EFA 2008 political donation and election expenditure disclosures published online today at 10 am

Declarations disclosing political donations and electoral expenditure lodged under the Election Funding and Disclosures Act 1981 will be made available to the public on Monday 20 April, 2009.

The Election Funding Authority (EFA) will publish the declarations and disclosure data live on its website http://www.efa.nsw.gov.au/ at 10.00am.

The disclosures cover the reporting period from 1 July 2008 – 31 December 2008.
This reporting period includes the September 2008 NSW Local Government election activity.

All disclosure data will be searchable by category and will be downloadable.

Data entry is based on information as provided in the declarations of disclosures lodged with the EFA.
Under new reporting rules, declarations of disclosures must be lodged with the EFA every six months.

Campaigning for 2010 starts early in one US state

Believe it or not, it seems America is beginning to gear up for the campaign trail leading to 2 November 2010.
This email from Massachusetts showed up in my Inbox this week.

Dear Friends:
Please join Governor Deval Patrick at a grassroots organizing meeting for supporters and volunteers today, April 16th at 3:30 at Rachel's Lakeside Restaurant on Route 6 in Dartmouth. The Governor will be speaking about his upcoming governing agenda in 2009 and some of his long-term priorities. We will also be discussing ways for you to get involved and help the Governor now and looking toward 2010 and the re-election campaign. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks, Clare Kelly
Clare Kelly
Deval Patrick Committee

The Democrat governor has his own website and Twitter and, of course he's asking for political donations.
Given he was elected with about 56 per cent of the vote last time, it is puzzling to find his campaign committee kitty virtually empty at $3,200 and other campaign funds only reaching somewhere in the vicinity of $500,000.
Is it the tough economic climate or is he an inept governor?
The fact that he appears to be campaigning in far away Australia among people ineligible to vote in US elections may give a hint.

Best online quotes seen recently

Richard Farmer writing in Crikey on 17th April 2007.

It's when MSM sites like this herd the dross of the internet into advertising, by tickling the bigoted little underbellies of their audience with pig-ignorant bullshit being masqueraded around as "fact" and Caped Crusader for the Cretinous.
Possum Comititatus writing about the Herald Sun and journalist Andrew Bolt in Pollytics on 17th April 2007.

WE'VE already seen pictures of his eye ... now we have the first image of the hand of God.
Wishful thinking on the part of an unknown News.com journalist when looking at a NASA photograph on 16th April 2009.

Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).
Legend at the bottom of the page on the XKCD.COM web site.

A WEEK ago Susan Boyle was an unemployed 47-year-old single cat owner who had never been kissed.
David Murray writing in the Herald Sun hits all the stereotypes when reporting the bravura performance of a televised talent show contestant on 18th April 2009.

When Rupert loved Google

Remembering Rupert Murdoch's recent dummy spit about how Google was stealing his mojo and costing his media empire money by running the news aggregate site Google News, it was interesting to stumble upon this little snippet from 2006.


It appears that Rupert's love is a fickle thing - it only lasts as long as the economic good times.

Crime rates: who's up and who's down on the Northern Rivers

Surfing the Net this week I was greeted with a call for more police to tackle crime from Tweed Nationals MP Geoff Provest in the Far North Coaster.
At the same time The Daily Examiner had police boasting about a fall in the local crime rate and Police Minister Tony Kelly announcing a state-wide reduction in crime.
So how are we actually doing?
Well, it seems the North Coast can still preen its feathers when it comes to how we compare with the rest of NSW.
Overall we've either half the state crime rate (or are holding steady on low percentages) for robbery with any sort of weapon, stealing from a person or fraud.
Although there were low numbers of reported sexual assaults; unfortunately in the Kyogle and Richmond Valley areas sexual assaults were above the state average in 2008, with rates for all reported forms of sexual assault in the Richmond Valley at least doubling.
There were five murders last year on the North Coast (although that's one up from 2007) and our biggest incident numbers were for malicious property damage, but even that was roughly the same as last year.
And when you look at individual council areas it was obvious that malicious damage had fallen in Ballina and Coffs Harbour and assaults had fallen in the Clarence Valley and Ballina.
Break and enters did not grow last year either across the North Coast, though that doesn't lessen the shock for those who found that they'd been burgled.

The exception to this was Byron Bay - where stealing from a dwelling appears to be something of a growth industry.
As for Richmond-Tweed; its physical assault numbers were down on the previous year's figures also, but its break and enter dwelling rates were at least double the state average.
Combined with the 2008 sexual assault rate, this isn't a good look for the area.
So perhaps Geoff Provest has a case for calling on NSW Police to consider beefing up its presence there or at least reviewing local practice.
The fact remains of course that the North Coast overall crime rate hasn't really grown between 2007 and 2008.
The full gen for the whole of NSW is here.

Meet the MP for Page Janelle Saffin

Photograph from www.janellesaffin.com

Federal MP for Page Janelle Saffin will be at Ballina Markets on Sunday 19 April (10am) and at Casino Markets (11am) on Sunday 26 April 2009.

Go along and say hello. Bend her ear about your area.
If you don't tell her what you think she'll never know.

Ms. Saffin will also be hosting a forum on proposed changes to how meat quality is assessed and labelled at the Lismore Workers Club on Friday 8 May (2pm-4pm).
Phone her Lismore office on 6621 9909 to register an interest.