Tuesday, 16 March 2010

NQ Labor Party - The letter

If you happened to read John Andersen's reference to moves to set up an NQ Labor Party in response to federal intervention in the ALP's presenection for Herbert you may be interested in reading the letter he mentions.  See it in full by clicking on the pic or here.


Movers & shakers, Bulletin cash-cows or welfare bludgers?

The article in today’s Bulletin which has this big end of town rating Townsville City Council is a laugh. How did they expect these business-welfare bludgers to rate the golden goose?:
  • Laurence Lancini - his some-day Flinders Plaza Development will be the major beneficiary from the $56 million Mall redevelopment
  • Tony Ireland – whose car sales are a major beneficiary from the $30 million Reid Park dinosaur racing track
  • Trevor Goldstone – Council is the principal sponsor of Townsville Enterprise
  • Richard Ferry – a major profiteer from the Council approved Rocky Spring development
Interestingly and apart from all of these being major purchasers of advertising in The Bulletin, the real creators of wealth in this city like the Port Authority, the Armed forces, Sun Metals, Yabulu etc apparently weren’t invited to comment.

A vox-pop of the punters that are paying for all of this corporate welfare would have been much more instructive

It’s a bit late for that

Today’s front place splash in The Bulletin “Let’s get this one right” is wrong on two counts:
  • The closing of the Mall to traffic in the early ‘80s wasn’t wrong – it was in fact incredibly successful - until the rise of the suburban (car-centric) shopping malls.
  • It’s a bit late to hope that TCC has “got it right”
Mayor-in-waiting David Crisafulli’s comment in the page four article that follows is a bit of a giveaway:
“What we’re doing is a catalyst that will lead to investment for private enterprise”
I’m sure he meant “…by private enterprise” be he’s actually right as quoted – it’s a subsidy to the profit sector (and Lancini’s planned some-day Flinders Plaza Development in particular).

It’s $56,000,000 worth of business welfare, pure-and-simple.

Paid Parental Leave – why Abbott is backing away from his own plan

It seems that Tony Abbott is backing away from his own policy plan on Paid Parental Leave and will not oppose the Government’s scheme when it is introduced into the Senate.

I wonder if this could be why?
From this week’s Essential Report as analysed in some detail by The Possum

Monday, 15 March 2010

Unbelievable!

"I have said publicly that 1967, when the Australian people voted to give this Parliament an opportunity to assist Aboriginal people, was the worst thing that's happened for Aboriginal people in history - it's been downhill ever since".

Wilson "Iron Bar" Tuckey this morning.  Full report here.

The label below says it all!

Policy on the run

Ya gotta love Bill Leak.
Cross posted from newmatilda.com

Don't forget

Don't forget to check-out Monique Bond's excellent blog on the proceedings of the 2nd Inquest into the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee here.

And, by the way, who thought that Hurley's "apology" to Mulrunji's family was a cynical attempt to take the heat off and appear as the compassionate victim of circumstance?

Could Mandy be in trouble?

The traditionally safe Labor State seat of Townsville has been drifting away from the ALP for a number of elections now as the demographics of the seat (and in particular, the inner city suburbs) change.

However, as this report from the Possum at Pollytics.com shows, Mandy Johnstone could be in real trouble at the next election over the asset sales issue.

Analysing the “leaked” results on the issue of union polling by ALP pollsters UMR, Possum shows a -9 point swing in the primary vote against Mandy in Townsville resulting in a Two Party Preferred result for the ALP of 47% of the vote.

Keep in mind though – the results relate to an election if it were held now and involve a margin of error of 5.5%

The full report is here

Friday, 12 March 2010

I can't help myself

News just in that a man with an axe has caused thousands of dollars damage to a pet shop in Adelaide.  It seems that the man bought a bird from the shop at Elizabeth days earlier, but it died.

The perfect excuse for a bit of classic Monty Python:



It's not all about politics - cute things happen too

You gota love the story about Mr Shuffles - follow it here at the Taronga Zoo's Baby Elephants Blog