Bread and butter concerns, Mr. Abbott?

Self-professed conservative Catholic and Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, tells us that we shouldn't be concerned about the right of Australian territories to make their own law or the right of citizens to die with dignity.
We should instead be focused on more important issues.

In this country hundreds of thousands of people (or 6.74 individuals per 1,000 standard population) die each year from ischemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, trachea and lung cancers, dementia and alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, colon and rectum cancer, blood and lymph cancer (including leukaemia), diseases of the kidney and urinary tract, breast cancer, prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, bowel or rectal cancer, cirrhosis and other diseases of liver, skin cancer (such as melanoma), and many more causes than I can easily or comfortably recount here.

Not all of these deaths are due to sudden catastrophic events. Many involve months, if not years, of slow and painful dying - sometimes within the bosum of an extended loving family and sometimes alone with limited community support.

In many areas on the NSW North Coast residents over sixty years of age predominate. Some amongst them would be wondering if dying with dignity will be an option open to them if they enter frail old age with a chronic painful, debilitating disease or terminal illness.

However, Tony Abbott appears to care little for their concerns in the face of failing public health systems, dysfunctional area health services and geographically distant family members. So divorced is he from the practical reality of living with illness and disease, that he chides us all for not focusing on 'great big new taxes' and his desire to become prime minister.

Mr Abbott says there are other, more pressing issues to deal with.
"I'm not denying that there are concerns that people have in this area, but I think that we need a parliament which focuses on bread and butter concerns," he said.

I say to Tony Abbott that dying with dignity is as much a concern for debate as anything he can bring before the federal parliament, because it is closely allied to the individual's basic human right to self-determination and for a great many Australians human rights are a pressing issue.

Yes, Kevin - you ARE the alpha male!

The body language, tone of voice and phrasing say it all - Kevin Rudd is strutting his stuff and making sure that the Australian electorate knows that he is the dominate male in the Gillard Government.

From his attempts to take over photo opportunities when he and the Prime Minister are together, the grooming of a child fellow minister when cameras were rolling, his insistence that the media realise he is in charge of the timetable during media conferences, making sure his version of his appointment as Foreign Minister was the one that dominated that day's news cycle and now jetting off to prance across the world stage before Julia Gillard even moves into The Lodge.

Sadly for Kevin, Kudelka's sharp whimsy has brough him undone and exposed the fact that (no matter how one cuts the cloth) his ministry exists at the pleasure of Prime Minister Gillard and Federal Treasurer Swan.

Once Rudd used to be almost likeable. If only Thérèse could convince him of the wisdom of humility......

The Hobart Mercury, 14 September 2010

It's a pure pleasure on the Clarence Coast

Click on photograph to enlarge

According to The Clarence Valley Review, Eric Burrows took this photograph on a Sunday walk between Plumbago and Shelley Beach headlands on the Clarence Coast in northern New South Wales.

Well done, Eric!

Oakeshott becoming a good reason for returning to the polls as soon as possible

The Independent MP for Lyne Rob "I thought the group hug meant something" Oakeshott's bid to become Speaker in the House of Representatives is trying the patience of many locals and raising a few eyebrows around the country.
As far as I'm concerned it's fast becoming a good reason why another House of Reps election should be called as soon as possible.
Australia deserves more than another wayward ego on the bully boy march even before Parliament is recalled - Tony Teh Wrecker (who thinks that the nation is nothing more than a gift wrapped present to be privately given at will) is enough to cope with as he trys to force his way into government.

The Oz on 18th September 2010:
ROB Oakeshott's parliamentary reform deal with Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott could open the way to High Court challenges to laws passed under the agreement.
Legal experts warned yesterday that granting a parliamentary "pair" to the new Speaker of the House of Representatives - ensuring the Speaker's vote was cancelled out by a member with the opposite position - breached the spirit of the Constitution and would invite a legal challenge.
The warning, from leading constitutional lawyer Geoff Lindell, raises doubts about the validity of key parts of an agreement struck by Labor and the Coalition with independent MPs over the powers of the Speaker.
Professor Lindell's view is in line with that of legal academic Greg Craven, the vice-chancellor of the Australian Catholic University, who argued that the parliamentary reform agreement ran contrary to the intention of the Constitution.
"What the agreement does is allow the Speaker almost to vote negatively by taking one vote off one side of parliament," Professor Craven said. "It gives the Speaker a negative vote." This meant the "parliamentary reform" agreement was "pushing against the intention of the Constitution"....
But Professor Lindell said the result of a pairing arrangement would give the Speaker the ability to influence the outcome of a vote on an issue.
Mr Oakeshott said last night that unless the agreement giving the Speaker a pair were honoured "all bets are off and we could be heading for Mexican standoff on the first day of parliament...."