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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 ?

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.

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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.

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

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 ?

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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.

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

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.