I think the Polls are wrong...

This week the polls showed that dear old Media Mike has had his lies believed by the gullible and the media. The polls don't show the dip there should have been from the fall out around the Michelle Chantelois affair and the St Clair land swap deal.

Lets recap on these things. Mike had an affair with a married woman. That isn't actually the news or even particularly noteworthy on its own. What is the issue here is that when this surfaced, after the attack at the Wine Centre, Mikes first response was to lie. He denied knowing who the man was or what the issue was. He did this in public but not in parliament. This is quite significant.

Subsequently it has come out that he not only knew the man, he also was well aware of what the issue was. If he had lied in parliament he would have been forced to resign for misleading parliament.

That is the real reason for the uproar in the house when the Liberals wanted Mike Rann to make statements in session. The uproar was to deflect the questions and to use up time so Mr Rann wouldn't have to lie in the house or tell the truth. Neither option was palatable to Mike or the Labor party.

When the story came out in the media Mike, again in public but not the house, started by making the extraordinary claim that paid stories were false - not in so many words but that was clearly the insinuation. Says a lot for his paid media manager Jill Bottrell doesn't it.

He then did a Bill Clinton and stated "I have never had sex with that woman". He then proceeded to deny statements that were never made. Such as having sex in his office when parliament was in session during appointments. Michelle never made that claim. To suggest that Mikes office is a revolving door 24/7 is just as rediculous as his denials of having sex in his office.

What Mike does in his private life is mostly private but when it flows into his public life and he lies about it then there must be serious questions about his reliability with all his statements. You cannot say "well yes I did lie about that but the rest is the truth" as Malcolm Turnbull found out with the Godwin Gretch emails.

Now for the ST Clair land swap. The ministers involved keep falling back on the line that the council have requested the swap and they are only checking that they have followed the rules. The problem with this is that they are hiding the stated fact that this land swap is crucial to the government's TOD proposed for the park to be swapped.

How fortuitous that the council, all on their own, would suddenly decide that it would be a major benefit to their local residents if they could swap some well established parklands with 100+ year old trees for a contaminated industrial site with no trees.

If you don't recognise BS in these statements then you are probably past redemption in any case. No, this isn't a council initiated land swap, this is a Land Management Council initiated land swap 100% instigated by the Rann Government for their own pet project. To stand back and claim it is all at arms length is a massive deception being perpetrated on the people by a bunch of developers politicians.

Claims that it is a bigger parcel of land is just laughable, the additional bit is less than the size of an average house block. Claims that it will be completely rehabilitated is also a joke, they'll have to cart away millions of tonnes of soil and bring in a similar amount of clean fill. Where from? Where will they dump the contaminated soil? How many years will it take to establish a park of similar stature to the one they want to steal? How many years of construction noise, dust, parking problems, traffic problems before this quiet suburb will once again be a quite suburb?

Have a look at the site on Google Maps use this as your search "brocas avenue, woodville, sa".

See that really nice lump of industrial land? That's what they want to swap with the area marked as Woodville Park Oval. If you read the statement on the Charles Sturt Council website you will see that they are claiming that the Cheltenham Racecourse will be parkland, it won't that has also been earmarked for redevelopment and is also subject to citizen protests in what is another dodgy government deal. Read the Cheltenham FAQ here and check the sites out again.

If they really wanted a proper development they could easily use the industrial site for their TOD and build the tram line, which is coming down Port Road, to loop through the proposed Cheltenham racecourse, the industrial site and then onto Port Road. A relatively minor re-alignment which would significantly add to the ability of all of the residents to use public transport. I doubt they have that much imagination..

It's no wonder that the Rann Labor Government refused to call parliament back for another sitting before the election, the questions just might reveal how dodgy all this is. Where the hell are the investigative journalists? Has journalism sunk so low that they don't even bother to check any of the spin (lies) from the government press releases?

Clearly not. Go to these sites to express your support for the citizens and disgust for the bully boys of the SA Labor Party.

http://www.loadofbullshit.com

http://www.criticaltimes.com.au

http://www.charlessturtratepayers.org

Water Lies Exposed

There are others, if you find some please let me know and I'll put them in the blog roll or a special post or something. If we all share the links around then all the protest sites will be at the top of the search results and we will create change.

Hugs all round.

Cheat doesn't just apply to soccer.

I have copied this directly and entirely from the Adelaide Now Website - Link above.

The reason is that there is a very good chance that the Labor Heavyweights will attempt to censor this and it shouldn't be censored.

UPDATED 6:40PM: Mike Rann is facing intense pressure to resign because of an alleged sexual affair which involved sex in his Parliament House office, including on his desk.

The woman at the centre of the controversy, former Parliamentary barmaid Michelle Chantelois, has made a series of explosive allegations about the alleged relationship, which occurred when she was married to Burnside man Rick Phillips.

Asked specifically by Channel Seven's Sunday Night program if she had sex with Mr Rann on his desk, she replied, ``yes''.

Then aged 33, she claimed the long-running clandestine affair started when Mr Rann, aged 50, asked her to go back to his office because ``he wanted to kiss me''.

"That's the start of my nightmare," she said in the interview, broadcast on national television.

``There was sex involved, there was sexual contact, and intimacy involved."

Ms Chantelois said when she finished her job at Parliament House she returned her uniform before being invited by Mr Rann to have a drink in his office.

"We went to his office and the clothes came off and the intercourse began."

``You know having me on his desk, his Parliament House desk ... in his office ... and at the very end when it was finished it was almost like ``OK I have a meeting now, I have to go."

Ms Chantelois said she and Mr Rann also had sex near the North Adelaide Golf Course and he wanted to watch a movie with her about an illicit affair and told her a steamy sex scene in a toilet cubicle was "his fantasy".

She claimed Mr Rann told her never to put anything in writing, believing it was to "protect him", but, after an argument with his wife, sent her a text saying "he wanted to give me pleasure".

Ms Chantelois says in the interview that she had decided to break her silence because she was "not going to live off lies any more",

"The fact is that we did have a sexual relationship,"

"Basically I was his puppet. He was calling the shots and I was his puppet. I would just follow his instructions. And there were secret meetings.

"He made it very clear that this was going to be our little secret.

"I would come and pick him up at the casino. He would get in the car and during these times it was always Parliament House.

"He would direct me on where to go. Along the side, just on the side of the road at the golf course ... and I'm ashamed to say intimacy was involved.

"And then I would drive him back to Parliament House; he would get out of his vehicle and go back to work.

"I had no respect for myself at that point. I'm lying to my husband. I'm having this other fling on the side with Mike Rann and it was all wrong. It was all wrong. But I just kept getting drawn into it."

It is understood Ms Chantelois was paid a considerable sum for the interview - possibly as much as $200,000 according to speculation - a factor Mr Rann has previously pointed to in order to suggest the testimony was affected by the financial incentive.

Ms Chantelois denied that she had been motivated by the payment for the interview to reveal details of the relationship.

"That's not the motivation, the thing that has motivated me is Rick needs to know the truth," she said. "Money isn't the issue.'

Ms Chantelois called on Mr Rann - Australia's most popular premier and national president of the Australian Labor Party - to apologise to all of the people affected by the relationship.

"I actually think he should be apologising to Rick (Ms Chentelois's husband) and my family and his wife Sasha (Carrouzzo). And unfortunately because I had to come clean ... probably to the public as well," she said.

`I'm taking responsibility for my own bad behaviour, and Mike Rann should take responsibility for his own bad behaviour."

Mr Rann married his wife, Sasha Carrouzzo in July 2006, by which time the alleged affair had ended according to Ms Chantelois.

Mr Rann has undertaken to respond to the allegations tomorrow after he and his lawyers examine the interview.

However, earlier reports of the story have noted he has yet to specifically deny the claims - describing them instead as ``wildly sensational''.

Ms Chantelois is the estranged wife of Mr Phillips, who was arrested after allegedly attacking Mr Rann with a rolled-up Winestate magazine at a Labor Party fundraiser last month.

He faces court on December 7 on charges of aggravated assault.

According to an earlier Channel Seven report, Mr Rann urged Ms Chantelois to keep the alleged affair secret.

Channel Seven reported tonight it had obtained a statutory declaration from a friend of Ms Chantelois which alleged she was told by Ms Chantelois about the affair.

According to Channel Seven the sworn affadavit details how Ms Chantelois told her friend she had been asked by Mr Rann to keep the relationship secret.

‘’I asked Michelle if she had sexual intercourse with him and she said yes,'' it says.

‘’Michelle said that Mike Rann had told her that she must not tell a soul.

‘’Michelle was riddled by guilt…because she loved her husband and family.”

Mr Rann today failed to keep a scheduled appointment as the initial fallout from Ms Chantelois's allegations - first broadcast on Friday night and repeated again in the Sunday Mail - fuelled speculation about his political future.

Other government representatives at the event included Monsignor David Cappo, Federal Member for Hindmarsh Steve Georganas, cabinet minister Paul Caica and other state politicians including Grace Portolesi, Vini Ciccarello and Carmel Zollo.
A range of politicans and high profile South Australians were quizzed by the media as they entered the new $30 million Aged Care and Community Centre at Seaton but preferred to keep their opinions to themselves.

One of Mr Rann's closest allies Catholic priest Monsignor David Cappo refused to comment on the allegations when asked if had sympathy for the Premier.

Ministerial aspirant Grace Portolesi said that Mr Rann had her "full support - 100 per cent".

When asked about the allegations of an adulterous affair she said: "I can't comment on those claims. What matters to me and the community that I represent is the fact that we've got record jobs growth".

Member for Norwood Vini Ciccarello also refused to comment even when asked if she still supported Mr Rann.

Industrial Relations Minister Paul Caica also kept his views to himself.

The absence of Mr Rann came mid growing speculation there could be a leadership change should the claims made by Ms Chantelois prove politically fatal, although many still regard Mr Rann as Labor's best electoral asset four months out from the next State Election.

In her paid interview, Ms Chantelois also claimed she became Mr Rann's "puppet" during a lengthy sexual relationship that ended in 2005 - which Mr Rann has repeatedly maintained was a platonic friendship.

Ms Chantelois also told the program Mr Rann should apologise to both her husband and to his now-wife, Sasha Carruozzo, "because he was lying and doing this behind her back".

"I actually think he should be apologising to Rick (Michelle's husband) and my family and his wife Sasha. And unfortunately because I had to come clean ... probably to the public as well," she says.

"I'm taking responsibility for my own bad behaviour, and Mike Rann should take responsibility for his own bad behaviour."

The alleged affair ended before Mr Rann married Sasha Carruozzo in July 2006.

Ms Chantelois is the now-estranged wife of Mr Phillips, who was arrested after allegedly attacking Mr Rann with a rolled-up Winestate magazine at a Labor Party fundraiser last month.

He is due to appear in court on December 7, although it is understood formal charges have not yet been laid.

There is a restraining order against him approaching both Mr Rann and Treasurer Kevin Foley.

Asked yesterday about the allegations he had sex with Ms Chantelois, Mr Rann did not deny the claims, instead describing them as "wildly sensational" .

Speaking on arrival at the Croatian Food and Wine Festival at The Pines, Gepps Cross, Mr Rann said he would view tonight's program with his lawyers, then make a statement tomorrow.

"From what I have been told it is wildly sensational and there is a court case pending on December 7," he said.

"I intend to make a brief statement on Monday after we have found what these allegations are, but I would not be admitting to things that are not true.

"I do find it really interesting that just over four weeks ago, Ms Chantelois's lawyers came out and said she wanted to be left alone by the media. I understand that she has been paid a fortune to say the things that she has said publicly, but what I want to do is find out what she's said and I will be responding on Monday."

It is understood Ms Chantelois's representatives approached Channel 7 to sell the story, and government officials claim she may have been paid more than $200,000.

Channel 7 conducted around 11 hours of interviews and is understood to have obtained a series of statutory declarations, as well as phone records purportedly showing repeated texts and phone calls between Ms Chantelois and Mr Rann over an extended period.

Despondent Labor MPs were waiting to see tonight's program in full before assessing the damage to Mr Rann and the wider electoral fallout.

While some colleagues believe he can weather this storm, others fear that if it is too damaging he will have to quit - or be pushed.

There already is speculation over who could succeed him and cement themselves as a popular premier in time for victory at the March 20 election should the program prove politically fatal.

A previous leadership hopeful, Treasurer Kevin Foley, is seen by some as too damaged after revealing he has been on medication for depression, paving the way for possible successors Patrick Conlon, Jay Weatherill or John Hill.

Several senior Labor sources expressed concern for Mr Rann's family, noting that he deserves the benefit of the doubt.

"This lady is making some statements and Mr Rann will respond - people are continuing to support him and he is our best electoral asset," was a view expressed by one key source and echoed by others.

Correctional Services Minister Tom Koutsantonis yesterday blasted US-born Ms Chantelois for giving the interview, saying: "It's just a sleazy, awful attack."

Immediately following the alleged assault, Mr Rann, when questioned if he knew the man who attacked him, said: "I've never met him before."

My comments on this. Mike lied the day after the initial attack. He has consistently lied about his involvement with Ms Chantelois, he doesn't deserve any benefit of doubt since there isn't any, Tom Koutsantonis has no credibility.

The claims may be sensational but so were the claims of Monica Lewinski regarding Bill Clinton. Sensational claims are not automatically false. When you have someone who has, as his first response to questions, already lied about this affair on one side and an untested person on the other you should err on the side of the untested person.

They are the ones who deserve the benefit of the doubt. I, for one, believe Ms Chantelois is telling the truth.

The initial suggestion from Mike Rann when he was asked about the upcoming interview was that he understood she had been paid a considerable sum of money for the interview. He was insinuating that if you are paid to say things then they are lies.

If we hold that to be a given then all the information from all the Government minders is, by Mikes own insinuation, lies and should be given no room in any of the media outlets or any credibility.

Should you prepare your plans before making announcements?

I read with amusement that Ms. Julia Gillard has travelled to the USA to find out how to create Green Jobs. As we all well aware, the USA is the home of the Green Movement and is clearly the greenest country on earth. The undisputed green leader of the free world I don't think.

The other amusing part of this is that KRudd announced the creation of 50,000 new green jobs in July, reference link.

"The plan will consist of the creation of a 10,000-member national Green Jobs Corps, where long-term young jobless will take part in six months of training and work experience.

Labor plans that 30,000 apprentices will be trained with green skills, while there will be an additional 4000 training places for insulation installers.

There will also be another 6000 jobs from environmental sustainability programs in priority local economies."

but when you look at the actual figures here the only new jobs here are the temporary insulation handlers and the very airy fairy 6,000 jobs from environmental sustainability programs. Whatever that means.

The rest is an addition to existing apprentice's training and a work for the dole scheme with green tinges. So the 50,000 new jobs is in reality 10,000 temporary and speculative ones.

So if they were planning this back in July, why is Julia going off to the USA now to find out how to do it? What would be wrong with asking the local green movement, they just might have some useful ideas. Certainly would be cheaper than whatever the USA will come up with since their attitude is almost always to throw lots of money at a problem.

What this really shows clearly is that, as usual, the Rudds have no clue about what they are doing. They make policy on the run, without thinking it through at all, based on some sort of focus group and very bad polling.

So where does the $100 million cost of these jobs come from? Seriously even with 50,000 new jobs that's $2,000 per job or if it's only 10,000 newish jobs it's $10,000 per job. I remember the cost of my TAFE courses in 2000. They were $2,500 per term. So $10,000 covers fees for one year for one person. I would love to see their accounting on this but I doubt it will ever become public. Puts the mocker on the pre-election bleating about fully costed policies.

Media Mike Mashes Magazine and Makes Headlines.

And yet again he gets caught out in a lie. The man just can't help himself. He and KRudd are so alike it's scary. Both go for the lie and spin before the truth regardless of whether the truth can hurt them or not.

Whenever you get caught out in a lie your credibility is damaged and there is no recovery from that, the constant drip drip drip of the lie drops falling into the clouded eyes of the voters. Eventually the fog clears and the vision is restored. That's when the the BS folk get their come-uppance.

The real shame of this in the world of politics is that they have voted themselves a permanent pension even if they are doing a paid job elsewhere. That rort must be stopped. The idea of being able to access an early pension is the claim that many politicians have left good jobs to take up the position and may find it difficult to get re-employed afterwards.

I don't have an objection to that, I think the unemployment benefits they give themselves are excessively generous but I agree with the concept. But, just like with the rest of us, if they get a job the unemployment benefits should stop while they are being paid.

Sorry, slightly off track, in the real world if you ge caught out in a significant lie you lose your job and probably your severance pay. Politicians just keep spinning it along.

Coming into an election we are going to get bombarded with and absolute plethora of BS. So much so that I had an idea after reading an article recently which I cannot find to reference for you. The article was about the massive amount of spin we are going to get and suggested that the media, instead of just printing it, should put a big warning sticker on it calling it BS. My idea was that we could all have a bunch of big red stickers to stick on the posters on the streets and shop windows.



And here it is, if you can produce a better one please do and comment with a link, I'll put into this post for sharing with like minded people.

How to use this. If you have access to a serious label printer then you'll know exactly what to do to produce unlimited stickers of any and all sizes.

For the rest of us it's a matter of getting sheets of sticker material from the local supplier, printing them and cutting out the circles by hand. Yes you have my permission to print these out and distribute them. I don't mind if you sell them to cover printing and handling costs but if you want to go into heavy commercial operation you should get in touch with me first.

Pollute the pollies posters with these. Have fun.

Unleashed: The road ahead

Nothing like the unrequited love between Trevor Cook and the Labor Party to stir up some absolute BS.

Unleashed: The road ahead: "Rudd faces a marathon of 'long, slow boring through hard wood', as Max Weber famously described politics.

And lets face it, Rudd is an expert at long slow boring speeches so this should be easy for him.

Rudd's challenge is to restore the Commonwealth budget to surpluses, while investing the many billions required to make the Australian economy more genuinely and efficiently national in areas like transport, utilities, education.

Of course the massive deficit had nothing to do with Rudd, he just has to fix it. Might have been a little easier if he had been a little less spooked by the specter of a Global Recession and a little more reasoned about Australia's actual exposure to it. Almost none at the time and that is the way it has played out. Our only real issues were the contraction of our global markets and the increased difficulty and cost of borrowing money from overseas. Neither of these were in Mr Rudd's control and were totally unaffected by the stimulus package. Whoops, another miscalculation.

This is not just another economic reform challenge, it is also Rudd's chance to continue the great Labor political project of creating a nation out of the pre-existing colonies that has been pursued by Labor's great prime ministers from Andrew Fisher to John Curtin to Gough Whitlam."

So if it's the case that Labor is busy reforming the nation from colonies to one big nation, how come it's the Labor sate governments which are the sticking point in the reform of the Murray? What a load of codswallop. Open your eyes Trevor, Labor is busy selling Australia to the highest bidder and they have been doing that since the Whitlam days.

Yes it's true that Howard sold off Telstra but that might have had something to do with retiring the massive debt that Labor keep inflicting on Australia. Only took KRudd 18 months to undo all that hard work.

You can see the same scenario played out in almost every wealthy family when the person who knows how to make money and make money work for their benefit dies. The kids take over the empire but they have no idea how to keep the money rolling in so they generally lose the whole lot within a single generation.

Has been happening for generations the same way, Labor is the kid who inherits but doesn't understand the management of money so they stuff it up and the next generation (the Liberal party) has to fix it all up again. It is most unfortunate that by the time the Liberals have sorted out the mess the public has got sick of the austerity of what has to be done and have forgotten who is really responsible for the pain that they elect the dummies back in again.

Tell me again why we don't need an Independant Commission Against Crime in SA?

Why is media Mike so adamant that he will not establish an ICAC? It can't because of the cost destroying the budget because he is planning to build an unnecessary hospital with private money and commit the state to a massive long term lease. He has committed SA to electrifying the trains and extending the trams (why?).

Could it possibly have anything to do with the real estate developments which have destroyed the Port precinct or the significant project status debacles? Kickbacks anyone? I have never been against bribery and corruption. All I ask is an equal opportunity to participate.

There is no doubt that the Labor party, all states and Federally, are dominated by the Union bully boy tactics. Case in point is the current total stuff up by Rann and Foley over the United Water contracts. If there is a problem with them the finger must be pointed at the current Government because they're the ones who have been paying the accounts for the last 11 years. You can't complain about the bills you've been getting after 11 years.

No this isn't about the contract, which the Labor party ratified when they came to power, it's all about bullying United Water over the current sewage contract negotiations. What a bunch of bastards. I would hope that United Water doesn't just demand their day in court, as they have, but also sue the State Government, Rann and Foley personally for the slur on their good name.

The judge has ordered the parties to spend the next week attempting to resolve this before reporting back next week. Guess your big bluster has been called out Mike. There goes another attempt at rewriting history.

It's been a big week for historical rewrites. Even the milky bar kid has had a go, failed pretty badly and made himself look pretty petty in the process. You don't win friends by consistently lying about known facts or bluff and bluster. Seems that our current and temporary Federal government, in their attempts to be popular instead of being leaders, have resorted to bluff and bluster over the horrendous waste, cost blowout and the inequitable distribution of the funds in the badly conceived, poorly implemented and just plain stupid conceptually Building the Education Revolution program.

Poor Julia can't be expected to be across all the thousands of building projects that are going on, according to her party colleagues (BS, the minister is responsible always), so she cannot be held responsible. Oh yes she can, she must be getting briefings from the department regularly, you don't spend billions of dollars without keeping an eye on the spend. If you are not getting those briefings then you are extremely remiss in your duties and should lose the ministry for that at the very least.

Getting back to the core of the decisions over the cash splash, also known as the financial stimulus package, why was there absolutely no money pushed towards the Murray River? This is an absolute ecological disaster and will be sheeted home to the Australian Labor party for the next century as their responsibility. They would like to blame John Howard but that is not possible because for the last 20 or so years there has been a Labor government in power in one or more of the key states of NSW or Vic and they have been so damned parochial that they have killed the Murray River.

When the Federal government had their first meeting with all the states there was a big announcement on their agreement on the Murray but by the time anything gets done the river will be dead. That's not an agreement on anything but stalling further. Yet more BS from the master himself, KRudd.

Oh How Generous.

Our illustrious 2IC and part-time Minister for Education has generously donated a whole $7,300 to assist the Indian slum dwellers children gain some education. All about Political spin to appease the Indian students who are now re-considering their options about studying overseas.

...Australian Deputy Prime Minister yesterday as she tiptoed her way good-naturedly over open sewers and smiled at bare-footed urchins to announce a 300,000 rupee ($7300) donation for the purchase of school books.

It would be better, if quite a bit more expensive, to do something about assisting those Indian students to be more secure within Australia. That would have a bigger impact in the Indian media than a small donation.

In the mean time Ms Gillard has managed to arrange massive amounts of money to go to rural primary schools in Queensland that are about to close. One school, with only 1 student, has been given $250,000 for a new library. WTF?

Reference here.

Why would you do something as stupid as that and, almost with the same hand, take away funding for other rural schools so they could build science and language buildings? Incompetence, that's how. A completely ballsed up process based more on ideology than intelligence. A more cynical person might accuse the Government of blatant pork-barrelling.

While a political storm was brewing at home over revelations the federal government had redirected money from some of the country's most disadvantaged high schools to make up a shortfall in its primary school building program, in India at least it was a day of largess.

Source for both quotes above here.

Just like the Auscars assistance program. Put one man in charge who cannot cope, fail to provide any additional help and then wonder why he attempts to crash the government. By the way, a fake email is one which has been written, printed but not sent. As soon as it is sent it is a genuine email. The contents may be true or false but the email is still genuine.

K.Rudd and J.Gillard are micro-managers because they don't understand what they are doing. People who micro-manage are always into the minute detail without ever getting a handle on the big picture, the overarching concerns. You cannot change their path once their minds are made up because their minds are like concrete, all mixed up and permanently set.

Micro-management is the refuge of the incompetent, their shield from reality.

$50 billion Gas Deal with China or just more BS from Kevin?

I another case of inflated self importance and rubbery figures it seems that the Australian Labor Party is still running on fluff and bubbles with no substance.

The loudly trumpeted claims of success for a deal begun long before little Kevvy was even the leader of the Labor Party and while Ferguson was still bullying employers seem to not stand up to the clear light of inspection.

According to this account in the Sydney Morning Herald by Matthew Murphy the numbers just don't add up. How often does that happen with this mob of "financial conservatives"? Most of the time actually. In this case we need to halve their claims and call it a $20 billion deal, these numbers coming from the Governments own financial forecaster ABARE.

To achieve the $50 billion deal the average price of the gas needs to be $1,111 per tonne for the annual 2.25 million tonnes of LNG under the terms of the sale. Living a fantasy world is this Clayton's Government.

Problem with this is that it now isn't the biggest deal ever, it is dwarfed by the deal done by Woodside Petroleum in 2007 which is a genuine $45 billion deal.

In 2007, Woodside Petroleum agreed to key terms for supplying 2 million to 3 million tonnes of LNG to PetroChina, the same customer as ExxonMobil, in a deal worth about $45 billion, according to Woodside's chief executive, Don Voelte.

That means PetroChina potentially would pay $5 billion less under the Woodside deal to receive more LNG. In its latest production report, Woodside received $345 a tonne for LNG during the June 2009 quarter.

I would have thought that any "financially conservative" Government would at least be able to do their maths properly, clearly they can't.

Seems to be an ever increasing theme with the latest BS from Ms Gillard about how the blowout in spending for the unnecessary school building program "just shows the project is successful" despite the fact that there is mounting evidence that the Labor State Governments have been skimming the fund, builders have been overcharging and the Principals have been complaining that they can't get anything useful to the school actually built.

Since in January Ms Gillard, the part time everything, said that every school in Australia would get a new building to now claim that she really meant only 90% would get a new building and now that they have all asked for one it shows how successful the program has been.

They shut down the solar panel rebate because of that same success and the new deal is just a fraudulent exercise to pad the numbers for their greenhouse gas reduction number later.

Add in the additional poor performance and flaky dealings and it becomes increasingly clear that this is a Government which says one thing while consistently doing something else. The words totally incompetent come to mind.

If you needed another example, look at the National Broadband Network. If there was ever a totally incompetent decision this was it. We the taxpayer are now committed to a $43 billion construction project which is almost out of date now let alone in 6 years time if it ever gets completed. There is no plan, there is no money yet, there is no suggestion of cost to use the system, there are no private companies who have put their hands up to join in. All in all, $43 billion for an idea which has no planning is typical of the Australian Labor Parties approach to almost everything they do regardless of State or Federal bodies.

Australia cannot afford them any longer. Remember, you will have to pay the money back. $200 Billion is $10,000 each plus interest for a family of 4 that'll be $40,000, thanks. You both have parents who are not working? Better kick in another $40,000 for them then. You have an unemployed brother and his wife with their two children? Whoops, another $40,000 from you to help them out. So you bill now comes to $120,000 plus interest. See why we can't afford the Australian Labor Party?

Good Luck buying your house or having a holiday anytime soon.

The Lie of Human Caused Global Warming

It seems that the public are finally waking up to the Global Warming Spruikers lies and mis-information. See this article here.

'Yes, another excellent article pointing out the ongoing desire for us to have disasters' we have to overcome.

Assuming there is climate change occurring, and I have no doubts there is, by what arrogant, ignorant stance could anyone possibly believe that there is only a single cause and that " Human activity" is the single cause of that?

Just look at the equation used to calculate and project the 'warming' trend. High School math should have taught you that you cannot solve any equation with more than one variable unless you know all but one of the values for the other variables. Not a range of values but fixed values. The climatologists have no fixed values for any of their variables and therefore the equation cannot be solved.

Science is not about 'consensus', it is about fact, repeatable, verifiable fact. Consensus is what you get when you bully people by threatening to take away their funding if they don't agree with you.'

The Kevin Rudd and Labor party sponsored Emissions Trading Scheme, the ETS, is based on a lie and a fraud. The only effect it will have is to damage the Australian Economy. It will not nor cannot make any difference to the climate. It might make a difference to the air quality but probably won't even do that.

I am standing up here and stating that I believe in Climate Change, I don't believe that humans either cause it or can stop it. That is just plain stupid and arrogant. One of the problems with a scientific approach which has a belief before examining any data is that you will read into the data whatever your beliefs dictate. You are looking for proof not fact and anything which doesn't fit is discarded or explained away as an anomoly.

If you look at the statements by the "true believers" you will see many many statements clearly trying to downplay or eliminate anything which doesn't fit their belief system. This is the behaviour of a religious fanatic, not a scientist.

Guess what "true believers" you have been sucked in by the spin and BS. Open your eyes and research the facts. Think about them, make your own observations.

By the way, 200 websites spouting the same information from the same site is, in reality, 1 site and 199 lazy webmasters, not proof.

2,000 eminent scientists spouting th same story from the same block of information is 1 scientist and 1,999 lazy scientists, not proof.

2,000 scientist with the same story doesn't make it correct, 1 scientist with a different story doean't make it wrong.

Bring out your proof and facts, verifiable, repeatable, indisputable facts. Only then can we have a proper debate. In the mean time nick off, opinions are like backsides, everybodys got one.

A bit of background for our foreign readers

South Australia has only one significant river, the Murray, which actually begins in the Snowy Mountains, also known as the Australian Alps.  This page in Wikipedia is pretty accurate so click here for more information.

The issue for South Australia is that most of the rainfall in South Australia doesn't run off into the Murray in any form.  What this means is that all of the water which we use for irrigation, stock and human needs that we extract from the Murray comes from and through New South Wales and Victoria.

They have the attitude that they have a greater right to keeping that water for their use than South Australia has.  In a purely selfish way they are right but what they are neglecting to consider is that, by over extracting water in their states for their use they are actually killing the lower reaches of the Murray.

I believe that the real issue is that they have no idea of how dry the Murray is after the last lock because the locks themselves keep the water back and, to them, the Murray seems to be just as full of water as normal.

Our Federal Government has made lots of statements about buying water for environmental flows but most of those statements have been degraded by the release of information, reported here which clearly indicates that there is no plan for the water buyback.  The Federal Government and the State Governments have totally failed in everything but giving away large sums of money for no return.

The article in the Australian points out that most of the water they have bought, 182,000 MegaLitres of a total 397,000 MegaLitres or 45% of their total purchases will only be delivered in a 1 in 10 year flood and then only to the wetlands of the Macquarie catchments.  Almost no chance of ever going into the Murray.  Since there is no reason to suspect that they got it right for the remainder (55%) and that any of that will actually result in flows into the Murray either.

The question I now ask myself is "Is this the result of stupidity, ignorance and inexperience or is is more sinister that that and they are deliberately ignoring the real plight of the Murray because 'it's only South Australia'?"

I prefer to think that Kevin Rudd, Penny Wong, Mike Rann, Karlene Maywald and all those in the Labor Governments of NSW & VIC are just plain stupid because the only other possibility is just too depressing.

The other problem occurs when those in power are questioned about their dumb decisions, they attempt to justify stupidity by reframing the originally stated aims like this 

A spokeswoman for federal Water Minister Penny Wong yesterday defended the selections made in the buyback program, citing a landmark CSIRO audit of the basin which rated the Gwydir and Lachlan catchments as in poor and very poor health respectively. 

She said both included wetland sites that were recognised as nationally or internationally important and provided homes for threatened or migratory species. 

"The water acquired through the purchase program will be managed by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder and delivered to the sites that deliver the greatest environmental benefits at the time when allocations become available to these entitlements," she said. But as of July 3, the Environmental Water Holder had only 64,000 megalitres at its disposal, about a sixth of the 2008-09 buyback total. Less than 10,000ML are understood to have been returned to the environment last financial year.

Since the lower reaches of the Murray are also Ramsar recognised wetlands and probably more important to the overall health of the Murray than the NSW wetlands that argument is completely specious.

No, the real reason they are buying the water entitlements they are choosing is because they are cheap, they want to be able to make big statements about how much water they have bought regardless of how much will actually flow into the Murray to save it.  This is still only about politics, not saving the Murray.

As I see it the real issue isn't about irrigation, environmental flows or agriculture.  It is just about money.  Have a look at this link and then ask yourself the question "if the Federal Government wasn't paying big bucks for water allocations, that have been given out for free, would any company be setting up an expanded irrigation property "in food production plans that defy predictions of a dire outlook for Murray-Darling irrigation" "?

I don't think so.  Where is a solution coming from?  The answer may lie in the understanding that the water allocations are given to the farmers, not sold.  On that basis I believe the Federal Government doesn't need to buy it back, just take it back and pay compensation based on 2 years worth of their average last 5 years primary producer taxable income.

But they need water you say, true, so what you do then is to allow unlimited irrigation with a water meter on every pump to measure the extraction and charge for that water at the same rate as households pay.  Everyone pays the same.  Any properties which have water storage in the form of dams, weirs etc. get their volume of water stored calculated and they get a bill for the volume of water at the households rate.

There you go, totally fair.  Everyone pays the same.  Water should not be traded, all that does is allow those with the most money to own all the water.  That has to be almost the dumbest thing any politician has done for decades.  It is almost as stupid as the Water Board in SA, who had no farmers or country people on the board, determining that all farms in SA would have an allocation of water based on their area, which is fine so far.  But here's the dumb bit, they can trade their water allocation and if they don't use it they lose it.

A farm without water has no value, insisting on every farm using their allocation or losing it generated a lot of money for the companies selling sprinkler systems and boring contractors and also resulted in the water table going down steadily which mean all the boring contractors had even more work as the rural houses had to sink their water supply bore lower as well.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.

When will our politicians have the guts to think a position through, ask questions of people who are not paid to give an opinion, listen to the answers from as many sides of the argument as possible and then make a decision?

Many people with the same opinion are not always right, a single person with an opinion is not always wrong.

It's about time I re-started this blog.

Yep, I have been busy all over the internet but I have been thinking for some time that I needed a place to just vent.

I was thinking about starting another blog where I could just post all the things that annoy me. I was tossing around names for it. I have thought about "I'd like to complain..." or "Speaking in Ruddles" and make it a political blog about Kevin Rudd. I played around with "You have to be kidding" and "Stuff that for a joke". Ultimately I decided that every post should end with something conciliatory so you, my only reader, won't get totally offended and stop reading this.

And that is why I have come back to this blog and decided to use it as the platform for all my complaints. After all, what good is a group hug if it doesn't make peace with everyone?

After some more thinking, hey it's a good thing to do sometimes, I also decided to leave the original posts here because they still fit the overall theme of what I am planning for this.

So, let the games begin. On the next post so it's all about the complaint rather than defile the explanation with a complaint.