Bazza O’Farrell and CSG miners out of control

7 News 23^rd November 2012:

“Residents of Sydney's southwest who thought they were safe from coal seam gas exploration are in for a rude shock.

7News can reveal gas company AGL is planning to drive new wells sideways under their homes.

Campbelltown seems like an unlikely place for mining, but under homes there is gas.

If it's approved, new rigs will burrow sideways to seek and extract.”

Apparently 66 wells are planned between Campbelltown and Liverpool and of course these will be changing rock integrity and water tables under houses. Does nobody remember the problems mining caused in the Newcastle area? Or how hard it is for homeowners to get compensation when things go wrong?

And it’s not ancient history.

This began last August:

“Mrs Mancinelli’s four-bedroom, two-storey home has shifted, creating large cracks on the front and inside walls, near doorways and windows, inside the house and the garage.The concrete pool has cracked and dropped. Doors in the house have been removed because they would no longer close, walls are bowed and the side fence is leaning at a precarious angle.Mrs Mancinelli’s family built the house 14 years ago and recently completed a large renovation. She said that in the space of five weeks, an area spanning about 11 metres from the front window to the back door, had dropped about 20cm and continued to fall.”

Now when miners first dug under or close to houses none of them ever thought there would be a problem – after all conventional underground coal mining had been going on for hundreds of years – but there was.

So why on earth is Bazza and his fatherless cronies even considering allowing unconventional coal seam gas mining under NSW homes?

Giving BOF a biff on behalf of the Clarence Valley

 

It wasn’t only the Queensland Premier who came under fire when Australian House of Representatives MPs spoke to a motion by the Member for Capricornia.

 

Here is Federal Labor’s Janelle Saffin in Hansard on 26 November 2012:

 

Ms SAFFIN (Page) (11:40): In listening to the honourable member for Flynn speaking—can I say I like the honourable member for Flynn and he seems like a good fellow—how can it be a good idea to cut jobs in your own electorates? It is never a good idea no matter who does it. People can claim all sorts of mandates, but the fact is there is no mandate for the Queensland Premier to do it. I am speaking in support of this motion for a number of reasons. I live in New South Wales, not in Queensland. I live in the Northern Rivers.

Mr Neumann: She comes from Ipswich.

Ms SAFFIN: Yes, I grew up in Ipswich as the honourable member for Blair said. I am in an area where I see all this happening just over the border. I have been watching all the things that Premier Campbell Newman has been doing by taking the axe to the public service, to services, to the community and to projects and programs that matter in the community. What can matter more than recreational fishing? Recreational fishing is huge Australia-wide. It is huge in my seat of Page. We have recreational fishers everywhere. Even if you were not able to make a decision on policy grounds, why would you go and put the axe through recreational fishing programs on political grounds alone? Equally, it is also an industry. It is a huge industry with a huge economic base in regional areas. That is an important point to focus on and remember. By cutting their programs, cutting money to them, it has an impact at a regional economic level and it does not make sense to do it.

In watching what is going on in Queensland, some of it was going on in New South Wales with Premier O'Farrell. But Premier Newman seems to have emboldened Premier O'Farrell even more. He has taken the axe to programs left, right and centre. Anything that is not bolted down is up for the axe. In my area alone we have had the issue of Grafton jail. It was to close and then they wound it down and nearly 100 jobs would go. Jobs are going in TAFE. There are billions of dollars going out of TAFE.

Honourable members interjecting—

Ms SAFFIN: Well, there is a jail and it provides a lot of jobs to local people. You cannot replicate those jobs easily and they have gone. There is the whole spin-off effect in the local area. Also the slasher is going through TAFE.

Government members interjecting—

Ms SAFFIN: It is a shame. People can say, 'We want smaller government.' But this is ridiculous. These are front line people who deliver services. The ambos have been affected too as well as the firies.

Honourable members interjecting—

Ms SAFFIN: Yes, the rural fire brigade as well as the fire service are all being affected. On Friday night in Lismore I opened a fine art exhibition at Lismore TAFE which was called 'Last Draw'. It was actually the last of its kind because the program that they run is also being axed. There were over 100 students there and some of them were from a whole range of backgrounds, and a lot of them end up with work. We have a huge creative industry in my area. It is an industry in its own right and it provides enormous economic benefits to the community. It is really short-sighted to put the axe through programs like this. There were over 100 students there from a whole range of diverse backgrounds. It has given some of them a whole new life. Some of them were in recovery. They have done this course. It has given them a place to belong; it has also given them skills that they can go out into the community and earn money with.

When I look at what is happening to recreational fishing in Queensland I look with alarm, and I realise what it has done to Sunfish Queensland Inc. I have read all of their statements and they say:

The Queensland Government fully supports recreational fishing in Queensland.

Then why is its first act to cut funding to voluntary community recreational projects?

[my red bolding]

Reminder: Indian Myna workshop in Yamba on Friday

One of the delights in living on the Northern Rivers is our wonderful bird life.
Unfortunately this is threatened by an introduced pest.
 The Indian myna is an aggressive territorial bird.
 They breed several times a year and nest in hollows, driving out our birds and even possums and sugar gliders, killing chicks and ejecting parents.
In urban areas they nest under roofs, sheds and gutters and often bring bird mite which can cause serious skin rashes.
There are ways of limiting this parasite and to this end the Clarence Conservation in Action group are holding a workshop on Friday at 10am at the Old Kirk, Yamba Museum, River St.
All are welcome and refreshments are included.

Paul Stephen, Yamba

Credit: Letters, The Daily Examiner, 28/11/12

Bundaberg Regional Council

Menzies House and Young Libs discuss repealing child labour laws for working class young attending public schools

 

one should also understand that education is not for everyone

 

The need to create a Third World underclass in Australia according to one of the Abbott-Bernardi heirs being hot housed by Menzies House, 15 November 2010:

 

It is an unfortunate reality that our bureaucratic education system is trapping the poorest Australians into a cycle of dependency. Children born into poverty are maliciously trapped into a spider web of economic hardship and social unrest which they cannot escape because of a bureaucratic school system which fails to give them the only chance they possibly have of creating a better life for themselves.
As they have no prospects for work in an increasingly white-collar workforce, these young Australians are forced onto the welfare rolls from which they never leave, establishing a cycle of dependency that is both economically and morally irresponsible…..

In a country with a high level of economic mobility, even the poorest among us can strive for brilliant things, but unfortunately that can’t happen if one is trapped in failing schools that only entrench poverty. Whilst the need for a world-class education is paramount, one should also understand that education is not for everyone. For children who are trapped in schools that entrench poverty and add no educational value, they would clearly be better served by working from a young age and earning money that might help them reach a better tomorrow.

If a poor child were able to work from the age of 8 to 16 years old, they would accumulate enough money to take a family out of poverty. But not only does working solve the financial problems of poor children, it engenders a work ethic that has the potential to transform them into productive members of the workforce who contribute to society as opposed to the social outcasts they would have been had they remained at school.

One picture explodes the myth that Julie Bishop is asking her own questions

 

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's Chief of Staff Peta Credin conferring with his Deputy Leader Julie Bishop at the end of Question Time in the House of Representatives on 26 November 2012 at approximately 3.19pm - courtesy of Alex Ellinghausen and The Age.

Note that Ms. Credlin is holding the files "GILLARD/AWA" which Ms. Bishop drew on for her questioning of the Prime Minister.

Tony Abbott is extremely foolish to think that having someone else ask the questions he frames actually distances him from the political attack. 

Let's run an online poll for our readers.....

 

Poll: What's your favourite part of Thursday's DEX?

 

Occasionally The Daily Examiner runs a poll on its website and if a reader has signed in his or her vote will be recorded against their name/pseudonym.

 

Here is the voting history of one such reader:

Voted in a poll 3:10pm Oct 31st
Do you use your mobile phone when driving?

Voted in a poll 5:03pm Oct 30th

Choose your top 10 rules that should be applied to Jaca Thursday and we’ll print them in Thursday’s DEX.

Voted in a poll 12:30pm Jul 27th

What's your favourite day of the week?

 

Voted in a poll 5:25pm Jul 25th

What's your favourite part of Thursday's DEX?

 

Voted in a poll 11:32am Jun 26th

What should we put on the cover of our On Track magazine?

Voted in a poll 9:09am May 25th

How do you spell it:

 

Ooops! Did I say reader? I meant the voting history of the editor of the newspaper conducting these polls.

The editor is not alone. A senior journalist at The Daily Examiner has voted in a number of the same polls, another has a penchant for the political when it comes to the polls he adds his mite to, yet one more has voted only twice and one other three times. However, the journalist who wins hands down has voted 33 times.

Just how many polls in this newspaper are being padded out by staff?

Things are bad when even Van Olsen abandons you

Onetime apologist for all things Lib Peter Van Olsen in the Sunday Telegraph on 17th November 2012:

"It is high time the Liberal Party changed its name to the Conservative Party.Voices of moderates within the party have all but been extinguished, and thefew remaining so-called moderates wouldn't know a progressive cause worthfighting for if it hit them in the face, much less be prepared to put theircareers on the line to do so…..The Liberal Party looks set to win the nextelection, but there will be nothing liberal about the government it becomes."