Morrie does a mass mail-out to bail out his latest privatisation scheme

Morris Iemma has just mailed out a letter to all NSW pensioners giving them an "iron-clad guarantee" that "my Government will continue to provide the $112 annual rebate on electricity bills for all pensioners" after privatisation of the State's electricity supplies.

Well that's settled. I'm vastly reassured. Hold on there a minute?

There's no mention of the fact that Morrie's "my Government" legally only lasts until the next election (John Howard taught us that with his weasel words on the GST).

Neither is there any guarantee that power company service fees and charges will not rise, and rise substantially, in the first three years of the electricity privatisation roll-out.

Missing also is any assurance that the cost to consumers per kilowatt hour will not start a sharp upward spiral within five years.

If other state privatisations are any indication, then the annual pensioner rebate is unlikely to pay for even one quarter's electricity account in the future.

Yes, Morrie my little mate, your fine pensioner rebate promises aren't worth the paper they're printed on.  

Yaegl woman named 2008 Clarence Valley Woman of the Year

It was nice to see Lenore Parker recognised for her tireless community work and longtime support of reconciliation.

On 13 February 2008 she became Clarence Valley Woman of the Year.

Ms. Parker was nominated by her daughter, well-known artist Frances Parker.

"Ms Parker was yesterday humble in her acceptance of the honour, acknowledging the contributions of other nominees and the generations of women who walked before her.

The Yaegl woman said she was honoured to accept the award, but emphasised she was doing so on behalf of all women."

Coles and Woolworths show an unexpectedly racist underbelly

With the Howard and Rudd governments' Northern Territory Intervention rapidly devolving into a punitive and racist quagmire, it is more than interesting to note that the giant supermarket chains Coles and Woolworths have enthusiastically entered into the ration book system which so bedevils and taints the recent practice of indigenous income management.

Calling a spade a spade, one would have to point out to these supermarket chains that they are knowingly colluding in institutional racism.

 

Extracts from 14 February 2008 Senate Hansard at page 76 (the bolding is my own).

Senator Siewert:

Is the government aware that income quarantining in

the Northern Territory is viewed by the community as

going back to ration days and is causing huge hardships

in the NT?.......................quarantined money is being

given to people in the form of gift cards, that aged pensioners

—including a lady who has worked for 48

years, has been retired for 10 years and has raised 10

kids—are being subjected to quarantining and that parents

are unable to send food money to children who are

away attending college? How does the government see

ration cards as a new beginning? Isn't the Northern

Territory intervention an example of an old approach

which is clearly failing? Will the government commit

to immediate review of the NT intervention?...........

People are being provided with a ration card. By the

way, this is a copy of the card people are given by

Coles. This is how big it is—it is small. It says 'Coles gift

card'. What an insult to the Aboriginal people of

the Northern Territory. Mothers at the meeting yesterday

were outlining the extreme shame that they feel

when they are standing in a queue at Coles or Woolies

—they are the two main places you can get a card

for. They are standing there with no cash in their hands

and they are told that they have to take some of the

things back because they cannot buy them on the card.

They are standing there with people who have cash,

and they do not. They described the deep shame they

feel. It takes them back to the ration days, when they

can remember that their parents, in some cases, were

given rations in old sugar bags. That is how these people

in the Northern Territory feel. It is outrageous."

 

On 12 February 2008 thousands of people marched in Canberra against this legislation.

Me, I'm going to make sure I spend a lot less at any supermarket chain which takes ration cards for goods and, if the Rudd Government doesn't get it's finger out and roll back this racist legislation then it won't be seeing my support at the ballot box.

Promises, promises, Mr. Hockey

I seem to remember that about three weeks out from the November 2007 polling day, Joe Hockey (then Federal Minister for Workplace Relations) flamboyantly vowed that he would quit the front bench if the Government made substantial changes to WorkChoices legislation.
Well, the Government may be of a different hue this year and Joe may be sitting on the shadow front bench, but will he keep his promise now that Julia Gillard has introduced the first bill to start dismantling WorkChoices?
Nah, didn't think so. :-) The man who tried to wish nation-wide AWAs on us all just won't go away. Even Kevin Rudd's 2008-09 parliamentary salary freeze won't shift him - the private sector job offers just aren't all that attractive yet. Or is it that he sees himself as Opposition leader?

The Brethren still have friends in high places

Question: Just how stupid is Brendan Nelson?

Answer: Very!

He provided first-hand proof of his idiocy when he spoke in reply to The Apology in parliament on Wednesday. However, confirmation that his idiocy knows no bounds has arrived in the news that he sponsored a leader of the Exclusive Brethren sect getting a special pass to Parliament, thus giving the Brethren unfettered access to the corridors of the legislature.

The Sydney Morning Herald (14/02/2008) reports that Nelson and former Tasmanian Liberal MP Michael Ferguson sponsored a pass application for Brethren elder Stephen Hales, who is the brother of the sect's Australian leader, Bruce Hales, to roam the corridors of power in Canberra.

Dr Nelson's days as Leader of the Opposition are surely numbered.

Read the Herald's report at http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/brethren-lobbyists-given-passes/2008/02/13/1202760399016.html

$50M in wasted government spending and I'm so glad

One of the most pleasing things the Rudd Government has done was to scrap the Howard Government's pseudo national identity card, the Access Card.

The government department set up to facilitate this card, which spent more than $50 million on consultants, administration and advertising, is gone.

At least 18 million Australians can rest easy until the next time this daft idea surfaces.

The estimated $1.178 billion required to roll-out the Access Card will now stay in government coffers to be spent on other policies.  

"Senator Ludwig says the money will boost savings and help fund the government's promises in education and health." A much better idea with positive outcomes.

The Access Card and Consumer Privacy Taskforce discussion papers and received submissions revealed that the card was never going to address the Coalition's favourite over-rated bogeyman, welfare fraud, or the estimated $100 million in annual 'losses' due to Centrelink administrative error.

Nelson loses it, Tuckey abuses it, Schultz who?

Personally I think Opposition leader Brendan Nelson lost it during the second half of his speech on the floor of Parliament yesterday supporting Parliament's apology to the Stolen Generations, but you may have another opinion.

Link to full text of speech.

 

However the most unedifying moment of the day was the churlish boycott of the apology by WA Liberal Wilson Tuckey and NSW Liberal Alby Schultz.

 

I did catch sight of the Nationals Luke Hartsuyker, local member for Cowper, as he sat on the new Opposition front bench. At least he turned up, even if he appeared rather po faced during yesterday's historic proceedings.

Nelson hit in the face with a dead mullet during Question Time

Opposition leader Brendan Nelson learnt a hard lesson yesterday when he asked the first Question Without Notice of the 42nd Commonwealth Parliament.

Don't mention election promises, because your own party's track record is bound to be dismal. 

That's why election promises exist - to fill the holes in an incumbent government's policy.

Before Nelson had even finished his question on lower grocery and petrol prices you could almost see that wet fish being pulled out of the bucket and heading towards his unfortunate head.

Rudder's reply was a small gem in its own right.

"In the period of the previous government, which had more than 11 years to act on both these matters, they did nothing and nothing. I would strongly suggest that the leader of the opposition reflects on the performance of his government in relation to these matters before reflecting on what might be achieved through both of the measures we promised in opposition and have delivered on.''

One almost had to feel sorry for the little fella now on the wrong side of the dispatch box.

Australia tries to solve mystery of disappearing Minke whale numbers

Despite Japan's assurances that whale numbers are at sustainable levels, the case for its annual whale kill is not that simple. 

In 2000 the International Whaling Commission admitted that Minke whale numbers in the Southern Ocean had probably been overestimated.

Research has shown these whales are not experiencing a population boom as argued by Japan.

"A female sperm whale may produce one calf every five years, after reaching sexual maturity at nine years. Males reach breeding age in their late twenties. It is not known how many calves a female may bear before reaching menopause or the rate of natural sperm whale mortality. A young whale may suckle from her mother for up to 15 years.----

Scientists believe that it takes around 20 years on average for a female whale to replace itself with one mature female offspring. This does not account for the potential adverse impacts of new human-induced threats to whales such as bycatch, climate change, ozone depletion, marine pollution, ship strikes and underwater noise pollution."

 

After twenty years of international Minke whale surveys, Australia is now using aerial surveys.

"For the first time, Australian scientists will use aircraft to count minke whales in the pack ice around Antarctica.

Since 1978 the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has been counting whales in the Southern Ocean for management and conservation purposes. Each year ships, provided by Japan, cover about one-tenth of the Southern Ocean, with each survey in the unstrengthened vessels necessarily ending at the edge of the pack ice around Antarctica. Thus, every 10 years, a circumpolar snapshot of whale abundance is obtained.

Surveys over the past two decades, however, suggest there has been a significant decline in minke whale abundance, leading to disputes over whether the decline is genuine, or an artefact caused by the survey technique.

One theory is that changes in the ice edge boundary each year, and changes in the number of minke whales present in the pack ice beyond this boundary, could be responsible for the differences in estimates of the whales in open water. In other words, could there be more minke whales hiding under the hundreds of kilometres of pack ice (and open areas within the pack ice), where the ships can't search?"

 

Japan's whale meat market has been slashing prices since 2002 and still the general public has not taken to eating whale meat on a regular basis.

Australia apologises to indigenous Stolen Generations

Montage photograph at www.crikey.com.au

Today the Commonwealth Parliament of Australia will apologise to indigenous traditional owners for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss, and especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, communities and their country. Parliament will resolve that the injustices of the past must never happen again.

Here is the full and historic text which was tabled in Parliament yesterday.

"Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
We reflect on their past mistreatment.
We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations – this blemished chapter in our nation’s history.
The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.
We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.
To the mothers and fathers, the brothers and sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.
We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.
For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.
We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australian.
A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.
A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.
A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have changed.
A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.
A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country."