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.


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

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

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

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

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

Yes. but guilty of what?

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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Oakshot and Windsor; Blood on their hands.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pride cometh before fall.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is what it says about that document; also.

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

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

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

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

Which bank runs the Reserve Bank of Australia?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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Is Bob Brown the saddest man in politics?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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