Woodford Dale Public School has a blog!

Woodford Dale Public School seen across a field of cane.

There are over one hundred islands and islets in the mighty Clarence River on the New South Wales North Coast.

Many of these are populated - sometimes by just a single farm house and sometimes by small village communities.

One of the most enduring examples of island life is Woodford Island, home to approximately 6,000 people.

Its school Woodford Dale Primary School (established in 1867) now has a blog.
A very big welcome to the blogosphere to all its teachers and pupils.

Most inappropriate new awards in 2009

The Financial Times and ArcelorMittal will be holding the inaugural Boldness In Business Awards 2009 gala dinner in March to announce the winners nominated for 'boldness' in 2008.
With 2008 seeing the financial mismanagement tsunami roll across international borders and devastate national economies, there are going to be few nominations of any merit to consider.
Indeed, with corporate misfortune striking so quickly it is likely that some nominees are no longer among those considered successful.
With only little more than a month to go, only five contenders for awards are listed in the Readers' Award section.
Bet Lionel Barber is a bit sorry that TFT agreed to partner this now.
Never mind, cobber - you can always catch a flight back to England to hide from any temporary embarrassment.

Will Sandy Holloway turn out to be one of Peter Garrett's biggest mistakes?

Photograph from The Sydney Morning Herald

In October 2008 the Federal Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts took a step sideways with regard to Australia's official opposition to the continuation of commercial whaling in the Southern Ocean which is thinly disguised as 'scientific' research by the Government of Japan.
Peter Garrett did this by appointing Sandy Holloway as a Special Envoy for Whale Conservation.

Mr. Holloway was CEO of the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games and although the Sydney Games were highly successful, the fact remains that he operated within an International Olympic Committee philosophy which was historically less than transparent, less than corruption free and nakedly cynical.

With recent media reports indicating that Australia (courtesy of Holloway) may have given an indication that it would agree to Japan continuing whaling in the Southern Ocean and even expanding its operation in the Pacific, matters have taken a turn for the worst for Minister Garrett as over 21 years of diplomacy and active international lobbying appear to be morphing into open appeasement.

In The Australian earlier today:

EVIDENCE of a Federal Government offer to Japan over whaling has emerged as Canberra insists it is totally opposed to the hunt. Australia was ready to "seriously consider" Japan's priorities, and a "reduced" total take of Southern Ocean whales, according to a US State Department memo written late last year.

And as recently as last weekend, Australia was among a select group of nations that met confidentially to refine a compromise package for International Whaling Commission (IWC) approval.

The Government came under attack yesterday after it was disclosed that it was involved in developing the package for the commission chairman, William Hogarth, who is working to bridge the deep divide between pro and anti-whaling nations.

Australia was part of a small group that last December put together the Hogarth package. This proposed letting Japan expand North Pacific kills through coastal and high seas whaling while also limiting, or phasing out, its Antarctic hunt.....

"(Mr) Hollway has travelled to Tokyo and Washington in recent weeks, explaining that Australia is ready to seriously consider Japan's priorities in the IWC (if not actually support them) and simultaneously secure reductions in the larger Antarctic whale quotas that Japan grants itself," said the memo.

Japan's aim to re-establish commercial whaling is well-known.
The Holloway trade-off is a farce and allows Japan to keep all its whale hunting options open, and further, apparently allows it to proceed with its annual kill with little or no increase in formal oversight or monitoring in the hunting grounds it has chosen.

A supposedly green approach to the Sydney Olympics may have given Peter Garrett a faith in Sandy Holloway which is sadly misplaced, because Holloway obviously sees whale conservation and protection more as a matter of commerce and trading partner compromise.

Peter Garret's weakness and Kevin Rudd's reluctance to take a very strong stand will see Japan continue to exploit the situation to its own advantage despite widespread community and international opposition to commercial whaling.

Malcolm Turnbull opens his mouth and emits CH4

Federal Leader of the Liberal Party and Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, chose the Young Liberals Conference in Canberra this weekend to announce his party's new climate change 'policy', A Green Carbon Initiative.

After waiting months to hear what Turnbull would put up against the Rudd Government's climate change policies and proposed emissions trading scheme, we now find that he has laboured hard to produce a little gas.

It seems that all that is really needed to save Australia from the ravages of climate change is for the Liberal Party to promise delivery of the near-mythical Clean Coal, a little biochar in the soil, converting a building or two to greater energy efficiency and a few renewable energy odds and sods thrown in for good measure - all leading to a carbon reduction equivalent of 150 million tonnes annually.

That's around 7 million tonnes for every man, woman and child across the nation.

All in the name of 'risk management', because after all (according to many Liberals) there is a chance that human-induced global warming may possibly not exist after all.

As for emissions trading. Well never you mind about that just yet - we haven't prepared a policy response at this time.

If this effort is the best that the Liberal Party can do in 2009 then they are clearly not ready for government.

According to Stock and Land farmers are not too happy with Turnbull either:

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has been warned his plan to trap greenhouse gases in soil could end up costing farmers if it means agriculture is included under an emissions trading scheme.
According to today's Australian Financial Review, senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne's Department of Forest and Ecosystem Science, Stefan Arndt, said if farmers were to benefit from biosequestration offsets being recognised under the ETS, they should equally be liable for their own emissions.
"We don't have enough evidence that soil carbon sequestration would outweigh the negative effects to farming, such as methane producing animals and the nitrous oxide emissions that come from putting fertiliser in the ground," Dr Arndt said.

While the Nationals are less than enthusiastic with his foray into biosequestration either.

Turnbull's A Green Carbon Initiative is found here.

Image from http://www.roberthkeller.com/

The ugly face of Australia Day on the NSW North Coast

While elsewhere on the NSW North Coast backyard barbecues were fired up, small street parties got underway and people travelled to see their local heroes honoured; young hooligans in the Coffs Harbour area drank too much and got into drunken fights for all the world to see on the teev nightly news.
Yelling insults and wildly swinging their fists while draped in the Australian flag - acting like prize nongs that their grandmas would disown if they could've seen them.
When did our so-called national day take on such an ugly face across the land?
Why do our youth appear to equate patriotism with violence or racism?
Do the young feel free to act like this because they grew up in the Howard years or is it something even darker?

Volunteers need help too...

We are all aware of our volunteer organisations and the splendid job they do; SES in storms and floods, RFS in the case of fire, NSW VRA and wilderness rescue, Life Savers on our marvellous beaches and many others.

It has come to my attention that St John Ambulance Australia has a Clarence Valley Division.
It has only been in operation for the last 2 years and is the latest in a proud 125 years of St John Ambulance service in Australia.

The organisation through its volunteers provides outstanding first aid services and also training for groups.
If you have been to a local community event, like the Surfing the Coldstream Festival, you may have seen them in the background providing this first aid.

Many events within the valley could not happen without St John’s attendance.
Like interschool sports days, local shows, polo cross and hockey carnivals - not to mention the Jacaranda Festival and many others.

This small band did over 1,000 hours of volunteer service last year.

It has also been brought to my attention that they are desperately in need of a new vehicle to transport their equipment to the many jobs they do in the Clarence Valley and beyond.

They were lucky enough to have been given the St John at Lismore’s old vehicle, but it has reached its use by date.

So if any reader would like to help this self-funded charity how, about donating to this worthy cause?

You can contact them at:
St. Johns Ambulance
PO Box 742
Grafton NSW 2460
or ring the District Officer Graham Waterbury on 66422734.

Maybe one of the local clubs would like to make this their fundraising project for this year?

Google Cache to save Australia?

On 25 January 2009 The Greens posted the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy's reply to four questions on notice submitted in November 2008.

Leaving aside the fact that Senator Conroy refused to answer seven vital questions in SQON0834 and gave nonsense answers in 831, 832 and 833 where it was politically convenient; one interesting fact emerged - Google Cache and Google Translate will not be subjected to ISP-level filtering according to the minister.

As most sites indexed by Google appear to be cached and all websites would have the ability to activate the cache function, this would virtually render most filtering ineffectual if one established a connection with an international version of a search engine.

So does this mean that the Rudd-Conroy plan to impose the Great Firewall of Australia is really an expensive piece of political theatre aimed at appeasing the religious right and certain lobby groups?
Or is Senator Conroy telling yet another political lie?

And why has the senator refused to give assurances that ISP-level filtering will not be used to block political, activist or creative content from view on the Australian Internet?

Answers to Questions On Notice:

sqon0831 Answer.pdf	395.8 KB
sqon0832 Answer.pdf	267.3 KB
sqon0833 Answer.pdf	488.45 KB
sqon0834 Answer.pdf	846.65 KB