“A police operation is planned to take place at Bentley to both facilitate a lawful protest and ensure normal operations at the gas exploration site” [NSW Police spokesperson quoted in The Daily Telegraph on 30 April 2014 explaining the intention to use riot police against a peaceful demonstration at Metgasco Limited’s Bentley ‘tight gas’ drilling site]
Saturday, 3 May 2014
Friday, 2 May 2014
Moggy Musings (Archived material from Boy the Wonder Cat)
An it has to be cheap but does it need
to be nasty? musing: Hearing that social
housing provider North
Coast Community Housing Co is
laying new and necessarily cheap carpets in some of its rental premises. The
colour schemes are the darkest of grey possible before black intervenes, a dark
brown that cannot possibly go any deeper on the dye spectrum and something that
can only be described as the hue of poo - apparently the company thinks the
poor have no taste and should live with such affronts to the eye and interior
house wall colours.
A Bazza musing: It was hard to cadge a treat from the
two-legs last Wednesday as everyone was talkin' bout that Barry O'Farrell
resigning as NSW Premier. I don't have any questions about that wine bottle -
what I want to know is why in 2011 after years and years in politics the man
didn't own even one square foot of house or land according to his member's
declaration.
A swear box musing: I'm in
trouble. I have to meow a hundred times, "I shall not call Operation
Sovereign Borders Operation Stupid B@stards and then yammer
hysterically". What? Cats can't have a sense of humour?
An SPC Sunday musing: I'm a cat so I
don't eat much fruit, but the Blues
Brothers budgies (who are
into all sorts of fruit 'n' veg) tell me that SPC Sunday is going off with a
bang and lotsa two legs are buying SPC Ardmona products and telling the world
about it today. Over at Twitter on #SPCardmona
they are jumping out of their skins and folks at SPC Sunday on Facebook are happily getting into the mood as
well.
A rumour has it musing: Whispers are
doing the rounds in the first few days of February 2014 that David Bancroft, a
former The Daily Examiner editor and later an editor of the Rural Weekly, is taking a
position as Clarence Valley Council's media/public relations spokesperson.
In-ter-esting....
A fractured history musing: On 1 February
2014 The Northern
Star confirmed what many have suspected. Clarence
Valley Council has been allowing local government paper records to rot in a
paddock for years -When the NSW Land and Environment Court called for the
documents to be made available, the Crown solicitor was told "they must be
with the Clarence Valley Council". He was later referred to the Coffs
Harbour Council but eventually it was discovered that the majority of documents
obtained from the former Ulmarra council were "housed in a shipping
container in a paddock" and the Clarence council believed it "would
be a big job to try and access the shipping container because it is full".
Justice Craig admitted he was left to "guess" what some of the
documents might have contained.
A karma musing: Maclean Court
House, 9.30 am 12 February 2014,NSW Police v Geoffrey William Leviny,
Case Number 201300148044,LC
Sentence.
A spam is getting
sillier by the minute musing: This email
caused a hoot of laughter from the two legs in my house - Happy New Year! 800,000 Pounds
sterling has been awarded to you from my wife & I. Kindly reply with your
Name, Address, Phone Number for details of prize if you are interested. Adrian.
A she saw red musing: If there is
one thing a house going paperless hates it's junk mail so She really was annoyed enough to say a
sweary word when telling me the tale.
What if people
don't want to receive advertising material and have a "no junk mail"
sign on their letterbox? Putting
mail into these people's letterboxes is not against the law but it is against
the distribution industry's Code of Practice. Distributors should respect
people's wishes not to receive this material.
Unfortunately
one new local business is choosing to ignore this advice and when the person
distributing its advertising was challenged by my owner he asserted that the
unwanted advert was not junk mail. Well, in all likelihood he is acting
informally and not covered by any industry code of practice. But I think the
letterbox stuffer was probably the CCW
owner – so he made a bad business
decision that day.
A grinning from
ear-to-ear musing: My
human came home today all cock-a-hoop. A group of young lads from north of the
Rio Tweed (who read this blog) brought the Administrator of North Coast Voices her very first mobile 'phone. I can't
wait to see her learn how to drive the thing. Bet she falls over furniture,
trips over apps and crashes into walls!
For the sake of $16.41 billion the Abbott Government is going to start a class war?
In the 20 years since the last thorough review of the Commonwealth government, budget spending has more than tripled. [Chair of the National Commission of Audit Tony Shepherd writing in the Financial Review on 2 May 2014]
It seems Chairman of the Abbott Government’s National Commission of Audit, Tony Shepherd, likes to compare the last twenty years when explaining the recommendations of the 2014 national audit made public on 1 May.
So what is the actual comparison? Well it breaks down like this.
In 1994 the Australian population was an est. 17.93 million. By May 2014 the population grew by 23.62 per cent to an est. 23.47 million.
In May 1994 there were 8.71 million people in the Australian labour force. In 2014 this had risen to 12.26 million people.
In 1994-95 all industry multifactor productivity was 108.5. In June 2013 it was 104.9 - a 3.6 point difference.
In 1994 Australia’s nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was an est. $323.41 billion and is an est. $1,577 billion in 2014.
Australian Government net debt reached 24.2 per cent of GDP in December 1994. Net debt reached an est. 11.7 per cent of GDP in 2013-14.
In 1994-95 the Federal Government had receipts totalling $113.45 billion and in 2013-14 total receipts were an est. $392.59 billion.
In 1994-95 Australian Commonwealth government outlays totalled $128 billion and in 2013-14 government outlays totalled $409 billion, which represents a threefold increase over the two decades spanning the last half of the Keating Government, the Howard Government, the Rudd & Gillard Governments and the beginning of the Abbott Government.
In May 2014 the Australian Government total combined net debt and spending is an estimated 38 per cent of GDP.
Basically, Australia’s population has grown and so has federal government spending, while multifactor productivity is lower. However, the gross domestic product has also grown along with the amount of taxes paid and the number of people of workforce age, while net government debt has fallen.
I honestly cannot see that the $16.41 billion shortfall between money coming in and money going out in 2013-14 is a valid reason for dismantling universal health care and forcing aged pensioners into a below the poverty line standard of living after 2016-17.
Especially if one looks at the numbers Mr. Hockey considers valid. In 2013-14 Federal Government total payments (spending) are 25.93% of Australia’s Nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP). By 2023-24 total payments are projected to be 26.50% of GDP. That expenditure growth is less than 0.57% over a decade, while the GDP is projected to grow 5.1% annually over that period.
When one factors in the possibility that reducing corporate ‘welfare’ grants, rebates and concessions would over time reduce the $16.41 billion, it makes the government’s position incomprehensible to say the least.
However, the Abbott Government attack on the welfare system apparently has less to do with economic reality and more to do with ideology and, no amount of media management by the government will be able to disguise this reality.
Note:
Dollar amounts and percentages are based on data found in Australian Bureau of Statistics tables, Australian Parliament briefing papers and Abbott Government documents and reports.
The Daily Examiner plays a dangerous game with readership loyalty
Once more The Daily Examiner allows an unknown person from an unidentified place to request that their name and the town they either live or work in be withheld when his/her letter is published
It is my understanding that the editor has been politely but firmly told by one Clarence Valley resident that his policy of printing anonymous letters is not agreed with – and that anonymous letters of this type are gutless.
I tend to agree with that sentiment and, for all I know the name supplied might be that of someone closely associated with coal seam/tight gas mining company, Metgasco Limited or with the pro-mining NSW Baird Government.
That suspicion has to remain when authorship is deliberately hidden by the editor.
What the approach to the editor last Monday signals is that a newspaper’s credibility is important to those living in its distribution area – without that credibility a newspaper withers.
Is it any wonder that this newspaper’s current Monday to Friday daily print circulation numbers for the twelve months ending December 2013 were still in the doldrums and its parent company APN News & Media Limited (which also puts advertisers rather than readers first) noted in the 2013 annual report that total circulation revenue across its media outlets is still in decline.
This despite the fact that print media is apparently read for news content by more people (14.7 million) across Australia than those who watch television for news content.
This despite the fact that print media is apparently read for news content by more people (14.7 million) across Australia than those who watch television for news content.
Because competition from global or national mainstream digital platforms was never the sole reason that APN newspaper mastheads like The Daily Examiner are struggling.
Who is going to pay good money to read thinly disguised advertorials or anonymous comment like this below?
The Daily Examiner on 28 April 2014:
Just a rabble mob
RE: Saturdays Examiner "Protesters ordered out at Bentley".
Reading this article, and seeing the photo attached, made me remember the same sort of disgusting rabble that protested over logging in the Washpool and Chaelundi forests back in the 1980s.
Same look, same disregard for the common law of the land, same hippy music (presumably) and no jobs.
These people do nothing to help the cause of CSG opponents.
The truth is, these people are anti everything.
To think that good, decent, clean-cut, young men went from our country to die in wars all over the globe, so that this rabble can have the right to make a public nuisance of themselves.
It really does make my blood boil.
Name and address withheld
UPDATE
One local reader sent me an email this morning which began: I saw THAT letter on Monday and was really p*ssed off.
UPDATE
One local reader sent me an email this morning which began: I saw THAT letter on Monday and was really p*ssed off.
Thursday, 1 May 2014
The Abbott Government's road map leading to the demise of a fair Australian society is revealed today
Etching from Google Images
If ever one wanted proof that a federal government, led by a
well-heeled, far-right god botherer and
peopled at cabinet level by his fellow travellers, intends to send Australia
back to late 19th Century inequitable economic and social conditions, this report is it – and make no mistake - if the
Abbott Government achieves a second term all of this will come to pass:
Australian Government National Commission of Audit 1 May 2014:
Towards Responsible Government
The Report of the National Commission of Audit
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