Will history repeat itself in 2013?

 

Photo from ABC North Coast NSW

 

Given his poor performance as the NSW Member of Parliament representing the Clarence electorate, I imagine that there are many who hope that Chris Gulaptis departs in 2013 as abruptly as he did in 2004.

 

The then Minister for Local Government, Tony Kelly, notified me as the mayor of Maclean by voicemail that the council and I as mayor were sacked.

[Chris Gulaptis MP speaking in the NSW Parliament on 23 October 2012]

Little Kevvie obeys his real master's voice?

The Age 8th December 2012:
“LIBERAL Party candidates have been gagged ahead of next year's federal election, with Coalition backbench MPs under pressure to close their Twitter and other social media accounts.Fairfax Media has learnt of a directive from the head office of the federal Liberal Party in an opposition bid to limit ''stuff-ups and scandals''. The directive to preselected candidates ''strongly advises'' against using Twitter and that tweeting on behalf of the Liberal Party is ''not encouraged''.Several backbenchers have confirmed the strict measure, which was decided at the start of last month. One MP said the party was sending a clear message ''that depending on your seniority, use a great deal of caution when tweeting, and it is preferred that most MPs closed our social media accounts…”
Little Kevvie the Federal Nats candidate hasn’t uttered a peep on Kevin Hogan For Page over at Facebook since 16th November and has played dumb on Twitter for even longer. Co-incidence, timidity or ever the faithful Coalition footsoldier?

The End is Nigh?

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Looking back at this day in 1999

The New York Times

 

Memphis Jury Sees Conspiracy in Martin Luther King's Killing

By EMILY YELLIN
Published: December 09, 1999

A jury in a civil suit brought by the family of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. decided today that a retired Memphis cafe owner was part of a conspiracy in the 1968 killing of Dr. King.

The jury's decision means it did not believe that James Earl Ray, who was convicted of the crime, fired the shot that killed Dr. King.

After four weeks of testimony and one hour of deliberation, the jury in the wrongful-death case found that Loyd Jowers as well as ''others, including governmental agencies'' had been part of a conspiracy. The jury awarded the King family the damages they had sought: $100, which the family says it will donate to charity.

The family has long questioned Mr. Ray's conviction and hoped the suit would change the legal and historical record of the assassination.

''This is a vindication for us,'' said Dexter King, the youngest son of Dr. King.

He said he hoped history books would be rewritten to reflect this version of the assassination.

The Story of Floss

 

David Bancroft may have moved from APN’s The Daily Examiner to its Rural Weekly, but he turns up from time to time on the newspaper website which was his old stomping ground.

 

This is his story of the faithful farm dog Floss in two parts:

 

POOR Floss loved to chase vehicles - tractors, cars, the milk truck - just about anything. Her downfall was she was very bad at it and despite incident after incident and hour upon hour of trying to teach her to stay away, she persisted and failed.We were aware of at least a dozen times when she was run over, but believe there were many more as she would often turn up with a surprise injury.Floss was of mixed breed, a mongrel, an ugly but loyal companion with enough cattle sense to be of help on the farm….Still, she became somewhat famous. An ABC television crew came to our place to do a feature piece on dairying. My father's face featured for about five seconds; almost all the rest of the footage was of the dog….

DESPITE being perhaps the ugliest dog I've ever seen, Floss was a great mother and companion.

We never knew her breeding, but from her shape and colouring, she may have been part dachshund, part whippet and part kelpie.

If you're going for appearance, it's not a promising combination.

Together with the multiple road traumas she experienced from chasing vehicles (described last week), the end result was not pretty.

But she was a brilliant mother. She had 13 pups in her first litter and never had fewer than that.

It was a mad scramble for them all to get fed but, ugly as she was, Floss was also perhaps the most patient mother I've seen.

It was a bit of a struggle giving that first litter away, but after that we had no problems. They were in demand.

She produced terrific working dogs, which, happily, looked very little like their mother.

But finding homes for the pups created a few problems of its own.

When the last of the pups from that first litter was rehomed, my mother started losing shoes.

My mother initially thought she was just being careless but as more went missing, she investigated.

And she found Floss had commandeered the lot and taken them back to her den.

She was only interested in my mother's shoes - they had become her surrogate litter.

Metgasco CEO Peter Henderson calls Lismore coal seam gas plebiscite "a fraudulent poll"

 

A region in northern NSW has overwhelmingly voted against coal seam gas mining.

[ABC Rural 10 September 2012]

Prior to the poll, the actual level of opposition to CSG could only be estimated.

It is now clear that the community is highly engaged in the discussion about CGS activity

and does not want it in our LGA.

[Lismore City Council Mayoral Minute 9 October 2012]
 

In the 8 September 2012 Lismore Local Government Area Election 30,197 people were eligible to vote, with 25,641 voting in the mayoral poll and 25,660 voting in the councillor poll, according to the NSW Electoral Commission.

At the same time Lismore voted in its mayor and councillors for the next term it also voted in a formal plebiscite on coal seam gas.

This was the plebiscite question presented at the ballot:

Question No. 1

Do you support coal seam gas (CSG) exploration and production in the Lismore City Council area?

This was the result of that vote recorded by the NSW Electoral Commission:

Question No. 1 was NOT PASSED on 15/09/2012

Voter Turnout: 84.38%
Informal Rate: 2.80%

 

Of those 25,595 voters who participated in this non-compulsory plebiscite 86.86% voted No.

Now if one looks at the number of voters who participated in these three polls, it is apparent that the polls all have a fairly similar participation level and one which is obviously accepted as legitimate by the state electoral commission.

However, this is not good enough for Metgasco Limited’s director, shareholder and CEO Peter Henderson who chose in an NBN News interview on 6 December 2012 to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the plebiscite, calling it:

A fraudulent poll.. in which.. a lot of people chose not to vote.

Such contempt for the democratic process is mind boggling.

UPDATE:

In his own misleading words.....

"a fraudulent poll" comment at 3min 58 secs

UPDATE

The Northern Star 10 December 2012:

Lismore Mayor Jenny Dowell said Mr Henderson's comments were "quite odd."

"To claim the poll is fraudulent seems quite odd and casts a judgment on the voters of Lismore LGA who have clearly expressed their view.

"My question would be that if the poll produced a better result for CSG proponents, would Mr Henderson claim it was fraudulent?" said the Mayor.

Cr Dowell said that the positive and negative cases were prepared by the proponents and opponents to CSG mining, and that both sides believed their opposite side's case was questionable and unproven, but "the council did not modify or provide any input into the cases."

NSW Minister for Planning and Infrastructure told "This is not your future anymore this is my future"

 

 

 

Being sixteen years old and speaking out can sometimes be a hard thing to do, but Northern Rivers local Nicola Shipard held firm and publicly confronted the NSW Planning Minister during the state government's coal seam gas meeting at City Hall, Lismore on Wednesday 5 Dec 2012.

 

Brad Hazzard is visibly taken aback when told it is not his future which is under discussion but the younger generation's future.