George Brandis talks the talk on unfettered free speech but has not always walked the walk

NOW: Australian Attorney-General Senator George Brandis trying to defend the indefensible changes proposed to the Racial Discrimination Act.

Spiked online 17 April 2014:

Brandis says he’s been a fan of free speech for ages. He reminds me that in his maiden speech to the Australian Senate, given 14 years ago when he was first elected as senator for Queensland, he let everyone know that ‘one of my most fundamental objectives would be to protect freedom of thought and expression’. He tells me he has long been agitated by ‘the cultural tyranny of political correctness’.

But there were two recent, specific things that made him realise just what a mortal threat freedom of speech faces in the modern era and that he would have to dust down his Mill, reread his Voltaire, and up the ante in his war of words against, as he puts it, the transformation of the state into ‘the arbiter of what might be thought’. The first thing was the climate-change debate; and the second is what is known down here as The Andrew Bolt Case.

THEN: Parliamentary Representative on the Council of the National Library of Australia Senator George Brandis wanting to ban a book.

Courier Mail 24 October 2006:

A federal Government senator is demanding the withdrawal of a school library book which paints his political hero and Australia's longest-serving prime minister as a tyrant.

Sir Robert Menzies is listed alongside the likes of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, Cambodian ruler Pol Pot and the deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the children's reference book 100 Greatest Tyrants, which is used by students at a Mount Isa high school.

Senator George Brandis has slammed the book, by British author Andrew Langley, describing it as offensive and inappropriate for history studies in any Australian school….

Last days to do the #MyBroadbandvReality Super Sized SURVEY

Go to http://yathink.com.au/article-display/mybroadbandvreality-super-sized-survey,117 and fill in this survey on your broadband experience before the end of April.

Survey results are bound to land on desks in Canberra.

Ladieez, ladieez, where arz ewe?

No matter how hard he tries, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott can never conceal his inability to relate to one half of the nation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-hB_h2zDgk&feature=share&list=UUgcea4FJVYIfNA8ovd9Nydw&index=2

Category 4 social movement opposing unconventional gas mining in the NSW Northern Rivers region

http://youtu.be/xtuQL4ZBWe0

*********************Anzac Day 2014*********************

1st Battalion troops at Lone Pine, Gelibolu,
8 August 1915

Lone Pine Cemetery,

Gelibolu, Turkey, 1920

Horace Thomas Dalton, 
of Cleveland, Queensland,

Father Thomas Dalton and mother Elizabeth Dalton nee Parker,

Trooper 11th Light Horse Regiment,
Volunteered during the last year of The Great War as an 19 year-old 
and saw service in Egypt
Died 1956 and buried in Ipswich, Queensland

William Reginald Rawlings,
of Purnim, Victoria, 
Father William Rawlings and mother Bessie Rawlings,
Private 8 Rifles 29th Battalion,
Enlisted in March 1916, Killed in action, France August 1918,
Posthumously awarded the Military Medal

*Images found at Australian Government websites and www.abc.net.au 

Parr Family of Wise County Texas win $2.9 million in case against Aruba Petroleum for adverse effects of mining & gas production activities

The Parr Family
Photograph found at The Harbinger blog

In 2011 Aruba Petroleum was taken to court by Robert and Lisa Parr of Wise County, Texas and on 22 April 2014 this family was awarded $2.9 million based in part on this claim:

……….

[Parr – 11th Amended Petition in Parr et al. v. Aruba Petroleum Inc., case number CC-11-01650-E, in the County Court at Law No. 5 of Dallas County, Texas] Click on images to enlarge

The 5 to 1 verdict included $275,000 for the Parr’s property loss of market value and $2 million for past physical pain and suffering by Bob and Lisa Parr and their daughter, $250,000 for future physical pain and suffering, $400,000 for past mental anguish.

The Dallas County jury did not find Aruba’s conduct was abnormal and out of place for its surroundings but said it did take intentional steps to cause substantial interference with the Parr family’s use of its 40-acre homestead.

On its website today Aruba was still making many of the same exaggerated claims that the Australian gas industry makes:

Clarence Valley Council trialling live streaming of meetings

Clarence Valley Council has made a positive move going some way towards addressing transparency, access and equity issues by committing itself to a 12 month trial, live streaming its committee and ordinary monthly meetings via http://mixlr.com/clarence-valley-council.

Council is intending to use the free basic version of the Mixlr live audio platform. There is an iPhone app available for Apple and Android devices.

Live streaming will commence in May 2014.

In 2011 57.8% of Clarence Valley households had a broadband Internet connection according to profile.id.com.

Council will be able to see the number of online “guest” listeners at each live streamed meeting, so residents and ratepayers need to patronise this service regularly to ensure it continues.

For the estimated 44.2% of households without broadband connection, the issues remain of access to alternate monthly council meetings held approximately 46 kms apart and the distances some residents have to travel in a 10,441 km² local government to attend these meetings.