K-K-Keneally is just too cute for words

In 2009 Wayne Swan said that the Rudd Government wouldn't tolerate the NSW Government clawing back a big hunk of the base-rate pension increase for single pensioners in increased rental payments for those in public or community housing.
The Rees Government temporarily placed a stay on implementing the rent increase until September 2010.
This month the Gillard Government has requested the Keneally Government not to claw back this same increase and again the NSW government has temporarily stayed its hand.
Presumably for only a short period after last Monday's indexed pension rise because the last state budget deliberately didn't quarantine that 2009 base-rate increase.
Premier K-K-Keneally is being just a little too cute if she thinks that wiping $18 dollars from the payment in hand received by public housing tenants on single pensions won't be noticed if it doesn't quite coincide with this month's $15 pension increase.
They'll notice Kristina and they're bound to remember on polling day in 2011.

This is the Member for Tweed in June this year in the NSW Parliament:
"But the New South Wales Labor Government is clawing back $7.50 per week from those people who can least afford it. Approximately 28 per cent of the Tweed electorate's population is aged over 65 years. In fact, for this age group the Tweed ranks second in the State, behind Port Macquarie. Aged pensioners have worked hard all their lives and have given a great deal to this great State, if not this great nation, of ours. Yet their pension increase is being clawed back. Some people may say that $7.50 is not a large amount, but it will buy several loaves of bread or other essentials. Many aged pensioners budget down to their last dollar every week. Last year electricity costs increased by 20 per cent and over the next two years they are expected to increase by another 40 per cent. Many pensioners have told me that their bills will increase by $300, $400 or $500 a year, yet all the Government says is that they can get the pensioner rebate to offset the increase. The pensioner rebate is $140, so they will not save anything. In fact, they will be worse off.
Aged pensioners in the Tweed have told me that they take cold showers every second day because they cannot afford to run the electric heater for their hot water systems, and time and again they turn off appliances. In other words, their lifestyle and comforts of living are being eroded. No longer can they afford the things for which they worked hard all their life. I don't normally agree with much that Geoff Provest has to say, but in this case his words bear repeating.

A bit of background Fair dinkum, you're a bit of a political b*tch aren't you Kristina and Australian pensions increase effective 20 September 2009 and other changes

Saffin takes Nash to task over local beef industry claims

On 17 September 2010 Nationals Senator Fiona Nash stated that Page Labor MP, Janelle Saffin, is putting her own political survival ahead of the jobs of North Coast farmers and beef industry workers and characterised Saffin's actions as nutty .

Ms Saffin was rather naturally not amused and countered with this media release yesterday:

Saffin calls for increase in frozen meat exports

Page MP Janelle Saffin has hit back at National Party Senator Fiona Nash for her ridiculous claim that Janelle is planning a Private Members Bill that would hurt the local beef industry.

"Once again Senator Nash has not let the facts get in the way of her wild allegations.

"For a start, I have never talked about putting up a Private Members Bill to ban live exports.

"The facts are that in the last Parliament I put forward a Notice of Motion raising concerns about Live Exports. It was listed but did not get debated before the Parliament was dissolved.

"The Notice called for moves to expand Australia's frozen and chilled meat export industry using Australian halal meat exports.

"I plan to reintroduce the Notice of Motion because I believe this is an issue that should be raised in the Federal Parliament.

"There was nothing in my original notice of motion talking about banning live exports, but that hasn't stopped Senator Nash trying to get a headline.

"This is certainly an issue on which many people have strong opinions and I am aware of the arguments for and against live exports, which is why I would like to see the issue raised in Parliament.

"Senator Nash is way off the mark if she thinks I have not discussed this with people in the local beef industry.

"She claims I am not concerned about local, but it is local meatworkers who have come to me on this issue because the live export trade is costing them jobs and the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union is campaigning on this as well.

"Rather than see millions of live sheep and cattle sent offshore for processing, we could be doing more processing here, providing more jobs and value adding locally.

"It is through value adding that we get to strengthen the economy and create jobs.

"There is already a trade in Halal processed frozen meat being exported and we could be expanding this industry and phasing out the live exports.

"Steve Martyn from the Australian Meat Industry Council says the live export trade means we're exporting jobs away from local processing sector without recognising the benefits processing companies bring to their local communities.

"The media interest in the story shows it is timely to raise this debate and we should be looking at the economic and the humanitarian arguments.

"I will not be silenced on this and there is nothing 'nutty' about raising issues of national interest for debate. The only thing nutty here is Senator Nash.

"I suggest in future if she wants to know what I am planning that she contact me, instead of going off half-cocked with her usual pile of misinformation in search of a headline.

UPDATE:

Transcript of Saffin's Notice of Motion of 16 March 2010 in OpenAustralia:

That the House:
(1)
notes:
(a)
that the Commonwealth is the primary regulator of animal welfare;
(b)
the national and international concerns about the welfare of animals transported under the live animal export trade, both during transportation and their treatment at their destination raised in campaigns by organisations and individuals including the World Society for the Protection of Animals, Princess Ali of Jordan, the RSPCA, the Barristers Animal Welfare Panel, and Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore;
(c)
that Australia is one of the few countries to consistently treat animals humanely during slaughter and its meat has gained wide acceptance in the Middle East as meeting halal standards;
(2)
acknowledges the opposition of the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union and the local meat processors, including Casino Northern Cooperative Meat Company, to the live export trade on the grounds that it has a detrimental effect on the local meat processing industry, affecting jobs and the Australian economy; and
(3)
supports moves towards the expansion of the frozen and chilled meat export industry using Australian halal stunned meat exports.

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...."