Aunty ABC telling NSW something it's known for yonks - Telstra's copper wire is stuffed!

This was Aunty on the 23rd June 2013:

“Unions have told the ABC that Telstra's copper network is in a state of disrepair, with workers at the coalface of the infrastructure using plastic bags to protect cables from water.

The telecommunications pits have been nicknamed 'bag-dad' by contractors because of the plastic bags, that are in theory supposed to keep the water out.

The copper network is a crucial element of the Opposition's alternative broadband plan.”

It’s London to a brick that a quick phone survey across NSW regional areas would show that dodgy internet connections during heavy rainfall are par for the course.

On the North Coast the air would be blue in response because even landlines begin to get temperamental in the wet.

Abbott’s cut price version of the NBN will have us all paying higher prices for zero improvement to our internet connections.

Home and business electricity price increases begin to slow in 2013

Review of Regulated Retail Prices for Electricity (IPART Final Report June 2013)

From 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2016:

The average regulated price increases in 2013/14 are substantially lower than

those in recent years. This is due to:

 Much lower changes to network costs in this year, following 4 years of large

network price increases. Network costs (excluding the climate change fund

levy) in 2013/14 will decrease in real terms in the Ausgrid3 and Endeavour

Energy area, and decrease in nominal terms in the Essential Energy area.4 We

expect that revised policy and governance arrangements will result in

moderate network cost changes over the medium term.

 Relatively stable green scheme costs, following the one-off effect of the

introduction of the carbon pricing mechanism last year. Costs associated with

the carbon pricing mechanism and the Renewable Energy Target are broadly

stable in this year. We expect the costs associated with the small-scale scheme

under the Renewable Energy Target will fall over the coming years as the

impact of generous solar subsidies in the past declines. However, the costs

associated with the large-scale renewable generation under the Renewable

Energy Target are likely to continue to rise.

As Figure 1.1 shows, the main drivers of the average price changes for 2013/14

are higher retail costs (including the costs of customer service5 and the costs of

acquiring and retaining customers in the competitive market) and lower

generation costs. However, this partly reflects a reallocation of costs from the

generation to the retail cost categories.

The result of these changes in costs will add around 1.7% to average prices across NSW.

3 EnergyAustralia is the Standard Retailer in the Ausgrid network supply area.

4 Including the climate change fund levy, the Ausgrid and Endeavour Energy network charges will increase in nominal terms by 2.5% and 0.86% respectively, and the Essential Energy network charges will fall by 2.95%.

5 For example, this includes the costs of billing and handling customer inquiries........

While on the campaign trail Abbott brazenly promises to reinvent the wheel

Australian Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott campaigning in the Shoalhaven on 13 June 2013:

“Well, in the case of the Federal Government we are going to have this organisation, Infrastructure Australia, which will do its best to rationally and as scientifically as you can look at various infrastructure projects and rank the best on public cost benefit - then all levels of governments will be able to fund what they choose to be the one that makes most sense.”

The problem for Mr. Abbott is that Infrastructure Australia is already an established federal government entity:

Media Release

AA004/2008

21 January 2008

Joint release with:

The Hon Kevin Rudd MP

Prime Minister

Federal Cabinet today formally approved the establishment of Infrastructure Australia, a key driver in the Rudd Government's plan to fight inflation.

Infrastructure Australia will help fight inflation by boosting the economy's productive capacity, unlocking infrastructure bottlenecks like clogged ports and congested roads.

Infrastructure Australia represents a dramatic shift in national economic policy, bringing national leadership to infrastructure development for the first time since Federation.

Legislation establishing Infrastructure Australia will be introduced during the first session of the new Parliament.

The Rudd Government will develop a strategic blueprint for Australia's infrastructure needs and ensure future projects are determined by economic, social, and environmental needs - not short-term political interests.

Infrastructure Australia will be a statutory advisory council with twelve members drawn from industry, government and local government. This will include five from the private sector, one of whom will be the chair. Infrastructure Australia will:

  ·   Conduct audits to determine the adequacy, capacity and condition of nationally significant infrastructure, including transport, water, communications and energy.

  ·  Develop an Infrastructure Priority List to guide billions of dollars of public and private investment.

  · Provide advice to governments, investors and owners of infrastructure on regulatory reforms that can improve the utilisation of our infrastructure networks.

Infrastructure Australia's immediate task will be to audit the nation's infrastructure shortfalls and produce an Infrastructure Priority List to guide billions of dollars of public and private investment.

The first Infrastructure Priority List will be completed within 12 months. In developing the List, Infrastructure Australia will assess projects in terms of specific goals, such as:

  · Meeting water and energy needs;

  · Saving time for commuters battling traffic congestion in our major cities

  · Efficiently moving freight from regional areas to our ports.

  · Meeting the challenge of climate change

Infrastructure Australia will also review the extent to which governments can better facilitate infrastructure investment, including through public-private partnerships as well as better planning and approval processes.

The task ahead for Infrastructure Australia is considerable.

The OECD ranks Australia 20^th out 25 countries when it comes to investment in public infrastructure as a proportion of national income.

For 11 years the Howard-Costello Government failed to act on Australia's infrastructure needs.

The Rudd Government is committed to investing in Australia's future and addressing our nation's long-term infrastructure bottlenecks.

Media Contacts

  o   Albanese's Office - 02 6277 7744

The Sydney Morning Herald does right with its letters policy in the lead-up to the 14 September 2013 Federal Election

And with politics becoming so intense, we ask anyone who is a member of a political party to declare their affiliations in their letters. It is only fair to readers. Any offenders will be sin binned until after the election, and be warned: we are tougher than those State of Origin refs.

Julie Lewis Letters co-editor [22 June 2013]

Hopefully NSW North Coast newspapers will decide to implement that same policy for the duration.

At the moment voters in at least one Northern Rivers electorate are in the ridiculous position of reading a politically motivated letter by a very active member of a political party (and former local government election candidate) being published under this legend:

Abbott and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

Paul Bongiorno Wikipedia biography.

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse website.

Pacific Highway federal funding fast tracked

R&MS Pacific Highway Status of Dual Carriageway map current January 2013

Click on images to enlarge

The Federal Labor Government has approved a further $282.3 million to complete the necessary planning and pre-construction activities along the 155 kilometre Woolgoolga to Ballina section of the Pacific Highway.

Federal Infrastructure and Transport Minister Anthony Albanese said the package of preparatory works had been fast-tracked with the aim of getting construction workers and their equipment onsite upgrading this stretch of highway as soon as possible. [Albanese & Saffin media release,12 June 2013]

Robert Borsak and his friends want to slaughter this little brown duck and Barry O'Farrell said, Sure, go ahead!

Pink-eared Duck

Malacorhynchus membranaceus
Anatidae

approx. 38-40 cm in length

 carnivorous & mostly consumes aquatic invertebrates, primarily chironomid larvae

prefers to breed on receding floodwaters and forage on wetland margins

[Floodplain Wetland Biota in the Murray-Darling Basin, 2011]

 

Will the NSW Premier admit the Government got it wrong?  Will he remove the Pink-eared Duck from the Shooters and Fishers kill list?  asks the Clarence Valley Conservation Coalition on 10 June 2013.

 

Female Pink-eared Duck with ducklings

 

Not content with the O'Farrell Government opening up National Parks in New South Wales to hunters and passing the Game and Feral Animal Control Further Amendment Act 2012 to allow the killing of 14 native birds species on private land, Robert Borsack MLC now appears to have green lighting the re-introduction into the Australian community of semi-automatic weapons on his wish list.