June 25 2009
The Senate inquiry
Sunshine Sally
Lukas
June 24 2009
Jobs on the line
RACHEL WILLIAMS, Examiner
ACL Bearing Co could slip into insolvency within days if it can not come to agreement with the State Government over the conditions on a $4 million loan. The Government has promised the assistance on the condition that ACL’s directors give personal guarantees. But ACL’s directors yesterday confirmed they were only willing to put their share of the business as a guarantee. The situation has again placed the future of more than 270 workers at the Rocherlea-based company in jeopardy. Read more here
AND
Economy on the brink
22 jobs go, pulp mill panellists including a forestry union boss get $657 a day ...
Forestry Tasmania must respond to the Wells’ critique
BEN QUIN
This critique by Graeme Wells raises serious questions about the competence of Hans Drielsma to hold the position of FT Executive General Manager. Either Mr. Drielsma was hood-winked by the IMC-Link report’s authors, or he has knowingly endorsed a fundamentally flawed analysis. In either case, Tasmanians have not been well served. It would appear that more money has been splashed away on self-serving spin. However, both reports are now in the public domain. In the interests of public accountability and transparency, a link to the Wells’ critique should be included on the FT website with equal prominence to the link that already exists there for the IMC-Link report. FT should acknowledge in an introductory comment that “an independent analysis of the IMC-Link report by another respected Tasmanian economist, Dr. Graeme Wells, soundly debunks the methodology and findings of the original report.” Given that Mr. Drielsma, Dr. Felmingham and Dr. Wells all agree that the stated objective of the IMC-Link report – “to match the costs of particular subsidies against their actual contributions” – is worthwhile, FT is obliged to respond to the Wells’ critique. Mr. Drielsma is otherwise left exposed to the charges of incompetence, peddling misinformation and wasting public funds. I would also be interested to hear Treasurer Aird’s opinion of FT’s decision to take on such an analysis on his behalf. Read more, Comment at the end of the article here
TT QUESTION TIME
MARGARETTA POS, LINDSAY TUFFIN
Some questions for Health Minister Lara Giddings:
Who was on the selection committee when Ms Alice Burchill was appointed?
Is it true that another person recommended for this job by the recruitment firm, was not interviewed by the selection committee?
Is it true that Ms Burchill began work before she had a visa?
Why has a permanent chief executive officer of the Royal Hobart Hospital not been appointed more than nine months after the job was advertised?
Why did the Department predict that in three months time the Royal Hobart Hospital would have 90 patients on mechanical ventilation because of swine flu, given there is the capacity to ventilate 30 patients only in southernTasmania?
Did Minister Lara Giddings apply for $65 million from the Federal Government’s Health and Hospitals Fund (HHF) to repair the old RHH? Was this request rejected because the State Government and health bureaucrats had at the same time indicated they were seeking funding to build a new hospital? Is the end result of what appears to be Labor caucus indecisiveness and bureaucratic ineptitude, that the Royal Hobart Hospital has been denied vital funding of $65 million?
Earlier on Tasmanian Times: The curious case of Dr Raj Mattu and Tasmanian Health Department Head David Roberts
The Architecture of Happiness
PETER UNDERWOOD AC, GOVERNOR OF TASMANIA. Presentation of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (Tasmanian Chapter) Awards. Moorilla Vineyard, Saturday, June 20.
Thank you for asking me to be here this evening to take part in the 2009 Tasmanian Architecture awards. As well as being the Governor of Tasmania my qualifications for being invited this evening include the fact that I grew up in a family of architects. My father was the Government District architect for the north and north east of the State and my elder brother has just retired from private practice as an architect in Victoria so I knew what an RSJ was before I had grown into long trousers!
Read more here …
Sue Smith: willing accomplice …
BOB McMAHON
Quite right Citizen Reporter. I too am very unimpressed with Sue Smith. She lacks the sense, gravitas and professionalism of her predecessor, Don Wing. How easily she was sucked in by ‘independent pulp mill expert, Robert Eastment’ and the whole sleazy pulp mill hard sell. She was a willing accomplice to the debauching of parliament during the PMAA circus. Her response to the Alison Ritchie family business is so deficient as to prompt one to question a) her intelligence and b) her suitability for the job. Read more, comment here
Tasmanian Times’ opinion: A pathetic excuse
Sunshine Sally
Lukas
June 23 2009
Health boss claim
Earlier on Tasmanian Times:
The curious case of Dr Raj Mattu and Tasmanian Health Department head David Roberts
Tasmanian Times Question Time
DAMIEN BROWN, Mercury
NEW claims have hit the State Government - this time involving the Health Department.
Read more here …
Serious errors, flawed methodology
Dr Wells response to the Felmingham Report was published on TT: Here. Comment here
PAUL OOSTING, SIMON BRANIGAN
The forest industry report into the value of subsidies to the community used flawed methodology, contains serious errors and was misrepresented by the forest industry, according to Dr Graeme Wells.
Read more here …
Tomorrow: Parks, environment and tourism focus of Budget forum
PHILL PULLINGER
The implications of the Tasmanian budget on the Parks & Wildlife service, the environment and tourism will be the focus of a public forum to be held this Wednesday the 24th of June at 12.30pm at Hobart’s town hall.
Read more here …
TONIGHT: Alan Clements - Burma expert - radio show
... and co author of The Voice of Hope (with Aung San Suu Kyi). Tonight, The Book Show with Paige Turner - Edge Radio 99.3fm (Hobart) or edgeradio.org.au 6pm Australian Eastern Standard Time.
Read more here …
Ritchie crisis: David Bartlett’s political judgement
PETER TUCKER From here
As Sue Neales points out ( HERE ), having family members work in a political office is not, of itself, necessarily wrong. For example, I witnessed first-hand (we had adjacent offices in the same Murray Street building) how well Bruce Goodluck and his daughter, Kathryn, worked together when Bruce was an independent member in the state parliament in 1997.
Read more here …
Huon Valley Guessing Games (6)
BOB HAWKINS
The search for a new general manager for the Huon Valley Council is showing signs of evolving from a messy farce into a process with worrying implications. Indeed, some people are pondering the possibility that the council is not really searching at all.
This growing consternation has been reinforced by the pathetically drab ad the council ran at the weekend in state and national newspapers. It is so dull that only someone who has actually visited (as opposed to virtually visited) our fabulously beautiful (sadly vandalised) valley would even think twice about setting up home here, let alone getting to grips with the monumental task of guiding this sensitive region through the shoals of land planning, climate change, sea-level rise, forestry and fish-farming pollution . . .
Read more here …
The Ralphs Bay conundrum
SAVE RALPHS BAY, First expert testimony at canal estate hearings, June 23
Yesterday, Monday June 22nd, Save Ralphs Bay Inc. called its first expert witness in the RPDC Hearings into the Walker Corporation’s proposed Ralphs Bay canal estate.
Read more here …
Forum on power-assisted pedal cycles
GREG CLAUSEN
A public forum on power-assisted pedal cycles (PAPCs) will be held tomorrow (Wednesday 24 June). The purpose of the forum is to provide input into a submission in response to a discussion paper regarding proposed national regulations for PAPCs.
Read more here …
The flawed methodology of this report is not the template to follow
Earlier:
Voodoo and the Felmingham Report
Felmingham hits back for forestry
The $630m cost of subsidising forestry
GRAEME WELLS, School of Economics and Finance, University of Tasmania.
A Critique of Assessing Direct Government Subsidies Paid to Tasmanian Industries (A Report by BS Felmingham, S Poate and I McMahon [IMC-Link], May 2009. for Forestry Tasmania and the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania.
It has been claimed that this Report ‘clearly shows subsidies benefits consumers as well as producers, and generate jobs and income for Tasmanians’.
It does nothing of the kind.
Download analysis: Critique_of_IMC-Link_report_Final.pdf
Portals to the Latest News
As 22 Gunns jobs go, pulp mill panellists including a forestry union boss get $657 a day …
ADVOCATE
TWENTY-two jobs are to go at a North-West veneer mill. Workers at Gunns’ Somerset site have been asked to nominate for voluntary redundancies by Wednesday. If too few of the 50-odd workers put their hands up, then some will be “tapped on the shoulder”. Gunns could not be contacted for comment yesterday, but a union official confirmed what The Advocate had learned. Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union state secretary Scott McLean said the company was cutting its workforce from three shifts to two. A downturn in demand was blamed for the decision, Mr McLean said, but Gunns had so far been fair. Read more here
EXAMINER, Pay-to-view section
22 jobs to go at Gunns’ NW veneer mill. 12:00 AM AEST | TWENTY-two jobs are to go at a North-West veneer mill. Workers at Gunns’ Somerset site have been asked to nominate for voluntary redundancies by Wednesday. If too few of the 50-odd workers p…
HERALD SUN
TWO members of a government-appointed pulp industry panel will be paid $657 a day, the Senate has heard. Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) national assistant secretary Michael O’Connor, a former Labor Party national executive member, and Australian Paper executive general manager Jim Henneberry will be given remuneration tribunal rates to act as deputy co-chairs. The Pulp and Paper Industry Strategy Group includes Gunns Limited executive chairman John Gay, whose firm has been given Federal Government approval to build a pulp mill in Tasmania’s Tamar Valley.
Read more here …
Sow stalls to continue on Llewellyn’s watch
KIM BOOTH, Greens Primary Industries spokesperson, http://www.tas.greens.org.au
The Tasmanian Greens today slammed the Primary Industries Minister’s refusal to declare an end to the intensive farming practice of “sow stalls” despite a public outcry over the appalling condition of animals at a north-east piggery earlier this year.
Read more here …
Jorgen Jorgenson brings Iceland and Tasmania together …
ICELAND REVIEW
The Bicentenary of Jorgen Jorgenson’s rule of Iceland in 1809. Read KIM PEART here: Read more here
And, here is the article in the Icelandic newspaper, Morgunbladid, by Ingvar Orn Ingvarsson. The Ross Bridge is on page two.
Download: A2009-06-21.pdf
Big Ag shudders
PAUL CROSSFIELD
Today, Food, Inc. debuts, with more cities to follow in the coming weeks, and almost every major media outlet has weighed in: it is certainly not a film to miss, it offers a view into the food system you’ve never seen before, and you will leave the theater changed. Big Ag realizes that the tide is turning on the corporate control of our food system, and that their message is in jeopardy. Read more here
Questions over Gadd contract remain
WILL HODGMAN, Premier never even sought six-month contract for Gadd
The Premier never even asked Scott Gadd whether he’d be prepared to accept a new Head of Agency contract for a period of about six months – the period that the Premier expected him to be head of agency for.
Read more here …
Llewellyn: Tarkine loop poses a threat to devil
CASSY O’CONNOR, Greens Environment Spokesperson, http://www.tas.greens.org.au
The Tasmanian Greens today slammed the Minister for Primary Industries and Water after he admitted IN Budget Estimates that the Forestry Tasmania’s proposed Tarkine Road represents an increased threat to the survival of the Tasmanian Devil, but has no pans to ensure that a comprehensive scientific assessment on the potential spread of Devil Facial Tumour Disease is undertaken.
Read more here …
Summer Sundays pedestrian strip proposed for North Hobart
HELEN BURNET
A bold new vision for North Hobart has been proposed by Greens Alderman Helen Burnet.
Read more here …
Ozcar
Mark
June 22 2009
The curious case of Dr Raj Mattu and Tasmanian Health Department Head David Roberts
Image from: Here
MARGARETTA POS, LINDSAY TUFFIN
The head of the Health Department in Tasmania, David Roberts, was involved in a five-year dispute with a United Kingdom heart surgeon which eventually cost British taxpayers up to 5 million pounds.
Read more here …
Preserving old-growth forests is vital to saving the planet
GAVAN McFADZEAN
SO WHERE are the world’s most carbon-rich forests? Not the tropical rainforests of the Amazon, Borneo or Africa’s Congo Basin, according to research by the Australian National University. They are the tall, old-growth mountain ash forests of Victoria’s Central Highlands — a 90-minute drive east of Melbourne.
Read more here …
Forum to address proposed power-assisted pedal cycle restrictions
ENVIRONMENT TASMANIA
This Wednesday, sustainable transport campaigner Greg Clausen is hosting a public forum to raise awareness about power-assisted pedal cycles (PAPCs) such as electric-assisted and petrol-assisted bicycles. This is a great opportunity for the community to have their say. The forum will be held at the Bahai Centre of Learning, 1 Tasman Highway, Hobart, from 7:00 pm, Wednesday 24th June. The forum is supported by Environment Tasmania.
Read more here …
A career typical of political apparatchiks in the former USSR
MERCURY
PREMIER David Bartlett has revealed he ‘did not discourage’ Allison Ritchie from resigning from Parliament. Questions about Ms Ritchie’s abrupt resignation on Saturday have dominated budget estimates hearings this morning. Ms Ritchie quit amid intense questions about the employment of family members in her electorate office. Mr Bartlett told an estimates committee that he asked the auditor general to investigate the matter because of a series of unanswered questions about the appointments. Bartlett tells of Ritchie call
LEONARD COLQUHOUN
Allison Ritchie worked in the state branch of the ALP as an administrative officer from 1996 until her election, according to Wikipedia, which, if you do the maths, means that from her 22nd year, her whole adult life has been in party politics. How representative of us is that? It is the sort of career typical of political apparatchiks in the former USSR, and its client-states in Eastern Europe, where becoming an MP depended on belonging to a political class, the nomenklatura, a small, elite subset of the general population who held various key administrative positions in those countries’ government, industry, agriculture, education, etc. Read more, Comment here
They know …
Karl
Voodoo and the Felmingham Report
Mark
JOHN LAWRENCE dissects the The Felmingham Report: Brucey hits back for forestry
AT first I thought it was written as a spoof.
Or maybe similar to the recent Sunday Tasmanian Op Ed piece that was riddled with errors from the very first paragraph, designed as an educational exercise, encouraging students to spot the incorrect facts, identify the non sequiturs and the sophist techniques with a view to honing their skills.
Read more here …
Picking losers under the guise of picking winners
MIKE BOLAN
Now that two of the Managed Investment Scheme (MIS) promoted by governments have gone into receivership, leaving tens of thousands of investors impoverished and the forestry industry richer with billions of the investors’ dollars, it seems reasonable to explore what our governments are doing to us.
Read more here …
Budget Response - Terry Martin
TERRY MARTIN
Madam President, while I have indicated my considerable concerns about this Budget, it is appropriate that I acknowledge its strengths. In these difficult times, the continued emphasis on core health, human services and education initiatives is welcome indeed.
So too is the Government’s decision to avoid significant increases in taxes, fees and charges as a means of addressing projected revenue shortfalls. Nonetheless, this is ultimately not a responsible Budget, and is unrecognisable as a Labor Budget.
No Budget that deliberately targets its public sector employees can expect my support and I urge the Honourable Treasurer and his colleagues to remedy this major flaw.
Read more here …
The trial of Michelle O’Byrne
Or Download: opening_-_part_2.doc
GERALDINE ALLAN. Opening Address, Part 2. The court resumes after adjournment.
Thank-you your Honour for ruling on that preliminary point.
Read more here …
This attack is full of irony
PETER RUNDALL
How can a senator who demands all-out extraction from the forests launch such an attack? A man for profit and special interest points the finger. His target: a man who has shown unfailing courage fighting for our children’s inheritance. This attack is full of irony. Early-on, a court finds in favour of forest protection. An industry spokesman demands to ‘fix’ this. Another court finds the first finding irrelevant and nullifies without contradicting it. The man who called for protection finds himself owing a quarter of a million dollars. Then, people flock to his support, but the senator for logging isn’t content with the foiled attack on his quarry’s pocket. He assails the man’s character. Read more, comment here
North-east land group
Michelle O’Byrne and Andrew Lohrey, President of the North East Tasmania Land Trust
NORTH EAST TASMANIA LAND TRUST
Michelle O’Byrne, Minister for Environment, Parks, Heritage and the Arts welcomed the establishment of a new land conservation organisation with a focus on the north-east Tasmania.
Read more here …
The real wind turbines
If you can’t convince them, confuse them. HARRY S. TRUMAN
What do you think about Robert Rockefeller’s submission to the HCC for wind turbines on his inner-city buildings? All seems a bit half-cocked to me, but maybe the devil’s not in the detail …! Anyway, here’s my ‘artists impression’. The Merc’s perspective was kinda outta whack.
A Different World
CHRISTINE MILNE, Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens and Senator for Tasmania. Speech to the National Press Club, June 17, 2009 on the Greens’ vision for a safe climate and setting that against what the Government is proposing with the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. The speech is also available at: http://greensmps.org.au/content/the-challenge-building-a-different-world
Thank you for your warm welcome. I begin by acknowledging the Ngunnawal people, the traditional owners of the land … Gandhi once said, “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”
Read more here …
Hall of memories
PERCY FROM THE PEWS
THE Anglican Church in Tasmania’s disposal (sell-off or sell-out?) of its historic buildings seems to be picking up pace, particularly so when it comes to those in what was its fine old Holy Trinity Parish in North Hobart.
Read more here …
Pulp mill panel: Re-written for the layman
DAVE GROVES
The Federal Government will use taxpayer’s money to sponsor yet another forest industry support group. In light of the significant unravelling of their last initiative, MIS, there needs to be something done to alleviate the haemorrhaging of an industry that only survives through subsidy. Read more, Comment here
On mountains of sawdust
via RICHARD BUTLER
As Tasmania continues to be divided by the proposed Pulp Mill and the upstream processing of native old growth and plantation timber, many parts of the world continue the unpacking of it’s ‘delusion of entitlement’ to consume natural resources.
Read more here …
Euthanasia?
JON AYLING
THE euthanasia debate has been well entrenched in both national and international media for decades now. Exit International and Philip Nitzchke have been in the Australian media regularly, the Northern Territory legalised euthanasia for a period, there have been countless articles in various medical and scientific journals and newspapers exposing the pros and cons of this debate.
Read more here …
The Tamar Valley - a modern protrait
RICHARD BUTLER - Media release
“What is very clear is that the entire gravity of the situation in the Tamar Valley is galvanised when the portraits are placed on display” Butler commented. “The gallery scene is currently quite full of very conceptual and often very self exploring work - and that is all fine - but in view of the formal approach taken with the portraits, it hasn’t been easy trying to get this (the portraits) kind of work in front of curators..” Butler said.."I used to try and explain the context and the meaning - now I just say - ‘I have some of some of the most important portraits captured onto paper in recent times and you simply have to see them..’ and once they do - we get to talk. The Melbourne show was signed up after 2 emails and a short meeting’.
Read more here …
Impoverished investors
MIKE BOLAN
This week’s Issue shows how government has impoverished tens of thousands of small time investors, looks at positive approaches to climate change, reports on Russian claims that Obama is set to take on the private US Federal Reserve, discusses a federal government response to the MIS crisis, and presents the week’s stories linked, organised and balanced by including senior representatives from the leading pulp and paper companies, unions, and all levels of government.
Download: ABA_45.pdf
Frankentrees
CATHRAN
Dangerous Genetically Engineered (GE) Eucalyptus Trees on Fast-Track to Large-Scale Release in the U.S.
Read more here …
Greens call on Government to develop corruption commission
CHRISTINE MILNE
The Greens today called on the Rudd Government to begin establishing a corruption body along the lines of the similar bodies operating at state level around Australia.
Read more here …
Register of GM-Free Farms, Businesses & Councils launched
MEDIA RELEASE
“Our interactive register is a public service, particularly to help shoppers find and support GM-free products and services,” says Gene Ethics Director, Bob Phelps.
Gene Ethics Alert
Read more here …
Between the Lines
THE AUSTRALIA INSTITUTE
Welcome to the twelfth edition of The Australia Institute’s e-bulletin Between the Lines, a selective analysis of the policies and politics affecting the wellbeing of Australians. This edition looks at:
Read more here …
A wink’s as good as a nod
WAYNE CRAWFORD
It was, of course, all off the record – “Don’t quote me, boys – you know I can’t tell you what’s going to be in the Budget.” But a wink’s as good as a nod, if you know what I mean.
We, on the other hand, tried to appear blasé, as if he wasn’t really telling us anything we didn’t know or hadn’t previously worked out.
But no sooner had he left the room than we all hit the phones, breathlessly filing dramatic stories back to our respective newsrooms on how “informed sources” had warned we were in for a horror state budget; that government services were sure to be slashed; and that it looked inevitable a new consumption tax would be struck on cigarettes and tobacco.
When the stories appeared the next day, it set the hares running. The state opposition jumped on the bandwagon, condemning the government for its inability to manage the State’s finances; there were screams of complaint from interest groups who speculated their funding would be cut back; and from the public service unions, frightened of more enforced belt-tightening.
Read more here …
