Moggy Musings [Archived material from Boy the Wonder Cat]

An and they're off! musing: Clarence electorate candidates in 2015 NSW election beginning to answer voters' questions on a moderated Facebook page at:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/849822838393354/

A meet the candidates musing: Yamba Chamber of Commerce is holding a Meet the Candidates Forum so that people can measure up those standing in the Clarence electorate in the 2015 NSW election. Monday 23 March at the Yamba Bowling Club at 5.30pm.

A Tarzan of the Jungle musing: I get a bit of mail from locals these days and a heartfelt moan about roadside verges fell out of the letter box this week - Many local councils, including Clarence Valley Council, reckon they can save a few bucks by mowing the grass verges along the sides of local roads on fewer occasions. Good idea in theory ... rotten and dangerous idea in reality.

Local wags driving around the valley reckon the flood gauge signs, which indicate flood heights on local roads, have acquired another important role. Motorists are using them to see how high the overgrown vegetation is near the road. The wags reckons there are many places they wouldn't be game to pull off the road - the height of the overgrown roadside vegetation is such that their vehicles would disappear from sight and need to be put on a missing vehicles register.

Another reader sent me these Facebook quotes this week:

* Afternoon Councillors of CVC. I would like to draw to your attention that Mahogany Drive Pillar Valley nature strip has not been slashed for over 3 years. Your tractor driver has been in the area for last couple of days doing Wooli Rd but again has not slashed Mahogany Dr. I would like it to be slashed as it is 6ft tall grass and fire prone. Please advise when the nature strip will be slashed as it used to be slashed by the previous driver twice a year.

* I spoke to Council staff member on Friday who spoke to Supervisor who said that Mahogany Dr was to be slashed and was going to get onto the driver to come back & slash the road. This morning the slasher driver came back and slashed the road but only partly done along the front of our boundary on Mahogany Dr, he has only slashed close to the road side and not to the boundary fence where the grass is 6ft tall and requires a big tractor & slasher to carry out the work particularly where Council realigned the road onto Wooli Rd and hence making it probably difficult for him to do.

* Out front of my property grass is 6ft long and probably snake infested. If my dogs get bitten by snake from there I'll be seriously looking at Council.

An Abbott is a b**tard musing: The New "GP Fee" Explained video here by Dr.George Forgan-Smith.

An even an owner won't buy musing: On 12 January 2015 a stock exchange notice revealed that Metgasco Limited’s Managing Director & CEO Peter Henderson failed to excise his option on 645,161 Metgasco ordinary shares by 28 November 2014. Does this mean that Henderson is not willing to invest further in this company?

An excuse me while I snigger musing: Rumour has it that some large Metgasco Limited and Elk Petrolem Ltd shareholders are privately admitting that their shareholdings are worthless - that they "can't give them away".

A Peter Principle in action musing: On New Year's Day The Australian reported that Tony Abbott has promised to keep Australia “safe and secure” in 2015. Eleven days later the media spin was a little different; Less than a month after the Sydney siege and in the midst of the controversial Paris Charlie Hebdo shootings Prime Minister Tony Abbott has admitted it's impossible to watch returning jihadis 24-7. In an interview with 2GB radio on Thursday Mr Abbott admits that Australian jihadis who return from war-torn counties such as Syria and Iraq cannot be watched round the clock. But he claims they are under 'reasonable supervision'.

An it can only happen at a call centre musing: Imagine you're on your way to work around 5.45am and find your progress blocked by a very large tree which has fallen across the road. You phone the emergency number on your mobile and are put through to the main NSW State Emergency Service (SES) call centre. You ask for SES assistance in removing the tree from the road. The call centre informs you that the road you are on doesn't exist and that neither Tucabia nor Tyndale (both named districts which have been around since the 1800s) can be found on its computerised map. That's what happened to one Clarence Valley resident as he travelled along Bostock Road in December 2014. Luckily for him a local farmer passed by an hour later, went back to fetch his chainsaw and then removed enough of the tree to let cars pass. The driver has no idea if an SES crew ever turned up, but does know that a local crew did turn up for the next tree that came down. Bet whoever reported that second tree didn't contact the main call centre!

A January 2015 hot weather musing: As commercial building airconditioning systems coped with operational overload, the media reported:

Extreme hot weather in Perth has sent the internet into meltdown.

Thousands of iiNet customers across Australia have found themselves offline after the company shut down some of its systems at its Perth data centre because of record breaking-temperatures.

"Due to record breaking temperatures, iiNet Toolbox, Email and our corporate websites are unavailable. Apologies for any inconvenience caused," iiNet tweeted.

An even if it was tongue-in-cheek it was irresponsible musing: My two-legs still hasn’t realised that I know how to wake up the laptop while she is in Dreamland. Mostly I use this My Time! to browse the newest catfood ads for the most expensive items in the supermarkets and, then I go on a hunger-strike until she brings home my latest ‘favourite’ tucker. Of course I’m not really going hungry because I have one neighbour dog trained to step back ten paces while I eat his dried nibbles placed by his backdoor (but don’t tell anyone!). Expecting a pleasurable first Google browse of 2015 the other night, instead I came across this on the January 3: Hey, all you rich dicks pulling down sweet, sweet bucks from your lucrative bar and restaurant jobs and flaunting your wads of cash in front of the little people - the man is onto you, and you won't be on that gravy train for much longer. Whoever Alasdair is he has a rather strange and upside down view of the world if he likes to pretend that bar and restaurant workers in a notoriously low paid industry figure amongst Australia’s rich elite and need to be taken down a peg or two, even after their weekend penalty rates were cut last year.

Boy

PS. This is one of my fav dogs with his new 'mum'. He needed to be re-homed and found a furever home in the Lower Clarence Valley. Unfortunately, like many re-homed animals in the area, his new life is put at risk by sections of Clarence Valley Council's proposed Keeping of Animals Policy.

"We want a gasfield ban, not a gas plan!"

Letter to the Editor in The Daily Examiner, 27 February 2015:

Election and gasfield

The State Election is fast approaching. On March 28 we go to the polls again to cast our vote to decide who will run the State of NSW for the next four years.

In the Northern Rivers, the biggest political issue over the past four years has been the threat of industrialisation and destructive and polluting activities which inevitably accompany invasive gasfields.

We have fought to save our region - at Glenugie and Doubtful Creek and then at Bentley. The famous Bentley Blockade resulted in the suspension of Metgasco's exploration licence which was to allow drilling to a depth of 2.1km through the soils, rocks and aquifers of this beautiful and productive valley, so typical of the Northern Rivers.

It was the pressure exerted by the community on the NSW Liberal National Government which caused them to suspend activity. It was not an act of benevolence on the part of the NSW Government- without people-power the drilling rig would have moved in.

Over 95% of people in the Northern Rivers do not want to live in a gasfield. Tourism and primary industries in our region will suffer irreparable damage and our properties will become devalued and unsalable - who would buy a house in or near a gasfield?

Now is our chance once again to have our voices heard loud and clear - in NSW we have a system of Optional Preferential voting.

Under this system, numbering one box is permitted. However, there is a very good reason why this is not a good choice. If you do number only one box and your choice of candidate does not receive 50% + one of the total votes in the first count, your vote is "exhausted'" and you have, in effect, wasted your vote.

To ensure that your vote counts, you must number every box.

You do not have to follow the how to vote card of any political party or independent candidate.

You are the one who is allocating preferences. Your preferences are the ones that matter.

Who you vote for on election day is, of course, your personal choice. However, to vote for a gasfield-free Northern Rivers, you will need to give your LAST preference to the party who is least supportive of the community's clearly expressed wishes to remain gasfield free.

We want a gasfield ban, not a gas plan!

Rosemary Joseph

Once the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 becomes law

On 27 February 2015 the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security recommended that the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014 be passed by the Australian Parliament.

It appears that there is bipartisan political support for the passage of this bill.

The information that will be kept on each and every one of us is found in the Draft Data Set (30 October 2014), but there is no guarantee that information collected and stored will be limited to this particular data set.

Australian Government Data Retention Draft Data Set 30 October 2014

Abbott's march to the sea about to wreak havoc on Australian society

For Australian nationals, we are examining suspending some of the privileges of citizenship for individuals involved in terrorism.

Those could include restricting the ability to leave or return to Australia, and access to consular services overseas, as well as access to welfare payments.

[Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, National Security Statement, 23 February 2015]

Read this quote carefully. Think about it long and hard. Because Tony Abbott is talking about you. The Australian citizens descended from circa 60,000 years of blood connection with country, the heirs of those convicts and soldiers who stumbled off British ships onto Botany Bay soil in 1788, all the people at the end of a 227 year long migration stream who were born in this country and call it home.

What Tony Abbott is describing is a deliberate move to curtail your existing human and political rights under common law and the Australian Constitution.

Don’t for one moment comfort yourself with the thought that only violent terrorists, those plotting terrorism and supporters of terrorists will be subject to whatever legislation he cloaks this move with.

Coalition Governments have abused their powers in the past.

Abbott comes from the same political party which:

attempted to confiscate the passport of the wife of a Lieut. Governor & Chief Justice of NSW;

treated members of one legal political party as criminals and traitors in the 1950s;

fined or gaoled conscientious objectors in the 1960s & early 1970s;
in the 1960's began tapping the phone of a teenage Australian-born citizen, whose family first arrived in Terra Australis in 1788 and who had broken no domestic or international laws, at the behest of a foreign power that was alleged to have committed war crimes;

from 1955 to 1970 refused to register the children of an Australian national (whose family had been in the country since 1854) as Australian citizens on the basis of their parents' political beliefs; and 

on 3 November 2014 made it legal for the Australian Federal Police to enter and search our homes by stealth and if or when we eventually find out silences our objections with the threat of 2 years imprisonment.

This is not an exhaustive list of Coalition government abuses over the years.

Abbott's march to the sea in his ideological war on the populace may be as devastating for Australia as General Sherman’s was for those members of the American civilian population unfortunate enough to be in his path in 1864.

Nationals MP for Clarence Chris Gulaptis has just been knotted by a group of nannas

North Coast Voices was sent this copy of a letter which forms part of a lengthy engagement in the political process by one hardy and dedicated group of Knitting Nannas Against Gas.

Nationals MP for Clarence Chris Gulaptis can be in no doubt that his lack of political spine has been noted.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is still on the nose with electors according to latest polls and Coalition on road to losing government in 2016

Newspoll published in The Australian, 24 February 2015

Between 20-22 February 2015 68% of Newspoll respondents were dissatisfied with Tony Abbott's performance as prime minister, only 35% thought he would make a better prime minister than Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and, although level with Labor on the primary vote, if an election had been held last Saturday the Abbott Coalition Government would have in all likelihood lost convincingly.

Fifty-one per cent of respondents thought Abbott was best to handle the issues of national security and asylum seekers, but only 45% felt he was best to handle the economy, 33% education, 30% health & medicare and, 22% climate change.

Despite Abbott’s supposed post-spill motion Damascus moment, he is still seen as “arrogant” by 77% of poll respondents, while only 43% find him “trustworthy”, 40% “likeable” and, 33% “in touch with voters”.

The Essential Research poll published on the same day also indicates that although the primary vote gap has narrowed, if an election had been held on 24 February 2015 government would have passed to Labor.

Similarly, the Morgan Poll covering 21-22 February 2015 shows Labor would in all probability have won a federal election if it had been held on Saturday 21 February.

The Fairfax-Ipsos Poll covering 26-28 February 2015 and published 1 March found:      

Seventy-two per cent of respondents did not believe that Tony Abbott has the confidence of his own party.

Abbott's leadership attribute ratings were reportedly all negative.

Thirty-two per cent of the 1,406 people surveyed approved of Tony Abbott’s performance as prime minister and, thirty-nine per cent viewed him as competent, 38 per cent saw him as having a grasp of the economy, with only 36 per cent believing him to be trustworthy.

Forty-three per cent of those surveyed approved of Bill Shorten's performance as opposition leader

Primary Vote

Labor 36%

Coalition 42%

An apparent shift of -3.6% in the Coalition's primary vote when compared with 7 September 2013 and an increase in Labor's primary vote of 2.7% for the same period.

Two Party-Preferred Vote

Labor 51%

Coalition 49%

A 4.5 per cent shift against the Coalition since the 2013 federal election’s 3.61% swing in its favour. This might see Labor achieve a narrow win in 2016.

Preferred Prime Minister

Bill Shorten 44%

Tony Abbott 39%

Reportedly only 38% of respondents identifying as Coalition voters chose Abbott as preferred prime minister.

Approval Rating

Bill Shorten 43%

Tony Abbott 39%

The more positive primary vote numbers for the Coalition may be because "Voters appear to already be factoring in Abbott's potential departure. They don't like him, prefer Turnbull and assume Abbott is not long in his job" according to Ipsos pollster Jessica Elgood.

If Abbott remains prime minister through March, the next Fairfax-Ipsos poll may see the higher primary vote depart the Coalition.

With three out of four of the current major polls going against the Federal Coalition, it would appear that Abbott’s personal unpopularity less than one week shy of halfway through his government's first term in office sees Labor continuing on track towards a positive electoral outcome in 2016.

So who are these Americans thought willing to put "tens of millions" of dollars into Tony Abbott's re-election coffers?

It causes enough unease to know that a Conservative Party peer of the realm sitting in the U.K. House of Lords financed past Liberal Party of Australia federal election campaigns to the tune of $1.5 million, now it seems Americans are expected to donate to Tony Abbott’s 2016 re-election coffers.

The Sydney Morning Herald 24 February 2015:

Mr Higginson wrote that he had raised $70 million since 2011 and recently "laid out my plans to the PM" to travel to the United States to raise "tens of millions" from donors.

Is the Prime Minister so unpopular with home-grown donors that he now has to look elsewhere for the big money?

Or is this trawl for foreign political donations part of the Abbott Government's "open for business" approach to governing?