Wasn't it nice to see Bali delegates finally lose patience with America

Well I'm sure that wasn't something the United States was expecting.

Its delegate to the Kyoto conference in Bali loudly booed from the meeting floor, and then tiny Papua New Guinea rising to tell US representatives that if America was not prepared to lead on climate change solutions it should get out of the way.

Of course by then the US had all but wrecked the efforts of over 190 nations to create meaningful greenhouse gas emissions targets for the world to work towards over the next few years.

Maybe by 2009 Kyoto countries will have found the spine to kick the US right out the conference door if it remains as intransigent.

One can almost hear that famous American sphere of influence beginning to shrink, and the more effects of global warming begin to bite, the quicker that influence will disappear.

 

Where, oh where, has Caro gone?

Journalist Caroline Overington is becoming harder to find than Wally. I haven't seen a recent article by Overington in The Australian online since, well since just before the 24 November federal election.

Is she on holidays, leave of absence, resigned, been 'let go', busy suing bloggers or what?

If anyone sees Caro drop me a comment - would love to know where she finally roosts at full moon.

How 'fat' is fat and why is it a disease?

"The next time someone, even a health minister, tries to make you feel guilty about carrying a few extra kilos, just say no."

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon gets a slap on the wrist. And not without a measure of reason.

The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday:
 http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/dont-fall-for-the-big-fat-lie-when-proof-of-the-padding-is-thin/2007/12/14/1197568262871.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

'How to stop the US sabotaging a global response to climate change' in one easy lesson

Once again we have witnessed the United States impose its will on a reluctant world. The UN December 2007 conference on the Kyoto Protocol and climate change has bowed to American pressure. The Bali 'roadmap' has been watered down until it is simply another signal that it's acceptable to continue to go slowly on any global response to climate change.

 

Sometimes it seems that US economic might and defence capability leaves us all with no choice but to cave-in when this bully thumps the table to protect what it sees as its own economic 'divine right'. However, concern over global warming is so widespread that ordinary people now have an issue which unites their individual economic power into an international might which could take on the US.

 

So if you are one of those ordinary little people who want to see global warming tackled before it is too late, use your personal economic power to send a message to America to shape up or ship out. Decide today that you will no longer buy goods, services, products or produce which originate in the US or come from US-owned companies.

Boycott America until it decides to become a responsible global citizen.

 

Where to start? Look at the labels on groceries stacked on supermarket shelves, make sure you check company and country of origin on those jeans, CDs, stereos, TVs, washing machines etc., that you are thinking of buying. If you own shares, become an ethical investor and dump any that represent US-owned companies. 

What better way than to start than with the Fortune 500 at:

 http://www.fortune500s.net/fortune500-list.php 

 

If America only views the world through the prism of its own short-term economic bottom line - let us all give it a bottom line to remember in 2008.

Australia leading from the rear on climate change

Fair dinkum, it's embarrassing. There's the Rudd Government huddled at the bottom of a Bali trench yelling "Charge!" and urging other nations over the top in this latest battle of the War on Global Warming.

While the Rudd Government's loyal opposition, protected by its non-combatant status, hands out white feathers to delegates as they move up to the firing steps.

I know Minister for Climate Change and Water Penny Wong is probably breaking her heart trying to do a good job at the UN conference, but it is disappointing to see a new government (which earlier this year promised Australia that it would have 20% renewable energy by 2020 and committed itself to establishing domestic emission reduction targets) publicly and privately knuckle under to American interests in this way.

It's no way to fight a war. It's no way to tackle climate change. It's no way to protect Australia's future.

Like many others on the North Coast I await dispatches from the front this morning and hope for better news.

Why are greedy tax cheats accorded protected species status?

Adele Horin in The Sydney Morning Herald (December 15), has rightfully pointed out the slanted position taken by authorities when addressing the issue of moneys missing from the public purse.

Horin takes a look at how welfare cheats and tax cheats are treated in Australia.

Welfare cheats are soft targets so they get a hammering but tax cheats, who are a protected species, get easy runs home.

In part, Horin wrote:

If tax cheats were hounded as assiduously as welfare cheats, Australia would be better off. But under the old regime, welfare cheats - so-called - were pursued to the ends of the Earth while tax cheats slid under the radar.

Millions of dollars were poured into detecting welfare fraud while in the last years of the Howard government one-third as much was spent tracking down tax cheats, according to budget papers.

The inequity led Professor John Braithwaite, of the Australian National University, an expert on corporate crime, to remark last year that the DPP had taken "soft, easy cases and they are the frauds of poor people. The frauds of sophisticated rich people who are aggressively defended by the best lawyers money can buy deliver lower success rates [to the DPP]."

The government stood to recoup far more from tax cheats than from welfare cheats. On economic grounds alone, it should have ramped up the fight against tax avoiders. According to budget papers, for every dollar spent chasing tax avoiders, the government would recoup $7.53 compared with only $1.94 from the welfare fraudsters. In the end, fewer than 3500 people are convicted of welfare fraud in a year from a population of 6.5 million social security recipients.

Read the entire article "Tax dodgers laughing as the poor are hounded" at:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/tax-dodgers-laughing-as-the-poor-are-hounded/2007/12/14/1197568262862.html


Unfortunately, Horin didn't include superannuation cheats in her article. Although they didn't get a mention, superannuation cheats are out there in big numbers.

So, you ask, "Who are the superannuation cheats?"

Answer: These cheats are thieving employers who do not make the mandatory super contributions for their employees.

"Who's responsible for ensuring employers do the right thing and meet their responsibilities and pay their employees' super?"

Answer: The Australian Taxation Office.

"If the ATO doesn't address the issue of tax cheats properly how can it be expected to address the problem of super cheats?"

Answer: To use the words of Horin, "more hounding, and more tabloid headlines, would not go astray."

PS:
Memo to all employees - contact your super fund and check to see that your employer has paid your super in full. Unfortunately, many employees are being dudded every pay period. Their pay slips show how much super should be going to their fund BUT their employers are pocketing it for themselves.