFECT?

The former federal health minister and Federal Liberal Party Member for Warringah (NSW) Tony Abbott in June 2009:

One cigarette I am told does you damage but it does you so little damage. It is only when you start smoking a lot of cigarettes for a long time that it starts doing very serious damage. So being hard hearted to your kids, not encouraging them to be their best, I think are probably much more serious parental crimes and so I personally would not get hung up on something, in my view, as trivial as smoking while the kids are in the car.

Stranger Than Fiction: In 2012 the Gillard Government tried to protect Tony Abbott's back by amending legislation

 

Last year the Gillard Government quietly attempted to rectify a blunder on the part of the Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott stemming from his time as federal health minister.

 

However, the Australian courts remain unimpressed and Abbott’s famed lack of attention to the finer points of law and legislative detail may yet see the Commonwealth held liable.
 
Lee v Napier [2013] FCA 236 (20 March 2013):

 

Conclusion
I therefore conclude (subject to the separate question of whether the amending legislation survives the Constitutional challenge so as to cure the problem) that the purported appointments on 24 January 2005 of Dr Robyn Napier, Dr Rodney McMahon and Dr Huy An to be Panel members were invalid because there had been a failure to consult the AMA about those appointments within the meaning of s 84(3) of the Act. The consultation was still under way when the appointments were made. The Minister pre-empted the outcome. It follows that the purported appointment on 27 March 2006 of Dr Robyn Napier as a Deputy Director of Professional Services Review was also invalid because Dr Napier was not at that time a Panel member. I will list the second separate question for directions on Monday 25 March 2013. I reserve the question of costs.

Brisbane Times 2 April 2013:

 

Dozens of doctors penalised for allegedly rorting Medicare may seek compensation following a Federal Court ruling that the appointments of certain members of the disciplinary panel they faced were invalid.

Doctors suspended between 2005 and 2010 on the advice of the general practitioner members of the Professional Services Review are affected.

Judge Anna Katzmann ruled that these GP members had not been validly appointed because the then health minister Tony Abbott had not consulted the Australian Medical Association before appointing them……

Last year the federal government enacted legislation that retrospectively validated the appointments to the committee, but Dr Lee plans to challenge the validity of that legislation.

If successful, his action would open the floodgates to claims by doctors dealt with by the committee - about 50 a year.