Koala habitat , decreasing by government decree.

The State Government has released its new planning laws which they claim will save Koala populations in South East Queensland including spending $15 million to buy new or rehabilitate existing habitats, compulsory acquisition powers for koala habitats outside the urban footprint, land swaps and banning dogs in new developments.

All sounds good doesn't it, except when you consider that the average developed house lot is around a quarter of a million dollars these days, so the $15million will only buy 60 lots or about 20 acres worth of development potential land.

The minister, Climate Change and Sustainability Minister Kate Jones, seems to be a State version of Garrett in that they are only yes men to their respective governments and those who fund them, which in Queensland seems to be the developers.

Is Kate Jones so uneducated on environmental issues that she actually believes that this amount of money to buy back land for Habitat will save the Koala population? Or does she just follow the party line unerringly and mindlessly hoping the voters will believe the spin she speaks with the release.

With the likes of Garrett, Wong and now Kate Jones leading the Labor Federal and State governments charge on environmental issues we have nothing to fear about the future in my opinion, because there won't be much environment left to worry about.

Winning the battle against Fire Ants ? I don't think so !

Recently I have been made aware of the situation with the department that is supposed to be all about the eradication of Fire Ants, a particularly aggressive ant that both stings and bites, simultaneously, and continually, repetitively.

The ants are very fast moving, and have the swarm instinct so when attacked most people and animals sustain heavy bites/stings to the affected area, and I'm talking hundreds of bites and stings, before the ants can be removed from the affected area.

What i have just been made aware of is that every new housing estate, no matter how far from any of the current fire ant areas, is instantly declared an area and added to the zone for control and monitoring, and that means inspections and a paper trail of how any materials are removed from site.

The thing is that i could make the claim that i personally am winning the battle against fire ants the same way the department is, without even bothering to kill one ant, and how is that possible? simple just keep increasing the area covered under fire ant investigation and there for the area with the ants becomes a smaller percentage, pure and simple mathematics.

That's not quite what the department is doing, because they are obviously killing off much of the fire ant population with their baits of toxic corn and are controlling the spread by monitoring the areas affected as well.

However, since they were granted power over the average citizen with the ability to fine people for non compliance with their own made up rules which almost no one knows about, they have been reluctant to relinquish that power and by increasing the areas under investigation they continue to need more staff keeping the department as one of the biggest in existence.

I'm not advocating stopping of the program to eradicate this ferocious pest, which was allowed to be imported here by a failure of the very department that now has power to fine ordinary people for far lesser failures to comply, and the department now even admits the ants may have been here longer than first thought, well DUH.

Will the ants ever be eradicated? i don't think so, all the new megalomaniac heads of department will never let that happen, in case they actually have to go get a job.

Government relaxes rules on foreigners who want to buy property here.

The claim from the minister is that it will have little effect on first home buyers because it is still very dificult for foreigners to by existing homes without the approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board. it has only been made easier to purchase new homes without the Boards approval.

Really ?

If supply and demand was the driver of the last property boom and that in real terms means that the increase in population is creating a situation where people cannot find homes to satisfy their housing needs, then why has there been a push to introduce further immigration and attract them to the growth areas.

This is not a racist issue, it more about further widening of the affordability gap for our children who will want to one day buy their own home and not be forced by government policy to fund the lavish retirement lifestyle of some foreign investors.

There is even talk of bringing tourists here for real estate shopping tours, and it's quite probable that is already occurring.

I wonder how much of this country will be sold off a lot at a time to foreigners?
We will have to foot the bill for infrastructure like the Traveston's Crossing Dam which will supply water in the future to a few major developments in the area, and like the Wyarralong Dam which will service a 200 square kilometer industrial precinctto the west of Beaudesert and stretching 27 kilometers along the Logan River.

And that's without increases to roads carrying capacity which are in an appalling state of repair and totally inadequite for the needs of the present users.

What we should be looking toward is a Sustainable Population, but to be honest I think we may have missed that boat.

Pigs about to feed at the trough.

With pensioners recently fighting for a couple of years to get a meagre $32 a week increase to the paltry pittance that the pension has become as inflation and the wages / prices spiral flys away out of sight, they have been told that this is a generous move by the government, pffft!

While the sledging and personal slurs and innuendo flail from the lips of each side in the parliament particularly during question time and debates, behind the scenes there has been some pretty handy getting together to discuss the ministers pay rise that's going to come to them; note I said is going to rather than may, and i did so because the independent tribunal or commissioner (who is paid by the government) has decided that a pay rise should be forthcoming and neither side are going to knock it back.

It reminds me of way back when someone was telling us we all need to tighten our belt and that life wasn't meant to be easy, and how that angered the community so much that they were voted out at the next election.

Its funny isn't it that when a pensioner in this lucky country is only worth a bag of prawns a week, or a carton perhaps, the ministers will get a rise that is a jar of good caviar or french champagne, let them eat cake!

Preselection tussels as egos clash in the LNP.

It seems things are not exactly hunky dory in the LNP camp and it's all got to do with preselection for the Federal election which is still quite a way off.

In my opinion the LNP doesn't exist at federal level anyway, but there are those out there who are already staking their claim on certain electorates and making demands that the other party from which the LNP was formed don't field a candidate to run against them.

Take for instance the LNP poster boy, Peter Dutton who is touted to be moving from his prior area, Dickson which is now marginal, and heading to McPhearson down toward the Gold Coast where it is more conducive to a conservative victory.

It seems that the move may have upset the local branch before it has even happened, and that some who believe they should be up for preselection themselves don't want the competition from a more highly profiled candidate with some even going to the media to tell all who read that he has dumped his old seat for an easy run.

Bringing back any memories? I thought it might, i was critical of a State member who also dumped his area and moved into what was a safe seat for over 20 years, where people with lesser profile had worked all that time for the community only to be shafted of the reward of being preselected by what i believe is pure cowardice and running away from a real challenge where Mr. Personality could have used that profile to mount a significant display and quite possibly turn out the incumbent and thereby win two seats instead of one.

In our neck of the woods there is another candidate who has been touting their suitability for a new seat and it seems has claimed to be the LNP candidate for that federal seat or at least has publicised that is the desire.

The seat is yet to be officially created, although it is expected to be but regardless, once again i wonder why these LNP people continue to think they will be alone when they run because at Federal level it is still Nationals and Liberals so theoretically a National LNP member should be able to run against and Liberal LNP member without it ending up in conflict.

I'm horrified at the way the National Party seems to be grabbing any slightly profiled person to become a candidate and force them on the community who really don't want to choose between dumb and dumber, or any other candidate who believes they are above the rest of society and that their shit don't stink.

As a typical swinging voter who at this time is full up to here with Labor, feeling very dissatisfied with the State governments bungling and selling off our assets and the federal government who we voted to get rid of work choices and who have barely touched that legislation except to allow workers to get a union rep to assist them in enterprise bargaining and really only doing so to guarantee themselves more union fee related income, I would probably vote conservative this time.

Buy, if I don't like the choices from the LNP, what am I going to do?

I suppose I can always vote green!

Reigniting the old market garden issue.

A couple of weeks ago I received an email suggesting that trees were being cleared on a few properties in the old North of Beaudesert with permits or approvals from Logan Council and the sender was concerned that there was going to be a new influx of Protected Horticulture operations due to some kind of moratorium on tree clearing.

Being pre occupied with work and other personal issues I checked out a couple of addresses and found that one of them was definitely cleared and now has been covered with the familiar plastic igloo type structures that have caused much concern for people who want private residential use of their land adjacent to what is essentially factory farming.

I was however, amazed to see this weeks local paper and the sensationalised stories about one property in Greenbank and whilst I have sympathy for the owner of the neighbouring property if there is a change of use to Intensive Horticulture I have to wonder why just one property has been targeted and why the hysterical views about small cropping in any form, of another person, have been added as a separate story.

Actually I don't have to wonder, it is quite obvious in my opinion that the alliances are gathering their forces together once again to try to get one persons idea that we should all only be allowed to garden up to 200 square meters on our land revisited by Logan Council and forced upon us.

I have had email discussions with someone who has been a well known advocate for regulation of Protected horticulture within rural residential or what they call rural living areas now, for well over 5 years and who despite having a comprehensive document lodged with the Beaudesert Council all that time ago which would have seen both Council and community well served by allowing everyone, including new buyers to know the rules and have a clear understanding of the requirements before attempting to buy land for intensive horticulture operations and allowing the community fair dispute resolution as well as a process of objection to any proposed new change of use, that person has been gagged and omitted from discussions because it has become politicised and that person will not come out against market gardens and does not believe in extinguishing the "as of right use" that existing operators have now.

In those email discussions I was also enlightened to the fact that the regulations can be applied at State Government level as they are in NSW which removes the ability of some opportunistic politically savvy aspirants to use such a polarising issue for their own purposes.

I was asked this interesting question, and it is so pertinent, " why would someone move into a rural area, into roads named Farm or Harvest even, and then try to stop others who are just using their right to follow a typically rural pursuit from running a small crops operation on their land?

Rudd, showing how he loves China again.

My view of the Australian financial situation differs greatly from that purported by our PM Kevin 07, in that I don't really believe we had to go into recession nor did we need to talk down the business confidence or the value of currency.

Our major Banks were not exposed in a big way to the world economic meltdown and continue to make huge profits despite following the worlds pull back of business lending and even home loans, for which in my opinion there was no need.

Our unemployment rate had not taken any significant dive , and job prospects although lower were still greater than the number of job seekers.

And then they announced that we were in recession and that people needed to stock up on groceries and that there would be mortgage repayment holidays and the stimulus packages, wow, we suddenly stopped buying, borrowing, going out, driving or anything else that cost money and that meant that retailers were not ordering and in turn manufacturers were not needing to make things, shit, we are in recession.

OK, to actually get to my point, Rudd has said that we should not buy Australian made, in fact we should avoid it at all costs.

Why?

You may laugh, but here's what he said;

"We need to avoid any form of protectionist measure which invites retaliatory protectionist measures," he told reporters today.

The mistake of the Great Depression was that governments believed the way to get through was to close their national borders to imports.

"We're not about to repeat those mistakes here."

Talk about comparing cabbages with persimmons, honestly does he think there is any similarity between a country with a very low population, between wars, and with a rudimentary economy based on wool and wheat is anything like what we have grown into.

Really if we don't help ourselves, the Chinese with the money will help themselves to our country, and just maybe that is part of Rudd's agenda. Kevin 07 seems to be the best ambassador for sell it to China and buy it back again ten times the price since Pig Iron Bob Menzies had his crush on Japan.

Does Rudd really think that by turning Australia into a marketplace for China and giving away jobs here is any kind of answer? and Just where does he think the people will get the money from to buy all the Chinese stuff when we're all out of work, and who does he think will be paying all the tax that has allowed Kevin 07 to jet around the world?

Think again Kevin, the unions don't like your ideas and anyone with kids will be wondering where they are going to get a job when all we have is retail.

Kevin 07 has run out of ideas and, I think, time.

AEC changing boundaries, what's in a name?

A name for a new electorate has been proposed and with valid reasons, the electorate of Wright was thought to be named after the Australian poet and social and environmental activist Judith Wright, however locally this name will more than likely be associated with the ex Labor politician and convicted criminal Keith Wright.

It is of course the fact that Mr Wright was a figure in the local area being a teacher and headmaster of schools in the area where the new electorate is to be proposed.

Unfortunately it is his abominable crimes that make this choice of name unsavoury for this area, because even though he has served his time and been released he has not gone away and his victims are still serving a life sentence from the atrocious and perverse acts he perpetrated upon them.

On a Tangent of sorts, there are commentators who are claiming a demographic of voters which will give the new seat a lean toward the conservatives by more than a few percent will favour any candidates from the Nationals or Liberals should they field one and that with a backlash from the Labor State and Federal governments it is a distinct possibility that this will be a conservative seat in it's initial term.

That begs the question, who will be the candidate in Queensland, will it be a Liberal? a National? or will it be one of the recently configured LNP?

I think we already know one person who will be putting their hand up and shouting from the roof tops that they are the best candidate, A person who has not worked in a real job, does not have years of business experience, has no life experience and does not really have a normal lifestyle in my opinion.

One candidate who dumped a council division, while continuing to take the pay for it, and ran at the last federal elections, failing dismally even though it is thought that the publicity budget would have been many times what was spent by both the major rivals from Labor and Liberal will probably dump the council division again to run for this new seat expecting to get preselection it seems.

I don't know how the people of that division will take being dumped a second time, I personally would be outraged!

Cheap Chinese Cars - what's the catch?

Since Rudd was outed for getting use of a ute provided by his then mate and neighbour, for free, which he denied was his at first until his mate told media that it was, and then denied that he'd given any favourable treatment in return for that ute or even that the treasurer had done anything either, the question has arisen about how that used car dealer has become the local dealership for the "Great Wall" line of motor vehicles in this country.

See, it's not as easy at hiring a bikini girl to wash them in the car yard and then flog them off to buyers off the street, not by a long shot.

New cars are shipped needing the final detailing, some small fitments done and all the local regulations and compliance done as well plus there is the after sales service, repairs, breakdowns, and warranty things too.

You expect someone to have to invest a considerable amount in a business that is going to be the local dealership for a new line of cars and that is why in most cases dealerships are offered to existing dealers who already have facilities in place, the office structure, financial capability and contacts along with a sound background and sustainable business plan for the new line.

So I ask the question, "In this day and age where we expect a dealer to be all of the above, how does a used car yard owner get the licence to sell a line of new card as the local dealer?"


There is an even greater issue here. one that has plagued Australian car manufacturers for several decades, how do we produce cars here with cheaper, subsidised imports taking from the small market we already have?

You may remember back in the late 70's when Holden was going broke (as usual)and had to be bailed out by the tax payer (yet again) and the plan was that to allow a reasonable market share for profitability on of the big car manufacturers had to go ; Chrysler had to go.

But it wasn't too long before a good mate of the then PM was importing Hyundai's and other cheap little cars from Asia flooding the local market, and all that really happened was that those cheap nasty cars eventually sold , and jobs at local car makers and the suppliers to the industry dried up while the Asian factories got bigger and bigger.

Now we're seeing it all happen again, Holden has just about gone to the wall(well it has in the US, with GM having to be bailed out big time by the Taxpayers) and suddenly a friend of the PM is going to import some cheap Overseas cars, and presumably more local jobs will go in the car industry and those supplying to it.

I ask the Question, apart from people who want a cheap car, and of course Rudd's mate, how does Australia benefit from dumping jobs here to bring in cheap rubbish from Overseas?

Sociopath , is there one in our midst?

When you say the word Sociopath it sounds like, and many think it is like Psychopath and that is because it is in a way.

Sociopaths get around in the community and are sons and daughters, husbands and wives sometimes, but there are ways to recognise them and when you see all the things they do and put them together they're not that hard to spot.

The main character aspects that distinguish the Sociopath are
Their utter lack of conscience
Their inability to love or be loved
Their ability to turn mean in an instant and be sadistic.
Their ability to follow the rules and use them against you.

Many who encounter a Sociopath in the workplace will find that they are prepared, have spent time undermining you in both your position and credibility and once they begin a campaign against you they have the support of your boss and fellow workers who will see them as the victim, yes they have already been planting the seeds in small comments, manipulation, and even sabotage ; and you will rarely get a good outcome in an encounter with a sociopath because they are prepared to go to any length to get what they want, they know what they want and they will have it.

The sociopath will always find someone to blame and you really don't have to have even done anything to them to earn their ire, They never take responsibility for their own actions and will even go so far as to manufacture proof, mostly circumstantial to bolster their excuse and put the onus of blame onto someone else.

They lie, sometimes by omission, but are shameless about it and clever too, they will wrap their lies seamlessly around a morsel of fact which they will point to if questioned and argue indignantly about if fronted on the original lie.

Sociopaths are on the surface very nice to you, assessing your worth in terms of what you can do for them, what you can give them or how you can take a bullet for them, they are charming and charismatic, sometimes sickeningly so.

They are also conceited, they genuinely think they are the centre of attention and that the world revolves around them and they show it with an arrogance and an attitude, and are prone to create drama to generate interest in themselves all the time.

Sociopaths, like psychopaths, are experts at masking their anger when it suits them, they don't like to mix their worlds and will hold back rather than reveal their nasty side to those who they are in the process of charming. That does not mean they will not retaliate, in fact it means they will retaliate later and it will be with all of their capability, they will try to crush you.

They don't take to criticism or personal insults well, they see criticism in almost everything except for glowing praise and see insults where there are none intended and even see insult toward them at a personal level in things that are not even directed at them, said to them or written. They demand respect and will react against any who show insufficient respect to their position or their perceived authority.

Sociopaths are power hungry, they want to dominate others, they want to have a hold over people, they Will have people in fear of them happily and believe that it is respect for them not fear. They often become lawyers, Judges, Politicians, Psychologists, even school principles but it must be a position of power over others.

They are parasites, they will live off the work of others, take credit for the work of others, and see others unrewarded for their efforts unashamed by it. If they can't find someone to do the work for them they will use their charm to try to get someone to give it to them.

They are manipulative, emotional puppeteers, they love to make people jump, they will spend weeks, months, even years if they have to, planting seeds and setting people up so they can get what they want or just for the pleasure they get from seeing people crushed under their heel.

They are victims; they constantly paint a picture that someone is out to get them, someone is hurting them, they have been picked on or bullied but always to get pity and to get something from you.

Unfortunately this is a character flaw, a mental problem that cannot be cured and in most cases is not recognised until your life has been torn apart by them; perhaps this will have been a bit of help to those readers out there who may now recognise a sociopath among us or even to those who may have been in denial about how their Friend, the nicest person they ever knew is getting so many people upset with them for apparently no reason.


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Privacy - is there any ?

There are many reasons to think that your privacy in nonexistent and in the main they relate to our ever growing use of electronic communication devices such as mobile phones, computers and even pagers and satellite TV.

The thing most people don't realise is that when someone calls you a signal is sent to your phone, so guess what? it means they have to know where to send that signal so in essence they have to track your handset all the time and apparently can do so to within 10 meters with general service available now and to within a meter or so with some more advanced gear which they will use if you are under investigation.

I personally make a lot of calls, all day and into the night also texts and emails, as part of my job, given that one would have to assume that I do sleep, anyone monitoring my electronic communications would be able to know where I am 24 hours a day without any problems at all. and thus if I were stupidly accused of being somewhere it would be a simple matter of looking on my phone bill or my email account to see just where I was at any time.

I digress. Many people don't even know that "big brother is watching" or at least aren't provided with that information in a form that allows them to realise that it is happening especially in the workplace. For instance, your email that is "yourname@yourworkplace .com" usually comes through a central server and is duplicated so the employer can see what is in every email and further can be singled out of the email bulk by certain criteria be it Porn, competitors or even personal details in the wording.

But, it doesn't stop there, in fact that is barely the tip of the iceberg; there are simple marketing devices that can allow those people to aim certain types of advertising to you by collecting information about your web browsing habits which also means that they have small software devices inside your PC which is accessible from a third party for exchange of information.

Of course that means that they can also put more information onto your computer in certain situations and also that other third parties can use the access way created to add further data collection devices (cookies) into your system which can be in small bits which are designed to become active and join up to become a program once all the pieces have been put into your system.

That really does make it easy for Governments and their agencies e.g. police, Tax Department, ASIO etc, to see what is in your PC and to even manipulate what can be deleted. Of course that also may allow information to be put on your computer without you knowing, and communications to be made between websites and by email to be made using the ID from your computer without your knowledge.

Of course authorities will claim that they need the power to see detailed information which is privately held within your computer to catch a variety of criminals such as child predators, terrorists, money launderers and perpetrators of identity fraud which is a valid argument and one that has an opposite where people have made claims that they have had data put into their computers by a third party unknown to them, which is very possible because it seems it is so easy to do if you have the knowledge and equipment.

The only real protection from electronic security breaches is to not use any of the electronic gadgets, but is that realistic? While the privacy Act allows you access to the data and information collected about you , you have to know it is being collected and by whom before you can access it and if information and communication can be attributed to you by others you have to know it exists if you want to do anything about it.

Freedom of Information, . . . . another twist of Bligh's Knife!

As usual, this government has passed a bill in a midnight sitting on or around Tuesday 2nd June, and the bill and vote took very little time as it was rushed through much like the legislation that gave Beattie and Bligh the power to amalgamate councils.

This time it was the new promised, and I have to say much lauded as giving us the most transparent government in the country, freedom of information act in Queensland that was given the bums rush at a late night sitting where it was put up and voted through in a very short time.

Ok, so they did somewhat revamp the act but is it going to make information more easily accessible or is it just to be seen as making changes toward making information seem more accessible.

One of the major sticking points was in a section of the Act ; Right to Information Act, section 54- which seems to be designed to neutralise the effect of releasing any information they have to release under the application for FOI by allowing the government to release that same information publicly 24 hours after it has been released to the applicant.

It seems, on the surface, to be reasonable doesn't it.

Think about how much this government has spent on SPIN, that is deliberately creating positive publicity for the purpose of making the government's approval from the public higher.

Putting two and two together yet?
In real terms it means that the government can release the information you request and pay a lot for to the public one day after you get it and publish it in a way that can dilute the effectiveness of the applicant releasing it and in real terms long before the applicant has even been able to read and understand it thoroughly anyway.

The purpose for this seems to be to offset the majority of applications which are from journalists and the opposition who will either publish it in the case of the Journalists or use it to ambush a government minister in question time.

What is more appalling is that the relevant ministers are given detailed briefings about media and opposition applications (FOI Requests) giving them time ( FOI requests are not usually actioned for a month and can be dragged out by being referred from department to department) to prepare a response, create a spin campaign or even rebut the issue before it becomes public knowledge.

This is obviously about making FOI ineffectual and more expensive and a deliberate attempt to try to make it seem to be a worthless pursuit (even more than it is already because the typical response from FOI requests is that there is no document found that is within the scope of your application)

The opposition put up an admirable case for change or removal of the section of the act and even requested that FOI requests have a capped cost for the applicant at a maximum of $1000, but even that was rejected by Bligh.

Beattie and now Bligh have indeed been twisting the knife, cutting out the heart of the community re: any public criticism or public opposition even to the point of wanting the public to only hear their sanitised version of anything.

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