Saturday 14 July 2012
Fast food franchisee to stand against Elliot in Richmond
Friday 13 July 2012
Darrell Lea Remembered
They were year-round collectors items for Aussie kids under seven lucky enough to be visited by an Easter Bunny who lived within travelling distance of a store.
We knew nothing, nothing! Honestly?
[http://www.scmagazine.com.au/News/305928,telstra-says-its-not-spying-on-users.aspx]……
Days after suspicions of Telstra's networking monitoring activity was first aroused, the telco has revealed it captures web addresses visited by millions of subscribers on its Next G network.
The addresses are compared to a blacklist of criminal sites curated by web filtering company Netsweeper, and held both in Australia and the US.
[http://www.scmagazine.com.au/News/306441,telstra-tracks-users-to-build-web-filter.aspx]
I want to talk to you about why customer privacy is not negotiable.
Last week, the media ran with a story that Telstra was sending information about the web browsing activity of Next G customers to a third party company in North America. We were collecting this information to classify Internet sites for a new cyber-safety tool called Smart Controls.
We stopped the program immediately, as this was the right thing to do. We informed the media and briefed the Privacy Commission and other regulatory bodies. But by then, the damage to our reputation was already done.
Some of our customers may feel we have broken their trust, and, frankly, they are entitled to feel that way.
The hard reality is it will take months of hard work to win back that trust.
I am also concerned that this incident occurred in the same week that the Australian Communications and Media Authority and the Privacy Commissioner handed down their findings on a privacy breach last December, when customer records were exposed on the Internet.
Judging by media reports, the Privacy Commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim, is also concerned. He told The Australian last Friday that he was now on the lookout for systematic privacy weaknesses in our operational culture.
It’s not hard to see why. These incidents and investigations create an impression that Telstra does not care enough about the privacy of our customers. Not only that, they undermine the great work we have done to improve customer satisfaction and change the way our customers talk about us.
Of course, the truth is we care deeply about customer privacy.
That’s why I want to remind everyone that privacy is not an aspiration at Telstra – it is an essential requirement and our license to operate.
Privacy at Telstra is everyone’s responsibility. We have to do better.
If you have concerns with anything that threatens the privacy of our customers, then raise the issue with your manager as a matter of urgency.
Our customers’ trust is a commodity that’s both precious and fragile. It takes months and years to build, but can be broken in one day.
That’s what happened last week. It must not happen again.
David
Friday the 13th - last one for 2012
cheering the fact that they are off the hook until 2013
Thursday 12 July 2012
Grafton punters want to know where they collect their "winnings"
A sub-editor at The Daily Examiner provided a bit more than a ripple of laughter at the table of knowledge at the local watering hole today. The feature event at the Grafton races yesterday, the Ramornie Handicap, was taken out by the favourite Howmuchdoyouloveme, so why did the Examiner print the photo, with its accompanying caption, below?
The reason Nats Chris Gulaptis MP was not at Grafton Gaol when prison transfer vans arrived - he expected manufactured confrontation!
The Clarence Valley at its best in defence of community....
Now Official: NSW O'Farrell Government has sent Grafton into permanent decline
Like many country areas around New South Wales, Grafton City and environs has seen past glories turn into a falling population, less young people of working age living in town, higher unemployment rates than both state and national averages, a slowly shrinking viable central business district and rolling job losses as large companies withdraw to bigger regional or metropolitan centres.
Despite these woes, it had remained the transport hub for the Clarence Valley, the centre for most locally delivered state and federal government services and, one of two main administrative centres for the local government area.
That changed less than two hours ago when the O'Farrell-Stoner-Gulaptis juggernaut finally sent in prison vans (protected by members of the police riot squad) to remove inmates from Grafton Gaol - turning it into a 60 bed remand centre for individuals awaiting court appearances.
Grafton has now lost 107 permanent jobs which will depress the local economy further and have a flow-on effect across the Valley.
The very craven Nationals Member for Clarence Chris Gulaptis reportedly turned up outside the gaol after those vans had entered the prison.
'A Clarence Valley Protest' Asks: Is Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott building a case to dam NSW coastal rivers?
From A Clarence Valley Protest 5 July 2012:
The Coalition will invest in new and upgraded dams
The Coalition will invest in Australia's future water security. Australia has been let down by a failure to plan for Australia's long-term water needs.
State Labor governments have made poor investment decisions, deciding to pour billions of dollars into desalination plants which have contributed to the 60 per cent rise in water prices since Labor came to power in 2007.
As a result, the long-term planning to secure Australia's water future has not been done. Crucial infrastructure in water assets takes decades to plan for.
The Coalition will invest in the water supply options that Labor has ignored during its time in government.
Dams can provide reliable water supplies for cities, underpin the economic development of the agriculture, manufacturing and mining sectors, provide a low-emission source of electricity and mitigate the effects of flood.
Australia has not built a large dam for over 20 years. If we don't start planning for new investments now, then our water storage capacity will fall considerably over the next 20 years. That's why the Coalition's Dams Taskforce is looking at potential investments in Dam capacity across the country.
Compared to 20 years ago, the amount of water we can store per person has fallen considerably. In 1990 Australia could store in its dams over 4.5 ML per person. Due to a lack of investment in dams, we can now only store 3.5 ML per person. By 2050, if no more dams are built, it will fall below 2.5 ML per person.
[COALITION SPEAKER'S NOTES Current as at 1 July 2012]