Wednesday 3 February 2010
South Australia backs down on Internet censorship during state election campaigns
AdelaideNow... had great fun publishing this after the Internet went wild.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL Michael Atkinson has made a "humiliating" backdown and announced he will retrospectively repeal his law censoring internet comment on the state election.
After a furious reaction on AdelaideNow to The Advertiser's exclusive report on the new laws, Mr Atkinson at 10pm released this statement: "From the feedback we've received through AdelaideNow, the blogging generation believes that the law supported by all MPs and all political parties is unduly restrictive. I have listened.
"I will immediately after the election move to repeal the law retrospectively."
Mr Atkinson said the law would not be enforced for comments posted on AdelaideNow during the upcoming election campaign, even though it was technically applicable.
Anonymous and Proud
Northern Rivers
Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents.
Email ncvguestpeak at live dot com dot au to submit comment for consideration.
Is this the view from your Northern Beaches unit? Mapping predicted seal level rise (6)
Is this the view from your brand new Northern Beaches unit?
Is your considerable financial investment safe?
This posts displays a current photograph and Google Earth mapping showing the effects of a 1 metre sea level rise on a residential area of the New South Wales coast, which would see the beach eroded and sea water possibly reaching some of the residential back boundaries during storm surges.The 2009 Federal Government report Climate Change Risks to Australia's Coasts contains a 'worst case' scenario involving a 1.1 metre sea level rise along the NSW coast sometime within the next 90 years.
Apology - due to a clumsy cut and past the wrong information initially appeared below the images. It has now been corrected.
Clarence Valley Woman of the Year 2010 - Julia Young
Clarence electorate Woman of the Year Julia Young at Monday's presentation.
Julia Young lives her life by the mantra 'it is better to give than to receive'. But last night the Lower Clarence mental health advocate's commitment to helping others received the recognition it deserves when she was named the Clarence electorate Woman of the Year. [The Daily Examiner, 2 February 2010]
Congratulations, Julia - you deserve this public recognition from the community.
Tuesday 2 February 2010
Did a decade under Howard's thumb finally drive the Liberal Party insane?
"It's an important issue but even if dire predictions are right and average temperatures around the globe rise by four degrees over the century, it's still not the 'great moral challenge' of our time - as Mr Rudd has described it on 14 occasions - let alone the 'greatest' moral challenge of our time - as Mr Rudd has described it at least four times," Mr Abbott said.
"Adapting to changing rainfall patterns, for example, will be hard but it won't supplant the threat of war, injustice, disease and want as the biggest problems with which humanity must grapple."
Well, colour me astounded! Here I was thinking that an increase in global temperature of 4° Celsius would spell disaster for continuity of land tenure, food production and water supplies around the world over the next 100 years and beyond, leading to "war, injustice, disease and want".
Now Opposition Leader Tony Abbott informs me that adapting to climate change is not really one of the "biggest problems with which humanity must grapple".
The man is seriously alarming. I know it's been said before, but is the Liberal Party descending into an intractable psychosis from which it will never recover?
Or did John Howard's leadership up to 2007 merely paper over the madness?
Anon
Sawtell
Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents. Email ncvguestpeak at live dot com dot au to submit comment for consideration.
NSW North Coast 2010 federal election debate (Part 1)
From time to time I will attempt to produce a broad-brush outline of what voters on the NSW North Coast are discussing in the months preceding the 2010 federal election.
Here is the first post in this series.
The Daily Examiner letters to the editor, 28 & 30 January 2010
Fair work farce
KEN MACDONALD, Lennox Head
Streuth Ruth! Abbott's a cobber of the elderly and Rudd's a granny basher?
You've gotta love the boy. Here he is gamely battling for that extra spin by having a go at Rudders and Swanee over the latest Intergenerational Report released yesterday.
Apparently the PM and Treasurer are guilty of elder bashing by pointing out that growing numbers entering retirement are posing a bit of a problem for a national economy which was traditionally coming off on a strong base of taxpaying workers.
Leader of the Coalition Opposition Tony Abbott hopes that I'll accept that he's my true blue friend, working flat out protecting me from Labor's nasty age discrimination.
"It's not seniors' fault that the government is under cost pressure. This idea somehow seniors are to blame for our economic problems, it is wrong, it is demeaning to great people who have worked hard for our country."sez our Tones.
Here's how Labor's 2010 intergenerational report basically assesses the aging of the population;
"Australia faces significant intergenerational challenges.
Population ageing will mean that there will be fewer workers to support retirees and young dependants.
This will place pressure on the economic growth that drives rising living standards.
At the same time, the ageing population will result in substantial fiscal pressures from increased demand for government services and rising health costs.
Australia's population will continue to grow over time but at slower rates
than in the past. A growing population will help manage pressures of the ageing population but will put pressure on our infrastructure, services and environment. This will require continued planning and investment ahead of time."
Here's how the Coalition's 2007 intergenerational report viewed the same issue;
Demographic and other factors will continue to pose substantial challenges for economic growth and long-term fiscal sustainability.
The projections in IGR2 show that over the next 40 years:
- the population will continue to increase in size but with a higher proportion of older people;
- economic growth per person will slow as the proportion of the population of traditional working age falls; and
- substantial fiscal pressures will emerge due to projected increases in spending, particularly in the areas of health, age pensions and aged care."
Australia, like most industrialised countries, is experiencing an ageing of its population. This is already beginning to place some pressure on government spending. However, much larger pressures are expected to emerge when the 'baby-boomer' generation starts reaching old age in the middle of the next decade.
By careful planning now, we will be better prepared to meet the future challenges of an ageing population.
Can't tell the chooks apart can you! Because the long term demographic shift exists and it will affect the economy.
Tony Abbott is showing what a bl**dy nong he really is in trying to run with this thought bubble for the next 24 hours and this particular greybeard would like to take his 'caring' and shove it down his dishonest pollie throat.
Monday 1 February 2010
Take a good look, Prime Minister Rudd - your numbers are not looking so rosy
This is the current state of play in relation to opinion change according to Possum Comitatus and it is not as healthy a situation as Labor might like or have expected:
Credibility in the areas Possum highligts are not your only problem.
Websites listed as participating in The Great Australian Internet Blackout (and the thousands of Twitter accounts blacking out atavars) on 26 January 2010 represent just a fraction of the votes which will probably not go to Labor candidates at the next federal election, if you go ahead with your flawed plan to impose mandatory ISP-level Internet filtering on the Australian people.
These sites form part of a demographic which is spread right across every seat you will have to contest in 2010. Can you really afford to keep riling voters in this way in the lead up to what may yet be a closely fought election in rural and regional Australia?
Just how expensive will the 2010 federal election campaign be?
Starting to wonder just how much money the major political parties will p*ss down the drain during the 2010 federal election campaign?
The 2007 election was a pretty expensive and wasteful affair and this one will have to equal it, if only because of the level of noisy desperation which is bound to consume Abbott and his mates.
An Australian Electoral Commission media release on 29 January reminded us of just how much the pollies spent trying to swing our votes last time round.
The actual 2008-09 disclosure documents for that between elections period will not be online until 1 February 2010, but here is part of what the AEC is saying:
As at 21 January 2010 the AEC had received 73 political party returns with total receipts of $93,699,223 disclosed by political parties for 2008-09, compared to 73 political party returns with total receipts of $216,523,873 currently reported for the 2007-08 financial year.
The same 73 political party returns show $93,880,386 as a total expenditure for the 2008-09 financial year, compared to $213,492,720 currently reported for the 2007-08 returns.
192 associated entities reported total receipts of $716,800,790 for 2008-09, compared to 245 returns disclosing $702,561,166 for 2007-08.
37 returns of political expenditure by third parties show a total of $6,493,558 was spent on political commentary, advertising, polling or other research for 2008-09 compared to 75 returns for 2007-08 showing total expenditure of $51,333,987.
229 donors completed returns for 2008-09 disclosing total donations of $10,294,507 compared to 409 returns for 2007-08 disclosing $26,425,088 donated to political parties.
Apart from associated entities, the amounts disclosed are significantly less than for 2007-08 because that year covered a federal election and the Gippsland by-election. The only electoral events in 2008-09 were the by-elections in Lyne and Mayo.