Category: Politics

Back on deck

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I spent yesterday driving up the Newell Highway on the last leg of driving back from Melbourne and a Regimental reunion. I note in today’s The Australian Melbourne claiming the most livable city in Australia status. I might agree if it wasn’t for the abysmal weather we had to endure. My bride and I had intended to tour the Great Ocean Drive but locals kept on saying “if you don’t like this weather then be aware it comes from the West – it will simply be worse. We compromised and went down to Phillip Island – bad call. A sudden Western Port Bay/Great Southern Ocean combination storm dislodged the tent on the second night and let some rain in. At 0500 the Princess decamped to the car and I packed up vowing to drive north until we reached civilization. It wasn’t so much the zero Celsius, it was the unquantifiable ‘wind chill factor’ that detracted me from my normal chipper demeanour. Yesterday morning we left Coonabarrabran with another zero on the car readout. Along side the zero was a little icon on the Climate Control display I hadn’t seen before – looked like a crystal snow flake. We had to look up the manual to read that it was a warning of the potential of ice on the road. It comes up whenever the temp hits zero. Things just got better all day as the temperature on the road climbed while I listened to the ABC scrabbling to get activists on line who still believed that the boat people are actually refugees. They found them abundance and I listened spell-bound as they rattled on about torture, assassinations and deprivations that existed in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and every where from whence our current crop of ‘better life with generous handouts’ mob came from. Chopper Driver Houston’s recommendations were being picked apart looking for any basis to classify them as being of the ‘cruel Howard’ variety and there was some basis. The chattering class hated the thought of those who abuse our generous nature should be housed in tents in the tropics – oh the inhumanity of it all and then they might be housed in such an inhumane manner for as long as it would take to process a real refugee through UN channels. I thought it was a great idea but then that’s just me, and I suspect, most of the country. The debate is not over as the ALP appear not to be taking up all of the Coalition’s policies. We have to be very careful that Gillard’s about turn isn’t quite 180 degrees. Once on Narau or Manus Island the ‘better life with generous handouts’ mob need to be aware that the Government are really trying to stop them or they will reason that they can still achieve a better life by just enduring life on a tropical paradise for a year or two and then they can still win lotto. The people smugglers and their clients will be very aware of this government’s incompetence in previous dealings with boat people and may well gamble on more of the same and that the government really don’t want to stop the boat people anyway, they just want the country to stop talking about them. Most boat people will vote for the weaker party and I simply don’t trust Gillard’s motives. Still, it’s a start and gives Abbott something to work on.
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Border Control

Jobs to go in Queensland

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PUBLIC servants are preparing to unleash industrial mayhem on the state next month to protest against job cuts by the Newman Government.
A vote taken by public sector union members yesterday backed a “significant industrial campaign” involving more than 30,000 people at 1000 work sites, including hospitals, prisons, schools and transport service centres.
I sympathise with the public servants (I have a daughter worried about her long term prospects) but really, what is Newman to do? The Beattie/Bligh governments have simply left us with a bloated public service as witnessed by the fact the Anna had to borrow money to pay their salaries. Newman has to claw back billions of dollars to even approach financially responsible levels and we are going to have to pay. It will hurt us and services will be downgraded until he has a grip on the problem. If the public servants wan’t to vent their spleen then they should go find Anna Bligh and tell her ‘thanks for screwing us over and having us live in a fools paradise’
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Qld Politics

Closing the stable door

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The ALP/Earthian Greens are having a lover’s tiff. Personally I think it’s all spin as the ALP look to justify their behaviour over the last couple of years and struggle to pick up votes from the left….or anywhere for that matter. Gillard knowingly got into bed with these guys and the played the beast with two backs to guarantee her holding onto the treasury keys. It’s no good suddenly discovering that the Green Earthians are a dangerous, radical left wing bunch of tossers because we know, by her behaviour, that Gillard is all that and more. The ‘more’ of course, refers to her incompetency. Apparently the ‘blame Abbott‘ protocol isn’t working so Labor leaders are lining up to take shots at the Greens and confront their influence on the government.
GREG Combet, the man in charge of negotiating the carbon tax with the Greens, says Labor does not share the same values as its partners in minority government.
Mate! How can you say that when you negotiated the carbon tax with them. Paul Howes has lots to say, up to and including, calling them ‘loopy‘;
They have got away with their grab-bag of loopy and out-there policies for years. They’ve got away with it by being passed off as a group of eccentric but basically harmless hippies. People assumed that the Greens might have some weird ideas, but they are never going to run the show, so we don’t need to worry about them. Well, we can no longer afford to be so complacent.
But apparently it was OK to be complacent when you and your mob turned back the covers and got into bed with them Paul also mentions the Green Earthian’s idea of sport, just in case some rugby league guys read the front pages of the newspapers;
There probably wouldn’t even be a State of Origin – we’d just sit around with Queenslanders and play pass the parcel. After all, the Greens in NSW have a policy of promoting “non-competitive sports” such as yoga, dance, trampolining and tai chi over the traditional sports that Australian children enjoy playing. As their policy explains, the Greens “believe too much emphasis is placed on full body contact sports often causing unnecessary physical damage and confining opportunities for participation to the athletic elite.”
Leader Gillard has suddenly discovered the green Earthians don’t share everyday Australian’s values;
“The Greens will never embrace Labor’s delight at sharing the values of everyday Australians, in our cities, suburbs, towns and bush, who day after day do the right thing, leading purposeful and dignified lives, driven by love of family and nation,” she said. “The differences between Labor and the Greens take many forms but at the bottom of it are two vital ones. The Greens wrongly reject the moral imperative to a strong economy.
A picture of the Greens and ALP not sharing values; Lots of Green Earthians said things but nothing they say is worth repeating so I wont.
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Politics

Arafat to be exhumed

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Good! We get to celebrate his death again. Who cares how he died, the important thing is he is dead and gone. The ABC reports the Palestinians already know who killed him….The Israeli Mossa and the American CIA..of course.
Bookstore owner Iyad Muna, 42, told ABC News, “Arafat was killed and we knew that. And we know more than that. We knew that Israel killed him, but there was a lack in evidence. Yesterday we got the evidence.”
Well, not really but it doesn’t matter as Israel will be blamed by the Palestinian people and the Western media well before any evidence surfaces.
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Politics, War on Terror

Resource projects stalling

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ONE in five new resources projects are stalling because unions are refusing to strike workplace agreements, putting pressure on companies to accept exorbitant wage claims or risk damaging investor confidence in the $500 billion pipeline of potential projects. The other four resource projects are trying to work out how to pay the MRRT, how much the Carbon Tax will hurt them and whether they just should look at investing more overseas until this government is kicked out. Another 550 days could be just more than most bottom lines can stand. Just another day in a ALP/Green Earthian socialist utopia.
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Politics

Responsibility outsourced

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A TENTH asylum-seeker vessel in a week has arrived in Australian waters, as people-smuggling looms as a major issue in Julia Gillard’s talks today with Indonesia. Just so you get the picture…..that’s TEN vessels in a week and SIX in 3 days knifing through the soft butter of our borders
Amid the ongoing political impasse over border protection, Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare said authorities had intercepted a sixth asylum-seeker boat in 72 hours, this one carrying around 39 people.
Come on, Julia…pick up the phone and talk to Narau. Admit you were wrong to undo Howard’s plan and make a command decision. People may give you a little credit back if you try and fix it. It’s not Abbott’s fault, it is yours. Outsourcing the problem to Houston et al is simply an abrogation of responsibility. You are the leader……Lead! Mr Houston will be joined by refugee policy expert Paris Aristotle and former Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Secretary Michael L’Estrange.
“They will act independently. They will form their own views based on the evidence and the facts,” Ms Gillard told said in Canberra.
No they wont. If you have selected them then we already know the answer. Even Swan of the two weetbix receipt idiocy knows deep down something has to be done and the government must do it. So do something already. You can not let it simmer over the winter break.
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Border Control

Swan takes us for fools

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TREASURER Wayne Swan has responded to criticism of one of Australia’s most controversial and complex taxes by proving the price of Weet-Bix has not risen overnight.
Speaking at Woolworths Nundah – opposite his north Brisbane electorate office – yesterday, Mr Swan said fears the tax would send the cost of groceries soaring had been exposed as “lies”. And he had the shopping bags to prove it.
That’s weird. No one is claiming grocery prices will soar on day one. The idiot has picked an item that wasn’t going to cost more and claim because it doesn’t cost more on day one of the Carbon Tax that proves that all claims that the tax is going to ramp up costs are therefore lies. What twisted logic is that? The pic in the Courier Mail of Swanee holding two receipts with little difference other than the post Carbon Tax one is cents cheaper may appeal to those rusted on non thinking, shoe size IQ followers but really…come on…
On Friday evening, Mr Swan visited the supermarket and bought 11 items at a cost of $35.30. Yesterday morning, he bought the same items for $35.10.
So? Maybe Steve at the Pub (previous post) could do something similar but much more relevant. A picture of him holding last years refrigerant bill of $20k and next years anticipated bill of $170k would place Swanee’s picture of two weetbix receipts where they belong. In the unmitigated bullshit list.
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Carbon Tax

It begins

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From The Public House
The product supplied by this man, a non-saleable item for which there is no alternative, currently costs the Wayside Tavern $20,000 per year. Tomorrow that price rises to One Hundred and Seventy Thousand Dollars per year.
The product? Refrigerant gas. Bet that doesn’t get reported in the media.
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Carbon Tax

Newman drops Feed-in-Tariff

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The Greens are going to hate this. Newman has changed the generous incentives for installing solar panels and returning power to the electricity grid. New installations will receive a feed-back tariff of 8c down from 44c a kW/h. I’ve been warning all and sundry that this had to happen as it was simply unsustainable both economically and socially. Somebody has to pay the .44c and it falls on those who can’t afford to fill their roofs with solar panels – the poor and the battling Mum and Dad pensioners. Power companies have to balance their books and buying for .44c and selling for .22 ain’t going to cut it. However, all is not lost;
Mr McArdle said households that lodged an Inverter Energy System connection application by midnight on July 9 would still be eligible for the 44 cents per kW/h tariff.
Feed in Tariffs involve a subsidy, incurring costs that need to be recovered from higher electricity prices or the state budget. The NSW government, in their plan to rid the taxpayer of ALP/Earthian Green economic nightmare, tasked IPART with sorting out the problem and making recommendations to the government, They were :
…. asked IPART to recommend a ‘fair and reasonable’ value for a feed-in tariff for customers who export electricity to the grid but are not eligible for the Solar Bonus Scheme, and a mechanism to implement this value in NSW. However, it stipulated that our recommendations:  should not result in an increase in electricity prices in NSW, and  should not require funding from the NSW Government budget. In other words, any future feed-in tariff for these customers must be subsidy-free.
That is obviously where Newman is coming from as his new installation tariff of .8c a kW/h is similar to the IPART recommendation of 5.2 to 10.3 c/kWh. You can download the IPART report here For all the non-thinkers and Green Earthians railing at Newman for “the broken promise” they need to realize a couple of hard truths. 1. You should be yelling at Bligh, not Newman. She has left the state in such a parlous situation that hard decisions have to be made. By the 2015/16 financial year, almost 10 per cent, or $5.3 billion, of state revenue will be spent paying interest on Queensland’s $92 billion debt. The selfish pricks should realize that there are no free dinners. Someone always has to pay and it should be the individual, not the poor folk or the subsidized taxpayer. 2. The Earthian Greens Renewable Energy Program and Carbon Tax are already going to cost us dearly and are a part of the increasing utility bill. As ever is the case, any plan from these guys doesn’t have a “Law of unintended consequences” factored in – It is uncontrolled, millions doled out to Earthian Green church members without any guarantee of results other that ‘I feel good” Newman is obliged to try and balance the books and with the state debt sitting at $80b and rising something has to be done. All the ALP/Green plans never take costs into calculations – it is all just money to Giai – she deserves it more than us humans. But hey, Hippy, the rent always falls due. He is not actually cancelling Feed in Tariffs. If you have a current system, or have lodged your application by July 9 then you get .44c. It’s just new installations that will receive tariffs that don’t cost the poor folk or the state budget money. I have contracted to have solar put on my roof, not because I feel a need to save the planet, but simply because all the ALP/Green Earthian wacky plans are raising the cost of services for no benefit. I don’t want some poor bastard to subsidise my power bills and I don’t want it lumbered on an already financially troubled state.
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Carbon Tax, Climate Change, Politics
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