When even your fearless leader can't get your name right.....

barryofarrell Barry O'Farrell

off to catch a flight to Grafton to support The Nationals' Chris Galuptis in this Clarence month's by-election

Oi Bazza! It’s Gulaptis. G*U*L*A*P*T*I*S

Or as many locals like to fondly call him; Halpless Gulaptis, Galapagos, Gulapticus, Gulapaduck, Gall-aptis, Batman or Chris Corruptus.

# A chapeau lift to Clarencegirl for sending me this tweet.

U.K. High Court appeal judgment in Assange and Swedish Prosecution Authority - transcript

Assange High Court Judgement 2 November 2011

The Greens issue Clarence By-election challenge in defence of water security

The Greens threw down a political gauntlet in support of their candidate, Janet Cavanaugh, on 1 November 2011 and it would be foolish if any other candidate in the Clarence by-election continued to ignore these issues.

The Daily Examiner 2 November 2011:

THE GREENS have issued a challenge to all contenders for the upcoming Clarence by-election - state your position on mining at the headwaters of the Clarence River.

NSW Greens MLC Jeremy Buckingham was in Grafton yesterday in support of Greens candidate for Clarence, Janet Cavanaugh.

The pair raised grave concerns for the Clarence River if a 1.5km x 0.5km open cut antimony mine was approved at Wild Cattle Creek - a tributary of the Nymboida River.

Readings near the proposed mine site, which is being explored by Anchor Resources, have already shown dangerously high levels of antimony and arsenic.

"We are calling on voters to send a message to Barry O'Farrell, letting him know that they want him to rule out mining in the headwaters of the Clarence," Mr Buckingham said. "We're not against all mining but it's got to be responsible mining.

"The risks associated with mining - especially for antimony and gold in the headwaters of the Clarence are too great.

"The experience in the Macleay should be a cautionary tale - you've got an entire river system that's been polluted that's going to be impacted for a millennia to come. "…….

"You would not want to see that happen in the Clarence and put at risk the tourism, the agriculture, the fisheries……..

Mr Buckingham called for a fast-tracking of a Strategic Regional Landuse Policy for the North Coast.

He said the Upper Hunter, New England North West, Central West and Southern Highlands would have SRLPs done out of this year's budget of $2.1 million but he was unsure when the North Coast's policy would be done.

"With the amount of mining and coal seam gas proposed in the Dorrigo Plateau, the Macleay, Clarence Richmond and Tweed Valleys - a SRLP should fast-tracked for the region."

Full article here.

Photograph of Nymboida River from Google Images

A election is a job interview

Would you hire this man?

Mr. Smith holds forth on bloggers

Granny Herald reports on the attitude of NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith to all us crims and ratbags hanging out here on the internetz:

“Mr Smith said bloggers weren't subject to the same sanctions and responsibilities as journalists, who could be sacked for publishing "something that is inappropriate".

Bloggers, or those "who just want to have an opinion" didn't deserve the same protections, he said.

"I'm not going to cover bloggers who may represent terrorist organisations, or criminal organisation, or just be ratbags," Mr Smith said.

"It's not right that a fair publication of the news should be inhibited by fears of being sent to jail.

"But people that don't have that responsibility, who just want to have an opinion out there, to attract 200 or 300, or even two or three others, who'd like to read their blogs, I don't see why they're entitled to that sort of protection."

Ramsey finds closing South Grafton Abattoir may not fix his financial woes

Arguably one of the most disliked blokes in the Clarence Valley, Stuart Ramsey, will have to think again after his dummy spit following adverse Fair Work Australia and Land & Environment Court decisions.

In The Daily Examiner on 2^nd November 2011:

“SOUTH Grafton abattoir owner, the Ramsey group of companies, may have to put up close to $1 million to ensure soon-to-be-displaced workers get their full severance pay and entitlements.

Yesterday, the Fair Work Ombudsman applied to the Federal Court asking that the Ramsey group be required to make the payments, citing concern permanent abattoir employees will not be paid their accrued annual leave entitlements or redundancy pay……….

The ombudsman also asked that the respondents, who were listed as; Stuart Bruce Ramsey, Brugold, Ramsey Food Processing, Ramsey Meats, Ramsey Developments, Coastal Employment Services, Explin, Ramsey Holdings, Ramsey Pastoral Company, Rawhide, Ramsey Pastoral, Ramsey Wholesale Meats, Mortimer Administration Service and Abattoir Contracting Service, pay $988,480 to cover what is estimated to be owed to workers.

The amount was calculated on the assumption that each of an estimated 200 employees would be owed an average of $4942.40.”

Well done, fair Work Australia!

NSW North Coast editor comments on plans to mine antimony

From A Clarence Valley Protest.

Comment by David Bancroft, Editor, The Daily Examiner, Page 10, 27 October 2011:

Digging up mining dirt

MANY readers will be tempted to look at who is issuing the warning about antimony mining in our page three story today and not at what they are saying. That would be a mistake because what is being said has real substance.
Greens upper house member Jeremy Buckingham is clearly deeply concerned about the risks posed to Wild Cattle Creek and the Nymboida and Clarence rivers from proposed antimony and gold mining in the Wild Cattle Creek and Dorrigo plateau areas.
As we have said in this space previously, the consequences of a pollution spill during mining operations would have dire consequences for the Clarence and Coffs Harbour water supplies as well as the beef, dairy, fishing, horticulture and tourism industries of the Clarence Valley.
The ABC's 7.30 Report last Friday illustrated what can happen when the holding ponds of an antimony mine overflow.
It showed the Hillgrove mine, near Armidale, more than 100km from the coast. It has leaked contaminants into the Macleay River system and there are now exaggerated levels of pollutants from Hillgrove to the sea. Environment Minister Robyn Parker has already told parliament that pollution will be evident for "millennia".
Authorities are giving conflicting advice on the impact, on one hand saying there is no health threat to humans and on the other advising residents the water is unfit to drink.
Can you imagine what the impact on the tourism industry alone would be from the publicity that would surround pollution of the Clarence?
And it is just one of the industries that face potentially disastrous consequences from heavy metal mining.
We should not dismiss the prospect of mining out of hand because of the environmental risks - mining is essential.
But before we consider an application with such risks we should be absolutely certain we are not going to put long-term industries at risk for a relatively short-term gain.

Also Green's contamination fears by David Bancroft,  27 October 2011.

Where will this coal seam mining water come from and where will this waste water go?

The Greens Jeremy Buckingham (in the media release below) begins to touch on the problem of waste water disposal, but on the NSW North Coast with its highly variable river flows perhaps the first question should be – Which river systems will these mining companies raid to get all this water?

Particularly since Metgasco has commenced its operations in the Casino district, with  Red Sky Energy not be far behind and the gold and antimony miners tagging along behind them.

Minister Hartcher dodges questions on coal seam gas

28 October 2011

Greens mining spokesperson Jeremy Buckingham, criticised the Minister for Resources and Energy, Chris Hartcher for dodging legitimate questions on coal seam gas at today’s Estimates Committee hearing.
Rather than answer a question about how coal seam gas operations would deal with millions of litres of saline waste water, the Minister chose to dispute whether the industry would really produce such a volume of waste water.
The National Water Commission position paper on coal seam gas (Dec 2010) says 7.5 trillion litres could be produced:
“Current projections indicate the Australian CSG industry could extract in the order of 7,500 gigalitres of co-produced water from groundwater systems over the next 25 years, equivalent to around 300 gigalitres per year.” (http://www.nwc.gov.au/resources/documents/Coal_Seam_Gas.pdf)
“Rather than deal with a serious question about coal seam gas waste water, the Minister chose to dodge the question,” said Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham.
“Minister Hartcher characterised many legitimate concerns about coal seam gas as ‘wildly speculative statements’ rather than tell the hearing what the government policy was in terms of dealing with coal seam gas related waste water or waste salt.
“Clearly the campaign against coal seam gas has got under the skin of Mr Hartcher, and he decided to play the man and not the ball, which is unfortunate given that the issue of coal seam gas is of serious concern in the community.
“Given the government has announced a ban on evaporation ponds, Minister Hartcher should stop playing politics and tell the public what policies the government will put in place to deal with the millions of litres of waste water that would result from the development of a coal seam gas industry in NSW.
(Jeremy Buckingham MLC, media release, October 28, 2011)

What one local thinks of the O'Farrell Government health centre funding offer

One local responding to this article:

By EmmaB from Yamba on 25/10/2011

This meager funding offer by the O'Farrell Government is little more than a confidence trick. If the Yamba community were to cast its mind back to not so long ago, it would recall that the Area Health Service CEO stated that if the building were to be established it would only be staffed when money from within the health service's existing budget could be identified and that full staffing of a community health centre would take a number of years at least.
All Yamba would ever see for probably a decade is the few existing health services operating out of Treelands Drive Community Centre transferred to the new building.
Skinner is offering to partly fund a white elephant and it is no accident that she makes this statement in the lead up to the Clarence by-election.
What a hollow sham!