And GMOs march on and on.......

For those concerned about the prevalence of genetically modified organisms (GMO) in Australian crops, there is now an online global register of contamination events.

This GM Contamination Register is the first of its kind in the world.

Genetically modified crops were first commercially grown on a wide scale in 1996. But, there has always been concern about their effects on both health and the environment. A specific concern has been that once released, it would not be possible to contain or control these organisms yet there is no global monitoring system.

Because of this failure of national and international agencies, GeneWatch UK and Greenpeace International launched this joint initiative in 2005 to record all incidents of contamination arising from the intentional or accidental release of genetically modified (GM) organisms (which are also known as genetically engineered (GE) organisms).

It also includes illegal plantings of GM crops and the negative agricultural side-effects that have been reported. Only those incidents which have been publically documented are recorded here. There may be others that are, as yet, undetected.

This site is intended to be a resource for individuals, public interest groups and governments. The register can be searched to see where, when and how contamination has taken place. It includes information about, and links to, sources and the GeneWatch UK and Greenpeace web sites as well as other useful sites.

If you would like to know when incidents are added to the GM Contamination Register, send an email to:
info at gmcontaminationregister.org (replacing 'at' with the @ sign) with 'UPDATE' in the subject line.

Here is an Australian example:

* In June 2000, Monsanto reported to the Australian authorities that in May, approximately 57.6 tonnes of Roundup Ready GM cotton seed from field trials were ginned at three gins in Queensland without segregation and identity preservation. This constituted between 4.5 and 9.1% of all cotton seed ginned on that day at the designated gins.
As a result of the lack of segregation and identity preservation, the Roundup Ready cotton seed was mixed with non-Roundup Ready cotton seed. The mixing meant there was no possible means to track the exact fate (export, animal feed or crushing) of the Roundup Ready cotton seed. Sale of whole seed to the domestic market as animal feed is in contravention of Australia’s GMAC’s advice. The seed was not packaged and secured, therefore seed escape was possible.

This is the current list for Australia:

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Australia - 15 kgs of Monsanto's GM cotton seed was spilled during transport >> more

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Australia - an unapproved variety of GM cotton was found in GM Roundup Ready cotton seed >> more

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Australia - contaminated oilseed rape seed imported from US >> more

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Australia - unapproved GM cotton (grown in a field trial) was mixed with non-GM and approved varieties of GM cotton after harvest >> more

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Australia - wheat exports bound for Columbia contaminated with GM maize >> more

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Australia – contamination of oilseed rape exports by unapproved GM variety >> more

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Australia – farmer’s conventional oilseed rape crop contaminated with GM >> more

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Australia – first field resistance to Bt toxins recorded >> more

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Australia – oilseed rape trials contaminated with GM >> more

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The Australian Government Office of the Gene Technology Regulator can be found here.

WDCS International asks: Will you take a few seconds to be part of conservation history?

The time to act is now!

Global plea on behalf of Australia's diverse marine life sent out 9 November 2010

Largest Conservation Decision In Australian History Hangs In The Balance. HELP MAKE HISTORY - PLEASE ACT NOW! Dear Friend Within weeks the Australian government will make a key decision in creating the largest network of marine protected areas in the world, but it hangs in the balance. We need to you to help persuade them to make the right decision. At stake is critical habitat for more than 50% of the world’s species of whales and dolphins and Australians are calling out for international help in making sure this decision goes the right way. Click here to send an email to The Hon Tony Burke MP, Minister for the Environment. Your email could make all the difference. Australia has one of the largest marine territories in the world. A huge variety of fish, sharks, whales and seals live in the continent’s spectacular submerged mountain ranges, deep sea canyons and reefs. These waters provide refuge for the magnificent blue, humpback, and southern right whales, as well as bottlenose, spotted and striped dolphins, to name a few. However, right now they are unprotected, and with oil and fishing industries undermining moves to increase protection, the international community needs to take what action it can. The Government will make its first major decision for the western region within weeks, and the decision will set the standard of protection that will then be applied to the rest of Australia’s waters for the next 10 to 20 years. This protection can't come soon enough. Be part of a historic decision! Please send an email today. - it will only take you a few seconds and could make a world of difference for whales and dolphins. Thank you Chris Butler-Stroud WDCS Chief Executive The spectacular biodiversity of Australia's waters. (c) Andrew Halsall, courtesy SOML Hundreds of dolphins are killed in nets in Australia's waters every year. (c) Greenpeace AP HELP US MAKE HISTORY! Send an e-mail now to the Australian Minister for the Environment.

A thought bubble I can believe in....

RaboDirect general manager Greg McAweeney told an audience from the finance sector in Sydney last week that companies such as Google and PayPal are more responsive and trusted than banks.
"If Google got up and said we are going to offer a savings account, for me, that would be very difficult and confronting," McAweeney said.

Graphic from Darren Pauli/ZDNet Australia

So we're to have a national referendum sometime in the next three years....

Well this is bound to get interesting.
Prime Minister Gillard has just announced a long overdue national referendum on including formal recognition of Aboriginal first peoples in the Australian Constitution.
The trick's going to be how to keep the entire proposition from turning into a prolonged and painful train wreck.
Those sticky-fingered political power brokers need to be penned far away from consultations on any proposed wording of the question being put to the vote.
Because as sure as night follows day they will want to tack other questions onto the ballot paper, with the sole purpose of extending political party power over the federal parliament and the people.
Such a move would almost surely sink any hope of formal recognition.

North Coast Voices celebrates its third birthday with a give-away

In October this year the regional group blog North Coast Voices reached the three-year milestone in its daily publication of news and opinion.

To say thankyou to our readers and celebrate this occasion we are giving away two sets of two flora and fauna studies by well-known NSW North Coast photographer Debrah Novak.

These photographic studies are signed and mounted but unframed.

The first reader from outside of Australia who sends an email with the subject line "Birthday" to northcoastvoices@gmail.com after 9am GMT/UTC on 10 November 2010 will be sent one set, provided they supply a legitimate return email address required to arrange mailing.

The first reader from within Australia who sends an email with the subject line "Birthday" to northcoastvoices@gmail.com after 9am AEST on 10 November 2010 will be sent one set, provided they supply a legitimate return email address to arrange mailing.

Clarencegirl, Clarrie Rivers, WaterDragon, K. Roo and Petering Time

* NCV contributors listed in the blog sidebar and their families are of course ineligible in relation to this birthday offer.


Image from The Impulsive Buy

Update:

Congratulations to Michael from Leeds, U.K. and Sharon from Woolongong, NSW.

Your wildlife studies are on there way and we hope that you will enjoy these examples of NSW North Coast flora and fauna.

Bank finances in pictures to compare with the Commonwealth Bank's overblown rhetoric

With Commonwealth Bank CEO Norris (of the $16M salary package) currently defending that bank's blatant cash grab when it raised its loan rate 45 points on the back of the latest official interest rate rise of 25 points, perhaps it's time to look at what The Reserve Bank of Australia had to say on domestic financial markets in November 2010:

The average cost of the major banks’ long-term
funding continues to rise as maturities are rolled over
at higher spreads. However, in recent months, this has
been largely offset by the narrowing in the spread
between bank bills and OIS rates. Overall, this suggests
that, in aggregate, the major banks’ funding costs are
likely to have been little changed over recent months,
though trends differ for individual banks depending
on their mix of funding.

In terms of net interest margins, banks have recently
reported mixed results; most have experienced a small
decrease in margins, though some have experienced
a small increase. In aggregate, the net interest margin
of the major banks has fluctuated in a relatively narrow
range since 2004, between 2¼ and 2½ percentage
points......

Financials’ profits rose by 10 per cent, largely as a result

of lower bad and doubtful debt charges and an increase in net
interest income.

UPDATE:

Commonwealth Bank chief executive Sir Ralph Norris has conceded his bank's 0.45 per cent interest rate hike will cost some of his customers their homes, a reality he says troubles him.
But in defence of his bank's Melbourne Cup Day hike, Sir Ralph said it was better to see "a few" foreclosures than have an economy hamstrung by a low-profit banking system.

Read more in The Courier Mail here.

Surely Teh Rabbit didn't say that?

Sue Neales writing in The Mercury on 7 November 2010 :

FEDERAL Coalition leader Tony Abbott has told the Tasmanian branch of the Liberal Party it must woo women, plumbers, blue-collar workers and students if it is ever to regain its political strength.

Woo, Mr. Abbott? Woo?

Why not smooze, flatter, flannel or lead up the garden path? Because if Neales is quoting then you obviously aren’t seeing women, plumbers, blue-collar workers and students as responsible adult voters who have a right to be honestly presented with considered policy and promises at the next federal election.

When it comes to The Greens I feel a "please explain"coming on....

I’m guessing that the Victorian Greens are going to be run out of Emma Bull's office in Canberra from now on. But why, when The Greens are still registered at state level in NSW, Queensland and West Australia.

From Twitpic on 7 November 2010:
Bob and Victorian candidates after the Greens' election campaign launch in Melbourne today

From the Australian Electoral Commission:
The Australian Greens – Victoria

Updated: 4 November 2010

The Australian Greens – Victoria was registered on 9 May 1995 and deregistered on 29 October 2010.

Reason: s135(1) - voluntary de-registration.

# Victorian State Election Saturday 27 November 2010 website

A circumspect Tony Abbott? Who da thunk it!

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott was out and about last week trying to plow fertile ground in the Adelaide hills and raise up the best xenophobic crop of 2010.
In the process he once again came face to face with alleged Holocaust-denier Gerald Federick Tobin.
Given the rich mine of embarassing achived material from his university and journalism days, it was rather surprising to find his somewhat sympathetic 1987 Bulletin magazine article on Toben contained no over the top right-wing judgments of Australian society which might come back to haunt him.
It seems a restrained and relatively balanced Tony Abbott may once have existed in an alternative universe....

Case of the teacher who wasn’t kept in
Tony Abbott, The Bulletin, 1987

Doctor Fredrick Toben has achieved what many thought impossible. He has been sacked for “incompetence” as a teacher in an Australian school.

Despite the quoted desire of NSW Education Minister Rod Cavalier to weed out “malingerers in the staffroom”, dismissal is not a threat our teachers normally face. Educators contacted by The Bulletin said that any dismissal was rare and dismissal for alleged incompetence almost unknown. The picture which emerges is of teaching authorities who take a benign, almost parental view of their employees’ failings.

Most teachers dismissals follow significant criminal convictions. Others occur only after the failure of an elaborate counselling process. In Australian schools, complaints against teachers are normally handled by principals. If not resolved, they are referred to the department of education.

The Victorian Ministry of Education, which employs 55,000 teachers, dismisses “three or four” for incompetence each year - usually when “an element of senility” is involved. An official of a Catholic education office in Victoria, employing about 1000 teachers, said that he had “never written a letter of dismissal”.

As a spokesman for the NSW Education Department - which employs nearly 48,000 teachers and has dismissed “a very few” - put it: “If someone has successfully passed teachers college, there are usually personal reasons for sub-standard performance…Quite often, with a particular group, a person may not feel comfortable…We would usually transfer such a person to another school where there was more motivation and security…”

Only when subsequent inspection shows no improvement and when a teacher declines to resign, may formal disciplinary proceedings be instituted - possibly leading to dismissal. Most teachers resign at this point. Fredrick Toben stubbornly refused because he had done nothing wrong.

Toben’s troubles began in 1983 when the Goroke Consolidated School principal, Ray McCraw, withdrew approval for his permanency application. McCraw said that Toben’s classes had deteriorated.

Toben said that McCraw felt threatened by his qualifications - Arts degrees from Melbourne and Wellington universities, a doctorate from Stuttgart University and 17 tyears’ teaching experience in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.

Goroke is in far western Victoria. In a small town, small school atmosphere, rumors spread that McCraw was unhappy with Toben. He became something of an outcast in the staffroom. Some pupils began to disrupt his classes. Victoria - unlike other states - has no provision for formal inspection of teachers thought to be unsatisfactory. Toben asked several times for inspection. Instead, in mid-1984, a “support group” was set up. It comprised McCraw and three other teachers as well as Toben’s nominee, fellow teacher Glenn Duncan. After four weeks’ observation the group agreed that Toben’s classes were unruly and that his teaching methods were inappropriate.

Duncan - who signed the group’s report with some reservations - recently told The Bulletin that Toben “didn’t really get a fair go” and that his problems were the result of a “personality clash” with McCraw, compounded by philosophical differences, which had gradually infected the whole school.

Next, a formal inquiry was held in October 1984. It was conducted jointly by a union official and a senior officer of the Victorian Ministry of Education who wrote to Toben beforehand saying that the inquiry was "“act-finding, rather than judgmental”. Despite this, the inquiry endorsed the support group’s assessment and expressed a “strong preference” that Toben be “dismissed from the teaching service”.

Toben’s case was finally heard by the then Director-General of Victorian Education, Dr Norman Curry. According to Toben - and this has not been denied by the ministry - Curry said: “Give me a good reason why I should not act on the inquiry’s recommendation that you be dismissed.”

Normally , these hearings are quasi-judicial - both sides call and question witnesses. In his case, Curry questioned Toben and four of his supporters but Toben did not have a chance to question McCraw. Toben was not represented. On February 4, 1985, Curry informed Toben that he had been dismissed for “incompetence”.

Since then, Toben - who now drives a school bus - has been trying to re-enter the teaching profession. The ministry has said that it will re-employ him after “evidence of successful teaching”. But no school, so far, has been prepared tot ake him on. The Ombudsman has refused to investigate without evidence of “clear injustice”. That, however, is precisely what Toben hoped an investigation would determine.

Toben’s former union, the Victorian Secondary Teachers Association, told The Bulletin that correct procedures had been observed in his case as far as it was concerned.

A senior state educator, who requested anonymity....., admitted that “…it’s not a fair world…Toben was not the worst teacher in the system and there are hundreds who are the same…Toben may have been unlucky…”.

Bad luck or injustice? Professor Lauchlan Chipman, of Wollongong University, said that “even awkward and unpopular people have rights”. He said Toben’s case “typified the fate of the one-off model in Australia.

While school authorities are making determined efforts to lift teaching performance and elaborate procedures are in place to ensure that this does not occur at the expense of teachers’ rights, it would be ironic if one of the few sacked for incompetence turned out not to have deserved it.

Image from VexNews