A Lower Clarence Call to Arms

Letter to the Editor in The Daily Examiner 13 April 2013:

Join and take action

If you are one of the 4000 people in the area, not consulted, and who care about Maclean and are concerned about the way the Clarence Valley Council has made decisions in the past, and is making right now, join our new action group - the Greater Maclean Community Action Group (GMCAG). Council will listen because we represent many groups in the community.
If you think Maclean has been exploited and/or ignored since amalgamation and want to address this, join.
If you are concerned about losing Maclean's biggest car park to the proposed IGA supermarket and the consequent traffic and parking chaos, join us.
If you think that this development will close businesses during and after construction, join.
If you are worried about losing some of Cameron Park, trees, and the green space behind the library for car parking, join.
If you think that the CVC spending up to $1million on the strip of McLachlan Park between SPAR and the bus shelter is a completely ridiculous waste of money, join.
If you are not one of the 83 members of the Maclean Chamber of Commerce, but would still like to tell the CVC what YOU want for Maclean, join.
And if you are a member of the Chamber and want to be twice as effective, join. If you want development that preserves our beautiful buildings and assets, join. If you want to be part of a vibrant and passionate group of old and young who want good things to happen in Maclean, join.
And joining will cost you only $5. So please come to the public meeting to be held at the Maclean Public School in Woodford St on Monday, April 5 at 7.30pm.

Nicki Holmes

Member of GMCAG

Maclean

Another jerk on the Opposition benches

Here's the Federal Libs Dr Dennis Jensen MP in action on Twitter:

Paul Howes: Labor's Answer To Tony Abbott

Abbott - v.t. To make a wrong, tasteless, controversial or foolish remark, 

only to retract it the next day.

Once more Australia Worker’s Union National Secretary Paul Howes proves he has mastered an Abbott-esque approach to the media. Grab the moment and spout whatever nonsense comes to mind regardless of the facts of the matter.

Greens Party plays to Woodside's tune 12 April 2013:

Paul Howes said the Greens Party had been Woodside and Shell’s unofficial partner in their plans to rip-off the Australian community.

“The Greens Party, through their long-standing campaign against the James Price Point facility, have given the oil multinationals the perfect cover for moving offshore.

“Today Christine Milne and her colleagues have been celebrating the loss of this project, thousands of Australian jobs, and billions of dollars worth of local content.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Christine Milne is heading straight to Perth to share a glass of champagne with Woodside executives to toast their multi-billion dollar heist at the expense of the Australian public.”

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven (13 October 1925 - 8 April 2013)

http://youtu.be/TbYeJIvVwZk

15  April 2013:

'Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead' failed to top the UK charts this weekend, entering the UK singles chart at number two following a campaign to get the track at the top after Margaret Thatcher's death.

Dexon Group Holdings of Hong Kong exploring for gold and antimony in the Kyogle region

 

Dexon Group Holdings Ltd of Kowloon, Hong Kong, through Dexon Resources No. 3 Pty Ltd (directors Peter Blair, Gennadii Nedria and Mark Levey) has reportedly approached twelve land owners in the Kyogle district concerning one of its mineral exploration leases where it is said to be looking to eventually mine gold and antimony.

 

Dexon Group Holdings’ three associated companies registered in Australia hold mineral exploration licenses EL 7935, EL 7936 and EL 7398 in New South Wales.

 

Gold and antimony mining on the NSW North Coast has a history of environmental damage and catastrophic water pollution:

 

Estimates of sediment migration rates and amounts of Sb and As transported in suspension and solution imply that the catchment contamination will be long-term (centuries to millennia)

 

Antimony contamination, Urunga 2011

I don't know how many times reputable economists have to say it before the Murdoch media will believe it....

 

Here is Stephen Koukoulas at Market Economics trying for the xxxxth time to demonstrate the obvious fact that Australia’s public debt is not at a problematic level:

 

 

Sloan fails to mention in her piece the actual indicators which determine whether a particular level of government debt is a problem or not. These indicators are not opinion or a hunch or a doctrinal Tea Party like fear but simple and observable benchmarks.

Perhaps most important of all of these is the level of government bond yields, or the interest rate that a government pays on its debt. This is a good benchmark on which to judge whether or not government debt is something to be nervous about. In simple terms, if there is too much debt, yields are high. If bond yields are low and the bond market is free of government intervention, there is no fear about government debt.

The Australian 10 year government bond yield is currently around 3.3%, marginally above the record low reached in the middle of 2012. In the last 50 years, there have been only a few months, all of them in the last year, where yields have been lower than they are today. No nervousness here.