Uncle Joe Hockey, insomniac

Think a pollie found awake after 3am is either partying hard or tackling a backlog in policy paperwork?
Think again. Some are just cybersurfing and playing with 140 characters on Twitter.
GO TO SLEEP JOE!

NASA: Long-Term Climate Warming Trend 1880-2012 [Animated World Map]

http://youtu.be/oYibmPnmutM

 

Jan. 15, 2013: NASA scientists say 2012 was the ninth warmest of any year since 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures. With the exception of 1998, the nine warmest years in the 132-year record all have occurred since 2000, with 2010 and 2005 ranking as the hottest years on record.NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, which monitors global surface temperatures on an ongoing basis, released an updated analysis Tuesday that compares temperatures around the globe in 2012 to the average global temperature from the mid-20th century. The comparison shows how Earth continues to experience warmer temperatures than several decades ago. 

The BRP - Banks R Not Us

Last week the Australian Electoral Commission advertised an application for non-parliamentary party registration by the Bank Reform Party or BRP of West Australia and its registered officer - a former journo & media bloke for BankWest - wants election campaign funding for 2013 thanks very much.

He hopes his fledgling party will join the throng lining up around the country later this year eager to stuff our letter boxes with glossy leaflets and crowd the airwaves with vague promises most have no intention of honouring if they make it onto parliamentary benches:

• Animal Justice Party
• Australia First Party (NSW) Incorporated
• Australian Christians
• Australian Democrats
• Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party
• Australian Greens (including three additional branches listed below)
• The Greens NSW
• Queensland Greens
• The Greens (WA) Inc
• Australian Labor Party (ALP) (including nine additional branches listed below)
• Australian Labor Party (N.S.W. Branch)
• Australian Labor Party (Victorian Branch)
• Australian Labor Party (State of Queensland)
• Australian Labor Party (Western Australian Branch)
• Australian Labor Party (South Australian Branch)
• Australian Labor Party (Tasmanian Branch)
• Australian Labor Party (ACT Branch)
• Australian Labor Party (Northern Territory) Branch
• Country Labor Party
• Australian Protectionist Party
• Australian Sex Party
• Australian Stable Population Party
• Building Australia Party
• Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile Group)
• Citizens Electoral Council of Australia
• Country Alliance
• Country Liberals (Northern Territory)
• Democratic Labor Party (DLP) of Australia
• Family First Party
• Help End Marijuana Prohibition (HEMP) Party
• Katter’s Australian Party
• Liberal Democratic Party
• Liberal Party of Australia (including seven additional branches listed below)
• Liberal Party of Australia, NSW Division
• Liberal Party of Australia (Victorian Division)
• Liberal National Party of Queensland
• Liberal Party (W.A. Division) Inc.
• Liberal Party of Australia (S.A. Division)
• Liberal Party of Australia – Tasmanian Division
• Liberal Party of Australia – ACT Division
• National Party of Australia (including four additional branches listed below)
• National Party of Australia – N.S.W.
• National Party of Australia – Victoria
• National Party of Australia (WA) Inc
• National Party of Australia (S.A.) Inc.
• No Carbon Tax Climate Sceptics
• Non-Custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting)
• One Nation
• Rise Up Australia Party
• Secular Party of Australia
• Senator Online (Internet Voting Bills/Issues)
• Shooters and Fishers Party
• Socialist Alliance
• Socialist Equality Party
• The First Nations Political Party

Michael Daniel Harmer goes to Court

 

In NSD31/2013 Federal Court of Australia:

Clause in Harmer’s  Application for leave to appeal in matter listed as Michael Daniel Harmer v Peter Slipper & Anor.

 

The Anor would appear to be James Hunter Ashby, his client in Ashby v Commonwealth of Australia & Peter Slipper.

 

Besides lodging the application for leave to appeal, Mr. Harmer also made an interlocutory application and submitted an affidavit.

 

Lawyers Weekly 18  January 2013:



The Office of the Legal Services Commissioner could not reveal whether Harmer is currently being investigated over “abuse of process” allegations in Rares’ judgment. However, Assistant Legal Services Commissioner Lynda Muston told Lawyers Weekly that the office always investigates claims of abuse of process or misleading the court.

“Where the evidence supports those allegations we’ll prosecute accordingly,” she added.

But an investigation could be on hold until the outcome of Harmer’s appeal.

“If we were looking at findings of a particular court in a particular matter and that matter then went on appeal we would ... defer that investigation pending the outcome of an appeal,” said Muston.

 

Mr. Harmer's matter is before the court on 8 February 2013.

Can the NSW Roads & Maritime Serives make a worse fist of it environmental assessment of the Woolgoolga to Ballina leg of the Pacific Highway upgrade?

 

"This failed monitoring is part of a flawed strategy to deal with the insurmountable problems of building a freeway through the habitat of the coastal emu." Dr. Greg Clancy,Ecologist

 

Clarence Valley W.I.R.E.S carers who look after such emu chicks must be devastated that in this instance all their care has been undone in this manner, while many North Coast residents' jaws dropped when the news was published this week.

As for the estimated $70,000 reported set aside for this study before its cancellation, one wonders just how much of this funding remains.

 

Media statement from NSW Roads & Maritime Services 16 January 2013:

 

A state and federally funded trial where six hand raised emus with tracking devices were released back into the wild near Taloumbi as part of the Woolgoolga to Ballina Pacific Highway upgrade project has been stopped.

 

Roads and Maritime Services obtained support from a local wildlife carer, the National Parks and Wildlife Service and Taronga Western Plains Zoo to facilitate the study.

 

The study aimed to track the released emus for up to 18 months to determine their movements, habitat and the success of released captive birds back into the wild.

 

At the beginning of January three birds were found killed by wild dogs or dingos.

 

In addition three of the recaptured study birds sustained abrasions from their tracking cuffs as well as injuries from barbed wire fencing.

 

The study team is looking into why the birds sustained cuff related injuries as the tracking devices used on cassowary research did not experience similar issues.

 

Results from the study to date will be considered for the project’s environmental impact statement which includes a Biodiversity Connectivity Strategy which identifies a number of measures to manage potential impacts on the coastal emu population.

 

Vanessa Juresic

Media Officer

An update on Steve 'Houdini' Cansdell

Sydney Morning Herald journalist Sean Nicholls is like a dog with a bone. And for that the public (and those in the NSW electorate of Clarence in particular) should be most grateful.

Cansdell, the disgraced former MP for Clarence, has pedalled off into the sunset with his taxpayer-funded booty (aka a state parliamentary pension) despite significant questions remaining unanswered about his involvement in Cansdellgate.

Nicholls wrote:

Lessons from political Houdini

The award for the most outstanding public escape act of recent times must surely go to the former member for Clarence, Steve Cansdell.
You recall Cansdell: he was the former professional boxer and parliamentary secretary for police who became the O'Farrell government's first political casualty only months after it took office.
The then 60-year-old quit Parliament after his admission that he had falsified a statutory declaration to claim a staff member was driving when his car was snapped by a speed camera.
Cansdell was trying to avoid losing his driver's licence. Despite the incident occurring back in September 2005, he fell on his sword in September 2011, amid a chorus of sympathy from his Nationals colleagues.
Cansdell was "paying a very heavy price for a lapse of judgment six years ago", the leader of the Nationals and Deputy Premier, Andrew Stoner, said at the time.
Only later did it emerge that shortly before Cansdell put his hands up, the staff member in question, Kath Palmer, had blown the whistle on the episode to the Independent Commission Against Corruption.
So if Cansdell was not quite pushed - he claimed he quit to save the government and the party from embarrassment - he was very firmly nudged.
Not only had Palmer alleged the statutory declaration fraud, she alleged that Cansdell had also rorted a parliamentary staffing allowance by wrongly claiming it for the period she worked on the 2010 campaign of a Nationals colleague, Kevin Hogan, who was contesting the federal seat of Page.
And so began a very strange - many would say disturbing - series of events involving the ICAC, the police and the Speaker of the NSW Parliament that remain unresolved to this day.
In October last year, just over a year after Cansdell walked into Grafton police station with his lawyer to make his admission, police announced they had concluded their investigation into the statutory declaration matter.
"NSW Police Force will not instigate criminal proceedings," they said in a statement.
What had happened? The statement explained police from the Coffs-Clarence local area command had identified the woman who signed the declaration but that "she declined to be interviewed by officers".
Futhermore, it added, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions had said it was "not satisfied there are reasonable prospects for conviction for a Commonwealth offence".
For the NSW police, that was the end of the matter. But they omitted a couple of key details.
While it was true Palmer, through her lawyer, had refused to be formally interviewed, she had offered to make what is known as an "induced statement" - one given in return for indemnity from prosecution.
According to Palmer's lawyer, Mark Spagnolo, the police had earlier made it known they intended to charge Palmer with perverting the course of justice for her role in the false statutory declaration. Any admission in an interview was likely to lead to her being charged.
Police deny she was threatened with a charge but their decision to refuse her offer to supply an induced statement was rather ambitiously twisted to become Palmer "declined to be interviewed".
Second, the Commonwealth DPP claimed it had been verballed. It said it had simply advised the NSW police that they were not satisfied it was a Commonwealth offence - a subtle but important difference.
Things became even more intriguing when it emerged the ICAC had referred the allegation that Cansdell had rorted his parliamentary allowance to the Speaker of the NSW Parliament, Shelley Hancock, who was technically Palmer's employer.
The ICAC referred the matter "for action as considered appropriate". But no action was taken for a year by Hancock, until Spagnolo released the letter publicly through Fairfax.
After that Hancock, who is also the Liberal member for South Coast, promised that parliamentary officers would "review the material" sent by the ICAC. This included a spreadsheet containing the dates on which Palmer alleged Cansdell submitted claims for the allowance that differed from the days she worked. That was last October.
What has happened since then? Hancock passed the matter to the executive manager of the Department of Parliamentary Services, Rob Stefanic, who responded that he was "unable to reach any conclusions regarding the veracity of the claims made by the former electorate officer".
Stefanic added that because, in his opinion, the allegations were "of minor significance", that so much time had elapsed and that both Palmer and Cansdell had resigned, no further action should be taken "in the absence of more conclusive information". (Never mind that the allegations, if proven, are similar to those which saw two former Labor MPs, Angela D'Amore and Karyn Paluzzano, branded corrupt by ICAC.)
When Hancock was asked if the Parliament would contact Palmer to request "more conclusive information", she said it would not.
"As Ms Palmer did not make a complaint directly to the Parliament, the Parliament will not be contacting the complainant for further information."
So, 18 months since Palmer made her official complaint, there the matter lies: a tangled mess of contradictory claims, dead ends and official inertia.
Palmer is understood to be considering whether to pursue the matter with Parliament or drop it altogether to get on with her life.
Spagnolo has called for an inquiry into the police handling of the matter. The silence has been deafening.
Cansdell now says he has gone bankrupt.
And, while there is no suggestion he is implicated, the man he is alleged to have helped out by fiddling his taxpayer-funded entitlements, Kevin Hogan, has won Nationals preselection to contest Page at this year's federal election.
As a lesson in the frustrations of being a political whistleblower, it doesn't get much more instructive than that.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald, 19/1/2013