North Coast businesses on NSW Food Authorities Name and Shame List

The NSW Food Authority publishes lists of businesses that have breached or are alleged to have breached NSW food safety laws.

The lists gives consumers more information to make decisions about where they eat or buy food.

Individuals and businesses may receive either a penalty notice for their alleged offence or be prosecuted before a court.

These North Coast businesses are on the list.

* ASIAN FEAST 45/95 DIADEM ST LISMORE 2480
(8/12/2008) Fail to display potentially hazardous food under temperature control - hot food displayed below 49C, and staff did not check temperatures Penalty $330.00

* BARAKA FOODS 71 BANKSIA DRIVE BYRON BAY 2481
(10/12/2008) Did operate a food business without a license - manufacture of cheese Penalty $660.00

* BLUE SEAS BAKERY 212 RIVER STREET BALLINA 2478
(20/11/2008) Fail to maintain food premises, fixtures, fittings, equipment in a good state of repair and working order having regard to their use - coolroom door, coolroom door seal, and conveyor belt of dough rolling machine in state of disrepair Penalty $330.00

* CURRY & KEBAB KING SHOP 2/164 CANTERBURY STREET CASINO 2470 (25/2/2009) Fail to take all practicable measures to eradicate and prevent the harbourage of pests - A cockroach infestation was observed on the premises Penalty $330.00

* GOURMET GENIE 60 CULLEN STREET NIMBIN 2480
(25/11/2008) Failed to display for sale potentially hazardous foods under temperature control - Lasagne had a core temperature of 35C and no thermometer present on the premises Penalty $330.00

* HENRY'S BAKERY 87 KEEN STREET LISMORE 2480 (25/8/2009) Sale of unsuitable food - rodent bait pellet found baked into bread, open pellets observed in foil trays near baking trays Penalty $1100.00

* IN THE PINK BYRON BAY GELATI COMPANY 1/76 BALLINA STREET LENNOX HEAD 2478
(30/10/2008) Fail to maintain food premises and equipment in a clean condition Penalty $330.00

* JITTERBUGS TAKEAWAY 40 ADAMS STREET CORAKI 2471
(4/3/2009) Food for sale past its use-by date Penalty $330.00

* NOODLE BOX 2/38 BALLINA ROAD LISMORE 2480
(24/4/2009) Permitted a live animal in food handling areas, other than seafood or other fish or shellfish - a small dog was permitted in the front and kitchen areas Penalty $660.00

* NORTH COAST MINI MART 99 QUEENSLAND ROAD CASINO 2470
(14/1/2009) Fail to maintain food premises to the required standard of cleanliness - There was an accumulation of food waste, grease and grime on walls, floors, and ceilings Penalty $330.00

* PIONEER TAVERN 53 SIMPSON AVE WOLLONGBAR
(28/10/2008) Fail to take all practicable measures to eradicate and prevent the harbourage of pests on the food premises - damaged back door and evidence of pest activity Penalty $660.00

* RAINBOW SEAFOOD 8 JONSON STREET BYRON BAY 2481
(4/3/2009) Fail to display potentially hazardous food under temperature control - fish displayed at a temperature of 12C Penalty $330.00

* RAINBOW SEAFOOD 8 JONSON STREET BYRON BAY 2481
(4/3/2009) Fail to ensure that persons undertaking or supervising food handling have necessary skills and knowledge Penalty $330.00

* SEDGERS REEF HOTEL BISTRO 74/80 QUEEN ST ILUKA 2466
(3/10/2008) Fail to maintain fixtures and fittings in a clean condition - accumulation of food, grease, cockroaches Penalty $330.00

* SOPHIES RESTAURANT (THE CECIL HOTEL) 100 CENTRE ST CASINO 2470 (14/10/2008) Fail to take all practicable measures to eradicate and prevent the harbourage of pests on the food premises - mice droppings found and blow flies present Penalty $660.00

* TRIDENT FISH BAR PACIFIC HWY BALLINA 2478
(16/7/2008) Fail to maintain food premises in a clean condition - unclean walls, display cabinet and exhaust canopy Penalty $330.00

* WOODBURN EVANS HEAD RSL 11-13 MCDONALD PLACE EVANS HEAD 2473 (4/8/2009) Fail to maintain easily accessible hand washing facilities on the food premises - handwash basin obstructed by a bucket in the basin and a garbage bin in front Penalty $660.00

* ZHEN ZHEN VAN LOI HOT BREAD 167 RIVER STREET BALLINA 2478
(14/11/2008) A person must not sell food that is unsuitable - A loaf of bread sold contained a cockroach Penalty $550.00

NSW Electoral Commission changes its mind and Page electorate loses voter numbers

From a 23 October 2009 Australian Electoral Commission media release:

The augmented Electoral Commission for New South Wales today announced the outcome of the deliberations on the boundaries and names of the 48 federal electoral divisions in New South Wales, in accordance with a requirement of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918.
The presiding member of the augmented Electoral Commission for New South Wales, the Hon. Peter Heerey QC, said that it had adopted the proposal of the Redistribution Committee for New South Wales, published on 7 August 2009, with some changes.
The augmented Electoral Commission considers that its proposal is not significantly different from that proposed by the Redistribution Committee. Therefore, a further objection period and further hearing are not required.
The formal determination of the boundaries and names of the electoral divisions will be gazetted on 22 December 2009.

This means that the NSW North Coast Page electorate currently held by Federal Labor MP, Janelle Saffin, will shrink back from its originally proposed new boundaries.

The Poll Bludger gives more details in the post Redraw redrawn.

Click on map to enlarge

Conservatives for Climate and Environment Inc. comes out with a strong name change

These are the current opening lines on the Conservatives for Climate and Environment Inc website:

If you believe in ...

> acting without delay on climate change,

> supporting a strong enterprising economy,

> protecting the environment,

> responsible small 'l' liberal values,

then your support now will make all the difference!

Conservatives for Climate and Environment is a federally registered political party formed in early 2007 by concerned people from around Australia, frustrated by the lack of voting options for economic conservatives who value the environment, take climate change seriously, and take a responsible approach to social issues.

A nuclear energy industry was only one part of its rather sparse four-part policy.
This week the Australian Electoral Commission published a name change request for the Conservatives for Climate and Environment political party to Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy Australia Incorporated.

Is this a major shift in emphasis for the party, Mr. Evill?

Remember when we were told that Aussie workers needed to prepare for a life of increased leisure?

Sometime in the 1980s when industrial relations reform and multi-skilling the workforce were on Australia's national agenda we were all warned that even semi-skilled workers needed to prepare themselves for a future with a four-day week and lots more leisure.
Aussie workers were not just going forward to a universal 38 hour week - it was going to be one of only 32 hours in some golden future which was just around the affluent corner.
This month we're told; According to the ACTU, a quarter of employees work 40 hours a week, 11 per cent work up to 48 and 13 per cent work 50 or more.
That's 49% of the workforce who were well and truly sold a pup.
Pollies and big business will tell you anything when they're trying it on, won't they?

When we let senators out to play overseas strange things can happen.........

Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi is being a bad, bad, boy by blantantly misrepresenting the Rudd Government stance on its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) emissions trading bill if reporting on 23 October 2009 by The Washington Independent is true:

Cory Barnardi, a Liberal Party senator from South Australia, is in Washington for meetings with some stateside conservative groups. (The Liberal Party in that country is the conservative opposition to the ruling Australian Labor Party.)
I talked with him briefly and asked about the impact of the House vote on cap-and-trade legislation back in Australia.
The prospects for a climate bill had stalled out, but then the U.S. House moved on cap-and-trade and the ball began rolling again.
"It's a problem," said Bernardi. The Labor Party's principles on climate change, he explained, call for a vote if and after the United States passes its own bill. There is a movement afoot to change that, he said, but it's not changed yet.
And if the U.S. Senate passed a climate change bill? "That would make things more difficult." [my bolding]

For all the flack that will come Cory 'lose with the truth' Bernardi's way, he didn't even get his name consistently spelt correctly over those nine short lines.

Just for the benefit of American readers - the Australian Federal Labor Government is trying very hard to get its climate change bill creating an emissions trading scheme (aka cap-and-trade) passed into law before the beginning of December 2009 and had its re-introduced CPRS bill read a second time in the House of Representatives on 22 October 2009.

It has consistently refused to tie the carriage of this bill to anything other than domestic considerations and a desire to have legislation in place before the COP15 climate change conference being held in Copenhagen at the end of the year.

Here is the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change on his feet in the Australian Parliament:

I would like to address at the outset some of the major arguments of those who oppose action on climate change.
It is sometimes said that because Australia is responsible for a small proportion of global greenhouse gas emissions, we should not be 'acting ahead of the rest of the world' by unilaterally committing to reduce our emissions—that this would impose costs on Australia without solving the global warming problem.
We are not acting ahead of the rest of the world—in fact 27 EU countries, the US, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and Korea all have, or are developing, cap-and-trade systems.
And there is no need to wait until after Copenhagen as there is nothing in the Bill which makes its passage contingent on Copenhagen outcomes.

A consistent government position of which Senator Bernardi is well aware, but obviously one that he was determined not to convey to readers of The Washington Independent.

A big thanks all round to the Firies and all who battled recent North Coast bush fires

First from the Labor MP for Page, Janelle Saffin in the House of Representatives on 19 October 2009, courtesy of Open Australia:

I would like to pay tribute in this House to firefighters from four agencies who have been working overtime to control bushfires in my federal electorate of Page, and the neighbouring electorates of Cowper and Richmond, since late last week. It is hard not to mention neighbouring electorates because the firefighters and the fires do not know the boundaries; they have been working over them all. Tragically, a retained Kingscliff fire brigade firefighter, Andrew 'Packy' Turnbull, died after battling a grass fire at Fingal Head last Friday night. Mr Turnbull leaves behind five children and two stepchildren. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and many friends in the Tweed shire.

Firefighting crews from New South Wales Rural Fire Service, National Parks and Wildlife Service, Forest New South Wales and New South Wales Fire Brigades have been working long shifts to battle the Centre Road fire near Brooms Head village on the Clarence Coast. I pay tribute to Superintendent David Cook, manager of Far North Coast team New South Wales Rural Fire Service. Last Thursday night this fight came very close to the popular Brooms Head Caravan Park, and now has burnt out 10,000 hectares of Yuraygir National Park towards Clarence Peak, a local landmark in the area. Residents at 'the Broom', Wooloweyah, where my adviser lives, Angourie, Sandon, Minnie Water, Wooli, Diggers Camp and Pillar Valley were on high alert over the weekend, but a massive effort by firefighters on the ground and from the air was helped by favourable winds and cooler temperatures. The danger is far from over as little rain has fallen. (Time expired)

Then from a longtime Brooms Head resident this letter to the editor in The Daily Examiner on 20 October 2009:

Thanks firies

As a Brooms Head resident I would like to express appreciation for the magnificent work of the local Clarence Valley and outside brigades in saving the village from what appeared to be likely destruction - particularly on Wednesday afternoon and night last week.
The fire was bearing down on the village, fanned by an appalling hot north-west wind. A terrible situation.
Without the selfless work of the brigades, through the afternoon and right through the night many houses would have been lost.
Then, having saved the Brooms Head village, they continued to work for days to stop the fire spreading north to Wooloweyah and Angourie, as it certainly would have done.
Many thanks indeed.

PAUL WITZIG,
Brooms Head.

Finally, from the good folk at Gurranang and Banyabba in the 23 October issue of the same newspaper:

Bushfires

THE residents of Gurranang and Banyabba, being around 35km north of Grafton on the Summer-land Way, would like to publicly thank members of the local Rural Fire Service and the State Forests for their courage and valuable assistance in the bushfire last Wednesday.
Most of us had a fire truck at our homes to help us defend our homes, where unpredictable and high winds quickly spread the fire throughout the area.
The volunteers in the Rural Fire Service deserve the full support of the community and hopefully many more will join up to maintain this priceless service.
Thanks once again.

BEV PATTENDEN,
BanYabba.

Monsanto: St. Lois we have a problem

Despite its market dominance Monsanto & Co. is continuing to show financial loss according to the St. Lois Business Journal this month:

Monsanto Co. reported Wednesday a wider fourth-quarter loss on charges from recent layoffs and the sale of its sunflower operations. Monsanto lost $233 million in the quarter ended Aug. 31, compared with a loss of $172 million a year earlier. Results reflected restructuring charges that included the costs of staff reductions, streamlining brands, and office and facility consolidations. Monsanto recently cut 1,800 jobs, including 300 in St. Louis.

Monsanto's woes do not stop there however, because there is growing unease among government regulators around the world who suspect that anti-competitive practices abound in the global seed industry, not least in the multinational's home country America.

Here are the opening paragraphs of 23 October 2009 of The American Antitrust Institute white paper discussing the issue Transgenic Seed Platforms:
Competition Between a Rock and a Hard Place?:

With the widespread adoption by farmers of corn, cotton, and soybean seed containing transgenic technology, the U.S. seed industry has changed rapidly in the past twenty years. The largest changes include the creation of strongholds of patented technology and the gradual elimination of the numerous regional independent seed companies through consolidation. Resulting increases in concentration in affected markets has been driven largely by the industry’s dominant firm, Monsanto.

A threshold question to consider is whether Monsanto has exercised its market power to foreclose rivals from market access, harming competition and thereby slowing the pace of innovation and adversely affecting prices, quality, and choice for farmers and consumers of seed products. If the answer to this question is yes, remedying the intractable competitive situation that prevails in the transgenic seed industry may require antitrust enforcement, legislative relief, or both. The problem highlights both the importance of competition policy and the security and diversity of a key agricultural sector.

White Paper PDF download here.

* This post is part of North Coast Voices' effort to keep Monsanto's blog monitor (affectionately known as Mr. Monsanto) in long-term employment.