"Balance is Appeasement. Fairness is Truth."
The Four Reports of the Climate Apocalypse?
David Hamilton
13.05.13 3:59 am
In November 2012, four reports relevant to climate change appeared within the short span of about three weeks. Alerted by brief media reports I went and found them online. Even after just reading their summaries I was alarmed. Here is my summary of them, in the order in which they appeared.
• Talk given to the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, 11/5/2013 by Dr Frank Nicklason What is is less well studied, understood, and publicised are the individual mental health effects and the implications for community health, wellbeing, and cohesion, of industrial scale landscape destruction, 24/7 mining and transport noises, and in fly in, fly out employment. In Tasmania we are familiar with broadacre landscape conversion associated to clearfelling of native forests and establishment of monoculture pulpwood tree crops on cleared forest coupes and on productive farmland. The details of the anguish of a man living at Rose’s Tiers in North East Tasmania are relevant. This German (Berlin) born man, Roelf Roos, became increasingly distressed by clearfelling forest destruction, aerial spraying of dangerous chemicals, baiting of browsing native animals with 1080, and so-called “regeneration burns”. Roelf Roos pinned his last hope on the election of Mark Latham in 2004 and the proposals that the Labor party had to restructure the Tasmanian forest industry. With the re-election of John Howard, Roos lost all hope and shot himself, within days of the election.
• Dr Frank Nicklason: Dear (Mercury) Editor Mr Walsh apparently warned of “very adverse” impacts for locals as a result of this reversal of approval. I am not sure what impacts Mr Walsh was considering. Could it be that he was worried that Singleton medical practitioners will suffer as a result of less business treating people with asthma and other health impacts of coal dust inhalation?
• The Guardian: Global carbon dioxide in atmosphere passes milestone level
• Chris Sharples, in Comments: Response to #37: So you are sure that you have dis-proven the consensus of thousands of working professional atmospheric and climate scientists who (no doubt in a concerted world-wide conspiracy) provide evidence that a global anthropogenic CO2 rise over the last two centuries is real and progressive, and moreover that average temperatures are continuing to rise as a result? Then why don’t you submit your research findings for critical review in a professional journal? Citing an unreferenced blurb on a blog simply isn’t a convincing refutation of a global consensus amongst actual professional climate scientists, I’m afraid. Maybe those historic CO2 measurements weren’t accurate or representative of average global concentrations, how do we know otherwise from your assertions? What is certain is that the popular denier claim that you repeat - that there has been no warming for 16 years - is inaccurate cherry-picking of the evidence, and is simply wrong.
• Chris Sharples earlier on Tasmanian Times: Tasmania, Tourism and the Elephant in the Room
• Jon Sumby, in Comments: Also in the news today: A comprehensive assessment of climate change research has found an overwhelming consensus among scientists that recent warming is human-induced.
WikiLeaks Party demand federal shield laws for journalists
Cassie Findlay, Sam Castro, The WikiLeaks Party
13.05.13 2:50 am
In its first major policy declaration, the newly formed Party said current state-based shield laws were inadequate to meet current threats to press freedom. If the WLP is elected to the Senate at the forthcoming federal election in September it will move immediately to introduce a national shield law. The WLP plans to contest Senate seats in Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia at the September 14 election with Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, standing for one of the six Senate seats being contested in Victoria. “Only a uniform shield law covering the whole Commonwealth is acceptable,” said WLP spokespersons Cassie Findlay and Sam Castro.
• Andrew Wilkie on Tasmanian Times: Shield laws a victory for free speech
Why the 5:1 ratio should stay in family day care
Jacqui Darbyshire, CareforKids.com.au
13.05.13 2:05 am
My name is Jacqui, I have been an educator on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales for the past 10 years. The Education and Care Services National Regulation came into force on January 1 2012 and states that family day care educators must operate with no more than four children under school age by 1 January 2014. NSW family day care currently operates with adult to child ratios of 1:5 children under school age. I feel very strongly about the decrease in ratios within family day care. How are we expected to tell our families that they can’t come back next year - that they will have to find alternative care for their child?
ABC van closure a blow to Tasmania
Senator Christine Milne, Greens Leader MR
08.05.13 2:58 am
A few weeks ago the nation saw a lively Q&A program broadcast from Launceston. I’d love to see more coverage involving local voices but now that ABC Tasmania will have to get a van from Victoria for such programs I worry they will become rarer.
Is the press too big to fail? It’s dumb journalism, stupid
Todd Gitlin, Open Democracy
06.05.13 3:00 am
Todd Gitlin, whose latest book is Occupy Nation: The Roots, the Spirit, and the Promise of Occupy Wall Street ( here ), offers a little survey of American print journalism on the way down, without a hint of romance in sight.
Denholm, The Weekend Australian
06.05.13 12:30 am
Lennon immediately broke his precious January leave and made a 200km dash up the Midland Highway to Launceston. Here he soothed Gay, promising that the mill assessment would be concluded “as quickly as possible” and that his government would do all it could to make the process work for Gay. And so he did ...
Balance is appeasement. Fairness is truth ...
Nicole McBride* Pic: of Jim Wilkinson. First published Saturday April 27
29.04.13 12:41 am
Mr Wilkinson knows how to play the game with Tasmanian media and he is using it to his advantage on this issue, same sex marriage and euthanasia. He can state what he likes and never be called out as lying. Imagine a Tasmania where we turn on the radio or pick up the Mercury, read or hear what both sides have to say on an issue and then get the cold, hard facts to help us see where each side’s bias lies. That is real, healthy journalism ...
• Tom Baxter: Nelson MLC’s abortion law claim: alarmist and extreme moral panic “His claim about the law is wrong, alarmist in the extreme, and fear-mongering,” Mr Baxter, Greens candidate for Nelson, said. “This sensitive topic deserves rational debate. He is entitled to oppose laws for marriage equality, dying with dignity and decriminalising abortion. But his extreme claim of ‘the ability of a woman to terminate as late as 38 weeks on social or economic grounds alone’ goes too far. It is wrong.” … “I challenge the member for Nelson to produce a single Tasmanian specialist in obstetrics or gynaecology who would call such belief reasonable, then perform a termination at anytime approaching 38 weeks on social or economic grounds alone.” … Dr Kevin Bonham described the comments as amongst “the silliest thing said by anyone even remotely prominent in the [abortion] debate so far” • Here
• Guy Barnett: say NO to the Green Social reform agenda in Legislative Council elections
• Leonard Colquhoun, in Comments: Agree with this assertion in Comment 5 - “Reporting what Tasmanian politicians say, without critical analysis and independent info, is not journalism at all. It is PR” - provided that this distinction is followed ...
• Dan Yelp, in Comments: This article is real, healthy journalism. What Tasmanians need is journalists like Nicole writing for Tas Times more often!
• Leonard Colquhoun, in Comments: Remember Don McLean and his “day the music died”^? Is a day sometime in 1992* the day that journalism died? The day that the Australian Journalists Association, the professional organisation for Australian journalists founded in 1910, was “absorbed”~ into the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance? The day when serious journalism institutionally aligned itself with entertainment, which necessarily includes all the fakery involved in acting, and all the fraudery in so much of what now passes for art. When serious journalists were considered one with clowns, buskers and various specimens of homo celebiensis vacuosus.
Huffington Post
18.04.13 2:45 am
Senate kills background checks
Huffington Post’s powerful main page ...
Public Office is Public Trust?
Malcolm Mars
15.04.13 12:49 am
Photo of President’s Chair from Tas Parliament website: http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/parl2.htm#
The bold title of the Final Report by the Joint Select Committee on Ethical Conduct “Public Office is Public Trust” is now looking decidedly hollow.
Simon de Little, http://www.simondelittle.com/ YouTube
12.04.13 3:15 am
YouTube ...
• David Obendorf, in Comments: I got to watch your YouTube video of this event Simon - Thank you, I learnt heaps. 1. Like TWs and ET, Jim Wilkinson has no clear ‘Plan B’ for forestry transition. Both Tom Baxter and Helen Richardson think the current TFA Bill is ‘the way forward’ for Tasmania. 2. On Marriage Equality, Tom Baxter reckoned it was worth $96 million a year to Tasmania through ‘pink wedding spending’. [Pink wedding spending now joins Targa, Three Peaks, The Taste, Festivale, the Wooden Boat Festival as money- spinners for poor little Tasmania.] 3. Helen Richardon was not a lawyer [like Tom and Jim] but a teacher and workplace advocate; she is also a paid-up member of the Labor Party but is standing as an Independent. 4. The Tasmanian Greens MP’s as a matter of Party policy, ‘allows its MPs to exercise a conscience vote’. [Do the 5 Lower House Green MPs know about this refreshing Party policy?]
Only GroupThink will be tolerated ...
mUmBRELLA. Pic: of Paddy Manning
10.04.13 1:14 am
Fairfax journalist Paddy Manning fired over opinion piece “Such creeping advertorial — touted as commercially necessary but also fundamentally ideological in its inevitable pro-business slant — has been noticeable in BusinessDay for at least a year… “The result has been to cramp space for news, features and the opinions and analysis of BusinessDay’s own reporters and columnists, who are guided by a code of ethics and have no vested interests to push. “The BusinessDay masthead was pinched from The New York Times but has gradually united the business teams of the Herald and Age, has gelled online and is now head and shoulders above any Australian rival in terms of readership, attracting more than two million unique readers a month… “BusinessDay writes for the consumer, not for industry. We are not the trade press. With exceptions like Neil Chenoweth that nevertheless prove the rule,The AFR’s business journalism is built on a fundamental contract between company and reporter: high-level access in exchange for soft coverage.”
No mail in, no mail out ... Telstra snip bounces emails. Sat: Back to normal!x
Editor
05.04.13 10:00 am
TT’s email system has crashed. If you have something urgent send to tuffinlindsay@hotmail.com But, at 4pm Saturday, normal service resumed!x
• Mercury: Telstra snip ends calls ...
• Mike Bolan, in Comments: The federal government via ACMA has defined telecommunications as NOT an essential service. What that achieved was lowering the cost of operating Telecom/Telstra by removing the need for robust and well backed up telecomm systems. When designing the NBN as non-essential, the government replaced the copper phone cables (which carry their own power) with fibre optics which require external power to operate them. This means that when the power goes off, you also lose all the phones. Also saving money by installing the fibre optics on existing power poles means that anyone can cut the cable (accident or design) and ‘black out’ the area served by that cable (certainly convenient for bank robbers!). Of course, without telecomms you cannot run any kind of economy so the idea that T’comms aren’t essential is a typical government fantasy. We’ll all pay the price for this.
My sin? I wasn’t the Chosen One
Margaretta Pos
04.04.13 2:30 am
... contemplating running for MEAA president while in residence recently at the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain ...
Such is the horror of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance hierarchy at the thought of a real election that a staggering $10,000 has been raised to stop me from being elected as Federal President. … We’ve had the same Federal President for more than a decade, Patricia Amphlett - the singer/performer Little Patti - and I thought it time to have an election, with a journalist running for president. I can understand that Col Joye and Wendy Harmer might sign the petition in support of Amphlett, but I wonder why Laurie Oakes and Heather Ewart thought I was a threat?
And threat I must be, because the flyer arrived in the mail the same day as the ballot papers, and the flyer states that that ‘to keep our union strong and united,’ members must vote for Amphlett, who is ‘our national treasure’. The flyer cost at least $10,000, and here’s a breakdown ...
• Margaretta Pos, in Comments: ABC staff elected director: Voting starts this week at the ABC for the staff- elected director position. Three Alliance members are candidates for the position – Matt Peacock, Ian Henschke and Ian Mannix. The Alliance is not endorsing a candidate but we urge all members to vote. It was a long campaign to have this position restored so it is vital members exercise their right to vote. ‘‘The above was federal secretary Chris Warren in our March 18th bulletin. Ah, but that was an ABC election, not an Alliance one!
• Rob Walls, in Comments: That you have the stamina, strength and stubbornness to take them on is a credit to you. Not that it’s any help to you, but if I were still a member, you’d get my vote…
Bolt the Alienated. Heiss the Luminous
Martin Flanagan. Firt published Tuesday March 26
27.03.13 4:30 am
Martin Flanagan speaks with Anita Heiss, above The big difference between Anita Heiss and Andrew Bolt, apart from a luminous generosity of spirit, is that Anita knows where she’s from and where she stands in this land. When we appeared together last year in Melbourne, Anita was copping abusive tirade after abusive tirade from faceless voices on the internet but she got a standing ovation from the audience she faced at the Wheeler Centre. Why? Because Anita Heiss speaks from the heart ...
Martin Flanagan introduced Anita Heiss at the Tasmanian Writers Festival on Saturday 23rd March - this is his speech.
Political Apocalypse. Disastrous poll
Kim Peart. Links. First published Monday, March 25
26.03.13 1:52 am
Unless Julia Gillard can begin to inspire love in the hearts of fellow Australians for her style, the reign may be remembered as that of a siren who managed to lure a whole party onto the rocks of political destruction.
• BBC: Australia’s coup culture
• Business Spectator: The worst government ever? Not yet ...
• Christine Milne: Labor in reatret on Climate Change
• Christine Milne:Transcript Subjects: Appointment of Gary Gray as Minister for Resources and Energy
• Use the TT NEWS dropdown menu (top nav bar) for breaking news/comment on the new Cabinet etc
• TUESDAY, ABC Online: ‘Appalling week to blame for poll numbers’ Prime Minister Julia Gillard says today’s Newspoll showing the Labor Government is heading for a disastrous electoral defeat is the consequence of an “appalling week”. Labor’s primary vote has fallen to 30 per cent and satisfaction in Ms Gillard’s performance has crashed six points to a 19-month low of 26 per cent. “I don’t need a poll to tell me that last week the Labor Party had an appalling week,” she told AM. “When we present to the Australian people self-indulgently talking about ourselves, there are consequences. “I don’t think any political observer or indeed any community member would need a poll to say that people looked at the conduct of the Labor Party last week and were just shaking their heads.” The Coalition has secured a big jump in its primary vote, with the latest poll forecasting it will secure one in every two primary votes in September.
• Marilyn Lake, SMH: The Gillard backlash says more about her dectractors
And, top Fairfax reads:
• Waleed Ally: Without reforms, who will leash the media?
• Bettina Arndt: Today’s policies are tomorrow’s apologies
• Paul McGeough: Afghanistan: When West pulls out, wild west rides in
Comment is free. Moderation is difficult
Editor
22.03.13 4:15 am
The growth and growth of Tasmanian Times has not been without its difficulties. An inordinate proportion of time and effort – and angst – has been involved in the moderation of comments on threads. So, in order to ensure the best use of limited time and energy – and to devote more of that time to journalism – Tasmanian Times threads will henceforth close to comments after 24 hours ... except in circumstances where legitimate new factual information enriches the thread. And, henceforth, some articles – at the editors’ discretion – will not be open to comments.
Wilkie won’t back media reform bills ... as Rudd forces gather
Andrew Wilkie MP, Independent Member for Denison MR. First published Wednesday, March 20
21.03.13 4:15 am
“But these reforms are rushed and poorly constructed. Frankly this is a shambles of the Government’s own making and no reasonable person could expect quality decisions to be made in these circumstances. “Consequently these reforms fail to give more rights to members of the community subject to media mistreatment and fail to comprehensively enhance the Australian Press Council. Moreover they’re not accompanied by the essential supporting legislation, in particular a strong public interest disclosure bill, and don’t promise to effectively address the community’s concerns with the current media concentration.
• Christine Milne: Willkie – don’t abandon the public interest on media reform: The Australian Greens have reached a compromise with the government on media reform – now is the time for cross-benchers to stand up for media reform in the public interest. “Andrew Wilkie remains the only cross-bencher not to engage in cross-party discussions. He has already given up on protecting media diversity in Australia and given into bullying.” Greens Leader Christine Milne said. “I call on Mr Wilkie to reconsider his blanket opposition and meet the Greens to discuss how we can avoid missing this historic opportunity to address media reform in Australia. “I am urging Mr Wilkie to stand up to Rupert Murdoch’s bullying ... Full MR here
• What they say, Transcript, Christine Milne, Scott Ludlum, Adam Bandt: Media reform, Andrew Wilkie
• Watch: Christine Milne interview with ABC’s Lyndal Curtis on media reform
Andrew Wilkie, Independent Member for Denison MR. First published Sunday March 17
18.03.13 3:00 am
Statement regarding media reform Frankly the concern the reforms will diminish free speech has some merit. That a government appointed official would oversee the Press Council, and that he or she has resort to withdrawing the privacy protection for journalists, could indeed be said to be threats to free speech.
Labor’s hand forced on size of Parliament
Barry Prismall via David Obendorf
18.03.13 1:34 am
The great dilemma facing the State Labor caucus as they plan their final year in office before the election is their survival, and how to buy it… ...Just legislate for an extra 10 MPs, the Liberals in government will never return to a smaller House, no matter how much they rant this year about the extra costs. Sometimes you’ve got to decide – and tell the voters it’s in their best interests – and yours!
Tasmanian Writers Festival - Get Involved!
Editors
15.03.13 3:57 am
The Tasmanian Writers Festival kicks off this weekend. There are heaps of great and diverse events to enjoy. Make sure you check out the program and get involved. It only happens every two years!!
Writers Festival website and downloadable program HERE:
Editors
15.03.13 3:55 am
Ten Days on the Island has kicked off and as Tasmanian Times has in other years we will again be teaming up with WriteResponse to bring you reviews of this year’s Ten Days. Stay tuned…
Here’s a review for As We Forgive by Kylie Eastley to wet your appetite.
Media reform: great care needed
Andrew Wilkie MP, Independent Member for Denison MR
12.03.13 10:25 am
Finally there is the issue of the proposed public interest test for media ownership. This is one area wide open to political interference, and effectively media censorship, unless it’s very carefully thought out.
Use the TT NEWS dropdown menu for breaking news/comment on this proposal
• Christine Milne: CHRISTINE MILNE: Well I saw the front page today of the newspaper and thought to myself that they have gone completely over the top and in fact discredited themselves. It’s a tabloid front page and no one could possibly take it seriously. On the strategy more generally, on the whole media package, I have to say that if the Government was serious about media reform it wouldn’t have put into place such a fake time line, it would have looked at doing something in a more considered way. I think what you’ve got here is a Government extremely divided on media reform saying that they are going to hold, they don’t want the Parliament to be able to make changes suggests to me that Stephen Conroy has only just got the numbers inside the Labor Party and can’t risk any changes or he will lose them. They don’t seem to be serious about media reform at all. More, here
• John Hayward, in Comments: That the crims of the UK phone hacking scandal can portray themselves in Australia as the champions of press freedom is something that Barry Humphries might have dreamed up. With a 70% control of Australia’s print media in the hands of an American Tea Party- type octogenarian, just how much real journalistic freedom does Australia have left to lose?
• Tigerquoll, in Comments: Yeah but I hold short of ‘defending to the death’ News Limited Campbell Reid’s right to its tabloid crap… The interview on ABC 730 tonight ‘News Limited Director responds to media reforms’ by Leigh Sales interviewing News Limited’s Campbell Reid. It is a gem worth recording on DVD (before the Conroy Free Speech Raid): Watch, quick before it is censored! http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3715049.htm
Boom and Bust cowboys hit The Tarkine
Tom de Kadt, New Matilda. First published Monday March 11
12.03.13 5:00 am
Pic: Nicole Anderson
As CNN votes The Tarkine No. 1 of the world’s last remaining wilderness areas ( 10 of the world’s last great wilderness areas ), miners get ready to let rip, writes Tom de Kadt.
Jon Sumby, in Comments: Another interesting thing is that State Governments are charged to provide public infrastructure, which means roads. So, how much is Venture paying for the initial road upgrade and then the maintenance? Companies consider themselves members of the public, or if an actual member of the public will use that road will demand that the Government put funds into the upgrade that is only being done to enable their heavy trucks to use the road… How much will Tasmania pay? 50%? 100%? But I don’t think that the residents of Tullah would mind, the population of their town is expected to boom by 720% for a couple of years as the mines are built, to around 1150 workers. Question is how much will change the town. Will the infrastructure cope, will the community spirit? Will Venture build a suburb which will then be left behind or will accommodation be dongas and taken away when not needed. It would be a good time to open a restaurant, build it up for a year and sell it before the clientele vanish! Disappear over the hill with a fistful of cash - which is what Venture will do, just a mere two years after the Riley mine opens, which means no more trucks, or local business.
Will Bibby, University of Oxford
11.03.13 4:35 am
It is fitting that in Tasmania, a state divided by decades of bitter disputes over the forests, the current political atmosphere has been described as ‘like a very dry forest and a spark could set off all kinds of things’.[29] The demise of Gunns may be such a spark – for good, as well as the ill of the obvious short-term pain many are now feeling.
• John Lawrence, in Comments: But most particularly, as Peter has stated, is the nonsense assertion that Mr L’Estrange, Gunns, to its credit, visibly attempted to change direction. Mr L’Estrange was the in house liquidator trying to liquidate assets and get a better price for those assets whilst Gunns still had claims to being a going concern under the watchful eye of the banking syndicate whose primary concern was to exit the scene. Whether the pulp mill eventuated ANZ were beastly careless, if it meant by keeping the dream alive they may stand a better chance of getting loans repaid then they were all for it. Gaining a social license was the spin. Native forest logging was unprofitable and Gunns needed to exit else solvency would soon be an issue. It’s not just a matter of emphasis as Mr Bibby implies. It’s a fundamental difference. It has serve to entrench the belief that Gunns were a bit rogue for a while but Mr L’Estrange led them back onto the path of righteousness towards salvation, and that really the forest industry falling over was caused by other persons and events. But it’s cr-p. We need to fully understand why the forest industry has fallen over else we’ll never move on. And with every day as we limp toward inconclusion that is becoming glaringly obvious. A grade 10 social history essay hinders rather than helps.
The Cardinal Sin of Transparency
Peter Henning. First published Friday March 10
10.03.13 5:45 am
Bryan Green and presumably Lara Giddings knew the “overwhelming” financial plight of Gunns
• There is no way that the Tasmanian media is going to investigate any of the key issues, or that Tasmanian-based journalists of Fairfax or Murdoch are going to queer their pitch with the Tasmanian power brokers. It needs someone from outside that circle who can splash the whole lot across the national media.
• At the heart of this miasma is the way that about $60 million of public funds were literally thrown away in mid-2011 - $23 million called “compensation” to Gunns for exiting native forest logging, and $26 million of Gunns’ debt to Forestry Tasmania written off, and over $11 million given to FT to keep them solvent at the height of the crisis between Gunns and FT which had been running for months. A few things we know for certain. Forestry Tasmania considered that Gunns was finished at least by July 2011 when Bob Gordon wrote to Bryan Green telling him so. Well they might because Gunns hadn’t paid any of their debts to Forestry Tasmania throughout the first half of 2011. So Bryan Green and presumably Lara Giddings knew the “overwhelming” financial plight of Gunns at least by then, if not earlier.
• The key questions are obvious enough. Was Gunns insolvent when they were gifted $49 million of public funds, and was that money paid to them to keep them solvent while the government was also lying to the public about the real reason Gunns got the money? There are plenty of subsidiary questions which flow from that which need answers. On the face of it, the Liberals could have had the Giddings government on toast if they’d pursued the matter. Plus they could have portrayed the Greens as totally inept.
So why didn’t they?
• Gordon Bradbury, in Comments: I wonder what would happen if we started a campaign to encourage people to write “Royal Commission” on their ballot papers at the next State election. If 10-20% of voters did that it would definitely make international and national headlines, and be a huge embarrassment to the State Government and Parliament. What do people think?
• Karl Stevens in Comments: Tasmania’s ‘magazine style’ media outlets have completely bypassed the massive payment of a bankrupt private company’s debts by the Crown. This is a huge story in itself still waiting to be told. Why is The Examiner spending two months analysing frocks at the Launceston Cup while refusing to cover the largest single alleged public fraud in Tasmanian history? The ABC and the Merc may as well be Facebook pages given their shallow reporting on the Tasmanian political scene.
• John Hawkins, in Comments: If Rolley and Harriss extract another 50 million dollars from the taxpayer, we will have paid out 100 million to two companies who between them did not manage a profit for at least 10 years. We gave 50 million to Gunns - who went belly-up for 3 billion in 12 months - all because our pollies had no idea that this outstanding pillar of society - the prosecutor of the Gunns 20 - was insolvent. This money was in exchange for the free gift of Take or Pay contracts over Tasmania’s native forests - the property of the people; supplied on our behalf free of charge, by the State owned loss making GBE, Forestry Tasmania. If I may put words into the mouth of that great Australian sage TGC, alias Trevor Cowell, such largesse makes one proud to be Tasmanian. This is a State secret and must be kept from the pages of The Examiner and the Mercury in case the rest of the nation considers Tasmanian pollies to be unbelievably crass and stupid or - even better - locked up.
• Steve Biddulph, in Comments: Gordon Bradbury’s idea to write Royal Commission on the polling papers is a great one. I think we should support it and publicize it broadly. Its become a necessary goal because of the sheer diversity of issues - the allegations about Paul Harriss and Ta Ann, Gunns and taxpayers money, the Pulp Mill Approval process, Paul Lennon’s renovations, all are unanswered and need to be probed and laid open. Its a simple, visible, politically neutral, non partisan and heartfelt call for the biggest cleanup in Australian history. Every state has needed a Royal Commission into corruption, - W.A., Qld., and NSW have had them. Persisting with this one simple goal will gain traction, whether it succeeds or not, it signals our disaffection more than any vote could do (when there is so little choice).
CNN names Tarkine first in CNN’s world’s last great wilderness areas
Scott Jordan, Campaign Coordinator, Tarkine National Coalition MR
07.03.13 5:55 am
Tarkine Falls by Nicole Anderson
Over the past decade the Tarkine has delivered on the jobs front, with visitor numbers and Tarkine related jobs growing even in the current national downturn. “The Tarkine continues to grow it’s reputation as a premier tourist destination”. “The new mines proposed will kill the golden goose”.
Disrespect, concentrated power and a lost narrative. Abbott’s surge
Fairfax and The Australian Independent Media Network. First published, Monday Feb 25
26.02.13 3:00 am
The inspiring and very impressive Mary Crooks in the Age, talking about Lack of Respect in Government. Margo Kingston rightly believes we can truly be a democracy if we can bring about the destruction of the powerful media barons, and Waleed Aly argues Labor has lost the plot, and the narrative.
• The Watermelon Blog: Yes Prime Minister
• Michelle Grattan, BusinessSpectator: The Greens’ make or break moment under Milne
• ABC Online, Tuesday: Gillard brushes off poll slump as Abbott surges
LearnStuff.com
25.02.13 2:55 am
Thanks to extensive research and noticeable changes in weather and storm prevalence, it’s getting harder to turn a blind eye to the reality of climate change. Since the Industrial Age spurred the increasing usage of fossil fuels for energy production, the weather has been warming slowly. In fact, since 1880, the temperature of the earth has increased by 1 degree Celsius. Although 72% of media outlets report on global warming with a skeptical air, the overwhelming majority of scientists believe that the extreme weather of the last decade is at least partially caused by global warming.
Solitary saint warns of collective sins
Geordie Williamson From: The Australian February 09, 2013 12:00AM
18.02.13 1:48 am
On the Abolition of all Political Parties, by Simone Weil, translated by Simon Leys
Peter
15.02.13 1:46 am
• All the ciculation figures here (But, of course, you’ll have to pay!)
• But Rupe puts a positive spin on it: Good news for newspaper mastheads as digital sales rise strongly
Upper ...
Guitar wood supplier predicts sound future
Gordon Bradbury http://www.blackwoodgrowers.com.au
11.02.13 3:43 am
Tasmanian tonewood merchant Robert MacMillan has been in the media lately telling a good news story about the forest industry – a very rare thing these days. His business is on the verge of great things, attracting high-profile international customers such as Fender, Martin and others who as yet don’t want to be named. In the music industry these names are iconic. And they are beating a quiet path to Tasmania.
• Pete Godfrey, in Comments: Around 12 years ago I built an acoustic guitar using blackwood for the back and sides. It is a lovely sounding instrument. At the time I calculated the value of the timber. I worked out the cost of the blackwood for the back and sides and depending on the amount of fiddleback it came to between $90 thousand and $120 thousand a cubic metre. If any farmers are reading this don’t get caught selling your logs for chip prices. If there is any figuring in the log it is worth more than gold.
• Silence! • The Four Reports of the Climate Apocalypse?
• ABC: Fresh commitment to regional Australians • What they say, Christine Milne, Scott Ludlum, Adam Bandt: Media reform, Andrew Wilkie
(56) Ben, one thing the ‘dark’ greens keep hammering home is that this peace deal is not perfect, indeed has its faults,…
