Another side to far-right conservatism

Youth is no excuse for this nasty, violent attitude.

By way of background on this young man -The Strange World of an Australian Teenage Conservative Political Commentator

Knitting Nannas Visit Narrabri and Proposed Santos Gasfield During Third Annual Conference

The Knitting Nannas Against Gas and Greed (KNAG) held their third annual conference at Narrabri on August 25-27. Attendees came from around NSW and further afield. The theme of this year’s conference was “Well behaved women seldom make history”.    

Narrabri was chosen as the venue because of its proximity to Santos’ proposed gasfield.  (The gasfield starts 6 km from the Narrabri Post Office.)

The attendees welcomed the opportunity to network with other Nannas and to hear inspiring speeches from Sue Higginson (Environmental Defender’s Office ) and Sydney Morning Herald journalist  Elizabeth Farrelly as well as women from the local Gomeroi community.  Unfortunately Janelle Saffin, who had been scheduled to speak, was an apology because of illness.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the conference was the opportunity to learn more about Santos’ gasfield which will cover a large area of farmland as well as the Pilliga Forest. In addition to hearing about local concerns, the Nannas had the opportunity to tour parts of the gasfield.

This immense development of 850 gas wells will have a devastating impact on the biodiverse-rich Pilliga Forest which provides habitat for a range of threatened species including Koala.  It’s not just the number of wells proposed but all the accompanying infrastructure such as roads, pipelines, vents and flares which mean that large amounts of the forest will be cleared.

So here we have land owned by the people of NSW – it’s OUR forest – which is going to be devastated so that Santos can make massive profits.  What was of great concern is that there has ALREADY been extensive infrastructure (wells, flares, wastewater storage and pipelines) developed in the Pilliga Forest – although to date it has only been a pilot project. Forest clearing is not the only issue about Santos’ gasfield.  There are major concerns. about contamination of the water table and impact on the recharge of the Great Artesian Basin. Santos also has a poor record in preventing and then cleaning up toxic spills during operation of its pilot project. And then there’s the question of the disposal of huge volumes of produced water and salt.  Santos has not provided satisfactory answers to these and many other questions.

While final approval has not yet been given for this proposal[1], the Nannas are concerned about the NSW Government’s record in pushing destructive mining projects which are not in the long-term community interest. We fear that this project will be approved despite all the opposition and the very many concerns about its long-term impacts.  It seems the big end of town is much more important to our politicians than the future health of our natural environment or productive farmland.   The Nannas want to see this change.

- Leonie the Novice Knitter

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[1] The massive EIS was on exhibition earlier this year.  A final decision on whether the project will be allowed to go ahead is yet to be made.

Images supplied

Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents. Email northcoastvoices at gmail dot com dot au to submit comment for consideration

No sign of an increase in employees' share of Australian economic growth

Financial Review, 6 September 2017:

Wage growth is showing no sign of the increases the Reserve Bank of Australia is banking on, with average employee compensation going backwards and hourly pay growth at record lows.

The economy's overall wages bill rose a modest 0.7 per cent in the June quarter and 2.1 per cent for the year, according to the latest national accounts figures, but fell per non-farm employee by 0.3 per cent on a quarterly and annual basis.

The data, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday, suggests that while more people are getting into work, with 240,000 jobs created over the year, the jobs are also lower paid on average.

Capital Economics chief economist Paul Dales said the wage figures were even worse when broken down to average employee compensation per hour.

Annual growth in compensation per hour fell over the June quarter from 1.1 per cent to negative 0.3 per cent, the weakest growth in almost 25 years.

While the hourly figures are volatile, the Reserve Bank last year cited strong compensation growth per hour as a cause for optimism in the face of persistent low wage growth.

Mr Dales said that "there is no evidence whatsoever that wage growth has started to rise as the RBA expects".

Professional and technical services, covering engineers and IT workers, as well as health care drove the overall growth in the nation's wages bill.

History of monetary compensation for number of hours worked - 1985 to 2015

OECD Data

Laughing at Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison

Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison exposed as a confirmed time traveller by Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell.  

Zipping back and forth to 1920 at will, in order to extract tax from my long-gone grandparents even before there were Medicare health and medical services to attract a levy.

How does he do it?

More problems for the Liberal Party of Australia

Since 2013 Liberal MPS and senators have been their own political party’s worst enemy.

First it was the discovery of how comfortable some were with accepting unlawful political donations, then it was the blatant rorting of parliamentary entitlements followed by the dual citizenship debacle.

Now it’s this……………………..

The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 September 2017:

The NSW police and Liberal party are under fresh pressure to investigate Felicity Wilson, the MP who falsely swore to have lived in her electorate for a decade, following a new police complaint and after five other Liberal candidates were suspended for irregularities in statutory declarations.

The case of whether Ms Wilson breached the law by incorrectly claiming to have lived in her North Shore electorate for a decade on a statutory declaration has been revived by a detailed 200-page complaint submitted to the Police Commissioner last week, unsigned but understood to have been compiled with input from eminent Sydney lawyer.

Harbourside police had earlier declined to investigate a complaint from a member of the public about whether Ms Wilson had breached the Oaths Act because the form she signed had a typo that rendered the title of the Act as 1990, not its true date of 1900, and they argued it lacked legal status.

But three legal experts contacted by Fairfax Media back up one of many strands of argument made in the fresh complaint, which accuses the police of misapplying the law: that a typographical error does not make the document Ms Wilson signed invalid.

Quotes of the Week

“Seven months into his presidency, Donald Trump is deeply unpopular. In Gallup’s latest poll of presidential job approval, he’s down to 34 percent, a level unseen by most presidents outside of an economic disaster or foreign policy blunder. In FiveThirtyEight’s adjusted average of all approval polling, he stands at 37 percent. And yet, few Republican lawmakers of consequence are willing to buck him or his agenda, in large part because their voters still support the president by huge margins. What we have clearer evidence of now is why. From polling and the behavior of individual politicians, it’s become harder to deny that people support the president not just for being president, but for his core message of white resentment and grievance—the only area where he has been consistent and unyielding.” [Journalist Jamelle Bouie writing in Slate, 1 September 2017]

“You heard Caleb, North Korea? The twerp wants you to take personal aim at his bedroom.” [Asher Wolf tweeting about young Australian warmonger Caleb Bond, 3 September 2017]

Seismologist's response to first evidence of North Korea's latest and largest underground nuclear test

"I think this has been interpreted as a sort of philanthropic and idealistic tweet in being absolutely terrified for the future of the world, and that's largely correct," Gibbons, who studies nuclear explosions for Norway's monitoring agency NORSARtold As It Happens host Carol Off. "But there was also a selfish element of 'my Sunday is now ruined' in it, and I don't know how many people have picked up on that point."