Once more Speaker Bishop demonstrates her lack of boundaries

The Sydney Morning Herald 24 May 2014:

Bronwyn Bishop has been hosting Liberal Party fundraisers in her Parliament House Speaker’s suite, a move that has raised further questions about her role as an impartial adjudicator.

A spokesman for Ms Bishop said there was nothing illegal or improper about the practice, and no official rules appear to exist. But no recent Speakers interviewed by Fairfax Media had used their office for party fundraising.

Asked about a recent fundraising event held in the Speaker's Parliament House suite, Ms Bishop’s spokesman said: "From time to time the Speaker holds private functions in Parliament House as does a large number of members and senators... the cost is charged to her private account.”

"There is nothing illegal about it, there is nothing improper about it,” he added.

"It’s the use of a room that every other Member of Parliament does often. Are you chasing up all the other people that held fundraisers at Parliament House?”

Recent Labor Speakers Anna Burke and Harry Jenkins said they had never used their Parliament House office for party fundraising events.

“The Speaker’s office is representative of the Parliament,” Ms Burke said.

“The Parliament is not owned by the government of the day, it’s owned by the people. And it would be highly inappropriate for the people’s house to be used as a fundraising arm of a political party.”

The House of Representatives clerk would not comment on whether it was proper for the Speaker to be using her office for fundraising. He referred questions to Ms Bishop’s office.....

The Daily Telegraph 23 May 2014:

About 20 Liberal donors were charged $2,500 a plate at the intimate dinner, which was briefly attended by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, The Sunday Telegraph understands.

Mrs Bishop’s office said it had not breached any electoral laws and all food and drink consumed was charged to her private account to be paid for by the Liberal Party.

Her large parliamentary suite includes a formal dining room that opens on to a parliamentary courtyard. As Speaker, she also collects a taxpayer funded salary of $341,477 a year…..

Mrs Bishop’s fundraiser was one of many events held on budget night by the Coalition and Labor, including a $500-a-head function for hundreds of Liberal donors in the Great Hall.....

PM Abbott governs for his mates in a score-settling budget

Peter Martin telling it like it is in The Sydney Morning Herald on 19 May 2014:

The budget was an exercise in settling scores and looking after mates.

Sure, it improved the nation’s finances. But at every turn it took the opportunity to punish or threaten the Coalition’s critics while protecting its supporters. Australians on benefits get their incomes cut by up to 10 per cent and in some cases 18 per cent. They will be charged for previously free visits to the doctor. Organisations that normally speak up for them such as the Council of Social Service have been told their government funding will be extended by only six months this year and then the contracts put out to tender.

  

Big food, big tobacco and big alcohol have been thrown the carcass of the Australian National Preventive Health Agency. Like the introduction of Medicare co-payments the move won’t actually save the budget any money because the savings will be redirected to medical research, but it will please corporations which have been amongst the Coalition’s biggest backers. Coalition pets such as the banks, private health insurance industry and private schools get off lightly. The government will hand private schools $6.8 billion in the coming financial year - no cutback on what was scheduled - and $9.3 billion the following year. The private health insurance rebate survives with barely a scrape. It’ll cost $5.5 billion this coming financial year and $5.8 billion the next.

And the banks profit hugely from the tens of billions of dollars handed out every year in superannuation tax concessions, also untouched.

They are about to be given a second helping. Hurriedly pushed on to the back burner in March when assistant treasurer Arthur Sinodinos stepped aside over questions about his behaviour at the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption, the government is about to revive its attempt to neuter parts of the financial advice law.

It wants what the banks want. They want to remove the requirement for financial planners to always act in their clients' best interests, and they want to reintroduce limited commissions….

Read the rest of the article here.

The Lies Abbott Tells - Part Seventeen

THE TRANSIENT LIE

Abbott said there was also time to talk through changes in federal-state responsibilities and revenue raising. “We're not talking about next week or next month or even next year. We're talking about changes in three years' time. [Prime Minister Tony Abbott quoted in The Guardian on 18 May 2014]

THE FACTS

But Abbott now agrees the national partnership agreement on public hospitals, which begins on 1 July, has been cut. Budget documents say it has been cut by $1.8bn over the next four years….

the budget document is clear that money has been cut by this government, stating: “The government will save $1.8bn over four years from 2014-15 by ceasing the funding guarantees under the national health reform agreement 2011 and revising commonwealth hospital funding arrangements from July 2017.”

The decision cuts $217m from hospitals in 2014-15, $260m in 2015-16 and $133m in 2016-17 before the big cuts begin in 2017-18, when the commonwealth ceases its contribution to the growth in hospital costs due to the ageing population and higher treatment costs. From that time commonwealth spending increases only in line with inflation and population growth.

[The Guardian 19 May 2014]

NSW Premier Mike Baird; said NSW stood to lose more than $1.2 billion from the health budget through scaled-back national partnership arrangements to fund hospital services. About 300 hospital beds would need to close in July unless the federal funding cuts could be absorbed elsewhere in the state budget. [The Sydney Morning Herald 19 May 2014]

It seems Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey was against university fees - while he was at Sydney University receiving a free law degree

Photograph of Hockey from The Sydney Morning Herald

Honi Soit 19 September 2012:

Hockey’s policy statement in the 1986

election edition of Honi: “There is no

question in my mind that students will

never accept fees. I totally oppose any

compromise the government may offer.”

His year as SRC President was chiefly

spent fighting Labor’s re-introduction of

university fees, which had been abolished

under Gough Whitlam.

Hockey’s backers, a ticket called

“Varsity”, were decidedly centrist and

unaffiliated, declaring they would “fight

the burden of factionalism presently

hindering the SRC’s effective operation”.

In stark contrast to Abbott, Varsity was

emphatic: “There should be no further

government cuts to university funding.”

Of course after receiving his education on the back of Whitlam Labor Government reforms to higher education, millionaire politician Joe Hockey can comfortably afford to fund his own children's education regardless of the increased costs and fee deregulation his 2014-15 federal budget will introduce.

UPDATE

A 1987 Channel 9 video has been released by Fairfax Media. This video features Joe Hockey as president of the Sydney University Student Representative Council protesting the annual Higher Education Administration Charge (HEAC) introduced that year and the proposed introduction of course fees  - which finally came into effect under the Commonwealth HIGHER EDUCATION FUNDING ACT 1988 commencing on 6 January 1989.

"We will continue to go out onto the streets and to protest and actively encourage the public to support us in our campaign for free education"

http://youtu.be/kgih2ORI8Z8

Brisbane Times 28 May 2014:

The measure Mr Hockey was protesting against was the introduction of a $250 "administration" fee, which he feared would threaten the universal free higher education that he and his contemporaries enjoyed.

In a 1987 article in the University of Sydney newspaper Honi Soit, Mr Hockey also criticised the same university deregulation measure his own government is now proposing.

"The Liberal Party, which released its education policy two weeks ago, promised to cut back funds to universities and, at the same time, leave the universities to charge whatever fee they wished," he wrote.

"Such a policy is suicidal for student welfare. We will have no effective voice in our own fortune."

Metgasco "just too stupid to help"

Like many other people across the NSW Northern Rivers region, one The Northern Star letters correspondent, Linda Woodrow, thinks that coal seam and tight gas miner Metgasco Limited has lost the plot:

Metgasco owes us

RE Metgasco seeking compensation (NS17/5): I would suggest that Metgasco owes me compensation.

For years we have been doing our level best to save them from themselves.

We have surveyed neighbourhoods door to door. We have held rallies and public meetings. We have written letters to them and to politicians. We have collected signatures on petitions. We have donated prizes and sold tickets in raffles to raise money.

We have hosted scientific and health experts and visiting speakers with firsthand experience from the Queensland and US gasfields. We have written blogs and Facebook pages. We have filmed their breaches. We have stood outside Mr George's electoral office every single week attempting to get him to represent us. We have stood outside the Casino Metgasco office with Honk for no CSG signs, just so they could hear the vast majority of passing traffic honk. And finally, we've been forced to spend weeks camped in a paddock.

Just considering me alone, I have lost countless days of paid work, trying to get the message through to them before they wasted all their shareholders' capital. Some people are just too stupid to help.

Linda Woodrow

Kyogle

The Lies Abbott Tells - Part Sixteen

Japan Daily Press: Tony Abbott

THE LIE

"I think the last government which brought down a very tough budget – the Howard government in 1996 - took a big hit in the polls too.” [ Prime Minister Tony Abbott quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 May 2014]

THE FACTS

The first post-budget Newspoll in 1996 showed a three percentage point increase in the Coalition's primary vote, to 50; a lift in Howard's approval rating, from 47 to 51; and an increase in his lead over Kim Beazley as preferred prime minister to a score of 53 per cent against Beazley's 24….

The Age Poll saw the Coalition holding its primary vote and slightly increasing its two-party preferred lead over Labor. [The Age, 19 May 2014]

THE REASON THE LIE WAS UTTERED?

Voter support for Tony Abbott's Coalition government has slumped on the back of last week's federal budget, according to polls published in Fairfax and News Corp papers today.

A Nielsen poll in the Fairfax newspapers has the Coalition down four points and Labor up four points on a two-party preferred basis, with Labor in front 56 to 44 per cent - tripling its lead from last month's poll.

The Coalition's primary vote has slumped from 40 per cent in early April to 35 per cent - 11 points lower than its vote in the election last September.

And a significant number of voters have switched to the ALP, bringing its primary support up from 34 per cent in April to 40 per cent - a figure not seen against the Labor Party's name in a national poll for years.

On the Prime Minister's performance, Nielsen says just 34 per cent approve of Tony Abbott's efforts - a 10-point slump - while approval of Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's performance is up to 47 per cent.

Mr Abbott's disapproval rating climbed to 62 per cent - 12 points higher than at last month's poll….

The Newspoll published in The Australian has similarly dire numbers for the Government, showing Labor in front 55 per cent to 45 per cent on a two-party preferred basis.

And for the first time, voters prefer Mr Shorten as prime minister over Mr Abbott, giving him a 10-point lead in the better prime minister stakes at 44 per cent to 34 per cent - a six-point drop for the PM since last month.

The Nielsen poll has a margin of error of 2.6 per cent and Newspoll's margin of error is 3 per cent…. [ABC News 19 May 2014]

Coal seam & tight gas miner Metgasco makes a fool of itself by crying 'We wuz hacked!'

Metgasco Limited has come under greater government scrutiny of late, resulting in media reports like this in the Echo NetDaily on 18 May 2014:

The enormous shit-storm that Nationals Party member Peter Graham ignited after signing his property over to gas mining in Bentley near Lismore continues to escalate….

Almost all of Mr Graham’s 40 immediate neighbours stormed out in disgust from a meeting with government departments on Tuesday (May 13) after they tried to convince the landowners that gas mining was safe.

It appeared the bureaucrats, who represented the Office of Coal Seam Gas (CSG) and NSW Land and Water, were unable to provide satisfactory answers by the residents. In fact, the residents appeared better informed and educated than the government reps themselves.

Held at the Goonellabah Sports and Aquatic Centre, the invitation-only event was promoted as a workshop for concerned residents, focussing on ‘providing a better understanding around groundwater and well-integrity issues, fracture stimulation, and will provide an overview of existing benchmark northern rivers catchment water data.’…

The meeting began with NSW Land and Water commissioner, Jock Laurie, describing his job as, ‘going to rural areas, listening to their concerns and taking them back to the government’.

But the audience soon became angered as it became clear that they were going to be talked at, rather than listened to. Mutters of ‘We know that already’ soon turned to direct questioning of the presenters, who seemed unprepared for the farmers’ high level of education.

The cracks began to appear after Rachel Connell, director of the Office of CSG, admitted of approving Metgasco’s Bentley operation as ‘conventional gas exploration’, despite its own assessment that it was a tight sands project that carried greater environmental risks.

‘We are not responsible for how the company chooses to promote itself,’ she said. And temperatures rose further when she was grilled as to why her office continued to approve Metgasco operations despite the company having  been responsible for well blow-outs and contaminated-water spills. ‘We acknowledge that’s an issue,’ she replied….

As the meeting boiled over, Green Mountain premium beef producer David Scarrabelotti, stood up to say it was now time for the government to listen to the community.

A group statement declared, ‘We have done the research, we know the facts, we have seen Metgasco in action and we are resolute … we declare our absolute determination to stop them.’

Twenty minutes into the workshop it was all over, and only a few residents stayed on to rake over the ashes with the shaken delegation.

‘We insist that this clear message from our community is taken, by you, back to your minister and the premier of NSW,’ concluded the letters handed to Mr Laurie….

And in The Sydney Morning Herald on 15 May 2014:

Resources company Metgasco misled the public over its drilling operation in northern NSW by saying it was seeking a less controversial type of gas. It was for this reason the government suspended its licence on Thursday.

Statements such as those on Metgasco’s website that it was drilling for conventional gas were now considered by officials to be incorrect. The company was in fact exploring for “tight sands” gas, an unconventional gas extracted using the contentious fracking technique.

Resources Minister Anthony Roberts said Metgasco had not undertaken genuine community consultation and concerns had been raised “about the way in which Metgasco has characterised its activities”.

He later told ABC Radio that companies that failed to gain a "social licence" to operate were "probably better off going somewhere else"…..

With ABC News also reporting on 15 May 2014:

Petroleum company Metgasco has had its licence to drill for gas at Bentley in northern NSW suspended and Resources Minister Anthony Roberts has referred the project to the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).

ICAC has previously investigated links between resource companies and prominent NSW political figures, including disgraced former Labor MP Eddie Obeid.

Citing allegations over Metgasco's shareholdings and interests, Mr Roberts today said: "I referred this to the commissioner to ensure that any decisions made pertaining to Pell 16 have been made entirely properly, without any undue influence or interest. As this is a matter for the ICAC, I will not be making any further comment or statement on this."…

One of the tactics Metgasco appears to use when it receives this sort of media attention is to attempt to recast itself as a ‘victim’. Suddenly there is talk about bomb threats, menacing of its workers or theft of property.

When it donned the victim mantle in the Echo NetDaily on 23 May 2014 the company quickly became a laughing stock, because the problem was not those nasty people opposing its commercial interests but more likely a classic website glitch:

On Thursday (May 22) the ‘Community Consultative’ page on Metgasco’s website did some rounds on social media, primarily because the body of the document was written entirely in Latin.

A company spokesperson [said the] website had been hacked, while members of the Lock the Gate Alliance Facebook page who used the  website’s internal search engine to find the page, claimed that the page was indexed in the search results as being uploaded 13 February 2013.

The page was taken offline a few hours later and replaced with a splash page reading, ‘Access denied. You are not authorised to access this page’

Other commenters were convinced that it was what publishers refer to as Lorem Ipsum, place-holding text that is written in Latin and is still used occasionally to demonstrate how a publication will appear once it has been filled with actual information.

Certainly one would assume that had Metgasco been hacked then they would be able to simply and quickly retrieve the original webpage from a backup.

As such, this was taken by some as proof of Metgasco’s lack of genuine and effective community consultation…..

www.lipsum.com on why web designers use Latin as placeholder text on web pages:

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum….

Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).

There are many variations of passages of Lorem Ipsum available, but the majority have suffered alteration in some form, by injected humour, or randomised words which don't look even slightly believable.