There's no fool like an old fool.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This was in the Courier Mail (Sunday Edition)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

Cundall says it is disappointing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crikey, there's no denying it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Developers to get a free ride.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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Carbon Tax,. . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So lets start asking questions;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So who benefits from all these changes?

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

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

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

Save Greenbank , The ULDA are coming.

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

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

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

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

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



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



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



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





Here are the MEETING details:



WHEN:

Every WED in February

TIME:

7PM

WHERE:

GREENBANK COMMUNITY CENTER

145 Teviot Road

GREENBANK.



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



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



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



Print them out then:

· STICK THEM ON THE SIDE OF YOUR CAR WINDOWS

· Put them on your fences,

· Put them on EVERY post in the street.

· Put them in every shop

· Put them in all the schools,

· Do flier drops at Woolies

· Stick them in public toilets

· Use your imagination



TAKE MASSIVE ACTION to get EVERYBODY to this IMPORTANT MEETING.



HOWEVER, PLEASE NOTE:

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



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



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



Here is the proposed format for the meetings:

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

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

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

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

We NEED YOUR SUPPORT TO GET EVERY POLITICIAN HERE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

· We need savvy advertising article writers

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

· A Facebook and Twitter Campaign manager

· A Public Picketting Group

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

· Wobble Board holders

· Artists for sign making

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See you all at the meeting.

Disrespect, lacking credibility and disgustingly uncompassionate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


.

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

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.