Have you seen a black-necked stork?

Ecologist Greg Clancy is interested in hearing about black-necked stork activity in the Clarence over the next few months.

Phone Greg on 02 6649 3153 or email him at gclancy at tpg.com.au [1]

The Black-necked Stork is a distinctive, tall black-and-white waterbird, and the only species of stork found in Australia. It stands about 1.3 m tall, and has a wingspan of around 2 m, and a massive, strong, black bill. The head and neck are black with an iridescent green and purple gloss. The rest of the body is white, but with the folded wings largely black contrasting and covering much of the upperparts. The tail is short and black and the long legs conspicuously orange-red to bright red. Females have a yellow eye, whereas males have a dark-brown eye. Juvenile birds are generally brown with a mottled brown and off-white underbody, and brown eyes and legs.Black-necked Storks are usually seen singly or in twos in NSW, occasionally in loose family groups. In flight, they can intersperse their slow heavy wingbeats with short glides, and they also soar on thermals. They are generally silent. [2]

Credits: 

[1] The Daily Examiner, 28/11/11 

[2] NSW Department of Environment and Conservation

Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Black-necked_Stork.jpg

Poker machines still dominate national gambling scene in Australia 2011

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source,
January 2002 – September 2011 average annual sample n=21,064.

Click on image to enlarge

Roy Morgan Research 25 November 2011:

Australians spent $11.2 billion dollars on poker machines in the 12 months to September 2011, down from $13.1 billion in the twelve months to September 2010 and now below the $11.7 billion spent during the Global Financial Crisis in 2008/09.

Australians are now spending less on gambling overall than they did in 2002 according to the latest Roy Morgan Gambling Monitor. For the 12 months to September 2011, Australians spent $18.5 billion dollars on all forms of gambling, down from $20.2 billion in the 12 months to December 2002.

Expenditure on betting on the races has remained relatively stable at $2.6 billion as of September 2011 ($2.7 billion in December 2002). Sports betting, although still small at $0.8 billion, has increased from $0.4 billion in 2002. The only other gambling activity to show a significant increase was casino table games at $1.4 billion, up from $0.7 billion in December 2002.

Expenditure on lotteries/scratch tickets, at $2.1 billion, has remained relatively steady ($2.0 billion in 2002), as has expenditure on Keno at a club, pub or casino at $0.4 billion ($0.4 billion in 2002).

While the world groans under the weight of 7 billion souls....

Pell cartoon from The Age in 2004

Bl**dy Cardinal George Pell wails about our contraceptive mentality. After his tacit support of paedophile priests and his climate change denialism, this latest effort makes me wonder - is there any more proof needed that the man is fatally rabid? Can we send the dog catcher for him now before he bites again?

Read his latest spiel here.

Hartsuyker forgets his history in headlong rush for media attention in the wake of HoR Speaker Jenkins' resignation

"There would not be a person on Capital Hill here that believes for a moment that Mr Jenkins' resignation was anything other than a political execution by a Prime Minister who has fallen" said the Nationals MP for Cowper Luke Hartsuyker in The Daily Examiner last Saturday. He went on to add that Mr Jenkins had been "a fine Speaker" and had the full support of the Coalition.

This is the same Hartsuyker who so disrespected the Office of Speaker that he refused a lawful direction from the chair to remove himself from the House of Representatives – causing the sitting day to be suspended:

Nationals MP Luke Hartsuyker was later ordered from the chamber after holding up the cut-out of Mr Rudd.

He passed the cardboard Kevin Rudd to opposition house leader Joe Hockey and other opposition frontbenchers, infuriating deputy speaker Anna Burke, who ordered its removal….. Mr Hartsuyker was ejected after he ignored the speaker's request to resume his seat.

He was later "named", a parliamentary move used to suspend unruly MPs from the chamber for 24 hours.

…. Ms Burke ordered Liberal MP Joanna Gash to leave for one hour, but then was forced to suspended the sitting as it descended into chaos.

The very same man who has been sent from the House on numerous occasions since that time, after ignoring warnings given by The Speaker. Who was sitting on the Opposition benches in the House on 31 May this year; the day that Harry Jenkins threatened to resign because a slim majority of MPs present including (Hartsuyker and Oakeshott) had refused to vote in support of the Speaker and expel a fellow Coalition parliamentarian for twenty-four hours.

As The Australian reported the next day:

Mr Jenkins said he would be forced to consider his position at the end of question time after the parliament rejected his decision to name Liberal MP Bob Baldwin -- a precursor to suspending him for 24 hours.

A subsequent Labor motion to eject Mr Baldwin, who had defied an order for silence, was rejected by 71 votes to 70…. The ballot effectively amounted to a vote of no confidence in the Speaker.

One of his own recent suspensions was reported by The Coffs Coast Advocate on 11 June 2011:

COWPER MP Luke Hartsuyker is cooling off in the sin-bin after his suspension from Federal Parliament for 24 hours.

The Opposition frontbencher was hurled out of a rowdy question time and won’t be entitled to re-enter the House of Representatives until 2.50pm on Thursday.

He’s spending time on the sideline after Speaker Harry Jenkins became fed up with his interjections.

It is worth noting that Luke Hartsuyker was also one of the first MPs the new Speaker Peter Slipper sent from the House on his first day in office - or as Annabel Crabb so colourfully tweeted;  Peter Dutton and Luke Hartsuyker get a Slipper to the bum - they're out!

In light of this it is risible for the Member for Cowper on the NSW North Coast to claim any degree of respect for the Office of Speaker or for Mr. Jenkins.

Because Hartsuyker has joined the chorus of Opposition supporter’s shouting about Westminster conventions it is well to remember that, according to House of Representatives Practice ( Fifth Edition), the very first Commonwealth Government elected in 1901 was a minority government formed by the Protectionist Party and its first Speaker was Sir Frederick Holder of the Free Trade Party in Opposition.

As Speaker, Frederick Holder changed parties after that to become a Protectionist MP under an Australian Labor Party Government and then an Anti-Socialist Party MP under successive Free Trade-Protectionist Coalition, Labor Party and Fusion Party governments, before dying as Speaker in 1909.

The second Speaker on the historical record was none other than Charles Carty Salmon of the Liberal Protectionist Party serving the House during a Labor Government. While Labor MP Charles Kennedy McDonald briefly served as Speaker during a Nationalist Government.

So all one can conclude from Luke Hartsuyker’s bluster about "execution" and "respect" is that he cannot or deliberately will not recall either his own personal or Parliament’s history.

Snapshot of Australian Internet Use 2011

Click on graph to enlarge

When the Australian results are compared to those from the 2005 United States ‘Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy’ survey, Australians emerge as being more likely than Americans to build online links with people across different ages, generations and countries. Australians are eight per cent more likely to say that the Internet helps them interact with people from different ages and generations and 33 per cent more likely to say that the Internet helps them interact with people from other countries.

Compared to the US, the Internet has had more positive effects in the formation of bridging forms of social capital in Australia. This may be a result of Australia’s geographic isolation and the fact that a large proportion of Australians have family ties overseas. Americans, however, were more likely than Australians to feel that the Internet helped them interact with groups and people who share the same religious beliefs. [ANUpoll, April 2011, Public opinion on Internet use and civil society]

• At the end of June 2011, there were 10.9 million internet subscribers in Australia (excluding internet connections through mobile handsets). This represents annual growth of 14.8% and an increase of 4.4% since the end of December 2010.
• The phasing out of dial-up internet connections continued with 95% of internet connections being broadband.
• Australians continued to access increasingly faster download speeds, with 87% of access connections offering a download speed of 1.5Mbps or greater.
• Mobile wireless internet (excluding mobile handset) connections (44%) now exceed Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) connections (41%) in Australia. Mobile wireless (excluding mobile handset connections) was the fastest growing internet access technology in actual numbers, increasing from 4.2 million in December 2010 to 4.8 million in June 2011. [ABS 8153.0 - Internet Activity, Australia, June 2011]

Households are less likely to be connected to a computer, the internet and/or broadband if they have no children under 15 years; are located in ex-metropolitan areas of Australia; or have lower household incomes. [ABS 8146.0 - Household Use of Information Technology, Australia, 2008-09]

Measure of the man pulling the strings of 'Steve' Gulaptis MP for Clarence?

“THE disgraced former member for Clarence Steve Cansdell told ABC North Coast he would probably never have confessed to his crime if a whistle blower hadn't drawn attention to it.”

{The Daily Examiner, 23^rd November 2011}