Mood:  chillin'

Miranda "baa baa" Devine is a rather malicious journalistic sheep for the Coalition ideologues in Australia. Her latest column however is the high water mark of weird and scary.

Under an extraordinary title " Class war barb sees Abbott wooed like Corleone dons"  the article in the Murdoch owned Sydney Sunday Telegraph published by the bad News Ltd, refers to a Liberal Party fundraiser at Sydney's expensive Wentworth Hotel late last week. To avoid any misunderstanding about the mafia overtone there is even a prominent picture frame from The Godfather movie.

Well, well. We take Baa Baa at her word. Tony Abbott, as Opposition leader with a very healthy poll lead, is like a mafia Corleone Don.

Wikipedia describes the script of the movie as such:

 "To end the feuds, Vito meets with the heads of the Five Families, withdrawing his opposition to the Tattaglias' heroin business and swearing to forego revenge for Sonny's murder. He deduces that the Tattaglias were under orders of the now dominant Don Emilio Barzini (Richard Conte). With his safety guaranteed, Michael returns home and over a year later marries his girlfriend, Kay Adams (Diane Keaton). Seeing his father at the end of his career and his brother too weak, Michael takes the reins of the family business and promises his wife to make it legitimate within five years. ...As the christening proceeds, on Michael's orders, Corleone assassins murder the other New York dons and Moe Greene. Tessio is told that Michael is aware of his betrayal and taken off to his death. After Carlo is questioned by Michael on his involvement in setting up Sonny's murder and confesses he was contacted by Barzini, he is escorted to a car whereupon Clemenza kills him with a garrotte. Michael is confronted by Connie, who accuses him of having her husband killed. He denies killing Carlo when questioned by Kay, an answer she accepts. As Kay watches warily, Michael receives his capos, who address him as the new Don Corleone."

We think CEOs of Australian business - big and small should take due note of the metaphor.

The metaphor seems to imply a capacity for extreme violence, and seems scary and weird, yet credible coming from such a loyalist to the conservative side of politics like Miranda Devine.

After all this is the politician who remains loyal to the Iraq War project even after the confirmation of no WMD existence. This is the politician who seeks to 'bribe' the women of Australia out of their right to choose, no matter the cost.

There also seems to be an implication of real menace in the story. Arguably the story carries a suggestion of extreme punishment for those who stray or fail to display loyalty.

Which raises another question  for me, just after Anzac day, whether Australians are cowards to be initimidated by menaces or like Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront, can stand up to and conquer the pain and trouble posed by thuggery.

Is this the kind of PM the CEOs of Australia seek to embrace? Indeed the kind of country they seek to embrace under Abbott?

Posted by editor at 9:41 AM NZT

Updated: Monday, 14 May 2012 10:16 AM NZT

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Mood:  chatty

We hear shadow AG George Brandis wax lyrical on abc radio about distinctions, arguably without a difference, on why both major parties endorsed Slipper MP in a world of trouble now. Certainly Slipper is hog tied for at least a while by legalistic smart alecs helping Opposition leader Tony Abbott. And the mechanism of choice of the Coalition is revealing of their own character.

Like the worthy Scribe in the Media section of the wicked Limited/News broadsheet, all this recent Slipper imbroglio has got me thinking.

Let me explain. But first note on page 4 of the Murdoch broadsheet today where we see the marginal issue of private sexual matters and petty cab charge misdemeanours.

We submit suing Peter Slipper for sexual harrassment of a 33 year old in a civil suit, in order to unravel a government in a hung parliament is just too small. It is small minded, and legalistic, nonsense with scant regard for the democratic process.

We note in the same press that legally trained Abbott staffer Peta Credlin is negotiating a deal with cross bencher Andrew Wilkie. No doubt Credlin was a chef in the kitchen cooking up this smallness when Abbott was incapable of winning an election fair and square in 2010.

This Peter Slipper affair remind of an episode of the West Wing (Season 2) where Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman must weigh up whether to sue the white supremacists who put a bullet in him. He decides against, according to the script, because the political strategy is “too small”. He doesn’t want gun crime to be defined, to paraphrase, by the 'civil suit equivalent of slipping in the driveway'. Taking government by such a small pretext, in contrast to a national election, is like that. Too small.

Tony Abbott has form on legalistic, albeit financially expensive, games as a weak substitute for good faith motives.

In one of our first forays in this SAM blog some 5 years old now, was a first hand account of bruiser Tony Abbott in action in Sydney University student politics. The story is here:

Monday, 8 January 2007

Why did student activist now minister Tony Abbott punch Peter Woof?
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: election Oz 2007

 with postscript here

The common element in the current rumble is the reliance of Abbott on heavy weight legal support. Back then it was to avoid suit for assault in then Glebe local magistrates’ court. Not for our Tony the George Washington declaration 'that it was I who cut down the apple tree', being the honest good faith response. To own up to mistakes.

Abbott similarly is also implicated in tricky legalistic devilry to attack the One Nation virus that was nurtured ironically in his own electorate office. That all ended in the false imprisonment of Pauline Hanson in Qld.

Not for Abbott the full blooded repudiation of racists and white supremacists which again would have been the George Washington option. To take that overt and honest moral political position would have cleaved the red neck rump on the Coalition right.

Bob Brown, retiring Green MP and leader, came close to the essence of good faith last night on Q & A when challenged on his position 30 years ago in the Franklin River campaign for his support for a coal fired power station alternative. BB announced something like ‘it’s in the newspaper, and I was wrong’ with grace and a winning smile, as if to say, yes I am human and fallible. That folks was the George Washington response, for real. No wonder folks love Brown.

We doubt folks love Tony Abbott that way, or ever will. And the reason is that he is too small, and more practically speaking, too small to be a good PM or maybe even PM at all.

Last night we also saw Abbott interviewed by Uhlmann on 7.30. It was a workmanlike but clunky affair, as the cogs turned over slowly and descended into legalistic distinctions over Slipper then and now, ours then now theirs, and a traverse of other broad policy concerns. Abbott looked very much like a man with trainers on, and painfully under done. And we feel this is really his default position. We think the public, business and conservative alike, ought not expect more if he ever gets in the big chair.

We’ve seen this before. The smart arse charm, with a habit for the cheap joke - note the comic insert on Meet The Press on Sunday catching Abbott’s low brow comment about 'spicy workplaces', as if he would know(?). In my experience such personality types have less than meets the eye in the gravitas department when actually in harness. By distinction some other types grow in the job and rise to the occasion. My conclusion is we are witnessing Abbott at his clunky zenith.

Another serious clue to Abbott's nature is his ideological support for the Iraq War despite estimates of 100,000 to 600,000 deaths on the pretext of presence of weapons of mass destruction which didn't exist. Even after the expose' of this mistaken or falsified WMD claim Abbott remains loyal to the project.

In this Abbott is loyal to a fault to the old man, ex PM John Howard. Arguably Abbott having been mentored by Howard is also his cipher. Howard famously wanted the country to be relaxed and comfortable which is ridiculous when faced by global terrorism, ripples from GFC Mark I, expected Mark II, the war in Afghanistan and grim climate change science (as distinct from geologist and oil industry fiction).

Perhaps the churchy people amongst us by definition are small people who embrace the history and grandeur of a world religion to fill up a vacuum in their own persona? They need a bolt on moral substance that others install internally? Whatever the reason, to quote the West Wing opening season, Abbott is not the real deal.

The answer to Uhlmann’s penetrating question “Are you ready to govern?” in truth should have been “No, and I never will be. It‘s not in my DNA.”

Posted by editor at 12:02 PM NZT

Updated: Tuesday, 24 April 2012 1:20 PM NZT

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Mood:  lyrical

We posted this on our private Facebook page, which deserves some wider distribution:

#1

It seems to me [Christine Milne] is far more mainstream than Bob in relation to her biography sent out on the Greens email list. Just saying. Also it is jarring to read Cheryl Kernot comment in the press today. Can't see CM getting into bed literally with the bastards. Talk about HUGE error of judgement by Kernot, given she was supposed to be making independent critique on same lover (Gareth Evans). I mean, talk about no credibility. One well remembers the Stott euphemistically referring to the news of Kernot's defection to the ALP as "very interesting" with quite a deal of acid in her tone, presumably sourced to the inside knowledge of the affair, that the Australian public were not deemed important enough to be informed of until Laurie Oakes broke the unofficial embargo of the insiders. Absolutely hopeless self awareness of concepts of duty and independence from Kernot.

#2

Some more distilled thinking on the transition - errors in big media coverage -

First BB as admirable and indeed lovable as he is, is not really historically "the father" of the environment movement. Arguably that might go to say Miles Dunphy and some degree son Milo Dunphy (?) back to the bushwalking days of the depression and cheap rail links to the Blue Mtns. Noting BB lived in Dundas as a young medical student not far from me here in Eastwood.

Second - As great as the Franklin River issue and victory was - my vote for Hawke as an 18 year old was because of the Franklin issue while a student at ANU law school - more arrests and protest numbers occurred in the late 80ies and 90ies in the South East Forests of NSW. Thus SE Forests were arguably the biggest green issue of our time politically (?).

Thirdly - the malicious wedging pursued by the anti greens in the validly described hate press is flawed in relation to NSW Greens regardless of genuine tensions or debate. Note
(i) green in Green history of SE Forests which drew me to join and be jointly a first Green Party local councillor in NSW in 1995-1999 at Waverley (which was Rhiannon's home branch by the way, though I lapsed from 2000).
(ii) the wedgers always ignore Lee was effectively brought in by Geof Ash her boyfriend, who is fairly described as the founder and architect of the NSW Greens (I shared a group house in 1992 at Bondi - Geof worked delivering organic vegetables, was famoulsy a refugee from the ALP Left of the 80ies).
(iii) I suspect Lee's ambition as I understand has always been to achieve what her mother failed to do - be elected to the Senate. That is, arguably she has achieved her life goal, which was not it appears to annexe The Greens to the CPA (or renamed variant).
(iv) Regarding BDS - it's a bit trite and naive for those who do not live in the core centres of Jewish diaspora and who are not well informed on a very real streak of ultra right fascism in the Israeli Right - here and there - to seek a quiet life with the powerful Jewish lobby. People of good will MUST address the exemplar of Yigal Amir as Jewish assassin of Israel's PM, given Amir's crime has significant support amongt the diaspora then and now. Think about that in a nuclear armed world power of gifted people. Truly only love will overcome the racism against Jewish folks but that's no recommendation for willful blindness about terra nullius policies on the West Bank and Gaza.

#3
...... the denial of the role of sick capitalism in GFC mark I, and expected mark II, by such as The Australian rherorticians owned by ...... Rupert Murdoch. Inconveniently for them the rusted on socialists like Lee Rhiannon have quite a deal more credibility in their life long contempt for capitalism. Although I don't personally feel that contempt or ideological hatred, I believe an honest appraisal of the GFC and those who warned constantly of the sickness within capitalism (see for instance doco The Corporation, or Smartest Guys in the Room re Enron collapse) should be given due credit and acknowledgment. It's easy in Australia which dodged the recession to ignore that some estimate the cost of the GFC was comparable to the sum of the cost of the Great Depression, WW2, Vietnam War and The Space Race. That's a very very very big price paid and why the valid aspects of socialism and central regulatory government should be honestly appraised. Not for ideological reasons - practical ones.

#4

Also a personal note. Milo Dunphy was a mentor of mine 1993-96. Probably a bigger influence than BB here in NSW. I understand Milo ran as a candidate in Tasmania during the Lake Pedder campaign for something called the United Tasmania Group (?) - Indeed I note this quote: "1972 United Tasmania Group (UTG) set up with Bob Brown and Milo Dunphy as co-directors, largely to campaign against damming of Lake Pedder. Regarded as the world’s first “green” political party." at http://www.ecodirectory.com.au/index.php/green-history

*******

We note this blast from the past too, involving hand delivery of 4,000 by the author to the Bondi Basin residences prior to the Waverley Council election in September 1999, that we would like to think resulted in 3 new Greens being elected to that council. Though the authorisation is in editor's name it was in fact co-written with Geoff Ash in the printing shop of Colin Chartlon at Waterloo, Sydney.
 

Posted by editor at 2:57 PM NZT

Updated: Monday, 16 April 2012 3:26 PM NZT

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Mood:  caffeinated

SAM Editor's view of the withdrawn Australia Network tender:

 1. Rudd was keen either when PM or after to trade support for the government for Murdoch's greed, with the price being sell down of ABC turf. A logical if amoral bargain. 

 2. Now post NOTW scandal cabinet make a very different political calculation that they can buck the Murdoch regime, and maybe they can too (no disrespect to the Sphere who writes for the Daily Liberal Party tabloid).

3. The sabotaged tender keeping Aunty in the "soft diplomacy" business, charter of independence notwithstanding, suggests to this punter and probably quite a few more in the beltway and general public land (?) that the ALP are masters at the fix, same as it ever was.

4. Item 3 above is inconsistent with Laurie Oakes' theory that the sabotaged tender will evidence incompetence to the public as the resonating message. Au contraire - that's not our experience, in NSW where funny things happen too often to be random.

5. Rather all this evidences the jaded reality of national politics where good process and good policy outcomes are disconnected from political economy and careerism. Same as it ever was (refer Giuseppe De Lampedusa's awesome novel The Leopard for a beautiful case study in the context of the Sicilian aristocracy).

Posted by editor at 12:07 PM EADT

Updated: Sunday, 11 December 2011 10:34 AM EADT

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Mood:  accident prone

We've managed to flush out the defensive Peta Credlin profile from the flagship of the Liberal Party media machine, namely The Weekend Australian, via their colour supplement and teaser on page 1 main paper.

It's a grasping the nettle sort of situation for the Liberal Party and the newspaper itself so heavily invested in that side of corporate politics.

The opening line is priceless, referring to those "swirling rumours".

We posted this on facebook, last week, complete with politician network, as follows:

Tom McLoughlin

I think it's time to acknowledge the rumour swirling around the Canberra insider club aka beltway. The rumour, even if false, is that the leader of the opposition is having an affair with his chief of staff. I've heard this rumour exists, from two independent sources now in the last 4 weeks, the latest political in Canberra. Even if it is not true it is swirling. Abbott's family values platform may be up for review in an election. Wednesday at 2:31pm

Of all the verbs journalist Kate Legge could have chosen in her opening sentence, it turns out to be an echo of "swirling". We used the same word on a Crikey thread last week also.

And the two independent sources of the rumour "swirling" in Canberra are real.

Four years ago at the outset of this SAM blog we nailed Abbott for being a student thug in the 1970ies.

Now we offer these comments on Credlin:

1. For a West Winger fan she missed the one about Josh Lyman ("joking lie man"!) and the imperative of the chief policy adviser staying out of the spot light - "it's not what we do" he laments.

2. Seems her husband and no doubt herself are interested in two things out of this story, given it had to be written, with social media closing in:

(a) to harvest the profile position for her own career ambition to be the first conservative female PM, if and when Abbott crashes (as predicted by the real political journalism today by ... Laurie Oakes in the sister SDT), that is some insurance post Abbott;

(b) to get ahead of the social media curve and control the story of those dirty laundry rumours.

3. But what the Liberal Party can't publish are updated pictures of happy families - the Abbott marriage, the Loughnane-Credlin marriage, in contra distinction to the Happy Couple PR image of PM Gillard and partner at CHOGM recently over in Perth - under byline of Gemma Jones of the Sydney Daily Telegraph in the belly of the conservative beast, so to speak. That sort of says it all.

 

4. Credlin and her allies may want to note (unkindly) this story leads the soft and gossip section of the newspaper with not one reference of substance in the main newspaper. That's an expendable kind of PR perch there. Most serious colour mag profiles have a cover article in the main press too.

5. Despite clumsy metaphors about dirty laundry and washing of Abbott's lycra, the article ominously did not meet or even attempt to address the real "swirling" rumour and by ramping Credlin's attractive 40 year frame can only intensify the swirl, so to speak. Is this indeed the infamous News Ltd turning of the rack on Abbott's DLP economics and a warning of corporate big brother to get back on script re the IMF funding etc? One does wonder. If so, it highlights the danger for Ms Expendable in a much bigger game of real politik thuggery internal to the Coalition over 'pure' free market economics after the GFC made it look like the mumbo jumbo it really is, and of course, IR ideology etc.

And what we noticed about alleged bright burning brain Credlin in my google research last night, pre The Australian story, was this quote with clumsy, awful grammar, of a so called lawyer of words amongst mere mortals, courtesy of the Sacred Heart Women newsletter:

 "wouldn't be able to have achieved the things I have ...." Whoa, stop, help, give me oxygen, grammar crime underway! Passive, not active, repetition of word choice, excess length.

That ain't no Ainslie Hayes talking there (badly hazed Ainslie - everyone's favourite conservative on West Wing show, and the hilarous Gilbert & Sullivan episode with the dessicted hate flower delivery, saved by gallant Sam Christ Born err Seaborn).

And note the confusion over hair colour - seems some therapy may be called for contrary to the 'happy in her self' cliche from Ms Legge. Perhaps via the First Bloke known for his hairdressing and listening skills?

Posted by editor at 3:06 PM EADT

Updated: Saturday, 5 November 2011 3:42 PM EADT

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Mood:  caffeinated

We've met one or two in our political activist career, both nominally same side and opposition. The truism about the enemy being behind you tends to apply.

These short arses can be quite recalcitrant about their own central and special power role. They won't compromise. They will push and push and push until yes, metaphorically they magically grow another 12 inches from 5 to 6 feet as properly befits their status in the world.

This is the psychology the Australian people are dealing with in Joyce, who as smart and plausible as he is, assumes above all democracy that he must know best. That is, an attack on democracy itself aligned to corporate executive self interest.

Napolean is th exemplar, who famously spent human lives as a daily allowance of cannon fodder. 

No doubt union hard cases have another psychology again, of ideological rejection of individual talent and profit above the group interest.

Pre GFC the corporate free trade mantra might have been valid, but those days are gone, well gone. Govt intervention is highly necessary including nationalisation of the carrier again.

Posted by editor at 9:17 AM NZT

Updated: Sunday, 30 October 2011 9:19 AM NZT

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Mood:  accident prone

What's in a cartoon and headline today? 

Did all this start with Moir's hilarious cans of "spin' and Tony as a 'one sandwich short of a picnic' Popeye character? 

Or did it start with the humble SAM expose in January 2007 of a thumping student politician Tony back in his bladish student glory days amongst the Sydney uni snobs of the 70ies?

Or the unnamed caller to abc radio who knew Tony at school throwing oranges at people.

One  wonders.

One notes a certain echo, a certain theme with a big mo, in today's major Sydney press, indeed even a cross corporate consensus News to Fairfax, that Tony Abbott is energetic to the extent of dangerous violence. That or his mates in the right wing who follow his lead.

Tony is not your Gandhi style politician. He's not for taking a whole country with him. No he's a hard action man into the fray no matter how wrongheaded, self serving, or backward.

Tony's own weather system of activity can generate the vortex of attention even as it leads downward.

Tony believes in transubstantiation but not climate science. Go figure. 

And so the big press note insightfully Tony's oath "in blood" yesterday against the carbon tax in the wake of the mass murder by a Norwegian right wing extremist, the day after a page 1 story of similar ilk in the Sydney Morning Herald on the same local concern, backed by the authority of the intelligence agencies here.

Just like the critical error over the Iraq War - supported by Tony.

Conservative people, nay conservative voters, will note the concern, and surely agree. No matter your view say on asylum seekers and their miserable situation, you have to wonder about a man who makes light of that misery with a deliberate quip about "stop the boats, stop the smokes".

But why?

We speculate such a person may have taken a few too many knocks to the head in their younger, rugby sporting career. Whatever the reason, it's all Tony's own work and the media have reported today to useful effect.

Posted by editor at 9:21 AM NZT

Updated: Thursday, 13 October 2011 9:24 AM NZT

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Mood:  accident prone

Curious indeed to hear federal resources minister Ferguson compare apples and oranges - foreign renewable energy companies investing in Australia who don't rip $50 BILLION in profits out of Australia in the next 5 years compared to mining multinationals who do, unless a government with balls applies a decent tax for our sovereign wealth in minerals. 

That's a $50 BILLION non sequitur from Ferguson, and jarring, like he's not the minister in an Australian Government. How sad.

Posted by editor at 10:31 AM NZT

Updated: Friday, 1 July 2011 10:34 AM NZT

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Mood:  energetic

   [unsolicited email received recently, SAM is agnostic about the balance of competing interests both within and against the green movement on this issue.]

 “Democracy Betrayed –Tasmanians Betrayed” 

Saturday May 14^{th -} 11.30 AM. Royal Park, Launceston. 

TAP Into A Better Tasmania is organising a rally and march in Launceston, Tasmania. We are working with all like minded groups State-wide to send a clear message to the State Government that they have betrayed Tasmanians and democracy in our state. Are you disappointed with the way in which “your” government and the opposition continue to support Gunns Limited’s proposed Tamar Valley Pulp Mill? Are you “sickened to the stomach” when you repeatedly see organised covert assistance and resources being given, in so many ways, to prop up this 7 year old proposal?         

 If so, please join us on Saturday, May 14^th at Royal Park Launceston. This protest will not only prominently feature the anti pulp mill campaign, but it will also focus on the relentless destruction of Tasmania’s environment - the poisoning and increasing toxicity of our rivers and drinking water supplies - the dreadful damage done to our ancient forests - the utter contempt being shown towards the treasure house of precious Aboriginal artifacts, plus the abysmal standard of representation, state governance and management of our money and resources being shown to our young people. We are very concerned with the steady deterioration in our health services and hospitals; the increasing neglect of the education of our young people - the disgraceful poker machine corruption, and a government that increasingly ignores the needs of the disabled and elderly. We are demanding an end to the relentless tendency to place the profits of foreign and mainland owned corporations ahead of the health, future and well-being of all Tasmanians. If you share these concerns, please join us on Saturday, May14^that Royal Park Launceston, Tasmania.           

TAP- Needs and asks for your support, assistance & donations. 

Support:  Please come to the Rally, car pool, hire a bus, keep up to date on TAP’s website, Twitter, Facebook or at our next fortnightly TAP meeting 7.30PM, Thursday May 12th at the Riverside Community Centre at Riverside High School – off Brownfield Lane -West Tamar Hwy, Launceston, Tasmania. Assist:  Please assist us by telling all your family members, friends, acquaintances, colleagues and your social club or organisation about the rally – and by forwarding this email to every person you know, to your club or your organisations members and particularly to young people. 

Donations:   If you can not attend, could you please consider making a donation either by:-                      

1) By Pay Mate on the TAP website.                     

2) By Direct Transfer to –Tasmanians Against the Pulpmill INC,                         BSB. 067 022 A/C. 10022503.                     

3) By cheque and mail – Tasmanians Against the Pulpmill INC.                         PO. Box 200. Exeter, Tasmania 7275.                    

 4) At the next fortnightly TAP meeting.               

All donations will go towards these typical expenses. * $20   =printing of 20 rally bumper stickers that will be seen by thousands.* $50   =funds 200 brochures delivered to households by volunteers.* $100 =funds the hosting of this website for 1 year.* $200 =funds one third of the meeting venue hire for informing 600 people.* $1000 = one quarter page advertisement in one daily newspaper.    

 “We thank you for your help - together we can make a difference." 

This rally will draw attention to the long, appalling history of lies, bribery, cronyism and arrogance by the very people elected to                                                 represent us.                             

 TAP Into A Better Tasmania is a non-party political community group fighting Gunns’ proposed pulp mill.                                         

For more information AND TO RECIVE UPDATES  email  tapcontact@gmail.com, see  www.tapvision.info and      www.tasmaniantimes.com and    www.tamarpulpmill.info Or on  Twitter # tapvision  or  FaceBook: Tasmanians Against The Pulp Mill (TAP)    

Posted by editor at 3:48 AM NZT

Updated: Thursday, 5 May 2011 3:55 AM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

 "4.2.6 Palestinian civil organizations, as well as international organizations, NGOs and certain religious institutions call on individuals, companies and states to engage in divestment and in an economic and commercial boycott of everything produced by the occupation. We understand this to integrate the logic of peaceful resistance. These advocacy campaigns must be carried out with courage, openly sincerely proclaiming that their object is not revenge but rather to put an end to the existing evil, liberating both the perpetrators and the victims of injustice. The aim is to free both peoples from extremist positions of the different Israeli governments, bringing both to justice and reconciliation. In this spirit and with this dedication we will eventually reach the longed-for resolution to our problems, as indeed happened in South Africa and with many other liberation movements in the world."

 http://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/other-ecumenical-bodies/kairos-palestine-document.html

Posted by editor at 7:53 AM NZT

Updated: Sunday, 17 April 2011 8:33 AM NZT

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Mood:  don't ask

Foreign minister Rudd want's to save 1 million people in Benghazi from Gaddafi's military predations, but he and many others are happy to see 1.5M people in Gaza rot away in poverty, in an open air prison, picked off a few at a time by a predatory Israeli government. Not dying in a fire fight, but slowly over years, in arguably a much crueler fashion.

So much for the Bonhoeffer thing from Kevin Rudd.

It's a sobering lesson of local Sydney Jewish politics to recall that when Yigal Amir as an Israeli 'settler' assassinated peacemaker prime minister Yitzak Rabin in 1995, that there was no real condemnation of Yigal Amir of significance from the local worthies. Because half of Israel were glad of the murder apparently and it nearly tore the country in half. At that moment I would say Israeli democracy died.

Indeed the predatory settler cheer squad are stronger than ever now holding crucial numbers in the present fascist Israeli Government, powered up with 100-200 nuclear weapons according to estimates of the Federation of American Scientists. This cheer squad also hold the numbers in their own local institutions in Sydney and seem to have strong ties with the other institutions of Australian society. But it doesn't make it right. It just makes it morally worse. 

Keep in mind what this cheer squad for the 'settler' land thieves are barracking for. The settler movement generally believe the only good Arab is a dead one. That's why they have Yigal Amir as a poster boy - because he killed the PM of Israel who was going to make friends with the Arabs over Palestine.

If one looks closely at the diaspora here in Sydney it becomes clear that these folks are in a paranoid and neurotic loop about their tragic history. If one steps back it becomes apparent they can't accept peace, because they have been fighting seemingly forever. It's become their comfort zone. If the Palestinian conflict didn't exist, for many of these folks it would have to be invented. They are suffering a collective post traumatic stress disorder. So unlike say the Irish who have had a 150 years to come to terms with 1.5M dead in a 'guided' famine courtesy of the British, the Jewish diaspora are acting out their family bereavements in Palestine, nursing it along with all the misery they can get away with hiding behind the narrative of the victim country surviving the Holocaust and existential angst.

Existential angst while harbouring 100-200 nuclear weapons while North Korea with barely a handful has stood against the whole world for years. That's not existential risk, that's self pity over WW2 foisted on the politics of the whole world.

So that's who Big Media and Big Politics are getting in bed with on the Marrickville council controversy. The cheer squad for Yigal Amir who have no interest in peace, embrace cruelty and prejudice as they live out their post Holocaust right wing fantasies. This would be bad enough until you add in the nuclear arms race dimension that could take the whole world down in a nuclear winter in which case this cancer becomes totally intolerable.

So yes I support a boycott, divestment and sanction campaign against Israel until it changes it policy on human rights in Palestine by showing it can squash the predatory settlers. And I will until the Israeli Govt policy changes for the better, whether jelly backs in the Greens stand fast or not , or it damages my career, or Marrickville Council is sacked, or until the settlers set off a nuclear weapon fueled war, in which case my last words will be "I wish I was wrong".

Posted by editor at 1:11 PM NZT

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Mood:  lyrical

I first met Lee Rhiannon in the group house at 24 Beach Rd (I think that was the number) in 1992. A group house of 11 rooms on two levels (take note Victor Dominello MP - not an asian face amongst us).

It was a vegetarian, greenie, hippie house and it ran very well. An elder in the place was a guy called Geoff Ash. Geoff was dating Lee who was a bit older than Geoff and divorced.

Some of us worked for established green groups - myself at The Wilderness Society. Geoff worked for an organic vegetable distribution business based at Tamarama. Geof was committed to building a nascent NSW Greens party. It was an idea without flesh. An aspiration without form. Hopeful but a bit pie in the sky. Geoff was a refugee from the local Australian Labor Party, from memory.

If memory serves his time was mostly taken up with fighting off a rat bag called Joe Thorn, originally from NZ, and from the local ALP who wanted to own the nascent Green brand. Even from those early years the ALP were afraid of the potential of the Green idea. Much like Herrod in the New Testament wanted to kill every new born baby - just in case.

There was nothing about Lee's famous communist history on show during those several years at Beach Rd, or later nearby Curlewis St bedsitter, or the Eastern Suburbs Greens meetings I attended to 2000, 4 as a local councillor. I met her aged frail mother once but again there was no comments about communism or smashing the system and revolution. A milder bunch of people would be hard to find in East Sydney let alone Australia.

So Rhiannon's love story with Geoff Ash is the real basis of her ascension in the Greens. It's nothing to do with her communist parents. 

Henderson, with his deliberately covert corporate funding for his Sydney Institute - undeclared in his letter to the The Australian today - is pushing his ideological aggression against Rhiannon. But it's misconceived. Much the same as the newspaper runs a dirt sheet on Gandhi, same edition. Charming I'm sure.

Sure Rhiannon has political organising skills learned at the teat of her political parents. Sure she was a student lefty. And signifying what? 

This writer used to be an alter boy until 14, and then had sex outside of marriage as an adult. Proving what?  That people grow and change - derr.

Henderson makes no mention Rhiannon also did a botany degree. But what he misses most profoundly is the love story with Geoff Ash,  a genuine founder of the NSW Greens who comes originally from the mainstream ALP tradition. In other words Henderson is a flake, and may well be indulging in some professional misogyny as well given he has never been elected to anything in his life.

 Geoff Ash is the story that Henderson and most of the big media have no clue about when it comes to the political provenance of Lee Rhiannon. And at heart it is a great love story.

Posted by editor at 7:01 AM NZT

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Danby MP lays out his sophistry in today's The Australian with this:

"I have never heard any of them speak out in support of the many thousands of political prisoners in North Korean labour camps, of the 300,000 murdered African Muslims of Darfur, or the Uighur people in western China, whose ancient heritage in areas like Kashgar is being bulldozed by the Chinese Communists as I write. Perhaps the common attribute of these struggles which does not endear them to Rhiannon and her watermelon faction is that they do not support violence and they are not anti-American."

 in MICHAEL DANBY: Knowing the truth will scare off voters

 Certainly Danby and the ALP must be worried being bracketed with the Yigal Amir poster boy movement that assassinated Israeli PM Yitzak Rabin to expand into Palestine.

It's all about alarm for the corrupt in Israeli politics over this;

Friday, 16 January 2009

Naomi Klein in The Guardian, prominent Jewish Canadian media practitioner calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
Topic: human rights

at

 http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog/1873835/naomi-klein-in-the-guardian-prominent-jewish-canadian-media-practitioner-calls-for-boycott-divestment-and-sanctions/ 

So what about this reportage contrary to Danby rhetoric, from back on 24 April 2008 on humble SAM news blog mentioning all of the afflicted people Danby says the critics of Israel (regarding Palestine) never mention:

Olympic torch relay: Chinese military in the frame as per sponsor Ch7 vision
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: big media

"Whatever you do don't deviate from the alloted path according to the Chinese People's Police, thankyou very much. Sebastian Coe, we get the picture! Very careful control and choreography is the name of the game. Those poor Tibetans and Uygurs, North Koreans, Burmese, Darfurians, Zimbabweans etc.

And that's not saying anything good about the terrible record of the USA or Soviet Union either with their famous record of abuse of power and human rights."

at

http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog/1808638/olympic-torch-relay-chinese-military-in-the-frame-as-per-sponsor-ch7-vision/ 

in the context of a local event here in Australia.

Or this

Thursday, 27 September 2007

Singapore, India 'trading' partners can promote justice in Burma
Mood:  sharp
Topic: human rights

at

http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog/1748415/singapore-india-trading-partners-can-promote-justice-in-burma/

Should the world boycott the Beijing Olympics for Chinese human rights abuse?
Mood:  sad
Topic: human rights

at http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog/1748403/should-the-world-boycott-the-beijing-olympics-for-chinese-human-rights-abuse/

 Or this

Monday, 14 April 2008

China Inc's catspaw: Brainwashed youth diaspora crank Olympic nationalism in Sydney streets here?
Mood:  sharp
Topic: human rights

http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog/1805801/china-incs-catspaw-brainwashed-youth-diaspora-crank-olympic-nationalism-in-sydney-streets-here/

 Or this

Friday, 4 January 2008

Xstrata and Barrick involved in highly contoversial mine conflicts in Phillipines, PNG
Mood:  don't ask
Topic: human rights

http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog/1777432/xstrata-and-barrick-involved-in-highly-contoversial-mine-conflicts-in-phillipines-png/ 

Danby by his stupid comment just proves he is moral bupkis(Yiddish for worthless).

For instance he completely ignores that the ALP councillors at Marrickville also voted for Boycott, Sanction, Divestment campaign against Israel until they change direction on Palestine human rights and the extreme and predatory land theft movement promoting theocratic 'Samaria'.

He also selectively ignores the record of Meredith Burgmann, a prominent campaigner for the ALP in Balmain state election seat, former MP, current Sydney City Councillor, who managed to airbrush the North Koreans atrocities from her cute report of visit to the secret kingdom, exposed here on SAM some years back;

Saturday, 29 March 2008

City Hall Left candidate Burgmann airbrushes 2 million death holocaust in North Korea?
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: nsw govt

at http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog/1800728/city-hall-left-candidate-burgmann-airbrushes-2-million-death-holocaust-in-north-korea/

Tony Blair ex PM of the UK grasps at Catholic redemption for Iraq slaughter, tragedy
Mood:  not sure
Topic: human rights

http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog/1774724/tony-blair-ex-pm-of-the-uk-grasps-at-catholic-redemption-for-iraq-slaughter-tragedy/

Wednesday, 12 December 2007

MOSOP Protests Against Shell in Nigeria
Mood:  sharp
Topic: human rights

http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog/1771683/mosop-protests-against-shell-in-nigeria/

And of course the good old Greens directly quoted here:

Tuesday, 28 August 2007

Burmese dictatorship attacks political protesters: Greens
Mood:  sad
Topic: human rights
Australian Coalition for Democracy in Burma Inc
Media Release
28 August 2007

http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog/1738571/burmese-dictatorship-attacks-political-protesters-greens/

 

Posted by editor at 5:32 PM NZT

Updated: Saturday, 2 April 2011 5:53 PM NZT

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Author’s general introductory note   

This is not a well packaged story. It’s a contemporaneous traverse of the Sunday television free to air political talkies indicating the agenda of Establishment interests: Better to know ones rivals and allies in Big Politics and Big Media. Perhaps the greatest utility is the headline synthesis above of the 3 or 4 shows followed in this session.

For actual transcripts and/or video feeds go to the programme web sites quoted including Riley Diary on 7. And note transcripts don’t really give you the image content value.

Other sources of pollie talkies on Sunday include SkyNews paytv Sunday Agenda, Radio National Monica Attard Sunday Profile show. And of course Sunday night shows SBS Dateline, Sixty Minutes and now Sunday Tonight on 7.  

Media backgrounders.  

- Is it true as Bernard Keane reported, that Glenn Milne is no longer with News Ltd – missing from the Sunday Telegraph today?

- The local freebie Hills to Hawkesbury Living p15, 19 March 2010 states via Ray Williams MP (Lib) and a Sydney Morning Herald article that a long time ALP loyalist Mr Tom Forrest formerly chief of staff of Premier Iemma but also other roles back to 1995, now RailCorp's general manager of executive business, directed deletions from an adverse report on the $5.3B Metro, including:

"questions the basis of the governent's claim that the $5.3 billion seven-kilometre line between Central and Rozelle would relieve congestion in the CBD, especially during the morning peak hour. It is also noted that the CBD Metro project project alone servies no recognised [or planned] areas of high population or employment growth. ... The CBD Metro does not serve these journeys".

- Recent SMH on March 19th last had coverage of air pollution from the mining/coal industry in NSW perhaps relating to the infrequent spruiking for nuclear energy in it's opinion pages. Sure enough a letter was published calling for nuke energy. Only trouble is these also are known to promote lethal pollution as revealed by SAM recently quoting a 2002 US study of 8 reactors closed down in New York State, resulting in a marked reduction in childhood cancers. So it may be a case of choose your poison to keep the lights on.

- SAM's editor is going back to the law, as per family tradition. Not sure yet sure what that means for the SAM blog averaging around 35,000 pageviews per month these days. Well except for the obvious. Certainly we will be bound by total confidentiality so no stories from that source. And oversight of the big media will fall by the wayside especially as we do endless reading to pick up the threads. We can see some big charity donations coming up to salve our democratic conscience. (SAM in another life was known to send $15,000 to Chile to employ a journalistic and visual artist to help save 3 rivers, Ceurvo, Blanco and another one, a lake, 10,000 hectares of mature forest and adjacent fjordlands. The threat came from a proposed US $3 billion hydro smelter called Alumysa. ) And so the wheel turns. 

10 Meet the Press:  8- 8-30 am 

Lead in PM Rudd success in first debate “may be decisive” for election year. Humour footage of Pyne MP and chamber. Press round up re Earth Hour event, more (failed?) asylum seekers to Sydney, Abbott ultra triathalon day ‘putting his health at risk”.Pyne is talent as Education Opp minister and leader of Opp business in Reps.Pyne answers refugee compassion point with itinerant via 3^rd country [Sri Lankans by boat?]. Humour out take Abbott falling worm sledging Rudd.Panel is El Hall abc World Today. M Kenny Adeliade Advertiser (News Ltd). Re BER education school halls. Adbreak.Abbott fitness [fetish] with grab of Swan – where does he get the time? Pyne makes crack about Bonge going for a jog. 2^nd guest – Dr Sally McCarthy 

Meet The Press - Watch Political Video Online - Channel TEN.

Riley Diary 7, from 8.40am 

http://www.seven.com.au/sunrise/weekend   

9 Sunday newshour Laurie Oakes interview 8.44 am 

[pre interview large wrap of Abbott triathalon adventure, Barry OFarrell advert for NSW election for Liberal Party]

Opening line by LO to Joyce – you just said off air that after 3.8 km swim Abbott looked like “a gutted rabbit”. [Joyce lacks discipline just like in Finance.]

Barnaby Joyce as now shadow minister water, regional development and some other things. Getting into froth mode again. Frothing about Toorale station [furphies]. “Metaphor” used regularly. Rapid talking style.

Joyce “four and half thousand people have come into the country illegally” this year. [Sums up his understanding of the international treaty obligations for asylum seekers.]

[Joyce looked terrible in our view, in real politik terms, not personal preference.]

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/oakes

Insiders 2: 9- 10am

Riley style worm package to Lenny Kravatz hard rock. 71% ch9 for Rudd. Press round up with panel Mal Farr (News Ltd) says it’s a profile build, does have enough time. David Marr (Fairfax) – its flagellation. Grab of Wayne Swan – too little time. Grab of Gillard PM with a plan on health, and ‘fitness instructor with an attidude’ re Abbott. Akerman runs pro Abbott line, raised lots of charity money and Labor has similar picfacs.

Grabs of Joyce and Pyne on other tv shows re Abbott fitness.

Roxon as Health Minister says lack of policy is the problem. Too much time to develop policy.

http://www.abc.net.au/insiders

Inside Business with Alan Kohler  .

Refer http://www.abc.net.au/insidebusiness/ 

Posted by editor at 3:59 PM NZT

Updated: Monday, 29 March 2010 7:43 AM NZT

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Picture: Intrepid Sydney sider Peter Woof at left, lifted from the Paul Watson website.

We wrote recently asking "Why did Tony Abbott assualt Peter Woof?" a few weeks back here:

 It was about Sydney Uni student days in the 1970ies in those heady days of youth. The story referencing Peter as a colleague of Paul Watson of the famous Sea Shepherd got got over 2000 hits:

http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog/1999558/why-did-tony-abbott-assault-peter-woof/

We called Peter's relatives for a follow up and they passed on our mobile number. He sent a text recently with email address to reach him in Guyana.

Correspondence goes as follows:

Hi Peter, Guyana sounds fascinating and a little scary. Trust you are well
and doing good works as always.

When I did that interview with you 3 years ago, in fact in first week of
my community news blog January 2007, I didn't know it would help fashion
prime ministerial politics now. The blog indy news now pulls around 35K
readers per month which is okay. Regular Sydney Indy Media has folded for
a while.

The issue of Tony Abbott as Opposition Leader in prime ministerial debate
on health policy is leading news today Tuesday 23 March 2010. He has had
some limited success in polling lately hence necessity to address him as a
live contender.

About a week ago, I republished the interview here:

  Tuesday, 16 March 2010
  Why did Tony Abbott assault Peter Woof?
  Mood:  loud
  Topic: aust govt

 http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog/1999558/why-did-tony-abbott-assault-peter-woof/

Like the picture on Watson's webpage too.

With federal parliament sitting it got 2000 plus readers which is high for
me.

Next day (what a coincidence - not) PM Rudd had the confidence to assert
that "It's good to have Mark Latham back in the Parliament" in Question
Time in a comment on Tony Abbott as leader. This was an allusion to
volatile aggressive personality as part of the real electioneering contest
to be called later in 2010. Others in the ALP had used the line but now
the PM was signing up - based on .... evidence on SAM micro news blog (?).
Well done Peter!

So it seems that incident all those years ago has managed to reflect on
the character of a leading politician today, admittedly a long time ago
and he does refer to the youth defence, which has fair degree of traction.

We received direclty a broadcast email from Mr Abbott which we also
published in terms of balance about health policy:

  Thursday, 18 March 2010
  Opposition Leader Abbott email to SAM on '$1B health gouge' claim
  Mood:  quizzical
  Topic: aust govt

http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog/2000394/opposition-leader-abbott-email-to-sam-on-1b-health-gouge-claim/

If you want to add anything or comment about this state of affairs then
the voters, but especially the big media, would be likely to read it off
my news blog and weave it into their thinking if not actual specifics.
Hence my call to check in with your father who does sound proud of you
too.

Also I have forgotten name of corroborating NSW govt public servant that
knew about the incident, as referred to in the story. Probably doesn't
matter now.

Yours truly, Tom McLoughlin mobile 0410 558838

PS I tried to call by mobile, return button got the international beeps
but no ring tone. So hung up. Perhaps text message not sent by handset
(?).

Peter Woof:

Hi Tom,

Message sent by me. I received your call and the mobile rang.
Not the first time that I have tried to answer a call with no success.
Telecommunications periodically dodgy in this part of the world.
Sometimes even a text takes a day to send. Texts can also arrive out of
time sequence.

When Mum calls, it takes her two goes. I then call her back on the skype.
So, I text, or if you have an office phone, I can use skype to call. That
costs 3 cents per minute, not 28cents. Emails are free, of course.

In Guyana I am training would be chemistry teachers, as part of
http://www.cuso-vso.org at the Cyril Potter College of Education
http://www.sdnp.org.gy/cpce/index.htm

Also trying to finish my M.Ed. - up to now, it was computing in education,
but this time - globalisation and the curriculum, for the final unit. ....

Anyway, just to confirm - well, this is my email.
My skype name is ....and my phone in Guyana .....and we are UTC-4, so mentally add 9 hours and make it a day earlier, to
get the time here.
You would be 10:36am Tuesday 23/03 and here it is Monday evening, 19:36pm,
at time of writing.

Lots of fresh tropical locally grown fruit here, I can hear the mangoes
ripening 'as we speak'. A whole pineapple for 50cents equivalent. My pay
is equivalent to $270, per month, although it may be 3 months before I see
any of it. So, the "100 mile diet" is easy to implement here.

Peter.

Peter's comment on the now famous Abbott health budget graph found at the story http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/blog/index.blog/2000394/opposition-leader-abbott-email-to-sam-on-1b-health-gouge-claim/:

Tuesday, 23 March 2010 - 12:20 PM NZT

Name: "Adjusted for inflation"

Tony is playing optical illusions again.
Solidly recommend calculating the percentage increase each year and then
reduce by inflation. Looks to me like there has been no "real" increase,
except in the year before the election 2007 - but I am not about to hunt
for figures.

In brief - 03-04 to 04-05 Increase = 6.1%
4.7%, 6.0%, and, in the year prior to the Rudd win... you guessed it - 10.7%

This is a typical trick of governments thinking that they will lose, it is
called "expectation setting". Others call it 'pork-barrelling'. Still, on
Abbott's figures, one can hoist him on his own petard, and show just how
he spends money in the year before the election.

 [And in response to SAM's comment about skin cancer risk, the following ...]

The loss of melanin in white people is now thought to have been caused by a mutation in just one letter out of 3.1 billion letters of DNA.^[5]

 

Posted by editor at 4:16 PM NZT

Updated: Monday, 29 March 2010 9:35 AM NZT

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Author’s general introductory note   

This is not a well packaged story. It’s a contemporaneous traverse of the Sunday television free to air political talkies indicating the agenda of Establishment interests: Better to know ones rivals and allies in Big Politics and Big Media. Perhaps the greatest utility is the headline synthesis above of the 3 or 4 shows followed in this session.

For actual transcripts and/or video feeds go to the programme web sites quoted including Riley Diary on 7. And note transcripts don’t really give you the image content value.

Other sources of pollie talkies on Sunday include SkyNews paytv Sunday Agenda, Radio National Monica Attard Sunday Profile show. And of course Sunday night shows SBS Dateline, Sixty Minutes and now Sunday Tonight on 7.  

Media backgrounders.  

- Paddy Manning 1st ever reference to glorious, sublime "''first tool'' jump-cut in the opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey" in a serious business story about Gunns Ltd and Forest Stewardship Council accreditation. A scene guaranteed to snatch the breath of any science graduate and many others.

- Astute analysis of Rudd Govt spin machine on nuke waste issues for Australia by Stephanie Peatling some weeks ago now here Rudd buries nuclear waste at bottom of bin February 28, 2010 . That story amongst others encouraged us to post last week a formerly confidential legal document with redactions about the famous Jabiluka protest victory in 1997-1998 similarly about indigenous and nuclear issues.

- We perceive the Tony Abbott pandering to conservative frictions over "Welcome to country" ceremonies hosted by the Indigenous as a deeper question of contested sovereignty from the invading British 200 years ago. Or to put it another way Tony's long known monarchism back to Mother England. Indeed when writing our honours legal thesis A Legal Foundation for Aboriginal Land Rights in 1989 we noted that Australia was of all colonies regarded as "sui generis" or one of a kind - neither conquered/treaty by orthodox military declaration of war, nor empty land simply annexed and "settled". Indeed our feeling racism allowed a creeping process of criminal violence effectively condoned but officially repudiated by the UK Colonial Office and British Govt in the first 150 years of Australia. It is too easy to view history with today's glasses, not least Irish convicts starved out of their land (while UKoverlords ran a net food export) with a million dead, and others shipped to Australia for a lethal competition with Aborigines. Which all makes the visit by the black president Barak Obama delayed to mid year so symbolic again.

- Coalition want it both ways on the whaling issue: Lambasting the Govt on lack of legal action so far against the Japanese, while deploring any damage to the trading relationship. As if the Coalition leadership cared about these intelligent mammals and the cruel slaughter.

- ASIO have another staff advert in Sunday Telegraph as questions of quality control in young service are aired. One wonders if ASIO are vindictive about refugees who refuse to collaborate in spying for them as argued by Mamdoub Habib. Another cute story about MP Lee Rhiannon with dodgy errors on her ASIO file as daughter of a prominent communist.

- Is Fairfax 'writing against the federal ALP' as The Australian is oft accused? How esle to explain burying the lead on the Peter Costello sledge of Abbott's parental leave economics to the bottom of an even page number on the SNH broadsheet when normally proud as punch on the main opninon page?

- Imre Salusinsky has written regularly on redgum forests controversy there in the conservative The Australian, Murdoch press. But as far as we can see not once mentioning that the logging of public land by private corporate interests has effectively been illegal for 31 years since passage of the Environmental Planning Act 1979. No EIS, no development approval, eventually exposed last year in the Land & Environment Court. Funny how conservative go soft and gooey on law and order depending on their logger friendly constitutency. Imre refers to this illegal political fix as permitting "firewood collection" like it was camp fire stuff while actually old growth logging of publicly owned natural heritage.

- Interesting to see Paul Gibson MP being embarrassed as member for Blacktown living on the Central Coast, currently not registered to vote in Sunday Telegraph today.

- Noel Pearson in The Australian counter intutively spits the dummy at his political ally Tony Abbott in support of welcome to country ceremonies. As commented here on SAM we feel the subtext is deeper questions of sovereignty never surrendered, never agreed. This calls up Abbott’s loyal monarchism to mother England where he was a student. It also calls up Pearson on the guest list to meet black president POTUS this year (?) as an Indigenous jurist with in the ALP choreography. 

10 Meet the Press:  8- 8-30 am 

2 minor state election results, ALP in SA holds on, Tas hung 10:10:5.  Redmond in SA is not conceding yet based on postals [often do slant conservative]. Footage of Question Time Abbott sledging Rudd on health “fake, phoney” diatribe.  Minister Emerson on Small Business is guest with footage of his weak vaudeville in QT. Press roundup re elections and Sydney property.

Cross to SAust journo in bright yellow. Emerson looks somewhat preened. Discusses “seamless national economy” deregulation. Humour out take St Pats celebration Rudd and Abbott. Panel is Van Onselen and M Grattan of News Ltd and Fairfax.

Q’s on federal implications of state elections, health package, leadership,  out take Keating and Costello as grouchy muppets cartoon. Senator Xenophon on SA result, health sign up. Scientology inquiry matter for the police? Says growing momentum.

Independents in other states for senate? Not trying. What about a Green Senate. Says Bob Brown and Co are measured, expects to hold balance of power.

Meet The Press - Watch Political Video Online - Channel TEN.

Riley Diary 7, from 8.40am 

http://www.seven.com.au/sunrise/weekend   

9 Sunday newshour Laurie Oakes interview 8.44 am 

LO with Lindsay Tanner Finance Minister. Moderate competent style on range of issues.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/oakes

Insiders 2: 9- 10am

State election round up. Long interview with Nick McKim for Tas Greens who is a straight younger version of Bob Brown. Breaking through the credibility gap with a 21% vote. Guarantee never block on supply. Yes , ‘all 3 parties in balance of power’.

Discussion of SAust result and Rann lacking reality or grace even anger in speech. Interview with federal Eric Abetz MP with some snide and cheap claims, and a howler on Tas result suggesting Peter Garrett MP (ALP) [on insulation troubles] shows what Greens Government would be like. Abetz indicates his blind bias?

Vox pop comic MPs and ex MPs. Panel on Abbott – did quite well in Parliament. General chat. Tony Burke speech footage about trust of Abbott [re Peter Spencer self harm speech]. Personal attack on Abbott in parliament.

Talking Pics amusing as usual especially David Rowe eyebrows on Rudd now, Gillard comment as a natural. St Pats day footage. Stutchbury does a soliloquy ‘we were right’ on range of news political stories [ignoring the pathetic barracking on the opinion pages]

http://www.abc.net.au/insiders

Inside Business with Alan Kohler  .

Evan Thorley on electric cars agenda – we know how the movie ends petrol is going up, battery prices are going down. Gunns downgrade lack of director disclosure requirements amounting to reverse insider trading. Senate vote on Telstra NBN split (?) extended 7 weeks to May 2010 sitting.

Refer http://www.abc.net.au/insidebusiness/ 

Posted by editor at 12:24 PM NZT

Updated: Sunday, 21 March 2010 12:26 PM NZT

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Those hip folks at the Australian Liberal Party have emailed humble SAM community news blog about the Labor "lie" in the headline. It's something to do with how to characterise cancellation of funds budgeted in forward estimates, distinct from actual expenditure which rose says Big Tony. 

Should SAM publish Mr Abbott? We published a particularly embarrassing story about Abbott's aggressive student days recently, so it's probably a balancer.  And depending on if it's news and adds to the big media angle on things. Doesn't mean we endorse him. We promise not to parrot the guy, just as we have only reproduced Barry OFarrell's first unsolicited email here.

On the other hand we sort of 'agree' with Big Tony's concern over 'welcome to country' being problematic, as well as the right wing chorus line in Big Media (!) ......because it is about creeping recognition of Aboriginal sovereignty by regular Aussies, deeper than native title, much much longer lived than the relatively brief rein of the British Empire of a few hundred years. Which is all good, bring on Aboriginal sovereignty!

Yes folks that's a rhetorical "agree" in order to disagree - you see like Barak Obama as POTUS we believe the future is coffee coloured and folks, it's okay, don't stress. It's a natural progression in an increasingly hot world as we note the 2 stitches in our chest from a potential skin cancer removed earlier today. If only we did have more of that protective melanin.

Posted by editor at 7:54 PM NZT

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Note our early story based on a personal interview in the family home below. We rang and spoke to Peter's father and have located Peter in general terms off on another of his adventures doing aid work actually.

We noticed this picture on the web too:

Monday, 8 January 2007

Why did student activist now minister Tony Abbott punch Peter Woof?
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: election Oz 2007

[...]

The editor had an interesting interview recently with long time qualified high school teacher here in NSW, and Canada, Peter Woof, a long time supporter of environmental causes.

He tells an interesting story from his parents lounge room in Killara  (a pretty exclusive north shore suburb of Sydney):

In 1978 25 year old Woof stood up to student politician, now federal government health minister, Tony Abbott who he says was allegedly caught doing unethical or perhaps illegal things like changing the locks on the student union offices and other things.

Woof says Abbott, a well known boxing enthusiast now if not then, punched Woof in the face. Woof was a 24 year old technician employed at Sydney University.

The date can be corroborrated by reference to civil assault suit documentation against Abbott presumably created for Woof in the Glebe local court at the time. Woof represented himself but was totally out muscled financially, he says, by 'half a dozen' barristers and lawyers who turned up at the preliminary hearing turning the civil suit into a high risk of huge legal costs against the alleged assault victim Woof.

Woof assumes these expensive lawyers taking a student activist dispute to another level were paid for by Abbott's 'rich father'. (It also suggests a serious fear of a  blossoming conservative political career almost destroyed at birth.)

This legal bullying tactic arguably at the expense of justice has the echo of the vexatious legal suit by Gunns Ltd bullying of Tasmanian environmentalists in the last few years.

Woof withdrew the civil suit he says under financial duress.

Peter Woof is a very experienced and qualifed person. He has an engineering degree. He is a qualified radio operator and mechanic who ws driving an LPG 4 cyllinder sedan in the early 1980's years before LPG was so popular. He owns his own house.

Woof is no shrinking violet. He is a friend and colleague of anti pirate whaler Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd fame.  Woof has participated in environmental protests including conviction for entirely peaceful protests against a nuclear warship in Sydney Harbour and the docking of a rainforest timber ship in the 1980ies and 90ies. During this period in 1986 Woof held down a high school teaching job in Bombala, a well known 'Timber Town' in NSW.

The Canadian teaching accreditation authority are aware of this lively history and have endorsed Woof's employment as a talented and committed non prosletising high school teacher. He is flying out today to continue his teaching job in remote Saskatchewan Canada

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provinces_and_territories_of_Canada

Woof notes that global warming has massively contracted the viability of traditional 'winter roads' (over frozen swamp and bog) in remote Saskatchewan, such that only one month mid January to mid February is now safe for high volume road transport during winter. This is too small a window he says to properly provision remote areas prefacing a depopulation of large swathes of North America in the future.

Peter Woof can be contacted by email on:

[pwoof dot bigpond dot net dot au]

Woof whose eyesight is suffering long sightedness in middle older age is no longer able to do much close work but obviously has some very interesting tales to tell still in his career of environmental advocacy back to the Franklin River blockades and earlier.

The alleged assault by Tony Abbott was openly discussed at a recent reunion of the Sydney Bushwalkers Club in 2006 and there are likely to be several sources to corroborate this version of student activist history of the 1970's here in Sydney.

One such witness in the 1970's approached Woof (attending with his elderly parents) at the dinner and said words to the effect of "It's a pity Peter you didn't knock Tony Abott's block off when you had the chance."

Obviously the student politics back then was very willing. Woof's social companion who made this comment unprompted is now a senior executive with a NSW Govt agency (details held by the editor).

Posted by editor at 9:51 AM NZT

Updated: Friday, 13 July 2012 9:03 AM NZT

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Mood:  chatty

Author’s general introductory note   

This is not a well packaged story. It’s a contemporaneous traverse of the Sunday television free to air political talkies indicating the agenda of Establishment interests: Better to know ones rivals and allies in Big Politics and Big Media. Perhaps the greatest utility is the headline synthesis above of the 3 or 4 shows followed in this session.

For actual transcripts and/or video feeds go to the programme web sites quoted including Riley Diary on 7. And note transcripts don’t really give you the image content value.

Other sources of pollie talkies on Sunday include SkyNews paytv Sunday Agenda, Radio National Monica Attard Sunday Profile show. And of course Sunday night shows SBS Dateline, Sixty Minutes and now Sunday Tonight on 7.  

Media backgrounders.  

- away from Canberra beltway it’s been a boring as batsh*t week with the big media defaulting to Lara and Clarky trivia on the front pages selling vicarious sex as news, as if.

10 Meet the Press:  8- 8-30 am 

Press round up, talent is Greens leader Bob Brown, with Hugh Riminton in the chair. Social welfare policies in focus – dental, parental leave, support from the Greens.

Brown – we need a population policy after 430K increase in one year without an [official] govt policy [what a scandal] Brown is staunch again saying this “is not a green government’ whether it’s forests, climate etc. Humour out take is cartoon of Abbott from The Australian.

Panel is Stanley 2UE, Stephanie Balogh Courier Mail/News Corp.

Second guest is Heather Ridout, lampooned by the Coalition in previous times as Heather Sellout, but she picked the winner of the 2007 election. Waffles on about parental leave. Ridout waffles about nuclear, and energy security in northern hemisphere. [Highly ignorant about safety issues of nukes after child cancer study in New York State of 2002 proven by 8 reactor closures].

Meet The Press - Watch Political Video Online - Channel TEN.

Riley Diary 7, from 8.40am 

http://www.seven.com.au/sunrise/weekend   

9 Sunday newshour Laurie Oakes interview 8.44 am 

Julie Bishop on so called people smuggling. Missed a chunk of it. Increasingly looks like the talking skull.

LO takes a mild tone – softly softly catchee monkee on complex tax, parental leave.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/oakes

Insiders 2: 9- 10am

“Fascinating week” says Barry. [Actually away from Canberra beltway it’s been a boring as batsh*t week with the big media defaulting to Lara and Clarky trivia on the front pages selling vicarious sex as news, as if. Lenore Taylor is right it’s “scatty” “even sillier”  in her piece this weekend about “season’s bleatings” this last week.].

Film package has terrible shallow pop music.

More interesting discussion and footage of tense atmospherics with Premier Keneally. Her personal popularity is noted by Fran Kelly, says definite rudeness by PM. [Might be misunderstanding PM on right side of people view of NSW Govt.]

Swan is the guest by remote screen and conceptual discussion of Henry Tax review, sophistry about refusing to release the Henry Report.

Amusing package of Groucho Marx on Abbott oppositionism. Talk about Julia Gillard heir apparent. Ruddock and Howard still in profile pulling strings, Ruddock in particular angling for one of his daughters to go into politics.

http://www.abc.net.au/insiders

Inside Business with Alan Kohler  .

Refer http://www.abc.net.au/insidebusiness/ 

Posted by editor at 10:34 AM NZT

Updated: Tuesday, 16 March 2010 10:01 AM NZT

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Mood:  lyrical

But there are many possible metaphors to draw from the sport of surfboat racing. Earlier today Adam Spencer abc 702 amplified a story about state parliament being like The Muppets. It was funny.

This got us thinking in some tangential creative fashion about those days of rowing (not paddling!) a 415kg tub around the bay in Warrnambool. Indeed PM Malcolm Fraser dropped in one day to have a go in the same seat as ours 2nd stroke oar, as per the pictures in our old scrap book above and below.

Now the boats are 210kg speedsters out of fibreglass and hollow carbon fibre oars, apparently including women's crew. Not in my day but it's all good moving with the times.

We went to a 29th year school reunion (not 30th, go figure) and recounted with pleasure an anecdote of the 1980 Austalian Titles - the only junior boat crew to finish our heat. And this is where the prime ministerial metaphor kicks in:

There we are at Wanda beach, Sydney, all the way from the Bass Strait, South West Victoria. A young crew with 2 years left in the age bracket. It's all good experience. The surf is running high.

Bang goes the starter pistol. Leap over the gunnel like jumping a barb wire fence, feet to land on the foot straps on a diagonal board. Easy to say, hard to do. Slide on the seat with your togs wedged up bare arse. Dig in hard to overcome the monolithic inertia of boat on shallow water, like a cockroach with 5 legs: 4 rowers and 1 sweep oar to steer.

Only - as rarely happens - Lee the sweep calls out "DIG IT IN" abrupty. It's all on trust.  Our backs are to the waves. We know the drill. If a wave is breaking in front of us, we have to stop to avoid being crunched, then start again which lifts the bow safely over the theshing whitewater and on again. In this sense it's a race of skill with ourselves never mind the other 5 crews.

We trust Lee as only teenage lads can investing in our sports coach. And he delivers us out of the jaws of the thrashing broken wave. Off we go again with "PICK IT UP!". But in seconds  he screams "DIIIGGG IT INNN!" a second time. Uh oh, not good. Never done this twice before. We are in the crunch zone now. It's pure faith. We should be rowing hard not making like a sitting duck. The curling water smacks the ocean surface, like a low mortar round deep in earth going "WHOA-UMP". As it breaks just in front we manicly pull on the heavy oars simply to hold position and prevent being swatted all the way back to the beach - the ulitmate embarrassment - going backwards. Teenage forearms and fingers strain to hold the boat in place. Not a word though. In the moment. It's bodies and training, and trust and teamwork. And Lee screams over the din "PIIICCKKK IT UP!"

We peek at the crews at left and right struggling beside us as we raise the blades out  of the water and literally point them at our rivals before dipping them back in. One at least is blown away as the line of surf varies along the shore line. But the real foe of we puny human beings has not finished with us yet.

Can't remember if Lee called out. Can't remember if we cried "Come on" 20 years before Leyton Hewitt ever won a grand slam. Probably we did like all those times before at 1/4 time and 2 goals down in local VFL (later AFL). The time was now, the players were us.

The biggest wave in the set was now heading straight for us and there was only one way out, forward, and over the top. And we pulled frantically short choppy strokes to get momentum. Not enough time or open water. Already sweaty. Breathing hard. And up we turned.

The body knows what the eyes can't see behind us. And up. And up. The length of a 25 foot boat at 45 degrees and then air. Like forever with oars swinging useless in mid air but only really a second or two.

Like a race memory it flashed before us, first time out in novice C grade seniors at Jan Juc carnival year before, relocated from Torquay because the surf was too big. We flipped, with oars flailing wildly. We knew what to expect when it all turns to custard.

And then another THUMP more wooden this time of boat and ocean reconnecting.

We look around to see if arms, legs, boat, crew were still intact. Lots of shouting. Some scrambling going on at first stroke oar. What the f*ck? Ricky is jumping into the sweep position with his curved blade. Where is Lee? The horror dawns on us - we lost the sweep in the deluge. Goodbye Captain! More shouting. There are no other boats either side. Smited. Everyone of them, and good riddance too. The Victorian wannabes were in town!

Was it schadenfreude that spurred us on? Was it crazy brave? Off we went, like a side winding crab, 2 versus 1 imbalance in the oars and Ricky steering. I rowed alone on my side the rest of the 500 metre course. Half way to the bouy we realised there was a time limit on each race. And we had to navigate the swell back onshore too. We made it in a race of one.

I had a photo of our boat flying over the 3rd cruncher wave but it got spoiled by spilled coffee a few house moves ago. I will always remember a comment back on the beach - "you guys are too smart to be boaties". This is a sly variation on the old self mocking boast of boaties around the club "we're not very smart but we can lift heavy things".

We got eliminated very next race by bigger older rowers in crews out of the central machine of the surf life saving movement in NSW and Qld.  But it didn't matter. We had a memory we could hold dear for decades, at school reunions and blogs and stuff. The beer tent was looking good, another thing that's changed over the years.

Which brings us to Mal Fraser PM and Member for Wannon going for a row down on a flat, flat day at Warrnambool beach with the senior boat crew in 1982. He copped a rogue wave which even made the cartoons.

It seems to us insulation is like a big wave set. Getting wet is okay, just don't let it wash you onto the beach going backwards.

* This story dedicated to Lee Oakley (sweep), Ricky Clissold (1st stroke),  Lewis Atkinson (2nd bow), Tom McLoughlin (the writer, 2nd stroke)), and  Peter Ryan (bow), Victorian State Title holders junior boat crew 1981-82 for Warrnambool Surf Life Saving Club.

Posted by editor at 11:08 AM EADT

Updated: Friday, 12 March 2010 11:44 AM EADT

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