Clarence Valley and Yamba are special

 

Letter to the Editor published in The Daily Examiner on 24 May 2010:

 

Hospitality a hit

I RECENTLY brought my invalid mother Joy Hempenstall to Yamba for a four-night stay.

What started out a logistical nightmare became a seamless dream for her and for us, and I could not have done this without help from services provided by the Clarence Valley.

I have struggled with ways to thank them as everything seemed to pale into insignificance.

I hope these heartfelt words of thanks will reach them.

Firstly, we could not have Joy stay at our home because of stairs etc so we booked her into The Cove. Georgina and Jim were fantastic from the moment of inspecting the most suitable rooms to looking out for us during Joy's stay and various people coming and going. In fact it was hard to get Joy off the balcony overlooking Main Beach and who can blame her.

The girls at Maclean Community Health came to our rescue with the supply of equipment like bed sticks and the like. We were able to create a mirror image of where Joy resides in care in Brisbane and so provide a safe and familiar haven for her.

Clarence Valley Nursing provided overnight care for my mother and this enabled her to have some independent company and someone else to look out for her while I was able to slip off back home. She became so attached to these gorgeous girls she didn't want to let them go or she wanted to take them back to Brisbane with her.

Just when you think everything is going well I damaged a wheelchair I borrowed from a friend and with one desperate call to Janene at RSL Life Care I was able to pick up another chair within 30 minutes.

Joy experienced the very essence of Yamba while shopping at Zig Zag's Boutique, BWL Jeweller and Sweet Vintage where everyone was so kind, patient and helpful to us.

You people are amazing.

You have collectively given an old sick woman more to live for in five days than she has had for the last five years.

 FELICITY HEMPENSTALL, Yamba

Abbott wins Golden GLORIA inaugral award this month

Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott won an award this month when one hundred and fifty people gathered at NSW Parliament House on 17th May 2010 "to award the first ever Gay and Lesbian, Outrageous, Ridiculous and Ignorant comment Awards – the GLORIAs. Abbott got the Golden GLORIA for his admission on TV's 60 Minutes recently that homosexuality makes him feel threatened...

Forty nominations were received in seven different categories – Politics, Religion, Sport, Media, Law, Online/Misc and silliest statement by an LGBT person about LGBT people.

Over two thousand votes were cast online to decide the winners in each category. The Golden GLORIA was decided via a "boo off" by those who attended the dinner".

The winners in the first four GLORIAs category were:

Politics: Tony Abbott for his comments about feeling threatened by homosexuality and his follow up comments saying that [homosexuality] challenges the orthodox notions of the right order of things.

Religion: Jim Wallace from the Australian Christian Lobby for saying:
"Some of you won't like this but it is fact. In Australia, in Ireland, in America the people who are prosecuted for sexual offences against minors have in Australia been over 70%, [homosexual] and remember that the churches who have been the victims of this have had a policy where they don't accept homosexuals as part of their clergy. Yet in Australia over 70% of the offences have been committed by homosexual clergymen."

Sport: The Footy Show for skit in May 2009 featuring the fictitious gay brother of NRL siblings Matthew and Andrew Johns called Elton Johns.
In the skit, the Johns's father attempts to return the gay son, played by Matthew Johns, to hospital saying "I want to return this, it's faulty".

Media: Australian Communications and Media Authority for ruling an episode of Dante's Cove breached of the Code of Practice because it simulates male/male sex rather than male/female. Nine is questioning the decision-making and points out that similar depictions between males and females have been aired without incident.

Law US Court of Appeals – 4th circuit for ordering the father of a dead solider to pay $16,000 to Westboro Baptist Church when he took them to court for protesting at his sons funeral. Westboro believes that military deaths are the work of a wrathful God who punishes the United States for tolerating homosexuality.

ICAC investigation into lobbying in New South Wales - have your say on undue influence and corruption

Communities on the NSW North Coast are subject to sustained population pressure and the growing influence of developers both large and small is distorting the democratic process in relation to planning policy and implementation at state and local level.

Here is an opportunity for Northern Rivers residents to have their say on failing processes in formal and informal interactions between government, elected representatives, public servants/local government management and communities.

From the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) website:

The Independent Commission Against Corruption is conducting an investigation into lobbying of public officials and public authorities in NSW and the related procedures and regulatory system.

The Commission is seeking input from individuals and organisations through a call for submissions which must be received at the Commission by 5pm Wednesday 23 June 2010. See the guide for making a submission for more information.

Submissions may respond to the Commission's issues paper on lobbying, the investigation scope and purpose and other relevant issues concerning lobbying in NSW.

Lobbying in NSW - issues paper

Guide for making a submission to the ICAC

Scope and purpose of the investigation

The scope and purpose of the investigation is to examine whether the relationship between lobbyists and public authorities and public officials may allow, encourage or cause the occurrence of corrupt conduct or conduct connected with corrupt conduct and to identify whether any laws governing any public authority or public official need to be changed and whether any methods of work, practices or procedures of any public authority or public official could allow, encourage or cause the occurrence of corrupt conduct and if so, what changes should be made.

Is your local council using this tool?
The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) has recently released a Development assessment internal audit tool. The ICAC recommends that councils adapt all or part of this tool to address the potential corruption risks within the development assessment process.

Whales begin their annual migration out of the Antarctic killing fields into an evermore uncertain future

A 52-foot-long female Humpback whale and her newborn calf filmed in the South Pacific atoll of Moorea (Polynesia).
Image found at Big Movie Zone

As southern whales begin their annual trek out of the Japanese killing fields in the Antarctic to calve in warmer waters off Australia's far northern coastline and in the wider Pacific Ocean, they move into an evermore uncertain future.

Despite international concern about the fate of cetacean species, the Government of Japan and its uneconomic commercial whaling industry (conducting business under the guise of 'scientific research') continue to lobby vigorously for an end to the moratorium on whaling.

It is hard to see how the conference last weekend in Helsinki on Cetacean Rights: Fostering Moral and Legal Change will be an effective counterbalance to the votes and opinions Japan and other whaling nations will 'buy' at next month's International Whaling Commission four day annual meeting in Morocco.

Generally the Japanese media still see the debate as one centred on the good of national scientific research and how little whale meat is in actually eaten in the country. Ignoring any real discussion of environmental, biodiversity and species impacts from sustained killing in the Southern Ocean and the fact that whale meat appears to be entering the local pet food industry.

Wild Politics has promised to post Helsinki conference papers soon. Margi Prideaux deserves a round of applause for that undertaking.

Cetacean Rights Conference May 2010 Opening Address:
Fostering Moral and Legal Change Towards Cetacean Rights and presented conference paper abstracts