The good news is that the NSW Coalition Government is not supporting forced amalgamations in regional areas - the bad news is that it will actively encourage 'voluntary' mergers by offering cash and other incentives

The Final Report of the NSW Independent Local Government Review Panel was completed in October 2013 and released in early 2014.

In September 2014 the Baird Coalition Government published its response to the review panel’s sixty-five recommendations, in the suite of documents under the title Fit For The Future.

In a 10 September media release NSW Premier Mike Baird stated:

“Our State cannot continue to be constrained by local government boundaries that were set more than 100 years ago.

“That’s why we have created the $1 billion Fit for the Future package – to help councils take the next steps towards change.

“We are supporting councils that wish to voluntarily merge by providing financial incentives and other support to assist the process.

“We are also providing councils with cheaper finance to build and maintain the facilities that communities need such as roads, bridges, pools and sporting fields - saving them up to $600 million.”

The Fit for the Future package is based on the Independent Local Government Review Panel’s recommendations following three years of research and consultation.

Councils will have until 30 June 2015 to submit their proposal on how they plan to be Fit for the Future. It will be assessed by independent experts against independently-established criteria.

However, Baird has also been reported as saying he hasn't ruled out forced amalgamations if the carrot doesn't work. "Councils losing $1 million a day is unacceptable..." 

Given the New South Wales Treasury Corporation's 'negative outlook' assessments of Richmond Valley, Byron, Kyogle, Lismore City, Clarence Valley, Coffs Harbour and Belligen local government areas in the April 2013 Financial Sustainability of the New South Wales Local Government Sector report and, the 'neutral outlook' assessments for Ballina and Tweed Heads councils, Northern Rivers residents could be forgiven for feeling a little nervous about the Premier's intentions right now.

In 2004 the Lower Clarence was part of a forced amalgamation and local government democratic processes have been in decline ever since.

One has to wonder if the Lower Clarence will find itself shafted by the state government and Grafton-centric councillors a second time around, if in 2015 Clarence Valley Council decides to ‘voluntarily’ merge for the millions on offer?

Abbott Government intends to give ASIO the power to use force against Australian citizens

slippery slope

phrase

1. a course of action likely to lead to something bad or disastrous

[www.oxforddictionaries.com]

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has told the world that he does not intend to go to the UN climate change conference on 23 September 2014 because it was more important that he be in the House of Representatives while some remaining budget measures and national security legislation are debated in both houses – including the National Security Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 currently before the Senate.

This particular bill will allow the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) to use force against persons when executing property searches.

Something that under existing legislation ASIO officers apparently have no right to do and, this new muscle rather disturbingly will even be able to be flexed during searches when law enforcement officers are not present.

In exercising this ability to use force, the Abbott Government intends to offer immunity to ASIO officers under s35K of the bill providing they don't kill, seriously injure or sexually assault a person during special intelligence operations - leaving an incredible amount of leeway for adrenalin-charged security personnel to inflict physical punishment.

In its September 2014 advisory report the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has signed off on this new power.

Although the Committee does accept that; If not appropriately constrained, the use of force against persons by ASIO officers could, over time, change the basic premise of the way ASIO operates.

Which would have to rate as the understatement of the year.

Rather optimistically the Abbott Government’s explanatory memorandum accompanying this bill states that it is compatible with internationally recognised human rights and freedoms.

However, the general public are unlikely to be able to test that assertion against circumstances on the ground, as the same bill enables the federal government to prosecute and gaol journalists (for up to five years) if they report on special intelligence operations without permission.

So what is this Free Enterprise Foundation of which they speak?

According to evidence before the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) and other sources, the Free Enterprise Foundation:

* Is listed by the Australian Electoral Commission as an associated entity of the federal divisions of the Liberal Party of Australia and the National Party of Australia.

* Was created by deed on 20 August 1981 as a $10 trust at the direction of Sir Robert Crichton-Brown, federal treasurer of the Liberal Party of Australia from 1973 to 1985.

* Has set out its objectives in the trust deed are as follows:

* Original trustees were Anthony Joseph Bandle and Charles James Fox who comprised the trust’s original Council. The current trustees are Anthony Bandle and Stephen Francis McAneney.  Both of whom were also trustees of the Greenfields Foundation, an associated entity which was allegedly set up to hide from public view a 1992 $4.7 million political donation to the Liberal Party.

* Accountants are Bandle McAneney & Company.

*  Name was registered with the Australian Security & Investments Commission as a business name in 2012.

* Receives political donations which the trust directs onto the Liberal Party of Australia, the Liberal National Party of Queensland, other associated entities of the Liberal Party and, infrequently to registered charities.

In practice the Free Enterprise Foundation does not appear to fulfil all the prescribed purposes set out in the trust document, does not seem to operate independently of the Liberal Party of Australia and, has accepted political donations from prohibited donors in New South Wales which it redirected to the Liberal Party of Australia (NSW Division).

Rather disingenuously former NSW Deputy State Director of the Liberal Party and former Metgasco Limited executive, Richard Shields, stated during a 12 September 2014 ICAC Operation Spicer hearing in relation to the Free Enterprise Foundation, which had donated  approximately $700,000 to the Liberal Party to fund its 2011 NSW election campaign:

I knew that it existed, I, I didn’t have a lot, a great understanding of it. I had heard, you know, I, I was of the opinion that it was an organisation that had political or philosophical 

allegiances with the conservative side of politics. 

I spy with my little eye.....

Apparently NSW Police has been spending part of its annual budgets on surveillance malware programs which will remotely infect the computers/mobile devices of its preferred target individuals.

In today’s money that is well over $2 million for the five licenses which are currently active.

Wikileaks Spy Files

The company FinFisher (part of the Gamma Group headquaqtered in Munich, Germany) obligingly supplies this description of FinSpy:

While FinIntrusion allows NSW Police to do the following:

The Australian Federal Police will neither confirm nor deny that is also using this malware.

On 6 August 2014 Netzpolitik reported that:

A hacker claims to have hacked a network of the surveillance technology company Gamma International and has published 40 gigabytes of internal data. A Twitter account has published release notes, price lists – and source code. Malware researchers and human rights activists welcome the publication, Gamma itself refuses to comment.

In November 2012 a public service announcement prepared by the US Government Internet Crime Complaint Center identified FinFisher as supplying malware and spyware capable of taking over the components of a mobile device. When installed the mobile device can be remotely controlled and monitored no matter where the Target is located. FinFisher can be easily transmitted to a Smartphone when the user visits a specific web link or opens a text message masquerading as a system update.

Gamma Group’s Martin Münch/Muench with exploit seller VULPEN’s CEO & Head of Research Chaouki Bekrar

July 2014 

Source: Netspolitik

Despite the police having accquired a number of new 'toys', Australian government requests for user data held by Google Inc continue:

Prime Minister Abbott patronizes an Australian citizen who paid him the compliment of treating him as an equal

Ever the media whore, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott ignores the young boy's hand outstretched to shake his hand and patronizingly pats him on the head as he leers towards a camera about to give him one more image for publication in mainstream newspapers.

Abbott at Yirrkala NT on 14 September 2014
Picture AAP Source AAP via @rastus2009 and @chrismurphys 

The lowdown on Frogmouths

Painting of Tawny Frogmouth by Prue Sailer

Letter to the Editor in The Daily Examiner on 15 September 2014:

Frogmouth, not owl

THERE have been a couple of photographs of tawny frogmouths on page 2 of The Daily Examiner in recent days with them being called owls.

Frogmouths are not owls, despite their nocturnal habits and when examined closely can be seen to be quite different to owls.

Owls catch their prey with their feet (talons), frogmouths have weak feet and catch their prey with their large broad bills.

Their large mouths are similar to the large mouths of frogs, hence the name frogmouth.

The scientific name of the tawny frogmouth, our local representative (there are other species in Australia and other parts of the world), is Podargus strigoides. 'Pod' means foot and 'argus' means weak.

So if they were owls they would starve because they wouldn't be able to use their feet to catch prey.

They are like nocturnal kookaburras in the way that they hunt.

The broad mouth is a throwback to a time when their ancestors hunted for flying prey, hence the broad mouth like those of swallows and dollarbirds.

Other differences with owls are that frogmouths have longer tails and the eyes are set more to the sides of the head, unlike owls which are at the front of the head.

Frogmouths don't 'hoot' or call like the southern boobook's 'boo-book', but make a machine-like repeated 'oom'.

Dr Greg P. Clancy

Coutts Crossing

Crass Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott decides to give religious instruction to Muslims

This was Tony Abbott quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald on 15 September 2014:

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has warned Australian Muslims they will be acting "against God" if they join Islamic State…

Words fail me.

A history lesson for The Warmonger

One irate Fairfax reader had this to say about Australia's historically illiterate prime minister......

The question and answer at a 14 September 2014 Darwin press conference which gave rise to Warwick’s comment:

QUESTION:

Where does responsibility lie for the rise of ISIL?

PRIME MINISTER:

Look, that's a question that people are entitled to ponder. For myself, I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to practice the kind of barbarism against innocent people which we have seen on an abundant scale from the ISIL movement over the last few months. We've seen beheadings, we've seen crucifixions, we’ve seen mass executions, we've seen hundreds of thousands of people driven from their homes. We've had women forced into sexual slavery, we've had the deaths of very young children. We've had tens of thousands of people besieged on Mount Sinjar. We have seen cruelty on an extraordinary scale. What we have seen is an exaltation in atrocity unparalleled since the Middle Ages. Where does this come from? What evil in the human heart gives rise to this? I just don't know. All I know is that decent people everywhere, regardless of their religion, regardless of their culture, should unite against it. [my red bolding]

I'm sure North Coast Voices readers will be able to easily add to Warwick's list of large-scale atrocities committed since the Middle Ages - that is after the beginning of the 15th century.

A quick look at International Criminal Court indictments opens a window onto a number committed in recent years, including war crimes and crimes against humanity which Abbott apparently knows nothing about or cynically chooses to ignore.

Before that the Turkish courts-martial of persons accused of genocide in Armenia during WW1, the Nuremberg and Tokyo war crime trials covering genocide and crimes against humanity in WW2, media reports of Mau Mau-British atrocities in 1950s Kenya, the My Lai massacre courts-martial in the United States 1970-71, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia addressing ethic cleansing and war crimes in the 1990s, all document aspects of the history of "cruelty on an extraordinary scale" over the last 100 years.

As for where responsibility lies for the rise of Islamic State militants - one does not have to look further than the last war the Howard Coalition Government (of which Tony Abbott was a Cabinet Minister) led Australia into.