Saffin condemns National Party's dirty tricks in local telephone polling

It would appear that the NSW North Coast Nationals and Kevin Hogan are behaving true to form……..

Saffin condemns National Party’s dirty tricks

Page MP Janelle Saffin says she is disgusted with the dirty tricks polling methods being used by the National Party in Page.

Ms Saffin said local people have alerted her to telephone polls with deliberately deceitful questions.

“My support for a Coal Seam Gas free Northern Rivers is unequivocal as the community is well aware of.

“There are dodgy polls asking people whether they would vote for me if I changed my mind on the CSG issue.

“This is a deliberately misleading suggestion.

“From the moment people first came to me with their concerns about CSG, I have been standing up for the community on this issue.

“I said I would speak out against CSG and I have.

“I said I would pursue any possible Federal Government action for protecting our water and our environment from CSG, and I have.

“I said I would push our State MPs to better protect our region from CSG activities, and I have, and will continue to do so until we have a Northern Rivers exclusion zone.

“Local people can decide who they trust to stand up for them on keeping our region CSG-free.

“It is clear from this devious style of polling by the Nationals that Kevin Hogan is bringing Tony Abbott’s negative campaign to Page.

“Rather than resort to dishonest campaign techniques, Mr Hogan should be pressuring his State National Party colleagues to get a CSG exclusion zone for the Northern Rivers.

29 April 2013

Shorter Tony Abbott: If you are gay and want to marry you're not really important to me

Australian Agenda interview 21 April 2013:

PAUL KELLY:

If I can just ask you about same-sex marriage.

TONY ABBOTT:

Oh come on, please, let’s stay on the really important stuff, Paul. I mean please, let’s stay on the really important stuff.

Hi! I'm Terry from ERM Power and I'm here to supply your business with electricity - but don't ask me where it comes from

http://youtu.be/S0dU2kVESYw

This is Terry McCauley from ERM Business Energy, a commercial unit of ERM Power Limited. 

The ever helpful Terry would like to sign up your own manufacturing/retail business, your child’s school, the medical clinic you attend, the local council and government agencies in your area, and sundry other businesses as ERM customers if you live in New South Wales.

Terry is very keen to help ‘his’ company expand its core business in this state from the 26 per cent of the NSW electricity supply market it held in January 2013.

He has The Energy You Need!

Or does he?

What Terry is careful not to say is the word Metgasco.

Because ERM Power is well aware that communities right across the NSW Northern Rivers are not happy with that mining company’s plan to turn parts of our unique environment and valued agricultural land into gasfields, which will reduce the region’s groundwater resources and possibly irreversibly contaminate aquifers and water bores near or within those same gasfields and/or pollute surface water courses.

ERM is not just aware because its directors and staff read the newspaper or watch the nightly news, no ERM is aware because it is now the largest shareholder in Metgasco Limited, as ERM Power Limited, Energy Resource Managers Pty Ltd and Trevor St. Baker.

By virtue of its share acquisitions over a number of years ERM Power and Messrs. Tony Bellas (Chairman, Non Exec. Director), Philip St Baker (Managing Director, CEO), Martin Greenberg (Non Exec. Director), Brett Heading (Non Exec. Director), Antonio (Tony) Mario Iannello (Non Exec. Director), Trevor St Baker (Non Exec. Director) and Peter Jans (General Counsel) would have considerable influence on any future decisions Megasco may make with regard to coal seam gas exploration and commercial production on the NSW North Coast.

It is probably no coincidence that in the days that ERM finally became Metgasco's largest shareholder, Metgasco announced that it was not capping and abandoning all its wells on the NSW North Coast and was keeping open the possibility of starting coal seam gas production approximately 10 kms west north west of Casino.

In July 2012 ERM Power told the Australian Stock Exchange that its strategy is to gain a foothold in the east coast gas market, consider conventional/coal seam gas production as well as generation opportunities and achieve the same success it achieved in West Australia. (1)

These are photographs of ERM Power-Empire Oil & Gas-Wharf Resources joint venture gasfield sites in the coastal Perth Basin, West Australia:

 So if an ERM Business Energy representative makes contact with you – please take time to consider what you value about your regional lifestyle and whether ERM, through its interest in Metgasco, may be intent on ruining that lifestyle for you, your family, your friends and neighbours, purely for its own commercial gain.

Say NO to ERM.

(1) ERM Power also has an interest in Red Sky Energy Ltd and Clarence Moreton Resources, two other coal seam gas exploration companies operating on the NSW North Coast.
It also holds equity interests in eight petroleum exploration tenements covering in excess of 10,000 km² in the Western Australian Perth Basin, which include conventional gas, condensate, oil and shale gas prospects. 
One of ERM's business units ERM Power Retail Pty Ltd is an authorized gas retailer.

* ERM gas field photographs from Google Images

When Abbott or his mates receive guvmin handouts it's not welfare it's an entitlement

When “the rich” receive Centrelink payments it’s not welfare – it’s “universal entitlements”!

Found in "Articles written by Tony" over at www.tonyabbott.com.au:

“EVEN THE RICH NEED A HELPING HANDOUT

Posted on Monday, 21 April 2008

MIDDLE-CLASS welfare has become a term of abuse, at least to people who read The Australian's editorials. A recent one castigated the Rudd Government for forgetting what it described as "the war cries of Opposition about ridding Australia of the middle-class welfare of the Howard era". Almost by definition, anything described as middle-class welfare is redundant and should be eliminated. The trouble with such tagging, though, is that benefits that seem superfluous to The Australian look quite different to recipients on modest incomes with few choices. As well, many government payments support social goals such as higher female participation in the workforce or fertility rates. Although paid through Centrelink, these are better described as universal entitlements than welfare.”

 

Tony Abbott and who should be allowed a decent education

Tony Abbott as President of the Sydney University Student's Representative Council  in 1979:

…you see the Marxists that I said are operating in the universities…they realise now that the universities play a crucial role in the education of the elite of modern society. And they understand that if they destroy the academic standards and perhaps even the moral standards of that elite well then they have perhaps fundamentally and fatally undermined liberal democratic society…

What I am saying is that there are a number of academics of Marxist leanings in the university who are actively working to destroy academic standards. I wouldn’t put a plot coordinated from the Kremlin but there is certainly a general tendency towards destroying academic standards and the impetus is coming from this sort of person….

Well I see women as having an equal opportunity in every area as men have…mind you, I must add the proviso that while I think men and women are equal they are also different and I think that it is inevitable and don’t think it’s a bad thing at all that we will always have, say, more women doing things like physiotherapy and an enormous number of women simply doing housework and probably more men doing things like digging ditches…”

Tony Abbott  as Australian Opposition Leader in 2011:

''It's all very well keeping kids at school past year 10, but they've got to be the right kids being kept at school past year 10,''

In 2012:

Tony Abbott will slash financial support for university students and gut the current funding to Australia's higher education system. Opposition spokesperson, Brett Mason, today confirmed the Coalition will cut student support payments, including the Student Start-up Scholarship, meaning only those students from wealthy backgrounds will be able to afford to go to university.

In 2013:

Coalition leader Tony Abbott says the federal government’s proposed education changes are too expensive and unnecessary because there is no fundamental problem with the way schools are funded…..

But Mr Abbott said he would maintain the changes to university funding which the government announced earlier this month…..

‘‘I don’t think anyone should expect those cuts to be reversed,’’ Mr Abbott said.

Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's contempt for journalists and voters generally couldn't have been more obvious

http://youtu.be/_jjdssGPuRI

At a press conference he called himself at the Adelaide Ice Service factory on 26 April 2013, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott abruptly walked away when asked a question concerning his contradictory stance on the Good and Services Tax (GST).

Re-writing the ‘official’ record the Liberal Party published transcript has Abbott closing the question segment with a Thank you and not the sight of his retreating back.

This Adelaide press conference is also noted for the fact that Abbott described the ice factory as a business which is going to be badly damaged by the carbon tax; is being badly damaged by the carbon tax despite the fact that it had been approved for a $90,000 grant from the Gillard Government Clean Technology Food and Foundries Program to offset its energy costs with the installation of an 87.5-kilowatt solar power system.

How the NSW North Coast rates on the NSW Food Authority's penalty register

There are 1652 penalty notices currently in the NSW Food Authority penallty register, which was last updated on 2 April 2013.

The NSW North Coast does not feature heavily and, thankfully no local business has been named so far this year.

How the region rates:

BONDIE'S AT THE BAY	BALLINA	BALLINA	3095439133	2012-10-11	BOND, GARY
BONDIES ON THE BAY	BALLINA	BALLINA	3095439142	2012-10-09	BOND, GARY

BUSHMAN'S BAKERY	COFFS HARBOUR	COFFS HARBOUR	3013502508	2012-08-08	BIDAROL PTY LTD
BUSHMAN'S BAKERY	COFFS HARBOUR	COFFS HARBOUR	3013502517	2012-08-08	BIDAROL PTY LTD
BUSHMAN'S BAKERY	COFFS HARBOUR	COFFS HARBOUR	3013502526	2012-08-08	BIDAROL PTY LTD
BUSHMAN'S BAKERY	COFFS HARBOUR	COFFS HARBOUR	3013502535	2012-08-08	BIDAROL PTY LTD

DALLEY ST CAFE

EAST LISMORE

LISMORE

3042506318

2012-06-19

PRIGMORE, DAVID

ECLIPSE DISTRIBUTION PTY LTD	BYRON BAY AND OTHER DIVERSE PLACES		3013501848	2011-08-20	ECLIPSE DISTRIBUTION PTY LTD
ECLIPSE DISTRIBUTION PTY LTD	BYRON BAY AND OTHER DIVERSE PLACES		3013501857	2011-08-20	ECLIPSE DISTRIBUTION PTY LTD

GORMAN'S BIG OYSTER

YAMBA

Clarence Valley

3013502829

2012-11-08

EURUNDERIE INVESTMENTS PTY LTD

KFC BALLINA

BALLINA

BALLINA

3095439151

2012-11-26

QSR PTY LTD

NOODLE CAFE

LISMORE

LISMORE

3042506271

2012-06-06

YOU, COLIN

ST ELMO'S

BYRON BAY

BYRON

7641791796

2012-12-13

HONEYWELL, ANGELA

UTOPIA CAFE

BANGALOW

BYRON

7641791778

2012-08-29

HERNANDEZ, JUAN

WHAT A LOAD OF CREPE

LISMORE

LISMORE

3042506336

2012-09-16

BURKE, JOHN DAMIAN