Have Rusty, Jojo and Mellie finally deserted Malcolm Turnbull?

Malcolm Turnbull's personal blog is no longer posting entries from his family pets.
In fact Rusty the Red Cattle Dog, along with Jojo and Mellie the Maltese Silkies, has been totally silent since the 24 November 2007 federal election.
Have the pets left home for greener pastures?
Or does this present failure to place the pooch in front of a keyboard mean that Mal was under less pressure and better organised when he was a Minister of the Crown, Federal Cabinet member and local MP?
Is being the Coalition Shadow Treasurer turning out to be a task akin to mountain climbing right now?
Perhaps his very public spits at the Speaker during Question Time actually take hours in the planning and he has no time left over from making political mischief.
As the dogs often wrote about events in Mal's electorate, I have to wonder if he is attending many functions there these days.
Indeed the master of self-promotion has very few Wentworth events listed on his blog's electorate news page.

'Safe' GMO crops: one election promise Kevin 08 will run away from?

Instead of running to the media and spinning yet another ineffective attempt to use national advertising in a campaign to scare teenagers away from binge drinking, the Rudd Government should be forsaking the temptation to treat public policy as mere media moments and start quietly beavering away across all the issues that face Australia in 2008.

 

The genetically modified crop debate is one of those contentious issues which need to be resolved forthwith. The first genetically modified canola crop is due to go into the ground sometime this year.

 

Reported in ABC News yesterday.

 

"It is now legal to plant genetically modified (GM) canola in much of Australia, but a large group of concerned scientists, nutritionists and doctors is trying to convince the Federal Government to stop the seeds from ever being sown.

About 700 people have signed a letter to the Prime Minister, reminding him of Labor's election statement that safe and beneficial standards for GM products must be established beyond reasonable doubt."

According to The Age on the same day.

"The new federal campaign is being led by wealthy Adelaide businessman Peter Fenwick, who has urged Labor to maintain its pre-election stance on genetic engineering.

Yesterday, Mr Fenwick said he believed Mr Burke was "relatively uninformed" about the risks associated with GM, and had been "captured by his department".

Mr Rudd has been urged to:

■ Stop the release of any GM crops until he has met scientific experts to hear the latest evidence.

■ Order an immediate product safety recall on all GM crops, GM foods and GM animal feed, and ban their importation into Australia.

■ Overhaul the regulatory bodies with responsibility for policing the industry, and override the states that have lifted their GM bans.

Groups involved in the campaign include the Public Health Association of Australia, the Australian Milk Producers of Australia, Biological Farmers of Australia, a think tank associated with the Catholic Church, plus a host of organic and biodynamic food companies including Pureharvest."

Janelle Saffin MP gets a tick of approval from Crikey and Daily Examiner awards Steve Cansdell MP a thumbs down

This last week has been a study in contrasts between Federal Labor and State Nationals here on the NSW North Coast.

 

Richard Farmer in Crikey  last Thursday gave the Federal Member for Page a well-deserved tick of approval.

"Janelle Saffin, Labor, Page. A former member of the Legislative Council in the New South Wales parliament. She lived and worked in Timor Leste from 2004 to 2007 as Dr Jose Ramos Horta's senior political adviser. Spoke against the use of so many chemicals most of which used for food production "were not made for such use and are not necessary". Forceful and competent speaker. 7 out of 10."

 

While The Daily Examiner yesterday aired a claim that Nationals State Member for Clarence, Steve Cansdell, has been a lazy boy.

"TAMWORTH independent MP Peter Draper has accused State Member for Clarence Steve Cansdell of not pulling his weight in parliament.

Mr Draper analysed the performance of MPs in 2007 and found that Mr Cansdell was one of 12 Coalition members who did not pose a query during any of last year's question times."

 

Ballina MP Don Page and Lismore MP Thomas George are also mentioned as having failed to ask a question in the last twelve months.

 

And the Coalition wonders why it does not hold government anywhere in Australia at present.

It would do well to remember that regional voters reward hard work not complacency.

Further skirmishes in the Swamp Foxglove War

What with Clarence Valley Council on a Eurocentric vision trip which has it intent on chemically clearing around park specimen trees, urban weed-spraying at the drop of a hat, pulling out mature native bushes in the mistaken belief that these were introduced species and mowing sedge plants down so that only a matter of inches remain around the edge of some bodies of water, it takes a brave soul like Greg Clancy to keep at council over the matter of the threatened Swamp Foxglove.
Well done, Greg for highlighting the battle.

The Daily Examiner reports on the battle to save this little flower.

"According to Coutts Crossing ecologist, Greg Clancy, the plant only grows in a few spots in NSW and one of its most prolific patches is in the Coutts Crossing Cemetery.
But that could change if something is not done to protect it from vandals.
Mr Clancy said a car had run roughshod over the foxgloves just as they were flowering, breaking stems and destroying the surrounding environment.
Although Mr Clancy could not prove the damage was deliberate, he had no doubt the plants had been the target.
He said some Coutts Crossing residents were upset when Clarence Valley Council built a fence to protect the foxgloves as they believed the area contained old graves and should not be fenced off.
As a result, council removed the fence a year ago. But Mr Clancy said council had a duty of care to protect the foxglove which was listed as endangered and the fence should be reinstated.
"Before they fenced it off we had a couple of plants here, but when they fenced it off and stopped mowing it we got over 120 plants that came up through the grass," he said.
A week after the fence was removed Mr Clancy found the swamp foxgloves slashed to the ground by vandals."
Photograph at www.environment.nsw.gov.au

US08: let's get real about the odds

You can't switch onto radio, television or the internet these days without getting the latest on the 2008 race for Democratic nomination in the national election to decide the next US President.

What is fascinating is all the space given to the prospect of Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Hussein Obama being voted into the White House.

In a country which still appears firmly convinced that God is a white Christian American male in heavenly robes carrying an M16, does either a woman or an African-American really stand a chance?

Does anyone actually think America is now mature enough to vote for someone other than an aging Anglo-Saxon male? Just asking.

  

Memo to Malcolm Turnbull, Coalition Shadow Treasurer

Dear Malcolm,

Did your father never explain the problems with telling tall stories, whoppers, pork pies? Or the dangers of uttering fibs, stretching the truth, gilding the lily, colouring the facts - in other words, lying.

I'm sure he must have. Pity that paternal lesson appears to be forgotten.

This week you displayed a monumental lapse in both common sense and political acumen when you insisted that Treasury had given specific advice to the Rudd Government to recommend a dollar amount in any submission concerning the minimum wage case currently before the Fair Pay Commission.

You were exposed as misleading the Australian people on this issue, yet you still went on to give a number of interviews in which you continued to spread the canard and cast aspersions on the Treasury Secretary when he publicly denied your claims.

Your argument became so feeble with repetition that you expanded the fibbing with this.

"He said his proof was that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had not denied it when he put it to him in question time this week.

"He declined to contradict me. He did not correct me. If I was so wrong, why didn't he correct me on Wednesday? You have to ask yourself,'' Mr Turnbull said."

Now Mal, that wasn't just untruthful it was downright dumb. A great many people heard Question Time last Wednesday, including yours truly, and we all can check the exact wording online.

Mate, it's time your enlistment papers were stamped snarler and you were sent back from the political trenches.

Hooroo,

Pete

Libs Deputy Leader Julie Bishop comes a cropper coast-to-coast

The Liberal Party's second-in-command Julie Bishop is looking quite lemon lipped these days during Question Time in the Australian Parliament.

She is rarely winning a trick when she takes on her Labor counterpart, Deputy-Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

The latest upset for Ms. Bishop was when she rose to her feet at 2.07pm yesterday and called for the release of a government report showing that jobs would be lost if WorkChoices legislation was changed by the Rudd Government.

This allowed Ms.Gillard to point out in reply that the report Julie Bishop was asking for was actually one commissioned, received and then not released by the former Howard Government.

The report of course not modelling the Rudd Government changes to WorkChoices as these were apparently not in existence when this report was written.

Hansard records that Julia Gillard also stated that Ms. Bishop was knowingly misleading the House.

This less than shining moment for Julie Bishop was shown on national television, radio and parliament podcast.

It seems it was the Liberals who did not really understand.

Contemporary Northern Rivers artists - a visual feast

Sharon Muir of Mullumbimby from her Shields series.
Noel Hart blown glass work Modest Parrot.
Garth Lena of Fingal Heads "Three brothers"

When blogs begin to breed like rabbits in the night

Being a novice blogger who views the world-wide web as something akin to 'magik' (don't ask - it's a generational thing), it didn't take long before I was overwhelmed by the number of Australian blogs out there in hyperspace.

It almost seemed that, whenever I turned my PC off for the day, blogs of all varieties began to multiply inside the idle monitor while I slept.

I tried keeping a list of sites I liked, but was often diverted by the strange and obscure and lost my way in an evergrowing blog maze.

So it was some relief to find these two compilation sites. Kwoff which posts what interests readers with an immediacy I like, and Club Troppo's The Missing Link Daily which has a fine eye for the interesting or quirky comment and can deliver an email version.

Think I'll ditch that printed list from now on and check these sites first.

Otherwise I'll have to lay a couple of steel-jawed traps on my desk each night to keep those blog bunnies under control.