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Qld Politics

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I’m disappointed but at least there are no Greens elected and the Environment Minister, Andrew McNamara, lost his seat. With the ALP losing between 8 and 10 seats it does bring us closer to power but there is a lot of work to be done. In a group discussing the election on Friday there was one intelligent, educated young voter who wasn’t sure which way he was going to vote and when I pointed out some of the corruption he countered; “I don’t know any of the history, I’ll vote on what I see now” and there is our problem. We conservatives need to take lessons from the ALP; Federal and State, and the US Democrats, and go to where the young ones socialize and hit them with facts. Facebook springs to mind; use all the resources of the internet and give them no excuse to vote ALP when they know all the facts. Like Obama or not, you have to respect his campaign on the road to the White House. Go read the article and remember – to win, we need to know the enemy. Here was a man who was introduced to politics by a member of a group of murders, the Weathermen, but it didn’t matter because not enough voters knew what the hell a Weatheman was…didn’t know the history….. but they recognized someone who spoke their language and he spoke their language where they congregated – on the internet. Here was a man who had never done anything significant but it didn’t matter – he spoke their language. We need to start campaigning now. We need a new leader, good looking with presence, male or female, educated, articulate, from a metro seat and they must have computer savvy. Not a programmer or hardware mechanic, but someone who understands the basic principles of the internet and its power and someone who is prepared to rewrite the Conservative Campaigning Handbook. Otherwise…get used to the back benches and more incompetence and corruption. With the ALP totally in control of the media, the law and the Public Service and the young ones not “knowing the history” and voting based on the last 10 second screen bite they saw on telly, it could be a long, cold winter.
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Politics

The ALP under fire

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The ALP get a caning in todays Opinion page in The Australian with Michael Stutchbury, Economics editor writing on the problems of forcing the restaurants to march in step with hotels
JUST as licensing regulations restrict competition in the hotel industry, working conditions in pubs have long been standardised by the award system and the liquor trades union. By contrast, the restaurant business is lightly regulated, dynamic and highly competitive. Restaurants used John Howard’s Work Choices and its individual work contracts to more flexibly deploy and reward their waiters and cooks. Now it’s payback time as the Rudd Government foists the straitjacket of the protected hotel industry on to its restaurant competitors.
Hotels can handle penalty loadings with their markups and large scale operations but restaurants, operating on tiny margins can’t, so I guess anybody thinking of starting a restaurant will, at the moment be thinking otherwise. Uni students who traditionally fill the restaurant jobs will have to look elsewhere.
Just one example is set out in sections 32.1 to 32.4 of the “modernised” Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2010. These impose 25 per cent penalty loadings for working on Saturday, 175 per cent for Sunday work, and 250 per cent for public holidays. Casuals get a hefty 25 per cent loading on top of that, lifting them up to 275 per cent for public holidays.
Why bother going to Uni when you can get $450 a day as a dish pig! Pretty soon we’ll all be restricted to Maccas and KFC for weekend dining or you’ll be paying a hundred bucks for an eye fillet. Malcom Colless gets straight to the point under the header ALP Lacks IR Mandate
THE Rudd Government’s industrial relations laws are bad for business, bad for the economy, and bad for democracy and freedom in the workplace. They are designed to get square with employees who dared to enter into private deals with their employers and shut out the prying eyes of the unions.
Colless again;
While the premise underpinning Work Choices was fundamentally sound – to encourage more flexibility and freedom of choice in the workplace – it was managed badly by the Coalition. But even then it was the well crafted and highly emotive union media campaign rather than the shortcomings of the system that drove a stake through the heart of the former government.
That has long been my take on the last election and with the unions now demanding payback for the tens of millions they spent on outing Howard the economy is heading for disaster. Never mind the Global problem, when it is all sorted out we will find business has simply stopped employing people. Get used to it folks.
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Politics

Aboriginal Cop sacked

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THE Northern Territory Police Force is proud of its Aboriginal Community Police Officers except, it seems, when they act like Aborigines. Gwen Brown, 53, one of the most awarded and senior ACPOs in the Territory, has been sacked for hitting her nephew with a stick, but she says she has the cultural right to do so.
“I got him and hit him on the butt with a stick, about three times,” she said. “It was just a long, thin ceremony stick. He put his arms behind him and I accidentally broke his arm.”
I used to smack my kids on the backside and they always put their hands there to try and deaden the blows and never once did any of them end up with a broken arm. Gwen Brown’s nephew was either suffering from some desease that took all the strength from his bones or she went ballistic. One or the other. “I accidentally broke his arm with a thin stick” doesn’t cut it.
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Uncategorized

Mae West lives on

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Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just glad to see me? A FORMER soldier, John Radoll, suffering trauma from his time in the army took a loaded gun into a Brisbane nightclub because he wanted to impress women, a court has been told. It worked – Security evacuated the club. One woman chatted to Radoll, sat on his lap and had her photo taken with him after she discovered he had a gun secreted down the front of his jeans. The other called security. The court was told the gun had been a `”memento” from Radoll’s brief career in the Australian Army, where he served in East Timor. What do the court think? That the Army issues pistols for ever? He carries a loaded, concealed weapon into public – into a night club with alcohol and the Beak only gives him one year suspended with no conviction recorded provided that he undergo six counselling sessions with a psychologist. Strange!
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General Musings

Obama at his generous best

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Mark Steyn in the National Review Online on why the President’s presents won’t be eagerly anticipated abroad
BRITISH Prime Minister Gordon Brown thought long and hard about what gift to bring on his visit to the White House last week. The Prime Minister gave him an ornamental desk pen-holder hewn from the timbers of one of the Royal Navy’s anti-slaving ships of the 19th century, HMS Gannet. Even more appropriate, in 1909 the Gannet was renamed HMS President. The president’s guest also presented him with the framed commission for HMS Resolute, the lost British ship retrieved from the Arctic and returned by America to London, and whose timbers were used for a thank-you gift Queen Victoria sent to Rutherford Hayes: the handsome desk that now sits in the Oval Office. And, just to round things out, as a little stocking stuffer, Brown gave President Obama a first edition of Sir Martin Gilbert’s seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill. In return, America’s head of state gave the Prime Minister 25 DVDs of classic American movies. Evidently, the White House gift shop was all out of “my government delegation went to Washington and all I got was this lousy T-shirt” T-shirts. Still, the classic American movies set is a pretty good substitute, and it can set you back as much as $38.99 at Wal-Mart. It could be worse. The president might have given him the DVD of He’s Just Not That Into You.
Is that for real? Mark wonders whether Brown will even be able to view the movies;
I’ll be interested to know if Mr. Brown has anything to play the films on back home, since U.S.-format DVDs don’t work in United Kingdom DVD players.
Class act, Obama! The Chicago Sun-Times carries the story line as well. One commenter notes;
Not to be out done in tastelessness by her husband, Michelle got into the act, too. Mrs. Brown came bearing two outfits for the Obama girls from Topshop, one of Britain’s trendiest and expensive women’s wear retail outlets. In return, Michelle apparently had a staffer run down to the White House gift shop and grab two toy Marine One helicopter models for the Brown’s boys. Class all the way, huh?
And this Obama lover calling himself American Patriot echoes his President’s obvious opinion.
That gift was too good for a pig like Brown. Obama doesn’t trust the British because he’s much smarter than Bush was.
Yeah…right! That statement pretty well typifies the Obama crowd in one sentence. Ah…the consequences of elections. Good luck Uncle Sam.
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Politics, US Politics

Taliban causing civilian casualties

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Governor of Oruzgan, Assadullah Hamdam, says three men and a woman were killed when SAS troops went after the Taliban killers of a special forces soldier. Short answer. Tell the Taliban not to hide behind woman and children. Long answer. It is extremely unfortunate and no Aussie soldier would wish for it to happen but until we can manage to stop the Taliban involving civilians then it will happen; again and again. The Governor had urged Australian troops to be more cautious when targeting Taliban fighters, Sky said, including consulting with villagers. That’ll work! “Excuse me Mr Villager, we want your authority to go into the village and capture a Taliban terrorist”. “Sure thing”, he replies. “Just give us time to arrange for his escape”. Or worse; “Sure thing, just give us and the Taliban time to set up an ambush” The ADF are investigating the incident, and rightly so, but the problem is an old one and won’t go away in a hurray. So long as we review our battle procedures and Rules of Engagement to ensure we are not unduly risking civilian lives then we have done all we can. Other than that we can only continue to attack the Taliban and work to eventually isolate them from the civilian population sufficiently enough to destroy them. The last thing anyone should do is think poorly of the SAS. They have a very difficult job to do and are doing it magnificently, notwithstanding civilian casualties.
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Defence

Governor General demoted to Lobbyist

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Quentin Bryce will leave Australia next week for a nine-nation African visit during which she will canvass support for Australia’s bid for a Security Council seat. She will visit Mauritius, Namibia, Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and the Seychelles from next Monday to April 3. During her meetings with heads of state of each country, the Governor-General will stress the Rudd Government’s goal of forging closer links with Africa and mention the Security Council bid. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith yesterday strongly defended Ms Bryce’s African trip and her promotion of Australia’s UN Security Council credentials.
“When the Governor-General is travelling in foreign countries, of course from time to time, as appropriate, she will make statements that reflect government policy,” he told ABC TV’s Insiders program. “Australian government policy is that we want to make a substantial engagement with Africa. We see that as being very importantly in our economic and social and foreign policy interests and we reflect our commitment to multilateralism by running for the Security Council. And she will make that point appropriately when she meets with the African leadership.”
What an unmitigated piece of rubbish…Engagement with Africa being very important [to] our economic and social and foreign policy interests. Since when? The trip is for one reason and one reason only, the ALP’s desire to have seat on the UN Security Council. Coalition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop said yesterday the Opposition had growing concerns at the strategy Kevin Rudd was pursuing for Security Council membership. Julie Bishop says;
“Libya and Cuba and Iran are guiding the development of the agenda, which thus far names only Israel, alone among the nations of the world, as guilty of racism,”
If Australia attends the conference, one can only assume it does so to gain votes for the coveted seat on the UN and if that turns out to be the case then how much will we have compromised our reputation. How could we fly our flag at any conference where Libya, Cuba and Iran have a say in setting the agenda when we know the chances are, once again, Israel will be lambasted as racist and all Arabs as victims.
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Politics

SASR pay debacle

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SPECIAL Air Service troopers and their families say they have been warned theyface new debts this week because of overpayments, amid continued confusion over army bungling of their pay.
Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has called in independent auditors to examine army pay systems, admitting he does not know whether to believe assurances from army chiefs they have stopped docking soldiers’ pay packets after a dispute about overpayment.
Accusing the Army Chiefs of lying and sending in Auditors to prove it is a big call. I’m the first to admit the Army makes errors but I doubt very much whether the Army Chiefs would strive to hide the fact of subordinate incompetence or clerical ineptitude, particularly when Ministers and politicians are looking for someone to take the ‘hospital pass’. I personally know some of them and I do know they would not lie to a Minister of the crown to save their own career if they themselves had defaulted. As soon as the matter was raised in the House and become public knowledge the Army would have pulled out all stops to abide by a Ministerial Direction. If there was one. The Generals would have spoken severely to subordinates and ranks down the chain would have audited their procedures and had them verified. The SASR have been flogged and with frequent operational rotations they are left with little time back in Australia to requalify for their skills allowances or, in fact, qualify for new ones. They are the guys being disadvantaged and it should be fixed NOW with some leeway afforded the veteran. After all it is difficult to re- qualify for para allowance when you are busy fighting on the ground The immediate problem is troopers coming back from rotation and electing discharge. Their final pay calculation is a major part of their discharge or super payments and has the potential to cost them serious money and all they are guilty of his serving their country. The whole situation should have been interred four or five months ago but like the mythical Pheonix, it keep rising from the ashes of failed promises. As if all that isn’t bad enough we now have a Defence Minister calling Army Generals liars. Good luck with your future relationships with the Military Joel but in the meantime you would be well advised to fight like hell for the diggers and when in doubt maybe some ex gratio payments could be in order. After all your government is throwing money at everybody else that looks like a voter so why not give some to those demonstrably deserve it.
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Defence

Defence accepts less, ACTU wants more

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THE global financial crisis has forced the Defence Department to shelve plans to buy billions of dollars’ of military equipment, including a new $5 billion maritime surveillance system. The economic downturn will also mean the navy will not exercise the option to acquire a fourth air warfare destroyer worth $2 billion, and could force a one-year delay in plans to spend $16 billion on 100 F-35 joint strike fighters. While Defence is putting the final touches to its long-awaited white paper, the rapidly deteriorating global economy could dictate further delays in its publication beyond the May budget, according to senior government sources yesterday. I have no qualms about defence carrying some of the needed cuts in expenditure but I think it should be across the board. Not so says ACTU leader Sharron Burrow.On the same front page of The Australian that announce a tightening in defence expenditure Sharron says paid Maternity leave is still plausable The original cost of the scheme was put at about $525million a year, with taxpayers to foot $450 million and business to cover $75 million. I promise you, these figures are rubbery and presented to get the idea passed. It will cost a lot more and I’m sure business are just queuing up to fork out $75 m or more from their already depleted profit margins. And I don’t know what this means.
“If indeed you can’t afford it in one hit, then talk to Australian women,” Ms Burrow said yesterday.
And say what? Planned Defence cuts are for decades ahead so ‘phasing’ in extra paid leave doesn’t cut it. Paid maternity leave is something the country could consider in good harvest years; not in the middle of a recession with possibly worse to come
“If it needs to be phased in over a couple of years, that’s a discussion that can be had, but don’t make women wait.”
We’re all waiting Sharron.
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Defence, Politics

Penny Wong not wong enough

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MORE than 60 community climate groups have written an open letter to Climate Change Minister Penny Wong demanding the federal government toughen its stance on greenhouse emissions. The letter calls on the government to scrap its planned emissions trading scheme because its 5-15 per cent 2020 reduction target is “appallingly low”. It also says there’s nothing in the government’s policy to encourage individuals to reduce emissions, because if they do it’ll give a free pass to big emitters to do nothing.
“By locking in a low target now, Australia will effectively undermine the Copenhagen UN climate process in December, betraying not only the Australian people in its duty of care, but also people and nations across the globe,” the letter from Climate Action Groups states.
It’ll be line ball about now as to how many Australian people will feel betrayed if Penny Wrong does keep up her ideological stand on Climate Change and how many will be happy if she doesn’t. Me? I think the Government’s approach to Climate Change needs to be revisited in light of conflicting information from reliable sources and given the current state of the economy. Lets save Australia now and sort out the world when we have time to really consider all of our options. Googling Climate Action Groups comes up with a huge mob of radical Chicken Little advocates who will take no prisoners and will only be happy when Industry is crushed and our economy stalled. Of course Nuclear power is not up for debate and some are busy drumming up support to close down Newcastle in a People’s Blockade of the World’s Biggest Coal Port on 21 March 2009. Close down a major port for a day – there that should do it! Idiots!
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Climate Change
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