Look 'ere! It's the Saffin-Cansdell dog fight

The Daily Examiner today reported on the dispute between Federal Labor's Janelle Saffin and NSW Nationals'  Steve Cansdell as to who exactly arranged a meeting between canegowers and the NSW Minister for Roads, with the Federal Minister for Primary Industries also attending.

The NSW Minister supports Ms. Saffin's version of events.

Sorry, Mr. Cansdell - you are not all that believable.

On the Lower Clarence you already have a reputation for running to the media and taking credit for funding obtained through the local community's own lobbying efforts.

The fact of the matter is that Ms. Saffin has been steadily delivering for the Page electorate since her election in November 2007.

Just yesterday she confirmed a hefty funding boost for Grafton District Meals-on-Wheels, which provided more than 42,000 meals to aged and incapacitated people in the Clarence Valley district in 2007.

The Daily Examiner yesterday:

http://www.dailyexaminer.com.au/localnews/storydisplay.cfm?storyid=3762703&thesection=localnews&thesubsection=&thesecondsubsection=

Another rate rise announced by the Reserve Bank. Are there more to come?

With so many consecutive interest rate rises since 1996, the latest media release from the Reserve Bank offers only limited hope that this will be the last cash rate increase of 2008.

Read it and make up your own mind before deciding on the next major purchase.

 

STATEMENT BY GLENN STEVENS, GOVERNOR

MONETARY POLICY

 

"At its meeting today, the Board decided to increase the cash rate by 25 basis points to 7.0 per cent.

Recent information points to significant inflation pressures. CPI inflation on a year‑ended basis picked up to 3 per cent in the December quarter, with underlying measures around 3½ per cent. This was a little higher than was expected a few months ago. Indicators of demand remained strong through the second half of 2007, and reports of high capacity usage and shortages of suitable labour persist. In the short term, inflation is likely to remain relatively high and will probably rise further in year‑ended terms, though the Bank expects it to moderate somewhat next year.

The Board took careful note of recent events abroad and developments in financial markets. The world economy is slowing and it now appears likely that global growth will be below trend in 2008. Recent trends in world commodity markets suggest, however, that Australia's terms of trade are likely to rise further.

The pressures in short-term money markets seen late last year have eased in recent weeks, but sentiment in international capital and equity markets remains fragile. In Australia, financial intermediaries have passed on higher costs to their customers over the past couple of months. There has also been some tightening of lending standards to risky borrowers, a process which may yet have further to go.

These developments, together with the effects of earlier changes to monetary policy, can be expected to exert a moderating influence on private demand in Australia over the period ahead. But given the extent of pressure on capacity and the build up in inflation, a significant slowing in demand from its recent pace is likely to be necessary to reduce inflation over time.

Having weighed both the international and domestic information available, the Board concluded that a tighter monetary policy setting was needed now. In future meetings, the Board will continue to evaluate whether the stance of policy will be sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to the 2-3 per cent target."

Caroline Overington still M.I.A.

Journalist Caroline Overington appeared again in The Australian online opinion pages briefly in December 2007.

This is the last Google reference I can find after her spectacular, intrusive participation in the November 2007 federal election process which caused that newspaper to issue a public apology.

Overington's career is shaping up to be the lasting journalistic train wreck of the Howard era.

All the other media neo-cons are slowly clawing their way back towards relevancy.

Except for the likes of Piers Akerman (The Daily Telegraph), Gerard Henderson (The Sydney Morning Herald) and Janet Albrechtsen (The Australian) who are irredeemable if their latest efforts are any indication.

Nine tipping points for irreversible effects of climate change

The Independent yesterday reported on the nine tipping points which may cause global warming to run out of control.

 

"Our findings suggest that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point in this century under human-induced climate change," said Professor Timothy Lenton, of the University of East Anglia, who led the study."

 

Irreversible changes

* Arctic sea ice: some scientists believe that the tipping point for the total loss of summer sea ice is imminent.

* Greenland ice sheet: total melting could take 300 years or more but the tipping point that could see irreversible change might occur within 50 years.

* West Antarctic ice sheet: scientists believe it could unexpectedly collapse if it slips into the sea at its warming edges.

* Gulf Stream: few scientists believe it could be switched off completely this century but its collapse is a possibility.

* El Niño: the southern Pacific current may be affected by warmer seas, resulting in far-reaching climate change.

* Indian monsoon: relies on temperature difference between land and sea, which could be tipped off-balance by pollutants that cause localised cooling.

* West African monsoon: in the past it has changed, causing the greening of the Sahara, but in the future it could cause droughts.

* Amazon rainforest: a warmer world and further deforestation may cause a collapse of the rain supporting this ecosystem.

* Boreal forests: cold-adapted trees of Siberia and Canada are dying as temperatures rise.

U.S. Big Brother is watching Australia but doesn't like what it sees

The very peaceful and law-abiding Port Phillip Bay anti-channel dredging protest group Blue Wedges Coalition has turned up on the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence's international threat list, according to Richard Baker of The Age.

 

"Blue Wedges is included in an Office of Naval Intelligence's worldwide threat to shipping document, which details active violence against shipping, credible threats to vessels, or situations that have the potential to develop into direct threats.------

Blue Wedges joins Greenpeace as the only groups included in the threat list under the section headed: Environmental and Economic Non-State Activist Groups.

"Protesters plan to surround the dredger (Queen of the Netherlands) as it arrives in Port Phillip Bay, Australia, on 02 Aug (sic) to begin a controversial trial dredging project for the Port of Melbourne Corporation," the Office of Naval Intelligence warned.

"The Greenpeace ship (Rainbow Warrior) is due in port the same week but Greenpeace denies they are planning to block dredging operations. The Blue Wedges Coalition, which is leading the opposition, is consulting lawyers over possible action in the Supreme Court to block the trial dredging."

The Age article last Monday week:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/investigations/blue-wedges-tagged-with-sea-pirates/2008/01/27/1201368944836.html

 

It would seem that the Bush Administration finds democracy Australian-style just a little too heady for its neo-con taste.

 

Greenpeace also appears to be a sensitive topic generally with U.S. Intelligence.

When North Coast Voices began to mention Greenpeace and the protest against Japanese whaling in Antarctic waters, it received a rather interesting site visit from the Naval Ocean Systems Center (Joint Intelligence Center Pacific/RDON) out of Hawaii at ISP 198.201.23.#, confirmed by WHO.IS as a U.S. Dept of Defense ISP address.

Aloha, boys and girls.

 

Brendan Nelson hoist with Liberal Party's own petard

I found this The Sydney Morning Herald take on Brendan Nelson's reluctance to fully support an apology to the Stolen Generation a perfect example of where semantics and pedantry have led the Liberal Party of Australia.

 

"Nelson has argued, however, that we do not claim credit today for the heroics at Gallipoli so why take responsibility for taking children from their families?

These themes last met seven years ago when the Howard government scaled new heights in pedantry by using mathematics to deny the existence of the stolen generation. In a submission to a Senate inquiry, the then-minister John Herron argued fewer than 10 per cent of Aboriginal children were taken from their families, either wrongfully or "for good reason".

Therefore: "There was never a 'generation' of stolen children."

Three weeks later, John Howard was in Turkey for the 85th anniversary of the Gallipoli landing.

"Thus we come to this place at this hour on this day to observe not only a dawn but a dusk," the prime minister said in his dawn service speech. "For dusk has all but fallen on that great-hearted generation of Australians who fought here."

Demographic statistics for 1915 were not as detailed as they are today but, back then, Australia's population was about 5 million. Based on the best information available, slightly more than 1 million were aged between 15 and 35 years. During the nine months of the Gallipoli campaign, between 55,000 and 60,000 Australians were landed on the peninsula, neither 10 per cent of the whole population or those of military age.

Based on the then-government's logic, there was never a Gallipoli "generation" either.

Try mounting that argument and see how popular you'd be."

 

The Liberals are fast becoming a laughing stock for their convoluted reasoning.

Poll on Rudd's 2020 vision

It was great to see Rudders come up with the notion of a national summit to map out an agreed national direction for Australia beyond the next electoral cycle.

It appears that I am not alone in approving of the Australia 2020 Summit.

Granny Herald ran a poll yesterday which showed 75% of those who answered thought that Kevin Rudd's summit was a 'great idea'.

Let's hope both he and co-chair, Melbourne Uni vice-chancellor Glyn Davis, have a workable outcome to show us all by the end of April.

Leader of the Opposition Brendan 'we'll all be rooned' Nelson as usual is fence sitting and hasn't decided if he will attend this summit.