The Big Ewe's latest contribution is....

I don't really know, but I do know that the Speaker's response in Question Time today was "The Member for Herbert is warned"

Slim's Pickens: BOM V GOD and another somewhat well-known Queensland tool

In follow-up to his earlier comment, regular contributor, Slim writes:

Staying with the parliamentary performance theme could provide some revelations about the fading career of one who is far less "representative"; a line you may recall in relation to 'swill' and Keating.
John Quiggin has been amused by events during recent Senate Estimates hearings: Perhaps I am more saddened by the discovery of another parliamentary tool, but the religious tool nearly made it all worthwhile.

"The idea that the Bureau of Meteorology is part of a global conspiracy to destroy Australia’s economy impose communist world government (or in some more prosaic versions, to increase itsfunding[1]) sounds like the basis of a bad comedy sketch. But, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, this claim is put forward, in apparent seriousness, by numerous anti-science advocates in Australia (Andrew Bolt, Jennifer Marohasy, and Warwick Hughes are leading examples) and implicily accepted by many others....

Back in October last year, the Senate’s Environment and Communications Legislation Committee agreed to table a letter from Cardinal Pell which quoted heavily from Heaven and Earth to claim there were “good reasons for doubting that carbon dioxide causes warmer temperatures”.

The Director of the Bureau of Meteorology Dr Greg Ayers has now responded at an estimates hearing, demolishing Plimer’s bogus claims and pointing to numerous scathing reviews of his trashy and dishonest book. Ayers is great value, but the real fun in reading the Hansard transcript comes from the frantic attempts of Senators MacDonald and Boswell to stop him talking...

It’s great to see the Bureau taking a leading role in the defence of science. Sadly, some of those who should be speaking out, most notably the Australian Academy of Science, have been missing in action. ...

It’s also amusing to see leading figures on the political right like Pell, McDonald and Boswell expose themselves as gullible fools, along with most of the rightwing commentariat. While not everyone on the right thinks this way (as witness Turnbull’s near-victory over Abbott a year or so ago), the number willing to raise their voices in defence of science remains tiny.

Footnote1. Advocates of the conspiracy theory tend to shift between global communist and grant-grubbing theories, in a manner reminiscent of the (possibly apocryphal) Tasmanian politician who promised voters that, if they supported Federation they would build a glorious new nation under the Southern Cross and get higher prices for their apples."

Quiggin's description of Senator Ian Macdonald as a leading figure of the political right is laughable, of course. But what is hilarious is the Hansard Report between pages 104 and 109.

Cheers, Slim

See also Tim Lambert and Graham Readfearn

Of intelligent policy contributions and short memories

I see that Member for Herbert, Ewen Jones, has made it another incisive contribution to the national debate on climate change!

Although Hansard doesn't record his actual words, you would like to think that he was perhaps interjecting with some new data on the rate of melting in the arctic permafrost or a science-based solution to the projected death of the Great Barrier Reef within the next 20 to 40 years.

To be fair, The Big Ewe did make one contribution of some substance during his day in the big house yesterday.  His speech on Warren Entsch's motion on the "Loss of the Malu Sara" was, at times, considered and compassionate.  Though, it is a bit of a pity that his only acknowledgement that the five deaths that is the "Loss of the Malu Sara" happened under the former conservative Government's watch was this little line:

"I do not excuse the Howard government for their role here, but..."

By applying the same logic used by Tony Abbott to vilify Peter Garrett over the deaths of pink-batt insulation installers employed by shoddy contractors, surely the least the Big Ewe could have done was clearly acknowledge that the Howard government was responsible for the deaths of Wilfred Baira, Ted Harry, Valorie Faub, Flora Enosa and her daughter Ethena! Or maybe even apologise for his Party's culpability?

Ewen Jones: "The Townsville Tool" or just an idiot?

Slim writes in follow-up to my earlier post about The Big Ewe's contribution to the national debate and to creating a viable and sustainable policy framework for the our future

A different type of 'substantial contribution' may not make it into local print media.

On the Crikey web site on 23 February in a report by Bernard Keane (behind their subscriber paywall) about Li'l Bil) Shorten's parliamentary performance the last three paragraphs of the report give a rather sad insight into the parliamentary performance of the Member for Herbert, Ewen Jones -

"It’s only early in the parliamentary year but a low point was plumbed right at the end of question time when Kevin Rudd rose to discuss the Middle East and, in particular, Libya, revealing the Libyan ambassador had been called in for a dressing down and that he’d spoken to the Bahraini foreign minister about the killing of protesters there.

This was, plainly, a matter of complete non-interest to a number of Coalition MPs who used the answer to offer doubtless witty advice to Rudd. Peter Dutton and Greg Hunt both heckled and interjected. And sitting up in the back corner, Queensland MP Ewen Jones spent the entire answer jeering and laughing as Rudd discussed Middle East protests, the slaughter of demonstrators and the presence of Australians in Libya.

Classy."

What a representative of the citizens of the greater Townsville region!

Cheers,
Slim

Note to Slim: what exactly is the difference between identifying him as a 'tool' rather than as an (my preferred) idiot?  Both are equally dangerous aren't they?

Mind you, "The Townsville Tool" (or even better the "Tool of Townsville") has a certain ring to it.  But then, "Idiot" is a lot more to the point and "Schoolyard Idiot" would be even more descriptive....

Libya. Viva la Revolution!

Yet again, Mr Fish gets it in one:

There's important news and then there's REALLY important news

Just in on my RSS Reader. 

Ah!, priorities.

Ewen Jones - talking sense for Townsville

Parliament is sitting again, giving local representative, The Big Ewe, his chance to again contribute to the national debate and make his mark on the country's policy directions and priorities.

Checking OpenAustralia.org for The Ewe's contribution so far this sitting, I was particularly taken by his first entry in Hansard for 23 Feb 2011:

To be fair, The Ewe also made some more substantial contributions yesterday:  There's a nice little suck-up to one of The Ewe's major sponsors, The Townsville Bulletin, and we learn that the Federal Flood Levy will be result in the death of charity in Australia

Perhaps today he'll get to turn his mind to more mundane issues like this prediction out today that the world's reefs (including North Queensland's pre-eminent economic and natural asset, the GBR) will be dead within 40 years - that is, by the time his kids are about as old as he is today.  We'll see.

The end of the bookstore (as we know it)?

Makes you wonder hey?

...and the coppers get it very wrong

'Poof' goes that warm and fuzzy feeling from my last post:

Quigley attacks WA police commisioner  By Josh Jerga, AAP, February 17, 2011 - 3:49PM

Western Australia's shadow attorney-general John Quigley has launched a blistering attack on the state's police commissioner for distributing what he calls "a litany of lies".

In state parliament, Mr Quigley criticised the role of Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan in "vilifying" an Aboriginal man who was tasered up to 41 times in a week by police and corrective services officers.

The behaviour of officers in arresting Kevin Spratt and his treatment at Perth lock-up was the subject of a Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC) inquiry in December.

Mr Spratt's treatment came to light when a video was released last year of police tasering him 14 times while in custody at Perth Watchhouse on August 31, 2008.

Following the release of initial video, which pixellated Mr Spratt's face, WA police issued a flow chart to media outlining the events leading up his tasering and involvement with police, including charges previously brought against him.

Mr Quigley told parliament that when examined against police documents and evidence before the CCC, the flow chart was a "litany of lies".

He called on the government to get to the bottom of the creation of the document, which he said was compiled by the WA police internal affairs unit.

"What discussion (did they have) with Commissioner O'Callaghan and Deputy Commissioner (Chris) Dawson before they so willingly went out into a press conference selling these lies to the public of WA to vilify Kevin Spratt?" Mr Quigley told parliament.

"It is beyond imagination as to why they did it ... but it's got to mark them down as the worst commissioner and deputy commissioner in Australia by their conduct."

Mr Quigley told parliament Mr Spratt had complained to Mr O'Callaghan about his alleged vilification, but was told via a letter in October that police did not identify him.

He said that following the press conference in which Mr O'Callaghan released the flow chart, a Seven Network TV news crew went to the home of Mr Spratt's parents, who told them he was at work.

"The commissioner of police would want us to believe this eye-wash, that there was no communication with Channel Seven of the address or person ... that's just a lie," he said.

Mr Quigley said the flow chart stated Mr Spratt had acted violently and obstructed police at Perth lock-up before being tasered, and as a result had been charged over that behaviour.

However the CCC hearing in December was told Mr Spratt had not been violent and had been convicted on the basis of a misleading statement of facts.

"There's a day of reckoning coming," Mr Quigley said. ...read on

Now, that's much more familiar behaviour from the coppers

The coppers get it right

News just in from the 7 News site:

Police officer sacked over alleged Indigenous alcohol breach  Kim Lyell, ABC February 17, 2011, 2:42 pm

A central Queensland policeman has been sacked over allegations he took alcohol into a 'dry' Aboriginal community.

The Queensland Police Service says a 44-year-old senior sergeant from the central region has been dismissed.

It has issued a statement saying the dismissal followed allegations he transferred an "excessive" amount of alcohol into a community subject to restrictions.  More...

It might not exactly balance the ledger but a damn good response (and a damn good message) I reckon