Magistrate Rodney Crisp ; Draconian and Drunk on Power ?

.

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.


.

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.


.

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.

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

Yarrabliba and Flagstone could begin by the end of 2011.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


.

Logan ; lets talk Roads and Bridges.

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

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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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


.

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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


.

Rats, . . . deserting the stinking ship.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


.

The Money or the Box.

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

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

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

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

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

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


.

The Unions, . . . . and Work Choices.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


.

The Brimble verdict, what is it saying to us?

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


.

Housing prices skyrocketing, but not just in Australia.

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

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

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

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

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


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

Beijing city limits home buyers to one new apartment

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

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

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


.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


.