Barnaby Joyce eyes off the seat of Page?

Letter to the Editor published in The Daily Examiner on Thursday 29 January 2009:

So Queensland Liberal National Party Senator, Barnaby Joyce, is considering the poisoned chalice (thrust towards him by John Howard) and may yet abandon the Senate and seek election to the House of Representatives.

If there was one thing pointing to this politician's foolishness it would be the fact that he is reportedly considering such a move with one eye on the seat of Page in the NSW Northern Rivers.

He must have the shortest of memories himself or think that people in the Clarence Valley have such faulty recall that they would fail to remember that he supported the Howard-Turnbull push to dam and divert water from the Clarence River catchment.

Yes, baying at the back of that particular water raider's pack came Senator Joyce, who sat on the Senate RRAT Committee inquiry into additional water supplies for south-east Queensland where he made it plain that he was not adverse to any proposal to steal Clarence freshwater so that his Queensland mates could continue their unsustainable irrigation practices [April-August 2007].

He also voted against The Greens motion in the Senate which read in part:"That the Senate:....(b) calls on the Federal Government to: (i) abandon plans for damming the Clarence, Tweed, Richmond and Mann Rivers;" [C'wealth Hansard,Senate,proof issue,19 August 2007,p.p. 33-34].

As late as the middle of last year he was still including mention of the Clarence catchment in his discussions on water supply:"You can't create water with money. That means you have to think about bringing it from somewhere else, like the Gulf or the Clarence." [The Land, 13 August 2008]

Voting for Barnaby Joyce to fill a federal seat anywhere on the NSW North Coast would be allowing the water raiders to once again get a foot in the door after Northern Rivers communities had so firmly slammed that same door shut in 2007.

Yours faithfully,

JUDITH M. MELVILLE

[Taken from A Clarence Valley Protest]

Oz - a picture of the nation

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has just released its A Picture of the Nation based on the 2006 national census.

Apparently we are smarter, less religious and more likely to live in cities than previous generations of Aussies.

But are we really less religious or do we only appear that way because finally we all feel freer to state facts like that?

Graph from ABS Religion Across Generations PDF

The baby kissing effect begins to fade for Obama?

Thanks to Clarrie Rivers for the photo

US President Barack Obama scored a 68% approval rating for the first three days in office according to Gallup and 69% for the next three days.

John F. Kennedy is the single modern president who appears to have started his presidential life with a higher approval score, but his popularity was not polled so early in his presidency.

However, Obama scored a whopping 83% approval rating during his president-elect transition period so this latest poll (with its 14 to 15 point drop) while clearly showing that his honeymoon with the American people is not yet over does indicate that it may be on the wane.

Strangely the main stream media appear to be largely silent on this rather dramatic plunge in the polls except to characterise it in an historical context or refer to it as normalising the figures.

Only Iran Press TV and The Daily Mail pointed out that the new figure actually represented a decline, though a small number of news blogs also mentioned the percentage as a drop in approval.

In the U.S. Real Clear Politics tells us that across six polls conducted over 11-24 January, between 52-79% of those polled believed America was heading in the wrong direction.

What we need here is Possum Comitatus to decipher the apparent change in voter sentiment after Obama's comfortable election win.

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.