The Monster Under The Bed in November 2013

Cathy Wilcox

Is Peter Reith splitting hairs in the hope no one will pursue his connection with the gas industry in Australia?

On 7 November 2013 an ABC News article contained these statements:

The Government has been widely criticised for not making public Mr Reith's report, which was commissioned by former premier Ted Baillieu in January. The ABC has learnt that all the taskforce members, except for Mr Reith, represent energy companies or associated industries and lobby groups.

While this interesting exchange turned up on Twitter on 4 November:

Mark Anning ‏1@EarthMedia 4 Nov

@Peter_Reith did you see this? Vested Interest? Reith is a paid lobbyist for Coal Seam Gas Coy's #auspol #csg #nswpol http://nofibs.com.au/2013/11/01/lobbyists-public-commentary-reith-spotlight-mark-anning-1earthmedia-reports/ …

Peter Reith ‏@Peter_Reith 4 Nov

@1EarthMedia you have your facts wrong. Best not to follow people who enjoy conspiracy theories.

Mark Anning ‏@1EarthMedia 4 Nov 9:09 PM - 4 Nov 13 

@Peter_Reith Are you saying you are not a paid lobbyist for Coal Seam Gas? #auspol #csg #nswpol #agchatoz #springst http://nofibs.com.au/2013/11/01/lobbyists-public-commentary-reith-spotlight-mark-anning-1earthmedia-reports/ …

Peter de Voil ‏@skroggitz 5 Nov

@Peter_Reith Which facts are wrong? Working for @thiessgroup, or ALC? #auspol @1EarthMedia

So is former Howard Government minister and active Liberal Party member, Peter Keaston Reith, far removed from any connection with liquefied natural gas and coal seam gas and therefore above suspicion when it comes to the Victorian Premier's Gas Market Taskforce he chaired?

Mr. Reith is still a special counsel at First State Advisors & Consultants Pty Ltd, having joined that 'team' in late 2012.

I am not sure if in his capacity as special counsel he actively lobbies on behalf of Theiss Pty Ltd or the NSW Aboriginal Land Council.

However, as a sole trader he is currently listed as the official lobbyist for Bechtel Management Company Ltd a civil engineering/construction subsidiary of the Bechtel Corporation which has coal, oil and gas interests around the world. Including gas projects in the Pilbara region of West Australia and the Gladstone region in Queensland. 

This subsidiary company appears to be his only client as of 2 July 2013.

The parent company Bechtel Corporation claims its Curtis Island LNG project off the Gladstone coast;  represents the greatest concentration of Bechtel projects anywhere in the world.

In its 2012 annual report Bechtel explained that; On Curtis Island, in eastern Australia, we are building three world-scale plants to process the region’s vast coal seam gas reserves.

Bechtel Corporation though the Bechtel Power Corporation is also a member of the UK Nuclear Industry Association.

So unless Peter Children Overboard Reith suddenly resigned as a lobbyist once the Gas Market Taskforce was established in 2012 but forgot to inform state and federal agencies, he is running true to form and being less than honest with both the twitterverse and mainstream media when discussing his connections with industries associated with energy supply or coal seam gas.

Put your hand in your pocket for this community - every little bit counts

Northern Rivers communities and local government councils have a surfeit of riches compared to some other Australian regions.

Maybe it’s time to put our hands in our pocket for these enterprising young people.

http://youtu.be/zIA1D0qG3tc

Warlpiri Youth Development Corporation:

This ‘campaign’ is simple, but serious. We have no marketing expertise, strategy or budgets. What we do is look after young people. Young Warlpiri people wrote, shot, edited and performed in this film because they want you to know how important our pool is to us.

You’ll see just some of the benefits of the swimming pool in this clip. Royal Life Saving Society NT has called us ‘the best run remote pool in the Territory’ and to top it off here’s some stats from July to December 2012: 

·         Open 83 of a possible 83 days of the season – no closures

·         Record daily average of 95 swimmers per day (total of 7,918 over the season)

·         Yuendumu school use – 48 days including every day of Term 4 (hot months) for  swimming lessons

·         Yuendumu Childcare use – 1 day per week

·         94.3% of swimmers were between 0 and 24 years old

·         7 young people were employed at the pool

·         Increased use by surrounding communities (Nyirrpi, Willowra & Mt Allen)

·         No OH&S incidents

Since the Pool opened in October 2008, some  government support for operational costs has come from the NT government. However, for the last 5 years we have only been able to stay open due to gold mine royalty funds given to us by community members. The mine has now closed. There’s no more money for the pool. We could really use your help.

You can donate online at www.givenow.com.au/mttheo

To flak or not to flak - that is the question when the cameras flash

News Ltd looks at Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott arriving in Afghanistan on Monday 28 October 2013. Note that much is made of him not wearing a flack jacket.

Courtesy of @Thefinnigans

Fairfax Media looks at Tony Abbott on that same 28 October visit. Note the flak jacket.

Courtesy of The Age

John Howard - then and now

It would appear that political loyalty to the current policy of one’s party and the thickness of one’s pocket book are perhaps more important to former Australian prime minister and paid celebrity speaker John Howard than the future environmental, economic and social well-being of this country.

2006

PM's southerly change: expect extreme weather

Andrew Darby in St Helens, Tasmania
December 14, 2006

THE Prime Minister, John Howard, last night embraced a key climate change forecast, warning Australians to prepare for more extreme weather events such as the current bushfires.

Visiting north-east Tasmania, he repeatedly made the point that the region was not normally associated with bushfires, and neither were they usually so common early in the summer.

On his last stop in St Helens, Mr Howard was asked if he accepted the scientists' predictions of more extreme weather events.

"Let me put it this way," he said. "I think the country should prepare for a continuation of what we are now experiencing … I think the likelihood of this going on is very strong."

2013 (almost 7 years and 11 months later)

'The claims are exaggerated': John Howard rejects predictions of global warming catastrophe
Nick Miller Europe Correspondent
November 6, 2013

London: Former Prime Minister John Howard has poured scorn on the "alarmist" scientific consensus on global warming, comparing those calling for action on climate change to religious zealots in a speech to a gathering of UK climate sceptics.

Mr Howard said he was an “agnostic” on climate science and he preferred to rely on his instinct, which told him that predictions of doom were exaggerated.

He also relied on a book written by a prominent climate sceptic – which has been attacked as ignorant and misleading by scientists.

And he called on politicians not to be browbeaten into surrendering their role in determining economic policy.

Nuclear power – a “very clean source of energy” - shale oil and fracking were solutions to the world’s energy needs, Mr Howard said.

Mr Howard gave a speech in London on Tuesday night to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a think-tank established by Nigel Lawson, one of Britain’s most prominent climate change sceptics, former chancellor in the Thatcher government and father of TV chef Nigella.

In 2008 John Howard was thought to be commanding speaker fees of between $10k and $15k per event.

One wonders how much those UK climate sceptics at the Global Warming Policy Foundation paid him for his keynote speech on 5 November at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in London?

Or what Tony Abbott may have promised him come March 2014?

The truth about Australian cost of living pressures in 2013

Nationals campaign flyer

Remember Tony Abbott and all those Coalition candidates during the federal election campaign making promises about easing cost of living pressures caused by the big bad Labor Government?

Notice that the mainstream media is still talking about cost of living pressures building, despite the release of the latest Cost Price Index (CPI) data?

On the day these CPI figures were released News Ltd’s rather quaintly named Cost of Living Editor chose to focus solely on retailer energy price rorts and ignore the good news.

Well just for the record and according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Reserve Bank of Australia, Dept. of Veterans’ Affairs and Centrelink, here are a few facts that are not generally being mentioned by Murdoch’s minions.

Between January and September 2013 the Wage Price Index (hourly rates of pay without bonuses) had grown by an estimated 3 per cent.

In the months of July and August through to September 2013 annual inflation was running at 2.2 per cent.

During these same three months the CPI for households headed by an employed person rose by a mere 0.8 per cent, while living costs for independent retiree households rose 1.5 per cent, age pensioner households rose 1.3% and other government transfer recipient households rose by 1.1 per cent.

The cost of food and non-alcoholic beverages only formed a small part of these increases as on average these rose by only 0.1 to 0.2 per cent, while the cost of vegetables actually fell by 4.5 per cent. Insurance, financial services, and health care costs also fell for all four groups, as did interest rates when the cash rate was lowered to 2.5 per cent on 7 August.

Overall from January through to September the cost of living for households headed by an employed person rose 0.9 per cent and cost of living over that same period for independent retirees, pensioners and other welfare recipients rose by 2 per cent.

In response to these relatively modest CPI rises, fortnightly adult pension payments grew by $28 per couple and $18.70 per single person on 20 September.

The single rate parenting payment rose by $16.50 per fortnight and unemployment benefits rose by $4.10.

To put all these figures into some sort of perspective; the Reserve Bank inflation calculator tells me that if I spent $200 on a basket of goods and services in September Quarter 2012 by September Quarter 2013 that same basket of goods and services would cost me $204.32.

In other words cost of living was never a genuine issue during the federal election campaign and, will only become one once the Abbott Government begins taxing fixed and low income earners at a higher rate than they were prior to the election and finalises the withdrawal of a number of concessions/allowances.

Something that the Coalition has stated in writing that it intends to implement - beginning this year and continuing through to the 2016-17 financial year [Coalition Costings Table: Fiscal Budget Impact Of Federal Coalition Policy].

The alleged fall in gas and electricity prices voters are told they can expect if the national carbon pricing mechanism is repealed by the Abbott Government will not come anywhere near compensating for those additional taxes paid, superannuation foregone or concessions/benefits lost by individuals and families.