North Beaudesert Shire Rant

There's no fool like an old fool.

2011-05-30T08:22:00.002+10:00

One can only wonder at the back door deal done to orchestrate this but it is probably quite reasonable to assume there was some clandestine offers made to garner the support of groups like Greenpeace and celebrities like Cate Blanchette to not only endorse Labor's poverty invoking Carbon Tax, but now actively promote it as being equal to overseas countries Emissions Trading Schemes.

Cate Blanchette has little knowledge of how a Carbon Tax will affect the poor and disadvantaged, she is one of the "nouveau riche" and has millions and servants and probably creates more pollution in a week than a suburban street full of Australian people do in a year with the jetset lifestyle she leads and of course she supports a carbon tax where everyone pays a bit more for everything rather than the actual polluters paying and actually passing the costs on to their users, her air flights first class might just go up by ten fold and we can't have that, no every one else must pay for her and of course if she lives here even? she will pay the same as a pensioner will who will not even be able to put on the heater in winter with out a handout from the government to do so.

Michael Caton is another supporter of the Carbon Tax and it's no surprise really, he knows quite a few of the front bench and is obviously friends with them and is always happy to take money to say anything, that's his job ; he's not an expert, he's an actor.

While Michael Caton defends his position and Blanchette's by saying they have a right to voice their opinion just like everyone else, the reality is he is using his minor celebrity status to influence people by making statements that do not provide a balance view and are intended to paint a mental picture that is deliberately divisive and intended to make viewers believe his opinion is correct and factual.

Michael Caton forgets that this is still a democracy where he has only the same right as anyone else and that is one vote , thank god, and that he only has the right to his free speech just like everyone else and that he should respect the right of people to criticise him and Blanchette for being too wealthy to understand the implications to the poor and disadvantaged and that he and she are not presenting an objective opinion they are doing a promotional add for a political policy which will affect the lives of a great many people who do not have the ability to have their say on national TV.

I'd like to ask Caton, Blanchette and the other celebrities just why they expect everyone to fall for the Con that Carbon dioxide (Co2) is pollution, it is a naturally occurring part of our atmosphere which we exhale and plants need for survival.

I think any of the scientists who have promoted the deforestation issue for the last 20 years which they predicted would lead to increased levels of naturally occurring Co2 and global Warming as a consequence have been shut down with funding being given to those who back the carbon tax as a way of keeping an income stream coming into the government's coffers.

The price on Carbon cannot stay the same either because as our population increases our carbon footprint will naturally increase even with all the pensioners freezing to death in the cold of winter due to unaffordable electricity bills, just through naturally increasing usage, I'll wager it's not the pensioners living in Mc Mansions with fully integrated air conditioning and three cars in the garage a pool and every electrical gadget money (credit) can buy, that will be the younger to middle aged people, and almost all the new arrivals who expect things to be better than where they came from.

As our farmland is ripped and stripped for more mining and our urban fringes and perri urban areas a re cleared for massive housing estates to bring more and more people here how can our carbon footprint got down? it's simply not possible and that means the price per tonne will go up.

I'm totally disgusted with the likes of Michael Caton and Blanchette et al, who are giving such a myopic position they advertise as fact because it is not the whole story it is a promotional add for Labor, and we will have to pay the cost.

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Paul Lucas' insane rabid attack on Ratepayers,. . . gives developers a chance to make more profit.

2011-05-25T19:13:00.002+10:00

Deputy Premier and Attorney-General, Minister for Local Government and Special Minister of State
The Honourable Paul Lucas
25/05/2011
Bill passed to clarify infrastructure charges

High infrastructure charges that stall new projects, cost jobs and push up the price of housing in Queensland are now a thing of the past following the passing of the Sustainable Planning (Housing Affordability and Infrastructure Charges Reform) Amendment Bill 2011 during Regional Parliament in Mackay today.

Deputy Premier and Minister for Local Government Paul Lucas said the Bligh Government's overhaul of the infrastructure charging system would stimulate growth and in turn generate jobs and improve housing affordability.

"The Bill passed in Parliament today will provide transparency and certainty to developers and home buyers and will help get the ball rolling on development again," Mr Lucas said.

"The construction and building industry is extremely important to Queensland as about a third of our jobs are in this sector and it is responsible for delivering the new homes and places of business our growing state needs."

Mr Lucas said the legislation passed the House with only two votes opposed.

"This legislation is essentially needed because the government has had to step in to resolve a dispute between councils and developers about the money that councils, not the State, collects from them," he said.

"No developer likes to pay money for infrastructure charges and no council likes to forgo the payment but to get development going, create jobs in the building industry and housing for Queenslanders, we must strike a balance.

"Whilst the opposition used the debate to criticise the government, they voted with the government to support its passage and moved no amendments."

Mr Lucas said last year's Growth Management Summit established an independent Taskforce to review this complex area.

"As recommended by the independent Infrastructure Charges Taskforce, we've set maximum prices for trunk infrastructure charges on new development, including $28,000 for a home with three or more bedrooms, and $20,000 for one and two-bedroom homes.

"These new maximum charges will go a long way to ensuring Queenslanders are able to afford the great Australian dream of owning their own home, while still funding the infrastructure needed to service their communities.

"We've also set maximum charges for job-creating projects, including commercial, retail and industrial development."

Mr Lucas said local governments now have the flexibility to choose whether they adopted the maximum charges, or charge lesser amounts.

"The new rules give councils the ability to choose lower infrastructure charges that are appropriate for their local communities, while stimulating construction activity and competing for investment," he said.

"What we've set is a maximum charge and it's important to note that local governments will be responsible for setting their own local charges.

"If local governments want to subsidise infrastructure charges to stimulate development and encourage jobs growth they will still be allowed to - in fact we encourage it."

"We've already seen councils such as Townsville, Moreton Bay, Fraser Coast and Cairns publicly declare their support for the changes or initiate their own capping and discounting because they know it will kickstart much-needed development revivals in their areas."

Mr Lucas said this legislation would now be followed by a consultation process with local government and the development industry over the regulatory provisions to implement the charges regime.

"The State will also shortly embark upon a process - as recommended by the taskforce - with local government and developers to seek more uniformity in conditions opposed upon development approvals," he said.

Reading between the lines there is only one way that infrastructure can be provided to satellite developments by Councils, and that is if the ratepayers make up the gap between the maximum charge and what it costs.

Ratepayers have been slugged by Lucas and co. for the abysmal amalgamation costs, for the inept mismanagement of water supply and sewer charges and there seems no likely hood of being let up by the state government as the attack on ratepayers is set to continue when a tax is placed on the air we breathe out, carbon dioxide.

We must support our councils by objecting to development where it comes from big development because we just cannot afford to pay while big developers get rich.

Paul Lucas is just a gormless dickhead in my opinion, he's too stupid or just so badly out of touch with ratepayers that he thinks more charges are OK.

If we let Labor get away with this once more we deserve everything we get.

The Fire Ant Saga,. . . . . sigh. . .

2011-05-22T09:41:00.002+10:00

I have been a critic of the way the fire ant program and management has been both implemented and run, from a management level right down to those on the ground with their sticks actually doing the search.

My first encounter with the DPI's fire ant people was when I was trying to get some excavation done for an additional room and garage and before I could have the earth removed, or even disturbed really I was advised to get a fire ant inspection as I was in the fire ant area on the latest expanded list.

After calling them and arranging the inspection and waiting at home for them only to have their inspector not turn up, I called them the next day to be told he did and that a report would be sent in the mail, now I can tell you there is no possible way anyone could have come up here with out my knowledge, the gate is closed and the dog will bark, and I had deliberately set myself up in the car port with a little refinishing job on a cabinet so i would be available.

After the work was done, I began to reinstate gardens around the area and came across some ants that were very lively, had a quite nasty bite/sting and were consistent in colour with what I'd read fire ants were so i called the number on my information to have them assessed, again they didn't come out. After a week or so I called to remind them and they told me they'd looked and that they were a kind of native ant. There was again no way they could have been here without my knowing it.

I continued with my gardening and used a strong pesticide to thoroughly drench the mulch in which I'd seen them (two trees had to be removed for the garage area and I'd had them mulched for this purpose)

I have also talked to others who have worked in the industry (earthmoving) and they have similar stories about nonchalance of the DPI's fire ant people and the utter lack of care, one who used to own a site where a refuse transfer station was on a portion, and turf on the rest of it told me of stories where fire ant people would turn up in a bus and sit under the trees for the day and then go home.

This was in the Courier Mail (Sunday Edition)

THE war against deadly fire ants could be lost amid claims the $250 million program to eradicate the pest has been badly mismanaged.

Scientists say mishandling of the program has sparked widespread "cynicism" about Queensland's claims to have the problem under control.

They are demanding an independent review before a national disaster develops.

Efforts to wipe out the pest have descended into a blame game, with Queensland Agriculture Minister Tim Mulherin accusing the Federal Government of putting national biosecurity at risk through years of inadequate funding of the state's eradication program.

The State Government has warned the $15 million being injected into the problem each year might not be enough to stop the species invading other states and potentially causing billions of dollars damage to the national economy.

"Queensland does not believe $15 million is sufficient to fund a fire-ant eradication program," Mr Mulherin said.

"We need a stronger ongoing funding commitment from all states and the Commonwealth to continue the eradication program in Queensland so that we don't see fire ants marching into NSW and Victoria," he said.

Federal Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig said Canberra had provided half the $245 million spent on the fire-ant program since 2001.

"The Gillard Government takes any potential threat to Australia's biosecurity seriously," he said.

Queensland receives $15 million a year under national funding arrangements to combat fire ants, with the Bligh Government injecting an extra $6 million this year.

The stoush has hit a crucial point following the discovery of hundreds of new infestations in Brisbane's southwest since 2010.

Members of the National Management Group the key decision-making body on fire ants will meet next month to consider "further advice on the program".

The meeting could determine the future direction and funding for the fire-ant program, with the group responsible for deciding on the best combat method.

A Campbell Newman-led LNP government has pledged an independent review of the program amid claims the Bligh Government has overstated its achievements.

LNP agriculture spokesman Andrew Cripps said the government "does not appear to be making substantial headway". "We definitely need to have a good solid look at why the response is not being effective," he said.

Former top government adviser on fire ants Pam Swepson, who became a whistleblower, said the country would pay the price for government bungles and cover-ups.

"We are yet to have a death in Queensland but it's just a matter of time," she said.

Dr Swepson said the extent of the fire-ant infestation in Queensland has been covered up to stop the Federal Government pulling funding.

"While they (the State Government) were continuing to call it an eradication program, even though it was extremely compromised and there's no chance we can eradicate it any more, the funding kept coming which would give them reason for under-reporting," she said.

Experts in the US, where people die from fire-ant stings every year, say the state has little chance of eradication.

Fire-ant expert Dr Bart Drees, from Texas, where $US1.2 billion ($1.1 billion) a year is spent on containing fire ants, said eradication had not been achieved anywhere, and University of NSW entomologist Dr Chris Orton has called for an independent assessment of claimed successes.

Biosecurity Queensland fire-ant eradication program deputy director Craig Jennings insisted Queensland could still wipe out the pest.

An estimated 65,000 colonies were detected when fire ants were first found in 2001, but last year that was down to about 500 colonies.

Mr Jennings said the strategy could now shift from large-scale treatments to surveillance and more targeted treatments.

The number of fire-ant staff has grown from 100 workers five years ago to 190 staff less than half the number on the program in 2001.

With such a huge department, and the manner in which the public service goes about it's work, is it any wonder those in charge of a large workforce with importance and control and I assume very high salaries would actually want to succeed in the task and see it all over, the answer in short is No.

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Bloomin' Marvelous,. . . .not in Tassie!

2011-05-10T15:10:00.002+10:00

Gardening Australia veteran presenter and green activist Peter Cundall has been found guilty of of disobeying the direction of a police officer during a rally at Parliament House in Hobart.

Cundall, 83, and 56 other protesters were arrested after refusing to move from the Parliament's steps during an anti-pulp mill protest in November 2009.

He and fellow protester, wheelchair-bound nurse Molly Taylor were today found guilty without conviction and were ordered to pay about $47 in court costs.

Cundall says it is disappointing.

"We've been found guilty of standing up for the truth and standing up for justice. It's as simple as that," he said.

But he says he will continue to peacefully protest against Gunns' proposed Tasmanian pulp mill.

"The protest and the battle against the pulp mill will never stop and we'll never give in," he said.

"As far as I and the others are concerned, we'll do everything we can, as we've always done, not to break the law."

I happen to agree with Peter Cundall, this is big business using the Police and the Law to silence protesters and reduce the visibility of public objections.

The fact is that the courts are on the side of big business, the courts are on the side of the Police and the courts are on the side of the government which pays them and those within the system.

When we see blatant big brother against one man type situations like this it can only mean one thing, the government cares more about one big business than it does about, people, flora, fauna and it is not above using it's thugs, the police to make up some bogus charge to punish and threaten anyone who would dare to question them.

Peter, If I was in Tasmania right now I'd be there beside you, you're a great role model for those who care about making the world a more sustainable place for all of us to inhabit.

Crikey, there's no denying it.

2011-05-06T07:36:00.001+10:00

Watching Doctor Norman Finklestein deal with questions at public rallies and speaking engagements is an experience, the man is knowledgeable, articulate, passionate, unbiased and yet precise about the way he both dissects criticism from genuine questions and ruthless without compromise in giving direct truthful answers.

That does upset some people, and it certainly make others appear to be foolish in trying to take him on in a debate where they are armed with vitriolic propaganda against his recounting of pure fact and eye witnessed information.

I'd be very interested to see just what the Doctor would make of our own Hagnal Ban (Black) who made claim in the public electronic media to being a Holocaust survivor by the rationale that her grandfather was SO therefore she is.

In the past Dr. Finklestein has been critical of people who have used the Holocaust as a way to silence criticism, who have used the term anti-Semitic to describe those who oppose their views on the basis that they are Jews and that those who may ask questions and look for the truth are in league with or just are "Nazi's"

I can understand totally why he has those opinions and looking at the above video shows that he has every reason to support the shutting down of questioning Jews on any particular matter, since he has at least a generational head start in the role of being offspring of survivors than our local claimant.

Recently crikey blog has reason to also question the good councillor on these claims and you cam see the blog here and see that her threats do not just come to the little people in Logan who dare criticise her. Crikey Blog

After various threats by Anonymous (not) on other blogs when comments got a bit close to the truth and when crikey was mentioned, and even when others were blamed outright for comments that even I had made there, I thought it was time to introduce you all to Dr. Norman Finklestein, of course you can look up youtube for yourselves to see what he's about and how badly he is thought of by Israel and it's government for daring to ask why after all these years they have not followed the UN and why they are still killing Palestinians.

Developers to get a free ride.

2011-04-29T07:36:00.002+10:00

I have always been of the opinion that user pays is a good and fair system for most of the things we use and I only make exception for things that should be roughly evenly divides between users because the cost of providing them is the greater of the costs and it's almost too hard to work out the individual usage.

Rates are one of the things I've always been happy to put in the category of "just divide it up between us" because we all use roads,etc. and its really hard to work out who uses how much and who should pay a little more, the system isn't perfect by any means but it is workable.

Until now. This from this morning's Courier Mail:

QUEENSLANDERS face rate rises of up to $145 next year following a decision to tackle housing affordability by capping infrastructure charges.
Councils say a decision by the State Government to cap developer charges at a maximum of $28,000 per dwelling will leave them with a $10 billion shortfall over 20 years.

A report obtained by The Courier-Mail reveals rates will have to rise by between $32 and $145 next financial year alone to balance the books.

Ipswich City Council would be the worst hit with the annual increase per ratepayer for 2012 tipped to reach $145.22.

The council is in one of the state's highest growth areas, leaving it with a greater funding shortfall.

The report, prepared for the Local Government Association of Queensland by AECGroup, predicts Ipswich rates would then have to rise another $151.50 in 2013 and by up to $276.83 in 2031.

In Townsville the move could spell a $93.78 rise in 2012 and $97.71 the following year.

On the Gold Coast, already struggling residents could be forced to pay an extra $69.88 next year, while Logan ratepayers could face rises of $68.47 in 2012, $71.36 in 2013 and up to $120 in 2031.

Brisbane ratepayers face the smallest predicted increase of $32 this year followed by a rise of $34 in 2013, according to the report.

Brisbane City Council will be the least affected by the cap due to the lack of open space left to develop.

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said this month the council would consider changing its current infrastructure charge discount to make up the shortfall, saving ratepayers.

Under the State Government initiative, councils will be limited to a maximum $28,000 headworks charge for houses with three or more bedrooms, a saving for developers of up to $22,000.

One and two-bedroom homes will have a maximum $20,000 charge, a $10,000 saving.

Councils had wanted the maximum cap set at $30,000.

Developers had called for the cap to be closer to $20,000 to give their struggling sector a boost.

It will cost Brisbane City Council an estimated $14.6 million in lost revenue in 2012.

Gold Coast City Council is predicted to lose about $17.2 million.

LGAQ chief Greg Hallam said councils would have no choice but to lift rates to make up the shortfall.

"The State Government has made its decision and these are the consequences," he said of the predicted increases.

"Over a 20-year period that (loss in revenue) equates to $400 extra per ratepayer."

To say I'm astounded that developers should get a free ride at the ratepayers expense is an understatement, I'm hopping mad about this.

The Queensland Labor Government is trying , in my opinion , to make up to it's developer mates for it's own policy of deliberately trying to leave other parties without sufficient funding to fairly contest elections with expensive media coverage by closing the big wide open door that was used by Labor itself of taking million dollar election campaign contributions from bigger development companies.

Those developers which contributed those millions of dollars seem to have been the recipients of better then fair chances of having ULDA take over from councils and negate a lot of expense in getting land to development stage already, and now those developers don't want to pay for their developments which are going to be almost satellite cities, to be connected to infrastructure supply.

Developers should have to pay for infrastructure up front, especially if they have bought very cheap rural land and been sitting on it for years which is definitely the case around much of Australia where Land banking is the norm for many big development companies.

The Ratepayers Associations have a fight on their hands, with councils too scared now they are effectively a department under the minister for local government, because in effect they can have their administration removed and the elected representatives sacked and have the council run from the department if necessary.

Ratepayers Associations will have to include some very adept bean counters to be keeping councils honest too, because it's already been seen that with the last fiasco, government incorporation of water utilities, that councils charges were so far above costs of supply that all of them seem to be making very healthy profits, and that a windfall taken right out of the pockets of every resident living in and paying rates in that councils area.

Where are our councils on this issue? nowhere.
Where are our councillors on this issue? very quiet indeed.
Sorry folks, it down to you, you actually need to get behind all those little groups of "busybodies" and "nutters" who are out there working in your community for the good of all and start to fight for your rights, developers will be pretty happy with you paying the infrastructure costs for them and guess who they'll be thanking for it? Anna Bligh,. . .not you who will be paying it.

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Carbon Tax,. . . .

2011-03-19T13:51:00.002+10:00

I was sent this link, I thought it might be fun to let you all see it, I had a good laugh.

Sideshow Bob ? , . . Bob Brown's vision for our future, and Ruling our country.

2011-03-17T11:18:00.002+10:00

PM Julia Gillard has in recent days sought to dumb down the prospect of nuclear radiation spewing forth from the crippled reactors in Fukushima, Japan after they were severely affected by the earthquake and tsunami. She has on her hands already the stench of lie after lie about policy and really just about everything she says, for example her "there will be no carbon tax in a government i lead" then lieing about saying it then lieing about it being a carbon tax and then having to admit she said it but saying it was not a lie because things have changed, does she not understand the very nature of things is to change?

Her press statements to the public about the Japan nuclear crisis cannot be considered to be anything but more lies either because whilst she is saying there is no serious problem, the rest of the world's media are reporting the real story and that is that fallout has already been detected over 100 kilometers away, and that it is out over the ocean potentially finding it's way into the food chain and that men have died already from the crisis and that it is getting worse exponentially.

The latest sees Gillard reacting to questions about exactly how many degrees lower the climate will be once the tax is introduced with a very casual and quite bizarre and also flippant change of subject and in answer to the charges that she is seeking populist policy by using the Greens policy on Global Warming ( now called climate change since we've had an average cooling this last year ) to try to get voter support to which she has described the Greens as an extreme Party who has their own policy which Labor has no need of since it has always recognised that science tells us things and we accept them and act accordingly. For instance science tell us that smoking is bad for us and that science tells us that too much sun can also be bad.

But that doesn't explain how the leading (and well quoted expert on Global Warming) voice used by Labor is not a scientist, but an economist (yes Prof Garnaut is an economist on Labors pay role it seems to get more funding for the Party), nor does it explain how wishy washy the policy detail of the carbon tax actually is or how it will work.

Gillard has done the equivalent of the Thomas Aquinas, doubting her cohort and denying him, and even going as far as calling him essentially irrelevant, he has retorted by claiming still that if Labor want to win the next election they will need to take even more of the Greens policies (maybe they'll take the ever popular death duties one? should be as popular as carbon dioxide tax )

With Bob espousing further tax remedies for all that ails us, yes he has a tax for everything, Gillard sees distancing herself from he and his Party of agenda driven single issue communists and those with true environmental leanings gradually losing representation within it, which is a great shame as Parties become bogged down with the growth and financing they attract political wannabees with wherewithal in those areas which become attractive to the Party hierarchy rather than staying true to the real origins of the Party, saving the environment.

What was interesting about Gillards doubting Thomas act was that she chose to use the back door to enter the venue due to Gay Marriage protesters out the front, ironic.

Bob Brown has delusions of Grandeur, little doubt about that, he is rapacious in his need for publicity and being seen as important, his vision for the future could only be described as one where taxes are almost doubled to working Australians and deductions are lessened although there is no reasonable explanation of where all the extra tax money will be spent.

Bob has become a convenient sideshow for the Gillard minority Government to use as how and when it wants to divert attention from what Labor is actually doing, of course that is not the way he sees it , in fact he sees Labor as a tool to get his policy into the mainstream even though hes has very much a minority of voters, and only one member in the lower house, Bob wants to rule the world with a handbag and and iron fist, but he is only allowed to play if the big boys let him.

Coal Seam Gas,. . back to the 60's

2011-03-15T19:22:00.002+10:00

Miners have always had the right to mine out whatever is under private property in rural areas even though quite often it results in land slipping or drops caused by collapsing mines, but we are supposedly in a new era and now we have miners physically wanting to come onto private property to mine, potentially polluting their land, potentially polluting the water running across the land to storage and potentially polluting the water table down below for hundreds of square miles and worse the government thinks it's back in the 60's with the actions taken by them to ensure mining takes place and the government get its royalties.

For those of you who were not around back then ( I was )when demonstrators went out into the streets to protest about injustice or just about anything else, the government would send in every available copper, (the pigs) to club, bash, intimidate and arrest the protesters and also send police photographers to collect their likeness on film for later use.

Coal seam gas is for the most part methane which has been absorbed over the years into the coal seam and usually held there sometimes with water, when the water is pumped off the gas begins to desorb from the coal and can be extracted through the same bore pipe as the water.

while prospecting has been reluctantly allowed by private land holders across the country ( in this instance I'm talking Queensland but it is exactly the same in other states particularly NSW ) those land owners are starting to buck up since the pollution of waterways and ground water in and around Kingaroy and the government having to put a stop to the mining because of it.

Recently we have seen the residents of Tara demonstrate here in the big smoke (Brisbane) outside Parliament House and they have started a campaign called LOCK THE GATE which they feel they have to do to protect their land. their lively hood and their investment not to mention the environment which the work with to make a living for a rapacious government and the mining companies who don;'t care about anything except profit.

The Queensland government has enacted laws to protect the miners so that effectively they can do as they please, residents and land owners are not permitted to engage them, question them or inhibit their use of any and all land they wish to use and , wait for it, must by law be courteous to miners who are raping their land.

The Protests seem to be only drawing little attention and in Queensland it's the Queensland Party that is putting the problem into the media firstly by calling for a moratorium in State Parliament voted against by the government and the opposition, and attending the rally's both in the City and out at Tara, you have to ask , Where are the other coloured Labor Party (Greens) who are claiming in their own press releases to be organising the protests, and I can tell you they are not becauseI've been there and talked with the locals.

So what has happened recently has not been a surprise to anyone who knows a little of the history of Queensland and its arrogant majority long term governments, once again reminiscent of the 60's and 70's the Pigs have been brought in to unlock the gates and act as thugs for hire, security guards (not for the people )for big business to make money for the government , yes once again we see the police, doing the main job they do, making sure the supply of money to the state government does not stop and even if that means arresting a little old lady, they will do it, just as Gaddafi's men will shoot missiles and large calibre machine guns from jet fighters onto the citizens, so will Queensland police use as many resources as they have available including armed response, horse mounted and any other copper they can get there.

The "Pigs" lived up to their reputation with the intimidation and physical force on the peaceful protesters including arresting a 79 year old grandmother, I guess the cops feared for their safety,. . . . It's Queensland, nothing changes and the 70's Skyhooks song titled "Horror Movie" plays out in Tara, The government's henchmen doing their job, no wonder no one has any respect for them.

Lets Talk Carbon,. . . . . . and TAX.

2011-03-03T10:05:00.003+10:00

I have to say so far my Questions to the Greens, Bob Brown and Larissa Waters have had no response, shame really.

I find the topic of Carbon an interesting one and it seems many people have very little idea what it is exactly and how it pollutes and why there is so much fanfare about the amount we are responsible for producing, if any, and how it is produced per head of population across the nation.

Carbon itself is not the issue actually , it is the release of carbon into the atmosphere in the from of carbon dioxide (CO2) which is considered by some, well Garnaut at least, to be the single most contributory factor in Global Warming, recently re labeled "Climate Change"

Global Warming and Climate Change are probably on of the best bogymen ever created by a government to fleece money out of our pockets in the history of government, and that not saying either way whether GW or CC are real or imagined, just that whether they are or not, us all paying money to the government is probably not going to make one iota of difference.

Carbon Emissions are measurable they say, in metric tonnes and when (note I didn't say if, because I believe this is inevitable and in fact will create a new industry out of what is essentially thin air) a tax is applied it will be priced on the per metric tonne, people like Garnaut have made some pretty good assumptions about our individual carbon footprint and it is measured out for each of us, not by what we actually emit but as a division of our national emissions, so if you were to cut your own personal emissions by 90% you will still be responsible for you 100% share of the "cost"

Remember that when we inhale it is to extract Oxygen from the air and when we exhale that oxygen that we had already used is now loaded as Carbon dioxide, so to say it is pollution is a complete fallacy it is part of life, it is normal and to offset our breathing, vegetation uses carbon dioxide and its exit production is oxygen during daylight hours whilst photosynthesis is active, clever right?

So lets start asking questions;

How is me paying more for everything going to reduce CO2 emissions?
Is climate change being caused by CO2 emissions or lack of Forrest's globally?
How can I be charged for CO2 not produced by me, and why?
If mining companies who profit is going overseas also ships its raw materials overseas, why is the emissions considered my shared responsibility?
Has Garnaut got it wrong considering all the things he has omitted from his report, like the significance of deforestation?
Why do the Greens feel that Australians should bear the brunt of tax on carbon, in fact a whole range of new taxes, are they really only concerned with money?

I have to say I used to be a fan of the Greens, I know some people casually who are very passionate about the environment and who are also members of the Greens, but they have never once even whispered that the Greens exist to tax us for everything, and that raising taxes is their priority agenda along with some quite radical minority policy which would not be supported by the majority of Australians if they knew they were actually Greens policies.

I have a real problem with the way Greens members bills are worded, it seems deliberately with large holes so as to allow further interpretation after the bill in its quite innocent state might be passed.

I have my own personal opinions about whether Global Warming or Climate change are solely the work of man or whether it is just a cyclic natural occurrence that we have neither encountered nor documented before. I have looked at articles which give interpretations of ice core samples and earth core samples which are indicators of past activity of various kinds and have based my opinion on all the information I've read, and its personal opinion.

However when Parties like Labor and the Greens are telling us that we need to be taxed because of it, i want to know exactly what scientific proof they have and what benefit paying money will be? If there are Greens and Labor people out there who have more balls than waters or brown and want to give some reasons, I'm happy to allow you space to do so.

Government Policy, seems it gives big Banks all the power.

2011-02-21T06:19:00.005+10:00

There is no doubt that when politicians get elected they start meeting people outside their circle, outside the bigwigs in the Party and branch and those with real influence, and you can't blame them for listening to what the movers and shakers have to say.

These big business CEO's and others also like the symbiotic relationship they can get by taking a green politician to extravagant dinners, parties and showing them how insignificant their income really is, and how in the scheme of things they really don't matter much because big business controls the economy and the economy controls the mood of the electorate.

Recently, well over the last 12 months we have seen , since the GFC and some real investment fiasco's one thing emerge as a result, and that is the big banks widening their market share over the financial services sector, shoring up their position with cross sell opportunities, buying outright and becoming the major shareholder in other financial services businesses reducing competition and widening the gap between the cash rate and the retail rate and continuing to make record profits.

I have the opinion that the banks should serve the people first and the shareholders second, but since they lobbied governments to implement enforced banking (you must have an account to get you pay, cannot get paid cash,) which then attracted fees and charges and guaranteed the banks a share of our pay every week for doing nothing at all, free money, they have had an arrogant expectation that we are their to fulfil their record book on profit, nothing more.

I am also of the opinion that the regulations across the financial service sectors that are under the control of ASIC are the work of lobbying by the same big banks to reduce competition further , increase their cross sell (worth potentially millions) and force customers to spend longer in the decision making process with independent brokers than they do in the bank. A mortgage broker will have to collect many more pages of data and file notes to satisfy ASIC that the product they recommend is suitable where a bank has about maybe 3 extra questions.

With the commissions from home loans, chattel mortgages, business loans, and personal finance along with superannuation and other insurance products making huge profit for the big banks, unseen profit, the disclosure rules for brokers , financial planners and others who sell any finance products at all has increased so that consumers can see where income is generated for them and how and even how much it is to the cent.

Financial Advisers now have a new pay structure where commissions are a thing of the past and they must charge the client up front for service, making it difficult and posing a hard ship on clients to come up with money out of pocket to purchase financial services products.

So who benefits from all these changes?

Government departments get bigger and the ratio of government workers to private workers gets bigger, and of course the big banks will get a bigger share of the cross sell of all financial services because it will be far less time and effort required for the client.

What is interesting, is that our Labor federal treasurer has refused to make a super profits tax apply to the banks and yet they are the single biggest earner in the country, rich times or poor (they are still getting a cut of your wages for nothing)

You see when a politician is wined and dined with the champagne set , . . they start to think they are the champagne set,. . . until the election hey loose and see how quickly they are dumped from the A list.

Save Greenbank , The ULDA are coming.

2011-02-12T13:08:00.002+10:00

It's probably been noticable that I don't get around locally much these days, since moving house, I have had so much to do it's been impossible to cover the area like I used to.

Ok, so I recieved this from a mate, not the organisers but it seems like the satrt of the rot we all expected when Our last Mayor and the littlest councillor went and handed our area over for consideration to the then Offic of Urban Management OUM back in 04/05 when the Mount Lindesay North Beaudesert Study Area became the hot topic and it was with a prelude to massive development of high density and enterprise and with hindsight the Amalgamations.

Two things, the little one now claims not to have participated as Chair of Planning and development in the handing over of information that allowed focus of development to be on areas like North Maclean, and further claims that her dumping, unceremoniuosly from that chair was because of her oposition to it. The facts of course do not lie.

OK, so I recieved an Email wich invites distribution so I imagine it's ok to publish the details of it here;

From: Admin@savegreenbank.com.au
Date: Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 1:17 AM
Subject: FW: MEETING VENUE CONFIRMED
To: admin@savegreenbank.com.au

Hello everyone, thank you for your patience. We have been FLAT OUT this end are heavily under resourced at the moment.

If ANYONE is able to assist us tomorrow to help us prepare it would be greatly appreciated. I really need a strong administrator in the office with me who is good with computers, printers, etc... We have a heap of info to prepare, print and collate for you all.

We want to EMPOWER YOU ALL to assist with this cause because we are a UNITED community and it is the ONLY way we have a chance of having a win.

Here are the MEETING details:

WHEN:

Every WED in February

TIME:

7PM

WHERE:

GREENBANK COMMUNITY CENTER

145 Teviot Road

GREENBANK.

On Wednesday we’ll only have 19 days left to have our submission lodged. They have had years to plan it, we have 19 days left to fight it. Good job we’re all made of the right stuff hey!!!!

This can’t be won by a few working extremely hard and a lot saying they’ll support it. THIS NEEDS ACTION, ACTION, ACTION taken by EVERYONE of US.

I’ve also attached some promo fliers so you can get the word out to your neighbours.

Print them out then:

· STICK THEM ON THE SIDE OF YOUR CAR WINDOWS

· Put them on your fences,

· Put them on EVERY post in the street.

· Put them in every shop

· Put them in all the schools,

· Do flier drops at Woolies

· Stick them in public toilets

· Use your imagination

TAKE MASSIVE ACTION to get EVERYBODY to this IMPORTANT MEETING.

HOWEVER, PLEASE NOTE:

Our Greenbank is an ABSOLUTELY beautiful part of the world. Let’s give this a MASSIVE push at the start to get the word out, BUT once the submission period is over, let’s all dig in and make our neighbourhood beautiful again by picking up ANY and ALL left over fliers or promo materials. IF we do lose, our cherished lifestyle may have a limited time to run so let’s enjoy it as long as possible.

BUT WHEN WE WIN, let’s get in and pick it all up as a UNITED community again to get the neighbourhood ship shape again.

PLEASE PEOPLE, NO damage to Teviot Downs Estate Pty Ltd property and leave Gary and his vehicles alone. Please let’s be pro-active, without being offensive.

Here is the proposed format for the meetings:

1st Meeting on Wed 9th is to get as MANY people to this meeting as possible. CAN EVERYONE PLEASE CALL every radio station, TV reporter, ACA, Today Tonight, EVERY newspaper, EVERY politician, EVERY conservationist they know in the area to get them too this meeting.

Jimboomba Times has kindly accepted our invitation and will come. If we get ENOUGH people here at this first meeting, we MIGHT BE ABLE TO MAKE THE FRONT PAGE OF THE JIMBOOMBA TIMES the next week. Let’s make this our FIRST goal.

Ian RICKUSS is our State Member for Lockyer. He has accepted our invitation and has committed to being here on this first meeting, then is trying to adjust his commitments to ALSO attend the following Wednesday as well.

Hajnal Ban/Black is meeting with us this week and we have her passionate support. I’m hoping she’ll be a real GUN for our area.

We NEED YOUR SUPPORT TO GET EVERY POLITICIAN HERE.

We’ll be inviting Pam Parker on Tuesday 8th to attend.

I am attending a meeting at 5pm Tuesday at Council where the ULDA are presenting to the Flagstone Community Stakeholder Group. I’d like to meet them face to face so we can invite them to our meetings. They are wanting SOLUTIONS for the area, THIS IS OUR OPPORTUNITY to work WITH them to get reasonable outcomes that work for EVERYBODY, not just the developers and govt parties.

A SIGNIFICANT FOCUS of this first meeting is to get passionate and capable volunteers to form project groups to break the job down a bit. We ALL need to give our ABSOLUTE BEST EFFORT for the couple of weeks we have. No period in our life is more important than NOW.

We really need to identify and select some team leaders who can co-ordinate the following (ideally we’ll get GROUPS that form to “smash it out of the park” with their chosen task force:

· A core Stategy group (we have a core steering committee that is AWESOME at the moment and we simply couldn’t be getting this info out without some tireless work of a few great locals)

· Legal readers to scour over the Acts, codes, guiding documents, relevant legislation

· Legal “heads” to help us consider the compliance side of raising money to fund it, how we protect ourselves, writing of submissions and proposals etc...

· Any Town Planners who can assist with “global concept” SOLUTION PROPOSALS for ULDA

· Someone with strong admin skills to organise mail outs etc...

· Political Action Group to email, write to, contact ALL of the politicians locally, State and Federally and invite, invite, invite

· Media Tarts to get the articles out to newspapers, TV, radio (maybe one group for TV, one for print)

· We need savvy advertising article writers

· A website manager for www.SaveGreenbank.com.au (I’ll be watching over you....<;o) ) only joking

· A Facebook and Twitter Campaign manager

· A Public Picketting Group

· People to hand out fliers at the fetes etc...

· Wobble Board holders

· Artists for sign making

· Sausage Sizzle group to try to get some fund raising going. This campaign is costing a bit of cash obviously

· Signage group to get the signs out into the greater community

· PETITION groups to hit the shopping centres around the WHOLE area

The list goes on, we want to engage these people this first week. Would YOU be good at ANY of the above and like to have a crack at it on behalf of every one.

2nd Meeting on Wed 16th will hopefully be a MONSTER meeting and we’ll have even MORE media and politicians. This should be a great petition drive(We’l do that at every meeting anyway)

3rd Meeting on 23rd will be left open so we can tend to ANYTHING that hasn’t been addressed as we present out submissions.

WE NEED EVERYBODY’S HELP. WE NEED TO GET EVERY SINGLE RESIDENT TO THESE MEETINGS.

The great saying is “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight that matters, it’s the size of the fight in the dog”.

Woof, Woof GREENBANK, Looks like we got ourselves a dog fight. PLEASE don’t hurt TEVVY the Teviot Downs mascot. We all loved him before this offensive proposal. We can still love him. It ain’t his fault he’s made of tin. <;o)

See you all at the meeting.

Disrespect, lacking credibility and disgustingly uncompassionate.

2011-02-09T13:11:00.003+10:00

The media beat up on TV last night has left many Australians confused about what was said and around 70% of viewers and listeners believe that what Tony Abbott, leader of the opposition, said was deliberately taken out of context to ambush and attempt to hijack and embarrass the opposition to reduce impact of their disclosure of savings without real cuts in funding that would credibly replace a new tax put out by the Labor Party.

The Journalist (if that's what he actually is) claims to have organised the interview over two hours before It took place and that Mr Abbott should have been prepared for the questions, however it would be logical to assume since they had released their funding option to replace the flood levy, that that would be what an interview would be about.

The interview turned into a confrontation where the reporter played a short bit of film and claimed that Abbott made the comment on it about the death of one of our front line soldiers as a flippant retort, "shit happens" when in the full video it was clear he made the comment in context of a military operation, with the finest equipment and soldiers with the best preparation asking questions how it went wrong, and being agreed to by the commander of Australia's Middle East forces, Major-General John Cantwell, adding: "It certainly does, yeah.''

The reporter has made a ghastly error of judgement, but worse he has had the footage obtained after a protracted FOI process looking for film of Mr Abbott firing big machine guns or something similar, seemingly on behalf of Labor to besmirch his reputation, for a period of many months and could have got this right, easily.

Reporter Mark Riley is a grub, he is unAustralian, a coward and has no consideration for one of our bravest's family or widow, he should be sacked by Seven, he should know better but as a long time biased labor sympathiser it was completely typical and most likely a deliberate act as I said above to reduce impact of the opposition flood funding which shows Gillard's Big new tax, the flood levy, to be nothing more than lazy politics.

I'm appalled that Seven would allow this to go to air even, but worse that other stations would jump so quickly on the bandwagon to accuse Abbott without even seeing the full video first, Nine was on it with frumpy current affairs hack Grimshaw making comments along the lines of how soon would a leadership spill betaking place, and even Jabber the Hut(Oaks, also a Labor sympathiser who had a very young K Rudd as a "houseboy"), was on him like leech claiming it would be the end of him.

Are our Armed forces entitled to have their conversations with the leaders of our country kept discrete? Not to be used as a political football, and not to be used by one parties supporters to attack another party or member of it especially when it involves the death of a soldier?

Riley owes the people of Australia an apology , but more so he owes the family and widow for bringing back unnecessarily the horror and memory of their tragic loss. Riley you are nothing, you are a dog.

Bligh's election campaign gambit. grandstanding on the flood tragedy.

2011-01-12T19:47:00.002+10:00

Anna Bligh seem to be struggling to hold back the huge smile she reserves for her own point scoring sorties within the parliament on junior opposition members who are never give right of return of fire by the speaker, when she delivered that first press conference announcing that she would be in control of the flood and that she would assemble a team to deal with it and that she would have a press conference every two hours to keep people informed, she was almost shaking with glee at the thought of free publicity of her being in control of Queensland and getting a big one up in opinion polls by over estimating almost every detail of the catastrophic flood surge in the Brisbane and Bremmer River systems and then being the political hero when it fails to reach the expected levels and the public are relieved enough to forget how badly they have been treated by her and her government for over a decade.

Bligh and her entourage of head nodding stooges stand there every two hours giving their press release and re iterating the last two hours of already televised news, the head nodding being a vital part of the delivery and even comrade number 1 the Prime Minister has head nodded behind her to emphasise that she is fixing the problem and indeed is in control of the Flood and must therefore be re-elected.

Bligh even has lame duck NSW Premier the "septic Tank" Kristina Kenealy up in a chopper trying to score some political points with the electorate in that state in a copybook rerun about how if the floods come further into NSW she, like Bligh, will control the issue and save the people.

Yes I'm skeptical of Bligh's motives with good reason too, when the initial flooding in Queensland started to get quite severe particularly in northern Queensland (where her vote base is slim) where was she? Well she was away with her family to see the fireworks on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, to be fair she did a rocket trip back to show some face but she was very much unconcerned by the plight of all the national party voters across the country areas of Queensland in my opinion.

Until the destruction in Toowoomba and the subsequent "wall of water", which appears to have come from severe under maintenance around the dam up there and breaching of diversion banks which kept water from the town centre, came over the hill and flowed down the two main water courses with volumes in multiples of the capacity of those water courses destroying homes, businesses and lives and heading toward the heartland of Labor voting South East Queensland which presented a unique opportunity for unprecedented publicity , personal heroism and votes.

While the facts are devastating for everyone who has copped some damage or personal loss and even more for those who have perished and their families, the Bligh bandwagon and the TV news coverage rolls on submersing us in unprecedented Bligh mania, even cutting off mid sentence other guests because she has begun to speak, the horror of what has happened, what efforts are being put into action and how ordinary Australians are working to help one another pales into insignificance when Bligh begins to parrot the news, . . .again.

Unfortunately we are in for more tomorrow as the news coverage of this one in a hundred year event (which last happened only 36 years ago) is now part of Bligh and Labor's political campaign machine.

Will this get us another term of asset sales, mismanaged budgets and continue the game of infrastructure catch up while developers plunder our green spaces? why yes, yes it will, unless the questions that need to be asked are , and only accepting the real answers and not spin from the media happens, then we'll be in real trouble.

Hypocracy, corruption, lies, no it's just a big political donation

2011-01-12T06:46:00.003+10:00

Bob Brown , as ever with a glib line and appearing as gormless as any politician back pedaling from the reality of questions being asked about what just could be Australia's largest ever political donation, is trying to have us believe that what he has professed as being the ruination of political independence to the major parties is not the same for the Greens.

The creator of Wotif.com, Graeme Wood who has previously stated that he would like to see more action on climate change, has donated to the greens before the August elections a sum of $1.6 million which was most likely used in advertising that quite possible was one of the main factors in the Greens' getting the vote they did, despite the huge swings against the two majors which the Greens are almost totally discounting believing instead that they are now a major party.

So why is Bob Brown putting up such weak argument and defending his position so much if in reality the Greens have clean hands?

Bob Brown has in my opinion fallen for the exact same gambit as every other party, the need for money to advertise has outweighed the need to stay independent, to stay true to the political ideals and to remain free of political debt, he has accepted the money while for years damning every other political donation as effectively "payment for service" in that those donating money in larger amounts require some return on that "investment"

Bob Brown is going to struggle to shake of the title of worlds biggest Hypocrite just as much as he is struggling to explain the acceptance of such a huge sum from someone who has such an obvious agenda.

The donation was almost large enough in corporate terms that Graeme Wood could be considered a Naming rights sponsor, in other words the Greens would become the "Graeme Wood Greens"

I don't expect to see the Greens getting anywhere near the vote they got in the last Federal election in the near future, especially with the unwanted publicity of some of the policies they themselves did not advertise, like re introducing death duties and raising the GST, but this one off donation has raised their profile in a manner which raises more than just a few eyebrows regarding Brown's own credibility especially now that he has a real live MP elected and the only things they seem to be doing is pursuing personal agenda's like Bob's own inability to accept civil union as a confirmation of his own relationship and wanting to change the marriage act to force those who don't perform marriage on same sex couples to have to do so.

Bob Brown is about as relevant as Kevin Rudd these days anyway, he's ready to retire with his pocket full of entitlements which he claimed he was against, and as a mere senator when his party now has a member in the lower house who should be leader anyway, (bob has always taken the easy road via the senate and whinged about not being taken seriously)

If money dictates policy, then the greens are now a fully bought bitch, there is no way they can shrug off the stench of Hypocrisy now they have accepted the countries single biggest political donation, Bob Brown must resign in shame.

.

Appeals, the law making up the rules as they go along, and putting more dangerous people on our streets in the future.

2010-12-30T11:38:00.002+10:00

This is controversial and will polarise opinion and even though crimes have been committed is it ok to punish someone for another crime because you cannot make a case for the crime they may have actually committed?

In a recent case, Where a robbery occurred, the prosecution makes a case that two individuals distracted a sales assistant away from the sales counter with a nonsense search for a product while a third man is alleged to have then taken money from the till and escaped by pushing past the sales girl to do so.

Ok, so the third man seems to have gotten clear away, but one of the two allegedly distracting the sale assistant has been found guilty of various charges including assaulting the sales assistant (pushing past), robbery with violence(again the pushing)and the theft of the money from the till even though he never took any money and never touched the girl.

In the appeals court the Court of Appeal's President Margaret McMurdo said if she was wrong in her findings on legal issues on the three grounds of appeal she wanted it noted a security video established beyond reasonable doubt that the man was guilty.

Yes. but guilty of what?

The prosecutor never proved even that the man knew the thief or even have an identity for him (as far as I know) nor that any offence as charged was actually committed by the man, in fact video evidence proves he did not commit any of the crimes as charged, so what's going on? The prosecutor said the third man had been guilty of robbery with personal violence - the pushing - and that violence was a probable consequence of the plan to rob the till.(I disagree actually, if violence was probable , why use two others to distract the sales assistant so that there would be no one to defend the till?)The probable consequence meant the charged man was guilty of the same offence even though he had not touched the woman or actually taken the money. (once again, if planned by the three and violence was probable, why not simple the two hold the girl while the third takes the money, instead they tried to take the money without her even noticing, deliberately being non violent, and if pushing past is violence, I have a hundred charges to make after the boxing day sales)

This is where it gets controversial, I agree that it could have been proved that the man was absolutely guilty of being an accomplice both before and after the fact, he may have been also found guilty of aiding and abetting a crime, but the prosecution has used a loophole that allows him to be convicted of crimes he did not commit and as far as I'm concerned it is dangerous in two ways to the rest of us in society.

Firstly the prosecution have managed to have a person who clearly and evidently did not commit a crime, to be found guilty of it and in fact had an appeal on legal grounds dismissed on evidential grounds not pertaining to the legality of the decision.

Secondly a non violent offended has now been convicted of a violent offence (pushing past the sales girl)and will probably be sentenced as one rather than as as the distraction he was, and if incarcerated he will be soon learning the tricks of the trade inside; more to the point he will in the future if re offending or advising others be unworried about assaulting someone while distracting them because you are probably going to be found guilty of the assault or violence even if you don't commit the offence, so we are turning non violent offenders into violent offenders.

I'm really worried about the comments made by the Court of Appeal's President Margaret McMurdo too, as it seems to me that she is defending the lack of actually doing the job she is there for by citing that physical evidence should have been the predetermining factor in the findings.

Wait a minute, what? isn't it the Appeals Court's job to look at the appeals case and not the actual case? isn't the Appeal's Court's job to assess the legality of the three grounds of appeal not whether they saw the video and presided that he was guilty.

More controversy; You are at the theatre and someone with you is leading you through the crowd to the exit after the show (as happens) a few days later you are summonsed to appear for assault, a violent offence because the person leading your party pushed past someone who took offence, under the above judge and appeals court decision you could be found guilty of violent assault because you and you party had planned to leave together and as such you were equally as guilty of the offence even if you didn't do it and even if the person who did the actual pushing past was never ever even charged.

I personally believe that the Appeals Court president should be fired for the comments, where finding someone guilty of an offence they did not commit as a means to get them for something because the actual charge cannot be either proved or may not attract sufficient penalty, is bound to be used again and again but for purposes against innocent people.

We are supposed to be a democracy, we are supposed to have the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, we have neither whilst people like Court of Appeal's President Margaret McMurdo, seems to think it is ok to have someone convicted on a charge when the evidence shows clearly they are not guilty of it because they cannot make another stick. There is no justice and the law only serves to make lawyers rich and provide a tool for them and politicians to oppress the general public wielded by a gang worse that any bikie outfit, the police.

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The Wikileaks saga shows the value of Free Speech and the power it holds.

2010-12-26T18:05:00.002+10:00

First on a local note I want to say that the over priced National Broadband Network that this government has promoted and pushed as a sweetener to get votes in areas outside current broadband access areas, and to get the agreement of independents to actually form a government and to which negotiations have not even finished so the price may not actually be the final one, (surprise surprise, it will probably at least double in the over 10 years it will take to get installed and operating) will in my opinion be used by the government to implement it's policy of both restrictive interference in the content available to Australian users and to also be able to use it to monitor our usage, draconian, communistic and big brother stuff.

I am against it, and it's my opinion that every thinking Australian should be against it too because what is the point of claiming freedom of the press when the content the press may put onto the web can be filtered by the government nanny programme, or use the access at government level to sway public opinion in even less subtle ways than the owners of media already appear to do now.

We voted for a government via a Marxist (no guesses that he will be pro government monitoring of what we are permitted to view) a country bumkin (who claims Broadband will improve the lives of his constituents unlike a policy that gives local rural production preference and market subsidies to improve jobs, income and lifestyle in general ) and a big mouth (who seems to be so full of his own self importance that he does not care who suffers or perishes at the hands of his choices)

If the above sounds like the Wizard of Oz on an acid trip you must be , like me, wondering that if we the citizens of this country are playing the Dorothy character, who is playing the Wizard?

Ok, all that being said, what ever you think about Wikileaks, taken in the context of the above and how badly this government wants to ensure that secrets are kept and that information is also kept from us if the government deems it so and that even the slightest transgression may be monitored and of course once discovered there may be consequences, in fact that they only want you to be able to know what they allow you to know then a site like Wikileaks is a dangerous one and all efforts to stop it must be gone to.

We already know that Gillard dislikes both Wikileaks and it's founder Julian Assange, and no doubt she will be cooperating with the US government that wants him and the site stopped at any cost and is willing it seems to go to any lengths to have that happen and she is prepared to be the puppy to Obama that Howard was to Bush both pleasuring him and placating him and giving him loyal unmitigated support including cancelling the passport of Assange I'd say.

I like Wikileaks, and my point of view based on just how corrupt local councillors, politicians, and even public servants and police seem to be is that i use their own analogy , why would you be frightened of it if you have done nothing wrong or have nothing to hide?

Wikileaks will change politics on a global scale, it will open the process to the constituents and it will show the people just how much they have been forced to give up for the sake of some big noting politicians to look good in another's eyes from some far off land.

Government ministers, diplomats , public servants will have to watch what they say and to whom they say it, and they deserve it to be made public because they are working for us and being paid by us and the things they put into print for us on our behalf belong to us, and should not be hidden from us.

This is really the movies coming to life before our eyes with conspiracy theorists already saying "I told you so"

If the US gets its way and Assange is handed over to them for alleged offences which have not occurred, he has broken no laws relating to publishing anything in the country he has published it from (hence the trumped up "rape " charges)he will become a martyr and Wikileaks will grow stronger.

The US have tried to stop the financial lines to Wikileaks to try to break them and have also tried to make the net unusable to them by having their IP services terminated, none of this was done to Osama Bin Laden

The fact is that Assange will go to the next step and publish a book on his story and raise money that way and people will buy it, I will buy it.

They cannot stop us getting the facts and when they do there will always be someone who will defy them, Thank goodness.

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Oakshot and Windsor; Blood on their hands.

2010-12-21T15:51:00.003+10:00

The following is my opinion, and I make no apologies for it, something must be done and this head in the sand of two wanna be ministers must stop.

I'm sure you all are just as saddened as me that the recent tragedy where an unseen and unstopped boat filled to over capacity with asylum seekers was to crash onto the rocks at it's destination on Christmas Island resulting in a heavy casualty rate and a tragic high proportion of lost lives.

It is believed that the people aboard, even those with life jackets, could not swim at all and feared jumping off the stricken boat hoping somehow they could be saved or that their boat would somehow survive the pounding it was taking from the swell hammering them into the unforgiving rocks.

When Rudd was elected in 2007 one of the things he did to make his government differ from the previous one was to change boarder policy which has led to a dramatically huge increase in boats operated by people smugglers making their way to any Australian territories, loaded with passengers willing to pay for the privilege of being effectively called a refugee until processing accepts or rejects their right to the title and either allows or disallows their status.

It was clear that the Rudd solution was not able to cope with the sheer numbers and saw a steady increase over his term until he was politically castrated by Gillard and her power monkeys who intimidated and pressured her into the top job to try to stem what was perceived to be imminent defeat for Labor at the upcoming election with lies, gagging of ministers and others and hiding the truth of what occurred from the people and refusals to act to try to make the policy which saw boats traversing the waters between Asia and Australia rise rapidly in numbers.

This year since January 1st 132 boats have arrived in our territories and that translates to 6425 asylum seekers and 335 crew that have now been detained, and even those who are most compassionate to the refugee cause must admit this is a significant number and the expense to do health checks, identity checks and criminal history checks as well as determine whether the people are genuine refugees is going to be pretty costly to the tax payer.

Without a majority at the election, it was an underhanded deal with independents and a member of the extreme left of Labor (the Greens) that saw Gillard form government and begin another term of Labor failure on refugee processing and control of our boarders.

Without doubt Oakshot and Windsor both knew what the extreme left of Labor (the greens) policy on immigration, particularly boat people, was and also that two long years of Labor had seen huge rapid increases in the number coming and that detention centres were over capacity, not able to process people without any documents fast enough and left our coast watch under manned and unable to even spot most boats until it was too late, they were already in trouble.

Oakshot and Windsor could have made a difference, they could have with their role as king maker demanded that some real solution be found to make it safe for refugees who would seek asylum in Australia, they had the power, they had the opportunity and they had the right to ask that something be done, of course you can't put Adam Bandt in the same category as the other two because he is just a Muppet saying and doing what his extreme left party boss (Bob Brown) wants him to do and that is get the gay marriage issue on the table and have the people go to a referendum to change the marriage act so that the greens can get a few more votes from gay people.

While Oakshot and Windsor play at being part of the government and bask in their own glory as they believe that they are the two most important men in Canberra, the number of asylum seekers continues to grow and their inaction has resulted in what has been one of the most tragic and shocking events in Australia's immigration history since the repatriation of English children after the war and the stolen generation where Aboriginal children were just taken from their families for living an alternative lifestyle to the new colonials.

Oakshot and Windsor have the blood of the asylum seekers who tragically died on the rocks at Christmas Island on their hands, it is their brand, it is there for all to see, they are responsible for those deaths as much as the people smugglers who took their money and sent them very accurately on their course to that Island, Oakshot and Windsor have negligently ignored an impending tragedy in the making for over two years and have aided and abetted this government in allowing it to happen.

Oakshot and Windsor are in my opinion guilty of the manslaughter of those people as sure as if they had pushed each one's heads under the breakers themselves.

Pride cometh before fall.

2010-12-10T21:49:00.003+10:00

Stories in our locals are pretty tame and some just press releases, but eventually when you put the pieces together you start to work out what the real story is, and in this instance it's not pretty, not at all. This little beauty is one well covered by local bloggers but not really touched by any local media, for some reason.

Queensland Public Trustee Peter Carne says it was a "breach of trust" and she (Mrs Black) "knew or willfully (sic) shut her eyes to the fact that she had no entitlement" to his money held in a joint account established just after she sold his $2.25 million property, the court documents state.

But the newlyweds, both Logan councillors, yesterday said the allegations would be "strenuously defended".

The court documents, lodged late on Tuesday, say Mrs Black arranged for more than $900,000 to be transferred to the Public Trustee who took over the role of financial power of attorney from her in July.

"The matter is in the hands of our legal advisers," Cr Sean Black said yesterday.

The court documents say Mrs Black "asserts that she is not in breach of any trust and thereby was and remains entitled to the monies".

"The first defendant has alleged that (the man) informed her that his intention was that she would have complete access to funds to be placed into the joint account," the Public Trustee says in the documents.

They said the man was in ill health and of "impaired capacity", rendering him unable to fully comprehend the nature and effect of the transactions.

According to the documents, Mrs Black was required to "pay equitable compensation to the plaintiff for any loss suffered".

"The first defendant is obliged to restore and make good the loss of trust assets being the irrecoverable or untraceable improper joint account payments," the documents state.

They say she "knew the monies in the joint account were (the man's) property" and was advised in November 2009 she shouldn't make payments from the joint account unless she obtained authority from the then Guardianship and Administration Tribunal.

"(The man) was a person of 66 years, of poor health and suffering from a condition that did not allow him to properly care for his own needs," the documents say.

"A legally qualified attorney acting reasonably and diligently would have preserved the proceeds of the sale for the benefit of (the man)."

While not attempting to find her innocent or guilty, by means of trial by media (no matter how small)I don't think it does any harm to highlight to local people just how hard it must be to understand exactly what the requirements are for a power of attorney, because if a self professed barrister cannot understand (for the purposes of this particular defence it seems) then how is any ordinary not too bright person who happens to allow a relative or a dear friend or even a secret lover to name them as Power of Attorney supposed to know for example , when the Power of Attorney starts, when you can be in it or when you can be out of it or even if you can just decide that you don't want it any more?

•A Power of Attorney is a document which gives someone authority to act on your behalf on matters that you specify.
•The power can be specific to a certain task or broad to cover many financial duties.
•The power can be given to start immediately, or upon mental incapacity.

That is what it says about that document; also.

An enduring Power of Attorney, if created before the Principal loses capacity, will remain valid even after capacity is lost. If you want your Attorney to make decisions for you after you have lost the ability to make decisions for yourself, then you should choose "enduring".

An ordinary Power of Attorney is only valid as long as the Principal is capable of managing his or her own affairs. It becomes invalid when the Principal loses capacity (loses the ability to make important decisions).

Interesting stuff, right? Well maybe not, it can't just be that simple can it? If the person who has nominated you as power of attorney is in a state where they are not able to make their own decisions, you just automatically become empowered. No , it really is that simple.

Am I poking fun at the holes some have dug, sure, but I'm making a valid point here also, if the whole Power of Attorney thing was really that hard to understand and the person getting the power to execute decisions on behalf of an incapacitated person could turn it on and off, It just wouldn't work for the best interests of the incapacitated person, and that is simple.

Which bank runs the Reserve Bank of Australia?

2010-11-02T22:23:00.002+10:00

The figures on employment showed only slight growth, the housing sector is still slowing, building applications in the housing sector still down and retailers in crisis talks about lack of sales.

So why did the Reserve raise rates again when all the analysts had predicted no rises until 2011?

The Commonwealth Bank via it's CEO have been saying for a while now that money is too hard to find at low rates, and that the cost of making profit (record profit after record profit I might add) means that they will have to increase consumer rates over and above the cash rate set by the Reserve even if they do raise it because lending cannot be allowed to affect their bottom line.

So at this very much surprising rate rise it's not much of a surprise to see the Commonwealth adding to the official rate rise with an additional rise of their own.

So Ok, we need to ask a couple of questions, firstly with all the indicators suggesting inflation is not rising, and that the economy is not rising out of control, why a rate rise at all? and secondly Why the nation's biggest holder of home loan portfolio has to raise almost the same ?

Taking a look at lending, not just home loans or mortgages, you start to see that there is considerable discounting on commercial rates to attract big, more risky, but more profitable commercial loans, the lending book of many lenders is more specialised but not so with the commonwealth, and if they are to attract big business it has to be at the cost somewhere else, and what better place than where the loan holders cannot fight back, Home loans.

I won't bore you with figures, you can look at the bragging sheets from the bank itself, to see just how much of their lending portfolio as a whole is in mortgages for homes, and just how big their total portfolio is, and also at just how big their profit is for the shareholders who have over the years made capital growth as well as very good dividends on those shares.

The probability is that you the mortgagee will be, after the rise is implemented, propping up the big end of town who can afford it a hell of a lot more than you can.

If I were a betting man, and I'm not I always loose, but if I were I'd put money on it being the case that the Reserve Bank raised rates to cover for the Commonwealth Bank wanting to raise its own, It's my opinion that the commonwealth bank has too much influence on the Reserve and the Government as well.

If anyone has loans with the commonwealth bank right now i feel really sorry for you, I don't think it will be long before the others also put up rates as well but they may hold back just a little because this is the perfect opportunity to take business share in the market by remaining on a lower rate.

Why I won't be attending a cinima near me when the "Hobbit" Prequil comes out.

2010-10-25T20:36:00.002+10:00

I don't know if you can call it racism, but it is there, in some of them and it's a thorough dislike for anything Australian.

New Zealand benefits greatly from it's proximity to Australia, in so many ways and we as a nation and taxpayers give them so much that it seems that very act of brotherhood has caused some of the population to harbour a resentment that is quite obvious.

One of the things that seems to ire those more parochial NZ'rs is when some of them migrate to Australia and then become successful and the media claims them to be an Aussie star.

The latest issue it seems is the new in production "Hobbit" movie which has had drama right from the start and now that it is a go under new producer Peter Jackson, there have been questions over whether bit part actors are being fairly remunerated for their labour, a controversy that has been just one more as this production begins to get into the filming stage.

Peter Jackson seems through his spokesman, Auckland-based actor Mark Harrison, to have blamed an Australian Actors association for the initial stop work even though it was actually directed from the New Zealand Union, NZ equity which wanted to see minimum standards agreed upon for its members.

Because NZ Equity is closely related to Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) the Australian Actors association the producer Peter Jackson has laid the blame on them. Further he has , via his spokesman Harrison, said "I believe the Kiwi way of doing things should be protected and celebrated," and "Turning us into another state of Australia under the sway of a destructive organisation carries the very real risk of destroying the great big heart that beats inside our films." and
"As an industry we are very well equipped with our various guilds to provide excellent terms and conditions to our film workers." and
"If there are problems it's up to us to use our various guilds to resolve them. That's what they're there for." and
"We don't open the door to an Australian trade union who will never put the interest of Kiwis first and invest that union with the powers to destroy everything that we have built."

This is a blatant attack on workers rights by the mega rich Jackson, who must have some real fear about allowing an agreement between the ANZAC Countries actors associations, which might give him less dictatorial control over the little people on the sets and reduce his power over them just so very slightly.

I'd say if you are an Aussie actor, you probably won't get a gig on this film, and you probably won't want a bit part anyway because by the sounds of it you will be paid peanuts, and NZ peanuts at that.

And, remember one of our peanuts is worth about 1.3 NZ peanuts around now, . . . and I think the same goes for idiots.

If it's not good enough for Actors to be treated fairly across the Tasman, then I for one won't bother wasting my hard earned, to line the pockets of someone like Jackson who has more money than I could spend in my life already, i won't be adding to his racist, hating greed.

.

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Is Bob Brown the saddest man in politics?

2010-10-25T19:41:00.002+10:00

Bob Brown has led The Greens from the comfortable and risk free seat in the senate never having to put his neck on the block and never having to put up or shut up with the big boys in the Lower House, and one would assume that his days as leader are very much numbered now that a Green member is holding a seat on the Labor government side of that house.

Bob brown has tried over the years to have his pet bill, the equality of marriage bill, put to the house many times, and with a personal agenda some say, and it has failed to even get much more than a mention and cursory dismissal.

Bob has never got over ex Liberal PM John Howard's rejection of even the validity of proposing the bill and has held him personally responsible for the fact that gays cannot get married in the same way that mixed sex (we are not allowed to call them normal) couples do, with Mr Howard sticking to the more traditional and common religious definition of marriage as a "union between a man and a woman"

It seems that Howard has the belief that even if there was legislation allowing same sex marriages, he couldn't guarantee that any religious could be forced to actually go against it's dogma and perform ceremonies against its religious beliefs.

Still we see at every opportunity Bob brown continue to blame Howard and the Liberals for everything he can put his hands to in any and every speech, including the latest where the Gillard government of which his party is a minor coalition partner now, has publicly announced that Australian Armed Forces will remain in Afghanistan for around 10 more years, and Bob Brown has given the majority of the blame to John Howard and his close relationship with the US and it's allies.

I think Bob should have bowed out gracefully, he's had a career based on one achievement, an environmental coup against giant logging companies and the Tasmanian government, a real David and Goliath feat, but remember he was not alone in that fight, but he was the one who got the majority of the kudos and the recognition.

Bob seems to have turned the Greens, from its humble beginnings as an environmental watchdog party, concerned with bettering our life and the planet in a harmonious way to a party that has the most Leftist policies since Cuba became communist and more than likely to the dismay of followers and supporters who were there for the value of the environmental policy alone.

Bob Brown to me seems to be filled with loathing for Howard, and seems to be a very sad man, probably the saddest man in politics.

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QR Float, . . .disaster for mum & dad investors?

2010-10-21T08:14:00.002+10:00

I am totally against the sale of Queensland's assets, the Port and the Freight Rail Business hitting the market already and already there are concerns about how people will take up the share offer in QR and how institutional investors will take their allocation and even that there will be a huge amount of unallocated shares that will have to be held by the government.

The Queensland Treasurer who has so far failed at all counts , losing Queensland's AAA credit rating, costing Queensland ratepayers billions in Amalgamated council costs and seeing the price of basic services like water more than double in some places is now on the back foot as usual defending the way the QR float is pushed mostly at mum and dad investors.

If as I predict nearly half the shares remain unallocated and the Qld Government has to hold them there is no doubt we will see a future "telstra 2" type offer so that investors who have lost money on the first share buy can lose again on a second buy.

One of the big worries is that the Qld Government under the Treasurer rejected an offer for a good part of QR that related to mining and offered a pretty good price for it. However the treasurer wants more and more cash and a full scale share offer was deemed the way to get it.

What worries me firstly is the share price, it will be close to $2.80 a share and that for what will be a public company with no forecasts of profit, no back up figures and no real value of asset base or projected costings, secondly the return dividends are down around the 5% mark or less and thirdly the ownership will be dominated by the government holding still even with a high amount of corporate allocation due to the skepticism of ordinary investors taking up the offer.

Personally, it is my opinion that the float is designed the way it is on purpose, to sucker in mum and dad investors, who will sell as the price drops significantly and allow corporate investors to buy back at low prices and therefore hedge some of their loss as the price comes back after a dumping, when the price comes back the Government which will still own up to 40/50% will have a second sell off and set in motion a second wave of the same scenario.

Corporate investors will be the winners the price will stabilize around the $1.30 and we'll probably then find out that the major holder are none other than the miners with the original rejected offer who have now bought up at a lower price and got a bargain.

Of course this is all conjecture and hypothesis, but as we wait and see, I'm not rushing out to bolster my portfolio with QR stock.

When will the LNP in Queensland clean up its own mess.

2010-10-17T08:42:00.002+10:00

A recent report on TV news raised questions about a couple of things primarily in connection to one particular political aspirant and past candidate who had to be disendorced in what was one of Australia's easiest and safest seats in the last federal election.

The disendorsment came after it was revealed that on her application to be scrutinised for preselection she had omitted to inform the LNP that she had a case to answer to the Queensland Civil and Administrative tribunal relating to an alleged misuse of an adults money/property over which she had power of attorney.

It seems that this candidate, who says she is a barrister, has a problem understanding the legal requirements of a simple power of attorney and the out come was that as such, she was removed as Power of Attorney and may have to pay back money used for her personal expenses.

In the a TV Interview, John Mickel, speaker of the house in the Queensland State Parliament said that her statements were so alarming that he wonders if there is criminality there and that he will refer the matter to the CMC.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/video.aspx
Scroll down their menu until you find, News:Councillors accused of financial deception.

In a twist, it seems the candidate who has called for the dumping of State Government calling it irrelevant, has since made a statement published in the Sunday Mail in Queensland, that she intends to seek preselection to run for the LNP against Mr Mickel, and in my opinion that is simply a ruse to try to make a claim that his calling for further investigations are politically motivated.

My Question is to the LNP though, why haven't you, as described by her, "faceless men" cleaned up your act, sorted your membership, and got rid of the caustic, infected, tainted and the dead wood and made your party look as if it is the zero tolerance party on corruption, crime, and dishonesty that the people of Queensland want to elect, and by allowing this woman to remain as a Party member and potential candidate it's the appearance of the party in general that looks to be tarnished.

She called you the faceless men, but the reality is you are the gutless men.

Logan, the bloated beurocracy.

2010-10-03T11:14:00.002+10:00

When a few people, none of the councillors I might add, stood up against the amalgamations of councils in the old Beaudesert Shire, it was because of several things that were touted by the State Government and what was also coming from Councils, Beaudesert and Logan.

Logan still continue to propagate the story that they didn't want to amalgamate and that their proposal (submission to the State) to have a huge area (the MLNBSA) of Beaudesert Shire added to their shire was only in response to Beaudesert asking for the part of it's shire annexed in the forming of Logan, and Beaudesert claimed they made their submission based on the fact that Logan had previously asked for their boundary to be moved south at least twice before, (both times being defeated at referendum). Personally I believe the latter and the fact that Logan has changed it's story several times on the issue props my belief up.

Those against the Amalgamation always said that if we had to be forced to amalgamate to Logan it would not go well for us, that development of satellite cities would be fast tracked, that planning would rob us of important budget money, that Logan would increase it's staff unseasonably, that the costs of council would rise causing increases in rates and charges, that the few services we get would be reduced severely and that Logan would attempt to rule us as they rule Woodridge and create laws and regulations making rural lifestyle impossible.

So far, all of the above have been proven and without exception we have well and truly been shafted by Logan and we are almost without representation as two of the three councillors who look after our area are preoccupied with their power games, federal aspirations, facing questions from the authorities, bullying, personal life issues and causing disunity and disharmony within council.

There is little doubt that we have seen services reduced, and that our rates have gone up for the displeasure, Logan has been to us, the typical wooden nickle, absolutely of no use at all except for the in crowd to get funding and kudos that they would have got from which ever council we were under.

As Logan continues to ebb away our rights to continue to live a rural lifestyle, with laws and regulations pouring forth from that orifice that sits in Wembely Road, Woodridge, we continue to pay.

Worse we are in no mans land with investigations areas, urban footprint and MDA's making our ability to sell and profit dubious at best.

Local council mergers fail to halt bloat and waste

by Kelmeny Fraser From: The Sunday Mail (Qld) October 03, 2010

LOCAL government bureaucracy has ballooned more than two years after controversial mergers to make councils leaner and less costly.

Staff levels for Queensland councils grew twice as fast this year compared with 2007 – the year before the State Government's forced amalgamations transformed the local government landscape, slashing the number of councils from 157 to 73.

A new workforce census released to The Sunday Mail by the Local Government Association of Queensland shows the number of local government workers grew by 6 per cent in 2010, compared with 2.75 per cent in 2007 and less than 2 per cent in 2006.

Staff numbers in 2008 and 2009 rose by about 3.9 per cent a year. But by March this year, that had soared to 6 per cent, compared with the same time last year, with an extra 2392 employees joining the state's 57 non-indigenous councils.

The rise in staff is estimated to have added more than $119 million to council wage costs.

It comes despite State Government promises to make local government more efficient through the mergers, with then local government minister Andrew Fraser predicting it could save ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Merger critics, such as former Aramac Shire Mayor Gary Peoples, have seized on the figures.

"A lot of what was said by councils and mayors has probably come to fruition, in that there is not going to be increased efficiencies, but there is probably going to be a loss in services," he said.

At Logan City another 454 people have started work since 2008, taking the total number of workers to 1371, even after losing 218 staff to the area's new water business Allconnex.

Staff levels at several councils, such as Cairns and Maranoa Regional Councils, stagnated. Townsville City Council shed more than 2000 staff.

Burning off, . . might be burning money.

2010-09-28T22:18:00.002+10:00

A friend was doing a bit of work at home on the weekend and that meant cutting down a heap of unsightly dead palm fronds from the palms that everyone told him he'd regret putting in when he moved in over 10 years ago, and the normal spring tidy up including some heavy pruning.

He'd piled up the stuff he'd cut and later on Sunday put a match to it to get rid of it like we all have done at some time or another and it an hour or two there was little to show except a pile of very hot ash and coals when he had an unannounced visitor.

It wasn't a brown snake, it was actually the local fire warden who had seen the smoke and had come over to let him know that things relating to fires have changed, and there could be serious consequences , a $500 fine for burning off without a permit.

My friend had thought that with the continual local rain, still conditions and plentiful water supply at hand that a quick burn would be the simple way to dispose of his garden waste, what he didn't know is that things have changed.

Of course my friend thought he was allowed to burn a fire that was around the two meters by two meters without a permit, as did everyone else I have asked but apparently things have changed and it seems although it has been advertised in the local papers and other media, we have not got the message.

Apparently, it is ok to burn the two by two without a permit, but only when there is no declaration of a "Fire danger period" and it seems that's been declared already so it means we need to get a permit for every fire we light.

The Commissioner of the Qld Fire and Rescue Service has declared the period from midnight on August 29th until midnight on thew 2nd January as a Fire Danger Period.

Ok, so it's not all bad news, a little inconvenience maybe but a permit is free, it's for your own and everyone else's safety, and it lets the rural fire service and the local fire services know that there is a fire taking place so that firstly the do not need to respond for a cal about it if someone sees your smoke and they know exactly where it is if things do go wrong ( yeah we know that never happens , right?)

To get a permit is a simple matter, contact your local fire warden.
Don't know who it is? simple get on the net and go to www.ruralfire.qld.gov.au
An application can also be downloaded from the website.

Things you need to know to get a permit, a) your real property description e.g lot no. and RL no. (e.g. lot 10 RP 234567) the information should be on your rates notice. b) you need to drop your neighbours a note to let them know about it too.

probably be a good idea to get to know your fire warden, they are volunteers who can risk their lives if fires do get out of control, and they're there to help.

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Sell, sell, sell, . . . Queensland up for auction.

2010-09-27T20:18:00.002+10:00

While many of us are hearing about the QR float, which exists because no one except a consortium of Miners want to negotiate with the Queensland Government or even offer a price, the sell off of Queensland's asset base or collateral continues and is for sale to the highest bidder.

The genius Queensland Treasurer who has lost our triple A credit rating already with mounting debt and inability to do anything more than service it, has come up with the plan to sucker mums and dads into forking out hard earned cash for a share buy up that will quite probably be worth half of the buying price soon after it is listed.

The predictions are so terminal that it seems subscriptions have not filled and worse there is money being paid hand over fist for very expensive prime time television advertising and the genius (not) treasurer wont reveal how badly subscribed it is to the public fearing existing subscribers will also pull out.

So, can it get worse? to quote the latest US President, "Yes it can"

It also seems the Port of Brisbane is up for auction with offers, once again secret, by at least one potential bargain hunter (I'm guessing Patrick) looking to get a cheap deal.

The Port of Brisbane is still going through changes to streamline the through put of freight, but it is continuous in use and has room for expansion.

On the issue of the sale, apart from using a press release to bag the opposition for not supporting the asset sales ( which is exactly what the people of Queensland also want) Premier Bligh is quoted as saying "Our priority is getting a good outcome for taxpayers."

A good outcome for taxpayers would be to have kept our AAA credit rating which would have reduced the price of borrowings and the repayments on them quite considerably.

A good outcome for taxpayers would be to cancel all asset sales and consider holding an election to remove the cause of the problem at the root.

A good outcome for taxpayers would be to honestly inform them about our financial situation instead of hiding how poorly the government is performing

A good outcome for taxpayers would be to halt population growth in Queensland until infrastructure has caught up at least and until quality of lifestyle can be assured before continuing.

I have never been a fan of bigger government, but, the arrogance of the Queensland Government without any body (a lower house) to ensure that both the peoples wishes are adhered to and that there is greater transparency in government in general, is beginning to demand that reform of Queensland's State Government is imperative.

Think about it, is the cost of a lower house, a senate if you will, greater than what we are about to lose in the assets of Queensland? And about just who can protect the assets , effectively owned by the people of Queensland from a financially and morally bankrupt government with no answers and no solutions.

We need to stop the sales, now.

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Not buying into the arguement.

2010-09-19T20:48:00.002+10:00

Today's Paper had a local article in it about some kind of feud between a couple of councillors and either the mayor or the rest of the councillors or both.

What was interesting about it was it's claimed to be ongoing over social media like Face book or Twitter and I have to say it's well outside of my comfort zone and I have heard that people can come unstuck for what they write on these kinds of networking sites.

Blogs are bad enough, if I could have a dollar for each time I have been accused of bias, castigated for allowing comments (or commenter's for having an opinion) or even threatened for not removing comments (with legal action) I'd probably have quite a few dollars in the kitty by now, it happens quite regularly on local issues, particularly involving council.

I personally always question the motives of people who go to the media with stories about how they are being persecuted over social media networks and then the same people are on it themselves it seems, making disparaging comments about others, it makes me think their original complaint that they are victims is just made up for publicity.

The Sunday paper article was brief, but told a story and it is a story that many of our commenter's have been telling for quite a few years and that is that some people are just not in council to serve the community of Logan and certainly not the vast majority of the voters or anyone else in the division they were elected in.

The article in my opinion, also brushed over a very unsavoury piece of real life which had an unacceptable conclusion for some parties with a trifling line which did little to reflect the actual misdeed or the consequential eventuations which somehow may have seen real issues not even looked into by the relevant authorities.

The article points to each of the sides drumming up support for candidates to take on the other at the next election, and that is perhaps the best result we could hope for, a real live representative who will actually be available to the community without other agenda's being the reason they are, if at all.

Bring on the next election, we are all ready for change.

BTW if you are intending to run, why don't you lets us know, always happy to spread information to the public no matter how small the audience.

How many will fall into the land tax trap?

2010-09-16T20:08:00.002+10:00

During the last ten years more so than ever before ordinary people have began to utilise wealth creation in the form of investment property and to be quite blunt the various marketers of investment property have rammed them down our throat for years now.

There has been various incentives to own investment property offered by the government as well, negative gearing which everyone would have heard of by now and yet still most people have very little idea of exactly how it applies, depreciation which requires very complex calculations for each item involved, tax relief for renting to low income tenants and deductions from personal income tax.

What it all means is that once you've signed on the dotted line and got a tenant insitue, you can hold an investment property for less than $100 a week in most cases even today after the huge boom and then the Global Financial Crisis.

And that means someone with quite a bit of disposable income in a household can end up holding several properties which are growing in capital value quite well and yet are not really causing hardship to hold , own and profit from.

Property has become one of the tools used by many who own small business and have their own DIY super funds because the benefits of buying the property from which you work and become your own tenant means you know exactly where your money is going and can mitigate any and all costs both ways.

However, there is one problem that most people have not been made aware of who may have bought up properties when they were relatively inexpensive, and accumulated a few of them, and that is with the increases we've all seen in unimproved values of properties, those investors may be up for a little thing called "Land Tax"

Land tax applies in Queensland to any one who owns property to the value (in unimproved terms)greater than $599,999 which means an ordinary couple with a home and a couple of quality investment properties may have to start thinking about that extra tax bill.

The tax is on a scale and the first part is $500 plus 1 cent for each $ more than $600,000.

So for example a North Beaudesert couple have a beautiful acreage property with a nice home on it with an unimproved value of around $450,000 and they have a couple of investment properties in quality locations valued at $300,000 each ; you can see that they are ok as far as land tax goes for now, but assume that they also have a commercial property that they run a business from, a small shop or shed with an unimproved value of $200,000 then they are going to cop an assessment for land tax.

A lot of people may be on the cusp of being assessable for this State Government Tax without even knowing but rest assured the government knows and will be issuing assessments at the end of the financial year.

here are the details for Land Tax in Queensland. forewarned is forearmed.

Logan Village Hig School, . . . hi-jacked by the ULDA and Delfin.

2010-09-13T07:44:00.002+10:00

There have been a lot of dedicated locals over the years who have tried to get some progressive thinking and action going in Logan Village, they have had some basic requirements sorely lacking for many year almost as if there was no representation there from any level of government at all for at least the 20 years or so I've known the place.

A lot of locals have put this down to having a councillor who they say has been so self interested and megalomaniacal that nothing could be done in Logan Village unless he was seen to be doing it, and that has resulted in most of the community stuff, like neighbourhood watch etc disbanding and it seems the only groups left were those that he was in control of and gifting council money to.

Lets face it. under the watch of this bloke upgrades for the two shopping centers were continually knocked back, road works to get bitumen on the dirt only happened just before the last election, and it was only this year, yes 2010, that the Logan Village State School got connected to town water, and that's just scratching the surface.

Since that councillor lost his plush, almost decade and a half, shiny seat in council things has improved only slightly as the councillor for the actual township struggles with absolutely zero support from the councillor who has the rural adjacent area.

Last year another push to get a High School for Logan Village began with some very good people behind it and some progressive thinkers among them, and they have real support from community, businesses, and the local councillor and i think even the adjacent councillor is on board, but not resting on their laurels and waiting for council to get something done the organisers have gone to the State Government with some very good data and back up[ supporting a very logical push to put a High School in Logan Village, and it looks like it's going to be successful.

However, the State Government has looked at the idea and appears to have decided that once again Logan Village is not the place for a High School, and the departments that get things done have basically given a free ride once again to a particular developer by putting up a proposal to locate a future Logan Village High School at Yarrabilba, to serve future students of Yarrabilba, but paid for by you and I rather than the developer.

Of course that makes sense once you look at who is now the chairman of the Urban Land Development Authority, a State Government department set up by Beattie designed to fast track development, because he used to be at the top of Delfin and it seems worked on the yarrabilba stuff and is now in charge of making the Logan Village school a free school for Yarrabilba.

The Yarrabilba State High School, . . .has a nice ring to it.

It's yet to be finalised but I'd reckon we, the taxpayer will even have to buy the land for it, it just keeps getting better for Delfin who built nearby Woodlands and didn't supply one bit of infrastructure for it either that they didn't absolutely have to.

Logan Village will be better of in the short term, but with Yarrabilba set to be kicking off in 2011, it will only be a very short term benefit, as Logan Village becomes a thoroughfare of trucks and cars heading to Yarrabilba and anything built on Waterford/Tamborine Road will be almost impossible to get in or out of, including a High School.

Logan Council , meetings on the move.

2010-09-10T12:33:00.003+10:00

Logan Council are saying they are bringing Council to the community, and I think that having them in the kind of facility that they are to held next, a school hall, gives students exposure to council as well as any other method.

Lets face it, the ordinary meetings are a rubber stamp over what has already been discussed and presumably agreed to (by most councillors) at the previous weeks committee meetings, and as such do not give an indication of how our departmentalised third level of government works by any shape or means but it does allow one to see a bit of what goes on when personalities and egos get around the table.

I urge people to go to these type of meeting, simply to show that we, the community, are still keeping an eye on our investment, that we still see what is going on despite the constant spin of your press releases and that we do have in our minds some requirements from our representatives that are definitely not being met.

Personally, I don't think a couple of councillors in the old Beaudesert and Gold Coast area are doing us much service other than trying to undermine other councillors and play at being bigger than Jesus, that's just me, and they have done nothing to dissuade me from that opinion including their recent attempts at geeing up animal owners around here and pushing to try to have all market gardens removed, possibly via a stooge.

So, if you want to see Council inaction, (in action) the next "community" Council Meeting is on 14th September, it will start at 10.30am and be in the New Hall at Canterbury College, Waterford.

Should be a whizzer.

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Bligh's big plans evaporating could be her final downfall.

2010-09-05T07:34:00.002+10:00

When Anna Bligh put on the hard hat she inherited from Beattie with the Premier's job at a press conference to announce the declaration of a "Project of significance" in Queensland, she was beaming, she looked like the Cheshire cat and she thought that bypassing normal approval processes with the declaration would see income from the Galilee basin coal projects soon flowing into the coffers of a very broke State Government.

But how the plans of mice and men go sour, A court has just ruled in favour of another mining company who's lease is in between the Basin and the Port and which would have had a significant amount of land resumed for the project and which would have severely compromised their operation.

The declaration, initially made in July, gave Ms Reinhard's Hancock Coal a ''defined corridor'' within which it could continue to examine the feasibility of its $5.5 billion Alpha and $6.5 billion Kevin's Corner projects in the Galilee Basin.

Ruling on an application by QCoal, against Minister Hinchliffe, Justice Margaret Wilson yesterday ordered that the declaration of ''the Hancock Coal-Alpha Coal rail corridor as an infrastructure facility of significance to Queensland, the Galilee Basin and Abbot Point regions . . . be quashed''.

QCoal runs the Sonoma mine in the northern Bowen Basin

The ballsy miners took on the State Government's minister, questioned the declaration and have had it quashed and after negotiations between lawyers representing QCoal and Mr Hinchliffe with counsel for Mr Hinchliffe, in the end, not opposing the court's order in a tacit admission that the declaration had been mishandled.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall, because the reasons for the stuff up have not been released as yet, so we do not know the actual reasons for the judgement.

One thing you can be sure of, Ministers dined aboard Gina Reinhardt's luxury ship, the premier had intimate meetings with Ms Reinhardt herself, and the result was that the declaration was made and that we the Taxpayer would shell out for the acquiring of land and building a rail corridor to the Port for the transport of coal from at least the two main projects at Alpha and Kevin's Corner in the giant Galilee Basin.

This will be a blow for Bligh, she has once again come unstuck short cutting the processes to have her power demonstrated for all to see, there is no upper house to challenge her decisions, and that means no safety net to keep us taxpayers from forking out, but unfortunately for Bligh it also means no one else to blame.

There is no doubt that even though Labor Party members are very good at obeying and that we know there has been a gag order about the Queensland leadership, that the members and the rank and file are thinking and waiting for an opportunity to do to Bligh exactly what Gillard did to Rudd.

Bligh is a Lame Duck.

While Foolia promises anything and everything, Abbott won't play ball with ridicules demands of the independents

2010-09-03T19:28:00.002+10:00

While it has right from the start looked like the Gillard labor Government would be able to win the hearts of the majority of the independents and thus form a minority government, it is disturbing that some of the strange demands of all the minority party members are actually being agreed upon by Labor.

In my previous post I told how the Greens have signed a deal to form government with Labor, effectively a coalition, however I did not elaborate on the price Bob Brown had asked for his support.

One of the things on his list is allowing Gay marriage, which it seems would be considered by Labor if they form government and more likely it would be left until the change of the senate half when the Greens would hold the balance of power there and have a bill on the issue passed.

That's politics right?

Well not exactly, you see no other party including Labor had this item on their agenda, and in fact both Parties had said they have no intention in changing the marriage act to include legitimising same sex unions, so in other words instead of being majority rules which is the basis of democracy we will see a minority being able to push through distasteful (to the vast majority) legislation due to an agreement with the government.

So Bob Brown may say they have just over ten percent of the vote including preferences but in reality that does not give him the power to speak on behalf of the majority, and it certainly does not give him any sort of mandate to invoke policy on behalf of all Australians

Now I've used the example of "equal marriage rights" but it could be any of the radical policies from the greens including charging us a carbon tax or hovering like vultures over the corpses of the recently deceased to collect death duties, all of which are only voted for (if people even knew they were Greens policy, I doubt many did) 10% of the voters, not even close to a democratic majority.

So how did it all go wrong, how do we get someone like Bob Katter demanding the ethanol level in auto fuel be increased to 22% when we do not have enough good quality agricultural land available right now to feed our projected population and growing more and more cane would make us like Brazil where Rain Forest is destroyed to grow for fuel and meanwhile the countries poor struggle to get food.

It seems, against all odds that the only one with any common sense is Tony Abbott who has so far refused to accommodate a lot of the wish list items of the half dozen, power soaked wanna be deal makers cum king makers, or should that be Queen?

Could it be that Liberalism has taken a bullet for the greater majority of Australians? That we really are just still so afraid of work choices that we couldn't vote for Abbott, and yet quite obviously we did not want to continue with Labor either so we went for the lesser evil and went Greens or independents?

As they say, be careful what you wish for , you just might get it.

Further to that make a decision and make your vote count.

While people are calling for another poll, there is one man who will be screaming the house down if that looks like a possibility and that's Bob Brown who is just revelling in his self appointment as the most powerful man in Australia right now and would more than likely lose more than half his votes if another vote had to be cast.

The Gillard Brown coalition; not a surprise.

2010-09-01T20:09:00.002+10:00

It has come to pass, in the halls of power that what everyone has known and what has been denied by both for so long has now been ratified for the public to show that what we have all believed is now reality.

Labor and the Greens are now a coalition.

Bob Brown has tried in vain to have people believe that he has been bipartisan and would support either of the two major parties to form Government in this latest election where no clear majority has been evident in number of seats in the parliament, pretty much without success as Labor leader Gillard has continued to announce that she counts the Green member elect as a definite for Labor.

And to be brutal about it, Gillard was 100% correct to do so because the Greens have senators elected and due to enter the upper house in the next change over mostly due to Labor preferences, and the greens in a return deal owe Labor big time.

The question I ask is, since all the deals done with the Greens and Labor before the election were already done why all the BS from Brown and why all the outright lies?

Of course you were actually expecting another question, and here it is, why is Brown still the leader when it is most common for the Leader of a political party to come from the lower house, if in fact you have one in your party, but once you do does that not make them your leader?

The greens are very loathe to answer questions, real questions about why policy exists , about why they agree with some and reject other and so i don't expect anyone from the Greens to answer the above either.

To me it is cowardly of Bob Brown to have not signed this agreement of coalition with Labor before the election, and I just wonder how many of the faithful will remain that way and will we see future elections where Labor faithful will be handing out for both themselves and the greens when support declines.

I don't think it is healthy for the greens to be they way they were, biased in favour of Labor in so many states, but i reckon it's worse for them as part of a coalition because they have always tried to maintain a position of independence.

So what do you think, it was always obvious, but was this a good move?

PPP's and your water bill.

2010-08-06T20:19:00.003+10:00

Ten years ago pretty much no one in the community had heard of PPP's or Public Private Partnerships, and even if they had heard of them they were explained as making the cost of providing services cheaper.

That being said, how many of you have already received your new water bill?

Exactly, and how many reckon that the bill seems very high, well I do so I asked some questions by email and it took over a week to get a reply.

I have to say I was mad as a meataxe when I found that after trying to call all day I couldn't get through to talk to someone and also that after a week it came as a surprise that they had actually replied.

The thing is that the water charge is a small part of the bill, there is an infrastructure charge, a service charge and some other fees (which I had assumed would have been well and truly paid for) as well as the charge for the water used.

Pay as you use is a simple concept, and no one minds paying their fair share, but in my opinion when there is no choice, and in the case of water supply there is no choice then the charges are in effect holding us to ransom for water, there is no avoiding the charge even if you do not use any water, and they can charge whatever they like, and they now claim to be a private company and beyond question on it and state that you just need to pay up by the due date, you have no choice, and yes you can be sold up for eventual and continual non payment.

The thing is that Our State Government has discovered a money pit, and to make the whole process unquestionable they have created a PPP to protect their money grabbing and keep prying eyes out of the real details of how it works even with FOI's.

Think of how many homes are connected to water, and how much the minimum charge is and do the sums, that is a ship load of money.

One of the questions I asked was; " can I sell my rainwater back to you?" and "can I sell my rainwater to my neighbours cheaper than you charge for it" the answer to both was a predictable no because there is no choice and no choice allowed.

I also asked "how can I get in on the action?" answer: you can't, . . I mean seriously I'd love to buy in I reckon at the charges they are billing us it might be the only way I can afford to ever drink, shower, launder or cook any more, plus it will be hugely profitable, a licence to print money.

I'm really dirty on the charges, I think they are too much and I wonder about renters who live in houses owned by landlords and how they will pay, because if a landlord has half a dozen homes and the bill comes in at $200 at each residence that's a bill he probably can't absorb and will have to raise the rent to pay for, (almost $20 a week)

There are already rumblings from workers in Urban Utilities and Unity water about how they have been dumped by councils whom many have worked for over a long period of time, and expected to continue on without the usual council support behind them, e.g. the bitumen patch up crew, concrete cutters and excavation crews, not to mention planning departments to let them know exactly where services are located etc.

This is just a ripoff, and another State Government charge set to punish working families in our part of the world, and slug them with another bill they don't need or want.

Meanwhile as we pay for Bligh and Fraser's arrogant display against a citizen who subsequently brought the matter to court, they punish us with another greedy cash grab out of our wallets and purses.

Kevin'O'lemon - - - - - he's back.

2010-07-31T12:28:00.002+10:00

While union adverts flood our radio waves and TV screens full of tales of fear and woe about events that seem to be purely a figment of the unions own worst nightmares rather than reality in the typical fear campaign we are used to seeing every election, labor is also ging down the same path with their adds also telling us of the dread we should all feel if we don't vote them in.

I hate negative advertising to be honest, I want to see what they intend to do, in detail, I want to make an informed decision about how well the party i chose to validate with my vote will represent the best intents of my wishes.

I want to see what you will do not how scared you are of the opposition.

There is one ad that caught my (and in fact almost everyones ) attention, the "kevin O lemon" add it was novel, humourous, and ironic and a mirror of the truth we all know,and it was the final straw that sealed Rudds fate: well it's back, with some changes, but just as funny.

The Greens ; Environmental warriors or extreemists in disguise.

2010-07-30T22:27:00.002+10:00

When most people think of the Greens they would associate them with saving trees and Koalas and their habitat, and that going to probably be the majority of their supporters and candidates too, right?

I wonder how many of the candidates actually have gone through all the policies that the Greens stand for? because I'm damned sure the public almost knows none of them except for saving the environment and I think that's exactly the way the Greens want it to be too.

Population growth in Queensland and the resulting prosperity can be attributed to one thing almost above all others and that is the dumping of a draconian policy of taking from the dead by means of death taxes or death duties.

When they were abolished in Queensland retirees and older workers who wanted to leave their hard earned savings and assets to their chosen beneficiaries began moving into Queensland in their droves, they bought homes, they lived their life and they spent their money here in Queensland.

One of the policies in the Greens little known arsenal is the reintroduction of death taxes, sure they may claim to have some safeguards to the family home or farm and they may have a thresh hold at which the tax comes in that may mean those with little are not taxed, but it's still the most abhorrent, repugnant and divisive tax ever.

In the days of old it was required that an audit of a deceased persons asserts be taken, and the duty calculated and then by any and every means paid or a ghoul form the tax department would come to the home and do it and even order a sell up to retrieve the duty owed, as if those left behind after a death need that.

One wonders how they came up with some of the hair brained policies like reintroducing death duties, and not only cutting funding to private schools at Federal level but controlling the hiring and firing of staff and teachers there as well.

The only explanation is that the greens are not who they say they are (or deliberately allow you get the impression they are) which is the saviours of our environment, but rather they are the extreme left of labor, the ultimate Communist party and a sounding board for radical and extreme new policy.

I have a lot of time for those out there doing the hard yards in a one sided fight against progress which simply destroys our planet little by little, but I now believe the Greens have hoodwinked the majority of members and supporters and even some candidates by carefully and deliberately not coming out into the public with some of their policies.

Think twice before you put the greens into the balance of power in the senate because once that door is open, anything could go through it, even a return to death duties.

I also just want to add that anyone who thinks it's ok because it will only apply to the rich, think again because once that door is opened it's pretty easy to open it wider, also once you force those peoples relatives to sell up to pay the tax, what happens to the business they used to run now its' sold off, the people who worked there, and the future for the beneficiaries.

What happens to the self funded retirees, those who had no super, or none that has its' contributions doubled up the government, their families who are dependents on the income produced from a business or investments?

The greens have not thought this through, at all.

The greens have irrevocably shown their ties to Labor

2010-07-29T10:56:00.003+10:00

The Greens leader Bob Brown has been in the media telling of his abhorrence for preference deals, and almost in the same sentence announcing a broad base deal to give preferences to Labor.

It's no secret that the greater majority of voters also believe there is no difference between Labor and the Greens as far as policy or ideology.

There is also a school of thought that the Greens are a product of the Labor brand as a tool to position radical policy elements in front of the community and a marketing bonanza to capture the widely growing environmental awareness among voters.

Personally I believe that Green candidates stand with all good intentions, they are more that likely environmentally aware, proactive and work in their various communities on real solutions to issues at a local level.

The real issue is that the Greens are a cast net designed to grab the votes of people who don't want to vote for a continuation of what the two major parties offer and would like to see real change to government that is for the betterment of Australia as a whole and in turn our planet, they want a government perhaps that can be an example of lower impact environmentally to governments across the world.

Unfortunately that's never going to happen whilst the current crop of leaders in the Greens continue to tie themselves to Labor nationally, because it does very little to give them credibility as a true independent party.

Of course the idea of the vote deal is to try to gain the balance of power in the senate, and to that end we see some now, very confident Greens candidates getting about the place telling us all sorts of radical policies.

So getting to the point, In the seat of Hinkler around Harvey Bay, the Greens candidate appears to have quit the party over the recent preference deal, and seems intent on running as an independent.

Adrian Wone, is probably not alone among candidates who may prefer to allow voters to chose their own preference choice, in fact I know there are others but the party structure and the Australian system does not reward individuals who stand up for their principles they are marginalised with "not a team player", "radical" and "loner" tags by a system that pays Parties very well for votes.

I commend Adrian Wone for his action, I'm not against a candidate giving preferences in a certain direction, but to make a national deal is certainly not in the best interests of people where they are suffering under the pressure of labor policy.

In my opinion, if the Greens want seats, get real policy. If they want the balance of power do it on their own , campaign hard on local issues and campaign all the time not just 5 weeks before the election. Consider the majority, not the minority in general policy, e.g. the Greens claim it's unfair for the federal government to fund Private schools, they have nothing to back that up and ignore some very compelling evidence to continue. Private schools take a huge number of kids out of the state funded system (yes, all schools are funded, and private schools get ZERO funding from the states,)and that means they don't have to build more and more schools, pay more and more teachers, supply more and more facilities. The fact is that this is a policy from the Greens that is illconcieved, uninformed, socialist and detrimental to peoples freedom of choice to school their children in the manner they wish.

A Greens senator, who gets the seat on the back of Labor preferences is beholding to Labor, they owe Labor, they are effectively part of Labor. Giving the Greens the balance of power in the senate is giving Labor control of the senate.

A contribution from a local.

2010-07-29T10:46:00.002+10:00

There is only one record to break for Julia

Julia Gillard has made history as the first female Prime Minister of Australia, that will be her claim to fame, not how she got there and not as many believe for being the shortest serving PM in Australia’s history if the gamble of cutting her own leaders throat, with the backing of faction leaders and Union Power Brokers, goes awry and she is voted out.

For Julia to have been the shortest serving PM in Australia’s history, she would have to have been removed from her post any time before the early hours of July 2nd, 2010.

If she loses this election, she will become the 5th shortest serving Prime Minister.

Julia’s job has to be to convince the electorate that she is not the conniving backstabber who coldly executed PM Kevin Rudd, gave him the Judas kiss in a late night meeting which saw him not even contest the vote from the caucus in less that 24 hours and instead saw him blubber in front of media and his whole immediate family.

Julia also has been quick to use Rudd as the scapegoat (as expected) for all that ails in the vote winning process despite it being well known that she was one of the gang of four who with Rudd and swan made policy , publicized it and then handed press releases to the relevant Minister along with the media. What Rudd was, so was Gillard.

Julia will no doubt attempt to use the agreement with the miners, brokered through back downs in the new tax which served her masters in the unions who feared the loss of jobs in the mining sector to offshore operations and continue with the assertion that without her government in power we will get work choices returned by the current opposition.

Julia’s public announcement on calling the election for August 21 was very much lacking in substance, but I think we all got the campaign slogan, “Moving Forward” since she repeated it many times and spoke slowly as usual, interesting also was her appearance, a little smoother in the face (Botox maybe?) and with a fresh bright red shock and with highlights in the hair colour, her face and mouth barely moving during the delivery of the entire speech.

Julia went on the attack too, claiming knowledge about what is going to be policy from her opposite number Tony Abbott, and claiming that she knows what would have happened in an alternate reality with him as leader during the GFC where our big four made profit while the rest of the developed worlds banks lost, sometimes very heavily and that is to have our country in recession.

Julia actually looks to me to be a Star trek fan, so her claim makes perfect sense, that there could be a way of seeing into an alternate reality where the opposition didn’t support the stimulus packages in the senate, and allow Labor to claim the kudos for it and in fact be the government and not introduce it at all, in fact I can imagine Julia translating all her speeches into “Klingon” as a memory improving exercise.

Julia will probably get a big slice of the women’s vote because there is a large percentage of women who will vote for a woman just because it’s a woman, that’s in her favour, big time and she will, very much like Joh Bejelke Peterson feed the chooks and be of great interest to the various media scrums simply because she is the new kid in town.

Julia is like Joh in many ways, she talks differently almost like she is talking to first graders and her accent is broad and ockerish and almost unladylike more suited to an older country singer than a PM, she also repeats a lot sometimes more than once in case we are too slow to get it the first time.

It’s going to be a long 5 weeks.

BTW, the shortest serving PM was Francis Michael Forde, 8 days.
Earl Page 20 days, John McEwen 23 days and Arthur Fadden 40days.

Back up, . . . to Edwards Bridge.

2010-07-14T05:41:00.002+10:00

After my previous post which indirectly pointed a finger at Logan council for not wanting to spend money on much needed infrastructure below the old ( pre amalgamation ) boundary, rather they spend it wastefully on cosmetic improvements like entrance statements and other such rubbish when pot holes that can break suspension and bridges fall into such a state of disrepair that they have to put a load limit on them.

So, Edwards Bridge, falls into this category, it is in a desperate condition and I have done a little research on it's current state and it's scary.

Edwards bridge is at Greenbank, Queensland on Old Goodna Road, near Ison Road intersection, and spans a creek which can during rain carry considerable water but is quite low during dry spells.

The Bridge, if I recall correctly from Beaudesert Shire Council discussions was constructed in about 1975 (or thereabouts ) to replace a single lane one which may have been (partially) washed away.

Its construction was typical of its day, timber, what amounts to big telegraph poles were used for the abutments, to hold the span (in the middle of the creek) and for the platform. The majority of those poles are still there.

In the late 80's the platform was upgraded, off came the pole platform and bitumen topping and after a layer of metal sheeting (it resembles shed siding) as a permanent formwork concrete was poured and again a bitumen topping applied.

As of right now the bridge supports are stuffed, simple, it needs replaced right now, YESTERDAY !!!

When trucks traverse that bridge, it is a scary sight from below, you wouldn't remain under there for long as it look like splitting posts and bearers are ready to give up at any moment.

This bridge came up for discussion after heavy rains in around 1996 when some bridges constructed in a similar fashion were washed away, and it was put into a list for further investigation due to its condition being bad for its age.

Later, during the last term of the Beaudesert Shire Council, a survey of all the wooden bridges revealed that Edwards Bridge needed urgent replacement. And then we were amalgamated with Logan by force, and Logan doesn't want to spend the money.

This bridge is on a main thoroughfare, and although it's not heavily used in comparison to nearby Teviot Road, peak hours see it full and it's the shortest way to and from either end, by far.

The question I put to Council is, does someone have to get hurt, seriously hurt before you guys accept that you have to spend money below the old Logan Boundary?

Come on Logan, before there is disaster, get off your butt and do something.

Barnaby Joyce : what's the Wright angle ?

2010-06-27T21:19:00.002+10:00

When the preselected candidate for the Federal seat of Wright was found to have kept details of a case to answer from QCAT ( Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal ) of the department of Justice and the Attorney Generals office, relating to a matter where almost $2 million in proceeds from the sale of an ill man's property over whom she had power of attorney has been withdrawn from an account without satisfying the Adult Guardian that it was for the benefit of the man, caused the preselected candidate to be dis endorsed by the LNP and open the way for a new contest for what many believe is a safe seat for whom ever gains the nod to contest the election for the LNP.

Barnaby Joyce seemed to be a supporter of the initial candidate, and has been assisting her by appearing at events such as her recent wedding, and her campaign launch.

Barnaby Joyce a Queensland Senator, is currently the leader of the Nationals in the Senate and currently the shadow minister for Regional development, Infrastructure and water.

What is interesting is his push for his own chief of Staff to take over the seat of wright, and why?

We understand that a drover's dog would romp in for the LNP in that seat and it is considered a conduit seat to a career in Federal politics, and also that the new preselected candidate has run before and is quite experienced in both business and in political processes, that is not in question.

The question is why? what is it about Wright that is so interesting to Mr Joyce, why was he so supportive of the previous candidate, and why does it now seem he has put up his own candidate for preselection.

I suppose only Mr Joyce could answer, but even if he does, would we be able to understand?

The Australia Card , . . . by stealth.

2010-06-26T17:14:00.002+10:00

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On one of the darkest days Labor has ever seen, when a serving Australian Prime Minister was politically executed by his deputy and her power base of Faction leaders and Trade Union power brokers within one night of number crunching and so seamless was the deed that the now ex PM declared the position of Labor Party Leader vacant to the caucus and did not even put his hand up as a potential candidate leaving Gillard as the only nominee and thusly elected leader of the Parliamentary Labor Party and therefore also the new Prime Minister, further business went almost unnoticed later that evening in the Senate.

LABOR'S controversial electronic healthcare identifier legislation passed in the Senate the same day as Julia Gillard did the devastatingly disloyal deed to her Party Leader, however without any of the media hysteria and against the wishes of the people in terms of it's close relationship with the Australia Card which was given a resounding no by the community.

Two bills -- Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 and Healthcare Identifiers (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010 -- were passed with government amendments and after several delays.

Medicare will be equipped to start issuing a unique, 16-digit healthcare identifier to every Australian from July 1. Doctors, hospitals, healthcare organisations and allied health providers will receive similar identifiers.

So what does this mean?

It means that the government will effectively own your medical information as it will all be recorded against your number and be on their system, out on the public domain of the Internet for ease of access by the relevant people. Not You.

Those in government who are pushing it say it is needed so that the waiting lists in our hospitals will be shortened because doctors will have all our information at hand and won't be wasting time looking for it, Hello! sorry but that is all done at reception , . . before you get in the line and begin the hours of waiting.

They also say that it will stop people "doctor shopping" which means people who have a dependency on prescription drugs will go to several doctors and present with the same symptoms to get several prescriptions for their drug of choice, it won't while there are doctors who accept cash or credit cards this will continue to happen.

Further they claim that our personal health is not a privacy issue because we happily present when we are ill and the doctor and staff know us and what our ailment is, wrong, they may do , but they are not the government and they are not allowed to divulge the information to anyone else.

My Theory

One of the biggest industries in Australia would love to know our personal health history, the insurance industry.

Consider that all of our information is to be entered into the system eventually (I suspect that it will be a requirement for Doctor's offices to comply with an order to get everyone who visits their office onto the system immediately and upload their complete history at that time, and eventually upload the details of every patient they have ever seen over time) and the government permits access to that information for the purpose of verifying that the insurance claim they are about to pay out for does not stem from an undeclared pre existing condition, there's the start, they may now have access to your complete medical history, these are people (bean counters) who are not in the medical profession and who have no Hippocratic oath and are not bound by the same privacy code that medical professions are.

Further I suspect that the issuing of the 16 digit number with be followed by a card with a chip, and guess what, . . .no card, no treatment!

You will now have your Australia card. Like it or not.

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Winners are grinners, losers can please themselves.

2010-06-24T09:25:00.002+10:00

In one of the most creative pre-emptive campaign adds, which definitely struck a chord with the electorate and was hated by Labor diehards, I think because they know it's true, the Kevin O Lemon add only had to be aired for a couple of weeks before the federal Labor was gathering this morning to dump Rudd in favour of the Deputy Leader and first female PM of Australia Julia Gillard.

The slow talking Ms Gillard has been criticised for her ambitions and for being a single woman of age. She has also been criticised for her leftist leanings and for her inability to effect constructive policy during her deputy leader role where she is seen as part and parcel of the inaction that has been one of the main factors in the downfall of Rudd.

Kevin Rudd was elected on the Anti Work Choices platform, it was a vote against the previous (Howard) government and a policy in workplace relations that put the advantage firmly in the hands of employers and left employees powerless and without union backup in enterprise bargaining.

Rudd was probably the most popularly elected PM in some many years, but broken promises and back flips ( the ETS which he described as the most important moral decision, and the government paid advertising that he claims was a cancer on democracy) have seen his standings both with the community and within the party plummet recently.

Rudd is one of a very few PM's to have been put to the knife by the Party, and quite possibly will make history as the weakest PM ever, not only deposed by the party, but in his first term, and going out by not even contesting a party poll but allowing Gillard to be the only candidate after declaring the position vacant and elected unopposed.

Rudd will not be missed, and in future episodes of "Millionaire Hot seat" there will be defeated contestants saying "oh yeah I forgot about him."

It's a sad end for one so glib, one who has revelled in his world tour with his wife at the taxpayers expense, gushing like schoolgirls and basking in their self anointed world leader of importance status which did not go down well with the electorate and has gone down the same way with the party it seems.

Budget backhander to Logan ratepayers

2010-06-21T17:51:00.002+10:00

Whatever Logan is thinking I'll never know, with what could very be the largest rate rise of any council in Quieensland to smash working families finances without any real increase in service provision to justify it and if anything in our area cuts to services which have been evident since the amalgamations becoming thread bare if any.

The increase well over 7% is something that many ratepayers will struggle to afford and something that make you wonder how they (the council bean counters and councillors who vote for it)rationalise that we can afford to just keep on paying more rather than making council more efficient and cheaper to run.

A breakdown of the increase :
The residential general rate in the dollar has increased from 0.3076c to 0.3237c (as part of Council’s three-year
policy to counter-act valuation increases).
• The minimum general rate has increased $48 from $551 to $599.
• The increase of general rates and levies for the majority of ratepayers is $73, after discount. Residents who
also have garbage, will pay an additional $79 after discount.

The absolute slug to ratepayers, using what everyone knew would be used, the property valuation increases, as an excuse and the slug of the extra bin that no one wants will be a bone in the throat for many ratepayers who will consider very carefully how they vote next time around.

Our three representatives especially.

Magistrate Rodney Crisp ; Draconian and Drunk on Power ?

2010-06-21T08:59:00.002+10:00

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When cases come before a magistrate it is assumed that there will be both fairness and justice albeit within the framework of the the Magistrates jurisdiction and the limited scope of cases brought before a Magistrate.

What has come to the attention of media recently is the case of an apprentice painter who came before Rodney Crisp on a matter and was then detained in custody on the draconian charge of contempt of court relating to blowing a bubble gum bubble during the case.

Mr Crisp, charged the man with contempt and jailed him for 30 days. The man has subsequently been released on appeal to the high court by his lawyers who are pursuing his rights and entitlements on his behalf.

The charge sheet alleges the man had "scandalised" the court and "challenged its authority" by looking in the magistrate's direction and deliberately blowing and popping a bubble.

This is a case, in my opinion of a magistrate drunk on power, where it seems he is so out of touch with reality that I would question his ability to be just and fair and to hold the position of magistrate at all.

In my opinion he would have served the court better to have asked an officer to remove the man to dispose of the gum, which would have made the man look like the fool he was attempting to be rather than make a mockery of the whole court by what I believe is a draconian abuse of power and a dummy spit by a flaccid and powerless individual outside of the court.

We have to rein in the costs of holding court procedures, not increase them by making more work for more lawyers and imposing costs of detainment upon the taxpayers because some pathetic magistrate looses it.

Further, the case will more than likely have to be continued which also adds to the court costs and increases the workload of magistrates and lawyers unnecessarily.

I firmly believe that the charge of contempt needs to go, there is little doubt that quite a large number of people in the community already have contempt for the legal system and this sort of rubbish from a magistrate who already has several controversial decisions to his name is not helping.

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You think free speech is free, think again.

2010-06-16T22:38:00.002+10:00

In a recent case, that wasted expensive court time , a lot of taxpayers dollars and ended up with a result not expected by the police prosecutor, the Judge found that a common term used by a citizen would have been heard by police at the very least in fact that they would have heard and used far worse, so in that regard he found the citizen not guilty of swearing at the police officer.

This decision has incensed the Police union and the humiliated the actual officer involved (who should have just hardened up and given the citizen a quiet polite word of advice and let it go at that) and also caused the police lobbyists in Queensland to go for gold with their efforts to have police able to defend their (ears) person from verbal abuse in the form of swearing.

It appears they have been successful because it looks like the police will from late this year or early 2011, have the power to issue on the spot $100 fines for swearing in public, and between $100 and $300 for other public nuisance offences which means they no longer need to carry the burden of proof of an offence and take the matter to court, just write out a ticket potentially raising huge amounts of revenue for the state government in the process.

The burden is then on the citizen issued with the infringement notice and fine to prove to a magistrate that they did not commit the offence, which will be pretty difficult unless you happen to be in the presence of several credible and motivated (so they will come to court and make a statement on your behalf) witnesses.

This is really becoming a police state when in a one on one encounter with police you can be fleeced on the strength of the officers say so that what you may have said was considered swearing in public.

So the question remains , what ever happened to free speech? did we actually ever have it or was it just something we imagined would be good?

In effect the legislation will make the spoken word up to the interpretation of a police officer as to whether it constitutes a public nuisance or not.

Now I'm no rocket scientist but I hardly think police are qualified to establish the context of a cuss, the syntax of a cuss within a sentence or distinguish swearing from a word in a foreign language, in fact they leave themselves wide open to racism allegations if they ticket an ethnic Australian who has a name or word that an officer thinks is a swear word, but in the ethnic language clearly is not.

You have to wonder at how soft police are getting when they can't get over the fact that a judge decided that they should be used to hearing words like "prick" from the general public and that it was not offencive for a citizen to call a police person by that term.

I think Bligh is on a winner with this one because people swear all the time, and think nothing of it, in fact it's part of every tradies vocabulary if you go onto a building site.

I'm not in any way advocating that we as a society accept swearing as part of our daily verbose, or that we remove the unspoken rule that we keep it for the boys, but this seems over the top and another revenue raiser to me.

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ISRAEL, NOW ADDS PIRACY TO IT'S ARSENAL

2010-06-01T17:06:00.002+10:00

If the reports from international and Australian journalists are correct, and I believe they probably are, then Israeli military people aboard gunship helicopters and with support vessels boarded whilst armed with automatic assault weapons, a ship in international waters, and that is piracy.

There has been video of the boarding in which the Israel military drop down from the gunship on ropes with guns in their hands onto the deck of a peace envoy headed for the coast, but still in international waters, their mission to deliver aid supplies and make the world aware of the unbearable hardship the Israeli (and more recently Egypt) Blockade is forcing upon civilians in Gaza, particularly women and children.

Reports are that there are 19 who have been shot by Israeli military personnel and of course the Israelis are claiming only 9.

There is no doubt that the Israelis went out to the ship with the intent to make an example or at the very least an incident that would deter others from doing the same.

The video is said to show soldiers dropping to the deck and being mobbed by protesters who used deckchairs and metal objects even sticks to try and force the soldiers to rethink the boarding, apparently even throwing one pathetic soldier overboard.

I have received some very nasty emails responses to my previous blogs about the Israel war on its neighbour, and have had accusations of anti semitism, of purporting a hate crime, and even of using this issue to attack a local person, all of which I strenuously deny, and to that end i removed each comment as they came and did not reply to the emails. However I defend my right to take a position as an independent observer, and report stories as they occur and unfortunately they seem to occur more about Israel attacking Gaza than the other way around.

I have to say I believe Israel's sinking to this new low, an act of international piracy, surely must have the USA looking to withdraw some of its military backing that makes the Israeli attacks on Gaza seem like Godzilla stepping on an ants nest.

The ULDA takes over Yarrabilba and Flagstone as Logan fails to deliver.

2010-05-26T06:57:00.003+10:00

Yarrabliba and Flagstone could begin by the end of 2011.

This link was sent to me from one of the locals around here who is part of a group that keeps an eye on the goings on in the community as far as government at all levels and their decisions effects on lifestyle, environment and amenity, I thought you might be interested.

The link above gets you to the article in the local paper and from it you can get all the information as far as it is known.

It seems that Logan council has not delivered the goods quickly enough for a money hungry State Government who gifted them a huge portion of Beaudesert in the amalgamations and assumed that the two estates would be given the green light, in return.

Logan has dropped the ball, they weren't going to allow these major development areas to compete with one in the old Logan (Park Ridge MDA) and hadn't planned to get them going before it was well established, if not finished.

People who have invested millions in the Park Ridge area will be counting their return going backwards about now, Knowing how the other developers move once the projects are started.

I guess the work is just too hard over at Springfield, and easier country is being looked at for that developer.

Bligh is trying to sell the idea with one of the developers own lines calling the housing estates "masterplanned communities" which is demonstrative of the relationship between the Labor government and the developers.

Communities are not for sale through developers, communities are made up of people, when will governments realise that?

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Logan ; lets talk Roads and Bridges.

2010-05-21T17:54:00.002+10:00

We've probably all read the absolute bullshit coming out of Logan Council about the closure of Edwards Bridge on the Greenbank to Springfield road, and the extra expense it will add to truck owners and to add the extra fuel use, carbon emissions and tyre and engine particulates pushed into the environment.

Logan actually appears to be waging a war against Truckies at the moment with new draconian parking regulations complete with charges to park on your own property and now with this unthinking and uncaring closure for vehicles above 15ton GVM.

Now we're seeing the closure of a section of Chambers Flat Road between School Road and Koplick Road in Logan Reserve for an upgrade of the surface and adding wider shoulders , for a period of about 3 months assuming whether allows.

Ok so why is this making my Blog? well you may ask.

I don't know about you but it is highly suspicious that the Chambers Flat Road upgrades/repairs stop at the boundary of old Logan and the Edwards Bridge is also outside old Logan and it seems that there is a conscious decision not to spend one cent outside old Logan.

The worst part of Chambers Flat Road is actually between Koplick and Logan Reserve roads where trucks often need to still get a wheel off the road to allow another wide vehicle to pass, it is bumpy and pot holed and has large trees within a couple of meters of the carriageway in places, and yet Logan aren't going to do anything to it, instead they will do up a wide part which is to be fair not in the best condition but not anywhere near as bad.

People in the old North of Beaudesert are being short changed, charged full rates even though receiving almost zero services and when road upgrades come they are left out in the cold.

The local councillor is Phil Pidgeon and if you have questions as to why we are being avoided when it comes to spending money, I suggest you contact him.

philpidgeon@logan.qld.gov.au or 3412 5402

If you want to make a complaint about roadworks in general, the responsible chair is Ray Hackwood.

rayhackwood@logan.qld.gov.au or 3412 4471

It is obvious we are being set up to just continue to pay so that fat cats like the CEO and his deputies can get awards and reap huge salaries while we get ripped off big time, the amalgamations have left us worse off in fact we'd be better off if Brisbane amalgamated Logan now. Is that too wild a thought?

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40% Federal govt. mining tax, . . more harm than good?

2010-05-21T14:17:00.003+10:00

Like everyone I've been waiting to see how Rudd, Gillard and Swan would try to sell us the mining tax at 40%, but other than the initial communist line that they are digging up wealth that belongs to all Australians so wee should profit from it rather than just a few mining magnates, I've seen no good reason that we will be better off.

Firstly consider this, every time a new tax is applied, the taxpayers have to pay for it as the end user of services and products.

Ok so in that context, Ruddy taxes miners at 40% and puts the money into consolidated revenue to pay back the debt accrued by handing out $900 to everyone and to fund the nation building program, end of story? I don't think so.

When you read their statements you automatically think of the giant Bauxite miners, the coal giants or the iron ore millionaires, but wait, there's more, every quarry , every driller and every small extrusion also are classified as miners and will be taxed as such.

What does that mean for the ordinary man in the street?

Well for one thing it means that the price of any and every quarry supply, and in turn everything made from it will go up by about 40%
.Soil, sand and gravel
.Bricks and tiles
.wall sheeting
.cement
.landscape supplies
.pots and stones
.do I need to continue?

I would suggest that almost everything will increase in price and you and I will pay the 40% tax to Rudd, Gillard and Swan, not the miners who will still drive fancy imported cars, live in mansions and take home their million dollar bonuses, it will be you and I who are worse off, again as usual.

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Rats, . . . deserting the stinking ship.

2010-05-21T10:38:00.002+10:00

The fallout from the quitting of McLindon and Messenger has begun to settle with the party and the public left wondering what actually went down and a very coy McLindon still throwing buckets rather than admitting he was reacting to being chastised for disloyalty.

When the Party put up those big dollar campaign funds to get him elected, endorsements, introductions to people of substantial wherewithal as far as wealth and ability to fund campaigns also, and provided a very good infrastructure to back a candidate in a seat where that particular party is the flavour the people are looking for regardless of the name on the voting card, McLindon was happy to use what he they could offer to get elected.

As of today, we are privy to another desertion of the LNP ranks, in a relatively unknown Darren Power, another Logan Councillor who along with McLindon, Ban and Black were members of the LNP and councillors at Logan. With the exception of Black who it seems is to marry Ban (a city slicker, career politician and spinster looking to be elected in a safe Nationals rural seat,) they have all dumped their divisions to run for other office positions (Power has just announced it)

It seems that the ardor with which the LNP selected younger, semi profiled people to try to alter the image of the older looking Country Party type membership profile has come around to kick them in the bum, and may quite probably see Labor again win the Federal and state elections, no matter whether seats are won by some of the new LNP candidates or not.

As the bail out of LNP members continues, and looking at the trend on cannot for a minute expect more bailouts in the future, particularly those who are affiliated like McLindon, Power and Ban; and even if Ban states that it will not happen, she has already stated that she would not dump her division and run again for a federal seat and yet she has done just that and with a history of lying about loyalty you'd have to suspect her to get elected and then quit the party to join MCLindon and Messenger's new congregation of independents when (if) it gets up.

I expect that the Party is now examining Ban very closely, and looking at the past to try to decide if she is worthy of continued support, but she has the ability to convince older males of anything, somehow, so I expect she will remain as the candidate for now.

If I were part of the Liberal side of the LNP I'd be looking to close the Lib ranks and distance myself from the imploding National Party side.

With the old North Beaudesert right in the middle of this Party self destruction we are probably going to miss out big time while the political players put themselves, their careers and their greed above what should be their desire to serve the community.

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The Money or the Box.

2010-05-14T21:49:00.002+10:00

The recent very public split from the new LNP by two elected representatives has left questions and has also allowed some to go off half cocked in either support or attack about the reasons and the follow up from it.

But after seeing some clips on TV that were edited out of an interview (for some reason) there may be a simple answer to the question of "why quit?"

After the also very public deputy leadership challenge on Springborg by McLindon and supported by Rob Messenger which showed a complete lack of loyalty, understanding of machinations or grasp of the party membership and numbers, the playmates were put out to Coventry it seems, relieved of any useful roles and banished to keep them quiet and save the party leadership team from further publicity.

But according to these clips, there could have been more, because it seems that punishment was to continue and more, there was a request that money be given (i think i recall the sum of $12,000) to help win marginal seats.

I'm guessing that was the straw that broke the camel's back, after all we have seen other LNP candidates (even before the creation of the LNP) campaign while still taking their salary from another public office, ( McLindon did not, because the rules governing State elections require a prior public office to be vacated before becoming eligible to be elected to the State ) in what can only be described as utter greed.

Could it be so simple? asked to donate some of the big bucks that State MP's get for relatively little effort, . . and they spat the dummy? well we are asking the question now aren't we?

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The Unions, . . . . and Work Choices.

2010-05-11T21:49:00.003+10:00

We all know there will be a Federal election before the years end, there has to be, so it's no surprise that some candidates are already on the campaign trail reving up supporters and helpers and generally letting the general voters know they are around, in some cases at the expense of their day time job and people who depend on them.

Anyone who watches TV will have begun to see adds about Work Choices, adds by the unions and they intimate that if elected a conservative government will re-introduce the controversial legislation.

This is important, because the John Howard led conservative government was voted out for one main reason and that was Work Choices which was perceived by workers in general as putting their job security in jeopardy and handing more of the power balance to employers than ever before.

Further, it seemed that with unions not required to get enterprise bargaining agreements between employers and employees union membership was beginning to wane, . . . big time.

As far as I can see, Labor, and it's glib, smirking, gushing leader who won the election on a promise to get rid of Work Choices have really only made one significant change to it, and that is to allow workers to have union representation for and during ETA's if they want to.

Many believe that this was only a measure to keep what is an outdated and irrelevant (since they were required to be registered with the government and fulfill a lot of other restrictive regulations brought out by a previous Labor government who had a leader who cried more times than the current one has honoured promises) body alive to raise money for future Labor election campaigns.

And there you have it, we basically still have Work Choices with a few little alterations to appease the unions, and now in return we have the usual million dollar union scare campaign on our TV's and radio's telling us the sky will fall if we don't vote Labor.

Personally I'm sick of labor having all the advantage in elections, they have their own votes, the greens votes and the unions telling every worker how bad it's going to be under a conservative Government.

We really need to look at the wording of union adds carefully, because they don't actually say we have any benefit from voting Labor , they are just a scare campaign, and totally not in the spirit of democracy.

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The Brimble verdict, what is it saying to us?

2010-05-02T09:21:00.002+10:00

In July 2007, after a 66-day inquest, New South Wales Deputy State Coroner Jacqueline Milledge ruled there was enough evidence to charge known persons over her death.

Letterio Silvestri and Ryan Kuchel pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice, while Wilhelm was charged with manslaughter and supplying a prohibited drug.

The jury has been told the Brisbane mother died after consuming a toxic combination of alcohol and the drug GHB - also known as fantasy or liquid ecstasy - hours after boarding the P&O cruise ship Pacific Sky in September 2002.

She was found naked on the floor of a cabin belonging to Wilhelm, with whom she had earlier had sex.

The New South Wales Supreme Court jury of seven women and five men retired last Tuesday after a four-week trial, with Justice Roderick Howie urging them to "be courageous''.

After accepting Wilhelm's guilty plea to supplying Brimble with the GHB, judge Roderick Howie attacked the 2006 inquest, presided over by Deputy State Coroner Jacqueline Milledge, describing it as inciting a trial by media based on rumour, conjecture, hysteria and prejudice.

"The coronial inquiry was, to the extent to which I am aware of it, unfortunate in that it allowed a lot of material -- which ultimately was irrelevant -- to be exposed to the media," Justice Howie said.."

You readers may already have an idea that I personally believe the legal system we have in Australia is designed to deliver a lot of money to Judges, Barristers and lawyers, and certainly not about giving the people real justice.

This is a case where I believe we see that so apparently that the courts involvement is an embarrassment to justice, and the judges comments are an afront to human dignity and an oafish, personal enditement of the character of a judge who appears to believe the defendents "story" (calling it evidence) and disregarding all the other statements collected from countless others which refutes, dissagrees, and points to inconsistancies in the defence.

What seems to be a case of a group of predatory men out to drug a woman for their own gratification, sexual use and humiliation has come undone and only a few paltry charges remain, perverting the course of justice (lying under oath?) and supply a dangerous drug. (GBH)

The recording of an almost unconcious woman participating in acts with the men, apparently in no condition to give concent, not relevent.

The statements by many other women saying they were harrassed by the men and offered a "private party", not relevent.

The statements by relatives that the victim was seeking a headache releif, not relevent.

The statements by relatives that the defendant was not of the character to agree to the ensuing events of that night, not relevent.

The list goes on, the judge seems to have only considered the statements of men who could be in serious trouble if events occurred as they seemed to rather than as they have told the court they did.

Consider this story, a woman , a little bit drunk and happy, is heading out of a common area seeking a panadol, when she encounters a man who says he can give her one, she's in a good mood and has no reason to distrust another passenger and accepts his offer of help.

They say she agreed to it all, she is not there to defend herself, she could have agreed to "take a panadol" and they could have given her GBH.

The rest of the nights events are said by the Judge to have been concentual, sex with at least one of the men, recordings of gross indecent acts and sexual depravity, humiliation both verbal and physical, and all of it whilst she appeared to be almost unconcious, yet the judge seems to be saying that she had agreed to it.

We need to put a stop to judgements like this, if there is no evidence a judge should reject the case on that basis, not make statements that say it's ok to do what these men quite obviously seem to have done, and got away with doing.

The judge in my opinion is an abomination to justice, . . I hope the bastard sleeps well with his blood money.

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Housing prices skyrocketing, but not just in Australia.

2010-04-30T20:20:00.002+10:00

We have heard in the press and TV media that foreigners with money or with cheap interest rates available are buying up in our market and forcing up prices and making the Australian Dream of owning ones own home almost a fairy tale.

Realistically it's quite possible that this is indeed the case as we've just gone through a few of the fastest growth years for house building, immigration and availability of finance.

Young people trying to get into their first home took advantage recently of a boosted First home owners grant which when it first came out could be the total deposit for the purchase of an owner occupied first home.

That is not the case now, and even as the boost to the grant was cut down to half and then no boost at all numbers of applicants were becoming lower as house prices spiralled upwards and out of the reach of those young buyers due to inability to service the higher loan amount as well as lenders getting twitchy and mortgage insurers almost point blank refusing to guarantee more than 95% of the loan amount (in traditional loan scenarios)

Funny though, sales have been doing OK and they seem to be pushing auctions and there are usually some phone bidders pushing the prices up until local interest wains, . . . .so what's going on?

Today, a very small news item has appeared, and I recalled reading a while ago that China's richest woman has made her wealth from (apart from the inherited money from her father; millions) by buying up as much property as she possibly can and then reselling it at a marked profit.

Beijing city limits home buyers to one new apartment

THE city of Beijing has issued rules limiting families to one new apartment purchase as authorities try to rein in rampant property speculation and soaring prices, China's state media reported today.
The order by the capital's authority is the latest in a series of moves it has taken as it tries to reduce the risk of the red-hot real estate market overheating and derailing the booming economy

Ok I know this blog has ended up being a bit of a mixed bag, but I wanted to make a point that while we are constantly being told that our interest rates need to go much higher to control spending which increases inflation, what seems to have happened is that it has revealed our market to a buyer who can access money at a far cheaper interest rate that we can.

Further, if buyers in other countries cannot get property in their own country, they will quite probably look elsewhere, you can never have enough money , can you?

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The future for Logan, . . it's bad bad news for the old North Beaudesert.

2010-04-24T06:49:00.002+10:00

I was shocked and dismayed to see the front page of a Local free paper telling me the future is here, stunned in fact because the cartoon adorning the article shows so many things that many locals have been constantly seeking answers to, as recently as a month or so ago at the information sessions for the Park Ridge Major Development Area information sessions, and have been told that there is no such information available because those things are 20 to 30 years into the future.

Keeping the community in the dark seems to be the MO for Logan and always has, but this time I believe they have gone too far and are now actually deliberately keeping what should be available to the community from them.

Unfortunately the thinkers in Logan all have ideas that are formed in the last century, and I mean in the middle of it. They cannot grasp concepts like limitations on resources, like peak oil, like traffic congestion, like carbon footprint or like sustainability; worse is that they have very good people in the community who know a great deal about the environment at a local level, about flora and fauna and about conservation, saving our river systems and sustainable planning.

Logan's media personalities are of course at it, flat out blowing their own trumpet and telling us how it's going to be with State member telling us about transport hubs we can walk to and commercial areas, industrial areas and improved infrastructure spreading west and south as far as Logan's jurisdiction extends.

We know that Logan was given our area because of the Beaudesert Shire Town Plan which was restrictive of ad hoc development which includes master planned satellite types plonked indiscriminately here and there where no infrastructure or services exist and we know that Logan has always had a develop at any cost mentality with out rules or even consideration of the existing communities wants and needs, let alone the removal of their amenity or the natural surroundings.

John Mickel, the State Representative, typically tells us all he can. it's old school blundering through with promises of new highways, some shops and some jobs way out west with maybe a school or hospital thrown in later. His ideas are in the realm of prehistoric, he doesn't even have the ability to think in the modern world he is just pushing what he knows from when land was plentiful and so was fuel, resources and everything else.We know John has been given a retirement role in the Government where he doesn't affect decision making any more, but he is definitely showing his age in these comments.

To read a report on the net by a councillor was like reading something my grandfather would have said to me when I was a young child, it was obvious that even the younger representatives are either so involved with development or so dependent on old people for their information that they just don't have anything new to say, or even credible in my opinion except to continue the raising of everything in our rural area and the building of more urban sprawl, with a few trinkets like a cinema to keep the new residents happy.

To read that Woodridge will become the next West End is just lunacy, to read (and I wonder what the West End residents would like to say about it) that a few years ago you wouldn't want to live in West End is crazy, the area has been highly sought after for more than 30 years by those in the know and for at least 20 years it has been one of the best examples of owners remaining to redevelop their own property and new owners rebuilding and renovating in the same style to maintain the character of the area which boasts high density urban development with units and medium rise spread across the area and with commercial and industrial areas remaining despite land costs. The Councillor's opinion is typically politically motivated and should be dismissed as irrelevant, uneducated and inconsistent with the environment, the community and the wants and needs of the general community.

Then we come to Mr. "Opinion for Hire" Bernard Salt, who appears with a 20 year old picture of himself, and calls rural land owners "hermits" unless they agree with his demographics which we have seen can be manipulated to suit any who wish to pay the man to get the results they want, that is the man who can provide figures that say interest rates are low, that population growth is wanted by the majority and that despite us having our own opinion, we are wrong to have it. He goes on to say , and it's in the same old fashioned realm as the two previous mentioned, that we are to develop on a model that was used to develop Canberra, yep you know when that was built don't you.

Canberra, by the way , has to be one of the most boring cities anywhere in the world, it is flat. wide spread urban sprawl with indistinguishable streets with similar homes and landscaping and nothing really that stands out at all and it's probably on the the easiest places to get lost in and the hardest to get around and find you r way because nothing is recognisable as different, it's depressing.

Bernard Salt wants to insult those who oppose becoming Australia's second Canberra, and tells us we should go to Toowoomba to escape, but what he really means is shut up stop trying to put logical reasons and good knowledge up in opposition to stupid, old fashioned planning, and just go away , somewhere , anywhere, you're hermits , don't bother us, who will be making a hell of a lot of money out of this all.

Please have your say, don't let these few lowbrow, little Hitlers, who want to be your dictators tell you to shut up and leave, you have a rights, get together with locals put up some good arguments and protect your rural investment, your amenity and our local flora and fauna from these idiots.

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Did the Police orchistrate the "HIT" on carl Williams ?

2010-04-22T09:10:00.002+10:00

Consider a territory was where one of the gangs is sanctioned by the government, one gang has been known to run drugs, launder cash, beat people, and go even further with the sanctioning by having power over all citizens without having another body to limit their activities or even keep the bastards honest.

Such a gang does exist, it was virtually called that, a gang, in the documents from the Fitzgerald enquiry into corruption, many years ago; that gang is called "the police"

Gangs often have turf wars and often they get it wrong and an innocent gets in the way and a tragedy occurs, often its just a series of eye for an eye killings from two rival gangs that make headlines, and the media just loves it because it sells.

The arrest of Carl Williams took a long time, a lot of investigation, and at the end of the day, someone to grass him it seems, because the police are really either not up to actually catching criminals, or just can't be bothered most of the time and rely really on unequivocal evidence from someone to get the job done.

Carl Williams used body guards when he was a free man, they went everywhere with him, he knew he was a target and a big one, so once arrested he was kept in maximum security, for his own protection and further his accompanying inmates were screened very carefully .

But why was he being treated so specially, and so well in prison?

Well a spokesperson, one would have to guess from the police, leaked to the press that they(the police) were paying Carl William's child's school fees, and a considerable amount to his ex wife and to him possibly as well.

That was Sunday.

With the news that Carl was getting money from the cops hitting the newspapers, within a day he was dead, and the rumours were that he had done a deal, assumed that he was inside for the rest of his life, and wanted to look after his kin and was giving information to the police in exchange for cash.

Now the police have been in the crime business for a while, and you'd reasonably expect them to know that the eventuating or releasing information to the press that someone was assisting them with names would be lethal to that person, no doubt about that.

Further consider that Carl had no more names to give, or that his price had become too high, or that he was thinking the risk of giving more information was becoming too high, whatever; or even that the police just didn't want to pay any more money.

It's simple to use the system you're in, the criminal system or the underworld as they call it, to do the job you can't be seen doing, and that is to remove the problem, that way you don't have to deal with it.

So it's a big question, but a reasonable one, the police must have known that by releasing details of financial dealings with an inmate would lead to further consequences, or in underworld terms, a HIT.

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The Biggest backflip, sheer desperation.

2010-04-16T13:44:00.003+10:00

As Bligh's popularity plummets to depths not seen since the end of the Joh era, it seem there is, in her mind, one safety rope still dangling down to her from the edge of the abyss, Daylight savings.

So with the kind of backflip you'd expect from someone with far longer legs, she has donned the athletics gear and announced a referendum on daylight savings in a couple of time zones and wants the public to discuss it at length and form their own opinions about it.

You see, Daylight savings has seemed popular in the city area of South east Queensland where Labor has always got nearly all of its seats, and it's now become a bandwagon that a desperate Bligh cannot resist just one quick ride on.

Of course there are skeptics out there who would say the very idea of putting forward an idea that you have previously and often dismissed outright as never going to happen is now there to hide things like the failings in the health care of Queensland and of course the fire sale of almost every income producing asset owned by the people of Queensland without their consent.

And I have to say it appears to be working too, with everyone either supporting or denouncing the idea, and vigorously too.

I honestly don't believe industry and retail who claim they are missing out on millions by being out of sync with the southern states, if it is that critical that you align your business to the times used interstate then that's what you do, you don't need to change your clock to do it either, if it's that important you just get up an hour earlier and get it done.

To those who impassioned that they will utilise the extra hour of evening to go to the beach etc, you can do it now, except you just start and hour earlier (beating the traffic) and knock off an hour earlier (again beating the traffic) and do it.
My guess though is that if you need everyone else to have to change times because you're too lazy to start and finish an hour earlier then you're probably too lazy to even get off the couch and go anyway.

The ones I feel sorry for are those who start early already, and those with young kids. Th ones who start very early and work outdoors actually benefit from an extra hour early in the day with less direct overhead sun, but they probably can't get to sleep early enough because it's still light and hot. Similarly those with kids, it's hell, and I've been there.

At the end of the day this is just a smokescreen, designed to get a sector of the community, lets call them the lazy selfish ones, to think she's actually going to do this for them and not for her own salvation.

WWF . . . what the hell are they thinking?

2010-04-11T21:09:00.002+10:00

The blundering and loose lipped buffoon voted into a safe seat due mainly to a high profile 80's singing career even after stating on a national high rated TV current affairs type show that he'd never keep any of the promises made before the election after Labor wins it, has been given another award he does not in my opinion, deserve.

FEDERAL Environment Protection Minister Peter Garrett has received an award for his "life's passion and work" from international environment group World Wildlife Fund with WWF Australia chief executive Greg Bourne saying Mr Garrett received the Leaders for a Living Planet award for his environmental work both before he entered politics and since he became a minister.

Good lord, are the WWF mad?

Did they just give an environment award to the man who approved a pulp mill, known to be of the worst type of polluters in existence, for one of Tasmania's pristine areas and which it seems will allow the harvest of old growth trees until plantation timber is of useful size.

And did they just give this award to the man who approved the pressurised pumping of acid down bore holes into uranium deposits to dissolve the radioactive mineral which can then be pumped to the surface and harvested, meanwhile acid and radioactive material has the potential to pollute the fragile water table of South Australia

And did they just give this award because Garrett has allowed use of his name and profile to other environmental groups (including WWF)

yes to all the above.

This is a real slap in the face to real fair dinkum hard working hands on conservationists who are working hard with very limited or self generated resources to achieve some very good results.

This pathetic award almost seems to be out of step with the expectations of those who donate to WWF either time or money and worse seems to make environmental activity seem pointless if awards and recognition are given to those who cause more environmental damage then the real environmentalists can put back.

We'll never fix the forests in Tasmania and well never fix the water table in South Australia, not in a million years.

I can only assume this is a politically motivated award since it's not too long until the election and Labor are not doing too well and they probably want to assure the Minister for " Batts are burning" doesn't get the boot and have to reform Midnight "foil"

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Why become a federal politician, a million good reasons.

2010-04-11T10:48:00.002+10:00

We all sit back and wonder why someone who seems to "hate" so much, seems to be using position and influence to hurt community and seems to be so unhappy with themselves that they are resorting to any and all means to alter themselves.

I'm not going into "haters" in this story, or community bullying and manipulation and certainly not even touching enhancement or removal of ones own self, at all, because even with all of that which you'd probably love to hear about, there are a million other reasons to become a federal politician, all of them . . . . Dollars.

Yep it's all about greed. cutting the BS and the glib lies about serving the community, it's about filling the back pocket, end of story.

In an article, the local paper reveals:

THE cost of a keeping a single federal MP has become a million-dollar a year burden to taxpayers - the same price as a luxury Lamborghini supercar.
The average salary of MPs is now $180,000 a year, but the real cost is more than five times that - with a string of entitlements totalling $721,000 and a further $164,000 a year spent keeping tabs on the cost.

Entitlements federal politicians receive include airfares, chauffeur-driven vehicles, travel allowances, ministerial salary top-ups, electricity and electorate office rentals.

The politicians' entitlements have become so complex that 315 bureaucrats are now employed fulltime in the Department of Finance to make sure the country's 226 federal MPs are properly paid and equipped. This includes paying 1700 political staffers - nearly eight staff for each MP - costing taxpayers $99,000 each on average, or another $169 million, according to the Department of Finance.

They haven't even included the sumptuous surroundings in which federal MP's work or the catering, drinks, etc. or the provision of tools, electronics , software, publicity, and you can easily double the figure the get if you add these on.

There is a proposal to do away with some of the allowances because of the cost of monitoring the claims for them, (it seems that many politicians claim everything, and then just take what they can get away with, rather than only claim for what they do, so monitoring and checking needs to be done to keep the system honest and the checking costs a hell of a lot of money in itself. The replacement idea is to just give the pollies a lump sum and let then go buy a couple of investment homes with it, oops I mean use it in the way they best deem it needs to be spent, cut out the monitoring and save the taxpayer some big dollars.

But really, is this just pandering to the greed even more, I think so. Personally I think they should be punished severely if they claim something they're not entitled to, sacked perhaps, I mean they should set an example, we pay a lot of tax to keep them don't we?

So it turns out that all the pontification about helping the public, representing the community, and sacrificing for public life is a crock of shit, they're In it for the money and it's big big money. no wonder they are willing to take people to court with any and every allegation, to keep the hand in the public purse.

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The Reserve Bank , . . . again.

2010-04-03T08:49:00.002+10:00

The last blog about the Reserve didn't seem to enthuse you much, but I'm just so annoyed at the arbitrary way we are treated, and how they make decisions which cannot be based on the reasons they tell us they are based on.

It is predicted that interest rates for Reserve Bank money will increase by another 25 basis points (a quarter of a percent) as a result of Tuesdays monthly meeting, and I feel , going on what I'm reading in the press that that is going to be the case.

The reasoning has been given that the housing market is beginning to grow and sales are yielding greatly increased prices and auction clearances are improving.

Bullshit!

Mr Glenn Stevens, has been in the press making statements in the last few days that are worrying to say the least, to me they reveal an agenda to exclude ordinary Australians from the housing market by allowing either prices to rise above affordability or interest rates to become unserviceable on basic wages and salaries.

A look at Auctions will tell anyone who's keen on property investment that the majority of lower and mid range properties have a plethora of phone bidders from overseas and many foreign buyers in the actual crowd and in the last 3 months those I've attended have in the majority been sold to a foreign buyer, this is backed up be recent reports by the real estate institute, and reports on network TV current affairs programs.

OK, so if it is the case that foreign investors are still buying, and bidding against each other, with easy to obtain, low interest overseas money, and driving the prices up in doing so, how can raising the local home loan rate do anything but keep Aussies out of the market?

Has the Reserve, Mr Stevens, or any of the board really, looked at the retail sector trend as opposed to credit card debt, to bank sector figures of debt repayment directly from credit cards, I think not.

Mr Stevens, it seems, is so out of touch, so insulated from what it's like to be a battler, and so engaged in doing the work of the government agenda he follows, that he doesn't care how many Aussie battlers have to give up their home, struggle to keep them , or even go without to do so, he doesn't give a tinkers cuss, after all he manages his mortgage pretty well on his million dollar salary.

Mr Stevens, it seems to me that you need to be sacked and replaced by someone who has Australia's interests at heart, by someone who is not a traitor (as I believe personally that you are) and by someone who can work out that if the community of Australians are forced out of home ownership and into renting from rich overseas investors, then by your own workings out, interest will continue to rise as they all have to furnish rental houses most likely on credit, but with significant increases to the retail sector, another one of your lame triggers for increasing rates.

It's time we had the reserve work for the good of the public, it's time our banks actually worked for the money they make in the billions, it's time our rates matched the rest of the world, and Aussie property was available to Aussies and affordable to them without the banks bleeding you dry to own it.

Sorry Mr Glenn Stevens, but in my opinion you are a traitor and a fool.

Pariah's on the reserve bank board.

2010-03-04T20:49:00.002+10:00

The battlers on the lower pay scales have recently got a pay rise, quite a small one too, most in their own EBA's gained about $20 a week, not much is it considering how everything seems to be going up.

What does sickens me is how out of touch these big shots at the Reserve Bank seem to be because within a week or two of getting this latest pay rise the Reserve lifts the cash rate by a quarter of a percent, effectively ripping your pay rise right out of your hand and gifting it to themselves for fat bonuses.

I know well the theory of monetary policy and I'm old enough to have seen the worst uncontrolled examples of monetary policy applied defensively and the damage it can do to the general wage earner.

I also know that in real terms monetary policy is the only tool they have in their arsenal to control inflation and keep the current account from blowing out in huge proportions.

However, it seems to me that they have erred in their calculations of how growth indicators are performing due to manipulation of statistics and data to show real growth where stability is really what's occurring, particularly in the building sector where growth does not appear to be happening if you count slabs on ground but growth has occurred if you count new loan applications due to people who own their property having to refinance to put personal money into their businesses, or renovate rather than buy new.

the reading of the data can be interpreted either way, it's guess work when you're up at lofty peaks in your tower looking down on the workers and saying Let them eat cake, isn't it.

Reds are under the bed, ok.

2010-02-25T20:22:00.002+10:00

Australia's most prominent political "ranga" has come up with a scheme ( is that how you spell scam )which she is trying to sell as a device to protect the identity and privacy of those being educated in Australia by issuing them an identification number so they can access a government website to see how they're going.

And I suppose if school children are slower at walking, at noticing large moving objects that might intersect their chosen course, to the point where we've had to reduce the speed limit by up to half outside schools then the chances they are also not able to assess just how they're doing at school.

Our "ranga" is without doubt a communist, and this issuing of a number to replace the identity of our children as far as the government is concerned is straight out big brother stuff and will continue through out their life becoming part of their TFN and then probably carved onto their tombstone.

I'm trying to keep this short, but really is the only answer this government has to any and every situation to bring out a website ? get over it, we don't need it, or want it.

And while we're on the subject, I've never met anyone who was happy to get carted off in an Ambulance to hospital, but now they can see just how their stay is going to pan out before they go by logging onto another government website that rates their hospital and gives information about how many medical accidents have occurred and more.

Now people are stressed out when they go to hospital, they don't need the added stress of knowing that one in a hundred patients with heart problems has a leg amputated by mistake. Not that that event will actually happen, but you get my drift.

People need to log off these government websites in droves, seriously. they are going to turn you into someone you won't like and turn our democracy into a country that is more communist that Russia.

Two thirds of the old Beaudesert unrepresented, again.

2010-02-17T08:20:00.002+10:00

Logan, Queensland, Australia, and the people of Division 11, Division 10 and Division 4 are left unrepresented by their councillors, something that many residents, particularly in 11 and 4, claim is a common occurrence with representatives missing meetings to avoid declaring conflicts of interest, and to pursue personal career opportunities.

The recent meeting where the issue of Pay rises for councillors was discussed, was held not long after another meeting which was attended by the three aforementioned councillors but in a strange twist they claimed their absence was a protest about concocting a plan to secure the pay rise by stealth, according to the news reported locally in a quote from Cr Ban. The twist is that previously she had in the media accused the rest of the councillors of attempting to reject the pay rise to stop the non chairing councillors from keeping in step with the recommendations from the independent tribunal. Confused? well so am I,

As far as being a spokesperson for salary, and considering the rise would see the city’s 13 elected representatives each pocket an extra $3050 to $5170 a year, and that the base pay without car, unlimited fuel allowance, phone , laptop, telecom services paid, office staff, and facilities, and probably other allowances is already around the $100,000 mark with the amalgamation loading, you'd think someone preparing to dump their division to pursue another elected position against a vow not to do so, and someone who previously continued to take a salary from the ratepayers while campaigning and failing to secure a federal seat before would think twice before looking so greedy and making a last ditch grab for more money before the next federal elections are called.

The real problem is that despite the very weak excuse of "a protest" for not attending, the excuse was made after, and to the press i believe, leaving the say of the people of those three divisions unsaid, and it's not the first time in some cases. The people of those divisions deserve better, they pay their rates and a councillor does very very well on the remuneration they receive for the little work they do ( apparently you can do the job . . . and. . . run a campaign for a federal seat without either suffering ).

Residents being unrepresented by a councillor at meetings should be a sackable offence.

The joke is, that it seems the councillors really want the pay rise, they really do, but they are trying to appear as if they don't support it now that it has come to light that if the base rate is handed down by the independent tribunal, council cannot pay less than that rate and if they vote for tat rise it has to for all, worse, failing to vote is a vote for the rise because it reduces the number against, just as abstaining in the meeting would be recorded as for.

The charade will probably be a TV stunt for the federal campaign, there isn't any other reasonable explanation because a real protest would have been to go to the meeting , have your say, represent the people like you're supposed to , and vote against if that's the view of the ratepayers.

The unfortunate thing for the old Beaudesert Shire area, it means that only one out of three councillors attended that meeting, and gave representation of the views of the ratepayers, the other two thirds of our area were unrepresented again.

Israel, marching toward genocide in Palestine ?

2010-02-08T07:08:00.003+10:00

It seems that Israel is happy to hide behind "The Holocaust" and claim victim status in its continued aggression with Palestine which appears to be about simply killing off Palestinians and taking their land, or Genocide.

Israel is careful to ensure it controls public information about its activities , especially its military conquests and the prisoners it has captured and who dies during air strikes and tank sorties telling the world that the majority of the deaths are terrorists, refusing to front the world media to justify the thousands of women and children killed in their homes.

Recently the targets of the Israel war machine, funded to the tune of unlimited $$ millions by the USA have changed and it is actively seeking to raid individual residences and arrest and deport foreigners who have seen the real war and are helping the Palestinians to protest peacefully and attempt to get the world media to see what is actually happening rather then continue to publish the sanitised version that sits so well with Israel still portrayed as the victim.

I'm so curious as to how so many high density buildings can be indiscriminately bombed in air strikes killing hundreds of collateral to target a single "enemy of Israel" when the war machine is now capable of finding individuals who have overstayed their visa, conduct midnight raids to arrest them and remove all their electronic communication and data storage devices before they are deported from the country.

The world is slowly becoming uncomfortable with the continued military attacks on a desperate and diminishing population of very very poor people who have been sanctioned to the point of barely being able to get food and recently loosing the only real supply source for the things we take for granted such as household items and car parts which were all smuggled into Palestine through tunnels.

Israel seems scared that foreigners have become aware of the situation and have joined Israelis who also condemn their own governments policy to eradicate Palestine and that they may get real footage of real events out to the world media which contradicts the version the Israel government allows the rest of us to see.

Closing the door on Bloggers right to anonymous comments.

2010-02-02T10:39:00.002+10:00

As Politicians get younger, they seem to be also getting very thin skinned.
The new breed of political wanna-be is starting straight out of high school or University without any real work history or life experience, they seem obsessive about having a certain look or dressing for the part and being good looking and they want all the older seasoned politicians to simply step aside and gift them a seat without having to put in any of the hard yards at all and they cannot tolerate any criticism at all. They seem to lack the life experience that tells one that not everyone is going to fawn over you and agree with your every word and that does not make them your enemy to be attacked when you have risen to a level of power in the political sphere where you can use it to retaliate against them.

Many people will tell stories of how a particular politician harassed them or besmirched them in the press or even had others physically accost them or their property and even go as far as having the police come to their door and threaten or even arrest them; all hearsay of course but when recounted by the actual community members affected appear to be for no other reason than to silence them.

Blogs have been an avenue where people can openly discuss issues, have an opinion in either support or disdain for public figures and their deeds and freely with the use of an anonymous or nickname without fear of being retaliated against by an elected representative.

You see the thing is these young bloods of our political world have worked out that you get paid very well for very little work as a politician, you also double (at least) that in allowances (cars, office, budget etc) and again with the very generous superannuation and travel available so that two terms can set one up for life. However it goes even further than that as after public life there are contacts and boards where one can once again do very little and be remunerated well, and all that is just for the honest politician, the crooked ones can really do well.

Recently there has been a development where South Australia has become one of the few states in the world to censor the Internet by creating a law which was pushed through last year as part of a raft of amendments to the Electoral Act and supported by the Liberal Party, also requires media organisations to keep a person's real name and full address on file for six months, and they face fines of $5000 if they do not hand over this information to the Electoral Commissioner.

The law will affect anyone posting a comment on an election story in Newspapers, or online editions including editorial types and it also appears to apply to election comment made on all types of Blogs and the social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Under current federal legislation, it preserves the right of internet users to blog under a pseudonym but there is reason to think that the future will be different as the younger representatives begin to get preselection for the major parties and being forced to the ballot box as we are will get voted in and follow the changes that have been put in place by the SA Attorney General.

What is crazy funny is that the Attorney general thinks his draconian laws do not impinge on free speech or invoke retribution and yet believes that he will be singled out for attacks in the press and web based editorial sites for instigating these changes.

Personally, I use a pseudonym because I do know that certain elected people will attack me, no doubt about that, they've already tried and even though in a perfect world i agree that every comment should be made by a real person who has the courage of their convictions to say their bit and put their correct name to it; but it is certainly not an ideal world and people with power can be corrupt and use that power to silence individuals, it's happening right here in Queensland, Australia, right now.

Further, consider the whistleblower, where for example a party member knew that a colleague had a conflict of interest and did not declare it and in fact profited form that non declaration but couldn't give that information to anyone in the party but could make it public under a nickname, well that could no longer happen because they would be identified.

Unfortunately to preserve democracy you have to accept its failings as well as it's advantages, freedom of speech is being diminished by this law, no doubt about.

Judge, Jury, Executioner and a Merry Christmas.

2009-12-26T13:24:00.002+10:00

The negotiating skill of the police have been found wanting again on Christmas day when a man was shot and killed in a home at close range.

It's a sad time for many people, Christmas, those who have recently lost loved ones, those who have no one at all and those who due to separation won't be enjoying a nice quiet family day like many of us will and it's sad to think that it could escalate to the point of the police having to intervene and result in them ending a persons life needlessly.

I don't know the intimate circumstances and I'm not blaming anyone, I mean imagine being the person, a police officer, who has just shot and killed another human being, how are they going to enjoy their Christmas while their mind considers all the variables and the questions and doubt go through their minds along with the guilt in some cases, all normal feelings.

A good Friend of mine was crying on Christmas eve, one of the nicest blokes you'd ever meet, a real tough bloke too and a seriously hard worker who gave everything to his kids, yet he cried like a girl because he found out that the money he'd sent the soon to be ex wife for the special gifts for his kids had been used to take them away for the holidays, and perhaps forever since he was supposed to pick them up for his days last weekend and have them home for Christmas day and found a for sale sign outside the house and it empty and deserted.

He's had no word, can't make contact and even her relatives are denying any knowledge of the move except that she has recently moved a new bloke into the home.

Now my mate has a great supporting family and good friends but he's as wounded as if he'd been stabbed by this, and as he was taken by surprise, very distressed. He has contacted the police who say they can't do anything because it was a mutually agreed separation and there has been no government or court settlement she can effectively do as she pleases, also she has taken out an AVO citing that she is scared of him so if he physically tries to find her and his kids he can and will be arrested for stalking and breaching an order.

Back on topic, Christmas is like a magnifying glass when things are good and equally when they are bad, and it's so sad to see what should be some of the best memories of any child's life be the most tragic memories, when a father gets shot in a home by police.

I just don't think our police are well enough trained in negotiating and counselling agitated people and calming them in a tense situation, I'm sure if they were both they and those they are attending to may have a better result.

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Logan overlords reign down rules to make us pay

2009-12-13T10:41:00.002+10:00

It seems the Logan councillors have bowed to the (what I call a hate campaign against growers ) market garden fear campaign and are set to create policy that will make growing some surplus vege and putting them out front with an honour box, an illegal activity if your block of land is too small.

in seasons past, and any gardener will tell you this, conditions vary in some small way so that one particular pest may become so prevalent compared to other years and one particular crop may out perform your expectations based on usual growth and yield for that crop, and I have had it happen once with tomatoes which grew so well the leaves were almost twice the usual size and the fruit so abundant that it was at least 4 times the usual amount to harvest and off a dozed or so plants i had so many beautiful tomatoes that my family and friends were sick of my constant gifting and I just couldn't find anyone else to give them to so i approached the local fruiterer who on seeing mine was happy to give me a store credit in return for a box or two a week while they were producing. That will now be illegal if my land is too small.

Now I know people got pretty upset when one particular lot were buying up local blocks, usually 5 acres or more and wholesale clearing them and covering them with plastic igloos, but that's not the issue of this discourse, rather we are simply talking about any vege patch on any block which will be smaller (it's yet to become law) than about 2 acres where the grower may sell off some surplus and therefore come under the term "market garden"

It seems well known that the driver of this issue is the preselected candidate for Wright for the LNP and current councillor , who has in my opinion tried any and every way of creating policy or law against local growers in a constant campaign that can only be described as a "Hate campaign" in my opinion.

It is odd that someone who seems to have an obvious dislike for growers would seek to represent people in an area that is even more rural than the one in which she is now, and one which which is predominantly growers.

I have heard that there has been an astonishing back flip done recently where the candidate now claims that there are only some grower problems in Greenbank and that all other growers are now, amazingly , lovely; what a coincidence!

The real problem lies with the rest of the "Bogan Overlords" or councillors who have agreed with this idea and are likely to shove it through on the strength of a fear campaign about sprays and pesticides.

Ehough on that because the Overlords have barely begun with their attack on our land use rights they also intend to shove through a policy on heavy vehicle parking that would make any feudal rules proud, it seems that once again two acres and under, you are going to pay Logan for the privilege, Yes, pay them money for something you have always been able to do.

Once again i don't understand why our representatives want to extinguish our rights to continue the use of our land that we've always had. actually yes I do understand it, and it's about money and land values and demand.

You see we're something a little special, we have rights the rest of them don't and our lots are in demand for anyone who wants to park up their truck between jobs or overnight, and those with small minds want to see us brought down to the same level as those in the old more suburban logan.

Those small minded councillors with their small minded committee ( and I'll add that even the truck drivers on that committee seemed to agree with the council position because they personally will not be affected by the new regulations and since it's not in their backyard, are happy to see others charged a fee and an ongoing annual charge to continue doing what they have always done, and for the main reason they probably chose NOT to live in logan in the first place.

It really galls me to still hear this stupid inane retort from logan that they didn't ask for this and that it was forced upon them because it's utter rubbish , yes they have continually asked to have their boundary moved south into Beaudesert several times, and because of the previous rules, before the unscrupulous Beattie changed a few words at a time at midnight meetings to remove our right to decide our own destiny by referendum which allowed us to veto it at the ballot box, we were able to thwart their attempts to take over our area, on our terms unlike now.

Logan has put it's nose into our business and thinks we do not see that these two issues, with some reservations to lots under 2 acres is just the thin end of the wedge and a precursor of things to come where as the urban footprint grows so will the regulations until we are either forced out by necessity , rated out or harassed by council so that remaining becomes untenable.

It's a sham we do not have one councillor who is prepared to actually represent the general public, instead of ruling like primmadonna's or in my opinion "overlords"

I say do not pay, do not bow to their idiocy, do not scrape to those would be masters, and do not vote for this crop of bludgers again.

.

Are lawyers just the lowest scum on this earth ?

2009-11-25T05:42:00.002+10:00

Recently a man was caught by police, arrested and charged by police of several counts of sexual assault against women at or near train stations, he is alleged to have grabbed them inappropriately but on at least one occasion he is alleged to have dragged a victim into bushes and went further until he gave up because of how hard the victim fought back.

I Can't say too much more in detail, except that a number of complainants are involved, the evidence and witnesses seem numerous and irrefutable, there is little doubt the police have their man.

What I find offencive is how his defence lawyers are trying to "get him off" with a cock and bull arguement which is pushing the limits of believability and completely ignoring the victims by making a claim that the man is a Sudanese Asylum seeker and he only performed these acts because of the trauma suffered by him back in his country after seeing some very horrific things.

I'm bot going to dispute that this man may have suffered trauma, but my question is how does that make you start putting your hands under women's clothing , absolutely without their consent?

This is a lawyer who will take a fortune for this case and who in complete disregard for the man's victim will attempt to trivialise their suffering at his hands and say . "too bad, the attacker has suffered more so it's all ok"

Any lawyer who can make this case is in my opinion scum and nothing better, I guess he is happy to let his own wife or daughter come into contact with a person who is essentially a sexual predator without a worry, right?

I'm sorry but we have to as a society say that we cannot keep empowering criminals who freely make the choice to offend by letting the lawyers use the past or events from the past to negate responsibility for actions.

the worse thing is it is never going to happen because the majority of our elected representatives are lawyers also.

.

Who has access to your property? do you know ?

2009-11-18T16:29:00.002+10:00

Ever looked out your window because a flicker of movement caught your eye?

It is common enough on bigger places where there is space for birds, small roo's or wallaby's or even the neighbours pets , not a problem at all until you look out and it's a person you don't know appearing to be sneaking around, then you feel like going back in time to before Little Johnny in a state of paranoia changed the law and took the majority of our guns, and pull one out and see the uninvited bugger on his way.

It seems the council has decide that animal control people, and others can access your property on the most flimsiest of grounds, "reasonable suspicion that there may be an unregistered animal hidden on your property" or something similar.

This is someone who does not have to have a police check to hold the job, who can come into contact with your children and does not have to have a blue card and who may not really be there for legitimate purposes for all we know.

It would not be hard for any criminal organisation to have their people employed by council to access properties under the guise of looking for dogs but actually caseing your place when you're out and reporting back to those who may rob you.

All too far fetched? of course it is, never going to happen, council will only employ the best of people, . . . . . . . . . .won't they ?

I think it's time for razor wire on the fence, just in case.

Heavy Vehicle Parking - Bogan's sham consultation.

2009-11-11T18:27:00.002+10:00

I'm not surprised at the outcome from those council officers preparing for policy on heavy Vehicle Parking across the new areas forced to be a part of Logan by a dictatorial State government with an act of parliament to ensure there was no opposition.

At meetings in both Jimboomba and Logan Village there was a clear message sent to Logan that any and all intrusion into the lifestyle and business of the old North Beaudesert Shire was at the least unwelcome, unneeded and an overbearing assertion of Logan authority for the sake of it and nothing else, the people had their say but has it been heard, the answer is no.

During and since those meetings there were some who made a lot of noise about how they were there to make it "right " for truck owners notably the old jimboomba Chamber of commerce which is now named after Logan.

The community consultation has been poorly responded to really, and why would you bother anyway, it's not like your opinion would matter one iota in Logan Council which in my opinion seems to just find ways to charge the residents more and more as if your pockets are bottomless and money grows on trees.

The Council put together a working group to assist with making policy and it seems that even with all the big noting from some of those on that group, they have achieved nothing except to follow the council line that truck owners should pay a fee to park on their own land and that restrictions should apply as to where and how big a property you must have before you can park a truck there at all.

The sham has worked, for council that is, they will be able to make the claim that they have done everything possible to allow community to have a say in the development of this policy and that it is a result of all the available resources and opinions that have been put together to make it fair and reasonable.

I don't agree with that , I don't believe that any of those on the working group speak for me, I reject the very idea that my rights need to be removed so that council can get more money for nothing and I'm seriously thinking of looking for a pan body to park here to make my protest and perhaps even test the council's resolve on any future fee.

If I were a working truck driver I'd be contemplating a blockade of council about now or a black ban on the delivery of anything and everything to council.

I don't think this is the end of this.

Why won't the west take a stand on Israel's war practices.

2009-11-07T17:35:00.003+10:00

Here is a press item which reveals how Israel refutes any belief that they are capable of wrongdoing in their war against the country they adjoin, Palestine, when the vote was clearly in favour of investigation.

ISRAEL has rejected a UN resolution that calls on it and the Palestinians to probe suspected war crimes committed during the Gaza war at the turn of the year.
"Israel rejects the resolution of the UN General Assembly, which is completely detached from realities on the ground that Israel must face," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The statement said that during the 22-day war, which killed some 1400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, the Israeli military "demonstrated higher military and moral standards than each and every one of this resolution's instigators."
Yesterday, the 192-member assembly overwhelmingly approved an Arab-sponsored resolution that endorsed a UN report accusing both Israel and Palestinians of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the war.
The vote was 114 in favour and 18 against, with 44 abstentions.
Israel, which had strenuously opposed the non-binding resolution and the UN report that it endorsed, voted against it as did its staunchest ally, the United States, along with Australia and a few European countries.
A majority of European Union countries, including Britain, France, Spain and Sweden, abstained after failing to secure amendments to the text, including one that would have dropped references to possible Security Council action if the report's findings are not implemented. Russia also abstained.
The move capped a two-day debate on the 575-page UN-commissioned report by a panel led by respected former international prosecutor Richard Goldstone.
The report recommended that its findings be transferred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague if Israel and the Hamas rulers of Gaza fail to conduct credible investigations into the war.
From the outset, Israel rejected the report as biased.

The real question is why the west refuses to accept their responsibility to say "no More" to what is effectively an American State in the Middle East which is supported by the US in both financial and military ways?

In the question we also have the answer, the USA.

The "war" or at least what the Israelis call a war or allow them to respond to stone throwing by children with machine guns and tanks, and to respond to a single suicide bomber with air strikes and gunships and when the casualty count is so one sided as to have 100 to 1 dead in favour of Israel and even those figures may not be accurate because at every attack communications and power are the first things the Israeli military machine knocks out so the world cannot see the utter carnage and the futility of any Palestinian defence along with the numbers of innocents who suffer death and injury.

The west, or at least the representatives on the UN should hang their heads in shame for their cowardly abstaining from the vote.

Koala habitat , decreasing by government decree.

2009-10-31T20:02:00.002+10:00

The State Government has released its new planning laws which they claim will save Koala populations in South East Queensland including spending $15 million to buy new or rehabilitate existing habitats, compulsory acquisition powers for koala habitats outside the urban footprint, land swaps and banning dogs in new developments.

All sounds good doesn't it, except when you consider that the average developed house lot is around a quarter of a million dollars these days, so the $15million will only buy 60 lots or about 20 acres worth of development potential land.

The minister, Climate Change and Sustainability Minister Kate Jones, seems to be a State version of Garrett in that they are only yes men to their respective governments and those who fund them, which in Queensland seems to be the developers.

Is Kate Jones so uneducated on environmental issues that she actually believes that this amount of money to buy back land for Habitat will save the Koala population? Or does she just follow the party line unerringly and mindlessly hoping the voters will believe the spin she speaks with the release.

With the likes of Garrett, Wong and now Kate Jones leading the Labor Federal and State governments charge on environmental issues we have nothing to fear about the future in my opinion, because there won't be much environment left to worry about.

Winning the battle against Fire Ants ? I don't think so !

2009-10-24T18:27:00.002+10:00

Recently I have been made aware of the situation with the department that is supposed to be all about the eradication of Fire Ants, a particularly aggressive ant that both stings and bites, simultaneously, and continually, repetitively.

The ants are very fast moving, and have the swarm instinct so when attacked most people and animals sustain heavy bites/stings to the affected area, and I'm talking hundreds of bites and stings, before the ants can be removed from the affected area.

What i have just been made aware of is that every new housing estate, no matter how far from any of the current fire ant areas, is instantly declared an area and added to the zone for control and monitoring, and that means inspections and a paper trail of how any materials are removed from site.

The thing is that i could make the claim that i personally am winning the battle against fire ants the same way the department is, without even bothering to kill one ant, and how is that possible? simple just keep increasing the area covered under fire ant investigation and there for the area with the ants becomes a smaller percentage, pure and simple mathematics.

That's not quite what the department is doing, because they are obviously killing off much of the fire ant population with their baits of toxic corn and are controlling the spread by monitoring the areas affected as well.

However, since they were granted power over the average citizen with the ability to fine people for non compliance with their own made up rules which almost no one knows about, they have been reluctant to relinquish that power and by increasing the areas under investigation they continue to need more staff keeping the department as one of the biggest in existence.

I'm not advocating stopping of the program to eradicate this ferocious pest, which was allowed to be imported here by a failure of the very department that now has power to fine ordinary people for far lesser failures to comply, and the department now even admits the ants may have been here longer than first thought, well DUH.

Will the ants ever be eradicated? i don't think so, all the new megalomaniac heads of department will never let that happen, in case they actually have to go get a job.

Government relaxes rules on foreigners who want to buy property here.

2009-10-07T20:33:00.002+10:00

The claim from the minister is that it will have little effect on first home buyers because it is still very dificult for foreigners to by existing homes without the approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board. it has only been made easier to purchase new homes without the Boards approval.

Really ?

If supply and demand was the driver of the last property boom and that in real terms means that the increase in population is creating a situation where people cannot find homes to satisfy their housing needs, then why has there been a push to introduce further immigration and attract them to the growth areas.

This is not a racist issue, it more about further widening of the affordability gap for our children who will want to one day buy their own home and not be forced by government policy to fund the lavish retirement lifestyle of some foreign investors.

There is even talk of bringing tourists here for real estate shopping tours, and it's quite probable that is already occurring.

I wonder how much of this country will be sold off a lot at a time to foreigners?
We will have to foot the bill for infrastructure like the Traveston's Crossing Dam which will supply water in the future to a few major developments in the area, and like the Wyarralong Dam which will service a 200 square kilometer industrial precinctto the west of Beaudesert and stretching 27 kilometers along the Logan River.

And that's without increases to roads carrying capacity which are in an appalling state of repair and totally inadequite for the needs of the present users.

What we should be looking toward is a Sustainable Population, but to be honest I think we may have missed that boat.

Pigs about to feed at the trough.

2009-09-24T21:23:00.002+10:00

With pensioners recently fighting for a couple of years to get a meagre $32 a week increase to the paltry pittance that the pension has become as inflation and the wages / prices spiral flys away out of sight, they have been told that this is a generous move by the government, pffft!

While the sledging and personal slurs and innuendo flail from the lips of each side in the parliament particularly during question time and debates, behind the scenes there has been some pretty handy getting together to discuss the ministers pay rise that's going to come to them; note I said is going to rather than may, and i did so because the independent tribunal or commissioner (who is paid by the government) has decided that a pay rise should be forthcoming and neither side are going to knock it back.

It reminds me of way back when someone was telling us we all need to tighten our belt and that life wasn't meant to be easy, and how that angered the community so much that they were voted out at the next election.

Its funny isn't it that when a pensioner in this lucky country is only worth a bag of prawns a week, or a carton perhaps, the ministers will get a rise that is a jar of good caviar or french champagne, let them eat cake!

Preselection tussels as egos clash in the LNP.

2009-09-14T20:19:00.002+10:00

It seems things are not exactly hunky dory in the LNP camp and it's all got to do with preselection for the Federal election which is still quite a way off.

In my opinion the LNP doesn't exist at federal level anyway, but there are those out there who are already staking their claim on certain electorates and making demands that the other party from which the LNP was formed don't field a candidate to run against them.

Take for instance the LNP poster boy, Peter Dutton who is touted to be moving from his prior area, Dickson which is now marginal, and heading to McPhearson down toward the Gold Coast where it is more conducive to a conservative victory.

It seems that the move may have upset the local branch before it has even happened, and that some who believe they should be up for preselection themselves don't want the competition from a more highly profiled candidate with some even going to the media to tell all who read that he has dumped his old seat for an easy run.

Bringing back any memories? I thought it might, i was critical of a State member who also dumped his area and moved into what was a safe seat for over 20 years, where people with lesser profile had worked all that time for the community only to be shafted of the reward of being preselected by what i believe is pure cowardice and running away from a real challenge where Mr. Personality could have used that profile to mount a significant display and quite possibly turn out the incumbent and thereby win two seats instead of one.

In our neck of the woods there is another candidate who has been touting their suitability for a new seat and it seems has claimed to be the LNP candidate for that federal seat or at least has publicised that is the desire.

The seat is yet to be officially created, although it is expected to be but regardless, once again i wonder why these LNP people continue to think they will be alone when they run because at Federal level it is still Nationals and Liberals so theoretically a National LNP member should be able to run against and Liberal LNP member without it ending up in conflict.

I'm horrified at the way the National Party seems to be grabbing any slightly profiled person to become a candidate and force them on the community who really don't want to choose between dumb and dumber, or any other candidate who believes they are above the rest of society and that their shit don't stink.

As a typical swinging voter who at this time is full up to here with Labor, feeling very dissatisfied with the State governments bungling and selling off our assets and the federal government who we voted to get rid of work choices and who have barely touched that legislation except to allow workers to get a union rep to assist them in enterprise bargaining and really only doing so to guarantee themselves more union fee related income, I would probably vote conservative this time.

Buy, if I don't like the choices from the LNP, what am I going to do?

I suppose I can always vote green!

Reigniting the old market garden issue.

2009-08-13T13:30:00.002+10:00

A couple of weeks ago I received an email suggesting that trees were being cleared on a few properties in the old North of Beaudesert with permits or approvals from Logan Council and the sender was concerned that there was going to be a new influx of Protected Horticulture operations due to some kind of moratorium on tree clearing.

Being pre occupied with work and other personal issues I checked out a couple of addresses and found that one of them was definitely cleared and now has been covered with the familiar plastic igloo type structures that have caused much concern for people who want private residential use of their land adjacent to what is essentially factory farming.

I was however, amazed to see this weeks local paper and the sensationalised stories about one property in Greenbank and whilst I have sympathy for the owner of the neighbouring property if there is a change of use to Intensive Horticulture I have to wonder why just one property has been targeted and why the hysterical views about small cropping in any form, of another person, have been added as a separate story.

Actually I don't have to wonder, it is quite obvious in my opinion that the alliances are gathering their forces together once again to try to get one persons idea that we should all only be allowed to garden up to 200 square meters on our land revisited by Logan Council and forced upon us.

I have had email discussions with someone who has been a well known advocate for regulation of Protected horticulture within rural residential or what they call rural living areas now, for well over 5 years and who despite having a comprehensive document lodged with the Beaudesert Council all that time ago which would have seen both Council and community well served by allowing everyone, including new buyers to know the rules and have a clear understanding of the requirements before attempting to buy land for intensive horticulture operations and allowing the community fair dispute resolution as well as a process of objection to any proposed new change of use, that person has been gagged and omitted from discussions because it has become politicised and that person will not come out against market gardens and does not believe in extinguishing the "as of right use" that existing operators have now.

In those email discussions I was also enlightened to the fact that the regulations can be applied at State Government level as they are in NSW which removes the ability of some opportunistic politically savvy aspirants to use such a polarising issue for their own purposes.

I was asked this interesting question, and it is so pertinent, " why would someone move into a rural area, into roads named Farm or Harvest even, and then try to stop others who are just using their right to follow a typically rural pursuit from running a small crops operation on their land?

Rudd, showing how he loves China again.

2009-07-26T20:01:00.002+10:00

My view of the Australian financial situation differs greatly from that purported by our PM Kevin 07, in that I don't really believe we had to go into recession nor did we need to talk down the business confidence or the value of currency.

Our major Banks were not exposed in a big way to the world economic meltdown and continue to make huge profits despite following the worlds pull back of business lending and even home loans, for which in my opinion there was no need.

Our unemployment rate had not taken any significant dive , and job prospects although lower were still greater than the number of job seekers.

And then they announced that we were in recession and that people needed to stock up on groceries and that there would be mortgage repayment holidays and the stimulus packages, wow, we suddenly stopped buying, borrowing, going out, driving or anything else that cost money and that meant that retailers were not ordering and in turn manufacturers were not needing to make things, shit, we are in recession.

OK, to actually get to my point, Rudd has said that we should not buy Australian made, in fact we should avoid it at all costs.

Why?

You may laugh, but here's what he said;

"We need to avoid any form of protectionist measure which invites retaliatory protectionist measures," he told reporters today.

The mistake of the Great Depression was that governments believed the way to get through was to close their national borders to imports.

"We're not about to repeat those mistakes here."

Talk about comparing cabbages with persimmons, honestly does he think there is any similarity between a country with a very low population, between wars, and with a rudimentary economy based on wool and wheat is anything like what we have grown into.

Really if we don't help ourselves, the Chinese with the money will help themselves to our country, and just maybe that is part of Rudd's agenda. Kevin 07 seems to be the best ambassador for sell it to China and buy it back again ten times the price since Pig Iron Bob Menzies had his crush on Japan.

Does Rudd really think that by turning Australia into a marketplace for China and giving away jobs here is any kind of answer? and Just where does he think the people will get the money from to buy all the Chinese stuff when we're all out of work, and who does he think will be paying all the tax that has allowed Kevin 07 to jet around the world?

Think again Kevin, the unions don't like your ideas and anyone with kids will be wondering where they are going to get a job when all we have is retail.

Kevin 07 has run out of ideas and, I think, time.

AEC changing boundaries, what's in a name?

2009-07-25T19:50:00.002+10:00

A name for a new electorate has been proposed and with valid reasons, the electorate of Wright was thought to be named after the Australian poet and social and environmental activist Judith Wright, however locally this name will more than likely be associated with the ex Labor politician and convicted criminal Keith Wright.

It is of course the fact that Mr Wright was a figure in the local area being a teacher and headmaster of schools in the area where the new electorate is to be proposed.

Unfortunately it is his abominable crimes that make this choice of name unsavoury for this area, because even though he has served his time and been released he has not gone away and his victims are still serving a life sentence from the atrocious and perverse acts he perpetrated upon them.

On a Tangent of sorts, there are commentators who are claiming a demographic of voters which will give the new seat a lean toward the conservatives by more than a few percent will favour any candidates from the Nationals or Liberals should they field one and that with a backlash from the Labor State and Federal governments it is a distinct possibility that this will be a conservative seat in it's initial term.

That begs the question, who will be the candidate in Queensland, will it be a Liberal? a National? or will it be one of the recently configured LNP?

I think we already know one person who will be putting their hand up and shouting from the roof tops that they are the best candidate, A person who has not worked in a real job, does not have years of business experience, has no life experience and does not really have a normal lifestyle in my opinion.

One candidate who dumped a council division, while continuing to take the pay for it, and ran at the last federal elections, failing dismally even though it is thought that the publicity budget would have been many times what was spent by both the major rivals from Labor and Liberal will probably dump the council division again to run for this new seat expecting to get preselection it seems.

I don't know how the people of that division will take being dumped a second time, I personally would be outraged!

Cheap Chinese Cars - what's the catch?

2009-07-24T07:51:00.002+10:00

Since Rudd was outed for getting use of a ute provided by his then mate and neighbour, for free, which he denied was his at first until his mate told media that it was, and then denied that he'd given any favourable treatment in return for that ute or even that the treasurer had done anything either, the question has arisen about how that used car dealer has become the local dealership for the "Great Wall" line of motor vehicles in this country.

See, it's not as easy at hiring a bikini girl to wash them in the car yard and then flog them off to buyers off the street, not by a long shot.

New cars are shipped needing the final detailing, some small fitments done and all the local regulations and compliance done as well plus there is the after sales service, repairs, breakdowns, and warranty things too.

You expect someone to have to invest a considerable amount in a business that is going to be the local dealership for a new line of cars and that is why in most cases dealerships are offered to existing dealers who already have facilities in place, the office structure, financial capability and contacts along with a sound background and sustainable business plan for the new line.

So I ask the question, "In this day and age where we expect a dealer to be all of the above, how does a used car yard owner get the licence to sell a line of new card as the local dealer?"

There is an even greater issue here. one that has plagued Australian car manufacturers for several decades, how do we produce cars here with cheaper, subsidised imports taking from the small market we already have?

You may remember back in the late 70's when Holden was going broke (as usual)and had to be bailed out by the tax payer (yet again) and the plan was that to allow a reasonable market share for profitability on of the big car manufacturers had to go ; Chrysler had to go.

But it wasn't too long before a good mate of the then PM was importing Hyundai's and other cheap little cars from Asia flooding the local market, and all that really happened was that those cheap nasty cars eventually sold , and jobs at local car makers and the suppliers to the industry dried up while the Asian factories got bigger and bigger.

Now we're seeing it all happen again, Holden has just about gone to the wall(well it has in the US, with GM having to be bailed out big time by the Taxpayers) and suddenly a friend of the PM is going to import some cheap Overseas cars, and presumably more local jobs will go in the car industry and those supplying to it.

I ask the Question, apart from people who want a cheap car, and of course Rudd's mate, how does Australia benefit from dumping jobs here to bring in cheap rubbish from Overseas?

Sociopath , is there one in our midst?

2009-06-26T07:19:00.002+10:00

When you say the word Sociopath it sounds like, and many think it is like Psychopath and that is because it is in a way.

Sociopaths get around in the community and are sons and daughters, husbands and wives sometimes, but there are ways to recognise them and when you see all the things they do and put them together they're not that hard to spot.

The main character aspects that distinguish the Sociopath are
Their utter lack of conscience
Their inability to love or be loved
Their ability to turn mean in an instant and be sadistic.
Their ability to follow the rules and use them against you.

Many who encounter a Sociopath in the workplace will find that they are prepared, have spent time undermining you in both your position and credibility and once they begin a campaign against you they have the support of your boss and fellow workers who will see them as the victim, yes they have already been planting the seeds in small comments, manipulation, and even sabotage ; and you will rarely get a good outcome in an encounter with a sociopath because they are prepared to go to any length to get what they want, they know what they want and they will have it.

The sociopath will always find someone to blame and you really don't have to have even done anything to them to earn their ire, They never take responsibility for their own actions and will even go so far as to manufacture proof, mostly circumstantial to bolster their excuse and put the onus of blame onto someone else.

They lie, sometimes by omission, but are shameless about it and clever too, they will wrap their lies seamlessly around a morsel of fact which they will point to if questioned and argue indignantly about if fronted on the original lie.

Sociopaths are on the surface very nice to you, assessing your worth in terms of what you can do for them, what you can give them or how you can take a bullet for them, they are charming and charismatic, sometimes sickeningly so.

They are also conceited, they genuinely think they are the centre of attention and that the world revolves around them and they show it with an arrogance and an attitude, and are prone to create drama to generate interest in themselves all the time.

Sociopaths, like psychopaths, are experts at masking their anger when it suits them, they don't like to mix their worlds and will hold back rather than reveal their nasty side to those who they are in the process of charming. That does not mean they will not retaliate, in fact it means they will retaliate later and it will be with all of their capability, they will try to crush you.

They don't take to criticism or personal insults well, they see criticism in almost everything except for glowing praise and see insults where there are none intended and even see insult toward them at a personal level in things that are not even directed at them, said to them or written. They demand respect and will react against any who show insufficient respect to their position or their perceived authority.

Sociopaths are power hungry, they want to dominate others, they want to have a hold over people, they Will have people in fear of them happily and believe that it is respect for them not fear. They often become lawyers, Judges, Politicians, Psychologists, even school principles but it must be a position of power over others.

They are parasites, they will live off the work of others, take credit for the work of others, and see others unrewarded for their efforts unashamed by it. If they can't find someone to do the work for them they will use their charm to try to get someone to give it to them.

They are manipulative, emotional puppeteers, they love to make people jump, they will spend weeks, months, even years if they have to, planting seeds and setting people up so they can get what they want or just for the pleasure they get from seeing people crushed under their heel.

They are victims; they constantly paint a picture that someone is out to get them, someone is hurting them, they have been picked on or bullied but always to get pity and to get something from you.

Unfortunately this is a character flaw, a mental problem that cannot be cured and in most cases is not recognised until your life has been torn apart by them; perhaps this will have been a bit of help to those readers out there who may now recognise a sociopath among us or even to those who may have been in denial about how their Friend, the nicest person they ever knew is getting so many people upset with them for apparently no reason.

.

Privacy - is there any ?

2009-06-23T07:40:00.002+10:00

There are many reasons to think that your privacy in nonexistent and in the main they relate to our ever growing use of electronic communication devices such as mobile phones, computers and even pagers and satellite TV.

The thing most people don't realise is that when someone calls you a signal is sent to your phone, so guess what? it means they have to know where to send that signal so in essence they have to track your handset all the time and apparently can do so to within 10 meters with general service available now and to within a meter or so with some more advanced gear which they will use if you are under investigation.

I personally make a lot of calls, all day and into the night also texts and emails, as part of my job, given that one would have to assume that I do sleep, anyone monitoring my electronic communications would be able to know where I am 24 hours a day without any problems at all. and thus if I were stupidly accused of being somewhere it would be a simple matter of looking on my phone bill or my email account to see just where I was at any time.

I digress. Many people don't even know that "big brother is watching" or at least aren't provided with that information in a form that allows them to realise that it is happening especially in the workplace. For instance, your email that is "yourname@yourworkplace .com" usually comes through a central server and is duplicated so the employer can see what is in every email and further can be singled out of the email bulk by certain criteria be it Porn, competitors or even personal details in the wording.

But, it doesn't stop there, in fact that is barely the tip of the iceberg; there are simple marketing devices that can allow those people to aim certain types of advertising to you by collecting information about your web browsing habits which also means that they have small software devices inside your PC which is accessible from a third party for exchange of information.

Of course that means that they can also put more information onto your computer in certain situations and also that other third parties can use the access way created to add further data collection devices (cookies) into your system which can be in small bits which are designed to become active and join up to become a program once all the pieces have been put into your system.

That really does make it easy for Governments and their agencies e.g. police, Tax Department, ASIO etc, to see what is in your PC and to even manipulate what can be deleted. Of course that also may allow information to be put on your computer without you knowing, and communications to be made between websites and by email to be made using the ID from your computer without your knowledge.

Of course authorities will claim that they need the power to see detailed information which is privately held within your computer to catch a variety of criminals such as child predators, terrorists, money launderers and perpetrators of identity fraud which is a valid argument and one that has an opposite where people have made claims that they have had data put into their computers by a third party unknown to them, which is very possible because it seems it is so easy to do if you have the knowledge and equipment.

The only real protection from electronic security breaches is to not use any of the electronic gadgets, but is that realistic? While the privacy Act allows you access to the data and information collected about you , you have to know it is being collected and by whom before you can access it and if information and communication can be attributed to you by others you have to know it exists if you want to do anything about it.

Freedom of Information, . . . . another twist of Bligh's Knife!

2009-06-11T13:23:00.002+10:00

As usual, this government has passed a bill in a midnight sitting on or around Tuesday 2nd June, and the bill and vote took very little time as it was rushed through much like the legislation that gave Beattie and Bligh the power to amalgamate councils.

This time it was the new promised, and I have to say much lauded as giving us the most transparent government in the country, freedom of information act in Queensland that was given the bums rush at a late night sitting where it was put up and voted through in a very short time.

Ok, so they did somewhat revamp the act but is it going to make information more easily accessible or is it just to be seen as making changes toward making information seem more accessible.

One of the major sticking points was in a section of the Act ; Right to Information Act, section 54- which seems to be designed to neutralise the effect of releasing any information they have to release under the application for FOI by allowing the government to release that same information publicly 24 hours after it has been released to the applicant.

It seems, on the surface, to be reasonable doesn't it.

Think about how much this government has spent on SPIN, that is deliberately creating positive publicity for the purpose of making the government's approval from the public higher.

Putting two and two together yet?
In real terms it means that the government can release the information you request and pay a lot for to the public one day after you get it and publish it in a way that can dilute the effectiveness of the applicant releasing it and in real terms long before the applicant has even been able to read and understand it thoroughly anyway.

The purpose for this seems to be to offset the majority of applications which are from journalists and the opposition who will either publish it in the case of the Journalists or use it to ambush a government minister in question time.

What is more appalling is that the relevant ministers are given detailed briefings about media and opposition applications (FOI Requests) giving them time ( FOI requests are not usually actioned for a month and can be dragged out by being referred from department to department) to prepare a response, create a spin campaign or even rebut the issue before it becomes public knowledge.

This is obviously about making FOI ineffectual and more expensive and a deliberate attempt to try to make it seem to be a worthless pursuit (even more than it is already because the typical response from FOI requests is that there is no document found that is within the scope of your application)

The opposition put up an admirable case for change or removal of the section of the act and even requested that FOI requests have a capped cost for the applicant at a maximum of $1000, but even that was rejected by Bligh.

Beattie and now Bligh have indeed been twisting the knife, cutting out the heart of the community re: any public criticism or public opposition even to the point of wanting the public to only hear their sanitised version of anything.

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Bligh, creating jobs, . . . . . . . . in china again!

2009-06-08T09:07:00.002+10:00

During the election campaign Bligh and the puppet, Andrew Fraser, made promises to create thousands of jobs, and they have been delivering on that promise at every opportunity, but not the way the citizens of Queensland would like.

At the time of the election, and dismissed by the electorate, the truth was becoming apparent with contracts for government service uniforms not even given to tender to Queensland firms, and the supply of those uniforms now is provided by a company in China while the company which had the contract was not even considered and now has cut staff and is facing closing down.

Again in a tiny piece in the major Queensland News paper, almost hidden, is the news that a local glass company has been overlooked by the Bligh government and the yes man Fraser in particular in favour of a Chinese company.

We're facing the toughest times financially at government level due to Fraser's handling of the treasury and the government playing catch up on infrastructure projects to win an election rather than provide for the people, and yet when opportunity presents to put Queenslanders into jobs this government decides to give those jobs to China.

Bligh, Fraser = FAIL.

Fire Sale. . .how deep are we?

2009-06-05T18:58:00.002+10:00

I'm sure we're in it up to our necks, although is wasn't too long ago that Bligh and Fraser along with the Labor Party machine were touting their management of this State's finances as an election winner and it worked too.

It's obvious now to all but the most ardent, blind labor faithful that the real reason for the early election is that they just wouldn't have been able to keep the dire financial position, in which over ten years of this Labor government has put us, where we owe over 10 million a day to service loans and our credit rating is the lowest of any State in Australia.

Both the Bligh and Rudd governments have been quick to tell us we're in recession, and that it is the global financial crisis that is to blame for running us into deficit at both state and federal levels, and even that has been proven to be a fallacy with recent figures showing that we have not succumbed to the global recession and that our banks are the healthiest in the world as is our economy and that all the talk led to the initial downturn and also that it was a deliberate tactic from the two Labor governments to disguise their poor performance.

Bligh is not content with turning over thousands of hectares to developers and risking the potential of having the blood of the demise of the SEQ Koala population on her hands, she has now announced that they will be selling off our assets, that's right actually reducing our collateral when prices are at rock bottom and they are likely to only get a fraction of their cost or true value.

They're also going to see Queensland motorists and consumers slugged with extra charges at the petrol bowser, and by down lining at the supermarket checkout, by cutting off the Queensland Fuel Subsidy which is about 8.38 cents per liter.

Other things in the list are;
Forestry Plantations Queensland
Port of Brisbane Shipping Terminal
Port of Brisbane motorway
Queensland Rail's Coal assets
Queensland Rail non passenger services assets

I find it really hard to believe that a government could fool the people into voting them back into office at an early election when they'd have to know that they have borrowed well beyond their capacity to repay in tough times and that their poor management has led to such drastic action.

Peter Garrett - Fraud for the environment.

2009-05-20T07:32:00.002+10:00

I've said before that Peter Garrett is an embarrassment as a minister in my opinion and that he is simply a sycophantic yes man following party line without a clue about anything environmental in real terms, and I stand by that.

The burning of fossil fuels has to be the biggest downside of mans foray into the modern society that it is today as far as impact on this planet we live on, the continued reliance on a depleting finite resource that is damaging in its removal and then doubly damaging it its processing and eventual use is the greatest success and greatest failure at the same time.

All that being said we can make the choice to do something about it on a daily basis, reducing the amount of fuel we use, using consumables with less packaging and limiting the amount of travel we do, all things that a government suggests to the people in the community to lessen the impact of climate change.

So you have to ask yourself why would the minister for the environment be spending $226,010 on travel, burning vast quantities of aviation fuel, going around the world, when a Skype hook up could achieve the same result?

Simple, Garrett is enjoying one of the perks of being a minister, free world tours at the taxpayers expense, holidays around the world for free.

The Government will claim that he went to some conference or did some government business while he was there of course and he will most likely trot out the old line that it is expected that we attend these things, which is BS.

Garrett is a fraud, spouting lines from old songs about how the people should do without, make sacrifices to help reduce carbon emissions and at the same time he's burning so much carbon on world trips that we're effectively going backwards and not achieving any reduction at all.

Garrett should rethink his globetrotting ways, he should practice as he preaches, he should be an example for reduction of carbon emissions, he should be a shining light to the rest of the community about how we can reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and do business world wide without wasting both money and resources.

If Garrett can't do this he should resign, and let someone who can be real, effective and set an example as a warrior for climate change.

In my opinion Garrett is a Fraud for the environment.

Division 3 decided, . . .wait for the ricochet, . .

2009-05-10T21:31:00.002+10:00

After what seems like months since the cowardly departure from a tough fight with sitting Labor man John Mickel in the seat of Logan to the relative sure thing of a safe seat in Beaudesert by the former Division 3 representative, it would seem that we now have the other candidate who came second (by a handful of votes)in the two horse race for division 3 almost 14 months ago, as the victor of this by-election.

The very experienced former deputy and acting Mayor will be back to add to his previous 12 years in the chamber.

This actually raises some questions about what is going to happen to the political balance in council, and to the ladder climbing of the new kids who seem to spend their days plotting ways to tip other councillors out of their chairs including the deputy mayor, or should i say especially the deputy mayor who seems to be the main target most of the time even though all attempts so far have ended in complete and utter embarrassing failure.

The fact that the newly elected Division 3 representative has great experience as a deputy mayor may be the catalyst for another coup attempt from the power hungry "kiddie councillors" who may attempt to offer their allegiances in exchange for support to topple the current deputy mayor.

I doubt that the division 3 representative will be willing to play that game with the likes of those would be razor gang members of council in a bloody minded and politically driven coup that would serve no real purpose except to further destabilise council as a whole.

personally I think the new division 3 councillor will get a chair anyway, quite possible the chair for community services.

Shock Treatment, . . . .is it just brutality?

2009-05-02T18:50:00.002+10:00

Since the Police Union have had their way and officers have been issued with what is effectively a cattle prod in a pistol, the Taser; Police haven't had so much exposure in the media for overzealous use of force since the Joh bejelke Peterson days in Queensland where police were reduced to almost a political goon squad.

The initial cry for the taser from the police union was as a safety precaution for the general public; the claim was that the taser would replace lethal force, the gun, for the majority of cases where police were confronted by an agitated and armed offender (alleged) who was resisting arrest and making threats to the public or police.

So far the Taser has been used on children and adults who appear to have done little more than question the validity of police instructions or not obeyed police instructions in a fast enough time frame.

This isn't a police bashing post by any means, however, it seems to me that if you give someone the power to, and the use, of a tool then they will find a reason to use it.

That being said, my concern is that the police have no way of ascertaining the health conditions of a person they are shocking with 50,000 volts or whether this kind of voltage could have serious consequences of a negative nature to the person they are shocking which could result in death even though both the government and the police claim there are no adverse health issues with the taser.

Recently reported in the media is the story of how police officers got involved in an incident which was occurring at a hotel across the road from a police station which resulted in about half a dozen police officers scuffeling with 3 members of a family with one officer targeting the older man who appeared in video footage to be pushing officers away from his younger relatives and who during the scuffle with this particular officer returned punches after several times evading the grasp of that officer who eventually tasered the older man and then grabbed him in a headlock. One of the younger relatives retaliated by running at the officer and (allegedly) head butting him which resulted in severe damage to the officer who was knocked out instantly and hit his head very hard on the ground when he went down.
The men were arrested by police later and charged but let off by a judge who saw the video evidence and called the police to task for excessive force, and released the charged men, to the ire of police.

The older man suffered a heart attack only minutes after the tasering by that officer, and most probably as a result of it, a point which police say has no basis despite overwhelming contradictory evidence from the USA where cases of heart attacks and other problems after Taser shocks are well documented.

The police want to continue to have appeals and have the men charged with something, since the officer has serious problems from his injuries, and it seems to me that it's about revenge rather than right and wrong.

The incident was a common one where a rowdy group were blueing after a skinfull at the pub, the question is this, if the taser is a replacement for lethal force as they say, then why was it used in this situation? was that officer in fear for his or a member of the public's life? or, . . was he frustrated at his inability to apprehend an old man who was trying to break up the fighting?

In the case at the gold coast the officer tasered a 15 year old girl who was being held by two security guards; was that officer in fear of his or a member of the public's life? I don't think so. He used the taser like a fist to punish the girl out of anger and rage, he issued summary justice. . . .no judge , no jury, just a cop and his taser and that girl will obey or by heaven she will pay.

So in reality do our police need to be using a replacement for lethal force as they have in these cases, look up you tube and see how they use them in the USA and you will see that if a person doesn't respond fast enough, obey quick enough or even treat the cop with enough respect they can be tasered, just normal people who have come to the attention of police and feel the wrath of those officers.

I think the officer who uses a tares should be forced to submit a public report as to why they felt that they were in fear for their life or fear for a member of the public's life and if they cannot substantiate a real and present danger, they should be stood down.

Well you can tell me that you think police don't get enough support from the general public, and that as a rule we are losing respect for them, and even that they are a necessary evil, but I guess we need the force, even though we probably fear them more than any criminal, or bikie gang, strange isn't it.

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Genetics made me small, . . . . God doesn't get involved the whims of those with small man's syndrome.

2009-04-29T20:15:00.002+10:00

When people make the astounding claims that they have been victimised, stalked, picked on as a child or come under any other form of discrimination you would hardly expect to see them trying to be the authority over the general populous, seeking attention any and every way they can get it and releasing to the press self promotional stories with a continuing frequency, would you?

Well apparently that's exactly what you'd do because after years of being picked on as a child for being "small" we see a story about a person deciding to get surgery in Russia to get an 8cm growth in the leg bones and someone paying it seems $40,000 for that to happen, plus I would imagine air fares and accommodation etc.

I actually have serious doubts about the alleged "picked on" story in one way because as a rule you don't get picked on for that it is usually because you are a prick, and no one likes you, isn't it?

I also don't believe that there was any other reason than vanity behind the surgery, at all, and in fact it can line up behind the other rumoured procedures that are purported to have been paid for by this person.

Aside from the fact that in the press and TV media, the statements conflict in places, which from this source is not unusual in my opinion, the pictures are also interesting for a couple of reasons, that are quite obvious by the fact that they shouldn't be there if the timing is as it is stated.

You have to ask yourself, why do these type of people always try to dominate everyone, try to become the highest ranking, and have the most power, the answer from a psychology perspective (from a website, I might add) is that they have been sexually molested, don't laugh, or that they are embarrassed by their father figure and want to replace them as head of the family, again don't laugh, or that they are consumed by insecurities and use the attack is the best form of defence idea.

Ok, websites may not be the most reliable places to get psych diagnosis, and I take no responsibility for any babble they might put out on any number of subjects relating to the human mind, but I don't have an answer for that question so I had to try and find one, didn't I ?

Being a sceptic, I actually think that, given the timing, this is purely a profile raising exercise, will the women of Beaudesert feel either sorry for or empowered by this assertive action on body image ? or will the general public think this is just another example of spoilt gen Y's wanting and getting and never hearing the word NO.

I wonder at the mental state of people who will go into unnecessary serious surgery several times perhaps in the name of vanity, and at their capacity to rationally and reasonably represent the majority of the public who would never put their own life in danger that way.

I also wonder at the reference to God, and the blaming, and if there is one, just how impressed a God would be to find a former Jewish person being so disrespectful to both their temple and their holy father. God was innocent in all this.

Don't wig the Cat out man.

2009-04-17T20:46:00.002+10:00

With the latest discussions in the good chambers of Logan Council , behind closed doors i might add, is about Cat Registration, I'm not kidding.

It has been reported in the news that the State Government is requiring all the cats to be registered and micro chipped and most preferably desexed as well, and some Councils have made enquiry and had discussions about how exactly that will be implemented.

I'm informed that at Logan there is quite a margin between the amount collected from the registration of Dogs and what they spend on facilities and control (specifically for Dogs) and that has also been part of the discussions I hear.

So getting down to tin tacks, we the public assume the reason, and really the only plausible one, for hiding the discussions from us is that these gutless councillors are planning to charge cat owners for the privilege of keeping the mice away from the pantry, could it be so ?

I'd have to say that even if it was free, you'd have to be "tossing possums" to even consider registering your cat because in all likely hood sooner or later these councillors will decide to make you pay, and how easy will it be to know who to charge than to simply go through the register of those who partook of the free registration etc.

Another thing to consider is that by charging the public for owning cats as they do Dogs, council effectively takes responsibility for the control of problems related to cats in their jurisdiction, even the feral ones.

Now I've been a long time advocate of protecting the natural environment and reducing the numbers of feral cats out there decimating natural species and breeding out of control, so this is a good thing right? Wrong, do we really think Logan Council will actually want to spend the money from cat registration on animal control? I doubt it.

There is a real need for control of feral cats not just in Logan but across Australia, and it's a Government problem that really doesn't seem to be getting very much attention or actually getting any results in real terms; feral cats are increasing.

So are you going to register your cat, if you are or are not I'd like to know the reason.

Nothing to fear ; . . except fear itself ? right?

2009-04-07T08:45:00.002+10:00

Things that go bump in the night, that shadow that seemed to move just at the edge of your periferal vision, things that go missing and later reappear where you've already looked, sound familiar?

You are just like everyone else in this there are things that are odd and things that seem not to make any sence, and of course there are some things, unexplainable things that freak you out.

Deborah Smith
April 5, 2009
An invisibility cloak has long been the the stuff of science fiction, but fantasy is about to become reality.

The British scientist who pioneered the concept, Sir John Pendry, expects a cloak that can conceal an object from prying eyes to be unveiled within months.

Harry Potter need not worry just yet. His wizard's cloak, which makes people disappear, is still too complicated and costly for Muggle scientists to emulate.

"At the moment we don't have the technology to do that," Professor Pendry, of Imperial College London, told the Herald . The first man-made cloak will be more like an invisibility "carpet", he said. Tuck a tiny object underneath it, and it will seemingly disappear because the bump the object makes will be hidden from view with an artificial mirage.

Its development will be a startling demonstration of the potential of metamaterials - a radical new technology that could lead to other applications, including barriers to prevent waves damaging the shore, acoustic cloaks to reduce noise, stealth systems for the military, and faster telecommunications.

Metamaterials have microscopic structures that give them properties not found in nature because of the unusual way the structures interact with light or other electromagnetic waves.

They can be designed to hide things by bending radiation around an object as if it were not there, "like water flowing around a stone", said Professor Pendry, who will give a public talk on invisibility at the University of Sydney on Wednesday.

He was the first to think up these new materials a decade ago. In 2004, to "spice up" one of his mathematically dense lectures in the US, he mentioned Harry Potter. "I said one of the interesting things they could do is hide things."

Other researchers in the audience, led by David Smith of Duke University, took his message to heart. "They went back and built the darn thing."

In 2006 Professor Smith revealed the first cloak, which steered radiation around a copper cylinder, making it invisible to microwave detection.

"I am optimistic work in progress will produce an optical cloak in the next six months," Professor Pendry said.

Sydney Science Forum on invisibility, Wednesday April 8, 5.30 pm, Bookings 9351 3021, ssf@science.usyd.edu.au .

If this does become reality it won't be before they either only make it available to police and military or only make available some device to allow police and military to see someone if they are "invisible"

I just thought it looked like fun.
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WHO IS BUDDY WILSON ?

2009-04-04T10:02:00.002+10:00

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I've had several emails in relation to the issues ongoing at Greenbank which mostly seem to revolve around the divisional councillor, the Greenbank community centre management committee and now a new group trying to move into the area.

The issues;

The councillor being a member of the GCC management committee
The removal of a long term community group from the GCC
The use and relocation of a telephone line
The inconsistencies in the accounts at the GCC AGM.
The closing of GCC meetings to the public
The compulsory blue card requirement, with no children's program
The cancelling of memberships over blue card requirement
The matter of who resides in the care takers residence at GCC

It seems that when issues arose between the Divisional Councillor, Hagnal Ban, and a community group situated in the Greenbank Community Center's Kurrong Romm on a permanent basis with the rent subsidised by that Councillor, the first thing that Ban did was to stop paying the $50 a week rent without telling the group it had been cut. After a period of perhaps two months the GCC committee issued a notice to the group asking for rent to be paid up to date and after some checking to find it had indeed not been paid by the councillor, it was paid by a means that resulted in a permanent rec cord of the payment and the receiving of that money. Nevertheless later at the GCC AGM it was declared that the money had not been paid and this information was given to journalists to discredit the group in all probability.

The payment of the overdue rent was never acknowledged by the GCC committee and an order was issued by it to remove the group from the GCC . After a time, the dispute escalated to the point where the group was locked out by council (Beaudesert) Questions were asked at the time about the councillors involvement as a committee member of the GCC management Committee, and the Councillor gave assertions to the public and Logan Council that she was never a member of the committee, despite it being recorded on minutes that she had offered apologies at committee meetings and had attended committee meetings which are not open for the public. It has also been public knowledge that the previous council Beaudesert Shire put a councillor on every community group including the GCC management Committee and it is in council documents that she was put there and in the GCC constitution that a councillor would have automatic membership on that committee.

During the time these disputes were on going the GCC was undergoing some upgrades including the construction of a new caretakers residence, bollards around driving areas to keep cars away from pedestrian areas, and some other things. As soon as the group was locked out it seems their telephone connection, which I'm told cost the group about $3500, was connected to the new caretakers residence by someone other than Telstra apparently and without consent from the group, and that group paid the bill for a time while it was used by others. I believe that theft of a phone line is a serious offence, but I'm not seeing any action from either Council or other authorities.

I wonder at how the connection between the councillor, Hagnal Ban, and the committee in this matter is not obvious to a Council who have inherited the situation, but it seems they are nonetheless turning a blind eye to it.

The AGM of the GCC management committee was a shambles by all accounts and the president was just going to chair it until a member of the public insisted that all committee deliver reports and then stand down while a neutral chair hosts the re election of a new committee. The Councillor, ban was there but refused to chair, and it was Greg Birkbeck who quickly jumped to the position of chair after a whispering session with the councillor apparently. The old committee had the numbers and was re-elected without a problem, and those people who came on the night to join up as members to be elected to that committee were prevented from voting. I personally believe that was set up by some people who had declared that they were going to join up and help get a new committee going, but didn't do so until the AGM even though I'm told they were informed that if they did so they would not be permitted to vote. Those people are integrated with that committee very well now I'm told.

The GCC management committee have made it compulsory for members to have a blue card (for working with children) even though they don't offer any programs at all, no child care and are a hall hire committee in essence, they have also signed off on the applications for members saying that they do, and the members have signed off saying they are working or volunteering to work with children under the GCC management committee as i understand it.

Any members who wouldn't provide their personal details on the form for the management committee, rightfully, on the basis that it is wrong to make this a requirement for membership, have been sent letters terminating their membership.

Since that time it has been revealed to me that it is a requirement for members t attend 4 meetings per Annam to maintain membership, and of course vote at future AGM's and that committee has also changed the constitution to say that they only have to open meetings to the public on two occasions other than the AGM, so no one but them are ever going to be the committee.

At the last AGM questions were asked as to who was residing in the caretakers residence, since it was supposed to be advertised to the public that a job as caretaker was available, but it was clear that someone was already occupying the building, I was told that the secretary was seen parked there and her car was there overnight on a regular basis. At that AGM it was publicly announced by the secretary that a temporary caretaker named BUDDY WILSON was in fact the occupant of the building until a permanent care taker could be found.

Apparently there was 1 applicant interviewed for the job and was rejected, I am also told that someone named Greg Birkbeck interviewed the applicant, although not a member of the committee or an officer with Logan Council, I don't know if Birkbeck is qualified to interview applicants for a caretakers job anyway, but if there was only one why were they rejected? will this information be made public. The rumour is that the persons residing in the caretakers residence are related to members of the committee.

So I wonder who was Buddy Wilson, how was he removed from the residence and why if the position was not yet filled, and where is he now and for that matter where did he come from because other than the claim of his existence by the GCC management committee member, no one else has ever seen or heard of him.

If you know Buddy Wilson, please email me so I can resolve the issue.
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Draft SEQRP ; Make your comments count, time extension.

2009-04-02T11:38:00.002+10:00

This is a press release and the sceptic in me says that they haven't received the minute percentage of submissions as yet to effectively call this consultation so they are extending the deadline for closing, but basically it allows you all to have your say on one of the most manipulative, prejudicial, biased, misinformed, and polarising documents the government has released.

In real terms the SEQ RP is about stopping mums and dads using that big block they planned and worked for years to own, often doing without to do so, from being subdivided to either fund retirement or provide land for their offspring. The SEQ RP calls this fragmented development and prefers the kind delivered by the major developers like Lend Lease, so it has given them in many cases development rights in the middle of rural areas whilst preventing anyone else from having the same right.

The big hit comes when it seems that councils get the workload to make it all happen, and guess what, that means that those mums and dads don't get the right to develop their parcel of land but they get to fund the planning for the big developer, fund the structure planning for that developer and fund the planning for infrastructure to service that development for the big developer and fund quite a bit of the physical infrastructure to that development, in other words you cant have your rights even though you have paid your own way, but you will now pay again so the developer can make huge profits, . . . . . . .and of course that developer may just make a tax deduct able, large donation to a political parties campaign fund.

Minister for Infrastructure and Planning
The Honourable Stirling Hinchliffe

Tuesday, March 31, 2009
EXTRA TIME FOR SEQ REGIONAL PLAN SUBMISSIONS

South East Queenslanders have an extra month to provide feedback on the draft SEQ Regional Plan 2009 – 2031.

Minister for Infrastructure and Planning Stirling Hinchliffe today announced the public consultation period has been extended to 1 May instead of closing of this Friday.
“Some Councils and interest groups have asked for an extension, I’m keen to make sure everyone gets the chance to have their say,” said Mr Hinchliffe.
“This is a plan to protect the things that make South East Queensland such a great place to live for future generations, like our wonderful outdoors environment.
“It places more than 84 per cent of the region off limits to urban development.
“I encourage everyone to have a look at the draft so they can provide any feedback.
“It’s a plan for smart growth, to manage our expanding population and tackle the issues of today like housing affordability, congestion and climate change.
“I’m proud to say we’ve managed to avoid any significant changes to our existing urban footprint, which provides a clear boundary to stop sprawl and protect our natural environment, whilst providing enough land for predicted population growth.
“The focus of the growth will remain the Western Corridor, where the population will expand twice as fast as Brisbane and the coastal areas each year on average.”
Mr Hinchliffe said although submissions usually covered several issues, key themes had already emerged.
“By Monday morning my department had received more than 1000 submissions from individuals, commercial and community organisations, local governments and state agencies,” Mr Hinchliffe said.
“They range from several form letters to detailed council submissions, from input from wildlife organisations and conservation groups to the caravan industry.
“The natural environment is featuring strongly so far with feedback around koala issues, biodiversity, air, noise and coastal management.
“The department is already processing submissions and I have asked them to work closely with key stakeholders over coming weeks so we can finalise the plan by mid-year.”

KEY FACTS

- safeguards more than 84 per cent of the region’s 22, 890 sq km from urban development
- strict controls remain in place for housing outside urban footprint
undeveloped areas, infill areas and rural residential lots can cater for 735,500 more houses and units
- protects natural landscape and rural production areas from housing and rural subdivision
- promotes more growth in the Western Corridor to take pressure off coastal communities
- halts urban sprawl by locating new communities and jobs along public transport corridors to limit car use
- consolidates rural growth to keep green breaks between cities and communities
- ecofriendly tourism development allowed outside the urban footprint increased to include “medium-scale” projects, but not on ecologically significant or good quality agricultural lands
- new sustainable housing designs and new building standards

The draft South East Queensland Regional Plan can be viewed at: www.dip.qld.gov.au or at Council chambers.

Submissions can be mailed to:
Draft SEQ Regional Plan Submission
Department of Infrastructure and Planning
Reply Paid 15009, City East Qld 4002;
via fax: (07) 3235 4071
by email: seqreview@dip.qld.gov.au
(only if they include the full name and email address, or other address, of the submitter)
or lodged in person at the Department of Infrastructure and Planning, 63 George St, Brisbane.

Media 1 - voters 0

2009-03-22T08:33:00.003+10:00

Watching the elections in Queensland has been less than inspiring, in fact I'd say there would be more controversy in a mono political system in a communist country.

I haven't seen a more arrogant person win an election since Beattie and I have to say she is just as the news media describe historical in this victory but in a different way.

In days long gone and when the people of France were starving a certain member of the royalty cried " let them eat cake" . . . . . The french revolted and killed as many of the upper class as they could.

Here in Australia, when we were running out of water, Blight said "let them drink their own shit" . . . . . . and the people rewarded her with another term to continue her dictatorial arrogance, ratifying again the forced amalgamations, accepting that they will pay more tax to service her $10 million a day interest bill on the Labor slush fund and accept the addition of a known toxin to our drinking water supply.

I have never seen such a dirty campaign, and one where the media was so biased, in my opinion clearly supporting the Labor government in Advertising, comment, publishing of press releases, and even continuing to advertise during the traditional media blackout before an election.

The very few opposition adds that I did see were sandwiched between Labor adds which featured the opposition leader with negative insinuations and with plain untruths about his policy and pure lies about what he will do if elected.

Then there was the strangest one of all; the amount of time Labor gave to advertising the opposition in a negative light and making claims that people will lose jobs if they vote against the government.

I would say that Queensland is in for a long three years of suffering under Labor and that even though Bligh promised Jobs, her federal counterpart Rudd has already said Labor will cut jobs, and even more that Bligh was claiming the opposition would cut, get ready for pain people.

I am about to succeed from Australia I think, I don't know if i can afford to continue to fly arrogant Bligh and her ministers around the world on holidays while we drink shit and toxins and eat tainted Chinese food because the regional plan is stealing all our farm land for housing and industry built by those companies it seems who funded this re election.

Peter Garrett, it gets worse.

2009-02-26T20:37:00.002+10:00

I've always had the opinion that Garrett was caught up in his political infatuation early in his life, quite possibly before Uni, and was staunchly anti conservative.
He used this to his best advantage as front man for Midnight Oil where his politically incorrect (for the time) lyrics complimented the Bands cutting edge, unique sound and put them into a niche withing the pop music genre where they had almost no competition as an anti government / pro humanity act.
There are of course those who sentimentally believe that Garrett is what he sings, I don't subscribe to that theory at all, despite him having served as president of the Australian Conservation Foundation from 1989 to 1993 and 1998 to 2004, in addition he also joined the International Board of Greenpeace in 1993 for a two-year term and served as adviser and patron to various cultural and community organisations including Jubilee Debt Relief, and was a founding member of the Surfrider Foundation.
My personal opinion is that due to his high profile, he was sought out for those roles to raise the profile among younger people and help with fund raising.

Anyway, read this and make your own opinion, is Garrett just a puppet a token, a Labor yes man?

Former musician and Arts minister Peter Garrett has shut down an elite Melbourne classical music school.

The former singer with political rock band Midnight Oil has decided to defund the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) and start a new institution within the University of Melbourne.

Unlike other institutions, ANAM does not offer degrees or formal classes - it comprises mainly of one-on-one tuition and opportunities to perform.

The body is seen as a good bridge between learning institutions and the professional musical circuit.

The federal opposition has questioned the motives behind the decision, pointing to the cosy relationship between the Vice Chancellor of Melbourne University Glyn Davis and the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Davis helped Rudd run the recent 2020 Summit in Canberra.

Garrett has not announced how many students the new school will take or where it will be located.

Hillary Clinton, past it, or just the wrong person for the job?

2009-02-23T07:44:00.002+10:00

The foreign policy of the US has ramifications accros the world and as far as being a peacekeeper the US has an important role but has the appointment of the Ex President's wife, a blatant crony job, tainted the impartiality with which the world expects issues to be tackled.

Hillary Clinton has already said that she is 100% behind the ongoing destruction of Palestine by Isreal and has fixed ideas about foreign policy on many other subjects and personally, I think someone new and a little less biassed or more impartial would have been better for the job, actually I think Mrs Clinton has no place in this new administration after all the US has been in the clutches of clintons and bushes for 20 years, isn't that enough?

Read on;

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has urged China to keep buying US debt as she wrapped up her first overseas trip, during which she agreed to work closely with Beijing on the financial crisis.

Ms Clinton made the plea shortly before leaving China, the final stop on a four-nation Asian tour that also took her to Japan, Indonesia and South Korea, where she worked the crowds to try to restore America's standing abroad.

In Beijing, she called on authorities in Beijing to continue buying US Treasury bonds, saying it would help jumpstart the flagging US economy and stimulate imports of Chinese goods.

"By continuing to support American Treasury instruments the Chinese are recognising our interconnection. We are truly going to rise or fall together,'' Ms Clinton said at the US embassy here.

Ms Clinton had sought to focus on economic and environmental issues in Beijing, saying Washington's concerns about the human rights situation in China should not be a distraction from those vital matters.

Beijing's human rights record emerged nonetheless as an issue, as dissidents on Saturday reported being harassed or intimidated by Chinese authorities in a bid to stop them speaking out or meeting Ms Clinton while she was here.

"Plainclothes police blocked me from leaving my home. They were afraid I would try to meet with Hillary Clinton or others in her delegation,'' democracy campaigner Jiang Qisheng said.

Ms Clinton and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi largely agreed to disagree on human rights as they pledged future joint action on the economy and climate change.

The goodwill, also on display in her talks with President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, could raise hope for a new era of cooperation between the two largest greenhouse gas emitters and two of the world's top three economies.

What a difference a day makes, as Qld plunges lower into recession than any other state.

2009-02-21T20:38:00.003+10:00

As the treasurer tells his tale of woe and lays the blame at global factors out of his control, the question is being asked, how long has the problem been going on and why didn't the state government do something earlier.

We are going $1.66 billion into deficit by the forecast, and could be deeper and worse our states credit rating has dropped, the only state to do so, to AA+ from AAA which means we will pay a higher rate of interest on government borrowings and we were paying $10 million a day in interest before all this.

You'd have to say that the treasury has not kept the government informed of the situation or they have simply turned a blind eye to it hoping it wouldn't impact until after the elections.

With labor heavy weights jumping ship and taking life time incomes with them, it will be years before this state will be in the black again and one could only expect the incoming government to be stuck with the job of trying to sort out a mess.

Once Australia's boom state, riding a wave of property and mining investment, Queensland has an economy grinding to a halt. Treasury officials issued a dire warning yesterday for the next financial year, when they fear the budget deficit will double to $3.2billion.

The latest forecasts, which take into account the Rudd Government's $42 billion stimulus package and recent interest rate cuts, predict a further 60,000 people will be laid off in 2009-10, when economic growth will slump to 1per cent, putting Queensland on the brink of a recession.

With the property market stagnant and weakening global demand for coal, the $809 million surplus forecast for this financial year had become $54 million by December and was revised yesterday to a $1.573 billion deficit.

In the past two months, Treasury officials have revised down revenue collections by $500 million in transfer duty, $427 million in royalties and $334 million in GST, and for the first time will have to top up the supposedly fully funded government superannuation scheme.

The treasurer has come up with a solution though, he plans to either cut services, or raise taxes.

Brilliant!

Israel, no longer the promissed land.

2008-12-31T08:48:00.002+10:00

Since the creation, by force, of the "State of Israel" aparently located there by an interpretation from an interpretation of some scripture, the Palestinians have been vocal and in world news for their opposition of that State.

Originally through the "Palestinian Liberation Organisation" (PLO) they gained nothing but world condemnation for the "terrorist tactics used to get attention to their plight and with the main western powers in control were told that the decision was made, and that they had to get over it.

The PLO is gone for all intents and purposes, but not the memories of just how brutal it was for those within the new declared State who opposed its construction and there were rumours of defiant people being dragged from their homes and imprisoned where city's were to be built and those homes were to be bulldozed and it is also alledged that people remained resolute in some homes and were bulldozed within them as all Palestinian things were removed and destroyed and leveled.

The memory, real or concocted of those events drives the older Palestinians on and the aggression of retaliation against any outspoken opposition or even stone throwing at soldiers effectively occupying areas of Palestine keeps the fighting going; many times Israel military have talked about the total obliteration of Palestine as the only solution to ongoing conflict.

Israel controls the media for the region and constantly destroys any new Television station built in Palestine because they really don't want local Palestinians seeing how their bretheren are faring under the war machine of Israel. The media reports show Palestinians living in the state of Israel as Happy, and living a good life, but in my travels there years ago it seemed to me that Israel has created a "slave caste" where Palestinians can live there, they cannot run for office, the cannot own companies or be directors, they cannot go to Palestine unless they stay there permenently, they cannot hold a passport, and they cannot own property (although they can hold title to their home as long as they remain in it, if they leave it; it then becomes property of the state). You can see that these people do not live in equality with the Jewish Israelies but at least they are safe from Israelie gunships , tanks, and indescriminent sharpshooter attacks. Israel is careful not to let this information out to the media and uses Jewish control of world money and media to cover any negative reports.

The majority of reports from media makes claims that whomever died at the hands of Israelie military strikes were Hamas militants, I suppose the dead can't defent themselves and it is easier to believe that the story is true or you'd have to believe that the Israelies are trying to do to the Palestinians exactly what Hitler did to them, tried to wipe them out.

Make no mistake, the UN have proclaimed Israel outside its jurisdiction by remaining in Gaza and other occupied territories, which Israel simply took over by military force, claiming it was growing too fast and that it needed to expand and that there was nothing of value there for the inhabitants anyway, even though the once again dozed everything to allow settlements to be built, when they eventually did pull out (only really the settlers) they left nothing preferring to bulldoze rather than leave accomidation for any returning displaced Palestinains.

To be honest I don't rate that a Jewish state ever existed within the arabic lands, there may have been large enclaves of Jews there but in biblical times the people were still tribal to a certain extent, rather than being unified countrywide, I also don't rate the idea that the Jewish area would have been all the best land, the most arrible and the bets water and that the rest of the local people were happy to live in the remainder ; desert.

I reckon the aggression could be stopped by Israel, it is they who came there and they could make the peace, they are a rich nation who are directly supported by the US and could use money to solve the divide between the two countries, it would cost the same to build roads, housing and dig wells for neighbouring Palestine as to war with them, wouldn't it.

But that would not keep the myth of oppression of the jews alive, world sympathy would wane and they may just have to exist on their own, and lets face it they are all about money, they are very rich and they war against a country where the people have absolutely nothing to fight with and nothing to loose.

No Poo Water for Politicians

2008-12-29T16:56:00.002+10:00

Thanks to a Friend who gave this to me, I missed this and i reckon it wasn't too hard to do, apparently it was a tiny piece on page 75 of the weekend paper.

It was titled "Perks for pollies"

Amid all the talk of tightening and tough times ahead, state politicians granted themselves a package of extra perks.

Meal budgets and clothing allowances were raised, ministers' partners were given membership of the Quantas Club's Chairmans Lounge and ministers were allocated $30 a month in bottled water for their chauffeur-driven limousines.

Some of the states mayors didn't miss out either - the maximum remuneration levels were raised by 5 per cent just nine months after most were awarded huge increases with the creation of new super councils.

I would have to say that if they want us to drink fluoridated, recycled sewage they should at least put out a pretence of doing it as well, right ?